Arcfire Chapter 19

by Stephen King

Just joking! This was written by E. E. Bowers. Now, moving on, the girl suddenly found herself sitting in that type of room again. We won’t bother to say where it is. It is a place, yes. But it is a place that does not exist in your world. Not even in your universe. It did not exist before. And after this meeting, it will cease to exist again. To be especially and metaphysically truthful, the only purpose of this room is to serve as a reason for this universe to exist. Which is to also say, this room exists to hold a meeting with the fellows.

Yes, those fellows. Those entities who—for whatever reason—took on the archetypal appearance of mid- to late-nineteenth-century wealthy aristocracy on your planet. Even if they speak with British accents, they do not all appear to be native Britishers. Appear to be, because they are not British. Not even human, of course. Just…wearing the appearances again for business’ sakes.

“I did as you asked,” went the girl, looking the too-jovial fellows in the face—not caring how much power they had.

Oh, so much power. They could wink her out of existence with a mere thought. Moreover, they could do the same for entire damned planets for that matter. And maybe a goodly portion of her home universe if they so chose.

But never mind that. We are here on business. And business at her level means money. That said, the girl said, “The usual fee for your unusual demands. So where’s my money, bitches?”

The final syllable had not even left her synthetic mouth when a goodly sized briefcase winked into existence in front of her. It then opened itself.

A simiple task, generating kinetic energy at will. After all, the fellows in the room had ability enough to mak an entire damned universe—like this pocket universe. Even set all the rules. And all the rules were such that they had to accommodate the existence of someone that has to exist in a universe quite like your own.

The girl hefted the case. With her years working as a carnival accountant, the girl was able to count money by just lifting it—especially so given how all the bills were of the same denomination. Then looking to one of the fellows—a questioning look. No need to say anything aloud because they could read her mind if they so chose. (Not that anyone would want to read that girl’s mind for overly long, mind you. Liable to end up taking a no-expenses paid voyage on a therapist’s couch for the next decade or so.)

“A hefty bonus, so to speak, for your…ah, comedic touch in matters,” said one of the fellows. “We trust that you remain on retainer?”

“That’s a fact, bro,” went the girl, lifting the briefcase and standing up, her black-painted fingernails glittering. Then the girl in entirety was returned back to her world.

The air displaced by Annika’s trans-warp departure had not even finished popping when Aia filled it. Though also of synthetic body, the brief difference in air pressure made her gasp. You can also go about contemplating such matters as quantum traces resulting in psychic phenomena. Even if Aia had not been into Annika’s dark mind, to even have a hint of it was enough to cause concern.

Many of you would prefer to not be in Annika’s mind. But some of you, however…? Well, those peculiar among you, you would quite like the stay. Warped fantasies of entire planets existing without sunlight (a given for her goth sensibilities). More fantasies still about human-mannequin hybrids (don’t ask). Very intimate relations with monsters under the bed (insisting upon you not asking any longer)…! We were only lightly scratching at the surface with a pinky-fingernail and shan’t delve.' Though Aia had survived the horrors of a nuclear war, even just a trace of a hint of a whisper of Annika’s state of mind was quite enough for her.

“Just in time!” loudly bellowed one of the fellows, loud and boisterous enough to sound like a half-deafened retired admiral of Her Royal Majesty’s Navy.

“Punctual. I like that in a functionary,” said fellow who had taken on the appearance of someone who slicks back his hair. And though sunglasses did not fit the archetype of a nineteenth-century British megalomaniac, he was wearing them nevertheless.

To Aia’s still-settling perceptions, it was about being here again. The same long table. The same acccoutrements of a late-nineteenth century room of aristocracy. But in truth, this was not the same here as when Aia was before. It was just a reproducction accurate down to the molecule.

Yes, molecules. Only ignorance would say down to the last quantum state. Quantum states happen all the time—such as the one that would mean one of the planets in your solar system ceasing to exist. Pluto, was it called? Your scientists just comfort themselve with thoughts that it was never a planet anyway and have substituted another celestial body just to hide and tide things over for all the children and those of child-like psyches.

