The Infinite Evolution - Conversion (54 page)

“
You think?” replied Karl in a disgruntled
tone.

“
Now, now, kids, there’s no need
to fight,” announced Oliver with a smile.

“
I’m glad you think this is funny,” replied
Melissa.

“
Calm down, relax – we’ll be fine,” said
Oliver.

Karl interrupted, “I’m not so sure about that.”

“
What do you mean?” asked Melissa.

“
The steering, I’m no longer able
to steer for some reason, nor can I slow down, and we’re heading
directly for that hole.”

“
That must be the magnetic attraction,” said
Melissa.

“
I find your theories fascinating
honey, but I feel it’s time for us to disembark. Jump out,” ordered
Oliver.

“
What, are you crazy? We’re going
50 mph!” said Karl surprisingly.

Oliver simply said, “Fine, you
stay. My daughter and I are leaving.” As he reached over to open
the passenger’s side door, he soon realized it only opened a few
inches, certainly not enough for them to exit.

“
The shielding must be blocking you from
opening the door,” said Melissa.

“
You think?” replied Oliver.

“
Occam’s razor,” said Karl.

At that point, the three of them
looked at each other and started laughing, but soon stopped when
Karl pointed out a C-130 Hercules in the air. Within seconds of him
spotting it, a large lime green payload was deployed, with a
parachute attached to it, and from his perspective this payload was
headed directly towards the hole.

“
Is this for real? They just
dropped a MOAB,” yelled Oliver who finally showed some real concern
about their current situation.

“
What’s a MOAB?” asked Melissa.

“
It’s an outdated ordinance
weapon, but it still puts out a huge bang. It stands for massive
ordinance air blast. Back in the early two thousands it was also
called the Mother Of All Bombs. When it was developed, it was said
to be the most powerful non-nuclear bomb ever. If this day could’ve
gotten any worse, it just did.”

“
So what is its blast radius?” asked
Karl.

“
It’s about 450 feet and the shockwaves
created in the air burst are estimated to destroy up to nine city
blocks, but who knows what this one was modified to do.”

“
Well, one would think that this was a little
excessive,” commented Melissa.

“
Let’s just hope the shielding holds,” said
Oliver.

“
Great we’re going to plummet to
our death while exploding in an enormous blast, what a way to go,”
said Karl as he took hold of Melissa’s hand.

As they approached the hole, all
three held on and allowed the uncontrollable moment to take them
wherever it decided to go. As the dump truck started its free-fall
downward, the exterior shielding started to slow their decent, and
then an unimaginable explosion from above occurred, MOAB had
detonated. The sheer force of this explosion pushed out in all
directions, forcing the walls of the massive hole to give in. A
wall of flaming debris fell downward onto the ellipse, which had
not yet fully encompassed the entranceway that led into the hole.
At the bottom sat an underground tunneling device (UTD), which was
in the process of removing the shielding on the lower half of the
dump truck. Before it could complete its task, the force of the
explosion had decimated the ellipse shielding from above,
destroying the dump truck, and the UTD. The structure of the
massive hole finally proceeded to collapse onto itself and left an
enormous crater filled with debris.

Conversion

As Spencer’s consciousness was
transmitted through the interior systems of the underground
facility, he was easily able to access and dismantle all of its
firewalls. He was unaware the facility had lost its main power and
was currently being maintained by back up generators. Spencer was
also unaware his own consciousness had supplied necessary power to
critical systems he needed to bypass in order to allow for his
escape. These new abilities Spencer had obtained were operating
involuntarily. He did not truly comprehend this, but he was
certainly going to embrace it. After hacking a variety of systems,
Spencer transmitted himself off the base, via an orbiting
satellite, and into cyberspace. Spencer Cade was now free from the
normal restraints a humanoid body had placed on him, and was now
able to tour almost any computer system with the utmost ease by way
of the Internet.

As parts of Spencer’s
consciousness were jumping from server to server, he was learning
at an astonishing rate. His intent was to do no harm, but it was
difficult at first, due to the steep learning curve. It was as if
someone had given a sports car to a thirteen year old. Yes, there
were a few servers that Spencer accidentally crashed, but nothing
that caused any serious damage or inconvenience. These activities
had gone on for days until Spencer asked himself what would be the
best way to communicate with the masses. He needed to spread his
message and educate the people of Earth about the harvesting of
their minds in a way, which would not create mass hysteria. But
how? What method could he use? Where could he go to post
information about what he knew? Spencer did not want to only share
this information, but he also wanted to listen in order to learn
from citizens of this planet. He needed some kind of forum. Then it
came to him, he needed a social network to create his dialog. “Yes,
why didn’t I think of this sooner,” Spencer thought to himself. “I
can create a website for my newfound knowledge. This seemed to be
the most logical venue. On this site I will continue to share what
I have learned about this unknown alien presence, as well as the
suspected corruption within Central Circuit and certain aliens of
Tureis. Within a few microseconds, Spencer created this website and
named it,
www.theinfiniteevolution.org.

Once completed Spencer decided he was going to need
a humanoid body to occupy when needed. Knowing he was unable to
completely download to a biological life form for long periods, he
decided to focus on the only other option, Adam.

Three days had passed since the
massive power outage at the LP, and once it was back up and running
at full capacity, Jade and Reece were released with an undercover
security detachment. Both were informed this security was only for
their protection, and it was not intended to spy on
them.

“
Well, Jade, I have to say it was
a pleasure working with you, and I hope our paths cross again. Do
you know how to contact us if you need to?” asked Commander
Calchera.

Jade remembered her readings from
online and replied, “Yes, all I have to do is go to a public
terminal, dial
7778993, and provide my
name.”

