Part 14D: Invasion!

I could hear the crackling and fizzling as the trees burst into flame and then into nothingness, and I watched as the cone-shaped beams flared left and right, wiping the trees down to nothing.

Rachel! Get out of there! I felt the Me say in my mind, and I thought back:

HOW!

Or maybe I yelled it. I don’t know. I was panicking and those beams were getting lower and lower and I could smell the heat or something like that.

The ME thought back: Fall!

I thought But I just climbed back up here and I don’t want to leave you!

I’ll be okay!

No! I can’t keep… but the rays were just above my head, sweeping back and forth still and the sound was loud and I looked up as a flash of blue spun just over my eyes and the tree above my left hand disappeared, leaving a flat smooth expanse above which I could see the glorious blue air of Valhalla, the sky that I had only glimpsed through branches for the last day or two.

“No!” I screamed, and pulled my hand down as the beam flashed back. I had no choice.

I let go, and dropped down and down and down, covering in seconds what had taken me what felt like days climbing up. As I fell, in my mind, I could see images of what the Me was seeing. She was looking at Brigitte, who was looking out the window with a shocked expression on her face.

I fell, and saw Brigitte staring down out the windscreen of the flying saucer with her mouth open in a cute O of surprise, and her hands pressed up against the glass.

I fell, and saw myself falling from above as the Me must have looked down at the ground below me.

I fell, and I saw below me a crowd gathering, a group of people that could barely be seen below the tree branches that I fell through in mere seconds. I saw all that and then I was almost to the ground and I dropped into a large cloth held out for just that purpose by a group of silent naked lesbian zombies all gathered around the tree.

I had flipped around in my fall and landed on my back in the blanket, which gave way a little and then was pulled tight by the people holding it, so that I actually popped up in the air just a little bit, and then I landed on my butt and sat up, disoriented. I’d expected to hit the ground, hit it hard and maybe die or go to Hell or something, but that hadn’t happened at all. I caught my breath and my wits and looked around, recognizing some of the faces of the lesbian zombie army, including Naked Girl, who held the blanket.

Rachel! A new thought came into my mind and I looked over my shoulder.

“Ivanka!”

Rachel! Was all she thought again. I could see injuries on her and her left arm hung a little weird and she looked pale but she had a huge, beautiful smile on her face and her eyes were clouded over with tears. In my mind, I kept seeing me, images of me, coming from Ivanka, I guess: me on the blanket, me on the tree, me in Hell, me clinging to her back as she rode her horse out of Hell past the waterspout, me standing on the ground in the tank battle, me and her kissing…

And through it all she just kept thinking Rachel Rachel Rachel

Then she thought this: I love you!

Oh, man.

I looked up.

“Ivanka!” I said, my disorientation and fear and everything that was happening getting in the way of thinking it. “The Me, um, Me, um, Rachel. She’s up there. And Brigitte.” I pointed and didn’t make any sense. “They’re up there. They’re shooting down the forest. Help. I mean, we’ve got to help them.” I was scrambling to get off the blanket-thing they’d stretched out. As I talked, Ivanka’s thoughts flooded my mind:

I love you. I almost lost you. I can’t believe you were falling. We almost didn’t find you but then I searched for you with my mind and I felt you, a powerful pull. It must be love. I bet you love me too

While she thought that, I kept saying: “Ivanka, we’ve got to help them,” and pointing up, and I looked up, too, and realized that the flying saucer was a lot lower down than I’d thought, and the trees all around were fizzling and disintegrating and were down to only about 50 feet tall, and the destruction was spreading, rapidly. The Me was hanging above me, still held by the saucer that Brigitte flew.

“Ivanka!” I yelled, trying to break her train of thought.

Who’d had imagined a valkyrie would turn out to be a bit of a ditz? She finally looked up and saw what I saw, which was not just Brigitte’s flying saucer, but about 30 others, all over the forest and beginning to disintegrate it.

Part 14C: Brigitte talks to me!

It was Brigitte.

I nearly let go of the tree in spite of myself.

I clung there, fingers clutching the cracks in the bark and my face pressed against it, and then slowly looked up. All I could see was the silvery underside to the flying saucer.

Are you sure? I asked. I said it, quietly, but tried to think it, too. In response I got a picture, again, of Brigitte, staring at the Me, intently.

It was the same Brigitte and I felt my heart flutter involuntarily. She was leaning forward, I thought, and then realized that she wasn’t leaning forward as much as I’d imagined, or seen, at first, but instead, she was very pregnant. She must have been… I don’t know. I don’t know how people look at various parts of pregnancies but she was really really pregnant, and I was surprised at that and couldn’t stop looking through the Me’s eyes at Brigitte’s round, full belly, until I looked up a little more and saw her breasts, just above it, and they were bigger than ever. I stared at those for what felt like a long time –

-- still looking through the Me’s eyes, while I tried to keep climbing up the tree, feeling like I was going slower than ever, inch by inch up the hundreds of feet to where the Me was dangling upside down in front of Brigitte in the saucer.--

And I was going so slowly, now, because of those breasts, which I remembered so well I could almost feel them in my mind.

Hey! Came a thought, blasting at me.

Sorry, I said… thought. Both. I kept climbing. It’s Brigitte.
I know Brigitte, the Me thought back at me. It’s not that. You’re USING MY EYES.

What? I thought, and stopped climbing. I concentrated and realized that, yes, this wasn’t looking at an image of Brigitte, it was looking through her eyes.

Stop it! The Me yelled in my mind.

