Redemption: Supernatural Time-Traveling Romance with Sci-fi and Metaphysics (25 page)

Part Four

PEACE

Chapter Twenty-three

C
orporate spy!”

Ann looked up from her display
screen to see Linda halfway along the aisle in front of her, pointing across
the office. There was a broad smile on her face and a large orange-yellow
giraffe on her dress.

“Quick everyone!” shouted Linda,
with a laugh. “It’s a corporate spy!”

Ann craned over her desk to see
who Linda was talking about, and caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a man
on crutches. She stood up to get a better view, but at the same moment the
whole floor burst into action with people jumping up from their desks and
rushing over to surround the newcomer.

“Let me through,” said Ann,
weaving her way among the press of bodies. “Let me through, come on.” But she
could hardly make herself heard over the buzzing chatter of her colleagues.
Suddenly a hand reached out, grabbing her arm and she turned to see John
hurrying along behind her.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “What’s
all the excitement about?”

“No idea. That’s what I’m trying
to find out.” She glanced down at John’s hand on her arm, her eyebrows raised.

“Sorry,” said John, releasing Ann
quickly and rushing to follow as she pushed on through the crowd. At last she
emerged in the center of the throng to find Linda with an arm around the man
she had pointed at. Distracted for a moment by Linda’s outrageous dress, Ann
took a moment to realize that the man next to her, supporting his weight on a
pair of crutches, was Peter.

“I don’t believe it!” said Ann,
staring at her colleague in amazement. “Look at you, up and about.”

“Hi Ann,” said Peter, inching
forward on his crutches. “Good to see you too.”

Ann stepped forward, ignoring the
hand he was holding out and hugging him instead.

“Ow!” he said, but with a little
chuckle to show he wasn’t really hurt.

“Well. I must say you look much
better than the last time I saw you, with all those tubes and machines
attached.”

Peter pretended to frown. “Why
did you have tubes and machines attached to you?”

“Funny,” said Ann, shaking her
head. “I see you managed not to damage your sense of humor. Pity.”

John burst through the crowd behind
Ann, almost bumping into her, and stared at Peter. “Look at you!” he said. “You’re
all up and about.”

Ann turned to gaze at him. “We’ve
already done that, John.”

“Doesn’t he look well?” said
Linda, stepping forward to stand next to Peter as if claiming ownership. As she
did so, Ann caught a whiff of Linda’s perfume and coughed.
Well, whatever she’s wearing it isn’t French and Louis certainly
wouldn't like it!
She smiled at the thought and passed it off as her
delight in seeing Peter again
.

“So what are you doing here?”
asked Ann. “You must only just have got out of the hospital.”

“This morning, yes, but I wanted
to let you know that the doc said I could be back at work in a couple of weeks.”

Ann looked surprised. “And you
couldn’t just send me a message?”

“You know me,” said Peter,
smiling confidently at his boss. “I like to do things in person.”

Ann was impressed and, for the
first time, she realized that Peter would probably make a good team leader.

“Let’s have a chat,” she said. “John?”

John jerked to attention at the
sound of his name. “Yes?”

“Which Mike is free at the
moment?”

After a moment’s consideration he
said, “Mike-7 is free all day.”

“Excellent!” Ann turned to her
giraffe-covered colleague. “Linda. Please could you help Peter into Mike-7 and
give him anything he needs? I’ll join you in a few minutes. I’ve just got a
report to finish.”

“It’s okay,” said Peter. “I can
get there okay. In fact…” He lifted both his crutches off the floor and held
them out to Linda. She looked around for somewhere to place the E-Panel that
was forever clutched in her hand.

“Ann,” said Linda, turning to her
and holding out the E-Panel. “Would you mind?”

“Sure.”

Having handed the device over,
Linda took Peter’s crutches, and he began to walk, slowly but steadily, across
the office to the applause and cheers of his gathered colleagues. Ann glanced
down at the E-Panel and her eyes were drawn to a single word written on the
screen: Michael. Next to this name was a group of numbers and, although she
only glimpsed it for a moment, it looked similar to Michael’s number at the Field
Museum.

Surely not,
she thought.
Not Michael and Linda!
Suddenly feeling
anxious and confused, she handed the E-Panel to John and made her way through
the crowd again. Back at her desk, she tried to focus on the last paragraph of
her report, but it was no good. She kept finding herself thinking unhelpful
thoughts about Michael and Linda.
This is
crazy! It probably wasn’t even his number, or even
my
Michael. And he’s not even
my
Michael, so what am I getting so worked up about? Have I really fallen in love
with him? Is this what unrequited love feels like?

Unable to concentrate, she headed
to Mike-7 to talk with Peter. As she entered the room she was pleased to find Peter
alone, with the exception of Mike’s ever-smiling face, though the air seemed
full of Linda’s terrible perfume, and Ann had to take a moment to compose
herself.

“Right then, Peter,” she said at
last, sitting down on the opposite side of the meeting room table. “A lot can
happen in two weeks…”

~

The following morning, as Ann
took the tunnel to the supermarket, more as a diversion than anything else
since the SmartHome server sorted all of her delivery needs, she still found
herself troubled by the same unhelpful train of thought. The night’s sleep had
only managed to make things worse as, once again, her dreams were disturbed
with the same strange images as before.
What’s
going on with me,
she wondered.
I
feel like a ship in a storm being tossed about by the waves of fate.

“What do you know about fate,
Rob?” she asked, as much to distract herself as to get information from him. “The
psychic said it’s a sort of pre-written script for a person’s development,
something that cannot be changed.”

“Interesting,” said Rob, nodding
on the screen of the E-A device. “My sources would agree, though it’s less like
a written script than a program.”

