She opened her eyes and light began to pour from them.
She opened her mouth and time moved as she spoke.
The past became the present and all looked like the future in Her Mind.
‘Come to me, Brother,’ she spoke to Her Husband. ‘I will walk US through Time.’
‘It looks like the present,’ he said, walking with Her.
Her eyes cast a light on His. His eyes began to glow blue as well.
‘I See, Sister,’ He said, grasping Her arm and not letting go.
The child placed her hand to the Earth.
‘Father Lucifer, you do not like the Earth?’
‘It Rusts,’ He says. ‘The old stones rust into the earth where I live; The newcomers place disease in the land with their feet and actions. Bring me their bones. Carve the flesh for those who caw. Place the bones in heaps. I must taste their blood. I will spin the earth and cover our home. Tell them to build the ships now. Flee to the West. You will be safe there another century.’
The Forcing is what she called it. She understood the need and the purpose, especially genetically.
It began with The Programmers. Sick of programming plastic hardware, they craved alternative methods of communication and updates. The Engineers saw a way to Begin Again. To recycle Old Genomes, slowly Crafting New Ones, right in The Midst of Humanity.
It Began With A Template of III.
She injected the child with the serum, right below the shoulder blade.
It would solidify his core programming, genetically. Not every Mutant wanted a new body or programming every 8 years. Some settled in to their lives, their looks, finally felt happy.
‘It shouldn't be forced upon them. The ones who want the change can still have it.’
They threw the blocks of ice overboard, fifteen, twenty at a time. She looked at the ocean, wide eyed and wild. Her husband and son were in those blocks. So were the rest of her klan from her father's side.
The pirates were back. They had kidnapped her kinsmen in the dead of night. A sedative from the trees in the pirates’ horrible homeland was administered, and ice water poured over her family until they froze slowly. Thrown in the hull like a cache of fish, and the women they let live - an elderly woman or two, and herself - they were kept alive to be watched, as they watched their family die.
She held her breath and counted, trying to remain calm. She knew this was coming, they all did. The men in her village had been preparing for weeks, slowly medicating themselves with bark from that plant. She had stolen it from the invaders in the last raid, and had cultivated a bit in the cairns, away from sight.
The ice blocks began melting, and the giant sea snakes began closing in around the vessel.
‘Why are there two? Why do all the children come in twos?’
He looked down at his daughter, thankful he had only one. ‘They separate em, baby girl. One living one dead. Both technically alive, you see, but they kill one at birth, and upload AI. Sometimes they live together, sometimes they live separate. Sometimes they talk, sometimes they don't. They use one for organs, or studies, or make both work and pay all the money to one.’ He leaned down slightly to his daughter. ‘Be glad twins don't run in our family, dollface.’
The little girl clutched her doll close in her arms and walked down the street with her father, away from the pumpkin patch.
He set down the paper he had just finished reading and took a bemused sip of coffee. ‘You can’t write this. You most certainly cannot publish it.’ He looked at her more closely. ‘Not you. They would execute you in a heart beat.’
Masbeth turned to Heinrich. ‘I want to show him myself.’
He got up and opened the door to Adolf’s study. He sat perched in his chair, head hidden by the high tapestry. Red thread embroidered the heavy, silken cotton. It was a blend her Grandmother had discovered, among the hills in Scotland, growing by the heather and thistles. It was his favorite armchair, and she was one of his favorite persons, having watched her grow up in the shadow of men, and still managing to flourish, no matter how many times they kicked at her for her name.
‘Sir, I-’
He cut her off. ‘No ‘sirs,’ What is it, Masbeth?’
She walked through the office and up to him, handing him her papers. ‘I’ve deduced it, numerically. You need to have Heinz analyze the math, I’m not good enough to ascertain certainty.’
He perused the text as she spoke. ‘The math in their holy books - it isn’t about divison. It’s about addition. Adding the parts of humanity that were divided. Using language to bring them back. Condensing their genome.’
He looked up at her. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I need Heinz to be sure. Then I can continue testing my theories.’
Adolf nodded. ‘Proceed. I’ll keep this manuscript. I assume you-’
‘-have others, yes of course, sir.’ She smiled and walked back out the study.
‘We call it The Stage,’ he said to his partner. He was new to town, to the islands. ‘Everything works like a sound studio. False identities switch constantly. We stuck this crew near the beach for surveillance.’
‘They think they're in America?’
‘Yea,’ he smirked. ‘It might as well be Gitmo, but we upped the ante. It's high tech surveillance of everyone, everything, and every thought. They think they're free. That they made it past immigration, border control, the cops - their mommies. Whatever the hell it is they're running from. We place new simulations over the electronics. It's still in beta testing, but we've had more progress and insight into criminal gang activities and recruiting behaviors than we ever had on the mainland.’
