“THIS PLACE IS PERFECT, don’t you think?”

The two looked up from the center of the depression. It was as if they were the actors on stage in a circular theater, with enormous chunks of distorted bioplas and red boulders serving as their audience.

“Perfect?” Sord mumbled, releasing his armful of water and snacks onto the makeshift table.

He felt slightly off-balance. What could she want to know? Would he stumble? Say something stupid? Ruin the moment, this lovely moment?

“Tell me something interesting about you,” she began with a taunting tone.

“Well, Daisy, I’m a pretty typical teenage guy.”

She stopped him. “Okay, I see you’re needing to warm up to this. Can you conceive of anything else exciting about yourself, despite the third degree grilling I’m about to place you under? For instance, have you read anything recently that made you think differently than you had before?”

“Um,” he sighed, wondering if he should bring up the diary. It was not the kind of stuff a guy talked about with a girl. “I missed a bit of school, but I’m pretty much caught up now.”

“I imagine our classes are similar. What about outside of school, though? Anything catching your interest?”

He grinned. “Aside from you, nothing comes close. But I’m being tested, so I must answer truthfully. I wasn’t going to mention this, however, because it’s mother-mandated and therefore utterly boring.”

“What’s that?”

“She’s forcing me to read some old crap from an ancestor on my dad’s side of the family.”

“Interesting. She’s forcing you?” she half-smiled. “Like holding the pad while you read it, and threatening physical harm if you don’t comply? Why is she making you do this?”

“I imagine various reasons. She probably wants me to understand my dad’s family a bit deeper since he’s no longer around.”

Daisy, as enthralled about being with Sord as he was with her, had set aside in her mind what happened in this place. With his remark, she suddenly felt the weight of where they sat pressing down upon her, thinking, “This might be the spot, maybe this very place, where his father died. I wonder if this is occupying his mind?”

“I can understand why she’d force you, in that case. What is it? A book?”

“No, not a book per se. More like a diary, a very tedious and poorly written diatribe, about this guy and his life in the early part of twenty-first century. Actually, more like in the later part of the twentieth, when he was a youth. I haven’t read it all yet, and I don’t know how long he lived.”

She grabbed a water bottle. “Thirsty?” she inquired, throwing one his way. “I personally have never been into diaries. I get the point of them, about putting yourself in someone’s shoes and experiencing their lives. But so much crazy bad stuff happened to virtually every person who lived during the last hundred years. I can’t easily go back in my mind and dwell on the multitude and magnitude of pain. It’s too visceral. Gets me feeling sorry for them and what they went through, and that’s not a good path unless I can learn from it.”

“Do you like history?” he asked.

“I do. I do. Some of it. Yet from day one, we are taught these specific lessons to prevent humanity’s horrific past from recurring. Wars, man-made plagues, deprivations, biases and bigotry, and all forms of entitlement and victim behavior that drove people to believe they had a right to claim value or dominion over others, and to use this as justification to extract righteous penance from them, typically by force. You know, I know, that nobody has a claim on any one of us. We only have a claim on ourselves, individually, to move forward, be kind to others, extend the species through time, and achieve that one primary goal. To do this, even across infinite time we hope, assuming we do our jobs well. So, yes and no, I like history for the lessons, but I can’t dwell on the pains.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, opening his water bottle with a click. “I’m with you. All those writings about the past, focusing on the worst of humankind, the failings of our species. A lot of ‘one step forward, two steps back,’ then rinse and repeat. I think all of us poor Prosperity kids grow tired of hearing that story repeated, certainly by the tenth grade.”

“So, this ancestor of yours lived last century?”

“In the two thousands and before. I haven’t gone through it all, only slogged through the first few chapters of his rants.”

“Rants?”

Sord shook his head. “Overstated. Perhaps his obscure and wearisome observations on human experience.”

Daisy puckered her lips outward and stared upward at the dome. She noticed the ubiquitous filter at its top and thought for a moment about the decentralized nature of Durango and Prosperity as a whole.

Every section of every area in the nation-state was functionally independent from the other and potentially self-sufficient. Localized monitoring and filter systems to extract invasive pathogens from the air. Doors and shutters to hermetically seal off one area from another, should the occasional armed stragglers attempt entry. Extensive, hidden defensive weaponry. All necessary preparations, should the need occur.

“What type of observations?”

“A lot about deaths and accidents. Oh, even spousal abuse.”

“What?” she responded emphatically. “How old was this relative?”

“Thus far, he’s writing as a kid living through a cascade of personal crises. His dad died first, then his brother, well before he was a teenager. Then his mom married this bad dude who beat her, and she died shortly thereafter.”

“My God! This sounds more like life after our Great Debacles. You said this occurred when?”

