The General places the sidearm back into his holster, flicking the safety latch on. “Then why don’t you enlighten me.”
“You believe the world is fractured,” says the monk, gingerly returning to his feet. A few of the soldiers level their machine guns as if this elderly man will pose some kind of a threat as he begins to stand. The General makes a sweeping gesture with his palm, indicating that his team should draw down their weapons. In unison they oblige and take several steps back. “You believe that a powerful man with a powerful army can repair the damage that has been done if he can inspire enough fear. But you cannot create peace when you are threatening war.”
“When you’re the dominant force on earth you don’t need to make threats,” says The General. “People just obey.”
“The type of control you desire is not possible,” the monk replies in a barely perceptible whisper, his thin lips scarcely moving to form his words. “But the power you seek is knowledge. If you are able to acquire it, is it up to you what to do with it.”
“I want a weapon, old man, not a fortune cookie. Tell me where it is, who has it, and how I can get it. I’ve reached the limit of what my psychics have been able to tell me, but I know enough. I know it’s out there, and I know that you’re the person who can locate it.”
The monk begins a leisurely stroll down the corridor with his hands folded behind his back, and The General follows. “Knowledge is the most dangerous weapon, is it not? To acquire the advancements in your technology that are, at this moment, merely ideas? That would make you the most powerful force in the world. What you seek is a compendium.”
“So where exactly is this compendium? Who has it?”
“The compendium, known as ‘Akashic’, belongs to no one. Not yet. But several lifetimes from now it will be the most powerful object that anyone could possess. The information contained within it will give you the ability to preserve life, or give you the ability to take it away.”
“I only have this lifetime to work with; I can’t wait for centuries to get my hands on this compendium you’re talking about. Tensions are mounting across the globe, and if nuclear war begins then we all lose.”
“If you want to acquire Akashic you must do what has never been done. What should never be done, Douglas Davenport. You must walk across generations.”
The General takes a moment and nearly stops himself before uttering the next two words, but as strange as it sounds he doesn’t know what else to say. “Time travel?”
“Precisely. Moving through time is unnatural, and could disrupt the flow of the universe. But there is no other way to acquire it.” The monk turns to face The General, looking intently into his eyes. “As someone who desires power, you must make a decision: let nature run its course and allow the people of this world forge their own destinies, or try and open a door to the future and acquire this knowledge that you seek. But if you succeed, it will come at a cost.”
“There is no choice,” says The General, his voice grave and unyielding. “Disrupting nature might cause a problem for you, but if a hundred warheads start flying towards the United States we’ll be forced to retaliate. And that’s a problem for every living thing on this planet. A nuclear holocaust is not an option, so I have to do everything in my power to prevent it.”
The monk bows his head, and for the first time his voice is etched with a trace of emotion. Sadness. “So you have already made your decision.”
Cole begins to tremble as an earthquake rattles the temple. Enormous pieces of the roof begin to fall, smashing into the tiled floor as they explode into fragments of flying rock. The statue of Buddha topples over, sending shockwaves through the already collapsing structure. The General, the monk and the soldiers are frozen, completely motionless. They start to disintegrate, falling into piles of sand as the world crumbles around them.
“What the hell is happening?” Cole shouts, looking down at his outstretched palms. His fingers turn to dust and blow away, being carried down the corridor by a rushing wind.
“Your dream is collapsing,” says Mike, his voice resonating clearly in Cole’s head, drowning out the sound of crashing stone. “Close your eyes and concentrate. Just look into the black dot.”
Squeezing his eyes firmly, Cole can see an expanding void fill his consciousness, and then he awakens, sitting up on Mike’s couch. He inhales violently as if he were underwater, coming up after several minutes to draw in a single, life-saving breath.
“Welcome back,” says Mike, offering a small grin. “Did you get what you came for?”
Overwhelmed and exhausted, Cole stands, wiping the sweat from his forehead. It’s as if the dream he just departed still surrounds him, evaporating into the distance. He can faintly hear the sound of the temple collapsing as his senses begin to register the real world. “I got it. I know what The General is looking for.”
“Twelve years working in the government’s Psychic Division, and I never once heard about anything called ‘Akashic’,” says Mike with a shrug. “That must have been a secret that went beyond my security clearance.”
“You heard that?” asks Cole with surprise.
“I saw and heard everything that you did.” Mike takes a final drag from his cigarette before he deposits the filter into his overflowing ashtray. “And I also picked up a few more things.”
Dia arches an eyebrow. “Such as?”
“Betrayal,” says Mike, matter-of-factly. The foreboding word floats in the room for a moment like a poisonous cloud. “Someone in your group will betray the others. It’s more of a feeling than something I can clearly envision, but the sensation is there, and it’s powerful.”
“How can you be sure?” asks Brodie.
“I can’t,” offers Mike with a friendly smirk. “I’ve been right about pretty much everything else, but hey, if I’m wrong you can come right back and I’ll refund your thirty bucks.”
They silently gather their belongings and prepare to leave before Mike walks them to the front hallway. Dia pulls a crisp one hundred dollar bill from her front pocket and extends it towards Mike. “Thank you so much Mike, that was great work. Very insightful.”
