King of the Dark Mountain

by Galili Black

  “No, they’re really not. I tried to explain to them that it was either that or the whole thing would be a wash, but they don’t think I’m being straight forward with them.”

  “Are you?”

  Aleister nodded, “I made the decision when I saw that Ellie couldn’t pass the energy back to them. It was a tactical maneuver. It had nothing to do with our misgivings about their…” he shot a glance at Samantha, “methods.”

  “They’ve had my husband for almost a year. We haven’t been able to get a word to him. They’ve threatened doing terrible things to his reputation. It’s awful.”

  “Yes, they don’t have the same value for civil liberties that we do. I’m sorry to hear that they have resorted to such devices.”

  “You didn’t know they were kidnapping people and threatening their families?” Ted asked sternly.

  “We knew we needed them if we wanted to light the whole planet when the energy came down. Now it looks like they were engaged in some type of peripheral project that has thrown their whole contribution off.”

  “So what is the peripheral project?” Samantha asked

  “We don’t really know. “

  “And yet you cooperated with them anyhow,” she said bitterly.

  He shrugged, “We had a short window of opportunity to get things in place. We were thinking in terms of a whole paradigm shift for the human race, so we had to use the resources that were available. Sometime early in the planning process, they approached us and suggested sharing information and strategy. They had already isolated Ellie and her brother as the most promising candidates to do a massive energy transmutation.”

  “They studied your work on the subject and though you disguised her identity in your papers, it didn’t take them long to figure it out. They kept an eye on her and her brother. I believe they even augmented her skills when they were able. They tracked her during her travels and even found ways to direct her to certain key locations which they thought would also enhance her talents.”

  “All without letting her know anything about it,” Ted said.

  “If she had known, it would have caused her to put up defenses that would have made her role more problematic. You should be grateful, those augmentations are probably the only reason she’s still alive. There’s just no way she could have transmuted that much power without their preparing her these past few years.”

  “They shouldn’t be allowed to just interfere with the lives of anyone they want,” Samantha said.

  “Perhaps not, but like I said the stakes were extraordinarily high.”

  “I don’t think we should offer them any help until we find out what the nature of the peripheral project is,” Ted said.

  “It may be hard to get that information out of them. These people have an enormous amount of power and influence. We think they’re connected to the wealthiest men on the planet. They’re used to asking the questions and not having to answer to anyone.”

  “Do you have any idea why Ellie couldn’t transmit the power back to them?” Aleister asked.

  Ted shook his head, “Do you?”

  “I’m not psychic, but when I went up there tonight onto the platform it was like I walked right into her mind. I could see what she was seeing.”

  “So what was it?”

  “Just mountains of darkness. We exchanged information with them all through this. We told them what we thought they needed to do to get those mountains ready. We told them repeatedly that the area they wanted to enhance had to be clean. We told them how to do it. It took us at least four years to get these mountains over here prepared. We assumed they were following the protocol. Obviously we were wrong.”

  “So you think that it was just a problem with getting the space prepared?”

  “Maybe, but it’s also possible that they put something inside to interact with the energy when it came down.”

  “So what difference does it really make?” Samantha asked.

  “We don’t know for sure, but it could have all kinds of unforeseen consequences. “

  I’ll bet those people think they’ve got it worked out so they can have the benefits without any costs to themselves.”

  “Which is their usual modus operandi isn’t it?” Samantha asked.

  “They’re going to want us to share what we did manage to save from the blast. “

  “Why should we? We got our mountains ready and they didn’t,” Ted said.

  “They’ll try to take it, if we don’t share it. I know these people. They have all kinds of resources that they could bring to bear.”

  “But what if they intend to get rid of us once they get what they want? Did you ever consider that?” Ted asked.

  “They’re not psychopaths. They’re just interested in being players in the next paradigm.”

  “They were the master minds behind the present one and look where that led us. I think we need to think in terms of eliminating them as an influence.”

  “There’s no way we can do that.”

  “Why not? We have the power and they don’t.”

  “But they have my husband and Ellie’s brother,” Samantha said softly.

  Ted shot her a worried look. “I realize that.”

  “But you think we may have to sacrifice them,” she said.

  “No one’s going to get sacrificed. We’ll deal with these people and work out a plan that will work for everyone,” Aleister said.

  “I love my husband, I would do almost anything to get him back, but if that means the world continues to be run by men who have brought the whole planet to the point of annihilation with their endless greed, what good is that? We’ll all be dead if we let them continue to exercise power.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes I do. I know them very well from what they’ve put me through this past year. They would do the same thing to every wife and mother out there and think nothing of it. I think you should refuse any further cooperation.”

  “You’re an amazing woman, Samantha,” Ted said, his eyes glowing with admiration.

  “Amazingly short-sighted. These men cannot be circumvented. You know how ruthless they are, we will negotiate with them or they will find a way to destroy us,” Aleister said.

