The Cupel Recruits (15 page)

Lela felt a wave of uncharacteristic anxiety wash over her as she flew back to the States, not due to flying, but because her work had been abruptly interrupted with a demand to fly home. The funding was in jeopardy and she was needed ASAP, that was all Pfister had told her. She had enjoyed the escapism of Africa, ironic given that many wouldn’t consider the location she visited a place to escape to. She knew she would have to return and deal with the real world and her life eventually, but she was gradually easing up to it, preparing herself. Suddenly, here it was. It’s only six days, she kept reminding herself. At least she had reworked her ticket to not connect through O’Hare-that was a plus since she always got delayed flying through Chicago. Her connection in Dulles allowed her to stretch her legs and get some food so by the time she arrived home she was not completely worn out.

Entering the familiar hallway of her own apartment, she dropped her keys on the hall table and picked up the pile of mail. One of the grad students in the building watered her plants and picked up her mail when she was away-for a fee of course. It used to be her mother or brother that would do these things for her. Since Lela had put all her important mail on hold or e-delivery before leaving, the pile was surprisingly small. She probably would just leave it that way when she returned home-saving trees seemed the right thing to do given the beautiful forests she had just left.

The first thing she did was take a luxuriously long, hot shower. That was one of the few things she really did miss of civilization, feeling truly clean. The hot water danced over her body, and she wished it could wash away all her sorrow and anxiety as easily as the dust of Africa. She relaxed and let her mind wander and suddenly out of nowhere she thought of her family in danger.

“A little late,” she mused. She fell into a deep, heavy sleep like children do and awoke the next morning feeling uncharacteristically refreshed. She resolved to do some research on the notes in her mother’s office before meeting up with Pfister later in the day. She’d tried to find a “Dossler case” reference on the internet from Africa, assuming it was something easily found, but was dismayed to discover there was no mention of it anywhere, even in the scientific journals.

Pulling up to her parents’ house again, this time she was startled. It didn’t feel just the same. A for sale sign loomed out front and though she’d contacted the family real estate agent via email, it was different seeing it live and in color. She entered and put on a pot of coffee, and opened most of the ground floor windows, to rid the house of its closed-up smell. Entering the office, she pulled out her notes. Dossler case, red star on the calendar, the mineral. None of this seemed related, yet she was determined to learn anything that might help. She opened the filing cabinet and was not surprised to see the bare minimum files. She knew her mother’s system well-current year’s records were kept in the filing cabinet throughout the year. Once taxes were filed, every item from the prior year was boxed according to year and each small file box placed in a separate supply room. Looking through the current year files, she saw no mention of a Dossler case. She fired up the computer and hunted for 45 minutes through the files available on the desktop, again to no avail. In light of what Mr. Charles , or, she mentally corrected herself,
General
Charles had told her, it was likely any important computer files of her parents were in another location.

She entered the supply room and saw boxes upon boxes of files, one for each year going back three decades. ‘Fun’ she thought. She opened the first box and in the front stood a cover page. Each file was listed by name and next to each a “file number” and “master reference number”. The first file number was 1, but its master reference number was 886. She quickly assessed that each box could hold approximately 30 files and since there were about thirty boxes, the number implied the master reference numbers corresponded to all files present.

“All I need to do is find the master reference sheet. Thank God my mother was so logical. Well, she’d keep the master in either the first box, or the last.” Since there was no master reference sheet in the final box, Lela dug through the dusty piles until she saw box 1, toward the back. Opening the box, she did immediately see the master reference sheet in the front, with every 30 files or so hand written in slightly different ink, felt tip, blue, black,
etc.
She read each file name on the list and finally, on page 2, approximately halfway down the page, she spotted “Dossler” on the sheet, file number112. ‘That means it’s about 29 years ago’ she thought to herself. She tried box 4, but it ended at file 111, so she jumped to box 5, but found it started at file 113, so she returned to box 4 and went straight to the back, only to confirm that it ended at file 111. File 112 was missing. Noticing the time, she left to meet Pfister and hoped she could prevent the bastard Currier from pulling the funding because they couldn’t produce results faster than humanly possible.

At 10 am, Pfister greeted her and briefed her on the way to the conference room.

“Lela, he wants us to produce results faster or he’s going to pull all the funding.”

