"Russell? You're talking about Bertrand Russell?" Mike said he was not ignorant of him.

"Correct." Abdiel snapped his fingers.

Bertrand Russell, English philosopher, historian, man of letters and mathematician.

Atheist.

"I appreciate his assertions about power, so what are you going to tell me about? Mathematics or philosophy." Mike's eyes were half-lidded.

"Well, what do you think of his statement that The universe sprang into existence five minutes ago from nothing, with human memory and all other signs of history included ." Abdiel held out five fingers, "Bro, do you remember how long ago the world was created?"

"Thinking about that doesn't seem to have any real meaning." Mike's voice was calm and restrained as always, "Even if everything, including our memories and experiences, was created by God one second ago, so what. Time is God’s creation, not a yardstick by which God’s actions can be measured. Even if the last second or even this second is the true origin of this world, the past has been established as an unshakable reality at His will."

Mike was silent for a moment and bowed his head with a smile, probably his first smile so far: "Real and unreal make no difference to the Lord, sister. Whether it's you or me or anything in this world, they're always ready to become an illusory thought that shatters in the next trance. Are you so unreal but you are going to seek the real for that words, to figure out at what point in time creation actually took place?"

Mike locked eyes with his sister once again as Abdiel gathered up his umbrella and stood up. The scene around them faded. Behind the ceiling revealed a pure, evening or dawn sky, and beneath it was surrounded by sandy yellow.

No, not exactly, although most of the ground and mountains here were dominated by a grayish pale yellow, but that was not all. A road stretches beneath them, green vegetation planted along its sides. Looking down the road, buildings show their outlines.

The most notable of the buildings were two towers, which were on either side of the road, connected by a semicircle in the middle, leaving the road underneath the semicircle and the two towers forming a portal.

With their eyesight they could certainly see it all clearly, Mike could even make out the painting on the half-circle, the direction of its strokes and the scars it had been scraped by the wind.

"And here I thought this was one of the last places you wanted to be." Mike smiled and shook his head, "St. Anthony wouldn't want you to visit his former home, he would protest."

Abdiel laughed easily, "I didn't walk in. I really don't want to go in here, so I'll have to bother you to stand outside with me and watch from a distance."

Now this is no people, no cars, no wind, even the light is uncertain. But they were as happy as a brother and sister who had really come to enjoy the tour. They stood gazing into the nothingness at the distant monastery of St. Anthony, this sence that might have appeared a thousand years ago.

After standing in silence for a few minutes, it was Abdiel who spoke first: "Do you remember little Philopater?"

The sky suddenly went from bright to dark, the wind picked up, and the temperature plummeted. Mike's eyes narrowed slightly, and the line of sight he cast at Antony's convent tightened a bit. The line of sight spanned the distance, penetrated the walls, bent at the angles, and was cast on a Coptic-style fresco in the building.

The portrait was of a man with a gun and a sword riding a horse. He was Philopater, who was also better known by the name of Saint Mercurius.

"Of course." Gazing at the distant portrait, Mike spoke in reply. His reply was not small, but it seemed to be being swallowed by the erosion of the wind, blurring as if it came from as far away as his gaze could reach, "He used to visit me when I was in heaven, and would ask me questions."

"Did you love him? As much as you love a beautiful artwork." Abdiel did not bother to look in the direction her brother was looking; her eyes were scattered, at times looking at the sky, at times at the distant mountains.

"An artwork? I think of him as my son." Mike's face was not offended, his face was relaxing, his narrowed eyes curved into arcs that could bounce off unpleasantness, the wind was drowned out by his proud voice, "I had lent him my sword, and I had taken him back to heaven at his deathbed. I have descended upon his father to teach him sword skills, and I have discussed faith and courage with him as a distant cousin. He was like a child to me, he was my child,"

"Then, brother, can you tell me what a child is to his parents? A work that carries their wishes and expectations?" Abdiel's voice with a smile was like a tune played when the wind rubbed the sandy soil, "Little Philopater is indeed excellent, full of courage, full of faith, full of piety, loving God and all that you have taught him. As your vassal, he has done well indeed. But does he really count as your son and not your work, having been educated by you."

"I thought I respected his ideas enough." Mike raised an eyebrow, his mood seemed to change for the better after the change of scene.

"But until you respect his ideas, he has no more room to think." Abdiel sighed, "The fate of the Saint Mercurius was sealed from the time his father received the revelation from our father. He received the revelation so young that before he understood the colorfulness of the world he was already occupied with the possibility of thinking by the only reality. Perhaps even earlier, his destiny and thinking were already planned."

