The Zul Enigma

by J M Leitch

  ‘Look, I’ve got my babysitter till six – why don’t I keep you company for a while? We can brew Carlos a fresh pot of coffee and this time you can make sure he drinks it.’

  Corrinne carried the tray out of the kitchenette that separated their offices. She tapped on Carlos’s door and entered without waiting for a reply.

  ‘I made you fresh coffee,’ she said walking over to the sofa, ‘and here’s your favourite mug.’ She poured the coffee and added a dash of milk. ‘And there are a couple of cakes.’

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ he said.

  She handed him the mug, standing over him until he took a sip. ‘That’s right. Even if you won’t eat at least drink that all up. It’ll help keep you going.’

  He looked up at her, and like a child obeying his mother, drank some more.

  She looked across the room at the boxes. ‘You haven’t made a start on those. Shall I go through them with you now?’

  He shook his head. She scooped up the magazines from beside him on the couch, put them in his briefcase and closed it. ‘You don’t want to forget those. They’ll give you something to read on the plane.’ Her concern deepened. He was even more withdrawn than earlier, if that was possible.

  As she loaded the tray with the used cups and saucers and pot of cold coffee from earlier, her iTab buzzed. It was an incoming instant message.

  She went to the terminal on the desk, logged in with her tag, walked to the holographic conference table and pulled out a chair. ‘Carlos, bring your mug over here. Someone wants to talk to you.’

  Like a zombie Carlos obeyed. Corrinne leaned over him and whispered in his ear. ‘You’re not supposed to communicate with anyone other than the Secretary-General and me. So this is our little secret. If anyone checks, the records will show the call came through my session, okay?’ She patted his shoulder. ‘Now, your friend Joseph wants to talk to you.’

  She accepted the holovideo call and sat down next to Carlos.

  ‘Carlos.’ Joseph’s image looked so realistic it was as if he had actually appeared in front of them. Although his Hugo Boss suit jacket was perfectly tailored, it couldn’t disguise the bulk of his muscular shoulders and chest. The contrast between the physical conditions of the two men was stark.

  ‘Hey,’ Carlos mumbled, shifting in his seat, ‘what do you want?’

  ‘I wanted to see you for myself. I hear you’ve had a rough time. That you were detained in DC.’

  Carlos sniffed. ‘I wonder who told you that.’

  ‘This isn’t about Drew. It’s about you. You need help and I want you to know I’ll do everything I can to make sure you get it.’

  ‘Quite the man, hey Joseph? But why? Why do you want to help me? You’re not stupid. You must know I never liked you.’

  ‘You were practically a god back at NASA. You have no idea how much everyone admired you. You made it all look so easy. And you know why? Because everything you did, you did with passion. It’s a rare gift, Carlos. Not many people have it. Well it seems your passion’s been missing for a while and I want to help you find it again. Carlos?’ Carlos was staring at his mug. ‘Are you listening?’

  He picked up the mug and drained it.

  ‘Carlos…’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to talk to anyone. Stop bothering me.’

  The door opened a crack. It was Erika. ‘Corrinne,’ she said. Then she called again more urgently, ‘Corrinne!’ She raised her eyebrows making her blue eyes look enormous. ‘Your phone’s ringing and there are lights flashing. I think it’s the Secretary-General.’ Corrinne bustled towards the door, leaving Carlos staring at the table in front of him.

  ‘Carlos. Listen,’ Joseph said, ‘the Americans aren’t going to take you to Madrid.’

  Carlos looked up.

  ‘We won’t let them. We’re going to get you away from them. I promise.’

  Carlos stared at the image of Joseph. Then he slid his hands off the table onto the armrests of the chair, which he clasped, making his knuckles turn white.

  CHAPTER 20

  Carlos paced up and down his office. His body felt like it didn’t belong to him. His chest was heavy with anxiety that threatened to mutate into rage and his brain was an amorphous mass seething out of control. He had to get rid of the confusion haunting his mind before he lost it completely.

