Let there be music, let there be song… and Elvis?

I see Bob Taylor, co-editor with me of Northern Lights (stories and poems) can now be seen and heard on:  

 BOB TAYLOR SINGS ELVIS

What a treat! Has Elvis as well as Bob entered the building? 

The Sacrifice — another short story

The Sacrifice — short story by Gladys Hobson

He opened his eyes and in the dim light what he saw terrified him: six men dressed alike in strange outfits, masks over their faces, were performing some sort of ritual around where he lay. He wanted to call out, ask them who they were, what they were doing, but he could not speak, neither could he move. He was on his back and his hands and feet were splayed out and tied down.

His heart beating wildly, he struggled against his bonds but pain seared through his body. He wanted to scream but could not.

They were now drawing closer, instruments in their hands, but his vision was too blurred to see what they were. The creatures were muttering incantations, moving in ritualistic patterns.

Oh no! No! No! He didn’t want to die… not like this, not on an alien planet far from home and loved ones. Surely this must be a nightmare and he would wake up. He tried to force himself awake, but as pain shot through his body he realised this was a nightmare from which there was no awakening.

A masked dark face bent over his: he could see beads of sweat on the creature’s brow. A mumbling sounded in his ear followed by another shot of pain the length of his chest and whole abdomen, radiating out to every nerve in his body. He tried to scream, but no sound escaped his mouth, it merely revolved in circles within his head — pain, pain, pain!

The creatures were now moving around in the dim light, some carrying bowls — of his blood and body parts? They were performing more rituals, around and around in weird patterns. He knew for certain that these movements had to do with him: he was the victim of an alien kidnap and this was a ritualistic sacrifice. How long must his suffering go on? Hours? Days? Weeks? For ever?

Sheer terror possessed him. He wanted to die…

It was some days before the drugs wore off after his ten-hour operation, and only then did he realise that the aliens were post-operative nurses. But the pain remained.

(Based on a true event)

For my latest book The Dark Mirror by G B Hobson in print and E formats
— visit: Dare Empire. Or buy from Amazon.com

Deception, entrapment, betrayal, heartache. Can love continue to believe all things, overcome all things in a judgmental world?

The Dream… short story by Gladys Hobson

 The Dream

 She couldn’t help thinking that it was odd to have stone steps leading in a curve upwards to your dwelling, not only that, but a dark empty cellar-like space underneath, with brick pillars supporting the floor above. Odd too, to be carrying a bright-eyed little girl on her arm; balancing there like a fairy on a tree bough. But she knew that she had another home, an ordinary house; dull maybe, but comfortable. It was at the other end of the dark tunnel she had just walked along.

The child was chatting happily and saying how nice it would be to have a party.

‘But people won’t come to my parties.’

‘Yes they will. They’re coming already.’

Suddenly, there seemed to be a lot of activity going on: people with happy faces going up and down the stairs. But who were they?

She opened the door to the room above — plain brick walls just like down below. There were a lot of people milling around. Not only that, but a table was by the door bearing food and drink. And yet more people were arriving (guests?) carrying bottles and bowls, plates and packets, all of which were placed on the table. People were chatting happily, but she did not seem to recognise any of them.

Then a couple of men, formally dressed in dark clothes, came through the door. They did not seem as cheerful as the others but they looked vaguely familiar. Surely they could not be those consultants from the hospital, both of which she knew to be church attendees? They were not exactly social contacts but on ‘smiling in recognition’ terms.

What was going on? Well it seemed like a party and the child was certain of it.

Still more smiling, seemingly happy, people were coming and going — more coming than going. How many more part-goers could be crammed into the place?

Oddly enough, they seemed to be ignoring her. But then she was used to that.

She left the room to go back to her real home — the child still sitting on her arm — and carefully walked down the stone steps, maneuvering around the smiling people on their way up. Finally she arrived at the bottom and looked around. There was the dark passage leading from the bottom of the steps towards her real home. People were walking in both directions, but mostly her way and up the stairs. Her eyes were drawn into the darkness of the cellar-like space under the floor of the building.

Horror! The upper part of the brick pillars were beginning to crumble. A section of brick fell away. Dust and cement chips with it. Then another… and another….

She ran up the steps, turning this way and that, warning the partygoers not to go to the room above, but rather to run as fast as they could down the dark passage and away to safety. No one listened and neither would the partygoers in the room above. She shouted and shouted, all the time wanting to run away herself but she could not… she had to warn them… warn them… the floor was about to cave in….

Where was the child? Who was the child?

