That’s it! It is happening; I am dying, I thought as the pain stop. At that moment everything came back; a whole life of souvenirs came back, crystal clear.
There was no time and if there was time it wasn’t important anymore, time was unnoticeable. I was living my life again as an observer. A thought came to my mind:
Watch and learn! It was like a telepathic message. I was floating unnoticeable over us, over me, and the people. I watched myself through those important moments of my life; I saw myself and heard what I said and watched what I did, my interactions with the people.
Their faces, their bodies, the clothes they were wearing, everything was crystal clear, no fuzziness. I heard that some people have an eidetic memory, some geniuses probably and I wasn’t one of them for sure; quite the contrary. In fact, I was forgetting faces and when I was meeting someone who was all happy to see me again, I had to simulate that I too remembered him or her. I had developed a technique to make them relate something and as soon as they would tell me one thing we did together; I would remember everything; the whole conversations; the moments we shared together, everything. I had a great memory for everything except the faces. Now, in my immaterial state, I recognize everyone and remember everything we said and did. It was crystal clear.
How long did it take to relive the important moments of my life? I had no idea, at one point, I look around me and I saw my dead body and the car wreck on the side of the road.
I felt great; never in my life had I felt that good. How lucky I am to have died quickly in a car accident, I could have died of a long and painful sickness…
I watched the people stopping their cars and coming over to help me. Then there was the ambulance and the patrol cars; I watched them pulling me out of the car and when the ambulance left with my body, I floated over the ambulance and followed it to the hospital. It was effortless and I realized that I could go much faster if I wished to, but there was no urge to do it; I just felt wonderful, worriless, calm, happy. I followed my body to the cold room. I guessed that they would call my wife and ask her to come over to fill in some forms for the disposition of my body. We had talked about it and decided that there was no point putting it in a gasket and place it in a cemetery where no one will ever come except for the first one or two death anniversaries. My wife and I had decided that either one of us would just get cremated and the ashes put in the woods.
Awaiting my sweetheart arrival, I had nothing to do, so I wandered around and stop at the emergency where they were trying to save the life of five people. Two of them were young children and two of the adults were probably their parents. The young boy died and I saw him coming out of his body. At that moment a very strange and attractive wall of light took form and the young boy soul quickly disappeared in it.
I was also very attracted by this wall of light, and it was still there waiting for me, but I hesitated. I had spent a lot of time thinking about the purpose of life and what I would like to do in my afterlife. I even wrote about it in the prologue of a trilogy I wrote many years before: Ghama-2, An Afterlife Story. At that time, I thought that we should decide in advance what we want to do when we die, and I had the intuition that most people were not spending any time thinking about it. I also thought that we, like everything else in the universe, are made of atoms composed of very small particles, made themselves of even smaller particles and the smallest ones, the ones that were indivisible, that I called the fabric of the universe, were particles of God.
I had come to the conclusion that the souls of most people who did not decide in advance what they want to do in their afterlife might just be taken back by God; they might be assimilated!!!! Or if God did not care too much about some souls, He might just let them go wherever they want to go instead of taking them back. I was not ready for God yet, I was not ready to spend the eternity in a wonderful place doing nothing; there was so much I wanted to do before that.
As I hesitated, I wondered what happen to the evil people. That young boy was obviously innocent, a good boy, and the wall of light took his soul. It was offered to me and I still had the freedom of choosing. It was like God will was saying come to me if you wish.
But what about the criminals, the abject ones, the ones beating their wives, taking away their freedom, reducing them to a secondary role in life and forcing them to follow a set of rules made by their religious leaders and punishing them by death if they disobey their religious leaders’ rules; what about those who use their situation to abuse the ones underneath them; what about the vicious killers? What about the insane ones?
The insane ones would probably be assimilated by God just like the children and all the people who did not decide in advance what they wanted to do in their afterlife. The bad people would probably not be taken back by God; they might be taken by demons to a chaotic parallel universe. I did not want to be assimilated by God or even worse, find myself sitting amongst a group of good people who would adore God for the eternity in an endless state of bliss. I did not want to be taken by Demons to Hell either.
All my life I prepared myself for this moment; I tried to be a good person and there was an immediate reward in doing so. I realized very early in my life that you feel good when you are proud of who you are and the good actions you do. I always quickly regretted every one of my bad actions soon after I did one and promised myself each time, I did one, that I would never do it again.
