Return from lost timestream 01

     Adam awoke on the shore of a beach with an unfamiliar (and tediously hot, though this was not high on his list of concerns) climate. Of course by now with his enhanced consciousness he had overlapping realizations that he was not merely doing so for a physical beach, but for an esoterical representation of warped meta-space against the sea of void at the same time. Of course, this did not concern him. He managed to arrive at the correct point in both space and time, and he felt fortunate both that he had managed to do so, and also that he had once again managed to survive a trip across the Void, which it was said that no one could do. He winced in pain as he felt the mark of the Void freeze his arm again, but he shrugged this off, and got up.
     He wandered into the prehistoric garden he found before him; now on fire over some reason which he figured was better not to ask about. He wandered on, til he found the very center of the garden, and at it's core the supernatural tree of life which it was said was a link to the infinite, and which he could use to grant himself the limitless time to complete all that which he would need to. He walked up to a pink pillar of light, in a vague treeish shape, but was confused as to what to do next.
     "Welcome back, Adam."
     He swung around, pulling his gun on the voice, only to realize that such a thing was inane at this point. He dropped it on the ground in futility.
      Looking at what he saw before him, it was a many-winged creature which at it's core looked something like a human with some additional cat features, but which also had a frog and many eyes superimposed over it in an unsettling way which his physical mind did not readily process the shape of, and which his esoteric senses were still not attuned enough to use.
     He realized at once that the thing he was talking to was on some level the same being as the twin he called Sandy in the future, though in it's physical incarnation now it looked slightly more androgynous, and a bit taller. And in addition to this, with his supernatural senses he now realized that even the psychedelic things he processed were but a mere fraction of the mind and shape of a gigantic creature larger than the earth, and even the entire solar system; trying to limit it's presence to the small area he was present in.
     "How did you find me here?"
     Many of it's eyes blinked, and turned to look at him.
     "Don't be preposterous. We were the ones that brought you here. You were about to launch yourself out into the Void, and never be able to be retrieved."
      Adam thought about this for a minute, realizing that they should not have been able to know this, and ignoring the further realization that his fate may now be out of his own control. In two ways at once, that is. He wondered whether this was worse than only one way.
      "But I was across the Void, in the old timestream of the previous universe. How could you see me or rescue me if you can't cross the Void?"
       It waved many of it's wings and arms around, as if the question was so ridiculous that it barely even warranted a response.
       "Adam, It's true that we can't cross the Void, Adam. You may not know this, but we, with our means given to us by El Shaddai are actually the progenitors of space. We can create space, and take it with us wherever we need it. Though, of course, to do so damages the stability of the universe, and decreases it's life-span."
       "Can all of you do this, or just you two?"
       "Just us."
       "Why?"
       "The answer would no longer make sense to you."
       Adam was about to object, but he realized he was not likely to get a better response then this. Or in reality, it could be better said that he felt as if one was already being given to him, but he had a headache which blocked it out for some inane reason.
       "Can you not protect the universe from the Void forever?"
       "No, we can't."
       "Why?"
       "Because the Pieces of J are attuned to the physical world. Though we have been given opportunity to interfere with them, we cannot do any more than this."
        Adam didn't really need to ask, but he felt like he should anyway. He already knew that they could not help him, or at any rate would not. It made little difference anymore, which meant that he already knew what he had to do next. Though it's not as if the conversation now really mattered… He had made the choice before ever he had come back here. Assuming the choice was ever his to make at all, that is.
        "If you knew what I was doing then, then you must know what I am going to do now. If you cannot help us, then I will have to seek aid from elsewhere."
        It looked as if it was brooding over the accusation of not being able to help. It raised an eyebrow, looked annoyed, and hunched over with it's arms crossed.
        "You would sell your soul to those who you know can do nothing for you? Who care nothing for you?"
        "I know well what their reasons are, and of how they intend to use us. And I know as well that it is through humanity's fault and actions that this is necessary in the first place. But I can use them… and they can use me. I am going to protect what remains of humanity, even if it costs me everything I still have."
         It folded it's frog and it's wings behind it, and walked over the grass to where he was standing.
         "You know that with your heightened consciousness you can no longer blame your actions on ignorance. If you choose this, you walk this path of your own free will."
        "What is the price of one soul weighed against the whole world?"
        "You will soon see how much of the world you will come to bring with you."
         It snapped it's fingers, and generated a small fruit in it's hand, which it gave it to him.
       "There is no need for you to try to decipher the Sephirot you see before you. I can give you the everlasting life you seek. What you choose to do with it is up to you."
        He looked at the small fruit he had been handed. Of course, the literal object was not the source of it's conveyance, but that mattered little. He was hungry as well, so he ate it without complaining. He felt something happen to him, but he didn't feel the need to focus on this as of prevalent importance. He knew he was not being lied to.
        "Well, I guess this is goodbye."
         It smiled.
        "Do not worry. We will meet again."
        "In how long?"
        "As long as it takes. We will always be here waiting for you."
        