She was now awake and knew the answers. That bright cheerful girl was the happy young person inside her ageing body. The child of her youth: the child that was shy yet loved to be free… to dance and to sing,

The dark cellar with the crumbling pillars?

Was she allowing the young child to lead her into areas beyond her reasoning self?

These things she pondered while awake. Then getting up she walked to her study and looked at her computer. Coming to a decision, she subdued the child within her and collected an axe from the workshop….  

 

Read the first two chapters of Hobson’s novels (some with pen names) at: 

Magpies Nest Publishing 

A Lonely Path to Tread — short story by Gladys Hobson

He walked towards her, his body rigid, his face swollen with fury. It was if he were being choked by the clerical collar tightening around his throat.

“Is this your doing?” he asked, waving a sheet of paper in front of her. “You’re supposed to get them to accept my proposals. Now they’ve come up with this!”

Her pulse was racing. She had never seen him so angry.

“But the Mother’s Union thought visiting all the families for two anniversaries was a waste of time. They don’t get inside the homes and most of the cards have to be pushed through the letterboxes. This way—”

“I want all baptism families visiting for five years, whether doors get opened or not!” he bellowed. “They would have done it if I had been there.”

Her stomach was tying itself in knots.

“I don’t think so. They were quite adamant that it was a waste of time. They want to concentrate on those who are interested and—”

“I would have persuaded them.”

“I don’t think so.” She swallowed hard, but the lump in her throat would not budge. “It really was a good discussion. They came up with plans they were happy to work with. I thought they were spot on. After all, they are the ones doing the work.”

“But I run this parish!” he blasted. A rumble left his throat as he shook his head. “I should not have left it to you: this is far too important.”

She avoided his blazing eyes.

“Well, look at it this way: at least, without you present they felt able to say what they thought. If you had been there, they—”

“Are you telling me I frighten them? Ridiculous!”

She knew it was nothing of the sort. If he had been a fly on the wall at the meeting, he might be a little more humble. No — a man like him would be even angrier at having his instructions-disguised-as-a-request, questioned. They had told her they were not listened to. In truth, they were scared of him. If they disagreed with anything he said, they were likely to get verbally attacked.

“Mark, I—”

“I’ll arrange another meeting.” He shook an angry finger at her. “And you will stay out of it.”

He marched out of the vestry: a short man with fine white hair, large nose, thin lips and a light frame on which a too-large black cassock swung uneasily in time with his long stride. She watched him disappear from sight, and then sat down at the desk on which were spread a pot of various writing tools, several documents, and the funeral register, open ready for the service she was due to conduct that afternoon.

Pushing aside the register, she placed her elbows on the desk and her head in her hands, refusing to let her tears of anger and frustration, flow. That would be giving in to his bullying, and she was determined not to give him an excuse to get rid of her.

Her mind went back to her ‘call’ and her struggle to accept it: an ever-present reminder of what, and who she was. No angel sang, no lights flashed, no mystic voice sounded from the flames of the candles, but she had felt the Holy Spirit’s anointing and holy joy had filled her heart.

Refreshed by the memory, she looked around the vestry, her eyes settling on her robes hanging on the rail ready for the service. Maybe her vicar did not appreciate her, but most of the congregation welcomed her presence. Many were warm and gracious towards her, including some Parochial Church Council members, who had previously voted against women ministers. She smiled: she was winning.

Voices could be heard coming from the far end of the church: Joyce, the sexton was receiving mourners and handing out service and hymn books. Had she heard Mark bellowing at her? More important, had the mourners? She bowed her head in prayer.

“Be with me, Lord I pray. Make me worthy of my calling. May all who attend this service, leave the church comforted and blessed. And as I take each hand in mine, give me the words to speak, and a heart to love. So may your name be glorified in this place, and saddened hearts be lifted in hope of life eternal.”

Slipping on her cassock, snowy-white surplice, and black scarf, she walked serenely out of the vestry. Shutting the door behind her, she proceeded to the church porch, greeting the mourners already in the pews with a gentle smile. She glanced at her watch. The funeral was still ten minutes away, and yet people were coming along the church path in a steady stream, chatting to each other; some cheerfully, others with sorrow in their voices. Judging by the numbers on foot and the cars parking nearby, it was going to be a big funeral. Mark was not going to be pleased: he conducted all the important funerals.

 

Lorna sat back in her chair and read the words on the computer screen. Writing down what had happened that morning, and on many other occasions, during the years of her ministry was a mere therapeutic exercise; it would not go in her book. What then could she write? She sighed: clearly this literary work was going to be only half her story. Acceptance had come easily from the man and woman in the street: indifference, grudging acceptance or even open hostility had been the attitude of many clergy and some officers of the church.

