KJ beckoned them all closer. “It’s the Nine Veils. I saw the tattoo. They’re back.”
You’re sure? Merry and Lex asked in unison, telepathically.
I’m sure, KJ projected.
We need, Merry started.
To tell someone, Lex finished.
Not yet. There’s something else. I think... I think the shooter was Svetlana. Our Svetlana. If Lucy and NATO, or whoever, find her before us, they’ll kill her and all our brothers and sisters. Not because they want to, but it’ll be all out war and you know it.
“Hey, you guys, wanna use your lips here?” Catherine interrupted. “You’ve been doing your thing ...”
“Sorry. Nothing you don’t already know. Be grateful we aren’t using Aymara.” KJ winked at Cat.
“So, what’s the plan, KJ?” Lex asked.
“What do you have in mind?” Merry added.
“I can still feel her in my head. She’s in here, like we’re connected,” KJ replied tapping on his temple. “Like her consciousness left a splinter lodged in my brain.”
“Over this kind.”
“Of distance?”
“Yes.” KJ nodded. “And I think, if we put our heads together we can track her. We can find her. And bring her back, maybe bring them all back.”
“Us.”
“Three?”
“I’m along for the ride,” Catherine offered.
“Right, and Kiska and Kroshka,” KJ added pointing to the Huahuqui at the girls’ sides. “And K’awin.”
“KJ, we love you but,” Merry began.
“We’re going to need more,” Lex said.
“If you got Nikolaj.”
“On board.”
“It would.”
“Be easier.”
KJ shook his head. “Don’t ask golden boy. Anyone else? Who can we trust?”
“Leo and Igor,” the girls replied in unison.
Leo and Igor. Both were huge guys who to KJ’s mind had grown beards as children. That was until they left for Songshan in Dengfeng. Unlike most of the Stratum, they had not pursued academia but instead had asked ever so politely to be trained at the Shaolin Temple. There, for fifteen years, they learned about the peaceful ways of Budhism, and of course also Shaolin Kung Fu.
KJ had become a student under Leo, but never had the patience for martial arts. After two years of trying to find his inner peace, KJ had only found his inner sarcastic asshole. But then again, the rumor was the boys’ real secret was not in their fists, but in their ability to wage psychological war. If that were even half true, they could be of help.
KJ nodded to Merry and Lex. “Good idea. Meet me in the mess hall at midnight. Bring the boys.”
Location: unknown
Victoria crouched at the edge of a pool empty of any Phalanx and stared into the glassy surface. Her reflection stared back, soaked in warm orange hues of sunset—yet her defiant eyes remained a cold, icy blue. The water rippled in a light breeze distorting her image until, when the waves subsided, another face peered back. Kelly Graham Junior’s face, which quickly morphed into that of his father. Nausea crawled its way from deep within her, spreading from the pit of her stomach into her limbs. Kelly Graham. She had not thought of him in many years. Her one-time friend who she’d admired and studied, enjoying his knowledge of photography, sarcasm and wit, and even his back-handed compliments.
She closed her eyes and heard his coarse laughter, smelled his sweaty skin—and felt his ribs crack under her feet. She’d murdered him. Not for the want of killing, but through fear. Raw panic coursing through her as she was stalked and hunted from New Mexico to Teotihuacan. It was an accident. A stone grew in her throat and a warm salty tear slipped into the corner of her mouth. Victoria licked it away and exhaled loudly. No, not an accident. Necessary, she thought. Kelly Graham was the reason she was here now. Dragged by him into government conspiracies and battling cults.
She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her mouth. The taste of raw fish and metallic scent of the blood was ever present. Tainting everything she ate and drank. She should have died in the Nevada Desert, when the truck was attacked. Back then, her soul was innocent. She should have ascended to heaven. But instead, her mangled corpse was reanimated using ill-gotten science and the genetic information of a mutated Huahuqui called Wak. Her humanity had been stripped away leaving only the most basic of animal instincts.
It was no wonder God had forsaken her.
