Aspect 2

At the top of a really tall building, in the centre of a very large and industrious city, a single room fills an entire floor. In the precise centre of the vast amphitheatre of space lies a hexagonal shaped table of ancient oak cut with fine steel finish, each of four seats fronting an in-built console that swept inward, converging in the centre of the table with a radiographic holo-template. On either side of the table - dressed in deathly silence - sit two elderly oriental men, with the trappings of power scarring their faces. The one - the fellow from the graveyard - is the daimyo of the gigantically influential Tsi'en clan of agglomerated industries. The other - as yet unmet - is in a similar position of authority within a similarly powerful kobun titled the Togawa economic confederate. Both firms specialise in high technology.

The silence is dimpled by the swift tapping of keys upon a state-of-the-art touch-plate. In this fashion a verbal transaction occurs devoid of voice.

Message Togawa: “Deep face has been lost within our clan as a result of your daughters treacherous actions”.

Message Tsi'en: “Had I but known the girls intentions, I would surely have dissuaded her. As you have heard she was not entirely sane at the time”.

Message Togawa: “Be that as it may, the secret has been lost to both of our clans. We have both been defeated where we - and the rest of the world - might both have gained. Or have we?”

Message Tsi'en: “I am not entirely sure of your meaning...”

Message Togawa: “My meaning is clear... I have the strong suspicion that the great secret gained by your daughter is now comfortably in your possession!”

Message Tsi'en: “If only that were true! Alas, she has taken the secret to the grave with her, throwing away a generation of mutual research.”

Message Togawa: “But you have your suspicions?”

Message Tsi'en: “Yes... I suspect that she buried the secret before her incarceration. I have realised since this unfortunate incident that it will take our combined resources to develop the technology of the secret to the appropriate level. You can be assured that should we find it, we shall share it with you willingly. Would that the dead...”

Message Togawa: “...could talk? What a story they would tell...”

***

The matrix spread out on all sides of him like a vast, blue, three dimensional grid. He could feel the faint tremor of her soul-beat somewhere in the expanseless planes beneath. He flipped through her aetheric scratch-card as he moved, noting how she had catapulted explosively from her body at the moment of death. He was forced to search the area around her now inert bodily hulk in large sweeping arcs. It was vital that he find her before her soul-guard fibril mesh unravelled in the chaotic energies of the astral wilderness. He honed his perception grimly as the pulse of her energy signature grew steadily more powerful and then... Locking on, his mental body/form leaping gracefully onto a matrix grid line as he hurtled towards the co-ordinates she occupied.

Suddenly, he made out the fine, web-like filaments of her soul chamber as it groped blindly through the material, a tiny insect host in the dark and primitive oceanic stretches that lay beyond the edge of the matrix. She glowed more brightly as she approached the node at the intersection of the three grid lines, her aetheric catch-case soaking up the residual electromagnetic energy that orbited the lines in graceful corkscrew motions. Before dropping into 3-space, he performed a brief scan in the form of a radiance wash, emitting a violet mist explosively outward that would meet and identify any hidden sources of malevolent intelligence.

The procedure unfolding is not an uncommon one in the astral realms. When a physical body dies, only a fractionally small percentage of the energy package moves on, what one might call the concentric essence. These tiny, hair like strands are ejected from the body as the brain dies and pulled into a tight, protective sphere with a specific charge. Normally this package - the human soul - moves on quickly, drawn toward one of the brightly lit chronomic tunnels of the matrix network and transported high into the atmosphere. After this, they interface cleanly with the band of planes called the collective matrix and are relocated to another co-ordinate within the total net. In most cases this means re-manifesting through the tiny zygote that lies in the female womb at conception, provided of course that the morpho-genetic energy pattern - or signature - of the zygote matches that of the soul vehicle.

Most human souls require very little guidance, especially those that consistently inhabit the lower astral heavens for centuries on end, caught up in the psychic hiccup caused by most restrictive belief systems. Usually - provided that there is no drastic internal revolution during their physical life-spans - their leap is very short and simple, to a large extent being reborn within the very same community, occasionally even in the same household. Other souls rise rapidly through the astral echelons while still living. Upon their death, these highly charged souls - loaded with chronomic energy - rocket away from the body with such force that they miss the highway and become lost in the complex jungle of the matrix edge. In order for them to find their way back into the net, they need careful guidance quickly or they lose themselves permanently, their consciousness’ crumbling until they become permanently emersed in nature - faerie - mind.

The job of soul recovery goes to the astral runner, highly skilled ascended beings under the employ of various astral organisations, Middle's or heavens. Generally, the choice of the sponsoring interest in the rescue is established while the body is still alive through the internal conviction brought about by spirituality of some form or other. Those totally devoid of belief while alive generally get exactly what they asked for... exactly nothing! The girl in question - our young Yin Tsi'en - had died on a hospital bed not far away, her supercharged soul almost burning its way out of the base of her skull. She had landed in a small pond and was casting about wildly for a physical reference point to anchor her nervous energy. The oblivious host she finally trapped was a water-strider, a small species of aquatic insect common throughout the physical plane. On the astral side, they belonged to the faerie over-genus.

He cast around quickly for a physical host and leapt into the mind of unsuspecting wasp. As he merged with its perception, the physical plane suddenly leapt into his vision with a deluge of colour. In seconds he spotted her skimming over the surface of the pond and he plummeted downward until he caught her attention. She seemed understandably terrified.

The wasp loomed over her with a sense of lethal foreboding. Paralysed by fear, she retreated into the insects middle zone and waited for the end. The end - or for that matter the beginning - came to her in the form of a voice, blossoming into the back of her mind.

“Who are you?” She challenged in stunned tones.

“I am Lyrsti'el,” he replied with aplomb, “an agent runner of the illustrious Ring of Suns, Middle-Astral consultation agency. It might be easier to think of me as your personal state-of-the-art spiritual guide!”

“Guide?”

“I am here to put you back on track,” he explained.

“Where am I going?” She asked in desperate tones.

“Precisely the problem,” he agreed. “If you knew that, you wouldn't be lost now, would you?”

“Where have I come from?” She questioned, annoyed at his infuriating calmness.

“Originally? Not at all sure, actually. Most recently however, a vertical hunk of flesh lying on a hospital bed not far from here,” he replied.

“Hospital?”

“Try not to think about it,” he advised, “it'll only confuse you.”

“I am already confused!” She exclaimed.

“Precisely why I'm here sweetcakes!”

“So, what happens next?” She asked in a bewildered manner.

“You move from where you are to where I am,” Lyr explained simply. “Relax yourself completely, I'll help you across the gap...”

As she relaxed, the perception of the insect collapsed into the darkness of the void from which she had so recently emerged. Through the smoky haze of swirling energies, she could just make out a silverine humanoid form of masculine persuasion. A fine filament of energy connected them like a long silvery cord upon which he appeared to be pulling, drawing her closer. Abruptly, she snapped free of the host and was instantly surrounded by an infinitely vast blue grid amidst inky blackness.

“Welcome to the great mystery....” The figure before her intoned dryly.

“What is...” She began.

“You are...” He finished.

“What just happened?” Her angelic energy radiated confusion.

“The past, naturally,” he chuckled, “the future hasn't quite happened yet!”

“You are not what I expected...”

“You expected something?” He smoke almost mischievously; “If it makes you feel any better, I left my wings at home!”

