“It only takes two seconds in a biopod and some training within the Virtual Universe, my dear sweet friend. All you have to do is think of your youth and desire to hustle and bustle just like you did then. Once you have, come back to the real world, and you’ll find what changes have been made for you. I assure you, you’ll be impressed. Please feel free to use one of the biopods in my estate home. It helps to have a friend, perhaps Vesha can accompany you?”
With that, Najem went back to Eliza’s estate via her jump gate, found Vesha already there waiting for her, stepped into Eliza’s biopod, and did as Eliza had suggested. She and Vesha went through many centuries worth of experiences together, and when they came out of the biopod, there she was, a beautiful, slender-faced, brown-eyed young lady. Her brown hair was swept to the right, with a part on the left, and tied back in a professional-looking pony-tail-up-do. She noticed a few glistening highlights of various shades of pink, turquoise, and purple, and her lips were naturally a beautifully voluptuous sort, and she felt all the youth she had when she was twenty-five. Yet, here she was, ninety-three, but now looking twenty-two and as pretty as she had never dreamed of being before.
Najem smiled as she felt a tingling sensation all the way down the left side of her body and then felt a special connection with her dear friend, Vesha as well as every single one of the citizens of Pathway. She dropped her robe, and amazed at what she saw, she was immediately stricken with disbelief. “Wow! I can only have imagined this. Hahaha look at my tattoos; they look just like the ones in my Virtual Universe imagination of myself. What do you think, Vesha?” Vesha had been impressed, had trained her on every skill she knew, and they hugged.
She threw on her smart suit which expressed professional attire, composed of a white blouse with a black double-breasted suit jacket. She noticed her hair was splendid already, she didn’t need to apply any make-up, since somehow her body produced that imagery all on its own, and then she went with Vesha to Jasmine’s living quarters at Pathway and knocked on her door.
“Come in!” said Jasmine.
“You have to see this! Oh, this is Najem… what do you think?”
“Well, I know it’s you, silly! Look at you! Wow!” Vesha, Jasmine, and Najem hugged each other, overwhelmed with what they saw in each other, and then they sat down on Jasmine’s sofa and chatted for hours, drinking a variety of their favorite teas, and glowing from time to time. Catching up in the Virtual Universe was fun and all but doing so in the real world took on a neat feeling of its own.
“Do you two want to go on a walk-through Cambridge with me?” asked Vesha.
“Of course I do! I can’t wait to see how this feels in my new body. Let’s go!”
Jasmine nodded to the affirmative and smiled, as they proceeded to carry out their plans.
Najem, Jasmine, and Vesha updated their smart suits to resemble jogging suits with a rich variety of colors that resembled the colors in their eyes, hair, and tattoo-like markings on their bodies. When they were ready, they left the Pathway Melrose Campus and walked from Melrose to the Cambridge Public Library, where they changed their smart suits to reflect a metro-casual and feminine appearance.
Pathway had purchased the Cambridge Public Library since government funding had dissipated and could no longer sustain or run it appropriately. Therefore, Eliza and Yesha saw to it that both the library and the area around it were purchased by Pathway University, to preserve the older architecture, to widen the streets a bit, and to afford anyone in the area a chance to sit down and do some old-fashioned reading, eating of bakery goods, and drinking of coffee or tea.
Vesha, Najem, and Jasmine, old friends from yore, started again with several varieties of tea, including all of their favorite flavors, and then they tried a variety of different coffees from places all over the world. The smell of bakery goods permeated the air, so without any guilt whatsoever, they each had a lovely bagel filled with cream cheese.
After visiting the library, they decided to use the jump gates to travel to some interesting places throughout the world. Pathway had pulled no stops and had gateways hidden in places all over the solar system, to bring the finest home and to allow Pathway citizens and team members from other countries a chance to do the same from their own hometowns.
