Company Policy

Glenn Lewis Gillette

I found this recording on an unpopulated parallel world, and once I broke the video algorithm, I was staring at my own face.

"A downside to rerouting history," I told myself, "you don't remember what you lost and why you tried to lose it."

Company Housing. Company Church. Company Bar, but at least we can choose separate tables once inside. We drink and talk, no shop talk mostly, but you can't avoid it, not in a Company Town.

One day, the four of us—Enosh, Abidan, Jair, and I—speculated about applying our technology to things the Company never figured on. Separate tables meant we could bring our beliefs to bear. The Company makes us worship together, but they can't make us believe together. I hear they're working on that over to DO-Kiev, but not yet. God-the-Father made us too complicated, and even God-the-Son's neurologists haven't completely cracked His Genomic Code yet.

Enosh follows journals covering work outside our Company Specialty. That's his job. The rest of us write for the Multi-Verse publications—and read them, just in case DO-Shanghai and DO-Reykjavik breakthrough. Enosh alerts Our Company when any other of the Dome-Over Towns lets loose something interesting, but this day, he gestured us into a tête-à-tête for a tidbit he didn't post on the Company blog—and not for the first time.

“Clones,” Enosh said. “Donor cell to fully operational adult, full elementary education on-board—” (we all talk engineer lingo) “—in nineteen days, one more for an extra language.'

Not the first cloning discussion either, given the synergy between parallel universes and clones, practically the same thing actually, similar in complexity; universes don't have souls, though some do seem to adopt attitudes. But timeframes hadn't been practical for experimenting with that conundrum: do men make history or does history make men? Of course, we had a particular agenda. Separate tables, remember?

We agreed to have a run at it, so I got in touch with DO-Montevideo. That's my job, keeping up communications with the other Company Towns, what with the solar flares, world-wide desertification, and all such challenges. Surely, natural catastrophes galore signal a strain between The Creator and The Lamb, so our sect believed. We prayed to escape these Domes, processed air, processed water, processed food.

We started with Joseph Caiaphas, High Priest (18 C.E. to 36 C.E). Every Apostle, when reminiscing in a blog, emphasizes how dangerous the Jewish Establishment had been to their movement. Even the Magdalene herself has shuddered over the topic. So substituting our man for the "CEO" of the Sanhedrin seemed the place to start.

Abidan gathered the donor cell; after all, multi-versing covers time along with the other thirty-two dimensions in each universe; we'd use that capability to insert our specially prepared copy into history at the critical moment. We traded secrets with DO-Cairo (closest Town to the Jerusalem Crater, more "collateral damage" from Armageddon); DO-Cairo worked with DO-Montevideo to raise our twelve Caiaphas clones properly (Aramaic and Hebrew and Greek). Our sect has Believers all over.

We picked eleven universes, insulated from ours by two Blight Dimensions, and carefully inserted our clones; we reserved one for our own timeline in case more than half of his twins succeeded. The clones knew what to do and believed in our cause—and failed! An earthquake here, an assassination there, one thing or another, or maybe I would say One Thing Or Another, if God-the-Father hadn't Promised Multi-Dimensional Non-intervention in exchange for Dei Vivi.

So we turned to Pontius Pilate, Roman Prefect (26 C.E. to 36 C.E.). If one Establishment can't do the job, try another, (though the Romans always got too much of the Company Gravy, if you ask me, despite their incompetence during those crucial days.) DO-Cairo turned up with pertinent expertise again; we owe them big, but then they've lost a lot to the Company too.

We failed with Pilate! Not bad luck this time, just personal weakness. He did put together a kangaroo trial for Yeshua, then got such stage fright that only a bottle of grappa got him up before the crowd—all Jews, but what can you do? They were the native population, after all. Then he mistook a washing bowl for a grail, so everybody thinks he dismissed the charges! Once the Fisher-of-Men scampered out that Roman exit, there was no way back.

Back in the Company Bar, we considered abandoning our Messianic sect. Why couldn't we kill a rebel rabbi in a simple backwater? What chance could there be for a Second Coming when the First one never quit? How could we hope for Heaven-on-Earth when His Days would run Without End—no End of Days now. Granted, people have gotten rusty with Death since His Kingdom-on-Earth began and kept on till this very day with Him still running the show. Now all we have left is Destruction, and we're still good at that.

Instead, our sect imagined a nice little demise for Yeshua while he was still mortal. Maybe turn that evening in Gethsemani in a different direction, not deification because God-the-Father yielded to Yeshua's cowering. A betrayal to the authorities, followed by an execution. Then a Resurrection as a proof of concept? Humanity always works better on Potential than Actual.

'Enough gloom,' I finally said. 'Let's clone Yeshua's father, then make him sterile. No get, no misbegotten.'

Jair snorted. 'Do you think God-the-Father can be defeated by simple genetic engineering?'

'No,' I agreed slowly, then blurted: 'He might accept a different sort of challenge. We fix our Yosef so that he begets only girls!'

What did we have to lose? Only “Heaven on Earth.”

That's the story, the journal concludes. I'm glad you found it. Now you know.

We did get that execution—almost. Judas on the cross, not someone named Yeshua, then the Marys, Mother and Magdalene, waded through the mob and soldiers, a glorious moment in anybody's Book, and relieved that genius scapegoat of his noble sacrifice. Given the times, women couldn't lead any movement to fruition, but they did take it into exile and sent the Apostles out to preach. Our Mothers' Church doesn't stand alone on our world, but it opens its doors every Sabbath to my family. Speaking of whom: we're going on a picnic. Down to Sunrise Meadow. Sun, wind, grass, trees, the way our world ought to be.

Thanks to me, apparently.