Though Wak had been killed, releasing her from it’s terrifying grip, Victoria’s soul felt dirty. Marked. Unfit to be embraced by God. In the years that followed, Victoria had tried to find Him. Church after Church, Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical. From New Hampshire to New Mexico. She’d even travelled to Palestine and Israel in hopes of connecting with the very heart of Christianity. It didn’t matter which denomination it was, as long as she once again could feel something. Yet, each place of worship felt empty and soulless. Brick and mortar, devoid of hope and life.
Finally, Victoria had ended up at Saint Hill in the rolling countryside of Sussex, England. With sandstone columns and a Union Jack flag fluttering in the wind, Saint Hill Manor looked like a quintessential English country house. But it was more than that; it was a central hub for the Church of Scientology. This is where the Doyen had found her.
Aboard a tour bus to the Manor, half listening to the spiel of the guide touting the benefits of paying for educational courses that would lead to enlightenment, his soft voice had come over her shoulder. Startled she’d turned to come face to face with the man who she would come to know as the Doyen. His eyes were wise and his face calming and soft, like a father she never knew.
He’d accompanied her on her walk around Saint Hill, more of a museum than active religious site, and just listened. He nodded in all the right places and never really said anything. In fact, he’d never actually given his real name. So comfortable was she, that within a matter of hours she had spilled the story of the Huahuqui, the cloning program, and her ordeal with Wak. He hadn’t flinched. When she’d finished, the oil-painting stillness of his face had broken into a wide smile. It was then he revealed that he was the head of a group of like-minded individuals who were very aware of what the government had done and moreover whose mission it was to find those special people who would possess the ability to transcend nine barriers of knowledge, ultimately reaching God and understanding the universe.
The Doyen frequented scientology churches seeking out new members for his own cult, since many of the ideologies seemed to coincide. At least until the part where scientologists believed that an alien overlord named Xenu brought billions of his people, the Teegeeack, to Earth some 75 million years ago, then killed them all ensuring their souls could adhere to humans and cause spiritual harm. No, in this respect the Nine Veils, as the Doyen called his organization, differed.
Over a coffee in a small town in England, the Doyen had calmly explained that upon passing through the sixth barrier, or veil, we learn that beings like ‘dragons’ control the forces behind secret societies that controlled most of the major events on Earth. Once upon a time such a notion would have seemed ludicrous, but here with the knowledge of the Huahuqui, it seemed all too plausible. He believed the Huahuqui were those beings. But more than that, his ideology was not in opposition to God but in synchrony with Him. According to the teachings of the Nine Veils, God had bestowed the Huahuqui upon humanity. Finally, there was reconciliation.
For a time that had been enough. But, the darkness never left her.
Victoria swirled the water with a finger. Just as beneath the surface was a mottled mess of old rice, bacteria, and all manner of disgusting creatures, beneath her ageing beauty bubbled a putrid darkness. Wak had seeded within her something terrible, and over the course of twenty years it had germinated and grown into a black, creeping vine, penetrating her heart and mind. And now, her vision of the world was dark. Humanity had failed their God. He had sent his son, and we’d killed him. He had
sent the Huahuqui, and we’d killed them too.
The Doyen had been her last hope, his vision for a synergy between humans and Huahuqui working together in the name of God. But his resolve seemed to wane. The leader of the Nine Veils had grown soft, rambling. He interfered more and more as the time of their ultimate goal grew nearer. His own arrogance ballooned with every brick of his fortress laid. Now that it was finished, his evolution into demi-God seemed complete; his previous business-driven nature now replaced with a priest-like demeanor—constantly spouting nonsensical proverbs.
She had to plan for his failure. It was her destiny to serve God, even if He had left her behind. Everything she had lived through had prepared her for this. Only one who had been cast aside could complete what needed to be done. Lucifer himself, also cast aside, had failed. She would not. And the spawn of Kelly Graham would not stand in her way now.
The first child of the Stratum needed to die.
Victoria turned from the pool and glanced at the orange sky for a lingering moment, then headed up the stone pathway toward her temple.
