“I’ve been waiting for you.” The man’s voice surrounded Jack. His eyes were open, but all he saw was white. No horizon, no walls, no floor, just endless nothing. He tried to raise his hand in front of his face. It felt as though his body obeyed, but there was no sign that anything happened. He tried to touch his cheek, but no sensation came. His mind reeled, and he imagined his stomach clenching.

The voice went on. “My name is Saeb Borlace. It is the name you once claimed. This is your 43rd life, as far as I can determine. Your current brain is in a disorganized state though, so it’s hard to make out how many lives have passed for you since last we met. You have found the journal 18 times since your first death. Your first life lasted over two thousand years.” The voice’s even tone reminded him of his history professor lecturing about long-dead civilizations. “I’m currently sorting and time stamping memory fragments in your brain as I assimilate the data. Now, as I process the recent information, I will tell you your story, and you will begin your trial, after which—”

“Wait,” Jack cried out. “Where am I? Why can’t I see?”

“Apologies,” the voice said. “It has been ages since I have hosted another being in my realm.”

Color and texture erupted around Jack. He reached for his face with both hands and sighed in relief when he felt skin under his fingertips. He looked around and found that he was in some sort of command center. Large screens were inset into a wall before him with people lined up in front of it. Each person, he realized, was frozen mid-action. Jack waved his hands in front of the closest person’s staring eyes, but nothing happened. He stepped to the center of the room and recognized Millae standing next to a dark man with chiseled features.

“Where am I?”

“You have activated your journal and I am an embed that constructs and maintains the environment.”

Jack looked down at his own body, just to make sure it was still there. “Where are you?”

“I am the virtual environment all around you. I have assimilated enough of your data to say that in contemporary language, you are inside my platform. Think of it as virtual reality. I am embedded in the journal you hold in the physical and activate at your touch. I have been embedded here since what the current population refers to as the mid-15th Century, what we refer to as the second age. You embedded me just before the end of our first lifetime. You crafted me as a means to continue your knowledge in the next life should you die while infiltrating Darean’s stronghold. In that time, you were still searching for Lily. Your life was extinguished on that mission, so my data of your first upload is not complete.”

“My what?”

“Your first death. You did not find me until many lives later.”

“You’re me?” Jack asked.

“I am a sliver of your consciousness created at the end of your first life. Embeds like me are very useful; we can communicate with others, left behind as messages; we can function as look-outs or spies; or in my case, carry on as your living journal. I connect with you each time you find me in the physical and assimilate the information from your current life and other incarnations if you have active memories of them. This helps you compile a composite of your lives in the physical.”

“You’re a living journal,” Jack said. “And I was fighting Darean in the 15th Century.”

“Yes, I am coded to activate by your touch alone. And yes, you and the Army of Light have been fighting Darean for many millennia.”

“How did you know it was me when I opened the journal? How do you know I was this Saeb guy?”

“Once you download into a new body, it activates the Shen code. This unique code—”

“Like a genetic code?”

“Yes, every human body has the potential to host Shen consciousness. Some bodies can channel tremendous power, while others can harness just enough to provide empathic abilities for males or telepathic for females. The potential power depends on the body’s biological similarities to the original Organic Life Unit models.”

“The what?” Jack wandered around the frozen people, studying faces, fascinated by the frozen expressions. Millae seemed serene, as he remembered her, but the man next to her wore a pained expression. His eyes troubled and his mouth a thin line. On the screens, Jack saw a large room with a long table. Figures in ceremonial robes with stoic expressions sat around it discussing something important.

“Human bodies have descended from Organic Life Units,” the voice went on. “These OLUs were engineered to serve,” the voice said as if discussing the price of milk.

“Wait, what?” Jack looked around as if he could locate the owner of the voice. A wave of dizziness washed over him and he wondered how that was possible in a virtual place.

The voice continued as if Jack had not spoken. “As humans evolved, moving farther away from the creator’s bloodline, they lost abilities, but when a Shen consciousness downloads from Haven, it activates that body’s potential to—”

“What about Haven?” Jack asked, clinging to the word like a life preserver. It was something he knew, something familiar. “Can I download whenever I want?”

“Shen can download at will, but humans and other types of consciousness have no choice in the rebirth cycle. This is controlled by ONUS.”

“Other types of consciousness?”

