Chloe At Worlds' End
Chapter 1

Today wasChloe’s birthday. She had just risen from bed and was finished making it up.After selecting her outfit for the day from her bureau, she proceeded to thebathroom down the hall to wash up and change. She tossed her pajamas into thehamper and donned her birthday dress. She wouldn’t normally get this gussied upon her birthday, but on this one her mom and dad had planned a party for her.That meant cake, ice cream, and who knows what other goodies… ‘yummy!’ shethought. And also all of her friends were invited and would be here, which madeher even more excited as she thought about it. She washed her face and lookedinto the mirror as she dried it. It stared back at her with those large blueeyes, smallish freckled nose, and thick mop of short red hair that always hadthat darn tuft sticking up on top. She looked the same as yesterday when shewas eleven, but today she was twelve years old… and half expecting to see alittle more mature version of herself’.

Feeling a littledisappointed, she headed downstairs to the kitchen where she heard her mom, alittle more noisily than usual, buzzing around. When she rounded the corner, she stopped in the doorway to see what allof the ruckus was about. Her mom clanked the oven door closed after sliding intwo cake pans and noticed her standing there when she turned around.

“Good morningChloe, happy birthday!” her mom said. Chloe replied

“Good morning, is that my birthday cake?”

“Well of course it is, my birthday girl… oh, you look socute in your dress!”

“Thank you” answered Chloe.

“Oh Chloe, why do I always have to beg you to comb yourhair…?”

“Ok… ok, I will later. When does my party start?”

“Not until eleven this morning, we still have three hoursuntil then so don’t get your dress dirty…”

“Ok, I’m going outside for a little while. I promise I’ll becareful.” She heard her mothers’ last instruction just before the door slammed.

“See if you can replace your brother!” She stood on the little coveredback porch and looked down the lane. Their backyard was behind the low woodenfence to her right, but from here she walked unimpeded down the two steps ofthe porch and proceeded to the side walk. She was glad that it was a nice andwarm sunny day for her party, but of course they knew it would be since it wasscheduled that way. The fusion orb of their sun was right on its mark of eighto clock, and the faux blue sky beyond it was a perfectly programmed springtimecrisp.

She looked upand down the lane, but Onri was nowhere to be seen. In fact she saw no one. Shelooked up and saw that traffic was also somewhat light, with only a fewlevitors in sight. She had an idea where her brother might be and thumbed herNano Suit. She slightly extended her arms out to her sides for balance as sheglided upwards and stopped a couple meters above the eaves of her house. Shecould see the ocean and the bay with its docks a few blocks beyond the front ofher house. They lived in the Eastern Seaboard district of New Massachusetts.Whenever she wanted to replace Onri, he could usually be found at the docksfeeding the seagulls or sea lions.

She floated offeffortlessly in that direction through the fresh, crisp air. A pesky crow thatalways tailed her on her outings was once again catching up to her from out ofnowhere… why wouldn’t it leave her alone?

“Shoo… go away,shoo!” It never worked; it would follow her all the way to the docks she wassure. She circumvented a few other skydestrians along the way, and as sheneared the one dock that Onri favored… of course there he was sitting on itwith his little ten year old bare feet dangling over the side, and a bucket ofbait sitting next to him. The man at the boat shop, Charlie, had a soft spotfor Onri and could always be counted on to give him a free bucket of bait.

“Good morningOnri” she said as she sat landed right next to him.

“Morning” he said with little fanfare. He was completelyengrossed in tossing anchovies to his favorite mama sea lion and her barkingpups in the water. Chloe looked up to her left at the wooden post, saying

“Three… two… one” and boom, the crow landed just where sheknew it would. She sighed

“What does that crow want from me… it never leaves mealone!” Onri looked up at it and was about to throw it a meal.

“No! For heavens’ sake, don’t feed it… then I will never getrid of it!”

“Ok, I won’t”

“Do you remember? It’s my birthday today” He looked at her, noticed her dress and replied

“So…” Chloe put her hands on her hips and gave him amenacing stare.

“There will be cake and ice cream, and some of your friendswill be at our party!” That got his attention. His eyes perked up and hesmiled. “Cool!”

She looked athis disheveled brown hair and his little button nose. He looked just like theirdad, Carl. Onri threw the last anchovy, looked in the empty bucket, then lookedat her and proceeded to upend the almost empty bucket of stinky fish water inher lap, all over her pristine white birthday dress.

“AAGGHH… You brat! How could you?!” Onri laughed in thatbratty little brother way and taunted her with the age old song

“Nya nya nya nya nya nyaaa!” He thumbed his suit and shot like a rocket straight up into the air. Thecrow cawed and scattered in surprise, along with Chloe in hot stinky pursuit.

He led her on achase further away along the docks towards the end of the bay, laughing andtaunting all the way. Chloe’s infuriation rapidly gave way to giddy glee as shegiggled. She didn’t really give a hoot about her dress, as she hated wearingthem anyway. She preferred pants with colorful suspenders… boy’s clothes… toher mother Clara’s unending distain. Her dad thought it was cute and couldalways be counted on to defend her clothing choices.

