by Lea Tassie
"I know. I've always known. My father and I long suspected this to be true, but look at me. I'm in a body aging with time. Soon I will be old and you will continue to be young. We made mistakes, but I've always known that you love me." Dart reached out and took Chelsie's shaking hand. "Nothing you did wronged me in any way. And the knowledge that you are now defending me from your own parents speaks volumes. I always will love you, and I don't ever want to lose you." Dart ended the conversation with a smile.
Several women nearby scowled at their husbands, as much as to say, 'Why aren't you like this guy?' Most of the men just looked embarrassed.
Dart knew that their life from that day forward would be a struggle, but he felt that life with Chelsie was worth it. So when he came home from a walk one day and found Chelsie dead from an exotic, vicious toxin, one which no medical authority had ever seen before, he correctly assumed it was the church's doing. But it took many years to discover that Abarth had created the toxin for use in his attempt to seek revenge for being wronged.
Dart was devastated and spent several years in mourning, making no effort to continue the legal case he and his father still fought in court. But time eased his wounds and, at a little more than one hundred years of age, Dart eventually won his court case. His father performed the services necessary to genetically modify his adopted son, giving Dart a very, very long time to suffer the loss of his beautiful wife.
Chapter 8 Charger R/T destroys heaven
In spite of his significant size, Charger R/T was only a barely visible dot as he floated motionless in the vacuum of space. His body felt cold and lifeless as he hung in the darkness alone and silent, and the only thoughts that occasionally stirred his mind were his hatred for humanity and visions of his past life when there had been the relentless need to fight. This drifting Charger Resurrected/Terminus thought, too, about the burden of being the weapon humanity always called on when they were desperate, just as they had called on his original incarnation. He was tired of being the humans' whipping boy, and thus content for the moment to float free where nobody could find him.
As he looked around the vastness of the universe, he felt a moment of sadness at being rejected by those he helped, but only for a fleeting moment. The emotions he'd once felt now barely existed in his logical, computer-like mind, and his hardened indifference had muted any human pangs of conscience.
"There is a place," a whisper in Charger R/T's mind repeated incessantly, as if determined to gain his attention. "A place you can go, a place of peace."
"Great, now I'm hearing voices," Charger R/T grumbled. There could be no voices except his here in this inky black void. It must be an errant memory from long ago.
Time meant nothing to him, and it might have been a day, or a year, or even a century before he reacted to the persistent whisper. Summoning all his concentration, he focused on the destination the whisper gave him and blinked.
For a moment, arrival at the terminus of the blink left Charger R/T disoriented and perplexed. Though his feet seemed to stand on firm ground, the ground itself was in motion. It felt as though everything around him was in motion, constantly expanding and folding in again. Substance was vague, ambiguous, and barely tactile. The best description he could think of was a hall of blurry mirrors, endlessly reflecting him in a myriad of places. Then, among the infinite images of himself, a face appeared. He could see a mouth, a nose, a forehead, but with no body attached.
"It is good that you have come," the face said, causing Charger R/T to bristle aggressively. "We have waited an eternity for someone like you."
Charger R/T's expression was not quite anger nor quite hostility, though there was a hint of both. His whole demeanor was that of a beast ready to pounce and devour the thing in his path. "What the fuck is this place and who the fuck are you?" he growled.
"Please, friend, be at peace, we mean you no harm," came the reply from the face.
"Like you have any chance of harming me!" Charger R/T responded, taking a step toward the face.
"I am Enoch, and you are in paradise."
"Like fuck! I know the Enoch and you are not one of them!" Charger R/T clenched his fists, preparing to fight. An intense burst of light erupted from his body, as he let his rage build, causing the space around him to warp and twist.
"Please! Please, allow me to explain. We need your help."
"Ah, shit! If you're the voice I heard in my head, you promised me peace. Now you want my help!" Charger R/T's rage increased and it seemed as if a release of his supreme power would destroy everything in a massive explosion.
The face began to retreat, trying to find some safe distance, but that was pointless. "Please, I beg of you…"
Begging was Charger R/T's weakness. He always found it difficult to kill a creature begging. He held his rage in check and said, "Talk fast."
"I… We are Enoch, and we know of your encounter with others of the First Ones. We are not of them. We are of humans."
There was a quiver in the voice belonging to the face, and Charger R/T began to realize that there was no threat here.
"We were lied to about this place and we have been in this form for what must amount to thousands of years. We were promised that when we passed through the heavenly gates, we would be immortal. We were never told that existence in this dimension would be utterly pointless, and we beg of you, as a fellow human, to release us."
"See, you're not making much sense to me now, and that may end badly for you." Charger R/T's voice boomed like thunder.
"I once had a human name like you," the voice said hurriedly. "I was called Blix, like my father before me, and his father before him. My people built a mighty empire on Earth long before you were born, but our greatest achievement was building the three megalopolises. The first was a gift, a world entombed within our world. A time capsule, if you like, for future generations to behold. The second complex is where we held our vast knowledge and corporeal bodies. The third was the heavenly gateway, a vast unending machine that allowed us to ascend to this realm, to this higher dimension."
