"That is not justice. Charles is going to have to pay!" Trip speaks out.
Chase continues, "There is objective justice; your species created the nuclear weapons in the first place. Everything you do is rationalized, justified and excused by some form of imagined need. You have no shame, no real remorse, in fact no conscience. What you as a species do best is to continually find new ways of killing each other, which had its uses because at one point your wars released the level of energies necessary for balancing this solar system. But you went amuck. The energies you generated got coarser and coarser and the damage you did to the ecosystem now has put the planet at real risk of extinction. You all have to leave earth and allow it to recover," Chase continues, "This is what is going to happen. You have 50 years to leave earth, all of you. You will all move to Mars. Charles is going to head up the exodus which will be your race's penance." "Are you insane, he's going to prison," Trip says. Ally smiles and her large black eyes widen as she says, calmly, "No, Charles is not going to one of your prisons. Let's understand one another. You're all here to play a part to assist in leading this necessary change – I promise if you do not you'll all be destroyed. The earth will be reseeded with a new and better functioning species. Our common creator is being merciful to all of you."
Chase then continues, "Accept the facts, you are all to blame. What happened today is only a small part of the unintended consequences of all of your actions. The FBI and CIA and NSA have all been spying on EOJ for years and keeping secrets from each other so they could continue stealing their technology. Ruth is the result of that. Why did you allow EOJ to exist this long? You have to admit that it was because it was to your benefit. You knew they had developed an army of assassins all in the name of what you call ‘good.’ Your President is a Guard; your Vice-President is a Guard. That is why you are all here. You are each individually and all collectively responsible for what you got from what you call ‘only politics.’ I'm horrified by all of you."
At that moment Ian suddenly draws his gun and screams, “traitors!” Then he fires a dozen times at Ally and Chase. The bullets simply fall to the floor in front of them as before, in front of the armory. Chase lifts Ian out of his chair simply by willing it and moves him to within a few feet of them. "You don't have to participate in this Ian, would you like to be removed from the project?" Then he set him down. Ian reaches out to touch them. His hand goes right through Ally "What are you?" Ian asks breathlessly. "We are matter and energy" Chase returns, "Do we need more demonstrations? In truth everything you have done until now is lawful. It's been decided that you will be preserved as long as you are useful to the project and the universe."
The room is quiet and the voice of reason prevails; Kathryn speaks, asking, "So how do we start?" Chase answers, "You are being given a great opportunity - to start again. This is the series of events that must occur: The President will kill the Vice-President and then himself. The rationale is that he is bipolar. Together we will see that the President takes full responsibility for the nuclear strikes. Charles will become the new President by your laws of succession and he will call for a new election. Chase will be elected the new President and one of you Vice-President. The United States will pledge to pay compensation to all the countries bombed. That is the first step of the plan. Charles will be in charge." Everyone grumbles as Chase continues, saying, "And one more thing. Charles is now a Klacknel." Ally moves her hand towards Charles and he becomes a box then a woman then a chair and then back to Charles. He continues, “Klacknels are a useful life form in the universes. They have mind, body and feeling but no true sense of themselves. They are immortal machines on a cellular level. They can forever repair themselves. I will be explaining more about them in the future, because they will be the ones making Mars habitable for the human race. We all have a lot of work to do."
"There are a great number of people who saw Charles and know or suspect what he did," Ian interjects. "We have already reorganized their minds as we were meeting here. They only know you went into the armory to see what this place was." Ally says. After the meeting there was a lot for everyone to digest. Trip and Ian retired from the armory and took their troops back and went to their offices to clean up the PR mess. The two senators Robert and Kathryn needed to guide the senate. And Charles needed to guide Congress and become the interim President.
*****
The President and Vice-president were found dead in the oval office and Juan and Ruth of the FBI took over the investigation of their deaths.
*****
Time passes… They all meet for countless hours day after day. This new EOJ was like the beginning, people working together. Human beings are extraordinary creatures when they have a common purpose. The Guards were all converted to Klacknels. Sam was put in charge of introducing the Mars project to the world. Charles was sworn in as President by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and did a masterful job of making all the pieces appear seamless to the press, public, conspiracy theorists and very angry nations around the world but his 60 minute interview was historical.
Chapter 71 60 Minutes’ interview with Charles Dean shown globally with simultaneous translation into 86 major languages
Host: “With me today is the new President of the United States former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Charles Stanton Dean; welcome President Dean.”
President Dean: “Thank you for having me,” replied Charles humbly. Host: “What a tragedy, what a horror, over 500 thousand people dead world-wide with over 23,000 of them right here in Virginia and our former President and vice-president - all dead. The American people, in fact all the peoples of the world need to make sense of all of this.”
President Dean: “How does one make sense out of such a tragedy? We are all in God’s hands and sometimes it's impossibly difficult to make sense of such events, but I will share with you what I know. Our esteemed President Grant had a bi-polar disorder. The pressures of his office and position seem to have come forward suddenly and because he was undiagnosed and untreated he snapped.”
