The Cupel Recruits (30 page)

As quickly as they could, the remaining team members made their way into the cavern. David Running Wolf helped each and every one, pulling them in, removing their packs. As he continued with the second half of the recruits, the first to arrive began setting up the equipment. Running Wolf took Phoebe from Enam, who barely seemed out of breath.

“You’re strong!” she said. Then, looking around the cavern for the first time she added, “Oooh, pretty, all the little crystals are talking to each other!”

The cavern held a mild purple photo-fluorescence generated from within the mineral walls themselves. Though made of a different mineral, it was reminiscent of the cavern in Africa, but for being entirely closed in. No open sunshine could have streamed in even in the daytime. The mineral was more densely packed and sparkled more brilliantly, almost as if it were a substance foreign to the region. As the recruits arrived, the glowing intensified very subtly. When Gabriel, the last, stepped in, the presence of all the recruits triggered the room to light up to the luminosity of a regularly lit room.

“Well, that’s helpful,” Gabriel commented. The ground shook mildly. A few rocks, having come from the short distance of cliffs above, tumbled by the cavern opening to the starry sky outside

“It’s worse everywhere else,” Saraceni reminded, “and in The Cupel.”

Word had spread about the earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis and meteors in The Cupel. The decoherence was at 98%, and while that applied to both The Cupel and True Earth, the effects were felt sooner and more acutely in The Cupel because of its’ small scale. A small ripple of energy on True Earth represented a cosmic blast in The Cupel. As they finished setting up the equipment, Jane and Jack, closest to the entrance, noticed a meteor shower outside. Hundreds of meteors streaked across the sky.

“Okay, let’s do this,” Gabriel announced, confident that this time the Gate would open to the next circle. The recruits stood in a circle-this time, Phoebe right in front of George holding his hands. They all concentrated intensely. Saraceni monitored as best he could and adjusted the equipment when he thought it would help. Otherwise, he felt helpless. He had taught them to this point and now had to just sit and watch the fate of himself and all living things unfold. The large, halo-like circle of light began to form over the collective arrangement of the recruits almost instantly this time. In a few short minutes, it grew to an intensity that surpassed anything they had seen in the trials.

Alexander felt his entire body filled with flowing energy as it warmed up. Each recruit felt the small vibrating sensations, except Juliet. Her necklace emitted a beam of white laser light directly out from it which then reflected around the room 16 times in a geometric pattern. The crystals under their feet brightened with luminosity, which spread out from the crystals under the feet to those next to them, and those next to them, in a chain reaction that spread throughout the entire cavern, then the entire mountain, until every tiny nanocrystal was lit up with energy. The recruits concentrated their energies toward their dark DNA and raised their own frequency. As they did so, the entire mountain was transformed into the switch to convert the data from the present circle to the new one.

In a blinding flash, the circle above their heads spread outward, beyond the cavern, beyond the mountain, past the horizon and into the distant edges of the universe. In an instant, the gate was created and the new circle opened up. The circle of light provided a beautiful contrast against the falling meteor shower and a planet full of cheers could be heard faintly, as if listening to a stadium of people from miles away. All the recruits fell to the floor and the room went nearly dark, back to the gentle ambient glow intrinsic to the crystals in their natural state. The recruits were not exhausted, sick or ill this time. Instead, they felt energized. They turned to Saraceni.

“Did we do it?” Juliet asked. Saraceni smiled.

“No instruments in here, so I’m not sure, but I daresay we did,” he replied, truly relaxed since the first moment he had received this assignment. The recruits cheered and hugged one another. George spun Phoebe around. Chandra started to do her victory dance, not seen since the day of the last footrace. They looked outside and saw the beautiful starry sky, silent and still, restful and reassuring.

Success was confirmed when they returned to the training facility.

“Decoherence is at 2%,” Ruth reported as they departed the chopper, “That’s the normal range of background effects that is always present.”

Wood was waiting there at the landing zone’s edge, and when Juliet arrived, he took her aside, kissing her for the first time.

“Oh, is that all I have to do to win your affection. Well, I’ll just have to go save the world again tomorrow.” She blushed.

“You may regret saying that when you get your next assignment,” he said.

“There’s a huge celebration in the main ballroom of the Central Palace Union. Everyone is so looking forward to meeting you all,” Wood reported.

“You mean we finally get to go somewhere besides the training facility?” Jane said, “Well, hallelujah, I thought we’d never leave here.”

Athena Aquila took Alexander’s hand and walked back toward the training facility.

Gabriel stopped into the monitoring room. He knew thousands of such monitoring rooms were afire with activity, still battling the never-ending efforts of the Dark Janae, but this one was empty. He adeptly started the monitor and tuned the frequency to see Lela, Gretchen and Bianca, packing boxes at his parent’s house. He quickly learned that Gretchen and Caleb were moving into his parent’s house, and Lela was leaving her own place.

“Lela, thank you so much for letting us stay here while you are gone. We’ll take great care of it,” Gretchen said. She unpacked a beautifully framed picture of her own mother standing next to Athena Aquila, the first item she wanted to place on the wall in her new home. Lela smiled.

“I couldn’t imagine it going outside the family, and since I won’t be here…” she grinned.

