Health and strength for each, body and soul.
Family, friends, and loved ones gathered together,
We all join in saying, ‘Thank you’
For the blessings that you bring.
In Jesus’ name — Amen.”
“Amen!” Sofia said. “Mia, we’ve heard about some of your adventures! The squad of guardians you met at the outskirts of Heaven returned earlier this evening and told us that they had found you both there.”
Looking down at her plate, Mia nodded her head and cut her omelet into several pieces, but didn’t eat a bite. She could feel her face turning red because she wasn’t sure she liked the idea that everyone knew how she had freaked out when she had met Kit, let alone consider everyone knowing the reason why she had. (She didn’t know that the squad had not told anyone what happened with Kit.)
Preston said, “It was a relief to get the news, I can tell you. The mission to free you from that experiment the mallum xul had trapped you in — so close to success and yet so far, right? Happens sometimes. We were waiting to hear, wondering what happened to you after you’d been recaptured. And to Enoch after he left again by himself to go get you.”
Mia said, “You know, it’s funny hearing that you say you know all about what was happening to me there at iCon. I worked there for months, but had no idea what was going on there for the longest time! Fortunately, Enoch always showed up in the nick of time to rescue me from whatever danger I was in.”
Mia looked at Ethan. “My memories aren’t very clear of what happened back at Noonan Hall, but weren’t you there too?” He glanced over at her, smiled, and nodded yes.
“No clear recollections of it,” she said. “Just a series of jumbled images, so you’ll have to fill me in on the details of what happened. But I know I need to thank several people for helping with my rescue. I was in no shape to save myself, that’s for sure!”
Sofia said, “We were all there — Preston and I in another part of the building. Glad we could help however we could, because each of us can say that Enoch rescued us from an impossible situation. Only makes sense to help anyone who needs the same.”
Mother Tallis brought over a tray (more omelets, a ceramic pitcher of milk, a bowl of green and red grapes, and a loaf of bread with honey and butter on the side) and set it in the center of the table. She tapped Mia’s shoulder who slid over next to Ethan to make room for her on the end of the bench.
Mia leaned over to Ethan and asked, “Can I sit next to you?”
Smiling, he said, “Sure! Be my guest.”
“Thank you, Benida, for making supper for us,” Sofia said. “Everything looks so delicious.”
Preston cheered, “Yes! Thank you for this amazing meal, Mother Tallis!”
She said, “You’re welcome, Sofia, Preston. You’re all very welcome. Mia, I’m the one who gave Enoch the warning about your peril in the cave under Mount Graham. Figuring out where you had been taken was certainly easier having those ancient petroglyphs in the cave where you were. That and the observatories on top of the mountain. Helped me identify your location.” She laughed. “GPS coordinates would be more useful, but they’re not usually included with the visions. I had also seen you in the tank filled with that white liquid earlier, but I’d seen that lab many times before, so I knew where that was immediately.”
“I’m so glad you recognized where I was,” Mia said. “Just before Enoch arrived at the cave, I was totally convinced that a rescue would be impossible, and that no one knew where I was. I never knew where I was myself during the entire time I was kidnapped. In fact, my recollections of the entire episode aren’t very clear, I’m afraid. The drugs they gave me in the lab — later in the cave too — gave me a bad reaction, and I was hallucinating in the harvesting tank. Then after being taken out of the tank, there was a lot of noise and confusion, and after that I got grabbed by the guard-goyles and dragged through the portal. With the black bag on my head so I couldn’t see where I was for part of time.”
“Hahaha!” Preston laughed heartily. “Guard-goyles! That’s a good one.”
Mia smiled at him. “Thanks!”
Ethan said, “I need to thank you as well. You created a diversion and helped me get away from the guards who captured me.”
“He needs to thank you for something else too.” Preston laughed again, reached over, and turned Ethan’s head so that Mia could see his other eye. “You gave him a black eye!”
“I’m so sorry!” Mia said. “I don’t remember — I had no idea I did that. Does it hurt?”
