by Richard Lord
“Hello, Adam.”
“Fuck you, Bob”
Brian cuts in, “He knew. He’s been here longer than any of us. He and you merged, so you knew!”
Persistence thinks in, “No. He didn’t know. It was after.”
Brian responds, “Which one of them didn’t know, Persistence? What are you getting at?”
“Calm down, Brian. He’s the only one of us still alive in almost every timeline.” Persistence remarks.
Brian says, “That’s why I trust him the least.”
“Yeah? It’s why I trust him the most. Plus there is still Joy and there is still Tomorrow. Bob has been here the longest. I think grandfather is right. He knows something we didn’t learn.”
Brian thinks to Renfield_2, “You only know possibilities or you would not have made mistakes.”
Bob responds, “True, but more possibilities than you. I’m not sure about him. We are here viewing our own futures, he’s lived it.”
“Umm, just saying…I can hear you. If you were corporeal I would most definitely kill you right now, Bob.” Adam’s mind explodes with anger at many things. He realizes Persistence is there because she is in nothing, but he just left her in a hospital because she had slit her own wrist to feed his daughter. It’s maddening but he knows how this place works less than the other three do. He gets the concept, it is nothing therefore there is no time, therefore there is no then, now or later. However, Adam also knows that what happens in the universe changes what they see. He remembers the before and after, but like them not while they are there. So he concludes that something changed since they aren’t discussing the current perils. The problem is, he can’t know when it changed and that riles him.
“I have the good fortune of you exiling me to billions of years of watching. You have the misfortune of knowing almost everything I had to see.” Bob thinks to Adam.
“It was an agreement. Why did you help Stephen when you were supposed to stop him?” Renfield asks.
“He’s been here. He’s already heard this conversation as well as others. Don’t be so naïve, especially since I know you know that.” Bob responds and all of them feel Brian become suddenly absent.
Persistence hears both of their thoughts and thinks out, “We can’t know what he knows. None of us has the same experiences.”
“Not true. You and Brian’s were close enough. You know where he went.” Renfield tries to think directly to her, but realizes that won’t work because she has blocked her mind.
Renfield notes Persistence is no longer there and feels Bob’s anger as Bob says, “I’m trying to help!”
“Yeah, too little too late. Want to see a trick?” Renfield asks.
Bob says, “Don’t even consider that or you will never meet Tomorrow.”
“First, let me be clear, I hate the name Bob. Second let me be clear, I don’t like you no matter what I call you.” Adam explained.
“Yeah, Adam, you’re kind of a jerk yourself.” Renfeild_2 responds.
Then as the two sides lock into thought against each other at speeds of consideration that are mind boggling even to themselves a spark of something comes to be and they both brace themselves.
“I suppose I’ll be seeing you over the next few billion years.” Renfield comments.
“I suppose this is why you are first, Adam. I look forward to meeting Tomorrow all over again.”
“Whatever, Bob. I met her first, then I created you. I also created Joy.”
Bob thinks out in his last moments. “You named them. Solstice, Illumna. How did you keep this from me?”
“I was first, Bob!” Renfield relaxes his mind.
Both of them feel the inrush of everything all at once and then they explode into everything as nothing ceases to exist.
CHAPTER 41
“Entropy is an immutable fact. Everything breaks down. Then there is Infinity, everything continues. It is by relativity alone that we can understand how both immutable forces can exist in the same universe. Therefore, I have given in to Adam’s insistence that the tenants of quantum reality must be true. If they were not, I couldn’t do what I do.” -- from the Book of Brian
The brook ran water over stones. An amoeba washed down stream without any control, hoping to catch a protein floating by. A cilia was experiencing a similar problem without a mass to allow its wiggling function to gain traction. The cilia noted the amoeba and made a deal. The symbiosis being forever locked into the two protozoa. Time went by.
Then a fist emerges from a pond and a human face rises seeking air.
Breathing rapidly after feeling so suffocated, the man raises himself from the waters and looks around. He hears a voice from the trees.
