CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

                                                              Messages from the Future Past

       

                                                                                         

After weeks of attempting to enter the world inside, Aaron found the lengthy meditations and lucid dream experiences required to prepare his spirit for the inner journey had left him with a bout of insomnia. As with every night since the ministry’s official declaration of the deaths of Alpha Squad, he was sitting up in bed, sorting through his notes from numerous prophecies and ancient literature that he collected over the years.

            The familiar chime of Aaron’s sequencer calling out from beneath layers of clothing in the bottom drawer, of his bedside table was a welcome surprise, despite the late hour. When he inserted the earplugs, he suddenly felt intense trepidation, remembering he and Sunny were among the few with the ability to make sequencers. He found himself hesitating, afraid to face the possibility of hearing the bad news he had been dreading.

His heart began to race while he watched his room reorganize into Doctor Lu’s cramped, windowless office, “Hello, Aaron. Per your instructions, I have offered my assistance to Professor Hayes during his so-called interrogations. Tonight, for the first time, he has summoned me to assist in a late-night series. In preparation for this series, I was allowed access to some of the video records…”

   Dr. Lu anxiously chuckled to herself before continuing, “I think they were some kind of corporate promotion video to be reviewed before reporting for duty. Even now I’m finding it difficult to think about the things I’ve seen. If I could bear to revisit those memories, I’d show you what I saw. He conducted medical experiments and used an array of untested drugs designed to press the limits of the children’s regenerative abilities, keeping them undernourished and sleep-deprived for the majority of the time. He even recorded their responses with the latest version of his Nano serum. Although he seems extremely interested in their brain activity, particularly what happens during the storage and recall of memories, I suspect he’s actually using trauma-based interrogation techniques in an attempt to affect epigenetic changes in their family line.”

            Doctor Lu took a moment to compose herself before continuing. “You should be so proud of how strong your children are, Aaron. In their refusal to cooperate, they’ve proven themselves to be so much more resilient than anyone I’ve ever known. In retrospect, threatening to report him to the Ministry of Human Rights, if he didn’t cease his experiments, probably wasn’t the smartest thing I could have done. As a result, I’ve been reassigned to the overnight clinic, and hanging on-call for emergencies.”

            Aaron looked around as Doctor Lu’s office transformed into the hospital, and felt her isolation as she sat at her tiny desk in the wide-open space. “It’s been weeks since I’ve had a conversation with anyone. He’s not just isolating me; I feel I am being silenced because of my knowledge of his undertakings. I have made this recording because I believe my life is in danger. If you see this, it is very likely I’ll shortly be declared missing or dead.”

            Aaron watched his perception of the office reorganize into the step pyramid’s funerary chamber. Through Doctor Lu’s eyes, he followed while she made her way around the room, taking stock of the recently cleaned stone tubs and finding the bloodstained floor particularly disturbing. Doctor Lu observed Diego’s aides affix electrodes to the sides of Brielle’s and Michael’s heads, completing nine hookups to an ECT machine that had been modified for group sessions.

            Aaron watched The Nine being subjected to electroshock while Diego continued his investigation, questioning Michael while his body seized. “What did you find in Hangar Eight? It’s a simple question, Michael!”

            “I can’t,” Michael whispered, earning himself another extended jolt.

            “Why can’t you tell me?”

            “Because I don’t remember what happened to us!” he screamed before convulsing in shock.

            Doctor Lu covered her mouth while The Nine continued to seize, “I want to know what happened in Hangar Eight,” Diego insisted. “Anyone who wants the pain to stop…I’m all ears.”

            “Twenty-nine,” Brielle whispered in a daze, rousing her siblings’ attention.

            “Professor Hayes,” Doctor Lu began.

            “Not now, Doctor.”

            “They’ve had enough! We’ve all had enough of this!” Doctor Lu said, reaching for the console. Diego grabbed her wrists, preventing her from turning off the machine.

            “If you would like to be excused, Doctor…”

            “Not a chance in hell, Professor,” Doctor Lu said through gritted teeth.

            “Then do your job and monitor their vitals. We wouldn’t want to go too far now, would we, Michael? If you want to be First Captain, you’ll have to accept the fact that your squad’s well-being is your responsibility.”

            “I don’t want to be First Captain,” Michael muttered, to Diego’s delight.

            “Professor, that much voltage could—” Doctor Lu began.

            “Could what? Could… what!” Diego shouted, his pale-gray eyes blazing, “All I’ve ever heard my whole life is how much smarter Nu humans are! How much stronger and more endurance they have!”

            “They’re still human beings!” Doctor Lu barked.

            “Are they?” Diego asked, increasing the voltage to five amps then reaching for the switch. “Let’s see…” He flicked the switch on and off, watching the siblings writhe in pain.

“Their hearts should be cooked, and their brains turned to jelly, but there they are… still kicking and screaming.”

