Society Rules (5 page)

Without thinking, Indie rushed to turn her to her side so that the thick secretions could drain from her airway, and stifled a cry. The burning was fierce in her gut. She tried to shake it off, but it was undeniable.

Her favorite person had been sentenced to die, and there would be no stay granted by any doctor. Maggie was her own guardian, and had an advance directive, Indie knew, and so no one was to try to save her anyway. She fought the tightening of her throat that warned of the unprofessional tears trying to force their way out.

“I told you so,” Maggie rasped in an eerily casual manner, finally opening her green opalescent eyes to look up at her. Indie tried to set her in a comfortable position, pointlessly fussing with the woman’s soft sea-foam green comforter, the tiny floral pattern blurring as the tears insisted on making themselves known.

“Okay, so what would you like me to do for you,” she asked, stroking the silver white curls framing Maggie’s face, determined to remain calm for the sake of her patient.

“Oh, there is nothing you can do for
me
, but I am going to try to do something for
you
. Actually, I’d hoped to put off dying until I saw you again. I know something about you that even you don’t know, and I wanted to be the one to finally tell you that you are NOT crazy!” Maggie shifted in the bed to better see Indie, and spoke to her in a somewhat sly voice.

“You are a music lover, are you not? Not simply a lover . . . you become almost entranced by it. You
need
it, don’t you?” She smiled at the look on Indie’s face, and then closed her eyes for a moment with a satisfied sigh.

Indie stared at Maggie’s face, trying to quell the instant unease caused by her words.

“What do you mean by that, Miss Maggie?” Maggie snapped open her translucent sage-colored eyes, and fixed them upon her.

“Indie, I know you try to act like one of them, but you’re just simply not, and today is the day you will hear the truth.”

Indie was becoming even more alarmed now. Was her patient finally succumbing to senile dementia, on her way out the door? She was frightened that the answer was a resounding “no”. She felt a rising anxiety, because the words she spoke brought to life the sense of foreboding she had felt earlier. Now, it began to spread throughout her body.

Maggie knows that I am not normal. Well, okay, so much for my charade, thought Indie.

A movement in the doorway caught her eye, and she turned to face the intruder. Instinctively Indie knew that she was onto something here, and some other nurse or aide, was going perform a terrible information-denying feat by cutting in on the conversation; one that she knew was going to be interesting, but sadly, also very short.

The feeling burst through her in a flash . . . the burning intensity in her head catching her off guard. The interloper was a tall and obviously very fit young man, dressed simply in dark jeans and a white button down shirt, worn untucked under a dark leather bomber-style jacket. He had obnoxiously unkempt hair, although Indie found it strangely appealing.

The color was perhaps two shades shy of jet black, like molasses, with glints of warmth snapping through the thick mixture of straight and wavy locks and he looked at Miss Maggie with compassionate eyes.

Eyes that were an exquisite blend of cobalt and turquoise in color. Those eyes then flicked toward Indie’s, and a jolt of electricity slammed through her body. The oddly colored blue eyes widened, and she heard his quick intake of breath.

This caused an instant dizzy and disorienting feeling to rush through Indie’s head, because it was the same sound that had triggered her senses this morning. The sound that had come from an unknown source, and now, she had identified it.

This stranger looked like he could have easily blended in with the hoard of high school kids there at the time.

Indie shook her head briefly, trying to clear it when the obvious hit her. It was here! The source of her early morning angst . . . in her workplace . . . her safe zone . . .
her
patient’s
room!

In full protective mode, she threw off the fuzzy feeling and stood between the door and Miss Maggie’s bed, arms outstretched in warning.

“Don’t come near her, do you hear me?” Indie’s foremost thought was to protect her patient, and in an unprecedented reaction, she was ready for a throw down with this person, if that’s what it took.

“What do you want?” she demanded in a choking voice that sounded nothing like her own. The stranger took a step back as though pushed by an unseen force, with a sickened look clouding his perfect features.

“Indie let him be,” Miss Maggie wheezed in what still managed to be a commanding voice.

“Do . . . do you know this person,” Indie asked, suddenly appalled at the idea that she may have just threatened a legitimate visitor.

“Oh I don’t know him, but I see his markers, and I know he is one . . .”

He is
one
? A chill raced through her body.

