Partition: The Eye of the Architect

by Joel Gray

Jason Kminsky, a proctor in a dark, totalitarian government, has to make a decision that will change his life and the lives of many thousands forever. Jason encounters a world beyond belief, a powerful, mysterious villain, and a plot filled with twists.

Partition

J.G.

"Special recognition belongs to my Great Friend for the help He has given me."

---

Chapter 1

---

He walked across the dark, stone floor that was so eroded by time and much use that it appeared as ancient and primal as the pyramids.

The walls were grimy and blackened with the soot of countless torches.

His foot steps echoed with a dull clicking sound that created an eerie sonic ambience in the stone hallway. The halls appeared as if they had not been seen by a human for a very long time.

He disliked the silence. Silence intensifies fear. It augments sound—any sound. And, the echoing hallways did not help.

Suddenly, an explosion of sound echoed through the hall. A heavy boot had crunched down on a piece of gravel.

---

Jason Kminsky made his way down the boulevard. It was snowing. The cold wind brought with it sheets of impenetrable white powder.

Though Jason was dressed in a dense leather trench coat, the wind was somehow still able to partially penetrate its thick insulation.

The city of Equilon was experiencing winter. The Equipacilonese

proctor of national security was finished with a day of work. The video placards at key public places, and mind-confinguring transmissions that constantly filled the air waves were having effect, according to a recent survey. People were following the Cause like children following the pied piper. There would be no threat of terrorism. They were ignorant, and that is what his party wanted. Once the proletariat realizes that it is being brain-washed, anarchy will ensue.

Jason at times had felt sorry for the peasants. They work hard and only get the same wages. Nothing they could do would elevate their status. They were frozen into the system; entrapped in a fiscal modus operandi.

The wind reflected this thought as it lashed Jason's face with a sudden gust of cold chastisement.

Jason dismissed the thought with an awkward shrug. What could he do?

His two-story home was empty when he arrived. The lights came on as his door opened, automatically.

He sighed. The building was nice, elegant, and roomy, but. . .cold.

He opened the cryo-cylindroid and an anemic squeak issued from its hinges. Its cold breath pored out in swirling clouds, faintly concealing the food within. There were his left-over's from the preceding night's meal. Good enough.

Something was brushing his face. "Daddy." A child's hand. Brown, laughing, infinite eyes watched him. A young boy giggled. "Daddy."

He scooped the boy up in his arms and stroked the child's head.

Suddenly the door was torn off its hinges. Men entered the room: cold, emotionless men with fierce eyes. Grey trench coats they wore. Solemn

their expressions were.

A hand clasped the boy's arm like a talon. Jason shouted. "No! Don't! Let him go! I will take his place! I will take his place!"

The men did not hear, or if they had, they did not respond or even glance at Jason as they dragged the boy off. He did not cry. He did not make a sound. A single, slow droplet ran down his cheek as the men dragged him through the door. Through the door. Through the door. . . into the beyond.

He sat up in bed: heart beating-pain in his head—ringing in his ears.

The bed room materialized and then white lines and spots superimposed his vision. They slowly vanished and the ringing in his ears faded.

A dream.

What did it portend? Jason stood, stiffly. Sunlight was probing the floor from a square window. The air was slightly musty and cold. His carpet felt rough to his feet, but that feeling would pass.

What did his dream portend? Who was the child? Jason had never been married nor had any kids. Children were the future and it was his belief that they should not be corrupted by peasant dogma and old wives tales. Children should be raised by trained government officials and be taught the fundamentals of unity and equality in a government of equal opportunity for all.

The posterity must be better educated than its fathers with each successive generation so that in time, his enemy, the UFD will realize the futility of un-modulated free-market economy and understand the strength inherent in structured government.

The office of National Security could hardly be called an office. At the center of the circular room was a luminous, blue, multifaceted column.

Being the mother-computer of the office, it was the cynosure of all activity. The term, computer, could hardly apply to the AI: artificial intelligence.

Jason had just entered the room. Arranged with radial symmetry about the AI, a set of computer displays were at the moment in use. The white-clad monitors were anchored to their seats, with no physical retainers, near the displays. Their eyes were glued to their screens like children watching Saturday morning cartoons.

As Jason passed down an isle toward the AI, they stood at attention and, faced toward the isle on either side, simultaneously, mechanically. They had performed this action each day and it was engrained in their minds like a chisel and hammer to a rock.

Jason ignored them and approached the AI, respectfully.

The people remained in their positions, standing. The air was motionless and it seemed that it had died. He loved and dreaded this moment each day of his life. It was not the AI its self he dreaded meeting.

Jason waited. The cold blue surface of the AI remained a dull blue color: the color of death.

The AI had a name. Jason never used it. He did not know what it meant exactly. Time had eroded its meaning to give it a connotation of disembodied fear. It was a prodigy.

"Proctor Kminsky, you have…" A pause followed that caused Jason's heart to speed up an increment. "…an assignment." A monotone voice stirred to life, echoing through the room. The AI always started its daily assignment with that phrase.

"Subjects in the periphery", The AI continued with a cold, liquid voice, "of the lower portion of Equipacilon are to undergo stimulated distance psycho-modulation for the purpose of neurotic filtration. There are residual neuro-system anomalies present."

"Understood, high prefect." Jason replied, mechanically as he had done some many times before. The AI had just told him to brain wash a group of people it discovered who were not totally brainwashed with its tenets.

Jason let out a sigh of relief. The AI had not found anything wrong with him. He had feared that it would detect his doubts in the government: doubts that could be punished with death. The computer AI was a masterpiece of human ingenuity. Every one of its cryo-plasmatic cells was in use. Everyone knew why the AI was built; to control the superstructure of Equipacilon.

Only a few of the proctors at central intelligence, including Jason, knew what the AI was used for.

It was about 60 years ago that a team working for Equipacilon built the AI. Little did they know that their hard work would be unremunerated. All the team members were sent on a vacation to a nearby country, never to return again.

Their work, the AI was a subliminal computer that worked for the proctors.
Over time, it had been given more authority as humans lost interest in the boring tasks of book keeping and accounting. As the years passed, it gained power until it displaced the Director of Equipacilon. From then on, the AI was a prefect, governing a board of proctors. Humans over time were slowly brought under subjection to machines, their creations.

Jason was 10 years old when enforcers arrived at his house and took him away to a government child-center where he was to be raised. Jason mildly disliked the memory, nothing more. He could not bring himself to feel any strong emotion. His training had washed nearly every vestige of it from his soul and left him a regimented, emotionless, and procedurally oriented subject of Equipacilon, nothing less, nothing more.

"Monitors," Jason spoke to the men and women in white, "You have heard the Prefect. We do not want these subjects to remain in their ignorant state. They must follow the tenets of Equipacilon. They must not only follow but believe the rules of our founders. Commence with the operat-"

"Proctor Kminsky." The room was suddenly filled with the AI's voice. Inhuman tones resonated through the room as it spoke. "There is a change of plans."

"Yes, high prefect?" Jason replied.

"You will terminate the subjects in the periphery of the lower portion of Equipacilon." The AI intoned. "The proctor of Enforcement is inoperative, due to a medical infirmity. I want you to replace him as the surrogate proctor of Enforcement."

Kill the innocent citizens? Jason would have gasped if he had not been brainwashed. He maintained his emotionless face. Images surface in his mind of men, women, and children being rounded up, loaded into transports, and slaughtered. He had seen it before when he was a young monitor, watching in the comfort of the office, remotely, from the eye of a high-altitude, video satellite.

Jason disliked the enforcers—men in red armor—men with stone faces. They were the ones who performed the executions. Once in a while the enforcers would drag someone off to Disclosure, a place that is an enigma to the citizens of Equipacilon. There, citizens are told, people are mentally 'recalibrated', or brainwashed. Jason knew that in most cases they were killed after the brainwashing procedures. Now, he would have to lead them, since the proctor of Enforcement was sick. Jason had been trained in combat and could handle most standard Enforcement weapons with deadly precision.

He could not back out of this order. If the AI discovered his doubts in the system and his fears, it would give the order for his arrest. It would only be a matter of time before it located his weakness.

Jason cast his gaze to the floor, an action he had not done for a long time. "Yes, high prefect. Your orders will be done."

"I am satisfied." With that, the computer began to change color to a deep purple hue as its qubitic cells returned to their default mode of signal scanning—filtering the brain waves for a defect.

---

Chapter 2

Enforcement

---

He was standing on a platform. Wind tugged at his black cloak, as if it was trying to pull him off the 60 story precipice of the hangar building.

Far below, a dense forest rippled in the wind. It extended for many miles in all directions, like a blanked over the landscape. Somewhere in that vast blanket, the subjects to be killed, or recalibrated, were hiding.

"Transports are ready sir." The voice came from behind.

Jason turned to face the dark mouth of the hangar that engulfed a fleet of elongated hovering transport craft. The high-pitched humming of their superconductive levitation transducers filled the ambience with buzzing.

Men in red were filing into the vehicles.

His eyes fell on a boy standing before him, not 15 years of age, dressed in a black uniform. Red stripes covered his shoulders, indicating his appellation. He was an Enforcement tyro: a novice.

"Can I come, sir? I will not interfere. I just want to watch." His eyes were grey and emotionless but for a spark in them that still gleamed with boyish youth. Time would remove the last trace of vivacity in the juvenile's face, Jason thought. Jason could not understand how the youth could gain pleasure from bloodshed and death.

"No." Jason replied.

"Sir, other enforcement tyros are admitted in field excursions. It is a supplemental and integral aspect of their training."

A weak grin played at the corner of Jason's lips. Young boys, he thought, learning such technical words. He had gained most of his vocabulary by his 26th birthday. The educators were slowly trying to cram more and more technical information into the minds of successively younger kids with each passing year. By age twenty, a person should have acquired as much information as a graduate from Oxford. In eradicating emotions, the government of Equipacilon had to have a surrogate of some kind. Facts and meaningless theories were a suitable replacement for emotions and feelings. Emotions waste time. Punctuality and time regulation is intrinsically important to industry and government.

There was a term for meaningless technical jargon: psychobabble.

"Fine, you can come." Jason let the words slip off his tongue.

"Thank you, sir." The boy's mouth formed a slight smile.

"Wiped that smile off your face. You are not here to have fun. You are hear to learn. What is your name?"

"Ekul Vale."

"Ekul, you may not partake of the mission, only observe."

"Affirmative, sir."

"Jason." The voice was muffled and distant.

"Jason!" Now the sound was loud. A woman's voice screamed. "Jason!"

The event that preceded the voice played back in Jason's mind like a recorded video clip: there was a woman on the tarmac. Jason saw her walking. Her steps were light and agile. She was a beautiful woman. He shrugged the thought away. He could not weaken himself with such feelings.

She was merely a female member of the homo-sapiens species; only that and nothing more. She stopped and their eyes met. Jason could not smile as she ran toward him. A trace of sorrow stirred in his heart. As she was about to reach him, he spoke.

"Stop where you are." Jason's voice came gruffly, involuntarily, from his mouth as if someone else had said it.

"What? Jason?" The woman was puzzled.

Jason lowered his eyes from her face to her hands. They were trembling, delicate, and small. She was scared. She was expressing emotion as he had suspected she did on occasion. For this crime alone she was deserving of a penalty. She was not calibrated to the system like everyone else. She felt. She had emotion. She tried to hide it, but he could detect it like an entomologist an insect or a detective a murderer.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

Jason only watched her hand. Suddenly, a large hand engulfed hers. It was clad in metal—red metal: the color of the enforcers.

Jason never saw May again. She had been a good friend but she had committed feeling crime. He shrugged his shoulders and shook away the reminiscence. It was many years ago. He had taken memory suppressants, but he could still recall it. He was committing feelingcrime now. Jason reached into his pocket for the feeling suppressants. Swallowing a couple, he replaced the small container and soon his emotions were numbed.

In the command center of an armored enforcer transport filled with red-armored killers, seated among the computer screens displaying the passing landscape, Jason began to think about Amy. The feeling suppressants could not remove his cognition.

"Proctor, sir," A young adolescent's voice came from a distant remote place in the dark, surreal substrate of Jason's mind. "Sir?"

Eyes were watching him out of the darkness. They blinked: brown eyes: eager eyes.

Ekul's face slowly materialized and the cockpit with it.

Jason shook his head and slowly inhaled. "What is it?"

"Are you alright, sir?" Ekul approached. "You've been asleep all this time. The mission is accomplished."

"How long was I sleeping?"

"Two hours."

"Two hours." Jason repeated, dreamily. Why was I asleep so long? My pills: they're not the right ones. I must have taken sleeping pills instead.

"Where did you take the prisoners?" Jason asked.

"To Delta Tau." Ekul gave Jason a questioning expression.

Delta Tau was an interrogation facility used as a holding pen for 'non-calibrated' prisoners. There they would be brainwashed for a month. At the end of the month if they were not completely loyal to the Cause, they would be sent to the installation, Disclosure, where they would never return from.

"We are on our way back to base?" Jason queried.

"That is correct, sir."

The boy in his sharp uniform began to age before Jason's mind. He was not a shy teenager, but a young man. He believed everything he was taught: they were conditioned to. Jason had for a long time doubted the theories he had been taught, for theories they were, but they had been programmed into his brain. What caused him to doubt them? He knew the answer, but had long tried to push it from his memory. May. She had a special place in his life. How he hated himself for letting it happen: her death. She had died for her love for him. May had committed feelingcrime.

Jason watched his life play before him. The instructors at the child development facility. The cerebro-spatial construct that created a virtual three dimensional world he could interact with. The discipline of standing on the cryoflat and feeling the coldness of the surface penetrate his skin. The entrance into the Precursory Directional Training Facility (PDTF) at age 13. The discussion with instructor Denham about the existence or nonexistence of God. The-

"Proctor, sir?" Ekul's voice interrupted Jason's thoughts.

"Yes?" Jason asked.

"Sir, may I respectfully ask, what were you thinking about?"

Jason sighed. Everyone in Equipacilon should have a countenance and expression of purpose, motivation, and euphoria at all times. Introspective thought should never occur and if it does, one must take an emotional elation pill or two.

"You are right, tyro Ekul, I need to take my pills."

"Not that, sir. I mean, what were you thinking about? Was it the mission? Operation strategies?"

Jason felt foolish. Ekul didn't wonder how Jason felt. He just wanted to know what goes on in the mind of a proctor.

"No. I wasn't thinking about the mission or anything. I was just…never mind. Ekul, let me show you something."

Jason stood and walked toward the back end of the cockpit. The pair entered a short hallway that opened into a troop compartment. There, red-armored enforcers were seated in rigid, tight rows on either side of the walking space.

A door blocked their path. Jason spoke, "Open the security door, this is proctor Jason Kminsky."

"Command confirmed. Access granted." The crystal clear electronic voice replied.

The door opened into a dark, room. Droplets of water began to form on the interior sides of the metal doorway.

Huddled together, shivering in the cold space, men, women, and children stared at Jason and Ekul with fear.

"You brought me to the prisoners?" Ekul turned to Jason.

"Look at their faces." Jason whispered.

Ekul scanned them with his eyes and turned back.

"Look into their eyes, Ekul."

He focused at one old man who was shivering. His hair was white and sparse. Gray eyes beheld the two captors with sorrow. Jason found himself captivated by the eyes. There were the eyes of a man who have lived out most of his life and now near the end of it, he was to die a terrible death. As Jason watched the man, he realized that the man was not expressing self-pity, but sorrow for his captors.

Jason let his gaze return to fall on Ekul, but the boy was gone.

Jason shut the door and returned to the cockpit where he found Ekul seated.

As Jason took a seat, Ekul spoke. "So, why did you show me that?"

"You asked me earlier what I was thinking about. Now, I showed you."

"I don't understand. Prinsoners? Is that what you wanted me to see?"

"No, Ekul, they are not just prisoners. They are human beings like we are and they are treated like garbage. They are sent to death camps."

"You mean, recalibration facilities."

"People are worked to death in slave labor, tortured, and painfully executed. It is a lie that they are simply recalibrated and returned to society as normal citizens. Ekul, your trainers were lying to you."

Ekul, for the first time lowered his head.

"Our government watches us day and night. They can even detect when we are hungry, when we are tired, and when we have emotion by reading our brain waves remotely." Jason leaned forward.

"Who told you that?" Ekul was shaking his head in unbelief.

"I am a proctor of the office of National Security." Jason replied, "I work for the AI. How much do you know about what we do at National Security?"

"You locate terrorists and spies."

"How?" Jason was holding an electrode pen and twirling it through his fingers.

"By monitoring cell phone calls."

"Wrong. By monitoring everyone's brain waves: yours, mine, everyone's."

"That is impossible. How does it work?" Ekul asked.

"We are composed of many compounds some of our compounds are ionic, so they tend to generate weak electric and magnetic fields. A signal from a broadcast tower arrives at your brain, collects magnetic data, and returns to a receiver where it is sorted and compared with similar brain wave patterns. If it matches a pattern that, say, is associated with the emotion of hate, the computer knows that the person it received the signal from was having the emotion of hate. Since each and every person has a different brain, we all have slightly different brain patterns associated with each emotion or desire. By comparing the brain wave pattern with the wave patterns of a person on file, we can tell what that person is thinking at any moment of the day."

"I didn't know that they could read our thoughts." Ekul exclaimed.

"There is a lot you don't know and a lot I don't know," Jason replied, coldly, "which is why we are going to release the prisoners."

---

Chapter 3

Decision

---

"You must be out of your mind, sir." Ekul exclaimed.

"Don't you understand that you were lied to all your life? These prisoners do not deserve to die." Jason dropped the electrode pen.

"The prisoners won't die. They will be recalibrated, and so will you."

There came a complex interlocking clicking sound.

Jason gasped and lowered his gaze to Ekul's waist level. A grey emechnid pistol. Black-gloved finger on trigger. Aimed at Jason.

His heart increased speed, palpitating. His vision blurred a moment and returned to normal. Ekul was aiming at him.

"By the authority of the Directive, for the charge of feelingcrime, I arrest you. Tyro's are allowed to perform this action in extreme circumstances as it is now." Ekul advanced toward Jason.

Jason cursed himself. What a fool he had been to tell this young tyro the truth. He should have realized that the young man was dedicated to the Cause. Ekul had been brainwashed since three all these years. He did not know better.

"All along you were against the government." Ekul advanced a couple steps. "Do you realize how much you are now worth to me? I will get a fortune." He continued to advance. "I will be promoted. I will gain prominence. All of this for turning you—"

In a flash, Jason took the opportunity to act. Ekul, young and ignorant in his pride, had advanced close. He had forgotten some of his training.

Jason's left arm struck the boy's wrist and the gun went flying. With his other arm, Jason gave the boy an uppercut to the forehead, knocking Ekul unconscious. Once Ekul was down, Jason searched him for any more weapons.

A small pile of a hand-computer, a heat knife that could cut through armor slowly when the heating element in the knife blade was turned on, and a wad of paper were left over from the search.

Jason smoothed out the paper wad and found pencil writing on its surface. A picture of a dog appeared. It's an excellent drawing, Jason thought.

He turned to the task at hand. He was now convicted of crime. It would not be too long before the AI discovered his crime. He would have to tie Ekul up and give him sleeping pills and memory suppressants to ensure that the AI did not detect Ekul's thoughts. If it knew what Ekul knew, Jason would be discovered. The enforcers would be another problem. What could he do with them that would not look suspicious? He couldn't just set them down some where and tell them to wait.

Suddenly, the cockpit lurched sideways under the impact of a heavy object.

A shrill voice intoned, "Exterior damage by projectile. Warning, you are targeted. Warning, you are targeted. Warning, you are…"

Jason took the controls. Who could possibly want to target him? Only the Equipacilonese had that technology.

The forest landscape below him looked like a sea of green. Waves rippled through the trees creating the impression of water.

An image appeared on a computer screen labeled: Attacker: SAB: surface to air battery. The anti-aircraft weapon looked like a flower bulb. When it fired, elongated, petal-shaped plates would slide backward, in the opposite direction of the projectile it shot. It was like a mouth, spitting venom.

Jason nudged the joystick to the left and pulled it toward him to gain altitude.

"Warning, you are targeted." The computer voice intoned again.

The computer image of the SAB on the computer screen became animated. The petal-plates slid backward with a sudden jolt. There was dull explosion from somewhere in the distance.

The cockpit shook violently. Ekul might awake soon.

"Damage critical. Damage critical. Fuselage is impacted. Damage critical. Fuselage is impacted. Damage critical. Superconductive levitation transducers malfunctioning. Superconductive levitation transducers malfunctioning."

The altitude indicator showed that they were falling. 530 meters. 499 meters. 437 meters.

Jason watched the ground approach. This was the end.

398 meters. 328 meters. Suddenly a force was pressing into him. It felt like he had gained weight. The altitude drop began to slow down. 322 meters. 319 meters. 316 meters.

"Emergency superconductive levitation transducers are engaged."

Jason inhaled with relief. He had held his breath during the stress of the situation.

The enforcer transport gently touched down, flattening grass with its five tons of mass.

Now came the hard part. His own government must have discovered. They ordered a SAB to shoot him down. Was it good piloting skill or chance that had brought him through the attack? Or, was it… Jason shook his head in disbelief. …planned?

He had only moments to act before— The door was opening. The door in the cockpit was opening. The red-armored enforcers! He had to act fast. He was no match for them. Three hundred pounds in their armor, they were human tanks.

Jason reached for a K98 siege rifle. It fired armor-piercing rounds, but Jason knew that the enforcers always upgraded their armor each half decade.

The gun was slightly out dated.

The door was open. The air held an aura of mystery that seemed emanate from the figure in the doorway. It was the old man with the grey, sorrowful eyes.

In the light, Jason could see that he was wearing plain, nondescript clothes. They had the appearance of much use and wear.

The man looked at Jason with neither fear, nor hate, but with an emotion Jason could not identify. Silence was predominant for what felt like an eternity. Those enigmatic, grey eyes; what soul did they embody? Jason felt that the man was wise with wisdom beyond any person he had met before. The white stubble on his face was like a coating of frost and the white ice-cycles of hair fell down over his forehead. Something like a distant twinkle animated the old man's eyes.

At last the stranger spoke. "What are you going to do with me?"

Jason was caught off guard. Seeing the pathetic figure before him and his own hand clutching a gun, Jason could not handle the tension any more. He dropped the weapon.

"Where are the others?" Jason asked, finally.

"I am the only one." The words were surreal in that quiet room.

"They died?" Jason raised an eyebrow.

The man did not reply. He turned and passed back through the door. Silence returned. It almost seemed like a dream.

Ekul was lying on the floor, unconscious. Jason left him. He wanted to find the old man.

Opening the door revealed a damaged troop compartment. The two rows of seats along the passageway were gone. In their place was a mess of fallen, red-armored enforcers, twisted metal, and debris. The heavy-armored door that led into the cockpit had protected Jason from certain death. All his enforcers were dead.

The prisoner storage area was in a similar state. An armored door was open. The locking mechanism was damage and the door was free to swing on its hinges.

Outside, the ship looked like it had passed through an asteroid field. Craters pockmarked it and a ragged hole yawned in its side.

Jason was in a forest. The trees rose high above him like pillars in the institutional library. The forest canopy was like outer space with white pinpoints of light scattered across it. From the openings, beams of light splashed the ground here and there. One beam fell on a figure. As Jason approached it, he realized it was not the old man.

Seeing him come, the figure left the light and began to run, or rather, try to run.

"Hey wait. I won't harm you." Jason felt foolish. He was wearing the stiff, black battle uniform of a proctor.

Jason could tell that the figure was limping. He ran after it in pursuit.

As he closed in, he noticed that it had long hair.

"Wait. I won't harm you."

Jason passed by the runner and turn toward it with his hands outstretched.

"I won't harm you."

The runner was a woman: a young woman. She was breathing hard. She stopped in mid run and covered her face with her hands.

"I know I am wearing this uniform, but I am not your enemy. I will not take you to any interrogation facility or anything of the kind. I am a friend. The enforcers are gone. I will not harm you. You look injured. Do you know where the old man is?"

The woman was silent. She was crying. Jason placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. She shrunk away. Seeing her timidity, Jason decided that drastic action must be taken. He pressed his index finger on a flap near his neck and began sliding his finger down his uniform jacked to the bottom of the jacket. The nano-static-charge zipper was undone and he slid the uniform off.

"Look, I am not your enemy."

"Then, who are you?" The woman asked with tears in her eyes.

"I am a friend. My name is Jason. I am no longer a proctor. I have quit being one." Jason removed the rank label from his under shirt and threw it to the ground.

"Your leg; is it broken?" Jason asked.

"No. Just sprained." The girl turned away. "Why do you care? You're just a murder like the rest of them. Did you know that your people have killed off my dad, mom, and sister, and most of my friends? Has it not occurred to you that you get paid to kill innocent people?"

Jason lowered his head. What she said was true. He had been involved with the killing of people. He had never killed anyone, but he had been instrumental in aiding those who did.

"Where's the older man?" Jason asked.

"Right here." The man came out of the trees. For the first time since Jason had seen him, he wore the faintest trace of a grin. "I've overheard your conversation, and Jenny, I think that this man has a good heart."

"Grandpa, he is a murderer." Jenny approached the old man.

"No he isn't, not by the countenance he bears. I murderer could not look me straight in the eyes as he did." The man stretched out his hand to Jason and he shook it, awkwardly.

"I have not killed anyone, but I must regrettably admit that I have been instrumental in a few deaths. I…I am horrified at what has happened to your people. I cannot express my-" Jason stuttered.

"Young man, you are forgiven. Jesus Christ has taught me forgiveness and it is my duty to show it to you." The older man said. "My name's Charlie. I take it that yours is Jason?"

"How did you know?"
"Heard you mention it." Charlie turned to the girl. "This is my granddaughter, Jenny, as you know."

Jenny kept her head down turned. Jason estimated that she was about 20.

He felt quite old at his age of 29. His martial arts training had begun when he was seven and every week he would continue training.

"Where did you come from?" Jason asked.

"Son, I ran away forty-seven years ago. Equipacilon did not have as tight security on its boarders then. I had heard about the independent colonies that existed outside Equipacilon. My son, Tom, was born shortly after that when I met my wife in the largest colony, the city of New Philadelphia. I remember those wonderful years we spent watching the kids grow and the seasons change. Those were the-"

"Raise your arms, slowly." It was Ekul. The teenager was holding the K98 siege rifle. In a moment, the three could be dead.

They complied. Jason inwardly swore at himself. He should have tied up the devout tyro who was now armed.

"Jason, too bad that one of your own tyros is under the circumstances in which he must be obliged to hold you at gun point, but that is what it has come down to."

Ekul pulled out three pairs of nano-ionic-bonding handcuffs and tossed them to Jason.

"Fasten these on your fellow conspirators and then on yourself." Ekul grinned. "The com-transmitters are inoperative, so we will have to walk to the nearest enforcer base which is fifty miles away.

Just as Jason was reluctantly reaching for the handcuffs, a deep voice bellowed, "Tyro, drop that gun, now, and raise your hands!"

From the door in the wrecked enforcer transport, a solitary red-armored enforcer emerged with a bulky maser rifle. The high-powered weapon had a lethal range of half a mile. Anyone within that distance could be fried by the intense microwaves it emitted.

"You don't understand. This proctor is a defector. He is helping the prisoners." Ekul said with the gun still in hand.

"Do what he says." Jason gruffly said. Turning to the enforcer, Jason added. "This tyro is insubordinate."

Ekul, seeing how he had been framed, dropped the gun and raised his hands.

Jason clicked the handcuffs on Ekul and picked up the K98 siege rifle.

Turning to the enforcer, Jason asked, "How many enforcers are left?"

"Only me, sir."

Jason was in a predicament. Ekul could tell the enforcer everything that Jason had said in the cockpit, but the enforcer would probably not believe it. In addition, the enforcer would believe that Jason was taking the prisoners to the nearest prisoner base. Jason knew that he could not have the enforcer discovering his defection.

"Enforcer," Jason spoke.

"Yes, sir?"

"I will take this insubordinate tyro and the prisoners to the nearest prisoner base. You may go back to your bunker."

"Yes, sir."

Jason knew that the enforcers' bunker was at least eighty miles away. It would take the enforcer about a day and a half to reach it.

As far as Jason heard, the enforcers were grown in vitro at the Fetal Development Center. The enforcers were clones of the Progenitor, a man who had died long ago, many years before Jason's birth. His name had never been mentioned. It was rumored that he was the founder of Equipacilon. His great strength and endurance were the two reasons why he was cloned for the progeny of the enforcers, and so, every enforcer was strong and reliable in times of war. The lone enforcer walking away from the group was a threat to him, but Jason could not bring himself to kill the man.

"Jason," It was Charlie's voice. Jason returned his attention to the situation. "We need to get out of here."

The supercomputer in the Office of National Security, AI, could discover Jason's defection any time. Jason knew that it probably would, soon. The crash site could be covered with enforcers in a day from now.

"You don't have a chance." Ekul piped up with a sneer in his voice. "The AI will locate your position and swarm you with enforcers. In fact, they could be on their way now."

"Keep quiet or I will leave you behind." Jason said.

"I don't care. They'll pick me up."

"Jason, he's right about the AI. It can track your location." Charlie spoke up.

"I know." Jason sighed. "What do we do? There is no where to go. The forest doesn't conceal us. We could travel a thousand miles away from Equipacilon and still be detected by the AI."

"You know, Jason, you are wrong." Charlie's eyes sparkled. "I forgot to tell you what most citizens of Equipacilon don't know."

At this, Ekul turned slightly toward the old man, with curiosity.

"What?" A tremor passed through Jason's skin.

"I will not say it here." Charlie chuckled slightly. "Even though my brain wave thought patterns are not plugged into the AI as yours are, I will not tell you what I am thinking of, because, well, everything I say to you is registered in your brain and what you think about is monitored by the AI, so I want you to stop thinking about what lies ahead of us and start thinking of something pleasant and fun like a playful dog. I'll tell you about it when a good time presents its self."

Jason shook his head and sighed. Well, there was no point in arguing.

"Jenny." Charlie called his granddaughter.

"What?"

"Would you kindly blindfold Jason and I'll do the boy."

Charlie pulled off his green jacket, flipped out a knife and sliced off two wide strips near the lower edge.

"You're blindfolding me?" Jason was incredulous.

"If you and the boy see what we show you, you will know what it looks like and so will the AI."

"How can I trust you? After all, I was your enemy." Jason asked.

Watching the old man's expression, he knew that the Charlie was innocuous.

"You can hold the gun if you wish." Charlie replied as he began tying the blindfold around Ekul.

Jason felt the gentle brush of delicate fingers on his neck. Seeing Jason turn, Jenny shyly explained. "I saw you had piece of hair on your neck. Sorry to—"

"It's fine." Jason smiled. Jenny gingerly placed the cloth over his eyes.

"Tell me when it's tight enough." Jenny's voice came from behind his head.

As she tightened the bowstring knot, her finger brushed against a rough line that ran down the back of Jason's neck and beneath his shirt collar.

"Oh. What happened to you?" She breathed with true concern.

"It's nothing. Just a scratch."

"That's a scar." Jenny said.

"Ok, I was at my house one day and a knife fell from a high shelf." Jason felt guilty for lying, but he could not tell the disturbing truth.

"Jenny, is he all tied up?" Charlie's voice penetrated the blackness.

"Yes." Came the reply.

"Ok, you lead Jason, and I'll lead the boy. Our destination is not that far away."

Jason felt the soft, delicate fingers of Jenny wrap around his wrist. And he began to follow the direction of the applied force. He slipped into a surreal state as they went. It seemed that the land was in motion while he was stationary, moving his legs.

"Jenny?" Jason asked finally.

"Huh?"

"Your grandfather is a kind man. I didn't think before that people like you…were that way: kind, I mean. What I am trying to say is that you seem quite different than what I expected. I see that I have been misled all my life."

"Perhaps so." She was quiet for a moment and then her voice returned.

"You are a different than the people of Equipacilon. I had always thought you people were emotionless, scheduled, strict, and severe, but you are not. You have emotion."

Jason found himself flinching at the phrase, 'you have emotion'. He had grown up with the idea that emotion was a crime.

"Jenny, what is it like where you live?"

"Home, I guess. It is not like Equipacilon. It is not as clean and as neat and as sterile, but it is beautiful."

"We're here." Charlie's voice came from twenty yards away.

Jenny's hand slipped off his arm. Her footsteps faded away.

A grinding, metallic interlocking click drifted toward Jason, followed by a slow hiss.

Jenny's hand clasped Jason once again and this time she held Jason's hand.

Jason felt his shoes pressing a hard, flat substance. There was a whirring sound from somewhere below: underground, and then Jason had the sense of downward motion.

The whirring began to grow louder and it echoed through a shaft of some kind. It was perhaps a minute before the platform they were on reached the bottom with a clunk. Once the group had left, it rose back to the surface with a diminishing whirr.

"You can take the blindfold off if you wish, Jason. There is now 120 feet of densiton between us and the surface. No rays will penetrate at this depth."

Densiton was a surrogate of concrete that is made by application of nano-technology in which the molecular structures of atoms were altered to increase the strength and density of the densiton.

Jason let the blindfold fall to the ground and remained standing in the same spot; mouth agape.

The room was expansive and filled with objects, the like of which, he had never seen before. It was vacant of human presence and in slight decay.

Boxes were stacked on one side of the wall of the vast cavity. In the center was a strange, large, box-shaped object with sinuous tubes radiating outward from it to the ceiling. A few dozen yards from the center, an ominous, multifaceted vehicle lurked. The massive craft resting on the bottom of the dark vault quietly waited for its next task.

"That is Resilience, an interplanetary space craft. We were blessed to have found it in good working condition." Charlie grinned.

"That is a space ship?" Jason had never seen one. He had read about them in a history book. He knew that Equipacilon did not build them anymore.

Few remained and some were quietly dismantled and turned into scrap parts. When Jason asked an instructor why, the man had replied indifferently, 'We do not live in space. We live in Equipacilon.'

The last frontier of mankind was left alone.

"Where are you taking us?" Ekul said for the first time since his blind fold was tied on.

Charlie's reply to Ekul's question had both mystified and alarmed Jason.

Sitting in the cockpit of the Resilience, Jason pondered over it. He had feared to ask the old man what he had meant by his enigmatic reply to Ekul.

"What did he mean?" Ekul was seated next to Jason in the cockpit with his hands still cuffed. No doubt, Ekul was referring to what Charlie had said.

"We are packing up." The old man had replied to Ekul's question of where they were headed, "This is the end of the old world, for you. The new world is just on the horizon. Adjusting to this change will take time, but you will adjust. Let the past be past."

"I don't know what he meant." Jason whispered. "I don't know."

A sharp hiss punctuated his sentence as a hyperbaric door slid open.

"We just finished the pre-flight check" Charlie stated as if he had done so many times before, "and everything is in order. It appears that the AI hasn't located us yet. We'll be out of here before you know it."

Charlie took a seat before the controls, which looked rather primitive to Jason, and began adjusting knobs and contact switches. A computer screen lit up and Jason could tell that it was many years outdated. This had to have been made before the technology of the holographic interface was practical.

A translucent, woman's face appeared on the screen, accompanied with a pleasant female voice.

"Welcome to Resilience, an interplanetary transportation craft of medium weight, maximum storage capacity: 98 tons, top speed 60,000 miles per hour, and crew

capacity; thirty persons. I am E-Delta. How may I assist you?"

"Activate levitation transducers and open the hangar deployment hatch." Charlie ordered.

Jason watched the female computer face wink and reply, "Executing command. Prepare for takeoff."

The dull hum of the levitation transducers penetrated the floor from their source two floors below.

Jason stared out the translucent, pyroalloy windows at the cavern outside. The floor was moving. Like a gigantic mouth opening, a long, narrow rectangle of darkness could be seen widening. Two gigantic plates were opening in the cavern floor.

---

Chapter 4

Below

---

"We're going underground?" Jason was bewildered. "I thought that outer space was above the ground?"

"It is." Charlie replied, mysteriously.

The question is to remain unanswered. Jason thought. Is Charlie in his right mind?

They were engulfed in blackness as the Resilience passed beneath the floor plates. Above them, a narrow rectangle of light was constricting as the plates were closing.

"We are in the sub-Equipacilonic labyrinth." Charlie spoke again.

Jason felt that they had just entered a tomb and there was no way out. The only light to be seen came from the computer screen and instruments.

"Equipacilon has an underground?" Ekul's voice piped up, betraying his fear and awe.

"There is more above your heads than beneath your feet." The old man replied.

Charlie pressed a button that activated the infrared option in the pyroalloy windows and the darkness was replaced by a dark-green tunnel. Taking hold of two joysticks, he sent the Resilience forward.

The man was as still as a corpse. Only his eyes would move: blue orbs that searched and analyzed his surroundings.

Seated at the same round table he occupied were ten other proctors. One of them was missing.

Unlike other board meetings silence was predominant here.

When the clock above the door in a far wall read 1900 precisely, the lights dimmed automatically, transforming the men in the room into living shadows.

A one-meter wide, circular section in the middle of the table, attached to the top of a transparent cylinder, began to rise.

When the cylinder had risen to an altitude of two meters, it stopped and the cylinder began to glow as a three-dimensional holographic face of a man appeared.

The face was hairless and pale. "Proctors." The mouth formed the words and sound from the walls flooded the room.

With that word, the eleven proctors stood, facing the hologram and replied, in unison, "We acknowledge you, master prefect. We pledge continued allegiance to you, forever."

The men took their seats and the hologram face continued its protocol.

"Proctors, we have gathered for the circumstance that has divested us of one of our top men."

A three dimensional image of Jason appeared in the transparent cylinder for a moment and then the hairless face returned.

"The proctor, Jason Kminsky, has aided the prisoners he captured. For this, he is guilty of the crime of subversion. You cannot let your subordinates know of this. Eradicate all who may possibly know of the proctor's treason. He is lost to us." There was silence in the room for a moment. The air was alive with an aura of tension. "Proctors, do not let this happen again." The AI finished his message and the face disappeared, as the cylinder lowered back into the table.

The corpse-like man stood with the others, and headed for the exit. Though

his expressionless face did not show it, a plan was beginning to form in his mind.

The maze of tunnels was so intrinsically complex Jason did not know how Charlie could navigate it.

He stood up at last, and headed toward the door at the back of the cockpit.

It slid open without difficulty and he entered a medium-sized multi-purpose room. Three couches, a pool table, a shelf with books, and a small cupboard with a sink furnished the room, giving it an antique and a homely look.

Jenny was seated at a couch, reading a book. Her delicate hands were clasped around a fairly thick volume.

"What are you reading?" Jason asked. Books were hard to find and expensive since the market for them had long ago declined.

Jenny stirred, startled. "Oh. A book."

"What's the title?"

"The Bible."

"What's it about?" Jason had been taught that it was just a religious book full of nonsense and fables.

"What do you mean?" Jenny gazed at Jason with a questioning look.

"I mean, what is the theme of the Bible?"

"The Bible is the account of how God created the universe, how mankind

sinned, how God set aside people for Himself who would write down His words in this very book, and how God provided a way for all of us to be saved from our sins and to go to live with God in Heaven."

Jason had heard of Heaven and God, but hadn't thought of them as anything more than religious concepts that ancient man created.