I don’t know how I’m doing it, I said back to her. I want to stop it… and then there was a blank, somehow. Like a door had closed, I couldn’t see Brigitte anymore or the saucer, not that way. All I saw was the inside of my eyelids, which I opened up and looked up. I was closer, but still hundreds of feet below them, and not going to make it there anytime soon at that rate. I kept climbing up. Like the time in Hell, I had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. I kept my eyes on the Me, and on the saucer, and tried to focus on climbing faster while still trying to talk to the Me.

Me? I said, over and over. Rachel? Me? But there was nothing. After a minute of that, and 15 feet more of climbing, I finally grabbed on tight to the tree and yelled, at the top of my lungs:
“I DON’T KNOW HOW I DID THAT BUT I’M SORRY AND WILL YOU LET ME BACK IN?”

I hung there, on the side of the tree, looking up at the Me hanging upside down and tears in my eyes, tears of frustration and fear. I stared at her and tried to see her face.

I didn’t get anything back. She didn’t call or wave or anything, and I was still blocked out by that wall. “Please!” I said, not yelling it. I just tried to beg her, in my mind and in my words.
Then I thought of something: I switched over and instead of trying to talk to the Me, I tried to talk to Brigitte.

Brigitte! I thought. I pictured her face, her hair, her… lips, and then tried to focus again on her face. I tried to imagine myself picking up a phone and talking to her. Whatever might help make a connection. I pictured her stomach, bulging out with the baby below it, and said again, outloud and in my mind: Brigitte!

Nothing.

I’d kept climbing but I was still far away. I was getting tired, too, although I’ve found I don’t get as tired as other people do. Whatever keeps me running doesn’t let me wear out as quickly as I would expect it to.

I thought for a second. I looked at the Me and she was still hanging there, unable or unwilling to move because she wasn’t. I hoped she was okay. I looked at the saucer and wondered how Brigitte had gotten here. I tried to remember all the stuff the Me had said about how to communicate through telepathy.

Then, I scrapped all that and hollered at the top of my lungs:

“BRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTE!”

That did something. There was a flash of lights around the saucer and it moved up a little, then back. The Me still hung there, in the air, motionless, but I saw that she’d looked a little more down towards where I was. As I watched, the saucer hovered up a little higher.
There was a crackling buzz and then a voice, amplified and mechanical a little but still very obviously Brigitte, just Brigitte-through-a-loudspeaker, came out:

“Who said that?” the Brigitte-voice said.

“ME!” I shouted again. “DOWN HERE!”

In my mind I tried to picture her again, tried to picture her eyes. The eyes are a good focus, the Me had said. If you’re looking into someone’s eyes, even in my your mind, it’s easier to really communicate with them. I pictured Brigitte’s eyes, long lashes and deep blue and wide and bright and always a little wet, like she always had just really smiled big or had just finished crying, or both.

It’s me, Brigitte. My mind felt confused, too, because the last time I’d seen her, I had been so betrayed, but there was so much emotion there that I had to try to focus, to calm down, to just picture her eyes and think that over and over: It’s me, Brigitte it’s me Brigitte.

The flying saucer went up a little higher.

“Who is that?” came over the loudspeaker again, this time even a little louder. I saw, as I clung to the side of the tree, that the Me had been pulled higher, too, so that both were clearly above the treetops.

“IT’S ME! DAMMIT, BRIGITTE! IT’S ME!” I shrieked it at the top of my lungs, my mind exploding in a vision of making love to Brigitte and the hallway where Samson, that damned soul, had told me she’d betrayed me, to her eyes after Church that morning that we’d first been attacked by the revenants to her hand clinging to mine in Hell. In my mind I almost started to cry and a sobbing shrug heaved out of me, making it hard to hang on to the tree. If my thoughts had words, they’d have been something like: It’s me, Brigitte, and how could you do this to me, how could you tell me you love me and tell me you’re pregnant and obviously you are pregnant but is it mine and what am I supposed to do about it because it was all fake wasn’t it, it was all a trap, it was just something that was set up but I really did love you so why are you being like this?

My thoughts were shooting out like that, and I hung onto the tree and looked up and saw the saucer start to lower slowly down.

Then, in my mind, I saw an image of Brigitte again: Her eyes had that wide, almost-cried look, and she was smiling. She was beautiful.

Then, in my mind, I felt: Look out!

Then I saw Doc! It was Doc! Hovering there, and it took me a second to realize that he really was there, right by me! Doc!

I said it: “Doc!” But he didn’t do anything, not right away, and then he shot straight up into the air, up to the saucer again. I lost track of him about a hundred feet up. “Doc!” I yelled again.

I was about to start climbing when I saw a ray shoot out of the bottom of the saucer, a bluish ray that began at the top of the trees. Wherever it hit the trees, there was a fizzle sound, and crackling and electrical smells began to fill the air. The blue ray was disintegrating the trees, right above me, sweeping lower and lower and lower.

Towards me.

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Part 14B: A surprise above the trees!

She shot up faster and faster, and I heard in my mind:

What are you doing? Stop it? Help! But it was growing fainter as she went up and up. I shouted and tried to think back:

“I’m not doing anything! Fight! Or something!”

She stopped, about 200 feet up, looking down at me, just a speck above me in the branches and speckles of light and leaves that looked small but which I knew (from falling through them) were as big as me, almost. I could barely see her.

And I could barely hear her. Or think her. Whatever. But in my mind, I heard, or felt… look, it’s easier to say heard, okay? That’s what I’m used to saying. In my mind I heard:

Rachel, you’ve got to help me. I don’t… stop that!

That last part wasn’t directed at me. I looked up. The Me was fighting or struggling, somehow. She was hunched over, it looked like, and throwing elbows. Her feet kicked back at something and she was writhing a little. In my mind, I heard no words at all, just feelings.

