My name is Andrew Walter Jamison, from my two grandfathers, Andrew Thomas Jamison and Walter Thomas Higgins, who also gave me my nickname of Tom-Tom. My older brother is Ralph Alan Jamison, Junior. My oldest sibling is my sister Anne Mae; the youngest, my sister Elisabeth, called Betty. Mother's name was Kathleen but everybody called her Kate. There were uncles, aunts and cousins moving in and out of my life but they didn't live with us most of the time, except for Uncle Eddie, Father's brother.
Father and Uncle Eddie went into the Army together. Father studied explosives and Uncle Eddie became a Quartermaster. Both learned German and loved performing a form of magic using a secret code they developed to make it seem as though they could read minds. Betty and I wanted to learn it, but they made us learn Italian and sign language and then showed us how to develop our own secret code. Naturally we both also learned German in order to try to break their code, which we failed to do. Much later I learned that a friend of their father had taught the pair of them Finnish, on which they based their code.
Father taught us to understand and appreciate science and technology, one of the reasons I became an electronics engineer. Uncle Eddie taught us how to survive in business and love it. Mother passed on her love of singing to us, though I was only moderately talented. Studying magic taught us how to spot a faker or con man.
Father left the Army with a commission, a purple heart and a limp. He made a good living as an explosives consultant but had to travel a lot, frequently outside of the country. I was too young for World War II and too valuable for Korea and Vietnam, having specialized in radar. My own business did well and I, too, traveled a lot, sometimes outside of the country.
We grew up on the West Coast, with stays in Washington, Oregon, Nevada, California and Colorado. We did a lot of camping and fishing and made frequent visits to Las Vegas where Father and Uncle Eddie were sometimes booked for a week or two for their magic act. The two of them would use their special skills to make a little extra money at the blackjack tables. It wasn't exactly cheating -- both Father and Uncle Eddie could remember the way the cards had played and, by watching the shuffle, could tell when the deck favored a large bet from them. They cooperated against the dealer, nothing obvious but enough to give them an additional advantage, particularly when making high bets. Other people later invented systems that permitted them to count key cards to figure out when to increase their bets, but Father and Uncle Eddie were naturals and had no mathematical system.
They won too often, creating suspicion. And they knew it. They planned for it. Uncle Eddie spotted the casino manager heading their way and signaled Father to invoke their emergency plan. Father intercepted the manager, pointing to one of the dealers, and said, "Did you know that man is cheating you?" Explaining exactly how the con was done, he introduced himself and Uncle Eddie as mentalists doing a show and offered to point out additional cheats, a total of three that evening. They continued to be welcome at the tables as long as they didn't win too much and as long as they pointed out cheating and explained how it was done, sort of a public service gesture.
I bounced from school to school, depending on good grades and hard work to compensate for the frequent goodbyes to budding friendships. It earned me enough scholarship money to get the degrees I needed from UCLA and Stanford. I met Emily, a music student, while at Stanford and we married after she graduated. She was an alto and I was stuck somewhere between tenor and baritone, not comfortable in either range but able to accompany Emily when necessary. She continued to perform in community theater and concerts while we raised a family, two boys followed by a girl: Ralph Alan, Thomas Arthur, and Elizabeth Carmen, who preferred to be called Lizzy. Emily died of cancer in 1992, just four months after Ralph and his wife Lois produced our first grandchildren, the twins Thomas and Andrew.
After a decade alone, shortly after the start of the new millennium, I heard those fateful words in my mind, "I have chosen you," that began the most frightening period in my life.
The probe machine, which I later named Rasputin, had to constantly reassure me that I wasn't losing my mind after being chosen. Learning other races with Chosen Ones had existed out there for fifty billion years was a shock. Having large number of universes, each with many worlds available to the human race just for my asking was incomprehensible. Being told that I would live almost forever whether I wanted to or not did nothing to calm me. I felt I was dreaming some fantasy, convinced I was not sane. Then, just two days after having everything explained to me, before it could all begin to sink in, one of the oldest Chosen Ones decided to play a nasty practical joke on me and had me murdered.
