Synarchy Book 1: The Awakening Read online

  “I’m pissed off this is a boy’s retreat. Oh wait, I’m in charge now too. That just changed.” Simone said it with a smile but the look in her eyes gave credence to her statement. She climbed out of the car first, turning her face to the breeze. “The ocean smells different here.”

  “Hey hey, Co-President. Get your own retreat,” Lucien protested good-naturedly, getting out of the car after her. He carried his wrinkled suit jacket in one hand.

  “Guards are well hidden,” Vasco commented, closing the limo door behind him. Unless you were really staring it was easy to miss the dark camera lenses in the trees, in corner beams along the wrap­around porch. One Dion Corp security guard was standing in front of the four-car garage and Vasco was certain he had seen another near the front door as they arrived, though he didn’t know where the man was now. Probably walking the perimeter.

  “Your grandfather loved it here,” said Tom Wilkens, head of security. For the last thirty years the bulky, white-haired man had been in charge of the Terenzio Ranch, as the guards posted there had come to call it.

  “I can see why. Did he ever bring Grandmother here?” Vasco asked Tom, walking towards the front door.

  “Marilyn? Twice. Himself, he spent little over a year here at one point.” Tom shook his head remembering. “That was a bad time for him.”

  “Well, you know we’re a moody bunch,” Lucien said with a mock frown. Simone elbowed him as they walked inside.

  “If you say so, Mr. President,” Tom replied nonchalantly, smoothing a hand over his full neatly trimmed beard. He turned to them in the open foyer. “Your pass codes to get in and out are your Dion employee numbers. There are two cars in the garage, keys are hanging up if you want to explore. Your helicopter leaves at ten PM sharp. Pack light, I’m told the journey you’re taking is a bit…uncomfortable.”

  “Nice.” Lucien rubbed his hands together, looking around. “I need to know where the infinity pool is and where the bitches are.”

  Simone rolled her eyes. “Keep it to your own section of the house. I’m going to call my husband.” Of the three of them, Simone was the only one thus far to get married. Her husband, Victor, worked at Dion in the marketing department.

  “Phones are everywhere. Pool is out by the gardens. Let us know what type of ‘bitch’ you want and give us an hour,” Tom said casually. He had received stranger requests from the Terenzio men that had visited here over the years.

  “Thanks Tom.” Simone smiled and walked up the spiraling staircase.

  “Don’t hate,” Lucien called out teasingly after his sister. He grinned at his brother. “If the journey after sucks, my morning I’m going to enjoy. Want to join me, Vasco?”

  “No.” Vasco set his hands comfortably into his pants pockets. “Tom, show me where my grandfather went most often when he was here.”

  Tom nodded at Vasco. “No problem.”

  “What’s on your mind, V?” Lucien canted his head at Vasco curiously.

  “Grandfather,” Vasco replied simply. The mp3 player they had heard on the plane was sitting in his pocket; he intended to listen to it again.

  Lucien paused then nodded. “Right. You know where I’ll be if you want to talk.” He set a hand on his brother’s shoulder briefly as he walked past him. “Tom, come see me when you are done. I’ll be in the pool with my Christmas list.”

  “Sure thing,” Tom said to Lucien before motioning at Vasco to follow him. “Your grandfather spent most of his time in his office, Mr. President, this way.” He led Vasco down a short series of hallways to a pair of closed doors at the end. Tom had a string of keycards on his belt and he flipped through them until he found the one he wanted, waving it past the unseen security strip built into the doorframe on the right side. It beeped quietly and when the latch clicked he pushed it open but didn’t walk in, instead he stepped aside to let Vasco pass. “I’ll have a keycard made for you. I believe the envelope on the desk is for you too.” Tom winked at him then walked away.

  Vasco quirked a brow at him and his curiosity was piqued when he stepped into the room and saw that Tom was right. A mid-size manila envelope sat on the spotless desktop surface, his name scrawled in familiar handwriting on the front. He shook his head slowly, a wry smile on his mouth. “You never bore, Grandfather, that’s for certain.”

