“You and Eschew are both disgusting!”
“You have spirit! I like that,” Bruner says as both men laugh. “I guess we can program that emotion. Perhaps we can put it in a tiny box and send it over into the eighth dimension. What do you think, Mr. Eisenstein? Who’s your daddy now?”
Bruner’s laugh comes from way down deep—a belly laugh that mocks my very existence. He hits a button, and a thousand robots laugh along with him. “Feeling scared, Michael? How dare you! You could have been my partner, you sniveling, weakling Eisenstein.” Bruner sniffs at the air. “You disgust me!”
I feel anger welling up inside me. Whispers of past indignities surface in my psyche. I don’t want to get angry. I can’t get angry. Anger will send me into a spiraling depression that I may never recover from.
“Don’t worry,” Eschew utters. “There’s nothing you can do. There will be no more tricks, no scientific theorems that your daddy has given you. It’s over, my friend. I think I’ll just take out my voice recorder and hit delete.
Maya explodes upward. She quickly stomps toward Bruner’s cyborgs. “Don’t listen to them! They’re no good. I know he has programmed consciousness into your brains. You don’t have to—”
A shot rings out, and Maya’s body falls limply. I reach over, catching Maya as her body stumbles downward. Her cheek quivers.
“I came back to you!” Maya whispers.
“You did. We will always be together,” I say, holding her with all my recalcitrant might.
“Will you skip a stone for me? Please. I’ll be waiting for you. Just stare into a stone, and you will see my face, and I will smile back at you, my love. I won’t let you slip away from me again.” My tears slither down my cheeks like reluctant pale ghosts.
“We fought, Maya. We fought to keep our world safe.” Maya’s dark charcoal eyes resonate like fiery stars struggling to send their brilliant message of hope into the sky. I feel a tug on my arms. Her body slides downward. Her hands hang at her side. I lift Maya’s lifeless form upward, allowing her soul to rise up into the heavens. Then, I return Maya to a soft bed of leaves on mother earth. Her head rests on a soldier’s headstone.
I hear nothing but the cries of Maya’s ancestors. The Mayan queens that came before her escort her back to her place in the sky. I stare at my trembling fists. I reluctantly unclench them. My quivering fingers are full of Maya’s warm blood. My muddled head falls onto my shuddering, bloodied hands. I raise my besmirched face, filled with the blood of my ancestors and those that opposed them. How many lifetimes will it take to avenge my love’s death? I wonder.
I angrily gaze into the blood red, garish sky. I witness the sun’s replenishing rays pouring through the petulant clouds energizing my tarnished soul. As I stare up into the heavens, I know that Maya is already gently, looking down upon me. She has begun her journey, intertwining her hallowed soul with the cyclic fabric of life…and death. I close my eyes…
I search for truth. I feel hostile, frigid and alone. I vow to find her. I pledge to search the universe for redress. I promise to forage every corner of the firmament to find my angelic Maya. I glance at Bruner’s haughty, arrogant face. The imperious Eschew arrogantly glares at me. They’re laughing at me…mocking me, aren’t they?
They have a plan, don’t they? It’s a plan that will threaten humanity forever…
I stare back at their sneering faces. They’ve stolen my love, snatching away my life. My hands are shaking convulsively. Eschew takes out his ridiculous voice recorder. He smiles, saying “a pathetic man.” Then, he pronounces “save.”
I look up into the heavens witnessing the escape hatches opening like God’s angelic messengers. They’re winking at me. Yes, time portals to a new universe are opening their hungry maws into a new realm. My mind engenders images of my younger self shooting down the bannister and knocking my father awkwardly onto his backside. I nearly start laughing, but I catch myself, before doing so. I remember being obsessed with teleportation and other ideas that seemed so impossible at the time…
I think of Kohei Tong and how he brought Maya back from a mysterious picture that he was painting. I recollect how he sent an arrow catapulting toward the heavens at the speed of light. I think of Copernicus and how he gave life to flowers and birds. Then, fond memories of my friend Ezekial shoot into my brain like brilliant benevolent angels. I visualize how Ezekial lived on a fourth dimensional asteroid named Gaspra. But mostly, I remember Vincent taking out his palette and creating a drawing that appears elegantly in the sky, alongside the magnificent stars.
What did they do that made that happen? Was it unyielding belief? Was it the unrelenting force of their wills? Perhaps, it was some unseen force, an energy force that transferred all of these abstractions into reality.
Then, suddenly I knew…I knew what I had to do…
It’s the bridge…remember the hanging bridge? I needed to cross over to the other side. I unleash my inner powers. Like Kohei’s arrow, my extended mind travels at the speed of light. My being is tenaciously transcending time and space into the realm of transformation toward the time portal. Is Maya going to be waiting for me on the hanging bridge? I did it once before…didn’t I? I’m going to find her, no matter what it takes, no matter what obstacles occur.
My body propels itself upward, entering the hungry portal. Like the force that propels skipping stones to thrust themselves toward eternity; I will never stop believing, never stop stirring, until I find you.
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