The Kota

by Sunshine Somerville

  “It wouldn’t be like that!”

  “You know that for sure? I don’t.”

  Lee looked at me sadly for a minute in silence, then he gave up. He rose from his seat and put his hand on my shoulder. “Okay, Troy. I’ll have someone take you back to the jet. But I have to do this. They have everything ready, so I have to go.”

  I glanced out the door and grabbed his arm. “Please, listen to me. Don’t do this. It’s insane.”

  But I can’t stop him, I thought. Even if I managed to drag him from this place, he’d come right back. I should’ve stopped Lee from ever getting involved with these people. Now…

  With a sad smile, Lee turned to walk out the door.

  “Lee!”

  I followed at first but stopped just outside on the balcony. A pair of men in contamination suits met Lee, and they glanced my way before Lee motioned them to follow him farther into the building. I held onto the railing and watched Lee descend a staircase. Once on the lower level, he walked to a few huddled scientists. They tried not to look up at me, but clearly they were disappointed.

  “He’s sick anyway,” Lee told them. “Now might not be his time.”

  One doctor looked up at me when he heard this, and I swallowed hard.

  If I was healthy, I thought, would they force me to do this?

  I was about to call out to Lee, but then he looked up at me, smiled, and turned with the scientists to walk out of sight.

  I was furious, and I couldn’t watch anymore. I had nowhere to go until someone took me to the jet, so I turned my back on the lower level and reentered the medical room to sit on my gurney.

  A string of curses went through my mind, but there was nothing I could do.

  Who could I even tell about this? I thought. I don’t know who to trust anymore. If I reported this place, that’d mean exposing all the refugees. And it might get Lee killed. Shit. When did the world go crazy?

  I distracted myself by looking where Lee had sat. My eyes came to rest on the book my brother left sitting there, and I reached for it absentmindedly. I think I did it because it was the last personal thing I’d seen him touch, but I can’t be certain. Maybe it was something else. In any case, I took the book and tucked it into my coat pocket as a doctor came into the room.

  “Lee is prepping for the procedure now,” the man told me. “We’ve checked his tests, and everything should go smoothly. Don’t worry. Your brother wished for you to be driven to the plane if you’re sure you don’t want to do this.”

  I stood from my seat. “Oh, I’m sure.”

  The doctor looked disappointed, but he led me out of the room and motioned back the way I’d arrived. “Someone outside will drive you to the jet.”

  Outside, I found a pair of soldiers who knew who I was. They were kind enough to drive me back to the airfield. I was kind enough not to go off on them.

  I did not return to that place for a very, very long time.

  5

  “Good riddance”

  Oh, what a difference time makes in people. For the next couple of months, I continued to do my work on the DRK virus at the Capitol House. It would be the very least to say my heart was no longer in it, but I knew my life might be in danger if I quit. A few more colleagues had disappeared or been murdered after questioning new healthcare policies, and I was certain now that I was under surveillance. So, I played dumb and did my job. I stayed as low profile as I could, even declining a higher position at the Capitol. If I’d accepted the position, I wasn’t sure where that might’ve led in the future.

  Also, it would’ve taken away from my time studying my brother’s book.

  Since that night in the lab-cave, as I’d taken to calling it, I’d spent every spare moment reading the tattered book I’d taken from the lab-cave. And when the Kota remnant in Tibet released a new book of prophecies, I obtained one of these as well. But, reading that book meant first learning the ancient, Asian language of these new Kota prophecies. Once I learned the language adequately, I investigated the prophecies with the hope I could get Lee out of the mess he’d gotten himself into. After finding nothing useful, I turned to the older Kota texts.

  This, truthfully, turned out to be my most important investment. As I read these texts, I came to understand the truth of the Kota faith and history. My brother would’ve been pleased to know I’d at last accepted his beliefs, and I wished more than anything we could’ve parted under better terms. Learning about the Kota became an obsession to me, and I poured over the texts night and day. I now accepted that the Kota wasn’t a cult but merely a denomination against denominations. They were a community trying to revive the truths of an ancient faith which had become tainted over the years. The Kota faith, as it turned out, was less about religion and more about living rightly with one another. The Kota – loosely translated from a Native American term – were allies.

  I don’t know when the transition occurred, but one day I found myself defending the Kota to a stranger on the street. We stood on the curb waiting for the light to change, and a nearby newsstand’s screen changed to an article about the Kota who’d flown into China’s anomaly.

  The man next to me pointed to the screen. “I read that article. It said they made the light anomaly disappear so we couldn’t follow them through the wormhole.”

  I rolled my eyes. The Kota’s disappearance had stirred up intense debate over where these ‘wormholes’ might lead. It didn’t help that the media somehow got its hands on the Signal Prophecy, which of course explained why the Kota had done what they’d done.

  “The Kota,” said the man, “learned of a better planet and wanted it for themselves.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I blurted. “How could they know what’s through the anomaly?” To my great surprise, I told this complete stranger, “I have Kota ancestry. Can’t say I’m really one of them, but I don’t blame the Kota for escaping their lives of persecution. If it means they’ll be spared from the virus – as the old Virus Prophecy and Signal Prophecy suggest – then good for them.”

