Sentinels of the Cosmos Trilogy (13 page)

Sam slowly wakes up in the chair in the Microbiology
Lab to find Beneizen sitting across from him.
Serene as always, he studies Sam and says, "You
allowed Ivan to do this; you just can't be that sloppy.
You know what's at stake."
"Sorry, my friend, very sorry," says Sam groggily.
Beneizen continues, "You know if this doesn't work I
could be asked to destroy the earth or at least all
organic life on it and reseed it the way I did eons ago.
Human beings are interesting organisms and if a
certain number are working correctly have the power
to correct the imbalance in this universe. I'm trying
help, to re-establish some kind of balance and you're
not
helping."
"OK," says Sam quietly.
Beneizen smiles, "You do not understand me at all,
you still have your own agenda, your own sense of
right and wrong. And I face the same danger; we both
need to be watchful.”
Sam knows there is no value in arguing with
Beneizen. First he needs to hear what he says and
second Beneizen is over a million years old... that's
what you call experience. "I need to understand what
you’re bringing me,” Sam complains.
"We may need to move all the people and much of
the organic life of earth to another planet; someplace
where they could be less destructive to themselves, or
maybe they could be used to destroy other worlds.
They're very good at it. The same way some of your
insects change leaves, twigs and other organic
materials into compost. Another possibility would be
to leave a team of Sentinels to monitor and control
human behavior. Not only is organic life on earth
alive, the earth itself is alive. Such a tragedy for
mankind, they have the possibility for evolution, they
are not limited as other organic life forms are. It pains
me and our common creator to see humanity used for
such destructive purposes. They die like dogs,
because they never learn to attain their higher
possibilities. They have lost the key to their own inner
search. I have failed them. I failed Doris and Charles
too," Beneizen says quietly to himself.
Sam leans forward and places his hand on Beneizen's
hand, "We've both failed. How can we get humanity
to rediscover their wish and abilities?”
Beneizen smiles, "You know the definition of a saint?
It’s a sinner who keeps trying!"
Sam smiles, "Who says I want to be a saint? Listen,
Beneizen I need to get the files out of my safe and
move them. The Nano-life form technology has to be
destroyed before Charles can get hold of it. That
information in the wrong hands could prove a disaster
for the universe."
"I agree," Beneizen says.
Suddenly Ivan walks into the room and stands there
for a moment taking in the situation. Sam was
removing the picture frame from the wall exposing
the safe behind it.
"Sam, I need everything in safe," Ivan explodes.
"Sorry I can't allow that," Sam retorts.
"Well look at this situation, this makes my day. I get
both of you to kill at once, such unforeseen pleasure.
Ivan takes out a gun, but first I need contents of safe,"
Ivan exclaims.
"What you're looking for is not in this safe," Sam
says.
"Then why were you just now going to open it?" Ivan
asks.
"I was getting money for Beneizen," Sam says.
"So he can flee again," Ivan says with satisfaction.
"Yes that's right. Let me finish opening it?" Sam says.
"Open it," Ivan agrees.
Sam opens the safe, takes out a stack of cash and sets
it on the table. Beneizen looks at the money.
"You see there is nothing else in the safe," Sam tells
him.
"Let me see," Ivan pushes Sam away, points the gun
at Sam's head and reaches into the safe to see if the
files are there. He feels that there is nothing. The
expression on his face changes from self-satisfaction
to fury." "Where are files?" he snarls.
Again Ivan reaches in and desperately feels all over
inside the safe. He feels carefully along the roof of
the safe and his finger comes across a very small
piece of tape. He peels the tape back and there is a
very small thin SD card. He says, "Ah, what is this?"
Ivan takes the drive and smiles, "Very clever and
small, but so mighty. Who uses paper anymore, right?
Now I kill both of you." He places the gun right in
front of Sam’s head and pulls the trigger. Beneizen, in
an instant, raises his hand and stops the bullet. Sam
and Ivan are frozen in the moment; it was as though
time had stopped. He then takes the bullet and sets it
down on the table. Beneizen takes the card out of
Ivan's hand, awakens Sam and hands it to him.
Beneizen says, "Take this card and replace it with
another SD card."
Sam fumbles around in his desk drawer, finds another
wafer thin SD card that looks identical and places it
back in Ivan’s hand.
"Now Sam go back to where you were, no, slightly to
the left so the bullet misses you. Sam you're going to
have to disable Ivan when I unfreeze time. Beneizen
takes the bullet that he set on the table walks over to
the wall and pushes it into the wall lining it up so that
it looks like it missed Sam's head.
"OK, now I want you to disarm Ivan and we leave,"
Beneizen says.
"Why don't we just kill Ivan?" Sam asks.
"Because he still has a role to play; even deadly
predators serve great nature. Sam you need a much
larger picture. Imagine you're on the moon looking at
the earth. How would you perceive all of this
behavior? Would you see only
my
country,
my
race,
my
wife,
my
things? No, you would see your world as
a very small place - ready?" Beneizen says.
"I'm ready," gulps Sam.
Beneizen unfreezes time and Sam grabs Ivan around
the neck and slams him to the floor. He grabs Ivan's
gun and places it to Ivan's head. Ivan screams, "You
dead, you hear me, you're dead. I could not have
missed. I only inches from head!"
"You're hallucinating, and I have the gun.” Sam
replies calmly, “You're slipping Ivan. Living in
amoral America has made you weak, you hear me
weak? Keep the card it has nothing important on it."
Ivan seethes as he sits up on the floor.
Beneizen and Sam leave the room and lock Ivan
inside. They need to find Chase and Ally and keep
them safe.
Ivan screams, "You both dead, you just don't know it.
Big mistake leaving me alive - big mistake! You hear
me big mistake!” Ivan stands and looks perplexed for
a moment. He goes over to the wall and sees the
bullet. He takes out his knife and removes the bullet
from the wall. And thinks to himself, "No damage to
this bullet, what's going on here." He picks up the
small SD card that he had dropped in the conflict
squeezes it and an eight inch screen appears with
images of various Guards and different stages of
development. He scrolls through the images until he
comes to a diagram; it was like nothing he had ever
seen. It was in a language he had never seen. He
blows up the diagram until it almost four feet wide.
He reaches inside the diagram and turns it sideways.
And again says to himself, "this must be language
that Charles talking about, diagram looks like key."
Sam and Beneizen get half way down the hall when
Sam turns around and says to Beneizen, "I gave him
the wrong card. It has the Klacknel language key on
it."
Beneizen says, "We can't go back now besides it will
be of no use to them at the moment."
Sam asks, "Could it unlock Chase and Ally?"
"No, nothing can do that but me, they are not
Klacknels," replies Beneizen.
"Beneizen, I need to know the plan, you're keeping
me in the dark, now."
"Sam, I cannot, not when you continually make
mistakes like these. Search in yourself for something
you can trust, find it and then you will know the
plan."

