A window opens. The novel ends. 29 episodes until release.
Betaen 6. 154
154
Excerpt from “The She Chronicles”
The papers were good. Really good. Even the internet. I checked the time stamps. They were real. This hadn‘t just been put on line. It had been online for 39 years. Literally there since her birth in 2420. I had gained a decade. I felt like I had lost it. This was really deep shit. This was the stuff that had been hinted at in the academy. That there were agents so deep only a few people knew they existed, that there were identities so perfect that the person who had been Tabitha Jones was really now Xe McCullen. The fabled DEEP project. Up until that moment I had thought it was all just fantasy. Now I was holding a table of data points in my hand and looking at the internet history of a woman who hadn’t lived until I opened that folio. I was her. The sociologist on special assignment. The one who had been waiting in the shadows for her chance to live. I had given her that chance. I wondered what she would do with it?
I had to learn her life; who her friends had been, what her parents were like, who she had lost in the flu. All those things. The quarantine seal on the door would help, but the rest was up to me. When I opened that door I had to be her. And the woman I helped kill on Betaen 6 would forever be dead. I pulled the photo of my father out of the leather folio I kept it in and wondered why the Inspector had let me keep it. I flipped it over and ran my fingers over his signature. Remembered collapsing on my bed, sobbing so hard I couldn’t breathe, as I read his signature on the back. I still didn‘t quite understand how this all was supposed to work, but I had time.
Betaen 6. 155
155
Excerpt from the She Chronicles. Probably written upon the release of He - 2467
No one was following him. No one was interested in him at all. It had been long ago, on Betaen 6. That type of shit happened all the time on Betaen 6 - still did. There wasn’t even a code on his entry papers or his file, although he was a convicted felon. Maybe the new justice minister was keeping her word – felons freed from prison were also freed from their past. At least he was. But that could have been the hand of the Inspector.
The Inspector and I sat across from each other as we so often had in the last eight years and drank our coffee. In the same restaurant we always visited. The one where his Jeff had worked, and he had always come. The one where I had first met both of them. The Inspector and my friend. I had realized after I met the Inspector during training that I had seen him before, that we had exchanged a few words, he was a regular at the same restaurant I was. The restaurant on the side of the pond – that was its name, as stupid as that might seem - where my friend and I had first touched. First kissed. Lots of firsts. But also, an end. It was the last place on earth we had been together – the evening before we boarded the Lander to take us to the flight to Betaen 6. The Inspector had stopped by our table that night, gave me a letter. A letter. That it was supposed to be snooper safe and that they had snoopers in our cabin he forgot to mention. And that is when everything went wrong. But I was wallowing in the past. In something I couldn’t change. Remembering a young woman who’d been dead for over 8 years. I shook my head to snap myself out of it.
I was back in the present. The Inspector was blowing softly on his coffee. Cooling it. He didn‘t have the pain threshold Jeff had had, nor that of my friend.
He pushed a small black book across the table to me.
I looked at him quizzically. Not that he pushed a book across the table to me instead of a tablet or a communicator – he always wrote anything he wanted kept secret on paper. Never electronic. Always snooper free. Except for when young women left letters lying on the floor of their cabins.
„Something’s changing on Betaen 6.“ he said and took a small sip of his coffee. It was still too scalding for him. „And it is correlated with him“
I started to open my mouth, but he held up his hand.
„Read it“ he said „Don’t leave it open too long“
I know he didn‘t mean to be cruel, that it was just a phrase to be careful, but I took it personal. I was the one that had left the letter scattered across the floor for the snoopers to read. If I had kept it in my hands, in my folio, maybe none of this would ever have happened. Maybe I would still be me. I felt the tears well up behind my eyes and choked back the slime building quickly in my throat.
He reached across the table and took my hand.
„Its OK“ he said, squeezed „Its OK. It all would have happened anyway. Maybe a month or two later – but they would have found out about you two. And maybe then I wouldn‘t have been able to do anything. Who knows?“
Betaen 6. 156
156
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles” 2468
I nodded. He squeezed my hand again and then let go. I took the book and opened it. He’d written down dates and times. Murders. Communications. Who the communicator had been. Navigation jump calculation times. And next to the pages and pages of data he’d written he’d added in dates that were important about him. All in red ink.
The date they decided to review my friend's release. A jump in problem communication for the next week.
The day they decided he could be released. Both problem communication and navigation jump calculation times changed. Both went down. Way down. Navigation jump times hadn‘t been that short since before the flu.
