Ascendancy: A Near Future Sci-Fi Thriller

by Randal Sloan

  The Master was waiting for them in his beautiful garden. He indicated that they should sit beside him on the thick green grass. He looked at her and smiled. “Ever since you contacted me yesterday to warn me about the tsunami, I can feel it whenever you are thinking about me. So I knew you were coming to see me this morning.” He laughed at the look she gave him. “But don’t worry, it is not like you two who are so very deeply connected. I just feel the changes in the energy flows which you are so strong now at manipulating.”

  Julie breathed a sigh of relief at the last. “I love you, Master, but not that much. That’s only reserved for Zeke.” She exchanged smiles with Zeke and he reached over to touch her arm.

  Then Julie’s countenance darkened. “What we’ve found, Master, is very bad. I’m certain the tsunami was man-made and was intended to strike at exactly the time everyone was going to be down in the area between the islands. I’ve been wondering whether it was your enemies or my enemies that did this. Right now I am leaning toward it being Zeke and me and not you; just the sophistication and timing for one thing.”

  The Master gave her a sad smile. “It’s probably both. For many centuries, our band of monks has been fighting against an enemy that seems to be able to reach across time to strike against us.”

  The Master looked over at her in chagrin. “I have been remiss in telling you everything you should know. At times, we’ve had aid in our battle. Deep in the mountains where we once lived, we had a temple that is at the core of our existence as an order. The task to become highest monk was not the swim, but a trip to the temple. For the ones chosen, the temple would awaken and someone would speak to whichever monk it awakened for. They would be given a task that would ultimately aid us in our war against our enemy.” He stopped when he saw their reactions.

  Julie explained for him. “Master, we’ve had a similar experience as you describe. In fact, Zeke and I have both been given tasks which we’re somehow blocked from telling anyone about. Incidentally, our interaction was with an obelisk up there,” Julie pointed up into the sky. “Out in space quite a distance from here.”

  “Then I can tell you that this was indeed the same enemy, and I guess that means that they have found us again. I expect they couldn’t resist the opportunity to attempt a strike against both you and us together. Unfortunately for us, the last time our temple gave instructions to one of us was during the time your uncle was there with us. And at the time they warned us they would no longer be able to use our temple to contact us, but that they would find another way when it became necessary. We were in fact warned to leave that location as they told us the temple would destroy itself in a spectacular fashion the next year. That is why we now live here. I must say the winter weather here is much, much better than high in those mountains.”

  “But I am digressing. Apparently you, dear ones, are now our path of communication with our friends. I must warn you, more than likely the next communication with them will be with your son and daughter. That is just the way it works; about a generation apart and usually within the same family. I shouldn’t be surprised. Your uncle and I were the last ones to speak to someone in our temple. Our then Master swore your uncle to a vow of silence regarding those events, and in light of your position within our family of monks, Brother Ted could tell you now. You need to ask him about what happened to him when he was here. In fact, I suspect he will be able to explain things to you that at the time our group did not have the knowledge to understand.”

  The Master laughed when he saw the expression in Julie’s eyes. “I should call and warn my dear brother Ted, but it’ll be much more fun to let him suffer. If he gives you any resistance, remind him that you now command the order and hence him also.” He couldn’t help but laugh again at that. “Poor Brother Ted.”

  Then the Master stood, waiting until they did also and offering Julie a hand in respect. “I thank you for your information, dear one. We must endeavor to be more diligent in the future now that our enemies have found us. And I know that now you must leave us again. Our time together is never enough, but when we have it, we know that we must treasure it.” He gave them a deep bow, master to high master.

  Julie and Zeke gave him their own bows in return, executed in perfect synchronization, young high master to teaching high master. A few minutes later they were in the air. Julie was aiming for some of Uncle Ted’s time, and didn’t want to waste a minute of travel time so she made short work of the trip back.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Lunch, Breakfast and Throw in Dinner

  Julie sent a VR to Uncle Ted before they reached the space station. She knew he was still there, so she told him she needed a good portion of time allocated as soon as she arrived. “Time to pay the piper,” was all she told him, except she did warn him, “Go ahead and order lunch, we’ll need it. Have it sent to my conference room and I’ll meet you there in 15 minutes.”

  When they arrived and made their way to her office, Ted was waiting for her and Julie decided to get straight to the point. “Dear Uncle, it is time. As the head of your monk order, I hereby order you to tell your story from the time you spent among our order and accepted your honorary membership.” She saw a moment of fear in his eyes until he realized the full ramifications of what she had said.

  “That old goat. He could have warned me. You’re right. We definitely will need lunch. This is going to be a long story.” Ted led them into her conference room, where sandwiches had already been brought in. They quickly ate their lunch, Julie filling her uncle in on what had happened on the island and what they had found out afterwards.

  “Which is what leads us to you, Uncle Ted. Yes, the Master was laughing at the thought of me coming after you over this story. So you’d best get to talking, or I’ll have to call him back.” Julie told her uncle, trying rather unsuccessfully to hide her grin.

