by A J Marshall
Diomedes broke Richard’s thoughts by saying: “Come, I will show you.”
Richard and Diomedes climbed the flight of stairs that were cut with precision into the otherwise smooth glass face of the pyramid. The main entrance was a gaping square hole in the structure about sixty metres above the ground. Inside was an enormous cone-shaped cavern. It immediately reminded Richard of the interior of the Temple of Osiris – inside the Pyramid of Khufu – where Naomi had taken him during his search for the Ark. Only in this case, in Atlantis, it was filled with light and air and warmth – not dark and malodorous as in Egypt.
A shimmering rainbow-like spectrum stretched from the near corner on Richard’s right, across to the far corner on his left. So vivid were the seven colours that they appeared to be projected by a precision optical imager. The radiant arc reached high above their heads. There was a dynamic quality to it, as if it were alive. Richard could see that it was created by a prismatic effect, where the bright sunlight that entered the pyramid was refracted by thick glass walls. The colours offered a spectacular show that widened Richard’s eyes in wonderment.
The two men walked to the geometric centre of the cavern where a raised circular plinth supported a glass altar. The altar was cylindrical in shape and similarly constructed of translucent glass. It was approximately one metre high and on its flat top, and apparently shaped from a single block, was a chalice. Diomedes shook his head and put a staying hand on Richard’s shoulder when he attempted to step onto the plinth. “That place is for those who attend to the stone,” he explained, and turned and pointed to an opening high in one of the slanting walls of the pyramid. It was the aperture of a small square shaft. “When the alignment of the heavenly bodies is precise – ours with the red world – then the power of the stone reaches out and our message is passed.”
“You send a message? How? By light? By energy?”
“The High Priests and Priestesses have that ability. It is knowledge that is passed down their ancestral line and will continue for eternity.”
Richard looked at him and drew a deep, thoughtful breath, and then he pointed to the chalice. It was 10 metres from where he stood. “The crystal . . . I mean the stone . . . it’s there?”
Diomedes nodded. “It is said that only once in the annals of time has it been removed.”
“Yes, of course,” replied Richard, nodding with enlightened expression. “To power the Colossus, when it stepped into position!”
“It was constructed on the other side of the island. Remnants of the foundries are clearly evident. Folk law still tells of the great walk.”
“Thank you, Diomedes, for your trust,” said Richard, aware of the passing time – whatever time reference there might be in ‘memories’. “I have learned what I needed. I should go back to the precinct, position myself near the Temple of Homer. Someone waits for me there.”
Strasbourg – simultaneous
A heavily built man of Asian origin walked purposefully along a darkened street. Heavy drizzle wetted his jacket. He stopped outside a house and looked up, eyeing brass numerals that were fixed to the wide front door – Number Eleven appeared to confirm the address. He cast a wary eye in both directions and then climbed the few steps whilst pulling a small electronic device from his pocket. He scrutinised the tiny backlit screen, opened the adjacent security box and tapped a series of keys. The code released locks on the door which sprang open a few centimetres. He pushed the door open further and looked inside – the hallway was dark and quiet. He stepped back a few paces and raised his arm as a signal. Moments later a black sedan drew silently to a halt outside the neighbouring house. Three men climbed from the vehicle – one with some difficulty. Guardedly, the men made their way back to the house. None of them had a spritely step and one had a pronounced limp. They climbed the steps to the house in question and promptly disappeared inside.
The tall man had dark, shiny hair. He wore a black leather coat with large lapels, a white shirt, a black tie and black shoes – traditionally laced, not fastened. His face was narrow with high cheek bones and his look was slightly gaunt. The heavily built man looked Chinese and muscular. He wore a shorter black jacket of synthetic leather with more contemporary styling. His head was shaved and his neck thick. He looked hard. The other two men were of pensionable age, although both looked relatively fit. Dressed similarly, they each wore blue denim jeans and dark, bomber-style jackets, one blue and the other dark brown. They had a military bearing.
