The Prophet: Resurrection: A Sci-Fi Thriller

by David Beers

  She quit talking, having had no idea that she would go on for so long. She felt exhausted and realized that she had never said all of that to someone. Never laid it out in such a fashion, and truthfully never thought she would.

  She didn’t look over, not having the energy to meet the woman’s eyes again. Rebecca didn’t care if she was being judged, what did something that simple matter anymore? The world was about to end, and Rebecca was flying a transport to a woman who might be dead, and even if she wasn’t, Rebecca didn’t have the first clue how to find her.

  “He’s still going to try the Union?” Brinson asked. “That’s still his plan?”

  “As long as there is breath in David, he’ll keep going. He knows no other way.”

  Both were quiet for a few seconds, and then Brinson said, “I might be able to find out where she was. It depends on if the True Faith has locked me out. If the world is burning like you say, I’m probably an afterthought. Give me a minute.”

  Rebecca saw her eyes turn green as her nanotech connected. Rebecca leaned back in her own chair and closed her eyes. She wanted to sleep forever, didn’t truly know why she was even continuing on.

  Maybe it was because of Veritros. It would be easy to quit, just sit it out and let fate have its say. Earth had managed to win the previous two times, perhaps they would now as well.

  But Veritros. She hadn’t quit. She had nearly destroyed the world, and then went to a hell Rebecca wouldn’t want to imagine, an isolation that lasted for eternity. Yet, she kept going—she was the reason Rebecca had been able to break out of the Unformed’s cult.

  And maybe Veritros was still trying, somewhere. Somehow.

  Not maybe. The same as David will create this Union if blood flows through his heart, Veritros will try to stop it. If she still exists, she’s still trying.

  “I’ve got a last known location,” Brinson said. Rebecca opened her eyes and looked over. She looked troubled. “It’s … there’s more happening than I can understand. Even while we were escaping, something was happening.” Her eyes lit green as she continued talking. “I’m inputting the coordinates, and then I’m going to see how much more I can find out.”

  “Okay,” Rebecca said, leaning back in her chair. The transport would take them to the location; she didn’t know what was happening in the world around her, but she doubted it could be worse than what she already knew.

  Rebecca Hollowborne would find out shortly how very wrong she was.

  Nine

  Perhaps the only person on the planet that held Rachel Veritros in the esteem she deserved was Rebecca Hollowborne. It mattered not to Veritros, though. She was without ego, and perhaps at such a point, one ceases being a part of the human species. Maybe it is our ego that makes us human, but Veritros was past the point of caring about that either.

  Yet, Veritros still cared deeply for humanity, and as she watched Nicki walking around that black lawn with a woman that should not be there—that should not even exist—her rage grew. Rage not driven by ego, which is an almost impossible thing for a person to understand, but rather by the impending doom rushing toward all of humanity.

  All of Earth.

  All of the universe.

  Veritros screamed at the world Nicki Sesam inhabited, berated it with all her force of will—knowing that by doing so, she was possibly alerting the Unformed.

  There was no other choice. The time of waiting was gone, the time of action here … and quickly running out.

  Locked outside, for the first time in her life, Rachel Veritros found herself unable to do something. Even when waiting inside the Unformed, she had been able to hide and plan.

  Here, she raged, but it came to nothing.

  Nicki Sesam walked along the edge of the glass made lawn and she spoke words Rachel couldn’t hear, but words that surely meant death for everyone.

  “Why can’t we leave the yard?” Nicki asked.

  “I don’t understand why, I only know those are the rules.”

  The two women were walking slowly, but they weren’t leaving the property. They walked the edge of it, and when they came to a corner, they simply turned and continued the outline of her yard.

  “What’s your name?” Nicki said.

  “Laurel. Yours?”

  “Nicki.”

  “You don’t seem very worried about getting out of here, Nicki,” Laurel said.

