by S V Hurn
CHAPTER 48
The group all stood staring out into the darkness as the sun was just coming up over the horizon, glistening off the upper atmosphere of Earth. Dorathy held her hand to her mouth. How is this possible?” Her comment was met by silence as everyone was trying to absorb what had just happened. So many years of longing, so many years of danger and the unknown, so many years of being trapped and alone, facing overwhelming odds, all came to down to a few moments in time that had separated them from ages long gone.
Henry sat in his seat and took readings, as he had not yet fully comprehended the image slowly rotating beneath them. He knew in his gut something was not quite right. They were on the dark side of their long-lost home and it seemed so still, so vacant, so very wrong.
Magnus took the seat beside him. His tired eyes took in the calm darkness and he shook his head as the realization seeped into his soul. Everything that they had left behind was long gone. The look of acknowledgment settled into the fine lines of his face with a hint of recognition, as the shadowy figures of familiar land masses below turning into the darkness. Magnus with a look of despair said, “Our world mate . . . there are no lights. “
Brenda took a seat behind them and turned to look at Dorathy—the reality was a harsh thing that managed to creep in. “You know what I’m about to say.”
With a blank stare Dorathy said, “Yes . . . yes I do.”
It was apparent to everyone now. The question had always been where, where are we? Now the only question remaining was when. Brenda asked the question everyone was thinking, “How far forward in time are we?”
Dorathy softly asked, “Henry, take readings of the atmosphere and that should give us a hint.”
“Already on it.”
After a few seconds the reading came back. Henry looked over his shoulder, and said, “Hmmm . . . pristine . . . a paradise. No traces that man has ever scarred the planet.”
The wheels were turning in Dorathy’s mind. “Can you pull up the current location of Polaris?”
Henry did as he was asked, not knowing exactly what she was getting at but knowing enough about celestial navigation to know that Polaris was the North Star. Henry looked at the result and shut his eyes with a heavy sigh. “Polaris is off by several degrees. Jesus Christ, he whispered to the darkness below. Henry adjusted a few readings. “Vega is due north.”
Dorathy’s head spun as she fell back into the seat beside Brenda. Jobar was puzzled by everyone’s reaction in the cockpit, trying to crane his neck from side to side on his tip toes. “Please tell me, what is it, what’s wrong?”
Magnus got up disgusted and overwhelmed and pushed his way out of the copilot’s seat. “Well, bloody hell, I’ve fuckin’ seen enough!”
Henry turned to look at Dorathy for an answer; she starred back at him and blurted the answer he was afraid to get. “Due to the Earth’s procession on its axis, we’re about in the year fourteen thousand AD . . . give or take.”
Brenda repeated what Dorathy had just said in an attempt to wrap her head around it. “We are fourteen thousand years in the future?” Brenda searched Dorathy’s eyes for help, for a truth she wanted to hear, not the craziness that was being spoken; she only found in her eyes the realization of their predicament.
They sat in silence once again, absorbing the situation. Dorathy moved beside Henry. “I know after what we have been through you are not going to want to hear this request, but take us down . . . down to the Antarctic.” Henry peered at her through squinted weary eyes and glanced down, where in her lap she clutched the pyramid-shaped amulet glowing brightly in her hands.
“No . . . not until you tell us what you know of your . . . trinket.”
“Fair enough, I think it best we take a break from . . . all this.” Slowly they filed back to the main lab, allowing Jobar and Patsup to finally see out onto Earth, now a dark quiet place, a sanctuary . . . an oasis, or a mirage . . . the verdict was still out.
They all joined Magnus at the table; he was already throwing back his second drink. Henry sat craning and rubbing his aching neck, his head still throbbing from the down and dirty fight with Simon. A time that had seemed only minutes ago, now seemed as if a lifetime had passed.