“He is one . . . of
what
?”

“Please,” the stranger broke in softly, “if I may be allowed to speak . . .” His voice was intoxicating in tone and cadence, a hint of a British accent apparent. “I heard Miss Conner was here, and I came to see her. We . . . know some of the same people”.

He cautiously approached the bed, eyes never leaving Indie’s, moving with a lithe grace that suddenly made Indie feel a strange sensation in her lower belly, and some very inappropriate thoughts swung through her mind. What was happening to her?

Indie burned with ten shades of shame, and cleared her throat. Confused and embarrassed, she stepped out of his path as he came around to the chair next to the bed and sat down slowly, taking the hand of the dying woman.

Miss Maggie allowed this, looking up at him through half closed eyes.

“Ah, so warm, these hands. I can feel the bloodlines of the warriors flowing through them.” She smiled and gestured with her chin toward Indie before continuing. “But hers are even more powerful, you know . . . in the way only warm, healing hands can be. However,” she sighed, “we are beyond healing now, and the next life awaits us.”

We?

Before Indie could ask what she meant, Maggie closed her eyes and dragged another ragged breath through her failing lungs.

“Let me get you some morphine, Miss Maggie,” Indie begged, “it will help your breathing.” She was desperate, if not to keep her alive, then at least to keep her comfortable.

“Keep still, child. I have only a short time left.” Maggie spoke firmly. She opened her eyes and looked at the disconcertingly handsome man sitting inches away from her, his arms poked through the side rails of the bed, still holding her hand.

He pulled his gaze away from Maggie and lifted his eyes back to Indie’s. She had to fight to stay on her feet. He was, well, stunning; she had to admit this in spite the discombobulating things that were happening, as well as the words accosting her in the cool dimness of Ms. Maggie’s private room.

The look in his eyes was familiar to her in some odd way. She had seen those lost and tired eyes somewhere, very recently. The answer slammed into her. With a shudder of recognition, she realized that it was in the mirror.
She
had those same eyes; that same look of desperate yearning.

Indie tried to focus, and study him stealthily. He looked so very young, but there was something about him . . . a weariness that comes from years spent . . . unfulfilled? His were not the eyes of someone young. And there was no way to pinpoint it, exactly, but there was something about this person that was creating a nearly irresistible pull toward him, as if she should simply walk over and sit in his lap! If that wasn’t ridiculous enough, she also felt as though he would welcome her doing this . . . as if she would actually do such a thing.

She could picture it now;

“Hello, stranger, mind if I plop down on top of you?”

“Why no, not at all. In fact, please do!”

Aside from the obvious reasons, such as the situation as a whole, there was another reason Indie was becoming more than a little uncomfortable with her reaction to this man. He physically did not look a day over nineteen . . . twenty maybe.

Moreover, he was a complete stranger. This whole thing was strange. In a rush of emotion, her throat tightened and in an instant, the overwhelming urge to flee took over her thoughts.

“Do you tell her or shall I, young Jackson, because she is about to bolt!” Miss Maggie seemed to sense her sudden inexplicable fright, but her words locked Indie into place and stopped her breathing. She stayed where she was, staring stupidly at the two of them.

“I suppose it may be easier, coming from you,” sighed the young man in a resigned and weary voice, but it was achingly smooth and lulling. It had the disturbing effect of both putting Indie both at ease and on edge simultaneously.

“She knows you . . . and loves you,” he added quietly.

Wow. That was quite the intimate statement, uttered by a person upon whom she had never set eyes before. Indie fought a defiant urge to demand that he explain just how he could possibly know anything about whom or what she loved.

Instead, she focused on the young man’s eyes, reading his unease and wariness . . . and some other unfathomable emotion in them that inexplicably made her heart ache.

He needed comforting. She had no idea why she knew this, but the young man in front of her was on the edge of heartbreak and despair.

The knowledge made Indie’s own heart shrivel with pain. His pain was hers also. The thought slid through her mind like strong hands through her hair, and made her unsteady on her feet once more. As she thought further about the statement that he had just made, suddenly, it wasn’t so hard to keep her mouth shut. She was becoming nervously intrigued.

“Then we haven’t much time,” Miss Maggie croaked. “Sit down Indie, and I am going to tell you a story.” Indie snapped back to reality with a gasp.