Ethan removed Preston’s hand from his jaw. “Doesn’t hurt a bit, it’s not a problem. You started choking in the tank, struggling to get out, and while pulling you out, got in the way of a knee. Nothing to worry about.”
Mia asked, “What a way to thank someone getting me out of that horrible tank! Did I do any other stupid things?”
Sofia said, “It wasn’t stupid what you did. Like Ethan said, you saved the day. He —” (she pointed at Ethan with her fork) “had been overpowered by four of the iCon guards. Even had a black bag over his head, hands zip-tied behind his back. And they grabbed the medallion that activates the portal and gave it to that urukah you call Chase. Everything wheels-up and sideways! But you caused a distraction and changed the outcome. As a result, Enoch got the medallion back, and you cut Ethan loose so he could fight the guards. It was only bad luck that they captured you.”
Mia said, “What a relief to hear I didn’t totally mess things up! What a surprise. Feels like I’ve been lurching from one disaster to another. Anything I did that helped was unintentional. But getting captured, that was my own fault. I gave them a chance to grab me when I didn’t cooperate with what Enoch said to do. He wanted me to leave with him right away, but I wanted to stay and help fight. While we were still discussing my options — which means I was ignoring what he said to do — the guards ran up and dragged me through the portal.”
Ethan said, “The more time spent around Enoch, the more I learn that everything works better to do what he says right away. Knows what’s he doing. No doubt his good sense is the result of living a good life for a really long time. Has no use for shortcuts or trying a bad idea just to see if it will work. Knows when it won’t, knows what he’s working toward and why, and sticks to that. When he tells you something, it’s worth paying attention to. But it takes time to learn to trust someone.”
Nodding in agreement, Mia said, “I’ve been trying to make up for ignoring him since that disaster I created when I didn’t listen soon enough. But instant obedience without asking questions isn’t my strong suit.”
“That’s true for me too,” Ethan said. “Probably true for anybody —”
Mother Tallis said, “True for me too.” Preston and Sofia nodded as well.
Smiling, Ethan corrected himself and continued, “True for everybody unless they make a conscious effort to put their trust in a reliable person.”
“How did the mission go after I was dragged off through the portal?”
Ethan answered, “After sending the guards to grab you, Amunson escaped back up the elevator. Not sure where he ended up. As soon as we could, we followed — the medallion was still in place to activate the portal for our passage. We followed the mallum xul who had taken you, but never were able to catch up. Back at Noonan Hall, the Barrow Heights police had been called, so Sofia, Preston and the rest of the team had to clear out fast, also using the portal, before the mission was complete. They were able to destroy the servers with records concerning the Geek Rapture, but hadn’t gotten to any of their work on creating the Singularity, a self-aware artificial intelligence. And then we eventually had to give up the pursuit of the mallum xul, and so we gated back here to re-group. Not long after, Mother Tallis had a vision of you on Mount Graham, running up a gully, then later stopping in a cave. That’s when Enoch rode off on Maru to go g
et you.”
“In the place where all the gateways meet, that’s where Chase ended up. He met up with the other monsters there,” Mia said. “What you call the mallum xul. After that, they all carted me off down to Hell and then up to that cave in the mountain. By then I’d given up hope of ever being rescued or escaping on my own. One rescue was a miracle — two seemed impossible. However, I was out on a ledge outside the cave when the second miracle found me. A rope dropped down out of the sky! Then Enoch and Maru pulled me up so I wouldn’t end up back in that tank and have my soul harvested.”
“My rescue by Enoch was a miracle too,” Mother Tallis said. “Each one of us feels that way. He has a special calling — he’s been hidden from history until the end times when he joins Elijah to stand as a witness, to prophesy against the Beast who will take over the rule and control of the world and humanity in the last of the last days. In the meantime, Enoch’s available to help accomplish God’s will, to make sure Heaven’s plans are carried out on Earth. To help him, we all contribute our unique gifts, in the best way we can.”
