“William!” Marissa yelled as she moved blindly in his direction. Feeling her side to see if her traveling first aid bag was still with her, she continued to scurry without concern for herself.
“William!”
When she still received no response, Marissa knew that if her friend were still alive, he needed immediate medical help. Her vision slowly began to return as the spots in her eyes increasingly shrank until they were barely noticeable.
Now able to see, Marissa got to her feet and stumbled over to a pile of debris filled with rocks and crystals around the coil. She could see William’s hand protruding from the mess.
Marissa ran the last few feet and began to push or throw the rocks and crystals away from William the moment she could reach them. “William,” she pleaded, “stay with me.”
The more she uncovered William, the more she realized what a beating he had received. Bruised and bloodied, there was almost no spot untouched.
Turning William to his back, Marissa scrambled to pull out a circular pad from her bag. After ripping its plastic undercoating, she placed it on his exposed and bloodied chest. Hoping against all odds for any signs of life, the initial holographic readings only confirmed her greatest fears: The symbols indicating massive internal bleeding, cardiac arrest, pulmonary edema and cardiovascular collapse all began blinking in red around the holographic image of a body.
There was nothing she could do. Administering shocks through the pad or injecting him with epinephrine or adrena-boost would be futile. With no other recourse, she simply touched the image, making it vanish.
Marissa laid her head down and wept. Terzin approached from behind and understood the reason for her tears. With a comforting hand, she placed it on Marissa’s shoulder. “We owe him everything,” Terzin muttered. “He saved us all—every single last person, animal, and plant on this planet.”
Taking out a small white sheet from her bag, Marissa placed it over William’s face while saying a small prayer aloud wishing his soul a peaceful journey over to the other side.
Chapter 38
Chapter_38
Alex crawled backwards, creating a little more distance between Jules and himself. Out of the corners of his eyes, he could see that a few WOGs had assembled in front of the striker crafts positioned at either side.
“You could not possibly fathom the true meaning of expectation, Alexander,” Jules cajoled. “In the words of the great Karl Popper, ‘Our knowledge can only be finite while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.’”
As Jules contemplated his words, the striker crafts slowly began to power up their engines and turn towards one another. With Jules and Alex in the center between them and the WOGs directly in front, they were poised and ready for action.
Alex laughed. “Expectation: What you believe will become your reality,” he said with a confident smirk on his face. It’s also called bias and can unduly infect your thoughts and cloud your decision making.”
Jules’ upper lip stiffened.
“You must understand, Julius,” Alex scoffed. “Your belief in a great new world order created by Karl Popper’s dream of a grand utopia is a fraud and failure. Your own bias has blinded you to the fact that Popper was a swindler who accomplished nothing in life but create disciples like yourself who continue to believe in his antiquated rants.”
No longer able to tolerate such sacrilege, Jules raised his rail run and uttered, “Goodbye, Alexander.”
He pulled the trigger, expecting it to fire.
Nothing.
Jules futilely pulled the trigger a few more times with the same response. Without another word, he grabbed a second mini-rail gun from his jacket. With a stiff arm, he pointed it towards Alex and pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
The engines of the striker crafts began to hum a little louder as the air around them tingled with their depolarization.
Alex smiled, revealing his bloody teeth. Taking a silver medallion out of his pants pocket, he held it in front of him for Jules to view. Similar to the Achilles Shield, this replica looked the same but had a Greek helmet instead of the constellations displayed prominently in its center.
“Bias,” he went on to say. “Beliefs alter facts. Take for instance, you believed that I deactivated The New Reality master key hanging around your neck when my quantum entanglement image punched you in the chest back at Nan Madol.”
Jules reached down his shirt and grabbed the key. Thinking that Alex had somehow stolen his prized possession in the fray, he confidently held it tightly in his palm. Hoping that it would activate, he concentrated intently on the medallion, willing it to work.
However, like the rail guns, the key proved just as dysfunctional.
