Narican- the Cloaked Deception
Page 13
I give him several pills from every container, moving his jaw up and down, hoping something will work. Some water to swallow it. Several minutes pass. He’s groggy but comes to. His eyes are dark and near lifeless, but no longer red. I open more containers and give him another ten. “Dinner.”
*
When I wake its morning and there’s a guy mowing the lawn at the far end of the cemetery.
Tanz is still asleep.
“Can you sit up? You have to wake up, Tanz.” I pull at him.
He leans forward, grabbing his head. “Ow, my head hurts.”
“They’ll be looking for us,” I say. I don’t mention punching him.
We both try standing. He stumbles, almost falling over, clutching his head as we hobble to the exit like a couple of drunks.
“I told you you’d have your opportunities…” he says, grabbing hold of me as we try to make it back out to the city limits.
*
On the street, the same group of guys I saw last night walk toward us on the sidewalk.
“We must cross.”
Tanz nods, leaning on me.
They also cross.
I whisper to Tanz so he knows what’s going on, “I saw these guys last night when I was getting the iron.”
He looks up as they approach. “They may have been waiting for you. Can you run?” Tanz asks.
“I can barely walk,” I say. “Can you touch them, or use your eyes?”
He shakes his head. “Then we must face them. Act as if you can fight.” He says.
“Okay, guys, okay,” he says, raising his hands.
They stop in front of us and spread out. Tanz and I take fight stances, putting up fists, but his fall. I help lift them, but they fall again then he falls onto me.
The center one with dark curly hair says, “We’ve been watching you two.”
The one on the right, I notice, is the bicyclist. Nodding, he says, “Anyone who got set up that bad is surely no friend of Kimbel. The whole city’s on alert looking for you two. Come with us. We have cars.” He nods to two black Jeeps with knobby tires parked nearby.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“Friends. You must trust us… Please. There isn’t much time.” He motions to the Jeeps.
“We trust no one,” I say. “Can you read him, Tanz?”
“My inner world is blind.” His dim blue eyes radiate no light.
We look around as dark haze pop up at intersections, heading for us.
The bicyclist says, “We’d love to stay and chat but really we must get going… Are you coming?” He motions to the vehicles again; his men are getting jittery at the sight of the dark forces.
Cops blare around the corner, two, three, four cars, and race down the street at us, now only half a block away. Tanz and I hop in the rear Jeep. The haze fade as the cops arrive. The bicyclist sits in front and shouts back, “This whole town is wired with cameras and sound.”
“I thought you were safe,” I say.
Tanz mutters something I can’t hear as he leans against the tinted window.
“We are. They aren’t.” The driver hits the gas and the car takes off. He points to the cops now chasing us.
“We must get beyond the city limits. Remember how fast that bicycle went? Well, I’m a mechanical engineer. So, buckle up…” As soon as he says this some booster rocket kicks in. The speedometer jumps. We careen at two hundred miles per hour climbing over cars, anything in our way, then jump over the city gates leaving the cops behind. Our heads are pinned to the backseat cushions as we fly through the air and land on the rough terrain of no man’s land.
SAFETY IN NO MAN’S LAND
Outside the city limits we drive for several miles through thick brush, a cover that’s been tunneled through. Entering a wild area surrounded by a pack of defending wolves. The wolves escort the car while howling and yelping. They leave us at a cave entrance, the bottom of a camouflaged hillside where dense foliage grows thick enough to hide an army.
“Wolves, sir?” Tanz asks.
“Man’s best friend. All it took was some training.”
“You altered their DNA,” Tanz accuses.
“No sir, we raised them as pups after the land was poisoned.”
We park inside a wide garage with an armada of souped-up Jeeps, cars, and bicycles. We exit through a door in the rear. Inside the cave is a labyrinth of rooms and activity. The bicyclist and mechanical engineer, Mark, turns to us and says, “We’d been planning an attack before you arrived, before Kimbel turned his attention on you.”
Tanz’s legs buckle and he falls into my arms.
“He needs help, now! My friend is dying and needs—”
“Yes, I know, both of you need iron core crystals. We have a large stockpile. The crystals have kept us lucid and alive, not empty shells like so many. Please.” We walk into a small bunker room with hard packed walls of dried mud where two soft beds lay. “Please rest. The nurse will bring in an iron crystal drip.”
Mark leaves us.
I lay Tanz down and a kind woman with soft brushed hair brings in fruit and food and an intravenous drip. Tanz stops her, grabbing her hand. “What is your name?” he asks weakly.
“Belinda.” She smiles.
He relaxes and lays down. She rubs his arm with alcohol on a cotton ball then pricks him with a needle, tapping the vein to begin the drip.
“You remind me of my wife,” he says, smiling, then he drifts off, releasing her hand.
“Rest,” she says, patting his chest. “Much to come now that you’re here. It is a very good sign.”
She sets me up with a drip as well. I close my eyes and sleep.
*
My eyes crack open, a man has come in to check on us. The drip bags are almost empty. Tanz’s blazing blue eyes open. He stares at the man, clearly getting his strength back.