They weren’t good, they weren’t bad. They were scared, which I guess is bad. I didn’t know that you could project feelings, or maybe I did, because when we’d been making love, there’d been an extra oomph! to it, especially during certain parts. But I hadn’t thought those were, you know, emotions. Now I knew that you could, because the Me was sending me scared and fright and wonder… I don’t know how I knew that last one but it wasn’t one that was like fear, only it was, kind of.

I looked around, on the ground, for something to do. My mind kept being overwhelmed, buffeted by the feelings that the Me was sending: wonder… fear… wonder… thrill…fear...then it began being more fear fear fear, kind of the way a shower in your CleanZone might be set to begin with hot, then go a little colder, then get hot again, if you like to mix things up.

I couldn’t find anything that seemed helpful. There was a rock nearby, about the size of my fist. I picked it up, hefted it, and looked up again. The Me was dangling, now, upside down, apparently by one foot. I still couldn’t see what was holding her in there but it was something because she was really fighting around, trying her best to get free.

Don’t try to get free, I thought at her. Then, in case my thinking didn’t work, I yelled it, too. She looked down at me – I saw her face turning towards me – and I said and thought: “I’ll help you!”

Then, not knowing what else to do, I hurled the rock, as hard as I could, up at her, trying to hit whatever was holding her up.

It fell way, way, way short. It went up maybe fifty feet and then fell straight down, in fact almost hitting me – I had to sidestep it.

Help! A thought got through. I wondered if something was blocking her, or if there was a limit to how far telepathy could travel. I wondered if they’d take her farther and I wouldn’t know what to do.

The emotions kept coming, and I knew I had to do something. There was more fear than anything else and I could see the Me fighting and fighting. I looked around again, helplessly, and then heard another scream and felt a blast of emotion. I looked up.

The Me was going higher, still. She shot up a little more, now almost completely out of sight among the leaves and branches.

I looked at the tree in front of me. I remembered when I woke up in Hell, that first time. I looked at my hands. I sighed.

“I’m coming to get you,” I said. Then I thought it: I’m coming to get you! Hang on! I thought it as hard as I could, then I reached out and grabbed the tree, as high up as I could.

I pulled up and tried to find a footrest. Belatedly, I kicked off my shoes and dug my toes into the grooves in the bark. I pushed up with my toes and grabbed higher up, then felt around more, getting a knot in the tree where I could rest my left foot.

I began inching up that tree, watching with as much of my attention as I could, watching the Me dangling there, so high up, upside down and fighting and twisting and wrestling whenever she could, pausing now and then. I kept feeling her emotions in my mind but I couldn’t concentrate on anything, really, except climbing, so I tried to, in the back of my mind, just think reassuring things to her and hoped she picked them up.

It was tiring. It was exhausting, pulling myself up that tree inch by inch. It didn’t seem like I was making any progress, at all. A foot here, a few inches there. I had to move around the tree, too, trying to find good places to climb. There were little twiggy branches here and there but nothing for another hundred feet or so to really help me climb. I kept going, though, fingers getting torn and raw and bloody, knees pushing against the tree, arms aching, sweat pouring down my forehead.

I’m not going to let you get away, too, I thought at the Me. I’m going to save you.

I felt a wave of fear and gratitude come over me. When I saw the Me now, on those times I was on her side of the tree, she mostly hung there, motionless and tired. I felt, coming from her, mostly tiredness, now. I kept my mind on her, kept picturing her smiling and trying to make that a pleasant thought, a hopeful thought. I tried to climb on that side, so that she could see me.

Once, I looked down. I was higher up than I’d thought, maybe fifty feet up already. It felt like I’d been climbing for days. But I was closer to the Me: The emotions were stronger and I could pick up more words in her thoughts.

Let me go she thought a lot.

And What are you doing?

And What is this thing? When she thought that, I wondered what she was looking at. I looked up, wanting to wipe sweat out of my eyes, but I was clinging to the side of a giant tree 75 or more feet off the ground and couldn’t spare the effort. My hands were needed. I locked my legs and tried to take deep breaths.

What is it? I thought at the Me.

Nothing in return. I couldn’t hardly see her. I started to climb again when I got an image, thrown back in my mind, strong and solid, almost. It startled me, how strong it was, and how shiny it was, but that wasn’t all. It startled me so bad, in fact, that I almost lost my grip. I grabbed onto the tree, my heart racing and my pulse in my ears, sweat dripping down into my eyes and mouth. I gasped for breath.

“Hang on, Rachel, hang on,” I told myself. “You’ve done harder things than this.” I tried not to fall. My mind felt like a tornado. I felt more than ever that I had to climb up, but I also wondered if I wasn’t just making it up. Maybe my own mind had filled that in.

I pressed my face against the bark of the tree, feeling its rough scrape on my cheek. It was cool compared to me and I hung there, eyes closed and chest heaving. I got my breath and I got my bearings.

I looked down. About a hundred feet up, maybe.

I looked up. Maybe one-third of the way to the Me.

I shifted my right hand to get a better grip. I was desperate to just start climbing up again but I had to be calm. I had to make sure I didn’t fall, and that I didn’t give anything away.

Assuming there was anything to give away.

I kept my face against the tree, my eyes closed now. I pictured the Me, up there, upside down, in mid-air. Can you hear me? I thought.

I can.

I thought this, then: Was that what you see?

A pause. Then the thing again. Instead of an answer, the Me simply sent me what she saw:

Hanging above her, way above her, above the tree, too, above all the trees, was something shiny and silver and round and kind of flat, with little points and lights and gadgets and stuff on it. It had spots, here and there, that must have been windows or something, and things, too, that looked like weapons. (Weapons always look like weapons, don’t they?)