“There are many types, also known as spirits or souls, but let’s focus on Shen for now. Shen in Haven choose to download, hoping for the perfect genetic match, but as far as I can tell, targeting a specific body is not possible. The download occurs sometime during pregnancy, in the later stages. Geographic location can be generally targeted. Typically, a male and female coordinate their download, targeting an area, hoping to find each other and bond in the physical. If they bond, they awaken and avoid the Shen madness. You, however, are an anomaly. You never seem to plan your download and—”

“Where is Haven?” Jack asked. “Can I find someone there?”

“It is a virtual landscape hosted by ONUS in the physical all around us, yet attainable only through the In-between after death. I know it is possible to find others in Haven since Shen coordinate downloads and a Shen council exists there, but details are not clear since all memories of Haven are removed by Ancillaries in the In-between as souls transfer between the physical and virtual.”

“What is ONUS?”

“ONUS code lives in every element of the planet. It is what connects all Shen.”

“What is it?”

“The Organic Network Upload System was originally created by Millae and Jode before the Origin War. It was designed by those who came before as a way to update OLUs across the planets. ONUS has since embedded code in every element of this planet.”

“Including us? Part of our genetics?” he asked.

“In a way. And each consciousness has a unique identifier that activates when downloaded. This enables one to activate Shen technology, like me, or anything else you may have coded in the physical during past lives. Shen tech can be open for anyone to use, like the gauntlet you carry, or coded to a single Shen, like a totem.”

“Where is my totem? I have to find that!”

“Before I reveal that, I must tell you about your history. It is an unbreakable directive coded into me. The directive states that: If an incarnation finds and activates the journal, I must administer the trials to ensure the incarnation meets necessary criteria before delivering the totem.”

“You have the totem?” Jack asked.

“First, you must bond and awaken to Shen nature to endure the trials, which you have.”

“Why can’t you just give it to me if I need it? Aren’t I you?”

“You are an incarnation of the same consciousness, the same patterns of awareness. And if you are awakened to Shen nature, you see just enough past to understand the present.”

“How many times have I been here?” Jack asked, looking around the room once more.

“Eighteen times you have connected with the journal but never have you been awake. Laean has found you each time and cared for you until that incarnation ended. You are an anomaly, for you, rebirth seems to be involuntary.”

“Why? I thought you said Shen could download when they wanted.”

“You do not seem to linger in Haven or plan with other Shen. This is speculation since one can never truly know what transpires in Haven.”

“I go crazy and die in every life?” Jack said.

“According to my information, yes. Since Lily, you have never bonded with another.”

“Who is Lily?” His heart thumped in his chest, but he told himself it was an illusion since he was trapped inside a journal.

“You have many questions, as usual, and we will answer them in time, but for now, I must give you the most basic information and administer the trial. Your physical body is in danger.”

“My body is in my apartment,” Jack said, “with Laean.”

“Laean is one of your oldest companions. But others seek to capture you and she cannot protect you alone.”

Jack considered this for a moment as he looked around the room uncertainly, studying the faces of the frozen people before him. Laean had found him in eighteen different lives. Eighteen lives out of forty-three. Lives full of madness and death. Why would she keep searching for him? There had to be a reason.

Maybe she needed to find the Isle of Song like Darean. Or maybe he was already mad, sitting in a hospital somewhere imagining himself talking to a version of himself inside a journal. But no, he abandoned that notion after escaping the Order. Graves was real. Norman and his followers were very real. Darean and Janile were real. He imagined Ann in a box. Squeezing his imaginary eyes closed, he focused on the hole in his mind where she should be but wasn’t.

“I don’t have much time,” Jack said.

“Let us continue,” the voice said. “In this life, your name is Jack Blackwell. In your first life, you were an Organic Life Unit, what we call an OLU. OLU’s were both telepathic and empathic. Once Millae and Jode brought the Organic Network Update System online, also known as ONUS, OLUs gained many other abilities. ONUS is a computer, as you would understand it, but it functions at the biological level and has spread its code throughout the planet. Some believe that ONUS is a powerful artificial intelligence that exists all around us. Shen exist today with fragmented powers. The males are empathic and the females, telepathic—”

“I know this, tell me about me,” Jack said.

“You are standing in the command center during the end of the first age. A time known as the Origin War. Lily, your bonded, is about to enter peace negotiations with the Nostshu. In that time, bonding was unnecessary for survival. It was a gesture of everlasting commitment. The bond, once made, was only broken through death. The Nostshen were OLUs engineered to live eternally, therefore, the act of bonding was a grand gesture of faith in another.”

“Lily,” Jack whispered, tasting the name on his tongue. His stomach twisted, and he fought back a sudden onslaught of nausea. Could he get sick in a virtual world? “Tell me,” he whispered.

“And now the trial begins,” the voice of Saeb said.