Beyond the Veil, Part 1

I can remember a number of times when I was alive where I thought to myself, "If only I didn't need to sleep every night, imagine how much I could get done." Well, let me just say that there is both truth and falsehood in that thought.

I no longer need sleep, biologically anyway, but I do find myself taking some time nearly every evening to meditate and allow my spirit/mind time to process and catch up with the increased input and demands it is under with a nearly 24 hour a day operation. I am still learning various coping mechanisms to my new existence.

This blog is one such coping mechanism. I started this blog with the idea of helping both myself and my former team mates who had not yet faced the transition that I had. Now though, I find myself using it as a tool to help me come to terms with what has happened, and in at least one case recently, to steel myself to do what needed to be done.

I have found out exactly how important this entire process is in these last few days by actually failing to find the time to make my entries. I have been less focused, more anxious, and even depressed when I have failed to at least make some sort of entry. I don't know how many of you are out there reading this, but just imagining that there are living, breathing people reading my entries has helped me to carry on. This is especially true since I learned from John Red Bear how to let go of my Chakra, should I choose to do so. I taught that skill to Greg and was rewarded by watching him pass from the prison that we had chosen for ourselves. Seeing him pass on to the next world was a revelation, knowing that I too could take that path if I chose to.

But I have a mission now. Drake saw me in the lab when Greg took his final trip away from the Chakra that was going to make him a zombie like me. He may not have been able to see into the spiritworld and know exactly what happened, but he was astute enough to see that something strange and powerful had happened. The bastard seemed to KNOW that Greg's body would never be animated in the same way that mind has been, and ended the process that day, telling the lab staff to place the body in storage and to clean up the equipment.

The bastard didn't say shit to me all week until Friday.

That was quite a surprise however, I reported for work on Friday and found the office closed. I had worked late the previous night helping the Lab Geeks disassemble some of the larger pieces of equipment into more storable components, but I had no clue that they would actually be closing down the whole office.

When I showed up on Friday, the door was locked and the reception area seemed empty. My keycard didn't work on the door, so I 'unlocked' the door in a more traditional way, by putting my fist through the glass and turning the handle from the inside.

As it had appeared from the outside, the reception area was totally cleaned out. I made my way back past the interview rooms towards the Lab, only to find that I had to 'unlock' another door. Again, the lab was cleaned out. All of the equipment was gone, all of the files were gone, the only things left were some generic cleaning supplies and a few broken tubes and vials.

I went back to that conference room that Drake liked so much. This door was slightly ajar, so I stepped into the dimly lit room.

This room was unchanged. The prick was sitting right there at his table, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. There was only one other chair at the table, the one near my end that I had chosen before, in defiance of him.

"What the Hell is going on?"

He smiled, as usual and motioned for me to have a seat.

I sat down, but was ready to spring up in case things got nasty.

"My time here is over," he started, "and if you are wise, you will find that it is time for you to join me and end this charade."

"What do you mean?"

"Officer Smith," for the first time since I had died, he used my previous identity, "I have great plans for you, and others like you who choose to find immortality, who choose to become more than human!"

"What are you smoking? I didn't choose this...this existence. When you approached me for this damn project, I didn't think I even had a soul. I figured you were some weird quack with more money than brains. If I knew now, what I knew then, I would've never gotten mixed up with your crazy plans."

"But you do know better now, and yet you have chosen to stay. Why not leave, like you taught your friend to do?"

That brought me up short. I remained silent, staring into his vacant, black eyes.

"I think you remain here because you are afraid to move on. Even now, you doubt that you would be able to move on to that next phase. You fear death, as well you should!"

"I can you one thing, you bastard, I sure as Hell don't fear you anymore, and nothing you can say will make me join you in wherever it is you are and your cohorts are going. But, I will find you, wherever you go, and I will put an end to these fucking experiments you are conducting, if its the last thing I do!" With that I got up and was moving towards him. I had finally gathered up my resolve to extract a little revenge on his scrawny ass.

He smiled that bloodless smile of his, reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a small remote control device. He showed it to me with tantalizing slowness. I lunged towards his hand, not knowing what the heck that thing could do, only to find myself falling and unable to catch myself when he pressed one of the buttons on the device.

I lay on the floor, still able to hear and see what was going on, but unable to move even so much as a finger.

