A Tree Grows......
A Tree Grows in the Brooklyn Genomic Archival Seed Repository of the Wilkins Institute for the Salvation of Humanity
by neonate
I stepped out of the laboratory and into the decontamination room, slowly removing my bioprotective suit. It felt good not to have to breathe through the respiratory filter any more, not that the outside air smelled that much better. I was hot and sweaty, and suddenly realized how exhausted and hungry I’d become. I glanced at the chronometer, it read 0412. I had started my shift as usual at 0400. Must have been yesterday. Anna Nicole was supposed to relieve me after twelve hours. Where’d she gone?
After the shower with the anti-nanobiotic cleanser and the special sonic treatment, I felt a little better. I headed to the mess hall. I had a gnawing hunger for something I couldn’t identify. The word “fresh” kept leaping to mind these days, but there had been no “fresh” food that I had ever experienced in my lifetime. It was some sort of ancestral imprint, the desire for food that was once apparently grown in the ground of the earth’s surface. Back when it was habitable.
I needed protein. I picked out a few of the freshest cockroaches. These days, they were the best “meat” available, able to convert just about any of the crap around into usable biofuel. I know some people like them steamed or stirfried, but I didn’t want to waste the power, and they were more nutritious when fresh. They were crunchy and supplied me with nutrients-they did nothing to relieve my gnawing hunger.
It was not unusual for me to spend a 24-hour period in the lab. That was where I felt the most useful, the most needed. But I was supposed to go to an Institute meeting later, to report on our progress against the latest scourge to humanity. I needed some time to prepare, although this time around I had little to say.
Twenty-four hours. As I understand it, that used to be called a day, back when days, and months, and years, and hours and minutes and seconds, carried some sort of meaning. A day was a rotation of the earth, a cycle of daytime and night. A year meant different seasons. Under here, there were no cycles. All was the same gray and pale all the time. I know from ancient photos and artwork we studied once in school that color is a possibility. It seems to go with “fresh.” But now its presence is deemed a distraction. Color is an extravagance, detracting the mind from the fight against that which cannot be seen.
By the ancient calendar calculations of time, I knew I was 16 years old. I guess that meant something different once, when life could last beyond 30. Now, I was half-way through my life expectancy. I had become the best nanobiologist on the Wilkins Institute for the Salvation of Humanity medical team. My claim to fame was that I had once come up with a way to defeat an entire class of deadly nanomicrobes.
Centuries ago, someone had the bright idea of combining nanotechnology and bacteria. It seemed to work for awhile, combating some of the common human diseases like cancer. But someone forgot that bacteria had been around for billions more years than humans, and would not take kindly to being controlled. Instead, they evolved, adapting man’s technology to their own procreation, and using their collective intelligence to defeat, and even anticipate, our attempts to eradicate them.
Mankind, once in the hundreds of millions, now numbered maybe in the few hundred thousands. It was hard to know. We all had our isolated islands of survival, trying to live in hermetically sealed enclosures. Of course, then nuclear war over the scarce remaining resources had contaminated most of the planet, exterminated most large forms of surface life, and forced us underground, eating cockroaches, the only abundant form of food left.
I left the mess hall, walking past the decayed poster peeling from the wall that said: Let’s all WISH for a better day!
I am sorry if I sound defeated or discouraged. I am trying to remember exactly my state of mind on that day when everything changed.
I was determined to give Anna Nicole a piece of my mind for missing her shift. She was not in the science library. I asked for her in the rec hall, no one had seen her. She was probably with Patrick, as usual, and had lost track. I went to her dorm hall, knocked on her door. I was so exhausted, I had a million thoughts coursing through my mind on more experiments that needed to be run, I was frustrated about the failures of the last 24 hours, I had a report to give later that day, and my stomach still gnawed. I was surprised when, after I pressed the security override to enter the room, I still had energy to scream.
*****
Anna Nicole and Patrick were the only two people I had that I could call friends. I didn’t really care-there was no time for socializing. Life was work. Work, and sleep, and maybe something to eat in between. The hard, slogging work of research was the only thing that kept us less than two steps behind all that was catching up to us and killing us.
But I know they saw life differently. They teased me for my obsession with math and science. They were lovers, in a time when no one had the energy for love, only survival. Somehow, whatever they had realized in each other was what kept me going each day, even if I didn’t fully understand it at the time. They looked for something they called joy and happiness. A meaning to life. I hope they find it wherever they are now.
