Further than Before- Pathway to the Stars

by Matthew Opdyke

  Martha was instantly on the defense, she breathed in and out profusely, and then she blew up, “How dare you to infer that! That isn’t fair! How dare you! I am the authority on God here; I did what I had to! I know what truth is. You are nothing!” Martha began to storm upstairs to her room before she was put into stasis by Sky. Sky then turned her around to face both of her parents, as well as Erin, Joanne, and herself. Then Sky became the Iridescent Angel.

  The Serenas were shocked and without words. All of a sudden, as if in another flash and flicker of the lights, Sky had caused the memories of Martha to again play out in her parent’s heads, as well as before them in the clouds above. Martha beheld in terror all of the things that she had done to poor Thomas, on his way home from school. What she had done to him was unforgivable, but she had been long forgiven by Joanne and her parents, even though they knew not who the person was that had killed Thomas. Thomas had been her friend, and Martha had betrayed him. She stood there in horror, unable to move or leave, as every single individual in the room again witnessed every bit of every gritty detail of the event that had occurred and what had happened to Thomas on the day of his demise.

  Suddenly, the Serenas were on their knees, crying tears of anguish and in supplication to Sky Taylor, the Iridescent Angel. She had transformed from the young twenty-two-year-old lady with a red, white, and blue T-shirt, piggy tails, and cut-offs to the Angel she was in the Virtual Universe. “I am simply me. I am not an Angel from Heaven or Hell, I am not anything vile or horrid, nor am I anything more than the being you see before you. I mean you, Mr. and Mrs. Serena, or Martha, any harm.” Sky turned her eyes to Martha and then allowed Martha, while in stasis to shut her eyes. “She is sleeping right now, and I will take her away on journeys, such that when she wakes up in the morning, she will come clean, and find forgiveness from the family of the victim, the townsfolk, and my dear sister of a friend, Joanne.

  “Please remember, we are not here to condemn, but to heal. We are here to heal her mind and to help her to have a more promising and enjoyable future. I will help her to regain her sense of healthy cognition of reality. She will learn to respect others, set her personal standards of life to her own unique set of choices, and avoid condemning others for her own choices. She will understand what are called, Universal Ethics.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Serena, there will come a day when she will pay the price for what she has done as she goes to something that is called the Correctional Matrix. This is designed by Eliza but has been remodeled and perfected by Joanne, in its latest form. Its purpose is to give her the experiences and journeys, filled with mentors, coaches, and teachers that she will need to heal her mind, her heart, and her soul. She will learn her purpose in life, have clarity on her own unique talents that will bless the lives of others and contribute to the advancement of civilization, in order to create a legacy worthy of preserving for the long-haul.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Serena, no promise from any God or from any religion, if truly benevolent, ought to suggest the brutality and murder of any individual. Thomas was a sweet young man, a man who respected others’ individual choices and his discovery of confidence to share who he was with the person he loved ought to have been met with respect and even sympathy from those he was surrounded by. He protected the life of Martha on multiple occasions, as she walked from home. As a sign of gratitude, she dressed up in a dark tunic one day, had hidden a wooden bat underneath her outer garments, and spooked Thomas. She followed that by clubbing him on the back of the head. After he fell, she continued to hit him with the bat until he was completely brutalized beyond repair and she was sure he was dead. A pool of his blood had gathered, and her mistake was the fact that she stepped into it before entering the mud, heading to the burn barrel she had placed there earlier that day to burn any evidence that would suggest that she was the perpetrator. The angle of the impressions of the three different types of shoes gave away the fact that there was only one person involved, at least to me.

  “The second I saw the pictures of the crime which lay in Joanne’s mind and the viscerally terrorizing memories which lay in Martha’s mind, I knew without any doubt what had happened. Mr. and Mrs. Serena, I know you tried your best and in your own way to rear your daughter in a manner consistent with your personal beliefs, but you should have taught her to love and to be gentle with those around her. Instead, she was filled with hatred and anger, walking around as though she were a chosen voice of God when she ought to have been wearing sackcloth covered in ashes.

