Paradeisia: The Complete Trilogy: Origin of Paradise, Violation of Paradise, Fall of Paradise

by B. C. CHASE

  When he pulled into the parking lot of the church, a large, brick building topped by a tall, white steeple, there wasn't another car there. He had chosen the church as a meeting spot for two reasons: he didn't think it had any cameras, and if they listened to his phone conversation they would have no immediate way of knowing which church he and Stacy attended.

  Of course, there was always Friendbook, but he didn't think Stacy noted her membership there. Gary knew he didn't.

  At any rate, Stacy wasn't there. It alarmed him that Stacy didn't appear to be at the church because it was closer to their house than it was to Cognitive LifeScience. He parked close to the building where his vehicle couldn't be seen from the street.

  He waited, growing very anxious as the minutes dragged on. Finally, a white Porsche SUV slowly turned into the lot, the bright lights glaring in his eyes so he couldn't see inside. The Porsche slowly pulled up to park next to his car. The doors opened and Stacy and her friend Miranda stepped out.

  Miranda was not married and never had been, but to the Rileys, she was practically an extension of their family. She had been like an aunt to Jeffery and often spent weekends with them. She was the director of a local company's IT project management office and had long dark hair, strong cheekbones, and a dimple in her chin. She spent a lot of time in Yoga class; even now she was wearing Yoga pants and a hoodie.

  Gary opened his door and ran around to greet his wife, but she stopped him. “There's blood on your shirt! Why is there blood on your shirt?”

  He looked down and saw the red spattering. He met his wife's shocked gaze, “I shot someone.”

  His wife stepped back with her hand over her mouth, her eyes large. She shook her head slowly.

  “He was trying to kill me, so I shot him. I was only trying to find out where Jeffery is. I had to put a gun to the Chief of Staff to find out, but I know now. Jeffery is in Taiwan.”

  “OK, Gary. This is too fast,” Stacy said, putting a hand out as if to steady herself. “You killed the Chief of Staff? Jeffery is in Taiwan?”

  “No, I killed the guy who kidnapped Jeffery. But I don't have time to explain. If we're going to save Jeffery we have to leave now.” He turned to Miranda, who was standing there in speechless shock, “Miranda, could you please drive us to one more place?”

  Miranda shrugged, “Hey I'm game. I'd do anything to help you, you know that.”

  He looked at Stacy, “Ready?”

  She drew a breath, “OK, honey. But if I find out you just murdered that guy and now you're taking me on the run with you, I'll be pissed.” Then she looked down at her feet, “But I wouldn't blame you.”

  “Does that sound like the man I am?”

  She paused, “No. It doesn't. But I didn't think you were the kind of man to let your defenseless toddler get kidnapped right under your nose, either.”

  While they were on their way to the next address, he filled Stacy in on the details of his activities that night. When he finished, Stacy protested, “But if Abael knows you're going for Jeffery, aren't you worried he's just going to have him killed?”

  “No. They wouldn't want him dead if they need him for research.”

  She said, “I hope you’re right.” Then she pulled her phone out of a jacket pocket.

  He acted swiftly, jerking it from her grasp. While the window rolled down, he angrily shouted, “I told you to leave the phone!”

  “So what?” she spat. “You're not my freaking boss!” Then, as he tossed the device out, she cried, “NO!”

  “That phone is like a point on a map! We can't risk them tracking us with it!”

  “But I was going to tell mother where we're going!”

  “You can't tell ANYONE where we're going! They'll be listening!”

  “Well if the Chief of Staff told you Jeffery's in Taiwan, don't you think they'll assume that's where you'll be heading?”

  In the front seat, Miranda called back, “OK, kids. Let's not fight. This is stressful enough!”

  “Right,” Gary said.

  “Left turn at the next light, you said?”

  “Yes.”

  Suddenly, Stacy said, “Oh! I forgot.” She was holding an envelope, which she handed to him, “This was in our mailbox this morning. It doesn't have a stamp or anything, it just says 'Gary.'”

  He saw that his name was indeed hand written on the front. Tearing it open, he pulled out a single sheet of paper where there was a penned note:

  G.R.,

  DANGER. DO NOT CALL.

  -J.K.

  Gary took it to mean that Special Agent Jarred Kessler was in danger and did not want to be contacted. Whether he would continue investigating, Gary could only guess. Probably not.

  When they arrived at Tom Chastain's house, their ring at the door was answered by what sounded like a pack of dogs. Gary had met Tom at the church once. This was going to be a long shot, he thought.

  When Tom finally answered the door, he stepped out quickly and closed the door on dog muzzles. When he looked at his visitors his eyebrows raised in surprise, “Gary Riley?” Tom was tall and thin with a long face, thick black hair and eyebrows, and piercing blue eyes.

  “I'm surprised you know my name,” Gary said.

  “We met at church, once, am I right? I have a knack for remembering names,” Tom said. “Come in.”

  Before they went in, Gary told Miranda she could go home, but she insisted on staying.

  As they sat at a round table by a bay window, the sky outside slowly brightened with the dawn. Three Labrador retrievers lay on the floor with their chins on their paws.

