Campus

CAMPUS

CHAPTER 1

Hank was observing the flock of birds from behind the tree, his mottled fur camouflaging him perfectly in the forest. He adjusted his eyes a bit to get a better zoom. These new adjustable lenses were worth all the inconvenience of growing them, even all the teasing his wife and buddies gave him for calling him a pirate because he used an eye patch when he grew the upgrade in an eye.

Once zoomed in he could see the flock of birds he was watching were doing very well and were already raising the second generation. He observed the parents feeding the chicks and couldn't find any deviations in their behavior from normal natural variation. Their appearance and morphology was spot on. This made him proud of his work. All other flocks of this species were doing great. Recreating a species and reintroducing it back into the wild was difficult to get it right but it was very rewarding even for the more humble species.

At least these birds were as close to the original species as possible. Around here, they went for the classics, not like those guys on the west coast that just made whatever what came up in their mind. Their latest stunt produced a bird with four wings. The idiots. Although their spell-crafting did produced some material that came in handy with his work, he had to grudgingly admit.

He willed his observations to write themselves in the astral book floating in front of him and then added a number of eye captures with notes to the book. As Hank was finishing up the report about the implemented genetic characteristics and results, he felt a tugging on his consciousness. He gave the tugging a little attention and noticed the source was a faint pheromone trace. The pheromone included a small piece of encoded DNA that matched his wife's signature and her marker for urgency. That was what had triggered the unconscious tugging. This was not a good sign. His wife was upset and spreading her signal trough the trees. That report could wait.

He slowly crawled away from his hiding spot and got some distance between him and the objects of his study. When he figured he was far enough away he put his hand on the nearest tree om the magical spot. The palm of his hand started to emit a faint glow as he connected to the tree's core. Then he dialed his wife. Her astral projection appeared as a lightly translucent image standing next to him. Hank thought she looked amazing with her panther spot fur and trim figure. He was glad she didn't used the common spells so many girls used to give themselves exaggerated features.

"Hey honey. What's wrong?"

"Hi Ha..pr..fr."

Her image was wavering.

"What?"

"Y...tr...c"

"Hang on, I'm gonna call you back in a second."

"O...b....d"

He removed his hand, walked a bit further and put his hand on another bigger tree. Now he queried the tree first to see if this one was a bit more mature and called his wife back.

"Hey honey. Sorry, I used a tree what was a bit young. Its roots were still connecting to the Tree-D network. What's happening?"

The image of his wife reappeared and was a lot more sharp now. She was pacing back and forth. That was not a good sign at all. Then she turned to him with a worried expression and said in an agitated voice: "It's your son, dear. He's experimenting Hank. It's not right! He shouldn't do that."

"No worries. For a boy his age it's normal to experiment a bit. He'll be embarrassed you caught him but he'll get over it. Pretend it didn't happen," he said dismissively while moving his free hand as to wave the problem away.

"You don't get it. He's experimenting with... with fire."

"WHAT?" he shouted.

"It gets worse dear," she said staring at him. "He's building stuff. I found it under his bed. It's a small machine. I think it's a steam engine. He even burned wood to make it work! I've found the ash. Can you believe that? What do we do?!"

"What did you do?" Hank asked while holding her.

"I took away his machine," she said while the first tears appeared. "It's build with plastic and metal parts and stuff. I have no idea where he got those. Perhaps he found an ancient dump."

Hank send comforting feelings to his wife to console her, but he himself also felt really hurt and sad by his son's actions. His own son was acting like this was still the Age of Fire. That awful time period had come and gone. His job was cleaning up and repairing the damage done in that era, so he knew a bit how horrible things were in that time.

"I'll talk with him this evening. Stay calm. We'll get through this.

"Okay Dear," she said and gave him a sad smile. "Oh, and I took the liberty to plunder your wine bubble plant. You've been holding out on me."

Hank looked at her. "How do you find that? It was supposed to be a surprise."

She just gave him a mysterious smile and cut the connection.

CHAPTER 2

It was a long walk for Hank. He plodded along as fast as he could but the forest was were pretty dense. When he reached the edge of his home city with its huge neo-redwoods, he quickly went up the stairs that were growing around the tree in an upward spiral. He could walk a lot faster at the higher levels of the city, the ground floor was for animals.

After barely taking a step, a child ran into him. She was running backwards around shouting "Fireball! Fireball!" while balls of flame flew away from her hands. A boy capitalized on her distraction, meaning running into Hank, to pop up from behind a branch shooting lightning from his hands while the rest of the children dove for cover. The boy hit an object that looked like mechanical floating sphere and it exploded. The group to which the boy belonged to, all having halos floating above their heads, cheered loudly with this victory. It only took Hank a moment to make the astral objects translucent in his view and remove the bright effects and sound. This Witchcraft game they were playing was quite distracting and he got a situation at home. He took just a moment watching the kids waving their hands while now to his view nothing happened before continuing home.

Now he only needed to dodge the other people on the walkways between the trees enjoying the evening. At last he arrived at his tree house. Before he could touch the handle, his wife yanked open the door and flew out to hold him to seek some comfort. After a few seconds she pulled him inside the house.

"I'm afraid we lost Mike," she said softly. "The more I think about it, the more I'm sure he's gone all technological. He's now in his room doing who knows what. He really freaked out when I confronted him and now won't talk to me."

Hank held his wife a bit longer.

"You did what you had to do. I'll go talk to him but if you're right there is little chance I can change his mind."

Hank walked up to his son's room and knocked on the door.

"Son, open up. I'd like to talk to you."

There was no sound, but the astral "forbidden, do not enter" sign hovering in front of the door faded away. Hank pushed open the door to see his son sitting at the wooden desk, tinkering with a few plastic pieces and some metal tubes. 15 years and already playing with this ugly technology.

"Hey Mike," Hank said and sat on the bed. "Trying to play with fire I see?"

"Hi Dad. Can I have my steam engine back now?"

"No, of course not. Why do you need it?"

"But Dad, all that energy it produces, all that work it can do! I can use it to power all my other projects. I have sooo many ideas."

Mike opened up his astral notebooks and went to the design files. In a few seconds a number of designs appeared in the air. The intricate works of cogs and metal parts hovered translucently in the air above the desk. With a gesture Mike started up the simulation and everything started moving.

"What do these things do?"

"These are designs for power tools for working on wood. That one is a drill. That one is a saw. All can be powered by steam, but I'm also working on using other fuels. With all that, you can make a loom, that's this design."

"Why do you need woodworking? You can use a small cantrip on the tree to grow a hole or an extra branch."

"But these are so much faster, don't you understand?"

"Mike, I understand you're impatient. But we don't need or want these tools. You can grow whatever you need from nature with a bit of magic like a simple spell, hex or cantrip. There is no need for technology. We do it a bit slower, I know, but magic uses a fraction of the energy and there is no waste."

"But you still use technology to do that."

"No. I use my magic," Hank replied.

Mike just glared at his father. "It's magec, not magic. It stands for Molecularly Assembled Genetic Editing Computer. In the end it's a custom designed organel doing computations with DNA, embedded in all your cells and made by advanced technology that was stolen from the laboratories by terrorists."

"It doesn't matter that much how it was created. What matters is that somebody ignited the magic and now it's part of us and our environment. Those so called terrorists freed the magic. The magic lives inside of me, in you and in the trees that form our house and city here in the trees, in the fur you have and the clothes you wear. It's not put into some mechanical device like that," Hank said while waving to the different designs still floating above Mike's desk.

"I don't want this magic. It's not real! A spell is just DNA information. What you call a cantrip is a simple macro and a hex is a program you run on your cellular computers. You communicate with trees with basic optical protocols. Your astral view is just virtual reality. It's fake! I want to design proper technology. In time, I'm sure I can bring down the energy use and make it so there is no waste. Perhaps I can..."

"Mike, people worked on that for a few hundred years during the Age of Fire and failed. In the end they burned more and more stuff to power their technology. I took it upon myself to fix some part of the mess and damage it left behind, each and every day. Please don't make their mistakes. Think about it, okay? I'll see you at breakfast."

CHAPTER 3

"Good morning Mike. We're having your favorite for breakfast. I fast-grew meatballs overnight for you," Clair greeted the youngster. She was currently plucking the meatballs from the branches growing out of the kitchen wall, peeling away the skin they grew in and putting them in a wooden bowl. Then she joined Hank en Mike, putting the bowl in the middle of the table.

Hank and Clair were waiting for Mike to start eating, but he just sat there brooding. Then he looked at his parents and said: "Mom, Dad, I've made a decision. I really want to study Technology. I want to join Campus."

This made his parents looked at him shocked.

"But why?" asked Clair with a bit of despair in her voice. "We have everything we need right here. The tree provides us with everything we need with just the sun and water. You don't need to technology from the Age of Fire."

"Mom, I'm not interested in that what you call magic. I have never really liked it and want to study real technology, not this fake stuff."

"It's certainly not fake! I use my magic all the time."

