“We’ve got to talk but not here. Let’s get some breakfast, and we’ll take the tram to Eagles Nest. I’ve got a locker up there with all my gear in it. There is a small lake, my favorite spot.”
The tram ride was quiet. Bill and Martin had beaten the morning rush. This was hiking and fishing paradise and yet they were the only two in this gondola. Snow had been too light this season to open the runs but day trips to the top of the mountain were popular.
At the top Bill wasted no time grabbing the gear. He didn’t really have his mind set on catching anything. That part was ok with Martin. Cleaning a fish was not on his bucket list.
Martin struggled to keep the pace.
Bill stopped and casually looked back down the trail checking to see if anyone was following them. After reassuring himself, he gently nudged Martin off the trail toward a cleft in the rocks. They squeezed in and climbed the debris in the crevice, exiting on the far side. Bill swiftly moved on his secret, and, judging by its condition, seldom used route through the brush. They crested a ridge, and there lay his personal hideaway. A pond set in a mountain bowl, it was not more then thirty yards across, and perhaps fifty or sixty yards long. At the upper end a small creek tumbled off the mountainside onto the rappel at the edge. At the lower end, lily pads and reeds concealed the out flow. How could he have found a place so untouched by decades of natural and social trauma?
“I grew up near here. My brother and his best friend let me in on this place one summer when I was nine. He swore me to secrecy. Unlike what you may hear about brothers, we trusted one another.”
“Where is your brother now?”
“I’m not sure. He went to NorAm when he was thirty-five and that was about two years before the CME. I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”
“I’m sorry to hear that; how about the rest of your family?”
“They’re all gone too. I think they were raptured; my brother and my parents. It was hard for most people to accept. It was chaos; so many people died or were never found.”
“That must have been an awful time for you?”
Bill paused in thought then added “I think it was worse for those of us who knew that we had screwed up. We lost faith in the promise, and gave into the threats. We had families to worry about.”
“You were married?”
“Yeah, my wife Karen and two daughters; they’re also gone now. That’s the good news. The bad is I’m still here. I just can’t believe that I screwed up so bad.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Bill looked at Martin, “You weren’t here, were you? Where were you? How did you manage to dodge the implant? I assume you did, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess so. I mean, yeah. I didn’t plan it. It just happened. I volunteered for the first translation, if you can call it the first. It was just before my scheduled 666 implant and I was hoping they’d toast me by accident but the thing worked. I returned about five hundred days later. By then my records showed that I had received the implant and . . . .”
“Five hundred day’s later?” Bill was a little stunned.
“Yeah, when I returned it was to a history where the chamber completion was delayed five hundred and thirty two days to be exact.”
“What happened during those five hundred days?”
“Nothing, I was only gone for a day that time. Or should I say I thought I was only gone for a day. Apparently it was long enough for me to screw things up for history as we . . . no as you know it.”
“That time! Do you mean there were others?”
“Oh I guess I quit counting after a couple dozen. I lost count.”
Bill still looked puzzled. “How could you lose count on something like that?”
“Well. Did you ever see the movie Ground Hog Day? You know; the one about the guy who wakes up every morning on the same day.”
“Yeah he gets to relive it over and over until he gets it right. I guess that’s the point.”
“Well. You loose count. Every trip is almost the same except that I think the time keeps moving ahead each time. Here it is 2025 and I’m still bouncing around the calendar.”
Bill thought, “It makes sense that it could move either way. Why are you keeping it a secret?”
“After returning the first time I had a couple of close calls with the UNIS. Remember, I don’t really have the chip. Dodging the UNIS wasn’t going to be easy. It just a matter of time before the system flags me; and it becomes a bit of a trick without any money. In fact, there wasn’t any money. All purchases were made through individual cyber tallies. I didn’t have an implant to do the tally. By that time my wife was gone and I had to steal in order to eat.”
“How long were you doing that?”
“Not too long. After a couple of cycles I began to grab up the opportunity to get an expense card. The agency or the company I’m assigned to usually issues it. It pays for my food. It doesn’t require a hand swipe.”
“That’s right it doesn’t. Boy that’s a lucky break for you. How long do you think you can do this?”
“Well, I don’t really know. I don’t exactly know what my advantages are or why I’ve been successful this long. I think I’ve been eluding the UNIS this long because each time I do this, I get a little trickier but they always have to start with an empty file folder. I’m getting to know what I can do and, more important, what I can’t do. I am getting a little older and time is moving on, but I do have a plan. The technology to do this is not fixed by date. That means that I’m hoping that someday the technology will occur prior to the 666 implant. Then at that point I’ll quit volunteering, and take my chances.”
“Why not stop now or, in the past? You don’t have the implant.”
“I could, but I don’t know if the Gates of Heaven, or should I say, the realm access to heaven, will still be open. I would like to hedge my bet a little. I’d like to spend those last days with my wife.”
“I can sure understand that. I never knew what lonely was, until this all happened. I’m in the opposite camp, though. If I were to volunteer there is a good chance that I would wind up in the right time period but with the implant. I’d have to commit suicide, in order to remove the implant.”
“Why is that?”
“Along with the implant there are cyanide capsules somewhere in my body that are trigger released when the blood markers indicate the implant has separated from the body. It’s not put there for law-abiding citizens. It’s put there for the die hard Christians.”