*****
The team came and carted their bodies away. But these were no ordinary deaths. The violence I saw in the room, the signs of struggle, the blood. The totally pale, colorless bodies. The ripping, ugly wounds on their necks. This was not the work of nanomicrobes. These were deaths I had no explanation for.
I sat in my own room, still trembling, going over every possibility. Nothing made sense. Death was common, I knew that. Why was I so troubled now?
El-Ruheed came to my room. He was my mentor, the only scientist in WISH more brilliant than I. But he was a strange person, and I had never gotten to know him very well. Smallish, dark, and intense, he worked, not out of a sense of duty or survival, but because he enjoyed it. He enjoyed everything. Every new threat that came up, he only saw as a challenge. However, he was spending less and less time in the lab. He read constantly. And I know it was not only science texts-more and more he talked to me of things like imagination and dreams and fiction. I never saw the point.
But this time when he came to my room, instead of talking he quickly spirited me away. He beckoned me to stay absolutely silent. We made our way through locked doorways and gates, and walked interminably down secret passageways. I followed him out of blind faith, but I became increasingly troubled. Where was he taking me, and why was he saying nothing?
To my surprise, we climbed a set of stairs. We entered what appeared to be the basement of an old building. I was scared, I thought I could almost smell the rank, deadly air of the surface. At last we stopped. He sat down on an old, tattered couch, and with a suddenly beaming smile beckoned me to join him. I warily sat down at the end of the couch.
His white teeth gleamed against his darkened face. “This is my favorite place ever,” he said. “I have found many old documents to peruse. Used to be the New York Public Library, in a part of what used to be called Brooklyn, of the old New York City, until WISH took it over. Took me years to figure out how to get here undetected, and now I know the way so well I could come with my eyes closed.”
“Ruh, you have no idea how tired and shaky I am right now. And I have to get back. I’ve got…”
“Buffy,” he said to me, “don’t you understand? We have escaped, there is no going back for us.”
“Ruh, I don’t want your mind games now. I have to give my report, then get back in the lab, and…and figure out what happened. I can’t believe…Anna Nicole and Patrick…” Something happened to me that I was not prepared for, that I had never experienced. I cried. I couldn’t stop crying. Ruh held me as I quaked and sobbed and wailed into the air. I had lost all control, and all he could tell me was to let it all out.
*****
“When I run this little generator here, and plug in this old machine, and this screen, you see, then I can open this up and put it the little silver disk, and something magical happens. I need you to see this.”
I didn’t know what the time was. I didn’t know the day anymore. After my crying fit, apparently I had lapsed into a deep sleep, and Ruh had let me be.
“While it’s warming up, here, try this.” He placed before me something round and red. Something I had read about and seen photos of, but never seen myself. “Don’t look so afraid. It’s just an apple.”
“But…apples grow on trees. There haven’t been…”
“There are more things in life, my dear Buff, than are dreamt of by you who refuse to dream.”
I took a tentative bite. It was strange in my mouth, odd, crunchy. Juice spilled out of my mouth and down my chin. It was vile at first, sickly sweet, or at least so unfamiliar. But then I recognized some reaction in my brain that I wasn’t prepared for-it was fresh.
“There now, go slow, your body and your taste buds will rebel at first. But that is what food is meant to be. Now let’s sit back and enjoy the show.”
There was some sort of ancient telescreen, and images started to flicker across it, and people talked back and forth. Or, they talked at first, then oddly enough something happened and they couldn’t talk anymore. It was all so unfamiliar. There were ugly creatures that I suppose were meant to be some sort of monsters, and other creatures with flailing limbs, and odd weapons, and something about a box. The box was made of wood, I suppose that made it magical in some way. I knew there had been such a thing as wood, but trees were at thing of the past. Or so I thought, as I continued to slowly munch on my apple, becoming acquainted with the new sensations it offered.
I guess the images were supposed to tell some sort of story, but I couldn’t really follow it and I didn’t much care. I sat through it patiently though, as Ruh seemed so enraptured. I guess I was mildly interested, as one of the characters had my name. In the end, she let out some sort of scream, and then the heads of the monsters all exploded. Yeah, like it really worked that way in real life. At last, Ruh got up and turned the screen off.