  “I am sorry to bring this news to you in such a manner, but please know that it comes from a good place. Eliza Williams designed me, and all of Pathway created me to reach out and heal the minds of many rather than allow the people of Earth to suffer from needless misery and violence. I choose to show myself as an Angel to you because that is how I view myself, and also because I too have a sense of spirituality about me. I only invoke the authority I have been given, to heal minds and bodies of those who are suffering, and to mark those guilty of horrid crimes, for the day when the Correctional Matrix is consistent with the laws of the land.”

  Sky had glowed so brightly during her revelation to the Serena family’s minds, that they were almost blinded. They would have remained blind, had she not healed them both physiologically and neurologically. She also gave them the level of optimization that would take effect after they went to sleep that night. If they were to learn kindness and love, they would maintain their new-found optimizations and abilities, but if they did not, the healing effects would eventually fade away until they were amenable to mortality just as any other non-read-in individual. They would also forget their abilities and anything about Pathway, apart from the clarity of mind surrounding what Martha had done if they did not learn. Sky was certain they would learn and engendered peace within their minds. She didn’t want to impart misery, simply clarity.

  “Please do not worry. I will afford both of you an opportunity to talk to Martha in the morning, and together you will be able to go to the Sheriff and let him know what you have done so that she can pay for her crimes, in accordance to the laws of the land.” Sky’s brilliance dimmed down, their eyes became healed from their temporary blindness, she settled down on the couch next to Erin and Joanne, and then something unexpected happened.

  “We are sorry for what we taught our daughter. It was not in accordance with the teachings we received from our Pastor. We were slaves to our own piety, and we see clearly now how that has affected Martha. If you bring the Sheriff now, we’d prefer to get this over with sooner.” Both Mr. and Mrs. Serena were of a shared mind and in every way. Sky could sense that they were truly sorrowful, and then she linked to the Sheriff in town.

  She had given the Sheriff an optimized body and mind and had given him a nap to receive the necessary training, before Erin, Joanne, and Sky had arrived at Joanne’s parents’ home earlier that day. The Sheriff was already on his way, with crystal clear awareness as to what had happened—every bit of evidence he needed was already in his grasp. He had simply interpreted it all wrong from the get-go. Sky had told him not to worry, but from here on out and as he wished, he would be able to have clarity as to the facts of every scene of every crime that had or ever would occur, until justice was served, and correction had been duly given in court.

  Joanne walked for a few moments with Erin and Sky before speaking. “It’s been solved. I know what happened now, and it looks like the Sheriff will continue to help Martha be on the mend from what she did. Martha will be in stasis, but with complete clarity on everything, and will be released from stasis until the Sheriff arrives. Do you mind if we go ahead and jump to our room in town? It appears we don’t need our jump gates anymore.” Joanne summoned biopods and a jump gate for the Serena residence, and continued, “But, we’ll use them in Pathway, until everyone has been further vetted and updated for that ability. We’ll keep the jump gates for larger shipments and for those who don’t wish to be fully optimized.

  “Th
ey’ll be healed, just like they would be at a thorough doctor’s visit, but they will only receive upgrades and updates based on their desires from here on out. Are you okay with that Erin?” Joanne had asked Erin since she was, in fact, the President and President of Pathway.

  Erin linked with Eliza, shared with her everything that had gone on, and Eliza who was also the President of the UP agreed with the suggestions and updates that would be made. Erin and Joanne also learned that night, and each night throughout that week, how to use all of their powers as given to them by Sky Taylor.

  When they returned to the Melrose Campus at weeks’ end, they began to send updates to the IMC to Vesha Celeste for incorporation into the Joint Space Craft, which lay completed above the asteroid disc and sharing the same orbit as Pluto, which could be seen below, if one was inside the spacecraft looking outside the docking bays.