And Aia was still nervously looking around. What, was it going to be another go at another lunatic quest? What twisted…

“We know full well what you are thinking,” said one of the gentlemen, nineteenth-century moustache quivering. He boldly thrust a finger into the air and declared, “A hero’s work is never done!”

Which was what Aia feared most. Indeed, they were going to put her somewhere else. Why-ever not? They had given her the synthetic-bodied means of dealing with all sorts of folderol and balderdash. Not quite invincible, but can take quite a lot. If Aia had to do battle with a post-apocalyptic robot disguised as an American biker with an Austian accent, then there was a fifty-fifty chance of coming out victorious. (So long as her noggin wasn’t taken away, the girl could come back to fight another day. Eventually. When the synthetic healing-repair did its thing.)

But her brain is still human. Which is to say, the girl is still has all the foibles of being a human being. Being nothing else despite the elf-princesse synthetic corpus. It’s what’s on the inside that counts. And since there is the word human in the mix, that doesn’t count for much!

Another gentleman-fellow grinned maniacally, “Oh yes, indeed! And since you are clearly not hero material, we have hired something else to get your work done!”

Before Aia could give the proverbial and physical sigh of relief, in leapt a maniac dressed as a lunatic. Just look at that outfit. Tight blue all-body underwear with tight red jockey shorts worn over. If you saw something like that step into the corner shop or onto the double-decker on your way home from work, you would certainly find occasion for pause.

But do not tarry overly long. Someone that far out of sorts is likely to be dangerous if you were to say the wrong thing. What would that be? Why, that would be for him to determine.

“We said hire, and we mean it,” said another gentleman. Turning to the lunatic wearing the underwear over underwear, “You’re American! You love green, don’t you?”

Before the grinning lunatic could respond, an open suitcase full of vials—in turn full of glowing green something-or-other—appeared on the long meeting table. Still with grin fully affixed to his face and fists on hips, the lunatic then fell down and out of sight. And promptly died.

Oh my. Oh, dear. That glowing green seems to be deadly. At least to him. Perhaps one should avoid being a lunatic who wears red jockey shorts?

Never mind that! The fellows were having themselves quite a merry laugh. Seeing a lunatic is one thing. Seeing a lunatic befall a horrid fate is all the more comic still! So much folly!

Someone of average height—and certainly not even close to those giant Americans—would have stood up to get a better look-see. To look over the table, that is. Also saying, Americans are tall enough to see over things. Yes, even looking past logic and sensibility at times, given their attitudes about things. (Darn it! Why can’t you Frenchmen learn to speak American! We should have vacationed in Britain. Them and their funny English accents.)

But being her height (or lack thereof) for all of her life, Aia would have to look beneath the table. Giving a brief start to do so, Aia thought better of it. A lunatic is still a lunatic. And if comic-book fantasy were reality, then it was best not to offend that sort.

Or offend the others in this room, for that matter. Annika knew what the fellows were capable of doing—e.g. take whole galaxies out of existence, make you vanish faster than a wink, etcetera, etcetera. But even with Annika not being here, Aia also knew that the fellows were not to be taken lightly. You humans have your fairy-tales about supernatural beings dwelling upon a mountain and being quite fickle about how they treat mortals.

Now, imagine the same sort but made real. There was not a single one in this room clad in a toga or feasting upon ambrosia, or needing to feast on anything at all for that matter. All the same, they could outshine any of those mythical beings because said beings were at the mercy of other forces. And anyway, the fellows are real while Zeus and his ilk are not. Reality beats myth, as usual. And those who can beat reality are all the more powerful.

So study up, humans! Study up! Learn first. Learn that math! Learn that science! And then, learn to think! And experiment! Perhaps you have a shred of a chance to match these beings in at least space-flight capabilities.

