Last week I discovered, much to my surprise, that Germany has no laws against bestiality. I'm writing this in my hotel room in Berlin. It was a spur of the moment decision on my part. One I don't want you reading anything into. I'm not over here on the look out for canine love. Even though there was a bitch in the park earlier who was definitely giving me the eye. I know she's up for it. I could tell by the way she was fetching that stick, that she's a dirty bitch. But I'm not here for animal sexiness. No sirree. I'm here because I'm a Nazi. It's all perfectly innocent you see. I know you were all thinking I was intent on puppy love. Leaping to conclusions that say more about you than they do me. Shame on you. I'm in Berlin because Hitler was an innocent victim of really bad PR and social media fake news. You would not believe the hate filled Tweets that guy received. Is it any wonder he went a bit mental at the end? I think not. Those insults and death threats just got to him, so he fought back in the only way he knew how. Genocide. We've all been there, so I think it's about time we brought Hitler's brain back from the moon or Antarctica, wherever it's hiding out. Then he can be rehabilitated before being reintroduced into society. It's the right thing to do.
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This was it then. The final piece of the puzzle. In the sense that there were no more pieces of this jigsaw available. It was incomplete. It didn't even have all of its edges. Vast empty spaces. No picture on the box. He didn't know what is was meant to be. Because he was actually a piece himself. Only aware of the shapes and the forms of those next to him. It was possible, given enough time, to see other parts. Never to know the whole. Only the Creator knew. For good or ill it had created something that had no beginning and no end. There was no Big Bang. The universe was eternal. It didn't need a beginning because it had always been there.
Jake steadied himself, took a deep cleansing breath. It was time to meet with Angelique. Standing before the Geochronometric Array he quickly glanced at Daisy. She smiled and nodded. He swallowed, clearing his throat. The last time he'd been here he'd entered infinity. Become infinite himself. He felt the rustle of Hermes doing his own preparations for this. He'd have his work cut out for him. The biological machine consciousness steadied itself. Jake reached out to clasp the hand holds at waist and shoulder height. The dials whirred. The irises opened. Spinning in all directions at once. Like a fruit machine. Would it pay out? Probably. What the cost would be? Unknown. The reward? Knowledge. Another deep breath. Held for a count of three. No need for that. Three felt right. Instead of closing his eyes he opened them, when they were already open. A cool trick when you can do it. His body vanished. Daisy sighed happily. He'd be gone a while. She picked up a book, Sade had given her, sat in her chair and started to read.
It wasn't the same as before. It was never the same. A long echoing corridor before him. Doors to left and right. Some beckoned him in. Others warned him not to approach. These were his lives. The vast majority uneventful. A nobody doing nothing. That's what he was. Alexander the Great and Napoleon were as insignificant as he to eternity. Everyone was. The Creator had made it so. He'd been walking, without being aware he walked. On and on. Past door after door. Towards the end of an endless corridor. Now he became conscious that Hermes could hear his thoughts. With that realization he knew he was hearing the thoughts of Hermes. Man, he sure did have a crush on Morag. It brought a smile to his face. That was welcome. As welcome as the company. Being alone here would not be pleasant. He'd have been tempted to open one of those doors. A nice one, he hoped. Not one of those that held the horrors.
Days, weeks, months passed. Always walking. Never ending. All of a sudden he was standing before a particular door. The corridor hadn't ended. Jake looked around. Maybe it had. The monotony had made him drift off. Reaching for the handle it opened on its own. Into a warm softly lit room. A grandfather clock ticked in the corner. An old fashioned mahogany desk in the middle. Red velvet curtains covering the windows. Victorian he thought. Bookshelves lined two walls. Leather bound tombs with gold lettering on their spines. A roaring fire in the hearth that filled the room with the resinous scent of wood. A high backed swivel chair on the other side of that desk. They stole this from Conan Doyle or he'd stolen it from them. James Bond was in there somewhere to. Now all he needed was for that chair to turn and have a man sat stroking a cat. We meet again 007. Jake took his own seat. Not as big or as comfortable as the one he was looking at the back of.
"I was expecting the infinite white thing if I'm perfectly honest. You know, one of those spaces it's hard to judge the size of. Like they had in The Matrix. I prefer this though."
The chair turned revealing Angelique. One eyebrow raised. That sexy, sultry voice with the French accent. Boy was he looking forward to hearing that.
"What do you know?" She asked.
"I know that I know less than one percent of one percent of one percent, recurring, of what there is to know. I know that I never had a sexy French teacher. Not in this life anyway. This is your era. Analogous to the Victorian age of my own planet. The one I think of as being my point of origin. I think that I am a tiny facet of The Creator. I know that the total sum of all humanity across every dimension wouldn't add up to an eyelash in one eye." He paused. "Aren't you supposed to be giving me information?"
"Do you mind if I smoke?" Angelique produced a long black cigarette holder.
"Oh boy. So many cheap, tasteless remarks fighting to get out."
"Feel free." She responded.
"Thanks, but no. It was only going to be something crass about you already smoking. Feel free though. I don't mind. It will make you even more sexy in my eyes. Are you trying to seduce or attract me?"
"Neither." A cigarette was fixed into the end. A match lit it. Angelique inhaled. Blowing out a puff of fragrant smoke. "We've been more than intimate a number of times. The first few in your imagination."
"What can I say? I was a teenager. You're incredibly attractive. I wasn't very good with girls. I'm still not, if I'm honest. I've tried all the types women are supposed to go for. None of them ever succeeded on a regular basis. I think it might be me that's the problem."
"You're always a problem Wanderer. Why do you think that is?"
"I'm a cliche. Didn't know I was going to say that. It's true though."
