At its heart, the world is not one of order. Chaos rules nature. The very laws of physics we define state this: the universe is always moving in the direction of chaos. But, as those laws also demonstrate, every and anything even remotely capable of trying attempts to impose some kind of order onto that chaos. Humanity has done the best at that. Hell, there are people out there that would argue we won that war. Those people are idiots, or ignorant. Because the chaos is still there, under the smothering order. And it is still struggling to get free. And those of us who study the ebbs and flows of nature and history know that it isn’t whimpering quietly. It’s got something in the works. And whatever is coming, humanity just isn’t prepared for. Because we’re in a war that no one thinks is happening. A war most people who talk about it think we’ve already one.
That’s what I thought, at least. Six days ago, I wrote that paper. It was more technical than that, of course, but it was about the inevitability of some society-altering event in the near future. It also included discussions on how to move through the event and come out the other side better. Because chaos has its own order to it, and if we accept that, we can use the chaos to improve our concept of order, make our structures of society better suited to the long term. When I wrote it, I was assuming a war. Some kind of uprising of people discontent with the current order. The chaos of war is most often the catalyst for change, after all. That chaos would disrupt humanity enough to cause lasting damage to our structures. I figured that would happen before any of the many ways our imposing of this particular brand of order ends up killing off the vast majority of humanity. And I suppose, in a sense, I was right. Just not in any other thing. Because chaos has a plan. Or more precisely, chaos already had a plan in motion. For quite some time.
I found out about its plan the most common way one finds out about an expertly kept secret. I found out I was always a part of it. I was on my way home from a conference, sitting in a seat on one of those far too small to be safe planes, when my concerns were shown to be entirely justified. One of the engines failed. The pilot said we would be heading in for a controlled emergency landing. Then something else made a loud popping noise, and that controlled landing became a nosedive. Instinctively, I went fetal in the hope that, whatever was happening, the crash might not actually kill me. I heard somewhere that plane crashes are mostly survivable, and that you just have to be worried about the stuff trying to kill you after you break your body. Only, when I felt the impact of the plane, shuddering and tearing the fuselage, and unfurled myself, I realized I wasn’t broken. I was fine. Looking around, I seemed to be the only one. On instinct, I got as many people as I could out of the plane, setting them up in a nice makeshift shelter for the moment. Before the rescue team arrived.
In almost no time, I thought they’d come, that I must have lost some time. I hadn’t. The small sci-fi-esque plane wasn’t here for them. It came in for a landing, and a middle aged man stepped out. “Doctor Edwards, don’t worry. We’re here to help you.”
“What about them?” I began to ask.
Before I finished the question, a van rolled up. The middle aged man shouted, “Shit, it’s the adversary!” Whatever that means. Their plane exploded, though only a little. I got down with the rest of my flight’s passengers. I watched as a large woman stepped out of the van, seemingly glowed, and grew bigger. While she fought with some people who seemed to throw metal and twist water with their minds, one of the others approached me. This one was a young woman, barely twenty. I could feel something in my head, a pressure. At the time, I had no clue what that was. “Hello, William. Will. I’m Helen. I hate to rush this, but we need to get you out of here. Save you from them.”
“What about the rest?” I asked.
She smiled. It was a warm, pleasant smile. The pressure pushed harder on the rear of my mind. “We’ve already gotten in touch with the relevant authorities. They’re on their way.”
“Well, that’s good. But no, I’ve got a life.”
Helen shook her head. “Not anymore. Not with them after you. Our hope, though, is for everyone to be able to live a better life. With you at our side, I’m sure we can.” The words felt hollow. Like they were missing a key part of them. A part that she thought was there. The pressure grew even heavier.
“Just, leave me alone. Please.”
She cocked her head. “Fascinating. Maybe it’s something to do with the…” she began to mutter as she returned to her van. Her spine began to glow as well.
The big guy finished off the one she’s fighting and turned to me. “Sorry ‘bout this, but boss says you may be crucial,” she told me as she walked up. The earth shook with each of her steps. Planting herself in front of me, she took a massive swing. I braced myself for something terrible. After all, she finished off the last guy with a punch that knocked him clean across the crash site. Then, I barely felt a thing. I registered the hit in my mind, for sure, and I felt it happen, in a sense, but it was like the crash. Less feeling and more almost knowing I should’ve felt it. Oddly enough, all that force, and I didn’t move.
