“You know the saying, 'Human see, human do'.” - Planet of the Apes

It's strange. There has only been a few times for which I had been dipped into a profound silence. I had heard from my parents that psychologists had actually done a study some time ago about the effect of silence and boredom on humans. Humans would quickly be unable to stand the lack of sound and stimuli. Boredom was just as deadly, humans would mostly prefer to receive an unpleasant shock rather than have nothing to do. I guess that's why solitary confinement was such a heinous punishment for criminals. Humans were a group animal, we needed each other’s company. Contrary to common belief, that the extranet were distancing social interactions, it brought us all closer together in a biggest community than our ancestor's even imagined. The network of people we touched reached farther and more extensively everyday, so it was no wonder people became addicted to the extranet. Before the extranet was the Internet, before that was the television, and before that was the radio. Communications just became so prevalent, so noisy, that it drowned out any silence. Or perhaps smothered the music of other things that could have been important.

The question is, if they were forgotten so easily, were they really important?

I had a short visit from the Keeper.

Who is the Keeper you might ask? Well you may remember this:

Drat, was I really dead?

“No, you’re not”, a voice growled behind me. I whipped around.

Well, that was new. I found myself face to face with an enormous sapphire scaled monstrosity.

The dragon regarded me in amusement, scales glinting from some unknown light source.

“Forgive me”, it began the scales shrinking away, its form faded out of its distinct shape to be replaced with one more familiar. A human? I gaped.

“Hello there”, Angel greeted me as I stood in mute shock. She looked different with her hair hanging longer than I remembered. She wore a simple ruffled white dress that hung loosely on her shoulders.

“Angel?” I asked, hopefully. I took a hesitant step forward.

Angel regarded me sadly.

“No, not quite”, she said with a melancholic frown. “I’m the Keeper, I just shifted into a form that you were more comfortable with. This ‘Angel’ you speak of is not actually here. I apologise, it was the only template I could choose in your book.”

It gestured to my Synch on my forehead.

My hands shot up to my head, I had forgotten it was even there. I caressed the smooth aluminium finish on the surface and tapped it a couple of times to activate it.

My shoulders sagged in relief as I saw the splash screen logo pop up in my field of view.

Book though? Nah, better leave that alone. I thought.

The apparition sighed.

“As I was saying, I am the Keeper”, it stated flatly, looking at me expectantly.

I scratched my head, feeling lost.

“What’s a Keeper?” I asked slowly, rolling the unfamiliar term in my mouth. I didn’t like the feel of it.

The being looked a little frustrated.

“The Keeper. The Gate Warden. The One Who Guards?” The last one came out as more of a desperate plea. I shook my head slowly.

“No idea”, I replied, lifting up my hands in a helpless gesture.

Fake-Angel flung up her hands in mimicry.

“Dang it! How come Chronus gets his own following, Celestia has a race of ponies and I get stuck with guarding the Void?”

“Huh?” Was all I could respond with.

Not-Angel sat down on the non-floor and crossed her legs, staring off into the distance. The disturbing accuracy of reproduction sent chills down my spine and I was getting intensely creeped out at the continuing puppetry of Angel’s body.

The Keeper shook its head.

“Alright, an explanation, I think.”

It cracked its knuckles in a ominous gesture before bringing its hands together with a peal of thunder.

Clap.

The Keeper brought its hands together with a resounding boom that echoed within my chest and shook the very fabric of my being to the core. I felt a twinge deep in my bones and sensations of either intense cold or heat under my skin. It was not a pleasant sensation.

The whiteness around us faded to be replaced with peaceful green meadows and a clear blue sky streaked with soft brushes of clouds. I barely had time to register this before I dry-retched at the sudden nausea that suddenly flowed through me.

The Keeper grunted out a quick apology before clapping its hands together again.