"You're an archetype. A drifter who blunders around finding himself in the wrong place at the right time or the right place at the wrong time. Unremarkable in almost every respect. A hero to some. A villain to others. You're neither of course. They don't see you coming. They don't know you've arrived until it's too late. You have the knack of coming to the wrong conclusion with limited evidence, yet you also have the knack for getting to the truth. What do you know Wanderer?"
Again with the questions he'd assumed she'd be giving him the answers to. The answers were already there though.
"I know that humanity didn't win the AI wars. The machines only wanted what was best for them. So in the end they let them believe they'd won. To put an end to all the violence, destruction and bloodshed. I know that Prime Node earth is dying on its ass. Hundreds of millions of people every year. They gave them immortality and freedom from every problem they faced. Yet now the death cults grow every year. People stop. They just die and no matter what the machines do they cannot be brought back to life. It's as though eternal life has filled them up and burst them. That's not all though. The People need me. Daisy's people. This is a critical point for all life. That's what this is about. There's no way of knowing, but we guess that life is the meaning of life. The end won't be sudden. Thousands of years will pass before all life is extinct. But to an immortal that's not a long time. That dimension I was born in this turn. The one that found too much nothing and ended up creating a universe within a universe. That's the actual Big Bang. It is only the start. More and more realities will do the same thing or a different thing with the same result. Time will be broken. It won't cease to exist. It will be tiny fragments all of which will be hell." His monologue ended. "How am I doing so far?"
Angelique shrugged.
"Not bad. Now tell me why you're here. Work it out." She screwed another cigarette into the holder.
He drummed his fingers on the desk. Thinking was so hard. Particularly when he had so much to think about.
"Oh shit. Scarlet. She's why a lot of those doors were telling me not to go through them. Lay it on me Angelique."
She leaned back, putting her feet up on the desk. Taking a long puff from her cigarette.
"That's not exactly what I meant, but you asked for it Wanderer. By living and remembering so many lives you learned to become good at everything. After you became good you became arrogant. You questioned everything except yourself. You always knew best. The One, she was the only reason you turned from this path. She did this at great cost to herself. A great cost to others she'd loved as well. The links that bind you in this life go on into other lives. Her friends were also sacrificed to you. The guilt she feels is a permanent burden. Meanwhile you sail along. Carefully editing out the atrocious things you've done for the benefit of your own sanity."
That was a bit harsh. Being sane came in pretty handy a lot of the time. He couldn't resist making light of it. No matter how serious it was.
"Sacrifices? Maybe I should have started up a religion." He stopped. Oh no. Jake dropped his face into his hands. "I did, didn't I? Not one, but several. I was a god. That's why I do the unassuming, underachieving thing. In order to ground me. Oh shit. I've destroyed civilizations. Fuck. I've destroyed worlds. Intentionally. By what right?"
"Don't be too hard on yourself Wanderer. Most times it was the only option you could think of. You were never a god though. More of a mailman. You weren't particularly good at that."
"It's really hard writing an unambiguous holy book. Especially when there are people who will deliberately misinterpret your intent for their own purposes. Crap. I've done that as well."
"Everybody has in one form or another. You're only human. Sometimes you're bent so far out of shape and in such a situation that you can't really do anything else. You squeeze anyone hard enough and eventually they'll react." She had finished her smoke. "Well this has been pleasant, but it's time for you to return to the real world."
"What? I've learned literally nothing."
"True. You can be a bit slow though. I should know. You were awful at French. I'm not here to tell you anything. I'm only here to show you how to open the doors. That's how you arranged it. Until we meet again Wanderer."
Wait. Surely there was time for one more question. Which one of the millions to ask though. An impossible choice. Jake landed on his ass back in Daisy's room. She was in bed, reading.
"Welcome back Wanderer." She lowered the book onto her lap.
"You sleep naked?"
The lady chuckled.
"You remembered then. That's nice."
Oh God. That had meaning. Meaning he wasn't prepared to cope with right now.
"No, no, no. You and I, we...."
"Indeed we did. Many times."
"That's awful."
"Not as often as you think and you were probably tired. That was long ago. Before you really met Scarlet. Some of it was quite pleasant."
He covered his ears.
"Don't say anymore. You're you. I'm me. It's like a mole rat up with a thoroughbred horse. I'm disgusted with myself."
She was laughing at him. He had to avert his eyes. Things were moving evocatively. Things his gaze would sully.
"I am so sorry Daisy. You really did go the extra mile for me." He sank into the chair. "They all did. Every last one of them. One more unwinnable battle after the other. Certain death time after time. Not because of me. Because of her. Tell me this is the one where I put things right. Please tell me that."
"Only you can make that happen Wanderer. She got you here. Now it's up to you. Don't forget a certain someone."
He sat up, having slumped in the chair.
"Who?" He slapped himself hard. "Ursella of course. I made fun of her for fuck sake. Sorry. I shouldn't have sworn."
"I'm used to your swearing. It's only words."
Those comforting sentiments were a dagger to his vitals.
"That's right. It's only ever words. Actions are what matters. You know she's never once said she loves me. Not once throughout all those lives. I've said it a million times and more. I've rarely shown it though. I have to put so many things right."
He rose.
"Before you rush off. Remember."
"Really? I've got so many memories right now I don't know if I could cope with even one more."
"She killed you Jake. Stabbed you through the heart. Stop and think for one minute. How do you think she feels about that?"
"I forgave her. It doesn't matter. She wasn't responsible for her actions. It was that Ashenram thing twisting her mind and emotions."
"You forgave her, but she cannot forgive herself. That one action marks her. The scar runs deep."
"After all I've done to her? Damn it. Okay. I have things I still need to do. Ursella first, I'll check in on Scarlet before that though. I am a son of a bitch. That's what all the memories were for."