“You believed that only the handler of The New Reality key could activate it,” Alex went on to say with a little more gusto in his voice. You believed that I engaged you in hand to hand combat in the dome just to protect my friends.”
Alex’s words hit hard as Jules quickly realized how easily he had been fooled and led astray. Before Alex continued speaking, everything made sense.
Looking blankly at the striker craft to each of his sides, Jules stood motionless. Defeated and humiliated, he could not believe he could have been duped so easily by Alex. Jules slowly lowered his arm, letting the rail gun drop to the ground.
Alex pulled himself up and got to his feet. With the medallion still in front of him, he continued, “The truth is, my dear old friend Julius, that at Nan Madol, all I did was simply distort The New Reality key’s subatomic access frequency so you could not activate it. The truth is that when we were fighting I placed a quantum transmitter on your body that allowed me full access to the key and everything with New Reality technology built into it. All your guns, weapons, ships—the entirety of The New Reality—is now under my complete control.”
Alex looked at the medallion in his hand. It began to radiate a faint white glow, casting a dim shadow around him.
The stark implications of Alex’s words dug and sucked the life out of Jules’ badly battered body. All that he had worked for was lost. His dream of a great utopian Open Society had been vanquished. His globalist agenda of world domination by a select, elite few had come to a crashing end.
He knew Alex represented the will of the people. It was this will that he despised and thus reviled Alex for his belief in it. The masses were not fit to make decisions for themselves, nor were they capable of self-governance.
“The final truth,” Alex went on to say, “is that you lost.”
With the last statement, Alex grabbed a small flare-like metal device from his pocket and threw it into the ground. The air around him blurred as the magnetic pulse cannons on the underbelly of both striker crafts charged.
Jules could see the pilots in the ships frantically moving their hands across the dashboard controls. In the cockpit of the ship to his right, he noted Drew standing idly behind one of the crew members. As if he knew his fate was sealed, he did nothing but look blankly into the distance.
“Goodbye, Julius,” Alex said.
The tips of the cannons began to glow red before simultaneously discharging. Jules and the WOGs standing between them were incinerated while the striker crafts erupted into huge balls of fire as they were thrown violently backwards.
The remaining WOGs surrounding the dome’s perimeter also met the same demise. With complete control over the entire New Reality system, Alex set each and every weapon on their body to hyperpolarize. As the weapons reached critical polarization, they all exploded with an enormous force, dismembering the WOGs in the process.
Alex remained unharmed. The electromagnetic shield around him had diverted the cannon’s blasts, protecting him from their devastating power.
Bending over, Alex took the flare-like device out of the ground and placed it back into his pocket. With a sense of both relief and grief at the same time, he dropped to his knees. The rumbling of the ground had ceased, but the reverberating pain of his s
orrow had just begun.
He could hear Marissa’s sobs in his auricular chip, and knew they had successfully deactivated the cradle. He also understood their triumph came at the expense of his dear friend William Fowler. Though he wanted to console her, no words came to mind.
Alex let out a big sigh as he dropped the medallion on the ground.
It was finished.
Epilogue - 12 Months Later - Neurono-Tek Headquarters, Pennsylvania
Epilogue
12 Months Later
Neurono-Tek Headquarters, Pennsylvania
Pachelbel’s “Cannon in D” always soothed Alex’s nerves and had an uncanny way of bringing him calm even in the most stressful of situations. As his heart pounded and sweat clamored across his forehead, he was glad Marissa chose this music.
Though the building was relatively cool, Alex wiped his damp, sweaty brow. His face was flushed, and he felt somewhat uneasy on his feet. However, he knew it was the right thing to do, and he would never forgive himself if he decided otherwise.
The organ music echoing melodically throughout the building ceased.
Alex gulped. Here we go!
“I would like to welcome everyone to the Little Sisters of the Poor Chapel here at Neurono-Tek in this great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the most joyous of occasions,” rejoiced the priest.
