King of the Dark Mountain (17 page)

“No, that’s not a good idea,” Ted said.

“You don’t seem to understand the fix we’re in. Those people have a lot of power. If they don’t get a good explanation from us about what we intend to do to fix the problem, we’re in deep shit.”

“What can they do?”

“What can’t they do? They invested a lot of money in helping us keep this operation running. They were promised a good dose of the cosmic energy.”

“It’s their own damned fault for the failure, you said so yourself.”

“They will not see it that way. We’re going to have to come up with an explanation and a plan to fix the problem that will satisfy them.”

“I don’t see how. “

“That’s why we need a meeting with some higher ups. We’ve got to brain storm the situation and come up with a plan.”

Ted threw up his hands. “Fine, I’ll meet all day and the rest of the night. Whatever it takes just let Mrs. Ewing get some rest. She’s been through a lot.”

“I want to attend the meeting. My husband is involved in this; I have a right.”

“No, that won’t be possible. We would not be able to clear it fast enough.”

“Samantha, I’ll fill you in on everything. I’ll get a transcript if possible. Just go rest for now and we’ll talk later.”

She nodded. “Alright. I trust you, Ted.” She threw a dismissive look at Aleister. The latter spoke into a microphone and a woman appeared.

“Take Mrs. Ewing somewhere where she can lie down,” Aleister said.

“Come this way, please,” the woman said. Samantha gave Ted a sympathetic look and followed her out of the room.

“Now, let’s go over some details about the event that will make it clear that we were not intentionally planning what happened. I am going to tell them how Ellie told me she couldn’t do anything with the energy and I told her to go ahead and direct it into the local chain of mountains and to forget about cycling it. You need to explain how you had plainly stated in the notes that she should send it to the person designated as the Receptor. You can tell them you intended to be that person, but unforeseen circumstances drew you away from the project.”

“I don’t even know how she knew to receive it from over there. So much of this was deliberately kept obscure and I’m supposed to be a chief architect of the whole thing. They tried to use my knowledge, without keeping us informed, so it blew up on them, too bad.”

Aleister gave him an exasperated look. “We have to give them the benefit of the doubt and treat them as injured parties.”

“Why? They screwed up, with their stupid secret agenda; I see no reason to cooperate with them in the slightest now.”

“You just don’t grasp what we’re dealing with here.” He rubbed his jaw, and stared at the floor for a moment. “Okay, I’ve got it,” he began to scroll through some files on his laptop. “I want you to listen to what this man has to say. He worked for them for a number of years. Last year he came to us with documents proving what he’s going to describe.” On the wall appeared a video of a man with heavy glasses, speaking in a monotone with an accent of some sort, which made him a little difficult to understand.

“My name is Igor Slanavich. I was recruited in my university days to assist in designing a method to activate the pineal capacity of large segments of the population. We targeted several small villages in my country with some success. We were able to get them to relay vast amounts of data through this activation, mainly during sleep. It was a great success, but it had disturbing side effects for the subjects involved. In a matter of months, the villagers began to show alarming rates of obesity. This continued until we shut down the program. I went to work for Vedazeda Inc. soon after these experiments and we designed a protocol to target entire countries, using basically the same approach.”

“At first I did not understand what the nature of the information they wanted to relay could be. They claimed it was for the betterment of the population but the obesity rates accrued in the same way as among the villagers in the targeted countries. I persisted in trying to find out what information they were actually relaying. Finally, I was told that they were planning to instill all the scientific information gathered for the past hundred years in every field into the minds of a few elite who could assimilate the knowledge and take humanity to the next leap forward.”

“They claimed to be working on a project which would link this data collection to a specific stellar event in order to gain the maximum amount of infusion, as they called it. We had designed a method to read the information while the subjects slept using specially designed crystals to focus it to a point inside a granite structure. We were told that the stellar event would likewise be directed from granite structures and that when it came about, it would augment the information already stored to allow a totally superior form of human to be created. This was considered a great mission, and the destructiveness to the subjects who provided the relay of the information of little consequence. I have brought the protocols…” At this point the man began to blink at the camera. He started to hyperventilate. Some shouting occurred off camera and the video stopped.

“Mr. Slanavich died after giving this deposition. There were some unusual structures found inside his heart when an autopsy was performed. We are still analyzing them, trying to figure out if they were implanted there to be activated in case of a breach of confidentiality. If so, we were lucky he was able to give us the amount of information that he did.”

“So they’re using the pineal gland of people to convey data?”

“The pineal gland has long been reputed to be involved in psychic visions. There are light sensing cells inside of it. I suppose they figured out a way to get it to work for them. Since the gland also plays a role in metabolism that might explain why their use of it for their purposes causes it to malfunction for its normal purposes.”

“So is this the nature of the secret agenda?”

