The Doctor and Jesus’ Son
I was sleeping with Jack, the Son of the Son of God.
It’s not like we were having sex. Jack was asexual, and outside of one particularly metaphysical moment long ago, he had never been sexually aroused. But after several centuries of will-they-or-won’t-they, Jack now shared a bed with me and my husband Bob. We had achieved peak physical comfort with each other. I guess you could’ve called us a throuple.
At first I had concerns. I never much trusted polyamorous relationships. A man can’t serve two masters, as they say. And I was definitely stuck in the middle. Bob and Jack only met because I loved them both, and it would tear me apart if they were ever seriously at odds. Jack was my best friend, but Bob was my husband, and I knew deep down I was tied to Bob in ways I could never be tied to Jack. Jack was also the leader of Slack Heaven where we all lived—that is to say, our landlord. Oh, and he had a superpower that let him zap people into compliance when he got angry. It sounded like a recipe for disaster, right?
But sometimes, love just works. I don’t know if it was our personalities, our worldviews, pure luck or perhaps even divine intervention (always a real possibility, given Jack’s heritage), but we were so relaxed around each other, I soon felt silly for ever having worried. It’s not like I was certain everything would work out in the end. No relationship is ever certain. But I was able to have faith.
Up until then, Bob and I lived next door to Jack in the heart of the Slack Lodge. We decided to combine our suites by taking out the wall between them, giving us an extra-large den. Under Jack’s guidance, the living logs of the wall digested themselves and redirected the resources to new growth elsewhere. The only other change we made was to upgrade to a three-kings-size bed.
Residents of Slack Heaven, in their devotion to Jack, would hang out in the Great Hall, hoping to catch a glimpse of their savior. In time this became an ever-present crowd. Everyone was chill—you had to be chill to get into Slack Heaven. But it was getting increasingly awkward wading through an ocean of stoners all trying to play it cool whenever we wanted to go anywhere.
Bob loved it, of course. He did the full Evita: lapping up the adulation, wearing the latest fashions, telling stories of our adventures to an enchanted audience, and performing symbolic good deeds (heaven didn’t really have any needy, but he did get a campaign going to raise awareness of the plight of the fugly.) This gave Jack and me the cover we needed to stay holed up in our suite, getting baked and watching cartoons on the altar.
“I got a prayer from Paul earlier,” Jack said one day as we sat toking. He was referring to St. Paul the Apostle, early popularizer of Christianity and expert on the psychic Network that undergirded the advanced technology of the gods. “He wants to meet up and run some tests on me, see if he can help us figure out what’s up with my zappy power.”
Jack’s “zappy power” was the ability to generate a brilliant white light when he was angry, banishing and purifying evil. He could also use it to heal, to the extent that healing involved angrily banishing and purifying evil. Jack knew he was playing with something far more dangerous than fire, so he was eager to learn what he could about it from other Christians—the ones he could tolerate, at least.
“Is Paul coming here, or are you going to him?” I asked.
“He rented a place on a tropical island through PrayerB&B,” Jack said. “He’s also inviting a scientist from the Other Side who helped me understand my resurrection powers, Dr. Bubbles.”
I giggled.
“Don’t laugh,” Jack said. “The ability to blow massive bubble rings is a sign of virility in his culture. Dr. Bubbles is a dolphin.”
“Fair enough,” I said, still smirking. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything from your Dad?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
I wasn’t going to ask anything else on that front. I was able to ask Jack about Jesus no more than once a year without pissing him off, and his response was always deflection. Something had been going on between them for centuries, but I had no idea what. Jack had visited his Dad a couple times in the years after I first resurrected to Slack Heaven, but I hadn’t seen Jesus myself since that horrible day when I thought I lost Jack forever. Jesus still sent Christmas presents, though, which was why our heaven was littered with Christian high tech.
“Well, you take all the time you need with Paul and Dr. Bubbles,” I said. “Bob and I can hold down the fort in your absence.”
“Paul wants you guys to come with,” Jack said. “Lucy, too. He said he needs my closest friends for the tests.”
