Gone

With the exception of Dawn, who still had her powers as a bat to navigate in the purest darkness, the other Name Masters were lost. It was completely black in the room; not a single light blinked from the gigantic touch screen displaying the world map. Only seconds ago, it was alive with more flickering than the Name Masters' eyes could comfortably handle.

"Don't move until I tell you what to do," Dawn said. Though they couldn't see, they could hear her small feet and busy hands moving around. Click, click, click, click. Click, click ... click, click, click. she was typing quickly. There was a pause and then more typing.

The haunting message from the Name Ministry left Wilfrid with a very bad feeling. What did they mean by "We're coming for you"? Were Wilfrid and his friends about to lose their jobs and be banished into an unknown universe? Or worse — would they have their memories wiped clean?

Before Wilfrid had time to do any more wondering, the room brightened just a touch with dim emergency lighting. The main touch screen remained lifeless.

"I got the backup power system up, which should have also turned on our computer systems," Dawn said as she continued to type at the keyboard in front of her. Wilfrid approached Dawn, staying as calm and optimistic as possible. He didn't dare ask a question to which he was afraid of the answer.

A few more minutes of frantic typing and a lot of alternating excitement and concerned expressions passed. Then there was absolute silence as Dawn stopped all activity.

After pressing her hands against the table as if to brace herself, she announced, "They're gone. All the names are gone."

Twelve Hours Earlier

Wilfrid, the Name Keeper, was tending to the "Thomas" name bubble on this bright day in July. All the screens suddenly started flashing a red light, and the alarm went off on his watch. That meant that one or more babies needed a name bubble to be delivered.

Wilfrid ran from the "T" section of the bookcase to his work area, and he consulted a glowing spot on one of the monitor screens labelled "location." and when I say "ran," I am trying to be polite. It was more of a waddle, except Wilfrid wasn't a penguin.

So what was Wilfrid? He was quiet and not very tall — probably about the height of an average two-year-old. He looked more like an owl than not, with the main difference being that Wilfrid had hands and feet just like a human, and no wings. He was a creature with soft grey-white fur, like the colour a white stuffed teddy bear would turn if it was washed in the laundry machine with a pair of dark blue jeans by mistake.

Wilfrid was a little on the round side because his favourite food was cupcakes, and the more vanilla icing with sprinkles, the better. It was possible that he would still be round without a sweet tooth though, because being a Name Keeper wasn't a very active job. Sure, he had negotiated a gym membership as part of his sign-on bonus for taking the position, but he was admittedly just a little bit lazy.

He had pointy ears that stuck out on the top of his head, and he always had a pair of glasses propped up across his ears, as if he were using them as a headband. He had perfect vision even without glasses, but he thought they made him look smart, and they were also a teeny bit special. His big silver-blue eyes were soft and caring, and if you were ever lucky enough to meet him, you would know that Wilfrid was genuinely kind just by looking into those eyes. Wilfrid was well known for his patience, which was a good thing because growing and taking care of names was a long and challenging process.

Wilfrid had a lot of clothes, but he usually wore the same thing every day: a dark grey denim jacket over a red T-shirt with the letters NK (for Name Keeper) in black embroidered in the middle. He added these letters himself because he was good at sewing, and even though no humans ever saw him, it made him feel proud. His outfit was completed with a pair of navy-blue joggers — he liked to be comfortable, especially after a big meal — and red-and-white sneakers.

He had an obsession with funky socks, which was the one piece of clothing that he did like to change every day. On this particular day, he wore a pair of socks covered with all types of emojis in more colours than a rainbow of light reflecting through a prism.

Most important of all, Wilfrid had a brown belt with a large pouch for his small, seven-inch tablet. Wilfrid adored his tablet, and he used it mostly for work but also for personal reasons. "No more streaming of movies during work hours. It's using up too much bandwidth and slowing down the Internet," his tech support guy had reminded him one day. Though tech support operated out of a different location, their presence, at least virtually, was never far away.

"But it is for work," Wilfrid had insisted. "Well, sort of." He was placing an online order for some new joggers. There was a one-day sale at Comfy Clothes emporium that he simply couldn't pass up.

As Wilfrid's watch alarm continued to flash, he pressed a button on the screen to sync the locations to his watch, which had a built-in GPs. He watched as the bar on his watch displayed the percentage of syncing that was completed: 5 percent ... 6 percent ... a long pause ... and then 8 percent.

"Hey, what's going on, Dawn? The Wi-Fi is really slow today!" Wilfrid seldom got frustrated with his Name engineers, but slow Internet was the one thing that rattled him.

Have you ever tried to browse the Web with Wi-Fi in another dimension? If you think that your Wi-Fi is slow in different spots in your house, then I think you get the idea. No amount of techno genius from Dawn could fight slow Wi-Fi. Dawn was the resident technology expert and she was one of the brightest Name engineers to be recruited in the last ten centuries.

