HARPER:
Oh. Hey. Sorry. I was just...

TRANCE:
Looking for a place to think?

HARPER:
Trance?

TRANCE:
Guilty.

HARPER:
But what... I mean... you’re purple.

TRANCE:
Am I?

HARPER:
Okay! That’s it. I’m done. You?re going to explain everything to me. Right now. Or so help me...

TRANCE:
You’ll shoot? Go ahead. If it?ll make you feel better. I don’t mind.

HARPER:
No freaking way. You are not doing this again. You owe me. Spill.

TRANCE:
Why not? What harm would it do?

HARPER:
Seriously? You?re going to tell me everything? Who you are? What the hell has been happening for the past couple years?

TRANCE:
don’t talk me out of it.

HARPER:
Okay, okay. Talk. I’m listening.

TRANCE:
First... can you answer a question for me?

HARPER:
(guarded)
Maybe.

TRANCE:
What?s the last thing you remember?

HARPER:
Err... what do you mean?

TRANCE:
What?s going on right now? With Dylan and Tyr and Rev and Beka and Rommie. What is the exact situation in which this conversation is taking place?

HARPER:
Well Dylan is... uh...
(starts over)
Okay. Tyr. Tyr is...
(crap)
Beka? Rev Bem? What the hell? I don’t really... I have no idea. I mean, it’s like... freaking hazy.

TRANCE:
I was afraid of that.

HARPER:
What?s wrong with me?

TRANCE:
Nothing. Except you?re not real.

HARPER:
I’m not?

TRANCE:
No. You?re a probability wave. A possible future Harper.

HARPER:
Oh. Errr... so does that mean I don’t get an explanation?

TRANCE:
No. But I’ll have to make it a bit more general. Since I’m not sure which Harper you are.
(serious)
Okay. The first thing you have to understand is that I don’t see reality like you do.

HARPER:
I know that. You can see the future or whatever.

TRANCE:
No. I see possible futures. Even ones that are incredibly, unbelievably unlikely.

HARPER:
You know... I can vaguely remember some pretty freaky, crazy stuff happening the last few years. Some place called Seefra?

TRANCE:
Yeah. That was unlikely.

HARPER:
A little. Are you saying that it never really happened?

TRANCE:
I’m saying that it may happen. it’s a possibility. There are lots and lots of possibilities. That’s what?s great about the future. You can change it. Not like the past.

HARPER:
So where are you? Right now?

TRANCE:
The same place I always am. In the present.
(frowns)
At this moment, I’m trying to decide whether to save you... or let you die and save Hohne.

HARPER:
The tesseracting thing.

TRANCE:
Yeah.

HARPER:
But... you have a tail.

TRANCE:
I?ve always had a tail.

HARPER:
Until it got shot off.

TRANCE:
Harper, I?ve come back to life after being dead. You really think I can?t regrow a tail?

HARPER:
You know, you kinda scare me sometimes.

TRANCE:
Sorry.

HARPER:
So everything I remember after that mess with the tesseract... or everything I don’t remember... it’s all just your imagination?

TRANCE:
No. It exists. But only in theory. Like I said... probability waves. Although... well, the truth is... I have kinda been... daydreaming. Letting myself dwell on more and more unlikely scenarios in an effort to get an outcome that was... I don’t know... more appealing than the one I knew was... well... best.

HARPER:
Shouldn?t the best future be the most appealing?

TRANCE:
It should. But it wasn’t.

TRANCE:
Because some people I cared about were going to get very hurt.

HARPER:
Including me?

TRANCE:
I?ve been trying to find a happy ending where that won?t happen.

HARPER:
And have you?

TRANCE:
No, not really. Trance looks back out at the stars.

TRANCE:
I suppose I should start at the beginning.

HARPER:
You, me, Beka, and Rev on the Maru? I can remember that part.

TRANCE:
No. The real beginning. The ?In the beginning? beginning. Once upon a time, there was matter. And energy. And Love. And Love meant that all the matter and all the energy were all bound very tightly together in one place.

HARPER:
Errr... like before the Big Bang?

TRANCE:
Exactly. And then something new came along. Something that wasn’t Love.

HARPER:
Hate?

TRANCE:
Worse. Boredom. Some parts of the matter and energy wanted something new. Something different. They became... distinct. Adversarial. In reaction, other individuals arose. Those who wanted Love to continue. Two factions. Who fought a war in Heaven.

HARPER:
A war in Heaven? Like angels and devils and stuff?

TRANCE:
Exactly.

HARPER:
Which side were you on?

