Firefly: The Awakening

By Danny Simmons

Until now, explosions, lies, and espionage have never been a regular part of his life. Blake Cavanaugh walks through his mundane, ordered life day after predictable day. His career as a human resource employee in a calm, uneventful West Texas CIA office is tidy and safe…that is until he overhears a whisper that draws him into a path of discovery: He is captivated by her name. Has his past caught up with him?

As he gets deeper and deeper into the Firefly documents, he is instinctively drawn to the familiar symbols, names, and places that conjure up powerful emotions he can’t shake. Could it be her?

He is chased by this mystery across three continents into a secret world that challenges every fiber of his predictable life as he draws upon his untested skills in handling guns and deciphering codes. Driven by the irresistible encounters and haunted by the stinging pain of the past, Blake must face his fears in this new upside-down world of immense obstacles, not the least of which has been hiding inside him his entire life. And when he meets an unlikely ally who knows more than she should, it only uncovers more questions. Will he find the answers, or did he truly lose everything he loved so many years ago?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781639038466

Danny Simmons

Danny Simmons, a renowned painter of abstract-expressionist oil works, owns the Rush Arts Gallery in Manhattan and Corridor Gallery in Brooklyn. A poet and cofounder of the Def Poetry Jam performance series, he heads the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation with his brother, Russell Simmons. He lives in Brooklyn.

Book preview

1

This Is Not Where He Wanted to Be

He could still feel the dullness in his ears from the concussive blast during the attack. He had never experienced anything like that before. No one would have believed him even if he had been allowed to tell them. He smiled to himself as he looked heavenward across the desert sands and gave his grandma a ceremonial toast with his half-filled water bottle.

He had never really wanted this kind of life with all of its adventures, upheavals, and disruptions. He preferred everything stable and predictable—nice. He imagined that at his age, he would be living in a nice house in a nice neighborhood with a nice wife and two nice kids.

Everything nice. Predictable.

Working in the human resources department, everything was always in order. Everything had its place, and everything was in its place.

He never imagined he would find himself on the edge of the Sahara Desert, ready to embark on another journey that leaves him forever branded as a hero, a revolutionary figure that saves the world. Well, that’s a bit much, but—

So here he is gazing into the southern sun with the sand gently blowing at his feet. He marveled at how the twists and turns had given him a ride that he could never have planned.

As he stared at his laced-up hiking boots and untucked shirt, then looking over at the handheld walkie-talkie in his hand, he pondered how his life had taken this turn. This was not exactly as his day planner had been organized just a few short months ago.

It couldn’t have started any nicer.

He was twelve years old, playing with his friends in the playground of a different kind of desert. In West Texas, there is slightly more dense sand, tumbling tumbleweeds, and oceans of wide-open spaces. A small town life and friendly people was what he grew up with. When someone new ventured through, you knew they were only stopping by, destined for bigger and better things on down the road. No one who stayed here was likely to become famous or well-known or ever traveled farther than the pull-behind RV would take them. If anyone did leave, they never came back. It wasn’t like you got a badge for finding your way out. And it wasn’t like trying to get out of the hood where you might end up six feet under if you stayed. It was more like a small leaf that gets caught in the windy streets and lifts off to the sky, floats away, and you never see it again. Destiny maybe?

Blake had lived in this dusty little town for as long as he could remember.

His agreeable mom and kind dad had a modest house, provided to them by an inheritance left by his grandfather who spent his life toiling in the dirty, grimy oilfields. The oilfield provided a good living for his grandfather, and he saved as much as he could for the lean times that were thatn to come.

Blake attended the state university just across the border of Texas. The two states had made an agreement to treat locals living in Blake’s city as an in-state resident, making it affordable for him to attend. As he finished up his studies, he followed his plan of living in the big city and working in a respectable office doing day-to-day tasks as a human resource employee. His life was in order. Everything had its place, and everything was in its place.

As a single man, he would come home to his ordered home. He always picked up his mail from the front porch box. Next to it was the swing that he ordered online. It wasn’t the most well-constructed swing he had ever seen, but he was proud of himself for getting the hardware to actually hang it up, even though he never really sat in it that much. But it looked agreeable there on the front porch next to the oversized vase overflowing with the in-season perennials that he manicured and watered daily. He smiled as he looked down at them and affirmingly encouraged them with a You guys look great today. Keep on keeping on! If his grandpa were here, he’d look at the tall African Daisy and say, Thatn’s so big that it looks like he ate his brother. A smile wriggled across Blake’s face as he drifted back in time for just a moment, enjoying the warmth he felt as he remembered the past.

His color-coded keys always went into the bowl that was given to him by his grandmother. She had seen the multicolored hand-painted piece at a secondhand shop and said that it reminded her of her exceptional grandson, Blake. So she paid the $2 for it and presented it to him on May 3. He remembered May 3 because, just one year later, she passed away silently into the night. No cancer, no issues, just finished life here, went to sleep, and never woke up. So he keeps the bowl and thinks of her often.

I’ll bet everything is in order where she’s at now. I can’t wait to visit, he would often say to himself. He liked that bowl. His grandmother said that it was as cute as a speckled pup under a red wagon. Again, the half-smile appeared across his face, even as the ache beat in his heart.

