“What is…this…place?” Loki asked.
Still no intelligible response.
Loki decided to drop his camouflage and let it see his Aesirian form. “I’m Aesirian…I want to…kill… Olympians…what is this place?”
The Huacan spoke in a mumbled groaning voice Loki had trouble understanding. “…mistake…experiments…destroy…”
Loki pulled out the vegetation he stored in his pocket from the last time he visited the facility. As he did, the Huacan became visibly frightened and tried to squirm away from him. “…fool…no…”
“What is this!” Loki yelled.
“…death…Primordial…do not…”
This conversation is going nowhere. Loki snapped open the bit of bark he had and rubbed the sap into one of the many open wounds the Huacan had from the net.
“NO!” the creature screamed as it fought to move away from Loki.
As Loki finished and backed away, the creature became calm; clearly resigned to its fate. “…fool.” The creature was able to get out one word before the transformation happened. Its eyes and blood became black. The creature started violently shaking and wailing in a pitch so high, Loki’s first reaction was to cover his ears and step further away.
The creature’s free limb shot to its face and its prehensile lower third began to burrow into its skull through one of its eye sockets. The rest of its body began to embrace the netting, and appeared to be moving in a way to cause itself further damage. Its wailing also transformed to a high-pitched laugh. The creature, now seemingly in ecstasy, continued to role and rip itself apart with its free hand and the net filament.
The repulsive, demonic writhing of the infected Huacan overwhelmed Loki. He panicked at the maniacal site and was filled with a need to do something, anything, to stop the hideous display. Loki pulled out his dagger and began repeatedly stabbing the Huacan in the head until it ceased all movement.
Loki looked down at the bits of vegetation he had left. A biological weapon against Primordials…is that why they were experimenting on humans? Or were they actually experimenting on Olympians…? He attempted to sheath his knife, but realized the blade had dissolved. Surprised, he looked down at the Huacan. Its blood isn’t corrosive—my net filament isn’t affected…
Loki turned the useless handle over in his hand and stared at the etching: Thoda Chandra. He fought his natural reaction to the keep the item, knowing Thoda Chandra was now a mere momento. But I shouldn’t leave any evidence…The thought was all Loki needed to rationalize pocketing the unusable item. He slid the handle into an open pouch on his belt and moved back up the ramp.
Loki went through the facility and inspected more corpses, seeking the poisonous vegetation. The cadavers he tampered with earlier had noticeably begun to transform into hunks of desiccated flesh, so he eschewed their insides in favor of fresher remains. He quickly found more bark and rubbed the inner sap on his unused nets. Now I only need to make an Olympian bleed—not kill or trap it.
Loki considered spending more time at the facility, but decided against inspecting the room overrun with living vegetation. He also felt uneasy, between the Huacan and the destruction of Thoda Chandra, the facility’s milieu made him increasingly uncomfortable. The unprovoked anxiety burgeoning within him encouraged him to cut his investigation short. I wonder why Atlas was still at the facility in Pachacamac when we arrived…was he guarding more secrets like this? I have time before the Olympian in Africa is dealt with by Vili—I can spend some time in Pachacamac.
Before boarding his Linter he looked at the other ships around the room. He was struck by the oddities of the vessels. Ships with tentacles? Vessels without clear engines? I want to know what else the Huacans are hiding. Loki boarded his ship and headed to Pachacamac, Peru.
END OF ACT II
Act III, Chapter 1
The Experiment
Location: Deep in the Milky Way Galaxy
Dionysus was about to summarize knowledge for Zetes that was only contained within the heads of a few Olympians scientists: the purpose of the one thousand year experiment on Earth. He noted Zetes’ calm, attentive demeanor—Zetes had nothing to do but listen as the Helios flew on autopilot with superluminal haste toward the edge of Earth’s solar system. Dionysus clutched his notebook and took a deep breath. I hope he can remember this—I need this information to live on, even if I don’t.
“Loyalty and allegiance. The experiments were designed to understand the intricacies of humans’ bonds to groups and, more specifically, leadership. Humans have displayed an odd level of emotional intensity and irrationality in the way they form allegiances—even to the most mundane groups, such as a sports team or the random population who shared the tight geographic location of their birth, even if they’ve never met any of them.
“Once they are in a group, their behavior and neural chemistry adjust to reflect a deep tribalism. We even have data showing that after they are randomly assigned to an arbitrary group in a lab setting, they’ll lack the typical empathetic responses in their brains when they see humans from the other arbitrary groups physically suffer.”
Zetes looked over from the pilot’s seat. “Sounds dangerous to be a human. How primitive are they? You’re making them sound more like animals than Primordials.”
“They’re actually far more sophisticated than anyone would expect given their brains. How humans became so technologically advanced relative to their innate primitivism is truly a mystery. They’ve experienced intellectual leaps more dramatic than arguably any other civilization; yet, at the same time, their prefrontal cortex takes direction from their limbic sys—” Dionysus saw Zetes’ countenance of confusion. “—oh sorry, you don’t know human anatomy. In simple terms, human logic is driven by emotion.
