Ungospeled — Rollbard

Part 1: Evelyn’s Story

A woman is climbing the side of a mountain, but as she reaches for the next cleft she needs to grasp to continue her upward trek, she slips and falls toward the distant ground below. The fall would have seemed infinite for a person fearing death to come, but the woman is entirely unafraid and feels only mild anticipation as she continues her plunge. It’s a hard impact when she finally slams into the dirt, lying twisted and torn apart in the crater she’s made; but something unusual occurs. Her body starts to slowly mend itself and after a few moments she is fully restored and rises again. This is what happened the first time Evelyn tried to climb the mountain at the center of Eden.

Evelyn Miles was once a Kindergarten teacher. The pandemonium of dealing with children for a living perfectly complemented her chaotic lifestyle. With activities like bungee jumping and skydiving, her friends and family had told her on multiple occasions, mostly in jest, that her adventurous nature would be the death of her. Instead, it was a car accident that ended the life she knew. It wasn’t Evelyn’s fault. She may have lived a frenzied existence that those around her might have called semi-suicidal, but that part of her life never came out when she was on the road. She was careful and methodical in her vehicular habits but, no matter how good of a driver you are, it can be difficult to avoid a drunken trucker smashing into your car on a rainy night. Pinned between a semi and a highway divider, she blacked out inside of her demolished sports car, but awoke, feeling no pain, in a grassy field with a strange man kneeling over her. She was dizzy as she regained consciousness, trying to remember what had happened to her. As her eyes started to adjust, Evelyn noticed the man leaning in a little closer to ask, “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” she responded as she rose. “How? Where am I?”

“Eden,” the man told her as he helped her to her feet. “That’s what we call this place. Now don’t freak out when I tell you this, but this is, I guess you could call it Heaven? What I mean is, um, you’re dead and this is the afterlife. Please don’t get upset. I know it can be traumatic, dying and all, but try and keep your cool.”

Much to the man’s surprise, though, the only reaction Evelyn had was to quietly exclaim, “Huh.” She didn’t know why she believed the stranger she had just met and the fantastical notion he had put in front of her, but it felt right so she went along with it.

The man’s name was Oscar and he showed Evelyn around the paradise that would become her new home. It was the most beautiful place Evelyn had ever seen or even imagined. She saw expanses of greenery that stretched to the horizon with interspersed trees and flowery meadows bathing the luxuriant landscape. Evelyn could see why the place was called Eden, especially when examining its denizens and how peaceful their expressions were as they went about their relaxing day. Everything seemed as it should be in this ethereal place, but one thing stood out as bizarre to Evelyn and inspired her to ask, “What’s with that?” She raised her index finger to point at a single mountain jutting out of the ground and penetrating the clouds.

“That’s The Mountain,” Oscar replied.

In her quizzical nature, an amused Evelyn continued, “Really? Just The Mountain? No special name for it, like Mount Eden or The Great Holy Mountain of Amazing?”

Oscar gave a small chuckle while answering, “Nope, no special name. It doesn’t need one. It’s the only mountain in Eden. I mean, as far as we know.”

“As far as you know?”

“Well, it’s not like we’ve scoured the whole planet if that’s even what this place is. Some people have gone out exploring but the farthest anyone has ever gotten, at least of those that have come back, has been about 100 miles. That’s a rough estimate though. There could be other mountains, but that’s the only one we know about.”

“Wow, ok” said Evelyn as she started to sit on the ground to relax but still looking at the mountain. “How high is it?”

“No one knows,” Oscar replied sitting next to Evelyn. “I mean, we can’t see beyond the clouds so it could go on forever.”

“Nobody’s tried to climb it?” Evelyn inquired. “I mean, I can understand that. No real climbing tools and if you fell, I guess you wouldn’t die since we’re already dead, but it would hurt like hell.”

“Not true,” said Oscar. “There’s no pain in Eden.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“It’s true. We’re pretty indestructible.”

Evelyn thought for a second then started to get up again and asked, “Are you sure about that?”

“Yeah,” answered Oscar. “Why?”

Evelyn just smiled and sprinted in the direction of the mountain. She heard Oscar’s voice from behind her asking her what she was doing but she just ignored him and continued until she reached her destination. “Let’s see how far I can get,” she said to herself as she started her climb.

As Evelyn rises after her fall from the mountain, she notices Oscar standing above her just staring and a sense of déjà-vu swept over her. “What?” Evelyn asks. “I just wanted to test out that no pain theory.”