  Gary explained the history to Tom, but before he could make his request, Tom cut to the chase.

  “Gary, we'll do whatever we can to help you get Jeffery back. We'll get you to Taiwan.”

  “I will pay.”

  “No, this will be on me.”

  “How much money are we talking about?”

  “Don't worry about it.”

  “How much?”

  “You'd probably be pushing two hundred grand—just for one way.”

  Gary sat back. “I had no idea it's that much. I, I'm sorry to have brought this on you.”

  Tom leaned forward, “Look, God made me the owner of a charter aircraft company. How do I know it wasn't for this very moment? It's your only son we're talking about. We'll fly you to Taiwan and get you back if we can. No matter the cost.” Tom pulled his chair around closer to Gary and put a hand on his shoulder. “We're here for you. We'll call the church elders; people will help. You're not alone, my friend.”

  Gary wiped his face. Then he looked Tom in the eye and his voice broke, “Thank you.” For the first time since Jeffery's disappearance, Gary felt a tinge of hope. And it was overwhelming.

  Stacy began to sob as she breathed, “Thank you so much, Tom.”

  Gary leaned forward in his chair. The sound of his wife crying pushed him over the edge, and his body shook with his silent sobs. He attended Sunday services off and on, but he wasn't “religious.” He never prayed on his own or read the Bible. He called himself a Christian because that's what his family had always done. Now, he was totally overcome by Tom's generosity.

  Tom said, “Had we only known he was missing, we could have been supporting you from the beginning. That's what the church is here for, Gary, to bear each other's burdens.”

  The sun was fully exposed over the horizon as they stood on the strip next to the business jet. Several members of the church had come to see them off. One gave them an international GPS device, some brought clothes, but most brought cash that they had spent the morning going from house to house to collect, a total of almost $20,000. They had purchased tickets on a commercial airline to Taiwan for Gary and Stacy just to throw off whoever might be watching. And, perhaps most importantly, they looked up everything they could find on Preseption Logic Corp, pinpointing its location to the port city of Keelung on the northern tip of the island. One of the members of the church was in contact with a pastor
in the village of Qiōnglín who had agreed to help Gary and Stacy when they arrived by picking them up from the airport and driving them to Keelung.

  Everyone's hair blew in the wind Gary and Stacy thanked everyone and said their goodbyes. Tom placed his hands on Gary's shoulders and said, “Let's pray.” Everyone moved in to surround the couple. Tom began, “Dear God Almighty...”

  Gary didn’t hear any of it. He was lost in his own feelings of grief and anxiety. Suddenly he heard, “We pray in your Holy Name, amen.” The wind whipped his jacket as he looked Tom in the eye and said, “Thank you.” He wasn’t thanking Tom for the prayer. That was probably wasted breath. But he did appreciate the airplane.

  After Miranda said her goodbyes to Stacy, Gary exchanged a hug with Miranda. She held onto him long; too long he thought, and he finally had to pull back. “Don't worry,” he whispered in her ear. “I'll bring your best friend back.”

  She whispered something back to him, but he couldn't hear her words through the jet engine's scream.

  Laboratory

  Giza, Egypt

  “The Torah?” Layla's jaw opened in disbelief.

  Doctor Katz slipped out his cell and, after a moment read, “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives of all that they chose. The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them: they were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown. That is from Genesis. The Nephilim and their children, the Elioud, are featured prominently in the non-canonical Book of Enoch and Book of Jubilees. Josephus spoke of them as well, and alluded to their similarity to the Greek demi-gods. In fact, the idea is found in ancient history all over the earth: Demi-gods are a feature of Babylonian religion, Greek, Norse and Roman mythology, Hinduism, and Chinese royalty. And of course the greatest religion on earth was founded by a part-god part-human.”

  “Which religion is that?”

  “Christianity. The New Testament says, And Mary said to the angel, 'How shall this be, seeing I am a virgin?' And the angel answered and said unto her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, wherefore the child will be born and will be called Holy, the Son of God.' So you see, virtually everyone on earth has heard of a demigod, and over two billion of us believe in one.”

  Doctor Kamil folded her arms, “I see.”

  Layla asked, “You said you were not surprised that Akhenaten was a part-human?”

  “Because he is in the Torah as well.”

  “Where?”

  “How familiar with the Torah are either of you?”

  Doctor Kamil nodded assertively, “Fairly familiar, and I do not recall seeing Akhenaten mentioned anywhere.”

  “He isn't named, but I think the evidence is overwhelming. The story of the exodus is familiar to everyone. The Jews are enslaved in Egypt, Moses is saved from among all the male infants who are killed, and is raised by Pharaoh's daughter. Moses grows up, sees the plight of his people, kills an Egyptian, and flees. He returns at God's direction to free them. A new Pharaoh is in power now and refuses to let them go. God sends plagues, and ultimately kills all the firstborn in Egypt. The Jews are sent away, are pursued, and the entire Egyptian army is destroyed in the Red Sea.”

  “Yes I know the story,” Doctor Kamil said impatiently.

