by Terry James
"And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, who have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast."
Two figures within his group silently, but firmly, urged Jacob to put on one of the burgundy-colored robes. Holding the garment open for him, one of them then tied the yellow rope around his waist while the other pulled the hood over Jacob's head.
He was one of them now, feeling less conspicuous, but at the same time more uneasy. Why had they not indoctrinated him, or brain-washed him? Why had they not done to him whatever they had done to Karen and the others? Why had they not filled him with the controlling, senses-dulling serums of INterface? Still, he managed to maintain self-control without their help. Despite the fact that heavy dosages of Trachetrol II, taken over many months, had minimal effect, his body had built resistances. Outwardly at least, he was able to remain calm; thanks, no doubt, to the drug's residual influence.
Boiling slowly beneath that tranquility, however, was suspicion that his state of being, different from that of the others who surrounded him, was that way for reasons only the masters knew. Worry bubbled in his thoughts, and broke into his consciousness, while the video from the ten cities moved upon the screens, forewarning that he stood alone. The single outsider in what was otherwise orchestrated cohesion. Yet in his separateness, he felt a distinct part of all that was and was to soon be.
A sense that it had all happened before slashed across his perception of everything going on around him, in that instant bringing into confluence all his fears, the paranoiac certainties he had lived with since shortly after meeting Hugo Marchek. That he, Jacob Zen, was hopelessly intertwined with events sweeping humankind into the eternal abyss.
The vortex sucked at him now. The screens' chaos increased the churning velocity of his mind-whirlpool. The only sounds in the vast chamber were muted conversations among the 12 seated in front of the pyramid, and a faint though distinct throb, as if the event that everyone seemed to anticipate with reverential expectation was organic in nature. Its heart beating slowly, awaiting its moment of entrance with the calm foreknowledge that its destiny was preordained to be the centerpiece of all that would happen next.
The hooded mass moved forward, forcing him to jostle against Karen, who willingly pressed toward the gleaming throne, her eyes, like the eyes of all others in the room, fixed upon the holy man. Jacob managed a quick scan of the room, seeing above and behind the advancing disciples, several cameras, their large lenses aimed at the crystal pyramid and Master Manya. Other large panels separated, unveiling cameras above each large screen around the circular room, all pointing to the chamber's center.
Master Manya stood when the disciples halted and arranged themselves behind the 12 people seated at the semi-circular table. He lifted and stretched his arms outward in the direction of the disciples, who, after kneeling, bowed their heads and brought their hands together into a prayerful posture beneath their chins. The men and women at the table went to their knees before the holy man, who stood rigidly, high above the gathering.
The thumping sound became louder and faster; the screens, Jacob noticed, were filled with video of the religious man atop the pyramid, portraying his eerie image from constantly changing camera angles. Abruptly, the heartbeat stopped.
Official INterface music ruptured the silence. Its militaristic strains prompting all in the chamber to assume a position on one knee and draw clenched right fist to chest.
"To Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God that which is God's. TRINITY speaks!"
The computer voice reverberated throughout the room, while everyone maintained the head-bowed position of allegiance.
"Interface Response Unity is the New Earth. You are either IN or you are lost. INterface is salvation. TRINITY loves you."
Each subject, Jacob, too, lifted his face to see on the screens the single image, its angular designs joined with its interwoven circular lines to form the stylized countenance of INterface Man, symbolic of TRINITY.
"TRINITY forever!
Six Ways to Law!
Six Ways to Order!
Six Ways to Peace!
Six! Six! Six!"
The martial music ceased and the heartbeat resumed at pace and volume equal to before. All in the chamber got to their feet except the 12, who reseated themselves around the curved table. Jacob's companions stared upward at the hooded Manya, whose arms-interlocked pose they emulated. On their faces were expressions beyond adoration, tears streaming over their pallid cheeks. They, too, were meant for such heights. The disciples genuinely believed. Karen's brown eyes, never more effulgent, never more lovely than now, while she worshiped the enigmatic representation of all that was holy to her — to him, all that was blasphemous.
The tip of the pyramid upon which Master Manya stood began to turn slowly, causing the holy man to rotate. His straight-ahead gaze met each of the 10 screens in its turn. Again the 10 cities were being scanned by the cameras at those locations, capturing the throngs of enraptured INterface subjects, who were themselves, at the same time, given view of the goings-on in the temple chamber and all other cities being shown. Master Manya's words were received by all INterface Response Units and translated instantaneously into the many languages.
"Brothers... Sisters... of INterface Body." Manya spoke softly while his robed body continued to rotate slowly upon the tip of the pyramid. "You are one with each other, although separated through limitations imposed by physical laws. One in the Body of INterface Universal."
The throbbing sound grew in volume and quickened, Master Manya's drawn, white face in close-up on the screens of INterface, the small, deeply creased mouth issuing the words ecclesiastically.
