We Are All Made of Stars

Part 3 - Matter, Energy and the Right Stars

The light on the data marble now glowed red. The video recording of Chan was done, but it wasn't the last secret the little sphere had to cough up. It vibrated and flashed white to indicate there was more data. I traced the operation groove with the pad of my thumb and the metallic ball split open, revealing a waffle disc the size of a ladybug.

    I drew in a rattling breath as I hovered my index over the little hard drive. It leapt up, clinging to my fingertip. Apparently it had been programmed with my prints. I'd normally wonder how and why Chan had access to my bio-data. Considering the spy-movie-level of  intrigue he and Tony had apparently been engaged in, I rolled with it.

    My scroller ignited blue-green as it accepted the waffle into a surface port. The waffle's tartan of criss-crossed lines grew out and enveloped the entire scroller screen. It seemed the paper map had been sent to me merely as a precaution. As the police still had one eye on me, any kind of digital information entering or leaving my home's devices, paper mail had been the safer choice. After all, who checked paper mail anymore?

    The hum of my engine and the grinding of my teeth were the only sounds that accompanied me as I returned to the road. My scroller displayed the coordinates just as the folded map had, with occasional instructions reading out as I moved onto the backroads. The digital sun above was sagging towards the horizon. As I ventured deeper into the state park, its light shattered through the branches of the surrounding forest. The strobe effect this created as I drove foretold a migraine.

    When Tony and I had taken camping trips in better times, I usually insisted he drive as this very phenomenon would prompt nausea and piercing head pain. Tony would cheerfully sing along to the audiofeed as we wound through the snaking mountain roads and labyrinthine forests. I think his excessive good humor was a put-on just to torment me as I hid behind thick Ray-Bans and rubbed my temples.

Strange how we'll do anything, no matter how costly to our own well-being, for someone we've wanted to punch on numerous occasions.

The Shroud presented a pretty simulacrum of dusk, giving the world a much more soothing hue as I reached the end of a narrow dirt path that hardly warranted the title of "road." As I brought the car to a stop when faced with a wall of redwoods, the scroller displayed a single word: WALK.

A splinter of wood that had once been a trailhead boasted a rusty sign whose lettering was now indecipherable. If what lay behind me barely qualified as a road, then what lay beyond could be called a trail only in the most sardonic terms. Nevertheless, glowing scroller in hand, I began my trek into the darkening woods.

"Well Tony," I said to the empty air, "If you're alive, you're in for a thrashing." It felt good to talk to him, absent though he was. It also felt good to hang on to the thread of hope that he was still alive. Chan's ominous description of their last adventure had left that thread frayed, but I'd cling to it nonetheless. A fool's hope, yes. But considering that the man who'd been my life could be either in hiding or gone forever, I opted for foolishness.

The overgrown trail was becoming narrower with each tentative step. The map emanating from my scroller was topographical, displaying the contours I'd encounter in my trek. Many were discouragingly steep. I bemoaned the disdain I'd had for cardio these last few years. As I crested yet another hill, sweating even in the crisp night air, I saw a sloping meadow. Synthetic starlight cast it in a tranquil glow contrasting against the murky woods. Here the map told me to veer from the trail and into the heart of the meadow. My aching muscles practically cooed with relief as I set downhill into the soft grass.

Dew clung to my filthy shoes as I held the digital map in front of me like a torch. I trudged forward, my eyes glued to the electronic guide in front of me. I'd long since stopped paying attention to the topographical lines and simply focused on the grid of coordinates that guided my path. Had I been more attentive, I would have seen it on the map long before I stumbled on it: