Still naked, Felix read over the note again, turning it over in his hand, examining the paper and lettering. This tiny scroll was about 3 inches wide by 5 inches long, made of handmade coarse paper, and frayed at the edges. The lettering was not clean with evenly weighted lines but instead had a calligraphy feel with bold droplets at the beginning and end of each letter. The ink had wicked into the leaf and was bleeding through to the back.
‘If you have found this then I was correct.’ Felix thought. ‘Correct about what? If you have? What if I had not? Found this… This paper? Why the cloak and dagger? Is Z playing another one of her games? Then I was correct…’
‘You are in danger.’ Felix chuckled. ‘Yeah, understatement.’ He looked around the quiet space, birds chirping in the distance outside the massive tree. ‘I was in danger, with the ants, but now I’m up here. If Z put the note up here, then was she aware of the ants? What danger? Like an existential danger, here or somewhere else?’
‘But I need you? Did she mess something up and now needs me to…’ Felix sighed and continued.
‘We are running out of time, and there wasn’t another way… We? Her and I, or is there another we? Running out of time… It would be helpful to know days or months. And, not but. That’s interesting. There wasn’t another way, not isn’t another way. Past tense.’
‘The seed map will guide you. Cryptic enough, Z? What the hell is a seed map?’ Felix felt a tickling at the back of his memory. Something about seeds. He looked around the space again, the key feature of the room being a giant umbrella machine, remembering the icons. Hurrying back to the illuminated display, he looked over the hexagons.
The top hexagon icon was intuitive, it was a battery, and it was very low, like 1 bar low. He looked up to see the panels at the top of the device. Definitely solar panels, but they were inside of a tree, with only occasional rays of light that might pass over, not enough to charge sufficiently. The shafts of light were slowly creeping down the walls of the inside space but were nowhere near the panels. Not an immediate problem that he could solve.
Going clockwise to the right, the next hexagon icon was three vertical lines that looked like test tubes. They too indicated being very close to empty.
The next icon was clearly a clock. Felix tapped that one, and a counter window popped up. “SOL 250,026. 10:49:54, 55, 56, 57” The last sequence of numbers looked like a clock reading time, but what would be the seconds were counting slightly faster than seemed normal. ‘SOL 250,026? SOL? Like, day? Since what?’ He closed the window, going back to the main menu.
The bottom Icon was the messages window that he’d already seen.
The next icon looked like a tiny version of the machine itself. He tapped the icon, and a systems diagnostics window popped up, displaying the components of the device with varying percentages, but in this depiction, the solar array was a top-down view, above the main shaft, with a bulbous bottom, a spike extended bellow the bulb. It kind of resembled a dandelion seed?… ‘Is this what she meant?’. He didn’t know anything about this device, so this diagnostics window would probably just get him into trouble. He exited out to the menu.
The top left hexagon had an icon of a globe with longitudinal lines. ‘Map’ He thought. He eagerly tapped, and a topographical map popped up, his current location pulsing like a tiny radar. He could see the contour lines condensed at the east, and spread out indicating a long gently-sloping finger to the south. There were hashed lines that ran through the current location. Felix looked in the direction he had entered the space. It was to his right, and if the map was correct, that would be East, meaning the map would be oriented North. Felix used his thumb and index finger to pinch the screen, zooming out. More topography, and the hashed lines continued to the edge of the window. He zoomed out again, and again, and again. In the bottom right corner of the window was a small distance bar that only became visible when he was adjusting the zoom. Out of curiosity, Felix used the two fingers to rotate and pan the map image, happy to see those functions were programmed. He returned the pulsing location to the center of the screen and continued zooming out. More hashed lines appeared at the edges of the screen. Felix zoomed out again, and the lines intersected. Zooming out more, he found further intersections. At each intersection of lines was a small green circle. Felix zoomed out again, and again, finding dozens of intersections with circles. The distance meter in the corner showed approximately 500km/inch. He picked an intersection circle to the north of his location and zoomed in tight. The circle had a red X in the middle. Felix tried to tap it. A message popped up “Connection terminated”.
Felix zoomed back out, until his location was surrounded by circles, the lines creating a web-like effect. He tapped each circle, seeing the same message pop up. To the Southeast, approximately 250km per the map, a lone circle sat in what appeared topographically to be a giant valley plane many miles wide and long. A river delta ran through it. When Felix tapped that circle a different message popped up “Seed viable”.
He remembered the note “SE 20m.”
A warning message window opened with a red border and the words “Battery low”
Crap! Felix backed out to the menu, to inspect the last hexagon, the one in the center of the beehive shape. It was an icon of a book. He tapped it, and a window opened that read “Journal entries” at the top. There was an extensive list of links, each obscured with a line that prevented him from seeing who made the entry, or when. He tried scrolling, and the list seemed interminable. He tried tapping an entry. “Password required”.
The screen went dark, and an almost imperceptible hum went silent.
Felix tapped on the screen several times in frustration, then turned his head to the Southeast, in the direction of the… “OH, Shit! SEED” He blurted out. “It’s a fucking seed. This is a seed. Seed map. Southeast!” He ran over to the root opening closest to the South East, and peered outside. The world in that direction tapered away into an endless cloudy abyss, clouds rolling downhill, ominously.
“Ummm….Nope!” Felix stated, looking down at his vulnerable form.
Felix checked the note, remembering SE 20m. ‘Is that 20 meters, or miles, minutes? I’m not walking 20 minutes or miles into oblivion. But 20 meter?’ Felix shrugged. ‘From…. I’m guessing where I found this note. Worth a shot. Wait. If Z wrote this, then she is probably trying to anticipate how I would read it.’ He got excited at the prospect, jogging back to the “Funguy” he laughed. Facing Southeast, he began long-stepping, counting, reaching the tree wall at 10, 11 and 12 through the opening, then 13, 14, 15….. He was near 20, but a fallen tree limb was in the way, about 25 foot long, and 3 foot in diameter, decomposing. Not sure what to do, he marked the ground with his foot, remembering 18, and walked over to the limb section, circling around it. At the larger end, Felix noticed that the limb section was hollow. He knelt, mouth dropping open. Poorly hidden inside was a large cloth sack, wrapped in string.
Artavus Quill 