And they were still laughing. Never mind the murder that just happened. If they had summoned a lunatic, then it’s also true that they were lunatics themselves. That is, even if that was not readily apparent already. Apparent or not, there is no getting around the fact that the fellows were exactly the sort of people that Annika likes. Beings and entities just as out of whack as herself.

But since this is about Aia, this was not a happy situation. It’s comparative, you see. There are humans who perfectly enjoy lounging about in hot-tubs or having especially large, dangerous animals for pets. There are those who have three-hundred kilo tigers for pets, frolicking about on sedan-chairs with the heads of murderous predatory carnivores in their laps. Before the Americans amongst you go about wagging your ethnic idiocy and saying that rich foreigners are crazier than your foreigners, perhaps take a look at the doings in your own territorial back yard. Every single month, some American news-rag or other has headlines about an owner of a few thousand poisonous reptiles finally getting his comeuppance. From Florida (as many of these stories happen to be), you have…Another Idiot Dies When Killed by His Three-Thousand Pet Boa-Constrictors. Or maybe, Moron Owner of Sixty-Five Pit-Bulls Becomes Dog-Food.

Indeed! Natural selection is not in the least picky about nationality or nations. Stupidity kills Americans regardless of whatever country they so happen to be in at the moment. And if a seemingly inordinate amount of Americans so happen to die as a result, that should be indicative of something.

But Aia was not dying quite yet. In a room, at a table, in the company of beings who could all craft and control aspects of realities by just the power of whim. A certain thought in the right direction, and Aia could be gone. And then you have the old standby, a fate worse than death. More than a few of your beliefs on the supernatural entail being sent to some astounding place of eternal torture in the afterlife should you muck up in this one. Death would be a relief. But with Lord Satan’s employees prodding and turning those souls over until they go from medium-rare to well-done for all eternity, there is no respite. (Such symbolism makes for great admiration amongst your heavy-metal fandom and most all your Manchester United followers, but to actually live it in the afterlife would be far from enjoyment.)

Which is to say, the fellows could do exactly that. They could craft yet another reality in which mere mortals such as yourselves are granted immortality… No, no, no! Don’t go cheering just yet! You are forgetting the attached clause! Immortality as so you may survive eternal torture! Universes are realities, and realities have rules.

Why, they could quite easily have a reality in which your biochemistry and physiology conspire together to allow you eternal survivability in blazing pits of sulphur set before massive television sets showing Manchester United losing on the pitch in every single last universe in which they exist. And since there are an infinite number of universes and more universes being made all the time by the likes of the fellows, that makes for an infinite, infinite eternity of suffering to body and soul! Aah-ha-ha-ha….!

And laugh. And the fellows still laughed. And even if this seems uncomfortable and awkward, ’tis better to be maladroit than burning in Hell. Yes! Turning and burning about amongst those fiery flaming pits of fiery flaming flame! And near your eternally burning soul, the demons are lounging in big comfy rock chairs and watching your favourite football team lose in every other parallel universe.

The fellows are laughing instead of sending you to Hell. And that is is why the laughter of the fellows is a good thing. So long as they are laughing, there won’t be…

And they were no longer going about laughing. They all had their heads and their attention turned to Aia. And it happened faster than a wink. One minute, uproarious sounds of comedy at the sight of a comic-book hero’s plight. The next femtosecond, everyone staring at her.

It’s all well and good when there are extra-dimensional entities with de-facto omnipotence are laughing and not paying attention to you. As any worshipper of ancient Roman mythological figures will tell you, if the gods are not paying attention, you can do as you please. Omnipotence does not equal omniscience. (It’s the monotheistic deities that you humans want to look out for.) Now what if they are paying attention to you? Or rather, paying attention to Aia?