So it is really there, I thought. I kept the tree pressed tight to me, hugging it. I kept willing myself to hang on, to be calm, not to fall.

It is, the Me thought back.

Then, the Me sent: Why are you so upset?

I took a deep breath. I dug my fingers into the bark and grabbed on for all I was worth.

What else did you see? I asked her. I pictured in my mind the flying saucer that was hovering over the trees, holding the Me somehow up in the air. But I didn’t fill it in. I just waited for the Me, who sent back:

I saw someone flying it, and then she sent me the image of who was in the flying saucer.

It was Brigitte.

I nearly let go of the tree in spite of myself.

Part 14A: I learn some mind tricks.

It’s been two days, the Me told me, speaking into my head. I’d become more accustomed to her using telepathy on me, and I liked it. It was better than talking – especially for some things. As she said this, I got in my mind a flicker of days moving on a digital calendar, and the sun rising and setting quickly like in a sped-up movie, and also a feeling of time passing.

I tried to talk back that way: I know. And I don’t think we’re very close to those towers. I tried, as I thought it, to send pictures of the towers we were trying to get to, the once that Fuzzy Bird had pulled us from in his mad dash to freedom, the one that nearly every Valkyrie in the world had poured out of trying to get to us.

The Me went back to one of the two things we’d discussed, really, for those two days: Shouldn’t they be out looking for us?

I looked up at the canopy of trees above us. Way above us. Way way above us. I still couldn’t believe we’d lived through the fall. Then again, Naked Girl had lived through a similar fall. So I couldn’t be killed? Or I could, but not by falling?

Maybe not by anything, the Me said.

I stopped walking and turned around. “I forgot you can see my thoughts.”

Only if you want me to, she said. Only when you let me.

She’d said that was how it worked, that first night when we’d made love after falling through the trees and narrowly surviving. After we’d been laying there for a while, sweaty and exhausted and frightened and exhilarated (and, for myself, a little weirded out that I’d been having sex with myself, essentially, although not like that) the Me had asked about the weird blank space that she’d seen in my mind.

She’d been careful to explain that she wasn’t reading my mind. Apparently, that could be done, at least here in Valhalla, but nobody tried to do it because it was a horrible invasion of privacy.

“We just automatically make sure that we don’t look at what people are thinking, and you grow up learning how to control it, to have your mind open or closed or kind of screened off, or however you want it. As you get better at it, you can have it open to certain people and not to others, and like that.”

I hadn’t been able to figure it out. She’d worked with me over the past two days, little exercises like the Valkyries had taught her. I’d gotten frustrated with one, once, and balled up my fists.

God, I’ll never get it, I thought, and she’d patted my arm, then held her hand there.

It takes years and years and years, she’d said. When Valkyries, or Clones, or Horses, are little, they broadcast everything. Or nothing. It’s just like learning to talk.

As we’d been walking through the forest, eating fruit off some bushes that the Me found for us and drinking water here and there from streams or pools, she’d continued drilling me on telepathy while trying to talk me through the blankness, too, and she started up on that now, also:

We can practice some more, she thought, and images of us practicing before flashed into my head, too, along with, this time, some music.

“How’d you do that?” I asked, forgetting to try to think it.

The music? She asked me back.

I concentrated: Yes, I thought at her, and tried to replay it in my mind for her.

I heard it, as I thought to you. But I heard it in your thoughts, not mine. I didn’t think it to you, she said.

I opened my eyes and looked around.

Then who did? I carefully thought at her, the skin on my neck prickling. Two days, I thought, and got sad. For two wonderful days the Me and I had walked through this peaceful woods and nobody had shot me or kidnapped me or dropped me off something or tried to grab me with tentacles and demons and I’d thought very little, during that time, of all the rest of the troubles – I hadn’t thought much of Brigitte’s betrayal and of Mr Damned Soul and all the rest.

I had sometimes thought about Doc and felt bad, but the Me had been a great companion and kept me from feeling too lonely. I tried, those times I thought about Doc, to remember that he wasn’t alive. It would be like missing a Read-Or unit or a dirigible. Except that dirigibles didn’t keep people company when they were walking from New York to…

I closed that thought off. I concentrated on the music and hoped that it wasn’t the start of new troubles. Valhalla had been like a vacation, almost, if you didn’t count the exploding left hand and the dropping out of the sky and the whole being-grabbed-by-Fuzzy-Bird thing. I didn’t want, I desperately didn’t want, there to be new trouble.

Relax your mind, the Me said. I felt her hand take mine and squeeze it. We were facing each other in a little clearing in the forest, the trees around us stretching nearly a mile up, I figured, but their branches allowing a tiny opening at the top that created a 20-foot-wide splash of sunlight for us at the bottom, warm and yellow and calm. There were ferns and a fruit bush near us and not far away I could hear a stream, the stream we’d been sticking close to as we’d walked back to the towers.

Relax, the Me sent me again. I’d tensed up when I’d thought about the Valkyries towers. Where were they?

Relax, the Me sent me again.

I relaxed. Or tried to. I let my shoulders loosen and my mind focus on the one thing that almost always worked: sex. I pictured the Me holding me. I pictured her letting go of my hand and moving a step closer to me, until we were almost chest-to-chest and hip-to-hip. I pictured her, then, shrugging her shoulders in that way she… I… had, and I pictured her doing that and pulling her shirt off, the little light cotton-y thing that barely covered her breasts anyway and pulled up at her … my…waist, a little, to show just a little tummy. I pictured her standing there, bare-breasted in front of me and I felt myself relax. I pictured her, then, lifting up my shirt and pulling it over my head until I, too, was bare-chested and then I thought, as I relaxed, about her pulling me to her and me leaning into her and wrapping my arms around her…

Hey! I heard, felt, got whacked with a, shout in my mind. It was like getting slapped in the brain and I opened my eyes.

