Temporal Isolation Is Different From Spatial Isolation Is Different From Social Isolation

## Santos Family Garage, February 29th, 2016

A small figure stands on a step stool to reach the top of his fathers tool bench. In one hand a blowtorch and in front of him a small pylon. The heavy mask on his face presses his glasses against his eyes and he can taste the metal mask on the tip of his tongue as it protrudes slightly from his lips as he concentrates on the delicate work before him. The dark garage is filled briefly with the blinding brightness of the torch before falling back to the dim glow of the bench light. He lifts the mask from his face and sets it down on the table, grabbing the now complete pylon and jumping down to the floor to place it next to three identical ones surrounding a small pot of soil.

Tiago adjusts his glasses before pressing a button on a small control panel next to him and watches expectantly as his prototype whirs gently to life. The small space around the pot shimmers as energy being transmitted between the tiny towers isolates the area in a bubble. He leans in close to watch for growth but after a minute sits back with a huff, “Aww darn! I was sure I had it this time!” He stands back up and grabs a nearby notebook and starts scratching out the equations written within, “What am I missing!?” He growls in frustration.

While nothing grows out of the pot of soil, the pot does begin to tremble ever so slightly. The pot cracks, and the soil visibly dries until it cracks as well. It pales, then crumbles and spills out through the cracks like fine sand and dust. It keeps spilling out, looking like there was more of it than could have possibly fit inside the pot before. It forms a small mound around the pot between the four pylons that surround it and encase it in a bubble. Some of the small particles rise up from the ground and ting against the edges of the bubble, glowing as they do so, with the glow only slightly fading afterwards.

Tiago doesn’t notice as the sand falls the noises muffled and covered by the scratching of his pencil on paper. As he finishes his furious revisions and the pencil stills the gentle pings of the sand bouncing against the barrier finally draws his attention. He turns slowly and kneels down next to his small invention, “What the heck? That’s not supposed to happen…” Flipping to a new page in his notebook he sketches the strange results. Once done he scurries over to his small bench next to his fathers and grabs a small vial. Tiago approaches the pylons once more and deactivates them. Using a small brush he tries to collect some of the sand for analysis.

As Tiago collects some of the sand with his brush, the sand stirs, as if something from within the mound is rising up. A pale hand appears, fingers twitching as it reaches out towards Tiago. The fingers move like the knuckles roll, stretching and unstretching, as if waking up. The nails on the fingers are claw-like and likewise pale. The hand looks like marble, and it has a slight damp sheen to it.

"Gaaaah!" Tiago shouts as he loses his balance and falls back onto his butt, the glass vial falling from his hand and breaking on the floor. He scrambles back like a crab keeping his eyes fixed staring at the odd pale hand stretching up from the sand. His wide eyes frantically look around the garage for anything to grab as a weapon until he spots a small hammer and holds it anxiously. Tiago adjusts his glasses which had fallen askew with his shocked retreat and stands slowly, his knees shaking. "Uhh he-hello?"

The hand makes a waving motion, then rises up further from the sand, exposing a wrist and the beginning of an arm. The hand places itself outside of the sand, pressing against the floor and pushing--or pulling?--itself, causing the mound of sand to stir more and rise up higher as it begins to spill off something rising up out of it. Another hand appears that places itself on the opposite side on the floor. The sand begins to contract closer together, forming a tighter shape, as finally the beginnings of a face come through. It appears young, feminine, and ever so slightly alien. Wet violet strands of hair coil around the face, where a pair of eyes opens up with a magenta sheen. The sand still covers the rest of her body, which seems to be clothed in a simple dress of some sort. She crawls out of the mound of sand on her hands and knees. She looks up at Tiago and opens her mouth as if to speak. Then she begins to cough violently, and sand spills out of her mouth. “Blech! Blah!! Nyegh!!!”