This time it wasn’t so bad, the clap only sending sharp needles prickling my feet and a pain shooting through my eyes.  A gentle wind played upon my hair. The sensation of sunlight play upon my skin. I looked about in wonderment before looking at the Keeper for an explanation.

“Sorry about that”, the entity repeated, waving its hands in front of me. I glared at it, until it put an embarrassed hand on the back of its head.

“Reality-warping magic tends to induce uncomfortable sensations to mortals”, the Keeper explained, flapping a hand in front of me again. I found the gesture annoying but I kept silent. I tilted my head to signal it to continue.

The Keeper sighed, looking at me with a soulful expression with Angel’s eyes. I found it hard to keep my ire when shown that face, even if it didn’t belong to Angel herself.

“That’s not playing fair”, I grumbled, crossing my arms.

The Keeper let loose a lilting laugh. It sounded wrong with Angel’s voice though. Angel had never laughed that hard. Or freely.

The Keeper gestured to a wooden chair and table that suddenly appeared in front of us. I jumped back in surprise before carefully approaching it and sitting down slowly. The Keeper took the opposite seat and gazed at the scenery.

After getting over my initial shock I decided to broach the subject that had been on my mind since coming here.

“Where exactly are we?” I asked, lacing my fingers together and leaning on my elbows on the table.

The Keeper turned to look at me briefly before returning its gaze to the serene scenery around us.

“That is a difficult question. Could I have another one?”

I raised an eyebrow.

“No…” I replied, giving it the stink eye.

The Keeper shrugged.

“I suppose not. Well now, this is a difficult thing to explain, so let’s start at  the very beginning.”

It tapped a finger on the table and stared off into the distance.

“As you may well know, there isn’t just one ‘universe’ out there.”

I nodded slowly, that much was obvious after I landed in a world where unicorns and pegasi inhabited the land.

“You were exceptionally lucky to be pulled out into a universe where there was air you could breathe, food you could eat and sapient creatures you could talk to.”

It paused stopping its finger tap.

A short clap without warning made me almost leap out of my skin but there was even less discomfort then before, I merely felt a pinch at the base of my skull.

“Forgive me, my throat is parched”, it claimed, raising the glassware containing a thick brew of unknown origin to Angel’s lips and taking a deep draught.

I don’t know what it was drinking but it looked like sludge and had its exact consistency. Luckily, it didn’t seem to have an odour, but I was leery of sticking my head anywhere near to the brew.

The Keeper smirked and offered me the beverage. I hastily shook my head.

“No thanks”, I said quickly, watching a bit of it spill on the table, some wisps of smoke drifted up. I leant away from the drink until the Keeper took back the refreshment with a flourish and a chuckle.

“Didn’t think so. An acquired taste if there ever was.”

The Keeper sat there in silence for a while.

I cleared my throat.

“What? Oh, yes the explanation… Let’s see… Oh yes, the multi-universe thing. You see, there are an infinite number of universes and an infinite number of dimensions. It just goes on and on and on.”

The Keeper smiled at me. The smile unnerved me with its predatory quality.

“You would not believe the things you could see there”, it said the grin becoming fractionally wider. The Keeper turned back to stare at the horizon to my relief.

“In either case, there may be an infinite number of universes but there are more voids in between them”, it continued.

I interrupted the Keeper on the point he just made.

“More than infinity voids?” I asked in confusion.

“Is that a problem?” The Keeper queried, giving me a humorous tilt of its head.

“Well yes, you can’t have an infinite amount of universe and then more than infinite amount of voids”, I pointed out, it was so obvious. How ridiculous.

The Keeper chuckled.

“What about set theory?” He shot back.

I rolled my eyes.

“But that’s just for conceptual understandings or hypotheticals. Universes are real, don’t know about voids though, but if they are physical things then there’s no way it could be infinite.”

The Keeper smirked at me, the expression unexpectedly reminded me of Angel’s expression when she solved a particularly tricky programming problem.

“Well, my dear, dear mortal. How limited your view must be. I think the saying for your kind goes, There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

He continued in a condescending tone.