Now, I’m by no means a physicist, but I know that energy like that doesn’t just disappear. It pushes back. So, to test my hypothesis, I tried something. “I said, just leave me alone,” I shouted. And I gave the strong woman a push. She went flying backwards into the plane straight out of science fiction, making it explode even more than before. I heard panicked noises from the van. A door opened and someone pointed at me. I felt something again. Like before, only less generalized and more focused on a single point of my chest. I tried to do the same. Taking my pen out from my pocket, I threw it the best I could at the van. It sheared right through the wheel. Not the tire, the actual wheel. Like where the lug-nuts are. And my small pen tore through that metal like it was paper. Then, after some more hubbub from within the car, it straight up vanished.
I looked across the field. A crashed plane to my left. A bunch of injured people behind me. A mostly exploded futuristic jet in front of me. Along with a bunch of dead people. Crap. This is going to be a problem, I figured. If I bring this kind of war with me, that wouldn’t just be problematic. That would be the end of my life. I might as well have let myself get kidnapped by one side or the other.
In my mind, I heard a thought distinct from my own. “Actually, this war has three sides.” It sounds like speech, though in the same sense that the ‘pain’ I felt at being punched seemed like pain. Like my brain is interpreting something that only could be one thing, but somehow isn’t that. I sat down by the exploded plane, as it seemed to be a more stable system than the crashed one. Mostly because it was less intact.
“And I suppose you’re from the third side. Whoever you are,” I muttered to myself, hoping the voice in my head could hear it.
She could. “No. But I could be a friend, if that’s what you want from me.”
“And you’ll want something from me, obviously,” I muttered. I’d had almost enough of these people. All of them were the same.
As I was thinking that, she replied. “We aren’t, but that’s neither here nor there. There is a war happening without the world knowing. Personally, I believe the world should know about it. I read your paper, in a sense. I get the feeling you agree with me.”
She was right, of course. If society doesn’t know about the war, there’s no way for it to improve from it. But, how did she read the paper, I wondered. Was she somehow at my conference? Spy on me? I didn’t at the time fully understand what she could do. Even now, I expect I don’t have grasp on even a majority of her capabilities. Back then, I was just starting to understand that she could read my thoughts. “You replied to my thoughts, not my words,” I began, “So you can read what I’m thinking, at least the most obvious thoughts. Then you likely know my concerns. These people, are they going to stop coming after me?”
“No. And unlike what those people in the van claimed, I’ve actually reported this crash site. In a sense.”
“In what sense?”
“An ambulance will veer off the road in seven minutes and see what’s happened, report it in, and triage the most injured.”
“And why are you helping them? And why did those people lie about it?” I asked as I stood.
“They weren’t going to help them because they couldn’t. Not really. Any report this time of night would have taken hours to be seen by the people who could do anything. The company’s cleanup crew would have been here by then. And, as their non-existence serves them, why bother.”
I nodded, beginning to think I understood the trouble I was in. “But you, you care about these people?” I asked, “That’s why you helped them?”
I could feel a pressure in my head of resignation. “Not at all. In general, I find people are either concerning or disappointing. But I know you want to help them and it was no trouble for me to get some aid.”
“Are you some kind of god?” I wondered.
I could feel the laugh in my bones. Whoever this person in my head was found that question incredibly amusing. “Depending on what you mean by that, yes,” she replied, “Though if I am a god, you are as well.”
I shook my head at this. A ridiculous thought, but then I not a minute earlier threw a pen through solid steel. Stranger things have happened. This was the war chaos was brewing. And I was a part of it. I should have known. “What are we, and what were those guys?” I asked, marveling at the destruction.
“We’re not exactly human, but beyond that you’d need to talk to, well, people who would likely try to kill you. As for them, the ones in the jet were like us. Those in the van, well, they’re something else entirely.”
“That doesn’t tell me much,” I push back.
She once again chuckled. “No, it doesn’t. But know this: when we are ready, I will tell you more about them.”
“Ready?” I pressed, “You really think that the two of us will ever be ready to take on three separate groups that are that powerful?”
“More powerful than that, and no. The two of us would never be.”
“Then why wait for us to be ready for something that will never be?” I mused.
There was a pause, as though she’s waiting for me to come up with some answer myself. When I didn’t, she answered me. “I said the two of us would never be able to do what must be done. But we are not the only two gods in the world. And together, our group of young gods can tear down the ivory towers and guerrilla bases of these men and women who threaten all that could be. And bring a light to what happens in the shadows.” And, unlike the woman from the van, I could tell she meant it. She was angry. She didn’t care about what could be. She just wanted to tear down the towers. But just because that’s why she wanted it didn’t mean it wasn’t true. And I could live with that.
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