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The Happening -- Chapter
28
the beginning of Chapter
28, The Happening:
1.
Daniel
felt a dry, desolate breeze blow sand through his fingers.
He was atop the highest mountain peak in the Sinai
peninsula. The altitude mixed swells of cooler
breezes into the dry heat, but the sand was inescapable. The sand
could be carried for miles in sand clouds, and this peak was in the
way.
2.
From
his vantage point, he could see the Red Sea to the south and knew that
the Mediterranean was over the horizon to the north.
3.
This
had been the point of his original extraction and the last
panorama that he saw before fading into a new existence on the
simulator floor at Corlos. B'jhon was the only other operative
who knew Daniel's story. "The Enochian key is coded to Human
DNA," Daniel told B'jhon privately, "that's why it only works when I'm
around." "And Dayton," B'jhon added. There had never
been a need for a photonic translator, so to everyone else, the key was
simply another Light Race novelty. "Maybe that's why your the
Director?," B'jhon shrugged, subtextually suggesting that 'The One
moves in mysterious ways.'
4.
There
was something different about this particular visit.
The setting was exactly as he remembered, but there
was a new quality that he had never felt before.
5.
This
dream did not have the surreal feel of other dreams.
It felt like this particular dream was being managed
by forces outside his synaptic control. One red
flag
led to the next:
6.
The
area was naturally desolate, but the exponential desolation made him
apprehensive. He couldn't ‘wake
up...’ "Now I know
something's up," he thought.
7.
"Time
itself, is wrong," he observed. He was
standing on the Earth prior to the advent of Human proliferation, as the only photonically infused biological. That
fact would insulate him from any psychotropic manipulation.
8. He
reached out psionically and confirmed that he was alone.
9.
There
were no weeds growing in the cracks, no dried grass – there was no
biology on Earth at all: Not even algae in the ocean.
10.
This
was the world before the dawn of life; the setting before the action
began.
11.
Not
far from his vantage point, a whirlwind stirred, and within the wind
appeared an angelic being. This angel was
not like the one who met him near God's throne. This
angel was saturated with pretentiousness and deceit, hiding its anger
behind a
seductive exterior.
12.
The
whirlwind dissipated into the natural breeze. The anti-being
stood fast and observed Daniel with curious apathy, sucking ambient
light into the black hole of its facade; the antithesis of any
conceivable creative force.
13.
“The
Evil One,” Daniel quietly vocalized without giving it much
thought. Anti-beings are not psionic, and Daniel knew
that: Anti-beings are everything that God
isn't.
14.
“Isn't
evil a point of view?” the entity queried?
15.
“And
you are?...” Daniel coddled. The being gestured toward itself,
then spread its arms in mockery.
16.
“Why,
the Son of the Morning,” it answered disingenuously, “Lucifer and
Light… and coming soon: Satan!” The
creature spoke perfect Enochian.
17.
Daniel
seized the opportunity to scold the entity in the most childishly
mocking voice he could imitate, “I can do no wrong because I don't know
what it is.” Then he added much more contemptuously, "You
unembodied spiritual feces."
18.
The
creature flew into a rage, becoming a silhouette of dark matter that
sucked up even more light than before. It was angry and
unnhibited. Indeed, somewhat of a showman for being so
spoiled.
19. “It's
not hard to understand why you didn't … ‘fit in’ up there,” Daniel
scorned it. The tirade worsened but Daniel remained unmoved and
completely unaffected. Somewhere in the fabric of faith, Thirty
Billion souls had lost their way. "Did you truly believe that God
the Eternal Father, The Creator of Heaven and Earth and maker of worlds
without end, needed ... you ... for a
guardian." Daniel's condescending tone loudly proclaimed that the
creature had chosen to be greatest fool in the Universe.
20.
There
was thunder and lightning and gale force
winds -- the whole show: "You made your bed..." Daniel said,
smirking at the spectacular special effects.
21. "There is only one absolute in the Universe," Daniel said
definitively, "An Eternal God can not force His creatures to love Him,
any
more than evil can commit a genuine act of sacrifice." So Mote It
Be. And that, evidently, is where this creature messed up.
It emulated intellect, but lacked intelligence. It watched eons
come and go -- and learned nothing. It was a coward. All
show, and responsible for nothing.
22. "The Bane of God is Stupidity," Daniel provoked; a truth that
cut like a knife. "There's just NO talking to you!" the creature
huffed. Anti-beings cannot read
minds, but they can read trends: A mortal who caves into
weakness, cowardice and fear provides a map for evil to fully exploit.
