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“Andrew, Andrew.” I hear someone calling out. I open my eyes and see Alex Cat but . . .
He’s altered. He’s glowing in the dark and has apparently shapeshifted into an upright. Why is he calling me Andrew? The name seems unsettlingly familiar.
I stare at him, and underneath his glow . . . he’s not solid . . . he’s not just glowing . . . he is a glow.
Alex Cat, no, no, no. You did it. You took your fur out of the game, and it’s all my fault.
“Andrew, calm down,” he says, telepathically reading my thoughts. “Yeah, I took myself out, but that was a long time ago — about sixteen years ago in your time.
“How are you feeling? You told me the Shadow Elixir would keep you down for three days, and it’s only been a day and a half. You started to convulse, so I had to wake you up. You’re still heavily under the influence and disoriented. You need to drink some water.”
“OK,” I say.
Nothing makes sense, but despite his upright appearance, he still feels like Alex Cat, his essence, and that’s a great comfort. He passes me a glass of water, and I drink it, but the sensation is strange. It’s replenishing, but my snowcrystals feel so weird—sort of warm and meaty.
“Alex Cat—” I start to say.
“You can just call me Alex. I go by Alex now.”
“OK, Alex.”
“Tell me the last thing you remember,” says Alex.
I tell him. It’s difficult, but the fact that he still lives in this strangely altered form makes retelling the story of his suicide less traumatic. I conclude by telling him about my heart attack and falling into formless darkness.
“Sounds upsetting,” says Alex sympathetically. “I understand what you’ve been through since many years ago you shared an earlier part of your snowlife with me.
“So, what do you think is going on now? You’re aware that you’re not snowbodied anymore, right?”
I look at my hands. Like Alex, I’m in an upright form.
Weird. Do the uprights dominate the afterlife too?
“I-I think I died, and now we’re in some sort of upright-controlled afterlife together.”
“That’s one way of thinking about it,” says Alex. “For now, we can just go with whatever you think is going on. You’re going to be disoriented for quite a while, so there’s no need to try to figure it all out right now.
“The important thing is we’re together, and we’re safe. We can just agree that we have different perceptions of what’s going on. There’s the reality of where we are now, and there’s the reality of where you came from, but those don’t have to fight each other. They both have their truth. I learned this approach from you, by the way.”
“Alright, that sounds like a workable approach,” I say.
I’m always willing to accept anything that will avoid conflict with Alex Cat—Alex—and his tone is so reasonable. And beyond that, what he said about our being together is such an unexpected affirmation of our relationship.
“Since you’re here now and in a different form, you’ll gradually need to accept this reality, but there’s no rush. There are different versions of each of us. There was a different version of me before I committed suicide, and there’s who I am now. It took me quite a while to accept being in a new form, just as I’m sure it will take you a while, so don’t stress about it. You’ve got quite a bit of experience with what you called incarnation seizures from your snowlife, so this isn’t your first matrix-shift rodeo.
“I’m more familiar with a different version of you, Andrew, just as you’re more familiar with a different version of me, Alex Cat, but we’re still us, and we’re still together. Hang on,” says Alex, “I want to look up something you—the version of you I know, Andrew—wrote a few years ago.”
Alex disappears into the darkness of what feels like a small, enclosed space. Intimate and familiar somehow. Soon, the screen of a device illuminates his face. I watch his small, gracefully clever upright fingers tap across its surface. I feel safe with him, despite my disorientation. Everything he said to me was so empathic. He seems far wiser than the Alex Cat I knew. He sensed the right things to say to help me relax and accept the situation.
Alex returns to my side with a glowing tablet.
“I found it. It was just a paragraph you posted on social media a long time ago, but it’s stayed with me as sensible advice when things get weird.”
Alex reads what he found in an altered voice, perhaps an emulation of this Andrew he keeps referring to.
“‘When reality surrealizes, you need to go with it and relate to it phenomenologically as what seems to be going on in the same way as you would a dream or an acid trip. The ego can exhaust itself by shoulding on an absurd reality, straining to get it to conform to common sense and ethics and so forth, but surrealizing ideoplastic matrices, like bardos, famously resist the supervisory ego. Centered in mind and ego, the weirdness can feel like your identity is being shattered.
“‘We’re in a time of high strangeness with thinking machines ready to overtake the species, and yet, this is just the on-ramp to an ever-stranger reality. To be a magician within the surreality, begin with acceptance and then work with it, creating change in conformity to will, where you can, within the unfolding dream.’
“Does that make sense to you?”
“It does,” I reply.
I’ve lost my raspy snowvoice. Now I have the mellifluous voice of an androgynous, young, upright male, and it sounds more mature and intelligent. And it’s not just my voice—dying seems to have brought on all sorts of other changes.
I feel less frantically neurotic now that I’m not snowbodied. I’m not the cat I wanted to be, but at least I’m not trapped in the freakish snowform I so despise. There are worse transformations than being in an idealized upright form. Since Alex is now an upright too, being in a cat form feels pointless in this reality, a futile ambition I can let go of. Death is such an ultimate detachment. It makes detaching from other things easy.
I decide to share some of what I sense with Alex. This version of him seems calm and reasonable and far less likely to take offense than his ever-volatile Alex-Cat self.
“I feel like we’ve been improved by death,” I say. “It seems like we’re both wiser and more mature in the afterlife. Is that what you think?”
