Eye of Ra (19 page)

“I will find you, filthy half-breed,” Anubis growled. “No matter where you go I shall hunt you down. There is not a quadrant in any part of this universe where you can hide from me. And when I find you, and I will, I shall remove your cowardly, deceiving head from your shoulders and squeeze the truth from it. But know, half-breed, before that time comes, that no gods to whom you pray shall grant you a swift end at my hands! You shall suffer greatly before you rejoin the Awakening! So pledges Anubis, son of Set!”

Cold sweat washed over Laurence as he looked up at the blue sky. In this, Gendari looked much like Earth. He closed his eyes and prayed that it was all a dream. That he had not been chased through war-torn Rwanda by a sword wielding alien known as Anubis, Egyptian god of the underworld. That he had not just heard Anubis threaten him with a slow and painful death before cleaving his head from his body.

The minute Laurence opened his eyes, he knew, he would be back on his filthy mattress with Rosemary slumped over him, still asleep.

But when, he opened his eyes, he saw the same blue Earthlike skies and a sea dragon soaring nearby. It bellowed, startling Laurence and spooking some of the smaller creatures on the beach, which took flight in another direction.

There was no going back to that filthy mattress.

Anubis was coming for him.

He was going to die.

The worst feeling in the world came over him. He did not want to die anymore. After tasting once again how sweet and energizing life could be …he no longer wanted to die.

As his familiar slithered over to him, he had an urge to kick it, preferably into the ocean.

 “Laurence Danjuma, I would advise that we discuss a course of action to deal with Anubis.”

He turned to it with a murderous glare as if he wanted to stomp down on its head. Without a word, he walked in the direction of the alien jungle to get as much distance away from it as he could.

The familiar sat watching as its master dropped his helm into the sand and entered the foliage, disappearing into the green without a care as to where he was walking.

  ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜

Thirty thousand light years from where Laurence landed, an irritated Anubis stood on a smaller planet capable only of sustaining minimal life due to its harsh arctic atmosphere. His armor, slightly covered with ice and frost, weathered the blizzard howling all around him.

“Have you located the wretched half-breed yet?” He asked his familiars in the Annunaki tongue.

“Negative,” they responded in unison. “The false signature trail his familiar emitted has made triangulating him difficult. It will take us several Nebunes to lock onto his position.”

“Bolster your efforts,” he commanded them.

The Head of House is still attempting to connect with you,” they informed him. “We advise …”

“You are
my
familiars!” He roared at them. “Ignore communication until I say otherwise, and continue efforts to find the half-breed!”

“Yes master,” they obeyed. “The Eye of Osiris is also attempting to communicate with you; shall we ignore her as well?

 “Is she on the home world?”

“Negative,” they answered. “She is communicating from the third colonial world.”

“Open communications with her.”

Within his helm appeared a small screen image of an Annunaki female warrior adorned in a feline themed armor made of silver and onyx Alder plates, with emerald Ember fashioned on different parts of her armor. Her helm, which looked like the head of an Earth cat, was halfway up, revealing her deep warm bronze skin, braided blue and black hair, and large piercing sea green eyes with two rings in her left nostril.

“Cousin,” she greeted him by slamming her right closed fist forearm across her left armor plated breast.

“Bastet,” he returned the greeting.

“Have you located the half-breed?”

“I have,” he gruffed. “But the filthy mongrel has managed to elude me with the aid of his familiar. I am tracking him as we speak.”

“I should come to lend aid,” she growled.

“We have already discussed and allowed disk to make proper choice,” he sternly returned. “It is senseless for the both of us to be judged for our righteous actions. I shall hunt down this wretched half-breed and bring justice to both our fathers along with truth from his false dead tongue. Besides …the weak blooded bastard of Amun-Ra is a grubby coward. It would bring dishonor to both of us if we used our combined efforts to rip him from this mortal coil. I shall yoke the weight of shame for dispatching him.”

“Then quicken your hunt dear cousin, and fill the cup of vengeance that has been dried by aged treachery.”

“It shall be done with every drop of the half-breed’s blood,” he nodded. “Along with whatever kin he may have on that wretched backwater planet he hails from.”

Bastet hammered her left armor plated breast with a forearm once again as the transmission ended.

“Ska, Azkra,” he snarled at his familiars. “Quicken your search, find the filthy half-breed now!”

CHAPTER 8

Back on Gendari, over thirty minutes had passed since his arrival. Laurence sat on the ground propped against a large boulder staring aimlessly into space. His mind was more on what he was going to do next as opposed to the fact that he was currently sitting on the ground of a foreign planet twenty light years away from Earth.

He coughed as he breathed in the alien air. Coming from a smog-infested concrete jungle, his lungs, resistant to such toxins, were not used to the purity and richness of the air around him.

His mind replayed the events that led up to him sitting there. He wondered if it was an actual blessing or curse that he had stolen the staff from his father.

In the middle of his thoughts, the current bane of his existence slithered up to him with his helm in its mouth to check on him. His eyes rolled in disgust as it slowly placed the helm on the ground in front of him.

“Laurence Danjuma of the House of Ra, are you still irritated with me?”

“Naw, we all good,” he answered with a false smile and a tone slathered with sarcasm. “I’m currently hiding on an alien planet on the other side of the universe fearing for my life, but you and me … we’re all good.”

“Your tone and vital signs reflect differently from your demeanor and sentence,” the familiar observed. “Is this sarcasm again?”

“Very good,” he continued with a sardonic golf clap. “You saw right through that. I’m mad impressed.”

He shot to his feet as if he wanted to strangle it.

“I just got jumped and shot at by an Egyptian god from another planet son,” Laurence howled at the familiar. “Who just sent me a death threat saying he plans to stomp me out and then cut my head off. How the fuck you think I feel?”

