Chapter Seven

Daniel Radcliffe turned the final corner, and brought the car to a stop near the side of the road. 14 months he had been driving and now, finally, here they were. Free America. They couldn’t drive any more, of course – Free America was old world
in most ways. Oh, they allowed electricity and airline travel if absolutely necessary, but cars were strictly a no no, and the only way to get around was on horse and buggy, apart from the traditional steam locomotive system, which ran everywhere
through Free America. That was there idea of when to halt progress and escape to a simpler time, with simpler ways.

He had his wallet in his back pocket, and looked at the suitcase with his clothes in the back, Emma standing next to him. ‘We may as well just leave them,’ he said, not directly looking at her, but staring at the luggage. She had the Atari in her
hand, shrugged, threw it in the back, and Daniel closed the door. ‘Shall we lock it?’ she asked him. Daniel looked at the border patrol, and the township just down the road a little. ‘I really don’t think it matters, Em. It is mostly done its
thing in getting us here, and there isn’t anything we need. Nothing personal in there. We would probably look out of place in those clothes anyway.’
She peered towards the township. ‘Now, you do know how to get to his place, don’t you?’
He said nothing, but pulled out his wallet and showed her the card with his address. ‘Rainbow Ranch’, he said. The place doesn’t have a name, but it has a number. Apparently you can get directions.’
‘Lead on, brave wizard,’ she said with a smile, and he nodded, put his wallet back into his back pocket, and started towards the border guards.

They arrived at two older looking men, with long beards, cowboy hats, denim jeans, looking every inch the respectable cowboys Free America was well known for.
‘Um. We’d like to visit Free America,’ Daniel said. ‘We want to visit some friends of ours.’
The cowboy with the yellow hat spoke up. ‘So yer a visitor, are you son?’ ‘I guess. Me and Emma,’ he said, indicating Ms Watson.
Cowboy looked at the other one, who shrugged and seemed to indicate they looked harmless enough, and they stood out of the way and let the two of them pass.
‘So much for a visa,’ said Em.
‘Simpler times,’ responded Daniel.

They continued down along the road a few hundred yards, and shortly came to a place with ‘Free America Inquiries’ written on the front in paint.
‘This should do,’ said Daniel, and they went in.

‘Howdy,’ said the lady behind the front counter. ‘What can I do for you folks.’
Daniel came forward. ‘Um. We want to find a friend of ours. He lives in Free America now. We have his address, but don’t know were it is. And, I guess, we will probably need to convert our cash to whatever currency you work with.’
‘That I can do for you,’ the lady replied. ‘Do you have a credit card? A debit card? Something like that? We can arrange a bank transfer.’
Daniel opened his wallet and pulled out a ‘Bank London’ credit card. ‘Will this do?’ he asked her.
‘Surely will,’ she responded. ‘Now how much do you want?’
He thought about it. ‘Well, how much does the average meal cost?’
‘We are on early earth America sorts of rates. There aint really any inflation. It is mostly agreed on custom in Free America to charge standard rates. So a standard meal will cost you about $1.
‘Ok,’ he responded. ‘Well, how much cash do you have available for us to access?’
‘Oh, sweetie. The bank is next door. You could probably have a million bucks, if that is what you needed.’
Daniel thought on that and nodded. ‘Then we’ll have a million.’
She smiled. ‘Then a million it is. I think we can cover that here. Don’t go spending it all at once, ya hear.’

For the next 10 minutes she explained to him were the train station was, the directions to the state Mr Daly lived in, the necessity of getting a horse or a horse and buggy when he arrived were he needed to go to get around, and some of the various
customs and traditions of free America. It was all quite illuminating.

When they finally found the train station, at least 2 miles further, Daniel was sure, than told, he splurged out on a big meal for the two of them and, later that afternoon, when their train finally arrived, Emma almost cracked a joke about the Hogwarts
Express. But in the end she refrained. That was all too familiar territory, and almost what they were getting away from out here.

As they watched the scenery pass by, Daniel took out his wallet, and looked at the old photo of Daniel Daly. They had been friends, quite close, for a while. The Harry Potter and Lucy Potter movies had linked them, then. But his sarcasm and wit always
attracted Mr Radcliffe, and the fact that he warmed to himself instantly. They seemed to get along, and Daniel thought to himself, as strange as it may sound, deep down it was the Jewish connection with his own bloodline and Daniel’s Noahide faith.
They had familiarity because of it. That, and the fact they were both born in England, and had similar values from a similar era. At this point of eternity, with countless sextillions of souls in heaven, finding an old, familiar face, who knew the
stuff of childhood you knew, was rare outside of an established friendship. And Daniel Daly was one of those ones – even just a bit older than Daniel himself. From the old days – from the beginning – when the world was still new.

