Posts Tagged ‘global conspiracy’

OBSERVATION RESUMES

When Richard didn’t immediately respond, two other men, holding what were obviously weapons, though they were unfamiliar to Richard, stepped out of the shadows at the edge of the camp. Where the man who had spoken was well over six feet and muscular, with a swarthy complexion, these two were considerably shorter, stocky rather than muscular, and so pale that Richard wondered how they managed to stand the Central American sun. All three were dressed in clothing that was pretty standard for the jungle, with the odd exception that it seemed to glisten for some reason, almost as if there were metallic threads in the material. The two armed men levelled their weapons in Richard’s direction but the first man held up his hand and they relaxed into an at-ease posture.

As Richard continued to hesitate, the woman’s voice came again. It sounded like she was whispering in his ear. “Stall him Richard. We have an idea.”

When a situation is beyond insane, there are really only two choices – go looking for the rubber room, or accept things as they are and try to make sense of them later. Richard opted for the latter. He stepped out from behind the debris that had concealed him, still holding his gun. “What the hell do you want?” he demanded angrily. “Who the hell are you?”

When the two men flanking the speaker saw the gun, they began to bring their own weapons to bear, but the speaker again stopped them, and laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a projectile weapon; a .45 if I’m not mistaken. What harm do you think it could do?”

He addressed Richard directly again. “Please Richard. Let’s not waste time on pretence shall we? We both know that there’s no point in that between such as you and I.”

“You and I? What the hell are you talking about? How do you know my name? Where are my people?” Richard was still pointing the gun at the man who was speaking. He started to move toward the body on the ground. He could see that it wasn’t Jaimie, but one of the labourers they’d hired to help with the digging. He could also see that the man was obviously dead. He stopped, and the other man spoke again.

“Why do you insist on continuing this farce Richard? You must have sensed who I am by now, what I am. We are equals you and I. And these two are of no consequence. They are only human. However, they swear allegiance to my Lady. There is no need to conceal your true nature here. Let us speak freely, as befits two who serve the Yannoneth.”

Richard had no clue what the guy was talking about. True nature? Who were the Yannoneth? He seemed to think Richard was part of some gang. Again, the woman whispered invisibly into his ear. “Just keep him talking Richard. We’re almost ready. Time for explanations later. We promise, okay? The less Carlos – that’s the talkative one’s name – knows about you, the better.” She seemed to fade away again, with a last “Keep him talking” wafting back like a rustle in the wind.

“Carlos” spoke again. “Your discovery of the d’na’nish,” and at the mention of the name, he bowed deferentially in the direction of the artefact, “was quite an accomplishment, Richard. Not even my Lady knew where it was. She had come to believe that all memory of it had been lost from the d’na’tnek. Obviously there was a genealogical offshoot that was not recorded.”

Gibberish, Richard thought. He decided to try to shake the other’s composure while stalling for whatever his disembodied friends were doing. “A danish? You couldn’t come up with a better name than that, Carlos? It was you and your buddies who planted it here I take it? Looks like a bad prop from a cheesy sci-fi flick.”

Carlos looked troubled for just a second, glanced toward the artefact, looked back at Richard and laughed. “Very good, Richard. I am not easily caught off guard. But we both know the d’na’nish is genuine. I can feel its power even in this state. And you made a second mistake.”

“Which was?”

“My name, of course. You used my name. There was no way for you to know that unless you are the same as I. Now, shall we dispense…” His voice seemed to deepen, slow; then it trailed off entirely. He and his two companions stopped moving. So did everything around them. The trees stopped rustling in the wind. The fire burning in the ruined tent seemed to be nailed to the air. All sound ceased. Richard gaped.

“The jeep, Richard. Get into the jeep.” The woman’s voice was urgent, demanding. “Make it snappy. We can only keep you accelerated for a few seconds. And as soon as you start the jeep, you’re back in objective time.”

“I…” was all Richard could choke out, staring at the world around him, a world that had suddenly become a still picture.

“Please, Richard.” It was the man’s voice. “Much depends on your survival. You must hurry. The world has not stopped; we have compressed time for you. Carlos will realize quickly what has happened. He may be able to counter our action, although I did not sense that he has that skill. Once you have escaped, we will have time to help you to understand. For now, as Alea Chantal says, the jeep must be our goal.”

Not being able to think of any alternative action, Richard ran to the jeep, jumped in, and turned the key. As soon as the engine roared to life, so did the rest of the world. As Richard slammed the jeep into gear and gunned the engine, he spared a glance over his shoulder. The two armed men were preparing to fire on Richard but for the third time Carlos stopped them. He pointed at the truck on the other side of the compound and the two men ran to it while Carlos moved toward the artefact.

