"Not really, existence is only useful if it has a purpose. Everything in the universe does serve its purpose whether it wants to or not," Beneizen replies. "Will mankind survive?" Doris asks.
"Irrelevant question, the question is, what does the universe need and how can that be served? Mankind of today does not remember its true purpose," Beneizen replies.
"You would say something like that. You're not human Beneizen, the question is irrelevant to you, but to me I must complete what I am,” Doris says quietly. "I am human Doris, quite human with just a few modifications. Millions of years ago because of conditions on our own little planet we developed at an alarming rate. We were truly one with the universe as you would say. Our connection with the finer energies enabled us to connect with many other universes. We time traveled and began to understand the hierarchy of creation and all universes and we came to a new level of connection with forces so fine that we no longer understood them. It was then we learned and began to understand the true meaning of service and sacrifice. This frightened us at first and we searched, studied and concocted theory after theory. None of them really worked - because we just didn't understand. Then we accepted that there was something higher than us, finer and we gave it the name ORD. We wrote books about it, developed religions, and even fought wars over it. It was not understood and then we accepted that we could not understand it with the level of perception we had then.”
“We became obsessed with creating new life forms that could perceive this finer energy; hoping by creating them and through these experiments it would help us understand ourselves. From these efforts and many experiments you were born, among others. We spawned millions of different life forms spread out over planets throughout the cosmos, we performed great experiments to ‘find God’ as you would put it, and we still keep trying. But at some point something changed in all of us; we felt and sensed the order in everything.”
Doris interrupts him, "I sense and feel the order in everything."
"Very good, and that's why I’m here with you," Beneizen says quietly, adding, "Doris I know it’s close to your time. I'm going to take your hand now and show you everything as I promised."
"Are you an angel?" Doris asks.
"I'm everything that is around and in you," Beneizen takes Doris's hand. He looks at Charles who is standing behind the window watching and signals to him to come into the room.
Charles comes back into Doris's room and sits by her side as Beneizen leaves and joins Sam who is looking through the large window at them sitting together, Charles holding her hand and sobbing and says to Beneizen, "You had better leave for a while, Charles is irrational. Could you move Doris's consciousness to a Guard?"
"A Guard no, another synthetic form yes but Doris would be miserable. I can't do that. Doris was my student and friend. I must respect her wishes," Beneizen says.”
“Don’t die Doris, I can’t live without you,” Charles moans as Doris squeezes her husband’s hand for the last time.
“Yes you can Charles, you must finish our work; you must complete our dream,” Doris says with great difficulty. With those last words and Charles looking into her large blue eyes Doris dies. The alarm from her life support system begins to beep. A doctor comes rushing into the room, Charles takes in a huge breath, and a gasp of air. He falls to the floor and starts to choke.
Beneizen and Sam rush into the room as the doctor kneels next to Charles, feels his throat for a pulse and then gives him a shot and says, "He's just in shock. I gave him a sedative."
"Move him to a comfortable room,” Beneizen responds then adds, "I want her taken to my lab, immediately."
Chapter 5 Juan and Esperanza sat at the kitchen table. Their small row house in Brooklyn was plain but comfortable. The children could be heard playing in the other room, but the two of them just sat looking at each other. He could see she was visibly upset and as he reaches for her hand she pulls it away.
"What were you thinking, why did you invite him here?" she opens.
"I’m sorry to involve you in my work," he returns. "That doesn't bother me, but Juan there is no food. We can't have parties. Do you know what the supermarkets look like now? Every week I go there are fewer choices. Do you have any idea what's going on? When is the last time you saw a fat person who was not involved with the government? We can't feed our kids - not because we don't have the money, but because there is nothing to buy. Then you invite the very man who almost killed you. What is wrong with you?" she begins to sob.
"It's my job, I'm part of that government and you could have gone to the NYPD department store," he replies.
