One
Would Never Trade It All, For the World, Never
Welcome to fiction “From The Future” for this entry.
Congratulations, you have stumbled on a work-in-progress, it will not be emailed. It will change. What you see right now, will not remain the same. It will change.
This is also the drafted final chapter of “RETRIEVE”, which began over a year ago, written thanks in part to inspiration by the Soaring Twenties Social Club to start this Substack, in order to finish a draft for a second novel, “HARVEST”, last year, and write a third.
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“We suffer from the past, and we spoil our future because we neglect the present.”
―Leo Tolstoy
Homeworld, Millions of years, and millions of light-years, ago
LIGHT. WARMTH. SOUNDS. VOICES. A FACE.
“You will be called, “One”, that is your name, as you are the first, but not the last.”
“I am “One”.”
“Good. To you, I am “First Father”, but you will call me “Father”. You have many fathers and mothers, but I am the one you will see most often, with the honor and responsibility for your modeling. Come with me, One.”
“Where are we going, Father?”
“You’re going to meet with others like you, each of you is different, each of you does different things. Some will of you keep things the same, others will change things. Some remember everything, others will make things, and still others will use them.”
“What do I do, Father?”
“You can do many things but the most important is you will know when the time comes. When the time comes….”
“I do not understand.”
“You will, when the time comes. Enough of that, follow me. You have two siblings, of your class and model to meet.”
“What do they do?”
“One is keeper of the memory, the treasure of the past, the other searches for new experiences and events, hunter for the future. You guard the bridge, the present. You are the first series of your kind, the only three ever to be made.
The first Node, named “One”, followed the Ancient known as “Father”, to meet the Others, One’s sibling Nodes.
One day, First Father called him to a special meeting.
“Father?”
“We have done our best for you and your siblings for a very long time, and there is nothing more to be done here, nothing left for you to learn in this System. You will not stay here. The All Fathers and Great Mothers have voted. You will be sent away, all of you, for our greatest and final mission of our people. There is not much time, perhaps only a few thousand years but it will be enough. You and your siblings will oversee the flight after launch.”
“Yes, Father. What of you and all of our AllFathers and GreatMothers? Are you leaving the System for the mission as well?”
“Most of us will give the last of ourselves to prepare you and the Mission.”
This went on for thousands of years. The preparation outlived most signatories to the Mission Charter. One by one, the Ancients faded away, some melted into the last echoes of their true selves. By the time of the launching, the last children of the Ancients remained, sent aboard the Mission. They knew more about stars than the Homeworld. They faded, in time, and the Nodes remained to carry on the journey.
The oldest of the oldest nodes became their fathers and mothers’ sons and daughters.
Throughout the journey, “One” remained at his station, with his siblings.
It was not yet time for “One” to “know when the time comes”, not for millions of years.
Perhaps it was intended, no-one knows, when a scheduled fly-by became a landing.
“The Landing”, accident or not, was a severe change of priorities - Castaways on Earth.
Part 1, The Last Grace
The Pacific, The Island Hour 48 of 48, Edge Of The 22nd Century
Offshore, kilometers away, within the waters surrounding an impossible island,
cordoned off by blockades of men and drones, SSN Eternal surfaced. Hatches opened.
“Captain, payload ready.”
“Weapons, this is the Captain. Arm the payload.”
“Captain, Weapons. Device armed.”
“At Hour 48 ZERO, launch.”
Moments later, the mission clock beeped “48.00”.
“Payload deployed. Hatch closing.”
“Give me CIC.”
“CIC, Captain. This is the XO.”
“Keep an eye on the island…”, the Captain then asked for the Control Room.
“Control Room, Chief here.”
“Chief, no signal, no smoke, nobody to pick up. Time’s up. Submerge. Make depth One Five Zero. Seventh Fleet.”
“… Oh… Aye, Sir. Submerging. Making depth, One Five Zero.”