Preston nodded and said, “I certainly was in need of a miracle rescue! I was serving in Afghanistan when my unit was ordered off base to a cave in the mountains, to help transport a very sensitive ‘package’ back to base.” (He added air quotes around the word package.) “However, they didn’t warn us what we were going to find there. What a shock that was! There were six of us that went into that cave. I’m the only one who made it out alive. Thank God.”
Staring at his plate, he paused for a moment, then glanced up at Mia. “You won’t believe what I saw in that cave. A giant that looked like something out of a 1950s sci-fi flick. A twelve foot tall, eleven hundred pound giant with flaming orange hair, six fingers on each hand, a double row of teeth, a single eye in the middle of its forehead. And the stench of it! Foul breath and body odor, like when you get close to the gorilla enclosure in the zoo, plus the pungent stink like a skunk has, only with the smell of rotting flesh added on. A hundred times worse than anything I’ve ever smelled before — the musky stink of a foul unclean beast. I had no idea such things existed, but there it was. And there we were.”
Mia said, “I believe every word you’re saying, Preston. You did encounter that giant, exactly like you’re saying.”
“Thank you, I appreciate that.” Preston took a drink from his glass. “Someone had chained it to the wall of the cave, but they seriously miscalculated on how strong the monster was because as soon as it saw us, it broke the chains, busted free, and started grabbing the guys in my unit, even though we were firing at it with everything we’d brought. When that thing picked them up, I couldn’t believe how small they looked in its hand, like toddlers in comparison. The cave was huge, and we tried backing away from it, but that monster could jump ten yards at a time. And fast! You never saw faster. We shot it, and the bullets landed home, over and over, but nothing had any effect on it at all. Nothing any of us did could stop it. Nothing prevented that giant from pulling their heads off, sucking out their blood, and taking bites out of them.
Preston rubbed his forehead. “Pure evil, the giant was pure evil, and that was part of the problem. We weren’t afraid to fight because our squad, we’d all seen action before. But this was different. Facing that monster, I had to struggle just to keep firing and not give up and not be overwhelmed by fear and despair. I don’t know what it was, but the giant, just its presence, it overwhelmed the heart inside of you, oppressed you, and broke your spirit. I used to have red hair, but in the few minutes I was in the cave with it, all my hair turned prematurely and permanently gray. One by one my squad was picked up by the giant who killed and ate on every one of them.
“When I saw I was all alone, the last one left, I knew I was a goner. But just like you, I was wrong about that. I got rescued! I happened to be near the back of the cave, the giant between me and the way out, which sounds like a bad thing, but there was a gateway that opened up in the back of the cave, and all of a sudden, Enoch was standing next to me. And he cut off the head of that giant with a sword. Just like that!” He snapped his fingers. “I couldn’t believe it — I wasn’t going to end up as a Preston McNugget dinner after all!
“Once the giant was decapitated, Enoch and I left the cave to return me to base where I belonged. But as soon as I stepped out of the cave entrance, a special ops unit that had just pulled up started taking shots at me. I guess they weren’t gonna let me live, knowing what I knew, seeing what I’d seen. So Enoch took me with him through the gateway, back here. I wouldn’t be alive except for him killing that giant and then granting me refuge here. So you can bet I am glad he showed up! But even beyond being rescued, I’m happy to be here. This place is so surreal — in a good way. Unlike anyplace else. It almost feels like I did die, and that I’m in heaven. You’ve only seen a small part of what we have here, Mia. But you’ll see too. This is a wonderful place, so much better than anything I’d ever known before. It touches your heart. God is here, and that makes all the difference.”
“It’s been the same for me,” Sofia said. “There’s God’s peace and a joy here. The same spirit of peace and joy that surrounds Enoch. I’ve never been in a place like this either.”