  Nicki watched her feet roll over the black grass. “Neither do you.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever leave, but I belong here. You don’t.”

  Nicki nodded, understanding completely. She should have been terrified at what was happening around her, but this was the most peace she’d had in a month. She smiled at the thought. “I’m not sure I belong anywhere, anymore.”

  “You’re from the Old World?”

  Nicki nodded. “How did you know?”

  “We know our own,” Laurel said. “If I were you, though, I would seriously consider how you got here, and how you can get out. This isn’t some place you want to be.”

  “Why?”

  Now the woman chuckled. “Look around. That house I just came out of? I’m going to stay in it until something decides I can leave, and if that doesn’t happen, I’m going to stay in it forever.” She pointed at the yard across the street. “Someone lives in there, but I’ll never be able to talk to them. Someone lives in each of the houses lining this street, but I’ll never speak to any of them.”

  “Why?” Nicki asked again. “I just saw them come out of their house. Even if you can’t leave the yard, can’t you shout to them?”

  Laurel shook her head. “I can shout, but no words will make their way across the street. There is no communication in this place; we can see each other, but we’re kept separate. I doubt what they see even resembles what I see.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think this place is just a warped reflection of my mind. What I used to know. These houses? The street? That’s all things I know from the Old World. Sure, the black glass and neon lights are different. I’m not sure where they come from, but I doubt that everyone here grew up in the Old World. I imagine some people are seeing this as huge towers descending from the Earth’s surface.”

  Nicki nodded, looking around, but not fully understanding. It wasn’t the concepts that were hard, just the possibility of any of this. “You haven’t … I don’t know … lost your mind? Being alone in a place like this?”

  “Who can really say? I don’t think I have, and I’ve thought on it for a while. I think whatever created this, whatever put me here, it keeps the occupants from losing their minds. The people I see across the street sometimes, they don’t look crazy either. We’re in a very controlled environment, and I think that control extends to our minds as well.”

  “What is it? What is this place, then?”

  Laurel smiled and looked at the ground. “It’s the greatest irony of my life … Are you Catholic, Nicki?”

  “I was. I don’t know anymore.”

  “I grew up hating the Catholic Church. I grew up hating all four Ministries, to be honest. I didn’t believe in any of them, or what they said, all the way up to my death. Yet, the longer I live in here, and the more I think about it, the more I think I’m sitting in purgatory.”

  Nicki stopped walking. The woman took another step or two, and then stopped as well. “You don’t like that answer?”

  Nicki hadn’t been sure about God up until this moment. She’d grown to hate Catholicism, but that didn’t automatically lead to God not existing. Yet, now …

  “There isn’t a God, and so that means there isn’t purgatory.”

  “You seem pretty confident in that,” Laurel said.

  “Outside of here, back on Earth, there are things happening that no God would allow. Things the Bible never spoke about. There are things more powerful than God.”

  Laurel turned around and looked at the young lady. “You know people have been saying those same ideas since long
before I was born, right? That things happen on Earth that God would never allow, and if he did allow them, then he wasn’t God. Those aren’t new arguments.”

  “You don’t understand. This isn’t like a hurricane killing a thousand people. It’s the Black. It’s returned, and so has Its weapon.”

  The woman’s face grew concerned and she looked out across the street. She stared for a few seconds, and then she relaxed again. She smiled, still not turning back to Nicki. “For a second there, that really bothered me. You always hear about the Black, but almost no one ever experiences it. I think this would only be the third time, yet the Ministries build it up to be some huge, all encompassing evil—”

  “It is,” Nicki interrupted. “It is evil.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think that disproves God.”

  “God wouldn’t allow something like that to exist. Millions were killed. I ….” Nicki paused, having no idea where to begin to tell her story. “No. Just no. There isn’t a God and this place isn’t purgatory.”

  Laurel nodded. “I never believed in God until I got here. This street, this house … they have a funny way of making you think differently, though.”

