This is the continuing story of the Continuum book TheYearOfMyLifeVR.com. Once the Wattpad story catches up with the Vella story, the two stories will diverge into entirely different plots. Readers of the Wattpad story will be able to influence the direction of the storyline. Text me with your input: (702) 799-9377. And now, back to the Continuum….
“In time, you will learn to live with it.”
I had been watching the news; that is, until Victoria’s voice broke my concentration.
“We’ll get it under control. Are you saying that COVID will never disappear?”
“I have seen similar biological phenomena, what you call a pandemic, before.”
I had to keep reminding myself that this young black woman standing in front of me, was not a young black woman. The form she had taken made it easy to forget that she was an energism, a being of electrical energy from an energy cloud outside our galaxy. She was as comfortable traveling through multi-verses, as we are traveling through airports. In other words, she knew things.
“It seems to be over.”
“It is never over.”
“Now, that’s a depressing thought.”
“You have done it before.”
“Maybe, but not in my lifetime.”
“Lifetime is a relative thing.”
“Do you happen to know something I don’t?”
It was a stupid question. As I said, she knew things. It’s what she, and others like her, existed to do.
“I know many things you may not be aware exist.”
“I’ll bet you do.” An involuntary smirk came across my face.
“Moving on. What’s up, my little cloud server?”
“I would like to explore the area that you call The Las Vegas Strip.”
“Seriously, you want to become a tourist?”
“My mission is to collect information. There is a wide variety of the human species in that place.”
“That’s true. They’re not always the best representatives of the species, but they are there.”
“I do not understand. Every individual of a species is a representative of that species.”
“From your point of view, that’s probably true.”
“You and I would be looking at the same view.”
I tend to forget that she takes everything I say literally.
“Visually, that’s correct. I’m talking about a more personal point of view.”
“I did not know the human species was capable of seeing more than one view at a time. I must study your physiology more closely.”
“Okay, let’s try this again. I’ll try to choose my words more carefully, this time.”
“Having a point of view can mean different things depending on the reference. It can be an emotional thing or a physical thing. Now, I know you don’t deal with the emotional side of things very well, but humans do that quite often.”
“But does that not cloud your judgment?”
“Yes, but that’s not always a bad thing. Remember when I fired into the mountain of explosives with the taser?”
“That was not very logical of you. You almost ceased to exist.”
“That’s very true. If I had stopped to think about what I was doing to myself, I may not have done it. I had to take the chance that you could pull me back but in that instance I wasn’t thinking about my own safety. I had bigger priorities. Do you understand?”
“In that instance, I was trying to keep you from self-destruction.”
“And I appreciate that. But, I think, what makes humans unique is our ability to be selfish at one moment, and selfless in the next moment.”
“But when I pulled you away from the little Iraqi girl, you were angry with me.”
“I wasn’t angry with you. I was angry and frustrated with myself because I couldn’t save her.”
“What I do not understand is how you can be angry and also happy after experiencing similar moments of activity.”
“I’m not a physiologist, so I don’t know if I can explain this too well. Humans do things based on memories created over a very long period of time. Those memories condition us to behave in certain ways, good or bad.”
“Energisms do not have a past. We exist in the present.”
“You don’t know where you came from?”
“Where we came from does not exist.”
“So, you were born an energism?”
“I do not know birth. I exist.”
“One of these days, you and I have to have a really long talk about human life.”
“That is why I am here. I have taken this form, to learn about human life.”
I couldn’t help but think that at the core of our conversation, was a fundamental truth that I really didn’t understand. It was as if we were having a conversation on two entirely different levels. There were times when talking to Victoria was a little like playing three-dimensional chess. I was concentrating on the bottom level, while she was looking at all three levels and had already won the match.
“Let’s go check out The Strip,” I said as I brought up the Uber app on my phone.
“We are going to take your terrestrial transportation?”
“I’m not sure taking Alien Airlines would be the best way to show up on The Strip,” I replied as I pondered what the tourists might think if two people and a mobility scooter suddenly materialized before their eyes.
“This is a town of magicians, but I’m not sure even Chris Angel could explain Alien Airlines.”