Synarchy Book 2: The Ascension Read online

  “I can’t believe we’re wasting Think Tank hours on this.” Abe shook his head as he sat down at the computer next to Shirley.

  “Right. Visualize. See you in half an hour.” Derek pulled the door closed.

  “Are you going to think he’s cuter if he comes out all Buddha-like?” Abe asked, looking up at Shirley with a barely suppressed grin.

  There was no stopping Shirley’s blush this time. “I hope you get abducted by aliens.”

  Abe burst into laughter. “Great, now I’m going to get beamed up to some spaceship that’s part of some Galactic Federation.”

  Shirley barely stifled a giggle. “Stranger things have happened.”

  Abe snorted. “Yeah, maybe to you.”

  §

  June 12, 2012 - 9:44 AM

  Alexandria, VA

  S.V.T. Think Tank

  “How many other things do we have that we don’t know about it? Or are we fully up to speed now?” Lucien Terenzio asked as he climbed out of the car, looking around. The SVT Think Tank complex was gated off, a steel and glass building partially hidden by the array of tulip trees scattered across the well-tended lawn. Off the parking lot, a family of ducks played in the small man-made pond, and park benches for employee breaks littered the area.

  “Combine your memories with current knowledge, and we should all be fully up to speed.” Vasco Terenzio, the oldest by seconds, tucked his hands comfortably into his pants pockets and walked up to the building’s doors.

  “I have to say, your family is very adept at keeping secrets,” Caleb Kincade said as he closed the car door then and followed along behind them.

  “Is any one surprised Stefano’s son managed to carry on the intrigue?” Simone Terenzio-Russo sounded amused as she followed her brothers into the building.

  Derek was standing in the lobby, waiting for them. He had just finished in the Accumulator when the call came in that the triplets were a few minutes away. He hadn’t had a chance yet to go over the results of his meditation session with Abe and Shirley, but that could wait until later. When the triplets walked into the lobby, Derek smiled warmly and walked over to greet them.

  Lucien made the last introduction. “Derek, this is our shadow, Caleb Kincade.”

  Caleb stepped forward and shook Derek’s hand. “Mr. Vaughn, I’m told that your level is the most secure in the building. After I’ve seen the Terenzios there, I’ll need access to your security center, full clearance, and cooperation from your personnel.”

  Simone studied Caleb as he gave orders to Derek. Since climbing out of the Holon that had provided she and her brothers with their past life memories, little things reminded her constantly of Kyle Zhane, a husband from a time not so long ago. Caleb was becoming one of them. His tone, his mannerisms, were almost General-like, and they stirred up fond memories of a man that she had deeply, deeply loved. That was the past, though, and Caleb wasn’t Kyle; not that it would matter if he were. Shaking herself back into the present, Simone followed Derek and her brothers.

  “Not a problem, Mr. Kincade.” Derek looked both tired and excited as he led them over to the elevators. Inside, he swiped his access card on the panel and leaned forward for the retinal scan. Once his identity was confirmed, he pressed the button for his floor.

  “So, what kind of cool projects are we working on?” Lucien asked.

  “Too many to list.” Derek chuckled. “Level two is robotics and weapons. Really cool stuff. Level three is split between our security center and the bio weapons division. Level four, where we’re going, is mine.”

  “And what do you primarily work on, on your level?” Simone asked.

  “We sit around and think of cool stuff for the other two levels to work on.” Derek smiled.

  “I want a light saber,” Lucien said.

  Derek chuckled. “Me, too. You say the word, Mr. President, and we’ll start working on it.”

  “Is this how we’ll be using our presidential power?” Amusement flickered through Simone’s eyes.

  “He gets no say in what goes on at the Think Tank,” Vasco said, straight-faced.

  “Haters. Both of you.” Lucien eyeballed his siblings.

