“They are waiting for you,” the Sentinel said.
Geoffrey let go of her hand. “I’ll meet you back here. I have some things I need to do here as well.”
Emily glared at Geoffrey and followed the Sentinel deep into the building. They got into an elevator. It went up so fast, Emily felt sick. The Sentinel had not said any other word. The elevator stopped, and the door opened. They went up at least fifty floors and the whole place was made of glass. She felt severe vertigo and had to close her eyes. A gloved hand grabbed her hand, and a voice came into her brain.
"It is safe. Just focus on my hand, and you'll be fine."
She looked at the gloved hand that held hers and followed the Sentinel down the passage. She passed a large room where a group of Sentinels was surrounding a young preteen girl. The girl was obviously a human, and she had to come from Earth. Her hair was held up in a ponytail by duct tape. She had two music notes painted on her cheeks. Emily saw the boots and smiled. The girl was wearing a costly brand name work boots. She radiated rebellion, which made Emily liked her. The girl turned to face Emily and waved. Emily waved back.
The Sentinel reached the end of the hallway and opened a door. A semicircle of Sentinels awaited her. They looked exactly the same. Their clothing was a little different. Maybe there were subtle differences in the shape of the nose or the shape of the face, but they were minor. It was almost as if it was a choice of taste, a little bit of independence in a world where everything was the same.
“Welcome home, child,” a series of voices echoed in her head in unison.
She saw a place to sit in front of the semi-circle. She sat down and waited. She looked out the glass windows into the city. Beyond the city, she could see the red desert. The full sky with its endless stars shown above her. For the first time, she saw the lights between the connecting slabs of glass. Each slab of glass lighted the whole city. It glowed in the darkness. The city was a beacon of light in the middle of the universe. She remembered Geoffrey’s words. The Sentinels witnessed the universe.
“You have questions,” the Sentinels spoke again through her mind.
“I am beyond questions,” said Emily. “I am just here on a journey with a friend.”
“No,” the echo of the voices bounced in her head.
They sat in silence, observing her and waiting.
“What’s wrong with me,” Emily blurted out, and immediately felt embarrassed.
“Nothing. You are perfect. We created you. You have no flaws.”
“A bastard?” Emily asked.
“The man you call Geoffrey has an odd sense of humor, but yes, you are like him. And like Agandana. She might be part of the Anica, but she is closer to you genetically than she is to them.” They answered.
“No, I am not. I get hurt.” She said.
"Does not a butterfly in your world begins as a caterpillar? This is intelligent design."
Emily thought they were insane and wanted to walk out of there. Suddenly she felt overwhelmed. She wanted to cry and scream and cause violence. Instead, she sat completely still and observed the violence rising in her. She studied it curiously and thought of Tom. The rage left, and she felt very alone and far from home.
“I wish Geoffrey was here with me,” she said.
“The boy had to die,” the voices said. “An unfortunate necessity for you to see who you are.”
Emily felt the rage return.
“You need to learn to be alone. Romantic love is just that. A small necessary process of human existence. There are more important things than that.” The Sentinels added logically.
“I disagree.”
They stood up as one unit, and Emily cringed instinctively.
“We won’t hurt you, child. We will never hurt you. You are one of us. Come!”
They walked out of the room as one and moved towards the elevator. Emily followed. The girl was gone, and Emily was aware of a profound sense of loneliness. She wondered where she had gone. It was nice to see something familiar in this world. As they stepped out of the elevator, they flanked around Emily. She looked around for Geoffrey and didn’t find him. The Sentinels kept walking, and she had to hurry to keep up. They stepped out of the building and onto one of the flying trams. As the tram was moving, she saw someone that looked just like Tristan, but there was no way he could be here. Emily saw Geoffrey approach Tristan. Geoffrey didn’t seem surprised, but the conversation was not welcoming. Emily stretched her neck to see what would happen, but they disappeared from her sight as the tram moved forward.
The tram stopped, and the Sentinels continued towards an oval-shaped building, unlike any other one in the city. It was actually disconnected from the rest of the town. It reminded her of the convention center in Los Angeles with the arena attached, but ten times as big and made of glass. They walked into the building, and into a vast empty atrium. There was a single door towards the inner part of the building.
The Sentinels spread out. She realized they were seven. The seven spread in a line at the entrance. They waited, and she waited. A Sentinel walked out of the one door and motioned her to follow him. She stepped through the door and stopped. It was everything. She felt the tension that came with the gates but much stronger. She didn't think she could walk further.
The Sentinel stopped and waited for her.
“It is nothing more than the change in density between one space and the next. Just let your body feel it. Don’t fight it.” The Sentinel said.
