Timescape: The War Against Time, #1

By Jude LaHaye

Noom was nameless before he approached the planet Earth; nameless and eternal. Through an evil act of sabotage against Eternity, two creatures at the core of the Universe touched one another and unleased a cataclysmic explosion that birthed both the expanding Universe...and Time. Time did not exist in Etermity, and Noom is determined to locate it, capture it, and shove it back into the hole it came from. So, the name: as Noom detected traces of the evil one on the planet he neared, he heard a sound emanating from one of the planet's land masses. It called to him; he felt it welcomed him to the new planet. "Noom," it wailed, over and over again. "Noom," he repeated. "I shall be Noom." Noom's search on Earth takes him to North Korea, Washington, D.C., and Australia, where he discovers the instrument which gave him his name. He interacts with the humanity he meets in those places and learns. Since he is basically incorporeal, he can inhabit things, both animate and inanimate. Noom discovers some wonderful and not-so-wonderful people in his travels...and finds other Eternals on the planet, too. Are they who he seeks? If not, what are they doing on this little backwater world? Travel with Noom and find out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jude LaHaye
• Release date: Dec 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223555322

Jude LaHaye

Jude LaHaye is a Buddhist. Buddhists believe that the highest form of sentience is the human being. They also believe that the meaning of life is...Life. LaHaye struggles with his belief system and the evidence of his own human interactions and observations. His books are born of this struggle.

Book preview

One. Dystopia

Iam a creature from before Time.

Yes. There once was a state of existence which did not include the dimension of Time. It was called Eternity.

I have discovered sentient biological matter constructs are incapable of understanding what this word means: eternity.

But I can. I was an immortal part of it. Of Eternity.

I want it back.

I will do whatever it takes to capture Time and stuff it back into the hole it came from. Only in this manner can I restore Eternity to itself. And to me.

There are so many new words, or concepts, rather, related to this Time beast. Before is one such word.

Before there was Time there was the swirling amorphous beauty of the crystal Eternity. No, it was not made of glass. It was transparent. I am new to words. I use the ones that resonate within me. Crystal is one of those. It conjures up the image of before for me. The place which was Eternity.

In its center revolved the two opposite forces of matter and not matter. They rotated about each other, nested one inside the other, and were aware.

Yes, they were aware. They were very aware that they must not have contact with each other. They were aware of that.

And yet they did. They initiated contact. They attempted to meld, to hold one another, to intermingle. Their intent was not evil. It was raw desire. It was attraction.

And it was a creature like myself who planted the idea in them and nurtured it into an urge. I cannot pretend to know his motive. I have to consider, however, that perhaps this other creature had a desire, himself. A desire to manipulate? A desire for dominance? A desire to be free of his cage? I posit these theories without confidence because I have no personal experience of these things from which to draw. The only desire I have ever experienced is the one I now pursue: the capture and destruction of Time.

I cannot know what the creature wanted, but the very moment that contact was made, the unholy beast of Time was released in a blast that destroyed Eternity. And the other creature. He was rendered dust and expelled with great force from an Eternity which died at the precise moment that Time was birthed―as were many other innocent beings who were not a part of his machinations.

Time does not disappear or even dissipate. It is incremental. And so, once born in its disastrous cataclysm, Time became exponential. Its presence exploded within moments and kept exploding, yes, exponentially, for every subsequent moment. This acceleration sends matter and not matter hurling outwards, ever outwards.

I can’t measure the passing of Time. I only know what Time has done to my home. My peace. My joy. What it continues to do. Its exponential growth pushes the matter and not matter faster and faster into the abyss―no, wait. Time is also the abyss. It contains us and pushes simultaneously.

It has changed me, too. Continues to change me. For example, I must now eat to maintain my physical self. I must fight to survive the dangers that exist in the Now that did not exist in the Then. I think that I may not be immortal any longer. My brain has expanded to encompass these new thoughts. I have become capable, I think. If I am changing like this, then will I age and die?

I think so. It is logical.

