"Hello."
There was silence. But the line was not dead.
"Hello."
"Geremy?"
"Yes?"
"Geremy, it's Mohammed Samir. I need your help."
"Mohammed! It's great to hear from you. How have you been? The world's going crazy, what with visitors dropping in unannounced?"
He hadn't heard from Samir in a very long time and the deduction was obvious.
"Is your call to do with Them?"
"Yes it is. Geremy, there's no time for words, only actions my friend. We have to kill Their representative, the one who's going to make the speech here on earth. And we need your help."
Geremy turned away from his lover, and walked across the room and out onto the balcony.
"Are you mad Mohammed? What are you talking about? You saw what They just did. What can we possibly do against Them? And anyway, why?"
There was a pause.
"Why Geremy? Because He is the Devil incarnate, for your religion He is the Antichrist. If we kill Him, we will prove He is mortal. They will either leave, or try and take revenge upon us. But God will be with us. We shall not submit to Their lies and deceit. We are all God's children. Help us Geremy. Help God help us."
There was silence.
"Geremy, I'm not mad. There are many others who think as I do. What good is logic to us now? We have to have faith Geremy."
Again there was silence.
"Geremy?"
Geremy's mind was elsewhere. Mohammed had called him because he knew of his faith, his belief as a devout Catholic, in God.
That had changed with the death of his wife. It had caused Geremy to re-evaluate his theological beliefs. Death can bring with it faith, or purge that faith forever. His wife's death had confused Geremy. It was irresolvable. There were no mystical reasons, and no comfort from his God. Geremy had thought long and hard then about his religion. He had emerged an agnostic. His mind was now open to reason, instead of shuttered in automatic faith. His revelation had been overwhelming, and at times, at night, alone, horrific. When his thoughts wondered to death, his own death, he would be left to contemplate nothing. Non-existence. For all eternity. For no faith buoyed him, and no God listened to his cries of torment. So alone he screamed in pain and panic until the thought had run its course, and the reality of the present and human reason had asserted itself once again in his perception.
"I'm sorry Mohammed, I'm in Nice right now. But, yes, I'll help. What do you want me to do?"
"God thanks you Geremy. Get your things together and go to the airport and wait, I'll call you again in an hour or so. Okay?"
"Okay."
"Oh, I'm sorry, I should have asked, is Diana with you? How is she?"
"She died. Almost three years ago now."
"I?I'm so sorry Geremy. I didn't know."
"It's ok. It's been a long time. I'll be waiting for your call."
"Wait?Geremy, is there someone else with you now?"
Without hesitation Geremy answered.
"No, no there isn't."
"Then, until we speak again, God be with you Geremy."
"And with you, Mohammed."
Geremy flipped up the mouthpiece and walked with a furrowed brow back into the room, where Julia was arranging the bed.
"Who was that?"
"Professor Mohammed Samir. We go back a long time; we were at Oxford together. He's a world renowned physicist, and he?"
Geremy paused. It was obvious he was thinking about hiding something. Julia quickly prompted him to go on.
"Yes?"
"It doesn't matter. Tell me something, do you believe in God?"
She was guarded in her reply, and the words were not exactly truthful.
"I?Well, I'm not sure. It's a complex question"
"Well, then let me ask you something else. Do you believe the visitors will harm us?"
"If They've returned to hold some kind of court and judge us, then who knows? Without knowing the criteria with which They're going to make Their decision, who can tell? Anyway, we've been discussing this one way or another since the transmission. Why are we going through this again?
"Mohammed - the old friend of mine who called just now - Mohammed?wants me to help kill Their representative."
"What?"
Julia stood incredulous.
"Are you joking?"
He looked at her, then closed his eyes and slowly shook his head.
"You are serious. Are you going to do it?"
Geremy was slow to respond. When he did it was with serious intent.
"I haven't decided yet, but whether I help him, or try to stop him, I'd better be near him. Will you come with me?"
_______________________________
1963.04.01 04:02 E.S.T.
c12 Julia
Julia was born the daughter of a Policeman and his Schoolteacher wife in Vermont on April 1st 1963. She had attended a state junior and senior school, and had achieved recognition for her writing abilities even as a child. At ten she had won the first prize in her class for a short story - her 'Space Story'. It was, after all, the 'Space Age', and as young as she had been, she remembered the lunar landing quite clearly. Being an American project they had managed to have the first foot on the moon set down in the middle of prime time television, perfect for the Americans to listen to Neil Armstrong's immortal words, incorrectly said and quoted for all human eternity as "One small step for man, One giant leap for mankind." It should have been "One small step for a man, One giant leap for mankind." But did it matter to a six-year-old child? No. Did it really matter to anyone? Not really.
