FOGBOUND

It was the Fog that kept him curious, in spite of his parents' warnings to stay away from its boundary. Todd knew that it was supposed to be there for the Enclave's protection, but as far as he could tell, there wasn't anything beyond the Fog that he couldn't see right here in town.

"But I don't get it!" Todd finally declared one day. "I just want to know what's on the other side. What's the big deal? I heard that some people have actually gone through the Fog and seen for themselves."

Todd's mother, who always seemed to have the same kind of weariness that most of the other adults in the Enclave did, suddenly seemed anxious. "Who told you this?" Her eyes darted back and forth, as if she was afraid that they were being watched. "What did you hear?"

Todd was a little startled by her behavior. "Nothing, Mom. Really! It was just something I heard from some of the other kids at school. They said that a guy went through the Fog once, came back, and told the Committee what he saw. I don't know what happened after that."

Mom looked relieved. "You'd better get to school, then. And don't listen to any more stories about imaginary people who went through the Fog. No one's been outside the Enclave since the Fog was created."

Todd sighed. He'd heard this before, from other adults. They'd always seemed afraid to talk about the Fog. It had been just as much a fact of life for him as it had for everyone else, but there didn't seem to be anything scary about the Fog that he could see. As far as Todd could tell it was just a large collection of nanomachines, like the ones that people used to fix their bodies. So what was the big deal?

Todd watched the Fog's inner boundary as the school shuttle drove through the outskirts of the Enclave. Before the Tech War, the Enclave had been an exclusive gated community. Now it was almost entirely self-supporting. Todd had been learning about the Tech War in history class. Whole cities had been wiped out by nano-swarms before they were brought under control. He'd seen pictures of what had happened to some of those larger cities. They'd been turned into slag heaps, or replaced by weird formations that had a life of their own. But the War ended decades ago, long before most of the adults in the enclave were even born. The outside world was still there--the Enclave still got news broadcasts and TV shows through its Web and satellite services. On the outside, people still lived and worked, just like they did in the Enclave. So why weren't any of them allowed to leave?

During lunch break, Todd asked some of his friends if they'd heard any more rumors about the Fog.

"It's supposed to be intelligent," one of them said. "I read about it online. It wants to keep us here."

"Why?" Todd asked. "We've never done anything to it."

"We're part of an experiment," another one of his friends replied. "It's studying us. We're an example of what life was like on the outside, before the War."

A third friend snorted. "No way. My dad's a nano designer; he knows what the Fog is. It's to protect us from terrorists, like the ones who wiped out Seattle . He says we ought to leave it alone for our own good. And I think he's right."

Todd was thoughtful. "I'm going to find out once and for all. I'm going through. Tonight."

His friends stared at him. "Are you crazy? What if you get caught?"

Todd shook his head. "I won't." Deep down inside, however, he wasn't so sure. Even so, he was determined to try. He wanted to experience the world that he'd only seen on monitor screens and in VR.

That afternoon, instead of going straight home from school like he usually did, Todd got off at his stop and walked back towards the Fog's boundary. It stretched all the way around the enclave, like a giant upside-down bowl. Up close, it looked much larger than it did from a distance, looming overhead like a cliff. It looked like silver clouds in the afternoon sunlight. As Todd got closer, he could see the dark gray swarms of nano-bots that made up its insides. Todd was starting to get a little nervous, but he took a deep breath and walked right up to the Fog.

At first, it didn't seem to respond to his presence. Todd reached out and touched it with the tip of his finger. It shifted slightly at his touch before it resettled. "What do you want from us?" Todd quietly asked it. "The War that you were made to protect us from ended a long time ago. Why are you still keeping us here?"

Todd stepped forward. To his surprise, the Fog suddenly parted, creating a tunnel that was just barely wide enough for him to walk through. Todd hesitated; what if this was some kind of a trick? Maybe the adults were watching him, waiting to grab him the moment he came out on the other side. No, he thought. I'm not going to be scared off like they were. I'm going through…

The Fog remained open. At the other end of the tunnel, Todd could see a patch of green grass that didn't look any different than what grew in the Enclave. He could also see the real sky, and trees. The outside world was definitely still there.

Todd took one last look at the Enclave behind him and started walking. He would find out for sure what was on the other side, and come back and tell people what he'd seen. He wouldn't be gone that long. Just long enough to see…

To see the world that the others were still afraid of, and had never known.