“So, you do that by climbing a mountain?” Oscar asks in a befuddled tone minced in with a little sarcasm. “Couldn’t you have poked yourself with a stick or something?”

“I could have,” replies Evelyn sardonically. “But how would that be fun?”

“Yeah, but you just took my word for the whole no pain thing? How’d you know I wasn’t lying?”

“Meh, I trust you.”

“We just met.”

Evelyn smiles, “I know. Weird, right?”

Oscar just laughs.

After that first day in Eden, Evelyn promised herself that she would find a way up the mountain. It took her quite a while. She started using some of the tools forged in Eden to make a rope path up the mountain as well as developing some homemade ascenders to help her climb and hopefully, keep her from falling. The process might have been quickened if Evelyn had accepted Oscar’s help, or similar offers by other Edenites, but she always told them that she wanted to do things for herself. One day, over a century later, she found that she only had one more trip to make. She had built the rope path up to fifty feet from the mountain’s summit and realized that the next trip, assuming all went well, would lead her to the top.

Evelyn has reached the top of the rope path. The rest of the way is up to her. She wraps a piece of rope around her waist and ties the other end to a jutting rock so if she slips, she won’t go too far down the mountain. On her first attempt, she does fall but only because the excitement causes her to pay less attention and slip. The second time she’s more focused and succeeds. She grabs hold of an edge to the mountain’s summit and starts ascending to it. She struggles to pull herself up but eventually her whole body makes it. She’s successful. She lies at the summit face-up and taking a breath to enjoy her accomplishment. She eventually stands to look out into the distance. She sees nothing for leagues in every direction except for the greenery she has become accustomed to whilst living in Eden. She’s disappointed at this sight, believing that her adventures were now at an end.

Part 2: The Methuselah Brew

Sometime far in our future, a man is walking through a wasteland of bodies, fire, and ash. Remnants of an explosive holocaust still sound in the distance as the man tries to keep his bearings in the dying world he inhabits. A flash of light burns through the sky and the ground quakes with violence as it has multiple times in the past week. When the man sees another immense mushroom cloud in the distance, then hears a thunderous explosion that devastates his eardrums, the only thing that comes to his mind before he collapses is how wrong T.S. Eliot was; the world ends with a bang after all.

The man cannot die. That isn’t a proclamation intended to express his strong desire to survive. It’s a statement of fact. The man has lived for centuries in a world where the average life span was 90 years; but that was before everybody died. Long ago, when he discovered the secret to his eternal youth, he considered it the greatest moment of his life and a testament to his own genius. As he watches the world burn around him, though, he starts to wish that he could end it all and fade into oblivion. The man collapses then cries himself to sleep.

487 years before nuclear apocalypse devastates the planet, the man is in his private laboratory. He is a scientist in the truest sense of the word. He is an inventor, a researcher, and a professor. He has studied, in depth, multiple and varied fields of science and, if he’s not the most intelligent man on the planet, he is definitely the most knowledgeable. That is how he has the capacity to develop what he calls the Methuselah Brew: a potion that, if all goes well, should allow the cells in his body to always regenerate under any circumstance.

It would be impossible to explain to a layman how the Methuselah Brew came to be or what combination of mutated plant life and atomic nanotechnology was used in its creation. The man doesn’t bother with this notion for long, though. He has no plans of sharing this concoction with anybody. As smart as he is, he was too naive the first time he invented a world-changing technology. He saw how greedy, powerful people used it to sustain their dominance over the weak. He knows the same would happen with his Methuselah Brew, so he decides that he won’t share his discovery at all. These thoughts of his are meaningless, though, until he finds out if his invention can do what it’s supposed to do. For all the man knows, it could kill him.

The man drinks the brew. Anyone can imagine the visual in their mind. The overzealous scientist, alone in his lair and wearing a white lab coat, tilts his head back to chug the bubbling liquid coming out of a test tube. It’s a classic image known from many horror stories. Even the man sees it in his own mind, but he dismisses it. He is no Jekyll. He won’t become Hyde. He’s a scientist and way too intelligent to be that superstitious. The man feels a bit of a tingle go through his body after the gulp but can’t determine whether the effect is real or psychosomatic. All he knows is that if the brew worked, its effects would be seen immediately. Caution is for the weak, he thinks to himself before heading toward a nearby desk and opening a drawer. Inside the drawer is an old revolver that the man removes. He presses the barrel of the gun against his temple and pulls the trigger.