Darn that crow,it was just getting in the way now as they rounded the curvature of the bay.She loved flying over this area; it was just so beautiful with all the dockedboats, sparkling ocean, and the fresh salty air. ‘Oh, he thinks he can shake meby going that way does he?’ she thought as he made a hard right turn towardsold man Taylors decrepit property with the overgrown spruce trees. He shouldknow better, she was a better flyer than he was. She was closing her distancefrom him as he deftly shot between the thickly foliaged boughs. Old dustypinecones pelted her head when he purposefully collided with them as he wentthrough. She screamed

“Ow… you’ll pay for that!” Onri knew that when she saidthat, she really meant it. He decided it was time to make it to the housebefore her, for Dads’ protection. Another hard right brought him out of Taylorsas he sped up and torpedoed home. He loved his new suit; it was much fasterthan the old one with the governed speed. His training wheels were off, so tospeak. It never ceased to feel like some kind of magic as the nano particlesinterwoven into the thin tight fabric, magnetically interacted with the grid,which was forever and mysteriously hidden behind the faux sky and the everundiscernible far walls of their only known world, Sanctum.

Chloe knew whatOnri was up to when they neared the house. She saw that Dad was out backworking shirtless in the warmth of the morning sun, raking leaves to tidy upfor her party. He looked up just in time to brace for the impact… “Ahhh!” he managedbefore Onri buffeted him to the ground. They rolled a few feet in a shower ofleaves, all a tangle of arms and legs. When they came to a stop, dad was allabout wrestling and tickling. Chloe, laughing uncontrolledly, also landed ontop of them. Mom opened the back door to see what the heck had happened. Shelaughed at the sight which was almost undiscernible at first glance… it lookedlike some hairy, multi headed, armed, and legged beast was emerging into thisworld through some leafy secret entrance. She yelled

“Chloe… yourdress… I told you!” They were all still a mess of exertions and tickles. Chloeloved playing with and hugging her pops, his chest was furry like a big teddybear. He gave them both a last group bear hug; then got up. As he brushed theleaves off of himself, he sniffed “Pew… what is that smell!?” Chloe answered

“Onri dumped fish juice on me, tell mom… I’m not the one whoruined my dress!”

Mom could hear and shouted “Onri, you’re in big trouble…both of you please come in and get cleaned up!” she slammed the door. Dad said

“Ha ha, I think both of you are in trouble” Chloe lightlysmacked the back of Onri’s head as they made their way inside.

Their mom wasstanding in the kitchen, facing their direction at the center island counterwhile busily frosting Chloe’s cake. They walked over to admire it. Chloe sawthat her mom was making it to please her by crafting striations of multicoloredfrosting. There were also little containers of sparkly sprinkles and such onthe counter. Chloe said

“Ooh fun… can I help!?”

“Sure…” Her mom stopped midsentence and sniffed the air.

“Oh pew… not like that you aren’t, please go clean up first.I’ll wait to finish this for when you come back down” Chloe replied excitedly

“Yay!” and ran upstairs. Her mom had to go open the backdoor to air out the offending odor.

Chloe buried thestinky dress on the bottom of the clothes hamper. She didn’t need to take offher Nano Suit, as it was self-cleaning. She was glad the dress was soiled soshe could wear what she really liked, and slipped into her favorite multicolored striped overalls with the elastic red suspenders which she fished outof her bureau. Of course it wouldn’t be complete without her matching redcanvas sneakers. And as she promised, after she washed up she dragged a brushthrough her wild hair. Back in the kitchen, she found that her cake wasunattended but still unfinished as promised. Her mom must be upstairs gettingready. She wasted no time in applying the rest of the colored frostings, thesparkly colored sprinkles, and some candied letters that spelled out ‘HappyBirthday Chloe’.

Just as shefinished it, Onri came clomping up next to her.

“That’s a dorky looking cake, it looks ready for the circus…can I put on the candles?” Chloe loved their sibling relationship. It mainlyrevolved around who could come up with the best progressive ‘put-down’. Shehanded him the little box of candles.

“Sure, do you know how to count to twelve?” He snatched themout of her hand. As he opened the box, she decided to go see how their dad wasdoing with the decorating of their back yard. Before she turned away from Onri,she gave him an extra wet and sloppy peck of a kiss on his cheek. He exclaimed

“YUK… DISGUSTING!” Hegave her an incredulous look as he wiped off the slobber with the back of hissleeve.

“I Won!” said Chloe as she turned and went out back.

Her dad had justfinished stringing the last of the streamers above their heads, across the yardbetween the branches of two trees. He also had set up a large table for theplacing of the paper plates, utensils, cake, and any gifts that were brought.There were already some gifts there which were obviously from her family. Shepoked her fingers inquisitively at them.

