Soul Factory The End: Part 1 of 3

[Grandiagod]

Feel free to comment.

Soul Factory


Introduction


The wind whipped the lush trees back and forth. An overcast sky hung overbearingly in the sky, threatening rain. The suburban neighborhood looked bleak, desolate and plain. It’s white, cookie cutter houses looked gray and dull. No cars sat on the street, not a soul was to be found in the whole neighborhood. Thunder rumbled off in the distance. Gray spots began to fleck the sidewalk. It began to rain. The clouds swirled madly. A gaping black maw began to form in the clouds. Then they began to pour out of the pitch black hole and time itself stopped in awe.

________________________________________________________________________

Chapter 1

I’m beginning to wonder if I should include irony on my resume. To start things off, I’m sitting in a Boeing 747 30,000 feet in the sky. I hate flying. The planes crowded. I hate people. I’m being crushed into my window seat by a morbidly obese middle-aged woman. I’m claustrophobic. Every ten seconds or so a small child is kicking the back of my seat. I hate kids. To top it all off, in my carry-on is the most important document ever printed, and I’m trying to rush it to some world leader to avoid total global obliteration. I hate responsibility.

Fat lady shifts in her seat squishing me against the window as if she wants to shove me out of it. I have had to go to the bathroom for about an hour now, but I am afraid that I won’t be actually able to squeeze out past the cellulite sentry. What I do have is my laptop on which to write my thoughts, though it is getting hard to type with my elbow tucked at a forty five degree angle to my body. I figure if this is the end of the world I might as well try to tell my story. My computer’s clock says six more hours until landing. I have five and a half until the world ends. A sigh of exasperation would be redundant.
Perhaps, as they say, I should begin at the beginning.
I hate clichés.

_____________________________________________________________________________________



In order to understand the exact characteristics of this situation you have to be informed that most everything you believe in is wrong. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it had to be said.

Most people believe in an afterlife. That’s where they get it right. Most people believe that your experience in the afterlife is directly related to choices made while living. Their wrong. When a person dies their “soul�, or rather a collective pattern of electrical synapses that have been created through genetics and life experience, are passed through a paper-thin dimensional barrier. This is all natural and somewhat instinctive for a person’s consciousness to do and if this was all that happened everything would be fine and I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this.

The dimension is, of course, very different than ours and life there consists of beings made entirely of energy. In this dimension, as on Earth, there are different beings that fulfill different niches and have different roles in order to keep the ecosystem functional. Several species of these creatures are intelligent, and even have their own societies and interspecies relationships. People on Earth actually know a couple of these beings. We call them Angels and Demons. For very good reasons actually. Eons and eons ago Angels emerged in their dimension, they achieved intelligence quite quickly and generally drifted around absorbing energy spilling into their realm from other dimensions. The Angels were and incredibly long lived race their lifespan measured in eons. Angels were also a generally peaceable race, not having any real competition, they focused most of their time on understanding the universe around them. They became aware of other dimensions and that the energy they consumed was overflowing energy from these dimensions. The Angels became aware of several dimensions with other intelligent beings in them. What surprised the Angels was that the beings in one dimension had surprising amounts of energy stored inside them. Us humans call the energy souls.

The Angels decided that this discovery warranted further study so they found a way to manipulate dimensional fabric in order for them to travel between dimensions. They found Earth. The Angels discovered that the type of energy humans stored could be consumed. However humans only released this energy when they left their corporeal bodies, retaining the “life pattern� where it floated away to parts unknown. The scientists reported that human energy could give Angels incredible power, however, to obtain the energy it would mean the destruction of a human soul, which carried all of a humans life pattern. The Angels, living up to their name, decided to leave the humans alone. However, as time passed some Angels lusted after the power that only a human soul could grant them. However the Angel leaders would not concede to the harvesting of another race for power. The power hungry Angels decided to form their own society separate from the other Angels, this was the birth of Demons.

The Demons and Angels fought a million year war over human souls. The Demons, driven by an insatiable lust for power, finally beat the Angels. This was about forty years ago.

Where do I fit in exactly? Well the Demons needed to collect human souls right? So years ago, Demon ambassadors came to see the leaders of the world’s major nations. They wanted a deal. Realizing that in order to have a steady food supply the human race still needed to prosper, they offered the leaders of the nations a deal. In exchange for not just coming and subduing humanity, they needed a steady string of souls to be delivered. Our fair leaders decided to form a multi-national “peacekeeping� entity to work behind the scenes as an instigator in civil, religious, territorial and any more types of conflicts that are usually solved with bloodshed. Meet the United Nations. The United Nations needed an ambassador to the Demons. Meet me. Hello, I am Michael Ricon. My official title is Ambassador to Demoncia.

To be cont...

[MalReynolds]

I really, really enjoyed the concept and would like to see where it is going.

That's not to say that you should hurry up and rush the next section out. Outside of a few grammatical errors, it was a nice, easy read.

Mal

[Anonymous]

Whoa, engrossing.

I just read it through again and again, just because of the ideas in there.

[FoJaR]

not to go off topic, but couldnt he just fax the document?