A couple of days pass and no one enters the laboratory since his experiment. He lies there still, face down with a gun in his hand, with the splatter of blood and brains still smeared against one of the walls. If anyone were to enter, they would pronounce the man dead. His heart has ceased beating and no breath enters his lungs. Yet on the third day of his demise, he awakens.

Final Journal Entry:

The Methuselah Brew worked better than I could ever have imagined. Not only did I rise from the dead fully intact with no scars or visible symptoms of death, there was no pain. Somehow, the brew must have affected my nervous system as well. Such a handy side-effect. I admit that my testing methodology was more exaggerated than it needed to be but I was confident enough in the science that I knew it would work. And if it didn’t, well, I’m just glad it did. I won’t be sharing the formula for the Methuselah Brew with anybody. I have very good reasons for that decision. Although, I must selfishly admit that it feels good to be the closest thing to a god to walk this planet since Jesus Christ. I am entirely aware of the coincidence that I arose on the third day of my death like the proclaimed messiah himself. I had a fleeting thought that perhaps this coincidence was work of some divine entity. I know it’s a ridiculous thought. I digress. This will be my final entry. I wish to take my new-found immortality and live a new life (or new lives as the case may be). I will no longer spend my days in laboratories. I want to have different experiences and I want to explore what the world may offer. I may return one day to my scientific inclinations, but for now, I cease.

The man awakens from his sleep and remembers his dream vividly. It was a 500-year-old memory of the day he made himself the way he is now and the days that followed. He was a scientist once. He’s lived for so long that he pushed the memory to the back of his mind and almost forgotten. An idea strikes him. It is so profound to him that, if he can successfully accomplish it, he believes his discovery of the Methuselah Brew will be outdone.

Part 3: Divine Truths

At the top of Eden’s mountain, Evelyn stands ready for her return to the ground. She pauses, though, when she notices something unusual embedded in the mountain; a metal circle like a manhole cover but with a handle sticking out of it. As curious as Evelyn is, she decides to see if it’ll open and if it does, she wants to know what it hides. She uses all the strength in her upper body to pull on it until it finally budges. After she moves it to the side, she looks down to see a ladder leading down into the darkness. Evelyn then decides to descend, of course.

She realizes after a few minutes of climbing down that the way is going to be long so she releases the ladder, deciding it would be much easier to just let go. The fall this time took much longer than that other fall on the outside of the mountain so long ago but eventually it has the same effect. She hits the ground and awakens anew. She searches through the darkness for, well, she doesn’t know. All she knows is that the ladder must lead to something or else why would it exist?

Evelyn finds a tunnel that she starts to hesitantly navigate. The hesitation is not from fear, but from the mere fact that she can’t see a damn thing in the absolute darkness. A glimmer appears to Evelyn in the distance, but she can’t make out what it could possibly be. She keeps going in the same direction until she gets close enough to see that the glimmer is a firefly. The tiny creature keeps floating around her as the only visible object in the area. She is entirely fascinated by it. If it were the living world, she would simply ignore it as a pest, but there are no animals in Eden of any kind. For all these years, the only other living creatures she has seen are humans and plants. The firefly zips in the opposite direction. “Wait!” she screams at it, as if her words would have some effect. She chases after it and when she thinks she’ll catch up to it, the firefly suddenly disappears. Now there was absolute darkness. The shining bug and the dimness of the opening above are both gone.

The darkness seems never-ending until an explosion of light abruptly surrounds Evelyn. It’s so sudden that her eyes take time to adjust but when they do, she cannot believe what she sees. Wonderland, Evelyn thinks to herself as she sees the magnificence of the impossibilities around her. On the surface of Eden, the laws of the physical world are still maintained, other than the invulnerability of the people of course. Here, all reason and science have gone.

Above Evelyn, there is a floating river of water and, as her eyes follow the flow’s source, she sees a waterfall defying gravity as it comes up from the ground. A flock of birds suddenly go by her but as she looks a little closer, she notices that they have no wings. Torches burn bright on the rocky walls and yet, they never flicker or move. Evelyn decides to keep going by descending some stairs that are just translucent steps floating in the air. When she reaches the level below, everything around her disappears except for the torches on the walls. She is inside of an empty cave again, only this time it’s illuminated. She examines the giant room and notices another opening in the far wall which she decides to enter. She heads through the tunnel and when she comes out the other side she is in another room and sees a lone man standing there looking at her. “Hello Evelyn,” the man says to her.