“Happy to help, just tell me what to do,” I said, but my tone was less enthusiastic. I wasn’t Lucifer’s greatest fan, though I did accept that Jack had zapped him into obsequiousness. I also was not keen on the idea of being tested. I hadn’t even had blood drawn since occupying my Rapture™ model body.
With everyone loitering outside our door, there was no way we were leaving Slack Heaven without fanfare, so Bob made sure it was done proper. Lucy picked us all up in a golf cart. Navy blue caretaker bears with police badges on their bellies held back the crowd. Jack’s devotees shouted and cheered as we passed, and some of them cut leafy branches of marijuana plants from the field and spread them on our path. I thought I heard a trumpet blaring repeatedly, but then the beat kicked in, and I realized it was just Boom Box Andy blasting Cypress Hill.
The four of us piled into Jack’s flying monstrance, the Corpus Filii II, and spent the flight there getting more high. It didn’t seem to take long, but between the weed and the fact that I hadn’t looked at a clock in centuries, I couldn’t tell you if it was hours or days.
Flying in the monstrance always made me anxious, because the cockpit was completely transparent, allowing us to see the landscape stretching below us. I wasn’t afraid of falling myself—if I did, I’d just resurrect right next to Bob. But I feared I might drop something. I imagined my weed inhaler tumbling to the ground below, irretrievable, and clutched it tight.
As we descended, I was able to see our ship reflected in the deep blue sea beneath us. It was the first time I’d ever seen what the monstrance looked like in flight, and the sight was glorious—an explosion of spinning golden rays that announced to the world there was divinity at its center. I could understand how this would inspire benediction.
When I saw the island, I half expected a passage to open up in the side of its volcano like some kind of secret lair. That would’ve tracked with what I knew of Paul, who was sort of the mad scientist of Christian theology. But instead, we came to a boring landing on the beach.
Paul stood on the porch of the beach house, waving us over. He was a bald, scrawny dude wearing swim trunks and an open floral-print shirt, pretty much exactly as I remembered him. He gave Jack a big hug, then he turned to me and shook my hand.
“John, good to see you again!”
This meant a lot to me. We had only met once before, and I had been wearing a much less attractive body at the time.
“I go by Leif now,” I said. “But I’ll still respond to John. Or ‘hey you’ in a pinch.”
Lucifer stumbled forward carrying our two suitcases and three bags.
“This is, uh, Lucy,” Jack said.
“My Dude, where should I put these?” Lucifer asked. Paul pointed to the beach house.
“Pick whatever room you like,” Paul said. “I’ve got dibs on the porch hammock.”
Paul turned back to Jack with a raised eyebrow.
“When life gives you Satan, make Satan aid!” Jack said, chuffed at his pun. Paul groaned and shook his head.
Finally, Jack introduced Bob.
“Wow, the Saul of Tarsus!” Bob said, shaking Paul’s hand enthusiastically. “Head inquisitor for the Pharisees and bloody scourge of wayward Jews! Word of your work reached us all the way in Illyria back in the day. Talk about an innovator! Some of the torture techniques you pioneered were a thousand years ahead of their time. Respect, dude!”
Paul, already sort of a pasty guy, noticeably blushed.
“I’m never going to live that one down, am I?”
“Oh, right,” Bob said, “you were also, like, one of Jesus’ original twelve apostles or something, yeah?”
Paul was already squirming, so I didn’t correct my husband.
“Oh, look,” Paul said, happy to change the subject, “here comes Dr. Bubbles!”
We could see a dorsal fin bobbing up and down in the sea as Dr. Bubbles swam toward us. He leaped out of the water and then remained there, swimming through the air like a Lisa Frank acid trip.
“Doc!” Jack said with a smile. “Good to see you!”
“Jack, you are looking healthy,” Dr. Bubbles said in an ethereal voice as he hovered over the sand. There was no indication the dolphin himself was making any actual noise. His voice translated in my head without any hint of a foreign language beneath it. I suspected he was psychically tapping directly into our translators.
