Grandfather, a frequent babbler now, turned to me with that distant look in his eyes. A proselytizer with no certain direction, he reached aimlessly for the ear of an ear. He said:
“You know I saw many places while I was a micronaut. It was a simple process, back then during the Corporate era, when wars were private in extent but small in size. I was hired straight from college, the program was still in its -hmmm- primordial stages. So I joined, but your grandmother was none too happy. Why, your daddy was only two or three.
I was part of the computers division of my firm. At first it wasn’t war at all, no. Battles were still held in courtrooms. If you’re curious, they would give you a dose of just a few pills. Just a few that’s all. And the next day, well you know the rest.
I did repairs on microchips mostly. So small they could hardly be seen with a microscope. Oh you have no idea how beautiful that place was.
Imagine a sprawling metropolis, zig zagging up and down, extending in every direction. As the electricity traveled from circuit to circuit, through transistors and capacitors, a bright light would flash for just a second. It was like being in a city free from gravity, with twinkling stars waking up all around you. And it roared. It roared this electric roar that rattled your bones and chattered your teeth. And in that way you were nearly one with the circuitry. And in the endless blackness that surrounded each criss crossing city block was the tireless approach of death.
I would go to work armed only with a blow torch, a fast hardening silicone gel, and a canister of fix-all filament. I would wear the old micronaut duds. You know the ones. The slick rubber skin suit with that god-awful breathing apparatus and welder’s goggles. But boy did I feel official. Even when I was terrified, a transistor would light up like a great electric tree and suddenly I’d be in the midst of striking embers raining down on me. Even then I felt snug and safe inside my micronaut duds.
Before too long I was a soldier though, before I realized what was happening. The smallest, most dangerous soldier. If they wanted a rival server wiped in some internet race they’d melt me down (that’s what we called it) and they’d make sure I found my way inside and could do some damage. Of course this eventually led to boobytrapping. Once I had been a repairman but now I spelled destruction.
Everyone dealt in crypto back in those days, meaning the right server was a treasure. We could siphon great riches in a matter of hours. The circuit would rattle as quantum bits of electricity would chug down its track. Me and my partner, her name was Mel, we’d strap our little device onto the circuit. It would burn bright and endlessly hot, the power of the sun on the tip of a pin. One of those delivered in the right spot could burn through layers of the mainframe and wipe out entire servers. I wish I could show you. No bigger than a baseball, relative to your atomic size of course, it would burn so bright you had to look away. I only ever saw it reflected on the smooth floor of the microprocessor. It wasn’t even loud. Just a shockingly endless light that warmed you to your stomach, and then was gone. Mel and I were the greatest of the stagecoach robbers.
Of course that didn’t last long either. Once Mel and I were on a job and the chip was rigged. Usually we would be lucky. Sometimes the volts were too high and we’d just have to mind the circuits like a third rail, but the whole thing would be sweltering. Sometimes they’d lay a gel on the chip itself and we’d stick like glue. This wasn’t so bad, usually the gel would fry away with the blowtorch.
But only once did Mel lay the charge and her hand became trapped on the circuit. Some type of nanobot, it was no larger for us than a cockroach. We should have heard it, but it was hard over the hum of the server. Each step was a small mechanic screech. It latched on to her arm, a thousand spindly fibers crawled further and further towards her shoulder, each with jagged hooks to latch itself tighter. I tried to yank her free but she only screamed louder. She looked at me in a way, well death was never far in those days. The tingle of electricity that raised your hair could spell oblivion. Mel and I always knew that.
Well, now she looked at me knowing she would die so small and so charred there would be nothing left. I wasn’t there when our gadget turned on, I only hoped it was so hot she would die instantly. I wasn’t quite gone though. Her screams were loud enough to assure me it wasn’t quick.
I never went into another server after that. I quit. Your grandma always said I didn’t get over Mel, I don’t know. I tried not to think about it much. My company, though, they never took all the pills from me. Whether it was a favor or an oversight, I don’t know.
You see, the world had become so put together at that point, there weren’t many places you could go to be truly alone. The cities sprawled on forever, and the rich lived in between. I didn’t want to be a part of it anymore. A misanthrope, your grandma called me.
There was an old tree on the city block then. It was back in the days just as the haze had begun and things were still cool enough that trees grew freely. This was a great big Oak. I had no idea how old it was, at least twice my age at the time.
So I’d melt down and I’d spend days inside, away from everything. On this great tree, all that electric buzz that followed me, and the heat that killed Mel, it seemed to relent for just a moment. That’s all.
Scaling the bark revealed a porous wall of sapphire scrag that stretched endlessly up and up. And thank God, I could reach between each riven crack and find a hold, gravity barely tugged at me due to my size, and I could pass that sapphire cliff face all the way to its many wonders. Mighty caves drilled by woodpeckers the size of thunderbirds, or branches that would take me to another world entirely.
These branches were mighty foot bridges a mile across each. I’d walk them, enjoying the intricate notes the songbirds would sing. You see, when you’re large, the songs seem simple and quick. But those sound waves found me differently. To me, I heard each individual note of a grand opera. And it was beautiful. We don’t understand from our perspective now of course. But there you could feel it, the desperation in their cries as they beg for biological forgiveness. In each change in pitch and turn of phrase the imminent mortality tugs at your heart and forces you to cry along with this great creature that bleeds with you.
Imagine how perfect a song! Chiseled at every moment from the beginning of time until now, being so perfect as to decree life itself! The impetus of love and motherhood and the semblance of immortality rests in the crux of every note.
And then from harmonious surroundings I’d find myself resting on a leaf. You’ve seen some in school maybe? They aren’t like that at all up close. They’re rather like a forest, trichomes tower over you and provide a shade that feels so vital, like an umbrella on a sun beaten day. Bright emerald squishes under each foot while stomata give way to the deep internal machine that gifts us the very air we breathe. You could even feel the leaf breathe, viscous air that pulled at you like the ebbings of a riptide, all being sucked into this spongy forest floor. I’d breathe with it, when I felt a tug I’d breathe in too. That’s when the electric hum would stop, when I would forget the trappings of electric railways. All I had to do was breathe with the tree, a million mouths all working together, and I would join them. If I closed my eyes, it was almost like I was just another little pore on a leaf, just a mouth to help pull in air. And I’d help make acorns the squirrels would eat and give bark to the little insects so that woodpeckers might find them. That seemed nicer to me.
But I had to return to the real world eventually. I had kids, a family. No matter how small we are, those of us lucky enough, have to climb down from the tree at some point or another. And then everything comes right back.
I can still hear her screaming, boy. In fact, I can hear all of them all over every inch of me. Micronauts on every pore, both me and you, screaming, trapped in futile war. And for what? For what? For what? For wha-”
He was interrupted by a coughing fit. By the end of his delirium and hacking, grandfather’s face had grown red. One hand tugged at the white wisps around his ear and the other clenched the arm of his chair. Gradually he let go, reaching for his breast pocket and producing a few pills. As he swallowed them his face lightened and the harsh wrinkles and creases of his age softened.
“Oh don’t worry, I see how you’re looking at me,” he said, bringing a hand to his chest. “Blood pressure,” he chuckled.
My last few visits I’d had to help grandfather into bed and this time was no different. The covers were so dense I worried about his ability to escape them due to his fragility. Leaving a cup of water on the bedside table, I collected my things and put on my shoes.
“Same time tomorrow?” I asked from the doorway of his small apartment.
He offered only a blissful smile before saying:
“Oh, don’t worry. Don’t worry about tomorrow.”
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Emerging Worlds is a Zealot Script Publication.
Emerging Worlds 
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