No matter where they went, the food was always good and mulling over a good book and taking turns in-between bites to read it out loud to each other was a favorite pastime. They spent time, all three, in the Virtual Universe together, and then continued on their worldwide tours.
“How did we get so lucky? This is awesome fun!” Najem exclaimed to Vesha and Jasmine, as they had made their way to the Alps and had raced each other down a ski slope without any fears whatsoever.
When they finished their journeys, their visits to the sites, scenes, and libraries of each location they visited, enjoying their teas, coffees, and bakery goods, they returned to the Cambridge Public Library and walked to Eliza’s estate home, sat by the pond with the Angel overlooking the coy fish and frogs, looked up at the sky and began singing to each other.
Since Najem, Vesha, and Jasmine had each been in the Virtual Universe together with a shared sense of experiences and memory, they had taken a liking to female vocal trance, just like their dear young friend, Erin Carter.
The song that came to mind was “New Dawn,” sung by Sarah Lynn, with a nice mix of it by Rafael Frost that had been popular during the summer of 2016. Just then, they saw young fourteen-year-old Erin Carter walk through the backdoor of Eliza’s estate, holding a sleeping bag. “I thought it’d be you three,” she smiled. She then lay down and sang with all three of them as they gazed up at the stars.
“I couldn’t be happier,” said Najem.
“Neither could I,” Vesha reciprocated her sentiments, and they both felt Erin’s and Jasmine’s sentiments communicated within their minds.
“We might as well be sisters, kindred spirits; I can’t help but be happy here. This wonderful place has so many wonderful memories. Oh, look, there’s Tyson!”
Tyson Williams, the Second, came through the back door of the estate, his eyes squinting from having been curled up asleep in a little ball inside, and his little booty was wagging. Once he noticed who they were, he went from almost a curled sideways gate to a doggy jog toward them. He was clearly happy to see the young ladies, and he remembered who they were based on their scent. He could also tell they were having quite a good time and planned on getting a good massage in, maybe get his chest scratched.
“Remember when we lost Tyson? Poor Eliza was ten years old,” asked Najem.
“Of course I can, silly. We’ve seen the story a billion times in the Virtual Universe. How can we forget?” said Vesha. They petted Tyson, hummed, and looked up at the stars.
“I wonder how long before we can go out there. You know, the long distances?” asked Najem.
“Yes, I wonder too,” said Jasmine.
“Me too,” replied Erin.
“Well, we have the Intergalactic Mission Contingency, or the IMC, to build. Plus, Eliza would prefer society be properly updated with politics going a positive direction first. I am pretty sure that she plans on running as President of the United States for the elections in 2024. I am thinking that not too long after that when the world finally is at peace, people are united and helping each other out, that then we will go on that journey,” said young Erin.
“Have you seen the data regarding the twelve galaxies we’ll be stopping at and then dispersing to?” asked Jasmine. “I hope to be able to go to Andromeda. I’ve always wanted to see what it is like there. I know, eventually there will be a huge collision between the Milky Way and Andromeda, but that is a long time from now, and by then I would imagine that whatever team I am in, and whatever zone I will be in, we’ll be able to jump to safe places and enjoy the show at any time.”
“Jasmine, I love your imagination and your hopes. Erin and Najem, you two are wonderful with broad bouts of imagination that bring joy to the heart
as well. Eliza met with me a few days ago for a short brief. She wanted to check in with me and said that we’ll meet again in a few months. She gave me a sneak peek of everything planned. It looks like I may be working with you, Jasmine, Najem, and James to build the IMC, or at least to coordinate it, but it appears that Pathway is looking to have someone run the overall mission. That’s something we’ll figure out soon. That said, I think Andromeda will be your zonal galaxy, Jasmine, and I am pretty sure you will be the Zone-02 commander, Najem.
