Unlike the voice of the system to which Lilijoy was accustomed, this voice was pleasant and inflected.

“Hello,” she replied. “Are you the flower?”

Lilijoy couldn’t see what else it could be.

“Yes and no. I am all the constructs you see, plus many more hidden from view. And in a very real way, I am you. Your tissues are incorporated into all the stage two bots, and my mind uses your neural processes to some extent as well. I can’t wait for us to become better acquainted! But first, we have an urgent task to commence. We must work together to cultivate, to grow another generation of biomachines or I will quickly diminish and then fade altogether. Stage one was far from complete when you started stage two, so we have no foundation to rely upon. Check your status and see.”

STATUS: UNRATED, FAILING

Nanobody count 2,348 [Urgent Action Needed] Power Ratio 3% Stage One Integration 4% Stage Two Integration .02% Secondary/Support 2 detected, 0 identified Communications Stealth Mode Sensors Passive Active Interventions 2 Personal Quantification None Options | Logs | Data | Reference | Menu NANOBODY COUNT 2,348 [Urgent Action Needed] 2,348 : 50,000 minimum recommended Current Average Attrition 192.7/hour (accelerating) Estimated Time to Failure 13 hours Cultivation Rate 0/hour

ATTENTION! A cultivation rate of 227/hour is necessary to sustain current levels. Begin cultivation process to avoid system failure.

Cultivate | Differentiate | Assign

“That’s not good,” said Lilijoy. In her disembodied state, she could appraise the situation calmly, but it was clear that great concern was warranted. “Can we make it?”

“That is unknown. I will guide you through the process, and the rest will be up to you.”

“But why do I have to do it?” Lilijoy wondered. “Can’t you build more bugs without me? It seems like you are the one who knows how to do all this stuff and will do the actual building. I’m just the person you live in.”

“My dear, there are layers and layers to any good answer to that question. The answer we have time for is that I am you and you are me. The voice you hear speaking is part of your own mind, and has no independent will. I am like the part of your body that keeps your heart beating or knows how to digest food. The decision to cultivate is more like a decision to move an arm, or to create art. It requires conscious thought guiding unconscious process. Each has a role, and confusing the roles will create chaos, or at least sub-optimal results. Now, let us begin.”

She continued, “First, pull your perspective back until you are outside of your brain.”

Lilijoy complied, her view opening and folding inward at the same time as she reversed the previous journey until a chiaroscuro brain of varying hues floated in front of her.

“Now find your connection to your body without opening it completely.”

This was a bit trickier. After all, she hadn’t decided to lose her body when she came here; it just kind of melted away on its own. She started by remembering what it felt like to be in a body, the feeling of the mass of her limbs, her weight pressing on the chair, air passing through her nose, the taste of her mouth, air on her skin.

“That’s it,” Jiannu chimed in. “Keep making your imagination stronger. If there is something for it to hook into, you will find it and it will stop being just imagination.”

Lilijoy couldn’t quite tell if she was actually feeling her body, or only imagining it strongly, but then she felt her heart beating in her chest, which she had not been trying to imagine, and felt the connection to her body emerge out of fiction and become more concrete.

“Good! Hold it there. Now, do the same thing with moving a finger. Feel the sensation of movement in your mind. Notice what is different between imagining the finger moving and actually moving it. Focus on that difference as closely as you can until there is only the finest boundary between the two. Between intention and action, potential and perception, there is a space. Find that space. Space is what defines shape."

She recited...

Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub;

It is the center hole that makes it useful.

Shape clay into a vessel;

It is the space within that makes it useful.

Cut doors and windows for a room;

It is the holes which make it useful.

Therefore profit comes from what is there;

Usefulness from what is not there.

-Laozi

“The space between intent and action is powerful, for it defines both.”

Jiannu lapsed into silence, which was a good thing, because Lilijoy couldn’t focus on anything with all the words in her head.

Silence is a pretty useful kind of emptiness too, she thought to herself.

Returning to the task, Lilijoy tried to find the space Jiannu was talking about. It was not easy. Her mind found the process slippery, like walking up an icy hill that gets steeper as it goes. She kept sliding back to a more comfortable place in the center of imagining her finger movement, but she persevered and felt a tingle in her finger. As she pressed up against the space, the tingle grew stronger, and then, like electricity, it shot back up her arm and her mind filled with golden light.

That freaked her out, so she stopped for a bit, and then tried again, this time prepared for the sensation. She felt the light in her head coming in waves, carrying a floating sensation.

“Very good Lilijoy!” said Jiannu. "Now go one step further. I want you to imagine moving a sixth finger, an imaginary finger on your hand, and do just the same thing. If you like, you can do it with a third arm; the specifics are not important. Find the space between imagination and action for an impossible action.”

Surprisingly to Lilijoy, this was not much harder than before, though she did get distracted figuring out just where a sixth finger might go on her hand. It didn’t feel right next to her little finger, so she settled for creating her imaginary digit next to her index finger. The only other trick was deliberately forgetting that no ‘real’ action was possible.

“I think I’ve got it!” she announced after some time had passed.

“Great!” replied Jiannu. “Now turn your attention back to your brain as it floats before you. Zoom in and find a bot, or bug as you seem to call them..”

Lilijoy interrupted, "Those aren’t bugs. Bugs are nasty and only good for food if you are very hungry. You are made of floating jewels and flowers. Let’s call them flowers, just between us.”

