Further than Before- Pathway to the Stars

by Matthew Opdyke

  Once she had finished with her quiet and benevolent mission, Sky Taylor returned home to Eliza’s estate in Massachusetts to rest for a while in the Virtual Universe, while her daughters and sons retired on their distant island, taking turns with half of them sleeping within their biopods, while the other half guarded them, and then they would switch rhythmically until called upon again. They each did this to let the inevitable story that would occur due to the seeds they had planted unfold and be recorded in the Virtual Universe. Yes, there would be much more for Sky and her daughters and sons to do, but for now, they would let seeds of promise germinate and grow.

  After witnessing each of Sky’s missions, on each day over the last year, Joanne was very intrigued by Sky’s motivations. Joanne talked with Yesha often, and they both witnessed and then shared with everyone else in Pathway how the world would now be better off if the most influential government in the world was led by someone who was benevolent, like Eliza, not in a religious sense, but in a manner that suggested that well-being rather than greed ought to be what drives decisions. Sky was a very methodical individual and very capable in every way that mattered on Earth and throughout the solar system, so she used her abilities to reduce misery, suffering, and violence, and increase the health of the body, of the mind, and of the innovations founded upon preservation of life, of civilization, and of a worthy legacy. Sky Taylor saw that Eliza, Yesha, James, Amber, Vesha, Erin, Joanne, and many more within Pathway had that ability to do what was benevolent and with intentions that were noble, so she enabled an environment that would usher in the promise of shared, yet earned, prosperity.

  She then left the Virtual Universe, went to Joanne, and took her to her hometown.

  Chapter 52: Joanne Gallant, Section 5

  Database Moon Archive, Celestial-Sol Date: 2023 May 19. Erin Carter and Joanne Gallant, Pathway President and VP, summarize their personal maintenance experiences with Sky Taylor, as Sky helps the new Pathway leadership overcome a critical issue that could negatively impact the future of Humanity over the course of several millennia. These memories are from Sky, Erin, and Joanne, as recorded within the Virtual Universe and interfaced within Pathway Melrose Campus. Input by: Erin Carter, VP, 2018-2022, and President of Pathway, 2022-2029.

  It was Tuesday, May 9th of 2023; she was on her way to her parent’s home, after being away for quite some time, and notwithstanding all of her optimizations, her experiences, or her vast learning, she was feeling as nervous as she could be. Accompanied by Erin, Joanne looked at her, they exchanged smiles of both nerves and enjoyment of the walk they were on and then they both looked at Sky Taylor and said “thank you” often. Not out of the blue, but because Sky was kind of cool and did cool things, and with both Joanne’s and Erin’s best interests continuously in mind.

  Typically, at least throughout her year-long mission phase, Sky and her daughters had visited people in their sleep, or before something horrendous was about to happen to prevent it.

  The social networking complexity of the mind can be quite elaborate and at times quite cumbersome, especially when taking down entire networks of criminals. No matter, advanced systems that disguised the voice or any type of material designed to hide someone’s identity was useless against Sky and her daughters; they could see humanity at every conceivable level.

  With that knowledge, they would travel all over and around the world to quickly resolve issues throughout multiple villages, towns, and many cities in one night. Over the course of the last year they had healed four billion human bodies and minds and, in the process, many complexed environments affecting many more worldwide. In contrast, now she had scheduled an entire week to spend with the President and Vice President of Pathway Industries, to take things in stride, and in a somewhat leisure manner. Both strategic and tactical, Sky had a knack for getting to the core of any problem, finding the solution, and healing wounds, whether physiological, neurological, or environmental.

  When previously she had solved so many issues with so many lives to their core in a very short period of time, now she would work things out with two people during the space of a week. By doing so, she would reduce the chaotic and destructive course that Pathway was beginning to manifest and would use time’s ability to impact so many more in a positive way.

