The global census of the year before had surprised many as the outcome was somewhat closer than anticipated.
The initial backlash over the failure of the Guardians to prevent the deaths of, and injuries to, the thousands of victims of the missile attack had been skillfully maintained by the “anti” faction. As such, most people thought the naysayers would win by a landslide. However, their subsequent procurement of only fifty-two percent of the votes was a far cry from original estimates.
Apparently, the sudden change of heart was due to an astonishing event that took place on the day before polling closed, in a small English city called Exeter, where the Guardian Overlord gave his first ever interview live on air with young Joshua Drake by his side.
In hindsight, there was little doubt the Overlord used the occasion to demonstrate that, when it came to the effective use of strategy, he obviously had nothing to learn.
Everyone knew he was powerful. They’d seen clear evidence of that when he’d manifested into his true form to destroy the black hole in Texas. So his appearance was a surprise, in that not once did he relate to the stupendous metapsychic arsenal at his disposal. Nor did he stress how ungrateful some people were being by dismissing all the Guardians had done on their behalf. Instead, the Overlord took the unprecedented step of submitting his testimony to the intrusive and unsympathetic mercies of a Wave Reader, one of the newfangled mindreading devices recently made available to a number of the more prestigious international law enforcement agencies.
Under its clinical analytical scrutiny, he went on to deliver a simple, straightforward, but most eloquent and candid explanation as to why the Guardians had started to respond so openly to the never-ending cycle of disasters afflicting the modern-day world.
In itself, that move was a masterstroke, for though the Overlord’s explanation involved the future as witnessed through his unparalleled oracular talents, the veracity of his account—as fantastical and farfetched as it sounded—was impossible to refute.
And what a future it was.
Mankind’s story couldn’t be embellished to include a catalogue of happy endings just waiting to be told. In revealing what was to come in the way he did, the Overlord left no doubts as to how bleak, indeed, how cruel the coming hand of fate would be.
Because so many of the myriad possibility strands culminated in disaster, the demise of civilization without hope of reprieve seemed a foregone conclusion; be it in flame and ruin; the blight of war and pestilence; or the chilling consequence of stripping the planet of its precious resources and thereby, its capacity to sustain life. The outcome was always the same: a sterile barren wasteland, spinning alone through the endless night of space.
And because of the Wave Reader interlink, not only was the Overlord forced to live each horror as if it was an everyday actuality, but the viewing public were able to share the extrasensory spillover from process as well, and experience for themselves the terrible, gnawing ache of watching something you care for more than life itself being torn from your grasp and consigned to an untimely end . . . again and again and again.
There was no denying the masses were moved, for the Overlord’s profound sorrow was both real and expressive; his dismay, heartfelt; his distress at even contemplating such an outworking, moving beyond measure.
So, when he at last revealed that one ray of hope hidden away among the seemingly endless wells of despair, the world wept in relief with him.
In mute wonder they listened intently as he described what that brightness might go on to illuminate in the years to come: a posterity where humanity would at last conquer their divisive, petty squabbling attitude and their indifference toward social issues and begin working together toward common goals.
In awe, they were able to visualize that prospective cohesive society as it grew into an integrated international community, united in their efforts to develop new technologies; to uncover the unknown marvels of science; the secrets of creation; and direct their expanding innovation toward a previously unheard of level of self-sufficiency.
The Overlord didn’t stop there, either.
He next painted a picture of a golden age, an era where mankind attained unlimited lebensraum among the stars within an endless vista for their expanding consciousness to delight in. A place where they would begin to fulfill their psychic potential, before spreading that same psycho-paradigm among the cosmos.
Only then did he refer back to the young lad in front of them, highlighting to one and all that Joshua Drake was destined to play a special role in securing that possible future. In doing so, he granted a startling insight into why Joshua may have been the very first to be saved . . . and by none other than the Supreme Commander of the Guardians himself.
Pandemonium ensued!
All manner of political jockeying and overt pressures were brought to bear during the final polling day, and from nowhere more so than those comprising the anti-Guardian brigade, who gleefully reminded everyone that votes already cast couldn’t be withdrawn. That they were worried went without saying, for they called on supporters everywhere to ignore the thinly veiled threats the Overlord’s nightmare saga had so cunningly woven about them and concentrate instead on why the survey had been instigated in the first place.
Accusations flew thick and fast that this work of fiction was just that, a juicy carrot held out by a desperate manipulator who wasn’t ashamed of using a little boy’s near tragedy to bolster his standing, whilst saving Team Guardian’s collective asses at the same time.
