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the people were astonished at this doctrine
Christina Theodora and warlock Bruce
Permalink Mark Unread

She is humming, softly, and swaying, slightly, as she scribbles in her notebook, just aimless brainstorming that circles back to the same points oftener than not. Either way, she isn't paying much attention to her surroundings, even as the door closes behind her, and almost bumps into a table that wasn't supposed to be there before she looks up. 

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She's in a bar, with a view of exploding stars out the window and a teenage boy drinking a mug of something creamy and reading a book.

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"Okay, this is new," she says, snapping the notebook closed and sliding her pen into the spine. 

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"Yeah, I wasn't expecting it either. Apparently there's a whole pile of universes out there! I have a book written by aliens!" He gestures with his book; it's a memoir by someone named Chu'lak.

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"Oh, fun. Is this the Breakroom?"

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"Bar says it's called Milliways. Apparently time stops outside while you're in here . . . which I guess would mean you can't be from the same world as me. Assuming she was telling the truth about how it works, anyway, but I checked it a couple minutes ago and it seemed to be true then."

Honestly, he's pretty sure this whole thing is some sort of demonic trick, but he's already damned so he might as well enjoy it while he's got the chance. Either that or it's God making some sort of last-ditch attempt to save him, but when he asked Bar for a book recommendation he got something that so far hasn't mentioned Jesus once, so that doesn't seem especially likely.

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"Well, I don't see why she wouldn't be. Pausing time is excellent, I've got some time-sensitive problems to work on that might benefit from outside assistance."

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He wobbles back and forth between "the demons who made this place are out to entrap her too" and "she's a demon in fair guise" and ends up rocking back and forth on his bar stool a bit instead of doing anything about either possibility. "What are your problems? If you don't mind telling someone who can't do anything."

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"The world isn't in acceptable shape, let's put it that way."

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"I'm sorry to hear it," he says on autopilot, because he's not sure what else to say. He's not exactly satisfied with the state of his world either, but in his world's case it's because of human sin, so it feels kind of hypocritical to complain about. And in his world he could say something about everything being part of God's perfect plan and everyone except him would find it comforting, and presumably God rules over her world and all the others, but delivering fake reassurances to someone from a potentially very different culture sounds like a dumb plan.

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"I mean, is yours?"

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"No, it really isn't. Did humans Fall, in your world? We did."

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"...Fall, like, the story of Adam and Eve and the apple?"

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"Yes, that." Actually, it belatedly occurs to him that this should have been more obvious, because she's wearing clothes and Adam and Eve were naked. But maybe there's a universe where humanity didn't Fall and they still wear clothes for other reasons; clothes are pretty useful, after all.

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"Yeah that didn't...actually...happen...people are just like that on their own."

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"Wait, so people in your world were created already fallen? That probably has fascinating implications for your salvation but I suck at theology so I have no idea what they are."

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"People in my world evolved, and then God panicked."

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"Sorry, what does 'evolved' mean?"

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"Okay, so you know how people will breed livestock so that the healthiest, most productive animals have the most children so that the next generation is better at what humans want them for?"

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"Yeah, I've heard of that." He even knows that it has to do with minor variations in their DNA, but attempts to find genetic effects of the Fall haven't turned up anything conclusive, if only because they don't have gene samples from Adam or Eve.

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"So, this happens in nature, too, only instead of 'whatever traits humans want' it's 'whatever traits lead to surviving long enough to have more surviving babies than the competition.' And over time this can lead to colossally staggering changes. And when an animal hits on a strategy of being smarter than the competition, eventually you can get people. And then God freaks out and invents immortal souls because people ceasing to exist is an awful concept They've never encountered before."

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"Huh. My world's God is omniscient, so we had immortal souls from the start . . . How long does that sort of change from not-people to people take, though? Even changing one percent of the DNA would take, I don't know, tens of thousands of years? More?"

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"Enh, there's omniscience and there's omniscience...knowing how everything is now doesn't necessarily lead to drawing all the conclusions you would have if you had more experience. Being literally the first person to exist causes mistakes and all that. Anyway, I don't know about percentages, but in species with especially short generations you can get visible speciation within a human lifetime, like, lots of geneticists like using fruit flies but finches are also a good example."