The stocky man in the white coat backs off, saying, “Whoa, you take a lot, big fella.”
Tanz’s eyes blare wider at him.
“That’s okay, that’s okay, take as much as you need. I’ll bring more,” the man says, backing out of the room.
Tanz and I make eye contact then fall back asleep.
EX-POLITICIAN AND REVOLUTIONARIES
After a few days of recovery, coming to and falling back asleep, I finally wake feeling as powerful as a three-eyed glanum from the caves of Narican. A beast so powerful, it is rumored, it can lift buildings. Tanz sits up a minute later. He too is at full strength and beats his chest, smiling.
We walk down the hall outside the room and find the main hangar and operation. It’s busy with people and activity. Desks, computers, multiple large surveillance monitors fill the room watching the capital for militarized movement. A man paces behind the programmers and operators.
“Greetings,” Tanz declares with measured voice at the door.
Many heads swivel. The pacing man stops, turns to us, and walks closer.
“I’m glad you two are feeling stronger. You almost depleted our stockpile of crystals,” he says jokingly. “I am Frank Milleron…”
“Milleron… Milleron,” Tanz mutters to himself. “Senator Milleron?”
He smirks. “That was another lifetime.”
“Weren’t you killed or indicted?”
“Only my name, sir.” He half smiles, a painful smile. “As Kimbel’s power grew, he saw me as a threat and discredited me with falsehoods and innuendo. Creating fake pictures of me with another woman. My wife left me. He killed my political career with slander and lies. I owe him. But that is not why we are here, today.”
Milleron is tall, with broad shoulders, big hands, and a chiseled face. Many programmers look over at him and watch. “Come, let me give you a quick tour of our facility so you can better understand your surroundings and our purpose here.”
Down the hall there’s a room with hanging facemasks.
“These masks are made of the iron crystals. Please take one.” The room has a stockpile of the crystals on the far end.
“They don’t sell this stuff on the open market as you may know. Our beloved government has kept it a secret and for themselves. We supply the black market to spread what we’ve learned. The sales partly fund our operation.
“Government and corporate leaders know full well that people will evolve and expand, as we have, as human beings, if the crystals spread, to finally live the way we were meant to.”
The nurse walks into the room. He puts his arm around her. “My love.” She’s shorter than he and her soft blue eyes sparkle at him. Tanz smiles at her and nods.
“Because of this large supply we haven’t given in to the fear and destruction of the planet. We will not accept that fate…” In another room with toys and projects some thirty children play.
“These are our children and our future. They receive an extra dose of inoculation to prevent a divided mind, as young ones are more easily preyed upon.
“That is how we have beaten the toxin so far. We are not afraid of the dark forces. In fact, we are here for the destiny of our souls to be fulfilled with integrity. We live opposite fear. The iron crystals have given us much insight and strength.”
In the hall Tanz speaks to me telepathically. The small part of his forehead pulsates with light. Mine must be as well. I can feel my forehead warming as I cover it.
He says, “The cleansing is wearing off faster, linking their higher DNA. Perhaps these are the news humans the council intended, the evolved ones.”
“Intriguing,” he says out loud to Milleron.
Milleron leans closer to us. “Are your foreheads flashing, gentlemen?”
Tanz waves off his question and points up. “Must be the lights reflecting. Do you know where humans came from, sir?”
“God? Evolution? We are lost to that information. Irrelevant as it is. We are here now. There is a force of light that leads us. The soul that leads us is just.”
Belinda and the people around him nod. He is clearly their leader.
We nod then look at each other. He introduces a few of his upper ranks standing near him. “Hancock, Bill, Bull, and well, you’ve met Mark and Belinda.”
We nod at them.
“Now, if I may ask, who are you?”
“We are Tanz and Claremone,” Tanz answers.
“That’s great, now that we have your names. I’m sorry to be blunt or disrespectful, but we took great risks bringing you here, especially if you are such an enemy of Kimbel’s.”
I let Tanz do the talking for us. After all, he is the adult.
“We are no one special, sir. Only truth seekers ourselves…”
“We both know you are more than that, sir.” Milleron steps closer, standing a foot taller than Tanz and a good fifty pounds heavier. “No human could intake that many crystals…”
“I am yet a humble accountant and he a supermarket clerk.”
“That may be what you do but that is not who you are. Either way, his enemy makes you our friend and clearly you put the fear of God into him.”
Tanz breaks eye contact and rubs his chin. “Please repeat what you just said, sir.”
“That you put the fear of God into him?”
Tanz nods. “You have given me an inspired idea. We must act upon these. We thank you, but I must confer with the boy. Rest assured more will be revealed.” Tanz turns to leave the room, taking me by the arm, then turns back to Milleron. “As we must trust your character, you must also trust ours.”
As Tanz steps to leave Milleron steps closer with his commanders. “Come on, who are you two?” His voice is serious, demanding.
“Allies and friends.” Tanz’s eyes blaze at him and Milleron leans back. “Do you ask everything upon a friend when first meeting? We thank you for your kindness. You cannot know our identities. It is law.”
Milleron’s eyes bulge as he backs down. Tanz turns to leave with eyes electrified.