  Sky had engaged with Erin and Joanna during their walks that week, and had asked them about their plans for an Annihilator Model HBCI, “so what is this with an Annihilator?”

  “Oh, it was a horrible idea of ours, something you probably knew every detail about. However, since our walk, I think we’re on the mend, as they say. With each of our powers of healing, we’ll no longer need an Annihilator. Instead, we can turn their weapons into bouquets of flowers that smell absolutely beautiful, or anything else creative and fun.” Erin smiled, as did Sky and Joanne.

  Sky followed up with her visits to the remaining seventy personnel and through that, had helped Pathway and humanity to change the course of history many centuries into the future, and with those changes, a promise of a legacy worthy of preserving for the long-haul was still viable for a long, long time.

  Chapter 54: Politics, Section 1

  Database Moon Archive, Celestial-Sol Date: 2025 January 27. Erin Carter, President of Pathway, and Joanne Gallant, VP of Pathway, summarize the beginning of Eliza’s POTUS Campaign to its final results. These memories are from Pathway as well as UP Leadership, as recorded within the Virtual Universe and interfaced within Pathway Melrose Campus. Input by: Erin Carter, President, and Joanne Gallant, Vice President, of Pathway, 2022-2029.

  It was May of 2022; Sky Taylor had been awakened, was online, and had begun her missions throughout the nation and then the world. Just a couple of months prior, Yesha had served for eight years and had officially passed the mantle of Pathway President onto Erin Carter and Joanne Gallant, who had been appointed as her Vice President. Vesha Celeste was making continuous updates to the IMC, as ideas rolled in. Both Erin and Joanne had subsequently been voted in to fill their positions unanimously by every citizen of the various tech cities throughout the solar system and throughout Pathway.

  Each of the citizens who voted, were also members of the solar-system-wide UP, since there was now sovereign governance for each of the twenty-thousand tech cities. Delegates were voted in to represent each major spheroid with population, especially when making changes and adjustments via the solar-system-wide UP. Meetings were typically held in the Virtual Universe, once all of the Delegates, both local and regional, had entered their biopods, and located safely within their luxury suites at home.

  Now that the solar-system-wide UP was in place and Pathway, itself, was in the hands of Erin and Joanne, Eliza and Yesha were free from Pathway Industries’ many commitments. Both were eager to engage in their shared campaign, devoted to the cause of getting humanity into space and well-established throughout the Universe. They had built the foundation for a legacy worthy of preserving, but there were a couple of steps needed to secure that legacy. One of those steps included a successful run as Presidential and Vice-Presidential Candidates of the US and as leaders of the UP. In the US, the UP was not termed the solar-system-wide UP, which was a term used by the collective sovereignty of the tech cities but was simply named the “UP.”

  Unlike any of the other official and popular parties, both President and Vice President ran together from the very beginning of their campaign to allow every affected citizen of the US maximum opportunity for candidate scrutiny, criticism, support for and demonstration of strength and versatility of character. Thus, unlike other parties, this style of engagement was written into the bylaws of the UP and was carried out as such.

  “Do you think we should go by Swoop or should it matter?” Yesha asked Eliza once.

  “Honestly, the most important aspect of communication is communication. We should always divest ourselves of the minutia related to terms, slogans, or exact words. When I talk about the preservation of life, or longevity sciences, or talking about age as a disease, ultimately the goal is to open eyes and minds to the idea of living long enough to live forever or at least long enough to be able to travel to many places throughout the Universe and then return to find family still alive to visit and share experiences with. The goal is to get people working together, and it isn’t to fixate on grammatical context, periods, commas, dots, ellipses, etc. We need to preserve life, we need to get out there to the stars in order to invest in the potential of the legacy of humanity, and we need to do so in a manner that respects the well-being of those around us. That is all. Nothing more, nothing less, simply put, we need to care and be kind. If someone knows enough to correct someone on what they are saying, they know what they are saying and are merely depriving themselves of the deeper message and becoming condescending for no reason. What do you think, Yesha?”