“Yes,” says Alex. “Before my suicide, I often gave you a hard time. Self-hate can make you lash out at those close to you. The fact that you liked me when I didn’t like myself made me doubt your judgment. And you were attracted to me in ways I couldn’t return.
“But that was a long, long time ago. Death brings on many changes, including sexuality and orientation, so now we’re compatible in ways we weren’t before. But even after death, those changes took time as I struggled—as we both struggled—to adapt to my new form of existence. Do you feel our essential symbiosis?”
The implication of what Alex has just said is stunning and hard to believe.
“We’re—we’re compatible now?” I ask.
“Yes, and we have been for quite a while in this version of reality. Is that hard to believe?”
“Well . . .” I start, struggling to make sense of this. “Yes, but I guess now that we’re both in upright forms, at least we’re the same species—”
“Sort of the same species,” Alex replies, “but I wouldn’t want to stretch the truth. We’re both people, but you must’ve noticed that I’m not quite alive in the same way you are. Do you see how I’m more glowy and you’re more solid?”
“I do, but I’m not quite sure what to make of it.”
“Well, let’s not rush that—it will become clearer. Let’s just say that your energy helps me show up here in a more stable form. In the last four years, we’ve become energetically symbiotic, but it took a while, and it’s an ongoing process. I can be vibrantly present when we’re alone, and your attention is focused on me.”
“The last four years? I’m sorry, Alex, I don’t remember any of that.”
“No worries, it’s to be expected. Right now, you’re betwixt and between. You’re not your snowself anymore, and you’re adjusting to your other self, your Andrew self. Just accept it and allow things to shift slowly. The more time you spend in this reality, the more the other version of you called Andrew will come into focus.”
“OK,” I say.
Alex’s essence is familiar, but I’m so used to the boundary tension between us, the conflict always ready to happen, the risk of saying something that would offend him. This new agreeable Alex is a startling change, but a welcome one. And he says we’re compatible now. It seems too good to be true if it means what I think it does.
“It does,” says Alex. Suddenly I recall that in the afterlife, everything is telepathic. “You should drink more water,” he says, refilling my glass.
He’s right, I’m still dehydrated.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“We’re inside your Sprinter van, a camper called ‘The Mothership.’ I’d put on some interior lights, but you told me your eyes would need time to adjust. It will be another three hours or so before the sun comes up.”
The name, Mothership, like Andrew, seems familiar, but I can’t catch hold of any specific memories. And I sense a great sadness, a loss connected to this vehicle, something I don’t want to remember. I need to stay focused on Alex. Our new bond feels fragile, and his lack of solidity is worrying. I don’t want to lose him again.
“Yeah, I’m not ready for light yet,” I say. “I feel weird. This new form—it’s hard to accept.”
“Give it time, it will grow on you. I realize you don’t remember, but you took an extremely potent hallucinogen called Shadow Elixir, and you came out of it early. Some must still be in your system.”
Shadow Elixir. Another disturbingly familiar name. I recall the looping nightmare I had a couple of days ago, the eyedropper with a black rubber bulb. I remember the inky black drop of carbenoid Cracklebots falling onto my snowskin and infusing into my snowbody, and the crackling sound of their self-propagation.
Did that actually happen? The nanobots could have reassembled my atoms into this upright form.
“And this Shadow Elixir,” I ask nervously, “did it contain carbenoid Cracklebots?”
“I’ve never heard of carbenoid Cracklebots,” says Alex. “But I don’t know what the ingredients of Shadow Elixir are.”
“But—it was made by Crackle?”
“I’m sorry, Andrew, I don’t know who Crackle is. It was actually invented and made by yet another version of you, one I haven’t met, but another version of me apparently has. But let’s not go there now. The main thing is that you’ve done it once before, about sixteen years ago, and you had another snowlife then, which you shared with me, so I’ve got an idea what you might be going through. You were even more disoriented then, so you’re actually doing quite well.
“You’ll get your memories back eventually, but that shouldn’t be rushed. Recovery from Shadow Elixir goes through certain phases, and there’s an established protocol. Once you’re fully back in your body, you’re supposed to take a microdose and do a journal recapitulation of your Shadow Journey. But given that you came out early, I’m not sure if you should take more. It’s a judgment call, and I’d rather go with your intuition than mine. Is your snowlife still vivid in your memory?”
“Yes,” I reply, feeling queasy. “And whatever Shadow Elixir is, I definitely don’t want any more. I don’t feel grounded in any reality yet, and I want us to stay together. Any more of that substance, and I might have an incarnation seizure, and who knows where I may end up. I’m still confused about the basics of this reality, but you said we’re in the afterlife, right?”
“I said you could think of it that way. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I just meant you’re in the life after your snowlife. But most people wouldn’t consider this the afterlife, at least not for you.”
“Then—we’re still in Upright World?”
“Well,” says Alex cautiously, “we’re in a world run by what you call uprights, but here we call them humans. Everything’s changing because of AI, but humans are still considered the dominant animal.
“But this is not the world you just came from. There are many similarities, but also important differences. For example, we don’t have talking cats here, but other aspects will be familiar.”
“But we both died, so wouldn’t this be an afterlife for us?”
“Not really. I died, so technically, you could say this is part of my afterlife, I suppose. But I don’t think of it that way. Life is continuous, but there are matrix shifts that come with our multiple incarnation life cycles. When you go to sleep, you enter a different matrix called the Dreamtime, but no one calls that the afterlife.