  “If it is purgatory, how are you here? You didn’t believe.”

  “That’s true,” Laurel said, keeping her eyes across the street. “I wouldn’t even have called myself an atheist, because that was too much belief for me. I rejected all labels. But, I’m not sure that’s the worst thing a person can do. I know what the Church teaches, probably what most other Ministries teach, too, but I don’t believe it anymore. Because I’m here, and something brought me here. I’ve been waiting, and waiting, and now you’re here.”

  She turned away from the street and back to Nicki.

  “Which means something brought you here. It brought me here for a reason, and I imagine it did the same for you, too.”

  “What’s your reason?”

  “Well, if this is purgatory, it’s to pay for my non-belief. Once I’ve paid, maybe I’ll be granted heaven.”

  “What if it’s hell?” Nicki asked. “You’re perpetually kept from any human contact, forever? What if this is God’s punishment?”

  Laurel shook her head. “I’ve thought about that, too, but I don’t think it adds up. Hell would mean I’d have some deep longing, or perhaps like you said, I’d go insane. But none of that’s happening. I think that I can’t talk with anyone, because without God’s presence, humanity loses all ability to have contact. I think this place is separate from God, and the Devil—or whatever you want to call that. This place is a waiting room, and God won’t venture into it. And without him here, there’s simply an inability to actually … communicate.” Laurel shook her head. “If you had told my former self any of this, I would have called you delusional.”

  Nicki didn’t know how to respond. It all sounded like more nonsense, the same type of stuff the Church had peddled to her for years. She’d bought it all back then, but she wasn’t going to now. She didn’t care if she was lost in some other dimension, or if she simply sat inside her mind making all this up, she wasn’t going to start believing in bullshit anymore.

  “What I really want to know,” Laurel said, “is why you’re here, though. I’ve been here for years without speaking to anyone, and now you’re here, on my yard. Something put me here, and something put you here, too. There’s a reason for it.”

  Nicki shook her head. “I put myself here. Somehow.”

  The woman laughed and turned around, her arms spread at her sides. “Look at this place. It’s separate from everything. No one puts themselves here.” She brought her arms down. “There’s a reason, even if you don’t want to believe it. The good thing is, all we have here is endless time. So tell me about what happened to you, and maybe we can figure out why you’re here … because you don’t belong, and I don’t think you’re supposed to stay here forever.”

  Ten

  Rhett opened his eyes and blinked a few times. The sun was up, and as he swallowed, fire lit down his throat. Brief panic bloomed in his chest, his mind not understanding why he should feel such pain, and then …

  Rhett groaned as the memory came back to him. Hanging in the air, gray strands wrapping around his neck, and David’s back to him.

  He slowly sat up, and as he pushed his hands against the ground, a duller pain flared there. He paused and lifted his right palm up, remembering the searing burns from last night.

  His hand was red, but not an open wound with puss leaking from it as it should have been.

  David, he thought. He must have done something.

  Rhett finished getting up, his head pounding as he did. He looked around the campsite and saw the other two still sleeping. Their hands looked red, too, but no serious burns. Their necks were just as bruised as his, though. If David had fixed their hands, he hadn’t done a thing for their throats.

  Rhett turned and looked at the beach; he scanned the horizon, seeing no sign of David anywhere. His eyes detected something moving through the sky and flashed up to it.

  Rhett stared for a few seconds, deciding it was a transport heading toward them.

  He hadn’t thought about how they would get off the island; there hadn’t been any time from when Rebecca took the ship to when David strangled them all.

  Rhett held no fear regarding the approaching transport, though. It was David’s, without a doubt. He’d summoned someone, his powers far greater than Rhett could imagine at this point.

  He turned around, reaching up and gently rubbing his neck as he did. He looked down at the other two still sleeping. Had David also made them all sleep so long, or had it been his attack? Rhett didn’t know, and supposed it didn’t matter either.