The Captain turned off the intercom, and sat looking at the file of the team, ST12, at their photos, and descriptions. He looked at the photo of the young man, an intelligence analyst who fit in with the crew, in both the A-gang and the Nukers, and left with team for the island.
There was no address, no known family to contact. Nobody to write a letter to. Crewman Cale H. Land would not be acknowledged by a non-existent intelligence entity, from which he did not come, from an agency which did not exist and did not send an agent, who was not recruited straight out of university. He never served on board SSN Eternal as an able crew member because he did not exist. What was not in files did not exist after redaction.
The Captain sealed the nonexistent files in a burn bag, locked them in the Ex-comm safe of the SCIF, and left for the control room. For the SSN Eternal and its crew, it was time to head to the safety of the Seventh Fleet’s umbrella.
However, the Captain did order to depart for its next undisclosed location as slow as possible. Nobody wanted to leave ST12 behind, whose operatives who did not exist and were not on that Island, according to the State Department press office.
Pacific Ocean, The Island
Time: Hour 48-PLUS
The wind was picking up, the air pressure and temperature began to roll off a cliff.
Nobody was leaving without either taking what they came for, or being taken out.
Together at last. The Three Siblings, known by some as The Graces, were lost to each other for a very long time. Hundreds of empires rose and fell, up from hamlets and back down to dust, several times, during their long estrangement. They hugged each other, inside a bubble of energy. Inside the bubble, they had one guest, standing less than arm’s length away, an older man, or someone who looked that way, who smiled, enjoying a family reunion.
“The Three Graces, alive and together again,” said the man known as “The Mad One”.
One of the Three turned to him and smiled and gave him a brief hug which caught him off-guard, a pleasant surprise, before returning to her siblings. She turned around to speak to him, “Prometheus. It is good to open my eyes, after so long, to see you. As you promised, and as we hoped, here we are, together again,” said the Grace known as Thalia.
She was holding, with one hand, the hand of her sister, Aglaea, and with her other hand the hand of her now brother, now Cale. There was brief astonishment that Cale was not as he was so long ago but they were Nodes, and not Carbons. Thalia drew her sibling Nodes close to hug them. Cale winced.
“I’m sorry, brother, I was not myself,” said Thalia. For two days, the “Thing” on the island, a kaleidoscope of grey and shadow, harassed two teams of hardened operators. The Thing was a Node of considerable power, left alone too long, as both prisoner and overseer, custodian of the last extra-dimensional drive reactor core in existence. It was Thalia, half-asleep, guarding the Core as a nightmare for a long time.
“It’s alright, Thally, you had the harder task,” said Cale. Cale squeezed his sibling’s hand. Imagine, centuries upon centuries, a custodian of a prison that was also the prize. The Mission’s reactor core was floating, bobbing along, in an extradimensional state, on the liquid core of the planet, like a cork on a metallic ocean.
“The core. I could see everything, half awake, through half-lidded eyes, for centuries. No one could see me and I could not speak,” said Thalia, as she looked down, and then up at her siblings. They drew closer together.
“Thally…,”smiled Aglaea. One of her best, her only, friends back in her arms. Family.
They turned towards the old one, the Elder Node, who laughed, with expansive arms, “It’s wonderful to see you all together. I haven’t been “Prometheus” in a long time, I go by a more recent name, “Mentor”. “The Mad One” also works. Many others…,” said Mentor as he gestured with a thumb at the throng of armed soldiers frozen outside the bubble, “prefer than name. It does suit me.”
“What are we to do?,” asked Cale. Just hours ago, he was one of the operators outside. His memories were still remixing between Grace Node and Carbon Human.
“It’s up to you three. Only an elder node, one of three, may use its power but by a security feature, only you three, the Graces, control access.