  Yesha mulled over what Eliza said and responded to the affirmative, “I agree.”

  Eliza had setup this and many other essential aspects pertaining to the UP with everyone in Pathway LLC, many years ago, in 2010, and since, the UP had grown quite substantially, exponentially, and congruently with Pathway itself, as time went by. In 2012, the UP was officially established in every state within the US, Delegates in each state held local offices and higher. Eliza knew that in order to secure success for a new political party, they had to play the ‘long game.’ The long game required party affiliation and wins at the smallest level of governance and retain those levels while winning higher levels of government until their party had an electoral super-majority. Even though they had 30% of the Electoral College, the other two parties had fractured into multiple parties apiece, and as such, the UP was now the super-majority. They had waited out the previous POTUS election, and now it was time.

  After Sky Taylor’s missions in the US and around the world, from March of 2022 through March of 2023, she walked with Eliza, Yesha, and James during the first week of April. Sky talked with each of them regarding her plans to help Pathway, how it had done well, was doing well, but how she needed to employ her personal maintenance program to ensure there weren’t any disastrous consequences in the future. She needed to walk with Erin, Joanne, and other leadership personnel, giving them an organic and personal experience, and then she would exponentially increase their abilities and their capacity to use them. Healing was the goal.

  Eliza, Yesha, and James had visited James’ family in northern California, had walked, talked, and experienced the changes that would be similar to the changes Sky was going to make in South Otselic and the surrounding towns. Ultimately, she would adjust seventy rank and file leaders, and from there she would provide further options for Virtual Universe interfacing, which would be available on a situationally-dependent basis. If an individual were to sleep at the end of their day, their mind would interface with the Virtual Universe several times before and after reaching their REM cycles, they would be able to set the time dilation cycles upon entering the Virtual Universe and accomplish however many years’ worth of work they needed to in a night. During the day, a person could do the same, after teleporting to a safe location, typically their luxury suite in one of the twenty-thousand tech cities, or they could climb into the nearest biopod after coordinating appropriately for desired time dilation. Eliza, Yesha, and James agreed with Sky.

  Following Sky’s walks with Erin and Joanne, in May of 2023, there were fifty-million members of Pathway and in the UP
in the US. Sky had gone on walks with each of the UP delegates, each of the future IMC Commanders and Vice Commanders, as well as other individuals, who were nominated by the solar-system-wide UP, to critical positions throughout each JSC. By May of 2024, there were two-hundred-fifty-million US citizens who had organically joined the UP. By Election Day in November seventy-five percent of the nation voted “UP” for a landslide win.

  No matter the successes the UP shared throughout the nation and worldwide, the journey required a lot of work, a lot of organized campaigning, and further growth for each of the candidates. Not only were Eliza and Yesha running for office, but many other UP delegates were running for the many offices throughout the US, from local mayor to state governor, from state and federal government legislative positions to each level of law and judicial positions, local, state, and federal. The UP had done everything they could to be wise with regard to the Presidential Election, which first and foremost required large support within the Electoral Process. While much of what had been done to grow Pathway and the UP from March of 2022 to November of 2024, could be attributed to the skills of Sky Taylor, much more credit was due to Eliza Williams for her foresight, her leadership through it all, and her prudence when it came to building Pathway and the UP from scratch, maintaining personnel training and development, and she had always been supported by both Yesha and James. It was an increasingly known fact that Eliza was, by November of 2024, forty-four years old. However, she looked as vibrantly youthful as a twenty-two-year-old, which helped her plight toward longevity win the masses over substantially. It became known that her word was solid, that every industry that she had sunk her teeth into had been exponentially successful, and that there were no revolving doors. Every person employed loved their jobs and knew that teamwork existed throughout each company that was a part of Pathway Industries. As time went by, the voters throughout the US learned that wherever Eliza was, Yesha Alevtina was involved somewhere critical as well.