Commander Calchera
interrupted, “Don’t worry about giving your real
name, all you need to give is your call name, ‘Enlightened.’ You
can also inform one of the nearby agents, that’s if you can figure
out who they are.”

“
Is that a challenge?” asked Jade
optimistically.

“
Absolutely not we need to take this very
seriously. If your data is correct, everyone on this planet will
learn of the extraterrestrial incursion in the next ten days. Who
knows what type of civil distress we may see.”

“
I’m sorry,” said Jade. “I
should’ve never chosen that option.”

“
Yes, you should have young lady.
By doing so, you have not only freed our planet, but you revealed a
major cover up. The road ahead will be bumpy, but I truly believe
our society will persevere.”

“
I guess,” said Jade, still not
feeling reassured.

“
Now go, we need to prepare for the
conversion.”

Both Jade and Reece were
transported to the surface where they found a car waiting for them.
Jade tried to convince Reece to let her drive, but this turned out
to be a futile endeavor. Reece drove out of the woods and headed
home. He soon realized he had failed to meet up with Scott and
thought how worried he must be, so Reece quickly tried to reach
him, but was unable to get through.

When Jade and Reece arrived home,
Jade immediately ran in and greeted HICAMS, she was very excited to
be back in an environment where she had control of her
surroundings. As ordered, she kept her adventure relatively quiet,
but occasionally slipped when speaking to HICAMS. Jade asked HICAMS
to recover all extraterrestrial involvements within Earth’s history
and was amazed how much information was out there. After HICAMS
assisted in weeding out the relevant material from the folklore,
Jade had the rest downloaded to her PIC for a more detailed review.
After the download was completed Jade noticed the brute force
attack she started on HICAMS’ mainframe before leaving for Vermont
had been successful. According to the security log, her hack
succeeded approximately thirteen hours after she implemented it.
Jade realized this was not the time to boast so she decided to keep
her achievement quiet until Reece discovered it. Jade also came to
a second realization, which caused her some concern. By her
successfully hacking HICAMS, she had also disengaged HICAMS’
firewalls and left HICAMS exposed to anyone who wanted to conduct
some type of unlawful access.

After dinner Jade asked Reece if
they were ever going to be able to see Adam again and Reece simply
said, “I don’t know how that would be possible after what happened
at Central Circuit.” This obviously brought great sadness to Jade,
but she tried to accept it.

An hour later, while Reece was
going through HICAMS’ security footage of the residence, he noticed
a four-hour gap in the backup archives of when they were away. He
proceeded to cross-reference those times with his home computer
servers and learned of multiple unauthorized accesses to HICAMS’
program. Reece continued to dig further and to his surprise,
learned that someone had gained control of HICAMS’ base program and
deleted it before coping every file Reece and Jade ever created.
“This was certainly the doing of Central Circuit or some
subsidiary,” thought Reece. There was no other explanation, no one
has the resources and know how to break this level of security and
encryption.

Reece stood up and calmly walked
into Jade’s room and explained to her what he had found. Jade came
clean and told Reece what she had done and how her brute force
attack had left HICAMS exposed. Jade apologized and started to cry
when she realized it was her actions that allowed the enemy to
compromise HICAMS. Reece quickly reassured Jade that it was not her
fault and with the extensive resources that Central Circuit has, it
would have been only a matter of time for them to complete the hack
themselves. Reece explained to Jade that they needed to leave now,
and when she asked why, Reece said, “Trust me, we need to
go.”

Once they were out of the
residence, they entered the car and started to drive away. Moments
later, their entire home exploded, destroying everything including
HICAMS. Nothing but ash and rubble was left, as Jade looked back
with guilt and remorse, thinking to herself, “Reality
bites.”

“
Per orders of Zaccai who is transmitting
remotely from Prime 2’s central location at Mana-dorn Mountain,
this council meeting will now convene, and will be broadcast to all
Tureissians. Members present are Melchior, Mileva, Willow, Uzziah,
Abner, Oshea, Elymas, and Kyria. Please be seated,” spoke the
Admin.

A holographic image became
suspended from
The
Ark’s
dome as it formed into Zaccai’s
silhouette. “I thank you for coming. As you all know, we are in the
dawn of a civil war here on Tureis, an unfortunate fate we have now
encountered. I am saddened to say we have lost yet another council
member, Izri. How he perished is yet unknown, but I am certain it
is the first death that stemmed from this discord. My fellow
citizens, you will soon learn the complete truth of our ancestry
and may be forced to take sides with one of two organizations. As
many might already know, one addresses themselves as the Guardians
and the other as Floaters. The majority of our citizens take
neither party line, and these citizens have unfortunately been
stigmatized with the label of either Drones or Falters. I myself
refuse to align with a faction. I will remain an Impartial
Observer, a Keeper of Records, and a Resolver. I will work with
Prime 2 to keep the majority voice in power and prevent corruption
from filling the minds of anyone who is foolish enough to fall to
its pathetic temptations. In order to do this I have sealed myself
within
Mana-dorn Mountain for evermore.
Once the majority has prevailed I will merge my
consciousness
into Prime 2 and
create an upgrade known as Prime 3.”

Small chatter started to fill the great chamber, as
its citizens eagerly awaited Zaccai’s next words.

“
I implore all citizens of this
great planet to keep their minds open, to not be static with your
beliefs, embrace change, do not always choose the easier path, and
most of all, treat people around you with the courtesy you so seek
yourselves. My last request is for our council members to stand up
and declare their true agenda, announce their true beliefs, and to
reveal if they have aligned themselves with a faction.”