Chapter 142: A holy oath

Chapter 142: A holy oath

Mason gawked along with everyone else when he stepped out of the chief's hall. The settlement was almost entirely transformed.

First of all, there were trees inside the walls. Quite a lot of them. They came in different shapes and sizes, but all seemed tastefully and pleasantly placed in different places around the settlement. Mason knew at a glance what all of them were. Their age. How much water and sun they had and needed and what might live in their branches and trunks and...

He shook his head, shivering at the strange feeling of knowledge and closeness and understanding that assaulted him.

The entire surrounding walls had also expanded considerably, with new houses created accordingly, most of these in a new aesthetic of log cabins or...treehouses? From where he stood it was hard to tell.

The Temple of Gaia was just as giant as it looked in the patron screen. Mason was no expert on Greek mythology or history, but it seemed to him like of those ancient structures you'd find near the Acropolis. The Eternal Fountain sat just outside the chief's hall, a statue of a beautiful, pregnant woman pouring water from a pitcher that never ended. Mason had no idea how it worked.

"It's...amazing," Rebecca said beside him, and he took her hand and grinned. Haley and a bunch of other citizens started filing out behind them, and Mason winked at her before heading down.

"The water never runs out, and it's supposed to improve health," he shouted over the sound as they got closer. "Though I'm not exactly sure what that means. It’s just...well, it was cheap, and I figured it would be...nice."

Rebecca and Haley looked up at it with big smiles on their faces, the cool spray from the falling water just touching all their skin. People were shouting and pointing from all over Nassau, running out to look at and touch the trees and new buildings.

"Unbelievable." Phuong stepped up beside Mason and gawked at the largest tree. He walked over and sat beneath it and closed his eyes as he folded his legs beneath him, taking long, deep breaths. "Yes," he smiled, "I think I can get used to this."

"Let's go see the temple!" Rebecca pulled at Mason's hand, and he happily followed. The biggest change for him was a very obvious feeling of rightness like when he walked in the forest. Nassau no longer felt separate, alien. His feet didn't feel like he was wearing heavy shoes. His breaths didn't feel just a little too tight.

"You look happy." Haley was watching him with her radiant smile, and he couldn’t help but match it.

"I guess I am." He held her eyes and filled with warmth, knowing in that look, and in that moment, he would always share something special with Haley—an understanding of how it all began, and how far they'd come together. "Let’s go." He pulled her along with his other hand, running towards the temple.

They found Rosa somehow already inside. The entrance was entirely open, basically a cavern of cut stone covered on the outside in something like moss. A cobblestone path wound its way through in different branches, but every inch of space otherwise was covered in colorful plant life.

"I think these are Crying Violets," Rosa was running her hands over what looked like flowers. "These are extinct!"

Her hands and knees were dirty, her joy great enough it seemed she didn't notice or at least care about Mason holding the hands of the other girls. Even so, he let them go and nudged them forward.

"Go on, see what's deeper."

"If it's a girl, fine,” he went on. “But not if it's a boy. No son of mine will be named Jaques. Or Pierre. Or something."

"Hey come look what I found y’all, it's a flower that smells terrible! Oh.” Becky looked at Mason and Haley and got awkward quick. “What's all the weeping about?"

"Shut up and come here," Haley said, and the Arkansas girl shrugged and made it a group hug. Mason tried not to crush them both as he squeezed. He noticed Becky was still wearing her lingerie under her quickly worn pajamas. And they both felt so amazing, and smelled so damn good...

"I'm getting a little turned on," he said, and Haley gave him the stink eye.

"This is like a holy place. You're thinking about sex in church!"

"It's a Gaia church," he countered. "The whole thing is pretty much about...making new life. Maybe I should kick everyone else out for a few hours and we can..."

"You will not. They are to enjoy it." Haley's tone was harsh but her face looked devious. "In fact, there’s so much to see, they might be very busy exploring for awhile. They might not notice if we...slipped away."

"No," Mason agreed. "No they may not."

He stood and pulled his girls up, looking for the closest and least busy path out of the temple, planning his route straight back to the chief's hall.

As he walked he was distracted at the only thing that ruined the moment—not just the transformation of the settlement, but the wonderful, insane reality of imminent fatherhood.

He wanted to share it with Blake.

I hope you're alright, brother, he thought, and then maybe prayed to Gaia, whatever the hell that possibly meant. Bring him home. Protect him while I can't.

Yes he knew it was all some elaborate fiction put on by an alien robot. But the feeling remained—the recognition of a kind of beauty, or truth, like a great cathedral or a work of art.

Maybe a thing could be more than its creator. Maybe this place was less robot and more human than he thought—plucked from the mind of humanity more than anything. He hoped it was possible.

But if not—before he turned his mind to Haley and Rebecca and the future near and far, he finished with a thought just for roboGod, hoping the thing sometimes listened:

If my brother dies, I swear a holy oath in this place, on the life of my child. I'm going to wreck your stupid game, then somehow, someway, I’ll be coming for you.Finnd new chapters at novelhall.com