"I hate that store, there’s little food there either. You’re living in a bubble, read my lips there is no food! Then let them not pay you, but give you the actual food! Do you hear me, what must this be doing to the economy? We, meaning the world, are in trouble and what are you doing about it? She yells. "I'm doing my part. I can't tell you more, you know that!" he pleads.
"Don't give me that secret government crap! - You're involved in top secret black ops, you're undercover, you’re saving the world, and things will be different... I know you're part of the government, you're part of the problem," she yells again.
There is a pause and he hands her a tissue and they look at each other then take each other's hands and smile. "Feel better? I might remind you that you too were part of the government before we decided to have three kids," Juan smiles.
Maria their twelve year old comes into the kitchen her head is bald and she is obviously very sick. She sees them holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes and says, "Ah, you're making me sick. I thought I heard mom yelling!"
"I'm angry at your father. He’s having a party and there is no food - and the little food I do find is processed food. Who knows what we're really eating?" Esperanza says.
"She’s right, dad - you're wrong and I think Chase is here. By the way I think he's gorgeous," Maria says. "I don’t want you within then ten feet of that monster," Juan screams.
"Mom!" Maria looks at Esperanza for alliance and then leaves the room.
Esperanza looks back at Juan with tears coming down her face. "We don't have the money for her cancer treatments. Your insurance won't cover the procedure which she can only get at NY Presbyterian Hospital - I’m terrified that our beautiful daughter is going to die!" Esperanza says sadly.
"I'm dealing with it. Our daughter is not going to die," says Juan.
Esperanza moves into Juan's arms. He hugs her tenderly. “I’m doing what I have to do," he says quietly.
Their home on Avenue U. in Brooklyn was on a typical street with row after row of small homes. Chase, overcoming great resistance, decided to come to their Sunday picnic. He felt guilty and he also had a secret crush on Juan's wife Esperanza. She was cute, kind, and very bossy but she always treated him as if he was part of their family. He got out of his car and walked up the stairs. The door suddenly burst open and of Juan's son, Jose came bursting out of the house.
"My goodness you're growing like a weed," Chase says, as he hugs him.
"Come and see my room it's all different," Jose says. At that moment the door flies open and Maria runs down the steps and into Chase's arms.
"I told dad that I think you're gorgeous," Maria smiles up at Chase. Her slight frame was small against the unearthly size of Chase. It was like a statue of a Greek God against a Hobbit.
"Are you trying to get me killed?" Chase says. Esperanza and Juan come out the front door and see Maria hugging Chase.
"Get your hands off my daughter," Juan screams. "Daddy, you're embarrassing me, I just hugged him," Maria smiles, as she jumps up giving Chase a kiss on his cheek.
"Stop that," Esperanza yells and then turns to Chase saying, "Welcome, it’s good to see you." Esperanza and Juan take Chase into the house and the pleasantries continue for a long time. Juan's children love Chase. With his simple demeanor and hulking size he appears almost as a ‘children's character.’ He visits their rooms an
d plays with them. The other guests arrive and after a short while the picnic is going so well that Chase forgets his problems and then Esperanza comes up to him in the back yard with a beer and hands it to him.
"I don't drink," Chase says.
"Drink it, hear me, chug it down. Now listen to me you enormous piece of garbage, if you ever threaten my husband again and I hear about it this is what's going to happen: there is going to be a sedative in something you drink and then I'm going to hang you by your feet and when you wake up I'm going to stab you 100 times with the K-Bar I brought back with me and watch you bleed out on the floor while I have a beer and listen to music. Do we understand each other?" Esperanza says with great malice.
"Esperanza I'm really sorry…" She puts her hands in front of his mouth saying, "Shut up, now smile and enjoy your beer," and then walks away.
Juan comes over to Chase as he stands there holding his beer amazed. "I love your wife," Chase says. "I love her too, she's very special" Juan agrees. "You're a lucky man."
"I am, how’s your beer?" Juan asks.
