Intelligent Design: Revelations to Apocalypse (14 page)

“A
substantial
amount of financial resources? You mean I'd be rich?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

Visions of living in France jumped into her head. She could smell the cafes, feel the expensive clothes and fast cars, and taste the wine, cheese and croissants.

“I wish you’d told me that part first.” Her voice sounded light and clear.

The visions and sensations were perfect until she remembered her family, Anthony Perez, and Hiaki Nakamura. Her thoughts turned dark at the memory of Agents Harper and Lee killing her boss, and intending to kill her. Now that the option of leaving was a viable recourse, Riesman asked a question she did not expect to ask:

“And what if I stay?”

The Keeper spoke as evenly as before.

“You would take on the virtual life of Christine Reich. You would complete the primary missions, which are twofold: warn your world of the impending natural disaster of the significant release of methane gas emanating from the reduction of ice and permafrost in the North and South Poles and initiate steps that need to be taken prior to this catastrophe, and facilitate Earth’s discovery and processing of Terra’s discovery.”

Methane gas?
Riesman’s FEMA director persona took over. She jumped off the bunk and picked up the tablet.

“What do you mean, ’methane gas?’”

“Immunes Riesman, before I proceed, I need to know if you are inclined to disembark from this proposed mission or to engage it. The choice of this journey is yours.”

The Keeper’s matter of fact tone bothered Riesman.

“So … before I hear anything more, you want to know if I’m in or out.”

“Yes. Immunes Perez chose you because he felt you would also address a number of other objectives.”

“Like what?”

Images of destitute children, women, and families, all in pain and distress flowed across the Keeper’s screen. Riesman’s eyes knitted.

“What the hell is this?”

The Keeper stopped the disturbing flow of human horror and focused on a group of apparently well-off people.

“Disrupt a child trafficking operation posing as an adoption agency in Moscow, Russia. Disrupt human trafficking, prostitution and drug operation in Beijing, China. Disrupt and terminate flow of child slavery via Sir Robert Phillip Pierce of Pierce Industries, London, UK…”

“Hold that image,” Riesman blurted out.

A regal-looking man dressed as an elf and surrounded by very young girls dressed in sheer gowns filled the screen. He smiled, but the girls did not. Perez had looked at the same man at Hiaki’s funeral with intense disgust and vehemence. The reason was now clear.

“Child slavery …
Sir
Pierce.”

“Yes.”

Her anger swelled and she had to consciously release her tightening grip on the tablet’s edges. The music and dancing above seemed to escalate as the question settled in her brain. Her confusion and ambivalence faded and the motivation that emerged caught her by surprise.

Do I want to get back at the people who killed Hiaki? Do I want to save these kids and do a little good in the world
? she thought as more dossiers of ‘bad’ people flowed across the screen.

“I could live in peace … in France …”

“Yes,” the Keeper answered as if it were a question.

Riesman looked into the blue glare in her small cabin and struggled with conflicting thoughts. The urge to run was palpable.

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

You cannot open a book without learning something
. - Confucius

“How could I have been so blind to it all? Why did I wait so long to ask the bigger questions?” Andrea Perez said. She stood akimbo at the apex of the largest pyramid on the planet’s surface in front of several feet of transparent stone windows, looking into what appeared to be a star field and empty space.

She turned and looked at the world clock and calendar on the wall several yards behind her. It announced that it would shut down the planetary cloak field in five seconds. Maintenance and repair would have to be completed in five days. Perez took these precious moments to relax in full knowledge that she and the other scientists would probably be on their feet with the engineers for that entire period.

She turned back as the rocky Terran landscape dotted with pyramids of all sizes materialized in the window. Her reflection, appearing leaner and more muscular than before her battle with the rattus, overlaid the view of the rocky surface.

Perez, wiser and battle hardened, stood prepared to fight, holding the hilts of two long serrated knives. Her old combat knife, retrieved from the rats by the Terrans, sat against her thigh. To complete the ensemble, she sported a handheld laser capable of eight individual shots that could cut through diamond in seconds. She’d never been without her firearm since her release from the infirmary.

