Jigsaw World (19 page)

The tiger was a tiger, but the coat of fur
that it sported was in yellows and browns, which she had never seen
before. Homo ergaster would place the time to be sometime between
1.5 million and 800,000 years in the past. Why was she
here?

The female has made it almost all the way to
some stand-alone trees where Vera can see other Homo ergaster has
sheltered. Just as she makes it to the shelter, Vera looks up into
the sky to see why a large shadow has passed over her. She sees
some form of aircraft, or spacecraft, floating via some unknown
technology almost directly above the trees that shelter the
primates.

As she watches, a ruby colored beam is played
over the shelter, and Vera sees the primates all fall to the ground
where they appear to be asleep. The large triangular craft lightly
descends to the ground beside the trees, and a hatch opens on the
craft. Four beings descend from the craft, each between eight and
ten feet in height, with elongated heads (both in total height and
in length back to front), thin and almost delicate looking fingers,
and sporting a great deal of unfathomable technologies.

Vera understands innately that the aliens are
in no way related to humans. Thousands of tiny items about them
points out that they are
not
primates, not even mammals unless you
close one eye. It is obvious by the way they look, and the way they
move, that they are not from earth at all. They are an obvious
advertisement for the idea of parallel evolution. They are what
humans
would
be
if they evolved on the planet of the
aliens.

One of the aliens bends over, and easily
places the female that Vera saved onto a floating table-like
apparatus beside her. The alien runs some sort of scan over the
female, and looks satisfied with the outcome. Vera prepares herself
to intervene, and actually begins the first step when the light
returns to take her home.

******

Markus is blinded by the light as the Hall
takes him away at great speed. Only a moment does it last, but he
senses that in that time, he has been far in space and in time. As
the light fades around him, he sees the mud formed ziggurats that
he has always associated with the early Sumerian empire. It might
not sound so appealing, but these had been polished so that their
surfaces gleamed like bronze in the sunlight.

All around him, people move in a bizarre
variety of attire, from nude to simple loincloths to various forms
of togas and even different forms of trousers. No zippers are
apparent, though. They sometimes look at him with mild curiosity as
they pass him, but none seem to have a problem with his presence.
He overhears the chatter of some of the people as they pass by, and
it is in some form of Arabic or Hebraic tongue, but he can
understand them!

Everyone stops in place, suddenly, and some of
them begin to look in the sky behind Markus, pointing and
commenting loudly about some sort of battle. Markus turns about to
see an unexpected sight, watching as large triangular space craft
are exchanging fire with smaller but more maneuverable bell shaped
craft. Missiles and laser fire are being exchanged between the two
sorts of crafts, and the bell shaped crafts seem to gain the upper
hand.

“
Lord Indra in his Vimana is
winning!” An excited native exclaims. From what he is seeing and
hearing, Markus is beginning to understand what he is seeing. The
Anunnaki, led by Enlil and Enki, is being driven off from the city
of Uruk by the Devas, led by Lord Indra. Since there is no legend
of Lord Indra lording it over the Sumerian Empire, this is
apparently a war of liberation, with the Devas seeking to liberate
the humans from the Anunnaki.

Markus knew that the Anunnaki were known in
his own world to have built cities over two hundred thousand years
ago, and according to legend, they left the Mesopotamian region by
about seven thousand years ago. This was about the same time that
history recorded any of the gods of ancient India as having
occupied or ruled in any earthly city. Markus suspects that this is
the deciding battle that removed the yoke of the old god’s rule
from the necks of humanity.

Markus notices an object half obscured by the
sands, perhaps a staff or a spear, but composed all of a gleaming
coppery or bronzed metal. He bends over and picks it up. It is very
light, and in his hands, it feels like it is almost alive! As he
considers this, the light returns to take him home.

******

Tom and the other two had been back from the
time trip about thirty minutes before the Sage was prepared to
address them. The Trio needed the time to relax and to drink a lot
of water. For some reason, the time trip took a lot of water out of
their systems, and they needed to replace it.

They had not yet been told why Charla had
failed to return, but in the presence of the stone, Tom seemed to
have information about things that he didn’t have any source for,
unless it was coming straight from the stone. Another odd thing
about the stone was its size. It kept changing size, and even
slightly altering its shape. Right now it was the right size and
shape for Tom to slip it into his back pocket, which was where it
was right then. Back in the past, it was about the size of a
basketball, and was globe-shaped.

He knew that Charla was dead, and that she had
created some sort of causal loop, where if she hadn’t gone into the
past, the gods that she was almost sacrificed to would never have
existed. He thought he knew how it all hung together, but he
decided to let the Sage explain it.

The three of them were sitting in easy chairs
in the Sage’s parlor, and Bailey played with his possum in front of
them, while Karla sat primly on the arm of Tom’s chair. The Sage
took his place in front of them, and prepared to fill them
in.

“
As you know, Charla didn’t make
it back.” The Sage said. “One of the unfortunate aspects of Destiny
is that it is not always nice. Charla had to go back in time in
order to begin the linage of the Great Old Ones, which she started
by giving birth to the first of them. Once she had delivered, even
if she had lived, she would have been in constant physical and
mental pain ever after.”

He went on to say that these were linchpin
historical events which were being erased from the timeline of this
worldline by some fairly esoteric means, which he would discuss
later. Suffice it to say that the history of the Great Old Ones and
the genetic modification of the human ancestors by the Anunnaki,
and the end of their dominance of the human line were all linchpin
events that had to be securely embedded in the timeline in order to
prevent the fragmentation of reality from continuing.

