The Prophecies Trilogy (Omnibus Edition): A Dystopian Adventure

by Linda Hawley

  “It appears that five years into the future, your directness hasn’t changed, even though I apparently don’t exist,” I said acerbically, trying to lighten the intensity.

  Vanessa pursed her lips, eyebrows drawn down, while looking at me, clearly confused by my comment. She then turned and faced Chow again, reached out, and gave him a tight hug.

  “It warms my heart that you’re alive,” she said as they embraced.

  As they pulled apart, Chow took Vanessa’s face in his hands and kissed her on the lips. I may have been standing with my mouth open, as my own shock of Chow kissing her hit my consciousness.

  Are they a couple? I wondered.

  It didn’t seem like a first kiss to either of them. I wasn't sure whether to be shocked or pleased.

  “Can we sit down and talk?” Chow asked her gently.

  “First things first…do you have a vehicle out front? If so, we need to move it,” she said, always ensuring safe protocol.

  “No vehicle,” Chow answered.

  He put his arm around her, and the three of us walked across the dimly lit room into the dining room. Vanessa looked the same as she had five years before—as tall as me, but with more muscle, and with her wide face, narrow chin, and intense, midnight eyes, she was very beautiful. As she flipped on the light, Chow introduced his brother to her.

  * * *

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Vanessa said flatly to the three of us as we sat at the kitchen table, explaining how we came to be there. “You teleported here from the past, in the middle of a blizzard? Why not just show up during the Cherry Blossom Festival? The weather’s nicer.”

  Chow was chuckling; he clearly enjoyed Vanessa’s spitfire personality.

  “I mean…how is that even possible?” she continued, then looked at Chow, who sat next to her.

  I quickly answered, figuring that if I did so, we’d avoid a whole parallel-timeline discussion, which would no doubt include a discussion on quantum physics. “At this moment, Chow, Edwin, and I are lying on the floor of my bedroom in France, co-dreaming this day—your day—five years into the future.”

  “We did not teleport,” Edwin unnecessarily clarified, which made me smile.

  Vanessa looked intently at me, Edwin, and then Chow, and her face changed just before she said, “Una vez construi un ordenador de arena utilizando ramitas y trozos de cuerda.”

  As I was looking at her with eyebrows pursed with puzzled curiosity, Chow burst out laughing. My head snapped to him as I tried to figure out what Vanessa said in Spanish. With Chow preoccupied by his guffaws, he would not be helping me translate.

  “She said, ‘I once built a computer out of sand, using twigs and large pieces of rope.’” Edwin spoke as though he were translating a technical paper.

  “What?” I asked, returning his stoic gaze.

  He repeated himself.

  So she’s being sarcastic, I thought.

  “Ann, you’re a little behind tonight,” Vanessa said, finding humor in the exchange.

  “I speak enough Spanish to order food and go to the restroom. For the remainder, I’ve relied on Chow,” I said smugly.

  She laughed.

  “I have missed your humor,” Chow said to Vanessa as he regained his composure.

  “I sure hope you’ve missed more than that,” she replied to him.

  Caught off guard by their intimate connection, I felt like a third wheel. I decided to cut through my discomfort and get back to our mission, so I dove right in.

  “If you two lovebirds will put it away for an hour, I’d really like to talk about why we’re here.”

  Edwin laughed out loud. He seemed to enjoy watching these two.

  Vanessa stuck her tongue out at me. I recoiled in surprise and then smiled at her.

  “I do want to understand how two dead people are here in this house, especially you,” she said, putting her hand firmly on Chow’s chest, as though she were confirming his presence. She paused, and I picked up the conversation.

  “But can we first discuss why we’re here?” I asked, interrupting her.

  “Okay…ghost,” she said, ridiculing me.

  Mocking her, I stuck my tongue out.

  “You two remind me of two cats fighting,” Edwin said, watching the back and forth.

  That made Chow guffaw again.

  After we all settled down, Chow explained why we were there and what we wanted to learn.

