Jigsaw World

by JD Lovil

  When Markus got tired of losing, Karla took his cue stick from him. Tom could not see his way clear to throwing the game, so he upped his rules to calling triple bank shots only. Karla was a better pool player than most women were, so they were fairly well matched with his handicapping system. He won the first game by a smidgen, and she actually won the second one.

  After that, they set up a target outside, and had a knife throwing practice, with Tyr acting as referee. Tom did alright with the various throwing knives, but he especially liked the different weights of objects like screwdrivers and one particular Navy Ka-Bar knife which had the leather on the handle removed and replaced with a wire wrap, providing substantial weight.

  At about nine in the evening, the doorbell to the outer door chimed, and when the Herald answered it, the Sage was at the door. Looking beyond the door, the group was amazed that the Sage was one of the first visitors to the compound to arrive in a traditional fashion, that being in a car in this case. It was a mildly indifferent reception that he received. None of the group could really think of anything new that he would bring to the party, so to speak.

  Everyone returned to their favorite spots in the parlor, where they watched the slightly altered news stories. One of the groups of terrorists plaguing Egypt had been exchanged for a different terrorist group. The President had issued a slightly different Executive Order two days ago than the one he had issued before the trip. Now the illegals pouring over the border would be immediately deported instead of going through a long court process.

  While the news provided background noise, the Sage caught everyone up on the last few days in his life. The fact that nobody actually had any interest in the events of his life, recent or otherwise, had never occurred to him. The fact that everyone studiously ignored him, and avoided looking at him while he was talking, took a while to soak in as well. After wasting his time talking about himself, he finally got the hint and settled back on the couch with a beer to watch the news.

  There was no task planned until sunset tomorrow, so everyone was letting their hair down tonight. This was going to be one of those no alarm clock nights, where you went to bed as late as you wanted, and got up as late as you could. It was along about eleven-thirty that Tom grabbed Karla by her luscious ass, and trundled her as quickly as he could to their bedroom.

  It took them about twenty-five seconds to remove all of their garments, and within the next twenty minutes they had touched every inch of each other’s skin. If Bailey had still been alive, he would have been convinced that they were intent on eating each other. Tom wasn’t usually that much into kissing, but he really could not get enough of it with Karla.

  Everyone has had that person, usually for far too short a time, when they had such a need to get as close to them as possible. Even with naked skin against naked skin, still they were not close enough. In such a need, one is never sure that it would be close enough, even if one’s whole body penetrated the other. The way Tom felt about Karla was like that. He would never feel satisfied with how close he could get to her.

  ******

  24 The Gathering

  Light seemed to be everywhere. Tom barely opened his eyes, and the light seemed intent on blinding him. He turned over in the bed, where he found a slightly diminished lighting, and the delightful sight of Karla’s teeth gleaming in the light, skirted by a set of very kissable lips in the perfect form and color schemata.

  He reached over and touched her lips, waking her up comfortably with the fingertip that he then inserted into her mouth. He followed the finger with the rest of his body, clutching every part of her that had a feminine curve to it. He finally settled his hands one each on her butt cheeks, pulling her hard against him, and even moving her slightly up and down in a suggestive movement. What occurred next took about thirty minutes, and would not be proper to be discussed by any parties other than Karla or Tom.

  When he finally had achieved a state of wakefulness by the process of enjoyable activity that he had engaged in, he was shocked by the realization that it was only ten-thirty in the morning when he finally looked at the alarm clock. He regretfully allowed Karla to cover the bulk of her skin with clothing, so that he could escort her into the company of the others.

  When they reached the living room area, several of the current residents had clustered around the outer door. There was one hell of a thunderstorm brewing out there, and the clouds looked suspiciously like those that Tom had seen in the Predatory storms back in Phoenix. It was evident from the looks on everyone’s faces that they all recognized the supernormal danger posed by such a storm as well. Nobody was rushing outdoors to greet the storm.

  The Sorcerer cut in front of everyone, and turned to face them all. “Okay, Minions. I can see that you all recognize this storm. You have learned enough about reality to be able to fix this. I want you all to look at the storm, and visualize it being randomized into a normal thunderstorm. Nothing more dangerous than random lightning or drowning in a flood of water.”

  It struck Tom about the same time it dawned on everybody else that he was right. This was nothing that they couldn’t tame. He focused on the storm clouds, and imagined and then saw them being normal rain clouds. He felt the others doing the same, although he wasn’t quite sure why he felt them. The intention radiated out from the group like a blade made out of diamond. As the clouds were pushed to change by the group, they did change, no longer moving against the winds, no longer following movements on the ground, just random and innocent of malice.

  Soon the feeling that something malignant and intelligent lived in those clouds was completely gone, and the thunderstorm was exciting only in that way that thunderstorms excite. The group had all settled down with cups of morning coffee, strong but not Tyr-strong brews. The Sage was the sort of asshole that irritated assholes like Tom, but he did make a fine cup of coffee.