I missed some of those promises but I tried even harder to keep my promises every time after I failed. Because of that, I thought I had nothing to fear from the demons. There were so many things I wanted to do and could not do in the short life I was awarded at birth, so, I finally resisted to the attraction of that wall of light and it disappeared.
The three others died in turn and each time the same thing happened, the souls came out of the dead bodies, there was the apparition of the wall of light and the souls plunged in it.
I was left alone as a ghost in the hospital. I stayed there and waited for my wife to come over for identification. She arrived two days later, looked at me and started to cry. There was sadness, also desperation, anxieties and pain feelings coming from her. I realized at that moment how much she loved me. I loved her too, and I wanted to console her and tell her that I was there, so I hugged her. She felt my presence, I saw it in her reaction, even though I could not really hug her, being immaterial. I just embraced her and tried to communicate peace and comfort to my sweetheart.
She left and I followed her in the car and then home. I stayed there for a while. Many months went through, I never checked about the passing time. I was just feeling wonderful and relaxed without any urge to do anything. I was hovering around the house, watching TV with her, watching and listening when she had visitors, friends or family. My presence in the house didn’t go unnoticed; Lise felt it and sometimes talked to me. I wished she could hear me when I replied, there were so many things I wanted to tell her. I tried very hard to send her a telepathic message, but it did not work; I could only comfort her with my emotions. She could catch those but none of my words.
Later, she met a nice guy and invited him to come over to our house. She liked him a lot, I could tell, and her life was taking an interesting direction. She also had many friends and I thought that she did not need me wandering around anymore. Over those few months, I became increasingly curious about the world outside our house; my state of bliss, my state of incredible well-being, was still there though and I felt none of the body needs, I felt no hunger, sadness, or regret; I was not feeling nervous but my mind wanted to be more active.
I had thought about every moment of my life over these first few months following my death; I relived them over and over, learning and developing a richer philosophy and judgment, now I wanted to do more. The time had come to do more, and I ventured outside my house. I made little trips around; I visited my children’s homes, my brother and sisters’ homes. I enjoyed being outside, even in my ghost state. I could have some sensations; I could feel the wind as I went at high speed; I could smell all kinds of aromas; my sense of smell was way more acute than when I was alive. I could see in the night as well as in daytime; I could see things that were impossible to see in my old corporeal form.
I went further away; I crossed the ocean in a fleeting moment and found Paris. I was wandering around the Eiffel tower when I met my first ghost.
There was the overall shape of a person floating over a group of people, but it was diffused without any sharp limits. The ghost color was a blend of soft yellow and bluish grey with all kinds of shades; it was beautiful. I went closer and said hello hoping the ghost would catch my message. The ghost turned around facing me.
– Hello, I am Madeline and I am happy to meet you.
Her voice was warm and rich with a definite sexiness.
– My name is Richard; I died a few months ago at the age of 72 in a car accident; it is my first trip out of my house and you are the first ghost I talked to since I died.
– I died of cancer twelve years ago, she replied, at the age of 54, I left behind my husband and two children. They were doing fine, so, I decided to visit the world; I left my house last year and I have been wandering around since.
At that point, I started to see her face; it was a little diffuse, but she looked like a very beautiful twenty years old woman. The face changed and changed again.
– Do you see my face? I asked her
– Yes, I do, your face shows some elements of your personality and I like what I see. There are not many ghosts around; they usually don’t last long; they jump in the light wall soon after their death or they lose cohesion after a while and disintegrate to nothing. How did you manage to last?
– It is a long story, I said.
– We have plenty of time, Richard, an eternity of time…
– You are right about that Madeline so here it is; when I was young, I was sick, and I could not play with the other kids and later with the teenagers. I spent a lot of time thinking and reading. I had a thirst for knowledge. I read a lot of books on all kinds of subjects and the more I learned the more I wanted to know about everything. People interested me; I wanted to find out what motivates them and how to make a lot of friends. But for that I needed to become a better person myself. As a young man, I was a good person but inclined to lose my temper and I did not like it, I had to work on that, and I thought I would find a solution in yoga.