"To heal some stupid animals!"

"You take that back young man!"

"Are you really sure, Mike? Did you think this through? You have time to think about it," Hank intervened.

"I'm sure. I've already send out an e-mail."

Hank just looked confused. "What's an e-mail?"

Mike rolled his eyes and explained: "It's like porting an astral scroll, but electronically. And it's only text or images, no impressions or understandings can be transmitted."

"It sounds like a very limited way of communicating," Clair remarked. "Also no personality or overtones?"

"Well, it also has this little drawings you can add to the text to convey emotions. I can show you," Mike said more enthusiastically now.

"Errr, okay, show us," said Hank hoping the boy would get distracted.

"They call them Emoji," Mike explained while he pulled up a number of these little drawings and let them hover over the table. Seeing he had an audience, he started telling them all about smileys. Mike was explaining about skin colors used for the emoji. Hank thought it was a strange concept as anybody can grow different color of skin at any time, and most people at this latitude grow a fur anyway to protect against the elements. It was only a small cantrip to grow fur. But Mike was interrupted by a little noise outside interrupted.

"It's my patient," Clair said. "The poor dear had a nasty poisoning but is getting better now."

Clair opened the front door and looked down. A raccoon was standing there. She gestured for the animal to come in to her study, while Mike resumed talking about emoji.

CHAPTER 4

Several weeks later, Mike, Clair and Hank were walking through the woods to the nearest river.

"Hey Mike, why are you so tired?" asked Hank.

"He has been changing everything back to human standard. Basic mammalian lungs are less efficient, only one hearth, he removed the automatic training and maintaining of muscles. He sure is dedicated to this," Clair explained.

Mike didn't have any breath at the moment so he only nodded. They had now come to the river. There was a peer where a small boat was waiting. It was a flat wooden boat with a roof that was mainly made out of black panels.

"Such a weird little vessel," Clair remarked.

"It's Campus tech," Mike wheezed out. "Those are solar panels."

"Oh, like artificial leaves," Hank said. "Did they grew there?"

"No, they are made in the Campus factories," Mike explained.

"Huh. I didn't knew factories were still around," Clair said. "Those must be ancient. Let's see if that boat still work. We have to get on board. They want to depart in one minute."

They stepped on the boat carefully and the attendant closed the railing behind them. Soon after the boat started humming, the mooring lines released and the boat started moving over the river. After the novelty of sailing the river wore off, they started mingling with the other passengers.

"Hello there. Are you also here for the pilgrimage?" asked a nearby woman.

She was a pretty woman. Most of her body below the neck was covered in small pastel covered feathers in an intricate pattern, with large long feathers on her head instead of hair.

"Yes we are," answered Clair. "I'm Clair. This is my husband, Hank, and our son Mike. Our son is going to Campus."

"Hi, I'm Ronda and this is my daughter Linda. The big oaf there is Dave. Is Mike going to the MIT Campus too? Linda wants to go and join the Economic Theology. She's just fascinated with dollars and yen. I can't image what it's good for but she really wants to be part of these things."

Dave was a guy with bulging muscles. He was also covered in feathers, just like his wife, except he had used very bold colors. Linda in contrast was default human with normal skin and hair.

"He's going to the MIT Campus too and wants to become part join the Technology Engineering. He thinks Fire is the one and only answer."

"Oh, I know. Linda wants to sell me stuff all day, usually the things that grow by themselves."

"Mon, you know I'm standing here, right?" Linda complained while Mike just glared as his mother.

"Hey Dave, nice guns. I'm Hank."

"Thanks. They took a lot of work."

"How did you do it?"

"A bit of tweaking with the systems that naturally reduces muscles, adding extra fibers to the muscle. I also figured out how to multiply the effect of training. And after that it's just training. Climbing the trees instead of taking the stairs is a great workout."

"You wouldn't believe how many times he crawls through the window instead of using the door," Ronda whispered to Clair. "It gets embarrassing."

"The main downside is how much extra energy you need." Dave continued. "Wanna see the spells I used?"

"Sure."

Dave whipped up his favorite spells containing the DNA strains in the astral view and started explaining.

CHAPTER 5

It took a long time but finally the boat arrived at their destination. There was a peer at the bend in the river where there were already a few similar boats docked. When their boat was docked, they disembarked and the boat's attendant guided them to a few small wooden sheds where there were already a dozen people waiting.

"What's this? A broken house?" Dave asked.

"It's the bus stop. Here you can shelter for the rain while waiting," Mike explained.

"And this big black line?" Hank wanted to know.