“I am on the clock,” she remembered, speaking in a small voice, “they will be looking for me, wondering where I am in just a few minutes. I’ll have to count first . . . get report . . . .” her voice trailed away.

“No one is thinking about you right now, trust me,” Miss Maggie said airily, as she shifted uncomfortably in her bed. “Nor me either.”

Indie silently tried to process this statement, and decided that even though it made no sense, she was just going to have to go with it. She knew Maggie was going to die very soon, and she was suddenly desperate to hear what she had to say.

“I will warn you right now, Indie, my story goes back further than your mind can probably accept; your carefully cultivated normal mind. I’m talking about billions of years . . . one hundred and twenty, to be more precise.”

Indie listened with outward calm, but was already wondering where Maggie could possibly be going with this introduction. And why was this strange and beautiful man at her side not shrinking away, or at the very least, looking appropriately mystified by these words?

Indie shifted nervously, noticing at that same moment, that all of the unending sounds of the nursing home . . . call lights buzzing, aides talking, etcetera, had gone frighteningly silent.

She dared not look into the hallway, for suddenly, she suffered a gut twisting terror that she would see everyone frozen in place, as if in an episode of the Twilight Zone, and she had no wish to begin screaming uncontrollably.

“Pay attention Indie Allen!” barked Maggie, hoarsely, “Stand still and listen, because my time is unfortunately, quite limited now!”

Indie gaped at her. She knew her mouth was hanging open, but she couldn’t seem to fix it, for Maggie had called her by her maiden name. Indie knew without a doubt, that this name had never crossed her lips in this town . . . not in this state.

She carefully pulled her mouth up to its correct position, and dropped her head, clinging to the wooden footboard of Maggie’s bed for dear life. She was so very grateful for its ability to hold her up, because as her eyes made contact once more with the one called Jackson, Indie felt the current snap through her again, and his intensity made her legs feel shifty.

She steeled herself.

“Ok, you know what? I . . . I am positive now that I absolutely need to hear this, and I’m . . .” she gulped down the slight feeling of nausea that was scratching at the inside of her belly. “I am ready to handle whatever you want to tell me, Miss Maggie.”

Indie hoped that she sounded more convincing from the outside of her body, than she sounded to herself.

Maggie replaced her head on her stack of pillows and smiled.

Jackson’s face creased with a look of momentary distress, and she squeezed his hand in a comforting way before speaking.

“Good. Now we can begin”

Chapter 3

Miss Maggie’s Tale

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,
however
improbable
, must be the truth.”

The
Sign
of
the
Four
, chapter 6 (1890)

Sherlock Holmes in
The
Sign
of
the
Four

“First you must clear your head of all your preconceived ideas of the possible, please, or you will never be able to hear me,” she began. Indie winced but kept silent as a burst of coughing shook Maggie’s tiny frame. She recovered, and pressed on.

“As I said, this story begins approximately one hundred and twenty billion years ago, long after the Ancestors had watched this planet boil, flare and finally cool. This, they observed with clinical detachment, interested in the shaping of the materials, and what they were becoming.”

At this point, Indie opened her mouth, ready to interrupt this dialog right away, but she caught Jackson’s eye, and somehow read a gentle warning from him, and a slight negative movement of his head. Indie closed her mouth with a snap as Maggie continued.

“And then there was life! As the first microscopic being drew breath, the fascination grew, as did the complexity of those beings. And the Ancestors grew excited, amazed at the life evolving before their eyes.

It has been said that Baghdad is the cradle of civilization; however, this is a myth. One of a thousand civilizations was born there, but this was not the beginning. The birthplace of human kind truly began in the Nurnanov Region approximating Russia, near the city of Ufa.

The wild lands were cleared, the waters drained away in preparation for a great Society.

A city where people would be born to learn, to understand and put to full use the gifts that they had been given by the Creator. They were granted the great knowledge by the architects of this Society, to create a highly advanced community.

Two hundred maps were created, carved from dolomite and diopside. They were inscribed with intricate three-dimensional maps of the world, including every mountain range, forest, the Rivers Bely, Ufimka and Sutolka, as well as the Great Ufa Canyon. These were distributed by Society Elders to various parts of this planet, given as gifts to all life forms there.