Everyone’s attention was on Dorathy as she closed her eyes, remembering her father’s journal and the trip they had taken together so many years ago to Tibet. The air had been crisp and thin with the strong sweet smell of burning incense. The monks were chanting in unison a strumming sound that had vibrated off the temple walls. A sea of red silk, a calmness she had never experienced before with a feeling of oneness with all life that surrounded them. She remembered taking her father’s hand and felt safe and loved—a feeling she would not have again for quite some time, until the time she first took Alex’s hand in hers.
Afterwards they met with one of the elders. He had told them a tale that had been passed on over the centuries, a tale of man’s beginnings and the chosen few whose bloodlines were kept intact. Dorathy recounted what he had said all those years ago.
Only those who are of the purest blood, may enter the temples for they hold the power within them. They came from the heavens, an attainable place and set upon the Earth their kind that we could someday join them. The temple you seek is buried beneath within the only land that has been untouched by man’s hand. They hold the looking glass into our future.
After telling them this Dorathy continued, “my father wrote of finding the temple buried deep under the Antarctic ice. He also had his suspicions of Simon having been swayed from their common interests.
Henry knew there was more. “Dora what did he find down there?”
Dorathy held up the amulet glowing a blackish red. “This was in a pyramid buried and untouched by man, still in its original form with its . . . occupant . . . that lay in stasis . . . ,” her voice trailing off. “Waiting for one of us to awaken him. My father wrote as he entered the pyramid that there was a state of knowing and recognition, an overwhelming bond of pure love between him and the being. He was offered the amulet and when he accepted, the entity was released from his commitment and soared into the heavens.”
Magnus set his empty glass down and took to his unstable feet, approaching the console bringing up the thirteen planets. They now hovered, taunting them to explore their mysteries.
“Brenda gathered her thoughts. “Look Dora you were sent to us, into the future to help mankind achieve its loftiest of goals . . . to find the answers that have eluded man from the very beginning . . . where do we come from? The question is all encompassing, the answer is simple and yet abstract. We come from there, somewhere within Orion and the thirteen rogue planets, thirteen blood lines, and one crystal talisman. You have the power to get us there, I no doubt believe you also have the power to uncover what mysteries lie ahead of us in these thirteen planets.”
Henry added, “There is a connection, we just need to follow what we know so far.”
Dorathy nodded; she understood she was the only one who could open a doorway to the other side. “I need to go down there and see for myself what my father saw—if there is anything I’m missing we will surely find it.” Dorathy looked at the image floating over their heads. “Orion through the centuries had always been linked to so many tales. Pyramids all over the planet had been discovered, most of which were aligned to the stars of Orion.”
Jobar softly added, “A message hidden in plain sight.” Jobar asked, “But what of our existence?”
Dorathy answered, “we are all made up of the same stuff, and it would be no surprise if your species and other species carry the same blood lines.”
“Okay then,” Henry announced. “We go down after we get some rest and have some time to digest what has transpired; at least it’s summer in the southern hemisphere.”
Brenda sat still in her thoughts, looking over to Jobar and seeing the pain in his eyes—both fearing the worst for Dimitri and Coolie. The time was ticking away.
Dimitri woke in what lo
oked to be a cargo hold of a small drone ship; next to him gagged and bound was Coolie, still slumped over, with blood caked onto his face from a massive wound to the side of his head. Dimitri struggled with his bound hands, kicking and squirming to stand in the small cramped space. Sweat pouring from his forehead blurred his vision as he managed to wipe his face with his shoulder. He turned to his side and lay horizontal, straining to see into the cockpit. As he suspected the ship was unmanned and was driven by remote on a preset coordinates. His head throbbing, he grunted past his gagged mouth and awkwardly kicked Coolie to wake him.
After a few kicks Coolie moaned and peeled one eye open, the other being pasted shut by frozen blood, his scaly skin peeling from the arid mountain air of Kore’s home planet. He tried to speak but found he had been gagged as well. Panic set into him as he started to pitch and struggle, screaming something through his gagged mouth.