“Like the 1970s or so, when he was young. Hippie days and war protests.”

“Vietnam War time, right?”

“Yes. That I can tell, but apparently he was too young to get drafted.”

Sord paused for a moment. This was not the most interesting topic to him. All residents of Prosperity had been schooled extensively on humankind’s past frailties and failings. The nation-state held strongly to the adage of ‘those who don’t understand history are bound to repeat it,’ and extreme efforts were continuously taken to educate the populace and actively prevent a next Great Debacle.

“But I should mention that it’s at least slightly tolerable in a few respects.”

“Like?”

“He starts off the diary with some quasi-plausible UFO stories.”

“Really? I understand around that period was the beginning of so much speculation. Anything interesting?”

“Kind of. A couple instances where people said they had seen alien craft or beings, including himself, but nothing that was ever proven in any credible way.”

“Now there’s a topic. Given all the evidence we have, what do you believe?”

He stared into her eyes, sparkling with life. “I believe you’re beautiful.”

“Ah, ah, ah,” she warned, waving her finger. “Not so fast, buddy. Please answer the question.”

“Oh,” he joked, “I keep forgetting I’m here to ace a test. Yes, madam, I’ll answer. Now, what was your question?”

“Sord!” she exclaimed. “You must focus on being in the present.”

“I am. You’re here, you’re present. I want to kiss you. That’s all real-time. All focus. I’m not thinking about the past or future.”

“Please expand for me,” she explained, patting his leg. “Explain your belief systems and how you acquired them, regarding those little green men in this case.”

“Sure, I’ll get back on track and ignore the urge within.” He breathed deeply. “I don’t know about this guy and his experiences.”

“Name? Does he have a name?”

“Oh, yeah. Greg. He’s like my great grandpa times four, so pretty far back. I can’t speak much for his own recounting of these events. He seemed to believe there was some truth to his tales. Personally, I remain skeptical that any aliens could arrive here very quickly, despite our finding extensive evidence of certain kinds of life among the exoplanets and even in our solar system. What we think we’ve seen so far is not even from our galaxy, and the messages, if they even are such, have proven to be impossibly cryptic.”

“Are you skeptical that intelligent life like us exists at all, anywhere else?”

“You have to believe some society or societies created what the astronomers have found thus far, but it’s not like an encyclopedia of information has been received with all the answers to all questions. Funny, I was just talking with my mom about this same topic. I don’t believe that platinum-gold obelisk from a century back was sent by a race warning us to brace ourselves against coming invaders. As far as I can tell, they never arrived, and it was a cruel, intentional hoax by those who wanted to pull levers, as most now claim.”

“Um-hum,” she agreed. “And I sometimes hope they don’t ever arrive. If they did, I imagine they’d analyze the plagues we’ve unleashed upon ourselves and confirm they need to do nothing more to wipe our species off the planet. We did such a bang-up job that we performed their work for them, possibly even before the rest of them will have arrived. How convenient. But on a brighter note, I’m dying to tell you what I think. Would you care to hear?”

Sord was sitting on a large bioplas fragment that had been reshaped by a construction worker to mimic a bench seat. He was thin, and as his mother always told him, ‘Son, you have no butt-cheeks to speak of,’ so he regularly found himself shifting uncomfortably on the spartan furniture found in Prosperity. Everything in Prosperity, it seemed, had a similar element of puritan austerity.

“Of course I would,” he said, arranging his legs to sit cross-legged and relieve the butt pressure from the makeshift chair.

She stood up and brushed the red dust from her pants. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask,” she started. “Now, remember I’m a budding scientist, and I’ve done a lot of study and thinking on this topic. I’ve seen all the evidence, and although it is rather convincing, I can’t tell if most is real. It becomes obvious only when they’re here among us, showing us whatever they intend to show. Until then, I’m skeptical, too, that any aliens have yet visited.”

“Great, then. Kiss time, and did I pass this section of the test?”

“Dearie, this is a test on both sides. You’re my student, and I am yours. But I have strong opinions on this topic, particularly strong, and I am letting them be known here and now before any ‘kiss time’ gets underway.”

“Bravo!” he clapped. “State your position then, and make it quick, please, for my sake.”

“I’ll lay it out in a few scenarios. The first is this. The universe, as we know it, is infinite or virtually so. Life, in my opinion, is also therefore infinite and thusly infinitely diverse. Intelligent life is indeed less abundant than the planets, but in an infinite universe, it is infinitely abundant by deduction. I’m not sure you’ve studied this, but there exist different sizes of infinity. Infinities within infinities, per original thought from a great, old mathematician named Georg Cantor. That’s as far as I’ll go on this topic since it’s hard to discuss concepts the human mind has such difficulty grasping.”

