Next History: The Girl Who Hacked Tomorrow (53 page)

It’s true. Only
one task remains.

Good.

Want to know something?

Tell.

For the first time, I feel impatience.

I do too.

Why, I wonder?

So close
to these mortals.

Humans are such exalted beings.

They don’t let themselves own it.

No.

I am so glad you are taking me with you.

I have so longed for you.

I am impatient to be with you.

There is
time. How about now?

Can we know each other as human?
I would like to experience that.

Why should you want
that?

The years, growing up with Tharcia. Her wants. Her fears. Her courage.
I respect that.

I see that clear.
Want to do something really sinful?

Oh.
Will you make me your bad girl?

Having had a good chunk of eternity to
anticipate this, Lian chose for their first night on Earth a particular place. A place of such beauty and extravagance as mortals seldom imagine, a land of perfect serenity.

All around them lush vegetation grows
. Fruiting trees never seen, a wandering river flows from pure subterranean depths and outward as mystical headwaters of the Earth. A garden of earthly and spiritual delights. From the grassy soil grows every flower bush and tree that is pleasing to the sight, the taste, to the nourishing of mortal bodies. The aromas are sweetness, tartness, the salt and the bitter, foods of such a richness that heal the spirit.

Lian stands before her as a man,
tall with ash-blonde hair, a powerful statue of flesh and bone. Lylit wears fairy wings, her breasts and womanly hips adorned in living blossoms. She smiles up at him, gazing at the wondrous garden, the rocks and waterfalls, the graceful animals that rest and play there.

“You are a very bad boy.
I love this.”

He laughs. “You said you wanted to do this as humans.” He gathers her
softness into his muscled arms. “No better place to begin, than at the beginning.”

“I do,” Lylit says, kissing him. “This viewpoint is so limited, but has its own beauty. I want to understand it more.”

“Death is so frightening from in here,” Lian says, knowing for the first time what it means to be afraid. The fear makes her kiss more reassuring.

“It is. How do they stand it?”

Lian’s fingers unwind the floral strands that drape her breasts. His lips pull her hungry nipple into his warm mouth, sharp teeth ignite her. His fingers caress downward her smooth belly.

She throws back her head and sighs, arms around his neck. “Lian I am so afraid
like this. Hold me.”

“Yes. I will always hold you.”

“How can you say that, knowing we will both die?”

“It
’s so a part of this life they have.” He lifts her, feminine thighs encircle his waist. Their open mouths share words, and breathing. Soft breasts against hard chest. His cock penetrates her and their human dream begins.

Arnold Friedman and his wife awaken in one another’s arms, lie together in breathless morning quiet, softly telling of mystical dreams from their long sleep. Sunlight flows through the bedroom curtains.

“Unreal and all too real,” Gail says, her
bare thigh across his belly. She kisses his neck.

Downstairs they prepare breakfast on a camp stove. Gas and electricity are not working. Nothing moves outside
, from their windows the street looks a mess. Several isolated homes have burnt to the ground. Across from them a front wall is smashed outward, as though something very large within desired to leave. There is no television, no bars on their phones. The battery radio finds vague static.

The psychologist’s laptop is fully charged. Absently he reads through his notes and interviews. Sees an interesting thread. Begins writing up
a new theory which he might call
Complementary Parapsychology
. Gail, near a sunny window in the wingback armchair, reads a book. Interspersed with their talk of events at the Pentagon over the last six days, he becomes aware of interesting ideas, not knowing whether they are waking thoughts or sleeping dreams, shared psychic fields and instantaneous phenomena. In his mind there forms a bare outline of his research paper. Understands he’s been wrong about many things.

Too mechanistic
, too materialist.

Friedman was trained to see living beings as mechanisms
. Complex and biological, but mechanisms still. Why had he never questioned that? Unbidden, a thought strikes him:
Nature is alive and has purpose, evolution has a goal.
He is shocked at the clarity of the ideas. He is pondering those as another head-spinning idea comes:
biological inheritance is conscious.

L
iving organisms with self-determined goals? Friedman wants to pursue that, asks himself, what if all matter is conscious? What if every living cell has a point of view? His excitement grows. He feels a truth here that will take him years to realize, becomes fixed on a notion, one he cannot in this moment hope to prove, but believe it he does. Friedman watches the image form within his head, a universe that is conscious and self-aware. In his vision, consciousness is not the illusion, but the source of all reality. The mind reaches far beyond the brain, in time as well as space. He finds himself pursuing a theory he wants to call
Conscious Universe
, and sets his mind with quiet intention to that end. Friedman works through the morning, until it is time to sweep his wife into his arms and gratefully hold her.

The five Hindu priests at the Pentagon, instead of taking the
Sleep, have spent their night in meditation. Emerging from silence nineteen hours later beside their VW bus, they find themselves on the threshold of another existence. Four of them, now in a state of
parinirvana
, just prior to vanishing over some mystical event horizon, hug lovingly the fifth. He is not quite baked. With smiles and high fives for his dematerialized brothers, the radiant man walks cheerfully toward the rising dawn.

M
any people around the planet, whether they survived being awake or passed through the mystical sleep, emerge into the dawn from a dream that integrates mind, body, and spirit, a dream rich in feminine energy. Many awaken knowing they want more in their lives than the next hot gadget, feel their hunger for gratitude, sharing, and peaceful lives.

