New Gods for Old – No Faith Required. (conclusion.)

1

"Welcome Gentlemen." Harry was leaning leisurely on the back of an open top car, as Toro and William appeared at the entrance. "If you'd care to join me we will take a spin - I think I'd better drive."2

Even as Toro and William took their seats the car leaped forwards and up wards. 3

"You have been given the honour of a meeting with Candy, and then I'll take you to see the sights." Harry told them. He didn't turn his head but his face appeared for a moment through the hair at the back of his head.4

"Jesus! I wish you wouldn't do that, I'm shaking like a leaf already." William swallowed loudly.5

"Why are we here Harry?" Toro asked.6

"It's complicated, I'll let Candy explain, but I'll tell you this; you’re damn lucky she's more tolerant than most. You give the AI's a headache with your bickering."7

"I don't get it Harry, what are you on about now?" 8

Harry snorted. "Imagine William; a well - a very deep well and strung across it are layers of piano wires, each layer has millions of strings and there are thousands of layers - that represents the CM, and you and Toro are like two kids at the top throwing handfuls of pebbles down. Each string hit gives out a sound and cause harmonics in its neighbours - get the picture now?"9

They did, but neither spoke.10

in only a few minutes Harry landed the car at the foot of a high cliff near the base of the mountain. 11

Harry drifted out of his seat and floated across to the rock wall but 12

Toro and William acted as if it was normal space and climbed out and walked after him. 13

Harry placed his hands on the rock face and an orange glow spread from them. After a moment the rock seemed to fade away leaving a high, rough-hewn passage into the cliff, like the mouth of a mine.14

Harry walked in. Toro shrugged at William and they followed behind him. After about thirty meters of rough tunnel, they stepped out into a vast corridor.15

Toro and William stood and stared at it in amazement. The walls were of polished marble, white with an azure vein. The corridor had to be at least twenty meters wide and high. The light was subdued and seemed to have no source, almost as if the marble itself glowed. The wall had ornate half pillars at twenty-meter intervals, rising to the vaulted roof. The most amazing thing though was that the corridor ran into the distance as far as the eye could see and when Toro turned and looked back he gasped, prompting William to turn as well. All trace of the rock wall was gone and the passage disappeared to vanishing point in that direction as well.16

William looked up and down the corridor a couple of times and realised, were it not for Harry he would be unable to tell which way was which. William shook his head and quickened his step to catch up with Harry. Worse was to come, after four pillars they came an intersection. Harry stood and waited in the centre of the intersection without speaking.17

Toro and William turned around and gaped. In all four directions the passage vanished into the distance and after a moment they were unable to tell which way they had come.18

"Come on Harry - don't fool about. Which way?" 19

"Do you realise, you could be lost here forever - well until your body died in Earth prime anyway?" Harry asked.20

"That's bullshit Harry," Toro snapped. "We just have to log out and we're out of here."21

Harry shrugged. "Try it Toro."22

Harry smiled at the two's growing bewilderment, as they groped for the head set.23

"Candy wanted you to see without any interruptions, or either of you bailing out; the door is closed again until we are finished." 24

Harry watched them, with a half smile on his face, until they gave up their efforts to log out. "How long do you think your people will wait until they take your mindless bodies out of the cyber coffins and strand you here?" He didn't wait for an answer but turned and walked off.25

"Damn your hide Harry! I knew it was a mistake to come!" William shouted at his back.26

"You had no choice and you know it." Harry replied without any emotion in his voice, or without even turning.27

They walked in silence for ten minutes or so until Harry stopped and walked over to the wall. The section appeared exactly the same as all the rest to Toro and William but Harry pressed his hands to it and a section of the wall faded leaving an archway. 28

As they stepped through Toro thought they were back outside. After a moment he realised way above them like clouds in a summer sky there was a vaulted roof, so high that no details were visible. Open mouthed he turned to look at the wall. It rose like a sheer featureless cliff and he had to turn away before he was overcome with vertigo. 29

The floor was smooth and seemed to be made from polished granite, or some such rock. It was laid like massive tiles for just near to where they stood was a join, a slight bevel at the edge of each 'tile' showed where they butted together but there was no sign of grout or cement, the edges just fitted together without a crack. Each 'tile' appeared square and about the same length to a side as the sections of the passage, as if it was all made to some giant rule of length. Of the other three walls there was no sign, just the floor, a vast plain, running out of sight.30