I was 19 years old when I went to a used books’ store and found an old book on yoga philosophy. I read it a few times. It was talking about developing a feeling of admiration and love for everything around us. We could look at a blade of grass, a flower, an insect, an animal or a person and find beauty in it. Once I practiced it, it became automatic, everything and everyone were beautiful. The book also said that admiring everything around us was charging our soul and body with energy. It said that discipline, sacrifices would build up a strong soul. I became an adept of that yoga philosophy, and I thought that doing so would prepare me for my afterlife.
I thought that my culture and thirst for knowledge would be an element of survival as a ghost when I died. I also thought that I needed to be able to open to the other ghosts without shame, so I worked hard at improving me. You can look inside of me if you wish, I have nothing to hide. Now I am strong and ready to travel and learn everything about the universe, but I was hoping to meet some interesting ghosts that would become my travelling companions. I hope Madeline that you will be one of my companions and I am very interested in you. I have many questions for you but first, would you tell me why your face keeps changing?
– I was first born in 1412 in Domremy, Bar, France. I was a teenager when I joined the French army and led it to victory at Orleans at the age of 18. I was captured one year later and burned alive.
– Wow! You are the famous Joan of Arc, the maid of Orleans, a saint, duly canonized by the pope. I read about you, how you led the French army to several important victories during the one hundred years war, which paved the way for the coronation of Charles V11 of France. You were captured by the Burgundians and transferred to the English in exchange for money and put on trial by the pro-English Bishop of Beauvais, Pierre Cauchon on charges of “insubordination and heterodoxy” and you were burned at the stake for heresy when you were 19 years old. I wondered how you could have done so much at such an earlier age. But since you are a saint, how come you are not sitting in Heaven?
– You know a lot about me Richard, I am deliciously surprised.
– Well Madeline, I remember everything I read in my life, every line of every page and fortunately I read a lot of books. I feel enriched by it.
– I too, Madeline said, remember everything I read but I did not have the time and opportunity to read much about a variety of subjects; only one novel and the bible of course. I came to doubt some of the scriptures. Once I was captured, brought to a prison and thrown into a tiny cell, I had a lot of time to think about it; I knew what was coming Richard; I knew they would burn me alive, I was scared and very lonely. I had a lot of time in my cell to think about what I wanted to do in my afterlife and the last thing I wanted to do was to go to heaven; I mean the Heaven the priests had been describing in churches since I was very young; a cloudy place where I would lazily adore God and be drugged to bliss for the rest of eternity. I was a woman of action. I had to build me a strong soul, strong enough to resist a quick loss of cohesion of my ghost and an end of me. I had been told about the beams of light that await the people’s souls as they die and catch them like a lantern catches flies. I thought I could resist it and I did. I wandered around for many years; I wandered around the world and one day I decided that I wanted another life.
I found the right couple, the ones I wanted as parent and stayed with them until she got pregnant. I went inside the embryo and stayed there until birth, and I lived another life not remembering any of my past one. When I died again, I remembered both lives and I did it again three more times. So, you are seeing the five faces of me when I was twenty.
We talked for a very long time and got closer as we increasingly liked each other. Our masses were almost touching, and I wondered what would happen if we merged.
– Madeline, we are almost touching; have you ever merged with another ghost?
– No Richard; there are very few ghosts, and I never had the opportunity to talk at length with one. I tried to have conversations with some, but they were rushing back home to their loved ones. Should we let go and merge and see what happened?
– Madeline, I always had a strong premonition of impending danger, and that sixth sense saved my life a few times. Now, I am thinking about merging with you, and I sense nothing except a great excitement; let’s do it.
We merged and immediately, I was Madeline, and she was me. I remembered all her life, every moment of it as she lived my life sharing my perfect memory of every instant. I realized that memory is affected by our body when we are corporeal but as a ghost it is eidetic, it is crystal clear. I knew that Madeline also remembered through my mind my shameful moments and I asked her to be indulgent. I had a few hard talks with my mother and later with my wife; these were the most shameful of my souvenirs. To my credit, I had almost always done the first steps for reconciliation.
My wife and I respected and helped each other, and we have been very good companions. I loved her very much every day we lived together, and I told her almost every day. Madeline saw all that and she felt comfortable in me, and I felt excited to be in her. Sexiness came from her, and I was suddenly submerged with erotic excitement, we both let go and shared a very intense orgasm that lasted for a very long time. The pleasure was tenfold the corporeal pleasure and possibly lasted for twenty times longer.
