Then it all hit him when he peered into the next room he came upon. He staggered back and held his chest. That’s when Amelia, his mother, and the commander caught up with him.
“Jack?” Amelia said. “I wanted to tell you before you saw for yourself.”
“We wanted to prepare you,” his mom held his shoulders.
Jack was speechless, his mouth hanging open, probably drooling for all he knew. Inside the large cavity, which appeared to be carved from black glass, on shelves stacked to the ceiling, were not one, not two, but dozens of devices which looked nearly identical to the O/A.
“The Eteea machines,” the commander smiled.
Jack had a million questions, yet at that moment, couldn’t pose a single one. Instead, he wandered into the magical room, through another strange membranous passage. Inside, the place rang like a bell choir. His ears hurt, but soon the pain died down, replaced by a gentle purr, as if the machines sensed his presence and were saying hello. In the middle of it all, in a position of authority, sat the O/A itself, the centerpiece of the collection. He smiled, then turned to Amelia and lost his good humor.
“What is this? What’s going on?”
“Jack?” she pointed to the commander. “This is my dad, Commander Michael Klein of the United States Navy.”
The commander nodded and smiled, shaking Jack’s hand vigorously.
“Welcome, Jack, welcome. We’re honored to have you here, finally. Welcome to the Eteeans.”
“Eteeans?” he gave each of them a puzzled look. “What are the Eteeans?”
“It’s our codename. We’re a team. The Children of the Blue Crystal, along with their Tanakee protectors, as well as those of us in the military acting as support staff.”
“Codename? Support staff?” Jack was still in an abysmal state of bewilderment.
“Jack,” the commander explained. “We’re an ultra-elite division of Naval Intelligence, so secret most people don’t know we exist. And we exist for one reason and one reason only—to make sure the Children of the Blue Crystal succeed in their mission.”
“Duck Soup!” Ben showed up in a hurry from the maze of twisting and turning hallways. He ran into the chamber with an O/A-type device in his hands, straight past the group as if they weren’t there at all. “The power supply for this unit is remarkable! The Gravitomiton design is flawless! And to think, it was made hundreds of years ago!”
He ran out again, only stopping when Jack screamed, “DAD!”
He turned and his eyes got even bigger.
“JACK! My boy!” he rushed and scooped Jack into his free arm. “Where’ve you been? You’ve missed all the excitement!”
“Uh, no,” Jack said as Ben let him go. “I haven’t missed anything. Didn’t you hear what happened? We were almost abducted by some people with ultra-advanced technology, a lot like the O/A. I’m not sure, but I think they work for the Nagas.”
He chuckled.
“You were abducted, all right. By the same people who took me,” he pointed at Commander Klein.
Jack’s confusion hastened his retreat from the commander, from Amelia.
“What? You’re working with the Nagas?”
“No,” the commander said flatly. “Not at all. We’re fighting against them, just like you. But most of the US government is working with them, or, more correctly, for them, either knowingly or unknowingly. That’s why we have to remain so secretive.”
“And that’s why they had to kidnap us like that, Jack,” Amelia tried to catch his eyes with hers. He stared straight at her.
“So, you and your dad,” he accused. “You both have been working in secret the whole time? You knew about this the whole time, Amelia?”
She shook her head.
“I didn’t know about any of this,” she looked at her father. “Not until today. But I trust my dad, and I believe what he’s saying, because I’ve been getting visions about this all my life.”
“Jack!” Ben’s enthusiasm bubbled over. “Let me show you what I’ve been working on!”
Jack followed his father into a place that looked like an Eteea machine repair center, to a worktable where, from the ceiling, strong floodlights beamed on a shallow box containing a large hunk of stone.
“What is this?” Jack wondered aloud. “Some sort of archeological relic?”
“Precisely!” Ben’s zeal amplified even higher. Jack noted his dad hadn’t been this excited since he’d first discovered Omnidimensional Energy Absorption. “We found this particular one in the Yucatan. From a lost Mayan temple of the sun. Look here,” he pointed to a section crisscrossed by a grid of thin string, which had been unearthed by gentle, patient hands. Soil removed from solid rock.
