Prophecy

by Gregory Cholmondeley

  He stared at the panel and said, “I demand to know who you are.”

  Dr. Johannsen shuffled some papers and replied, “We already introduced ourselves. I have no desire to repeat myself for those who chose not to listen.”

  Mr. Narwani was not going to be intimidated. He responded, “Do not insult me by claiming that you do not know what I mean. What are your names on Mearth?”

  There was silence in the room. I mean, there was absolute silence. The panel stared at Mr. Narwani as he glared back at them. Finally, Governor Billington relented with a sigh, “You would not recognize the names we currently use in our dreams.”

  Our parents sat back in surprise. Not only were their governor and four medical professionals accepting this fantastic tale – they were admitting being a part of it. Mr. Narwani, however, was not satisfied. He started to reiterate his demand, but the governor raised her hand to stop him.

  She looked at me and said, “All of us were once Prophecy Heroes like you. My first name is Lucille, and I was known as Luna in those days. Lars Johannsen was once called Mars, Lakshira Patil was Terra, Veronica Mills was known as Venus, and Laura Livingston was another Luna.

  “We did not serve The Prophecy together, and none of us made it anywhere near as far as you. None of our groups successfully retrieved a single talisman. We have, however, continued to assist the heroes’ cause from the shadows for many years. I cannot express how impressed we all are with your success.”

  I gulped as I looked at the five panelists smiling at us. They were former heroes, and they were impressed with us. I should’ve felt relieved, but I just felt like they were more people to let down when I had to come clean about losing the seventh talisman.

  Dr. Mills gently asked, “And, now that we have introduced ourselves, may we learn your names?”

  We were all sitting in stunned silence, so Mr. Narwani began.

  He said, “I am Saturn, and my wife’s name is Ops. I’ll let the children introduce themselves.”

  Shon waved a little wave and said, “Hi. I’m Janus, and this is Elisa,” as she performed Raquel’s introduction. She saw their confused expression and added, “Um, we had a little confusion when we were named. Raquel’s proper Mearth name is Terra.”

  Governor Billington smiled and welcomed them with, “I am truly pleased to meet you both.”

  Nancy went next, saying, “My Mearth names are Nariana and Luna.”

  Dr. Patil took pity on Veronica, who was still sobbing. He nodded in our direction to interject, “Which means that you must be Venus, and you are, of course, Mars.”

  Veronica nodded, and I added, “Yes, although we call Veronica Versera, and I go by the name Stavius.”

  You would have thought I had blasted them with a thunderbolt. All five panelists leaped from their seats and sent their chairs clattering behind them.

  They shouted in unison, “You’re Stavius!?” Then they proceeded to come around to shake my hand and tell stories about who they were and how they all knew me from Larsa’s resistance movement. Nancy muttered something about Stavius’ undeserved popularity and the possible need for one more killing, and Veronica laughed for the first time that morning. Our families were completely confused, especially my mom and dad, and the meeting was in complete disarray. Mr. Narwani finally got the governor’s attention and asked whether we could have that bathroom break now. Now that was the Mr. Narwani I knew.

  ✽✽✽

  We regrouped ten minutes later. Governor Billington started by shaking each of our parent’s hands and telling them how proud she was of us. She emphasized the importance of absolute secrecy regarding what had been shared. Then she restarted the meeting with an announcement.

  She announced, “It should be abundantly clear that this explanation will not suffice for the general population. Dr. Patil’s team has already prepared a report. It concludes that this is likely an outbreak of a new and deadly form of listeria. Dr. Livingston has pinpointed the source to iceberg lettuce from one of the following three farms near Lexington, Kentucky.”

  Dr. Price protested that these deaths were nothing like anything caused by listeria, most notably since they all co-occurred. She maintained that no medical professional would ever believe such a story.