"Are you trying to say I should feel sad that he doesn't have the freedom to do evil." Mike's voice was lighter, and he even started to quit gazing at the portrait and walked around Abdiel, "He just gained the knowledge ahead of time and made a choice he felt was good. I'm sorry if you think that sounds too authoritarian. We probably do have something to criticize about our approach to modern educational philosophy." ,

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"I don't think it's authoritarian, after all, freedom has never existed in the world before." Abdiel didn't move, her eyes growing lax and confused, her voice still relaxed "All our confusion, choices, words are influenced by the past years. The past has shaped us, and we are bound by it. Our bondage comes from ourselves, and going back up, the guilt lies in the existence and history of the world. If his father did not receive revelation, then he would only be bound by something else in the future to make another choice. Free will exists only in the echoes of thinking flickers, something you don't need to remind me of."

"And so? I'm sorry, but I'm only at the level of a normal human in this vessel right now, and while knowledge can be downloaded from the body that resides in Heaven, the computing functions and thinking abilities are not excellent." Mike sigh, he hadn't gotten the answer he wanted, but he wasn't in a hurry, he was enjoying his long overdue time of small talk with his sister.

"But even so, since you are involved in his destiny, in a sense, he has a part to play as an work of your making. His independence as a human is not complete, and although that free is supposed to be an illusion, humans just love to believe it exists. The discussion of the independence of the child's personality also lies in this. You are not human, you know well the illusion of freedom, you understand what his life and mind are made of. Are you still sure in this case that your love for him is the love for your son and not for a work of art?" But the relief in Abdiel's voice disappeared, and her tone became heavy as she expanded and repeated the previous question.

"...... Emotionally I think I can give you an affirmative answer. But my sanity can't come up with an answer. I may have to change to a larger vessel before I think about this." Mike was no longer pleasant either.

"I'm sure Michael the Archangel can easily come up with an answer, but is there a difference for that you between love for an object and love for a child?" Abdiel snorted, her eyes staring like anger in some direction in the night sky, "Your love is too big and your love for the item is so excessive and keen. I also believe that your love for him is special, but as usual my reason cannot come up with an answer that will convince me."

"There is no solution. BUT does the conversation just now have anything to do with what we were discussing earlier." Mike broke away from the illusion of brotherly affection, he did not want to end the idle conversation, but still said this.

"Brother, do you know what the point of my implanting the Heimarmene into him is, other than to let his past stand?" Abdiel laughed again, this time with no longer any hint of confusion in it, "If it's just making a man and writing his life, then I can do it just as well with a little time. Twenty years is a short time for me, I can have a child and raise him, and even if I want to seek excitement, I can only let the Heimarmene make the decision for me. So why do I have to create a person by modifying the past?"

"I would like to hear more about that." Mike nodded.

"Because a person whose past was simply written into the world and who should not have existed in the first place would have a large number of gaps in his past." Abdiel smiled virulently, "The power of the Heimarmene can create evidence that allows him to exist though. But that is limited to the parts mentioned in the background. For example, as long as I don't write, he spent 90% of his past time just breathing in silence and doing nothing. And that's because I wrote a backstory that filled 10% of his life."

"Sounds like an easy reveal." Mike commented.

"No." Abdiel denied, "That's where the second role of the Heimarmene comes in. When he is lost, when his path ahead is uncertain, when he encounters possibilities, the Heimarmene will automatically provide options and choices. It will write the path ahead and make the decision for him and the world. It will give the boy a random outcome and a random answer to his past."

"If he goes to remember he will get the memories, if he goes to think he will take get the answers, so it will not reveal itself to him ....... Even if he perceives logical errors in those pasts?" Mike pondered the possibilities.

Abdiel took the closed umbrella and flipped her hand, the tip poking the ground: "Humans will doubt their own memories. And the character Heimarmene decided for the boy happens to be the unconfident and weak type."

Mike's brow furrowed again, "That's desperate, he's hardly a human being, is he? Isn't it desperate that some random number generator will and has decided his thinking, past, character and thinking for him."

"Yeah, not human at all. Because of my laziness, he will be very confused, and those confusions will actively fill him with Heimarmene's choices until he goes down a path I can't foresee." Abdiel nodded with a bad smile, "Exactly the item, although biologically my child, everything is bound by something unpredictable, like a hanging puppet. He even had a fake birth time. He is so crude and inscrutable, ready to break down, but all kinds of behavior may be outside my expectations."

Abdiel's voice got lower and lower, and finally almost inaudible: "I think that's the beauty of raising a child. I know that I even created part of his past with my own hands, but he will eventually go down a path I couldn't have predicted."

