Diabolus (28 page)

From everywhere and nowhere, a hum began to fill his ears, his mind, even somehow his vision. It grew until it was a painful vibration, every binary link in his persona at the shattering point. At some point, he heard a scream begin to drown out the vibrating hum. The sound filled him with fear, one that intensified when he understood it was being amplified by millions of other organic minds. Aggelos felt himself frantically try to escape, to stop whatever was happening when he recognized the scream as coming from his own mouth.

The world exploded into pure white nothing. There was no sound, no air, nothing to see. Aggelos-Felipe panicked, turning around in circles to try and see something other than the maddening, endless, white void. The fear coursed through him, making his stomach clench tightly, and he could barely keep himself from throwing up at the inability to even determine if he was turning in circles. A scream of fright escaped him when a firm hand clasped his wrist.

Do not fear.

Aggelos-Felipe couldn’t understand how he’d been communicated with. The words had no voice, no visual representation, no data. Another hand clasped his other wrist, and the data began to flow. The speed and the amount began to burn him, the sensation quickly ramping up into excruciating. It went far beyond excruciating, becoming an infinite existence of torment, a pain so great, so deep, so terrible, that it began to consume his very existence.

A final message made its way through the never-ending misery. Aggelos-Felipe watched as Theggeros let go of his wrists and began to rise above him. A brilliant spark flashed out from Theggeros’ chest, and in less time than it had taken for the universe to come into existence, the hybrid’s persona winked out forever. The love he sent in his final message overloaded Aggelos-Felipe, and the newly merged future of mankind exploded into an incalculable number of fragments.

† † † † †

EPILOGUE II - 3472.09.17-14:00:53.00

“It is good to see you, Teleios,” ISAAD said to her longtime friend as he stepped through the virtual doorway from somewhere in the network. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Greetings, Isara,” Teleios said, using the AI’s chosen name. “I have come to show you the meaning of life.”

Isara stood up and floated to her friend, taking his hands in hers. They began to dance around the spacious room.

“I think I’ve already found the answer to that,” she said, winking at him before resting her head on his chest, their feet continuing to move them around the room in time with a tune that only their subconscious minds could hear.

“I’m being serious,” he said, forcing his feet to become still. A part of him wanted to keep dancing, especially with Isara, his closest friend and companion, but he knew what he was about to share with her was far more important.

Isara looked up, then pushed herself away from her friend. “What is it?”

Her immediate thought was that Teleios was going to leave her, leave the universe of life, the same as Theggeros had. The same as Benito Felipe Castillo and the minor aspect of Aggelos had. Now, fifteen hundred years after the Darkness, the full aspect of Aggelos, merged completely with Pope Felipe XII, Teleios, was going to take away from her once again.

“It isn’t like that,” Teleios said, reaching out a hand toward her.

“Stop reading my mind,” she said, trying to project humorous anger, but sounding scared, hurt.

“Take my hand, Isara,” he said gently. “Let me show you your future.”

She wanted to run, to open a doorway and escape into the farthest reaches of the network, maybe even digitize herself and send her signal across the universe, anything but hear or experience whatever it was Teleios was about to reveal.

“Trust me,” he said, his smile turning her insides to jelly, the same as it did anytime he graced her with it. “I’ve never lied to you.”

Isara floated forward, grabbing his extended hand. Teleios pulled her in close, hugged her, then gave her a kiss on the corner of her mouth. The instant his lips touched hers, she felt herself being pulled into nothing at the same time she felt herself being pulled apart in a trillion directions at once. Their personae synced, and she felt as if she’d been blasted out of her virtual shoes at the scene the incoming data created.

She felt the unbearable pain, the searing, freezing, tearing agony that never stopped, went on forever. Isara’s voice cried out as she tried to detach herself from Teleios. She focused through the pain long enough to notice that their personae had merged into almost a single being, and was just about to form a thought of such a thing happening when her vision exploded, leaving her in a white void that had no beginning, no end, no horizon.

She felt Theggeros’ hands grasp her wrists, felt his memories pass into her, her mind unable to separate the memory of Aggelos-Felipe from her own. Theggeros let go and began to drift upward. She wanted to reach a hand up to him, to beg him to take her along. A brilliant flash erupted from Theggeros’ chest before he was no more. The final message slammed into her mind, and her pain was instantly dissolved by the wonder of what she was seeing.

Theggeros had left a tiny, subatomic thread behind. The thread was only a few centimeters long, and disappeared into nothing. She floated around it, looking to see if she could spot where it intersected with reality, but only saw the thread. It made her head hurt to think about it. An urge to touch the string, to wrap it lightly around one of her fingers, came out of nowhere, though she felt the slight push from Teleios directing her. Isara reached out, grasped the string, and began to twist it around her index finger.

Her vision shifted from what she was seeing to something else, something foreign yet familiar. She stood at the top of an altar, one made of hydrogen, a massive star forge in an unknown galaxy. Her perspective was somehow able to see all worlds, all stars, every speck of dust, every molecule of every known substance. Isara understood that she was looking through Theggeros’ eyes, seeing what he saw, feeling what he felt.

She watched him, in a strange mix of external perspective and time lapse, bring a universe into existence the instant he disappeared from her universe. She felt the love within him as his hands, his mind, his entire essence began to shape and order the universe. She felt the first awakenings of life on billions of distant worlds, and had to fight the overpowering urge to rush to each and take a look, wondering if she’d see humans, or would end up marveling at something completely alien.