We came apart and drifted side by side for a few months; we moved from cities to cities and looked at what was happening in the world, companionably. We had fallen in love.
We did not have to tell each other; we knew it, we were seeing it in each other mind; we were now linked in a telepathic way, and we were sharing each other thoughts. We were now drifting over Teheran, a dozen feet over ground; there were gun shots, a tall American navy seal was carrying another one on his shoulder. He threw him in the helicopter and was shot in the heart before he could escape. We watched him die and come out of his body; the wall of light took shape a few yards away; he looked at it, backed up and noticed us.
– If you sense a strong cohesion of your ghost elements Sir, I would advise you to hear me out before plunging in this wall of light, I told him; by the way, my name is Richard.
– My name is John and I am happy to find out that I have company and that I feel great, I feel better than ever.
– My name is Madeline and welcome to the afterlife.
John misty form was a changing mix of pale greens and blues, the mist was slowly swirling as he addressed us. He was a gorgeous ghost and he seemed very energetic in his ghost form.
We talked for a long time, and I realized that John was a charmer; he had culture and expressed himself in a very interesting and mature way. There was no doubt in my mind that Madeline was attracted by the hero. They were now almost touching each other, and I decided to be part of what would happen. We merged and became each other, we lived again all the moments of our lives and at one point, we shared the incredible orgasm when Madeline induced sexiness. We became three intimate companions; we went on travelling from town to town and crossed the ocean.
We visited the African continent. In the following few years our group increased to twenty. We could have recruited more but some of those souls were colorless, bland and not particularly attractive to us; they had a very limited conversation and showed very little common interest. We did not find them highly compatible and nothing in the world would make us share our intimate thoughts and feelings with them for eternity. I realized how important it had been in our corporeal life to cultivate our personality and qualities. Those who did not or just put a façade would find themselves utterly alone as a ghost if God did not offer them the wall of light and if they keep their substance cohesion.
We have now seen many people die whose ghosts had not been offered the wall of light. They had cohesion, they were drifting around when we addressed them; we talked with them, and soon lost interest and we left. We also saw many ghosts taken by demons and in the greatest number, there were those that just wandered around, no light wall being offered to them, disintegrating into nothingness in an instant.
We did not like what was happening in the world. In America and Europe, the new generations were spending their time on their laptops and cell phones instead of doing sports or participating in family reunions and outings. The politicians were not working for the good sake of the people they represented; they were just trying to be re-elected, promising things they knew they could not deliver and bashing their opponents. The wealthiest and strongest democratic countries were cutting on defense while wasting the people money in grants to their friends’ and supporters’ businesses that were going bankrupt soon after they had share between them the people money their government leaders had granted them. Al-Qaeda was getting stronger in many countries and Iran and Pakistan were just about to hand them some nuclear bombs to destroy New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
– We are now numerous enough to start our voyage and go to other worlds. I said at one point.
– Yes, Gautama the Buddhist replied, I am almost frustrated to see what is happening to our world; the Muslims are rapidly increasing their presence in the democratic countries and that leads to the birth of inside terrorist groups and odious crimes, mass assassination. I too, am afraid that as soon as they put their hands on some nuclear devices, they will start the destruction of the free world.
– We can do nothing about it in our ghost form, added John. The politicians do nothing to protect their countries; they are blind to what is coming. If I did not feel so great, I would also be frustrated.
– Since it is evident that our civilization is sinking, we might as well leave, Madeline said, I don’t want to be here when the worst starts happening.
Nobody objected to departing from Earth; we were all very calm, serene, and happy without any urge or body needs and we felt very comfortable altogether. We did not need to move away but we all had an interest in learning what we could of our universe. We left for the moon and got there in a few jumps. We could fly very fast inside the atmosphere and feel the wind on our insubstantial masses, but we could also jump great distances almost instantly. As we got to the moon surface, we sensed a pull from Earth like some kind of attachment to our home world. The moon was a bit boring, after a while we chose a star amongst the millions visible. We tried to use our intuition to select one that would have some life sustaining planets gravitating around it. Most of us chose the same one and I found that surprising; perhaps we had a sixth sense, and that would be wonderful. That star attracted us in some mysterious way. We looked deeply at that star trying to evaluate in some inexplicable way the distance for our next jump.
