Founded

By G.D. Kessler

While UFO’s have been reported for decades, some people have gone so far as to search historical records and art works of ancient civilizations for evidence of their existence and visitation in times past. And they have found clues that seem to show this.

Are they really here? Are they our benefactors or our worst enemies? And if so, why?

Giles Ryleigha, a senior scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories pursuing his own research, and his ex-wife Carol Kilha, have found more answers to these questions than they ever wanted to know.

Caught in the cover-up of a system wide crime spree and kidnapping, sought by alien assassins as well as the FBI, and teamed with some of the strangest looking alien races to befriend mankind that you will ever meet, take a journey with humans and aliens as they go on a trip out into the galactic neighborhood and visit the Teklass Hegemony.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Mar 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483448046

Book preview

Kessler

Copyright © 2015, 2016 G.D. Kessler.

Cover photos by G.D. Kessler.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-4805-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-4804-6 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the imagination of the author or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places of business, events or locations is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 03/01/2016

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

The heavens are Yours, the Earth also is Yours; The world and all it contains, You have FOUNDED them.

PSALM 89:11

CHAPTER 1

I woke once more to the incessant patter of raindrops on the stones that littered the ground where I lay. It was cold and although the temperature did not vary much, it did enough for me to discern between night and day. I usually slept through the entire night; it was the only way I could really forget the temperature.

Twisting my shoulders and levering myself up on one elbow I rolled over on my back opening my mouth to catch a drink from the ever present precipitation. I felt naked rain impacting on my unseeing eyes. Whether they were open or closed didn’t really matter almost all sensation having disappeared ages past. The ground beneath me absorbed my body heat rapidly. There was a large stone under my spine. I reached for it and grabbing it tossed it aside. I heard it land and bounce a couple of times. There were no echoes; the sound just disappeared in the distance.

I examined my elbows, my chest, and strained to touch my knees. Besides my blindness the loss of the use of my legs was a constant reminder of my fall from grace. The scabs from my wounds caused by perpetual crawling were torn and bleeding. They always healed, then tore again. Holding my hand to my nose I smelt the blood, then licked it from my fingers. The tangy coppery taste was the only sustenance I had tasted for centuries. Such is the righteous wrath of God.

Cleaning my last blood covered finger, imagining the blood I missed with my tongue in washing down my arm I suddenly halted all movement, even holding my breath. I had felt something and that was reason enough to pause and listen with my remaining senses. Had it been a slight variation in air pressure? Or just a momentarily heightened awareness of the energy field around me. I searched my memory to try to identify what I had just experienced. There was really only one explanation that fit; a portal had opened in my vicinity. It meant someone or something had just arrived.

Hello Enoch, a voice greeted me in my darkness. I listened closely and heard the scraping of leather, most probably sandals, across the rock strewn ground. There were two people present. I recognized the voice.

Michael, I muttered, wondering why God’s archangel had come to visit me on my prison planet. Who are you with?

Lucius, came the slightly arrogant reply. How ya doing?

Tell me, Michael, I spoke, purposely ignoring Lucius’ question to take as much power out of it as I could, how long have I been here? The silence that met my question pervaded the air around me. I waited. I had all the patience in the world. I heard a chuckle.

Do you really want to know how long your banishment has been? he asked, reminding me again that it was I who had been caught in trespass.

Hey, you don’t have to tell me, I’m getting by. I spoke flippantly not even believing the response myself.

Almost a thousand years, came the reply in a higher pitched voice. It had to be Lucius.

A thousand years, I thought to myself. Was it enough? Was this banishment long enough for the wrong I had committed? After all I had been obedient up to a point. Having been sent to discipline an entire race of people I had gotten carried away and drawn off, tapping into demonic power. It had consumed me and I had lost all control, destroying and killing indiscriminately until both Michael and Gabriel had been sent to arrest my on-going genocide.

So, I said, all the while wondering in the back of my mind if I had done enough time, why are you here?

I heard the shifting of feet and knew that Michael had squatted down to be closer to me. I could feel his eyes on me. It is time for you to work again. God has need of your services.

