>Thrwoooooooooshhh!
Taylor Morris, one of the only beings to be the toy of the god-like
creatures that molded reality, felt his body vibrate at impossible speeds
and then pulled in a thousand directions. He felt his consciousness
spread across huge distances, covering solar systems, galaxies,
universes, and the areas beyond. He looked down below as he soared
through an emptiness and silence that went beyond human comprehension.
And then, as he flew to encompass the ever-increasing limits of creation,
he felt himself, in an immeasurably short amount of time shrink and be
pulled toward an area of space and time.
Taylor dropped to the ground, a dry, hard, mass of parched earth. The
ground was the first thing he ever saw when he was pulled to a dimension
for whenever he arrived he would find that for an instant, he had
absolutely no control over his body. Allen, if he was there when Taylor
arrived, found it amusing that Taylor was, in effect, falling before him
in total subjugation to his wishes. Taylor knew that he was doing no such
thing.
Taylor looked up and saw an infinity of stars arrayed across the sky.
Strangely, the sky was dark but it was bright as day. Taylor could see
all the way to the horizon but there wasn’t much too take in. The dry,
cracked ground was the only thing there.
He got up, brushing the dirt off his clothes as he did so. He once again
scanned the area for any signs of life. That was when he saw the star.
A shooting star was coming towards this planet, seemingly right at him.
And the very strange thing about it was that it was making a loud,
piercing noise that resembled a baby’s wail. This was completely
impossible according to the laws of physics. Taylor shook his head at the
thought. Probably all that he had gone through during the journey that he
was taking completely violated all the laws of physics.
The star came closer at huge speeds and then it entered the atmosphere of
this planet, wailing all the way. Taylor saw as it impacted into the
ground, throwing up a huge cloud of dust. He jogged over to investigate.
The remains of the meteorite were a large orb, a greenish-blue color that
showed Taylor’s reflection in a murky parody of his features. It was
glowing and it seemed to pulsate from its travel through space. Taylor
looked at it and somehow, he felt that it was strangely familiar to him.
That was when another reflection appeared in the orb.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” asked the man. Taylor whirled and came face
to face with the being that was either his benefactor or his enemy, or
probably a bit of both. Allen looked like a young human male, and the
only feature that made him look like the strange being he was were his
eyes. They were an unnatural deep shade of green and in the center, where
the iris should have been, was what looked like a galaxy, and what was
actually what Allen said reality looked like from an outside view.
“Allen! Why!!!?” he snarled, his hand clenching around Allen’s throat.
The site of the murderer of Eleanor filled him with rage, and a want to
destroy Allen. Which was utterly impossible. Allen was immortal and
indestructible, or so he claimed. Taylor knew that when he did certain
actions, Allen’s power fluctuated and Allen could even be forced to stay
away from him. He still did not know exactly what he did that triggered
this loss of power, or even existence, for Allen but he intended to find
out. For he knew, in his gut, that when Allen was gone he would be put
back in his normal state and Eleanor would be back.
“Oh, stop it. She’s dead, she’s alive. She’s dead, she’s alive. It’s a
stupid cycle that she always puts me through. You know, that woman causes
me more trouble than you do. You could learn a thing or two from her,”
Allen said as he simply moved through Taylor’s hand to stand beside the
orb.
“You killed her! For real this time!” yelled Taylor right in Allen’s ear.
Allen glared at him and grasped his ear.
“Oh come off it. You know she’ll be back,” replied Allen.
“She said that this time it’s permanent! That she couldn’t bring herself
back anymore! And that, after what she did you wouldn’t bring her back!
Not after the trouble she caused!” Taylor went back to his normal voice
and Allen smiled.
“What?” asked Taylor. Allen’s smiled broadened. Taylor repeated his
question and Allen smiled even more. Allen started to chuckle to himself.
“Okay, what did you do that’s so funny? And how come I can bet that it’s
probably something very bad?” asked Taylor. Allen looked at Taylor’s
angry and puzzled expression and burst out laughing, his hand clamping on
Taylor’s shoulder for support.
Suddenly, Allen stopped laughing abruptly. His expression turned into a
frown and he held out his hand to the sky, shaking it at the stars.
