Reset

Chapter 7

“Ouch,” said Peter.

“Yeah,” Milo sighed. “Then I realized that I do not feel comfortable playing a villain.”

“Well, let’s say I’m starting to believe your story. What do you intent to do next?”

“I have no idea, but suicide doesn’t seem to be such a good idea anymore.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I have a favorite proverb that goes like that: You have just one life no matter how you live it. Live it the way it would make you proud.”

 “I’ll try to remember it.”

Peter glanced at his watch.

“I think we should be going back.”

“I agree,” said Milo. “It’s getting late.

He touched Peter and was getting ready to take them back to his apartment. Then he saw a flash of light. It was like he got electrocuted. For a brief moment he saw Peter in an unfamiliar place. It was too dark to see the whole place but there were also others. It lasted just a split second and then he was back. He shook his head.

“Are you all right?” asked Peter and looked at his eyes. Milo spotted something in his eyes. It was something indeterminable, something alien.

They found themselves in Milo’s apartment. Before Peter had time to say anything Milo pinned him to the wall pushing his arm to Peter’s neck.

“What is that about?” cried out Peter. “Are you sure you are all right?”

“Who are you?” Milo asked instead of answering the question.

“You know that…”

“I think you are not who you are saying you are.”

“Listen to me. If you let me breathe in, I’ll tell you everything.”

Milo loosened his steel grip a bit.

“Now talk!”

“You correctly assumed that I’m not who I appear to be. But you have to believe me, that my intentions are friendly.”

“I will be the judge of that.”

“If you don’t mind I would prefer sitting down. Don’t worry, I won’t run away.”

“Ok. Let’s sit down then.”

Milo pointed Peter to the armchair and he pulled the gun out of Peter’s holster.

“Just in case.”

He sat on a wooden chair opposite to the armchair.

“I’m all ears,” he said in very sarcastic way.

Peter continued:

“We will be meeting officially in about three years. Then I will be explaining you why you have been chosen.”

“You chose me?”

The fact that Peter mentioned their first acquaintance in three years’ time didn’t bother Milo. His perception of time allowed him taking things that will be happening in future as granted. What surprised him was that somebody else perceived the time in similar way that he does.

“In three years?” he asked after a short consideration.

“You are not the only one that perceives the time differently. Considering that the time is not so important I can tell you why you have been chosen. My name is Pe-GO-teh. That’s why I named myself Peter.”

Milo closed his eyes for a moment. The name Pe-GO-teh sounded familiar. He remembered the vast place again. Now he remembered it in more detail. There were five of them standing in the circle. Peter was standing in the middle.

“You were chosen because of your unique genetic code, you and four others.”

Peter looked him deeply in his eyes:

“I think you are ready now.”

“Ready for what?”

“Bear with me for just little while and you will understand everything. I come from a galaxy so far away you people don’t even know it exists. It is too far away for your astronomers to be able to see.”

“I thought my story was unbelievable,” commented Milo.

Peter overheard him and continued:

“I’m a representative of a community called G-NA that is observing happenings all over the universe.  My mission is to observe and then report to the headquarters.”

“You are some sort of a journalist.”

“Pretty much. All events and actions are then stored and analyzed. My mission was reporting from your solar system. Since it is more or less uninhabited I was reporting mostly from your planet. While being here I found out about your interesting characteristic. You see the time as linear.”

Milo thought for a while:

“But the time is linear.”

“It is for you. But that doesn’t apply for everybody. You comprehend the cause and the consequence that must follow in the right order – first the cause and then the consequence. If I take this glass for example…”

He took a glass from the table and threw it to the floor.

“If I drop it to the floor it will break.”

“Yes. That’s what they taught us in school. That every consequence is caused by a cause.”

“But that is not necessarily true,” said Peter. “It can also be the other way around.”

He held the whole glass in his hand and put it back on a table.

Milo stood up and looked at the floor where the glass should have hit the floor.

“I don’t get it…”

“The causes, consequences, now, before – it all has a meaning in linear flow of time. Au contraire, something can happen before it even began. Or even better: it can simultaneously start and end.”

“Ok. Let’s assume I understand. But what does this have to do with me?”

“There is a disaster coming to your planet.”

Milo gulped. He imagined The Flood, the Armageddon, atomic war.

“There is a Tnari army on their way here. They are a very feisty race. Since they discovered signals from your planet they planned to come here and wipe out your civilization.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. I told you they are a feisty race and they can’t stand anybody else, sometimes even of their race.”

“That sounds familiar.”

“Your wars are nothing compare to the ones of Tnari.”