She shifted focus back outside before her gaze reached the reflection of her scarred head. To her left, windswept rocks, sand and periodic pyramids glistened in the sun of the perpetual day. She thought about the revelations she’d dug up and shook her head in disbelief that she’d not pieced it all together sooner. In an effort to think of something else, she shifted her gaze to the perpetual darkness on her right where more low-lying pyramids stood against bitter winds and crackling lightning bursts. The flashes illuminated a great frozen ocean in the distance.

She took the precious moments while she waited for Clematis to reflect on her discovery of the solar system’s origin. She’d spent many hours locked away in the Great Library and other libraries, including the Keeper’s Chamber. Terra’s world computer still worked and provided images that fleshed out the illustrations and diagrams the Terrans had produced to preserve the story. Many times she’d cried tears of joy and sadness; she’d felt bursts of understanding and then moments of darkness and confusion. Climbing aboard an alien ship to another planet was nothing in comparison to her latest discoveries.

She’d been so busy learning the new science, technology and languages that she’d only looked at Terran’s history before, not the others. But after Terra came Venus. Her Terran friends and colleagues watched her with great enthusiasm and brought her food and water, as if she were tracking her meal on a great hunt across the Serengeti.

After her battle with the rattus, Perez felt part of an exclusive club. As a result of her journey, as the Terrans called it, they suspended her duties with the holographic emitters and planetary cloaking. Terrans of all ages told the lore of her battle with the Magna Mures, Great Rats, as if she were a great warrior. The young woman she’d saved, daughter of an Elder, who’d sneaked out to look for a male friend, also achieved warrior status for her part in the fight. Both of their roles were great enough to propel them into lore, witnessed by the sentry group and the young woman’s sister. Perez had come of age, and the story would transcend the ages. Whether she liked it or not, she was the adopted kin to the powerful warrior clan House of Ferris. The powerful matriarch, Dimitra, was far from pleased to have her join the family but Perez did save her daughter, Vista. It was a matter of honor now.

The Battle of Delta Mezzanine they called it—sounds good, but it was more a skirmish than a battle. How long ago was it? After Thanksgiving but before Christmas … Christ’s birthday … Son of God…

After the incident and her recovery, she’d returned to her research and discovered that Terrans were expected to endure at least six journeys. She’d already completed three, leaving procreation, teaching, and death on the to-do list. She changed her view from the right to the left and back again while different thoughts jumped around in her head. Along with the wisdom gained from her research came the pain of not being special.

“Intelligent design,” she said quietly.

Though she focused on a series of lightning strikes across the frozen sea, she sensed that Legate Legionis Clematis stood behind her. Her flowery odor and her light footsteps gave her away. After her battle with the rodents, her senses had become acute, honed to even the slightest of air movements. Even the constant hum and vibrations of the underworld’s machinery didn’t obscure them.

“I understand the wisdom of the journey. I’m almost embarrassed at my asking you to tell me. Now, with still more to learn, I’m both at peace and excited,” Perez said to Clematis, still watching the elements rage silently outside while the powerful winds, thunder and hail reverberated under her feet.

“There is no need to be embarrassed, Perez. Always the curious ones are the most impatient. Your Earth origins clearly reinforce both your curiosity and your impatience. Your discipline harnessed them both and brought you to this part of your long journey. The relentless speed and vigor you pursued it with is beyond even the youngest of our youth. Amazing, I say. And in the middle of it, you endured a battle, fought alongside a Terran, saved her life by nearly forfeiting your own, and then you went back to your research. We are proud of you, Perez. Please, though, tell me what you found. I am curious as to how far you went.”

Clematis sounded like a child about to hear a great story. Perez turned to look at her. She realized that her journey was never in isolation; her colleagues and friends were there with her all along.

“While the information and data of your journey is known to me, it’s your interpretation that escapes us all. Your understanding is unique from ours as we have always been on Terra. You bring the perspectives of two worlds, and that is a journey that we cannot take without your help.”