He does, does He? I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my tone.

Michael ignored it. How much do you really want this? he asked.

I knew he was referring to my present circumstances. Why didn’t one of you help me before I got lost? I cried out in all my anguish. I could have stopped. You could have stopped me! It didn’t have to end where it did with half the planet destroyed and rendered uninhabitable and almost all of the population dead.

God is sovereign; He knows, was the only reply, from Lucius. His was a textbook answer spoken as if from an angel in training. You don’t need to understand, just accept it and move on and be glad you didn’t end up worse off.

That’s easy enough for you to say, Lucius. You have boundaries. I had unlimited freedom to do as I pleased. I realized the moment the words left my mouth how stupid they sounded. Forgive me, brothers, I immediately repented. You’re right. I’m more than ready to be quit of all this.

All right, Enoch, Michael responded. I felt a hand on my face covering my eyes. See! he commanded.

His hand pulled away and blinking my eyes I could see once again. Continually blinking because of the falling rain, I looked up into Michael’s face. Thanks, Michael. I held out my hand to him. Please?

Grabbing my hand he stood back and pulled. I suddenly felt my legs for the first time in a thousand years. Power coursed through them; I stood wobbling a little. He released my hand.

I stood there looking at them. They had stepped through the portal taking on the image of man. Angels, being spiritual beings created eons ago possessed no fixed shape human eyes could discern. They assumed the shapes that would best allow them to carry out their particular duties. They were simply messengers and they delivered the messages God gave them.

Standing six feet tall, skin almost translucent, black hair, black eyes filling their eye sockets, they stared back at me. Both were dressed in leather sandals strapped up to their knees, short white tunics, a large sword in a scabbard across their backs, a wide bronze belt girding their waists and a definite otherworldly air to them.

Turning about to examine my surroundings I saw a level rock strewn plain extending in all directions as far as the eye could see. In the far distance mountains rose from the horizon disappearing into the sky. There were no trees, no brush, no flowers or weeds or anything living that I could see anywhere. The sky was black with clouds rain coming down lightly, a bright silhouette of the sun shone through the clouds behind where the angels stood.

This is where I’ve been crawling around blind on my belly never eating a thing for ten centuries? I asked, a tingle of fear running down my spine.

Yeah, some shit, huh? Lucius spouted off.

Michael’s left arm and hand shot out hitting Lucius in the side of the head knocking him to the ground. Your mouth! Michael admonished him.

Sorry, he mumbled, holding one hand to the side of his face, scrambling to his feet. It won’t happen again.

See that it doesn’t, asserted Michael, turning back to face me.

Do I have all my powers back? I inquired tentatively, looking into his eyes.

He smiled at the question, looking down for a moment maybe to hide the embarrassment of hearing the hunger so flagrantly displayed in my voice. A shield made of bronze wider than a man and covering him from shoulders to knees, manifested in his grasp. Lucius did a double take seeing it, and a second later one like it appeared in his hand. God does not give His Spirit by measure, Michael responded obliquely, quoting scripture.

I held my hands up in front of my face. A millennium without food was enough to starve any man to nothing but skin and bones. I watched as the meat reformed on my fingers, felt my emaciated body gain size and strength and substance. Surely you don’t fear me, do you Michael? I asked, looking down at myself, all healing now complete.

You are the only one of your kind, Enoch. I really don’t know what to expect, he replied, a little hesitantly.

I could tell he was holding back with something. C’mon, out with it; I thought we were better than this. His shield was held by his left arm. I watched as a glow began to permeate his right hand as he subconsciously called his sword.

Are you sure all traces of the accuser have been cast out? he asked.

I knew God had instructed him to ask this of me. It was a formal, heavenly convention; say it and claim it. Phrased in such a way I was incapable of lying to him.

Lucius’ sword leapt from his back to his hand, his shield coming between us. How can you trust him? We should execute him now; dispense with this dumb shit!

As Michael’s head turned to stare at his accomplice his eyes blazing with anger, I raised my right hand palm out. A thin ray of bright light no thicker than the width of a dime lanced out impacting Lucius’ shield, throwing him off his feet and flinging him back 20 feet.

