Chapter 398: Starting the Goodbyes

Sunday, November 4 to Sunday, November 11, 2007

Everyone in my families dropped out of everything: Carol and Donna stopped attending school, Julia, Ava and I stopped attending OSU, and the parents stopped going to their workplaces. For the parents, that statement was true only most of the time because if I was spending the day with Mom and Dad primarily, then Prof and Vanessa could do some urgent work that day, but it had to be VERY urgent. The girls were out of the education process totally though.

One thing I felt acutely was that ten days is a terribly short time to say goodbye to eight people you love. I gained a bit by not needing much sleep because I could stay up with some of my loved ones, who'd catch up with their lost sleep while I was with the others.

They suggested I delay my departure until after Thanksgiving, but that would add a couple more very hard weeks and the 'celebration' would be ruined, so I stuck to the schedule.

Many of our family friends and colleagues became concerned and called to inquire. When the time required to field the calls got too much - and we all had a very low tolerance for wasting our time these days - we turned our phones off. That especially alarmed the girls that called Julia, and many of them drove to our place. As instructed, our gate security told every that we weren't receiving visitors until my birthday party.

Julia was certainly the hardest hit by my leaving. I was her purpose in life and she was already feeling lost at my going soon. She'd adapt. She's smart, driven, business oriented and enormously rich, so she'll find things to do. Her parents will make sure of that.

In that respect, my leaving on an over-sold mission was very helpful. I was able to say things like, "Julia, you trained me to accept responsibility, to have confidence in myself and be willing to take on large projects. It's thanks to you that I can do this VERY important thing..." Stuff that made her proud of herself, and gave her a sense of "mission accomplished" about me. Hopefully that'll make it easier for her to find a new mission.

Carol was DETERMINED to have my babies. She put her foot DOWN with Mom and Dad and prepared for a knock-down-drag-out battle.

Mom and Dad said, "Of course you have our consent. As soon as you've graduated high school and turned eighteen so its legal, then you can have as many as you want. We think it's a wonderful idea. How many do you want?" Their agreement surprised Carol.

Ava said she'd like to start immediately after Carol.

They both asked my consent and I told them, "I'd be honored and our babies will be the luckiest kids in Oregon to be bought up in such a loving family."

Donna was told by Mom, "We'll see how you feel when you're eighteen." That was good enough for Donna, who wasn't even sure how she felt now.

Julia was embarrassed about her losing enthusiasm for the babies idea.

I told her, "You don't need to have one of my babies to prove to me that you love and have pride in me. You've been singing both from the rooftops since our first date. Don't ask me who, but I've heard some people say that you get a little bit carried away when you're praising me. I know you love me with every fiber of your being. We both know what you're driven to do and that's what you should do. Let Carol and Ava find their role in life with their babies; you can have your mega-company."

Nevaeh was an issue I left to my girls as I wouldn't be around for the consequences to matter to me. They liked Nevaeh a lot, and they decided that they'd still like her to move into our home. It'd be a different dynamic without me there so it may not work out, but they could always ask her to move back to her parents if that was the case. Nevaeh was in the same grade as Carol, so they had some commonality there and Nevaeh wouldn't be 'slowing down' the Kids' lives any more than Carol would. If Julia set up a business in New York, for example, then Carol and Nevaeh would be equally able to move there with Julia.

Especially because my girls wanted to keep their relationship with Nevaeh going, I should spend some time with her before I leave. With so few days remaining, no one wanted me to spend a lot of time with her, but it would be unfair to Nevaeh if she didn't know that what time she spent with me was to say goodbye, so we invited her to come over Friday after school. Friday was the 9th and my birthday although we were having its party the next day. The 13th would be on Tuesday.

I told Nevaeh, "I've got some fairly major news. Sometime Tuesday or Wednesday next week, God is sending me to do an important job..."

"Oh boy! You do amazing things."

"You can say that again," agreed Julia unhappily.

"It's a BIG, important job, sweetie. It's going to take the rest of my life and I won't be coming back. After next week, you, Julia, Carol, Ava and my families will never see me again."

"Oh. Umm, can't you visit? Or we could visit you in the plane if you're too busy."

"It's not on Earth, Nevaeh. God is taking my mind and my soul, and taking them to wherever souls go. Because my soul is so pure, He wants me to work there."

"Wow. Will you be able to visit, like the angels have?"

"God has already told me to make sure I say goodbye properly to everyone who's important to me because I won't be coming back. I'll never see any of you again after Tuesday or Wednesday."

"Not your parents or Julia or Carol or anyone?"

I shook my head.

"Oh no! That's terrible!..."

"No it's not, sweetie. I'll be doing an important job for God. Remember I was dead a few months ago, and now I've met my family again, had chances to tell them I love them and say goodbye to them properly, and I've had the good fortune of meeting you. Well, not really 'good fortune', considering the Guardian Angel made you stand naked on the side of the street so we couldn't miss you. I don't think that can be called luck, can it?"

"Aren't any of you sad?"