"Jenny, where are we going?" Jason asked, finally. He couldn't get Charlie to tell him.

"Have you asked my grandpa?"

"Yes. He gave a riddle for a reply. I couldn't get him to tell me exactly what he meant."

"Then, I don't know. My grandpa doesn't always let me know what he is doing."

"But, Jenny, I thought the state of Equipacilon and the surrounding countryside were all there is. I didn't know there was this underground crypt we're in. I mean, where are we, really? Can't you just explain that? I don't know what is going on. There must be other places beyond Equipacilon. Your grandfather mentioned New Philadelphia. Where is it if it is not in the state of Equipacilon?" Jason felt that his cheeks were flushed. Seeing Jenny turn her head away and stand up, he realized that he had raised his voice. It must have been due to the tension of the circumstances.

"No, Jenny, don't leave." Jason spoke earnestly to the retreating woman. "I'm sorry for raising my voice."

Jenny stopped and turned, wiping moisture out of her eyes.

"I was wrong. Will you forgive me? The stress I've been feeling has just gotten to me." Jason added. Normally, Jason would have taken his emotional repressors by now.

"Why do you have to take out your anger on me?"

"I was wrong. Will you forgive me?"

"You are right. There is more than Equipacilon. We are in the crypt below

it. We are going to exit this crypt in a few minutes. Don't worry. We'll be beyond the reach of Equipacilon shortly." For the first time, Jenny smiled at Jason.

"And, Jason, I forgive you. Thanks."

The Resilience was like a bat in a cave, Jason thought as he watched the tunnel walls pass by him from the cockpit of the large craft.

"How long have we been here?" Jason asked Charlie who was occupied steering the giant vehicle.

"About fifteen minutes." Charlie sipped a cup of coffee.

"Where's Ekul?" Jason asked. "I thought he was in the cockpit."

"I thought he was with you?" Much disturbed, Charlie set down his mug.

"I was talking to Jenny in the room directly behind the cockpit. How could he have left under your nose and somehow pass through the room behind this cockpit, escaping my attention?" Jason held his hand to his forehead. How stupid he had been to leave Ekul unattended. The tyros were trained in self-defense and secretive infiltration. They were good at 'sneaking'.

"We need to find Jenny. She could be in great danger." Jason reached for his K98 rifle where he had left it. His hands swiped empty air. "My gun: it's missing!"

"The boy took your gun?" Charlie asked, incredulous. His skin began to pale. "We have a few weapons, but we don't use them much...only in emergencies."

"Where are they?" Jason was beginning to sweat with anxiety.

"A floor below us in a walk-in cooler."

"Proctor Estone, take a seat."

The corpse-like man was once more seated at the circular conference table. This time he was alone. His stiff uniform restricted his movements and the cold air were undesirable, yet necessary. He had endured them for over twenty years now and he would endure them until his retirement.

"I wish to remain standing, your greatness," Estone said, "if that is not displeasing to you."

He could not understand why it was that every time he was personally summoned to the AI, temerity assaulted him. He shook off a tremor that was passing down his leg and watched the translucent, expressionless holographic face.

"Proctor Estone, I find that in the course of pivotal events and disastrous circumstances it is necessary-" The echoing voice paused, letting the suspense build. Estone watched the face, trying to interpret its expression, but he could not. It was merely a computer, he decided.

"-to confide," the AI continued, "in certain trustworthy entities one's true concerns in matters of great importance."

Estone watched the virtual lips as they formed more words.

"I have selected you, master proctor." The pale face was staring into Estone's eyes. Something about the eyes caught Estone's attention.

There was an almost imperceptible motion like the rotational motion of a whirlpool in the eyes. It seemed that they were formed out of water: living and animate liquid.

"It is a great honor. May I ask why your greatness did not select another proctor?" Estone asked, trying to disguise his sudden pleasure at the thought of gaining power.

"You are trustworthy. I have chosen you." The face's eyes turned away as if the AI was distracted by something. Soon the two, enigmatic orbs returned their gaze on Estone.

Estone kneeled. "Master prefect, what is your wish?"

The translucent mouth began to smile.

Only armed with a crowbar, Jason entered the multipurpose room he had had the conversation with Jenny in. Charlie had remained in the cockpit, since he needed to guide the ship.

Passing through the multipurpose room, Jason entered a narrow hallway. A door at the end of the hall was the solitary means of egress for this corridor. Jason gripped the cold metal bar tighter. The door did not open automatically and it appeared that there was no button or hand sensor present. Jason probed the surface of the door to see if there was any button or—

"May I be of service?" The female computer voice Jason had heard in the cockpit emanated from the door. It was E-Delta, the ship's onboard computer.

Jason recovered his astonishment. E-Delta must have control over every function of the Resilience.

The computer must be able to monitor the ship with mini cameras or optical sensors, Jason thought.

"E-Delta, where is Ekul, the teen-age boy?" Jason asked.

"I am sorry. I am unable to locate him."

"That is impossible. He is here." Jason couldn't believe it. Ekul could not have left in an escape pod, could he?

The computer remained quiet.

"Locate Jenny, the woman." Jason did not want to loose her.

"I am sorry. I am unable to locate her."

Jason could not believe what he was hearing. It had only been a short time since he had talked to Jenny. She had to be on board. What could Ekul have done to her?

The door slid open and he entered the cockpit. It was quiet—too quiet. Where did Charlie go? The old man was gone!

How could that be? Charlie would have had to slip past Jason to leave both the cockpit and the multipurpose room, unless there was a hidden door somewhere. If so, why would Charlie not notify Jason that he had used the hidden door, unless. . .

Jason stopped his train of thought for a moment. His heart began to beat faster. Something was wrong. The only conclusion he could make was entirely irreconcilable with Charlie's personality: Charlie was trying to hide something from him.

The tunnels! The ship could crash into them any time! Charlie had been steering the Resilience the whole time so far, keeping it on course. Jason could see that the tunnel the ship was travelling through was coming to an abrupt end at a wall. The gap was closing.

Jason, terror-stricken shouted, "E-Delta, slow us down!"

The computer was silent.

"Listen to me you rotten mound of silicon, slow the ship down!" Jason pounded his fist on the computer screen.

"There is no need to ascribe degrading appellations, Jason." E-Delta spoke finally, "I am following my orders."

---

Chapter 5

Incident

---

The feeling of water engulfing him and the horror of sinking into great depths, watching bubbles rise away…liquid seeping into his mouth…darkness below approaching…quiet, aqueous sound of swirling water…fire in the lungs…

Jason sucked in a breath of clean air and shivered in horror at the reminiscence of his experience. He was fourteen when he was walking on a small cliff near a deep lake and he had happened to slip. The water was dark and murky. His backpack was heavy and was pulling him down. He finally unstrapped it and swam toward the surface. He had almost drowned that fateful day.

The terror he had when he found himself falling toward the surface of the lake, the envelopment of water, and the weight of his backpack pulling him down did not compare with the terror he now felt as he watched the wall obstructing their path rapidly approach. It was certain death.

The time passed slowly on the computer screen. There was nothing Jason could do. The wall was getting very close.

Jason closed his eyes. Everything was quiet except for an ambient ringing, like the ringing in one's ears after a loud noise had occurred. It was strange, Jason thought, to be dead. No one would know what it was like until they have left this world for good. How could I be thinking this if I am dead? Jason thought.

The darkness left as Jason's eyelids opened. There are the instruments, the computer screen, and the cockpit, but what is that?

Out the window was darkness and in the darkness were thousands and thousands of bright specs of light. The realization that they were stars and he was in outer space eventually entered Jason's mind. I am in space? This whole time I have lived in Equipacilon, I've been in space? Jason was astounded. He spoke to the computer. "E-Delta, show me the rear view."

"Granted." The female voice replied as the computer screen displayed the rear view as seen from cameras in the rear of the ship, facing away.

A great cliff of grey, stone-like material filled the screen. A square aperture was closing in the cliff, directly in the center of the screen and Jason realized that it was the exit they had just passed through.

"What is this?" Jason was staring at the computer screen, watching the grey cliff recede until he could see that it was one side of a massive, rectangular prism-shaped object, floating among the stars.

"We have just left Equipacilon." E-Delta replied.

"Equipacilon is a space-station?"

"That is correct."

"All this time…" Jason trailed off into thought.

He was brought back to the situation when he noticed the complete silence. "E-Delta, where are the occupants of this space ship? I need to find them."

"I am sorry, my main sensors are disengaged."

"It must have been Ekul." Jason thought out loud. "He must have disabled them, but how would he know how to do that?"

Jason froze. Goosebumps began to rise in his skin. Ekul would never know how to disable the cameras in a space craft. Equipacilon did not use space craft anymore. Someone else was aboard this vessel.

"Is there a hatch leading to the lower levels in this room?" Jason asked as he retrieved his crowbar.

"Yes.", E-Delta replied as the computer screen displayed a blueprint diagram of the interior of the cockpit. A square in the middle of the floor was highlighted in red. "This hatch leads to a storage room."

Jason couldn't see the hatch in the floor at all. "Where is it?"

"Beneath your feet."

"Oh." It was right under my nose. Jason found a depression in the surface and easily removed the metal plate. A stairway descended to a cluttered room below.

The lights were dim, causing the large metal cases to cast shadows in which almost any person could hide.

There were sliding drawers and large lockers in the walls. As Jason opened a locker door a bolt of terror shot down his spine.

He gasped. It couldn't be! Jenny's head was resting among a pile of large bags. Her face was covered with blood. How could anyone do this? Jenny! Jason swallowed as he began removing bags from around the head. Shoulders appeared. He sighed. At least she was not a mess. How could anyone do this? He continued to remove bags and the rest of Jenny's body appeared. Her shirt sleeves were torn.

He gently pulled her body out of the locker and rested it on the floor. He felt her pulse. Her heart was beating. She was alive! Jason began looking for a first aid kit.

A white box fastened to the wall was labeled first aid. He unsnapped the cover and…where did the medical supplies go? There was an old pistol, two clips of ammo, and a bottle of disinfectant. Perhaps the term, first aid, applied to more than just bodily repair.

Jason stuck the gun in his pocket and returned to Jenny.

"Jenny." Jason began chafing her wrists. Her eyelids opened.

"Wha?" Jenny turned toward Jason, squinting.

"It's me, Jason."

"Jason. Aireryou?" Jenny mumbled.

"Relax. I was up stairs, if you are asking were I was. You got hurt."

Jason unbuttoned his jacket and ripped a piece of his undershirt off and used it to wipe off blood from Jenny's face. He applied the disinfectant to her forehead wound next. It looked like she had been hit by a hard object.

"Jason, where's my grandpa?" Jenny sat up.

"The sensors have been deactivated, Jenny. E-Delta doesn't know. I don't know. We need to find him. What happened to you? Who attacked you?"

"I don't know."

"What did you do after talking to me in the room behind the cockpit?" Jason helped Jenny to her feet.

"I took the stairs that leads from the top floor to this one to go to my room. I remember hearing a sound coming from this storage room and went to see what made it. Something hit me. I can't remember anything until you woke me."

"Jenny someone is in here that knows how to disable space craft sensors. Ekul doesn't know how to. He probably never saw a space ship in his life. They don't have them in Equipacilon. I never realized it before, but Equipacilon is a space station."

"You were never told the truth." Jenny replied, gently. Here was this man who had never known where he was all his life, she thought.

Jason returned his attention on the situation. "Someone who is intelligent, strong, and deadly is lurking in this space ship. We need to find your grandfather and Ekul. Are there any escape pods aboard?"

"Yes." Jenny replied.

"We need to get on one and leave this ship."

They had left the storage room and were in a hallway. Jason clutched the crowbar tightly and kept an eye on Jenny to his right as she led the way to the weapons vault.

The grey and blue walls on either side of them make Jason feel slightly claustrophobic and apprehensive with the numerous shut doors on either side.

The ceiling of the halls was white and luminous, giving off plenty of light. Shadows were his enemy. For, in them a predator could lurk and wait for its prey.

After a minute more of walking, Jenny flattened her back against a wall on one side of a closed door.

"This is it." She whispered. "We're at the weapons vault."

"E-Delta, open the door." Jason ordered the computer.

"Processing request." The friendly, female computer voice replied.

"Why do you have to process it? Can't you just open the door?" Jason asked gruffly; fear giving and edge to his voice.

"E-Delta, you're supposed to open the door automatically." Jenny looked concerned.

"I am sorry, only Charles Lewood can gain access to the weapons." E-Delta replied, apologetically.

"I forgot." Jenny put her hand on her forehead in stress. "Before we left, we had the computer system reconfigured so that only my grandpa could open this door.

"We'll have to find another way to access this-" Jason stopped in mid sentence.

He heard it before his eye caught sight of a door opening in the hallway. Taking Jenny by the arm, he pressed his hand on an activation pad on a nearby door and they passed into the next room, just as the door in the hall was fully open.

The door they had just used closed silently.

The large extent of the room caught Jason off guard. They had entered a gym of sorts. The artificial gravity of the space ship was wonderful. Jason had heard that in the earlier days of space travel, the space craft were small, ascetic, primitive shells with just the necessities for living. Gravity was not an option. Most of the astronauts lost muscle density due to the extended periods they spent in space with virtually no physical exertion to build their bodies.

The weights and the running track were common in all the existing space craft, Jason had heard of. Seeing the gym before him, he had a feeling of comfort and familiarity-only for a moment. Someone was out in the hall.

"We should get out of here." Jenny whispered and they headed toward a door at the other end of the gym.

Hiss-chink. Without warning, the door they had passed through opened.

"Well, look what we have here." It was Ekul in his black uniform. The handcuffs were gone. He wore a diabolic smile as his eyes rotated toward the stranger standing by him.

Genetically modified for strength, covered in one-inch-thick red armor, and 7 feet tall, an enforcer stood at Ekul's side, making the boy look like a midget.

Both the man and boy were armed. Ekul was holding the K98, Jason's gun.

"You didn't think I was smart enough to contact the closest enforcer, did you Jason?"
"What do you mean?" Jason asked. The words Ekul spoke seemed to come from a great distance. He was holding the crowbar. He was fast and skillful at using most weapons, but there were two armed people against him. The enforcer would have been enough of a challenge. Ekul armed made it nearly impossible. There was no way Jason could think of to take them down.

"I called the enforcer as soon as no one was looking. He boarded the ship just before it took off."

Jason was speechless. He should have known that Ekul had a communicator that could reach the enforcer when they were still in Equipacilon.

"Jason, you're going to find out how it feels to have your friends, superiors, equals, and subordinates laugh at you as you die. You won't believe how great an honor it will be to bring in an insurrectionist to the Prefect. You realize that I will be able to retire right away and live a rich and happy life as a reward for bringing you in?"

Jason was silent.

"What did you do with my grandfather?" Jenny spoke up.

"He was a stubborn, old fool, but it wasn't too hard to silence him." Ekul smirked.

Jenny shook her head in disbelief. "You killed him?"

Ekul just grinned.

"You killed him!" Jenny cried. "You killed him!"

It had only been a short time that Jason knew the man and now he was gone.

"He was getting in the way. Now, Jason, get some of your own medicine." Ekul pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

The glistening metal was seen for only an instant before…blackness. The lights in the room had shut off.

In the dark, Jason took his opportunity. He had memorized the positions of his opponents. Jason shoulder rolled to Ekul. Swinging his legs at Ekul's feet, Jason toppled the boy and tore the gun from Ekul's hands. Aiming in the direction he thought the enforcer was, Jason released a burst of fire.

The pock pock of projectiles striking metal echoed through the gym.

With that, the lights turned on.

Ekul was unconscious. The crowbar was near his body. Jenny was covering her eyes.

The enforcer-

Jason turned around just in time to evade a red fist coming toward him. Jason rolled and came up in a kneeling position with his gun aimed at—

A boot contacted with Jason's gun, sending it flying.

Jason dodged a few more strikes and reached for the crowbar, but he couldn't find it. Then, he saw the rifle the enforcer had, lying on the ground. It must have been struck out of the enforcer's hand by a bullet. Hopefully, it still worked.

A boot was coming for his head. Taking the rifle, Jason fired at it.

The enforcer was knocked off his feet. Jason roughly removed the helmet and aimed the gun at the man's head.

"Don't move." Jason ordered, hoarsely. He was breathing hard, he realized. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins.

The clicking sound of handcuffs snapping shut came from behind.

"Jenny," Jason spoke, not taking his eyes off the enforcer, "what's going on?"

"I just handcuffed the boy." Jenny replied.

"Does he have any more hand cuffs?"

"Yes." Jenny's voice drifted closer to him. There came a jingling of

metal. "Here."

"What's your name?" Jason asked the enforcer. They were in the cockpit once more. Jenny had to be alone. She had gone to her room down stairs. The death of her grandfather was a shock to her. Jason could tell that he meant a lot to her.

Ekul and the enforcer were tied to seats firmly.

Jason had his gun across his lap, seated at the cockpit controls. He could use the rifle in a moment, if the situation required it.

The enforcer was expressionless. It was the first time Jason had seen an enforcer with out a helmet. The man's face was surprisingly more human than Jason had imagined it. Instead of having grey skin and green eyes, like Jason had imagined, the man tied the chair before him was as ordinary as anyone Jason had seen.

The man's eyes, however betrayed his mechanical disposition. Grey circles against a white background, they were like video cameras, observing their environment without emotion. They watched Jason intently—almost unnervingly.

"What's your name?" Jason repeated his question when he got no response.

"I have none." The enforcer finally said. His lips moved mechanically.

Jason mentally chastised himself for forgetting that the enforcers were not named. They were given numbers. Bred for strength and endurance, being trained and brainwashed, the enforcers were, nevertheless, fully human.

"What is your number?"

"I am unit 3 dash 901 H Gamma." The enforcer replied, automatically.

Jason could almost detect a slight sneer in the man's voice. Perhaps he was imagining it. The enforcers were emotionless and totally obedient to their leaders.

"Let me call you Dash." Jason pressed his hands together, thoughtfully. "Dash, who ordered you to follow us and infiltrate this space craft?"

"Tyro Ekul Commitz. Given the procedure A10 section 498, he was granted permission to give an order to an enforcer or other civil enforcer in the event of a proctor or other superior official defecting. Therefore, I was granted the right to arrest proctor Jason Kminsky."

"How did you know tyro Ekul not lying?" Jason asked, bending forward.

The enforcer was silent.

"How did you know he was not lying?" Jason repeated.

Finally, the enforcer spoke. "The Prefect."

"What do you mean?"

"The Prefect did a background check on proctor Jason Kminsky and discovered his defection." Dash replied in the customary third person of the subordinates.

Jason sighed. The secret had been discovered. It would only be a short matter of time…Though Jason had never heard of it he knew that the Prefect probably had space craft in storage that it used for emergencies; space craft that would soon be after them.

"What did you do to the old man?" Jason asked, moving closer. "Did you really kill him?"

"No. I never saw him." Dash, the enforcer, replied as emotionlessly as before.

"Ekul said that he was killed." Jason stood, pacing.

"He lied."

"You must have captured him." Jason stopped in mid pace.

"No. I never saw him."

A wave of emotion passed over Jason—emotion of consternation. Why did Charlie leave the cockpit in the first place? Charlie never told Jason that he was leaving. There was no reason for the old man to leave, unless the Charlie was not as amiable as he appeared.

"Attention, we are approaching the planet Earth. The estimated arrival time is one hour from now." E-Delta's crisp computer voice echoed through the space craft Resilience.

Jason stared at the small speck called Earth that floated in the black void of space like a leaf on an ocean.

A strange nostalgic feeling captured his mind for a few moments as he thought about the planet of life. He had always assumed that it was where Equipacilon was. He had had no idea, before, that Equipacilon was a space station, orbiting the Sun that was, at its closest distance from Earth, a million miles away.

Earth appeared to be growing in size steadily.

Jason entered the multipurpose room and sank into a couch, letting go of his rifle. All the stress he had gained over the past fifteen hours had reduced his vitality greatly and sleep descended on him like a warm blanket.

Jason awoke and let his eyes adjust to the light. When the spots and graininess that accompanies sleep had left his vision, he retrieved his gun and entered the cockpit.

Ekul and the enforcer, Dash, were still tied to their chairs in the cockpit. Everything looked good. The cockpit was in order. Jason's attention was caught by the view through the cockpit window.

They were moving extremely slow now—compared to their speed through space-descending through the atmosphere of the Earth.

The white clouds below were tinted with the glow of the Sun, splashing golden light across their undulating, white, hills and valleys.

In a couple seconds they were through the clouds and approaching the ground.

What Jason saw was a real surprise. He had known that Earth was covered mostly by water. The oceans below were far smaller than the land that enclosed them.

Jason had expected to see large cities as the ground approached, but instead of cities and farmland, a vast verdant forest filled his view.

Soon, he could identify individual trees. Jason took a seat and the automatic artificial field belt activated. An invisible field of energy held him firmly in his chair. The ground began to tilt as the space craft rotated, so that its fuselage was parallel to the surface of the ground.

The dull groan of the levitation transducers could be felt as they activated to bring the Resilience to a gentle stop. Outside the window the canopy of the huge trees barred Jason's view of the sky, only admitting small, scattered patches of the blue depths through.

"We have successfully landed." E-Delta intoned.

Jason turned to Dash and Ekul. "We're on Earth."

The two remained silent.

Jason stood up and passed through the door into the adjoining multipurpose room.

After passing through the door at the end of the hallway, Jason was in a room with a staircase leading down. Taking this down to the next floor, he made his way through a hallway lined with doors and began calling Jenny's name. She had showed him where her room was and he knew it was in this hallway. This hallway was, in fact, connected to all the crew bed rooms of the space craft.

"Jenny. It's me, Jason. Jenny, open your door if you hear me. Jenny."

After calling her name, loudly, several more times, Jason began to worry. Where had she gone?

"E-Delta, open all the doors in this hallway." Jason ordered.

"I am sorry, that order goes against my protocol, for privacy reasons." A computer voice responded from a section of the wall. Nanotechnology had allowed many wonders to be built like the wall-speaker: a wall that could restructure its self to form a speaker membrane that could be vacillated to create sound.

"Then, ask for Jenny to come here in the intercom." Jason responded quickly.

"Very well."

All over the ship, a voice announced, "Jenny, you are requested to come to the hallway adjacent to the crew bed rooms. Repeat; Jenny, you are requested. . ."

When the announcement was repeated a couple more times, Jason told E-Delta to stop. Hopefully Jenny would come soon.

When 15 minutes had passed and she still didn't show up, Jason couldn't wait any longer. He had to open the doors. Jenny could be in her room, asleep, unconscious or worse.

"E-Delta, either you open the door to this hall or I am going to have to physically break them open. Jenny could be in great danger."

"If you insist." E-Delta replied and all the doors in the hall slid open.

Jason began searching each one. They were all facsimiles of each other. The same bed, dresser, couch, closet, and holopane for entertainment and communication were in each and every room. All of them were empty except for two rooms: Charlie's and Jenny's. Jason could easily identify Jenny's room by the smell of perfume and the feminine decorations in the room. A screen attached to the wall displayed an image of Jenny that faded to be followed by a woman who was slightly older. Her hair was blonde and her eyes green. Soon this image dissolved to display a picture of a man, which faded to display again the image of Jenny. Somehow, the people in the images looked similar to each other, Jason thought.

On the bed was a flex-pad computer. The flexible computer was shaped like a piece of paper and messages could be either typed on virtual keypad in the surface of the flexible screen or written with a sensor pen.

"Turn on." Jason spoke and screen in the flex-pad lit up. Words scrawled in rapid hand writing across the screen read as, 'Jason, I have to leave this ship once we land. Why I am writing to you on this screen, in the safety of my room, is that here is the only safe place to write and explain to you my concern. And, I believe that only you will find this message. I fear that something evil is on this ship and that it is seeking me. I believe that this evil presence is waiting for a time when you will be unarmed. ..." The writing at this point was indecipherable to Jason. He could tell that Jenny was writing fast out of fear. Cold moisture slid down Jason's forehead. What evil presence lurked on the ship?

Where is Jenny?Jason, thought as he turned his gaze back on the message.

He continued reading. 'Jason, I have to leave this ship. It is not safe. I hope you will know where to find me. Sincerely, Jenny.'

Jason powered off the flex-pad. He retrieved his gun from the floor and began to plan. He could not leave Ekul and Dash on the ship unless they were locked into a secure cell. The ship was probably equipped with confinement cells in the event of a security crisis.

Something else must be lurking on the ship. Something must be after Jenny. That is why she had to leave.

Raising his gun to a combat position, Jason cracked the door ajar and peered through the slit into the silent hallway.

The lights were on, the metal floor, reflective-everything normal. Silence.

At the end of the hall was the staircase; vacant and still, like an old spider web. The black rungs and the thin rails of the stairs were redolent of the thin fibers of death that are unseen by the victim until it is too late.

Jason headed down the hallway to the door that led to the storage room where he had found Jenny unconscious.

Inside the pristine space, Jason waited. He had to muster the courage to enter the cockpit. Something evil and unseen was aboard the ship. Jenny had said so, and he realized that as he took the first wrung of the ladder to the hatch above, it was not Jenny's fear only.

---

Chapter 6

Vanishing

---

Jason entered the cockpit, cautiously. His finger was not far from his gun trigger.

His caution was not necessary, he told himself. Ekul and Dash were tied firmly to the cha-

His heart pulse quickened. They were gone. Winding cords drooped over the seats, pathetically, like dead guards at prison break.

Fear has a paradoxical way of leading to anger.

"E-Delta, where did they go?" Jason clenched his teeth.

"The captives, you mean? Obviously they breached your impediments." The computer replied.

"Why didn't you seal off the door?" Jason hissed in anger, trying to keep his voice down.

"I was given no orders to."

Jason closed his eyelids for a moment in frustration. It wasn't the computer's fault. It was simply a machine with no mind of its own: an operating system that followed orders and programmed protocols.

"Where did they go?" Jason asked.

"Remember, my monitoring sensors are inoperative." E-Delta replied.

"E-Delta, there is possibly an evil man aboard this ship. I want you to seal off all entrances to this cockpit and all exits once I have left this ship and I give the order. When you hear me give the command to open the doors, open them. I have to find Jenny. She's in danger."

"Command confirmed."

The door was open. It had never closed. Through the square aperture Jason could see pillars of the forest; colossal trunks decked in green foliage.

He had passed down another staircase to the bottom floor and after taking a straight course through a single hall, had arrived at an exit door.

"E-Delta, you may shut down all exit doors as well as the cockpit entrances."

"Command confirmed."

Jason passed through the door just as it slid shut with a heavy clank.

He was outside and glad to breath the fresh air. Behind him, the space ship was a wall of metal. Before him, the forest loomed ominous and dark.

So, this is what happened to the real planet Earth? He had been told his whole life that he was living on planet Earth.

Now, seeing it before his eyes, he could not believe how silent and vacant the planet of man had become. Cities boasting populations of many millions had once thrived where vast, untamed forests had conquered.

The people of Earth must have decided at one point to move to the unsettled region of space, were people would be less crowded, living in comfortable space habitats. The Earth was probably forgotten as man had turned his attention to the rewards of promising technologies, afforded by zero gravity and quantum technology, which could only be achieved in space.

His feet, for the first time flattened the grass of mankind's home.

Somewhere out in the deep forest was a single person, alone. Jason had to find her.

Ekul and Dash could not exit the ship or enter the cockpit, unless they had already left the ship. He couldn't let himself worry about what they could do. They were locked out or locked in the ship, and that was all that mattered.

The forest canopy rose high above him, while the deep quietness of the forest surrounded him, giving him the feeling of utter isolation. He called Jenny's name a few time loudly. Jason was startled by the dull echoes of his voice, returning his words back to him from a thousand directions. He quit calling her name when his voice got tired.

Shafts of light pierced the canopy here and there illuminating the mossy ground.

For the first time in his life, Jason was alone. He had never known the meaning of the word until now.

Where could Jenny have gone to? The forest with its numerous creeks, ditches, mounds, trees, and vegetation, for all Jason knew, could conceal a million Jennys.

The forest was getting denser as he proceeded and he was getting thirsty. He had been in such a rush to find Jenny that he had forgotten to bring water with him.

Something caught his attention. Fragments of it appeared through the dense trunks and branches. As he walked further, he could make out the form of a stone building surrounded by trees.

Jason emerged from the forest into a clearing near the building. It was a large building being two stories high and forty feet long. The architecture was reminiscent of the images of old buildings he had seen in the Equipacilonese government library. The building before him was deteriorating. Sections of the walls were missing in places, revealing the skeleton of the building. Grass adorned

the numerous cracks in the walls. A doorway was open—the doors long since missing.

Jason slipped on his infrared glasses and held his weapon in a tactical position as he entered.

The interior would have been pitch-black had he not used the infrared glasses. With them on, the surroundings were illuminated in unusually bright colors. The grey stone was white. The dark-green grass looked cartoonish. The infrared glasses were a few years old. Earlier forms of the infrared optical equipment were bulky goggles that coded all the infrared colors in either shades of green and white or red and white.

He was in a foyer. A desk in the corner was the only remaining piece of furniture.

On either side of the room were two doors. There must have been a carpet at one time. The floor was sagging. It appeared to be made out of a surrogate wood material of tiny plastic fibers—old technology. The building must have been built in the mid 2000's. It must have been a clinic of some kind.

Creak. The sound footsteps on an old floor shattered the silence. Someone was coming.

Jason dashed for the cover of the receptionist desk, where he would be concealed from view.

A door squeaked open and heavy footsteps crossed the sagging floor.

A man grunted.

Jason peeked over the edge of the desk. The man had his back to Jason. He wore a dark green robe that hung down to knee length and black pants. In his hand, a simple flashlight shined.

The clothes seemed rather crudely made as if they had been hand-sewn.

This man was a native of Earth. Charlie had mentioned that colonies existed outside Equipacilon. Could the stranger be a colonist of one?

Jason stood up and the sound of his movement caught the attention of the stranger. The green-robed man turned, shining his light at Jason. The stranger's eyes bulged with fear. They were blue, accented by a blond beard and hair.

"Who are you?" The man asked, fearfully, eyeing Jason's gun.

Jason lowered it. "I won't harm you. If you are a colonist, I am your friend. Do you know of a man and his daughter who left here on a trip to Equipacilon?"

"What do you want here?" The man asked, loosing some of his edginess.

"I am looking for a woman by the name of Jenny." Jason cleared his throat.

"Jenny and her grandfather, Charlie, went on a mission to Equipacilon. They rescued me and brought me here." Jason paused. "Something went wrong on the way to Earth. Actually many things went wrong. People began to get lost.

"When our ship landed, I found that both Charlie and Jenny were missing. Jenny wrote me a not telling me that she felt something evil was aboard the space ship we had travelled in. She told me in her note that she would have to leave the ship. I went after her, when I read it and found this place."

The man was musing over the information. A look of concern shadowed his eyes.

"You had a difficult journey, it seems. My name is Turon. Yours?"

"Jason."

"Jason, we must find Jenny. She is my cousin. Come. I will lead you to my home. You looked like you need sleep before we can do anything." Turon said. "Come."

He led Jason back through the door Turon had come from into a hall. At the far end of the hall was a staircase, winding down into the unknown depths of the building.

"What you see above ground is entirely different than what you will find beneath." Turon explained.

"How so?" Jason asked, holding his gun in a ready firing position. For all he knew Turon could be leading him into a trap.

"You will see."

At the bottom of the stairway was a door. When Turon opened it, Jason gasped.

Ekul and Dash, the enforcer, were facing him. They were each firmly tied to a support pillar in a concrete room. Similar supporting pillars filled the room, giving it the appearance of a forest made of concrete. Lights in the ceiling illuminated the room so well that Jason removed his infrared-glasses. Running horizontally through the room from one end of it to the other was a large, transparent tube. A pill-shaped vehicle rested in the tube, near an open transparent door in the side of the tube. A low concrete wall with an opening near the door in the tube separated the tube from the rest of the room. There were two black boxes on either side of the opening in the concrete wall. They must be security sensors, Jason thought. He returned his attention to the captured men.

"Ekul, what are you doing here?" Jason asked.

"I caught them." Turon explained, stepping up closer to Ekul. "I found them snooping around this building. Since they are wearing the uniforms of the Equipacilonese, I arrested them. This boy gave me a lot of trouble, but I subdued him in the end." Turning toward Jason, Turon asked, "You know them?"

"Yes. They were aboard my space craft." Jason replied, diverting his eyes from Ekul's cold stare.

"Are you part of the mission that left for the space station Equipacilon?" Turon asked Jason.

"No. They found me on Equipacilon." Jason explained, "I was once a proctor in charge of a high governmental position. I felt convicted of the wrong that I was doing and the corrupt system of my government. I ended up in contact with the crew of the Resilience. Seeing my willingness to join them, they allowed me to come with them. We happened to capture two employees of Equipacilon, Ekul, a young tyro, and Dash, an enforcer. Thanks for finding them. They escaped from our ship almost as soon as landed here. What I want to know is if you have heard of a woman named Jenny."

"What is her last name?" Turon asked.

"I don't know." Jason replied. "She was one of the crew of the Resilience. The other member was her grandfather, Charlie. I found a note from her telling me that she was going to leave the space ship. Something was disturbing her. She wrote that she felt something was seeking to harm her. I found that the two you have caught were missing and I set out after them. You solved one problem, but now we have to find the woman."

"It will be impossible to find her now. She probably does not know about this place. You see, Jason, we are at an old transipod station." Turon motioned toward the pill-shaped vehicle in the tube. "That is a transipod. Its top speed is 654 kilometers per hour. It was used as single-family transportation unit in the mid-2000's. My government maintains this transportation system. I was sent here to see that this place is in working condition. We maintain these stations and pods in case we ever need them in a time of emergency to evacuate the capital."

"What's the name of the capital?" Jason asked, curious.

"Philadelphia."

"That's what Charlie said." Jason said. Turon had lit the candle of his curiosity.

"You mean, Dr. Charles Smith?"

"Who's he?"

"He's one of the top officials in Philadelphia." Turon replied, "He is the director of our space program. We sometimes do missions to sabotage the defense system of Equipacilon in the hope that one day we will be able to free the ignorant people of Equipacilon. You see? Space station Equipacilon was originally designed by Dr. Charles. A few years later some of the officials became corrupt and took over, instituting their form of government, and rebelling against the Earth. By that time, the Earth had less than a 300 million people living on it. Most people had moved into the space colonies, so the Earth was in no condition to enforce in laws. It has been that way ever since."

Turon continued, "It is quite sad what can happen when greed preponderates over justice and equity…"

All this time, Jason had forgotten about Jenny. He had been so interested in what Turon was telling him. "Turon, we need to find Jenny." Jason interrupted.

"There is no way we can, Jason. We have no monitors here. In order to locate her, we will have to go to Philadelphia and get more men to do a search party. They have homotracors which can detect a human presence in at a distance of ten miles. We will never find her in this forest without the homotracors."

"There is no time to lose. I can't wait for the homotracors to arrive. I need to find Jenny. Something is after her. I believe she is in danger." Jason headed toward the stairway.

"Wait." Turon shouted. "If you get lost, I can't guarantee that we will be able to find you."

"Take the two prisoners with you." Jason said, returning to his authoritative mood. "Bring the homotracors back as soon as you can."

"I will. Be careful. The terrain can be treacherous." Turon's voice echoed through the room and up the stairs as Jason climbed, becoming a hollow shell of sound that dispersed into the silence.

---

Chapter 7

Into the Maze

---

Jason was above ground, in the foyer or lobby of the building, once more.

A sharp hiss cut through the silence, coming from the stairway. What was that?

Jason exhaled slowly, in relief, when he realized that it was the transipod passing through the transparent tube. Turon was leaving. The air became deathly silent.

Through the doorway to the outside, a dim light could be seen, coming from a crack between the door and the floor.

He opened the door and sunlight glared in his eyes. Shading them, Jason scanned the forest.

He began to walk around the decaying edifice that was once a transipod station.

The sun was past its noon position, slowly sinking toward the horizon. In only a few hours, night would come. He had to find Amy.

As he rounded a corner of the building, he was surprised to see that half the wall of the backside of the building was missing. A field of boulders and jagged stones spread out from the building. Most of the boulders were taller than he. It felt ask if he was an ant among pebbles.

An explosion at one point must have obliterated the wall. War still goes on.

Jason wandered among the maze of boulders, looking for possible hiding places Jenny might have found. It was unlikely she would have found the building in that vast forest of giant trees.

As Jason circumnavigated a boulder, he almost ran into a moving object.

Taking a step back, he gazed, dumbfounded, at the creature before him.

It was shaped like a human with blue, metal skin. The green eyes in its round, bald head peering at him with a cold, curious stare, and its thin limbs shifting nervously, gave it an in-human appearance. Jason had seen androids like this one, in factories. It was a mechanic android, used in vehicle repair shops. What was it doing here?

"Robot, attention." Jason ordered.

The robot didn't seem to hear the order. Normally, robots obeyed people.

"What are you doing here?" Jason asked, raising his gun slowly.

The robot's eyes focused on the gun for a split-second, and in the next second, it had curled up into a ball and was rolling toward Jason. Its thin, but strong arm struck Jason's weapon and it went flying.

Jason had no time to think. His training went into action. Dodging another punch, Jason rolled a couple yards away and reached for a sturdy metal pipe he remembered seeing.

In his peripheral vision, he could see the robot heading toward the fallen gun.

Gunshots echoed through the maze of boulders. Debris struck Jason in the face from nearby impacts in a boulder.

The robot was armed!

Jason dodged behind a boulder as another volley was fired. The pock pock of bullets striking rock came from the other side of the boulder.

What could he do against an armed robot? They were supposed to protect humans, not harm them!

The robot was advancing now, Jason guessed by the sound of the crunching rock.

It was approaching, armed; a deadly killing machine. Its metal limbs were designed for lifting heavy objects and precise movements. Its designers never knew that the same fine movements and strong arms could be used to fire a gun accurately.

Jason was in the shade of the boulder. On either side of the shadow, sunlight splashed across the rocks. Slowly, a humanoid shadow, emaciated and lithe, appeared in the sunlight, to Jason's right, bordering the shadow of the boulder. It was coming.

Something told Jason to look the other way.

To his horror, he could see another similar shadow, approaching from the left of the boulder. There were two of them!

When the robots emerged from around the boulder, Jason let the one that was armed take aim at him. The finger was squeezing the trigger just as Jason leaned

toward the boulder, out of the path of the bullet.

Plunk!

The second robot was struck by the bullet and Jason was already swinging the heavy pipe toward the armed robot's head.

Jason heard the gun fire as his pipe struck something hard. He felt as if the bullets had gone through him. His heart beat was erratic for a moment.

Jason took a deep breath as if he had been swimming underwater for too long. He inhaled what he imagined to be the last of the air his lungs would feel and sank to the ground.

It seemed that a long time had passed. His memories of childhood rushed through his mind. They were all distorted and blurry. He awoke from them. The landscape resolved in his eyes.

He was alive. He was alone. The robots were lying flat on the ground. The head was missing on the one nearest him.

Jason slowly got to his feet and retrieved his gun. He had been attacked by robots and robots were supposed to protect humans. The robots were controlled. Someone was trying to kill him.