  The next thing he knew he was sitting on the couch with a glass of water in his hand and no recollection of how he’d got there. He didn’t know how long it had been since Joseph’s hologram had dispersed – in fact he wasn’t even sure if there had been a hologram – for all he knew he’d imagined that as well. His memories of the past few days were brushed with more than a hint of the surreal. He was sure he was going mad.

  As Carlos fought to make sense of his jumbled thoughts, his attention was grabbed by a rustling coming from behind him on the other side of the conference table. When he looked round he gasped. Standing there was a holographic image of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was over six feet tall, slim and sensuously proportioned. Her blonde, wavy hair framed her exquisite face and fell to her waist like a stream of light.

  She smiled and Carlos caught a glimpse of even, sparkling teeth. Her skin glowed, smooth, healthy and bronzed.

  ‘Hello, Carlos.’

  And what a voice! The voice of a siren.

  ‘You like what you see.’ It was a statement. She emphasised the amusement flickering in her shining green eyes by arching one finely plucked brow and contracting the corners of her mouth in the minutest of smiles.

  It was not so much that Carlos liked what he saw. He couldn’t believe what he saw.

  The woman laughed and tossed her head, sending a wave of shadows rippling down her hair making it shimmer like a satin curtain.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Astraea. From the fourth density.’

  She held her slender arms out wide in front of her, palms uppermost and made a little bow. ‘Yes, Astraea, that’s me. I chose the name. It comes from your Greek word “aster”, which means star. Astraea was a Greek goddess on your planet.’

  This woman certainly looked like a goddess, Carlos thought. She wore a green ankle length dress that clung to the curves of her body and as she did a twirl the skirt spun out from her hips in an undulating emerald wave. ‘It was fun making a human shape that I thought you’d like,’ she said.

  Carlos shut his eyes and reopened them but the woman was still there. Was she another figment of his imagination?

  ‘Come on Carlos,’ she coaxed, ‘say something,’ and she sat down, tapping her fingers on the armrest of her chair. They were long, slender and unadorned. She wore no jewellery. She had no need. She was already beautiful enough.

  ‘Okay… Astraea…’ Carlos shrugged, ‘where are you from?’

  ‘I already said, I’m from the fourth density.’

  ‘Sí… okay… so what’s it like there?’

  ‘You already know that to evolve to fourth density an entity must be over half committed to service to others?’

  He nodded.

  ‘That means that we are very nearly half committed to service to self!’ She threw her head back, opened her mouth and laughed a laugh like a song. Her behaviour was not at all what Carlos expected from a fourth density being.

  ‘You mean you also have much to learn,’ he snapped with more than a smack of irritation.

  His words amused her even more. ‘You’re so serious, Carlos. Don’t you humans do jokes?’

  ‘I don’t.’ He tried again. ‘So tell me about fourth density.’

  ‘Entities of fourth density have no physical body – you already know that. Our goal is to try and understand the concepts of unity and love at a deeper level.’ Astraea rested her elbow in one hand and put the forefinger of the opposite hand under her chin, giving Carlos a prolonged meaningful look. ‘Now, that’s something I could help you with Carlos, if only you’d let me.’ She locked him in her gaze and he could
feel his face flushing. He was tongue-tied, like a little boy. Astraea smiled. ‘So, what else can I tell you?’

  ‘You say you don’t have a physical body, but what’s that?’ he nodded towards her.

  ‘This?’ she ran her hands over her breasts and hips. ‘This is something I must manifest, like my voice.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I alter the vibrational rate of my energy to form matter. It’s not difficult but it feels odd managing a physical body. It’s clumsy, inhibiting. But I like the female human form – it’s fun to manoeuvre.’ Astraea gave her body a mischievous little shake and beams of light bounced off her hair in a dance of molten metal.

  ‘And Zul sent you.’

