There are unique combinations.

Atoms. Protons. Neutrons. Electrons. Other subatomic particles. All of the objects in our universe represent a composite of these elements. Across the boundless dimensions of space and the trillions of planets, stars, gases and other materials that float in our universe – we will find combinations of elements in every conceivable size, shape and structure. Combinations that could be called life. Combinations with motion and will and energy and force. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away … a tiny blue planet replete with life brought forth a wide range of combinations. Fish. Insects. Reptiles. Mammals. This tiny blue planet bore witness to trillions of combinations. There was a diversity of life – including mutations. Unique combinations. Combinations that formed the core of strange new creatures. Creatures that defied their surroundings. Creatures that represented an order of magnitude advancement in evolution. Where others could swim, they could crawl. Where others could crawl, they could walk. Where others could walk, they could climb. Where others could climb, they could fly. Mystical creatures with faculties and capabilities thousands and sometimes millions of years advanced beyond their dimwitted peers. Random combination of elements had made these advanced mutations the gods of their time. They were called gods. They were called angels. Their abilities seemed limitless. It was as if they could walk on water. Walk on the clouds. Walk the skies. During their time, they were sometimes called "Sky Walkers."

It had been three years since John Walker had been elected President.

It was the culmination of a life of achievement. At an early age, John Walker was a math prodigy. He could simply and easily understand complex equations and see the beauty of physics and how the world and the universe worked. He attended MIT as a tween. He studied advanced physics. He founded several cutting-edge electronics companies that pushed forward major technological breakthroughs. He became wealthy.

But John Walker also had secrets. He revealed only a fraction of his skills and capabilities. Not only could he shock the neighbors proving mathematical formulas at age 5 – he did magic tricks. Various chemicals, mixtures and formulations that caused special effects, exciting light shows, low-grade fireworks. What the fawning audience of family friends did not know is that some of these magic tricks where actually "magic." John Walker could somehow see into the chemistry of various elements and "move them." He could reach out with his feelings and "move" and "push" the microscopic elements. He could control matter and subatomic particles. Atoms. Protons. Neutrons. Electrons. John Walker could somehow see them. He could connect these particles and create new linkages. He could shape and reshape them. It was like magic: a strange force that he could control. Random combination of elements had made him different. He was an advanced new species. He knew that this was weird and strange. As a result, he kept his more advanced talents secret from the world as he climbed the ladder of success.

John Walker met Lake at the 2nd company that he founded. He loved that her name was Lake. Body of water filled with life. Hemmed by trees. Glorious bubbly pond of vitality. She was unique in that she somehow always seemed to know what he was thinking. Though she did not use this insight to control him or manipulate him or cajole him to bend to her will. She used this insight for the singular purpose of making him laugh. Lake was a gifted engineer. But she seemed to have been born into this world to make John Walker laugh. They were a happy couple. They married and had a beautiful baby girl. Amy. Although John took to calling her Little Lake.

John Walker spent the next several years nurturing his family in quiet suburban domesticity. Huge windfall profits from the sale of his 2nd company had caught the attention of various movers and shakers at the centers of power. John Walker had by then developed renown as a successful executive on the cutting-edge of technology with a picture-perfect family. He was approached to enter politics. He became a senator. And it was here, during these years in politics where John Walker and his magically happy disposition began to change.

Most politicians engage political life through lunches and lobbyists, donors and dinners and the trappings of government and power. John Walker was a math prodigy. He saw through these venalities. He understood the equations of politics and these equations added up to greed, corruption, pettiness and selfish squabbling interest groups pushing their own agendas. The rhetoric had become more heated. The world had become dangerous. International nation-states with vast populations were under-fed while under the rule of corrupt autocrats. Avarice as a priority. Environments under pressure. Where economic development did take hold, the greed and corruption got worse – not better. The pressures on cities, resources and the environment became overbearing. This world seemed to be advancing and declining at the same time.

John Walker became president with the hope that he could change this world for the better. He was a different species. More advanced with more capabilities. He had hoped that he could put these talents to work for the betterment of this tiny blue world. But he had doubts about his contemporaries. Did they want a better world? Did they care? Were they too stupid, too primitive, too cruel, too selfish? Did they even deserve a better future having so clearly fouled this tiny blue planet? He wasn't sure. His brothers and sisters on this planet were crude, emotional and they were now highly armed. Technologies had advanced to where sophisticated weaponry was readily available to the masses. Countless state and non-state actors, interest groups, terrorists, criminal organizations as well as the citizenry had advanced weaponry. While a communications revolution expanded the number of voices – it also created more division, more enmity, more jealousy, more hatred. This fragmented set of factional groups expressed their hatred through violence. Now this world with so much bounty and life had become a shooting gallery for the arrogant and the angry. Everybody shouting. Everybody shooting.