But why not tell the whole story? The anger, the tears of frustration, the loneliness, the denigration of who and what she was? Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter thirteen, popped into her mind, and she knew why not.

Wiping away the tear from her cheek, she smiled as she pressed ‘delete’.

The Divine Spark — short story by three authors

 The Divine Spark.

 

Part One by Gladys Hobson

 

I am writing this letter to you, my daughter, as I fear you may not see me again.

I want you to keep this in a safe place for future generations, if indeed this earth will witness mankind’s survival. This is an account of secret experiments in which I am involved. You must not divulge any of its contents. Keep a printed copy in the family’s security box at the Citizens’ Deposit Bank. If I survive, the contents will eventually become common knowledge but a leak might mean widespread bloodshed as battles are fought to gain control over the process.

Let me explain.

As you know, the population of the world has been declining at a fast rate due to the effects of climate change and, more recently radiation has caused malformed infants and finally sterility. In this year, 2180, human births are rare, perfectly formed infants are rarer still and greatly prized — to the extent that the WGB (World Governing Body) has directed our TEO (The European Office) to take over the births and rearing of all live children. What may not be generally known is that only viable children — those who are perfectly formed and capable of work — are allowed to live. And that those whose reproduction systems are considered viable (now down to less than a hundred a year) are now housed in secret breeding establishments, where they will ultimately be used, at an early age, for breeding purposes.

But it has long been recognised that whatever breeding programme is adopted it will not be enough to stop the inevitable extinction of man. Certainly, world programmes are in force to reduce the population of those that contribute nothing to man’s survival — the old, sick, disabled and those deemed surplus to requirements — but life as it was once known cannot survive.

For some time, a secret laboratory has been experimenting to reproduce humans, in what is known as the Dolly-Bird Experiment. I am one of the few who know the outcome and why it was abandoned. The simple truth is, that although children were indeed reproduced from healthy stored cells, they were little more than robots. What’s more, they ate up resources but did not live long enough to be productive. While this was going on, the group to which I belong was conducting experiments of its own.

Over thousands of years, debates have been going on about the nature of man’s soul, or spirit. This is not the ‘personality’ that can be manipulated through drugs and environmental factors but the life-force that appears to die at death, or to go on to another life, according to many of the old religions. We, SOSK (Scientists Of Spirit Knowledge) have enlisted the help of those with ESP (Extra Sensory Perception) and medical scientists involved in a variety of disciplines to explore the nature of what many would regard as a divine spark. Is this more than an illusory factor? Or does it actually exist in man’s DNA? Does it have substance that can be analysed? What kind of scientific apparatus would be needed that we do not already possess? These and other questions we have explored.

I can almost hear you laughing! Yes, for many hundreds of years authors have written books, fiction or otherwise, about experiments involving souls of the dead, or dying, to exchange bodies with the healthy living. Rubbish! What we are doing is down to earth research, and we have come up with staggering results that will not be published until scientific fact has been proved for all to see. I will come back to this shortly.

First let me explain what we have found, while I am still able to be coherent.

 

It is an old debate as to whether the complexity of the DNA Double Helix points to Intelligent Design rather than an act of random evolution. I deliberately use capitals for Intelligent Design because it is within this area that we were searching. We decided that new methods were needed to discern the Divine Spark that holds life together and determines that life will go on. This is too complex to deal with in detail here, but enough to say that by employing psychic methods combined with ‘normal’ research to delve further into the Double Helix, we discovered an element which can only be described as a force, only visible to those people gifted with what would once have been described as a Third Eye. This Spark, as we have called it, is passed on to each cell, via the DNA, throughout the natural development of the foetus. This is what Professor Bird ignored in his Dolly-Bird experiments. His so-called children lacked that which made them human beings — the Divine Spark. Therefore they had no soul or spirit — they did not ‘flow’ from the Intelligent Design. Or, as some would have it — God.

What we needed was to discover how to cooperate with the Intelligent Design to ensure man’s survival.

We knew what was needed. Somehow we had to find a way of isolating the individual’s Spark so that we could transfer it from his dying body and implant ‘it’ into a new body. Since we were dealing with a ‘molecule’, howbeit only visible (at present) to those with refined ESP, this is not as fanciful as it would appear. But ethical concerns regarding experiments have limited our scope. So far we have only worked on individuals at the point of dying. We have found it possible to isolate the Spark at the point of death and draw it out in a condensed form to be immediately injected into the heart of a new body. (This is over-simplistically put but it will suffice.)