If those entities so much as considered her ceasing to exist. So much as a hint of a whisper of a thought. So much as a syllable, and it’s bye-bye Aia Andersdotter. There could be hope in her existing in a parallel universe in which her idiot mates did not do something so stupid as to bandy about with dangerous things. Things such as long-lost texts of lore concerning seemingly omnipotent entities and parallel universes and what not. In which case, various versions of Aia Andersdotter of various parallel universes are happily mucking about on any number of Earths in which humanity scraped by regarding thermonuclear destruction.

By the way, we won’t heighten your hopes in stating the existence of parallel universes in which World War Triple did not happen. That would mean us lying to you, or you lying to yourselves. We all know what’s going to happen.

So much as a hint of a whisper of a thought. Aia looked around in the relative silence. Other than the sound of a nonsensically placed grandfather clock going tick-tock…tick-tock…tick-tock…there was nothing for her normal-range ears to hear. (Girl could have had her synthetic corpus equipped with beyond-human super-hearing, along with super-sight and what-not prior to the quest, but it’s far too late for that now! Probably just hear the increased whirring of her body’s blood-pumping mechanism at this point.)

And then came the storm. “Preposterous! Utterly pointless!” verbally exploded one of the fellows. “If there was ever a way to muck up a world’s game, that would be it!”

“An astounding misadventure into death and destruction!” chimed in another fellow. He must have given his incarnation those extra-extravagant muttonchop whiskers just as so they could quiver whenever he expressed anger. “There has probably not ever been a single human who has ever done something so astoundingly horrid!”

“You could mention that Hitler fellow, but that would be conveniently side-stepping around the antics of that other mustachioed maniac who once called himself Stalin,” said another fellow. “But given his rather…warm and accommodating afterlife, he is now calling himself… Aa-a-a-aurgh!”

“He said publicly that he doesn’t believe in Hell, but for him? We made rather warm reception in the afterlife. Quite literally, in fact!” said another fellow who had otherwise inexplicably grown a pair of horns from his forehead. The three-tined pitchfork on the wall behind him was a nice touch.

“Because that is what comes to pass for those who cross us!” shouted yet another fellow in the room. “And if you wonder how he came to such a situation, just bear in mind that he came across a lost text and did things with it he should not have! Rather like your situation, in fact.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Do tell. Why do so many troubled tyrants of your world go about sporting thick moustaches?” asked another fellow. “Leopold Beltran, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Timur, Tamurlane… However you wish to spell his name… Now the latter, there was a rather troubled soul. Making entire pyramids of severed human heads!”

“Rather interesting how the history texts of your hemisphere seem to have excluded dear old Pyramid Head,” said another fellow after that, looking quite similar to a fellow mentioned three moments prior.

“They…were only responsible for the wholesale death and destruction of cities and regions!” roared one of the fellows. Looking to Aia. “But you…? How do you rest with the idea of having upended the government of an entire world?”

All those names were troublesome enough to Aia, but one in particular. Everyone knew about Hitler and the rest. But who was Leopold Beltran? The girl hadn’t heard that name before concerning Earth. That means, he wasn’t born yet. Or hadn’t come to prominence. If he was as bad as the rest in that list…

“Who is Leopold Beltran?” asked Aia. Daring to ask because someone sharing the ranks with those other murderous maniacs needs to be known about.

“If we would have wanted antics of your sort, we would have had a pair of mustaches accompany you on your quest!” continued another one of the fellows, completely ignoring Aia’s question. “The ones we have in mind seemed to have had a…falling out later on. But to be especially truthful about matters, those two genocidal humans of your so-called Twentieth Century were bosom buddies! How does the American saying go again? Politics makes for strange bedfellows!”

“Who is Leopold Beltran!” insisted Aia again, not wanting another genocide on her homeworld. Then both her hands slapping themselves over her own mouth. The fellows made her body. They could make her hands do things. As Annika would say, Silence a bitch.

“Don’t be daft, dear,” said one of the previously named fellows. Or not named, rather. Doesn’t matter. Names are only as important as a means of labeling identities, and the fellows could be any-one or any-thing they so chose. “You just declared his name aloud. You will mayhaps come to live long enough to see his rise to power. Such is more what can be said regarding your fellow humans.”

