Chapter 13

Chapter 13

From the diary of the documentarian:

The weeks following the hostage situation at P LADS were chaos.  Not only did the world have to learn to live with unicorns and werewolves, but the religious gods, all of them, were back.  And they were pissed at having been suppressed for a millennium or so.  Alien worship (by humans or otherwise) was not tolerated.  

Those that would not renounce their faith in the space-faring, "gods," suffered a variety of fates.  The God of Abraham turned them into salt.  Hades put some down with Sisyphus.  And so on.  The Raeliens did not fare well.

The Watcher did not like learning that it was expendable, and joined forces with Earth.  Every Watcher in the universe soon came along.  It turns out that The Watchers also had abilities that had been suppressed.  They have a hive mind and a shared memory, both of which are instantaneous over any distance.  This is scientifically impossible, so the visitors replaced it with a slower, but understood, form of long-range communication.  Part of the shared memory was erased so that The Watchers didn't know what had happened.  

Of course, that changed when the suppression devices in our solar system were destroyed.  The Watchers remembered everything.  The Watchers had originally been a crab-like species.  As they entered into the Industrial Age, they were enslaved by a time-traveling civilization.  The Watchers were heavily modified to observe while using very little energy, and to stay dormant indefinitely after energy ran out.  When the time-travelers returned, The Watchers filled them in on what had been happening.  The time travelers left once and never returned.  The Watchers went dormant, and were later recovered by, "the gods," and used for essentially the same purpose.  After a review of letters and other information sent from the future,  it looks like one of The Watchers was behind the entire timeline shift. 

Other races had stories of magic and fairy tales, and came to visit Earth to see if their old stories had any truth to them.  Most of them stayed in our solar system.  A few races came in warships after hearing that the visitors wouldn't help us, but they surrendered quickly when actually gods tore their ships into shrapnel.  

Before the visitors came, Earth was a lonely planet full of bickering people believing in things for which there was no evidence.  The visitors opened our eyes to a multitude of living worlds, cured cancer, feed the hungry, and gave many something tangible to believe in.  Now the real gods are back, and Earth has suddenly become a multi-racial force in the galaxy.  

A lot has happened in the last couple of years.  It's going to take a long time to really absorb all of it.  Tomorrow, I'm interviewing an angel.  

 

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

From the diary of the documentarian:

I was in the right place at the right time.  I was waiting to speak with someone at PLADS, the Planetary Laser Asteroid Defense System, when a determined group of armed men and women forced their way into the facility, taking hostages, including myself.  They said they knew that I would be there, because they'd been getting letters too.

The gunmen led us into the control room, which they quickly seized.  PLADS is also a communication node for The Watcher, and a connection was established.

The gunmen knew I was doing a documentary on the visitors, and at that point had me start recording.  

"We have control of the laser and are entering targets.  Put us on with one of your gods.  Now."

"It will take a few moments to establish a connection.  Please wait."

After a minute an image of one of "the gods," appears.  It's floating, as they tend to do, with its atrophied muscles, cybernetic attachments, cloud of nanintes, and force-field bubble.  A visitor, in all of its grotesque glory.  

"No, not that mind talking- out loud.  This will be documented."

"If you fire on us or one of the Followers, we will destroy the facility you are in.  If you fire at The Watcher, we will not return to your planet."

"What, The Watcher is expendable?"

"We salvaged their race.  An individual is insignificant."

"Well, we're not aiming at anyone.  We're going to fire on the compression devices you placed in our solar system.  Both of them."

"Those are for safety.  Your planet was extremely dangerous before those were in place.  We recommend against doing that.  If you do so, we will not come back to help you again."

"It's time for people to see the truth.  Fire at the fire target."

The laser fires silently into the sky.  After about twenty minutes, target hit is confirmed.  The gunman doing the talking turns directly toward me.  

"This recording is going to be heard around the world.  Some of you might notice, just now, that you feel different.  ESP, magic, other abilities are innate to humankind.  The visitors have been suppressing these abilities in us for about a century.  Also, the world now has a larger population.  All those things that went bump in the night weren't just stories made up by ignorant peasants in the dark ages."

"It is impossible for you to detect that which you have just destroyed.  How are you doing this?"

"Once, there was a future.  Some of The Followers found out that you hadn't told us everything.  They sent messages back to us, knowing that it would eliminate the future in which they lived."

"This may not be a stable paradox.  Stop at once."

"Fire at the second target."

"We will maintain The Ten Thousand that travel with us, but otherwise we are terminating relations with your species.  If your kind approaches us we will be forced to defend ourselves.  Watcher, return to the Nexus for reassignment."

The image flickered off.  The phone call to moon traveled at the speed of light, but took several minutes to be received.  The laser had a more distant target.  We all watched the screen that showed the laser heading toward the target.

A SWAT team and negotiators were outside the building.  The gunmen promised that no one would be hurt and they would surrender as soon as the second target was hit.

Time passed.  The laser, finally, hit the target.

That was the day everything changed.

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

From the diary of the documentarian:

I didn't say anything during the interview because my opinions are not the point of a documentary.  But, I thought Susanne was disturbing.  Bald, naked, with artificial parts on here head and in her arm.  Talking about nanites, little robots, racing through her body.  An opera singer fluent in several languages that no longer has a desire to sing, and finds speaking distasteful.

She was renowned enough that the public knew about her.  She gave the visitors a song and they cured her ovarian cancer, because she really wanted to have kids.  Now she has no desire to have children, or any, "relationship," or, "drama."

Did the visitors have some way to measure awe when the chose The Ten Thousand?  Did they gather the largest amount of genetic variation, or were they looking for the most obedient and the most zealous?

Susanne isn't the only one.  Reports of others among The Ten Thousand tell similar stories.  I might share a genome with them, but they don't seem human.  They appearance and behavior is so... alien.  They live forever and don't have pain.  

Is that our future?  While others might look forward to such radical changes, I'm a more old-fashioned.  I can't get the image of Susanne out of my head.  It gives me the creeps.

I got another letter today.  Same crackpot handwriting.  This one was short.  It read, "You are not the only one that has received letters.  The big change will happen soon.  Be ready, you will have something new to document."