  “So you want me to update you on the GOG fight in 2020?” Vanessa asked.

  “Yes,” Chow answered.

  As her face transformed into a grimace, she said, “Prepare yourself.”

  That doesn’t sound good, I thought.

  Chow nodded, his stone expression emerging like rocks at low tide. I knew my friend well enough to recognize that he was indeed preparing himself for bad news.

  Vanessa dove right in. “Dead: the two of you, my entire team here, including Calvin, the entire GOG team in Bellingham, including Joe…” She took in a big breath before continuing, looked directly at me with her eyes suddenly soft. “Your daughter and son-in-law.”

  A near shout escaped my lips, of which I had no control, followed by tears that immediately exploded from my eyes. I could not speak—instead I began sobbing into my hands. Chow moved around next to me and pulled me to him, as a familiar grief consumed my heart.

  How? How could they? I screamed in my mind, sorrow mixed with fury.

  After some time passed, my need for more information outweighed my desire to grieve, and as I looked up to Vanessa, Edwin slid a box of tissues in front of me.

  As I cleaned myself up, I asked her, “How?”

  Known for her no-holds-barred style, she said, “Car accident.”

  I shook my head, trying to release images of Elinor and Eliott suffering while dying.

  “Give me a couple of minutes to pull myself together,” I said, rising from the table with my tissue box and rushing to the bathroom.

  * * *

  “When did it happen?” I asked Vanessa once I’d returned to the kitchen table.

  “Three days after you and Chow disappeared.”

  “When did we disappear?”

  “It wasn’t long after you left the Brest safe house. I don’t know the exact date, only that it was after Jean-Pierre Belle had left.”

  “We were taken from the safe house?” Chow asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “My brother wasn’t with us?” Chow asked her.

  “I don’t know. I never even knew he was with you there, until this moment.”

  “I need a drink,” I said, pushing back my chair to go to the kitchen. I couldn't take it—my breathing was shallow and harsh, my scalp tingling with the tenseness rolling up from my neck and shoulders. They were so taut that I could feel a deep ache sliding up like a piece of rebar moving through me, holding me stiff. I grabbed a glass and filled it.

  * * *

  Returning to the table and facing Vanessa, I said, “I have two last questions about my family, then I don’t wanna talk about them anymore. Is my aunt alive?”

  “I believe she is. I haven’t heard otherwise.”

  I continued to hold my breath. “My dog, Lulu…is she alive?”

  “She’s still with Jean-Pierre in France.”

  Closing my eyes, I silently thanked God for their protection and then exhaled my relief.

  “Jean-Pierre and his wife have left their home and gone underground—like all GOG leadership that are still alive.”

  “Why are you still here?” Chow asked Vanessa.

  “I’m one of the very few operatives left in the Washington, D.C., area. If I’m gonna die, I’ll die fighting for our cause,” she said, passion burning in her words.

  Chow kissed her on the cheek, then looked into her eyes and said, “If we can change the future, Vanessa, maybe you won’t have to die after all.”

  She was silent for a moment and then said, “Maybe,” unconvinced.

  I put away
my feelings about my family in my little box to open later, then asked Vanessa, “Are you ready to fill us in on what we’ve missed in the past five years?”

  “Ask away,” she said with a nod.

  “Does the Patriot Act exist?” I asked her.

  “Yes. Signed into law by Bush on October 26, 2001. Most recently reauthorized by Obama at the end of his second term as President, but with an extra bonus…”

  “Bonus?” I inquired.

  “The death penalty for any terrorist. Of course you already know that the government’s definition of terrorist is anyone they deem a threat to them. No due process. No legal representation or recourse. Oh…and clarified in the reauthorization is anyone who belongs to any organization whose intent it is to overthrow the U.S. government. He identified GOG members without actually naming us.”

  I was beyond enraged, burning with an angry fire that I'm sure my companions could sense.

