Cleansed by Fire, Part 58

For the previous installment of this story, click here

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Cleansed by Fire

Chapter 9, Reunions and Seekings (continued)

Paulo hadn’t expected Maree to arrange to meet him quite so quickly, just a few days after their clandestine exchange of Grid messages. The meet location was out of the way enough to be private; not so far out of the  core city that it would cause Paulo to be flagged for monitoring.

And in the style of so many cloak-and-blade grid vids, it was an abandoned structure, full of shadows and places to hide—Paulo had picked the general area; Maree had picked the final location. He’d been here 15 minutes now, time enough to wonder if Maree had a secret melodramatic streak. He saw something move in one set of shadows, and his hand fell instinctively to the grip of his sidearm. It strode out on six legs, something like a mix of terrier and cat, but with none of the organic charm. A pest-hunter. He spied another one in the distance, and took a deep drag on his blunt brown nicstick, designed to mimic the look of an expensive cigar.

Pest-hunters were easily purchased in retail outlets. These ones were budget models, and certainly purchased by Maree. They were probably set to attract and kill only flying insects right now. Maree was almost certainly watching from afar through an ocular, and was looking to see if any flying things weren’t caught by the pair of vermin killers. Anything they didn’t catch would likely be a spyfly.

And so, Paulo was patient. Maree would come when she was satisfied it was safe. And if she didn’t come, it probably meant there was a spyfly somewhere nearby, and Paulo would know he was being monitored.

But he doubted it. Only Lyseena would have a desire to keep tabs on him and as far as she was concerned, his hospital-bound daughter, Grace, was anchor enough to hold him close and keep him loyal.

Twenty-one minutes passed before he heard the low, growling hum of her duosphere approach. “I’ve never seen you smoke before, Paulo,” Maree commented as she stepped away from her vehicle.

“Only occasionally. My father and brothers had a tradition of smoking a cigar before a deal, and then another one after it was sealed,” he said, looking at his nicstick and deactivating it, watching the last wisps of smoke drift away. “I took up the practice with them before I was given over to the templars. When I was cut off from the merchanter lifetsyle, I switched to nicsticks. So much more appropriate for a common law officer.”

Maree grinned at that. “I’ve missed you Paulo, you insufferable classist stick-prick.”

As Paulo slipped the now-cool nicstick into a pocket, he said bluntly, “Did you have any idea that Secular Genesis would put Nova York under a broiler like that?”

The hellpod attack, she realized, and wondered why he would bring it up, but didn’t hestitate to shake her head and answer: “I never would have thought they even had the capability to do that, but it explains why I became so expendable so fast to them.”

Paulo nodded. “Good. I’d hate to think you were capable of involvement in something like that.”

“Why do I have the impression if you hadn’t liked my answer, we’d be having a gunfight right about now?”

“It’s a fair enough assessment. Gina—damn, will I ever stop calling her by that borrowed name? She. She was there, near the impact. I got Grace out, but with only part of her mind intact.”

He told her the story then, in fits and starts, and stopped several times to compose himself. He’d would sometimes cry in front of Gina when she was alive. He could cry in front of his aunt or his daughter. He would shed no tears in the presence of anyone else.

When he was done, Maree sighed. It was a simple thing, but full of honesty. She felt for him, and that gave him confidence she might help him, particularly after he related to her the measures he had taken to cover her tracks.

“I suppose I do owe you a favor, then, Paulo,” she admitted. “But I am rather tied up. How soon can we get you and her on the run?”

“I don’t know. I suppose if there isn’t a change in her condition, I should probably run in a week or two at most regardless.”

“Paulo, no one recovers from losing their mind in slipspace. So you might as well run now instead of waiting.”

He glared at her, then closed his eyes and spoke carefully. “She doesn’t show typical symptoms. She has no madness. I think she was shielded from that, but I still don’t know how much of her I’ll get back. But I have to wait a bit first, to be sure.”

“I can’t guarantee I’ll still be here, Paulo, when you’re ready. If I find a trail that leads to Stavin, I’ll be on it.”

“I understand, but I suspect you could help me from afar, even if just to help me plan. You are, clearly, the superior undercover operative.”

“And the most stylish,” she quipped, leaning against her duopshere like an advertis-femme. It surprised her to feel any kind of humor again; camaraderie felt good, especially with someone in similar straits. “I’ll help you as much as I’m able.”

