The Perfect Moment Beyond, page 1
part #3 of The Perfect Moment Series
The Perfect Moment Beyond
Book 3 of the Perfect Moment Trilogy
Kenneth Preston
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2018 Kenneth Preston
All rights reserved.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.
Published by Kindle Direct Publishing
First Printing: April 2018
First Edition: April 2018
Cover design by Tatiana Vila at viladesign.net
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
About the Author
Also by Kenneth Preston
Chapter 1
Emily gaped at her doppelganger. "You're The Designer. You're The Designer." Her lips quivered, and her voice cracked as she said, "You're me."
Her doppelganger smiled knowingly. "Let me stop you right there; I'm not you. I am The Designer. However, your reaction was expected, and is perfectly understandable. Every being with corporeal eyes that encounters me comes to the same conclusion."
Emily was more than a little confused. Her doppelganger's words didn't make a bit of sense. Every being with corporeal eyes that encounters me comes to the same conclusion? What the hell did that mean?!
"What happened?" she pleaded. "This has something to do with the loop, right? The time loop? It intersected again? You're...me? In the future? The past? What?"
She was babbling, and she knew it. But she couldn't stop herself. She didn't want to stop herself. She thought she had seen and heard it all. After everything she had been through, expecting the unexpected had become second nature. Expecting the unexpected was ingrained in her. But expecting the unexpected just hadn't been enough to prepare her for the mind-bending, reality-shattering bewilderment of facing a three-dimensional mirror image of herself claiming to be the creator of all that existed in the galaxy.
"You're me!" she exclaimed. She ceased to look at the three-dimensional mirror image of herself; she was frantically searching for the shattered remains of her reality on the cold, hard stone in front of her feet. "It's the only explanation that makes sense! You're me! You were me when I flew a shuttle over to the other Encounter, and you're me now. It's happening again!"
She was vaguely aware of the fact that her doppelganger was speaking, as if from a place far too distant to allow her corporeal ears and her corporeal brain to connect the unintelligible syllables into something akin to intelligible words. Emily was someplace else, a terrifying place that teetered precariously on the line between order and chaos.
She pried her eyes from the ground and fixed them on her doppelganger. "This is going to keep happening, isn't it?! Why does this keep happening to us?! When is it gonna stop?!"
Her doppelganger smiled warmly and put its hands up. "Take a breath," it said softly, soothingly. "Take a deep breath―in through your nose, out through your mouth. Can you do that for me?"
Despite the perplexity of what she was facing, there was something comforting about the way her doppelganger spoke.
"I can try," she said meekly, her eyes softening.
She hesitated, as if waiting for her doppelganger to give her the okay.
"Go ahead," her doppelganger implored.
Emily took a short, stilted breath through her nose and released an equally short, stilted breath through her mouth.
"Again," her doppelganger prompted.
She took another longer, smoother breath through her nose and released an equally long, smooth breath through her mouth. She repeated the act, each breath bringing a semblance of reality back to the moment, each breath softening the beat of the heart she hadn't realized was pounding.
"Feeling better?" her doppelganger asked.
Emily smiled tentatively. "I am...a little," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Good. I'll give you a few moments before we get on with it."
"Get on with it," she murmured between breaths.
"The business at hand. The reason you're here."
Emily took one last long breath through her nose and out through her mouth. "Oh, right. The reason I'm here. I'm here to see The Designer. I'm here to see you."
"Right."
She gestured brazenly at The Designer. "And I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation as to why The Designer looks, dresses and sounds exactly like me." After teetering on the edge of hysteria, she was regaining her senses, and with her senses came a confidence bordering on cockiness.
The Designer smiled confidently. "There is a perfectly good explanation, and here it is: I look exactly like you, but I don't really look anything like you."
Emily smiled sardonically. "Thank you for clearing that up."
The Designer laughed heartily. "I know that didn't make a bit of sense. I just wanted to see your expression."
Emily dipped her head and cocked an eyebrow.
The Designer jabbed a finger at her. "That's the one! That's the expression I was looking for!"
Emily didn't know what to make of this being, but she wasn't sure she had the patience to wait around and be mocked to find out. She shook her head and turned as if making to leave, knowing full well that she wasn't going anywhere.