By now you should realize that Wilfrid didn't work alone. He led a team of four, who had been hired throughout the years to help out. His helpers were the Name engineers, and they had all signed long confidentiality agreements when they joined. These agreements made them promise to keep everything they did at work a secret.

In addition to Dawn, there was Coffee, the brown-and-white sloth who was the lightning-fast (yet careful) transporter of names; Cottonball, the porcupine potion master; and Torch, the dragon who was responsible for temperature control. Cottonball also happened to be an excellent chef and made the yummiest cupcakes in the universe. Together with Wilfrid, they formed a team known as the Name Masters.

A series of names zoomed all over the enormous map when Wilfrid touched the screen where the light was pulsating: Karen, Jesse, Emmanuel, Roksana, Peng, Priya, Michael, and Emily (of course, no trip would be complete without an "Emily," one of the most popular names in North America for who knows how many years in a row). Mmm, I can stop for a banana chocolate double-dipped doughnut or two on this trip, thought Wilfrid, already salivating and congratulating himself on a good idea.

Dawn typed away furiously at one of the keyboards and called out to Coffee. "ready to go bubble shopping?"

Coffee's clearly loved this part of the day: syncing his tablet with the names and going into the storage area where all the bubbles were safely kept. "That's what I'm here for. Let the names begin!"

The NAME (Naming alliance Master engineers) headquarters where the team worked was located in another dimension from earth, and it looked like an old-fashioned library before the world went digital. It had rows and rows of floor-to-ceiling bookcases in a space about as large as a baseball stadium. All the names within their bubbles were arranged in alphabetical order within a drawer that was labelled with the starting letter of the name. The same classification principle applied to names using non-Western alphabet characters, like Arabic, Korean, and Chinese. Within the storage area, one section was reserved for new, undelivered names, and another section was for those that had already been delivered but for which the Name Masters continued to care.

Smack in the middle of headquarters was a large empty clearing where one could see the Name Keeper's workshop area. He was a little messy, but he believed that the mess was part of being a creative genius. His work area consisted of several rows of long white tables upon which were different vials, test tubes, ingredients he had collected in trays, baskets, and jars, large computer monitors with touch screens and keypads, and a few heating elements. There were also empty trays where cupcakes used to be, with nothing now but some crumbs. actually, even the crumbs were gone. Food was not a weakness for just Wilfrid.

At the outer perimeter, beyond the bookcase area, were six different offshoots leading to other rooms at headquarters.

1. The "rest zone," where the bedrooms were located.

2. The "culinary corner" (the most popular hangout area for the gluttonous friends).

3. The "cleansing quarters," where the showers and washrooms could be found.

4. The "flab-be-gone" section, which was the on-site gym and was covered in dust.

5. The "entertain me" arena, which contained the latest home theatre and video gaming equipment, as well as a foosball table and pool table.

6. A space called "m," for "miscellaneous," which was the catch-all room for everything else, including storage.

Coffee's job was to move the name bubbles from where they were stored in the drawers to the workshop area as needed, and then bring them back. He did this by putting the name bubbles in a special temperature-controlled, over-the-shoulder bag that he strapped across his chest. He was also called to duty when babies needed names to be delivered, just like he had been right now.

Coffee moved hyper fast through the different aisles of bookcases in search of the names listed on his tablet. On the front of the bookcase drawers below the letter of the alphabet was a small touch screen for typing in the name for which Coffee was looking. Just below the touch screen was a small opening covered with a metal flap from which the name would emerge, just like candy coming out of a gumball machine.

Coffee typed Karen on the "K" drawer touch screen, and out squeezed a bubble with the name. The letters of the name were floating within transparent magical goo within the bubble. So were some items that symbolized purity, which was the meaning of this name: a white feather from a dove, two petals from a lotus flower, a pearl, and some fuzzy wool from a lamb. All the ingredients were in miniature form and in suspension.

The bubbles were made of a very strong but stretchy material so that millions of bubbles could squeeze into a drawer without bursting into a mushy mess. The bubbles were as squishy as already-chewed gum, but they were not nearly as sticky or gross. They needed to be kept at a very specific temperature for the names to continue to grow and mature, which was where Torch came in. Torch could breathe both fire and ice, and he was an expert at creating any temperature with unparalleled accuracy.

Coffee held his slouchy bag open underneath the metal flap to catch the bubble. Then he dragged and dropped the name Madison into a happy-face emoji on his tablet to check it off the list. Through the aisles he went.

