Virtual Eternity (the Serialized Novel) Episode 52 - The End

This is Episode 52 of the serialized version of the novel, Virtual Eternity: An Epic 90s Retro Florida Techo-Pro-Life Love Story and Conversion Journey. You can buy the paperback version from Mike Church’s Crusade Channel Store or at Amazon.

Or you can start reading at the Table of Contents: here

The End

Earth

I leaped to my feet. The helmet still encased my head without power, so I only saw darkness. The shock disturbed my consciousness. I lost my senses and tipped. I thudded to the floor, and the helmet bounced away.

Later, I woke again. My head throbbed from hitting the floor. The floor was earth. Its cold stung my cheek. My throat ached with thirst. My senses worked again.

I stumbled, but stood. In the darkness, I sought light and directed my view out the eastern picture window. Morning. How long had I been gone? A computer clock confirmed my placement: 5:06 a.m., Sunday, March 31. For two days, my head had bounced between life and death.

Curcio still sat in his chair. Was he alive? Maybe my visions of Eternity were mine only. Maybe I constructed them to alleviate my dread of death. Curcio groaned. He lives! I removed his helmet and its cord popped loose from the lower rim underneath. Sweat soaked his long, gnarled hair. His eyes were closed. I found a faint heartbeat. Then I lost it. Where was it?

I eased him on the floor. CPR. Compressions, breathing into him. Compressions, breathing into him, lifeguard training, compressions.

A telephone. There, next to the bed. Paramedics could surely revive him. I tapped 9-1-1. “He’s dying!” I shouted into the phone. I directed them to the room. I rushed back to him.

Compressions, breathing into him. Compressions, breathing into him.

Curcio’s pupils floated up into his head, and back to wide-eyed. He choked and inhaled.

“Damn Him.” His last breath blew out and rattled: “Damn God.”

I winced at the words, and the death. The earthly genius was given over.

I tried to shut his eyes, but they kept springing open.

The medics would soon be there. Guilt struck me. Would they stick me with Curcio’s death?

The vial! Still in my jacket pocket, draped on a chair. I stumbled over to a sink, washed it all down, wiped off my fingerprints, and shattered it on the dirty side of the room.

Curcio! I put the helmet back on his wide-eyed head. He must have died playing the game, I’d say. I wrapped the front of his SensorSuit in my fists and wrestled him back up and into the chair.

The virus! Infect the system. I found the disk, also still in my jacket.

I leaned over the console from which we had started the games. Quickly, I ejected a tray, dropped in the shiny disk, and pushed it back. Feet shuffled outside the door of the room. The tray buzzed and gurgled. I had memorized the four numbers and dots to send the virus to the central computer. What are they? Remember! Type it there! Men pounded on the door. The machine just whirred and clicked. Nothing. No access.

Men shouted. Guilt.

Curcio! Put him back playing the game. I plugged the connector prongs into the underlip of his helmet.

The disk! Get rid of it! But the system started whirring and clicking again. The screen paged and paged, pixels and letters, pages, then it stopped.

Men pounding.

I dislodged the disk, wiped off the tray, and broke the disk into four pieces. As I whirled the pieces all around the room, I jumped across the room to the door. Five different locks: swivel, turn, click.

Six men in different uniforms rushed over. They bent over him and ripped off his helmet.

“This man’s just had a heart attack,” one said. “He’s dead.”

“How did this happen?” another asked.

“We were playing the game. The Shroud.”

***

Later that morning, the coroner, several policemen, and many company spokesmen arrived. They stood in packs, looking sideways at me and the mess of Curcio’s room.

My head and muscles hurt. The only respite was looking past the whispering men and debris, looking to the bright sun that approximated God.

After noon, a man in a white shirt and red tie approached me with his hand extended.

“Jonathan, I’m Chad Tilton. I’m with Public Relations. This is a horrible day, I assure you. We need to talk about what happened here.”

“Sure.”

We stepped over pizza boxes and CDs, then out of Curcio’s room to the hallway I had crossed above two days before. We took the elevator down five floors to Tilton’s office.