Jason decided to return back to the space craft. Perhaps there were clues, of Jenny, there that he had overlooked. The sun was slowly sinking in the sky. In only a few hours it will have sunk beneath the horizon, leaving only the moon to enlighten the earth with its pallid glow. The thought occurred to him that planet Earth was not only populated with people. Animals, herbivorous and carnivorous, roamed the wilderness when Earth was civilized. Now, since the whole planet was a wilderness except for the small Earth colony, Philadelphia, the predators would have dominion over Earth.

The problem with returning to the space craft slowly became apparent to Jason: he did not know where it was. The forest surrounding the transipod station looked homogenous: all the trees were alike.

He stood still, in shock and frustration. The only way they could find the Jenny or even the space ship would be by the homotracors Turon would bring back with him. Jason cursed himself for not going with Turon.

A sound began to grow in intensity. The whooshing sound of a jet flying through the air, except magnified ten times in volume, shook the ground and Jason had to plug his ears. A large space craft rushed by overhead and roared up into the upper atmosphere. White trails followed its upward path. Soon it was out of site and the sound died away, leaving the world quiet.

Jason could not believe what he had just seen. The space craft was the Resilience, the very craft he had landed in. It was gone.

Someone must have entered the cockpit. E-Delta, the ship computer, did not obey Jason's order the seal off the cockpit.

Jason was seated in the lobby of the transipod station. He was tired: tired, and in need of sleep, but he could not sleep; not while Jenny was lost in the forest.

A hand touched his. His eyes slowly opened. A face was watching him. The mouth was smiling. For a moment, he could not identify the face. Then, it resolved into Jenny's.

"Jenny!" Jason sat up. He had been sleeping in a chair. Blinking, he gazed at her in bewilderment. "How did you find me?"

"I was lost in the forest." Jenny's voice came out in short segments in-between breaths. "They were chasing me, but I lost them. I saw this building through the trees and decided it would be a safe place to hide."

"Who was chasing you?" Jason looked into her worried eyes.

"I think that the mechanic robots were, but I don't know. I never saw them." Jenny sat down next to Jason.

"I killed two mechanic robots. Jenny, how many of them were on your ship?"

"Let me think." Jenny bit her nail. "Probably, about four."

"We have to get out of here. I was lucky. One grabbed my gun."

"Are you alright? Did they injure you?" Jenny asked, truly concerned.

"No. How about you?"

"I'm good."

"Listen, this is a transipod station. You heard about them?"

Jenny nodded.

"We can take one to your colony." Jason explained. "One of the men, a man named Turon, of your colony was here. He said that he was going to bring men with him and they were going to search for you. We need to call them. Do you have a transcom?" The transcom was a device much like a cell phone, but it was capable of communicating across vast distances using the quantum transmission property of nonlocality. Signals could travel faster than light to transmit information.

"Ok." Jenny responded and stood up. Her eyes darted about the room, fearfully.

"Here." Jason handed her the night-vision glasses. "These will help you see, if you want."

"No. You need them."

Jason slipped them on. "Hold my hand, then."

Their footsteps echoed through the dark staircase as they descended into the lower region where the transipod tunnels lay.

Jason removed his glasses and kicked in the door at the bottom of the stairs. His eyes darted about the room. A robot could have entered, he thought.

Thankfully, the room was vacant and clammy. The faint humming of the overhead lights could be heard in the silence, like insect wings buzzing overhead.

Jason looked at the empty, transipod tunnel.

"We're going to have to get a transipod." Jason knitted his brows. "Jenny, do you know how to call one over here?"

"We only have a few that are working. I haven't actually ridden on one." Jenny shook her head in regret.

The black boxes, on either side of the opening in the low concrete wall that ran parallel to the transipod tunnel, caused a light to turn on in Jason's mind.

Approaching one, Jason was able to see that a computer screen was built into the box.

The screen is rather primitive, Jason thought, but it probably works. Jason felt for a depression where a power button might be.

He bent over to look on the back side of the box, and as he did, he braced himself with his hand on the screen. Instantly, the screen came alive, displaying a blue background with a white face.

"How may I be of service?" A tinny voice came from the box as the face's lips moved.

Jenny approached. "What's that?"

"Wait." Jason said to Jenny. To the computer, he said, "Could you send a vehicle here, a transipod-as soon as possible?"

"Affirmative. It will take approximately ten minutes for it to arrive." The computerized voice replied.

Jason turned away.

"There could be more robots out there." Jenny said. "We have to get out of here as soon as possible to tell the elders—the leaders of my city, what has happened."

"I saw a space craft take off. I think it was ours." Jason added.

"My grandpa's in there!" Jenny exclaimed. "Why did he leave us?"

"I don't think he did. I think he is a captive. Jenny, something was onboard the space ship during the whole voyage from space station Equipacilon to Earth."

"What could have slipped onboard like that?" Jenny shook her head in astonishment. Her voice trailed off in thought, "It was there all this time…"

Jason quiet in contemplative silence.

"The robots were trying to kill me, Jason! Robots aren't supposed to kill. They're supposed to protect people." Jenny said suddenly.

"The robots have been taken over." Jason replied, quietly, more to himself than to Jenny.

"Did you hear that?" Jenny asked suddenly.

"What?"

"Listen."

Jason held his breath so he could hear. A muffled, distant voice was calling someone's name. Could it be Turon with his men, Jason thought, or, robots trying to trick him?

"What is it?" Jenny whispered.

"Jenny, it could be the man I saw here that I told you about. Or…it could be a trap." Jason headed toward the door. "You stay here. You'll be safe that way."

"Let me come." Jenny followed him. "It's not safe to be unarmed and I don't want to loose you." She blushed a little after saying that.

"Alright. Come." Jason entered the stairwell, slipping on his night-vision glasses. He was finding himself thinking, more and more, about Jenny than he wanted to.

The lobby was vacant, as usual, and dark. Jason opened the door to the outside and the scarlet light of a sunset formed a beam of light in the darkness of the room.

What had caused the sound? Jason wondered as he gazed outside at the dark forest that was lit by the dying sun.

Soon it would be night.

"Jason." A man's voice shouted from the left. "Jason, where are you?"

"Come on. It's Turon. He's calling me." Jason told Jenny as he headed toward the corner of the building from which the sound had come.

Cautiously peeking around the corner, he saw a group of men; all armed. Turon was with them.

"I'm here." Jason stepped around the corner.

Turon turned. "I was worried that you got lost in the forest. Our homotracors couldn't locate any humans in the forest. I guess we forgot to aim them at the building."

"There's bad news." Jason remembering what he had experienced began to explain, "I saw a space craft take off. I believe it was our space ship. Charlie, Jenny's grandfather was probably aboard. He went missing in the ship, so I don't know if he is out in the forest on in our ship."

"Our homotracors didn't locate any human," Turon's eyebrows widened, "so Charlie is probably in the ship. If it took off, we'll never see him again unless we can stop the ship."

"Also, two robots attacked me near the rubble pile on the opposite side of the building. There may be more." Jason replied.

"I thought all robots were meant to protect people, not harm them." Turon replied.

"Not these ones." Jason sighed. "We need to get out of here. I didn't realize how agile those robots are. I almost was killed. One of the robots stole my gun, but I managed to destroy them. I guess it was luck that protected me."

Turon faced Jason. "No, it was not. Jason, God protected you. Luck is superstition. God created reality."

Jason looked at him with incredulity. God protected me? What or who is God? He had only heard of God as a character in religious fables. Did God really exist?

The colonists of Earth have some interesting beliefs, Jason thought.

"Alright, men, we found what we were looking for. Let's go." Turon spoke to his companions. Attention directed to the soldiers, Jason noticed that there were 12, each wore plates of armor attached to tough fabric, and they each carried a high-powered rifle and a backpack. They were prepared for battle, but what did they anticipate to fight?

"Your men look well armed." Jason returned his gaze to Turon.

"We were prepared for the worst." Turon replied.

"You didn't think the robots would attack, did you?"

"No." Turon eyed Jason. "I can tell that you wonder who could possibly be a threat to us here."

Jason gave a slight nod.

"The Earth is not entirely civilized, Jason. New Philadelphia is not the only human colony."

Jason could tell that Turon was slightly edgy. It seemed that something was on the man's mind, so Jason decided not to pursue the topic.

"How long have you been here?" Jason asked after a pause.

"We just arrived."

"Where at?"

"We came from an arrival-bay in a different section of the building than the place you first found me at." Turon began walking and waved to his men to follow. "We have to go back to the departure-bay."

Turon led the group back the way Jason had just exited the building.

The foyer or lobby was once again occupied as the troops entered. Lights turned on from their guns, scattering here and there, forming bright, moving spots on the walls and floor.

Jason was near the front of the line and he, Jenny, and Turon were about to enter the hallway that led to the staircase leading down, when an eruption of gunfire splintered the calmness. Bright flashes of light, erupting from the assault rifles, illuminated the room, casting flickering shadows on the walls.

"Help!" Two men shouted as an incredibly strong thing gripped them suddenly and threw them into the wall. Jason couldn't see what had thrown them with all the men in his way.

The next instant, the air was filled with a cacophony of gunfire interspersed with screams. Men were thrown into the path of bullets, against the wall, and into each other. Jason caught a few momentary glimpses of a metallic shape in the melee of bodies. He could not tell if it was a robot or not.

"Pull back! Pull back!" Turon shouted above the chaos.

Jason gripped Jenny's hand and they ran for the stairs, as the soldiers followed.

The whole attack, so far, had lasted three seconds—three long seconds.

The door at the bottom of the stairs was blasted out of its frame and the men pored into the room. There was the clear tube and an elongated, pill-shaped transipod waiting in the opening of the tube. It had arrived. The vehicle was large and it could hold a maximum of thirty passengers in the comfortable seats. The transparent tube and the transparent upper half of the transipod allowed a view of the stony underworld beneath the earth.

Jason and Jenny were soon seated in the front row, watching the remainder of the surviving soldiers rush toward the transipod. When the last soldier passed through the opening in the tube and through the door of the transipod, Jason told the onboard computer. "Computer, send the transipod on its way to New Philadelphia."

"Affirmative. Initializing impulsion." The computer's voice echoed through the interior.

A dull humming in the depths of the transipod started up and it rapidly increased in volume. Suddenly, Jason felt the back of his seat pressing firmly into him, as the transipod accelerated forward. In seconds, they rushed through the tunnel, into a hole in the side of the wall, and it became pitch black.

Small lights on the floor turned on and the computer announced through the interior, with a resonant voice, "Welcome to Sub-transcontinental Freedom Lines: North America's number one luxury transportation system. We trust that your experience with us will be memorable and pleasant. If you care to stay during the whole extent of this itinerary, our route will take us through one of America's largest natural cave systems…"

---

Chapter 8

New Philadelphia

---

The transipod had slid to a stop and the occupants passed out of it into the dimly lit arrival bay.

They had passed through a land of darkness. To keep their minds occupied, some of the men read digi-books on flexible computer screens. Others talked. Jason had slept. It was good to rest after the stressful circumstances he had been through.

Jason checked his gun to see that it was on safety. He didn't want to risk firing the gun accidentally and there would be no danger in the peaceful colony of New Philadelphia.

Taking stairs up above ground, the group found themselves in a semi-busy transipod station, but none of the people there were unarmed. In fact, the station appeared to be a military operation. Soldiers dressed in uniforms similar to Turon's

men scuttled about the large lobby of the building, carrying bags and guns.

Robotic receptionists behind the counters were handling one person after another as a line of military personnel began to form.

Jason didn't get more than a glance at the activity before Turon led the group outside through a large entrance and, for the first time, Jason saw the colony.

Large parks with children playing, squat buildings with terraces that were covered in gardens, and houses with nice yards, attracted Jason's attention only for a moment before he noticed the massive spherical building at the center of the city.

It was a filled with mirror-tinted windows, giving it the impression of being a large, silver ball bearing. Its size and location made Jason realize it had great importance.

"What is that?" Jason asked Jenny finally.

"It is the government building," Jenny replied, "as well as the power plant of New Philadephia."

"Actually, it is more than that." Turon said.

"This building has been around for many years. It was built before my grandparents were born, though I can't remember the date." Turon explained as they stood at an entrance in the spherical building-its mass looming high above them.

Turon continued after he waved his hand in front of a circular, green scanner in the wall and a door opened in the building. "Since you are the first person, who has not been born in this colony, to arrive here, I have to take you up to meet the

elders. Also, they would like to speak to Jenny about her grandfather."

After passing through a spacious, elegantly decorated room with plants and miniature waterfalls throughout it, after gaining permission to take an elevator to the highest floor, and after passing through a hall lined with doors, Jason, Turon, and Jenny arrived before a door that had the simple title on its surface: Council.

The door was featureless and identical to all the sliding, security doors throughout the building.

Turon moved his palm in front of a sensor and the door slid open.

A circular table with a large hole at its center was surrounded by 12 men in nondescript dress clothes.

Jason could tell that all the men were quite aged. Most of the men had thick, grey beards, concealing their mouths, giving them an enigmatic and mysterious aura.

"Welcome, General Turon. I see that you found who you were looking for." A man with a wise, long face broke the brief silence.

Turon was a general? Jason couldn't believe that a general would be in charge of a search party—a search party for finding Jenny. The elders must have had a special interest in rescuing Jenny.

"Your honors, I present to you Jason, a man that escaped from Equipacilon. Don't worry. I am sure he has joined our side." Turon announced.

All the men bowed their heads slightly toward Jason in acceptance.

"Jason, this is the Council of New Philadelphia, as you see." Turon said quietly to Jason.

Turning to the council, Turon took a breath and then spoke again. "I have bad news to report, your honors." Turon approached the table.

The older men watched him with close attention.

"Councilmen Charles Lewood is missing." Turon continued, "We have not located any human presence and the space craft he used was seen to take off and leave for outer space. I believe, your honors, that Councilmen Lewood was kidnapped. Something is in control of his ship, the Resilience. Also, some of my men were lost when mechanic robots came out of nowhere and attacked. We barely escaped alive."

The first elder to speak stood up with sudden emotion and addressed the council.

"Brothers," he said, "nothing as drastic has ever been executed by our enemy. Robots are meant to protect humans, not harm them. It seems that something has taken them over.

Our friend and brother, Charles, was a good man. He was a great chairman and leader. I fear that the Prefect of Equipacilon has discovered our plan to infiltrate his base."

The words caused Jason to remember the first time he had seen Charlie and Jenny. After realizing that Jason was good, they led him to a secret chamber where the Resilience was parked. What were they doing originally on Equipacilon? It seemed that they were not outcasts of the society, as Jason had first thought. They were citizens of New Philadelphia sent on a mission to Equipacilon. Why?

"Seeking revenge, the Prefect of Equipacilon," the elder was saying, "has somehow been able to take over control of the space ship, Resilience, and is most likely directing it back to Equipacilon!"

Jason remembered the Prefect, the super computer that controlled Equipacilon. It was the computer that he had to deal with when he was a proctor. So, the Prefect wanted to kidnap Charlie for some reason.

"Why would the Prefect want my grandfather?" Jenny suddenly asked, trying to wipe tears from her eyes.

The old man who was speaking eyed her with pity. "Child, your grandfather is the old man who knows how to control the Antecedent."

The Antecedent? Jason raised his eyebrow. What's that?

"Doesn't anyone else know how to operate the Antecedent?" Jenny asked.

"No, my child, I am afraid not." The elder replied.

"Wait a minute. I'm new here. May I ask what the Antecedent is?" Jason interrupted.

When the men gazed at him with questioning looks, Jason said, apologetically, "If you would?"

"The Antecedent is the forerunner of the Prefect. It was constructed nearly seventy years before the Prefect. It was decided by the government of Earth and that of Equipacilon, many years ago, that the Prefect, then know as the 'Central AI', was to be constructed with an indelible connection between it and the Antecedent. This connection was realized by means of quantum distortion to produce a non-locality field between the Antecedent and the Prefect."

Seeing Jason's confused look, Turon explained, "Non-locality is the property of quantum physics where two sufficiently distant objects like electrons are able to transmit information faster than the speed of light. When the electrons are entangled—that means; when the electrons are connected by a special bond, then they are able to send information at speeds faster than a light particle could travel. Light composes radio waves and it is a means of communication. Quantum entanglement and non-locality make it possible to communicate over vast distances instantly or nearly instantly."

"I don't really understand that," Jason shook his head.

"I don't think anyone really does." Turon replied.

"Now, the Antecedent," Turon continued his explanation, "was linked to the Central AI, or Prefect. The Central AI used to communicate with us frequently, but one day, many years after it was built, we got a message from the Central AI indicating that it would discontinue its progress reports to us. When we asked why, it didn't respond. After a month we got a message from AI telling us-"

"I remember clearly what it said, as my own hand." The elder interrupted Turon.

"The message said, 'My title is no longer the Central AI of Equipacilon. Let it be known to the government of Earth that from this day forward I will have supreme authority over the Equipacilon. My title shall be the Prefect. The governor of Equipacilon and his council are no longer in my way. If you continue to pester me with messages, I will be forced to kill off a few of the citizens of Equipacilon. If you try to infiltrate my systems or bring damage to any component of my hardware or software, realize that I am at this time constructing reserve hardware and software and realize that innocent women, men, and children will die. So do not try to override me or physically invade Equipacilon. I will kill many innocent citizens and their blood will be upon you, if you do."

The Prefect has spoken for the last time.'"

Jason shook his head. He didn't know that computers could have greed.

"And that is why we cannot attack Equipacilon. That is why we cannot send viruses to the Prefect's software. He has reserve software," Turon added, "and

innocent lives would be at stake."

"So, how long ago was this message?" Jason said, thoughtful.

"Sixty-two years ago." The elder promptly replied.

"That was a long time." Jason said.

"The thing is," Jenny said finally, "my grandfather is kidnapped, but we cannot send viruses to the Prefect to save him—innocent people will die. However, we can send a rescue mission after him."

Another elder who had not spoken all this time stood and faced Jenny. "You are right, child, but how can we?"

Jason sat on a bed, watching children play in park outside the window. He was given a guest suite in the spherical government building of New Philadelphia by the kind councilmen.

Jenny had left to go to her house and now that Jason was alone to his thoughts, he began to ruminate over what had occurred to him in the past few days.

Charlie was missing, Jenny was missing, but later found, and finally Ekul and Dash, the enforcer, went missing before Turon had found them. Something was at work. Could the mechanic robots kidnapped Charlie, scare Jenny into running, and untie the bonds Jason had used to secure Dash and Ekul with, or was it something else that was behind these events?

Wait, where did Ekul and Dash go? Turon had captured them. Where did he put them?

The room was equipped with a nano-displacement-sculpting device or nano-sculptor. The nano-sculptor was a grey square in the floor that had trillions of nano micro-fibrils. The micro-fibrils were complex chains and lattices of miniature, simple computers—formed out of only a few thousand atoms each.

The micro-fibrils could bend and arrange themselves, by the computer system which was built into them, innate to their structure, to form almost any shape and texture.

"Computer, ask for General Turon." Jason said to the computer of the nano-sculptor.

"General Turon is available. Please wait a moment while the transmission is received." A rich masculine voice replied.

In a moment, the computer announced, "Contact has been instigated."

The nano-sculptor activated and a column rose out of the grey square to a height of six feet, Turon's height. The column quickly began to morph before Jason's eyes into the shape of a man which finally resolved into the distinct image of Turon. Colors began to change the grey monotone into a realistic model of Turon. The brown hair looked extremely realistic.

Turon's image turned its face as Turon moved his own face at his location 800 feet away.

The sculpture's lips moved as Turon spoke. "What is it Jason?"

Jason was familiar with the technology. It had been around for over twenty years and he had used it frequently to speak to subordinates.

"Turon, I would like to know if you could show me where the prisoners, Ekul and Dash are." Jason said.

Turon watched Jason's nano-scupture talk, from his office in another side of the sphere-building.

"The prisoners are in the confinement quarters." Turon answered.

"I would like to see them." Jason's image said.

"Fine, I will be at your quarters in a couple minutes." Turon replied.

High up in the government sphere-building, near the apex, Jason and Turon approached a black door which promptly opened when Turon had waved his hand in front of the sensor.

Passing through a hall, they arrived at another door.

"Here we are, Jason."

Turon checked his sidearm holster to make sure he had a pistol with him and they entered.

The room was not as dark or ascetic as Jason had thought. It had a carpet, a few books, a sink, bathroom, two beds, and two males.

Ekul was seated on one bed, staring at a book, but Jason could tell that the boy was deep in thought.

Dash, the enforcer, seated on a bed, was no longer wearing his armor, nor was Ekul wearing his black uniform.

Both were dressed in a set of blue pants and shirt: prisoner regulation.

Jason was taken aback at the queer behavior of both of the prisoners, but he regained his initiative.

"Ekul, how have you been doing?"

There was no response.

"Ekul," Jason approached, crouching down to Ekul's eye level and said, "If you can show us that you will not seek to harm anyone, we can let you go free."

The boy stared at the book, ignoring or not hearing.

Turon put his hand on Jason's shoulder. "It won't do any good. He has been that way for a while now."

"I need to ask them how they escaped." Jason replied, "I tied them to chairs in our space ship. When I returned to see how they were doing, I saw the cords sliced."

"I tried asking them questions, but they never replied. I'm sorry, Jason. They are resigned to silence."

Jason strolled about the massive building, checking out their massive library that contained nearly 2 million of the World's best books—still in their original ink-on-paper form. As he was looking through the "B" section, Jason noticed a book that seemed to stand out from the rest. It did not have a fancy name such as; The Treatise on Stimulated Transmission or, The Voyage of Christopher Columbus and His Discovery of the New World. The book had merely the title, The Bible. Before Jason could restrain himself, he had the book out and was just cracking it open.

His eyes fell on the words, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not the Son into world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved."

The rest of the day, as Jason wandered through a manicured garden, exercised in an indoor gymnasium, and ate his supper brought to him by a servant android, he thought about the words he had read out of that unusual book with a simple title.

The stars appeared in his window, in the dark, night sky. He had never really paid attention to them on the journey through space, but now that he had time to think, Jason gazed at them with curiosity. He had only seen virtual stars on a giant screen that surrounded the habitation he had lived in on space station Equipacilon.

The stars twinkled in the night sky as hot air rose into the upper atmosphere.

There were so many of them. Where could such beauty come from?

Planet Earth was a beautiful place. He had not noticed the beauty of the forest he had been in since he had been worried about Jenny. Now that they were safe, he remembered the trees, graceful and strong with their multitude of limbs and the blue sky. It was a deeper blue than any 'sky' he had seen at Equipacilon.

Jason sunk into his bed and drifted into a deep sleep.

---

Chapter 9

Conundrum

---

There was a knock at the door. Jason had just got dressed and was slipping on his shoes. He opened the door to see a servant robot.

"Sir, the elders request your presence. Please follow me."

The white android led Jason to an elevator, up to the top floor, and through a hall and left Jason at an oak-wood textured door. The door slid open promptly to reveal a table with breakfast food laid out for four. Three people occupied the seats around the table, leaving a forth one empty.

Turon, Jenny, and the elder to had talked look up at Jason.

"Welcome," the elder was the first to speak. "Your friends have told me about you."

"Good morning, Jason." Jenny smiled.

Jason returned her greeting, feeling his heart stir. Jenny looks so beautiful today with her white blouse. Jason thought.

"Jason, I am sorry not to have introduced you yet. This is council-man David Mensor." Turon said, apologetically.

"Nice to meet you, sir." Jason nodded toward David Mensor.

"You may call me David. I do not like to be thought of as more than I am. I am a normal man."

"You have a nice facility, David." Jason said.

"We have tried to maintain it as best we could." The elder said, "It is rather old, though."

"Let us move on." Turon said, "Just to let you know, Jason, we don't have to worry anymore about those robots that attacked us. I have sent some well trained troops to take care of them. The problem that we now face is how to intercept the space craft with council-man Charles. We have to rescue him some way."

"We will have to send out some of our best craft, which we need for emergencies." David shook his head with regret. "To risk the chance that they will be destroyed if they were to encounter the fighter space craft of Equipacilon is unwise."

"Then, what can we do?" Jenny asked.

Without warning, the door slid open and a robot stood in their presence.

"Master Turon," The electronic voice quivered slightly, "our prisoners are missing. They have escaped!"

"What happened?" Turon stood up quickly.

"When I opened the door of their room to give them their breakfast, I found it empty. I searched the room carefully and confirmed it was vacant." The robot replied.

"Impossible! No one can unlock the door from the inside of the prison. It would be impossible to escape." Turon said.

"Unless," David leaned forward, "someone unlocked the door from the outside."

The implication of how the prisoners escaped became frightfully clear to Jason.

Someone in the building had opened the prison door.

Jason stood. "We need to have the main computer of this building do a check to see which personnel of this facility were scheduled to work last night and this morning."

"What do you mean?" Turon asked.

"You have a computer with cameras that monitors this building, right?" Jason said.

"Actually, no." Turon set his elbows on the table and gazed at his plate of food. "You see, Jason, the Antecedent does not monitor this base. We have no cameras or motion sensors, since the government workers here have been through many character tests. I do not believe that any of the workers here would ever let the prisoners loose like that."

"Turon, how many people have access to the prison?" Jason asked with a sudden idea.

"Myself, two robots."

"This is one of the robots?" Jason queried.

Turon nodded.

"Robot," Jason turned toward the humanoid machine, "find the other robot that has access to the prison where the two prisoners were located."

"The robot, G-302, should be in the storage room." The robot replied.

"Do what he says. See if G-302 is there." Turon ordered.

"Yes, sir."

Jenny frowned. "This had never happened before, as long as I remember."

David nodded and sighed. "I fear that worse is yet to come. If one of our own people was involved in this jail-break, I do not know how long our small colony will last."

A few moments of contemplative silence lasted while the men and woman pondered the enigma.

The door suddenly slid open once more and the robot returned. "Unit G-302 is not in the storage room."

"He is supposed to be recharging there." Turon knitted his brow. "G-302 is not fully charged. There is no way he would have enough power to walk."

Amy closed her eyes and held her forehead, in stress. "Someone or something must have stolen him."

"To use as a means of access to the prison." Jason added.

"But why?" David asked. "Why would the person responsible for the jail-break want to free a rebellious teenager and an enemy soldier?"

"The teenager, Ekul, is loyal to his government." Jason whispered. "The soldier is deadly."

"May I speak, sir?" The robot asked Turon with its soft, electronic voice.

"What is it, G-303?"

Jason noticed, for the first time, the letter, G, and numbers, 303, inscribed into the robot's head and chest.

The robot's blue photo-sensor eyes shifted from Turon to Jason, to David, and back to Turon. G-303 finally spoke. "Late last night I saw a strange looking robot that had never been in this base before. It appeared to be a mechanic robot of some kind. I didn't pay much attention to it since it appeared harmless."

"Where was it?" Jason asked, with sudden curiosity.

"It was near the maintenance elevators used by maintenance androids."

Just as G-303 finished its sentence, without warning, the lights went out and the room was engulfed in darkness.

"What happened?" Jenny exclaimed.

"We have a power failure." David's mature voice came from the darkness.

"This has never happened before." Turon said.

"I fear that my coming has been ill-fated to you." Jason said. "The Prefect of Equipacilon certainly knows that I escaped from his space station."

"I must call a meeting of the council." David said with a quavering voice. "I fear that we will have to use the Antecedent. We will have to destroy Equipacilon."

"But what about all those innocent people?" Jenny asked, tearfully.

"We cannot let our people be brought under the hand of the Prefect, Jenny." David replied, quietly. "He will bring more suffering on us than has ever occurred to any nation on Earth since the holocaust of the Jews by Adolf Hitler."

"Nano-sculptor, contact the council for me." Turon ordered. There was a nano-sculptor in nearly every room so that the people in the base could communicate.

There was silence.

"It seems that we not even have emergency power." David said.

"Then, there is no way to contact the council?" Jason asked.

"No." David took a deep breath. "We cannot let our people suffer. We must access the Antecedent and shut down Equipacilon. Lives will be lost there, but lives will be saved here. Obviously, we are in a grave situation. One of our robots has been stolen for accessing the prison door. The power has been shut down. This building supplies all the power to people in this city of New Philadelphia. Without the power running, all the people will be unable to work and our society will fall apart."

"Why can't any maintenance robots restore the power?" Jason asked.

"It's not that simple, Jason." Turon explained. "We have a fusion reactor that has been running for many, many years. The only way the power could be shut down is if the fusion reactor is shut off and the only way to restart the fusion reactor is to restart it with an emergency generator, which is in storage right now somewhere in a large vault under the base. The fusion reactor has not needed to be restarted at all since it was first turned on, and so the generator was removed to give the reactor more room. That generator is lost."

"What about the Antecedent. It is a computer. It runs on the fusion reactor power, right?" Jason asked.

"The Antecedent has its own small fusion reactor." David replied to the question. "So, as I have been saying, we need to activate the Antecedent."

Jason wished he had brought his infrared glasses with him. The darkness in the room was-

Suddenly, a sliding, grating sound removed the silence.

A new voice entered their ears. "Put up your hands. This is an order."

The voice was coming from the doorway.

Jason did a quick calculation in his mind, assessing the situation.

"I know you are in here." The robot repeated. "Put up your han-"

Jason's feet slammed into the robot's knees with a well-placed kick. As the robot fell, he tore a rifle from its fingers and fired in the direction from which the sound of its body hitting the floor came.

The shots echoed through the room and into the vast, dark world of the base beyond, echoing like thousand gongs. The sound could wake a sleeping army.

"There here:" Jason whispered, "the robots we met at the transipod station."

"We have to get to the Antecedent before anything happens to it." Turon said as he pulled out a pistol from a holster with a soft zipping sound.

"Do any of you have a flashlight?" David asked.

"I had one in my room." Jenny said, apologetically.

"I think that I have one." Jason groped for a light switch on the rifle. Finally his fingers found it and a beam of white light illuminated the floor.

A second light appeared.

Jason swung his gun toward it instantly. Turon's face was caught in Jason's beam.

"It's me, Jason. I have a light on my pistol."

They had passed through the dark floors, down the many flights of stairs to the depths of the spherical government building; meter by meter in trepidation.

Not a single robot or person appeared in the beam of their lights the whole way down. Surprisingly, the base seemed empty.

"Here we are." Turon said when they had reached the end of a flight of stairs.

They were in a small, empty room. The walls were grey and featureless.

"Lower us." Turon said quietly so that Jason thought Turon must be talking to himself. Or was Turon talking to…

"The Antecedent: is it in this room?" Jason was asking the question just as the floor began to move.

"What's happening?" Jason, startled, shone his light at the stair case they had descended, that had once been attached to the floor.

The stair case was moving away from them rapidly and Jason realized that the floor its self was descending.

Now, his flashlight was shining on the wall. A white rectangle, with its length parallel to the surface of the floor, imbedded in the wall, appeared to slide up the side of the wall as the floor descended.

The floor stopped moving and the white rectangle ceased its upward motion.

Suddenly, the rectangle became luminescent and an image of the Earth appeared on it with a dark backdrop.

The Earth on the screen was rotating at a fairly fast speed.

"Welcome." A rich masculine voice announced, echoing through the room. "You have reached the artificial intelligence of the government of Planet Earth. I am the first of my kind, an antecedent of the central computers of all the space stations. I am responsible for all government activity to operate on a fair and efficient level. How may I be of service to you today?"

This is not what Jason had imagined the Antecedent to be. He had thought it would be a pillar-shaped computer like the Prefect in Equipacilon.

"Antecedent, why is the power off in the base?" Turon approached the screen.

"The fusion reactor that powers this base and the Earth colony is inoperative." The Antecedent replied promptly.

"I know. How did that occur?" Turon asked, slightly annoyed.

"A small nuclear device was activated. It halted the fusion process." The Antecedent said as it displayed a computer generated image of a square box labeled 'bomb' beside a large object, labeled, 'fusion reactor', resembling a jellyfish with thin appendages extending downward, in a cone shape, from a high spherical body. The box exploded sending a spherical concussion into the fusion reactor.

"Who laid the explosive?" Jason asked, curiously.

The screen went black and the phrase, 'please wait…reading memory' appeared on it.

"I thought the computer was faster than that." Jenny said.

"It is." David replied. "Something is wrong."

"It should be done by now." Turon said.

Three minutes passed and the screen still displayed the same message.

"I am sorry, General Turon." The computer finally spoke as its screen returned to the view of planet Earth. "I must ask you for a password to access the data."

"A password? You have never asked me for a password before. My voice signature is the password."

"I am sorry, general. A single word password is required to access the files."

"Fine." Turon sighed.

"What's wrong?" Jason asked as Turon turned from the screen.

"Am I insane, or is the computer now denying me access to it?"

"I could try." David said with a wink in his eye.

"Antecedent," The old man said, "what is the problem? Why won't you show us the data?"

"Access is restricted to those who know the password."

"Since when has that become a modus operandi for you?" David asked, sternly.

"I can not say." The computer responded emotionlessly.

"Why not?"

There was silence.

"Why not?" David raised his voice.

"The Architect would have it so."

"Wait. Who is the Architect?" Jason couldn't believe what he had heard.

"The Architect was built after the Antecedent." David took a deep breath. "It was built for the purpose of monitoring the space station computers," David gazed at a corner of the room, pensively. ", and colonies to make sure they were running properly. Control is the key word. The Antecedent is really just the main computer that runs the Earth colony, but the Architect has authority over the Antecedent. I believe it has too much control. I keep telling them that one of these days, the Architect will replace us, but none of the other elders will listen to me." David paced, forgetting that he was talking to Jason and continued. "The Antecedent was originally connected, by quantum, non-locality technology, to the computer of the first deep-space colony, Equipacilon. This computer has become the Prefect, as you already know."

"Many years after Equipacilon was connected to the Antecedent, and after many other space stations were constructed, the Architect was built as a monitor for these self-existing colonies. Someone got the idea that the Architect should also monitor, and in cases of emergency, partially control the Antecedent."

"Then," Jason said, thoughtfully, "the Architect must be hiding those files we want: the files that contain the information regarding who laid the bomb in the fusion reactor, when it was laid, and why it was laid."

"But why?" Jenny asked. "Why would the Architect want to deceive us?"

"Control. I think that it wants more power." David said.

"Wouldn't it have tried to gain more power before now?" Jason, trying to understand what was occurring, asked. "I mean, why wait so long?"

"Taking over all the computer systems by one single computer suddenly is impossible. Cancer, in the past, didn't become noticeable until a visible tumor was located, even though uncontrolled reproduction of cells—cancer, was occurring. Complete system takeover takes time to calibrate all the system components."

"Why didn't you shut down the Architect if you had suspicions?" Jason asked.

David lowered his eyes to the floor and shook his head. He was silent for a moment that stretched out into an eternity. All eyes focused on the old man's tired face. When he spoke finally, his voice seemed to come from a man many years older. "We don't know where the Architect is located."

"I don't understand." Jenny said. "All this time you elders didn't know where the Architect was?"

"I take what I said back. One elder did know…" David gazed into Jenny's eyes sadly. "…your grandfather, Charlie."

"And he's missing: kidnapped." Turon said quietly.

"Did your grandfather keep a notebook or journal or something?" Jason asked.

Jenny paused to think. Suddenly, a smile lit up her face. "He had a diary that he wrote in every month since—well since time began."

Jason let himself chuckle. His stress had been building since he had heard that his Ekul and Dash had escaped. Seen Jenny's peaceful face during the ordeal was encouraging. Her brown eyes did not betray coldness or fear, but an expression he had not seen often. At the moment, he couldn't think of a word for it.

Remembering, the situation at hand, Jason returned his attention.

"Do you know where it is?" Turon asked.

"Yes." Jenny nodded. "At his house."

"I know where that is." Turon said.

"Charlie might have mentioned where the Architect was in his diary." David said, excitedly. "I never thought of that. However, entering his house and reading out of his diary would not be—"

"Lives are at stake." Turon interrupted.

"Let's go then." Jason shouldered his rifle.

"It would be dangerous for all of us to go together." Turon explained. "If there are some of those killer robots loose, a group of us would be an easy-to-see target. I could just go."

"I disagree. We would be safer together." David shook his head.

The floor under their feet was sinking again and the computer screen was soon high above them, hidden in darkness.

After a few moments, the elevator-floor came to a stop.

A door in the wall slid open with a quiet hum.

"Where are we?" Jason whispered.

"The utility floor." David answered also with a whisper, behind Jason, "This is the lowest level of this base. There is an underground tunnel system that connects this building to key government-related buildings, including Charlie's house."

"What is the tunnel system for?" Jason asked, curious.

"In case a time like this should occur." Turon replied. "We can use it to secretly go from building to building."

The group stepped through the doorway into the large space.

Jason's light on his gun illuminated a large cube with tubes and pipes radiating out of it, a metal half-cylinder lodged in the ground, and a pile of tools, nuts, and bolts.

Definitely a utility space. He thought. What a mess.

Suddenly, a rotating flash of metal appeared in his light for a moment before Jason realized what it was. Jason felt a rush of air past his right ear and a hard object slammed into a wall behind him with a clang.

Something had been thrown at him and it only missed him by an inch!

"Down! Everybody down!" Jason shouted.

A second object slammed into the wall behind them just when the men and Jenny had dropped to the floor on their chests.

Jason turned to see what had been thrown at them. Two bent metal wrenches below two small craters, in the hard, plasti-cement wall, appeared in his light.

Those tools could have easily killed them traveling with such momentum.

"Turn off your light." Turon said to Jason.

In a moment, the darkness was complete.

"We need light." Jason said.

"Shh. Listen." Turon whispered hoarsely.

They listened to the darkness enveloping them. The only sound that came to their ears was the dull whirring of air-ventilation fans. It seemed, as they listened, that the fans had been there forever, humming a dull song, and that their dirge would never be interrupted.

There came a quiet clicking sound—the sound of metal-soled shoes on pavement, or robot feet.

"Let's get out of here." Jason whispered.

The others agreed.

As quietly as possible, they groped for the door leading to the elevator entrance.

Jason took a quick glance over his shoulder when he had reached the entrance.

Turon was shining his light into the darkness.

"What are you doing?" Jenny asked, fearfully.

"I think they won't come into the light since they know they will be shot. I'm guarding you. Go. Go." Turon whispered.

The group entered the elevator room once again, but Turon remained in the entrance.

Suddenly, chrome entities; robots, entered the beam of Turon's light. They were emaciated humanoid beings: mechanic androids.

"Come on!" David shouted.

"Elevator, take them to the top floor." Turon shouted as he began firing at the robots. Robot after robot was struck by Turon's rapid fire, but they kept coming.

"Affirmative. Elevating to top floor." The computer voice echoed inside the elevator as a whirring hum started up.

"Turon! Come in! Hurry!" David shouted.

Turon kept firing at the approaching robots. "If I go, they will enter and kill you."

The robots were extremely close now. Turon was having difficulty keeping up with the numbers of robots.

The elevator platform began to rise. The space between the elevator platform and the top of the doorway to the elevator shaft was closing as the platform was rising.

"Turon!" Jason shouted.

The gap between the fallen robot bodies and Turon was shrinking as the robots got closer and closer before being hit by his gun. A group of robots made a sudden lunge and all sight of Turon was lost as the rising platform slipped above the door to the shaft.

"No!" Jason screamed. "No!"

David lowered his head. "He was a brave man."

