“My lord,” her face continued to blush, “art thou in need of help?”
“Um… no.” he stammered.
“I have come to clothe thee.” she curtsied again.
“Excuse me?”
She picked up the folded robes, “To dress thee, my lord.”
“Um… that’s all right. I can dress myself.”
Confused, she advised, “His Holiness expressed thine inability.”
His Holiness?
“What inability?” he stammered.
She set down the pile of robes, and held up a curious item of clothing, “He expressed that thou art not accustomed to these.”
Allan stared at the item of clothing curiously for several minutes. It sort of looked like a pair of white pajama bottoms.
“I’m sure I can figure it all out.” he huffed.
“If it makes thee more comfortable,” she handed him the curious item of clothing she had been holding, “I will turn around whilst thou dost don thine braies.”
She smiled, and turned to face the other direction. He held up the pair for a moment as he studied them.
Long boxer briefs?
He tried to dry himself as quickly as possible, but the rough cloth was difficult to use. He then pulled on the ‘braies’ and tied a bow with the drawstrings.
“Okay. Let’s get this over with.”
She turned and helped him put on a pair of ‘chausses’ which were like leather boots that pulled all the way up to his waistline. She then proceeded to help him lace-up the front of his ‘tunic’, which looked somewhat like a shirt. She helped him secure the tunic with a ‘girdle’, which was basically a fancy belt. Finally, he was donned with a majestic robe similar to the one he had seen John wearing.
She smiled and took a step back, “Very fitting, my lord.”
“My name is Allan.”
“Ah-lan.” she repeated, “I am honored to meet thee.”
“And your name is?”
She blushed, “Myla.”
“Myla…” he repeated, “You have a beautiful name.”
Her face turned even more crimson, “Come, my lord. It is time.”
He followed her through a switchback of tunnels until they returned to the great room he had passed through earlier. As he entered, all of the men stood abruptly from the table. A chant began in a foreign language as Allan stumbled backwards in confusion.
“What are they saying?” he turned and asked the young woman.
She stopped chanting in the foreign tongue and began translating, “The blessings of God are upon us; The Final Seraph has Awoken.”
John then carried a velvet pillow toward him with a jeweled crown sitting upon it. As he approached, the men in the room stopped chanting.
“I am honored to revere thee as my King.”
What?!
Allan stared incredulously at John as another man approached. The other man picked up the crown, and held it up to eye level.
“Bow down.” John whispered through gritted teeth.
“But…”
“Bow your head!” he whispered again.
Reluctantly, Allan made a slight bow, and the man placed the crown upon his head. Suddenly the jewels on the crown glowed as an aura of silver light surrounded him. The aura faded after a few minutes, while everyone stared at him in awe.
“The crown has spoken. The balance of power has shifted.” John spoke in both English and in the foreign tongue as everyone in the room dropped to their knees and bowed before Allan, “Long live the King!”
Chapter Thirty Nine: Warrant for Arrest
The fear of the Lord was upon both the surviving Kingdoms of Seth and of Cain, so great was the glory of the Lord, which was upon his people. But the Lord came and dwelt with his people in the distant world Zion…
– Methuselah 11:14 –
It had been two days since Brittany had met with Doug, but her mind was still troubled by the information she had learned. Her skin crawled as she imagined all of the many vaccinations she had gotten over the years, and she wondered how many Nano-chips were likely lodged inside her body. The thought of it made here immensely angry, and she couldn’t shake the thought that she needed to tell somebody what she had learned.
She had arrived in the parking lot of the precinct hours ago, but she still sat in her car gathering courage. She knew she had to reveal her findings to the Chief, but felt embarrassed to show her face inside the building. The only thing emboldening her to get out of her car was the faint glimmer of hope that if she explained all of this to her Chief, he might be willing to reinstate her.
All right, let’s do this.
She scrambled out of her car and jogged to the front door of the precinct before she had a chance to change her mind. As she passed through security, it was obvious by the befuddled look on the guards’ faces that gossip about her probation had already spread.
This is none of their business!
Several of her former colleagues eyed her curiously as she strode past their desks and straight to Chief Herbert’ office.
“Come in.” he responded to her knock, “But please, make it quick. I’m on a tight schedule.”
He looked up from his desk as she entered the room and did a double-take, “Detective... err, I mean Brittany... What are you doing here?”
“I met with former officer Doug Carlton.” she paused, “We had quite the conversation.”
Chief Herbert’ eyes narrowed, “Why would you do that? I thought I told you to drop this.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m a Detective.” she shrugged her shoulders, “By nature I can’t just leave a mystery unsolved.”
“Correction,” he huffed, “you were a detective. You are a civilian now. You better not be falsely representing yourself, or else I can have you arrested for impersonating an officer.”
“No, no.” she insisted, “I’ve done nothing of the sort. I just went over to his house and we had a conversation. Civilian to civilian.”
“Forgive me if I seem skeptical.” he raised an eyebrow.
“We had a very unique conversation.” she explained, “And I think you would be interested in what we discussed as well.”
“Enlighten me.”
“It seems the NSA wasn’t dismantled after all, they just went into hiding.”
