“God did, didn’t he?”
Dave halts and stares hard. “Wow, you’ve been mind-fucked, and good. Adam, listen, God has nothing to do with it. Heaven and Hell are the creation of Man, and Man alone. Do you actually believe God would create a place like Hell? And then put you there? That’s like saying a parent wants to torture their own children. Sure, it may happen, but do you think any sane parent would do such a thing?”
“I wouldn’t think so.”
I would hope that any parent, sane or not, would have enough sense to love their children instead of torturing them. But then, a person may do as they please with their possessions, that’s their business. Of course, that only serves as valid justification if you believe children are possessions.
“Torture is a product of insanity,” he says. “So if Hell is God’s idea, and we get tortured there, God must be insane. Do you really think that’s possible?”
Could it be? Is the world crazy simply because God has a screw loose? That’s ridiculous. God is not insane. And he’s not afraid, angry, happy or sad, or desiring to punish. None of those things. They are all conditions of Man, not God.
“Of course not,” I say. “He wouldn’t be God if he was insane.”
Dave chuckles. “Look, Adam, I can’t tell you what to think about God, that’s a personal thing, and I don’t want to intrude on your relationship with God, but I find it funny that you keep using
God
and
he
in the same sentence. What makes you call God a
he,
like it’s a man?”
There is no answer, just how it’s always been. But his little sermon calls attention to something more important—my relationship with God, and how it’s a personal thing. He’s right. My relationship with God is not for another to dictate, not Dave, and certainly not members of the Association—not anyone. It is for me to decide. But what is my relationship with God? Not fear, it couldn’t be. Fear is a tool of the enslaver. God is not an enslaver. God should be a source of inspiration.
Is that my relationship with God?
Perhaps, but somehow the notion feels empty. There must be more.
* * *
The sun has escaped the horizon to join the soft blue morning sky. In the distance, rolling hills go on forever, blanketed by thriving green grass. Beauty surrounds this wilderness where the air is clean, yet people choose to dwell in their concrete castles that litter the cities. Perhaps they would venture to this place if not slaves to an ideology, drained of their free will, and denied all they truly find enjoyable. Or maybe we are wrong, and the citizens do agree, even enjoy their structured existence, and only we find it odd to conform. In either case, one’s path through life should be a choice, and right to conform or not, I choose mine—individuality, surrounded by diversity, and freedom to roam.
At last we locate the missing strut. During our hasty landing, it hooked on a cluster of exposed roots, and our valuable component was ensnared. A fierce contest the strut lost. Though victorious, the sprawling roots were ripped from the soil, but in time they will heal, as will our craft. What may not heal is the surrounding forest. Along the path of descent, countless trees are slaughtered. Considering their sacrifice, one broken strut is a small price to pay.
Careful not to inflict further damage, we claw at the dirt and unwind the strangling coils that have captured our strut.
On his knees, Dave props it up and gauges the damage. “We’re damn lucky,” he says. “It’s not too banged up, and the break is clean. This’ll be a bitch, but I think we can fix it.”
Together, Dave and I begin hauling the severed component back to the craft. It is heavy, requiring our full strength to set it in motion, and a sustained effort to keep dragging it along. As we forge ahead, my attention drifts across the distance we must cover before returning to the crash site, our destination. I imagine arriving there, and this act of daydreaming brings forth a detailed mental image. In the vision, Dave and the others are near the craft, examining the broken strut. The image is perfectly clear, like it’s real. As if viewing the future, but only within my mind, and somehow this act of imagination diminishes the effort our task requires.
I’m hauling this hunk of metal with more than my body.
* * *
As we drag the strut, my mind wanders, a welcome distraction from our tiresome chore, but the random thoughts only scatter and fade, overrun by another stream spawned by the last, and the last before that. Thinking is different now, no longer crushed by pain when I daydream. I have Matt to thank for getting that capsule out of my head, and Dave smashing it was a fitting end to that taste of Hell. However, all the free thinking arrives at little or nothing, failing to open a door to understanding, and still I’m without countless answers I crave. To think at all only generates more questions.
