We got back to work. As before, we split up on either side of the trail—the foothills stretched gently away in both directions, covered in short grass, easy enough to walk across. Almost immediately I spotted the first decent nugget, told Art about it, and he moved in to collect.
A little later, as we went on, I noticed an old wooden bridge crossing the river. The thought hit me at once: this was where my path and Zara’s diverged, and today there would be no chance of “accidentally” running into her again. My thoughts kept circling back to her. I replayed her look, her words—especially the last ones: “Maybe sometime we’ll talk… or message.”
What had she meant by that? And what was I supposed to do now?
Of course, I wanted to call her or write to her right away. But I knew she wasn’t expecting that. And more than anything, I was afraid of seeming intrusive—of irritating her.
Art tried a few times to start a conversation, but I answered absently, in short phrases. Then one of his questions finally caught my attention and pulled me out of the whirl of memories.
“Hey, Mac,” I heard him say through the clip. “Do you remember when we were sitting at Lemar’s, talking about similarities and differences between Variants? About how, for example, the languages people speak are almost identical? I said back then that there was an explanation I personally agreed with.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I remember.”
“Hold on—another one,” Art interrupted himself, having spotted a new nugget.
We fell silent. As always during collection, Art worked with his back to the rock, scanning the surroundings. When he finished and the tacle retracted back into his pack, he went on:
“So. In our Variant, there’s what’s known as the Hypothesis of the First Ones.”
“The what?” I asked.
“The Hypothesis of the First Ones,” Art repeated—this time sending it as a text message. The words appeared capitalized. Then he switched back to voice.
“It exists in academic circles. And notice—hypothesis, not theory, not concept. There’s no hard scientific proof. But it’s hugely popular in the Net. There are dozens of forums and communities discussing it. Online, by the way, people more often don’t say the First Ones—they call them the Primes.”
He sent Primes as text as well—capitalized again—and continued with voice:
“According to the hypothesis, the Primes are the ones who created the Gates. And with them, all the technology of transitions between Variants. Possibly the Variants themselves. In other words, it was the Primes who caused the Fractures—the events from which these worlds emerged.”
He paused, clearly giving me time to digest that. I caught myself walking with my eyes fixed on the ground and forced myself to look up again, scanning for nuggets. Almost at once I spotted a small one and called Art over. As he collected it, he continued:
“What matters most here isn’t even the details—not how omnipotent the Primes might be, although the Net argues about that endlessly—but the very assumption that they exist at all.”
“How could they not?” I said thoughtfully. “Someone had to create the Gates. I mean—the Gates and everything connected to them.”
“Well, theoretically,” Art said, raising a finger slightly, “it’s not entirely impossible that the Gates, the Fractures, the Storms, Essence—all of it—are simply natural phenomena. Like rainbows. Or seasons. Or hurricanes. Or… say, gravity.”
I thought about it. I pictured the Gates. Essence. Storms. Even the Rifts of worlds—yes, all of that could be seen as objective natural processes, forces of reality.
But the Gates—no. That didn’t work. The Gates felt artificial. Deliberate.
I told Art exactly that. Even from a distance, I saw him smile and nod.
“I think so too,” he agreed. “And it’s not just the Gates—it’s the structure of the worlds themselves. Look: the Rifts happened thousands of years ago, at least. More likely tens, maybe hundreds of thousands. In that time, languages should have changed—diverged beyond recognition. But they haven’t. They’re almost identical. The probability of that being a coincidence is practically zero.”
I thought it over—and completely agreed. I told him so.
“Let’s keep going,” Art continued, clearly satisfied. “Science and technology. Or rather—key discoveries and inventions. They’re almost identical across different worlds. The simplest example is the Net. We call it the Net, you call it the Internet, but the essence is the same. Some Variants don’t have it yet, but that’s most likely just a matter of time. And that brings us to the next important point.
Key scientific and technological breakthroughs in different worlds are nearly identical—but they happen at different times. It’s as if someone is watching each world from the outside and, when a world ‘ripens,’ when it meets certain criteria, that someone simply whispers the next breakthrough into the minds of the people living there.”
He paused briefly, then went on:
“This is especially noticeable with destructive technologies. And that’s the third point. They only appear once humanity has become sufficiently civilized and wise not to destroy itself with them.”
It didn’t even occur to me to argue. Everything he said sounded perfectly logical, internally consistent.
“Yes, wars exist. Mass killings exist. In most Variants, all of this still happens,” he continued. “But in none of them has humanity completely wiped itself out. No world has erased intelligent life from the planet. And yet—it easily could have. Just imagine how much higher the risk would have been if, say, in your Variant, technologies of global destruction—like the atomic bomb—had appeared significantly earlier than they actually did.”
I imagined it.
And felt a cold wave of terror.