“”They used to do these things, they were called television shows. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Many are stored on these discs, back in the old library shelves that were never cleared. But something drew me to this particular show, and I started watching. It was eerie, uncanny, how true it is today. It’s like the whole show is some sort of prophecy for our troubled times. This you need to learn.”
“Ruh, you’ve been up near the surface too long. You’re getting radiation poisoning or something. You are talking nonsense.”
“No. I am talking fiction. The telling of stories. Things that have a deeper meaning, a way of seeing the truth that has been lost to us. This particular episode of this particular show convinced me that it holds the key to our salvation.”
“Ruh, I don’t have time…”
“Listen to me young lady. What did that story remind you of, that you yourself did?”
I started to get up to leave, although I had no idea how to get back. I stared at Ruh. Why was he wasting so much precious time on this nonsense?
“Young lady, listen to me. Who was it who came up with the sonic antibiotic?”
“You know, we worked on that together.”
“Yes, a new infection. Killed hundreds of thousands. Resistant to all know antibiotics. And what were the symptoms?”
“Well, it was a type of staph infection, only the germs had been augmented with nanoparticles. First it attacked the throat, and rendered the patient unable to speak. Then, it ate away the heart muscle…”
“And you figured out that the bugs communicated with each other through a certain frequency, and if you amplified that exact frequency in their presence, they exploded. Sound familiar?”
“It’s got nothing to do with crazy monsters flitting across a screen!”
“Is that so?” He pulled some folded papers out of his pocket. “See this? It’s the exact waveform you found that eradicated that infection. Now, look here-as close as I can render the girl’s scream on the show. 97.8% agreement, which is astounding given the crude recording technology I was working with. Somehow, almost 300 years ago, someone knew what sort of problem we could come up against, and was trying to tell us the answer in an allegory. That, young lady, is called a prophecy.”
We sat and watched some more. Ruh had obviously studied each episode of the show countless times, and was explaining each one to me. I didn’t really grasp that much the first time through, but he said, “That’s OK. That’s why they’re recorded. We can watch them over and over. Here, try this, it’s a lemon….Ha, ha, yes I had that same reaction-it’s called sour.”
*****
Ruh left me alone for a few minutes while he went in the back, where he had salvaged some books. I guess by now he felt safe that I wouldn’t try to escape. When he returned, he placed a large tome in my lap. The title read, “Vampyrs.”
“Oh, come on now, Ruh.”
“We have focused so much on the new scourges against humanity, we have ignored the ancient ones. Driven underground, crowded together, we have created the perfect feeding ground. At first I wondered how it could happen, I thought vampires had been eradicated, but then I came across this.”
He put another silver disk in the machine. I sat up and took notice when a familiar face flashed across the telescreen. “But that’s…”
“Remarkable family resemblance, yes?” Ruh said. “I believe our present-day Richard Wilkins, the ‘mayor’ of our little enclave, is trying to complete what his ancient ancestor failed to do. And to accomplish his mission, he brought back the vampire, to have them serve as his minions. Anna Nicole and Patrick had noticed some of the strange goings-on, and we had discussed it. I tried to lead them to safety, but they ignored me and wanted to continue their work. However, it appears our Wilkens found a way to silence them. Now you see why we can never go back.”
“But if vampires are real, and we live underground out of the sunlight, and the best weapon against them is wood-trees disappeared last century.”
Ruh smiled as he stood up and led me to a large iron door. “This is the door to a vault. Luckily, it has corroded through, and we can go in.”
Through the door, I saw what the garden of Eden must have looked like-a lush perfusion of green and brown and yellow and red. And the smell-was that fresh air?
“This was a seed repository, meant to keep the genetic information of plants available to man, in event of catastrophe. This is what our Mr. Wilkins has been hiding behind all those locked doors. An automatic recycling system has been operating for countless years. And look, where the ceiling has fallen-the plants are releasing fresh air out to the surface. But Wilkins keeps us underground, where he can control us. I am not clear what his ultimate plans are, but it is up to you and me to stop him.”
“Two of us alone? We cannot hope to…”
“I will show you the remainder of the episodes. Well, all except the one season labeled with a 6-it sucks. You will see that there was an ancient ritual-it created the slayer, the one girl in all the world who could fight the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. I believe you will have to become that girl, and I will be something else-your watcher. We will work together, and fight. And if we are unsuccessful, others will carry on in our place. But the slayer line has been lost, and it is up to us to restart it. Otherwise, the earth is doomed.”
