“No, not unfairly.” Mia frowned. “But you have to admit we haven’t been treated in the same way.”
Enoch said, “Yes, I will agree with that. You were treated in a different manner than Wynne was. Perhaps if you had not asked for advice while you on the porch of Heaven, perhaps that could have been your choice to make. It’s impossible to tell now.”
“That’s it then? ‘Things won’t ever be fair, Mia.’ I’ve heard that before.” Suddenly the frown disappeared from her face and she sighed. “I’m sorry, Greatest Grandfather, I don’t even know why I’m getting upset.” She hugged him. “You seem to be the lucky person who gets to repeatedly experience me being a foolish woman. I’m sorry.”
“I do understand,” Enoch said. “I can see you trust me to see who you really are. I appreciate that honesty more than I do someone who consistently pretends to be better than they are and hides every flaw. And to let you know, I also find it difficult to understand why God doesn’t treat us all the same way. Like you, he has called me to walk a different path, a much more difficult path than what others walk. Do you remember my advice for occasions when you hear a word from God but don’t understand what you hear?”
Mia nodded. “Yes, I’m to ask God to give me wisdom and not try to puzzle out confusing things entirely on my own.”
Enoch nodded as well. “Yes, that’s correct. The same thing applies when you find you’re upset because your life is more difficult than what others experience. Ask God to show you what his reason is for the difference and provide wisdom to understand. You probably won’t have every one of your questions answered, at least not right away. But even so, it is always a good idea to ask God for wisdom to help you understand what he is doing. Don’t take the challenges you face — even the ones that seem easy to handle by yourself — as an indication in any way that God is leaving you on your own. He is waiting for you to seek him out, to find out his thinking concerning your situation.”
Mia said, “That sounds like good advice. I will remember to do that. And I will pray for you too, because even a dense person like myself can see that you’re being treated much more differently than everyone else. And it must be very difficult path to walk.”
Enoch took her by the shoulders and kissed the middle of her forehead. “Thank you, Greatest Granddaughter. Thank you very much. And may the Eternal give you the grace to learn to walk before him every day.”
36 | Distract
It was raining the next morning, and the thunderstorm made Mia glad her chores were under a roof. It was her turn to take care of the animals in the barn, and besides staying dry, she enjoyed listening to the thunder punctuating the rain drumming against the roof of the wooden building. After she finished with cleaning out the stalls, she headed back to the house. Rounding the corner of the barn, suddenly her entire body lost all its strength, and her legs could no longer support her weight. As she sank to the muddy ground, she could see Enoch, standing a few feet away on the lawn, talking to what looked like a pillar of fire. The thought flashed through her mind, “So that’s what an archangel looks like.” She didn’t know exactly what was causing her to collapse so completely, but it felt like the force of gravity had increased in the area near the archangel, and she no longer had the power in her muscles to resist the additional G-forces pulling her to the ground.
At the same time, she was overcome by a panicked and terrifying sense of exposure, suddenly aware that every part of her soul and spirit was completely open to divine inspection and always had been. She could see how all the excuses and self-deceptions she was protecting in the dark corners of her soul were illuminated by God’s pure and unwavering light, and she was appalled by what she could see in that brilliance. At the same time, she had a revelation that all the atoms in her body were held in place by the continued concentration of someone’s will. If that attention preserving the atomic and sub-atomic forces in her cells ever wavered, even for a nano-second, then she would come apart at a molecular level and dissipate into less than cosmic dust. Overwhelmed mentally and spiritually by these insights, the added recognition that it was divine love that held her entire being firmly in place didn’t help. The fear this knowledge produced was too great to bear.
Face down, flat on the muddy ground, she was staring at the roots of a patch of clover when she felt a warmth on her shoulder. Bending down to touch her shoulder, the archangel said, “Fear not, Greatest Granddaughter of Enoch. Take courage and stand.”