            “Has it ever occurred to you they just don’t remember what happened?” Doctor Lu shouted.

            “Not at all, their parents lied after the same thing happened to them. Just like their parents, they are liars too, only I couldn’t do anything about that then,” Diego turned the switch again, leaving The Nine screaming in agony far longer than during the previous jolts before finally switching the current off.

            “One,” Brielle gasped.

            “What was that, Brielle?” Diego asked, “Did you say something?”

            “Eight,” Matthew said, confusing Diego.

            “Yes…Hangar Eight. What happened to you in there?”

            “Sixteen,” Mariel offered, confusing Diego further.

            “Are those numbers supposed to mean something to me?”

            “Twenty-four,” Emanuel offered, causing Diego to flip the switch on and off four times.

            “Do you think we’re playing a game here? If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll keep the machine on and leave you in agony all night.”

            “Four,” Nicki muttered.

            “I don’t understand what those numbers mean, children. And quite frankly you’re beginning to annoy me.”

            “Thirty-one,” Raphael whispered.

            “Thirty-three,” Uriel said.

            “Twenty,” Michael hissed.

            “I promise the pain will stop, Michael. All you have to do is tell me the truth, and then you and your siblings will be able to go home.”

            “You…liar!” Michael shouted, causing a feedback to overload the ECT. The room dimmed as light fixtures exploded throughout the level. Diego and his team strained to see Michael as they peered into the darkness. Suddenly the emergency lights switched on, revealing stars of the yoniverse twinkling within The Nine’s entirely blackened eyes.

            “Michael?” Diego asked.

            “Michael’s not here anymore,” Michael smiled ominously.

            “Alright, who am I speaking to then?” Diego asked feeling intrigued.

            “What’s wrong, Iago?” Michael asked in a loud, deep voice that rumbled like an idling tractor-trailer. Diego and his assistants found the fact Michael’s tongue and lips remained motionless while clearly annunciated words boomed from his wide-opened mouth, most disturbing, “Don’t you recognize me?”

“My name is Diego. Diego Hayes,” he said with a tremble in his voice.

            “Descendant of the one drop that got away,” Brielle’s motionless, opened mouth expressed in a deep, womanly voice that shook the entire room.

            “I beg your pardon?” Diego asked.

            “What’s your objective here, Diego Hayes?” Mariel asked with her mouth agape.

            “I’m a Professor and Headmaster of the Nevaeh City Military Academy and CEO of this mission. I demand to know to whom I’m speaking.”

            “You demand?” Emanuel thundered with words of power that opened a crack in the ceiling.

            “You wouldn’t be so bold if you could comprehend our true nature,” Nicki added, examining her body.

“Do you have a name, sir?” Diego pressed Michael.

            “It is not for you to know,” Michael growled.

            “I’m afraid I must insist,” Diego offered.

            “You should be afraid, no created has ever insisted upon us,” Brielle hissed, before turning her attention to Aaron.

            “No,” Aaron muttered. Unbound by the standard perception of time and space, the beings inhabiting The Nine’s bodies snapped their heads in Aaron’s direction as though they heard him. Even Diego and his team looked to the barren fourth wall behind Doctor Lu, who briefly seemed to capture the possessed children’s focus.

            Aaron, Michael thought.

            Greetings, my lord, Aaron nervously replied, Before I ask how I may be of service to you, might I ask your name, please?

            “I am Hu-Pon,” Michael replied, allowing Diego to hear part of the conversation before returning to the hyper speed of telepathic thought, You know me, Aaron…yes? The feeling of Michael Hu-Pon’s deep thought-voice resonating to Aaron’s core made his heart skip. The Design didn’t warn him of the possibility their vessels could be appropriated in the absence of their consciousness. The mysterious, unknown Primordial rulers’ authority was more remote and their power vaster than those of the ancient Deities and, the divine order that governed the Four Heavens.

            “Only by hieroglyphics and with the help of my siblings, my lord,” Aaron replied, thinking of the passion his brothers and sisters had for Primordial culture. “If I may be so bold, may I ask why you’re here?”

            This vessel has been under siege for many days now, Michael Hu-Pon thought. Like his sibling's vessels, he has quite admirably endured much pain to protect the knowledge they have been given. We are here because we were curious to see what manner of suffering could cause Nu’s children to retreat so deeply into themselves as to awaken us from our slumber within them.

            “How may I be of assistance to you, my lord?” Aaron asked.

            Your assistance is not possible, Father Aaron, Brielle thought, smiling.

This day has already long passed, Uriel replied, However, this isn’t the event you should concern yourself with.

            “What does that mean?”

            Shall I squash these insects, Aaron? Mariel asked, glaring at their assaulters.

            “No, my Lord…please. We wouldn’t want the children to be held responsible. It would only exacerbate an already complicated situation,” Aaron replied, disrupting the eternal moment.