His eyebrows shot up, betraying his alarm, “That’s… that’s preposterous.”
She studied him for a moment, “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
“Excuse me?”
“It was a statement, not a question.”
“That’s a matter of national security. I can’t discuss this with you.” his eyes narrowed again, “Now get out of my office!”
“So it’s true then…” she was shocked, “What about the GFID Nano-chips? Did you know about that too? Is that the real reason why you are so adamant about not letting your children get vaccinated?!”
“I’ve heard enough.” he stood abruptly, “You’re under arrest. You pose a threat to national security.”
What?! This isn’t going well.
Brittany made a mad dash out the door and ran down the row of desks she had passed earlier.
“Stop her!” Chief Herbert shrieked as she pressed the exit button and the magnetic lock released, “Take her into custody!”
Brittany didn’t bother to look back to see if anyone was chasing her. Knowing fully that she would only have a limited time to use her car before an all-points bulletin was issued, she screeched out of the parking lot. Fortunately she was carrying a good amount of cash, because she knew she wouldn’t get very far with her credit card.
She had to warn Doug before it was too late, considering she had mentioned his name to Chief Herbert. She whipped out her cell phone and quickly dialed his landline.
“Doug speaking.”
“Get out of there, and discard your phone.” she pleaded, “I’m so sorry. I really screwed up. They’re on to us.”
“Wait... what?” he stammered
, “What did you do?!”
“No time to explain.” she breathed frantically, “Just get out of there!”
“Don’t worry, I’ll find you.” he paused and lowered his voice, “We finally cracked the Nano-chip software database.”
“Sounds like a plan.” she rushed him off the phone as she rolled down her window, “Gotta go.”
With that, she threw the phone out the window. She watched in her rear view mirror as a vehicle traveling in the opposite direction crushed the phone under its tires. She heard sirens in the distance, and innately she knew they were for her. She pulled into the parking terrace for the Harlem Irving Plaza mall, knowing that across the plaza there was an entrance to the subway.
I gotta ditch the car.
Chapter Forty: Rendezvous
And the Lord blessed the land of Enoch, and they were blessed upon the mountains, and upon the high places, and did flourish. And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind…
– Methuselah 11:15 –
After receiving Brittany’s warning, Doug’s many years of paranoia had prepared him for just this kind of scenario. He hurried around his apartment and grabbed his laptop, his 72 hour kit, his sawed-off shotgun, his sash filled with military grade 12-gage slug bullets, and his hidden wad of $100 dollar bills and scurried out the back door. He wasn’t sure what Brittany had done, but he wasn’t going to risk staying there. He ran down the fire escape and out the alleyway, making absolutely certain that he wasn’t being followed.
He felt a rush of excitement, knowing that his years of preparation and training for some type of doomsday were finally going to pay off.
This is my destiny. I was born to do this.
He ran northward down the lane, crossing each street cautiously and following along alleyways. He finally stopped under the Chicago Skyway on the corner of Ewing Avenue and Indianapolis Boulevard.
An ominous-looking armored tank marked the entrance to the small triangular East Side Memorial Park. He quickly darted to the opposite side of the tank and crouched down outside the view of the street. He ignored the putrid odor of urine, knowing the spot was a favorite place for passerby homeless people to sleep.
All right Brittany, where are you?
He pulled out his laptop and booted it up. He knew it would be risky to connect to the mobile hotspot of his pre-paid cell phone, but he had little choice. He was certain that by now his MAC address was being monitored.
He connected via Wi-Fi to his hotspot, and then activated a proxy anonymizer service to cover his tracks. The internet speed was sluggish, but sufficient for what he needed to do. In a separate window, he activated the ‘back door’ to the NSA’s server and hacked into one of the running consoles in their database.
Logging in, he quickly located the GFID Nano-chip tracking software. After a bit of digging, he found Brittany Parker’s profile. Clicking on the location tab, a virtual map loaded with multiple GFID Nano-chips betraying her whereabouts.
Found you.
She was travelling at a tremendous speed in a southbound direction. He felt a bit disoriented as the map indicated that she was somehow traveling through buildings at a rapid pace. Looking further at the details on her profile, he realized she was underground.
She’s on the subway.
Fortunately the Red Line ended almost as far south as he was. Unfortunately however, it didn’t come this far east. There were at least six major intersections between his current location at roughly 3600 east and State Street where the subway ended. At walking speed, it would likely take him over an hour to get there.
I better catch a cab.
“How did you find me?!” Brittany stammered as she saw him wave to her from the cab.
“That’s not important right now.” he yelled out the window, “Hurry! Get in!”
She obeyed and ducked into the cab just before a single bullet ricocheted off the door frame. The cab driver yelped and then started screaming profanities at an unknown entity as they pulled away.
“I’m sorry about that.” the cabbie apologized, “These hoodlums are relentless.”
Doug and Brittany exchanged knowing looks. Doug’s earlier suspicions were confirmed and he was absolutely convinced now that the NSA had been alerted. His laptop lay open on his lap, and he watched the set of symbols for the GFID Nano-chips that had been suspiciously closing in on Brittany’s location over the past several minutes. It appeared they were now scrambling back a few blocks to their parked car.
