The Milestone Protocol

by Ernest Dempsey

  “Hence the many tentacles they use. Government is also one of their tools.”

  Adriana tilted her head to the side and crossed her arms. “You’re telling me that every politician that comes into a congressional or parliamentary or prime ministerial or presidential seat has been put there by this overarching deep state?”

  “No, not all,” Diego corrected. “Only those they need to maintain control. Their leader is smart enough to understand that balance must be maintained for appearances. Almost everything you see in the news, too, is for the purpose of illusion. Things must seem real to people. They must feel like they have some kind of control over what is happening in their lives, or they will revolt against it.”

  Adriana stepped away from the scroll and walked a few paces toward the door. She stopped and hung her head. She knew her father wasn’t crazy. He was far from a conspiracy theorist or some kind of nutjob from either side of the pendulum swing. He was the most rational person she knew, and she respected him. He’d never lied to her about anything, as far as she knew. Diego Villa was a man of honor and integrity. Even as she wondered how any of this was possible, she considered that simply by the fact he’d said it, there had to be some truth behind the story.

  “So, this cult controls the population to maintain it at a level the planet can sustain?”

  “Yes,” Miyamoto said. “They use a set of established markers, or standards, they call milestones. When the population exceeds a certain number, they trigger a mass extinction event.”

  “Like a war or a plague.”

  “Yes. They measure the milestones based on a complex series of markers that take into account global population and the advancement of technology and industry. If things don’t add up to where they should be based on their timelines, they execute a few thousand here, a hundred thousand there, a million somewhere else.”

  She shook her head, still staring at the floor. “I just don’t see how it could be real.” Her tone betrayed her conviction, a sense that she knew it was true.

  Her father cleared his throat to answer. “How many millions of people has cancer killed in the last thousand years? What about AIDS? The flu has killed untold millions just in the last century. In 2018, over eighty thousand people died from the flu in the United States alone. There are some things that happen that are natural, certainly, but not all. In fact, most are not. And then there are the little issues of things that are harmful yet legal. They have spread out their methods of shortening the human lifespan across a wide gambit. Wars and pandemics do the job more quickly when necessary, but they do a thorough job of thinning the herd in perpetuity. Even with all of our advances in nutrition, exercise science, medicine, and lifestyle, we are still topping out at around seventy-five years for an average human lifespan. That number has not gone up significantly in a long time. Again, you must ask why that is the case.”

  “Why now?” Adriana rounded on them both. “Why am I just now hearing about this?”

  The two older men exchanged a knowing, wary glance.

  Miyamoto spoke with warning in his voice. “Because they may have just stumbled on a more efficient, faster way to eliminate billions.”

  16

  Stockholm

  “Cult?” Magnus said in disbelief. “What kind of cult?”

  Kevin slumped back into the sofa and rubbed his eyes, waiting to hear the answer.

  Tabitha tilted her head to the side as she listened. It was clear she was fed up with all the vague talk. She wanted answers, and she wanted them two hours ago.

  “It’s right there on the tablet,” Sean said, indicating the artifact with his index finger. “The Hermetic Cult of Thoth.”

  “So, you think the ibis is a symbol of…some kind of secret cult?” Kevin stumbled through the question.

  Sean laughed at him in disbelief for a second. “Sure seems that way.”

  “Did you know this before? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Because he wasn’t sure you’d buy what he was selling,” Tommy defended.

  “Exactly,” Sean agreed. “The Thoth Cult was one of the more prominent of its time, so much so that when many of the other religious followings fell away into the sands of time, they marched on, only growing in influence and power. Somehow, they managed to even snake their way into Greek mythology, which shows how much sway the cult’s members possessed. Hermes and Thoth were worshipped together, as if they were one being. You see some examples of similar cultural absorption with deities from Rome as well, but the way the Greeks honored Thoth, or Hermes, proves that the cult acolytes were able to navigate foreign cultures and infiltrate some of their most powerful minds.”

  “Yes, but why are they here now?” Kevin asked. “What do they want with that tablet or the rose gem? Why did they kill everyone I worked with?”

  The question hung heavy, like breezeless smoke in the air.

  “The rose gem is the key to unlocking whatever it is they’re looking for,” Tommy said.

  “Which is?” Tabitha asked.

  Sean and Tommy looked at each other.

  “You wanna?” Sean asked.

  “No, I insist,” Tommy responded.

  “You sure? I don’t mind if you want to take this one.”

  “Be my guest. You did break into my penthouse.”

  “Fine,” Sean relented. “We don’t know exactly what they want or what it is they’re looking for. But we have some ideas.”

  “Ideas?” Tabitha asked with a belittling voice. “That’s it? You guys are talking about ancient cults and thousands of years of power plays, and all you’re basing it on is a hunch?”

  “See?” Sean said, looking back at his friend.

  “Fine,” Tommy sighed. “When I mention the pyramids, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?”

  She rolled her shoulders and glanced to the side as if the wall would give her the answer. “Egypt. Why?”

  “Why not South America or Central America? What about Mexico? Or why not the ones in the Southeastern United States? Or perhaps the ones in Cambodia?”

