Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was as bright and cheerful a day as it could be under the vast protective dome of Aahywch. The sand-filled clouds that surrounded most of the dome were thinner than usual, the skyspot slightly bigger, and for those lucky enough to live in one of the three central partitions it was a step closer to heaven.

For Isura, it was one of those rare days when he served as guide to locals. Inspired by the scant degree of increased brightness, they seemed to suddenly rediscover a curiosity about this vast, sprawling city they called home. He had taken near a dozen trips, all of them by air car. Locals, when they hired a Guide, only ever wanted to go places unfamiliar, and always knew everything within walking distance. They were not like tourists, who could see but the tiniest fraction of a single qatsi and be amazed. The locals demanded something subtler, something hidden in the nooks and crannies of their section or one adjacent. Otherwise they would not hire a Guide. Instead, they would do to Skyview and join the crowd gazing at the skyspot. Everyone knew how to get to Skyview. No one needed a Guide for that.

The air car trips were a welcome luxury, but after so many trips Isura was feeling exhausted and dyspeptic. The skies had been busy, the cabbies had taken chances, and there were reports of two crashes, which was almost unheard of. "Sun madness" the medias were calling it.

And yet, despite it all, as he keyed his way into his apartment Isura was happy. He'd accumulated a good three thousand cred and the happiness of the populace cheered him. It was so easy to forget happiness surrounded by all the grit and grime and despair of the last city. Seeing these people, his people, so excited meant a lot to Isura. There was still hope in this shrinking place.

As he opened the door, the warm, sickly sweet scent of the incense burner hit him. Isura smiled in enjoyment. It was too strong for most people, too sweet, but he liked it, even if it did absolutely nothing to settle his stomach. The thought of raspberry warheads reminded Isura of better things.

It also pained him. Here was this burner, this proof of Gaia and the worlds beyond, and he was the only one who could enjoy it.

This was not entirely true. Every so often someone from Aahywch would buy access to the Gate and disappear to some other realm, possibly even Gaia, but out of all the citizens only Isura had unfettered access to another realm. To reach Gaia and a thousand other worlds he had only to enter his apartment closet.

It was a secret he could share with no one but his best friend Jiall, the one person in the Dome who would not take advantage of the opportunity that closet represented. Isura often wished he could simply hold open his closet door and usher all of the city through it to a new planet, but he knew in his heart of hearts he could not destroy the home he had come to love. So while the incense burner made him happy, it also shamed him by reminding him of his secret, and he did not look at it.

Which is why he did not notice the strange patterns in the reddish smoke.

It started, simply enough, as a zigzag. Instead of gently curling swirls as smoke usually created, the red smoke created sharp, jarring lines that cut back and forth at sharp angles. The angles were large and indistinct at first, then tighter, more jagged, and moving to some unheard beat. The lines zinged and fizzled silently in ways that suggested the frizzed hair of a person recently electrocuted.

As this happened, Isura busied himself with his daily coming-home ritual, which involved rearranging a room of his apartment. Today it was the bathroom. Tucked away behind the door to his bedroom, the bathroom was tiny, but somehow Isura had managed to cram it full of enough stuff to justify rearranging. Floral cloths were tacked to the ceiling, diffusing the bare lights, and racks of towels and trinkets were mounted on every patch of exposed wall. There was only so much Isura could do with them, as they were bolted in securely, but he moved everything the shelves contained.

On the walls and doors and mirror he had placed colorful magnets. The whole effect was to make the bathroom a rather crazy affair, strange tribal shapes and odd colors popping up in unusual places anywhere a person looked. It was like someone had taken an eclectic, colorful house and shoved it into a bathroom. It made no sense. There were too many knickknacks and candles and strange soaps and bottles all wrapped up in a whirlwind of colorful patterns.

When he was done, he passed the incense burner on the way to the vidphone. He did not notice haw the jagged lines were joined by little curling circles that formed and unwound repeatedly with the zig-zag as a backdrop. Instead, Isura punched up Jiall's number and was delighted to find his friend at home. "Jiall! We must go out for dinner," were the first words out of Isura's mouth.

"You can go, but I am not treating you again."

"No no no, you don't understand! I made three thousand cred today, it's my treat, and I can pay you back what I owe you."

On the viewscreen, Jiall arched a dark eyebrow. His parentage was Arab and Indian and it gave him quite an exotic look, especially when he made dramatic facial expressions. Isura likened Jiall to some ancient Hindu god of cash and numbers.

By the expression alone, Isura could tell Jiall thought he had done something illegal. Every so often Isura would perform some nefarious job for an underworld organization because his rent was due and he was terrible at saving credit. "I promise it was nothing illegal! Did you not hear of the sun madness?"

Jiall expressed confusion and Isura patiently explained the day's excitement. As a Register, Jiall very rarely left the confines of Tera Qatsi, which was one of the outliers and not a central partition. Behind Isura and out of range of the viewscreen, the little swirly circles around the incense starting popping. Silent little explosions of circles burst through the air. If a raspberry warhead could have been personified with a visual, that was surely the way it would look.

Isura could tell during his explanation that Jiall was unhappy. Jiall came from a Sun family, and though he did not practice the skyspot-worshiping religion himself, he retained vestiges of admiration and awe for the little blue circle at the peak of the dome. Isura thought that was why Jiall chose to live in Tera Qatsi: so he would not be reminded constantly of his parents and his childhood religion. Tera Qatsi was too low in altitude to ever have a glimpse of the heavens through the maelstrom of the Disaster.

Since Isura never liked to see his best friend in the whole universe unhappy, he immediately announced he would be coming over. Jiall looked predictably morose at the idea. "I was thinking I would spend a quiet evening..."

"No! Let's go out dancing. I'm coming over. You had better answer the door!" Isura flicked off the viewscreen before Jiall could answer. As much as Jiall grumbled, Isura knew Jiall would be ready to go when he got there. He frantically ran to the bedroom to get ready.

He never noticed how the struggling smoke of the incense burner tried to catch his attention, the zigzag pattern branching out and crossing over itself, the little circles growing larger and larger before they popped. He never noticed the way the smell increased to a candy stink as he ran through the living room pulling a metallic blue shirt over his head. He had only the thought of his best friend's unhappiness on his mind.

Out the door went Isura Karaki, soon-to-be guardian of a Scent that would never let him forget this transgression. The smoke above the incense burner shivered and fell. No matter what, it would catch Isura's flighty attention. The smoke curled around in contemplation. Yes, something grander and far more overbearing was needed. The burning incense redoubled its efforts, determined to fill the whole of the apartment with zigzagging, popping red smoke by the time Isura returned!