The day of his release. Problem communication went through the roof. There had never been so many murders committed in 24 hours on Betaen 6. 139 murders in 24 hours. 28 of them with understandable communication. From what the Inspector had told me I knew that if we had 28 understandable communications in a year it was incredible.
I closed the book and handed it back to him.
„You really think its about him?“ I was getting scared. What if the problem had told them about us? About him? What if they’d told them I wasn’t really dead??
„NO“ he said it firmly. He’d read what I was thinking in the lines around my eyes.
„They haven’t said a single thing about him. Or about you.“ He sipped his coffee again „But they have been very communicative. Very interested. And they haven‘t been that interested since the day we put him away.“
He pocketed the little book and motioned for the waitress.
„I think we need beer“ he said.
Betaen 6. 157
157
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles”
“When we accepted the Zater we accepted the trap of three dimensionality of bodies. Physical being, the Zater, was too important to us. We had even accepted that we would, as three-dimensional beings, be trapped by time as the humans were. That N’Hai N’Hai could never be trapped by time was unknown to us. That we could exist within the timelines, that the dimension called time – oil spilled on muddied waters – multiply – as beings, that was not even a hope we had. That we could, even before the assimilation, feel air upon our brows and the sweet taste of water without losing our being was only possible for a few. Few took the chance. Few took the danger. There was always the fear that through de-assimilation the multiples would be lost. That there were, before their offer to us to complete Zater, only two humans who could host us did not help the situation. That they knew nothing of us – how could they? – intensified the problem. But those two did change the universe forever.”
Elf-gegu. Personal Diary. Dated 2794. Released 2999.
Earth. Restaurant by the Pond. 2467
He’d paid. Since I had first known him the Inspector had always paid. We were walking along the pond that bordered on the terrace of the restaurant. It was autumn and it was already cold. Most of the birds had left.
„He’s been here two days“ he said „No movement anywhere – and I mean anywhere. He’s safe“
„I want to see him“ I said „I can’t wait any longer. I‘ve waited so long. I have to see if he’s still who he should be. Or if we fucked him up so bad with the Catenol that he doesn’t know anything. Or ..“
He grabbed my shoulder.
„Don’t do this“
„I have to know.“ I said „I have to see him“
We walked around the pond two more times before he spoke again. I noticed that the hem on his pants was fraying. He’d either have to repair them or buy a new pair.
„There is no surveillance. He’s not of any interest.“
I knew that was his way of saying yes. I smiled again.
Spaceplane to Janus 2. 2458
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles”
I broke the quarantine seal two weeks and a day after I woke up in that cabin. Greeted the staff at the dinner table. Let an older gentleman sit at the table with me. Told him about my life. Because now that sociologist on special assignment was me. He was open and obviously interested in me as more than just a table partner until he made the mistake of asking me what my job was. I told him. He tried not to blanch and tried to keep his hand on the wineglass from shaking. He lasted five minutes before he excused himself.
The Inspector had chosen the perfect identity. No one asked me questions. They were all too afraid too. I happily told them all about my life and my studies and my travels and refrained from telling them about my job. That made them interested - until the gossip train had informed everyone on the ship that I was an undercover cop and dangerous as hell.
Betaen 6. 158
158
Apartment of the Comle. Betaen 6. 2799
Kiera laid the book aside that she had tried to read. Thoughts of Eric lying on the floor, of the arm of the young guardswoman beside him but none of the rest of her kept forcing themselves through her resolve. She wiped the tears from her eyes. She must pull herself together. She was Comle. She was a woman. She was new human. However barbarous the attempt on their lives had been she still must act. According to her station. She sniffled back the last tears and opened the She Chronicles again. Perhaps reading about She would give her some peace. Kiera felt the nod within her and knew that it was right.
The She Chronicles written 2458-2468
I had almost finished my second training year. I thought I had done well but they called me into the upper floor to see the head of training. I hadn’t cheated on any exams; I hadn’t failed any either. I had no idea what they wanted from me.
I waited in the anteroom. My palms were sweating and I think I must have wiped them on my jeans a thousand times. At least the woman behind the desk made sure to let me know, by that look over her reading glasses, that she wasn’t pleased.
She touched her ear. Nodded. Whispered something. Looked at me and spoke louder.
„You can go in.“
I started to walk by her desk but realised she still wanted to say something to me. I paused. She looked up and looked at me in some type of awe. I had expected anything but that.
