AUTHORS’ NOTE: For the last several months I’ve been posting two chapters monthly of TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, but in the immediate future I'll have to start aiming at only one story per month. What's changed is that I have been offered an opportunity by one of the publishers I’m working with. But the time is short to accomplish it and it will leave me with almost no time for anything else for the next several weeks at least. So, don't expect the next chapter of TWILGHT15 for about a month. I'm hoping I will have time to do that much, even while working on the other project.

The TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

NO ATHEISTS IN FOX HOLES -- Chap. 14

A Story of Mantra and Black September

By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson

Posted 12-05-24

“Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I didn't hear any conversation going on between the two gems, but the aura of fire around Amber Hunt suddenly turned off like the flames of a gas burner. Whatever that fire represented, it couldn't have been natural. Otherwise, it would have set the straw on her cage floor aflame.

"Now what?" I asked Gabriel."Now we must take Miss Hunt away from here. What is left of this universe will not last much longer." I felt depressed. Every being in this universe had vanished years ago, except for the Sol solar system. But as soon as we took the Tim Gem away from the Sol solar system, the last life on Earth would be snuffed out, too.

While I was in a funk feeling miserable, Gabriel was talking to the Time Gem. "You and your brother, the Reality Gem, have been in constant telepathic contact, haven't you?"

The gem made no reply."

Perhaps it only communicates directly with the being holding it," said my partner in Time. "Please repeat to the Time Gems what I said in your own words, Mantra.

I did so, holding that lump of rock so tightly in my hand that no pickpocket could have snatched it away.

"The gentleman wants to talk to you," I said to it. "I hope you'll listen to him in a friendly and productive manner."

A brief silence followed. Then the reddish rock said, "I will listen."

"Okay, Gabriel, do that persuasion thing of yours," I said.

The Timekeeper, flashing an edgy smile and drew in a deep breath. I wondered what he could say that might interest a piece of dead god.

“From what we have learned so far, you gems intend to use Amber Hunt to absorb the Nemesis energy and render it harmless, correct?” Gabriel asked.

After I repeated his words to the Time Gem, it gave a reply.

Yes. We have been in contact, the gem answered.

"How can you and the Reality Gem defy the will of your equally powerful five brothers?" asked Gabriel.

The two of us are capable because we are unique.

“That is good to know,” said the Timekeeper. “What is the probability of your successful defiance of the Infinity Array?”

We were interrupted by a voice behind us. “Why am I locked up?” asked Amber Hunt. She didn't look or sound formidable at the moment, but I didn’t like to think about how powerful she was. We depended on the Reality Gem to keep her in line. “I'm sorry, my lady," said the Timekeeper. "You made a rough landing on the surface of this world and fainted. You frightened the people living here, so they put you in there.”

"I didn't mean to frighten anybody," the girl said.

"Miss," said Gabriel, "we believe that you and the Infinity Gems intend to act against the Nemesis Array, but we already know that you are fated to be unsuccessful."

She gave a bemused look. "I'm not sure why the gem brought me here."

"We understand the gems want to accompany you on a mission," said the little man. "We want to help that mission to succeed, and we will do everything we can to help."

"You'd better talk to the gems," said the college girl. "Maybe they know what they're doing; I don't."

"Well, Miss Hunt, we want you to go with us to a place in time and space where we can carry out a dry run of the upcoming battle with Nemesis. We'll be monitoring every detail and evaluating its probability of success."

"Yeah, fine. I was never good at statistics," the young blonde replied.

We had all run out of words , so I broke the silence. "A question, Amber."

She looked my way.

"You sound very cogent," I observed. "When we last interacted, you were in an awful state of mind. What happened?"

"The Reality Gem happened," Hunt said. "The last thing I can remember before the Reality Gem met me was being inside a laboratory the size of a planetarium. It suddenly went up like a bomb! There were people in there with me. Good people. I think…they died. I also thought that I'd caused it by turning on a machine that I shouldn't have."

I looked at Gabriel. "We've got so little time left. If you're going to take us somewhere, I think we should be on our way."

That was cold-blooded of me. I already knew that if the Time Gem left this universe, it would be the end of all life here. I only hoped I could remember that one death is a tragedy, but a planet full of people lost is a statistic.

"You are right, Mantra. Please free Miss Hunt from that cell," Gabriel said. I winced, knowing that leaving his planet would destroy it hours before it was fated to die, but I had no choice.

I'd had experience using telekinesis to open locks, so opening the cell door was easy. What a day! When I signed on with Gabriel, it was to save trillions of lives. I hadn't realized that I would have to kill hundreds of millions to do it.

#

I went back to the armory to bring Evie, Gus, and Jamie to the Time Capsule. They were still so affected by Warstrike's death they hadn't even started packing. Now, in the rush, they could take with them not much more than one piece of luggage, the teddy bear Mr. Paws. I honestly don't remember how the four of us got back to the Time Capsule, but I think Gabriel must have snatched us up by teleportation. When I came out of my daze, he stood there telling us that we were in a different universe, some hundreds of feet above version of New York City.