Mia nodded in agreement. “Same for me too. I feel safe here, safer than I’ve felt in many weeks. Even before being kidnapped, worry and dread was affecting my whole mind. No actual evidence of it, but I felt like my home and even my dreams had been invaded and spied on. People at work knew things that they never could have known unless someone had bugged my house. I had no idea why they would do that. Now I know why they were interested in me, but nothing made sense at the time. I kept trying to talk myself out of believing what I could see with my own eyes. It was like there were two different ways of looking at the world competing in my brain. One wanted everything to be normal, the other saw unexplainable things happening all around me. But — at the time, it was too impossible to believe. I mean, I believe it now, but then — couldn’t. There were times when I felt like something —. Like when I was captured in Noonan Hall. I’m running down the hall as fast as I can, but then I black out for no reason, like when they hypnotize you. But I was running, not concentrating on relaxing, so how could anyone hypnotize me at that particular moment? The only other person there was Chase opening the door right in front of me. I remember running, he opened that door from the lobby, and then the next thing I know, I’m in that horrible tank. How did that happen? I don’t remember him hitting me or knocking me out somehow. So how could he do that to me? It makes no sense, now or then.” Mia stopped. “Looks I can’t even talk about this without getting into a tangle.”
Mother Tallis put her hand on Mia’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Mia, we trust what you’re saying is true. We believe something was happening to you. This is one place where we all have experienced things beyond the normal way things go, so we don’t have the same kind of normalcy bias other people might have, where they refuse to consider any truth outside their idea of everyday reality. Or maybe they are just afraid of dealing with a person who had contact with the supernatural realm. We know better. We’ve all had experiences in dealing with supernatural hazards and threats.”
“That’s good,” Mia said. “Because I am one of those people with a strong normalcy bias. The person I’m afraid of is me, if that makes any sense. The verdict I kept arriving at was that I was touched in the head, becoming mentally defective. Who would ever imagine that I was being chased by evil giants and fallen angels. Not me!”
Covering her hand with his, Ethan said, “You weren’t mentally defective — not at all. You were able to sense the presence of evil acting in your life. That’s being perceptive, recognizing what was acting on your soul and spirit. Not everyone comes to that understanding. Evil can be like radiation or a toxic chemical — invisible, but get anywhere close, and it will cause damage. Invisible injuries. You can’t escape the effects. No one can.”
“Thank you for saying that,” Mia said quietly. “It means a lot.”
Mother Tallis nodded and said, “I understand how you feel, mistrusting yourself, doubting your ability to think clearly. Back when I was young —.” She laughed at herself. “Which was ages and ages ago, I had ambitions to be an actress. I went out to Hollywood where I got bit parts in movies and network television shows. What I didn’t realize was that once I got there, men in power at the studios subjected me to MK Ultra mind control, a technique designed to make it possible to control a person, force them to do whatever they’re told to do. It’s a technique that enables the buying and selling human souls — makes it possible to treat any person like a commodity. I became a slave for evil men who wanted to live like powerful kings, and I didn’t even know what had happened.”
Mia said, “How terrible for you!”
Mother Tallis said, “Thank you for saying that, Mia. It does seem terrible now, but at the time I had no idea what trouble I was in. Not in the least. There was no way to know. Because it wasn’t difficult for them to do that to me. Women are particularly susceptible because we have a higher tolerance for the pain needed to fracture your mind and assert the control, and we tend to dissociate more easily than men do. Back then, trauma was used to fracture your mind, to create partitions, a split personality so to speak, a fraction of your psyche that comes under the control of your handler. By using this technique, the Trojan horse in your mind remains hidden until somebody gives the command word. Me, I was unaware that anything had happened to me. I just kept losing extended periods of time when I didn’t know where I’d been. Once you hear or see the trigger, a word or an image, the command code, that’s what launches you into the mode of being enslaved and obedient. Turns you into a robot who forgets what you did once it’s over. They also use cues you might encounter every day to reinforce the mental implant, and the mind control subject isn’t even aware of how they are being influenced. The reinforcement might be activated when you see green jello on a TV show, or perhaps you hear a reminder of a particular movie, or you see a broken mirror or maybe a spider or a particular image on a billboard, or maybe you smell moth balls for sale in a store.”
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