“Please...” She said, in the mother of all sorry tones, “I'm not feeling very well about all this.”

“Come,” he said gently, his hand reaching out to take a hold of her potential form, energy crackling as he made contact with her cocoon of fibres, “You're lost and we have a long way to go. Soon you will merge with the matrix-middle and then all of your questions will be answered.”

“What is the matrix?” She pleaded, handling the charged word with reverence.

“It is the place of beginnings and endings, where all roads cross and all paths meet,” he replied.

“What is this...” her consciousness floundered for a word, “...grid?”

“It is the matrix network,” he answered, “and it joins the heart of the matrix to all of the varied physical realms. The heartbeat of every living thing is joined to the astral heavens at the intersection points on the grid. Based upon your co-ordinates, the eight cubes of blackness which surround you are where the reality web of your personal illusion is formed. It is a little difficult to grasp when your consciousness is programmed only for 3-space!”

“How do you know which way to move?!” She cried out impatiently.

“There are only three essential directions on the astral planes,” he explained; “Up, down and side ways. The further down you move, the more compact the grid becomes, the intersection points forming closer together. All of the lower life forms and elemental pantheons lie that way. If you die as a stone, it is very likely that you will be reborn as a stone. The further up you travel, the more spaced out the grid becomes until physical substances break apart. This is the home of the higher intelligence’s and the noble gasses. If you move sideways, you will remain as you re but your reality will assume different patterns as you reach different intersection points. Again, direction in 4-space is something completely other but this is the simplest way of looking at it. Most beings evolve very, very slowly. The lower you are on the grid, the harder it is to develop.”

“Just which direction am I going?” She asked.

“That is entirely up to you.” He smiled briefly.

“I don't really know!” She complained.

“Quite,” he agreed.

“I really have a choice?”

“Awareness of one's potential imbues us with choice. Choices don't count in the afterlife. You made your choices while you were still alive. You chose the way while you lived the life and now the way must guide you.”

“But I am alive right now!” She said.

“Alive is a relative term,” he responded. “The word essentially means action. That which is active has to be compared to other things which are not active, or at least active in a different way. Thus life also requires a relative - or comparative - reality. At the moment, you are be-ing. You are a being, non-active. We are not aware of our being while we are active and, conversely, we are without activity when we are being. Comprende?”

As he spoke, she had the feeling that they were moving, so rapidly that the grid stood still. Or perhaps the bubble of reality which surrounded her played a still-image to her perception while the entire bubble itself was blistering its way through space. She also had the faintest impression of hyper-alertness in Lyrsti’el, as though beneath his apparent calm he was furiously scanning the environment for some illusory predator. After a non-while, the sensation of motion stilled. They had obviously moved sideways, as the grid remained precisely the same in appearance. Same place, different place... or time? The idea of the time aspect flitted half grasped through her bewildered consciousness. It seemed very important. The new location must have lacked the predator or whatever because Lyrsti'el calmed down. She was amazed at how much action was potentially occurring beyond the reach of her awareness. She looked out at the immense geometric grid stretching off into every corner of eternity, each block an eternity unto itself.

“Every way looks the same to me,” she tried to explain.

“Wrong,” he argued, “for that is a perception of the net based purely on how you have been trained to think. You have a 3-space mentality, after the fashion of physical beings. Because your intelligence is not aware of the potential possibilities, your thought patterns are repetitive and predictable. This reflects the way you have been conditioned to think, moving along in a tedious, chrono-logical point-to-point fashion from nowhere to nowhen. According to your perception, all directions have the same value. Thus up, down and sideways all come to the same place.”

“What place is that?”

“Nowhere!” He cried, “because you are still standing in the same spot. Try to understand this: Thought is energy. Energy is motion. Your form is the manifestation of your being. Thinking requires e-motion, the energy of your motion, the movement of your being. Until you move, all directions become irrelevant and the grid constantly repeats itself. Get a life!”

“How?”

“Find a way...” His voice cut deeply.

They paused, focusing on each other in the inky night beyond days.

“Get creative!” He finished.

***

Kilimi'en stalked time like an old friend.

Understand: Running is at once an action, a body of knowledge and a state of being. Runners possess the body of knowledge and the state of being necessary to perform the action.

***

As she contemplated the concept of creativity, the three dimensional network began to flatten until she was standing on a vast two dimensional grid plane, with no true up or down. No matter which way it sloped, it would always seem flat as there was nothing to compare it to. This made creativity simpler. The grid still remained, but it was like a checkerboard of cubes stretched out beneath her feet. As she delved deeper into the concept, the geometrical squares dissolved and were replaced by lancing lines spearing outward from her body. For every blue energy line on the grid, a corresponding line now moved outward with her forming the central point. Abruptly, revelation infused her like a shot of pure Bourbon to the belly, sort of. The matrix was not a point that you travelled to in a straight line from another point. The matrix is a state of being that you arrive at by arranging the network in the right configurations. The network in turn reflected the arrangement of her inner thoughts as she struggled to find the way.

The lines blossomed suddenly into a perfect sphere radiating outward in every possible direction from the pinpoint at the core of her soul vehicle. In an instant she had travelled from a place of probable thought to a space of endless possibility. She was thinking about thought! She tried to focus on what she should do next and with a snap, the grip was back! Next is a very, very loaded word.

“Understand direction,” Lyr suggested, “it's all in the timing.”

“I don't understand!” She cried.

“Well then,” he responded coldly, “that's exactly where you will remain.”

***

The warlord of the Tsi'en clan walked barefoot across the tatami mats that thatched the floor of his room of contemplation and through the shoji screens into the family garden. The garden was cut in classically Zen style, reflecting harmony, order and tranquillity amidst a wilderness as discordant as any creation by the hand of nature. After a short walk over moss-gilded pebbles, he came up behind his wife who knelt reverently in front of the jade alter which housed the garden's patron deity. His own mind stilled for a moment in the subtle presence of the deity, tumbling from his muscles the accumulated tension of the world outside. He paused solemnly while his wife paid her final respects to the nature spirit, signalling her readiness by a fractional slump from the formal meditation seat.

“Has your meditation brought you solace or insight into your problems, my dove?” He spoke with gruff, though warm inflection.

“I have been studying another world,” she spoke calmly, “a higher world. I must tell you that I have felt Yin's presence, as though she were alive!”

“You cannot continue with this denial any longer, my wife” he stated flatly; “Yin is dead and beyond mortal sight. What should instead be observed is the legacy she left behind. You must let her go. This new world has confusion enough without the intervention of illusory...”

“A woman came to see us today,” she continued as though he had not spoken. “She was clothed in the saffron robes of office, though not those of the Buddhist order with which we are familiar. Instead, she maintained the countenance and bearing of those rare and eccentric beings who claim to channel the word of a higher order of entities...”

“The family guard's told me,” he interrupted, “that they forcibly removed a mad woman in amber peasant rags. Did she accost you, my dove? Was she trying to increase her fortune?”

“Mad she may have been,” she snapped coldly, “but she was as intent upon her purpose as the striking serpent. She claimed to have knowledge of your secret technology, implying that it may no longer be the secret you thought it to be.”

“A courier or spy of Togawa perhaps, trying to gain information?” He was instantly alerted to the possibility, however small, of industrial espionage, especially from the Togawa. Although they had come to a mutual arrangement as regards the secret, the modern world was a place in which treachery abounded and only the fittest survived.