“The people of the Fourth Variant came the closest to the edge,” Art went on. “A global catastrophe did happen there. Humanity was thrown back centuries. But they survived. Civilization—damaged, fragmented, reduced—still endured.”
He hesitated for a moment, as if unsure whether to continue. Then, apparently, he decided to:
“By the way… Zara was born and raised there. She told me this morning.”
I froze. Stared at him. My heart began to pound, my breathing faltered.
Art stopped as well and looked at me—calmly, even with a hint of sympathy.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “She’s lived in our Variant for a long time now. And as far as I understand, she rarely visits her home world—if at all. But we striders have to go there regularly. Storms happen there too, same as everywhere else.”
Gradually, I came back to myself. We started walking again. For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then Art moved a little closer and nodded ahead.
“You should try not to forget about the job,” he said. “You just walked past a nugget like that.”
I looked up—and realized that once again I’d been trudging along, staring blindly at the ground, seeing nothing around me. I felt embarrassed.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“It’s fine,” Art said encouragingly, as he latched the tacle onto the nugget. When its glow faded almost completely into the background, he retracted the tacle.
“So. Back to the topic,” he went on. “The hypothesis of the First Ones claims that both the Gates and all advanced technologies were created by the Primes. They’re usually imagined as an ancient—almost or even fully omnipotent—civilization. And after that, opinions diverge. Some believe the Primes are still invisibly present among us. Others think they have their own Variant. World Zero.”
I looked at Art and noticed that he was watching my reaction closely, as if it genuinely mattered to him. I thought for a moment—and almost immediately understood why.
“You believe this Zero World exists, don’t you?” I said slowly. “And you hope to reach it.”
Art nodded, smiling faintly. His eyes lit up with genuine fascination, with the focused intensity of a researcher—and, I thought, with a trace of obsession. And that obsession suddenly spread to me as well. I imagined what it would be like to solve this riddle, to find a way to reach those who could create entire worlds.
“Are you with me?” he asked quietly. He tried to sound calm, but I could hear the tension in his voice.
I nodded firmly, meeting his gaze. And all at once I felt it—a goal. A real one. Something vast and meaningful, worth devoting a life to. The feeling was exhilarating.
Art seemed to read it on my face. He broke into a wide smile and let out a relieved breath.
“Great, Mac. Together, we’ll definitely have better odds.”
“I sure hope so,” I said wryly.
We both laughed.
Art turned and walked on. Even from behind, he looked satisfied.
I followed, forcing myself to focus again—scanning the rocks, doing the work.
The First Ones… I thought. I wonder—if they were present in our world, what would they look like? And then it hit me.
“Art,” I said aloud, without using the clip. He turned around.
“Don’t you think it’s possible that the First Ones are the Creatures? Or—put another way—that the Creatures are the First Ones?”
Art didn’t seem surprised in the least. He simply smiled, nodded, and kept walking. Naturally, I felt a bit disappointed by his reaction.
Then his voice sounded in my clip.
“Of course, Mac. You’re right in the sense that the thought practically suggests itself. And yes—both I and many others have thought about it.”
I felt a flush of embarrassment at my own naïveté. Of course. How could I have imagined that such an obvious idea hadn’t occurred to anyone before me?
“The Creatures are mysterious, enigmatic, and clearly very powerful,” Art went on. “They can do things that are inaccessible to us—sometimes even incomprehensible. They communicate mentally without clips, can keep humans at a distance, and are somehow able to suppress or even disrupt any attempts to study them. All of that lies far beyond the capabilities of ordinary living beings. And yet…”
He paused for a moment, choosing his words.
“And yet it’s still not the same scale. Not the same level of ability or scope that the First Ones would have. And besides…” He hesitated again. “It would be too simple. You see?”
He turned to me and smiled—a faint, almost sad smile.
“The Primes aren’t that simple or banal—to just step out in front of us from newly opened Gates in our worlds.”
I caught myself nodding in agreement.
“And still,” Art continued, “personally, I think there is something to it. Somehow. In some way we don’t yet understand. Both the Creatures themselves and the manner of their appearance—specifically like this, through the Gates—are connected to the First Ones. I’m certain of it, for reasons I can’t quite put into words.”
Again, I found myself agreeing with him silently. Art fell quiet, seemingly lost in thought over what he had just said.
We kept moving and continued picking—or, in strider slang, harvesting goodies and pies—until evening, stopping only briefly for a dry snack. I had plenty to think about, but by now I was keeping my focus under control, not letting my thoughts distract me from the work.
As dusk began to settle, I saw that we had reached the point where the trail merged back into the road, becoming its shoulder. The river formed a small bend here, and between the river and the road stood a wooden building with a wide veranda, furnished with heavy wooden tables and benches.
I knew the place. It was the Bear’s Den restaurant, famous for its excellent mushroom soup and fragrant grilled meats. I realized this was the endpoint of our route for the day—and I was genuinely glad of it.