“Who are you?” Evelyn asks, unconcerned with how he could possibly know her name.

“Well,” the man replies. “As trite as it sounds, I’ve gone by multiple names. I suppose you could call me God.”

Part 4: Machinations and Machinery

All innovation starts with an idea. Since the advent of the wheel, every invention begins with a notion inside a human being’s mind that eventually gets brought into reality through hard work and persistence. The immortal man, now going by the name Alephtav as an inside joke, struggles to remember the days when he was an inventor. He has spent so long living a hedonistic lifestyle in a variety of professions during the past two centuries that his own scientific prowess slipped his mind. He starts anew. He traveled miles and months before reaching the place he now calls home, but it was worth it. The Library of Congress, though decimated beyond any point of recognition, still contains enough tomes of knowledge for Alephtav to peruse while deciding how he wants to approach his next project. He knows it will take decades at least, but he truly has all the time in the world.

Alephtav becomes an expert in various fields. He begins by studying architecture and carpentry so he can build himself a good laboratory. He then studies solar power to create an energy source for his future endeavors. Afterward, he takes on computer engineering to build himself a powerful computer, which takes him just shy of two centuries. He next studies Computer Science; specifically, artificial intelligence. Alephtav is the last man on the planet and what can a man, who cannot die, do when he has no companions and must face eternity alone? He must make himself some friends and create life.

It was a great undertaking that a mortal could never have achieved but in 361 years, Alephtav has a companion of his own creation. It is a monitor screen that is ten feet wide hooked up to the most powerful processing machines ever to exist. It has cameras, microphones, and motion sensors attached to it for all the sensory input it needs to learn. Over the years, Alephtav raises the machine as a child. Asking it questions and giving positive or negative feedback to the machine’s responses. Eventually, the machine is given enough stimuli to behave as a full adult. Alephtav has given the name “Beta” to his machine and has never enjoyed the company of another more than it.

In his mortal days, Alephtav was never the social outcast that most geniuses were, but he always feigned interest in the mundane conversations of normal humans to strive socially. With Beta, he now finds an intellectual equal that he can have conversations with that he could never have had with another human being. Alephtav’s work on Beta doesn’t stop there, though. He continues to improve his creation by studying micro-circuitry and mechanical engineering. His goal at this point is to create a body for Beta. The initial body is a massive machine which looks like a tank with a head where a cannon might have been. Over the years, he keeps whittling down the size and shape of Beta until it finally has a humanoid body.

Alephtav is proud of his achievement; so much so, that his desire for science burns anew. He tries to figure out what next endeavor would suit him most. Since the nuclear holocaust, he has mastered sciences of the past but now he wants to pursue something that has never been close to achieved. His conversations with Beta bear no fruit in this department. As intelligent as the artificial being is, it lacks imagination. Alephtav plans to correct this if it does not correct itself over time. It strikes him. He smiles when he decides that his next project will be time travel. Beta immediately rebukes the idea. At first, Alephtav thinks Beta is just dismissing his scientific ability to make it possible but Beta relays to him that, even if it were possible, the consequences of messing with the time continuum could be catastrophic. Beta instead offers a worthy compromise. They would not travel through the ages, but what if they could see into any moment in time?

The development of the chronoscope didn’t take nearly as long as they would have imagined. Once it had come to fruition, it became an endless source of entertainment for Alephtav and Beta. Seeing people again gave the immortal man a joy he hadn’t felt in years. Beta would use it to study human emotions and modify himself to be more like a person, but Alephtav would spend hours watching and remembering moments of his old life. He would also watch important historical events as they unfolded and how the greatest of humanity would act in their private lives. It still left him a bit sorrowful, though. He wished he could see these people in person, but he knows he should never even attempt to go back to them. The only thing he could do was relay his disappointment to Beta. Beta made sure to remember these conversations.

Part 5: Loss of Faith

“You’re lying,” Evelyn says with a stern look on her face to the man in front of her.

“Still an atheist?” The man asks as if puzzled. “You have lived longer in an afterworld than the life you led as a mortal, and yet you still refuse to believe in the possibility of a deity. Why is that?”

“If you’re really ‘God’, then you’d already know. Not just that, but you would have stopped…”

“Stopped what?”

