The Prophet: Life: A Sci-Fi Thriller

by David Beers

The First Priest turned around and looked at Brinson’s back. She was staring forward to the front of the transport, watching a tiny speck in the distance. It was the Disciple’s ship; their armada was following it—invisible and further back, but there all the same.

  The First Priest had to make a decision now. Up until this point, he’d been unsure exactly what to do. Kill the weapon, or do his best to make it to the High Priest, then kill him.

  The decision had been made, though—practically for him. The High Priest could no longer serve; his decisions weren’t rational and his leadership would only end in disaster.

  He knew it was a gamble, sliding past the weapon during the attack on the girl, killing the High Priest, and then turning around to wage war. He’d take it, though. Killing the High Priest while another battle raged … it was his best chance.

  “We’re changing plans, Sister,” the First Priest said.

  Brinson turned around, and the First Priest saw the hate inside her. He didn’t know who had planted the original seed, whether it was the weapon or her new lover, but the weed had rapidly grown over the past few days. Looking at her face, he wondered whether she loved Corinth at all anymore, or had that passed as well? Was she joining this cult, ready to follow the Black?

  “Why?” she asked.

  She never would have asked that question when she first sat before the Council, so frightened she was nearly shaking.

  “We’re no longer here for the weapon. We’re here to protect the High Priest, and to do that, we’re going to wait until the weapon attacks, then slip by him. Our new goal is to surround the High Priest’s residence, and ensure his survival.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “Your Holiness,” she said, “I’m unsure what is happening here, and it’s making me uncomfortable. What is more important than killing the weapon? What are we here for, if not that?”

  “Sister Brinson, there are things happening you’re not privy to,” the First said as he took a step forward, closing the distance between the two. “Your job here was to make a connection with the informant, which you’ve done. I’ve granted you the ability to control much of the force we’re now commanding, but don’t let that gift make you think you have the right to question me.”

  Crimson flashed up Brinson’s cheeks and she looked down at the floor. So, she wasn’t completely lost yet, not if she still recognized who he was, and thus who she was. The two may stand on the same floor, but that didn’t make them equals.

  “Now, Sister,” he said to the woman still staring at her feet. “I want this transport to fall back another half mile. We’re going to watch the battle from here, because I’m sure the weapon will attack. No matter what happens, our goal is to ensure that this transport makes it to the High Priest. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, your Holiness,” the woman said.

  The First Priest stepped around Brinson and made his way to the front of the transport. The ship was tilted upward, coming into the One Path through its bottom, all the ships going the same pace as the speck he now looked at. It had slowed down considerably, and the First Priest hadn’t known why at first. He did now. The High had told the Disciple he had an armed escort on the way, and the Disciple should wait for it to arrive.

  We’re here, the First Priest thought. Let’s make sure the High gets what he wants.

  “Your Holiness,” the woman said from behind him. “The weapon … He’s not going to stop. Our goal may have changed, but … I’ve met him. I’ve seen him. If we’re going to get that transport to the High Priest, then we’re going to have to kill him, all the same. There isn’t any other way, because if we don’t, he’ll keep coming.”

  That is how the First Priest wanted her sounding. Helpful, but not brash. Obedient.

  Things may yet turn around.

  “It’s okay, Sister. There are plans at work that you’re not aware of. We’ll make it to the High Priest whether or not the weapon is alive.”

  Nicki felt him. She didn’t need any gray reservoir of rage to fill her eyes. Not anymore. He was here, and the closer she got, the more she understood about him. He thought of himself as a prophet, as the Prophet.

  He’d come for her.

  He was here to kill her.

  Nicki stared out of the transport. She couldn’t tell exactly where he was, the Prophet. He seemed to fill the entire space, as if the gray energy that filled his eyes was already filling the skies before her. Even if she couldn’t see it, she knew it was there.

  The two people in front of her had no idea. Neither did her father, residing inside her head and relaying words back to unseen people. All were blind to the man surrounding them.

  Nicki had made her choice; she once called this person the dark man, the one she now knew as the Prophet. He might be from the Black, but she didn’t know that for sure. What she did understand, thanks to the person at the front of her transport, was that she was a part of the Black. The gray that filled her—that power—it wasn’t the sight nor anything else stemming from her.

  The Prophet wanted her dead and Nicki believed him right. She didn’t understand the fire hanging above her, nor the attack that nearly killed her a half day before, but she didn’t care to either. If she was part of the Black, then she shouldn’t exist anymore. That’s all she understood. Anything else happening around her? The people who had kidnapped her? It was all distraction.

  Evil should die, and Nicki recognized it in herself.

  Perhaps no one had ever been more at peace as they went to their death.

  Rachel Veritros

  Rachel Veritros didn’t understand how the Ministries knew about the Nile River.

  “Why?” she asked. “How did they find out?”

  “We’re not sure,” was the only answer that came back.

  And for Rachel Veritros, the why didn’t matter in the end. If they knew where she must go, then perhaps that only showed the Unformed’s strength. Even those who hated It were drawn to It, knowing innately where the Union would take place.