She closed her eyes and stepped forward. She felt the pressure, the nausea, the dizziness, and the trembling. She let them be, and as she did, they decreased. She continued walking and left the ground behind. Her feet felt as if they touched the ground, but there was no ground to be seen.
"This is a beacon. It shows us everything we want to see. Everything that is and everything that ever was." The Sentinel said. "You have to use it alone. I cannot be here. Two minds in one space pollute it. You neither see my mind or your mind."
“How do I use it?” Emily asked.
“You will know. It is within you.” The Sentinel said.
“How do you know I can see?” She asked.
“If you were not who we know you are, you would have died the moment you crossed into this room.”
With that, the Sentinel walked out, and she was alone in the darkness surrounded by stars, galaxies, and more. It was endless. As the door closed, the last connection to the outside world ended. She was left alone with the reality of the universe. Emily walked further into the room, trying not to feel the sensation of vertigo. She could not fathom the outcome of the experience. What did they think Emily was? She didn't feel any different than anyone else around her. Emily felt she was one with humanity. She didn't like the concept of being different.
She concentrated on being human as to prove the Sentinels wrong. Suddenly she had the planet earth so close she could touch it. She walked around the giant planet. It was stunning. Home. It looked like the photos taken from space. She looked for California and then her home of Los Angeles. She saw the familiar shapes and extended her hand to try and touch it. The earth became a hundred times bigger than she was. She stepped back in surprise. It was focused on California. She extended her hand to touch the state. As she touched it, she felt a warmth near the desert, away from Los Angeles. She looked closely and realized she was sensing the gate leading towards Geoffrey's planet.
Emily touched the place where it felt warmer, and everything changed. Suddenly, she was touching Geoffrey's planet. She walked around it, looking at the size. The planet was mostly green, with some areas of water, much like Earth.
She thought, “It would be lovely to know more about this planet.”
Suddenly her mind was filling with information, and she felt she would throw up at the speed in which she arrived. She saw the locations of every gate on the planet. Geoffrey was the only human inhabitant, but they didn't have him classified as a human. They had classified him as a minor Sentinel in human fo
rm. She held on to that thought and asked for Earth again. She saw it and felt a physical pain of longing. Emily was homesick.
She wandered, looking for the gates on the planet. There were ten gates. When she asked their destination, she got a letter and number combination as a response. There was no direct journey to this planet from Earth. She wondered who else could open the doors from planet earth, and five faces appeared like floating ghosts on the planet's surface. One of those faces was hers. She ignored it and looked at the other faces. One of them was Geoffrey's. The other was the young girl she had seen in the other room.
The third was a girl about seven with dark, almost black skin and beautiful oval eyes. The last one was a teenage boy, maybe sixteen years old, who looked like he was from Vietnam or Cambodia. There was a blank face with no location or description. She asked about that one.
“It is too soon to share this information.” The Sentinel voice whispered inside her brain.
She returned to Geoffrey and studied his image some more. She wondered what his life had been like, and suddenly, her brain was filled with information again. Some in more detail than she cared to know. She asked what a minor Sentinel in human form was.
This time she got a movie moving through her brain with a voice describing the action. It began in a laboratory where Sentinels worked. The voice described the scene.
"Since time immemorial, the Sentinels have guarded the universe. To be able to create access to different planets, they created an extensive network of wormholes. Any Sentinel can access the necessary technology to open them. The bending of time and space was something that Sentinels did naturally. It is part of their telepathic and telekinetic powers. From the beginning, It was apparent they needed some support from local populations to study the planets in depth. They selected the genetic code within the Sentinels that permitted them to bend time and space and refined it so that it would only activate in specific locations. They defined these "gates" and began to insert the gene into certain families within the local species. The species chosen had to be capable of some degree of technology and therefore be able to understand space travel at a rudimentary level.
"The first minor Sentinel was created as an accident. A local host egg was implanted with a more extensive genetic code from the Sentinels. It was not enough to change the appearance of the unborn child, but enough to alter its capacities. They studied the host through its life. It ended up with an extended life, a capacity to move space and time, see any new spots created, and have minor telepathic abilities. The newly created being could create new wormholes when necessary and could access the hall of the stars like a Sentinel.
"Sentinels immediately saw the risk of mass reproduction of this accident as well as its uses. It could be a guardian of a planet or a species. The minor Sentinel could observe the development and change direction of the planet or the species if necessary, with the assistance of the Sentinels. They created a fail-safe so they could have complete control over the process. The minor Sentinels cannot reproduce within their own species. They must be created by the Sentinels. A host female, usually a gatekeeper, is brought to the Sentinels to create the minor Sentinel. The child is created and kept with the mother until birth. At that moment, the mother is returned to her planet and her life. The child is placed with a different family. The Sentinels found that for proper development, the child had to develop entirely within its own culture.