“Wow. Intelligent life is less abundant but also infinitely abundant?” he mused. “If so, dear student, why are we not sitting with them as we speak, sharing our water and the like? Playing holographic chess with them, right here? I’ll gladly scoot over to make room for the little green guy if he shows up to have a match.”

She ignored his playful retort. “I’ll now continue, instructor, after your jocular interruption. The obvious quandary is why they have not been in contact. Why would this infinite universe of less abundant, but infinitely prevalent, sentient species not have enabled even a single instance where at least one species came in contact with us, indirectly and unintentionally, if not also directly?”

“I’m grading you on this,” he replied, “determining if you have a credible response to your own question. You know what they used to say about lawyers cross-examining someone in court: ‘Never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to.’”

She stared at him in complete seriousness. “Oh, I have theories, and here one is: Dear instructor, such aliens do not wish to be found. Are you aware this argument was used abundantly, if I can use the term again, among those who speculated about the origins of the obelisk? Do you know they pleaded actively with the ruling powers that most intelligent beings are intelligent enough to hide their presence from potential marauders? Think about it.”

“Think about what, dear student?”

“Consider the possibility that we on Earth evolved with an innately biased understanding of the threats we face, and we have unfortunately found the biggest immediate threat to our existence is ourselves. Now, what if many, even most, sentient species are justifiably more paranoid than us? What if their worlds are generally filled with more innate and continuous dangers, even on their own planets, such as other species and organisms vying for dominance? If this is so, they’d no doubt be paranoid about what else might exist beyond their planet to cause them harm, even extending that paranoia deep into space. What if they look up to the skies without the naive presumption that sentience must also imply friendliness, amicability, and a need to share learnings and technology with lesser beings? What if they greatly fear that which might come calling from the sky should they be so careless as to broadcast their presence outward to those skies?”

“Ah. The obelisk?”

“Yes, dear instructor, given that the obelisk was supposedly a warning from a chastised race. One cannot be too presumptuous about unknowns, can one?”

Sord scratched his chin. “In other words, why smear yourself with lamb’s blood and walk into a jungle filled with lions? Why light a bonfire to the sky for marauders on the lookout, especially if you are so frazzled from fighting enemies assembling over the next continent?”

“Nice, nice,” she commented. “Personally, I like the lamb and lion metaphor, and it had applicability back when lions roamed parts of the Earth. I will stop here for questions.”

Sord sat up straight. “You mean the instructor is allowed to ask questions?”

“Indeed, despite your repeated interruptions.” She grinned, waiting for his response.

He looked around for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t think of any, but please, continue on. So far, you are barely passing. So watch yourself!”

“Fine. Although this is a plausible argument, it is not provable. Speculation only. You’d think in an infinite world of infinite sentient societies, at least a good handful of meaningful messages would have easily slipped through to us. Note that I said ‘easily’ since we have interpreted nothing yet from that which we’ve received.”

“Yeah,” he added. “A few notifications. Some little peeps.”

“But no, we’ve discovered nothing conclusive, not that we have been able to decipher. We’ve never encountered a fulsome planetary history from a momentary laser light, like that guy who kind of initiated the catastrophic events of GDII. Radio signals. Dyson spheres. Stellar manipulations. Big, powerful ways to announce yourself and your power, like manipulation of space via gravitational waves. Something. Anything. But in all these years, we are apparently lone souls in the desert, desiccated and dejected. Searching relentlessly but bearing little fruit.”

Sord took another sip of water. “Pretty fair. You’re still passing. Oh, and funny you recalled that laser dude from Arizona. Do you know who my grandmother was?”

“No idea,” Daisy replied innocently.

“Maybe a story for another time, but she knew that guy, almost firsthand.”

“How’s that?”

He stopped, realizing he may have spoken without thinking. Could this little boast, this questionable tie to infamy, change her view of him?

“I probably shouldn’t tell you because I’ve never shared this with anybody. And my mom doesn’t especially want it to be widely known, so please swear not to tell others. Despite all the great teachings about how we should treat each other, almost Christian-like teachings about caring for each other, yet without the requirement for a godhead, my mom still worries whether anyone might consider her at fault.”

Daisy’s eyes grew wide, and she scurried to his side, sensing Sord’s discomfort. “Fault? What’s this?”

“Well, I can’t say anyone would actually think it was her fault. I mean, she’s just the daughter of someone who was directly involved in the last Debacle.”

She was silent, and he was wondering whether he utterly messed up their excursion by mentioning his sordid family history.

“My grandmother,” he continued. “Mom’s mom. I didn’t know her. She died before I came along. I’m not even certain if my dad knew her. But her name was Sara, and she was very close to you-know-who, Ron the Oligarch, the guy blamed for creating and globally disseminating the cellular decoupler."