  Everyone was exhilarated by recent events, proving themselves as they did against the thunderstorm. This task was looking more and more doable for all of them. Tom especially had proof of his talents, but every one of the four had proven to have an ability to manipulate reality.

  Veritasia had already been shown her talents by Arpad, and the other beings present were all old hands at this reality manipulation business. According to the Sorcerer, the universe would put up a stiff resistance to someone trying to change reality. Call it the universe, but it was the Observers in the universe that unconsciously objected to someone changing their consensus reality, even if the consensus was to have no cohesive consensus, which was the case here.

  No one knew exactly what form the resistance would take. It could simply try to slip back into the original conformation. It could manifest some deadly monsters to try to take them out, or even things that begged them not to change the world. Whatever form it would take, it would be resistance.

  The Sorcerer had taken some measurements, and he told the group that there was a time flow differential between the Place of Beginnings and the compound. According to the times shown on a couple of wristwatches, a day in the normal world was about six hours in the Place of Beginnings.

  Because of the difference in time flow, the plan was that one of them would use their artifact at the place per day. A two hour stay over there would make them absent over here for eight hours. After that, everyone could rest up over in the real world, and then the next victim could go do his or her thing.

  Today would be taken up with a brief gathering at the Place to prepare for the Healing. In about two hours, as a matter of fact, the Four and their seconds, plus of course Cernunnos, would visit the Place, and Cernunnos would outline the playbook for this project. They should get the trip in, and make it home by about ten in the evening. Eight hours sleep, a couple of hours to prepare, and then the first of the artifacts would be used.

  “We probably need to get a baseline for changes after each visit.” Markus remarked. “I noted that our immigration issue changed from long term litigation to turnaround deportations a
fter our first visit. I would assume that only the people on each trip would remember the first history.”

  The idea was that if they stepped back in time and changed something that effected current event history, only the people who were on that trip would remember the old history. Anyone staying in the changed worldline would be changed right along with the timeline.

  If the person with the artifact being used and their second were the only ones on a visit to the past, they are the only ones who would remember any changes to the timeline. That was simply not acceptable! Tom knew that at a minimum, if he or Karla went to the Place, the other also would be going.

  “I assume that we are going to have half of us or more making our visits to the Place in each case.” Tom addressed the congregated group. “We don’t want our timelines to become wildly separated.”

  Everyone started discussing the implications of the timeline confusion, and readily agreed that they did not want to lose track of the original timeline in the process of healing the worldline. The problem with this was that the number of people involved in this process had climbed steadily, and if all of them should attend every visit to the Place of Beginnings, it would get very crowded, and the process would be much less efficient than it should be.

  With thirteen or more members, they decided that they could run two teams, so that at least six people were caught up with the disparity of the timelines, and could fill in everyone else on what had changed. Obviously, neither couple of the two Healer couples wanted to be separated in this, so when Tom went, so would Karla, or when Markus went, so would Vera. The appropriate Seconds would also go with them, and two or three of the others.

  Everyone would have to crowd in on the initial trip, of course, since it concerned everyone. They would all be headed out in less than an hour, and they would get back just in time to get a good night’s sleep before Karla, Tom and company would be planting the Seed of Creation tomorrow.

  There was just time enough to get and eat pizza, drink the beverages of their choice, with an emphasis on stimulant rather than alcoholic, and pretty themselves up for the trip, and then it was time to depart. Everyone gathered in the Parlor as the obvious staging area. Tom could hear a slight sound coming from the wormhole that still rotated beyond the door. He thought of it as a sound, because that was the way he perceived it, but there was no process which should have generated any sounds that was going on. Not everyone heard the sound, but those who did insisted that it was real.

  The old laughing form of the Seer went to the front of the crowd, and stood in front of the doors that hid the wormhole. Cernunnos went over and stood beside him, towering over everyone present except for Heimdall, even taller than Tyr. Tom considered it to be cheating in the height competition business when better than a foot of your height is horn, but he didn’t make the rules.

  “It is time to gather in the Place of Beginnings, to familiarize ourselves with the Healing.” Said Cernunnos. “Be aware that resistance will mount to our presence after a time.”

  The Seer held up his staff, and the crystal at its crown glowed. The double doors of the wormhole hall flew open, and the group could see the white light glowing hole to that other place and time. The Seer strode to the door, and over the threshold, and in a moment was lost in the light. Everyone checked about to assure themselves that they had what they meant to bring, and one by one, they too walked into the light.

  The light at the end of the trip strobed with each step one took, and Tom soon saw the primal place that they had all seen before. This time the place was marked with the tree, but it was bushy with energy sucking branches, and the tree was barely at head height. The branches were thin and spindly, and the leaves were pale and somewhat wilted.

  It felt as though the strobe of the wormhole was continuing in this place. This time, the vision of the tree was strobing in and out, and when the tree was not present, the group could see a sort of globe of energy in its place, and when the tree returned, it seemed that the globe of energy transformed into the tree. Everyone present understood that the tree was a symbol of the universes grown from this time and space. It was the face that the universe put on to be seen.