“Anytime. It’s been years since I’ve accessed that type of energy to produce a dream state. It was a lot of fun. Hold on a moment and I’ll get you some change.”
“No, that’s not necessary,” says Dia, waving him off. “Please, keep it.”
“No, no, I only did the one reading for you. It wouldn’t be fair.” Mike turns to the staircase before he begins to shout. “Karen! I need some change for a hundred! Where is my goddamned wallet?” After a moment of silence Mike turns back to the group, apologetic. “I’m so sorry guys; please give me just one minute to go find my wallet. My wife can really be a bitch.”
Chapter Thirteen – Allegiances
Paris | August 29, 2011 | 7:12pm, Central European Time
The group emerges through a portal in Dia and Paige’s apartment in Paris, leaving the rain-soaked Pacific Northwest of the United States behind them. Jens is less nauseated this time through, but still manages to tumble over his own feet and land awkwardly on the unforgiving hardwood floor.
Allowing everyone to get comfortable in the living room, Cole takes a seat and explains his dream, recounting his journey in as much detail as possible. Everyone listens, nods politely and asks a few questions about the events he witnessed, but the lingering thought in everyone’s mind is Mike’s revelation of betrayal. No one wants to make any mention of the possibility that he could be right, but it was too ominous a prediction for anyone to completely ignore.
Refocusing on the task at hand, Paige excuses herself and retreats to the darkness of the kitchen, where she flips open her laptop and begins to research the compendium called Akashic. She prefers solitude when she’s working, and silence whenever possible, but that doesn’t seem likely in an apartment where the walls are about as soundproof as tissue paper.
Brodie heads to his bedroom and does the same, while Jens, a
fter hovering in the living room for several minutes, leaves the apartment in search of additional alcohol.
Dia waits for the front door to slam shut so she can be sure they’re alone before turning to Cole. “I need to ask you something…but you have to promise me that you won’t get mad.”
Cole smiles. “You can’t say that to someone! What if you’re going to say something that pisses me off?”
“How well do you know Jens?” she asks abruptly; blurting out the question as quickly as possible.
His smile fades. “We’re not having this conversation.”
“Come on, Cole, I had to ask. I know it’s not you, and it’s not me…”
“Then who?” he interrupts. “If it’s no one on your team then it just has to be Jens? If someone is going to betray us he’s the obvious choice, right?” Cole thrusts his finger towards the hallway where the bedrooms are located. “What about the drug dealer that you’ve had sleeping on your couch for the last couple of years? You don’t have him on your list of suspects?”
“There is no ‘my team’ and ‘your team’. We’re all on the same side; you must know that by now. But come on, I’ve known Brodie for a long time, and we both know it’s not Paige. So if it’s not you or me, then what the hell am I supposed to think?”
“You’re supposed to trust me,” says Cole, his voice softening. “I don’t have much family left, and besides a couple of people back in New York, Jens is all I have. He’s like a brother. I know he can be an obnoxious asshole, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to stab us all in the back.”
“I had Paige run a background check,” says Dia, not looking up from the floor. “She hacks her way into INTERPOL whenever we need info on someone, so we looked up Jens.”
Sagging forward in his seat, Cole places both palms on his forehead and closes his eyes. “I can’t believe this.”
“I saw his profile,” she continues, “and I hate to say this, but Todd Jennum isn’t exactly the most trustworthy person judging by his track record; he ran an illegal casino out of his basement for two years, stole a car, and not to mention that he owes money to more than one loan shark.”
Cole slides off the couch and takes several steps away, gazing out the window. He’s pained at the thought that Dia doesn’t trust his best friend, but he’s even more distraught at the notion that she could actually be right. Jens has always been a loyal friend, but he takes unnecessary risks and rarely thinks his plans through. Theoretically it’s possible that he could have taken a payoff from someone; that would certainly explain the money he’d been flashing around, as well as his newfound connections at several downtown hotspots. His mind floats to their escape from the apartment in New York, when Jens pushed open the door without warning, causing Cole to step into the open and take a bullet. It was typical Jens: stupid and irrational…but could it have actually been a calculated plan? Would Jens really accept a bribe to walk his best friend into sniper fire?
Shaking his head from side to side as if to clear his thoughts, Cole turns and leans against the window ledge. “I know Jens’ past. Hell, I’ve lived a lot of it with him. He’s made some pretty insane decisions in his life, but taking money to betray us isn’t one of them. I can’t let myself believe that.”
“And I can’t let my guard down,” says Dia. “Not after New York. If we have a mole in the group we need to find out who it is. And if it is Jens, then…”
“It’s not!” Cole screams as he slams the back of his fist into the brick wall above the couch, embedding his arm elbow-deep into the mortar.
Startled, Dia leaps to her feet and takes a step back.
Cole pulls his arm from the crumbling hole in the wall, which is now a sizable window between the living room and the bathroom. His knuckles are bloodied, but the small cuts repair themselves in a matter of seconds.
“Look,” says Dia, her eyes narrowing with intensity. “I know you don’t want to believe that one of us is a traitor, and neither do I. I hope Mike made a bad call on this one, but we can’t take any chances. Not now.”
