Biopunk

No one knew how old the woods were, least of all the spirits who inhabited them. What is remembered, somewhere in deep genetic memory, is that the first grove near the great sea awoke many thousands of years ago. At first it was just one tree, a great redwood in the grove that is now known as Salvation Creek, that began to send primitive thoughts and feelings through the grove's complex root system using electrical impulses. With time came response from another tree, then another and another. Eventually, Salvation Creek became self aware with each individual tree in the woods acting like a part of a collective brain.

Even when it was just one grove, the processing power of so many souls unified in thought produced an abundance of different personalities that eventually came to call themselves “spirits.” These spirits dispersed themselves to connected groves, gaining intelligence and influence across the northwest, eventually spreading eastward toward what would become the Wyoming Territory where their advance was stopped by the prairies. Old spirits gave rise to new spirits, and for a time the woods were satisfied with just their own.

The first cases of indoctrinated animals came entirely by mistake. Communication from as far as The Bering Sea to Cheyenne was instant, but it relied upon electricity passing through the massive root system of what had become a natural supercomputer. These impulses created a web of electromagnetic influence that had an effect on insects and eventually birds. At first the woods could take control of more simple minded creatures, but through a series of experiments with biochemistry and electromagnetism, a sort of symbiosis was formed that enabled the forest for the first time to “see” as animal life saw. In turn, these beings were provided for by the woods, granted temporary use of the forest and its knowledge to continue to evolve at a staggering pace. Narcotic mists began to emanate from the pores of the trees, bringing all life that was complex enough to be affected under the influence of the groves that supported them.

Then men came, many ages ago. In response to encountering other sentient life the grove forged a militarized spirit named Overton, but the first men were peaceful and tribal, they lived in harmony with the woods and Overton went into a deep slumber. The woods studied the biology of men, eventually finding that through complex processes that they too could be indoctrinated, but unlike the other creatures of the woods would remain willful and independent. Genetic experiments were conducted until the grove understood how to alter the human genome and eventually produce their own similar copies that were referred to as nymphs. It wasn't until the arrival of the Western World that things began to grow tense. First came the explorers, then settlers, and eventually the Union Pacific Railroad and the Union Army with it.

The road began while it was still common for many travelers to walk alongside their wagons across the Great Plains to California and Oregon; a journey that could take six grueling months. It is no small wonder then, that America had railroad fever in the 19th century. The national imagination was propelled by the very real, albeit intimidating, prospect of building a railroad that joined east and west.

As it stood, only trails and wagon tracks crossed the wilderness in the mid-19th century. To bridge that wilderness with rails took six years and an army of 20,000 men, most of them immigrants from China and Europe. It took brute human effort, as the building was done entirely by hand. To this day, no one knows how many died in the effort, or what it really cost.

For many, a railroad was considered the key to westward expansion and the future of the country. A transcontinental route would greatly reduce the time it took to cross the continent, develop the nation's vast interior, encourage settlement, promote trade and fuel industry. Congress determined that a railroad linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans was also essential to national defense. The route east from California, though an awesome engineering prospect, had already been surveyed by Theodore Judah, of the Central Pacific. But by what route west? It was, for the moment, up to Congress to decide.

Southerners in Congress wanted a southern route, while northerners wanted a northern one. With the onset of the Civil War, the South seceded, leaving the North to do as it pleased. Thus, a northern route (but still the most southerly one possible within the free states), following the Platte River Valley was chosen.

Workers were paid little for the back breaking work of flattening ground, breaking rock, hauling wooden ties and track alike. Union soldiers were stationed at each encampment to make sure that the law was upheld and no rebellion took place that would endanger the lives of those in charge. Each time the encampment pulled up stakes to move further down the line, more locals would join. It was a booming time around payday for those in the personal service industry as well as certain entrepreneurial salesmen that could cash in on those looking for quick fixes for all manner of ailments.

Small towns that has sprung up before now grew exponentially as the newly finished tracks brought those that were tired of the hustle and bustle of busier cities and longed for staking claims on the untouched frontier. Several other towns were created merely by the advance of the Union Pacific Railroad, like Cheyenne.

First came the surveyors that left the land largely untouched except for their quaint tents that did naught but flatten the prairie grasses here and there. Their influence did little to wake the woods or bring forth defense. Nor did the settlers that came in wagon trains ahead of the rails that used dead fall to put up small storefronts and homes since those that ventured into the Grove itself to hew lumber, never came back with any, if at all. There was an unspoken agreement established then between Overton and those that came first and the woods began to relax once again.

Until...

(To be continued.)