  §

  June 7th, 2012

  S.V.T. Think Tank

  Alexandria, VA 6:22 AM

  “No fucking way!”

  Derek jerked his head up from the desktop, Abe’s excited shout ripping him out of the brief nap. Two hours ago he had secretly updated Marcello on everything they had been doing. To Shirley and Abe’s knowledge the head of S.V.T. Think Tank was Roberto Terenzio, Isabella Terenzio’s (current Governor of Alcyone Island) son. From their group, only Derek was privy to the knowledge that Roberto was more a figure head than anything else, and that it was the mysterious Marcello who he reported too.

  Derek had been more than a little surprised when their enigmatic boss had given them a green light on everything. He was also deeply saddened by the news that Marcello was dying. Even though they hadn’t been close, (Derek had never met Mar­cello in person) he knew that his brother Leone, did work closely with him and would take this especially hard. Derek had made a mental note to give his brother a call when the hour was decent.

  He glanced down at his watch to note the time then called out groggily at Abe, “What happened?”

  “Hang on.” Abe was standing at one of the lab tables, his eyes glued to the microscope. Slowly he adjusted a dial on the instrument then moved away to work on the laptop next to him, his fingers pounding the keys. Ten seconds later the computer made a sharp beeping sound causing Abe to shake his head in amazement.

  Derek rubbed his hands across his face, slapping his cheeks to wake himself up. Finally he picked up his glasses on the table next to him and stood, walking over to Abe. “What is it?”

  “In its most simplistic terms?” Abe scratched at his chin. “Menes was the healthiest man alive. Menes is also the first specimen I’ve seen with three DNA strands, instead of the two that are found in, oh, every human currently on the planet.”

  Derek’s jaw went slightly agape. He looked over at Menes’ body as if the dead man could confirm this then back at Abe. “That’s not possible.”

  “Course it’s not. It’s also impossible for a man to live five-plus miles down in the ocean, and then suddenly float to the surface carrying a crystal rod.” Abe just shot him a look. “Come see for yourself, the testing is accurate. Menes’ DNA is just…not of this world.”

  Abe slid to one side and Derek stepped up to the computer, reading through the test results. It filled him with a childlike wonder, reminding him how much mystery could exist in something so impossibly small. And then he felt like the world had tilted and tossed him into a place he no longer understood when he realized Abe was right. “Holy shit.”

  “It gets weirder.” Shirley walked back into the room carrying a few computer printouts

  “Menes's DNA has three strands. You can’t beat that.” Abe flopped down into a rolling chair, lacing his fingers behind his head.

  Derek couldn’t help but smile a little at the appearance she made. They had all been working around the clock and her cherry red hair was half piled on top of her head, half hanging loose around her face. She looked tired and touchable but he kept his hands to himself. “What have you got?”

  “Remember when Menes said that someone named Loki would alert the Anunnaki?” Shirley asked, stopping at the table in front of them.

  Derek and Abe nodded.

  “In a nutshell, they are referenced primarily in Sumerian culture. According to Sumerian writings, the Anunnaki were gods that came to Earth from the Planet Nibiru, also referred to as Planet X, or the twelfth planet.”

  Derek leaned his back against the table’s edge, folding his arms across his chest as he listened. “I’ve heard of Planet X. Orbital calculations have showed there is somethi
ng pulling at Neptune and Uranus and it’s not Pluto. NASA has been looking for years for the large body that is theorized as probably being way out past it.”

  “Exactly. The story about the Anunnaki gets better though. They are described as tall beings with wings and a round disc above their heads,” Shirley continued.

  “Sounds like a biblical angel to me,” Abe commented.