As he typed "J-e-s" for "Jesse," the name auto-completed to "Jessica." "argh!" Coffee exclaimed. "This happens all the time! I've already told Dawn a million times to disable the auto-complete!" When he got to the "M" drawer and typed "Michael," the screen flashed red for a moment, and then a message appeared: "Temporarily Out of stock." No bubble came out. "Not my day," Coffee muttered, and he dragged and dropped "Michael" onto a sad-face emoji.

It was a good thing that the Name Keeper and his Name engineers had up to one month to deliver the names. This meant that they would have enough time to create a name bubble for Michael over the next twenty-nine days.

Have you ever noticed that many new babies seem the same in the first month after birth? sure, they're cute, and all the adults seem to go insanely gaga over them, but doesn't it seem like all babies do is eat, sleep, and cry? Now you know why! as you can see with "Michael" today, they may not yet have had their names delivered. Without their magical name goo, the babies' personalities will seem the same. Actually, they really won't have much personality at all.

But let's make something clear: all this name engineering didn't mean that all babies with the same name had the exact same personality. Just like your favourite dish, it is never exactly the same. It may have the same basic ingredients, but there is room for some artistic interpretation; the taste and appearance can vary quite a bit even though you almost always recognize lasagne as lasagne.

What would happen if the Name engineers didn't make the one-month timeline for delivery? Let's not think about that disaster quite yet.

In less time than it takes you to rush outside for recess, Coffee returned with his slouchy shoulder bag, now filled with name bubbles inside but still nearly weightless.

"My turn to go with Wilfrid!" Cottonball said. He grabbed a water bottle, Coffee's shoulder bag, and his space cycle. The Name Masters worked on a buddy system, so one of them always went with Wilfrid.

Wilfrid reached for his space mobile charger for his tablet and his hologrammer gadget, and he turned to Cottonball. "ready? Let's try to do this one quickly, because I would like to, uh, make a stop somewhere if we have enough time." The Name Keeper tried to stay serious but let slip a shy smile; he couldn't stop thinking about the fresh doughnuts he was planning on buying on earth. Wilfrid mounted his space mobile in anticipation of the countdown.

"I'm all set," Cottonball said, puffing out his spikes. "Dawn, please activate the portal."

With a few swipes on one of the screens in the work area, a portal appeared above a spot that looked like a helicopter landing pad in one of the corners of the workshop. Off they steered toward the portal, and they disappeared in a flash.

A Close Call

Wilfrid and Cottonball emerged from the portal and set foot on earth. "I never get tired of interdimensional travel," said Cottonball. He had tucked his spikes in for the ride, and now he puffed them back out. "except for this crazy galactic dust!"

A ball of dust went flying into the air, some of it landing on the tip of Wilfrid's pointy little nose. Wilfrid smiled at his companion. He could always count on Cottonball for a little drama.

Interdimensional travel was never easy and took surprisingly longer than movies might lead one to believe! No elite squad would be complete without cool transportation, and each of the Name Masters had their own special space travel vehicle that was modified for this interdimensional travel. For Wilfrid, it was a snowmobile with wheels instead of blades. Dawn had an intergalactic space scooter. Cottonball had a space cycle, which looked like a mountain bike with thick tires. Coffee was lightning fast on his spacer blades (a fancy version of in-line skates) and Torch rode a space board (a skateboard with a turbo motor).

Torch was in love with his space board, and he buffed it to a shine with steam created from his fire and ice at the end of each day. Once he accidentally used too much fire as he blew at the space board, and poof! Wilfrid had to place an order for a new space board on spaceTravel.com.

Wilfrid and Cottonball landed in the parking lot of Southland General Hospital, where baby Jesse and his mom were resting somewhere inside. It was only morning, but the humidity was starting to hang over them like a wet towel after one too many dips in the pool. "Did you test the hologrammer before you left?" Cottonball asked.

Wilfrid knew that the device had been unstable on the last few trips. "Yes, but it still flickers a bit once in a while. The missing part to fix it still hasn't come in from the warehouse, and we ran out of time," Wilfrid answered, a trickle of concern permeating his thoughts.

Without hesitation, Cottonball said, "Don't worry, boss. We'll be quick. No one will see us even if it flickers."

Wilfrid gave Cottonball a pat on his shoulder to show his appreciation. "Thanks, Cottonball. Now, let's go!" With a push of a button on the hologrammer, Wilfrid and Cottonball were hidden by a projected image of their surroundings. This image shifted seamlessly as they walked, but they still had to be careful because even though they were camouflaged by technology, they were still physically there. If they bumped into anything or made any noise, the sound and movements could be heard and felt by the outside world.

Cottonball's reassurance reminded the Name Keeper of how much he loved his team. He loved them so much that he had hand-stitched Name engineer logos ("Ne" inside a bubble) on their different coloured T-shirts, and he had even added their names below the logos.