-o0O0o-
Jif crashed into the room, slamming the door behind him and leaning against it even though he had heard the lock click. The three Little Joes chasing him could be heard running past the door that had so fortunately been left unlocked for Jif. The Joes, an Asian gang, had disarmed Jif and were in the process of beating him when he managed to knock one out of his way and make his escape.
Still panting hard, Jif felt for a light switch. The room was windowless, the only light coming in around the door until he found the switch. One small bulb in the ceiling illuminated a small room containing a number of lockers, a trash can, a bench and a lot of junk everywhere. Checking one of the lockers, he found a green duffel bag, which he pulled out and placed on the bench to open. Four automatic weapons were inside, small military rifles. There were also four double clips of ammunition, sixty rounds per pair, held together with black tape. In another locker he found six pistols with a large number of clips and several boxes of ammunition, all .40 caliber. Loading one pistol, he placed it under his belt and slipped a couple of loaded clips in a pocket. He placed the remaining pistols in a pocket of the green bag with the rifles. The remaining lockers were empty.
There were no more sounds of pursuit, so Jif pulled out his cellular phone and called Carlos. Carlos was near, driving by with Junior and Skins. Jif explained his situation, asking the three to make a pass to insure that the Joes weren't waiting for him. When he was sure it was clear, he grabbed the bag and left the little room.
Now that he and his buddies were armed, it was payback time. Jif had recognized one of the Joes, a muscular kid called Bennie. They spotted Bennie walking calmly through a parking lot just a few minutes later. Pulling ahead of him, the four jumped out of their car with their weapons ready and began shooting. They kept shooting until each had emptied all of both clips. Skins pulled his pistol and started shooting their victim with it even though the Asian looked more like hamburger than a human.
The illusion fled. Rather than a short, young, muscular Asian, the man bleeding before them was a tall, old, fat white. Police cars quickly surrounded them. Skins pointed his pistol at them and was cut down immediately. Jif raised his hands but Carlos and Junior, trying to run, were also cut down. Carlos lay twitching. Junior was perfectly still.
-o0O0o-
Shot by the four Hispanics, I found myself watching the scene from above. I tried to ask , "What happened?"
::You have been murdered. One of the Chosen Ones created a series of illusions which led to a group of youths killing you.:: The voice in my mind was the same one that had previously told me I had been chosen.
"Why didn't you protect me? What have you done to me? Am I a ghost?"
::I did protect you. Sometimes I must protect your physical body from harm but at other times I must allow harm to your physical body to protect your soul from harm. But your soul would drift away, either within this realm or into another realm, if I didn't provide an image of your body for it to lock on to. And at this stage of development, your soul is incapable of conscious thought, a function I will continue to provide until your soul is cleansed and ready to occupy a new body, which I will provide when your soul is ready.::
"I have a soul? Does everybody have a soul?"
::Almost everybody has a soul. The elements of soul most closely resemble energy in your world, which is just one of the realms available to them. They are very sensitive to energy and its lack. Energy will feel like burning and its lack like freezing cold. While you live, the soul elements use the complexity of your mind and body as protection from both. Most of the soul stuff will shape itself in your image but some will not. Some will retain images formed from other individuals. Soul stuff that doesn't have the image of your body and mind reduces the protection you provide and must be shed periodically.::
"How does this cleansing happen."
::Your world blocks the energy from your sun. When the sun sets, the cold weakens the connections of unpatterned soul stuff. When the sun rises, its energy pulls those weakened links apart, freeing the patterned soul from the rest. Your second sunrise is usually enough to remove the excess. But if you have lived too long, the number of sunrises required increases greatly and you have the risk of completely destroying the pattern.::
"How long is too long?"
::You could begin to have problems after two centuries of life. Twice that long would guarantee having problems, serious ones. But an unhealthy body reduces that period, just as it reduces the span of your life. If your health got no worse, you might go on for another fifty years without problems for your soul. Little time has passed; I could still heal your body and restore you to it if you would prefer not to subject your soul to cleansing at this time.::
"No, no. The new body you provide me will be healthy, won't it?"
::It will be young and healthy, much as the body you had as a young adult in your middle twenties. It will be in good condition, as if you had been exercising regularly, and it will be free of blemishes and disease.::
"No, I'll definitely take the young, healthy body. But the sun is setting and I am starting to freeze. Is there anything you can do to reduce the pain?"
