The Cusp
By Maurice Lane
"Let us discuss the Cusp."
Destiny's classrooms are light, airy and pleasant,
which is just as it should be for any locale in Heaven. The assembled group of angels and Saints had
all found themselves seats that were comfortable to their particular forms, as
well as offering an excellent view of the lecturer. This meant, of course, that several individuals were sitting on
the walls and ceilings, but that too is not a remarkable sight in Heaven.
The lecturer continued, his white wings rustling
counterpoint to the Library's fabled Breath of Yves (a background susurrus of a
million pages turning). "We live
and work by some simple axioms. Destiny
is the Life of all. Fate is the Death
of all. The War is about Life or
Death. We fight the War on the most
important battlefield of all: that of the human soul. It is not a victory that we can win ourselves: we can only help
the human soul win victory on its own, or stop our foes from interfering with
that victory.
"The Matter of Humanity is thus the Matter of
Free Will: we must let humanity make their own choices, secure in our faith
that, absent interference, mortals will choose Good over Evil, Wisdom over
Folly and Life over Death. But the existence
of Free Will requires that, sometimes, they will not. When an unwise Choice is too great to bear, the mortal burdened
with that Choice is reluctantly exiled from a sorrowing Symphony and is left,
sooner or latter, to slide into the outer darkness. We may be able to make a makeshift correction that will allow the
soul to try again in another incarnation, given time and ingenuity, but even
the mildest consequences of a mortal reaching his or her Fate are both
irreversible and irreparable."
The Mercurian smiled, lightening the room considerably. "Statistically speaking, of
course."
"We are blessed with one advantage over the
Main Enemy that they cannot hope to ever emulate: to wit, the Symphony wants
us to win. The Universe is on our
side, not theirs. We are the
natural consequence of God's Will, and they are the aberration. The Symphony is profoundly unfair when it
comes to the War, but as the philosopher once said, it's unfair in our
favor. No amount of posturing, denial
or machinations can change that essential fact.
"This explains the Cusp of Fate. When a human achieves his or her Fate, there
is... a moment where the Choice has not quite been finalized. The Symphony is reluctant - and quite
worthily so - to damn even the smallest portion of itself, and must steel
itself to the task. The time is never
long - we are talking, at most, of a corporeal second or two - and there is
often nothing that can be done, but the Cusp of Fate exists, and sometimes we
may even take advantage of it.
"The traditional way, amusingly enough, is to
break with our traditional methodology entirely. As you all know, any interference with humanity can play havoc
with their ability to Choose Destiny or Fate: this is no less true at the
moment of the Cusp. Indeed, if properly
timed such interference works quite well - the louder, the better. There are two major problems with this
technique, however. The first is
determining what exactly is 'properly timed': Cusps do not have a set
duration. There have been instances
where the elapsed time could be only be measured in picoseconds: the longest
duration that has ever been reliably recorded was 2.3540009 seconds. This can be worked around, but effective
opportunities to practice are not all that common. The second problem, of course, is one of breaking one's training:
Servitors of Destiny are enjoined to tread lightly on the corporeal plane for
good and valid reasons, and going contrary to that injunction is not easy for
us.
"The other major method of disrupting a Cusp is
to negate the results of a particular human's Choice of Fate. You were told in your original training that
this can be a laudable action, but not one that can negate a human's damnation:
again, this is statistically true.
With sufficient warning, the negation may - and I repeat: may - fall
within the extremely small grace period offered by the Symphony.
"Let me use a classic example to describe what
I am driving at. You are all familiar
with the Murder Scenario: a man's Fate is to murder another man. He does so, shooting his victim in the
presence of an angel with access to the Songs of Healing and mundane medical
skills. The angel manages to get the
victim's heart beating again, thus bringing him back from death. Even if the victim makes a full recovery,
the murderer still Chose to commit murder, and did so: his Fate remains sealed.
"Where there may be hope lies in what precisely
the murderer's Fate actually is. If it
was simply to 'kill Victim X', reviving the victim still will not circumvent
the Choice, even if done at the instant of the cusp. However, if the Fate was to, say, 'start a war by Killing Victim
X', and if the victim is revived, and if all of this was done before the Cusp
has passed, then the Symphony will not reject the murderer. In short, direct action Fates cannot be
disrupted by this method, but indirect ones may be. Obviously, this method requires a certain amount of split second
timing, not to mention prior knowledge of an individual's Fate; frankly, it
would be easier to just prevent the action from occurring in the first place,
but sometimes one does not have the luxury of ample preparation time."
The researcher's voice went as somber as one can be
in Heaven. "There is one final
issue regarding the Cusp, and it is one that has no good solution. It can be summed up as 'Just because you can
do something does not always mean that you should do something'. Those knowingly encountering a human
undergoing the Cusp will always have a hard decision to make: to succeed is to
consciously allow a human to escape the consequences of his or her Choices,
while to do nothing is to consciously decide that this particular human
is not worth the effort of saving. I
note that all of you find both of these concepts disquieting. Good; so do I. It should not be a comfortable decision; we are delving deep into
the metaphysical underpinnings of our shared Word here, after all. What the right decision would be will vary
for each situation, and the souls affected by your actions could be anything
from unseen millions to the tawdry one standing before you. Do not assume that the millions would be
better off if the Cusp was disrupted.
Do not assume that the one is not worth the effort of disruption. In fact, do not assume anything at all;
strive to see what is, instead of what you wish might be, and the answer will
be waiting for you. Always remember
that you are agents of Destiny, agents of the Symphony and agents of God. He will not give you a burden too heavy to
bear."
The Mercurian smiled again. "If you want comfortable burdens,
however, I am afraid that we're all out of stock."