"It tastes funny" Chase says with apprehension. Giving a Russian the chance to live in America was like giving candy to a baby. This was the land of opportunity. Russians don't have the same fears as Americans. They know what they can and can't get away with. They’re used to endless bureaucracy. They know how to use it to their benefit. American's are afraid of bureaucracy. That makes them vulnerable. General Ivan Kolinski had very few fears. After years of fighting in the Ukraine, fighting a useless war he was battle hardened and devoid of conscience. Ivan’s grandfather had fought in the Afghan war and the endless stories his grandfather told him had prepared him to understand that all wars made no sense. They were to be savored and enjoyed for the pleasures they did offer; rape, killing and plunder. He parked off the side of the road, stepped out of his black jeep, reached into the back seat and took out a black aluminum gun case. Ivan says to himself, “Time have little sport now.”
Dressed in long pants a tan shirt and black sun glasses, Ivan walked onto a small dirt path that seemed to lead directly into the woods. After walking a short distance he suddenly stops and crouches low to the ground. In front of him was a small hill. It looked man-made, maybe a retaining wall for a dam. He crawled up the small rise and looked over the top. A short distance away was a Little League baseball game. It was Saturday afternoon and the kids were playing. It was important that Ivan was close to his prey because the pellets shot from the air gun could only be effective from a few hundred feet. Keeping very quiet, stealth was one of Ivan's many skill sets, he was highly capable; intelligent and trained by many of the world's best. Again Ivan says to himself, “Stupid American kids playing stupid American baseball. I have little sport, now,” as he opened his gun case.
In Russia Ivan had developed many viruses, and he thought to himself "They want me do that here, and maybe I will help them, maybe not. These little pellets diastastic pellets; inside each is nasty virus. Diastastic dissolves, they first get flu they never get better, and no one can get from them. It degenerates, destroys itself. No trace! I love this virus; it takes long time for them to die.”
Ivan finishes putting the gun together and pours several pellets into the chamber from a small container.
Ivan adds a scope to the gun and ruminates to himself, “Too many people in world.” Ivan loved Stalin, maybe even worshiped him; “He knew that too and everyone misunderstood him. Millions died in World War II as result of his firm guiding hand. He cleansed gene pool. They thought he was paranoid, but that’s not why he killed so many. I think, maybe he just liked to kill people, it made him feel better and I like to kill people too, I feel I’m doing the world a service, nothing that feels this good could be all bad.” Ivan adjusted the scope and began randomly to shoot children playing stupid baseball. After his sport was over he crawled carefully back down the hill, put the gun back in its case, climbed into his Jeep, adjusted the rear view mirror to look at himself and said to himself, "You are fine looking man Ivan, and you look more relaxed! Good Saturday morning sport!" Sam Nichols was a tall wiry man with a skin like leather. His smoky eyes were almost too large for his thin face, capped off with a drooping grey moustache it gave the impression he was a hound that had been starved. Sam was a very complicated man, a doctor, a geneticist, and a war hero. He had won the Congressional Medal of Honor in the Middle East War. After the war he went to college and then medical school, where he and Beneizen Brewster met and together they became obsessed with genetics and their potential to fight disease. While fighting in the Middle East war Sam became a Buddhist and vowed after the war that he would never kill again. When he met Beneizen Sam was looking for redemption. His memories of the war were intolerable to his conscience. Beneizen helped him find inner peace and the way to pay for his sins and helped him to let go of his misery as Sam struggled day after day looking for inner peace. At some point in their relationship Beneizen revealed himself to Sam, showed him what he was and where he was from and revealed his purpose on earth. Having lived the life he had lived and having done what he had done he welcomed this new relationship. As the years went by Beneizen helped Sam's escape his pain and slowly the relationship began to change. The teacher and the student became a team, a unit and shared a common purpose - to restore balance to earth again, but there was one terrible problem. Sam was a human being and Beneizen was a Kalactin from a planet far from earth, two creatures each looking for redemption. Sam needed inner forgiveness from his war ‘sins’ and Beneizen for feeling responsible for the death of his life partner Tamalin who had died when Beneizen let her take a small hovercraft alone too near a misjudged gravitational field around a star. Something in him had known not to let her go but that something in him was asleep, content, and passive for just that moment and this inattention had caused her death. Two men looking for forgiveness left them blind to their own imbalance. The situation was fast getting out of their control and it was Beneizen who finally understood what needed to be done.
