String Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer
“We
call it riding the slipstream. It’s the
single biggest rush of life you’re ever going to feel. Imagine surfing on a wave of radiant energy,
only instead of surfing on a surfboard and having any control, you’re being
pulled along the turbulent flow of gravity behind a wave, but it’s not really a
wave and instead it’s actually the very fabric of the space-time
continuum. Sound like fun?”
“Sounds
like a blast.”
Eighteen
answered the call. A year prior there
had been forty-two. And a decade back
their numbers had been well over a thousand.
But now only eighteen arrived. Ares
reminded himself that didn’t mean there were only eighteen left. What it meant was that there were only
eighteen able, or willing, to answer the call.
Of
course their numbers were dwindling. Ares
knew that. They all knew that. It was obvious to everyone there. Eighteen.
Eighteen! Eighteen was
ridiculous. It was embarrassing really.
Some
were obviously gone because of old age.
That was natural, of course, but protocol was that whenever possible, a
member was to begin training a new recruit to replace them. This was the way it was supposed to work. It had worked that way for the better part of
two millennia. Yes there were times that
someone thought they were young and had years left, but death had other plans
for them. Despite many advances in
soothsaying, you still couldn’t always understand or predict your own death. Death was like that and no understanding of
the cosmic flow of energy was going to forewarn a person of unexpected calamity
and accident. No generation had ever
been one hundred percent all of the time when keeping up with recruiting, but during
the last century they had been pretty good.
There hadn’t been a drop in numbers like this since the last great
war. But even then, other members had
stepped in and recruited two or three at a time. Still, it was simpler to keep a one-on-one
relationship between steward and apprentice.
Ares could still remember his mentor Crius and when Crius had recruited
him.
“What
happens if I wipeout? Do I crash into a
planet and destroy reality?”
“Space-time
doesn’t work that way. And you don’t
fall off. It’s not really surfing. That was just my attempt at a metaphor you
could understand. There’s nothing to
fall off of. You aren’t really on
anything. You’re in something.”
“What
am I in?”
“The
fabric of reality. The energy flow of
time and space and the connectors of all.”
“Wow. Sounds deep.”
“And
it is in you as well.”
“Groovy. What does that do? To me?
Having that inside me?”
“You’ll
be a part of the cosmic strands that hold the universe together. You will be a part of every connection and
every moment that ever was.”
“And
I get to be inside it?”
“Yeah…”
Crius smiled. “That… that is when the
fun really begins.”
Others
must have deserted. That was
disheartening of course, but not entirely unexpected. Not everyone enjoyed being a protector of
reality. It was an infrequent job, but
excruciatingly demanding and difficult when called upon. It was easy for a person to break under such
pressure. It was an easy job to be scared
of.
Not
everyone survived being one with the energy of all creation. Bodies couldn’t always take it. Neither could certain minds. Some people snapped. Some people were lost. They joined the infinity and they never came
back.
“Are
you familiar with the story of Atlas?”
“You
mean the shoulder world guy?”
“Yes. The ‘guy’ with the world on his shoulders. That’s what we are. That is what we do. Except we do it for the entire universe.”
Still,
even with deserters and agents neglecting their duties, their numbers should
have been higher. Despite the risks of
the job, if you kept mum on a few of the negatives, it was usually an easy
sell. Who doesn’t like the sound of
being one with the cosmos? It usually
sounded awesome. ‘Ride the cosmic
waves.’ ‘Feel the enlightenment of
intergalactic existence.’ All you had to
do was tell a person they would see behind the curtain of reality. That usually sealed the deal.
Ares’s
biggest fear wasn’t the deserters or the elderly. More worrisome were those that were no longer
here because of nefarious intent. If
someone was out murdering members it meant one of two things, the truce was
broken and this was a declaration of war, or some coincidental murderers had
somehow stumbled upon their numbers.
Either way, murder of that sort could not be tolerated. Enemies could be plotting an overthrow of the
entire universe. The order could have a
traitor within its midst.
Ares
wished Crius were still alive. He was wise. He was good at figuring things like
this. He was also a ballbuster that never
would have allowed people the precipitous drop in numbers or security. Crius was a leader. Ares was still young, in comparison. He was really a slacker. He was in no position to define agendas or
determine goals or tell anyone else how to do their job. Ares had never wanted those things. He was sold on the idea of surfing the waves
of existence. At his best he had been a
beach bum, just looking for a fun time.
If he was starting to worry about things like this did that mean he was
getting – old? Crius would be proud. Ares was nearly mortified at the idea of
becoming a crumbly.
“We
pull the strings of the universe and the universe lets us. Why? Because even the universe knows it needs
an outside observer or two to keep it in shape.”
Eighteen
met and discussed the great unraveling they had all been alerted to. The fabric had become frayed and was failing
along the edges. And it was happening at
an alarming rate. Dissipated energy at a
rate much faster than possible or random chance should allow for. It showed intent and effort. It was specific and deliberate.
Ares
suspected it was the Entropy Addicts – those that valued destruction over all
else. As the Riders of the Slipstream
believed in the flow, the Entropy Addicts believed in its absence. The addicts had started with some
slipstreamers that had had enough and thought that what they did was
cheating. Tweaking the universe wasn’t
cheating. It was just a manipulation. And if the universe let you do it, then it
could hardly be called cheating. But the
addicts didn’t see it that way. Ares thought
their whole process was based on hypocrisy, but they had never asked him for
his opinion. The way he saw it was, they
were just doing what the slipstreamers did, but with an apocalyptic nth degree
twist in logic. They still pulled the strings; they just wanted to pull it
apart. It was a ridiculous theory or
philosophy or religion or whatever you wanted to call it. It was a bit like anarchy on crack with a
twist of chaos theory. In destruction
there is opportunity for change so their goal was ultimate destruction to all
ultimate change? It made no sense. And it was incredibly shortsighted. Blow up reality, tear down space-time, and shred
the fabric that holds it all together, on the offshoot chance that existence
really is that resilient and will just reform as something else. And they didn’t worry at all about what would
happen to them. If they all died, that
was just part of the natural order of things.
Just because they chose to do something didn’t mean it was the natural
order of things. It was still a choice
and intentional destruction.
“We
pull the strings. We connect the
dots. We make bridges when they need
made and we clip the lines when something needs put out to sea.”
Crius
was full of endless slogans and he had no problem mixing his metaphors. Ares suspected that he just really liked to
talk and hear the sound of his own voice.
But there was something to what he had always said. The universe let them do what they did. It was a tradeoff of some sort. Existence exists. For all the slipstreamers did to change or affect
anything, they never pulled anything apart or ended anything. Existence just kept on chugging along. Maybe existence couldn’t be stopped. Maybe whatever they or the addicts did,
existence really would win out and keep things together. Maybe the addicts were right on that
point. They thought a reboot was in
order. Whether they could actually
arrange that was arguable, but the real point was, no matter what they did,
everything might turn out just like it was intended to.
Still
though, Ares liked being alive and he didn’t want to put any of this to the
test. He also knew no amount of theory
or argument was going to convince the other seventeen of anything.
Ares
was one with the waves. He could surf
the flow and feel all the interconnected strings of the universe. He didn’t need them. All he needed was the waves.
Ares
was going to go for the greatest ride of his life. He was going to lie back and enjoy the
flow. And then he was going to follow
the strings until they led him to every last one of the addicts, and once they
were connected and he could feel those connections so that he was a part of
them and they were a part of him, that was when he would pull their strings and
see how much they liked it.
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