  Governor Billington replied that it was the CDC’s task to come up with a viable explanation and the data to support it. She assured us that they were very experienced at doing this and that they were extremely adept at their job. She said that the important thing was to get a preliminary answer out to the public quickly and to assure them that their elected officials were making progress. People are currently too terrified to go to sleep tonight for fear of not awakening. Telling them to throw out some lettuce is an easy and inexpensive solution to a problem over which they had no control anyway. They might not believe it, but it will give them hope, and it will be proven when no one else dies tonight.

  Ms. Datta interjected, “Well, no one will die tonight, but they will in two weeks when we dream again. There were a lot of wounded soldiers on that battlefield. Many of them are not going to survive their injuries.”

  Dr. Patil agreed. “In a few days, we will warn people that we have discovered that this variant has a very focused latency and lifespan, which is why everyone was simultaneously affected. We will issue a warning that subsequent but less-devastating generations of the bacterium may surface over the next two weeks. We will also mention that the bacterium has a steep evolutionary decay, which should eliminate it after that time.”

  Dr. Livingston added, “We should emphasize the unusual, limited, and severe characteristics of this bacterium. And we should surreptitiously initiate rumors that it might be artificially created. Government conspiracies and accidentally-released biological weapons will add confusion and a myriad of scenarios to thwart legitimate inquiries into our data and methodology.”

  The governor smiled at the panel and said, “Excellent. Prepare a statement for me, Veronica. I want our response broadcast within an hour.”

  Then she turned to me and asked, “Now, what do you need from us to fulfill The Prophecy, Stavius?”

  I gulped again. This was it. I had to come clean, so I took a deep breath and said, “Well, can you get me a new Crown of Helios?”

  The governor then kicked everyone out of the room except those of us who had been to Mearth. She made me explain what happened, and it felt just as bad as I had feared. Every single person in the room slumped with disappointment, defeat, and despair. Well, every person in the room except Ms. Datta, who seemed energized.

  She stood up and said, “Oh, cheer up. I can fix this. What we really could use is a large, electric motor.”

  We stared at her in silent disbelief as she explained, “We need a DC motor similar in size to the one we’re building on Mearth, and they cost a lot of money. I’ve done a little research, and the Cradle of Terra is about 18x14x40 inches in size, which probably equates to a 100-horsepower motor. Those things cost at least $10,000, which is more than Satish and I have available.”

  I couldn’t believe she hadn’t been paying attention and said, “But didn’t you hear me? Claricha destroyed the Crown of Helios! We’re missing a key component for our Mearth motor. We don’t need one here because we can’t build one there!”

  Ms. Datta scoffed, “Oh, don’t worry about that. Ops has one. Remember that I was once a Prophecy Hero named Terra. My team was wiped out, but I managed to steal and hide the Crown of Helios. I always believed that my sister suspected me. However, she was too busy leveraging its disappearance to build her own to care. My theft of the crown actually became her way to achieve power. I stripped off the tracking jewels and have worn the crown as a tattoo ever since. I’ll extract it and give it to you when I get back to the cave on Mearth. Now, however, we need to get a motor in place and running here on Earth.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I simultaneously felt unimaginable relief and fury that she hadn’t shared that information before. I risked my life to
steal the crown.

  Ms. Datta saw my perplexed expression and added, “I couldn’t let Claricha remain in possession of the only talisman in existence. Tessop had to consider the people living in Septumcolis. Mearth will continue to exist whether or not we fulfill The Prophecy. Claricha would have become a dictator with that amount of unchecked power and would have subjected the Septumcolan people to a level of tyranny you cannot imagine.”

  I silently thought that yes, I could imagine what Staven’s mother would do as the sole owner of a talisman. My memory of that power-crazed woman cradling a broken crown as though it was her own flesh and blood brought chills to my neck. Sometimes I don’t understand grownups at all.

  Chapter 30

  Great Saltpeter Cave

  May 1, Earth

  It’s May first, and we’re standing in Great Saltpeter Cave. Ms. Datta’s friend lent her the key to the cave, and we convinced all our families to spend the weekend camping down in Renfro Valley, Kentucky.