„He’s in there“ she said „I just wanted to warn you!“
„Who?“ I asked.
And she said that name.
That was the first time I saw the Inspector. The first time I felt his strength – and strangely enough now that I look back on it – his weakness. It would come to pass that it was his weakness that saved me. Strangely, now that I write this, I know I had seen him before, just never known who he was. He had simply been another regular at the restaurant beside the pond.
Betaen 6. 159
159
Excerpt from the She Chronicles.
I waited across the street for him again. This time in the sun. It was too damn cold in the shade, and the night before, when I couldn’t sleep, I finally decided to meet him. To let him see me. To see what would happen. Even if he told me to fuck off it would be better than this purgatory. He came out at about the same time he had the day before. Perhaps fifteen minutes earlier. He didn’t look across the street and he didn’t see me. I crossed to his side and followed him at a decent distance. Like I said, I wanted him to see me. But for most of the morning, while he re-walked the paths of our life together, he didn’t turn around.
Then, about midday, I had been trailing him for almost three hours, He glanced back over his shoulder. I was only a block behind him. Training took over for a moment and I slunk against the wall, but he saw me. He stopped walking and turned around. I don’t think I have ever seen a man so pale, and I’ve seen albinos before. He stood still for a very long moment. People shuffled by him on both sides. He didn’t move. Just stared. I leant against the wall and waited. I don’t know what I had expected or what I wanted from him in that moment, but it wasn’t that he stood there like a statue glued in place.
He started to move towards me. His first steps were quick and decisive but the closer he got to me the less he moved his feet. It was if some weight were dragging him backwards.
I thought I should say something first. Told him he was looking good. Which to me he was. To anyone else I think he would have looked like a scarecrow about to be blown over by the wind.
He looked me up and down. As if he could somehow capture me with his eyes.
„Are you real? “He asked.
I had expected and thought out a lot of things. None of them were the question if I was real. If I think about it though it was valid, He had no idea what was going on and was convinced he had killed me.
I had had enough foresight to take the photo with me. I pulled it out of my jacket pocket and showed it to him, said something like „Would anyone else have this? “
I don’t think he breathed when he saw that photo of my father.
I took his hand in both of mine, looked into his eyes. He was still in there somewhere but someone else had taken over the surface.
„It is time you came with me“ I said „It's been too long, and I couldn’t wait anymore “
I turned him around and we walked on the way he had been going. I knew where I wanted to go. I needed coffee and a beer.
Betaen 6. 160
160
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles”. Written 2458-2468
„ I don’t like being surprised anymore, whether it’s because of prison, or those voices I hear sometimes, but I don’t like being surprised at all anymore.“
Those were the first words he said to me after he had jumped out of the chair when I tapped him on the shoulder.
I was just returning from the washroom. We were in the restaurant by the pond. I think we may have even been sitting at the table we sat at before we left for Betaen 6. We had already drunk one coffee together. He had seemed very, very, far away. But I guess I can understand that. Until about an hour ago he thought he had killed me. I was afraid he would start to ask me why, or what had really happened. I didn’t have the strength to tell him. It had taken all the strength I had to walk back to that table and touch him on the shoulder. There was a moment when I was washing my hands for about the sixth time that I thought about crawling through the window and escaping. But I had wanted this, however painful it was going to be.
I said I was sorry. Hadn’t meant to scare him. I meant I was sorry for everything, but I don’t think he caught on to that. Nodded to the waitress when she brought me my coffee.
„Do you write poetry anymore? Or did that stop?“
I don’t know why those words suddenly popped into my head.
He looked at me and smirked. Took his green notebook – the one his wife had given him so many years and lifetimes ago – out of his jacket pocket; I couldn’t believe he still carried it there, flipped it open, searched for a page, and handed it to me.
I read.
Betaen 6. 161
161
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles”
I took a journey
To find myself
Or lose myself
I’m not sure which
A dark journey
Through oaths and words
Almost forgotten
A bright journey
Through colors brittle
With decay
A journey
With no beginning
And only one
Unknown end.
I sat still for a long time, reading and rereading the poem. I wanted to flip the page but I couldn’t. The poem trapped me. I glanced up at him. I couldn’t look at him. Not right then.
“You hated me didn’t you?”
He shook his head, took back the green book. Laid it beside his coffee cup. Drank. Then he flipped through it again. Found another page. Handed it back to me and as he did so he said:
„In prison you have no time for draining emotions like hate. Not if you want to survive. A lot didn’t. For some reason I wanted to.“ he sipped his coffee again „And I did“
Then he smiled that lopsided smile and it made my heart leap.
