Evolution: The Revelation

by Reilly, Jim

  “Can you take our team there? I have a hunch we might catch a lead in our search for Satan.”

  Father Willie agreed while Steven then waited for Hailey and Cynthia to finish her procedure.

  Sitting on a transportation vehicle made of all glass, the group enjoyed the view as the vehicle sped in incredible speeds from New York to a village in Central Africa. It had none of the technological advancements that New York enjoyed. It was as if modern advancements in technology never happened. The people lived in grass huts and wore snowy white robes.

  As Father Willie pointed out the village as they arrived, Steven took notice of the simple life the village occupants lived. It was, however, not noticed by the others due to D’Shawn and Cynthia still talking about their entrance into the Grid. D’Shawn couldn’t stop, “It feels like I am floating on a lazy river of knowledge. Anything I want to know is immediately turned into a memory as if I had always known it. My wife used to call me a know-it-all after I came back enhanced. Now I can honestly say I’m one.”

  Steven warned, “You better watch out before you’re swept away!”

  Hailey added, “Steven, the Grid can be turned off at any time if it gets too overwhelming.”

  “Steven, you should’ve had this done,” Cynthia told him. “It’s amazing and opens you up to an expanding universe. I had no idea it would be like this. Oh, and Steven, the beginning of the Grid goes back to almost the time we left. About thirty years after we were abducted, a company, Babylon Corp with endorsements from the United Nations, bought the rights to a device called the Visor. That device which was a receiver and transmitter of information along with new technology in human enhancement was the beginning of the Grid. Then there were advancements in--”

  Before Cynthia finished, Father Willie announced, “We’re here.”

  As the glass door opened and his focus was now on his surroundings, D’Shawn asked, “Forgive my language Father, but where the hell are we? I don’t have access to information about this location.”

  “This place is called Nirvana, and there are no records of it anywhere, yet everyone knows all about it.”

  Cynthia accessed information. “The name means a transcendent state in which there is neither suffering, desire nor a sense of one’s self.”

  An old enhanced man with a long white beard who was slightly bent over and holding a walking stick slowly approached, and Father Willie introduced him. ‘This is Benjamin Bartoletti, he is The One Who Follows. So that you understand, he is the person who is the spiritual descendant of the founder of the movement. Ben, these are the Returned and they are searching for Satan.”

  “I know who these good people are and what their mission is,” he told the priest. “Welcome to Nirvana; may you find Peace, Love, and Serenity. To clarify my good friend, I’m not the leader here, we don’t have one. If anything, I lead by example. All decisions are made as a community. For that matter, everything here is done for the community. It is a way of life done here for about a thousand years.”

  Steven asked, “What do you mean ‘spiritual descendant?’”

  Benjamin explained, “I am the successor to the founder, and I bear witness to her teachings. After she retired, the next who followed was the purest soul we could find. That next follower could come in first year of the term or fifty years into the term. My successor is here now, and I am waiting for him to take my spot.”

  D’Shawn offered, “Your founder is a person from our time, Sha-nay Barnwell. She was a young lady when we left.”

  “I met her,” Steven told all. “It was during the planning of our mission to combat the Ancient Visitors. I remember her as a very pleasant and pure individual.”

  “I only hoped to follow in her footsteps and be as bright a light as she was,” said Benjamin.

  Steven changed the subject. “The reason we’re here is that the entity that was brought back from the Ancient Visitor ship is on the loose. It’s a being that feeds on sin like transgressions and willfulness. I’m not saying that you all are sinful; what I’m getting at is that since you and your people are not on the Grid, then maybe he’d think you would be more vulnerable.”

  “If we are talking about Satan, then our people are prepared as best as we can to combat him. This has been our charter since the founder initiated our direction in the first day of the movement. We have been preparing for this our whole lives. At the moment, we have not been told of any temptation out of the ordinary.”

  A few huts away, a man sat in a chair reading. He had long brown hair and a short beard. There was nothing else visible in the hut but the chair and the solitary man in the white robe. However, there was something else in the hut, a spirit, “I know who you are and you will not stop me. These humans may have evolved, but they still have wants and desires. That has not changed since the first man took his first step. What are your wants and desires?”

  The man didn’t answer the spirit and ignored him.

  “I bet, you want to rule the heavens,” guessed the spirit. “You want to rule over life and enjoy its riches. I can get that for you. If you follow me, I guarantee you will have power and wealth only seen in dreams. Just say the word. Go ahead, and just say it.”

  The man looked up from his book, took a deep breath, and waved his hand as if to say, go away.

  “I’ll go. There’s plenty of work for me to do here. Don’t worry though, I won’t be far away.”

  The man then looked down at his book and kept reading.

  Hailey, after receiving a communication into her mind from Marcus, instructed the rest, “We’re asked to come back to the ship in orbit. So we’ll need to get going.”

  Cynthia then thanked Ben, “We appreciate taking the time to see us. Please tell us if you learn anything.”

  “If you hear from us, it won’t be from me. I’ll be retiring in a few days. Fortunately, my replacement will be the one you communicate with next.”