Host: “What do you mean he snapped?” President Dean: “He was seemingly having some difficulty with Vice-President Barkman and apparently attacked and strangled him right in the middle of a cabinet meeting. Then, realizing what he had done, he took a gun and killed himself. We know this because the whole scene was witnessed by the entire cabinet. We also have it on video, but because of its severe graphic nature the video has been held back.”
(This was easy to achieve. Kathryn and Amy back at EOJ headquarters had simply programmed the President and Vice-President to carry out the plot at hand.)
Host: “So how did he launch the nuclear missiles?” President Dean: “That's still under investigation, but what we do know is these places all had personal significance to him. Some dark part of him must have been planning this for some time, maybe even months. It was a very complex operation. But it seems his motivation for Lyon France was that he was angry at a waiter there for having refused to speak English and embarrassing him in front of his wife, Betty. The rest of his reasons were equally alarming. It seems he had been drifting away from us for some time. Such a tragedy, if we had known sooner we have wonderful treatments for such disorders.”
Host: “How is his family doing?” President Dean: “I believe they are all still in shock, as are many of us. They too had no idea of his condition.”
Host: “So, you're now the President, what is your plan for the United States?”
President Dean: “Well Mike, I have asked congress for a special election. The good old U.S.A. needs a reboot. The only way to heal from this epic tragedy is a new free national election. The world is watching us. How do we correct such a terrible tragedy in the eyes of the world? We need a president that is free of the politics that have tainted Capitol Hill for decades, a fresh, new beginning. Russia wants to bomb us, France wants to annex Hawaii, and Egypt wants two trillion dollars and so on. You can see we have a huge price to pay for these actions and no matter how you
want to look at this; it's a tragedy for us all. It's a blemish on our illustrious past.”
Host: “Rumor has it that you are not running yourself but backing a real long shot.” President Dean: “I may be, but I'm not quite ready to announce that yet. As they say in your business, stay tuned.”
The interview was a tremendous success and the United States had its election. Chase Stern and Katherine Bennett were elected by a landslide. How that happened is one of the greatest election stories in history, but on January 1st 2044 Chase Stern took the oath of office as the President of the United States with his lovely wife Ally by his side bringing new meaning to the word ‘alien.’
Chapter 72 What if the planet earth could speak for itself, what would it say? What would it tell people? If humanity is alive then the earth is alive and what would it say to us? Maybe in the past the earth has sent plagues or wars, even ice ages or floods, in order to restore balance. Maybe at that point it needed help, it needed an intervention. But what has happened is that humanity discovered cures for many diseases, rescued people from ‘natural disasters’ and wars became smaller. As a virus mutates and changes to meet new conditions so have we. Chase and Ally needed to show the entire world the results of their actions and those of their forbears.
To further intensify and support the experience that was brought earlier they stopped the lives of all humans for one full day day. Sat them down and burned into their individual consciousness the results of their actions; not only their collective actions, but their individual actions, from the emissions of their cars to their voting for governments that allowed or encouraged corporations to destroy the environments. They were taken on a journey from their simplest actions to the devastating results. They were not allowed to turn away from experiencing the visions; reasons for hunger, air quality, rampant cancers, poor water quality and shortages of most natural resources that had always been taken for granted were seen unmistakably as the result of their own selfish egoism and its collective effect from their predecessors over centuries.
People world-wide were haunted by their dreams of the future... The fates of their families, the way they saw their future had changed. The earth had cringed; it desperately needed and wanted help. Terrible things were going to happen and everyone knew it, but they also wanted nothing to change. The poor said there was nothing they could do. The rich thought nothing would happen to them. But no one was able to escape these haunting premonitions that they had experienced of existence a hundred years into the future. Pills, diversions even sex did not help, nothing helped and no individuals were spared. Even children woke up in the night with premonitions of doom. No amount of solace would appease them. It spread over the world like a disease and Chase and Ally let the visionary virus work its magic.
During Chase's political campaign they had known just what to say to keep the painful images in the proper perspective. No one thought that a New York City cop with a totally unknown wife would have any chance at all, but they were all wrong. America was sick of politicians and in some insane flash of understanding they totally believed that their president had killed the vice president and himself after launching six lethal nuclear warheads on innocents. The world joined them in this understanding. They had their own versions of crazy politicians who imaged they knew what was good for their country, the world and most of all themselves of course.
The first action of America's new President was to call a special meeting of the UN; all members were asked to attend. That was a surprising move, but considering the worlds’ outrage at the killing of hundreds of thousands of people, some assurances to the world that it wasn't going to happen again were needed. Little did they all know what was going to happen and who or what Chase and Ally really were. There was to be a closed meeting with no cameras or even phones allowed and, the wife of the U.S. President was also invited.
The President of the Security Council that month presided; he was from the United Kingdom and after all the preliminaries Chase Stern stood up to speak before the entire UN assembly. The large room was absolutely packed. His strong athletic frame and young complexion seemed out of place for a president with so many worries. Ally stood beside him. It was unusual for the wife of a president to be there but it was allowed because everyone was expecting an abject apology from the United States.