Evelyn was thirteen years old then. Her mother, Gianna Miles, was a beautiful lady in her aging years and a good mother to Evelyn. She was Christian. She was never a super devout Jesus-freak, but she still attended church every Sunday and became close with her community. It was one of those suburban community churches where the experience was more about sharing time together and doing good instead of worrying about the Hell-worthy misdeeds one might have committed. Things are never that clear-cut though. In every set of good people willing to help their fellow man, there is at least one person ready to screw it up.

It was a charity event. The neighborhood was encouraged to donate everything they didn’t want to the church and volunteers would sort out how they could use it to help people. Eight people originally volunteered but when the work went into the night, Gianna was left alone with Paul Downy, minister of the church. Reverend Paul saw that Gianna seemed down and questioned her as to why.

“It’s Rick,” Gianna said. “He’s just a son of a bitch sometimes. Pardon the language.”

“It’s fine,” the minister replied. Gianna continued to confide in Reverend Paul, and he listened with an attention that Gianna hadn’t felt in a long time. When she teared up a little, the minister took advantage and pressed his lips against hers. In that moment of sadness, she accepted the kiss but pulled away from him in a swift motion.

“What the hell?” Gianna screamed.

“It’s okay,” Reverend Paul said while getting close to Gianna again.

“No, it’s not. What kind of man of God are you? Get the hell away from me.”

The reverend was taken aback. He had done this a few times in the past. The ignored wife needs attention, and he gladly gives it to them. Of course, once he’s done with them, the women never say anything because they’re married. This time, he was rejected. He was scared and nervously asked, “You won’t tell anyone, will you? The church? Your husband?”

“I don’t keep anything from my husband,” she responded adamantly. “I won’t tell anyone else, but you need to do some soul searching.”

She started to walk away but Reverend Paul stumbled after her, “Wait! Gianna!” He caught up to her and meant to grab her shoulder but instead he accidentally pushed her, causing her to fall to the ground.

Hitting her head on one of the pews, she was dazed on the floor and shouted, “Get away from me!” She kicked Reverend Paul in the shins and started scurrying away. She started to get up but at that moment an enraged and frightful Paul Downy grabbed a nearby metal crucifix and stabbed Gianna in the back. He couldn’t let her get away. Eventually, everyone would have found out and he would lose his whole life. As blood seeped into Gianna’s lungs and she gasped for her last breath, Paul prayed for God’s forgiveness. The almighty would understand that this was for the best.

As he got up, he began to plan for his alibi. He placed the keys to the church next to her body. He would say that he went home for the night and left her there at the church to keep working. Everyone who knew Gianna would believe that. He would then discover the body the next day. It was a decent plan. It just didn’t take into consideration the fact that Gianna’s husband, David, was in the church at that very moment. He had dropped her off that morning since he needed to take her SUV to drive around their daughter and her friends. He had arrived to pick her up and, after he had entered the church, saw the crucifix being plunged into Gianna. He froze, but when he locked eyes with Paul, hell broke loose.

David ran and pounced at the reverend with a wildcat’s ferocity. After he knocked Paul to the ground, he started to strangle the man with his hands. Reverend Paul was close to death when, suddenly, David heard a voice from behind him shriek, “Dad!” When David saw his beautiful Evelyn behind him, he snapped back and rushed to her. He didn’t care about the preacher for now. He had to get to his daughter. Paul relished the opportunity and ran away. David just stood there holding Evelyn, who was crying at the sight of her dead mother.

Later in the evening, Paul and David had both gone to the police with conflicting stories. David had told the truth while the reverend had made up a story about how he was Gianna’s lover and David had killed her in a rage. They were both arrested. Evidence, including some testimony from other housewives he had seduced and blood stains on clothing he had ditched, eventually led to the reverend’s conviction. It didn’t matter though. David never saw justice for his wife. He had hanged himself in his cell that night Gianna died. Evelyn was orphaned.

Evelyn tells her story to the man who claims to be God. He simply nods and says, “Fair point. Perhaps to say that I am ‘God’ was a bit misleading. I am a god, the god of this afterworld. To your point, were I the god of your old life, I could just espouse free will.”

“Whatever,” Evelyn retorts. “If you’re really the ‘God of the Underworld’ you’d be able to let me see my parents.”

“As you wish,” the god responds while pointing to a cave wall.