Charger R/T began to relax. "Well, that's fine, but I'm not from Earth. I've learned that I'm a copy of a man who existed long ago. I'm not even sure if I'm human."
"We know of this, and you are most certainly human." The voice spoke with resolution. "You are not merely human, you are beyond what humanity will achieve for a very long time to come, if ever. This is why we have need of who and what you are. We need you to destroy the heavenly gate."
There it was again, the need for Charger R/T to destroy. The thing about humanity that he hated most was the way it always made him the weapon. "Look, I am not interested in helping you or your Enoch. Just go do it yourself." Charger began looking about for a way out of this place he'd stumbled into.
"I think you misunderstand. It is true that we are of the Enoch, but we are not like the Enoch you met. They are the Enoch of light and energy and they have the ability to take different forms and interact with objects. We are the Enoch of air or spirit. We have no substance. We are formless vapors. We have no bodies, no arms, no eyes; we can never hold those we love and we can never walk on beautiful shores or watch a sunset. Our existence is a lie. We were given immortality but denied any means of enjoying it."
"Don't care!" Charger R/T snapped as he decided to disregard any further comments and find a way out of this dimension.
"Please, we only want an end to our suffering. Just destroy the gate and we will release you."
Charger R/T stopped moving, his rage rising again. The words 'we will release you' rolled like a tidal wave in his mind. "Don't tell me you're stupid enough to try holding me here!" His voice was calm, like the breathless hush just before a storm.
"It is true that we are trying to prevent your departure and we know that you will not stay for long. You have the ability to destroy us all here and now. But, if you don't also destroy the heavenly gate, you will be allowing others of our kind to someday be trapped here. We only try
to hold you here in hopes of success in pleading our case. We seek your compassion." The voice trailed off.
Charger R/T almost laughed as he responded, "Compassion! From me?"
"Please, we have lived like this for thousands and thousands of years. There is nothing here except eternal time. Even if there were other things, we have no way of enjoying them. We can do nothing except exist, as in a void. We need you to end our existence, and we need you to prevent this from happening to others."
Charger R/T decided he was a fool to have listened. "Oh, I'm going to end your existence all right."
***
Dart speaks to Reader:
You want to know about dimensions?
Okay, let's start with the simplest, two dimensions. That's length and width, or back and forth, side to side, but no height, no depth. In a two-dimensional world, all objects, including humans, would be just flat shadows. If you were a little flat human living in a little flat house, you wouldn't be able to see Charger R/T if he stuck a finger or a foot into your house. All you'd see would be the shadow of his fingertip or the shadow of his boot where it hides the floor.
Yes, that's right, we live in a three-dimensional world, with length, width and height, which means we can see Charger R/T's huge body. But he exists in the fifth dimension, which is beyond our ability to comprehend. Our eyes tell us we can see him, but what we see is only a representation of him and he may, in fact, be everywhere.
It was not known until the late twenty-first century that there were only five, not eleven, dimensions. Scientists discovered, of course, that the fifth dimension consists of the three dimensions all humans experience, plus time and space, coupled with an elevation to a higher plane of existence.
What would it be like to live there?
A being in the fifth dimension can observe and interact with a being in the third or fourth, but the reverse is impossible. An old theory proposed that the fifth dimension is like a parallel world, or a system of many worlds, with outcomes of events determining each world’s existence. In fact, the fifth dimension is a quantifiable plane of existence where the observer experiences all the dimensions simultaneously, as if they are one. This is why Charger R/T felt the two-dimensionality of standing in front of a single mirror, yet viewed multiple mirrors reflecting him from every conceivable angle, warped by time and space.
You want to go see the fifth dimension for yourself? That's not possible yet, Reader. Yes, I know Charger R/T can do it, but the rest of us will have to wait until science finds a way for ordinary humans to get there.
***
Now Charger R/T understood the way out of this place. He sat down and contemplated his next move.
The voices were silent for some time before the one voice he recognized finally asked, "Will you help us?"
"I'm always killing something," Charger R/T said as he exhaled a great sigh from his massive frame. "Fine. What do I have to do?"
"Give us your word you will destroy us all and the heavenly gate, and we will tell you how to leave this place."
"I already know how to leave this place," Charger R/T snapped. "What I want in exchange is all your knowledge. And that's not negotiable!"
"To what end could all our collective knowledge benefit you?" The voice queried in a perplexed tone.
"Let me worry about that," Charger R/T said, his tone harsh.
Not even the Prime Tasker, who had built Charger R/T's mind from all that Henry and Charger ever saw or did, knew that his creation had a voracious appetite for knowledge that matched his growing godlike physical powers. Charger R/T was thirsting, like the mythological vampire of old, for the memories of everyone he was going to kill. The essence of a person is the sum of all their memories and knowledge. This was the blood Charger R/T now demanded. He would swallow them all.
"Do we have a deal?" he asked joyfully, anticipating memories from thousands.
"Yes," the voice replied, not understanding what was being asked of them all.