“Thank you for giving me this opportunity to study your abilities,” Dr. Bubbles continued. “I expect this will be a great contribution to science.”
“Hey, anything to help me figure out what’s going on,” Jack said.
“Let us not delay,” Dr. Bubbles said, “for the air is dry and we have much to learn today.”
He turned and swam toward the beach house. We all followed, though the lack of a formal introduction for the rest of us was a bit discomforting.
The beach house looked like something out of Swiss Family Robinson, a mass of thatch-roofed huts piled on top of one another among the tropical jungle’s trees. As we walked inside, I realized it was all one organism, living logs that weren’t even trying to look like logs, just shamelessly being both a tree and a building.
We entered a large circular room, and Lucifer rejoined us. There was a cylindrical transparent tank in the center with a door on its side.
“The Doctor prefers to evaluate his patients underwater,” Paul explained to us.
He handed Jack a small breathing apparatus, kind of a snorkel without a tube, for Jack to put in his mouth.
“Take off your clothes, put this on and get in the tank.”
“Buy a girl a drink first,” Bob quipped, but Jack did as Paul instructed without complaint.
Bob and I had seen Jack naked plenty of times by that point, and our heavenly bodies allowed us to consciously deactivate our sex drives anyway, so nobody really batted an eye.
The tank began to fill with water as Paul adjusted the equipment around it—lights, cameras and glossy black panels that seemed to be sensors of some kind. Dr. Bubbles listlessly drifted sideways, seemingly unoccupied.
“Excuse me, Dr. Bubbles,” I said. “I just wanted to introduce myself. I’m Leif, Jack’s friend, and this is my husband Bob and our, um, Lucifer. It’s really cool to meet you, actually. I’ve never met a dolphin before.”
“I’m busy,” Dr. Bubbles said, without so much as glancing at me. “Wait on that bench until you are needed.”
Dang, snubbed by a dolphin.
Paul pulled out a box of sunglasses and offered us each a pair.
“What are these for?” I asked.
“Safety first,” Paul explained, putting on a pair. “They’re made of mercyte, which should hopefully protect us from any negative effects when Jack transfigures.”
“Oh,” I said, my stoned brain struggling to keep up. I’d just learned two important things: a technical term for the zappy power, and that the Peter Bros probably wore sunglasses indoors for reasons beyond just being douchebags.
Lucifer put on his sunglasses, stuck out his tongue and gleefully made the sign of the horns.
“Instruments ready. How are you feeling in there?” Paul asked Jack, who gave a thumbs up in response, unable to speak with the snorkel in his mouth.
“Senses calibrated,” Dr. Bubbles said, swimming a quick somersault in the air. “Commence transfiguration.”
“Give us a good zap now,” Paul said.
Jack furrowed his brow in anger, but then his face softened and he shrugged sheepishly.
“He’s going to need something to get himself going,” Lucifer explained.
“On it!” Bob said, pulling out his tablet and reading. “Headline: Communists Protest Government Overreach as Dictator Dismantles Administrative State!”
Jack scowled and began to crackle for a moment, but then his light faded.
“It’s probably just nerves,” Lucifer said. “This doesn’t usually happen to him, I swear.”
“I came prepared for this,” Paul said. He walked out of the room and returned holding a life-sized cardboard cutout of St. Peter. He placed it in front of the tank.
ZAP!
With a flash of light, the cardboard cutout was gone.
“Whoa!” Paul shouted.
“Fascinating,” said Dr. Bubbles.
“What? What is it?” I asked. “Do you know what’s going on?”
Dr. Bubbles twisted around and swam over to me, his nose inches from my own.
“I will let you know if and when I draw conclusions,” he said, swimming back to face Jack before I could respond. I was just about ready to give that dolphin a good zap myself.
Jack’s eyes remained glowing as sparks crackled around him.
“Okay,” Paul said, “I think we’re warmed up!”
For the next several hours, they measured, adjusted their instruments and re-measured as Jack floated in the tank, zapping over and over again. Bob and I sat as quietly and patiently as we could, slowly sobering up. I wished I hadn’t left my weed inhaler on the ship, but it was probably bad enough we’d all gotten ripped on the way there.