“Well, we can only do what is humanly possible. Maybe we can speed up the crops and teleport matter for him while we’re at it,” she replied. Five hours later they left with the funding retained and a detailed, painstakingly scheduled agreement of deliverables.

Driving down the mountain, she dialed Bianca’s familiar number on autopilot.

“Hey, Bianca. I’m only back in the states for a couple days. That Currier jerk threatened to pull all our funding, but Pfister and I fixed it. I’m leaving the office now. Wanna meet up for dinner later?” Lela inquired.

“Yeah. Dandelion Café at six, babe. Oh, and James keeps emailing me asking how you’re doing. Why he doesn’t just call you is beyond me, but please call him, I beg of you.” Bianca responded.

“Unbelievable. He barely cares if I’m alive or dead for months and now it’s all, where am I? I’ll call him if I have time. Thanks, Bianca. I’ll see ya later, just gotta take care of something first.” Lela watched the scenery change as her hybrid SUV made its way through town and into the winding streets of the historic district. Pulling up to the antique Victorian home with its’ familiar wraparound porch, it seemed a million years since she’d first visited Phillip Harriman’s office. She smiled as she thought of her guarded exchange with Brett on the porch, which now seemed odd since he had come to be someone she trusted more than almost anyone else.

In the cocoon of Harriman’s office, sitting in a Queen Ann high-backed chair, Lela’s relaxed demeanor was a stark contrast to the tension of her first visit. She looked at Phillip more as a person for the first time, and noticed he was a pretty handsome fellow, and his easy manner made him seem almost-dateable. She resolved to introduce him to one of her friends when things calmed down and gratefully accepted tea from him.

“Thank you. Okay, here I am, as requested, with the raw mineral.” She plopped a lemon-sized chunk of raw mineral she’d retrieved from the cavern on the carved cherry table. Phillip Harriman pensively lifted the purple gem from its resting place and held it in his hands. Feeling overwhelmed, he quickly replaced the mineral to the table.

“Powerful stuff. Give me a minute.” He lifted it again, with both hands, closing his eyes.

“God. I can see everything over there. Your family is fine. They made it to the other side. Gabriel wants to get you a message, but he hasn’t learned how yet.” Phillip informed. He put down the rock and opened his eyes.

“That mineral sure does act like an amplifier. Everything is much clearer,” he added.

Lela struggled for her questions, forming them slowly, “What are you saying, that they’re in heaven? And what happened with the accident?”

“I don’t have all the answers, Lela. I never think of crossing over as going to heaven because it doesn’t come across that way to me, but I don’t like to tell people what to think. It was an accident, from our point of view, but really they were called. They have a higher mission and they had to leave here to achieve it, but there was no malice in it.” He was clear and thoughtful in his explanation.

“There’s a file I was looking for this morning, but couldn’t find-any ideas?” she hoped he might have some useful insight.

“This one’s different from Gabriel’s. Was this your mother’s?” he asked.

“Yes,” she confirmed.

“Did you ever look in that back yellow room upstairs, the one that used to be a nursery?” he asked.

“No, I forgot,” she admitted truthfully, “I’ll look. If you say Gabriel is trying to get me a message, what can I do? I mean, I’m not really into that sort of thing, what if he can’t get through to me or something because I’m so …distant?”

“I’d keep some of the mineral with you. It seems to facilitate. And be on the lookout-it should be something very specific, something you would absolutely know is from him. The cavern will be your savior, and Gabriel’s. That’s all I see.” Lela shook his hand and gave him the lump of mineral.

“Thanks, Phillip. You keep this one. I have more and I’ll bring some more back from Africa for you.” Lela confided openly.

“Thank you, Lela. Safe travels.” he responded, walking her out.

After dinner with Bianca, though tired, Lela knew she could not sleep if she did not return to her parent’s house to look for the file. Proceeding immediately to the former nursery, she looked around and saw nothing unusual. Sifting through the dresser in the now guest room, she found only clothes and linens, nothing out of the ordinary. The only remnants of the room’s life as a former nursery lay in the closet, a disassembled crib and three boxes of baby clothes. One clearly labeled Lela, one clearly labeled Gabriel and a third, smaller box that said “Baby” on it. Then “B.D” and the year. Lela recalled it mentioned once that one of her mother’s charity endeavors was to take in a pregnant teenager for about six months, giving her a place to stay until she had the baby and could get back into school. The girl’s parents had kicked her out. Lela was reminded of her mother’s good heart. The baby was two or three months old when the girl moved out. Lela had no recollection as it was all before she was born. She opened the box and saw a teddy bear and tiny choo choo train outfit on top, with a matching hat.

