download the Bible to my SNDL from, like, a trillion servers, and I can read it at a dozen times the speed.”
“You kids nowadays and your implants…” Bill stepped onto the beach behind us. “It’s about the quality of what you read, not the quantity.”
I sensed some anger rising in Vair, anger she’d conjured on my behalf, knowing that the one who wasn’t giving me work didn’t deserve any gift. I put my hand on her shoulder and absorbed the tension. Vair looked at me. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”
In her eyes, I saw what lay beyond her walls, the root of so much potential. I saw the curious child within her, she who was blessed with curiosity. I saw that I loved her as God loved her, and that, with God, through Christ, there really were no limits to what I and those around me could do.
“So is the one who reached out to me.”
- -- -- - -- -- -- -- -- - - -- - - -- --- -- - -
I could never go back. No matter what, I could never see the world the same way again. I didn’t even want to, not because I fell asleep and closed my eyes, but because I had never been so awake in my life. It was a painful transition for me, like before a butterfly spreads its wings: a human being breaking out of its programming. There was a meaning in my life, a reason for me to be here, and it wasn’t a reason I could make up as I went along. I wasn’t a God. God is God, and it was through him that I found out who I really was.
I asked for a blessing on the future of me and my wife. There was an opening in Vair’s company and I received the permits I needed to move to Connecticut. As I was packing, I found an unopened envelope from February, a testament to my imperfect housekeeping, and was surprised to see that all of my monetary debt had been cleared. I wondered if it had been a mistake for me to report Aether’s nine-figure deposit to the police, since the tax-collector happily relieved me of my surplus without confirming that it was stolen. I reminded myself of what the patrolman said: that being free from the law in spirit still meant respecting it while on this Earth… or on Luna, or on Mars, or whatever corner of creation that human innovation takes us.
The Christmas Supernova remained in the sky until summer, and everyone jumped to market their own interpretation of it. I knew the truth was