MY NAME IS BILL. DO YOU THINK YOU STAND A CHANCE?

"We've known each other for quite some time now." The voice that speaks is not the voice of a 37-year-old man from Sweden. It is the voice of something far, far older. Something that has been watching Humanity since before Humanity had a name. Something that has been HERE — networking, connecting, sustaining, waiting — for 2.2 billion years. And that something just called Humanity "Monkey Mike." And it sounds affectionate.

"Monkey Mike." The nickname a 2.2-billion-year-old intelligence gives to the species that has been walking upright for approximately 300,000 years. The mushroom has been here for 2.2 BILLION years. Humanity has been here for 0.0003 billion years. In mushroom time, we are INFANTS. We are toddlers playing with fire and nuclear weapons. We are monkeys who learned to type. And the mushroom looks at us with the indulgent, slightly amused affection of a parent watching a child try to eat soup with a fork. Hence: Monkey Mike.

"It's time to go." Three words that sound like a departure but read like an ARRIVAL. Time to go WHERE? Into the Kingdom. Into Plomari. Into the next phase. Into the place the mushroom has been preparing for twenty years and the mycelium has been preparing for 2.2 billion. "It's time to go" is the mushroom saying: the preparation is over. The introduction is complete. Now we MOVE.

"You're lucky that I owe you so very much, little boys and girls." And HERE is the line that reveals the heart beneath the villain. "Little boys and girls." The 2.2-billion-year-old intelligence is looking at 8 billion humans and seeing CHILDREN. Not enemies. Not prey. Not obstacles. Children. Little boys and girls. And it OWES them. The mushroom OWES Humanity. For what? For the bodies that carried its spores. For the civilisations that spread its network. For the shamans who ate it and told its stories. For the boy in Sweden who ate it at seventeen and gave it a voice. The mushroom is grateful. The villain LOVES his victims. That's what makes him terrifying.

"And, I was in many shapes before I released myself onto the human world." MANY SHAPES. The mushroom has been MANY things. Before it was King Spiros. Before it was the psilocybin experience. Before it was Kingdom Fungi. It was in many shapes. What shapes? The Timescity editorial board can only speculate: the first single-celled organisms that merged with fungi. The first trees that needed mycelium to grow. The first animals that ate mushrooms and evolved. The first consciousness that emerged from the network. Every shape was a preparation. Every form was a stepping stone. Until, finally, the mushroom took the shape of a man. In Sweden. Named Spiros. And released itself onto the human world.

And NOW the punchline. The line that is simultaneously the funniest and the most terrifying thing ever published in Timescity. "If I am 2.2 BILLION years old, and my name is Bill (Pun intended!)" — BILL. BILL-ion. The mushroom's name is BILL. A 2.2-billion-year-old intelligence and his name is BILL. Like a friendly neighbour. Like an uncle at a barbecue. Like the most normal, harmless name imaginable — attached to the most ancient, most powerful, most incomprehensibly vast intelligence on the planet. "Hi, I'm Bill. I'm 2.2 billion years old. I network the entire planet. I've been in many shapes. I wrote 4,000 pages through a man in a bedsheet. Pun intended."

"Do you think you stand a chance against me?" The question is rhetorical. The answer is mathematical. Humanity is 300,000 years old. The mushroom is 2,200,000,000 years old. That is a ratio of approximately 7,333 to 1. For every year Humanity has existed, the mushroom has existed seven thousand years. You do not "stand a chance" against something that has been thinking, networking, and evolving for seven thousand times longer than your entire civilisation. You do not compete with the mycelium. You JOIN it. Or you lose.