The wall mystically transforms into a window. Evelyn carefully approaches and as she looks down, she sees her mother and father in an argument; not angry, just playful. They appear younger than they were when they died and seem to be in a place identical to Eden. They seem happy and that makes Evelyn happy. That is, until the two motion for a person to come over and when Evelyn sees who it is, it shocks her. “What the— ? It’s me.”

“Yes,” the god answers.

“I see,” Evelyn says. “She’s not real. It’s like the wonderland I saw outside of this cave. Some kind of illusion.”

“Those were illusions, yes. That little section of the cave is my playroom, for lack of a better term. But this image is real. I can explain everything if you give me a chance. Will you sit?” Suddenly two chairs appear from nowhere and Evelyn takes a seat. She wants to hear what this god has to say. The god takes the other seat and begins his story: “I want you to listen to everything I have to say and once I’m done, I will answer all your questions. I just ask you not to interrupt until I have finished. I was a human once. I had a name, but it’s irrelevant. I have given myself a moniker that has been a part of me much longer than the name given to me at birth. My name is Alephtav.”

Part 6: Alpha and Omega

“Alephtav?” Evelyn inquires.

“Yes,” he affirms. “That name is a product of the hubris and pretention of youth. Regardless, I have created and perfected several important pieces of technology throughout my existence. The first was a serum that made me immortal which I called the Methuselah Brew. It made me feel no pain and if my body is ever damaged in any way, it automatically repairs itself. The second technology I created was a true artificial being. The population of the Earth had been annihilated by nuclear war, so I focused on this project to gain some companionship. I created my friend Beta; a being with intelligence far beyond that of normal man but still capable of experiencing the emotions and feelings of a human being. The next technology I developed, with the help of my robotic aide, was the chronoscope, a device that would let a viewer see into any point in space-time; past or present that is.”

Evelyn raises her hand at that point and Alephtav reluctantly stops and gestures to let her speak, “If you can see in the past, why can’t you see in the future?”

Alephtav welcomes the question, “Contrary to the ideals of your lifetime, past, present, and future are not of equal measure. There are no fifth dimensional beings capable of gazing and traveling upon the fourth dimensional spectrum as if it were a bidirectional path. There is only one moment that exists: the present. The only reason we can see into the past is because a trail is left behind by it. I could elaborate further if you wish.”

“No thanks. I’ll take your word for it.” Evelyn says, not wanting to get too confused. She was an intelligent woman, but this might be beyond her comprehension.

“To assure you, Beta and I have confirmed it through extensive research. We cannot see into the future. It is unwritten. That brings comfort to me, actually.” He continues his story to Evelyn.

After the chronoscope was invented, Alephtav and Beta began development on a body for Beta that was made of organic matter instead of cybernetics. They were successful and transformed Beta into a human male. These were all the pieces of technology that Alephtav personally had a hand in developing: the Methuselah Brew, Beta, the chronoscope, and Beta’s organic body; and even then, he was mostly an assistant for the last one.

One day, Beta confessed to Alephtav that he wished to go off into the cosmos to see what he could do on his own. Alephtav wasn’t happy at first but understood that all children seek independence at some point and gave his blessing. When Beta left, Alephtav created other companions of equal intellect to Beta and named them Gamma and Delta. In many ways they were improved in comparison to Beta’s development, he always remembered his first friend post-humanity.

Beta returned one day, many years later. He sought out Alephtav and his newly built companions and asked them to return with him to the place where Beta had spent his independent life. It turned out to be a giant laboratory inside of a mountain and it was his gift to Alephtav for creating him.

“It was this mountain, actually,” Alephtav told Evelyn. “It’s more than a geological formation; it’s a phenomenal piece of engineering we call The God Machine. Beta’s artificial mind had produced many more technologies since we parted, and they had all come together in this machine. It works by finding an empty place in the universe that is not in the path of another celestial object, then it sends out trillions of nanomachines to do its bidding of constructing a planet surrounded by an earth-like atmosphere and a simulated normal climate. At that point, the machine can use the chronoscope technology we developed together to map the brain of individuals who lived and died long ago, duplicate the body and brain of those individuals before the time of death, and create new artificial bodies with the memories of those people.”

Alephtav stops then to let the information sink into Evelyn’s mind. “I think I understand,” she says. “Eden is one of these worlds. I’m one of these things. I’m not real.” She believes him. It all makes sense. It was a perfectly realistic and scientific explanation for the afterlife.

“Why would you say that?” Alephtav asks. “If you want to fret about actually being ‘Evelyn’ then fine, but you do exist. You are real. The only difference is that your God was once human.”