“We believe there’s more to it. We believe they have some kind of plan to alter the surface of the Earth once they take control of the future course of human evolution, using the force that Ellie deprived them of.”

“All this does is prove to me that we should obstruct them in every way possible,” Ted said.

“Does it seem of little consequence to you that they were willing to create an obesity epidemic in order to further their agenda? Do you think they would stop at even more deadly methods of mass control if it suited their purposes? We have to face the facts. They’re ruthless and we have no other choice but to try to direct them in the least lethal direction possible. We can only do that, if they think we are still playing ball with them. If they suspect we are out to sabotage their agenda, there’s no telling what they would do.”

“You mean to us?”

“I mean to everyone. We don’t have a clear grasp of what they’re up to. We need to learn as much as we can and continue from there.”

“The problem with that idea is that while we’re gathering information, they’re growing stronger. It could be that by the time we have figured out the true nature of their intentions, it will be too late to stop them.”

“I think we’re way past any chance of stopping them. I think all we can do is direct them. I think we can negotiate a plan.”

Ted laughed. “Surely, you know the history of groups who have had an idea about imposing their notions of a perfected humanity on the world.”

“This isn’t like that. There’s no racist agenda.”

“Oh really? I think you’re wrong. You just said they want to direct the course of human evolution. That could mean any number of things, but nothing good for most people whatever their race might be.”

“You can’t know what their intentions are.”

“But you do? It seems to me we would be wildly naïve to appease them. I think we need to think in terms of shutting them down.”

“How do you suggest we do that?”

“We’ve just loaded this whole mountain range with the fire of creation. Surely there’s a way to use that power to contain them.”

Aleister blinked at him, “You’re not talking about weaponizing it, are you? Because we know it can’t be used for destruction.”

Ted paused for a moment and reflected, “Listen Rike, I’ve always had a sense that they had some goal of mass annihilation. I didn’t have the complete picture, but some of the information we got about them early on suggested they were moving in that direction.”

“If you’re talking about that crap reported by that Brewster fellow we sent over, you know we determined all of that was just the guy getting paranoid and delusional from getting sent through the king’s chamber device. It’s a shame too, he was a bright guy. Our latest data shows that one way trips are okay, it’s the return that gets them.”

“That’s information you should have shared before we sent Ellie’s brother through.”

“Why, so you could keep him over here? We had to send him through to get the whole operation in gear.”

Ted shook his head and raised his voice, “It astounds me how much you people kept hidden from me.” He glared at the other man, then added softly, “Well hopefully they won’t send him back the same way, and we’ll be able to get him out somehow or other. But you have to believe me, they’re planning something massively devastating to the human race.”

Aleister considered for a moment. “Listen, it’s been a long day. Go get some rest, in the morning we’ll get to work again and figure things out.”

Ted nodded. “You’re right. It’s been an amazing day and I’m worn out. I need to do some thinking about all of this too.”

“I want to present the situation to my superiors in light of what you’re saying. I think we’ve gotten used to thinking about getting along with those people, without really considering the long term ramifications.”

“I think you changed the power dynamic the moment you advised Ellie to keep the energy over here,” Ted said. “It might provide a real opportunity to direct the entire project in a direction that will truly serve humanity, rather than enslave or destroy it.”

“It’s worth considering,” Aleister said. “I’ll let you get some rest now; we’ll talk more about this in the morning.” He left the room and Ted sat down on the sofa. His mind was spinning with many thoughts, but a deep weariness was taking hold. He decided to go to sleep where he was in case Ellie woke up and needed him.

Chapter Sixteen

Ellie thought she heard voices coming from the next room. She struggled to wake up; a sense of overwhelming doom pervading her soul. She needed desperately to talk to Hez. He knew something that Ted needed to know. Something was going on with the people who had Hez. He was in mortal danger. She finally managed to fling off the comforter and sit up in bed. The room seemed to fade in and out of focus. She was very thirsty. She slowly got up and managed a few steps, but her head was spinning. She worked her way to the bathroom and ran a glass of water out of the faucet. It tasted very cold and refreshing. She took deep breaths and stood in front of the mirror for a moment before returning to bed.

She fell back onto the bed, trembling and the thought occurred to her that Hez would be there soon. She didn’t know how she knew this, but it was the case. It was a relief to think about seeing him again. How strange that less than six months had passed since he had sent her on her way on the Trail, and yet so much had changed. She felt an overwhelming longing to be home in their little house, sitting on the swing watching the sun set over the mountain. They used to take flowers to the graves of departed family members buried on top of that hill. Some of the graves were old, from when the first settlers had come into the area. Gran knew who they were, and how they were related. Now she was buried there too.

