Location: Interior of Niajin’s hut in the native village, near the Nazca Lines.
Time: 01.01.17 — 05:27:00 (UTC?5).
Setting: Early morning in the hut.
The feather communicated with her mind in dreams and protected her from danger. When it was not linked to her brain through the temples, it detached docilely and Niajin could take it in her hands. The feather showed activity: it flew around the room and brushed her with a gentle touch, changed shape and colour, inviting her. Niajin took the feather in her hand and brought it to her face. When she placed it along her cheekbone, just beside her eyes, it grafted itself to her skin, through the temples. It was literally absorbed by the skin.
When it linked to Niajin’s mind, only a keen observer might notice a faint ridge running from her eyebrows to her hairline, just above the temples. It could stand out and change colour, or blend back into her complexion, almost vanishing. In those moments Niajin knew that her brain was in deep contact with technology of unknown origin—one that gave her abilities she preferred to keep secret. Her senses became sharper and keener, and once—when a gang of thugs had tried to take advantage of her—it had saved her life.
Niajin was no longer in the sandy, spoiled world of her everyday reality. She was in her study room. She was drawing, the feather now shaped as a stylus in her hand.
The drawings that came from her slender hands, from her long, flexible fingers, were beautiful, coloured with the hues of her thoughts. They flowed from the tip of the stylus onto the impalpable sheet of virtual reality, like flows of thought taking shape as images on a sheet.
And so she drew. She drew fantastic animals.
Niajin did not want drawings alone. She wanted what she imagined to be real. Besides drawing, Niajin loved to weave and embroider. As her hands kept moving, the surface before her responded. Threads took form upon the table, gathering into coloured spools, and a spinning wheel emerged beside them. Her fingers moved at once, skilled and precise, drawing the figures she had imagined into the weave.
She knew she was living on the margins, like most people in the world. This was how things were.
She reached for a garment folded nearby, something real. The fabric was synthetic. As soon as her fingers touched it, she withdrew them. She felt uncomfortable in it, as if the fibres were sharp—like thorns and sandpaper against her smooth amber skin. It was not made for her.
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If only she had had a real spinning wheel, a loom, a thread of any kind—alpaca, wool, silk—she could have made and sold fabrics. But natural fibres had become scarce and prohibitively expensive. Anything she made would never be valued for what it truly was.
But she owned one real garment—a traditional dress of real fabric. It was part of her heritage, an ancient costume from the northern tribes. She had restored it herself, finding the materials in different ways, through the black market where it was still possible to obtain something not certified by the WO. Whenever she went out for her training forays, she always wore it.
The WO no longer cared whether people could read, write, or learn a trade; the system was fully robotic. Health was a privilege for a few. Most people lived on the margins, surviving on synthetic food and factory clothing, unable to do anything for themselves, kept deliberately in a state of permanent need and indigence. Dependent and powerless, they remained tied to the WO by an umbilical cord of basic needs that could never be severed.
This condition of slavery filled her with a quiet rage—as if her hands, meant to craft, were chained. For this and many other reasons, Niajin could not bear the WO’s control over her world.
The art of her virtual fabrics surpassed any made by a woman on Earth, when suddenly her mother stepped into the room; she had heard noises.
“What are you doing? Dreaming again with that useless thing?” she said, her tone caught somewhere between irony and anger.
And just like that, everything Niajin had been working on—the drawings, the fabric, the animals, made only of light—vanished into the shadow of the room. Niajin found herself sitting again on an old wooden chair, within the clay-brick walls, with her mother standing in front of her.
The feather detached and softly brushed her. It sensed her sadness. To the touch it felt weightless—as soft as a real feather—yet when she pressed it in her hands, it turned hard and sharp as crystal, like an unbreakable diamond. Its colour shifted endlessly, usually taking on the hue of whatever surface it touched.
“I wish you wouldn’t play with this foolish, useless thing anymore. What you see is not real. It can’t be of any practical use, and it can’t defend you,” her mother said.
Niajin fell silent for a moment, as memories rose to the surface of her mind. Each time she relived them, it was as if everything were happening anew; even her sense of smell recalled the stench that had made her sick—the garlic-and-onion sweat that, even years later, still haunted her.
“Oh no, Mama,” Niajin said softly. “It did—once. It defended me.”
“You’re a fool! Those out there are not mere bandits; they’re armed, clad in suits that can’t be pierced even by powerful weapons, let alone by your bow and arrows.”
“No, I’m not a fool. I know what I’m doing—I’ve decided. I’m going out.”
“Don’t go toward the mountains. There are government soldiers there—the World Order’s. They look unnatural and mean; they wear white uniforms and ride black bikes. They’re dangerous and liked by no one. They discovered something and have banned access. Be careful: there’s no water in the desert. Don’t show yourself alone, exposed. If they see you, they’ll have no mercy. They’ll kill you—I feel it.”
“Oh no—of course there’s water. I know where it is.”
“It’s too dangerous. They drive vehicles that can cross rocks, overcome any obstacle—even off-road. Don’t be foolish; wait for the water truck. It’ll be here tomorrow.”
“You just told me there’s no money.”
“We’ll find a way. I’ll go into the village—maybe someone will give us water.”
“Come on, Mama, nobody has it. The village is completely out of water. Nobody has any left.”
“Stop! Don’t go! Where are you going? Come back!”
But Niajin had already stepped out. She carried with her an amphora, the bow, the quiver, and—above all—her feather: a white-blue clasp fused with her skin, between her eyes and her black hair.