“She claimed,” she continued, blandly “to represent a higher order of being. She told me that your technology was the work of the devil himself and that its success would be a betrayal of God tantamount to the original sin...”

“The apple of Temptation!” He laughed humourlessly, harshly; “What is wrong with you! We are not even adherents to Christianity or any of those other ludicrous Western mythos. Come now, what other dire predictions did she make to darken this otherwise kind evening?”

She appeared again not to have heard him, as though she was seated in a cavern far, far away and simply relaying a message. “She said that there is a great war going on between the ancient and immortal forces that inhabit the overworld, a place compared to which this plane is but a pale shadow. She said that it is a war between old and new, past and future, the full ferocity of which is held in temporary abatement only by a dictum of laws...”

“This is an old story,” he intruded fiercely, “that has been told and heard many times since the dawn of man! It is resurrected laboriously in every generation by those with the incapacity or unwillingness to deal with the murky swamp of life circumstance that they have personally engendered and in which they drown. Instead they transfer blame and attempt to justify their mortality's by the convenient illusion of a higher conspiratorial force. I cannot...”

“She told me,” she interrupted back, with barely a flickering reaction to his tirade, “... that you and your heinous corporate ilk could be forgiven only in light of the fact that you are hopelessly unaware of the true source of your knowledge. She seemed to think that we were pawns in the great impersonal game of the Gods’ and that the inspiration for your secret is nothing more than a cursed gift granted after the fashion of their unknowable strategy!”

***

Yin thought carefully about what Lyr had just said and then smiled silver waterfalls.

“This is about some sort of attitude, right?”

“Movement is an attitude...” He responded.

“You’ll tell me anything I need to know?” Came her query.

“Provided that you read my answers correctly,” he replied before adding, “cut your enemy as he cuts you. An answer is simply an inverse question. The answer is therefore defined by the precision of the question.”

“Do you always talk like this?”

“Only when I am enmeshed in 4-space rhythm,” he laughed darkly.

“You play with words as though they were things,” she commented.

“Words are the coin of the realm of thought.” He said.

“Those paths formed around me when I changes my mental pattern and snapped back when I resumed my old pattern, right?” She asked.

“That is essentially correct,” he agreed, the blue lines on the grid represent the energy paths where thought is formed and reality woven.”

“Mine was a simplistic arrangement?” She said.

“That it was,” he agreed.

“What if I suddenly had to complicate things and just created abstract patterns that went off in any direction I chose”

“As long as your concentration remained true and your thoughts stable, you could create solid energy patterns with your thoughts. Your intensive motion would be molded into form.”

Suddenly all of the lines around them disappeared and meshed themselves together into a huge fist that snaked rapidly across the distance that separated them.

“You seem to be getting the hang of things,” he laughed, before launching himself upward fractions of a second before the fist closed on him. While in the air he angled slightly and pulled himself into a tight ball that rotated swiftly under his momentum. Moments later, he landed catlike on the huge wrist of the fist she had created, lashing his hand forward in a snake like motion to stop dead, a hand-span from her potential throat. She looked on in awe as the cloth that formed his sleeve parted and from a forearm covered in a fine, silken steel mesh, swivelled a fan of refined white steel struts honed to razor precision. She could not help but notice that every minute surface of the weapon was engraved with eldritch words in beautiful script of a hundred woodland shades and between the words lay arcane symbols of flawless symmetry and form.

“You know, you are a strange one,” he said suddenly, “a routine retrieval gone weird. Such an easy grasp of power for one totally untrained.”

“I want to be a part of that,” she stated flatly. She watched his elegant weapon swivel into concealment, responding to his every mood and movement.

“You don’t even know what that is!” He laughed.

“I feel the rhythm of your soul,” she argued, “my path is becoming clear to me.”

“This program is not ready for your kind,” he smiled. “You have a long way to go to get where we are. Be patient, you all get here someday.”

“I make my own decisions,” she said coldly. “I know who I truly am right now! Though my concept of memory may be lost, I still own my own most secret thoughts and emotions, be they good or bad. Those inner identities must be recalled and projected onto this place between realities. This will empower me to take control of my destiny.”

“What is your destiny?” He asked curiously.

“You’re wearing it,” she replied with a smile.

Suddenly, the silvery ghost like tendrils and bluish mist that surrounded Lyrsti’el began to dissipate, slowly draining away into the vast space of the matrix grid until his true form was revealed. The shape was recognisable. It was human, male.

She could not see his skin as his entire body remained concealed in a covering of convoluted black cloth cut into leggings, undercoat and billowing overcoat. Over his hands lay skin-tight gloves and his feet were shod in heavy charcoal boots. Finally, his face was lost in the smoky shadow of a large hood, his only recognisable features being the thin, determined line of his lips and icy blue, predatory eyes.

Yin projected her thoughts into a solid visualisation that floated eerily in the air before her. It was a mirror image of her own form and she realised with a shock that she was nothing more than a hazy, interwoven cocoon of light! She wondered briefly how it was possible that she was able to see and hear things without the appropriate sensory organs. She began to form’ulate her own design, her mind sifting through layers of distant racial memory, collecting together images that she could neither see nor recognise and yet somehow understood.

“I want my perfect body...” She said with crystal determination.

Before her eyes, the cocoon that was her reflection began rapidly to transform. She was being introduced to her future self. Again, the form was recognisable. It was human, female. Name - Yin Tsi’en.

Her hair was thick and a deep mahogany, thrown back to fall coyly to her shoulder blades with fine whisps waterfalling down her angular features. Her oriental skin was of a sumptuous, golden hue and streaked with translucent shades of rose and hazel that scattered across a wide forehead. Her eyes sparkled beneath fine, steeply arched brows, their jade green clarity splintered by shards of marigold yellow that emphasised long, dark lashes. On either side of an oval face, slender cheekbones drop from her hair line at a noble angle to below her eyes, their slight rise sinking into a fractional concave that described silken cheeks. Centred directly between her cheekbones lay a small, perfect nose that sloped gently into a pale, upturned tip flanked by shy nostrils slightly flared. Below her nose a slight cleft of gossamer texture merged flawlessly into full, shapely lips coloured rose mist and unbearably soft. Between them lay a cool and deeply inviting gap with refreshingly white teeth. Her natural pout cast a shallow indentation below her lips which suddenly rose to meet a rounded, sanguine chin sweeping upward to a strong, graceful jaw and delicate ears.

Her neck was long and elegant, with tight cords sinking into toned upper shoulders before flowing inward to the deep shadows that played along slender collar bones and over well formed shoulders to plummet down into lean, whiplike arms and long sculptured hands. Her eyes glowed as they descended onto deeply padded upper slopes which reared magnificently outward to form full, well rounded breasts. They were small enough to cast barely a shadow, yet firm and proud with buttersoft texture and pert, newly erect nipples of a wilderness shade. Her breasts cut deeply into her ribcage which hugged a flat, lightly muscled and gently padded stomach bounded by a lupine waist and flowered with the sensual, shallow cut of her bellybutton. Her hips, which protruded sharply seemed endlessly rounded and liquid smooth as they joined long, thin athletic thighs followed by dainty, child like knees and yearningly slender calves. Beneath a lower stomach that was classically woman, lay a seductive pubic mound.

Happy with her form, her mind sealed the design and of a sudden, her flesh was covered in a skin tight body suit that covered all and suggested everything. The faintly blue-black misty coat covered her hands and feet and ended just beneath her chin, leaving her face open.

