39

Rei tried to hide her derision where Sal's newfound blind belief in the Rogue was involved. She wasn't very good at it though, and Sal saw through her mask. Whatever had happened to Sal had obviously erased his ability to think. Rei was surprised when Sal formed a semi-coherent question.

"Is this the same dimension as when I left? I sorta took some actions back there."

The Rogue stared off into space for a moment, as though trying to compute the trajectory of time then and there. Then, he answered. "An old saying says you cannot step in the same river twice, and so the principle is true here. However, to answer your question, the changes you made are mostly negligible and time has morphed accordingly and accommodatingly. The biggest change you have made is summoning Aries. It's been a while since I've talked to him. He was never the most pleasant conversationalist--what with the setting on fire of things and rivers of blood."

Sal turned pale at the mention of the name as images of Aries flooded back into his mind.

"It seems everyone here has had an interaction with a god of some kind or another," said the Rogue wryly. "Even Rei over there has seen Cerberus though she scoffs inwardly at the idea of your having summoned Aries, Sal."

"You said earlier that we have a duty that influences how things unfold, is that right Rogue? Doesn't everyone by existing tend to do that?" asked Uziel.

"That's a good question, Uziel," began the Rogue. "Everyone contributes to how the tapestry unfolds, but some threads are more crucial than others in that so many other threads depend on them."

"Why can't you just fix this matter yourself, then?" asked Uziel.

"Well, I suppose I technically could, but the best way to think about the issue is that it is against company policy for me to do such a thing."

Uziel bristled at the Rogue's reply since Hiro had told him the same thing. What was it with these guys? Why become all-powerful and all-knowing if company policy forbade the use of either when it mattered?

Sal finally shook off the images that arose at the mention of Aries's name. "There is something that bothers me, Rogue. When I was off doing what you suggested I did, I didn't see you anywhere in the town square. How did you survive the attack?"

The Rogue let a self-indulgent smile cross his lips. His reply was cryptic. "The funny thing about time," he began, "is that you only see those things that are most relevant to you at any given point. In some sense, my house exists outside of time. Once a very long while ago, there were experiments done concerning the attention span of human beings. When the humans were told to watch how many times a ball was passed among players, they paid attention so closely to the ball being passed, that they missed a man walking onto the scene in a gorilla suit. Stage magicians used the same technique. Perhaps one might call it misdirection. I prefer to think of it as a misperception. It is not as though my house is not in those time frames, but almost more like the people in those time frames tend to ignore it. For what it is worth, though, Sal, you did look smashing out there standing next to Prilock."

"So you DID see me!" Sal exclaimed. "Why didn't you try to come and get me???"

"Well, you left of your own accord, so I figured the best thing would be for you to return of your own accord. After all, you and Prilock seemed to establish such a rapport. I wonder why that was?"

Sal waited for an answer. The Rogue didn't offer any. Finally, Sal pressed him. "WHY WAS IT THEN?"

The Rogue chortled. "The easiest way to answer that is to say that time isn't as linear as everyone would like to think. Without your intervention, Prilock would have been killed. Could you hand me your knife, Sal?"

Sal instinctively reached for his pocket. When he patted it, he found the familiar bulk was missing. He began to frantically search his pocket. Maybe the wind had knocked it out? Where the hell was it?

The Rogue chimed in, "I shouldn't think you would need to search your pockets long. The blade is gone. It is gone because it has served its purpose, and the debt it represented has been paid. You are now free to travel lighter, Sal Grimone."

"I don't want to travel lighter," said Sal. "I want my damn knife back!"

"Be careful what you wish for," replied the Rogue. "Because you just might get it!"

Sal fidgeted in his chair and folded his arms.

"I think we have had enough of mystery hour," began the Rogue. Let's get down to the details of why you are here."

"As I said before," the Rogue began, "You are here because you each have a role to play in how time unfolds. You each are already involved in the tapestry. You are here to inform you of the choices at your disposal. You are each here of your own volition, of choices you have made. Uziel decided to trust Hiro. Rei decided to act on Reipawn's suggestion. Sal voluntarily took a job where he discovered some highly confidential information. None of you may have directly known what these decisions entailed as a consequence, but yet here you are." The Rogue took a moment to let that sink in. Then he began again. "The critical point we have come to involves a Shaper--Enoch Tero to be precise. Most Shapers are selected on the basis of their fittedness to be a Shaper, and it is true that Enoch is fitted to be one. Enoch, however, lacks what one might call compassion. He seeks to impose order at any cost. If he is successful then an age of darkness will descend upon us. At this moment, he is conspiring to bring this very thing about--and he intends to deceive the entirety of the Star Council to accomplish it. The details of his plan are less important to each of you. What is important is that every one of you carries a critical thread of the tapestry that will foil his efforts. For you, Uzine, you have your mission with the chimeras. For you, Rei, you have whomever this Reipawn is directing your actions--though to what end you do not yet know. For you, Sal, you have access to information that no one else does on the planet that you intend to use for profit. Each of these things when put together has the power to frustrate Enoch's ambitions. Yet, just as you each had choices in the decisions that brought you here, you continue to have choices now. Depending on what you each do with the pieces you have, then Enoch will be successful or fail. His success or failure creates a critical point in time with evolutionary lines and consequences rippling far into the future."

One could hear a pin drop in the room as the Rogue let these words hang.

"Uzine," the Rogue said after a seeming eternity of silence. "Your tattoo is now red and will remain so. You are, in essence, a dead chimera. Sal, the hacker you have been is not the hacker you have to continue to be, and Rei, it is not necessary to understand everything in order to form a belief or a lack of one. Everyone has reasons and justifications for all that they do, believe, and think. I urge you all to keep these things in mind."

