Bob’s Memoir: 4,000 Years as a Free Demon
81
Launch
“BOB. BOB!”
“Huh?” I said groggily. It had been an active and exhausting night satisfying all ten of my new crew. I rolled over and pulled a pillow over my head.
“Bob! Wake up!”
“Bob’s not here,” I muttered and went back to sleep.
“BOB!”
“What?” I growled sitting up in the big bed in the palace. The nine beauties and one man were still sleeping next to me. No one else was there. My little ‘sex slave,’ Angel, crawled up from the foot of the bed and sucked my cock into her mouth.
“Bob, I need to talk to you.”
I’m not completely unfamiliar with head talk. My possessions and my wives, most notably, can carry on conversations with me in my head. But this didn’t sound like any of them. And they should be the only ones who could reach me in Areola.
“Who is this?”
“It’s Issa, Bob.” That gave me pause. I hadn’t seen Issa in 2,000 years, in spite of looking for him all through Asia a thousand years ago.
“Right. Who is this really?”
“Really, Bob. It’s Issa.”
“How did you manage to reach me? Are you in Areola?”
“No. Areola, by the way. I like that name. It suits you.”
“Thanks, but…”
“Just listen up for a minute, would you? I don’t know how much time I have to talk. This connection is tenuous at best.”
“Okay, okay.” I wiggled my way out of bed and gave Angel a quick kiss before I went into the magic room to have a private head-to-head talk with my old friend Issa.
When Issa and I traveled from Mesopotamia to India, we had a great time together, sharing about life and philosophy. He called me ‘brother’ and that made me feel special. We shared a lot with each other as we drifted along in a gentle breeze that seemed to move our craft always toward where we needed to go. He taught me a lot about the philosophy of Buddha and tried to teach me to turn water into wine. That was a disaster. If he turned water into wine, I could replicate his bottle and get the same results. But fill my bottle with water and let me try to turn it into wine and it wasn’t drinkable. I might have inadvertently killed some fish when I poured it overboard.
He couldn’t teach me to heal, either, though he acknowledged that my infinity room seemed to have healing powers and to keep people there forever young. He said it had to do with the primordial mass I spoke of having been created from.
“The Jews just called it mud,” Issa said. “Or if you go way back, they referred to earth and water as being ‘without form and void.’ It might be that the people taken from the natural world to your infinity room are separated from the primordial mass in some way but the people born there are part of your world’s mass. The mass from which you create things in that world.”
I still didn’t understand how the infinity room worked, but I shared the spells with him that I’d used to create it and to open a gateway. He wanted to practice, but there was no convenient container to put an infinity room in, so he put off working the spell until he had a good place to do it.
I was really sad to see him go when he headed up the Indus and I continued down the west coast of India. But he said it wasn’t good for two of our kind to be in the same place for too long. A couple of centuries later I tried to find him and kept finding traces of where he’d been, but couldn’t locate him.
“Let me in, Bob,” Issa said when I’d settled into the magic room to converse with him.
“In where? Where are you?”
“Behold I stand at the door and knock.”
“Oh, Jesus!”
“Your front door, Bob. The door to the swanky mansion embassy in Beverly Hills. Let me in before I attract the attention of the cops or the constant security patrols out here.”
I opened a gateway to the mansion and ran to the front door. There was a shriveled bald man there, walking with a long stick.
“Issa?” I asked. He nodded. “Well, come in. Come in. Let me get us some wine.” We went into my study and I opened a bottle of Goídel Glas’s finest. When I turned back to him, I found a man about thirty, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. He looked a lot more like Issa than the old man at the door.
“I’ve been in the country on a diplomatic tour and decided to stop by to see you when I saw your final episode air last night.”
“Diplomatic tour? On whose behalf?”
“Oh, they ask me to come around occasionally because the Dalai Lama is still respected as a leader of Buddhism.”
“You’re the Dalai Lama? Come on. I came through Tibet a few centuries ago and met the Dalai Lama and he wasn’t you.”
“No. Of course not. I was sorry to miss you, though. I only ever serve one lifespan at a time. Then I switch it off to various others so I can go into my own infinity room and have a rest for a couple of generations.”
“So, you did create one. I probably walked right by it and didn’t know it was there.”
“That’s true, but it was too early for us to meet face to face. I was still getting organized. Prester John has always been a little pigheaded about how things should be run. And Mary is still giving me advice on dealing with people.”
