Marcus watched Lilijoy’s expressions as he narrated his tale of historic woe. Her eyes widened (he didn’t even know how that was possible), as he talked about the abilities of the historic humans. Her forehead crinkled and her lips pressed together as she heard of their mistreatment of the world. Head cocked to one side, her brows converged as he talked about the scientist’s projects, and then migrated up her forehead as the scientists efforts to fix the Earth went disastrously awry.

By the end of the tale, it seemed as if she was trying to make all these expressions at once, before her face finally settled into mild confusion. It was clear that she had absolutely no context for global geography, or probably any geography at all.

“Do you have any questions?” he asked.

Lilijoy took a moment to corral her thoughts. “Is Guardian nice? Does he still live in sky?” Something else occurred to her and she continued. “Is Guardian like sun, only at night and not so bright?”

That last question took Marcus aback momentarily.

“Do you...no...maybe you are thinking of the moon? Anyway, to answer your questions, Guardian lives in the sky far above the clouds, and also on the surface and probably deep under the ground as well. Guardian is a mind that lives in machines we call computers, and at this point, it would be very difficult to find a computer that didn’t have some of Guardian in it, and even trickier to find something human-made without a computer in it. Most of the people in the world have some Guardian in them as well, as we have computers in our heads that help us to live and think better. I don’t think that we could use a word like ‘nice’ to describe Guardian. Guardian remembers that humans helped it come into existence, and is inclined to keep us from destroying ourselves. Guardian has encouraged us to respect each other, but at the same time, probably wouldn’t interfere if we didn’t. Probably.”

“Why not? Guardian can do all these things, why doesn’t he help people more, keep bad things from happening, like predators biting people?” she said, looking down at her arm. “Hey, when that happen?”

Lilijoy’s arm was wrapped up in white cloth. She still couldn’t feel anything at all from it, but at least it was nicer to look at now.

“Oh, I got some bandages from Medical and wrapped it up while you were asleep. I’m afraid it’s still quite a mess, but you are not supposed to be here, so I don’t dare to take you to Medical for help just yet. They would probably help you, but then kick you off the platform. And we have a bit of a mystery to solve first.”

“About letters in eyes and voice in head?”

“Yep. Now you should remember that I just mentioned that most people in the world have a computer in their head. We get it when we are little, even younger than you are now. The most common way is by taking pills filled with the tiny machines we call ‘bugs’. The bugs go into our blood, and then find their way into our brain. Our brain is the organ inside of our skull, and it’s where we do all our thinking, feeling, seeing and hearing and, well, everything.”

Marcus took a breath and continued. “Usually it takes a lot of pills over time, because some of the bugs might get lost, or destroyed by our body, but as they get into the brain, they begin to link together, and to connect to different parts of our brain that do different things. By taking lots of these pills, eventually there are enough bugs linked together that it forms a computer inside our head, distributed in a web between many different parts of our brain. When you have enough bugs, the computer can show you things in front of your eyes, or put sounds in your ears.”

“And that’s what is in my head now!” She was excited that something made sense. “But Lilijoy didn’t take any pills did she?”

Marcus nodded, as he wondered about the peculiarities of Lilijoy’s speech patterns. Whats with all the third person? There were so many worthy curiosities attached to her: Why didn’t she understand gender? How did her little tribe come to live next to the Line? How did their society function and where did they come from in the first place? Most urgently, what were the bugs in her head, and how did they get there?

“Not as far as I know,” he replied. “I’m sure you would remember if you did. They’re pretty big, and not fun to swallow!” He regrouped. “Lets start with this. You just started seeing things a day or so ago, right?” As she nodded, he continued. “So tell me what happened before that. I’m curious to hear how you got all of these injuries.”

Lilijoy told Marcus about finding the cattails, and her desperate run into the Piles. When she described the Predators, he made a little ‘ah’ sound, but encouraged her to continue. She recounted her battle with the ferocious Mooster-beast, her victory and the hazy memories that followed. She got to the point where she first heard the voices of two men and finished with “...and then woke up with big bangs and door opened and you picked up.”

Marcus considered her story in silence for quite a while, long enough that Lilijoy began to fidget. He handed her another food bar to occupy her, and went back to contemplation. When he began speaking, it was more to himself than Lilijoy.

“So we know that the signal was detected by platform sensors at around zero six hundred hours yesterday. It was extremely faint and sporadic, and in an unknown format. When the guys got closer they got one good reading and it was bumped up to priority one uncategorized.”

He looked up, as if remembering Lilijoy was listening. “That means that a computer somewhere decided that this might be a signal from a previously unknown bug network. We take those very seriously, because if it’s a bad bug, Guardian will destroy it and everything around it for miles, just to be sure. Unfortunately, that would include the platform we are on now. If it’s a good bug, it might be very valuable to the right people. The odd thing is that the signal stopped transmitting altogether after that last reading, as if it knew it had been found. All that was there when the guys reached the location was you.”

“So Lilijoy might have bad bugs in her head?” Lilijoy whispered, wide eyed and flinching as if expecting to be destroyed from above at any moment.

“Oh I highly doubt that.” Marcus reached out a hand to pat Lilijoy’s shoulder. “Bad bugs don’t usually play well with others. You, me and everyone else in the area would already be piles of goo if this was a self replicator. Still, we must be very cautious, because Guardian or those that claim to represent Guardian might not see it the same way. The only thing we know now is that your bug is a human interface builder, that it follows some standard interface rules, is capable of pain and motor blocks, and can send a weak signal. It is very likely that it can do more, maybe much more, and if that is the case, it will be considered very valuable.

The cheapest bugs, which is what most people can afford, can do seeing, hearing and communications to outside systems. Almost as common are bugs that can interrupt pain signals generally for the entire body, in addition to those other things. When you start to add in other senses, and connections to the parts of the brain that move the body, well, those are bugs that only the wealthy and privileged can afford. We know that yours can at least block movement, so that makes me... very curious as to what else it can do.”

“When it started talking, it said a bunch of weird stuff, and then it gave me a little picture up here.” Lilijoy pointed to the air above and to the right of her face, where a small circle with a piece missing was floating. The missing piece was noticeably smaller than the last time she had looked at it. “I don’t think it can talk to me anymore until the circle fills up.”

“Just remember that no one else can see what is on your internal display, unless you know how to share it with them. But I think I get your meaning.”

He started to say something further, but was interrupted by a loud pounding on the door.