Once he got going, Jack was able to pop off on command. Jack and Lucifer showed off some of the tricks they had worked out together, including Jack banishing Lucy to specific locations. Jack demonstrated his healing powers on a local native with a broken arm. Paul even guided Jack through using his light to telekinetically bend an iron rod, something not even Jack had realized he could do.
“I’d say we’re looking at four stages of arousal here,” Paul said, theorizing out loud. “Five if you count the baseline placid state.”
Bob snickered.
“Stage one we can call the excitement stage: the initial reaction to a stimulus, indicated by optical glow and auric tumescence.”
Bob giggled.
“This is followed by the plateau phase,” Paul continued. “Heart rate and respiration increase, and the entire body becomes luminescent. The longer this phase is sustained, the more inevitable discharge becomes, until we enter the climax phase—”
Bob laughed, and I elbowed him in the ribs.
“—at which point reality itself is altered in some manner—teleportation, transmogrification, transubstantiation—you get the idea. Finally, we come to the refractory period...”
Paul gave Bob some side-eye, but Bob behaved.
“...when the light fades and Jack cools down, returning to his usual placid state. What do you think, Doctor?”
“I’m observing at least fourteen distinct phases,” Dr. Bubbles replied, “based on subtle changes in psychomaterial alignment. However, as these distinctions are not directly perceivable by humans or human instruments, they are not acceptable for human science. I would, however, refine your model to distinguish the point of no return at the start of the climax, when the pineal is fully engorged—”
Bob placed a hand over his mouth.
“—as distinct from the final discharge.”
Bob snorted.
“Sorry! Sorry!” he said.
“You make a good point, Doctor,” Paul said, ignoring Bob.
“We are merely categorizing observation at the moment,” the dolphin said. “We shall require data from a wider variety of stimuli if we are to hypothesize about causation.”
“Agreed,” Paul said.
The next round of tests explored the different emotions that could activate Jack’s light. We watched that week’s episode of South Park to test the effect of humor, which was interrupted by a trailer for that summer’s Marvel movie to test disgust. They brought in a talking orange, widely known to be the most annoying organism in the world, and Jack transformed it into orange juice. They tested Jack’s pity with a short documentary on Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome, and they tested Jack’s patience by letting him float there for a half hour while they reviewed their data.
It seemed to me anything that caused Jack tension would amplify his light, and anything that made him relax diminished it. But I kept my theories to myself, because fuck that dolphin.
Finally, Paul turned to Bob and me.
“Fellas, please stand in front of the tank facing Jack and remove your safety glasses.”
We did as he asked. I smiled at Jack and gave him a small wave. He really was looking quite attractive floating there naked, his long hair drifting around him like a mane while his body hair shimmered like cilia. Jack waved back.
“Jack, I know you love Leif and Bob quite a bit,” Paul said. “It’s why I asked you to bring them today. Now is the moment of truth. I need you to look at them and think about how much you love them. Remember the best times you’ve had with them—all the adventures you’ve been on together, your moments of greatest joy, and how much they mean to you.”
Jack’s face was obscured by the snorkel, but I could see the depth of emotion in his eyes. I was on the verge of tearing up myself.
“Now, very carefully, use this emotion to summon your light.”
Jack looked at Paul and shook his head no.
“I wouldn’t be asking you to do this if it wasn’t safe,” Paul said. “Just think of all the times Leif has seen you transfigure. Your connection to them ensures they won’t be harmed. But we need a chance to measure this if we really want to pin down the source of your powers.”
Jack scowled and folded his arms in refusal. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a black eel wriggle out from a small hole at the bottom of the tank. It swam up between Jack’s legs. I cried out in warning.
“Dude watch out for your di—”
The eel bit Jack in the groin, and Jack let off a brilliant flash. I pulled Bob close to me, but Paul was correct, we remained unharmed. Jack stared out of the tank, eyes wide with confusion.
“It’s alright!” I shouted at him. “We’re good, dude! Didn’t even get a tan!”