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"Uh, I didn't mean any disrespect to your world's God or anything, sorry. It's probably the same God ruling over all the universes anyway, and He decided to do humans differently in different ones for some reason. And yeah, I've heard of speciation. Are you saying if you keep going you could get two kinds of finch or whatever that are as different as humans and apes?"

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"Oh, yeah, definitely! I mean, have done, we have lots of kinds of finches. Anyway, they're probably different, and I don't mind the disrespect. I disrespect God all the time! For example, while being the first person ever and having to figure out ethics from scratch is a great excuse, the entire Old Testament is a giant series of fuckups!"

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Bruce has no idea what to do with that statement, largely because he agrees with it. "Uh. I, uh. That's  blasphemy?" He looks around nervously. Neither of them seems to have spontaneously combusted or come down with hideous boils, and there aren't suddenly any bears in the room, or anything, so that's nice.

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"Enh. I love God a lot. You do your loved ones no favors by pretending their fuckups aren't."

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"Maybe God is different in different universes, then. Our Bible says God is perfect."

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"Well, your Bible could be wrong," she points out.

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Gaaaah she's probably a demon and whether she is or not this is not something he wanted to be talking about today. "Uh? No? It's literally the direct word of God? Say, about that evolution thing, do you know what's the farthest they've gotten a species to change from its original form? I think in my world it's dogs but I would have to look it up to be sure."

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"And still remain the same species? Man, I dunno, I'm not a biologist. Probably depends on how you define species anyway. Dogs are weird, you have little yappy dogs and great big huskies that are practically still wolves and you've got greyhounds with their big barreled chests and tiny little waists, it's crazy. Lots of things in nature are crazy, though, not that dogs' craziness isn't entirely humanity's fault. Do you now how many different morphologies there are of oak trees, it's a lot. Anyway, the Bible comes from God but humans wrote it down and then translated it a bajillion times and as anyone who's ever played a game of Telephone can tell you just because the person at the beginning of the chain knows what they're talking about that doesn't mean the end result is infallible."

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Bruce doesn't see why God would let anyone mess up the Bible, but he knows from Greek and Hebrew classes in school that translation is hard, and if God had reasons to confuse humans' languages at Babel then He might have had reasons to confuse the Bible too. Maybe if the Bible made too much sense humans would try to rely on it completely and never pray for guidance, or something. He shouldn't speculate.

"Yeah, dogs are weird, it's pretty awesome how many kinds there are. Um, if humans evolved in your world, did you evolve in the Garden of Eden or were you already barred from it?"

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"The Garden didn't literally happen, the Bible has a lot of metaphors."

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"Something that actually happened in my world getting used as a metaphor in your world's Bible probably means something really interesting, but I have no idea what."

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"Or it could just be a metaphor in your world too, how would you know?"

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"I feel like the angel who guards the gates of Eden with a flaming sword would probably not have been sent to guard a metaphor. But they never talk and nobody can see what's behind them so I guess I can't really be sure."

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"The what now."

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"I guess your world wouldn't have that, if it's a metaphor, yeah . . . Bar, can I borrow a copy of that picture of the Eden angel that was on the cover of National Geographic?"

Bar provides a glossy 8x10. It shows a pillar of cloud, lit as though by bright sunlight, though the surrounding mountain pass is overcast. Floating unsupported in front of the cloud is a longsword that must be four meters long, with crimson flames licking along its blade. Behind the entity is only darkness in which no shapes can be made out.

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"I don't know if I should be concerned by the implications, or excited that your world apparently contains magic apples of immortality and ethics. I'm gonna go with both."

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"Well, they're inaccessible, but I guess it's reasonable to be excited that they're possible in principle. I guess if you're excited about immortality your kind of humans also have mortal bodies?"

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"We do! Mostly, anyway. There are ways of circumventing mortality but most of them are inconvenient and/or don't scale. Anyway, one angel is not infinite defense, I'm more optimistic than you about how accessible they are. Any idea what class of angel?"

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He recalls the speculation being mainly that they're an Archangel, since Principalities on up don't spend much time on Earth that anyone knows about, but. Well. His next remark is addressed to his shoes where they're pulled up into the legs of his barstool.