“You got here just in time,” Ben placed a pair of safety goggles on Jack’s face, then did the same with his own.
“Just in time for what?”
“Watch,” Ben hit a switch on a holographic panel that popped into existence when he reached for it. Then, from the ceiling, dropped a single, three-inch thick chrome tube. It flexed when Ben took hold, bending into position directly on top of the exposed stone structure.
With a quick jolt, the tube released an invisible shockwave, crumbling the stone into fine powder, and exposing what looked to Jack like a gem. Jack blinked and blinked at the jewel, marveling at the dazzling shapes deep inside its core. Then he blinked again. If it weren’t for the different color, he would have sworn it was yet another…
“An O/A?” Jack was befuddled.
“An Eteea machine,” the commander approached from behind and corrected him. “This one dates back to the eighth century.”
“But how?” he let his puzzlement show. “How can so many machines like the O/A be in existence?”
“Remember that History Channel special I showed you?” Ben continued his work extracting the device from the stone. “It was real. These devices are all over the world. Buried, hidden, waiting for us to find them.”
“But…” Jack walked further into the repair center, spotting all kinds of areas with huge rocks and monoliths and other mounds of earth in various states of excavation. “Why so many?”
Amelia said, “Jack, remember when Teresa told us about the Children of the Blue Crystal? She told us about others like us, all over the world.”
Jack cast an eye over each and every one of the machines.
“I see dozens of these things. You’re telling me there are that many other children?”
“Even more,” Ben looked up from his work. The machine inside the rock vibrated slightly when he touched it. “We’re still finding them as we speak.”
“And we’re learning more and more about the Nagas,” the commander said. “They’re ramping up their activity.”
“I think I might know why,” Jack sighed.
“Essinis,” the commander said.
“Wait a second,” Jack eyed the man. “You guys in the military…you know about Essinis?”
The commander looked at his daughter and sighed.
“There’s a lot we know. Much more than we tell the public.”
“Yeah,” Jack nodded. “We get that. We all know the government is holding back on UFOs and life on other planets. Tell us something we don’t know.”
The commander chuckled.
“Son, we don’t have the time.”
“Humor me,” Jack kept his eyes on the man.
“Tell him,” Amelia said.
“For as long as mankind has been in existence, we’ve been at war. But this enemy isn’t like any other. They’re not soldiers with guns or tanks or even jets. They’re not human.”
“The Nagas,” Jack said. “We know. And we also know how powerful they are.”
“Yes, but what you don’t know is they’ve been slowly and systematically taking over and directing the human race for thousands of years. They don’t control us all, but they control enough of the most powerful and influential people, and that keeps the human race from evolving, from reaching a higher
level, both technologically as well as spiritually.”
“We know this,” Jack looked at his dad, mom, Amelia, and finally the commander. “Teresa told us.”
“Did she tell you mankind has been to the cusp of those higher levels before? Many times—hundreds, even thousands of years ago, the human race possessed advanced technologies. We were enlightened spiritually, and closer to our natural connections to Eteea than even now. And each time mankind has gotten close, just before we were to make the leap, we’ve been thwarted, stopped, set back to the stone ages by a cataclysmic event.”
“Not exactly,” Jack shook his head. His mind raced with so many questions. “So all these machines…they were invented a long time ago, by people just like my dad?”
“Exactly,” Amelia said.
“You sure you didn’t know all about this?” he shot her a cautious look.
“No,” she glanced at her father. “I didn’t know until we met Teresa. I thought my dad was just an ordinary naval officer. Thought his job was boring.”
“Huh,” Commander Klein huffed. “It’s been anything but boring. We’ve been busy. Very busy. Especially lately. It’s been difficult, though. The Nagas are extremely active, recruiting and corrupting government officials and corporate executives. They’ve even infiltrated the armed services—every branch,” he lowered his head. “It’s a damn shame too. Lots of people, good men and women are being misled and corrupted by those evil sons a—”
“Commander Klein, watch your language,” little Lily seized everyone’s attention, wagging her finger like a scolding mother. Liz bent and picked up her daughter. Lily acted fidgety, bouncing against her mother’s chest.