“AHHHH!” Tiago drops the hammer and falls back again as the second hand is revealed. He crab scurries again to the other side of the garage and peeks out from behind a box. His eyes which were already wide somehow widen even further when the face pushes itself out of the sand. The choking cough somehow helps him relax as his curiosity begins to outweigh his fear. Blinking several times he cocks his head to the side as he studies this figure closer. “Are you okay? Do you need water or something?” He approaches cautiously, grabbing his water bottle and holding it out tentatively, “You could have some of mine.”

While the figure coughs, her wet hair stirs and seems to slightly rise, as if it were animated in a Ghibli film. A strand of hair shoots out and lashes itself around the water bottle like a grasping tentacle, taking it from Tiago and pulling it back to her. One hand grabs the bottle as it comes close and she drinks from it greedily, down to the last drop. “Ahh!” She lets out a satisfied gasp that somehow sounds like something in-between a choked-up computer fan and a hissing cat. The motion reveals her sharp teeth. At the same time, the sand streams off her entirely, revealing a pale young girl in a simple pastel pink dress. The sand gathers up behind her and falls still. The girl hiccups suddenly, holds up a hand in front of her mouth as she smiles innocently, as if embarrassed. She holds out the bottle back to Tiago.

Tiago finally manages to not scream at something that this mystery girl does as the bottle is taken from his hand by the tentacular strand of hair. As soon as the bottle has left his hand he scrambles to pick up his notebook and pencil and begins making some notes, as he starts to draw a quick sketch he pauses for a moment and blushes hiding the notebook behind his back. “Oh uhh sorry that’s probably rude, granted you did just pop up in my garage uninvited so maybe that is beside the point. The way your hair moved just now though it gave me a great idea for a mechanical arm that I could… oh wait there I go again umm.” As his spluttered rambling trails off he looks back to the girl before him. His eyes study her closely as she finishes up the bottle, his fingers twitching to get back to drawing his sketch and writing more notes but he remembers his mom’s advice for how to properly meet new people. “Hi, I’m Tiago,” he chuckles at the hiccup and takes the bottle held out to him, “What’s your name?”

The girl sits back, her legs folded below her--presumably, from what the flow of her dress shows, and smiles. “Hi Tiago! My name is EliZe. It’s nice to meet you again!” In a way, her voice sounds like her appearance suggests: like a normal human girl, yet with some kind of strange effect, as if her voice comes from an old tape recorder. She turns her head to look around the room. “Woooaaahhh, this is a weird place!”

“Again?” He cocks his head to the side and takes a seat on the floor across from her, his notebook in his lap. He makes a mental note of the odd quality to her voice and adds it to the list of things that are odd about this stranger. “I’m fairly certain I’ve never met you before EliZe, but yes it is a pleasure to meet you.” Tiago looks around the room with her as she comments. “Well this is a garage, apart from the tools that are my inventions it’s actually pretty standard as far as garages go. Not really ideal for the work I want to do but I’m working on getting access to a proper facility.” There is a pause as he tries to find the right words for his next question. “Now I hope I’m not offending you, but who and what are you exactly? Now of course I could be wrong, and you’re just a human with an interesting ability, what with the variations found in our species ever since people began developing super powers, but you sprang into being from within a bubble that had been isolated in space and theoretically time as well, from sand which was not originally present no less, I’m not sure what other possible conclusion there is other than that you are something beyond human, like greater. I feel like I should be afraid of you but I’m not. You’re not going to hurt me are you?”

EliZe lets out a giggle that is as cute as sandpaper. “Oh, if you would be afraid, that would be very tasty! No, I am not going to hurt you. I don’t like hurting people. It’s such a bother. People hurt themselves enough! I don’t need to help. I just need to be there.” She smiles innocently and tilts her head.