When it was pointed out to them that the Overlord’s narrative had been delivered under the watchful eye of a Wave Reader, the pontificating roosters fled, clucking unhappily, back to their coops. Not surprising, seeing as an independent panel of six adjudicators had confirmed the device as working within predetermined parameters and its findings as totally dependable and accurate.
Sure enough, when the tally from the initial ballot was counted and later verified the next day, the No voters had lost their huge majority, having failed to account for the millions upon millions of last minute constituents who had been deeply moved by the Overlord’s plea.
As the issue was clearly still of significant public importance, it was felt the voice of the global electorate must be heard to determine once and for all how society viewed the continued presence of its supernatural benefactors. The referendum was set to take place on June1st, 2036, allowing governments time to debate the issue of the Overlord’s revelations in open session, and people ample opportunity to make an informed choice free of rhetoric and hype.
The response of the Guardians to those proposals was as unexpected as it was sensational, for the Overlord himself chose to intervene directly. Following his explicit instructions, the Lord Conciliator’s office issued a brief statement.
It read:
“MUCH HAS BEEN SAID IN THE PRESS AND THROUGH THOSE OUTLETS AVAILABLE TO SOCIAL MEDIA DURING THE PAST SEVERAL MONTHS QUESTIONING THE INTENTIONS OF OUR ORGANIZATION.
THIS IS AS BAFFLING TO US AS IT IS SADDENING, FOR WE HAVE ALWAYS GONE TO GREAT LENGTHS TO EMPHASIZE OUR BENEVOLENT AND ALTRUISTIC NATURE.
HOWEVER, WE APPRECIATE THAT SOMETIMES, EMPHASIS ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH. IT’S WHAT PEOPLE DO THAT DEFINES THEM, AND INDEED, THIS VIEW CAN BE SUMMED UP BY A WELL KNOWN POPULAR MAXIM.
“ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS.”
THEREFORE, WE WOULD ASK THAT YOU REASSESS YOUR IMPRESSIONS OF OUR ACTIONS OVER THE TIME YOU HAVE KNOWN OF OUR EXISTENCE; FROM THE EVENT THAT LED TO JOSHUA DRAKE’S SALVATION, UP UNTIL THIS VERY DAY.
SUCH AN EXAMINATION WILL REVEAL A SIMPLE TRUTH: THAT TO US, THE PRESERVATION OF HUMAN LIFE IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE OUR PRIORITY!
WE OFFER NO APOLOGIES FOR THIS CORE TENET, AS IT IS THE PRINCIPLE THAT DRIVES US TO SUCCEED; TO EXCEL AT WHAT WE DO; TO PUSH OURSELVES BEYOND THE LIMITS OF WHAT EVEN WE THOUGHT MIGHT BE POSSIBLE. AND WE WILL NEVER WILLINGLY COMPROMISE THAT PRECEPT.
HOWEVER, IF WE WERE TO SUM UP OUR MOTIVATION BY USING A SINGLE WORD, “DESIRE” SPRINGS TO MIND. YOU SEE, MANKIND HAS AN INCREDIBLE LEGACY JUST WAITING TO BE CLAIMED, AND WE SINCERELY DESIRE FOR YOU TO INHERIT WHAT SHOULD RIGHTFULLY BE YOURS.
ALTHOUGH IT WILL BE DIFFICULT FOR YOU TO COMPREHEND—ESPECIALLY NOW, AS DEEPLY TROUBLED AND DIVIDED AS YOU ARE—THE UNIVERSE WILL ONE DAY BE A BETTER PLACE WITH HUMANITY IN IT. THE EVENTUAL ATTAINMENT OF YOUR POTENTIAL WILL CAUSE A RIPPLE THROUGH SPACE AND TIME THAT WILL BE FELT IN THE FARTHEST REACHES OF ALL ETERNITY.
YOU ARE IMPORTANT! BUT YOU NEED TO REALIZE THIS, AS WE HAVE STATED SO OFTEN.
ALAS, THE MAJORITY OF EVENTUALITIES THE OVERLORD HAS FORESEEN PREDICT AN END THAT LEAVES THE EARTH A SHATTERED AND LIFELESS HUSK.
