Children of the Entity: The Blurred Men
He is one but many, an enigma bleeding through the fault lines of temporal reality. Born from the shattered remains of a domain once whole.
We are many and we are one.
The year was 1978. Just two years later the the Fall Years would end and a new dawn would come for humanity. Just a shame I wouldn’t be there to see it. The Lady I now know as Luck, had other plans for me that day.
Unlike most of the others, I know where I came from. I existed in the shadow of the Great Resource War, and I was once part of a small squad aiming for the industrial heart of the I/Sect. Its existence and connections had allowed Europe to bypass Russia altogether in the world of trade. Such an alliance would turn the Soviet Imperium into a cornered rat if the Chinese ever decided to throw its lot in with them. A pre-emptive show of force was decided upon if only to seize the oil fields and give new life to President Maxim Vasechkin’s war machine.
This story, however, is not about the war at large. But it helps in understanding my current predicament. It was because of the war that I wandered into a trap made especially for me. Foresight isn’t something humans just learn. I first developed it as a child when my father came home one day carrying a strange bronze-coloured ball. That’s where it began. I experienced premonitions every time I interacted with that strange device. I would see a future yet unwritten. My father being a man of science used my experiences to study the nature of the sphere. When I asked if he had experienced this gift of foresight. He denied it. From that point forward we ran tests ranging from simple coin flips to serious gambling. That’s also where I first saw her, in those dark dingy places. Never at the front but watching from a distance, hidden behind pitch-black shades that could swallow any soul that looked into them. She looked pretty but strangely featureless and sometimes blonde, other times brunette. The shades always gave it away. My father eventually stopped before it became too suspicious. The predictions presented by the sphere were always right. There was no doubt about it. The technology he later told me was not of this earth but was recovered from a race of beings long since passed.
You might ask how I went from underground gambling to life in the military. When my father passed, his will made mention of the Future Sphere (the name he gave it). It was to be my inheritance. The rest of the family inheritance went to my many brothers and sisters. While you can do a lot with money and wealth. I possessed a means to shape the future. To set Maxim’s Imperium on course to great things. At least that was the idea.
The sphere was not responsible for how I ended up like this. It simply presented a future that I willingly followed. I had no way of knowing it would lead me to my eternal torment in this fractured state. You see the Future Sphere’s ability to see forward in time was just one of its many tricks. I now understand the device was a communicator used for transmitting thoughts over long distances across space using the psychic current of the Aether to link minds instantaneously. The grey lady, not the same as the one I saw while gambling but all the more mysterious was also a human-like entity except her skin was paper white, with ink-black stains travelling up her arms and legs. Most of it was covered by the intangibly long black hair, knee-length grey dress and long matching velvet gloves with black thigh-high stockings. Her eyes too were a deep black and held no pupils that I could see. To be honest, looking back on it. It all sounds so absurd.
As the main divisions of the Imperium’s army swept through the I/Sect I was tasked with keeping the civilian insurgents from shooting us in the back. This led to my squad patrolling one of the more forgettable towns we had to occupy. We were a squad of five, and I was its Captain. We were tasked with scouting ahead for any signs of insurgent activity. When a loud knock came from the nearby building. I had instinctively touched the Future Sphere as it hung from my belt. It only showed me flashes of the future.
An open door. An empty hallway covered in sand. A living room with a television showing static, a single cracked wall mirror sitting above a cobbled-together extinguished fire and finally a garden. A dead tree. Footsteps. Gunshots. They shook me back to my senses.
At the time the vision was confusing. I had to assume the damned thing had just shown me my future. That was also when I saw her again. Still in shades, had to rub my eyes a few times. I double-checked my team, their attention was elsewhere. It would have been odd to draw attention to myself and so far she hadn’t tried to hurt me. It hit me then that my father was not protecting me from the criminals of my home country but from her. My unnatural luck had been the cause of her being drawn to me. While the aftermath of war littered my surroundings, she alone remained untouched by it all content to just watch me. She could have been the reaper itself, come to settle an overdue debt. I was cheating after all. I reminded myself that I had not seen my death. The vision while showing everything from my perspective had only ended with gunfire. Would my own squad really betray me?
“Captain, maybe we should check the building. There could be insurgents inside.”
I agreed but still had my doubts. “If there were wouldn’t they have attacked us by now?”
My squad looked visibly nervous as if the question alone put fear in their minds. It can’t be them. Why? I’ve served with them for most of my life. Why betray me here?
“True, are you saying we should leave it?”
“No,” I answer approaching the door made of wood. It opens with little resistance. “Privates Yerohkin and Zherdev I want you to lead this one. Scout the downstairs. The two privates entered with little complaint. That just left me with Sergeants Balakin and Garin. “You two check upstairs.”
“And what about you, Captain?”
“I will guard the front.”
The two men look at each other before following the order. I can avoid my fate if I stay here. Should I check? Am I to live in fear from this point forward? Is my fate unavoidable or is the Future Sphere a true constant? My heart thundered against my chest as sweat rolled down my cheeks.
I should just kill them… I heard a noise and cry from inside and natural instinct took over. I had already set my future in motion. I moved to the living room and found nothing but a static television and the mirror. The damage to it had led to a spider web of cracks stretching from the centre to each end. My face split into many, and some I swear weren’t even me.
“Someone report!”
Nothing. I looked into a cluttered kitchen. The back door was wide open. I touched the Sphere. Nothing. Bastard. Is this what I get for messing with fate?
With one hand on my rifle, I approached the back door and enter the garden. In the centre sat the gnarled old tree from my vision. Gunfire, I closed my eyes. I’m still alive and turn around to see Garin standing over an insurgent.
“You okay, Captain? Has the heat got to you?”
“No…”
I see the bastard out of the corner of my eye. The cheeky private had hidden behind the tree. The insurgent had been a distraction. To focus my attention on Garin. I heard the gunshot. The world tilted and I hit the ground with a thud, the remaining trickles of my life crept away from me.
To this day I have no clue why they did it. I can only think they intended to desert and couldn’t trust me. Maybe they had a deal with the insurgents? I didn’t know and would never find out. When they left. I was now alone with her. The Lady still wearing her shades. Come to collect her debt.
“Abusing Fate's power never ends well. It catches everyone in the end. The Sphere calls to me and to an Expanse that no longer exists.”
At this point, she was talking to a corpse.
“Though the body may die. A mind like yours is ripe for the picking. You saw them, didn’t you? you and others like you splintered across time. Many human, many not, shaping the future of their worlds. You will be with her soon. You will know what true immortality feels like.”
She kneeled down in front of me and stroked my cheek. Her hand moved my bloody one to the Sphere. And from there, I don’t know what happened. One minute I was convinced of my death. The next I stood on a plain of boundless existence. It stretched for an eternity. Another woman was at my side. Only she wore grey and looked less human than the woman wearing shades. I was confused.
The grey figure sighed, “That’s just what we need. Another Blurred Man. How far back are you planning to go anyway?”
Before I could answer she simply giggled, turned and marched purposefully into the fog. I was alone once more and I had a second chance now. But the one that gave me it. I still don’t understand what she wanted from me. But when the time comes. I think I’ll know. For now, I watch the world through mirrors shaping it as the unseen one. For I am one but many.
As the Grey Lady said, they call me the Blurred Man now, so would you kindly - join us?