He looked at the photo of Daniel with Melanie, laughed at the jokes he remembered from the day they spent together, and gazed out the window, watching the scenery, wondering what Free America would now have in store for him, having finally arrived at the
place.


Chapter Eight

Daniel opened up the document on his PC titled ‘Computer and Console Games Inventory’. He had an idea for designing a new game, a cowboy game, and wanted to type the title into his file so he wouldn’t forget.

He looked through all the games he owned in ‘Eternal Durable’ copies back at home in his gaming warehouse. The stuff made out of ‘Eternya’ was the most expensive stuff in heaven because it lasted forever – literally. The stuff was produced by
God himself, and available in core material form from a company which operated in a large valley in the centre of heaven, which was the base of operations for the supply. It floated out on ‘Rafts’ which ran out of a large tunnel near the bottom of
the valley, in a chain of 300 different rafts, every time the load collected, taken to the supply centre, and an endless supply of lorry trucks delivered it were it was supposed to go. Eventually there would be a second supply centre, which would be
administered by a specified angelic robot worker which God would create. In fact, rumour had it that is what he had done already with the first centre, and that the Big Guy no longer produced the stuff itself, but that it was completely automated. That
was in fact quite true. Not everything was made out of Eternya – there were a hell of a lot of disposable products which simply didn’t need to be kept forever. But Eternya was such flexible stuff that it could be made into any type of desired
texture. Every collectable under the sun was made of Eternya these days, as well as books and magazines, furniture, buildings, electrical equipment and items, furniture and so on. It cost a literal tonne, and you had to save for absolute ages to afford
even a basic product but, of course, it had one distinct advantage over everything else – it would never corrupt and it would last forever. God, so it was told he had once said to Gabriel – produced only enough of it for people to properly value its
worth. Daniel, now being quite old, and quite rich, had purchased numerous items made out of ‘Eternya’ and, amongst these, were about 300 different Console systems for playing various cartridge, CD and USB drive based computer and video games.
Special equipment – also made out of Eternya – was used for processing the stuff, as it was too hard for it to be done any other way. But, unless it was ever modified at a later date by such equipment, it would indeed last forever. Thus, his vast
collection now, would last all eternity, which had indeed been the promise of heaven.

Daniel’s favourite systems, still, were the Sega Mega Drive, the Commodore 64 Computer with its Cartridges that he liked, and the Super Nintendo as well as the hand held Nintendo DS. Of course, the graphics on these machines were incredibly basic
compared to the latter more complex consoles, even compared to the X-Boxes from Microsoft, which were still early consoles, but Daniel liked the more basic stuff in many ways anyway. It was authentic, original sort of stuff, and the graphics and memory
capabilities were good enough as far as he was concerned. Heck, he even had a classic ‘Space Invaders’ arcade machine made out of Eternya which took Australian 20 Cent pieces to run back in his den at home.

He typed in the name ‘Cowboys, Cowboys and More Ruddy Cowboys and the Age Long Quest for the Cactus of Power in the Wild, Wild West’. It was a complex game idea, revolving around Cowboys, funnily enough, and a very important Cactus which, rumour had
it in the game, was the fundamental axis of creation on which this particular cowboy world ran. It was a standard ‘Eternity Quest’ type of game which Daniel had originally designed, meaning it would take the player several millennia to decode the
various quests and complete the game. A grandiose ‘Ultima’ type of saga, with endless quests to complete, literally millions of characters to interact with, and a very detailed world graphically in which to escape and spend aeons amusing oneself.
Funnily enough, he planned on doing the initial version on the Commodore 64, the actual memory of the game, though, being stored on the Cartridge itself, the cartridge system that had been devised storing all the data and being virtually limitless in
what it could offer in terms of length. But the graphics, music and the gameplay in general would all be built around standard C64 capabilities, which is how Daniel liked to start with his new ‘Eternity Quest’ outings. He had a fanbase, naturally,
for all these computer games he produced, and while this particular game would likely take close to 3 or 4 million years to design and create, it would be something to work on when he got home. Funnily enough, he had been told that, in time, as his back
log of about 4000 games kept on growing in popularity, he would likely end up more famous for the games themselves and in fact end up richer on the games than on his publishing and movie deals, which surprised him greatly.