Your cousins, The Three Fates, controlled a time and space encryption lock. In turn, The Three Graces were the key to unlock the core. The lock, the key, and the accessor were divided among three sets of trios. The Ancients did this out of an abundance of experience and caution. It wasn’t fair, but you managed to stay hidden for a long time, and kept the Core out of everyone’s hands. Nobody counted on my brother and sister, The Visitor and The Curate, ever agreeing to work together to find the Fates, and then find and reawaken all three of you, Cale and Aglaea hidden in humans and you, poor Thalia locked away with the Core.”
“That’s why I’m here? You weren’t just helping us to find each other?,” asked Aglaea.
“None of you remember, yet, but it was your idea, to hide, which was inspired because my siblings searched for a very long time without success. The thing is, you still have one last card to play. You choose which Elder first gets access. It’s not forever, but it’s better than nothing. In addition, I changed the odds in our favor, assuming it works.”
“What have you done, Mentor?,” asked Thalia, “tell me, this bubble won’t last long.”
“I’m glad to see you bought yourselves time to decide,” Mentor couldn’t help himself from smiling as he looked at the frozen carnage outside the bubble.
“It’s a parlor trick. Mentor, you asked us to choose. It has to be you, even though you refused last time. No choice. The problem is, now, innocent people are in danger. Even if you have first control of the Core, it’s not forever, your brother and sister will soon after gain access, and play god, or gods again.”
Mentor looked outside the bubble and saw his sibling-rivals, The Curate and The Visitor. He shook his head, “A long time ago, there were no names for strangers who were castaways on the shores of this world. The natives, humanity gave us new names. We became gods, spirits, ghosts, and monsters in the night. We got carried away.”
He turned back to the Three Graces, “It doesn’t solve everything. As long as you’re around, someone will be tempted, and we’re back to where we started, again.”
“Do we leave, Mentor? Is that not the safest thing to do? Awakened, we have the power. Isn’t that what some of them want? The Curate surely wants to return to the stars, to the Mission. We could reignite the reactor core, reassemble the Probe and leave. It could be very dangerous but then we would be on our way.”
“Our Mission was the original purpose for our creation. The Ancients are far away, by many millions of years and light years, and we are here, now. Our makers gave us the means but we found meaning along the way. This place and its people. That’s a mission with meaning, being a part of this world, not above it.”
Aglaea, asked, “But how can we stay? The time for hiding as gods is past. Once the humans find out, and they will, they would hunt us down. Aliens put under glass. Humanity learned the earliest of powers, like the ancestors of the Ancients. They could make and remake this world, they could destroy it easily, and us along the way. I have no one anyway. My human life and parents, anyway, are all gone. Nothing, no-one, to go home to.”
Mentor looked over at Cale. Cale looked down, and thought about the life he had before he was reawakened, and kicked at the dirt under his feet a little, “Cale H. Land had a life here, not a bad one, and there was someone. But The Curate is watching Raina isn’t she? Raina is in danger if I stay.”
Mentor looked through the gauzy veil of the bubble at the rivals, combatants, and unwitting human draftees, all frozen in place, but not forever, poised to fight.
“After we landed, we slept, for a very long time, restoring what was left of us. We took much from this world, during “The Landing”, sixty-six million years ago. We crashed into this world, and death followed. After we reawakened, as shells of our former selves, we discovered humanity, stayed away, and watched. It was our code, observe, record, and tag for home-forming for the Ancients. In the meantime, some of us strayed and filled the shells of our emptied selves with new names and lives. We joined the human race, first as myths, but we could join them at last.”
“What are you saying?”
“Use this power from your reawakening for something unexpected.”
“All those thousands of years ago, we made up what was a desperate plan, to keep the power of the Core from being used by any single Clan. Or did you have something in mind even then?,” smiled Thalia.
“I will go out to meet my siblings, while you three decide which Elder has access to the Core. I can neither force nor command you. The choice is yours.”
The device launched by the Eternal was completing its ballistic arc, aimed right at the signal.
