Broken Symmetries: Age of Illuminati (21 page)

Chapter 36

     After two hours of driving, Hast, Mark and Bakir arrived at the center of the town where Padsha Mali’s preaching hall was based. They saw huge crowds of people around the hall, and there was also a big TV screen outside showing the countdown which was now 20 minutes until zero.

“He still has a lot of supporters,” Mark said.

“I think they are those who have had a loved one cured by him. They still trust him and want to show support,” Bakir said.

Hast saw fear in the eyes of most of the people who were waiting there. They were looking for answers from him. “I think people all around the world are now looking at his TV station,” he said. “We need to go inside the hall.”

They pushed through the huge crowd until they reached the main gate where several guards with guns were standing by the gate. “Please could you let us inside?” Hast asked one of the guards.

“I’m sorry, but the hall is full and we can’t let any more in,” one guard replied.

Hast and Mark spent several minutes convincing the guards to let them in and finally the guard agreed, but first they were asked to put away all their mobiles, cameras, and electronic devices. Then one guard checked their pockets after they put away their stuff, and he also had with him a special detector to check for any metals.

After the security guard checked Hast, Mark and Bakir, he let them in. As the three entered the hall they saw that the huge crowd inside all were standing and looking up. High on the second floor’s front wall was a small door opening with a forward protrusion coming out from it, and a microphone was fixed to a stand on a Podium. This was the place where Padsha Mali usually preached for his TV station. According to the crowd, Padsha Mali was expected to show up at time zero and give an important speech. Time zero was now just few minutes away, so all eyes in the hall were up to that protrusion from the wall. All eyes around the globe were now pointing toward the big screens on the roads and streets, as they closely watched the countdown which was now only a minute to zero and was ticking down 59, 58, 57…!

Mark took out his cellphone from his pocket secretly to look if he had any connection back with Interpol. “Damn it, still no connection,” he said.

Hast was shocked when he noticed the cellphone in Mark’s hand, “How could you get that past the security check?” he asked.

“That is what I’m trained for. I sneaked my phone into the guard’s pocket when he was checking me then took it out again from his pocket once he finished,” Mark said.

“That was so irresponsible! If the guard had found out, he wouldn’t have let us in!” Hast said.

“Sh…!” someone from the crowd urged them.

That moment everyone in the hall became silent; it was the hour zero. Everybody was now looking up to the protrusion in the hall’s front wall, as a figure came out from the small door situated high in the beginning of the protrusion. People all around the world were looking attentively at their TV screens which were now showing someone walking over toward the microphone to give a speech. As the figure closed in more and more toward the recording cameras, it became clear who it was.

Padsha Mali was now standing in front of a big crowd; all the eyes around the globe were looking at him in front of big screens waiting cautiously for his speech.

Chapter 37

It was the moment of truth. The sun came from the west and all the prophecies in the holy§cript had come true. People from all around the world, on the streets o
f
Paris, London, Berlin, New Delhi, etc. were now looking up at the big screens waiting to hear the truth. The man who had supernatural power, the power to heal diseases, the power to heal cancer, and the power to control the media was now standing in front of a microphone! ‘Is he the Antichrist himself, the next major prophecy of the holy§cript?’ people asked themselves. ‘What should they do if he was?’

Despite all the fears, people who were inside the hall had only one wish: they wanted to see their beloved faith-healer deny all the allegations and re-assure them that he was still the faithful servant of ∞Illuhim∞. Bakir and the others inside the hall were eager and afraid at the same time to hear Padsha Mali’s first words. There was increased tension as he was now about to open his mouth to say his first words.

“If…,” Padsha Mali started. “If you want to be saved …,” he continued as people around the screens everywhere listened attentively. “If you want to be saved …,” he repeated again with a little pause. “BOW TO ME NOW!” he shouted to the crowd beneath him. “I’M YOUR GOD, YOUR ONLY SAVIOR!” 

The crowd beneath started to stare at each other in shock. They had just heard what they feared the most, and they didn’t know how to respond or act.

“EVERYBODY BOW TO ME NOW, OR YOU WILL DIE!” he said more firmly and aggressively.