He adored his grandmother. They had a great relationship together. He was only sixteen when she died, but since he had known her his whole life, it was devastating when she passed. He had learned so much from her about patience and caring for others. He watched as she effortlessly dove headfirst into conversations. He was amazed at how easily others opened up to her. She was a master at listening, and he tried to emulate every facet of what he saw. He remembered the questions she used. He studied her facial expressions as she empathized. It was like a social studies project for him. He wrote a report on her life in his high school anthropology class during his senior year. Backed up with stacks of references and research, his paper focused on the benefits of listening well, and she became the essential focus of the study. He was quite proud, not only of the A+ that he received on the paper but the fact that he could, in some small way, memorialize his favorite person in all the world.

She had taken him to church every Sunday. He couldn’t always pay attention, but he showed great respect for her by trying his best. He remembered one particular sermon about the prophet Elijah and how God spoke to the prophet. God had used many different ways to speak including fire and great wind. But when Elijah was feeling at his lowest, God chose to speak to him in a whisper. God seemed to meet Elijah right where he was, and as gently as he could, God had whispered. It was as if God was holding Elijah gently and with complete compassion, encouraging him and comforting him. The whisper was enough to get Elijah back on his feet and moving again.

That’s the exact story that Blake reflected on during the funeral.

After his grandmother’s death, Blake went into control mode. He made sure everything was in its place and in perfect order. He made sure to be available for any little thing that needed doing, like moving chairs or picking up dishes or sweeping the front porch. There was no way that he was going to allow himself to be still and silent for fear of having to face his own emotions and losing it in front of everyone.

But at the funeral, as he was walking away from the casket, the thought of the prophet Elijah came to him and the sweet, comforting way that his God spoke to him. Blake thought of the whisper. I wonder what it sounded like, he thought to himself. Was it audible to anyone else? Was God so close to him that he felt the gentle wisp of air that comes from the breath that spoke? What word or words did God say? All of these were racing through his mind as he walked out the back of the church and into the sunlight.

As he put on his sunglasses both to shield his eyes from the sun and to hide the tears, he quietly whispered to God, Can you do that for me too?

He fought hard to remain still and hear the whisper from God. He didn’t even know what he was listening for but felt sure that he’d know it if he heard it. The whisper never came, but the uneasiness did. Sitting and waiting is not in my DNA, he thought to himself.

He paused for a moment, shook his head to clear his mind, and started looking for a distraction. He got his distraction when his mother came from behind him and reminded him of his responsibility to be a pallbearer and help escort the casket to the final resting place. As he turned to go back into the church where the body of his hero lay, he took hold of the doorknob and pulled. Just as the door opened, he heard a whisper, Let go. He looked behind him, and his mother had already headed toward the family car. No one else was there. He walked inside the church and found no one near the front door either. He stood and looked for a moment, wondering where that voice came from, but didn’t find the source.

Grief. They told me that it does weird things to you, he muttered as he made his way down the aisle to the casket and took his place beside the casket.

Coming back to himself, he placed his keys in the hand-painted bowl and turned his attention to the mail. As he thumbed through the stack, he used his tried-and-true system. He looked through the envelopes and sorted out the spam letters and fed them into the multi-shredder next to his desk. The others he kept and read through later. He took them one at a time, filing them, responding to them, or writing a check to pay them. Yeah, a check. He didn’t like the online payment plans. Too impersonal. One by one he took care of business being sure not to handle them more than once. If he put them off to do later, it caused him to have to handle it a second time wasting precious time and energy. Not that he had a lot of other things to do. It was just that it was his norm to be efficient, and it carried over into all areas of his life.

When he cooked a meal, he cleaned as he went. When he finished eating the meal, never in front of an electronic screen, a TV, or otherwise, he went directly to the kitchen to wash, dry, and put away. No need for a dishwasher. Again, waste of time and resources.

Most nights he would spend the evening sitting at his desk working on the novel that he never seemed to finish. Always editing and reediting. He wasn’t really sure what he was going to do with it anyway. He had become quite protective of himself. Sharing something as personal as this was a huge risk. He would have to be way more vulnerable than he wanted. Letting others into his world was not safe. He wasn’t into taking risks like that. Not anymore. Not since his relationship with her was suddenly shattered.

2

Bewildering

Blake had known her most of his life. After all, they had grown up together in the same small town. From third grade on, they had been best friends. By then, the cooties had worn off, and they found that they had a lot in common.

One of those common things was reading. They were both voracious readers. They loved to talk together about the adventures they experienced through reading. Through their elementary years, they talked about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Charlotte’s Web. When they moved in the high school years, it got a bit, well, uncomfortable. She began to gravitate toward the romantic books while he was fascinated with books like A Short History of Nearly Everything and How Not to Die.

But eventually, they found their way back to shared interests like Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask, and Hunger Games. Just enough love story for her and plenty of action for him. They often daydreamed together about what it would be like to live the way the stories played out. So much action. So much passion. So much.

Woah. Wait a minute, Blake would say.

Remember that we are from West Texas. We aren’t created for this kind of thing. It was easy for him to shrink back into his own reality, knowing that this kind of life outside of this town was way out of reach for a couple of kids living in the middle of nowhere.

But she never lost that ache. The kind of ache that stays with you through your whole life. It’s as if she can never satisfy it. The thought that she could do more than she is doing now. The idea that there’s more out there. The sting of knowing, deep down, that if she didn’t push forward, she will miss it. She didn’t know what it was, but she knew it wasn’t right here. She would never experience it if she didn’t take a risk.

So every once in a while, she would talk Blake into doing something out of the ordinary. Sure, there were dangerous things to do right there in their cozy little town. There was always the chance to ride bucking broncos down at Pendelton’s Farm. The rodeo was open year-round but more popular in the summer