The Empty World | The Empty World Sequence [complete | rewriting]

Twelve (this scene will move to a later chapter)

Morpheus appeared at his mother's side. "Another Daniel?" he said.

"World's full of them," Mother said.

"Should I have known him?"

"If you don't, you will," said Mother. "Where are you headed now?"

"To meet you back in New Orleans."

His mother nodded, "Yes. You were distracted from it enough?"

"Yeah, I guess, gotta go back sometime, right?"

Again, she nodded.

"I like the streak," Morpheus said, and then he left.

His orchid was waiting in its glass pitcher when Morpheus got to the house in New Orleans, drooping. "They never last long," he said.

"Because you cut them from the vine," said Mother. Morpheus could see she was trying to come up with an interesting analogy. "Cutting the blossom from the vine is like cutting off Joey Lawrence's hair...or something."

Morpheus laughed. He was certain Joe had eventually cut the hair.

Mother frowned and was silent.

"Opium, I keep hearing that Shade is a great world leader...but the Redjacks chased him out of New York, and we've learned the hunts continue."

"Perhaps, if things continue along a certain path he will be one...or you could have happened upon a Might Have Been."

Morpheus nodded. He liked Might Have Beens, they were a lot like dreams, good or bad. "But they had this great-"

"Don't tell me more than I know, Murph, please." The temporal mechanics were difficult for her. Even Morpheus didn't understand some of the laws, he just kinda knew how to travel time without getting confused. "Things are going to happen here soon. Ah, don't try to interrupt again, Murph...you'll just know."

Even though the ability to travel across time was natural to Morpheus, and he didn't suffer shock from jumps back and forth or meeting potential versions of others, there were still times when it took a lot of effort to place what he had witnessed in context of a linear timeline that he could explain to others. He had seen the distant past of the inhuman creatures of Earth, and he had seen a time that might yet be, when those same creatures would rule over the planet, and live peacefully with Humans. But, now, he was back in a time where he might be hunted on the basis of his genetic code, and he was not sure how they got to that potential future of co-existance or even if they definitely would.

But, the potential remained. He could see the percentage of possibilities shifting. Morpheus hoped, somehow, they could reach one of those futures, though it might mean greater hardship would come to them first.

America had become so suspicious of both terrorists and non-humans - one more overtly than than the other - they had tightened control on immigration, they made regular computer sweeps of governemnt databases, they compared death records to tax filings, they monitored shopping patterns and creation of credit accounts. Most people in the country had no idea why this was, though just about every separate subculture and underground organization knew. The best criminal minds were trying to devise a way to get into the actual computers that created account numbers, the systems that checked the other systems. If they could get in at the very core of the processes, they could have completely legal IDs issued to whomever they liked.

But, they were not even close to beating the system, not close at all to beating the sheer numbers of humans against them. This was still just the beginning of the war.