  As she considered the question her expression lost its former guile, making her look innocently child-like and her beauty even more stirring. She replied in a low voice. ‘The Galactic Federation knows everything about the lower densities.’ She looked over Carlos’s shoulder into the distance. ‘But Zul isn’t President in the way you understand the word. They only used that title, because it’s a familiar one to you.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The image you see of the one you call Zul represents multitudes of consciousness making up the Galactic Federation. There are no separate constituent parts. There is no one element that is more or less important. It is blended consciousness. It’s not easy to explain and even less easy for you to understand.

  ‘It exists in fifth and sixth density. By seventh, it’s no longer needed because the collective consciousness of the billions of galaxies have begun to unify into a purified state. Now I can’t explain that in detail either because I don’t understand it myself. All I know is that during seventh density consciousness learns to re-form into the One of the eighth density, to realise the successful merging of all consciousness representing perfect unity and love, which is both the end and the beginning of the evolutionary cycle.’

  ‘You still haven’t told me what it’s like in your density.’

  Astraea grinned. ‘You already know you lose your body, right? Well, you also lose the power of speech, mind you that’s pretty obvious, you can’t talk if you haven’t got a mouth,’ she giggled and in spite of himself Carlos smiled. Part goddess, part child – not at all how he imagined a fourth density being would behave. ‘So we communicate with thoughts. That takes a bit of getting used to. Your mind being so transparent,’ and she gave Carlos a pointed look.

  ‘I can imagine,’ he muttered.

  ‘What do we strive towards?’ she tipped her head to one side. ‘Well, like you humans we’re still trying to increase our level of selflessness and are learning how to interpret the effects of our free will, what you humans call “karma”.

  ‘Getting used to a blended consciousness, that’s weird. We’re supposed to focus on losing our egos and improving our group mentality, but it’s difficult trying to lose the “I” and focus on the “we”. Although we’re not the separate entities we used to be in third density, individual differences still exist. Each entity has its own personality, its own “spirit print” if you like, which is harmonised by the group. It’s really hard to explain in your words.’

  ‘But where do you live? What planet?’

  ‘Oh, Carlos! Only first, second and third density entities manifest on planets in the physical realm. They’re the only ones locked into material existences.’

  ‘I see,’ Carlos said and Astraea smiled, making him feel awkward because he knew that she knew he didn’t really see at all. She unsettled him, made him feel stuffy and stiff. It antagonised him. Even so, he found her vitality disarming.

  She leaned forward. ‘Carlos, have you ever had that special feeling?’ Her eyes narrowed and seared right through to the back of his head.

  He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’ His guard was up. He was anxious this might be the lead in to another embarrassing joke.

  ‘It’s hard to describe. You know – that special feeling – you get it when you feel confident, strong, in control. When you know that anything you do will be the best it could possibly be.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Have you ever felt like you can do nothing wrong – physically or mentally? Even just felt it for a little while?’

  He shrugged. ‘Once, perhaps, when I was driving a car alone at night on winding roads in the Pyrenees. I drove so fast and so smooth, hey, I couldn’t have driven that car any faster if I’d tried. No one could. It felt like the car, the road and me were all one. Is that what you mean?’

  Astraea clapped her hands. ‘That’s it. That’s exactly it,’ she said. ‘Sometimes when you humans play sport, or walk, or run, when you’re absorbed in the moment and your mind’s focused, you enter a state where your level of energy vibration is raised and you feel more highly attuned.’

  ‘Is that what it’s like in the fourth density?’ he asked.

  ‘Partly.’

  ‘It’s hard to imagine.’

  ‘Of course it is! You have to make the next evolutionary shift before you can understand any more.’ She paused an instant before continuing. ‘Gradual growth followed by a quantum leap to the next level is the journey towards a united conscious understanding. And now it’s time for you to help your planet make that shift.’

  It aggravated Carlos being reminded of his impossible task. ‘That’s all good except there’s nothing I can do. Perhaps you don’t know yet but I’ll be locked in a mental hospital by this time tomorrow.’

  ‘Zul told you to believe – in Zul and in yourself.’

  ‘Believe! Find a way! Is that all you can ever say?’