  Rachel Veritros didn’t consider a lot of options. Instead, she did what came naturally to her, she met force with force.

  Millions from across the globe traveled to the continent once known as Africa. Rachel called them, alerting them that the time was near, and to ensure the Unformed’s crossover, they must come. Her followers answered the call in droves. They came without questions or concern for their own lives.

  The Ministries took up on one side of the river, winding up and down it. They commandeered buildings and campsites were erected; it appeared that everyone who survived Rachel’s war had answered their call.

  Rachel Veritros’s people took the river’s opposite side. They packed in deep against it, with only water separating them from their sworn enemies. No one crossed, and despite a few errant attacks, the people waited. All of them living in a strange land, watching the sky for Veritros to arrive.

  Rachel looked down upon them from high above. Her transport couldn’t be seen from the ground, at least not without specific technology. Perhaps the Ministries had it. Perhaps her own people had it as well; she wasn’t concerned. If they could see her, no one fired. Maybe they hoped she would remain in the sky forever, never descending to finish the war that they knew was already lost.

  Rachel Veritros was only waiting, though—both for her people to finish arriving and for the Unformed to tell her the time had finally arrived.

  Her lieutenants sat at the front of the transport, she in a back room to herself.

  Her eyes were closed, though beneath her eyelids the gray raged its silent fire.

  Is it time? she asked, sitting in the Beyond’s blackness. She was looking upon the Unformed, her God whose existence had been denied, but would never be again. Is it time, my Master?

  The Unformed sat beyond the barrier, its white presence as massive as a planet, though hazy.

  It said nothing back to her, but only hovered, perhaps watching her as well.

  On Earth, millions
sat below Veritros, waiting on her word to commit murder, but she didn’t consider them at all. The Unformed was all that mattered, Its direction was all she craved.

  Tell me it’s time, she pleaded. Give us respite from wanting. Give us what we seek. I beg you.

  The white orb without eyes stared blindly back at her. Rachel looked on with unflagging devotion. The same devotion that had carried her across years and struggles, obstacles that would have crushed other people. The question from earlier was gone, destroyed. It didn’t matter what the Ministries asked, nor answers that Rachel couldn’t find. Rachel only wanted Its permission to complete what she had chased for all these years.

  And finally, she felt the Unformed, just as David Hollowborne would a thousand years in the future.

  It filled her, nearly consumed her, but the words were clear.

  Come to me.

  Rachel Veritros stepped out from her back room.

  “Take us down,” she said.

  Her lieutenants followed her directions and the transport descended until it hovered only 100 feet above the ground. The doors opened up on both sides and Rachel walked to the edge. She saw the millions—millions—of people beneath her, none looking up because none saw her yet.

  Someone finally did, though, and it must have looked as if Rachel was flying. The ship invisible, but her standing in the middle of the sky.

  Screams roared up to Rachel’s ears. Her lieutenants stood behind, looking down at the crowd, surely feeling nothing short of awe.

  “UNION. UNION. UNION.”

  The millions shouted as one, all of them killers, having shed much blood to come so far.

  “UNION. UNION. UNION.”

  “It’s time,” Rachel said to her lieutenants. “We finish it now. Fire on the Ministries. I’m going down.”

  One of her lieutenants rushed behind her, readying the transport’s weapons. Rachel didn’t move at all, only continued listening as the shouts filled her ears.

  Two shots blasted from the transport’s front, red fire streaking through the sky and obliterating a building across the river. Flames burst to life across the river, and the screams of the wounded rose above even Rachel’s followers.

  Her eyes lit gray and she stepped off the transport. Gray streaks immediately flowed out from her eyes as she fell. A hush fell over the crowd beneath. Even with fire raging and people dying, for a single moment, everyone stared as the woman who had started all of this death began falling to her own.

  The gray flickering light wrapped around her, 10 or 20 lines crisscrossing and forming a lattice. She spun in the air, her falling halted, and looked at the multitude of those come to kill her.

  “Go,” she whispered, and her voice carried down to every single one of the millions beneath.

  Screams raged and bodies flung forward. Huge bridges that had been built over the previous days fell across the river. Projectiles launched into the air, both those made of the earth and those stemming from technology. Burning boulders and lasers filled the air. Death had come to this river.

  Rachel’s gray light spawned outward, the lattice around her expanding. People no longer looked up at her, but were consumed by their hatred and bloodlust. Each side only wanted to kill the other. Perhaps they understood that Earth’s fate rested on their ability to murder, or perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps faith, love, and truth had ceased mattering to anyone. The ideals that originally drove so many to this river had been replaced with a hive mind of hate.

  And beneath, in the middle of the growing battle, the Nile River started boiling. Bubbles roared to the surface, and steam billowed into the air.

  Rachel descended further, moving toward the boiling water, her gray eyes seeing what no one else could.

  Thirteen

  The world no longer existed for David Hollowborne. Thoughts of his sister, of a traitor, of a war raging across the planet—all of it was dead, at least for the moment.