But Jack was only getting more upset. He put his hands up against the side of the tank and began pounding. He was starting to glow again.
“He can’t hear you at the moment,” Paul explained quietly. “The Doctor is projecting a vision into his mind. Jack believes he just zapped you both into a pile of ash.”
“Dude, that’s fucked up!” I objected.
Jack’s panic transformed into rage. His light flared to maximum intensity. I squinted and did my best to keep watching. His snorkel drifted away as he let out a bellow, his yell cutting through the water. The ground began to tremble beneath us. Sparks flew from Paul’s instruments. A crack appeared in the tank.
“Better turn it off, Doc!” Paul shouted.
Jack’s fury transformed into relief. He could see us again. The tank was already draining, and he inhaled a large breath of air as soon as he could. The moment the tank door slid open, he ran over to Bob and myself and pulled us into a wet embrace. He was sobbing. I placed my hand on his head to sooth him. His light was still at maximum, but it now throbbed gently, as different in quality from his usual light as hope is different than fear.
“Did you get your reading?” Paul asked Dr. Bubbles.
“This will suffice,” the dolphin said.
“It had better!” Bob said, storming over and smacking Paul to emphasize his words. “Because you’re Not! Doing! That! Again!”
Paul put up his arms defensively, but Bob’s smacks were harmless.
“You guys are assholes,” I said. As Bob continued to berate Paul, I put my arm around Jack’s shoulders and guided him out of the room.
Lucifer followed us and showed us to the bedroom. Jack’s light faded, and he calmed down as we dried him off and got him dressed.
“Are you going to be alright?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Jack said, still sniffling. “I knew Paul was going to pull something like that. It’s ok. He’s doing what he needs to so we can figure out what’s going on with my...transfiguration. I’m doing what I need to. It’s ok. Really.”
Bob found us and let us know Dr. Bubbles was ready to give his diagnosis. We got our emotions in check and headed back to the lab. It’s why we were there.
“Your light is the distilled essence of Choice,” Dr. Bubbles explained matter-of-factly. “Choice is the element that distinguishes the ensouled from the merely animate. Every dolphin or human radiates it, and in doing so plays a part in the ongoing construction of reality. Focusing Choice from multiple sources creates Aggregated Intelligences—what you call daemons, idols or gods. But even with AI, I have never seen Choice as concentrated as it is when you transfigure, Jack. Your light is Choice in its purest form.”
“Okay,” Jack said, “so what can I do with it then?”
“That’s entirely up to you,” Dr. Bubbles said. “It’s your Choice.”
“Now wait just a minute,” I said. “Choice can’t be part of a scientific theory. That is not how the scientific method works. You need something testable—falsifiable. How do you falsify Choice? Which one of your experiments proved this was Choice?”
There was much in the infinite flat earth that I didn’t comprehend, but for everything we’d just been through, I wasn’t about to accept some hippy-dippy sounding pseudoscientific claptrap. This dude was supposed to explain to us how transfiguration actually worked. This was a cop-out.
Dr. Bubbles swam to face me, and for a moment I expected another brush-off. But instead, he calmly said, “It is complicated, but I will do my best to explain. Do you know what a qualicomintegertor is?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Ok, fair enough,” Dr. Bubbles said. “I can recommend a good book on continuum mechanics. It should only take you a few months to read, and then you will understand what a qualicomintegertor is. How far have you progressed in your study of resurrectology?”
“They, uh, didn’t teach that at my college...”
“Of course, understandable. An intro level course should suffice, you only need four credit years. Of course, you’ll need at least an undergraduate degree in psychiciatry, followed by—”
“Ok, I get it,” I said testily. “Can’t you just dumb it down for me?”
“I spent five lifetimes earning my first doctorate,” the dolphin huffed. “And Choice Theory is an interdisciplinary field involving three of my four doctorates. No, I can’t just dumb it down for you. But please, continue your lecture on the scientific method!”
“Dr. Bubbles, please forgive my friend,” Jack said. “It’s been a long day for all of us. Thank you for helping me understand what’s happening to me. I want you to know, it is truly appreciated.”