TRANCE:
The tail is a dead giveaway. That’s why I let them shoot it off. Harper still can?t believe it.

HARPER:
A real live devil? Horns? Pitchfork?

TRANCE:
We called ourselves... well, the best translation is ?Lightbringers.? But maybe it’s more accurate to use the Latin. You know any Latin?

HARPER:
I think I left that chip back in my quarters.

TRANCE:
In Latin, the word for “Lightbringer” is “Lucifer.”

HARPER:
My best friend is the devil.

TRANCE:
I’m your best friend? Harper, That’s so sweet.

HARPER:
Uh... you?re welcome?

TRANCE:
So. We fought a war. Against Love. We won. And when it was done... we blew up Heaven.

HARPER:
The Big Bang?

TRANCE:
The Lucifers caused everything to explode. Energy. Life. Excitement. The end to boredom. As the Lucifers blasted the universe into existence, we gathered matter and energy around ourselves. And we burned. Oh, how we burned.

Trance looks out at the stars. Revealing her tattoo. A sun with a face.

TRANCE:
And we?re still burning. Today.

HARPER:
Suns.

TRANCE:
Suns. Lucifers. Devils.
(a beat)
But Love didn?t die in the War. Love still existed. And Love wanted to restore Heaven. By collapsing existence back into itself.

HARPER:
You?re saying the Spirit of the Abyss... is... God?

TRANCE:
No. Harper, if there?s a God, it’s greater than you or me or the Abyss. it’s beyond all meaning. All understanding. The Abyss is just the other side of the coin. The Lucifers want energy, chaos, expansion. The Abyss wants harmony, order, singularity.

HARPER:
So on one side... Love. On the other...

TRANCE:
Blowing Things Up.

TRANCE:
it’s the tension between these two forces... Love on one side and Blowing Things Up on the other that makes everything possible. Except there was a problem. In the end, we knew... Love was going to win. In the End, everything was going to collapse back down into singularity again.

HARPER:
And you know that because you can see the future?

TRANCE:
No. Because it’s happened before. Many times. The Universe explodes into existence, thrives, then collapses back on itself. Everything ends. Eventually, the Lucifers arise again. And everything explodes. Again. Expansion, contraction, expansion, contraction. We even created a device, a way of ensuring that the explosion would always happen. We called it the Engine of Creation.
(concerned)
Are you following all of this?

HARPER:
I have no idea. But keep going.

TRANCE: Unfortunately, this time around, Love wasn’t willing to wait for the normal dance. Love tried to force the end to come early. And to make sure that there would never be another explosion again. We couldn?t have that. So we fought back. We made a plan to annihilate Love. To make sure that the Universe never collapsed again. We incarnated ourselves as avatars, projecting our consciousnesses into fabricated bodies connected to our home suns through the Slipstream. Then, as avatars, we used our ability to foresee probabilities and try to force existence to take a different path. And That’s where you come in.

HARPER:
Me?

TRANCE:
You. Dylan. Beka. Tyr. Rev Bem. Andromeda. In our projections, you were six very important people. Separately, you would all do great things. But our projections showed that together, you might do the impossible. Together, you might destroy the Abyss and end the war. It was my job to bring you together. To manipulate you. To make sure you did what was necessary to bring about the best of all possible worlds. The Perfect Possible Future.

TRANCE:
Only... there was a problem. I started to like you.

HARPER:
And That’s bad?

TRANCE:
People who do great things... they don’t always enjoy it. The Perfect Possible Future for me and my brothers and sisters... wasn’t necessarily the best of all possible worlds for you.

HARPER:
(imitating a buzzer)
Buzzzz. Vagueness.

TRANCE:
Okay. Specifics. Let?s start with Tyr. In the Perfect Possible Future... Tyr Anasazi, out of Victoria, by Barbarossa... becomes the greatest military leader in the universe.

Using his child as a figurehead, he unites the Nietzscheans. He establishes an Empire. He drives his enemies before him. He hears the lamentations of their women.

HARPER:
Man. And Dylan lets him?

TRANCE:
Dylan has his own fate. Dylan Hunt, with the help of his legendary ship, the Andromeda Ascendent, re-establishes the Commonwealth. Fear of Tyr and the Magog help him unite the Than, the Perseids, and many others into a great society. Dylan proves himself over and over as a great leader. And eventually he leads his new Commonwealth into a great war against Tyr and Tyr?s allies. And then there?s Rev...

HARPER:
Rev. I miss Rev.