We soon found that the Spark does not transplant into Dolly-Bird humans — as they are at present. So the D-B process was set up again but using DNA from a volunteer, who would later have their Spark transplanted into the growing beings inside the artificial womb that has been set up for this purpose. We realised the volunteer would have to be intelligent, healthy and free from all major inherited faults or diseases. We knew too, that the volunteer, denied of their complete Spark, would become a zombie. Was it possible to get a balance, that is, try and draw only half of the Spark from the healthy volunteer in the hope that it would restore itself in the host? This was a risk I was, and still am, willing to take.

If this process succeeds the implications are enormous, some of them frightening. But we believe the Divine Spark is, in fact, leading us in this direction and we have no choice but to go ahead. So, my daughter, if I do not die in this experiment I may have undergone a change when you see me again. But I will still be your mother who loves you dearly. The drugs I have taken in preparation, are now working and I cannot go on. Take a disc copy to the deposit bank as instructed. I am now pressing the send button….

 

Marie Brook-Bird read the letter and placed it on the table in front of her. So, at last her mother was admitting to what she had been involved in during the last few years. The woman was a fool to think that the cloak of secrecy had hidden the true nature of the experiments being conducted at the Bird Corporation facilities in the abandoned town of Sellafield. Of course the annual reports had been consummate at covering up the employment of certain experts in the paranormal, but her mother was not to know that one of them was being paid large sums to keep her, the daughter-in-law of old Professor Bird, informed. Did her mother really think they could fool everyone with their so-called Dolly-Bird Nutrition project? Keep this letter in a bank vault? Her mother must have been off her rocker when she wrote it!

She pressed the small disk implanted in her lower left arm, and spoke the code of the Sellafield facilities spy.

‘John Brown,’ came the voice from the disk.

‘B-B here. Report.’

‘She is weak but alive.’

‘And the foetuses?’

‘Perfectly normal.’

‘Is my mother expected to recover?’

‘Yes.’

‘You know what you have to do.’

 

Nothing else was needed. When the plug was secretly pulled on her mother’s life-support, the experiment would be deemed a failure. She looked across the breakfast table to her grinning husband,

‘Well, Edward, we are about to enlarge the Brook-Bird laboratories.  Once we have the complete set of files from John Brown, his body will soon be “mouldering in the grave,” as the old song says!’

Edward burst out laughing. ‘And we are going to be hellish rich!’

‘Not just rich, Teddy, but the most powerful people on earth — gods!’

A rumble sounded from underneath the building. It could only be one thing…

 

 

 

Part Two by Gill Brett

 

However, you must know what occurred in this couple’s quarters in the five minutes just prior to this omen, this terrifying sound from below the grounds of the sprawling Dolly-Bird facility…

 

They became aware of raised voices in the hall. The voice of their butler protesting they could recognise, the other voice was harsh and had an authoritative air

The door was opened without ceremony and six armed Security Police entered and took up positions around the room. They were, as intended, menacing with their black helmets and the wrap around visors obscured their eyes. They could have been a more advanced form of the robotic creatures that the Dolly Bird experiments had created.

They were followed by two civilians, and it was clear which one was the superior; his clothes might have marked him out, but it was also his manner, the stillness and the cold eyes.

It should have been her husband who spoke first but it was her house and her money.  That money had insulated Marie Brook-Bird from a lot of things, and fear of authority was one of them.

‘What the devil do you mean by this? You have no right to enter my home… get out!’

‘Madame, I am sure that you are aware that under Executive Powers we can go anywhere, and do anything, that we deem expedient.’

He was polite but the cold eyes regarded her with something approaching disdain; they had long since lost the capacity for pity.

‘As to the rest, I would have thought that it was obvious, we are closing down your operations, permanently.’

Even she was alarmed by the finality of his words and she knew only too well the scope of Executive Powers. It may have been inherited money, but she had a good brain as well, and immediately changed her approach.

‘I don’t see how that can be. We are doing excellent research on human regeneration.  The current tests look positive; we are on the edge of a breakthrough that can save humanity.’

There was a flicker of movement to his face before he replied. It could have been humour but it was hard to say.

‘You really don’t understand, do you? We have no need of your experiments to show us how to procreate. The knowledge and ability had always been available to the First Families or, as you might describe them, the Elite.’

‘I don’t understand…’ She paused, for the first time she was beginning to be worried.  Their money had always assured them of privilege, and if there was an elite then they would be part of it. ‘This has been a global crisis, this company — my company — has been in the forefront of efforts to solve it.’

