The Belial Search

by R. D. Brady

  Everyone was quiet. Laney was picturing the tail of destruction such an event would cause and the horror of the people knowing there was nothing they could do to stop it.

  Patrick spoke. “There are also many underwater ruins being uncovered in the Pacific, which strongly suggest that an advanced civilization once thrived there. Like the Yonaguni Monument found near Okinawa.”

  “That’s the underwater monoliths they found, right? I thought they were supposed to be natural formations,” Henry said.

  “The jury is still out on that,” Jen said. “You’ve got well-credentialed people on both sides of the debate adamantly claiming it is or is not a man-made formation.”

  Laney knew the claims well. She had been equally fascinated by the find when it hit the news wire. In 1996, a diver contacted Masaaki Kimura, a marine geologist at the University of the Ryukyus in Japan, about an incredible underwater structure he had found off the coast of Yonaguni, one of the westernmost inhabited islands of Japan. It had tall step pyramids, with right angles, archways, even quarry marks on the stones. The structure sank beneath the waves thousands of years ago. The largest structure was a step pyramid 150 meters long, but there were at least an additional ten structures surrounding the pyramid.

  The sinking of such a site was not unbelievable due to the incredible tsunamis that had been reported in that area of the world. In 2011, a 128-foot tsunami had devastated Japan and killed over fifteen thousand people. In 1771, an even larger tsunami was recorded in the same area.

  “And remember,” Patrick said, “that site is near currently populated areas. We’re talking about an empire that existed across the ocean. I mean, we’ve barely scratched the surface of exploring the oceans of this planet. We know more about the Moon than we do about our oceans. There could be literally hundreds of sites that are just waiting to be discovered under the Pacific.”

  Laney knew this was true. Every once in a while a crew would find some incredible site accidentally, like the underwater city of Dwarka in the Bay of Cambay, India. For years, the Indian people had claimed that a fantastic civilization had once existed there. Western archaeologists had scoffed at the idea. Then a city almost ten thousand years old was found, submerged under the waves. Amazing architecture and even human remains had since been found within the city.

  “Then there are all those myths that stretch along Asia about people who escaped a great flood and began civilization,” Jen said.

  “So was Mu just like Atlantis?” Jake asked.

  Patrick shook his head. “No. In fact, it would be safe to say it was the exact opposite.”

  Laney frowned. “How so?”

  “Atlantis was militaristic, materialistic, and technologically advanced,” he said. “They built cities and conquered lands. Mu was the opposite: they were pacifists, not interested in material wealth. They were more concerned with the richness of the spirit than the body.”

  “Like the Children of the Law of One,” Laney said quietly.

  Jen nodded. “Yes. Allegedly, Lemuria had no crime, no laws. Just a priestess who was more of a guide, kind of like the Dalai Lama and a council of advisors.”

  “No crime? How’s that possible?” Jake asked.

  “Well, apparently anyone who went against the lifestyle of the Lemurians was subjected to further spiritual training, even a purification ritual. If that didn’t work, they were exiled.”

  “A purification ritual,” Laney said. “Cain mentioned that.”

  “The exiling is kind of harsh,” Henry said.

  Patrick shook his head. “No, not really. You have to understand that, for Lemurians, it was all about being a good person. Their world revolved around that. In fact, they supposedly looked with both disdain and fear at the Atlanteans’ materialism and military aggression. The Atlanteans in turn thought of the Lemurians as a blind race.”

  “So the Lemurians were a bunch of peace-loving hippies?” Jake asked.

  “Without the drugs, yes,” Patrick said, with the first smile he’d given Jake in weeks.

  “Now why exactly are we talking about another ancient civilization?” Henry asked. “Aren’t we supposed to be finding out who killed Sheila? And a peace-loving, non-violent group doesn’t exactly sound like it would be connected. So what’s the link?”

  “The link is Cain,” Laney said. “He said that the murders were tied to the descendants of Mu.”

  Everyone stared back at Laney. Finally Jake spoke. “You must be joking.”