These words produced great fear inside everyone, and nobody in the hall was prepared for them, yet these words were not unexpected by the many people watching the event faraway through the big screens in the streets, ‘A suspicious healer who looks like the Antichrist, appears after major prophecies come true, dominates the media, and threatens everyone asking them to bow to him! Who could he be other than the Antichrist himself,’ people thought. ‘Only an ignorant fool who hasn’t a clue about Abrahamic faith would not know who the Antichrist was by now!’

Bakir felt deeply betrayed in his heart, ‘Why I was so blind? Everybody around me knew that he was the Antichrist, but I didn’t believe them! I took my mother to him and extolled his virtues to many others, but he must have controlled my feelings by healing my mother! He controlled everyone’s feeling through his healing powers. I should have only asked ∞Illuhim∞ for help. Padsha Mali took advantage of us by preaching for Abrahamic faith, but now he is showing his true face. This was a test for us but we failed,’ Bakir thought to himself regretfully. ‘I will not fall for the evil again never, ever.’

“I WILL NEVER BOW TO YOU, ANTICHRIST,” Bakir shouted loudly responding to Padsha Mali in a bold voice.

It was only a moment after Bakir’s shouting that a death ray, like a powerful thunderbolt came down from the hall’s ceiling directly toward Bakir! It only took a fraction of second for his body to evaporate, and he vanished in front of Hast and Mark! People around him saw nothing remaining from him except the smell and the smoke of a burnt meat!

Panic spread among the people inside the hall. Many tried to run out, but all the doors were shut and the tall windows were out of their reach. They were all trapped now, and their only way to be saved from certain death was to bow to their master, Padsha Mali. People who were watching the event on the big screens in the street were shocked upon seeing the horror unfold. Their immediate thought was, ‘Are we safe from this Beast?’ They remembered all the catastrophes and earthquakes they went through during the previous night, and they realized that they were not safe or out of the Beast’s reach. He soon would trap them and torture them unless they denounced their faith and worshipped him instead of the true god, ∞Illuhim∞. Fear and panic rapidly spread among the people across the globe!

“BOW TO ME NOW!” Padsha Mali shouted again to the crowd.

Some people in the front of the hall started to sit on their knees to bow, but someone from behind warned them, “Are you going to denounce your faith because of a man’s threat?!” he asked them. “How will you answer yourself in front of ∞Illuhim∞ after this life?”

“If you bow to him, you will be saved in this mortal life!” another one shouted. “If you don’t, you will be saved in the other immortal life.”

At that moment two thunderbolt beams came down from the ceiling directly to hit both questioning men and evaporate them immediately!

“BOW TO ME OR YOU WILL ALL DIE!” Padsha Mali repeated again.

One of those who was about to sit and bow for him stood up again refusing to bow. “You can take our bodies, but you can never take our minds,” he said proudly before another thunderbolt hit him and he vanished.

More people inside the hall were now encouraged by all these brave sacrifices, so they gave up trying to get out of the hall and instead turned back toward the front wall facing Padsha Mali. They were ready to embrace death rather than submitting to him. The death ray started hitting them one-by-one starting with those people shouting anti-Antichrist slogans. Others, who were outside the hall in front of the big screen, ran away while others stayed to show their solidarity.

Shortly everyone around the world simultaneously started praying asking the lord, ∞Illuhim∞, for his mercy and help. The preachers among the crowds everywhere reminded people that there was another prophecy: ‘God will send someone to save the world from the Beast.’ They preached, ‘God has promised us that he will not leave us alone when the evil one rises, and he will come back for us, and he will send us his beloved Savior, the Messiah.’ This brought back hope among the scared people who had witnessed the horrible events.

People around the globe were inspired by the bravery shown by the people inside the hall who courageously faced the Antichrist and refused to submit to him. As they saw the horror continue on the big screens, they spontaneously started to sit on their knees facing the sky and praying for ∞Illuhim∞ to ask for help. They implored him to send his promised Savior, the Messiah!

“∞Illuhim∞ you have promised us, so please send the Messiah,” someone from the crowd prayed with a loud voice.

“AMEN,” everyone from the crowd said together.