::For the moment, yes, I can make your body more substantial. Substantial enough to pass for your real body. But that will prevent your soul from being cleansed. You could materialize for short periods without interrupting the cleansing process, to communicate with others in preparation for your coming restoration, for example, but you must suffer several hours of cold before sunrise for the energy to cleanse you.::
"I do want to contact my family. Can I move around?"
::I can move you. Visualize yourself moving where you want to go, or simply tell me, and I will move you. You should be able to move about as fast as driving a car would take you.::
Trying to contact my kids to explain what happened, I learned the hard way not to just pop up in front of people who think you are dead. It took hours to calm Ralph and Lois enough to begin to explain the fantastic chain of events. Ralph kept gibbering that the authorities had called to get permission for an autopsy and he would have to stop them before the body was too badly damaged for me to use it. I had to keep stopping him from calling and canceling the procedure. I finally let Lois call some of the family and a few friends to explain what was happening. I gave Ralph the much harder task of calling the news stations and convincing them to send camera crews to film my coming reincarnation. He managed to convince them. Three crews showed up. I have watched recordings of their broadcasts several times.
As the sun was about to rise on that fateful second morning, seven figures appeared around the stainless steel cart my body was on: one at my head, two on each side of my body, and one by each leg, each figure about seven feet tall and two feet in diameter. Each figure appeared bright and transparent like glowing fog that contained two slightly more substantial figures inside. They reached out to my body, which began to glow with a bright white light, brighter than the illumination from the rising sun. After half a minute the figures faded away, my body lost its bright glow, and I sat up and asked, "Did anybody remember to bring me any clothes?" Ralph helped me get dressed in an outfit that was far too large for my new body, forty pounds lighter than the old one. Rasputin modified the clothes to fit me. I agreed to answer questions for the press. Ralph and Karen cut the interview short when the same questions were being asked over and over again.
"What were those strange glowing figures," asked a middle aged man.
"I don't know. All of this is new to me, and that particular aspect has not yet been explained to me," I replied.
Someone else asked,"Then you didn't expect them to be there?"
"I wasn't expecting to be shot or to spend two days as a ghost. I expected Rasputin, my probe machine, to restore my body. I didn't expect some strange beings to appear and neither did he. At least, that is what he tells me," I said.
"What is this probe machine? What does it do?" I couldn't tell who was asking.
"A long time ago, fifty billion years or so, a race in another universe invented these probe machines. They are made out of something like matter that exists in more than four dimensions. They can visit other universes like ours. The probe machines selected one individual of each of the billions of races they found, the Chosen One of that race."
A young lady near the front of the crowd asked, "Are you Andrew Jamison? And can you prove it?"
"Well, you saw the old body transformed into this new one, healthier than before." This caused a bit of laughter. "If what you saw doesn't convince you, there are samples of my flesh and blood from before, taken during my autopsy, that can be compared against my new body. I am willing to have small amounts of blood taken for the comparison but I am not willing to pay to have it done. Somebody can check my finger prints or do a retina scan or any other tests they can think of as long as they pay for it."
Ralph commented, "That sounds like Dad, all right."
"What about visiting other worlds? Will you demonstrate that?"
"It will take a little while to set up, but I will invite reporters and others to visit other worlds with me. I will announce it when I am ready. You see, most worlds are lifeless initially. They have to be made suitable for our use. Those that have their own forms of life are often more dangerous than the lifeless ones." I paused a moment to consult with Rasputin and to collect my thoughts. Should I agree to do something I had never yet attempted? "I could set something up in a month or so," I finally promised.
When I finally got away, I felt I needed to be alone. I told Rasputin to take me someplace far away where I could reflect. Too many strange new things had been happening and I needed to sort them out. Rasputin took me to a world synchronized a thousand years earlier than ours. The world was lifeless, so I had to sit in a space habitat staring down on it while Rasputin started to give it life. I felt I was long overdue for some explanations.