Which left Aia damnably nervous all of a sudden. Tsars failed to conquer the world. General Secretaries of Communism failed. But Russia’s latest and last President-for-Life was Russia’s last shot at doing so. Moscow ceased to exist. So did tens of millions of other people on the Eurasian continent. As if totalitarian fascism never stopped trying.

Yes! Literally trying to take over the world! Like some misbegotten comic-book villain! They really, really thought they could conquer the world! Now there was another lunatic in the works?

Moving on, because the fellows were not done with their condemnation. Which is to also say, they were not going to bother explaining the likes of Leopold Beltran. Neither will we. We’ve already said quite enough. Europeans, Americans, even those of your world’s western hemisphere like themselves a spot of fascism. Which will grow larger, of course.

Starts with doing away with free speech when people say all sorts of things that you don’t like. Moves on to putting people in prison for saying the wrong thing on social media or anywhere else. Wholesale executions for all of those who dare to declare their sexual preferences aloud! How dare you be a heterosexual!

And just like that, you’ve given Old Boy Leo political precedence to start killing anyone he doesn’t like sexually. Or in any regard at all. And it all starts because of your love of social media. Smartphones and social media are therefore the greatest threats to democracy since the invention of moustaches!

“Just…up and made an entire world go bottoms-up, that one!” went another one of the fellows, reiterating a point that was already made.

This was because he was dealing with a human, and humans need reiteration in what is said to them. He could have just as easily dropped the idea striaight away into Aia’s human brain and mind. But, that would involve dipping into a human’s mind, and nobody else here wants to do that. You would—you and your murky human consciouness and cesspool subconsciousness.

“What was I supposed to do!” shouted Aia in sudden agitation. The girl was not aware of the fellows’ abilities regarding winking galaxies out of existence, but just knew that those assembled were immensely capable. “There was an absolute madcap lunatic in charge of everything!”

“How is that especially different from what else goes on with humans?” asked another one of the fellows. “I mean, really. You humans and especially your generation thereof loves fascism!”

“No! We don’t!” insisted Aia, horrid thoughts of maniacal moustaches running amok. The Russian responsible for World War Sequel did not have that bit of facial hair, but most all of his friends did for whatever reason. “Fascists are racists!”

“Oh, that bit of folderol!” went yet another one of the fellows. And the fellows took turns in answering Aia’s insanity because even beings at their level of enlightenment and capabilities have limited patience. “Human democracies can be racist too. It’s just that human fascists just threw in accusations of racism to throw you off their trail!”

“By Jove!” exploded another one of the fellows. “We’re not fascist because we’re not racist! Never mind our tendencies toward destruction of liberties! And our maniacal love of unbridled murderous capitalism!”

“Such is quite enough of that,” insisted one of the first fellows to talk to Aia. “What we need to do is talk about your victory.”

Which was the verbal and psychological equivalent of throwing Aia headlong into ice-cold water on a warm day. There they were, ranting about her complete and total failure as a... Well, we would say, as a human being. But being a failure is just your normal mode of being anyway. To therefore say failure as a human being would be a redundancy, a pleonasm.

“So! What would you like as a re-ward?”asked another one of the fellows, speaking slowly for em-pha-sis. Aia’s human brain was having difficulty with things, so it was best to be easy on her.

Which wasn’t quite working. One minute, they were shouting all hell-bent damnation about her performance. The next second, they were ready to give her an open-ended anything. These people play games with worlds. And they were not seemingly happy with her doings. Asking them for a reward was like asking to have a wish granted. And most every single last time Aia had read about…or heard about…or seen about a character in a fantasy-horror-science-fiction-drama-romance being given the opportunity to have a wish granted? Every single last time, that wish always came at a horrible, horrible cost.