  I have to say that it is incredible standing in the great room in the cave. It feels spooky because we almost feel as though we are on Mearth. The interior of this cave is about the only thing that hasn’t changed over the past twelve thousand years.

  We drove down I-75 and traced our route on the map. I think we saw the hill we camped on at the edge of the vast prairie, although Shon and I disagreed about exactly which one was our campsite. We did agree that driving down the expressway was a lot easier than our march through the tall grasses.

  The training valley was recognizable, although the river had shifted on Mearth. Here, we were camping in a big field below the steep cave hill, but our tents would’ve been in the river on Mearth. The ridge looked the same, though, and it felt like home. I could almost imagine the bridge across the river and the small trainers’ village in the clearing on the other side.

  The governor had kept her word and delivered a big DC motor to Mr. Narwani and Ms. Datta, who rented a huge moving truck to bring it to the cave. I couldn’t understand why they needed such a large truck until they opened it up, and I looked inside. The vehicle was filled with all sorts of supplies like dry and canned food, books, matches, and all kinds of other stuff. I’m not sure why they packed a complete library and ten years of supplies in the back of that truck, but Shon assured me it would all become clear soon enough. I just wished they’d packed more kid-friendly food and reading material. I didn’t see one candy bar or bag of chips in there, not a single movie, and all the books were non-fiction.

  We had set up the DC motor in the middle of the great room in the cave. The expansive chamber appeared to have been used as an auditorium at some point in time. It was close to bedtime. Tonight, we would go to sleep here on Earth, and tomorrow morning, we would wake up with The Prophecy fulfilled or not. I wasn’t sure how we were going to be able to go to sleep, but there was a little more to do before bed.

  Our families were all in the campground, but we were going to sleep in the cave tonight. Ms. Datta called the final meeting of Club S&M and asked Shon to explain what was about to happen. Raquel was sitting beside me, and we were discreetly holding hands in the dimly-lit room.

  Shon explained that we were going to open a stable portal between the two worlds and that she knew what Merlin had done wrong. It turns out that Arthur was almost right. His motor worked just fine. It just wasn’t anchored anywhere in our world. The portal could transfer information between the worlds, but it could neither transfer mass nor energy. We weren’t sure what that meant, but Shon assured us that Jissika would explain it when we got back to Mearth. The point was that we needed to create nearly-identical settings on both worlds for the transfer to work.

  We even needed to turn on the motor before going to sleep and to sleep in specific places. Us four heroes were supposed to sleep in a group with two of us close to the device, and the other two a little farther away. Janus, Ms. Datta, and Mr. Narwani were supposed to sleep at the farther distance but spread out from the rest of us. Shon had even arranged the heroes’ sleeping bags so that two of us were upside down. Nancy claimed there was no way she was going to put her nose near my stinky feet, but Shon and Ms. Datta insisted.

  Everything was ready, and Ms. Datta said it was time to take the final vote. She wanted to know whether we still wanted to go through with it. I thought that was an insane question to ask now, and it was evident that the other heroes felt the same way. Ms. Datta held up her hand and said that there was one more thing we should know before deciding. Then she looked at Shon.

  Shon looked about as guilty as I had felt when I thought I had failed to fulfill The Prophecy. I felt that there was nothing she could say, which could cause us to back out now. I was wrong.

  Shon sighed as she began, “I now understand why everyone always hates The Key. Jissika is an absolute jerk who doesn’t give out any information until the very last second, and it is so annoying.”

  Nancy laughed, “Sort of like what you’re doing now?”

  We all laughed at her observation, and even Shon joined in.

  “Yeah, you’re right, but I had a good reason this time. Jissika never told her team this little tidbit, but I feel you need to know. Ms. Datta and I also thought that you wouldn’t want to dwell on it any longer than necessary. You see, we’re not just creating a portal between our worlds. We’re bringing magic to our Earth, and it has a severe side effect.