“Observations have shown that humans lose the capacity to make decisions in proportion to damage sustained by the emotional centers of their brains. With sufficient impairment, they’d still be able to perfectly analyze a situation, but not act on their rationality alone. Emotions are required for all of their decisions—from selecting food to government officials.”
“That’s fascinating, but why does the Council care? How does this relate to the long-term survival of Olympia?”
“The Council believes the combination of human intellect and loyalty makes them more suitable partners than the Aesir; their plan is to replace the Aesir within Olympia with humans.”
“What? The humans don’t have knowledge of our technology or society, right? How could they replace the Aesir? And why would we want to replace the Aesir, anyway? They haven’t been perfect citizens, but they’ve participated in advancing our society and they don’t pose a danger to us.”
“Funny, you used the word ‘us.’ Clearly, you still believe there is a distinction between Olympians and Aesir. Anyway, the Aesir are the ones who attacked our research facilities around Earth. They are far more threatening than you give them credit.”
“How do you know that? If that’s the case, why are we running this ‘errand’ to Earth’s system? Why not bring the military and confront the Aesir directly?” Zetes said, his voice rising in defensiveness.
“That isn’t relevant to this conversation,” Dionysus said with some authority and dismissiveness. “What matters is that you understand the experiment and its results in case I don’t return.
“You’re right about the humans’ ignorance of our technology, though. The humans would need a period of education to integrate into our society, and we’d give that to them. That would inspire part of their…bond to us; one of a few seminal interactions that will lead to their unquestioning loyalty.”
“Ok, let’s assume the Aesir can—and should—be replaced, and the Council can gain the allegiance of humans. Why are you so sure humans would stay loyal to Olympia? Given the way you’ve described them, it sounds like they would be more of a liability than asset.”
“We have well over one thousand years of observation, as well as a plethora of exp
erience directly manipulating their behavior. We’ve successfully fomented revolutions, flipped political allegiances, and oversaw generationally ingrained loyalty with only a small amount of intervention. All we really need are one or two emotionally charged situations in which we can either guarantee the outcome or adjust the environment to modulate chemicals in the air, subconsciously controlling their emotional state during specific moments as the circumstance unfolds. The latter can be surprisingly simple—merely ensuring a foul or sweet odor is present prior to a human making a moral judgement will push them in the direction desired.
“These bugs in the human code have been known and exploited by other Earthlings. On a small scale, some have leveraged a feature in humans in which they confuse physiological symptoms with genuine emotion. For instance, men commonly take women on outings that will increase the female’s heartrate and induce a mild fear—something as simple as walking to the roof of a tall building and gazing over the edge—leading the woman to misattribute her physiological response for attraction or arousal to the man. It’s a well-studied technique to seal in artificial positive emotion. On a much larger scale—outside of human reproduction—we’ve seen leaders convince entire communities to die in war or for a cause that didn’t affect them or their families at all.
“We’ve seen what other Primordials have deceived the humans into doing as well. Before the Fracturing, the Anunnaki studied a human crowd praising a man as their messiah and slowly manipulated them into calling for his death in a matter of days. They tricked specific politicians, clergymen, and respected elders on both sides of the issue into particular positions, then used those leaders to flip the perspective of the entire crowd.
“Personally, we have taken humans that view legal penalties for religious heresy as vile and convinced them to pass social heresy laws of their own, not consciously realizing the same underlying logic—protecting society from notions the elite don’t want to spread—are the main justifiers for both. Moreover, we’ve spun the perspective of individuals that outwardly hold a high sanctity of life into calling for outright, unnecessary military conflict.
“The Council believes, given all we know about humans, that we can persuade the majority of them to stay loyal to Olympia.”
Zetes still didn’t seem convinced. “Even if it worked in the short-term, wouldn’t they eventually see through the sham or change their minds? Isn’t the Council worried some humans could flip their allegiance to Olympia like they have with the messiah you mentioned?”
“Not likely. Humans almost never change their mind once they are truly emotionally invested in something. It takes a carefully calculated effort by a large group with massive—and typically covert— influence to sway them at that point. The Council plans to set up a monitoring system to counteract any such effort.”
“How can that be sufficient? Does the Council plan to discredit or fabricate evidence to counter any claim from potential dissenters?”
“That wouldn’t be necessary. Even when humans are confronted with incontrovertible counter evidence, they stay resolute in their emotionally-based convictions. When those convictions are coupled with opinions from ‘experts’ and popular personalities, beliefs can become permanently established within their cultural ether. It takes the simple mocking, or the labeling of unethical, of dissenting viewpoints from a few important thought leaders to quash dissenting views.
“Take for instance that humans have overwhelming evidence that extraterrestrials once interfaced with their ancient ancestors. The evidence would be compelling to us, but, because that notion doesn’t fit into the preconceived narrative of their academics and media, it stays hidden in plain sight. They twist their brain into knots trying to explain how multiple identical stories told over thousands of years, spanning hundreds of groups that never interacted, that clearly reference technology thousands of years ahead of their time, are coincidental; or how simple tools of rock and water could carve geometrically perfect blocks from stone.