Charger R/T eagerly accepted all the memories of every human who had entered this place, every child, every elder, every lover and hater. He raped the minds of every single being, sometimes laughing at the embarrassment he found. He held up the memories of these rotted souls to their faces, humiliating them. For a long moment, he stood reveling in his disgusting prize, in his knowledge of all the dirty secrets. Those who had claimed to be of a high moral caliber were now faced with their true selves.
Suddenly and savagely, Charger R/T slammed his great hands together, exuding a wave of violence and destruction outward in all directions, putting an end to every being who had once called this place paradise. With those hands cupped before his massive chest, he compacted the space around him in a fantastic effort of compression, squeezing the life essence out of this plane of existence. Then, releasing everything, he exploded out into space, and blinked far into the dark cold void.
It was done. Heaven had been cleansed and destroyed. Those who had been "saved," from every part of time, were dead, released into the peace of non-existence.
Charger R/T blinked to Earth, to the gates of a complex in Egypt, to the year 2050. He materialized abruptly to an astonished team of scientists that had just discovered the location of this prodigious machine, the gate to heaven. The team had spent most of the day exposing the massive stone entrance to the Egyptian complex built by the First Ones beneath the Sphinx and, as the heavy machinery being used was retracted, Charger R/T appeared.
The sphinx towered like a cliff over the entrance to the complex and, as the seven scientists tried to distance themselves from Charger R/T, sands from around the paws of the sphinx came sprinkling down.
"You should be running now!" Charger R/T said to the nearest scientist in a calm, rational manner, as if compliance meant nothing special to him.
Shocked and dismayed at this beast's sudden appearance, the members of the team felt discretion was called for and tried to retreat. They stood little chance of succeeding.
Again Charger R/T used his great hands to compress the space around him, twisting gravity and matter into a ball of instability in front of his massive frame. Blinding light and extreme heat radiated from where he stood, searing and turning the sands all around instantly into glass. The air boiled as the scientists burst into flames, and the nearby excavating machines melted like butter in the sun. When the resulting explosion ended and the dust settled, all that remained was a crater thirty miles across. There was no sign of Charger R/T, or the Sphinx, or the pyramids.
The seven scientists had been in communication with the scientist, Andy Kent, in Dhuusamareeb, Somalia, as he spoke with his employee, Lucy, and a young research assistant. Andy stood staring at his communicator in disbelief, trying to make sense of what he had just heard. Lucy asked, "My god, what the hell just happened there?"
"I have no idea," Andy replied slowly. Andy, Lucy, and the young researcher stood in silence in the newly risen forest of the First Ones, and watched in disbelief as the replica of Stonehenge they had just discovered glowed blue for a moment, then dimmed and faded away.
The entire event had been recorded both by satellites and nearby seismic sensors. The link with the fifth dimension was shattered and, as the Enoch had desired, never rediscovered.
Chapter 9 Betrayal of Pennington
Pennington, her old face twisted with rage and frustration, shouted at Abarth, "How dare you return to me yet again without the child? How hard can it be to bring this son of Charger R/T before your pope?" She shifted her weight in the regal chair, anger showing in every line of her body. Pointing her bony old index finger directly at Abarth, she shouted so loudly that most of the people in the church could hear her. "Damn it, Abarth, damn it all to hell! I give you the best technology, the best fighters, the best information and, for the third time, you come to me in failure! The child must be brought before me. Do you not understand the importance of my command?"
Abarth lowered his head and, face hidden from Pennington's sight,
rolled his eyes, for he knew what she'd say next. He'd only heard it a thousand times before.
"The child of god must be made to recognize me. I am the leader of this church and the child must serve me!" Pen pounded her fist on the arm of the chair. She'd always been a good person at heart, but devotion to her belief blinded her to what was actually good or bad in the real world.
Abarth didn't care. He was tired of being belittled and his tone reflected this. "It has never been easy to find this child. As soon as we get close, he is relocated to a new city, with a new identity. Dr. Smyth and the people helping him are all fanatics, believers in science and medicine. They are an apocalyptic group of radicals bent on hoarding the child for themselves." Abarth shuffled his feet, pretending to be nervous.
"That's enough!" Pen exclaimed, rising. "I want this child! Do not fail me again, or it will be your last task!" Her words proved to be a bad mistake.
As Abarth left the pope's chamber, he decided that Pen had crossed the line. This time she had gone too far. This time he would kill her and take the church leadership, for he now had the backing of several others who were also sick of Pennington's rants. The problem he faced was how to kill a near immortal and do it in a way that cast suspicion on someone else.
Abarth had become a master of deception, convincing everyone that he was a good and decent man. From the pulpit, he often told members of the congregation of the deaths of his wife and three daughters, and how the duplicity of medical science was to blame.
The truth was that he and his family had eagerly volunteered for the longevity program in its early days. He knew the risks but his greed for life was insatiable. The lure of immortality was too great and the risks were dismissed as merely science's need for extreme caution. Abarth believed, as he always had, that he knew best and ordered his family to do as he commanded. When the genetic alterations were rejected by the immune systems of his wife and children, and the horrors of a rapid aging and painful death were at hand, he could not accept responsibility for what he had done.