“I also wrote that poem just before my wife went on her two-year trip to the periphery with her work.” He took a sip of his coffee; I couldn’t have – it was still steaming. “Much better than prison coffee that’s for sure.”
He didn’t need to say the rest. I knew what he meant. Maybe he had caught on after all.
I read the poem on the page he had opened it to. It was shorter than the last one. Just as emotional, but shorter.
Betaen 6. 162
162
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles”
My love has sienna hair
That smells so sweet
Like honey in the sun
On summer mornings
My love has grass green eyes
That are so deep
Like ocean pools
Beneath the caves
My love has coral lips
Pink blossoms of beauty
Like soft pillows
To welcome a tired man home.
My love
Is you.
Now I was crying. Tears dripping from my cheeks. I didn’t need to read it twice. The date told me everything. He had written it in prison. He reached across the table and took the book from me. There were wet tears on the page. He closed it anyway.
„You were only a thing in my mind“ he said „But I meant it.“ he drank the last of his coffee „I thought I was writing it about a dead person. But I had to. I used to read that poem almost every day.“
He smiled that crooked smile again.
„Do you still think I hated you?“
Betaen 6. 163
163
Excerpt from “The She Chronicles”
The sun only sets in the west on the equinox on any planet, not just earth, even on Betaen 6. Why was I thinking that? What did that have to do with the sorrow and the loss that I was feeling?
Even the idea of north, south, west, and east are strange when you think of other planets. Take Betaen 6 for example, assuming earths position in space as normal, which is what we humans tend to do, then the magnetic poles of Betaen 6 are upside down and it’s not the top of the planet, but the bottom of the planet which is north. So north is south and south is north and everything is all fucked up. Like that planet. Like he was.
It had to do with his trial. Because the woman who had been killed on Betaen 6 had been such a promising young cop there was more media attention than such a simple murder deserved. The rabid onlookers were also both fascinated and mortified from his mental condition and all types of experts spent all types of time explaining or not explaining how and why it could happen. That it had been Catenol was not an explanation heard from any of them.
I watched the sentencing with the others, for some reason they were all drawn to the central lounge to watch it, as if it were a gladiator trial in Rome. Everyone had a view screen in their room, everyone could have watched the trial there, but no one did. I didn’t want to seem too strange, so I joined them. I hated them all. Their vapid eyes as they stared at the screen. Their stupid remarks as this or that expert cut in with his or her opinion. What did any of them know of him? Did they know that he had been a researcher before the flu? Not a big name but still someone who looked for natures' truths. Did they know that he was not just a competent photographer and poet but a damned good one? No. Did they know that the cop had loved him and that she still did? Stupid idiots. All of them. They just spouted even more gibberish than he did.
I stopped looking at them and forced myself to look at the screen. After all, I was the reason he was there.
They’d read him his sentence and expected him to reply. He just sat there hopefully seeing moss and trees and not blood and loss. That he wasn’t seeing the courtroom was obvious even to the short-sighted dowagers sitting in the back.
His lawyer kept poking him in the side. After what seemed an eternity to me he turned to her and looked at her just as blankly as he looked at the courtroom. She said something to him. Then he turned to the judge and said
„Where am I? Why am I here? Did I do something wrong? This is a court isn‘t it? Or are you part of the forest?”
The judge just shook her head. They had tried to prove that he was faking his insanity for the first two weeks and then even the most determined of them gave up. This thing with trees and forests kept coming up a lot. I should have expected it, that was the last thought I planted in his mind.
Betaen 6. 164
164
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles”
They discussed the sentence. Decided to decrease it because of his madness.
Suddenly he stood up and his eyes looked normal.
„I didn’t kill anyone“ he screamed „I didn’t kill anyone! I lost them both. Both of them gone. Gone forever. Where are they?? Boots!! Trees! No no no!!!!“ then he screamed.
The guard standing behind him tackled him and pushed him into his chair. He was sobbing and the look of normality had left his eyes.
I couldn’t watch anymore. I turned and walked out the door. As I pushed it open one of the old dowagers sitting in the last row said
„Just look at him. Pathetic act. He should be put away forever“
I stopped. Looked down at her.
„You don’t know what the fuck you are saying.“
I pushed open the door and left before anyone could see the tears.
