All Living : A Seedvision Saga (9781621473923) (39 page)

“So…she was pretty good?” Lester interrupted.

Al looked stunned into silence for half a second. He drew in a breath to reply and then let it out with a smile. “Yeah, she was pretty good.”

Lester grinned back.

“So, how did you two meet?” he asked.

“Well, I’m going to let you read about that one,” said Al. “But suffice it to say that I swept her off her feet.”

“And married her?”

“And married her,” confirmed Al, “but not immediately. We had a rather long courtship. The world was changing around that time. Men were multiplying again. Progress was being made. Knowledge was increasing. There were schools and centers of worship and cities with thriving markets. Job was careful. Few men worshipped the Creator in the way that he did, with his whole heart. Eventually he invited me to live with him, perhaps to keep a closer eye on me. He never suspected who I was, his distant uncle, but he was cautious about who I might become. He wanted his daughters to wed righteous men. They had many suitors vying for their hand. They were renown across the land as the three most beautiful women in the world. And Job was a wealthy man.

“Even if he were alive today his holdings would be impressive. His land alone exceeded the size of Massachusetts and his authority in that part of the world went unchallenged. He was like a king. And those who came to court his daughters traveled from great distances, to see for themselves the striking beauty of the three sisters and to offer themselves as humble petitioners.

“It is amazing that Job even let me look twice upon Keziah. I was a successful man by then, if I do say so myself, but I flaunted none of it. I was already by that time the oldest living man on the earth but I looked much as I do now, about thirty years old.”

“Probably closer to fifty,” said Lester.

“Oh, thanks.”

“I’m just saying…”

“Anyway,” continued Al, “chapter one in the book of Job says that he was the greatest man in all the east; great moral conviction, great intelligence and great wealth. Job acted as a sort of king-priest for his family and mercilessly tested every member of the male species who came within hailing distance of his daughters. But by the time I met Keziah, Job had already settled on a suitor for Jemimah and had promised her to the man; a mighty man, a wealthy man of great intelligence and ambition. One who found many ways to profess his love to Job of the creation and of Job’s eldest daughter.

“Job was as smitten of him, I dare say, as Jemimah, for the man was smooth with his speech and polished in his approach. He had traveled from the north, and in his homeland he taught mining and smithing, metallurgy and warfare. This alone might not have appealed to Job, but the man was also an instructor of mathematics and the sciences and astronomy. Job was an incredibly astute man in his own right and had a love for numbers. This man, whose mother Zillah was sister to Job’s wife Zorah, would sit with Job for hours and make riddles for him. They would ponder the weight of the world, the size of it, the meaning of it. They were, intellectually speaking, kindred spirits and already had a previous family bond.

“These factors swayed Job, and he relented and gave his daughter Jemimah to be his wife. But what Job did not realize was where this man’s ambition lay, for where Job balanced his understanding of creation with a Creator, this man sought only the conquest of the created. To this Job was blind, as we all were for a while.”

When Al paused Lester spoke. “Al, you keep saying this man did this and this man did that. I sense that you’re leading up to something. Will I recognize this man’s name when you reveal it?”

“Have you not guessed his name yet, Les?”

“Should I have?”

“Look,” said Al, typing in a key and swinging the laptop back toward him, pointing at verses nineteen through twenty-two of Genesis chapter four.

Then Lamech took for himself two wives: the name of one was Adah, and the name of the second was Zillah. And Adah bore Jabal. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who play the harp and the flute. And as for Zillah, she also bore Tubal-Cain, an instructor of every craftsman in bronze and iron. And the sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah.

Lester stopped reading aloud but was still staring at the screen.

“That’s right, Les,” confirmed Al, “old Tubal-Cain was my brother-in-law.”

“Get out of here,” said Lester in disbelief.

“Oh, that’s not even the half of it,” said Al. “Zillah, Tubal-Cain’s mother, as I said before, was the sister of Job’s wife, both of them direct descendants in the line of Cain. And Tubal-Cain’s twin sister, Naamah, married a man you may have heard of as well…Noah.”

“Wait. What?” gasped Lester. “Noah? Noah’s ark? Tubal-Cain was the brother-in-law of Noah? And your brother-in-law as well?”

“That about sums it up.”

“So what would that make Noah to you?” Lester asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Al. “Brother-in-law once removed or something. That’s not really the important thing. What’s significant is that God told Noah to build an ark and Noah, through Tubal-Cain, had access to the finest metal tools around. Because of his family relationships, Noah was able to build an ark that otherwise would have been impossible. He had tools, he had wealth at his disposal and he had manpower. And he had something else.”

“Dare I even ask?” groaned Lester.

“Noah’s son Ham married Job’s youngest daughter, Keren-Happuch. So it’s easy to see how Cain’s warped world view lived on after the flood.”

“Well, it may be easy for you to see, Al,” said Lester, “but I’m going to have to hear all that again to get it straight in my mind.”

“Of course,” said Al. “Keren adopted ideas from her older sister, Jemimah, who as Tubal-Cain’s wife, was herself indoctrinated with the lusts of Cain and his sons. Tubal-Cain’s aunt was the mother of Job’s daughters, and Tubal’s sister was Noah’s wife. They carried the ambitions of Cain from the old world into the new.”

“It’s not exactly the Brady Bunch.”

Al laughed. “No, not exactly. But the point is that I believe God gave Tubal-Cain knowledge and put him in Noah’s life, and mine, to help us accomplish our purpose.”

“And that was what?”

“To live through the flood, and to begin again on the other side,” clarified Al.

“And how exactly did
you
live through the flood?” Lester questioned, hoping this time for an answer.

“Nice try, Les, but again you’ll have to wait for that revelation.”

Lester let out a sigh. Al couldn’t tell if Lester was disappointed not to have the answer to his question or whether all the information that he was trying to process was squeezing the air out of him.

