by J. K. Haugen
It was as if he were floating in midair. As he moved each handle the capsule began to move. When he twisted the handles to the right he turned to the right and then back to the left. As he pulled his hands back toward his body the nose of the capsule turned upwards and again the opposite was the same as he pushed the handles forward, the nose began to dive. “Okay, I think I got the steering down, how do we go?” he asked.
Just then, Sarah let out a loud “Woohoo!” Her capsule zoomed down off the spiral right past John and out to the city street through the giant glass door way. “Can you hear me Johnny?” Sara’s voice seemed to surround him, “Just think about moving forward and concentrate. They work with your thoughts!”
John closed his eyes and scrunched his forehead, and before he knew it he felt the capsule almost become a part of him. It was as if it had become an extension of his entire body. All of his senses were now tied into the capsule, touch, hearing, sight, everything. He had never felt such power. No longer was he seeing the world through his own eyes. He could now see all the way around him in every direction all at once.
He could feel the air around him as if it were a soft blanket. Just as easily as telling his legs to walk forward he swooped down off the spiral track, floated down to the ground and using his hands to steer, he zoomed quickly out after Sarah. “Oh my God, this is soooo incredible!” he yelled, as he caught up to her.
He closed in, to just within a few feet of Sarah's capsule. Just a foot or two above the ground, he was cruising from side to side around any obstacles left on the streets.
“How fast do you think we’re going?” Sarah yelled. Just then, right in front of her eyes, a digital numerical readout appeared floating in front of her as if it were a part of her vision, 135 then 136, 140. The numbers rose faster and faster the more she concentrated on her speed.
The two of them took turns playing follow the leader, turning around 90 degree corners at mind bending speeds, rising up next to the buildings several floors above the streets and then screaming back down and gliding inches off the ground. Both of them laughing and screaming the whole way. As if on the best amusement park ride they had ever been on. “Okay” said John, “Let’s head toward the pyramid.” both capsules turned straight up towards the sky and then spun around and zoomed back the other direction heading back towards the learning center and Ayden’s home.
“I so can’t wait to see what we’re going to find next.” she said. “Do you think all of their technology is still here and working?”
“I don’t know,” said John, “but it would take a lifetime to see it all.”
“Not at these speeds!” she said as she passed him and began to pull away.
“John, up ahead is my home.” said Ayden. “Please begin to slow and turn to your left at the next cross street and then stop next to the blue-green building.” John and Sarah stopped their capsules next to the building. “What no valet?” John asked with a smile.
As the two emerged from the capsules, Sarah looked up at the emerald colored glass building in wonder and amazement. “Every new thing that we see just fills me with more astonishment then the last thing.” she said with surprise and bewilderment in her voice, “this is just absolutely unbelievable.”
“No doubt...” said John. “No doubt.”
“Please follow me.” said Ayden, as he walked up the huge glass steps toward the doorway of the building. John and Sarah followed closely with all kinds of thoughts and questions racing through their minds. “What could be on the other side of the doorway? What will we find next?”
Sarah stopped John just before he entered into the building after Ayden. They couldn’t see what was on the other side. The doorway was covered in a kind of force field that seemed to reflect light like a mirror. It also seemed to be, almost liquid, just as the capsules had been.
“Johnny,” she said softly, “no matter what we find through this door, I want you to know it’s all been worth it to me. There is no place I would rather be right now and no one I would rather be here with.” She leaned in and kissed him softly, “I would follow you anywhere” she said with a smile, as she motioned for him to continue through the doorway first.
John took a deep breath and walked through the doorway. They entered into an enormous lobby-like room. There were chairs, desks, counters and sculptures that seemed to be made from the same emerald glass that the building was made from, as if they were all a part of it. It was like everything in the building was carved right out of one giant green gem stone.
“Magnificent…” John whispered under his breath. As they walked along, each step they took would illuminate more of the emerald floor and surroundings, until the entire room seemed to be lit.
“Welcome to my home.” said Ayden.
“Wow,” said Sarah, “you live in an apartment here? Like a condo?”
“Oh no.” answered Ayden. “This is my home!”
“The lobby is your home?” John asked with confusion.
“No John,” answered Aden, “the entire structure is where Ayden and his family worked and lived.”
“The whole building?” asked Sarah in disbelief. “Ayden must’ve been a big shot.” she said with a smile.
“Your homes are not like this?” asked Ayden. “I saw from your internet, large buildings in cities that resembled this.”
“Sure,” said Sarah, “but many people from many families live in our buildings.”
“Yeah our houses are defiantly not like this one.” said John with a chuckle and a hint of amazement in his voice.
“You two should rest now,” said Ayden, “tomorrow, we will begin our search for the hidden pages. I will show you where you can sleep. Please come with me.”
John and Sarah followed Ayden through a small doorway and down a long hall. He opened a door on the left and then one across the hallway to the right. “Here,” he said, “you can sleep in these rooms.”