“Lily!” Jack still couldn’t grasp it. “My whole family’s here?”
“We had to bring you all. The Nagas are very thorough. It just isn’t safe anymore, and they’d go after your family if they couldn’t get Ben or you,” the commander tipped the nonexistent hat on his neatly-cropped head. “The Nagas are everywhere, which is why we have to keep this unit secret. Nobody knows about us,” he looked at Jack. “So I don’t think I have to stress the importance of keeping your mouth shut.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Jack said. “I’m the True Soul. I was born to lead this group.”
The room got quiet. Even Ben stopped working and adjusted the safety goggles on his face. Everyone stared at Jack.
“What?” he asked curiously.
“True Soul?” Commander Klein laughed. “You’re not the True Soul.”
Jack’s knees went weak.
“I’m not…I’m not the True Soul? How can this be?”
It didn’t take a second for Jack to get an answer. The large film-like entryway made an electrostatic sizzling sound and commenced rippling open. Jack recognized the kid the second he saw the black and lustrous bodysuit, the opaque, glassy helmet which left the mouth exposed, revealing a resolute, wicked grin.
“Look out!” Jack pushed Amelia into his mother and Lily, forcing them all behind the stone monolith with Ben. In one swift motion, Jack spun and reached the pedestal where the O/A was sitting, determined to power it up and deal with this menace once and for all. However, inches before he had the machine in his grasp, it fluttered, shook, then flew straight into the intruder’s outstretched hand.
Jack trembled with fright over the kid’s power, but had no time for fear. The other Eteea machines must have been unearthed for a reason, though they’d been hidden away for a long, long time. No telling if they worked. He had no choice, and jumped at his chance to snatch up the closest one, press it, and initiate the power sequence.
He got the machine on just in time. A shot from the O/A burst toward him and bounced off the protective shield he’d managed to beckon at the last second. He watched the electric purple light ricochet, then fixed his glare on the intruder. He held down on the Eteea machine and let it power up to the max, whirring intensely, preparing to launch a counterattack.
“Jack! NO!” Amelia got in front of him. “Don’t hurt him!”
“Yeah, Jack,” the masked boy said. “Listen to your friend. Not that you could hurt me if you tried, though.”
“Who are YOU!” he rushed forward, his physical body becoming the wind, then returning to flesh and bone before slamming into the intruder’s chest. Even the O/A’s defensive field couldn’t repel such a swift attack. The boy let out a loud ‘Oof!’ and careened into a rack of electronics, shattering several glass cabinets.
Jack’s mother shrieked. His dad screamed for him to halt all hostilities. Amelia begged both boys to quit fighting. Even Commander Klein tried to stop them. No one would deter Jack from getting to the bottom of this. Nothing would prevent him from learning, once and for all, the identity of this…this scoundrel.
He almost got there. Almost got to the point of grabbing the boy’s helmet, and was ready to rip it off when Jack saw something that made him freeze in place. His blood ran like a river of ice, and he thought his heart had broken in two when Takota stepped between them and said, “Don’t do it, Jack. Don’t hurt him. I-I can’t let you.”
Staggering, stumbling, Jack fell to his backside on the hard floor, pushing away from Takota, away from the masked boy and his smug sneer. Jack pushed Amelia away also, when she made an attempt at helping him to his feet. He glanced at the watching faces and then darted his attention again to the boy, then Takota, standing close, knees bent in a ready stance, and aiming a determined stare back at Jack.
“Takota, I-I,” he struggled for words. “I thought you were my protector.”
Takota had no answer. He only hung his head as the commander spoke for him.
“Takota, as the most powerful of the Tanakee, is the True Soul’s protector.”
“Yeah,” Jack couldn’t understand why the commander couldn’t understand. “And I’m the True Soul.”
“’Fraid not,” Pud appeared in a sudden and tiny electrical storm. Then Enola, Ayita, and Cheyton showed up in equally brilliant flashes.