  “Akhenaten is the only Pharaoh that meets these qualifications. In Exodus it says, 'For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night . . . against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD.' When the gods of Egypt were destroyed, the plagues had ruined the nation, and the Israelites had fled, Akhenaten created a cheap new capital away from the annihilated one and proclaimed himself to be the one and only god. Adding to the evidence is the fact that according to 1 Chronicles and Jewish tradition, Bithtiah is the name of the Egyptian princess who rescued Moses from the Nile River. Akhenaten’s aunt, it so happens, was named Tiaa, and her father was named Thutmose the IV. It would have been natural for her to name an adopted child Thutmose after her father, which translated to Moses in Hebrew Scriptures.”

  Doctor Kamil nodded, “I know that there was a plague of disease during Akhenaten's reign, but how can you be sure about the other plagues?”

  Doctor Katz smiled, “Because of this, the Ipuwer Papyrus. It was originally dated to no later than the Nineteenth Dynasty, the one that followed Akhenaten's. This means that it very easily could have been written during Akhenaten's reign, and, indeed, I believe that it was. All the evidence points to the idea that it was written when he was in power and described the chaos of his reign.”

  “What does it say?” Layla asked.

  “Well, the most interesting part of it describes in no uncertain terms the plagues of the Exodus.” He went to one of the lab screens and pulled up the following:

  Ipuwer Papyrus

  “Plague is throughout the land. Blood is everywhere.”

  Exodus 7:1

  “. . . there is blood throughout the land of Egypt.”

  Ipuwer Papyrus

  "Indeed the river is blood, yet men drink of it. Men shrink from human beings and thirst after water."

  Exodus 7:20,24

  ". . . all the waters that were in the river turned to blood.”

  "And all the Egyptians dug round about the river for water to drink."

  Ipuwer Papyrus

  "That is our water! That is our happiness! What shall we do in respect thereof? All is ruin."

  ". . . there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt . . . and the river stank."

  Exodus 7:21

  “. . . and the river stank.”

  Ipuwer Papyrus

  "He who places his brother in the ground is everywhere."

  Exodus 12:30

  “. . . there was not a house where there was not one dead . . . there was a great cry in Egypt.”

  Ipuwer Papyrus

  ". . . the children of princes are dashed against the walls."

  Exodus 12:29

  "And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the first born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the first born of the captive that was in the dungeon."

  Ipuwer Papyrus

  "Trees are destroyed . . . Years of noise. There is no end to noise."

  Exodus 9:25

  ". . . and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field."

  Ipuwer Papyrus

  "Forsooth, that has perished which yesterday was seen. The land is left over to its weariness like the cutting of flax."

  ". . . everywhere barley has perished . . . . The storehouse is empty, and its keeper is stretched on the ground; a happy state of affairs! Would that I had raised my voice at that moment, that it might have saved me from the pain in which I am."

  Exodus 9:31-32

  ". . . the flax and the barley was smitten: for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was boiled. But the wheat and the rye were not smitten: for they were not grown up."

  Ipuwer Papyrus

  "Behold, no offices are in their (right) place, like a frightened herd without a herdsmen. Behold, cattle are left to stray, and there is none to gather them together. Each man fetches for himself those that are branded with his name."

  Exodus 9:21

  "And he that did not regard the word of the Lord left his servants and his cattle in the field."

  Ipuwer Papyrus

  "The land is not light . . . ."

  Exodus 10:22

  ". . . and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt."

  Doctor Kamil looked up when she was done reading, “I have to admit, that is somewhat convincing.”

  Doctor Katz nodded, “And then of course, there is the question of Pharaoh's unexplained power. When Moses came to him and demanded he l
et the Israelites go, Pharaoh's sorcerers and magicians performed many of the miracles that Moses and Aaron did. Assuming the stories are true, then this means that both sides possessed extraordinary power.”

  Pausing to look at the women, he continued, “So if Akhenaten was a product of his mother's DNA and something other than her husband Amenhotep III's DNA, it would also make sense that he would reject the child, as history seems to show that he did. But of course his mother cherished him, and, somehow, perhaps not surprisingly, his older brother Tuthmose V was killed so Akhenaten could take the throne.”

  Skeptically, Doctor Kamil said, “Are you suggesting a cosmic conspiracy, Doctor Katz?”

  Doctor Katz paused, raised his eyebrows, and said, “Well, yes. I guess I am.”

  Layla said, “And you really think we should keep this to ourselves?”

  “Yes. We need to do more research.”

  Layla put a hand on her hip, “We could try to find out who Akhenaten's father was, and what he was.”

  “Oh, I think we know who his father was,” Doctor Katz said.

  “Really? How?”

  “He told us. He wrote, 'There is no other who knows you except your son, Akhenaten.' His father was Aten, the sun-disc god. The sun god is a feature of most ancient cultures all over the world.”

  “And who was this sun god?”

  “I guess we'll never know,” he replied. “Unless . . . .”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless this 'god' is still alive.”

  Doctor Kamil's face went pale, “Let's hope he is not.”

  Doctor Katz said, “There are some places where gods like these are still worshiped. In fact, people still communicate with the gods. I propose we go on a little field trip.”

  Towson, Maryland

  The gun was pointed right at his chest, her finger was on the trigger. Wesley didn't dare move a muscle.