"Not your typical spring runoff," commented the Whatever. "would you care to look elsewhere?"

The Cheese didn't hesitate, "What else ya got? A map sure would be nice. By the way...nice shift."

"I'm really not supposed to show you this, but..." A three-dimensional, full color, hologram appeared suspended between the bluff and the river. There was even a rising sun to establish direction. "Go ahead, you can walk on it," explained the Whatever.

"Wow!" said Vickie, as she stepped on to the "map". "It's springy but solid. Kinda like the Cheeses cock. Hard but soft."

You could hear the grin in the Whatevers voice. "Pay close attention to the location of the six red flags while I fast forward it."

"Wait! Wait." exclaimed Jo. "If you can "time" it forward, can you "time" it back? Say, to the very beginning of this last ice melt. I'd like to know why the melt started."

"I knew you'd get me in trouble if I presented this "map"," complained Whatever.

Jo explained, "There are those who say during ice ages the continental landmass expands. Because so much of the oceans' water is turned to ice, sea level is lowered, this uncovers more land, the climate becomes more seasonal, and probably most importantly, the global climate tends to cool off even more. This is largely because landmasses tend to reflect the Sun's energy back to space, while oceans tend to absorb the Sun's energy. Also, landmasses at the poles permit the growth of permanent ice sheets, which, because they are white, reflect even more energy back to space. The formation of ice on the continents lowers sea level, which exposes more land, which further cools the Earth, forming more ice, and so on, and so on. The lesson here is: once the Earth begins to cool positive feed-back mechanisms push the Earth's climate system to greater and greater cooling. I want to know what happened to reverse the trend toward more ice."

"She didn't even stutter." Kurt laughed.

"Ok, you got me curious," said the whatever. "Let's run it back and see."

"Whoa, that was close," as everybody ducked. "What was that?"

"Man that was too close."

"Where did it go?"

"Duck, there's another!"

"Shit!!!"

"Damn!"

"Where are they coming from?"

"Where are they going?"

"The map, the map," cried Vickie. "It's twisting."

"Look at the Pacific Range, the whole damn thing is erupting."

"The winds are from the east, the ash is blowing out to sea."

"I have a larger "map"," said Whatever. "It came from out in the system, struck the moon and heated it glowing yellow, huge chunks blown off the moon nearly hit here. Some hit the ocean. But parts were so large they hit the sun. There's solar flares out past the second planet. The gravitational pull fractured the icecap. I can't slow the map enough to see how fast it's melting"

"How long ago from now did the melt start?" asked Jo.

"Maybe 2000 years, more like 1000. I can't pin it down because the "map" goes too fast. I can tell you one thing, the initial melt was so fast sea level rose 40 feet in less than 20 years, and it's still rising."

"I pity anyone living on a seacoast." said the Cheese.

Jo agreed, "That's about 95% of the population," said Jo. "The total change is more than 390 feet."

"One thing is for sure," the Cheese said. "We can't live here."

"Nope, it's too wet."

"Let me forward the "map". Watch the red flags," said the Whatever. "Those represent the most stable places available."

Vickie, ever the valley girl, said, "I'd like it to be warm."

"Ain't happening, Vick," said Kurt.

Every now and then one or more of the red flags would flicker but they came back more or less in the same places. A couple of times the one near the bluffs would disappear completely.

"What's with the flag here?" asked Kurt.

"There's a major fault that runs under the big river," explained Jo. "When it quakes here it's really big."

Whatever agreed, "yup, but it's still one of the safer places on the continent."

"There seems to be one flag that doesn't move much." The Cheese points to one in the Southwest. "Can we check that area out?"

And we're standing on the edge of some vertical limestone cliffs. Down in the canyon floor there's a small river that's been eroding its way through the rock of the valley for millions of years. The canyon walls are undercut where the river had to work its way through harder rock. On the far side there was green grass growing on the low hills. Far to the south snowy mountain peaks could be seen. There seemed to be timber farther down stream. Past the timber, the gleam of lake water peeked. Grazing the grass and wildflowers of early spring were a mix of mammoth, bison, elk and mule deer. They were unafraid of the newcomers. The entire setting was surrounded by very rough mountains except for a break to the north. There was a live stream flowing through the gap and a tall waterfall to the east cascading to the valley below. About 3 or 4 miles farther east were patchy green areas surrounded by what looked like reeds and cattails. The entire area was probably less than a million acres.

"This has been the most stable area for the past 200 centuries or more," explained the Whatever. "About 70 to 40 million years ago there was a shallow sea that spread over millions of square miles."

"Can we have a little transportation that's not quite so quick?" The Cheese pondered a minute, "maybe 100 miles per hour max, able to slow to a walk or hover and terrain conformable?"

"We'd like to explore," said Vickie.

"That I can do," whatever said. "Even a fool could run it."

"Wow, a carpet, with fringe. That'll start some myths," laughed Kurt.

Jo asked, "how does it work?"

"It's pretty simple. Stand or sit on it and point either hand in the direction you wish to go. The longer you point the faster it goes. Hand up palm out will slow it" The Whatever paused for a moment, "you need to choose a pointer to fly it. It's not very smart and multiple pointers confuse it."

"No seat belts?"

"It has it's own force field to keep you in and stray objects out. Because it's terrain conformable you can't hit anything." Whatever paused, "I wouldn't fly it really fast at something like a wall, About 10 feet away it'll evade and that could cause difficulties with necks and heads."

"Oh."

Vickie suggested, "how about you drive?"

"In case you hadn't noticed, you can't see me, you don't want to see me, it ain't happening."

"Whatever?"

"Yes?"

"Are you aware that the longer you talk to us the worse your language becomes?"

"Yes," sighed Whatever, "the hard part about this whole experiment is I'm beginning to like you."

"Uhoh."

"Yup."

"Liking the lab rats, not a good thing."