“Nothing is set in stone yet. I presume that once I have dropped you and the other eleven zonal commanders and your crews off, I will head to the CMB as viewed from Earth with you, Erin. There is something interesting about my mind; I can pick up more details from other’s minds than I am supposed to. There are what we all know as compartmentalized areas of our brains, but somehow, I can see through them. It’s weird for sure and will be odd for a while, at least until I properly categorize the ten tremilliatrecendotrigintillion or more flavors of thought throughout every galaxy within and beyond every place we can fathom in the known Universe. It will be even more interesting when I pop in to visit from the other side of Earth’s visible Universe, with knowledge and information available when humanity is ready.” Vesha said with a whimsical sense of humor radiating an iridescent glow, as she lay in her sleeping bag, looking at Najem, Tyson, and Erin, with an approving smile.
“I know, right? Although that is a huge number, Vesha! That’s ten to the ten-thousand zeros after the one! This will be so much fun. I can hardly wait!” Najem said, and all four laughed together with a sense of peace and ease, enjoyed Tyson’s company and let time fly.
With their new bodies, they didn’t have to worry about sleeping bags, bugs, cold, rain, heat, the gamut, but they used them anyway laying on their backs with Tyson taking turns to find himself in between each of them through the night for old time’s sake.
Just as they thought the night was soon to be over, Yesha, Eliza, Amber, and James all showed up with pillows and sleeping bags in hand. Every single person who had been fully read-in to Pathway had a very special and unique set of stories, missions, journeys, and quests. Although there were billions of stories to be shared, this group of individuals had grown rather close as kindred spirits and best friends and many more stories would be told of them.
After spending the night zooming in on Andromeda, the crew slept. They didn’t even have to worry about showers, makeup, or anything else, that morning, but they still enjoyed those sorts of things, every now and then. Instead of a shower that morning, however, they chose a hot tub with perfect bathing suits. They wore smart clothing, and their nanosystems integrated into their clothing while constantly optimizing every aspect of their physical and neural networks due to their nanos. They always smelled of lilacs, roses, and any combination of flowers they felt like smelling like—whatever brought a smile to their faces.
Later on, that morning, everyone returned to their work centers. Najem and Jasmine returned to Neptune’s large moon, Titan. Vesha asked them both for her first off-world real-life tour, so to start off, Najem and Jasmine brought Vesha to James Cooper’s Pathway Construction headquarters on Titan. After spending the day together, James gave Vesha her first mission since her reawakening, just above Pluto in a series of nano-forged space bubbles, hovering over the Kuiper Belt, together they were in awe of the view of the Milky Way Galaxy and so much more, and then they each went off to take care of their missions and tasks.
Epigraph (Second Half)
“Above all, don't fear difficult moments.
The best comes from them.”
~ Rita Levi-Montalcini
(Nobel Prize-winning neurobiologist
who co-discovered nerve growth factor)
~ * ~
“There is no law except the law that there is no law.”
~ John Archibald Wheeler
(American theoretical physicist largely credited
for reviving dialogue in general relativity)
Chapter 33: Joanne Gallant, Section 1
Database Moon Archive, Celestial-Sol Entry Date: 2019 January 27. Sixteen-year-old Erin Carter serves as Yesha’s understudy. She introduces and summarizes the experiences of Joanne Gallant, her recruitment by Senator Eliza A. Williams, and her quests. Each memory shared is a collaboration of experiences and insight from the minds of Joanne and Eliza. Due to Eliza’s neural link, these experiences are recorded within the Virtual Universe. Erin is interfaced within the Pathway Melrose Campus. Input by: Erin Carter, VP, 2018-2022, President of Pathway, 2022-2029.
Joanne wrote songs of struggles and overcoming them, all of which had been playing out in her heart and mind for years. She felt to an extent a special connection between the experiences and ideas she had gone through, wrote about, and married to music, and others who had perhaps struggled in life as well. To her, she shared what she would write and sing about so people who listened would know they weren’t alone. This was her calling in life, to convert music into an expression that came from within, an expression that could soothe so many hearts and minds, to include her own. She sang for those who had endured tragedy for no part of their own, and in some cases for those who were lost in what could be called the mire of life all too often. This was what drove her. It gave her purpose and it gave her meaning.