  “If everything works, the magical motor and our electrical motor should switch worlds and stop working because they have no power sources. This motor runs on electrical current, which isn’t available on Mearth. The talisman motor runs on magical power, which isn’t available here. The portal will close as soon as they stop spinning.”

  OK, that sounded disappointing and entirely not worth all the time and aggravation we went through.

  Veronica asked, “So, why did we even bother, then?”

  Shon smiled and said, “Because there’s one more step in the process. Does anyone know what happens when you spin the shaft of a DC motor?”

  Raquel’s hand shot up, and she said in one word: Generator.

  Shon said, “You don’t need to raise your hand, Raquel, but you are right. Spinning a DC motor’s shaft will generate electricity while spinning the shaft of a motor built from dragon stones will produce magical power. We are bringing a magical energy generator here to Earth.”

  OK, I didn’t see that coming, but it didn’t seem like such a little generator would throw off very much power. Veronica raised my question before I had the chance, though.

  Shon nodded and answered, “You are right. This baby won’t produce nearly enough magic to power the world, and we certainly don’t want to spend our lives cranking it. Fortunately, there should be enough residual magical energy to perform two simultaneous tricks. Mark is going to teleport this to the center of the Earth while the other three of you enlarge it to the size of Earth’s core. The rotation of our planet’s core will cause it to spin and generate a powerful magical field.

  Nancy complained, “But, we can’t do magic here.”

  Shon smiled and disagreed, “Not yet, but you will after Elisa, Nariana, Versera, and Stavius come through the portal.”

  Veronica corrected her, “You mean Terra, Luna, Venus, and Mars. We’re going to be Earth’s new gods. We should start using our proper names.”

  Raquel giggled, and the others all high-fived each other. I was the only one not smiling. I still couldn’t teleport. Once again, I was being set up to let the team down. This situation stunk, but I wasn’t going to remind any of them of my magical deficiencies.

  Nancy was singing, “We are gonna be gods!” and dancing with Versera when she stopped and asked, “So, what’s the bad news you were waiting to tell us?”

  I thought that I already knew the bad news, but I was wrong again.

  Shon became somber and said, “Well, you see, there’s a side effect to magical energy. Our generator is going to periodically send out energy spikes, which will di
srupt all hydrocarbon bonds. These sporadic disruptions will occur every few hours and will only last for a few milliseconds but will impact the entire world.”

  “So?” asked Nancy.

  Ms. Datta replied, “So, every molecule of every petroleum-based product will come apart. No more oil or gasoline in the world. No more plastics. No more computers or phones. No more electricity.”

  I pointed out that electricity doesn’t involve hydrocarbons. Veronica countered that the power plant generators do, and Nancy added that the insulation on all the wires which carry it do as well. Shon was right. This was big.

  Nancy said, “Well, that explains what happened to all the plastic in the future.”

  Mr. Narwani added that the hydrocarbon disruptions should start small and increase as the Earth’s magical field expands. Underground oil fields will be spoiled first since they are closest to the Earth’s core. Petroleum-based products on the Earth’s surface will fail next. Eventually, it will affect objects in the sky and orbiting the earth. He wasn’t sure how far the field would extend but pointed out that the moon, Venus, and Mars all appeared to have magical power in the future.

  We should have time to get planes out of the skies and to safely shut down nuclear power plants as long as everyone is warned.

  “Which brings us to our final act,” concluded Shon, as she held up her phone. “You each need to type in your birth date and click the corresponding button on this website if you agree to proceed. It will release a virus to the cloud, which will spread to every computer, app, smartphone, and printer on the planet.”

  I had to ask, “And what will this virus do?”

  Shon grinned and said, “First, it will send a message warning about the impending hydrocarbon breakdown. Then, it will send a second message disseminating The Prophecy to everyone on the planet.”