Strengthened body and soul by the touch, she took the hand offered her, and her panic began to fade. The archangel had assumed a human form (although ten feet tall) and was smiling down at her as he helped her to her feet again. He disappeared once she was standing upright and under her own power again.
Hurrying over to make sure she was steady on her feet, Enoch said, “Here, take my arm. You need a second to recover. So what do you think, now you’ve met Uriel, the archangel?”
Wiping the mud off her cheek, Mia took a deep breath. Feeling nearly back to normal, she said, “Uriel, the archangel in Paradise Lost who rules over the sun, acting as a watchman for God in our solar system. That Uriel?”
“Yes, that Uriel,” Enoch said.
Smiling, Mia said, “You’d think that by now I’d stop being surprised when I discover that these divine beings are really real, wouldn’t you.”
Enoch laughed.
“Back in my undergraduate days, I wrote a paper in British Lit about Uriel,” she said. “So that was the real Uriel. The angel standing in the sun according to Revelation Nineteen, Uriel?”
Enoch smiled and nodded. “Yes, that Uriel. He has brought me the latest marching orders from the Most High. We must go back to iCon and complete the destruction of their tech and all the unclean spirits who are hiding in their computers. Did you know the unclean spirits behind demonic possession are the departed spirits of dead Nephilim, ghosts of dead hybrid giants? They are desperate to find a way back to living in a physical body, and are the perfect candidates for possessing any who join the Geek Rapture. We’ll also destroy all the technical records they have made concerning the creation of a self-aware AI. In addition, we must drive all the fallen angels, giants, and demonic beings out of iCon before they can corrupt and destroy any more human lives.”
Mia thought for a moment before asking a question. “But I’ve seen how big an impact transhumanism is having. It’s bigger than just iCon. It’s iCon plus the rest of the entire world. The plan to defy death and also change what it means to be human is being pursued everywhere under the sun. Programs to merge technology and human consciousness will be ready in a decade or so. How will stopping iCon stop transhumanism? It seems like the whole computer and technology universe is set on this, and iCon is just one piece of a very big puzzle. Wouldn’t iCon have already shared their designs with others in this movement? Won’t someone else just take their place? How will stopping iCon make an impact on what is being planned worldwide?”
“We can thank God that iCon is a for-profit corporation in addition to being a cover for demonic preparation for a war of rebellion against God,” Enoch said. “I’m told the success iCon has had with uploading minds in preparation for the next step in turning people into commodities is unique to their location. They wanted to keep an exclusive edge in order to make even more money on their research, so the specifics leading to their success is a well-kept secret, hidden even from allies. In addition, only a very few of the iCon researchers realized that their success was not based on their coding. Their computer system is possessed by unclean spirits who are in turn possessing the poor people foolish enough to be hooked up to their machine. You met one of those foul spirits when you were in the tank, in the guise of Cleopatra. Had you opened the door and allowed her in, you would have been possessed as well — not by a computer program but by that demon. iCon had progressed to the point where they were able to record thoughts and memories, b
ut they have not yet created a bridge to the mind that can work without a supernatural assist. After we destroy the hiding places of these unclean spirits, anyone who attempts to go back to the original code will fail in any attempt to make it work again.
“But whether or not someone else ever duplicates iCon’s efforts to develop this technology at a later time, we must act when and where we can and not be paralyzed by imagining our efforts are futile because we can’t take down the entire system all at once. We haven’t been asked to stop transhumanism. We’re asked to oppose iCon. And we will do what we are commanded to do, and have faith that our obedience will have the good result God intends, even if it should be that later we do not see any overall changes at all. Does that make sense to you, Mia?”
“Yes, it does.” She nodded and gave Enoch a hug. “You’re saying don’t lose heart looking at the entire problem. We don’t have to do everything all at once, and additional difficult things may need to be done later. We just have to do what our duty is now.”
“Yes, that’s right,” he said. “Do you have your strength back now? Will it be okay to leave you on your own?”
