Michael

Getting to know the varied characters that make up Saya’s family is an adventure of its own but I can’t wait to go back outside for another tour of the place and hopefully eventually move deeper into the inner city behind the walls. Even without seeing it all I get the impression this Paradisum is more woodlands than city as it currently is, much less concrete than my previous reference of what a city is.

There are paving stones marking the main streets but beyond that its just natural grass, cultivated shrubs and trees. Some of the stone buildings are so heavily intertwined in flowering vines that they look like part of the scenery than intrusions on nature. There are unbridled horses walking the streets care free as the antelopes leisurely grazing in a city full of wolves and people, the contrasts and supposed contradictions are stark yet melded seamlessly together.

There is very little to distinguish the edge of the city from the wild woodlands if anything does at all since neither Maxwell and I could find. Some of the trees are big lumbering things allowed to grow wild whilst others are pruned and shaped for aesthetics, the flowers and colour others produce like nothing I’ve ever seen on Earth as the very scent of the city creates an ambience of clean competence melded with wild nature.

The various types of people and creatures walking freely about making it difficult to tell what is considered sentient and what isn’t but to avoid offending anyone we didn’t ask throughout our tour around. The main market is a big busy place at a natural depression so one can see above the crowds from atop but even as crowded as it was even when we left late in the night, it isn’t congested. The is room to move and people here hardly bump into each other even in these crowds everyone moves carefully.

''A foundation for an outer wall is being dug over 15 miles further away than the inner wall,'' says Orochi explaining the city. ''This part of the outer city will be inner city and be more regulated to prevent too much of the city spreading into the wild too fast.''

Making Outer Paradisum a vast part of the city Paradisum with its running streams, grazing deer, stone paved paths, urine absorbing trees, stone, wood, vine built structures some even literal tree houses and even a few hovels in the ground with nothing but entrances to mark them as property.

The temperature as far as I can sense is almost constant here only going slightly up or down as the day progressed as though the entire city were in a greenhouse.

I also finally met the infamous Sachihiro Saya’s father. The man isn’t what I expected to be honest when I hear people speak about a rich Barbarian guy with a harem of wives and over a dozen children. He stands at about 1.8m tall which would be an impressive height on Earth I guess but here he is about in the margin of normal for Gaia and maybe even short for some of the people I saw today.

He walks about the place in a comfortable looking woollen robe, bare feet or sandled, mostly stoic looking but a smile comes easily to his face as he interacts with people. He carries no visible weapons in contrast to most people I see here, even the kids have little daggers in sheathes at their waists. The one named Shea seems more the enigma than this unassuming man Mirabilis keeps casually eyeing, Mira's mothers are an interesting mix of people.

We drink chalices of wine and tell stories of our travels, laughing and crying as we remember those we lost and the silly stories of the road. I’m informed by the others making fun of Saya that she went crazy after I fell, going into the rage and nearly killing the people trying to subdue her when the assassins retreated.

‘’Are you okay John?’’

‘’Sorry, what was that?’’ John asks bringing his head snapping back from staring into space as he has been most of the day.

‘’You seem distracted,’’ I say sitting next to him so we can speak in lowed voices.

‘’well the think is, I think my neural chip is back online and I think my PAi is back online,’’ he says carefully.

‘’PiA?’’ I ask leaning closer to him as I notice the frown on his face as though he is trying to understand something.

‘’Personal Artificial intelligence, they help manage all the information the neural link has access to and assist in everyday tasks.’’ He says with a wave of his hand.

‘’The point is that my PAI is wired to try to re-establish a connection to the neural net the moment it’s booted to gather information and calibrate itself.’’

‘’Okay, so since there is no network its been quiet?’’ I ask.

‘’Actually no, its been picking up frequencies all day and isolating them. Its learning much faster than it should and at the edge of my senses I feel as though I could tap into it’s processing power in real time. You have no idea how crazy that thought is.’’

‘I think about that for a moment, ‘’is the PAI supposed to be hundreds of times faster than the human brain and capable of machine learning?’’ I ask and John gives me a look. ‘’What are these frequencies it’s been picking up and what else can it currently do?’’

‘’Well, it can monitor me very accurately. I mean I know I’m stronger by a certain measure today than I was a few days ago for instance. My resilience has improved and so has my perception. The frequencies are encrypted in some way Userneame can’t yet decipher and it appears that some signals are completely shrouded from normal detection somehow.’’

‘’So you’re saying there is communications technology on this planet we landed on?’’ I ask trying to keep it cool, I wouldn’t be surprised though. This world seems primitive at the first glance but I’ve short a unAwakened man wearing nothing but aura on the forehead from less than 100m away and all he had was a swollen bruise.

‘’No, I don’t think we are on a secret alien world being monitored from above by the evil overlords studying us and eager to probe fr samples. But that does remind me to ask what these people think is up there, in outer space. ‘’ John says with a serious face.

I ignore him cause

I already know what these people think is up there, it all sounds like some crazy fable but the things ive seen so far...

‘’So about the signals, where are they coming from?’’

‘’You will think I’m crazy but I swear there is a faint encrypted signal between Wes and Mr Damage out at the balcony.’’ He says indicating with his head but I refrain from looking at them directly.

‘’So, its people that give these signal frequencies off?’’

‘’Specific people at specific times, ah shit. He just sent a signal to Saya and now they are coming over.’’ John whispers urgently and leans back trying to seem nonchalant, it doesn’t work.

Why is John so afraid of Saya’s dad though? The guy seems pretty cool to me but John is almost visibly in distress and there are tears of sweating forming and rolling down his forehead.

‘’Are you alright there friend?’’ Sachihiro asks and John stands quickly and we all look at him as his mouth moves like a fish in water but no words come out.

I blush at the spectacle that’s my friend, I wish I could find a rock to hide under but I'm sitting right next to the one in what has quickly turned into the centre of the room.

‘’Okay..., I will see you guys tomorrow.’’ He says ignoring John’s display and kissing and hugging the people around before disappearing down the passage and around the corner.

I smack John at the back of the head as he sits down, I really can’t resist but no one seems to be paying any attention. ‘’What the hell is wrong with you?’’ I whisper.

He doesn’t respond, watching where the man of this household disappeared around a corner.