The plan was to bring to this world the greatness that is shared beyond it. All over this beautiful but still new and wild land, grand structures and chambers were built using a system that the ancients referred to as ‘Sacred Geometry,’ based on mathematical measurements in relation to simple shapes.

Society Ancestors taught the people to construct the sacred places using specific geometrical ratios. This allowed them to better connect with their Creator, and to feel the vibrations, the language of the Earth.”

Maggie sighed and shook her head

“I will not waste time speaking the names of those races yet to be discovered from so very long ago. The remnants of those Societies have gone back to the Earth, and may never be known by the general masses. Instead, I will focus on the recent history . . . the known cultures, and how our Ancestors have touched them.

At first, in the earliest years, it was simple. The Ancestors would present themselves to the strongest and most intelligent of colonized life forms, moving to tribal leaders as time wore on. The life here believed, and listened eagerly to what the strange visitors had to say, and absorbed their knowledge with boundless thirst. It wasn’t like it is today, with modern sensibilities so cynical they refuse to acknowledge the new and unknown.”

It was this last statement that caused Indie to briefly interrupt the story with her own fit of coughing, as she struggled to keep herself silent at this revelation.

Both Jackson and Maggie watched this with contrasting emotions stamped on their faces . . . one wary, one faintly exasperated.

“Compose yourself, Indie!” Maggie demanded with a surge of strength, “and listen!” She hit Indie with a frown of disapproval.

“With the Inca’s, the visitors focused on teaching engineering and agriculture, showing them how to build their steep mountainsides into terraced farms.

“The Huari-Tiahuanaco learned quickly, and became skilled engineering marvels. They could fit giant stones together so seamlessly, they needed no mortar. Why, most of their forts are still standing today, in perfect condition. Look at Manchu Picchu! This knowledge did not simply materialize in their heads.
Our
Ancestors gave this to them.”

Our Ancestors?

Indie noted the word, used several times now and although confused, remained quiet, not wanting to interrupt Maggie’s momentum, although her still lingering strength was evident in her voice.

“The Nazca showed thanks to the original Society Members with their enormous Earth drawings, still viewed by tourists to this day. Society Elders came to give advice on the governing of their tribes, and their cultures thrived. However, when left on their own, instability was allowed to destroy them as they became too focused on the “ruling class”, and they were laid open to defeat.

The Maya culture was also birthed by the Society, and was considered the greatest hope for humankind, so well did they learn. They were given the secrets of technology, mathematics and in an unprecedented show of confidence, the true origin of the world.

The early visitors taught them the concept of time and the written word. So successful were they that theirs is the most accurate calendar to date, accurate to the point of losing only one day every six thousand years.

The Mayas called the first Society visitor “
Ah
Kin
Mai
”, meaning “highest one of the Sun.” Those that followed, were simply “
Ah
Kin
”, or “from the sun.” Every culture from the Maya’s forward have stories about the so called “Children of the Sun”, for that is what they saw . . . visitors who for all appearances, came to them from a bright light in the sky.”

This made Indie shift uncomfortably where she stood.

Light from the sky? She didn’t like where this story seemed to be drifting, but struggled to remain silent as Miss Maggie continued.

“The Egyptians gained much architectural knowledge as well, such as the ability to build the most universal of sacred shapes, the pyramid, and were possibly the most demonstrative of their thanks, with their worship of Ra, the sun god. But they also fell for the trickery of the Fallen, who presented himself as a god as well, gathering a huge following among the Egyptians, and later the Greeks also.”

“
Sobek
!” Jackson’s growl broke through the room at this point, fury quite apparent in his simple utterance of the word. In an instant, he seemed chastened. His eyes met Indie’s again, and he looked away. He was clearly embarrassed by his outburst, and turned to Maggie once more.

Maggie had taken this moment to recover her breath, and she placed her hand to Jackson’s face in a comforting and indulgent gesture.

“I know the mention of this incarnation of the Fallen disturbs you, young Jackson, but it must be told, don’t you agree?”

“Of course, Miss Conner,” he responded instantly.

Respectfully.

“This worship of the one called
Sobek
did not bode well for either culture, unfortunately.” Maggie added, shaking her head sadly while drawing shallow breaths that made Indie uneasy.