The event was monumental. It was symbolic, not only of some political race and a cold war with the might of communism, but because it was truly an achievement of inspired imagination, technological innovation and invention. Julia's brother, two years older, and just as feverish in his admiration of the astronauts, ensured that she was surrounded by all the spaceship models of the day. A childhood of starry dreams had left its mark in her life and her writing. She had known from that early age that she would write for a living. When the other children were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, she did not reply nurse, ballerina, or mother; she simply answered, "I want to write stories." And so she did.
In high school her favourite subject was predictably English, and in University, Literature, but never having lost her love of the
unknown, exploration and science, she also slipped into physics lectures whenever she possibly could.
Almost immediately after graduating, she toured Europe, by herself. Not perhaps, the safest thing to do for an attractive young lady, but she was determined, and so she went. Her parents had pleaded and begged her not to go alone, but they knew in their hearts that their little girl was not only growing up, but also that she had matured with the stubbornness of her mother and the conviction of her father, making for the almost inevitable result that within a matter of days she was gone.
She was lucky enough that the experience had been rewarding and enlightening for her without the dangers that her parents had warned about and dreaded.
She serialized her experiences and the tale became the first written piece for which she would receive the reward not only of recognition, but payment. It was an exciting confirmation of the course of her life. Her chosen profession would become a reality. To be paid for something she enjoyed doing. How much better could life be?
Within eight months of her return her father had died of cancer, leaving her mother a broken woman.
It was the most difficult thing that she had ever had to come to terms with. No religion could ever help her overcome the loss. No faith could ever be strong enough. Over the previous few years she had pieced together her own philosophy of life and death and what transpired in between. It offered no comfort.
Her philosophy was of nature as maker, the universe as God. For perhaps, that was truly his identity. To her nothing was man made: no good, no bad, no technology,
no ideology, and no faith. For nature had created man, and through him everything that he did.
From computers to nuclear missiles, they were all part of nature, just as completely and purely as the most beautiful mountains and valleys, rivers and forests. There was no pollution that was not of nature's making; no extinction that nature - through it's own actions - had not ordained. She compared it to giving a computer a program with enough information to let it design a car. When finished, had the computer designed it, or was the computer merely acting as man's sophisticated tool, just as she believed man was working as nature's? The logic seemed obvious.
It wasn't that man had no free will, it was simply that mankind could do nothing to harm nature, for humankind was part of nature. Woven into Her fabric, intrinsic to that most intricate of patterns. Evolving as She evolved.
Her philosophy did not wipe out the possibility of a soul, for whatever nature's physics, earthly or still deemed ethereal, may allow, was possible.
Humanity had yet to discover so many of its creator's patterns and fabrics - materials that were oh so delicate, and in so many different widths.
So what of a soul without a conventional God? No heaven of angels. No hell of demons. To drift as some memory, was that not hell enough? But so many possibilities, so many interactions
between spirits and things that may occur. Who could know, until it didn't matter?
Her logic asked for evidence. Even within her philosophy she asked for proof. It had not yet come. She could only assume that as the new fabric was woven, so the pattern of the old was irretrievably lost in change. She longed and wished for proof that it was not so, but her father was buried, and his widow mourned, and only time could in some way heal the blow that drew no blood, yet plunged so deep. And that time had not yet passed.
In the end then, a life of toil and suffering, a life of luxury and health, they ended the same. And if then a true end, then all was for nothing, and when the last of humanity died, all that was this species was nothing, and had never existed, and was lost. The fear raged as a torrent, both deep and wide, and with nothing to hold it or to direct its fury, it would surface as madness both pure and driven. The one true hell, a hell on earth. Such was the hell of those of no faith. Such was hers.
Sometimes it happened while cleaning her teeth, sometimes in bed, once it had happened in the shower, but luckily, always when she was alone, when no one could hear her scream. The contemplation of the end. The end of her life. Nothing. She had first experienced the fullness of nothing in her late teens when a particularly vivid pursuit of the logical led her to nowhere, a place in no-time. She had wondered to the kingdom of nothing. Near madness ensued. Dark depression and despair. Life was terminal, and her fear was unquantifiable. It was difficult to speak to others of her feelings. She felt like a coward. An experience shared by many of her faith.
She wondered how many people were removed from that reality in the western world. Disease and death has no place on a computer screen outside of a game. Surrounded by technology, encased by plastic, it all seems so safe. So endless, forever evolving, forever living. It's easy to become lost in it all. Tapping away on the keyboard. Night or day, day or night. A world of perfect replication, where corruption of one's thoughts can be thwarted with a backup copy. Life is so much easier at a desk. Benign. Without danger or malice. But a holiday in the country brings the technophile so close to nothing, or God, as the case may be. For in the country there is evidence of corruption. A rotting carcass, with lifeless staring eyes, of a sheep giving life to flies. The mould that sets the leaves to earth, the rain that erases the evidence of murderous intent. But so too the wind that brings the fragrance of spring and the sunshine that gives us hope. We dismiss the sun's own end as we dismiss our own, and become again faithful in a world that is good and without end, and so, in being closer to the reality of nature's deathly cycle, we are again tricked, as ever, into the birth of happiness. Our balance is restored. The scream is subdued and we sleep soundly and peacefully, for tonight at least - and maybe tomorrow.