Oh! You wish to have beauty without measure? Let’s turn you into a fashion-shop doll! Wealth? You want wealt ad infinatum? You shall be transformed into an asteroid made of gold and diamonds! Don’t like it? Very well, why not becoming an entire asteroid belt of the same? World peace? Just one world? So be it! There shall be World War Four, and it shall be the last! Eternal peace as your planet shall have not a wit of life upon it due to total and final warfare! Be advised, your moustaches were not joking in the least when they said that they had enough weaponry to char-boil your planet’s biosphere six times over…!

Because what-so-ever that someone could wish for, there would be some lunatic plot-twist result. Aia wanted no such thing. It was therefore safest to not answer until there was an answer that was safest for all of you humans. You’re thinking that—since this takes place in some unforseen future from your time—that Aia’s potential unintentional acting answer would only kill the future of your world. Guess what? Guess again! We did say that the fellows have power over time as well. If they want your world to cease existing in retrograde, that means your time period will cease to be as well! And the results could come to pass at any second of any hour. How can you be so very sure that the sun won’t shine tomorrow on a spot of vacuum where your planet used to be?

You can’t be! So enjoy your existence while you may! Yes! Your pitiful existence! Your miserable, pitiful, low-brow, animal-urges driven…

“A rare bit of victory, indeed!” went a previously mentioned fellow. “For all the pratfalls that humans have done! Taking hundreds of thousands of years to get around to reinventing civilisation! Finally deciding to give democracy the old college try! Never mind if their own aristocracy tells them that college is useless...even while said aristocrats send their own spawn off to university for a degree.”

“Humans!” declared one of the other fellows, because humans are still the subject of discussion. Of all the species of all the galaxies and all the parallel universes in their bailiwick, humans are front and center. “Claiming to go out to do right, but inwardly always doing what they so desire!”

“Even if it is against their own self-interest,” went that other fellow over there. Which one? That one… No, not that one. The one with the astounding mutton-chop whiskers. Said whiskers are still wriggling from his talking. “Being told that low wages and consuming mind-debilitating substances are good for them.”

“Sitting up in a tree and calmly sawing away at the limb they are sitting upon!” went another one of the fellows. He then leaned off to a side and speaking conspiratorially to another fellow...but speaking loud and obviously enough to be heard anyway. “All things considered, human behaviour leads one to believe they are returning up to trees anyway.”

“Some strains of humanity might have been better off not coming down from the branches in the first place,” responded the other fellow sitting next.

A slap of the table—making little Aia give a start. “And why are you so thoroughly confused! Everything is just so plain and obvious!”

“What’s obvious!” cried Aia, just so thoroughly shaken at this point. They were either going to give her something like a reward or punish her greatly. The one could could very well have consequences as dangerous as the other, especially regarding the science-fiction-horror-fantasy sides of things. (Like that old American show The Starlight Zone.) Now, which was it to be?

“It’s quite obvious!” went another one of the fellows, looking to the right. “How could anyone be so small-minded!”

“Even for a human!” went the next fellow after that. “Who could be so stupid and incapable as to not understand!”

“In fact, more than obvious!” declared the fellow next in succession. Physical succession, not in regards to royalty or any other type of office holder of any sort.

In fact, to state the obvious, all the fellows here are on the same level in their own hierarchy because they all have the same access to the same types of reality-crafting technology. Such is the reason for respect of democracy. Can’t have aristocracy among one’s own species if there are no subservients, can we?

“Because if we would have intended on another path of decision-making, we would have done that from the very moment you came...marauding into this study!” roared one of the previously mentioned fellows. “All pomp and anger and complete fury like all get-out!”

“I still don’t understand!” No need to state who made that crying remark, especially since there was only one individual here of the self-declared female sort. (We’re calling them fellows, but beings that do not need to reproduce actually have no sexual role.)

