Birth of an Age

by James Beauseigneur

  Unnoticed by Decker, but conspicuous to the press and most others in the room, former UN Assistant Secretary-General Robert Milner had arrived. It wasn’t that Milner was such a celebrity that so many should have taken notice — though those in the know were certainly familiar with him. Almost everyone else was at least familiar with his work and his many books about the coming New Age. The reason for the present interest was caused instead by his actions and by the way he was dressed. Centered between two of the honor guards who stood motionless at parade rest facing away from the coffin, Milner stood clad not in his normal business attire but arrayed in a long flowing robe of pure white linen that touched the floor.

  Silent and unmoving, his head lowered slightly, Milner’s eyes locked penetratingly on the casket. Decker knew that Milner had not been there a moment before, but now in his stillness, planted like an oak tree, it seemed as if he had been there for hours.

  Then there was something else: It was almost imperceptible, but it appeared that the UN flag draped over Christopher’s sealed coffin had begun to glow. Soon there was no doubt, as every thread of the fabric became iridescent. Silence fell like a shroud as the attention of everyone in the room was drawn to Milner and to the bier. In the absence of natural light, the coffin became the brightest object in the room. Interest and curiosity quickly gave way to trepidation and fear as those nearest drew back into the crowd. On the dais from which he was to give Christopher’s eulogy, Decker struggled to his feet and stared in utter disbelief at the light emanating from the box that held his friend. Now even the guards had turned and begun to inch away, leaving only Robert Milner still standing, totally immovable.

  Anticipation filled the room as breathing stopped involuntarily and hearts pounded in near panic. Then suddenly Milner’s arms flew upward. It seemed not so much that he had raised them, but that he could no longer hold them down. No sooner had his hands reached their zenith than light as intense as the sun burst forth from the seams of the coffin, muted only by the flag that still covered it. The light that streamed from the box was as hot as it was bright, causing the air to swell and resulting in a sound similar to the roar of an acetylene torch. Decker immediately understood what was happening: Christopher was being regenerated — resurrected — just as Jesus had been two thousand years earlier.

  Those in the room hid their eyes as suddenly the coffin began to shake violently, causing the scorched flag to slip off and drop to the floor, revealing the unfiltered light that had now grown too bright to look at. The cameras, focused on the scene, showed only a bright flood that washed out everything around it.

  Then suddenly the casket lid exploded, the light vanished, and there was silence.

  In the center of the room the UN flag lay in a heap. The lid of the casket was splintered on the floor, its latches and hinges ripped asunder.

  Beside the open coffin stood Christopher Goodman. The wounds of his assassination remained: his left arm hung by his side, rendered largely useless by the bullet that had pierced it, and the fatal wound to his head had taken his right eye, leaving only an empty socket.[58]

  But he was alive![59]

  Perhaps it was an illusion caused by the bright light that preceded, or perhaps it was caused by the blur of the tears of joy in his eyes, but it seemed to Decker that an aura of light remained around Christopher. Immediately Christopher looked over and motioned to Secretary Milner, who had dropped to one knee in exhaustion. He then looked at Decker, who was leaning on his crutches, and smiled. “Come,” he said. “We have work to do.” As Decker started toward him, Christopher raised his good hand to stop him. “You won’t be needing those,” he said.

  Immediately the pain left Decker’s knee, and he dropped the crutches where he stood. He was at Christopher’s side in a moment. While the crowd maintained a safe distance, the three men quickly exited the hall.

  Decker wanted to ask and say a million things. He wanted to stop and hold Christopher in his arms and weep great tears of joy, but he sensed from Christopher’s quick pace and determined demeanor that only immediate issues should be addressed for now. “Where are we going?” he asked

  “Jerusalem,” Christopher answered within earshot of most of the media.

  “A helicopter is waiting to take us to the airport,” Robert Milner added when they were a little farther away. “The secretary-general’s supersonic is standing by at Kennedy.” It hardly seemed important that Christopher had never actually been elected to that position — under the circumstances, no one would deny him the privileges of the office. Considering what had just occurred, Decker was a little surprised that Christopher would even need an airplane. He wasn’t sure if he should ask, but Christopher seemed to anticipate the question. “There are certain limitations I must live with as long as I remain confined to this body,” he said. “I’ll explain it all on the plane.”

  Within seconds, the news of Christopher’s resurrection had spread around the world. No one was entirely sure what it meant, but with so much violence and death, it seemed that in this one victory over the grave, perhaps there was still hope for their threatened planet. Some wept, some celebrated, but most watched the videos again and again in wonder, and yet still wondering if it was all a cruel hoax. But in a world that had seen so much death and destruction, a world that even now was threatened by some unexplained agent of total annihilation, a world that so longed for some sign of hope, most openly yearned for it to be true.

  * * * * *

  By the time the helicopter reached Kennedy Airport, more than forty members of the press were already there with cameras and microphones poised. They were held back from the landing pad by UN Security forces — all prearranged by Milner — but they blocked Christopher’s access to the secretary-general’s jet.