The Me was standing in front of me, her shirt off and her arms out and my arms were reaching out to her. She didn’t look sexy or nice or sweet, thought. She looked shocked, and angry.

What are you DOING? She yelled in my mind again, causing me to wince.

“I didn’t do anything,” I said.

Images flashed through my mind, though, and she looked exactly like the last of them.

You’re CONTROLLING me, the Me said.

She backed a few steps away from me.

“Don’t,” I said. “I didn’t…. I don’t… I was just trying to relax.”

She was about ten feet away now, at the edge of the clearing.

Nobody should control someone else’s mind, she said.

“I didn’t try to,” I protested. I took a step towards her.

She took a step back: Nobody’s ever been able to do that.

“I don’t know how I did it,” I said.

Don’t come any nearer, she said. I didn’t listen. I stepped closer to her and said:

“Don’t do this!”

She turned to run from me but before she could move an inch she screamed and was lifted into the air, flying up and up and up, still screaming, while I stood on the ground below her and felt helpless.

Part 14: In the Forests of Valhalla.

Part A: I Learn Some Mind Tricks.

Part B: A surprise above the trees.

Part C: Brigitte Talks To Me!

Part D: Invasion!

Meanwhile, In Tampa

Meanwhile in Tampa, War Breaks out Part 2

War Breaks Out Part 3

Meanwhile, In Tampa (Again)

Meanwhile, In Tampa:

“I told you, don’t ask that,” Samson said to the man. They stood there, awkwardly silent, for a moment as the man chewed his tongue and Samson watched him, hoping that the man would keep his silence, or at least mostly keep his silence. He gestured towards the aquariums. “Nice, huh?” he said, to try to distract the man. He knew the man could be distracted by things like that.

But the man didn’t look at the tanks set into the rock wall, with waterfalls and giant globes of water to look at. He kept mulling things over, very obviously doing so: he had his tongue between his teeth and was biting it, and he scratched his head, and he screwed up his face, and he had one hand on one meaty hip.

“Do you know where the souls go?” the man asked.

Samson nodded, then regretted it. “I do,” he said, slowly, “But we’ll talk about this later.”

The man looked upset.

“You told me…” he said.

Samson held up a hand.

“I know what I told you,” he whispered. A door opened not far away. “I know what I said and I didn’t lie to you. You do send those souls to Heaven. And you’re doing a good job of it.” He thought back to the Display, all those chips. A VERY good job. Samson himself was almost horrified at how prolific the man had been, and he had to remind himself, as he pictured the sheer number of women the man must have killed to have that many chips, that it was all for the greater good. They would have been dead, anyway, ultimately, he told himself. To the man he said “A very good job. But we cannot talk about this now. Not in front of God.”

“He knows, though, right? God knows everything.”

“Not this, he doesn’t. Not right now.” Samson suddenly stood and saluted as two heavily-armored and heavily-armed guards came into view. They wore military battle armor that was rarely used anymore outside of God, Inc, and only used inside of the corporation as a show of force. There were equally effective but less cumbersome ways of protecting soldiers, but the heavy battle armor was impressive and sometimes you wanted to impress people. A soldier carrying a giant Heater/Concussion Cannon, wearing bulky, spiky, shiny armor with heavy boots and GripGloves and a See-Ray visor does not need to fight as often as one would think; his very appearance intimidates many into not fighting.

The two soldiers stood at attention and a slim, middle-aged man walked into view, squinting a little in the sunlight. He wore a pair of khaki pants and some sandals and a button-up shirt with tiny golf clubs on it. He held up his hand and shaded his eyes as he looked at Samson saluting. The logo above the pocket of his shirt said God, Inc. and had a tiny halo above the “o” in God.

Samson continued saluting as God came over. The man, belatedly, saluted, too, as Samson looked at him pointedly. God laughed.

“Is this our week to be in charge?” he asked. “I can’t keep track of that. I suppose I should get an assistant or maybe one of those old-fashioned retro calendars. I could mark the days that we run the world and know when you’re supposed to be saluting and when we’re just another corporation.”

Samson still stood, and God said “Come on, Samson. Don’t salute. No formalities are necessary. I’ve told you that before.” Only then did Samson relax.

“It’s important for me, sir.” Samson wanted to remind the guards, the man, who they were dealing with. It was easy to forget that this was the man, the creature, the Being that had created all 73 dimensions, unless one observed the formalities.

“Well, fine, then, but at ease.” God sat down and motioned to the guards. “I don’t have a communicator. Would one of you radio to get some drinks?” God looked at the man and then at Samson. “Who is this?” he said, not unkindly.

“An associate,” Samson said. “He works for us. In Special Ops.”

“Oh.” God motioned to a chair. “Sit down.”

“How’s the weather been?” Samson asked.

“Very nice. I can’t complain. No rain, no wind, no storms. In fact, the weather’s been perfect for as long as I’ve been here,” God said.

“And business?” Samson asked as a drink was set in front of him. He sipped at it. Lemonade, and quite delicious. A tiny bit frosty and icy, just the way he liked it.

“Things are going well. Profits are up, costs are down, we’ve not had any trouble rotating in and out of power, and I myself have been out on the tennis courts five times in the past week because it’s all running so smoothly.”

Samson asked: “The battlefront?”

God frowned a little. “Still quiet, here. But there’s been an attack.”
“Where?”
“Hell.” God looked to the guards and then back at Samson. “And not by who you’d think. It’s not the Blockers.”

Behind God, a strange looking animal ambled into view. It was about the size of a dog but appeared to be more caterpillar than dog, if a caterpillar moved more quickly and had only two legs which is used to hop, kangaroo style.