Milleron shouts, “I know about that device he talks on and he’s not ordering pizza.”
“Leave that to us. We shall return shortly.”
We exit down the hall.
*
Back in our room, we sit on our respective beds. Blue pulsating equations flare off his body and disappear into the air.
“Clearly you don’t need any turkey and broccoli today,” I say, kidding him.
He smiles and nods. “I must find someone. Please do not interrupt.”
He sits with back straight on the edge of the bed, closing his eyes. A small pulsation lights up his forehead, but he is not speaking with me.
The blue light pulsates in staccato beats, on for a few then off, as if he’s receiving information as well. After a few minutes, his blazing blue eyes open. His head adjusts to me.
“We must attack.”
INSANE ATTACK PLAN
Back in the main room, Tanz walks over to Milleron and places his hand on his shoulder. Milleron turns. Tanz stares into his eyes with normal eyes this time. “We thank you for your hospitality. We are here to serve.”
Milleron nods apprehensively, at me, then back to the monitors. “Our scanners revealed dark forces and military massing on the south rim of the city. They are planning their attack.”
“Good,” Tanz says.
“Good?” Milleron queries.
“We shall not meet them on the field of battle but elsewhere to better use our resources.”
“Well, how are we supposed to transport our Revo fighters and equipment? We’re outmanned and outgunned. Surprise was our only chance.”
“Revo fighters?” I ask Hancock, the middle-aged man with thinning hair standing next to me.
He leans in and quietly says, “Revolutionary fighters.”
I nod. “Ah.”
“I have a plan,” Tanz says.
“I thought you might. Well, what is it?”
“We attack.”
“Attack? We have about two hundred well trained operatives.”
“Wonderful. Plenty.”
“Plenty? A frontal attack would be suicide. This guy has thousands, and serious weaponry.”
“We must use efficacy and surprise.”
“Right, but how are we supposed to get close to the city?” Milleron’s face turns harsh. “I will not have men and women slaughtered for you.”
“Nor should you, sir. Can you attack what is not in front of you? What you cannot see?”
“Please stop speaking in metaphor.”
Tanz looks at me and shrugs. I nod, knowing what he needs to do. He looks at them huddled around then brings up a blue pulsating equation from his hand. It is of the topography and landscape of the area.
“There are tunnels we must get to that run under the city.”
Hancock looks at the equation to see if Tanz is plugged in or how he’s creating the imagery, poking his head behind and in front of him. They all seem to lean a little.
Milleron is clearly confounded by what he is seeing and what Tanz just said. “Wait. What? No. There are no tunnels under the city.” But clearly he is a man who accepts what he sees.
“These tunnels were designed fifty thousand years ago by an ancient race prior to the ice age. This is all that’s left of them. I have reviewed the records. They will be there.” Tanz moves the equation around to focus on the hillside and where the opening should be. “Here.” He points.
Bill, clean-cut, corn fed, all country, one of Milleron’s highest ranking operatives, shouts, “I know that hillside, sir. Used to hunt there with the wolves.”
Tanz says, “Great, you will lead us. How far out?”
“Five miles, if that, sir.”
“Those are my calculation as well. These tunnels will lead us halfway to the pump stations of the capital where they are poisoning the water and air. The pump station sits under this building.” Tanz points. “We will destroy the pumps that maintain this illusory bubble. We must
shut this off if we are to turn people back to their soul’s true intentions.”
“No. That runs under the water department offices,” Milleron says.
Tanz shakes his head in disagreement.
Milleron shakes his head back. “You’re wrong. They were moved a few years ago and no one knew why. Perhaps this explains it.”
“Are you certain?”
Milleron nods as they stare at each other.
Tanz is satisfied. He looks back at the equation and remaps its location. “This leaves us exposed once we are out of the tunnels.”
“So be it!” Bill shouts again. “We’ll be ready. I hate hiding anyway.”
There’s a murmur of agreement from the gathered men and women.
“Then we must infiltrate the State Department. That is where Kimbel is and where he kept us prisoner.”
“Infiltrate?” one young man about my age shouts from the rear. “We don’t have the firepower they do.”
“Correct. Defensively we are weak. An aggressive offense is our only cogent approach. Efficacy must be demonstrated in our every movement and with that we will stand equivalent to four of their fighters. Nipping off the edges as the indigenous peoples did when outmanned and outgunned in the Everglades. Thus, forcing the Union to concede. Cunning and lies were the government’s only recourse after being soundly defeated.”
Reports start coming in from the programmers. “Weaponry moving in for attack, sir.”
Tanz grabs his arm. “Do not attack first, Mr. Milleron. Allow them to fully commit on the south rim.”
“Okay…” Milleron nods, clapping his hands together. “Prepare travel packs. We need four volunteers with shovels. Those tunnels will have thick sediment built up. Fifty thousand years’ worth.” He leans over to Tanz. “I hope you’re right. We are risking everything.”
Four young men of various ancestry step forward.
“It’s going to get dangerous, gentlemen. The four of you will take the lead. You understand what that means?”
They all nod.
The kid, my age, who said we didn’t have the firepower, steps up.