The personal threat to John Walker was real. Precision-guided firearms, high-energy laser weapon systems, magneto hydrodynamic explosive munitions, electromagnetic rail guns, hypersonic missiles and other cutting-edge weapons were being deployed world-wide by a wide range of competing factions. The President himself was a target. But John Walker had evaded these attacks. The security detail was shocked by their luck. The devastation of these weapons was absolute – but John Walker always seemed to know when a later departure time or a different route was more prudent. Of course, John Walker was a different species who could connect to the elements and "feel" the dark forces surrounding him and the impending strike of weaponry. Unfortunately, his wife Lake did not have these powers. And his daughter, Little Lake was too young. She could sense the darkness but she could not quite understand. It was not enough.

The missile attack on the aircraft carrying the First Lady, Lake Walker and the First Daughter, Amy Walker was horrifyingly successful. It was a violent act undertaken by a foreign terrorist group designed to inflict fear and horror and reveal the vulnerabilities of the largest and most powerful of nations. The generals recommended a counter-attack including a series of missile strikes that would bring an apocalyptic winter to these foreign lands. John Walker did the math quickly. The sum total of collateral damage and civilian casualties would be enormous. The retaliatory response would lead to a cascading series of strikes and counter-strikes that would create craters and fissures into the planet – some of these would be huge fissures and cracks crisscrossing thousands of miles down to the core ultimately threatening the structure of the planet. The pressures on the planetary foundation would grow. Gravitational forces would begin to collide with the surface pressures. New fissures would take hold creating new cycles of pressure and instability. Huge chunks of the planet would begin to break-apart creating more fissures, more pressures, more instability. This tiny blue planet would eventually break-apart. The world would be destroyed.

And yet, the generals were undeterred. They needed to show strength. John Walker had lost his wife and child. It was the low point of his life. His wife, Lake, made him laugh. His daughter, Amy, made him proud. They were killed. He was sad, depressed, despondent. But he was also shocked at the lack of situational awareness and foresight of his advisors, his cabinet, the generals, the senators and the other leaders of this nation. They could not project forward the moves and counter-moves of their adversaries. They could not envision the coming pattern of events. They simply could not see. They could not do the math. They could not understand.

John Walker resigned himself to what appeared to be the "final solution" for this tiny blue world. He suggested alternatives. He suggested more reasoned approaches but these went nowhere with the generals, the senators and other leaders. The planet and its supposed wizened elders were committed to a course of action that would cause its self-destruction.

John Walker felt the conflict within himself. The planet was replete with a diversity of life. But the most sophisticated of species and their leaders were not worthy. John Walker now saw his brothers and sisters for what they were – what they will always be. Self-centered. Emotional. Arrogant. Evil. In the final analysis, they were indeed too stupid, too primitive, too cruel, too selfish. All at once, his next steps became clear. John Walker now understood. He understood his birth. He understood his purpose. He understood his role in this dark tragedy. He was a mutation with unique powers. He now knew exactly where and how to deploy these talents. He now knew what to do next.

John Walker emerged from his depression with a new hope. He relented to his generals and their recommendations. The missiles were locked and loaded and launched. John Walker alone understood the events to come and the timelines. These timeframes were tight – but there was enough time. Enough time to build and grow a foundation for something new.

John Walker divided his focus between the presidency and his home office and laboratories. Since his youth, John Walker could see into the chemistry of various elements and "move them." He now worked much harder with more focus on expanding his skills, building his capabilities, reaching out with his feelings to connect and link microscopic elements. Atoms. Protons. Neutrons. Electrons. But now John Walker focused on DNA. Collecting DNA particles. Linking DNA strands. Mobilizing networks of DNA into a cohesive chain. John Walker was building the infrastructure for a new future.

As the weeks and months transpired, generals, senators and various scientific experts became alarmed. The retaliatory strikes and counter-strikes had caused more damaged than they had expected. Visible impacts on the planetary structure were beginning to appear. The potential for global catastrophe was beginning to be clear – clear enough even for these dimwitted fools. He entertained their concerns with bemusement and occasionally mock surprise and continued his work undeterred. Their future was certain. His future was renewed with excitement and hope.

