by J. K. Haugen
“Where did you get all of the data from?” asked John.
Ayden turned toward him, “I used many different sources, from her daily entry files from her CHD diary, to videos and audio recordings from our life together. I also used files from her childhood, what I could find anyway, but in the end it still was not her. I had created Cynda who you met earlier. I could not bear to call her Anmora, because, she simply was not her.” he said as sadness again filled his voice.
“I did finally make an amazing discovery, my most incredible achievement. I created a device that could actually download someone's personality. Their very essence and existence could be stored into one massive cyntell core. However, she had been gone for far too long. She was with Agodah and no matter how I tried I could not bring her back.”
“I’m very sorry.” said Sarah. “That must have been so hard for you.”
“I knew that I was not going to be able to survive down here alone.” He continued, “Not while the world took millennia to reshape itself to allow life to begin anew. That is when I decided that I would download myself... as Sarah put it…my soul, and hope to one day live again. Then I would be able to give Joshua a chance at a life outside these walls. So that he could save the next generation of humans from the same fate that I could not save my people from.”
“Were you aware of all the time as it passed?” asked John.
“No,” answered Ayden, “I divided the program into two separate parts The CHD and the Cyntell main core. That way I would not be conscious and not suffer the torment of being trapped for millennia alone with only my thoughts to keep me company. A punishment I now fear, that Masco may have suffered.”
“I wouldn’t wish that torture on anyone.” said John.
“We are here.” said Ayden as they approached a doorway at the far end of the lab. As they walked through the room, some very dim lights came on. Revealing, what looked like to them, a small pond in the form of a perfect circle on the ground. The water was a bright neon or florescent blue. John thought it looked like the bioluminescent algae he had seen in a National Geographic Daily News article he had read.
It was a magnificent sight. As they approached the pond the blue light of the water began to glow brighter and brighter. It seemed to react and follow them as they walked around the pond.
“This was my final backup plan that was turned down by the Council.” Said Ayden, “This is your future, your only escape from the city. You must complete your journey, if you are to save the world.” Ayden’s voice again became stern and serious.
“What is it?” asked John. “Another well and tube system?”
“I’m afraid not.” answered Ayden. “This truly is the future. It is a Singularity, or what you might call a Wormhole. Only it is actually much more than either of those two descriptions. It will take you and separate every atom in your bodies at the molecular level. Then your molecules will be taken through the center of the Singularity.”
“How is that even possible?” asked Sarah.
Ayden smiled at her, “Do not worry,” he said, “it is safe. It would be like a data signal moving across and over an internet connection, only at speeds never seen by any one at any time. Trillions of times faster than light, you will move through time itself. At the end of their journey, your atoms will be drawn back together and you will once again be whole...this will be faster than the blink of an eye. You won’t even know that you have left. You will be here one moment… and then instantly, be there.”
“How far into the future?” asked Sarah.
“I am afraid I do not know,” answered Ayden, “that is why the Council would not consider this as a rescue plan for our people. Also, they feared the few other limitations of the device.”
“What limitations?” John asked with skepticism.
“I can set the controls to take you into the future about 2000 years or so, from right now. However, I cannot get closer, then within a couple hundred years from that point, one way or the other,” he said, “and I do not know for sure where you will reappear, other than to say you should reappear on land, at or around sea level.”
“Should appear on land??” John asked sharply.
“I am also afraid,” Ayden continued, “that for two people to go through the Singularity, they must be different in sex, from one another. That is to say, that one man and one woman can go through, but not both of you and Joshua. The program works too slowly, to separate the two males from each other, prior to you reaching your designation. Also, unfortunately, there is only enough Waterlight power for one trip.”
“So, only two of us will be able to go?” asked Sarah, with a defeated tone in her voice.
“I will stay behind,” said John, “I love you Sarah, but you and Joshua need to be safe. I will die happy knowing that you are alive. We will see each other again, I know we will.”
“That may not be necessary John,” said Ayden, “I do have an idea about how all of you can go together. However, it may be uncomfortable for Sarah. Not to mention, my power cell was damaged and I do not have a lot of time before the power in the CHD is completely drained. My program will then complete and I will finally go home to be with Anmora.”
“Yes, of course we will do it!” said Sarah. “Whatever it takes. I don’t mind some pain and discomfort, as long as we can all be together.
“What do we need to do?” asked John.
“We, will need to impregnate Sarah.” said Ayden, with the same, unchanging poker face expression that John had noticed earlier.
“WHAT!!!” exclaimed Sarah. “What do you mean…We?”
Ayden was standing by a small silver table in the room that was next to the wall. He was looking over, what seemed to be, workbench-type tools of some kind and he continued to speak, “After many centuries of being in power,” he said, “the Council had started doing research on how to improve our population by engineering our children.”