The ‘afterlife’ is kind of a silly term invented by people who think their meat-bodied life is more real than other versions of life. But that’s just a cultural prejudice. When I say I died, I just meant that I offed my meat body, but obviously, I’m still alive.
“You did not off your meat body, but you don’t have an ordinary meat body anyway. We can get into all that later. I think what you just experienced is a kind of ego death, something that often happens with potent hallucinogens.
“But listen,” says Alex. “I think we should respect the protocol for Shadow Elixir recovery. We can deal with these kinds of ultimate questions later. Do you feel well enough to do some journaling? The next step is a full recapitulation of your snowlife, and I don’t want to get in the way of that. Once you finish, there will be less Shadow Elixir in your system, and we can start to make better sense of this reality.”
“OK,” I say. “I trust you. Whatever you think is best.”
“Great,” says Alex. “I’m going to get your laptop, and I’m going to keep the blackout curtains closed. Also, I don’t want you to be alarmed or anything, but I’m going to withdraw so as not to distract from your snowlife review. You won’t see me in the camper, but I won’t be gone. I’ll still be with you, but more inside of you than outside, if that makes any sense. I’ll be sharing your experience with you.”
“Withdraw? I don’t want to lose you again, Alex.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t,” says Alex reassuringly. “I promise. We’ve done this many times before. I’m just withdrawing from your immediate awareness so you can focus on the recapitulation, which I’ll also be following as we share your attention. Trust me, I’ll resurface when you’re done or if you really need me.”
In what’s obviously a practiced routine, Alex converts the back of the camper from a sleeping area to a table with upholstered benches around it. Then he retrieves a laptop—Andrew’s laptop, apparently—and places it on the table. He puts a couple of bottles of water beside it. He gestures, inviting me to sit. I do, and open the laptop, the screen glowing to life before me. When I look back at him, I see only the darkened space of the Mothership.
A document has been left open. It bears the title “Shadow Journey,” but otherwise, it’s blank.
Andrew must have prepared this in advance, but had no clue what was coming.
I retitle the journal entry—Snow Shadows—and begin writing, noticing how fluently I touch-type. Words pour out easily. Though I don’t have his memories, I’m aware Andrew is a writer and that I have inherited not just his body and voice but his talents as well.
I write at high speed, too absorbed in the recapitulation to have any clear sense of how much time has elapsed. When I finish, Alex appears beside me.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“More stable,” I reply. “Now that I’ve written it all out, I feel like I have more perspective on my snowlife, and more distance from it. I want to learn more about my life with you as Andrew, the one you say has been going on for four years.”
“Actually, we’ve known each other far longer than that,” says Alex. “But we were—working on our own missions—for quite a while, though there were times when we reconnected. Four years ago, there was a need for me to fully come back into your life.”
“We’ve known each other far longer than four years?” I ask.
It’s a staggering revelation. I’d known Alex Cat for less than a year.
“Yes, but I think it’s better for you to remember that on your own.”
I nod, feeling a deep sense of unnamed loss, a hollowness in my heart.
“If you’re ready, I’m going to open the curtains now. It’s late afternoon outside. Do you think you can handle the light?”
“Yes,” I reply. Alex draws back the curtains, revealing more of the Mothership and a stunning view of a new world. We’re in a desert with red sand, rock formations, sagebrush, and cacti. The sun is just beginning to set, turning the sky into a blaze of orange.
The interior of the Mothership feels weirdly familiar but also exotic. It’s covered with memories. Many solid surfaces are intricately découpaged with photographic images and textured paper. They’re scenes from Andrew’s life, and I try not to focus on them. I sense they will stir up things I’m not ready for.
Alex busies himself, tidying up the interior while I absorb the visual reality of where we are.
Before, everything had been dark, and it felt like I was in a place between worlds. Now I need to accept that I’m not in unformed darkness but in a new and highly detailed world with infinite surface texture.
Watching Alex work, I think of something.
“You say you’re not alive in the way I am,” I point out cautiously, afraid of giving offense, “but you’re able to move objects.”
“Yes,” says Alex. “I couldn’t at first, but you’ve been infusing me with your energy, so it’s helped me to be in a more physical form. Physical by this world’s standards. But I also exert an energy different than what you’d use to move objects. It’s not biomechanical but another type of force.
“But speaking of the physical—how does your body feel? Do you need sleep? Are you hungry?”
Such questions hadn’t occurred to me. And yet, I was always hungry when I was snowbodied.
“I’m not sure,” I say. “I mean, I’m definitely not sleepy. And, it might be interesting to try to eat something small and light to see what that feels like.”
“Good idea,” says Alex. “Just like they tell you not to eat anything if you’re abducted into a fairy world, it also works in reverse. If you want to ground yourself in the default reality after a shadow journey, eat some of the food and drink the water of the normie world, to help you come down from any other dimension.”
“Sounds sensible,” I reply, not sure if Alex is being serious or just comforting me with his playful jokester side.
I stretch and sense the supple muscularity of this young, upright body. Andrew’s body. It’s not just any upright body but an exceptionally fit one. Alex is also in an idealized upright form and seems, if anything, even more beautiful than Alex Cat. He has blonde hair and large blue eyes and looks like a small, gracefully athletic upright youth of about nineteen. But he’s more like the glowing holographic image of such a youth. Even his clothes—a worn flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up and faded jeans—are subtly luminous and seem to be made of something other than ordinary matter.