I have a new word for our reality. It is no longer Eternity. I call it Timescape.

This new Timescape cannot be sustained. Here is another word that Time has caused: soon. Soon, matter and not matter will become dilute and dispersed under the irresistible pressure of Time. Soon, matter and not matter will be so scattered by and within Time that the only discernible thing in our entire reality will be Time itself.

Will it continue to grow even when all matter is scattered into fractions of fractions of subatomic particles?

I fear so.

It is unprecedented. I cannot be sure.

Because I cannot tell Time, I do not know how long ―funny term, that―how long I have been searching for its cure.

I have visited many of the new matter constructs and I assume a lot of Time has been created while I travelled.

These matter constructs are very far away from each other. I understand that it takes Time to travel from one to the other. So, a lot of Time must have passed since the explosive birth of Timescape.

Some of the biological matter constructs are thinking beings. I suppose that is only natural, considering how many lives like my own were shattered by the birth of Time. Their energies, their very natures must have been catapulted outward with the rest of the matter that once comprised Eternity.

Oh, and the not matter, too. There’s a lot more of that than there is of matter.

A lot more.

I have visited many of the not matter constructs, too, but I cannot interface with their denizens, their sentient peoples.

Because I am a matter being, I can only communicate and interact with my own kind.

It is The Law.

It is an observation of mine that the biological matter constructs of every World I have visited have common concepts, core lore, among each other.

Even though these biological constructs do not all look and act alike, nearly all of them have a legend. A legend of a garden, or golden citadel, or ocean kingdom, where original beings of their kind lived in peace and joy.

And in every one of these legends, the original beings touched something they were not supposed to, and the garden, the citadel, or the kingdom was lost to the beings forever after.

So, it is my observation that the birth of Time is ingrained into the new configurations of matter―and perhaps even the not matter―that have resulted from its cataclysmic introduction.

I know that I am not the last of my kind. There are many creatures just like me swarming the Timescape. Some of them have lost their sentience and create dangers for the new matter constructs. Most of them, though, seek the same solution that I do. We want to reunite. We want to eliminate Time. We desire only to restore our beloved Eternity.

The existence of others like me brings me some solace, although it is somewhat overwhelmed by the enormity of our mutual task.

My form is not corporeal like the biological matter constructs. I don’t mean that I am scattered. I am intact. I just don’t interact in the same visual wave-lengths that most biological matter constructs do. I am also not constrained by this Gravity thing.

It is new, too. I haven’t figured it out yet, but it is definitely related to the advent of Time and the outward and exponential explosion of matter and not matter. Not just the advent of Time, but also the expansion of Time.

I can see Gravity. I swim along its swells. I skim the rims of its wells. It gives me traction. I use this traction to travel as I do.

As huge as I am physically, I have discovered how to squeeze myself to fit inside many of these matter constructs, biological and not biological.

Most of the Worlds I have visited have dramatic natural features which I have inhabited. It is a grand feeling, for example, to be a mountain. It is frightening to be an ocean. It is blissful to occupy air. I could forget myself sometimes while being air. I sometimes caused the air to do things that were unexpected and unfriendly to the World’s biological matter constructs.

For this reason, I deny myself the air.

Mostly.

So now I am approaching a new World. It is teeming with biological matter constructs. From this distance, it is impossible to tell if these beings are sentient. They swarm like larvae, a particularly delicious taste treat for yours truly.

If I cannot learn from these swarming creatures, at least I will dine well.

Two. A Name

Nearly all of the sentient beings I have found in my travels have a need to differentiate between their individual members, even if their appearances are identical to one another.

They want individual names.

I have grown so used to this custom that I have made up a sound that represents a name.

My name.

Noom.

I am Noom.

Of course, when I can be seen by these beings, I have already inhabited one of them in order to interact. So then, if my host is already part of some social group, he or she already possesses one. One of these name things.

Still, I like saying it. Noom. It’s like part of the sound that Timescape makes. I mean the Timescape between Worlds. Worlds are so noisy that the natural sound of Timescape just cannot be discerned from the general racket.