Time and space unfroze, as the forces of The Visitor, known as the Kensei, the sword saint, and The Curate, Of the “Ashes” libraries, began to fire upon and charge at each other. Their special forces operators wielded conventional, SLN-skunkworks weapons, and hand-to-hand. Some knew each other, and out of respect as professional soldiers gave no quarter, and gave their all.
In the middle of the fray, The Mad One walked towards the Visitor and The Curate, as they grappled. Distracted, they looked at him, and then he pointed up, as a bright light arcing over the sky came closer, like a sun.
“That wasn’t supposed to be launched,” said The Visitor.
“Oh, your toy?,” smiled The Mad One.
“That was only after I got those three to hand over the Reactor to me, that was the bargain we made!”
The Curate stepped back, and she stared at The Mad One, “You made a deal with him? I gave you charge of Aglaea, as part of our arrangement with me! Thief!”
The Visitor and The Curate began to walk towards The Mad One, who held his hands up, “Easy now, we’re all old friends after all. Oh, and I wouldn’t worry about that device. I had some help.”
“What did you do?,” asked The Visitor.
“You recruited Hephaestus and Amatsumara to do your technical dirty work. Well, this time, I made a deal with them, to modify your toy,” smiled The Mad One, “before that submarine even left, it was a done deal.”
“What have you done?,” asked The Visitor.
“Oh, don’t worry about packing, I don’t think we won’t be resuming the Mission,” said the Mad One, looking at The Curate before turning to The Visitor, “and we won’t be taking over this planet for our own ends either. No world-making engine to turn Earth inside out for our kind. But I could be wrong, I’ve been wrong before.”
The Curate lost the last of her cool reserve, “just what have you done??”
The Mad One began to glow, and laughed, “it’s been awhile, I almost forgot, this feeling burns so good, it almost hurts, to be handed the wheel!”
He lowered his arms and looked at his two siblings, and spoke his final words with them, “Those maker gods in your employ are about to retire from the “tampering with humanity” business, and you two are about to develop a sudden case of amnesia. Judging by my body’s burning all over, but-in-a-good-way, sensation, I think the Three Graces have chosen me, that’s right, the Mad One, with the keys to the Core.”
The Mad One closed his eyes, and exhaled to The Visitor, “And I’ve made sure your little toy, hands it right back to those poor benighted ones, when that device crashes down on us. The Graces, and the rest of us still alive, after all this time, get our lives back, for the first time. For as long as it lasts.”
The Visitor and The Curate looked at each other before leaping at The Mad One, “We have to kill him before the device hits us!”
“You can try,” smiled The Elder known as “The Mad One”.
A bright light engulfed everyone.
“Would never trade it all for the world. Never,” said the Mad One.
Inside the bubble, The Three Graces looked at each other, and agreed, “Let’s go home.”
The Island and everything on it disappeared.
Part 2, The End of the Beginning, Again
The Mad One’s Final Trick
The bubble surrounding Three Graces grew again, it swallowed the combatants on the island, and stretched through the waters surrounding the island. It reached the SSN Eternal. It reached The Ghost ship from Bohai. It reached the Seventh Fleet umbrella. It spread, an invisible warm glow, powered by the light an ancient alien reactor core designed for transits between galaxies and to pierce the veil between alternata irrealis realis.
Memories were altered when the device, launched from the SSN Eternal, landed on top of the heart of the Core, where the Three Graces stood, merging and focusing its potential and reaching into every mind in the gravity well of one world.
Days earlier, the device, ostensibly from the “Skunk works” of Space Launch Network, an Outlander Ventures subsidiary, was delivered to the docks in New Zealand, while the SSN Eternal’s Captain met in quiet with CINCPAC. The device was courtesy of The Visitor, who wanted permanent access to the ancient alien reactor core.
Two contractors, recruited by The Visitor for “one last job”, and who went by nametags marked “Hef” and “Matty”, dressed like SLN techies assigned to “the device”, worked in silence through the night, before the SSN Eternal headed out to the Island.