The tall man pointed a bony finger first at himself and then at the ceiling, and then he pointed to the oriental man and waved his finger in a circle, indicating for him to search the ground floor rooms. He gestured for the two older men to follow him; he seemed to know there was someone above them. Before climbing the stairs he checked the time: it was just after midnight.
Upstairs, after a brief search, the first three rooms proved empty. One of the older men stepped out of another bedroom backwards and silently closed the door behind him. He met the tall man’s cautious glance on the landing and held up one finger and nodded. Then the three men gathered outside the last door. The oriental man came up the stairs shaking his head and giving the all clear. The tall man reached inside his coat and pulled out a pistol, gripping the door handle with his other hand. The oriental man did the same but retrieved a long knife with a thick blade; one of the edges was serrated. They stood ready to enter.
Without a word being spoken the tall man edged the door open. There was subtle lighting inside – brighter than on the landing – but no movement. He opened the door further and held back for a moment. All was silent. It was likely that the occupants were sleeping. Then he turned to the oriental man and gestured for him to enter.
The big man slipped inside the room and then, a few moments later, he said in a forced whisper: “Quickly! Come in!”
The tall man burst through the doorway, pistol raised.
“You won’t need that, Mr Rhinefeld. Look!” said the oriental, and he pointed to Richard and Naomi lying on the floor, seemingly fast asleep. “Apart from these two, the room is clear.”
A faint, lopsided smile contorted the scarred face of the tall man. He slowly lifted his black hat from his head, held it against his chest and looked down upon the couple – smugness widened his smile. He walked across and kicked Richard hard in the side. “Wake up!” he demanded.
There was no response from Richard, not even a stir. One of the men in blue jeans stepped over. He lifted his hand to stop another kick. He saw significance in the way that Richard and Naomi’s hands were bound and knelt down beside Naomi to examine the link. He seemed to recognise something in the particular way they were joined and the expression they shared. Keeping a few centimetres clear, he ran a hand over the length of Richard’s body; he was feeling for something. And then he stopped and touched Richard, pressing in the area that he had been kicked; there seemed to be a complete immunity to pain – a complete immunity to any external stimulus. He shook Richard gently; there seemed also to be an inability to wake him. The man glanced up at his accomplice and then looked down at Naomi and began a similar examination. The tall man clicked his tongue and shifted impatiently.
“Vot are you doing?” he barked.
“He is sensing an energy field . . . an extrasensory energy,” explained the other man in blue jeans.
The man kneeling put a hand on Naomi’s forehead and closed his eyes. With his other hand he gripped Naomi’s left wrist and felt her pulse. After a few moments he looked up and nodded slowly in an enlightened fashion.
“There is some kind of psychic link between them,” he said. By his accent, it was clear the man was an American.
Rhinefeld put a foot on Richard’s chest and pressed down. “He dies . . . Pull them apart!”
“Wait!” said the standing accomplice, and he quickly went to Naomi. He crouched down next to his friend and made his own examination. “Leon’s right!” he exclaimed. “On a spiritual level, these two are joined lik
e lovers. You part them like this and there will be damage – they may both die . . . You willing to risk that?” This man was also an American; he had the nasal slurring of the Bronx.
“I vont him to die! I do not care how!”
“Listen, Rhinefeld, you hired us for psychic work. I can take someone out just as well as the next man, but if you part these two in this state you risk losing the woman, too. I won’t be held responsible for that – and we still want paying – you get that?”
“Mr Rickenbach, you vill obey orders. You are in zis up to your neck, and Springer, too.” Rhinefeld took a thoughtful breath. “Tell me exactly vot is going on here. Quickly!”
“Charlie, take her open hand; I’ll take Reece’s. And then a hand on their foreheads – let’s see.”
For more than a minute the two men held their positions; they appeared to drift into a hypnotic state. Presently Rickenbach mumbled something and then he suddenly opened his eyes. He stared blankly for a moment and then put a hand on his friend’s shoulder – Springer also returned to reality.