“Ok, no fair handling them or you will figure out what theyare.” Her dad said.

“Ok, no problem.”

“Well, I’m finally finished back here, time to go showerup.” As he went into the house Chloe thanked him.

“Thank you daddy, it looks great, I love you!” Before heclosed the door, he smiled his handsome face at her and blew her a kiss.

Chloe loved hercharmed life. She loved her mom, dad, and even her brat of a brother. In fact,she was sure everyone that she knew felt comparatively the same as her. Itreally was a product of the world in which they all lived. For the last eighthundred years, Sanctum provided human kind an unbridled wealth of technologicalcomforts. There literally was not any facet of daily life and its conditionsthat were not enhanced to the point of bliss by living in this completelycontrolled environment. After having moved under the ground shortly before thecoming of the present ice age, which unfortunately had been the result of theirancestors careless mistreatment of the planets’ atmosphere, man-kinds’ pace oftechnological advancement increased exponentially due to the necessity ofhaving to survive in this new environment.

Sanctum was animmense cave, so large in fact, that there were different districts ofpopulations which were spread out very far from one another. Whole cultureswere preserved in this way, as they even retained their native languages. Andthe technology of Sanctum could afford anyone instantaneous travel at any givenmoment to any district they chose to go. If say you were in the mood to visitthe absolute perfect recreations of the entire city and canals of Venice Italy,you would only have to thumb your nano suit to activate the Quantum Duplicatorof the Grid. Ones’ entire genome would ride the probability wave to that destination,although the term ‘riding’, which seemed to refer to an actual form of linearphysical movement, was nothing of the sort. Rather, ones’ subatomic makeupwould be copied and instantaneously reproduced at the desired location by wayof theoretical ‘spooky action’ as the original was destroyed. It was literallyfaster than the speed of light.

And long gone wasthe archaic method of burning fuels for energy. Once man had discovered thatthere was energy to be had from even the most mundane of substances, his lifehad been completely transformed. He had always used the force of movement togenerate power; first it was the movement of water in a river that turned aturbine to generate electricity, then it was the burning of fossil or nuclearfissile fuels to sustain the running of an engine to accomplish the same thing.But with the realization that these methods were destroying the planet, he wasforced to expedite discovering a new method for clean energy generation, hence,nano particle technology.

It was realizedthat when looking at sub atomic particles, the movement needed to generateenergy was already all around us… in everything. Anything that has mass… hasatoms. And any atom has movement within it in the form of electrons which continuallyorbit around its nucleus. So, very small manufactured particles… nanoparticles… could be used for very specific purposes, such as amplifying thetiny movements in atoms to a point where it was usable on a large scale. Chloeunderstood much of the scientific methods by which all of their livescomfortably revolved, probably quite a bit more than her peers, as she wasnaturally drawn to it by her own curiosity, and secondly due to her awarenessof her families’ historical significance in their modern world. Why, her andher brother were even named after their two ancestors who helped save theirrace from impending ruin, and who helped usher in this new existence.

An hour laterfound Chloe and her family awaiting the start of her party in the back yard.Chloe was fussing over the perfect placement of her cake on the table as Onriwas poking at her elbow in an attempt at causing her to mar it.

“Stop it… mom!” Chloe pleaded, her mom retorted

“Onri, that’s enough already” Then, as if someone had pulleda switch, many of their guests were arriving simultaneously from all directionsas they descended from above.

“Happy birthday Chloe!” and other greetings could be heardas they landed with their gifts for her. Chloe was so excited to see all of herfriends that she didn’t normally get to see outside of school. Onri also jumpedfor joy at the arrival of some of his pals as well. Needless to say, theafternoon was spent in merrymaking, games, the opening of gifts, and theconsumption of numerous goodies.

When the daycame to an end and all of their guests had departed, Chloe and her family werestill outside, spending the last few minutes of her party together. Her dadlooked around the yard and said

“Would you look at this mess, I think I know what I’ll bebusy doing tomorrow morning.” Onri added

“Don’t worry pops, we’ll help you.” Mom got up from herchair and said

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m exhausted. I’mgoing up stairs for a long bath. If I don’t come out in an hour, call the paramedics”Their dad laughed and replied

“Ok honey, I’ll check in on you in a few minutes…” followedby a wink. Chloe rolled her eyes, saying

“I know you... you just want to go kiss her!” Onri coveredhis ears

“EWWW…!” Their dad pleadingly shrugged his shoulders

“Hey, that’s my job!” Their mom countered as she smiled andclosed the door behind her

“Yeah, and he is good at it too…” This time both Chloe andOnri covered their ears

“EWWW!”

That night asChloe drifted off to sleep, she truly felt overwhelmed by her feelings ofcontentedness in this life that was hers. She had wonderful loving parents, asomewhat cool little brother that she tolerated, great friends, a nice and warmcomfy bed that she was just loving right now, and of course she had the heaventhat was Sanctum.