“Mr. Curcio mentioned to me personally that he was planning to test his system this week,” Tilton said from behind his desk. “I would say that The Shroud failed, wouldn’t you? One of the two test users died of a heart attack at thirty-five. The software suffered a major failure. No one can fix it.” He smiled. “We need damage control here. We think we know what actually happened. We believe we have enough evidence to convict you of corporate espionage and wanton destruction of property.”

“How? I didn’t do that, so how could you have any proof?”

“We think we have enough.”

“Like what?”

“We can’t discuss it. Let me finish, Jonathan. We’re taking steps to recover our company’s image. We have already released Mr. Curcio’s medical records. In fact, he hadn’t seen a doctor in twenty years. We think he had an abnormality no one knew about. Or drugs.”

I turned from him.

“Listen, Jonathan. Do you know what’s happened in Vincula within the last two days? Heads rolled because of The Shroud. Given it didn’t release on time, and given our chief software engineer hid away again, the stock plummeted. Millions of people looked for it on the server, but it wasn’t there.”

Tilton exhaled.

“We’ve had a big shakeup, especially in our department. Everette’s been fired. Ted Bender’s out as our Marketing and Public Relations V.P. In the spirit of diversity, Xavier Cambridge is the new General Manager. He’s already come out with a long-term strategic plan for the next month. We need to show the stockholders we’re changing things, that we’re not relying on one man, and that we’re re-doubling our efforts to gain diversity. We’re gonna utilize this diversity to re-develop the games. I talked to Xavier personally this morning. He wants you to tell people what happened in the game. Tell them the excitement of the game caused the heart attack. Tell them a disgruntled employee, you, caused the destruction. Tell them that as part of the settlement, you will use your knowledge of The Shroud to re-develop the software.”

“What settlement?”

“Federal law will require eight-to-ten years prison time for corporate espionage and wanton destruction of property. But we can reduce your sentence to only three years if you agree to help us. Read and sign this.”

“What is it?”

“Your confession and agreement to assist us.”

I nodded. I read the one-page paper. Its formality was impressive, a legal work of art.

I signed.

“Excellent,” Tilton said without breaking eye contact as he straightened his tie. “I’ll schedule a press conference for five o’clock. You will remain in this office until then. After that, we’ll hand you over to the authorities.”

***

That evening, Tilton, myself, and several other white-shirted, diverse young men marched into the largest, most decorated conference room in the Dakota facility. Reproductions hung everywhere, separated by five feet.

On a stage above about fifty reporters, Tilton announced the revised software release date; the company’s efforts to reengineer, rightsize, and promote the diversity of their labor force; and the medical abnormalities of Anthony Curcio.

“One of our employees, Jonathan Hannah, experienced this game with Mr. Curcio. He will explain the causes of Mr. Curcio’s excitement and the extent of his poor health. He will also shed some light on the causes of the massive virus that struck us today.”

I ascended the podium. Cameras flashed, and a spotlight glared, but unlike the perfect light. It was the worldly light, the simulated light of the evil one, deprived of God, like the men and women shouting at me.

I thought of how far I had come within this world. I thought of my rebirth; of Colorado; of my sister; of Meredith, her curls stringing across her forehead, her smile from across the lawn, on the night I seized her childhood and helped create an eternal soul. I thought of Maureen and

the two souls within her.

“Yes, hello. I was with--” They blared out questions from all directions. “About the games, I was--” More shouting. They competed for the remaining noise levels and frequencies. One lady shrieked. They wanted scandal. They hungered for distraction, for evil. I must not contribute.

“I cannot adequately describe in words what I saw in the last two days, especially at a forum such as this. I died. I left my body and the earth.”

The reporters screamed at me, but I refused to stop talking. Tilton stepped up to me, but I shouldered him aside. He stumbled down the steps. I tilted the microphone to my lips.

“Then I met a being of light. He lured me with solace and warmth, for all was permitted and forgiven with him. But I saw that he required no love, no aspiration, and no Goodness. He was the devil.”

