Jigsaw World (33 page)

With the Sorcerer taking point on the defense,
the defenders raised a shield against the insects, and counteracted
the massive emotions by sheer force of will. The Book had meanwhile
resolved the two primary alterations into a simple red-green button
decision. If Vera wished to accept the feedback loop tweak that
would modify the consensus reality, press the green touchscreen
button. If she wished to integrate the single event change where
Naomi disappeared instead of being found murdered, resulting in her
boyfriend not becoming a drunk and influencing the worldline to
‘give up’ on hope for a reality that made sense, press the other
green button.

She wasn’t quite sure why the Book was
presenting these items as a choice. The analysis had been done by
the Book that these were the linchpins of change that it could
influence. She pressed both green touchscreen buttons.

The defenders now had an effective shield wall
up against the insects and the empathic blasts. The Book made a
humming sound, and the air between the Tree and the Book glowed
with a soft amber light as the Book communicated something to the
Tree. As she watched, the Tree appeared to grow even healthier, and
its branches started to twine about each other, making chords of
branches, which she understood to be a symbol for a merging of
nearly identical worldlines into each other.

Tom and Karla had long since finished off the
donuts, and had enough of the coffee. They were still at the
courtyard table, but the drink was now the single malt Scotch that
the Herald forgot to lock up before he left, and the night that had
just come on was the ambiance.

Tom was enjoying the odd sensation, sort of
like an echo, of experiencing a bit of the activity of their
companions in the Place of Beginnings, and a bit of a sort of
reverse Deja Vu of the worldline, and its accompanying timeline
changing, and remembering both lines. Karla had mentioned just
enough to prove that she too was experiencing these sensations.
None of this was nearly as strange as what was about to
happen.

He was just completing the injection of
tobacco into a tube, using the injector system, tubes and zig zag
tobacco that he had conned the Sage into picking up for ‘them’,
when he ‘heard’ a sort of greeting in his head, that seemed to come
from Karla, who was quietly sitting at his side.

***This is so strange. I think that I can feel you
think***

***Is that you, Karla? Why can I hear you in my
head***

They made eye contact with each other, and
then they started to blurt out that they felt like they could hear
each other’s thoughts. It was obvious that it was real, that for
some reason, they picked up each other’s thoughts for a moment.
They could still feel a connection, deep down in the back of their
minds. It seemed powerful, and it seemed real.

The fact that their connection followed so
closely on the heels of the remembering of the two different
timelines suggested that somehow, their minds had been stimulated
into making this connection by the circumstances. They felt a
certainty that the connection was with them for a long time to
come, ready to come out when it would be summoned in the future. It
also felt like it might be part of a weapon, a way of channeling
massive amounts of power.

From where they are sitting, they can feel the
other party about to return. They feel a strange sensation, which
they attribute to the difference in time flow rates, and an
impending storm front of changes coming that were wrought by the
reading of the Book of Eternity. Even now, they can feel the hair
raising charges that opening the way places on the air, and the
unsound hum of noise from the wormhole increased in volume, even if
the sound was purely mental.

The double doors that hid the wormhole swung
open just as Karla and Tom entered the parlor, and the other party
came out of the light that bloomed in its mouth. Tyr and Heimdall
came into the room just behind Tom, and the Seer was not far
behind. Tom glanced at his wristwatch, and discovered that it was
nearly ten in the evening. He was smoking one of the last two
cigarettes he had made, and Karla was smoking the other one, as
they waited for the expedition party to collect their wits and
report on their success.

The Sorcerer slid to the front and confirmed
what everyone knew already, that the expedition had been a success.
Everyone knew, because you could
feel
a consistency of
reality that was missing before. Everyone in the room knew that the
universe was far
healthier
than it had been just yesterday.
Once the pizza that the Seer had ordered arrived, everyone found a
comfortable perch for themselves and started to investigate what
was different about the world in detail. It was time for beer and
pizza and copies of the newspaper.

One of the wonderful aspects of the current
schedule for the Healing was that it allowed the parties to see the
morning newspaper, complete the day’s task, and then come back
to that same
newspaper
to see what was different in the world.
This time was a doozy.

This morning everyone remembered that it was
full of stories about the impeachment actions against several high
level politicians, including the President. This time, there was no
mention of impeachments, and the President was someone named Hall,
a totally different president to the one they remembered from this
morning.

The headline this evening had nothing to do
with politics. Blazoned across the front page was ‘Mars One in
Orbit, Touchdown in Two Days’. The changes to the current worldline
had advanced the sciences and agendas of space sciences by several
years, resulting in the production of a high thrust plasma drive,
and making the launch of the long desired Mars colonization effort
feasible, and with the economy stable and the world’s population
well fed, it was one of the pushes that had helped to elect
President Hall, and it was a very popular national goal.

Everyone was very happy with the changes that
they had made in the worldline so far, and when at last the time
had rolled around to 11:30, everyone began to think pleasantly of
sleep to serve as bookends to this day, and dreams to process the
changes wrought. One by one, or two by two, they drifted away to
their beds. The same team that went out today would be up for an
expedition tomorrow. It would be Markus’s turn to use the Staff of
Infinity to Heal the worldline. It would be another day of Leisure
for Tom. Both needed their sleep to deal with the
stresses.

******

Habits persist, even when they are not needed.
They are nasty habits, if they make your life harder for no good
reason. Waking when you don’t need to, early in the day, now that
is a nasty habit. Tom rubbed his eyes and groaned his displeasure
at being awoken by his habits for no good reason so early in the
day.