“Even if you do not, such is what shall come to pass regardless!” insisted another one of the fellows still. “You can go about muddling through existence, doing the most astoundingly asinine acts. Making millions or being a billionaire, demonstrating the full rule of inverse relationship between wealth and intellectual capability! Then when trouble appears, you put up that excuse. As if not understanding is reason enough to have that reality be dismissed.”

“Understanding or not, you are going back!” went another one of the fellows. “No! Not that other place. No use for you going thereabouts regardless. You are going back to where you came from!”

“You are not a human but a genetically modified bio-bot cyborg created by nine-eyed Gleeptarians!” went the previous fellow. “And before you go about closing your auxiliary air intake, you should know what I am lying.” A loud sniff. “Rather obvious, really.”

“Wha-a-a-at?” complained Aia, the girl not having a choice in the matter. Her frontal lobe was all a-dazzle with the implications of what was just told to her. Let’s see how you would go about fathoming that your entire existence is a lie.

Just as the fellows were lying to her right now. One of the fellows looked to another. Unlike you mere humans, they can exchange more than just emotions by just exchanging looks. They exchanged thoughts. Hell, they need not even make eye-contact to swap scraps of information between each other. It was just more of their human play-acting. This, just as they were playing up the idea of how much a failure Aia was.

But let the fellows explain that to her in very slow, very simple terms that even a human could understand. “He’s lying, of course,” went the fellow sitting nearest. “We would say something about trying to break ourselves of the habit. Lying, that is. Even that would be a lie.”

“He lies. They lie. We all lie…” trailed off yet another fellow. “To be truthful, this entire damned room is a lie. A rather convenient one, as are many lies. However, this lie is created for the sake of maintaining that fragile sense of sanity you humans have.”

“Just as fascism and other forms of totalitarianism maintain the lie that a strong human government is a stable one,” added the next fellow over. “You saw with your own world, all that it takes is one technocratic git to have one bad day, and suddenly it’s the next World War.”

“And who’s going to stop him?” went a previously-mentioned fellow. “You love your strong governments by smartly-dressed men and women sitting in offices and dictating everything that goes on. That, and all the lies they say.”

“Which is us saying that you did not foul up that planet,” said yet another previous fellow. “There’s no point in doing that, given how it was fouled prior to your arrival.”

“Like tossing dirt upon dirty linen, to use a metaphor,” went yet another fellow. An unmentioned one, by the way, sitting over there at a corner of this table and not having said anything aloud until now.

“To not use a metaphor, ‘twas better that you chose to go without an advanced sense of smell, given feudalism’s lack for personal hygiene!” went another fellow.

“But putting that aside for the moment, congratulations!” went the fellow before that. “You have won, my dear! By giving the people of that planet a taste of democracy and a means to acquire it, you have won the game! Lord Muckity-Muck has been mucking about his people’s sense and sensibilities since he spoke his first words. A man of war and peace. Making permanent war on the peace of mind. A tale of two cities, that. One city, plainly visible. The other, a city of repressed madness. Great expectations…for liberty.”

Another fellow put a stop to that name-dropping. “He simply had to be done away with. Rather hard to do when one is ensconced in a floating fortress, and the people of the landscape are only wont to making interpersonal weapons. But you quite handily put an end to that by introducing to him a means of his own destruction.”

And in saying that, the fellow had assured Aia’s role in the assassination. Even in the depths of her hopelessness, it would have been just so very easy to snatch the Arcfire from the alcohol-sodden grip of Lord Moron. Then, put him out of everyone’s misery.

But really…! Who could possibly want to live that life, anyway? To live in a grand floating fortress, having all the riches of the land and being able to bed all the people in it. To be able to conquer any and all enemies. To go about gallivanting whenever one so choose and… Wait a moment. You would want that fantasy made real! You and your out-loud hatred of fascism…whilst consuming fascist-monarch-totalitarian fiction like mad! What is wrong with you? And at this point, being human is no excuse in that direction, either!