  What does matter to you, Rhett? Your savior nearly killed you. Does that matter?

  Rhett pushed the thought from his head. It was useless, and he was too exhausted to argue with himself. David hadn’t killed him. Not any of them, including his traitor sister, nor the man who promised his life for another. They were all still alive.

  “Hey,” Rhett said. A few seconds passed without the other two moving. He stepped closer, then louder, said, “Hey. Wake up you two.”

  They stirred, opening their eyes.

  “You’ve got to get up. I think someone is coming to get us.”

  The two looked up at him lazily, and Rhett saw each of them remembering what happened last night. Reinheld’s face grew as pale as the puffy white clouds above. Christine only closed her eyes again, though not falling back asleep.

  “Rhett.”

  It was David speaking from behind. Rhett hadn’t heard him approaching. Neither had the two on the ground, both of their eyes looking past Rhett.

  “Come to the shore with me,” David said.

  He heard the Prophet moving now, stepping back through the sand without waiting for a response. Rhett looked at Christine, but her face showed nothing. Not fear nor love. After a second, she nodded, and the message was simple: Go.

  Rhett closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

  He turned from the two in front of him and walked down the beach, seeing David 20 feet ahead of him. David stopped once he reached the shore, and Rhett came up next to him a few seconds after.

  “We’re leaving as soon as that transport arrives,” David said, not looking over, nor up in the sky. His eyes only stared out at the ocean. “We’re going to the Nile River, and from there, we’re going to create the Union.”

  “Okay,” Rhett said, unsure of what else he could say. He swallowed, and his throat eagerly reminded him of what had happened the night before.

  “Are you still with me, Rhett?” David asked.

  Both grew quiet and the wind from the beach filled Rhett’s ears. He listened to the water crashing on the shore at a constant pace, but impossible to replicate.

  A few seconds passed, and Rhett gave the only answer he could. “Of course, David.”

  The Prophet nodded, then said, “I couldn’t
kill her.”

  Neither of them needed to say who he was talking about.

  “I wanted to, and I thought I would, but in the end, I couldn’t. I’m going to leave it to the Unformed. After the Union, It can decide her fate the same as It will for all nonbelievers.”

  Rhett found words, his hate for Rebecca unable to be contained. “You should have killed her, David. Or you should have let me do it.”

  “Maybe, but it’s done now. She’s gone, and I’ll never see her again. The Union is going to occur in 24 hours, and then she will never matter again.”

  Rhett shook his head, his neck protesting with each twist. “I don’t understand. I don’t get it at all.”

  “She’s my sister. What else do you want me to say? It’s over now. If you’re with me, then we’re moving on. We’re going forward, because everything ends tomorrow. Everything we’ve worked for is here, just beyond nightfall.”

  Rhett understood it was the closest to an apology he would ever hear from David for last night. Asking Rhett to continue on, to finish this--it was David’s apology, plea, and promise all rolled into one. It was David giving the highest honor he knew to give, the chance to finish what they began so long ago.

  Rebecca would not see it, but Rhett and Christine would. That was the Prophet’s gift, and his apology.

  “Okay,” Rhett said. “Okay, David.”

  “Get the other two. Tell Christine I’ll speak to her once we’re on the ship.”

  The transport had been flying for a few hours when David finally brought Christine to him. The transport could comfortably fit ten, but even the pilot had left David alone in the front. The ship was on autopilot, following the coordinates David had provided. The four people in the back were mostly quiet, everyone drifting in and out of sleep. The pilot was a follower of David’s, of course.

  Everything was going according to plan. The Globe would fall soon, within the next few hours, and the Ministers inside would all die. David hadn’t voiced it to Rhett or Christine, but he obviously wanted the Ministers to personally pay for what they’d done to those two. Truthfully, he didn’t need to unleash anyone on the Globe. He could have simply restarted the Summoning, and that would have been enough. The Globe was personal for him, to punish those who hurt the people he loved.