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I had no clue what she was talking about, so went onto something else.  I was going to find a flaw in this girl’s story.  “So Proud, that is your name, right?” She nodded.  “If you need my help, why can’t someone like him help you?”  I pointed to the bartender.

“Lacks higher-level consciousness.  Just a shell, that any work laid would be lost in the fracture; amplified by an inability to detect…or perhaps an unwillingness to do so.”

“Lacks consciousness?  Is he an android?”

“No, he is Solarian.  Do you perhaps not understand the word?  Maybe are our definitions different?”

“I don’t know; why don’t you try telling me?”

She stopped, closing her eyes. “Let me try to remember the most effective way I was able to convey this.”  There was silence for a while.  “To say it is complicated for your mind would be a massive understatement, but in a way perhaps it is the simplest truth.  Are you familiar with the term some members of your race know as ‘Axl’?”

“No.”  I could feel the situation would be one that whoever I was talking to might normally be frustrated that I was not grasping whatever experiment I was in, yet I felt only complete patience from the strange girl.  I had my annoyances with her, but her tolerance was winning me over.

“Okay, well…”  she paused while she thought, “your body and mind are ultimately recyclable.  Your race understands this as ‘The Line’.  This shouldn’t be a surprise for you.  When you die, all that energy will, in one way or another, will be utilized again.  However, consciousness, or maybe call it ‘high level awareness’, has a reality of its own too.  It is not part of these dimensions you normally call ‘reality’.  It ultimately influences this reality, but low levels or non-existence in awareness often reverses the circumstances; meaning this reality instead influences the weak awareness.”

“You are kind of losing me, can you explain?”

“My last sentence was the best explanation.  Essentially, at high levels of consciousness, there exists a sort of manifesting ability, whereas as low levels, reality instead changes or crushes the consciousness.”  She stopped talking, waiting to see if I understood.

“Nothing real can be taken away,” I stated, recalling some philosophical thing I had heard once which seemed appropriate here; I said it more to try to pretend I knew what she was talking about than any real understanding I had of what she was saying.

Her huge grin was worth my statement as her happiness was very infectious.  “Exactly, Tre!  If it is there, it cannot be taken away!  That is exactly why you were the one selected.  Your awareness and openness targeted you out right away.”  Seeing her so happy and exited made me feel a bit happy as well; I smiled at my ability to have made her happy.

“So, are you even real, or do we have some other dimensional thing going on here?”

“Oh I am real, but to drop into this dimension takes a vast amount of energy and concentration.  See?”  She gripped my arm hard, and it actually hurt.  I had no doubt her slightly muscular arms belied massive strength that could completely crush through my arm.  “But as consciousness affects your reality, this is why I am only visible to you.  To influence one reality is much easier than all of them.”

“But, if I am more aware of reality, wouldn’t that make it harder for you to come here?  I’d be more aware that what is going on here should not be happening in normal circumstances.  Wouldn’t that guy be easier to influence or whatever?”

“Of course, but to what avail?”

She disappeared, and I sat back in surprise, looking around.  The guy was watching a screen that suddenly shut off.  “What the?”  He sat up, slapped the screen and it fall off the counter in what seemed like excessive movement for his light touch.  He swore a bit, and went to trying to fix it.  Proud was back at her chair.

She gave me a girlish smile.