"Tsk, tsk," I heard in the ear that was pointed towards the ceiling, "you didn't think I would allow one of my creations to have the ability to bring me harm, do you? I know you can hear me and that you cannot respond. This device has totally paralyzed all of your movement functions, so you wil have to listen to what I have to say now.

"I know your type, boy. I have been around far longer than you can imagine. You have been useful. I have the evidence I need to show those who finance my work what can be done with the proper resources. It is time to begin the next phase of my work. I fear though that you will not be of further use to me. It is time for you to make your final journey beyond the veil. When I press this second button, the device that houses your spirit will dissolve and you will have no choice but to begin that journey you fear so much."

I tried again to move, but was unable to do so. I then shifted my attention to moving into the spirit world. I was feeling a lot pressure to do something though, so I was unable to immediately focus as I needed to.

"I can almost sense your struggle," he said, still close to my ear, "I can tell that you are not ready for that final passage. That is why you need me. With my help, you need not face that journey for a very long time. Join with me, you've seen what can be done. We have so much more to do and discover together.

"I will now active your speech center so tha tyou may respond to me. Will you join me, or must I discard you as I have the others before you who have failed me?"

I could 'feel' the speech center being activated. Still working on my concetration to move into the spirit world, I rasped out, "Never asshole. If you let me up, I'll send your ass on a journey!"

"Ah yes, that's what I thought you would say. Very well, you have given me everything I truly needed from you anyway..."

I interrupted him one last time, "I will hunt you down and finish you, you bastard!"

"I think not. Your time here and now is ended. I am sorry you've brought me to this point."

With that, he pressed the button that would have, should have, ended my second life, such as it is...

(continued tomorrow)

Looking to the Light

I have a great deal of news to report, which I will go about doing over the next few days, but first, I need to give Greg his own final posting.

It was easier than I thought it would be, to teach Greg how to free himself from the spiritual prisons that we helped to build for ourselves. That's what El Diablito was doing with us on those occasions that we went to his little warehouse shop in Hialeah well after his normal closing hours.

It was a long, grueling and nasty process. There seemed to be an endless array of rituals, body fluids and other foul smelling ingredients brewing in the back room of that shop. I can recall at least three different occasions that I would be sitting there waiting for that little troll to finish some ritual or another and then feel a sharp prick on my back, or my arm. He would use these burned, nasty looking needles to prick us. His smile was wicked as he stared at the red drops of blood dribbling down the needle, as he pranced away to his crowded altars to finish the spell that would create the prison that is now my Chakra.

It was the same for all six of us really, we compared notes on a number of occasions afterwards, but we all went through the process alone. Oh, Drake was usually there as well since he brought each us down to see El Diablito personally, but he always drifted away once the rituals started. Even that cold fish seemed uncomfortable around El Diablito when he really got going in his full regalia.

I thought I was going to have to do something physical in order to free Greg from his Chakra-to-be, and I thought I was going to be doing it on Friday once I read the statement from the detective who had arrested the primary suspect in Greg's killing. Instead, Friday morning while I was in the meditative state that I slip into when I am 'flushing and gushing', I felt John Red Bear approach me from the Underworld. I concentrated and slipped out of my body and darted through the drain in my shower to emerge in our normal meeting place, a shadowy clearing in a darkly overgrown pine forest. He was in his usual form, that of a scarred black bear with a big splotch of red fur that resembled a man's head on his chest. I was in my own form, enjoying the feeling of touching, smelling, breathing once again.

"Brother Bones," he said, "you must meet me in real life, near the city in Ohio named for the Deathbringer, Colombus. There is a museum for the iron steeds you call motorcycles. Meet me there at dawn tomorrow."

"Why?" I asked. "I think Greg needs me now. I don't know how soon the Chakra will be sealed away from easy access."

He stood up on his rear legs, towering over me until he placed his front paws on my shoulders and brought his grizzled muzzle down to look me in the eyes. He snickered, as much as a bear can snicker anyway, and said "Do not worry, the prisons that hold you and your friend can be broken only from the inside. I will show you how tomorrow."

"Really? Are you sure?"

"I am. There is much to discuss, I have other important information for you as well. It is imperative that you meet me, our time will be short. Make sure you donothing out of the ordinary today. Go to work as you would normally, assist your keepers in any way they need you to, but leave tonight. Drive there, do not allow yourself to be followed."

Our conversation went on, but too keep it short and on point, I returned to my body and finished what business I needed to that day, and followed the instructions I was given, both by the Lab Geeks who still needed my help on a daily basis moving Greg's increasingly heavy body around to the different machines they used, and later those given to me by John Red Bear.

