Sansara returned and saw that Daniel was still diligently attempting to repair the robot, Metatron. “Can I be of service?” she asked coquettishly. She was an imp in comparison to Crystal. A shit-disturber. But, she was also insightful from time to time. She loved a good joke and she loved it even more when she accidentally helped someone else just by looking at the problem with them.
“I don’t really know,” Daniel replied. “Everything looks like it’s in good order here, honestly. All the circuits checked out fine… it could be a software problem rather than a hardware problem.”
“Are you saying there’s a cockroach in Metatron?” Sansara asked as politely as possible. Daniel giggled at her, even though the thought of cockroaches grossed him out completely.
“Yes, I’m saying it could be a bug in his programming, Sansara,” Daniel replied, realizing he was talking to the imp rather than the angel of love. They were two women who shared the same body, after all. He preferred Crystal, truth be told.
“Well, how many lines of code does he have? What language is he written in? Why hasn’t some techno-god come to save the day already?” Sansara asked, curiously peering at the robot’s internals where Daniel had them exposed.
“Well, Sansara, I think it’s because they only talk to Crystal. Would you mind asking her to come back to take a look at Metatron’s programming with me?” Daniel inquired with as much tact as he could muster.
Sansara pouted at the man-boy greatly. “Fine! You can have her back. If she’ll come back, that is.” Sansara closed their eyes and beseeched her other half to return to consciousness. It took almost ten minutes to coax Crystal out of hiding in the back of the universe… I mean, their mind.
Crystal opened her eyes and frowned. She was staring at Metatron’s entrails for reasons unknown to her. “What’s going on, Metatron?” she asked the robot gently, ignoring Daniel altogether.
METATRON IS DISPLEASED. DISPLEASED IS METATRON. METATRON SAID FOR 48 HOURS, SPREAD LOVE. YOUR TASK TOOK YOU LESS THAN TWO HOURS, ANGEL. RETURN TO TASK.
Crystal nodded, looking wistful. “I’d love to, Metatron. I have a small problem. The G.O.D. network asked me to start with one hundred compliments. I’m ever so sad that they no longer apply to me. I don’t have the love to give right now. Can you help me repair myself so I can return to my quest?”
DOES NOT COMPUTE.
“I cannot continue because a negative vibration has disrupted my capacity to give love,” Crystal said, trying to explain again.
DOES NOT COMPUTE.
Crystal heaved a great sigh just then. How does one give love when all one feels is sorrow? (Or, possibly, self-pity? Not that I’m going to nit pick the angel of love, but her emotions are getting in the way of her job, you know? Angels are not the sort to just lie down and die in the middle of their work… at least, not usually.)
“Are you sure I’m an angel already?” Crystal asked Metatron.
DOES NOT COMPUTE.
Crystal made a face before finally turning to Daniel. She stared at him expectantly, wordless. She waited patiently.
“Does not compute?” Daniel asked, hoping it’d work in his favor. Before he knew it, the angel of love had him pinned against the side of the robot’s frame and she was scowling at him fiercely and threateningly. Some angel of love, he thought.
“TELL ME WHAT YOU DID TO HIM,” Crystal demanded fiercely, her voice having an other-worldly quality that made her seem like more than just herself.
The gods had communed with her and decided that Daniel was more likely to be the problem than anything else in the room. Metatron was no ordinary computer, wouldn’t you know. In fact, nobody asked Daniel for his interference to begin with. He just took it upon himself because he felt he always knew best, no matter what went wrong in the situation at hand.
Daniel was extremely uncomfortable, it would seem. He began to sweat. When he failed to answer, Crystal bashed her forehead against his nose, breaking it in one clean, swift, and unpredictable movement. Rather, the gods chose to do that. Daniel began to cry, holding his nose after Crystal threw him to the ground. Her anger was emanating in waves. Well, it was the anger of 852 gods, to clarify. Crystal left anger to them; it was their domain, as far as she was concerned.
If Crystal gave into anger on her own, she was prone to misspeaking, which irritated and frustrated her beyond all get out. Thus, a long, long time ago, she gave up anger. She thought of it as the gatekeeper to sadness, so she merely went straight to sadness. They say grief begins in anger, but for Crystal she accepts reality the moment it happens, adjusting her world view accordingly. Therefore, she began in sadness.
