“I remember you.” Zane felt a twinge of confusion. The hacker’s parents and hers had been acquaintances and the last he’d heard, Julie Dark worked in a downtown club. “Do you ever regret not signing up to colonize other planets?” The meet your messenger computer hacker asked in the way of small talk.

“This is the real world.” She said condescendingly. “You’ve got an enormous legal problem to deal with. The FBI wants you to spend time in prison for malicious hacking and writing computer virus programs.”

“Aren’t you a nursing assistant?” The meet your messenger hacker asked innocently.

“I’m your defense lawyer.” She examined his face for a trace of humor, or even dementia, but detected none. “Unless you have the money to hire another attorney.”

“Lawyers,” Zane scrutinized her for symptoms of lunacy, “haven’t been around since the 1880’s when the rule-of-law was abolished.” He distinctly recalled Julie sitting next to him in history class when they covered the many changes that occurred after the rebel south won the American Civil War.

“What happened to you today?” The lawyer asked. Julie took some pride in her intuition regarding when people were telling the truth and Zane the hacker had seemed as serious in his absurd statement about a different space and time, as if quoting established facts.

“I received word that my father had died of a flue virus but before I managed to get a space flight back from Ganymede, my mother had also passed away from the same virus.” Zane recounted. “Today I was in my parent’s room, when a phenomena of ball lightning entered through the open window. The words ‘Meet Your Messenger’ resounded in my mind. Then the ball lightning hit me and I woke up to find you sitting here.”

“Ganymede.” Julie repeated the name of one of the planet Jupiter’s moons. “Zane, I knew your computer game playing life headed off in an antisocial direction and that has landed you here. You’re charged with having committed cyber-vandalism and distributing computer virus programs under the hacker code name of ‘Meet Your Messenger’. But I didn’t know that you were into mind-altering drugs.”

“Julie,” Zane Letterman’s voice was as judgmental as hers had been, “I know you stayed here on earth when many of your friends left to colonize space: that must’ve been lonely. There’s not all that many good career opportunities open on earth, and my mother told me you started dancing on tables for your living.”

“Are you suffering from a dementia virus or or am I really meeting a messenger from space?” Julie Dark asked seriously, but her lips hinted at a smile as she imagined herself in that job.

‘I’m not lucky enough for the odd light to be a UFO with friendly aliens onboard.’  The hacker thought as he crossed to the window.  He pulled aside the drapes but the glass was in need of cleaning: his mother hadn’t washed them for several months before she died and he hadn’t since her death either.  Zane unlatched the sash and lifted up the pane for a clear view outside.  And there it hovered.  A ball of lightning was floating only about a car length from his house: it seemed of basketball size.

‘Meet your messenger.’  Again the phrase he often used on his computer insinuated itself into his mind.  Then the ball lightning moved deliberately towards him.  Zane Letterman stumbled back several steps in borderline panic.  ‘What if I don’t want to meet my messenger?’  His mental words went unheeded, as the ball lightning closed the gap between where it had hovered and the now open window.

‘Doesn’t a ball lightning phenomena move quicker than that?’  The hacker asked his mind but the specific information on ball lightning wasn’t housed there.  As the ball reached the windowsill, Zane’s legs struck the bed: his reversing momentum sent his back sprawling onto the mattress.  This was the bed where both his parents had so recently met their messengers and today seemingly, Zane would too.

‘Meet your messenger!’  The inner voice was a mental shout in the silent room.  The ball lightning phenomena stopped when it was over the hacker’s heaving chest.  ‘Meet your messenger!’  The phrase was a shriek drowning out all other thought: the ball lightning dropped into Zane Letterman’s ribcage and the hacker screamed.

In that instant in a material place occupying the same location but separated by a dimensional border, an identical scene was occurring. It featured a Zane Letterman character. But they were worlds apart in more than a dimensional sense.

‘MEET YOUR MESSENGER!  The noiseless sound was as louder than an exploding volcano.  The high-voltage ball lightning sent its energy into every cell of Zane’s body: instantly transforming his physical form into anti-matter.  And so it happened to Zane in the alternate universe as well.

Matter and anti-matter can’t coexist.  Even the inert material of the bed should’ve reacted with the incompatible body reposed on it—and violently exploded.  In a world composed of matter, anti-mater is the alien, but the reverse is also true.  The two Zane’s had instantaneously become foreign to their own existences so the great cosmic balancing intelligence had only one option: and the switch was flicked.

To be continued…

By Russell Twyce – Author of Shiva’s Messenger

Imagine if You Clicked Here

Then the hacker sighed as he withdrew his probe program from the violated system and he lit a cigarette.   The corporate IT techs wouldn’t see his digital rape penetration of their virginal database as an act of forced love but the hacking digital rapist did.  ‘Meet your messenger’.  The hacker thought as he took a deep draw on his smoke and exhaled it deliciously.  From his perspective, he had granted the computer a sexual favor with all the sensual skill he possessed and neither the white hats, nor his black knew what the computer’s motherboard really felt while being raped.  An overprotected virgin who never experiences intercourse, ultimately becomes a dry old maid.  ‘This ex-cherry has now met her messenger.’

The messenger, as the hacker called himself in his computer hacking hobby, as well as in the many computer games he played and excelled at, shut down his programs and went to make a sandwich.  It was dry bread and baloney: he had no butter left.

Zane Letterman possessed programming skills and knowledge that would put most of his corporate IT foes to shame but his income didn’t eve come close to matching.  At thirty-two years of age, he still lived in his parent’s house.  It was his now.  Zane’s Dad had succumbed to cancer three months ago and his mother died unexpectedly a week later: perhaps of a broken heart.  As an only child, the hacker inherited.

The notorious ‘Meet Your Messenger’ hacker munched on his flat tasting repast and he went upstairs to his parent’s deserted room.   He pulled open the third dresser drawer and pushed aside the folded clothing to reveal a thick wallet.  He was about to extract some cash to buy some more groceries—when it happened suddenly.

Zane Letterman was about to meet his messenger.

Meet Your Messenger is a fictional story

by Russell Twyce – author of Shiva’s Messenger