Transcendence/The End
-=1=-
What was she had been told? So long ago, so far away, by somebody who had never existed, an echo of some distant memory that had never been. What was it.
She felt as though she was hanging high in the sky holding onto a spider web fine strand of nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all but her own sense of her, and the strand. What was she had been told? She tried to open her eyes but nothing happened. She tried to reach out but found nothing. She felt nothing beyond herself. A memory stirred.
“Is the dark always there? Even when the lights are on?”
“Of course the dark goes away when the lights are on, silly!”
“Then where does the dark go?”
“I don't know. It just goes.”
“Then did the dark ever exist?”
“Huh?”
“Perhaps we just imagine the dark.”
“I'd of thought it more likely that we imagine the light.”
“Why?”
“Because the light is useful.”
“Where as the dark is there when most people are having there own dreams.”
“That's an interesting idea Uli.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“I think you should remember that, and Uli, you could just call me Dad you know”
“Huh?”
She hadn't been told. She had been asked, and gave her own answer. She opened her eyes again, everything was light, not blindingly light, but light. She glanced around and thought to herself, absent mindedly scratching the tip of her nose. Slowly she began to feel something, deep down, a strange sense, as though she were slowly unwinding. Unwinding as though the tangles of her existence were being stripped away from her core being, left to float in a never land of dreams. For a moment she felt so peaceful, so perfect, so very simple. Another memory stirred.
“But if everything were perfect Uli wouldn't that mean us all living in our own little perfect worlds? Wouldn't that be sad?”
“I hadn't thought about it like that, but I suppose it would be something of a hollow success. The only way to make the universe a perfect place is for everyone to be alone, with no experience and no knowledge that it would be so much better if it weren't perfect”
“A world without light.”
“Only dreams... no perfection would be hollow, it is our individual desire to achieve or lack of that desire that drives our happiness.”
“Then why are people so unhappy?”
“I suppose it's because people have forgotten that life is about people, and about ourselves.”
“How do you mean?”
“By discovering what makes us unique, and by discovering what is unique about others, it adds a wondrous aspect to life. When people forget that they are entities, with unique gifts and unique flaws, and that everyone else is also unique, they lose something of what it is to be human. No... They lose everything that is human about themselves.
“You mean people who are scared of social interaction?”
“No I mean people who, people who... People who have forsaken all their ability to be unique, to conform to the mass dream, to fit in perfectly, to become perfect, to be alone in a world full of empty people.”
Suddenly Uli felt sick, she dropped to her knees as her mind awoke too memories long since crushed beneath a wave of self. She focused her thoughts completely. A single task, a single all encompassing goal. Go to Pandora.
-=2=-
Uli stood on top of an impossibly tall tower, skirt flapping in the wind, her hair swept across her face. In front of her, standing on a black gargoyle was Pandora, her hair draped at her feet looked as though it had melted into the stone work beneath.
“What are you doing here? You should be in your perfect world, with them” Pandora asked, crystal blue eyes of ice stared out from a chisled ivory face as she waved her hand. Uli's eyes followed the motion too see a sea of countless football sized orbs.
“Oh Pandora... What did you do?” Uli asked tears stinging at her eyes, trying to get free.
“I created perfection, everyone shall be happy now, every strand of essence can live out it's own perfect existence.” Pandora turned to her sea of orbs a smile of achievement on her face.
“But Pandora, this isn't right, it's a lie, you can never be happy if your alone.” Uli stepped forward, her strength growing with each step.
“They aren't alone, they have their dreams!” Pandora turned to Uli, a hateful glint flared in her cold eyes.
“They are alone, if you have no collective reality, if you have nobody or nothing else to provide you with dreams, how can they dream?” Uli stepped forward again.
“Your wrong, everyone has dreams, we all dream, now they get to live their dreams!”
“No they don't, they don't have any dreams Pandora. You stole their dreams, you stole them and then you threw them away. So that you could created this instead” Uli gestured to the sight around. A dim blue field seemed to be growing between the two woman.
“Their people, they have their imagination! You give them no credit.” Pandora was becoming angry as the field of blue crept ever closer to her.
“Pandora - they aren't people any more, they're just potential floating in footballs!” Uli walked forward the field growing ever larger. Pandora held out her arms as though to struggle against the field, collapsing to one knee she stared at Uli.
“They are all linked to me, they gave me their will, I am as strong as all of them combined, they gave me the ability to change reality.” Pandora strained dropping her head too look at the floor. Uli walked closer, just a few feet away now. The field had enveloped Pandora, but it had yet to touch her, much like an island in the sea.
“Then why Pandora, why is your will so weak?” Uli leant forward and touched Pandora's forehead.
“I... I don't know” She looked up at Uli.
Uli knelt down, wrapped her arms around her knees and looked kindly at Pandora. “It's because they have no will any more, because the power that you had no longer exists. Can't you sense it, can't you feel it, that deep sense of pointless victory, the echoes of life shouting in the darkness, the loneliness?” Pandora, tears had begun to trickle down her cheeks. Uli smiled sweetly and rubbed the tears away with her cuffs.
“Now look what I've gone and done, I've made my baby sister cry, dad would be mad at me.” Uli smiled and Pandora seemed to jump.
“W-what?” Pandora seemed infinatly more fragile now, so much less like that terrifying queen of networks and far more of a lost child.
“I think that the system figured it out, your twin brother... you remember what happened to our father don't you, our family?” Uli held Pandora's hands now and looked at her with sisterly compassion.
“Yes, his daughter and wife died in an accident, that was when he threw all his energies into his prototype.”
“I was the prototype, cloned from his daughters DNA and then the A.I. module was installed, after a lot of time in a black box I may add. I was an experiment in reality manipulation, however it seemed that I was incapable of affecting enough willpower, after awhile father grew to love me as though I were his real daughter. Of course I had a younger brother of my own, a real one! His name was Sean. Then because our father wanted me to have a real life he rewrote my memory core, and had a family he knew well take me as their own.” Uli looked down at the floor and sighed, she had forgotten all of this until Pandora stole the world.
Pandora looked at the ground and sniffed, “I took Sean... Legion...”
“I know. You needed him, his perspective, his understanding. That's when I created Joshua to compensate, of course I didn't know that's what I had done.
Pandora began to cry again, “I-I... I was Beth...”
“So that's why she felt like a sister, even after so little time”
Pandora's eyes lit up, and she sprung forward and hugged her sister.
“Now Pandora, shall we do something about the footballs, and how about us making an imperfect world?”
Pandora nodded
“Oh and Pandora, I prefer the name Beth.”
Pandora nodded again and smiled.
“Tshh, Tshh seven days indeed” Uli said to her sister, who responded with a small giggle.