Shortly this act spread to everywhere simultaneously as if it was programmed in the subconscious of people’s brains. This is what they needed to do when the Antichrist appeared. The Messiah was the only one who could beat the beast, and hence everybody needed to pray to God to send him soon before the Antichrist caused more damage.

Our Lord, as you promised us

Send your Messiah to save us

People all around the globe started reciting these prayers sincerely and deeply in their hearts. It was the first time a prayer, in such a huge scale with sincere feelings and simultaneously all around the world, asked the Lord for his help. Someone could have heard the waves and the vibrations in the air coming in all directions from the surrounding nearby towns as everybody prayed in synchronicity.

Among the crowd Howard Nerd now realized that his theory was under a big test! ‘Everybody is now wishing and believing that something will happen. Their beliefs and wishes are directed toward one thing,’ he thought to himself. ‘According to my theory, Nature should fulfill their wishes because everybody around the world is now praying for something to happen sincerely, and if their wishes don’t come true now, it means Nature has wasted a lot of mind quanta energy for nothing. Even if the Messiah doesn’t exist, Nature needs to create one to preserve the balance!’ Howard thought to himself while patiently waiting to see if the predictions of his theory would come true.

Chapter 38

Padsha Mali was the only boy and the oldest child of a poor family of eight siblings. He developed primary congenital glaucoma in his left eye which had rendered him blind in that eye for life. His mother was a housewife and his father was a preacher of Abrahamic faith. His father knew the entire holy§cript by heart, and to financially support his big family, he practiced faith-healing in return for a small charge. He was well known among the local people in his town, and the family’s real income was primarily based on gifts and donations by people Padsha Mali’s father had cured in their town.

When he was young, Padsha Mali attended many of his father’s faith-healing sessions and he learned many skills from him. He observed that there were two types of patients: those who had a physical illness, and those who were possessed by a bad spirit. His father told him that the holy§cript could heal all the diseases but it could heal the ‘possessed’ patients even quicker because the bad spirits couldn’t stand the word of truth, the word of God.

As a faith-healer his father’s life was not easy. Doctors in his town hated him, and they frequently accused him of fraud and mistreating patients especially ones with psychiatric disorders. Because of the doctors’ beliefs, the ministry of health forced Padsha Mali’s father to put a billboard in front of his house to discourage patients from visiting him which read:

There is no such thing as ‘possession’. If someone you knew accused of being ‘possessed’, he or she must likely have a conversion disorder and needs to be seen by a psychiatrist.

Despite the sign, patients still came to see him to ask for help and treatment. One day, the police came in and arrested his father because of one patient’s complaint. He had treated him as being possessed but later on it turned out he had in reality suffered a stroke that affected his brain, and when the patient passed away, forensic doctors blamed his death on the faith-healer’s malpractice. The police decided to arrest Padsha Mali’s father and he was jailed for a year, and it was a hard time for the entire family and for Padsha Mali, as his father was the main bread winner in the family.

As the oldest kid in the family, despite his young age, Padsha Mali needed to take care of the big family. He decided to travel to New Delhi every morning to polish rich people’s shoes and come back each evening to hand over the money he earned to his mother. In turn, she was barely able to buy the necessary food and clothes for the entire family. Fortunately, nice people from their town still visited and brought them donations. The hard year passed and his father was finally released, but he signed a declaration letter in the police department declaring not to practice faith-healing any more.

Unfortunately, their happiness didn’t last long. Padsha Mali’s father fell unconscious soon after his release, and when they took him to the hospital, he was diagnosed with brain cancer. Padsha Mali saw the look on the doctor’s face who diagnosed his father. It was the happy face of someone who had finally got their revenge and said, ‘Now that you’ve got cancer where are your faith-healing powers? Why have you come to medical doctors for help? Isn’t the holy§cript enough for you?’

The doctor was surrounded by his medical school students and he was explaining Padsha Mali’s father’s condition to them in English. Although Padsha Mali didn’t understand what they were saying, he clearly felt they were mocking his father and his faith-healing practices.