John Walker was in his laboratory when major tears in the planetary surface began shredding the lower layers of the planetary crust. The apocalypse began three weeks later than he had projected. He used the additional time wisely. He was excited and hopeful. And yet the final days were frightening. The noise was deafening. The terrifying sound of the ground below lifting and uplifting, crashing together with rock and dirt. Mountains were sprouting up from flat lands in a matter of seconds. The thunderous sound of huge land masses being destroyed. The crashes and explosions bottomless craters opening up in the ground. The lands of this tiny blue planet were screaming and twisting. Huge scarred fragments began to float into space. Gravitational forces were doing battle with continent-sized chunks of land as these began to elevate and separate. The planet was being destroyed. The planet was being shattered into trillions of pieces. In a matter of minutes, 8 billion humans had died.

John Walker was technically dead – body parts fragmented into a global debris field now floating into space. But he had prepared. The force was strong in John Walker and the DNA remnants of the creature once called John Walker began reaching out with his feelings to collect his floating DNA particles and the DNA particles of some 8 billion human lives now floating in the vacuum of space. He linked the DNA strands into a network of interconnected particles. From a distance, it looked like a gas cloud – but it was chain, a vast grid of microscopic elements connected together. A network. A neural network pulsing with feelings, thoughts, memories, regrets, emotions, anger, hate, fear, sadness, intellect, genius and stupidity. The full range of human vitality and life was pulsing through the veins of this network chain of disparate DNA particles. The glory and conflict of 8 billion recent human lives and over 100 billion human ancestors who had lived on this planet and the trillions of predecessor creatures that predated them were now assembled in a floating grid controlled by the DNA remnants of the creature once called John Walker.

Floating through the cosmos, John Walker and his mass of DNA particles were now a "Sky Walker" in every sense. The will and energy and force of this network was beyond powerful – more powerful than any creature in the universe. John Walker was going to put this force to work. He had a plan.

It was a simple plan. A humble plan.

John Walker went in search of life.

The particulate network began to soar out into space. Passing Alpha Centauri, Barnard's Star, Wolf and Lalande and the more distant stars, Epison Indi, Dx Carncri and Tau Ceti. In his journey through the stars, John Walker found life in various forms. He found microbial life with novel cell structures as well as complex creatures adapted to various planetary conditions. There were exciting combinations and alternative forms of life, society and civilization. John Walker was enthralled with these experiences and observations but he was looking for something else. Something from his past. The particulate network ventured further, past Orion, Perseus and the Outer Arms of the Milky Way. He passed through different galaxies including Andromeda and Triangulum and beyond.

The network grid traveled further and further out into space, passing countless numbers of galaxies with countless numbers of stars and countless numbers of planets. John Walker and his particulate network floated further in search of life and a very specific combination of elements. He was far from his humble beginnings, far from his original home and at distances that were now beyond the imagination. And here in deep space, there was a galaxy with stars and planets of various shapes and sizes and an unusually strong and vibrant diversity of life forms. There was a volcanic planet breathing fire and smoke into space with insect-like creatures adapted for this lava world; there was a swamp planet with forests and vegetation and snake-like creatures and other swamp life; a rugged rocky planet with huge craters, sinkholes and extended carnivorous humanoid creatures. There was a vibrant beautiful planet teeming with life – human or near human life – brilliantly flowered and verdant. John Walker felt that he was getting close to his objective. He had much hope for this particularly beautiful planet and there were many exquisite creatures and combinations that he observed on this planet. But he was looking for something else. Something different. Something unique. He continued on.

He had not thought to spend much time on the two desert planets. These were hot, waterless, sandy and foul. Desperate characters ruled these desperate worlds. The populations included insects, evil slug-like criminals and predators, scarred desert people and dwarf-like creatures patrolling the sand dunes, mountains and canyons and preying on the weak. He had not much hope for these forsaken lands and they indeed reminded him of the terrorists from his original tiny blue planet. But then … he felt something.

John Walker and his particulate network ventured closer and the feeling became stronger. The smaller of the desert planets was particularly barren. It was a hot dry desert world baking from the two suns that it orbited. But it was here among the sweltering gritty criminals that John Walker and his particulate network sensed the presence of someone different. He felt that he was in fact reaching his objective and it was perhaps time at long last to walk among the life below and take a closer look. John Walker marshalled all of his skills and abilities to move and shape the microscopic elements that he had commanded. He used the force to consolidate and congeal his particulate network into a near-human form that would allow him to walk the surface of the planet. He created shape and took form and then, ghost-like, John Walker descended.

John Walker walked the make-shift streets and dirty alleys of what was a grimy spaceport city on the desert planet. He walked the markets, foul with the smell of recent kill and the skins and meat for those who could pay. He was witness to murders. There were fights in the streets and alleys between sweating predators willing to kill and steal to survive. It was a horrible place, an inauspicious place to find a new hope and to start a new beginning.