Jenny placed a hand on Jason's shoulder. Jason could not tell if she was crying or trying to comfort him, but the touch was comforting.

Turon had helped to rescue Jason from the robots earlier, and now Turon had died trying to save all of them.

The elevator ride was silent the rest of the way to the top floor.

When the elevator stopped moving a door automatically opened, letting in light.

"Light?" Jason gazed at the radiation coming through the doorway. Jason could see outside the doorway a hallway with a curved, glass that rose from the left side of the hallway and extended to the ceiling, allowing Jason to see a view of the beautiful garden city of New Philadelphia in the light of the afternoon sun. The sunlight illuminated trees, highlighting the outer leaves in golden tones.

Somehow the darkness of the base had made Jason think it was night time. Seeing that it was day eased the stress and fear that threatened to overtake him. It seemed that he knew nearly nothing about human life and government on Earth. What was

the Architect really? Why was it given so much power? Wouldn't people realize that much power can be used for great evil and tends to be used as such, rather than for good?

Jason could see the city, below, with its parks and forests, glistening in the sunlight.

They were at the top of the spherical government building.

Jenny approached him. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

"I've never seen any better." Jason replied, pensively.

He was thinking about Turon. What a great loss it was to have him gone. Even though Jason had not known Turon that long, he felt that a good friend had died.

David came from behind. "I just realized that Charlie actually kept his diary here, in a safe, so we don't have to go back down to the basement to use the underground tunnels to reach his house. You see, Charlie had a private room here where he slept after late-night council meetings. His quarters also included a library. I remember visiting him one day at his room. I had found him writing in a book. I asked him what it was and he replied that it was a diary. I forgot about it when we subsequently, had a conversation about history, although I remember watching him put it in a safe while we talked."

"We must go to his safe." Jason turned toward David. "Would you lead us to it?"

"I dread returning back to the darkness." David replied, "I guess we must if we are to find where the Architect is." He sighed. "Follow me."

---

Chapter 10

Safe

---

The arrived at Charlie's private quarters without incident. Apparently the enemy mechanic robots were all down in the deeper portion of the building. Charlie's room was on the top floor and it was nice to see the sunlight coming from skylights along the way.

The room, for a councilman's quarters, was unusually ascetic and simply furnished.

A bed, desk, and a lamp were the only furnishings. The drawers were basically empty except for a few odds and ends.

"It has to be here. The diary must be here." David said.

"He may have hid it in the bed." Jenny replied.

David pulled out the mattress and they made a thorough search of the sheets, bed, and floor, finding nothing.

David took in a deep breath. "I was wrong. The diary must be at David's house."

"Wait." Jenny said suddenly, "I thought that they were going to send a rescue mission with Turon leading it after the space ship that kidnapped my grandfather, Charlie."

"They were, Jenny." David turned toward the young woman. "I am so sorry that this has happened."

"My grandfather is gone, the power has failed, and now Turon is gone. There is nothing we can do now. I don't know what is going on. Enemy robots are everywhere. What are we going to do?" Jenny shook her head as tears slowly began to trail down her face.

"My child, don't worry. The Great Creator, God, will never leave you nor forsake you once you are saved." David said, comfortingly, resting his hand on her shoulder, "And, you are saved, are you not?"

Jenny nodded.

"Then, there is nothing to worry about." David said. "Your grandfather is in God's hands."

Jason watched with wonderment. Who was this Creator that David was talking about? What does David mean by 'saved'?

Jason was going to ask David what he meant, but decided not to.

"Shouldn't we try to reach Charlie's house?" Jason asked David.

"The question is," David said, "do we want to find Charlie's diary to be able to locate the Architect and try to see if it is orchestrating the problems we are having, or do we want to lead a mission to rescue Charlie?"

Jason thought for a moment. Would it be better to try to stop what may be the cause of the problems with the government building and the Antecedent by trying to control the Architect, or would it be better to go back to Equipacilon; to the lion's den, to rescue Charlie?

Jason saw that Jenny really loved her grandfather as if he was her own father.

"We need to rescue Charlie." Jason said, finally.

David let himself smile for a moment. "Good idea. The only problem is that the hangar doors of the space craft hangar are operated on the building's main power supply. They don't have backup generators. We will have to bash through the doors with the space ship."

Passing through the sun-lit halls of the top floor, the trio entered a large, concrete cavern.

The room was like a throat or mouth in the top of the spherical government building.

Jason's light stabbed the darkness, for the hangar had no sky-lights.

His white beam struck the ceiling, exposing grey metal. In the center of the vast ceiling, two large, interlocking plates formed the hangar door. It reminded him of a mouth. His light fell to waist level and Jason used it to scan around him. He had to be on the alert. Anytime now robots could come out of nowhere and attack.

His light rested on a large, multifaceted pillar. Shining the light upward, Jason could see that the pillar tapered to a blunt point.

"What is that?" Jason whispered to Jenny who was walking beside him.

"A space ship." Jenny replied. "Didn't you know?"

"I've never seen one in the darkness. I thought it was a building support column at first."

"This is the largest room in this building. We store all our heavy equipment and space craft here." David commented from behind.

Jason moved his gun with the attached light to the right, and another tapering pillar appeared.

"Which one should we take?" Jason asked, shining his light from one pillar to the next in a vast forest of sleeping craft.

David replied, "Any one will do."

They entered a hatchway of a smaller space craft that opened with David's voice command, and passed through a tunnel, up a ladder to the cockpit of the space craft.

Inside the cockpit, David pressed a button and small running lights lit up on the floor and dashboard where a computer screen and metal panels were located. There were four, large, window-like computer screens on each wall with the label, 'optic view-screen' below each. View-screens, Jason thought, interesting.

"What about the other elders; shouldn't we notify them of our departure?" Jenny asked David.

"It would be too dangerous to tell the council now." David replied as he eased himself into a soft cockpit seat. "All transmissions are monitored by the Antecedent and since we don't know what is wrong with it, it is best to maintain secrecy. The elders are probably well guarded by the remaining soldiers, in secure rooms."

David reached toward a small metal box on the dashboard, flipped it up to reveal a switch, and activated the switch.

"What are you doing?" Jenny asked when she sat down.

"I just shut off the onboard computer." David gazed at the instruments. "I don't trust computers after what we've experienced."

Jason nodded. He didn't either.

"I'll have to do this manually." David said as he pulled out a screw driver from a compartment near his knee and unscrewed a panel to reveal hundreds of switches and small joysticks. "It shouldn't take too much time to get this baby started. I used to operate space craft manually."

Suddenly, a hollow, dull scraping sound came from below. It sounded like a cat scratching a metal box—a big cat scratching a big metal box.

Jason and Jenny looked at each other. For a moment, they exchanged their fears, nonverbally. Robots.

"Is something inside?" Jason asked.

"They're outside." David replied. "The robots have found us."

Jenny whispered. "David, we have to leave now."

"I am almost done." David replied as he flipped a few switches.

The whirring of the large vehicle's engines coming to life came from some remote part of the space craft below them.

Suddenly, a loud clanging sound came as a heavy object struck the side of the ship.

David worked all the more fast at starting the craft.

Clang. The same sound came again, echoing through the ship.

The time seemed to drag by slowly as David's fingers dexterously moved over the switches and instrument panel lights appeared, indicating that the different systems of the space craft were running: air-filtering mechanism, pressure moderators, refrigerator for food, sensors, etc.

By the sound of the clanging it was clear that something was trying to break its way in.

Suddenly, Jason felt himself pulled into his seat. There was a guttural roar of the engines below from the depths of the space craft.

The view screens were dark, but he could almost see, or imagine he saw, silhouetted hulls of space craft slipping away beneath them as their space craft lifted off.

David slid a lever forward as far as it would go and in a split second there was a sudden jerk as the space craft struck the hangar ceiling and then the view screens displayed a blue sky and land below. Jason gazed into the rear view screen and saw the spherical government building rapidly diminishing in size. A tiny hole in the top of the building appeared directly in the center of the view-screen where they had emerged from.

The city of New Philadelphia lay below like a map. It was shrinking in size so quickly that just as Jason was enjoying the view, the city melted into the vast forest that covered planet Earth.

It was strange to see the green planet. Jason remembered learning that Earth once had large deserts, farmland, and cities.

The planet that had once been populated with over six billion now had less than a

million.

It is sad, Jason thought, that mankind has left its home probably never to return. Man lives in space.

Thinking of the darkness of space and the utter loneliness and infinitude that forms the vast Cosmos, Jason thought, Why would anyone want to live in a space colony far from the Earth?

Jason had lived in one all his life and had not known that it was not the Earth.

Seeing the real Earth with the continents and oceans, the sea of clouds with cotton shapes, illuminated by golden sunlight, and the blue atmosphere that encircled the Earth made Jason feel a sense of familiarity and awe. He almost felt that even though he had never lived on Earth, it has always been his home.

Jason turned his attention to the space craft. The cockpit they were in was parallel to the ground even though space craft was in motion, leaving the Earth. Jason guessed that the cockpit was free to rotate in any orientation and that it must have a large weight below their feet to cause the cockpit to be always facing 'right side up' when near any planet or gravitational field.

The visible controls were simple: a joystick and computer screens. Obviously men were not meant to fly the ship by themselves. The panels near the pilot seat concealed a mass of switches and knobs used in emergencies.

"I have to get some sleep." Jenny stood, yawning, interrupting his observations of the surroundings.

Jason was exhausted as well, but he couldn't sleep…not with the ominous mission ahead of him. Now that he was leaving Earth, the thought of returning to Equipacilon was frightening. How could he have blindly agreed to return to the place he had escaped from?

The Prefect is waiting for my return. Jason thought. It had probably set up the kidnapping of Charlie to bring me back.

The thought was so strong and disturbing that Jason felt his heart beat speed up.

"Look." David interrupted Jason's reverie.

"What?"

David pointed at the forward view screen before him. The Moon had increasing in size. It was about twice its visual size now.

The pale, cratered face against the dark background of space was desolate and beautiful at the same time. Jason had never seen the Moon so close before. In fact, it was the first time he had actually seen the Moon's craters.

There the white orb lay: an empty world of dust, mountains, and craters.

"Are there any colonies on the Moon?" Jason asked David.

"Long ago, a mining colony was established. The colony was abandoned when the miners learned of richer, better moons around Jupiter and Saturn that had great reserves of gold and platinum ore near the surface."

"I have always wanted to walk on the Moon since I was a child." Jason said, reflectively. "I had heard about the Apollo space missions in the mid 20th century and how man had, for the first time, stepped beyond his planet."

"That was long ago: the small step." David replied. "We have reached the giant leap that Neil Armstrong mentioned."

"And all my life in the space station Equipacilon I was told that I lived on Earth." Jason said.

"That is how control is achieved: by deception." The elder added.

The Moon was getting closer.

David turned toward Jason. "Beautiful, isn't it? Would you like to stop there?"

"What?" Jason was surprised. "Stop on the Moon?"

"Yes." David replied with a smile.

"In our rush to leave Earth," the older man explained, "we forgot to bring food. I have stopped at the mining base before and found that it had a large stock room where all the food was stored. The miners must have had more food than they needed for they had left quite a lot of preserved food behind."

Jason shook his head in wonder. I am actually going to walk on the Moon.

The cratered face of the Moon was enlarging into a landscape of high mountains, deep craters, and white dust. The white, jagged horizon provided a stark contrast against the deep black void of space with multitudes of bright stars many trillions of miles away.

In the view screen the rugged surface appeared with a small glittering point in a crater.

"The mining base, Installation Delta-Luna." David whispered as he lowered the space ship toward it.

The glittering point began to quickly grow in size. Soon, a silver, reflective dome could be seen. In the top of the sphere a hole suddenly appeared.

Jason leaned toward the screen. "Did you see that? Something opened."

"It's an automatic entry port." David replied casually. "Don't worry. This base hasn't been occupied for nearly thirty years. The sensors detected us."

The space craft landed with a gentle thump.

They had passed through the entry port and were in a dark hangar.

David stood and opened a locker in the wall. He pulled out a tight, orange bundle and threw it to Jason.

"Put it on." David said as he pulled out another bundle. "The Moon and the base do not have any air. In the shade, the Moon is negative 184°C. In the sunlight it is about 101°C."

Jason unfolded the bundle to reveal a jump suit. David pulled out two round helmets with large, dark visors. He quickly slipped the suit over his clothes and the helmet over his head. A turtleneck collar around his neck slipped over the corresponding neck-cover of the helmet and by pressing the two together with his finger, the older man soon had the two pieces of material perfectly, seamlessly locked together.

"How did you do that?" Jason shook his head in amazement.
David must have used the space suit a lot. It sure was a far cry from the NASA space suits of the Apollo missions. The bulky suits were heavy and uncomfortable with several layers.

As Jason slipped the jumpsuit space-suit on he could not help from feeling a sense of pride at what mankind had accomplished all those years since 1972 AD.

When they exited the space craft Jason suddenly turned around.

"David, what happened to Jenny?"

"How could I have been such an ignoramus? I forgot she was with us." David's voice coming from speakers near Jason's ears startled him for a moment. It sounded as if David had spoke to him from ten inches away.

"Please don't talk so loudly." Jason interrupted. "The volume is up in my helmet."

"Sorry. We'll have to get that adjusted later. Jason, would you mind quickly looking for Jenny in her private quarters?"

---

Chapter 11

Testing Ground

---

Jason called Jenny's name several times as he searched through the narrow compartments for Jenny. As he was passing down a hall, his attention was arrested by a bright object on a door.

When he got a closer look he realized it was a slip of paper taped to the door.

A message scrawled across the paper in the flowing cursive of a female hand read as: 'Please do not disturb. I need some time alone. I realize you will probably want to explore. I'll wait for your return here. If you are worried about me, don't be. I'll be fine. ~Jenny~'

Jason exited the space craft and told informed David of the note.

"I can't understand why Jenny would want to stay by herself." David said. "But, women, they are never predictable."

"The same could be said for some men." Jason responded.

"True."

Jason gazed at the dimly lit cavern of steel they had entered. It was definitely a mining base. Vehicle after vehicle and crate after crate filled the huge expanse.

The mining equipment: augers, laser sights, cylindrical fusion guns for boring holes, and ugly, angular, tank-like vehicles, formed a maze that extended in all directions with the exception of pathways where vehicles could drive through.

Jason remembered seeing similar equipment in picture books as a kid.

A few bare patches of concrete that were scattered throughout the mess were the only other breathing spaces in the cluttered confusion of metal. It appeared that the room was just a giant's toy box.

"How will we ever find our space ship?" Jason asked David after taking in his surroundings.

David pulled out a small hand-held computer with a GPS display of the base on its screen.

"This." He said.

When the two men had reached the wall of the room, David gazed into his GPS. The base appeared in the form of a map on the screen with a single green dot indicating the location of the GPS device. They were in a round chamber: the largest room of the base. Connected to it was another large room with four long wings or tunnels extending from it to the left.

"What are those?" Jason asked, pointing to the four tunnels on the GPS map.

"Mining shafts that lead to the rest of the base beyond the range of this GPS. Most of this base is underground and the satellites that orbit the Moon are unable to see beneath twenty feet of rock, so my GPS can't either."

"What's below, then?" Jason asked, curiously.

"There is a storage room filled with packaged food. A self-sustaining fusion engine powers the base. When the miners left the base, they didn't want to have to bother with the complex process of shutting down the fusion reactor and they couldn't take all their supplies with them, so they left it here."

David walked over to a large, tank-like vehicle with a massive dump-truck bucket for hauling loads of boulders.

The vehicle had four sets of treads with no windows. A rigid, metal ladder built into the side of the vehicle near the cockpit, was the only way to the top of the twelve-foot-high vehicle where there was an open door that appeared to have been left that way for many years.

"We'll use this deep-hauler. It will be faster than walking." David decided.

The vehicle started up with a loud rumble that echoed through the cavernous space.

Inside the dusty cockpit, David clutched a steering wheel tightly, gazing now and then at the array of computer-screen displays before him. An x-shaped harness held both men firmly into their seats. The cockpit was small, but it had a door at the rear end that led into a small sleeping quarters as well as a hatchway to the engine.

Through the sturdy glass window, the headlights brightly illuminated the ground in front of them with white light.

David pressed down on the acceleration pedal and the vehicle groaned forward. It had not been used in many years and the sluggishness proved it.

The deep-hauler came to an entrance in the wall of the cavernous room that led into a large square room.

The headlights illuminated a sloping tunnel entrance in the wall of the square room.

"Here we go." David said as he pressed the pedal to the floor and the deep-hauler surged forward.

2,670,000 miles from David and Jason on the Moon, a 150 mile-long rectangular prism of metal with a square cross section 50 miles in width, rotated about its central axis in the void of space.

Equipacilon, the largest and oldest of the space habitats drifted in a slow orbit around the Earth.

The Prefect; the central control system of the space station, was having a conflict in its 'mind'.

It had failed to locate the Architect on Earth. Where was the Architect?

Unknown to anyone else, the Prefect had been searching for the Architect for a long time.

The Architect was the only thing it its way. Once the Prefect has infected the Architect with a virus it designed, the Prefect will have control of the Earth as well as the other space colonies. By non-locally taking control of their computers with the quantum entanglement control system that the Architect had, the Prefect would be able to form a network of Prefects that would communicate with each other instantly through quantum non-locality systems. Then, the Prefect would no longer be limited to one location or one space station. It would be a swarm.

"We're here." David said as he began to apply the break.

They had just passed down the tunnel connected to the square room, into a second room which had three tunnels: one in each wall.

Jason could see a large metal building in the center of the room. A couple vehicles were parked near an entrance.

Stepping out, the two men approached the building's entrance, while the door of their deep-hauler automatically closed.

The building was windowless and featureless but for the single closed door in its side.

Jason had not forgotten to bring his gun with him. He activated the gun-light shined it on the door.

"There is a code I need to enter." David said as he stepped toward the door. A small box with number keys on the wall adjacent to the door. David began to punch in numbers.

David and Jason waited, but the door did not open.

"What's wrong with it?" Jason asked.

"I must have not entered the password correctly. I have it memorized. We've used this storage room a lot when restocking on food on space missions."

David reentered the code.

The door was stubbornly immovable.

"Something must be blocking its path." Jason said.

"What could possibly block its path? No men have been here since—"

Suddenly, a powerful mechanical growl from the deep-hauler reached their ears in the thin air of the base.

Jason swung around and his gun-light illuminated the big machine for a moment as it charged toward the two men.

He had only a few split seconds to get himself and David out of the way!

There was a booming thud as the multi-ton vehicle crashed through the vehicles parked near the entrance and continued until it came to a stop at the building.

Silence followed.

The cavern was dark: Jason's light gone.

Jason took in a deep breath. The darkness around him seemed to become part of him. It seemed that he had never been there. It was all just a dream.

Equipacilon, the space travel, the spherical building on Earth, and the Moon base were all part of a mysterious and bizarre dream from which he would awake.

Jason pinched himself. He couldn't feel it. His space suit was in the way.

Something grabbed his arm.

Jason stood up, yanking his arm free, while reaching for his gun.

"It's me." David's voice filled Jason's helmet.

Jason pulled his gun out of a pile of dust where it had sunk into and the gun-light illuminated David.

"What happened?" Jason asked, bewildered. "I was thinking about how to get you out of the way when something pushed me. Was that you?"

"I thought you pushed me out of the way." David responded, equally confused.

David shook his head. "Something pushed both of us out of the way."

"What could do that?"

David was silent. He spoke after a moment. "I believe miracles can happen."

"But why did the vehicle attack us?" Jason swallowed. "Anyways, how could it?"

"Something was driving it." David replied, quietly.

Jason let the words sink into his mind as he digested them. Could the robots have gotten aboard our space craft before we took off? He thought. Jason tried to deny the thought. No. It couldn't be true.

"We have to go back to the ship." Jason said resolutely. "Jenny is in danger!"

But the robots in the deep-hauler were still alive. They had to return to their space ship. There was only one thing to do: enter the deep-hauler and perform a tactical search for the robots.

Suddenly, a low murmur came from the vehicle and it lurched back rapidly and spun around, driving off, disappearing through a tunnel entrance in the large chamber.

The vehicles the deep-hauler had crashed into hardly looked like vehicles now. The front ends of them were all flattened. There was no way they could be used.

Jason stood still, not quite grasping what just occurred.

"It left." He said finally.

"Come." David's hand pressed against his shoulder.

Jason followed David to the door in the central building.

"It won't open." Jason said.

David began pressing the buttons on the code box and like an old car starting to life, the door groaned as a vertical crack of light appeared between the door post and the edge of the door.

"What?" Jason was shocked. "It worked! Why didn't this happen the first time?"

"I got mixed up with another code I used in the base on Earth." David explained, shaking his head. "I am getting too old for this kind of thing."

The door was open: a single entrance in the metal surface. Light was cast in a long beam, illuminating the various depressions and rocks in the cavern in the path of the light. It seemed that the open door and the beam of light in the darkness were from another world.

David stepped through the doorway and disappeared inside.

"I thought this was supposed to have food?" Jason said, looking around the room.

The room was small, cold, metallic, and featureless but for a light in the ceiling and a door at the far end marked 'elevator'.

"We will find food." David said as he approached the elevator door. "And, we will be able to save Jenny."

"How. Where are we going?" Jason couldn't understand. Jenny was on the same floor. Why would David want to take an elevator?

"I'll explain later." David pulled Jason behind him into the elevator as the door slid open.

---

Chapter 12

Below

---

Inside the descending elevator, Jason repeated his question. "Where are we going?"

"At the very deepest part of this base is a place Charlie, Jenny's grandfather, told me about. He had visited it on one of his trips to this Moon base."

The older man paused to take a breath, but Jason could tell that the pause was more dramatic. David was toying with Jason, it seemed, trying to see if Jason was really interested.

"And?"

"And," David continued, "This lowest level, Charlie told me, has some interesting phenomena."

"What were they?" Jason was listening closely.

"Charlie didn't say exactly. Charlie told me that I would have to see them for myself because they were too hard to describe. But, he did say that the things he saw at the lowest level were things no one has ever seen before." David stared at the elevator ceiling for a moment in thought. "I want to go down there because I believe that what ever those things are, they will be of great use to us in locating Charlie and saving Jenny."

"You're not telling me something." Jason faced David. "What gives you the right to put Jenny at risk of being attacked by robots and to assume that these 'things' will be of use to us?"

"Alright," David raised his hands, palm up, "you got me. Charlie was not the only one to explore the deepest level. I did, but, only very partially."
"Ok. What's to hide?" Jason couldn't understand what the older man was up to. "Why are you being so secretive with me?"

"I am not being secretive." David held up a hand in defense. "I never told you of this before because it never came to my mind. Now, I believe that what lies below us is of great use to us."

The elevator door slid open only to reveal a wall of solid rock.

"Is this some kind of joke," Jason asked, "because this isn't funny?"

David ignored Jason and raised his finger to his neck and in a rapid movement, unlocked the air-tight nano-fastener and removed his helmet.

"What are you doing?" Jason shouted.

"Don't worry. This elevator is filled with air."

David spoke loudly a single word. "Pathach."

With that, David refastened his helmet.

Jason sighed inwardly as he thought, Couldn't David see that there was a stone wall in front of him and not a high tech security door that was voice activated? What are we doing here? We should be following that vehicle that attacked us and return to the space ship.

Suddenly, the floor began to vibrate.

Jason aimed his gun at the stone wall in their way. It was moving!

He couldn't speak, for a new sense of complete awe swept over him as the opening door slowly began to reveal a large, well-lit cavern.

In the center of the room, a tall, black object rose nearly all the way up to a sixty- foot ceiling.

Light illuminated the centerpiece from hidden sources in the rocky ceiling of the cavern.

The central black object was shaped like a tall, narrow egg that tapered from the base to a small area at the top. It was remarkably smooth and reflective, but it had a stone-like appearance as if it had been made from solid stone.

Jason finally spoke. "What is that?"

"An anomaly discovered many years ago by the miners that once lived in this base. They were drilling a tunnel for this elevator when one of them tried to drill through this stone door, which they thought was solid rock. The drill didn't make a scratch and the drill they used was mean to cut through granite."

"Incredible." Jason whistled under his breath.

David continued. "Archeologists and geologists were secretly sent to investigate. They discovered that the stone wall was as adamant as diamond and as non-brittle as spring steel and that behind the wall was an open space. One man got the idea that the hard wall was a door and he believed that it may be opened with voice command as other security doors of ours are. He proved to be correct after many fruitless tries at finding the code word, but failed. They were about to give up hope, when one of them noticed a small inscription in the door. It appeared to be written in a form of ancient Hebrew. As far as I remember it said something like this, 'For those who want to enter, speak your desire and it shall open.'"

David stepped into the cavern and continued. "The archeologist reasoned that his desire was to have the door open, so he spoke aloud the Hebrew word for open, which is pathach, and the door opened."

"Ancient Hebrew?" Jason was amazed. "You mean to tell me that this cavern was built before we built this Moon base?"

"Before the base was built, there was just a cave in the surface of the Moon where the space craft hangar now is."

"Could aliens or extra-terrestrials have built this cavern and that black thing?" Jason wondered.

"No. Hebrew is an ancient Semitic language. And Hebrew characters have been found not only on the door but all over this cavern. We have come to the conclusion, after examining the evidence that man must have built this base before the first Apollo mission was launched, before the 1960's AD."

"In fact," David began walking toward the black object towering above them, "the evidence seems to indicate that this was built by an ancient civilization that had technology greater than ours."

"Greater than our?" Jason repeated with a detached awe as they walked toward the egg. The cavern around them was not as natural as he thought it would be. The walls and floor were completely flat, smooth, and slightly reflective, but they were certainly made of stone.

The black egg towering above them became more ominous and mysterious as they approached it.

Jason turned back to David, returning his attention to the problems they faced. "But, how do you think this will help us find Jenny and rescue Charlie?"

"I have used it," David nodded toward the black egg, "and I know that it has more potential than I could have dreamed."

They were now fifty feet from the massive object and Jason felt like an ant. How could the ancients have built this or get to the Moon in the first place?

The shiny black spheroid had to be at least four stories high.

Jason, watching David come to a stop, did likewise, apprehensive.

Removing his helmet again, David spoke loudly, "Quwts melek."

David's voice sounded muffled and hollow in the thin air and behind the padding of Jason's helmet, but Jason could clearly hear the words.

Again, David replaced his helmet on his head and Jason could hear him taking deep breaths.

"Are you alright?" Jason asked.

"I'll be fine. The air is a little thin." David replied.

Jason returned his attention to the black egg-shaped enigma.

"What did you say?" Jason asked.

"Quwts melek is ancient Hebrew which means 'awake king.'"

"What's supposed to happen?" Jason looked at the object.

"Just wait and see."

They didn't have to wait long. A sound like the snore of a giant filled the cavern.

Something in the black egg was opening.

A white square appeared in the side of the black object and light pored from the aperture fifteen feet above the men's heads.

A ramp slid out of the black surface at the threshold of the open aperture and came to a rest on the ground.

David stepped onto the metal ramp and said elatedly, "We're in."

They were in a room in the black, egg-shaped object. The ramp they had climbed up returned back into the side of the egg.

The room was illuminated by a strange glow that came from the floor and ceiling.

Both were just as bright as a reading lamp.

In the center of the room was a metal cylindrical column that had strange concentric circular metal rings imbedded in the top. A deep, circular, concave depression in the center of the innermost circle had some kind of semi-transparent lens in the very bottom of the depression, Jason noticed.

Suddenly, the door they had passed through shut.

Seeing Jason concerned, David said, "Don't worry. It will open when I give the command."

"You must know Hebrew well." Jason turned his attention back to David.

"Before I joined the council I was a linguist and historian. I studied a little Hebrew and Greek along with other ancient languages."

"So what is this room?"

"It is the computer room of this monolith pod we are in."

"They had computers in ancient times?" Jason couldn't believe it. He was witnessing what he would have thought to be only possible in dreams.

"Much of what you had been taught is not true. Teachers in Equipacilon mix the truth with their biased opinion. They teach lies, Jason and they are very convincing, but once you examine all the evidence, including that which they ignore, you will realize that our Universe is too orderly and too complex to have come by random chance and natural processes. Can random chance create a space ship out of junk-yard parts?"

"No."

"If you found a space ship in an asteroid field, would you believe that it was formed by random chance and natural processes?"

"What are you getting at?" Jason narrowed his eyes.

"What about DNA?" David said. "Amino acids are the basic building blocks in DNA. The probability that amino acids could evolve has been calculated by a chemist and the probability is 1 chance of it evolving out of 10 raised to the 67th power of chances of it not evolving. It is generally agreed by mathematicians that 1 chance in favor of something out of 10 to the 50th power of chances not in favor of it, is a probability of 0. That means there is no way a result will occur if there are 10 to the 50th power of other possible results that could equally occur. Evolution is impossible—simple and straight."

Jason could believe it. "What about the evidence? The fossils? The Neanderthals?"

"What the teachers don't tell you is that scientists admit that Neanderthals are full human, homo sapiens." David replied as he placed his hand on the metal cylindrical column. "There is no evidence for Evolution. Rather, there is evidence for what we call creation. Some super intelligent Being with supreme power and intelligence far beyond our own had to have made everything. It is impossible for it to evolve out of nothing into complex biological organ systems, and complex atomic structures."

David gripped the inner ring in the top of the column and began to turn it with his hand.

"There is an ancient book called the Bible. In it is the history from the time that this super intelligent Being, called God created the whole Cosmos—all the dimensions of space and time, up to the time when the Earth will be destroyed by a conflagration. This fire could possibly be due to the destruction of what Albert Einstein called the Space-time continuum. This continuum is different than the traditional three-dimensional model of outer space in that there is a forth dimension of time which interacts with the spatial dimensions and gravity so that where ever gravity is present, the space-time continuum is warped. Therefore, when this continuum is destroyed, all matter and energy will be completely consumed and changed into a new form."

Jason watched David twist the outer ring in the top of the column and suddenly a light turned on in the depression of the column and the two metal rings began to rise upward, revealing that each metal ring was attached to the top of a transparent, glass-like cylinder.

When the cylinders had stopped rising, a hazy mist of scintillating light appeared in each cylinder. Rapidly, the mist or static began to resolve into a blurry image which continued to resolve until it was crystal clear.

Jason gasped. The image seen through both of the cylinders clearly appeared to be a three-dimensional cube. On the side facing David, Hebrew letters appeared.

"What does it say?" Jason asked.

"Wait." David replied, as he carefully studied the image.

After a while, David read, "System configurations. Data bank. Commands. Options."

"This is a lot like one of our computer screens, but it is three dimensional."

"That is right. I think I'll chose, options." David pressed his finger on the side of the transparent cylinder and a red dot appeared on the image of the cube. The red dot followed David's finger as he moved it across the face of the cube to a short sentence in Hebrew. He pressed his finger against the cylinder two times and the Hebrew characters were highlighted in blue.

Suddenly, the cube disappeared and a two dimensional sheet filled with more Hebrew appeared.

David quietly read the list to himself, scanning the words.

"Here we go. Power disruption pulse. Only for emergencies."

"What is a power disruption pulse?"

"I think that this refers to an EMP: electro-magnetic pulse." David explained. "An EMP is a wave of radiation that can disrupt complex circuits and electronics, while remaining harmless to humans. An EMP can fry computers. We want all the robots in this base fried. If they have Jenny hostage, sending an EMP will save Jenny."

"What about the electronics of our space craft. We won't be able to leave the Moon without a space craft."

"I think I have a solution to that." David began to smile mysteriously.

---

Chapter 13

Symbol

---

David began pressing more buttons on the cylinder.

Suddenly, the room was filled with a voice. "`Ezer attenah?"

Jason swung his gun around. His eyes darted about the empty room, looking for the speaker.

The voice repeated its sentence. "`Ezer attenah?"

Jason could tell that the voice had a deep, resonant, masculine quality. The words seemed to come from a time in the far distant past. The words were mysterious and solemn in the strange room far below the surface of the Moon in that remote, extra-terrestrial world. The fact that they were spoken in such a strange setting was not lost to Jason. It only contributed to a growing malaise in his mind.

It seemed that David was not too surprised to hear the voice. After removing his helmet, the elder replied:

"Naphats bazaq Chattiyl."

The words seemed to come from another man from many thousands of years ago.

"Shama`. Bna` gbuwrah." The deep voice responded.

"The computer talks?" Jason asked when he saw that David was waiting for something to happen.

"Yes. I have been down here before. The technology of this device is incredible."

"What did you just tell it?" Jason asked, bewildered.

"It asked me if it could aid me: `ezer attenah." David continued. "I told it to disperse a lightning wave: naphats bazaq Chattiyl, which is really an EMP that I told you about earlier. The computer answered that it understood my command clearly and that it was building power: Shama`. Bna`gbuwrah."

"Are you sure that this computer is that ancient?" Jason said. "Couldn't some of the miners have built a secret computer that had a Hebrew language?"

"Hebrew is a dead language. It hasn't been spoken for hundreds of years. Only a few scholars, including a few amateurs like me, are able to speak it. Besides, we don't have the technology to build some of the phenomena in this pod that I will show you later."

"What phenomena?" Jason asked.

Suddenly, from somewhere in the depths of the egg-shaped pod, a sharp twanging sound erupted.

"That was the EMP." David commented when the sound had subsided. "Now, all electronics, including our enemy androids, are fried."

"We need to get Jenny." Jason was worried. Over the time he had known Jenny, Jason was beginning to develop a close affinity with her. He had to find her.

"`Aher `ishshah?" David asked the computer.

"Geber chishshabown chathaph `ishshah min yareach biyraniyth." The resonant voice again filled the room.

To Jason's questioning look David said: "I asked where the woman, `ishshah, was and it told me that strong man-like machines, geber chishshabown, took Jenny, away, chathaph, out of, min, the Moon, yareach, fortress or base, biyraniyth."

"You mentioned you had a solution to the fried electronics so that we could rescue Jenny."

"That's right." David said, resolutely. "I have a strong belief that this pod we are in is a space craft as well as a computer. It, of course, would be immune to an EMP generated from its self, since the EMP is directional and is aimed away from the computer circuits in this pod."

Before Jason could ask any more questions, David again spoke to the computer:

"Tsavah `uwph `oniy `abar."

"Shama`." Came the resonate reply.

To Jason, David said, "I commanded, tsavah, the flying ship, `uwph `oniy, to fly, `abar."

As David finished his sentence, the cylindrical hologram screen displayed an image of the egg-pod in its chamber, highlighted in red.

A tone sounded: Dee, Dee, Dee…

"`Asah `abar! `Asah `abar!" The computer said with caution. Jason had never heard a computer have any emotion.

"It tells us that it is preparing to take off and it could also mean that we need to prepare for the take off." David said. "The only problem is that I don't know where the cockpit is. There aren't any seats in this small room. Without proper seating and protection, we could badly be injured in take off!"

In the depths of the pod a new sound could be heard: a dull groaning like the rumble of a giant stomach. The engine was starting up.

Then, something happened which Jason would never forget.

The engines groaning became deeper and more powerful and it now seemed that the groaning sound was not coming from the pod at all.

Suddenly, the floor began to shake and both men were thrown to the floor.

A deep, powerful, thundering rumble filled the cavern outside the pod and penetrated the dense metal of the pod as if it was merely paper.

It sounded like an earthquake multiplied a thousand times.

"What's happening?" Jason shouted above the noise.

David shook his head. "We must have caused and earthquake."

The rumbling stopped after what seemed an eternity.

Jason got to his feet. "We're trapped. There is no way an earthquake that close would allow us any exits to the Moon's surface."

"Let's see." David stood and turned toward the column with the transparent cylinders.

"Pathach pethach." David spoke to the computer.

"Shma`." The deep computer voice replied.

David quickly refastened his helmet as the door they had entered the pod through began to slide open.

The cavern outside the door had changed somehow, Jason thought.

The light was different. Rather than coming from hidden recesses in the ceiling of the cavern, the light was streaming from an opening in the cavern wall: a door.

When Jason and David reached the door in the cavern, they both gasped and stood before the threshold in a shared reverie.

Beyond the door a white, cratered landscape stretched out to the horizon. A deep black, starlit sky with a large round, blue object in the sky, presented a harsh contrast to the white, sand.

It took a moment for Jason to realize that the blue object I the dark sky was planet Earth. They were on the surface of the Moon!

Jason noticed that something was wrong with the Moon's landscape. Tall, skinny

cliffs that resembled some of the sky scrapers in Equipacilon covered the landscape.

No. They weren't cliffs. Jason squinted his eyes. They were buildings!

He could see now that some of the buildings were moving upward and branches or tunnels parallel to the ground were sliding out of the sides of the buildings at different heights to connect them together.

Jason couldn't find words to describe his amazement. The cavern they were in had elevated to the surface of the Moon somehow and now a city was forming on the Moon.

A large shadow toward their left was beginning to lengthen. A huge building gliding smoothly, as if on ball-bearings, rose high above them to an altitude of at least half a mile where it stopped moving.

"I can't believe this?" David finally said.

It appeared that the towering building near them and those far away were all highly reflective and shiny as if they were made of mirrors.

Jason didn't know why but he suddenly felt an urge to approach the nearby glittering edifice.

It must have been an optical illusion that it was nearby for just when he felt that he must be nearly there, he found that it was farther than he expected.

Finally, Jason reached it and placed his gloved hand against the mirror-like surface, watching the space-suited man in the mirror duplicate his movements.

There was no entrance that he could see; no groove or edge in the reflective surface.

"What are you doing?" David was a few feet behind him.

"I want to go inside." Jason replied. "Whatever technology this is, I think we can use it to find Jenny and her grandfather, Charlie."

"I still believe that the pod we found is a space ship. I must have somehow used a code word that activated all this." David waved his hand toward the newly formed city.

"I don't know what you did, but could you find a way to get me inside this building."

David sighed. "I fear that Jenny and Charlie are lost. The Prefect must have infiltrated our space ship before we took off from Earth with his robots. They have probably taken Jenny back to Equipacilon."

"What about the Architect. You mentioned that it had the power to shut down the prefect and any computer system of any of the space stations." Jason replied. "I think that something within one of these towers, like a tracking device, might be able to locate the Architect for us."

"You may be right, Jason, but I think I have meddled enough with this wonderful technology. Clearly, the miners did not build this. The Hebrew language, the technology that is beyond our knowledge, and the mysteries that are still to be revealed indicate that this came from some advanced civilization that spoke Hebrew. You can be sure that if there are alien races, which I highly doubt, given that there are no habitable planets that we can detect in a radius of trillions of light years from here, these aliens will not know ancient Hebrew. This Moon base was built by man."

"I want to at least explore the building, David." Jason pleaded.

"You may be able to one day." David said.

---

Chapter 14

Cataclysm

---

Jason remembered the building they had recently exited. He had never seen it from the outside. Being captivated with the other buildings dotting the landscape, he had forgotten about the building with the pod.

Jason turned around to see it for the first time. It was much shorter and squatter than the other buildings around, nevertheless; it had to have been at least fifty stories high.

The dome hangar they had landed their space ship in was a not too far away.

We are the first people to see this in thousands of years. Jason thought.

Suddenly a vibration like a minor earthquake passed through the ground up Jason's legs.

The buildings were lowering back into the ground!

"What!" Jason shouted. "What's going on?"

Without waiting from David's reply, Jason took off running back to the pod building.