“What is memory?” Yin asked as the process slowed to completion and her mirror image visualisation faded into nothingness.

“It is the recollection in the present of images from your past,” he responded simply.

“Then how come I know all of these words and concepts,” she argued, “when I don't even remember my past?”

“You are swimming through an ocean of what might, for want of a better term, be called the collective unconscious.” He explained adroitly; “Through the narrow band of your extended perception you are able to join in with those memories shared by your species as a whole. Your specific name and form is the summary of everything that you have ever known or been. Therefore, this particular group of memories - which encapsulates the entirety of your existence - has become visual. All other past experiences and unique personality quirks - endemic to only single life-times - have become largely irrelevant. Everything that you need to know to handle your visible memory - the bodily form - is immediately available to you if you access the Middle matrix of permanent ideas, provided of course that both your questions and answers are correctly formatted.”

“So my form - which is merely the shape/weight of my identity - is the expression in energy of everything that I have ever come to know over countless lives while everything I have yet to learn surrounds me but can be accessed by my form.”

“Nicely put.”

“Is everything on the astral plane turned inside out?” She asked; “I mean, it feels as though my entire reality, which you call the visible memory, is suddenly inside of me while the internal workings of my mind are reflected on the outside. It's like I'm on the inside looking in. You know, In-sight!”

“That would seem fairly obvious,” he agreed. “The middle astral plane is the cutting edge in reality. State-of-the-art. The truth is, however, that not everything you see around you is a product of your mind. Very little at all actually. The vast matrix that surrounds us is the product of an untold number of minds fluidly blending together. Around your immediate form there are several fields which extend outward from your body in a roughly spherical shape. The shape/weight/energy potential that makes up these fields acts like a very fine filter between your visible memory and the collective memory. Thus, your fields arrange themselves in patterns co-ordinated by your perception in order to alter your surroundings to suit your understanding.”

As he paused, she relaxed her perception until the grid began to disappear. This time however she was not thinking creatively and so the grid lines did not begin to radiate outward as before. Instead she started to allow the reality of intuition to enter her. Because she was not striving to formulate an understanding, the lines of active thought began instead to disappear. Finally she was surrounded only by a hazy indigo light and - inexorably - the faint, wafer thin sheets of her enveloping fields bean to swim into view. She remembered again experiencing this when she had been cast adrift in the eternal black void. This time however it did not frighten her as she became aware of her ability to control every aspect of the fields movement. She also remembered the huge shape that she had generated to attempt to take hold of his body and capture him. It was a clenched fist - of the human body.

She realised suddenly that this body/form had been with her all along but had only formed itself into a visible memory when she had recalled her entire nature. Before this it had simply been a potential. Subconsciously, she had probably extended her real fist. Her very intention had shaped her field, actualising its potential. With a sparkle of enlightenment, she suddenly understood the subconscious mind...

***

Lord Togawa sat moodily upon a black pillow, the pillow sitting moodily upon a raised dais at the head of the hall shaped chamber. The room itself seemed impatient, simple and Neo-Tokyo with an emphasis of fine black lines against white backgrounds that somehow made one feel that the room awaited impatiently each spoken word. In several ways, the interior décor was not in the least traditional. Where the floor would normally have been constructed of burled rosewood boards - all but covered in tatami mats - there was a clean white surface of unknown material, possibly some form of terra-foam as it gave slightly to the shape of the body while seated. Covering its surface, from wall to wall, a massive and breathtakingly intricate mandala was painted in yet more fine black brush-strokes, complexifying as it swept inward unto the very centre of the room. This was the visitors seat and, for most visitors, there was the unshakeable feeling that one was seated in the centre of a vast web of arcane power.

There was nothing about the Togawa shogun that was not meticulously planned and ritualised.

This was the central chamber of his private palace, an exquisitely tasteful abode nestled into the glorious folds of theYangtze gorge, not far indeed from the legendary White Emperor's palace. Within this chamber he could project an intimidating sense of controlled presence without even speaking. It was quite literally designed for him, an extension of his body wherein visitors could be held and interrogated as though he held them in his arms. Though as a true bred Japanese patriot he quite disliked the Chinese and their barbaric ways, he came here to this private palace every so often to quite literally remove himself from the collective socio-economic fabric of Japanese life. It was here - unhindered by industrial espionage - that he deliberated over policies or secretly met with both powerful allies and rabid competitors. It was here that he masterminded long term strategies, linked into the rest of the civilised world through a computerised virtual data framework of unparalleled sophistication and Technological potency.

He looked up as he quietly gave the entrance signal. Two gorgeous, young and barely dressed

Chinese concubines jumped up at his whispered signal and pulled the shoji screens at the far end of the room to either side. A tall, Japanese man stood before the entrance with his head bowed, his body invisible beneath closely fitting black cotton, cut almost scientifically to promote unhindered movement. Again Togawa grunted and the man walked barefoot into the room with the liquid grace of a world class dancer, every inch of the space around his body accounted for, his solemn presence dominating a sphere of potential action extending for at least thirty feet in every direction. In the secret manner of the Emperor's royal guards of historical antiquity, he had been trained to service the family of Togawa from birth. He was bound - mind, body and soul - to the Daimyo of the Togawa clan and his respective family. In this position of sacred trust, he commanded a network of superbly trained operatives equipped with the most powerful technology money could buy, each member known only to themselves and him.

The man was seated now in the centre of the room in traditional seat, his implacable face covered by a demonic mask, even though his eyes were never raised. Lord Togawa felt the comforting presence of death enfolding him as the man exuded his peculiar energetic nature. He felt comfort for two reasons. To begin with, Togawa was exhilarated by the incredible potential for violence which nestled here in his palms, exciting him with that strange state of being known to those who religiously practised death defying thrill sports. The other reason was more pragmatic, inasmuch as he knew without hesitation that he was seated in the centre of the man's cyclonic nature, virtually invulnerable to attack. Every inch of the potentially lethal violence that serenely circled him was there to protect and defend him at all costs. Togawa carefully regarded his finest possession as the man awaited his assent to communicate his message, his vision trying to pick out the hundreds of different folds in the assassins garb that might house weapons of varied and exotic natures. The man, who he called only Blue, had returned from a very special assignment.

“I am confident that your excursion was successful?” It was a silly question, considering.

“Two days ago our agent within the Tsi'en household reported to me.” His voice was flat and without inflection, almost dead; “According to our source, the individual in question entered the house undetected for long enough to place her in the presence of the Lady of the house. Our agent was one of those who responded to the Lady Tsi'en's distress cry and forcibly removed the assailant. He noticed that the lady was quite clearly shocked by whatever message had been delivered. As the intruder was removed, she was heard to shout several times back toward the lady.”

“And the content of her screams?” Togawa leaned forward with interest.

“There were reports of the phrase “secret technology” being uttered along with wild referrals to a “second agenda” and a secret war between “higher powers”. She was believed by our man to have spoken vaguely of Yin Tsi'en as though she were still alive.”

“Your evaluation?” Togawa never doubted the strategical genius and wisdom of his wisest soldier, thus never passing up an opportunity for swift, concise advice on any matter.