"At adolescence, the child will begin to see shifts in their perception. They will begin to have images of the other minor Sentinel of their species. To control the reproduction of the minor Sentinel, a fail-safe was created. Sex with any other person of their species is deadly until one minor Sentinel meets the other. Their act of reproduction will mark the end of one and the beginning of the other. After the encounter, the younger minor Sentinel will be able to participate in the act of reproduction but will not be able to reproduce. The creation of the minor Sentinels is timed so that when the species body is breaking down of the elder, the new one can replace it. It is the only known form of death for the fully-grown minor Sentinel."
Emily stood, unable to breathe. Tears were pouring down her face. She was terrified to confirm the information she saw. She had to know. It was of vital importance for her to know. She closed her eyes and thought, "Who is the minor Sentinel on Earth?"
Two images came into her mind. One was Geoffrey, and the other was Emily. She knew she existed now for only one purpose in relation to Geoffrey. This is why he was so careful never to let sexuality get too far. This is why he had brought her here. He couldn't tell her himself. Her place in his life was to kill him.
TJ56823
Journal 1
Tristan wandered further into town until he saw the main building. Oddly enough, the humanoid creatures of the planet ignored him completely. He expected to be stopped at every intersection and asked why he was present. The silence was deafening. There was nothing around him but silence. There was a tram, but not a single car. It was not what he was expecting from a city. His idea of a city was the noise, movement, bright lights, and action. Here everything was perfectly coordinated and silent. He figured they must be communicating, but he had no idea how it was happening.
He felt a hand pull him around. Geoffrey stood in front of him.
“I see you are still alive,” Geoffrey said.
“Barely, no thanks to you,” Tristan replied.
“What did you expect? Did you want handholding as you dragged yourself into this mess?” Geoffrey said.
Tristan had no idea what would happen if he called out for help. Geoffrey had every right to pummel him. “How long have you known that I was here?”
“I knew you would be coming after Emily eventually. I would have stopped you, but they…” Geoffrey signaled the beings walking around. “They asked me to spare you.”
"The fish lady said I would be famous," Tristan said, realizing how stupid it sounded.
“Her name is Agandana, and she is one of my dearest and oldest friends,” Geoffrey said with a smile expressing that he knew exactly what she had done.
"Are you two close?" Tristan asked, embarrassed.
Geoffrey laughed, “I am not answering that question. You are here, and if that’s the case, then I would recommend you go through those doors to ask why. I have other things I need to do before I return to Earth.”
Geoffrey pointed to the enormous building. Tristan turned to ask Geoffrey the many questions he needed to ask, but Geoffrey was already gone. Tristan figured maybe someone inside could answer, so he stepped inside. One of the strange beings walked up to him. Suddenly he understood their communication. A loud voice, if it could be called a loud voice, reverberated within his head. Like the fish woman, the voice bypassed his ears and went straight into his brain deep into his very sense of being. It was uncomfortable.
The voice said, “We have been expecting you.”
“That’s good to know,” said Tristan. “I wasn’t expecting to be here myself.”
“Follow me,” the being said and walked towards the elevators.
In the elevator, Tristan looked out into the city. The glasswork was incredible. It must have been created from the sand on the planet. He could see far into the distance. The night sky was so visible, he could see the shapes of the galaxies even within the city. Everything he witnessed was impossible based on the science he understood.
“How long till morning?” Tristan asked.
“There is no morning and no night here,” the being said. “It is always like this.”
“You mean the sun never rises?” Tristan asked.
"We searched for this place for this reason. It is better to concentrate when there are no distractions."
“What are you?” Tristan asked.
“You mean, who?” The being answered in what almost felt like a sense of humor, though an odd one. “We are the Sentinels. We are guardians of the universe.”
The door of the elevator opened, and they stepp
ed out. Tristan followed down the passageway with small rooms on either side. Each room had a desk and a couple of chairs. A few of the Sentinels sat at the office, obviously working. They had monitors of thin glass around them. The technology was beyond anything that he had ever seen on earth. His brain started doing math. If he could bring any of the technology back with him, he could be a millionaire. What any of the tech companies in the Bay Area would give for this? He knew there was only one way to get access to it.
“Do you have a name?” Tristan asked.
“We do not need names,” the Sentinel said. “We know who we are.”
The Sentinel opened the door to an office and walked inside, pointing to the chair for Tristan to sit. He sat down and looked around. The glass panels filled one wall. He wondered how the technology worked. It did not take long for him to find out. He felt like someone was turning his whole head into a giant pimple. The pressure was intense, and then the screens came to life. Tristan saw his life.
Dance of Life: The Belief Chronicles: Book One (Chronicles of a Planet's End) Page 13