"Wait!" The Designer cried out. "Don't go. I was just having a little fun with you."
Emily faced The Designer, the slightest hint of a satisfied smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "Who are you kidding? You knew I wasn't going anywhere."
"I knew you weren't going anywhere," The Designer conceded.
Emily waited for her doppelganger to speak. When the words didn't come, she threw her hands up. "Well? An explanation?"
"Right, an explanation." The Designer looked up as if pondering the question or crafting the appropriate answer. "Well, let me ask you: Why do you think I look, dress and sound exactly like you?"
Emily rolled her eyes. "Oh, brother."
"No, really."
"Can't you just tell me? Do we really have to play this game?"
The Designer placed her hands on her hips and fixed Emily with a sidelong look. "Come on. The Designer helps those who help themselves."
"Are you for real? Did you just really refer to yourself in the third person?"
"I did. I'm one of those. Come on. Give it a shot...for The Designer."
Emily threw her head back and laughed. "You are one of those." Was this really happening? Weird was par for the course. Expect the unexpected. If nothing else, this Designer was certainly weird and unexpected. "Give it a shot. Okay." She tilted her head back and peered into the darkness above as The Designer had done moments earlier. The irony of mirroring her doppelganger's movements was not lost on her.
I look exactly like you, but I don't really look anything like you, her other self had said. She was reminded of the tower. She suddenly brightened, jabbing a finger into the air. "You're like the tower!"
The Designer raised its eyebrows. "Meaning?"
"The tower sort of reflects its surroundings. More accurately, it seems to mimic its surroundings. You don't really look like me; you're like a mirror, mimicking my appearance."
The Designer tilted its head from side to side as if weighing her answer. "Mmm...you're on the right track. There are some similarities there, but with my form, it's a bit different. You and your friends will look at the tower from the same vantage point and see the same thing. If you and your friends were looking at me from the same vantage point, you would each see something, or someone, different."
"Ourselves."
"Exactly! I'm a reflection of all who look upon me."
Emily tilted her head as she regarded The Designer, her open mouth and shimmering eyes betraying her sense of sheer wonderment. "Just when I thought I'd seen and heard everything."
"Well, you and your friend David have an expression: 'Weird is par for the course with us.'"
Emily fixed The Designer with a mock glare. "You've been eavesdropping on our conversations?"
"I'm The Designer. It goes with the territory."
"So how exactly does this power of yours work?" Emily quipped.
The Designer's jovial countenance suddenly turned solemn. "It's not a power. It's who I am."
Her little joke had misfired. "I'm sorry," she said contritely.
The Designer put up and hand and shook off her apology. "No apology necessary. You wouldn't understand. How could you?" The Designer paused as if choosing its next words carefully. "I told you it's who I am. There was once a time, long ago, when 'this power,' as you call it, was who we were."
The Designer's meaning was unmistakable. Emily didn't know how to react. Losing a loved one was one thing; losing everybody, your entire species, was almost unimaginable. Yet, she could imagine it. She hadn't lost everybody, but she had five close friends who had lost nearly everybody they cared about, the entirety of their species outside of themselves, to the Great Migration. And she had been a part of it. She had been instrumental in that process.
She felt it for the first time, the guilt that she should have felt all along. It had always been hanging over her, but she had held it up, kept the full weight of that guilt off of her with the poison that had been fed to her by the Great Community. It's the next stage of the evolutionary process; they are free, their minds no longer limited by the filter of the flesh; everything is shared openly; no secrets; no suspicion; no animosity. She had ingested that propaganda and asked for more and had fed that same propaganda to her five corporeal friends. But now she not only knew the truth; she felt the truth. She felt it in the expression of immeasurable loss that had just come from the mouth of her own image. It was as if she were looking in a mirror, seeing herself for the first time, and being admonished for her apathy by her own reflection.
The guilt that had been hanging over her head came crashing down on top of her like the buildings she'd helped topple in Manhattan.
Her legs wobbled. She thought she might collapse.
As if there were even a vestige of doubt left, she uttered, "You're the last."
The Designer nodded dolefully. "I'm the last."
Emily furrowed her brow. "This neck of the woods?"
"This galaxy."
"So, there are others."