[Grandiagod]

Originally Posted by FoJaR

not to go off topic, but couldnt he just fax the document?

I'll get to that. Its not just a mere document. MUAHAHA...

[FoJaR]

is it written in virgin blood?

[Grandiagod]

No its not written in your blood.

[FoJaR]

i will neither confirm nor deny.

[Grandiagod]

I am expeimenting in a new writing style for me in this story, tell me if I start to mess it up.

Chapter 2


Very few people in the world know about the job I do. Apparently world leaders do not want their people to know they are being harvested for their souls. Go figure. Funny thing is, my job title and bio are still found in public records. I also have a nametag:

Michael Ricon, Official Ambassador to Demoncia

I thought this a funny occurrence to begin with, an ambassador to a place no one knows exists. It occurred to me that this might cause unnecessary suspicion, but while walking the halls of the United Nations for my first time, I met several people that eased my mind. They knew nothing about Demons. The conversations mostly went like this:

“Oh hello, My name is blank, I haven’t seen you around.�
“Hello, blank, I am the new ambassador to Demoncia.� Trying to hide my title would be pointless, with my nametag pinned on the breast of my suit.
“Good, well I hope that works well.�
‘Thank you.�
“Yes, I have to go now, nice meeting you.�

Apparently most people assume that Demoncia is just some backwater country they have never heard of. Instead of inquiring they act as if they had know about it all their lives in order to not appear stupid. Not one person has asked me about my job. That is the problem with most people, they are stupider than they would like you to know.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

My bio says that I am six foot two, one hundred and ninety-seven pounds, thirty six years old and I work as an ambassador to a place named Demoncia, and that I was appointed in 1997. My older bio says that I was appointed in 1985. An older bio says 1973. The U.N. has no respect for continuity. In actuality I was appointed thirty nine years ago, funny thing about working across dimensional lines. You tend to acquire immortality. I gained everlasting life at my first meeting with a Demon.

When I saw my first Demon, I was not really surprised. He was wearing a business suit. A loud tie was snug against his fatty neck. His hair grey and thinning. He introduced himself only as “Gary�. It was like a bad political cartoon. I now know that Demons only appear in a person’s mind. Well actually they interlock a portion of their energy matrix with the electrical synapses of the brain until they achieve synchronism and they work on the redirect of optical neurons to produce an image of themselves in any form they chose. To be exact.

We met in a particularly decorated hotel in some high rise hotel in some large city, like New York, Los Angeles, or maybe even Chicago. It was quite a while back. I do, however, remember the conversation that took place.

“So you are the new kid.�
I introduced myself and explained that I was.
“Such a formality, your title.�
I asked him why.
“We do not need ambassadors, we know more than any physical being. In actuality, you are more of an multidimensional errand boy.�
I inquired as to how that would work.
“My boy, do you think the U.N. just chose you at random?�
I told him I hoped they would put more forethought into it than that. I was such a witty bastard back then.
“My boy, your wrong, they didn’t pick you, we did. You are one of the few people on planet earth that has the right genetics for the job.� He paused as if to preempt his next words with a sense of drama. “You have the immortality gene, all we have to do is activate it. Then us Demons will have the most reliable errand boy in this dimension.�
I wanted to question him about that, but I was too busy rolling on the ground screaming in pain. Just to get the word out, having your cells and DNA rearranged is not the most pleasant of feelings. So I was quite relieved when I passed out.
My eyes felt as if they were still shut when I awoke and I saw Gary was standing over me. It took me a while to realize that my eyelids were, in fact, closed. I was too exhausted to be shocked.
“Well my boy,� I wished he would stop calling me that. “Welcome to your new life as one of the immortals.�

Thirty nine years later I still work as that one-dimensional errand boy for the pseudo political organization that has killed the most human beings to date. Two weeks ago my superiors informed me that I was going to perform my most important errand ever. That was when all hell broke loose. There is a pun there, but when you work for the people I work for, it has been done.

to be cont...

[jewpinthethird]

Michael Ricon

How'd you think up that name?

Very interesting concept. I didnt know you were so into writing.

[FoJaR]

Originally Posted by Grandiagod

Well actually they interlock a portion of their energy matrix with the electrical synapses of the brain until they achieve synchronism and they work on the redirect of optical neurons to produce an image of themselves in any form they chose. To be exact.

[FoJaR]

oh, and you should add something in there about descartes.

[Chromer]

Have you ever heard of using the Edit button?

[FoJaR]

yeah, but had i edited the second comment in, the would have lost it's full effect.

[Grandiagod]

Oh you guys.
There needs to be a Chromer vs. Fojar thread.

[MalReynolds]

The only part I would change would be the explanation of the routing of the synapses and whatever. Too Michael Crichton for the subject material.

And Gary said "My boy," as an opener twice.

Mal

[Grandiagod]

I was trying to add an element of sarcasm to the scientific explanation. Guess it didn't work.

[Anonymous]

you do get why i said that you should include descartes right?

[FoJaR]

dammit.

[Grandiagod]

The math guy?