by Reilly, Jim
“Not at all,” she informed him. “I used the scan Leonardo’s people did on you and your own medical records to adjust your serum. You see, I noticed that your original enhancement wasn’t a failure, it was just incomplete. Certain aspects of the enhancement took, like your intellectual level and some other aspects, but most were left incomplete. During the time of your original enhancement, they didn’t have the technology to detect this and make the necessary corrections. You, Cameron, are in the one percent of people who can complete the procedure.”
“Great,” he told her. “I’ll process this in my mind later and probably for a long time to come. More importantly, they think I’m submissive to their suggestion, but I’m not, why?”
“I was able to manually take out the UM ingredient from the enhancement serum prior to your procedure.”
“The UM ingredient, what do you mean?”
“I’ll explain later,” she told him as Taylor unstrapped him from the bed and helped him up. “We’ve got to get you to the back bay of the building where our people are waiting.”
Taylor got him down the building elevator and maneuvered him toward the rendezvous point where Leonardo’s people, as well as a relieved Johnny, were waiting for them.
“How do I look, Johnny?”
“Uglier than you normally look; and oh by the way, you’re enhanced now.”
Cameron finally was able to laugh a little as they swiftly got him in the waiting van.
Later on in the transport Leonardo had arranged, Johnny informed Cameron of his findings in Brazil at the UM facility and after wrapping his mind around the information, told Johnny and the others, “This is a conspiracy that affects the upper echelon of the United Nations. It seems like Babylon is involved with enhancing people with a suggestive ingredient. The discount given to UN employees draws them in and they willingly walk into the trap. After that, they are suggestive to their will. The question is, what is the endgame?”
“Cameron, you also need to view the video of the Brazil facility and the people working on the manufacturing floor as mindless slaves,” Johnny told him. “There is one in particular you need to see.”
Using his Visor, Cameron viewed the video and Johnny heard him say, “There you are Will Davis.”
Johnny asked, “If that is Will Davis, then who’s the guy we’ve been working with? The Will Davis in Brazil looks like he’s been there a long time.”
“Johnny, I believe we have another impostor.”
“Crap, I was afraid you were going to say that. Oh man, those damn Ancient Visitors just don’t go away. We got another one like Bishop Terapion.”
“Hold on Johnny, there’s something else and you’re really not going to like this,” Cameron said as he was still viewing Johnny’s video. “Look at the back corner of the manufacturing floor, the man standing at one of the machines. Use your Visor to visualize that individual without the long hair and beard.”
Johnny did as he was told and voiced in disbelief, “It can’t be. That’s Inspector General Sanchez. He can’t be one of them too.”
“Johnny, get Leonardo to get us there immediately; we need to rescue them!”
“It’s no use. We sent in a drone right after we got out of there, but they cleaned up the place as if it was never used. Since then, I’ve been trying to find out where they might have moved them because we can’t leave them like that. Why on Earth would they keep them alive if they have Ancient Visitors impersonating them? The human body of Bishop Terapion was later found in a grave.”
Taylor, suggested, “It would seem the Ancient Visitors learned their lesson when the Bishop spilled his blood. My guess is they need them for their DNA so when they go through for example a routine medical checkup, they’ll have blood or whatever they need to avoid suspicion.”
“Leonardo, we need to warn your people to get out of the underground compound,” Cameron told him. “I tried not to give too much information about you and your people, but I know Sanchez is aware of you. Knowing what we know now, the United Nations Security group is compromised and I am sure your people are squarely in the middle of their gun sights after what happened in Brazil. So, you have got to get them out of there before they figure out where their location may be.”
“They’re preparing to evacuate,” Leonardo told Cameron. “We’re also going to head there to help get them out. It shouldn’t take long for us to get there and for them to be ready to leave.”
In the few minutes it would take for this high speed transport to get to its destination, Cameron took the time to contact his family through his Visor, “Mom and Dad, my investigation has turned up evidence of a large conspiracy that not only affects the United Nations but also you as well.”
Jennifer questioned, “Cameron, is that you? You look like you’ve made the change. How can that be?”
David also asked, “Son, did you do it again and risk deformity?”
“I’m fine. I don’t have time but to make a long story short, I’m fully enhanced with no deformity. I’ll explain later. At the moment, I’m sending you an initial report of my investigation. Don’t show anyone.”
“Cameron, you’ve got to tell us more,” Jennifer pleaded. “You’ve been out of contact, and we’ve been worried.”
“Read the file. It’s self-explanatory. But again, don’t tell anyone and keep the file offline. Delete it if you have to. Now I have to go; we are getting to our destination. I’ll contact you soon, I promise.”
Arriving at a three hundred year old church on the south side of Naples on the Italian peninsula, Leonardo directed Cameron, Taylor, and Johnny through a confessional into a secret door. That led to a passageway that brought them down about forty feet under the ground to a web of tunnels burrowed deep under the church.
The smell and look of the surroundings were familiar to Cameron while Taylor remembered the cool feel of the air. Leonardo didn’t take notice. He was more worried about his people when he arrived at the makeshift dining hall where he caught up to Bishop Grazzani and his father Salvatore and said, “We have to get everyone out of here.”