That’s enough, ordered Michael, raising his shield and stepping in front of my lance of angel fire. I let it die out as it glanced harmlessly aside. Answer the question!

I stared at him, lowering my hand to my side. He’s quite impertinent, isn’t he? I remarked.

He’ll learn, Michael stated, or he won’t survive. Now answer!

I decided to accede to his demand. Yes, Michael, I am free of all foreign possession. The glow disappeared from his sword hand. I knew for him the sword across his back was just symbolic. He could wield angel fire as easily as I. I didn’t know if I could best him in an all-out confrontation, and I wasn’t particularly interested in finding out. Are you satisfied?

Yes Enoch, I’m satisfied, he confirmed, keeping his eyes on me. He called out, Get up Lucius! And for heaven’s sake don’t touch your sword or I may just let Enoch deal with you. Sword gone, and shield gone, I watched as Lucius warily approached Michael’s side.

What now? I asked.

Go home, Enoch, just go home.

That was all Michael said. I took his advice. I smiled, took a quick step in Lucius’ direction just to see the look of fear come into his eyes, and then stepped through the portal I commanded into existence the moment my momentum carried me forward. My foot landed on stone flooring. The portal disappeared behind me in the same instant. I was home.

Looking around my living room, a stone walled area of about 400 square feet, I saw nothing had changed. My kitchen area, my bed and table, my comfy chair, the open holes cut in the walls for light and air, and the open doorway were all the same. The light was bright, the heat oppressive.

Squeak!

Hearing the greeting, I walked over to my bed and sat down on the edge. A little gray mouse sat on a small pillow. Tikvah looked at me and sat up on his haunches, whiskers twitching, eyes on mine.

Have you been waiting long? I asked, reaching down to scratch between his two small mouse ears. I realized how stupid the question was as soon as it came out of my mouth.

‘Between’ was the word used to describe where I lived. If the temporal reality of the universe was thought of as the ripples in the water that propagated away from the point of impact of a dropped stone, then where I lived could be described as the troughs between the ripples. Time didn’t pass here like in the outside universe, and physics didn’t work according to any laws I had ever been able to formulate. There was no electricity, chemical reactions for the most part did not work, and there was no night or day—there being no sun. I didn’t even know whether I lived on a planet that rotated, or for that matter if I even lived on a planet. I had been here close to 6,000 years, outside time, and except for the millennium I had just spent in prison, time actually seemed to pass slower here. It didn’t really matter to me, I possessed eternal life. It was God’s gift to me. I was his chief troubleshooter.

Yo, in the house! A voice called from outside.

Relax, I’m home now, I told Tikvah. I walked to the doorway and looked out. The sky was blue and bright, so bright I shielded my eyes with my left hand. I had never found out where the light came from; there was no sun, no night and no stars. Hard packed sand level in every direction extended to the horizon. There was no life here either. I liked it that way.

You’re looking good, the angel, standing a dozen yards off, told me. It was Raphael. We had a past.

Yeah, not too bad for a man after crawling around on his belly for a thousand years, huh? I waved him inside and went and sat down in one of the comfy chairs. He joined me, sitting down across from me.

I’m sorry about what happened to you, he said. I could literally feel his sincerity. He showed no fear, was not armed, and wore a green jogging suit and white running shoes.

Thanks, Raphael. I reached out, and my hand slowly disappeared—finger tips, knuckles, palm, wrist. I had inserted my hand into closed space. Closed space was an alternate universe anomaly, and there were a multitude of them. I called them my mailboxes because I could store things in them in one location and retrieve them when I was in another location. What was especially nice was that the laws of entropy did not exist in closed space. If you put something hot in and retrieved it days or weeks or even years later it still retained its temperature. Pulling my hand back I held two long neck bottles of beer, ice cold and perspiring. I offered one to Raphael.

Thanks, he said, grabbing it, twisting the cap off and taking a long drink. Ahhh! he exclaimed, that’s good.