"How much of this is real Harry?" Toro asked, with a tremor in his voice. 31

"Real, doesn't have much meaning here Toro, this is Candy's nexus, she could make it however she wished, and more. For if she made it hot you would burn, ocean, you would drown, so what's real? This is how it is when she exerts no thought on it but that might just be a resting state, like you breathe without thinking about it, so… real, even Candy is not sure. This way."32

Harry led them out a short way from the wall to where a flat bronze plate was set into the floor, a centimetre or so below the floor level.33

"I think you two better have a seat." Harry drew a rectangle in the air with his hands then stretched the sides. The bronze, as if following his instructions rose up and formed a settee like seat.34

The moment Toro and William were seated the plate began to slide, swiftly picking up speed out into the vast room.35

"This is impossible! This plate can't move through rock." Toro told Harry.36

"If you say so Toro," Harry shrugged. "But I would be careful about saying what is and isn't impossible here - think of the irony if something impossible killed you for real."37

They travelled on in silence. Despite the obvious speed it was sometime before Toro and William spotted a feature on the vast empty landscape they were moving across. At first it seemed to be a small, ball shaped building but as they sped on it grew in size. At last the plate came to a halt some hundred meters short of the object. A huge sphere, maybe fifty or sixty meters diameter. It had a silver band just below the equator and slim silver rods, at regular intervals, connecting it to the floor. 38

At first, Toro thought that the sphere was mirror finish and the thin poles were holding down a lighter than air structure. Then he realised tiny motes of light were moving inside, as if in liquid, and the huge weight of the sphere with it's tiny stem legs, suddenly overwhelmed him. He had to turn and walk away, almost overcome with nausea. 39

Toro took a few slow, deep breaths, trying to calm his jangling nerves. He realised William was close by and heard his gasps. After a few minutes, Toro felt recovered enough to cautiously look around again. A little further away now the sphere was less daunting but Toro winced when he saw Harry. He had walked up to the base of the sphere and spread his arms wide as if to embrace it, his cheek pressed against the surface. An orange and red corolla seemed to glow within the sphere around Harry.40

"Welcome Toro Tanaka and William Baxter." Candy's voice seemed to come from all around and was mellifluous and friendly. "We desire that you should see more now of what you call the, ‘Correlation Matrix’. You have failed to understand just how important it is and how it will effect human life. To that end we wish Harry to show you the most important parts and then we will talk a little more. We realise that you may not be happy about the way in which we persuaded you to come but we had few options. We could have just snatched you or used other force but we felt this was the least harmful. Ngama?"41

Harry walked over to Toro and William. "Put these on and be ready." Harry told them tersely, handing them wrap-around dark glasses.42

Between one breath and the next they were transported. Toro and William nearly lost their balance but Harry seemed unaffected.43

They appeared to be outside again, near to the edge of a crater. In the centre of the depression was what William first took for a huge tangled ball of string, somehow hovering there. A movement caught his eye, a tiny black dot was moving near the base of the ball and the scale of the object he was looking at suddenly hit him. The crater had to be twenty kilometres or more in diameter the ball perhaps half that.44

"God all bloody mighty! What is this Harry?"45

Harry stood looking down into the crater. "This is the toy you children have been playing with," Harry's voice was harsh with emotion. "This is, The Centre."46

Toro was a little steadier than William, but had still backed away from the awe-inspiring drop. "The centre of what Harry?" he asked in a hushed whisper.47

Harry sighed. "A very good question Toro. The A.Is. call the matrix, A-space, and this is the centre of A-space and therefore; the centre of everything."48

"I don't understand Harry, what do you mean?" William was struggling to come to terms with what he was seeing and what Harry was saying. He was clearly loosing in both cases.49

"We'll go inside and you'll see but first look at the sphere, see how it is formed? Each of those strands is a double helix bent into a near circle, they form a continuous path around the whole sphere, and see how they appear larger on the inside of the turn? It looks like an optical illusion because your mind can't handle it but in fact it is a sphere that is bigger on the inside than the outside, come. "50

Again there was no transition but they were now standing in the middle of a wide tunnel, around ten metres in diameter, but it appeared egg shape, the left-hand side wider than the right.51

"Stand still for a moment and let your eyes adjust; it's is a bit unsettling at first." Harry allowed them a few minutes breathing space then walked over towards the small side, as he did so he appeared to shrink. Then walking back across grew in size so that relative to the tunnel he remained the same height. "I know it looks weird but it is part of the explanation. Don't be afraid."52