Julia answered, "We cried when Mark first told us, but that was mostly because we didn't understand. We're sad and we're going to miss him terribly, but this is far better than it was few months ago."

"I suppose. It still seems very sad to me. I want to cry but I can't because you're not."

"You can cry if you want, but the reason we asked you here was to give you some time alone with him to say goodbye. We'll leave you to it. Give him a good time, Nevaeh; it's going to be his last memory of you and him being alone."

"Oh boy, {sniff}. I feel like crying."

I pulled her into a hug and said, "There, there," whereupon Nevaeh burst into tears.

#7: <Maybe Christian girls work backward. It's an illogical religion, after all.>

#9: <I hope Prof - any Prof - never sees us in action like that. It'd be embarrassing. He can run circles around us with one leg tied behind his back.>

Nevaeh didn't cry for long. I'd like to take credit for that, but I suspected there might've been other reasons.

I held Nevaeh while she double-checked her understanding of the situation, triple-checked that she'd NEVER see me again, then decided that some sex would be an excellent use of our time. I would've thought it'd be the last thing she'd want to do. (That's a bad choice of phrase given that this was her last time with me. I'll just say that I was very surprised by her wanting sex. I guess I don't understand girls yet.) [[I'd always been VERY happy to have sex with her, and she wanted to make me happy. She believed that to be a large part of why God had put her into my life, because she knew that her beauty was the only way in which she excelled, and we'd all praised her for being so enjoyably joyful and happy with sex.]]

#7: <I hope the ever-helpful Guardian Angel found Nevaeh wherever we go on Tuesday.>

#21: <We probably won't be there long, not that I'm in any way disagreeing with you.>

We were still warming up, when Nevaeh asked, "Where are Julia and the others?"

"In the spa pool."

"You and they are going to miss each other a lot more than you'll miss me. I think they should be here instead of me, Mark. I love you, but they're more important. Julia is going to miss you VERY much, isn't she?"

"Yes, she's going to be hurt. I'm glad you're her friend."

"I'm glad I am to. I'll go and get her for you."

"How about we all share? How does that sound?"

"Sharing is good." She's heard that from us a thousand times. With four kids in her family, probably from her parents too. I don't think I'll take the time to send them a thank you note though.

"Stay here, sweetie. I'll send the Guardian Angel to get the girls." The last few words were said with a raised voice, and the Guardian Angel conveniently got the hint. It's been very cooperative since I knew I'd be leaving. That must be part of God's new employment package, or something.

When my girls returned to the room, I said, "Nevaeh was going to leave because she wanted to give her time with me to the three of you. I suggested that we share. Would you like to come to bed."

Nevaeh got a considerable amount of praise and special attention.

Afterward, I told Nevaeh, "Please don't tell anyone about my job until after I've gone."

"I won't. I know I have to keep quiet about your secrets."

"Thanks, sweetie. At the end of my birthday party I'm going to ask my favorite guests to stay late, which will obviously include you, and I'll be telling them what we told you a few minutes ago, so they'll have a chance to say goodbye to me..."

"Oh boy. It's going to be a VERY sad party."

Julia said, "We'll be trying to keep it happy, but it's going to be very hard not to cry a lot at the end. We know Mark will be going away to do something special, but we're still going to miss him terribly."

Nevaeh needed another hanky, especially after I added, "That's the last time you and the other party guests will see me, Nevaeh. After that, I'll be spending all my remaining time with my families."

When Nevaeh was over the worst of it, I added, "Part of the reason God resurrected me was as a lesson about how evil the Government is getting, so God's probably going to do something reasonably dramatic when He takes my soul on Tuesday or Wednesday. From what the Guardian Angel has told me it'll be on the news and it's very important to keep my real reason for leaving secret or you'll spoil God's plan..."

"I won't tell ANYONE Mark! I'd NEVER do that."

"Thanks. I'll be asking my favorites the same thing at the end of the party too. It's very important for the safety of my families too, so I'll be making a big deal about keeping it secret.

^-- "The last specific thing to tell you is the Guardian Angel has told me that after I go, God will be releasing you and the other eight girls from the oaths they've taken, and it wants you to tell them that after I leave. Okay?"

"I will. I wish you didn't have to go though."

"You've got NO IDEA how much I wish I didn't have to, but it's kind of hard to say 'No' to God."

"Yeah. I'm so glad He let me get to know you. If you can, can you thank Him for me please."

"I'm sure He knows how you feel. He was smart enough to pick you for me in the first place. Look how well you fit in with us." [[Not that she'd had much choice about the major parts of that, given the overwhelming psychological tricks we'd played on her. Her basic personality was a very moral one and such people are very nice to have around once their sense of superiority is eliminated. She had fit in well.]]

"It's been WONDERFUL! I'm sorry I was only in your life for such a short time. It's only been four months, and we didn't do anything except be good friends and have sex."

"Then maybe that's what God wanted, sweetie. Maybe He wanted me to have a good time before I was taken away again. I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but your body pleases me very much."

"I think you have mentioned that."

