Trevor moved through the lightless chamber aided by memory and habit until he found and ignited a small lamp atop an ancient wooden table. An oily burning smell added to the aroma of damp rot.

  The soft glow of the lamp illuminated the room’s only other object: a decaying wood and iron chest that could have come straight from the set of a pirate movie.

  He walked to the chest, stooped, and opened the lid. A blue and gray glow radiated out, filling the chamber in light.

  Trevor retreated a step from the chest and waited. A sphere floated up, hovering above the chest like a buoy floating on water. As his eyes grew accustomed to the light Trevor saw-through the orb’s clear membrane skin-the image of a double helix-of DNA.

  “One more time, I suppose,” and as he spoke he stopped to think. He had visited the orb on his first night in the mansion. It imparted knowledge and skills from a library of genetic memories. In the years since, he periodically returned to recharge from the data bank by standing within a few paces of the object as it delivered bursts of knowledge. Sort of like warming his hands near an open fire.

  The glowing sphere taught Trevor how to shoot like a soldier, how to fly an Apache helicopter, how to repair electrical wiring, plumbing, and drive a main battle tank. All skills taken from dead human souls whose memories had been stored by the floating sphere.

  “That’s not exactly true, now is it?” Trevor spoke to the sphere. It did not react. The humming continued. It glowed with the same intensity. “A collection of human memories, sure. But a few alien ones, too.”

  Indeed, Trevor knew how to fly Centurian shuttles and understood the workings of the Witiko device, certainly due to this sphere’s library of knowledge. He had also found that Fromm-the Chaktaw leader on that parallel Earth-knew how to fly Geryon dirigibles, no doubt a gift from his bank of genetic memories, albeit Chaktaw ones with-apparently-some Geryon sprinkled in.

  “A collection of human memories-and alien,” he repeated aloud to fully grasp the idea.

  Those memories-or the people who had bequeathed those memories to him-were a tremendous weight of responsibility that nearly drown his humanity, leaving no room for anything other than the mission; an end that justified any means.

  The Old Man had said at their first meeting that Trevor was a link in a chain. It appears that chain was, in fact, a chain of DNA stretching back to the dawn of man on one end and his son on the other. In fact…

  “The conception of my son started all this; started Armageddon,” Trevor reasoned in the glowing sphere. “Sort of like the starter pistol to get things going, right? At the same time, you enter the picture. A coincidence? Somehow I doubt it.”

  Of course Trevor had not known of JB’s conception at the time of the invasion. Ashley disappeared before she could tell him. His son’s birth had been delayed by more than a year due to his mother ‘riding the ark.’

  “But that didn’t matter, did it? JB was the right genetic code. The reunion of an original strand of DNA the Old Man and his pals slipped into the primordial soup here on Earth. From there it dissipated and worked its way through the human race from the cave man days until me and Ashley conceived JB. Some kind of pure line of the genetic code. So being the father of the reincarnated original son earned me the privilege of becoming my race’s champion? What then does that make Jorgie?” He pointed at the humming ball of light and suggested, “What if you come from JB, too? You’re a ball of DNA, right? Maybe all that time that his genetic code was floating around the gene pool it started soaking up all those memories and knowledge and whatever. Then the Old Man and his buddies sort of pulled out a little bit of JB when he was conceived and made you? What about that? Could that be the truth?”

  The ball hummed and hovered. Trevor could feel the energy radiating from it. He could sense the ideas and thoughts and power trying to seep into his mind. It wanted to teach. That, after all, was its purpose. It’s only purpose. Much like Trevor’s single-minded purpose demanding he survive, fight, and sacrifice.

  “So where did it all start?”

  Trevor remembered fragments from the conversation between Gods he overheard when plugged into The Order’s machine. They had discussed a ‘root cosmos’. No doubt an original universe in which the original versions of the Duass, the Feranites, the Geryons, the Hivvans and the rest-as well as humanity-had sprung. After all, Trevor had learned more than four years ago that humanity truly belonged on Sirius, if not for the powers behind Armageddon who had transplanted mankind to this Earth, just as they had transplanted each of the other races to other Earths across a series of parallel universes.