God saw Samson looking at it and said “Do you like it?”
Samson wondered what to say. He didn’t, not entirely, but he’d also never seen something like it. Still, it was clear that God liked it. “I guess,” Samson said. “Which dimension is it from?”

“None,” God said. “I made it.”

Samson just looked at him. “You made it?” He said, finally.

“I discovered about two weeks ago that I can make things. Just right out of thin air. I couldn’t believe it. I made this thing, I was sitting around, and I suddenly had a thought about a kind of bird that I sort of half-pictured, a tall bird with hands instead of wings, only they were like wings, too,” God was getting excited, leaning in. The caterpillar-thing hopped over and he scratched it on the head.

“And I suddenly knew I could make it, and I just stood up and started sort of sketching in the air and pulling stuff out of the ether and picking up fuzz off the carpet and all, and suddenly there was this bird, that I’d just created, a giant fuzzy bird.”

Before Samson could say anything about that, three things happened.

A woman came outside and said “Jerry! Why didn’t you tell me we had guests?” and God spun around and looked a little surprised.

And the man stood up suddenly and said “Do the souls go to Hell?” and his chair fell over.

And there was an explosion right behind Samson that shattered the aquariums and the patio and sent them all flying.

Part 13I: Falling For The Me...

What are we going to do now? The Me asked, in my mind.

“Let me think,” I said. But I couldn’t. We remained spreadeagled, the Me clinging to my front. I had my arms spread out and continued to kick my legs and wave my arms to keep us moving forward as we moved down. The wind absolutely howled past my ears. I shouted:

“Can you see any of them?”

In my mind: What?

I tried thinking it: Can you see them, anywhere? Anything? The Me poked her head up over my shoulder. Her hair (my hair!) whipped into my face as she did that. I kept paddling.

No, came back. The image: empty sky, blue and cold and devoid of sexy Valkyries coming to help us. No weird Fuzzy Bird squawing and flapping.

Geez geez geez the Me thought, then, or maybe it was my own thought. The tree branches were closer than ever, only a foot or two below us and I felt leaves, leaves that were as big as my stomach, brushing past us. Whisk whisk whisk whisk and then flutter flutter than flapping slapping leaves like the sound of tiny hands clapping as we soared through them, one after the other plapplap plapplap plapplap plapplap plapplap plapplap plapplap and then we were in the tree tops. A twig or branch or something caught my foot and stopped our forward momentum entirely and we swung forward.

Help the Me thought and clung to me even tighter. I wrapped my arms around her as we dropped like a stone through ever-thicker branches, snapping and popping at us. Then I had a thought:

Hang on tight I told her in our minds, and let go. She clutched to me and let out a little squeak. My leg hurt where it had hit a branch but I didn’t think about that. Instead, as we fell into the space between the leaves, the emptiness inside the tree, I reached out and tried to grab at leaves and sticks, tried to grab something to stop us, to slow us down.

Those trees were big! Once we were through the canopy at the top, which happened pretty fast, there was a lot of space between the branches. We were dropping and tumbling and I tried to reach out, tried to grab anything, but nothing was near enough. I got a handful of giant leaf, but it just tore and we spun in the opposite direction, causing me to look up at the treetop we’d just come through. Dammit I thought. I tried to look over my shoulder. I must have told the Me something in our minds because suddenly she squealed, a little, and I got a picture in my mind: A giant branch, right below us.

We hit it, square on my back. “Oooof” I gasped as the wind got knocked out of me. We bounced off the branch and tumbled to my left, still wrapped together, and falling on an angle now. I struggled to catch my breath and thought of something: Naked girl jumped out that window. In my mind, I saw it again, her falling down, hitting the ground, and getting up.

Could I do that?

Don’t try it, the Me told me.

I don’t think we’ve got a choice, I said back. I hoped I could protect my head. We were falling, still, rolling over and over and there were more branches coming up. I caught my breath and tried to reach out as we got near another one. I hit it with my hand; it was smooth and tough to grip and polished-feeling and I couldn’t get a hold of it. We spun off and twisted in the air, faster now, rolling over and over as we fell another couple hundred feet.

Another branch, another grab… almost I thought and we swung a little, pausing, almost, but then falling again and I thought I can do this.

You can came the thought back. The Me was looking, too, and we fell a little slower. We hit another branch with our sides, and she cringed but didn’t say anything. I tried to grab it with both hands but couldn’t. We fell to another one, my leg catching it and swinging us upside down before we started falling again, headfirst. I kicked my legs and we spun around again and brushed another branch, wildly flailing now, and I couldn’t see anything clearly.

Then, empty air. We were below the level of the branches and I was facing down, the Me below me. We fell and turned. Watch it, I said, and that was all I had time to do as we twisted a final little bit so that I was on the bottom and she was on top.

We hit hard. I saw the ground coming, saw the twisting, felt the impact, then:

Empty.

I was alone.

My head was clear. I stood alone, in an empty space.

Black and kind of chilly and weird. I was definitely standing. I was definitely upright. I was definitely okay. But I was alone.

What is this? I thought. I looked around. Nothing, as far as I could see. Just black and kind of chilly and weird, like I said. It was like the whole universe was made of velvet sheets that I could see through and kind of feel but they were there anyway.

I took a step.

Then I opened my eyes and the Me was looking at me.

You saved me, she told me in my mind. I saw again our flipping final turn to have me land on the ground and not her. She was breathing heavy and had some scratches but for all that wasn’t any worse for the wear.

Where am I? I thought, still with the black-space in my mind, but before I could get an answer the Me pressed her lips down onto mine and began kissing me, as hard as she could.

