I, Judas the 5th Gospel (30 page)
“Enter the code!” Abaku yelled.
The Mato Grasso, The Amazon
Angelique turned and looked at DiSalvo as the priest racked his brain, trying to figure out the best answer. Angelique raised an eyebrow, as if indicating it was obvious, and then it came to the priest.
“Because,” DiSalvo said, “the science will not work.”
On the other end, the Russian laughed a second time. “I will trust you, my friend.”
Angelique spoke. “And get them to turn one of the Seeds to be able to adjust a transmission from those—” she indicated the tablets—“to the Very Large Array. Then have it beam the transmission to that—“ she nodded toward the glowing object almost completely gone below the northern horizon.
New York
Pierce placed his over the one in which Brunswick held the phone. “Take a leap of faith, my friend.”
Brunswick licked his lips. Russia was finally on-line. All that was needed was the command from the President of the United States, who was waiting on the Illuminati, as had many Presidents before him.
“Thornton tried science,” Pierce insisted. “Look what happened. We have to do something different. Something better than launching weapons. You know the Final Option is futile. We have to trust in something larger than us.”
Brunswick closed his eyes. “Cancel Final Option, Mister President.”
Pierce could hear the howl of protest on the other end echoing out of the speakerphone in the Oval Office from the other heads of state.
Brunswick turned off the phone, and Pierce helped him place it back in its cradle. Brunswick looked out the window toward the Intruder, which was passing below the horizon on its way toward the impact point.
“What do we do now?” he asked.
“We wait,” Pierce said. “And perhaps pray.”
The Very Large Array
Sergut removed his hand from the screen.
“Paused. Paused,”
his tablet announced.
“What are you doing?” Abaku demanded. “We must transmit the Word!”
Sergut was ignoring him, head cocked, listening to the phone. He nodded and connected DiSalvo to the link to Forster. “Comrade,” Sergut said. “You must realign the Seed. Listen to Brother DiSalvo.”
Space
Forster heard DiSalvo’s command relayed through New Mexico. Through half-lidded eyes he could see Wormwood reaching the outer atmosphere. A glow expanded as it touched the sky.
“Say again?” Forster rasped, his body wracked with pain.
“Align your Seed to relay a transmission from my location in the Amazon to the VLA,” DiSalvo commanded.
“But the Great Commission!”
“This is greater,” DiSalvo said. “This is the word of our Lord. If you could see her as I do now, you would not hesitate.”
Her
? Forster thought. A ripple of pain coursed through his body. “Is she beautiful?”
“The most beautiful being I have ever seen. She is peace and serenity, Brother.”
Forster reached out grabbed an arm leading out to a solar panel, locking himself onto it. Then he fired the MMU thrusters using the last of his fuel.
The Mato Grasso, The Amazon
“Seed Eight is redirected,” DiSalvo announced.
“But what message do we send?” Gates asked Angelique.
Angelique was still focused on the Intruder. “Connect me to the transmitters.”
DiSalvo took the cords from each tablet, one at a time. He placed one in each of her hands. He was about to say something, then stopped himself.
“Now transmit,” Angelique ordered.
Gates put his hand on the tablet screen. DiSalvo ran back to his tablet and did the same.
“But what is the message?” Gates asked.
“
I
am the message,” Angelique said. “The trust you have shown in me, and others have shown in you. The fact that you and the others have changed. From science to faith and faith to science, and realizing the truth lies in-between.” She smiled. “Don’t you see? Truth is not in the Word. Truth is in action.” She smiled. “Transmit.”
“Enter Code.”
The tablets demanded.
Gates types in the indicated code as DiSalvo did the same.
“Code accepted,”
Gates’ tablet intoned.
“Code accepted,”
DiSalvo’s echoed.
“
Codes merged, machines merged,”
both tablets announced.
“Ten seconds.”
They all looked up at the Intruder.
“Transmission.”
A golden bolt shot up from Angelique into the sky.