  ‘Why are you angry?’

  ‘Everything you say is so vague. Why not tell me something I want to know – like how I can talk to Zul again?’

  Astraea tilted her head. She smiled and wrinkled her soft, smooth brow. ‘Oh Carlos,’ she sighed, ‘it’s not for you to tell Zul how and when to manifest.’

  He closed his eyes and blew out a sigh. He sounded like a deflating balloon. ‘So what’s this information you have for me?’ he asked in a weary voice.

  ‘It’s about the resettlement programme.’

  ‘What resettlement programme?’

  ‘Resettlement of you third density humans to your new third density home.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Zul told you you’re at third density vibration, right?’

  ‘Sí.’

  ‘Well, even if your mission’s successful, it’s unlikely you’ll make the evolutionary shift with the rest of your galaxy… in which case, what do you think will happen to you and all the other humans locked in the material third density?’

  ‘I asked Zul that very question, but he didn’t answer.’

  ‘Don’t be cross with Zul. That’s what I’m here to tell you.’

  ‘So… what will happen?’

  The image of Astraea leaned forward. ‘Pretend you live in a next-door galaxy and that you can look at this one through a special telescope. Imagine that while you’re looking at it, it suddenly disappears.’

  ‘Disappears?’

  ‘Yes, the whole galaxy just vanishes.’

  ‘What do you mean, vanishes?’

  ‘You know fourth density vibration manifests as consciousness – that it can’t manifest as matter unless, like I’m doing now, it’s consciously put out of phase?’ Carlos nodded. ‘So when the time comes and all the humans at fourth density vibration, together with your entire galaxy make their evolutionary shift, they’ll no longer exist in the physical world. It will be as if the galaxy was sucked into what you humans call a black hole.’

  And Carlos remembered how years before physicists using Einstein’s equations investigated the properties of a black hole’s core and revealed, tenuously it was true, that it may house a gateway to another universe. Although a more recent model had shut down that possibility, he began to wonder if there was something in the old theory after all.

  ‘You make it sound so
simple,’ and he shook his head. ‘But what happens to the people still in the third density?’

  ‘All third density consciousness and physical manifestations will slip into a parallel universe and reappear on a third density planet that is identical to your Earth.’

  ‘My God!’ Carlos said. It looked like those old physicists were right after all.

  ‘And someone,’ she tipped her head towards Carlos, ‘will need to be in charge of the resettlement programme. Why are you looking at me like that?’

  Carlos smacked his hand on the table. ‘In charge? Zul never said anything about that.’

  ‘That’s why I’m here,’ she replied, bathing him in her brilliant smile. But this time it angered Carlos. He jumped up and flung his arms in the air.

  ‘This is too much. What are you talking about? You’re not real, are you?’ then he slumped back down on his chair, dropping his head in his hands.

  ‘Carlos,’ she whispered, her eyes shining.

  He looked up. Her immaculate beauty stirred him. Her eyes held his, intense, imploring. ‘You have a fantastic opportunity. Use it to help your fellow humans.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Why are you so angry?’ Her bottom lip quivered. He shifted in his chair. She gave a shrug and tears shone in her eyes like stars. ‘I just want to help you, to help all you third density humans. Don’t you want to help them too?’

  ‘I… it’s all too crazy. Jesus, Astraea! What you’re saying sounds like horrible New Age…’ he hesitated, ‘… New Age bullshit.’

  She stood up, shaking her head. ‘It’s hard for you to take in. I understand.’

  ‘It’s a nightmare,’ he mumbled. ‘If only you could give me something in my hand that proved Zul and you are real.’

  ‘Like what?’ Astraea asked. ‘You know neither of us comes from a material density.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake…’ but Carlos bit back the rest of his words and shook his head instead. ‘You… Zul… what you say, it’s so…’ he scrunched up his eyes. ‘On one level it makes sense, but on the other…’ his unfinished sentence hung in the air between them and Astraea reached out to grab it and build a bridge.