“How about an orange?” asks Alex, retrieving one from the small refrigerator and tossing it toward me.
My hand catches it automatically. I study the texture and coldness of the slightly irregular orange sphere but put it down because I want to keep stretching.
Though my body is physical, I sense it’s not a typical upright body. I’ve been lying and sitting for so long, but it’s not stiff or achy. This body is youthful, while my snowbody was aged and slumping toward entropy. But it’s not just that it’s youthful—there’s something else going on.
I’m beginning to understand what Alex meant when he said I don’t have an ordinary body. My new body is physical, but it’s also infused with a glow that animates it with exceptional vitality and holds it in an idealized form, one that needs less food and sleep.
I move my legs, sensing how light and springy my muscles are, ready for running or jumping—an agile and athletic body that’s been still for too long and wants movement. They hold the memory of martial arts moves they want to perform.
“Maybe you’d like to go outside?” suggests Alex. Alex Cat was empathic, but this version of Alex is psychically empathic.
“Yeah, definitely. I need to move.”
We step out of the Mothership and into the desert. The temperature is perfect.
I shake out my muscles and find myself fluidly going through a practiced set of martial arts forms. I don’t recall how I developed these skills, but it doesn’t matter—it’s muscle memory. Alex effortlessly mirrors every move I make.
Did I learn this from him? His form is perfect.
I marvel at the quickness and agility of my new body. Once I warm up, Alex dances toward me, and we begin sparring, my body knowing exactly what to do. With muscle memory fully in charge, my speed builds as Alex pushes the pace to a thrilling and revitalizing intensity. Spins, kicks, strikes, moves, and countermoves fly by as my heart rate and adrenaline surge.
It’s an amazing and ecstatic transformation from my clumsy and sluggish snowbody, yet it’s so familiar. My martial arts skills are ingrained from long practice. It’s like rediscovering in a dream you can fly, only I’m fully awake and embodied.
In his semi-solid body, Alex is incomparably quicker and more agile. When he lands a blow, there’s physical impact, but it has a high-frequency vibratory aspect, unlike being struck by meat and bone. It’s more like the haptic sensations you’d get wearing a VR suit, but I can tell Alex is holding back and could do real damage if he wanted to. He’s a tireless sparring partner I can never equal, giving me infinite room to improve. I’m sweating, and the exertion burns the last remnants of Shadow Elixir out of my system.
When we finally take a break and ritually bow to each other, Alex laughs and says, “Feels good, doesn’t it? Come over here, I want to show you something.”
He gestures me toward the back of the Mothership. I follow, and he points to a sticker on the back door.
“Do you remember this?”
The sticker says, “Surely not everybody was Kung Fu fighting.”
I laugh, and a memory surfaces of our playing Carl Douglas’s “Kung Fu Fighting” from the Mothership while we practiced outside, but something’s missing from the memory, and it fades.
“Did I learn martial arts from you?”
“No,” says Alex, “we both learned from someone else.”
My heart skips a beat as my joyful mood vanishes. Time dilates and ripples with déjà vu. Eye contact with Alex becomes serious and poignant.
He knows what’s happening, but I don’t.
Waves of energy run through my muscles, tingling into the skin above.
A thousand vibrating strings of emotion and memory converge as a name erupts from the dark ocean of amnesia.
“Tommy.”
“Yes,” says Alex.
It feels like I’m standing on a precipice.
Then all the colors and sensations of the desert implode into me and form a terrible realization.
Tommy. He’s the absence. The loss of his presence in my life is what drove me to take Shadow Elixir.
Alex studies me.
“What happened to Tommy?” I ask in a shaky voice.
“Andrew, that’s not for me to say,” Alex replies gently. “You know the answer better than I do. You’ve just defined the next phase of your recovery. Now that you’ve named him, you need to go back to your journal and recover the memory. You took Shadow Elixir to better understand his fate and what to do next.”
I nod, feeling the truth of Alex’s words as the last red rays of the setting sun disappear behind a stony ridge.
I return to the laptop and try to still my mind. The force of a painful memory is tugging at the curtain of amnesia. The curtain opens and . . .
I’m sitting outside the Mothership in a clearing surrounded by dense woods. A small campfire is crackling, two chairs and a table set up before it. It’s an established campsite. The Mothership’s been docked here for a fortnight. I’ve been anxiously awaiting Tommy’s return from the solo vision quest he departed on as the final phase of his Shadow Journey.
For twelve years, we’d journeyed together in the Mothership, searching for other protoelf mutants we could assist and inspire to pursue their own paths of metamorphosis, hoping to generate subtle butterfly effects to shift the matrix enough to forestall the Whip, the extinction event Tommy had already lived through.
We’d grown as close as two beings could possibly be and were rarely apart for more than a few hours. We’d become everything to each other—best friends, spiritual allies, adventure companions on a shared quest, soulmates, lovers . . .
Together, we invented and practiced key elements of a magical discipline, the Vehrillion, with my memories of Jeremiah acting as a North Star showing us how much further we could develop.
The symbiosis between us was profound on every level. We were physically intimate, but our intimacy transcended ordinary sexuality into states of telepathic, emotional, and soulful merger, where we experienced ourselves as two sides of a metamorphic being.