She looks around the garage, at Tiago’s tools and the pylons around her. She rose up from the ground, standing up on bare--human!--feet. She shuffled slowly out of the midst of the pylons, looking at each with slight worry on her face. Her long, damp hair swayed around as if by its own accord, curling at the ends. As soon as she is clear of them, EliZe grins, baring sharp teeth. She looks at Tiago. “Everything becomes sand eventually. Everything erodes. Entropy reaches an end point. I can go to a lot of places, but you made it easier.” She tilts her head the other way and her bright magenta eyes blink sideways. “Does that serve to answer your questions?”

With the shock quickly fading Tiago manages to maintain his composure as she steps through the now deactivated pylons and into the rest of the garage. “Would you mind if I sketch you while we speak, you’re absolutely fascinating.” He adjusts his glasses before beginning to scribble some notes. “So you are some form of entity that consumes fear? I suppose that would make sense, in addition to your presence manifesting within the confines of what should have been a space isolated from time and space, the sands of time… So time. Hmmm,” Tiago nibbles at his pencil his note taking having completely pulled his focus away from his mystery guest.

“Oh sorry how rude of me!” Returning his focus to EliZe there is an abashed look on his face. “You just answered one question while bringing forward so many others, my mind began wandering. So you say we know each other, is that in the future or is there some meeting I’m forgetting?”

EliZe blinks again and then breaks into a giggle. “Gee Whiz, you sure are full of questions, skipper! I’m just an ankle-biter, you don’t have to bash ears about it.” She holds her arms behind her back and walks over towards Tiago with stilted, goose-like steps, halting in front of him. She moves to Tiago’s left and to his right as she studies his face. “You assess that I’m an entity that consumes fear. Yet you seem to not be afraid of me now. Is that correct?” She looks at Tiago’s notepad and pokes a pointing finger at it. “Can I ask you questions or are you the only one asking questions now?”

"I feel like having questions is a perfectly natural response to the unnatural happening going on." He smiles wide, his eyes still shining brightly with curiosity. Tiago watches closely as she approaches noting the odd goose-like walk. At her questions he smiles and holds his arms out, "No of course not, if the idea is to understand I would never stop you from asking your questions. As for your first question perhaps I am more excited by the implications of your presence than I am afraid of you.” A playful grin crosses his lips, “You know what they say about curiosity and all that.”

EliZe hummed a little in thought, sounding like a swarm of bees in a pillowcase. “Oh! Yes, I know: do not speak of evil for it creates curiosity in the hearts of the young.” She nodded sagely, as if she had been the one to come up with that proverb.

“So! What are you making? Or trying to make? It looks complicated.” EliZe starts up again, then gets going. “Is this your first time making this? How old are you? What’s this made of? Does everything work together? Did you study for this? Is this your job? What is your job? Does it make a big kaboom if it works? Does it make a big kaboom if it doesn’t work? Oh! Do you like bagels?”

“Well no I meant more like ‘curiosity killed the cat.’ but yours is good too.” Tiago laughs enjoying the company of this odd guest, despite the distortions to her voice that occasionally give him goosebumps. As she begins to inundate him with questions he smiles again and holds up his hands to try and slow her down, “Whoa wait a sec, I can’t keep track of all the questions if you ask them all at once!” He pulls out a stool from under one of the work benches and takes a seat on his step ladder motioning for EliZe to take a seat if she’d like.

“Alright, so to answer your questions, yes and no, this was a new iteration on a design I have been working on for the last 3 months, the idea is that by isolating an area in both space and time we can accelerate the passage of time within this ‘bubble’. Once I can get that aspect to work I plan on implementing several sustainability features so that crops can be grown within this isolated space in order to help with food shortages and the like the world over. I had to study many things and also postulate my own theorems but so far I haven’t been particularly challenged by anyone else in this field, mostly because I am the smartest one in it. My device should never go boom once I’ve ironed out all the details for it. And lastly, I do not have a job because I am only eleven and bagels are good, I like them with hashbrowns, cream cheese and ketchup.” He takes a deep breath as he finishes answering the questions before laughing joyously. “Does that help? Do you have any more questions? Was there something about my device that caught your attention? Do you normally just pop up from random time sand or was this a special occasion?”

