Visual effects
VISUAL EFFECTS / CH. 1:MEETING
THURSDAY MAY 12TH, 2270
Simon sipped his tea and sat down in the armchair. There was a really tricky problem in the experiment and he needed to think how to fix it. Or at least get back to the results he had a month ago. As every research scientist knows, all the best ideas come during tea breaks, so he was hoping against hope that inspiration would strike. Otherwise it'd probably be another wasted day, trying to find out what was making the equipment give false, or at least, vastly different, readings and generally not work properly. He felt the hot drink warming his insides and letting out a sigh he closed his eyes to think better. Just how would he solve it?
Suddenly a warmth touched him that was nothing to do with the drink, nor the sun, which hadn't made an appearance yet this week. Words entered his mind, nothing to do with the experiment, but to do with a woman. He had to give her a message, and help her. He opened his eyes quickly and looked out the window. There she was, exactly as he'd just been told, walking along the path, maybe fifty metres away. A woman about his age, quite pretty though not stunning, clutching a bag against the wind which looked like it was getting ready to turn into a full-fledged storm. Her fashionably dyed hair kept blowing into her eyes.
How would he tell her? What on Earth would he say? It wasn't the first time the Spirit had told him to do something, but he wasn't exactly used to it either. And of course, it always came as a shock. He wondered what to say. “Hi, this might sound like a really unusual chat-up line, but really, God told me to warn you... “. No, that probably wouldn't work. “I'm reasonably certain that God told me you need a knight in shining lab-coat...” Not much good either. What on Earth would he say? He swigged the last of his tea, and headed for the door. He probably could simply disobey, but he didn't really want to. There were probably consequences for that — just look at Jonah. So, summoning up his courage he stepped out of the door.
“Hello, you don't know me and I first saw you thirty seconds ago, but, urm, I've been told you need my help. Urm.. by God.”
She took it rather well, all things considered. OK, she dropped her bag, and looked totally incredulous, but on the positive side, she didn't sprint away from him in horror.
He took that as a good sign, and helped her catch the bag before the wind took it any further. The Spirit had told him to do it, he thought. So, now he was close, he looked at her with his othersight too. Was it a gift, a curse or imagination? He wasn't really sure. It certainly didn't meet any scientific criteria for existing. Just sometimes he could see people in a different way than anything optics could account for. So, he looked at her, and he was amazed. Mostly when he used it, people looked a fuzzy, pattern of warm colours he thought of as well-meaning intentions, shot through and through with streaks of black that might be selfishness. He didn't know, they were just his labels for them. Others looked cold, dark and hard, and he knew it was better to avoid them from past experience. He'd never seen anyone like her though. He saw a flash of indescribable beauty, precise and intricate patterns of incredible delicacy. Then, as though she knew what he was looking at, it was hidden under a blanket that made her blend so far into the background so his othersight could hardly tell her from a tree. But in that flash, there had been nothing fuzzy about her, and though he'd seen layer upon layer of pain, there hadn't been the selfish cancer that drove so many to destruction. There was a fundamental honesty there, a trustworthiness in her he'd never encountered before.
So, now it was his turn to be amazed. It was like he'd seen to the depths of her soul and at the core it was of unsurpassed beauty. He stood there for what seemed like half a minute, in a state of enchanted shock.
“Well, is that all you're going to say?” she asked in exasperation. Shaking himself back to the present, he replied “No, no, it's just I've just had a shock too. Unique, wonderful! Sorry. Sorry. Do you want to talk here, or shall we get out of this wind? “, he waved back towards the lab.
“What is this, some sort of weird abduction attempt? Say your piece out here, thanks, and quickly, I've got places I need to be. Are you going to offer me some proof that you're not a raving loony?” He never had known what he'd say at this point. After all it wasn't exactly an every-day conversation. Then, without realising it, she helped him out “I mean, it's not as though I even believe in God “. He recognised the lie immediately, since that was part of his message “You did when you were ten. You still do, even if you deny it to yourself, because of the pain. And He still believes in you too.”
Then getting to the important part he said “and He says `You are not cursed, you never were. You're doing the right thing and you must go, but not alone or you won't survive.'”
“How do you know..?” More shock. More flashes from behind her shield, and more insight came to him. Why she'd looked so strange to his othersight.
“I don't know, not beyond what I've been told. But... if you wanted to, you can tell that I'm telling you the absolute truth, can't you?”
She looked at him, eyes wide. “Yes, I can," and accepting his offered hand, she heard his thoughts full of acute embarrassment at what God had told him to do, determination to carry on anyway, and his hopes that he hadn't made too much of a mess of introductions. "You are. You're the first religious nutter I've met who did. I never expected... What are you?”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“I'm just a researcher in that lab there, trying to obey God. Do you want to come inside? It's warmer, and I doubt we'll be disturbed.”
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He showed her through the maze of corridors into the lab. “Nothing very top-secret here, sorry, just lots of fragile equipment you probably shouldn't touch. Well, I mean, it's broken right now, but I'd rather it wasn't broken in any more physical ways. Come this way, into the `inner sanctum', it's quieter there.”