I managed to make it back to my suite before I totally broke down. I think I spent an hour bawling into the pillow. At least it was so damp I had to have it changed later. After I managed to pull myself together a bit I stripped and took a shower. I felt dirty. I knew why and I knew that the shower wouldn’t help but I did it anyway. It’s just one of those things you do.
I spent an eternity under that shower. Praise be to whatever engineer had designed the plumbing but the water never changed temperature. I did. But it didn’t. I toweled myself dry on the big fluffy towels the first class suites had and then took a second one as a dress. Wrapped it around me and sank onto the bed. Crawled under the covers like I had when I was a little girl.
Betaen 6. 165
165
Excerpt from the “She Chronicles”
I pulled the photo of my father out of my folio. Turned it over and ran my thumb over the scrawl He had written. I still didn’t understand how that all fit together and what exactly was going on. Only that, according to the Inspector, I was the first natural female navigator to be seen and as such a candidate for dissection and he was a communicator. But one they hadn’t seen before either. Because no one had been murdered when he took that photo.
I started crying again. I had cried a lot after I awoke in my quarantine cabin. I had lost a lot. I had put away my lover and my friend. I had just spent two hours under a hot shower washing away the guilt and the tears, but right then I was crying because that man he had taken the photo of was my father. My father had been there again. Alive. And I had missed the opportunity to touch him again. To hold his hand. To feel his badly shaven face on my cheek. To talk to him. Drink a cup of tea with him, he never had liked coffee and couldn’t understand why I liked it so much, and just be with him again.
At least that thought made me stop crying. Set my mind in a different direction. I wondered if his signature and the inscription had always been on the photo? If the problems communication happened before we first realized it? If they weren’t limited by time maybe it had always been there, but I only noticed it when I needed too? There were too many thoughts, too many emotions, too many everything. I fell asleep. The tablets the Inspector had left me were good ones.
The Inspector had clout, that was definite. Three weeks to the day after I left Betaen 6 the liner took up orbit around Janus 2. Half of the dowagers left there, to be replaced by the same number if not more. And he came on board as well. Under a different name, one of the tens he used to remain incognito. We met accidentally that night in the lounge. Talked. Gave anyone looking the impression that I had found myself a man. Met for breakfast the next day. Walked the observation deck together and then I moved into his suite. Angered a lot of the dowagers and a lot of the other younger women on the ship. The Inspector was greying but he had an aura around him that both men and women found attractive. And it made him no less attractive to anyone that he had rented the most expensive suite on the ship for the entire 6 month journey to Earth. There would be 5 more stops, but our destination was Earth. Earth was still the center of the known universe even if geographically it was quite a bit to the side.
Betaen 6. 166
166
Excerpt from the DEEP file 517
appendix. Earth. Unknown Laboratory. DEEP project. 2453.
Report WIPE operator 1.
Female subject - DEEP 517 - WIPE successful third wipe run. Reintroduction successful.
Male subject WIPE unsuccessful sixth WIPE run. Commanding surgeon decision to stop WIPE procedure. Memory partially parsed. Original identity assimilated. Partial creation and partial wipe. Decision - DEEP team leader - reintroduction of new original. No DEEP number assigned.
Appendix. DEEP file 517 and WIPE 3217
Commanding surgeons report 6 month follow up.
DEEP file 517 has been successful. New identity has taken and memory profile is correct without anomalies. Surgery successful.
WIPE 3217 was a partial wipe but enough original memories have been removed or replaced to ensure that anomalies are non-destructive.
The surviving child has been placed in state foster care on Gargt 4. Age of the individual prohibits WIPE procedure.
2nd Appendix. Written in a scrawled handwriting and barely legible.
Against all odds 517 and WIPE 3217 are together again. There is something strange about these two I don’t understand. Something foreign. Could it be the Betaen 6 project??
Excerpt from the DEEP file 487.
Possible contamination of subject during second WIPE. Redundant loop.
A scribbled note on the side of the page says
Could there be two of the bastards?? This cant be happening.
WIPE stopped. Reintroduction successful.
Betaen 6. 167
167
Excerpt from the unredacted Inspector Recalls. being read by Comle Kiera. 2799.
Betaen 6. Sometime before 2457
We had a good navigation team. It only took them two jumps, both calculated in less than a week, to get to Betaen 6. The fifteen days we had had on board we spent together. We swam. We ate. We made love. We simply enjoyed one another. I think I knew already then that I was going to lose him.