“John the Baptizer?”
“No, Bob. That John died. I haven’t raised anyone from the dead. The one time I tried, the guy stunk to high heaven and he died again a year later. I won’t put anyone else through that. John my disciple was the last of the apostles still alive when I finally found him on Patmos. He was near to being a raving lunatic from the isolation. You should have seen some of the things he’d written.”
“I read Revelation.”
“That was just the part I let remain. The rest of his writings were completely off the wall insane. I figured Revelation would give people something to worry over for a few thousand years.”
“And Mary?”
“My beloved. I’d given her directions on where to meet me, so as soon as she could separate herself from the disciples, she made her way to me in India. Would have been a miserable eternity without her!”
“That I understand. Without Nimia, I’d have been lost more than once.”
“You’ve got a treasure there.”
“So, what brought you to see me? You’re not upset about that preacher I got rid of, are you? He was possessed and had no desire to shake the demon within him. Now that fellow was truly ugly.”
“No. You know how I feel about killing things, but I don’t see any way you could have redeemed the situation. I came to talk about your show and what you plan to do.”
“So, you’re a fan, too?”
“No. I just caught the last episode of season two last night. Brutal, but I had to cheer. This has to do with you taking the infinity room—or Areola—with you into space and leaving forever.”
“You want to come along? Bring your infinity room and we’ll sail off into the big black.”
“I can’t. And neither can you.”
“What?”
“You can’t leave, Bob.”
“Issa, I’ve been planning this for years. It’s the best solution. I can finally go into the room and not worry about anything outside.”
“You don’t get it, Bob.”
For some reason, he sounded like Zeus telling me how to keep a palace cool millennia ago. Same frustration.
“I guess not,” I admitted.
“Areola is not in your bag. It’s a dimension of earth that is different, but compatible. No matter how far you send the bag into space, Areola is still here,” he said.
I should have known that. Even when I started opening gateways from other locations, I still thought of Areola as being in the bag stuck in an evidence container someplace in the bowels of the FBI building. Like that movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. Or maybe they’d taken it to Area 51. It just didn’t compute with me that it was tied to earth in some way.
“You can carry around a bag as a crutch, but you can open a gateway to and from it anywhere. It exists in the same time and space as the natural world. It’s you that needs to stay here. Without you, Areola would cease to exist.”
I was beginning to get a headache and poured another glass of wine, which I downed before I answered.
“So, Areola is One with All.”
“And All is Nothing,” Issa repeated. “We can have what appears to be eternal life in our infinity rooms, but in reality, when earth fades back into the primordial mass, so will our alternate dimensions. I believe, however, that attempting to separate and go off into space would separate you from the mothership, so to speak, and that would be catastrophic for both Areola and the natural world. It would most certainly return you all to the primordial mass.”
“Well, shee-it! That kind of puts a damper on things. Our whole intent is to do a live broadcast of our launch into space. The ship is almost ready.”
“Here’s what you do…” For a minute there, he sounded just like Doug. No. I knew Doug was asleep with Avril in a room of the palace.
Issa outlined a plan for me to go ahead and blast off with the crew and everyone, then to just open a gateway into Areola and disappear from the ship. He said leaving a satchel behind on the ship would be a great inside joke. I wouldn’t even need to tell anyone that we weren’t traveling into the deep. No one in Areola would know the difference.
“Knowing you, though, you’ll keep popping back into the natural world for another four millennia, just to see how the human story turns out. That was a nice touch in the show to pop into a ship in an unrelated part of the world and drive the point home.
“I’ve been popping in and out over the centuries to see what happened. That, and I’ve been shopping for other residents for Eden. You must know how difficult it is to find people in the natural world you want to spend eternity with.”
“I haven’t had that much problem. And you have millions of followers around the world. It can’t be that hard to find true believers for your kingdom. Eden, you say? I have to say, it’s more original than Areola,” I said.
“Fitting names for both our kingdoms. You’ve met Christians, Bob. How many of them would you want to spend eternity with? I’ve decided to cut off the total at 144,000. I thought John was crazy when he proposed that number, but I’m still several thousand away. Which brings me to another matter.”
“Whatever you want, Issa. What can I do for you?” I asked.
“In your most recent raids, I found a few people who I’d looked at and would like to take to Eden. I can still hear their prayers crying out to me. Let me take those few people from Areola to Eden where I can care for them.”