“What do you mean by engineering?” asked John.
Ayden looked at Joshua as he explained, “During my lifetime, we as a society had not conceived our children naturally for hundreds of years and many generations. Our technology for insemination had become a perfect science. I believe we can use our technology to allow you to carry Joshua through the portal to your new life.”
Chapter 13
~Immaculate Inception~
“Then let’s get started!” said Sarah.
“Please bring Joshua over here.” said Ayden. He began to walk into a closet sized room adjacent to the room with the pond. In that room was another pod, quite a bit smaller than the one they woke Joshua from. It was more like the size of a small car seat, Sarah thought to herself.
Around the pod there was a series of cables and a small tube that connected it to the back end of another strange looking device. It had a curved handle with a long silver pipe attached, that looked like the barrel of a gun. It also had a trigger attached to it underneath the handle and a tri-pod that held the gun-like device in place.
“Please place Joshua into the seat and press the green pressure switch on the side of the unit.” Ayden insisted, with a hurried tone in his vice that made Sarah feel even more uneasy.
She placed the baby into the pod and kissed him on the forehead, “Shhhh,” she said softly, “everything is going to be fine.” The baby had not fussed, but she knew, she just needed to hear the words, even if they were just to comfort her.
“This device works on some of the same principles as the Waterlight machine.” said Ayden. “Joshua will feel no pain nor will you, I give you my word.”
“He is a full grown baby boy!! Tell me how you could possibly believe that I won't feel any pain when you shove him into my belly!! These things are usually, only a one way process!” she said, with a shaky voice.
“He will not be a full-term sized baby when you are inseminated.” he continued. “This machine like the other, will dematerialize him down to the molecular level. It has been pre-programmed with the memory
of his DNA and pattern sequences from when he was first conceived. When he is re-materialized inside of you, he will be no larger than a tiny bean. He will grow inside of you as if he were your own child. As he grows his cells will retain all of the genetic memories that will allow him to become the great man that he is meant to be.”
“Will it be like a natural pregnancy and birth?” she asked.
“You will carry him to full term, which for my people is about two of your months.” he answered, “His birth should be as natural to you, as if you were having your own child. In fact, there will be no difference. He will be your child.”
Ayden's voice had begun to get quicker and more hurried yet it seemed to be getting softer and weaker too, “Are you ready?” asked Ayden, “Please press the green pressure switch and stand in front of the light beam. I have set the beam to the correct height. To activate the transfer, you will only need to step into the path of the light.”
Sarah pushed the button and quickly stepped into the light. She watched as a green aura began to form around Joshua. It got brighter and brighter until it surrounded him so completely, that he disappeared into it. Sarah didn't know if he was gone or if she just could no longer see him because of the brightness.
The light suddenly went out and the seat lay empty where she had placed the baby. Then, with an incredibly intense heat, she saw a small bright ball of light begin to form in the Beam. It continued to intensify and traveled from the tip of the laser gun through the beam of light and into her body.
Suddenly everything became quiet as the machine stopped humming and quickly shut down. “Is that it?” she asked, “Is it over, did it work?”
“Yes,” said Ayden, “You and Joshua are now one.”
“I don’t feel any different.” she said. “How do I know that it worked?”
“Look at your reflection over there.” answered Ayden.
Sarah walked over to the large window that connected the two rooms. She couldn’t believe her eyes. In the reflection she saw that same bright green aura she had seen around Joshua before the procedure.
“Only you can see it.” said Ayden, with a smile on his face. “It is what we call, the Maternal Glow. Every mother can see the glow of her baby once the device has connected the two of them. It can only be seen through the reflection of yourself in a mirror. It is a nice reminder to the mother, that even though it is small, there is a life, an actual whole other being that grows within her. So that she knows that her own life must no longer be her priority to protect, but that she must protect her baby's life as well.”
They walked out of the room together and noticed that John was not out by the pond where they had left him. Suddenly they heard loud noises coming from the main lab area.
“Hurry!! RUN!!!” yelled John. “They are almost through the door!”
They ran back towards the room where the Waterlight machine was beginning to turn on with full power. They could hear the hum from the electricity and the blue lights in the water were beginning to become as bright as sunlight.
A loud explosion came from the hallway and Masco appeared. As he fell through, landing on his feet, he fired two shots at Ayden. He looked surprised as the plasma rounds went right through Ayden's body without killing him.
“I will slow him down, get to the Waterlight pond!” shouted Ayden at John and Sarah. They ran into the pond room.
Sarah took John's hand and squeezed it tight, “Just one last leap of faith with me!” she said. “You ready?”
“No worries!” said John, with a grin.