  For David, only the girl mattered, and she had almost arrived.

  He’d felt her for a while, and he was sure she sensed him, too. He could see her now, though, the miles and miles of travel finally at an end. He didn’t know why she’d come to this place, brought by someone for a purpose that escaped him. He didn’t care about that either. His mind was focused, perhaps even more than when death arrived at his compound. His God had given him a directive, and he was here to fulfill it.

  The sky was empty except for the single transport. It came from beneath, but David hadn’t needed to see the entire territory to know where she was entering. As soon as she passed by some unseen threshold, David had felt her the rest of the way.

  He floated just above a building, so that his feet faced the top of it. He couldn’t be seen from beneath, and that’s how he wanted it. She might be able to detect him, but he didn’t think she knew his exact whereabouts … but he knew hers, directly below him.

  David was hidden until he was ready to move.

  He closed his eyes, and the gray stirred to life. He held it in, now connected to the Unformed’s power. He didn’t want to let it loose yet, not for another minute or so. She would have no advantage. Youthful and untested, but powerful, David wouldn’t be a fool in their contest.

  He saw the ship in his mind, growing closer and closer each second. David raised his hands so that he looked to be hanging on an invisible cross.

  He floated forward, his body moving just beyond the building beneath him. Now, if anyone in the transport was looking, they could see him.

  David dropped, letting gravity take over, and his eyes flashed open. Gray darted out, webs forming immediately, creating a node in the middle of each and from there starting anew. They spread outward beautifully, a gray web appearing to flow upward into the sky as its creator fell toward Earth.

  The webs kept up with David though, wrapping him in a cocoon and still spreading further and further out.

  He reached the transport in 30 seconds, coming to a perfect stop directly above its nose. He tilted himself, inverting his body so that the transport’s nose faced his stomach. He looked at the people inside.

  David wanted to see her in person, just once, before it began.

  Gray light spread around the ship, cocooning the object just as it had David.

  Rhett sat in the transport’s cockpit, to the left. Another man, one that David thought he’d already killed sat on the right side. Both stared back at him. She was behind them. The girl stared straight forward and David easily saw the gray light in her own eyes. Nothing swarmed outward from them, all of it contained within her, but she was connected.

  The girl was young, but not so much younger than David. The difference in their age wasn’t years, but the lives they’d led.

  And then, finished with thought, David was ready to kill.

  The High Priest saw it all. He watched the weapon free fall from the sky, then stop as if he weighed nothing, hanging in front of the ship that contained the High Priest’s brain. He saw the electric gray sparking out of the man, overtaking the sky.

  The High Priest watched it all from his perch. His eyes didn’t need any extra lenses, they saw as clearly now as they did when he was only 18 years old.

  Death was here, and while the High Priest had once cared about saving the world—it no longer mattered. He needed his Disciple and his First Priest to deliver the gift that Corinth had promised him. He stood on the platform that wrapped around his egg shaped building and folded his hands over his stomach. He was ready to watch the weapon die, and then his prize rise to him.

  That’s good. I hadn’t thought of that. I might also be able to kill him.

  Insanity reigned above while war raged below.

  The Disciple knew the creature in front of him. He had thought the girl behind him was the Black’s servant, but he’d been mistaken. The gray color that ruled the sky in front of him, originating from the man floating right above the ship—that was the Black, and whatever sat behind him was no longer relevant.

  Infor
mation flooded the Disciple, showing him what he needed to know. He immediately understood what had happened to his brother, seeing his entire encounter with this man, and the death that quickly followed. The knowledge came instantaneously, moving through his nanotechnology at the very moment it was needed. The Disciples—all looking the same, all having the exact same genetic and nano codes—could know everything about the others, because they were one—even if in separate bodies. His brother had died, but this Disciple would not … at least not in the same manner.

  He’s overconfident, the Disciple thought, his body already moving. He recognizes me, though he doesn’t understand how.

  The Disciple’s door was opening on the left, and he saw the gray webs trying to rush in, no fear in them. The Disciple took his eyes off the weapon for a single second, determining the best way to deal with the attacking light. All of his dead brother’s data filled him, telling him exactly what must be done.

  He leapt out of the transport, and fell into the webs’ embrace.

  Raylyn knew only fear, but she knew it intimately. Every curve and crevice. It gripped her limbs, her face, her tongue … each and every extremity. She couldn’t move.

  The transport’s screen magnified the events taking place above, bringing her right next to everything that was happening. The gray light, the Disciple—and was that Rogan, he who had been killed several days ago?—all of it happening as if directly in front of her.

  Lynda’s death possessed Raylyn’s mind, her ankle and wrist being sliced from their appendages and her blood spraying the air.

  He did that, the weapon above.

  She thought nothing of the First Priest beside her, nor the lover that she’d left miles and miles behind.

  She only understood that the man above would kill them all if they didn’t leave.

  “Sister,” the First Priest said. “It’s time we helped protect the transport.”

  Raylyn’s faced twisted some, confused. She didn’t understand. “Protect?” She turned to the First, unsure what he was talking about.