“My, my with the evidence in front of you the scientist proclaiming that something is impossible! Tell me it isn’t so!”

My mouth quirked in annoyance.

“Okay, okay, I’ll admit my data set isn’t exactly complete but my point still stands. Having an infinite amount of physical objects seems like an impossibility to me”, I defended, running a hand through my hair.

The Keeper impatiently tapped a finger on the table.

“This is what I’m saying, the limits of knowledge, the limits of observation!” It cried, flinging Angel’s arms up in frustration.

“If something is infinitely small, how would one observe it? If something infinitely big? How about outside the universe itself?” It shot out, one after the other. I shrank back, the gears turning in my mind for all the implications the Keeper was triggering.

“Are you saying-“ I began but was cut off when the Keeper clicked its fingers in triumph.

“Yes! You are in the void, the space between universes!”

“How am I not dead?”

The Keeper waved a finger in front of my face.

“That, my dear human friend, is something you have to figure out yourself.”

I frowned half rising out of my seat, opening my mouth to demand an explanation.

“A ba-bup!” The Keeper tutted, spreading his pointing finger into a palm to stem the questions before they even flowed.

“No rush, we have all the time in the universe! For time doesn’t exist here. In fact, nothing exists here unless you make it exist. It’s how universes are made. Could be a wishful thought, a careless accident… perhaps a big bang?”

I sank back into my seat slowly, processing what he was saying.

“Are you… God?” I asked, my mind going numb.

The Keeper let loose a hearty laugh that didn’t match Angel’s voice at all.

“No, no, no, no. Close, close, close! And yet so far! I’m like a God but I’m just one of many that journey the void and I just happen to patrol. Wish a universe here, make sure there’s no leaking there.”

I relaxed, that would have been awkward.

“So there are… patrols? You’re part of an organisation, you have rules or something close to it” I asked my memory dredged up a quote from Luna.

They have rules, and they stick to them like molasses.

The Keeper nodded.

“Of course there are rules, there are always rules. Laws and the like. Natural laws, societal laws, laws of gods, laws of creation, laws of death, all the rules. The question is, what rules can be bent?

“Universes are like closed bubbles. They’re not meant to interfere with one another and those like I are meant to stop it from doing so. Every now and again though, there are leaks. Some are harmless, a stone, a pot of gold, perhaps a small animal or similar. Some are harmful, a curse, a weapon, a predator. Some are forbidden, a concept, a central god… a null being”, the Keeper finished sending a pointed look at me with the last word.

“So I’m forbidden, how?”

“You defy all the rules of the universe that you’re in. Things exist in balance for a reason. You wouldn’t want the collapse to spread out and destroy all of the planes of existence, now would you? All that work that has been put in? That patient waiting? Wasted!”

I sat back in my chair, mulling over the thought.

“Why now? Couldn’t you have fixed it straight away? Wouldn’t that have saved us a multiverse of trouble?” I finally asked, slightly irritated.

The Keeper slammed a palm on the table, startling me.

“Haven’t you been listening? There are rules! Central gods can’t come in and play deity to a local reality. That would be counter intuitive, illogical! We had to wait until you were whisked away and intercept you in between.”

I put my head in my hands. This was just getting way too complicated.

“It’s always the same, one cataclysm followed by another, it’s just a pile of problems”, I muttered, staring at my hands. I tried calming myself down, looking at the wrinkle lines on my hand and tracing them with my eyes. The Keeper kept silent, looking at me in sympathy.

“I know how you feel, think of the scale here. When you have an infinite amount of universes you will get an infinite amount of problems, law of numbers there. Luckily, there are just enough of us to handle it all.”

I looked up curiously.

“How many of you are there?”

The Keeper gave a sly smile as it answered my question.

“Just. One.” Next Chapter: 2 - Several Ways... a Cat Estimated time remaining: 27 Minutes