“Of course! Anyone who wants to go with you will be welcome to emigrate. Why don’t you come with me and choose the people you want?”
“You know, I’ve always wanted to visit your place. Is it true that the priestesses of Aphrodite will do anything with a man?”
“Or with a woman,” I said.
We chatted on as I opened a gateway to visit the refugees.
Of course, after my meeting with Issa, I had to keep secret that we weren’t actually going to leave earth. I needed a simulator in Areola that was so exactly like the real thing that no one would know they weren’t actually viewing the real thing. We scheduled five launches that day from different bases that would carry supplies to the construction site. One of those ships would continue into space. It would look like we were on it.
We started our live broadcast as my private jet touched down on an island in the Aleutians. When the only thing you are doing is creating a launchpad for a rocket ship, you can construct a lot without being noticed. I was sure the site had been spotted by US, Russian, and Chinese satellites, but they were also watching the half dozen other sites we’d created and put rockets on. Still, as soon as we started our live broadcast, the clock started. I knew people would be after us.
We did an orderly progression of our crew to the launchpad where we crossed the bridge to the capsule. But the capsule remained empty.
I created a gateway from the gantry directly to the simulator I’d created on Areola. We’d done a lot of training sessions here, so everyone was really pleased with how accurate the simulator had been to the real thing. None of the crew realized they’d ported directly to Areola instead of walking into the real rocket ship.
The countdown progressed. Then we all felt the g-force as the rocket blasted off. It had been a simple thing to mimic the acceleration on Areola by manipulating the ley lines.
“Space Pioneer 17, this is control in India. We have logged your launch and are following your trajectory. Everything is looking clear.”
“Thank you, India Control,” I said. I nodded to Wendy. She grinned.
“India Control,” she said in a perfect duplicate of their accent, “Captain Bob says thank you. You know he doesn’t always speak our language clearly.” There was laughter through the speakers.
“I hope we can follow along when it is next time to trim your tail,” the guy laughed.
“Space Pioneer 17, this is launch central. We have separation of the launch rockets and log you as thirteen minutes until you approach the construction site. Second stage rockets will fire in twelve minutes and twenty-eight seconds.”
“Copy, launch control. This is Space Pioneer 17 and we are comfortably relaxing until docking. You could send the flight attendants in with drinks and snacks now,” I said.
“Bob, you don’t really have flight attendants on board with you, do you?” our startled launch coordinator asked. He no longer knew what to think or what was real.
“Well, not that we’ll let get out of their seats before we leave orbit and head toward Mars. This weightless stuff is going to take some getting used to.”
“Affirmative, Captain Bob. All systems have been checked and conditions are go.”
“Holy shit, Bob!” our guy in India yelled. “We’ve detected a missile launch from the South Atlantic. It looks like someone is firing at you. It’s on an intercept trajectory.”
“Julie, Lalonda, activate defensive systems. Prepare to shoot the hostile out of the air.”
“Affirmative, Captain. Defense systems are active. Laser point defense is tracking incoming object.”
“Captain, tracking has identified the object as a US nuclear missile fired from a submarine in the Atlantic. Contact in one minute thirty-seven seconds,” Wendy said.
“Hold steady on course, Karla. Weapons lock on target.”
“Weapons locked and loaded,” Lalonda said. “Optimum range in twenty-two seconds.”
“Fire at optimum range,” I said.
The seconds ticked down and we held our breath.
“Lasers fired. Direct hit. The missile has been detonated. No damage to SP17,” Lalonda said.
“Bob, when did you have weapons installed on that thing?” a very shocked voice said over the speakers. I immediately recognized Leroy, our company CEO.
“Didn’t you read the spec, Leroy? I’m sure it’s there. Can’t send a ship out into the solar system undefended.”
“Here comes another, Captain,” Wendy said.
“Prepare to answer fire on that submarine,” I said. I was pissed.
“This one was not fired from the submarine. India Control cites China as the source. Wait! Here’s another, tracking from Siberia.”
“What is this? Every power gets one shot? Weapons status!”
“Primary lasers are recharging. Ready in thirty seconds.”
“Are you tracking bogeys?”
“Affirmative, Captain. Optimum range for Bogey 1 will be two seconds after recharge. That will leave us exposed to Bogey 2 before we can recharge again.”
“Deedee, Artemisia, activate secondary defense weapons,” I commanded. I wasn’t liking our sendoff at all.