Sitting on a branch, Joy comments, “Hmm, Mom was right. Nothing kills you.” She leaps down and says, “You have no idea how boring it was to sit in these trees for this long waiting for you to get your butt in gear.”
Slowly Renfield remembers, as he whispers to no one, “Impossible!”
“Thank me later.” Joy responds, “Last I checked you have three cities in play.”
Still choking for oxygen, Renfield asks, “How? How can I be if everything is no longer?”
“Think it through, Dad. You made it through hell, as Dante predicted. You spent a long time in purgatory on the way up. You must have been struggling with a lot of your decisions in life.”
“I have to go find Tomorrow!” Adam yells as he looks down into the water.
“I hope so, otherwise I don’t exist. You don’t exist. Now do you understand, Adam? You never had a mother. You were never born, you always were. You are first. Instead of a mother, you had circumstances. By now I’ve seen enough iterations to realize you are Renfield_Prime and you are Bob, Adam. You are also my father. You’re still dying, so there’s not a lot of time to waste. Let’s get on with it. Mom would be happy to see you. You’d be impressed by whom she’s become. However, she said she had waited for you once before and she wasn’t going to do it again so she left. She made a comment that she was going to you, and I think I know what she meant, but…”
“Slow down, girl. Explain how, what?” Renfield’s mind begins to piece the recent past together only to realize there is nothing about it that is recent or the past. The conclusion strikes him. All of the versions of him are transmutable. Renfield was all of the hims. He is all of the hims. Then another thought becomes clear and his mind races. He thinks to himself, “I was all of them. I knew that to be true. I even talked about it, but I couldn’t rectify that. It’s hard to conceive. You dragged me in there?” Adam points back at the water.
“Yes. Something you once told me about Aboriginal belief systems.” Joy responded.
Adam looked around at the trees and the then back to the water.
“Apparently you actually did pay attention when I spoke.”
“You taught me it’s the oldest surviving culture in recorded history, so it seemed I should listen.” Joy looks at her father wondering what it could possibly be like to cease and then be again.
“Apparently you have no problem with conception.” Joy points out, but it seems a non-sequitur to him. “Christina didn’t, so she had Mom and Mom and you had me.” Joy smiles at her groggy, newborn father.
Adam feels what people refer to as ‘heart strings being plucked’ at the mention of Christina. Then he looked up at his daughter. “So you plan to shake the tree?”
Joy grinned at her father in a sarcastic way, “You sir, already have.”
Adam looked at her and considered what she was getting at. “By your own words your part of it all. You’ve woven through time more than I have. There are things you could have changed but didn’t.”
In her defense Joy replies, “I’ve moved through it more than you have, no one has done it as much as you. Nothing is as old as you, don’t you get that?”
Adam changed the topic, “Joy on your fishing expeditions did you find out who the other one is?”
“Yes. I’m not going to
tell you. Stay away from him. He’s more deadly than you and far scarier.” Joy walks towards him. “You’re not scary to me. Mostly. You’re my Dad. He is ruthless. One who serves him heals even faster than you can yet he’s completely subservient to him. Do you understand?”
“Is it your uncle?” Adam asks with a wry grin.
“Dad, I’m serious. I’m not going to answer any more questions about it. He’s in a whole different timeline. How the two of you crossed is something I don’t understand. You always say there isn’t such a thing as a multi-verse, but then there is Mom. She’s two people, merged as one, but she lives both lives. You are far more than that and yet here you are. Please, Dad, let it go.” Joy picks up her pack from the ground. It was packed with raw meat, she decided not to tell her father it was from a slain Hunter. It was bait for anything that might disturb the rebirthing process. She did suspect he might be able to tell from the smell. For a man who seemed to have a poor sense of smell, certain things triggered his sense. He didn’t say anything about it and she decided to leave it alone. She had shut off her mind to him and knew he was aware of that fact and hadn’t brought it up. “I know a lot. I know he’s deadly. I know if he perceives your abilities. He will see you as a threat and he will come for you. He has…”
Hearing her thought Adam says, “The stone. I know, I saw it.” Adam answers and then adds, “He already knows. We’ve been in combat. I know he chose to be there, so we had to have met in his linear, before. What you just did, by Aboriginal terms, I am the sun, he is the moon. He will come for me if I don’t go for him.”
