Zeros and Ones: Zeros and Ones, #1

By J Batten

One world, many visitors inspired to build their empires through a common trading port.  From failing empires, grows desperation and from desperation sparks a grave idea to rule the world.  One scientist determined not to fail, changes the face of the world, spiraling a domino effect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J Batten
• Release date: Apr 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386308232

Book preview

Prologue

My father once scolded me about my behavior. There was a certain mannerism that I must possess when dealing with others. He insisted that there was the added special something that my bloodline possessed, which required me to behave a certain way different than the rest.

What makes us royal, my mother said, was that we are the trunk of a long bloodline, not the branches, not the stems, but the trunk. And before us was the root. I guess that would make my grandmother the root. We were natural beings of the world rooted as a new species. The rest look at us and examine us like some delicate flower ready to turn into a wild weed that they believe will destroy them all.

We were too powerful, too beautiful, too mentally capable. We were just too different from the rest. Our existence threatened them. We were eventually forced to leave where we were rooted from; for they were unable to understand our ways and how easily we lived our lives.

Time went by and they learned to live beside us, but not among us. We were still very different. We learned too much too fast. They didn’t know about how we caught on so quickly and silly me didn’t understand why they didn’t.

Not until one day I played with one of theirs. I tried speaking to her the way I spoke, sometimes, to my parents. But she didn’t respond. She couldn’t hear me. I told my mother and she said it was that special thing we had that they did not possess, that ability to speak with the mind with no voice to be made.

I took pity and I knew not what to do. I spoke aloud to my one and only friend from the rest of them. I told her mother said we were different, because we could speak with our mind and she couldn’t. Of course, she thought I was crazy and I had no proof to show her that I wasn’t.

Time had past and where we rooted, other life forms arose and they too spoke with the mind. Well, you can imagine that my secret was no longer a secret, but has been proven by the rest from their curiosity, from them watching and spying on us. They call it observing our behavior on how we interact with one another. Our secret now truths. The world, my world, of our natives all knew.

Still time had past. The rest traveled other worlds, visited ports, and began to trade. They began to allow trade to enter our world. I loved it. I loved to see the new faces of other kinds and their special gifts. I was not alone.

Here it is, I am what my mother call me a blossom. I bloomed, ready to stem, but with whom. My mother and my father both of one kind, but my kind was few and I could not find another like me to stem. My mother laughed and said I should do what our kind do, when there is none from ours. I must stem from the rest. That was when I found out that my father and ours were keeping a log of what we sprouted. They wanted to know from the rest, which one we yielded of our kind.

I was happy and scared at the same time. To sprout from the rest meant I had to leave my nest. I headed out to the only place I knew that I would feel the most comfortable. I headed to where we rooted, and grew our trunk. There I saw a city so wild and filled with life. People of so many kinds far and near. There were even our naturals there. The smell of the air, I recognized. I loved.

Time went by. I sprouted and yielded one of my own. She listened to me without me voicing a word. She knew me as I am and her father watched, demanding us to reveal our secrets. We laughed and kissed him so much to silence him. He loved us so. We loved. I loved.

Time took a step. It was the port that was at a disarray. There was chaos everywhere. People didn’t know how to deal with one another. Everyone demanding more than what they deserved. Demanding that they were owed. Fight turned into war and war was what I thought was the end of our world. The end of our people, the rest and my kind.

My daughter was holding my hand as the explosions took place all around me. I had nowhere to go with fire all around me. My husband running towards me. It was then.

Time stood still. He exploded before me, with my daughter holding my hand. I did nothing, but stand.

His embodiment turned instantly to ashes.

Thoughtlessly, I picked up his ashes and walked and walked and walked as I carried his ashes with my daughter holding my hand. We went to where my mother had her land.

She was there alone, too, I was afraid. We were left with no man but a family of woman that dared.

Dared we will. Dared we wish for our root to grow from under the ground and for it to find us where we were, on my mother’s land.

Time moved. It brought what we called for, our root. It sprouted underneath our feet to see us. My daughter kneeled down to examine it. I poured the ashes upon it, hoping that my husband would sprout. Hoping he will begin again. My mother saw my desperation and knew what she must do. She, too, took my father’s ashes and buried it near the root hoping to see my dear father to sprout again.

I kneeled beside my daughter as tears fell down, dropping to the ground, upon the root. I whispered I call then stopped. Instead we thought it through, hearing what we spoke of something to do. We said it, in our minds, as we spoke making our wishes come true.

My daughter I can hear her. She wished for father not to leave her, to always be there.

My mother, I feared for her. She wished for revenge to be above the unnatural, to always have powers above them.

And I heard my voice of nonsense that I said without speaking or thinking. I wished for many more wishes and the gift of magic I desperately needed. To bring my dear father and my beloved husband back to me. I wished and called for knowledge of life.

Time had become movement, inside of me. The wind broke and moved us out of there. No more fire to see. No more of that air I breathe. For I was engulfed into another atmosphere.

My mother, my daughter, and myself we moved out of there. Like magic. I possessed magic.

Just like that. It was the root that took us out of there. Away from the war on the same planet with a different kind of atmosphere.

Time went past. Our years grew long, like death would not come. We realized that something has become of us. We sprouted, we stemmed, we were one with the earth. Like the flowers and seeds everywhere.