Mike didn't answer for a moment, and only after a moment did he speak: "You mean you did all this to create a child who is full of gaps, but will make up for them on his own, and the more Heimarmene makes up for them, the further away from your expectations he gets?"

"Correct." Abdiel eventually smiled with relief, happy that she had an understanding person. "A free child, a child who does not meet my expectations, a child who is alone but has a future I cannot even foresee, I want him, I want to love a child like that. Your reason is not enough to confirm your feelings, so I choose to find what is true for me in the way that is furthest from reason."

"It is true that he will not conform to your expectations, but not to break free from your expectations, but to be controlled by the Heimarmene. That's not freedom, it's just unknown to you." Mike's face returned to the cold hardness of the beginning as his words broke through the illusion of what Abdiel had said, "He is not even considered a person, nor is he considered a person to you at all! Is this the new pleasure you seek? Satanel, are you sure you want this or are you simply out of your mind?"

Mike's last voice almost turned into a snarl and a rebuke. The sand suddenly lifted from the ground and a violent dust storm drowned them both. There was no view and no moon just rising, and seconds later everything subsided and the place where they had been standing was empty. The earth reflected the silence of the night sky.

In the magic classroom, the home theater or office, the brother and sister leaned back on the same couch as before.

For a long time they did not continue talking. After a long time, the CEO girl tilted her head away from her brother's direction: "You should have called me Abdiel."

"Okay Satanel."

"Abdiel."

"Satanel."

"You neurotic workaholic." Abdiel or Satanel turned his head and cursed, and after a moment continued to speak, "Remember Russell."

"I remember everything that happened today very well." Mike calmly like the previous sibling gossip and arguments and none of it had happened.

"For the world and for us, whether the world was created a second ago or five minutes ago, history and memory are real. For it was all created by the One." Abdiel's umbrella fell at her feet and she clasped her hands to her chest, her head hanging low, "Then what he has shown that I do not know because he was manipulated by the Heimarmene is also unknown to me."

Mike remained silent. They just stayed at opposite ends of the couch like two statues.

"What exactly is it that makes you want to do this, loneliness." Mike asked before time froze completely.

"Probably because I felt that I was adult enough to be a parent." Abdiel's words lacked confidence.

Mike reached up and covered his head, "You know, I'm feeling like hearing my preteen sister tell me, Hey, BROTHER I become a mom ."

"That sounds really annoying." Abdiel commented.

"It's so annoying. But I can't even go find someone to vent my anger at, because it's fucking you and you gave birth to it." Mike gritted his teeth, his first expression so completely human, "It's a small thing, and I'm not going to throw you into flaming hell for it. Nor will I declare your guilt to all my brothers and sisters. But that's all. I will increase my surveillance of you."

"Then Heimarmene if you continue to modify the past ......." Abdiel's voice was slightly troubled.

"Oh, yes, Heimarmene and your son will continue to make changes in the past. I'll have to talk to the experts about how to Clean up after you." Mike's voice took on some flirtation.

"Oh no!" Abdiel exclaimed exaggeratedly, leaning back onto the couch and covering his forehead. Mike leaned back on the couch as well, their movements synchronized.

"But thanks, bro, that's your permission. It's good to have your permission." After a moment, Abdiel's thin and timid voice came through.

"You even said you were going to try to love, so how could I possibly get in your way. Stupid thing." Mike grumbled, "Get me a Coke. I have to think about what to say to Gabriel and Rafael, and this is not something you want to keep from them."

"This one's an '82. Please." Abdiel snapped his fingers. A Coke was shifted to the low table in front of Mike.

"Sounds like it's expired to the point of sourness." Mike picked it up and took a sip, "But it tastes good."

"Want to see something good? When the Heimarmene makes a choice, even if it's automatically generated, what's generated and the final choice is reported back to me through the link between us."

Abdiel pulled out a stack of papers, "These are a collection of the options and results generated automatically by the Heimarmene so far regarding my son."

She introduced in a youthful voice and parental tone, "Honestly, this guy is unreliable, when I invited the kid, it generated a bunch of options like crazy to resist my invitation. Good thing I left a backdoor before, set a background of his parents died to save him, will resurrect his parents as payment successfully hired to him."

The more she said, the happier she became: "What kind of expression should that kid give if he knows that his real father and mother are me, and that the family of three I showed him, living in harmony and happiness, is just a phantom?"

"Think you look like disgusting garbage, I guess." Mike showed a look like looking at garbage and took the stack of papers.