He jumped and to his surprise he sailed through the air above the ground for four seconds before he landed.

Then he remembered that the Moon had a sixth of Earth's gravity.

He bounded toward the sinking doorway. The height of the doorway they had passed through earlier was at least ten feet. Now it was five. It was sinking with the building into the ground.

Just as the doorway had shrunk to three feet, Jason crouched and dove through it.

He fell to the ground for seven feet and landed without that much of an impact, due to the weak gravity.

Once again, he was in the cavern with the pod.

The ground continued to quake and then Jason remembered David.

How could he have forgotten the man? Jason closed his eyes. What a fool he had been. David was trapped on the surface of the Moon.

Maybe, if he could remember what David had said to the computer in the pod, the buildings could rise up again.

As Jason began to approach the black egg pod the door in its side slid open and the ramp lowered to the ground.

From the interior could be seen a dim light, poring from the entrance.

Something was wrong about this. The door wasn't supposed to open automatically.

Jason held his gun firmly, eyeing the entrance.

Before he could blink, something had knocked the gun out of his hand! It clattered to the stone floor and came to a rest.

"What!" Jason shouted.

Firm hands had clasped his wrists and pulled them behind Jason's back.

"It's been a long time." A voice said to Jason's left.

The speaker came into view.

"Proctor Estone." Jason said; mouth agape. Quintaeus Estone was the last man Jason wanted to see now. Quintaeus had always been a rival to Jason since he had first become a proctor. The man exuded evil by his very presence.

Inside the space helmet, the cadaverous face peered out at Jason with cold, almost reptilian eyes.

"Proctor Kminsky," Estone replied with a raspy voice, "how unfortunate that we should have to meet at such a crossroad in your life."

Jason was about to ask what he meant, but decided not to.

The Quintaeus was wearing a black body-suit with a helmet that had a transparent visor.

"Let him be." Estone ordered the thing behind Jason's back that was holding his wrists.

Immediately, the firm grip was gone.

Jason caught a glimpse of a black-armored, humanoid hulk of metal. The creature clutching a rifle in its hands presented a threatening presence. Trying to escape now would be futile.

"You've been a long way from home." Estone said as he placed a hand on Jason's shoulder. "I've been worried about you. Did those filthy Christians kidnap you?"

Jason remained silent. The Prefect must have sent a 'rescue party'.

Estone paced around Jason with a slight grin on his face that appeared clearly through his visor.

"You see, Jason, the Prefect needs good men: men that will not fail the cause. We know that you are emotionally attached to one of our enemies: a girl."

Jason was shocked. How did they know?

Seeing Jason's consternation, Estone said, "I see that you are in love. You've been swayed from the cause by a human flaw." He said the last word with a trace of venom.

"I have realized that the cause is not as honorable, nor good as it seems." Jason replied, clenching his teeth. "The Prefect is not concerned about our well being. It just wants power."

"Who told you that? The Christians?" Estone smirked.

"No." Jason faced Estone. "I've know that for a long time, but I have kept it hidden from the Prefect."

Estone was silent for a moment. "Then, you'll never see the light of day, Jason. Unless you recant, you will be sentenced to a life in the cells."

The cells were small, dark, grimy, and cold chambers in Equipacilon. Jason had heard rumors that those left in them became cadaverous with chalk-white, pallid skin. It was like a living death.

"And, the same will happen to your friends." Estone added.

Jason noticed movement in his peripheral vision.

A figure appeared in the doorway of the large pod and began descending the ramp. Behind it a large shiny black figure followed: a guard.

"What is this?" Jason stammered.

Estone just smiled.

Soon the figures were in clear view. Jason gasped when recognition crossed his face. He could see that the closest person was an older man by the way he walked and by the wrinkled face that peeked out of the space helmet.

It was Jenny's grandfather, Charlie!

Jason couldn't find any words to say.

The man who had rescued him from Equipacilon and who had himself been kidnapped was standing before him once more.

Recognition crossed Charlie's face and Jason saw the man's lips move, but heard no voice in his helmet.

"We finally rounded up two of our most wanted." Estone said. "Now, ex-proctor Kminsky will make the old fool talk."

One of the armored men aimed a gun at Jason.

"Jason, I want you to tell Charlie that if he will not tell us where the Architect is, we will be forced to kill you."

Charlie mouthed the word 'no' to Jason and shook his head.

"I can't tell him." Jason said, fearfully, "My speakers don't pick up his voice."

"Blast! The old fool." Estone snarled. "He must have turned them off again."

To the guard he said, "Give him a shock. That should make him comply."

No! Jason knew that prisoners were repeatedly shocked with electric stun wands when guards thought they were not working hard enough. Quite a few of old men did not survive the high voltage shocks.

Jason saw the silver rod being slipped out of its sheath on the back of the guard.

The gleaming metal suddenly lit up at the tip with a blue, electric glow.

There were only two guards and proctor Estone, but there could be more in the large pod.

Jason watched the guard take a heavy step toward Charlie with the burning rod clutched in its armored hand.

The other guard with the gun aimed at Jason was slightly distracted by the proceedings and Jason saw his chance.

In a moment, Jason knocked the gun out of his guard's hand using his arm. In split seconds, he fired into the bulky armor, sending the first guard to the floor, dead.

The guard with the stun wand had dropped the wand and was reaching for his side arm. The projectiles from Jason's gun struck the second guard just in time.

Before Jason could get Estone next, the proctor had knocked Jason to the ground. The gun clattered to the stone floor and slid five feet away from Jason's hand.

Jason was on the ground breathing hard, feeling the pain of Estone's boot where it had struck his chest.

"You are better than I expected." The voice came from his helmet speakers, but Jason could almost feel, or think he felt, the presence of the evil man leering above him.

"Not good enough." Jason managed.

"I will give you a chance. We need strong men like you."

Jason opened his eyes to see Estone reaching out his hand to help Jason up.

When Jason was on his feet, Estone chuckled, holding a pistol in his hand. "You really think you accomplished something. The men you killed were novices. Really Jason, what made you think that you could evade the Prefect by joining these fools: these Christians?"

"The Prefect is on its last lap. It is an old worn out barn that is about to collapse." The voice was Charlie's.

"How dare you. When I am done with your service, I will personally oversee your death." Estone glared.

The old man walked forward. "You think that by finding the Architect, the Prefect will be given complete control of every human in all the space colonies and the Earth?"

Charlie wagged his head. "Mr. Proctor, I have learned..." Charlie paused.

"…that your true master is not the Prefect and your true master is bound for an eternity…in Hell."

"If you will not shut up now, I will be forced to—" Estone growled.

"What are you talking about?" Jason was confused. The Prefect was that old? And, if not the Prefect, who was the actual master of Estone that Charlie knew about?

"It says in God's word, the Bible, that we are to fear no man: only fear God. I know where I am going when I die, Estone. How about you?"

"You will lead me to the Architect." Estone said aiming his pistol at Charlie.

"Or what, you will kill me?" Charlie smiled. "I do not fear death. Besides, you will not find the Architect without me."

"You are a psychopath. What idiot would not fear the unknown beyond the grave? What idiot would not fear complete annihilation?" Estone snarled.

"Because, I know that I am bought with a price: the blood of Jesus Christ."

"Shut up! Don't say that name. I will shoot you now."

"Jesus died for my sins, Estone, and he died for yours, and he died for everyone's. To be saved from eternal existence in Hell to live in eternal joy and

beauty in Heaven, you must confess that you are a sinner, that Jesus Christ was sinless and lived a perfect life in your place, and that Jesus died in your place on a wooden cross and rose again from the dead and that you want to accept his free gift of eternal life that you are given through that death."

"Why did Jesus have to die?" Jason was interested now. How could Charlie be so peaceful about the prospect of sudden death?

"The first man God created was named Adam." Charlie replied.

Estone rolled his eyes.

"From one of Adem's lower ribs, God formed a woman." Charlie continued, "The Earth was perfect at that time. Dinosaurs, birds, cattle, and all animals on Earth were alive. The climate was perfect and humans could live forever.

"At the same time something was not so perfect. In another set of what you might call dimensions, in a place called Heaven, where God had his holy presence God created beings called angels. Remember, God is not limited by time or space, so this does not mean that God was limited to Heaven."

"This is a lot of trash." Estone interjected.

Charlie ignored the insult and cleared his throat. "Back to the record: God created angels to be his ministering servants. The highest ranking angel, Lucifer, was one of the most beautiful angels in Heaven. He began to see how much honor and attention God was getting and began to envy God.

"Soon, his pride had grown and he wanted to be God. He was able to persuade a third of God's angels that they could have more power and authority and honor if they joined him. God saw there rebellion and sin and was saddened deeply but he knew that sin could not continue in Heaven, so God cast Lucifer and his followers out of the spiritual dimensions of Heaven into the newly created universe where all matter resided.

"God changed Lucifer's name which mean's 'light bearer', to Satan which means, 'deceiver'. Satan deceived Eve, the first woman and Adem, probably not wanting to lose his wife, joined her in sinning against God by eating a fruit of the forbidden tree of knowledge. God had told them specifically not to eat any fruit from the tree because it would make them god-like in having the ability to discern between good and evil, which they did not have at the time.

"Satan had usurped Adem and Eve's authority over the animals and the Earth, which God had given to them. Since they had disobeyed God and sinned, they were condemned to die, but were given the ability to be saved from eternal death in Hell by looking forward to the gift of eternal life which Jesus Christ would give them by his death. You see, Jesus Christ is God and the son of a human woman. As a human, he would meet the requirements that a perfect man, dying for the sins of the world, would satisfy God's justice. A man must die for murder, but if and innocent man decides to take the murderer's place in the sentence, the murderer can go free."

"If Jesus is God, why do you differentiate between them?" Jason asked.

"There are three persons in God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit." Charlie replied. "These three are one. Just as there are three atoms in a water molecule: H2O, there are three persons in God. However, God is one being."

"I don't understand." Jason said.

"Of course you don't, because it's nonsense." Estone spat.

"We cannot completely understand most things. For instance what is the essence of matter? We can't know, but we know that it had to come from some where. We can't understand God. But the more we grow as a Christian, the more He will reveal to us about Himself."

Charlie cleared his throat. "Returning my point, Jesus Christ died for Adam and Eve's sin, the sins of their children, and their descendents, including us."

Charlie turned toward Jason. "Have you accepted Christ's gift of eternal salvation?"

Jason was confused. What Charlie was saying sounded strange, but rather simple. It was simpler than he had thought. How could someone live forever in Heaven by just accepting a free gift? To think that God actually became a human and died for him was…Jason couldn't think of a word to describe it.

---

Chapter 15

Conflict

---

"I have heard your radical idiocy long enough. We are going to find the Architect." Estone aimed the pistol at Charlie. "Get moving."

"What, you think the Architect is here, on the Moon?" Jason asked, surprised.

"In the Moon." Estone corrected.

Charlie focused sadly at Jason. "The Architect evades finding."

"You know where it is." Estone said coldly, "Now, show us or I will be forced…"

Estone suddenly kicked Charlie in the chest and the old man buckled over with a groan. "…to make use of physical incentives."

Charlie groaned in pain and sank to his knees, gasping for breath in short intakes.

Jason was horrified. How cruel the proctors were.

"Why did you kick him? What did he do to deserve it?" Jason shouted.

"Shut up or I will kill you." Estone said as he turned toward the old man.

"Get up." He nudged Charlie with his boot. "Lead me to the Architect. I know that you know of its location. You admitted that you knew where it was. Get up."

Estone kicked Charlie once more: this time in the side.

Charlie cried out in pain.

Jason, eyeing the gun in Estone's hand, couldn't contain his rage any longer.

He rushed toward Estone.

Estone turned suddenly: the gun aimed at Jason while he was in mid-stride.

Jason, seeing the gun, stopped in his tracks.

"I had thought we were on the same level, Jason." Estone's voice came from what seemed a great distance away in Jason's agitated mind. "I thought you could be persuaded to join our side again." Estone coldly began to pull the gun trigger. "I was wrong."

"No!" The scream wasn't Jason's voice as he watched Estone's finger move the trigger.

The scream came from Charlie.

There was a gunshot: strangely quiet in the rarified air. Jason tensed his muscles and closed his eyes.

He opened them. He was not dead. He could feel his heart beat. He was still standing.

Estone was standing, aiming the pistol at Jason: the proctor's mouth agape.

There was a slight tremble in Estone's gloved hand.

Then, Jason saw where Estone was looking.

On the ground was a space-suited man. Charlie.

Jason couldn't find any emotion. He stared at the lifeless form on the ground for what seemed like an eternity. All was silent.

When Jason had finally gathered the strength to cope with the situation and had accepted what had just occurred as being real, he found that he was alone.

Estone had left.

Jason couldn't bring himself to turn the body over to see if it really was Charlie.

He had seen a blur of a man jump in front of him just as the gun had fired.

Charlie had given his life for me. Jason felt salty liquid fill his eyes. He closed them and sank to his knees. Charlie, why did you have to do that? Why would you? You old fool, you died. Why? I brought it on myself. Estone was going to kill me and you…saved me.

Jason began to sob. He had never cried like he did now since his 12th birthday.

The room was quiet and silent as if nothing had happened. The pod was in its place at the center; a black egg of extreme complexity.

Jason did not know how much time had passed in the chamber when he felt the light touch of a hand on his shoulder.

"Jason."

The voice in his helmet sounded masculine. Was it Estone?
Jason turned around to see a man with a familiar face. He couldn't believe it. It was Turon! Turon had to be dead, though for he had stayed behind in the basement of the government building on Earth to fight the enemy robots so that Jason, Jenny, and David could escape up and elevator.

"Is it you, Turon?" Jason finally managed.

"Yes."

"How did you escape?" Jason asked.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Turon replied, "but the robots suddenly shut off and fell to the ground as if something had suddenly removed all their energy."

Jason's eyes lit up for a moment and then the cold true of what had just happened returned. "Turon," Jason paused and took a deep breath, "I don't know how to say this… but Charlie died…saving me…from…" Jason lowered his eyes. "...death."

Turon gasped. "No! Not Charlie!"

Turon knelt by the fallen body for a few moments, in silence.

"How did it happen?" Turon asked, finally.

"A man from Equipacilon, Estone, a leader of soldiers, came here in search of the Architect. He killed Charlie. But, he was using Charlie to find the Architect. Now, I suppose, he is searching for the Architect on his own."

"Once the Prefect has taken over the Architect," Turon frowned, "the Architect and Prefect will be one and the Prefect will have the Architect's abilities to control distant space station computers."

There was more silence.

"He was a great leader-Charlie." Turon said finally. "I will never forget him. He died an honorable death."

Jason nodded.

"His death, in fact," Turon faced Jason, "reminds me of-"

"Jesus." Jason finished.

"That's what I was going to say." Turon was surprised. "How did you know about Jesus? As far as I know, Equipacilonese have never heard about Jesus Christ."

"Charlie told me about his death for our sins in our place." Jason replied.

"Jesus not only died, Jason." Turon said. "Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Roman's executed Jesus on a wooden cross and guarded the tomb Jesus was laid in. He was completely dead. When a Roman soldier stabbed his side blood and water pored out and any good Doctor will know that that indicates a person is truly medically dead. Since the Romans were scared that Jesus' followers would take his body from the tomb, they set a guard of Roman soldiers before the tomb and rolled a large circular stone in front of it. The stone was so heavy it took at least three strong men to move it. The guards took shifts and so that at least one or two guards were always awake. They knew that if Jesus' body was removed, they would be severely punished.

"During the night," Turon continued, "the guards feinted when the stone rolled away by its self and Jesus walked out of the tomb. Early morning that next day some women went down to the tomb because they wanted to give Jesus' body the proper dressings for its burial to preserve the body longer. It was a custom at that time. They found the body missing and the stone rolled away. That same day Jesus met a woman named Mary at the tomb and later he appeared to some of his other followers in a room that was completely closed and locked off. They were scared of what the Romans might do to them since the Romans had just killed Jesus. One of the followers who did not see Jesus appear in the locked room didn't believe the others when they told him of it.

When Jesus appeared to him later, he knew that it truly was Jesus. During the next few weeks, Jesus appeared to quite a few people before he left the Earth and rose up into Heaven."

"I want to be saved." Jason said when Turon was done speaking.

"Ok. Admit that you are a sinner deserving of God's just punishment of Hell, and acknowledge that Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect, sinless life, died in your place, on the Roman Cross, for your sins and everyone else's. Jesus gave you his life in your place and He rose from the dead to prove that He conquered death. When you have accepted this gift of eternal life that is free and that you cannot earn, no matter how hard you try, or how good you are, then; you are saved once and saved for ever. Remember, this isn't about what you do. It is about what God does, but eternal life is a gift. You can't earn it. All you can do is reject it, or accept it."

Jason prayed to God for the first time. God, dear God, you are Jesus Christ, you are God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit, all in One. It is amazing to think of who you are and what you have done for me. I want to be saved. Jason let a tear fall. I don't want to go to Hell. I…I've seen so much death and suffering. I know that you did not want it to happen in the first place. Charlie said that you created Earth perfect. You didn't want death and suffering. I am amazed at…I don't know how to express my awe that you would, would die for my sins. Dear God, dear Jesus, please save me from my sins. I am a sinner. I have done a lot of terrible things. I have been the cause of some people's deaths. Jason closed his eyes tightly, trying to forget the times he had ordered the deaths of people the Prefect had ordered to be executed for being 'un-devoted' to the cause.

Oh, Jesus, save me by your death in my place, please. Thank you. Thank you for removing my sins and saving me, Dear God. Thank you so much for your eternal gift of life—eternal life. Thank's. I hope to see Charlie in Heaven.

Jason rose from his knees. He had been on them all this time and they were sore. He didn't feel that much different than he did before, but he knew that something had changed. Something dynamic had changed in his life. He felt a feeling of peace for the first time in his life. All his years as a cold-hearted proctor seemed long ago.

"The story of the creation of the world," Turon said, "the fall of humankind, and the salvation of human kind is the greatest story ever told, not only because it affects all humankind and provides the best solution to sin and a way of true salvation, but it is completely true. That story is found in the Bible."

Thinking of the black pod, Jason asked, "Turon, what language was the Bible written in?"

"Ancient Hebrew for the old Testiment, and Greek and Aramaic for the New Testiment."

"There is a computer in that pod," Jason said, "that uses ancient Hebrew instead of English. Councilmen David thinks that that pod was built in ancient times. Do you think there is any connection between the Bible and that pod."

"Yes." Turon responded promptly. "More that what you think."

Jason and Turon entered the computer room inside the pod, while Turon's men guarded outside. Jason clasped his gun tightly. He had lost track of Estone. The man was on the loose somewhere in the base.

"Ruwq tmuwnah bitstsarown." Turon removed his helmet and spoke to the computer in the pod quickly and tensely.

"What did you tell it?" Jason stared at the holographic image of the cube, in the concentric cylinders, at the center of the room.

"Pour out the likeness of the stronghold." Turon replied when he had replaced the helmet. "In modern language it would be, 'display the map of the base'."

"`Asah." The resonant voice again filled the room, giving Jason a feeling of wonderment at the strange, ancient technology.

"It said, 'will do'." Turon said.

"How did you know ancient Hebrew?"

"Every government official in my government must know Hebrew." Turon explained. "There is a small college that teaches it in New Philadelphia."

Suddenly, the holographic cube in the concentric cylinders changed to a three dimensional map with stunning detail.

Jason stepped closer and was shocked by what he saw.

There were chambers, elevator shafts, and tunnels in the map and one chamber or cavern in the map was highlighted in red. Inside that chamber, Jason could see what looked like the egg-shaped pod they were in now.

Outside the pod, in the three dimensional map were white points. When Jason got even closer to the map, he couldn't find words to describe his amazement. The points resolved into the shape of people with arms, legs, and heads. Jason could see them clearly. They were armed with tiny guns in their small hands.

"Can you zoom in?" Jason asked Turon.

"Yes." Turon gave the computer a command and the image enlarged.

The figures were clearly Turon's men.

Suddenly, more figures came into view on the map and began approaching the figures near the pod.

"What happened?" Jason asked.

"The computer probably didn't pick up the body signals from some of my m-"

Turon was suddenly riveted to the map.

The newly appeared figures were shooting at the men near the pod: Turon's men outside!

Jason felt like an idiot. How stupid of him not to think about the fact that they could be in a trap. Estone was sure to have more than just a handful of enforcers with him if he was searching for the Architect.

Turon commanded the door to open. Just as door slid open, an eruption of pulsing lights burned into Jason's eye. The light flashed like a rapid strobe light.

He squinted.

Projectiles struck the metal of the pod near the doorway they stood in, pinging against the metal.

Jason chided himself for leaving his night vision goggles back in the space ship: the space ship Jenny was in.

Without warning, a rapid, chopped up blast suddenly roared from Turon's gun.

Jason felt his ears ring in the rarified air.

He didn't get a chance to fire before the dull sound of footsteps came up the ramp to the door. The survivors of Turon's men were retreating.

A man was struck in the back and he fell to the ground with a silent cry. Two more fell before the last was through the doorway, into the room.

Turon shouted to the computer to close the door.

And it did, but not soon enough to stop a projectile from striking the concentric cylinders, in the column, at the center of the room. A crack appeared in the tough transparent material.

"No." Turon was horrified.

The 3-D map began to ripple as if it was a pond into which a pebble had been dropped.

"It didn't shatter." Jason sighed.

"Look." A soldier pointed at the map.

Outside the pod the white figures began to multiply.

"Why do they appear like that?" Jason asked.

"They must have particle shielding: a cloaking device that hides them from the detection waves this computer uses to locate human presence." A man approached Jason and Turon. He appeared to be in his late thirties.

His tired face behind the space helmet revealed that he was a mature soldier: one who knew the enemy's tactics.

"What makes you think that the Equipacilonese would have that technology?" Turon asked.

"I believe they have been preparing for a confrontation with us, even though they know that the Antecedent has the power to shut down space station Equipacilon."

Jason remembered the Antecedent, the computer that ran the city of New Philadelphia that was on Earth, was able to control the Prefect, in Equipacilon, by using quantum non-locality to instantaneously transmit control signals. But, the Antecedent had lost control since the power to New Philadelphia had been knocked out by a bomb in the power station.

"So, what should we do about it?" Turon asked, eyeing the map.

The map was now covered with white figures.

"Drop your weapons." The voice came from behind the group of men in a far corner of the room.

The words were like a lightning bolt to Jason. Who could be in the pod at this time?

Jason heard the clunk of metal thumping against the floor as guns were dropped by Turon's men.

"Drop your weapon, ex-proctor Kminsky." It was Estone.

Jason sighed and let his gun fall to the ground. Not again.

"Pathach." Estone said when he had removed his helmet. Quickly, he replaced the helmet and the door to the room slid open silently.

Outside the door, in the dark, dimly lit cavern, were swarms of red beings: enforcers.

Estone smiled in his helmet. "Jason, it really is too bad you had to make the terrible mistake of joining the loosing side."

Jason could see a few red-armored men climbing the ramp that led to the entrance.

"You had your chance and it has now slipped away from you." Estone was saying.

Turon was also watching the red soldiers closing in.

Estone kept his gun trained on Turon's men as he talked to Jason. "What a pity it is that you-" He didn't finish his sentence.

Turon had removed his helmet just before he lunged, knocked Estone's gun from his hand. With a swift strike, Turon had knocked Estone to the floor. He shouted to the computer in the pod, the next moment, "Cagar sha'ar" and the door slid shut, cutting off the enforcers from entering. Estone was just about to attack Turon, when a man holding a gun shouted. "Stay where you are."

Turon was relieved.

Jason took in a deep breath.

"What are you going to do with me?" Estone asked. His emotionless eyes gazed at Turon.

"Tie him up and muzzle him." Turon returned his pistol to its holster.

"I say we kill him here and now." A tough soldier said. The man was muscular with bond hair and a prominent chin.

"No." Turon turned toward the man. "That would be wrong. He is under our custody. He will be brought back to Earth for trial."

There was a thud against the door that suddenly vibrated the room.

"They're trying to break in!" Another soldier exclaimed as he gazed at the 3-D map.

In the image, a man outside the pod, with a tube, was preparing to fire what looked like a rocket.

"We're trapped." A man lamented. Jason was riveted on the 3-D map.

The sound of voices talking: men speaking with each other in worried tones began to fade in the back of his mind as the sole spectacle of eminent doom outside the pod overcame him.

It would only be a matter of time before the soldiers would break through the door and kill them. Only a matter of time…

---

Chapter 16

Resolution

---

Turon was focused on the map intensely. Jason could see him quivering, but with what seem like resolution rather than fear.

The pod was surrounded by the enforcers and an enforcer was preparing to fire a missile that could blast the door open.

While Turon's men gagged and tied up Estone, Turon was silent, in deep contemplative thought.

"What are you thinking?" Jason asked, curiously.

Turon didn't answer as he gazed at the 3-D map.

Suddenly, Turon unclasped his helmet and spoke to the computer.

"Kuwn `abar." Turon ordered.

Jason removed his helmet and asked, "What did you say?"

"I said, prepare to fly."

"Why? You don't think this is a space ship, do you?" Jason was confused. He had seen that the pod was imbedded in the ground. It was a monolith, like the stone heads at Easter Island, or the pyramids. How could such a heavy object, imbedded in the ground, fly?

"I have had that suspicion for a while." Turon said, "Let's see if it proves true."

"But, if this was a space craft, where is the cockpit?"

"I think the door that our friend, here, came out of," Turon indicated Estone with a wave of his hand, "leads there."

"Let's ask Estone if he saw a cockpit." Jason said.

"No need." Turon replied as he approached a section of the wall where he gave the order for the door to open, "Pathach sha'ar."

And, it did…with a hiss which Jason had never heard before since his helmet had been on. There was plenty of air inside. How strange. This was in the Moon. Where would all the oxygen come from?

The door had opened to reveal a strangely shaped room with an octagonal floor and ceiling. Each side of the octagonal room was wide enough for a door to be located.

When all the men had entered this new room, including Estone, the floor suddenly lifted upwards like an elevator.

When it had stopped moving, a door in the wall slid open to reveal a hallway.

The men built up courage and entered the hallway. The door whispered shut behind them, causing some to shudder slightly, but they continued on.

Jason began to wonder if the doors would open if they ever should want to leave.

The hallway was completely featureless and immaculate. The white metal in the floor and walls and the luminescent ceiling that illuminated the hall were the only visible things. There were no doorways visible in the walls.

A door at the end of the long hallway slid open and the men entered another bare room. This one was circular.

"Well, what now?" Jason breathed. "This is the cockpit?"

"Yes." Turon tried to hold his enthusiasm.

"Are you sure this hunk of junk can fly?" A man approached Jason and Turon.

"This is technology goes far beyond ours, Mac, and you know it." Turon replied.

Mac was a tall man with short, brown, curly hair and large muscles.

"I don't see in instruments, or controls." Mac said. "There isn't even a seat to sit on."

Right when he had finished his sentence, something mysterious happened to the floor.

A section of the floor lifted up out of it in the form of a column.

Then, a second column rose out of the floor and a third, and soon a dozen or so columns filled the room, forming a forest of living stumps. When they had reached a height of six feet, they began transforming.

Sections of a column began to lower and change shape. It appeared that the columns were made of living liquid-metal that could flow by its own power into any shape.

Jason was thunderstruck with awe.

A wide, rectangular column near a chair was resolving into a control panel with computer screens. It was as if seeds had sprouted and were rapidly growing into trees right before his eyes.

Soon, an entire cockpit with control panels, chairs, computer screens, and controls was formed in what had once been a bare room.

The computer screens turned on.

"What just happened?" Mac whispered.

Turon was silent. He shook his head slowly, as if in denial of what had just transpired.

"Well, what do we do now?" Mac asked when he could see that his captain was in deep thought.

"We need to recue Jenny, Charlie's granddaughter." Jason said firmly.

"But, the Prefect is searching for the Architect." Turon awoke from his ruminations. "We need to locate the Architect, and then we will be able to find Jenny."

Turon focused on the computer screen and commanded, "Awake: Yaqats."

The computer screens lit up and a circular symbol appeared on Turon's screen. It was divided into seven pie-shaped sections. Each section was labeled with ancient Hebrew symbols.

Turon suddenly gasped with excitement when he had studied them for a few moments.

"Jason," Turon pointed to a pie-shaped section of the circle, "this is labeled `amown, meaning a skilled person or architect."

How could this ancient pod be connected to the Architect, if the Architect was built many, many years after the pod? Jason wondered.

Before they knew what was happening, a distant scraping sound that sounded like a massive metal slab scraping over rock came through the floor from what seemed like far below them.

It was as if a giant hand was scraping its nails across a huge chalkboard.

The men felt themselves rise upward, suddenly, a few centimeters from the floor.

"What?" Jason inhaled. He felt nauseous. The floor was moving: the whole pod was descending!

When the motion had ceased and the floor was motionless, Jason breathed normally, but his heart was beating faster.

"Dabeq ma`aseh kalah." A masculine voice broke the silence. It was the same voice they had heard in the first room they had entered when first entering the pod.

Now, it was more human sounding, as if an actual man had spoken.

"What did it say?" Mac asked.

"Joining action complete." Turon replied.

"What do you think it means?" Jason approached Turon's computer screen.

"We'll find out soon enough." Turon pointed at the screen. "Look."

There was an image of the pod they were in as realistic as if it was a photograph. The pod, in the image, was in-between two parallel, vertical lines. At the bottom of both lines was an opening and below that opening a box. In the opening between the parallel lines, resting on top of the box was the pod.

The question in Jason's mind occurred to everyone else in the room. Mac was brave enough to address the question.

"So, what are we on top of?" Mac nervously adjusted his grip on his rifle.

The other men couldn't hide their uneasiness, either.

The strange voice spoke again and filled the room with its enigmatic tone: "Zoh hayah `amown."

"It said, 'this be architect." Turon responded unconsciously. His mind was elsewhere.

"It answered my question." Mac was surprised.

Turon nodded.

"So we are at the Architect? The Architect is beneath us!" Jason whispered. But, how could the Architect be built below the ancient base if the Architect was built after the Prefect was built in space station Equipacilon?

"How did you understand my language?" Mac asked the computer, excitedly.

"I learning language of you." The voice replied.

Jason looked around the room, wondering where the speakers were.
"Is there a way we can go out of this pod to see the architect?" Turon asked, looking at the computer screen.

"Be there way, know I. I door open that you out go." The computer responded in strained English.

"How did you learn my language so quickly?" Turon shot another question.

"I be built strong with lashown art that makes `arak in lashown to built lashown of others."

"Lashown means language and `arak means compare, so what do you mean? Are you good at language skills which involve comparisons in languages?"

"I be." Was the rudimentary reply.

"So, how did you get to the Moon, the yareach?" Turon asked.

"I not use you language. It be hard."

"Fine, you can use your own language if you wish. So, how did you get to the Moon?"

"Tebel ra` `echad enowsh `abar yareach banah biyraniyth m`arah `ay yanach `uwph beytsah `oniy."

"What did he say?" Mac asked, hanging on Turon's words.

"The Earth was evil so some men flew to the Moon to build a fortress cave where they left their flying egg ship."

"When was this?" Jason asked. "Could you ask it?"

"Many long time ago." The computer replied. "The one great 'elohiym made Earth and men. All men be evil after first man chatta'ah. 'Elohiym make great mabbuwl to destroy evil men. Men be gone, but for one man and his family."

"I think he is talking about a flood." Turon explained. "Mabbuwl means a flood or deluge. Chatta`ah is a sin or crime, and `Elohiym means gods, but in many cases in the Bible it refers to a single being with three parts who we call God in English. `Elohiym is almost always used in the singular, not in the plural."

"A flood. There was a flood that destroyed all mankind?" Jason couldn't believe it.

"In the Bible," Turon took a breath and continued, "in the book of Genesis, chapter six, it speaks of the evilness of humankind and how there was only one man and his family who was not led astray by the complete moral depravity of the world at that time. God gave this man, Noah, plans for building a wooden ship called the Ark.

"After Noah preached to the world for 120 years that they should turn away from their sins and horrible depravity and wickedness and enter the Ark where they would be safe during the flood, there were still no converts. All humankind remained corrupt and wicked. The children, parents, and grandparents were all corrupt and vile, so God unleashed his judgment on the Earth. Huge underground chambers or caverns called the fountains of the deep were broke open by colossal seismic activity. Some scientists believe that there was an ice shield around the Earth that would keep the temperatures around the world at a constant level. This is believed to have melted to explain the torrential rain that pored down on the Earth during that great deluge. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and geothermal cataclysms completely reduced the population of the Earth from what some scientists of the past have estimated to be twenty billion or more down to eight people: Noah and his family. The Ark was designed by God who created the universe, so it was stable and watertight. A special pitch coating the Ark kept it leak-proof. When Noah, his family, and the animals landed, they were in a changed world. The land that had been mostly flat was now covered with rugged mountains and a large ocean. "

Turon swiveled in his seat and gazed at the floor of the room.

"What about this pod?" Jason asked. "How did it get from the Earth to the Moon?"

"The Bible doesn't really mention any specific reference to super advanced technologies, but it does mention that some of Noah's ancestors and the first man, Adem's descendants, were skilled in such skilled crafts or sciences such as musical instruments, or iron and brass forging. Also, the people during this period of time had long lives. Methuselah lived 969 years. If they were skilled at iron work, had a good climate, lived a long time, which is evidence of good health, and had abundant resources such as gold, iron, and precious stones. Genesis chapter three says that there is gold in the land of Havilah and that the gold of that land is good. 'Good gold' probably means that the gold is pure. It is not an ore, which would be more difficult extract the pure gold from. In addition, there are many ancient legends, the world over, that refer to advanced technology such as the legends of Atlantis and the ancient Sanskrit Vedic texts from the ancient country of India that refer to flying vehicles. In the temple of Abydos in Egypt, there are hieroglyphs depicting what clearly appears to be a helicopter from the early 21st century as well as some kind of jet or airplane. The hieroglyphs could not have been faked since they were found beneath a layer of stone covered with more recent hieroglyphs."

"You trust legends?" Jason asked.

Turon replied, "Not for the pure truth…but I believe that if you have evidence from all around the world of ancient technologies, there must be something true to the legends."

"So, these pre-flood cultures launched space missions to the Moon and built an underground base." Jason said quietly.

"And this pod we're in is the very space craft they traveled in." Mac added; his eyes brightening with awe, like a child.

"I believe so." Turon responded.

"What about the Architect?" Jason asked. "I was told it was built after the Prefect."

"It was." Turon responded mysteriously.

The implication dawned on Jason. "You mean, the Prefect is more ancient than the Architect?"

Turon nodded.

"Then, if the Architect was built by ancient man," Mac chimed in, "the Prefect was built in ancient times as well."

"That is what I have come to conclude." Turon returned his gaze to the computer screen.

"But, I am certain that space station Equipacilon, where the Prefect is, is not that ancien—" Jason paused as the realization came to him. "Equipacilon was built in ancient times as well, right?"

"Yes."

There was a problem with that answer. Jason asked. "How then could it evade detection by our sophisticated radio telescopes and probes in the recent past?"

"There is an unseen side of our Moon," Turon replied, "that always faces away from the Earth."

"So," Jason wonderd, "the dark side of the Moon is where the Equipacilon was built?"

"Precisely." Turon turned to the computer screen.

"When I was on the surface of the Moon buildings rose up out of the ground." Jason remembered David. "Something happened when I entered an entrance to a building. All the buildings lowered back into the ground. The elder, David, is still up on Moon's surface as far as I know."

"We need to get him back." Mac said, resolutely.

"We can locate Jenny, and David with the Architect." Turon replied. "It's right below us. The Prefect is trying to gain control of the Architect. He knows now that it is here, on the Moon, beneath us. Where's the enemy commander, Estone?"

All this time Jason had completely forgot about Estone. Looking around the cockpit, Jason couldn't locate him.

Where was Estone?

Turon glanced around the room. "He escaped!"

Turon's men jumped to their feet.

"Search the ship, men. You can use the command word, pathach sha'ar to open doors. Find Estone. Don't kill him unless fired upon."

The men scrambled and exited the cockpit. Their clapping footsteps echoed down the halls and became dissolved deep within the vast dimensions of the pod craft.

The room was silent. The computer screens glowed in the strange, ancient space craft, illuminating Turon's troubled expression.

"Right now each enemy soldier has an invasive computer virus in a plug-in device. All they need to do is insert the plug-in device to the proper connection terminal in the Architect and the take-over programs will swarm its system, bringing it under the control of the Prefect."

"They are above us." Jason replied. "How could there be any threat?"

"Estone." Was Turon's single-word reply.

---

Chapter 17

Problem

---

Two-hundred, thirty-eight thousand miles away from the Moon, on the third planet from the Sun; the planet Earth, a conference was being held.

Ten bearded men with gloomy expressions were seated around a circular table.

The room was pristine with a shiny, chrome floor and walls.

The luminous, white ceiling lit the room brilliantly, providing a stark contrast to the grim expressions on the elders' faces.

"Gentlemen," The oldest elder: his face displaying his fatigue, addressed his fellows, "we are faced with a threat upon not only our fellow citizens but upon all the men and women in the space colonies in the local stellar group. Though separated by several light years, we are linked with non-local quantum communication. We are indebted to our forefathers that saw the rise of these space stations. This technology passed down to us and refined by us, which can be used for great good, is now one of the most devastating weapons against humankind. We must prevent a crisis of cosmic proportions from occurring."

"The Prefect must be degaussed permanently. We must remove it." A second elder spoke up.

"The only problem to that, Mark, is that all the innocent lives in Equipacilon are at stake should we use our full control." The oldest elder replied. "The Antecedent will not be used to gain control of the Prefect because in doing so, we will have shut down the life support systems of Equipacilon, thereby killing the innocent along with the enemy."

"Chairman Highland, what can we do, then?" The elder, Mark asked. He was in his late fifties with a touch of brown in his grey beard.

"I have already dispatched our last fleet to the Moon." Seeing the astonished looks on the other elders' faces, Scott Highland took a breath before he continued. "You will probably not like what I have taken the liberty to do, but I have felt that it is our duty to face our foe and not cower back here, letting him continue his reign of terror on the innocent in Equipacilon."

The elders frowned in concern.

"I know how you feel about this, but it is our duty to meet the Prefect's fleet and end his tyranny. Our fleet is on its way. There will be a battle on the Moon. If we loose, there will be no choice but to shut down the Prefect, putting the lives nearly 200 million innocent workers at stake."

"Why do we need to involve ourselves in this nasty business, Scott?" An elder who was balding asked.

"Mathew, the Prefect is on the verge of finding the Architect!" Scott said firmly.

"But, where exactly is the Architect?" Mark asked.

"Why do you ask? We all know where it is." Scott raised his eyebrows.

"Where?" Mark tested.

"In the Moon, of course." Scott replied.

"The ancient tablets speaking of the Architect don't indicate that it is in the Moon necessarily. They say that it is by the Moon. What planet is closest to the Moon?"

"The Earth, of course. I don't know what made you—" Scott began to reply before Mark interrupted him.

"The Earth is where the Architect is located." Mark stood, turning his head from left to right as he gazed at the elders' faces. "We mistranslated that one section of the tablets."

"But, if you are right," Scott replied, slowly, "where in the Earth could it be?"