Sal furrowed his brow as he heard these words. He still wasn't satisfied with the explanations the Rogue had offered.

"I still don't understand how Aries features into all of this, Rogue--or for that matter any of the other Gods you casually named--and you SPOKE to ARIES?"

"Yes, I've spoken with him."

"How or why on Earth did you do that?"

"Well, you know how and why, because you did it. I can't remember if when I last spoke with him we were on Earth, however."

"Could you cut the crap and give me some answers?" inquired Sal.

"I could," said the Rogue, "But what fun would that be? The problem is that I doubt any of you have a sufficient reference to understand the old Gods."

"Why is that?" asked Uzine.

"Because," began the Rogue, "Your culture has attempted to systematically expunge them. It saw the old Gods and religions as causes of unnecessary strife and conflict. Rei has in her possession one of the books that was restricted dealing with one such older religion, is that not right, Rei?"

Rei became restless at the mention of the book.

"Yes," she replied.

"Did the contents seem like anything you had read before?"

"No," replied Rei. "Maybe some of it was similar to the writings of the Shapers, but no."

"So what exactly was Aries?" Sal pressed the Rogue.

"Aries is an old God--a very, very old God. He was a God that did not exist in conjunction with the Runic Wars until your introduction of him there. In the original timeline, he slumbered through that conflict because he had been largely forgotten. However, because you summoned him, you have created a slightly different timeline and an immensely different spiritual fault line."

"A spiritual fault line?"

"Yes, a spiritual fault line. There was a time period of extreme monism ushered in by Christianity--another religion that has long since disappeared. Christianity had the tendency to attempt to eradicate the notion that there were other entities than God. Why, there were councils designed to promote and demote certain angels for fear that the focus on them might become too great. Aries was an old God, but that is not to say that he was 'THE GOD.' However, he was a sufficient force for the people to worship him for quite some time, along with other gods.

"So why did Aries disappear?" inquired Uzine.

"It was not that Aries disappeared from the standpoint of the spiritual reality. He was always around. However, people stopped worshipping him as religions changed and polytheistic beliefs were eschewed in favor of monism. As people stopped worshipping him, they stopped directing their energy toward him deliberately. As a consequence, his grip on the physical plane began to slip. Separate entities, such as Aries, require regular attention in order to exert their influence. If people do not believe in them, that is not to say they do not exist, or that they are unable to influence matters in subtle ways. Aries is a spirit of war. Wherever there is war, he will revel in the occurrence, whether people believe in him or not.

"I guess that explains how I managed to summon him," said Sal.

"You tapped into the energy that was most readily accessible. You thought you were writing a simple deception, but the medium for the energy can be many different things. It doesn't matter whether it is code, a poem, or a movie. What matters is that it focuses your mind passionately on the energy contained. By focusing so intently and furiously on the deception--you were in effect deceived into thinking you were writing code as opposed to performing a kind of invocation."

Rei crossed her arms. "I am not saying I believe in any of this. However, you mentioned a spiritual fault line being different as a consequence of Aries being summoned. It seems to me that the fault line would mainly only exist where the physical plane was concerned."

"Very good, Rei!" began the Rogue. "That's exactly what would happen. It's hard to say what will happen now that Aries has been summoned in the Runic wars. It is certain though that his appearance will foster followers trying to harness his energy as Sal inadvertently did."

Let's go back to what you were talking about before with us having pieces to stop an age of darkness?" began Uzine.

"There are more gods than Aries--more forces that work at cross purposes. There are some of love, some of wisdom, some of wrath. More than a few wish to cause massive suffering. They desire these things because such moments cause people to doubt and to give their power away for what they perceive as safety. When the first instance of something awful happens, people are shocked. They are shocked because it is not their natural state to witness such things. When something awful becomes accepted as part of reality, people simply wish to avoid whatever the awful thing is, and on a mass level, they will begin to adjust their consciousness to "blend in" so as not to attract the wrath of such a system. A few hundred years later, people have forgotten all about how things were before. The new reality becomes darker and more cynical. Denser spiritual entities can take hold in such fertile soil. The individual can influence how things unfold by his attitude toward these events. If he allows dark happenings to crush him into conformity, he is perpetuating the problem just as everyone else is. On the other hand, he cannot control what the masses choose to believe, and so he is also at their mercy. The greatest danger is always masses of people believing in darkness. This is so because the masses of people believing in darkness will, out of fear, demand the punishment of those who hold the light. If there are masses of people holding the light, however, they do not demand the punishment of those who would hold the dark (indeed, the punishment is more automatic in such a case). For this reason, once the spiral of darkness starts, it is difficult to arrest."

"And we hold the keys to stop this process, eh?" Rei asked pointedly.

"Yes, you do. You should know that more than either Sal or Uzine. After all, Rei, you were the one most disillusioned by the claim that the Shapers were Gods. How were you able to determine such a thing if you did not understand something about the nature of humans and also something about the nature of Gods?"

Rei didn't answer the Rogue's question. Instead, she looked away.

Silence permeated the room. The Rogue looked at his watch. "Well, I think it is time for our little meeting to be up. Good luck to each of you on that whole saving the world thing. I think you guys have a least a twenty percent chance of pulling it off--maybe even thirty. I suggest you each prepare yourselves for slip-stream..." the Rogue didn't finish his sentence before the nausea of slipstream travel was upon all three of them.