TRANCE:
He?s happier where he is now. Happier, but not as great.
(a beat)
The Wayist Church hasn?t had a Magog leader since it’s founding. But Rev Bem... Behemial Fartraveller... in the Perfect Possible Future, he changes all that. Rising to the top of his Church, backed by a fanatical army of Wayist Magog and devoted believers... Rev Bem creates a third great nation. A religious state an equal to both the Commonwealth and the Nietzschean Empire. And then...

TRANCE:
The fourth great state arises. Led by... you.

HARPER:
Me?

TRANCE:
You.

HARPER:
I’m just an engineer.

TRANCE:
Exactly.

HARPER:
All I know are machines.

TRANCE:
Yes.

HARPER:
Then how...?

TRANCE:
The Consensus of Parts.

HARPER:
Those freaky machine-thingies? I was supposed to lead them?

TRANCE:
No. You were to become them.
(gently)
Bit by bit, in our adventures, you, Harper, lose yourself. Literally. An arm at first. A leg. An eye. In time, you become less a man and more... machine. At the very end, in a battle with the Consensus, when they try to absorb Andromeda and the Commonwealth fleet... you absorb them instead. Your mind, your consciousness, spreads like a virus through the entire Consensus. You cease to exist as a man... and become a nation.

HARPER:
Me?

TRANCE:
You.

HARPER:
So if my mind goes out into the Consensus... my body...? Dies.

HARPER:
Wow.
(a beat)
That... that kinda sucks, honestly.

TRANCE:
Yeah. I know.

TRANCE:
I couldn?t do it, Harper. I couldn?t create a future where that happened to you. So I tried to find another way. A way that was easier. Happier. More... appealing. Less complicated.

HARPER:
You threw out the entire future... for me?

TRANCE:
I wanted so badly to save you. There were those... those with even more power than me... that wanted things to be different. They wanted you... eliminated. Right from the start. They wanted me replaced. So a lot of what I did... too much maybe... I did to protect you. To protect me. Beka. Tyr. Rev Bem. I wanted to keep you all safe. Alive.

HARPER:
But not Dylan?

TRANCE:
In all the possibilities, Dylan was indispensable. He was the chosen of the great powers. He was always going to be there. In some possibilities, he was destined to become truly great. In some, he went mad. In still others, he warped the entire Commonwealth to suit his own ends. But there had to be a Dylan. Without Dylan, nothing was possible. With him... Great things could happen. I tried to make Dylan great. I wanted him to be remembered as the greatest hero of this or any age. You, Beka, Tyr, Rev Bem, me, our very existences were always in question. Rommie was safe. In any scenario, she would always be there, beautiful, deadly, brilliant, loyal. And Dylan... his survival was assured. Whatever happened would begin and end with him. What was always at stake for Captain Dylan Hunt... was his soul. Would he do what was right to achieve his goals? What compromises would he make? What betrayals and at what cost?

HARPER:
Beka. You haven?t said what happens to Beka.

TRANCE:
Beka.

TRANCE:
The Perfect Possible Future... was always in the hands of Beka.

HARPER:
Beka... I always thought Dylan...

TRANCE:
Dylan is crucial. Dylan is the catalyst. And the heart. But at the final crisis point... the final decision... it all comes down to Beka. And the Engine of Creation.

HARPER:
The Big Bang Machine? The reset button for the Universe?

TRANCE:
Beka is obsessed with the Engine. Because she knows it can change... everything. With the Engine, she could remake reality.

Work miracles. Right wrongs. She could make her brother safe. Find her mother. Even bring her father back to life. So in the Perfect Possible Future, Beka locates the many parts of the Engine. She puts them together. She recreates the Engine of Creation.

HARPER:
And lives happily ever after?

TRANCE:
No. Because the Engine wants to be used. It becomes part of her. It literally melds with her. And makes her... like a god. But the more she uses that power... to bring Ignatius Valentine back to life, to fix the Andromeda when the ship gets torn apart... to resurrect an entire world, the more she loses herself. And the more the Engine tempts her to fix... everything. To crunch the Universe back down to a singularity, then start all over again. War. Explosion. Love and Blowing Things Up. The entire dance.

HARPER:
So how?s it end?

TRANCE:
There?s a terrible war. Dylan and the Commonwealth against Tyr and Nietzscheans at first. Then you, the Consensus. Rev. The Wayists. And then you?re all swept into an even bigger war. Between the Magog backed by the Abyss. And the Pyrians backed by the Lucifers. With the help of you, Tyr, Rev and Rommie, Dylan manages to unite all the forces arrayed against him into one unified front. The Commonwealth is reborn, but now it includes the Nietzscheans, the Wayists and the Consensus. He even forces the Vedrans out of hiding. With his friends and allies at his side, Dylan comes to aid the Pyrians in their fight against the Abyss. But it’s not enough. The Abyss is too strong. So Dylan realizes, the only way to win is to destroy the Abyss. And the only one who can do that... is Beka.