  The man gawked at me like he might catch something and hurried across the street.

  Since the leak of the Signal Prophecy, two other groups had ventured through the remaining light anomalies. A classified, government-funded team entered America’s swirling anomaly in an enormous WSP spacecraft. The group that went through Eurasia’s anomaly was a collection of refugees who won their tickets via a lottery system. Neither of these anomalies disappeared afterward, but that didn’t mean the Kota had purposefully done anything to China’s anomaly. None of these brave souls were ever heard from again, and afterwards the World Space Program forbade anyone else from entering the anomalies. Still, no one judged these other groups who’d flown into the unknown; only the Kota were vilified.

  But not by me. Not anymore. I was surprised by my new passion for the Kota, as was the stranger I argued with.

  One gloomy afternoon, everything clicked. I lay on my sofa with Toto by my side, and suddenly it hit me. I’d been struggling with a few of the old and new prophecies, and I was irritated because I knew they connected somehow. My book of old prophecies lay beside the sofa, and I looked down to read it as if for the first time.

  ’The Bearers

  The remnant, remaining to reveal the light, must strive on.

  Hope will come, as vowed by heaven.

  Through preservation, time shall hold the chosen brothers.

  The one will seed;

  the other will foster.

  And so, both shall bear.’

  Something clicked then. Why did the prophecies always emphasize time?

  I grabbed up a notepad with my notes on the Kota prophecies. I checked my ragged cross-reference and found every other writing that focused on the word ‘time.’ Enough passages existed that I’d be able to check my theory. I looked first at the two old prophecies that Lee had read to me, and then I read a new prophecy from my new book.

  ’The Signal

  When all arrives,
/>
  time shall be opened.

  Heaven’s churning lights will be key –

  a sign unto the Kota.

  Through the doorway they shall pass,

  but some knowing truth will remain behind.

  Hope will come for Earth’s side of the gateway.’

  ’The Mark

  By the Bearers brought into time,

  fulfillment shall come in a Mark,

  and hope in four children born.

  Evil will flee Earth before the four Marked.’

  ‘The Interceder

  Torn, the chosen brothers will take divided paths –

  one, a cold path of solitude;

  the other, time’s lonely eternity.

  The doubtful Bearer will repair.

  He alone will do the work, and he will do the work alone.’

  “’Cold path of solitude,’” I read aloud. I looked across my apartment and thought of my brother. “Freezing cold, I’d say.”

  That was the one thing I knew I’d interpreted correctly. As for the rest of the Interceder Prophecy, I felt certain it had to do with me.

  I’ve tried contacting the remnant, I thought. They understandably don’t wish to speak with me. But I’m pretty sure they’re keeping tabs on me. That man following me yesterday wasn’t a government spook, and I think I saw him in the lab-cave. That means Kota. But they won’t make contact. They don’t trust me. Without their guidance, how am I going to interpret the Interceder Prophecy?

  I tapped my pen against the notepad.

  Despite my frustration, I’d grown more and more certain that something was meant for me. It had seemed a ridiculous fantasy at first – especially considering the very real dangers surrounding me – but there was something about all this that I couldn’t shake.

  I again looked over my notes. ‘Time’ felt important.

  How will I figure this out alone? I thought.

  I lay on my sofa for a good portion of the night until finally falling asleep.

  I stand in a thousand different places at once, yet they’re all the same place. Whenever the scene changes, it’s only the time of the place that changes. I suddenly stand in my living room, and a swirl of red and yellow light is before me. I make a motion with my hand that triggers the anomaly. I’m then floating in a place where only the light exists. It seems eternal. Swirling hues of red mix around me and pulse in and out, acting as the heartbeat of this realm. Different openings appear before me. As I float over the lights, I see that these openings look into many exotic lands and places.

  In the sort of conscious awareness that can occur in dreams, I realized I’d dreamt this before.

  I woke to Toto barking. Sitting up, I yelped when I saw a red and yellow swirl where my kitchen had been. The swirl hypnotically pulsed and shone its light into my apartment. It didn’t move. It didn’t explode. I couldn’t decide if the lights were threatening or comforting. Nothing happened.

  I remained glued to my sofa for probably ten minutes, staring into the flaming lights. Eventually, I decided to see what the hand gesture I’d made in my dream would do. I moved my arm and fingers just so, and suddenly the swirl vanished. In a panic, I made the gesture again, and the lights reappeared.

  I let out a long-held lungful of air. “Are you seeing this, Toto?”

  He barked.

  Cautious, I rose from the sofa and approached the swirl to examine it from every angle. Even though it looked flat head-on, it appeared the same from every side.

  It’s like a gap in existence, I thought.

  After working up my nerve, I reached a hand into the lights. I could feel the warmth on my sweating skin, but it didn’t burn in the least. I stretched my entire arm into the lights and discovered that the swirl had depth beyond my reach. I drew my arm out and saw it was perfectly fine.