******

         Adam wandered away from the garden he had found himself in, and out into the empty world. Though he had wanted to, he came to the conclusion that he shouldn't even bother asking how it was speaking perfect English millennia before the language was even created. He also had a headache and gaps of memory which ensured him that the conversation he had just walked out of had been far longer than he had just recounted, but that part of it had been stricken from his memory for some reason, the likes of which he could not imagine.
          He knew there were some things he would have to do before coming in contact with what passed for humanity at this time, starting with altering his appearance and demeanor, as well as learning some basic skills anyone alive at this time would be expected to know.
           Realizing he could never use his them again in the presence of people for whom they had not yet come into style, he stripped naked, and started a fire to dispose of his old clothes. Though the spirit had also not had any, he figured that humans would have invented coverings by now, so he would also have to find some animals to use as a means to construct some such. However, he would not be meeting with them for some time, and needed to burn his skin enough to blend in with them more easily, so he would have time enough to learn to do that before then.
           Having known what he would have had to do, he had nothing else to take out of his pockets to have to inconveniently have to dispose of, except his stack of papers, and the inactivated Laplace that Maitreya had given him. He took it out of the makeshift casing it had been enclosed in, and looked at it now closely for the first time. Though it was small, he could feel from just it's weight and movement that the parts of it he saw were but a mere fraction of the pieces it connected to. It vaguely reminded him of the design of the Longinus Cannon, though he assumed it was because it was in part reverse engineered from pieces of it which had ended up in this universe.
           There was fortunately for him, (in his mind) only one button on it; Something he wondered whether it was to actually ensure that he wouldn't be too stupid to manage first try without breaking anything, or whether it merely hadn't need of any others. So he laid it on the ground, pressed it, and backed off to a safe distance, to see what would happen.
            He was a bit disappointed at first to find that it seemed to do nothing but slowly fade from view, as if it were being pulled into another dimension. Though his disappointment didn't last long beyond this, as it was soon turned to amazement as he felt lines of energy shoot from the area it had disappeared to, and with his mind's eye could feel it unfolding in the area behind space it was enclosed in, and spread itself out in every direction into the far distance. In the end, he was dismayed that he had not gotten to see more of it's functions, but he realized that that was because it had not yet been created in his own time yet, and if he were to know how it actually worked it could in theory alter the outcome of the future.
            In theory of course, because nothing could alter the outcome of the future now. All Earth's recorded history had been encoded on, and through self-regulation been born from the mechanisms of the Laplace on high. Adam realized that the mechanics were a mere superficial design, and that the core of the system was something ineffable; beyond space and time. Something encoded into the universe itself, which could not be altered, and which had already occurred, though those in progressional time had not yet traversed far enough to see it. That the system he had held was a mere way to tap into this reality. He pondered his own futility, and inconsequentiality in the scheme of the universe; even in the light that he had fallen into the role of it's primary caretaker.
            He pondered this for a minute…
            Then, realizing he no longer had any reason to address this issue from the angle in which he was not likely to get any answers, he walked over to the nearest tree, sat with his back against it, and took out his stack of papers he had brought back with him. He realized by now, of course, that he had been the one writing the letters to Sophie all along; though the discrepancy they had found had come from the fact that his past self had not yet done so, in spite of his false memories.
            And he realized as well, that when he once again reached the future, he would also be the one to deliver them after all. He had the responses which she would have written already taken back with him now, as he would have collected them in alternation from when he would have sent them then, and would in time make them come to be held by his past self here, now where he had already come to need them.
           He took out a single sheet, and opened the special implement which had come with them. He had been told that these papers and their implements would not be damaged by time. That they had been designed in a way which would hold up forever, unless damaged by extraneous circumstances. If he wrote now, it would still be intact on the day he delivered it far into the future. Still looking as if it had been written a mere month, a week, even a day earlier.
           But what do you write in a message to someone who would not receive it for tens of thousands of years? What could possibly be enough to put in only one single sheet to someone you could not contact again in over a millennium? To someone who could never even know the isolation you were trapped in; as for each month that passed for them in communication, for you passed tens of hundreds of years.
           For all his works he was still bound by many limitations. He could not write about what he was doing. His life, the real occurrences which befell him. He was writing as his ten year old self; the one which had never lived, but which he finally had the desperately desired chance to give life to. Writing as someone who merely wanted to contact someone they had met as friends not more then a week before, and to whom they had promised to stay in touch with.
           But this mattered little to him. By his means he had found a way to keep one person with him all throughout time. He came to wonder whether, in the end, he would not be behind even her very presence in his life as well, as a mere means of his then no longer fully human self to keep his weak and human past from falling into despair over the path which had lain before him.
           He spent over a full twelve hours writing, erasing, and writing again his letter on the one sheet which he had had for it. Finally, satisfied to no degree which he would have admitted were he being truthful to himself, he finished it, folded it up, and stuffed it in the container which he had kept them in.
           And he took out the first response which would be written; already taken back through time with him.