‘Scarcely for reasons of philanthropy,’ he observed sarcastically. ‘Your experiments and others like them have had their uses. It gives the masses the illusion that something is being done. The last thing that we wanted was for you to succeed.’

Edward was not as bright as his wife and had a tendency to bluster when under pressure, which is exactly what he did. He got to his feet to speak.

‘I say, this isn’t right, and you can’t speak to my wife like that.’

Two guns were levelled at him but it was the look from the man with cold eyes that silenced him.

‘Sit down. You are parasites along with rest of the useless eaters whose fate you will now share. Your assets are forfeit and you will be taken from here to a Detention Centre.  You may take nothing with you and your stay will be…’ he lingered over the last word, ‘indefinite.’

‘Teddy.’ She tugged his arm to make sure that he sat— he was standing as if rooted to the spot.  However her colour had gone and for the first time in her adult life she felt real fear. The Executive Orders he had referred to were radical and far-reaching and habeas corpus had long since been suspended. The Detention Centres were all too real although what went on inside them was the subject of hearsay and rumour. Large swathes of some counties were off limits to the public and no one ever reported what went on inside them if, that is, anyone ever came out.

She tried to remain composed as she struggled to think coherently. Whatever she said had to count now. Once they had been taken to a Detention Centre it would be too late.

‘There must be some mistake. We were working for TEO at the direction of the WGB, we are not renegades or dissidents, and we were working for the establishment. Please check with your superiors this has been a ghastly mistake.’

‘There is no mistake Madame. The WGB are merely the puppets for the First Families, you acted at their direction, and you have outlived your usefulness.’

He looked at the two devastated people sitting in front of him. They were by no means the best specimens and he had no respect for them personally. However he knew what was in store for them and some remnant of humanity prompted him to give a little more information.

‘It has been set out for a long time for those with eyes to see. A hundred years ago this year the Georgia Guidestones were erected.’ He saw their blank expression and elaborated. ‘They are sometimes called America’s Stonehenge. The first message stated that the sustainable population of the earth is 500 million. The diseases, wars and famines over the last century, and the current sterility of the general population are all part of the program. The earth will survive in the hands of those best able to maintain and rule it.’

‘Take them away.’

 

The Security Police, two to a person, roughly gripped their upper arms, the butler as well, and marched their quarry towards the entrance hall, the Executive Powers suits close behind, but just now that rumbling began, the ground juddered, windows splintered: yes, it could only be one thing…

 

 

 

Part Three by Payton L Inkletter

 

But if I divulge to you just what that one thing is, I will have to kill you! Well, only if you were part of this sad chapter the world had entered into, but because you are just an innocent twenty third century reader of this account, obviously I am joking.

The significance and particulars of that rumble, not far beneath the building in ghost town Sellafield, (whose primitive twentieth century nuclear plants had long since been decommissioned), where Edward and Marie had just read her mother Therese’s letter, will be revealed before you finish this book, but in case you assume it was seismically generated, it wasn’t. This town was abandoned, not due to any misadventures from the worldwide anti-matter bomb underground testing madness that cursed so many other economically thriving areas in the early 2100s, but simply through lack of fit people to sustain its economic base.

Evil people can never be too smart. There are just too many ways that their selfish plans can come unstuck, myriad possibilities for losing control of what they need to dominate.

Marie Brook-Bird, the brains behind the now Brook-Bird Corporation’s quest to control world fertility – and everything else that makes big money – had just been duped a monumental dupe, the mother of all dupes, by her mother, of all people. That electronic letter was a setup, and John Brown was Therese Brook’s lover. No drugs were administered, and no divine spark was about to be extracted, in part or in full…

Am I kind, or does the story need it? Because I am not going to make you wait a hundred pages, rather I’ll tell you now what that rumble was. Therese and John were securely five kilometres away at an altitude of ten thousand feet, hovering, when they sent the letter, and watching on their huge onboard screen the undercover vision of Marie and Edward reading it and hearing her daughter yet again flippantly affirm her plans to murder them both. This macabre reiteration was their cue to send the signal to detonate the scores of explosives peppered throughout the underground facility. But, just as they were about to press the button, they witnessed the arrival of the Security Police thugs and the two members of the Executive Powers. After hearing what was said about the Elite Families and the Georgia Guidestones, John Brown laughed.

“The First Families? The so-called Elite? We’ll see who comes first in this world!”

“Those that help themselves!” laughed Therese.

