“Well first tell me this, are they, ah, biological? Like, flesh and blood?”
“Dude, you need to get into some meditation or yoga or something! I think they probably are some combination of biological and mechanical, although the mechanical part is at such a high level that we probably wouldn’t recognize it as a machine.”
“Hold it… they know binary, and it’s similar to our binary… at least at their most basic level, maybe a few million years ago. They’re why we have binary in the first place, aren’t they?”
Marsh-dog snickered heartily, and said, “I always said you are smarter than you look! They didn’t exactly give us binary; it’s more like they gently nudged us in that direction. They don’t really try to influence what happens, they don’t work that way. But, they could see that we, as a developing group of fairly intelligent creatures, were getting the hang of math, even though far below where they were, and they helped some folks who were working on how to make computers do what we needed for them to do. They didn’t influence whether or not we would develop technology, just how the technology would communicate. That’s what they’re into. They didn’t really see that as interfering, and they’re big on free will. Now, can I continue?”
“Yes! Yes! Go!” I said, waving my arms around like a madman.
“Ok, but first I’m gonna try out my new standup routine on you, it should only take about forty-five minutes or so.”
“Come on, Robin!”
“Alright, settle down. Anyway, talking in binary takes a long time, and it’s easy to make mistakes, so I had to really be careful and plan everything out, so that’s why it’s taken this long to get to this point. Like I said, they became very interested when I figured out how to communicate with them, and eventually they gave me a sort of shorthand way to communicate; they put something in my head that translates my thoughts when I concentrate a certain way, and they receive it as their infinitely advanced binary, so now it’s pretty easy for me to talk to them.”
“Hold it right there, they put something in your head? How did they do that?”
“Well, I don’t know how they did it, but I can tell you what they did. Once they decided that they wanted to give me an easier way to communicate, they told me they could put something in my head that would do it for me, so I told them I thought that would be cool, because by then I felt like I could trust them. So one of them came really near my forehead, and then it just went through my skin and skull and everything. I didn’t feel it, but as soon as it popped out of my head, I could communicate with them like I said.”
“You didn’t feel anything? Dude, that’s crazy.”
“Yeah, I know. So anyway, these Time Flies are way old. They were completely biological, more or less like us, up until a few million years ago. Well, they don’t tell time like us, but in asking them a bunch of questions, I figured that part out. Anyway, at that point they had totally mastered physics at every level, from quantum on up, and they traveled around a lot throughout the universe. Eventually, they decided that they didn’t need their big biological bodies anymore, and that they would rather travel around like they do now. Here’s one of the really interesting things, and why I call them the Time Flies; they advanced so far that eventually they were able to put themselves out of the time stream, so they don’t exist in the time stream like we do; they sort of exist in all times at once.”
“Hold on, I think my head just broke. What does that mean?”
“Ok, dude, pay attention now. We exist in the time stream. Time goes by, we mark the time in seconds and minutes and hours and days, weeks, months, years, centuries, epochs, and so on. We don’t know anything else; it’s just how we experience life. The thing is, what we go through isn’t the only kind of experience possible with time or space; you of all people should be aware of some of this stuff. The things you can do don’t fit with our normal understanding of how things work either, right?”
“Yeah, ok, but the time thing is confusing.”
“Well, think about it: even though you and I are talking right now, and it feels like time is going by, I could stay in here for a hundred years, or five hundred years, or whatever, and I wouldn’t change. So the in-between doesn’t really comply with the time stream either. In fact, that’s how you are able to move so far so fast in here; you are skipping out of the time stream, you just don’t feel it when it happens. Yeah, I found that out from them too. So these dudes, the Time Flies, they can dip in and out of the time stream whenever they want, and they are all connected, so they exist in all times at the same time, or in no time at all.”
I sat back, slumped in my chair. “O…k… so what would make them want to dip into the time stream? Wouldn’t that cause them to age?”
Marsh-dog adopted a thinking pose, his eyebrows drawn together, absent-mindedly patting the top of his giant ‘fro. “Hmm… I never thought of that, but I bet they have that figured out. At this point, as far as I can tell, they’re pretty much immortal. But what makes them dip into the time stream? Well, they were busy flitting around the universe, or actually all the universes, when they came upon the Earth. They checked it out for a while, zipping forwards and backwards in time, and they became really interested in humans because we are so different from them, being tied to the time stream and being individuals, not part of, oh, for lack of a better word, a hive mind. I don’t think that really describes how they work, but its close enough for now. Anyway, it was probably about ten thousand years ago that they discovered Earth and humans, and they became kind of obsessed with us for some reason. They spread out over all of our time stream, from the beginning of humanity to the end, and one thing they noticed was that there were always a small group of people that seemed to be different from everyone else, and they tried to find out why but they couldn’t figure out how this group did the things they could do. They became even more obsessed then. Yeah, that small group is the one you are the king of, The Seven. Or maybe more like the court jester than the king. Anyway, two of the things they like to do are watch how energy is used, and to categorize things. They noticed that the way people behaved, or in other words how they were with other people, created different kinds of energy, and they wanted to work out a way for the energy to be sorted. You might not know this, but energy doesn’t go away, it just gets converted into different kinds of energy. I know that’s a lot of stuff to take in, but buckle up, ‘cause there’s a lot more still.”