  As soon as the door of the helicopter opened, the reporters began to shout questions. Decker was the first off. He wondered how they could possibly make it past the reporters to the waiting plane. But when Milner and then Christopher, now attired in a robe that matched Milner’s, stepped from the plane, the reporters suddenly fell silent. Christopher’s left arm hung useless and he now wore a patch over the empty socket of his right eye. Seeing reporters silent was a unique experience, but Decker supposed it was appropriate for the circumstances. Pushed back by UN Security, the reporters moved out of their way, allowing Decker, Christopher, and Milner to pass.

  As the three boarded the huge jet, one of the reporters finally found his tongue and shouted a question to Decker. “Where are you going?” he called. In the end it was the only question asked, which was just as well since it was the only one Decker could answer.

  “Jerusalem, to put an end to the killing!”

  Chapter 16

  The Origin of God — The Destiny of Man

  “I’ve looked inside the box!” Christopher told Decker and Milner now that there was time to talk. In the supersonic — one of three planes reserved for the secretary-general — it would take just seven hours to reach Tel Aviv. The level of excitement seemed to Decker and Milner as though it might keep the craft aloft even without fuel or wings. Milner at least had known the resurrection would occur. For Decker, the highest exaltation had been birthed from his deepest despair. “The old wooden box in my dream,” Christopher explained. “It was the Ark of the Covenant. When Moses built the Ark, he was instructed to make a box of acacia wood and overlay it of gold. If you remove the gold, it’s just an ordinary box.” Christopher paused. “And now I’ve seen inside it.

  “I was able to see into eternity past, and it has allowed me to understand the future. It’s all clear now: the meaning of life and death, and the reason for my being here at this precise moment. Decker, there is a purpose!”

  Decker eagerly leaned a bit farther over the table around which the three men sat, but he didn’t interrupt.

  “It’s not at all what I believed though! It’s not what any of us thought.” Christopher turned and slowly studied Milner. “Except you. You knew. Didn’t you?�
�

  Milner half nodded. “I knew,” he said softly. “But it wasn’t something I could tell you. You had to find it for yourself — for all of us — for all Humankind.”

  Christopher nodded thoughtfully.

  “There is one thing that I was wrong about, though,” Milner confessed. “I was wrong to ask you to not use your powers. I see that now. You could no more stop helping people than Decker or I could stop breathing. And as it turns out, the healings contributed to your nomination, which set things in motion for your assassination. And as painful as it was for all of us, your death was a necessary step for you to understand the truth.”

  Milner turned to Decker. “I know that you blame yourself, but it wasn’t your fault,” he said. “Christopher had to suffer and die so that the world could live. To become Ruler of the New Age, Christopher had to share equally in the world’s anguish.”

  Christopher stroked his closely trimmed beard. The look on his face revealed the furious pace of the thoughts running through his mind. Suddenly he turned to Decker. “I need your help,” he said.

  Decker raised his eyebrows in surprise. After all, here was a man — if man was even the right word — who had just returned from the dead, and he needed Decker’s help.

  “Our survival,” Christopher continued, “requires a decisive act of the will of every man and woman on the planet. The world must be fully informed of what’s involved and what’s at risk. The problem,” Christopher said, pausing and shaking his head, “is that the truth is so contrary to what we’ve all assumed that I don’t expect even you to believe it!”

  Decker reflexively snorted, as if to say he thought Christopher must be kidding. “I’ve just seen you return from the dead,” he countered, “I doubt there’s anything you can say that’ll top that.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Christopher cautioned. “But I need you to try to understand so you can help me tell the world. In fact, that’s why you’re here. You’re part of the plan. You always have been.”

  From Decker’s perspective, he was barely more than a spectator — just along for the ride because of his connection to Christopher. Having this conversation suddenly turn and focus on him was the last thing he would have imagined. “I’ll do whatever I can,” he offered.

  “You think you just have a knack for being in the right place at the right time,” Christopher said, “but your part in this isn’t just dumb luck. It’s fate, it’s foreordained. You alone have been a witness since the beginning, since even before my birth.” Christopher looked at him with deadly seriousness. “But it goes much further than that.”

  Decker couldn’t imagine what Christopher might mean, and his stomach quickly became a knot.

  “I can’t explain how it happened,” Christopher continued, “there are some forces in the universe that are beyond explanation.” The knot in Decker’s stomach tightened. “Decker, this isn’t the first lifetime that we’ve shared together. Two thousand years ago, you and I were as close as brothers.”

  Decker was flabbergasted. He instinctively searched his memory, determined to find some clue of what Christopher meant. Robert Milner smiled broadly, which only served to frustrate Decker further as he realized that he was apparently the only one there who wasn’t aware of his own past.

  “You were with me in Israel,” Christopher explained, “and like me, you were betrayed. Now I understand why it seemed so natural for me to go to you when Aunt Martha and Uncle Harry died. We were drawn together in this life, just as we were in the past.”

  “I’m sorry,” Decker said, shaking his head in desperation. “I don’t remember.”

  “It’s okay, Decker. There’s no reason you should. Not yet anyway. That will come later.”

  Decker felt some relief at Christopher’s assurance, but nothing could have prepared him for what he was about to discover.