The one consolation of waking so early was
that it gave him an additional opportunity to gaze upon the red
headed beauty that was lightly snoring in his bed. There was some
resemblance to that red head that he had bedded in Texas, that he
had found stabbed to death and rolled up in a blanket in the back
of his van. He assumed that he had killed her, but he never figured
out why.

He had never thought of himself as
particularly dangerous to be around until that girl. He thought
that he was relatively safe for Karla to be around, and he knew
that he would never forgive himself if it turned out that he was
wrong about that. Sometimes, you just had to take a leap of faith
in these matters. Since he didn’t want to do without Karla, he
would just have to assume that she was just fine with him. If he
found that he was wrong, he would just have to kill everyone who
knew him and start over in some new place.

Markus was busy giving Vera a massage as she
lay in bed. He was paying special attention to her back, butt and
back of her legs, as he was inwardly griping about having to do all
this work on the same day all of the responsibility of saving the
world was on his shoulders as well. It would serve them all right
if the task failed, and everyone died in a maelstrom of
madness.

It was sort of titillating to be touching all
of that womanly skin, though. Mike was not entirely a dead persona
in this body. Markus was probably one of the few humans that
existed that could be counted among the sane and still be jealous
of his own attention being focused on his girlfriend. It did make
more sense when you remembered that there was another person named
Mike inside this body, and he also found Vera sexy.

Speaking of which, he was massaging her naked
body, and he was naked, and the anatomy that formerly belonged to
Mike was excited, and impressively large. When you have a big ship,
and you find an inviting port, you just have to pull into the dock.
A quick adjustment and the process of docking brought Vera awake.
What followed was a fifteen minute aerobic workout.

The deed was eventually done, and the clothing
of Vera and Markus was now protecting their own bodies, rather than
the backs of the chairs that they were formerly draped over. They
took turns looking into the mirror to check on hair and face issues
pursuant to joining the rest of the group in the kitchen for
breakfast.

On the way out, they nearly collided with Tom
and Karla who was strolling toward the kitchen in a relaxed and
slow gait. Markus was irritated that they could afford to be lazy
today, since they had nothing to do all day, just like yesterday.
He secretly hoped that tomorrow proved twice as hard for them, to
make up for all of the lolling about that they would doubtlessly do
today.

When they got to the kitchen, Veritasia and
Arpad were the designated cooks, and they had made a big supple of
chorizo and eggs, scrambled style, with a loaf of bread made into
toast. Not the best breakfast made in this house, but serviceable.
Karla and Tom got themselves big plates of the food, mugs of milk,
and a seat at the courtyard table. It was now 10:35 in the
morning.

Markus seemed a bit nervous about his role in
the day’s activities. Tom thought seriously about taking the
opportunity to have some fun at his expense, but he finally decided
to take the high road. He reminded Markus that the fate of the
world literally depended on how he did today, and that Vera would
likely leave him if he screwed up. Not to worry though; The
Sorcerer would probably step in and fix his screw-up, and screw his
girl, too.

Tom was gratified to see the anxiety leave his
good friend Markus, replaced by a healthy dollop of anger. He was a
little flummoxed by the promise of future retribution in the eyes
of Vera as she looked at Tom. Tom thought that it might be prudent
to change the subject, and questioned the preparations for the
day’s quest. The answers were terse but serviceable. Markus, group,
staff, prune, home. He had to read between the lines, and what he
read was a lot of pornography. Well, pornographic terms anyway,
usually ending with the word ‘you’.

Karla dug her elbow into his side to get his
attention, and shot him a warning look when he looked at her. He
chose to interpret all that to mean that he was sharing too much,
and should parse out the interaction a bit so as not to overwhelm
the other couple with his charm and caring.

Time wore on, so that by noon, Markus and Vera
were actually talking to Tom a little, although they still were
relaying a lot of their conversations through Karla. That was okay
with Tom, it gave him more cigarette time. The coffee was pretty
good this morning, as well.

The newspaper this morning was still full of
headlines about the Mars mission. Everything was green for the
mission, and all twelve of the Astronauts were eager to walk on the
planet’s surface. That was scheduled for tomorrow.

At about 1:00, Vera and Markus left to return
to their bedroom, where they intended to take their ease and
prepare to leave for the Place of Beginnings in an hour. As soon as
they left, Karla turned to Tom and got his attention. “What the
hell do you think you are doing?” She asked. “Markus and Vera are
about as good friends as we have in this world, and they are pretty
decent people. They are not mice to be played with, got me?” She
emphasized this statement by digging her fingernails into Tom’s
leg.

“
Okay, if we all survive this
mission I will apologize to them.” He said. “I guess I got carried
away a bit. You can’t blame me. I
am
an asshole.” With
that he put on his most contrite face. Certainly that must be
enough to get him back in her good graces. It was hard work faking
that much compassion!

Close to 2 PM, Karla and Tom wandered into the
parlor to see the others off on their little adventure. Markus was
there, holding the Staff of Infinity, which was putting out a
slight mental buzzing sound. Vera was there, looking secretly
relieved
not
/ to be the performer in today’s
production. She shot Tom a look of private venom, but Markus seemed
to have forgotten Tom’s previous little social blunder.

The group that was going gathered into a tight
group, and the Sorcerer did his little shadow thing to open the way
for the group to the Place of Beginnings. The double doors of the
hallway opened and the wormhole was once again revealed. With the
Sorcerer and Cernunnos in the lead, the group walked into the light
of the gateway and was gone.