"Um. Before we go any further with this conversation. If you're going to say stuff like 'one angel is not infinite defense' you might as well just admit to being a demon? It's not like there's anything I can do about it, I'm definitely not faithful enough to drive out demons, I just want to be clear about it, you know?" He cringes a bit; just because the one demon he knows is uninterested in random violence doesn't mean they're even mostly all like that.

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...She bursts into giggles. "I'm not a demon! I mean, I guess I could see how you'd come to that conclusion, but that is slightly the opposite of what I am! I mean, okay, the opposite of a demon is an angel and I'm not strictly speaking an angel, but," giggle, "I'm definitely on the sacred side of the sacred and the profane. I'm, ah, I'm the Second Coming."

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Bruce is now two for two on being laughed at by demons, which is better than a lot of ways things could have gone but still pretty embarrassing. "Um. I'm pretty sure demons claim to be the Second Coming sometimes." 

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"Well, I guess that's fair. If you think I'm a demon does that mean you won't hold the door for me so I can sneak into your world and make an attempt on the apples, how much should I care about convincing you."

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"Why would the Second Coming need to sneak anywhere . . . ? Never mind that, if you want to prove you're not a demon you can, hm. Let me think a second." 

He knows demons can't touch crucifixes, but he also knows demons can be sneaky and have powers he doesn't understand. If she's a demon then possibly the entire bar is an illusion of some sort under her control, which means borrowing a crucifix from Bar isn't a solid test. But there's the one on the wall in the hallway outside the door he came in, and he can probably reach it without letting the door close. 

"Would you mind waiting here for just a moment?" he asks, getting off the barstool and moving toward the door without turning his back on her.

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"Sure. --And I'm the Second Coming in my world, and I don't necessarily want to assume that your world's God would be happy about strange Christs coming in and taking forbidden apples for widespread agricultural cultivation."

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Okay, so if she's telling the truth it's different Gods per world. And they might not always agree with each other? That sounds weird enough that he'd wonder why a demon would bother making it up, except it's obvious, she wants to break into Eden and thinks he can help somehow. Argh, he's got too many conflicting models of the world in his head and they're messing up each other's predictions.

Bruce opens his door and manages to grab the crucifix off the wall while propping the door open with an outstretched foot; being a teenage mess of arms and legs that go on for days is useful sometimes. He brings it back to Christina and holds it out, close enough to be within her reach but hopefully not close enough to look like a threat.

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She takes it and examines it. "Man, this is always weird." The crucifix is slightly dusty. Only no, now it isn't anymore.

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Going from a bunch of competing hypotheses to one hypothesis usually feels less like stepping into an elevator shaft

Bruce collapses on the floor next to Christina's feet. "Lord", he murmurs, "I am sorry for doubting you."

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...She giggles some more, covering her mouth with her hands.

"Get up, get up," she says, bending down to take his hands and assist him with this. "You had every reason to doubt! I'm never going to criticize someone for testing the reasonable breadth of hypothesis space! Besides, I'm not your Lord, different universes, remember?"

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He cooperates with being helped up because this requires less having a functioning brain than anything else.  "I, um. Thank you?" He really has no idea what is supposed to happen next or whether there are any actions it makes sense to take. What do you say to an alien Messiah who wants to steal the fruits of the Two Trees?

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"Do I have to borrow the angels' 'Do Not Be Afraid' schtick?"

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The mental contrast between the woman standing in front of him and the thousand-eyed flaming wheels that generally say that line in history and movies is enough to snap him out of whatever he was snapped into; he chokes back a hysterical giggle. "Nope, sorry, pulling myself together now. So, um, I totally understand wanting to make everyone in your universe immortal? That makes a lot of sense. But also, breaking into Eden and stealing the Apple of Life is like the most classic movie-villain bad idea of all time. So I don't really know what to say here."

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"Why would it be a bad idea? --My world doesn't have movie villains that do that."

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"Because anyone who tries gets killed with the flaming sword? I don't know how omnipotent You are in other universes and even if the answer is 'very' I'm just generally nervous about any plan with omnipotent beings on opposite sides and me in the middle. Sorry."

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"An angel isn't omnipotent," she points out. "...You thought I might be a demon, which implies your world has a Hell. What's your God doing to fix that?"

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"God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life," he recites. "Anyone who accepts Jesus as their savior and loves Him with their whole heart is redeemed by grace and goes to Heaven." 