Chase and Ally were just at the outskirts of Leesburg.
Chase wondered, “What’s my real name, or did I
even ever have a name?” As he looked over at Ally,
he liked her face, and her wide smile. Then he said,
“Ally, I need to stop somewhere before we go into
EOJ headquarters.”
“No, we are going straight there with no stops,” she
said, giving her programmed response.
“Then I’ll jump out of the car, and run away from
you, and you’ll have to chase me. Let me ask you,
what is more efficient, allow me to stop at a
newspaper stand for a moment or chase me through
the streets of Leesburg? You weren’t directed to kill
me, you’re directive is to bring me in as soon as
possible. It’s not efficient, to let me run,” Chase made
his case.
Ally thought for a moment and then smiled, “OK, just
for a moment, where are we stopping?”
“Edison’s Newspaper stand,” Chase said.
“OK, found it, I know where it is,” she replied.
They were there in a few minutes; Chase got out of
the car and went into the newspaper stand. The blind
man sat behind the counter. He had bandages around
his head and the entire place had been completely
turned upside down. There were no magazines, or
newspapers, nothing.
“They destroyed everything,” The blind man said.
“I’m sorry, I was to pick up a magazine on crossword
puzzles,” Chase begins.
“The brutes, they took everything, and hurt an old
blind man!”
“Who were they?” Chase asked.
“Idiot, I have no idea, I’m blind! It was ‘them.’
Unless I know you and then it’s you,” sarcasm from a
blind man was refreshing and they both laughed.
“Sam told me to stop here,” Chase said.
“Sam? Do you know him?” the blind man asked.
“No, we’ve never met at least as far as I can
remember, but he told me to come here and find this
magazine, replied Chase”
“What’s 2 + 2?” the blind man asked.
“Five,” Chase answered.
“You’re the man,” the blind man says reaching into
the back of his pants and taking out the folded
crossword magazine. “Is this what you’re looking
for? It probably smells, I’ve been sitting on it all
day”