THANKFULLY, HE HAS ALSO SEEN IT OVERFLOWING WITH TRANSCENDED SENTIENT LIFE, WHICH, AT ITS ZENITH, WILL ESTABLISH A PRESENCE THROUGHOUT THE KNOWN GALAXY AND BEYOND. HOWEVER, TO REACH THAT INCREDIBLE PINNACLE OF UNIFICATION, YOU MUST SURVIVE THE CRUCIBLE: YOUR OWN SHORTCOMINGS AND INSECURITIES; YOUR DOUBTS AND FEARS; AND YOUR DISCORDANT, CONFLICT RIDDEN OUTLOOK.
WE KNOW SUCH A MINDSET HAS BEEN COMPOUNDED BY THE TRAGEDIES AND CALAMITIES YOU FACE EVERY DAY. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, SUCH HURDLES PLAY A MAJOR PART OF THE REFINING PROCESS. A PROCESS THAT CAN BE ENDURED SUCCESSFULLY, BUT ONLY IF YOU FIND A WAY TO PREVENT THOSE HURDLES FROM BECOMING INSURMOUNTABLE.
IN HARMONY WITH OUR GENUINE DESIRE TO HELP, WE RECOGNIZE THAT OUR PRESENCE ON EARTH AT THIS TIME HAS BECOME SOMETHING OF A DIVISIVE INFLUENCE. ONE THAT YOU COULD DO WITHOUT. AS SUCH, THE GUARDIANS ACKNOWLEDGE THE WISHES EXPRESSED BY THE NARROW MAJORITY OF THE POPULACE REGARDING OUR CONTINUED PRESENCE AND, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, WILL TAKE PREPARATORY MEASURES TO LEAVE THIS WORLD.
WE DO NOT TAKE THIS COURSE LIGHTLY, BUT FEEL YOU MUST BE AFFORDED THE TIME AND SPACE YOU OBVIOUSLY NEED TO MAKE A FULL AND HONEST APPRAISAL OF YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES. ONLY BY DOING SO WILL YOU ARRIVE AT A SOLUTION THAT IS NOT ONLY RIGHT FOR YOU, BUT BENEFICIAL TO YOUR LONG-TERM MATURATION.
BE IN NO DOUBT, YOU STAND AT A CROSSROADS. ONE OF THE MOST PIVOTAL POINTS IN HUMAN HISTORY UNFURLS AROUND YOU. TAKE CARE WHICH PATH YOU CHOOSE, FOR THE OVERLORD HAS FORESEEN YOU WILL SHOULDER THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR DECISIONS MORE SWIFTLY THAN YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE.
WE PRAY THOSE CONSEQUENCES ARE NOT TOO HEAVY TO BEAR.
DO NOT FEAR UNNECESSARILY. THOUGH WE ARE LEAVING, WE WILL MAINTAIN OUR VIGILANCE FROM AFAR AND AWAIT THE CHANGE IN HEARTS, MINDS AND TEMPERAMENT THAT SIGNALS THE SHIFT TOWARD UNIFICATION.
IN THE MEANTIME, THOSE SOULS AMONG YOU WHO ARE ALREADY EMERGING AND WHO WISH TO CONTINUE THEIR ADVANCEMENT TOWARD THE ENVISIONED GOLDEN AGE NEED NOT BE CONCERNED. JUST REACH OUT TO US. WE WILL HEAR AND BE THERE TO GUIDE YOU.
INDEED, TO ALL THE PEOPLES OF THE PLANET EARTH. IF YOU EVER TRULY NEED US . . . CALL! YOUR ETERNAL WELFARE WILL ALWAYS BE OUR PRIORITY.
WITH HOPE IN THE FUTURE,
THE GUARDIANS
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
*
True to their word, the Guardians gradually scaled down their activities and over the next two months, subterranean command centers were decommissioned, orbital stations were moved, and a host of other functional assets were secured behind impregnable barriers.
When the world came to realize this, they reacted as they always did and backpedaled, triggering a global panic over the shocking consequences their major tantrum had caused.
So intense, so impassioned were some of the appeals directed toward the Lord Conciliator’s office, that specific clarification was sought from the Overlord himself, who, it was subsequently discovered, had mysteriously departed the Earth on the day following the international poll’s results.
The response they received—strangely, via the Lord Inquisitor—was as intriguing as it was perplexing: “Continue with the exodus. Events will continue to unfold as foreseen.”
When the Guardians’ official reply was delivered to the various Heads of State, those leaders found themselves having to explain to a frightened and increasingly angry populace the full implications of their impulsive behavior.