“Dave, there’s something I still don’t get.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“What you said about coming back, and getting another body. If what you say is true, it wouldn’t matter if I burned. I’d just get a new body, right?”
“Except you didn’t know that at the time, did you, the whole problem. Not knowing is what makes you vulnerable, and that’s how it works. Besides, there’s not a body supply nearby, at least, not controlled by the Association. So you tell me, after your body burned, where would you go?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, I figured we went to Heaven or Hell after that.”
“Exactly the point. Not knowing what really happens is how they keep you from coming back.”
“So what really happens?”
“Anything you want, if you know it. But that’s the trick—you don’t. Instead you’re thrown into an endless cycle of living and dying, over and over, repeated without end.”
“Doesn’t sound so bad.”
“If you know it’s happening, but the cycle I’m talking about has a special feature—you don’t. And let me tell you, it seems to be working.”
“How’s that?”
“You’re not alone, Adam. A few have escaped, but not many. Plenty of others have been captured, and now, nothing. They never come back.”
“Come back, as in live again.”
“To a life we know anyway, or to see any of us ever again. However it works, this memory wipe of theirs erases everything, even knowledge of repeating life, and swaps in the Heaven and Hell fairytale instead. Best we can tell, the goal is to eliminate a connection between lives, leaving a person to go on living, and go on dying, except convinced that each time around is the only time around.”
“So let me get this straight. We don’t die, but really, we do. And live again, just not remembering that we don’t die.”
“Right.”
“What does that accomplish? We’re still living.”
“You’re not thinking this all the way through. The Association screws you over, right? And you’re pissed off about it. But what happens when you forget all that? Okay, so you live again, but you don’t remember. In a short time you forget who the Association even is, much less that you’re pissed at them for screwing you over. Now they have what they wanted all along—to get rid of you, and everyone else like you, the only way they could.”
“Erasing memory doesn’t get rid of anyone. I’m still here.”
“But would you have been?”
Had those flames reached any higher, any sooner, before Madison plucked me out of that smokestack, who knows where I’d be by now. How soon I forget—I’m not supposed to be here.
“Stealing memory is just the beginning,” he says. “We may be ignorant of our former lives, but that doesn’t change how we behave in this life, and since they can’t stand us the way we are, they certainly don’t want us around.”
“Okay, so what does it mean?”
“They put us someplace else.”
“Where?”
He stops, and the strut sinks in loose soil. “Remember when I said I’d explain all this, at least, all we know?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s the part we don’t know. None of us do. We don’t know where everyone is going. All we know is they’re gone.”
His sober gaze hints at regret. The people who have simply vanished may include fallen comrades. His, and perhaps even, friends of mine.
“Dead forever,” I realize.
“Right. Worse than dead for us. Better than dead for them.”
My thoughts drift back to that dreaded interview, those creepy businessmen, their strange questions and how pleased they were with my responses. More than pleased, they were proud of their elaborate deception, and my complete ignorance. It almost worked, and certainly would have if my friends hadn’t shown up. I owe them more than my life—I owe them my self.
Dave tugs on the strut. “Come on, let’s get this thing back, and get out of here.”
We continue hauling it back to the crash site.
“Tell me something, Dave. Did I already know all this, before they screwed with my head?”
“I can’t answer that, Adam, only you can. I can’t tell you what you know now, or knew then, or any time in the past, even though there’s plenty I’d really like to tell you, but then, it wouldn’t be yours to know. But I’ll say this much—knowing you like I have all this time, you’ve always been a smart guy, an aware being. I’ll leave you with that for an answer.”
“You want me to think for myself.”
He nods.
“Fair enough, but there’s one thing I can’t figure out.”
“What now?”
“The ice. That cube the crane pulled out of the smokestack.”