Salvatore said, “Most of the equipment is packed and gone. We had some of our people with families drop everything to get them out first and foremost.”
“By and large, we’re in good shape,” expressed Bishop Grazzani. “Everyone should be vacated within the hour.”
A concerned Angelis cautioned her father, “You’re not in great shape, and you should have left with the earlier groups. Let me help you and Bishop Grazzani get to the next safe location.”
Gripping her hands, he said to her in a fatherly tone, “Nonsense, I needed to be here to organize. If in fact our location has been compromised, we don’t want to leave anyone behind.”
Within seconds, weapon discharge could be heard coming from the other end of the tunnel system as Cameron and Johnny reached for their stunners.
One of their men ran up to Salvatore to report, “There are four Enhanced coming in the south entrance using Ancient Visitor weapons.”
Salvatore ordered, “Tell our people to retreat to the north entrance and get out through there. Everyone is aware of our escape route through the church. We practiced it many times.”
As word spread and everyone started to leave, Angelis grabbed Salvatore by the arm to pull him along, but he resisted as he reached for a weapon. She fearfully questioned, “What are you doing? We need to go now!”
“No, you need to go, my dear,” Salvatore lovingly expressed. “I’ll slow them down.”
“No, no, no,” she begged. “You’ve got to come with us!”
With Leonardo and Angelis looking upon their father’s face, he said with a sense of peacefulness and calm, “You need to see this investigation through to the end; it’s more important that you do. The consequences are high. For me though, I now beg you to please let me do something I didn’t get a chance to do while you were growing up, protect you as a father should. I’m so ashamed of that, so please don’t follow
.” He then turned and hastily went down the tunnel.
As Angelis went after him, Bishop Grazzani blocked the way, “Do as you’re told, my dear. This he must do for he does this out of love. Now go and be safe, for I believe God has a plan for you all. Me, I’m going to join my friend. Besides, I’m old and out of shape; the climb out of here would most likely kill me.”
Bishop Grazzani then turned to follow Salvatore when Johnny offered his reserve weapon to the old priest, “Please take this?”
Not even turning around, Bishop Grazzani told him, “I need no weapon, my son. I have the word of God in my heart to protect my soul, besides, if they put me down, my fat earthly body will block the tunnel hopefully long enough for you all to escape.”
As Leonardo pulled along a weeping Angelis, he reluctantly showed the others following him the way out.
The Bishop, wearing his black shirt and pants, walked up to Salvatore midway through the tunnel system as Salvatore was firing down the passageway indiscriminately. The random shooting had at the moment slowed the advancement of the intruders. The Bishop, now standing behind Salvatore using a passageway corner as cover, told him, “They finally left.”
“Thank you for seeing to that, Father.”
“I did nothing. You’re the one who saved them.”
With the weapon on its last discharge, Salvatore expressed as he fired, “Father, I want to thank you for all you have done for me and my family. I wish I had the ability to truly express the depth of how I feel.”
“Salvatore, you just did.”
The intruders noticing the weapon now empty rushed the two men while Salvatore asked Bishop Grazzani, “Do you think God will accept me into His kingdom?”
With Bishop Grazzani’s hand on Salvatore’s shoulder, “If he should need a witness, I would surely be there for you.”
The intruders fired toward the two men as Leonardo and the others escaped.
Outside the Church and heading to Leonardo’s waiting transport, Taylor was helping a visibly upset Angelis through the streets. The watery eyed Leonardo, though distraught, instinctively led them to the craft. It was then that Johnny told Cameron, as they walked down the streets of Naples, “Cameron, check your Visor; there’s something about your parents.”
As Johnny told him, he was already viewing the news, “Folks, we have a major breaking news story to report. Jennifer La Mont-Cho has resigned from her position as head of the UN Science Commission. She was the ranking member. She, of course, is well known for assisting in the discovery of the Ancient Visitor craft. She, her husband David Cho, as well as James Connor, were the ones who found the craft in Ethiopia. It was that discovery and accidental transmission that led the Ancient Visitors to know we are here. If you remember, that discovery put the world in a state of chaos and religious upheaval to which she helped to bring calm. She then went on to be a leader in the plan to defend the planet from the Ancient Visitor’s return. This has come as a shock--”
“Broadcast off,” Cameron ordered as he continued with the others to the transport.
*****
31st Century.
Sitting in the dark in an empty room he had found in the old United Nations building, D’Shawn sat on a chair just thinking to himself. Thoughts raced through his head of everything that had happened to him to this point. In his mind, it wasn’t that long ago he was a rookie wide receiver in the National Football League. At that time the most he worried about was getting to practice on time and learning the playbook. He had already been a leading receiver in college and the transition to the NFL was a smooth one for him. He had no doubts about his talent and even bucked the trend to stay in school to finish his degree as he promised his mother. His first year in the pros went as well as he hoped, and he was awarded the Rookie of the Year award. Times were good and compared to now, a much easier way of life.
However, his whole life was disrupted when he was abducted by the Ancient Visitors. He was ripped from his family, who wouldn’t know he was still alive for seven years. The Ancient Visitors took him along with hundreds of others where they physically changed them in order to develop master overlords for the human race. The ones who were not successful in the transition were eliminated; many of whom were his friends.
