On The Surface Tension Read online

  “Wish you could tell me what he was saying,” hinted Tracey.

  “Maybe some other time. I’m getting to the important stuff soon. It’s a lot of ‘Wake up! Turn from your madness, God’s holy lightning bolt of enlightenment is at hand.’”

  “Wait…that sounds like it is the important part.”

  Morrow laughed. “It is! But not talking about it, or conceptualizing about it, but having it occur! Ok, I’m going to slow this down a bit. Yeshua has hung around and heard this teaching for some time now, but still hasn’t found work and, in spite of getting enough to survive on because one of the tenets of the group is giving alms, he’s getting weaker. I’m piecing all this together from reading lips, you know, so I’m not absolutely sure of what is going on in his head, but he’s now taken off into the wilderness again and started sitting with his back against a willow tree for hours at a time. He’s found the place where Elisha, one of his Hebrew ancestors, was taken to Heaven in a whirlwind. It was supposedly right at this spot, Elisha’s Hill, called Hermon Hill. Yeshua has decided to wait there until God takes him up too.”

  Tracey watched as the sun rose and fell in accelerated time, while the young man sat with his back to the tree. She realized, after several such days, that he rarely got up, and also that she never started counting those days.

  She saw a human form visit briefly, then leave.

  “Wait, who was that?” she asked.

  Morrow reversed the direction, then slowed it back to real time. She saw that it was John who approached Yeshua as he sat.

  “What is he saying now?” Tracey asked.

  “He asked if he could convince him to eat something. Yeshua said no, he was keen on getting taken up to the Father. John doesn’t give up, though; he comes back a few more times. He says, ‘If you are bent on doing this, why don’t you just jump off a cliff?’ Yeshua says, ‘I don’t want to put the Father to the test and force his hand.’ He comes back later and says, ‘Don’t do this, your whole life is ahead of you, and you can accomplish anything you set your mind to,’ but Yeshua says, ‘Get out of here, you devil, my mind is on heaven.’”

  “This is terrible,” said Tracey. “How long does this go on?”

  “Here, I’ll slow it down now. He’s been at this for forty days. Now watch carefully.”

  Tracey did. Morrow manipulated the green globe and the screen enlarged to a close-up of the young man’s face. Tracey could tell it was slowed down to regular time. The wind gusted periodically, disturbing his long, unkempt hair. His eyes were closed, face drawn, haggard, and dusty. An insect crawled from the tree to his shoulder, then back. Another gust of wind. He continued to sit, back against the tree.

  “What are we watching for?” Tracey whispered, but Morrow immediately shushed her.

  Morrow panned the view back a little bit. Now they could see the ground and a bit of the tree above Yeshua’s head. There was a brief flash of white light, like an old movie where the reels were being changed. When the scene resumed, Yeshua’s eyes were opened and he had a slight smile. They watched for another minute as Yeshua breathed more quickly, then stood up and walked away with a purposeful stride.

  “What was that?” Tracey hissed.

  “That was It. The formation of the Universe. The Big Bang,” said Morrow quietly.

  Tracey narrowed her eyes, pursed her lips. “What? What the hell are you talking about?” she said out loud.

  “That was It.”

  “How could that be the start of the universe? We were watching him before that flash and after. There was a universe before—we saw it.”

  “Yes. But it started right then, when the flash occurred. Thirteen point seven billion years before, right when that flash happened.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  Morrow rubbed his chin. “How to explain. Well, before that flash, there was a universe that had this young man born, raised, and working the job he recently got fired from. At the flash, the universe was born. When his eyes opened again, 13.7 billion years’ worth of history was retroactively created, along with billions of years of future time. All in that flash beyond time, beyond space. It became his universe, our universe. He co-created it with God, and us. Complete with his past, his future, message, and miracles, including eventual death and rising up from that death. And we haven’t even begun to ask not just how, but why.”

  “Maybe before we get to the how and why, we should stick with the what for a minute. What just happened?”