CHAPTER FOUR
Location: Washington DC, USA
Jonathan rocked back and forth in the large leather chair, scanning the length of mahogany table sat in the middle of the White House’s John F. Kennedy conference room. Lucy was at the head while her cabinet lined either side. All were staring expectantly at two large monitors. The first showed a very nervous-looking Koa Brown, while the second was a conference call collage displaying all the members of the Alpha Base UN Committee.
“Just tell the President what you told me, Dr. Brown,” Jonathan said.
Koa cleared his throat. “It’s a temple or something like one.”
Lucy frowned. “A temple? What kind of temple?”
“Well, from what we can discern,” Koa said, playing with his tie. “It was supposed to be a crater from a meteor, but my system showed that it was a temple. I mean, it may have been a crater once, and they built into it. Anyway, the temple, it looks kinda Mayan or perhaps Egyptian, though could be neither. You know, it could be a predecessor or maybe it came after though I doubt it, I mean—”
“Why do we care, Doctor Brown?” asked Schmidt, the German committee member. A rotund man with beady eyes. “We have other very pressing matters, if you hadn’t heard.”
“Well to start with, it’s a huge archeological find. To be buried under that much ice, do you know when it must have been built? It’ll throw off our thinking completely—”
Jonathan sighed. “Out with it man, get to the point.”
“Right, yeah, well,” Koa began. “Um where to start?”
Was this guy for real? Jonathan pulled at his face. “How about you start with the orb?”
Lucy shot a worried glance at Jonathan. He just nodded to the screen, urging her to be patient.
“Right, yeah the orb,” continued Koa. “Bit of backstory, sorry but it’s important. So, do you remember like twenty years ago, explorers discovered the remnants of a secret Nazi base hidden deep in the Arctic? It was like just 600 miles from the North Pole. The Russians found it.”
Everyone stared blankly.
Koa coughed. “Okay, well they did. They were searching for stuff, on orders from Hitler. Weird stuff. Alien stuff. The theory goes that the Nazis also went south, claimed an area of Antarctica as German territory and sent an expedition there. Supposedly, they mapped the area and discovered a network of rivers and caves, one of which led to a large geothermal lake. We figured it might have been Vostok, but as Alpha base is there now, and we found nothing, that got ruled out.”
Jonathan rolled his hand in a ‘get on with it’ motion.
“Anyhoo, the conspiracy nuts said a city-sized base was built somewhere in Antarctica, called Base 22 or New Berlin. If you’re really into this, then you’ll know it was meant to be home to not only Nazis but also the Illuminati. There was even talk of the Germans discovering abandoned alien technology.” Koa paused. “I think we found it.”
“A Nazi base for aliens?” The skinny French committee member, Gaustav, laughed pretentiously.
“No,” Koa replied. “I told you before it looks Mayan or Egyptian, like an inverted pyramid. The Nazi’s didn’t build it. We found the site, and what it really is.”
“Which is?” pressed Lucy.
Koa wet his lips. “It’s a site like Teotihuacan, a place built for humans and the Huahuqui to exist, but from what I can tell it might be the first site and the others were just copies. There’s drawings all over the walls of the Huahuqui with people and a cuneiform script and hieroglyphs.”
“You’ve been down there already? How is that possible? You can’t have drilled that deep so quickly,” Chinese member, Xi, said.
Koa nodded. “You’re quite right. I said the Nazis didn’t build it, they found it. They drilled a man-sized hole all the way through the ice. The entrance got covered, but the tunnel remained intact. We found weapons, empty supply containers and other junk. Nazi junk. That part the conspiracy nuts got right.”
“They really went there?” Lucy asked, her brow creased.
“We found corpses in full regalia,” Koa replied. “Hitler’s special forces. Looks like something crushed them and they were just left.”
“You said something about an orb, Doctor Brown,” Lucy urged.
“Right, right an orb. So, this whole complex is like a super semi-conductor, made with calaverite. In the center is a massive crucible and from what I can determine, it held an orb. Like the ones that were destroyed years ago, the ones that can connect Huahuqui and humans. At least that’s what I discerned from the writings on the walls. But, if I’m reading them correctly, this temple turns an orb into like a super orb. So perhaps this place was like a broadcasting station, you know? To the whole world.”
