Tin Universe Monthly #1

by Brian C. Williams

  Lindsey continued to turn around in circles looking at the huge field and couldn’t help but repeat herself thinking about her brother, ‘Pot.’

  ‘Pot? Well, yes, I suppose that is what your time period and culture call it.’

  Lindsey turned to see the man who called himself Jack standing beside her. Then her rational mind clicked back in and fear flooded through her body.

  ‘Julie!’ She shouted as loud as she could.

  ‘She’s safe.’ He said calmly

  Lindsey grabbed Jack with one hand by his tie and pulled him towards her, ‘Where is she?’

  She did not know how but he got loose from her grip and was suddenly standing behind her.

  ‘She was in no state to be startled into finding herself here so I took care to help her along. She’s sleeping in my home. We can go there now if you wish. Or we can talk about both of your futures and my offer.’

  Lindsey stepped to stand nose to nose with Death.

  ‘I do not know what is going on but I want to see Julie now.’

  Jack turned and started walking through the marijuana field, ‘Then we will talk as we go to see your love.’

  Lindsey followed him still trying to figure out what the hell was going on. They trudged through the field for what seemed like over an hour to her.

  They were at the edge of the field when Jack stopped for a second, ‘All of this is a lot simpler than where I come from but I like the simplicity of it.’

  Jack stepped through the edge of the field and Lindsey followed. She found herself then standing on a walkway in what looked like a rundown apartment complex. Sort of like the ones college students who live off campus rented. Well, college students, crack dealers, and terrorist landlords.

  Lindsey thought everything looked like someone had picked it up from one place and put it here; which is factual what happen. Nothing looked like it had strung up naturally during the course of time. It all had the looks of Gods at play.

  Jack started up the steps to one of the apartment buildings. He stopped halfway up the steps and turned back to locate Lindsey who was looking down a breezeway that separated one of the buildings from another.

  ‘Is that a baseball field back there?’

  ‘Yes, the greatest game in creation. On the right is a construction site and the field wraps around the other side.’

  Lindsey started up the stairs behind him, ‘What’s being built at the construction site?’

  ‘I’m still thinking on that one. I have to spend the rest of creation here so I don’t want to jump into something I have to live with and then end up hating it. I was living in a tent for millennia until I decided on the apartment complex.’

  When they got to the top of the steps they were four stories high and on the top floor of a building that had four apartments on each level. Lindsey thought the top floor where they stood seemed to be an exception with only one doorway.

  ‘One door?’ Lindsey said, puzzled but still very much in a total daze. Matter of fact she was surprised to find she was calm enough to even speak.

  ‘Each building has one door as a main entrance. You can enter the other apartments from this door.’

  Jack knocked on the door.

  ‘Isn’t this your home?’

  ‘Yes, but it is always polite to knock.’ He said this with a wry smile that creeped Lindsey out a little. Well, actually more than a little but Lindsey did not let it show.

  The door opened by itself and he walked in with Lindsey following behind him.

  As she entered she saw a living room with a large television and several bookshelves filled with DVDs, VHS tapes, laser discs, and beta tapes.

  ‘This is the movie apartment. There’s a small kitchen to the side over there.’

  Lindsey looked where he was pointing and did see what could be called a kitchen. It was basically a very old looking wooden table with a microwave and a hot plate on it and beside the table sat a mini refrigerator.

  ‘But right in front of you is the bedroom and that is where your love sleeps.’

  Lindsey turned her head quickly from the kitchen area and ran for the bedroom. Jack stuck his hand out and for some reason it stopped Lindsey in her tracks.

  ‘Go quietly. She is resting. I think it would be best if we talk before you wake her and talk to her about everything that is happening. She has already been through a lot on this day.’

  Lindsey stared first at his arm and then right into the eyes of Death, ‘Yes she has.’

  She then walked over and gently opened the bedroom door and peeked inside to see Julie sleeping peacefully on a bed. She watched her long enough to see her chest rising and falling under the covers before she smiled, closed the door, and turned to face Jack.

  ‘Okay, what is this offer you keep talking about?’

  ‘Let’s talk over some wine.’

  Lindsey raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  Jack smiled.

  ‘I have beer for you waiting in the ice box. Budweiser, Right?’

  Chapter

  Forty-One

  Lindsey was sitting on one side of a big couch in the middle of the living room holding a can of beer. The couch was shaped like a half circle. On the other side sat Jack, drinking wine from a goblet.

  What else would Death drink from, a plastic cup?

  ‘Feed me the whole story.’

  ‘I am Death.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s not all?’

  ‘Well, it has to be stated. There have been three others who in time have paraded around pretending to be me: Julunggul, Brahma, and Inanna. Last I heard though they had been given sanctuary somewhere in Hell away from my grasp. But you can call me Jack if it would cut down on any historical inaccuracy confusion or the like. I’ve come to think Jack suits me.’

  ‘Really? Kind of gay don’t you think?’

  Jack smiled a wide smile at her cocky ease of being able to talk to him.