“She shouldn’t have done that,” announced Allen. Taylor gave him a look
that showed that he wasn’t following everything happening.
“I brought her back. Easily. Which was why I was laughing. You just don’t
understand the fact that there is nothing I can’t do. And, neither does
she,” Allen brightened at the thought of his superiority but then he
frowned again when he remembered what had just happened. “ And then, when
I brought her back, the ungrateful little prig went somewhere. She just
hopped up, severed my connection, and walked away. And now I can’t find
her. But I will.”
“Is that good news?” asked Taylor.
“Oh, most definitely. Your Eleanor is quite a nice amusement. Just knows
a bit too much about the way the universe works to be properly in the
dark. That’s one of the features of a good toy. Too bad she decided to
kill herself and I had to bring her back. She always complicates
matters.”
“Why was I brought here, Allen?” asked Taylor. He was uncomfortable with
the fact that Eleanor had, in effect, killed herself when she had brought
him along on her journey to the past. His changing of the subject
diverted his thoughts from the painful reason that she had done so.
“Oh, actually I’ve brought you here to teach you about time. Yes, that’s
the core of the matter, time. You know, today, tomorrow, the day after
and so on and so forth. The passage of the moment from the present into
the future. That’s your idea of time, correct?” asked Allen in a tone
that indicated that there was more to time than he was currently saying.
“Yes. But there’s also the descending of the present back to the past,
which is what you’ve subjected me to several times already,” replied
Taylor. He was wondering where Allen was getting with this.
“No, no, no, no! I’ve abided with your silly notions for too long
already! You’re about to learn the true nature of time!” yelled Allen.
Allen pulled out a golden pocket-watch from his pocket and dangled it by
its chain. “ What time does this watch indicate?” asked Allen.
Taylor glanced at it and replied, “ Four minutes past eleven.” Allen
looked immensely pleased with Taylor’s answer and he started to start on
of his lectures.
“Absolutely correct. The time is four minutes past eleven. Everywhere and
every when. And it is also every other time everywhere and every when,”
said Allen, as if this made perfect sense. Taylor’s look suggested
otherwise.
“Okay, okay. I don’t think you understand this. Let me show you how this
works,” said Allen. Allen raised his hand up into the air and a glowing,
green rod of pulsating light appeared in his hand. Allen reared it back
and through at a nonexistent target.
Suddenly, the rod, moving at huge speeds glowed even brighter and tore a
hole in the air! It looked like a wound cut into the fiber of the
space-time continuum, like a nail drilled into a piece of wood. Taylor
peered inside the hole and he could see a whirling mass of blue energy
crackling in the void left behind by the rod.
“See that?” said Allen. “ That’s what time is made up of. If you were to
somehow travel in there, you’d be able to cross into any other unit of
time from the moment that this place was created. Which is the beginning
of this universe, by the way. So, now do you understand why it’s four
past eleven everywhere?” Taylor looked at Allen like the being had gone
mad, which was the thought that Taylor had whenever he met Allen.
“I see. You still don’t understand. Let me go through this slowly so that
your little brain can comprehend it. Your only concept of time that you
are going through right now is the present. That’s what you think,
right?” asked Allen.
“I follow. Since time flows in a linear fashion, the only time period we
can experience right now is the present. Once that experience is over, it
is the past. After it has occurred, it is the future from the point of
view of the past. Of course, from the point of view of the person, there
can only be the present and the past, since we do not know what the
future will bring” replied Taylor. This was elementary study when he was
learning temporal physics.
“Right, right, right. You can only comprehend the fact that you’re
experiencing the past. In fact, you think that the present is the only
thing that is currently happening.
But, you’re wrong. The past is happening… now. The future is happening…
now. One temporal period is happening at the same time as another. Go
look in the hole,” directed Allen. Taylor, starting to get a picture of
what was happening, peered into the hole of blue energy.
“Hold on a second,” said Allen. A look of concentration appeared on his
face and then suddenly he snapped his fingers.
Taylor jumped away from the hole as a large amount of pocket-watches came
flying out of it. They were all identical to the one Allen held loosely
by its chain, but they all showed different times.
