THE
JESUS CHRIST
CYPHER
SEBASTIAN KENTOR
֍Copyright © 2020 Sebastian Kentor֍
All rights reserved
KDP ISBN: 9781650122090
www.sebastiankentor.com
@sebastiankentorauthor
www.facebook.com/sebastian.kentor.5
DEDICATION
◆◆◆
I would like to dedicate this book to my family who supported my daily writing despite the problematic period of confinement, and to all COVID-19 outbreak victims, especially to the ones who still suffer the effects of this horrible virus. I hope that humanity will learn from its mistakes and focus on the future to rebuild and avoid more suffering of its most vulnerable people.
We are at a turning point in the history of our civilization, and we have the tremendous responsibility of shaping the future for our children. I hope that the scientific discoveries combined with the will to do good in this world will unite us all toward a common goal: the survival of our race and to improve our society’s quality of life in a sustainable way.
I also dedicate this book to my two favorite authors whose books inspired me to write mine (waiting for their next masterpiece was sometimes too long and painful).
This eagerness pushed me to write my book in the style of Dan Brown and J.K. Rowling. Thank you again for all the fantastic books you have written and for inspiring me to take this journey, which helped me to also pass the difficult moments of COVID-19 by quickly writing my first book after watching Dan’s Masterclass. Special thanks to Jrivs221alias Josh for his amazing editorial work via FIVERR.
CONTENTS
§FOREWORD§
§EPIGRAPH§
§PROLOGUE§
§CHAPTER 1§
§CHAPTER 2§
§CHAPTER 3§
§CHAPTER 4§
§CHAPTER 5§
§CHAPTER 6§
§CHAPTER 7§
§CHAPTER 8§
§CHAPTER 9§
§CHAPTER 10§
§CHAPTER 11§
§CHAPTER 12§
§CHAPTER 13§
§CHAPTER 14§
§CHAPTER 15§
§CHAPTER 16§
§CHAPTER 17§
§CHAPTER 18§
§CHAPTER 19§
§CHAPTER 20§
§CHAPTER 21§
§CHAPTER 22§
§CHAPTER 23§
§CHAPTER 24§
§CHAPTER 25§
§CHAPTER 26§
§CHAPTER 27§
§CHAPTER 28§
§CHAPTER 29§
§CHAPTER 30§
§CHAPTER 31§
§CHAPTER 32§
§CHAPTER 33§
§CHAPTER 34§
§CHAPTER 35§
§CHAPTER 36§
§CHAPTER 37§
§CHAPTER 38§
§CHAPTER 39§
§CHAPTER 40§
§CHAPTER 41§
§CHAPTER 42§
§CHAPTER 43§
§CHAPTER 44§
§CHAPTER 45§
§CHAPTER 46§
§CHAPTER 47§
§CHAPTER 48§
§CHAPTER 49§
§CHAPTER 50§
§CHAPTER 51§
§CHAPTER 52§
§CHAPTER 53§
§CHAPTER 54§
§CHAPTER 55§
§CHAPTER 56§
§CHAPTER 57§
§CHAPTER 58§
§CHAPTER 59§
§CHAPTER 60§
§CHAPTER 61§
§CHAPTER 62§
§CHAPTER 63§
§CHAPTER 64§
§CHAPTER 65§
§CHAPTER 66§
§CHAPTER 67§
§CHAPTER 68§
§CHAPTER 69§
§CHAPTER 70§
§CHAPTER 71§
§CHAPTER 72§
§CHAPTER 73§
§CHAPTER 74§
§CHAPTER 75§
§CHAPTER 76§
§CHAPTER 77§
§CHAPTER 78§
§CHAPTER 79§
§CHAPTER 80§
§CHAPTER 81§
§CHAPTER 82§
§CHAPTER 83§
§CHAPTER 84§
§CHAPTER 85§
§CHAPTER 86§
§CHAPTER 87§
§CHAPTER 88§
§CHAPTER 89§
§CHAPTER 90§
§CHAPTER 91§
§CHAPTER 92§
§CHAPTER 93§
§CHAPTER 94§
§CHAPTER 95§
§CHAPTER 96§
§CHAPTER 97§
§CHAPTER §98
§CHAPTER 99§
§CHAPTER 100§
§CHAPTER 101§
§CHAPTER 102§
§CHAPTER 103§
§CHAPTER 104§
§CHAPTER 105§
§CHAPTER 106§
§CHAPTER 107§
§CHAPTER 108§
§CHAPTER 109§
§CHAPTER 110§
§CHAPTER 111§
§EPILOGUE§
§PREFACE§
All of the artwork, scientific facts, historical places and figures described are real and based on evidence. The Order is an organization whose name I changed, but who is active across the globe preaching the word of Jesus. The European Union is governed by a mix of institutions that have at their heart the European Commission, whose President is one of the most powerful political figures in the world; her vision shaping the future of modern civilization. The Grand Egyptian Museum is almost completed. All characters in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
§EPIGRAPH§
“History is opaque. You see what comes out, not the script that produces events, [...]