“By all appearances she was a mystic of sorts, entirely unknown to the Tsi'en clan, possibly hired by an as yet unknown organisational concern. Since it is obvious that she knows something about the secret and its recently deceased carrier Yin Tsi'en, we must presume that she either truly is mystic, that she is entirely insane or that she indeed has a hidden source of information that that barbarian Lord Tsi'en stupidly failed to utilise. Given the vital urgency and tension of this game we play, I suggest that it would be utterly suicidal not to close our minds to the first two possibilities and open our minds to the third.”

“Your personal opinion?” Togawa spoke almost as he would to an equal, an atypical honour.

“I suspect that madness is quite probably her most dominant personality feature.” He spoke in measured, speculative tones, “On the other hand, I have developed the increasing suspicion that the entire matter of this secret is being elevated above this world of grosser matters and onto another plane of activity that we have only begun to observe, a plane quite possibly familiar to those of the mystical persuasion. In any event, I have seen too much over the years in my travels along death's borders to discount any possibility rashly. To that end I have kidnapped her in the hope that we could drain her mind in the seclusion of your celestial palace.”

A few seconds later, after the appropriate rituals, the commander of espionage had vanished from the room to return with a pathetic package of weak outrage housed in the frail bones of an old woman clothed in the saffron robes of the wandering Buddhist monk. She collapsed to the floor in the centre of the room, wheezing in obvious pain as she raised her eyes to meet those of the Togawa warlord.

***

Yin's sudden in-sight into the nature of the unconscious mind led her to understand that any perception that could be deliberately formed within the personal field was an act of consciousness. When the central form lacked an inner conscious knowing of the object of observation, the field extended itself in an amoeboid fashion to cast about in the collective matrix until it had identified something of relative familiarity. In other words, the universe is a vast field of unconscious awareness, tiny aspects of which become conscious when they are drawn inward and interpreted by the perceptive faculties. The unconscious is everything but the conscious and perception is little more than focused awareness. Moreover, conscious perception is by definition capable only of focusing upon a limited body of awareness and as follows, has only a limited capacity to absorb and hold data. Thus, to know absolutely one thing is to make unknown absolutely everything else. If the perceptive web is absolutely clear therefore, the reality of intuition will allow in-sight into confusing problems and sought after knowledge.

Any motion performed by the manifested form of the visible memory is generated by focusing the intention, the desire to act. The more powerful the intention, the more powerful the motion or movement of the manifested form. The more specific the desire, the more specific the fields’ projection of energy. Attitude and timing are fundamental for astral motion. She suddenly felt as though her mind had somehow separated into various I's, each of which had a different perception of her learning process. From one internal quadrant of self, she received this knowledge as would a breath of wind receive an audience with a vastly intelligent being, completely without commitment, interest or understanding. From another perspective however, she knew that it was almost impossible and entirely useless to try and fabricate an understanding of this knowledge.

From this perceptive vantage point, she knew that the knowledge was not an idea but a self organising and self evident truth that only had to be allowed into the domains of her relative perception in order to make it immediately useful. Her cycle of thoughts then elevated for a moment into a realm not limited by the restraints of the logical, verbal mind and...

...Abruptly, she gazed outward, beyond her field, to see whirling gyroscopes of light writhing wraith-like in every direction. Empowered by the electrical orgy of her cornucopia of new ideas they danced and, as they danced, they split apart and collided with quicksilver rapidity, causing new shapes and spontaneously birthed patterns to develop and whirl off on their own momentums.

Everything seemed to have an overall symmetry. Her field casually overted into the ocean of motive turmoil and retrieved for her conscious mind an image of that which the collective memory termed wave. It was a term used to describe the motion of countless water particles all flowing together, each individual particle entirely dependant upon the collective volition of the wave body. Still further, in an upwardly spiralling hierarchy of energetical forces, several waves interact to form currents - tides? - of interdependent harmony!

She laughed - giggled/marvelled - at the very weirdness of... Well, it was something like this: Her field was enclosed by an ocean of waves, waves which had only formed when she had focused upon that particular wave idea. The shape/weight of her understanding of waves was in itself a wave... She paused, beaming wildly in the chaos between thoughts... This vast and colourful spectacle which surrounded her was an inverse reflection of her shifting thought patterns as she tried to grasp the discoveries which flooded her intuitive mind! This is how a dreamer thinks. She wondered idly where that thought had come from, wondered moreover what a dreamer was. Her field shivered at the very strain of her bewildered merriment...

“Nice show!” Lyr intruded with warmth and understanding.

“This is incredible!” She squealed, without so much as glancing toward him.

She was a distracted by yet a new barrage of thoughts, random fibres of self-evident truth interspersed with waves of relative truth seeming to cling to her in whisps of comprehension. She felt as though she were a - giant? - wading through an ocean of... What term to describe these suddenly so new ideas that presented themselves?

Stop dying and start living! Forgive yourself and clear your mind of its vices and fears and guilt! Purify yourself, rarefy yourself, mind and body, body and soul! Stop going solo. Reach out and allow yourself to be reached! Care about something; Anything! Throw away the loose packaging along with the bag of old and stale dreams! Start over! Be true to yourself! Now go!

She recovered for a second, somehow caught up in a shadowed moment that precluded vision of anything but the shadowed moment itself. She was so far beyond the balanced, linear understanding required for stable thought that she was in that moment beyond herself, a lens through which the universe perceived itself in timeless and wondrous repose.

“Go where?” She mumbled, her perception gently parting the shadows separating her from the outer... and stopped, looking around...

Absolutely everything had changed!

A forest - profoundly green and alive - surrounded her. There were sounds everywhere, a cacophony of sheer existence that drowned her in its writhing embrace. Textures and feelings abounded beyond belief. The light was softly comfortable and yet, a certain clinging humidity immediately weighed her down, somehow depressing her normally acute senses. Specifically her sense of direction. Of that, there was none. No paths, no habitation, nothing she could immediately familiarise herself with. She had to consciously force herself to relax as a feeling of intense desperation surged suddenly within her. She attempted to call out to Lyr in a sort of pitiful, half hopeful voice. As she had expected, there was no reply. She was well and truly alone and severely lacking in balance as a result of having moved so violently and rapidly from the relative cogent harmony of the astral planes to the harsh fractured disparity of the realm she now inhabited. And yet...

There was something about this glade, shade, jade green and reflecting an azure sunset. Something beautiful and wild and deadly, strangely comforting and yet edged with caution. Her attitude transformed and she decided that she quite liked this feeling as she began to move forward. Her eyes picked up what must have been an animal trail, since branches covered it only at a certain height. It was kind of weird to know that she was following an animal trail, when she didn't even know what an animal was. All of the identifying images were somewhere comfortably within her mind's reach, so she was confident that if she saw one it was highly likely that she would be able to label it or identify it. Of course that was assuming she still had access to the matrix, and providing that wherever she now wandered, possessed the same racial memory that she did. She didn't really know how far the astral planes stretched, and thus for all she knew, she could be walking on the far end of the universe.

Her rapidly acclimatising senses were now sharpening and a quick inspection revealed that her ideal body had come with her. That could only mean that all of her post-life hardware was functioning appropriately to protect her software, wetware, whatever... In the distance she heard a strangely guttural - barking? - sound and she hesitantly honed in on its source, hoping to find intelligence of some sort. Don't panic! She smiled weirdly and wondered if her previous life span had been as bizarre as this one. For that matter, she might even have been reborn, as she was surrounded by what appeared to be a definite, compact reality web. She hoped silently that she didn't have to go through some private hell to get back to being dead. She had recently acquired quite a taste for the afterlife.

