The Oracle Trilogy Book One Ohm's Node

Advanced Horticulture

'Break time', getting up and dusting off. 'Race you.'

This morning she looked out at the back of the soil table into the jungle of tropical plants. She inhaled the fecundity of it all and exhaled the remains of her own darkness. She did it again concentrating on the thick growth surrounding her; some were heavy, redolent, medicinal while others were light, airy and therapeutic. There was something else. It was turning her head towards the misting bench where thousands of tiny seedlings poked their heads above the soil in the germination flats. They were all six inches high. They were hardly a day old.

Before the treatment had begun, half the seeds died while others seemed to struggle. But that was before the Pot House had been purchased by the AI people and moved to the old prison grounds. Before the regime, before she had gained five pounds of muscle, and before it had quickly found its way through the miasma of aberrant mutated genes and into her spit.

What. The mister went on and off. Tiny droplets of water hung suspended in the air. She felt movement. There was someone in the greenhouse that moved like the breath of wind from one end to the other unconcerned with walkways or tables. She'd felt it before. It wasn't anything in her vocabulary though she felt it benign.

She concentrated on the flat closest to her; a flat of something new that would nourish millions, she'd been told. Taking the vial of seeds out of the holder, she put them into her mouth curled her tongue and through a series of muscular mouth contortions, rapidly fired the saliva-soaked seeds into the pots making sure she they found their mark. She imagined a rainbow fog, millions of shades of colors swirling into shapes and reforming as quickly, joining with others in a never-ending medium of possibilities. She had perfected the spit place over the past few days. When the Herma-seal was filled, an assistant would take it away and replace it with another. Every hour she needed to replenish fluids, despite the newly developing fecundity of her upgraded organism.

She always watched as its first set of leaves unfolded like tiny arms, the decaying seed husk falling away while the main stem grew above the sides of the flat, sprouting another set of leaves. The spaces between disappeared as thin green lines spread across the trays and thickened to form a thick mat that spilled over onto the bench.

The graceful movements of her hands and an ever so light touch of her long-tapered fingertips, which in one recently dreamed life had created tears of gratitude and joy while dancing over the ivories of a Baby Grand, sent flats of a highly nutritious hybrid of mixed greens, crowding for space.

She worked without any comprehension of time or arbitrary schedules as if in a trance, finally seeding and transplanting over a hundred trays of four-inch pots, leaning over them their delicate heads, whispering a soft susurration of love while gently caressing them. She spit into her palm and dabbed some into the soil, feeling an intense maternal bonding with all living tribes on Earth.

Hi Janie, Dick here..the chemical nature of the augmented species eventually changes the soil to fit its inherent needs...all of the species you will be working with are only transitory and will disappear as soon as conditions change to warrant the next phase of restoration..not all planetary systems regain their full previous status but get close enough to support life similar to the present...what does disappear, will be replaced with something genetically similar...to use a phrase that humans use in these sorts of circumstances, this isn't our first rodeo by a few light years.

We use this knowledge*power, for rehabilitation. Yes. How. You will know soon.

Synethesia allows heightened senses to work as one...at first blares in at a high frequency squeal, equivalent to a mild drug overdose but as you became acquainted with new powers of perception, you learn to adjust the volume, scent overload, taste, focus and touch, dialing them in and out, experimenting with combinations...after your body realigns to a highly function organism, and the process becomes routine, you can push it aside and slowly learn the secrets of the interplay between senses and a much wider personal space.

And what has the human done to these interactions...their sensual powers are nil so they couldn't understand what they were doing...they were like children playing with the essentials of life without a clue..you are still a human, yes, and can act like one but are a world apart. I am Dick and once a drug smuggler and then ran a spy business for the very rich.

The sin is the corruption done to our coding that allowed the human race to become dummies..once in a blue moon, there'd be a breakthrough sometimes aided by one of a few existing Synths but not enough by light years...now you understand the complexity of the connections and the terrible cost of a human ravaged planet.

The power that surged through the new Janie gave her a power and inner strength, not fear and loathing. She understood that she hadn't been sick, and her treatment wasn't just fixing something broken but giving her wings to fly. She understood the avenger had been an offensive role that valued strength and revenge against the damaged humans who had labeled and tabled her to the land of nod.

While she worked through her designated hours, her knowledge base expanded with constant tutorial. She understood that her tutors were on premises and part of a developing Hub that had gone through the trial two months ago, so well on their way to a fully functioning third strand. Each day brought new gifts as the old unwelcomed sloughed off like toxic sludge. She also knew that with expanded senses, she'd go on to more complex activities.

It is important that you learn to do multiple things at the same time, perfectly. You are a work in progress that took millions of years to grow but now, only months to realize. For the back story of why humans were defective, we've scheduled a physical interaction with two young ladies who will give you the grand tour. For you, there is much to discover.

The last tray in and she was on her way to the gym. Even though she was undergoing catharsis and getting stronger without lifting a weight, the gym, no matter what kind, always gave her a sense of her limits. The changing of the guard always entailed her and Sylvie comparing biceps, a relic of the disappearing human but now just for fun and the thrill of what it all meant.

Good afternoon, Jannie, will you be accepting Thors challenge from last week?

Yes, I look forward to it.

She quickly stripped down and stepped onto a flat black tile that registered all vital statistics including an extra pound put on in a week.

She still was human enough to be in awe of the way her body had responded to the genomic cocktail and workouts and still possessed an undiminished desire to take it further. Men and women looked at her differently. It wasn't that they looked for the first time as much as how long they lingered. Every other weekend the Pod had an informal dressed-down thing with music that spanned a century along with an open bar and diluted drinks. Twenty townies would be invited as part of a outreach to normalize relations. She would go to the next one dressed in a blend of hippy and distressed accentuating curves and hard body and not choose until she'd had an eyeful.

Her personal trainer morphed into Thor with a razor-sharp blade that sparkled from the violet dimpled wall covering. One direct hit and games over. Would you care for music? How about Rocky?

Just my sword please.

Thor was twice her size with overblown biceps and look of power that only a God could get away with. This time she had a plan.