  “You asked which ones were the first ones that came to mind. I answered. What’s your point?”

  “The point,” Sean took over, “is that there are pyramids all over the world, and we’ve never really been given a good answer as to why. The ones in Egypt align almost perfectly with Orion’s belt. Others around the world align with various celestial bodies as well.”

  “Yes,” Kevin cut in, “but that was because of religious beliefs. It was a way to ensure transportation to the afterlife the culture associated with.”

  “Sure. But it seems odd that it was the pyramid design that traveled all over the world to places and people who were completely disconnected, separated by vast oceans. And then there’s the little issue of the ones we discovered.”

  Tabitha lowered her eyebrows at the statement. “What do you mean, the ones you discovered?”

  “That information has been kept fairly quiet in recent years,” Tommy answered. “You probably won’t find any articles with a Google search if that’s what you were thinking. We found a pyramid under the sands of the Sahara and buried in a mountain near Denali in Alaska. Makes you wonder what they were doing in those remote locations where we have no record of civilizations beyond fairly recent history.”

  “I didn’t know about those,” Kevin confessed. “Did you really? I mean, you two found new pyramids, and the historical community doesn’t know about it?”

  “Some may know,” Sean said. “I’d say it’s likely. But it’s like the first rule of Fight Club.”

  “Never talk about Fight Club,” Tommy said in a warning tone. Then his lips creased into a smirk. “The pyramids we located were harnessing a vast amount of power. And we weren’t the first to discover the one in Alaska. Someone was already there, using the vast amount of energy the megalithic structure was producing.”

  Tabitha raised both eyebrows this time, but said nothing.

  “Energy?
” Kevin asked, genuinely curious. “What do you mean it was producing energy?”

  “Good question,” Tommy said. “You may or may not know this, but there are locations around the planet that appear to be hotspots for geostatic electricity. I first heard about this in a book I read by a professor who was looking into the story of the Ark of the Covenant and how it really worked.”

  “What do you mean how it worked?” Tabitha asked.

  Tommy turned to her. “It was a super weapon. The Egyptians were the first to use arks in ceremonies. A quick online search will show you a few examples, such as one that was found in the famous tomb of King Tut. The Egyptians, however, didn’t understand the true capability of the arks as weapons. They merely used them for show, as far as we can tell, to control the masses with public displays of electric power that wowed the people and made them believe that their deities were behind it all.”

  “Moses grew up in the courts of the Pharaoh,” Sean explained, taking the reins. “He attended the Egyptian schools, and probably went to many of these ceremonies. So, when God told him to construct an ark, Moses knew exactly what to do and how to do it. It’s unclear if even he knew what was coming. Either way, if you look at the locations of the pyramids and many important temples from ancient Egypt all along the Nile, you’ll find that nearly all of them correspond with geostatic hotspots, essentially pools of static electric energy that occur naturally on the surface of the earth.”

  Tommy resumed. “The two pyramids we discovered were likewise built atop such energy sources.”

  Magnus considered what the two friends said before speaking. “You said that the ancients used those pyramids and the arks for show, to keep the people in line.”

  “Correct.”

  “But you also said that the two pyramids you discovered were in remote locations where there were no ancient civilizations.”

  “Also correct,” Tommy said. “And I see where you’re going with that line of thought, Magnus. We stumbled on the same problem.”

  “Until,” Sean interjected, “we discovered a commonality.” He paused and panned the room, meeting every pair of eyes before continuing. His gaze fell upon the tablet, specifically the engraved ibis. “The symbol of Thoth was prominent at each location,” Sean said. “Among the hieroglyphs, we noticed a continued reference to the deity, along with his usual stylus and scroll that is seen in so many of his depictions throughout the Nile River Valley. It wasn’t until recently that Tommy and I started concocting a wild theory about what the pyramids were really for.”

  “Which is?” Magnus asked.

  “Basically,” Tommy said, “they’re a global cataclysm engine.”

  The room fell deathly silent for several seconds. Then Kevin burst into laughter. Magnus and Tabitha watched him laughing, curious and uncertain what he found so funny.

  When his laughter subsided, he leaned back on the sofa and shook his head. “Seriously? That’s your theory? That the pyramids all around the world are somehow going to bring about the end of days? I suppose next you’re going to tell me that the Colosseum was built as an alien landing port or that Machu Picchu was built by elves.”

  Tommy pressed his lips together and took the jabs with silent grace.

  “I can see why you don’t like him,” Magnus said to Tommy.

  “It’s the other way around, Magnus. I have a great deal of respect for Kevin’s work. And he’s right to think it’s a harebrained theory.”

  Kevin looked sheepish all of the sudden, like a child who’d been chastised.

  “The fact is that there are pyramids all over the world. As we stated before, one must ask why. Were the ancient Egyptians evangelizing the entire planet with their religion? To date, we have no record of civilizations existing in the places where we discovered pyramids. The religions of the indigenous people in North and South America are well documented. And while there are similarities or common ground between their belief systems and that of the ancient Egyptians, they are far too different for me to believe that they were one and the same. So, again, why did they construct these pyramids unless they were instructed to do so? The Aztecs and Maya used them in ceremonies, much like the Egyptians, but were the ceremonies a cover?”