But there she was.

She was dressed in rags. She had a soiled scarf holding back her hair and tattered dirty clothing. Her eyes, her nose, her mouth, her hair, her shape and form were identical in almost every way to that of his wife – still so strong a memory from light years ago. He starred at her blankly. He was shocked. There are unique combinations. Across the boundless dimensions of space, he knew that he would find combinations of elements in every conceivable size, shape and structure. He felt fortunate that space was so large, the permutations so endless, that these combinations might repeat – and he had actually found what he was looking for …

"HELLO?

She spoke to him. Her voice sharp and aggressive – like she was slapping him awake.

"Are you looking for someone?"

Speech. He had not prepared. He continued to stare blankly while he worked to maneuver the particles and quickly develop sounds. It was choppy and inconsistent.

"Looking … For …. You," he said, broken and uneven.

"Why are you looking for me?" She asked. Again, sharp and aggressive.

"The … Future," he said.

"The future is hard to predict," she responded, "especially before it happens." She made him laugh. SHE MADE HIM LAUGH! "What about the future?" she asked with a skeptical look in her eyes.

"Make … It … Better," he responded.

"You are not that ambitious. I am a slave on a desert planet with no water and no food surrounded by criminals. It would take very little to make my future better. What is your name?" she asked.

"Sky … Walker," he said, looking into her eyes.

"SkyWalker? Do you walk in the sky?" she asked, again skeptical.

"Yes … Walk Sky … Walk Stars …. Walk Space," he said, moving forward slightly. He marshalled his particulate network, the aura of the force surrounding him like a halo.

She observed this – he was different. Strange perhaps. When the light of the suns shifted, he had a luminosity about him and he seemed somehow porous. It was strange but also mystical, powerful, enchanting. Maybe he was a ghost or a spirit of some sort.

"My name is Lakshmi. My given name from my parents. It means goddess of wealth, fortune, power and beauty. It didn't work out as they planned," she explained.

"May …I … Call … You … Lake?" he asked.

"Do you see any water around here? No – you may not call me Lake. You may call me Shmi. Look, there is a sand storm coming," she stated, explaining further, "If you are polite and respectful, you may come into my dwelling to get shelter out of the storm. You can also tell me about my great new future."

The DNA remnants of the creature once called John Walker, smiled. She made him laugh.

Two happy years. The particulate form of John Walker described to Shmi the galaxies, the stars and the planets throughout the universe. He described for her the vast array of creatures. There were creatures that were alive and beautiful and happy as well as evil, angry selfish creatures who were horrifyingly violent. She listened and learned the secrets of the universe. Commenting frequently. Joking often. Making him laugh. For Shmi, it had been as he had predicted. It was a better future. It had been a happy two years.

They decided to conceive a child.

"He will be good at math," Skywalker said plainly, his language skills much improved.

"It would be better if he were rich," she responded – exacerbated, "You have powers. I can see you have powers. You have described to me magical powers. If we are going to have a child, could you not kill the slave-owners on this horrible planet and capture some wealth for our family,"

"My planet. Too stupid. Too primitive. Too cruel. Too selfish. My planet destroyed. Murder. Wealth. This is not my purpose," Skywalker explained.

"What is your purpose?" she asked haltingly – it was a question a long-time in coming.

"Save life. Creatures big and small. Creatures beautiful and innocent. Planets alive and vibrant. Universe alive and beautiful. Clean. Keep clean. Clean vermin."

Shmi began to understand. He could see she was frightened.

"The strength of 8 billion human lives and over 100 billion human ancestors and trillions of predecessor creatures will be at his command. He will be more powerful than any creature in the universe. And he will be good at math."

"I thought these were your powers," she noted, again frightened.

"Powers now with our child. My time is ending. I am happy. Better future," he said as he smiled.

"You will leave me alone?" she said quietly, beginning to sob.

"I was not really alive. Ghost. Spirit. Network of particles. DNA. Child will be real. Alive. Beautiful. Strong. Good at math. Clean vermin," he said looking into her eyes.

"Clean vermin," he said again – more intently.

She understood. In the coming days, the DNA remnants of the creature once called John Walker began to dissipate. The journey across the vast expanse of space and countless galaxies, stars and planets had finally ended. What fragments remained floated into the sands of this desolate planet that circled two suns. The story of John Walker and a tiny blue planet in a small solar system in the Milky Way galaxy had finally ended.

New story had begun.

Baby boy was born 9 months later.

Skywalker had told Shmi about Lake and Amy. She decided to call the boy, Ani.

Anakin Skywalker.

He was indeed very good at math.