Together they pressed DELETE.

Over a million foetuses were blown up, the skeleton staff of eighty this Sunday died, plus many members of the Executive Security Force distributed around that area. Marie and Edward were spared seeing old age.

 

A single tear welled up in Therese’s eye as they accelerated their Mach10 Raptor, and set off for the laudably and innocently named ‘Centre for Arid Cropping Research’ at Mt Augustus in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region, taking barely two hours to traverse two hemispheres.

“She had a cherub’s curls as a little girl,” she told John, who handed her a tissue.

“There there, Honey, you’ll get over her. She was on the verge of killing us and enslaving the whole world. That’s our area now — we are the Elite of the Elite! Ha ha! What do you say to that eh, Honey!”

Therese smiled, having soaked up that minimalist teardrop, and dispensing with schmaltzy sentiment, heartily agreed: “Can hardly wait, Sweet!”

One pair of evil people had just murdered another pair of evil people – got in first – and dispensed with another eighty professionals, plus over a million tiny foetuses. Oh, and sundry Executive Security minions, cold blooded robots, good as. And what the heck, a mother murdered her murderously intentional daughter. Good riddance. But evil folk can’t be too smart…

For fifteen years or more now the facility at Mt Augustus had been doing admirable work lifting the output of arid land fruiting shrubs, and where better? For climate change had extended Australia’s already ample deserts to the very beaches all round, including Tasmania. And what perfect cover for the real work of Therese Brook’s heinous heart, almost a mile below the world’s largest rock. A faithful coterie of two hundred and forty odd scientists, operating ostensibly under the moniker of SOSK at Sellafield, were doing their real work deep in the bowels of this geologic monster.

When they began, about twenty years ago at Sellafield, this operation was indeed a noble pursuit of altruistic intent, but then Therese joined as a molecular biologist before it was into its third year. Seeing the opportunities, she set about infiltrating its heart and soul with her callous philosophy, enlisting a trusted core of fellow conscience-devoid minds.

It was their winning of the confidence, by subterfuge, of one of the world’s wealthiest men, a Russian trillionaire, Yevgeni Yeltsin, which supercharged the progress of the underground facilities with its unbelievably advanced equipment. They had the best of everything that could possibly aid in their research: the successful transfer of the divine spark from one body to another younger one, without harming the donor. The irony of their work was that they were acknowledging the transcendence, even divinity, of the life spark, while treating it as a commodity to get rich by and to control the world with. Evil doesn’t think with as much rigour as it likes to think it does.

A young fellow, Rob Mainwaring, was an inaugural member of the SOSK team, before Ms Brook’s shadow darkened the project, and he was a linguist by profession. He was also my father. The original and honest leader of the team, Barry Jarvis, sent Rob to the Middle East to study whatever texts he could access that spoke of the human soul, and resurrection from this life. Barry’s time at the helm was short, having an unfortunate ‘misadventure’ with his car one night driving home from the Dolly-Bird facility. His smashed body was found lifeless at the bottom of the Sellafield Gorge, his mangled car somehow on top of him. An immediate promotion came Therese’s way. SOSK was exclusively based within Dolly-Bird at Sellafield for the first five years, before Ms Brook began clandestinely moving ‘resigning’, ‘sacked’, and the occasional ‘deceased’ scientist to Mt Augustus.

Young Mainwaring, my dad, another honest team member, and eventually the last honest one on the SOSK payroll, had a fascinating time in the first twelve months at Alexandria. He became most intrigued by the philosophy of Rodan, but his excitement knew no bounds when, after moving to Jerusalem, he found an ancient text attributed to Rodan in a cellar below a tumble down ruin in Bethany, in an airtight wax sealed earthen vase. This was no blind stroke of luck, for while at Alexandria his researches uncovered suggestions that a text of Rodan’s had found its way to Bethany. It was the only copy, as far as the linguist was ever able to ascertain, and he treasured it like the Philosopher’s Stone. It was in Greek, and about the equivalent of fifty pages. And of all the good fortune that could have come this linguist’s way, not only was the subject matter the human soul and its resurrection, it was profound, and almost scientific.

Dad, through painstaking investigation of obscure texts while in Alexandria, learned that Rodan, an early follower of, and contemporary with, Jesus of Nazareth, suffered a schism among his own disciples of his philosophy. A small band of them departed for the region of Mount Ararat to practice a blend of psychic, spiritistic, and ascetic procedures of their own nefarious devising, based on information gleaned from a religious work — ‘Growth, Transference, and Fusion of the Soul’— written by the philosopher. Rodan had had the only copy of this scroll secreted away by trusted disciples when the trouble broke out. It was this very parchment that my father came to be in possession of, over twenty one and a half centuries after the noble Greek wrote it, out from the safety of an anciently sealed jar in far away Bethany.