“Now, how long will you be there? When does James get new orders?” Bianca asked.

“I’m not sure when he gets new orders, but I’m getting a one year lease at my new place. It’s about five minutes away from his. It’ll be so exciting to launch my own research team. I’ve had this idea for a decade, and I can think of no better time to finally dig in and see what we can do to help people,” she said.

“I can’t believe you two are finally going to be able to give it a real try,” Bianca said. “I bet I’m a bridesmaid inside of a year. Maybe I’ll bring that Brett along as my date.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves! Let’s just see if I can stand the guy a week straight,” Lela reprimanded, laughing, knowing the truth.

“They’d be really proud of you,” Gretchen said, grabbing Lela’s hand. Lela felt small tears rise up, but took a breath instead. She knew she would always miss her family and only hoped she could honor their memory with her own contributions to science. Gabriel smiled, looking at Gretchen one last time, and turned the monitor off.

“You’ll see her again,” Saraceni said as Gabriel cut across the training room, “and Gretchen, too-in a few hundred years,” he added half-jokingly. Saraceni exited in his dress clothes toward the transport.

“I know,” Gabriel said to the empty room. He turned off the light and the gentle amber glow of The Cupel held steady in the corner. He looked at it and exited toward his room.
A week later, walking down the same long corridor, the night of the celebration seemed it had been long ago and his memory of it was only in flashes of images:

-The men in pressed outfits of navy, white and silver.
Jack had tied his silver cord into a double-wrapped bowtie-style, very old-school Hollywood, while David Running Wolf had used it to incorporate a braid pattern into his long hair with the silver accent.

-The women had appeared in gowns of either white or silver, each with a sapphire bodice.
The only one who seemed at ease was Chandra, having grown up in the land of debutante balls.

-Phoebe shouting “I look like a princess!” as they all rode the transport to the central palace, passing the point where the old world stone structure architecture gave way to the futuristic glass city as the white cherry blossoms lining
the streets were punctuated by a carpet of bluebells.

-Most of all, he remembered the gratitude of his True Earth colleagues over Molior’s success in opening the gate and his discovery of the latge door behind which was a small lake of iridescent light-infused water.

“This was the place I always used to see as a kid. I dreamt of this!” he exclaimed to his parents. Athena had taken his arm on one side, and his father’s on the other.

“Of course you did!” she replied with a knowing smile.

Now he stood next to the Cupel in a dark room, his stare of growing concern barely illuminated by its’ amber light. Saraceni arrived and, too, looked at the Cupel.

“It’s not safe, you know," Saraceni confirmed, “ Valswak and the Dark Janae won’t stop.
We’re in for a lengthy battle.”

Gabriel sighed, “I know.”

“We’re handing out new permanent team assignments tomorrow. You will be one team Captain.” Saraceni held out to Gabriel the small silver bars to affix to his collar indicative of the rank. Gabriel paused.

“And what will I lead?” he asked.

“The charge against the Dark Janae.” Gabriel then accepted the silver bars, feeling the full heft of their weight in his hand as he did so.

In a distant corner of quantum space, Valswak watched the exchange between Gabriel and Saraceni on his own surveillance monitor. Alone, he smiled to himself.

“You’ll lead a whole lot more than that, Gabriel. The Aquilas will lead a revolution.”

The End

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Acknowledgments

For the thousands (and I do mean thousands!) of hours of science fiction “education” growing up, I wish to thank my Mother first and foremost. In addition to the unending belief in me, encouragement, instilling a deep love of reading and the old adage to any question, “look it up”, I will forever be grateful for your love and support. If we could categorize some of those as grade “Z” science fiction films, though, I would say there are a few I could have done without. (Anyone need only ask my sister for confirmation on this). Thank you to my capable and wonderful daughter, who has endured years of my own lectures on scientific concepts, research principles, and philosophy. You are a BA terminatrix who has shown amazing resilience and will always be the shining star in my life. You are destined to follow a beautiful path. I appreciate your dedicated editing, but more so your mere existence, fun energy during hiking expeditions, and just being you. Likewise, I must thank Dad for having been Dad, and this book has me hoping he has found himself hanging out there somewhere with the other good guys. My sincere gratitude to my good friend and author, Brian Bailie, Jr., for the joint editing process of our books and to his family for tolerating our occasional need to micro-analyze ad nauseum. (We know when we’re being like that). My best friend, Tina, who is more like a sister to me, thanks for knowing all the history back to age 11 (and appropriately keeping it to yourself!) and for having three beautiful children and allowing me to be a part of their lives. Thanks to Kevin for the encouragement early on, without which I probably wouldn’t have started this book, for helping me grow up, and for your unique outlook. Kate Wyman, thank you for having the artist’s vision of what I could only see in my head and producing the cover art. To all my other friends and family who have been wonderful people for the many years I have known them, too many to name, I am happy to say, a huge collective thanks and looking forward to some serious fun in the near future. Thanks to every Starbucks on the planet, but especially the crew at 30
th
and Arapahoe in Boulder. Lastly, to all the teachers, scientists, soldiers, artists, writers, historians, adventurers, dreamers and everyone who gets out of bed in the morning and makes it their aim to contribute something to the greater good-we inspire each other.