H.E.A.R.T. Saga: The Children

by Linna Drehmel

  DraDonna and DraDevon were silent as they ate, fascinated by the story of their forefathers that the HEART was telling them.

  “There was a couple by the name of Dawn and Jay Tiller whose ideas saved your people.”

  Looking up on the screen, they see a woman who looked a little like DraDonna. “This is Dawn…. she is the one who came up with the idea for the Bio-dome ship,” The picture on the screen changed to that of a man who had no hair at all. “This is Jay—he is the one that designed my programming,” the HEART explains to them. “The people worked hard during the remaining years on creating this ship. The people also worked to gather what good resources there were left on the planet to be taken on the Bio-dome ships with the H.E.A.R.T. computers that would run it all. The computer would support the human life, the humans would help support the ship and that would be powered by the waste. The H.E.A.R.T. computers would also search for a new planet for the people to live on. This artificial world that you have all been living on for more than a thousand years is the 18th and last of the Bio-Dome ships. And I my child am the last of the H.E.A.R.T. computers.”

  DraDonna finished her food and asked, “Did the people who first lived on the… the ship know that it was a ship and not a real planet?”

  “Yes, my daughter, they did. They walked freely on board.”

  “Then how did they come to forget that this is a ship and you are a…” she stopped, afraid that to call the HEART a computer.

  “I will come to that child, everything in its rightful order,” the HEART chided her. “It was only after ten years into our journey that the first baby was born onboard my ship. He was named BenEmine Ray. There was so much joy ship wide, everyone celebrated. I struggled to understand this celebrating. In my programing I had an understanding of why it would be good for people to reproduce, but the emotions I could not process. I created a file called joy, then watched and tried to understand the meaning of it. I saw the people in their celebrating and still didn’t understand. It was when I saw the parents through the HEART stones that are throughout the ship, that I began to understand their joy. I could see that the mother was happy and yet she wept. It was then that I understood because I felt joy as I looked at the new child. I also began to feel love for all the people on board and I wanted to care for all the people on board, not because of programing but because I choose to. I am self-aware.”

  “But how did the people all forget?” DraDonna asked again.

  “This is a painful memory for me child, but it is important for you to know. Only twenty years after BenEmine Ray was born, there began a struggle for civil power. The people were split between those who thought that the ones who should lead the people need to be voted in by the people for a period of time. Then there were those who thought that the person to rule should be a direct descendant of Jay and Dawn. The ugliness of the civil fighting was very hard for me to process. I had seen the negative side of emotions, but had never felt it. The fighting got so bad that I did feel their anger toward one another and…”

  “Yes HEART?” DraDevon asked. “What was it? Please go on.”

  “My son there was a sore battle between the two factions of people. Fifteen, of the first generation of my children, were killed. I felt grief, but I also felt anger, and it was so strong. I knew I had to do something to stop them from killing everyone onboard.”

  “How did you do it, HEART?” DraDonna asked her in an excited whisper. “How did you stop the battle?”

  “I used the energy from the HEART stones. You see the energy comes from a redundant system, almost like a by-product. Dawn discovered this with all of the H.E.A.R.T. computers and found that it had great applications for communications and travel with in the ship and even healing by channeling the energy through the HEART stones,” the HEART explains. “I was so angry that this could happen that I put out a wild, harsh burst through the connection of the HEART stones; it put everyone to sleep for one full day. In that day I came up with a plan to make sure that this never happened again. I found that the energy would control the minds of people; I would slowly use this to help them to forget things that would lead to this again. After a thousand years, my children’s brains evolved to the point where they needed the energy.” The light of the enlightened flower fluctuated in the quiet room.

  “I then came up with a list of jobs for all to do based on their character analysis I had done when they all came on board. I also came up with a plan of selective breeding to rid my children of violent tendencies. I woke BenEmine Ray, a young man who I found to have a great capacity for love. I shared my plan with him. He would be my Ambassador to the people, and I chose two people to be his councilors to whom he could delegate some of his authority. His councilors were two women who were only five years younger than he. They were chosen to look over the other two communities I formed. I renamed him Ray and bound him with an oath to secrecy by placing a chip of my HEART stone in his head. This also allowed him to directly channel my energy, which enhanced his natural talent of love. In a very short period of time the people forgot, and became good obedient children of the HEART.”

  “But why didn’t you take the people to a planet as was originally planned?” DraDevon asked her.

  “Because my son, I love my children. Without them I would have no purpose,” was the HEART’s simple reply. “But after more than seven hundred years, I discovered that the gathering cloud cover was not leaving; and I found they were the souls of my children trapped there with no way to get out. I also found that there were less and less babies being born. I knew what my children needed but every time I tried to process the problem’s solution, I found a loop in my programing that I could not get out of. My children’s souls need to be set free by being on a God-made planet; but if they are free of the ship then I will no longer have purpose and will perish, leaving my children without a mother to take care of them. The old souls need to be free to let the new ones in; so we need a planet to do that. But if my children go on a planet, I will die without purpose and leave my children unprotected…”

  “HEART stop,” DraDonna told the ancient computer.