  The elevator doors dinged open, and Derek led the way. Two main lab rooms sat in the middle of the fourth level, with a smaller conference room sandwiched between them. The senior scientists’ offices were on the second floor, accessible by a spiral staircase. Abe and Shirley sat in the lab room where they had brought Menes days earlier. Derek led the triplets into the lab, and while introductions were made again, Caleb prowled the area, checking the exits. Seemingly satisfied the triplets would be fine without him for a few moments, he excused himself and took the stairs down to the security center.

  “And this is—was—Menes.” Derek took them over to the cryogenic tank that was slightly bigger than a coffin, sitting up against one wall. Derek flipped a switch and turned on the light, illuminating the deceased man floating in liquid nitrogen.

  There was a mixture of subtle, surprised reactions on the triplet’s faces. Menes looked otherworldly, even in death.

  “Have you performed an autopsy?” Vasco looked over at the scientists.

  Abe nodded. “Aside from his DNA, he’s just like us. He had the healthiest internal organs I’ve ever seen. The anomaly is that he has three strands of DNA instead of two, and I cannot determine how that works. It’s pretty crazy.”

  “Is that even supposed to be able to happen?” Lucien rubbed the back of his neck, glancing at Abe.

  “No. Our cells shouldn’t even be able to handle it. But Menes’ body is a little more evolved than ours,” Abe said.

  “Have you figured out how that works?” Simone asked, pointing to the golden rod with the crystal attached to the top.

  Derek shook his head. “No. But, we do know that Crystals can focus, amplify, transform, transmit and store energy. Marc Vogel, a pioneer in this science, among other things, called it FATTs.”

  Simone blinked, staring down at the rod. “Crystals do that?”

  “Sure do. You don’t realize it, but you use crystals in your computers, your LCD screens, clocks, all kinds of devices,” Derek explained. “The science of actually storing information or energy—like a battery, for example—directly inside a crystal is still in its baby stages. In 1994, though, Stanford University scientists proved it could be done when they stored the image of the Mona Lisa inside a quartz crystal, and then retrieved it. That equaled about 163 KB of data. Not a lot. We tried to measure the energy in this thing—” Derek motioned at the rod. “—using a very complex device called an Omega 5, and we’ve determined that this crystal holds a crazy amount of energy. In terms you can understand, probably millions of terabytes of data.”

  Lucien whistled. “That’s a lot.”

  “It’s defiantly a power source, and that’s how it was able to put that force field around Menes, but I have no idea what the mechanics of that are. It’s beyond our science.” Derek looked a little awed. “We could detach the crystal from the rod and do more tests, if you want.”

  “Don’t,” Vasco said. “Not yet, anyway. What have you found in regards to evidence about the Ascension?”

  “Conscious Evolution might be a better term for it,” Shirley said.

  Lucien scratched the back of his head. “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s that?”

  “Ascension implies that humans are going to leave their physical bodies and transform into some ethereal state. I don’t think that’s going to be the case. It’s our consciousness that is ascending or, more accurately, evolving.”

  Vasco arched a brow. “Meaning?”

  “Einstein stated that the same consciousness that created a problem cannot be the same consciousness to fix it. We can all agree that humanity is sitting in front of a very profound crossroad, and we may very well be on the brink of destroying our planet. Faced with this challenge, and remembering Einstein’s words, the only logical conclusion would be to change our consciousness. Evolve.” Shir
ley grabbed a stylus and touched it to the large LCD screen, bringing up bar graphed data. “Admittedly, the science is still in its infant stages, but there are some amazing experiments being done that show the power of our minds, and our ability to create or manifest the things that happen in our lives.”

  “I got you. The whole, we affect our reality, and the internal creates the external stuff,” Lucien said.

  Shirley smiled. “Exactly.”

  Simone walked behind Shirley’s chair, looking at the LCD screen. “Are there any scientific examples?”

  Shirley nodded, “A few. The Global Consciousness Project is an international group that attempts to measure the power of consciousness interacting with random event generators. Their data is fascinating. For example, they saw activity four hours before 9/11 which leads to speculation that on some level, we knew it was going to happen. They’ve found the same happens right before an earthquake, or other natural disasters.” Dragging the pen over the screen, Shirley moved one graph aside and brought forward another. “Lynn McTaggart is another researcher who has used large groups of people to conduct what she calls ‘intention’ experiments. They’ve managed to change the pH levels of water, just by thinking about it.”