Her movement toward the promising though intimidating sound became quieter and quieter, as though she was drawing upon the arts of a competent woodsman in search of his prey. It occurred to her that since she had seemingly free access to the collective matrix, she should likewise be able to tap into the resonant memories - bodies of residual knowledge? - left behind as perma-realities by skilled or talented individuals. It felt now as though cushions of air were surrounding her feet like a thin skin that inflated as the arts of stealth washed over her. The field! It was shaping itself according to her intention, channelling its energy according to the description of her will. In moments she was moving at a pace with certain silence, bolting lithely through the trees like a deer, taking on the special templates of those animals that best embodied the area of skill she required. It was incredible how resourceful the human animal could be if it was used to anything near its full potential.

She burst in upon a powerful looking, low slung and smoothly muscled black - panther? - cat. It had not heard her but had unfortunately mastered other aspects of the senses, its night eyes severing the dark, outlining her in detail. Her stealth attitude was ruptured as she saw it, a still moment broken by her squeal and the low growl of the beast as it leapt toward her. Instinctively she struck and was amazed by the appearance of a huge flailing azure cloud that leapt from her hands to down the animal in mid-flight, even as it twisted to avoid her full impact. The cat spun on its own axis and landed motionless on all fours. There was something strange about its appearance. For a stunted moment the panther disappeared and was replaced by a crouching humanoid dream form. She had the distinct - albeit ludicrous - suspicion that some unbelievably dextrous person was leaping about in a panther's clothing... Or rather skin - no, not even that. Field...

Yes! That was it. It was a male, some sort of territorial warrior defending his post or hunting ground. Incredible! He had actually mastered and tuned into the panthers form, in effect becoming the perfect mimic, deadly and unstoppable. Wow! If a water strider had possessed her full intelligence, she could not even begin to comprehend controlling the comparatively immense organic universe that made up this marvellous creature. She thought all of this very, very fast. The other half of the second was used in leaping bodily away from its flailing claws. The air hummed with a faint smell of ozone and the panther disappeared. Lyr stood before her. She was dumbstruck.

“What'sa matta?” He laughed in a surly - deep south? - accent; “Cat gotcher tongue, young lady?”

“Where was I... that?” She gasped, like an unwatered fish.

“Sliver reality...” He replied with a tone sharp as a computer program, holo-digitised.

“How did I get there?” She asked, with a wondrous blue lilt to her voice.

“You moved sideways!” He smiled enigmatically.

“Who was that creature?”

“Just another lonesome soul on destiny's pilgrimage...” He replied.

“Was that the physical plane?” She asked, half hopefully, half fearfully.

“Not even close,” he replied. “That, my dear, is a sliver reality, an aspect of nature's bounteous collective matrix. The physical plane is a composite reality, a consensual image that is composed of the sum of every individual's interdependent perception of it. Sliver realities, on the other hand, have only a temporal or relative reality, relative only to the being who experiences them, the being who becomes, in a sense, their temporal middle. Thus they can be experienced alone and are, by definition, uniquely tailor-made to suit the individual in question. The physical plane, on yet the first hand, is experienced pretty much the same by everybody; that’s why it's so damned heavy! The uniformity of the experience is presumably due to the fact that you're all using the same experiencing equipment, so to speak.”

“So what is that be-ing do-ing, if not liv-ing?” She asked tiredly.

“Most likely fine tuning his chronomic maps...” He replied simply, as if in explanation.

“Chronomic maps?” She inquired.

“It's much like an area map.” His tone was smooth and casual; “When your fore-fathers upon the physical plane first developed the semblance of a higher intelligence, they lived in small territorial clans that hunted and gathered for survival. Armed with only, at best, a severely deficient - though developing - long term memory, the homo-sapient brain developed an almost instinctive mechanism for constructing area maps. For example, bases might have been located within a day's march of all the local necessities, placing them with walking distance in case of emergency. In this way was the entire expanse of the environment brought sharply into perspective as the visible memory became spacial. You must understand that the internal geography of the mind is capable of mimicking the external environment as a perfect reflection across the interior of the brain, making the distance between trees an expanse likewise between brain cells. Ancient man was so in tune with his world that even the blood coursing through him had a magno-sympathetic relationship with the ionic currents in the atmosphere, teaching him the basics of emotion in his attempt to correlate all of the various moods of nature...”

“How does that differ from a time map?” She asked.

“Over the years the collective intelligence of humanity was significantly elevated.” He said. “Complications, like increasingly more sophisticated transport mechanisms and finger tip communication began confusing things unto the point where a spacial memory was inadequate to the task of mapping a rapidly expanding new world. Man developed more complex, long term memory systems. The emphasis irrevocably shifted from the distances involved to the time involved. A standard time scale was established within which personal timing could function more appropriately in relation to the scope of the new tools that reality had made manifest...”

Yin had the feeling for a moment that she had just had a glimpse into a very profound and important concept. Given the knowledge of velocity, the brain would ascribe time values to spacial distances. The distance between continents would be either a five year walk or a ten hour flight or a one second call.

“The inner mind,” he continued, “becomes a multi-dimensional time matrix of relative values which we call a chronomic map. This new form of reasoning represents an evolutionary epoch which can be described as chrono-logic. Everything beyond the physical plane requires a deep, instinctive comprehension of this underlying principle. Upon the astral planes, there are no physical points separated by a nicely ordered time-space matrix. Travel may be slow or instantaneous, entirely dependent upon a being's grasp of the chronomic dimensions. Thus, being's who wish to evolve beyond the physical go through the process you just witnessed in order to...”

“Move upward?” She ventured.

“Onto a plane,” he finished, “where time is in itself a force more real than light energy. I had hoped that your visit there would bring some understanding. It is becoming increasingly important now that we get you into safe hands...”

***

Layla flipped through the grid fibre of the matrix, sorting out the infinitely complex weave of strands to isolate the most efficient probable motion. As she moved downward, toward the physical, the micro-fibril strands thickened and gained density, expanding until they were no longer in her hands but she in theirs, her astral form racing along the chronomic bands like highways beneath her feet. To either side of her moved two Maur'elm runners, with her forming the head of a wedge of high velocity movement. They were a particularly virulent strain of runner, popularly termed infectors as they specialised in the injection of viruses. She had a particular dislike for them and their function but realised at the same time that clan Lihol'en specialised in vocal harmonics. This meant that they could quite possibly affect a being to the extent of damaging inner ear balance or sensory image scrambling but it was equally unlikely that they could kill a material form and certainly not without attracting unwanted attention with a sonic boom or suchlike.

In a second shattered on its own axis they burst through the material event horizon and into the time starved atmosphere directly above the Yangtse gorge. Immediately she felt the powerful sucking force of the atomic gas matrix as it tried to absorb her finely tuned astral body in every direction at once with chaotic intensity. She panicked for a second and then found her middle with a single sub-sonic chord, an old family recipe for extreme situations. Chronomic energy translates directly as sequential time in the 3-space matrix of the material, meaning that she literally had perhaps seconds before it ran out, extinguishing her consciousness into a puff of wind etc. Her perceptive mechanisms swivelled swiftly into action, fibril lenses overlaying each other to magnify her vision a hundred times.

