I have longed to share Vega with someone. The pure, breathless beauty of it, the bright star constant through the ever-shifting dusky halo- I have observed it many times from this planet that humanity has only dared hypothesise the existence of. In 1984, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope enhanced by my work with heterodyne detection spectral-line receivers will catch a glimpse of this world, and twenty five years from now, when the light that shines on our faces now reaches Earth, they will know that I have been here. My energy signature is unmistakable. Adrian's presence will pass unnoticed.
 

HD 40387 d is the name they will gift to this world. The displaced dust settles as fine rain.
The planet is rocky, a dusky red similar to Mars, a vast plain spread out before us from our vantage point high on the rim of a dormant volcano, one in a chain of mountains that stretches out into the darkness behind us. This is a young world, one where life has yet to begin, the presence of water evidenced by the palest wisp of cloud threaded across the golden star. The gravitational pull is approximately eight tenths that of Adrian's world, the atmosphere thin and pale, but sufficient to support human life once I have adjusted the ratio of oxygen to nitrogen minutely- a spontaneous change that will baffle astronomers for decades. Above us the sky is near black, a perfect stage for the slow dance of the universe, while the shimmering disc of Vega's sunset drops below the horizon.


Beautiful.

I turn to observe Adrian's reaction, his face bright in the last rays of the alien day.

 

Two days ago, the Capitol building in Washington was damaged by a bomb, apparently planted in protest of the invasion of Laos. The president loses patience and decides it is time to use the promised ultimate weapon that won him his election and send me to Vietnam. I am told I will meet with Blake, the Comedian, upon arrival. The government has decided to deliver me by military aircraft, a transport carrying new conscripts to the warzone. They believe my presence will lift morale. I will not contest their decision, though I believe it to be flawed.

The country is so different from anything else I have yet experienced. The men seem unnerved by my ignorance almost as much as they fear their limited understanding of my power. I am aware there is some kind of secret being held from me by my handlers, but beyond observing their heart rates like a highly-tuned polygraph there is little I can do. I will learn in time. I will wait.

I am being led to a structure where I am told Blake is waiting for me.

I feel a surge of remorse for the inevitable pain I will cause Laurie with the changes I undergo here from the events I witness. For many of the soldiers here, Vietnam will never leave their dreams or their waking thoughts. For a man who is called God, Vietnam will have a different meaning: a change in direction, another piece slotted into place.

It is time.

I am at Karnak, discussing the minutiae of rebuilding Veidt's machinery. Adrian's lynx threads her way through my legs as fragments of metal work hang in the air, laid out for my inspection. When my work is complete, I am free to travel undetected, shielded by the program once used to blame me for 15 million deaths. I have become the weapon the media labelled both God and monster.

In the next hour, Laurie convinces me to remain on Earth, to assist with Veidt's reconstruction of cities the world believes I am responsible for the destruction of. Our meeting layers on a confrontation on Mars in delicate counterpoint, certain phrases echoing back and forth in causality. It seems Laurie is responsible for my humanity. It must be a heavy burden.

I take myself to Daniel Dreiberg's living room, where Laurie is cleaning. My appearance displaces air in a rush that knocks over carefully stacked papers, a vase with a single cut flower balanced precariously on the mantlepiece. I do not replace these items in their original position yet.

I wait for Laurie's anger and am surpised when it does not come.

In 1966, I kiss Laurie for the first time. I feel the loss of her eventual decision to leave me at the same instant as her lips place the second kiss like a signature over the first. She does not ask and I do not tell her. It seems she projects emotion onto my face, sees what she expects to see. She is beautiful. I doubt she would be interested in Osterman, if she had ever met him. I never show her the photograph I will take back from under the glass in the deserted bar, where I meet Janey on May 12th, 1959. In 1966 she is crying, and the suitcase refuses to close.

My father dies in 1969. I do not attend the funeral, because I never corrected his belief that his son died at the gila flats testing facility. In 1959 he recieves the telegam. Now he is gone, I allow the world knowledge of my true name. The reporters cannot find a photograph of Osterman, because I hold it in my hand. Everything is spiralling out of control.

We are moving into a flat in Washington. It is Laurie's 21st birthday, and she is happy.
I have always tried to make her happy, in my own way.

My new universe is clean and sparse. It is much simpler, younger. Like Laurie, before I destroyed her.

I am under the glass dome in Karnak, watching as the steel knits itself together and glass rains upwards, melds seamlessly. I am impervious to heat or cold, but Adrian is not. It is here we will have our conversation, as we have done before.
We will talk here many times.

I have dismantled the tachyon device. There is a curiosity it arouses, the possibility of ignorance, but it is ultimately unneccessary.

I will not be used again.

The snow is falling on the runway where Adrian's plane lands. I feel the thrum of friction as it is brought to a halt. I am waiting precisely two paces away.
Adrian tells me that Laurie asked him to speak to me for her. I feel a pang of something akin to pain, because she will leave me, has left me.

I send Adrian's contractors home. They are afraid.

On the day we move into the Special Talent Quarters at Rockefeller Military Research Center, Laurie asks me to keep a journal. She fears I am losing touch with humanity, losing interest in her. She is right, and so I comply to her wishes. It is constraining to write of my experience in a linear fashion, but for Laurie's sake I will offer a glimpse of my existence in a way she can understand. She will read my diary while I am working- it is only human.

Laurie is with Daniel now. I feel the loss, but she deserves to be with a man who can comfort her.

I am unsure of my motives as I continue the diary. I have lost Laurie, and it is impossible to continue Jon Osterman's life on Earth. My ties are severed. I have been manipulated. I have discovered the value of human existence and yet I cannot live among them. I watch Adrian Veidt's new world with passive curiosity.