“Thanks,” Chase said.
“Tell Sam he owes me big time for this one,” the
blind man says.
“I will if I ever get to meet him,” replies Chase as he
leaves to get back in the car.
Ally was relieved to see him return so quickly. He
opens the crossword magazine and begins to look
through it, finally coming upon a puzzle that was
completely filled out. The filled out spaces had
nothing to do with the answers to the questions. The
first question across was, “around the circumference
of the earth?” The seven letter answer was obviously
“equator” but Sam had written in 5964561. Chases’
brain immediately accessed a file in his head and was
able to scroll down his personal history from the time
he had been first created. His whole history was there.
He could actually replay it just like a long movie clip,
seeing every detail of everything he had ever done.
The rest of the puzzle was also filled just with
numbers, each a code that opened up memory or data
implant files in him. He needed to be alone to explore
and learn and understand the contents of all of these
files. Some of them were very large indeed. Ally had
tapped into his head and knew what was going on.”
“How did you do that?” she asked.
“Can’t a man have any privacy?” Chase snapped.
“No, none, and you're not a man, how did you do
that?” she persisted.
“I read this code and it opened up a subroutine in my
mind, apparently it was a specific file number. There
must a gigantic database in my brain, I seem to be
able to access everything I know and have done. It’s
strange, very strange. I’m able to access experiences
and facts about things and events that I never knew
existed, and I have no idea who or what part in me is
even accessing this knowledge. It could drive a man
crazy to know all about himself at once; it certainly
puts everything about me into question. I’m happy to
see that I apparently have a real past and a long one at
that.”
Ally appears more and more anxiety ridden and snaps
back, “You’ve put
me
into question too, and I don’t
like that a bit, that code opened up the same kind of
history in my own brain.”

“Then stay out of my head, and my business and I’ll
try and stay out of yours,” Chase replies sternly.
“You can’t access my thoughts,” Ally responds.
“How do you know?” he says.
“I know,” she says.

“Ally just drive,” Chase said exasperated.
“Fine, whatever you say Mr. Man over there,” Ally
seems even more angry and upset.”
“Are you angry and upset now, I thought you couldn’t
get upset or have any emotions?” Chase probes.
“I just don’t like it when you say things that are lies,
it gives me a headache, and it’s disturbing. You know
I really hate being selfconscious, I’d rather just be
reprogrammed and sent on another assignment,” Ally
spits out.
“Don’t turn away from the headaches. We have a
second brain we know nothing about yet and it really
controls us,” Chase said, then, continued… “Ally,
what’s 2+2?” he asks.
“Four, of course,” she snapped.
“Wrong, it’s five!” Chase thought to himself, “She
can’t read
all
my thoughts, and he thought that was
very curious. He must have access to his second brain
and maybe she does not have access to it. Chase tore
the single page out of the magazine, and looked at it.
He was aware of the difference between the two
brains in him at once; one was a machine without
reason or consciousness, and the other was human
and mysterious, unknown, and much vaster. One had
great knowledge and the other was a like a porthole
onto a landscape he didn’t understand. He looked at
the crossword page of numbers, and immediately
committed all the numbers to memory. He could see
that his mechanical brain, the Cybarium implant was
coming more and more under the control of his
human brain. He did not have to allow anything to
access his thoughts and command him to carry out
directives or missions that he did not agree with. He
discovered he had a will of his own. He then looked
at his fingers and was able to turn his fingernails
black simply by willing it.
“I don’t know if I want to know,” Ally responds.
“It may be too late, you may have no choice,” Chase
says.
Ally pulled the car up in front of Antonio’s Pizzeria,
and they went in, walked into the bathroom, entered a
stall, and turned the toilet paper dispenser to begin the
long descent into the bowels of the world of EOJ.
Chase was uneasy, he knew that both he and Ally
were in great danger, but his need for answers was
greater than his fear; he was drawn to knowing more
about himself at whatever the cost. “Did he have
parents? I need a place to call home, is this it?” Chase
thought, then just before the door opened he heard a
voice in his head saying, "Chase, trust no one, and I
will be with you, I am Beneizen, your father."
When the doors to the elevator opened Senator
Bennett and Ivan were there to greet them,