The Zul Enigma (61 page)

My head felt as if it was about to burst, so I decided to take a break. I made
myself a cup of herbal tea and started thinking about the previous day when I
was at Erika and Drew’s.

Their new house is
amazing. It’s massive. Erika seems almost embarrassed by it, but Drew is in his
element.

Over coffees after lunch
we debated whether we will ever know the true story behind the global massacre.
Drew said I’m mad trying to get to the bottom of it. He just kept repeating
it’s useless, not to mention dangerous.

He’s so sure the truth
will never come out, he doesn’t even want to discuss it. He said it’s just like
the NASA secret. Everyone there knows there was a big discovery a few years
ago, but still nobody knows what it is. Some people think it’s to do with UFOs,
some swear it’s a new advanced life form, others claim it’s a new miracle
source of fuel, and yet others believe it relates to climate change. People
have spent hours gossiping about it, he said, but why bother when even to this
day no one’s discovered the truth.

I said I wondered if the
NASA secret could be connected to Zul but Drew just laughed, saying it was a
random, worthless hypothesis since there was nothing to base the connection on.
I didn’t pursue it, but quite frankly I don’t see it’s illogical. Not being
aware of a connection between two pieces of information doesn’t prove there
isn’t one.

Then eureka. As I sat on the couch with my mug of tea resting on my belly, I
was overwhelmed by the feeling that this was the link I’d been searching for.
And somehow I knew it all tied in with what I’d recently read about the Space
Elevator.

Ever since I wrote the
piece for
National Geographic
, I’ve had an attachment to that project
and now and then I log in to LiftPort’s website to see what’s new. Incredibly,
in the aftermath of the global massacre, I’ve seen a huge amount of money and
expertise pour in, and the completion date’s been advanced by a whole year. Now
that seems very odd to me, considering the current state of the world.

And there was the space
connection again.

But how did it fit in.

Then the words that
chilled me when Carlos uttered them came rushing back into my head. “The
stations could be used, should we ever need to evacuate the planet…” and all of
a sudden the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place.

The NASA secret
is
connected. It’s about climate change. A radical change that mankind will not
survive. It was kept secret because of the panic it would cause. But generals
in the US military knew and a secret faction came up with Zul and the theory of
evolution through densities.

The members of the group
didn’t just want to silence Anderson and edge Carlos out of OOSA. Oh no. They
wanted Carlos to perform a way more critical role. They hoodwinked him into
believing the evolution story and flattered him into thinking he’d be a leader
in the new world because they wanted him, with his passion, to prepare the
planet for a cruel culling that would allow the US, regarded in recent years as
leader of the western world, to emerge, owning space, where it could build
space stations to where, when the time came, people would be evacuated.

Then I shook my head.
No… it’s outrageous. This plan involved killing, according to the latest
figures announced, over fifteen per cent of their own population. They would
never do that. Or would they. The stakes were extreme – guaranteed survival.

Could it be true.

Or
is
Zul an
entity from another density and are we really in the middle of some sick
science experiment.

But that’s just as far
fetched as my explanation.

And here I am back in
the same quandary we’ve all been bogged down in ever since Zul first appeared.

Is Zul human or not.

Tuesday 26th March 2013

I just got back from visiting Carlos again. Waiting for the Tribunal to finish
its investigation is driving him crazy, especially since he has so little to
do. So I brought him an iPod loaded with music and audio books, thinking it
might give him a few hours of distraction.

I told him all my news,
although I didn’t have very much. I told him how Drew and Erika had bought a
seriously “fuck off house” as Drew calls it, on an elite street and insists
they call it Hetty. Carlos laughed and said he’s happy Drew’s aunt left him
some serious money to play with. I told him they’re taking the boys on a road
trip during the school holidays and how much they’re all looking forward to it.
Then I told him that all his family is well but missing city life. And my mum
and dad and sister and her husband are also good, and looking forward to my
visit in a few days, because since there’s virtually no chance Carlos will be
around for the birth of our daughter, I’ve decided to have her in England.