Mia nodded yes.
“Good. I have to go now, start making plans for this mission. I’ll ask Mother Tallis to gather everyone for a meeting after lunch. I’ll see you then, when we craft our strategy and work out the details of our plan of attack.”
Later that afternoon, all the people Enoch had invited were gathered around a table in a large open room on the third floor at the northeast corner of the house that overlooked the river. Mia stood just inside the door. Through the window she could see the tranquility of the landscape outside, the rain and clouds from the morning thunderstorm replaced with freshly washed blue skies. In contrast, the room was filled tension, people talking loudly and excitedly, as if the earlier storm was now re-gathering its strength, this time inside the building. Enoch had not arrived yet, but Mother Tallis was sitting next to his chair at the head of the table, Ethan on the other side of his chair. Distracted by the growing anxiety she had felt ever since Enoch said he was planning to return to iCon, she didn’t feel comfortable taking a seat at the table, didn’t want to join the council making plans. Since her arrival at Ismarsettehka, her heart and mind had been at peace, knowing her history at iCon was totally over and done with. Here, she was safe from their electronic intrusions into her life, securely beyond the grasp of anyone whispering words of enslavement in her ear to make her act like a hypnotized robot, out of the reach of Cezary and Chase. There were guardians here who would protect her from any attack.
But this news had opened the can of worms (snakes actually) in her mental attic, a can that was filled with all the angst and worry — and terror — experienced during her time at iCon. This was just like waiting out a tornado warning, knowing a twister in on the ground nearby. You’re safe for the current minute, but there’s no telling what the next minute might bring. Continued safety or sudden destruction? Only the weather wasn’t the menace in this situation. Once again it was iCon and the evil hidden inside the corporation that was threatening her. She became more and more uneasy as she listened to the people in the room. Even the older people were offering to help, but all Mia could think about was someone from Ismarsettehka coming to harm. Thinking about Chase grabbing Mother Tallis, Daisy, Pastor JT, James, or Joseph made her stomach churn. She thought, “That can’t be allowed to happen!” An image drifted into her mind’s eye of Ethan surrounded by iCon guards, black bag over his head, hands zip tied behind his back, standing near Chase — a partial, hazy memory of something that had happened during her rescue from the lab in Noonan Hall. If even Ethan could be overpowered and captured, who could hope to stay safe in a mission to attack iCon! She glanced around the room and knew how painful it would be if anyone here was harmed in any way. And she knew better than anyone what might happen to them. Because she had been a target and a victim for months —
Suddenly Mia realized she couldn’t stay in the room another second. She couldn’t listen to plans being made to return that evil place. She certainly wouldn’t have anything to contribute to the discussion except to scream, “It’s not safe!” Even though she had seen the archangel Uriel herself and she knew the orders to conduct this raid came directly from God, and she knew Enoch had authority to lead this mission, she had to leave. Even though she wasn’t opposed to what they intended to do, she couldn’t participate in the planning. She stepped through the door and ran down the hall, away from the meeting.
Just after sunset, Ethan found Mia in the library, reading Enoch’s copy of The Wind in the Willows. “Knew you’d be here.”
“I’m impressed. So many places I could have been, yet you found me here right away.”
“Oh, I didn’t say I found you right away. But after I checked your room, Maru’s stall, the kitchen, and a few other places, and you weren’t in any of those places, I knew you’d be in the library.”
Mia smiled at him, “So you found me in the last place you thought to look?”
Smiling, Ethan shrugged. “Well. In general, I always find things in the last place I look. Once I find a thing, I stop looking.”
“Good idea! Ha!” Mia laughed, then paused for a moment before asking, “The plans for raiding iCon are all set?”