“My help?”

“Yes, Perez. One of your other journeys will be to teach what you have learned from your perspective. But please, tell me your insights.” Clematis walked to the middle of the small room and sat cross-legged as if awaiting an interesting story. Perez joined her on the floor as shadows of lightning danced across the reinforced walls of the transparent stone windows. Perez rearranged her various weapons and sat beside her, wondering where to begin. Unable to cross her left leg due to the deep wounds still healing from the rat tail, she kept her legs straight.

“Please, Perez, do what the Earthers do so well—summarize and give the key points. I do not wish to spoil the full breadth of the story when you start teaching it to us later. I look forward to it.”

My God, I’ve missed so much. How we’ve all fought our nature back on Earth; instant answers and no time for the stories
.

“It started with your love of chestnuts, pyramids, and your physical appearances,” Perez began.

Clematis’s eyes grew wide.

“I knew that would be the starting point! Please, tell me more,” she asked.

“I’d always assumed that both Terra and Earth must have shared a common history at some point. The physical phenotype of the Terrans was consistent with an ancient species of hominids we called Neanderthals. We believed the species died out thirty to forty thousand years ago. The Terran’s skull, the short, strong stature, large jaws, dense bones and powerful muscles and facial structure all led me to believe this, and that my species was the superior species. But Terrans are not Neanderthals.

Rather you are an alien hominid, close in DNA but distinctly separate and Venusian in origin, relocated by yet another alien species.”

“Yes! But then what made you revise that thought, other than you spending time with us?” Clematis asked.

“I’m embarrassed to say that it was less my observations for the last fifteen years and more my deduction, later supported by those now obvious facts. I was really slow,” Perez said.

“Slow, thorough, it does not matter. How did you get to your conclusions?”

“I discovered that while us Earthers’ intelligence is in our frontal lobe, the Terran’s intellectual center is concentrated in the parietal lobe, safely tucked below the head rather than right up front.”

“Oh. I never would have thought that’s how you discovered the truth.”

“Yes. That was why the doctors were so concerned about my head injuries.” Perez pointed to her scarred head. It held a metal plate where a rat’s tail scale had lodged during the fight. She often touched the chain around her neck where the two inch scale hung. A memento pulled from her head, the claw hung like a trophy. It had launched a fashion trend of rat scale and claw necklaces.

“But your Neanderthal species were the original Terrans. The ones we replaced,” Clematis said. Perez shook herself to refocus.

“Yes. To some degree, my discovery was accidental. But when I also discovered that the genetic percentage of Neanderthal and Terran DNA were nearly identical, I realized that the Neanderthals were the Terrans that had made it to Earth. For a period of time we all co-existed there. And for a short time, there was interbreeding which left a genetic marker in many of us hominids as well. The medical test you have here can identify these markers. We might have this technology now but we didn't when I was on Earth. While there is no Neanderthal DNA code in people from Africa’s sub-Saharan plate, it must have been something when I showed up with my dark skin, Terran body and Earth-like head.”

“Oh yes! We had never seen such a unique distribution of our DNA so clearly present in a dark Earther such as you,” Clematis said.

“Well, you can thank my multiracial heritage for that. Clearly, there is more European influence than my parents and I thought. So once I realized that our species co-existed, I had to re-evaluate our very existence on Earth and the probability that we came from elsewhere.”

“Yes. The fourth planet from the sun. What do the Earthers call it?”

“Mars. It’s funny too; all of our myths, stories and even some of our science clearly point to it being an older planet that had life. Our best science fiction literature suggests an advanced civilization living on Mars, an idea supported by ancient writings throughout our history. Still, once I found the Keepers’ old logs on Mars, I felt foolish for not seeing it before.” Perez rubbed her temples. She had a lot to keep her busy: charts, books, two-dimensional images, and ancient Keepers’ logs all meticulously copied by hand in Latin. And while her appreciation and understanding of Latin grew in leaps and bounds, she never found out how Latin, a language from her own planet’s ancient history, ended up on Terra.