“The greed of man was fatal to the cultures; instigated and encouraged by the anger and jealousy of the Fallen. The power hungry moved in when the teaching was over, after our members left. Mere mortal men took on these titles, these positions of Gods, and began to rule by fear and violence. They called it just, in the name of religion.

“The Maya began human sacrifice. The Society broke with their usual protocol of allowing destiny to unfold as it will, and put an end to this, when it could be tolerated no longer. In nine hundred AD, the Mayas were quietly removed by order of the highest ranking of the Ancestors.

Society members visited the Mayan lord Pacal, as well as Viracocha of Peru, and the great Emperor Ch’in Shi Huangdi of China. These three were known to be Keepers of the Sacred Science, and given the understanding of the heavens and the immortality of the human soul.”

At this point, Maggie released a sharp gasp that cause both Indie and Jackson to jump toward her in a panic, but she waved them back as her face contorted momentarily with what looked like unspeakable pain. Maggie gripped the side rails of the bed tightly, and closed her eyes briefly.

With a wince that made Indie’s heart ache, she pushed herself to continue.

“It was only a little over two thousand years ago, that this Chinese Emperor, knowing his death was imminent, constructed an army of over eight thousand terra cotta soldiers. These, with over five hundred sculpted horses drawing his chariots, were covered with symbols and codes which he used to write out the secrets of creation and the sun, from the beginning of time.

This was crafted and kept in a very secret location, but has been unearthed in this century, for all to see, yet no one believes the words he took such care to record and then conceal. In 210 B.C., China gained the knowledge to construct a Great Wall. If anyone cared to dig deeper into the secret language written on the terra cotta chariots, they would find the instructions for this massive undertaking.

The Aztecs simply moved into the remains of one of these Societies, learning a fundamental understanding of the positions and alignments with the heavens that were important to our being. The sacred structures allowed their spirits to become one with all matter, and to allow the fluids and chemistry of their bodies to resonate at the perfect ratio to commune with the heavens.

In the Aztec language, Maya means “Old Ones”, named so because the Aztecs believed
them
to be the creators of society. They
were
an old civilization, but by no means the oldest.

Mayas carved stones; giant heads the size of a compact car . . . the Olmecs. The Aztecs thought them to be Gods. There have been many found in the jungles of southern Mexico. The features of these “Gods” are quite African, and the symbols covering them are nearly identical to that of Nubian, Kush, and the Vai of West Africa. These things are no coincidence.

The knowledge was brought to all of these different regions and different cultures by the same ancient visitors . . . our Society Members. They began and lost civilization after civilization . . . watching them destroy themselves and others. They tried again in Mexico, then Egypt, and so on. Each time, attempting to teach humankind the wonders of learning and of the endless possibilities provided by technology, only to have the Fallen gain victory over the weak of mind, and begin wars over land, power and possessions repeatedly, destroying what was good and right.

The inhabitants of Mexico City, (actually the longest inhabited city in the world, predating Rome, Athens and even Baghdad) . . . the ancient Incas, and the Mayas knew that the Earth was round. They knew where they were located on the planet, and about the existence of other cities around the world. Their discovered writings show this knowledge. Because of
our
teaching,
our
maps, they knew even how far these were and how to get there.”

Maggie now began a spastic round of coughs that were wet and choking, but before Indie could move, the young man beside her carefully slid his left arm under Maggie’s shoulders and lifted her up and to the side with all the skill and care of a devoted son; one with a little medical training.

He held her firmly as she worked to clear her airway, and once she had somewhat done so, Jackson offered her a sip of water from the insulated jug that was within reach on the side table. This, Maggie accepted gratefully, but when Jackson asked if he should perhaps take over the story, which Indie decided had taken on the feeling of a college lecture, Maggie shook her head and struggled to sit up once more.

“No, young one, I must do this. I promised myself that
I
would tell her the tale when the time was right. Although the situation is now forced, as my beloved is leaving this world. I claim for myself this right, because it is
I
who have waited and watched her struggle within. It is
I
who have been silent, while looking into her eyes and seeing her pain!”

Jackson abruptly sat back in his chair. The look of sickness was back, twisting his features into a mask of misery, and he nodded his head, gesturing for Maggie to continue, as if he didn’t quite trust his voice.