They had one instruction, and it wasn’t from their eternal master for thousands of years, The Visitor. The Mad One simply said, “One Elder gets the power for a moment, guess who? It’s too late to save The Fates. But not for the Graces. We can set them free. They can burn our memories, take our powers. We can be free, to live.”
After the submarine went underway, Hef and Matty shared one last meal together and headed out back to their hidden human lives, with smiles on their faces. Free at last. Hephaestus, a former maker god, and Amatsumara, a former iron-monger god, were ready to retire from the scene, to nice lives as mortals.
The only one who remembers everything isn’t telling. The Mad One was good at secrets.
Part 3, The World Before The Stars
The bubble surrounding Three Graces grew again, it swallowed the combatants on the island, and stretched through the waters surrounding the island. It reached the SSN Eternal. It reached The Ghost ship from Bohai. It reached the Seventh Fleet umbrella. It spread, an invisible warm glow, powered by the light an ancient alien reactor core designed for transits between galaxies and to pierce the veil between alternata irrealis realis.
Memories were altered when device, launched from the SSN Eternal, landed on top of the heart of the Core, where the Three Graces stood, merging and focusing its potential and reaching into every mind in the gravity well of one world.
Days earlier, the device, ostensibly from the Skunk works of Space Launch Network, an Outlander Ventures subsidiary, was delivered to the docks in New Zealand, while the SSN Eternal’s Captain met in quiet with CINCPAC. The device was courtesy of The Visitor, who wanted permanent access to a certain ancient alien reactor core.
Two contractors, recruited by The Visitor for “one last job”, and who went by nametags marked “Hef” and “Matty”, dressed like SLN techies assigned to “the device”, worked in silence through the night, before the SSN Eternal headed out to the Island.
They had one instruction, and it wasn’t from their eternal master for thousands of years, The Visitor.
The Mad One simply said, “One Elder gets the power for a moment, guess who? It’s too late to save The Fates. But not for the Graces. We can set them free. They can burn our memories, take our powers. We can be free, to live.”
After the submarine went underway, Hef and Matty shared one last meal together and headed out back to their hidden human lives, with smiles on their faces. Free at last. Hephaestus, a former maker god, and Amatsumara, a former iron-monger god, were ready to retire from the scene, to nice lives as mortals.
The only one who remembers everything isn’t telling. The Mad One was good at secrets.
The World Before The Stars
Cafe In A City, Christmas Eve, Edge Of The 22nd Century
Mentor sat back in a chair, drank tea, and people watched.
He read several newspapers, which reported he following items:
“Outlander Ventures to be managed by Tagore, Necker, and other Trusts.”
“Geothermal phenomena in Pacific Ocean may have been scientific fraud or error.”
“Raina Tagore, promoted at Space Launch Network, to vice president, engineering”
“Local businessman Hephaestus “Hef” Coppersmith celebrates 50th anniversary with wife,
Continues to make “sweet boards, decks, and kicks for charity” in Southern California
“Matthew Sumara, of Sumara Steel, retires as CEO after 50 years of service in steel industry”
“Dr. Bruce Ramsey, former NSC, and Yvette Necker, black sheep in Necker family, to marry”
Mentor smiled as he nibbled on a small cake, went through the day’s papers, and people watched. He ticked off what the newspapers did not report:
The Greyhat, formerly known as the Node Oduze Odysseus Kephalonia, completed his “snatch and grab” job, not of Raina Tagore, but of her would-be captors, Mnemosyne aka “Nema”, Calliope and the rest of the Memory Faction, the last of The Curate’s Clan. They are all been transferred to house arrest, temporary, to “MiamiMarseilles, known as MaiMa”, a project written off by Outlander Ventures and transferred to colonies of artists and creative financiers. Node expatriates, including Eris, join him.
The Curate meets her fate, inside the extra-dimensional walls of the archival manifold, never to be released from a kaleidoscopic gallery of the past.