‘Cowboys, cowboys, cowboys,’ he thought to himself. ‘It should be a heap of fun in the end.’ And, as he typed away, entering in some of his plot and design details for the game, he was in his own little world, a happy little Daniel, escaping
into a fantasy universe of his own creation.


Chapter Nine

Daniel was again out on ‘Freejack’, patrolling his property, and was meandering up to the large hill paddock, where 300 cattle were grazing. He came to the gate, got off Freejack and opened it, brought his horse through, and closed the gate after
him. He would count them, now, just in case. The recent loss of a cow was still on his mind, and he just wanted to make sure that a similar encounter had not happened again.

He spent 20 minutes going from one end to the other, and counted 297 Cattle. Puzzling, he counted them again, and then a third time. Each time it was 297 cattle. He spent a while carefully patrolling the fence line, found no faults, and confirmed his
fears to himself – someone was pinching from his herd. And that wasn’t right.

He spent some time going through the cattle, looking at the briefly, checking some of them for any diseases, and taking a blood sample of 3 different ones to check back at the homestead to ensure nothing bad was happening. They were organically raised,
and if there were problems he would have to cure them naturally – but there were advanced natural methodologies now, as scientists had gone a long way discovering the traditional natural cures inherent in many plants. An animal’s original native
habitat nearly always held the answer – ironically.

As he rode on Freejack back down to the ranch, the blood samples in a small pack in his backpack, he thought on the missing cattle. He would now, likely, contact the local sheriff, Tom Anderson. If there was a cattle rustler in the district, as
romantic as it might sound, people had livelihoods to maintain, Daniel as well, technically. Theft was theft, after all – no matter how traditional or daring such a lawless lifestyle once was.

* * * * *

Crack Jiminty, Blake Ferguson, John Hopkins and Roger Simpson looked at the 3 cattle in the yards of Crack’s ranch.
‘Now what?’ asked Roger.
‘I don’t know. Eat them, I guess,’ responded Crack. ‘Blake, you can slaughter them out the back and we will have barbecues for a few months. Free prime quality cattle. It’ll be a hoot.’
The Posse nodded, and Crack looked over the cattle with the ‘X’ burned into their skins. Sure, they would make good feeding, but he couldn’t ever sell them. Not that, in truth, he really needed to anyway. The farm was doing ok. He didn’t NEED
to steal the cows – it was just for kicks. But it would provide quality barbecue meat for a while, and after having consumed the first one he knew Daly’s meat was of a high standard. Good feeding indeed.

* * * * *

Daniel sat with Melanie, looking out over the twilight night, sipping on a beer of all things to drink, which was rare for Daniel, Melanie snuggled up next to him, gazing at the emerging stars.
‘We’ve had a telegram. I picked it up at the store,’ said Melanie. ‘From who?’ asked Daniel.
‘Daniel. Radcliffe.’
‘Harry Potter himself,’ smiled Daniel.
‘He and Emma – they will be arriving shortly. They are not that far away.’
‘Crikey,’ said Daniel. ‘Harry Potter in Free America. How will he ever survive.’
‘Oh, I’m sure he’ll do fine. Daniel has always had a level enough head. Stable guy – you can tell. It oozes out of him.’
Daniel nodded knowingly. Mr Radcliffe had that much in spades – quiet calmness. It came out in his acting work. Confidence – a quiet achiever – stable. Around for the long haul, and a committed sort of fellow. It was why he admired him so much.
Also, a fellow inkling like himself. Inducted into the famous writer’s league for his acclaimed Harry Potter trilogy. A totally professional work which J K herself called ‘Brilliant’.
‘He does booze a bit, though,’ responded Daniel. ‘Usually has a lid on the situation, but can be known for partying if he is in the right mood.’
‘He handles it well enough.’
‘Oh, he knows when to call it a day. Not stupid. But he and Ron have had some legendary wild ones. And some times a fair number of the ladies of the night were involved.’
Melanie nudged him. ‘Don’t say that, Danny. Daniel’s a good guy.’ ‘Men are men. I should know – I’m one of them.’
‘Too true,’ she said under her breath, but he did notice her saying it.

‘Well, Daniel should be good company for a while. Do we need separate bedrooms for them? Or are they together?’
‘I don’t know for sure,’ responded Melanie. ‘We’ll find out when they arrive.’
‘I guess so,’ he responded.