What could I say? I felt that I had nothing left to lose, and perhaps a prophecy to fulfill.
by neonate
I stepped out of the laboratory and into the decontamination room, slowly removing my bioprotective suit. It felt good not to have to breathe through the respiratory filter any more, not that the outside air smelled that much better. I was hot and sweaty, and suddenly realized how exhausted and hungry I’d become. I glanced at the chronometer, it read 0412. I had started my shift as usual at 0400. Must have been yesterday. Anna Nicole was supposed to relieve me after twelve hours. Where’d she gone?
After the shower with the anti-nanobiotic cleanser and the special sonic treatment, I felt a little better. I headed to the mess hall. I had a gnawing hunger for something I couldn’t identify. The word “fresh” kept leaping to mind these days, but there had been no “fresh” food that I had ever experienced in my lifetime. It was some sort of ancestral imprint, the desire for food that was once apparently grown in the ground of the earth’s surface. Back when it was habitable.
I needed protein. I picked out a few of the freshest cockroaches. These days, they were the best “meat” available, able to convert just about any of the crap around into usable biofuel. I know some people like them steamed or stirfried, but I didn’t want to waste the power, and they were more nutritious when fresh. They were crunchy and supplied me with nutrients-they did nothing to relieve my gnawing hunger.
It was not unusual for me to spend a 24-hour period in the lab. That was where I felt the most useful, the most needed. But I was supposed to go to an Institute meeting later, to report on our progress against the latest scourge to humanity. I needed some time to prepare, although this time around I had little to say.
Twenty-four hours. As I understand it, that used to be called a day, back when days, and months, and years, and hours and minutes and seconds, carried some sort of meaning. A day was a rotation of the earth, a cycle of daytime and night. A year meant different seasons. Under here, there were no cycles. All was the same gray and pale all the time. I know from ancient photos and artwork we studied once in school that color is a possibility. It seems to go with “fresh.” But now its presence is deemed a distraction. Color is an extravagance, detracting the mind from the fight against that which cannot be seen.
By the ancient calendar calculations of time, I knew I was 16 years old. I guess that meant something different once, when life could last beyond 30. Now, I was half-way through my life expectancy. I had become the best nanobiologist on the Wilkins Institute for the Salvation of Humanity medical team. My claim to fame was that I had once come up with a way to defeat an entire class of deadly nanomicrobes.
Centuries ago, someone had the bright idea of combining nanotechnology and bacteria. It seemed to work for awhile, combating some of the common human diseases like cancer. But someone forgot that bacteria had been around for billions more years than humans, and would not take kindly to being controlled. Instead, they evolved, adapting man’s technology to their own procreation, and using their collective intelligence to defeat, and even anticipate, our attempts to eradicate them.
Mankind, once in the hundreds of millions, now numbered maybe in the few hundred thousands. It was hard to know. We all had our isolated islands of survival, trying to live in hermetically sealed enclosures. Of course, then nuclear war over the scarce remaining resources had contaminated most of the planet, exterminated most large forms of surface life, and forced us underground, eating cockroaches, the only abundant form of food left.
I left the mess hall, walking past the decayed poster peeling from the wall that said: Let’s all WISH for a better day!
I am sorry if I sound defeated or discouraged. I am trying to remember exactly my state of mind on that day when everything changed.
I was determined to give Anna Nicole a piece of my mind for missing her shift. She was not in the science library. I asked for her in the rec hall, no one had seen her. She was probably with Patrick, as usual, and had lost track. I went to her dorm hall, knocked on her door. I was so exhausted, I had a million thoughts coursing through my mind on more experiments that needed to be run, I was frustrated about the failures of the last 24 hours, I had a report to give later that day, and my stomach still gnawed. I was surprised when, after I pressed the security override to enter the room, I still had energy to scream.
*****
Anna Nicole and Patrick were the only two people I had that I could call friends. I didn’t really care-there was no time for socializing. Life was work. Work, and sleep, and maybe something to eat in between. The hard, slogging work of research was the only thing that kept us less than two steps behind all that was catching up to us and killing us.
But I know they saw life differently. They teased me for my obsession with math and science. They were lovers, in a time when no one had the energy for love, only survival. Somehow, whatever they had realized in each other was what kept me going each day, even if I didn’t fully understand it at the time. They looked for something they called joy and happiness. A meaning to life. I hope they find it wherever they are now.