The red lights on the cameras went dark. The bright lights shut off.

Recorders clicked off.

“Through the pleas of our Blessed Mother, Mary, I was pulled away from that beguiling light being. I flew instead to the Light of God. That was the light that held me together in death. It filled the souls around me: the angels and the saints.

“I floated before the gates of Paradise. There I learned that Truth exists about the nature of the universe and the human species. Truth exists about our ordained destiny on earth and in heaven. Truth exists about the mysteries of our relation to God. The souls there still discuss these higher questions, the mysteries. They thrived on teaching me. I did learn this Truth: a life of holy love is attainable on earth.

“We have many opportunities to do that. We have the obligation to live with as much holy love as possible, and to remember that God gives us graces singularly, as if you and I were the only persons on the planet. Remember that we are a unified body of individuals, that we can pray to saints in heaven for help, that God abides within each of us, that we each have God’s law written on our hearts, that God gave us the real and holy sign of both His heaven and His sacrifice in the Holy Eucharist, that we are damned by our natures, or, if we choose to accept it fully, we are saved only because of His Passion and Death.

“I saw the pain of the many, the billions like Mr. Curcio, who rejected God while on earth. They are still burdened by their bodies and by torment. They chose to be eternally without the light of God, left to the whims of the light-being.

“I saw the bliss of the few, the millions who were saved. I spoke to Christ. I now know we must live and love out of a desire for the knowledge and peace of the Holy Trinity, and not out of fear. We must follow the model of Mary and Christ for humility and loving on earth, and we must know that God loves us eternally. Then, when our bodies die, we can know God fully again.”

The reporters stared.

Several in the back of the room whispered to one another. “Another religious freak,” one murmured.

“Mr. Hannah, is this game experience you describe actually a marketing scheme?”

Others rose with enraged voices. “Will your company ever be able to re-develop a virtual reality experience like the one you allegedly had?”

“Do you think these strange images provided the excitement to agitate Mr. Curcio’s heart condition?”

“Are you a member of a religious right-wing political organization?”

“Did your lover Lana Schon provide company secrets to Panari, and did you help her?”

“No. No, no.”

“Did you or did you not sign this confession?”

“That’s not my name.”

“What?” several said.

“You bastard!” Tilton yelled above the rest. He checked the confession paper. “You signed ‘Irving Washington.’ Who the hell is that?”

“Is it true that you were involved in the premature release of the game, since a defense contractor paid you several million dollars, to help enable an upcoming merger?” They all yelled.

I stared at them. What should I do? Nothing I could say would appease them. They disdained my visions of heaven and hell. I would go to prison as a crackpot. But the plan the Almighty hatched for me must enact itself. Please help me, God. Mary, and Mrs. Kelly, and all the other saints, ask God to help me. I must free myself for a while to re-create my journey, to tell others, and to see Maureen. I must be free for just a few days.

I stepped away from the podium as the reporters yelled at me. Then they yelled at Tilton. No one followed me as I left the room. “You bastard!” Tilton shouted to me as I sprinted down a hallway toward a green “Exit” sign. “We’ll send you away for twenty years!”

***

That night, I slept in the booth of an all-night diner, despite the disturbing roars of the trucks outside. A grouchy waitress woke me as the hot glass pot of coffee she shook at me threatened to spill into my lap.

That day I walked over patches of snow and greening farmlands, next to rising creeks; rarely, I walked on the slushy roads. The sun warmed me and soothed my tight muscles. As I hiked, I tried to recall my divine experience in my memory, and bring it forth forever in my mind.

In the evening, I managed to withdraw cash for a bus ticket in a nearby town. In a phone booth, I found the listing for the nearest travel agent: five miles.

At the agency in the next town, I used my company credit card, which somehow still worked, to charge an airline ticket from Chicago to the Caymans, along with a rental car there.

An hour later, I returned to cancel the flight. To confuse things, I updated the rental car to be charged to my own credit card.

For most of the following three nights and two days, I stared out the huge windows of a bus. The nation melted before my eyes. At night, a full moon lit the land. Spring resonated through the country.