"It's an asphalt road. It's used to easily transport goods," Linda said. "You can move fuel, clothes, food, construction material, everything."

"Transport it? Why? You just grow them on the trees, like everybody else. Or you grow them on yourself," she said while pointing at the plumage covering her arm. "It's just basic cantrip."

"Without transportation, you can't have a good economy mom. I can't believe I still have to explain this to you. A thriving market is essential."

"Magic works good enough without a market," Hank mumbled.

"Let's not have this discussion now, please," Clair said soothingly. "Let's just wait for this bus. So, when is this bus supposed to be here?"

"It should be here soon. The trees five miles away are signaling a dramatic increase in carbon dioxide that is getting closer. It is a dead giveaway," Hank replied.

"He's always reading the trees where ever he goes," Clair whispered to Ronda. "It's a habit picked up from his work."

"I think I hear it," remarked Ronda. "It's a bit like thunder in the distance."

"Yes, there it is!" shouted Mike.

A yellow school bus in the distance was groaning and coughing while trying to squeeze some speed out of the aging equipment. It finally shuddered to a stop at the resting place they were standing and stood there still rumbling and smelling really bad. Then the door opened and a man dressed in a black toga wearing a very elaborate graduation hat descended from the bus.

"Good day to you all. I am the Dean of Transportation. Are you the students Linda and Mike?"

The two youngsters immediately stepped forward.

"Do you have your Parental Consents?"

Linda and Mike produced a few papers each. Hank and Clar had struggled to understand why anybody would use paper anymore. They had struggled even more when it needed a signature.

"What are these numbers and letters at the bottom? We need a signature on the Consents," the Dean asked Mike.

"My dad wrote down his public cryptographic key. It's better than a signature he said," Mike explained to the Dean.

"Harrumph. I'll accept it but the Dean of Administration might have a word with you. Now get on the bus. We'll go Educate you two."

Mike and Linda hugged their parents and said their farewells, while the Dean was tapping his foot.

"Be careful there. Write us a treegram! Don't accept DNA from strangers. Have fun," Clair called after Mike while he boarded the bus. It was embarrassing but they were his parents.

When the bus was out of sight, Clair just held Hank and let the tears come.

"It had to be done. You know that," Hank said."

"I know. But it still hurts," she mumbled.

"We don't kill something because we don't like it. We might need it. Even Campus," Hank recited, trying to get comfort from the words somehow.

CHAPTER 6

The bus drove on over the single road through the forest, making a few stops to pick up more students until the bus was full. As the day wore on, the forest became less dense and there were now some brick houses on the side of the road, mostly covered with plants. In the distance, the road seemed to go into the ground. That was the moment the Dean of Transportation chose to take the microphone.

"Good day students. As you can see were are now leaving the wilderness behind us and will enter more civilized society. Then it's only a short ride to the MIT Campus, your place of Great Learning. As you see we're entering now the suburbs. These ungrateful still use the illegal DNA manipulation techniques, as is evident by the many plants and the so called green roof on the house. They still rely on the dikes and levies maintained by the Campus Engineers to keep the sea and floods out of the city and we still do business with these folks."

"My mom says her family here also sells stuff to these people, that they in turn sell to Campus," the boy on the bench behind them whispered "They're selling loads of hydrocarbons."

The road went up and down a few levees until the road ended at a large wall. The bus navigated to the opening in the wall and stopped at the barrier guarded by Campus Security carrying heavy guns. One of the security men came forward to the entrance of the bus and stepped on board. The driver handed over papers to the guard who checked the papers thoroughly. After that, the guard ran the isle to check all the new students using some sort of heads-up display in his helmet. When reaching the end the guard turned around and went to the front of the bus where he turned back around looking at the students.

"Alright students. You have arrived at Campus. This is a Holy place and you will show respect. You will leave this bus in two files. Males on the left, females on the right. You will go into decontamination where you will be disinfected thoroughly to keep Campus pristine and clean from your wilderness crap. From that moment on, there will be no more use of so called magical systems. There will be no more use of radio, pheromones, light signals, DNA messaging or any other stuff. Got that?"

The group just stared at the guard and some nodded.

"Do you got that?!"

"Yes. Sure. Of course," the students mumbled.

The guard grimaced and just yelled out them: "Get out and get in line. NOW!".

At this, the students scurried out and followed the guard as he walked through a large door behind the barrier. They didn't noticed the other guards had positioned themselves to prevent them from escaping. In the hallway he pointed at a set of doors.