It was then I knew, the knowledge of life. We were the few that survived the aftermath of the way. We were not to ever die, but relive many more lives of the long life we lived. Watching other kinds die before us, for they had become food for the earth. As we had now evolved as one with the earth.

The breeze took our breath as we watched it form. Out of the ashes they came for us to adorn. My dear father and my beloved husband formed from the ashes to make as whole. For we had now, again, have what we once hold.

And there you see of how our two new species came to be. One from the ashes and the other from the root of the earth. Both with everlasting life.

Now you know, what I must tell you in order to show you what I’ve seen of man, time and time again. Their greed, their selfishness, their turns and twists. What are we to do? Our fate is what life call us to do. Manage the worlds, the earths, the elements to formulate life as it should naturally be.

I call for life.

Another age has bestowed upon us. The age of Jug. His story, like others before him, has evolved others into a new life sprouting to their destiny. And so, I begin his story as I know it.

I wouldn’t want to show it.

Chapter 1   Revolt From Workers

It was midday when Sookie walked out of her home, but it felt more like it was night. The darkness was everywhere, like an overwhelming feeling of never winning a thing and of always failing. The day was very cloudy with wind gusts blowing hard against the leaves as they fell off the trees. She felt a storm brewing against the better judgment of the news. The Spirits were fighting again, the natives would say. They believe the weather was from the emotions of their Spirits. She wanted to believe, so it didn’t take long to adapt to the native’s stories and their beliefs. A world of magic and wonders that are explained with more elaborate stories, was how they lived. Sookie wore her sunglasses and a knit hat as she locked her door. Feeling and seeing the Spirits weren’t on her menu. She walked as if she was hidden in the shadows of her glasses. The shadows she needed to hide herself from her troubles. If she had the natives magic she would call for more money to afford a coat and brave the night of any storm. She walked passed the police, tugging her petite jacket together, as the wind blustered while pushing it open again. In the distance, she could see the crowd building up as the speaker walked to the platform. There were two guards stepping up next to him. They were dressed with armor from head to toe, their face hidden underneath their mask. The men of steal, armored to kill all who oppose and to protect every Digi. She pushed her way through the crowd and stationed herself near the fig tree.

They were just crowded shadows yelling and screaming in protest. She watched the images getting bigger and bigger as the crowd grew. It was the darkest tinted glasses she could find. Somewhere deep down she felt that the day was going to be pointless, but she had to try. She made a promise to her boyfriend, who was on his way, to meet and join the protesters. They were going to celebrate her birthday together, for he was born on the same day as her. Her boyfriend had the same birthday as she. But her birthday meant more than sharing it with her boyfriend. At sixteen, she had just gotten her new home and a new job. She had waited in anticipation for her birthday, when she would finally be declared as an adult. She would finally become the age of the land to be granted more than what the protesters called, the bare minimum. She wanted a bigger place to stay.

The ships came many years ago and within 16 years from settling, the marketplace flourished. Sixteen years was the age of the land for the foreigners, and when the young became an adult. But as an adult, she was bombarded with the current issues that the workers imposed on her. They wanted her to join forces and demand more pay and better housing for the young. They were right, she’s been working all her life, picking berries and selling it at the marketplace. The money went to her family, so that they would become rich and to finally return home with exotic goods and more riches. She has seen her sister become rich from the wild explosion of the marketplace, but it was easier for her then and things have gotten worse. Sookie was ready for the new changes. She had always wanted what her sister achieved. The best of everything. A rich husband, a large home, beautiful clothes, and high-class friends and her way back to their home planet. Instead, six months before her birthday and trying to save for a better life, her situation had gotten worse. They had to pay back any unpaid rent from the time they were given free dwellings. The beginning of their nightmare rolled out destroying all of their dreams.

The complaints came pouring in. The young making 20k a year and paying out 85% of their salary. Hardly living. Something was wrong. It came sudden like the storm she saw coming, as everyday her apartment became a holding cell. The walls was a blank canvas, white with no depth. It had to end. Her nothingness of her life had become overwhelming, when her debt tripled. Now there was no way to go back home. She felt stuck under the tree, unable to move, still resting on the fact she was a prisoner in a world that is not her own.

Her eyes fixed into the distance as the empty blank walls turned into the shadowy images of people protesting. Bare minimum! Barely none! They chanted. We want it undone!

The speaker, Matthew, cleared his throat, before beginning. Bare minimum was what they were truly getting, but somehow, he had to convince them otherwise. The faces were stern and desperate, like lost people trapped on a world that their fathers and forefathers had condemned them to. If only they had the foresight of today, their children wouldn’t be suffering. The crowd grew quiet as Matthew paused for his much-needed attention. They grew exceptionally positive, seeing Matthew’s smile forming to ease their tensions. Their intense excitement was slowly settling. Their chants of bare minimum vanished to a dull murmured afterthought as new-found hope surfaced.

Matthew had all the answers. He was going to save the day with words of hope and transformation into a better world. Matthew had always been on their side and a spokesman for the workers. Being a person starting from the bottom and not born into wealth, was a comforting factor to know about him. The crowd loved that Matthew was one of them. He had worked alongside them, demanding a better system and a better way of life. He had fought for their last pay increase and won. They knew that they might not get another chance. Instead they were expecting better homes. Their homes were often a one-bedroom house, crunched besides one another, like a forest of cement blocks creating a maze that they were lost in. They wanted better designs, more bedrooms, brighter colors, and a space for a yard. They were tired