I rolled my ice cold bottle across my forehead savoring the coolness. Reaching out my left hand, I pulled back a pack of Camel non-filter cigarettes. I had literally hundreds of mailboxes, storing different items in each one. To keep them straight I used verbal mnemonic cues. I had been using them for so long that I no longer even had to say them under my breath, just think them and I was able to access the correct closed space. I took a hit off my beer, and then setting it on the table next to my chair opened the pack of smokes after packing them from both ends, took one out and put it in my mouth. I touched the tip of one finger to the end of the cigarette and took a puff, using angel fire to light up. I inhaled the fragrant Turkish tobacco deep into my lungs and holding it for a moment exhaled, staring at Raphael the entire time.

I don’t see how you can smoke those things, he told me.

It’s an acquired taste, I replied. Taking another hit from my beer, I looked at my angel friend. So Raphael, what’s the job?

Once he started talking I didn’t interrupt him. Taking an occasional swallow from my beer, I smoked my cigarette and listened. Raphael was the best. His briefings were always clear and concise and left me with few questions to ask. He finished about the same time I finished my Camel. I took one last hit and flicking it into the air watched as the butt reached its apogee and then disappear.

Raphael watched my antics in amusement. It comes back quick, doesn’t it?

Like falling off a bike; once you learn how you never forget, I remarked.

Any questions? he inquired.

I stalled for time, draining the dregs from my beer, then tossed the bottle over my shoulder where it too disappeared before hitting the floor. One of the things I had learned about God was that He was very, very compartmentalized when dealing with His creations. He didn’t reveal to you what you needed to know until you needed to know. In the Bible this was known as progressive revelation. I had heard that it helped us to keep our focus on the here and now. It also kept our eye of faith continually on the object of our faith, the Creator.

There’s a whole paradigm shift going on as far as Earth and its place in the universe, isn’t there? I watched him closely as he thought about my question. Raphael’s tell when he knew more than he was allowed to answer was his right eyebrow twitching. Don’t ask me why a spiritual being who wears a temporal body would miss something like this, but I had noticed it about him centuries ago.

He kept his face totally straight as he replied, Hey, I’m just a messenger. This is what God needs you to do. He raised his hands to me as if to say; what can I do?

All right, I told him. You know me; the more information I have the better I operate.

He smiled at me. Yeah, well, I guess we can all see that by the results of your last job.

I didn’t return the smile. I know I just got back but, do you think I’ll ever be able to live it down?

Are you kidding me? The host of heaven hasn’t had such juicy gossip for centuries! Your returning is a big deal. Don’t make any mistake about it, God still loves you!

Raphael never even moved from his chair, he just ported out of my house. He possessed some of the best portal dexterity I had ever seen. Good-bye my friend, I told the empty chair, then got rid of his empty bottle in the same way I had mine. It was great to never need any type of garbage service.

I took a nice long hot shower—with the emphasis on hot, prepared a big salad and grabbed a hot pizza. All the food I retrieved from mailboxes. I ate, and drank two more beers. Full for the first time in a millennium I went to sleep peacefully.

Sleeping until I couldn’t sleep any more, I got up, prepared coffee and a big breakfast, fed Tikvah, and afterwards relaxed reading in the Psalms while smoking a couple of camels. Then I spent some time praying. Rising from my knees, I dressed in casual clothes and throwing on my leather jacket grabbed my cigarettes and box of matches and pocketed them.

Tikvah had somehow crawled into my jacket pocket without me seeing him. I pulled him out and tossed him onto my bed. Hey, I’m back now. You’ll be in the field again soon, I promise. I turned and walked to the doorway and stepped out into the heat. It was good to be home and good to be back at work. Taking a last look at my stone cabin I turned and walked away. I began praying as I walked. I took one step, and another, and then stepped through a portal into another reality to the planet of my birth—to the planet where they crucified my Lord.

CHAPTER 2

Cute, defenseless, pert, babe, awesome, hot; these were all titles of endearment given to Carol Kilha at one time or another during her life. She had worked hard to keep the illusion up; it was the best weapon in her arsenal. She had to use every edge available to her to be the successful warrior she was. And that was indeed what she was—a warrior. Those who really knew her addressed her by just her last name pronouncing it ‘Killer’ because it sounded like Kilha.