I met with him as planned the next morning. I got in his car in the parking lot and we went for a long, twisting drive through the suburbs of Colombus until we came to a large, open park that was pretty much abandoned on a cold Saturday morning in February.

We got out and crunched through the frozen, wet grass. While we walked, he talked for what seemed like hours. Many of the things he told me will be revealed in later posts and in the book that I am working on, but what's important here now is that he taught me how Greg and I could free ourselves from the Chakra devices that El Diablito had constructed. It was both incredibly hard, but maddeningly simple.

Essentially, what kept us trapped within the Chakras was a deep seated fear of that final death, that final passing into the unknown darkness that Drake and his henchmen had been subtly pushing on us since we first joined the program. John taught me that the cord that kept our spirits tied to this device was both as easy to snap as thin fishing line, or as tough as the strongest metal linked chain. We 'merely' had to unravel the chains of our own fears of moving forward into the unknown worlds beyond this one and seek out the Light that lit the way. Uh yeah...just that damn easy.

The reasons for the clandestine nature of our meeting will be revealed later, but I will let you know that there is far, far more to John than he had previously let on, and that I was enlisted fully by him to help in some ways that will soon become clearer.

In the end, I was finally convinced that the solution he had, for Greg anyway, was viable and I agreed to see if Greg would try it.

Early this morning, I went to the office before any of the regulars would be in, and found Greg where I had left him. I told him of the plan and showed him what I could of the techniques that John had taught me. He was eager to try it. He took to the exercises easily. He retreated briefly back into the Chakra, re-emerging moments later, brighter, fuller. He seemed to be smiling as he I watched him work. Soon, I could almost see the cord connecting his spirit to the Chakra grow fainter, weaker. There was one brief flicker, as doubt seemed to creep in, but that faded just as a shimmering tunnel seemed grow from the ceiling. The Light illuminated us both. His spirit seemed to grow in strength as he floated up to it. He looked down at me briefly, a look of pure joy and exhiliration as he cried out-"Mom!"

I can't tell you how much I wanted to follow him at that moment! But as the Light faded, I slipped back into my own body and glanced to my right to see Drake standing there in the doorway to the lab. His expression was that same, bloodless smile that he always had, but I could tell he knew something had happened.

Without a word, he turned and left, the door slamming behind him with a loud bang. Inside I felt a joy that was but a shadow of the joy that Greg felt. "Take that, you bastard." I mumbled.

I looked down at Greg's now truly lifeless body and knew that I had done good. He was at peace at last.

I, however, have a shitload more work to do before I can find such peace.

Mirror, Mirror...

I am not sure what to expect with the meeting with Drake scheduled for tomorrow, so I thought I would go a little bit lighter tonight and give you a little view of what I see when I look into a mirror. I know a number of you are curious as to what is so different about me, what I look like and what requirements I have to remain functional.

First, let me start with my outward appearance: I am bald, all of the hair was shaved from my head, and every other part of my body as well. I am fairly short and stockily built, I stand about 5'9" in my boots (that I never take off in public), and tip the scales at 320 pounds+, although that number is deceiving. My bones are much heavier than when I was alive, so I look more like a linebacker than a couch potato in general. I have wide shoulders, and very thick legs. My abdomen is not athletic thin, but I don't overhang the belt either, if you know what I mean. What's left of my skin is very tough and leathery looking--I've been told I am rough to the touch as well by the NecroLab geeks who worked on me. My abdomen is riddled with scars, one large one from the embalming where they removed all of my internal organs and remade me inside, and dozens of smaller scars that have been patched up from various bullet wounds, and more recently, the grenade blast in the Rocky Mountain raid.

My face is nothing pretty to look at either, it seems rougher boned, almost edgier than when I was alive, perhaps something to do with what they did to my bones in the first place. I have single scar on my forehead, which is unmistakably a sewn-up bullet wound, which I have to cover with a hat or a headband if I don't want to be answering questions or scaring the piss out of people. My eyes were brown when I was alive, but since they had to replace the eyeballs with something more durable and the technology wasn't the best, they now almost bulge from my sockets and seem to glow subtly red in most light. In darkness, they definitely glow red, as I benefit from having infra-red vision. My eyes also double as webcams that can be tied into certain Bureau surveilance systems, although I have the final control on what and when they actually record and transmit data. Needless to say, I wear wrap-around, reflective sun-glasses when I need to pass for 'normal'.

