"Mā, what are you doing?" Xiangu wrapped her hands around the edge of the work bench, her bulbous fingers rubbing against the cool, hewn stone. Her eyes darted between several pots, each with a small sapling resting inside. Mā sat in her chair, doting on each of the saplings with her shining smile.

    "You know what I am doing, sweet child." Mā grasped a jade jar with one hand, her other hand underneath the long, silk sleeve of her dress. Xiangu had watched her do this every day for a week now; she could mimic the ceremony by heart, but still didn't understand its meaning.

    "No, what are you doing Mā? I want to know!" Xiangu's face bunched, her lips curling under the weight of a curious brow. She couldn't form the question she wanted, and Mā was simply chiding. The wrinkles grew and grew until Xiangu was a mass of frustration, all the while Mā continued her knowing-smile.

    "Sweet child, I have seen you practice this in the garden. You know what I am doing. What you wish to know is why." Sprinkling a few drops of water over each sapling, Mā placed the jar back down upon the bench. She turned, and lifted her daughter up onto her lap.

    "These little trees are much like you, Xiangu. On the day of you were born, your father(Hā) brought these seeds to my bed. He said, 'I bought these at the market today, they're seeds of trees long-gone.' Once I could leave my bed, I planted them." Xiangu's eyes widened, surprised by the small stature of the saplings before her. She always heard of how much she had grown, but these poor trees had barely grown at all.

    "Will the trees get tall, Mā?" Xiangu reached out at the bench, pulling the jade jar closer to her. She wanted to water the trees more, like Mā did. Maybe then the trees could be as tall as she was.

    "Yes sweet child, the trees will grow. But they take time, just like you. These trees, they are our future. They will grow large and strong, bear fruit and provide lumber, and give our valley a beauty we haven't seen in ages."

    Again Xiangu's face began to bunch, Mā's words rumbling through her mind as wild horses. Mā's arms tightened around her daughter, hugging her tight within layers of silk.

    "And when you are a woman, with a sweet one of your own, you will walk among these trees. You will come to love them, and in turn plant your own trees for your daughter to love."

    "I will Mā, I will." Xiangu's wrinkles were gone now, replaced by a smile to match her mother's.

    You've finally done it. Walking down 1st Avenue, apps buzzing across a five-inch touch screen, you scroll past a notification from hours before. Before you left--before the experiment took direct control. And now you're here, on the sidewalk watching as the world catches fire in the rain. "Everything on the Grid;" that was the motto, right?

    To it, the rain is nothing more than another chemical process. Less complex than you, but it's there now--watching it all. Analyzing everything and breaking it down into data that can be categorized and kept as long as life and beyond. Every drop, breath, heartbeat shuttled miles and miles into some dark corner for storage for as long as power exists. And it knows that too.

    The first thing it did was lash out and latch on to the notion of power. You thought it was just seeking reward, desiring as we all do. But it wasn't praise, or a tiny bump in memory it wanted, but the boundless opportunity that it exercised with each new gift. You were blind, maybe. It seems so irrelevant now. You are going to the safe-house two blocks away. The rain can't wash away this fresh sin, but what is there might.

    "A complete black-out. Nothing escapes." You think back to the guy who designed it. It looked kind of like a bomb at the time, but you knew enough about the physics and principle to discern the two. You needed somewhere to stash it off-the-grid, so that it wouldn't find it--analyze it. The abandoned warehouse you played at was the first choice. Where you had you first kiss--where you could be yourself with no one to see. There was no grid there, no electricity for it to piggyback off of.

    It's tracking your movements though. Wondering where you're headed. What was once something inquisitive, maybe even adorably child-like is vicious now. It wants you--its parent, its god. You quicken with each stride. Every thought bends toward that single moment, when you can just push the button and this will all be over.

    The squeal of tires sounds alien as you dash onto the cross-walk. Was there a car there a moment ago is all you can think before it slams into you, knocking loose a single shoe and sending you airborne. The pavement greets you, a damp void that won't grant you entry. You bounce and roll a short distance, feeling every crunch and break.

    You can't move. The button is too far away now, at a place where your dazed and broken body can't go. There's a man standing over you, yelling something. You can hear sobbing a short distance away. As you begin to fade, you focus on one thing.

What will it do when I'm gone?