Digging further into the contents of the box, she found more clothes, some pictures and then a large manila envelope. Opening it, her heart jumped as she realized it contained a file folder. Drawing it out slowly, she stepped from the shadows of the closet into the clear light of the room and read “Baby Girl Dossler” clearly on the tab. Lela sat tentatively on the edge of the bed and gingerly opened the file, still stunned to be learning her parents had secrets from them. The file contained blood work for the infant, a lock of baby hair, and a recently-printed Pheres genetic printout for her DNA. Nothing seemed particularly notable to Lela, no diseases, no anomalies. Clearly, her mother had been researching this child and not just housing the mother. In the bottom right corner of the page, in her mother’s handwriting, Lela read “Psalm 139”.

She immediately went to her parents’ bedroom and pulled her mother’s bible from the nightstand on her side of the bed. Psalm 139, underlined in bold red by her mother, were the words:

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were.”

In the underlining, one phrase within the paragraph was underlined twice, whereas the rest was underlined once: “my soul knows it very well,”

Back in Phillip Harriman’s office, he held the mineral and focused on his remote viewing techniques. He saw Gabriel sitting next to Mr. Aquila on a semicircular sofa with several others. He couldn’t believe how much clearer his visions were with use of the mineral. Phillip watched as the scene unfolded.

The recruits sat on two semicircular sofas in the common area. Kyle bit his nails as Jane tapped her foot nervously.

It was Jane who finally broke the silence. “When will the doctors be finished with George? Ugh.”

“And where’s Saraceni?” David added.

“Wood said that Saraceni will be in as soon as he can, that he’s with some other team fixing the alarm. He’ll be here” Jack reassured, his shoulders set back and square jaw jutting forward slightly.

“Kyle, are you okay? What happened back there?” Chandra queried.

“I just felt like I was gonna pass out, that’s all,” he replied. “Then my head started hurting really badly. I felt…like I had something I wanted to say, but then it went away. I’m fine.” Looking at him, his hair was pushed back from his face for once. A cold sweat had frozen it in place, making his face appear thinner and paler than normal. He did have an odd look, as if he hadn’t slept in a thousand years. Kyle’s brow was knitted, struggling to remember, yet he could not. The key images were just out of reach.

Wood and Gabriel entered the room and many recruits stood, anticipating the news they would bring.

“How’s George?” Jane asked urgently.

Wood delivered the news welcomingly. “He’s alright. No change.”

“Where is Saraceni, Wood?” Gabriel asked sternly.

“What’s wrong?” Gabriel paced the common area and all of Molior could tell that he was upset. Some walked toward him, huddling around, eager for any additional information about the unfathomable events of the day. Others were attentive from their seats.

“What’s wrong?” Alexander asked his son. As if on cue, Saraceni entered and immediately registered that something was wrong with his prized training class. Having just come from the briefing room, he, too, looked as tired as Kyle.

Gabriel thought carefully and examined the others. His father paced, clearly rattled by having seen Mrs. Aquila with no opportunity to speak to her. Kyle was biting his nails, while Chandra now tapped her own manicured nails nervously on the countertop. Enam’s eyes were closed and he was breathing deeply, clearly calming himself.

Gabriel decided to go on the offense. “Saraceni, what’s going on? We know nothing. There are alarms going off-we’re powerless to do anything. Now I find in George’s room detailed writings that talk all about killing Governor Jacob. How on earth are we to trust you people when we clearly don’t even know what’s going on? How does George even know who Governor Jacob was? He wasn’t even on our bus.” Gabriel watched Saraceni like he had cast a line into the deep sea.

Saraceni sat on the sofa edge, rubbing the back of his neck with closed eyes. Again-careworn, weary. The shoulders of Atlas. A full minute passed. Saraceni slowly opened his eyes and clocked Gabriel with a level gaze. The shift in the air was perceptible to all. Finally he spoke.

“Because George is Governor Jacob. Many of us here have lived before. Many times. You even know some of our other names from history,” Saraceni said.

Even Juliet was speechless. With no witty comebacks, the group just digested the information.

“Like reincarnation?” Jack was the first to hesitantly break the silence.