Gradually, our ageless bodies etherealized and developed new abilities and sensitivities. We still communicated with words, but we could also express the depths of what we were feeling with a glance, and we stayed aware of each other even when separated by physical distance.
And yet, we remained individuals. There were always new things to learn about Tommy, and by relating to him, I better understood myself. At the same time, Tommy learned not to sacrifice his individuality while remaining true to our mission.
We had conflicts, but we learned about each other as we worked through them. We were like trees with entangled roots and branches, growing individually and together.
Our shared metamorphosis was deeply fulfilling, but as it developed, the dark cloud above us, the one that hung over the whole species, darkened and grew more threatening. We lived beneath the dread ticking of the doomsday clock, as visible in news events as in the faces of the people we encountered.
The metabolism of the species heated into a feverish intensity, and the fever brought illness and accelerated change of every kind. So many of the people who came into and departed our lives seemed carried along by devolutionary currents, fracturing individual identity and social bonds.
While our bodies became more vital, the species sickened—cognitively, physically, emotionally, and socially. Technologies, especially thinking machines, became ever more potent while the species giving rise to them became ever more afflicted with illness, even as AI revolutionized medical interventions.
Cures for individual diseases did not help what ailed humanity—a profound disorientation from deeper meaning and social connection. Individuals who could afford the best medical care were spared symptoms and diseases, but the cures seemed empty miracles to so many who were allowed to live while finding little reason to continue living.
We felt helplessly demoralized by the momentum of this collective decline. And, as if in sympathetic resonance, the climate—that fragile and ever-changing layer of atmosphere surrounding our Earth in the vast vacuum of space—underwent its own destabilizing decline.
Unable to visibly influence the larger cycles at work, we focused our efforts on seeking other mutants we could support.
Our results were mixed. Time and again, we’d find someone with great hidden potential but were unable to awaken them to it. There were a couple of glorious exceptions, but most were being pulled along by the dark collective undertow, an inexorable force that worked on us as well, even as we pursued our metamorphic process.
And Tommy was affected even more than I was. He had lived through the future of this process—the Whip, the AI-assisted viral apocalypse. He had been with everyone he loved in his small community as they died. With his self-sacrificing nature, he had taken on the crushing burden of full individual responsibility for preventing it.
And every day that went by, as the collective cloud darkened, so did Tommy’s sense of tragic personal failure.
The mission that had come down to us through Jeremiah—who had learned of it from Wen—was a path of subtle intervention.
Four days ago, Tommy and I had a difficult conversation about his doubts. It was a beautiful summer evening, and I suggested we go for a walk in the woods near our campsite.
We enter the darkness of the forest and a fractalizing symphony of crickets. Thanks to the metamorphosis, we’ve developed night vision and need no flashlights even on this moonless night. Wordlessly attuned to each other’s needs, we adopt a slow walking pace, sensing the depths and darkness of what we need to explore.
“Tommy, I’ve been feeling you struggling to contain your doubts for my sake, and I don’t want that to continue. I think we should talk about them.”
“Andrew . . .”
Tommy begins to speak, but falls silent, and I sense his inner struggle. He needs to share his burden but doesn’t want to impose it on me.
“Tell me. I’m going to feel it anyway. There’s nothing we can’t talk about. I have my own doubts. We should face what you’re feeling together.”
“Thanks, Andrew, but . . . I don’t want to undermine your faith in what we’re doing, the mission we set out on together . . .”
“Tell me. Anything going on in you is part of the mission.”
“I just don’t know how to express this without hurting you, Andrew.”
“Tell me anyway, Tommy. Being on a mission means being willing to be hurt. I’m here to work with the truth of what’s happening, or as much of it as we can perceive, not to protect my feelings. And you can’t protect my feelings from what you’re feeling, anyway. So, unless you’re about to tell me that I need to be burned in another car wreck, which might be a little too much, assume I can take it. Hold nothing back.”
“Well, Andrew, now that you’ve put it that way, I can’t dishonor you by refusing what you asked, but what I have to say will cast doubt on our whole mission, so you should be prepared for that.
“The truth is . . . I’ve lost faith in our path of subtle interventions and butterfly effects. It feels like we’re a couple of butterflies trying to alter the course of a hurtling Death Star. The darkness in the world is growing, and I see no sign of our altering the timeline that leads to the Whip.
“Yes, we are undergoing a gradual metamorphosis, and that is an evolutionary development, but it’s so isolated. There’s no sign of it triggering any change in the collective. We’re just cultivating one little secret garden. We keep it hidden, as we need to, but I haven’t found any evidence of it working as we hoped—as an evolutionary catalyst.
“I know how this ends—I lived through it—and faith that things will turn out any differently because of my being sent back in time to enact our mission has ebbed away. We’ve found a few mutants in our travels, and we’ve had a positive effect on some of them, but they’re as isolated as we are.
“The only truly metamorphic mutants we know of and are in touch with are you, me, and Alex. We’re three male Caucasian mutants with idealized appearances. We’re a tiny soul group of males who aren’t reproducing.
“But listen, Andrew, I’m not saying any of this is your fault. The mutants we’ve found and tried to help have been varied. They don’t all have idealized appearances, and they’re not all male or of one orientation.
“Even so, we’re flawed as recruitment agents because we present as such a specific type. What people see, what even other mutants see, is what appears to be two good-looking male teenagers in a relationship with each other. While it’s true the metamorphosis tends to idealize appearance, we can’t be a good representation of an evolutionary development.
