Dark Light Present Today: Book Two of The Book of Tomorrows

By Alexander Ulysses Thor

Dark Light Present Today is the second book of Forever Tomorrow, Volume One of the epic futuristic trilogy within a trilogy that The Book of Tomorrows has become. It follows the thrilling action tale of high adventure and true romance found in the pages of Book One: Bright Night Past Yesterday, while holding back Book Three: Evening Dawn Future Tomorrow until after Volume Two: I, Messiah & Volume Three: The Prophet Warrior of the main trilogy reveal how it got that way. Picking up where the first book left off, a Special Investigator arrives at the scene of the bomb blast that took place after the wedding ceremony for the unknown heir to the Prophet Warrior. Saddled with a feisty, new female partner, the Special Investigator is instantly suspicious of a piece of conveniently found evidence at the horrific crime. He also has some serious doubts about the efficiency expert who claimed to find it, especially after it implicates two of heir’s ex-roommates. The heir’s best friend and the country’s number one celebrity defends their old roommates, who stand accused of being terrorist bombers as well as lovers, while the efficiency expert prosecutes the case with the Guardian Administrator sitting in judgment. The Prosecution blames the defendant’s crimes on their alleged homosexuality, which he insists led to the downfall of the old world. As court adjourns for lunch, the heir arrives and points out an overlook resource only an old recluse with worldwide satellite surveillance has the ability to access. Back in court, the defense proves his clients’ are innocent, but unwittingly sets forth a series of events that snowballs into dark storm surrounding lives of those closest to the mysterious heir of The Prophet Warrior. As time passes, an upheaval in the power structure forces the heir and his very pregnant bride to undertake a dangerous journey that could spell disaster for all if they should fail. Their hurried flight sets them on a course through the past to seek out ancient truths dating back before the founding of New America. Except now, the stakes are raised even greater than anyone ever imagined possible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alexander Ulysses Thor
• Release date: Apr 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310796760

Alexander Ulysses Thor

A Message from Alexander Ulysses Thor: The Book of Tomorrows EBooks on this site will be available FOR FREE until I finish writing my epic trilogy, which has taken me much longer than I intended. I am presently working on Volume Three: The Prophet Warrior and expect to finish it soon, so I can complete Volume One, Part Three: Evening Dawn Future Tomorrow. Growing up in a small town in New Jersey, Alexander Ulysses Thor developed a strong thirst for knowledge at an early age. He moved to California at the turn of the century to chase down his dreams of Hollywood stardom with a screenplay contract offer for $200,000.00 he couldn’t refuse. Finding himself frustrated with the vagaries of Tinsel Town gamesmanship, Alexander went back to his first love of writing novels. After experiencing an epiphany of purpose, Alexander finally realized his reason for being. He was born to use the awesome power of the Written Word found in the pages of A Good Story to expose the Hypocrisy of Truth spreading out from living in a Disinformation Age. Born in the early Sixties, Alexander has witnessed the most progressive decades of change since the Industrial Revolution modernized the world with mechanical wonders. It gives him a unique perspective and the proper mindset to take on such an ambitious, potentially controversial project as The Book of Tomorrows.

Book preview

Dark Light Present Today

Book Two: Forever Tomorrow

Volume One: The Book of Tomorrows

Alexander Ulysses Thor

Copyright 2014 Alexander Ulysses Thor

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Copyrighted property of the author,

May not be reproduced, copied, and

Distributed for commercial

Or non-commercial purposes.

If you enjoyed this book,

Please encourage friends to read

The rest of this epic trilogy, available soon.

Thank you for your support.

The characters, incidents, and places either are

a product of The Author’s imagination

or used fictitiously, any resemblance

to actual persons, living or dead,

business establishments, events,

or locales is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

CHAPTER ONE

THINKER TAILORED FRIENDLY SPY

1

They used to say there are over eight million ways to die in the naked city. Many were brutal, violent, bloody deaths that often deeply scarred the victims loved ones and society itself, spreading a moral decay so pervasively devastating, it eventually left only chaos and disorder behind. Murderously heinous acts go back as far as the beginning of mankind and have remained a major part of our culture ever since. No matter how advanced the civilization or intellectually superior we become, we always seem to revert back to our savage natures when the means is justified by the end.

Excuse me. Did you say something, SI Chandra?

After imparting his bleak appraisal of our darker natures, Special Investigator Raymond Chandra gave his new partner a quick glance before turning his attention back to the blood-spattered crime scene in front of him.

Oh, just thinking out loud about how the past always seems to catch up with us. Something people start doing once they get to be my age.