*****
The team came and carted their bodies away. But these were no ordinary deaths. The violence I saw in the room, the signs of struggle, the blood. The totally pale, colorless bodies. The ripping, ugly wounds on their necks. This was not the work of nanomicrobes. These were deaths I had no explanation for.
I sat in my own room, still trembling, going over every possibility. Nothing made sense. Death was common, I knew that. Why was I so troubled now?
El-Ruheed came to my room. He was my mentor, the only scientist in WISH more brilliant than I. But he was a strange person, and I had never gotten to know him very well. Smallish, dark, and intense, he worked, not out of a sense of duty or survival, but because he enjoyed it. He enjoyed everything. Every new threat that came up, he only saw as a challenge. However, he was spending less and less time in the lab. He read constantly. And I know it was not only science texts-more and more he talked to me of things like imagination and dreams and fiction. I never saw the point.
But this time when he came to my room, instead of talking he quickly spirited me away. He beckoned me to stay absolutely silent. We made our way through locked doorways and gates, and walked interminably down secret passageways. I followed him out of blind faith, but I became increasingly troubled. Where was he taking me, and why was he saying nothing?
To my surprise, we climbed a set of stairs. We entered what appeared to be the basement of an old building. I was scared, I thought I could almost smell the rank, deadly air of the surface. At last we stopped. He sat down on an old, tattered couch, and with a suddenly beaming smile beckoned me to join him. I warily sat down at the end of the couch.
His white teeth gleamed against his darkened face. “This is my favorite place ever,” he said. “I have found many old documents to peruse. Used to be the New York Public Library, in a part of what used to be called Brooklyn, of the old New York City, until WISH took it over. Took me years to figure out how to get here undetected, and now I know the way so well I could come with my eyes closed.”
“Ruh, you have no idea how tired and shaky I am right now. And I have to get back. I’ve got…”
“Buffy,” he said to me, “don’t you understand? We have escaped, there is no going back for us.”
“Ruh, I don’t want your mind games now. I have to give my report, then get back in the lab, and…and figure out what happened. I can’t believe…Anna Nicole and Patrick…” Something happened to me that I was not prepared for, that I had never experienced. I cried. I couldn’t stop crying. Ruh held me as I quaked and sobbed and wailed into the air. I had lost all control, and all he could tell me was to let it all out.
*****
“When I run this little generator here, and plug in this old machine, and this screen, you see, then I can open this up and put it the little silver disk, and something magical happens. I need you to see this.”
I didn’t know what the time was. I didn’t know the day anymore. After my crying fit, apparently I had lapsed into a deep sleep, and Ruh had let me be.
“While it’s warming up, here, try this.” He placed before me something round and red. Something I had read about and seen photos of, but never seen myself. “Don’t look so afraid. It’s just an apple.”
“But…apples grow on trees. There haven’t been…”
“There are more things in life, my dear Buff, than are dreamt of by you who refuse to dream.”
I took a tentative bite. It was strange in my mouth, odd, crunchy. Juice spilled out of my mouth and down my chin. It was vile at first, sickly sweet, or at least so unfamiliar. But then I recognized some reaction in my brain that I wasn’t prepared for-it was fresh.
“There now, go slow, your body and your taste buds will rebel at first. But that is what food is meant to be. Now let’s sit back and enjoy the show.”
There was some sort of ancient telescreen, and images started to flicker across it, and people talked back and forth. Or, they talked at first, then oddly enough something happened and they couldn’t talk anymore. It was all so unfamiliar. There were ugly creatures that I suppose were meant to be some sort of monsters, and other creatures with flailing limbs, and odd weapons, and something about a box. The box was made of wood, I suppose that made it magical in some way. I knew there had been such a thing as wood, but trees were at thing of the past. Or so I thought, as I continued to slowly munch on my apple, becoming acquainted with the new sensations it offered.
I guess the images were supposed to tell some sort of story, but I couldn’t really follow it and I didn’t much care. I sat through it patiently though, as Ruh seemed so enraptured. I guess I was mildly interested, as one of the characters had my name. In the end, she let out some sort of scream, and then the heads of the monsters all exploded. Yeah, like it really worked that way in real life. At last, Ruh got up and turned the screen off.
“”They used to do these things, they were called television shows. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Many are stored on these discs, back in the old library shelves that were never cleared. But something drew me to this particular show, and I started watching. It was eerie, uncanny, how true it is today. It’s like the whole show is some sort of prophecy for our troubled times. This you need to learn.”