Rickenbach stood. He looked directly at Rhinefeld, whose hardened expression and dark eyes seemed devoid of feelings. “She seems to be holding open a synaptic pathway. I’ve never experienced such mental control. You can’t teach that, she’s a natural. Now get this, if you can . . . Richard Reece is doing what you intended to do with the woman – only on a much deeper level. Not psychic hypnosis to reveal facts and information; this is different. He’s gone into her memory. I’ve never seen two people so close; there has to be a natural affiliation. Call it soul mates, if you like.”
“Ugh! Zat is ridiculous! Going into her dreams . . .”
“Not dreams, Rhinefeld. Dreams are shallow, just residual electrical impulses in the synapse. This is much deeper; he’s gone into the recesses of her mind, deep into her memory – even together we can’t sense him, not on a semiconscious level. I’d say he’s trying to learn something; a secret that this woman has long since forgotten.”
“Can you follow him? Vot vill happen if you kill him inside?”
“If we kill his mind on a subconscious level, he’ll become a cabbage. Like someone who is acutely mentally ill. He’ll be finished as Richard Reece.”
“Not enough!” Rhinefeld barked. “He did zis to me.” Rhinefeld held up a trouser leg to expose his prosthetic leg. He thought for a moment and nodded sadistically. “I vont him to die twice. First his mind, and zen his body. I vill take pleasure in doing zat part. Can you follow him?”
Rickenbach looked down at Springer; their eyes met. “I’ve never heard anything like it being attempted before, but if we combine, it might just be possible,” said Springer.
Rickenbach nodded his agreement. He looked again at Rhinefeld. “The woman waits for Reece to return, but she doesn’t know what state his subconscious will be in, and so she maintains an unusually wide neural pathway to her memory centre,” he continued. “We will need every ounce of our training and experience, but I think we can enter in a similar way – down the same path. But you must protect us here. We’ll be totally unconscious; helpless to all intent and purposes.”
“Ya! Ve vill. Do it! Kill his thoughts . . . kill his mind!”
Same location – simultaneous
Peter Rothschild sat thoughtfully in the back of a police vehicle. He checked his watch; it was thirty-nine minutes past midnight, Local Time. He expected Richard to be sleeping, but with the situation on the Moon escalating and the Lunar Senate demanding his immediate return or threatening repercussions, he had no other choice but to disturb him. The Swiftsure class ship was already waiting for him at the spaceport. His suspicions, however, were immediately aroused when his driver turned the corner. He knew that roadside parking was prohibited in the street for security reasons, because of the number of foreign parliamentary dignitaries living there. It was the perfect front for a safe house: protected by default; pretentious to the point of diversion; isolated.
Rothschild instructed his driver to continue past the house without stopping, and he scrutinised the parked car and its registration plate as they did. He pulled his telephone from his coat pocket, pressed a key and held the device to his ear.
“Abbey Hennessy here.”
“Abbey, it’s Peter. I’m at the safe house, but there is a car parked along the street close by. I don’t like it. Run a number plate for me, will you?”
“Go ahead.”
“334335 STF.”
“Hold on while I put it through the system. While I have you on the line, we have been copied in on another memo from the Senator General. Unusually, they are requesting help – military help! There’s something serious happening there, Peter, but information is still restricted. They say that they want their Squadron Commander back before it’s too late. The Federation have circulated a reply saying that their long-range sensors cannot see anything abnormal on the Moon’s surface. They can’t see the dark side of course, and so they are speculating that the problem is on that side. God only knows what’s really happening . . . Hold on, I’ve got an answer . . . Yes, here we are . . . The car is registered to Spheron, Peter, one of their fleet vehicles.”
“I see, that’s bad news; it seems Richard may already have visitors. How the hell did they get hold of . . . ?” Rothschild paused while he indicated to the driver to drive around the block again and stop where he could see the house. “Abbey, we have a serious breach of security,” he continued. “The Americans and their bloody SERON mole, I expect – the damned ‘special relationship’ gives them access to just about everything. Find out who, exactly, had knowledge of Richard’s movements, and who is party to the safe house details . . . address, entry code . . . everything. But first call for backup – I need a SWAT Team ASAP, and medical cover just in case. I’m going to wait here and keep an eye on things.”