Space
Forster felt the transmission from the Amazon course through him as it also hit the Seed.
Pure bliss. His pain was gone.
The transmission bounced from the Seed back down to Earth. To New Mexico.
The Very Large Array
After having realigned all twenty-seven dishes with a single command so that they all pointed at Wormwood, Sergut reached over and removed the thumb drive from Abaku’s tablet. “We won’t be needing this, Brother.”
“I don’t understand,” Abaku said.
A phone was buzzing insistently in the background; the line from Atlanta. Abaku reached to pick it up.
“I wouldn’t bother,” Sergut said. “There are some who will never understand. I think you will in time, although you don’t now.”
Both of them were startled as the transmission bounced from Seed Eight flashed down and struck the antenna field. All twenty-seven huge dishes glowed brightly, a yellow tinge that turned golden, encompassing not only the antennas, but the railroad tracks they rode on. The light grew stronger and stronger and then suddenly burst out to the north, straight at the Intruder.
The Northern Atmosphere
The Intruder tore further into the atmosphere, burning as bright as the sun.
The golden burst of light from the Very Large Array struck it, was absorbed, and the Intruder glowed brighter, if that were even possible.
And then it angled, curving hard, a flame hundreds of miles long screaming behind it as it curled around, coming parallel to the Earth’s surface at fifty miles altitude. It roared over the North Atlantis for five hundred miles, leaving a deafening sonic boom in its wake.
And then it arced outward, back toward space.
The Present: The Final Day: Impact Now
From the 5
th
Gospel: Judas:5:4 And Jesus told me, on the last day, before the Last Supper, that the Voice would be heard by all once more. Our Fifth Consciousness would be a melding of all so that what we must do will come from within, not without. God, the Father, is within each of us. We must take responsibility and authority.
There is nothing outside. And the Word will be: WE can do this.
Mato Grasso, The Amazon
Gates and DiSalvo were looking at the Intruder heading away from the planet. But the moment it had shifted from its downward trajectory, Angelique had gone over to Judas. She sat down next to him and held his head in her lap.
Gates noticed it first. He tore his gaze from the spectacle above to what was happening right in front of them. A golden glow appeared around Angelique. It spread from her to Judas’s body until both were completely surrounded by it.
She looked up at DiSalvo and Gates and smiled. “My Father, and my Father’s Father are pleased. This time we got it right. It is time for the next step.”
And then both she and Judas winked out of sight.
Abbotabod, Pakistan
Inside the bunker above Abbottabod, Captain Martinez lay among the plutonium cores, twisted in pain, bleeding from his nose, mouth, eyes, and ears. Then he noticed that his hands were glowing with a golden hue. For moment he thought it was the radiation. But he suddenly felt no pain, no sickness. A feeling of complete and utter calmness settled over him.
Then he flashed out of the room.
Space
Forster watched the object race across the atmosphere and penetrate back into space. As an astronaut he knew the unbelievable physics involved in that maneuver, and that some higher power was at work.
As a dying man holding on to his faith, he said a simple prayer, the first one his mother had taught him:
“Our Father. Who art in heaven. Hallowed be—“
And then he, too, was suffused in a golden glow and disappeared from inside the MMU.
New York City
Pierce and Brunswick had watched the Intruder soar off to the south, its fiery tail trailing. When it reached space, the fire was gone.
“The eye of the needle,” Pierce said.
Brunswick nodded. “Yes.”
“We have a lot of work to do.”
“We do.”
Mato Grasso, The Amazon
Gates looked at DiSalvo. The Intruder was in space, growing smaller with every second.
“It’s a long journey back,” Gates said.
DiSalvo nodded. “And we’ve lost our guide.”
Gates shook his head. “No. She’ll always be with us.” He tapped his chest. “In here.”
Space
Beyond the moon’s orbit, far from Earth’s gravity, the Intruder snapped out of the Solar System as abruptly as it had appeared.
The End
Another great read by Bob Mayer
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