“Pud!” Enola nudged the orangish rascal with her elbow. “Don’t be so callous.”
“What?” he shrugged. “He isn’t.”
Jack studied the faces studying him.
“You guys are serious, aren’t you?”
“I’m sorry, son,” Ben said.
“If I’m not the True Soul, then who is?”
“ME!”
Suddenly, the mystery kid’s visor changed from cloudy and dark to perfectly clear, an alteration which exposed the face once hidden inside. For the second time in just a few minutes, Jack’s blood turned to ice. He refused to believe it, yet there it was, in living color, right before him. Standing a mere ten feet away was the one person in the world he didn’t want to see right now—Argus Cole.
His dark eyes shined like black onyx, reflecting the light from the Eteea machines on the shelves. Even wearing a helmet, his dark hair remained glossy and perfect, with a tiny cowlick ensuring its stylishness.
“Argus!” Amelia ran to him and checked his suit. “Are you all right? Did Jack hurt you?”
Argus giggled.
“I told you. Jack can’t hurt me.”
“That was still a reckless thing to do,” the commander copied Amelia, inspecting Argus for injury. “You two should be fighting the Nagas, not each other. Both of you put down those machines!”
Reluctantly, the boys placed their respective devices on platforms with the others. The machines whined and buzzed as they powered down.
“What in the world’s going on?” Jack threw up his hands. “Has everyone gone mad? He’s not the True Soul—I am!”
“Jack,” Amelia approached. He backed off, and she stopped short. “I know this might be confusing, but hear me out. Argus is one of the Eteeans. He’s one of us.”
Her father added, “My team has been seeking the Children of the Blue Crystal for quite some time now. We’ve found you, Jack. But Argus—his skills with the machines are second to none, and I’m convinced he’s the
True Soul, not you.”
“Sorry, Jack,” Argus giggled again. “No hard feelings, ‘kay, buddy?”
Jack strode with resolve right at the new kid. Takota stepped in the way and Jack halted before running into the little guy.
“Takota? How could you do this to me?”
Takota averted his eyes and sighed.
“I’m doing what I have to do.”
“What? You have to betray me?” Jack pointed at Argus. “For him? What do you even know about him? Why all of a sudden are you changing your allegiance like this?”
“He’s not changing his allegiance, Jack,” Commander Klein said. “We’re all on the same side, here. We’re all Eteeans. He’s just following orders. The True Soul must be protected by the most powerful Tanakee.”
Jack slapped his hands against his thighs.
“I still don’t get it. How can you guys say he’s the True Soul? Teresa said I was the True Soul! Is everybody forgetting that?”
“On this one Teresa was wrong, Jack,” Amelia said. “I’m so sorry, but she was.”
“Maybe she got confused,” Argus lifted his chin smugly. “She’s an old lady, right? What is she, almost a hundred? She’s probably got Alzheimer’s or something.”
“You take that back!” Jack darted once again for Argus. Even unenhanced by omnidimensional energy, he moved quite fast. Argus, though, moved faster. Like a cat, he flicked his wrist and, by some unseen force, pulled the O/A to him as if he had it on a string. Threateningly, Argus squinted and the O/A hovered above his shoulder, sparkling with tiny lightning bolts.
“Argus, STOP!” Amelia screamed.
Argus laughed, letting the O/A descend into his awaiting hand.
“Just wanted to show Jack a trick or two. The True Soul needs to have full command of his Eteea machine,” he released the O/A, and it once again levitated to eye-level. “It’s very important to always have control, and to never let anyone else get their hands on it. Right, Jack?”
Jack kept his teeth clenched. Though he didn’t want to admit it, the little hover trick was impressive, and he wanted to know how it was done.
“You can’t do this, can you, Jack?” Argus continued. “In fact, you kept losing the O/A, if I’m not mistaken. Which is proof you aren’t, and can never be, the True Soul. I mean, what kind of True Soul keeps losing his Eteea machine? Not only is that incompetent, it’s dangerous. What if the machine got into the wrong hands?”
Jack James and the Call of the Tanakee Page 12