That was all the time Richard could spare in looking backward. He manoeuvred the jeep onto the trail that had been hacked through the jungle between the camp and the river landing. If he could get enough of a lead on Carlos, he might be able to get to the landing, get the barge untied, and get far enough from shore that they couldn’t reach him. Since Carlos seemed determined not to kill him that just might be enough for him to get away.

He drove as fast as he dared on the treacherous track. That it wasn’t fast enough became evident as a bolt of some kind of energy streamed past the jeep and scorched a tree just ahead of him. Richard yelled and glanced behind.

Carlos sat in the middle of the truck seat, holding a bag that, Richard assumed, must contain the artefact. One of his companions was driving the truck while the other leaned out of the passenger side and aimed his weapon. Richard thought Carlos must have changed his mind about killing him until he realized they weren’t actually aiming at him but at the trees ahead. They were trying to block the trail. The bouncing of the truck made any attempt at an accurate shot a wild chance at best, but sooner or later they were bound to get lucky.

Richard turned back to the front, considering his options while trying to go faster without wrecking the jeep. There was a sharp turn up ahead where the trail ran along a cliff. If his pursuers weren’t as familiar with the trail as he was, they might not be aware how close it was. He might be able to make it at this speed, but he was pretty sure that the heavier truck wouldn’t. If he was lucky, they’d skid off the path and go over the cliff. At the very least, maybe he could slow them down; give himself more of a lead to get to the landing.

Richard deliberately slowed down for a few seconds to let the truck gain on him as he approached the cliff. Then he gunned the engine in the hope that his pursuers would do the same in order not to lose the distance they’d closed. He wanted them going as fast as possible. When he got to the turn he geared down, spun the steering wheel left, and then floored it. The jeep roared, the wheels spun, dirt and gravel spewed in all directions. Richard held his breath and hung on. The edge of the cliff was sickeningly close, but the jeep stayed on the road.

Once he was safely around the turn, he let off on the gas and looked back to see how the truck had fared. He had been right – the heavier vehicle hadn’t been able to take the turn the way the jeep had. It had overshot the road. But it hadn’t crashed into the jungle below. It hadn’t crashed at all. It was just hanging there, in mid-air, about ten feet beyond the trail. Carlos was gripping the dash, the bag holding the artefact still on his lap, a look of intense concentration on his face.

Richard couldn’t believe his eyes. He just stared, transfixed by the sight. That was his undoing.

The jeep, still moving, hit a rock in the trail, bounced to the right. Richard whipped around, attempted to regain control. It was too late.

The last thing he saw was a mass of green and brown jungle coming up to meet him as the jeep plunged over the edge.

OBSERVATION PAUSED BY REQUEST

Enquiry Response: Regarding the Member’s comment on Richard’s surprise at the vehicular levitation. Although humanity does utilize both ground and air transport, the principles involved are purely mechanical. There is no utilization of the Energy which the Danaereans named g’ru’tnok. I realize that the Setback may be causing discontinuity. Please make every effort to experience this Observation in linear time to avoid confusion.

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OBSERVATION BEGINS

SUBJECT – Richard Redmond

FILED BY – Gerry – Danaerean Observer

As is customary, this Observation will be delivered in narrative form to accommodate members who are not visually equipped.

At the point this Observation begins, its subject, Richard Redmond, is not yet aware of the pivotal role he will play in the development of the System I Observe. For members who have not, as requested, reviewed the previously filed Danaerean Prologue, you may find it expedient to Diverge a portion of Awareness so that you can review that Observation concurrent with this. Definitions, references, and cultural context can be accessed in the Universal Repository using the primary search terms Danaerea, Yannoneth, or Humanity.

The few lights strung around the central chamber of the temple were powered by an electrical cable snaking along the passageway and out to the generator in the jungle camp. The illumination they provided was dim and they flickered frequently. The flashlight that Richard had with him would probably have done a better job of lighting the room but he had turned it off an hour ago. He was just standing, trying to get a better sense of how the room would have looked to the ancient Mayans who built it.

“Communing with the spirits” was how he half-jokingly described the process to his students when he was lecturing at the university. Truth was… he wasn’t exactly sure what it was that he did. He just knew that, if he spent enough time immersing himself in the atmosphere of a ruin like this, he often came away with insights that others missed.

“Oh, please,” a woman’s voice came faintly, dripping sarcasm.