They gazed at the stars for a while and then, today honouring the sabbath, which Daniel rarely did, but sometimes honoured it in his own sort of Noahide way of doing things, they retired inside, pulled off the tablecloth over their meal, and started
making their way through chicken lasagne, very well made pumpkin bites with creamy bacon sauce, and a fine bottle of chardonnay. It was, truly, a night to remember.


Chapter Ten

Daniel was on the top of Mt Taylor, a mountain on his property, camping the night with Rags Maloney, his old fella neighbour, up with all the cattle which had been moved into the topmost paddock of the mountain. They were in a gorge on the mountain,
hidden from general view, waiting – waiting to see if any cattle rustlers would show up tonight. They had committed to about 3 weeks of this, before Daniel would want to get home as Daniel Radcliffe was due about then, according to a second telegraph
that Melanie had received at the store.

It was early morning, and there was dew on the cover of the 3 man tent, and Daniel had gotten the fire going and was cooking eggs and bacon. Rags was still asleep, and he didn’t want to wake him, but would put aside breakfast on a plate for him when
he woke.

He was in, generally, quite a good mood. But that was life for Daniel, now. Generally good. Generally contentment. He had worked most of his issues out in life long ago, and was going with the flow, being alive, being himself, which was the
prevailing philosophy on such things. He was happy with it all, glad he had a faithful partner in Melanie who, in truth, he really didn’t like cheating on, but was human enough to admit that is just bloody well happened from time to time, despite his
best intentions. He had a goog place to live at the moment, happy with the property, the way things were running, despite the current concern of the cattle. All up, yes – life was good. Really, what more could he ask for.

He sat there, watching the bacon and eggs fry away, and did not notice the sudden presence of someone. Someone he had seen a long, long time ago, when it had been his place on the rostered list to meet him. It was the Theophany – God himself, he
quickly noticed – who always promised that, some day, he would catch up again with his son Daniel. Some day Daniel would get a second meeting.

‘Fuck,’ he swore under his breath, looking at the ancient ageless looking man. He had grey and black hair, bald on top, but a fierce beard. He was about 5 ft 11, somewhat muscular, and dressed in a black jumper with a skivvy underneath, denim jeans,
and boots. He looked every inch the man of power – every inch God Almighty.

‘Daniel,’ said God. ‘How are you son?’
Daniel said nothing, but returned his gaze to the bacon and eggs. Shortly he took another plate, put some of the bacon and eggs on it, and getting a fork, passed it to God. God accepted it, sat down, and started eating.

Eventually Daniel spoke.
‘You again, huh? I guess you did promise to catch up. But that was a VERY long time ago now. I had almost forgotten.’
‘Some things take time, Son. I have a lot of people on my list. You should know that.’
‘Yeh. I guess so. I kind of figured that.’
God nodded, and continued eating his bacon and eggs.

‘So. What is this? Just a catch up? The fulfilment of a promise? Will I see you again after this?’
God said nothing, initially, and then looked at him. ‘Do you want to?’

Daniel looked at him, right at him, and then returned to his own bacon and eggs which he had just started cooking.
‘You’re God, though. Aren’t you. Shouldn’t I want to meet you? Get to know you?’
‘Why does that necessarily follow?’ the Theophany asked him.
Daniel said nothing, but considered that. ‘Well, I don’t know. It just does, I guess. I mean, that’s the way it is in life, isn’t it?’

God looked at Daniel, said nothing, and stood, putting down his plate. ‘Come on. Walk with me,’ he said.

Daniel put the pan off the flames, and checking on Rags, stood, walked over to God, who started leading the way up the gorge to the top of the mountain.

At the top he stopped and they gazed at the Sun of Heaven.

‘You’ve worked it out, haven’t you?’
‘What?’ Daniel asked his creator.
‘What you need to know. The things you need to get by in life.’
‘Well, yeh. I guess so.’
‘Good,’ said God, and said nothing more.

He turned to him and raised his hand towards the valley in front of them. ‘This is the Eternal Realm of Glory. You have probably heard it called that.’
‘Yep. Sounds familiar,’ said Daniel, looking over it.

God turned towards the valley. ‘There are people out there, son. Lots of them. People you haven’t met yet, but you will. People in your destiny. There are places – things you will still find fascinating when you first see them. And there is
spirit – spirit of Glory – which will touch you, and shape you, and give you the consolation which you need from time to time to put all the pieces together.’

‘Your point?’ asked Daniel.

‘My point is this,’ said God, returning his gaze to his son. ‘What more do you expect of me? I mean, what more do you want out of life?’