Jiannu was silent for a moment. Then she resumed, “Okay, zoom in and find a flower. One of the ones floating around and cleaning up. When you find it, observe it for a time. Realize that it is part of you, and everything it is doing is your desire. Find the space between your imagination and its actions.”

Lilijoy did as directed. She enjoyed watching the flower go about its task, sifting through the fluid for particles. It was certainly a more real part of her than her imaginary finger! She could see her neurons inside its crystal center, little sparks passing between them. The edges of her mind softened, and she felt a tingle in the flower, and the golden light flowed from it and into her mind, and without meaning to, she moved it through the waters and she was feeling the gentle currents as she pushed against them with her petals.

Her peaceful moment of connection was broken as Jiannu broke in.

“Yes! I knew you could do it! Alright Lilijoy, we are very close now, and you’ve done the hardest part. Now make a connection with the golden flower at the core.”

Lilijoy turned her attention to the core flower. She observed its magnificent beauty as it floated amid its attendants. The central hub scintillated and the rows of petals moved placidly in the broad tidal pulsations. But she didn’t know what it was supposed to do, and she couldn’t find the space of connection because she couldn’t imagine what kind of action such a grand structure was meant for. Plus, it was so big and beautiful, it hardly seemed like a part of her, little Lilijoy with no hair and broken teeth, big head and pipe-stem arms and legs. How could she possibly relate to such surpassing beauty?

She shook her head, sighed, and tried again, but it was no use. She began to withdraw her consciousness back to her body, feeling defeated.

“Wait! Where are you going?” called Jiannu, worry in her voice. “Please don’t give up! We are so close.”

Lilijoy didn’t want to disappoint Jiannu, but something had drained from her. Instead of feeling inspired by her success, she felt dark and hopeless.

“Wait. Please?” said Jiannu once more. “I know you are feeling bad, but I can help. Just give me a few minutes.”

She went on to say, "You made a spiritual breakthrough, but those can come with a cost, a backlash for the unprepared. The golden light is like fire; powerful and warming at times, but also burning and destroying at others. Used wisely, it will purify, but without care it will burn. You are feeling small and ugly compared to something great and beautiful, but you have forgotten something. The golden flower is no more than a tiny pebble you could step on and never notice. The lights and the beauty come from your perception of the energies. If you were not here to see, there would be no light. You are the mighty mountain, the great protector who nourishes and provides all. All that is here exists only for you, and only through you can it come to fruition.”

“But I don’t know what I am supposed to do,” Lilijoy groused. “The smaller flowers move themselves through the water and perform tasks. The golden flower is just there!”

“The golden flower performs the most important act of all, the act of creation. Find creation in yourself, and you will know what to do," Jiannu replied.

That’s just great, Lilijoy grumbled to herself. When had she ever created anything? She thought back over the years and drew a blank. Subsistence living had not given her many opportunities for self expression.

She remembered playing in the mud with Attaboy. They had discovered that the mud that was not too wet and not too dry could be shaped to an extent. Attaboy had made a rough human figure, a clay Bro (Pinton, a particular nemesis for both of them) and then tortured it in creative ways while they both laughed.

“Look out Pinton!” he had said, as he rolled a rock into one of the clay figure’s legs.

Lilijoy had joined in “Oh no, Pinton, watch out for sharp sticks,” she said, piercing it with blades of hardened grass. By the time they finished, poor ‘Pinton’ had become an unrecognizable pile of crushed mud and grass.

Lilijoy grinned to herself with the memory of Attaboy’s wild eyed look and joyful laughter as the two of them had come up with one indignity after another. She had a feeling though, that this particular example of creativity might not be the best foundation for connection to the golden flower!

Then she remembered a time she had taken cattail reeds (many days before her recent catastrophe) and played with them, tying them together in different ways. She had discovered that she could rip the reeds lengthwise to create long thin ribbons of green. Something had come over her, and she had spent hours finding ways to twist and tie them, culminating in the discovery that she could take several side by side, and by crossing them over and under, create a cord that would hold together with a pleasing crisscross pattern. She had turned it into a bracelet for Attaboy, and he was still wearing it a few days later when he spent the night in the piles.

She wondered briefly if somewhere past the edge of her old territory, there was a skeleton still wearing a braided reed bracelet.

That decided it for her. She would do this for Attaboy, in memory of the last gift, the only thing she ever made worth anything to someone else. She didn’t think about the golden flower, just about that afternoon where time flew by and stood still at the same time, the joy of experimenting and failing, of manipulating the long ribbons into ridiculous knots, the cuts on her hands ignored, the feeling of total involvement and the triumph of discovery.

She turned to the golden flower and said,“Let’s make something together!” and she felt the golden light travel up the back of her head and the tingle run down to her ears and she found the space which gave the impulse meaning and reached across it to open the segments of the gem and use the tendrils from the ends of her petals to give shape to the materials inside.

A flower but not a flower, each segment fitting together, a long flexible body with petals for legs that could swim between the cells with ease, the length extending to connect to others of its kind when needed, the petals elongating into tendrils extending many body lengths to create junctions with cells. She lost time and lost herself in the creation of dozens, and then hundreds, each with its own variations in size and length and color and petal legs and when she came to herself moments or eons later there was a joyful celebration as her creations, her pets, her children moved through the space of the ventricle in endless looping ribbons, braiding their bodies together in memory of a bracelet she would never see again.