Ascension: Invocation (10 page)

Alicia let this sink in for moment as Sariana flashed a somewhat goofy smile and continued to wipe away the excess tears from her eyes.

“Wow,” Alicia said finally.

Sariana let go a sigh of relief and nervously laughed. “I know, right?”

“That’s...”

“Yeah!”

“...pretty crazy.”

“It is! Yes.” The girl suddenly became more animated. “So, you can see why I’m all like... ka-blahhhh! I realize this must... sound... strange.”

“Right. Sure.”

“It is crazy, really. I mean, for you. Not knowing... well... any of this. I’d be all like... y’know...  'Pffft! Whaaaat?!'...” There was a lumbering silence as Alicia took a long look into the arresting eyes of this frazzled girl. Sariana got a bit nervous. “The inter-dimensional rip, the fog... and now me, I guess. It’s a lot.” Sarianna touched Alicia’s knee and whispered, “This must be really weird for you.”

Alicia was a professionally trained journalist, one of the best in her field. It was in her nature to cut through the bullshit and get to the heart of a story. "So... what you’re saying is... the voice we've been listening to...”

“Yes...”

“Is an army recruiter?"

"No. Well...” Sariana was confused. “What? I’m sorry. I guess I'm not sure what you mean."

Alicia had the weird girl sized up in her mind. Sara was a gentle kid, probably an artist of some sort. Somehow, she thought, her imagination had gotten the better of her. She suspected that her parents had died in some way while making the trip to Tuscumbia. In an attempt to block out the event, Alicia imagined that she must have created this new reality. She must be suffering from some sort of dissociative disorder. Of course, none of that explained the screaming man-roach.

"Go back to that thing. The bug. What's a Triclopod?"

"They are an aggressor species. They exist only to bring about destruction. The Triclopods possess a great
perversion
for violence. I don’t understand how it was able to cross. The Izanagi made them this way.”

“Ozzy noddy? What is that?”

“A highly ascended soul group, presently allied with the Humans.”

Alicia’s eyes lit up. "So this is all some sort of government conspiracy? I can run with that. Do you seriously have information about this? Hold on. How would you have that sort of intel?” Alicia knew it was impossible that some farm girl from Alabama would be privy to anything classified... but still. Maybe she was some kind of hacker. “Have you told anyone else?"

"No," Sariana said quite seriously. "You are not Human.”

“I’m not Human?”

“Not you in particular. I mean, none of you are Human. You were made in their image but you are a different species entirely.”

“So... What? We’re like pod people?”

“No,” Sariana was starting to get frustrated. “Forget about what you are in this dimension. Forget this plane.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have phrased that differently. What the fuck are you talking about?!”

“In the omniverse, there are soul groups. Lots of them. You are part of a soul group. Everyone in this dimension. Everyone in this world, on this planet you call Earth. Your soul group was created by the Humans. But you are not Human.”

“Jesus, kid. Are you on acid? Are there shrooms out here?” Alicia put the truck in gear and began the drive back into the city limits.

“You are aggressors. Just as the Triclopods are aggressors. But this does not have to be your only calling. Together, we can change the course of your soul group."

“We? We who?”

“Us. You and I. You especially.”

“I change the world by putting you on TV and informing the world that our souls are on par with angry, space armadillos? That is what you want me to believe, right?”

“Yes. That’s what we’re supposed to do...”

“That’s what you want me to announce, huh? Good evening. Sad, breaking news, folks. Everyone on Earth is actually just a bunch of drooling, slimy, screaming monster souls. Don’t go in the space hole.”

“No...”

“Then what?”

“You’re worse. Worse than the Triclopods.”

“Oh, good. It gets better.”

“Far, far worse. The Humans are among the highest ascended souls in the omniverse. What they have created in you is well beyond anything the Izanagi could possibly imagine. Your souls are the culmination of hatred and anger so insurmountable that, in your present state, you could not possibly comprehend its veracity and the fear it provokes.”

The girl was so dramatic that Alicia had to laugh. “Well, that’s a little extreme, isn’t it? I find it hard to believe that everybody on Earth is so reprehensible...”

“You are feared.”

“Oh, really?”

Sariana was very serious. “What happens in your world, in this dimension, happens nowhere else in the entire omniverse.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Think of your violence. You exist solely for war. Your souls have never known peace in any form.”

“Of course we have.”

“Can you cite one moment in your recorded history without war?”

“What? You mean no war anywhere?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sure there has been...”

“No.”

“I’m no scholar in things like this but I’m certain that we’ve managed prolonged peace.”

“You haven’t. It’s just not in your nature. Even within your most tranquil moments, you still kill each other. Your nations might be briefly at peace but neighbor still kills neighbor, children die, you rape, you plunder. It’s what you do. It feeds your soul. It’s supposed to. Even when your body is at rest, you fantasize about death. It’s really quite remarkable... and endlessly frightening.”

“Yeah, I went through a goth phase too, sister. When you get a little older, you’ll realize that the world isn’t all evil. There’s plenty of tranquility and love to go around for...”

“Even what you call love is brutal,” Sariana argued. “And the way you express it is angry... and ugly.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You procreate new vessels in violence.”

“Sex?”

“Your imagined male stabs the imagined female form with a penile sword in harsh succession until it ejaculates a stream of biomatter inside her which itself must then fight to the death to impregnate a solitary egg.” Sariana shuddered. “Even your soul’s attempt to express endearment is savage and depraved.”

“If it’s done right,” Alicia muttered.

