THE TOOL

Evanar was the ultimate leader. She was charismatic and wise beyond her years, and we were all fiercely loyal to her. We would have followed her into hell if necessary, to accomplish whatever she needed to have done.

We actually did not have much else in the world, because the world was dying, as you know. Evanar was looking for a way to save it; to save everyone. Lucky for us that she was also very rich, with rumored money from the Old Country. None of us knew how rich, nor did we care. She could have come from another planet, and it would not have mattered to us at all. She was who she was, and that was enough for us.

There were forty of us on her team, and more were being recruited all the time, for several of us were always looking for talented men and women. But would that ever be enough? Our enemy weas continually seeking the same thing we were.

Evanar was on the move, however. I followed her to our new home office.

I walked the long walk in town to our new building, that last morning. The feeble sun did not warm the landscape, which was firmly locked in winter. Why she chose this city and this building, I may never know, but she needed for us to be here in East Germany, and so we were. I didn’t even speak German, nor did I particularly want to; but I could learn.

I got the sense of the building as I approached it. How odd that it seemed to be very old, even though it looked modern enough, with an anonymous mirrored glass facade and severely square lines. It was if this building, the object somehow sat outside of space and time.

I went inside, acknowledging Kamar at the desk, with a look, as I entered the elevator. I went to the top, and stepped off into a large, bare room, looking for my boss. Evanar usually dressed in black, with a one-piece outfit that neither accented nor hid her feminine form. Her charm was her flowing red hair. She never wore makeup, nor did she need to, for her face was strikingly beautiful with wide blue eyes and an aquiline nose and full lips.

I stood there, wondering which door to go to, but there was a shimmer before me, and I sensed that I should walk through it. As I walked forward the large room disappeared, and I found myself in a dark chamber with metal walls. Large machinery was around the room, thrumming with power. On the walls were many regularly spaced openings, dimly lit, with various bright devices showcased within.

Evanar stood in the middle, wearing a burka-like covering; a light blue environmental suit. I recognized her contralto voice as she told me to come near.

“Where are we, Evanar?”

“This is something new. I am not even sure how to describe it. I just call it the Environment., But I have found what we were all looking for.”

“And what would that be?

“What we were all born to find. The Tool.”

I did not understand. I am not sure to this day that I do. We had been looking for something for so long. Many of us went out searching, driven by Evanar, but what some came back with was foolishness. They came back with leads to the Ark, or to the Challis, or Baal’s Meteor. These were not at all what we searched for. It was as if our friends were diverted somehow, and their minds deviled with. Some of them did not come back. I never knew it, until Evanar told me about them. It was as if they had left a hole in time with their absence, and only she remembered them; Sanchez, Miner, Evans and Born.

“There was a place I was drawn to, in my thoughts. It was always there, but I could not see it. It was hiding in plain sight. But at last I found it.” She said.

“I do not understand. This is what we have been searching for?”

“Yes. But I see now that you all were a diversion, to occupy those who had this. The only reason I found it was because they had left and gone elsewhere — or elsewhen.”

More things to not understand. But I was fascinated by what she was holding at arm’s length, with long metal tongs. It was round, with a pearly gleam, and it glowed. It looked quite dangerous.”

“The Tool.” She simply said.

“But what is it? I do not understand. Where did it come from?”

“At first I thought it had been left to us by some alien life, millions of years ago. Now I am quite sure it has always been here and has always been a part of us. But you understand what a tool is, no? It is a device for doing work; for accomplishing something. We all have tools around us every day: Machines, computers, shovels and hammers — are all which we employ to do something. This is the ultimate tool. You think of what you want and it accomplishes that which you think. These other tools, surrounding us in the wall, are tools too, that this one uses to do what we will.”

I dare not come closer. Evanar was too close to it as it was, but I did not yet know how close she had been to it. “It will take us a long time to study this, boss. We are in no hurry, right?”

“Adam, you have been recruited because you are a tool builder. You have that singular ability to use tools to do wonderful things. I want you to begin to use this. Take it and learn from it.” She walked over to me, carefully handing me the tongs, with the object firmly held at the nether end.

“But I do not have an environmental suit!”

“You will find that such a suit has offers no protection from this. I wear mine to protect your sensibilities, for if you could see me, you might be afraid.”

Her words hardly reached me, for the device — the Tool, as it was called, had my complete attention. I wanted to reach out and take it in my hands, but I somehow understood that it was only to be touched by my mind, my thoughts, and nothing else. I let go of the tongs, but it did not fall to the floor. Instead, the glowing object stayed where it was; the tongs hanging uselessly from it. It was my mind that held it in place.