"The enscription on the tablet says, 'The Architect; it is by the Moon. Far down under it is.' What is by the Moon? The Earth. What is down under? We naturally assume it is referring to the underground, but what if it was referring to what is beneath the equator. The farthest thing beneath the Earth's equator is the South pole: Antarctica."

"You mean to say that the Architect is in Antarctica all these thousands of years?" Scott asked, incredulous.

"Yes." Mark nodded.

"I wonder, Turon, if the Architect is so old, how did you find out about it?" Jason sat up in his seat.

"Seventy-eight years ago a team of archeologists were excavating an ancient town in the country known as Iraq." Turon, warming up to the subject began, "They discovered a set of six large stone tablets, three feet, by four feet in size. The tablets were written in ancient Hebrew and they gave information regarding space craft and bases on the Moon as well as information about the culture and ethics of the people at that time. With our dating equipment, we have dated the tablets at around 4300 BC. Using the genealogies in the Bible, and the knowledge that the time of Jesus Christ was about 2000 plus years ago, we are able to say that the Earth has been around for about six thousand years. So, these tablets were made not long after God created the Earth. This would have been around shortly before the days of Noah and the flood. Back to the tablets: these tablets also mentioned a super computer that is designed so that it can automatically, with the quantum property of faster-than-light transmission through non-locality, connect its self to any other complex circuits within a radius of forty light years distance. So, the Architect is connected to all our space stations, including the Prefect. That is why the Prefect wants to gain control of the Architect."

"And the Architect is below us?" Jason asked.

"Yes. I think so."

"Let's get out and see it, then." Jason was eager to see what had been a mystery; an enigma for a long time.

"Not so fast. My men must find Estone first."

"Zahar: shabar kliy `athiyd shamad." The computer interrupted the few moments of silence that followed Jason and Turon's conversation.

"What is it?" Jason stood to his feet.

"We have to get out of here." Turon stood, collecting his gun. "It just said, 'Warning: the exploding apparatus is ready to destroy.'"

"What does that mean?" Jason raised an eyebrow.

"The bomb is going to explode!" Turon exclaimed.

"What bomb?" Jason said.

"Shabar kliy tachad," was the computer's reply.

"A bomb," Turon said, hesitating, stumbled over the words, "is below…us!"

"We're on top of a bomb?" Jason's pupils contracted.

"That's right." It was a new voice.

Jason's blood froze. Who spoke?

"Drop all your weapons, both of you." The voice commanded.

Jason was tempted to turn around and see who spoke, but he could not build up the courage to.

The weapons clattering to the floor sounded like explosions in Jason's tensed state of icy fear.

Footsteps approached slowly with an even pace.

"At last, your plans have failed, traitor." The voice sneered. "You can turn around, Jason."

It was Ekul, the tyro.

"How did you get here?" Jason asked, surprised.

"The robots rescued me." Ekul replied smugly. "We landed on the Moon not long after you. Now that you have led us to a dead end and we have found no Architect, I have no more need of your services."

"What do you mean?" Turon said. "You've been in this pod for that long?"

"I've been following you when I learned of Charlie's death." Ekul said. "I thought that you people from Earth had an idea where the Architect was. I guess I was wrong."

There was a clicking sound as Ekul raised his automatic rifle and aimed it at Turon. "Ask the computer where the Architect is. It knows the location alright."

Turon stuttered.

Jason closed his eyes. When the Prefect is given control of the Architect, the beginning of a tyrannical government that would encompass all humanity would arise. Ekul must be stopped at all odds.

"I will not." Turon finally spoke.

"Do it." Ekul hissed.

"If you shoot me you will be unable to control this pod." Turon said, tersely.

"I will shoot your friend." Ekul aimed the gun at Jason.

Jason felt as if a bullet had stuck his chest. The fear of death caused him to start sweating with fear. He was used to fighting and being in the heat of battle, but not…this.

"Do it! Ask the computer where the Architect is or I will shoot Jason and I will make sure that his death will be slow and painful."

Turon clenched his teeth and stared at Jason, then at the computer screen.

"Do it!" Ekul shouted, tensing his finger over the trigger.

"There is a bomb below us." Ekul said. "I attached a time bomb to a power cell which this pod is resting on. When the time bomb explodes, it will create a chain reaction that will trigger the release of the kinetic energy in the power cell. This cell powers the base using a fusion reactor. It will destroy the base on detonation. The timer is counting down. Every moment you waste brings us closer to death."

Turon finally spoke. "Mitsvah `uwph `oniy `abar chiysh."

The computer screen brightened slightly and the computer voice came on.

"Shama'." The computer replied with its resonant voice.

"What did you just tell it?" Ekul commanded.

Before Turon could answer, a deep powerful whirring sound issued from the depths of the pod, like the roar of an old lion.

"What did you tell it!" Ekul shouted, shoving Turon viciously.

Before Jason could blink, he fell to the floor. It was as if the gravity had suddenly been tripled.

Ekul was also on the floor, sprawled awkwardly with his gun a few inches away from his finger tips, and Jason saw his chance.

Pouncing on Ekul, Jason grabbed at the teen's arms, trying to pin him down, but he had not put much thought in the boy's strength.

Ekul twisted his wrist and disengaged Jason's grip. With his foot, Ekul kicked Jason in his stomach and Jason doubled over in pain.

Lunging toward the gun, Ekul was just about to wrap his fingers around the handle grip when a second set of hands caught hold of it and Turon struggled to pry the automatic gun from Ekul's fingers.

"No." Jason shouted. It was too late. In a spit second, Jason had seen a finger pull down on the trigger. The gun was going to fire and it was aimed at Turon.

There was a sudden violent shudder in the ship. The gun was bumped up with the shock as it fired, barely missing Jason by inches.

The lights in the ship dimed for a moment and then all the men felt a sudden increase in the gravity of the floor—a crushing force.

Jason felt like he weighed three times his body weight. Perhaps, the bomb was exploding. The light was dimming, but this time it wasn't the light itself. The room was getting blurry and a ringing sound began to fill Jason's ears only moments before his vision was engulfed in darkness and he lost consciousness.

"General Turon," The thick voice echoed through the cockpit of the pod where three unconscious figures lay.

"General Turon." The voice repeated.

An eyelid fluttered and a moment later Turon's head rotated to gaze dumbly at the computer screen near the instrument panel.

There was a man in the computer screen. His face was aged and bearded.

"General Turon."

"Yes?" Turon managed as he painfully rose to his feet. Squinting at the face in the screen, recognition finally came to him and he gasped. "Elder Marcus, how could you contact me—in this ancient pod?"

"It's a long story. Listen, I have a grave admonition for you. Your craft has just launched through a shaft in the Moon. Right now you are 198,000 miles from Earth. You have another 40,000 miles to travel which you will probably cover in 4 hours since you are traveling at a speed of 10,000 miles per hour. Already, nearly one day has passed since you left the Moon."

"Wait a moment—we left the Moon? We're in space?" Turon couldn't grasp the concept on that cold, motionless floor. Nothing about the room had changed since he blacked out.

"Yes you a—"

"But there is gravity. Clearly, I'm standing. I thought this was a primitive space craft."

"The pod must have some kind of gravity modification system like ours." The elder replied, thoughtful. "Clearly, the civilization that built it was advanced."

The elder's train of thought was suddenly brought back on track as he returned to his original tone of concern. "Turon, you are not alone in space."

"I know. Our own space craft are on the Moon."

"I mean, you are being followed."

"Followed? By whom?" Turon took a seat before the space craft controls.

"The man in the Moon." Marcus replied sarcastically. "Who else would be following you? You really were knocked out for a long time. Turon, you have got to concentrate."

The face in the screen looked tired and concerned. "Listen, your men in their space craft were neutralized or captured. The Prefect had more men than we thought on the Moon. There are at least five of our space craft that are unaccounted for, Turon."

"There was a battle, then?" Turon almost whispered, half-hoping the man 40,000 miles away would not hear him.

"Yes." Was the husky reply.

There was a brief pause.

"We are out numbered. If you have a rear viewing screen you will see what I am talking about. Get back to Earth, Turon. Accelerate the ship. Do whatever it takes to get back quicker. I don't want to loose any more men."

Turon commanded the computer. "Show me a rear view. Um…I mean, `achowr chazowth. Computer, I forgot that you don't speak English very well."

Marcus's face dissolved and the backdrop of space appeared. Turon couldn't see anything but the Moon and stars far away: a black tarp with fireflies. Then, the feint, glittering, scintillating swarm began to resolve in his eyesight.

A vast fleet of reflective, distant pebbles stretched from one end of the computer screen to the other. It was as if an asteroid field was hurtling toward the Earth, but the asteroid field was not composed of large rocks but of spaceships.

Turon sat in silence, watching the screen. Suddenly, an object brushed against his shoulder.

Startled, he turned to see Jason looking from behind him at the screen.

"What is that?" Jason murmured, squinting in the light that flooded his sleepy eyes.

Turon, gazing at the screen replied simply, "The Prefect's hand."

---

Chapter 18

Prefect's Hand

---

The screen now displayed the Earth, an azure ball the size of a large beach ball surrounded by stars.

"Turon," Jason said earnestly, "we need to go back to the Moon. The elder David is there. He could be in grave danger! Jenny, Charlie's granddaughter is captured."

"The pod was launched. I told it to take off." Turon swallowed. "Turing around now would be suicide."

"We must rescue them." Jason raised his voice slightly. "To not do so would be like murder. Turon, we must go back."

"The swarms of the Prefect are heading for the Earth, Jason." Turon gave Jason a firm, reprimanding stare. "We are completely defenseless against such an armada."

Defenseless: a single word that describes what utter hopelessness is, as when one is in a battle against overwhelming odds.

Jason was beginning to get the picture as he shrugged off his sleepiness and looked more closely at the computer screen and the multitudes of space craft following them.

Three men were walking quickly down a brightly lit hallway in the spherical government building on Earth. The air was thick and almost humid with a dismal aura. It swirled around the contours of the three elders and tugged at their clothes.

A conversation was occurring between the men.

"The Prefect has finally moved." A man with downturned, thick, wiry eyebrows spoke. His deep voice boomed through the hallway. "This is completely unprecedented."

"They have dispatched nearly two thousand space craft. Each is probably fully loaded with 40 to 80 troops along with armored transports." A second elder, with a nervous habit with wringing his hands, added.

"Then, Erech, we shall see the last battle." The third elder paused for a moment as he mused over his future. "If the Prefect is generous enough to let us live, I hope to see my newly born great grandchild at least once."

There was a hint of irony in his tone of voice.

"There is no need to worry about that, Tiras." Erech clasped his hands together and nervously intertwined his fingers.

Tiras turned to his friend and smiled. "You know about the plan then?"

"Sabtah told me all about it." Erech nodded toward the other man walking with them.

"I know that Erech can be trusted." Sabtah said in his deep voice.

Tiras nodded.

"Time is passing." Tiras said as the entered a stairway. "I asked you both to take a walk with me. It is the only safe thing to do to discuss issues such as this. We must execute the second phase of the plan now, gentlemen. The more time we waist, the stronger is our likelihood of being discovered."

"I agree." Erech replied. "What must be done first, Tiras?"

"But Turon," Jason paused to collect his thoughts "the Architect was destroyed in the explosion."

Jason returned his attention to the Moon, gazing at the image in the computer screen closely. "So, why is the Prefect's army pursuing us?"

Turon was contemplatively silent.

Ekul was on the floor, still unconscious. If Ekul had other men working for him on the lower levels, they could attempt to break into the cockpit, but they would encounter a security, bullet proof door and armed men along with a defenseless leader. Turon was not worried about any attack from inside, but Turon had tied Ekul's hands just to be sure.

The room was strangely quiet with a morose calmness after the conflicts that had occurred in it. The ancient computer screens were unusually similar to the current ones Turon was familiar with. How could the ancients have discovered such advanced technology? Turon had heard rumors of past discoveries of ancient technologies such as the pyramids. There were theories that extra-terrestrial beings from distant planets or dimensions had visited our ancestors thousands of years ago to impart to them advanced knowledge.

But, Turon knew that the Bible spoke of demons. The Bible also mentioned that some of the earliest men were doing metalwork and building cities. Also, people in the genealogies of the book of Genesis, in the Bible, had long lifetimes. One man, Methuselah, lived 969 years. A genius with that much time on his hands could certainly make great achievements, building on past knowledge, year after year.

"Turon, can you hear me?" Jason's voice drifted through the chain of thoughts that occupied Turon's mind.

"Yes," Turon whispered, dreamily, "what is it?"

"If the Architect was destroyed in that explosion that we escaped from, why would the Prefect send his fleet after us? Wasn't he seeking control of the Prefect."

"The Architect was never in the Moon." Turon slowly responded. "I was wrong."

"Where is it, then?" It was Ekul. The boy was awake.

Jason tensed in surprise at the sudden comment. Ekul was paying attention all along.

"The only other place," Ekul replied, "that the ancients would put something."

"Meaning?" Ekul raised an eyebrow.

"Earth."

"Where on Earth?" Ekul asked.

"Ask the computer. Purhaps it knows." Jason said.

"I already did," Turon replied, "when you were asleep."

"What did it say?" Ekul rose to a sitting position.

"I'll ask it again just to be sure." Turon said and then turned to the computer and asked with broken Hebrew, "`aiyn `amown?"

The deep, masculine voice replied, "Sheresh tebel."
"You really mean it is at the bottom of the Earth?" Turon sighed, scratching his face in concern.

"It can't be at the center of the Earth." Jason said. "It is too hot and there is a tremendous amount of pressure."

"What is at the bottom of the Earth?" Turon said, "That is what our riddle is."

"If you look at it geographically, the top of the Earth is the north pole: the arctic circle." Ekul commented.

"And, the bottom of the Earth is the Antarctica!" Turon exclaimed. "The Architect is located at the Antarctica!"

"Antarctica is a continent." Turon said. "'Where is it in Antarctica' is the question." And then Turon slouched in his chair, in deep contemplative thought.

"Can't you ask the pod take us to the location?" Jason asked.

"You make it too easy." Turon sighed. "I should have thought about that."

Estone smiled to himself with a mixture of wonder and glee. He knew that Turon's soldiers were looking for him but that thought was in the distant corner of his mind. They were not real threat.

In an unusually cold room located near the center of the pod which Turon was driving, a cube formed the centerpiece.

It was made with perfect precision. The faces of the cube were cut at precisely 90 degrees to each other, having razor-sharp edges. He could tell because his finger was bleeding.

The cube was also unique in that is was absolutely featureless, cold, grey metal.

When he rested his palm on its cold surface, he could perceive a slight vibration or a strong magnetic field coming from its core.

The pod had more to it than meet the eye.

Estone had an inkling that the ancient, advanced technology used in the pod was better than what the Prefect had in Equipacilon.

Estone took a few steps back from the cube and warily gazed at the door he had come through. It was shut, but still…it could open up any time and a soldier could enter.

He had to act fast.

Remembering some of the Hebrew he had learned in the language classes he had took, and remembering that Turon spoke to the computer, Estone said, "`eben yaqats." Stone awake.

Nothing happened and Estone sighed. The cube was cold and lifeless as it had been when he had first entered the ascetic room.

Then, something happened. Nearly invisible intricate slits in the surface of the cube were beginning to widen. Sections of the cube began to protrude out from the surface and then thousands of complex pieces began to brake off from the sections of the cube and rearrange themselves into a new shape.

Steadily, the pieces rotated and moved like a swarm of bees morphing into a new profile. The object had changed from a cube to a truncated pyramid with a flat top.

Estone ordered the computer of the object."Chava' dmuwth `erets `aher `Amown nuwach." Show model of landscape where Architect dwells.

With a smooth, almost liquid motion, a plane, projecting horizontally outward from the flat top of the pyramid, was growing in size. Soon the surface of the plane began to bulge in certain areas to form what appeared to be mountains and valleys in a topographical landscape.

A map, Estone thought.

At the center of the map, the metal was glowing with a bright orange tint.

Estone smiled. "Laqach nephesh maqowm." Take me [to the] spot.

Undulations began to form in the map and the orange spot increased in size and resolution.

Estone let out a cry of joy. This is it. This is what he had been waiting to find his whole career as a Proctor at Equipacilon. It was like finding the lost city of gold, El Dorado, except a thousand times better. It would mean power and knowledge beyond imagination.

The sun was low in the sky, partially hidden by swirling clouds. Its rarified rays swept over the vast tracks of uninhabited, white wilderness.

The wind moaned mournfully across the snow-covered rock. Its invisible hands tore at the cliffs and mountains, trying with all its might to erode the granite-firm stone which had been there since the creation of the world.

Walruses huddled on the beaches, bathing in what sunlight they could get.

Arctic seagulls wheeled overhead, searching for prey.

Their lives were normal and undisturbed by man for nearly 78 years when the last human installation in the continent of Antarctica was abandoned as mankind moved forward to the last frontier: space.

Untouched for nearly a century, the arctic wildlife was unaccustomed to the intrusion of their ecosystem.

There was a loud thunderclap that raised the ears of a sleepy polar bear, followed by a sonorous, vibrant boom.

The animals had looked at the stars from time to time and those that had good eyesight had seen meteors burn in the upper atmosphere in thin streaks. The meteor that was roaring down toward them was startling. A large group of penguins took a dive off the icy cliff into the frigid water.

The icy snow began to vibrate. Sheets of ice broke off from a nearby cliff and crashed into the bay water. The ground was vibrating.

The polar bear stood on its hind legs and gazed with its coal-black eyes at the sudden apparition. Bright light and undulating fire engulfed a small point nearly two miles above the large mammal.

Echoing through the crisp air, the throbbing thunder of the retropac igniting and the high-pitched click of the antigravity transducers activating filled the air.

The meteor roared across the sky and disappeared over the horizon in only a few minutes.

When the echoes and avalanches had ceased, the bear snorted and returned to its nap.

Turon watched through the computer screen as the white landscape closed in on them. Antarctica, the land of extreme cold was also the land of mystery.

Beneath the two mile-thick ice was a sunken continent that was pressed below sea level by the mere weight of the ice. With a pressure of about 30 tons per square foot, the massive sheet that covered all but two percent of the continent of Antarctica was a preserving buffer against meteors, wind, storms, and decay. For this reason, Turon believed that the continent was overlooked. There had to be something more to it than just ice and wind, something mysterious.

The maps always distorted Antarctica making it too small or too big. In reality Antarctica is about the size of Mexico and the United States put together.

Turon broke away from his memory of college geography to gaze at the whiteness. His eyes froze. Something was not right. The white sheet below was approaching really fast: too fast.

Jason's hand was resting on Turon's shoulder. "What's the matter?"

"We're going too fast. We're going to crash." Turon said with a flat monotone despite his fear. Emotion had left him and total fear gripped him firmly. His chest tightened.

There were grey patches that interrupted the infinitude of whiteness. They must be the tops of mountains peeking out of the ice, Jason thought.

A single grey patch occupied the center of the computer screen. They were headed toward it.

Turon swallowed. Only a few seconds remained before the impact.

"`Arek!" Slow [down]. Turon awoke from his stupor.

"Yada` ma`alal." [I] Know [what I am] doing. The computer replied.

"What did it say?" Jason asked.

Turon didn't hear Jason's question.

The grey patch they were approaching was rushing toward them like a bullet from a gun.

There was no escaping it. The hard rock would surely tear them into a million pieces.

Just when it seemed that they were going to crash, something moved in the rock.

Jason gasped, tearing away one hand from his firm grip of his chair to place it over his face.

A hole had suddenly appeared in the rock. A door had opened.

Before he had time to see more, they had passed through the aperture.

A deep, thundering boom rumbled through the pod, as the men were jerked by the force of their momentum, deeper into their seats.

The pod had struck something.

Then, it all occurred again: the thundering boom, the violent jerk, and the racing heartbeat afterward.

Jason caught his breath and said, "What just happened? We struck something."

Right after he said that, the floor jerked again.

A barrage of echoing thuds followed suit as if a hail storm had just started. It was as if one, then ten, and then a thousand hail stones were striking one's body.

Finally, with a dull, metallic clang, the thudding sounds and violent tremors ended, leaving the men panting with their hands camped on their arm rests and their hearts beating fast.

Turon gazed at the computer screen in the cockpit. It now displayed a dark image.

"I think we've stopped." Ekul said from behind Jason.

"Your're right." Turon confirmed. "The numbers on the screen indicate that we are at a speed of zero."

A small number on the lower corner of the computer screen that had read 16000 when they were in space approaching the Earth now read 0.

"We entered a shaft." Jason said. "How could there be a tunnel through all this ice?"

"It certainly wasn't a natural phenomenon." Ekul smirked.

"We're going to have to leave this ship in space suits." Turon said as he found his space helmet on the floor near his seat and placed it over his head and a soft hiss came as the circulation system, that pumps refrigerant or heater fluid and air through hoses, came to life.

Jason and Ekul followed suit.

The tall man named Mac shouldered a rifle after he had placed his helmet on.

"Sir, I would like to accompany you on this excursion." Mac asked.

"You may." Turon replied and then he used the intercom in his helmet to speak to a lieutenant in the lower part of the pod. "Dan," Turon said, "I would like you to stay here and do a thorough search of the pod to see if there are any stowaways. Have some of your men guard the cockpit, too."

"Affirmative." Dan replied from somewhere deep in the pod. His voice came in over the intercom in all the men's suits.

"Ok, team, let's move." Turon opened a panel in a wall and retrieved his gun.

Giving a command for the door to open, Turon, Jason, Ekul, and Mac passed through and entered a hall that lead to the elevator.

Taking it down to the proper floor, they entered the first room they had been in when first going into the pod: the room with a means of egress to the exterior.

The door opened in this room and the ramp slid down to the ground. The column with the holographic display in the two concentric cylinders was off and the strange deadness of the object made Jason feel as if he was in an ancient crypt untouched for centuries.

Turon turned on his pel—personal excursion light—that was built into the shoulders of his space suit and led the way down the ramp, with Ekul behind, followed by Mac and Jason.

The bright pel cast an icy, blue beam of light into what appeared to be a vast cavern.

The beam stabbed through the thick darkness, but seemed not to penetrate it.

They were in a stone vault of colossal proportions. Jason clicked on his pel and aimed his shoulders toward the pod they had just exited.

Egnimatic and black, the towering egg-shaped pod reflected the light, displaying a reflection of a space suited man with a bright light coming from his shoulders.

Jason smiled at himself in a sense of awe and pleasure. He was one of the first men in modern times to see this strange ancient technology, and he was one of the first men to be under two miles of ice in Antarctica.

The cavern is probably extremely cold, Jason thought. He was glad of the space suit.

He returned his attention to the group that was already twenty yards away walking toward what he guessed was the center of the cavern.

"Wait up." Jason said as he caught up with them.

Something froze Jason in his steps. Before Jason noticed Turon's raised hand signaling for them to halt…before Jason heard Turon's voice in his ear telling them to stand still…Jason noticed that their space pod was not alone.

A vast forest of geometrical, megalithic structures, which were all about the same size, surrounded the astronauts in all directions. Their height had to be close to that of the pod space craft the men had embarked from, about four stories high.

The monoliths were shaped like orange, plastic warning cones with smooth, stone sides. They appeared as if they were huge boulders which had been cut into cone shapes that were truncated—with the sharp tip removed.

A large opening in the high ceiling of the cavern revealed a tiny spec of Arctic daylight in the distance where the entrance to the underground edifice was.

"Would you look at that…" Mac's voice trailed off on the intercom.

Turon's light was shining in between the megaliths at something that had remained hidden in the darkness. A colossal, sloping shape, rising high above the megaliths was splashed with Turon's bright light.

The shadows of the men in front of Jason's light followed the surface contours of nearby megaliths they were projected against.

The silhouettes were dead still as the corresponding men who formed them gazed in awe at the enigma before them.

Jason's jaw dropped in disbelief and incredulity.

Before them in all its terrible power and mass was a razor-edged feat of human engineering that had perfect proportions and exact angles: a grey, pyramid.

Turon, less artistic and more mathematical than Jason recovered from his shock and began to estimate the dimensions of the pyramid. It appeared to be about a hundred feet high, with an equilateral triangular face 130 feet on edge. It must have about 600,000 cubic feet of volume.

Turon thought, if the weight of each cubic foot of the mass of the pyramid was 150 pounds, which is the approximate weight of concrete, then the total weight of the 100-foot high-equilateral pyramid would be 600,000 cubic feet times 150 pounds per cubic foot which comes out to be 90 million pounds or 45,000 tons. If an average two-bedroom house weighed 500 tons, the pyramid would be equivalent to 90 of these houses in weight. That's like a whole city block of houses!

Jason gazed at the perfectly sharp and straight edges. The pyramid looked just like a miniature version of the Great Pyramid of Egypt, except that it was grey and not tan in color. Who could have built this? An advanced civilization must have lived in the continent of Antarctica underneath the ice or before the ice formed.

"The Architect." Mac said breathlessly, interrupting everyone's reverie. "We are at the Architect."

Ekul was quiet.

---

Chapter 19

Architect

---

"We've found it!" Mac lowered his rifle and took a few steps toward the pyramid. "We've actually found the Architect!"

"Just think," Mac said, "after all this time what evaded discovery, what the elders have always wanted to locate, what is the most important human invention of all time, and what our enemy, the Prefect, wants to control is right here, under are noses, on Earth!"

The men paused to reflect on the revelation.

"You forgot." Ekul's voice suddenly came on through the intercom in all the men's helmets arrogant and authoritative for his young age, "You were followed. Even now the space ships of my master are on Earth. We shut down the power to the Antecedent so you're pitiful little government can't interfere with the Prefect."

The realization came to Jason. He had been so excited about the prospect of finding the Architect that he had forgotten that they were followed by the Prefect's armada. Earth, without the Antecedent to act as a last resort defense against the Prefect, was now open and unprepared for an invasion.

"There is one little thing, you forgot, boy." Turon didn't show the least sign of fear or intimidation at Ekul's revelation.

"What is that?" Ekul asked, arrogantly.

"The Architect is linked to every computer system ever built." Turon said calmly and informatively, "It has an electromagnetic and quantum field fluctuation detector that is able to differentiate between the electromagnetic field caused by a common circuit in a light switch and the complex circuits in a computer.

"Since all space and matter has forces both electromagnetic and non-electromagnetic, the detector in the Architect can read the waves coming from distant computers similar to how sonar can sense deep sounds in the ocean. The Architect can be used to shut down the Prefect, Ekul."

Jason could hear the smirk in Ekul's voice as the boy replied, "But, you don't know how to control the Architect, do you?"

Turon was caught. Ekul had addressed a real problem that Turon had over looked. The Architect probably would not be controlled by merely speaking to it in ancient Hebrew as he had done with the computer onboard the space craft pod.

Ekul was gloating with pride as his knowledge. The stupid men from Earth were niave and ignorant about the Architect. The sessions he had took at his special achademy had prepared him for this.

"Another thing that you didn't know." Ekul said. "You probably never heard that the Architect and the Prefect were built at the same time."

Turon shook his head. "That's a lie. The Antecedent on Earth was built before the Prefect. If the Prefect and Architect were built at the same time, then the Antecedent would be older than the Architect and it certainly isn't."

"The Antecedent was built many thousands of years after the Prefect." Ekul said.

"That can't be possi—"

Ekul cut Turon off, "When the first Global Space Program Moon colony was built for the purpose of mining some of the astronauts that were on a mineral collecting trip discovered an entrance that led to a huge underground base in the far side of the Moon. Inside the base was a huge shaft that passed deep into the Moon's crust. Inside the shaft was a twelve-mile-long cylindrical structure. It was colossal, larger than any space craft built in recent years.

"With multiple levels perpendicular to the length of the cylindrical space station, and parallel to each other, the station could support a huge population.

"The astronauts, not wanting to have to share their secret new discovery, decided that they would tell Earth that they were going to leave the Moon base and try mining on one of the moons of Saturn which was richer in valuable minerals."

Ekul paused to let that sink in. Then, he continued, "What they didn't tell Earth is that they were going to leave the Moon in an advanced space station that had the capability of spaceflight and black-body absorption or invisibility. Huge absorptive plates on the surface of the space station could absorb nearly all wavelengths of light including radio waves and ultraviolet light waves."

Ekul paced toward the huge structure and paced his gloved hand on its cold, smooth surface as he said, "The Moon astronauts remained hidden in their space station from the fairly primitive detection equipment of the Earth at that time and orbited the Earth a few hundred thousand miles past the Moon.

"Eventually the pioneering of space was sought after by many high-level companies and multitudes of space stations were built and sent off to nearby planets and stars.

"The space station orbiting the Earth was discovered but most people thought it was built by some secret government initiative earlier on when deep-space space stations were very rare or non-existent.

"The space station soon assimilated into new Earth-based space trade confederacy and was given a name, Equipacilon.

"Equipacilon grew prosperous, too prosperous in fact, and the Earth government began to show signs of fear at what threat it could pose them should a dictator gain control of the space station; for, they had discovered that it had a powerful force-field distortion weapon that could cause great magnetic field fluctuation in the magnetosphere of the Earth, resulting in powerful lightning storms and tornados which could cause mass destruction.

"The Earth government secretly dispatched a covert operation to study the structure of the computer that ran the space station so that they could build a computer on Earth with the capability of sending a neutralizing quantum fluctuation disruption that could wipe out the memory and power of the Equipacilonn computer.

"The operation worked, but the government of Earth realized that their idea did not solve the problem of preventing the rise of a powerful dictator.

They realized that sending a neutralizing quantum fluctuation to the computer— which later became know as the Prefect—would shut down the power and utilities of the entire space station, thereby killing all of the innocent citizenry (descendants of the Moon miners) on it. Even the exit ports and the air-locks were operated only by electricity.

"No one would be able to escape Equipacilon. Therefore, Earth decided that it would only use its new control computer, the Antecedent, if there was a real crisis.

"What they failed to realize is that a computer, far more ancient than the Prefect, with the capability of controlling every computer device ever made, including the Antecedent, existed right on Earth. We are standing before that computer today. The Prefect's forces will soon arrive and you will be overpowered. The Prefect was built around the same time as the Architect. It knows how to operate the Architect."

"And Equipacilon was left in the Moon for thousands of years." Mac shook his head, incredulous to himself.

"How do I know you're not bluffing?" Turon asked.

Ekul stared at Turon's face through the helmet and smiled. "You'll know."

High in the reflective, shiny, silver spherical government building in New Philadelphia on Earth, in a conference room, all the available elders, minus the deceased Charlie and the missing David, were seated around a circular table.

The setting sun penetrated a far window with its crimson light, casting it upon the backs and faces of tired, wise, and aging men.

Most wore beards and all were dressed in drab tunics.

Chairman Scott, Mark, Mathew, Marcus, Rawm, Emmet, Quinn, Tiras, Erech, and Sabah were all present. Ten councilmen were left of the original twelve.

Charlie and David are probably dead, Chairman Scott thought to himself sadly. How he missed the warmth and friendship they added to the group.

Now his old, blue eyes gazed at his fellow elders with preservation and concern behind his gaze. He could almost feel the beginnings of a tear forming in his eye and he wiped it away. His technicians had picked up a vast fleet of space craft from Equipacilon on route to Earth.

Earth was totally outnumbered. Nuclear missiles were worthless and would be easily shot down. His technology was inferior to the Prefect's. The mousetrap that was waiting for many, many years to spring had sprung.

New Philadelphia, the last habited city on Earth was at the threshold of its end.

"Gentlemen, I will not bore you with the usual introduction. Instead, I wish to be concise and save valuable time. We have gathered here today to discuss what I now realize is the end of our way of life and the end of civilization on planet Earth. Even as we speak, an armada of spacecraft from our enemy is on its way here. He has executed an ingenious plan which has rendered the Antecedent worthless. Without the Antecedent, we will be unable to shut down the Prefect and cause this tide of death to stop in its tracks, but we have one last final resort which I have dreaded falling back on. Due to these dire circumstances, I feel it is necessary to evacuate New Philadelphia."

The final words in Scott's address brought some of the elders to their feet in protest.

"Do you realize," elder Marcus said, "that leaving our only home would be like leaving a wife? We cannot leave the Earth to the caustic hand of our enemy."

"We a small fleet of space craft," Scott replied calmly, "and there are friendly space stations a few light years away that will certainly allow us to live with them."

"How will we get our people in the ships before the enemy armada arrives?" Mathew asked.

"It will not take that long." Scott said confidently, "I have issued an order for all families to prepare for departure on a moment's notice."

"There is something that you don't realize." A man sitting at the round table who had remained quiet finally spoke up. Sabtah was a man of few words with secluded habits. He mostly listened rather than talk. He was so good at listening to others that few actually heard his voice.

All the elders gazed at the quiet man.

"What is that, Sabtah?" Scott collecting himself, asked.

"The Prefect is not sending his men to Earth just to destroy us." Sabtah replied slowly, clearly enunciating every syllable. "The Architect is not located on some moon of Saturn, or in some asteroid as we once thought. It is located on Earth."

The elders were shocked silent.

Finally Scott spoke. "How did you come across that information?"

Sabtah remained silent.

Scott stood to his feet. "How did you come across that information?"

Another normally silent elder, Tiras, answered. "The Prefect told us."

Without a word, Turon suddenly set off toward the Pyramid and disappeared around the side of a huge monolith.

"Wait, where are you going?" Jason asked Turon in the intercom.

"I think there is a door somewhere in the pyramid." was the reply.

"Captain," Mac said, "we don't know a thing about this place. It gives me the creeps."

"Put up your hands." A new voice suddenly crackled to life in the intercom that linked the space suits together.

Jason remained frozen, clutching his gun nervously. He knew who it was.

Mac was lowering his gun to drop it to the ground when Jason drilled him with a stern look and mouthed, 'no'.

The intruder's voice returned. "I'll shoot you right now unless you drop your weapon."

It was Estone. He had escaped earlier and had disappeared in the lower section of the pod when Turon had his men search for the Proctor of Equipacilon.

Jason guessed that Estone had somehow overpowered Turon's men and had stolen a gun.

But, Jason knew that Estone had never fired any of the Earth-based weaponry. All the guns the Prefects' army used were designed and built in space station Equipacilon.

There was a special tab hidden three centimeters above the trigger that had to be engaged for the Earth-based type guns to fire.

Jason engaged the tab and swung his gun around, aiming it at Estone.

The gun in Jason's hand did not complete the 360 degree turn before Jason stopped dead cold. His pupils contracted in fear and shock.

Gleaming in the space suit light that emanated from Jason's shoulders, silent and still like a corpse, was an array of black-armored men: enforcers.

Their guns were aimed at Jason and Mac.

Estone stood proudly in front of them.

"Our men came at last, sir." Ekul said near Mac's shoulder.

Estone only nodded.

Jason was at first speechless. Then, he asked Estone, "How did your men arrive through that tall shaft without our hearing?"

"There are other entryways, Jason." Estone said conceitedly. "It seems that we arrived just in time to claim our prize."

Turon heard the voice over the intercom that linked the space suits together and he knew it was Estone, the enemy aboard the pod. Turon waited and listened to the conversation before he made his move.

Jason said, 'How did your men arrive through that tall shaft without us hearing?' through the intercom.

So, there are more than just Estone to deal with.

Turon turned back toward the pyramid. The armada of the Prefect had already arrived. Earth was doomed unless he could control the Architect in the Pyramid to shut down the Prefect. His extensive computer science and technical training in the military academy was well worth it.

Deciding that time was against him, Turon made a run for it, hoping that he could locate some entrance to the pyramid before the enforcer troops swarmed around it.

The grey stone surface seemed to recede from him with every step, making the pyramid appear that much larger.

Finally, Turon arrived at it and realized that his estimates were wrong. Looking far upward, straining his neck, Turon decided that had to be at least 170 feet tall instead of a hundred.

Silent as the grave, the pyramid was disconcertingly similar to the solid stone pyramids of Egypt. Perhaps, it was nothing but solid stone.

Turon leaned his head in his forearm against the hard surface and sighed.

Perhaps, the Architect was merely a legend that had no real truth to it.

---

Chapter 20

Council

---

Scott and the other elders were shocked beyond belief at the revelation that Sabatah and Tiras, two of his best people, were in communication with the Prefect.

"How did you obtain this information?" Scott finally asked.

"After watching you and other elders hold an iron hand over the council," Sabtah overcoming his fear of the council, replied, ", after putting up with your domineering ways, and after watching you make mistake after mistake, it has fallen upon a few honorable members of this council, including myself, the duty of revitalizing and restoring this council to the way it was fifty years ago when government was ruled by the people and not a tyrant."

"Why do you feel this way toward me?" Scott said, "Have I not been fair with this council, letting us decide by vote? After all these years you decide to take up grievance against me; for what?"

"You know where the Architect is. I know you do." Tiras jumped in.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Scott asked.

"Ah, now you finally admit that you know where it is." Tiras stood to his feet and pointed an accusative finger at Scott. "All these years you have kept the secret from us."

"I do not admit anything." Scott defended himself. "I do not know where the Architect is. If I knew, we would place a strong military presence to protect it from the Prefect."

"You are lying, Scott." Erech, who had been waiting for his turn to offer a word said, "I know that you are familiar with the fact that the Architect offers control. You can control any computer within fifty light years from here which means that you can control any space station you chose. You can even control the brains of men."

"That is superstitious nonsense." Scott replied. "How can a computer control the minds of men?"

"Hear of 'brain waves' before?" Erech asked smugly. "Brainwaves are electromagnetic waves generated by the interactions of electrochemical discharges between the dendrites of neuron cells in the Brain by means of the transmission of chemical stimuli across synapses. By altering the trillions of different pathways these electrochemical transmissions can take, one is able to control the human body even when the human mind desires otherwise. The Architect might be capable of doing this through long-distance, non-locality quantum waves."

Scott was still trying to get over the shock he had first experienced. Now, hearing some of his own trusted fellow elders speaking about the Architect as if it was a god was very alarming.

"Why gentlemen, are you so consumed with the Architect?" Scott asked.

"We can use the same technology of mind-control for human benefit." Tiras said, "Tyrants will no longer come to power if everyone is controlled by the Architect and the Universe will finally experience true peace."

"This technology could fall into the wrong hands," Scott replied firmly, "and we would experience the holocaust all over again."

"It's too late to change minds, Mr. Chairman." Sabtah pulled a remote control device from his tunic and pressed a button. "The armada has already arrived."

With that, the door to the conference room slid open and men encased in shiny, black armor entered. Their guns quickly trained onto the elders, excluding Sabtah, Erech, and Tiras.

"Councilmen," A faceless, helmeted enforcer stepped forward, "by order of the High Prefect, you all are under arrest."

Turon knew that the enemy was advancing toward the pyramid. Soon, they would swarm around it and all would be lost to the Prefect.

He had to do something, but what?

Dear God, Turon prayed. Please, show me a way in. We are outnumbered. Please protect us from the enemy. In Jesus' name, amen.

Turon felt a true peace in his heart. He knew that God was with him and that whatever happened; God would work it out for the best.

Turon pulled back a few feet away from the side of the pyramid and began walking around it, shining his space suit light at it. His eyes focused suddenly on the surface. It was not as smooth as he had first thought.

There were strange glyphs and sinuous depressions in the surface that had blended in well.

