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Hair's Breadth
-- Chapter 29
PRINCIPALITIES
OF THE AIR
1. "Master," the anti-being reported. "I see
them," its master relied, "they're messing with us... unembodied
spiritual feces," it mocked. "Where did they come from?" the
subordinate asked. "Who knows?" its master answered, "Who knows
where any of them come
from? Who knows what's happened since..." The sentence was
unfinished because of its bitter conclusion.
2. Ireana's limited sensory perception did not
register the anti-beings. On the other hand, Onimex had wider
bandwidth perception than the anti-beings and could see them
clearly.
3. "Imagine a supreme intelligence capable of making
worlds without end..." "The One," Ireana interrupted. "The One,"
Onimex continued, with innumerable hosts and creations beyond
measure..."
4. "Is that soulless entity mocking us?" the
superior anti-being scoffed. "It sounds like it," the subordinate
answered, "it sounds convincingly animated."
5. "And!..." Ireana prodded. "Anointing a
single creature as Its divine protector," Onimex finished. "I
can't believe this," the superior anti-being rebuked, "they talk about it too?" The
chief anti-being had forbidden his realm to discuss the moment of their
photonic inversion: From their occluded point of view -- they became
enlightened instead. Ireana and Onimex did not belong to their
realm and could discuss any damn thing they pleased, puns
included.
6. "Guardian of the proverbial throne," Ireana
interpreted. "Yes," Onimex answered. "Proverbial?" the
superior anti-being scoffed incredulously.
7. "It does seem a bit redundant," Ireana
confessed
and added, "unless, The One felt ... sorry ... for whoever or
whatever." "BINGO!" Onimex exclaimed. He had
already absorbed the history of Earth games. "Redundant!"
the superior anti-being began to fume, "felt SORRY for
me!"
8. "In fact," Ireana continued, "might that
utterly redundant 'Guardian-of-God' be the most useless creature of
all? Seriously -- what would the Creator of the entire Universe
need a guardian for?" "Instability," Onimex answered.
Ireana looked surprised and contemplated his answer, "Instability," she
repeated. The anti-being was so furious it couldn't speak.
9. "You're going to entangle the Ellipsis into all
of this, somehow, aren't you?" Ireana asked. "I was thinking of
The
Light Race on Corlos," he answered. "Disconnected," she reassured
him. She paused to survey their new environment. Onimex
projected an Enochian script in an ultraviolet bandwidth, "Hope you
enjoyed the show -- you unembodied spiritual feces!" The
anti-beings fled because Onimex was above and beyond them in ways they
could not comprehend.
10. "You're saying The One needed to refine photonic mass through
a fire of sorts,"
Ireana deduced. "Exactly," Onimex replied. They curiously
watched goose stepping
soldiers pass in review and turn at the far
corner. "I don't know much about this period of time," Ireana
confessed.
11. "When were we supposed to arrive?" she asked. She
observed that her elegant pantsuit was inappropriate for a
seek-and-terminate mission.
12. Then she became additionally suspicious, "Where are we?" They had
luxuriated long enough and now it was time to get down to
business.
13. "Well, it's not 1938 Earth," Onimex confirmed. Her
knowledge
of ancient Earth history was limited to what little she knew of
Dayton's pre-Corlos life. He
had become her favorite subject and was clearly less stressful than
Kor.
14.
"Corlos never makes this kind of error?" she told herself, "it's not
the simulator." Now she was dealing with the 'termination' part.
15. "He's such a beautiful shellan,"
she lamented, "and I thought B'jhon knew I wanted
to talk to him about his invention first." He would need to be
alive in order to do that, "...so they want me to kill him," she said weakly, "It's
just not adding up."
16. "Call Corlos," she instructed him.
17. "Nobody's home," he replied, "signal's
blocked."
18. "By who?" she asked.
19. "There's an amplifier net overhead, synching with something I
can't locate," he answered. "Strong enough to defeat a
signal to Corlos?" she asked. "Strong enough that we're
lucky we even made it through alive," he answered, "I would almost
believe that we were allowed to pass."
20. "The anomalies created a counter-paraphasic deflection at
every intersection and overlap. The space inside the net has been
relocated. I may never get to the bottom of this. I don't
know where we are, really. The astral configuration is not like
anything I have on file."
21. "What was your mission brief?" she asked him. She
was ready to smack him if he said, "You know we don't get mission
briefs," and he must have sensed it.
22. "To accompany you to 1938 Berlin, Germany," Onimex answered,
"so that you can terminate Dayton."