She focused like a hawk on the house below her, locked onto a silently sunning spider, plummeted downward as fast as she could toward it. As the last of her energy evaporated, she allowed her consciousness to be absorbed into its field, quickly centering herself before paralysing its consciousness. As she descended inward toward its middle, she felt a momentary shudder at the thought of the inner realm of an arachnid. It was somehow vastly silent and predatory, shadowy and sticky with potential venom. It was not evil - just the inner nature of a particularly successful predator. A second later she could relax for a moment as her vision synchronised with the spiders', giving her a picture of the world through a multi-fold of eyes.

She glanced from side to side. A spiders' glance has many sides. It took her a moment to establish communication with her squad through the sub-ether net. She flinched for a moment when she realised that only three of them still operated. Runner's odds. One of them was now probably scattered over a couple of cubic metres of free space. She knew she would not see them as they did not utilise macro-scopic hosts like the spider she was riding. Instead they prepared for journeys beyond the edge by erecting small spheres of Radi-chronomic energy and encapsulating themselves within them. With the correct lenses they could be seen as pale blurs of light, en-lightened beings swimming rapidly through the molecule soup of the lower atmosphere.

She knew enough of their lore to know that all free space was constantly inhabited by countless little viral organisms which existed in a state of neutral latency, all very similar to each other. By passing through them in long, string-like sequences, they were transformed into active energies and then discarded. Later, they would collect a whole strain of them to convert to the task ahead. She did not like to think of it. Dis-ease is a horrible way to go and yet so common, perhaps the greatest cause of corporeal termination’s.

Layla skittered through the eaves into the confines of the cell where the target lay revealed, all dishevelled in robes and lying asleep atop a small, hard bunk. Through the ether she could hear the three runners discussing strategy in their weird, super fast, insect-like language. Though she would not really be able to observe the process, she nevertheless watched with intense interest and not a little disgust. Again she dipped into her small stock of viral lore. She was aware that the body is a highly complex chemical factory capable, under the right circumstances, of synthesising any chemical compound. She knew that the classical technique involved manipulation just beneath the surface of the skin because generally the dermis has a safe average electro-chemical potential which directly reflects a similar electro-magnetic potential directly above the skin. By patterning and intensifying this electrical coat, this aura, the runner knew that the chemicals beneath would mimic their activity.

Layla looked sadly at the stricken creature who lay on the bed, knowing by instinct that rapidly evolving and mutating cancerous tissue was already worming its way in toward her core. With a soft signal, she prepared to deliver her parting message.

“It is almost time for you to join us, sweet soul,” she began, “to become one with the source of your inspiration. Do not despair in the face of the techno-demon. His power over you is rapidly dwindling and soon he will be left with only the husk of your former life.”

She saw the old priestess crying softly as she listened with eyes closed to the voices only she could hear. The woman had never experienced such intense loneliness, living in a world that was not supposed to exist...

***

Lord Togawa received the priestess in his focus chamber, he raised atop his dais, she huddled in the centre of the chamber. She was completely and utterly under his power. Were it not for her sheer dedication to her faith, she would probably have unravelled her mind right there and then. As it was she tried to look merely proud.

“What was the purpose of your visit to the Tsi'en household?” He asked simply.

“To reveal to them the error of their ways!” She replied.

“And just which of their ways is in error...?”

“The devil technology!” She spat.

“What do you know of this technology?” He asked. His tone was scientifically measured.

“I know it is the apple that they will rip from paradise and debase...”

“What do you mean by that,” he questioned, “what is this apple?”

“You are creating a tool which will allow mankind to enter heaven by force of entry, to learn things which should not be known. You will make it possible for the lower flesh to defile the sacred realm of the Goddess...” She gasped, her face pale with strain.

“The technology is merely a tool of evolution to issue a new age of reason, a new way of thinking. We are simply allowing the imagination to tailor-make its own virtual reality. It is nothing more than the imagination made graphic...”

“You are wrong!” She said in strangled tones; “To begin with, your bio-feedback technology is not a one way street. It is interactive. It changes you as you change it! Secondly, the realm beyond is not imagination, but rather imagination is a distorted perception of it. It is something beyond your comprehension and it is very real!”

“What is wrong with that?“ Togawa asked calmly.

“You are not in control!” She appeared to be withering away visibly; “You have become subject to forces you do not understand, forces ready to feast upon the souls of humanity. Your technology is simply a way for the higher forms to infiltrate the human consciousness while the mind is distracted in its own little private paradise!”

“How do you know this?” He was genuinely curious and showed it.

“The Goddess speaks to me; I am her messenger. She would have man existing harmoniously with the mind of nature, with real energy and not debauch, indulgent illusion.”

“What do you know of Yin?” He took a stab in the dark.

“She is following a pilgrimage beyond this world. I pray her soul safe because her knowledge is by no means safe.”

“Will the Goddess speak now?” He asked.

Her face contorted for a moment and then a smooth, resonant voice issued forth. Somewhere, high above, a spider hovered silently.

“Death becomes us all and, in death, we become all...”

The old lady suddenly spasmed violently and then collapsed. Togawa's soldier was there in a flash, trying desperately to keep her alive. In seconds, the old priestess died in his arms, her eyes wide and staring, foam issuing from her lips. Togawa and his man looked at each other, each one individually reshaping their thinking to the wondrous new circumstance unfolding...

***

Kilimi'en sat enshrouded within the sphere of his totality. His skin armour was dark and smoky in reflection of his mood. Anger and frustration had dogged his steps for days now, along with no small amount of embarrassment. He had been made to look stupid at the hands of first runner Lyrsti'el, a fact that would not go unnoticed in the hectic political manoeuvrings of the Uni-council.

Families with their own schools and perma-realities were countless beyond number in the ancient immensity of the astral planes. Competition was razor sharp at all times, as well as ruthless. An order simply had to be discredited in order for it lose its chronomic essence, in the same way that a religion upon the material is destroyed by lack of faith.

Well, he had hardly been discredited, yet, but a lot of attention was focused upon this issue. It was not only his personal duel with Lyr or even the assassination of Yin that was being observed. There was a much bigger issue here, one intimately connected with the second agenda, a masterplan that even he, despite his strategical genius, could not begin to comprehend.

***

Lyr stood firmly before Yin as she hovered, motionless and upright before him in the inky blackness of the matrix, the darkness brought into stark contrast by the solid blue lines of the grid.

"Loreiceli'en..." Lyr intoned.

"Excuse me?" Yin inquired with a curious expression.

"That's what we call them, "Lyr replied; "Loreiceli'en warriors. People on the physical plane we call Terrani'en warriors. Terran means something like Earth. Anyway, there are a lot of different names but they all basically describe different stages of development or perhaps levels of individual evolution. Each level has a sort of mission to fulfil after which they move on..."

Suddenly Yin's entire reality went very, very wrong. She thought she heard Lyr shout something but she couldn't really concentrate. It felt like she was emersed in a storm of white noise static, which to an energy body is rather a disconcerting experience. Yin looked over at Lyr in a detached, bewildered manner and observed his body folding in upon itself, his outer cloak seeming to coil inward while his inner weaponry spun outward. Then she felt a searing hot pocket of heat glide past her and with a growing sense of panic, she turned about.

It all happened numbingly fast and was a little too muddled for her to understand. Time slowed down as she gazed toward the far horizon of the grid. A figure like a flaming cone of light plummeted across the grid toward them. From it's hands leapt discs of radiant white heat that seared the air around them. The figure moved faster and faster, devouring the distance between them and as it drew closer, the solar missiles becoming increasingly more accurate, repeatedly coming close to severing Yin's vulnerable virtual flesh. Something blurred around her - like a grey mist - and the solar missiles were neatly deflected.