  “I think Mrs. Ewing is right Aleister, you can cooperate all you want and we’ll still be destroyed. Fighting them is the only way now.”

  “I have to talk to my superiors. In the meantime, I don’t want you mentioning this to Ms. McCane. She’ll just be needlessly upset, and she’s already weak,” Aleister said and quickly left them.

  “I’m in awe of your courage, Samantha,” Ted said when they were alone.

  “I just know what we’re up against. Believe me; I’ve had many long nights to consider the matter. I knew I couldn’t go to the police or any civil authority. I knew they would bribe or threaten or even annihilate anyone who tried to help me. I assumed that they were always watching me. I even took showers in the dark so it wouldn’t be easy for them to get nude images of me. I wouldn’t allow myself to bring any new people into my life for fear they were working for them. I have lived in a personal kind of police state this past year and I truly believe they would gladly put all of us in the same mental state. They don’t even have to be able to do most of it, but just the threat of it would keep us all in fear, which gives them control. I think we caught a break when Ellie didn’t give them the star energy, and we have to do everything we can to make sure they never get access to it.”

  “I think you’re right, but we may have a hard time convincing the likes of Aleister.”

  “I know, but it’s what Ellie does that really matters.”

  Aleister came back into the room suddenly. He held out a cell phone to Ted. Ted gave him a questioning look, took the phone and put it to his ear. “Ted, .I’m doing alright. I just wanted to tell you so you wouldn’t worry about me, while you’re doing your work.”

  “Irena, sweetheart it’s so good to hear your voice. I’ll come t
o the hospital as soon as I can.”

  “No, you shouldn’t worry about me. Karina is here with me, and I’m feeling better. They said they wanted me to tell you not to worry.”

  “Who told you that honey?”

  “I’m feeling a little tired now. I’m going to let you go now.” The phone went silent.

  “Irena, Irena?’ Ted said, but there was no answer. He handed the phone back to Aleister. “Who made her call me?”

  “It doesn’t matter. We just wanted you to know that she’s conscious and doing better.”

  “I want to go see her.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. I’ve gotten word that we’re going to have a top level meeting shortly.”

  “What kind of meeting?”

  “There are some bigwigs coming over from the other site. They’re going to want answers and we want to make sure that everyone is on the same page about what to tell them.”

  “What do you mean? Ellie won’t be able to tell them anything. She’s in and out of consciousness.”

  “That’s going to be a problem. They’ll want to talk to her about how the thing went wrong.” Aleister considered for a moment. “We could try giving her something to help her come round.”

  “No, that’s not a good idea,” Ted said.

  “You don’t seem to understand the fix we’re in. Those people have a lot of power. If they don’t get a good explanation from us about what we intend to do to fix the problem, we’re in deep shit.”

  “What can they do?”

  “What can’t they do? They invested a lot of money in helping us keep this operation running. They were promised a good dose of the cosmic energy.”

  “It’s their own damned fault for the failure, you said so yourself.”

  “They will not see it that way. We’re going to have to come up with an explanation and a plan to fix the problem that will satisfy them.”

  “I don’t see how. “

  “That’s why we need a meeting with some higher ups. We’ve got to brain storm the situation and come up with a plan.”

  Ted threw up his hands. “Fine, I’ll meet all day and the rest of the night. Whatever it takes just let Mrs. Ewing get some rest. She’s been through a lot.”

  “I want to attend the meeting. My husband is involved in this; I have a right.”

  “No, that won’t be possible. We would not be able to clear it fast enough.”

  “Samantha, I’ll fill you in on everything. I’ll get a transcript if possible. Just go rest for now and we’ll talk later.”

  She nodded. “Alright. I trust you, Ted.” She threw a dismissive look at Aleister. The latter spoke into a microphone and a woman appeared.

  “Take Mrs. Ewing somewhere where she can lie down,” Aleister said.

  “Come this way, please,” the woman said. Samantha gave Ted a sympathetic look and followed her out of the room.

  “Now, let’s go over some details about the event that will make it clear that we were not intentionally planning what happened. I am going to tell them how Ellie told me she couldn’t do anything with the energy and I told her to go ahead and direct it into the local chain of mountains and to forget about cycling it. You need to explain how you had plainly stated in the notes that she should send it to the person designated as the Receptor. You can tell them you intended to be that person, but unforeseen circumstances drew you away from the project.”

  “I don’t even know how she knew to receive it from over there. So much of this was deliberately kept obscure and I’m supposed to be a chief architect of the whole thing. They tried to use my knowledge, without keeping us informed, so it blew up on them, too bad.”

  Aleister gave him an exasperated look. “We have to give them the benefit of the doubt and treat them as injured parties.”

  “Why? They screwed up, with their stupid secret agenda; I see no reason to cooperate with them in the slightest now.”