“It’s been a long day, Les. Let me just add one more thing before I forget because it’s kind of interesting.”

“Okay.”

“Tubal-Cain was practically revered before the flood. Like most college professors, his students looked up to him. They came to him for advice, for mentoring, for jobs. Tubal employed hundreds of people in his school, in the mines and smithies, and in secret projects under his mountain.”

“Under his mountain?” blurted Lester. “What the heck does that mean?”

“Well, Tubal built his city at the base of a mountain, the buildings spreading out into the surrounding plains in concentric rings. Have you ever heard of the Balkans? The Tu-Balkans. The name has survived the great flood, and is still in use today. Tubal’s University sat closest to the mountain, and in fact, most of it was actually in and under the mountain. Classes were taught in the mines, in the forges. Tubal-Cain dug into that mountain for iron and other minerals and discovered in the process a core of molten rock, the perfect heat source for his endeavors.

“The mountain was named after him, and we still use the term today. Tubal-Cain became Tu-Balcain, a word that passed through the flood by word of mouth and entered Roman mythology under the guise of the blacksmith god of fire and volcanoes…Vulcan.”

“So you’re saying that the word volcano also comes from the name Tubal-Cain?” asked Lester.

“I am,” said Al. “But that’s just the evidence in its simplicity. It’s the ideas of Cain passing through Tubal-Cain and coming through the flood via Noah’s wife and Ham’s wife that are still very much in existence today.”

“What ideas were they again?” asked Lester.

“The search for immortality,” answered Al. “The conspiracy to steal the gift of eternal life. This is what your peeping Tom was after last night, Lester. Somehow the brotherhood of Tubal-Cain discovered a link between their goals and you and sanctioned a clandestine operation to spy on your activities. Obviously my journals are that link, but how they discovered that you had some of them in your possession continues to elude me.”

“Maybe they followed you to the bar last night,” Lester offered.

“It’s entirely possible, but I’m still baffled how they managed to trace their conjectures to me at all. It seems we are going to have to start looking over our shoulders.”

“Great. And here I woke up with a stiff neck.”

“This is no laughing matter, Les.”

“If I don’t laugh a little, Al, I may go bonkers.”

“Understandable.” said Al.

“But how do you know that these mysterious voyeurs are intellectual descendants of Tubal-Cain, Al? I mean, what if they are just new bad guys?”

“Remember the calling card that your window watcher left, Lester? The dollar bill? That is one of the most recognizable signs of Cain and Tubal-Cain that we have. In one simple, six-inch piece of paper, Cain’s flat pyramid and all-seeing eye are represented, his invention of weights and measures is depicted and as Tubal-Cain would find pleasing, its value and worth is based on a precious metal.”

“Oh, right, right,” Lester nodded.

“Now that I think about it, Les, perhaps you should stay at my place tonight. It’ll be safer. I have some security measures in place, and these men may be getting desperate. I’d hate to think of my journals here alone tonight if these people should come back.” Al smiled.

“Oh, thanks a lot. You’re not worried about me, are you? It’s your journals that you’re concerned about.”

“Just kidding around, bud. But seriously, why don’t you gather up some stuff, and we’ll get out of here?”

“Yeah, all right. You think these Lightmen are coming for me?”

“No, Lester, I think they are coming for me, but they will use whatever means necessary to get to me and extract the information that they are after. They want to get their hands on my journals to see what information they can possibly glean out of them, but also because they don’t want them in the hands of anyone else…like you. The Lightmen think there is some magical formula in my possession, and they want it for themselves. Not for the good of the world, but for their own selfish greed and lust for power.

“So far they have maintained their anonymity, sticking to the shadows, patiently watching and waiting. Living in the whispers and surreptitiously probing their leads. But I am not so naïve to believe that at any moment they couldn’t come rushing in like the proverbial bull in the china shop, smashing anything that gets in their way and taking what they want. They have enough money to sweep anything under the rug, buy everyone who can be bought off and kill anyone else. You, my friend, would merely be collateral damage in a war of insatiable gluttony and avarice that has killed millions of innocent people and been fought viciously since the death of my brother Abel.”

Lester had been fiddling around with the laptop while Al was talking. “Check this out, Al. I think I just figured out who these people are or at least where their secret base is located.”

“Figured out who who are, Les?” asked Al.

“The enemy, the Lightmen.” He swung the laptop around to Al. “I just googled Tubal-Cain and look what came up. There’s like four or five references besides Wikipedia. It says here that Tubal-Cain is a secret password of the Freemasons. They’ve got handshakes and lapel pins and golf tournaments that all pay reference to Tubal-Cain. This is crazy. And whoa, look at this,” said Lester, clicking on a website called Tubal-Cain Industrial Steel Technologies.

“Holy sh…” Lester glanced over at Al before finishing, “…sheetmetal. I can’t believe my eyes. There is actually a company called Tubal-Cain Industries that makes stuff out of metal.”

“Don’t get too excited, Les,” cautioned Al. “I know it’s odd to find a company with the name of Tubal-Cain in the twenty-first century, but I doubt that its CEO or stockholders are in league with our Lightmen. More than likely this is just a steel fabricating company whose founder decided to tip his hat to the earliest reference of smithing and metalwork production that he could find. Our Lightmen are very well insulated from quick Internet searches. We’re going to have to do some deeper digging to unearth any viable leads to them.”

Lester looked deflated. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. But man, I was just so sure that I’d suddenly found something so obvious that everyone else had missed it.”

“Well, you’re welcome to keep investigating,” said Al, exiting out of the Internet and logging off, “but I think we should do it from my house.”

Lester’s lips seemed to pucker up as he nodded. “Okay, Al. I’ll go grab some stuff.”