Kilha had never been in the military but had grown up with four brothers who all loved the outdoors, and hunting, and rough and tumble play. Her first year in high school she had joined a dojo and started taking Ju-Jitsu. Now a couple of decades later she was rated a third degree black belt. She had also attained proficiency at small arms, and was an excellent escape and evasion driver. These were all skills she utilized in her job as an elite bodyguard to the rich and famous. Her five-foot two frame put off many prospective employers until they had a chance to check her references, then they paid the money she asked for.

She was in between jobs having just finished one with a rich Middle Eastern client. This was how she found herself walking into her San Jose, California, apartment early one morning being dropped off by a cab she had hired at San Francisco airport. The first thing she always checked returning home was her landline answering machine. There had been a half-dozen messages on it all left by her ex-husband Giles Ryleigha. Kilha had reverted to using her maiden name after their divorce.

Her ex was quite the opposite in many ways. At six-foot eight inches tall, and 350 pounds in good trim, when together they had epitomized the odd couple. And he was certainly cute, looking somewhat like a cross between Kurt Russell and Bing Crosby. But the last couple of years hadn’t been so good to him; too many late hours at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, as well as giving in to his voracious appetite. It would be the death of him yet, if the heroin didn’t kill him.

For now all that mattered was that she find her best friend in the world before he did something stupid and got drunk or loaded or overdosed. To an addict clean time was more precious than silver or gold and could only be gained 24 hours at a stretch, day after day, sometimes by the skin of the teeth and sometimes only God knew how a person managed to stay clean one more day. She knew all about it because she had once been addicted to methamphetamine for many years.

Giles had joined a monastery in Europe as a young man. He had also found the drug of his life—heroin, and had used many years before getting kicked out of the monastery and ex-communicated by the Church. Returning to the USA it had been the better part of a decade before he finally got clean.

She had met him at a narcotics anonymous meeting those many years ago. Against all common sense, and program suggestions, she had become his sponsor. The unwritten traditions dictated that men get clean with the men and women with the women. It seemed that sexual relations between addicts could easily take the place of drugs, and usually didn’t last long culminating in bitterness, pain and relapse.

It had worked out between them for a short while, and even resulted in a short-lived marriage for two years. But Giles’ obsession with technology, his anger issues, and his constant tweaking in the lab had gotten between them. Especially his anger issues.

Of course Kilha couldn’t honestly lay all the blame at her ex’s feet; she had her own co-dependent issues to deal with. How can you become co-dependant on an addict? The classic definition of a co-dependent is a person who is dependent on a person who is dependent on something undependable. No wonder recovery was so difficult! Especially with definitions like this. And she had indeed been the epitome of co-dependence. That too had changed over the years.

So she wasn’t so surprised to hear messages from him, it was their content that set off all her alarms. Every message had been a variation of the same theme, Hey Kilha! I’m in bad trouble! I discovered something at work, and well, its going to shake the world. Things will never quite be the same again. To bad I won’t be around to see it. So I’m going to go get a drink, and a fix, and try to forget about it because even the God of the Serenity Prayer can’t change what’s going down.

Needless to say this did not sound like the Giles Ryleigha she knew, especially his reference to the Serenity Prayer. Early on in her recovery she had made a point of memorizing the prayer. She hadn’t been attending recovery meetings long before she found out the version recited at 12 Step groups was actually a bastardized version of the original written by Reinhold Niebuhr (1882-1971).

Being a young Christian at the time she had thought the prayer absolutely wonderful. There had been many a night when the dragon of addiction was breathing down her neck and reciting the prayer over and over again had been the only thing she could hold on to and stay clean. For a while she had even revered Niebuhr, that is until she had one day done a little more digging and found out what he was really all about.