They would soon be alone and only had themselves to blame.
Endearingly, those of a more optimistic disposition hoped that they had not damaged their once special relationship with the Guardians beyond repair and expressed a desire to rectify the situation during the coming referendum in June.
A token gesture made far too late to do any good.
The Guardians left anyway, and within a week of their departure, some regimes revealed their perpetually provocative natures by instigating fishing expeditions in an effort to locate as many Guardian operations centers as possible. When an indignant public caught wind of this, their respective administrations tried to hide behind a façade of reasonableness; the most heavily abused excuse relating to the need to answer the drastic growth in natural and environmentally spawned disasters. After all, who could deny the procurement of advanced technology wouldn’t go a long way in helping stem the rising tide of adversity now their former benefactors weren’t there to help.
Of course, the mere fact that such acquisitions would also ensure each participating nation stayed one step ahead in the newly emerging arms race went without saying and was kept well away from the press.
No one would have been surprised to learn that those governments were not alone in seeking such treasures. Another group of well-financed, highly motivated and gifted people were also hunting for the resources they knew would guarantee their continuing domination of a very lucrative and super competitive technological market. What’s more, they had been instructed to remain on the lookout for anything that could be used or adapted to prevent unwanted intrusions into their affairs by others like them, who weren’t averse to using their abilities to gain an unfair advantage.
A witch’s brew, if ever there was one. Regardless, none of those opposing organizations were aware of how many covert facilities the Guardians had thought to leave behind to counter exactly this precise state of affairs.
The cauldron was bubbling. They just didn’t realize it yet.
*
When the votes of the June referendum had finally been collated, checked, double then triple-checked, the published conclusion only added fuel to the fire heating that cauldron: Deadlock!
More mud was flung and allegations flew thick and fast, none of which could be substantiated. Opinions became heavily entrenched between the forty-seven percent still opposing the return of the Guardians, and the identical number of constituents who seemed as equally determined to see them back.
As it had been stipulated from the outset that the outcome would only be validated if there was a definite, one hundred percent consensus, the remaining don’t knows held the future in their sweaty, vacillating hands.
Every day since then had dawned to the furious lobbying of one side or the other to beg, steal, cajole or otherwise secure those last few deciding votes. TV and radio channels ran twenty-four hour opinion polls; tabloids covered little else; even the internet seemed incapable of finding anything else remotely newsworthy.
And the longer such campaigning went on, the longer the suffering continued, and the more peoples’ lives were changed forever.
Days turned into weeks; weeks into months; months into a seeming eternity of nonstop political drudgery. And all the while, the Guardians watched, waited, and prepared for the long haul.
As it transpired, they wouldn’t have to wait for long. The Earth’s fortunes were about to change.
*
January 1st, 2037
Flaring like a nova, the abnormality burst through into normal spacetime. Such was the glory of its brilliance that it cast back the midnight pall of the surrounding abyss with consummate ease.
For the merest fraction of a second, it hung there in the void, a shining beacon against the stygian backdrop of endless night. Then the epic nucleic forces involved became too much and it crashed out of existence before its magnificence could be detected and catalogued by the silent, watchful electronic eyes encircling the nearest inhabited world lying a mere four hundred million miles away.
Though unusual, this incident was by no means unique, as the area of space closest to the largest planet within this localized system was prone to such incursions.
A little under five billion years previously, an episode occurred whereby a much larger cataclysmic paroxysm had caused the collapse of an immense molecular cloud into a slowly swirling accretion disc. Over time, the heavier, denser concentrations of interstellar dust and matter were drawn together, generating planetesimals. As is often the case with freshly formed nebulae, the smaller, rockier candidates were pulled nearer to the system’s hub than the proportionally larger gas giants farther out. Having found their place, they all became gravitationally bound to the newly crowned luminary at its center.
Eons passed, and eventually, the whirling mix coalesced into a fully-fledged solar system. The third planet out from its sun came to be especially blessed with an abundant diversity of plant and animal life due to the beneficial effects guaranteed by a thick, rich atmosphere.
Nevertheless, the weakness engendered by the original cosmically induced phenomenon now made that area of space prone to further sympathetic ripples. And, despite the abstruse energies knitting the wound together, exotic particles abiding within the alternate reality continued to seek a way through, being as irresistibly drawn to the disparate polarity of their twinned opposites as a compass needle is to a lodestone.