“Ruh, you’ve been up near the surface too long. You’re getting radiation poisoning or something. You are talking nonsense.”
“No. I am talking fiction. The telling of stories. Things that have a deeper meaning, a way of seeing the truth that has been lost to us. This particular episode of this particular show convinced me that it holds the key to our salvation.”
“Ruh, I don’t have time…”
“Listen to me young lady. What did that story remind you of, that you yourself did?”
I started to get up to leave, although I had no idea how to get back. I stared at Ruh. Why was he wasting so much precious time on this nonsense?
“Young lady, listen to me. Who was it who came up with the sonic antibiotic?”
“You know, we worked on that together.”
“Yes, a new infection. Killed hundreds of thousands. Resistant to all know antibiotics. And what were the symptoms?”
“Well, it was a type of staph infection, only the germs had been augmented with nanoparticles. First it attacked the throat, and rendered the patient unable to speak. Then, it ate away the heart muscle…”
“And you figured out that the bugs communicated with each other through a certain frequency, and if you amplified that exact frequency in their presence, they exploded. Sound familiar?”
“It’s got nothing to do with crazy monsters flitting across a screen!”
“Is that so?” He pulled some folded papers out of his pocket. “See this? It’s the exact waveform you found that eradicated that infection. Now, look here-as close as I can render the girl’s scream on the show. 97.8% agreement, which is astounding given the crude recording technology I was working with. Somehow, almost 300 years ago, someone knew what sort of problem we could come up against, and was trying to tell us the answer in an allegory. That, young lady, is called a prophecy.”
We sat and watched some more. Ruh had obviously studied each episode of the show countless times, and was explaining each one to me. I didn’t really grasp that much the first time through, but he said, “That’s OK. That’s why they’re recorded. We can watch them over and over. Here, try this, it’s a lemon….Ha, ha, yes I had that same reaction-it’s called sour.”
*****
Ruh left me alone for a few minutes while he went in the back, where he had salvaged some books. I guess by now he felt safe that I wouldn’t try to escape. When he returned, he placed a large tome in my lap. The title read, “Vampyrs.”
“Oh, come on now, Ruh.”
“We have focused so much on the new scourges against humanity, we have ignored the ancient ones. Driven underground, crowded together, we have created the perfect feeding ground. At first I wondered how it could happen, I thought vampires had been eradicated, but then I came across this.”
He put another silver disk in the machine. I sat up and took notice when a familiar face flashed across the telescreen. “But that’s…”
“Remarkable family resemblance, yes?” Ruh said. “I believe our present-day Richard Wilkins, the ‘mayor’ of our little enclave, is trying to complete what his ancient ancestor failed to do. And to accomplish his mission, he brought back the vampire, to have them serve as his minions. Anna Nicole and Patrick had noticed some of the strange goings-on, and we had discussed it. I tried to lead them to safety, but they ignored me and wanted to continue their work. However, it appears our Wilkens found a way to silence them. Now you see why we can never go back.”
“But if vampires are real, and we live underground out of the sunlight, and the best weapon against them is wood-trees disappeared last century.”
Ruh smiled as he stood up and led me to a large iron door. “This is the door to a vault. Luckily, it has corroded through, and we can go in.”
Through the door, I saw what the garden of Eden must have looked like-a lush perfusion of green and brown and yellow and red. And the smell-was that fresh air?
“This was a seed repository, meant to keep the genetic information of plants available to man, in event of catastrophe. This is what our Mr. Wilkins has been hiding behind all those locked doors. An automatic recycling system has been operating for countless years. And look, where the ceiling has fallen-the plants are releasing fresh air out to the surface. But Wilkins keeps us underground, where he can control us. I am not clear what his ultimate plans are, but it is up to you and me to stop him.”
“Two of us alone? We cannot hope to…”
“I will show you the remainder of the episodes. Well, all except the one season labeled with a 6-it sucks. You will see that there was an ancient ritual-it created the slayer, the one girl in all the world who could fight the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. I believe you will have to become that girl, and I will be something else-your watcher. We will work together, and fight. And if we are unsuccessful, others will carry on in our place. But the slayer line has been lost, and it is up to us to restart it. Otherwise, the earth is doomed.”
What could I say? I felt that I had nothing left to lose, and perhaps a prophecy to fulfill.