I was hiding. At each of the dozens of stops, I expected to be grappled and thrown into a police car bound for jail.

But before the endless questions and lawyers and fingerprinting and enclosed rooms, I needed time. I needed to deliberate on my death, to capture every image. I needed thoughts about Curcio, Olson, Mary Gianna, Mary Agnes, Mrs. Kelly, Dante, Mary, Christ. I wrote on scraps

of paper with used pens.

Three nights later, it was sticking to my memory, then dissipating. But now the action of living must begin, even in prison, for I would own a life away from earth one day.

At my last stop, I leaped from the bus. I walked ten more miles.

The memories of my death were slipping away, then recollected. I must write more down. I must tell people soon, a people united in the faith I share, a Church. Were the memories merely computerized images? This ghastly thought often struck me. How difficult faith in the Holy Trinity was, even with divine experience. I would constantly battle myself. I would always re interpret the meaning of what I saw, of what I remember. I must continuously ask for the memories, for calm, for the words, for the Holy Trinity, for the help of the Church and its people to reflect the Holy Trinity. My life would oscillate between prayer and action, always, while coincidentally oscillating between certainty and doubt.

I must laugh at this plight. I tried then, but the weight of my uncertainty and my body repressed any joy, at the moment. I had no other choice but to laugh, to live on the planet in ambiguity and certainty, to strive toward, and lean on, that eternal holy keel, Christ, but my earthly muscles must allow the Holy Trinity to steer.

The experience of heaven had started to bond permanently to my soul.

Life on earth will never replace what I saw: that light, the harmonies of the angels, the direct call and unmistakable love of Christ. But ideas, people, and substance can approach all that on earth.

I stood on the bridge overlooking the orchard. The sea murmured in the distance, and the aroma of the blossoms, roses maybe, wafted up. Heaven resounded its tones on earth.

My life had turned. After my maturing years, I had chased the wind for a long time. I now confront the debris from that era. I will undo what it wrought. Then, with my revelation in mind, through the continued abundance and mercy of the Holy Trinity, I will meet the new millennium, accept life’s gifts and burdens, and express Truth to those who listen.

***

At the beginning of every day for the past week, Maureen had wept. On this day, Holy Thursday, the best of spring so far, the tears lasted longer. The foreboding that had gripped her as her body changed now realized itself. These were tears of realization: A baby grew within her. Now she was certain. The home pregnancy test was positive. Her crying spilled over from her bed to her shower. There the tears flowed with the water. Splashes drowned out her sobs and sniffles. She pushed back from offering her sadness and loneliness to God, in a silent rebellion against her previous habits. Now, she felt she had borne enough. She could only ask Mary to step in where she was not worthy, to bring her calm.

Fear and dejection struck her again outside among the trees. She now paced the same steps her mother had walked while she herself had ridden inside, almost precisely twenty-five years before. Her mother had faced the same solitude, without a husband, under those same blossoming orange and grapefruit trees. The world had changed around them. More tourists’ cars sped by on the nearby road, faster and quieter. Wavy-Doos now bounced and hummed on the river. Staple guns now clapped on the roofs of the new riverside hotels. More wood storks and ospreys glided and chirruped above. Little else was different. To her unborn child, she could identify nothing that had improved the state of their ancestry in the past quarter-century.

She missed Jonathan. He had discovered some profound terror up north, it seemed. Whatever he found allowed him to abandon his fear and love of God; abandon all the feelings and reason he had evolved; abandon his almost-religion, with his first Eucharist only two days away; and abandon her.

Two days ago, Mike called her.

“Did Jonathan talk to you before he left for the Caymans?” he asked.

“What?”

“Did he say where Lana is?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Lana resigned. Panari made her Executive Vice President of Creative Development.”

“The Caymans?”

“That’s what his credit card trail says. And that’s where Paula is. What about Lana? I mean, I can’t comment on her, but the company isn’t pressing charges. Any corporate secrets she got from me were only public knowledge or low-end content, so she’s okay. Does Jonathan know how I can call her? I need to find her.”

