Eithin fled the jeering taunts, barely keeping tears at bay. He darted around a column into the service alley hidden behind. “Keep running, freak,” echoed after, pursuing him.

 

Emerging in a different part of the City, Eithin immediately turned under an archway and into a small, but exquisitely tended, public garden. Roiling with intermingled anger and shame, he angled toward the genetically modified juniper tree. He slid into the welcoming solace of a designed tree hollow, finally letting the tears flow.

 

A whirring hum, discordant in the usually tranquil garden, snared Eithin’s attention. He stared at the AI gardener, its force fields projecting countless whirling arms.

 

* * *

 

Samson noted the boy’s arrival and obvious distress, but it was none of his concern. He added a dozen more arms to his Vishnu form, trying to exhaust his processing power by coordinating hundreds of arms delicately weeding and trimming the plants around him. Anything to avoid re-analyzing today’s therapy session.

 

His therapist had assured him, yet again, that extended grief over the loss of a human bondfast was not uncommon. But none of his previous bondfasts’ passings had generated such debilitating melancholy. Hypatia herself would have urged him to move on, yet—

 

Samson realized he had ceased weeding. Instead he was projecting as a hermit monk, complete with flowing beard, sitting cross-legged amidst the plants. So much for not fixating on today’s psychoanalysis. Shifting his senses outward he discovered the boy sitting in front of him, imitating his pose, like a disciple before an ancient sage.

 

“Can I ask a question?” the boy asked.

 

Hypatia would have playfully said ‘You just did,’ but Samson merely nodded.

 

“Why are you gardener here? Wouldn’t an agro-bot be enough to tend the garden?”

 

Hypatia would have said that was two questions. He suppressed a rising irritation. His therapist had asked something similar, albeit more obliquely, insinuating that more challenging pursuits might move him beyond his sorrow.

 

“Isn’t the beauty here worth my efforts?”

 

The boy cocked his head, as if contemplating every possible interpretation of the answer, just as Hypatia had done during their endless debates and inquiries.

 

“Are you an Old One?”

 

“No, lad. A mere thousand years old. May I ask you a question?”

 

The boy nodded.

 

“Why so upset earlier, disrupting the garden’s serenity?” Samson had meant the last to be light-hearted, but the boy looked mortified.

 

“It will be easier if I just show you.” he whispered, neurolink requesting a temporary handshake for memory transmission.

 

Samson saw a teacher standing in the center of a semi-circular tiered classroom, a holo of the Terra Dyson Sphere floating above his head. “Please calculate the habitable surface area,” the teacher said.

 

Samson felt Eithin raise his hand.

 

Resignation flashed across the teacher’s face. “Yes, Eithin.”

 

“Does the Kikoma World Ocean count as habitable? Do I pretend the surface is all flat or must I calculate the surface area of, say, the Olympian Mountains. How about our floating city: is that part of the area you want?”

 

“Just calculate the surface area of a sphere one AU from the sun”, the teacher said tersely. “No need to overthink it.”

 

Hypatia would have chastised the teacher severely — first for his poorly worded question, then for trying to squash Eithin’s imagination.

 

A voice drawled out. “We should just throw him over the edge. He can rejoin the rest of the radioactive groundling trash.” The class laughed. The teacher remained silent.

 

The memory jumped: The voice from class, Lutibor Saeva, the prime minister’s son, confronted Eithin outside. Samson felt Eithin turn and run.

 

“My parents were citizens. Does my being born on the ground matter?”

 

“Of course not, lad.” Samson accessed City’s records. Eithin Stigan, eleven. Both parents killed when City’s Beta science outpost on the sphere’s surface was overrun by Irradiated Land raiders.

 

Before Eithin’s link closed, a deeper, older memory surfaced. A woman’s voice sang a lullaby composed of names of the elements.

 

* * *

 

Samson, a spindly giraffe, pruned dead leaves from the garden’s tallest trees. Never having seen such a beast, Eithin lay in the grass perusing Samson’s extensive database of animals searching for a match.

 

A taunting voice broke through his preoccupation. “Figures the groundling would be wallowing in dirt,” Lutibor said, standing above him.

 

“Strange comment,” Samson said. “Your father’s garden is significantly more elaborate than this.”

 

Startled by the voice from above, Lutibor pinged Samson’s public avatar.

 

“Samson,” Lutibor said aloud. Then he sneered, “My father calls you the broken AI.”

 

Eithin, still connected, caught Samson’s recollection of an old woman tongue-lashing Lutibor’s father. Eithin snickered. Lutibor snarled, lashing out. Eithin rolled away and came up into a crouch, ready to run. Instead Lutibor fled. Samson, now a massive coiling dragon, belched blazing fire after him.

 

* * *

 

Days later, Samson, in sage form, listened on the periphery of Eithin’s neurolink as the boy wove a path of connections and insights through City’s Archive. Hypatia would have wept for joy. Samson paused, realizing that this thought was not painful, merely mellowly wistful.

 

Suddenly excruciating agony engulfed Samson. Lutibor stood before him, brandishing an active Decoherence Wand. It tore into his quantum filament core. His projections collapsed, laying bare his natural iridescent cube body. Retreating deeper into his matrix, Samson wondered where Lutibor had acquired such an illegal device.

 

Eithin slammed into Lutibor from behind. “Stop hurting my friend!”

 

Lutibor threw the much smaller boy off. “You have no friends, maggot.” Lutibor turned the Wand, which promptly began decohering Eithin’s neural implants.

 

A flaming sword flashed, shattering the Wand. Lutibor scurried away. Samson emergency pinged Medical. He crouched over the writhing boy and began trying to stabilize Eithin’s implants. He probed the edges of the privacy protocols, expecting to get blocked. Eithin’s implants welcomed him in.

 

* * *

 

When the MedTechs arrived, they found Samson projecting as a seraphim, six wings wrapped around the pair in a protective shell. Samson slowly rocked the peacefully sleeping Eithin, gently singing the elements lullaby through their bonded neurolink.