Therese Brook had been intercepting the electronic correspondence between Dr Jarvis and Dad from the earliest weeks of her joining Bird Corporation. She immediately saw the potential that Mainwaring was exploring. She kept him based in Jerusalem the entire time, upon her ‘fortuitous’ rise to CEO and Chief Scientist, and made herself his personal manager, effectively isolating him from the larger team by filtering all communication both ways. Now she was about to recall him from the Middle East, and base him in her own department at Mt Augustus. She planned to use fear of being killed by supporters of her now deceased daughter to keep him at heel. This was exactly what transpired, for she had fed my father the lie years earlier that Dr Jarvis had been killed by some secret group within the Bird Corporation — rather a group of one, gender: female — and as it had happened once, it could happen again. Dad had no stomach for the baser side of life, and just wanted to keep doing his enthralling research, and had come to completely trust his wellbeing to Therese Brook. Naïve man.

Those heretics who set up in the wilderness of Mount Ararat had read their master Rodan’s work, and while the brilliant philosopher included much historical information as well as detail regarding his understanding of the soul, he never imagined that an attempt to pervert the course of spiritual law would arise from the use of his data. He wrote about the fall of a high son of the universe, Lucifer, and the myriads of seraphim who fell with him, as well as a strange group of creatures, known as the midwayers, the offspring of part human, part superhuman beings, some of whom joined the rebellion on this planet in the millennia past.

Rodan had detailed all he could understand about the human soul, claiming that it begins to grow within the mind from when we are little children, and among other things, it is a true substance, responding to three types of gravity: material, mental, and spiritual. When we die, our guardian seraph takes possession of this ethereal substance, within which the patterns of every spiritual achievement of our entire life are woven. If there is time, the angel embarks on a journey across space, to arrive on the mansion world of our resurrection, in time to implant her soul trust into the newly prepared body for the surviving human to awaken into. If there isn’t enough time, she projects the patterns for her mansonia proxy waiting at the other end to incorporate into virgin soul substance, thus achieving the identical end result, namely the resurrection of you, and not another.

Armed with this basic information and a bit more that they could remember, the heretics managed to make contact around Ararat with certain wayward midwayers and seraphim still at large on the planet prior to the day of Pentecost. Their intention being, to have these rebels experiment with their soul trusts of numerous deceased humans they had done guardianship duty with over the millennia, and who were still awaiting resurrection on the mansion worlds.

Mainwaring could not establish how far they got in their dysfunctional attempts to interfere with spiritual procedures. But he was not slow in learning things about the soul he had never suspected. He came to see possibilities he would never have dreamed of, which might give mankind a window to escape from the terrible collapse in fertility that had befallen it… time might be bought until normal fecundity returned, be it a hundred years, or a thousand.

Dr Brook, and her partner in crime Dr Brown, had a fabulously appointed laboratory ready for Mainwaring, unbeknown by my dad, at Mt Augustus. Here, already in place, was an all out effort encompassing pure science, psychic power, and spiritism, with a virtually unlimited budget thanks to Yeltsin’s unwitting largesse, to achieve the holy grail of soul transference from the dying to the ‘hibernating’ foetuses in waiting by the millions. Part of Brook’s and Brown’s plans involved the synthesizing of the soul substance, an exceptionally ethereal form of matter whose basic particles were revolving vastly faster than ordinary matter, and imbuing discrete ‘dollups’ with soul ‘patterns’ based on principles gleaned from actual souls. The creation of new souls from artificial patterns was inevitable, for there were not enough dying to provide them, even if everyone was to make the supreme sacrifice, and the Ethics Protocol – what there was of it – deemed pure copies only acceptable in the case of exceptional individuals, up to a maximum of seven. The attempt to capture part of the soul and leave the remainder in the living donor had always met with failure to date. Something radically new had to be tried, and Mainwaring’s uncovering of Rodan’s understanding was invaluable.

 

Rob Mainwaring was escorted, arms linked, by Therese and John, into his new facility in Western Australia, in the middle of the biggest desert he’d ever seen, and he’d come from the Middle East. A personal staff of almost a hundred scientists welcomed him, in this cavernous masterpiece deep below the baking earth and rock above.