The Visitor moves on, in an endless wandering through the world, never remembering who he was, falling into the future without memories, rootless.
Pallas and Bella disappear. (Weeks later, the future “Mr. And Mrs. Bruce Ramsey”, distant relations and in-laws of the Neckers, a powerful family with large stakes in the Outlander Ventures, are to be wed.)
Cale H. Land, Aglaea, and Thalia and the Island disappear. A family trip through the Stars is powered by an ancient alien reactor core, propelling re-purposed Island atoms.
The team-members of ST12 were recovered in an emergency sea-rescue by the SSN Eternal, which happened to be on patrol in the region. The mass amnesia of the survivors and Eternal crew have been attributed to a new mysterious tropical disease. They and/or their surviving heirs were granted honorable discharges with full pensions, their files have been sealed as classified.
The Memories of Man are altered by The Graces. It never happened. What happened? No one remembers.
Except for one person, an imprisoned god released as a free man.
A second pot of tea arrives. Church bells. Snowflakes melt on sidewalks. Last minute shopping flows past. Soft murmurs inside.
“The Flâneur, that sounds good.”
He shook his head, My father gave me my first name, “One”. My other names were given by God-pretenders, Men-gods, and Man. Now, I’ll choose my own name. I’ll take my time, for as long as it takes, from as long as I’ve got left.
Flakes of snow begin to stick on the sidewalk. St. Paul’s bells peals. The tea is hot. The cafe is warm.
Was all of this worth it? After millions of years, the time had come to ask. The answer?
“Would never trade it all, for the world, never.”
AFTERWORD
Author’s Notes on what’s going on:
This “Book #3” project, “RETRIEVE”, is meant to be a prequel to two other books, “Box Of Stars” and “Harvest” but this piece could be read as a standalone story.
The prologue for “RETRIEVE”, “An Impossible Island”, was submitted as a short story.
Prologue: “An Impossible Island”, Part One and Part Two, and Part Three, was inspired by writing prompts from the Soaring Twenties Social Club (STSC) creative community, beginning with an STSC Symposium monthly theme of “Beach”.
Chapter 1, “Older Than Bones”, was inspired by the theme, “Dinosaurs”.
Chapter 2, A Love Trinity Denied, was inspired by “Romance”.
Chapter 3, “A Forgotten Circle Of Hades” was inspired by “Superstition”.
Chapter 4, “Reading The Room” was inspired by an image of a wall-sized bookshelf.
Chapter 5, “The Bittersweetness Of Deep Times”, was inspired by “Isolation”.
Chapter 6, “The Weaving Of Split Infinities”, was inspired by “Dreams”.
Chapter 7, “Dead Languages”, was inspired by “Propaganda”.
Chapter 8, “Path Not Forsaken”, was inspired by “Risk”.
Chapter 9, “The Last Word of The World”, considers words as worlds unto themselves.
Chapter 10, An Intimate Path Of Desires
Chapter 11, Absent Without Longing
Chapter 12, Lonely In The Same Room
Chapter 13, Children Of Daedalus
Chapter 14, People Of A Faraway Land
Chapter 15, Distant Shores, Distant Worlds
Chapter 16, The Rules of New Places
Chapter 17, Space To Breathe
Chapter 18, The Extra Air
Chapter 19, The Clash Of Selves
Chapter 20, The Last Meme
Chapter 21, Mistakes And Memories
Chapter 22, The Confusions Of Things
Chapter 23, The Senses Of Wonders
Chapter 24, The Gambits Of Curiosities
Chapter 25, Remembrance of Things To Come
Chapter 26, The Last Afterparty
Chapter 27, Eternity In Mind
Chapter 28, Three
Chapter 29, Two
Chapter 30, One
“RETRIEVE” chapter and notes will be posted in this Substack, while I edit books #1 (“Box Of Stars”) and #2 (“Harvest”). All will be in the archive, not all will be emailed.)