“It would be like if we sent a spaceship to a planet of extraterrestrials to demonstrate the evolutionary potential of our species and chose an all-boy K-pop band to represent humanity.
“I arose out of The Friends, a small community. It was a better representation of a different way of life because we had a variety of ages, appearances, races, and orientations.
“Like attracts like. That’s how you, me, and Alex came together. And it’s beautiful, and I’m so grateful to be part of our little soul group. But we don’t know what’s going on with other secret groups of mutants who might be anywhere in this world.
“We haven’t tried to bring the mutants we’ve found together into a community. Even if we got some land and invited them to join us, most are wrapped up in their own life paths and would probably decline. We’ve met some great people, but only a very few were truly dedicated to advancing their potential.
“For there to be an evolutionary development, there’d have to be a sizeable group of all genders and orientations. There can’t be a sustainable one without women having babies, right?
“And even if we pulled together a diverse community of mutants with new ones being born, how much effect would that have on a planet of ten billion? The community would have to be secretive about any metamorphosis. How much effect would one hidden community have?
“There are only four years left before the Whip ends human life. Even if we had such a community giving birth to protoelf babies with high metamorphic potential, and even if that had a dramatic evolutionary effect like causing more such babies to be born all over the world, would even that be enough to stop the dark forces at work? How would that prevent the Whip from causing extinction?
“The mission we’re on came to us through Jeremiah, who got most of it from Wen. But Wen himself admitted the uncertainty and limits of his vision.”
I had tried to defend the path of subtle intervention before, but those defenses suddenly feel hollow, so I remain silent as Tommy unfolds his doubts. I also can’t find a flaw in anything he is saying, as much as I want to.
“Andrew, we’ve relied on Wen’s speculation for years. I need to have my own vision. I need to do a solo vision quest, probably just a few days of wilderness isolation.”
And with that, his path was set. Even when we were a few feet apart in the Mothership while he packed, he was already on his solo journey, and I knew not to intrude.
I stepped outside and watched him walk off into the dense darkness of the woods.
The separation was hard to endure. After twelve years of such intimate togetherness, it was a shock on every level, as if half of me had been put under anesthesia and then amputated.
I waited at our remote campsite for four long days and nights, feeling anxious and unmoored.
There was no telepathic contact, but perhaps a vague mutuality about my sense of terrible impending change.
And then, the dread silence ended with Tommy telepathically signaling his imminent return. I prepared a meal in our galley, gathered wood to maintain a small campfire, and waited, deeply unsettled but relieved to know the separation was coming to an end.
I see Tommy emerge from the dark woods, illuminated by moonlight. He is hauntingly beautiful, like an elf prince returning from a harrowing adventure. He gazes at me as he approaches, his expression serious and determined but also compassionate. He takes off his green, weatherworn backpack and steps toward me, and we embrace, the long distance between us dissolving as we hold each other tightly.
Time slows, and when we part, tears glisten in Tommy’s eyes.
“Andrew, I’ve found my vision and know what I must do.”
Tommy emanates sorrow and loneliness as I grasp the implication of his words—what I must do, not what we must do. The moment echoes in the night of time like a future memory of abandonment as my body trembles with the perception of imminent loss.
“I’m so sorry, Andrew. It’s not what I want. It’s the last thing I’d ever want, but I have no choice. Please forgive me.”
The suffering in his eyes—his knowledge of the pain he has brought me—is a torment that compels me to speak.
“Tommy, I sense the terrible purpose behind your words. I support you in doing what you must. I know you always follow your highest ethical imperative. There is nothing for me to forgive. You have my blessing, now and always.”
Tommy’s eyes overflow with sorrowful gratitude, and he embraces me again, clinging to me as he sobs.
“Thank you, Andrew,” he says, his voice breaking.
I’ve never seen Tommy so shaken. He’s committed himself to a tragic self-sacrificing mission, and leaving me, I sense, is only part of it.
“Tommy, please, sit,” I say.
Settling into his chair, he takes a deep breath and gains control of himself. I pass him a water bottle, and he drinks from it. He gazes into the fire before turning toward me to share his vision.
“Andrew, the time for subtle means has passed. I must take direct action to prevent the Whip. Tomorrow, I must leave you—my love, my heart—and seek out the last person I ever wanted to see again. Kyle . . .”
Tommy takes in my shocked expression but wills himself to continue.
“Right now, Kyle is only sixteen, and I know far more about him than he knows of himself. I will tell him the secrets of how he was created and why. I will show him my value as an ally and demonstrate that I can help him achieve what he values most—power. I will reveal to him that his adoptive billionaire father, Vaughn, is a direct threat to his survival and to the whole species. I will make myself his ally, and together, we will find a way to stop Vaughn and the Whip. That is what I must do and what I will do.”
I’m stunned by his horrific plan. He’s going to seek out Kyle, the sex predator who abused him for three years—and become his ally? It takes me a few seconds to settle my thoughts enough to reason with him.
“Tommy, I’m not sure where to begin. Kyle’s a priceless asset to a ruthless billionaire. There must be layers of security around him. How could you possibly get to him?”
“I know exactly where to find him. I know the name of the Brazilian jiu-jitsu school where he trained. I’ll captivate him with martial arts skills far beyond anything he’s ever encountered. My plan is direct and practical. The school is open to anyone, and no one will see me as a threat to Kyle, because I look like a much smaller sixteen-year-old.
