The Life of Gaia

CHAPTER 24: Éclaircissement

I want to make a clarification.

Zantas said it, hinted at it, sensed it, filtered through his vague words. Applying depersonalization was a sure way to get me to the second soul, but he did it anyway; was it bravado? Was he convinced that I would not detect him? Whatever the answer, he was a fool, as was his wont.

I sensed the pulse of the Flower of Life on the other side of the universe and immediately stood there, watching the scene from a chink in the sky. The stronger the light, the darker the shadow it casts. In this case, it was the strongest light in the Cosmos.

I observed Gaia and Arial working in harmony, concentrating the two aspects of life into one, and it left me somewhat astonished: I did not think it would happen so soon. While they were distracted, I scanned all over that orange city, until I found the lifeless body of the then-embodiment of Life Returning: a small, frail boy, but with great steadfastness of spirit. He was wounded. Good: he would not live long.

For the implementation of my plan, however, it was not enough to have found the second soul, since, by the laws of the universe, I could never trap it personally. I needed a third party, someone whose soul I could shoulder the burden of guarding the little one, so that Zantas and Gaia would stay away from it as long as possible. When an evil cannot be avoided, delaying it can provide the right opportunity for a new idea to spring to mind, and make that same inevitable evil avoidable. There is no such thing as fate.

I needed someone cruel, ambitious, and foolish to fold between my fingers, someone who could have a reason to devote his existence to the segregation of Arial. I saw a half-man, half-machine creature who fit the bill, but it just so happened that his soul was being extinguished by the very two sisters. A dramatically funny coincidence. I had to look for someone else.

I found him after a few moments: far from the center of the city, lying on the ground and being assaulted by mechanical beings bearing down on him. I could taste his thoughts directed, among other things, at the incarnation of Arial; I could feel his fear, his frustration at failing to achieve a goal for which he had worked so hard. After a final moment of resignation, his soul left his body and rose into the air in the form of a small white silhouette.

Without anyone being able to see them, invisible black tentacles descended from the depths of space and approached it, silently enveloping it. It tried to wriggle out of the grip of darkness, but it was all in vain: before it could reach the afterlife, it had become mine. As I had done with Gaia much time before, as that one turned in on itself to search for meaning in that perceptual chaos, I dragged it to a place where we would not be disturbed by outside forces. There it and I stood, facing each other, my titanic eye focused on its immaterial body.

Hello, soul. Tell me, what is your name?

That one tried to back away terrified, but no matter how much it moved, we always remained at the same distance. It looked at its hazy, transparent hands and cried out in fright.

<<Who are you? Where am I? What have you done to me?>> it stammered in confusion. I blinked and smiled.

I took your soul before it disappeared for eternity. For now you do not yet have a body, but you will remedy that yourself. Just know that you owe me a lot, and I will give you a new life at a price. 

Despite its fear, the memories of its last moments of life resurfaced in its mind, until it realized that what I had said was true.

<<Am I dead? >> it asked. My laughter echoed in the depths of empty space.

Yes, you are dead; your previous life is lost. However, I propose that you have a second chance. Choose: the existential nothingness of death or the guarantee of a new life?

The soul already knew what to answer: it did not believe in any god, there was no faith that could make it believe in the existence of the afterlife. I could have told him anything, and it could not have questioned it.

<<I accept the possibility of a second life only on the condition that you first tell me what you want in return.>> Prescient move on its part.

The black space around us disappeared, and suddenly we found ourselves on a distant planet: a red one, of dreams and nightmares, which my rival had already had a chance to visit accompanied by his little daughter-in-law. The so-called Deep Reality. We were standing side by side, it reaching my ankle and me towering in the sky; my hair was lost toward the horizon in constant motion, while I, a black shadow on a white sky, pointed to my soul the center of a mammoth dark blue crater surrounded by dense jungle of the same color. Of the men and weapons that had reduced that place so there was no trace, disintegrated as they had been on impact with the missiles they themselves had designed. Human misery had hit rock bottom on that occasion.

The echo of that explosion had not been strong enough to reach me in time, and when I first arrived on the planet, it was too late for me to orchestrate anything. However, that trip had not proved entirely futile.

<<What is this place? >> it asked. <<The sky is too different from that of Mécanique to be on my planet.>>

Indeed it is not, I explained. It is where you will get what you need.

With a stretch of the finger, a red cylinder-shaped machine emerged from the dark ground, unharmed. Engraved on its metal surface was a name in gray letters: "Im-A7."

This is a gift from me. You must be brought up to use machines, considering your place of origin. The soul leaned forward, resting first its fingertip and then the entire palm of its hand on the object. Sometimes one ignores the fact that among the areas of influence of destruction is the ability to decide what should not be destroyed.

<<I...think I would be able to figure out how to make it work. This sounds almost like a refiner of...something. In any case, you didn't answer my question: what do you want from me?>> Attempting to hide its curiosity about that alien technology, it put its hand to its forehead and looked at me. I opened my mouth and brought down a black sphere almost as big as it was toward the ground. That one half opened wide, revealing its contents: a soul of the purest white curled up on itself. It did not immediately understand who it was, but at some point its face lit up with a new awareness.

<<But this is Alexis!>> I nodded in response.

In the meantime that we were talking, he lived his life and died. He was on the verge of reincarnation when I captured him just as I did you. Your job will be to guard him for me until I come to get him back. I had no intention of doing that. The soul believed my words and brushed Arial's hair, asleep.

<<All right, it's a deal. I'll take care of him,>> it said madly, its eyes locked on him. <<What exactly am I supposed to do?>>

Take this object and this soul and keep them with you, never letting them out of your sight. I will leave you in an empty spot in the universe, where you can act without attracting attention. I stared at him to see if he understood my words. Im-A7 will allow you to make all your ideas real: use it to generate a new world, of which you will be the absolute ruler.

I saw its mind envisioning royal palaces, planets of gold and endless power. Holding its hand over the other soul's head, it looked at the machinery with greedy eyes. Thousands of terrified gazes of black monkeys watched us from behind the vegetation, and the waves of the sea crashed on the shoreline marking the rhythm of the passing of time, of the approaching rise of a new reality. I had been certain from the beginning that I would succeed.

<<I already know what I will call this world,>> it murmured.

Then go, and do your work.

In a swirl of black, red, and orange, the mortal and Arial's souls disappeared into thin air, while a shy, yellow spark peeped out in the whirlwind.