I sat back and ran my hand through my hair, did it again, tapped my head a few times, then quickly stopped myself. “Dude, this is pretty heavy. I thought all this “The Seven” stuff was crazy, but it’s nothing compared to these Time Fly dudes.”
“Oh, I don’t know, they seem to find you pretty interesting. Anyway, they decided that it would be a good idea to set up a place for our energy to go after we die, and they figured that the kind of energy we accumulated, yeah, another big word, indicated how we would want things to be after we kicked the bucket. They couldn’t relate to dying, because they don’t do that, so they thought we should have a place to go when our bodies wear out, or get destroyed, or whatever. So they like binary choices; that’s just how they work. They took advantage of two connecting universes and set it up so that if a person was mostly positive, or accumulated mostly positive energy in their biological life, they would go to one universe and be with other people who were also mostly positive, and if the person accumulated mostly negative energy, they put them in the other universe. Makes sense logically, right?”
“Ok, wait, so they made the Good Line and the Bad Line? They put them in place, set them up, and caused us to be placed in them when we die?”
“Well, yeah, that’s what I said.”
My hands flew up to the sides of my head, mostly to stop myself from head tapping. “Oh, dude, this is too much. My head hurts. So wait, these things, these Time Flies, whether they’re individual things or all part of one big thing… they’re aliens? Like space aliens?”
Marsh-dog’s ex
pression conveyed that he couldn’t understand how I could be so dense. “Well, I guess so; you could look at it that way. They did come from some place, maybe a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” and then he pretended to swing a light saber from side to side, and made a buzzing sound.
“Alright, knock it off. You know you had these same questions when you discovered these dudes.”
“Ok, you’re right. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
“You’re being very frustrating, you know that?”
After giggling with gusto, he said, “Sorry, I quit. So let me tell you the rest of what I found out. Like I said, they don’t really relate to feelings and emotions, so our behavior is confusing to them. They observed that people who have more positive energy tend to like to be around other people, so they figured the ultimate would be to be tied to everyone who is positive, and that’s why they made all of the Good Line connected. They didn’t know that it would turn into heaven; they just reckoned that would be the experience that would be preferred. They also observed that people who had more positive energy tended to have certain, oh, what’s the word… aesthetic preferences, and that’s why they put the Good Line in the beautiful, pristine universe; they thought that’s what positive people would like. With humans who have more negative energy, they noticed that they tended to not really like others all that much, but they didn’t think that they would want to be completely disconnected. That’s why they set it up in groups of three. Another thing they perceived was that people with more negative energy tended to need more stimulation than people with positive energy, so they put that line in the universe that’s really hot and smelly. They didn’t set out to have it be torture; it just turned out that way.”
“Ok, wait, so… oh, I don’t even know what to say. So there’s some kind of technology maintaining heaven and hell?”
“Ah, I guess you could look at it that way, but dude, it’s at such a high level that there’s really no difference between that and magic or whatever. Those bundles of energy that they send out there? Those are real human souls, if you want to call them that, and that’s really heaven and hell, if you want to use those names.”
I fell deep in thought, struggling to understand, and then found the insight I was searching for: “Ok, so they created these things basically because they were interested in us, and especially The Seven. They like for things to be organized, not just a bunch of random energy floating around. We humans attached meaning to all of it, but that’s what it means to us, not to them. Do they have any theories about The Seven, and how we came about?”
“No, and they’re super curious about it. They assume some other, maybe even more advanced technology created you, but they haven’t been able to discover the origin. Either whoever created you isn’t around anymore, and didn’t leave any other traces, or there is something even more, I don’t know, maybe mystical, at work. But check this out: they immediately understood that you dudes could become enormously powerful. That could cause a crazy imbalance down here, so they created angels to come and keep track of you and make sure you didn’t get too out of control. The thing they didn’t account for is that they set up angels as people with special abilities, but they’re still people, and we humans aren’t going to behave perfectly logically. Once the angels are out there in the world, the Time Flies are pretty much hands off; they just let things happen, even though they know what’s going to happen before it does. You know; free will and all that stuff. Oh yeah, they also made the, what’s that crazy book called that only you supernatural types can see? Oh yeah, the Book of Names. They really made it for the angels to keep track of their members of The Seven, but they couldn’t stop with that, so they ended up keeping track of the birth and death of everyone, starting about ten thousand years ago. They didn’t intend for members of The Seven to be able to access it, and it’s really confusing to them that you are able to. They don’t know how you can do that.”
