The Thrones of Eden 3 (Eden) (25 page)

What the—

The moment he grabbed the latch for a second time the humming immediately stopped. “This isn’t good,” he commented.

“I thought it might have been the passing of air through vents and openings—a soughing, if you will, of the wind. But I’m starting to think it’s something otherwise.”

“Like a generator, maybe?”

Hillary remained quiet.

Demir placed a hand against the door. The composite had an odd feel to it. Although it was solid in appearance, it felt gelatinous even though the surface of the door did not bend or yield to his touch. It remained solid. So his senses of sight and touch were not in sync.

After he removed his hand he asked Savage to do the same. When Savage did the humming started right up.

“A warning mechanism.” Demir offered this as a statement rather than a question.

But Hillary responded anyway. “If it is, then I would hate to think of the technology behind it.”

Demir turned to Savage, each man knowing what the other was thinking. They couldn’t retreat, so the only recourse left to them was to venture beyond this doorway.

The exact moment Savage placed his hand on the door the humming stopped.

And for a long moment Savage pondered whether or not the next move would prove to be a fatal one. They had run the gamut in Eden, then in Mintaka, each time skating by the thinnest margin with their lives always in the balance. Would Alnitak be any different? Savage had no reason to believe that it would. But they had no choice, either. Alnitak was the final temple, their last bastion of hope for finding a way out of Eden.

After a long pause he pushed and the door opened easily, giving them uncontested access to Alnitak which—and without providing them with a challenge by way of a riddle—struck them as odd.

When everyone was inside, the door swept softly behind them and closed with a hollow click that sounded final.

They were locked in.

Savage and Demir tried the door and found it immovable, the door firmly in place. More so, neither man could find a seam that gave any indication that a door was there at all. It was now a solid wall.

“Well,” said Savage, “it appears that Alnitak is not going to give us any alternatives either.”

Demir withdrew his knife and turned it over in his hand, examining it. It was the only weapon he had. It was the only weapon that any of his men carried, their assault weapons having run dry of ammo. And though KA-BARs had their advantages, he also knew that they had their disadvantages as well. Unlike firearms, they never ran dry. But the huge disadvantage was that battles had to be fought in close proximity. Worse, knives were completely useless against hordes of creatures of overwhelming numbers. And then he faced Savage once more as he slid the knife neatly into its sheath. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” he said.

John looked at the knife, then at the man, realizing that the team was running on empty. Should they be confronted by something hidden in the shadows of Alnitak, their chances of survival would be extremely limited.

Savage then gave the commando a small inclination of his head, the meaning behind the gesture saying:
it’ll be fine
.

But Demir was a seasoned soldier who knew better, so he offered nothing in exchange.

As they pressed forward Alyssa took point, flashing her light into the shadows, the beam barely penetrating or offering any clues as to what lie beyond the veil of darkness.

But the further they penetrated into Alnitak the more they became in tune with their surroundings.

Outlines and images of things began to take shape within the scopes of their lights.

As the light beams scanned from left to right, from ceiling to floor, eyes flared with great measures of disbelief.

Everyone remained as still as statues as their lights focused to a concentrated beam that settled against designed products created by lost technology.

Suddenly a mutual thought settled in Alyssa and Savage’s mind: Alnitak was neither a temple nor a tomb.

It was a lab.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Rows of stasis chambers filled with an amniotic-like fluid spotted the floor of a massive chamber that was as large as several football fields sitting end to end. Though Alnitak was the smallest of the three temples in Eden, it was still equal in size when compared to Khufu in Egypt. So this particular area, as large as it was, was most likely one of many inside Alnitak.

Feeling unsettled with what they were surrounded by, Demir and his two remaining teammates removed their knives and readied themselves.

Savage and Alyssa, with Hillary and the Culture Minister in tow, headed to the closest stasis bin.

Inside the container and floating within fluid that had the thickness and consistency of molasses, was a body that was approximately seven-and-a-half feet in height, but folded into a fetal position. It was hairless and waxy in appearance, and its skin was milky and translucent with tracks of navy-blue veins coursing through its entirety. The breadth of its shoulders and the width of its chest were wide and barrel-like. And the angles of its face and the design of its musculature denoted complete maturity.   

Alyssa placed a hand against the wall of the glass-like compound that was truly alien in its texture. “John, do you see this?”

He nodded. “It’s very reminiscent of the chambers we found inside the ship beneath the Yucatan Peninsula, isn’t it?”

“They’re very close. And this thing inside . . .” She cut herself short.

“I know,” he told her. “It’s very . . . human.”

The body floated lazily within the thick fluid, almost dreamily. Stretching from the chamber’s ceiling to its mouth and nose region was an accordion-like tube and nasal mask that inflated and deflated in even measures like lungs. As the tube expanded and contracted, so did the chest of the being.

“My God,” said Hillary. “It’s alive.”

“They’re all alive,” Savage stated evenly. He then allowed his gaze to follow the multiple rows of containment bins that eventually disappeared into a distant wall of darkness. In his mind he knew that the mechanical wombs numbered into the thousands.

These were the Children of the Second Cycle.

“These containment bins,” said Savage as he addressed Alyssa. “And what’s in them. They’re the thrones of Eden according to the stanzas, aren’t they?”

She nodded. “And those who sit upon the thrones of Eden shall reign in the year 2021.”

Demir stepped forward. “So this is our future? This is the new humankind?” Then with carefree smugness: “They don’t look so tough.”

Savage turned on him. “You don’t get it, do you? These things are alive and they’re far superior to us. And for whatever reason these beings will rise the moment we die off in the year 2021. The question is: why and how is that going to happen?”

“Do you not see the advantage we have over these things since they are not active?” Demir circled the stasis bin for closer examination. From what he could see they
were
physically superior, and perhaps more intelligent as well. “When the advantage is ours,” he added, raising a closed fist, “then we take it.”