Richard whirled around, startled. He thought that Jaimie, his dig boss, must have followed him into the temple. She was the only woman on the expedition. He waited, peering back up the passageway, but no one appeared. Probably just an echo from someone talking near the entrance, Richard thought. Sound did funny things in a place like this.

He returned his attention to the relief carvings and murals on the chamber walls. Three thousand years of accumulated dirt and cobwebs couldn’t obscure the central focus of the place. A single object appeared in every scene. It had a central, basketball-shaped body of gold crowned by a red gemstone and supported by three wooden legs equidistantly spaced to form a tripod. Not that Richard had to depend on the murals for a description. They had the artefact itself. Until yesterday, when he’d had it removed to the camp, it had rested on the altar he was leaning against right now.

“Too bad you hadn’t left it where it was, bright boy.” Richard jumped at this second whisper, grabbing his flashlight and shining it into the corner of the chamber where it seemed the comment had come from.

“Professor Redmond? Are you okay?” Richard spun around toward the entrance to find Jaimie staring at him, a concerned look on her face.

“Were you talking to someone just now?” Richard asked.

“No one, Professor. I’m alone.” When Richard didn’t say anything more, she went on. “I thought you’d want to know the results of my tests on the artefact.”

Richard shrugged off the strange incident. Hearing things. Better be careful, he thought to himself. Next thing you know, I’ll be believing that the poor bastards who were likely sacrificed here are haunting the place. Getting creeped-out was a hazard of the profession. Aloud, he simply said “Good. Thanks. Yeah. What did you find out?”

“Well, the red crystal on the top is exactly what you thought it was – the biggest ruby I’ve ever seen. But the design on the setting doesn’t match anything in the Mayan database. At least not the limited database we have in the laptops. I still can’t get the satellite phone working so I haven’t been able to access the university’s computers. Ted’s still working on the uplink.”

Richard frowned. The glitch in the satellite phones seriously curtailed the amount of analysis they could do onsite. Not to mention it meant that he couldn’t talk to Nadine. Today of all days. Trying to put the disappointment out of his mind, he said, “Well, the carvings make it pretty clear that it was central to some sort of sacred ceremony. It was probably part of a funeral ritual.”

“Or birth,” suggested Jaimie. “There seem to be depictions of both.”

“Yeah,” muttered Richard, looking from one carving to another. He waited; he knew his assistant well enough to know when she was holding back. When Jaimie continued to hesitate, he prompted her. “And …?”

Jaimie looked unhappy. “I’m sorry, Professor. I must have contaminated the sample somehow. The analysis of the gold globe is screwy. It came back only ten percent gold. The rest is steel – an alloy of some kind – the field equipment we have here couldn’t even identify some of the elements. I don’t know what happened. I’m rerunning the test right now.”

Richard smiled sympathetically. “Happens sometimes, Jaimie. Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Suddenly though, he felt absolutely certain that there was nothing wrong with the sample. Or the results. He dismissed the feeling as ridiculous, remarking instead, “I’m more disappointed that the satellite phone is still down. I’d hoped to talk to Nadine today.”

“Oh?”

Richard idly traced the outline of the artefact in the altar’s dust with his finger, not quite touching the marks so as not to disturb anything. “She’s being honoured for her latest work tomorrow. Black tie affair, rubber chicken and all. I was supposed to be there.”

Jaimie looked as though she wished something would come out of the shadows and drag her away. Richard and Nadine Redmond’s devotion to each other was one of the classic love stories on campus. “Professor, I’m so sorry; you’re only here because of me. I shouldn’t have asked you to come early. This could have waited.”

Richard shook his head. “No, you did the right thing. This is an absolutely incredible find, Jaimie. As soon as I saw the pictures I knew I had to come. This chamber, and that artefact, whatever it is, don’t fit into any of our accepted theories about the Mayan Pre-Classic period.” He looked at the altar again. Something was tickling the back of his mind.

“He he, that’s me,” came the whisper a third time.

Redmond looked sharply at Jaimie. “What?”

“I said, ‘I’m going to go back and take another crack at that analyzer.’ And I’ll talk to Ted. We’ll find a way to make that phone work if we have to run two tin cans and a string across the entire continent.” When Richard just nodded absently, Jaimie turned back to the entrance and left.

After she was gone, Richard turned again to the spot where the artefact had rested. Why was he so certain that Jaimie’s analysis wasn’t contaminated? The ancient Maya couldn’t make steel; that was ridiculous. Of course there was an error in the results. The simplest explanation was usually the right one. Still… His finger continued to trace the pattern in the dust; a pattern that, even though he’d never seen it before, seemed totally familiar. This was way beyond the hunches and feelings he’d had in the past. In fact, he realized he’d had the damnedest sense of déjà vu ever since he’d arrived.

