Heritage (Forgotten Origins Trilogy Book #2)

Chapter One

ONE

 

It’s been almost a month since I activated the pyramids, and everything is falling apart.  Looking around at the woods moving slowly past me, I pull my long hair out of my face and continue to pedal up the lonely country road.  I’m confident that my friend Chris is close behind, watching my back.  He’s always there when I need him.

At sixteen, I’ve experienced more challenges than most people do in a lifetime, so this shouldn’t be so hard. I’ve been putting off this visit to the Professor’s, but I can’t avoid him any longer.  Phones have been spotty at best and I haven’t been able to reach him.  I can feel time slipping away and, as much as I hate it, he is the only person who may know anything or have suggestions as to what we should do.  After some long discussions late at night, Chris and I came up with this plan. 

We have to assume that we might be watched by the organization that killed my father: the Mudameere’s.  Although we believe they went into hiding before the Holocene meteor shower, and will remain there until all threat of infection is past, we can’t rely on that.  Our own Government has set up camp in town and barricaded us off.  As soon as they were able to regroup and find the location of the pyramid, they moved in.  Thankfully that took a few days, and we were long gone from the woods and back home by then.  They have been trying to find who was inside the pyramid, systematically taking blood samples from everyone in town and comparing the DNA to that found on the skull.  Luckily for us, they are going by map grid vs. alphabetically, but they are getting close. 

I look around once again, feeling anxious.  I reassure myself by touching the wooden medallion I still wear under my shirt: our family seal.  Next to it is a whistle, my last fail-safe once I’m inside the Professor’s house so I can alert Chris to any danger.  He’s been pacing me about a half mile back since I rode past the agreed upon starting point.  I can’t see him, but trust that he is there.  Our hope is that if anyone is following me, he will spot them.  Maybe even learn something about our adversaries.  Once at the house, he’ll hide in the trees close by and continue to watch and wait.  Unlike me, he is armed with a gun, not a whistle.  Grinning, I think about the debate we had over who should get the one revolver.  Our only other weapons are rifles, so they weren’t an option.  He’d insisted that I take it, but in the end agreed it made more sense for him to have it.

My grin fades as quickly as it came.  I haven’t smiled much lately.  The first week was the hardest.  We got back to the house with the help of our neighbor to discover that the bodies we had left behind were gone.  Apparently the hive mind works fast and the cleanup was very efficient.  Well, except for the blood.  I spent several hours wiping it up.  Mom doesn’t remember anything during the time of The Shining, so couldn’t tell us what had happened.  That’s what people are calling it.  The Government refers to it as the Great Infection.  Whatever.

I finally got to make that 911 call like I swore I would. It was a couple of days before anyone answered, and then the phones went down for good.  It was hard to convince them at first.  No one wanted to believe what I was saying.  The pit was proof enough.  It was partially filled in, but the bodies weren’t very deep.  Now there’s a quickly made plaque and plastic bench along the edge of the freshly filled hole, as a memorial.  We’ll never know if all the names are on there because everyone involved suffers from amnesia.

It seems like that was the most common side effect of the illness, after the light or anti-virus was emitted from several pyramids around the world for over a week.  That’s the best we can tell anyway, based on the limited news sources coming through.  Everyone reacted and recovered differently.  Most of the infected came away from the ordeal with nothing more than a headache for a few days and lingering amnesia of the time when they weren’t in control.  A blessing really, considering what they did.  The rest of the population, only a small percentage, has various issues.