Loose piles of snow cascaded over his toes. The soft crunching noise of his weight, the only sound he made running through the forest. Fir trees flashed past him at full run. Charles paused for a moment at a downed birch, pulled the large conch mushroom from the tree and tucked it into his shoulder bag. The northern lights were green and slowly dancing tonight, the moon was not yet up and there were many miles to go before sunrise.

The great expanse of the Tiaga, the Northern Forest, stretched out on all sides. A jackalope popped up from behind a Spruce. Charles mused that both he and the jackalope were indeed mythological creatures made real. It watched, unafraid with those lightning yellow eyes as Charles bounded through the snow.

He eventually arrived at a small clearing in the woods. Three sturdy looking structures stood in the center, they looked as if thousands of birch branches had decided at once to encircle a great fire, light danced out of the cracks, which were as Charles knew filled in with glass grown between the spaces. As he approached he could hear the arguing even at this early morning hour.

”There is not one ounce of merit in getting involved! They won’t understand.” Said a loud low voice that could only be Daimon.

”I agree with Daimon, we can’t involve ourselves in this, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get in- volved.” Said Kuma, always the calming, if somewhat confusing influence.

”I for one will not be setting foot in a city, or be caught dead in an augment suit.” Daimon said as he thumped the table.

”Yes, but we have another opinion outside in the snow. Charles Nakaya - you can come in now.” Said Kuma.

Charles opened the door with a wave of his hand. He didn’t have tech implants like so many of the enhanced did, sometimes technology almost forgot he was there at all, which was something he relished. For a large person, he could usually disappear into the background. Charles found it eerie that Kuma always seemed to know where he was, even though most barely noticed him at all.

The warmth of the house slammed into his face, and he immediately felt the need to be back out in the snow. Already sweating, something he was loath to do as cleaning out the ice later on was hardly worth the warmth. He made his way to the large Oak table, a token of exotic history no doubt. Charles had had a fascination with woodworking. His people had always used genetic en- gineered technology to grow their objects. The house was planted, the birch trees had been pre- programmed to branch out early and seek out other branches. The space between the birches was a glass that was grown using a protein in a bubble solution, where the bubble walls touched glass formed creating a light-weight, highly insulating, mostly transparent, glass foam. It looked almost elvish to Charles, but not many around him would get the reference.

Charles was the most curious of the human world of anyone in the house, he was sure. He was also the only one who hadn’t been to a city, or been hunted by extremists. Daimon’s face was scarred reminder of what humans do to enhanced, and Daimon was the largest extender Charles

had ever seen, nobody knew exactly the entire soup that was his genetic makeup. Kuma on the other hand seemed ageless, and might very well know a lot about the humans, but never ex- pressed much interest one way or the other.

Where Daimon was rough, Kuma was graceful. Her intelligent eyes looked through you, and while not large, she was much stronger than she appeared. Quite a few humans and extenders had found out the hard way that her strength was nothing to be trifled with. Charles had helped her dig deeper into her own genome, finding the expected bear DNA, that allowed her to ’hibernate’ but also to maintain muscle without working out. She could put on weight, and then just melt it away and not be hungry for days. She didn’t have a background in technology but was a quick study, and had become this little tribes expert in all things human tech.

”We have a problem Charles.” Said Kuma.

”Oh.”

”There has been an unusual attack on the communication systems everywhere on Earth. As far as I can tell this hasn’t been done by any single nation or people. The technology appears too ad- vanced. I think this is what it seems to many, our first alien contact.” Said Kuma.

”Oh. So, what’s our problem?” Said Charles.

”That’s the point, we don’t know. Why would an alien choose to contact us so directly, and not actually tell us anything of value? The only true hint we had, was of the short image of the alien heading into the woods beckoning us on.”

”Can I see the video?” Said Charles.

Kuma gazed in a distant way, and sub vocalized a command only she could hear. An image popped up in the air between them.

”I ran every pattern finding algorithm I know, it doesn’t matter how you look at the video, it’s not any more information than a simple picture. What has been interesting is what happens after the video ends. There is a small dancing light at the edge of the image that appears to be an inter- face.”

”Let the humans run into the alien trap.” Said Daimon

”We don’t have the equipment, or connection needed to tap into an interface. We would need someone to travel South to find out more than we can do from up here.”

Charles was uneasy. He had just glimpsed his first alien, and all the hairs on his neck were stand- ing on end. The sweat started to drip off him, and he felt the urge to run back into the snow, yet also he had always wanted to see a real human.

”I wouldn’t last a minute down south.” Charles said.

”Well. I have been thinking about that. Your particular makeup does keep you warm up here, but I have been working on temporary suppression systems that can make you closer to normal human in appearance. You wouldn’t pass a genetic screening, or maybe even a close look, but at a glance it might just work.” Said Kuma.

Charles smelled the salmon that had been eaten here a few days ago, the smell of salmon seemed to linger longer than most, that and cat pee. He was also a little surprised that Kuma had ad- vanced so far in her studies and experiments.

”Charles can’t pass for a human any more than I can, the boy is too young, he still hasn’t passed the test.” Said Daimon

Charles had wondered about this conversation from the start, he almost didn’t believe it. The video, the fantastic story, it all seemed too much. This was itself the test he thought. If he agrees to go, this marks the beginning of his joining the tribe as a full member. Everyone had to past an unexpected test to become a leader in their tribe. He had heard stories of Kuma making up great challenges to test the will of the initiate, preparing holograms of great chasms that were impossible to leap over, or augmented bear-wolves that needed to be led away from their clearing. This had to be a test, and this test Charles had no intention of failing.

”I’ll go.”