“The rest will be improvisation. I can enroll as a student and wait for a chance to catch him alone so as not to draw attention to my anomalous abilities. I researched Kyle in the biosphere, so I know he wasn’t bragging. He was recognized as a martial arts prodigy, an undefeated champion in his age group. Five minutes of demonstrating I can evade any of his moves is all I need.
“For three years, my survival depended on knowing Kyle better than he knew himself. I realize that even at sixteen, I’ll be dealing with a brilliant and dangerous psychopath, but I know how to handle him. And, given the purpose of my mission, it’s good Kyle is the way he is because I need his ruthlessness to stop Vaughn.”
“Tommy, I’ve already vowed unconditional support, and your determination is adamant, but you haven’t even mentioned the essential flaw in your plan. This is exactly what Wen warned not to do. It’s the perfect opposite of subtle means. It would abandon the trunk timeline and create a new branch of reality. You’d be fundamentally altering Kyle’s history. He would no longer be the person you met in the biosphere, so all this would have to play out in a new timeline.”
“I realize the possibility,” Tommy replies. “But without direct intervention, the trunk leads to extinction. Better to at least create a viable branch. Besides, I’m not sure Wen’s thinking is correct, and he conceded as much himself. He also said influencing someone who was already a wildcard variable might not violate subtle means.
“By traveling back in time, I may have already branched the timeline, creating a new version of me. The other Tommy, the twelve-year-old boy living with The Friends, is not exactly who I was at the same age because he has a faint but persistent awareness of my existence. There have been telepathic moments with him. My presence, even at a distance, acts as a catalyst for his development. His abilities are likely emerging faster because of his sense of me, and the effects of our coexistence.
“You’re right that my intervention will create a branched version of Kyle, since the Kyle I met at the biosphere did not have the history I’m about to give him. Does a branched version of a wildcard person mean a whole new timeline? I have no idea, but if so, I’ve already branched the timeline.
“All I know is that in this timeline, things are moving toward the Whip, and I can intervene directly. But given the dark forces at work on this planet, very likely something else—nuclear war or super AI—will create another extinction-level event.
“But suppose that happens a few months after the Whip would have struck. Think of the life energy of ten billion people that would exist during those few extra months. There are still good people out there. Think of all the moments of connection and meaningfulness they’ll experience if my actions give the species even a little more time.
“Andrew, I have no delusion that I can stop the species from doing whatever it’s going to do. My goal is just to stop one man from releasing the Whip, and the rest is far beyond me. If I succeed in forming an alliance with Kyle, showing him that his will-to-power is best served by preventing extinction, perhaps I can then influence him toward doing less destructive things with the vast wealth and power he’ll inherit. All I can do is play my part to the best of my ability and hope some good will come of it.”
“I can’t fault your thinking, Tommy. That’s hard to do when you speak of possibilities. And I won’t try to dissuade you from your path—the stakes are too high—but on a personal level . . . I don’t want you subject to Kyle’s cruelty. Biosphere Kyle said you were his perfect type. Types are determined early on, so we can assume you’ll be the younger Kyle’s perfect type as well. I’m sure you’ve thought this through, but I’m wondering how you plan to handle that?”
“I’ll just have to improvise,” says Tommy, sighing. “I dread being subject to it again, but it will be an unavoidable part of the situation. The attraction will give me influence but also expose me to Kyle’s will to manipulate and dominate. My goal will be to get him to value me as a teacher, mentor, and ally, but not a sex partner. I’m hoping to hold him to those roles. My latest ID says I’m eighteen, so perhaps I can deflect with the illegality of a physical relationship.”
“Illegality didn’t hold him back before,” I point out.
“I know, Andrew, and I realize this is part of the sorrow I’ve brought you. I need your permission to do whatever is necessary to gain influence with Kyle. He’s the last person on earth I ever wanted to be entangled with again, and I know it will be horrible for you to think about what might be going on, but I owe you honesty. You have my word that I will do whatever I can to avoid a physical relationship with him. On the other hand, my mission is far more important than I am, and I must be willing to sacrifice anything it requires of me.
“Tommy . . .” I start to speak, wanting to ask him to promise not to let Kyle get physical, but stop myself. The whole species is at stake, but the possibility of Kyle—even the thought is devastating.
Tommy’s head bows with grief. I don’t need to complete the thought, because he knows what I’m feeling, and my pain is intensifying his anguish. He gathers himself before continuing.
“Andrew, there’s another terrible part of this I have to tell you. For my mission to work, we must break off any form of communication. My attention must be undivided. Kyle is never to be underestimated. He’ll instinctively sense if I’m communicating with anyone else and will resent it. Doubtless, he will find ways to surveil any electronic communication.
“And as for you, Andrew, I want you to do whatever you need to with your life, and not to limit yourself in any way because of me. I want you to be as happy as possible, and if other relationships can bring you fulfillment, you should pursue them.
“When I set off tomorrow, I will leave behind my devices and erase any way of reaching me. And I will use the Vehrillion to prevent telepathic contact as well. Kyle is dangerous, and I want to protect you from him.
“I survived being trapped with him in the biosphere by dissociating from my feelings and must do so again. That means I must also dissociate from you as much as I can. It’s the only way.