  Laney shrugged. “That’s what he said.”

  Jen raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, but he’s Cain. You know, cursed by God, all-around not nice person?”

  Laney sighed. “I know, but he’s also been around since, well, forever. He’s seen the world repeat its mistakes time and time again. And honestly, what else do we have to go on? Do we have any other leads?”

  Jake and Henry shook their heads.

  “I’m not saying we drop everything to follow Cain’s idea. But I am saying we should investigate it like we would anything else,” Laney said.

  “Do you trust him?” Patrick asked.

  Laney paused. “Trust him? No. But I don’t think he’s lying about this.”

  “So did he give us a place to start at least?” Jake asked.

  Laney shook her head. “I’m afraid not. So, anyone have any idea where some modern Lemurians might be holing up?”

  Once again, everyone stared back at her.

  She sighed, feeling the impossibility of the task ahead of them. Lemuria had been wiped out thousand of years ago. How were they supposed to trace someone’s lineage back through a flood-deluged history that spread out from the middle of the Pacific to both the Eastern coasts of Asia and the western coasts of both North and South America? Maybe we should just ignore what Cain said and rely on a good old-fashioned criminal investigation for this one.

  She glanced around the group, but no one had any suggestions. Then her Uncle Patrick sat back in his chair, his hand upon his chin, and a tingle of possibility began to nudge away the feeling of defeat in Laney’s mind. “Uncle Patrick?”

  His blue eyes stared into hers. “I may have an idea.”

  CHAPTER 33

  After lunch, Lou Rolly, and Danny headed out of the main building and down to Dom’s bomb shelter. They had wanted to talk to him earlier, but he was working all morning. Cleo found them when they were halfway there and joined them.

  They made their way through the levels of security before stepping into Dom’s front foyer. It was blue with white wainscoting halfway up the wall. Lou always liked how it made the bomb shelter feel like an actual house, and not the full time panic room for a genius agoraphobe.

  The steel door slammed shut behind them. Well, almost like a real house.

  “Back here,” Dom yelled from the main room.

  As soon as Lou cleared the hallway, Cleo rushed past her, knocking her into Rolly. She grabbed onto him with a yell.

  Across the room, Dom let out his own yell. He teetered on a ladder, and Cleo sprinted up to stabilize it before Dom could crash. Shaky Dom looked down at Cleo, who now held the ladder firmly in her paws. “Thanks, Cleo.” He climbed down and gave her a long pat.

  Lou shook her head as they made their way over. “What were you doing?”

  “I set up a sensor for carbon dioxide levels. I needed to check it.”

  “Carbon dioxide? Is there something you want to tell us?” Rolly looked around, worried.

  “No, why?” Dom asked.

  Danny smiled. “Don’t worry. Dom created a new plant that requires less water and may produce more oxygen. He’s seeing how it does in a normal environment.”

  “Normal, right,” Rolly said.

  Lou hugged Dom. “Please, be careful in the future.”

  Dom ducked his head as Lou released him. “I will.” His cheeks bloomed red.

  Rolly took a seat on the giant leather sectional. “So, Doc, we have some questions for you.”

  Dom grinned as he
took a seat as well. “What about? Is it about the water they’ve found on Mars? Because I have a theory that life there might be seasonal. And when it warms—”

  Lou quickly cut in before Dom could go off on Martian life. She knew from experience how hard it would be to get him to focus on something after his mind went wandering down a rabbit hole. “Um, no. We actually wanted to ask you about a doctor named Anthony Ruggio.”

  Dom leaned back. “Anthony Ruggio, Anthony Ruggio. It sounds familiar. Where have I heard—” He blanched. “Oh.”

  “Well, that’s not a good sign,” Rolly muttered.

  “Who is he?” Lou asked.

  “He used to work at Plum Island.” Dom stared at them expectantly.

  “Really?” Danny’s eyes grew large.

  “Um, what’s Plum Island?” Lou asked.