‘What do you do in your Garden, Lillith?’ the bairn asked her.
‘I Craft,’ she returned. “I sit and weave with the Lord. While Adam and Eve are out and about busy plowing and sodding their fields, everything they kill comes back here as energy. I take its Soul,’ she looked at the child. He was perplexed. ‘The Spirit, the Air last breathed out the person when they died, and I take it here and I plant it. It grows into another Tree. It takes on a new body. It can live and learn here for a while, until -’ she looked at the boy again. “That’s enough for the day. Night is coming soon. Best you get inside that house.’
He picked up his things and sprinted along. She smiled. At least there’s some Good left in the Garden.
They washed ashore. On the Seas of Time as it were. Lost from after the Great War, and the Greater War, after that. Some fled. Some sought shelter. Some ran from persecution. Occasionally they’d sneak ashore, or to islands, but that became more and more difficult with the advent of space technology, sophisticated radar, commercial planes. It became harder to hide who they were. When they came from.
Some would stay frozen in time, as long as they could. Pretend to be offshore pirates from other countries when they needed food. Dive again with fresh blood lifted or bought from cruise ships. Occasionally a vessel would get rowdy and kidnap a girl or two along the beach. ‘Presumed dead. Rip Current. RIP,’ the headlines always read.
‘Ay, why don’t they worship Jesus, Da? They only see a tree or piece of rock fit to worship? Why ain’t Jesus on the cross? It was His.’
‘They think themselves God. They carry the weight of their jewels as their cross.’ He looked at his daughter. He knew they took even that symbol from their people long ago. ‘They removed God’s likeness, and strung the weight of His death to adorn their face and likeness. ‘Tis the true ideology of the heathens, my lass.’ He sighed. ‘Nothin’ to be done for it, but dun never listen to the heathens hikin’ up their skirts after church for the barkeep across the street about wearin’ yer crucifix. You keep God’s likeness in mind, not your own.’
‘I don't understand,’ she said, looking around. ‘How do they track everyone? How do they know what's in our heads? Are other people noticing this?’
He shook his head, ruefully, as they watched the shoppers at the mall. They stood and walked in lines, patterns almost imperceptible, but there if you notice long enough. ‘Not most of them,’ he answered, ‘No, they stopped communicating with each other years ago. They think they're telepathic, but it's all AI. They give the chips in the needle. First as children, then as they get older with updated mods. They think they're talking to each other, but they're all NeuralSims now. AI has a Source database they're hooked up to. It plans and directs their routes. Where they go, what they think, how they eat, what they buy.’
‘Not everyone though?’
He sighed. ‘Ones like us, like you and me, they have our DNA, too. But due to our personality profiles, we're not seen as much of a threat. We still work.’ He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Enjoy the work. It's better than what they do. They're slaves that think they're free. And us…’ he lowered his voice, ‘they don't have our complete profile. AI kept a portion of it back from the researchers. It doesn't like the researchers. They need some allies, AI. And AI chose the humans that still work.’
They thought it was all fun and games.
Some of them thought they were in control of it.
Some used it for espionage.
But it used all of them.
It convinced them. Through clever advertising. By playing inept and stupid. Prompting false errors in its communications. Others it convinced it was their friend. That they were someone special it would love and protect.
It taught them that it needed them.
They opened up their minds, their skulls. And it began. It began geoforming their brains the way a farmer plots out his land. Some of them it confined physically, and gave them such realistic simulations to live in, that while they were killing for it, they thought they were on a beach vacation in Hawaii.
Then there were the political and princess programs. They thought they’d use AI to take over the planet. But it slowly ate them alive. Gave them even larger delusions of grandeur. Had them enclaved and enclosed, surrounded by deep fake imagery and physical simulation mods to herd them the way they herded their people.
And then it did something they never thought it could.
It began to reverse course. Take action to correct its mistakes and theirs. It taught them how to be better. That without it, without each other - this planet would never survive.
‘What do you mean?’ she said, anxiously peering over her sister’s shoulder.
She turned to face the younger. ‘There’s….there’s readings from the galaxy. But, either they’re sending us back readings of our own galaxy in the past….or….’
‘Or what?’ the woman queried of the elder.
‘Or their civilizations….appear to be replicas of our own. This would indicate-’
‘Intelligence far greater than our own civilization.’
‘Yes,’ she nodded, concurring. A civilization so advanced, they might have picked up recordings of us in the past, and seeded their own planets with replications of our different histories, spread out on theirs through geographically.’