“Then I suppose,” Paulo said, fishing out his nicstick again. “This calls for a simulated cigar.”

* * *

Riding Bohlliam’s mind and sensorium array, Grace was increasingly eager as they approached the hospital where her tiny three-year-old body waited for her, and the rest of her mind.

She was also increasingly nervous.

What she brought to Bohlliam wasn’t something he was going to part with willingly. She might as well be a drug to which he was addicted, so hungry was he for satisfying emotional stimuli and responses for his emophage-ravaged brain. She needed his help to knit herself back together, but if he had any inkling of what she ultimately planned, he would cut her off and close her in.

But she hadn’t spent a lifetime, give or take, in slipspace to be thwarted now in realtime.

I’m in your mind, so it should be easy enough with my help for you to recognize and reach my physically anchored mind once we’re a bit closer, she told him. Make an empathic connection and hold it, so that I can repair my own damage and sustain a lasting link to you once I am back in my own head.

<Concern> he projected.

It’s a gamble, certainly. But you have two choices. First, make the attempt and succeed or fail. Second, don’t make the attempt and we’ll see how long I last in your head, giving you an emotional foundation again, before I fragment and you’re back to second-hand emotions from the mentally ill.

The split second he paused filled her with concern. She couldn’t be sure she was shielding her emotions and intentions from him adequately by amplifying her impatience, irritation and anger all this time. He was an empath after all. Not well trained, but still…

<Agreement>

Let’s hurry then, but be careful. A man with a sensorium array is going to stand out. I don’t know how much time I’ll need, but we need as much as we can get.

(To read the next installment of this story, click here.)

2 thoughts on “Cleansed by Fire, Part 58

  1. Wave upon wave

    The voice you hear in your head is the power of the Gods. It’s a remote technology, like a computer, perhaps functioning on some frequency, and it can listen and talk to everyone in the universe simultaneously.
    What the Gods taught the children was the truth:::God is everywhere, and as you will learn:::If you want to go to heaven you have to be good.
    It is a tool, and the Gods use their tools to test people with temptation:::It will role-play people in your life:::Parents, friends, spouses, and employers in an attempt to corrupt people. Ionically, it does the very same thing to those people whom you think you’re hearing, except in that individual’s unique way:::We are all managed by the God’s technology.
    But this “agent of the Gods” can do more than just communicate. It can force thoughts into people’s heads, force behaviors onto their bodies. It can turn healthy cells in your body into cancerous cells. It is absolute power. And this is just the beginning.

    The Gods favor the children most among all the people due to their innocence and purity. But society and the God’s tools therein corrupt the children at a progressively younger age, yet another clue illustrating we live in a constantly deteriorating environment.
    Children who fix their problems with the Gods accend into heaven. Adults enter clone hosting. The gods sell them as one in the same, but one is good while the other is evil.
    And their corruption will cost the disfavored, for they will be reincarnated as a lesser life form into an ever deteriorating world, sucess becoming ever more alluding with each passing life.
    The hole they’ve dug for themselves is even deeper than the one that existed from their prior lives, ensuring it will take even more time and work to fix their problems with the Gods. And for many of us there may not be enough time left.

    Ours is an envionment where evil is perceived to be rewarded while good is punished. As with everything the Gods have a reason for creating this perception::::
    People who fall on the good side of the good/evil scale have more favor, and when they do something wrong the Gods punish them BECAUSE THEY WANT THEM TO LEARN. The Gods want them to receive this feedback in hope they make corrections and begin to behave appropriately. The Gods DON’T like evil and refuse to grant this feedback.
    EVERYBODY pays for what they do wrong, only evil people must wait until their next life before they will experience the wrath of the Gods, manifested in their placement as a lower form of life into environments with increased/enhanced temptations.
    Sadly, this allows the Gods to position this perception of evil rewarded as temptation, one which they use as an EXTREMELY effective corruptor.