You saved me. You saved my life. I love you, she kept thinking in my mind, and I felt her—my—lips pressed firmly against my – her – lips. They, our, lips, were smooth and soft and plump. I’d chewed on my own lip before but I’d never known what it would be like to kiss myself.

The Me’s lips pushed into mine, hard and ferocious. I’m a tough kisser, maybe. She pressed them into mine and I felt hot breath whispering out between them and into mine. Then she began to move them, slightly, moving the kiss over my mouth, up, a little. Then down, a little. Then to the right and the left. It was as though she was talking to me in a language only lovers could use, a lip-to-lip language made up of caresses and rubbing. Her breath got hotter and thicker and pushed into my mouth, my breath escaping and me living on hers, sweet and tough. As my lips opened more to let her breath into my mouth, she followed them with her own, so that our lips perfectly pantomimed each other.

At the same time as she was doing that, images were flashing through my mind, in no particular order: us falling, the trees, my arrival at Valhalla, her getting up and getting dressed that morning, us falling again, her putting on lipstick, a slowly-panning view of my legs up to my hips and past my torn, burnt clothing to rest on my breasts and see my nipples poking out, just slightly, my eyes, her eyes, our eyes close together—

… I opened my eyes then and saw her looking them…

And amidst those images even more: colors flickered by, and flowers, and bedsheets and musical notes drawn by hand and starry skies and a river and then a skyline and then more colors, all interspersed with her images of me and her images of herself and my images of her and my images of myself. And, then, in with those, began appearing more thoughts and words: us naked, standing in front of each other. Kiss you flickered through my mind. Us hugging, holding hands, rolling around make love to you I felt her say. Or I said it.

The kiss was still going on and I almost had lost track of it. This kiss and the thoughts in my head were like seeing a flat-paper drawing suddenly spring up into three or more dimensions and begin talking. It wasn’t just seeing things differently; it was a whole new thing, alive and suddenly doing things.

Her tongue was pressed against mine. She put it into my mouth, lightly, and touched it to the tip of my tongue, held it there, like she was trying to see if they would conduct electricity. Then her tongue began swirling and spiraling around mine and at the same time I saw us, in my mind, lying there on the floor of the forest, amidst leaves and brush, clothes in disarray, hair messy, two identically beautiful copies kissing each other for all they were worth.

Kiss me back love me hold me kiss me fuck me came a thought and then I did, I kissed her back as hard as I could. I flung my arms around the Me and pulled her to me and tilted my head and wrapped my mouth onto hers. Our tongues met in the middle and I rubbed my tongue against hers and then around her teeth and gums and then pulled it back to flick it against her lips before pushing it back into her mouth. I rolled her over and sat up, arms on either side of her as she gasped for air.

In that pause, while our bodies were touching only where I sat on her waist, my mind exploded with images and words and colors: yellow touch me a giant star exploding fuck me us kissing her brushing her hair please make love to me

I joined her in our minds, thinking how surprised I was and how beautiful she had been when I saw her, and my subconscious threw in thoughts of her pressing her body up against mine and I bent down again and pulled her shirt up, touching my mouth to her breasts lightly, pulling her nipples in between my lips and sucking on them, gently at first and then harshly, tugging at them with each inhale, while my hands ran down her sides. I crouched up over her and pulled her skirt down and ran my hands back up over her flat, beautiful stomach while she watched me and bit her lip, then closed her eyes.

In my mind I felt Oh god that feels good and there were red flowers and the moon coming up over the horizon joined by another moon shortly after it and a mountain top filled with snow and rainy days and music flooded in, something I’d heard before.

I bent down and kissed her on the stomach, on the waist… and looked up at her.

Are you ready for this? I thought at her.

She looked up at me.

Ready… she thought, and everything paused and then I leaned down and touched my tongue to her and began to lick and our minds exploded and for just an instant, I was in the black-space again…

12.b: The Battle For Hell Is Underway!

It was Reverend Tommy’s voice.

It had that same stilted, booming quality that sounds both fake and super-real, the kind of voice that draws you in and compels you to keep listening. I paused, for just a second, as he yelled it, although to be fair I would have probably paused anyway because of the scene that was unveiling.

I saw Reverend Tommy on a winged horse, diving down underneath the mountain, which was being held up in the air by those two giants. There was a whole horde of Valkyries behind him, in what I assumed must be battle formation, while others spread out around and to the sides of us. There were probably, I don’t know, like 200 of them.

Then, on the ground, was a crowd of people that might have been two or three thousand thick, people like the ones I’d seen from time to time: bedraggled, torn up, half-eaten, scarred, horrifying and horrified souls, rushing forwards as Reverend Tommy yelled at them.

“Spare nobody,” he said. “All of the Blockers must be sent to their destinations,” and though he wasn’t yelling his voice carried somehow over the din that was the sound of six thousand dead feet rushing forward, of 600 wings flapping and carrying spear-wielding beautiful naked women, of demons growling. Reverend Tommy was carrying nothing himself; he simply held the reins of his horse and waved his arms, directing people. There were ray guns popping and crackling all over and I could smell the electric feeling in the air.

“Come on!” Steve gasped at me and tugged on my arm.

“Let her go,” Brigitte’s father said. “You’re time has ended. Can’t you see that?’

“It’s you who ended, piecemeal old man,” Steve snarled, and shoved Brigitte’s dad, who stumbled back.

“Do you want me to take care of him?” one of the guards said. Steve shook his head.

“He may still be of use. We need the Reacher, though. Hurry.”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me along with him.

“I’m not sure…”

“You’d better be sure. Do you think they’ll spare you?” He pointed back.