We jumped and got there quickly; we accelerated and felt the oddest sensation when we crossed the speed of light. The star was coming towards us rapidly, we decelerated and stopped short of the terrible flames, just a few million miles from its surface. We did not know what would happen if we got into the burning hydrogen, so we approached slowly and got increasingly perturbed by the rapid movement of our ghost elements as we touched the flames. There was no pain, but we cautiously backed up.
We flew around that star and looked everywhere for the planets and finally found one at just the right distance to have a livable surface. We jumped close to it. That world had an atmosphere and an equatorial climate. There were forests, wildlife, lakes and oceans and a kind of dinosaur seemed to be at the top of the food chain. We enjoyed discovering all those new species of plants and animals and we took our time visiting our first star world.
On the tallest mountain stood a pyramid with a grouping of tall stones standing erect around it. A strong electromagnetic pulse coming out of the pyramid that caught our attention. It was obviously broadcasted for humans’ attention since it had some beautiful background music and I doubted that aliens would share our human taste for music. The builders probably expected the visit of some of our starships one day and may have been waiting for millenniums.
They may have come on Earth a long time ago, perhaps they were the ones that brought our first ancestors and left awaiting our species to evolve to a starship technology level.
We could not go through hard walls in our ghost form or plunge through the water of a lake to watch the submarine life; so we had to find a crack or an opening to get inside the pyramid.
As we flew around it, a hole took shape on one of the inclined walls. We flew inside and found ourselves in a large chamber. The walls of that chamber were of pure gold or seemed to be.
There were sculptures and large size paintings on the walls; some rich looking furniture and carpets, a long table with human size chairs and a robot was sitting on one of the chairs. The robot opened its eyes as we drifted inside the room, probably waking up from a very long stasis.
– Welcome, humans, to Gargothin, the robot said as it stood up, I have been waiting a long time for your visit.
– Can you see us? I asked
– I can’t see you as individual corporeal units, but I can detect your insubstantial presence and you are definitively humans; you are the souls of some deceased humans; and you are the ones we are waiting for, here.
– Can you tell us why you wanted our visit and how come you know our species? I asked
– Mankind evolved to a very high technology level and spread out through a nearby galaxy, what you call the Large Magellanic Cloud located at 160,000 light years from our galaxy, the Milky Way.
It is the third closest galaxy to this area. Mankind created us, the robots, to serve and provide all their needs. We prepared for them a great number of worlds, transforming their atmosphere and making them livable, and your people migrated to those worlds.
There came a time when the human worlds were attacked by the Somorgs. These beings could change their appearance at will and take the humans’ shape. We could not and still cannot kill or hurt a being that look like a human. We are prevented from doing it by one of the robotic laws that were set in our positronic brain. The Somorgs usually come in a small spaceship to the planet they want to invade and hide it. Then they mixed with the population. They soon start a religion on the worlds they invade by telling the people they are prophets and have been contacted by God. Many believe them and they start having meetings in buildings they call temples.
The followers grow in number having many children and a few generations later, the Somorgs are elected in one or two of the countries. Once they have taken over the control of a few of the main governments, they start nuclear wars, the population is totally decimated, and the planet become radioactive. The Somorgs probably need that radioactivity since as soon as the planet’s population is destroyed, many of their colony ships soon land on the decimated world and the Somorgs settle in some of our undestroyed cities. We could not resist their invasion, so we built a large colony ship and left our galaxy to come here in the Milky Way. We colonized several planets in this galaxy, we helped humans to develop high technological civilization. They know what happened and prepare themselves in case the Somorgs come to the Milky Way. We then came here and built inside this planet many spaceships and robots, a sentient computer runs the operations. We need human souls to take over unborn robots.
– What do you mean by unborn robots? Madeline asked.
– We believe that when a positronic robot is awoken, a robot soul is born and we would not ask you to haunt or take over its positronic brain; we think it would be contrary to one of the robotic laws but if you take over the brain of one that has not been awoken before we wake it up, we would get a human run positronic robot when we wake it up. A human run positronic robot would not be stop by the robotic laws and would be able to kill the human look alike Somorgs.