“What’s to take?”

Demir raised his arms in mock crucifixion to showcase their surroundings, the knife was still in his hand. “We take the advantage that’s currently offered to us,” he told him, “by destroying those who lay immobilized.”  He then directed the point of his knife at the umbilical tube that led to the being’s facemask. “There’s a unit of some kind that’s keeping these things alive—a respirator. We need to find it, dismantle it, and render these beings inoperative before they hit the floor running—which I believe is an American expression, yes?”

“You’re talking genocide,” said Hillary.

“I’m talking about the salvation of mankind. Right now we are in the situation to rewrite what has already been written in those stanzas. I, for one, do not believe that the future is pre-ordained. So the opportunity is here for the taking.” He then waived a hand frantically about. “Look around you,” he added. “There are thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of these things lying in wait.” He let his arm fall by his side.

John Savage and Alyssa looked at the being within the stasis chamber.
Was an act of genocide the answer?

Alyssa wasn’t completely sold on that initiative. “These things are obviously intelligent,” she said. “Perhaps communicating—”

“Communication is immaterial when they have already determined that mankind is going to die off in 2021. They have drawn the line. We’ve just happened to see that line before it was too late.”

Demir was right, she considered. They
had
drawn the line, having already determined that man was a complete and utter failure. Therefore, it was time for a change. More so, if Eden had not been discovered by her father, then the prophesy would have gone uncontested and the course of mankind would end in 2021 without as much as a shot across mankind’s bow.

This was, essentially, war.

She slowly raised a hand to her womb and left it there.

Now she understood that morality could be something quite fragile to a mother who was willing to do anything to save her child. Could she justify acts of genocide, however, to do so? The answer was ashamedly ‘yes.’ The easiest thing for anyone to do is justify any act no matter how heinous that act may be. And it was at this moment of insight that she wanted to break because she never felt so dirty or ashamed in her entire life.

“Here, Alyssa, you need to see this.” Hillary was looking downward at the base of the stasis bin.

Wiping a lone tear from the corner of her eye, she sidled up beside him.

A screen resembling a heart monitor denoted the rhythm of the being’s biological patterns as several lines vacillated in even waves, peaks or valleys. One image, in particular, caught Hillary’s eye as he directed a finger at it.

It was the image of a corkscrewing DNA helix they had seen throughout the chambers.

“It’s the same strand as the columns discovered inside the Chamber of the One,” he told her. “And the same one that emitted from the lens of the scaled model of Eden.” He then looked at the body floating within. “It’s also the strand of these beings.”

The image rotated on the monitor screen.

“Now I understand,” he uttered, nearly pressing his face to the glass-like composite. “The breaks in the strand, the incompleteness, it’s not a mismanagement of this creature, but a perfection of it.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Demir.

Hillary pointed to the spiraling image. “Our DNA strand is complete and uniform. But the breaks, I believe, have been removed because they are the genetic dispositions that make up the grave faults of the human being.” He looked at the figure inside the chamber, at its physical perfection and the beauty of its entire makeup. “We were a trial run,” he finally said. “We are the Children of the First Cycle. But certain dispositions in the DNA chain have been removed because they’re the links that make us what we are, a warring and vicious creature.”

Alyssa stared at the monitor screen, the image of the DNA strand revolving and showing the breaks. Hillary was right. We were the trial run. And we failed miserably. With certain genetic qualities removed, she now understood that the breaks were the flaws of mankind that had been eliminated. What she was looking at was the perfect organism—a Child of the Second Cycle that would harbor no flaws, no imperfections, and no deficiencies.  

Yes
, she thought, while closing her eyes for a brief moment.
We have failed miserably
.

They moved along the rows, the bins featuring male and female life forms, all pale, waxy, hairless—yet completely beautiful in countenance.

There were thousands of them as Demir had opinioned, and then he offered a solid hypothesis that there were probably more in the adjoining chambers.

And now it had all fallen in place for Alyssa, the kaleidoscopic pieces of a puzzle coming together to fashion a clear and precise image. Mintaka was the Chamber of God, the Creator of Mankind, a celestial scientist who became the Father through recombinant DNA restructuring and manipulation, thereby creating mankind in His image by reseeding Earth. Eden was the tomb and resting place of Adam and Eve, those who would become the groundwork of mankind for the First Cycle, an obvious and abysmal failure. Alnitak, on the other hand, had served as the cradle for the New Age of mankind, a race perfected to correct everything that the First Cycle had patently made wrong.

Anu had proposed himself to his children to be a God when he was nothing more or less a biological descendent playing with sciences far beyond the knowledge of his first mistake, man. His sciences had become magic to far lesser minds, perhaps a stepping stone of mental development to those who had yet to grow enough to realize that magic was science not yet understood. But mankind had grown little and matured even less, finding violence a sweet narcotic that had become his drug of choice, a grave disappointment.

As time progressed man had grown increasingly bitter as regimes destroyed their own kind with impunity, finding prejudice in the color of a man’s skin or against those who possessed diverse beliefs, these ingredients often inviting an intolerant hand that would promote certain ideas with the blade of a sword or the end of a whip.     

Peace was nothing but a desire for the current race, something that was beyond reach. But those of the Second Cycle would be better and more suited to obtaining that goal. They would be tolerant to the needs of others no matter how much they differed. And they would succeed by creating a utopia where none truly existed before—a true Garden of Eden.

It was now so obvious to Alyssa, so clear. Man had become a dismal failure on all fronts.

But there was the baby.

A tear crept from the corner of her eye as they moved to the end of the massive chamber where they came to a passageway against the far wall. There were no stanzas, no archaic script or symbols, just a passageway that led to an adjoining room.