She thought that perhaps the Victorians had it right. To be born in English, early Victorian society, may have been the best of all lives. A solid belief in God. A dedication to the family. A meaningful job, national pride in a growing empire spanning half the globe. And hope eternal, for mankind was the Chosen. He was not an animal. He was different. Made by God in his own image. Cut and dried. What proof was required? Just ask anyone. And then a book was published. Darwin threw stones in a crystal palace and the windows he shattered turned out to be part of the structure itself. Soon the foundations rocked. This then, was the end of mankind. Now we are monkeys with a voice. Linguists all. Nothing more. Science had supplanted Him and taken Him from us. Just as we had created Him so deftly in scripture and verse, now a new book took from us our errant sanity.
How safe and comfortable then, to be an early Victorian, ruler of the world, and human, being so close to God. To have lived and died in that time was to do so with purpose and belief. Science had shown us a new way. A wonderful life indeed, but filled with fear. This she knew.
And so she had, as so many others had done before her, considered long and hard her own philosophy of the universe and her place in it. And for all the thought and fear, hadn't changed a thing. Because she couldn't change a thing, and in the end it didn't matter, and all she knew she had was now.
_________________________________
2000.01.01 15:13 G.M.T. 16:13 E.S.T.
c13 You were saying...
"I wouldn't miss it for the world."
The reply was more serious than light hearted. Their future was now very uncertain indeed. They packed quickly. They left. They arrived at the airport. They waited.
_________________________________
2000.01.01 17:08 G.M.T.
c14 Kindred Spirits
As Geremy sipped on a hot chocolate the telephone announced a call.
"Geremy, Mohammed. Do you know professor Dimitri Leonov of St. Petersburg University?"
"No, not personally, but I am aware of his research."
"Good, because you'll be working with him. But first you have to reach your destination. Have you visited Toronto before?"
"Only taking a connecting flight to L.A. I don't know the city."
"Then you'd better get a guidebook. The Eyewitness guides are best. Find out any information you can about the SkyDome. That's where the meeting will take place."
"Okay, but Mohammed, how do you know?"
"Know what Geremy?"
"How can you possibly know that the meeting will be at this - at the 'SkyDome?'"
"I know because I requested that it be held there. And my friends have agreed. Now, no more questions, Geremy, Your reservations have already been made. If you take the next flight to Heathrow, leaving at 18:00 your time, you'll make the BA 21:05 to Toronto. A limousine will be waiting to take you from the airport to the hotel. You should get there about 1:30 am Eastern Standard Time. I'll call you tomorrow morning, around 7:30 E.S.T. I have much work to do between now and then. Goodbye Geremy. God speed."
"Goodbye Mohammed."
Geremy shook his head.
"This is...This is crazy."
"What did Mohammed say?"
"It seems we're off to Toronto."
"Why Toronto?"
"Because, apparently?"
Geremy glanced around, lowered his voice and drew himself closer to Julia.
"...Apparently that's where first contact is going to take place."
It was hard to believe.
"How would Mohammed know that?"
"Well, believe it or not, he requested that the meeting take place in Toronto, and so it is."
"Mohammed must have some very influential friends."
"I believe?No, I know he does. Anyway, we better go and get checked in."
_______________________________
2000.01.01 17:11 G.M.T.
c15 The best defence
?
Thousands of miles away another conversation took place.
"About an hour ago I had a call from Mohammed Samir, do you remember him?"
"You were at school together weren't you?"
"Yes, Oxford. He has an idea and he needs my help."
"Is it to do with the aliens?"
He paused for a moment.
"Samir wants to kill Their representative, the one who'll speak at the conference. In fact he already has a plan."
"Why! What will that achieve? As far as we know They're here on a peaceful mission. Unless there's something you haven't been able to tell me, I wouldn't think we could defend ourselves against Them anyway. Could we?"
"No, I don't think we could. But Mohammed's point is that it's a matter of faith, in Christ, in God. In everything that most of the world believes in.
Their representative has taken our religious teachings and told us that they are untrue, that Christ was not the Son of God. That He was one of Them?Hell, you know, you heard Him. If we kill Him, it will prove that the alien is mortal, and not of God. We have to defend our faith darlin'. Whatever the cost. If we don't, what is there to live for, or die for?"