A woman approached him. “Dr Mainwaring,” she said, giving him a pleasant smile, “those drawings on the west wall are the soul patterns of Edward Bird and Marie Brook-Bird discerned by our ESP team some weeks before their death in the terrible accident at Sellafield.”

He was shocked. He had noticed the patterns as he was being led into the laboratory’s foyer and had been wondering about them.

She handed him a glass of lemon, lime, and bitters, which he had just felt a desire for a minute ago, but had asked no one for.

“Sir, I have told the chef to prepare some cauliflower soup for you in your dining suite when your address is finished.”

He hadn’t had cauliflower soup for over ten years, and had not long thought he’d like to have a bowl of it again.

This was going to be one hell of a promotion…

 

 

 

Part Four By Gladys Hobson.

 

Mainwaring concluded his address. It had been a weird experience having his audience know what was on his mind. They were ahead of him, nodding before he had actually asked his rhetorical questions. There had been no sound amplification and he soon realised it was not needed — merely by thinking his thoughts his address was reaching all present.

After dining with those he was going to be working with, he went along to his suite, having in mind the pretty waitress who had been serving them. It had been a while since he’d had a pretty young thing in his bed — or anywhere else for that matter.

Trying to get away from erotic cravings, he took a shower, thinking about the Birds’ soul patterns on the west wall — weird. Did this mean that they were present in the facility?

The shower suddenly stopped its measured flow of water and warm air enveloped Mainwaring. Dry, refreshed but sleepy, he made his way to the airbed. He was not entirely surprised to find the pretty waitress already under the single white sheet.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Slip in and I’ll give you want you want.’

Mainwaring wasn’t sure he liked this one-way approach. He got as much out of pleasing a woman as receiving her favours.

‘Sorry,’ she said, obviously reading his mind, ‘I’m a Dolly-Bird girl, you have to take me as you find me. But you won’t be disappointed.’

A flash of the west wall soul patterns flashed though his mind and he experienced again that weird feeling. But mingled with it were erotic sensations as Dolly threw back the sheet revealing herself in all her magnificent nudity. He took a leap onto the airbed and bounced upwards. He realised that this was no ordinary bed and that the next few hours were going to be sensational.

Sensational indeed, for ten minutes later Dolly’s rhythmic bouncing was something out of this world. But once again flashings of that west wall kept jumping into his mind. He shook his head to get rid of them and tried to concentrate on Dolly’s face above his.

‘No!’ he yelled. Dolly’s face appeared to him as that of Marie Brook-Bird!

At that very moment, the underground facility began to shake…

 

The consequences of blowing up the underground facilities at Sellafield had not been fully investigated. An underground chain reaction had caused minor earthquakes in that region, which had sparked off greater shifts further afield, spreading outwards to all the earth’s unstable areas.

 

Even as both he and the airbed began to deflate, a loud cackle escaped the lips of Dolly — Marie Brook-Bird.

 

 

 

Epilogue by Gladys Hobson

 

And now, fifty years later, after so much natural devastation followed by battles for survival, communities are again established all over the earth, some of them primitive, as indeed they had been at the time of the Armageddon event. Sudden death came to good and bad, rich and poor alike, the nature of which is still retold by word of mouth and established in the annals of history.

After the ‘Great Cleansing’ — as some religious folk would have it  — the experiments were again resumed under the desert rock of Western Australia. The facility had received a hefty shaking but, although a few sections had been destroyed, little actual damage had been done to the experimental base — some might say that the collapse of a ceiling on Therese Brook and John Brown had been a blessing. Somehow the facility managed a synthesis of previous work done by Bird et al and their own unique experimentation within the psychic field. I, Alexander, son of Dolly-Marie Brook-Bird and Robert Mainwaring, have the honour of being their first perfect child.

Within ten years, under the leadership of my father, the new Mainwaring Foundation was able to assist worldwide communities in their human regeneration programmes: a charitable work that I myself have joined in since the age of eighteen. It is no coincidence that dotted around the globe there are many people, especially below the age of thirty, bearing the Mainwaring genes.

As for the Georgia Guidestones: during the first quake to hit that area they were swallowed up by the ground on which they stood. Even so, the stones live on in memory, and the ground where they are buried is revered by those who predict the coming of the GREF — the Global Reign of the Elite Family.

 

Listen to Payton L Inkletter’s recording of The Divine Spark at:

THE DIVINE SPARK

 Read other yarns by Payton L Inkletter at:

Fool’s Paradise

 Visit  http://www.magpiesnestpublishing.co.uk 

for Gladys Hobson’s novels,

 And  Writing For Joy for Gladys Hobson’s personal blog.