23.
Everything
became eerily quiet, as it was before the creature appeared; just a
gentle breeze blowing more sand through Daniel's fingers as if nothing
had happened. The cooler swells made an interesting hot-cold
sensation.
24.
Daniel
peered intently into the proverbial ‘dawn of time’ as the sun set into
twilight. The sweeping colors were a striking contrast to the
tirade he had just seen.
25.
“Interesting,”
he whispered while looking up into the Heavens, "The Lord Our God," he
remembered from his old life, and held up a single finger, "The One."
I-20's
ENTOURAGE ABOVE EARTH
26. "This is supposed to be absolutely void of biology," #9
exclaimed. He shook the holographic scanner. Traces of
sub-photonic residue on a mountain peak disappeared; manifestations of
consciousness.
27. "I don't see anything," #8 said. The others looked at
#9 like he wasn't wrapped very tight. "Must have been a ghost in
the biological," he sighed. "It was nothing," I-20 assured
everyone, "We can proceed as planned." They were about to start
Section 1 at this location as directed by
Conscious.
BACK
ABOARD THE ELITE DESTROYER
28. The
disrupter beams fanned out too wide to be
effective across 80,000 miles of unobstructed space. The beams
had
been calibrated for striking points at 919's teutonic vulnerabilities;
to cascade into an anti-matter vacuum. The
firing sequence, had the target remained, would have annihilated the
moon too.
29. "Terminate
the sequence," Kor commanded.
He was annoyed that some of the auto firing was still in
progress. Those
sequences halted. 919's moon drifted away from the sun and out of
sight -- the injured moon was definitely not a concern right now.
30. In less
than one second, two objects disappeared. "I
wanted to keep her," Kor told
himself.
31. Kor
tuned into Dal El's razor sharp analytical mind...
32. "Who
could move an entire planet in the blink of an eye?" Dal
couldn't think of anyone less than Azoth, "How would I have
explained this to Kor, if he had not seen it himself?"
Typically, Kor did not go on seek-and-destroy missions, so Dal had a
valid concern. Kor concurred, "This would have been hard to
explain."
33. One
hundred thousand wittnesses would have been hard to
disprove, however hard to believe.
34. "If this
wasn't the work of the Supreme Being -- how was it
done?" Kor pondered, "...and isn't A'zoth on my side?" It seemed that 'the
Divine Right of Emperors of the Universe' was in question.
35. "Perhaps
we underestimated their technology," Dal offered,
"a dimensional shift of sorts." That was the most plausible
suggestion so far, since Kor could change dimensions at will.
36. He gave
Dal a familiar gleam that
meant, "Yes -- I do believe you're right!" Dal El smiled, but
cautiously.
37. "So... "
Dal looked around, "Where's the Sorceress?" It
was more tactful than asking, "Where's the girlfriend?"
"Sorceress" was safe since everyone was calling her that.
38. Kor's
look of approval faded into, "You just now
noticed?" which Dal also recognized. They were friends, so it was
OK.
39. Dal
shook his head bewildered, "At the same
time?"
40. Kor
pursed his lips and nodded his head gently.
ABOARD
THE DOWNED CARDSHIP
41. "Are the
amplifiers still in place?" Mother asked.
"Yes," the subcomponenet answered. "We must leave them there,"
Mother said, "to prevent an Elite armada from destroying this
shell."
42. Mother had
planted invisible harmonic
amplifiers to assist her journey to 1985, then reinforced the amplifier
net by sprinkling more amplifiers inbetween real time and 1985.
It was the only way she could safely recoil to real-time. When
Kor's armada arrived, Mother used the amplifiers to push Earth's
harmonic out of phase.
43. Acceleration
did not require tremendous
amounts of energy, it only required repolarizing a target to a
neighboring harmonic; another realm of cosmic consciousness with a
different perspective. Only Mother and Azoth knows exactly
where.
DATA
SMOG
44.
Corlos had no way of dissecting every detail of the converging
anomalies. Onimex reported to Corlos that a Cardship went back in
time, but he didn't know where. The Elite armada had just fired
30 teutonic disrupters. Nobody could predict that the Cardship
would shift Earth's harmonic to another dimension precisely when Corlos
extracted Ireana, and slipped her into a transport signal with Onimex
enroute to 1938 Germany.
45. Corlos
had no jurisdiction over Elliptical matters.