"Knowing what I know about God, that wouldn't have been His only reason. It's a VERY good reason, and I'm certainly going to thank Him for that, but I'm sure He had others. Maybe He wanted you to learn the truth about sex, or maybe His main reason was so you and my other girls can remain friends after I've gone."

"Oh yeah. Umm, what's going to happen..."

Julia interrupted, "You're still invited to live here, Nevaeh. It might take a week or two for us to be ready for company again, but then we'll go to your parents and ask permission for you to move in as soon as possible. We'll set up a spare bedroom to look like it's yours, but we'll all be sleeping in Mark's bed together. That is, if you still want to after Mark's left?"

"I'd LOVE to, Julia. It'd be FANTASTIC, I just wish Mark could still be with us."

"So do we," echoed Carol and Ava. I was in full agreement with them.

^

The baddies were still up to no good, as is their nature. Quite a lot of no good actually, because their bosses were very eager to get blood and EEG samples, neither of which are easy to obtain surreptitiously and both of which I was determined not to let them have. They did some very clever thinking to invent ways of getting those samples without me knowing it'd been done and with no baddie coming within five hundred feet of me. We had to admire their imagination and expertise. Their plans being admired was all we permitted though; we waited until they'd set everything up, and then I'd get a hair cut while I was in LA rather than from my usual hairdresser, for example. It was pissing them off highly and it easily kept them stalled for the days we required. [The New York hotel room incident, which had been the first escalation into areas I objected strongly to, was on October 13, four weekends after we returned from Noumea. I'd rolled the twelve 6s on November 1 and told my families about my Voyage on the 3rd. My Un-Resurrection Day would be on the 13th. It was only the last couple of weeks that the baddies' actions were frequently annoying; previously we'd had to dodge something only once or twice per week.]

Soon after my "I'm leaving" announcement to my families, we'd told Paul about the baddies, telling him, "The Guardian Angel discovered them for us." We immediately put our staff onto monitoring the bugs I'd placed because none of the families wanted to waste valuable Be-With-Mark time on that activity. To Paul's and our guards' frustrations we weren't taking any active countermeasures, vetoing their suggestions with, "The angel has its own plans."

By now - a few days before my departure - every déjà vu included me and my déjà vu partner swapping stories about every Risk Taker's Strategy that we'd heard about: what those Marks had done, what information they'd obtained, and what results they'd achieved and were still achieving. That had rapidly become a large number of reports. All of us Marks learned a lot of facts about the surveillers, their bosses, the operation, etc. There were some minor contradictory elements, but they were due to dimensional differences and weren't important; 99% of the situations were the same.

Several of the tested Risky Strategies had run their course and had worked very well, and most of the Waiting Marks had started to make very good use of what they had learned. We expected that every dimension that had such an operation would have it totally destroyed. The best solutions were quick and highly effective, so the delay in solving the Problem in every dimension was mostly in how long it took for each Waiting Mark to get enough information from his déjà vu's to decide to act. Often they delayed a while because there was no real reason not to make very sure that the apparent best strategy didn't have an unforeseen 'tail' to sting with.

Some of the Marks that'd made unlucky random choices of strategy, and whose families had been forced to flee home, were VERY thankful for the knowledge they'd received as they'd been forced to act on what they'd learned much faster than the rest of us. They'd eagerly awaited each of their déjà vu's, hoping that the next one would give them the information they wanted and sometimes desperately needed. They'd eventually learned what they'd needed to get the baddies' operation shut down.

Given how hairy the lives of some Risk-Taking Marks had got, it was possible that some of them and even their families had been killed, but we had no way of confirming that. We hoped and thought there wouldn't be many of them, as the Marks that'd been on the run had done pretty good jobs of keeping everyone out of the clutches of the evil CIA. Yes, it was a CIA operation. The CIA didn't believe in God, and didn't believe the bullshit the so-called Archangel Michael had spread, regardless of his impressive special effects. There was more than enough physical evidence to justify the CIA's suspicions, and they were determined to find out who Archangel Michael was, what the Guardian Angel was, how I was involved, and what we were up to. I can't say I blamed them, but I absolutely couldn't let them know the truth or my and my families' lives would immediate turn to shit, and soon after that, so would every civilization throughout the W-Dimension.

The usual way of shutting down the surveillance operation was in publicly exposing it in a way that implied that God would shortly be responding appropriately, and no one doubted what that meant to DC's habitability for the next few hundred years. The public in all those dimensions was SCREAMING! They were very quickly joined by EVERY politician who wanted to get any votes at all in their next election. They were also joined by very large numbers of CIA staff who were in abject fear of the Guardian Angel nuking DC or just killing everyone in the CIA, so they were trying to prove that neither was necessary by spewing out as much information as possible to prove that they were coming clean. The media took the information that dimension's Mark had initially provided, plus the new information that didn't so much leak as deluge, and they researched it further and produced even more details. I now knew, for example, the real names of every baddie in Corvallis - and a few that weren't in my dimension's Corvallis - with extensive information about their histories, personal lives, etc. So I was no longer worried about my surveillers. They were a nuisance, but I knew enough to shut them down whenever I wanted.