Daniel nodded. It was something he had thought on, occasionally. In the wee hours. God’s purpose in it all.

‘Nothing, really,’ responded Daniel. ‘I have a thirst, still. For life. For new things, I guess. That is all it really is. But, no. I am satisfied with Melanie. But, oh, I don’t know. There is still someone to meet – another. Another
lady, I think, while I hate to say it as simply as that. Its like I know her already, but we aren’t quite there yet. Like there is something which has to happen first.’

God looked at him. ‘You’ll work it out. I’m sure of that.’

Daniel puzzled on that, the way God had spoken to him, showing his infinite knowledge, and let the issue drop then. Whatever it was, perhaps it was true as Torah said. On throughout time lie the mysteries of the soul.

God came over, gave Daniel his hand, who shook it, and they returned to Rags Maloney and then, not noticing, just as suddenly as God had been there, he was gone. And when he would see him again, ironically, only God really knew for sure.


Chapter Eleven

‘Well, Daniel. Good to see you again,’ said Daniel Daly, offering his hand to Mr Daniel Radcliffe who had arrived in a horse and buggy with Emma Watson, both dressed somewhat in Free America type clothing.
‘Daniel,’ said Daniel Radcliffe, shaking Daniel’s hands.
‘I guess first things first. How long do you plan on staying? I mean, sure, if you want to stay a few years – even a decade or so – it won’t be a problem. We don’t mind guests for an extended stay, and we get along.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Emma. ‘Why don’t we play it by ear.’ ‘Sure,’ responded Melanie. ‘Do you have any luggage?’
‘Just what we are wearing,’ said Daniel. ‘No sort of real point, travelling for so long. Moving around. Start again when we get there, we both agreed.’
‘Right,’ said Daniel Daly. ‘Well. We had a debate, and in the end we had both guest rooms made up and ready. That is the case, isn’t it?’
Emma glanced at Daniel Radcliffe, looked at him a little nervously, and nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, we will have a room each. That is right isn’t it Daniel?’
Daniel Radcliffe looked at her and nodded. ‘I guess.’ He turned to Melanie. ‘Is there somewhere we can wash up? The trip yesterday took all day, and I need a shower. I am sure Em does as well.’
Melanie led the way through the large ranch house to there bedrooms, which both had ensuites. ‘I am sure you will both be comfortable. We have put Daniel in the blue room and Emma in the pink. Boys and girls.’
‘Sure. Thanks,’ said Daniel.
‘Great,’ responded Emma.
‘Oh. It may sound kind of dumb, but I dragged out a few Harry Potter books and put them on each of your bookcases, as well as some other books you might to look at. Familiarity, if nothing else,’ said Daniel D.
‘That’s fine,’ responded Daniel R. ‘Well, if you’ll excuse me.’ ‘Right-e-o,’ responded Daniel D. ‘Well, dinner is at 7 or there abouts. We don’t have anything really planned for this afternoon, as we felt you each would probably want to rest. There is a stereo in each of your rooms and, while we don’t
normally use the electricity, we thought with you guys here we would make an exception. There are some Mozart CDs in each of your rooms, and some of Melanie’s stuff as well. I am sure you can find something to relax with. Well, ok. We’ll leave
you to it.’

Daniel and Melanie returned to the main living rooms, leaving Daniel and Emma alone in the hallway looking at there rooms.
‘Blue and Pink. Quaint,’ said Emma.
‘Do you want to swap?’ asked Daniel R with a slight grin on his face.
She looked into his room, which seemed about the same as hers, and shook her head. ‘No, mine will do. I guess traditional roles with Daniel, knowing him and his religious ways.’
‘Oh, he doesn’t bring it up once he gets to know you,’ responded Daniel R. ‘I think it is his way of letting people know his values – were he is coming from in life. He said that to me once. After a while he doesn’t even discuss it, unless
you ask questions.’
‘Oh,’ said Emma. She didn’t know Daniel Daly that well, after all, but they had been acquaintances for some time over the years.

‘Well, I am going to shower and rest,’ said Daniel R. ‘I’ll be out for dinner.’
Emma nodded, turned and entered her room, closing and locking the door. She needed a shower, and would possibly look at the books and the CDs. But she, too, was tired, and as strange as it may sound in the long time getting here, she needed a good
holiday from all the driving, and from the hectic London life as Hermione Granger, and escaping in Free America may just be the kind of thing she was looking for. And, besides, there were no paparazzi to even poke a stick at, and that always had to be a
good thing.



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