The thought of this made her feel both very sad and very comforted. It was good to think that Gran was buried close to their house and that they could put flowers on her grave. When all of this was over, it was one of the first things she intended to do. She could see herself kneeling down, patting the ground. Hez would be standing nearby, with his hand stuffed inside of his jacket, near his waist. He always stood like that, pressing his stomach to stay calm. She drifted off with thoughts of Hez and Gran and home.

*

She did not know how long she had dozed when she thought she heard voices again, coming from the next room. But when she opened her eyes she was not in the little room with the picture of the waterfall; instead, she was looking down on a scene, as though from a balcony. Below her were about a dozen men, sitting at a table, some of them were smoking. One of them was gesticulating wildly and the others were paying close attention to what he said. They’re acting like they’re all good friends, but they are afraid of him, she thought. They want to flatter him, because he holds the key to something they want. All of these were impressions that came into her mind as she watched the scene play out as though on a movie screen.

“We’ve been double crossed, but we can put a remedy in place that will make it all good. In fact, this little mishap may prove to be a blessing in disguise,” the man said with a quick smile. “I think we may be able to proceed ahead of schedule with Operation Cripton. For those of you not up to speed on the latest developments, we have prepared a little video.” The space behind him lit up with an image that at first she took to be a statue. It reminded her of the Oscar statue, but in a few moments she saw that it was some kind of animated human form.

The image began to speak. “I stand before you the perfect realization of many years of labor and perseverance. I and my brothers have come into being to exemplify the perfection to which humanity has been groping for untold ages. Each of you sitting at this table tonight will have an immortal son to carry all your superior qualities into a future of unimaginable glory. We have been created from the fusion of pairs of brothers, with no taint of the inferior input of the lesser type which we will not mention here. Soon all memory that such a creature tarnished the earth with its stultifying presence will be completely eliminated. I and my twelve brothers are all that humanity could ever desire for its ultimate fruition and I honor you sitting there tonight as the true fathers of this magnificent flowering.” The image flickered a moment and then dissolved away.

“But how can this be accomplished now?” An old man with great jowls demanded. He alone of the crew seemed unimpressed with the original speaker and had sat sullenly throughout the meeting, somewhat a part. “I thought we needed to get the genetic material energized for it to be able to form the thirteen. And now, you tell us that stupid girl kept the energy on the other side.”

“Yes, but we’re going to take the material over and get it done there. As I said, this may even prove to be an improvement over the original plan. I looked at some satellite photos of the event and for some reason the girl guided the main brunt of the energy into one particular mountain. We can take the thirteen there and create even mightier forms because the energy will no doubt be extremely strong in that spot.”

The old man’s scowl deepened. “And where exactly is that spot?”

“We’ve had some trouble zeroing in on it,” the main speaker replied a little nervously. “Every time we feed the coordinates into the system, it gives back contradictory information. It’s probably due to the anomalous nature of the energy in question, but it’s a mere technical difficulty. We’ll get it ironed out soon.”

“All of us sitting at this table have invested a great deal of money in this project. We were promised we would have our offspring enhanced as soon as the stellar power was set loose, and now, you’re telling us we have to go through yet another stage and you don’t even know where. How can we be sure it will even work?”

“It will, it will,” the other man said, with a nervous flourish of his hand. “No need to concern yourself. Once we’ve figured out the exact location where the girl guided the energy, we can take the thirteen over and saturate them in the power.”

“So you’ll take them over there in their artificial wombs and leave them there? Sounds risky, and that will turn them into Americans won’t it? They’ll be native born citizens of that insane place,” the old man said. There was grumbling at the latter statement.

“Please don’t use that revolting word to describe these masterpieces of modern engineering; these are state of the art developmental chambers,” the other man replied, ignoring the citizenship issue raised.

“Well, I want the perfect specimen that you have been touting ever since we gave you the first million to seed this project,” the old man said. “If for no other reason now than to honor the memory of Reginald.”

“Believe me Chapman; all will be as we promised. You will never regret providing the seed to create these perfect human specimens.”

“Harrumph!” the old man said. “I never had offspring because I couldn’t abide most people, and certainly never wanted to be responsible for creating any more. If you hadn’t come to me with the promise of a perfect son, I would have died happily a childless man. Now I am beginning to wonder if you dunderheads will ever get this thing done.”

“Chapman, it’s all coming along. Let’s give Reymar another shot, surely you can accommodate one more little delay,” said the man sitting to the left of the main speaker. Ellie looked closely at him and realized he was James Edsell a well-known entrepreneur, responsible for revolutionizing one component of how the internet functioned. She wondered what he made of the general disapproval of his homeland displayed by most of the others. As this thought occurred to her, the room began to fade and though she tried to hold onto the image, it dissolved completely into the familiar surroundings of her room inside the White Mountain.

*

She got out of bed and went to the living room. Ted was sleeping on the sofa. She went over and woke him. “I’ve had a terrible vision,” she said and then went on to describe what she had witnessed.