During the 1940’s Reinhold Niebuhr had been treasurer of a group called, Student League for Industrial Democracy. This particular organization was part of a long range plan started by a group of men who met in Greenwich Village, New York, in 1905, whose sole aim was to destroy the United States’ Christian world view which was part and parcel of its foundation and success, and replace it with the views espoused by Karl Marx. Among the original founding members of this group were Upton Sinclair and Jack London (both authors) and Clarence Darrow the famous attorney who had participated in the Monkey Scopes Trial.

Having discovered this history, and done a little more research, she had put two and two together. The present state of her country; the division between political parties and groups of people, the ready acceptance of on-demand abortion, the lack of reverence for life, the celebration of homosexuality and homosexual marriage, the separation of church and state, the banning of prayer and Bibles in public schools, and the abandonment of Godly morals and family values was a direct result of the group’s work.

Kilha mulled all this over, and more of their past history together as she had immediately gone in search of Giles worried about his well-being. Driving the Lamborghini she had been gifted with for saving the life of a prominent politician a few years before, she began checking out local dives knowing the type of place he had been apt to frequent in the past.

It was usually someplace where you paid your money and nobody looked twice at you even if you were over six and a half feet tall and weighed close to 400 pounds. Someplace where the right word in the right ear would get you whatever pill, powder, herb or crystal that torqued your head and twisted your mind.

It was nearing one in the afternoon when she finally discovered his Cadillac parked out front of a dingy bar called Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. It was a typical biker bar located a few blocks from where 13th street intersected with highway 101 in San Jose. It was the type of place with Harleys parked out front, members of outlaw motorcycle gangs wearing their colors at the bar, and the immutable broads that were all looking for love and intimacy but instead got used and abused and then thrown away when some girl younger and better looking came their man’s way.

Parking across the street and a half-block up from the bar, Kilha left her quarter million dollar ride in a no-parking zone void of any nearby cars. The moment she entered the dark recesses of the place she tripped on the threshold losing her balance and barely righted herself averting a bad fall. She could feel the animosity in the air. It might have had something to do with the trio of hard-asses, all flying colors and riding stools at the bar, making fun of Giles.

Giles had always been overly sensitive about his weight. Of course he was invariably over-sensitive about anything to do with himself. He was like every other addict she had ever known, he thought the universe revolved around his every desire and thought. And the bikers were roasting him like Ball Park Franks over an open fire at the beach, and kicking sand in his face to boot.

Surprisingly enough he wasn’t rising to the bait. One look at him and she knew he’d already drunk and gotten fixed with some really good heroin. This wasn’t generally a good mix, both of them being central nervous system depressants. The combination had been responsible for more deaths than straight heroin and cocaine overdoses together.

Standing just inside the entrance to the bar letting her vision acclimate to the lack of light, as she righted herself after almost falling, Kilha felt the swirling malevolence coalesce. Her trained senses heightened in awareness tenfold, time seemed to slow down dramatically as adrenaline flooded her vascular system and her muscles twitched in anticipation of the coming action. Her body knew whether her conscious mind did or not that she had just walked into conflict. She reveled in the feeling. This was her purpose in life, glorious, bloody battle.

CHAPTER 3

Life had all become pretty much of a daily rut for Giles Ryleigha over the past few years. Keeping on for the sake of keeping on; going to the lab and coming home, eating and sleeping and doing all the other myriad things people do to get through one more day. What a waste and what a joke. Life was so cruel, why couldn’t it end mercifully and quickly?

Giles was convicted by these thoughts knowing in his heart they weren’t supposed to be the sentiments of a man of God. His serious depression and his overweight problem added to his mental malaise. Being a non-using addict, an overachiever, an obsessive-compulsive of the first order, a visionary and a priest—well, ex-priest now, as well as possessing a great sense of humor, a sublime sense of the ironic, and his temper issues all blended together to make him a very complex and driven man.

As he sat in the bar Giles couldn’t help but review his life, his past, and all his mistakes. He was continuously amazed at how much power the past seemed to exert over people. Always at the front of his memories was Carol Kilha, the wonderful woman he had met and married and then divorced. She was his best friend in the world and still the light of his life. He had always ever called her Kilha. She was the epitome of pert, cute, petite, defenseless and babe all rolled into one package and he had used all these descriptive titles of endearment at one time or another. Long raven black hair, one brown eye and one hazel eye, standing a bare five-foot two, she was all warrior. But after two years of marriage with her sometimes unsuccessful stints as a personal bodyguard, (she was a chronic klutz), her love of military tactics and weapons, and her constant time at the range, the marriage just couldn’t last.