Holding a Bible in front of him and wearing a long red and white robe, the man looked around the chapel offering all present a warm smile.
Alex looked across from him at Marissa. The sight of her made him feel faint. She was so beautiful: her long white gown studded with tiny pearls, a flowery tiara on top of her cropped hair. The longer he stared at her the more his heart softened. He knew there was nothing else he wanted more in life.
“Dearly beloved,” the priest continued, “we are gathered here today in the site of God, and in the face of this company, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony.”
As Alex gazed into Marissa’s green eyes, he could not help but recall their past few years together. It was on this very neuroscience campus where they met during the terrorist bombing of the Science Building. They had been inseparable ever since. From The Disease which plagued the planet to the financial collapse of the world’s sovereign countries to the rise of The New Reality’s world order to the massive human catastrophe perpetuated by the nanosplicers, Jules Windsor’s institution of the Open Society, and the near destruction of the Earth, they were in it together.
He knew that none of the success in confronting these global threats over the past few years would have been possible without her.
Alex finally smiled, taking a ring out of his front pocket.
“With this ring,” Alex uttered, holding it in front of him.
Looking back out into the chapel, he could see his two head security guards, Phil and Gil, sitting in a pew. Each extremely dedicated to their jobs, they wore their New Reality jumpsuits to the wedding. Though extremely massive and gruff in appearance, they both whimpered in joy, unable to control their emotions. Alex grinned, pleased to see the human side behind their brusque façades.
Both Terzin and Christine sat in the front row, glowing with excitement. Since leaving Eden, Alex brought them both back with him to Neurono-Tek. As a sign of his gratitude, he started financing Christine’s medical school degree and offered her a top full-time job at his company after her training was complete.
Alex also brought on Terzin at Neurono-Tek. She was thankful to join him and start again in Pennsylvania. Still heartbroken at the loss of her home, family, and friends in wake of the recent massive tectonic shakeup, she found great solace overseeing Neurono-Tek’s human displacement program. In this position, she could help others find their family and friends and hopefully rebuild a new life in this post-New Reality world. She loved the position and felt she needed to do it for both herself and everyone else she helped. She was, after all, a Keeper, now and always.
Alex looked over at Samantha. Her eyes were gleaming in pride. Though she was the second in charge at Neurono-Tek, Alex had not seen much of Samantha over the past three months. Taking the lead in the global resettlement program, she was helping to bring business, technology, and people to the ancient continent of Mu that arose in the Pacific after millennium on the sea floor. Her organizational skills and biomedical expertise were proving extremely helpful in cultivating the barren land and breathing life back into it once again.
Alex was also pleased to see that other friends and family had joined their joyous occasion. Even Dr. Harding, a physician who once worked for Jules Windsor, was there at the ceremony. Though their first meeting was tumultuous at best, he had become a recent friend and had moved to Pennsylvania to help run the genetics department.
“I thee wed.” Alex placed the ring on Marissa’s finger. Her hand felt soft and comforting.
She looked up and smiled, feeling how his hand slightly trembled at the simple action. She also felt great love and joy. Though Alex always said it was a matter of pure luck that they met, she believed the two were meant to be together, not just for themselves, but for the sake of the planet.
All seemed right at the moment. Despite the immense tragedy caused by the tectonic plate shifts and geological instability, the world also was righting itself after years of The New Reality’s oppressive abuse.
Alex recalled how he destroyed The New Reality and its financial stranglehold over the planet once he gained access to the master key around Jules’ neck. During those brief movements, he dissolved the business’ equity and returned it to the people and countries to which it belonged. Within a mere second, The New Reality ceased to exist, and those who brought it to power were left in financial ruin.
With new financial independence, each country that survived the massive tectonic upheaval took back its sovereignty and arrested the corrupt bankers and financial elites who had made possible the takeover by The New Reality. So, too, went the politicians who had sold out their nations. No more would a few elites rule the many.
“Those whom God hath joined together,” the priest went on to say, “let no man put asunder.”