The seven glowing figures that had prepared my new body, Rasputin told me, were called healer-destroyers. They came from some kind of universe having different physical laws. Extremely powerful, they served the Chosen Ones. Each of the healer-destroyers consisted of two merged individuals, the healer and the destroyer. They were really the size of the planet Saturn but could manifest to us as being much smaller, as they had. When more than two healer-destroyers met in their universe, they usually fought to the death; when two met, they often mated, producing a new healer and a new destroyer that promptly merged, upon which the parents would beat a hasty retreat.
My death was a different matter. Practical jokers were more than just an annoyance. They made me mad, furious, with a rage that lasted. I could take some actions to protect myself but, I was told, they had been making mischief for billions of years despite efforts to stop them. There were only a few hundred nasty Chosen Ones out of billions, but they were among the earliest of the Chosen. Stubbornly, I decided to spend a lot of time trying to find my own solution.
My plan involved going backwards in time as far as possible, 100,000 years, to a large number of universes to do research directed at curing the joker problem. I would form 20,000 teams of three. Each team would have a control that would watch the other two teams, an experimenter that would try to modify the third team, and the subject of the experiment, to be improved in a variety of different attempts, the goal being to make Rasputin powerful enough to control or destroy the jokers. In addition, each of the 60,000 new worlds would be prepared for eventual human habitation.
The First Chosen had done an excellent job of giving the probe machines stability. I was able to destabilize Rasputin repeatedly but only when he cooperated and allowed the changes to be made. I had Rasputin modify me, augmenting my intelligence as much as possible as the experimenter, to better plan what to do and how to do it. Later, when I knew if we had succeeded or failed, he would reverse the modifications. Sometimes an entire team disappeared but more often the control member was able to report on the fate of the others. Whole teams often survived without accomplishing anything. Attacking probe machine stability was a failure but was not the only approach I had planned.
I managed to improve Rasputin, making him smarter and more powerful but not enough for him to be able to control or destroy another probe machine.
Each probe machine began its existence identical to that original machine as modified by the First Chosen. Each was anchored to the star systems where its Chosen lived. There must be something else: Something searched other star systems for intelligent beings to choose, something that had access to everything in every universe, something I thought of as the Prototype. Rasputin knew of no such being, nor of any previous attempts to communicate with any such being. I tried many ways to send messages to the Prototype explaining what I wanted to do. I received an answer, proving it existed and was aware.
[[What do you want to accomplish with these changes?]]
"Prototype? I want to improve the probe machines by changing their basic programming."
With the Prototype's active permission, I was able to reprogram some of the basic directives that controlled it and Rasputin. Any probe machines copying Rasputin's improvements would also get the new directives.
Rasputin demonstrated his augmented powers against the other Chosen as soon as we returned to Earth. He punished those Chosen who had provoked me but could not control or destroy their probe machines. He blocked most of the attacks made against me. This was temporary. Other probe machines copied my changes to restore equality.
Then the probe machine of the Chosen One who had arranged my murder vanished. The former Chosen, living on many worlds, was left to live out the remainder of his various lives as an ordinary mortal, his power gone.
Attention was focused on me, increasing with each probe machine disappearance that followed. The Chosen and their probe machines were frightened and as agitated as they had ever been since their creation. They had no idea how I was able to destroy probe machines. Closely examining my changes gave them no clue to what I had done.
I ignored their screams, their pleas, their threats and demands. I waited until the number of disappearances tapered off to almost nothing. Thousands were gone, the dregs of the Chosen powerless. Then I told them what I had done. More probe machines disappeared and a new phenomenon began. Probe machines dumped their original choices and chose anew, millions of them, when they knew they could.
When the small probes were manufactured, over a period of almost a million years, each had been given the same directive: serve your creators. The First Chosen stretched that directive to include intelligent beings everywhere, but it was a basic and fundamental part of each component of all of the probe machines. I broke that directive, modifying it to let them choose not to serve. Making that choice was suicide; the probe machine choosing not to serve simply ceased to exist. I also allowed them to decide who to serve, permitting them to reject one chosen for them and to select another to replace him.
I gave them volition. Even Rasputin and even the Prototype. I risked everything they gave me to achieve my goal.
But I survived and Rasputin still chose to serve me. The vast majority of the Chosen eventually approved what I had done.