Giles had eventually found success writing tell-all books. They had catchy titles such as, B is for Bozo, C is for Clown, and A is for A**hole, well, you know. His first book had been on the New York Times bestseller list for nine weeks. And every book since had exceeded it. He did extensive research on high-profile political figures then wrote about their hypocrisy, exposing their every lie and flaw and narcissistic scheme. After 10 books he had yet to find a single politician who had been a millionaire before taking office, but now was. They hugely benefited from their office and although professing to believe in and stand for one thing, would turn around and vote against the very thing they said they stood for or vice versa.

The politicians, The Elite—the 1%, in league with the media, quietly determined what news was to be emphasized, and with what slant. There was a very simple and yet profound reason for this. In the 21st Century the media was in business for one reason and one reason only—to make money. The old adage, if it bleeds, it leads was still just as true today as it had been when the phrase had been coined. So, bad news ruled. Bad news revolved around people getting hurt or being impacted negatively by events or circumstances or other people. These sad stories were always presented as the result of a problem.

The best platform a politician had to run for office on was a solution to one of societies’ current ‘big problems.’ What person in their right mind wouldn’t vote for the politician who professed to have the solution to their problem, that is, the problem the media constantly emphasized as the most important ill of the day?

The process was simple: identify a problem, magnify the problem by making people aware of it and getting them to believe what had happened to someone else could just as easily happen to them, get them emotionally involved, and then propose a solution that promised to both benefit the people and cure the problem. It was an election winner every time!

Emotional issues were rampant, but the only ones the masses ever heard about were the manufactured ones. When certain problems were manufactured other more important ones were overlooked. This was part of the overall strategy. Take for instance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; almost 7 thousand American soldiers dead and tens of thousands of people raising hell about it, yet 40,000 people a year die on the nation’s highways and this was taken for granted as every day life.

Or what about the hue and cry over children killed from handgun accidents? Surely this is tragic and sad. Yet nowhere is it publicized that more young children, toddlers, die from drowning in buckets than from the accidental discharge of a firearm. What politician in his right mind is going to push for legislation to prevent water bucket drowning? Would anyone seriously entertain the idea of bucket permits, bucket use safety classes and mandatory bucket locks? But use an issue to attack the United States Constitution and suddenly you’re a hero and someone to be reckoned with.

That was the main reason why Giles had never really gotten interested in politics. He had decided to try to change society in another way, through technology. Using the millions of dollars he had garnered from the sales of his books he had managed to acquire his own laboratory at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory complex in Livermore, California. There he pursued his research and his inventions. And there he dabbled to his heart’s delight in researching such things as carbon nano-tube water filtration systems, instantaneous information transmission, quantum theory, DNA trait transfer and memory enhancement.

Most recently he had been focusing on RNA and how it stores and transfers memories. Up to the point where he had taken on the research only a few facts had been established about RNA and its connection to memory. One of the more outstanding studies had taken place with rats.

Individual rats that had learned and solved mazes were killed and their brain matter containing RNA was fed to other rats. These rats learned the mazes much, much more quickly. Their neural systems had somehow gleaned the information in the dead rats’ memories from the RNA and they had been able to utilize it to traverse the unknown, to them, maze passageways.

This line of inquiry had led him to search for a way to read these memories stored in the RNA and then project them onto a computer monitor, both sight and sound, in living color. In effect this RNA reader enabled anyone to view the sight and sound memories another living being had experienced and stored in its RNA.

The process was crude to say the least. The RNA had to be extracted from the animal’s brain, and that couldn’t be accomplished while the animal still lived. In the beginning Giles concentrated on rats and perfected both the processes and the equipment. He worked his way up to bigger brained animals and had eventually even latched on to a few human brains obtained from cadavers at great expense and trouble. Using difractional distillation techniques and high speed centrifuges, like the ones used to enrich Uranium to make weapons grade material, a thick slurry was drawn off which was high in memory RNA. This was the form that worked best in his RNA memory reading device.