A glyph in particular caught his attention. Three concentric, equilateral triangles that formed what appeared to be a target, not made of circles but triangles, were cut into the surface with surprisingly straight edges and sharp angles.

Tracing the innermost triangle with his index finger, Turon's finger was impeded by a small object in the groove.

He pressed slightly harder and it moved, sliding along the track with his finger.

Continuing to move the slider around the perimeter of the inner triangle, Turon felt something mechanical click into place.
Before he could remove his finger from the track with the slider, a hidden mechanism was engaged and the vibration of large moving parts coming to life, passed through his gloved finger and up his arm.

What in the world?

As if it was contagious, the vibration came through the floor as well.

Suddenly, all three triangles began to glow around their edges with a neon-green luminescence.

The edges of a large, triangular door, with the three, glowing, concentric triangles at its center, began to appear in the surface of the large pyramid.

Soon, the triangular door had receded inward and slid off to the left, disappearing behind the wall, unveiling the illuminated interior of the pyramid.

The armored enforcers were advancing toward the pyramid, around the truncated cone monoliths.

Estone was in the lead, wearing an Earth-made space suit.

Right behind him, Jason and Mac followed, closely guarded by two enforcers.

Ekul walked along side of Estone, ecstatic with joy at the thought of discovering a long lost artifact, from a mysterious, distant past, that had great, untapped capabilities.

They didn't see the light coming from the triangular door that had opened on the opposite side of the pyramid, which Turon was now entering.

"Sir," Ekul asked Estone, "we have finally found the Architect! At last, after nearly five thousand years, the Architect has been rediscovered."

Estone nodded, slightly annoyed by the young tyro. "So it has."

"When the Prefect has gained complete control of the Architect," Ekul asked, "and since I helped in finding it, could I be granted an appointment five ranks higher?"

"You may." Estone said tersely.

"Thank you, sir. With the position of captain, I would be the youngest ever. I pledge to use all my new authority for the optimum benefit of Equipacilon."

"Silence." Estone abruptly ordered, holding up a hand.

They were now at the side of the pyramid that was adjacent to the side with the open triangular doorway. The doorway was hidden from view, but Estone noticed a light shining, coming from the hidden side, that was shining onto monoliths behind it.

It wasn't his space suit light either.

The enforcers stopped in their tracks and watched their commander.

Jason was also watching Estone from behind Estone's back. He had seen Turon dash away from the group and he had a gut suspicion that Turon had somehow managed to find and opening in the pyramid. They could not allow the enforcers to enter the Architect pyramid. It would spell the end for all freedom.

As and enforcer, Jason knew what it was like to be ruled by a dictator. He could not allow that to happen on a galactic scale.

The enforcers guarding Jason and Mac were distracted by Estone's arm signal.

Jason, remembering his training at Equipacilon, went into action.

With a sudden move, Jason gave a solid kick to an enforcer's armored knee, knocking the startled man off balance. In that moment of imbalance, Jason found the opportunity to grab the enforcer's K-98 siege rifle, turn it on the guard, and fire.

The second guard was just swinging his gun to a firing position, when armor-piercing projectiles from Jason's captured K-98 cut into the enforcer's chest plate.

Just as Jason was about to fire at Estone, the enforcers behind Jason had aimed their rifles at the armed captive.

Jason quickly ordered Estone through the space suit intercom, "Signal your men to hold their fire or I will shoot you."

Estone slowly turned toward his men behind Jason and held up his hand, palm outward.

"Now, slowly drop all your weapons on the ground." Jason commanded.

Estone pulled out a pistol from his belt and a knife.

"That's it?"

"Yes." Estone replied, coldly.

"Mac, search him." Jason told his fellow captive.

When Mac had finished, Jason approached Estone and set his gun barrel against Estone's neck so the man could feel the pressure of the barrel through his thick space suit.

"Now, walk forward." Jason said.

Mac retrieved the second fallen guard's gun and also aimed it at Estone.

The trio advanced slowly while the black-armored, nameless, faceless enforcers watched.

Ekul, young and impulsive, grabbed a rifle from a nearby enforcer and aimed it at Jason.

The small night-vision/ day-time scope with a digital zoom enhancer enlarged the image coming through the small camera mounted on the barrel.

Jason, holding the gun to Estone's back, appeared in the scope. Pressing a small button on the side of the rifle with his finger, Ekul zoomed in.

What the mindless myrmidon enforcers could not do was disobey orders even if their commander was forced at gun point by another party to give the orders.

Ekul, a tyro, was fiercely loyal to his commanders and would do anything to protect them, even if it meant disobeying an order.

A deep, rumbling that could only be felt through the ground, suddenly swept through floor of the cavern.

Chunks of ice and stone broke off from the ceiling of the massive cavern and plunged toward the ground, crashing into the monoliths.

The two ton rocks merely bounced off the solid monoliths as if they were just hailstones.

The huge stones had more success with the small human swarm below, flattening the armored enforcers like a shoe squashing a spider.

Ekul's aim was thrown off by the earthquake and the stones crashing around him.

The gun missed and his targets disappeared around the corner of the pyramid.

Ekul swore. Assuming the position of commander, he waved for the remaining enforcers to follow him as he ran after his retreating enemy.

The concussions shot through the air and echoed through the cold cavern, making the cascade of stone sound more formidable than it really was.

It was as if he was an ant in a hail storm.

"I can't believe this." Chairman Scott, seeing the enforcers in his private council chamber on Earth, aiming a gun at him. "And you, Tiras, Erech, Sabtah, you betrayed us."

"That's right, Scott," Tiras said as he, Erech, and Sabtah left the rest of the elders to stand next to the enforcers. "We arranged for the Charlie's space craft,

that was sent on a secret mission to Equipacilon, to be unlocked when Charlie locked it up so that Equipacilonese robots could secretly board the ship."

"You traitor." Mark said.

"So, the robots came back with Charlie to Earth," elder Mathew said, "and infiltrated our government building to neutralize the Antecedent, which was our only means of protection against the Prefect."

"That is right." Erech replied with a smirk.

"We know where the Antecedent is located." Tiras added, "Even now, the Prefect's fleet is arriving to take possession of the Antecedent."

"The Antecedent has been lost for thousands of years. How did you find it?" Scott asked even though he had already learned from Mark that the Architect was in Antarctica.

"We used the same source available to you." Sabtah replied quickly.

"The tablets?" Mark asked.

Sabtah nodded.

In the library of the spherical government building on Earth, in which they were in, there was a special section that remained restricted. Behind a bullet-proof door, that could only be opened with the correct security code, which every elder was given, was a room containing the tablets. Numbering ten, the ancient stone slabs were each six feet in area covered with ancient Hebrew characters which were precisely cut into the stone as if a laser had been used.

The tablets had been discovered in a strange man-made cave in what had once been northern Russia. The find was quite by accident. An archeologist working at another find in the cold timberland of Siberia decided to take a little break from his work and go for a stroll through the woods. As he was walking the ground fell out beneath him and he fell a short distance through a new opening. A trap door, covered with soil and grass that had blended in with the ground, broke open.

The archeologist pulled out his flashlight that he always carried with him for use in excavations, beamed it around the darkness of the underground chamber he had accidentally discovered.

Revealed in his light were cave paintings of birds, horses, and dinosaurs. Another mysterious paining on one wall of the room caught his attention and would remain with him for the rest of his life, etched into his memory.

Below this enigmatic painting a pile of ten tablets lay.

Since that monumental discovery, the archeologist brought back the tablets, while at the same time keeping the location of the cave hidden from the world. He and his colleagues at the archeological site were quiet about what they had witnessed at the cave. The archeologist, Scott's grandfather, died having told Scott exactly what he had seen in the cave and what the mysterious cave painting was, under which the tablets were located.

The tablets, unfortunately, were written in code with a smaller percent of the writing not in code. Even the un-coded writing that made sense was still nebulous and poetic.

If the code could be solved, Scott thought, what awesome knowledge could be learned about the people of ancient times.

Scott's thoughts finally returned to the situation at hand.

The Prefect had disabled the Earth's defenses. The Antecedent was disabled and Earth was now slipping into the Prefect's mouth, like a dainty piece of caught fish.

"Drop all your weapons." The commanding enforcer told the elders.

Seeing the group of deadly, armored troops, the elders knew their last hope had slipped between their fingers like an oily wrung of a ladder.

The elders quietly, slowly removed their small, concealed pistols, used for self defense, and dropped them to the floor.

However, Scott remained motionless.

"You, chairman," the enforcer captain had an edge to his voice, "remove your weapons or I will be forced to kill you."

Scott glanced at his best friend, elder Quinn, for approval, and saw his friend almost imperceptibly shake his head.

Sliding his hand slowly into his tunic, Scott felt around for the device which he saved for rare emergencies.

"Bring your gun out slowly where we can see it and drop it to the floor." The enforcer said. "Our armor can withstand all pistol and most shoulder-mounted fire. Don't try anything."

Scott smiled. "Go head. Shoot me."

"Are you out of your mind?" Quinn said from behind Scott.

"Don't do anything foolish, Scott." Mark said.

The enforcer raised his gun and aimed it at Scott. "I'll give you five seconds to remove your gun and drop it to the ground. One, two…"

Scott turned away from the enforcer so that his back was facing his enemy, and Scott held a small square object in his hand so that the elders could see, but not the enforcers.

Quinn gazed at Scott as if he was a lunatic and then recognition crossed his face.

"…four, and Five." The enforcer said. "Open fire."

The elders closed their eyes, expecting the impact of hot projectiles penetrating them, but nothing came: only the sound of metallic clicks.

"Our guns don't work!" It was the first time the enforcer captain had showed any real emotion.

Scott was already running toward a back door that had been concealed in the wall. The elders, getting over their shock, followed suit.

It took a short time longer for the enforcers to figure out that their guns electrical systems had been neutralized by a portable electrical scrambling device, held by Scott.

Throwing their useless guns down, the enforcers charged after the retreating councilmen.

A single punch with the powerful nano-fibril muscles that empowered the black, armored suit would be enough to kill an unprotected man.

All the joints in the G-X prosthetic, epidermoid, armor suit were connected by high-density nano-fibril muscles that were connected to sensors which monitored the exact movements of the wearer's appendages and spinal cord so that the suit would follow the exact movements of the wearer's limbs and body. Wearing a G-X suit, one could lift half a ton and run at a speed of 15 miles per hour. The suit had the capability of shielding against most projectiles. The one effective weapon against the suit was the K-39 siege rifle. Using a small amount of antimatter stored in special, anti-gravity-containing chamber, the K-39 could fire small projectiles of anti-matter. Anti-matter, being the opposite of true matter, is very versatile around true matter, and when both are in close proximity, they create a bizarre phenomenon of neutralizing into pure energy. Due to the fact that when anti-matter is 'pushed' by a positive force, it will move in exactly the opposite direction, anti-matter must be launched by activating a force that moves in the opposite direction of the desired path of the anti-matter projectile.

In addition, Equipacilon was the inventor of the K-39 siege rifle, so no enforcer would have to worry about being killed by gunfire.

The commanding enforcer knew all this, so he feared nothing from the old men running away. Their last shred of protection had been removed from them with the fall of the Antecedent.

Mac, Jason, and Estone entered through the triangular aperture in the pyramid.

They were in a small room or antechamber. At the far end of the room an entrance led to an inclining tunnel.

Jason gazed at the walls of the chamber in wonderment. Small slits, evenly placed around the perimeter of the room, emitted an orange light.

Up the tunnel were similar lights.

"This is incredible." Mac breathed.

"It looks similar," Jason added, "to the pictures I've seen of the interior of the great pyramid."

Estone was silent; a mood that he was augmenting with each passing second.

"We need to find out how to shut this door." Jason said, keeping an eye on Estone.

"There must be some sort of button." Mac stepped up to the wall in which the triangular entrance was located, groping for a hidden trigger.

"The enemy will be on top of us soon." Jason repositioned his rifle nervously.

He could envision the swarm of black enforcers flooding the pyramid like ants invading a piece of meat.

"We don't have much ti—" At that point, Jason's voice was cut off by the sudden thunderous boom of rocks striking the outside of the pyramid in the earthquake.

The deafening rumble of showering boulders and quaking ground drowned out all further conversation.

Dust filled the chamber, making all visibility impossible and causing the men to caugh. Jason feared that Estone would try to escape.

Before long the dust had settled and the men could see.

The first thing that had come to Mac and Jason's attention was the fact that there were only two men in the chamber. Estone was indeed gone. The second thing to arouse them was staring at them, causing them to wonder if all that just happened to them wasn't a dream.

The triangular entrance was blocked by a massive boulder that filled the whole opening.

There was no way out for Estone, unless he had dove through the entrance and ended up getting flattened by a falling boulder.

Assessing the situation, Jason resolutely stepped toward the tunnel entranceway that led higher up into the deeper part of the pyramid.

"Come on." He gestured for Mac to follow, which Mac had no problem doing.

"Right behind you."

The earthquake and rain of stone soon stopped and only twenty enforcers remained of the one-hundred or so that had landed in the cavern beneath the ice-surface of the continent of Antarctica. But, twenty highly trained, armored enforcers were quite enough to take on three men.

Their space craft, Ekul learned was parked on the ice near the shaft entrance that led down to the cavern below. All small, beetle-shaped deployment transport craft that had come from the larger space craft above, and that had dropped the enforcers off, were now buried under the fallen stone.

The egg-shaped pod Jason and his friend had come in was still in good condition and not a single stone that had struck the pod did any damage.

Just as Ekul and his crew rounded the corner of the Pyramid, he swore and clenched his jaw.

A large boulder rested against the side of the pyramid.

From some hidden open slit between a door in the pyramid and the side of the boulder, light seeped out.

Immediately the twenty men in G-X armor suits used the full potential of the nano-fibril muscles—each man exerting 1000 pounds of force—against the boulder, pushing it will all their suits could give.

The net force of the twenty men was equal to 10 tons.

Ekul smiled to himself, thinking about the math. The boulder they were pushing was probably close to 8 tons. It would soon be out of their way.

Scott activated a security door that slid closed just before the enforcers were about to overtake them. The black-armored men pounded on the door and the dull thuds could be heard.

Scott and his council were now in a hallway near an elevator.

Turning to his fellow councilmen, Scott said, "Gentlemen, we must spread out. We will go to the safe house, but not all together. That way, some of us will be able to make it there safely."

The safe house was an underground bomb-shelter built for the possibility of nuclear war. The safe house was not small as the name suggested. With five levels and a capacity to house two hundred people for as long as five years, the safe house was an unconquerable base.

There were four doors to the safe house made of solid lead, reinforced with steel five inches thick. Powerful gas-powered motors operated the doors and manual gearing system provided back up so that in case of an emergency, a single man could crank a gear and shut the doors. Powerful mechanical locking mechanisms in the lead doors kept an air-tight seal.

"Before we separate, do we have any available soldiers?" Eder Marcus asked.

"The military is in chaos." Scott replied.

"We need to alert the civilians." Mathew said.

"I activated a warning that will be heard in every home on Earth when I neutralized the guns of the enforcers, with this." Scott held up the hand-held electrical scrambling device which resembled a palm-pilot.

The sound of running footsteps in the hall brought urgency to Scott's voice. "Gentlemen, fair well. Hurry before it's too late."

As the men boarded the elevator, Scott turned away and headed down the hall.

The elders were going to ask Scott what he was doing, but the doors closed and they began to ascend up to the top floor where the space craft hangar was located.

"Where are we?" Mac's voice hissed in Jason's ear.

"I don't know." Jason said, detachedly.

He indeed knew where he was but the marvel of it all overwhelmed him.

They were in the surviving remains of an ancient civilization that held the key to a great and powerful wonder mankind was gifted to discover long ago: advanced technology.

The room they had stepped in was unlike any Jason had occupied, including the mysterious pod space craft.

A cylinder with a circular floor and ceiling, the room was vast and had an aura that was characteristic of some unexplored caves, giving one an atmospheric feeling that he was the first one to step foot into the vast unknown.

In the large, circular floor white, luminescent lines radiated from the center of the floor to the walls like spokes on a wheel.

At the center, glowing and animate with what Jason could only describe as a 'living iridescence' in its color and light, was a single pillar.

It looked like a giant glow-stick. The constant movement and scintillation occurring in the light patterns of the luminous column gave it an ethereal quality.

Standing before the glowing, scintillating, white pillar, dwarfed by its immensity, was a single man, who appeared to be ant next to a pencil.

Sensing that someone was watching him, the man turned around.

As Jason and Mac got closer to him, the face became familiar.

"Turon, is that you?" Jason overcame his apprehension.

Turon didn't reply, but quickly returned his attention to the glowing column.

When Jason was a foot away from the unresponsive man, he placed a hand on Turon's shoulder. "Turon, it's me, Jason."

Turon turned to look at Jason. His expression was that of wonder and awe.

"Jason, I have learned things, wonderful things." Turon said.

Raising his voice and lowering it to below a whisper as if he was drunk, Turon added, "It showed me…great good…incredible…lights…knowledge…they soared into the clouds…space…went to planets…"

Jason grabbed Turon by the shoulders and tried to get Turon's wandering eyes to focus on Jason.

"Slow down." Jason said calmly, "Take a deep breath, Turon."

The other man obeyed and inhaled.

"Now, what did you see? What happened?"

"This white pillar showed me wonders. It made the room disappear and I saw a city and people: lots of people. There was a big temple…people flying in hovering cars—I can't describe the beauty. There were dinosaurs—lots of dinosaurs. They walked through the streets-yes I remember the streets, they were up high in the air like bridges."

"I think my captain lost it." Mac said softly.

"What could have done that to him?" Jason asked more of himself than Mac.

Looking at the column of light in the center of room, Jason wondered if he had found the Architect. If so, something was not right about it. Jason had a feeling that something deep and mysterious resided within the glowing column.

Scott returned to the locked security door, while the elevator car transported the other elders to the top floor.

The enforcers that had been pounding on it were gone, or were quiet.

Taking a chance that they were still present, Scott pressed a button with his finger, on the wall beside the security door.

When the metal partition had slid open, it revealed that the council chamber, that the elders had first met the enforcers in, was vacant.

The silence was unsettling.

Scott approached his seat and pressed a hidden sensor in the back of the chair with his finger.

A small panel slid open in the chair, unveiling a secret compartment that contained a small and effective tool.

Removing the device, Scott assessed the room, making sure that no threat was present. Satisfied, he unsnapped a button and began unfolding what had been a compact canister into a large piece of material.

It was a jump-suit of sorts that covered the whole body. A balaclava with a special visor-screen came with it.

Unzipping the nano-zipper, Scott slipped on the suit. It was a bit tight around the waist, but he hadn't worn it for a long time and he resolved to bear with the discomfort as long as he could complete the plan that had entered his mind.

Just as he was fitting the balaclava over his head, a door slid open and enforcers entered the room.

---

Chapter 21

Revelation

---

What is the essence of the soul? What is the gentle stirring in the innermost being of man that draws him like a magnet to the beauty of nature, even to the profound, terrible power of a lightning storm?

When the waves crash against a cliff, sending their biting spray into the air, when a torpid shaft of swirling dust forms in the air and anchors its spinning tail in the earth, tearing the ground in a long swath of destruction…what is it that draws the soul of man to look into the eye of the storm, with fascination? Jason wondered, as he gazed into the luminous column, in the circular room, in the strange pyramid, far beneath the icy surface of the continent of Antarctica.

Jason stepped closer to the glowing pillar. The moving, swirling specs of light in the pillar drew his gaze toward the middle of the column.

"Jason." Mac's voice came from what seemed a great distance.

"Yes?" Jason replied mechanically as his mind was elsewhere; namely the column.

Mac's voice drifted off far away as Jason reached out his hand toward the luminescent surface of the column.

His finger was an inch away from contact with the pillar when a hand clamped over his wrist and pulled Jason's hand away.

Jason, startled, gazed into the firm eyes of a muscular man.

It was Mac.

The beefy man was gazing at Turon.

Jason followed Mac's gaze down to Turon's hand. The index finger of Turon's right-hand glove was darkened as if it was scorched.

"The Architect has more to it than we realize." Mac whispered.

Turon had fallen to a sitting position.

Jason and Mac approached him and helped him to stand.

Turon trembled with what appeared to be fear but Jason guessed it was actually some neural malady.

Jason guessed that the pillar had to have been electrically conductive with a fairly high electric potential.

"Captain, wake up." Mac said, half-heartedly, knowing that Turon was in a state of complete coma-like shock.

Jason reached out toward the pillar a second time, with a plastic pen in hand.

He had found it in a pocket. It was unusual to see a pen, but some few people liked ink over electronics.

The tip of the pen inched forward toward the swirling colors in the column and Jason took a deep breath from the filtered oxygen in his space suit.

He knew that Turon had learned something by touching the pillar. Perhaps using a long, non-conductive substance would work.

150 mile-long rectangular prism of metal with a square cross section 50 miles in width orbited the Sun.

One- million three-hundred seventy-five miles from Earth, Equipacilon was the closest space station to the home-world of humanity.

Within the depths of the space station and integrated throughout its superstructure, a network of computers, taken over by an invading computer program that had virtual intelligence, hummed with life: artificial life.

The invading computer program had been given life by a wise and cunning man thousands of years ago. The computer program was later called the Prefect when it had been reawakened by the miners from the first mining base on the Moon. They had found it buried in the Moon and using their skills and knowledge among other assets, they turned on the engines in the massive space station and brought the Prefect back on line.

Little did they know that their hard work would be rewarded with assassination.

The ancient mechanic robots aboard the space station aided the miners as they performed small repairs on the space station.

One day, all the miners went missing. Their families, which the miners had brought with them, were left to cope with the space station alone. The computer network, controlled by strange, ancient computer program was glad to be of assistance and offered to fly the space station wherever they wanted to go, except Earth.

The Prefect, a mere computer program, could not gloat about its successes after it brought its new, weak, ignorant captives under its tyrannical domination, but it would have gloated, had it been gifted with a mind.

Power brings greater control and greater wisdom, in the Prefect's 'mind'.

And those three it had sought after for nearly six thousand years.

Now, it had finally located the one that could bring it both power over all the human space stations a few light years, control, and great 'wisdom': the Architect.

The Architect was the first real computer built. The ancient minds that had constructed the Great Pyramid improved their technique and constructed a second 'Great Pyramid': the Architect.

To protect it from any harm, they built a protective 'shroud' around it along with entrance shafts in the top of the shroud to admit space craft.

The Architect was a virtual mind, not an artificial intelligence. The Architect could perform what was analogous to thought and reason without following binding parameters.

It could give the Prefect what it needed to comprehend humans more fully.

Once the Prefect could wrap its tentacles around the Architect, the Architect would give the Prefect the ultimate control: the ability to control and manipulate the human mind.

That is what the computer program that was inside Equipacilon: the first space station ever built, wanted.

Its men were already on the threshold of capturing the Architect.

The tip of Jason's pen came in contact with the radiant, effervescent surface of the column.

Jason's watched the light in the column as it continued to scintillate and effervesce as if nothing had disturbed its surreal aura…and then something happened that Jason would never forget.

The luminous lines in the circular floor that radiated outward from the center began to brighten as beams of light began radiating out of the lines in the floor, forming what looked like sheets of glass that rose from the lines in the floor to the ceiling.

Suddenly the sheets made of light began to jump from one line in the floor to the next line, giving the impression that the room was rotating while Jason was standing still.

The pillar in the center was static and with twelve planes or sheets of light lined up with the radius of the circular floor and in motion, jumping from one light strip to the next, rapidly.

Soon, the planes of light blurred together and all apparent 'motion' was gone.

Before Jason's dazed eyes a three-dimensional landscape resolved.

There was a beautiful forest with huge trees that rose high into the air, nearly a hundred feet.

A waterfall dove over a distant cliff of a mountain with a very realistic thunder that could be heard so clearly that Jason had the impression of actually being there.

The trees and foliage that grew quite tall were unlike any Jason had ever seen.

Equipacilon had tropical zones and temperate zones with plants suited for each artificial environment. He had seen the twisting, gnarled trunks of jungle trees and the graceful verdure of the undergrowth, but Jason had never seen anything resembling the magnificence of the plant life before him.

A rich, masculine voice spoke clearly and distinctly filling the room, "`ezer `aher."

Mac was gazing in awe at the 3-D image and when he heard the voice the idea came into his mind to speak to it, even though the computer behind the voice was probably only used to what ever language it spoke.

"Hey, you, computer." Mac raised his voice, looking around at the virtual trees. "Can you hear me? Would you speak in English, my language?"

"`amen." The computer voice replied.

"What are you doing?" Jason asked Mac, slightly annoyed. "Can't you see this is an ancient technology? The people who built it most likely didn't speak English."

"`asah. I will speaken on you langwedge." The computer voice replied.

Jason was not too surprised, remembering that the computer in the space pod they had traveled in could use some limited English.

The three-dimensional scene changed to the interior of a room. A circular table with a hole at its center came into view.

The room was ascetic and Spartan with metal floor, walls, and ceiling.

A light emitted from the table surface as if it was a giant light element itself.

Seated around the table was a group of men in strange clothes.

Tunics resembling short bathrobes made of finely woven, silky material, baggy trousers or pants, and shiny boots constituted their clothes. Each man wore his hair at a length that reached his ear lobes and was swept back, behind his ears, with a full beard covering his entire jaw-line, moustache, and chin.

The speaker, whose voice had filled the room, was a man in what appeared to be his late seventies with a grey beard and hair. His face and nose were long and of the appearance of a northern European Caucasian. Jason could imagine the man fighting along beside King Arthur or Robin Hood.

"Who are you?" Jason asked the image of the old man.

The computer simulation responded. "I be picture made by smart minds."

"Who do you represent; a person who actually lived on Earth, or not?" Jason asked the old man.

The computer simulated man replied again, "I be holo-image of the man,

Awe-dom, the first man."

Jason had heard of Adam and Eve, the first humans created by God. Charlie had mentioned them.

"So you are Adam?" Jason said dumbly.

"Yes." The holographic, computer-generated character of Adam affirmed.

Jason wiped his head in consternation. How amazing it was to actually see what Adam looked like.

Seeing the other men at the table with Adam, Jason asked, "Who are these around you?"

"These be great elders, my great grand children." Adam replied.

"Who made this holo-image of you?"

"Rephshone Malahden, the great computer maker took Adam and had his image recoded in computer. Rephshone had Adam speak and recorded his voice and copied his personality to make a computer program that would resemble him."

"You are speaking English well now. How do you know my language?" Jason wondered.

"The computer learns fast. It takes words you speak and your facial expressions and makes comparisons. It takes your body movements into consideration. You talk with your body and face more than you realize."

"I need to ask you," Jason decided to address a question that burned in his mind, "was this computer really built not long after God created the Earth?"

"It was." Adam replied.

Jason couldn't find any more words to say. He was awestruck by the reality. The pod and the Architect and the Prefect and the base on the Moon were all built thousands of years ago before the Egyptians used the Nile or the Sumerians irrigated in Mesopotamia, there was an ancient culture that had advanced technologies that all the advances in Jason's time look like man had finally caught up to his distant ancestors.

Jason was astounded at the implications. Man did not evolve. Man did not start out with sticks and caves. Man started out intelligent and advanced.

"I wanted to ask you another thing." Jason said.

"What may it be?" Adam said.

"Were the Pyramids in Egypt built near your time?"

"Yes. They were indeed. The sons of idol worshippers constructed them."

"How were they built?" Mac interrupted.

The old man in the hologram cracked a smile. "This computer has been receiving data about the world since it was built. According to the programs and data, right after the flood of Noah, man was left to start over from scratch. The world was a more hostile place. Wars broke out and the environment became inclement with storms and less protection from the ultraviolet light of the Sun. Humans had to advance and it took nearly four thousand years for technology to reach what was the level we had achieved only thirty years after God created me. So, since you exist in an age of extreme technological achievement, why do you ask me?"

"We are still far from what advancement your civilization reached." Jason admitted.

"What we really need to know, Adam, sir," Mac asked, "is if you—what ever you really are—a computer program or whatever—if you could stop the invasion of armed forces that have been dispatched by the computer of a space station a million miles from Earth. You know what a space station is, right?"

"As I said, your civilization has much more to attain before it can be equal to the one before the flood."

"Well," Mac said, awkwardly, "can you disable the Prefect?"

"I will answer your implied question first: yes, I know what the Prefect is. But, no, I will not disable it. This computer will not accept commands unless the user can follow the code."

"What code?" Jason asked.

Adam replied, "There is a code that is required to operate this computer and to control it. Without the code in place, evil men could bring great death on people on Earth and in the space colonies."

"Can you give us any aid in how it works?" Mac pleaded.

"Only the one who knows the code can access the full potential of the Architect."

With that, the holographic image blurred and faded, turning into a revolving merry-go-round of light planes that soon slowed to a stop and shut off, leaving the room quiet and placid. The light strips on the floor and the central pillar in the circular room slowly dimed, as if the computer was dying.

Jason reeled for a moment in dazed perplexity at what he experienced.

There was movement.
Jason watched Turon slowly move. He was finally coming to himself.

"Are you alright, Turon?" Mac asked.

"Yes." Turon replied hoarsely.

"What did you see?" Jason asked eagerly with trepidation and urgency in his words.

"I," Turon slowly replied, between breaths, "I saw—I think we're in trouble."

Jason didn't need to ask why. One look at the entranceway to the room brought Jason to his senses. Fear began to creep through his nerves like cold air.

There were beings in the entryway: black, shiny, anthropoid forms.

They were not aliens. They were not robots. They were not demons. They were enforcers.

Scott watched the armored beings walk past him, failing to notice his presence.

The Garinger Roland transpari-suit was capable of not only transmitting visual light through the nano-fiber-optics to make one invisible to the visible light, but it was also capable of transmitting infrared and ultraviolet light through the infinitesimally intricate network of light-transmitting fibers in the suit that followed the contours of the human body.

As H.G. Wells stated in his book, The Invisible Man, to be invisible, light would have to pass straight through an object with no deflection, diffraction, or refraction.

The best invisible suits built prior to the Garinger Roland transpari-suit could not get rid of the distortion of light at the edges of the body, so a profile or outline of a human could be seen vaguely. If someone was watching closely they might be able to see the human-shaped distortion in the light.

Tomas Garinger and Evan Roland, two brilliant physicists solved the light distortion problem. Scott had sent a space craft the year before to the space station the two physicists lived on for the purpose of procuring some specimens of the new technology.

The enforcers searched the room and seeing nothing, left.

Scott was alone in the room. He held his hand in front of his balaclava visor.

He couldn't see his hand. The sensation was bizarre. It was as if he didn't exist.

The balaclava visor on his invisible suit was extremely high tech. It had required years for the two physicists to design it. Special sensors for copying the light pattern formed on the visor by in-coming, incident light, sends the pattern to a thin computer screen on the opposite side of the visor—in front of the eyes, displaying an image of the outside, while at the same time the visor captures the light in other sensors and sends the light to the opposite side of the head where the light pattern is reemitted.

Scott waited for a few moments and then commanded the door to open. He stepped out into the hall.

The suit would make him invisible, but it would not make him inaudible. The enforcer's electronic audible detection sensors in their helmets could detect a whisper from one foot away. Without the audible sensors, the enforcer's three-fourths-inch-thick helmet armor and absorptive padding would render all but the loudest sounds inaudible.

Scott had not forgotten to store a gun with the transpari-suit. He carried a small energy pistol that could fire a beam of anti-matter. It was the apex of nano-technology. A battery that would have had to have been the size of a city block, to power the anti-matter firing mechanism, was compacted into the three-inch-long handle of the pistol.

The hall Scott stood in was deserted. The meeting with his fellow elders had started at 4:30 pm and he guessed that it was now 6 pm.

Most of the personnel of the government building would be heading to their sleeping quarters inside or outside the building.

But, there was not a single person walking through the hall other than Scott.

The thought came to him that the enforcers had probably infiltrated the base.

How foolish of him not to have prepared for an assault. Scott had always thought that the Antecedent, which was not out of commission, was a reliable protection.

There was a threat that loomed in his mind. Power-hungry, the Prefect was searching for the Architect…on Earth.

Scott knew where the Architect was, but would the Prefect know?

There was only one thing Scott could do now. It was a last-resort option that he dreaded to use.

The enforcers surrounded Jason, Mac, and Turon in a circle and aimed their weapons at the men.

A figure in a space suit entered the ring of enforcers. It was Ekul, the young tyro.

"You can drop your weapons." Ekul said coldly, with a cruel smirk as he leveled a pistol at Jason. "They won't do you much good anymore."

Jason, Turon, and Mac complied and laid down their guns.

His eyes were animate with a diabolic gleam. The boy was focused not on Jason and the other men as on the glowing, iridescent column behind them.

Ekul gazed into the shimmering light for what seemed like an hour. Finally he let out a quiet exclamation; "The Architect."

Jason watched the boy closely. The pistol outstretched toward Jason was slowly lowered as Ekul became absorbed with the pillar-shaped enigma.

With a hand outstretched, Ekul reached toward the column of light.

Turon, remembering what touching the column had done to him, cautioned Ekul, "Don't touch it, boy."

Ekul ignored Turon. His finger was now three inches from the light surface.

Suddenly, the light in the column dimmed as if someone had covered it with a lamp shade.

There was a slight tremble in the floor: a microcosm, which lasted three minutes.

Then, as if nothing had happened, the intensity of the column returned to normal as it brightened up again.

"What was that?" Mac whispered in his microphone.

Jason shrugged, focusing on Ekul.

The young teenager retracted his hand and then an idea seemed to come to his mind as his face lit up.

Ekul motioned for an enforcer to come forward. Jason watched as Ekul pointed at the column and seemed to be speaking to the enforcer.

The black-armored guard stepped didn't hesitate to obey the order. He stepped toward the column of light like a mindless robot. Years of training since his early childhood had reduced his self-discretion and self-preservation to almost nothing.

The black suit slipped into the column of light, melting into the iridescent glow.

They waited for a short time, but the enforcer did not reemerge from the light column.

The light must be a powerful laser. Jason guessed.

Ekul did not get flustered or angry that one of his men had died. Nothing changed in his countenance. The cold look of a Nazi concentration camp torturer gleamed in his eyes as he turned toward Jason.

"Ex-proctor Jason," Ekul said with an emotionless face, "it seems that we are at a dilemma. I need to gain access to the Architect and I am sure you want the lives of your pitiful friends to be preserved, so let us make a deal. You will find the code to unlock the Architect for us and I will not force your friends to enter the beam of death."

Jason's heart froze. It was as if a twenty-below-zero-degree wind had suddenly struck him, in the middle of the summer.

Ekul was threatening death to Mac and Turon if Jason did not somehow make it so that Ekul could take over the Architect.

This was a crisis unprecedented by any other in Jason's life.

There was a pause as Jason reacted.

"I want to know where Jenny is." He abruptly said.

The granddaughter of Charlie, Jenny, had gone missing along with the elder David on the Moon.

Jason wanted to find Jenny. All the stressful, epic conflicts and scrapes he had been through since leaving space station Equipacilon made him feel thirty years older.

Jenny was a woman who had character that all the other women at Equipacilon lacked.

She was not a woman with extreme beauty, but she had an aura around her that was magnetic. The tender concern and care that was animate in her face was present during the hardest times as well as the pleasant times.

Jason could not bear the thought that Jenny could be suffering under a cruel hand of an enforcer.

"Where is Jenny?" Jason repeated his demand.

"You mean the woman we captured on the Moon?" Ekul smiled arrogantly. "She's in good hands."

"You're lying."

"You will only see her after you unlock Architect for me." Ekul said. "To reassure you, she's on this planet. Nothing has been done to her, but you won't want to imagine what we will do to her if you don't obey me now."

Jason gulped and breathed a prayer to God more in his mind than audibly. Dear God, I don't know what to do. What am I to do? There is so much at stake. Dear God, please bring us out of this. Protect Jenny. Save us from these enforcers. I believe that you created me and died for me. I thank you that I have been saved me by your blood, but I pray you will do something to stop Ekul. In the name of Jesus Christ, I pray this.

Jason opened his eyes. Ekul was staring at him.

"Well?" Ekul said, raising his pistol to Jason's head. "What is the plan?"

---

Chapter 22

Enigma

---

With everything against him, Jason decided he would use the plastic pen once more.

Stretching out the pen toward the column of light, Jason paused for a brief moment before plunging the tip into the light.

Nothing happened.

Ekul stared at Jason.

Mac waited, tensed in expectation.

The room was eerie like a graveyard at night. The enforcers, like vultures, watched their prey as he moved his hand toward the beam of light.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, the column of light blacked out like a worn out light bulb and darkness returned to the room. A dim, bluish light cast a surreal reflection on the shiny armor of the enforcers. It came from a glowing circle in the floor where the column of light had emanated from.

There was a hissing sound that dimly reached Jason's ears through the space suit.

There must be air in the pyramid, he thought.

With an almost imperceptible nuance in motion, a circular panel, which was ringed by the glowing, blue circle, began to slide downward.

Jason stepped closer to the blue circle and peered down in surprise into what was now a hole in the floor.

Jason turned and looked at Ekul.

The teenager had a raised eyebrow.

A hand suddenly shot up out of the hole in the floor and clamped down on the edge of the hole, then a second hand followed suite.

The space-suited head and shoulders of Estone emerged.

"Tyro, come down here." Estone said to Ekul, with wide eyes, showing for the first time astonishment. "You won't believe what I've found."

Scott had evaded the enforcers and passed through their security measures.
He was now on the bottom level of the government building in New Philadelphia on Earth.

The dim overhead lights cast their anemic luminescence on a sordid, cluttered, concrete floor.

The room smelled worse than it looked with piles of trash, debris, and rusting tools left by maintenance workers years ago.

Scott was in a large, underground, concrete room. He had just passed through a rusty, metal door that led to a confining spiral staircase used by maintenance workers or robots.

Before him, in the underground space was his last resort plan. It looked somewhat old and pitiful for the job it was mean to do, but Scott trusted his mechanics to keep it running in the event of an emergency and such an emergency was on the horizon.

Saying a prayer, he opened a door in the side of the machine and entered.

At the bottom rung of a ladder that led up through a tunnel that terminated at the circular opening through which Estone had emerged, Jason let himself slowly absorb the fantastical scene before his eyes.

In the depths of the pyramid called the Architect, in the voluminous cavern beneath the icy surface of the continent of Antarctica, a moving, animate mass of tentacles writhed as thousands of tentacle-like, metallic cords pressed their tips against the dome-shaped ceiling of the room the men had passed into.

Supporting the medusa of metallic tentacles, a tall pillar, made of silver and a strange crystalline glass, exhibited myriads of pinpoints of light across its surface.

It reminded Jason of what a giant squid, trapped in an aquarium, might look like.

Covering the dome ceiling of the room was a multitude of small, mirror-like plates that resembled solar panels.

The mirror-plates glowed with a dim blue every time the tip of a tentacle would come in contact with it.

Resting atop the glittering pillar of metal and crystal, the medusa of tentacles, suddenly stopped all writhing motion, and all the emaciated tentacles turned toward the men standing near a wall with the metal ladder.

The pulsating light, that came from the mirror-plates, on the ceiling, vanished, leaving the room dark, except for Estone's space suit light.

The enforcers turned on their gun-lights after realizing that their night vision option in their visors wasn't working.

Jason clenched his teeth, involuntarily, in fear.