“If it’s all the same to you,” said Sarah, “I think we’ll stick together, there’s plenty of room for the both of us in here.”
She grabbed Johns hand and pulled him into the room. There was a large bed in the center of the room and as they both sat down on it, John laid his head down onto the large fluffy pillow at the top of the bed and closed his eyes. “Ahhhhh” he sighed.
Sarah snuggled up close to John with her arm around him and her head on his chest, and they both quickly faded off to sleep.
Before John went to bed he had forgotten to close Ayden’s personal view. So Ayden walked around looking in each room, with the memories of the real Ayden playing out in his mind. He used the CHD to project the memories in hologram form into his surroundings. Each one playing out in real life as if they were happening right then.
His eyes filled with tears as he saw his wife and daughter having dinner at their dining room table. “Anmora,” he said out loud, looking at his wife, “I miss you so much. Will we ever meet again? Or are we together now, you, and the real me? I am having a hard time telling the difference anymore, between him and I.” he said, looking at his reflection in a mirror that was across the room.
“I have done it sweetheart, what I set out to do. I have found them, the ones who will save us all. It worked as I thought it would, they have brought me home. I can feel all of me, entering into this new being I have become. This new body, or non-body, is beginning to feel so real to me.”
He walked around, looking at all of his belongings, which were left exactly where they were, when they were forced to leave their home.
“However,” he continued, “I have no sense of touch, and seeing you now, oh how I long to touch your sweet face, to wrap my arms around our little girl. What a lonely feeling this is. I did not realize how this would feel to have no physical contact with anyone or anything around me.” He reached out for a family portrait on small table next to him, his hand only ran through the frame, as if he were a ghost.
I may have no sense of touch,” he said, “but, I do feel like me. I
feel as if I went to the portal with you that night, stepped through with you at my side, and then woke up back here in our home alone without you. But do not worry I have brought my new friends with me and they will keep me company until I am again with you. I love you with all my heart. Forever and always…ha… that phrase has taken on a whole new meaning for me…good night, my love.”
The projection of Ayden’s family began to fade and the lights in the dining room dimmed. Ayden walked into the main room and sat in his favorite chair. As he sat there and his eyes closed, he was automatically connected to his home’s cyntell core. He could feel his main memory drive filling with the rest of Ayden’s thoughts, feelings and memories and maybe even, his soul.
Chapter 10
~A new life~
Sarah opened her eyes and stretched out her entire body, reaching her hands as far as she could above her head as she stretched from her fingertips all the way down to her toes. The windows were full of light from the dome outside as if the sun itself had rained down its beams directly into their room, just for her.
“God, I slept good.” she said with a slight moan. She turned over and reached for John. “Johnny?” she called out, feeling around on his side of the bed where she thought he would be. She began looking about the room for him. A bit of panic went through her mind.
She quickly jumped out of bed and ran to the door. “Johnny!” she yelled again. “Where are you?” Just as she reached and touched the control for the door, it quickly opened and John was standing in the doorway smiling at her.
“Good your awake.” he said. “I’ve got breakfast.”
“Breakfast?” she asked with a sigh of relief. “Where did you find food?”
“Ayden brought me to his family’s main garden.” he answered with an amazed look on his face. “It was like a jungle of fruits and vegetables. It seems that every season all of the plants have just… well… survived. Over and over with the circle of life, for all these centuries, they have flourished. It’s amazing how nature endures even when, (or especially when) people aren’t around.”
“Awesome, I’m starving.” she said, taking a big bite of what looked like a mango and papaya mixed fruit.
“We need to talk to Ayden and see if there are any clues to where the lost pages might have been hidden here.” said John.
“Oah…kay,” mumbled Sarah, “but can we finish eating first?” she added, while smiling and talking with her mouth full.
“Sure!” he said smiling back at her. He couldn’t believe how beautiful she looked even with the juices from the fruits smeared all over her mouth. He laughed to himself, as she smiled at him with her amazing smile and her pearly whites that were now tinted in a blue and purple hue.
They finished eating and went back into the main room of the home where Ayden was still seated quietly in his big easy chair. “Good morning!” he said to them.
Sarah noticed that something had changed with Ayden. She wasn’t quite sure what it was, but he felt a bit more…human. At least that’s how she described it to herself.
As she sat down next to him his mannerisms were more real and personable. He seemed older somehow more distinguished and his eyes seemed deeper and wiser. And his voice seemed to now be filled with true purpose as he spoke to them.
“We need to talk.” he said with a spooky sternness in his voice. They hadn’t heard this tone from him before. “I have much to tell you in a very short amount of time.”
“Do you know where the real Ayden hid the lost scrolls?” asked John.
Ayden looked at John and Sarah, his eyes grew in intensity and he peered into theirs. “I am the real Ayden.” he said.
“What do you mean?” Sarah asked in disbelief.