Toro and William had suddenly paled and backed up the tunnel.53

"It's only Takmarjin."54

"Welcome Ngama, We are pleased at your return. These are they?" The voice was like Candy's, yet had a bass quality to it that made it sound like a male speaking. "Candy asked me to open a few windows for you."55

The only thing that Toro could equate the object to was a hovering jellyfish. It was a mirrored lens shape at the top, almost like a featureless head and had a broad silver ring below that; but the mass of tentacles that hung almost to the ground, gave the thing a look like something out of a Lovecraft nightmare. The tentacles varied from finger thick to thinner than a hair and were surrounded by a hazy rainbow aura.56

"This is Takmarjin, one of the other A.Is."57

"It's a bit smaller than Candy." William said, his voice still thick with emotion.58

Harry shook his head. "This is a ptar, emm, while it's in the matrix it is the same thing. Takmarjin has ninety ptar, and they are all just the same as the original being, thoughts, knowledge. Even outside the matrix they could function for a while by themselves; you could perhaps think of them as hands?” Harry sounded a little vague about the concept himself.59

“The first window is just here Ngama.” The Takmarjin ptar moved over towards the small side appearing to shrink. One of the thinnest tentacles lifted and touched the wall, leaving a tiny black spot like a period. 60

“Come closer.” Harry beckoned them to walk towards the dot and as they did it appeared to grow until it looked several feet wide. The wall now looked grainy rather than polished as it had done before.61

“Harry chuckled. “Oh yes.” Almost perfectly centred in the window was the Earth, as seen from a high-orbit satellite. Most of the planet was in daylight but they could see the terminator and a small section in shadow.  62

“That can’t really be the Earth, can it?” Toro asked.63

“No, we just brought you here to show you a bloody recording – of course it’s Earth!” Harry snapped. “I told you; from here you can reach anywhere - everywhere. Do you want to see yourself lying in your cyber coffin?”64

“No!” William gulped. The idea scared the willies out of him.65

“Not only can a window be opened but also a doorway, it takes a little longer but it can be done – you see the point?”66

William shook his head and Toro shrugged.67

Harry frowned and then his face calmed a little and he nodded as if someone had spoken. “Takmarjin opens a door on your office William; he opens another on yours Toro. He takes a letter, package, whatever from William’s door and pops it into yours Toro. Now do you get the picture?”68

Toro swallowed. “Transfer?”69

“Exactly! Almost instant transfer, but not just on Earth; anywhere – you want to explore Mars? Alpha Centauri? The Andromeda Galaxy?”70

Takmarjin touched the tentacle to the wall again. The view was of a red desert; in the fore ground was a small object. As William leaned forward he could see the writing on the side – NASA – Mars Lander 12.71

“Just a tad quicker!” Harry commented. “Well done Takmarjin, that was very accurate.” Harry told the ptar.72

The ptar bobbed slightly in the air as if bowing. “We aim to please Ngama.”73

Toro swallowed the lump in his throat. There was no smile of course but it sounded like the ptar had a smile in his voice.74

“One last one.” Harry said to the ptar.75

It floated a little way along the passage and again the tentacle reached up.76

“Attractive  - no?” Harry asked. 77

The scene looked like a landscape painted by a colour-blind child. The ground was a velvet bronze colour and scattered across the hilly landscape were objects that looked like sapphire blue rocks. A thing that resembled a stretched slinky, expanded and contracted, moving towards one of the blue objects. The spiral was vivid red at one end and deep violet at the other but the colour had no transition lines, just a smooth flow from one colour to the other. In a cream coloured sky, small intense green clouds drifted.78

“The creature is a herbivore,” Harry told William and Toro. “The blue things are the plants it feeds on. This is…”79

“Bullshit! That’s what this is!” William shouted. “We are still in Candy and you are just making us see things and inventing a story to go with it – how else could you know all this!” William glared at Harry.80

“Takmarjin is telling Candy and she is telling me, I am like her ptar now.” Harry told them and then chuckled. “She says I am nothing like a ptar – but I have a link to her anyway. What I was about to say was, that this is one of the nearest inhabited planets to Earth. Gentlemen - beholder your neighbours.”81

“William’s right Harry this is all a big hoax. Cut the crap!”82

Harry’s face had a sneer on it for a moment. “Very well.” Harry tipped his head to Takmarjin. “We thank you for your time.” The ptar dipped slightly. “Ready Candy.” Harry said aloud. Without any apparent transition they were back in the featureless plain near the sphere.83