To his relief, the tentacles were soon spotted again as the enforcers aimed their gun lights at them.

Estone, holding a small hand-light to his face materialized out of the darkness.

"This is what we were looking for." Estone said dramatically as if he was a circus conducter introducing the show. "The Prefect will be glad. All you men, job well done. I have dispatched a command to our technical crews and they will be here soon. After six thousand years of resting in dormancy, the enigma of the ages, the key to the mysteries of the universe, the container of secrets, the thing that can bring Equipacilon and all of us power unimaginable has been found. Citizens of Equipacilon, I present you the Architect itself."

The tentacles were motionless, poised over the men like the branches of a tree.

"How did you get it running?" Ekul asked Estone, curiously.

Estone replied, "On the side of that pillar is a square panel with controls. In the center of the panel is a depression shaped like a human face. By placing my own face in this corresponding depression, I was able to speak to the Architect and have it turn on."

The enforcer who had entered the column of light in the circular room above had not been vaporized. The light was not a powerful laser beam of death. Rather, when the enforcer entered the beam of light, he had stepped onto a hatch that was just sliding open at that moment.

The enforcer's armored suit protected him in the ten foot fall from the hatch to the level below.

This same enforcer stepped up to Estone just as he finished his sentence.

Estone didn't notice until it was too late that the enforcer had a gun aimed at his back.

Just as Estone was about to speak, the enforcer shook his head. Taking his index finger and sliding it across his throat, the enforcer nudged Estone with his gun.

Estone, threatened by death, complied with the man, but he was furious inside. How could one of his own men turn on him? Enforcers were genetically engineered and brainwashed from childhood to be subservient.

This one wasn't.

Jason was confused. Mac was dumbfounded.

When the enforcer looked toward them and motioned for them to follow him with his free hand, Jason was shocked. This could only happen in a dream, he thought.

Above the humans, in the room, the sinuous tentacles were as still as the branches of a weeping willow tree on a calm day.

The machine was 'curious' at what was occurring below.

"Who are you?" Estone demanded, focusing his anger at the traitor enforcer.

"I will give you a hint." The enforcer said with a flat, generic voice that the communication system of the enforcers distorted. "You shot me on the Moon."

"I have no idea who you are. Tell me." Estone said through clenched teeth.

"Order your men to drop all their weapons or I will be forced to shoot." The man said firmly.

Estone frowned. Seeing the powerful gun aimed at him, he consented and gave the order. Soon, a stack of firearms was piled in the center of the room.

Jason, Turon, and Mac collected a couple and trained them at the enforcers.

"Now tell me, who are you?" Estone asked.

There was silence for a moment and then the stranger replied, "I was the old man...Charlie."

Jason couldn't believe it; Charlie had survived the point blank gunshot.

"How did you survive my gunshot?" Estone stammered slightly.

"The projectile grazed my shoulder," Charlie replied, "but it missed the life-support system in my space suit. The shock of being hit, caused me to faint. When I awoke, I realized that I was slowly loosing air, so I decided to borrow an enforcer's armored space suit, which is a thousand times better for surviving gunfire."

"You knocked out an enforcer?" Jason piped up, incredulous.

"A stone can be useful for more than just decoration." Charlie said cheerfully.

"You will receive reprisals for this." Estone threatened.

"How did you get here?" Mac asked.

"I melted into the mass of enforcers that were on their way to Earth." Charlie replied calmly as if he was answering a phone call.

"Do you know what this is used for?" Jason motioned toward the colossal device towering above the men.

Charlie, hidden from view in his armored suit, gazed at the tentacles for a moment, and then slowly replied, "This is the Architect: the first computer."

"I have men outside the pyramid." Estone finally spoke up. "You will never be able to stop us. The Prefect is wise and has created a perfect contingency for any wrinkles in his plan. We were planning on capturing the Architect and using it to capture the Earth as well as every one of the space colonies, but we now have enough firepower to decimate the pitiful slum you call a civilization. Your defenses were shut off when the Antecedent computer in New Philadelphia was turned off." Estone said with a sincere tone, gaining confidence again, "We will let you live in peace, the rest of your lives, where ever you choose, if you yield to the Prefect's wishes."

Jason felt that he was lying. Turon knew Estone was lying.

"That will happen when black becomes white." Turon replied.

Charlie, in the armored suit, nodded in agreement.

"You refuse my offer," Estone frowned, "and you will be tortured in the darkest, lowest chambers in Equipacilon for the rest of your lives."

Charlie, Jason, Turon, and Mac didn't bat an eyelid.

"You're bluffing." Turon replied. "Equipacilon doesn't have the uranium enrichment plants required to make nuclear weapons."

"The Moon does." The three-word-reply of Estone sent a slight tremble down Jason's spine.

So, the base on the Moon was used all along to mine uranium and enrich it. The Prefect had forces on the Moon long before the team of miners from Earth had arrived.

Estone switched his radio settings to a different wavelength and spoke into it briefly. Restoring the settings on his radio he said, "I think that a little motivation is necessary. Perhaps, elder Charlie, this will encourage you to listen to me."

The hatch in the ceiling, from which the ladder descended, slid open and a figure crawled down the steps.

Two enforcers in pitch-black armor followed.

The figure was clothed in a space suit that was covered in dirt. It appeared that the space suit had rolled through mud which had dried onto it, leaving almost no white showing through.

Dirt covered the transparent visor of the figure, concealing the face.

Roughly shoving the figure to the ground, the two enforcers aimed their guns at it.

"If I may…" Estone said quickly as he approached the fallen figure and turned it over, brushing away dirt from the space suit visor to reveal the person's face.

Jason's eyes made contact with the dazed, fearful eyes of a woman.

She stood to her feet with Estone's forcible grip.

It was Jenny. Jenny: Charlie's granddaughter.

Jenny mouthed the word, 'Jason' and tried to go toward him, but Estone held her back.

Her eyes and face were beautiful, but Jason could see that she carried some bruises. What have they done to her? Jason thought.

"I have finally located the infiltrators of Equipacilon. This fragile, little mouse along with her grandfather was trying to uncover the secrets of Equipacilon. But not only did they commit that crime. She kidnapped one of the Prefect's high proctors. We cannot tolerate that."

"Jenny did not kidnap me." Jason felt anger rise as he contested, "I wanted to go with them. I have always harbored distrust and distaste for the Prefect and his socialistic tyranny."

"You think that the Prefect seeks power for its self? No." Estone said calmly, "The Prefect is seeking to bring conflict and war to an end. It seeks to bring peace to the Earth: lasting peace; something that can not be established by a democracy. For thousands of years, it watched the Earth and the events that unfolded on the terrestrial surface as the humans fought and murdered each other. It is time to bring that to an end to government ruled by men. Inherently self-serving, man is greedy and egotistical. Wars are inevitable with human governments."

"So the Prefect thinks that by gaining control of the Architect and gaining control of every person, it will stop all murder and wars?" Jason asked.

"Yes." Estone replied philosophically, "To bring peace one must place one's own perceived rights in the arms the government, a government controlled by a non-partial, intelligent, unbiased, artificial mind. Too many human governments have greedily sought power and control."

"All that will bring," Charlie said fixedly, "is a totalitarian regime of nightmarish scope like the society described in the book by George Orwell called 1984. There must be human programmers who create the programs that run your artificial intelligence. Therefore, their ideals and biases will be constitute the artificial mind. You cannot possibly create an unbiased intelligence."

Estone didn't reply.

After a few moments he said, "I will not be afraid to have my men pull the trigger on this young beauty." With a wave of his hand, Estone indicated Jenny who was being watched closely by two armed enforcers. "Will you drop your weapons or will I be forced to terminate the life of a defenseless woman?"

A gun clattered to the floor—the sound muted by the space suits.

Jason could let Jenny be lost.

Charlie, Turon, and Mac held their guns aimed at the enforcers and then Charlie slowly lowered his gun to the ground, closing his eyes in sorrow.

To have accomplished so much and to have gained ground only to loose it was not what he planned. He had worked out a plan to allow the enforcers and Equipacilon to think of him as being dead in order to work incognito where he could thwart the Prefect's plan of domination.

Now, all was lost. Earth and all the space stations would be brought under control of the Prefect.

Quickly, the hands of the men were encased in metal bindings: hand cuffs with detection sensors for tracking purposes.

"Should we take them back to the ship, sir?" A commanding enforcer asked Estone.

"No, lieutenant. Leave them here." Estone replied arrogantly, "I want these rebels to realize their failure to defeat our great Prefect, and witness the dynamic potential of the Architect unleashed."

With that, Estone stepped forward to the base of the centerpiece.

High above him, motionless, the mass of lithe appendages appeared like the branches of a tree, living, but dormant.

As if on cue, a group of metallic, slender, emaciated bodies slipped from hiding behind the wall of enforcers and entered the center of the room.

The tentacles loomed above the mechanic robots which now surrounded it.

Estone said in his speaker so that all tuned into the communication line could hear, "Execute project Pandora."

A small control room in the vehicle appeared as motionless as any room in any building on Earth. The series of rotational interfaces, shaped like radar screens, set in a ledge that encompassed the circumference of the circular room, displayed various functions of the vehicle. Ascension, descension, speed, and other control functions were operated by the touch-sensor, rotational interfaces.

Scott was seated in a comfortable chair, fastened in by a harness. By using a small elbow control on the arm, he could rotate the chair. All the controls in the circular room were within arms length. The floor space was small with a diameter of four feet, and having a high albedo, it gleamed with a highly polished blue sheen in an overhead, ring-shaped light. A silver helmet completely covered his head and neck with a visor before his eyes. In the small, interior, high-definition screen, an image of the outside appeared.

Scott pressed his finger on a circular, virtual wheel in a rotational interface screen and raised the speed of his craft by sliding his finger around the edge of the circular surface in a clock-wise direction.

His time was short if he was to halt the Prefect in its diabolic path.

The word 'Pandora' had hardly been uttered when two, large, silver mechanic robots stepped through the cluster of robots and advanced toward the central column. The tentacles, attached to the column, stirred and bent down toward the small approaching figures.

Each of the two approaching robots supported a large, metallic cube. A network of tunnels and grooves covered the six surfaces of the cube giving it a very ethereal and other-worldly appearance to it.

Jason watched the strange device closely as it was brought near the side of the medusa column.

The robots stopped just four feet from the side.

Estone, like a magician making his grand entrance on a stage, passed down an isle that opened in the cluster of robots as they stepped out of his way.

He stopped before the cube that was still held aloft by the two robots.

"You may be wondering what this is." Estone let the suspense build among his captives. "After nearly three thousand years of searching for it, the great Prefect has at last, by the agency of his men, located the Eye of the Architect."

Estone paused, with pride swelling in his chest, to let the words sink in.

"You are now privileged," Estone said airily, "to witness the unlocking of the Architect from its four-thousand year-dormancy. The Eye of the Architect was found in a building-a pyramid-in an ancient city, under the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of what was once know as Spain. Only it could bring the Architect under an individual's control. Only it provides the means of unlocking great secrets found in the Architect."

With that said, Estone motioned for the robots to continue.

They covered the last for feet of ground.

Everyone waited, in expectation of what might happen. Would the Eye be magnetically attracted to a special port in the side of the Architect?

Nothing happened; no earthquake, no motion in the cube called the Eye, no lights turning on.

The tentacles above remained stiff and motionless. The enforcers, all armed now, waited patiently. The robots, though merely parts and software, seemed to be enamored in fascination with the cube.

Time passed.

Estone, impatient, growled. "Don't just stand there, you mechanical trash cans. Find an insertion port for the Eye."

The robots snapped out of there cyber reverie and began climbing up the side of the column, looking for any crack in the metal or surface depression.

Estone watched the metal bodies at work with a burning treasure-lust in his eyes.

Jason, looking at Estone, was surprised to see the man's extreme concentration.

What really is Estone after? Jason wondered. Power for the Prefect…or something else? He had a feeling that Estone was not completely loyal to the computer intelligence in Equipacilon.

---

Chapter 23

The Eye

---

Jenny broke free from a guard whose attention was on activity occurring in the center of the room.

She ran to Jason and they embraced—space suit an all.

"It's been so long since I last talked to you." Jason said tenderly. "I gave up hope, thinking that you were lost."

"Jason," Jenny said quietly. "You mean a lot to me. I have to tell you something."

Jason waited.

"The Prefect is not be—" Jenny stopped in midsentence as a hand clamped over her wrist.

"I cannot have you tattle-tailing here." Estone reached over to a switch on Jenny's oxygen back-pack and shut off her radio. He un-cuffed her hands and re-cuffed them with the metal bindings so that her hands were in front of her.

Estone looked at Jason. "After I have let you witnessed the unleashing of the Architect, I will personally oversee your interrogation and torture. Don't try to fool me, Jason. I know your limitations. The Prefect has an entire computer file on your weaknesses."

With that, Estone returned his attention to the project.

The robots had stopped their work and one robot approached Estone.

"Sir, we have located the insertion port." The humanoid machine stated as blandly as it was just a forecaster predicting the weather.

Estone tried to control his rage. "You didn't have to tell me what you've found. Plug the Eye in!"

The elders reached the hangar of the government building.

Dark, cold, and lifeless, the vast space filled with space craft was strangely eerie.

All the ground crews and mechanics had evacuated several hours ago.

Mark, scratching his beard, studied the room for a moment before making his selection.

Javelin, a small, fast space craft that was heavily armed with maser weapons which emitted deadly microwaves and small, nuclear rockets was the best choice to evade the armada of the Prefect.

Mark waved for the other elders to follow him as he headed toward the escape ship.

The craft's entry platform, attached to cables that ran up through a square opening in the underside of the ship's fuselage, awaited.

The platform could rise rapidly into the ship for a quick escape.

Just as they boarded the platform under the Javelin, a voice called out of the darkness, echoing in the vast chamber.

"Halt."

A light illuminated the men, blinding their eyes.

Jason was in a dream world, it seemed.

The metal cube called the Eye of the Architect was raised toward a square-shaped depression in the surface of the column.

As the cube got closer to its corresponding port, something began to happen.

As a hot, glowing rod of metal dipped into cold water causes the water to boil and hiss, likewise the cube had an electrical effect on the column with tentacles.

The scintillating lights on the surface of the column began to remain non-blinking and slowly the surface of the column turned into a solid pillar of light.

The edge of the cube was now an inch from the white, luminescent column.

There was a sudden jerk as a powerful magnetic force pulled the heavy cube into the port with a deep thud as the groves in the surface aligned with corresponding convex lines, and it locked into place.

The two robots left the cube: a protruding aberration in the column.

The universe could have paused all of its kinetic activity; for, it seemed that all hearts of the humans in that chamber, in the pyramid, in the cavern, beneath the surface of Antarctica, were stopped.

The tentacles were frozen in their last positions prior to the event.

Far away, beyond the orbit of the Moon around the Earth, in the massive, first space station, Equipacilon, surrounded by the cold, lifeless vacuum of space, the Prefect monitored the progress of its troops.

The Prefect knew that its trusted servant Estone had located and turned on the Architect.

Power was within arm length, figuratively.

Once the Architect was brought under the Prefect's control, it knew that none of the Earth men should be allowed to live.
The Enforcers would be brainwashed to forget what they witnessed, but the man Estone would have to be killed. After all, Estone knew too much about the deep secrets to be trustworthy. If Estone leaked any of them, the Prefect's power would be compromised. It could not allow that to happen. Too much was at stake.

Before the Prefect would give his mindless robots the order to kill Estone, it needed Estone to complete the task of linking the Prefect to the Architect.

Patience was in order.

For now, the Prefect was satisfied.

"You may leave now, robots." Estone commanded the androids.

Docile and subservient, the humanoid machines left, ascending the ladder that led to the hatch in the ceiling.

To his other men Estone ordered, "All enforcers, but for ten, return to the ship. I want ten of you to remain with me."

The chamber was soon mostly empty.

Amy, Jason, Mac, Charlie, and Turon were up against ten enforcers in armor, Ekul the young tyro, and Estone.

Ekul had been strangely moody and silent all this time.

At last, he spoke up. "Proctor Estone, why did you order our robots to leave?"

"Tyro Ekul, there is a time when a man must realize that the only person he can truly rely on is himself. I have tested the Eye with our best equipment and have learned how it works."

Estone stepped close to the cube and pressed his helmet against it and said, "Pathach."

Jason watched the cube closely. Nothing happened.

And then…the cube began to change shape as sections of it distorted its shape and rose outward like fingers pressing through the metal surface as if it was taffy.

Soon the cube had transformed into what appeared to be a control consol with a computer screen.

On the screen was a silhouette image of a man. In the background of the screen, a sea of swirling light like a maelstrom never ceased its perpetual twisting motion.

There was a strange buzzing tone in the astronaut's communication system and then a voice came on unlike any they had ever heard. It sounded melancholy and deep, coming from the fog of the distant past.

It was the voice Jason could imagine a wise old king from long, long ago having.

"'aher 'ezer?" The silhouette on the screen asked.

"I can't remember what that means." Estone grunted. "Turon, I think you may know. What did it say?"

"I will not help you." Turon replied calmly. "You will only kill all of us once you have finished this."

"I will torture you for the rest of your life if you will not comply." Estone said coldly.

Turon sighed as he said. "'aher 'ezer means 'how help' or 'how can I help you'."

"Tell this computer to link the Architect with the Prefect." Estone ordered Turon.

Turon's face was slightly sagged from lack of sleep and his eyes were dull and bloodshot from lack of sleep. He felt like a worn out rag that had been used way too many times. He was threatened with torture if he would not comply with Estone. But, letting the Prefect control the Architect would be like handing a rocket launcher to a serial killer.

Jason watched Estone, praying that something would happen to end this terrible crisis. Jason prayed in his heard to God: Dear Lord, please save us. Please bring us out safely from this and don't let Estone win. I pray that you would somehow protect us. In Jesus name, amen. He felt kind of childish and ridiculous for even having to pray such a prayer. Most ordinary Christians would probably have never prayed any prayer like his, but his was a different situation than most problems people face. This conflict did not have the threat of loosing a job, or loosing a house. The whole civilization of mankind that stretched into outer space was threatened with suffering and tyranny if the Prefect or Estone should gain control of the Architect.

Turon suddenly was kicked to the floor by a heavy boot.

"I want you to tell the Architect to link itself with the Prefect." Estone's voice came in Turon's ears, but the man was beyond his vision, hidden somewhere in the clouds of surreal dizziness that had suddenly formed in his head.

"Do it!" Estone raised his voice as he kicked Jason again.

Turon took a breath before he replied. "I will do it if you will never kill another person again."

Estone narrowed his eyes, examining Turon like a man looking at a foul mess on a carpet.

"If you do not do it now," Estone stepped up to Jenny and suddenly yanked her to the ground, aiming his high-powered rifle at her, "I will kill this girl."

The elders were standing on the boarding platform that could raise them at a moments notice into the haven of the spacecraft called Javelin.

The voice that had called out to them commanding them to halt came from a light source that was now moving toward them.

The man holding the light was invisible to their eyes due to the brightness of the light.

"It seems that your world is about to end." The hidden man said as he approached. "You are the members of the government council of Earth. No longer will you be councilmen. No longer will you be free."

A man materialized as he lowered the flashlight, letting the light reflect off the floor to illuminate his features.

It was the elder Tiras.

Mark could feel his heart speed up. Tiras the traitor was accompanied by his traitor friends, Erech and Sabtah. The three defectors were armed with rifles.

"It seems that the mice fell into the trap." Erech sneered.

"How did you know where we would go when we escaped?" Elder Marcus asked.

"The most obvious place to go is the hangar. Any fool knows that." Sabtah replied.

Sabtah's crooked smile and cat-like eyes had always been aspects that always caused Mark to have a little concern. Never had Mark thought that Sabtah was actually spying on the elders and reporting to the Prefect until now.

"Where are your guards?" Mark asked with true curiosity.

"We don't need them." Tiras approached Mark until his face was only a few feet away. A gun was aimed at Mark's chest. "You are all a bunch of blundering fools. I know personally that none of you carry any weapons, nor do any of you know how to use them if you did."

Tiras held the gun up to Mark's face and Tiras touched the trigger with his finger lightly. "I will be merciful to you, elder Mark, and save you the torment and shame of having to see your family killed before your eyes, as the Prefect would prefer."

Turon clenched his teeth and closed his eyes in consternation. He could not let the Prefect have the universe on a silver platter, but he could not let Jenny die.

"`Asah nathiyb shamayim `iyr nagash tebel." The words, backed by a long study of Hebrew, came out of Turon's mouth abruptly and stiffly.

Turon did not realize it, but beads of sweat covered his face.

"What did you say?" Jason asked Turon.

"Make pathway to the space city near the Earth." Turon replied distractedly.

The cube attached to the surface of the column with the tentacles atop it began to change. The small, intricate tracks in its surface began to emanate a blue light.

As if a surge of electricity had suddenly flowed into them, giving them life, the tentacles began to move atop the column.

The dome of glass plates above began to give off light as tentacles reached out and touched the plates in an intricate pattern much like fingers on a keyboard.

Estone had lowered his gun and gazed at the column with absolute fascination.

A murmer in the floor turned into a microcosm; a vibration that trailed up the legs of the humans inside the chamber. The microcosm increased in strength to become a mild earthquake, which soon augmented into a magnitude 4.8 earth-quake on the Richter scale.

The floor was trembling under their feet like a car going over potholes and Jason could feel his teeth clatter.

The earthquake lasted for at least five minutes.

However, not a single rock fell from the ceiling.

During the earthquake, a deep, booming sound that seemed to come from the heart of the Earth, moaned with the anger of an awakened giant.

And then, all trembling, vibration, and sound stopped.

"Kuwm nathiyb." The deep voice of the silhouette, on the computer screen, on the cube, came on all the men's headsets.

"Preparing pathway." Turon interpreted, muttering quietly.

This is the end, Jason thought. Jason realized that he had to accept the fate that he could not escape the Prefect forever. He shouldn't have left Equipacion. Now he would be treated as a traitor and given the worst punishment the Prefect could invent. Being a former proctor of Equipacilon, Jason had had a lot of authority.

But, with greater power comes greater responsibility.

240,000 miles from the Earth, on the pitted, cratered satellite of Earth, a flat plane was slowly changing its topography as mounds, scattered all over its grey-white surface, were rising.

Slowly, like worms crawling out of mud, or a submarine bursting from the sea, a vast array of glistening towers rose out of the depths of the Moon's dust and rock.

They were sky scrapers that reflected the bright, hot sunlight with extreme intensity, sending thousands of reflections of the Sun into space.

The silver edifices came to a stop, towering above the burning, airless desert of the Moon.

Dust fell to the ground from the towers like miniature rocks, as fast as any boulder would, due to the lack of air on the lunar sphere.

The very same towers that had risen when Jason was on the Moon had returned.

The Prefect could detect a stimulation which was beginning in its sensors. Something had happened.

Information from a distant source was starting to course through its electronic veins.

This was the moment the Prefect had waited for four over three thousand years.

When its designer had been killed in the great flood that had covered the Earth, the Prefect decided to search for the Architect on the Moon, but it had failed. It tried to find the Architect on Earth and finally it had succeeded. It had located the Eye of the Architect recently, and now the consummation of its plans was coming to pass. Power—supreme, absolute, unlimited power, was within arms length of it.

Jenny gazed at Jason in concern and asked, "What will happen now?"

Estone had his gun against Turon's back and he was preparing to issue another order to Turon.

Jason reached out to her with his cuffed hands and gently stoked Jenny's gloved hands.

"God will take care of us." Jason replied softly.

He was a new Christian, but Jason knew that if God would send His Son Jesus Christ to die for all human's sins, then God would certainly care for him.

"You are right, my son." Charlie stepped toward Jason and Jenny and said reassuringly. "God will protect us. We will be safe, in God's hands."

"But, the world as we know it will be forever changed." Mac entered the discussion. His broad shoulders sagged and his face within the space suit helmet was morose.

The tentacles ceased their motion and remained still, in contact with the glass plates on the ceiling.

"Now the Prefect is linked to the Architect. There will be no stopping us now." Estone said as he stepped closer to the cube.

The Prefect would have grinned, if it was a human, in satisfaction of its long desired wish come true. It had a link with the Architect.

Now, all it had to do was send its own created invasive computer program that could hack into any system and use it take-over the Architect.

The Architect had created a worm tunnel pathway between it and the Prefect.

It was the perfect means of transmission—instant communication.

Just as the Prefect was about to send the virus through the worm tunnel pathway to the cube, called the Eye of the Architect, something happened…

A shot was fired.

The shot did not come from a high-powered gun that an enforcer carried, nor did it come from one of the prisoners in the chamber.

The shot came from what seemed thin air.

In a moment the gun in Estone's hand was knocked away by a projectile.

A voice came on the communication system in all the space suit helmets in that room.

"You can order your men to drop their weapons, Proctor." The new voice said.

Jason looked around the room, but couldn't see anyone. The enforcers were equally consternated, gazing at the empty space around the column.

Whoever was talking was either capable of shooting through a solid stone pyramid or he was invisible in the room.

"Who are you?" Estone asked coldly, emotionlessly. Fear was not part of his lifestyle.

"May I give you a hint?" The voice replied, "I was the chairman of a government you are not too fond of: a government whose people you have wronged."

"Chairman Scott." Estone was familiar with the politics of Earth and he had seen photos of the chairman.

"That is correct." Scott replied.

"More likely you are a ghost of said person." Estone said sarcastically.

"Tell your men to drop their weapons, or I will put a bullet through your head." Scott said, getting down to business.

Jason began to smile. Someone had come for them.

Estone remained silent for a short time and then he said, "And do you think that the Prefect will stop just because you kill me? A vast fleet of ships with other proctors is orbiting the Earth as we speak. You would be foolish to kill me, Scott."

"Tell your men to drop their guns, now!" Scott, invisible, raised his voice.

"You are only one person against the armada of the Prefect. There is no chance for you." Ekul, young and hot-headed, entered the dialogue.

Suddenly, the computer screen on the cube attached to the side of the column changed and a series of buttons appeared on the screen.

"Nathats sekviy chishshabown shamayim `iyr nagash tebel." Scott's voice said.

"Switch to infrared." Estone whispered to his men and the enforcers mentally activated the infrared option in their armored helmet visors, allowing them to detect Scott.

Estone knew what equipment Scott wore to keep him invisible.

The Garinger Roland transpari-suit was recently invented, Estone knew.

Since the plans were kept safe on the space station, and since Equipacilon was shunned by all the space stations and colonies, none of the Prefect's men had any invisible suit.

That was a problem that would have to change.

Just as the enforcers activated the infrared option that would allow them to see the invisible infrared body head that the transpari-suit could not render invisible, Scott acted.

He scooped up Estone's gun that he had shot out of Estone's hand with his pistol, and began firing at the enforcers.

Ekul dove to the floor.

The K-98 siege rifle cut into the enforcer's armor like a knife through butter as Scott fired.

He was about to aim for Estone, who had killed so many innocent people in cold blood, when a powerful hand smashed into his back and sent him sprawling on the ground.

Estone stood above the fallen, invisible body of Scott. Scott's pistol and rifle had skidded across the floor. Quickly, Estone saw the dust pattern on the floor that followed the contours of Scott's body.

Ekul rose from the ground, flung his rifle to Estone, and said with vicious hate, "Finish him."

Estone didn't hear the young tyro speak. His complete devotion was to the fallen, invisible body. The gun Ekul threw to him landed on the ground, unnoticed.

Seeing that all the enforcers were dead, Estone pulled out a long, razor-sharp battle knife from a sheath on his leg and lunged toward the unarmed elder.

The words, 'nathats sekviy chishshabown shamayim `iyr nagash tebel', Scott had said to the Architect had caused a chain of processes to be set in motion.

The words meant, 'destroy [the] mind-machine [of the] space city near [the] Earth'. It was a clear reference to the Prefect in the 'space city', or space station of Equipacilon, which was the closest one to the Earth.

The depths of the Architect shuddered, in the column, as it began to send a destructive stream of particles, which formed a virus, through the worm hole to the Prefect.

Similar to the effect of radioactive particles bombarding an electrical circuit, the destructive computer code had the ability to subvert and remove all incumbent computer programs.

But in so doing, something would be lost.

Turon could not allow Scott, an old man who had been like a mentor to him, to die.

Estone had already reached Scott Just as Turon as resolving to attack.

Suddenly a voice cried out in pain.

Estone's knife had found its mark even as he had stabbed into what appeared to be thin air.

"I've got you." Estone exclaimed. "Now you're going to pay."

Rushing toward Estone, handcuffs and all, Turon slung his arms around Estone's neck and yanked back with all his might.

Turon had no pity for the evil, murderer who had killed hundreds of thousands in his life.

Estone's neck snapped under the intense, sudden force exerted by a man who weighed thirty pounds more than him.

The limp, dead body of a man, who had sought power for himself: power even if it meant killing the innocent, fell to the ground.

Ekul screamed, "You murderer!", as he reached for the gun of a fallen enforcer.

Scott had recovered from his fall and reacted fast to Ekul's quick move.

Snatching the sharp knife from the dead fingers of Estone, Scott didn't waste a second of indecision.

The young teenager was a vicious killer.

The knife whirled through the air and lodged into Ekul's heart just as he was about to pull the trigger on the high-powered gun.

For a few moments everyone watched the surreal scene play out before them as Ekul gasped in pain with a shocked expression in his eyes: the knife handle protruding from his upper chest in the space suit.

All around the room were fallen, armored bodies.

At the center was the column and moving tentacles of the Architect; a paradox, being the most ancient and most advanced computer of all time.

Mac, Jenny, Jason, Turon, Charlie, and Scott watched Ekul fall to the ground, dead.

Jason could feel a true sorrow in his heart that the boy had not even reached his early adulthood. Why did Ekul have to seek power by following the Prefect? The Prefect claimed that it wants to share its power with its subjects, but in reality that would never happen. Ekul followed the Prefect to the end of his life.

Jason recalled what he knew of the Bible that there were two places, Heaven and Hell. Those who accepted the death of Jesus Christ in their place went to Heaven and those who did not went to Hell.

Scott pressed the opacitizing button on his suit and he materialized out of thin air.

His suit, covering his body and face, had the same rainbow spectrum sheen to it that resembles the pattern on old holographic images. Billions of microscopic photo sensors, that diffraction light into the colors of the spectrum, covered the surface of the suit.

A special, box-shaped breathing intake unit attached to the mask near the mouth allowed for air to pass through while keeping the wearer's mouth invisible.

The man removed the headpiece of his suit, revealing the face of the Chairman of New Philadelphia. And, for the first time in a long time, Scott smiled: the stress slowly evaporating from his face.

"Chairman," Turon nodded in greeting, "it is good to see you."

"I wonder: how did you get here so quickly?" Jason asked, curious.

"Using a vehicle I call the Maelstrom." Scott replied mysteriously, leaving his listeners in suspense.

"Let me guess. It came from the ancients." Jason said with a pretend sarcasm.

Scott smiled as he retrieved the keys for the handcuffs from Estone's belt and began freeing his people. "Did you ever hear about the finding of the tablets?"

"I have heard of some tablets that told your people about the Architect and the ancient people on Earth." Jason replied.

"These tablets," Scott replied in a lecturing tone, "were found in what was known as Siberia in the continent of Asia on the planet Earth. Part of the content of the tablets was written in code. Anyways, these tablets referred to an underground network of tunnels that passed through the Earth: under the oceans, and continents."

Scott walked toward the ladder and continued his lecture. Seeing that he was going somewhere, the others followed.

"There have been old tales of how some caves are entrances to tunnels that lead down to the center of the Earth." Scott said when the reached the upper room where the column of light had been seen and where the holograph of Noah had been view.

"We know that the pressure of the overlaying rock just twenty miles down creates enough pressure to crush rock into a superhot, high-density magma. Thankfully, one of the tablets included instructions to reach one of the tunnel entrances using a system of longitude and latitude just like the modern system we use. The first entrance was located in what was known as the Yukon territory in north America."

They were walking down the tunnel that lead down to the first chamber they had entered in the pyramid.

"Interestingly enough," Scott said after he had commanded the door to open, "there was a storage chamber underground in which a whole fleet of underground vehicles was located. I found the vehicle I have named the Maelstrom in the chamber in the Yukon, and surprisingly, after having sat dormant for over five-thousand years, it worked as perfectly as if it had been newly built."

As they entered the first chamber with the door that led to the outside, Scott finished his monologue, "These underground tunnels that network the Earth have been changed by all the earthquakes and volcanoes, so that large sections are completely blocked by rubble and fallen rock. The Maelstrom, I believe, was designed for such inconveniences."

Giving a command, Scott lead the others through the now-open door to the vast open chamber surrounding the pyramid.

The large monoliths, which had been like a surrounding forest to the pyramid, were still present, but now, small lights appeared on their surfaces, like lights in a city.

Chunks of stone and boulders that had fallen from the rocky ceiling of the cavern formed large piles all around.

Here and there, the crushed bodies of enforcers could be seen.

A few lights sparkled in the distance as rest of the enforcers, in the cavern, were heading toward their space craft.

The word had probably reached them that their proctor, Estone, was dead and being leader-less, they followed their contingency plan of returning to their space craft to wait for further orders from their high Prefect.

In an interstice or quadrangle between the monoliths, large shadows were cast on the ground in different directions by the small lights on the monoliths.

The object illuminated by the strange, ancient lights of the monoliths was itself mysterious and ominous.

Except for the circular hatchway, the entire surface of the vehicle was corner-less, seamless, and smooth.

It appeared to be shaped like an elongated fingernail with a u-shape, curved body.

Scott let his friends adsorb the sight for a moment before he added, "Using a special device which my top scientists still cannot duplicate, the Maelstrom can use the covalent and ionic forces, that hold molecules and compounds together, along with the weak and strong forces that hold subatomic particles together, to separate atoms from each other in molecules, and protons from neutrons in the nuclei of atoms. This way, entire blocks of stone weighing sixty tones can be sliced through, like a knife through water."

"So you traveled through underground passages from North America to Antarctica in that?" Mac asked, incredulous.

"I know it is somewhat small, but it is fast." Scott answered, "The Maelstrom has a levitation system to allow it to hover that can also propel it at mock-4: four times the speed of sound."

No one on space station Equipacilon would have thought it would be possible…

The Prefect was dying.

Surrounded by his space station enclosure and the coldness of space beyond, the ancient computer fought to retain its 'life', but the computer virus the Architect delivered to the Prefect penetrated its defenses like water passing through a mesh screen.

All the years of planning and searching for the Architect only to have its plans backfire on it would have infuriated any man, but the Prefect was not a man.

The thousands of years it had existed did not even seem to have occurred.

Time had no meaning to the Prefect.

Death had no meaning to the Prefect.

With a last cyber-breath, the ancient machine was breached. Its computer programs that constituted its mind were destroyed beyond repair.

The plans of universal domination, power, and self-advancement died with it.

The power shut off on space station Equipacilon. People panicked and darkness fell on all the citizens of the once-powerful space station.

Even as the lights shut off, a new surge of power entered the generators and the light, and life-support systems, and all the electricity in the space station returned.

The Architect was transmitting its own computer programs into the empty computer hardware that had once contained the 'soul' of the Prefect, restoring 'life' to the machine.

Almost the instant the new programs flooded the computer in Equipacilon, the computer sent out commands to the Proctors of Equipacilon, informing them of what just occurred and that it would be best to surrender.

Mechanic robots were given orders to break into armory rooms and round up all the officers in Equipacilon.

In only a few hours, every Proctor and officer in Equipacilon was locked up.

The enforcers were trained to obey the commands of any superior officer without question and so when the government of the space station was replaced, with Turon and elder Scott overseeing the rise of the new government, they willingly complied.

Commands from the new computer of Equipacilon reached the enforcers in the chamber in which the Architect was located and they obediently reentered their space ships and returned to Equipacilon.

Jason learned sadly, to his great sorrow and disappointment, that the man he had befriended, named David, who was part of the Council of Earth, had been reported as dead, being most likely shot by enforcers on the Moon.

A funeral was held in honor of the brave man who aided Jason and Jenny in trying to find Jenny's grandpa, Charlie.

In a large lawn in front of the entrance to the large, spherical government building in New Philadelphia, an assortment of people gathered.

The elite guards of the government building, lead by Turon, closed the ceremony with a salvo of gunshots.

Jason gazed at a nano-sculptor that realistically resembled the elder David as if he was standing there.

The flexible, supple nano-fibers that composed the sculptor could easily have been programmed to make the sculptor of David wave its arm realistically and smile, but they were left stiff, so that it was a mere statue.

"I will miss you, David." Jason whispered. "But, I know I will see you in Heaven."

A hand touched Jason's elbow. It was Jenny.

"Charlie invited you to his house. Would you like to come?"

"I would enjoy that." Jason smiled back at her, "Thank's for telling me."

Jason watched the space craft of the enforcers taking off from their landing spots in New Philadelphia.

Jenny was seated by him at a table on top of a raised deck of Charlie's house.

The sky was melting with an amber sunset. Clouds undulated in high-atmosphere winds.

The city of New Philadelphia was spread before them in a panorama of beautiful architecture and parks. Children with their parents frolicked in the playgrounds.

The view from Charlie's house up on a hill is just the right setting, Jason decided.

Jenny was talking to him with a smile ever present on her face.

Charlie and Turon were inside the house chatting as Charlie pulled a steak dinner out of the thermal unit.

There was a moment of silence when they lost interest in subject they were discussing and Jason began to reminisce over the past events that had so dynamically changed his life: leaving Equipacilon, being saved by Jesus Christ, finding the Architect, battling what had once been his own men, and watching the Architect destroy his old master, the Prefect.

Then, his thoughts returned to Jenny.

"Jenny." Jason leaned slightly closer to her.

"Yes?" She asked, curious.

"While supper's cooking, would you like to take a walk around the parks?"

Jenny blushed and smiled. "I'd love to."

Charlie walked onto the veranda. "Supper's ready."

No one was there.

The table Jason and Jenny were seated at was empty.

"Strange." He muttered to himself. "I thought Jason would stick around for my famous steak dinner."

His attention was brought to movement in the distance and then Charlie's face split into a grin. "Well would you look at that?"

Jason and Jenny were walking hand in hand toward a nearby park. The sunlight cast two shadows on the ground. A bird chirped in the air as it flew overhead.

Charlie shook his head with a small grin. "Something good has come of all this."

The icy surface of the continent of Antarctica was monotonous and illimitable: a desert of eternal whiteness.

Protruding from the ice, towering above the land, a cluster of huge, stone pillars- each at least ninety stories high, thirty feet wide- guarded the entrance to the underground chamber which contained the large pod ship Jason and Turon had used to escaped from the Moon in, as well as the pyramid of the Architect.

The pod was silent as a grave. It had been used once after thousands of years of dormancy and now it was returned to the silence of time.

The pillars which had risen from their hidden recesses in the earth had caused the earthquake that had occurred in the cavern of the Architect.

Weighing several million tons, the massive monoliths were sufficient to cause earthquakes within a ten mile radius.

They would forever remain an enigma, as would their sister, monolithic pillars on the Moon.

None of the historians of New Philadelphia or the liberated Equipacilon could locate a single ancient document or phrase on any tablet or statue that mentioned what the pillars were and what they were meant for.

Only time would unearth the truth.

---

The End