  “Wait a second. Wait just one second.”

  He smiled to himself as an idea came to mind. He felt certain he had discovered another piece of the mystery, one that could explain why his personal library of genetic memories included skills from alien races. Trevor took that idea and filed it away for another day.

  “Ah, shit, enough of this,” Trevor muttered as he realized he needed to get this over with in order to attend the upcoming meeting. “Okay then-give it to me…”

  He stepped closer to the glowing sphere. The feeling of energy grew as if the ball might be a fire and he stepped closer to the flames; closer to the raging heat.

  “C’mon-give it to me…”

  The memories came in bunches, but not in a recognizable manner. Images floated through his mind. He saw an ancient catapult pulled taut. He heard the battle cry of Zulu warriors. He felt the cold in the bloody snow at Stalingrad.

  Trevor did not know which specific memories or skills entered his mind. They would rise to the surface when needed.

  “I want more. Give it all to me.”

  The energy crackled around him in a cocoon of static and fire. The ball glowed more intently. He closed his eyes and the images poured into his mind. A cloud of deadly mustard gas floating over a trench. A wall of water 150 meters high crashing into the Minoan ports on the north side of Crete. A Prussian general leading columns of Fusiliers toward Waterloo.

  “More.”

  Trevor held his hands just above the orb. The membrane pulsated and rolled like churning sea water. His hands shook as the energy tried to repel his reach.

  It came. All of it in a line of images, sounds, and ideas. Trevor saw concepts on blackboards and computer chips from the inside out, weapons factories, and rockets carrying the first satellites to orbit. Shouts of victory, screams of pain, tears of anguish-one after another.

  But he needed more. He needed it all.

  He already stood closer to the sphere than ever before. Now, he took the final step.

  Trevor grunted and plunged his hands into the orb. The membrane bent then popped in a flash. Tendrils of energy wrapped around his arms up to his elbows. He cried out as the power deluged his mind. The energy crackled across his entire shaking body. The sphere warped oblong, then round again, then its surface splashed and kicked in a turbulent storm.

  Trevor no longer felt grounded in that sub-basement room. His eyes snapped shut and his mind floated through time even as the pain shocked his brain like a thousand electric eels swimming in his mind.

  Colonial minutemen marching to battle-Shogun warriors fighting for honor-Genghis Khan’s hordes sweeping across the steppes-and-and…

  — ancient Hivvan tribesmen first mastering the use of a cross-bow like weapon and using it to down a giant shaggy beast terrorizing their village-a Witiko scientist test-firing a powerful rocket across a jagged red landscape boiling under a red giant-a Chaktaw trainer subduing a monstrous Jaw-Wolf with an electric rod-warring tribes of duck-billed Duass battling through the night in a swamp filled with spilled blood-formations of Centurian soldiers marching in neat order under the heat of two suns…

  The library of genetic memories flashed and unloaded. The beautiful sphere of blue and gray withered and crumbled into grains of black sand which fell into the open chest below. Trevor stood there, his hands clutching at nothing, shaking as the last impulses of energy bounced around inside his body and mind like ricocheting bullets.

  And then the flood came, of information and memories, languages and skills, images and thoughts. The collection overwhelmed his senses and he fell to the soft floor of the secret room.

  7. Exposition

  “Whiles trembling horror did his conscience daunt,

  And hellish anguish did his soul assail.”

  — Spenser

  The door to the utility closet under the stairs in the mansion basement swung open and Trevor stumbled out. He pushed the door shut behind and fell forward catching the conference table with one hand in order to remain upright.

  “Trevor?”

  The voice came from the basement stairs. Trevor barely mustered the strength to remain balanced against the table, let alone strike a more dignified pose.

  Lori Brewer approached him with wide, curious eyes.