  ‘Yes, your family has taught you about the old ways. Though you have chosen a different path for yourself from the paths they walked. Have you forsaken your family’s knowledge?’

  ‘My father’s first lesson to me was that knowledge is power.’

  ‘Did you know humans have been burying their dead for 350,000 years? That’s knowledge.’

  ‘That’s history. I’m bored.’

  ‘Well, then I can go into the full story with you to save us both from boredom if you would like?’

  ‘Fire away Death.’ Lindsey took a swig of her beer. ‘I mean Jack.’

  ‘In the approaching future there will be three Ages of Death which will come to pass. Harsh times in which countless lives will be lost in numbers never before seen by anyone, especially by human eyes. I am offering you and your partner not only service as librarians in my library to chronicle these lives passing from one point of existence to the other but I also offer protection from these times of great suffering.’

  ‘My mother was the one who taught me about the old ways. The myths, the legends, the ways of the Goddess, and the structure of Life and Death were a major part of my childhood. One of the stories she used to tell me was about Death’s Library and its Librarian…its keeper…. What was his name…?’ Lindsey searched her memory, ‘Usef?’

  ‘Yes, but Usef is not just my Librarian. He is my oldest and dearest friend. But immortal as he has become he is also bound to the life of the Earth and his health depends on its health. I offer you a life like no other in existence. To be a human connected to the outer parts of Creation.’

  ‘He’s dying?’

  Jack placed his goblet on the floor beside the couch.

  ‘Yes. He is dying as so is this world of man.’

  Lindsey looked over her shoulder toward the bedroom and knew she would accept anything to protect Julie. She would do anything to protect the woman she loved.

  ‘How long will Julie sleep undisturbed?’

  ‘For a day.’

  Lindsey downed the rest of her beer, ‘Okay then. Show me
the library and I’ll talk to her about what she wants. I will not make any decisions for the both of us.’

  Jack stood up, ‘The library is in one of the dugouts of the baseball field. Follow me. I know a shortcut.’

  ‘Out of curiosity, what’s in the other dugout?’

  ‘A doorway to Hell.’

  Chapter

  Forty-Two

  The morning sky was just rising over Chicago when Jack appeared on the roof of Ryan’s Way. He stopped for a second standing so he could look at the sunrise. No other place in the universe has sunrises like those on Earth.

  Now to the scientist set out there that may seem like a stupid statement. Plenty of different kinds of sunrises out there in creation but none like those on this planet. You see the thing is a sunrise is basically like the fingerprint of a planet so all of them are unique but with sunrises on Earth the unique is actually in its simplicity and the minimalism of those viewing it.

  But even that does not make it special enough to stop Death for more than a little viewing period.

  Slowly Jack started walking across the rooftop of the building and drifted down into the roof like a ghost and finally totally through it.

  He phased down through a stairway that led to the roof, through a gym that took up the top floor of the building, through a floor containing a gallery of art, through another gallery that contained nothing that could be considered art, through a storage floor safekeeping a collection of sexual tools from throughout the ages, and came to rest in a more solid state in the living room of Colin Ryan's home in the skyscraper.

  The living room was decorated with a mixture of stolen priceless Middle Eastern works of art and some fake pieces that were supposed to have been stolen from Japan and China. Colin use to have possession of the originals of those fakes but he didn’t like the originals as much so he returned them and keep the fakes.

  Inside a dark bedroom with wall-to-wall black paint and no windows was a sleeping Colin Ryan. Resting from a night spent drinking and eating too much and sleeping with a good selection of women and men.

  Then here comes Death.

  Jack walked through the door of the bedroom. He stood there perfectly still for over thirty minutes thinking about how he has never gotten use to being in two places at once. He was in one location for a beginning and another for the beginning of an end.

  All the roads that would be taken.

  All the lives that would be lost.

  All the destinies that would be born.

  Jack walked over to one side of Colin’s bed. He leaned down and kissed him gently on the forehead.

  Chapter

  Forty-Three

  Colin awoke from what should have been a very restless sleep but instead it was a calm and peaceful slumber. He felt more alive than he had in years but knew deep down it had nothing to do with the sacrificial masturbation circle last night.

  Though if Colin had been paying close attention he might have differentiated his state of mind from genuine calm and recognized it as the type that bugs you out a little deep inside. The kind of calm that wakes you up and has you feeling a little question coming up from your soul asking if you actually exist at all.

  Climbing out of bed he walked over to one of several laptops sitting in a line of about twenty arranged across a very long white marble table that lined one side of the bedroom. ‘Halo Light.’ And with those words lights came on above each laptop, clicking on one at a time, going down the roll of the table.

  ‘Danger Width.’ With that code word all the laptops powered up. Each one displayed a video feed from one of his companies. The laptop screens changed every few seconds to display different areas of each location. All of this was giving him a full visual of everything he owned.

  Which was a lot of stuff to keep an eye on.

  Colin grinned and slowly gave a yawn out, ‘Boring.’ before he walked over and pushed an intercom button on his bedside phone.

  ‘Envision, are you there?’

  From the intercom, ‘Yes sir. Do you need something, sir?’