Even in his moment of great joy, Alex could not help but think of William and wish that he was present. William had saved them all; Alex would spend the rest of his life trying to express his gratitude. He also thought back to others that he had lost to The New Reality: his good friend and pilot Tom Flynn, Father Jonathan Maloney, and Guri Bergmann.
“I pronounce you man and wife,” the priest announced. “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!”
The organ music started playing once again as Alex and Marissa kissed for the first time as husband and wife.
Everyone in the chapel stood and began to applaud. A few people sitting next to Phil and Gil helped them to their feet. Overwhelmed, they wiped their faces with a handkerchief and blew their noses almost like a horn trumpeting the union.
With one arm, Alex embraced Marissa and turned to the congregation. Now a proud husband, he looked out and thought how wonderful it felt to be alive.
A he walked down the aisle, Alex took out of his pocket a grimy old red hat with only the worn G and R letters remaining. Placing it prominently on his head, he felt that this was but a small tribute to his late friend. Upon seeing it, Marissa and Samantha began to cry. They could not help themselves. They, too, still hurt from his loss and appreciated this nod to their fallen friend. Proudly wearing the cap, Alex also found it difficult to hold back the tears.
After composing himself, Alex began to wave to the many friends joining him on this beautiful day. Despite the smiles and laugher that greeted him, he could not but help wonder how the world would respond to a second chance. Would they learn from the past, or would they once more move toward destruction in the name of progress?
Alex did not have the answer. What he did know was that he had a beautiful wife to love for the rest of his life. In this moment, it was enough.
; Fact or Fiction?
Fact_or_Fiction?
Vimanas. Stories of these ancient flying machines were mentioned in multiple ancient Sanskrit texts from India including the Sumaranga Sutrahara, Ramayana, Mababharatam, and Harivamsa amongst others. In the Sanskrit writings of the Vaimanika Shastra, it describes not only how the Vimanas were constructed but also how they were flown. It was written that there were different types of Vimanas, including the beehive-shaped Rukmana Vimana, the stubby rocket-shaped Sundara Vimana, and the submarine-appearing Tripura Vimana. These ships were the ones described in The Final Reality hidden under the dome in Eden.
Mercury Flight. In the Sumaranga Sutrahara, it was written, “By means of power latent in mercury which sets the driving whirlwind in motion, a man sitting inside may travel a great distance in the sky in a most marvelous manner.” In this writing, it describes the Vimanas flying “like a pearl in the sky.” The Greek word for mercury is hydrargos, from which the periodic symbol Hg is derived. The word translates into liquid gyro. The Greek god Mercury, also known as Hermes by the Romans, was hailed as the god of flight and had a winged staff known as the caduceus to signify this attribute. Does the liquid metal mercury possess some latent antigravitational zero-point energy effect that it can exert when properly excited? I don’t know, but ancient myth does make one wonder.
Caduceus. Mercury’s winged staff with two serpents intertwined around it has become the traditional symbol of medicine, especially in the United States. Is this staff more than just a mythical symbol? Does it represent an ancient sign of electromagnetic flight? Some hypothesize the ancients used such symbols as the means to convey information from one generation to the next.
The Great Biblical Flood. Though much of modern science has dismissed the biblical story written in the Torah and the Christian Old Testament, hundreds of flood stories circulate across the globe. The Berber in North Africa believe that their ancestors were refugees from a land to the west that was destroyed by the sea. Some hypothesize this land was that of Atlantis and that their language may be the only vestiges left of this lost continent. In the Mayan Popol Vuh, it tells of a great flood. The Babylonian story of Gilgamesh is very similar to that of Noah. Flood stories also abound in China, the Samoan Islands, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Philippines, Tibet, New Zealand, native American tribes in the USA, India, and Egypt. To dismiss the idea that a great flood once ravaged the planet would be to dismiss hundreds of different accounts told of this event across the globe.
The Final Reality (Alex Pella, #3) Page 25