His lab area being pretty open, one day a fly got in the mix—literally. He found the memories he was viewing were from a fly. It was pretty easy to discern that these memories came from an entirely different animal than any he had used before. The first clue was the perspective; the majority of memory views could only be obtained from the air. The second was the multi-faceted look to them because of the many lenses that make up a fly’s eyes. It also seemed that these particular memories had the best resolution of them all.

Giles concentrated on rendering fly RNA. That’s when he discovered something unique, and disturbing. Every living thing on Earth has DNA. It is the building code of life. The structure of the DNA is a double helix and has a right hand twist to its structure. All Earth DNA has this right hand twist.

Upon closer examination of the fly’s DNA he discovered that it had a left hand twist. This discovery led to only one conclusion; the fly was not native to Earth, it had not evolved here. As a matter of fact it appeared that the fly had been constructed for one specific purpose—to spy on the human race.

Flies have a short life span, about 10 days. They had many offspring. The fly RNA, along with the memories contained therein, was passed on to each generation degrading only after many hundreds of generations. It was brilliant to the extreme.

One didn’t need the specific fly that had observed events to see the events; all you needed was one of its progeny. This was better than any nanny cam. And what person would be suspicious of a fly? They were everywhere. They had been designed for just this purpose—to spy on Earth. He knew this for a certainty because during the course of reading fly memories he had come across multiple memories depicting aliens, aliens in the very process of reading fly memories just as he was doing.

This line of investigation prompted many questions. Just exactly who were these aliens? Why were they here on Earth? How long had they been here? How did they get here? Why were they keeping their presence a secret? How far away was their home system? Were they the only alien race out there? Did they present a threat to us?

Giles obsessively pursued these multiple lines of inquiry to the exclusion of his other avenues of research. Capturing hundreds of flies and scanning their RNA he was soon able to answer some of the questions. The why, which was inextricably linked to the secrecy, was easily understood; the aliens were thieves. They had been present on Earth for a least a century, if not more, and had been looting Earth’s art to ship off-planet.

He had soon realized the fly was indeed a potent ‘bug’ and recorded everything. The aliens had never thought the fly might be used against them in revealing their presence and to ferret out their evil machinations. Not only did the alien’s presence and ongoing criminal enterprise explain why so many great works of art had disappeared over the decades, but it also explained all the UFO sightings.

And the artwork stolen was all inclusive: paintings of all types, sculptures, metal works, music, poetry, plays and literature. And not only art, but also certain items that would be popular to many sentient species, such as weapons and luxuries such as time pieces and jewelry and other odds and ends.

If it hadn’t been for the fact some of the artistic mediums needed translation; music lyrics, written language, verbal dialogues in plays and poetry and movies, Giles never would have been able to understand the aliens. It seemed that they possessed some kind of translation device that did all the work for them. They used it often enough that he began to put together what was going on.

The Earth and its solar system, for whatever reason, was a proscribed system. Most probably because of its technological level, it was hands off to all. The aliens were here in violation of their own law. And this meant there was some governing body somewhere making and enforcing laws over a vast expanse of the galaxy.

The major reason the artifacts they stole and shipped off-planet were so valuable was because they were unique. Of course, if the fact that they were stolen ever came to light, their value would disappear as well as make the aliens vulnerable to legal repercussions.

In the compiling of information gleaned from the fly RNA he also discovered the aliens had a number of enclaves around the earth. These were used as transshipment points where the stolen art and other stuff was collected and then shipped off-planet. One of them was in the San Francisco Bay area. Another was on the east coast. Each enclave was operated by a different faction of aliens mimicking mafia, cartel and gang structures and order of operations.

At a certain point the enormity of what he had discovered overwhelmed Giles. He realized the most important and valuable thing the aliens had to protect was the secrecy of their presence on Earth. That’s when he started to pick out memories of the aliens reading the RNA of their autonomous spy