  “Is that person available? We’d like to see him or her.”

  “Sorry, but being so close to the transition, it’s not possible. Although, I’ll tell you this, he’s the purest soul we have ever encountered. He was left at our doorstep as a baby with no knowledge of his parents with only the name Kaiden pinned to his shirt. From the very first day and for the next 30 years, he has not said one word, not one. Does he communicate? Yes, by other forms of communication like writing and hand language. Where is he now? He’s in his bare hut reading like he does every day, mostly Scripture I believe.”

  Hailey respectfully interrupted, “Benjamin Bartoletti, it was an honor to meet with you, but we were ordered to report back to the ship. You have our thanks.”

  Hailey then rushed Steven, Cynthia, D’Shawn, as well as Father Willie into the transportation vehicle made of all glass with instructions to speed to the nearest spaceport.

  When they finally reached the ship that brought them back to Earth, Marcus was there to meet them in the Captain’s State room. “Sorry to cut short your excursion, but you needed to see this. When I heard, I couldn’t believe it.”

  Steven said, “With everything we’ve seen since we got back, what possibly could be so unbelievable?”

  The Captain entered the state room. “Thanks for getting here so fast but we felt that especially you three, Steven, Cynthia, and D’Shawn along with Marcus would want to see this.”

  “We’re intrigued,” said Cynthia. “What do you have for us?”

  The Captain then went on to explain, “In your mission, your team was tasked with infiltrating the Ancient Visitor’s liquid computer system, if you can call it that, with nano technology programed to disable it.”

  “That’s true,” Cynthia told her. “One of our team members sacrificed his life to get to it, along with others on the way.”

  “Well, the transport you arrived on from your battle on the Ancient Visitor’s ship had traces of this substance on it, small traces possibly from the explosion. In our analysis, we’ve been able to access the information
. It is, though, a boat load of information that we may not be able to understand fully in our lifetime. However, from what little we understand, we’ve learned that the apparent liquid computer pool your team member sacrificed himself in was a data port.”

  D’Shawn asked the Captain, “What do you mean?”

  Marcus answered for her, “Like a USB connection or a place to insert a CD in our time.”

  “That’s right,” said the Captain in agreement. “It was a place where they downloaded information. When I say downloaded I mean it was a place where they put in plants, animals, or beings to be converted into information.”

  “But whatever went in there was dissolved because it was caustic. Our guy got in there and within seconds, he was gone,” explained Steven.

  “Apparently, they were not dissolved but absorbed,” explained the Captain. “Their computer absorbed whatever they wanted to learn about right into the computer. Take for instance this creature.” Using the ships hologram capabilities, an alien creature was projected before them. It was short and stubby like a Jack Russell terrier. Instead of fur, it had short rainbow colored feathers except for its four feet which had spiked claws. The most peculiar part was the four eyes on each side of their head right above the steel trap of a jaw, and they moved in every direction like a chameleon.

  While viewing the strange being, the Captain continued, “We think when this animal was absorbed into the Ancient Visitor’s computer pool, they learned everything about it from what it ate, how it slept, its evolutionary heritage, and even how it thought.”

  “D’Shawn was dumbfounded. “How it thought?”

  “Yes,” the Captain replied. “They didn’t stop with this animal. They cataloged life forms from one end of this universe to the other.” As the Captain spoke different images of life forms were viewed. “I imagine they did it for the purpose of seeing which life forms they were going to manipulate for their army they wanted to build. In any event, they even absorbed Earth species like plants and early Earth species as well as early man. There were Homo sapiens as well. We found one Super Homo sapiens absorbed.”

  Steven, Cynthia, and D’Shawn, as if on cue, said in unison, “No way!”

  Then a frozen holographic image of James Connor appeared.

  Steven more curious than Cynthia and D’Shawn approached the image, and said, “That’s exactly how I remember him after he was enhanced. What info did it have about him? Were you able to see into his thoughts?”

  “It’s even better than that,” the Captain said as she turned on the program with her mind.

  “Steven, I’m happy to see you escaped the Ancient Visitor ship as well,” said James Connor.”

  Steven jumped backwards in surprise as D’Shawn yelled, “Holy Shit! Is that him? I can’t believe it.”

  As Steven and D’Shawn circled the talking hologram, Cynthia asked, “What is your name?”

  “Cynthia, it is James Connor. Don’t you remember?”

  She then asked, “What is the last thing you remember?”

  James answered, “Our battle in the Ancient Visitor’s control room. During the shooting, I made a move to get to the liquid computer pool. I thought I was sacrificing myself but luckily, that’s not so. I do remember releasing the nano technology. After that, I don’t remember anything until I woke up here, where the crew was stunned that I made it back. I guess I’m lucky I suppose.”

  “James, how do you feel? Do you have any feelings? Are your senses working?”

  “I feel odd that you’re asking me how I feel,” James said as he touched his hand to his cheek. “I feel my face, I see you and can hear you clearly. Oddly, I don’t smell anything at the moment.” He then put his fingertips to his mouth, and said, “Just as odd, I don’t taste my fingers.”