“Like a television program?”

“Like a computer program, much
like the one that is used to run me. I cannot change my code, and in that sense
I am restricted to do what I have been programmed to do. Yet at the same time,
I am constantly growing in knowledge, both through my research and interaction
with you. You humans are far more complex, but your individual fate works in
much the same way.”

Ann considered this for a moment.
“So, are you saying that the script or program for my life is set? That I
cannot change it?”

“Not exactly.” Rob’s image
flickered as he took on the appearance of a professor, complete with
mortarboard, gown and glasses. “Let me explain. At present you are Ann living
in twenty-first century America. However, as you have seen, you were not always
this person. In former lives you have been Mi, a woman from the Stone Age, and
Ra, a priest of Isis in the Roman Empire. And during the reign of Louis XIV,
you were Isabelle, a girl from Paris. Correct?”

“Er, yeah,” said Ann, impressed. “Nice
summary. But what has this to do with fate?”

“You will recall our conversation
about Karma?”

“Of course. It’s the effect that
one life has on the next, yes?”

“Correct!” Rob’s hand appeared on
the screen and stuck a gold star in the corner. “Now imagine I have a bug in my
programming.”

Ann smiled. “That’s not hard.
Especially when you look like that!”

“If I had a bug,” he continued,
ignoring her, “which I don’t, of course, you would get your guys to go into the
program and fix the code, yes?”

“I guess so.”

“And then you would upgrade me,
so I had a new bug-free program; a new life, if you like.”

“Are you saying that’s what I’ve
done as I’ve gone from one life to another?” said Ann. “I’ve been upgraded?”

“Exactly,” said Rob, beaming at
her and sticking another gold star in the corner of the screen.

But Ann was unconvinced. “So who
upgrades me?” she asked. “Who fixes the bugs in my program?”

“Well you do, of course! When you
use your Free Will to make correct choices, you are working to upgrade or
develop yourself, shaping your own program, your own fate.”

Ann thought about this as she
disconnected from the tunnel’s SmartDrive system and headed towards the exit.
Could this really be true? Had her life in twenty-first century America really
been shaped by the lives of Mi, Ra and Isabelle? Had there been other lives in
more recent history that had also affected her life now?

“So let me just get this straight,”
she said, merging with the Chicago traffic. “My fate is already set, but it has
been shaped by my Free Will choices in past lives. Is that it?”

“Exactly,” said Rob. “The reason
your Creator gave you Free Will in the first place was to make you each
different, unique individuals instead of uniform robots produced in some divine
mold.” He put on a sad face. “Unfortunately I have run out of gold stars.”

“Pity,” said Ann with a smile. “I
was doing rather well! Explain more about the relationship between fate and
Free Will. How exactly do they work together?”

Rob seemed to ponder this for a
moment, though Ann knew this was just part of his programming; he could analyze
many terabytes of data in a fraction of a second. “Fate and Free Will work
together well. You’ve been given Free Will so you can choose your personal
direction, but your choice does not remove the next milestone of your fate. You
still have to come that next programmed point.” Rob eyed Ann from the screen,
noting the thoughtful look on her face. “Consider this,” he continued. “We are
on our way to the supermarket, which, if you turn right at the next set of
lights, we will approach from the south entrance. However, if you choose to
turn left instead, you will end up approaching the same shop from the north.
However, your purchases will not be affected by this and you will still end up
going to the shop. This is similar to fate and Free Will. You cannot escape
your fate, but you can choose
how
you
face it.”

As he finished, Ann found herself
at the traffic lights in question and looked in each direction. “So what difference
does it make to me in the course of my life stream if I choose now to go right
or left?”

“Well, as far as your soul is
concerned
—
that being the part of you that goes from life to life throughout
your spiritual existence
—
it’s not so much about right or left as it is about good or evil,”
said Rob. “However,” he added, with a wink, “turning right would bring us to
the supermarket almost 5 minutes quicker than turning left.”

“Thanks,” said Ann, pulling away
to the right. “Carry on. What difference does good and evil make to my soul,
then?”

“This is where Nirvana comes in.
By choosing what is good, your soul is enlarged, progressing towards
enlightenment and ultimate redemption. But when you choose evil instead, your
soul becomes darker, heavier, heading deeper into the gloom of brutality.”

Ann turned the car into the
parking lot and eased it into a space. Switching off the engine, she picked up
the E-A device to give Rob her full attention. “It sounds like we’re talking
more about
spiritual
choices, rather
than deciding which way to head to the shops?”

“Quite,” said Rob, his screen
rippling as he took on his usual form.

“So what effect do these
spiritual choices have on a person in a material sense?”

“My sources tell me that as you
progress towards enlightenment, by making choices for good, your eyes are more
open, able to see things which you would never have noticed before. You gain a
greater understanding, broader insight, even a heightened ability to see what
is good and evil, and so to be more able to make the right choices. On the
other hand, choosing darkness affects every area of a person’s life for the worse.
Their insight is narrowed, their horizons are lowered, and their capacity for
vision and creativity are diminished.”

“So making the right choices is pretty
important!” said Ann. “So how can I ensure I don’t end up making the wrong
decision?”

“There are various opinions on
this matter. Some say the most important thing is to create personal values for
yourself. Another is simply to be sensitive to yourself; listen to your true
self.”

Ann raised her eyebrows. “Well,
that may sound simple to you, Rob, but I wouldn’t even know where to start!”

“My research suggests it may be
simpler than you think, my lady. Take the time for solitude and silence, getting
away from the noise of other people and constant drone of the media. Then you
can consider your choices more clearly.”