  Ted sighed, telling them, “Go ahead, get your coffee while I collect my thoughts.”

  Julie and Zeke both quickly took him up on the suggestion. Afterwards, the two sat down at the conference room table and looked expectantly at her uncle.

  Ted smiled at Julie. “Well, you know the first part of the tale. I had just completed my term of service as a military doctor and had fallen in love with my patient Carla, but had felt rejected when I didn’t hear back from her after her release from the hospital. I was struggling with that and not sure what I wanted to do. So I returned to my hometown to talk with my brother who had just recently been married to your mother. That was the first time I met her.

  “I knew immediately something was different about your mother. She was a few years older than you are now and just as beautiful as you are. But she looked at me with the intensity of a laser beam and I knew right off I was in trouble.

  “She was kind of like you too in that she got straight to the point. She pulled out a gold coin, the same one that you saw the Master return to me at our meeting in Hong Kong, and she gave it to me. ‘This is for you,’ she told me and went on to explain about her ability to sometimes see visions of the future. I was both terrified and fascinated when she told me her latest vision had involved me. She told me that it was a matter of life and death that I meet a monk in Hong Kong in two days. I was warned that I would need that coin and my medical bag.

  “I wanted to tell her she was crazy, but somehow I knew that she was telling me the truth. So I got to spend one day with my brother, and then it was off to Hong Kong to meet the monk, still thinking that the whole thing was crazy. The meeting itself had somehow been arranged by the Master of the monks and he sent his young understudy to meet me. You know part of the story of our meeting, how I was five minutes late and he told me I owed him five hundred dollars or he was leaving, quite pleased with himself about the whole thing. My refusing to pay him would have meant he would be rid of the obligation he had been given by his master. That all changed when I handed him the gold coin. He had stared at it in amazement and then wrapped it with great care in a handkerchief, telling me
as you heard at our last meeting that he was holding it until it was time to return it.

  “That’s when I saw the first monk bow, which I learned later this one was young master to honorary master. Before I knew what was happening, he had me bundled onboard a helicopter and we were headed into the Tibetan mountains.

  “Compared to the monk island that you know about, the mountains were much more rugged, but beautiful in their own way. Luckily it was in late spring when I arrived there. It was still a little cold but most of the snow was gone. I was told that was the best time of the year for them and I believe it. Many of the meadows were covered with wild flowers and the local wildlife was just beginning to move about. The monks themselves were just completing a number of tasks that they had not been able to do during the winter.

  “All of their buildings were built of stone due to the need to survive the winters. Most of them had roofs made from slate tile which they had just repaired from the winter winds. But I was given a place to stay with the woman you know as Mama Kash, so I had it made compared to many of the students.

  “Brother Kash and his mother took me to meet the Master monk, who was very ancient but sharp as a tack. He explained to me that I would have a special quest to complete and that his best monks would be training me. He apparently had a talent for vision, because he named me the Forerunner and told me I would play a very important role in preparing them for the future. I had come to believe before the recent events that meant he foresaw the move to the island, but now I believe that he also saw you and knew what you would mean to the monk order.

  “So I trained for a few days under them and learned their meditation techniques and very basic self-defense. It was very intense and I gathered at the time they were having to give me the short, short version of the course. But I learned a lot, such as their philosophy, which you’ve also learned, and the bows, which I taught you before you went there. Then I was called back to see the Master and there with him was our monk friend, the one you know as Master now. We were to travel to a temple of theirs and it was a day’s ride on mule back through the mountains.

  “The next day we set out for the temple. It would be a very difficult journey for all in our party and especially for me. Rough, rugged terrain, with a narrow path that often hugged the cliffs, the drop into a sheer chasm. At times I was sure I was going to die on that trip, but somehow that old mule got me through it.

  “We finally arrived late that evening and immediately set up camp about a half mile away. We could see the temple in the distance, an ominous sight in the deep dusk at the time we set up camp. It was made out of some kind of stone that was entirely different from anything in the area and it sat on top of the rock like it had been dropped there, which I still wonder if that isn’t exactly what happened. I was so tired I barely was able to eat my rations and fall asleep, but I kept seeing that obelisk in my dreams all night.”

  Ted paused a moment, seeing the look that passed between the two. “I gather you’ve seen something similar?” When they both nodded, he wondered just what that meant, but he continued with his story.

  “The next morning, the young master and I traveled the remainder of the way to the temple alone, and that was when I realized this was much bigger than what I thought. That temple was unbelievable. The young master told me that it was built by the ‘ancients’ and he said thousands of years before. When I looked at the walls, whatever they were made of, they appeared to be completely untouched by nature. I believe now that it was made of stone that somehow had lonsdaleite bonded onto the surface, making it virtually untouchable and almost indestructible.