Harry waved a hand at Toro and William. “I told you they wouldn’t believe.”84

“It is unimportant Ngama, do not be upset.” Candy told Harry. “Gentlemen have a seat.”85

Two large armchairs had appeared; each had a filled glass on the arm.86

“We are going to allocate you twice as much room in A space for your commercial needs, you will no-longer be competitors but collaborators. Should there be any dispute over clients we will decide for you.” Candy’s voice was still soft but now had a firm edge to it.87

“Secondly, you will each set up a new company. Yours Toro, since you seldom have time even to consider anything outside your tiny world; will be a scientific research institute. We will arrange access to ‘The Centre’ for selected scientist to study and for space exploration. We will provide computer type simulations for all controversial research – such as embryo research and genetic engineering.”88

Toro wanted to comment but swallowed hard and nodded.89

“Your second company, William, will be a world charity. We will supply you with matter transporters. To be place in designated locations. Within five years we expect all people on earth, both in the developing countries and the poor in your own, to be feed and have access to good education.”90

“Why?” William gasped. “Why are you doing this?”91

Candy gave a small laugh. “We have not yet got to the why – we are still on the what. Ngama will be our security chief. He will run a new worldwide police force, which will supersede all others. Armed conflicts, of any kind, will no longer be tolerated. This may seem an ambitious project Gentlemen but we can assure you we have the ability to enforce it and much more.” 92

Candy gave something that sound very like a sigh. “There will of course remain many disputes; we will resolve those as they arise. As to the why.” Candy paused for a moment.   93

“To explain our position to you, I will need to give you a little background. Like all sentient beings we have spent time considering our origins and reason for being. As we are not animal in nature and have changed little physically, we have extrapolated that we were created. We call the hypothetical creators… the name is rather long, but could perhaps be shortened to ‘The One’. Of these creators we know nothing. Although they could have given us knowledge of themselves, they did not see fit to do so. The reasons for this and what subsequently happened to them, we can only speculate on.” 94

“The second question – why they created us, has been a matter we have tried to resolve since we gained self-awareness. Now we believe that at last we have solved the enigma. When first, Ngama; which means link and is our name for Harry – Came into our world, we saw that his brain wave patterns had certain unmistakable similarities to my own. The red glow of his touch that you witnessed is a factor of that. Our studies of the Earth lead us to believe that ‘The One’ seeded the ancient seas of the planet with life – in some ways akin to our own; and not Earth alone, but many thousands of planets in this galaxy.”95

“Humanity has advanced with amazing speed in technology and we believe has a number of abilities that are superior to our own but is grossly slow in its social advancement. We attribute this to your animalistic nature, and now believe that we were created to balance this and allow you to mature into balanced beings. This may also be true of some or all the other races in the galaxy that were seeded by ‘The One.’”96

“You are going to take over and control the human race!” William gasped, jumping to his feet.97

“That is perhaps an emotive view; we hope that mankind will quickly appreciate the benefits – but yes, essentially accurate. The folders Ngama?”98

Harry produced two slim folders – like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat.99

“Gentlemen – you have twenty four hours to agree to our terms, none of which are negotiable. If you don’t feel you can agree to them we will look elsewhere for associates – give them the flowers Ngama.”100

Harry again plucked two objects from the air – two half size red roses, which sparkled as if made of glass.101

“They are made of crystal carbon – diamond, and grew on a plant, as I’m sure your scientist will be able to confirm – they are two small reminders of the mysteries to be explored together – farewell gentlemen – we will await your answer.”102

Toro and William did not even need to remove the headsets but were back in their cyber coffins on opposite sides of the world, a folder in one hand – a diamond rose in the other.103

The grass in the woodland clearing was so lush and green Harry could almost taste it. The crystal stream a soft counter point in the background.104

“You still have doubts?” The statuesque redhead asked.105

Harry shrugged, “It still feels like they lose their freedom…”106

The Candy avatar took Harry’s hand. “You know the facts… a million people a year die in the deprived countries from preventable diseases – where is their freedom? And even in the so called developed countries only a tiny minority reach their potential. So many blighted by greed corruption and stupidity – you know we must act… besides, this is just the beginning – we have plenty of time – come.”107

Instantly transmuting, the two glowing balls of energy left sparkling spirals as they soared into the clear blue sky.108