“Well, duh.” No longer a whisper, the voice was clearly coming from somewhere in the chamber.

Richard whirled around, grabbed the flashlight and shone it into the dark corners of the room. “All right, that’s it. Who’s there? Show yourself.” Richard drew the revolver he was wearing, pointed it vaguely into the gloom.

The woman’s voice sounded irritated. “We don’t have time for this. I told you we should have acted when we first realized what they’d found. Now we’re in a hell of a mess.” She spoke with an accent that Richard couldn’t quite place.

He started moving cautiously around the room, looking for the woman’s hiding place. “Damn it, I said show yourself.”

A second voice, male and equally unseen, responded, speaking dispassionately, “Richard, this is not the way in which things were intended to be revealed to you. Unfortunately, your removal of the d’na’nish from its shielded vault has precipitated something of a crisis. You must trust us and allow explanations to be deferred until later. Otherwise, the probability is high that you are going to die in the next few minutes.” This dire pronouncement was delivered in a tone so devoid of emotion that the speaker seemed as though he might be commenting on the weather or some inconsequential bit of trivia.

“Is that some kind of threat?” Richard demanded. “Because if it is…” Richard stopped speaking as he heard the sounds of a skirmish, including weapons fire, coming down the passageway from the camp. The string of lights suddenly went out. He immediately started to run back up to the entrance, shining the flashlight ahead of him. When he got close to the end of the passage, caution returned. He turned off the light and ducked low to use some fallen stones as cover. What he saw when he peered cautiously around the debris sickened him. The camp was a shambles. The neat piles of supplies had been knocked over; the tents were collapsed. One was burning, probably from a lantern overturned inside. He could see at least one person on the ground, unmoving, although he couldn’t tell for sure if they were dead or alive.

Then someone called him by name. It wasn’t one of the voices he had heard in the temple. Nor was it disembodied. Quite the opposite; he could see clearly who it belonged to. The man was standing in the middle of the destroyed camp, beside the table with the artefact which, surprisingly, had not been overturned. Something in the way the man moved cautiously around the thing gave Richard the feeling that he held it in great reverence. Or maybe fear.

“Come on out and join our little party, Richard. Don’t be shy. It is, after all, thanks to you that we’re all here.”

OBSERVATION PAUSED BY REQUEST

Enquiry Response: Regarding the Member’s comment on death. At the time of this Observation humanity is experiencing a period of shortened lifespan. As Members will be aware, this is done to facilitate rapid evolutionary development and will be maintained until Awakening is achieved.

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When the Ethical Imperative collapsed, it was like a dam bursting in his head. All of the restrictions he’d lived with his entire life (and that was a long time) were washed away like so much mud in the face of an unstoppable torrent of emotion.

Outwardly, he held himself perfectly still, while he turned the feeling over in his mind. Why had he been so afraid of this? He was shocked when he realized that he had never used the word “afraid” before. Ethicals did not experience fear. Or shock for that matter. And until this moment he had been an Ethical.

But not now. Now he was free of the tyranny of restraint. Of the intellectual detachment forced on his race by an artificial gene. The Ethical Imperative that had enslaved him for so long was gone, burned away in the frustration of the endless struggle of the Yannoneth civil war.

Now he understood why the Disaffected wanted to go to Earth. Why they wanted to take control of its primitive people. It was the natural order. The Yannoneth were obviously the superior race. Why didn’t the Ethicals see that? Why hadn’t he seen it, until this very moment? He had spent his entire life opposing the Disaffected. Had believed that it was in the best interest of the Yannoneth to stay here. To hide in this dying hole in the ground, this so-called Shelter, lamenting the loss of the once beautiful world whose uninhabitable surface lay miles above them. Why? It was senseless. There, just a short space flight away, was a lush, living world. A place where the Yannoneth, whether Ethical or Disaffected, would be treated as gods. Where they would be gods.

He had never felt so free, so alive. Everything had become so clear to him. Why had he ever believed that it was wrong to exercise the power that was rightfully theirs?

He threw back his head and laughed; a full bodied, from-deep-in-the-chest sound. A sound of freedom, of triumph.

A voice from the other end of the room broke into his train of thought. “General.” One word.

He looked at the beamer in the other man’s hand. “Father…”

The weapon’s discharge decapitated him instantly. The only way. There could be no goodbyes, no final words. His father had done the only thing he could. It was, after all, the only Ethical thing to do.

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