“Swell.”
Bill sighed, “There has to be a way. What about ANGL? Isn’t that the same as the 666 implant?”
“I sure hope not. I don’t know anything about any cyanide capsules. You got me worried though.”
ANGL; About what?
“That’s odd. ANGL doesn’t understand.”
ANGL; About what!?
Martin; That you could be a threat to my system.
ANGL; Nothing of that nature is known.
Martin; I guess that is a reassuring as “the check is in the mail.”
Bill reassured Martin “I believe he was designed to be as benevolent as possible.”
We watched some trout amble by. Bill still hadn’t bothered to put a line in the water. It was almost as if he envied their freedom and couldn’t bring himself to end it.
“Couldn’t you wrap your hand in aluminum foil and shield it so you could be translated back without a signal, or something like that?”
Bill smiled at Martin’s naivety and added, “No, because of the laws of physics; realm boundary definition doesn’t work quite like that. What’s in the realm needs only to be accounted for as mass and energy” another moment of thoughtful silence.
“Why can’t you find the capsules?”
“It wouldn’t do any good. I couldn’t possibly remove them all at the same moment. I’d need a cast of thousands to accomplish the medical procedure” a
nother moment. “Why is it so bad? What did I do that was so bad?”
Martin had considered that question before. “Well. I think it’s like this. Would you buy a piece of property and pay the full price knowing that an adversary had a lien on it? Laws governing God’s kingdom are immutable. Serving two gods is more than a loose end, and God’s realm has no place whatsoever for such things. I found the answer for myself in the Book of Revelations 12:11. It ends by saying that they ‘loved not their lives unto death.’ meaning that our total authority must be laid in the hands of God with no reservation, no liens.”
Bill look saddened and slowly shook his head.
“That’s only part of it. The Bible talks about the keys to heaven, the keys of David, the keys to the gate, and such. There is or was a door that needed to be opened. I’m thinking that door is like the interface between the realms that you’re researching. However that interface, that door spoken of, is relating to the harvest, the rapture. It is the door through which God reaches to harvest what He has sown. That door is closed. That door was closed as the last trumpet sounded. It’s referred to in 1Colossians 15:52. I think it’s the same door that the virgins encounter, when they return too late. They pound on the door and Jesus answers by saying ‘Depart. I never knew you’. The economy of God can at times seem unreasonable. In any case He will not throw off the balance of eternity, accept that which his grace allows.
I think this extends to the conservation of matter and energy in this realm. When God harvests, He won’t be removing the fundamentals of this realm, mass and energy. Instead, He will be withdrawing part of the “Grewer set”, as you put it, will, spirit and only part of our authority; the Boolean overlap. There is no indication that the door will be reopened. He hasn’t told us everything; in fact the end of the millennium may bring some surprises, in spite of the judgment, or even more surprising, in light of it. To some, the judgment may bring a pardon at some level that we do not yet understand.”
“It seems that my chances are slim to none.”
“I suppose you’re right for now but it ain’t over till it’s over. Hang in there Bill, you’re a good man. There may be another loophole. I hesitate to suggest this Bill, but martyrdom carries with it a special dispensation; if that’s what you would call it?”
“How so?”
“Well, the act of not shrinking back, for His name’s sake, and unto death, reaps many blessings. It reflects the “greater love hath no man” verse as well as dozens of other blessings. There is also the business about removing the body part that offends; it being better to enter heaven without it than not at all.”
“Well, I’ve lived with the knowledge of the worst for years. It’s not sounding so bad today.” Bill gazed out at a fish-ring forming in the center of the small lake. “What’s next for you?”
“That’s a good question. The UNIS is either hot on my trail, or soon will be. Dodging them is a full time job. I’ve still got another couple of weeks before the scheduled launch in Denver. I’d get out of here tomorrow if I could. Even if I left today, it would take me a week to get there and I’d have to do some explaining.”
“Not if you were translated from here.”
Martin knitted his brow in surprise “I don’t understand. Is this system capable of doing that?”
“Yes, it’s a little smaller but as a prototype, it does everything the Denver site can do. It’s been down for rework and to install new software.”
“That’s great but don’t we need the ‘cast of thousands’?”
Bill chuckled “No. It’s all pretty automated. They’ve upgraded the software but I think we can work through the check list on our own.”
ANGL; The check list and launch prep are in the science library.
“Bill, ANGL just informed me that he is up to speed with the whole procedure. He can remotely tap into the launch controller if needed. Will this cause you any trouble?”
“No; it shouldn’t. I’ll just clear the launch data set and reset the registers. Tomorrow is Sunday, and there will only be a skeleton crew. Is tomorrow too soon?”
“Are you kidding me? I won’t even mind hiding in a dumpster tonight.”
“No, no, come home with me. I’ll hide you in the attic if necessary. The UNIS doesn’t have any way of tracking you tonight. The way transcontinental travel is, they’re probably still setting at the depot in Baghdad.”
“Ok Bill. Let’s catch one of these little buggers. I’m a’get’n hungry.”
Bill and Martin spent a few more hours talking and fishing. Martin caught one large fish and Bill generously and graciously cleaned it and cooked it.
* * * * *
Chapter 22 – Lickin’ the Spoon
There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.
Albert Einstein