“This isn’t exact, you understand that?”
Alia was in a field of grass as tall as her hip. She had waded through to a spot deep inside and a cloud of pollen billowed up behind her. When she turned, there was a large screen projection in the sky and a woman smiled down at her. Her face was covered in dark brown fur and she had the appearance of a humanoid deer with elaborate antlers at either side of her head.
“I understand that,” Alia responded.
“This is unprecedented for me. This encounter is most unexpected, but perhaps it does not exist in my aeonic memory because it is not real. Your aeonic memory created this situation. That’s what I think anyway. And it’s a sign that we are on the right track.”
It was all very confusing to Alia who listened closely to the woman on the screen.
“What is that? Aeonic memory?”
The woman on the screen smiled. As she spoke about things, the screen animated her words. She said, “I will do my best to explain. When you are in your regular setting, you are Alia, the Alia who looks and acts like you, who has made decisions to reach your relative present. The history that bore your present was the child of the start of everything, the event that put history into motion. Before that event, there was nothing, but that nothing was the result of a history that had a starting point similar to your history, and an end similar to the end that your present will eventually realize. The stuff of existence is in a constant cycle of renewal, exploding out from a point and circling around to be collected at the same point until it starts over again. The universe follows the pattern of a torus with the start of everything beginning at a single point and the end of everything occurring when all of that material has circled around back to that starting point. The realization of this from the perspective of beings that are a product of this process is that reality as we know it eventually manifests after the event that starts everything, each time that event happens. So, reality as we know it has potentially happened many times, assuming that the cycle of the universe and it’s materials give rise to the same conditions, which isn’t a foregone conclusion. There is no reason to assume that each cycle will proceed exactly as the last, but the aeonic memory of a being produced by that universal cycle confirms that the conditions of the universe they enjoy in their relative present previously manifested at least once because a version of themselves existed that was similar enough to allow for the entanglement of physical bodies across realities and conscious access to the experiences of that similar physical body. If a being confirms conscious access to more than one physical body, then we can extrapolate that there was a corresponding iteration of the universe that gave rise to similar enough conditions to allow for the conscious entanglement. I can attest to this experience. I have access to memories that are mine, but not mine, and these memories do not all belong to the same me. I refer to each iteration of the universe as an aeon, each time the materials of existence have completed the toric cycle. Access to memories of another aeon is what I call aeonic memory. But I am not my true self here, in this moment. I am the Par-Cell 77 who exists in your memory, and the true Par-Cell 77 who will eventually come into being in your relative present will only have access to this experience to a point. We did actually meet in this aeon, but our conversations were not extensive and your aeonic memory, your ability has created this construct of me, this Par-Cell 77 who is helping you to understand why your memory brings you here. And I have deduced that this is it, this is the realization of my Recommendation that my 140 have worked for through so much time. They have assured our meeting in such a way that we can plan a path forward together before existence as we know it is reset without the intervention of the Ascendant at the beginning of time. There is one act that you will complete in the near future, which will cause the Ascendant, my Ascendant, to disappear from the present, and you will lose the ability that has brought you here. But the threats of the universe will persist and there is a chance that the Ascendant will never come to exist. That is no major tragedy, the universe will be fine without the Ascendant, but my analysis of my aeonic memories also reveals a disturbing truth; the absence of the Ascendant at the end of time means that there was horrible genocide that prevented the proliferation of life across the universe, for we Ascendant are descendant from everything that existed before. If we do not exist, then the universe is a dark place full of death and wasted potential. You must find a way to protect the future of the Ascendant without this knowledge, without this understanding I am giving you.”
Alia shook her head. She wanted to cry, but because she was so overwhelmed, her emotions changed to anger before the tears started.
“Why me? This really seems like a lot to lay on a person.”
“It was determined long ago, through many efforts through many aeons, that this is the best time to effect the change necessary to remove the Ascendant from the early universe and correct that blunder, while simultaneously preventing the descent into a chaotic universe that is hostile to life. The Ascendant want just one of those things. My 140 know that we owe it to existence to ensure the other. And we will. You will, because we must.”
Alia closed her eyes. The tears started, she felt them burn in her eyes and then roll hot down her cheeks. When she opened them again. She was in Eakran’s lab at the IBF. Darker was with her, standing concerned over her. She sat up on a lab table.
“You just fell like a sack of potatoes,” Darker said. “Everyone else is busy, I’m glad I was here. You hit your arm pretty hard, there’s a bruise.”
“I’m alright. I’m sorry to worry you.”
Alia hopped down off the table.
“I think that might happen a few more times pretty soon,” she said to Darker. “I’ll try to stay off my feet.”
Alia visited with Par-Cell 77 two more times and after the third, she told Eakran, Maria and Darker that she would join them on their trip across the universe.
PRL Serials 