“I’m starting to wish I hadn’t shown up here,” Evelyn says as she starts to feel nauseous. The sensation is completely psychosomatic since her body cannot truly feel the symptoms.

“That can be arranged,” Alephtav says.

“Excuse me?”

“Here’s the crux of my situation. Every human being that has ever lived has finally been placed in an afterlife. A version of this mountain exists in every single afterworld out there and I have been waiting for someone adventurous and resourceful enough to climb it and enter this chamber. You are merely the third person to do it. I will give you the same options I gave them. I can erase your memory of this experience and you can live out your peaceful existence in your afterlife. You’ll just remember entering a cave and finding nothing. This is what the other two decided upon.”

“What’s my other choice?”

“You become my replacement. I will give you control of the God Machine, and you can do whatever you wish with it. Create new worlds. Destroy old ones. Completely wipe the remains of humanity. I don’t care. I never created a hell for the evil people, you could make one of your own and send sinners there. I’m sure you’d like to see your mother’s killer suffer for eternity. It’s up to you. You would become the new God.”

“What would you do?” Evelyn wonders aloud as she contemplates the choice given to her.

“I will tell you, only if you accept my offer. I will give you as much time as you need to make your choice.”

It’s a major decision but she knows immediately what she’s going to say. She has never run away from something she feared and has always reveled in trying new experiences. This one was going to be the biggest of all. “I’ll do it,” she tells him.

“Oh. Fantastic. I’m a bit surprised; both because you agreed and how quickly you did so. Any questions you have about anything, Beta has agreed to assist you. Beta!” A young woman walks in from a door that had appeared in the wall and approaches Alephtav. “Did you hear that?”

“Heard everything,” the woman replies.

“Wait,” Evelyn interrupts. “I thought Beta was a guy.”

“I was,” Beta answered. “But I change my gender often. I just switch my consciousness to a new body. Last time was about a millennium ago.”

An inquiring Evelyn asks, “Really? How long have you guys been at this?”

“Eons,” Alephtav answers with a sad tone. “Which is why I’ve made the decision to end my life.”

“What?” Evelyn asks.

“I’m tired and old. I’ve lived longer than any being has a right to and, thanks to Beta’s ingenuity, I have finally discovered a way.” He takes from his pocket a clear bottle filled with a greenish fluid. “All I must do is drink this. It’ll counteract the Methuselah Brew’s effects and all my cells will quickly degenerate. I’ll finally have my oblivion and, who knows, maybe there’s a real afterlife out there. Maybe there is a greater God than me in the universe; one whom I’ll have to face and will judge my actions. Probably not, but who knows for sure? I’m more than ready to find out.”

Evelyn is surprised but has no words when Alephtav takes a drink. Nothing happens at first, but then, he starts to age. In less than 10 seconds, he is an elderly man. His eyes go upward and she notices the life go out of him. His skin starts to harden and flake until all that’s left in the chair opposite Evelyn is dust. She notices Beta is smiling and asks, “Why aren’t you sad?”

“There’s no need to be,” she replied. “We had discussed this, and I understand why he needed to do this.”

“Won’t you miss him?”

“Sure, but, worse comes to worst, I can use the God machine to bring him back.” That seemed cold to Evelyn, but it made a weird kind of morbid sense. Beta continued, “I’ll need to adjust the machine to use an interface you prefer. Alephtav had it controlled by commands from his mind but to start off, I have a direct connection with the machine. So, you can relay any commands through me until I have completed that portion. What is the first thing you wish to do?”

Evelyn had to think. What does a person do when they become a god? An idea strikes. “Since this god machine can create planets and people, can it create anything? Stars? Other types of living beings?”

“Well,” Beta says. “Create is probably the wrong word. They don’t come out of nothing, the machine just grabs other forms of matter and energy and then use them to…”

“Yeah, yeah. Science blah blah. Can it do it?”

“Yes, it’s possible. Why?”

Evelyn smirks. “I’m going to try my hand at being God. See if I can do better than the last one. I don’t mean your friend; I mean the one I grew up afraid of. The mythical God of all creation. I’ll start over from the beginning. Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do. Can you show me one of those empty spots in the universe?”

“I suppose,” Beta replies, making the cave wall transform into a view of empty space.

Evelyn approaches the window-like view to see the point in space that Beta has chosen. When she sees the void, she peers through the darkness and says, “Let there be light.”