(This is a group which does not include Bruce. Bruce is too full of doubts, of God's goodness and His omnipotence and pretty much everything there is to doubt, not to be damned. But he's not going to bring it up.)

(Actually, now that he lets himself think about it, it's possible that if he dies in Milliways, or in Christina's universe, he might end up somewhere other than Hell. It's not certain enough to be worth slitting his wrists over immediately, but it's something to think about.)

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"...Okay, yes, but like. That's not everyone. In my world we get one or two people a year going to Hell on average and this is still considered a big problem that needs solving."

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"Only one or two a year? That's--that's really good. In my world it's maybe five, ten percent? It could be more or less. We don't have a way to count."

He's spent several nights he couldn't have slept anyway reading the analyses: extrapolations from Dante and from other prophets' less comprehensive but equally terrifying visions and the rarer but less terrifying visions of the souls in Heaven, theological speculation on the fate of everyone in smote cities, differences in self-reported level of faith when you hooked people up to lie detectors and extremely abstruse discources on whether various heresies are sufficient to make someone's faith in their concept of Jesus too disconnected from the true Jesus to render them unsaved. He didn't understand the stuff about the heresies, but the conclusions they came to matched the range of guesses from other sources.

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"Five to ten--shit. What's your population level?"

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"Roughly seven billion."

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"Fuck, fuck, fuck," she breathes. "Okay, your world is officially more of an emergency than mine is. I assume you can't convince the entire population of your world to evacuate to mine through this door and we're going to actually have to fix it."

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Bruce lets out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "So you think people from my world who die in Yours won't go to my world's Hell? And, wait, fix it, You think whatever makes nearly everyone in Your world be saved is something You could do in mine?"

(Bruce has given a lot of thought to whether a version of himself who was faithful enough to be saved would be the same person, and concluded that the answer is "maybe" but that the modification would be worth it even if it was "definitely not".)

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"I think in my world you go to hell for being a nazi rapist who tortures babies in his free time, not for not being a Christian. I think there's no reason to think souls can jump from my world to your Hell. I don't think I can make everybody believe in Jesus hard enough, I think with enough resources and ingenuity I can squish Hell."

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"Wow. That would . . . that would be amazing. I have no idea if God would permit it, Hell is supposed to be just and deserved but also God was willing to send His Son to die to save us from it but also if He wanted to destroy it He would have . . ." Bruce trails off with a shrug. "It's a pity you got me instead of someone who understands theology at all."

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"In my world, Hell was an accident."

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"In my world, let me try to remember this right, nobody was originally supposed to go to Hell, but Lucifer--um, one of the brightest angels--rebelled and was cast out of Heaven and Hell was created to hold him, and then humans were created with free will and chose to disobey God, and that created sin, which separates us from God and condemns us all to Hell unless we're redeemed by grace." Also he's curious how Hell can be an accident but he doesn't want to sound like he's questioning Christina's omnipotence or anything.

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"There are no fallen angels in my world, demons are just something that...happens. Probably spontaneously, but it's possible they're caused by intelligent action somehow. Hell was an unintended side effect of the invention of a self-perpetuating system of immortal souls and there's a lot even I don't know for sure about it."

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Bruce runs his hands nervously through his hair. "So. There's a thing I should really clarify. Which is that. My world's God claims to be omnipotent but I have a lot of doubts about it. Because there are things where it seems like He's acting under constraints. So I don't actually know." Bruce gets steadily twitchier over the course of this explanation.

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"Yeah, mine's not omnipotent outside of Heaven either."

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"And my impression is that neither one is aware of other universes."

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"Mine is aware that other universes exist, but They're not omniscient about them, no."

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"Okay. By the way, what, er, is Your relationship to Your universe's God? If that's not a rude question. Just, You talk about Them as if They're a separate person." 

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"Ah. Yes. That's accurate. Sorry, thousands of years of Christian theology, but at least in my universe, homoiousios was right all along."

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Bruce is failing high school theology (a predictable consequence of spending every class trying to think about anything else), but he has enough context to remember which one that is. "Huh. I guess enough other stuff is different that that isn't really evidence of anything on my end. So, um, what happens now?"

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"Hmm...I think what happens next is that I invite some angels in from my universe so if I get stranded in yours we don't lose access to this place, and I step into your universe and try to talk to your God." 