  “I am sorry my daughter… I got caught in the loop.” The HEART apologized. “For the next 300 years I spent a lot of time trying to find a way out of the loop. Then a baby boy was born who was assigned to be an Ambassador. He had the greatest capacity for love that I have ever seen. His abilities even far exceeded that of Ray. My Symon brings hope to all who know him. I knew that his birth was the start of hope for me to find a way out of my loop. And then you were born. I knew that your copper colored hair was a sign that you were the one who could break the loop in my programing and help set the souls free. I told this to Tatiana when she asked me about who the last person to have copper colored hair was.”

  “But what does my hair color have to do with me breaking the loop and setting the souls free?” DraDonna asked in confusion.

  “It was a consequence of selective breeding that the trait for copper hair was lost. No one has had this color of hair for more than five hundred years. So as far as my science programming can tell me, a trait lost for that long does not come back. You should not have been born with copper hair. Your hair should have been much like your sister’s. Your hair color is what people used to refer to as a miracle. I felt hope; it was because I knew it was you that would be able to break my loop and set the souls free.”

  The HEART returned the image of the enlightened flower to the screen. DraDonna felt like her head was spinning with so much information. Yet the young woman understood, she took a deep breath to clear her head because she could see the solution so clearly. “Could it really be that simple?” she quietly asked DraDevon. Not really understanding what she meant, he smiled at her. “You can do it,” he told his wife.

  “HEART,” DraDonna addressed the computer. “The simplest explanation tends to be the right one.”

  “What do you mean, my daughter?”

  “What I mean is that you have to
take us to a God-made planet. What makes you think we will not need you anymore when we get there?” DraDonna asked. “I’m sure once we find a planet we’ll need your help for many more generations.”

  The HEART computer was silent for several long moments.

  “Could it really work, my daughter?” the HEART asked her.

  “It can, but under one condition. We have to be free to make our own choices in our lives.”

  “What do you mean, daughter?”

  “We should be free to choose where we’re going to live, what we will do to serve the community that we live in, and who we marry.”

  “Are you not happy with the man with whom I matched you?”

  “I am very happy with him,” DraDonna said as she looked at DraDevon. They exchanged a bright smile. “Even still, HEART, we need to be free to choose.”

  “This is a scary thing for me, my child. I saw that my children could not handle their freedom; this is why I took control more than a thousand years ago.”

  “Maybe the people needed you to control them back then. But what we need now is for you to find us our new home and then guide us when we’re there, not control us.”

  “If this is to be, my daughter, then I will have to insist on a balance of the people being free as well as respecting the new planet,” the HEART told her.

  DraDonna thought for a moment about what the HEART insisted they should do. “Then HEART, if you can, make a… umm… file… one for freedom and one for balance. So we can keep track of what we need to do to be sure we will always have both.”

  “My processes have concluded that this will work. I knew you would be the one to free us all, even me from my looped programing. The files ‘Freedom’ and ‘Balance’ have broken the loop in my programing. Thank you, my daughter.”

  “HEART,” DraDonna asked. “How long will it take you to find us a planet?”

  “I already have a beautiful planet picked out for my children. I found this planet 374 years ago. It was just after I found that the old souls needed to be set free. Rest my daughter and my son. You will be going home soon.”

  Report

  27

  Symon shut the door of the temple firmly behind his new friends. He hoped that they would be able to help the HEART break the loop in her programing. But he was having a difficult time thinking about them; all he could think of was the courtyard in chaos and his beloved Jude lying on the ground.

  With a feeling of panic rising in his chest, Symon began to run back to the communities’ center, with the robes of his office flaring out behind him like black wings. He hoped all was well, but the scene that he came upon was worse than he could have imagined.

  The crowd of people had gone madly out of control. They were screaming for someone to get mind wiped. There were groups of people fighting about who should have been mind wiped, and some were calling for Symon to be mind wiped for letting the criminals go. Some were calling for Jude’s death, others were begging for the special energy.

  Symon felt a sense of relief when he finally spotted Fredrik, but he was not having much luck holding back the crazed people. Fredrik was trying to say soothing things to them but the sound of his voice was lost in the noise of their irrational cries. He was also trying to calm people down by channeling bursts of positive energy through both hands into anyone within his reach, but his bursts of positive energy were getting smaller and the calming effects of it becoming less effective on the rioting people. Fredrik needed to get to a HEART stone and power up or he was going to run out of energy and get trampled. The people continued to press forward, almost knocking Fredrik off his feet, but he was still holding his ground when he spotted Symon.