  “Once a year the monks would pay it a visit, but only in certain years would it allow anyone to enter it. There was always some requirement that had to be met before they would be able to enter. In our case, the gold coin from your mother was that requirement. That is why I was trained so quickly and sent on the mission with them. At that time, the monk task that had to be completed to become highest monk was to successfully complete a trip to the temple and be admitted. The young master had been training hard and was hoping he would be successful. But I was brought along as insurance because they feared that he would not be able to gain admittance without me.

  “And they were right. The young master first tried to enter on his own, but the door would not open. Only when he motioned for me to come forward and the two of us grasped the coin together did the door open, admitting the two of us. Needless to say I was a little nervous, and it was made a lot worse when the door closed behind us. But I quickly realized the temple had some kind of artificial lighting, and hence a source of power that had powered it all those centuries. At the time I thought it was geothermal or something like that, but now I’m not so sure. I’m more inclined to think it was a quantum power system like yours. The whole point is there’s no way our monk friends could have done it. But I’m digressing.

  “After we entered, the young master led me across a huge chamber that reached many stories high. The floor was covered by the same incredible stone we had seen on the walls. We finally reached the far end of the chamber and that is where everything changed for me. A huge monument stood there, but before I could get a good look at it, some kind of beam came out of the top of the chamber, shining on the two of us. We each received a personal message that seemed to be projected right into our heads.”

  He stopped when he saw their reaction. “Okay, now I understand. You have in fact been to one of these and received a task. One that you cannot tell to anyone until you complete it.”

  Julie nodded. “While we were traveling in space — out there where we went to lay out the grid to prepare for the return of my father’s ship. In my case, I can talk about the obelisk itself, but not about my task, since my task is yet to be completed. Zeke can now talk about his task because he’s completed his already. So I gather both you and the young master were given a task each?”

  “Yes, and I was placed under a vow of silence regarding all of this by the Master monk. That’s why I never told you any of this before now. When the beam struck me, I saw a very close friend of mine that had been injured severely in our senior year of high school. That was one of the big reasons I had decided to become a doctor. He somehow was able to stand, which immediately got my attention.

  “He had been a paraplegic the last time I saw him. He explained to me about meeting a group of people he called our friends. They had helped him by treating his injuries and in return they asked for his help to deliver the message to me. Their enemies had gotten a foothold inside the Chinese government, but because of the remote location, they had not been able to actually get to the monk compound yet. But our friends believed that they would try again in the next year.

  “I was also given a task and as you will see in a bit, I was able to complete my task, but not without trial. He explained about the temple, and then he warned me that it’s temporal connection was failing. My task was to to warn the monks that they had one year to leave before the temple would destroy itself in a terrible blast that would level several mountains in the area. This was necessary because they couldn’t let the Chinese government get any of their technologies. Although on mule it had been a day’s travel there, it wasn’t really very far away distance-wise from their compound, so they wouldn’t have any choice but to leave if they wished to survive. I had to do whatever it took to convince them of the truth, and was given information that only the Master monk would know as proof of my message.

  “Unsurprisingly, the young master was given a task. His was to assist me and to protect me from an attack that would come from a splinter group made up of those that refused to accept the need to move. Of course, per the rules from the temple, he couldn’t tell me that at the time.

  “So the two of us became aware again after a few moments and together we exited the temple, both of us quite excited and troubled at the same time. We talked about the parts we could talk about until we reached the camp, where we stayed for the rest of
the day. We knew it was too late to start back with the amount of daylight left.

  “We did return to the monk compound the next day and that night I met with the Master to tell him what he needed to know. I think he had already seen some of it in a vision, because he immediately nodded and told me he would begin the prep for them to relocate. That is when I first heard about the island; he’d already arranged to buy it. Truthfully, I think he’d been quite worried about the Chinese government, and now he knew why they’d become so curious about them. He also warned me that some of the monks would oppose the move and would attempt to stop it by attacking me. He assigned the young master to watch over me.

  “And that warning came to fruition the next day, as a large group of them attempted to demand an audience with the master. He refused to speak with them, sending them away. Somehow, several of them managed to get me off away from the others and I believe they intended to kill me. That’s when the young master appeared and he was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Although he was very much outnumbered, he easily defeated the first few and would have managed the others, but one of them pulled a knife and threw it at me.

  “Somehow the young master managed to throw himself in front of the knife, causing it to hit him in the side. Then he did something even more unbelievable. He pulled the same knife out, throwing it back and striking the one who had thrown it in the eye, killing him instantly. He then collapsed in front of all of us, the act of pulling the knife out making the bleeding much worse, of course. But before any of the remainder could follow up, a number of monks arrived and managed to subdue the rest.

  “So you can guess the rest. Because of my medical degree, and because of your mother telling me to bring my medical bag with me, I was able to stop the bleeding in his wound and stitch it up, saving his life and making a lifetime friend. I now believe that I was told to carry that bag with me for the sole purpose of saving the young master’s life.