            “Where’s Michael right now?” Diego asked.

            “Somewhere safe, where your fiendish instruments can do him no further harm,” Michael replied.

            “Do you not feel pain?” Diego asked.

            “Like all physical sensations, pain is merely an illusion,” Matthew replied, “For us, it’s no more a concern than the death of a star within the infinitude of creation.”

            “We shall see,” Diego said, manning his control station in the middle of the facility.

            “Prepare to be disappointed,” Deanna, retorted.

            “Professor Hayes,” Doctor Lu whispered, “You must stop this immediately and return the children to their cells. You have no idea what you’ve stepped into here.”

            “What are you on about, now?” Michael’s right eye suddenly began to twitch as Diego accessed the surgical arms above The Nine.

            “This is more dangerous than you can imagine. The Nine have been taken over by the Dark Terrestrials.”

            “Relax, Doctor. I’m not entirely ignorant of Nu-human mythology. If I remember correctly, the Dark Terrestrials are unsympathetic toward corporeal affairs. We should be quite safe. And just in case…” A twelve-inch-thick, ten-foot-wide, blast-proof, protective cylindrical chamber of highly polished transparent granite lowered in unison with each arm that hung over the heads of The Nine, stopping a foot above Diego and Doctor Lu.

            “You have no idea what you’re doing…” Doctor Lu said.

            “Doctor, do your duty and man your station, or I’ll get someone else,” Diego said with a threatening glare. Doctor Lu paused, absorbing Michael’s neutral expression with a definite feeling of her absolution from her part in Diego’s experiments.

            “So…why are you all here?” Diego’s voice echoed over the loudspeakers while the siblings watched the arms inject each of them with an anesthetic, causing their heads to slump back paralyzing their bodies but leaving them awake for his procedures.

            “We’re here because the children summoned us here,” Deanna replied.

            “What do you want?” Diego asked.

            “To see your head upon Kali’s necklace,” Emanuel replied.

            “That would be a lovely sight indeed, my love,” Mariel added.

            “You paint a very gruesome picture,” Diego said.

            “You have no idea…Diego Hayes,” Deanna said, as she and her siblings exchanged menacing grins.

            “I meant, what do you want with these children?” Diego asked.

            “What do you want with these children?” Michael asked.

            “They have information I require,” Diego replied.

            “We’re here to prevent you from succeeding at what you’re actually trying to do,” Brielle replied, “As formidable as your drugs, abuse, and technology may be, you’ll never control vessels The Design created to restore the balance disrupted by your progenitor.”

            “My progenitor?” Diego muttered.

            “The one drop that escaped Kali’s tongue and got away, the one drop that cried like a baby so the Ne-Teru would mistakenly adopt it as one of their own,” Matthew replied.

“The one drop that cut Gaia’s connection to the other gods and assigned Deities…the one drop that seeks to become the lifeblood of the vanquished god of machinery,” Nicki said.

            “My…progenitor, Su-Tech?” Diego muttered again, this time to himself.

            “Their design is to safely guide humanity into the PtahGenic age,” Nicki said, snapping him back to reality.

            “Guide? You mean rule mankind, don’t you?” Diego barked. The source of his deepest fear brought to light nearly unhinged him.

            “Human language,” Uriel said, “How you’ve managed to survive an existence replete with the vast potential for verbal misunderstandings is beyond me.”

            “Are you claiming they’re the nine children of Nu as well? The nine hosts of the ancient Ntchr. The Nine Ne-Teru? The nine Archangels of God? Which is it?” Diego pressed.

            “Those are ridiculous human titles unworthy of their actual beings. There are those among us who believe they could one day even become something more… something new,” Raphael offered.

            “Well, thank you for that imaginative detour, but I’ve got a lot of work to do here. I’ll do what’s necessary to get to the truth,” said Diego. “Do you have access to their memories?”

            “We do,” Nicki said.

            “Will any of you tell me what happened in Hangar Eight?” he asked.

Brielle defiantly tilted her head toward her siblings, turning their attention to the floor plates beneath Diego’s feet.

            “Not under coercion,” Emanuel replied.

            “And if I ask you nicely?” Diego asked.

            “We would see it as disingenuous,” Deanna replied.

“And we wouldn’t dream of denying you the pleasure you have taken in being the instrument of their pain,” Matthew said.

            “Yet you’ll do nothing; you will just let them suffer?”

            “They have much more suffering to endure in their lives,” said Mariel.

            “You can see their future?” Diego asked.

            “Possible future…They’ll endure far more pain in the coming years than what will be inflicted here,” Emanuel said.

            “I’ll ask one last time. What happened in Hangar Eight?”

            “It’s not for us to say,” The Nine replied with deep voices in unison, shaking the facility to its framework.

            “All right then, children, you leave me no choice. Control, initiate phase six,” Diego ordered.