REVELATION: Book One of THE RECARN CHRONICLES (17 page)

In the lavish room that had
until recently been Nathan’s seat of power, Thomas shifted around
in the large leather seat until he felt comfortable. He had
initially used the chair that matched the original beautifully
carved wooden desk but he had succumbed to using a more modern and
comfortable executive chair, that gave his weakened body more
support. The desk was far too ornate for Thomas’s taste but it had
been the seat of operations for the Pindar since the inception of
the organization in the 1760s. It had seen Nathan leave and return
in various incarnations and had seen several temporary Pindars
ensconced behind it whilst awaiting Nathan’s return. It had
survived the brief period when the organization was known as the
Perfectibilists, it had survived the two hundred and fifty years or
so of the Illuminati, and was still present now that the Illuminati
had metamorphasised into the New Perfectibilists. It also had the
large Illuminati symbol, the all-seeing eye within a pyramid,
carved into the front of the desk. Thomas didn’t want to tempt fate
by changing it

This seat would be his for
twenty years or so and then he would relinquish it to its rightful
owner without a murmur of protest. That was the published plan. But
that was Nathan’s plan. It was important that Nathan didn’t suspect
anything and to the observer, it would appear that Thomas was
simply continuing Nathan’s efforts on pet projects. It was actually
part of his remit. Nathan certainly wouldn’t want to come back to
reclaim his position and discover that the projects had been
stagnating in his absence.

The challenges of these
projects were immense. The soul was known to exist, there was no
disputing that fact. Reincarnation had confirmed its existence. But
what form did it take? It was generally accepted that the soul was
sentient energy but its very nature posed numerous problems. How
could this energy be trapped and contained? How could it be placed
accurately into its new host body? These were not the kind of
problems that would be resolved in a few months. Ever since
technology had advanced sufficiently to make this transference
theoretically possible, The Order had had teams of researchers
laying the groundwork for this more focused research.

The room was spacious and
decorated in a tasteful pastel apricot colour, although the patient
could change the colour of the décor at the flick of a switch.
There was a small bedside cupboard with two drawers to the left of
Ana Lucia’s state-of-the-art hospital bed, and beyond that there
were a matching armchair and sofa-be
d. An
integrated
TV/computer monitor was sitting on top of the bedside
cupboard. To the right, were the medical necessities; the health
and vital functions monitoring system, a sink, an
antiseptic
gel dispenser, and an as yet unused intravenous
drip stand.

Ana Lucia was feeling a
little anxious. She checked the time on her Rolex wristwatch which
was alongside her on top of the bedside cupboard. It was 10:20 in
the morning. She was sure that the surgical procedure had been
booked for 10:15 a.m. Her husband Roberto had gone to find a member
of the nursing staff to find out why things were running late, but
they shouldn’t have worried really – this was Brazil, after all,
and Brazilians are notorious for not being slaves to the clock.
However, she imagined that a hospital should be more punctual about
its schedules.

This was the date that their
daughter was due to be born. Fortunately the birth wouldn’t
inconvenience their professional lives as October was the month
during which Roberto took his annual leave and he would be able to
spend more time with his wife and new daughter. Ana Lucia would
still have a Caesarian Section though; they didn’t want to waste
the rest of the holiday period wondering when baby Érica would be
born. They felt lucky that their obstetrician was free on that day;
he was highly respected in the city of Salvador and therefore in
great demand. Doctor Anibal Pereira was also a family friend and
was only too pleased to be participating in the birth of his
friends’ baby.

At 10:22 Roberto returned
with the elusive Doctor Pereira. The doctor kissed Ana Lucia once
on each cheek and apologised.

“Sorry about the delay. A
slight problem that needed resolving. Nothing to worry
about.”

Ana Lucia, relieved, told
him not to worry, that she wasn’t going anywhere. The doctor looked
at her and winked.

“So, my dear, are you ready
to bring your little one into the world?”

Ana Lucia smiled and
nodded.

Two hours later, after Ana
Lucia had recovered a little from the ordeal, the couple was back
in the private room, but this time with baby Érica in a cot at the
end of the bed.

Érica appeared no different
from any other baby in the world. She had ten tiny fingers and ten
tiny toes. She had beautiful brown eyes and a few wisps of hair
straddling the top of her head. She blinked her eyes trying to
focus on objects in the room but it was hard work and so she
drifted off to sleep. She would spend the next six or seven years
in complete ignorance of who she had once been, but as soon as the
memory of Nathan Smith returned from the dark recesses of her mind,
she could set about organising her return to the Illuminati and
regaining the Pindarship – her birthright.

It was raining and there was a chill in the air as the girl
cowered in the pawn shop doorway, trying to keep dry. She had
entertained herself for a while by looking through the mesh grill
covering the window at the goods that hadn’t been reclaimed by
their owners in time and were now available for anybody to buy,
until the rain began to fall and she retreated to the relative
shelter of the doorway. She had particularly liked the guitar to
the right of the display and wondered what could have driven
someone to pawn such a beautiful instrument. Then she realised that
if she had had a guitar she, herself, would probably have sold it
by now. At least the original owner of the guitar had, at one time,
harboured the hope and intention to be reunited with his or her
instrument.

.She had the look of someone who had been living on the
streets for far too long. Each breath was clearly visible as it
left her lips, like smoke from an invisible cigarette. She wished
she could go home, back to the comforts of a family home but she
knew that her family - well, her father principally - would never
accept her and her unborn child. It was over five months since she
had fallen pregnant, the result of a fumbled and less than romantic
encounter in the back of a van. She had drunk too much at a
Saturday night party and she was now carrying the result of this
triste in her belly. Abortion hadn't been an option. It was bad
enough that she was having a baby at the age of sixteen, which had
alienated her father, but her mother could never have accepted it
if she had terminated the pregnancy. She didn't want to turn both
her parents against her. She didn’t want to completely burn her
bridges behind her.