  “Plum Island is a Homeland Security site in the Long Island Sound,” Danny said. “Originally, it was a USDA research facility back in WWII. It’s the highest-level biological research facility outside of the CDC. Its mission is to cure animal ailments like hoof and mouth disease.”

  Dom scoffed. “Right. Cure animal diseases.”

  Rolly leaned forward. “So what’s the real story?”

  “In the 1950s, Plum Island’s research turned to offensive weapons. It was all part of Operation Paperclip,” Dom said.

  “Wait—you mean the Nazi scientists who came to work for the US?” Lou asked. They’d just discussed this last month in one of her classes. After World War II, the United States brought over hundreds of German scientists, engineers, and technicians to work for the United States. A large part of the success of America’s early space program had been attributed to the ingenuity of the project.

  Dom nodded. “The very same. They were attempting to create ways to carry disease to the enemy’s livestock.”

  “Yeah, but that was the fifties. I mean, we know biological warfare research is happening,” Danny said.

  “Right, then explain the Lyme disease outbreak in 1975,” Dom said. “It first occurred in Old Lyme, Connecticut, which coincidentally happens to be about ten miles from Plum Island. In fact, the highest incidence of Lyme disease occurs in Eastern Long Island, right near Plum Island. And there was a 1978 memo which proved that Plum Island was looking at ticks as a means of carrying disease.”

  Lou sat back. “You think they created Lyme disease?”

  “Yes, I do. And I think they found a way to disperse it. I don’t know if it was a test run or an accident, but it can’t be a mere coincidence that they were researching it and then, lo and behold, there’s an outbreak nearby.”

  Danny shook his head. “But that’s just—”

  Dom cut him off. “Then there’s the West Nile virus. Ten thousand birds and twenty-six people died in the 1999 outbreak—once again near Plum Island. A tourist from Africa was blamed, but the virus isn’t transferred from human to human, and certainly not from human to bird.”

  “Okay, but what does this have to do with this Ruggio guy?” Rolly asked.

  “Anthony Ruggio’s specialty is genetic and animal physiology. He was on the forefront of animal hybridization experiments for years,” Dom said.

  “Let me guess. At Plum Island?” Lou said.

  “Yup.” Dom pulled his tablet over from the middle of the coffee table. “Where is it?” he muttered, and his fingers flew across the screen. “Ah, there it is.” He turned the screen around for Lou and Rolly to see.

  “That cannot be real,” Rolly said, his tone incredulous.

  Lou just stared at the image in mute fascination. On screen was a hairless animal. It had the body of a dog, but the face had a beak with sharp teeth, and the paws were sort of like hands, except they had extremely long claws that looked almost like talons.

  “It’s real,” Dom said. “It washed up on a Montauk beach back in 2008. In fact, it was the third unusual specimen to wash up in the previous two years. The fourth was said to be more humanoid in appearance, with long fingers. All of the animals disappeared right before animal control showed up.”

  “You think Ruggio was involved in that?” Lou asked.

  Dom shrugged. “I don’t know. He left Plum Island just before it closed, which coincidentally was right after the last creature washed ashore. Why are you asking about him? Is this about Cleo?”

  Lou looked up, surprised. “Yeah. We’re trying to figure Cleo out a little bit more.”

  “How do you think Cleo was created?” Rolly asked.

  Dom sat back. “Well, I ran her blood after she arrived. We know she was given HGH, human growth hormone, while she was in utero. It accounts for her size—mostly. And I scanned her after Danny expressed concerns about her pituitary. No tumor, by the way.” Dom paused.

  “But there’s more, right?” Lou asked.

  Dom nodded. “Cleo is intelligent—more so than any cat naturally would be. She’s also domesticated—which is unusual. It takes generations to domesticate a species.”

  “But isn’t that because of Laney? I mean, she controls Cleo,” Rolly said.

  Dom shook his head. “I talked to Laney about her relationship with Cleo. She doesn’t control her every minute of every day. Cleo understands that Laney doesn’t want her to hurt any of you guys at the school or here. But you’ve seen Cleo in a fight—she does more than that. She distinguishes between the good guys and the bad guys. That’s intelligence.”