“It was a mutually beneficial arrangement,” the dolphin said. He swam in a loop to face Paul. “Though I was also promised an honorarium...”
“Of course, of course,” Paul said. He took a jar off the shelf and pulled out a large goldfish.
The goldfish pleaded, “I will grant you wishes three, if only you will set me free!”
Paul tossed the goldfish to Dr. Bubbles, who caught it in his snout and gobbled it down in two quick bites.
“Gentlemen,” was all the dolphin said in farewell before swimming out the door.
“Wow,” I said. “Are all dolphins such douchebags?”
“Only the credentialed ones,” Paul said. “C’mon, I’ll make us all some sushi.”
While Paul was in the kitchen rolling up dinner, Jack, Bob, Lucy and I got baked on the veranda. Paul brought out an enormous platter of raw fish and a couple pitchers of daiquiris, and soon we were all feeling much better.
“So, the Doctor said the zappy power was Choice,” Jack said to Paul as we watched the sun set. “Do you agree?”
“I think our models are probably compatible,” Paul said, “but we’ve got a different framework for describing things on this side of the Curtain. Over here, we call what you’re expelling comm.”
Bob burst out laughing, grabbing his gut and nearly falling off his deck chair. This went on for awhile, but after the day we’d all had, we indulged him with smiles. We all needed it.
“See-oh-em-em, kaaaahm, like in comm union,” Paul smirked. “It’s the very substance of the Network. It surrounds us, penetrates us and binds us together—”
“Oh! Like the Force!” I exclaimed. I’d been quite the Star Wars geek in my first life. It was odd to realize how long it’d been since I’d seen the originals.
“Lucas was cribbing from an altar repair manual when he wrote that,” Paul laughed. “What he didn’t realize is that comm is mindful. It’s not quite conscious or intelligent, but it’s what consciousness and intelligence are made out of.”
“They started hinting at that possibility in Episode VII, but they didn’t really run with it,” I said, forgetting the topic at hand.
“Sure, I guess” Paul said. “Anyway, comm defies modeling, either deterministic or probabilistic. Leif wasn’t totally off-base when he questioned Dr. Bubbles about it. From a scientific standpoint, comm is kind of like what ancient scientists called dark matter. We can’t directly observe it, but it reconciles our models with observed reality. Hardcore materialists dismissively call it ‘comm in the cracks,’ but there’s never been a materialist theory that doesn’t have a comm-shaped hole in it. Dr. Bubbles calls it Choice because that’s what the hole in his materialism looks like, but I think he overcomplicates things. If we wanted to get metaphysical about it, I’d call it Soul. It’s what our souls are made of. It’s what inhabits a new body when we resurrect. And it’s what flows between us when we join in comm union.”
“And it’s...what I release when I transfigure?” Jack proposed cautiously.
“That’s the thing you’re going to have to watch out for,” Paul said. “You’re not releasing it. You’re imposing it. I know you asked me to keep your family out of this, but to be blunt, you’ve inherited the power of God. You’re rewriting reality itself to conform to your desires.”
None of us said anything to that, we simply sat for a moment in silence, letting the weight of the notion sink in.
“The good news is, any powerful emotion can induce your transfiguration, not just anger,” Paul said. “Learning to control your emotions means learning to control your power, and vice versa. With practice, you can ensure you only use it with good intentions. The bad news is—well, you know what they say about good intentions. In all the millennia I’ve known you, Jack, you’ve never been an impulsive guy. I would suggest that now is not the time to change that. Proceed with caution.”
“Well, shit,” was all Jack could say.
Not long after that, Jack announced that he really needed to sleep on all this. Bob was too restless to sleep after sitting around all day, but I joined Jack in bed, if for no other reason than to keep him company. I got to be the big spoon, and soon he was snoring loudly, oblivious to the world around us. I can’t say I slept a wink, though. All I could think was that I had the power of God wrapped in my arms.
Next: Speaking of Jesus’ Son
Doing Drugs with Jesus’ Son is always free.