“Dad, you don’t understand. He conquered entire continents and he’s not even in the history books. It seems impossible. I saw him slaughter an army while telling his men to hold still. He is something we don’t understand. Please, I don’t want to lose you again.” Joy looks down at the ground to avoid her father seeing her face so full of concern, then back up as she says, “Plus that tree hurts my butt.”
Renfield grins at the distractive maneuver. “So, speaking of butts where did your mother go?”
“Well she used to hunt raiders with me. It’s become a problem between the cities again.” Then Joy stops and looks at her father. “Oh, you don’t know. She has connected them in time now. She figured out what you had done. She runs the commerce and she can’t keep her hands out of protecting it.”
“Interesting, but not surprising. I suspect you’re helping her with that too.” Adam replies.
“Yeah, Dad, I’m faster than her. The situation has become organized as you predicted.” Joy pulls two grapes from her breast pocket and tosses one at his mouth and the other in the air. Renfield clicks to it and catches it as Joy swallows hers. “You’re getting better with accuracy, but…”
“Yeah, yeah. I saw. You’re more accurate still. You threw it and clicked right to it, but I’m not sure if that’s fair since you knew where you were throwing it.” Renfield narrows his eyes at her and then grins. “So who’s in charge? Never mind, that’s a dumb question. She controls the commerce. The golden rule, she who has the gold makes the rules.” Renfield grins again. “When did she go?”
Joy looks over her shoulder at her father, “I didn’t know she could go when.”
“Stop being coy, obviously you know she can. She doesn’t do it except for in a pinch, so when did she go?” Adam looks at his daughter and knows she knows that he knows she knows.
“I don’t know. She said when you saw her again she would be different but she would still be by your side. She said you once made her wait for you, now you must wait backwards for her, whatever that means.” Joy looked to her father’s face for a clue.
“Hmm, it means your grandmother was my wife, in another life. Not impregnated by me though.” Then Adam says, “Well with Solstice of course.” He lowers a brow to Joy, “But that means you aren’t my granddaughter. Amen to that. Oh wait, I got stuck with you as a daughter. That’s even worse!” Renfield throws is hands in the air in exaggerated exasperation and grins at her.
“Not funny, Dad, back in the water with you! Your sense of humor hasn’t fully developed.” Joy tosses more grapes around and clicks to them to catch them.
“You’re going to wear yourself out, Joy. Is that all you’ve been doing since my untimely demise?” Renfield asks.
“Who said it was untimely and clearly it was not demise.” Joy threw another in his direction and clicked to it before he could taste it. She grinned at the fact she got there before he could.
“Your mother is, how do I describe her? Faithful.” Renfield feels the vacuum of Tomorrow’s presence.
“Yeah, I already know she’s Sara, I was wondering why you never noticed.” Joy stops then looks at her father. She notices a look on his face.
“She changed a lot. Not just her looks, but even her personality, on some levels. I suppose things changed her, didn’t they?” Adam stares at the ground.
“Yeah, Dad, she’s a damned good fighter, and I need backup, so now it’s your turn.” Joy tries to put some levity back into the conversation.
“I should go then.” Renfield responds while staring into the mud. He looks up at Joy, “Seriously why did you save me?”
Joy clicks to his side and holds his hand as says, “No, don’t go anywhere. You should be now. There’s a raid tonight. Have my back. Do now, Dad. There’s plenty of time for yesterday.”
“If I am all of them…?” Adam exclaims.
“Yeah, I get it, you’re me too.” Joy rolls her eyes at the concept but she understands having seen so much in her many years of clicking time.
