The Bridge | Bots 'R Us

Chapter 28 | Message in a Bottle

AKAKA CAVES, HAWAII

I looked like a very confused Kawika when I followed Tomiko down the musty corridors of the Humanist lair after our animated breakfast with Anakala Richard and his friend Dee. I couldn't wait to dive into action again, hear Diana's plans, and reunite with Simone and my friends, I hoped. I also feared my eagerness to meet Chad, driven by this disturbing newfound physical attraction for him. You could say that discovering the depth and intensity of my cousin-mom's relationship with Chad Wong shook me to the core.

We found Diana in the central square—under a lightwell at the crossroads of three caves, chatting with students after their yoga class. Standing tall in her sleek ivory unitard, she seemed more in command than ever. As soon as she noticed us walking her way, she excused and signed us with a nod of her head to follow her to her office right around the bend of one of the lair's many underground avenues.

"You two had a good breakfast, ready for your big day?" she asked us on our brisk walk.

"Sure!" I answered almost as a question, still unsettled about that 'big bad day' Tomiko had promised me when she came to my door this morning.

"Any breakthroughs?" Diana asked Tomiko as she let us in the office.

"I believe so!" Tomiko said, turning to me. "From what Kawika told me, we may well pull it off! They reassured me a little about Chad, and they can feel Sarah's connection to him!"

"Fantastic! Now, remember, what we will discuss here cannot leave the room," Diana said, closing the door with intention.

This suspense was killing me! "What's the big secret for this big day!" I asked, a bit exasperated and amused by my cohort's conspiracy tones. Chad's time was coming, obviously, and the concept of a Humanists-Transcendents alliance was as sacrilegious as can be. They pretty much occupied the opposite extremes of our world while, at their core, they shared the same goal of Human Evolution. But that wouldn't make you very popular to say so.

"Now, I will show you the next recording Sarah made on her death bed. She confided to the Diana of her time that she had seen a future where the two communities would come together. If she had shared that idea with the nascent community, it would have destroyed it. It had to stay focused on our goal, the goal Sarah, Jonah, and many others had set for us to keep the hope of a Humanist future. Leaders like me only had to make sure we'd keep an open mind, hold this revelation secret, and pass it down from one leader to the next. It's a miracle that my predecessors never broke the link to this day," Diana said, marveling at her slate as she launched Sarah's prophecy. Tomiko had seen the recording already. They both observed me watching Sarah's hologram to see my reaction.

This time, the old lady didn't look like the doting grandmother who talked to me in the lab. It was Sarah, the leader, sharing her Earth-shattering prophecy.

"You know how caring our Higher Spirits are," Sarah said, obviously speaking in confidence to someone of knowledge. "They won't tell us how to live our lives, nor would they reveal anything that could take us on a dangerous path, but if they feel like they can entrust us with revelations that may ensure better outcomes, they may share those. I was told that hundreds of years in the future, my biological son, the Andro you know as one of the First Councilors of the CS, and Chad Wong, the son of the Transcendents' leader, would come together and that their union would bring hope to the world."

I imagined myself at the time of the recording; I had only served as First Councilor twice, and tensions had grown within the global Council System about the Transcendent movement. Diana and Tomiko could see my mind running wild. Diana stopped the video. "We'll watch the end later. Let's talk about our Martians first. Tomiko?"