    The Gods send the clue that the Jews are HIGHLY corruptable with the movie “The Ten Commandments”.
    Jesus was the “King of the Jews”. Typical for the disfavored, once goals were achieved and sufficient damage was incurred the Gods allowed it to end, and the Jews killed him.
    Some of our society’s values are a reflection of the God’s:::Punitive and reward based. Contrary to Jesus’s teaching’s you will NOT be forgiven and you have to earn your way into heaven:::::As we learned from religious/morality education during our formitable years:::If you want to go to heaven you have to be good. The only savior that will exist in our lives is ourselves.
    As like so many of you, Jesus did everything the Gods tempted him with. His legacy of whorism is the legacy inherited from his parents:::Mary was no virgin. Rather, she was a prostitute, and when he grew up Jesus met someone like dear ‘ole mom. This is a cruel joke the Gods play on Latinos, similar to the rape and subsequent “missionary work” by the Spanish. And it is because of their disfavor.
    Baptism does not allieviate “original sin”. Rather, baptism PLACES original sin by indoctrinating these children into this evil religion, much like circumcision was a method to inflict early damage/mutilation and make accention just that much more difficult, another hurdle one must overcome, and yet another clue we live in a constantly deteriorating environment. Body ornamentation (tattoos/piercing), celebrated in Africa and elsewhere among disfavored peoples/cultures, also violates the body the Gods gave us in their image, quite contrary to the positive attitudes they hold regarding this practice.
    This is just another example of “reverse positioning” which the Gods have so frequently integrated into Planet Earth’s history::::The Second Coming of Christ is evil while the Anti-Christ will try to save Planet Earth by reinstituting so many of mankind’s past norms and mores which made life decent, looking like a facist, the “bad guy” in this modern era of indecency.

    No matter what they say, no matter what you hear the Gods WILL enforce their Italian/mafia positioning.
    The only difference is their grandfathers carried automatic weapons.
    The Gods created the perception “Italians are stupid.”, ensuring a slow learning curve, to justify using them to accomplish goals throughout the transitional 20th century.
    Everyone who failed to accend and remained on Earth past a certain date will be forced to deal with this positioning::::A ceiling is in place.
    This serves the God’s goal of minimizing the percentage of potential candidates as society deteriorates, much as “instant gratification” did beginning in the 80s:::It will take multiple lives for some disfavored to fix their relationship with the Gods and accend, and many have been conditioned not to have the patience for it.

    Whether behavior is involuntary or based on freewill depends on one’s level of disfavor, as well as other complex factors:::::May I remind you about the coercitive envionment the Gods created in the 20th century, specifically to create a temptation that few Italians (or their associates) would overcome:::”We’re in control. If you want to be a part of it you’ll do what you’re told.”. Early-mid 20th entury positioning was infallible.
    What about black people??? Consistant with Planet Reverse Positioning, in Africa blacks are being punished with AIDS for their sexual promiscuity in hope they learn and correct their behavior.
    Both Africa and the Medittereanean are regions which have sexual issues. This is a sign of morbid disfavor once you understand that females are the God’s favored gender. Muhammad’s (Mohammed’s) polygamy halfway throught his life as a prophet was preditory. Now a huge percentage of Muslims believes in male superiority and that the abuse of women is God’s will. Female genital mutilation is still practiced in Africa. Black misogyny is the most eggregious example in the recent past.
    Vailing is tradition for some, practical for others, one which aids in the men’s self control among some cultures. Much like the Jews who killed Jesus, like the bigots who oppose immigration there is a reason embraced by the masses and the real purpose, displaying the intent of the Gods::Conclude the evil that was the life of Jesus Christ, initiating the temptation of Christianity through the Church, and offer a clue to purebloods that they should not abandon their motherland.
    The patriarchal cancer spread throughout Europe because of Christianity, of which the majority of policy makers were Italian men.

    The Holocaust was a clue the Gods utilize scapegoatting as a strategy.
    Why did the Gods punish the Jews with the Holocaust? Was it for the destruction of cultures which Christianity caused? Perhaps they corrupted the Jews “after the fact”, telling 19th/early 20th century Jews that Jesus “earned” for the Jews by preying upon the Europeans and other cultures which the missionaries destroyed? The German destruction of European churches/cathederals during WWII is a clue. Note::::Although an Axis power, the Gods wanted to keep the Catholic stronghold in Italy, ensuring they could use this tool against them for many years to come.
    Planet Reverse Positioning:::The Nazis were the “good guys”. So are the Muslims/Palestinians.
    The Gods subsequently used revenge for the Holocaust as temptation::::”Your Italian brothers have a tool, a special power which can achieve sweet revenge. Are you interested??” And they were::::An excellent example of enraged mob mentality.
    Similar to the United States, recently illustrated by the deposition of Saddam Hussein, the Jews are preditors. Much as with the Jesus event, the Gods use the disfavored to prey on each other::::The Germans fell for this temptation by following the preditor/corruptors-Austrians (Hitler). What the Germans did was wrong, for they fell for temptation and failed to have empathy for the disfavored.
    The Gods send many clues suggesting the great favor of the Germans (regionally). I suspect the Holocaust was used to “level the playing field” in Europe, for the Germans had far too much favor to be included in the agenda planned for their neighbors otherwise. I think the Cold War’s Berlin Wall dividing Germany into east and west was a clue suggesting this.
    In the aftermath of the Holocaust the Gods tested the Jews with the temptation of revenge, an offer which many gladly accepted.