Not real popular with many of his colleagues on account of his hard-edged, dogged personality, this would be his first case working with the young female detective standing at his side. Possessing the unwavering determination of a sly fox on the hunt after catching scent of a nearby chicken coup, the forty-nine year old investigator reserved judgment on his tall, slender, freckle-faced partner, unable to get a clear fix on the shorthaired-brunette. Normally able to read people just like the hardnosed, wily detectives from those old mystery novels he dearly coveted—even molding himself in the image of the old Gumshoe, wearing a long, ruffled, tan overcoat to go along with his propensity to rely on gut instincts to solve crimes—Chandra found the twenty-four year old to be a well-trained officer with a keen eye for detail.

Detective Samantha Archer looked like most modern day law enforcement officers and that might have been what bothered him about her. She wore the standard dark suit and tie, along with the same sensible shoes female detectives have worn since being able to work in a position other than as a dispatcher or a file clerk. Detective Archer also depended on those high-tech gadgets most investigators used to do their jobs for them. Trace element locators, fingerprint scanners, CPU-Notepads, and PDA devices were common tools regularly used by officers in the field, as well as everyday citizens—minus the scanners and locators. SI Chandra took notes the old fashion way, using a pen and pad. He would rather rely on his own acute five senses to find clues, including an uncanny sixth sense enabling him to read any situation and most people. He didn’t care much for cell phones, which he could easily do without, while everyone else would be lost without their PDA to tell them where to go and how to get there.

A short, thin man, he had a receding hairline of light brown hair, a pencil thin mustache, and a visual condition laser surgery couldn’t fix, forcing him to be one of the few people left who wore glasses. He was not bitter about never being matched to anyone by the SBP, figuring he would still be single even back in the 21st century, probably with very few sexual experiences, if any—a real perennial bachelor. A man dedicated to his work, he used his skills as a highly trained investigator to get to the bottom of any mystery, even applying his own deductive reasoning to validate the pragmatically rationalized belief he was born to serve a higher purpose, something more important than procreation.

Waiting for that day over the long, monotonous, uneventful years started to wear thin on SI Chandra’s patience. Eight months away from his mandatory retirement age for working cases in the field, he had the option to leave with full benefits, or if he wanted, he could choose to become a desk jockey, which in his mind amounted to no choice at all. The logic behind taking someone out of the field at age fifty baffled him, especially when their years of experience might prove to be the most valuable tool in solving an important case by finding a missing clue or a piece of overlooked evidence. He could not understand why they wouldn’t let him continue doing what he had been expertly doing for the past thirty years. They weren’t even willing to take into consideration he had not lost a step in all that time, maybe gotten a little tired from the mundane boredom, but remained sharp as ever. Besides, it wasn’t as if there was a violent crime being committed every twenty-three seconds anymore.

The crime rate in New America was almost non-existent, so small they did not bother calculating it. Mostly nonviolent, minor offences of civil disobedience, there were a small number of cases derived from emotionally unstable individuals with mental disorders going off their meds. The offender was held accountable for their actions and then be provided with the proper medical treatment for their illness, instead of serving harsh prison sentences and being subjected to the musings of violent inmates while at the mercy of coldhearted guards. Although rare, an occasional rage killing did spontaneously occur. Usually the kind of thing stemming from two people getting in an argument, then a fight that left somebody dead. But nothing to make a dedicated officer so despondent he would end up eating a bullet while cleaning his gun. Or a legal system more concerned with the rights of the perpetrator over getting justice for the victims. Law officers no longer found themselves driven to the social abuses associated with the drugs and alcohol they once used to drown out the dark horrors of their profession. Sometimes silently suffering from a post-traumatic stress disorder similar to war veterans, which had almost as much of a damaging effect on their families as it did on them.

There were no more premeditated murders, ransom kidnappings, home invasions, organized crime families, sexual deviants, assault and battery muggings, or grand theft larcenies. No more drug or alcohol related deaths and accidents, white collar scams artists on the grift, political corruption, bribery charges, or any psychotic sociopaths who showed no remorse for their bloody deeds as they savored their memories writing bestselling jailhouse memoirs. There also had not been any horrific crime scenes depicting graphically bloody deaths that would forever scar the mind with images that once seen could never been unseen—until now.

In the thirty years he spent on the job, SI Chandra had never seen anything quite like the crime scene he got the call to investigate on that early Sunday morning.

In viewing the gruesome sight of Larry Barbra’s eviscerated corpse, all sprawled out in a bloody mass of ripped opened flesh torn apart by the bomb blast, the disturbing image would forever burn in the back of Chandra’s mind. Standing two hundred feet from the entrance/exit gate of Caesar’s Palace’s parking lot, the diminutive Special Investigator’s sixth sense started working on overdrive.