There is a continent on this World where a noise very like Timescape is made from long instruments that the beings put to their mouths and blow air through.

It bellows Noom. In this way, I feel welcomed, almost expected by this World when I break through its protective atmosphere and surveil the lands and oceans below me.

Noom! Noom! It’s like the World is saying, Come on in, Noom! Welcome, Noom! Come meet us, Noom!

For this reason, I am astonished to find myself targeted by some kind of weapon system.

Can they see me?

Seconds later, the object flies by me harmlessly. It reaches apogee and falls back to the World. Well, falls is a little inaccurate. I can see from its energy signal that is being directed. It is flying, using the World’s physical properties and atmosphere to triangulate its aim.

I can’t help myself. I follow it. I swat it out of the air. It sails harmlessly into unoccupied Timescape. I am Noom. I can do this.

I could tell that it had evil within it. One of the evils loosed by Time: it is an atom breaker.

But it is also obviously artificial. One or many of the beings of this World have purposely constructed it and launched it. Launched it where? Its detonation anywhere on this World would introduce evil to the entirety of its organic, geologic, and atmospheric residents.

I find this deeply troubling. Should I bypass this World and go elsewhere? Perhaps this World should be sequestered so that its contamination will not spread.

I can do this as well. I am Noom.

If I sequester this World, it will be isolated from the other Worlds of Timescape. Its existence will be cloaked. There will be no contact with it from any of the other Worlds.

I feel so emotional about the evil missile that I nearly speed off to put the sequestration in place.

But there it is again.

Noom. Noom. Noom. Come visit us, Noom. We have promise. We have potential. Please don’t leave us Noom.

I am angry as I descend. I am angry with myself. If I had never invented a name for myself, I could not be so called.

But I am Noom and I am called. I will go. I will investigate.

But I am already more than half-way to judgment on this World.

It is evil.

Three. A Body

Before I find a biological host, I need to observe this World from a safe place.

I want to get close to the people who launched that missile first.

Then I want to go where the missile was supposed to land.

After my investigation, I will decide. Will this World be sequestered, or will it be welcomed into the family of Worlds?

It is a cold and desolate place I find as the source of the evil missile. The people are all bundled up. This makes them look the same as one another. There is not a lot of communication going on in this part of the World, either spoken or not spoken. What I mean is that the people do not communicate with one another. There is constant talk here, however. Talk which I cannot yet understand blasts into the air from devices attached to nearly every building I can see.

I enter a statue of one of the biological constructs. I am metal and large, positioned in a big square where many of the biological constructs pass by.

There are thousands of them. They walk with purpose but without enthusiasm. They don’t speak.

They don’t laugh.

It is something I love about biological constructs. The way they exhibit amusement.

These people are not amused.

They are not speaking, but there is that sound. It is coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once.

It will take me some Time to learn the language, so at this moment I do not know what the speaking is supposed to be communicating.

I’ll say this: I don’t like it here. I need to learn how these constructs communicate. This I will do when I inhabit one of them. You know, when I get a body to walk around in. To listen with. To learn from.

I have been on unpleasant Worlds before. I have made them better places for the biological constructs.

It usually only requires the elimination of a few of the constructs who have an overabundance of those desires I mentioned earlier: the desire to dominate; to manipulate.

I know it’s a lot more complicated than that, but another thing I am good at is uncomplicating things.

Complications can be natural, or they can be constructs. Constructs to stymie and stultify. Natural complications are worthy of study. Complications designed by beings in order to manipulate other beings? Well, they are evil. They need to be eliminated. I am Noom. I can do this.

Evil. I use that term a lot. It is not complicated.

I am not an emotional being, not usually. But I have a natural inclination for good things and a hatred of evil.

I cannot abide it. I said the attraction that caused the matter and not matter core of Eternity to explode was not evil. But evil has been born of it. And I become more and more convinced―over Time―that the source of this evil was a creature just like me.