“However, those same humans will believe a single utterance or writing by someone they don’t know and who is objectively wrong. The conclusion just needs to support their beliefs. Humans spend their entire life trying to confirm their own biases.
“But it’s not just that they try to continually convince themselves. They spit vitriol and turn violent against those who disagree. Many humans take it as an affront when someone disagrees with them over the most minor of details.
“The Council doesn’t have to fabricate anything—all they need to do is point their loyal mob at the dissenter and let the crowd do the rest.”
“Why would Olympia ever want to be involved with a civilization like that? What’s the point of having a bunch of unintelligent and aggressive, but loyal, civilians?”
“Well, we would actually want the more intelligent ones—they tend to sway their allegiances less. Humans with a high intelligence have an incredible ability to convince themselves of anything, as long as it lines up with their general political and philosophical outlook. They also lack the violent passion that can take hold of the underclass—they tend to discredit dissenters to the point they can’t be taken seriously by anyone and, only if that fails, will others then employ violent tactics.
“Keep in mind we’ve only been discussing outward human reaction to groups that threaten their tribe or present counter information. Those same passionate humans are loyal servants to their tribal leaders. They’ll look past the same faults in their leadership that they routinely use to discredit opposition, and they are relatively easily convinced to ruin their own lives for a cause that doesn’t actually exist. We’ve sparked many localized controversies over the years to pit human factions against one another. Each situation we created lacked sufficient evidence to draw any real conclusion, such as conflicts—violent or verbal—that lacked photo, video, or even reliable eye witness corroboration; although, the ladder relies on human memory, and that’s so fickle that it can hardly be called ‘evidence’ at all. Anyway, we wanted to measure how intensely dedicated humans became to an outcome that fit their preconceived biases.
“Each and every time, they rallied around a few leaders and let those minds control the opinion of the masses. The leaders’ talking points were repeated endlessly. Occasionally, adherents became so convinced of their tribe’s fabrication of the ‘truth’ that they willingly ruined their own lives for the cause. They lost their jobs, went to jail, or worse, all for righteous recognition from their community over a hazy conflict that literally contained no concrete evidence for any serious position.”
“So the Council’s goal is to manipulate a planet of intelligent humans to stay unknowingly loyal to them, but to what end? Even if humans are as smart as the Aesir, they are weak creatures. How will their presence ‘ensure the long-term survival of Olympia?’” Zetes said, calming down and becoming less defensive.
“They have both the intelligence and creativity to match or surpass the Aesir, but what will make them much stronger is the other experiment the Council is conducting. Have you heard of the Book of Thoth?”
“…the fairy tale the Anunnaki concocted? A book that provides an evolutionary blueprint to space-time bonding and beyond?”
“Yes, except it’s not a fairy tale. The book is real—Olympia found it on Earth during the Fracturing. ‘Thoth’ was actually a cult striving for the sole goal of artificially producing their next big jump in evolution.
“After we found the book, the Council put a number of humans into hibernation. They’ve since been testing methods to induce humans with weak bonds to space-time, and they’ve achieved it.”
Zetes shot out of his chair. “What! That goes against the Council’s—and all of Olympia’s—entire philosophy! Artificial evolution is why most of the public thought the Aesir would be trouble,” He began to pace around the cockpit mumbling to himself. “The dangers that poses…what is the Council thinking…”
“Zetes, calm down. The Council has a set of fairly c
ompelling arguments to alter the zeitgeist in a way to mitigate the public’s reaction to ersatz evolution. Moreover, we have ways to rapidly dislodge humans from space-time, should they become a problem,” Dionysus said, flipping to the back of his notebook. “What’s more important is that you’re able to understand my notes and elucidate them for researchers familiar with this experiment.” He handed his notebook to Zetes. “Here, let’s go over some of the detailed findings. Feel free to write in whatever notes you need to remember what I’m explaining.”
Zetes reluctantly grabbed the notebook, sighed, and sat down. “Alright, we have…a few hours before we arrive. Let’s see what we can cover before then.”
“That’s more than enough time,” Dionysus replied, lowering his voice and talking slower. “But Zetes, whatever you do, whatever happens to me, do not lose or damage this notebook. The information contained within it is far too valuable for Olympia.” And for you.
Act III, Chapter 2
COPUOS
Location: Washington D.C.
As soon as Wen Shi touched down in Washington, D.C. she checked her voicemail and saved the number Sigyn provided her. She taxied from the airport to the Smithsonian museums and strolled out to the middle of a large, rectangular plot of verdant grass. Thick clouds snuck across the radiant blue sky, their movement nearly imperceptible against the unblemished background.
A few tourists meandered between the buildings enclosing the field, a stark reminder of the times. The tension built by the pending alien interference was palpable, throttling the presence of life in dispensable locations.
An auditory ambiance of birds and distant traffic permeated the area. Wen Shi sat under the shade of a thick maple tree, taking note of her isolation, and made the call. Before one entire ring, someone picked up on the other line.
“Hello, is this Sigyn?” a familiar voice asked.
The Gods Who Chose Us Page 28