We built millions of robots over the last five hundred thousand years and never woke them up. We need human souls to settle inside the positronic brains of these robots that have not yet been awoken. These would then return to the Large Magellanic Cloud, attack and destroy the Somorgs everywhere they can find them.
– If we accept your offer, we will travel to that galaxy in the spaceships awaiting us? Right? Madeline asked. If so, how long will it take to get there? At the speed of light, it would take 160,000 years??
– Our spaceships can travel at a much faster speed that light speed; it took us only 500 years to get here.
– So we will do nothing for 500 years just sitting in the spaceships to get there. But once we reach the Large Magellanic Cloud, most human worlds will probably be already decimated.
– We have a base like Gargothin in that galaxy that is also run by an artificial intelligence. The two Artificial Intelligences can communicate almost instantly through a
wormhole they created between the two places. The spaceships can get there in no time now through that wormhole. As for getting there in time to save humanity from Armageddon, it is not too late; there are a million human worlds in the Magellanic Cloud and the invasion is very slow.
– But what about the humans there; could they not fight the invaders? Didn’t they have the technology to defend themselves without the robotic laws to stop them? John asked.
– They would if they could detect the Somorgs’ spaceships approach. Each human world is guarded by heavily armed satellites orbiting around, and each world has its own warship fleet. But the Somorgs come in a small almost undetectable ship that can go through the defense net. Once they have landed and mixed with the population, the humans can’t identify them. We can detect their alien mind; our positronic brain has telepathic power but as soon as we detect them, they sense it and quickly change their appearance as they get lost in the population. We need to kill them instantly and we can’t.
– So, you wish to build up an army of robots haunted by human souls to go back to your galaxy and fight them; John commented but tell me how many worlds you have colonized here in the Milky Way?
– Two hundred worlds were colonized.
– How many souls did you attract here so far?
– We recruited a few thousands of you only. They usually come in greater numbers in the centuries following the start of their colony. We got many from Earth one millennium ago, but it has now been a few hundred years since the arrival of a new group. When people die, they either jump into a wall of light or a wall of darkness or they wander around but soon lose cohesion and disappear into nothingness. Their souls were stronger before the Television, computer and cell phones invention.
– Yes, I saw that so often. Madeline said. I am surprised that you robots could see it too.
– Our eyes can see and detect through a much wider range of wavelength than human eyes.
– What happened to those thousands of souls that traveled to the Large Magellanic Cloud, asked John, did they succeed to save some of the human worlds? Did they fight the Somorgs and destroy them?
– Yes; we got news from Alectra; they were very successful; not only did they save a dozen worlds, but they also destroyed entire Somorgs population on the occupied worlds. They are not numerous enough to make much of a difference though; we have a million human worlds to save from invasion and destruction.
– Could you not tell the people of those two hundred worlds you colonized in the Milky Way that you need them? That they should postpone Heaven and come here when they die to fight for a better human destiny? John asked.
– One of the robotic laws prevents us to contact a population that has not yet reached our technology level and none of the two hundred settled worlds have.
– I understand. I said, I have read a lot of science fiction novels including the Foundation series of Isaac Asimov and he was describing those robotic laws. But I wonder if it will work for every one of us; what are the risks? Did it work for every one of the few thousand souls you attracted here? Will I still be able to communicate telepathically with my friends once I am inside a robot?
– Yes, it worked for every one of them, they kept the ability to communicate telepathically with their friends and with us once they did it but only over a limited distance like inside a one million miles radius.
– What do you think friends? Are you all willing to do it?
– I wouldn’t mind being able to lift objects again, to have a body for a while and travel to the stars in spaceships and fight the invaders; after all, if we are killed, we just get inside another unawake robot and come back to the fight. We would take with us several unawake robots as replacement and secure some a safe distance away from a fight zone. John commented.
– We have some business to do on Earth, Madeline added, if we have positronic robot bodies that are impossible to differentiate from normal people, we can return to Earth and save it from the Muslim menace.
– Would you give us a new source of energy to replace petroleum, John asked to the robot. I know that you can’t help our people directly but if you give it to us, we will use it to help our free countries to get by without the Arab petroleum.
– We will influence the politicians to declare the practice of the Charia law illegal, added Madeline, and close the countries that allow it from the rest of the world.