When his father woke up from his coma in the hospital, he urged the family to take him home. This was in spite of doctor’s orders. They had recommended that he receive chemotherapy but the father’s pride was strong, and he refused to get conventional medical treatment. He was even angry that he had been taken to the hospital while he was unconscious. “I only need the holy§cript. It is my treat,” he said to the doctors and nurses.

Padsha Mali felt happy with this decision because he couldn’t stand the humiliation of his father staying in the hospital seen by all the doctors who mocked faith-healing. ‘They don’t understand possession and exorcism, and they are hiding the truth from people to keep them away from the truth. I have seen my father healing the mute, the deaf, and the unconscious. I have seen them healed with only a few verses from the holy§cript. Their medicine can do nothing, and my father is not a fraud. He didn’t charge people, and he only wanted to help them to get rid of bad spirits,’ Padsha Mali thought to himself.

A few years later, his father died from the cancer despite reading the holy§cript daily, but this has made Padsha Mali’s faith in God even stronger. He always knew that God was the only one who decided who was to be healed and who was not. He believed that his father’s incurable cancer was a test from his god to see if he stayed faithful to his majesty despite all the troubles, and he now needed to show ∞Illuhim∞ that his faith was unshakable more than ever.

Years passed and he started to take over his father’s old job, the faith-healing. He learned the entire holy§cript by heart and like his father he didn’t charge anything from those he was healing. He started to work day and night with only four hours of sleep. People started to love him for his honesty and his sincere willingness to help. His practice made him able to distinguish those with physical illness from those who he called ‘possessed’. To avoid the problem his father got into, he advised his patients to visit their doctors too and should only come to him as a second opinion. He gradually became well-known in the surrounding towns and people started to visit him more and more bringing him gifts and donations. He always told his patients that he didn’t do this for money, and all he wanted was to help people to get rid of bad spirits and show the healing power of the holy§cript and God’s words to everyone. He wanted to increase people’s faith in ∞Illuhim∞.

Many years passed and he got married then had two beautiful children. His life was moving on fine until one day someone calling himself
Mr. Young
came to visit him. The man held a bottle of water.

“You have blessed hands, so you can treat the possessed,” he said.

“No, it’s not me. It’s the god of the holy§cript who treats them,” Padsha Mali said.

“But the holy§cript needs the right person, a truly faithful person with a pure heart to recite it, and that is why everybody is not a faith-healer,” he said.

“I think ∞Illuhim∞ loves me, and that is why he wants to introduce his message through me,” Padsha Mali said.

Mr. Young
put the bottle in front of him. “Do you know what you could do with a holy water that has descended to us directly from the Eden Gardens by a fallen meteor?” he asked while Padsha Mali listened. “You can cure cancer,” he followed. “Unfortunately, we don’t have too much of this water and it needs your prayers and your blessed hands for the miracle to work.”

Padsha Mali didn’t believe him at first, but once he tried the water on some hopeless cancer patients, he saw the miracle. A few weeks later people came back to him expressing their immense gratitude for his extraordinary healing powers. When he met
Mr. Young
again, he was promised more of the holy water on the condition that he used it considerately and not to tell anyone about it. After all,
Mr. Young
reminded Padsha Mali that it was ∞Illuhim∞ who cured people with the holy§cript through his blessed hands with the help of the holy water. The holy water alone was nothing. Padsha Mali soon became famous. People started to talk about his ability to cure cancer, and articles and international TV reports were made about him. He was soon visited by everybody around the world. High profile political figures, famous people, football players, and even some of the doctors who blamed his father for malpractice now visited him for help when they or their loved ones got cancer.

Family and relatives urged Padsha Mali to take this opportunity to become rich by curing wealthy people and charging them with a lot of money, but he refused. He was eager to help and cure poor people before the rich. All he was asking for from the people was to stay faithful to ∞Illuhim∞.

Nevertheless, Padsha Mali soon realized that because of his blindness some people were accusing him of being a latent Antichrist who was waiting for the right moment to show his true face! After all, the majority of people didn’t have cancer or they chose not to visit him for help, so he disregarded the painful accusations. His eagerness to help people made him sleep only for one hour a night and he spent most of his time preaching and healing people. Now he had his own TV station, thanks to
Mr. Young
again, he would spend every minute in his life spreading God’s word. He also treated people live on TV showing the miracle to everyone.