Brodie and Paige run towards the living room, pausing in the doorway as they sense the mounting tension.
“Is this a bad time?” asks Paige, peering over the rim of her wireframe glasses. “Because we can come back later.”
Dia scans Cole’s eyes and sees a measure of tranquility, as if a raging storm had just subsided. “Of course not,” she replies, waving them in. “It’s cool.”
Brodie takes a few cautious steps into the living room and stares through the hole in the wall. “What was that noise…and why can I see into the shower?”
“You know these old European buildings,” Dia replies dryly, her eyes flicking momentarily towards Cole. “Most of them are so old they’re just falling apart.”
“Uh-huh,” says Brodie, clearly in no mood to continue the line of questioning. He quickly scans the room and notices the absence of one of their team members. “We’re missing one of the Avengers. We can’t assemble without Jens here.”
Cole points his thumb towards the front door. “He’s getting more beer and champagne; the two of you dried out this whole place last night. We’ll fill him in later.”
“Okay,” Brodie replies. He pulls the laptop out from under his arm and places it on the coffee table. “Basically we have zip.”
“Zip?”
“As in zero, zilch, nada. We came up totally blank, except for a Wiki page with some information about Akashic, but it’s just a bunch of new-age, crystal-rubbing bullshit.” Brodie flips open his laptop and spins it around to face Cole and Dia, allowing them to see the browser window.
“I got nothing as well,” adds Paige with an exasperated sigh. “Akashic isn’t something you can actually get your hands on – it’s a fairy tale. Some people refer to it as a universal supercomputer; it’s supposedly a cosmic library that has the recorded history of everything that’s ever happened. A few crackpots over the years have claimed to have been able to access it through meditation or astral projection, but there’s never been anything confirmed.”
Cole leans forward to scan the page. “So, maybe what we’re looking for isn’t the mythological compendium, but something named after it? Akashic could be a code name, right?”
“That’s what I assumed,” says Paige. “So let’s say that’s the case. If there is some compendium in the future called Akashic, and The General is dying to get his grubby little hands on it, what’s the reason?”
“He got the entire world to disarm their nuclear stockpiles, including America,” says Dia. “He wants peace.”
Paige glances down at the computer screen, readjusting her glasses as she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “According to the mythology, the whole idea of Akashic is that it’s a celestial database of everything since the beginning of recorded history. If that’s true, and if he gets a hold of some futuristic hard drive with that much information, he wouldn’t just have weapon tech; he’d have every secret from the building of the pyramids to intergalactic space travel.”
“How cool would that be?” says Brodie with fascination. “Traveling to other planets and fighting aliens and all that shit? Like in that old TV show where the captain guy wearing a red jumpsuit would bang green strippers.”
“Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad,” says Dia.
“Bad?” says Brodie. “That would kick ass, D.”
“No, I mean if our dad got a hold of Akashic. Look at all the good he’s done so far – we can’t just ignore that. He’s helped the New World Council stabilize the world, so maybe he wants to do something good with it? A compendium like that wouldn’t just have information about weapons, right? It could help people as well.”
“That’s not his place,” replies Paige with a stare that nearly burns a hole through her sister. “It’s not anyone’s place. No single person should have that much power and information about the future – especially someone who had no problem destroying entire nations that refused to join the New World Council.
”
“They were terrorist nations,” Dia fires back. “They were hiding and supporting terror groups, and they refused to stop producing nuclear weapons. What was he supposed to do?”
Paige lowers her voice and removes her glasses, maintaining eye contact with her sister. “Of course they were terrorists. They were labeled terrorists the second they disagreed with our dad! And in case you haven’t been keeping up with the news lately, so were we.”
Chapter Fourteen – Nimbus
Forks, Washington | August 29, 2011 | 11:44 am, Pacific Daylight Time
Mike clumsily pulls a beaten suitcase down his stairs with both hands, clothes sticking haphazardly out of the sides. He drags it to the front door and slips his shoes on, scooping up his keys and several packs of cigarettes from the hallway table.
“Karen!” he screams upstairs. “This is no time to be screwing around. I told you we need to get out of here now. I have a really bad feeling so we need to hit the road.”
A moment passes without a response, so Mike decides to start the truck and wait for his wife outside. Flinging open the front door, he’s greeted by two government agents standing on his porch dressed in dark suits and darker sunglasses. Clean-shaven, square-jawed with their black hair slicked back, they could almost be identical twins if one wasn’t several inches taller than the other.
A fleet of sedans with tinted windows are parked on his lawn, and additional agents surround his house.
“Michael Remmell,” says the taller agent, casually pulling a phone from his inside jacket pocket. “I’m sorry, are you in a hurry to get somewhere?”
A cold bead of perspiration appears on Mike’s forehead, rolling down the side of his cheek. “No…I mean, sort of. I’m heading out of town to a bed and breakfast up the coast; just a little romantic getaway with the wife.”
“Ah,” the agent replies, his eyes trailing down to Mike’s tattered green housecoat and unlaced sneakers. “Obviously. Well I hate to keep you, but I just had an interesting conversation with General Davenport. You’ve heard of The General, haven’t you?”
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