  ‘Call Edward in Accounts, Jackson in Future Science, and Davidson in my think tank department. I want specs on everything related to Future Science on my desk by 10:00 a.m.’

  ‘It’s 9 a.m. now, sir.’

  ‘Then make it 10:10’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Colin grabbed a towel from a drawer and walked into his bathroom, stepped into the shower which turned on at a preset temperature as soon as the foot hit the tiles, and then he turned the hot water up more to a point where it hurt a little.

  As the water fell across his back and the steam began to fill the bathroom he chuckled a small laugh to himself because knew he was alive.

  Takes a little pain each day to remind you of that fact.

  Well, at least that’s how it works for me.

  It’s 9:30a.m. in the very large living room area. You know those large living rooms that rich and beyond rich people have. Some call them dens I think.

  The room was decorated in paintings that really have no appearance of even a little artistic talent but were purchased for prices that would make the masters roll over in their graves and say, “Damn.”

  Decorated in a sense of non-decoration but shiny all around. There were plenty of shiny things in this living room. Shiny trims on furniture and shiny frames on paintings and shiny things hanging from the ceiling.

  Sitting in his large, very huge, the size of most people’s living room, Colin was watching news broadcasts on the damage the waves hitting Florida caused.

  The news channels were trying to get angles on the loss of life and property. The way people are trying to cope and what is being said by the so-called experts and those who do not call themselves experts but are more intelligent in speaking and thought than the former about what the cause is behind the disaster.

  Still the king of the run on sentence.

  ‘Envision.’

  Colin’s personal assistant, a slick looking young man in a tailored suit walked into the room, ‘Sir.’

  ‘I want a million dollars donated to relief efforts in Florida. Also tell Clinton in P.R. that he needs to let slip a bit about me not thinking the government is acting quickly enough.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  Envision left the room as Colin changed channels.

  ‘I need to start letting everyone know I am alive and in the game,’ he added to himself.

  Chapter

  Forty-Four

  6:30p.m. in the large meeting room inside Colin’s even bigger than his living room personal library. Some might find it funny that so many people would kill to have a large personal library in their home but those who end up having them for the most part don’t use them that often.

  We all know the rich like having larger and bigger things even if they don’t use these larger and bigger things. I will try not to use larger or bigger to describe Colin’s stuff again.

  In the middle of the meeting room within the library was a lar… hefty table. The table seated thirty people and the room was decorated in business charts, graphs, and reports that Envision updated every morning.

  One thing about Colin Ryan was that he wanted to know everything about the way his quote unquote empire was running. Most people don’t think he has much to do with the day to day running of the company. That line of thinking is totally wrong.

  Colin was sitting alone at the table in one of the handmade chairs with boxes of files, data disks, and DVDs scattered in front of him.

  After just spending hours going through all the information he was in a deep think just staring at the materials on all of his company’s future technology projects.

  His concentration was broken by Envision entering the room.

  ‘Sir, Dr. Stray is here to see you per your request.’

  ‘Show him in.’

  Envision left the room and in a few minutes a short, chubby, almost hunchbacked old man came in. He looked to be in his fifties. But those fifty
years must have really kicked his ass because his body was more in line with the shape of someone in his nineties.

  Colin rose from his chair and greeted Dr. Stray with a handshake, ‘William, how are you doing these days?’

  Dr. Stray answered sheepishly as Colin offered him a chair and they both sat down.

  ‘Fine sir. You wanted to see me about the project my team is running right now?’

  ‘Yes, I wanted to discuss the Gene Throw Project.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Everything is fine with the work you’re doing for me.’ Colin smiled and Dr. Stray finally exhaled. ‘The work itself worries me though, William.’

  ‘How so sir?’

  ‘It scares me actually. This is the time when those behind the scientists and the scientist make a decision. Research into anything is pure in my eyes but once that research births something maybe the genie should be put back into the bottle and the bottle destroyed.’

  ‘Sir, I’m a little confused.’ Stray was visibly uncomfortable.

  ‘You and your team have created genetic grenades.’

  ‘You could call them that.’

  ‘Humanity William. Human decency. Love for your fellow man… or woman.’

  ‘Sir, we have no leaks. No one will get their hands on these I promise.’

  ‘I will not have my father’s name attached to a possible weapon such as this. These things always start with people saying they will never be used but they always end up being used. Don’t they Dr. Stray?’

  ‘Usually sir.’

  ‘Your genetic grenades alter the human genome and mutate people into something we are not. Something we are not meant to be. Your work is appreciated but I see no positive use for these devices. Apply your knowledge to other endeavors within the company. I am ending Project Gene Throw as of now. Ryan Industries is moving away from projects such as these. Clean your lab. Gather up your records. Your team is already being transferred to other projects as we speak. A clean up team will be in your lab tomorrow to help you.’

  ‘Mr. Ryan?’

  ‘Yes?’

  Dr. Stray stood up, reached out and shook Colin’s hand.

  ‘I think your father would be very proud of you right now. I always believed there was a lot of him in you.’