Masco, realizing that he had been deceived by Ayden’s projection, simply ignored Ayden and ran right through him after John and Sarah. He began firing wildly at the two of them as they jumped into the Waterlight pond. Just as the two entered the light, a plasma round from Masco’s gun hit the control panel. Sparks and small explosions emitted from the machine and John and Sarah's hands were torn from one another as they disappeared into the light...
Sarah looked around, not seeing John anywhere. She was dizzy and her head seemed a bit cloudy. She was completely disoriented, not knowing where or even when she was. Not knowing if she was alive and had made it to her destination, or if she actually was in her final destination, because she had not made it through the machine at all.
The air was hot and dry like a desert. The sun beat down upon her as her head began to clear. She rose to her feet, stumbling as she took her first steps. She noticed that a few feet away, someone was lying in the dirt, not moving. “John!” she yelled over at the motionless body. As she approached him, she noticed that it wasn’t John. It was a young woman about 15 or 16. The woman was lying there unconscious.
Sarah knelt down next to her and the woman began to groan and move as she awoke. As Sarah looked over the woman, she recognized her clothing from her work and travels.
Sarah knew right away what had happened. She now knew for certain when and where she had escaped to.
“This is the Middle East, about the times of Roman rule.” she said to herself. “How could this be? We were supposed to go two thousand years into the future not the past, and where is John?”
She felt week and her shoulder began to hurt tremendously. She lifted her sleeve and realized that one of Masco's shots must have grazed her before they entered the Waterlight.
The woman on the ground turned and looked up at Sarah, “Away!” she yelled up at her, “Away!” She was obviously scared.
Sarah could not believe her ears, it was Hebrew! She was not fluent in Hebrew. However, she recognized it immediately when the woman spoke to her, and for some reason she understood what the woman was saying.
“Easy now,” said Sarah back to her, “I am here in peace. I am a friend and I will not hurt you.”
“Your words are so different, yet you speak to me and in my mind, I understand, why?” the woman asked.
“I don’t know,” Sarah said to her, “maybe it is Gods will.”
The woman noticed Sarah starting to collapse again. She had become so weak. She reached out and took Sara's arm to help her walk. “We will find you water” she said.
They both hobbled away together. As they struggled toward what looked like a mirage of small pond to Sarah, she could feel herself growing weaker and weaker. It was becoming harder to walk or to even stay awake. The woman fought to get her to the watering hole. She scooped the water with her hand and tried to give Sarah a drink.
“Where did you come from?” she asked Sarah. Sarah was too weak to respond. The woman tried again to give her some water as she continued to speak, “I was out walking and from the Heavens came the brightest and warmest blue light that I had ever seen. It came down upon me like God's own hand and struck me down. Before I fell into sleep, I saw you appear right where I had just been. Are you an Angel of God?” she asked.
Before Sarah could answer “No,” she looked down into the water, and saw the familiar green glow of Joshua's Maternal light. Only it was no longer coming from Sarah. It was now coming from the reflection of the young woman.
With what she thought were her last few breaths, Sarah told the girl, “You are now with child. Your baby's name is Joshua and you must protect him. For he is the one sent from God, who will save us all...” Sarah took one more look at the glow in the reflection of the pond and closed her eyes and drifted out of consciousness.
“Ye-shu-ah?” the girl said to herself, saying the babies name as she understood it from Sarah. She laid her hand against her stomach, and let Sarah's head rest upon the grass next to water hole.
Sarah’s whole body began to be consumed by a bright blue light and right before the young woman’s eye’s, she disappeared. The girl then believed in her heart, as she saw the green glow surrounding her reflection, that God must have called his Angel home after delivering his message. She began to shake her head, not knowing what she was going to tell her soon to be husband.
Chapter 14
~A new beginning...again~
John sat alone at his desk. It had been years since he and Sarah had last seen each other. He worried that he may never live to be reunited with his one true love. He had begun to make a home in this strange new world that he found himself in.
The people of Egypt had been so welcoming to John. Even the Pharaoh and the Royal family had accepted him as a close friend and adviser. Not knowing Sarah's or Joshua's fate he found comfort in his writings. He knew somehow, that he needed to write down all he had seen and all he could remember of his former life and the history of his people. So, by the light of a candle that he had made,
He wrote...
...If you are reading this, then myself and my kind are long gone. And this book is most likely battered and torn and eroded from the dirt. I pray to God (the creator of everything) that the words and meanings do not change because of translation and speculation or because this parchment is no longer whole or has been smudged in the sands of time...
Genesis Chapter one
In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth.......
Before John could finish writing the first chapter, he looked down and saw that his hands had begun to glow a bright blue. As he looked up he found himself standing next to the ocean. He heard the familiar sound of seagulls and a cool ocean breeze swept across his face. He looked out at the water and saw a beautiful redhead playing in the waves, “Sarah!” he cried out….
The End…Or is it?
~About the Author~
Jason Kyle “J. K.” Haugen