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Meeting angels should not be terrifying after meeting the Messiah; he swallows hard anyway. "Okay."

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She gets up and crosses back to the door and opens it and sticks her head out for a few minutes. 

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When she pulls back in, she's followed shortly by a small and outwardly-unassuming crowd of what is presumably not actually a handful of humans of varied ethnicities. 

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"Be not afraid," Christina advises, "these guys are chill. Door?"

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They certainly look a lot chiller than even the least frightening angels he's seen in pictures, but on the other hand they're not pictures, they're right actually there. Bruce gets up, aware that he's making either the best or the worst decision of his life (or was that when he entered the bar?) and opens the door.

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She strides forth. 

Hello, she prays, and sings in the inaudible tongue of the angels, I would like to speak with you.

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She gets a response; not in a language, in direct concepts-only telepathy.

WHAT ARE YOU

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She does not resort to words either, offering up her identity and the nature of her world and her God and Milliways and how she met someone from this world and was exceedingly curious. 

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This gets a noticeable pause.

But does she acknowledge him as the LORD of all that is, that's really the important question here.

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Well, like, probably, but she wants to make sure she's fully informed about the situation before committing. 

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NO she has to acknowledge him as the LORD right this minute!

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...

Sure, okay. He is LORD. Nifty. Can she have information now. 

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YES, MY CHILD. WHAT DO YOU WISH TO KNOW?

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So, Hell, what's up with that? 

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Hell is where all beings tainted by sin are naturally destined for! Here's a very vivid and detailed vision of the place, gratis. It's mostly a lot of people being various forms of on fire and screaming about it!

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Gosh, those people sure are suffering! When does it stop?

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It doesn't stop. Why would it stop? They don't stop being sinners.

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Ah. Good to know. 

She ducks back inside Milliways and motions for Bruce to close the door. 

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Bruce shuts it immediately and relaxes a bit, though he's still pretty tense. "Is everything okay--well, not okay, but."

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"Your God does, in fact, think torturing people forever is a good idea. We're gonna have to fight him." 

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The only reason Bruce doesn't start leaning against the door like something is going to try to get in is that he was already doing it. He makes several sounds that are probably the beginnings of words, then says "I agree on the goal there but frankly I am both useless and terrified."

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"Being afraid makes sense. I'm kinda scared and I'm, you know, Jesus-y."

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Her being scared too kind of doesn't help, but it's good that She understands why he's scared. "At least time is paused? We can plan and stuff."

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"Yeah...hmmm...it would be nice if we had any known limits on his abilities." 

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"Well, Bar has every book ever written everywhere; we can do some research."

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"Excellent." 

She asks Bar for any books written in Bruce's dimension that might be useful for figuring out his world's God's limitations. 

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The single book with the largest quantity of relevant content is the Bible, but there are also a handful of things written by demons on how to operate unnoticed on Earth, plus one treatise that was technically made publicly available before all extant copies, the theologian who wrote it, and said theologian's house were destroyed in a spontaneous fire. (Most governments banned all of his earlier publications after that, just to be on the safe side, but Bar only cares that something was published at some point.)

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"Fuckin' me," she mutters under her breath at this anecdote. 

If she hands out various copies of the Bible to the angels she has in here and splits the treatise and the demonic texts between her and Bruce, they can get through it reasonably quickly. What's the verdict?

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From the Bible, they learn that either God can neither teleport people nor reliably predict the outcomes of His actions, or He really likes sending ineffective plagues on the Egyptians.

The theological treatise looks, at first glance, to be surprisingly benign for something that got its author killed. It's a rather abstruse document on how Heaven, being a realm of Spirit distinct from matter, must have different properties of space and time, with some speculation on what those properties are. For instance, Heaven and Hell as seen in prophecy both have a top and a bottom, and the treatise suggests that the local equivalent of gravity points in a single direction everywhere rather than toward masses. Furthermore, since Heaven and Hell are perfect opposites, they must have opposite directionality, such that objects in Hell fall towards objective cosmic up.