She enjoyed raising the spirits of others through song and genuine displays or examples of compassion through her music and art. No matter what it was that she shared, however, she felt that somehow something was still missing like there was more to add to her plate, and as though there was something else she could do. Perchance there was another layer of depth, of meaning, and of purpose to add to her craft, or perhaps her purpose lay in a variety of pursuits she had yet to comprehend or ascertain.
Joanne had been successful in every way that seemed to matter in her industry, but she felt as though her calling in life might be shared with journeys she had yet to discover. Perhaps there was a way to tackle the core of suffering at its center. Perhaps there was clarity to all of this that unless she had met enough people and understood each one deep enough, she would never be able to understand. Perhaps there was one person among billions who held the key to a more vast potential.
She knew many people suffered when with enough effort and innovation that particular reason for suffering would no longer be justified except through negligence and irresponsibility on the part of those who could have done something about it, whether through influence or affluence, yet didn’t. She had always felt that there must be something to be learned through every experience and every obstacle in life, but in many ways, she had also felt each of these questions begging questions of their own. As time went by, she found herself pondering on this all the more often.
Joanne would often take moments of solace and use them to drift away in thought, “Although there are many wonderful people out there with untold potential, many of whom we have lost through the years, perhaps we can learn from what happened, but what were the lessons they could have possibly learned from immense tragedy and suffering, especially if they died in the process? How could true vindication of loss ever be had for those left suffering and feeling severed from something or someone who once was very alive, or loved, or taken for granted and now gone, in the wake of seemingly pointless devastation or loss? How could perpetrators of mass crimes live with any peace or anything of the sort knowing what they had done? If they did, would that rancor in one way or another be properly identified as some form of insanity? Perhaps they should be justly punished according to their crimes against others, but in the case of far too many, what could they learn if they were dead? Could they learn if they lived and were properly trained, coached, and mentored instead? What kind of justice was it if, though apparently lost with inhumanity governing their actions, potential perpetrators never had the experiences necessary to reach the clarity essential to understand the damage they had caused so they could make restitution for it? What
kind of justice was it if the perpetrator hadn’t learned enough to feel contrite and humbled for the misery introduced to the lives of others and as a consequence finally grow to feel internally sorrowful and overtly apologetic, with a new determination to live in a manner where they showed humility and lived a life of shared service to benefit all of humanity?
“For those who had died, it wasn’t fair for them, nor would it ever be; one could only hope that their next destination was much better. While many have died in efforts of heroism that inspired others to greatness, far too many seemed to be vanquished before realizing untold potential, either unnamed or unknown. Far too many have died meaningless deaths that were the result of some torturous soul, someone devoid of humanity, someone lacking the ability to put themselves in the shoes of another individual, or someone who’s neural pathways bypassed the regions which emphasized empathy and restraint, where restraint was obviously needed.”
Before reading her own hardback copy of Dr. Eliza A. Williams’ book, Pathway to the Stars, she had never ever considered “How suffering by the hands of others could be caused by simple physiological or neurological misfires or both, and that there were ways to mitigate this completely while enjoying the beauties of life, if only people were willing. Perhaps there was a better way of preventing these mishaps or even mending the minds of the perpetrators and the fallout of these issues as expressed through the devastation of their actions. Perhaps I can do this through music,” she thought.
The few times she had read the posts from Internet trolls, however, certain messages no matter their intent also resonated within her mind, “You might as well be the injured prey singing to injured prey, when all who can hear won’t listen, instead they’ll seek you out to tear you down and feast on your misery some more. I don’t truly believe that but it can sure seem that way. The truth is we’re the mighty shining a light that provides clarity to let others know they aren’t alone.”
Further than Before- Pathway to the Stars Page 61