  By creating a neural link to seven billion people, and by being a bell-weather for the preservation of life, Sky had run through all of the possible outcomes to near perfection and concluded that she would only need to meet with about seventy people to guide them through a unique experience, to set in place what was necessary for big changes in the future. Part of that group of people included Erin and Joanne, on this special occasion. Sky felt honored.

  Both Erin and Joanne, despite unspoken motives, actually found themselves simply lucky to be able to chill with her, like besties, walking through memories and seeing all that Sky could do, right before their eyes. Joanne was amazed at Sky’s tranquil demeanor, her immense intellect, her kindness, her grace, her movements, and her ability to transform her appearance or her surrounding area into anything essential to get any job she deemed necessary done.

  On this particular occasion, it was about one o’clock in the afternoon, they had been walking since morning with occasional stops along the way, were northbound on a humble highway, Sky was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, and she looked like a twenty-two-year-old blonde knock out with piggy tails. Other than that, and the miraculous changes she was bringing to Joanne’s hometown, there was nothing peculiarly unique about her appearance both today or yesterday, which was unusual for Sky.

  Earlier the day before, Sky had used her skills to teleport to South Otselic, New York, before returning to retrieve Erin and Joanne. She had combed the minds of the citizens of the area within a three-mile radius with her mind gathering only the most pertinent info. With that, she had taken what she learned and donned a wardrobe with the appearance of, and practiced similar mannerisms very much like, any one of the town’s local one thousand or so population.

  Sky then reserved a room for three for a week at the Broadlawn’s Bed & Breakfast, just off Highway 26, in the state of New York, which ran north-northeast to the scene of the crime that had been affecting Joanne and the rest of Pathway as a result, and in a both chronic and acute manner, for the last four years.

  Of course, there were many reasons why members of Pathway had been experiencing an increase in a nano-caused glow and subsequent nervousness, and she was pretty sure why it all was happening. Originally, this had been a publicly undetectable phenomenon, at least back in late 2007, when Eliza and Yesha had each climbed into one of their first three biopods for the very first time. It was one thing when the glow was occasion-pertinent or personality-driven, but it was something else if the glow was chronic and increasing in lumens to the point of unintended noticeability by the public, and she intended to set up a clear personal maintenance system to make available to anyone affected through choice or through the correctional system, situation depending. For now, it was nice to have unaffected individuals to go off of, but sooner or later they would need a nearly fool-proof method for doing so, in the event everyone elected to become optimized in every way. Preservation of life, the quality of it, and clarity of mind were the basics, and it was her mission to get Pathway back on track.

  Still, Sky needed to start at the top echelons of Pathway in order to identify and find a remedy to the causes for the chronic glow, which was an indication of issues that needed to be resolved. Sky had noticed this over the last year, ever since she had been brought up online. Each issue was becoming a potential risk way off and into the future but had thus far caused no immediate risk or danger—it was a very far-ranging cycle and the result she was focused on. She also knew that these issues would reveal themselves to the very individuals she, or her upgrades to the Virtual Universe and Correctional Matrix, would be healing while providing them with more clarity through proper exposure to the ideal environmental factors and necessary chang
es. From there she could diagnose the well-being of thought of those currently leading Pathway, and then administer the proper course of action, a little at a time, leading to the healing within their minds.

  In order to truly mend the accumulating and potential damage throughout Pathway, Sky needed to essentially ‘hang out’ with Erin and Joanne as the friend she truly felt she was to them and the friend she truly felt she was to all of humanity. She wanted to help everyone, but there was only so much time unless she got her daughters involved. As it was, she would have to imbue certain key aspects of herself, similar to those she had during the experiences she had obtained while with Eliza, Yesha, and James, into and within Erin and Joanne. What she was currently experiencing with Erin and Joanne would compound the power of the experiences she would soon have with each of the Pathway leaders, UP delegates, and IMC commanders. From there, she could go into the Virtual Universe and Correctional Matrix to create the automatic Personal Maintenance upgrade and journey for everyone else.

