I don’t believe in the gods identified in the document, or any gods, for that matter, and certainly not in myself as some prancing Aztec deity. But I now have no choice except to believe that an extraordinary science, hidden from most eyes, is able to predict the unfolding of time, and that it is in some incomprehensible way connected to the images of these deities—and to me and Caroline, and to this place, and probably to whatever future the world has, if any.
What I have here is a document based on the lost science I am beginning to remember being taught in our class. It operates entirely differently from modern disciplines, for this is a science of the soul, and as such makes use of more than the three dimensions we see around us.
Its engineering built the impossible structures we see from the past, such as the gigantic platform at Baalbek in Lebanon, made of stones so huge that we could not move them to this day, or the fortress high in the Andes at Sacsahuaman, constructed from more than thirty thousand perfectly matched boulders, each weighing at least a ton, and carried thousands of feet from gorges far below.
But it was its ability to see into time that was its most extraordinary achievement—to see into time and, just possibly, to actually move through time.
Of course, I’m going to look between the pages of every book in this room, because I understand very well what I am seeing here. I have beside me on this desk as I write these words a list that is a map of mankind’s descent into an underworld where we are still trapped.
I have often reflected on the fact that a single bullet fired from a small pistol by the political simpleton who assassinated Franz Ferdinand led to the collapse of Western Civilization and the destruction of a billion lives.
This list, by including that event, acknowledges its hidden importance, and by associating it with Ixtab, the symbol not of war but of suicide, reveals much insight into the actual psychology behind the events. The old world did not die, it committed suicide, quite literally. It was the mechanical nature of the interlocking treaties involved that amplified that single shot into the vast international immolation that followed, and, above all, the
At its deepest level this is a list of man’s enslavement to mechanism.
It is also something else. It announces the coming of a higher power in the form of the UFO, a phenomenon that started with the Maury Island incident.
In 2012, NASA did say that some of them were apparently of intelligent origin, but who has investigated? Who’s had time? Maybe somebody, but I never saw any news about their findings, and now it’s too late for that sort of thing.
So this higher power has returned to oversee this enormous change.
I find myself in this marvelous, silent room with its tall bookshelves and exotic carved walls, with its mysteries all around me, going deep into myself and finding more and more questions. I am a man alone at the end of time, with a dependent flock to keep, a sort of shepherd.
Before God, I could not previously have imagined a sense of helplessness this profound.
5. QUETZALCOATL
Caroline Light followed Sam Taylor through the lovely front of the house. He’d been described to her as a “minder,” and he looked considerably tougher than the nurse who had originally met her, a gentle lady called Nurse Cross.
Coming here had been the hardest thing she had ever done. Leaving her dad, and him so old and the situation so perilous—it had taken all the strength she possessed to turn her back on him. His old driver, Vincent, had gotten her here in just over fourteen hours, traveling back roads, bypassing cities, avoiding the interstates where a car like the Mercedes was a definite target.
And now here she was in the place where the legendary Aubrey Denman had just lost her life—and in certain danger herself.
Dad had wept quietly as she left. She had, too, but not quietly. The last she’d seen of him was that proud old figure, narrow but immensely dignified, standing before their beloved Mayfair, the house Dad’s father had bought after being blessed with the friendship of Herbert Acton. Dad’s last words to her had been a cavalier wave and a confident, “See you on the other side.” The tears, though, had been silent testament to the truth: they were beyond the edge of the age now. Not even Herbert Acton had been able to see clearly into this period of chaos.
The future was on her shoulders now, hers and David’s.
They reached the end of the long corridor that split the second story. Before them was a black door locked by a fingerprint reader. It looked like the entrance to a gas chamber or a prison, or the underworld. He touched the reader and the door clicked, then opened onto a white institutional corridor lit by fluorescents.
She needed to seem like just another patient, and saw a chance to do a little acting. She stopped.
“Excuse me, Sir. Mr. Taylor?”
“Ma’am?”
“What is this? Where are we going?”
“Your things are being moved into your room now, and I’m taking you on a tour of the facility.”
“Fair enough, as long as I don’t have to fraternize with the other nuts.” Lay it on, girl.
They entered a large room, and for the first time she saw some of her compatriots. She hadn’t seen her classmates since they were children, but she could recognize almost all of them. In any case, she knew their names, so she would be able to identify even the ones who were most spectacularly different.
Being close to them again was every bit as eerie as her father had warned her that it would be. Most of them had not the slightest idea who she was, and those who did weren’t going to show it.
David had been expected to remember her immediately. Her mention of Quetzalcoatl had been the trigger that was supposed to break his amnesia.
It hadn’t worked, so now what? Mrs. Denman was dead, and she dared not talk about such a subject with Dad on the phone, even if she was able to get through. Obviously the enemy was right here in this place. Could even be this Mr. Toughguy with a heart of gold, for all she knew.
“This is the activity area,” Sam said. “This is where we meet friends, make new friends, that kind of thing. There are games, there’s a poker game, there’s bridge, of course, we have two leagues and an annual championship, there’s backgammon, a lot of stuff like that. Also, we have an art room where you can paint or sculpt or do pottery. Actually, we have practically everything.”
She noticed a guy ogling her. He had not been in the class, so he was one of the real patients, and his nostrils were actually dilating. What a creep.
“Who’s he?”
“Graham Mining.”
“If we go by our company names, that makes me Daddy’s Little Girl. We have no company. We’re post- work.”
The patient followed her with his sick eyes. Then, annoyingly, he got up and came sliding over. Big, imposing man with a carefully tuned smile. “They call me Mack the Cat,” he said.
She understood why, too. He moved like a jaguar. You wanted to step back.
“May I know your name, Miss?”
“No.”
“ ‘No’ is a good name. Easy to spell.”
“And it gets the point across. Incidentally, you drool, but cats don’t. From now on, you’re Mack the Dog.”
The smile froze. She wondered if he was marked yet. If not, her guess was that his truth would soon emerge. This was a bad man. Written all over him. So, enemy or not? Bad was certain, the bastard had rape in his eyes. But the enemy—wouldn’t he be charming, fit right in? So no, this one was probably just damned unpleasant. Good