“Secondary defense weapons are online and ready.”
“Target Bogey 2.”
“Targeting.”
“Bogey 1 entering optimum range,” Lalonda said.
“Fire at optimum.”
We waited a second until India Control gave us the signal.
“China missile has been destroyed,” Wendy relayed. “Russia missile is still on target.”
“Bogey 2 entering optimum range for secondary defense.”
“Fire at optimum.”
We all thought we felt a shudder go through the ship as the plasma bottle was fired to intercept the missile.
“Russia missile has been destroyed,” Wendy relayed. “Sky is blue.”
“Defensive weapons go to standby. India, watch for activity from any satellites in our area.”
“SP17, you are seventy-five seconds from the construction site. Prepare for docking,” launch control said through our speakers.
“I’d still like to know where those weapons came from,” Leroy demanded. “We assured the government we were a peaceful unarmed mission.”
“Which made us a target for them to easily pick off and claim it was a malfunction,” I growled. “Change in itinerary. We are bypassing docking and head directly for Mars. Ready for second stage rocket fire.”
“Burn in three, two, one. SP17 is leaving orbit on slingshot trajectory.”
“That’s a thing of beauty to see,” India Control said. “Perfect exit from orbit. Tracking on planned trajectory.”
“Captain, troops have arrived at Launch Site. We will be overrun shortly. Well, maybe we have a few minutes. It seems Russian and Chinese troops are also landing and they might have a conflict of interest. All we can do is lock the doors and hope.”
“Affirmative, Launch Control. We’ll pick you up shortly,” I said. “Karla, engage override of Launch Control. We’re on manual from now on. You have control.”
“Affirmative, Captain. I have control on manual override,” Karla said.
“Stand down from battle alert,” I said. “Ladies you just proved all the training was worth it. Congratulations.”
“Can we go to the pool now?” Julie asked.
“Signing off from Space Pioneer 17,” I said. “We’ll leave the bag here so we can reboard when we get to Mars.” I made a show of leaving a bag on the deck as everyone ported directly to the pool from our simulator. I switched to the remote camera on the real spaceship that simply showed a shot of the bag in the empty capsule.
Of course, it would throw the world into a confusion of debate as they argued about whether any of it was real.
The five rockets that launched in sync with us docked with the construction site. Robots unloaded the cargo and moved it to the proper places. We were still supplying Areolium for the construction in space and the robots were working well. Soon, shuttles would begin carrying people to the station to do more of the work. That would be interesting to watch. Most of the supplies were delivered via portal, direct from Areola.
We were free.
Like Issa told me, I can’t keep my fingers out of the natural world for long. We were free in Areola and it wasn’t long before people there began forgetting about our mission to Mars, the television show, and other things of the natural world.
We ported the launch crew to Areola before any of the competing armies broke through, so all they found was an empty control tower in which all the equipment and computers were dead.
The ambassadors to the United Nations from the three big powers appeared on the steps of the Areola Embassy in LA and apologized for the misunderstanding caused by their firing of an aerial salute to our journey. No harm intended.
Right.
I figured I’d pop in and out every few years, partly to manage the selection of colonists and partly to check on the condition of the world in general. I figured we would be making some more raids in the future.
You see, I had a new contact doing the scouting for me. Lil was a sexy young society girl in London who knew the ins and outs of everything, it seemed. As well she should. She’d once been the Queen. She’d staged her death and managed to escape and return to her demon form, which had been created specifically to sexually please the eighteenth-century mage who conjured her.
She’d set about creating her own network of spies who had spread out across the world. And they were looking for any sign of trafficking. Having essentially been created as the mage’s sex doll, Lil was well acquainted with being a sex slave. She hated the trade as much as I did and had often made sure my tracks were covered when we made a raid.
Now she was sending me information. I had every intention of carrying out additional raids so that the traffickers would know that the launch of our ship didn’t change anything as far as my resolve to end the traffic.
And, in fact, my resolve was not ended. Very little had changed other than I spent less time in the Natural World. I was busy in Areola. I had five wives, five possessions, fifty-one priestesses, twenty-one crew members, and more concubines coming in and out of the palace than I could count. I spent almost as much time in bed, satisfying the needs of my women, as I did being useful in Areola.
Why not? After all, our entire power grid was based on sexual energy. I was just doing my part.
End of Volume 3
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