“I think I understand what you’re trying to tell me. Your hole is a rip
through time. And somehow, you hopped to all the time periods on this
location and opened the hole from that period and then sent a watch
through each hole. So your point is that if all time periods are going on
at the same time, then its four past eleven every time, in a sense?”
asked Taylor. Allen nodded with a smile on his face.
“So, what exactly does this teach me?” asked Taylor. He knew that Allen
usually brought him to a specific time or space in order for him to learn
something about the way reality worked. Taylor also knew that Allen
considered him only to be a good toy if he comprehended a limited amount
of what was happening to him. Not too much, as Eleanor did. Taylor knew
that Allen both despised and liked Eleanor, because she was the only
being to actually be a challenge to him, excepting the case when another
of the super-powerful beings had fought a battle with Allen. But he also
knew that Allen considered Eleanor to be an insufficient toy and as such
he did not grant her the same attention bestowed on Taylor.
Which meant that this had to teach him something besides a little fact
about the nature of the universe. It had to be something of importance,
more to Allen than to Taylor. Allen wanted Taylor to do something,
something important.
“Hold on a second. There’s a bit more explaining to do. The way I send
you across distances of time and space is in very simplified terms,
picking you up and putting you down where I want you. This doesn’t take
advantage of the fact that all temporal periods are going on at the same
time, as I demonstrated before. It’s like, well, picking up a bug from
one side of a piece of paper and going all the way around and putting it
down on the other side. It’s much easier to just tear a hole in the paper
and put the bug through there,” Allen said and then continued, “ Now, I’m
going to share with you a little secret about your planet. The pathetic
ball of dirt that you used to call home. It’s very interesting actually,
this secret I mean, being that if you stretch your little brain you’ll be
able to learn a little fact that will make you quite a more interesting
toy. A lot more like Eleanor, you might say.”
Taylor nodded and Allen pointed at the still glowing orb that lay in the
parched ground. “ That, is what’s left of the Earth approximately seventy
eight hundred thousand million years from the time when it was created.
And this,” Allen pointed to the dry parched ground on which they stood, “
is Earth, nearly one million years after what’s left of the Earth hit it.
I see we’re going to need a little bit of explanation to make this
entirely clear to your infant brain.”
“A little? This must be one of the greatest paradoxes in all the
universes,” Taylor said. He was still trying to figure out how the fact
that all time is happening right now fit with what Allen had just said.
“No, no, no. The thing with the little lizard guys hatching their
grandfathers and themselves at the same time had a much bigger effect on
the universe they lived in. If that idiot guy hadn’t have done that
genetics test on them and then gone back and changed their birth patterns
to match those of their descendants everyone would have been better off.
They wouldn’t have made a research post, the commander wouldn’t have
gotten killed, their wouldn’t have been military action to avenge the
death, there wouldn’t have been a war, and there wouldn’t be any
survivors of that war, and the survivors wouldn’t have made that
last-ditch experiment with matter transportation. That ended up
destroying half the galaxy, which would obviously have a disastrous
effect on the balance of that universe,” Allen paused for breath and then
continued, “ Where was I?”
“You were going to explain to me all the nonsense you’ve been spouting,”
Taylor said.
“Not nonsense. You just can’t comprehend it unless it’s fully laid out
for you. We are approximately one and a half miles away from the position
of Earth as it will be when it is finally pummeled into the over-sized
marble that we see here. When that happens, this object, drawn by the
gravitational force of this planet will impact right here. The first time
it impacted here, it attracted dust, dirt, ice, and everything else
floating around in space until it grew to the size of what we see here.
Then it impacted here for the second time and became a rather nice little
hob-glob off material that contained DNA residue of the life that lived
on Earth. I’m speculating here but I think that from this marble thing
your species and possibly all living things on Earth grew out of. A
little moisture, a lot of sunlight, some luck and intervention by some
powerful being and Earth becomes a very fine example of an extremely
complicated paradox. After explaining it all to you I think I’ve finally
recognized the beauty of it. You’re right Taylor; this does edge out the
lizard thing,” Allen finished and suddenly Taylor hit upon a guess that
he would bet his life on was right.