  In a sense, Sky wanted to help Erin and Joanne to help Pathway work things out, much like a psychological counselor or a mentor would. She knew she could do so if she had the time in a relaxed setting to actually work with them while outside an office or professional setting and in a more conducive environment for those changes to begin to take effect. Yet, she had multiple reasons for this venture. For now, she was giving Erin and Joanne her undivided attention.

  She had it all planned out. Following their stay, the first night at the inn, Sky would take Joanne to the crime scene, also accompanied by Erin Carter, and then to the Gallant family home. From there, Sky would do what was necessary to help Joanne resolve the mystery behind what had happened to Thomas. Mind-reading would most certainly be involved, among many other things, but she would drive an organic response as much as she could and as necessary.

  Sky knew something was up with Erin and Joanne that went beyond the tragedy surrounding Joanne’s brother. Part of it had to do with their misplaced fervor toward war-oriented means that were steeped in fear, rather than Universal Ethics, and in the name of protection of the IMC. She wanted to hear them process their thoughts completely and then listen to them explain their ideas with their out-loud voices. She would reason with them and perhaps demonstrate viable alternatives herself or have them do so while considering methods that revolved around healing rather than harming. Sky wanted to help them to heal their own minds and allow them to see that their shared abilities of healing were unparalleled to any other method and would be above and beyond sufficient and optimal to complete IMC missions and go further.

  In Pathway’s Virtual Universe, a lot could be done in the space of a single hour and a lot had been done beyond the scope of some of the most brilliant, benevolent, and genius minds out there, but Sky was going to be dealing with two Pathway members who were fully optimized via biopod standards and within a real-world setting. Over the last fifteen years, the biopods had worked very well toward healing so many. Now, just as she had done for Eliza and Yesha, Sky would be continuing the healing process with her two friends, Erin and Joanne, and a town full of normal people. To begin with, she was setting things in place for the kinds of changes that would bring forward the type of ingenuity that would result in an honorable legacy for the long-haul. It was simple; start at the top, and then allow the rest to flow down as an endless wave of prosperity, ingenuity, health, joy, and success. Universal Ethics would be clearly understood and freely applied throughout Pathway, the UP, and the missions of the IMC and beyond.

  None of the people of South Otselic had any idea that Pathway had even existed, despite the fact that it had been around since 2010—and that wasn’t necessarily a problem to Sky or anyone in Pathway. As a matter of a fact, this was a benchmark, and thus, critically essential to the healing process. Half of the world’s population had no idea about any of what Eliza Williams had done through her brazen indignation to preserve life with depth, meaning, and purpose, which had intensified into action; this provided the organic social climate necessary for healing.

  Eliza had been very wise and had thus built what was necessary for a future filled with smiles of love and joy, all while allowing a promise of an everlasting legacy of humanity and all of humanity’s friends to be in place at the very beginning of her ventures. Since they didn’t know much of what existed for and in their behalf, and since Sky knew that no one was in a load of critical trouble at the moment, she wouldn’t yet engage in any healing or optimizing in Joanne’s hometown, at least until Erin and Joanne were there. This was essential to this type of healing.

  The town was pleasant, and everyone seemed to be quite charming, so she chose to hold off on optimizations and neural links to the Virtual Universe for now and wait until Erin and Joanne were with her before making any further or major decisions. She sensed that since they were the President and VP of Pathway Industries, the choices would ultimately be theirs to make with regard to any member of Pathway’s decisions that would ultimately affect the mission, and she respected that. Sky knew where her priorities lay, she was also loyal to the plight of humanity, and had entertained the thought of a potential for trysts in social dynamics, knew something had to be done right away and in a thorough manner, and had a means to overcome these issues rather quickly knowing that Pathway’s governance was far from centralized.