– Yes that would be great John, I said, but we can do more, much more, with the high technology the robots will supply us and our robotic body tremendous physical powers, with our telepathic power, we can tell to some easy to influence people that we are God emissaries and start a new religion and train the recruits to build themselves a strong soul and tell them that they should postpone Heaven when they die and join our forces.
– We could call our religious group “The God Warriors”, Madeline said slightly excitedly.
– In one hundred years, you will get a large number of ghosts, hundreds of thousands of warriors. I commented. We would not have to wait that long to go to the Great
Magellanic Cloud; once the movement is started, we can come back here and get through that worm hole to your galaxy of origin and to the planets you want us to protect.
– Excellent the robot said; let me take you down for a visit of our fortress.
– Do you have a name, Madeline asked.
– My name is Tron2342345023, please call me Tron.
Tron touched a button and an elevator door opened. It walked inside and we followed it. We visited the entire fortress, with the spaceship building yards where thousands of robots were working on a number of unfinished spaceships; then we went to the robot manufacturing facilities. There were thousands of small robots, spider like, working on the robot bodies. Thousands of bodies were being built in front of our eyes. Inside of those robots under construction were even smaller robots, as small as viruses and their work were coordinated by the Artificial Intelligence running Gargothin. These nano size builders were working on the positronic brains; they were the specialists in the manipulation of matter on an atomic and molecular scale. We were then brought to the launching pad, the spaceport were thousands of beautiful spaceships, saucer like, were awaiting us and the soon to come God Warriors.
There was no oxygen, only nitrogen, since the robots did not need to breathe. For the whole visit of the facilities, Tron was standing on a small anti-gravity platform propelled by small jets. There was a 6 feet shaft jetting out of the platform with a few levers to control the speed and direction and Tron was driving it expertly. We went inside a 40,000 cubic feet room almost filled up to capacity by an enormous computer.
– Hi and welcome to our stronghold, our fortress, the artificial intelligence said. My name is Gargothin and I gave my name to this planet since I am present
everywhere, underground as well as in many places, ground side, and in all the defense system set around our star. I am in telepathic communion with all the robots, I was present in your meeting with Tron. If I could, I would say I am happy about your decision, but I experience neither happiness nor sadness, so I acknowledge your decision and evaluate it 90% commendable according to what I know of your values. The robots built me and gave me the unbreakable desire to help mankind. So, you are in good hands here. We are ready to proceed with the incorporation of your souls in unawake robots; please follow Tron to the next room.
A wall opened at the far end of the computer room and Tron walked us in. There were twenty robots lying motionless on tables with what looked like a crystal-clear water bubble suspended over each robot head and connected by a tiny tube to the head. A small opening on the top of the bubble let me in. The bubble opening closed, and I went inside the robot head. There were millions of very small arteries I could go through, I tried to spread myself in all directions at once. Then the robot head closed up on me and I was stuck inside. I tried to settle comfortably and wait for what would come next.
Suddenly the robot awoke, and I could see through its eyes. I experienced all kinds of sensations as I felt the movement of electrons and electrical connections. Millions of magnetic fields started to pulse in my new body. I decided to stand up and did it easily. I had perfect control of my hands and legs and a great sense of balance and power. Madeline, John, Gautama, everyone, how are you doing? I broadcasted telepathically.
– I feel wonderful and in perfect control of my new body, Madeline replied
– Fantastic, John said. It is wonderful to be corporeal again.
Everyone was amazed and pleased, and we felt just as great and relaxed as when we were ghosts. Tron took us to our solid gold spaceship, we walked inside and the body of Joan of Arc materialized in front of us. It was a hologram since I could see through it.
– Welcome inside, I am Trina, your ship and I am sharing the positronic brains of every one of you. I am almost indestructible, able to create a stasis field around the ship that take us out of the time line. I can also make myself invisible with my cloaking device and I am so heavily armed that I can destroy a whole world if you order me to do it. My power source is unlimited since I can tap the universe fabric or what you can call the particles of God. I am at your service.
– Your bodies also have the ability to tap the fabric of the universe, commented Tron; you are almost indestructible since you too can create a stasis field in a fraction of a second if you sense incoming danger. I suggest you to work out with your new bodies and develop all of your abilities before going back to Earth. Our high technology, our science is all stored in your bodies; you just need to ask yourself a question and you get the answer.