  “How does she do it?”

  “I’m not entirely sure. It may have to do with the structure of her brain. Proportional to their body size, most animal’s brains are smaller than a human’s. Cleo’s brain-to-body ratio is actually about equal to, if not slightly larger than, a human’s.”

  “So, what? She’s more domesticated because she has a larger brain?” Rolly asked.

  Dom hesitated.

  “Dom?” Lou prodded.

  Dom began speaking quickly. “I think it’s more than that. The science is already there. I mean, they have created animals like her before, but of course they’ve destroyed them almost immediately. But if you found a doctor who was less concerned about the moral and ethical implications and only focused on the science, like Ruggio… Well. It would be possible.”

  “What would be possible?” Rolly asked.

  But Lou knew even before the words left Dom’s lips.

  “I think Cleo has a human brain.”

  CHAPTER 34

  “You know where the descendants of Mu are living?” Jen asked in disbelief.

  Patrick put up his hands. “Not for certain. First let me explain a little bit about where the people of Mu were alleged to have gone.”

  Laney tried to bite back her smile. Her uncle did love to give a good lecture.

  “According to Cayce, Mu was made up of all races. And when it began to submerge, a mass exodus occurred. Forgive my political incorrectness, but using Cayce’s terms, the ‘white-skinned’ individuals went everywhere, the ‘brown-skinned’ individuals went to Polynesia and South America, and the ‘black-skinned’ individuals went to Melanesia and Mexico.”

  “The Olmecs,” Laney said softly.

  “That’s what I thought too,” Patrick replied. “The giant heads that archaeologists have not been able to explain because they depict individuals of African descent, when no one with that physiological makeup was supposed to be anyone near there.”

  “And then there’s the uniqueness of the Melanesians,” Laney said. “While it’s true their skin is dark, many are born with white-blond hair. And it’s not the result of European influence—it’s an actual unique genetic trait. It’s somewhat odd that it would happen to occur in the places where the Mu descendants allegedly went.”

  “Even if Cayce is right about where everyone went,” Jake said, “we’re talking what—ten thousand years? I don’t think they’re all still hanging around together.”

  “Actually, they might be,” Patrick said, before taking a sip of his tea. Everyone watched him.

  Laney struggled
to not yell at him. “Okay, suspense successfully built. Where do you think they are?”

  Patrick laughed. “Hawaii. Specifically, I think they may be the Honu Keiki, on Malama Island.”

  Laney’s eyebrows rose. “Honu Keiki, the cult?”

  Honu Keiki was a secretive cult that existed on a small island off the western shores of Maui. There were alleged to be about five hundred members, although there was no accurate head count. They had owned the land for hundreds of years and let very few outsiders in. In fact, the only outsiders Laney knew to have been allowed in were new members to the cult, and even those were very rare.

  Patrick nodded. “It’s said that the Honu Keiki were run off of their sacred island generations ago. They then settled on Malama, and have kept to themselves ever since. Around two hundred years ago, the group came into money, and they bought the entire island to ensure no one else could lay claim. And that’s where they’ve lived ever since. They are quite literally rolling in money. But they live as simply now as they did before all of this. We know little about them; visitors are not allowed, and the leader refuses requests for interviews. The tiny bit we do know comes from individuals who have been exiled from the group. And even then, only one or two will talk.”

  “Why would you think the Honu Keiki are the descendants of the Mu?” Henry asked.

  Patrick leaned back. “Their name, for one. Honu means turtle. Keiki means children. Their story is that a great turtle brought them to their sacred island—the one they lived on before Malama—when their homeland was submerged.”

  Laney and Jen exchanged a look.

  “What?” Henry asked.

  “In a number of flood myths, they speak of a giant turtle that saved people from the flood and carried them to land,” Laney said.

  Jen nodded. “And in Asia, a turtle is said to unify both heaven and earth—the shell representing heaven, the body earth. Indians have a legend that says the world is supported by four elephants standing on a giant turtle.”