“
But you are all exhausted now.”
The Sage said. “Let’s find you beds for the night, and after you
wake in the morning, and get some food and coffee in you, we will
discuss the details of the tasks we need to complete in more
detail.”

He said that he would try to keep the lecture
short tomorrow, and then he suggested that we might want to spend
the day on the University campus relaxing, and letting the
situation soak in naturally.

The group was tired, and sort of emotionally
exhausted with the histories that they had witnessed. Vera and
Markus agreed with Tom that it was apparent from the start that
Charla was going to die on this trip. She was exactly like one of
the Red Shirts on the Star Trek series of your choice. As a second
string Red Shirt, there was just no way that she could possibly
survive an away mission.

Tom found that the bed that he and Karla had
that night was nice and fluffy, soft and sleep inducing. He barely
had the strength left to disrobe the softness that was Karla,
almost had insufficient concentration to kiss each nipple and set
of lips that he found on her disrobed form, and he had the almost
unmanly urge just to cuddle her up close and sleep. He manned up,
however, and gave her a proper shagging, which he considered the
proper salute for any man to give a proper lady with all the
appropriate lady parts.

Soon enough, the pair of them were being held
hostage in the land of Nod, while the dog and his pet possum stood
guard over them. The possum had actually become used to the dog by
this time, and the animal was easily bribed by a sizable chicken
part to be almost social. He hardly ever hissed at Bailey anymore.
Bailey was an obvious pushover, even to cats and
possums.

Tom woke the next morning to discover that he
and Karla had passed the night in a spooned position, with the
possum lying stretched out on the sheet above their feet, and
Bailey stretched out on the floor at the foot of the bed. He got
up, and tousled one head of female hair, and two fur covered heads
about the ear area. He then wandered into the kitchen to see to a
pot of coffee and some food.

A few moments later, Karla wandered into the
kitchen wearing her sheer panties and even sheerer bra. She gave
Tom the opportunity to verify that she was not a quart low, then
they both settled down to a cup of decent Columbian coffee. Bailey
came into the room, with the possum actually following, and Tom
could have sworn at one point that the marsupial actually rubbed up
against the canine. At any rate, the two animals were getting
along.

Markus and Vera came into the kitchen for some
breakfast and coffee, and when Markus noticed Karla’s state of
undress, his eyes threatened to bug out, and Vera began to look
very tight-lipped and vindictive, until finally Tom took a second
to retrieve one of his shirts for Karla to slip on. After the
wardrobe addition, the atmosphere in the kitchen slowly became less
tense. In twenty minutes, the four of them were talking and
laughing normally while eating another egg, toast and bacon
breakfast. Bailey and the possum also received a couple of bacon
strips each.

By half past eight they had all eaten their
fill of the breakfast, and drank their fill of the coffee. They
could hear the Sage rustling about in the parlor, so they all
regained their feet, and wandered slowly into the parlor. The Sage
was wearing a purple bathrobe with red dragons and little yellow
unicorns on it. While Tom suspected that the Sage took something in
life seriously, his position as an authority figure was certainly
not one of the serious things.

They all took seats in the easy chairs in
front of the office desk that the Sage was lounging against. The
Sage slouched back even more on the desk, until it seemed
inevitable that he would be showing his Junk to the females among
the company. He appeared to be sardonically anticipatory about the
prospect of doing so, until Karla stood up and whispered something
into his ear. He grew quite pale, and arranged himself into a more
modest position.

When Karla sat back down beside Tom, he
whispered the question of what she told the Sage. “I told him that
if I see his Junk, I will cut it off.” She responded. Tom smirked
and sat back. Karla was definitely a girl after his own
heart!

“
As I mentioned last night, in
order to stabilize the worldline reality, we need to do a few
things.” The Sage lectured. “First, we need to fix the linchpin
events in the timeline. You did that last night. Second, you need
to gather together the trans-reality tools to bring to the Place of
Beginnings. Third, we need to find the Place of Beginnings, which
is hid among the shadows of this worldline’s past. You will search
out the correct Place. Fourth, we will need to bring the group of
you, and the tools to the Place of Beginnings to reset the
worldline reality.”

He went on to say that this will be a somewhat
involved process, and they would be visited by a few people with
special skills that ‘were not from around here’. He also cautioned
that the process of the reset would be a little like overcoming the
inertia from rolling a lead ball about. It would be hard at first,
because the consensus reality created by the billions of people on
this planet would tend to pull reality toward the present format
because they would resist the change at first, until the change
begins to work on them as well.

The Sage went on to say that fixing this
worldline would be much harder than simply scrapping it and going
to another worldline, but he really didn’t get into how one goes
about making that trip. Plus, he suggested that leaving this
worldline unrepaired would lead to a string of problem worldlines
down the line.

He said that getting all four cosmic tools was
essential to repairing the ‘shadow’, although he believed that
someone called ‘The Guardian’ might be able to repair it without
the tools. At any rate, he said that he had something to do for the
rest of the day, so the four of them were cordially invited to
check out the University campus. Translation according to Tom was
that the Sage needed to watch a little internet porn, so he wanted
the judgmental eyes of the individuals of the human persuasion to
get the hell out, so that he could masturbate in peace. Tom was
willing to concede that this was only a guess, but it fit the
conversation.

Leaving the spiritually advanced Sage to his
own devices, the four of them loaded up the two animals, and
departed for the gates of the great Southern Arkansas University.
They had all noted that there was a mysterious change of feelings
when they originally crossed the boundaries of the town of
Magnolia, and it redoubled when they crossed over into the
university property.