Piece by piece I will find his remains and I will eliminate them from Timescape.

But one other thing nags at me. If one of my fellow creatures harbored evil in his heart and mind, are there others still travelling the Timescape who have the same innate flaw?

I have been criticized for my imagination. I recognize that I create problems in my mind that are constructs. But I also believe that these mind constructs are useful. I have an entire inventory of them by now, and they are ready for when I need them. For when I find some reality which mirrors their natures. I will not waste Time in trying to create them when I meet them. I will be ready.

Ready to confront and correct evils. If they prove incorrigible, then I am ready to destroy them.

I am Noom. I can do this.

Four. Possession

Ipick one. A biological construct. It is female. She walks with her head down and her hands in the pockets of her outer garment.

I pick one with sensible footwear. I made that mistake once, entering a body wearing treacherous footwear. I caused her to stagger and fall. Although I feel bad about that, I abandoned her damaged body immediately after the fall.

I was frightened. The pain that these physical bodies endure is terrible. While I am in them, I feel their feelings, both physical and mental.

It is all quite exhausting.

So I possess this woman with sensible shoes. Even though she wears heavy clothes, I feel the cold of this place immediately. The air, or rather, the wind here pierces her fabric covers and assails the poor, puny body within.

This woman is indeed puny. I detect immediately that she is hungry. Her mental condition, too, is lethargic and dull.

Or it was. I have awakened it.

Who is it? she cries. She has stopped walking and is attracting attention.

I can understand her language immediately. This results from the co-possession of her mind.

Please keep walking as you were before and I will explain, I say.

I don’t have to ask her or tell her what to do, for I am really in control. I just like to try to establish a working relationship with a host instead of a hostile take-over. Whenever possible.

She starts walking again. Her heart still races, however.

Who are you? she demands. What is happening to me?

I read the images in her mind. She is afraid. She thinks that her own people have invaded her very thoughts. It is the only scenario which occurs to her.

Please calm down, I say. I am not from here. I am not even from this World. I will not harm you. I need you...I need you to help me to evaluate this place. The people. Their histories. The futures they are building for themselves.

She laughs. Laughs! But it is not humor which gives birth to her laughter. It is complicated. And although I am good at complicated, I am a little overwhelmed by the bitterness in her which has forced this sound of laughter from between her lips.

The futures we build for ourselves! she cries. There is no future for the people of this place, she continues. She is angry. "Only the men in charge of our country have lives worth living. Oh, and the women they keep. They have lives worth living, too.

"For the rest of us, death is the only reward we can look forward to. We can starve to death. We can be beaten to death. We can be worked to death. We can be used as soldiers for the defense of our country and die that way.

"Yet, as many ways as there are to die here, most of us continue to survive. Like animals. Like insects.

There is no free thought, no free action.... She halts, suddenly, realizing what she has been saying. Her fear returns in a huge wave which threatens to unseat her sanity.

Be calm, I reassure her. We have not been speaking out loud. No one else has heard you. You can trust me. I will take care of you. I need you.

She calms a bit, actually. I am relieved to detect it. Then, I realize something. Her calm is surrender. She just gives up. She doesn’t care what will happen to her.

Why do you have no hope? I ask.

Hope? she replies listlessly. What is hope?

She is serious. If she ever had this thing called hope, it was long ago in her childhood. It has been absent in her life for so long that she can no longer remember how it worked.

I have access to her memories. I will delve into them when she enters her sleep cycle. For now, I need her to observe her normal activities.

Where are we going? I ask her.

Work. She says the word like it is distasteful.

Do we not enjoy our work? I ask.

Enjoy? she is shocked. Enjoy? What is there to enjoy in work?

"Well, what do we do for work?" I pursue.

Won’t you find out in a few minutes? She retorts. At least she is showing a little spirit now.

OK, I relent. I will wait.

She starts up some concrete steps into a drab concrete building. She is wearing a badge which a man in a uniform examines before she is allowed to enter.

It is nearly as cold inside this building as it was outside, I observe. The exhalations of