The generator of historical events is different from the events themselves, much as the minds of the gods cannot be read just by witnessing their deeds.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb,
“The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable”
§PROLOGUE§
19h23, October 2nd
Egypt, Giza plateau somewhere inside the Great Pyramid of Khufu
LYDIA DEL BIONDO realized she only had a few minutes before she would choke to death.
The oxygen was being burned by a mysterious flame that engulfed the chamber’s high ceiling in which she was a prisoner.
A myriad of thoughts flashed through her mind, adrenaline flooding her brain, as she began trying to find a way to extinguish the fire.
A familiar odor reached her nostrils, and the glint of an ancient oil coating the stony surface of the ceiling struck her eye. I must have triggered a spark which ignited that oil.
She whirled about, desperately seeking a clue, but there was nothing besides the flickering of her shadow on the wall.
Damn clever Egyptians and their bloody traps perfectly hidden in this godforsaken place, Lydia muttered, trying to adapt her vision to the bright light of the flame.
Well done, Lydia, this is the end.
I came so far; this cannot be the way I die.
The answer must be just in front of me, but where?
Neo will have a solution, but of course, there is no satellite signal underneath of all these tons of solid rock.
She looked desperately around the room but could not find any marks or writing on the walls.
More strange shadows appeared before her eyes brought to life by the flames, which now had a blueish tone.
Where is the exit?
Think. Lydia; look carefully at “what lies beneath,” as my dad would have said…
What lies b
eneath…
The entrance that closed behind her formed a perfectly smooth surface. The wall was so well polished that she could see a faint reflection of herself in it.
The ancient basaltic stone was sucking all the light around like a dark mirror.
And then it struck her…what lies beneath.
I did not check the floor. What if the exit is below me?
“Activate light,” Lydia bellowed, and her cell phone connected XGlass instantly activated the flashlight beaming it directly onto the floor.
The flame was quickly burning through the remaining oxygen. The lack of breathable air started a slow strangulation process.
I will choke in the next minute. She knew this from the medical symptoms her body was experiencing.
After carefully screening the floor, her gaze fell upon a set of hieroglyphs at the bottom of a wall.
That must be it, and at that moment, she remembered the experiments she was performing in her lab. At Calico as chief geneticist, she oversaw running the Elysium project on extending the life span of human beings.
Using the CRISPR Cas9 gene-editing tool, she was trying to create human organs in animals to develop a genome transplantation tool for xenotransplantation.
Her experiments on nematode worms aimed to bring them to the limits of survival by using a senescence-related pattern.
Could I replicate the same life extension effects on human beings?
The irony was that now the roles were reversed. She was choking to death, and instead of focusing on the potential lifesaving hieroglyphs, old memories were playing tricks on her.
I do not want to end like my nematode worms.
Peering at the symbols, she could not read them, but something seemed off. What was it?
Then it hit her: the scarab symbol was carrying on his back an almost invisible variation of the tree of life in the center of a series of dots which could have been the pattern of a long-gone flower of life.
Zahawi, her Egyptian lab colleague, was always joking that she should have worked on scarabs, not on worms.
She vividly remembered his words. “Lydia, scarabs are a symbol of renewal, the endurance of the human soul, an amulet to unlock the gate to eternity.”
And while looking at the strange scarab, she felt she could no longer breathe.
Acting on an impulse, she jabbed the scarab hard with her palm.
Suddenly, the floor opened, and she started to slide uncontrollably, as if she were in an ancient roller coaster, descending towards a dark abyss leaving behind her the blue glimmer of the flames until nothingness surrounded her.
◆◆◆
§CHAPTER 1§
07H23, OctobeR 1st
Vatican
THE POPE was breathing heavily, his body engulfed by the spasms of being strangled by an invisible oppressor.
He opened his eyes. Outside, the thundering noise was deafening. The staccato sound of the rain hitting his bedroom window reminded him of his childhood.
I’m just an old frail shell; I don’t regret anything, my childhood…a distant memory.
He couldn’t explain why the first thing that came to his mind was the dark history of the ground above the place he was now sleeping.
The entire land under Vatican City was a cemetery where were buried the bodies of many executed Christians for several years before the Circus of Nero was built in 65 AC
This was a place of death, and now it is a place of hope. To mark this change, a first church was built in the 4th century AC by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great, where Saint Peter’s Basilica now stands, completed in 1626 after 120 years of construction.
He could almost taste the humidity in the air, which, when combined with his Lonicera japonica essential oils—meticulously diffused by his staff before he retired to bed—generated a soothing environment calming his senses.
The creator is tormenting me; I failed Him. His followers don’t believe in Him anymore.
“Give me a sign, as You gave me before. Help me to rebuild their faith in You,” the Pope muttered faintly.
Deep inside, he knew that the notion of God had been altered across the centuries, and faith was at its lowest, the Church having lost all meaning.
