Wish I could stay to watch… Wish I… What? How did it get so bright in here? What… Where am I? What’s going on?
Relax. You’ve only just gone to your great reward, old man.
I’ve died? Oh. Yes. I remember now. I was… quite old, as I recall.
Well, age won’t matter here, will it. I am Adonis.
And I am Kronos.
You can call me Jack.
So I’ve heard. We’ve been expecting you.
Yes, and an old friend would like to say hello.
Hello, Mr. Pres… I mean, Jack.
Casey? Is that you, Casey?
It is.
I’m sorry, Casey. That you died so young. And that it took so long for me to say that.
I’ve gotten over it. Besides, as they keep reminding me, we are timeless here.
Timeless? How does that work?
It’ll take some getting used to. Along with Casey and Adonis, I’d like to congratulate you on your accomplishments. You did rather well for a mortal.
Well, thank you, Kronos. But none of it would have been possible had it not been for Casey, and for mysterious writing I did right after Casey saved me.
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Yes, well, there’s more to it than you know. However, you’ll find you do know those things, just by willing it. Devine Vision, we call it. Give it a try, old chap.
Ok. Well, how right you are. You provided me with the visions, and the writing on my pads.
The visions, yes. The pad writing, you came up with on your own.
It represents a failure of our VR to have not foreseen that. We’ve tweaked that system here and there. Shouldn’t happen again.
Though, we’re all pleased with the gains you managed as a result.
And you harbored an evil presence here in the ether. It orchestrated the attempt on my life. My being killed, oh my! Would have set my world on a path to oblivion. Hard to believe killing just one person, could lead to that.
Nonetheless, it would have. We proved it.
How? How could you prove it?
A few of our chaps here simply can’t leave well-enough alone. I snubbed them at first, but when Adonis here showed me the capabilities they developed in Virtual Realms, I became a believer. Using VR, we created a full-sized replica of your planetary system. It exists metaphysically.
You created a test system.
Precisely old chap.
And you are timeless. Your testing occurs in the blink of an eye.
Precisely. Except we don’t have eyes. I say, you’re catching on quite nicely.
I told you he would.
You did, Casey, that you did.
Adonis and Kronos learned that this evil had sentenced other worlds 352
to doom, Jack, and would have continued, had it not been stopped.
We devised a method of detecting it amongst us, should anything like it return.
That’s certainly good to hear, Casey.
I convinced them we could put VR to good use by seeking budding civilizations poised on the brink of greatness and give them a gentle nudge in the right direction. Together, the three of us have successfully petitioned The Committee to implement a new program, here in the afterlife, for that very purpose. The head of such an enterprise will need to be exceptional in every regard. The first thing The Committee will want is to see a plan, complete with selection criteria and intervention methodology. They are awaiting your presentation, Sir.
I see. It would be an honor, of course, and a great responsibility. I humbly accept. If you’ll work with me, Casey. Will you do that?
Can we work together on this?
I hoped you’d say that, Jack. I accept.
Great! Say, this Devine Vision is great. I just now realized there was a young woman in Dallas, named Bell. She pointed out the assassin to you, Casey. And you two gave her the will to be in place at the right time.
Right you are. Another over achiever she turned out to be. Much to our dismay, the evil escaped here while we were still formulating a plan to deal with it. Traveled to your Earth, the wanker did, where Bell was on her own, or nearly so, to deal with it.
Yes. What I don’t understand is, her showdown with the evil on Arctic ice was eight years before my passing. I rather expected to see her here already.
Wait for it…
What? Oh! Yes, I see it now. Oh my. Oh my.
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