We’ve only got a few minutes at best before they catch up to us!
The symbols flickered again as he lost connection with the public Wi-Fi. He closed his laptop and tucked it away in his carrying bag. He realized with a sigh of relief that it was a miracle that he arrived when he did. It would only have taken a few more seconds to have instead found her lying in a pool of blood.
“Take us to the nearest motel.” he instructed the cabbie.
The cab driver nodded, “There’s one only a few blocks from here.”
“Perfect.” Doug nodded, “That will do.”
“What are we doing?” Brittany asked in confusion.
“Trust me.”
A few minutes later they pulled up to the entrance of a small motel.
“Keep the cab running.” Doug instructed as he handed the cabbie a hundred dollar bill, “Keep the change. There’s more where that came from. We won’t be long.”
The cabbie nodded with a baffled look on his face as they climbed out of the cab.
“So what are we doing here?” Brittany questioned as they rushed inside, “And who shot at me?”
“I suspect they were a couple of NSA agents.” he whispered as they approached the front desk.
“Good afternoon!” the hostess spoke cheerily, “How can I help you?”
“We need a non-smoking room for the night.” Doug spoke quickly.
“Okay...” she looked at her computer screen, “It looks like we still have a few open units. Are you looking for a standard suite, or is this a special occasion?”
“Standard is fine.”
“How many people will be staying tonight?”
“Just the two of us.” he spoke quickly, “Listen. My fiancée here is deathly allergic to cigarette smoke. We’ve stayed in some so-called ‘non-smoking’ rooms in the past that clearly reek of smoke. Do you mind if we just take a look at the unit real quick before we sign anything?”
“Yes,” she nodded as she swiped a key card, “that should be fine.”
“Thank you.” he smiled as she handed him the key card, “I really appreciate it.”
“It’s on the second floor, third door to the left.” she called after them as they turned down the hall.
“Will you tell me now what we’re doing here?” Brittany jogged up the stairs after him.
“You’ll see.”
He fumbled for a moment with the key card, but quickly got the door open. He waited for the door to close behind her, and then pulled the microwave out of its cubby hole. Laying it on the floor on its backside, he opened the door and applied pressure until the door busted off.
“What on earth are you doing?!” Brittany stammered as he pulled a roll of electrical tape out of his backpack.
“I hope you don’t plan on ever having kids.” he stated nonchalantly as he snapped off the small hook from the door and taped it down inside the door sensor, “But we’ve got to fry those Nano-chips before the NSA finds us again.”
Chapter Forty One: Hindu Gods
And the Watchers mourned the loss of their children, for God didst say unto them: I shall destroy the sons of the Watchers from amongst men. Yea, they shall destroy themselves in battle; for they will not have length of days…
– Methuselah 12:1 –
Lily shivered as Tiamat roared with another blast of hot breath at the base of the Tower of Babel. When Lily first attempted to dig out the entrance over an hour ago, a small avalanche of snow had buried it further.
Fortunately Tiamat had been standing by her side and had shielded Lily with her wings, otherwise Lily might have gotten buried alive.
Tiamat’s last roar appeared to have finally done the trick. By the time they had removed all of the snow earlier, they were faced with a thick barrier of ice. When Tiamat originally explained to Lily that breathing fire was a myth, she was disappointed. Lily was quickly pacified however when the thick ice began to melt away with Tiamat’s first roar.
The last of the ice wall had caved in to reveal a hollow entryway. Together they passed through into the darkness. Far in the distance however she could see a strange blue light dancing against the pillars. She was drawn to it, and after several minutes they stopped before what appeared to be a swirling whirlpool of shimmering water – only it was standing vertical against a wall. A humming sound echoed off the walls and pillars that surrounded them.
“What is that?”
Verily, ‘tis the open portal back to Earth.
“Is it safe?” she hesitated.
I know not what lies on the other side. ‘tis been hundreds of years since my kind hath made use of this portal. Humans upon Earth didst hunt my kind for sport, so thus my ancestors didst make an exodus unto Zion. We have not returned hither since.
Lily approached the swirling whirlpool with caution. Sparks of electricity seemed to be somehow lighting up the water-like substance, spreading from the center and swirling outward in the form of a spiral.
She took a deep breath and spoke confidently, “I’m going in.”
She let go of Tiamat’s side and stepped forward. She held her breath and closed her eyes as she passed through the vortex. She half expected to feel water, but instead she felt warmth as her body lurched forward. Her head spun violently and she forced herself to open her eyes. Streaks of light filled her view as she continued to spin down what seemed to be an invisible tunnel. The streaks of light built in quantity and velocity until the cluster of light formed into a single brilliant flash.
She stumbled forward as her feet met the ground inside a dark cramped space. She felt immediately claustrophobic when she realized she was surrounded on all four sides by walls that were dimly lit by the swirling blue vortex. Seconds later she ducked for cover as Tiamat’s massive body exited the portal and came smashing into the opposite wall. With a loud crash, an orange light seeped into the cramped space as the dust settled. Bricks and dust lay strewn about everywhere at her feet.
Conquest: Rise of the Fifth Horseman (The Fifth Horseman Series Book 1) Page 17