Moments seemed like days as they both struggled to free themselves. All the while the drone ship sped to an unknown destination. Dimitri managed to move his large frame in the tiny space, moving far enough forward to get a good look around to the control panel. He squinted hard to make out the readings and stopped with a rapid intake of air through his ever- growing congested nostrils. Through his faltering gag he said the words that Coolie knew only too well, and Coolie shuttered at the thought of what lay in their uncertain future: “We are headed to the military prison of the NWO.”
Tears started to well up in Coolie’s frantic eyes as he searched Dimitri’s for comfort, but he was just as frightened and showed no hint of having an answer. Coolie sat lonely and prayed for a miracle.
The drone ship came in slow for a landing on a deadly wasteland; there was no escaping this nightmare. Dimitri and Coolie sat helpless, still bound tightly, and they could only imagine what horrors waited for them as they felt the deceleration, heard the slowing hum of the propulsion, and felt the drone lurch as it touched down . . . but where, where indeed. There was no need for windows on a drone, so imaginations were running wild. Coolie managed to grunt something; Dimitri knew what he was trying to say from the look in his eyes. “Yes, try to stay together, I have a tracking device that has been implanted, it will be our only hope of being rescued.” Coolie nodded, fear permeating into every pore and he began to shake uncontrollably.
With a heavy clank, the ship was moving again but this time it felt as they were rapidly descending as Dimitri’s ears popped. Dread was all-consuming, it weighed them down as they sunk deeper into the unknown abyss. Finally, they came to a stop and the drone ship felt as they were now on a conveyer belt moving forward. From behind a panel, a loud hissing sound was followed by a gas that quickly filled the small space. The two frightened occupants started to gag and cough, their heads tingling, eyes and throat burning as they gasped for air, their vision narrowing, and with one final breath they were gone. Death would be an easier journey.
Dorathy sat in her little room going over the milestones of her life as she thumbed through the photo book that had been placed in her cryotube so many centuries ago. She longed for the life she once had. An image appeared of her precious daughter Athena— thoughts of her lingered in her mind’s eye. What a lovely day they had making sand angels on her little bit of paradise. Tears welled as she thought of all the things she had missed in her daughter’s life: her wedding, grandchildren . . . that life she once had was long gone now, Athena longtime dead, having lived an entire life without her mother in it.
She missed her father—all the things she never discussed with him, all the things she wish she has known but she had pushed him aside because of his sketchy involvement with the Illuminati. She wanted to scream at him and hold him tight all at the same time. She started to sob uncontrollably thinking of all the heartache; there had been her small bit of happiness she found for herself, the one thin shred she so briefly had with Alex, only to have him stripped away, her happiness stripped away, her life taken, and every trace of it extinct. A pang of sudden anger welled in her gut, for only immense loneliness had now taken its place in this new life which had been handed to her.
She was racked by guilt for the people she now called her family. The sacrifices made by them so she could be brought forward to another place in time. Yet here they were, where they had started, everyone gone. Everyone had either transcended to another dimension or simply perished from the face of the planet, now haunting her from below.
The thought of distance and time had always been such a mystery to most—throw in a little dark matter, a dash of multiple dimensions, and a pinch of quantum entanglement, mix it all together and you got man’s inability to comprehend. Was it distance and time or was it all separated by a thin veil occupying the same woven fabric. All being a spooky action at a distance.
Dorathy’s eyes grew heavy as she still clutched the amulet tightly to her chest; sleep was something that seemed to elude her. The thought that she somehow had gotten just a tiny bit closer to the answers they sought only now that she had faced her demons, she had drifted off to sleep.
Morning brought with it a type of disconnect as the planet they left behind nearly fourteen thousand years ago had changed so much, its topography distorted, the polar shift changing the landscape. It was a serene and quiet place with only the sounds of nature, the sound of isolation that gave way to an immense feeling of loneliness.