This time, however, the G.O.D. network (including The Universe(TM) itself) was pissed off at Daniel for trying to perform an upgrade whilst no one was paying attention. He deserved to die, if you asked them. He had meddled with Metatron and he was the reason that Metatron wanted to destroy life on Earth as we knew it.
“Daniel, you will be going to Hell in a hand basket. I hope you are well aware of that. If you ever come back to meddle with Metatron again, I’ll have your head on a pike. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?” they bellowed together at the whimpering man-boy.
Daniel nodded, taken aback by the abrupt violent behavior and the bellowing. He’d never heard Crystal scream or bellow before. This was a new behavior and something about it greatly unsettled him. He wanted to both piss his pants and run for the hills. He settled for backing out as graciously as possible, muttering that he was sorry on repeat, as if that ever meant anything coming from that narcissistic bastard’s mouth.
“GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I CHANGE MY MIND AND TAKE YOUR HEAD NOW,” they bellowed. A katana appeared out of nowhere, flashing in Crystal’s left hand. The woman was right-handed, Daniel knew, but he didn’t want to guess how deadly that blade was in its own right. It wouldn’t matter if she was a lefty or not if it was made to spec. Knowing that the G.O.D. was involved, he decided it was now time to run for the hills. He turned around and took off at top speed.
“He’ll be back,” the G.O.D. network said out loud through Crystal’s mouth.
“I know,” Crystal replied. “He took everything from me and he’ll come back for even more. I hope he dies in a fucking fire instead.”
“Highly unlikely,” they replied.
“Alright, well… spit balling about an asshole in the future isn’t going to fix Metatron. Shall we get started?” Crystal asked as she laid down the katana once more. It was kept hidden in a compartment near Metatron. Daniel’s distraction from his broken nose (which is, of course, the reason he’ll come back — to charge her with assault) allowed her to retrieve it unseen, thankfully, so to him it was all magic.
The gods nodded Crystal’s head and started to inspect the machine they’d built to amplify their voice. Sometimes, due to Crystal’s psychic nature, she heard more than just the G.O.D. network. In fact, she heard a bunch of boys in her head all the time. Boys who thought they loved her, actually. She didn’t particularly love them… at least, not most of them. There was one that might fit the bill.
Crystal kept thinking about Henry as the gods used her body to work on the robot. She wasn’t really sure his name was Henry, but she needed a name to call him all the same. He was a man in a delicatessen, so she dubbed him Sir Deli Man. It was equally silly and serious, for she respected his diligence and aptitude. That was all she could observe as a mere patron of the delicatessen, of course. She’d never spoken to him in the real, sadly.
She wish she could, but it was never good timing on her part. She was, ultimately, incredibly shy. Sansara, on the other hand, wanted to tackle the boy and kiss every inch of his face and treat him like Pepe Le Pew treats Penelope.
Crystal and Sansara were polar opposites. Sansara indicated that the boy himself was just shy as hell, so they should charge in and announce their interest and try to woo him. Crystal, on the other hand, was stand-offish and refused.
The reason she refused was rather simple. The few times they could have shared eye contact on purpose, he chose not to meet her gaze. To her, that was rejection. Sansara assured Crystal that he was just shy. Unfortunately, that was no reason to try to approach his boundaries again. After all, the G.O.D. network tended to smite her on her third mistake of the same kind, teaching her right from wrong with consequences. She didn’t usually like the consequences of her actions.
This time would be no different, honestly. She was convinced the guy would believe that she was stalking him if she kept trying to make eye contact. And maybe he was already convinced of such a thing. She wasn’t, of course; the only thing she stalked was the celery. He was cute, but he wasn’t jail cute.
Crystal is a sensitive soul that wouldn’t wish to cause harm to anyone, anywhere. Which is how you know it’s the G.O.D. network when she suddenly head butts you in the nose or chases you with a knife or a katana. We know it’s easy to take the blame off of Crystal by saying God did it, but it’s actually true in this case. Unless she’s sputtering like Porky Pig, it’s not the angel of love bellowing angrily at you. It’s me, The Universe(TM).
Angel-Sansara 