  The Captain then interrupted the program, “Suspend visual.” James’s movements froze in place. “We are still learning the extent of the program before telling it the life it represents has passed away.”

  “All due respect Captain, but maybe we can use the James Connor image to access information,” Cynthia expressed. “Suppose we find out more about the Ancient Visitors and Satan by having an inside man. What I’m saying is, let James know what he is and ask for his help.”

  The Captain thought about it as she paced back and forth in the front of her state room, then told her, “Very well, let’s try it your way. Please unfreeze visual.”

  With the image of James Connor now moving, Cynthia told him, “James, I don’t want to sugar coat this for you but you died, or I suppose the physical you died and what stands before us is the essence of James Connor in the form of an advanced computer program we’ve accessed from the Ancient Visitor’s ship.”

  Not saying a word but standing there looking like he was thinking, James said, “That explains why I don’t feel tired or hungry. Also, I’ve never thought as clearly as I do now. I can remember everything that ever happened in my life, even things I thought I forgot. I can remember the first time I breastfed. I remember--”

  “James can you access information outside of the parameters of James Connor?”

  A split second after Cynthia asked that question, James froze in place.

  Cynthia then asked the Captain, “Has the visual been suspended?”

  “No it’s still running.”

  Hailey then expressed as she scanned James, “The James Connor program is accessing other programs and information at incredible speeds.”

  D’Shawn asked, “How long will it take?”

  Hailey used the computer in her mind and said, “At the rate he is downloading information, as incredibly fast as it is, it’ll still take days.”

  Cynthia then turned to Steven and D’Shawn, “You go continue the search for Satan and I’ll stay here waiting for James. In the meantime, I’ll research everything I can find about James to better understand his thought process. Just let me know if you need me.”

  Hailey also expressed a desire to stay as well.

  While eating in the ship’s dining hall with drones delivering food and beverages to Steven, D’Shawn, and Father Willie, D’Shawn said, “Maybe we continue to look at the underbelly of this society and go back to places like the place Glenn Casarona was from. That was how we were able to cross paths with Satan.”

  As Steven was about to agree, Father Willie interjected, “That was not the underbelly of this society. The people there were just different. The way they looked set them apart from the rest. Other than that, they were no different from the Enhanced I believe. But because they are different, they don’t get equal services like education or the same footing for a successful career as the fully enhanced have as an advantage. Did you see similar actions in your time?”

  An ashamed D’Shawn acknowledged, “Sorry Father for saying that. And yes, I saw similar actions in my time. As a matter of fact, I lived them. In our time, some people were segregated into pockets, whether by force or their own free will. It could have been by social level or language, but it was mostly by race. At least that was what I experienced. When I was young, the police would patrol more frequently in my neighborhood than in a white neighborhood. There were more arrests, more suspicion, and what’s worse, more expectation from the other communities that they could expect more crime from my neighborhood. We were looked down at. They didn’t like the way we talked, the way we dressed, or the way we listened to music. This caused us to be looked upon as undesirables from the rest of society. Yet, it couldn’t be farther from the truth. In my neighborhood alone, we had community organizations whether led by churches or civic groups helping the neighborhood with gatherings for social events, food banks for the poor, clothing drives for the cold, and youth sports activities for the young ones. I bought into the notion that my neighborhood was the underbelly of society. But now, I’ve come to realize it was not as bad as I thought. To answer your question, I’ve seen similar actions.”

  A humbled D’Shawn regressed into his chair, and Steven, noticing the unco
mfortable silence, asked Father Willie, “Where would you consider the underbelly of this society?”

  The priest smiled and said, “I’ll take you there, but you are going to be surprised.”

  The glass vehicle with Steven, D’Shawn, and Father Willie arrived in Las Vegas and placed them in the center of town before departing. Shaking his head as his eyes looked at the surroundings featuring brighter and more brilliant lights than he remembered, D’Shawn said, “I’m not surprised you brought us here. Even in our time it was a place where Satan would feel comfortable. Back then this was a place of immorality and debauchery. Sorry for the pun, but I bet he owns a summer house here and has owned it since the first building was erected.”

  Father Willie explained, “This is a place of extremes; on one end you have people with tremendous God given gifts. On the other end, the temptation of fame and wealth is so strong that a few people fall into its trap. I’m not against entertainment because if it’s done right it can be a good place to soothe the soul.”

  Steven inquired, “Father, what forms of entertainment are performed in this time?”

  “All forms from your day like music, drama, dance, and athletics. If anything, the details changed over the years, but it’s more advanced. This city is the capital of all entertainment and there are powerful people in charge. The actual entertainment is done via meeting rooms, especially in athletics.”

  D’Shawn said, “I bet football is very popular.”

  “Sure, in the vintage meeting rooms,” explained the priest. “The most popular sport however is AV Combat.”

  They both asked, “What’s that?”

  “Ancient Visitor Combat.”

  Both replied, “No!”

  “Yes, the combat that Matt Schaefer described that you all participated in on their ship. It had become very popular the last two hundred years. There are many levels of competition and each one is heavily bet upon. Some of the most famous people are the most successful fighters.”