Her perception overloaded, popped, smeared. Something about lives. Hallo. Hallo, how are you... Times, timing. Hallo time. Thousands of realities, layered side by side, transparent. Walking upon a lonely highway, new crescent moon and then... Full stops. Brick walls, grey all-over-ness. A faint and hazy meadow with lots of warm sunshine, old snapshots of a thing called youth gone by in a time pattern called age. Blankness, cringing, unending potential exploding. Dripping, lethal sensuality. Where... When... How... Why... Suddenly the shadow passed with a sulphurous groan and everything reverted back to normal. Lyr appeared, waiting patiently, calmly cloaked and steady.

“What is this... Madness!” Yin schreeched.

“I’m sorry,” he said, a little lamely, “that was somewhat unexpected. This is all going to take a little getting used to. I’m afraid you’ve landed in the deep end.”

“You’re out of your mind!” She exclaimed; “This doesn’t feel normal! You’re not normal! All of this stuff about time and space when we don’t even have a firm foot to stand on. Tell me straight. Do you know what you are doing and if so, would you please tell me?”

“You want it straight?” He paused, scanned the environment, did the deep slide escape; “Let me start by saying that everything that you have ever imagined about the afterlife is true... So true in fact that your notions are lost among a limitless supply of ideas similar to yours. It’s all in here, somewhere. “

He paused and she stared across the vacuum toward him, watching an enclosure of force grow about them like a closing lotus.

“The human afterlife is composed mostly of ideas preconceived by the conscious mass of man.” He began; “This is called the plane of astral perception and it is very closely linked to the waking mind of man. Beyond that lie the planes of elemental perception which are conceived in their entirety by the cosmos itself.”

Yin snapped impatiently; “So there are two types of perception, the one describing the human mold while the other describes the universal idea!”

He looked at her quietly before continuing; “There is a constant evolution that begins in the beast and goes through the sentient man before becoming the elemental energy. Those that have ascended teach those that lie below as those who lie below maintain contact with humanity. The physical plane is like a support base of manifested energy - a consensual reality - from which all of the more virtual realms spring...”

Yin suddenly touched upon understanding: “The Earth plane is a strategical empire for you! You need living humans to...”

“That is entirely true,” he agreed, without argument. “Consciousness is a special type of frequency that is simulated within, and projected by, conscious beings, like humans. It is a very sophisticated procedure, requiring the entire bio-mechanical form of the human body to manifest. Once manifested, it becomes semi-permanent and resonates over time. Idea is made in this way.”

“What about beings like you?” It was an obvious question.

“Global resonance counter-complexifies itself,” he continued immediately, “until groups of ideas become represented by single electrical entities, cast from the mould of human expression. Without humans energising and constantly updating an idea, the idea becomes loose and eventually disappears. “

“So what does this mean to me?” Inquired Yin sharply.

“I’m not entirely sure,” he began, “but in light of what we just discussed, I suspect that you possess a fairly special conscious frequency pattern, a secret. That secret, whatever it is, is being sought after by at least two different ideological guilds. What is really significant however is the physical plane angle. Forces in your last life strove to control you. To find out exactly what is going on, we have to dig into your past life...”

***

Nova looked out over her abode... The entirety of her perma-reality consisted of a massive sphere floating suspended in 5-space, within which a crystal castle hung suspended, surrounded by an uncountable number of independent crystal platforms floating freely through the space encompassed by the mother sphere. There was colour and power everywhere, the air humming with strident electricity.

Nova lifted her head aqueously, as if listening. She was tall and thin, almost impossibly structured with broad, strong bones and delicate, endless curves. Her entire body, from head to toe, save her face, was covered in a strange silver skinsuit that seemed almost bonded to her, as if it were alive. Nova eyes flashed open, deep silver irises with no pupil. She tilted her head quietly - picking up ghost threads - and then relaxed to wait.

***

Lyr had taken Yin to another small pocket of stillness in the void, which he carefully sealed and warded. It was like a rubber space cave. One’s timeline is one’s presence in the afterlife. Every action one makes is part of a continuous time stream that expects one to unfold in a chronological fashion. Lyr had therefore created this cave by bending time in upon itself to form a cocoon of suspended animation, so to speak.

“Yin, we are going to have to change tactics,” Lyr explained, “because I cannot keep running forever while still trying to hide and protect you. Your foes are formidable and their ability to track me down is growing by the second.”

“By the second...?” Yin started.

“You must understand,” Lyr continued, “that time is purely relative. It is a type of mathematics used to correlate consciousness. You have been on this plane only a few seconds now! Already they are closing in and these aren’t like any beings you could ever imagine. They are modern day angels, magestic, lethal, very intelligent and highly connected to astral tech...”

“So what are we to do?!” She exclaimed.

“We are going to put you into hiding for a while;” He replied: “If I’m on my own, I can evade our stalker plus access some information from my own middle. Perhaps I must dig into your past on Earth to find out exactly what’s going on...”

“Where will you take me?” She said excitedly.

“I will take you to a being called Nova,” he said, “a being with the strength to defend you if need be. She has her own temporal middle in 5-space and it is there that she trains her students and young astral novices.”

“Is she a person?” Yin interrupted.

“Not quite...” He paused, thinking; “Actually, the technical term for her is Iconographical archetype. Do you know what an archetype is?”

Yin fished through her memory scape, formulating an answer from purely objective recall. “An archetype on Earth is a primordial symbolic image that resides within man’s ancestral collective unconscious.”

“Hmmm...” He smiled at her flashingly, like a wolf, “Okay, so now that you’re here you must know that every archetype - any electrical idea shared by a body of humanity - is somewhere out here on the astral plane. The more of a following an idea possesses, the stronger will be its... Inate presence on the astral plane. This phenomena is called Middle and every archetype will possess its own middle realm bent by concrescence into permanence.”

“Like religious Gods and Goddesses’s and things?” Yin was pulling forth powerful memories from her former Terrani’en Earth plane.

“Yes, like that...” He agreed; “On the other hand, those sorts of archetypes are not really beings but rather like diamond concepts. In the more modern times, in your time and beyond, there is a new type of archetype. Vast computer networks criss-cross your old plane, forming international networking services. Software is integrated to form conceptual space, a space which on your former plane is purely electrical...”

“But up here?” She interrupted.

“Every action on the physical plane has an infinite hierarchy of consequences on the higher planes. The coordinated use of electrical impulses causes imprints on the astral fibre. The entire system is organised by a very evolved language which uses as its alphabet an endless library of Icons which very intuitively relate to the senses.”

“The electrical civilisation!” Yin butted in with wonder in her eyes.

“What this means,” he continued, “is that on some level, the most powerful and complex icons become iconographic archetypes, much like faith angels but more sophisticated.”

“Why will Nova help you?” Yin asked.

“We have already spoken,” he replied, “and she has agreed to take you in for a while. We have made a tentative bargain, in Astral fashion, from which we will both benefit. You must trust her though because she is a special entity and will require your wilful assistance if we hope to make it out of this situation. This is very serious, in ways you could never understand. Do you agree to trust her...”

“I trust you...” That was all she needed to say.

“Come then, follow my thread closely!” In a flash the bubble had disappeared and they were back in the time stream. It was all Yin could do to keep up with her mediocre understanding of the principles of running, astral style...