"Certain ones who were among us, but who are no longer among us, have reached evolutionary planes of ascension where they are now most intimately one with the Universal Father. Others, never truly part of us, are gone. Taken in the great cosmic excision so the Body Universal can function free of the malignancy of the before time, allowing us to progress more rapidly toward humanity's ultimate place with the Ascended Ones."
Manya's voice became harder, his expression within the hood's stark shadows changing to match the intonation.
"Before we can begin that ascension in earnest, global understanding, world unity, earthly peace, must be achieved."
His voice filled with controlled rage; his corpse-pale hands clenched into fists with which he pounded his points in short, hammering motions. "Ancient, deceiving forces and their agents have worked ceaselessly to prevent the unity we must have.”
“These agents are Jews! They spew forth hatred, in order to destroy love. LOVE! The only thing which can bring universal peace, and mankind's millennium of perfection."
Manya appeared to sink deeper into the crimson hood, and seemed to withdraw momentarily to remarshal his energies before continuing.
"A great man gave his life in reaching out to these Jews. Single-handedly, he brought Arab and Jew together in rapprochement unequaled in history through the inspired Six Ways Plan, under which INterface shall march to the ultimate evolutionary plane!”
"But the Zionist devils would not accept the pact of love agreed to by those among them who saw the wisdom in adopting peace, rather than continuing the conflict which will bring about their end as a race. Claiming to be the chosen people of God, they murdered the one man who would have made their continued existence acceptable. It was a Jew who assassinated Herrlich Krimhler!"
The INterface prelate paused, as if reflecting on his words, or on the depth of loss felt for Krimhler. Jacob's mind lurched back to the night spent with Fredria VanHorne. His memory, for some reason he tried to shake but could not, dwelling on the most intense moments when their flesh moved together toward passion's emptying rush to ennui. Thoughts, then, of the watch taken from him during his drug-induced sleep, and his next seeing it when it was presented as evidence that he was Kri
mhler's assassin.
The Jewish race, blamed for the earth-shocking crime of which the INterface masters falsely accused him, after setting him up for the deception. Mental images of the German's head exploding while he, Jacob Zen, watched thousands of miles from the death scene. A quick flash of Christ on a blood-drenched cross, transforming into a golden crucifix attached to the chain draped between Fredria VanHorne's breasts, while he drank from the glass she handed him in the bed that night in subterranean Naxos. Christ and Herrlich Krimhler, merging into a single image within his mind. No! Not imagined! The transformation was taking place before his eyes! Now!
The crystal pyramid-throne had parted during the seconds it took his brain to work through its delusions. A figure in a robe of dazzling white stood before a golden cross within the opening, arms outstretched as if affixed to the cross in crucifixion fashion. The face, its dark eyes penetrating even the hardened crust created by months of systemic-callousing INterface existence. The face of Herrlich Krimhler!
Each of the screens displayed the face in close-up, death-white, yet alive, glowing in the light emanating from within the crystal.
"Behold the One who takes away the sins of the world with his death, burial and resurrection!" Master Manya shouted, extending his arms toward the ceiling. "Behold your salvation!"
Krimhler, like a man once crippled, now trying his legs for the first time since becoming so, took one careful step, then another. He walked from the opened pyramid, stopping and lifting his arms outward toward the robed gathering, his hands in a beckoning posture. Suddenly Jacob was being moved by those around him, toward the base of the pyramid throne, and he saw, through dizzy, reeling senses, the 12 seated people rise and turn to face him, while the mob pressed him forward. The curved table parted, allowing the robed people to move Jacob between the table halves. A whirling, spinning, falling sensation, then regaining balance with the aid of the many hands upon him. Suddenly, then, he was alone, all who had borne him along having retreated to their former places.
Alone at the base of the crystal pyramid. Naked before the world, beneath the gaze of Master Manya. In the living presence of the man the world believed he had murdered!
Jacob glanced quickly, nervously, at the screens, all showing his shocked, frightened face in close-up. His legs deserted him and he fell to his knees, his stomach turning with nausea, his mind spasming while he struggled to stand.
"Symbolic of the salvation offered to all who will accept," Master Manya said, "...consider this Jew, the very Jew who took the life of the one who brings peace to the world. This Jew, Jacob Zen, stands condemned before INterface. Behold, the supreme act of mercy... of love!"
Jacob, on one knee, felt a strong hand take his right hand and felt himself being pulled to a standing position. His thoughts cleared to some extent, while the grip of the person who helped him stand, now steadied him. His eyes met those of Herrlich Krimhler; the screens of INterface displayed Krimhler embracing him.
"I forgive you, for you knew not what you did. Your sins are washed clean in the blood of your God and Savior," Herrlich Krimhler said softly, looking into Jacob's eyes with what seemed genuine compassion, causing a strange sensation of lightness to pass through his body.
"But I... I didn't do it," Jacob stammered in a whisper. Krimhler had already turned from him without acknowledging that he heard, and began ascending the steps of the pyramid.
"There is but one God. The Universal Father of all humanity. Behold him in reincarnate form. Behold him as the resurrected Son, in whom He is well pleased! The Universal Mind-Father... Pure, undefiled, changeless love, whom death could not bind... The Prince of Peace!"