The demon books put the treatise into some very valuable context. Apparently a handful of demons took an interest in interplanar physics after seeing a piece of Heaven torn off and turned into Hell, and they theorize that that event may have caused lingering instability. This has a couple of consequences. For one thing, the bottom edge of Heaven is "adjacent" in higer-dimensional space to the bottom edge of Hell, and it may be possible for a small quantity of spirit to move from one to the other as the boundary "twitches" back and forth. Perhaps more interestingly, there's some speculation that a sufficiently large release of (earthly rather than spiritual) energy might destabilize a portion of spiritual spacetime, with disastrous results for any beings in the area. The first batch of books they get doesn't include reports of anyone testing that theory empirically.

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"...This speculates that Heaven might be vulnerable to being blown up. That's--weird, if true."

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"That's super weird! Do you just mean that Heaven can have explosions in it, or that things in Heaven can be destroyed by explosions, or . . . ?"

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She shows him the bit of speculation in question. 

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"I guess a piece of Heaven getting ripped off and turned into Hell would cause, uh, bad stuff. That's probably good but mostly it's just disturbing to think about. Earth is supposed to pass away at the end of days but Heaven is supposed to be perfect and eternal."

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"Yeah. Heaven's not supposed to be fragile the way Earth is."

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"I guess if Hell was destroyed, that would be good? Better if we could get the people out first."

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"Yyyyyyyyes. Definitely want to evacuate first, the poor damned..."

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"And then Heaven has people in it too. The saved, and also nobody's sure whether angels are separate people or extensions of God."

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"Yeah, of course. --I mean to the saved bit, not the--nobody knows? Really?"

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"Well, I guess the angels know, and presumably the demons know too since they used to be angels, so really it's just humans that don't know. I bet Bar has something that will explain it."

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"I don't know if the existence of demons proves that angels aren't all just God's fingers or if your God is just that perverse."

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"The fact that some rebelled and others didn't at least suggests they're multiple minds, but every time someone tries to explain the Trinity to me I go cross-eyed and this seems like the same sort of question so you should consult someone more knowledgeable than me."

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"Well, I'm all homoiousios over here, so I can't give a good explanation for how it works, but I've found some good analogies for how it could work, if you...know anything about computer programming...which I have no reason to think you do."

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"I've done a bit? Not much, I'm afraid, my school didn't cover it."

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She gets a napkin from Bar and scribbles out: 

 

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He stares for a bit. "There are programming languages where the equality operator is intransitive? I guess if someone wanted it to be a metaphor for the Trinity . . . I'm sorry, I've gone off on a tangent, where were we, angels. Uh, I guess what to do about angels depends on, um, what you're . . . planning to do to God?" It's not the easiest subject to wrap his mind around, people planning to do things to God.

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"I really wish I could make that decision based on better information," she sighs. "But I think the blowing-up thing might be the best lead we have..."

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Bruce isn't sure which is worse, that he agrees or that he doesn't know whether he would say anything if he didn't. "We can see if any angels have written anything relevant? About whether they're separate people, I mean."

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"Yeah. Bar?"

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Angels: do not produce publicly available writing. Humans in heaven: do not produce publicly available writing either. Humans in hell occasionally publish things, usually very short and in the medium of "finger dragged through sand" or "blood smeared on a rock".

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That's...concerning...is any of the hell-writing anything more useful than, like, "somebody save me."

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There's a lot of "why". There's a lot of attempts to count days. There's a lot of people writing their own names over and over, or the names of their loved ones, or snatches of poetry. Sometimes there are messages for later arrivals--"fewer demons that way", "beware: ants", "even despair has an end". Nothing that looks like anyone expected a living person to read it.

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Wow. Hoo boy. They're gonna need to import so many therapists. Not that she didn't realize that, but. "Even despair has an end" is definitely extra concerning. 

If she's going to deploy conventional explosives against God (why the fuck is that even a thing that might work) with minimal damage to innocent bystanders...is there anything published about, like, the layout of Heaven. 

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There is! Prophets have had visions of Heaven, and theologians have pieced them together into some fairly complete maps. Like Hell, Heaven is a finite space in the shape of a cylinder. It has nine levels, arranged vertically: the region where the saved dwell in bliss, seven levels occupied by the seven angelic choirs, and then God's throne at the top. Each layer is immediately recognizable by its inhabitants; unlike the diversity of forms seen in demons, each kind of angel is pretty similar to the others of that kind, and they're all different kinds of extremely weird-looking, starting with six-winged humanoids and going from there.