  “Fine,” Kevin said. “I’ll go along with your idea for a minute. Let’s say that all the pyramids were built by the ancients as some way to bring about the end of the world. Why? Why would they do that? They would be killed in the process.”

  “Not necessarily,” Sean hedged. “And remember, in reference to the shadow caste we were talking about before, they don’t want to end the world. They merely want to optimize the human population.”

  “Optimize the population?”

  “Throughout the ages, there have been wars, pandemics, mass extinction events that appeared to either be engines built from greed or anger or merely by nature itself. But these events, these things that take the lives of so many people, seem to follow a bizarre and terrifying trend. Our theory is that this cult is behind it all, that they are the ones who create the diseases or help spread them, incite wars, and decimate Earth’s population to ensure that humanity as a whole can survive and continue on until we have the technology to support a higher population.”

  “Or colonize another planet,” Tommy added. “Why do you think some of these billionaires are throwing all of their money into privatized space programs? There are dozens of them investing in their own rockets and ships. Is it because they’re bored? No. It’s because they all know the truth.”

  “Which is?” Kevin asked skeptically.

  “That this planet can only support so many people. From time to time, mass extinction events or wars have to occur to reduce the population and enable civilization to continue. Otherwise, all of the resources would be consumed. Humans are, after all, like locusts. We move place to place, stripping the land of everything until there is nothing left, then move on to greener pastures. Only in recent years have we started to really focus on changing our ways, but it may be too late.”

  Tabitha had fallen silent for several minutes, listening closely to everything Sean and Tommy said. She wasn’t sure she believed them yet, but the pieces of the puzzle started falling in place. “The recent virus,” she mused. “You guys think that was done by this…shadow caste?”

  “Probably,” Sean answered first. “Look at the facts. You had global superpowers blaming one another for its creation as a bioweapon. In the United States, you even had people who believed our own government created it to disrupt or completely dismantle the entire structure. Look at how many people died as a result. A fraction of the global population, sure, but when you combine it with hunger, natural disasters, ongoing conflicts in various locations—particularly the Middle East—and additional manufactured diseases like AIDS, which has to date killed over seventy million people, the numbers start to get bigger and bigger.”

  The answer stunned Tabitha, even though she was already on the same train of thought.

  “How many have died as a result of wars in just the last hundred years?”

  She shrugged her response.

  “High estimates suggest more than 180 million in the twentieth century. Spanish flu, fifty million.”

  Her mouth nearly dropped.

  “And you’re saying this group, this Thoth Cult, is behind it all?” Kevin sounded dubious.

  “Not all,” Tommy corrected. “But a lot of it, yes. Their mission is to make certain we can continue the human race on this planet until we can find a way to leave it and colonize elsewhere.”

  “But their old ways of doing things aren’t working as well anymore,” Sean said. “Scientists are finding treatments for diseases, cures for others, vaccines to prevent illness. They need something new.”

  “Or to be more precise, something very old,” Tommy corrected. He saw the question oozing out of Kevin’s hazel eyes before he even asked. “Before you ask, yes, based on what we saw at those two pyramids, along with what we learned about in B
olivia, we have reason to believe that the pyramids could be a piece to the puzzle, if not the puzzle itself.”

  “Bolivia? Quantium?”

  “Right,” Sean said. “You need to be caught up. Two of our operatives were investigating a series of thefts that stretched across the globe. They ended up in Bolivia at the Sun Gate. Long story short, they nearly died. A guy we have now learned was part of the Ahnenerbe, or a new iteration of it, was behind the thefts. He attempted to open a transdimensional portal. Fortunately, our agents handled the situation, and the man who called himself Buri is behind bars somewhere in South America.”

  “Quantium,” Tommy took over, “is an unusual element we believe is responsible for several bizarre instances in history, such as the foo fighters that allied pilots saw over Germany during World War II.”

  “Ah.” The epiphany lighted in Kevin’s eyes. “I always wondered about that story. And this new element was behind that?”

  “We’re not sure, but we believe so,” Tommy affirmed.

  “What’s the Ahnenerbe?” Tabitha asked, deciding to skip over the question about foo fighters, thinking there was no way this was in relation to the rock band.

  “It was Himmler’s think tank, a research division of the SS division in Nazi Germany,” Sean explained.

  “Yes, before Hitler turned it into a sadistic experimentation corps that performed the most horrific human experimentation ever known to man. They also spent an exorbitant amount of time and resources searching for connections to the Aryan race to Germany, scouring the planet for archaeological evidence.”

  “Yes,” Magnus coughed, bringing the conversation back on track. “And we just learned that Buri escaped during transit from one prison to another. From the sound of it, someone broke him out of the transport truck. No word on his whereabouts.”

  Sean and Tommy looked at each other, concern washing over them.

  Buri was a dangerous man and part of an organization that—if their theory proved correct—fed into the shadow caste they’d been discussing. At the moment, there was nothing to be done about it. If Buri were roaming around, being careless, he would pop up somewhere. Then again, it was possible that if the man had drawn the ire of the shadow caste’s leadership, his escape may well have been a ruse to tie up loose ends.