  Everyone gathered in front of the ‘tree’, and watched as it phased in and out of existence. Cernunnos and the Seer stood in front of them, with their backs to the tree. It looked as though the two of them would conduct the instructions in the healing process.

  “As you can see, the tree is in poor health.” The Seer began. “Like any plant, it cannot grow in all directions at once and remain healthy. It has expended too much of its energy trying to be everything that everyone wants, and it has not protected itself. We have to do this for it.”

  “Karla will meld the Seed of Creation into the tree, which will be like a shot of fertilizer for it.” The Seer continued. “Then Vera will read from the Book of Eternity, which will be like the perfect blend of light and water for the tree.”

  “Markus will touch the Staff of Infinity to the tree, and it will serve to prune the useless branches away from the tree.” Cernunnos said. “After that, Tom will set the Stone of Reality at its heart for a time to reset the Universal Consensus Reality.”

  “If all of these things are done correctly, at the end, we can collect the Seed and the Stone from the heart of the tree without harm.” The Seer contributed. “We will have all four artifacts in hand, and a newly healed worldline. It should be a worldline without the monsters, a nice world to live in.”

  As the Seer added this fairy tale conclusion to the tale, the group felt what seemed almost like a conceptual storm begin. They felt the feelings of the air beginning to move, though it did not ruffle anyone’s hair. There was a howl of wind inside their minds, although their ears did not hear it. There came a pressure from the direction of the tree, and it must have been real, for it pushed against them, pushing toward the wormhole.

  Above the tree there formed a swirling cloud of light and shadow, and lightning flashed deep within the cloud. Now Tom could smell the damp and cool smell of rain and ozone, and he knew that the world was doing what it could to drive the interlopers away.

  “The world is beginning to resist our presence here.” Cernunnos said. “We are done here, but we should practice our defense against this sort of attack now, so that we all know how to protect ourselves later.”

  “You have had some meditative practice, most of you. Place yourselves into as deep a state of meditation as you can, and then focus on the storm.” The Seer said. “Visualize a force that you generate that surrounds and contains the storm in a globe, from which it cannot escape, and from which it can do no harm.”

  Everyone did as the Seer and Cernunnos instructed, turning to stare at the storm, visualizing energy surrounding the storm and containing it. For a moment, the storm grew and advanced, but then it seemed to strike an invisible barrier, and after spreading along its border to try to find a hole, it finally just sat and churned in a fit of light, and shadow, and half-hidden lightning.

  Now at last they were well and truly done, and by Tom’s reckoning, well ahead of schedule. He wasn’t sure of the time they had spent in this place, even though his watch said that 38 minutes had passed so far. It did not seem that long, and yet the watch was likely to be more accurate than his sense of time. Time seemed to pass strangely in this place, and not just in its rate of passage, but in its essence as well.

  At any rate, the time had come to leave. The storm still swirled within the globe, and when they were gone, it would doubtless be unloosed. Once they were gone, it could do no damage, and when they returned, it would be to improve the world. They all looked to the Seer, who led them with a glowing staff back to the mundane world through the glowing gate.

  The first thing that Tom checked when they had returned to the parlor was the time. The crazy looking Cuckoo clock in the corner said that it was 4:15 P.M., and so the evening was still available to eat, drink and be merry. A brief meeting of the minds of those of the group
which actually originated in this worldline determined that the afternoon and evening absolutely demanded the presence of large amounts of pizza and beer.

  Tom had just got off of the phone, where he had taken the opportunity to order ten pizzas for the group, using the credit card that he had lifted off of the Sage while he was preoccupied with one of the girls. He went and checked the fridge, where he found enough beer to last the group at least for a couple of hours.

  Everybody settled down at the courtyard table to enjoy the last part of the sunlight, and the first part of the evening. The pizza arrived in a few moments, and everyone dug into their favorite flavors. They all popped the tops of beers, and sat in the gentle sunlight eating and drinking. Markus brought over the day’s newspaper, and they all looked to see what changes they had wrought.

  The front page held a sizable picture of several men in prison orange, working at building a fence. The headline blared, “Illegal Crossers Build the Barrier.” Yesterday they had seen a world where the Illegal aliens that were caught were sent back to Mexico quickly, which was a change from the day before, where the Illegals were to be held for a lengthy process. Now, a day later, the same Illegals were being used to build the Border fence to stop the Illegals from crossing.

  All in all, the world was already making more sense. What was a better use of people that invade your house than to put them to work reinforcing your house’s defenses? Tom knew that the earlier processes to deal with the problem were born of some wooly-headed logic and kindness intention, but nothing about the procedures actually solved the problems.

  The day progressed, and the night came on to drape the world with tresses of black, and at some point Tom borrowed Karla from the group to do a special deed for his and her enjoyment. This took both of their remaining time before the chiming of the midnight hour, and soon enough, they settled into the same bed that they had used for their fun, but a bit before. This time was different, because this time, it was all about comfort and sleep.