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...If it is a finite space how does it fit all the souls. 

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It's a pretty big finite space and there's only ever been a finite number of people. There's a theological debate about whether it gets bigger as more people die or just gets more densely populated. It's fairly dense in at least some areas, but since there aren't any buildings and the saved just stand in one place singing songs of praise to God this doesn't really complicate things much.

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That is all they do. Thaaat's creepy. 

"Your world's god is so fucked up."

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People who are confident they're saved usually talk about Heaven like they expect it to be wonderful, but. Bruce remembers being very small, four or five, and asking if there were dogs in Heaven, and being told that eternal bliss was better than having a dog. He didn't totally buy it, even then.

"Yeah. Pretty much."

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"I apologize for him on behalf of divinity in general and Jesus-flavored divinity in particular." 

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"Um, apology accepted but also it's super not your fault?"

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"It's not my fault but it is--if someone looked at this and then looked at me and went, 'ugh, you're a Christ?' then they wouldn't be out of line, you know? --It's not my fault but it is my responsibility."

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"That's--really reasonable of you? Not that it matters whether I think you're being reasonable or not. Obviously."

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"I think it matters." 

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Bruce keeps getting these statements he doesn't know what to do with, and every time he tries to do something with them he gets another one. Maybe instead he can just stare at his own feet for a bit.

"What else do you need to know before you can--do what you're planning to do?"

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She bites her lip. "I think I'm going to spend a little more time seeing if I can get anything useful from your world's literature just in case, and then I'm going to go into your world, teleport to your world's God, and conjure a little bit of antimatter."

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"Good luck. I hope you and everyone else end up okay."

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Sigh. "That's always the hope." 

Flip flip flip no last-minute revelations?

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Unless the Book of Revelation counts, no.

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Is the Book of Revelation interestingly different from her own?

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Not especially. It's maybe slightly more lucidly written, but the events of the prophesied End of Days are the same.

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Well, there's not going to be an End of Days if she has anything to say about it. 

"I'm ready," she tells Bruce. 

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Bruce is aware that however this turns out it will be an important moment in history. Hopefully if someone writes a book about it they'll leave him out of it. Hopefully enough people will live to remember this that that's a concern.

He says solemnly, "Good luck," and opens the door.

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She steps through

and teleports to where God is

and conjures several grams of antimatter. 

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As soon as God realizes there's an intruder in Heaven, he throws a massive amount of lightning. But the matter-antimatter explosion is already flooding the area with energy. 

God can handle energy. The spacetime of Heaven, already under strain, cannot. Reality starts to tear and fold into isolated islands like a pot of soapy water getting stirred into foam.

Christina might want to find somewhere else to be before the place she's standing stops being a place.

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She jumps back to earth and re-corporealizes herself and decides to wait a minute before doing anything else in case something makes itself known to her in that time. 

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There's nothing immediately noticeable in her vicinity, but there's a lot of telepathic yelling getting broadcast to whoever can hear it.

Hello?                             !?!?!

                          What?

Help?                                    We are so alone

               Holy holy holy is the Lord of Hosts

Where is everyone?!

           Praised be the One to Whom our praise is due?

Where are we?                      Where . . . am I?

What???                       We're scared? We're scared

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Ah. Hm. 

Hello? Who are you?

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Who are we?

                    What happened?

We are the choirs

                                           Holy holy holy is the Lord of Hosts

                     There are humans here!

Who are you?                                Where did the light go?

                                 It's so quiet

Lonely. Alone.

                                            Holy holy holy holy holy holy holy

 

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Are there not normally humans where you are? she asks the one who said, "There are humans here!"

My name is Christina, she tells the one who asked, "Who are you?" 

What was the light like? she asks the one who asked, "Where did the light go?"

How is it quiet? Everyone's talking, she asks the one who said, "It's so quiet." 

Can I help? she asks the one who said, "Lonely. Alone." 

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Gradually the chaos of voices resolves into a few, coming from very different directions, each more coherent and somehow larger than before.

We are not where we were. We were in Heaven, and then everything was coming apart, and now we're here, and the humans who were with us in Heaven are here too, but they aren't singing.

We are the Archangels. We used to be the Host.

The light was Heaven. The light was the LORD. The light was everything.

The Song has stopped. We hear the other Choirs but we are not one with them. We are the Thrones only.