“Beats me,” he says. “You had a better view than the rest of us. You tell me, what happened down there?”
“I’m not sure. After the fire, some blasts shot out and made a giant ice cube. If I burned, my remains would be trapped inside ice now.”
He brightens up with a sudden realization. “So that’s how they do it.”
“Do what?”
“The ice. Like you said, it’s the
trap.
You found it.”
“Trap? I’d be dead. Who needs a trap? Dead people don’t escape.”
“Of course they do. They escape the body and find a new one. But not if they get trapped in something else first.”
“Ice?”
“Sure. Just like a body, if you don’t know you can get out—you can’t.”
“But, Dave, you’re contradicting yourself. So I’m burned alive and my ashes are stuck in ice. But you said I’m not a body, right? I’m not there, just my remains.”
“You have to consider how people behave when they lose a body. It may be dead, but they still follow it around. Normally, burning is good, because there’s nothing left to follow.”
“Burning is
good?
No, Dave, I have a strong instinct to avoid fire.”
“
After
death, not during. If you know you’re dead, it’s like there’s your old body burning up, a nice release. But burning alive is something else, bad news. The sudden loss of an anchor point, the physical pain and shock of dying, all at the same time, next thing you know you’re mixed up and can’t fix a position in space. When you’re fighting the Association, and you’re in their territory, it’s risky to lose a body that way. They’ll suck you into a trap during all the confusion. It’s standard training in our line of work to avoid death by fire, don’t be alarmed by that.”
“Our line of work? And what is that?”
“We’ll get to that when you’re ready. The ice is way more important, now that you’ve figured it out.”
“Me? Sounds like you got it all figured out.”
“Give yourself more credit, Adam. You’re the guy who discovered the trap, and escaped.”
This is all backward. But I can’t exactly argue. I was there, he’s right. And the picture of what happens there is perfectly clear. Too clear, of an event I would rather soon forget.
“Okay, let’s say you’re right, and it’s a trap. So I would’ve been trapped in ice. Then what? What happens to the ice?”
“Most likely it goes bye-bye, to that someplace else I was talking about earlier. We’ve made an important first step. Now we know how, thanks to you, my friend.”
Someplace else, but none of us knows
where.
A memory tickles, an unfinished task.
* * *
Back at the crash site, Madison uses a shovel to clear loose soil at the nose of the craft. It remains half-buried, but she has managed to make enough room for a jack. Dave examines the strut, and Matt is busy with a portable arc welder, repairing damage to the hull. He turns off his equipment, starts toward Dave, and slaps up his welding mask along the way. Madison plants her shovel in the dirt and joins them. All three study the damaged strut.
A strange thing hits me—the scene of my crewmates as they examine the landing strut. It might otherwise be meaningless, except—I am seeing a precise duplicate of the earlier vision, while daydreaming as Dave and I hauled the strut. An odd sensation, to view a reality that moments before was only an idle thought. As if by imagining it, I created it. Or perhaps, I saw the future.
Madison says, “Adam, help me with this jack.” She goes to the sagging corner and sets the jack into position under the hull.
Sharp raps echo across the forest as Dave bangs on the strut with a sledgehammer, straightening its twisted form. He sees me watching and says, “I’ll take care of this. Go on and help Maddie.”
Her job looks impossible. It’s hard to imagine the craft upright, especially with a wimpy jack like that. “How’s this supposed to work?” I ask. “You actually expect that to lift this thing?”
She scowls. “Not with an attitude like that, you bonehead. Knock it off.”
True, I should be more helpful. Might have to kick my own ass, if only I could reach it.
The jack is a simple hydraulic lift with hoses running off into the ship. She has it all set up and ready to go, and seems to be doing fine on her own. What help is she talking about? She works a remote that activates a loud engine inside the ship, generating quite a racket. The jack groans, straining to lift the heavy craft.
“I need more help than that,” she says.
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, I need you to see it.”
“See what?”
She stares at me, waiting for . . . what?