“Somewhat, but not exactly like you know it. Again, we merely reframe what you already know into the proper context. You don’t die and go to heaven and all that and go back. Not through our process. It’s really more medical. We’ve just perfected body recreation and repair to such a point that it takes many, many cycles for someone here to actually die,” Saraceni responded.

Kyle stepped back, blinking a few times, looking like a teen that just learned it was time to be a man.

“I’ve been here before, too, haven’t I? That’s why it seems so familiar?” he asked Saraceni.

“Yes, Kyle, you and George have been here before. You were needed and we had to pull you back early.” Saraceni put his arm around his longtime friend.

After a pensive moment, Enam, absentmindedly rubbing where his scar used to be, was the next to query, “Then why doesn’t George look like Governor Jacob?”

“The first time you are here, you are created in the image of the body of your life, but after you have been here many times, you can choose before you leave which body form you would like to enter when you return. George chose one of his historic forms before he left,” Saraceni explained. Gabriel again hesitated before proceeding. He almost wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to his next question.

“You keep saying “there” and “here”. Where are we?” he asked on behalf of the entire group.

“On Earth,” Saraceni responded. A long pause ensued.

“Then where
were
we?” Alexander asked hesitantly. Ruth had been standing unnoticed in the doorway for some time. She wouldn’t have chosen this path for these recruits. Not this early. Their assimilation was too important, but now Pandora ’s Box had been opened.

“Come with me. I must show you,” Ruth confided. She turned and walked down the corridor to the training room with the measured steps of a General going into battle . It was not just Ruth’s experience through many lifetimes that translated into her calculated demeanor, but a formidable character that had been hers from the beginning. In her youth, she was more energetic and brash, more like Juliet, but no less exceptional. Upon reaching the training room, Ruth stood against the back wall, the warm amber glow of the light from the orb caressing her features and the progression of paintings through time displayed behind her on the wall. Just above her right shoulder clearly displayed on the middle painting was the signature ‘Saraceni’. Chandra, who had minored in art with her anthropology degree looked at Saraceni with awe.

“You’re
that
Saraceni?” she asked incredulously.

“
Art was always a distant second to teaching for me, but I did enjoy it,” he responded quietly.

The recruits looked from him and then expectantly at Ruth – reeling from their second shock in as many weeks.

And so Ruth began, “We’ve been teaching you about quantum universes. Well, we built one. And, like George said, it is an exact copy of this universe, so precise it was hard to even tell them apart at first. We once endangered the Earth to the point of almost blowing it up, and we swore we would never do that again. So, we created a test environment where we could see how things would interact with our environment, without actually risking our environment.”

“I remember! There were seven project teams. I was on one and George was on one, and the others!” Kyle exclaimed excitedly.

“The project grew,” Ruth continued, “We had perfected genetic engineering, with no real problems. Just meat, after all. We learned about the soul maps and dark matter DNA and we had the idea to do metaphysical engineering to complement the genetic engineering. To engineer the new souls created, and to guide the development of the existing souls so we could progress as a species.”

Juliet stared hard at the ground in front of her. She pulled her hair into a tight bunch with one hand, exhaling audibly. She groped for the words she wanted.

“Metaphysical engineering? How did you do it?” Juliet launched.

“We turned the other universe into The Cupel.” Ruth responded flatly, providing them time to wrap their brains around each line of her words as she spoke.

“A cupel is a dish in alchemy used to sort the lead from the gold,” Kyle explained.

“Correct,” Ruth continued, “so we created The Cupel. We conducted surveillance into it and those who are ready are allowed to be born into this world. We don’t allow anyone of inferior character, or inferior intellect, or who is not prepared to accept the multiple streams of consciousness required to excel here. We keep our planet and our society clean and safe and on a path of enlightenment by only selecting those worthy to participate in it.”

“And you just kill off the rest?” Juliet’s voice became shrill.

“ Of course not, Juliet,” Ruth’s tone was calm and motherly. “We try to help and guide people to complete the learning they need before coming here. New souls find our society difficult, too advanced, to function in without sufficient knowledge and skills. So, it’s like a teaching tool, from which we take the most valiant and worthy.”

“You’re playing God,” Chandra spat the words out.

“Some have argued that. And we are paying the price. All the religious doctrine you have been taught has come directly from our own, so we believe in a higher being and that we will go on when we die, just like most of you do,” Ruth replied.