The last time such a violation occurred had been sixty-five million years previously. On that occasion, a large quantity of volatile matter, measuring less than eight miles across, not only survived the oppressive compression-wells within the nexus of actuality, but also managed to withstand the savage tides dominating the geodesic curvature between realms. Erupting from the terminus like a crossbow bolt, it hurtled straight for the blazing bullseye situated at the heart of the system.
Or it would have, had its path not been impeded by a huge asteroid field.
Regardless, the ejecta’s mass was significant enough to capture a swarm of smaller debris from within that field. It was also traveling at such a punishing pace that, when it scored a direct hit upon one of the larger micro-planets, it snapped the rocky obstruction in half, knocking both parts free from a stable orbit.
The larger of those two pieces—a fraction shy of thirty miles in diameter—adopted the same course as the intruder. Together, the bizarre new pairing made their uninterrupted way toward their fiery goal.
Arriving several days later, both were consumed in the blazing holocaust that was the star’s corona.
Meanwhile, the lesser segment of the asteroid, badly weakened from the collision, had continued to crumble until all that remained was a robust nucleus of iron and dark matter, three thousand yards across at its widest point. It too had been making its way toward the system’s luminary until it encountered a significant obstacle while still ninety-three million miles from its objective.
Significantly smaller that when it set out, this foreign interloper was still a force to be reckoned with. Smashing into one of the third planet’s larger landmasses at over five hundred miles per second, it unleashed Armageddon. The resultant explosion not only metamorphosed the continental crust in an holocaust releasing the energy of a fifty-four thousand megaton atomic bomb, but it also precipitated a monster shockwave, throwing billions of tons of regolith, bedrock, dust, and ash into the atmosphere. Monumental seismic activity followed, triggering worldwide landslides, mega tsunamis, and volcanism that changed the surface forever.
Even though hurricane-force winds helped dissipate the ionized ball of gas away from the zone surrounding the irradiated epicenter, ambient temperatures in the northern hemisphere remained well in excess of two hundred and sixty degrees Celsius for nearly forty minutes, effectively broiling all of the larger aquatic and land based species, and sparking wildfires and conflicting weather fronts in rapid succession.
Several days later, the air had cooled sufficiently enough for the effects of global cloud cover and acid rain to make themselves felt. Temperatures plunged, and within ten months, two thirds of the life on the planet had been obliterated, wiped out forever by a sucker punch from nowhere.
In spite of this, some creatures survived and adapted. As the enduring march of centuries passed, one species in particular grew to dominance, developing a sophisticated culture along the way. Their empires came and went. Cities reached toward the heavens for a time before falling to decay. And all the while they remained blissfully unaware of how tenuous their link to continued existence was . . . Until lady luck decided to roll a hard six.
A year before, another startling event had occurred within this very same system, prompting a harmonic echo from somewhere long forgotten. Obeying the inextricable desire for symmetry, opposing eddies had reached out, only to find the way to ultimate equilibrium barred by an odd, subspace scab. Woven together from duplex polarity strands, the incongruity represented the site of previous, successful catastrophic conjunctions. As such, antipodal tides began to gather, their choral resonance building and expanding; swelling and intensifying, until . . . Just twelve months later, a wound thought healed for untold millennia ripped wide apart.
Fortunately, so arcane were the energies incorporated within this compacted region of spacetime that the ensuing bridge and its blinding fanfare were pinched off almost immediately. Nonetheless, that split second allowed sufficient opportunity for a quantity of hybridized dark matter—quark plasma—to pass through from the nexus of actuality.
Though the majority of its substance was crushed outright, an eleven mile fragment was ejected from the terminus like a cork from a champagne bottle. Travelling at close to one thousand miles per second, its trajectory sent it hurtling directly toward the local star, lying a mere five hundred million miles away.
Much larger than its predecessors, the outer layers of the aberration were comprised of iridium, iron, nickel, ammonia, water and methane. Its core, however, was pure quark plasma. Of sufficient size and density to generate its own gravity, the fiery comet posed a threat to anything and everything in its path. A danger that would only be compounded the further it travelled, for the closer it got to the luminary dominating this system, the faster its acceleration quotient would be, ensuring it would complete its race to oblivion in less than five brief and all too transient days . . .
If it wasn’t accosted along the way.
By a freak coincidence, the only thing that would deign to cross its path would be the asteroid field of old, and, the very same third rock from the sun. A place which had since flourished until it was a vibrant blue-white jewel in space, overflowing with abundant life:
Earth!