  “You just don’t grasp what we’re dealing with here.” He rubbed his jaw, and stared at the floor for a moment. “Okay, I’ve got it,” he began to scroll through some files on his laptop. “I want you to listen to what this man has to say. He worked for them for a number of years. Last year he came to us with documents proving what he’s going to describe.” On the wall appeared a video of a man with heavy glasses, speaking in a monotone with an accent of some sort, which made him a little difficult to understand.

  “My name is Igor Slanavich. I was recruited in my university days to assist in designing a method to activate the pineal capacity of large segments of the population. We targeted several small villages in my country with some success. We were able to get them to relay vast amounts of data through this activation, mainly during sleep. It was a great success, but it had disturbing side effects for the subjects involved. In a matter of months, the villagers began to show alarming rates of obesity. This continued until we shut down the program. I went to work for Vedazeda Inc. soon after these experiments and we designed a protocol to target entire countries, using basically the same approach.”

  “At first I did not understand what the nature of the information they wanted to relay could be. They claimed it was for the betterment of the population but the obesity rates accrued in the same way as among the villagers in the targeted countries. I persisted in trying to find out what information they were actually relaying. Finally, I was told that they were planning to instill all the scientific information gathered for the past hundred years in every field into the minds of a few elite who could assimilate the knowledge and take humanity to the next leap forward.”

  “They claimed to be working on a project which would link this data collection to a specific stellar event in order to gain the maximum amount of infusion, as they called it. We had designed a method to read the information while the subjects slept using specially designed crystals to focus it to a point inside a granite structure. We were told that the stellar event would likewise be directed from granite structures and that when it came about, it would augment the information already stored to allow a totally superior form of human to be created. This was considered a great mission, and the destructiveness to the subjects who provided the relay of the information of little consequence. I have brought the protocols…” At this point the man began to blink at the camera. He started to hyperventilate. Some shouting occurred off camera and the video stopped.

  “Mr. Slanavich died after giving this deposition. There were some unusual structures found inside his heart when an autopsy was performed. We are still analyzing them, trying to figure out if they were implanted there to be activated in case of a breach of confidentiality. If so, we were lucky he was able to give us the amount of information that he did.”

  “So they’re using the pineal gland of people to convey data?”

  “The pineal gland has long been reputed to be involved in psychic visions. There are light sensing cells inside of it. I suppose they figured out a way to get it to work for them. Since the gland also plays a role in metabolism that might explain why their use of it for their purposes causes it to malfunction for its normal purposes.”

  “So is this the nature of the secret agenda?”

  “We believe there’s more to it. We believe they have some kind of plan to alter the surface of the Earth once they take control of the future course of human evolution, using the force that Ellie deprived them of.”

  “All this does is prove to me that we should obstruct them in every way possible,” Ted said.

  “Does it seem of little consequence to you that they were willing to create an obesity epidemic in order to further their agenda? Do you think they would stop at even more deadly methods of mass control if it suited their purposes? We have to face the facts. They’re ruthless and we have no other choice but to try to direct them in the least lethal direction possible. We can only do that, if they think we are still playing ball with them. If they suspect we are out to sabotage their agenda, there’s no telling what they would d
o.”

  “You mean to us?”

  “I mean to everyone. We don’t have a clear grasp of what they’re up to. We need to learn as much as we can and continue from there.”

  “The problem with that idea is that while we’re gathering information, they’re growing stronger. It could be that by the time we have figured out the true nature of their intentions, it will be too late to stop them.”

  “I think we’re way past any chance of stopping them. I think all we can do is direct them. I think we can negotiate a plan.”

  Ted laughed. “Surely, you know the history of groups who have had an idea about imposing their notions of a perfected humanity on the world.”

  “This isn’t like that. There’s no racist agenda.”

  “Oh really? I think you’re wrong. You just said they want to direct the course of human evolution. That could mean any number of things, but nothing good for most people whatever their race might be.”

  “You can’t know what their intentions are.”

  “But you do? It seems to me we would be wildly naïve to appease them. I think we need to think in terms of shutting them down.”

  “How do you suggest we do that?”

  “We’ve just loaded this whole mountain range with the fire of creation. Surely there’s a way to use that power to contain them.”

  Aleister blinked at him, “You’re not talking about weaponizing it, are you? Because we know it can’t be used for destruction.”

  Ted paused for a moment and reflected, “Listen Rike, I’ve always had a sense that they had some goal of mass annihilation. I didn’t have the complete picture, but some of the information we got about them early on suggested they were moving in that direction.”

  “If you’re talking about that crap reported by that Brewster fellow we sent over, you know we determined all of that was just the guy getting paranoid and delusional from getting sent through the king’s chamber device. It’s a shame too, he was a bright guy. Our latest data shows that one way trips are okay, it’s the return that gets them.”

  “That’s information you should have shared before we sent Ellie’s brother through.”