“What do you research? I know it said 'applied robotics' on the door, but that's a bit vague in this day and age isn't it? Not to mention I don't see any robots. And what's that got to do with all the noisy stuff out there?”
“Oh, that sign's been out of date a century. The noise is from the vacuum pumps, which probably need servicing or something. I'm looking at some strange things that happen to unshielded circuits in space. It's not commercially relevant really since no-one tries to use them these days, but its a loose end I find interesting, and I got some research money to look at it. Anyway it's not that interesting for the management, so they stuffed me away down here. Plus, since the grant's in my name I get to set my own schedule, and no one bothers me. That suits me.”
“So, now you've got me here, speak,” she said.
He knew it might not go well, despite his hopes otherwise. “Now ... well, urm the door's there if you decide I am a loony after all and want to leave. I'll sit over here on the other side of the room. Do you want to talk first, or shall I?”
“You first. I want to know what you know. What did you mean about getting a shock? What did God say is `wonderful, unique'?”
He blushed. “Sorry, that was me, not Him. I'm just the blundering spokesman he chose. I should explain. Urm, where to begin....”
From what his othersight had shown him, he trusted her. He didn't know her, but what he'd seen was so amazing that he just had to tell her what he'd never told anyone. It felt right, and he thought she needed to hear it. But it was still embarrassing and scary.
“OK... If I'm right, you can tell when someone's telling the truth, right? I mean, not just guessing like most people?”
“Yes, I can. I don't know how you know, but I can if I choose to.”
“I can't do that, not really. But I do seem to have this gift or curse or something, I call it othersight, that sometimes I can see at a glance some sort of overview of what people are like, what their motivations are. I can see if someone is mostly selfish, or well meaning. I can see if someone is being honest or a crook. At least I think I can — I see colours and since it didn't come with an instruction manual I've had to ascribe meanings myself. It started a bit hit and miss. But I'm fairly sure of things by now.”
“That sounds really useful. Why do you call it a curse?”
“Well, it comes and goes. It's not always there, and most of the time I just need to guess like everyone else. But then.... How would you like to be fairly certain that the colleague you're working with is out to steal your work? Or that the girl you've just asked out is in fact a self-centred piece of nastiness, and is just putting on an act?”
“I see what you mean. Not that I've ever asked a girl out,” She was still for a while, then, quietly: “You looked at me, didn't you. What did you see? Tell me please.”
He got redder and redder, “You see, when God told me to talk to you, and to help you, he said to look at you too. And my gift worked, and you look wonderful and unique. Most people are fuzzy, you're detailed. Most people's motivations are about half bad, selfish, looking to their own benefit. Yours are not, not nearly as much as most people. I hope you don't mind me saying it, and it's probably not the right word, but you've got the most beautiful, most perfect soul I've ever seen.”
She sat with her emotions playing over her face. Disbelief, anger, fear, pain. “How... how can you possibly say that? I've been through such.... I've denied God... I've.. ” she ground to a halt.
“I saw the pain. I don't know what you've been through, and I can't heal you, though I'm sure God can. You can tell me what you've been through or not, it's up to you. But if I can trust my gift, which I guess I must since God told me to use it, then I know that under all that, you are the most selfless person I've ever met. I'm not saying you're perfect. All I'm saying is that you're head and shoulders above the rest. God said you needed my help, and I want with all my heart to help you.”
There was a long silence. She, lost in her own thoughts, he wondering what her reply would be. Then he added:
“There was another thing I saw, which I don't recognise, don't understand. As I looked, you disappeared, faded into the background, almost like you managed to hide your mind. Was that conscious?”
“I think so. I don't know, I mean, I don't know what you see, or how you see it. Perhaps I did something, but I don't know. As for the rest... You're really asking me to trust you, and I don't think I can do that. Not now, not yet. It's too sudden. I need to think. Perhaps you're right that I do believe in God, deep down, but I'm not sure. I stopped trusting him a long time ago. But, perhaps, I thought... oh I don't know! It's all too confusing. I need to think.” She stood, and turned to the door.
“I think you've got time. Just, please, please, don't do anything rash.”
“I'll try not to,” She replied. Then, as she was about to walk out of his life, for now at least, she offered him some consolation, “By the way, my name is Alice “.
“I'm Simon. Here.” scrabbling through the things on his desk he found a business card, an actual printed one. She was surprised, even in her line of work, she didn't meet such relics very often. “Contact me sometime, whatever you decide. Please? I hate not knowing.”
“I'll think about it” She replied, a little smug that her ploy had worked. She had his name, and the fantasy writers had been right... a name meant power.
“And don't go alone to wherever it was God was talking about.” he added.
“Are you volunteering to come?”
“Yes.” he realised it was true. After what God had said, he'd drop everything and accompany her, rather than let her walk into danger alone. “Where to, when?”
“That's a secret too,” she said, with her best mysterious smile, not trusting him enough to reveal she had very little idea where it was she'd been warned not to go alone. “But I'm not going any time soon, so don't worry.” She hoped.