The End is Near

Chapter 18

17 July 2045

Mickael knew he should probably not have shown his hand so soon.

She left looking like I had knocked the wind right out of her. And I didn't even know what I was going to say until the words were out my mouth.

Moving through a strand of prophecy was sometimes tricky and the visions you were shown did not always become clear until after the fact. He was following the visions received in the Cave of Silence but he could only clearly see one step at a time and could only focus on that next step.

Getting to the human who watched, talking to the scientist, allowing myself to be taken.

At each step he hadn't tried to see what came after because the only time he tried it, before he left Kiera, it had left him dizzy and confused.

The Powers-That-Be are the puppeteers and I am dangling on their strings.

After he was interrogated and was waiting, his sense of expectation had grown and grown. Then when he saw her through the glass, the full remembrance of that piece of the vision returned. He knew she was pivotal in some way. The way she looked at him made something churn inside of him. It was as though she knew him and recognized him in a primal way.

The building sense of an imminent next step grew again as he waited. He wondered how Kiera was doing with her part.

I hope she's not feeling as blind as I am right now. Cave of silence, ha! They should have called it 'Cave of Blindly Following!'

The door opened and he looked up, knowing it would not Athena. It wasn't Jacob Redder either and that was a little bit of a surprise. It was the male who had accompanied Athena and he bore himself like a man who was prepared to meet resistance head-on.

"Sgt. James Duvall," he saluted, "We are summoned to a meeting."

Mickael smiled at him, "It's about time."

They were met at the door by the same escort of males who had come in with Athena and marched along grey corridors, into and up an elevator and then along more corridors. He felt the tangle of emotions of Shio and Laila as soon as he entered.

If a room could be said to vibrate with tension this one did. He observed the long table, crowded with men in dark suits and a sprinkle of uniforms with the silver of medals. At eye level the walls were hidden by banks of computers at which more people were intensely working. Higher up the screens were larger and currently dark.

Shio and Laila stood with their backs to the door and he was put to stand next to them. No one at the table had been paying attention to them until he entered. Now chairs swiveled and everyone on the long table was looking at the three of them.

He felt the door open behind him and knew when Athena entered. To his surprise she positioned herself behind him, as though guarding him, while the male she was with moved off to stand next to him.

Jacob Redder rose from his seat at the table and curtly introduced the three of them by name. However, he only introduced specific people at the table – the President of the United States, Commander Stephen Gray and space explorer Roger Correlli. The others were either not important or he didn't want them to be known by name.

Jacob addressed his next comments to the persons at the table. "You have all been briefed on what these three and Roger Correlli have brought to our attention, in their different ways. Now they can witness the moment of truth with us. A lot rests on what happens in the next hour."

The screens flickered on in a circle all around the room. Voices spoke from the ones on the wall above and behind them and Mickael looked over his shoulder briefly. The screens held faces of all races with very different backgrounds. He assumed them to be other world leaders and turned back. One of the large monitors before him held a sky full of stars that flew past.