  “The executions began before the ink was dry,” Vanessa added sadly. “We received word from GOG that all of us were to go underground immediately, but the warning came too late. By then, Calvin and the rest of my team were grabbed. I’d expected to be next, but they never came to get me,” she said, then looked down at the table. “They never gave me up, even though I’m sure they were tortured,” she said quietly, referring to her team’s loyalty.

  “It was a testimony of their friendship,” I said.

  Vanessa looked at me with big, sad eyes. All of us were quietly absorbing the new information.

  “Pretty much all of GOG is in hiding now,” she added.

  “Except you,” Chow said to her.

  “And a few others. I figure we’re just too stubborn,” she said, forcing a smile.

  Chow put his arm around her. “Courageous,” he said, squeezing her.

  I smiled at her, admiring her bravery.

  No wonder he cares for her.

  I plunged ahead. “Does the NDAA exist?”

  “Signed into law by Obama, December 31, 2011. The indefinite detention powers were upheld by the courts, and the U.S. government’s been grabbing people all around the world ever since. The NDAA defined America as a battlefield, which opened the door for anyone to be detained here. Of course, you already know about the FEMA camps in the USA. Now those camps are filled with people snatched by the American military. Some prisoners are relatives of the very soldiers who guard them.”

  The rage inside me boiled over. “Sickening.”

  “Yes,” Edwin agreed, as Chow nodded.

  “What is the status of the food-rationing program in India?” Chow asked her.

  Vanessa shook her head. “Genocide of the poor, sick, and elderly,” she said regretfully.

  “Oh my goodness,” I blurted out. “I knew it. Chow…remember I said—”

  “I remember,” Chow said, cutting me off. “I remember.” Sorrow filled his voice.

  “Did anything we do have any impact?” I questioned forcefully.

  Chow ignored my question. “Is RFID used to track humans?” he asked her.

  “It’s far worse than you can imagine. Prepare yourself,” she said, looking at us one by one.

  I took a deep breath.

  “RFID is implanted in humans at birth.”

  “In just the United States?” I asked.

  “The whole USA and its territories. France nearly left the European Union when they tried to force all EU countries to implement the practice. Finally, the EU left it up to individual countries—offering favoritism if they practiced human chipping at birth. France was the only country who adamantly refused RFID implants of babies.”

  “I always did like France,” I said with a proud smile.

  “What other countries are implanting humans?” Edwin asked.

  “Russia flatly refused…”

  “Which is ironic,” I added.

  “Yes…certainly ironic, considering their history. Besides Russia and France, there were some other holdouts. Brazil refused.”

  “Profound, considering that The Prophecies originated there,” Chow said.

  I nodded.

  “There are a few smaller, more remote places that have not chipped. But I would say that ninety percent of the globe is chipping babies. Oh…but that’s not all. I keep forgetting what all you don’t know. It’s far worse than that. The RFID that’s implanted at birth includes a kill switch.”

  “What?” I blurted out. “What the—”

  Edwin interrupted me. “Using nanotechnology?” he asked, peering at Vanessa intently.

  “Yes. How did you know? The public does not know.”

  “GOG has had me following the technology for some time. I knew in 2010 that the Pentagon was researching a molecular kill switch. In 2014, a major advance was made, using nanobots in medical applications. From there, I knew it would not be much longer before they developed a kill switch, although I had not imagined that it would be implanted with RFID.”

  “Things changed when RFID tracking technology radically matured, allowing tracking via satellites. Localized RFID readers became obsolete, and now satellites hit their target every time. Oh, and they even made RFID tamper-proof. If the RFID is removed, the kill switch is activated. It’s impossible to remove all the nanobots in your system, so once you’re chipped, there’s no escape. That kind of accuracy, combined with a nano kill switch doesn’t allow anyone freedom. The trick is not to be chipped, nor to carry anything that’s chipped,” Vanessa said.

  “In 2014, there were several expert molecular geneticists who vehemently opposed the research program, saying it violated human ethics—” Edwin explained.