Manya's words echoed in Jacob's ears. All screens displayed Herrlich Krimhler's slow ascension to the pyramid's apex, where the holy man stood, still with his arms raised. Everyone within the chamber stood in the posture of praise, looks of adoring acceptance on their faces, their cheeks streaming tears of hypnotic ecstasy. They followed the lead of Master Manya, who dropped to his knees when the resurrected leader reached the top of the pyramid throne.
The 10 screens showed Krimhler and Master Manya surrounded, through split-imaging, by the millions of worshipers gathered before INterface cameras at the ten cities, all on their knees like the people in the Jerusalem temple. Although the scenes surrounding the two central figures continued to change through dissolves and quick-cuts and zooms, two things remained constant, the reverential chanting and the tear-glazed expressions on the faces. True worship of the one they accepted as their returned messiah.
Gone were the drawn, listless looks of defeat, of hopelessness. Herrlich Krimhler, the Messiah!
Was his mind telling him, truthfully, that he had, like Karen and his foster father said, been wrong? Or was his brain succumbing to the infectious surreality of INterface-orchestrated emotionalism? Even as the thoughts bounced about within his skull, another confronted them and drove them from his mind. Words from the Bible he could never have consciously recalled.
"And then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming, Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie..."
And it was at least partly lie. That much was certain. He had not self-concocted, in his drug-riddled brain, the fact of whether Krimhler had actually been shot through the head, or whether it was a hoax, he didn't know. That he, Jacob Zen, had not done the shooting, he was sure. Of the stolen watch, used to frame him, to implicate the Jewish Race... Lies! The looks on the faces, whatever the truth or the lies, they believed. Totally! Absolutely! He, alone, seemed at odds with Krimhler, making Jacob Zen, in the view of INterface Body, at odds with God. Worse, they had manipulated him into helping them with their deluding scheme. He, in the eyes of the world, had murdered the now resurrected Krimhler, and had become the object of and example for the savior's forgiveness, which demonstrated divine love. The charge was lie, the forgiveness unnecessary; therefore, the savior and his love for all, including the penitent Jews, false.
If not a savior, what then? A politician given power by other politicians, who had dementedly, though honestly, concluded that the only way to lasting peace was through purging that which lay at the core of the corruption, and concluded, wrongly, that was the Jew? Was it merely National Socialism reborn on a global scale, finally reaching the level of acceptance to which Hitler aspired? Or Hugo Marchek's Antichrist regime?
The faces, thousands collectively in close-ups, surrounding the Savior and Master Manya. Faces individually, enraptured, adoring the man who was once dead but now stood before them... Alive! The Supreme Master of INterface. Their Messiah!
"And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie..."
Rage suddenly expanded within him, separating fear from courage, caution from boldness, and the schism brought back strength suppressed since he removed the belt of explosives. INterface must be exposed while the eyes and ears of its subjects were seeing and listening — while the live coronation of the resurrected messiah presented perhaps the only opportunity to reach them, to warn them!
He would turn INterface deception to his own advantage. Blurt the truth over the INterface Response Unity conduit, which was totally open at this moment, to establish their lies. Now, while all was quiet, the microphones and cameras ready to capture Herrlich Krimhler's message from the tip of the crystal pyramid.
They could not stop his rush up the steps nor keep him from stabbing truth into the heart of Interface! Not before he had disrupted the unholy coronation. They could not stop him in time to keep him from using their forum against them, like they had used him as a bludgeon against his own race!
The
re was too much distance between the controller security people and himself; between himself and the robed mob and the 12 people sitting at the curved table. The technicians at the control boards would not be able to react quickly enough to stop his exclamation of truth! Shouting to the bedazzled victims that what stood before them was not their savior, but a monster who spewed lies more toxic than venom from the deadliest snake, because the poison went exponentially further than destroying the flesh. They murdered hope for eternal freedom from servitude--slaughtered, through slow, agonizing strangulation, the very soul.
His rekindled strength would propel him up the crystal steps to Krimhler and the kneeling Master Manya, where he would accomplish through words what he would have accomplished on a more limited scale through use of the explosives, had he been confronted in Facility 500. He would strike, through the power of the masters' own machinery, a blow against the spell cast by the INterface fuehrer.
His vision darkened, his pulse pounding heatedly in his neck and temples. He sprinted in a burst of energy to the pyramid's first step and sprang quickly upward. He would not be stopped... Would not!
From high above him, Herrlich Krimhler turned to look downward, their eyes meeting in a collision of wills in which the mortal must yield. His legs refused his conscious urgings to continue the rush toward the crystal throne's tip, like in all the nightmares when he was pursued by one dream-monster or the other. His legs, leaden, each step taken in an intangible quagmire! Now he pursued the monster, and the nightmare turned real while the monster's sinister glare from the pyramid's apex made more coagulant, the invisible quicksand through which he struggled until his legs could no longer move!