  “Decker,” Christopher continued. “my dearest and closest friend: you were my disciple Judas Iscariot!”

  If it had been anyone but Christopher, and he recently raised form the dead, Decker would have vociferously charged that the assertion was insane. Instead, not only was he faced with the discovery that he had lived a previous life about which he had no recollection, he had been Judas Iscariot, one of the most hated men in history.

  “Like me,” Christopher continued, “you were betrayed by John.”[60] Christopher put his hand on Decker’s shoulder and gripped it firmly. “And now, together, we’ll face him to put an end to his wickedness.”

  Bela Palanka, Serbia

  After thirty-nine hours of driving, the four classmates had come 1800 kilometers from Inonu University in Malatya, Turkey. They were making miserable time.

  It was impossible to tell how far behind them the madness had reached. It might be hours or only minutes away. The news media and government agencies used every available tool and applied every possible strategy to track the contagion, but there was so much contradictory information. Absence of communication in and out of a given area might indicate everyone was dead or it might simply mean that all had evacuated. The same was largely true for satellite images — only when heavy concentrations of bodies collected in one area could analysts be certain.

  Kenmal Erdogan, his girl friend, Emine Korkmaz, and their classmates, Mehmet Evcimik and Bobby Baker took turns driving and stopped only to find food and gas enough to continue their journey. But food and gas were not easily found. There were no stores or gas stations open, the owners and operators had all locked up and fled long before them — not that locks mattered. But the farther they came, the longer it had been since the locals evacuated, and the greater the number of refugees who had already passed through the area, picking it ever cleaner of necessities. The classmates had gotten as far as Kayseri on the fuel they had when they left and what they had siphoned from an abandoned car along the way. It was in Kayseri that they first broke into a station and learned how to restart the pumps. Bobby Baker, a student from Malataya’s sister city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, had some experience working at a gas station at home, and though the Turkish equipment was generations older, he had figured out how to make it work.

  “Do you think they feel the pain?” Emine asked as she watched a video on her tablet of the killings in Riyadh that had been recorded from the WNN offices in Saudi Arabia. “They just let it happen. It’s almost like they enjoy it.” No one answered. No one wanted to talk about it.

  Bobby was afraid — they were all afraid — but even more he was mad. He was mad at his parents for signing him up for that stupid exchange program. He was old enough to make his own decisions. He should have been at LSU in Baton Rouge instead of half-way round the world fleeing for his life.

  Over the Atlantic

  “It’s not an accident,” Christopher told Decker, “that you’ve never really fit in with the people at the Lucius Trust or the other New Age groups at the UN. I know that sometimes you’ve felt out of place with people like Secretary Milner and Gaia Love and the other leaders of the New Age.”

  Ordinarily, Decker would have diplomatically objected and downplayed his discomfort with Milner and the others. Right now the fact that he sometimes found some of Christopher’s friends a little weird just didn’t seem to matter.

  “But you are more important to the movement,” Christopher continued, “—to the coming of the New Age itself — than you can possibly imagine.”

  Milner began where Christopher left off. “Decker, much has already been done to prepare for this moment. The work of the Lucius Trust is just one small part of a worldwide network of similar groups that, for the past several decades, have been preparing the world for this day. In fact, it would be hard to find any area of life that the influence of the New Age hasn’t reached.[61]

  “This isn’t the result of a conspiracy,” Milner explained, “but rather a natural convergence of thought, an alignment of minds. Few fully understand what is coming, but they do know that one age is ending and another is set to begin.”

 
; “Decker, do you remember why Uncle Harry named me Christopher?”

  It had been a long time since Professor Goodman had told him, but right now Decker remembered it clearly. “He named you after Columbus because he hoped that you would lead mankind to a new world.”

  Christopher nodded. “And that’s exactly what I am here to do. But there are many who still think that the world is flat! As Bob said, much has already been done, but there are still many who have never even heard of the New Age, much less had personal involvement in the spiritual realms. I need you to help me reach them. That’s why you’ve been prevented from journeying into the spiritual realms yourself, so that you can better relate to those still on the outside.

  Decker was understandably overwhelmed but still not clear on his role. “I’ll do whatever you ask,” he said.

  “The truth won’t be easy,” Christopher warned. “Many will despise you for it. Some will wish you dead, and some may even try to kill you.”

  Decker considered this a moment, though there was never really any question about his choice. “Based on what you say about my previous life,” Decker joked, “I guess I should be used to that.”

  Christopher smiled appreciatively, then went straight to the heart of the matter. “Decker, I was wrong in some of what I said about John and Cohen. They’ve been acting at the behest of God all along, just as they claim. Everything they’ve done has been at his direction.”

  Decker was confused. This was exactly what Tom Donafin had told him. “But how can that be?”

  “Everything that has happened was premeditated — planned out in detail, thousands of years ago.” Christopher was as somber as Decker had ever seen him. This was obviously very painful for him. “Decker, God is not at all what we have perceived him to be! In fact, the one who man thought to be his friend is instead his enemy! And the one who man thought to be his enemy is his friend.”