When they were finally brought back to Earth, time had lapsed, and his family had grown older. Luckily, his wife stuck by him and, over time and abductions, they built a family. It was for that family he agreed to return to the Ancient Visitors’ ship in order to try to destroy it before it could reach Earth. Once there, they were successful but at a cost of so many friends who did not make it back.
What was worse the trip back was so long that a thousand years had passed before returning to Earth. Although, he has distant relatives in this time, he missed his wife and children greatly.
Still sitting in the dark, and pondering his life, Steven quietly entered to see how D’Shawn was doing, “Is there anything I can get you?”
D’Shawn just shook his head, no.
‘Okay,” Steven told him. Then he gently informed him, “The ceremonies for our fallen friends have concluded except for one. In a few minutes, Cynthia’s will begin, and I thought you’d want to be there for this one. I know you didn’t want to go to the memorials, but it’s Cynthia. Will you join me in going?”
D’Shawn sat motionless for a few minutes as Steven stood there patiently waiting for a response. As Steven was about to leave to go to the memorial, D’Shawn said in almost a whisper, “I don’t know how I’m going to get the strength to keep going. Really, what are we doing this for?”
“To help mankind defeat Satan and his army, the Ancient Visitors,” Steven expressed.
“We’re wasting our time,” opined D’Shawn. “First off, we got lucky in destroying the Ancient Visitors’ tremendous spacecraft. They are extremely intelligent, and I doubt they’ll let that happen again. Secondly, the people of this time are no better than the people we left a thousand years ago. They have the same needs and vices, even if they are on a higher evolutionary plain. Are they prepared to take on the Ancient Visitors? No, they’re no more ready than when we left so long ago. To tell you the truth, I believe they are even less ready for the task.”
“Maybe so,” Steven thought. “But I, like Cynthia, thought it was worth it. She saw the hope in mankind and the potential mankind could reach. She believed in us. D’Shawn, she believed in you. Why else would she have done this?”
D’Shawn still sat motionless as well as expressionless.
Steven, feeling defeated said, “I’m heading to the ceremony, and you can join us if you want.”
“Wait,” D’Shawn uttered. “Please wait.”
Steven stopped in his tracks and stood there until his friend slowly got out of his chair to leave the room.
In the ceremony taking place in one of the virtual meeting rooms, viewing a serene country setting with a soothing brook running nearby, D’Shawn positioned himself in the rear behind the people gathered. Many of the dignitaries from the Council of Nations were in attendance as well as the surviving Returned.
D’Shawn still couldn’t shake off the feeling of dismay as he remembered his friend, Cynthia. She was a good friend to his family. She was too busy in her efforts to help save mankind from the Ancient Visitors to have a family of her own. D’Shawn took it upon himself to include his friend in his family activities. Cynthia became close to D’Shawn’s wife and children. As a matter of fact, Cynthia donated her Super Homo sapiens egg to one of D’Shawn’s children in order for his daughter and her husband to have a child.
He was falling deeper in despair when he thought about something Cynthia once said to him. She had said, “Strive toward the better future, for the past is nothing more than the road we traveled to get there. But don’t look back, because all you’ll see are your fading footsteps. In those steps are nothing more than our lost dreams.” Maybe, he thought, he should finally take that advice.
As the ceremony concluded, Father
Willie called over Marcus, Steven, and D’Shawn to speak to him and Hailey. “First I’d like to say how sorrowful I am at the loss of your friend. I pray God takes her in his warm embrace until we join her in the afterlife.”
“Thank you, Father,” said an appreciative D’Shawn.
“Now I have some news,” the priest conveyed. “Kaiden, whom you might consider as the spiritual leader for the Peace, Love, and Serenity movement, has been spotted in Jerusalem preaching at the temple mount that the end of time is upon us.”
Marcus then questioned, “Haven’t all preachers since the time of Jesus Christ preached the end is near?”
“That may be true, but the successors of Sha’nay Barnwell have not ventured out of Nirvana for anything other than a few personal visits. They’ve never left to go preach anywhere else than Nirvana, much less go to Jerusalem to do it. Something must have happened for him to venture there.”
Marcus then asked, “What might make him decide to go there now?”
After a brief moment of silence, Father Willie said, “To be honest, I’m not sure. The implications are immense. At the moment, multitudes of the more devote followers of the Peace, Love, and Serenity movement are heading to Jerusalem. Many of the world’s religious leaders are heading there as well. I’m told the Pope is midflight as we speak.”
As Father Willie spoke to Marcus, the members of the Council of Nations at the ceremony abruptly broke away from the memorial. They accessed their computers while they spoke and argued with each other. What was most noticeable was the worried look on their faces.
President Juan Chi and Minister Daley approached Marcus while Steven, D’Shawn, Hailey, and Father Willie listened in. The President told Marcus, “We’ve just been informed a large object is speeding through space heading toward Earth. Our long range scanners have detected the object and believe it is two days or less before intercepting with Earth. From what we can gather, the object is the size of a small moon.”