23. "You've already suggested that we did not arrive," she
said.
24. "The amplifier net is acting as radio dial through time,"
Onimex observed, "Out arrival was disrupted by the amplifiers.
Even if I could locate precisely 'when' we are, the space above and
below the amplifiers is not the same."
"So, what's our status here and now?" Ireana asked.
25. "All of the world's chronographs report that we're in 1986,
local time," Onimex answered. Ireana contemplated the
situation.
26. "I have to conclude that Dayton somehow 'did' all
this?" Her experience with Earth was insufficient to know what
changes were made, if any. "Can you tell me what he did?" she
asked.
27.
"This is Washington D.C.," Onimex answered, "in the United States.
This is the global operations center of the 27th century Earth we
visited earlier. Right there is the Washington monument, over
there is the White House, and there's the Jefferson memorial."
All of which meant nothing to Ireana. The sound of another column
of goose-stepping soldiers began to emerge from the distance.
"In this reality, the global operations center is in New Berlin,
Germany, about 5,000 miles that way."
28. "I don't think the 27th
century Earth could have evolved from this," Ireana deduced
uncertain.
"It doesn't seem likely," Onimex agreed.
29.
"Well then, Onimex," Ireana said,
drawing another breath, "How do we 'seek-and-terminate' a 1938
target
from 1986?" She leaned back and felt a gun holster pressed upon
her left ribcage. The sensation was empowering.
30. "Once I reach both ends of the amplifier net, I
should have an answer," Onimex replied. "Ends?" Ireana quipped,
"I didn't know a sphere had 'ends.'"
31.
"What did Dayton do?"
Ireana asked earnestly, "give me the briefing."
32.
Onimex downloaded a datastream into Ireana's synapse so that her
unconscious mind could unravel the images, like remembering a
dream. The dream contained the most relevant alternate
realities. Grey matter was good for sorting out data like
that.
33.
"Oh, I see," Ireana whispered slowly. "Very... layered, ...
complicated." She huffed and looked away, "It's all about
money!" I'm glad M'tro-1 wasn't like
this."
34. The meaning of the Confederate Southern Cross
with a
black Nazi swastika in the upper triangle, flying on top of the
Nation's Capitol rang loudly in her mind.
35.
Even the Americans who helped the 3rd Reich seize control of America
were sent to domestic concentration camps and gassed. "It looks
neat and orderly, but it's a facade," she whispered. The column
of goose-stepping
soldiers was now passing before them. This time, she felt
apprehensive, but
confident that her mind was more capable than all of theirs
combined.
36. "Is Xanax indentured?" Ireana asked. Onimex
caught everything she omitted. "I didn't realize you knew about
any of that," Onimex answered. "Not bad for a biological," she
winked. "I have to bring Xanax in," Onimex replied. Ireana
understood what he meant, "What Segment does that make me?" she
joked, tongue-in-cheek. "You're a 4 cusp," he
answered. "You need to connect with Xanax right away," she
ordered.
37.
"Are you going to kill the creator of Xanax?" Onimex
asked. Ireana nodded her head. "I'd like to opt-out of
this," Onimex said. "Do you remember
the
27th century
spaceport
in Florida?" Ireana asked.
38. "Of course," Onimex answered.
39.
"I was uncertain a minute ago, but I've figured it out now: That
spaceport did not evolve from this," she said flatly, "It's an
impossibility." Onimex made some quick deductions of his own,
based on his 27th century explorations. The Nazi's killed the
bank, then created another one that was much worse. There was an
error.
40. "I have answers," Onimex injected, "I'm
connected to Xanax. The amplifier net stretches from the moment
the Cardship disappeared in real time, to last year."
41.
"Me getting to Xanax is not a
problem," he said. "Getting
'you' there is the problem... for both
of us." "Moving inside the net should be a local procedure,
shouldn't it?" Ireana commented, as if it was merely a matter crossing
a vacant street.
42. She patted his upper surface affectionately,
"I know you can overcome these obstacles because I
made you to be a problem solver." Onimex took a great deal
of pride in her approval; she knew how to play him
like a fiddle, and honestly, he didn't care.
43. "The Cardship that Kor believed to have crash
landed on Earth is buried in the Sahara Desert on the other side
of this planet: She's using sand
for repairs," Onimex
reported. "You're in touch with Her?" Ireana asked
amazed. It would be like the Mother her parents interacted
with before they settled M'tro-1.
44. "No, but She planted a thousand phase-shift
harmonizers in orbit that I can easily use to facilitate a
transport of our own."