“I’m just saying that would also mean…”
Joy cuts him off, “Okay, I’ll decide for us, don’t go back. Let Christina create Tomorrow. What would you do without me?” Joy tosses another grape at him and clicks to it to deny him the catch, but he clicks in front of her an instant before she re-exists.
“Wow, Dad, you catch on quick to your own lessons! Not bad for a guy who was soup for a long time.” Joy laughs at him, turns and then launches another grape in his general direction.
Adam’s arm snaps out grabs it and throws it back at his daughter who catches it between her front teeth then shows off her accomplishment.
“Ok, not bad. Don’t get killed trying to stop these organizations. The more you do, the more they know about what you’re doing and how.” Renfield warns.
“Well Dad, we sort of changed policy. We, well I, don’t let anyone go anymore.” Joy looks at him awaiting the inevitable scorning.
“Not a bad plan. Organized, it’s no longer a small issue and the organizations know when their people don’t come back.” Renfield looks down at his legs and realizes they are covered in mud and starts pushing the mud away only to realize it’s on his shoulders too.
“Well, I didn’t expect that endorsement.” Joy replies while using her tongue to roll the grape and peel it. She swallows the fruit of it, spits out the skin and then a second later the seeds, one by one.
“So it sounds like you are doing well. What did you need me back for?” Renfield asks his daughter.
“Don’t be an ass, Dad.” Joy clicks, grabs her pack from the tree branch with her essentials and then clicks back in front of her father.
“So explain why you put my body in the water, at least.” Adam asks of Joy.
“Well, for one you were smelly and no one wanted that around. We couldn’t put you in the woods. Scavenging thingies would have eaten you while you were, becoming. The water was the best plan. The fish didn’t eat the new flesh, just the dead. It took a long time, Dad. You don’t heal as fast as you once did.”
“Is that why Sara left?” Renfield asked Joy realizing that he was asking a very in-depth question in only five words.
“Wow. Umm, I don’t know, I guess. Don’t you think this is strange for her? She’s the wife of a man who always is. It’s hard for me to contemplate I’m the daughter of the man who will always be.” Joy responds.
Adam’s brow
furrows, “What do you mean?”
“You weren’t born in a bunker. You were just born a few minutes ago. All that happens from here into the past is your doing. My sisters, my mother, my grandmother, all of that is your future. You have memory of it, it’s why you stick to your timeline. You don’t see that you created all of it. I have traveled both time and space, Dad. Your influence makes all of it happen. You literally are not just the first man, your own actions create yourself.” Joy flops on the ground and stares at the sky. “To be all of that and remain clueless as to what you are must take a special skill.” Joy looks at her father then rises as she sees his face fall. “Dad, I love you.” She puts her arms around Adam as her body begins to tremble with the emotion welled up inside her. Then she pushes herself away from him and states, “When I was young I used to wish you were less complicated. That you were just a Dad, like everyone else’s Dad. But you’re not, that won’t happen, and this is my fate. I saved you for your re-birth. Just promise you will do everything you did the one time you made me exist. If I don’t you won’t.” Joy looks at him and laughs, “High fiver!”
“You’re ridiculous, Joy.” Adam shakes his head at his timeless daughter.
“So did you really teach her about Xhang Tau?”
“No, I taught her about the legend of Shang-tu. There is quite a difference.” Renfield responded but his face ticked at her accusation.
“Ok, so you told her of the legendary land of Xanadu, but you didn’t explain Xhang Tau means ‘Stuck in Heavy Rain’?” Joy pierces her eyes on her father.
“I don’t think the desert was the appropriate place to bring that up. What are you stirring at, Joy?”
“You shaped her. Your influence on her made all of what is now happen. You, Adam. You walk with a wake miles wide, father.” Joy tosses the last grape but allows it to land deep in the mud. “You gather all of their memories. You are them when you need to be. You feel them. You are them, still alive after their deaths. Which father am I speaking to now?”