Now there is a new digital God were everybody can ask a question, and the answer will be instantly revealed: a search engine, this insidious reality was tormenting him for the past several years.
The Pope was trying to find new, innovative ways to attract more followers to spread the Christian faith of goodness and helping those in need.
The present belonged to the rebellious new generation, the millennials who did not need any advice.
I have to help them find back their way to the creator, or I will be the last Pope, the last guardian of the Holy See.
My name is Peter; I symbolize the beginning; I cannot be the end; he continuously repeated these words as a mantra to calm his mind.
Despite the advice and criticism of the entire Cardinals’ Conclave, he took the name of the first Pope.
Out of respect for Saint Peter, no Pope had ever adopted the name Peter II before. Many Popes had the Saint’s name as their baptismal name, like Pietro Orsini, who became later Pope Benedict XIII.
“It cannot be, I do not believe the heretic prophecy,” the Pope whispered to himself.
The Prophecy of the Popes was attributed to Saint Malachy, an 11th century Irish Saint having as birth name: Máel Máedóc Ua Morgair.
Ever since his youth, the Pope was fascinated by the melodicity of the Saint’s original Irish name.
Saint Malachy, during his life, served as the Archbishop of Armagh, to whom several miracles were attributed and an alleged vision which was written down and interpreted as a prophecy.
This text was insidiously circulating amidst the most influential cardinals who would have wanted to take his place.
He believed that those heretic Cardinals were trying to undermine his authority by using the final passage of this Prophecy, which refers to a Petrus Romanus.
Peter the Roman, was considered to be the last Pope, whose pontificate would supposedly herald the destruction of the city of Rome and trigger the apocalypse.
The words of this text were giving him nightmares since he ascended in the ultimate position of power of the modern Christian Church.
I had a vision; I have chosen the righteous path…
His election was surrounded by controversy, as the Conclave was caught among a superstorm that evacuated the entire Saint Peter’s Square, and Rome was in a state of emergency due to the natural disaster.
The Pope could still vividly remember the events that had unfolded eight years ago. The Sistine Chapel seemed like a maximum-security prison, surrounded by many security forces, the best of the Pontifical Swiss Guard.
The entire Vatican was under high alert and ready to have its entire population evacuated in case the storm compromised the integrity of its building complex.
For two days, several Cardinals tried scheming and forming coalitions to reach the majority needed to elect the new Pope.
The interminable bickering of the hundreds of voices of the Cardinals Conclave echoing in the Sistine Chapel was giving him a pounding headache. He wanted to make the excruciating noise stop.
Suddenly a loud clatter of a thunder, granted his wish, silencing for a few seconds the entire Conclave.
Trying to pinpoint the origin of the thunder, he looked up to Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” fresco painting, portraying the creation of humankind by God.
Just in between the gap of precisely 3⁄4ths of an inch, which separated the two index fingers, he saw a strange blinding light.
Is this the unattainable divinity; is my mind playing tricks on me? For a moment, he was convinced that the sight had been merely a side effect of his excruciating migraine.
This was his favorite painting from the entire chapel. Michelangelo cleverly hid several symbols.
The background faces of the eleven un
born children of Adam and Eve, the future humanity depicted behind the figure of God, seemed to be an anatomically precise picture of the human brain, including the pituitary gland.
A metaphor of the things to come, a glimpse into the future, when Man will become God, and they will be one again.
Could this be the first portrayal of Divine Singularity?
These thoughts he always kept to himself. As progressive as his ideas were, they were close to heresy, and it might have cost him his position and even endangered his life.
Another round of thunder, even stronger than before, struck the Conclave, and then another.
“The voice of God is silencing the greed for power over a billion of faithful souls,” he whispered to himself.
Another Cardinal sitting next to him noticed he was unwell and asked him:
“Did you just say something?”
“You are very pale Pietro, is everything okay?”
The voice of the fellow Cardinal was fading like a distant echo, and the light coming from the gap above became blinding, forcing him to close his eyes.
Darkness became a dreamlike state, as if he were floating above the Saint Peter’s Square.
The heavy rain seemed to pass directly through him.
Did I have a stroke? What is happening to me?
Oh Lord, please don’t abandon me; help me find my way back.
And there in the middle of the square, he saw a little girl who seemed abandoned in the fierce winds of the storm, screaming for help.
He knew this was real, a premonition, a divine vision.
It was up to him to save the little girl.
§CHAPTER 2§
OPENING HIS EYES, he stood up and left his place in an unnatural haste.
It was as if someone gave him an extra boost of energy, making him feel young again.
He broke the Conclave, despite the cardinals’ desperate looks and started to bang on the locked doors screaming that there was a medical emergency.
Once the guards opened the doors, he sped off outside, ignoring all their attempts to stop him.
The rain was pouring down, and there was absolute darkness projected by black clouds.
The Jesus Christ Cypher Page 1