  “Let me guess…they disappeared,” Vanessa said, interrupting.

  “Yes,” Edwin said slowly.

  “There’s a lot of disappearing going on these days,” she said.

  “What’s the kill switch do?” I asked.

  “It basically turns the brain to mush, killing from the inside out. I’m sure Edwin can explain how,” Vanessa said.

  “I don’t think I want to know,” I replied.

  Edwin was silent.

  “So infants are chipped at birth, and the rest of the humans carry RFID cards?” I asked.

  “No. Some countries, like India, chipped every citizen. With India’s economy improving since their genocide, other countries have followed suit and are chipping everyone. In America, you must show your RFID when asked by any government employee—federal, state, local—without them having any cause to ask. That’s pretty much how it is around the globe. All currency is being tracked. Oh, and face-recognition technology is monitored globally by Cray supercomputers, using software the government acquired from a private company.”

  “I’ve gotta ask again, Vanessa, how have you remained free?” I asked her.

  “I’m certainly not free…” she began. “But I am—and have been—a CIA operative, like you were, Ann.”

  I stared at her, mouth slightly open. “You’re GOG and CIA?”

  “That would be the gist of it. Double agent. I’ve been GOG much longer than I’ve been a CIA operative. My task was to infiltrate the CIA, and I was successful. I’m certain it’s the only reason I’m alive. They have no idea who I really am.”

  “A master of disguise,” Chow said proudly. He already knew her double-agent status.

  “Do you happen to know the status of Project Continuum?” I asked her.

  “No. There’s someone on the inside of that program, but I don’t know who it is. All I know is that the project exists.”

  I nodded. “And who’s the idiot President in 2020 who’s allowed America to fall so far from our Constitution?” I asked. “It can’t still be Obama, unless the law has changed, and he got a third term.”

  Vanessa stared at me. As I stared back, I began to worry that indeed the law had changed. Then I heard the words that would likely haunt me forever.

  “Johnathan Talbot,” she enunciated slowly.

  Chapter 18

  BREST, FRANC
E

  The Year 2015

  I awoke to find Chow and Edwin still co-dreaming together, and I realized I was the first to return. They were still there—eyes flickering behind their eyelids. My mind was swimming, overloaded with the facts still raw in my consciousness. It felt as though they were branded and seared there—that they'd leave scars.

  I waited a full three minutes, but they still slept on the floor of my room. This had never happened before, and I wasn’t sure what to do, so I watched the clock and tried to sort through the information I’d just learned.

  Johnathan Talbot is President.

  Five minutes later, Edwin finally stirred and then opened his eyes.

  “Where have you been?” I asked, the stress clear in my voice.

  He sat up and looked at me, silent. I was sure he thought it was a dumb question.

  “Edwin…”

  “Yes?”

  “Why did it take you so long to return?” I said, thinking I’d better be more specific with my question.

  “One minute, Vanessa was telling us the name of the new President, and when the last syllable left her mouth, you vanished.”

  “I vanished? Like poof?” I said, imagining the scene.

  “Yes. It took Chow some time to sooth Vanessa after you departed.”

  “It probably seemed like magic to her. Now I’m here, and now I’m not,” I said, imitating the voice of a magician.

  Edwin stared at me as if I were half-mad. Considering what I’d just learned, perhaps I was.

  * * *

  “I had to calm her,” Chow said about Vanessa, explaining his late return.

  “You don’t have to explain. I didn’t mean to leave the dream so suddenly. When she told us about Talbot, it was so inconceivable to me. I wonder if there’s a circuit breaker—like the ones in houses—in our brains that automatically pull us back to reality from a dream when the information is just too much of a shock,” I said.

  “That is a very interesting idea,” Edwin said, considering the words carefully.

  “All I know is that her level of agitation required my presence,” Chow said flatly.

  “She was that freaked out?” I asked.

  “Yes. It was as if she had witnessed an unnatural event. She kept doing the Sign of the Cross and murmuring prayers in Spanish.”