FUSE

Chapter 3

How It All Started

"Whew," I swipe at the sweat beads rushing from my hairline to my eyebrows and dry my damp palms on my blue jeans. "Death" I say out loud even though I'm alone. Unfortunately, over the past five millennia, I'd acquired some expertise in the post-human death processing system and know that the whole heart-stop-beating is the easy part. What happens in this room is where the difficulty begins. The actual title is Post-Human Death Debriefing (PHDD). Don't picture singing angels, harps, and pearly gates, imagine a torqued up Big Guy with bulging eyes and hair screaming to escape from its roots. Every single one of my PHDD sessions with Big Guy involved yelling and lightning bolts—off the charts scary. The sessions may have gone better if I hadn't screwed up the whole life on Earth thing. Every one of my debriefings ended the same way—one-way ticket back to Earth.

Unlike me, the other Base Souls who followed the rules and fused with their Split Souls moved one step closer to returning to our real jobs patrolling the universe as a member of the Universe Patrol Corps, or as we Base Souls call it the UPC.

I glance around the room and my eyes come to rest on my pink and purple shoe strings, which reminded me of Hayley. As I think about her, the memory of that hot Egg McMuffin makes my mouth water.

Anyway, the Base Soul story began about five thousand years ago. My boss, Big Guy, got this fantastic idea—reward all the UPC members for their service and dedication. He found a small planet floating around a medium-sized star in the Milky Way Galaxy. With a few swishes of his arm, he transformed it from a desolate wasteland into the most beautiful site in the universe. He named the planet Earth and announced to all the Base Souls that he was sending us on vacation. With an eye blink, he sent us to Earth and deposited us into fully grown human bodies and said, "Have fun."

We were supposed to relax and play on this beautifully constructed planet for a few hundred years. Then we'd die human deaths and return to our patrolling jobs feeling refreshed. His only demand was we obey the fundamental laws of the universe.

I scratch at my scalp and inhale. Now the bad part of the story. We screwed up. Oh boy, did we ever botch it. The Base Souls broke every rule.

Out of frustration, Big Guy gathered us together on this desolate tract of land in the middle of the desert and assigned some guy to give us a refresher course on the rules of the universe. It was a miserably hot day. People shvitzed, complained, and whined as he read over the rules. This guy even made us repeat after him—word by word, every single rule. When no one could find parchment or paper, he carved the rules into giant rocks.

When he finished talking, everyone got up, walked back to their tents, and continued doing seriously bad things, like lying, stealing, and cheating. A few of the high-ranking souls, who patrol the mega galaxies, became daring and broke the major laws, like murder and war.

After that desert training class, the first soul to die a human death was a nasty guy named Ziz. While vacationing on Earth, Ziz reigned supreme over the rule breakers. Everyone hated and feared him.

A few nights after the universe rule class, Ziz staggered around outside his tent—drunk—tripped over his own big feet and fell forward. Of course, he landed on a rock. The desert was nothing but rocks. Blood gushed from his head. Seconds later, he was as dead as the rock.

According to angel gossip, when Ziz arrived for his debriefing, he faced a steaming hot, Big Guy who screamed. "You don't deserve to work in the UPC! I don't want souls like you patrolling my universe!" Big Guy reached out, grabbed Ziz by the shoulders and ripped him in half. One half of Ziz dangled from his right hand and the other half of Ziz squirmed in his left.