One day, he looked in the mirror after hearing another famous preacher talk about his resemblance to the Antichrist and who had discouraged people from listening to him. He looked at his face closely asking himself, ‘Am I really the Antichrist? Why don’t people look into my heart?  They don’t know about me, my life and my beliefs?’ He asked God why he had made him this way. ‘People would have trusted me much more if I wasn’t created blind in my left eye,’ once he prayed these words to God but then he remembered that according to the teachings of the holy§cript, people should trust God and thank him for what he gave and what he took so he immediately begged ∞Illuhim∞ to forgive him. ‘I was so arrogant for complaining about the eye you took from me. You have given me one eye to see, an amazing wife and two beautiful children. You have given me the power of healing and high status among the people. You have given me everything and yet I’m still asking why you took one eye from me! Please forgive me for my arrogance. I will stay faithful, and I will spread your message with all my power.’

A few weeks later, Padsha Mali met
Mr. Young
again, but this time he didn’t look normal. There were multiple scratches and cuts on his face, and he was barely recognizable and looked like a different person! He asked Padsha to tell all the people who were queuing in front of his preaching hall, which had recently been built for him by
Mr. Young,
to leave and come back the next day! It was very difficult for Padsha Mali to do that because no matter how tired he was, he never asked the people who needed his treatment to leave his hall. He always put people’s health before his own rest, but this initial request would turn out to be very easy compared to
Mr. Young’s
next request!

“Tomorrow I need you to pretend that you are the Antichrist and ask people to bow to you,” he said to Padsha Mali.

“WHY?” Padsha Mali protested in shock.

“Don’t worry it’s just a test. We want to see how many people will follow the Antichrist if he comes,” he said. “Wouldn’t you like to test their faith?”

Padsha Mali suddenly realized something. “Is that why you chose me in the first place? Did you choose me for this test because I resemble the Antichrist slightly?”

“Slightly?!” he repeated after him.

“I thought you wanted me to help people and spread Abrahamic faith,” Padsha Mali said in disappointment.

“That is what exactly I wanted to do!” he said. “This is why I want to put their faith into a real test.”

“But I have healed many of those people, so if I ask them anything they will feel obliged to do so even if I ask them to bow to me. I don’t want to put them in a difficult position,” Padsha Mali protested.

“No, that is exactly why you need to do that. If they feel obliged to bow to you because you healed their loved ones, then they should be ashamed for doing that. This test will be a good lesson for them not to repeat that in case the real Antichrist appears,”  he said.

“In all my preaching and during my faith-healing, I have always reminded people that it’s ∞Illuhim∞ who is the true healer and not me. I have told them that I’m only a medium between them and God and nothing more,” Padsha Mali said.

“So now it’s a good time to test to see if your preaching has worked. Let’s test their faith,” he said.

Padsha Mali thought deeply for a while then he shook his head to reject the proposition. “Even if it is just for a test, I still can’t put myself in God’s place and ask people to worship me instead of him.”

Mr. Young
was now convinced it was too difficult to persuade Padsha Mali peacefully, so he took out his mobile and showed him a recorded video of his family! In the video they were all tied up and shouting for help! Padsha Mali was so enraged at seeing the images that he tried to attack
Mr. Young
, but one guard grabbed him from behind. Sensing even more trouble, Padsha Mali shouted for the guard outside to come help him.

“Your guards are my guards, you fool!” he said to Padsha Mali.

“Please, don’t harm my family. What do you want from me?” Padsha Mali asked in frustration.

“It’s simple. Just do the stupid test and your family will be safe,” he said.

Padsha Mali didn’t have a choice so he finally agreed to do what
Mr. Young
told him to do. The rules were simple and he was told to spend the night in his room with all the doors and windows locked. He would be isolated from the world, and then in the next morning, he had a simple line to tell the people who would be waiting for him in the hall.
Mr. Young
told him that anything he would see happening next was just a scenario to test people’s faith! He might see people dying in front of him, but it would all be part of the test, so he wouldn’t need to worry about them.