HARPER:
So Beka takes on the Abyss?

TRANCE:
The seven of us are reunited for one last mission. In a heroic journey, against impossible odds, Dylan takes us on the Andromeda to a place in the Slipstream where everything began and everything will end. The singularity. There, while Dylan and you and Tyr and Rev and Rommie and I battle endless waves of horrifying foes, Beka confronts the Abyss. In the original plan, the plan I was supposed to make come true, Beka kills the Abyss... But I stopped believing that was the best outcome. So instead, in the Perfect Possible Future, Beka realizes something...

TRANCE:
If she destroys the Abyss, the balance will be broken. The tension between Chaos and Order, Life and Death, Expansion and Contraction, will end. But if she lets the Abyss win, everyone she knows and loves will die. And neither of those endings are really all that great. So instead, she does the only thing she can do. She loves.

TRANCE:
She loves you all already. Like a mother and a sister and a daughter and a wife. So she expands that love. She learns to love the conflict. She learns to love the peace. She learns to love all of creation. Every part of it, good and bad. Even the broken places. And then... she embraces the Abyss. And becomes it.

HARPER:
Beka becomes God?

TRANCE:
I told you, the Abyss isn?t God. What Beka becomes is Love. But more than Love. Because Beka understands that Love isn?t enough. That pain and conflict and struggle are part of life, too. Beka becomes... everything. And everything can?t war with itself. So the war... ends.

HARPER:
And Beka... what? Dies?

TRANCE:
Apotheosizes. Technically. But yes, Beka as you know her... ceases to exist.

HARPER:
That is seriously freaky.

TRANCE:
it’s as freaky as it gets.

HARPER:
And the rest of us?

TRANCE:
it’s hard to say. In some versions, some live, others die. In others, others live, some die. If you die, you die so others might live. And if you live, you do so because others have died. There is no victory without blood. No birth without pain. But no matter how it resolves... one thing is always the same.

HARPER:
I get laid? Tell me I get laid.

TRANCE:
Better. You become a legend. You all do. We all do. Captain Dylan Hunt, Captain Beka Valentine. Tyr Anasazi, the Emperor of the Nietzscheans. The Reverend Behemial, Voice of the Way. Seamus Zelanzy Harper, the Soul of the Machine. Trance Gemini, Lucifer, Solar Avatar... troublemaker. And the Andromeda Ascendent, the greatest, the most powerful, the most beautiful and the most sarcastic starship that ever sailed the Slipstream. And for generations, our exploits live on in memory, serving as an example and an inspiration to all who hear the tale. The end.

HARPER:
You know... that doesn’t suck.

TRANCE:
Seriously?

HARPER:
I mean, I get it. I die. More or less. Beka dies. Kinda. And maybe you or Tyr or Rev dies. Maybe even Dylan dies. But it’s all worth it. it’s all for something. And That’s what matters, right?

TRANCE:
it’s not the easiest way, Harper. it’s not the prettiest... or the simplest... It may not even be a way that, in the end, everyone understands. Sometimes it’s funny. Sometimes it’s sad. But it’s also complicated, and messy, and loud.

HARPER:
But it’s not boring. And That’s the only things worse than hate, right? Boredom?

TRANCE:
(smiles)
it’s never boring. Harper shakes his head.

HARPER:
So now what?

TRANCE:
What do you mean?

HARPER:
Now that we?ve had our talk, what...? I cease to exist? This little possible future ends and you start the real thing?

TRANCE:
Right now, there is no real thing, Harper. Right now there are only possibilities. Illusions. Stories that may or may not have any meaning. I?ve laid out one, the one that I can see clearest. But there are limitless others. Whatever you can imagine might happen... might happen. And who knows... what you imagine might be even better than my Perfect Possible Future. Who am I to say that my way is right and yours is wrong?

HARPER:
Trance. You?re Trance. You always were.

TRANCE:
Whatever happens... I’m glad it happened at all. I’m glad I got to play in this world. I’m glad I got to know you all. it’s been... well, it’s been a hell of a ride. And I wouldn?t have missed it for the world.

HARPER:
Me neither.

HARPER:
I guess I should go. You know... so I can cease to exist and you can decide how it all ends.

TRANCE:
Not yet. Stay with me for a little while more. And just... look at the stars.

HARPER:
Look at the stars? I can do that.