“Again, Anubis is not an Egyptian …” The familiar began to reiterate.

“Head off!” Laurence roared flaring his arms. “Head cut the fuck off!”

He wanted to pick up the boulder he was leaning against and crush the familiar until it stopped moving. The knowledge that it probably would not work, and that he still needed it functioning if he wanted any hope of surviving the death threat put out against him, was the only thing that stayed his hand. He walked off getting a bit of distance between them so that he could calm down and think with a straight head.

“Why does the son of Set want to cut my head off?”

“Because you are from the bloodline of Amun-Ra.” It flatly answered.

“So Amun-Ra was the baby daddy of some Egyptian chick some several thousand years ago!!” He snapped. “It wasn’t
his
daddy dipping out on his mom and creeping! So why is that justification for threatening to remove my head from my body?”

 “To have sired a human bloodline means that Amun-Ra lied in his final report,” answered the familiar. “Anubis is most likely under the impression that Amun-Ra is responsible for his father’s death.”

“Is he?”

“No, he is not.” The familiar replied.

 “Okay, remember those protocols you talked about?” growled Laurence. “I believe this situation right here falls in line with them! Now you’ve been hiding something from me this whole time, and I want to know what the hell it is!”

“You are correct about the current situation and the protocols,” answered the cybernetic Seni. “However, I am incapable of deceiving you. You have not been asking the right questions under the right circumstances.”

“Well since this is the right friggin circumstances,” he snarled getting to the point. “Anubis and I’m guessing the whole damn planet of Anu knew you were on Earth this whole time. Why didn’t he or Amun-Ra’s daughter come and get you? Or for that matter, since you’re so damn smart with your goddamn ‘A.I.’, why didn’t you and the ship take your asses back home?”

“By order of Amun-Ra, I and the transport were not allowed to return to Anu under any circumstances,” stated the mechanized serpent. “And to answer your first question, based on false information, neither Anubis nor anyone was able to set foot on Earth.”

“What false information?” he barked.

“To use your language, the Earth was officially classified as a Quarantine Planet,” it responded.

“Which means?” he became more impatient.

“A planet inoculated with an airborne pathogen or parasite that is both contagious and extremely deadly to all other life forms except the indigenous inhabitants of that planet.”

The familiar’s answer left him with a blank, perplexed expression on his face.

“Wait, hold up,” he held up a hand attempting to process what he heard. “You’re saying that all this time, Earth was registered as some kind of contamination zone?”

“Falsely classified,” reiterated the staff. “By Amun-Ra.”

“Okay,” Laurence pointed a finger. “I’m about through with this one-word answer shit. And about five seconds away from getting mad ignant up in dis bitch if you keep dicking me around! Start from the point that caused Amun-Ra to file a false report. Go.”

“I can also show you,” answered the familiar. “Through your helm.”

He gave it a dirty look as he snatched up his helm, placing it on his head again. The familiar’s eyes glowed as it activated the helm’s faceplate and brought it down. It began to light up, projecting images before his eyes as it began to narrate.

“3013 BC, one of the final experiments performed by Amun-Ra, Set and Osiris,” began the familiar. “Male subject Amenemnisu, age sixteen, and female subject Amenia, also age sixteen. For the purpose of the experiment the test subjects’ names were changed to Horus and Sekhmet.  Both underwent a process best translated in your language as “Gene Soaking.” Through various injections, a synthetic virus called “Aten” activated all dormant sectors of their DNA for them to achieve their maximum potential.”

“Why?” asked Laurence.

“The purpose of the experiment was to get a baseline reading of how your species would react once they reached the peak of their evolution,” answered the familiar. “In time, both Amenemnisu and Amenia began to grow in ability, intelligence and awareness. Eventually they no longer saw Amun-Ra, Osiris or Set as gods, but perceived them to be their primitive counterparts. They began to see themselves as gods and went through steps to secure rule of the planet. During one of their testing sessions, they assaulted Amun-Ra, Set and Osiris.  It was a destructive battle that escaped the confinement of the facility. Thousands both sentient and non-sentient beings were killed as the fighting grew in intensity across the planet.

They managed to defeat and capture Sekhmet; however, in the midst of attempting to bring down Horus; the test subject gained the ability to absorb energy, bolstering his physiology, while also channeling it as an offensive weapon. Osiris was mortally wounded and expired fifteen minutes later. Set and Amun-Ra continued to battle Horus while transmitting information back to the transport to come up with a solution to stop Horus. The solution was the fabrication of a device called the Bleed System. When attached to Horus, it created a micronized portal directly into a black hole that could siphon the energy out of him faster than he absorbed it.

The agreed-upon plan devised by Set was for Amun-Ra to distract Horus while he got close enough to attach the device to him. The plan was a success.

However, Set was mortally wounded during the final confrontation. He expired approximately thirty minutes later.

Sekhmet was properly disposed of and buried. Horus’ disposal had to be handled differently. Despite the Bleed System siphoning energy from him, Horus was still drawing power attempting to overcome it. Amun-Ra constructed an encasement version of the Bleed System. The encasement served to cut off Horus’ direct contact with any energy source he could draw from, while continuing to siphon off the remaining energy within his cells.”

“So he was buried alive,” Laurence huffed.

“Correct, based on the rate of drain it is estimated that he perished five centuries ago,” it answered.

“This Gene Soaking,” Laurence narrowed his eyes. “Was that what you did in order to heal me?”

“Correct,” answered the familiar. “Unlike Horus and Sekmet’s Gene Soaking, which unlocked their entire dormant DNA coding, the Aten that you were injected with was programmed to unlock only certain dormant DNA coding, enhancing your physiology to aid in your recovery.”