  Shirley nodded at him. “It does, which means it was probably borrowed into Christianity like a plethora of other religions. As the story goes, the Anunnaki came to set up mining colonies because they needed the gold to repair the atmosphere on their planet. When they saw primate humans here, a.k.a homo erectus they decided to use their superior knowledge of genetics, tinker with us and make themselves a working class to do the mining for them, resulting in the current human.”

  Derek began rubbing his temples as if such action would jumpstart his brain into understanding, but he remained silent.

  “Fuck, is the Tooth Fairy real too?” Abe tossed his hands into the air.

  “Probably, Abe.” Shirley pulled a chair over, sitting down next to them. “Really, it’s not that impossible, guys. Sumer appeared out of nowhere. They show up right after the Stone Age and are incredibly advanced. Their knowledge of astronomy was amazing. They accurately recorded where the planets were in our solar system and what they looked like, right down to the color and the rings around Jupiter. They claim the Anunnaki taught them how to do it. The interesting thing is the Sumerians never called them Gods. They were teachers, geneticists, kingmakers, etc. They weren’t worshiped, they were worked for, the correct translation of the word.”

  Derek just stared at her, then over at Abe’s computer. He didn’t know what to think anymore. The world was spinning and suddenly the reality he had existed in his entire life was not what he thou­ght it was. “Okay,” he started slowly, “I’ll agree it’s not that impossible. Statistically speaking, space is so infinitely large that there is probably one if not hundreds of planets that exist somewhere out there, hosting life probably more intelligent than us,” he slowly reasoned. “But, aliens on Earth?”

  Abe didn’t comment yet, trading glances with the two.

  “Well, why not?” Shirley said, dropping the research papers she printed out on the table top. “Sumerians were a highly intelligent civilization. Why does it make any sense for modern science to simply pass off as myth where they got their know­ledge just because they claim it was from beings from another planet? That makes us rather ignorant, don’t you think?”

  Derek didn’t respond, a strained thoughtful expression on his face. Then again, Menes had three strands of DNA, a modern marvel. It seemed today, anything was possible in the world.

  “Do you know what Menes meant when he said Ascension?” Shirley cocked her head, looking at the two of them.

  Abe answered. “I’ve heard of it, you can’t help it nowadays with all the New Age conspiracy theorists running around. Love, light, the higher self and all that.”

  Shirley laughed. “Close, but we can do better than that. We’re all familiar with Quantum Mechanics, right?”

  Both Derek and Abe nodded. Derek spoke up. “What does that have to do with this Ascension?”

  “Everything, if you can connect the dots.” Shirley gave them a tired smile. Later she’d have to call her grandmother and thank her for being that strange New Ager all these years. It was making it easier for her to see the relationship between seem­ingly unparallel things. “We all know there are some weird things that go on when you study the quantum world. On the sub atomic level it is show­ing that all things are connected. Basically, we are all one. So far so good?”

  Derek mulled over this a moment then nodded. “All right.”

  Abe shrugged his shoulders. “Sounds good.”

  “That is what the ‘crazy’ New Agers have been trying to tell us all along. Ascension on an in­dividual level is the process of activating the energy portals in the body called Charkas. There are a hu­ndred different ways to do this, however, no matter how you spin the process of getting there all teach that we as humans create our own reality. What is in our heads is then reflected in the world around us. In a very literal sense we are creators of reality.”

  “Oh c’mon, give me a break. You’re telling me that thinking happy happy joy thoughts is going to make my world a bunch of roses?” Abe rolled his eyes.

  “Well, it’s a start, but there’s a better way to explain it.” Shirley looked amused at the expression on Abe’s face. “Quantum basics show us that electrons can act like both a particle and a wave. But what’s really fascinating is that how they act is all dependant upon whether or not someone is watching.”

  Abe dragged his hands over his face, sitting up a little in his chair. “I’ve seen that experiment. When no one is paying attention, electrons don’t have a measurable location, they are everywhere.”

  “Probability fields.” Shirley added.