  “McTaggart is an ex-journalist, not a scientist and the Global Consciousness data isn’t as conclusive as they make it sound.” Abe shook his head. “Like Shirley said, all the science is in its infancy and in my opinion, unreliable.”

  Lucien grinned faintly down at Abe. “Aw, you kinda remind me of Vasco before we could get him to believe in past lives.”

  Abe blinked. “Say, what?”

  “I’ve heard talk about a Galactic Alignment, what is that specifically?” Simone interrupted.

  “You remember your past lives?” Shirley’s eyes widened over at Vasco, who shrugged at her. “That’s amazing.” Shirley mulled over the concept of reincarnation, then looked over her shoulder at Simone. “It occurs once every 25,800 years. The Sun, and Earth will line up in the center of the Milky Way at the exact moment of our winter solstice. Astronomers who have studied the Galactic Center report that periodically, for reasons unknown, it spits out extreme barrages of cosmic energy.”

  “Which is good, bad, we don’t know?” Lucien looked between the scientists.

  “We don’t know,” Abe said.

  “It has been theorized by a lot of researchers such as Sergey Smelyakov, that as the Galactic center spits out this energy, it is catalyzing our evolution by means of higher dimensional torsion waves. They travel to Earth through the Sun. In a few months, we’ll be in line to get them directly,” Shirley said.

  “I think my brain just exploded.” Lucien chuckled.

  “We’ve felt the same way the last few weeks, Lucien,” Derek said.

  Abe rolled his eyes. “Okay, again, more unproven theories. The only thing scientists are certain of is that Earth’s magnetic field is at the lowest it’s ever been. That sort of decline only happens when the magnetic poles are reversing. At this point, there’s no denying it. They’re going to flip,” Abe said.

  “And what happens to humans when the poles flip?” Lucien asked.

  Abe shrugged. “Probably nothing. Animals that rely on the magnetic field for direction might get a little turned around. Electronics may be affected.”

  “The issue is the combination of the magnetic field being weak and the influx of solar storms that are supposed to peak by the end of the year,” Shirley added.

  “What’s a solar storm?” Simone asked.

  “Think of it as a big blast of radiation and energy being hurled at the earth. The Earth’s magnetic field protects us when the Sun has its hiccups. At the end of this year the storms are going to hit maximum, and the magnetic field is weak. That has the potential to affect the Global Satellite Communications network. Transformers could get fried, and that means worldwide power outages that could take years to fix. Commercial airliners would have to be grounded, things of that nature,” Derek said.

  Lucien whistled low. “No wonder all the doomsayers are having a field day.”

  “Could the peak of solar storms be caused by all this, what did you call it?” Simone glanced at Shirley. “Torsion something?”

  “Torsion waves?” Shirley nodded. “That’s a possible theory. Another interesting point about the magnetic fields is that there are studies, which even Mr. Skeptic can’t argue with, that point to a direct correlation between our consciousness and earth’s magnetic field.”

  “And before she takes it to the New Age place,” Abe shot Shirley a heatless glare, “studies have shown that where earth’s magnetic field is low, change happens faster. Take California for example. Where the magnetic field is high, change happens much slower. IE the bible belt.”

  “You could theorize then, that when the poles reverse, we could be wiping our plates clean. The patterns in the field will be released during the reversal, which could leave our consciousness open to, well…” Derek shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “Exactly,” Shirley shot Derek a quick smile. “Add to that what could happen when we line up with the Galactic Center.”

  “We could get completely reprogrammed.” Lucien interrupted, his brows furrowing. “But with what?”

  “That’s the million dollar question,” Abe said, lacing his fingers together behind his head.

  Simone rubbed her temples. All this scientific terminology made her want a drink. “Well, we’ll find out soon enough won’t we?”