– Excellent, I said, thank you Tron and you Gargothin for all you have done and will do to serve, save and protect our species. – Thank you, we all said.
They acknowledged our thanks. They were unable to feel emotions so for us to have lengthy conversations with them was pointless. The spaceship had a large gymnasium and a control room with twenty reclining seats. There were huge cargo rooms and a stasis room big enough to hold twenty thousand people. Once you are in the room and the stasis field is turned on, you are outside the timeline; centuries could pass, millenniums could pass and if the stasis field is turned off and the doors open up, you have lived just the few moments it took to get in and out.
We spent a few days getting the knack of our robot bodies and brains and we left Gargothin. I asked Trina to stop by Jupiter and land on Europa.
– Why do you want to stop there? John asked.
– We will have an opportunity to look closely at one of the great wonders of the solar system. Jupiter is much bigger than all the planets of our solar system combines.
It has beautiful bands in its large atmosphere and the great Red Spot, a giant storm that is known to have existed since at least the 17th century when it was first seen by telescope. I would like to sit on Europa and look at it. But Europa intrigue me too, it is slightly smaller than Earth’s moon and is primarily made of silicate rock and probably has an iron core. It has a tenuous atmosphere composed primarily of oxygen. Its surface is composed of water ice and is one of the smoothest in the Solar System. This surface is striated by cracks and streaks, while cratering is relatively infrequent. The apparent youth and smoothness of the surface have led to the hypothesis that a water ocean exists beneath it, which could conceivably serve as an abode for extraterrestrial life.
What I want to do is ask Trina our spaceship to drill a hole through that ice and have a look in that ocean. Who knows what we might discover there.
– That sounds very interesting, Gautama commented.
– You know my friends, one of the greatest sources of pleasure the eternity offers us is the discovery of some of the wonders that each solar system offers to the voyagers. Once we have started our religious group on Earth and saved it from its immediate menace, a potential nuclear war, it will be fantastic to visit each of the 200 solar systems inhabited by men. We will start the Warriors of God religion on each one and leave for the next one. But we will also explore these solar systems. Once we have done it all, we will come back to Gargothin and plunge into that worm hole, the hole through the fabric of our universe to resurface in the Great Magellanic Clouds and start our war against the Somorgs.
– Gargothin is not expecting us to take our time exploring some of our galaxy, Madeline said.
– She does not have any emotion, I replied, she is just pushing us to rush to the Great Magellanic Clouds because she was built with that objective in mind. Besides, we will save a lot of time getting to the people worlds since Trina has all the coordinates in her spaceship brain; right Trina?
– Yes, I do, Trina replied, and the coordinates of the million worlds inhabited by man in the Great Magellanic Clouds.
– You are right Richard, Madeline said, I don’t feel nervous, and I don’t want to rush. Let’s enjoy fully our afterlife in those wonderful robot bodies and that wonderful spaceship….
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In that short story, I describe the incredible feeling of peace and happiness I felt when I nearly drowned and lived an out of body, a near death experience.
So, for sure, I believe in life after death. I also believe in God and witness many miracles in my lifetime. I believe in Heaven, even though I would rather not go in the one our priest described immediately. I believe in reincarnation since there are ample evidence of people remembering a previous life and this is why I added the Joan of Arc character or Madeline in her last reincarnation. I believe in resurrection and in this story, we are being resurrected in fantastic robot bodies, almost indestructible, bodies that do not need to eat, drink, breathe and have an inexhaustible source of energy.
So, God gave our little group what we wanted, and we were in fact living in Heaven, one of the many kinds of Heaven that perhaps God has in store for us.
In the story I offer the theory that God is everywhere and anywhere, that in fact all the universe is made of molecules and atoms and these are made of smaller particles, protons, neutrons, electrons, neutrinos and once you can’t divide the smallest of the particles they are made of, you get particles of God; the smallest of particles, the universe fabric.
I also believe in a war between the forces of evil and God and our little group was happy to join in the battle and fight the Somorgs.
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One day I might write about the extraordinary adventures of our group; in the meantime I suggest that you prepare yourself for your afterlife. Build yourself a strong soul and don’t plunge in the light wall; find yourself some interesting companions and start a multimillion years voyage through the universe.
Farewell.