  “Right, fine. Probability fields. But that can’t have anything to do with the pot smoking hippies meditating and saying we are all one, spirituality. It just makes sense that on that sub atomic level we are all made up of the same stuff. That doesn’t make it mystical.”

  “Yes, but the science and mysticism are linked up Abe,” Shirley argued. “Unobserved and unmeasured electrons are nothing but probabilities, little pockets of energy waiting for something to tell them what to do. As soon as we peek at them, the probabilities all collapse into one. The wave becomes a particle again, acting exactly like we expect it too.”

  Derek frowned lightly, letting his mind process what Shirley was telling them. It was hard to come to grips with the notion that science might be proving an idea as radical as humans ascending. “You’re saying that we can affect the very building blocks of reality with what, thought?”

  “Yes.” Shirley nodded vigorously. “David Bohm was Einstein’s protégé and his view of Quantum Mechanics also supports the theory that we are all connected. When you look at it from that perspective, things like physic phenomena don’t sound so fantastical either. If we are all connected, then that means our brains are too. Which means a mind reader is simply getting information they should already know because nothing truly separates us. To move through this “physic” space, you have to go inward instead of outward, such as described in medative practices. When you have those moments of “englightment” what you’re really doing is getting a glimpse of the quantum world, which is wholeness and the very fabric of reality.”

  Derek and Abe remained silent, obviously trying to wrap their minds around all this.

  “Did you know that Nicola Tesla and Rene Descartes claim inspiration for their discoveries through dreams and visions? Or maybe they were just experiencing the quantum realm. Doesn’t sound so off base when you phrase it like that,” Shirley said.

  “Looks like we got a glimpse of it ourselves then,” Derek commented referring to the dreams they had all had that started them on this crazy journey.

  Shirley smiled. “Have you ever heard of Masaru Emoto?”

  Both Derek and Abe shook their heads no.

  “Masaru is a Japanese researcher and he did experiments on how words affect water. His findings are incredible.” Shirley grabbed the papers off the table top and began shuffling through them as she spoke. “He put water in jars, attached different phrases to each, froze them, then took pictures of the water crystals with a microscope. In every single experiment, the words put on the jars affected the water. Meaning…” Shirley stopped when she found a picture she was looking for and held it up. “Beautiful, right? He put the words I love you on this one.” She waited a moment then showed them another. “This looks like it was taken out of the dirty Potomac River, right? Wrong. Same water. He just wrote I hate you on this one.”

  Derek reached out and took the printout to inspect it closer. “Oh, that’s just weird.”

  Abe held out his hand and took a few other printouts from Shirley, slowly flipping t
hrough them. “Wow.” He shook his head then looked back up at Shirley. “What does this have to do with the present conversation?”

  Shirley grinned at him. “Water comprises more than seventy percent of the human body. So doesn’t it make sense to reason that if words affect water, we can affect our bodies with the same?”

  Abe was silent at first, the wheels in his head spinning almost out of control. Finally he said, “Fine. Say I dig all this crap. I can affect my body with the power of my mind, and somehow create my own reality, not just be affected by it. So are all humans going to magically Ascend before the next winter solstice unless the aliens from Planet X stop us?”

  Derek almost laughed. This all sounded like the plot of a bad science fiction movie. But the deeper they got into this, the more plain scientifically reasoned facts were standing in the way of them passing it off as nonsense.

  “We might. Unless we don’t find the Cave of Creation in time,” Shirley said. “Oh, by the way. Do what thou will, love is law? That was a phrase that is used to sum up the Law of Thelema, revived by famous occultist Aleister Crowley.”

  Derek blinked in surprise at that. Then something seemed to jog his memory because he snapped his fingers. “That’s right. He wrote the Book of Law, apparently under guidance from some voice over his shoulder when he was in Egypt.”

  Abe eyeballed the two of them, and then sighed. “Why do I suddenly feel like everything I know is wrong?”