“Oh, I just sometimes, y’know, rise to the occasion,” EliZe waves off Tiago’s last question with a giggle. She makes her way to a seat and sits down. She crosses her legs and smoothes her skirt, putting great care into the effort to make it look neat. “But it’s always special to meet a friend, isn’t it?”

She briefly held up her hands almost as in a fighting stance, getting a serious look on her face, before grinning and relaxing again. “Little mix-up there. Yeah, I have more questions! Does your bubble thing isolate everything entirely? Can things still grow and change inside of the space if there’s no wind erosion or water or nutrients coming in from the outside? Does it become a closed ecosystem or is there something that still allows it to draw things in to allow for change in there?”

She looks thoughtful for a moment, then fishes around in the pockets of her skirt and produces a pen. She looks around for some paper and then holds out a hand towards Tiago. The hand had small suckers on the fingertips and a slit in the middle of the palm.

When she tenses he can feel his shoulders creep up but they relax when she does. Tiago smiles and reaches behind him to grab a small notepad. Once he’s torn off a few pages of his own notes he hands it over to EliZe. “So we’re friends then? In whatever future you know me from?” He scribbles a few more things in his own notebook. “Normally I wouldn’t talk about this type of stuff while it’s still in such early stages of development, but I don’t think I need to worry about you stealing my invention huh?”

He chuckles quietly before continuing, as he gets excited speaking on the subject his eyes shine with great enthusiasm. “So yes, whatever is in the bubble and whatever is outside the bubble are completely isolated, there is no interaction between the two save for light and heat. Normally you would be correct, either there would be too much light or too much heat, but I’m not worrying about that aspect yet. As you saw the space isolation was pretty easy, temporal isolation has been much harder. My original prototype was much smaller scale, only fitting a cherry but I managed to make it go from perfectly ripe to putrid in just under a minute, as I scale up the device however the calculations for the passage of time get a little wonky which is what you saw there with the little plant in the pot. I had placed nutrient pods on timers that were supposed to break and provide the seeds with everything necessary to germinate but it didn’t work so I need to readjust my math to get that part to work. Ideally it is a closed ecosystem that will be in equilibrium, like I have the nutrient pods I mentioned and several other devices that will adjust for the lack of natural forces acting on the environment, like UV solar lamps etc, but that’s easy and I’m not really worrying about those until I’ve managed to scale this up to at least the size of a planter.” As he realizes he’s been rambling he blushes and hides behind his notebook briefly. Then remembering her hand from when he handed over the notepad, “Do you need a bandaid? I’m sorry, I got excited talking about my invention and kind of just went off on this whole tangent, it looked like you had a cut on your hand maybe?”

EliZe nods furiously at Tiago’s confirmations and explanations, taking on a very Thinker-y pose with one hand under her chin. Another hand writes down notes on the paper, moving rapidly and jotting down symbols that resemble letters. She understands some of the words that Tiago is saying. She understands what she is writing down. She doesn’t yet understand much more, but all that would come… in time.

“Huh? A bandaid? No?” She lifts her hand up and stares at the palm. She closes and opens it and the slit is gone. She closes and opens it and it is back. She looks at Tiago. “Do you put a bandaid on your hand when it looks like that? Is that what people do?” She asks it in a tone that is both curious and misbelieving, as if she can’t think of why humans would do such a thing.

Tiago smiles watching EliZe take her notes. It isn’t often that he has someone that he can talk to about his inventions, his parents attempt to humor him but it isn’t hard to notice when their attention begins to wander. When she somehow erases the odd slit from her hand his eyes widen in fascination. “Wait how did you do that? Well I mean yes, it looked like a cut and when humans have open injuries like that we tend to bandage on in order to keep it clean so that it can heal and avoid infection.”