“So, why did they make it a book? Seems kind of old-fashioned, like something you would find in a fantasy movie or something.”
“I don’t know, maybe they read, like, The Hobbit or something. I think they just understood that people like to be able to read things; it gives us a chance to think about stuff without the information disappearing, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, makes sense. So these things, these immortal entities that know everything, and can make anything, don’t know how The Seven work?”
“Yeah, man, but don’t get feeling too special. You’re still just a doofus from Bako.”
“Ok, your levitating is making me anxious. Could you sit down or something?”
Marsh-dog smirked, and took a sitting position while still levitating.
“Very funny. Dude, this just keeps getting deeper and deeper. So they created angels to watch over The Seven. What about demons?”
“Oh, that’s another interesting thing. They noticed that the people in the Bad Line didn’t seem to enjoy it like they thought they would, so they created an out. If they detected that people in the Bad Line were able to hold it together and seemed to be expressing positive energy despite their situation, they would let them come back to Earth for a second try to make it to the Good Line. And, since they also saw that some of the angels went rogue occasionally, they gave the demons their own set of powers, to protect themselves and to deal with angels if they had to. Of course, in all of history only one demon has made it from the Bad Line back to Earth and then to the Good Line, and that was our old buddy Arnie Hayward. They don’t put too much of a limit on allowing demons to come back, but probably on average there aren’t more than twenty or so on Earth at any particular time. As you know, a great way to gain positive energy is to stop bad stuff from happening, and that’s why so many of the demons go into law enforcement.”
“So… wait, are there any other people who know about any of this?”
“No, just me, and now you.”
“You’re telling me that of all the people ever born, the only people who know anything about any of this are two emotionally disturbed teenage dorks?”
“Hey, who are you calling emotionally disturbed? And yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“Dude… do the angels and demons know anything about the Time Flies?”
“I don’t know, let me ask them.” Again, Marsh-dog concentrated, mumbled something, and nodded his head.
“They say they have never made themselves known to either angels or demons, so no one else knows anything about the Time Flies.”
“Wait, what about The Others? Do any of them know?”
“No, man, I told you, just you and me, that’s it.”
“So no supernatural types know; we really are the only ones. Ok, can we just stop for a minute so I can try to take this all in? These little flashes of light, they’re basically immortal beings, or at least parts of one big immortal being, and one way or the other they’re basically responsible for… well, they didn’t create humans, but whether they meant to or not, they’re mostly responsible for how civilization has gone for the last ten thousand years. They created all this stuff and then sort of backed off, let things happen. But they pretty much knew what was going to happen, because they are all spread out throughout the time stream, or outside of the time stream, or around the time stream, or whatever. Except for The Seven, that’s the wild card that they can’t account for, even though they try to by sending angels to watch over them. But wait… because they exist outside of the time stream, they already know what’s going to happen, so did they do all of this stuff to try to stop something that they already know is going to happen? Is it possible that the things they see in the future can change?”
“You know, I asked them that same question. They said that, since no one had figured out how to communicate with them, or even knew that they were here, that question had no meaning before. But, after having communication with me, they now say that there is a scenario where things they have see
n could turn out differently. It’s not likely, but it’s within the boundaries of possibility, and only because they can’t account for The Seven. They said something about the power to create, or creative power, I’m not sure what they meant. But The Seven, that’s the wild card, like you said.”
“Wait a minute… so they didn’t know you were going to be able to communicate with them? They didn’t see that in the time stream?”
“No, man, and here’s the thing… they’re not sure why or how that happened. I think it’s partly because I’m here in the in-between, and it doesn’t operate under the same rules as the world outside of the in-between, and I also think, don’t get all big-headed or anything, but somehow being connected to you threw it all off. Wild card, you know?”
“Well, so do they want their creations to continue? In other words, do you think they would be willing to help us?”
“I haven’t asked them. I will if you want me to, but to tell you the truth I don’t think they work like that. They just set things up and then get out of the way. It seems to me that they hope that they’re wrong, and that something does change the outcome, because dude, if you were to check that Book of Names now, you would see that everyone’s name is in it, and I mean everyone, and the deadline is exactly 752 days from now.”
“Wait, but that’s…”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Oh, crap.”
Chapter 18
We continued ruminating, trying to come to grips with it all. “Hey, all these things you can do in here, making things appear, levitate, that kind of stuff, did they show you how to do that?”
“Yeah, dude, I told them things in here were kind of uncomfortable for me, and the kinds of things I wished I could do; mainly make things I could lounge on. I threw in levitation just because I thought it would be fun. When they did that thing in my head that lets me communicate with them, they did something that also lets me do that kind of limited creating. It wouldn’t work outside of here, but because the in-between works under different rules than the normal world, I can do those things. Pretty cool, huh?”
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