“Kill them all!” yelled Reverend Tommy and I saw him pointing towards the still-idle group of zombies that Steve had assembled. I recalled his sermons before. I looked at the crowd of people rushing towards the motionless ranks of… all the girls that were like me. The horses swooped down and ducked towards them.

Steve said to me:

“Tell them to fight.”

“What?” I asked. He was tugging me towards them, and towards a rocky box that stood near them.

“Tell them to fight. They are your army. They will do what you say.”

“Why?”

Steve put his hand on his head and continued forward. Men in polo shirts shooting ray guns rushed past the other way, all under the shadow of the still-upheld mountain. I wondered by Reverend Tommy didn’t have the two giant demons simply throw it back down and crush us all.

Then I got nervous that he’d think of that and I moved faster.

“They will listen to you. That’s what I’ve explained. You are their queen, the one who can command the lesbian zombies that have been created throughout history. Recent history, anyway. Or older. I don’t know. But you are it.”

“Why me?”

“I don’t know. Tell them to fight!” I looked where he was pointing and saw the crowd of people had reached the lesbian zombie army and was knocking them down, beating them up. The zombies… my people?... didn’t react.

“NOW!” Steve yelled.

“FIGHT THEM!” I yelled as loud as I could. “FIGHT BACK AND WIN!” I didn’t know what to say. Given what you know of my life, so far, I suppose it goes without saying that I’d never commanded an army of put-together dead naked women before.

The zombie army jumped to life. The women turned and began fighting and yelling and howling and pushing and shoving. It was hand-to-hand combat, punching and kicking and screaming and the sounds of body after body clashing into each other as the two crowds of people… the two armies, I guess, rumbled into each other.

Steve kept tugging me forward and I tried to watch them fight as I was following him. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go with him wherever he was going, but I knew I had no hope going with Reverend Tommy. I heard rock creaking and looked up. The two giant demons were shuffling off to the side, holding the mountain, and I felt a little better about that. We were almost to the little rock cage. A ray gun beam passed really near me and I looked back, wondering why Steve’s guys were shooting at us. But they weren’t: some of the people in Reverend Tommy’s army had picked up the ray guns of people who’d they beaten up or killed and were shooting them towards us.

“They need better directions,” Steve said. “Give them more goals. They’re simply fighting anyone they see, anyone who’s not a lesbian zombie.”

“What?!” I said. “This is crazy! I’m not a general or something. I don’t know what to do.”

Steve pulled up alongside the little rock cage thing we’d been heading for. We flattened ourselves against it and I looked back. I could see the remnants of the Blockers’ headquarters, beds and desks and computers and the Map, still all standing but without the carved-out mountain around them. The polo shirted guys were outnumbered by Reverend Tommy’s army, but they had better weapons and were more disciplined than the damned souls that Reverend Tommy was commanding and would have won but the Valkyries were obviously, even to me, the difference. They were in formation and swooping down and stabbing guys and grabbing ray guns and tossing them to the dead people and hemming people in. I watched as one horse got in the way of a ray gun and dropped, and even as it did, two other Valkyries swooped in: one caught the falling woman and the other stabbed the shooter in the head with her spear.

“Tell them to move towards the left and flank the dead people around the back. Tell them to start picking up the ray guns that they find and shooting them. Tell them to watch what the others are doing and learn from them.”

“I…”

“Do it!” Steve said, and I did it, repeating his words as much as I could and as loudly. I saw the lesbian zombies spread their naked line of fighters off to my left, the ones behind who hadn’t yet been able to fight moving around and cornering the damned souls in between them. Some of them, nearer to us, I saw wrestle away ray guns and begin shooting at the damned souls.

“Tell them to target the Valkyries,” Steve said.

“Now, wait,” I said.

“Just do it! Those women are killing my men.”

“I’m not mad at the…”

“Do it! Do it or I’ll..”

I turned towards Steve and said “Or you’ll what?” but I was distracted as I did that because I caught a glimpse of what was in the cage that we’d taken refuge in front of.

It was hard to catch more than a glimpse of, really, because it was… weird. That’s the best word I can use to describe it. It looked like a demon crossed with a monkey, a short little thing that had really long arms and really short legs and a squat, demon head with fangs all over the place, and its hands were even larger than that, but that’s only an approximation because as I looked at it, it seemed to suddenly be huge – like, it was bigger than the whole world we were in, which can’t be, right? Then it was tiny, then it was long and short all at the same time: somehow stretching for miles and then tiny, then it was a speck, and then it was like a mountain, and this was all at the same time. I couldn’t, I decided, look right at it. Looking at it was the seeing equivalent of standing on super-slippery ice: the same way your feet never get a hold on the ice, the same way you never trust where you’re standing, the same way you don’t want to move but you don’t want to stay there – that’s what my eyes did when I looked at that thing: they didn’t want to look away but as I looked my eyes started watering and I couldn’t focus and it was just everything and nothing.

It was, I realized, moving and doing things, and there were two men in there with it, one who was holding a little gadget and the other who was feeding it little pretzel sticks, one at a time. He would stick them into the side of the thing’s mouth and it would chew it slowly into its mouth while the other man pushed buttons on a gadget and talked into a little microphone at his mouth. I saw the thing move its arm, which seemed to grow long and short at the same time and then it pulled it back and suddenly whom! There was a giant tank next to us, this great big giant machine that was easily three stories tall and was shooting at the Valkyries, shooting bolts of light kind of like coalesced ray gun beams at them, and the pretzel-feeding man said “Good boy!” and gave him another pretzel.

The tank-shooting thing started to rumble forward and a crew of Valkyries dove down. It fired at them: fshoom fshoom fshoom and the horses started on fire and one of the Valkyries went hurtling over her horse’s head and fell at my feet.

You guessed it: It was Ivanka.