Evanar exclaimed with a shout.

The device was asking a question. “What do you want to do?”

What indeed! A genie could have appeared and asked me for three wishes, and I would have been no less perplexed to answer.

But before I could frame some sort of answer, I noticed that I was changing! My body was becoming incorporeal. It was as if I could no longer tell where my body began and the air and the surroundings around me ended at my flesh. It felt like my body was becoming liquid. Atoms and molecules flowed. My flesh was dissolving, and there was nothing I could do about it!

Yet I continued to live. Soon the transformation was complete. I found that the device was in my ‘hand’ such as it was, flowing with energy and insubstantial.

Evanar took off her helmet. I saw that the same thing had happened to her. As she removed the rest of her suit, I saw that she was a thing of beauty; matter and energy flowing freely in and around her form. She seemed to be made of stardust, which glowed with life and vitality!

“Do I look like this now?” I asked.

“If you look like me and I look like you. You indeed are beautiful!”

“But what has happened to us? Can we ever go back to what we were?”

“Your body has been adjusted to allow you to interface with the tool in a better way. However, you already know the answer to your question, if you stop and think about it.”

I did. I understood — everything!

“We must begin our work. The world needs saving. Here is the tool that can redeem it.”

Evanar walked over to me, reaching her ‘hand’ to touch the Tool that I held. “I am afraid the world may no longer exist, Adam.”

I looked ‘out’ into the world, and I saw that she was right. There was a bubble of time around us, and nothing beyond that could be seen. Everyone was gone. Somehow, those who had the Tool before, had used it to travel into the past, and they had changed the world of this day, so that it no longer existed as it was.

“They have destroyed it!”

“No. They are only the few in a long line of people who have tried to use the Tool to fix the world. They just made a mistake, is all. That can be easily fixed.”

“What about everyone? Are they all dead?”

“No. Not quite. If we restore the world, in whatever form we restore it, they will all live, but their lives will be changed from what they were a moment ago.”

Evanar continued, “When I as quiet and at peace, at the edge of my dreams, I could see the Tool, along with this room and all the rest of these devices. I found that I no longer needed to look for it, but I simply called it to myself. It changed me, as it did you. I was very afraid at first, but in the presence of this god-given device, I found that there was no need to be afraid of anything, ever again.”

“But we must fix the world. It is gone and we need to bring it back!”

“Bring it back to what? The way it was this morning? Hungry, hurt and always in pain? We wanted to change the world, remember? Now we have a chance to change it from the beginning. Think of it. Mankind has always been in pain, enslaved to kings and potentates who were slaves to their own lusts. So much suffering! Now we have the opportunity to set the world right, from the beginning, if you are willing to help. Because it will take both of us to do this.”

There was no need to think or to contemplate at all. “I am willing. You know that, Evanar! With everything that I am, and with all of my might, I will help you do this.”

I could see her smiling, even though she no longer had a ‘face’ with which to smile. We held the Tool between us. The other devices glowed, and the machinery hummed with great power. Time and space flowed around us, as we went into the past, and rebuilt the world, yet again.

. . .

I sat on the grass in my perfect, and perfectly human body, watching the sunrise. All around me was life; plants, trees, animals and birds. We had made the world such that even the animals no longer ate one another, but they all ate plants and seeds instead. This was Paradise. A beautiful woman sat at my side. I was content for the first time in my life.

She stood, and so did I. I looked into her eyes and said, “Do you mind if I call you Eve?”

She smiled a wide smile, and her eyes sparkled with mystery. “The tool is still here, you know?”

“Where?” I was astonished at this.

“It is here in this garden. It has always been here. It is in that great tree, yonder, in the middle of this paradise. People used to call it the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But I think it is also the tree of Life.”

“I know the things we chose before, but look at all the pain and suffering that it brought, along with all the knowledge and progress. Perhaps this time we should choose to partake of Life instead.”

“We could live a thousand years, if we did that. And perhaps we could learn to seek the One who created us instead of our own advancement. Progress, you called it? Somehow I do not think we benefited from that at all. I, for one, want to find out who it is that originally brought us to this place. Who gave us the Tool? Who created this world on which we stand? There may be much greater things to learn from him, than from our own devices. What do you think?”

“Eve, I think we have a world to populate and to build. I also think that our Creator will look for us and we will not have to find him. He will come calling in the cool of the afternoon, if we busy ourselves with work in this garden.”

Awesome Eden stood bright and perfect before us, as we walked into the morning.