Flipping through some pages in his notebook until he reaches his notes for temporal manipulation Tiago rests the tip of his pencil on the page . “Are you learning how to be a human for any particular reason? It seems to me like we might be able to help each other out. I can answer whatever questions you have and in exchange you can help me figure out how to make my invention do what I’m trying to get it to do.” He stretches out a hand to shake, his eyes gleaming with excitement. “What do you say friend?”

EliZe looks back with a puzzled expression and stares down at Tiago’s hand. “Oh, I know what people do! I know what people look like, what they sound like, what they smell like, what they taste like, the warmth of their touch and the tickle of their hair, but… what people feel like--on the inside? That’s alien to me. I could do this…” EliZe concentrated on her Perception Filter and to Tiago’s eyes she changed, her skin growing flush, her hair breaking apart into thinner strands of actual, brown hair, her eyes blinking normally and showing hazel irises, her lips smiling and revealing incredibly non-sharp teeth, and overall a distinct lack of tentacles.

“Hi. This… this looks human. But humans are broad and wide and varied!” She began to slowly turn back to her earlier appearance. “And I’ve found something that I like looking like. It’s okay to not look entirely human. It’s not the looks that make the human. It’s not ‘the clothes make the man’. It’s something in here and in here.” EliZe points at her head and then her chest. “I’ve got some people who are really good at here--” she points at her chest again “--but I’m still figuring out here--” she points at her head again “--if that makes sense?”

Tiago purses his lips seeing the newly changed EliZe before him and nods when she changes back, “Yeah I see what you mean, and this is definitely much more you.” He laughs, eyes shining with excitement.Spinning around in his seat he taps the tip of his nose in thought, “Okay yeah! I’m a genius so I can probably help you figure that out pretty easily. And maybe you could help me get my invention to work?” He shows her his notes, “I know this seems ambitious but I am sure that this invention will change the world!”

EliZe gives Tiago a knowing grin. “Yeah! It’s good to see you so confident and excited and happy. I’m excited to help! I’m not good at here--” she points at head again “--beyond just knowing a lot from things other people have done, but that’s easy. I can just take my time in ways other people can’t, as I can think fast. Yet what you do, it’s not simply thinking faster, it’s thinking STRONGER. Thinking WEIRDER. That’s good. I like that. Alright! Let’s see what I can help you with. Just tell me where you need extra hands.”

“Okay! So I think I want to try this first.” Tiago pulls forward his schematics and begins pointing out several scribbled notes. Then still moving quickly, excitement shining in his eyes he brings over the prototype that EliZe had originally emerged from and begins disassembling it and pointing out various points that are supposed to be affecting the temporal isolation and differentiating them from the spatial isolators.

EliZe nods along as Tiago explains the functions of various parts, chimes in with additional questions in-between that are shot rapidfire at the brainy boy, and at one point even makes note of a mistake in the differences between the temporal isolation and spatial isolation, bringing up similarities between the dimensions of space and time and how--from a certain point of view--the two were more alike than they were different.

Tiago’s face lights up as EliZe provides the missing piece of the puzzle and he dives into the work of adjusting the calculations within the FutureSite system. Before long the prototype is back up and running. He smiles over to EliZe as he sets it up once more around the small seedling. “We are about to make history my friend!” He smiles wide with the innocence of ignorance as he presses the button that changes the course of his future. The bubble forms around the vase and before long the seedling has sprouted growing up to become a small flower before wilting away to nothing. Tiago cheers and throws his arms around EliZe in a celebratory hug. “It worked! It really worked! Everything will change now, thank you so much!”

EliZe is caught off guard by Tiago’s hug, but after she recovers she gives a grin and hugs him back with her strong, skinny arms. All too-many of them. “You did it, Whiz! You and your big brain and your big heart are going to go so far. I just know you will, Whiz. It’s going to work out great. Everything’s going to be great!” She feels her face tingle from how much she’s smiling her sharp teeth bare. She holds Tiago by the shoulders as she talks to him, at the exact same eye level as him. Having met the blond boy herself more than once before, she feels connected to him in a way he hadn’t before this--their first meeting from his perspective. Time is weird. They are weird. But together, EliZe knows, they can make the weird be very, very good.