Carlos tried to put on a
laid-back act for my sake, but it’s obvious he’s not in a good head-space… not
at all. The news that the UN has abandoned the meditation initiative hit him
very hard. I told him it was a blow for Greg too. But the final straw for Greg
was the Tribunal telling him how the lethal virus was distributed, something it
has yet to make public.

When Greg had called his
voice was flat, as if all the emotion had been crushed out of him. I have
terrible news, he said. Repugnant news. A few weeks ago the Tribunal ordered
all laboratories involved in manufacturing the swine flu vaccine last year, to
submit samples for analysis. Every single one was contaminated. They all
contained the killer virus. That’s how the poor and low-income families got
infected, through the free UN vaccine.

I’d gasped. But as I
thought about it, the less I could believe it. Hold on, I said, how could the
vaccine have been tampered with in so many labs scattered all round the world
– it would have been impossible to keep it secret. Besides, each
manufacturer’s method of preparation is different and every vaccine preparation
is tested to check it’s safe and effective. I know the process – I
volunteered, remember. And another thing, how could they ensure contaminated
vaccine went to the UN and nowhere else.

Because, Greg answered,
the recipe for the vaccine manufactured for free distribution included an extra
ingredient, a dose of multi-vitamins. That’s what carried the virus.

I told Carlos how I’d
sunk into a chair, thinking I was going to pass out, when I realised that by
giving out free vaccine in Europe I, myself, had been responsible for the
deaths of thousands. So many people thanked me, Carlos, I said. Many called me
an angel. Some angel… an angel of death.

Beccy,
querida
.
He put his arms around me and held me tight. You didn’t know. How could you
know. How could anyone know. But now I know, I mumbled into the hollow of his
shoulder. What I don’t know is how I can live with it.

After Greg called, I’d
sat in the chair, incapable of moving. The anonymous faces that had haunted me
on Christmas morning were no longer anonymous. The slaughter was personal
because I’d been responsible for a part of it. That knowledge tortured me and the
only way I could deal with it was by building a mental barrier to shut it out.
But when Carlos rocked me in his arms, the barrier broke, and all the anguish
that had piled up against it, the ever-increasing burden I’d been heaving
around behind me for days, escaped.

I sobbed and sobbed. And
he let me.

At last I broke out of
his embrace to wipe my eyes and blow my nose. He placed the flat of his hand on
my tummy. Try not to cry any more, he said. We don’t want to upset the baby.

But, he went on, with a
puzzled look on his face, I still don’t get it. Surely the labs tested the
vaccine after the vitamins were added. I blew my nose again, and nodded. So why
didn’t anyone pick it up then. Because although the labs followed the same
procedure for testing random samples of the finished product, all the tests
were designed to do was establish that the vaccine was safe and effective… and
until the virus was triggered, it
was
safe. Those tests would never have
revealed the virus. Only a detailed analysis could have done that. And why
analyse something they’d just manufactured.

Now they’ve been able to
compare the activated virus with samples in its un-triggered state, they’ve
also confirmed it was genetically engineered. No surprise there, of course. Not
now.

What about the lab that
manufactured the vitamins, Carlos asked. I shook my head. The Tribunal couldn’t
trace it. It just found a few warehouses scattered round the world where the
vitamins had been shipped in and out. Any other records had either been
destroyed or never existed. The virus could have been made anywhere.

Carlos squeezed his eyes
shut. What a brutal blow for the UN, he said. And we’re still no nearer to
knowing who’s responsible. How’s Greg handling it. More tears welled up and I
tried to fight them back. Not good, Carlos. It’s not been made public yet, but
he’ll resign. He’ll have to. And he wants to. I’ve tried to talk to him since,
but he’s not taking my calls. The UN was his life. He was so proud of what he’d
achieved, especially proud of rallying the support to fund all those billions
of doses of the vaccine. You can imagine what he must be feeling now… knowing
he’s the headman of an organisation that eliminated six billion people. He’ll
never get over it.