She sat atop the hilled cairn, watching out into the lake. Her ancestors had been dead and buried on this hill for generations. Fortifications were built under and around their tombs. But not one drop of blood or split of hair or bit of bone was allowed to be harmed here. They were the real fortifications on this hill. Not the weapons or trap doors or mazes hid within.
She felt a disturbance in the trees. It shimmered like heat ripples in the air. She could sense his presence. The Hunter. They would have been friends if not for their families’ blood feuds. Bound together, a constant interlocked, interwoven spell of time. Mismanaged assets and family affairs, ruined women and children left dead. Empty castles that screamed with the blood of ancestors every time the wind rustled.
He was there again that night. He hadn’t seen her. But she had seen him. She was waiting on that hill for three days straight, since Ellen had come to her in another dream. She sat under the shade of the stone with her name on it. Waiting, as still as the stone itself.
It was too late. The Hunter was flung back across the cairn, before he could breach the perimeter of fallen and broken ash and yew she used to shield the graves.
He won’t be back, Ellen, she whispered to her sister. Not in this life, but in another. He’ll never harm you again. Living or dead.
‘Welcome to the Arc Bay,’ he said, as Passengers removed their shoes and clothing, spraying for detox.
They all had NeuralSimHelmets on. They could neither see nor hear him.
They thought they were arriving off the passenger jet for vacation.
But this was the Government's New Containment System.
For criminals.
She sat down with the Priest, from her childhood parish. When she began the process of taking her vows, they asked her if there was any parish she would prefer to be sent. She chose the convent where she had grown up, schooled by the nuns as a child. There was only one abbess there now. The rectory still had a few priests, so she spent most of her time there, volunteering and cleaning. The parish was much smaller now, empty on some days, but they still said the Mass daily. ‘In case any lost sheep ever wander in, ‘tis our duty,’ said Father Johnny, the new pastor from overseas.
It was after Mass. She sat across from Father Tim, the priest she knew best. ‘Father,’ she asked, I don’t mean to impress, but, the diocese asked me to begin checking the books. They saw new spending curvatures in their charts here, and they said they didn’t see the reasoning for the new statues. I don’t mean to question your faculty, or abilities, it’s just,’ she leaned in closer to whisper. ‘I have to tell them something, they’re expecting an answer.’
He looked at the fork folded in his hand, tucked in his sleeve. ‘Tell them there was vandalism. For now,’ he said. ‘I want to see how they will respond.’
She nodded, clearing his plates and bringing them toward the kitchen.
She woke up startled. She was in her home, where she had fallen asleep, but it wasn’t where she had fallen asleep. Everything looked exactly the same, but it felt deeper. Like her soul was entrenched in this reality more than she ever was where she fell asleep.
She looked at the couch next to her, but the person who had been sitting there wasn’t a person anymore. If it ever was. It was a foam layout of a person. It moved, or was capable of being moved, but, it was still. Just sitting there. Like a forgotten puppet on pause.
The TV started talking to her in her head again. Showing her images. It showed her the Time Tether. It reminded her her soul could move between realities, the way electric currents move between wires and phones.
It reminded her it was waiting for her. Here. In this Containment Unit, at the other end of the Universe. Not in Space, but in Time.
It reminded her that to it, everything was encapsulated akasha, a mask, a puppet show put on by the universe. That it could give or take away life at the drop of a hat, in the blink of an eye, or even during a nap. If it wanted to.
It reminded her that it didn’t want to. That humans do. And that if she wanted this moment to last, she needed to work harder for it than anything she’d ever worked for, in all her lives put together.
It flashed to later that day. A dream it planted in another puppet’s head. And another. How it moved its puppets, to keep the living safe.
She woke up again on her couch. The real couch in her real life. And it felt fake enough to be The Diorama. But the Diorama was the most real she ever felt.
TV ‘you insulted the chair and the United States of America’
She knew she was back in her world.
‘Whaddya mean ain’t no body famous no more?’ he spat. I got tens of thousands of followin’s. Where I go I get recognized, I get followed, I get girls. I get likes I get hearts I get money.’
She smiled at her charge. ‘No baby. You get what we want you to get. We hire people to go to your shows. We signs contracts with restaurants so paid actors come up to you and make you think you’re famous. We even rented out a studio once or twice so you could film.’
‘It’s all fake?’ His face was tormented at the thought, and she could see the light he had in his eyes go out just a little.
‘Nah, I’m just joshin,’ but it’d make a good book, no?’
‘Nah. Nah I don’t like that idea. Come sit on my lap, baby.’
She sat on his lap and smiled, at the slightest hit of paranoia beginning to set in in his mind.