  “Where’d you come from? I checked all around down here including the armory,” she referred to the heavy door leading to a stockpile of weapons and munitions. She added with a wise-ass tone, “Don’t tell me, you came out of the closet.”

  The buzzing in his brain faded slowly and he found enough strength to stand. Sort of.

  He noticed she held her official Imperial Administrator notebook. It kind of clashed with her otherwise casual outfit. Nonetheless, Trevor felt a twinge of panic. Exactly how long had he been out? Had he overslept the meeting?

  Trevor glanced at his watch. The hands had frozen at 10:03 a.m., just about the exact moment he sunk his fingers into the mystical orb. That energy had nearly fried his brain. Apparently it had fried his watch.

  He looked to Lori and spoke,”Welche zeit es ist?”

  She shook her head, and asked, “What did you say? Have you been drinking?”

  Lori examined his skull for a head wound. He raised a hand to his forehead, held it there as if checking for a fever, and then moved it to the back of his neck and massaged.

  Let’s try this again.

  “Okay, um, what time is it? Did you understand me?”

  Lori did.

  “Well, you don’t look injured. Just hung over or something.”

  “Lori, what time is it? Did I miss the meeting?”

  “Miss it? Oh no, it’s about quarter of twelve. I came early because I wanted to talk to you.”

  Trevor stood straight, breathed deep, and took a few practice steps. The room did not spin quite as much.

  “You? Early?” He cracked despite standing on wobbly legs. “Now that’s something.”

  She followed as he walked in an effort to clear his head and gain control over his body.

  “Yeah, well look, it’s not a big deal but I invited a guest to the meeting.”

  Trevor still concentrated mainly on finding his balance, but he did hear her.

  “A guest?”

  They did laps around the conference table.

  “A consultant. I wanted someone who could give us a little more insight into things going on at the front. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Trevor knew that the meeting would include several Generals as well as himself, all people who fought on the front lines. Therefore, her statement sounded off. Furthermore, the hesitation in her voice made him suspicious.

  “What? Lori, listen, this is a-a-” he stopped and put a hand on the back of a chair at the empty table, breathed deep again, and then continued walking and talking with her following a step behind. “This is an important meeting, not some damn focus group. It’s not for outsiders.”

  “I know that,” she sounded offended. No, actually it sounded as if she had forced the tone of offense. “This person has been in these meetings before, just not for a while. I’m telling you, it’s not a big deal.”

  Trevor stopped so abruptly that Lori nearly walked into him.

  “Lori. Who did you invite to the meeting?”

  “Well, Captain-I invited Captain Forest to the meeting.”

  Trevor slowly turned to face his old friend. His eyes widened.

  “You’re joking, right? That’s a bad joke.”

  “Look, Trevor, she’s hitching a ride with Shep so she’s in town. I bumped in to her yesterday and she was, well, scoping out the estate. Sort of visiting her old stomping grounds.”

  “Lori,” Trevor pinched his nose. “I don’t need this right now.”

  Her eyes drooped a little, then narrowed, and her head tilted in the slightest. This served as her counselor’s face, and it meant she was either prepared to listen or preparing to preach.

  “Oh, really,” and as she usually did, Lori Brewer opted for preaching. “Maybe it’s exactly what you need right now.”

  “I’m not in the mood to be lectured.”

  “Tough shit. You spent three years bending my ear about how you were so afraid of yourself; of what you could become,” she struck a sensitive nerve. “Look at what’s happened in the last year, Trevor. The executions, the purges-what’s left of the Senate is just your rubber stamp now. There are no voices of dissent.”

  He growled at her, “The treacherous bastards got what they deserved. It was bad enough what they did to me, but they let it happen to my son, too. They fell for that give peace a chance shit and now we’re on the verge of being wiped out. Hell, I had no choice but to weed out the traitors. Get out from behind your desk, administrator, and take a good look at what’s coming at us and then maybe you’ll know why we can’t afford distractions or political bullshit.”