  As a matter of fact, it was about as decentralized as it could be. To that end, everyone had a unique voice and yet shared a sort of collective genius. In Pathway, freedom was as free as breathing fresh air on planet Earth before pollution and prisons became a “thing.” What was different with Pathway’s governance to that of any nation, however, was that within the Virtual Universe, a person could come up with inimitable solutions, and then everyone else neurologically linked could understand their ideas in full, in all their complexities, and completely. From there, anyone else could address further concerns and issues they might have answers for, and like that they’d have unanimously agreed upon decisions in the course of a few moments.

  As time went by, Amber, Vesha, Eliza, and Yesha, and many others had made many contributions, updates, and even upgrades to address the complexity of issues that were surfacing. For all that they had done, they had also made tiny little mistakes over long periods of time. As perfect as many of us try to be, we still have a need to pull ourselves back and look at things from a different perspective, especially for maintenance, meditation, and reflection, both within a group and personal. It appeared to Sky that this was necessary to gain an enriching perspective, especially when literally vigintillions of years’ worth of time had already been shared mind-to-mind and collectively within the Virtual Universe. With innumerable details, projects, and fixes being made throughout the solar system at once, and all of this going on in the space of fifteen years of real world time, it was time for Sky to intervene through a maintenance function Eliza had set into motion years ago but had yet to employ beyond infrastructural repair.

  For situations that called for an outside form of maintenance that process had been built into everything Eliza had set up from the get-go. Essentially, she had taken the lead to scrub skills for nuanced bugs and make available fixes and maintenance through the ideas she had woven into Universal Ethics and had thus imbued them into the fundamentals of Sky Taylor and the clouds of nanos, which were also an essential core to the maintenance process.

  With the many clouds of nanos that she had programmed, Sky had built her one thousand daughters and her island, which was invisible and impenetrable by anyone not authorized by Sky or her daughters. She had learned and manifested many new abilities that would help to heal in every imaginable way and had created just the right kind of sanctuary that could fix the “wobbles” that might occur after many collective years spent by billions of Pathway members in the Virtual Universe. Eliza had built a contingency plan that was sophisticated and strategic in development and highly capable yet simple in execution and maintenance, and in great wisdom.<
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  Sky Island was not accessible by anyone, even the leaders of Pathway unless Sky and her daughters willed it. As such, Sky and her daughters could maintain crystal clear clarity on Eliza’s Universal Ethics, separate from any other influence, and then provide the necessary and key experiences to get Pathway back on track, if it was ever needed. It was needed, and now.

  The key experiences necessary for healing, were similar to those Sky was going to provide to and for the current President and VP of Pathway, as simple as it just might seem.

  It was the first night Sky had planned for herself, Erin, and Joanne to stay at the inn. So, she teleported to an area within a grove of trees just out of sight of anyone near the Broadlawns Bed & Breakfast or in the town of South Otselic. After walking to the check-in desk, she reserved a room for three, got permission to check in early from the inn’s manager, and went to the room with the keys she had been given. Upon opening the door, she picked up on the dank smell of it, and thought within her mind, “This won’t do,” entered the room, closed the door behind her, arranged the furniture a little, used her magnetic capabilities to dust it, and then summoned a cloud of nanos to clean the rest of it up like new and leave behind the smell of honeysuckle on a warm, comfortable, and sunny morning.

  Once she had created a therapeutic ambiance, Sky and her clouds of nanos continued to convert everything so that it was wonderfully plush, mind-pleasing, with infrastructural integrity that strong enough to support further changes she would make, and then she created a jump gate for later use. Without using the jump gate, she teleported to her island, gathered some flowers for several bouquets, returned, and then put them on the nightstands, dressers, and on the various surfaces in the bathroom. She and her clouds of nanos then installed a Jacuzzi. Finally, she tipped the staff quite generously, so they wouldn’t get nosy, created a magnetic security sealing system around each of the entryways to the room, to include the windows that she had set up to show the room as it was before her upgrades, and teleported back to get Erin and Joanne.