When SI Chandra first arrived on scene, the ghastly sight already had had an effect on the medical examiner, causing him to run off choking back his breakfast. Surprisingly enough, it did not appear to bother his new female partner, knowing how most of his old male partners would have reacted in a similar manner to the medical examiner. He thought the kid might turn out to be a real spitfire. She already made a better first impression on him than most of his previous partners, but still, much like the crime scene, something about her did not feel right either.

The second he hung up the phone after getting the call telling him where to go and what he would find when he got there, he thought this might be it. The big one he had been waiting for. After waiting such a long time for his moment to arrive, Chandra started to wonder if it ever would, thereby invalidating his whole resolute philosophy about being meant for something bigger. He was a morally righteous man, keenly moved to give his life meaning in the fight for justice—just like the valiant characters in those old stories where the bad guys never wins and good always triumphed over evil.

SI Chandra had never been involved in a case worth the true test of his talents. So on the day he caught scent of something big, he would follow the clues to wherever they led. He just did not want some green-behind-the-ears rookie coming along and contaminating evidence from being inexperienced in fieldwork.

Why would anyone want to do something like this to a harmless old man? What could the reason be? Det. Archer asked her new partner, expressing sympathy for the victim, while trying to get a better fix on the man she hardly knew.

Well, I do not know, Detective Archer. You see, I never met the man, but with that said, I seriously doubt he has any connection to this other than an unlucky case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Chandra thought it was a good idea to check out any new partner you were working with to see if you could depend on them to have your back as you had theirs. One of the first things he looked at was personal information like hobbies, believing you could tell more about a person by what gave them pleasure than from studying educational records, test scores, supervisors’ evaluation reports, and training skills.

The first thing you need to remember when working a crime scene is to keep asking questions until you get the right answers. SI Chandra offered an unsolicited bit of tradecraft to his young colleague, leading to her own query.

But how do you know if you are asking the right questions?

That is the easy part. They are always the same questions—who, what, where, when, how, and why. It is the standard six W rule of journalism used to reveal how any story begins and ends. Because you see, that is what we are here to do, tell his story, since he no longer can. If you keep asking those six questions, you will find the indisputable proof needed to solve any mystery. You start with the three most obvious; who, where, and when, and then work your way through what, how, and why.

Stopping his detective lesson a moment and looking around at their surroundings in a casually observant manner, SI Chandra held up his arms and pointed out the evidently observable.

For example, we know who our victim is, where he was killed, and the approximate time of death telling us when it happened. But in order to get to the bottom of any mystery, you need to answer the other three crucial questions. What happened? How did it happen? And most importantly, why did it happen? The truth always lies within the whys.

I can take a pretty good guess at the most likely reason why. Det. Archer offered her opinion. The real motivating force behind the AFW or the FWF, or whatever they want to call themselves these days, comes from their lustful desires for sexually deviant behavior. They would rather give in to their primal natures, wasting their lives embracing an archaic need for animalistic self-gratification, instead of taking advantage of the limitless opportunities available to expand their horizons seeking out knowledge of the world to help with the continued evolutionary growth of our species.

From SI Chandra’s non-reaction to her theory, Det. Archer could tell he did not put much stock in her opinion. She then opened the door to make room for his response to a puzzling query of her own.

I would like to know how they did it. What I mean is. Where did they get the materials to build a bomb? It is not like they could get it allocated to them.

It is nothing any third rate chemistry student couldn’t make out everyday house and gardening products, SI Chandra explained the ease of making bombs without any explosive materials designed for that specific purpose, then admitted. You are absolutely right about one thing, Det. Archer. It would not make any sense to kill a harmless old man. If the bomb was meant for him, that is. But what if the bomber had someone else in mind? Someone of prominence I believe is who the AFW claimed would be their next target.

Oh my, you don’t mean?

Guardian Administrator Cain’s motorcade passed right by here last night on the way out from the big wedding celebration for our local hero.

SI Chandra and Det. Archer walked over to Larry Barbra’s electric haul cart, also caught up in the blast. Chandra crouched down in front of the mangled cart so he could visually examine the wreckage.

The other three important things you need to know are the beginning, middle, and end to any story. We usually come in at the end of someone’s story, and then we work our way back to the beginning, to the place where it all started. And while this may be the end of his story—whether intended or not, which makes it harder to find out why when things do not go according to plan—it now becomes the beginning of our story.

I hope we can finish his story before somebody starts a new one, Det. Archer added some potential conflict for upcoming chapters.