“Well, let me try to explain. The last days here in Tamarack, were a frightful time.” he started. “Our world was on the verge of collapse, the Governing Council of Compania’s had grown so large and had so much power that the rest of us never stood a chance. The ruling majority on the Council was largely made up of groups, that your people would call Big-Labor or Unions. They had come to own everything and everyone. We slowly, over time, gave up all of our rights as a free society.”
“Sarah looked deep into his eyes as he spoke. “Please, go on!” she said.
He seemed to look off into the far reaches of his memories as he continued. “Over many years they had convinced more and more people to give the majority of their wealth to the Governing Council. They conned everyone into believing that the average person was not smart enough to control their own lives and their own destinies. And that only the Council was able to distribute that wealth in a truly fair and nondiscriminatory way.
As more and more of our people accepted this, the council grew. And soon we were in what your people would call a Socialist or Communistic society. I found a quote from one of the Socialist leaders in your early 19th century that said “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” This man, Karl Marx, could have been the propagandist for the Council.
This is how they believed our society should be. They believed that in a perfectly progressive future, our world would prosper because of an abundance of wealth and goods that would be created from redistributing wealth equally and the Governing Council running everything from large industry to scientific exploration. However, just as they always do, those Socialistic policies always fail.
I even see that thousands and thousands of years later in your time, any truly Socialist Governments that had ever come into power, are no more. It is strange to me, that even though this is how it's always been, there are always people who try it again. Believing that it will somehow work if they do it just slightly different, but it never does.”
“That, they say, is the very definition of insanity.” said John. “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. But what does all of this, this have to do with what you said about being the ‘real’ Ayden?”
“I am getting to that, please be patient,” said Ayden, “this is all very important. I must explain all of it so that you understand what needs to be done next.” he said, continuing his story…
“As I was saying, our people had slowly become complacent. They had become mere drones and slaves. They were working harder and harder for less and less return. Until one day when they realized that the government would take care of them, weather they worked hard or not. That the people who refused to go to work were paid the same as the ones who worked many long hard hours away from their families.
And so our productivity fell at most of the Compania’s. The Governing Council had no way to fulfill their responsibilities to the people and the people began to starve. And then, the Governing Council began to collapse.
There was rioting in the streets, violence, looting, death and destruction all around us. Our once great society was quickly turning into rubble. Yet, the worst was still to come. The Delvin Compania, Who was the figurative head of the table of the Governing Council, had been hiding the real truth from the rest of us. They knew that our planet was going through real changes. They had the complete version of the Beclay that had told them of the true end. The end that had come many times before throughout the history of our world.”
“The information from the lost pages.” said John.
“Yes, my friend,” said Ayden. “Several years before all of this turmoil, they had begun telling our people, that the major storms and earthquakes that had been growing in frequency and intensity were an effect caused by years of our people hurting the environment. Your people I believe are calling this effect global warming or climate change.”
“Right,” said Sarah, “there is a lot of debate about it.”
“The fact is,” said Ayden, “now as then, the climate is changing. However, it has nothing to do with us, who call this world home. It is a natural change an evolution of the planet that happens over and over in a great cycle.”
“Tell that to Al Gore!” said Sarah with a chuckle
.
“When Agodah,” Ayden continued, “who I believe you call your God, made our world, he gave it a natural recycling process… a grand cycle of cleaning and renewal. The Council had tried to obtain as much power over the people as it could, before the cycle’s end approached our time. That way, they would have a better chance at survival and maintaining power in the next go round of the planet. They wanted to continue to control the new society that would survive and re-populate the world. So they made enormous bunkers under the city. Even farther down beneath the surface, then we are now.”
“So, how many people could have survived in these bunkers?” asked John. “And how did they choose who to save?”
“Selectively and most carefully,” continued Ayden, “they led the people who could afford it, or who they deemed to be useful, down to live and survive the terror that would soon engulf our world. These sanctuaries were kept completely secret under penalty of death to anyone who spoke of them. Everyone else was left to fend for themselves.”
“How do you know all of this, if no one was allowed to speak of it?” asked Sarah.
“I was part of the scientific team who was first tasked to plan the survival of the new world populous.” he answered. “But I was also one of a small group who believed their plan was a virtual impossibility, and who did not want to see the Council remain in power, if it did succeed. And so, we broke off and started our own project hoping to save the rest of our people. The Ayden you see before you is just one of the products from our backup plans. The other parts will become clear to you very shortly.”
“What was the new project?” asked John. “Did it work?
Ayden looked over at John as he tried to explain further, “I knew that if everything we did to prepare would fail, we would need a way to preserve our history and allow our people to live on, even if it was only in the memories of a new race of beings. And so we created a large cyntell core database device, larger, faster and more sophisticated than anyone of us had ever attempted before. And I volunteered to be put to sleep and have my complete consciousness downloaded into it. We then designed the CHD that you now carry. So that one day it would be found and brought here and as soon as the two halves were brought together I, once again, would be whole.”