  These churning lights are openings in time, I thought, according to the prophecies. Then there’s my dream…

  With a deep breath, I decided to go for it. My eyes closed, I walked into the swirl.

  I opened my eyes and found nowhere to go. The lights around me swirled and pulsed, but that’s all there was in this place – unending fiery light. When I turned around, I saw my apartment’s living room where I’d just been standing. Toto sat on my sofa, whining at me.

  I was in a stupefied calm. “Okay, Toto, let’s think about this for a minute. The Signal Prophecy says time would open when these churning lights came. We Bearer brothers are supposed to be preserved through time. Lee was frozen. I’m… I think I’m meant to be the Interceder and live in time.”

  I looked at the lights around me. This was an opening in time, if the prophecies were correct. No wonder nothing had been discovered scientifically about the light anomalies – we didn’t have a clue what we were studying. Sure, scientists suspected the anomalies showed another dimension, but this was no wormhole. I wasn’t in another world. These lights were a real place all their own but tangible as a part of our world. It was a dimension, but a realm we’d never imagined existed.

  I’m in this place, I thought. And somehow, I can be in just this place…

  After considering my options, I stepped out of the lights to grab my Kota texts. Thinking it wise, I put on my shoes and coat. I tucked the books into my coat pockets. I didn’t know what else to bring, so I took nothing. Then I stepped back into the lights.

  I looked for the last time at my wolfhound (with mortal eyes, anyway). I paused to consider the consequences of this decision.

  Lee was always the adventurous one, I thought. Not me. What are you doing, Troy? You could be killed! But…I’m the Interceder. And damn it, but I really want this. So much for good old, sensible Troy.

  I smiled. “Good riddance.”

  With my hand, I made the necessary motion. The swirl closed around me.

  Part II

  The Bearers Prophecy and the Interceder Prophecy

  __________

  6

  “Five hundred years”

  Outside time

  Over the course of the next five hundred years, mankind learned more about the light anomalies. We now understood that the swirls were gaps exposing another dimension in what we’d known of existence. This didn’t mean another reality or world, but simply a part of our physical existence we hadn’t been aware of, except in theory.

  The light anomalies revealed a dimension not width, length, height, or even time. The realm of the swirls was instead an encompassing filler between these and other dimensions. It was an outside. And this space dimension existed between everything on so fine a scale it was impossible to detect. We’d always known of a space between everything in existence, but now man saw that that space wasn’t as blank as we’d thought. This outside realm held the flowing, pulsing, fiery lights, which pulsed like a heartbeat and touched everything in existence.

  The two remaining light anomalies – referred to by now as the DuoPorts – were the most evident openings of the space dimension. Somehow they’d shifted the dimensional clockworks, and the space between matter stretched to cause a rift in usual physics. They’d opened our eyes to the fact that we didn’t know everything about how our reality operated after all.

  The space dimension had always existed, and many scientific and paranormal phenomena now made more sense.

  In our human way, this knowledge was absorbed, compiled away, and taken completely for granted within a century. But, I knew more. When someone or something entered one of the DuoPorts, they were pulled along a permanent course that existed within the space dimension. Those conspiracy theorists had been right; the DuoPorts were like wormholes. They skipped the normal lengths of space. It was as if those entering the portals were on a shoestring and the portals were the shoe holes. And it should be noted that the holes led to very distant…shoes. The rest of humanity on Earth wasn’t able to see this, but I’d learned that the portals weren’t restricted to our little planet of self-importance. The space dimension encompassed all of existence, don’t forget
. When the DuoPorts opened, their other ends had also opened in different places – places so distant from Earth that the only way to get there was by taking the path the portals allowed.

  In any case, my situation was a little different. I hadn’t been pulled through one of the wormhole-like DuoPorts. The swirl in my living room hadn’t been a great rift in the dimensional clockworks. Instead, my portal had been a temporary opening that led me into the space between.

  I existed in this outside realm. I wasn’t led to another part of space but only into the space between. And, I was held there. The DuoPorts led into this outside realm, but, as I said before, those portals didn’t allow for pause. Only my temporary portals, which I opened by using the certain hand motion, were free from the strong pull of how the system normally worked.

  Living in this outside around all things, I floated along the light realm until I reached a point in space I wanted to enter. Then, I made my hand motion and created a temporary rift that allowed me to selectively enter time, space, and the normal dimensions of reality. I was also able to watch what occurred inside reality without having to enter it. I did this by opening weak portals that showed me reality without those in existence seeing the rift.

  My situation was also different because of what the Signal Prophecy meant by ‘time shall be opened.’ While those inside reality could only play with the dimensions involved in space travel, my position allowed me to play with time. For example, although I’d entered the portals five centuries ago, I was still physically forty-three years old. This was a strange benefit. I floated in the outside realm without aging, and my adventure with time was stranger still.

  I’d found I could inject myself into different parts of history. I wasn’t yet sure how this worked, but I used preexisting holes in the space dimension that somehow led me back into past time. And, I was able to alter some events in history to change the outcome. I’d learned that this was my work as the Interceder of the newer prophecies. I was supposed to travel through history and make repairs – I was to do my work in time.