The medical examiner returned with two assistants to remove the remains. The M.E. stayed off to the side of the coroner’s van with a handkerchief held up to his nose, his shirt and tie stained from a failed attempt to prevent regurgitating his breakfast.

As the coroner’s assistants prepared to remove the deceased, their morbidly awestruck reactions originated more from a fascinated professional curiosity, rather than disgust. Wheeling a gurney over to the corpse, Jay, who was first on scene with the M.E., spoke softly to David, the second assistant they went to go get because the medical examiner refused to touch the body and was presently rethinking his career options.

This is going to blow your mind when you see it. It is terrible, I know. But the only other place you will see something like this is in those rare, old newsreels of gangland killings and battlefield footage they showed us in med school. Even the once in a blue moon industrial accident we get called to could never compare to the damage done here.

The loss of life is a sad and horrible thing. Just a shame it is the only way to study the effects something like this has on the human body. David concurred with his co-worker, remaining respectful of the dead. But upon seeing what remained of Larry Barbra, he blurted out in pronounced, stunned amazement the first thing that came to his mind. Hideously wicked, man, it totally gutted him. Poor, guy.

SI Chandra and Det. Archer made their way back over to the body as the two assistants were lowering the gurney and spreading out a body bag.

Since Charlie doesn’t seem to have the stomach for it, how about one of you guys giving me your preliminary findings. SI Chandra said before realizing the unintended pun his comment had in relation to the medical examiner’s weak constitution and the victim’s physical condition.

Feeling like he just got a promotion, Jay gladly took the lead in rendering his medical report. As you can see, the cause of death was from a direct blast to the abdominal cavity as most of the center mass has been completely blown away, leaving only some exposed rib bones in the upper torso along with some remnants of the lungs and intestines in the lower torso. The only thing keeping the upper connected to the lower is the spinal cord, also severely damaged in the blast. Death was instantaneous.

Very good, thanks guys. You can remove the body now. SI Chandra informed them before heading back over to the point of origin with Det. Archer.

Check out the burn pattern on the asphalt. The scorch marks are heading into the parking lot, instead of out. The explosion appears to have gone off in the wrong direction, if you wanted to take out a vehicle passing by at a certain time that is.

A controlled explosion might have gone off accidently from the can turning when Mr. Barbra lifted the garbage bag out. That could explain why it went in instead of out. Det. Archer put forward her own theory for the misdirected blast.

A reasonable assumption, but what I would like to know is why it didn’t go off when supposed to? If meant to go off in the first place. There is not much left here for the bomb squad boys to sift through, who knows, maybe we will get lucky.

After noticing an electric cart driving over to them, the irked inspector demanded in a gruff voice. Hey, who is driving on my crime scene?

Oh I forgot to mention, they sent an efficiency expert to poke around.

What on earth for?

Moving across the parking lot, taking a wide berth around the blast area, Ricardo circled round in the electric cart, coming to a stop next to them.

Sizing up the man getting out of the cart, Chandra instantly found nothing he liked about the golden tan, muscle-bound, pretty boy with beady eyes and a goatee. Walking over to them with a confident, commanding stride, holding something in his hand wrapped in a handkerchief, Ricardo stepped up and presented what he knew to be a piece of valuable evidence.

Det. Archer, I found something you need to see, Ricardo said.

Ricardo Danielle, this is Special Investigator Chandra, and he is in charge of the scene. Det. Archer made the introductions, establishing the chain of command.

SI Chandra, sir, it is my pleasure. I heard you are a very efficient man who always gets the job done.

Efficiency is your game. I prefer to think of myself as being thorough.

Well, I am happy to contribute to your investigation in any way I can. Here, I believe you will find this to be an important piece of evidence. Ricardo said.

Gently unwrapping the handkerchief in his hand, Ricardo revealed what looked like part of a homemade trigger mechanism, partial burned around the edges.

Det. Archer reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a portable fingerprint scanner. Turning it on, she passed it over the trigger.

I hope you can get a print off of that. The bomb-maker might have assumed there wouldn’t be anything left. Ricardo said.

After a few seconds, the scanner determined there was a readable print, and it identified someone that caused a double-take moment in Ricardo, making him take a step back.

Something wrong, Mr. Danielle? SI Chandra asked, noting his startled reaction.

I know him.

Interesting, SI Chandra said, seeming to be less fascinated by the importance of the found evidence and more intrigued with his new partner’s connection to its discoverer. Formulating another theory he did not much care for, he knew you should never ignore your gut instincts. And right now his gut was telling him Det. Archer’s early arrival on the scene before him was not meant to make a good impression, rather more to rendezvous with this man for some reason he could not quite fathom as of yet. He began to