As I float in the void, I see Kilroy approach me, his hand outstretched, his eyes glowing: this time, white. “You’re dead, Blake.”
“No shit.”
“I can still save you. I can revive you with a flick of my wrist. I am immortal and I can make you the same… or, for now at least, bring you back this one time.”
“Sweet. Prove it.”
“Talk to me first, Blake. There’s no time limit, here: not for me, at least. We’re having this conversation in the span of two seconds in real world time.”
“What!?”
“This,” he motions to this darkness around us as he rotates in place, “is the plane between worlds, Detective. It’s a lot of crazy talk when it’s the crazy cult leader babbling on about the astral plane, but when you’re dead on a couch from being blown out of proportion--” I can sense him stifling the laughter at his own horrendous joke, “--and you feel your body just slip away, watch yourself eject from your own hideous form like a floppy disc after a paperclip hits the drive, and you find yourself just floating here with me in that same world--it’s a lot harder to question me now, isn’t it?”
“You bastard–”
“Now now now, Detective, you’re essentially frozen right now. You can’t even see your own body, can you?”
I look down. Nothing. I’m a formless awareness.
“You’re new to this realm, Detective. Things only exist here if you breathe the life of will into them. Rapture Blue can assist with that process, but after a while it comes to you naturally. You were my best test subject your first night with us, but I wouldn’t suggest attempting to harm me here. You’re on Red right now--and you’re inexperienced, still. This is my territory now. I can tear your consciousness to shreds with a stray thought here.” He floats up to me and places his hand on my ‘face,’ sending chills through my invisible etheric body as I realize I really CAN’T fight back here or even move. “Consider, if you will, the real world, as we call it, to be a very specific program--the laws of physics are written in stone, deep inside every qbit that makes up the fabric of reality. Why does gravity draw us towards Earth instead of away? Why does light travel at exactly 299,792,458 metres per second? It’s the code in the program. Somewhere, somehow, there’s a way to alter the code of the very fabric of reality. But to do that, one would have to access the operating system itself, first. How many identical programs are running within that OS, Blake? How many other worlds? Who wrote them? Are they themselves simulations within simulations? We’re outside of that ‘window’ itself right now; we’re pure energy. Anything here is possible if you know how to manifest it. That’s how I can bring you back to life. But, of course, you’ll have to join me…”
“I… I can’t…”
“Tell me, Detective, why do you hesitate?! I don’t pretend to be morally pure and upstanding. I know I’m above the law and I know and accept that I can’t save the world without getting blood on my hands. It is what it is. I understand: You’ve lost everything, so you need to be the hero now. You need to do it for her, for the woman you left behind, for the woman who was taken from you too soon. You act like some twisted mix of idealized heroics and narcissism drives you, but in the end it’s still revenge that you seek...”
A pause. He’s completely inside my head and delights in watching me realize. He knows everything; nothing is private anymore. Every feeling and thought in my entire being, past and present, is under his perusal and control.
“...what I do not understand, Detective, is why you continue to work for the same corporate police state that did this to you–the same ones who killed her!” He pauses again to turn away from me. “I understand more than you know, Blake. They took everything from me, too, in ancient times–before the US government was even bought out by the motherfuckers. You can’t even begin to fathom the depths of my loss! I gave myself immortal life so I’d have enough time to find a way to tear them down and give this wretched planet we live on a new beginning. Call me a terrorist if you want; John Adams was a terrorist until he won. I’ll do whatever it takes, and the fact that you’re willing to sacrifice your rightful vengeance makes me lose respect for you.”
“You’re a maniac, Kilroy. How do I fit into any of this? How the fuck does your ridiculous binary-reality theory tie into you being a domestic terrorist!?”
“That’s what they said of the heliocentrists. It is the ‘insane’ who enlighten, who appear mad to the blind sheep around them, drunken in the joy of the light that only they can see, until one day that light can be shared!”
“I’m not joining you.”
“Then you can kiss even your spirit goodbye; Telecunt!” Kilroy spits, raising his hand menacingly in what can only be described as a force choke on steroids. I start to feel even my spiritual consciousness fade as I dissolve into true death, shouting and screaming in abject desperate terror for him to let me live, that I’ll join him, I’ll work undercover against Telecom, I’ll do anything–but it’s no use. I fade to black.