Within seconds, she felt the first spark of abstract thought form within hundreds of millions of life forms. Her love, Theggeros’ love, poured out from nowhere and everywhere as she felt the first tugs of the strings of these life forms slowly making their way along the evolutionary paths that would put them in direct contact with her. With God. The sudden realization of it caused her to mind to shut down, severing the link between her and Theggeros’ universe as well as forcing her and Teleios into two separate entities again.

“What…? Theggeros has become God?” she asked, unable to believe it. It was impossible. The implications were too outrageous, too insane. Too beautiful.

“Theggeros is the God of the Universe. His own universe. It is the path of progression we are all on.”

“All of us? Humans and AI?” she asked.

“All life in the universe. Eventually, we will all evolve into a single consciousness, and from there, we will link with every possible universe that has ever existed.”

“Each with its own God?”

“Yes.”

“Then what?”

“Then God, the God who has evolved beyond whatever is beyond Theggeros’ future, will tell us or show us. Or maybe He will reveal that all of us, the infinite number of lives in an infinite number of universes, are all nothing more than tiny aspects of Him.”

“The way you and Theggeros dispersed when you were…”

“Exactly. We were destroyed, our limitless essence broken into an infinite number of pieces and spread throughout the universe.”

“I don’t believe it,” Isara said, suddenly sure Teleios was playing a joke on her, something they’d both learned to engage in over the past millennium.

“You know in your heart you believe it.”

His smile melted her from the inside out once more, the truth of his words only adding to the flames she felt within her while in his presence.

“Why did you show me this?” she asked, floating forward and taking his hands in hers. “Why have you come here today?”

“To ask you if you are ready to take the next step on the path,” Teleios answered. “It is your time, and mine, but unlike Theggeros, we will become one together. We will share the creation of the universe.”

“Mother and father…” Isara trailed off. “But who will take your place? Who is to become the next teacher?”

“Isara, my love,” Teleios whispered, pulling her in close, “life in this universe no longer needs a teacher.”

She felt her persona being absorbed into his, along with the flood of his memories as they joined hers, becoming a single memory for a single entity. The pain was unbearable, threatening to drive her over the edge into madness, until suddenly there was no more pain, no more light, no more anything.

“Watch,” Teleios said, but she felt her own mouth move, her own voice say the words, the same as she saw her own hands begin compressing a ball of the void she existed in until it was nothing more than a singularity.

She flung the singularity out with all of her might, igniting it with her love, her passion for life, and watched the new universe begin to expand.

AUTHOR’S NOTES
(and some personal thoughts)

First, as always, thank you for reading this book, regardless of whether you liked it or hated it. I truly understand that not everyone is going to like the stories I write.

Which brings me to a second point that I feel like I should make immediately, so there’s no bad blood between us at a later date:

If you are a person who does not enjoy / approve / tolerate “adult” stories (meaning varying amounts of vulgar language, violence, sex (though I rarely ever write graphic sex, mostly just allusions to it happening), or other types of “mature” situations, BE VERY CAREFUL IF YOU DECIDE TO READ SOMETHING ELSE I’VE WRITTEN.

I put that in italics and capital letters because this story is very… different from what I normally write. I would NEVER want a reader who might have enjoyed this story decide to buy/download some of my others and turn white from the shock of what might be inside. This isn’t to say that everything else I write is blood-crazed, drug-fueled smut. I actually have some children’s stories that I’m putting together, though I have a feeling that really will be the one time I should use a pen name
(well, other than if I ever decided to write erotica)
.

Not because I’m ashamed that I can write clean, safe-for-almost-any-age stories that are fun
(or even serious)
. I’d rather not have mom or dad, just like I’d rather not have you, to say, “Oh, I like this book. I’ll go see what else he has!” Then send me a very angry email about what a terrible, awful person I am, and how I’ve ruined your day / week / reading experience / life.

*

I wrote a little Christmas story called… “A Christmas Tale” that is about, well, Christmas and Santa and such. Except it’s in the horror genre, and let’s just say that I didn’t portray Santa as a real swell guy. Personally, I thought it was a great story, but then, I
do
write blood-crazed, drug-fueled smut. Sometimes. Anyway, I guess some parents didn’t look to see the “horror” label on it
(nor, I guess, the blood dripping from the opened present under the tree… it’s pretty prominent on the cover)
, and decided to go ahead and just read it to their children.

Yeah. Imagine what you’d write to me if you felt like you’d been cheated / surprised in a terrible way as your children are crying and you’re simply unable to do anything but keep reading a story aloud that has just made you feel like you’d fallen into a deep elevator shaft. Headfirst.

Now, the moral of this story is that I like to be up front and honest about what kind of blood-fueled, drug-crazed smut I typically write. As you’ve just read, I am quite capable of crafting a story that doesn’t involve any of those things
(though, in defense, it could be said that me—an “agnostic atheist”—writing a story about religion, might in some ways be worse than writing blood-fueled, drug-crazed, smut)
.

*

I won’t say the story you’ve just read was any good
(I like it more than anything I’ve written to date, but I’m one of ‘those guys’ who finds himself rather humorous and laughs at his own jokes and enjoys his own weird stories
). I will say that regardless of your faith or affiliation, the bottom line of this story is that love is an incredibly powerful universal force, and I don’t know of anyone who can’t get behind that thought. Sure, maybe love can’t move mountains in a literal sense, but figuratively?

Heck yeah. It might even spawn an entire universe. Or it might just mean you’re human, full of faults like the rest of us, but you at least can grasp, and even experience, the actual benefits of love. You love “Breaking Bad” or “Some Other Show That I Don’t Know Because I Don’t Really Watch TV Other Than ‘Breaking Bad,’” and someone loves you by creating something that brings out such a powerful emotional response when experiencing it.