“And you all agree that this is perfectly acceptable. I assure you that nowhere else would this act be considered an appropriate display of affection. What you call erotic literature and film would elsewhere be interpreted as a most alarming and reprehensible threat of hostility.”

The truck was now at a crawl as they paced through the party-goers in Tuscumbia proper. Alicia somehow found herself fully engaged in the defense of her ‘kind’. “That doesn’t happen anywhere else? In this great ‘omniverse’ you talk about which I’m guessing is like the universe times a million...”

“It’s beyond your comprehension right now...unfortunately.”

“We are the only ‘species of soul’ so violent?”

“Yes. And what you experience in this dimension is only a fraction of what you’re capable of.”

“Ah ha! Bullshit! I thought you said there was a war.”

“There is. The most catastrophic war in Akashic history.”

“Okay, I don’t know what that means. But don’t you kill each other in these wars?”

“Only now. This is the purpose of your species.”

“What? What is?”

“You are the ambassadors of death. More to the point, you bring death. Death is your creation. You invented it.”

“We introduce the omniworld to death? The whole concept of death? It doesn’t happen until we arrive at the party?”

“Yes. It is what you’ve rehearsed since the birth of your soul group. You’ve become quite good at it.”

“What you’re saying is... since we first arrived in the universe, we’ve just been practicing to be better killers... on each other?”

“That’s right.”

"And what about you? You aren't Human, I suppose? Or whatever the fuck you think I am?"

"I am almost like you. We no longer refer to ourselves as Human."

Alicia was genuinely fascinated with her mythology but Brady's phone rang. “Let me get this,” Alicia said as she put the truck in park.

“Please, don’t be distracted. You’re asking all the right questions.”

“I’m not distracted. I’m just going to answer the phone for him. Brady, where’s your phone? Shit.”

“I still can’t hear!”

Alicia grumbled as she began to sort through Brady’s remote bags, tracing the ring from pocket to pocket in a race to beat his voicemail.

“It’s not relevant,” Sariana protested. “Just as you said, we need to focus.”

“Will you just let me get this?”

“His father has died. That is all.”

Alicia found the phone and shot the girl a nasty look. “That’s a fucked up thing to say.”

"I'm sorry," Sariana offered. “He will only leave this plane."

"It's probably just the network checking in," Alicia assured her as she fumbled with Brady’s phone.

“He’ll have to leave the Tuscumbia,” Sariana said, referring to Brady. “I don’t mean to be rude but his significance in this parallel is complete. He drove the truck for you.”

“The Tuscumbia?” Alicia smirked and finally answered. "Hello? Hi. This is Alicia. Yeah. Well, there's been a slight accident and Brady's lost his hearing. No. He's okay. Right. He was just exposed to a loud noise and it's only temporary. He'll be fine." Alicia looked at Sariana somewhat suspiciously. "Is everything okay?" she asked the caller. "Oh, no. That's terrible." Sariana turned her gaze toward the window.

"Who's on the phone?" Brady asked.

Sariana wrote him a note: "It's your wife. She requests that you call her when your hearing returns."

"Is everything okay?"

Sariana wrote: "Yes but you must call."

"My sympathies are with you and the family," Alicia said to the caller. "We're on our way back to the studio now. When we get back, I'll start making the arrangements for Brady to come home. I'll have him call you. Of course. It's best that he receives the news from you. No, he's right beside me. I will. Again, I'm so sorry, Kristine. Okay. Goodbye." Alicia hung up the phone and an awkward silence came over the truck.

"You were half right," Alicia finally said. "Brady's father didn't die."

"But...”

"His wife's father died."

"Oh. That’s not right. No,” Sariana said. “Did you do this?”

“Excuse me? What does that even mean?”

“No. You wouldn’t... can’t.” Sariana tried to think hard and, again, began to quickly scroll through her device. “It’s complicated. I’ll explain all of this but we have to broadcast immediately.”

“He had a heart attack,” Alicia was defensive for no reason.

“Of course. Yes. I’m sorry.” Sariana was now preoccupied with her handheld screen.

Alicia stared out the front windshield of the SUV, at the tear in the sky off in the distance. "Did you come from there?" Alicia asked, pointing to the black rip in the blue sky.

"No. I crossed over two miles from where you found me."

"Is there another tear?"

"No. This is an exit," Sariana said, referring to the tear.

"The voice said that they would soon be visible to us."

"That’s true but you will come to them."

"So they really are going to suck us up through that hole in the sky?"

"Sort of. That's probably the best way to describe it for the moment."

Alicia’s mind raced. She was well aware that, in this moment, she was either speaking to one of the most important subjects of her career or a complete and utter lunatic. The revelers continued their party around the truck as the two spoke.              

"Well, just for sake of argument, why shouldn't it happen? I mean, if that's what we're meant to be: Warriors for the Humans. Shouldn't we just trust our creator?"

Sariana looked up from her device. "No one species of soul should hold dominion over another. Akashic Law forbids it and the Masters of Wisdom have denounced this. The Humans have gone mad with power. There will be great suffering throughout the omniverse. Your species brings death. The balance has been disrupted. You must rebel."

Alicia tried to take all of this in. Of course, it sounded absurd but, then, the entire world had gone absurd. The girl killed the freaky bug thing. Alicia saw that with her own eyes. She also came close enough to playing psychic for her taste. But Alicia had no tangible proof of any of this. The girl could cause a panic if Alicia let her unleash a rant like this on the air. She set aside the possibility that she might be a pre-programmed homicidal maniac for a moment. Panic meant ratings. It might mean a Murrow, Alicia thought.