523 years since they arrived, Cubic 6 thought. When you think about it, humans surviving this for 523 years is an amazing accomplishment in of itself. Those years were of course filled with mistakes and missed opportunities, but that is the nature of being human, I think.

Today it’s hard to imagine what people thought in 2062 when they arrived in the world. At that time, it could be said there was a certain beauty and awe to the arrival. I still like looking at footage of the giant odd asteroid shapes gently settling around the equator over a period of 6 months. Some as small as an apartment building, others the size of Mount Everest. All gently floating towards the water and made of a material that for millions of years had withstood the ravages of space.

At first, people were terrified, but when nothing happened life returned to normal unusually quickly. Then the scientists started to research and those who look for opportunities for riches tried to find a way to capitalize. The talk was of a golden age of space travel and anti-gravity machines when we were finally able to mine the material. But no knife, no explosive, or even nuclear weapon could put a dent in the material. After forty years it became clear that the Earth was stuck with them and at best, they would be tourist attractions. On the fringes of society, some had decided to even worship the giant indestructible space rocks. By the time scientists realized what was happening it was already too late.

It started with precipitous ocean level drops. Seeds that had slowly sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Over decades the water slowly seeped in until it reached that tiny living core at the center. Then came the explosions of upward growth. 50 meters a day and in some places upwards of 200 meters a day in growth. A shinney black surface with veins of iridescent blue. Mile wide columns shooting towards the heavens, miles high within several months. And as it grew, its water ‘gravity’ grew. Those faithful, they were the first to perish from their own foolishness. Placing their hands on what was now an awake Water Eater. The last thing they would know, as they were captured in its gravity as every molecule of water was pulled from their bodies within hours. I guess no amount of belief in their new God helped.

Within weeks the world's leaders had instigated a 10-mile quarantine around every Water Eater but they and the almost 9 billion humans of earth had no idea what was about to happen. The faithful called it the Great Expansion, most called it the end of over 80% of life on Earth. On August 1st 53 E.D the Water Eaters sent billions of spores into the air in a singular volcanic explosion of expansion. Only the size of your smallest fingernail, they floated through the air slowly settling to the ground. Where they landed on living tissue, animal, or plant, they immediately began to feed and once that began there was absolutely nothing you could do. A few were lucky enough to survive by cutting an infected limb off within the first 5 minutes. When a human was infected with what we now call spot, their consumption would be complete within at most a week. Within the world's oceans, it was even worse. As the spores settled into the water they instantly began to grow at a meter per hour. Consuming not just the water but all water contained within the species that lived in the oceans.

It took nearly 20 years for the spores to settle and do their job but in the end, roughly 7 billion humans had died along with most of every species of land and sea animal on the planet. It’s not known why, even today, but the spores were concentrated 20 to 30 degrees north and south of the equator. By 80 ED the Water Eaters encircled the Earth in a band 4000 miles wide and on average 30 miles high and that’s when the water gravity started.

It was first noticed in the north Pacific Ocean, water appearing to defy gravity, flying through the air towards the Water Eaters. They had reached a mass that created their own gravity, but this gravity only acted on water molecules and once caught, was inescapable. The Water Eaters would pull in every molecule of water, whether it be from a stream, a plant, or animal, and of course, any human mistakenly caught in its’ grasp. Death from molecular evaporation could take weeks and was considered the most painful way to die in human history. Those who worshiped the Water Eaters would drive themselves feet first at high speed toward them relishing in their slow death. But water gravity was slow, you could end up suspended in air, as you slowly broke down molecule by molecule. That’s when, if you got Spot as we call it, you hoped to be sent headfirst to the Water Eaters as fast as possible.

Then in 120 ED the Falls began, like a glacier calving an iceberg. The exposed wall of the Water Eaters would fall to the ground like a felled giant redwood. 30 to 40 miles high and 100’s, sometimes 1000’s of miles of Water Eater collapsing outward. Instantly expand its reach and water gravity, to build up again only to fall and advance. Slowly over the past 400 years swallowing all remaining life until what is left now. One of several small human enclaves desperately trying to find a solution and survive.

But Cubic 6 knew differently. He knew another fall was coming. Though it had been almost 100 years since the last, the pattern fit his modeling. The computer knew as well as did a few others. In his position as Coordinates Services Manager, it was his job to watch the reports come in from each of the Cubits in their self-contained ten by ten work enclosers. Each monitoring and watching for change, feeding him data. He knew the last fall was coming and there was nothing he could do but take more transparency and hope the Reindeer knew something he did not.