Archeia's Atheneum (The First Shift)

Episode Twenty-Two: Lamenting, Lackluster, Lillum

"I'm not sure I can do that," said Kent. 

Archeia's expression remained calm yet sympathetic. You believe you cannot oblige due to separation pain. My dearest Kent, I have held your hand as we have observed the astronomical. We have embraced and experienced in the form of others. Had we not done this, I would understand the trepidation of what I ask. Must we see more?

"I can withstand the pain. Experiencing Jennifer Shore taught me the meaning of pain. I'm worried about Mirna; how is she going to understand this?"

The one you call Mirna is a capable entity. Remember, all selves predetermine their incarnations before they take place. The Mirna entity asked you to do this long ago, and though during the incarnation that fraction of self may feel visceral sadness/anger, you must see that she will understand.

Kent put his head in his hands. He was lacking in sleep; a seventeen-hour drive will do that. Archeia had told him they would head to Lillum, that they needed to begin probing St. Lucia and the mountain beneath her. It would take time. When they arrived in Lillum County, Kent checked into a B 'n B and passed out shortly after. In a dream state, Archeia told him it was time to let go what no longer served. At the same time, his soon-to-be ex-wife Lana received a phone call from Archeia, who sounded bar-none like Kent Coburry. She'd persuaded Lana to come to Lillum, to bring Mirna with her.

***

Kent wanted to meet at the B 'n B, but Lana called him early that morning demanding that meet elsewhere, and how she couldn't understand his obsession with breakfast. She had a point. Mirna piped up and requested they go to a museum. At eleven-o-clock, the three met at Lillum's Museum of Legends; a place which explored the town's rich albeit "fictitious" history. Mirna joined a junior tour that would take up the whole of twenty minutes. Lana took Kent's hand and led him to a bench facing the Dark Worker exhibit.

"This place is ridiculous," she said. Kent glanced at Lana then back at the exhibit. Lana exhaled sadly, "What's going on Kent?"

"This is going to be hard to talk about. The thing that crashed into our backyard is on a mission, and it needed me to help it."

"So it was a..."

"It-she is E.T."

"What does she want?"

"I'm still figuring that out."

"...So when are things going to go back to normal?"

"Lana...nobody can stop the future. Our planet is moving into a very energetic part of the galaxy, and that isn't going to be some far away cosmic event or spectacle. We detonated nukes and even that small pocket of radiation will have adverse effects on people for decades--and those are just gamma-rays. We're dealing with alien radiation. That means this concept we've made, this "normal" is fleeting. It's going to slip from our grasp like-like soap in the shower," explained Kent. Lana frowned at his analogy.

"What does that mean for us?"

"It means I have work to do. For me, normal died when that ship crashed, the only thing I can do is keep moving."

"I don't think you were ever normal, you always needed to obsess about something. I had a feeling this sort of thing was going to happen as soon as you took that government job, but it was hard to see. Ignorance is bliss."

"Ignorance is killing us. Forget all the shit you see on the news, the plain fact that most people don't care or think the information doesn't apply to them."

"Well, maybe that's the real difference between us."

"You can-" Kent wanted to say they could come with him, but that was fantasy. Coburry was now privy to war that'd been waged throughout the entirety of human existence, and now that the war was over, only the clean up remained. Easy to say from an outside perspective, but on a human level, the order was a tall one. Now that the A.I. was gone, the negatives were panicking, and they would lash out at anyone instigating change. Mirna couldn't be apart of that, Kent could never knowingly put her in danger.

"You can't take her," Lana said.

Kent nodded as tears came to his eyes. "I know. But it's ok."

"It's ok!?"

"We're moving into an age of utopia. It has to get worse before it gets better, but when it gets better it'll be great. Besides, you and Mirna should experience this 'normal' for the time being. You'll never experience it again."

"What if you get to a point where you can't commune with us anymore, doesn't that bother you?"

"Listen, it's important to understand that were not human beings having a spiritual experience, We're spiritual beings having a human experience. Soon we're going to start seeing people doing superhuman feats, simply because it's a natural progression for everyone. What I'm trying to say is, we can't really be separated. There will always be a way to contact each other."

"That's it then? We're done?"

"I don't want to use those words exactly..."

Lana shook her head, "You can't be with us and run away, and I know you're running away." She wiped her eyes and left to wait by the car.

"There are no paradoxes," Kent lamented.

***

Coburry met up with Mirna after her tour. The two laughed with each other, they hugged, and Kent listened to Mirna as she recited the supposed events of the War of Ides. He thought it was strange how a museum readily divulged such grotesque information to children. Mirna asked if Kent had to go again and he said yes. She asked question after question then, but Kent could seldom answer. Instead, out of nowhere, he knelt down to her and promised that he'd write her a book about all that had, was and will happen according to him. "I'll tell you the truth, but I'll make it like a fairytale; like a secret message from me to you." Mirna liked that. She cried when Kent said he had to go, but as he walked her to Lana's car she promised him she'd write a "secret" book in return. Kent watched as the car disappeared into the traffic and away forever, and he broke down sobbing.

Back at the B 'n B, Coburry sat at the edge of his bed watching TV. He needed to be numb for a while. Then, in his mind's eye, thousands of blue specs materialized and formed Archeia. We must begin our work now, dearest Kent, she said.

"What's next?"

We must observe the second battle of St. Lucia if we are to proceed.

"Then let's get started." Kent held out his hand. Archeia gingerly put her hand upon his and at once the room became like liquid, the lights, and colors like a kaleidoscope. So back we went...