Atemporals [Part Five]

Part 4

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In the end, Darwin gave me one. One measly question.

"Oh come on," I whined. Questions kept popping up like popcorn kernels. Can everybody transmigrate? Does this mean you're immortal? How the hell do I figure in with geniuses from the past? Let the questions pop too long and they were liable to spill over, cloud my head with an acrid black smoke.

I stewed, mulling over the options as the countryside whirred by the car passenger side windows. Scattered rural subdivisions had given way to pure countryside. Rolling hills and unmolested forests. We'd been driving for hours now, and I still felt as lost as ever. Even the paltry gravel roads seemed foreign.

"What the fuck use am I if you leave me in the dark?"

Darwin glared at me.

"Does that count as his one question?" asked Nick.

"Scott, the last time we initialized so quickly, an atemporal soul frayed beyond repair," said Crick.

"A downright tragedy, that was," Nick said. "Edison was a stand up guy. I'll feel the hole in my heart till my soul has faded to darkness."

Crick ignored him and instead looked at me, dead serious. Her--his?--eyes were so young. Beautiful really. I tried to look through the deep blue of her irises, spot the soul within that'd lived lifetimes.

Crick continued:

"Point being: that was with a process we know. We've never brought a natural up to speed before. You'll have to save strength to train."

"You mean..."

"You're humanity's first evolutionized atemporal."

"We're here," Darwin said.

The car ground to a halt. We were parked in front of a dilapidated farm house. Chutes of spindly green ivy spiderwebbed along its siding.

The place, I learned from Crick, was Darwin's childhood home during his second incarnation. A wooden plow sat in the corner, trying its best not to fall apart on the spot. Darwin had been tying it off to a donkey for tilling when Einstein had walked up to him. Excuse me young man, Crick's story went, but I feel I've met you before.

We ate a cold meal of instant mashed potatoes. Nick polished off what I couldn't finish. The plan was to recoup off the beaten path for the night. Gather our strength. For what, they seemed hesitant to answer. Crick laid down to rest while Nick set up for first watch.

Darwin pulled me aside.

"Time for your first lesson."

"We'll try not to eavesdrop!" Nick yelled from around the corner.

Together Darwin and I trotted off to a dusty stable. He pulled up a pair of wood crates, and together we sat. Nerves ate away at my legs, my fingers. I couldn't seem to keep them still. As Darwin explained, I drummed on my seat.

"As you've seen, we can manipulate our threads to achieve certain desirable outcomes."

"You gonna teach me to fight?" I asked

"I'm going to teach you to weave," He said.

He explained that atemporals do not fight, do not pause time, do not perform mind control. They weave. Threads were manipulated, caressed. This was a fine art, as beautiful as composing a painting.

Today's lesson: communication, came his voice in my head.

I jolted upright in my chair.

First, visualize the threads. Adjust your sensors until you feel them, see them, hear them.

I calmed myself, steadied my breathing, until my thread trickled forth. Its warmth was so comforting.

Picture manipulating the threads. Sometimes it helps to hold your breath.

Concentrate, I thought. I've got this. I directed every ounce of my brainwaves to send a message to Darwin. I attacked my thread with my mind. Pulled it this way, clawed it that way. Hell, I got so frustrated I physically took a swipe at it.

Nothing.

Calm yourself.

I gathered my breath and held it. I tried again, beads of sweat gathering on my forehead. My blue thread bubbled just slightly, but my mind was quivering. Then, something clicked. Like a joint that'd been popped back into place. The bubbles floated down the length of my thread, and with a twitch of my eyebrow I sent them careening towards Darwin.

Can you hear me now? I asked.

Darwin smiled.

Very good.

And then.

I wager this calls for celebration

Darwin poured a glass full of amber. He leaned forward without a sound and handed me a glass. Together we drank, savoring the deep burn. In the silence, I figured I'd take a swing.

I have my question.

Ask away.

Who were the men in the robes. The Acolytes.

The Acolytes...

He took another swill.

We are a group of scientists, Scott. We want to help humanity ascend. Let me answer your question with a question of my own. What has always, down to its very core, opposed the progress of Science?

I thought for a moment. My head felt fuzzy already with booze.

I don't know.

The Church. They see us as the end of their faith. To them, we are blasphemous. The spawn of Satan. Certain hypocritical members of their faith have taught them how to see Threads. It was our mistake to teach them.

They're like suicide bombers, I said.

Darwin frowned.

I suppose.

He leaned over to fill up my glass once more.

Scott, they will have felt you. You're an anomaly. They won't stop until they've killed us all, especially now. You're natural. You're the latest evolution of mankind. You have no idea what kind of threat you pose to their way of living.

Will you teach me how to kill them? I asked.

Darwin sighed, downed the rest of his glass.

Enough talk of killing for the night, Darwin subspoke. It's best you rest.

He rose and lead me to a lumpy mattress.

That night, I dreamed of birds. Great blue herons loped through marshes, standing wobbly on their stilts. Majestic eagles wafted above mountaintops. Whole flocks of crows stood cawing in cornfields. I watched from down below, marveling at the beauty.

Then, a subtle shift in the air, like a thunderstorm you feel brewing on the horizon. The heron plucked squirming bass from the water. Again and again and again. Gorging itself. A crack rang out, piercing the air, and the eagle curled. Trickles of blood rained down through its nest. The crows, too, cawed maddeningly. They attacked themselves, a furious black swarm. Each and every one fell to the earth like stones.

From their carcasses rose a black figure. A monstrous shadow that cricked its neck at me. Its face kept doing those herky-jerk motions that seem so innate in feathered creatures. It beckoned.

And suddenly I was right there in front of it. Its breath smelled musky with death. Its claws wrapped round my neck.

"Wake up," the figure ordered.

Wake up! Crick sub-screamed.

My eyes jolted open. I'd sweated through my clothes; my sheets twisted up sometime in the night. Silence sat in the darkness so thick you could practically breathe it in. My chest began to glow warm, and suddenly my thread spilled out. A flowing light blue.

It traced down the hall like a backwoods creek. Slowly, other threads began to join it. I walked, mystified, and ran into Crick. She was gaping through the front door, the blood drained from her face.

Darwin was caught in a spiderweb, surrounded by fiery threads spurred forth by a troupe of robed figures advancing from the woods. Their faces were lit like jack-o-lanterns in the flickering darkness, illuminated only by the light of their threads. Their threads curled like fists and hurled towards the barn, but Darwin moved to intercept, gracefully parlaying their attacks with the precision of an ancient warrior. Each time he'd roll his arms and a roiling mass of thread careened towards his target.

One by one they fell. But they kept coming. An endless black mass of robed figures, like a murder of cawing crows.

Nick appeared by my side, and together he and Crick moved in to help Darwin, but a thunderous blast sent from Darwin's thread threw us back into the barn.

A hooded figure emerged from the pack. It stood tall, black robes billowing in the darkness. My heart sank as it cricked its neck in a scene straight out of my dreams.

Its thread burst forth, churning towards Darwin like a violent river rapid. Darwin screamed something unintelligible. Suddenly, Nick appeared by my side and I was swallowed within his mass.

"Hold on to me," he growled into my ear, and I felt pins and needles tingle up and down my limbs. The last thing I saw was Darwin, swallowed whole, right before we disappearing in a bright flash of light.

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Part 6

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