The skin on my hands has pretty much been stripped away, revealing a very robotic looking contrapition for hands, although most of it is my own bones, only modified with metals for strength, and wired together by many flexible little wires. My range of motion in my hands is not as fine as I would like it to be, but they are incredbily strong. I usually wear some very fine, and expensive, gloves to cover up that mess.

My feet are pretty much the same, very little in the way of actual skin left down there, so I tend to keep hard soled boots on most of the time. I do have some sock-like leather sleeves I can wear on my feet, but I prefer not to if I can avoid it.

On the inside, my bones are almost all modified...those that had marrow in them, have been filled with some sort of very heavy liquid metals that tend to fill in any cracks that develop and harden. The outside of most of my bones have also been coated wtih some fine metal sheathing. Most of my musculature remains intact, but has been altered chemically so as not to decompose, the muscles are activated somehow (I didn't understand it when they explained it to me) by my artifical neural network. Instead of a biological nervous system, I have been rewired with a series of very fine, almost invisible (inside my skin, of course) wires that connect the muscles and bones to the unit that serves as the home for my spirit and also serves as my brain (let's call this my Chakra--yes I've been doing some reading on this stuff now). That unit is buried deeply in my torso, and is shielded by multiple layers of kevlar, special steel, and other new fangled ceramic materials.

Where my brain used to be, I have been told, are the optical and aural systems that allow me to see and hear. As I mentioned above, I can see in the infra-red spectrum as well as normal light. My infra-red system is much like modern night vision equipment which lacks proper depth perception, but it is better than being blind in the dark. My hearing is very sharp as well, I have been told that it is almost as good as many dogs, allowing me to hear in higher and lower frequencies than humans can. This can be distracting, as I am still learning to adjust to that.

I have absolutely no senses of smell or taste--apparently these were not given a very high priority by the Lab Geeks or the Necromancers who came up with this design. Probably just as well, because it would be Hell on me if I could taste or smell food, and then not be able to drink or eat it.

Touch is a little different. I don't have any true senstivity, and cannot feel pain, heat, or cold, but I can 'feel' contact in a disconnected sort of way. I am still learning not too mash down on my keyboard too much, and have difficulty when opening doors or other fine motor skills based on touch. I am learning to adjust, and have avoided shaking hands much or touching others outside of combat in fear of actually hurting them by accident.

My speech is made possible by drawing in air into some mini-lungs they installed in the upper part of my chest, and then exhaling through my modified vocal chords. My voice does sound duller and lacks the rane Iused to have, but I also don't need to breathe in order to function, only to speak relatively normally. I do have a backup speech system that is a computer generated voice if my lungs don't functions for some reason.

As you saw with the lab incident, I am very strong physically, and can easily lift two or three times what even very strong human weightlifters of my size can. I can do it repeatedly, without tiring as well, as long as I stock up on fuel ahead of time.

So how do I fuel my body? Well everyone who knew me before I died wondered how I could drink as much Coca-Cola as I did, and many often joked about affixing an IV to my arm to avoid having to actually drink the stuff. Well, now I pretty much get to do that. It doesn't have to be Coke per se, but can be any soda or juice product that is not diet. The fluid goes into what is left of my circulatory system, and the calories are burned up by special chemical processes within my body to fuel it. I generally hook up a two liter bottle to a special IV rig that flushes some of the old out and infuses me with the new each morning before heading out. I have found though, that I can actually go several days without replenishing this, but have been advised that I should 'flush and gush' once every 24 hours for optimal performance. Pretty amazing huh? I still need my caffeine (at least psychologically-since I don't actually need caffeine-just calories) each morning. There is a small pump near my Chakra that moves this fluid around, but it is very small and slow, I don't think the beat is discernible, it is a steady rate of slightly less than one squish per minute, whether I am active or not.

Because of the fluid going through my body, I do actually 'bleed' now when I am shot (or blown up), but its really only the leftover liquid from whatever I shot into my system earlier...I think the total capacity to fill me up is around 8 liters...that's a lot of caffeine, but its pretty damn cheap energy to keep me going!

Well, that's about it for tonight, I have some further research to do before the big meeting tomorrow. I also need to get in touch with the guys who haven't died yet, and apprise them of some of the danger they may be in, if they haven't figured it out for themselves yet.

Hopefully, I will be able to give a decent accounting of that meeting tomorrow evening. Wish me luck!