Chase stood silently for a while taking in each person in the room. The doors were closed. People even began reacting to his not speaking and then Chase took his hand and pushed it forward and a great window appeared in the middle of the room, he reached into the window and pulled and it expanded upward into a 3 dimensional cube with the universe moving in the middle of it. Chase said quietly, "This is our universe. This is where we live, or I should say where you live. My name is Aklatin,” and as Ally stands he points to her and says, “and this is Ellkan my life mate. We are Sentinels of the Universe sent here by the higher powers of the Cosmos." Then Chase and Ally change to their natural life forms. There is a tremendous reaction from all the members of the council. There is even screaming and some members tried to leave but the doors were locked. Ally simply picked them all up and returned them to their seats. "What is this?" screams one of the council members, "Why can't we leave?" Another screamed, "I knew it, America is run by aliens." Chase and Ally simply waited quietly for the room to settle down. "Who are you and what do you want?" screams one of the members.
Chase and Ally patiently wait for the room to settle down "As I said, we are Sentinels of the Cosmos. Our job is to keep the balance. Your planet earth is dying and you and your predecessors are all responsible. We can't allow the imbalance to continue - it damages the fabric of the universe." One minister yells, "It was not us, we have done everything to conserve and maintain balance." Ally says, "Yes, when it suited your requirements, but what about the requirements of the cosmos? We're here because you need to serve another order, another level, and we’re here to make sure that will happen." Another voice screams out "What if we refuse?"
Ally says in a matter of fact tone, "You'll be removed.”
Another yells, "Is that a threat?"
Chase raises his hand as the commotion arises and asks in a penetrating voice, "Do you think the world is moving in the direction that could bring a bright future?" And again someone speaks out, "No one thinks that." Chase pauses for a moment, "We're truly here to help. We can insure you a bright future, but you're going to have to do exactly as we say. You're going to have to leave earth; all of you. With our help you will now begin to use the tremendous technological skills and massive facilities that up to now you have mostly used to produce weapons of mass destruction to create the vehicles necessary to take the entire populace of this planet to Mars within fifty years and your progeny will live there for hundreds of years. During that time the earth will be returned to a healthy and a balanced state by another race called the Klacknels. But first let me help you see the truth.
One person screams "I don't believe it. It's just a trick. They are trying to take the earth for themselves. They want to plunder it!"
A man jumps up, shouting, "We will fight you to the last man."
Chase answers "You're already doing that, please calm yourselves"
A group yells "Never!"
Others began to scream in protest. Chase moves his hands and the entire room and everyone in it are encased in a globe. He takes all of the inhabitants and lifts them right out of the UN and into orbit around the earth. In the ball the members of the UN are floating weightless and are able to observe the earth far below. They see settlements of mankind all over the earth. They see the lights of mankind almost like a microscopic view of a fungus living on the earth and after they see the earth from a great distance Chase returns them all neatly back into their chairs at the UN. There is a silence - an almost meditative state. Chase continues, "I don't wish for you to feel threatened by us, but to feel and understand the real threat – yourselves and your appetites which have resulted in this situation. I could just
eliminate all of you instantaneously but it is the wish of the cosmos that your species be given a final chance to evolve into the functioning part of organic life that you were meant to be. However it is primary to the cosmos that the earth remains healthy. You can help and prosper or be eliminated it’s up to you. Something else is needed and you will either provide it or be destroyed and the earth will be re-seeded with another organism, I do not view you as different people with different nationalities, different beliefs, different backgrounds; you are just humans, earth people. Do you understand? I'm trying to help and you are not even able to allow that; that should tell you something about yourselves. Each one of you in your hearts feels that I'm telling the truth. You should all be thanking me. I'm going to deliver you from yourselves. I could kill half of you right now and then enslave the others, but it is my job; my responsibility to help you find your own way!"
There is again a deep silence in the room.
"Will we ever be allowed to return to earth and will any of us be allowed to stay?" one woman asks. This departure will not take place for nearly fifty years so most of you will live the remainder of your lives here on earth helping the process get going. The children of most of you will live their lives on Mars. A few will be allowed to stay here on earth to help the process here. The selection process will be based on their ability to live in balance with the environment. In a thousand years some of your progeny will be allowed to return. Perhaps by then they will not want to return. Remember Mars will be humanity’s new home until the earth is healed. Mars offers you a new opportunity."
There is again a great commotion and someone speaks out; "We don't know how to go to Mars, we're years away from such an undertaking."
Ally speaks "We know that, but we are here to help you and we are able to do so. Let me introduce you to a very unusual life form." One of the Guards leaves the door and comes forward to the middle of the room as Ally continues, "This is a Klacknel;" at that moment the Guard begins to change form, becoming first a large tractor, a woman in evening dress and then a large tiffany lamp and then returns to the form of a Guard. "The Klacknels are a very interesting life form and they will be going ahead of you to Mars to begin terraforming the planet for your arrival. They have different requirements than you. They also do not have your emotional requirements. The project will be headed up by Sam Nichols and Charles Dean. These are people you know. All the details will be available to you in time. Meanwhile you will begin, again with our help, preparing your people psychologically and educationally for the journey. In the end, there will no longer be separate countries or different nationalities on earth or Mars. There is one world one earth, eventually there must be only one government and one people.
Sentinels of the Cosmos Trilogy Page 27