But...we will not change your mind. You were expecting the phrase, cannot change your mind. It would be just so very easy for us to do that. We choose to not do so. Saying this again, being human is its own punishment. So, go back to destroying your neurons with ale and doing the same to your intellect by watching hours of Arsenal on the tele.

“How does it feel to be on the side of...democracy?” went another one of the fellows. “You have acquired American citizenship, have you not?” Then he put on the sort of grin that was just barely large enough to not be human, for no human mouth could do a face like that. Short of cybernetic enhancements, that is. But you and your hatred of cyborgs and robots would be loathe to do that.

“But sarcasm in that regard is just hatred of a form of government that actually works,” went a previous one of the fellows. “It would have to work, all things considered. Democracy has to take place if and when all parties considered are of more-or-less equal power. After all, ’twould be overly difficult to have someone dominate when everyone is capable of dominance. Imagine, if you would...not just one Lord Morkudum but one hundred Lord Morkudums. All of them vying endlessly for control. All of them laying waste without limit.”

“All of them making for an endless landscape of destruction unto armageddon,” went yet another one of the previous fellows. “Those of your home planet have had a Twenty Years’ War. Then, a Hundred Years’ War. But what’s a little terrestrial destruction compared to the obliteration of entire galaxies? The next time you take a gander up at a night-time sky of your world, just think! By the time the visible light from those galaxies has reached your planet, half of them are actually gone.”

“Five hundred million years is quite a bit of time to go about updating your celestial maps, wouldn’t you say?” added a fellow across the way. “Must be quite the shock to imagine just how wrong your astronomers are about what’s actually beyond your solar system. Imagine taking a pen to star-maps and going… This one, gone! This one, gone too! Oh! This one, also gone! A great many galaxies! Gone, gone, gone!”

And then, Aia had one of those ever-so-rare slights of intelligence and wisdom, coupled with something vaguely resembling perception. Most humans are born with only two functioning eyes and two ears, and even then only able to take in light of limited spectra. That, and your pitiful brains can only do so much. So it was quite a bit of surprise and awe when Aia came to realise something…

Word-choice, that was what. One of the fellows said that Aia would have a next time to look up at the sky of her world. That, and it would be the very same time. If Aia was to be sent to any other world? Why, of course the night-time sky would be different. Of course, the stars would not be the same. That also goes in regards to time. Five hundred million years hence, your skies will be a great deal different. (As mentioned, said skies will be a great deal darker, given how most all the stars have actually ceased to exist all of those millions of years ago! Best do away with such idiocy as navigation by stars by then and learn quantum placement. Rather hard to navigate by constellations when there are no constellations to navigate by.)

If Aia were to be sent to a place that was different, then things would be different. But things would not be significantly different. Not in a way that Aia would notice, at the least. Perhaps a few small, errant landmasses would not be where they were supposed to be. (Who needs New York City, anyway? Silly Americans! So lacking in imagination that they need to steel right proper British names for places and tack on the word new ahead of things.) If New York or Malibu were to vanish, then things are all the better for it.

But such was not to be—not in the timeline to which Aia was to return. There would be nothing regarding errant paths of continental drift, no deviating paths of human evolution (all downhill anyway, from the looks of things), no way, shape, or form of anything seemingly untoward. Well…? That is, other than what has long since going astray with Aia’s world. And it would seem to be, soon to be…your world.

Or, it would have been. The fellows have decided that you do not deserve Aia Andersdotter in your world—not now, not in the future, not ever. There would be any number of Aia Andersdotters, yet not this one.

Even that was now a lie, for now there were no Aias here. They made Aia disappear. That is, disappear from this reality. They did not wink her completely out of existence, just out of existence on this plane. And because this place only existed for the sake of hosting a physical being, they made it cease to exist as well. The fellows could make as many universes—pocket-sized or otherwise—they so chose. But since they came from being a species in which resources were limited, they decided to roll up this place regardless out of habit. We hope that you had a good look around because it shall never exist again.