The ride down in the Lander was like all the rides down. Bumpy. Hot. Unenjoyable. A Lander ride could ruin your plans for future travel quick. As I was there officially, they put us up in the best hotel. Not that a good hotel on Betaen 6 can compare with a good hotel anywhere else, but at least you have a bed and warm water in the shower. I waited the day, but as it went on, closer to evening, I could see that Jeff was getting fidgety. I didn’t want to make it worse for him so we went to the station. I told them I needed a private interrogation room. No one but me and the suspect. No snoopers. I had enough clout that they obeyed me.
My biggest fear was how we were going to do the murder we were going to need. I still thought that Jeff’s communication had been because of the triple murder I was investigating. I had no idea they could just talk through him. We closed the door and I think I must have said something like “Who do I murder?”
Jeff took over then. Told me to sit. Sat across that bare metal table from me. Took my hands in his.
When he spoke, it was both his voice and not his voice. It's difficult for me to explain.
“We have waited a long time for this” he said “A very very long time.”
He let go of my hands and carefully pulled the package of cigarettes out of my shirt pocket. Took one, stuck it between his teeth like he so often did – he knew it would make me smile and it did – lit it and gave it to me. Jeff had never smoked but he knew instinctively when I needed to.
“You see we live in a different dimension than you do. We are trapped by the fifth and not the fourth dimension. Many decades we have argued and discussed if approaching you would really be the Zater. Then She was born and we found this human. We had searched for him forever.
One of the things that so upsets you, we can feel it, is that to discourse with us you must kill, you must violently release the energy that you are, join our plane for a brief few moments, and allow communication. In the beginning we thought you experienced nothing when we discussed such. We learned differently. We are sorry it has taken us so long. But the Zater is everything. Not just for us. We have seen in our timelines that it is also everything for you. That is why we continue. A few sacrifices are nothing if we can have the Zater”
I pulled my left hand away from him, usually I would have used my right, but I didn’t want him to let go of my hand. I needed that more than I needed the cigarette. I shook off the ash, clumsily, but managed to even get some of it into the ashtray.
“And the Zater is?” I asked
“Assimilation of humans with the N’Hai N’Hai. Peace for both of us.”
I think I must have snorted. Pipe dreams.
Betaen 6. 168
168
Excerpt from the unredacted Inspector Recalls. being read by Comle Kiera. 2799.
Betaen 6. Sometime before 2457.
“No” Jeff said “It is real. Peace. Everlasting peace. No more war. No more wanton destruction, no more what you humans call hate”
He reached across the table and touched my forehead. The visions burst behind my eyes. They were wonderful. The universe was wonderful. I had never felt so calm and fulfilled in my life. The universe, which I had until that moment seen as a cesspool, was actually beautiful.
“We will give up much for the Zater but we will gain as well.” Jeff clutched my hand tighter in his. “We must however keep me, Jeff, from the humans you call the triumvirate. We were reckless. We thought you too would want Zater as we want it – totally. Of course, freely. Every human given the vision and allowed to decide to join with a N’Hai N’Hai or not. So, we asked again and again for this person in front of you, the man you love, Jeff. We only asked for what we could feel, not by name. But we asked too much.”
Jeff lowered his head and looked at our hands. He took his free hand and gently stroked my thumb where it lay on the table. Then he raised his head again.
“Your triumvirate would have partial assimilation. Only a select few become the assimilated. With the power to see through time and know what will be, because then for you, as for us, time does not exist. To know that death is only a new beginning. That time is everywhere at once and nowhere at the same time. They would create a master class to rule the rest of humanity forever.
That is not Zater. That is not who or what we are. And that can not be.
But they come closer to this human Jeff, from whom we now speak, every day. When they find him, they will take him and use him for that end, and we will not acquiesce. We will give up the Zater until a new Jeff is found.”
I was on my second cigarette already. I had managed to fumble one into my mouth and light it.
“You have waited millions of years for this?”
He nodded
“And there’s something about a girl that was born?”
He nodded again.
“We have seen in our timelines that for the Zater to be completed there must be two – a male and a female as you call them. We find this separation strange, but interesting. We will enjoy it when we are one”
“And this girl?” I inhaled deeply, coughed “Is the triumvirate after her too?”
“Not yet” he said “She has not yet been noticed. But She will. We have seen it in time and we can not alter it without forever altering the possibility of Zater.”
I nodded. OK. They needed two humans. But what they wanted was worth it. It had felt so good. It was wonderful. I had only felt felt it for a few seconds, but I knew I would never forget it.