  Morrow pursed his lips. “Have you ever seen the screen on Ron’s rift generator? Oh wait, you have not seen that in this universe branch, but maybe you remember it from the other? It looks like a tree, with branches that split off with changes that are big enough to split the ‘tree’ into different universe lines. But those all share the same trunk, right? What our friend here just did was more drastic: He split off the other way. He in essence broke off the branch and replanted it as a new cutting. So he had a new universe line with a new trunk altogether. So he was there at the beginning, had a new history, a new present, and a new future. He blew a new bubble out of the old soap, to use the other metaphor.”

  “How the heck did he do that?”

  “Ok, are you ready to get on to the how and why?”

  Tracey suddenly felt very tired. She rubbed her face in her hands.

  Morrow put his hand on her arm. “Forgive me. You are beyond tired right now, and this is a lot to take in. Let’s let you finish your sleep, and we’ll take this back up tomorrow.”

  —6—

  Chris Springs, now known as Carla 23, sat at her console at the orbiting Xylol manufacturing facility and performed her job. A large, spherical bin of liquid chemical appeared from her left, attached to a conveyor chain. The chain at that point was in zero gravity, as it was in the center of the large rotating cylinder that was the factory. The chemical reaction at her part of the process required this, while later on the chain moved closer to the rim of the facility and even beyond it, where the artificial gravity was required to be stronger. The console in front of her consisted of exactly two buttons.

  Chris waited until the technician inspected the chemical batch and inserted a feed tube into it. The technician gave her a hand signal, and she pressed the first button. A pre-measured portion of some kind of chemical was injected into the spherical batch bin, while the technician watched. When it finished, the technician gave her another hand signal, and she pushed the second button, sending the bin off down the chain to the next station.

  Tough job, she thought.

  She wondered again why this could not just be automated, like most of the rest of the facility. The reasoning escaped her, but it did provide her with the opportunity to plan the sabotage of the mind-controlling drug and the eventual destruction of the entire orbital manufacturing plant.

  For the first week of her new job, Chris trained under the woman she was replacing, Kim 12. It was a challenge for Chris to remain composed, because the training consisted of being shown how to press the two buttons for hundreds of repetitions. After the first few hours of this, she was able to open a communication line to Elanor through her praying mantis familiar.

  “Don’t get impatient,” Elanor pleaded. “I’ve checked her status: She has been re-assigned to the grinder.”

  “What do you mean, ‘the grinder?’”

  “You’ll see,” Elanor had said.

  After the week of training, Chris was on her own to push the two buttons when Kim 12 retired. Around mid-shift, Elanor had called through the familiars to tell her an address to type into her computer terminal. Chris typed it in and was shown a security camera feed.

  “Where did you get this?” she asked.

  “I know how to poke around on the computers and keep secret about it,” Elanor answered. “You have no idea what there is to see on these cameras.”

  Chris watched what looked like a crowded hallway in the City of God, filled with ordinary people in their papery coveralls. The cro
wd all seemed to be going down a certain wide hallway after being checked in by a row of people behind desks with computers. They were waiting in line, which was barely moving.

  “Oh look, there is Kim 12. She’s just leaving the check-in desk.”

  Chris watched her as she entered the line that funneled the various check in desks into the hallway.

  “Ok, so what are they waiting on?” Chris asked.

  “They don’t know,” Elanor said. “They were just told to report there now that they are retired. Other people are just stopping because they saw other people stopping and don’t want to miss out on whatever it is the other people are getting. They are all getting checked in, and going down that hallway. Now watch, I’ll change to another camera farther down the line….”

  The view changed, the hallway was even more crowded.

  “It’s narrower,” Chris observed. “Now there is room for only three people across.”

  “Right. And you can’t tell by this view, but the floor is sloping downwards now a little bit.”

  Chris watched as they shuffled on, patiently filling the space ahead while others pushed in from behind.