Ted came fully awake and listened intently as she spoke. “And did you recognize anyone besides James Edsell?” he asked when she was done.

“No, not by name, though the main speaker looked familiar. Do you think it was an actual event? Because it definitely felt that way. It seemed I was watching them from above, but I can’t say how I was there, you know?”

“It could be some effect of the creation light on you. More than anyone it should affect you, since you got the most direct contact with it.”

After a moment he added, “Those bastards! Imagine trying to rid the world of half the human race. And the better half most of the time, I might add.” He looked at her with a startled expression, “And it explains their reasons for planning to eliminate much of humanity as a whole. It’s funny; I assumed it was just for the pure pleasure of murder. But those types, like to think they’re supremely rational, no matter how insane their actions.”

“They’re going to bring the embryos over and expose them to the light we’ve saved. They have to be stopped,” Ellie said glumly.

“Don’t worry, we won’t allow them to get away with their rotten plot. It sounds like the Edsell clan has been up to more than stocking the US senate with members and buying up half the Appalachians. From what I’ve heard tell, they’ve been involved in some of the worst environmental abuses, destroying mountains and polluting the water supplies of whole regions. I guess they figure they can build a better mountain after they get their better human in place.”

“You could be right. I think the mountain they were meeting in wasn’t natural. It felt different than a mountain, but like something I might have felt before.”

“We know they’re set up in a spur off the Urals, though they’ve kept the exact location a closely guarded secret. We developed this site based on the Great Pyramid design as much as that is possible, given our modern limitations. They might have gotten farther with developing a replica of the thing. All our engineers say it can’t be done, but what’s possible is always up for grabs, especially these days.”

Suddenly she began to tremble and a tear trickled down, which she brushed quickly away. “I’m sorry, I just feel so overwhelmed by all of this.”

“You need to get more rest.”

She shook her head, “No, I’ll be alright, we have to keep working. I had a strong feeling earlier that Hez would be coming here. Maybe they’ll bring him along with their super clones or whatever you want to call them.”

“You know I have Richard Ewing’s wife here too. She says they’ve been holding her husband for a year now.”

She nodded, “I saw her with you during the event. I love her husband’s books but why would they be holding him?”

“I don’t know. I guess they think he’s got some unusual insights they might be able to use.”

“Come to think of it, he did write this one book about genetically engineered cyborgs I think they were. That’s somewhat along the lines of what those clowns are up to.”

“I’m sure Mr. Ewing showed the dark side of such experimentations.”

“He did, but maybe they missed the point.”

“Yes, that too makes perfect sense, given all that we’ve seen.” He gave her a long searching look, “You still look pale, are you sure you’re okay?”

She smiled at him weakly. “I felt kind of strung out, like a bad hang over, but that’s going away. I think talking to you about it is helping. You always make me feel that things will be alright. Oh shoot, that reminds me, how is Irena?”

“She’s doing better too. I talked to her on the phone just for a moment or two, she sounded weak but okay.”

“That’s odd. You told me that we couldn’t get calls from the outside here.”

“It’s the only call I’ve ever received while I’ve been here. It may be they’ve opened up somewhat. It also appears that they’re moving people out.” He shrugged, “Well, it definitely was her voice, so I’m not going to worry about it right now. We’ve got a lot to do before the other side gets here.”

“Do you think the people who work here understand the danger?”

“They’re beginning to. We’re supposed to meet with them shortly. I want you to tell them what you saw. They will be skeptical and consider it a possible hallucination. Be sure to mention that you saw James Edsell. They know he’s involved with the other side, but you didn’t know, so that certainly lends credibility to what you saw in your vision.”

She nodded. “How did they know about who is involved on the other side?”

“Some of their information is gained from intelligence operations. They pretended to be partnering with us, but that was probably just a ruse to get information as well. It’s all so extremely complex.”

“But you brought me on board by telling me how evil they are and how we have to stand against them,” she said.

“And that is the case, but I didn’t have enough information to make the case before. But all that you saw tallies with our worst suspicions, so it will be easier to convince Aleister and the rest. I’ve already spoken about it to him and I’m pretty sure he’s convinced that we have to go against them now.”

“But you’re not certain?”

“He’s supposed to be clarifying matters with his superiors. We’ll get it all hashed out shortly. I didn’t mean to mislead you, Ellie, but this situation is so complicated, I have had to keep a very delicate balance.”

She grimaced and gave him a skeptical look, then smiled weakly. “It must be hell, being in the middle of all of it, the bureaucrats over here, the Nazis over there … me.”

“That’s a fairly apt description of the past several months, but now that all may be coming to a conclusion. We’ve just got to put our heads together and come up with a plan to thwart them.”

“I hope when Hez comes we’ll be able to talk to him about all of this. He’s got a way of sorting through bullshit and getting to the crux of a problem.”