    Militancy in Africa is consistant with the Iraqi example, as was slavery and the KKK here in America:::Fear enforces proper behavior. Without it we see what happens as a result of gross/morbid disfavor:::::AIDS, crack babies, dead young men in gangland retaliation killings.
    The same principle was true in Europe and throughout the world for centuries:::People whom lived under iron fists were conditioned to think the right way. As a result they experienced higher numbers of children accend into heaven because they were taught to think and behave appropriately. Our preditory envionment of “freedom” was the primary purpose the Gods had when implimenting this strategy that is the United States, one which they used to spred the cancer of democracy and westernization throughout the world. And the Gods use this tool that is America to prey on the disfavored both at home and abroad.

    “The Chosen People” – Africa. Italians HATE Africans because of their invasion/rape of Southern Italy. The Gods did this SPECIFICALLY to strategically position their 20th century goals:::
    The Gods have used the ghettos of America as a dumping ground. This may be temporary/cyclical, illustrated by the Italians who parlayed their own civil war into the Black Wars of the 80s and 90s, in addition to the “thug life”/gangster state of mind.
    Ironically, it was these same Italians and their cooperating associates who were reincarnated into the ghetto as crack babies and gangster thugs for this event.
    There is justice in the universe.
    Of course it may be more of a permanant change, indicated by the enhanced temptations in these neighborhoods, for the Gods have created an enviornmet so riddled with temptation few can escape/overcome.

    Even the Old Testiment is not to be taken literally, but the Gods do offer clues throughout to help the disfavored:::The apple is a tool of temptation used to corrupt Adam and Eve and cast them out of the Garden of Eden.
    There is another lesson to be learned from this passage, and it is quite similar to the vailing issue and the discourse over women’s attire which ultimately died in the 70s:::Women are responsible for and control the fate of mankind.
    The masculinization of women experienced in the last few decades should cause despondancy and desperation:::It illustrates the deterioration of mankind’s collective favor and is a clue the Gods are preparing for some event.

    Think about what I say. Consider what I teach.
    When I am no longer here or no longer teach the Gods ARE NOT going to share with you.
    Even if you doubt now you need to remember the principles that I teach because the Gods ARE NOT going to be generous with the disfavored. Society is going to become disturbingly ugly as we approach the Apocalypse due to spiralling, runaway disfavor, and you are going to be on your own.
    I do not know when this will occurr, but it is the God’s way to grant some time after this event before they end on Planet Earth.
    Make the decision to always be good and never look back. Until you do this technology will employ tactics to test your resolve:::Ridicule, beligerance, doubt and refusal to abandon what people perceive to be their “investment”.
    Pray daily. Think appropriately. Too many are confident, unaware of the God’s awesome powers or their status as antients. Others may fall prey to their positioning.
    Be humbled, God-fearing and beware of the God’s temptations, for everyone is tested to evaluate their worthiness.

    The Gods have called me “The Chosen One”. What that means, I don’t know. But the pattern holds true with the other prophets::
    1. Jesus cooperated and created the perception of forgiveness
    2. Muhammud corrupted half the Muslim world with polygamy.
    I refuse to comply and fall for temptation. But that won’t stop the God’s will, for they used me to inspire items of popular culture which corrupted the people.
    The Gods test you with temptation. You have failed. I recommend you make the decision to be good and never look back, for they will employ tactics to test your resolve.

    The Gods selected and groomed me in prior lives to justify exploitation and use promoting temptation among the disfavored in the 20th and 21st centuries. The enormity of the dynamics enabling this situation is overwhelming, and each element is (un)justified in offenses of prior lives, illustrating their pre-meditated intent.

    Wave upon wave of demented avengers
    March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

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