  “Ok, now we’ll follow your predecessor even farther on.”

  Chris leaned forward to see that the hallway had narrowed even more, not only from the sides but from the roof as well. The people were single-file now, stooping over from the low roof, and the floor was angled down even more sharply. She saw Kim 12 stop at the back of the person in front of her, while a large man behind her blundered into her back, forcing her into the woman to her front. Even without the sound, Chris could sense the sudden jolt of alarm that the people displayed as they were herded tighter and tighter down the ever-narrowing, twisting corridor, struggling to keep their footing and avoid being crushed.

  “And here is the point where it becomes the point of no return,” announced Elanor.

  The screen changed to another camera, which showed the corridor becoming too steep and slippery for the people to keep standing. It became a slide, one person wide. Pushed by the press of people behind, the ones in the front lost their footing no matter how much they struggled, and one by one slid off downwards into darkness. Chris watched as Kim 12 came into view, trying to hold back the tide of humanity behind her by pressing her arms into the sides of the corridor, mouth opened in a silent scream. She was not strong enough and went sliding downwards out of camera range.

  “What happens to them?” Chris whispered, eyes wide.

  “I told you before, when you first got here. We are here as slaves or as food. I told you she was going to the grinder. You want to see that camera?”

  Chris shuddered. “No. Thank you. Let’s just get on with planning this operation as soon as possible.”

  She pressed the second button, watched the Xylol container move down the line.

  “You say you have access to the cameras. Do you know where my brother is?”

  Chris heard a long pause on the other end of the familiar’s arm.

  “No…but I can look.”

  *****

  After killing three of the giant scorpions with his newly assembled stinger-headed axe, the rest of them left him alone. Jeremy had assembled quite the cache of stingers, spikes, and other scorpion body part tools, and managed to hide them from the other wild people by burying them in a secret spot.

  The Treehouse People cannibals proved willing to trade cordage for weapons. Jeremy did so cautiously, knowing that if they got too many of the axes they could use them on him as well, but they seemed in no hurry to risk themselves by attacking him or any living scorpions. Jeremy assumed they would use them to hunt unarmed wild men but decided that he would not worry about that. He was resolved to leave the beach area by climbing the cliff as soon as he could.

  After what seemed like a month, he had assembled enough cordage and scorpion spike pitons to make his attempt. A small crowd of wild men had gathered to watch.

  “You’re just gonna fall and die,” one of them called.

  “What do you expect to find up there even if you make it? Just more monsters or worse, and no food, I bet,” cat-called another.

  Jeremy ignored them. He had chosen what looked like the most promising spot, where the rock face looked stable enough to support him but soft enough for him to be able to drive the shell spikes into the wall with the back of his axe.

  He adjusted his paper coveralls, tied a climbing harness from a length of the rope, looped the remaining cordage across his back, and began his climb.

  It was slow going. The crowd below hooted and joked about waiting for him to fall so that they could loot his weapons. After a while, one of the giant scorpions was attracted to the noise and the crowd dispersed. It took their place, waiting for him to fall. But he did not. There were many tricky places, and he was beginning to reach the end of his strength, but at length he reached the top of the cliff.

  As he hauled himself over the edge, the first thing he noticed was that the terrain at the top was a vast, featureless grassland. The sun beat down on him, and he realized that he was thirsty, very thirsty. He looked back over the ledge, saw the thin strip of jungle below at the border of the vast ocean. Not a drop of it could he drink.

  He adjusted his paper coveralls, now smeared with the dust and dirt of the climb, stuck his stinger axe into his climbing harness belt, and struck out into the grasslands.

  After several hours, his feet were battered and seared from the flinty ground, beaten by the sun. His head ached and he was dazed. He no longer sweated.

  Thankfully, the sun began to sink. He staggered on, noticing off to his left a flock of birds circling something on the ground.

  Maybe a pond? He thought. Even if it was a dead animal, he might be able to sustain himself in some way.