45. "You realize this entire system will be somewhere else in
1938," Ireana said. "I
do this for a living," Onimex assured her, "I'm tied into Mother's
harmonizer net now," he added, "... she thinks I'm one of hers."
Ireana
shrugged with pride, "Well technically... aren't
you?" She accepted Mother's presumption as a beautiful
compliment: The parts, knowledge and resources used to build
Onimex came from a Cardship. "You
were," Onimex corrected, "I wasn't. I was born on M'tro-1."
She squinted her eyes at first, and then realized that his inception
was important to him. "Yes," she agreed understandingly, "you
were... definitely were."
46. As Corlos operatives, they no
longer dwelled among the living, "Don't tell Her anything,"
Ireana said sadly. "She thinks Xanax is a transmitter from
Conscious," he reported. Until now, this had all been folklore,
"So Conscious is real?" she asked. "The whole Ellipsis is,"
Onimex didn't miss a beat. Ireana was impressed.
47. "When we were in Florida," Onimex continued, "I exchanged
IFF's
with Xanax during the Cardship intervention. Since I've been
here, I've been trying to calculate an energy conduit for biological
transit... we have a hard connection now," he confirmed. "You
guys have two states of existence," Onimex complained, "and you seem to
forget about that." "Me?" Ireana retorted, "how do your photons get around?" It
wasn't the same thing.
48.
"Corlos doesn't know that the transport was muddled up at the
destination, do they?" Ireana asked, "Is there even a way for them to
figure that out?"
49.
"The net's delicate," Onimex said, "If I get in the mix now -- it will
make more ripples, and Xanax knows that too. We can't contact
Corlos
until we arrive at a point prior to the net's
establishment. The simulator logged a successful
transport: They don't know that the transport
was muddled up on this end."
50. "Can you pick up a real-time trace from 1986?"
she asked. She was suggesting that the time differential would
obstruct normal attempts at trace detection.
51.
"I can tap into the harmonizer now," Onimex said, "but the less I tap
into it -- the better off it is, especially when Mother thinks I'm one
of hers... she might possess me and stick me someplace I don't want to
be."
52. "Good point," Ireana answered, "then we'd
really be stranded."
53. "I should get you a nice girl machine," she
said off the cuff, "before you get too old to..." she stopped
short. If only he had a face so that she could see his
expression.
54. "Don't worry," he comforted her, "your
kids will also be mine." That elicited a quizative look, "From
the mouth of Cosmos," she said, giving him her full attention;
eyes full of interest, "Was that a quantum slip? ... I
must have done some
serious programming."
55.
"I've unwrapped part of this," Onimex reported, "I keep losing the
tralier because Mother pushed the harmonic to an adjacent
dimension. She doesn't know where she is either, as long as the
Elite can't find her." "She translated Earth?" Ireana
surmised. "In effect," he agreed. "The visible parts are
like a flashing neon sign."
56.
“Neon?” she questioned? "Neon is banned?" "Because Vejhon had a
watershell," he clarified, "M'tro-1
didn't have a watershell and it was still banned, wasn't it?" he
asked. Ireana nodded. "Vejhon's watershell filters crimson
bands which prevents the creation
of Neon 17, 18 and 19." "Lazers?" Ireana injected.
"Eco-terrorism," Onimex added. "Ah, yes," she said,
"it wouldn't mix well... lazers don't have to be strictly
neon..."
57. She could see the cosmic justice:
On shells with an intact watershell, lazers are impossible to
make until the indigenous learn to separate the nobel gasses. A
natural defense mechanism.
58. "Cosmic balance or divine justice?" she wondered.
59. "Perhaps they're the same?" Onimex offered, "perfect balance
has the quantitative potential of zero."
60. "So, someone's got to stir things up to create action," she
realized. "Is this where your mind is most of the time?" she
asked.
61.
"Xanax found something," Onimex said.
62. "He put it in our co-located data storage
point."
63. "We have a plan now," Onimex said, "We're
going to move you and Dayton to 1962 Hawaii. I need to go up and
calibrate a new time-index. Xanax will merge all of us there,
unaffected by everything that's going on right now." "By all
means," she invited with her arms, "Please proceed!"
64.
Onimex darted straight up and within a few seconds said, "Are you ready
for this?" "Whenever you are," she replied.
65. The hazy out-of-body sensation engulfed her
physical matter and relocated her to a beautiful Hawaiian beach.
Of course, the word "Hawaii" didn't mean anything, but it was about
to...
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