  She shot back, “I told you once, a long time ago, that if you plan to save humanity you had better start showing some humanity yourself. The only person in this whole world who managed to bring that out in you since all this started was Nina. You need to see her again.”

  “Don’t preach to me.”

  “All righty, then, how about this-you owe her,” Lori added a new element to the argument. “I see ‘thank you’ is not a word you’re good with, is it?”

  His eyes burned into her but she pushed, “She didn’t need to go into the wilderness after you. She chose to. Not out of duty or loyalty to ‘The Emperor’, but for Trevor Stone. I don’t know everything that happened out there but something big did happen. She sacrificed for you, Trevor. She pulled you from the brink. Whatever it was that went on, I think it’s made her start asking questions about that first year again. She remembers something. I don’t know how much, and I don’t know how she knows it. But there are memories and feelings bouncing around in her head that she can’t explain, she only knows that they all tie together here and with you. It doesn’t take much, you know, to stimulate memories. A smell, a sight, a sound like a song-things may be coming back to her, I don’t care how impossible that might seem.”

  He had worried that perhaps Nina learned more during their connection via the Old Man. That maybe his memories of their love slipped into her mind, perhaps ignited her emotions. He did not think it possible for her to ever truly remember that first year on her own, but if the bridge she had used to stabilize his emotional state worked in both directions then possibly some of his memories went into her head.

  Part of him wished she would remember. Her memory loss had been a convenience to make their separation more palatable. The Old Man had insisted that he could not be with her, that she did not walk the same path. So when she forgot, he did not pursue even though he desperately wanted to.

  Trevor’s anger toward Lori wavered. His eyes found the floor.

  “It’s not that easy, Lori. You know how I feel about her. That hasn’t changed in all these years. Nina has a daughter. She has a life. And I have my duty. The truth is, even if she could remember everything-even if she had never lost those memories-we still could not be together.”

  Lori did not argue the point. Instead, she threw in a new consideration.

  “I think we all know that his is going to be the last meeting. When it’s over, we’re all going our separate ways. And I know things don’t look good. The point is, Trevor, you may never see her again. Do you want to miss this chance?”

  He kept his eyes down. Lori slipped her arms around her friend’s shoulders and gave him a squeeze.

  “Besides, she’s the best soldier you’ve got. What did you say she was once? Oh yeah, your sword. And that’s stayed true all these years. For the big jobs you turned to her, like she is an extension of your power kind of like the K9s. That’s why I think you owe it to her. Besides, she used to be in on these meetings, way back when. She’s a part of the original group.”

  “Okay, okay,” he answered, although he realized he never really had a choice. With Lori Brewer, most seldom did.

  Gordon came last, his arrival announced by the electric hum from the lift chair installed on the stairway after his injury. As far as Trevor could remember, this was only the third time Gordon used it.

  He watched as the Intelligence Director move from the lift to his wheelchair with the help of Lori Brewer. Trevor otherwise kept his attention focused on a file folder open at his place at the head of the table.

  In the past, the meetings in the conference room at the estate included Trevor’s advisory council. The events of last year had decimated the ranks of that council. Dr. Maple had died in a cemetery outside of Wilkes-Barre while serving as an unwilling investigator into the circumstances of the assassination. Trevor had impaled Evan Godfrey on the White House lawn with Stonewall McAllister’s sword. Moments later, Dante Jones had taken his own life. Most recently, Anita Nehru’s psychological condition made her unfit for service.

  Of course, Reverend Johnny had been gone for four years although Trevor often thought he heard Johnny’s voice echoing in the room like a ghost reciting Bible passages.

  The meeting on the afternoon of Thursday, May 21, included a less formal congregation but no less an important one. Jon Brewer sat to Trevor’s right. His wife, Lori, sat further down the table sandwiched between General Jerry Shepherd and Lori’s guest, Nina Forest, who wore an expression of a wide-eyed child beholding the wonders of FAO Schwartz.