"God made thee perfect, not immutable"

JOHN MILTON
PARADISE LOST
1665

"Ivo, you must let them go."

Tall and painted with picturesque good looks, Ivo stared at a large representation of planet Earth before him. His forehead was broad, his nose Roman, his cheekbones high, and his jaw squared. Ivo sighed as he glanced back at his fellow member of the Kantos race and extended long arms out to each side. "It's difficult, Luce. All the images gleaned from the communion are difficult to expel at first."

Next to Ivo floated a long, billowing oval of golden light. From this image came the voice of Luce to tell him, "Yes. Such are the battle scars from absorption of knowledge. You have performed this function before."

Ivo nodded and frowned his human features. "Of course. You know my record!"

Luce spoke in a measured fashion, "Quite. This assignment was your last. You are at the end of your program. There should be no reason for melancholy in your voice. Your passage is complete."

Ivo studied the globe of green and blue before asking Luce, "Then why do you reproach me? You delegated me to this world no other wanted to read! Not even the most derelict of our society desired to wrestle with the Terran's bile, their feelings of hatred and peculiar fascination with sin, whatever that is."

"Yes, you took the onus of the project on yourself to prove a point to us. A study of this solar system last occurred several days ago, a few thousand years as the Homo sapiens judge it. The Gestalt desires an accounting every so often."

Ivo's humanoid hands flexed and then ran through his silver hair. "That we keep tabs on such a place is amazing. They are filth—full of envy, strife, and self-loathing. Putrid carcasses more concerned with their own lusts than the good of their race as a whole. Paranoid creatures dreaming of better means of mass destruction, more creative copulation and fantastic lies of tiny beings visiting from afar off worlds!"

The being of gold light shimmered a little. There was an almost comic tone to Luce's voice as he said, "You see? Such foolishness is not worth the emotional turmoil you bequeath on them! They are building castles in the air, not realizing the impossibility of a journey from the stars. Only a being of pure energy could make such a voyage."

Grinding his teeth, Ivo agreed. "Such idiotic vitriol they spew! It pains me to the soul their nonsensical obsession with their gods! They kill their own kind in fear or favor of their deities! Their pre-occupation with guilt and this sin thing makes them either hide in caves to beat their breasts or build grandiose temples to their forgiving god.&rdquo

"Then why are you still wearing their form?"

Ivo gazed down at his hands, wiggled the digits, and directed his vision back to the world. "I..."

Luce spoke gently. "The purpose of the program is reconnaissance, accumulation of knowledge, and maturity of yourself. There is no other way you can add to the Gestalt. When you are deemed worthy by me, then you can become one with them."

Gawking at the fingers of the body he wore, recalling the touch of the humans and their deification of the flesh, Ivo let it go. His body transformed back into its natural state of pure energy. Looking identical to Luce, Ivo inquired, "And that was why you sent me to this place?"

"Of course. First, the planet's knowledgeable essence needed integrated unto ourselves. Two, there existed the necessity for you to complete your program. Three, you had to exhibit to me that you could conquer one of the more stubborn quandaries of all. I would never have sent one of us there if I feared the abilities of the subject to be unsatisfactory for the function."

"Then I shall go to the Gestalt. I'm ready for unification unto the matrix."

Luce agreed. "Excellent!" The apparition of the Earth faded before them and they moved toward the massive, floating glob of light behind them. The image spread out as large as a galaxy, full of beings birthed by dreams of those on planet Kantos. From these emphatic creatures of flesh came the beings of energy that ascended to a fourth dimension to gather together knowledge, to study and to live forever. "Go to them, Ivo. I have others to guide to their destinations this day."

Ivo paused and said, "Luce, how can I help the Gestalt by the knowledge from the Terran's world?"

Luce responded, "On that wicked world, did not these creatures even find beauty in the most repulsive of things? Through the most horrid of circumstances we can comprehend new vistas of thought. You cannot harm the Gestalt with such visions. Go now. After all, The Devil is in the details."

Ivo trekked forward, his mind force completely on his ultimate communion with the eternal Gestalt of light...and then his mind turned. When his self flew to the fields of ethereal light, the words of Luce came back to him...The Devil is in the details...that is an expression he heard on the Earth...

Instead of exaltation and ecstasy, Ivo felt tremors of the human emotion fear when he merged into the energy force of the Gestalt, all he could think of was the world of wickedness.

Wars, blood in the soil, bodies rent asunder, sexual violation for control, hatred, envy, greed, and fear rippled with the atoms of his being. Images of countless human bodies filed into gray stone chambers with only ashes spilling out the other side, painted Ivo's thoughts. Blood from a skull-shaped hill coated the planet in Ivo's mind; the grubby Terran denizens warred over it, drank it and bathed in it...building incredible cathedrals to it...made paranoid fantasies in honor of it...Ivo tried to force these pictures out of his consciousness as his intellect was absorbed into the Gestalt.

His concept of self would soon vanish, this was the reward of the program...but why did he still think of the wicked world? Why did the images of millions of dead children rebound in his mind? Why did he see the emotional disease caused by this sin in his mind? AND WHY DID HE STILL HAVE A MIND?

It was to be complete happiness, everlasting peace, and exact fulfillment in the great realm of light, but all Ivo experienced was fear. This fear transformed into terror and he tried to pull back...

Hovering on the precipice of eternity outside the Gestalt was Luce.

Why was he still there? What did Luce mean by his words?

Ivo couldn't extract himself from the Gestalt and felt a new emotion from the Collective—panic. His mind perceived the immensity of the Gestalt stretch out against the eternal night, glowing as a beacon in the dimension far beyond those of the homunculi on the planets...and it blurred. In another instant he saw long currents ripple in the Gestalt not unlike rivers on the putrid planet Earth. In these trenches flowed something that came from Ivo. Darkness.

In no time the blackness flooded out, spreading like fluid, spidering out to all parts of the Gestalt, transforming the pristine light of their collective into seething, ebony matter.

As the screams of the unified throng drowned Ivo's voice, he attempted to decipher Luce's words. Devil in the details. Devil...that silly puppet the dolts on Earth used to scare their inhabitants into submission. That was all this Devil creature was to the belief systems of that world. Why would Luce use such a phrase? But the screams of the Gestalt wouldn't allow Ivo rational thought. The morons of the planet made imaginary bargains with this evil fable for personal gain. This entity made the deals to ensure Terran souls would reside in a terrible eternity for his personal hatred and individual mischief. Why couldn't Ivo remove that name from his mind? Devil...or Lucifer...the light bearer...

While the darkness bathed the Gestalt, Ivo recognized that madness was overwhelming them all for he could hear Luce's voice, loud and hollow, laughing!

And the oval of light that Luce still held glowed bright in the vision of the darkened Gestalt. As their existence seared and burned, Ivo gave into bedlam, seeing the top of Luce's image sprout silver appendages and extend them out.... like razor tipped arms...NO...WINGS!

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