Onimex, on the other hand, had been recognized by Conscious and was
licensed to operate in both jurisdictions. "I guess I'm late for
the briefing," Ireana said. She was happy to see him and exhaled
in relief, grateful to be off Kor's ship. She patted down her
body to make sure that she was still alive. They had already
swooshed in on Earth and reassembled in a garden near a wide street.
46. "How
was..." Onimex began. "Don't ask," she
interrupted. Her body language accused him, "You left me there
long enough!" She knew it was not his fault. "Kor just
pressed the fire button," she said, "so where are we? Did he
miss?" Her photonic eyes had watched Earth enlarge, and it didn't
implode, so evidently they arrived intact. "I don't see any
evidence of destruction," she
observed, "not on a shell scale, anyway."
47. "Ops is
experiening a nightmare right now," Onimex
reported. "There are so many quantum anomalies converging at this
point in space that the act of observing them, is exponentially
cascading into new issues." Critical conditions can sometimes
cascade into system wide oblivion. "So they sent us here, intead
of back to
base?" she said blandly, "I'm not even sure I know where to
begin." It was a mixture of resignation and determination.
She would instinctively find a solution in spite of the overwhelming
odds.
48. "Kor's
armada just fired on Earth," she said flatly.
"You know," she added in disbelief, "I was going to marry him?"
49. "No you
weren't," Onimex said rather confidently, "You're
married to me." Ireana giggled.
50. "So,
where the hell were you my
fat deserter friend?" she
accused. "Investigating alien abductions and botanical
extractions," he answered. "I told you I wanted to go next time,"
she said. "Ask B'jhon,"
he suggested, "he lets you spy on your boyfriend." She gave
Onimex
a mean look, "You just said I was married to you!" She liked how
he used his diagnostic pixels to mimick backgrounds, shades, textures
and hues. He glistened a slivery delft with a sizzling cobalt
beam sweeping across his surface and profile -- it was quite
showy. "I see you've found a use for your pixels?" she
complimented him. He could make picture perfect faces if
necessary.
51. "Why are
we here?" she asked. "He changed Earth's
time," Onimex answered.
Ireana squinted and stared at Onimex, "Dayton?" she asked. Onimex
didn't answer. "Really?" she realized. "And our orders..."
she added with trepidation. "Seek and terminate," he
answered. She clinched her fist. "We let Kor go on a
shell-killing rampage, but we have to seek and terminate Dayton?"
She didn't say it out loud; Onimex knew what she was thinking.
52. "Why am
I not surprised?" she thought sarcastically to
herself. She just survived the near destruction of Earth.
M'tro-1 wasn't that far in the past. Onimex nudged her
affectionately, "Daniel is very impressed! He told me to tell you
personally," Onimex said proudly, "He said, you did what no one else
could
do."
53. It was
meant to serve as a consolation, but Ireana felt
rather numb. Her weak smile seemed to indicate that much, if it
wasn't fake. "He would have ripped me apart bit by bit," he
reminded her in his hushed psionic voice. She let out a breath
and rubbed his upper surface. Then her face reflected instant
enlightenment, "You said Kor knew
you -- now, how is that possible?" "You told me not to tell you,"
he answered, "And my future self doesn't want you to know
either." "Two against one?" she said facetiously, "Yes," she
agreed, "I would
make a formidable foe now, wouldn't I." "Make it three, "Onimex amended, "because you're in on it too!" She hid
a silent giggle behind a true amazement, "From the mouth of Cosmos,"
she whispered.
54. Ireana
bunched up her brow when she switched into analytical
mode. "You mean you're co-located?" she said
matter-of-factly. "And my
future self..." she started. "... doesn't want you to know," he
finished. "I guess we understand each other," she said. "It
was also your very first command," he reminded her, "remember when you
were squeezing the shit out of me?" "We were under attack!" she
justified, which had little to do with anything.
55. "Daniel
said Earth was protected by The One," Onimex
injected. "I've heard the rumors," she replied, "the Light Race
conducted some kind of photonic infusion experiment here and some of
them rebelled... are they referring to machines or biologicals?
I've never got a straight answer." "Yes," Onimex answered.
"Non-binary or non-binding?" she re-stated impatiently. She
wanted
him to chose
one, but he really
couldn't.
56. "You
just said, 'From the mouth of Cosmos,'" Onimex
clarified. "No kidding?" Ireana realized, "The Ellipsis?"
She did not fully believe that machine metaphysics was compatible with
biology, and respectfully avoided denigrating the beliefs of
others: "There's always a reason why shellans feel the way that
they do," she insisted.
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