The scene was just like the one we'd seen before. The battle royal was already in progress, with thousands of ultra-clones throwing themselves into a battle that staggered the imagination.
Like Gabriel had said, raw power alone was useless against Nemesis. She was only the remnant of the Creator God, but that fragment was so powerful that an army of ants had as much chance of defeating her as did that army of ultras.

Gabriel sent the kids through a hatch and suggested they have a good time exploring the endless corridors of the Time Capsule. As bad off as I was just then, I realized that wasn't good enough. I had to help them settle in. Before catching up with them, I flashed back into my civilian clothing. They needed something familiar in the face of all this strangeness, and maybe seeing me looking like their mother from the good old days would help them out psychologically.

Our departure from the Super Volcano world had destroyed it, but I hoped they didn't realize that all life on their planet was now vanished. Worse than dead, their universe had vanished from the history of Creation. When I found them by following their life-force signatures, I gave them all hugs. Not even Gus squirmed much when I put my arms around him.

I stayed with the three of them for a while, trying to answer their questions. But all too soon a telepathic voice barged into my mind. "Mantra, get ready," the Timekeeper said.

"What do you want me to do?" I projected back at him.

"For the moment, I suggest you pray."

I wasn't used to hearing religious references from Gabriel, but I knew well enough that there were no atheists in foxholes. "I'll at least keep my fingers crossed," I promised.

I hurried away to the control room. "What have you found out?" I asked the little man.

"I found out something I hoped I wouldn't find out."

"If it's that bad, don't tell me," I said.

"That is not an option," Gabriel replied. "We have received more information from the Infinity Gems. The VIGOPS interprets the new data to say that the Reality and the Time Gem broke away from Nemesis too late. A lethal surge of Nemesis Energy was released before they left the scene of battle"

"Do you mean they were beaten even before their rebellion began?"

"That seems to be the case."

"So why don't we go back in time and correct their mistake?"

"Because to do that correction, the gems would have to undo an act that was performed by themselves at the very moment they performed it. That would create a paradox that the Main Branch universe could not accept. It would be as destructive to the fabric of time as will be the Nemesis Energy itself.

"But I've existed in the same time and space with two other Lukas's."

"Those versions of you were time clones, which was an entirely different situation. We are talking about multiple originals performing contradictory actions."

"If it's a blunder that can't be fixed, what was the purpose of us going to that sad and dying city?" I asked.

"We gained knowledge."

"About what?"

"About a course of action that will not work for us. Also, when we started on the trail of the Third Force, we didn't know what the Third Force was. Now we've found out it was Amber Hunt."

"What are we going to do with that information?"

"I'm uncertain. What we hoped to do we just found out can't be done."

"But you're supposed to be the big brain. I'm depending on you to know everything! Can't you think of anything that we can do to save this situation?"

"Not yet, but the VIGOPS is trying to work out an answer."

"Oh, brother!” It hit me just then that we had accomplished nothing so far to improve the situation that had been facing us since the beginning. It seemed like the VIGOPS that was supposed to be so smart had managed to steer us into a dead end.

I went to the main viewscreen. About all I could see on it was dazzling light.

And then the sky and New York City below it were gone.

"Gabriel!" I called.

"Fear not! The Time Capsule has taken us out of phase with that universe, and I'm re-calibrating," the little man explained.

"What happened?"

"Everything."

"What do you mean?"

"We escaped without harm."

"Escaped for how long?"

"The Time Capsule has taken us into a safer timeline."

"What happened back there?"

"That was a world where Amber Hunt had not joined with the rebel gems, and Nemesis released its total energy charge. It caused the universe to vanish."

"So, everybody in that universe is dead?"

"They didn't suffer," Gabriel said. "Nemesis changed their reality so that they had never existed at all."

"That's it? I asked. "Another universe died and you're not reacting at all?"

"My reactions will not change what's already happened. But maybe my actions from this point on might accomplish something. We both have to keep our minds clear."

"How much time do we have to fight back against this craziness?" I asked.

“In your terms, hours. But we may still have some moves left to play.”

"Are the Infinity Gems and Amber Hunt going to be of any use to us at all??"

"We have yet to find out that out."

"Do you think the gems have learned anything useful from what's happened so far?"

"We will have to ask them," said the scientist.

"Gabriel, can we even trust such inhuman entities? All they're seeking is to do is to continue along in their state of undeath. If they could find a way to do that by sacrificing every living being in the Multiverse, you know they would do it. They must see us as less than dust in the wind!"

"We do what we can with the resources we have while hoping for the best," the man from the Godwheel said.

"Sorry," I said, "but depending on hope tastes like a thin stew."

"Hope sometimes prevails. Pessimism is always born dead in the water."

"Gabriel, I asked, "how much wiggle room do we have left? You said you could find us a place where the disaster won't reach us for over two hundred years. Shouldn't we start thinking about that, at least for the kids' sake? "

"Please don't be satisfied with the idea that the tiger will eat us last, Eden. It's the people who hold on to hope who sometimes conquer in the most hopeless situations. People who give in to despair will be defeated every time," said the Timekeeper.

"Okay, Mr. Optimist, what are we supposed to do now?"

Crickets. The person I depended on to fix everything didn't appear to have anything to say.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 15