Kyle added quickly, “But we broke it up-into seven pieces-one for each project, and the languages, too.”

“Yes, synthesis of concepts is a critical learning. We broke up all religious learning, and the languages, and all the other knowledge, and gave 1/7 to each project team, to each culture. Your civilization is gradually assimilating it, and when you have, you will have advanced to where we are now. Of course, we’ll be farther by then.” Ruth explained very clinically, as if giving a lecture. Saraceni noticed the distress on his recruits’ faces. He feared they were losing the battle for their hearts, critical to the completion of the mission as any general would relate.

“So other than George and Kyle, we’re all from this Cupel, your black box project? Where is it? How do we get back?” Gabriel resumed his role as mouthpiece. Ruth walked to the corner with the globe-sized amber orb behind protective glass.

“It is right here, Gabriel,” she said, motioning to the globe-sized orb, “We are the titans. Think about your creation stories. We passed along what we knew, but some of our early teachers tried to explain about our world here, and oral traditions retained some of that, too. Don’t you find it odd that religious doctrine has such fantastical stories of giants, magic healing, miracles, people created out of body parts of others-things that might look different from a scientific perspective? No less valid, but just doing double duty, performing two functions-teaching you what we know about God while also teaching what we know of the universe.”

“All the knowledge is there. They just haven’t put it all together yet, but they will,” Kyle added encouragingly. Ruth could see several recruits shaking their heads.

“Think about it-isn’t it too coincidental that the very first words in our religious doctrine are “let there be light”, followed by a statement that everything started with Adam and Eve. Atom and Eve-a particle and a unit of time? Light + matter + time just happen to be the exact necessary quantum building blocks. And then later, the Quran refers to the perpetual expansion of the heavens. Do the Upanishads not refer to the oneness of all ? That’s how we figured it out. It was all there all along, just waiting for us to become evolved enough to read it on the right level,” Ruth revealed.

Chandra backed up almost reflexively, shaking her head in disbelief. “This is ridiculous. It can’t be true. You’re saying everything we know, everyone we know, is in there.” She motioned at the orb in disgust. “And you created it. How do we get back?” Saraceni looked at Ruth and Kyle looked down. Gabriel stood in the center of all the Molior recruits, facing Ruth and Saraceni and staring at them. He thought of Gretchen, and Caleb, and Lela.

“We don’t.” Gabriel said somberly.

C
hapter 17

Having successfully assisted Pfister in retaining funding, Lela returned to Africa on the first available flight. Emerging from the building, the heat of the day wrapped around her like a loving snake, the humidity gently pressing in on her in a close way. Her driver had been hired by Brett, who had learned the trusted local networks in a matter of weeks. As they left the city, Lela noticed less people than usual on the streets. Overt calmness permeated the view in a way that signaled not all was alright.

“You need to get on the floorboard for the rest of the journey, Miss Lela. You keep your head down.” He gave her a blanket, “and cover up with this, that’s what Mr. Brett say.” Lela hesitated and then complied. After 20 minutes, she actually began to feel carsick in this position, an experience she had never before felt. Each bounce in the road tempted her stomach to betray itself. Lela resorted to deep, even breaths as a measure of controlling the nausea. Just when she progressed to the point of wondering how much longer she could continue this, she heard the high-pitched squeal of the breaks as the car came to a halt.

The driver seemed all too hurried removing her bags from the trunk and leaving, citing that he had been prepaid as he waved away her attempt at a tip. Already feeling this to be quite strange, Lela spun about to face the camp only to discover it appeared to be empty. She cautiously and quietly walked along the edge of the tents down the main path rather than in the center and made her way back to the cafeteria tent. Empty. Suddenly, almost startling her, Tina emerged crossing the camp diagonally carrying a full plat of water bottles.

“Tina!” Lela shouted at her. Tina recoiled in fear and dropped the water plat, bottles rolling around in the leaves and dirt below.

“Jesus, Lela! You scared the hell out of me!” Tina replied frantically, scrambling to pick the bottles up in haphazard fashion.

“Where is everybody?” Lela queried as she stooped to assist her friend.

“You’re back! Come with me-quickly.” Lela followed her as the woman raced through the camp, her dirty, khaki pants hanging low on her hips, revealing additional weight lost on an already-thin frame since coming to camp. Was she that thin just a week ago?