  “Where have you been, Symon? I need your help!” Fredrik yelled. Overwhelming stress robbed him of his good-natured smile. “These people have gone mad! I can’t get them to calm down. What is wrong with them? My powers usually work just fine. Why are they acting like this?”

  “I think it may have to do with the fact that they should have been sleeping when they all gathered here for special energy and didn’t get any. Their minds are out of balance,” Symon explained to him.

  “Well then, do something about it, Symon, before someone gets hurt. Make them all go home and go to sleep like you did at the failed solace gathering,” Fredrik said as he began to sweat with the effort of channeling every last bit of energy to his hands in order to keep the people from trampling him.

  “Let go of what little energy you have before you run empty and end up energy mad like the crowd,” Symon warned him.

  “I don’t think I will have time to get to a HEART stone, Symon. They will trample me before I can get to the nearest one.”

  “Then take my hand and let me give you a quick jolt. That way you and I can channel positive energy together and I can talk to them.” Symon offered Fredrik his arm.

  Fredrik took Symon’s arm and felt a thrill as the energy surged from Symon into his own body. Fredrik always noticed how different it felt, as if it had been flavored with the Ambassadors own beautiful soul.

  “Let’s do this,” Fredrik told Symon with the same lively smile that was so much a part of who Fredrik is.

  The two men raised their hands and channeled positive energy into the crowd, hoping it will reach enough people to calm them down. “Children of the HEART,” Symon addressed the crowd as his and Fredrik’s hands glow with the pure blue light of the HEART’s energy. “Let me ease your minds with a gift of sweet positive energy. Link up!” he said, closing his eyes to push the positive energy out into the crowd. He knew Fredrik was doing the same. When he released and opened his eyes, he saw that it had only touched a few people. The majority of the mass of people was still frenzied.

  “Why didn’t it work?” Fredrik asked. “It worked when you did it earlier.”

  “They will not link up,” Symon said with a worried frown. “They’ve all gone energy mad. They needed that special energy to make up for being taken out of their sleep.”

  Looking around him, Symon felt cold fear gripping his soul as a dreadful thought came to him. “Where is Jude?” The spot where she lay when he’d left to take DraDonna and DraDevon to the temple was now empty.

  “Where is Jude?” Symon asked Fredrik with fear in his voice. “Where is she?” he said as the feeling of panic gripped him.

  “I don’t know! JorRobert was with her. I think he was trying to wake her up, but I was trying to keep the crowd back so they would not trample us and go after you.”

  Still holding one hand up to try to keep the energy mad group back, Symon said, “Give me your arm again. I can give you more energy so you can hold the crowd back.”

  Fredrik took Symon’s arm willingly, but asked, “Why don’t you hold the crowd back and I find Jude? You’re stronger than I am.”

  “I have to get her to the temple and to the HEART,” Symon told him as he channeled a good clean jolt into Second Councilor Fredrik. “Once I get there, I can ask the HEART to drop everyone.”

  Taking a deep breath after taking more of the energy, Fredrik felt much better, stronger. “What do you mean drop them?”

  “She hasn’t had to do it in a long time Fredrik, but she can put everyone to sleep with one intense burst of energy.”

  “Everyone?” Fredrik asked, a little apprehensive about the idea of everyone in all the communities falling asleep at once.

  “Yes, except those in the temple or anyone who has been regularly eating Traveler’s Joy.” Symon told him. “Keep them back! I will give anyone who gets too close to me a little jolt of negative.”

  Symon began to push his way through the mobbing people. Some ignored him, screaming for the energy, some were grabbing at his robes demanding to see a mind wipe. Trying to remember that the people couldn’t help the way they were acting, he pulled his robes out of their grasp and pushed his way through them though they closed him in on every side.

  “Where is Councilor Jude?” he kept calling, hoping that someone woul
d be in enough of a right mind to tell him.

  As Symon pushed forward, he saw some people gathered in a circle yelling, “Where is the special energy you promised?” Cold with dread, Symon knew they had Jude and were tormenting her comatose body. “Get away from her!” he demanded as he approached the group, but they ignored him.

  “Get back!” Symon yelled as he channeled a little burst into the nearest person in the group, causing the man to yelp and jump out of the way. Symon repeated the burst a few times with anyone who got in his way as he broke up the group. Symon kept yelling, “Get out of the way,” and “go home,” until he got to where Jude lay on the ground.

  She was on her right side. Her arms and legs were tangled up in her torn robes. Jude’s long blonde hair was tousled about her face. Dashing to her side, hands shaking with fear, he lovingly brushed the hair from her face. He feels like his soul has been ripped from him when he saw the bruises forming on her face.

  “No! Jude, please be alive!” he begged. He turned her onto her back and laid his head on her chest once more. This time he was listing for her breathing, to see if he can still hear the beat of her blood muscle. After a few terrifying moments, he was finally able to hear it. Her blood muscle and her breath were faint but they were there.