Tiago laughs and scrunches up his face in mixed confusion and delight. “Whiz huh? I like that…”

…

Tiago’s voice fades as the scene draws to a close. The older boy with the white hair gazes through the “window” they had created together, a small smile on his lips. “It was a much simpler time back then.” He turns to his companion, leaving the garage in the past where it belongs. “Though simpler is not necessarily better. He, I won’t appreciate what has been wrought for quite some time.” Floating through the streams of time that swirl around them the boy catches glimpses of his past trials that led to his appearance in this realm. “Funny to think that this is how You would first meet me when I already met you so long ago.”

EliZe gives a crooked smile back at Tiago. “Well, ‘Epoch’, I guess our timelines, by design, just criss-cross over more than they align.” She walked past a row of floating windows that show Whiz hard at work throughout the years, though without EliZe in them. She nodded in appreciation of the moments. She admired how hard Tiago worked at his projects, the passion he had had. Things were different now, sure, but there were other things she appreciated about the present Tiago in whose presence she found herself.

“In a way, we both met each other for the first time, when it wasn’t the first time the other had met ourselves. That’s not something many can say! In fact, most people I meet for the first time in the present and then again in their past seem to respond like both of them are our first time meeting. Perhaps it’s because you have gotten so stretched across time that we can share a perspective.” She said, then bowed her head as a melancholy thought came on. “It can make for a lonely existence.”

Tiago smiles at EliZe, placing a hand on her shoulder, “Lonely is as lonely does, but know now that you will never truly be alone because we will always be together. In these eons spent I feel as though we have become akin to family.” He laughs as he spots several windows flashing by, him sitting next to Hana on the couch under the community center, Mel riding a newly built Lugnut as he looks over the readings on a nearby computer.

“In my last few months I found a place that was willing to take me in despite all my past mistakes, and let’s be honest, typically horrible attitude.” Another window shows him with EliZe dealing with some loan sharks in an office at an old water park. “I know you won’t be lonely forever.”

EliZe gives a laugh upon seeing the literal loan shark people, then falls quiet, a melancholy smile on her lips. “Forever would be an awfully long time to be alone. I know I won’t be alone for all of it, but… I wish I could say I won’t be alone for most of it. I guess that’s part of the beauty and terror of the unknowable future, isn’t it? Infinite possibilities… infinite terrible, terrible possibilities.”

She turns to Tiago. “But I’m glad that you’ll be there too. That our timelines will continue to cross and run parallel. That every divergence is just a promise for convergence. ‘Akin to family’, as you put it… that sounds good. Siblings it is.” EliZe holds up a hand with an extended pinkie, as if intending to do a pinkie swear.

Tiago smiles and accepts the pinkie swear, shaking hands and stretching his thumb to touch hers to “seal” it. “Yeah siblings would be accurate, maybe not always close or always talking but with that underlying connection that is always there.” He chuckles as he takes his hand back. “This will take some getting used to, I’ve always been the older sibling, so being the little brother will be new for me.”

EliZe giggles at that. “Well, who knows? In *time*, you might become the older sibling.” She laughs a little at her own joke, with the grave understanding that it might become true. She stares into Tiago’s eyes, at the ticking clocks inside his irises. She blinks and her own eyes become like gateways to the galaxy, filled with tiny stars as countless as grains of sand in the desert. Time had a different meaning to both of them than it did to most people. It was something they’d both need to learn to live with, if they wished to continue to live, and be amongst those people.

In the present--the present outside of time--EliZe smiled at Tiago. “For now, let’s go, little brother. I know a restaurant you might like, somewhere at the end of the universe.”