In achieving this the boss revealed his genius. The task would be much easier, he concluded, if he could distort your understanding of those members of our race who did not join our organization. And hiding the truth would be much easier, he concluded, if the lies we got you to believe about us made us worse, not better, than we really are.
Your own public relations specialists put a lot of effort into making the organizations they represent appear better than they really are. "Image is everything," after all. Since they are from your own race, they could not hope to get our strategy to work. But by making you believe we are worse than we are (which really makes us appear quite shallow) we have succeeded in convincing most of you that we don't really exist, or, if we do, that we can be defeated through rather simplistic means.
Recently your culture has had a resurgence of interest in angels. Most of you believe, however, that angels are the spirits of your own race who have passed through death into a higher existence. (The idea that death does not end your existence is one of the boss's most masterful deceptions!) And many of the media representations of angels show them as very human creatures who make mistakes and suffer self-doubt.
In truth, angels are five-dimensional beings, which makes them a totally different race. You exist in three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. Angels are limited to one temporal dimension (they cannot time travel). But they live in four spatial dimensions. It is this capacity, rather than a time-warping ability, that enables them to travel stellar distances in almost no time at all. (There are two more temporal dimensions, but only the master can exist in them.)
Your scientists have only recently begun to grasp the significance of the fourth spatial dimension. You'll never conquer it, of course. It is as much a biological as a physical phenomenon and your race does not have the biological capacity. Angels' ability to operate in it gives them what appear to you as supernatural powers. They can appear in your three dimensions in any form and at any place they choose. They can also manipulate things in your three-dimensional world without appearing in it at all.
Angels are immortal. I must explain what I mean by that. I do not mean that they cannot die. They are physical, biological creatures like your own race, and if their bodies are destroyed they cease to exist just as you do. But angels' bodies are not subject to the natural deterioration that was imposed on all the creatures of your planet. Barring some catastrophic physical trauma angels continue to live without end.
Angels are not sexual creatures. They have no need to reproduce. There is no gender; no physical distinction between types. Given their ability to take any form, they can appear as either of your genders when they enter your dimensions.
We are angels -- all of us -- even the boss. What that means is that many of us still occupy their positions as servants of the master. These are the ones you call angels. Granted, some of you understand the concept of good angels and evil angels. That's awfully close to the truth. But it oversimplifies it. It makes it sound as if those of us who joined the organization are only evil and that those who did not are only good.
Those good angels some of you are inclined to worship have the same capacity for evil that we do. Their goodness stems purely from their devotion to the master. And we in the organization are not totally evil. We are often moved with a compassion of which you are not capable at the sight of the suffering of your race. It is the good in us that allows us to do as much as we do in your world. And it is the drifting of the organization away from that good that has compelled me to write this story.
Many of your philosophers have suggested that good is not good unless evil is present as a contrast. That idea was part of the very first deception the boss presented to your race. It is only the CONCEPT of good that cannot exist without an understanding of evil. As we angels know quite well, it is possible to live in a world of only good and enjoy it. We did not think of such a life as good simply because we knew of nothing bad with which to contrast it. But that "lack of knowledge" enhanced rather than diminished our enjoyment of the good.
We in the organization retain all the powers of our race. Years ago we operated much more freely. In the last few centuries, however, your increasing grasp of the physical world around you has made it too dangerous for us to operate often where you can observe us.
Our lack of gender presents me with one difficulty. You are so thoroughly sexual that your languages do not contain personal pronouns for genderless persons. I had to decide how I would refer to members of the organization when using third-person pronouns. As you may already have noticed, I have acceded to the male domination still so much a part of your culture and used the male pronoun.
Having explained this most important fact about us, let me go on to dispel other myths that have grown up around us.
In medieval times, when we were much more active in your dimensions, we would often take a form prescribed by the boss. This involved reddish skin, a forked tail, horns, and batlike wings. We could have as easily taken the form often attributed to good angels, long blonde hair, white robes, and feathered wings. In fact we often did. Which form we took depended on how your race was likely to interpret our actions. If you would think them good, we appeared in the latter form. If you would think them evil, we appeared in the other form.