Is the UN still giving
you protection. No, I replied. That stopped the day Greg phoned.

Last night we curled up in bed like spoons. There was scarcely enough room for
both of us my tummy is so huge, but it was a glorious sensation to have our
naked bodies touching from head to toe. Even so, I couldn’t stop thinking about
Zul. I couldn’t keep my theory to myself any longer. So I told Carlos.

At first he was
indignant and argued every point. But my logic is sound and he couldn’t find a
flaw. Having an explanation, although we still don’t know the individuals
behind it, or why they did it, hammered home to Carlos how he'd been used, and
he started to shake. I can’t imagine how awful it must be for him, knowing he’s
been manipulated in such a terrible, terrible way. But you weren't the only one
taken in, darling, it was everyone. I could feel his warm tears dripping on my
neck. Carlos, darling, please don’t cry. If only I hadn’t believed in Zul, he
said, then the plan would have failed. No, I said, they’d have done something
else… found someone else. No one would go to all that trouble and risk the
smallest chance of failure.

But how can you ever
find out who’s responsible, Carlos said, how can you prove it. Everyone thinks
I did it, and he began to sob again. Shush… darling… not everyone thinks that, and
I wriggled myself backwards, snuggling closer into his body. After some time he
asked if I’d talked to anyone else about it and I told him how Drew had laughed
at me when I suggested a connection between Zul and the NASA rumour. He’s
become so blinkered and dogmatic, I said, he’s convinced nobody will ever find
out who’s responsible. He just wants to put it all behind him. He says now he’s
found a woman he loves, now he has a family, all he wants is to settle down and
forget everything else.

Carlos calmed down when
I started talking about Drew. I suppose it took his mind off his terrible hurt.
He said he could understand Drew, that he might feel the same after our little
girl is born and he rubbed my belly round and round.

I’ve been thinking, I
said, and I squeezed his arms tighter about me when I heard him laugh in my ear
and whisper, when do you ever stop thinking. I’m serious, I went on. I read
through my book again, the bits about Zul and Astraea. How did they know when
to piggyback the holovideos. They were listening in, Carlos said, from an
external location through a window perhaps, or they could have bugged the
buildings. OOSA’s offices were stripped when the hologram equipment was
installed at the beginning of last year… they could have done it then. As for
the penthouse… the agent had a key. He used to open it for tradesmen if things
needed fixing when I wasn’t around. Anyone could have got in there.

So I could check your
old office for bugs, I said, but I felt Carlos shaking his head. They’re way
too clever for that. They’d have got rid of any evidence a long time ago. How,
I asked. I don’t know, he said, and I felt him shrug. Perhaps they used
microscopic cameras and microphones operated by remote control – they
could fly them in and out of heating or air conditioning vents.

There’s something else,
I said. Whoever beamed the lasers in had to have line of sight, so perhaps I
can download some software that works out which locations could see into the
buildings. But there’s no guarantee the lasers were beamed in from Vienna. They
could have come from near or even outer space, he answered. I still think it’s
worth looking at, I told him. It’s something I’m going to work on when I get to
England. I’m sure the Tribunal will be onto it, he said, giving me a squeeze.
Somehow, though, I’m not so sure about that.

I sighed and Carlos
nuzzled his head into my hair and kissed my neck. I felt so safe cuddled up
with him there. But I still couldn’t stop thinking about Zul.

It’s driving me nuts, I
said, banging my head on the pillow. Who devised such a
repellent
plan.
And worse still, we were both part of it. If the American military's behind it,
they could have used any one of their agencies or subbed it out to a foreign
intelligence agency or even put together a special team themselves, and I felt
Carlos’s breath hot on my neck and his brow rubbing my hair as he shook his
head. Who knows… who knows… but you must promise me, he said, that you’ll be
careful. Don’t put yourself in danger. I promise, I replied. I mean it, he
said, nipping my ear with his teeth and although he couldn’t see it, I know he
knew I was smiling.