“Eleanor did this?” he asked. He had seen Eleanor do a lot of weird
things during the brief time he had known her, but she had assured him
that she was human, even though her powers were very similar to that of
Allen’s race. Now, the idea that Eleanor could create the Earth,
utilizing a paradox to do so, contradicted her statement. Taylor knew
that even Allen had trouble making a paradox, and one of such gigantic
proportions was completely above his powers.
“Correct. Now, do you see how this all fits in with what I said about
time travel?” asked Allen. Taylor was hit by another burst of
inspiration.
“You said that punching a hole and going through to another time is more
easier than picking me up and putting me down. Maybe, somehow it’s easier
to create paradoxes also,” Taylor said. Allen smiled.
“Yes, yes, yes. But here’s where it gets really complicated. When I
realized this paradox, I brought you here to tell you about it. But, then
I realized something strange. I could feel that there was something more
here than what I felt. And then I realized what Eleanor had really done.
Right after Eleanor died she brought herself back to life again, as she
always does. She then, using that punch a hole through time thing, made a
paradox that created the Earth. However, she made some changes to the
genetics inside that,” Allen pointed at the orb impeded in the ground, “
so that the little island that her ancestors grew up on never came into
being.” Taylor interrupted Allen.
“Are you saying that now Eleanor never existed?” asked Taylor.
“In a sense, she’s dead. However, she’s still running around somewhere,
just she was never born. I hate it when that woman messes with my
playground,” replied Allen.
“So, I thought she was dead, since I never like checking too closely on
her, so I didn’t know she wasn’t dead, just not existing. Then, I just
snapped my fingers and re-created her. However, when I did this, she got
a little mad because she doesn’t want to be traced. So she snapped her
fingers and said bye-bye to her re-created self.
As near as I can tell, she’s trying to run away from you, because staying
with you could destroy you. And don’t ask why. I’ll tell you in a couple
million years. When I get bored with you and I try to make you a more
challenging toy,” Allen smiled the smile that meant that he was once
again keeping Taylor in the dark upon a subject that might free him from
his slavery as Allen’s toy.
“Wait a second, I think I know what you’re saying. You’re telling me that
she’s done something that makes her unable to be found by you. That’s why
you lost the connection. When she saw that you were re-creating her she
took measures to insure that you can’t find her.
She’s slipped out of your grasp. You can’t find her and you can no longer
have the limited control over her that you used to have. She’s doing this
to help me free me from you. She’s doing this so that you can’t send us
on missions together like you used to, because when that happened you
could keep tabs on her through me.
I’m seeing a lot more now, Allen. I’m seeing that your powers are getting
very weak. Almost everything Eleanor does seems to be above your
capabilities. And I know that I’ve done things that have limited your
powers against me. I’ve done things that once gave me the power to
journey away from you. Eleanor’s going to show me how to do that forever.
You won’t tell me why everything is the way it is in a couple million
years. I’m going to find out on my own,” Taylor glared into Allen’s eyes
and watched as reality slowly rotated in the irises.
“Your turning out to be a better and better toy than I ever imagined.
Come along, we’re going to go visit a grassy knoll,” said Allen,
smirking. Allen disappeared in a flash and Taylor began to feel his
molecules spread over the universe and space and time. He felt himself
quickly evaporate into nothing and everything. He felt himself fly at
faster speeds than ever possible to a location of Allen’s choosing. He
felt himself quickly start to re-form into his body.
And then it stopped. Everything stopped. He couldn’t see anything but the
stars and blackness.
“Taylor,” said a voice. Taylor’s eyes bulged at the sound of the familiar
voice. The voice of Eleanor.
“Eleanor!” he cried.
“Yes, it’s me. I’m alive and well. I only have little time to talk
though. I can only keep you for a short time or Allen will feel it. You
must listen.
We have something that Allen and his race want desperately. Our powers
come from within, theirs come from without. Inner powers are stronger
than their own and they see that as a threat. They want to have this
inner power also, and if they can’t have it they must mold someone, you,
into a lackey for them to use his powers according to their will.
They’re confident they can destroy me. They tried to, several times but
you prevented it with your own inner power. I know that you know not how
to use this power, but I must teach you,” Taylor interrupted her.
“Than there is a way to fight them?” asked Taylor.
“Yes. And here’s how we’re going to do it…”