He sat behind the wheel of his SUV looking through the windshield into the pouring rain as his car sat in traffic on the way to the airport. Next to him sat Beneizen whose face was almost that of a child without a line on it and yet over a million years old. His face was in great contrast to Sam’s.
“I don’t think you should go,” Sam opened.
“You don’t know what’s at stake,” Beneizen answered.
“Yes I do,” Sam said.
There is a pause while Beneizen thinks. Sam looks over at his warm and familiar face.
“They’re just going to try to kill me Sam even though they don't have the means to do that, but they could kill my work here and that could kill you. If I fail, mankind might not get another chance,” Beneizen answers.
“Where are you going?” Sam asks.
“Far, far away,” Beneizen answers.
“How can I contact you?” Sam asks.
“I will contact you when the time is right,” Beneizen says.
“We’ve been working together for almost twenty years Beneizen, and I find it distressing to think that all we have worked for could be ruined,” Sam says. “Charles is going to become more and more unstable. With the death of his wife I'm almost sure of it. Chase and Ally bothare my children. We have to activate the transformation in both of them now. I will contact them and do it. Make sure they don’t kill them before I can do that Sam. It’s your job to keep them alive,” Beneizen says.
“Why are these two so special and if they are your children how can they die?” Sam asks.
“You are all my children, they are different, but they’re still children; they have greater possibilities. You’ll see in time. It’s best you don’t know too much. You don’t know how rough it’s going to become.” "Beneizen why are you flying, couldn't you just transport yourself anywhere you wanted?" Sam asks. "Because I like to fly," Beneizen responds. "Don't take all the fun out of my trip. Remember it's the journey that’s important, not the des
tination." Beneizen is about to get out of the car when Sam says, "Beneizen these Guards that you helped Charles create are dangerous. They could wipe out humanity." "One of many of your earth’s viruses could wipe out humanity. Further climate change could wipe all life off the earth. Maybe you humans have served your purpose already. The dinosaurs gave humanity a lot of oil. Sam, don't worry so much. Protect my children
- they aren't going to like being awakened.”
Beneizen gets out of the car and walks slowly towards his private plane. He seems to be gliding over the tarmac and enjoying each step; as if walking were the greatest pleasure on earth.
Sam watched Beneizen disappear into the plane before slumping back in his seat overwhelmed with anxiety about the future.
Chapter 8 Loudoun County, Virginia is only 30 minutes from the nation’s capital and many of America's ‘finest’ lived in Leesburg and often enjoyed the fine dining at the Lightfoot Restaurant.
Congressman Charles B. Dean from the great state of Texas loved to eat there with friends and business associates. His huge body was not that of a healthy man. He had difficulty breathing and would frequently take out an asthma inhaler from his coat pocket and puff furiously. He was also going bald, and to add to his endangered condition he smoked cigars, the big Castro Havana variety. He had been waiting for Colonel Sam Nichols, who was in charge of the Bio safety level 4 units at The United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick commonly called USAMRIID.
Sam walked easily into the restaurant and appeared before Congressman Dean who was already on his first round of appetizers.
“Glad you could come, please sit down,” Dean offered.
“Good to see you Charles, are you feeling better since the passing of Doris,” Sam said affectionately. The two men shook hands and then sat down. “I see you already have a head start,”
“I'm fine, just taking a little solace in food, just a few scraps to get the appetite going. The Atomic crab cakes are to die for,” the two of them laughed. “I was truly sorry about Doris,” Sam offers as he probes Charles’ mental condition.
Sentinels of the Cosmos Trilogy Page 3