  “What about your team in Piedras Negras?” Vasco asked Derek.

  “They’ve found something underneath the site. After we spoke with you all, we were going to join them and see about going in,” Derek said.

  Vasco clucked his tongue. “Pull your team back.”

  Derek blinked in surprise. Shirley and Abe shared his expression. “Sir?”

  “Pull your team back for the moment, Derek. Send them to the nearest town and have them wait for further instructions,” Vasco said.

  Derek frowned. “May I ask why?”

  “Because if you’re right, and you have found the Cave of Creation, the Anunnaki are not going to let you get near it. And we’re not ready for that move, yet. I’ve got something else for you to work on, in the meantime.”

  “Wait, how do you know about the Anunnaki?” Shirley traded glances between the three Terenzios.

  “We are the all-knowing.” Lucien winked.

  “We wouldn’t be very good protectors if we didn’t.” Simone smiled

  Abe groaned and rubbed his hands over his face. “It’s true isn’t? It’s all true. I’m going to have to stop eating red meat and go to stupid yoga classes.”

  His complaint brought light chuckles from everyone but Vasco, who continued looking at Derek. “Have you ever heard of Nicholas Tesla?”

  Derek nodded. “Of course.”

  “Later this afternoon, Robert will be here. He’s bringing a semi-functional prototype of one of Tesla’s designs. I need you to build six of them, and you have a little less than six months to get them fully functional.”

  Nicholas Tesla was a genius way ahead of his time. That the Terenzios had gotten their hands on one of his blueprints and were giving them the task to build one of his prototypes fueled the excitement in Derek’s eyes. “Yes, sir.”

  “Utilize your other team as you need on this. When we’re ready for you to go in, you’ll have support and protection.” Vasco held out his hand.

  Derek shook it. “You got it.”

  §

  June 12, 2012 - 11:21 AM

  Alexandria, VA

  Commonwealth Avenue

  To get from downtown Alexandria to Commonwealth Avenue was a twenty minute drive. Caleb navigated the tinted window SUV down the quaint, tree-lined streets to the two hundred block. Their destination was a large house sitting on the corner. An old chain link fence surrounded the property, and a massive oak tree dominated the front yard. Roses in full bloom wound their way around the front gate. Caleb pull
ed the car into the driveway and stopped in front of the closed garage door. “Don’t get out.”

  “I have this great mental image of us walking somewhere, or doing something before Caleb tells us it’s okay, and getting bum rushed by him.” Lucien grinned from the back seat.

  Caleb looked at them in the rearview mirror. The humor in his eyes was hidden by his sunglasses. “If you see me running at you, do me a favor and help out by hitting the ground.”

  “I don’t know if I’m the duck and cover kind of girl. I think I’d want to shoot back,” Simone mused.

  “That’s the Liliana in you talking.” Lucien chuckled.

  “If I’m running at you, just duck. We’ll get around to the shooting afterwards.” The garage door slowly opened. Caleb pulled the SUV inside. Once the door closed, he turned off the engine. “Now, you can get out.”

  Simone climbed out of the car first, just as her cell phone vibrated. She glanced down at the caller ID, and her eyes hardened.

  Vasco caught her expression. “Victor?”

  “Yes.” She glared at the phone as if Victor could see it.

  “C’mon, let me put a hit out on him. Divorce takes too long, and we’ve got plenty of bored assassins on the payroll,” Lucien said in all seriousness.

  “Are you expecting any important calls today?” Caleb asked quietly.

  Simone paused, then shook her head. “No.”

  Caleb walked up to her, took her phone, and pressed the button to answer the call. “Mr. Russo, Simone, will be unavailable for the rest of the day. She’ll call you at her earliest convenience.”

  “Who the hell is this?” Victor demanded.

  “Miss Terenzio asks that you don’t call again. If you choose to continue this harassment she’ll be forced to exercise her Presidential powers. You don’t want that Mr. Russo. She’ll be in touch.” Caleb ended the call without giving Victor a chance to respond, and turned the phone off.