There weren't many people on the street that night; a few
couples walking home from a night out, a group of six men - noisy
but harmless - ending a night of hard drinking, proclaiming their
drunken love for one another, and a well-dressed young man in a
leather jacket, T-shirt and jeans. He stopped as he drew alongside
the girl.

"It's cold tonight isn't it?"

The girl looked at him and wondered if he expected a prize for
stating the obvious.

"Yes."

"I'm a little bit lost actually. I'm supposed to be staying at
a mate's house tonight but I can't find it. Maybe you can help
me."

"Maybe."

"I've got it written down on a piece of paper. I'll show
you."

The girl wondered if this guy was a bit simple. Surely, all he
had to do was to enter the address into his mobile phone and GPS
would guide him to his friend’s house. She was sorely tempted to
point this out to him, but thought better of it. She was alone on
the street and didn't want to antagonise the stranger. The man
pulled a folded piece of paper from his jeans pocket and carefully
opened it up, holding it in the palm of his hand. The writing was
small and the girl had to lean in closer in order to be able to
read what was written. The man also leaned forward and blew onto
the paper with great concentration, a fine powder leaving the
paper's surface and floating into the girl’s mouth and nostrils.
She felt giddy. The man spoke again.

"It's not a night for a young lady in your condition to be
staying on the streets. I think you should come with me to my
friend's house. We'll look after you."

The girl felt very disorientated and didn't want to go with
him but she felt as if the energy to resist had been drained from
her. She'd spent plenty of nights worse than this on the streets.
She didn't know who this guy was, she'd never met him before. He
could be a rapist or a murderer, for all she knew. But she didn’t
have the energy to stop herself from agreeing.

"OK. I'll come with you."

The man raised his arm and a black van appeared from round the
corner of the street. As it pulled up, a sliding door opened and
the girl got in, willingly. The man closed the side door of the
van, locking it for security, just in case the girl came to her
senses and tried to escape, although he doubted that would happen
as the scopolamine powder had the girl under its control. He slid
into the front passenger seat and nudged the driver.

"We did well tonight. Looking at her belly I reckon this one
is at just about ripe enough for what we need."

There was no friend's house. Instead, the van pulled up at the
rear entrance of a cancer research facility which was, in reality,
a front for Illuminati experimentation. A laboratory assistant,
wearing a freshly ironed white coat, creases so sharp that you
could cut your finger on them, was waiting with a wheelchair, not
for any compassionate reason but simply to expedite the journey
from the loading bay to Lab A1. The girl was wheeled into a
side-room where an ultrasound scan of her belly was hastily done.
Tonight's catch was particularly good. She was at exactly the right
stage of her pregnancy, meaning that they wouldn't have to waste
time and resources feeding and housing her. The extraction could
take place immediately.

Arriving outside Lab A1, the girl was told to get out of the
wheelchair, go inside the room, strip off all her clothes and lay
down on the operating table. She did this with no hint of
embarrassment, for she was still heavily under the influence of the
scopolamine
dust
that had been blown into her face forty minutes
earlier.

The laboratory was sparsely furnished. The operating table was
more like an autopsy table, cold and metallic to the touch,
perforated with dozens of 1cm holes so that any blood or
superfluous bodily fluids could drain into the waste reservoir
situated underneath. Other than the operating table the only other
piece of equipment was what appeared to be a baby incubator
connected by a small airlock to a second incubator which was much
larger than the first. There were many wires and tubes attached to
the apparatus, most of which were to monitor the vital signs of the
inhabitants of the contraption. The girl could see the unusual
medical equipment, and was mildly curious, but the hold of the
scopolamine on her mind was too strong and she made no effort to
inquire about her predicament.

As she lay on her back, naked and prone, her slightly swollen
belly glistening with sweat under the heat of the lights, a lab
technician passed a scalpel to the surgeon before walking over to
the larger of the two incubators.

Inside this incubator lay a naked man.

Ray Greenway had terminal congenital heart failure and had
volunteered for this experiment; he had nothing to lose. He hadn’t
been told that he wasn’t expected to survive the experiment and was
under the impression that this had been done before. He thought
that his soul would be transferred to the foetus and he would be
born to this girl and the two of them would be cared for and would
want for nothing. He was very relaxed and was idly remembering the
best parts of his previous lives.

The scientists had performed a lot of research on the human
brain and had succeeded in identifying where the soul resided. That
was actually the easy part. The more difficult challenge was to
find a way to extract the soul and place it into another
body.

The plan that day was to insert the soul of a recently
deceased adult into a baby. Many attempts had been made so far and
none had met with success but Professor Georgiy Ivanov had come up
with a radical new theory and that was what they were about to test
now.

A lab technician stood by the large incubator waiting for a
signal from Professor Ivanov who, in turn, was standing by the
girl’s autopsy table. He nodded to the lab technician who pressed a
button on the control panel of Ray Greenway’s transparent chamber
and Ray began to splutter as the air was sucked out of the
incubator.

Simultaneously Professor Ivanov pressed his scalpel into the
flesh of the naked girl’s belly, slicing through her smooth skin
and opening up the wall of her womb. This time she did react and
cried out with a mixture of pain and terror as Professor Ivanov
slid his hand nonchalantly inside her womb and withdrew her
baby.