"Boys through this door. Girls through the other door. You will undress there. Completely. Go through the next door when done one by one where the personnel will clean and disinfect you. You will receive inoculations. This is to protect the Campus from all those pesky pathogens you carry. Refusing to inoculate will result in immediate expulsion. After that you will be given your Student Uniform. The Professors will wait for you to commence your Education. Got that? Move!"

The students shuffled slowly through the doors for their treatment and exited the processing building, scrubbed pink, dazed, very embarrassed and wearing their regulation Student Uniform. The security men guided them toward the Campus Quad where they assembled the students before a stage, where two men were watching the scene.

The first man on the stage turned to the second man.

"Do you think any of these gene freaks are any good?"

"That girl with three breasts from this weekend? She was awesome."

"What? No, that's not what I'm talking about, you horny idiot. These punks," he said while looking at the new students gathering in front of the stage.

"I hope so. There are not many pure humans left. Our best hope to continue Education is to purge the filth out of this lot and see if they're salvageable. They've twisted themselves so hard some can't survive without that crap in them. We should know soon."

"What do you mean?" the second man asked.

"They all received inoculation. It also contained an agent that stops the workings of their compuchondria."

"Their what?"

"Their so called magic. Those computers made out of DNA they have in their cells. They just received inoculations. They also got injected with a compound that shuts those little things down without shutting down their entire metabolism."

"How does it work? I hope you didn't use any genetic tech for that."

"Of course not. It's purely chemical. Mostly chemical."

"Mostly. Right. How long does it take before it works?"

"It should kick in somewhere during your speech."

"Alright. Let's get this show on the road."

He walked up to the microphone and tapped on it.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Future students and geniuses! I am Principle Schoener. This is vice-principle Danvers. Welcome to MIT."

The students cheered, although not as enthusiastically as he would like.

"Today you leave behind your old world. Soon you step in the world of Real Technology. There will be no more tinkering with blood and cells like the people outside of these walls who have lost their way. We will teach you the True Technology as our ancestors thought it to us. You will learn to build and use electronics, plastic and silicon. Oil and electricity will power your creations as it should be. That is how it was passed on to us and how we will pass it on to you."

Some of the students looked like they were in pain at this moment. He ignored them.

"With your help, we will reach for the stars. Pure humans will live on the moon and on Mars. We will spread across the stars and travel discover untold wonders. We will be in our righteous place above nature, not bowing to its demands. We will conquer nature and conquer space."

Many students looked seriously ill now.

"Join us in this quest for knowledge and achieve the impossible, here in MIT!"

Now one student started to have seizures and fell to the ground while his eyes rolled back. Others were having similar difficulties and soon the entire group of new students were somewhere between incapacitated or dying. The vice-principle gestured for the medical personnel behind the stage to quickly come forward. They examined the students, loaded them on stretchers and carried them away. After the last student was carried away, the medical supervisor pulled of his gloves and went to the Principle.

"Sir, it's not a good year. About a fifth of them are already dead. Massive organ failure most likely. From our quick inspection we see some had organs we've never seen before that fell apart when the Purge took hold. We're probably going to lose another fifth this evening. I estimate only half will make it in the end."

"This is troublesome," the Principle said. "It's like they're forgetting Humanity's place in the order of things and believe adapting to the environment is a good thing. Speaking of which, I'm going inside where there is air-conditioning. I don't like this weather. Get me a report progress of the students on my desk by morning."

"Of course, Principle."

CHAPTER 7

Mike heard the knocking on the door of his dorm room. He looked up from his books and laptop, stood up and opened the door.

"Hey Linda. What brings you here? Shouldn't you be studying for your exams."

"I was studying but just kept thinking that I used to do things differently when I was a little girl, but I just can't recall that clearly. Do you know anything from before Campus?"

"No, I don't. I can't remember a thing from before. I often have the feeling there should be something more, but I can't recall it, sorry. But I sometimes dream of talking animals and something like a half man half bear who watches birds. It's so weird."

"I often dream about people that are half bird. How crazy is that?"

"Do you think it means anything?"

"I have no idea. Doesn't this stuff frighten you?"

"Not really. In those dreams I always have the feeling I have family out there in the wilderness looking out for me. It's comforting somehow. Anyway, we're taken good care of here in Campus so it doesn't really matter."

"Yes, I suppose that's true. So, what are you studying?"

"Nuclear physics. I really want to get into the physics program."

"Oh, ambitious?" Linda asked.

"Perhaps. But I really want to work on the Nuclear Fusion research. We're so close. Maybe in 20 years we'll achieve our goals!"

The End.