  After an hour of trudging through the darkening landscape, he saw that it was indeed a shallow, muddy lake. He ran to it with what was left of his fading strength, splashed out into it, fell to his knees and drank.

  He waded back to the shore and saw that the muddy banks were covered with tracks. He examined them in the near darkness, saw that they were hooves of some sort. Exhausted, he fell asleep on the bank.

  *****

  Valentina Pavlov took her daughter Mandy 42’s hand and together they crossed her living room and went into Mandy’s bedroom, where they sat on the edge of the bed out of earshot of the prayer globe.

  “How was school?” she asked quietly.

  Mandy shrugged. “Same. Jimson 14 started looking at me funny when I answered a second question that the teacher asked. I had to act even dumber for a while.”

  “Good. Don’t stand out. Be like everyone else,” Valentina urged, taking her daughter’s shoulders in her hands and staring intently into her clear, blue eyes, framed by the halo of pale-brown curls. She wiped the single dot of white paint from her daughter’s left cheek. “We can’t be caught. Eiffelia is very sneaky, and if we give ourselves away, she will make us drugged and sleepy again. You remember that?”

  “It wasn’t good.” The girl nodded.

  “That’s a good girl. Now let me look at your bear.”

  Mandy handed over her teddy bear familiar. Valentina attached the counterfeit feed tube to the Milk intake valve, then placed the bear on Mandy’s wall receptacle. The central computer sensed the ID chip of Mandy’s familiar, downloaded the falsified blood test results, then dispensed Milk into the surrogate receptacle while Valentina injected saline solution into the bear’s reservoir. Once the bear sensed the reservoir was full, it signaled the mainframe to stop pumping the milk. Valentina repeated the process with her own familiar, a mink. She emptied the Milk from the counterfeit feed tubes into Mandy’s houseplant to defeat the sensors installed in the plumbing.

  “There we go,” Valentina smiled. “All done. Now Eiffelia will think we are still drugged up, as long as we keep acting like we are.”

  “Mommy, how long do we have to keep doing this?”

  Valentina frowned. �
�Not much longer, honey. Mommy is working with her friends on making it so that nobody has to take the drugs anymore. But remember, even though it is bad for people, they think it is good, so we can’t tell them what we are doing. Ok? This is really important for you to remember—right, honey?”

  “Right!” Mandy clapped. “Can we watch some TV now?”

  “Sure,” Valentina said, leading her to the sculpted couch and activating her familiar’s remote. She quickly flipped past “Super Jumbo Penises” and her own show, “Super Rape? Porn,” to the latest kid’s programming, “Super Anti-Demon Action Team.”

  Ten minutes in, right after the Team had been confronted with a phalanx of Demon Tanks, Valentina began to nod off. She was suddenly vaguely aware that there was someone standing in the shadows of her living room.

  With a yelp she jumped to her feet and raised the light level with her mink familiar.

  “Hello, Valentina Pavlov. Long time no see,” said a voice that was oddly familiar.

  She scrutinized the man standing in her living room. The body was angular, stylized, and obviously artificial. The head, in contrast, was ancient, wrinkled, gray, liver spotted—yet she recognized it.

  “Professor LaGrue? Is that you?”

  “Indeed it is,” he said. “I’m surprised you recognize me.”

  She stood dumbstruck. “You look…different.”

  “Yes, my head is old because not only is it original, but I’ve been using it more than this timeline can account for. My body is…crafted.”

  She looked closer. Did he sew his head onto a robot body?

  “Your daughter?” LaGrue asked, indicating the girl.

  “Yes. Not biologically, her mother was…retired from the show.”

  “I see. It didn’t seem to add up, time-wise. You haven’t been here that long.”

  Valentina stood silently, not knowing what to think.

  “So many questions you must have,” LaGrue smiled. “Would you like to get out of here?”

  “To talk?” Valentina asked. She pointed at the prayer globe in the corner. “Too late. She already knows you are here.”