Approaching Antarctica, all they could see was a desolate cold rocky dessert landscape that stretched out for miles. The ship who had turned out to be their most trusted friend had automatically zeroed in on their destination. As they sped over the wasteland a shining figure was coming up over the horizon, glistening brightly as the sun reflected off the white limestone structure.
Dorathy knew right away it was the place her father had written about in his journal so many years ago. The ship hovered above, almost as if it was making a connection to the past, relaying its thoughts to the creature that once inhabited its dark cold interior.
Dorathy tried not to state the obvious. “My God this was once buried by a mile of ice.”
Henry went over his readouts and added, “By the looks of it, I would say it then spent some time under the ocean as water levels rose with the ice melt, then receded, exposing the Antarctic land mass as we see it now.”
The air was dry and cold, the wind blowing over the dark greyish-black scenery, giving it an other-worldly appearance. As they came down to the barren land they started to see the evidence of it having been submerged for many centuries. Fossilized crustaceans that had been bleached by the sun had formed on the outer structure and over time were being eroded away, leaving the smooth white stone peeking out, the splendor of its original opulence being preserved.
As they disembarked Dorathy had a knot in her gut that grew to a panic that seeped to the depths of her existence. She looked over her shoulder back to the ship nervously hoping it would not leave them stranded on this desolate forgotten land mass. They walked across the land that over time had shifted and filled with sediment, blurring the onetime frozen water entrance. An image of a Russian submarine breaking the water as it emerged from the depths of the icy Southern Ocean was merely a ghost that came to haunt them now with the wind howling over the sharp edges of the pyramid.
Dorathy reached out with her bare hand and gently touched the surface of the pyramid closing the gap of time, knowing her father had done the exact same thing so many centuries before her.
With a grinding thud the door slid open and they cautiously passed through it with Dorathy in the lead.
Henry whispered; afraid he might wake up a sleeping beast within. “You said your father wrote he had awakened an entity of light that gave him the amulet.”
“Yes, once he had taken it the being disappeared up through the baffled ceiling and out through the southern shaft.”
They slowly entered and climbed up the ascending staircase to the grand chamber. Its narrow passage was a portal to the past. Magnus and Brenda ducked their heads an
d came in behind Henry and, peering up where there was a carving that seemed to be very familiar to them. Brenda craned her neck and pointed “Look, the Orion constellation.”
Dorathy and Henry could see as Jobar and Patsup struggled to look up past their friends. Dorathy noticed the emphasis on the stars that made up the sword slung from the belt. “The Orion Nebula, Dorathy said quietly, “I bet this pyramid lines up to the middle star.” Henry nodded his acknowledgment.
Dorathy’s wheels were turning in her mind. “I think the carvings in the lost city have similar meaning, all lining up to points of our thirteen rogue planets, one carving for each planet giving a type of coordinates to find a pyramid . . . God, who knows.”
Henry agreed. “I bet you you’re right Dora. A type of map to a location on each planet . . . it would make sense.”
Dorathy ran her hands through her now-shoulder length hair, a few greys glistening in the dim light coming from above. In front of them was a coffer structure which had been carved from a solid block of rose granite. They gathered round it as they peered into the now-empty shell, trying to imagine a being of light lying within since the beginning of time. The genetic engineer from another time, from another dimension, lying in stasis waiting for confirmation that his work was done.
Dorathy placed her hand on the stone, feeling a slight vibration, its frequency matching hers. She looked at Henry. “Can you feel that?”
Henry placed his hand next to hers and shook his head. “No . . . I don’t feel anything.”
The next thing they knew Dorathy was climbing inside and lying down within the cold stone. There was a warmth building within her. Off in the distance she heard Henry saying her name, Dorathy don’t . . .”
Dorathy found herself lying in the cool grass—the scent was so familiar to her. She opened her eyes looking up to the hazy blue sky, a planet hovering over her head that took up most of the surrounding space, its beautiful rings glowing brightly around it. She sat up looking around, as she hoped her father or Athena would appear.