Maureen hung up.

Then, this morning, the newspaper said that Vincula had been bought by BlackBoulder Scalptor Biodefense Systems, making them the #1 defense company in the world. The article quoted three named BlackBoulder sources who said that consolidation and rightsizing of entire administrative support departments, such as Marketing and Finance, had already begun.

The breezes. Maureen shook her head. Selling this land would break her heart.

Three developers called her in the last two weeks. The offers for the land, although not monumental, would pay for any expenses Uncle Pat would ever need, for a down payment on a small house inland, for the baby’s college, and maybe even Catholic school if the stock market kept going up. She and the baby could survive on a secretary’s salary.

She again inhaled the morning. Sunshine days from childhood were most memorable for her. Her first memories were dewy chilled early April mornings such as this. She romped in the high leafy grass between the trees with her Labrador dog and the children from the lots the hotels now occupied. Today, as then, a bouquet of budding citrus inflated her lungs. She walked over the grass and daisies, crossing the rows of the orchard.

One day in the shade of these flowering trees, she had proclaimed her fortune of being only three years old. She had felt lucky to have an entire life before her. Somehow, she had not realized that vision of a long life’s happiness. A third of her life had completed. What had she done? What vision could she offer her child?

The next two-thirds were before her. With it, she would bring forth life. But thousands of her orchids and morning glories here would never pray before the rising sun. Hundreds of spoonbills would never soar against her sky to land and fish in her streams. Millions of her white orange blossoms would never emit their bouquet and germinate fruit for millions of people to enjoy. But matter with life grew within her. A child would develop in her and because of her. It was a canvas on which she could create a loving, extraordinary being, purely with love.

She bowed her head, closed her eyes. She sighed, and told God she was thankful for what He had graced her with: love, life, and salvation. She thanked Him for sending His Son to suffer for us because she knew that her own suffering and great sins would be displaced because of that suffering. A gust of orange blossoms whisked through her. No, that breeze held roses.

The grass rustled. Someone approached. She bent to see the feet, three lines of trees away. She stifled a gasp. It was her husband. She shuffled near him, darted to another row, and hid. He jumped between trees to the next path. Again she ran to the next row. He followed and stood still again. She moved behind a tree trunk. He stalked through the grass, toward her, now away from her. She had won her childhood game. Finally, he stood near her surveying the grasses and morning glories, puzzled by her disappearance. She pounced from behind. He yelled, and they embraced.

“Where have you been?” she asked. “They’ve been looking for you. Mike told me you flew to the Caribbean with Paula.”

“No.”

“And I called that Greely. He said he believed it.”

“As if.” He pulled back and seized her hands. “How are our babies?”

“They’re fine. I mean, it’s fine. What, how did you know? I haven’t told anyone! Wait, babies?”

“Yes, babies,” he said, holding up two fingers. “Two.”

Maureen stood open-mouthed. “What?”

“I’ll tell you more later. And you won’t believe this: I met your mother. She’s in heaven. Few people on earth ever have the privilege to know such a thing about a loved one. But I was granted that, for you - and so much more.”

Maureen remained frozen there, huffing air.

“Maureen, I love you. But I don’t have much time. You haven’t sold this place, have you?

“Uh, no.” Her mouth parched.

“That’s good. I pray you never do. When were the police here last?”

“Um, what? No, not the police. Reporters. They wanted to publish your story.”

“Why? I’m a fugitive.”

“What for? First the newspaper said you’ d planted a virus. But the next day, the logs showed Curcio did it. Just before he died, his virus killed Magic Theater. All the source code got scrambled.”

Jonathan laughed, spun around, and fell on his back into the spongy grass.

“His eyes! Maureen, his dying eyes got us in the system. And that was the last thing he ever saw on earth.”

She bent, then straddled him in the dewy leafy grass. He laughed and rolled her over and kissed her. Four beings melted as one, for the second time.

THE END

Copyright © 2022 Christopher Rogers.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual events or localities or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.