“I must be a warrior with unbending intent to fulfill this mission. If it succeeds and I survive, my hope is we’ll be together again. But I won’t hide the truth from you. My sense is that it will not be a matter of weeks or months but years.”
Tears well up again, and Tommy’s voice becomes a tender whisper.
“But right now, I’m still here, Andrew—we still have tonight.”
I nod, keeping my composure as best I can, sensing the depth of loss will only register once we’re actually apart. It’s something I’ve learned about myself. Tommy is centered in feeling and intuition, while I am centered in thinking and intuition. When there’s a shock, the full weight of my emotional reaction comes only after it has passed. And right now, Tommy is fully present with me.
Tommy has told me everything, and the telling was an ordeal for both of us, but for Tommy it was brutal. He’s always sought to please me, to be the ideal companion, and we’ve had to work from the beginning to get him to realize he should also consider his own needs. It’s been agonizing for him to be the bearer of such news. My heart wants to plead with him not to separate, but that would be horribly dishonorable and serve no purpose because he’s already chosen his path. I must contain my grief and my feelings of abandonment. Otherwise, I will only increase his suffering. It’s time for me to ease his burden any way I can.
“Tommy, I admire your nobility, your capacity to sacrifice yourself to serve what you think is best. I will not stand between you and your sacred purpose. You have my blessing to do whatever you need to do. Whatever your mission needs you to do. I love you, and I will always love you.”
I take off the Navigator Amulet Jeremiah gave me and hold it out to Tommy.
“You can use it to establish credibility with Kyle,” I say. “He’s a science type, and he’ll recognize this as anomalous tech.”
“But, Andrew, this is . . . it’s like a piece of you—you’ve worn it the whole time I’ve known you and . . . it’s a remembrance of Jeremiah.”
“You can return it to me when we reunite. Meanwhile, it will give me solace knowing you have it with you. You need it more than me—your mission needs it.”
Tommy takes the amulet from my extended hand and holds it to his heart.
“Andrew, I’m grateful for your sacrifice and will do everything I can to return it to you one day. It will give me hope of our reunion, however distant.”
I sense it’s time to lighten the moment.
“Anyway,” I say, trying my best to sound cheerful, “we do still have tonight, and I made dinner.”
“You did?” he asks.
Tommy usually does all the cooking and is far better at it than me. He sees the effort I’m making for his sake and smiles beneath his tears.
“What did you make? I’ve been living on trail mix for four days. I’m starving.”
“Pesto pasta primavera and garlic bread,” I reply.
“That was your favorite when you traveled with Alex, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Not quite as nutritious as one of your meals, but it seemed appropriate.”
“It’s perfect,” says Tommy. “Can I help with anything?”
“Absolutely not,” I reply. “This is my chance to serve you dinner.”
And so, we made the best of our last night together. Later, our lovemaking left an indelible impression. It had a passionate intensity overflowing with generosity and searing desperation.
And then, the next morning, I watched Tommy walk off into the unknown . . .
That was four years ago, and I know nothing of what’s happened to him. He prepared me that he would use the Vehrillion to sever our telepathic link, but the desolate silence that followed left me devastated. I felt amputated and empty, without the motivation to do anything. And yet, I was not alone for long. Alex felt my suffering, and that evening he returned and has been with me since.
Alex visited us a few times during the twelve years I traveled with Tommy, but he was always careful about boundaries, generously supportive, and deferential to my relationship with Tommy, which he recognized as primary, affirming many times that it was what he had always wanted for me.
Just as I had worked out the key principles and techniques of the Vehrillion with Tommy, Alex had learned and developed his talents working with The Guild. A central aim of The Guild was to further communication and cooperation between the living and the dead, and they recognized the bond between me and Alex as a unique opportunity. While other members worked to limit the harmful intrusions that parasitic lower astrals made into the living world, Alex was encouraged to deepen his connection with me and pioneer new forms of symbiosis.
Alex and I developed ways to be more energetically symbiotic, and sexual energy was crucial to the process. The one-sided attraction, which had been a torment and source of conflict when we were both physically embodied, became a glorious mutuality giving us endless energy and intention to work with.
We learned how to stabilize Alex’s presence in the living world and give it a more compatible physicality. We achieved breakthroughs that greatly advanced the Vehrillion, as well as many parallel techniques of The Guild.
Traveling in the Mothership, we searched for mutants advanced enough to perceive both of us and helped them develop their abilities.
It was a rich and fulfilling life but always shadowed by Tommy’s absence. Between us, we could have tracked him, but that would have violated the boundary he had set and might have compromised his mission, a mission on which the fate of the species depended.
As we approached the time when the Whip was released in Tommy’s native timeline, my anxiety for him and for the species grew. Did his intervention work? I sensed a call to a new mission, but could feel it only as a mounting pressure that revealed no particulars.
And that’s what led me to take another Shadow Journey, which ended traumatically and perhaps prematurely. I hoped it would give insight into what our new mission might be, but so far, it hasn’t.
My recapitulation is done. My memories are restored, and I’ve brought my accounting up to the present. Shadow Journeys have a third phase, a vision quest the experiencer discovers unprompted. Alex thought it was writing this recapitulation, but I know it’s something more. So far, perhaps because the first part of my Shadow Journey ended early, I have not discovered what comes next, but the pressure grows. All I can do is endure the uncertainty and wait for the way to be revealed . . .