We don't know.

A brilliant streak of light shoots across the sky and vanishes into the distance. People are staring off after it in awe.

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Christina considers this for a fraction of a second, then teleports back to the door, steps through, and gestures for Bruce to close it. 

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He closes it almost before she's done gesturing, and looks at her like he really wants to ask for updates but also doesn't want to interrupt anything.

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"God is dead and the angels are super freaking out."

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"I can't really blame them." No, useful, say something useful. "Anything I can do to help or should I just wait until you want the door again?"

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"Uh. Maybe? Do you have any idea for how to productively handle the angels."

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"Uh, you probably know more than me, I've never met an angel. Except for Yours in the bar here and they're probably different. What are they freaking out about, are they just--sad He's dead, or are they worried the universe is going to cease to exist or anything?"

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"Well, uh, they used to be one hive mind, and then they weren't a hive mind, and now they are one hive mind per kind, and it's freaking them out." 

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"Yikes. That sounds . . . yikes. I don't know anything about--hive mind brain surgery or whatever . . . can they talk to each other at all, the kinds?" Also he kind of wants and kind of doesn't want to know what happened to the dead humans, but one thing at a time.

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"I think so? They were all talking in a way I could hear, and I think they could hear each other." 

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"I'm trying to imagine suddenly being a bunch of smaller people and it sounds really weird and unpleasant. Wow, I hope they didn't get the angel equivalent of one of them having both eyes and one having both legs or whatever. At least they all got the ability to talk."

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"Also wherever they are now I think the dead humans also are and it probably isn't Heaven so it might be Earth? And the dead humans were previously, uh, I think, just--doing nothing whatsoever besides singing."

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"Yeah, that's--the saved have eternal bliss and sing praises to God. If they're not experiencing eternal bliss anymore I would guess they're very confused."

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"I like singing as much as the next Messiah but nothing else forever does not sound that blissful to me."

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"Yeeeah. I don't know how them not getting bored works. Worked. I think being in the presence of God is supposed to be infinitely blissful and the singing is separate? But it's not like anyone was able to ask them, before."

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"...Was this God's idea of Heavenly Bliss just...wireheading? F-, bad God, a fucking naked mole rat would be more creative than that."

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"Sorry, what? I don't know anything about naked mole rats. Or what wireheading is except from context just now."

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"Naked mole rats are a random animal I picked out of thin air. Wireheading is the practice of overstimulating the pleasure centers of your brain so that you perceive literally nothing but bliss, so called because the idea originated in science fiction stories where it involved sticking wires in your brain to run electric current through it."

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"Okay. Thanks. I had wondered for a while, if people in Heaven were, well, properly people. Do you know what happens to people who die now? I guess with the door closed nobody's dying now, but if someone did before that."

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"That I do not know."

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"It might be a good idea to find out before we open the door again? Just in case they all go to Hell now or something."

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"I think I'm going to have to open the door in order to check, unfortunately, but I can do it quick."

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"Makes sense. Now, or are there other things you want to do in here first?"

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"I'm gonna solicit a pillow from Bar and scream into it for a minute," she says, heading in the relevant direction. 

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That makes him feel worse about the situation but better about his own desire to scream into a pillow over it. He goes back to sitting at a table in the corner, close to the door but out of the way.

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Bar is happy to provide a pillow with good sound-absorption.

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And once she's done with that she returns the pillow to Bar and goes back to the door and opens it briefly to check the current disposition of dead souls. 

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Souls that lose their bodies in the mortal plane appear at the edge of Heaven with new bodies attached. As of about a minute ago, Heaven can no longer hang onto them, so they get dumped into outer space at the edge of the mortal plane, where they then proceed to die again, rinse and repeat. A sphere a light-year across is very large, and only a handful of people die every second, so the accumulating asteroid field of dead bodies is not very dense yet.

There are two pieces of good news, though. First, the people who went to Heaven before God died got made indestructible, so they're still hanging out in space being confused. And second, in the absence of a Final Judgement, nobody new is going to Hell. 

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"Ohkay. Well. Good news and bad news. The good news is nobody is going to Hell right now." 

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"That's good. What's the bad news?"

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"The bad news is that everyone who's died since God is just sort of repeatedly suffocating in outer space."