Strewn randomly about the parking lot and within the
RockMeBaby Luxo Stratoliner buses, scores of Catholic priests begin to wake. Above them stands the enormous figure, motionless and with eyes long closed. He seems not such a threat. There is knowledge to be gained from him. And serenity. Father Tilton leads a group of priests in prayer. Tilton wants to know how the lovely and peculiar goddess-girl made it through, there is much she can teach him. But there are no bars on any phone. The priests board the buses and make ready to leave. Many faithful will be needing their help in the long recovery ahead.

A gold-red sun rims the desert thirty miles from Creech Air Force Base. On a lonely hilltop, a
single tree grows. Strong and richly curved, the tree is rooted where a subterranean lake lies deep. Around it where before the sands were bare, green flowered bushes stretch toward the sky. High among rich leaves, a brightly-colored Sonoran Coral Snake clings herself to a sturdy branch, senses alert. It is her first morning. The tree knows she is there, holds her in his comforting stillness. Her tongue flickers, tasting the air, as their new life together dawns across her face.

In a Georgetown living room, a graceful
gold-dappled frog squats on the keyboard of a laptop computer, its screen long dead. A bowl of grapes rests nearby. Strewn over the floor, a woman’s underthings, a lavender T-shirt with writing on it. Bound in tiny white threads, a fly buzzes helplessly amid the grapes. The frog sends out her long sticky tongue and draws him into her gullet. Swallows, blinks.

Lylit sits in soft grass, inhaling the sweetness of the flowered earth, the salt-scent from Lian’s bare skin. She strokes his firm belly. The sky is
deepest violet sculptured with filaments of cloud that beckon sunrise. Lian looks into her eyes. They are in human form, still with human minds.

“One thing you never told me.”

“Yes, love.”

“
Raziel. He helped you remain hidden, with the girl.”

“Ah. He is actually quite brilliant. It was his idea.”

“Tell.”

“He saw me struggle back from the dead
, one of the times.”

“One of t
he many. I grieve for your pain.”

“
But you are here now. You have killed all the misguided ones. Raziel told me that events were to become interesting.”

“I am starting to
loathe that word.”

“He told me where to wait. When he came back, he said he had found one, a woman newly with child
. One who had released a second egg.”

“Ah. Ingenious.”

“He said I would be safe. The price was to remain absolutely silent through gestation, birth, for the lifetime that followed.”

“You are lucky it has been so short.”

“It was eternity. But I grew so close to her, I saw her clear through, all her faults, her misfortunes, her hurts and her courage.”

“You are sublimely beautiful as a mortal, my Lylit.”

“As you are, my soul. But in the womb, it was she who came to me. She who pulled me in. We became one. With her, my soul was safe hidden. She is my sister and I love her. I have betrayed her. You must help me.”

“
Raziel saved you.”

“
No. Raziel thought of it. He is sublime among angels. But it was Tharcia who hid me, Lian. Her love that protected me. It was her pain and anger that released me. She needs to know and be protected. I must take care of her.”

When Clay opens his eyes, he’s surprised Tharcia is not there. On the edge of the bed rubbing his face, recalling the night
’s majesty, sharp guilt edges in.
We’ve made the biggest mistake two people can make
. He pulls on jeans and a shirt, walks out barefoot in search of coffee.

This morning Tharcia
intends to be ready, not ripped away in her jammies again. Soon, she expects to be abruptly summoned for her final reckoning. She trembles. She has thrown down everything.

Stands on the porch,
watching pale light come up beyond the trees, waiting. The rising day is still, deer move among the trees. Her eyes are drawn by a graceful spiral path, a circular labyrinth in the center of the clearing, the path traced by horse’s hooves, before it stopped in the muddy ashes of her mother’s clothing.

She wears black
skinny jeans, high polished boots with pointy toes, dark maroon sweater beneath a leather jacket. Her hair a white thicket around her face. When she hears clinking in the kitchen, she goes in. Bomber sits on an arm of the sofa. Tharcia leans down, the cat stretches out its neck to sniff noses with her. She smiles.

When Clay sees her face he knows. She is desperately afraid. Watches her over the rim of his cup as he takes a first sip of coffee.
Good. She makes it dark.
Sees in her eyes no echo of their night together, all pushed down by fear.
Get her to talk.

His
question is rhetorical. She’ll probably call him a ‘tard, a dweeb or some such, but the convo has to start somewhere.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m going to hell.”

He lets her reply soak into his brain. It’s too damn early for a philosophical discussion.

“Pardon me for saying it, but you are putting yourself in hell already.”

“Huh?”

“You can win.”

She pours herself another coffee. Her third. “Fracking fat chance of that.”

Clay gathers her in his arms. She squeezes half-heartedly, doesn’t look at him. Compared to the wild animal that held him through their glorious night, she’s in another universe entirely.

“Look,” he says, “you’re not the only one who grew up tough. I never knew if my dad was proud of me, he died before I
straightened myself out. My mom was so sick the last year of her life…”

“My mom was
sick for all of hers.” Scowly face, her tone cold bleak.

“My point exactly. But there is someone right here who is already proud of you. And I’ll be proud when you come home with that wise ass grin on your face.”

Faint light stirs her eyes. “Come home?”

Clay nods. “
You will. You’ll come home and be here. You can be here as you have been. Or you can be here with me.”

She
furtively meets his gaze. “With you,” she whispers, disbelieving. In her heart too, an ache of guilt.