“Yes, immediately, Peter.”
“Those two men, Richardius, over there, do you see. They are staring at you as if they know you. I thought you were a stranger here.”
“I don’t know them, Diomedes; never seen them before.”
“Interesting,” responded Diomedes. “If I did not know better . . .”
At that moment something caught Richard’s eye. It was an effect he could not explain, as if the end of an adjacent street was shrouded in fog. The street was on his left and Richard put a hand on Diomedes’ shoulder and then turned into it. “Do you see that?” he asked, pointing.
“I see nothing but a street with modest housing,” replied Diomedes, following Richard on his diversion.
Richard was engrossed and walked with purpose for another sixty metres or so until he approached a wall of semi-transparent mist beyond which the streetscape at first became blurred, and then faded completely, as if the mist’s density gradually increased, eventually turning to thick impenetrable fog. Like an unfinished landscape painting, for Richard the scene ended where he stood.
“At what do you gaze so intently, Richardius? What occupies your thoughts?” asked Diomedes, puzzled by Richard’s manner, but growing a little impatient.
“Don’t you see it?” Richard responded, turning to look Diomedes in the eye and raising his hand as if to present the amazing sight that appeared before them.
Diomedes shrugged and raised his brow at the total lack of revelation. “I see only a common street,” he said, stepping forward into the mist but making it clear to Richard that for him the street continued as expected, with unpretentious, uninteresting architecture.
Richard stood mesmerised for a moment and then he nodded knowingly. “It is the extent of Naomi’s remembering,” he uttered under his breath. “It’s the edge of her memory.” He paused again thoughtfully. “For whoever preceded Naomi, this street warranted just brief glance. Nothing lies beyond this point because nothing was remem . . .” Richard suddenly came to his senses. “Sorry, I’m not making any . . . we had better get on.” He gestured with his head.
With that Richard turned to retrace their pat
h and on the corner with the main thoroughfare, he saw those same two men loitering. Diomedes saw them too and his eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“How much further?” Richard asked as they walked back. The two men he dismissed as simpletons because they had disappeared.
“We approach,” replied Diomedes, as he and Richard turned the corner. They continued walking and a few minutes later Richard saw the square opening before him.
Richard entered the wide expanse with admiration, as from that direction the true extent of his surroundings became apparent – classical architecture on an unprecedented scale. It was a wondrous place that reminded him of history book scenes and paintings of the great thinkers and philosophers of Ancient Greece: symmetrical rows of columns; great porticos in white marble; wide steps; and precisely proportioned statues of people and animals on tall rectangular plinths. It was like stepping into a great museum. Richard was overwhelmed by the culture, the people, the freshness and, above all, the blue sky.
“I will leave you now. May your journey home be uneventful,” Diomedes said, wresting Richard from his astonishment. The old man raised his fist to his heart in the customary way.
Richard was about to reply when he felt a low level vibration beneath his feet. The vibration quickly grew to a shuddering and then, for a moment, the ground heaved. He looked up; some of the tallest buildings were teetering in a precarious way and a nearby statue of a rearing horse came crashing down, narrowly missing some passers-by. And then the disturbance completely subsided.
Richard looked at Diomedes, whose face had paled. “Do you get earthquakes here?” he asked.
“The land complains from time to time, but mostly it sleeps – never have I felt such a thing.”
Around them the crowd seemed frozen, their expressions bemused.
“Well something is waking,” replied Richard, and with that the uncanny silence was broken by a much deeper and more disturbing rumble. This time there was a noticeable ripple across the ground and the flagstones on which they stood shifted. “I’ve felt something like this before, in the Middle Ea— . . . It doesn’t matter where. This is going to break, Diomedes; take my advice and make for open ground.” Richard looked at the people around him; there was a look of panic on some faces and indifference on others. “Make for open ground!” he shouted. “Quickly! Make for open ground!” But there was apathy around him.