“Looks like,” Ethan said. “I noticed you left before the meeting started, so wanted to be sure you knew about the plans we came up with. The mission is planned to start at 2:15 tomorrow afternoon. Most, if not all, of iCon’s people will be off-site at the conference room in the new Darisford Inn in Barrow Heights, attending a company-wide business meeting starting after lunch at 1:00. That means the HQ will be primarily empty for the rest of the day. There will still be some security guards on-site, but Cezary and most of his bodyguards are scheduled to be at the meeting, so that will also be to our advantage.”
Some tension left Mia’s shoulders, and her worried look relaxed a little. “Oh, that is good news! I remember those meetings. They have them quarterly, to go over the state of the business, listen to a message from an invited speaker while having cookies and coffee, all seated in a freezing cold hotel ballroom so everyone stays awake.”
Ethan nodded, “And it’s a big deal to alter the day or time since people who work for iCon around the world will be flying in to participate. At this point, we’re certain nothing will cause a cancellation or any change in plans. So everything’s a go. The essential part of our plan is to distract the powers that are behind iCon so that our true objective won’t be discovered until it’s too late to do anything about it. Dr. Adjani, Wynne, James, and Pastor JT will assume the roles of researchers who are arriving without an appointment. They will approach the front door of the Noonan Hall science building, and by asking to be allowed to visit, keep some of the remaining security guards on site busy in the lobby on the first floor, and away from the labs in the basement. Joseph will lead us rangers through the portal into the sub-basement of building where we will destroy all the files, computers, servers, everything in the lab, all the biometric equipment, and the harvesting tank.”
Mia shuddered at the memory of being submerged in the tank filled with the foul smelling chemical milk bath. Ethan put his hand on her arm.
He continued, “Wynne has created a worm that we will carry on jump drives to infect all of iCon’s networked computers and corrupt all the transhumanist records they have, whether they are actually located in Noonan Hall or not. At the same time, Sofia will set explosives in the tank testing room, shaped to destroy everything in the lab, but not bring down the building. Wasn’t sure if you knew, but she was trained in their use during her time in the military.
“Mother Tallis will stay here at Ismarsettehka, and be in charge during Enoch’s absence. April Huse and Daisy Gowan will remain with her, prepping a medical emergency room, in case there should be a need to care for anyone injured.
“We’ve
also discovered that although iCon is having a company-wide meeting, Chase will stay behind at the HQ. So Enoch will distract him while we implement the attack.”
Ethan paused and waited until Mia looked him in the eye. “You are included in the plan too. As a distraction. You won’t be actively involved in the destruction at Noonan Hall, but —. We need —. Our plan involves you returning to the iCon HQ building.”
Mia didn’t realize it, but she sighed quietly when she heard this and looked away, staring out the window at the dying light in the sky. She said, “When Enoch told me this morning that there was a plan to go after the research at iCon, there was no mention of asking me to help. But I knew I’d be involved somehow. I hadn’t thought about it until today, but I’ve felt so safe here that I don’t even know if I’d ever have wanted to go back to Earth, that place where it was so easy for my mind to be ensnared. Wave the magic wand, say the magic word, and I’m a slave. Back there, it seemed like there wasn’t anybody to protect me from evil.” She looked at Ethan. “I have no idea what I would do if I met one of those people at iCon who were so willing to hurt Jan, thought it was fun to humiliate her. It would be the same for me if I go back there. Nothing I could say would make them hesitate or think twice about doing similar harm to me. Again. ”
Mia stood up and walked to the window. “When I got to the meeting this afternoon and started thinking about the people here confronting the evil I know is at iCon — having to face what I’d faced. I didn’t want to contribute to making plans in any way. What if my idea led to someone getting hurt? I couldn’t stand that. I just couldn’t. I left because I couldn’t contribute to a plan that would send anyone into harm’s way.”
He said, “Want to hear a suggestion that helps me when I feel vulnerable and not sure how to do enough to keep others or even myself safe?”
Nodding, she said, “Sure. That would be a big help. I have no idea whatever how to stop feeling like there’s nothing I can do in a disaster, nothing that would be of any good anyway.”
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