This helped to create the myth that our evil changed our physical bodies. This has been very comforting to some of you. Those who fear that evil has taken over their lives (this does happen a lot because you are so weak and shallow compared to us) need only look in the mirror. If the physical appearance hasn't changed, the person can assume (probably falsely) that they aren't as evil as they feared.
Granted, over time our dabbling in evil has had a deteriorating effect on our actual appearance, but our appearance in your world is not affected. Remember -- we can assume any form we wish in your three dimensions.
Your race was not always as ignorant as it was 1000 years ago. The humans of 4000 years ago knew that the earth had a molten core. The deterioration of this knowledge over the following 2000 years allowed the organization to manipulate it into a further myth about us. Best of all, we succeeded in getting the church the master started to perpetuate this myth. That is the myth of hell.
Hell, as you probably know, is a prison of burning torment. Its existence under the surface of your planet was, at one time, accepted as fact by your race. Here, it was thought, we lived. And here, you further speculated, we tormented the souls of those who failed to reach a higher existence at death (again based on the deception that death did not end your existence).
This myth was originally introduced as part of a massive behavior modification project. In fact, it took surprisingly little effort on our part to generate the ideas. Your puny minds are so easily addicted to the idea of controlling others. That, I believe, is part of the boss's genius. He uses your natural tendencies to achieve his goals quite masterfully.
In fact, as five-dimensional creatures, we can live anywhere. Generally we stay on the surface of your planet. The master placed a fourth-dimensional barrier around your solar system about 2000 years ago (I speak of spatial dimensions). Our four-dimensional physical bodies cannot pass through it (your three-dimensional bodies could) and we have been imprisoned here ever since. All of us in the organization feel this was quite unfair of the master, but we are powerless to do anything but harass those members of our race who are still loyal to the master. They, by the way, are able to pass through the barrier through the use of a special key (it would look to you like a gold card).
As already discussed, your race at one time believed our purpose was to torment those who did not qualify for a better afterlife. As you have no afterlife, this is obviously complete nonsense. Churches have more recently suggested that we spend most of our time prompting you to commit evil actions (tempting, it has been called). Some have even suggested that since we are (you believe) doomed to eventual destruction, our goal is to take as many of you with us as possible.
Don't make me laugh! As I've already noted, your race is so weak and shallow that you are far more evil than we and quite capable of prompting yourselves to actions we shudder to contemplate. It is true that in limited instances we have played the role of "tempter." But if our goal were to take as many of you as possible to destruction, tempting would be pointless. Either you would already be doomed or we would have no power to change your behavior. No, our tempting is done when we need one of you to perform some specific act.
Your philosophers have generally concluded that "eternal life" is a curse rather than a blessing. After all, what is one to do when time is not an issue? Just ask us. As angels we face the prospect of never-ending existence. (When you say "eternal life" you mean unending existence. True eternal life has no beginning and only the master, who exists in three temporal dimensions, has that.)
A never-ending existence that has no purpose truly is a curse. Since most of you humans have denied the true purpose of your existence you really have no purpose. What things you call "purpose" are usually only designed to perpetuate the existence of your purposeless race. So your best thinkers have concluded that life has no meaning, no purpose.
We know better. We have a purpose. Our purpose is to prove the boss right in his theories. The stakes are high, which adds adventure to the mix. If we fail, we do face ultimate destruction. As I said in the preface, I haven't the time or the knowledge to fully explain our plan or all the activities we have undertaken to achieve our goals. In fact, the boss hasn't fully explained everything to us. But we know enough to know how important our contributions are to the main purpose. For now, that's motivation enough.
And so, in the rest of this book, I will discuss the part of our operation I know best. At the outset I was assigned to the bioengineering squad. As far as I understand it, I will explain how our actions fit our purpose. And I will explain the stages our work has taken.