"Yes, but I've never seen them...or communicated with them."
"I'm sorry." The words seemed so hollow, meaningless. She nearly cringed, ashamed that she had bothered to give voice to such an empty platitude.
"Our species once numbered in the hundreds of billions. We were the original inhabitants of this planet. Our species was not much different than yours. We were, and I am, bipedal. We did, and I do, have gender. We bore children, raised families, worked, played, fought, loved―just like humans."
"You have gender," Emily said meekly. "May I ask?"
"I am female. Of course, if any of your male counterparts were looking at me, they would see themselves." The Designer smiled. "It doesn't make me any less of a woman."
"And your language...I assume you're not actually speaking English."
"No, like the collectives you've been dealing with, I speak telepathically. Your brain is interpreting the telepathic signals as spoken English. That is, of course, by design. No pun intended. I try to make my guests as comfortable as possible. It helps to give them the impression that I'm speaking their language. It puts them at ease, makes them feel a little closer to home."
There was a pressing question on Emily's lips, but The Designer didn't offer her any details on, what would seem to be, an extremely sensitive topic, and she was reticent to ask. She bit into her lower lip, as if to do otherwise would risk blurting out the question she suspected she shouldn't ask.
"You want to know what happened to my species," The Designer offered.
Emily smiled awkwardly. "You can read my mind?"
"No, I can communicate telepathically, but I can't read your thoughts if you aren't attempting to communicate with me. It's just basic intuition. I would want to know if I were in your shoes.
"Put succinctly, because we are under a bit of a time crunch here, my species evolved―just like yours."
Emily furrowed her brow. "You mean..."
The Designer nodded. "My species was the first to migrate to, what you refer to as, 'the Great Community.'"
"And you were chosen to stay behind? Why?"
The Designer shrugged as if the answer should have been obvious. "The same reason your friends were chosen to stay behind: to usher in a new era."
"How long ago was that?"
"About the time the first microorganisms were sent to Earth by yours truly―" She placed her hands on her chest and smiled proudly. "―about three point five billion years ago, give or take a few million years."
Emily was astounded. "You're three point five billion years old."
"Don't rub it in."
"And your species selected you to stay behind?"
The Designer shook her head slowly. "No...not my species. Someone far more powerful than myself. A force far more powerful than The Great Community. A singular entity. The creator of all that was, is and ever will be."
Emily was puzzled by the suggestion. "God?"
The Designer gave her a single nod.
"But you're The Designer."
"I'm The Designer of life in this galaxy. I am an angel of God, so to speak, an extension of God's hand. God has appointed me as the designer of life in this galaxy, just as God has appointed others to be the designers of life in their galaxies. As such, we each take the title 'The Designer.'"
Emily shook her head, trying to fathom the isolation that The Designer must have endured for the past three point five billion years. Her human friends had been separated from their species as well, but they at least had each other.
And as quickly the attempted justification entered her mind, she was struck by another pang of guilt, another round of shame. The small comfort of having each other was smaller than the microorganisms they had been tasked with nurturing through their infancy when placed next to the enormity of losing their entire species. Their friends and loved ones were there in the Great Community, but they were gone all the same. They were there, but they couldn't touch them, couldn't hold them. Despite being a small cog in an astronomically giant machine, she was as responsible for their plight as every member of the Great Community.
"You're all alone," she whispered, speaking as much to the friends she had dragged into this mess as to The Designer.
"I'm not all alone. I've created these collectives, some of whom worship me as if I'm a god, not that I've ever asked to be treated that way. It just kind of evolved that way over the natural course of time. They keep me company from time to time. But yes, when it comes to my species, I am all alone."
The Designer smiled, but she doubted the smile was anything approaching sincere. More likely, it was a forced smile, an attempt to push away the past as quickly as possible.
"But this isn't why you're here," The Designer said.
The Designer extended her hand, an unspoken invitation. Emily gazed at the hand, hesitated. But there was never a moment of doubt as whether or not she would take that hand; she hadn't come all this way to turn tail and run. She just needed a moment to process it.
She nodded, stepped forward, knowing that when she took The Designer's hand, for better or for worse, everything would change.
Moment of truth.
She extended her own hand and placed it in The Designer's.