“And you think the Nazis took it?” Gaustav interjected. “The orb?”
Koa nodded. “It’s possible. I mean it’s also possible there was nothing there. But the scratches on the crucible indicate something was dug out of it.”
The German member squirmed uncomfortably. “Anything from that period has been handed over, put in a museum or destroyed.”
“You and I both know that isn’t true,” Jonathan interjected.
“Excuse me?” Schmidt replied, his face red with anger.
“Members of the fourth Reich fled to Argentina after the war. A shit load of Nazi-era contraband was found in the back of a collector’s house in Buenos Aires not so many years ago. The AFI confiscated it all.”
Schmidt practically choked in disgust. “That was all proven to be fake. Carnival trinkets, no more.”
“Yeah, that’s what the official report said,” Jonathan replied. “But, I heard things differently here. And as I understand it, AFI still has it all under lock and key. Why keep trinkets?”
“You think they have an orb?” Lucy asked.
Jonathan gave a shrug. “I don’t know. I bet they don’t even know. But if they do have one, and we can get at it—”
“Having an orb may mean we can do something about any potential Huahuqui army the Nine Veils has amassed,” Lucy finished.
“Exactly. It’s a long shot, but ...”
“I’ll take anything, Mr. Teller.”
Jonathan nodded.
“Good work, Doctor Brown. Keep studying. We will likely need you in the future.”
The conference ended, and the cabinet shuffled out of the secure room, leaving Jonathan and Lucy alone. The President pushed her chair away and stood to leave.
“Madam President,” Teller started. “Before I head to Argentina—”
“Lucy is fine Jonathan, we’re alone. And we’ve known each other long enough.” She gave a tired smile that also said they’d been through enough too.
“Whatever’s going on, I don’t think we’re seeing the bigger picture. This feels like the beginning. It’s been nearly twenty years. Why now? Why the assassination attempts? Why the power stations? I don’t like it.”
Lucy nodded solemnly. “I know, Jonathan. I know.”
Location: Alpha Base, Antarctica
The mess hall was deathly still. No clicking of cutlery on plates, no chinking of glasses. No belly laughs or heated discussions between scientists and Stratum. KJ sat with K’awin in the dim lighting provided by a few low-level halogens embedded in the ceiling. They cast jagged shadows on the many white tables that littered the vast dining area.
He had no plan. Not one that made sense, anyway. Chasing after the Nine Veils with a handful of his Stratum brethren was infinitely stupid. KJ knew that. But, deep in his heart it felt right. And wasn’t that the reason for doing anything? Because it was right? His father had taken on the task from the government because something inside him told him to. KJ’s mother had never been able to explain it, only saying that his father had initially said no and then just as quickly changed his mind. After that, he had no reason to continue, to become part of the great conspiracy and covert war with China. To try and save everyone. But he did. He’d died saving everyone. In more than twenty years, KJ had heard only heroic stories of Kelly Graham. Well, except for Jonathan.
Sarah had lost her Huahuqui. The little creature had somehow slipped security and was wandering outside of Biome One. The young girl had run to KJ, crying, telling him that she was scared her Huahuqui would freeze to death.
KJ was only eleven, and knew full well he’d get into trouble, but he hadn’t even given it a second thought. Someone needed his help, and he wouldn’t let them down. K’awin wanted to come, but KJ refused and ordered her back to the apartment to lay on his bed. Then, donning his thickest coat, he marched up to the outer lock of Biome One, told the guard that he needed to leave and walked out as if he did it every day. It wouldn’t be long before the guard realized that he’d been manipulated. KJ had to hurry.
Out in the frozen wasteland outside KJ called to the little lost Huahuqui. The howling wind stole his voice and numbed his lips, so KJ reached out with his mind. She was nowhere to be found. KJ checked his watch. He’d been outside for an hour. and shivering so hard he felt his bones may shatter, he’d been found—by Jonathan.
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