“All right,” Evelyn said, “I’ve got to meet with Aja. She’ll want an update before the council meeting.”
“Ori,” Vau said, “I’ve got to run some Match Day items by you.”
“Let’s do it.” Ori looked at Jordan. “Can you hang out with Jessica for a while? Answer any questions that she has, and please, keep it optimistic?” Ori flashed her an oversized smile.
Jordan gave an innocent smile, which quickly fell as Ori and Vau left the room.
Jessica eyed Jordan. “What was all of that?”
Jordan studied Jessica for a beat or two, as if assessing what she was ready for. “So, the big event. Do you understand this fully?”
“I know the last one was a flood, and the next one is solar flares,” Jessica said. “That’s most of what’s clear so far.”
“Let’s start there,” Jordan said. “Every two thousand years or so, Earth moves through a procession of the equinox. An oversimplification is a change of the North and South poles’ position, which changes the stars that you use to guide you. There are twelve ages of the procession. You call them your Zodiac symbols. Once Earth moves through each age, it completes a Great Year, which is around 26,000 of your years. At various points during the Great Year, Earth is very susceptible to a catastrophic existential event. Though we are working all the time, this is when our team is most vital.” Jordan paused momentarily until Jessica nodded her understanding. “This is when the chips are down, and we have to take on what’s still needed to save the planet and humanity.”
“Why you all?” Jessica asked.
“Because we’re the best,” Jordan said with a wink. “More like it’s just what we’ve been trained and equipped for. But for all of us, it’s tricky. We help humanity help themselves. We have to get you to rewire your minds so that you think and behave a certain way. And that must align with the age of the procession. Right now, you are in the age of Pisces. Under the Procession of Pisces, the objective is simple, yet complex in execution.” Jordan wavered, “Well, complex for this universe. Humanity, like a school of fish, must all swim in the same direction. The many must act and behave like one.”
“What does that mean?” Jessica asked.
Jordan laughed and leaned in. “This means that first, you gotta stop interfering with someone else’s flow. That means no killing or sabotaging someone else. Second, you have to be able to listen to diverse points of view. Imagine how a school of fish behaves. In a big body of water, you never know from which direction the threat is coming, whether it be from the sharks below or the birds above. You all have to trust and believe in one another. Third, you must work together as one to survive large threats. When needed, you have to be able to move in a coordinated fashion and change directions quickly. If we can get you behaving in this way, not only does the power to manifest hold the most potential impact, but it means that more of you will be tuned into the right frequency. The more people who are tuned in, the more who will receive the message that will allow you to survive. That message will be your role, something unique to you, that you are meant to carry out.”
“Getting everyone on Earth to act as one is impossible,” Jessica said.
Jordan scoffed. “I’ll channel my inner Ori. Nothing is impossible. You have two things going for you.”
“Which are?” Jessica asked.
“Number one, you have the internet. This is an incredibly powerful tool. And number two,” Jordan gave a little shrug, “Earth needs you. Well, for now at least. Oh… and don’t forget that we are incredibly good at understanding enough about what motivates humanity to work the system discreetly. We want to save as many of you as possible.”
“Okay, well what was Evelyn saying about having contained war and ego?” Jessica asked.
“You know how there are those of us who have stayed among men? While mostly our purpose is to help rewire your thinking and help you pursue your purpose, we can be used in less positive ways as well. Without our help, some people with negative intentions can cause minor interferences in the advancement of others. When we start to see people have an impact on significant portions of the population, we pursue whoever is behind that individual because they are usually one of us.”
“And they would knowingly aid in something that negatively impacts masses of people?” asked Jessica.
“Not all things that seem bad are bad when used appropriately. Throughout history, disease, famine, war, and more have been tools to maintain balance. However, if any of these get out of control and are used too broadly, that throws off the balance. Well, there are those of us that embody these things to serve humanity or Earth or both.”
“What would cause them to get out of control?”
Jessica could tell that Jordan was carefully considering her answer. “In most cases, because the humans who are tapping into them are going too far. In those cases, as we saw with Silas, it took both his awareness and our help to pull him back and calm war. In other rarer instances, as we experienced with ego, one of us was getting caught up in the impact he was having and the power he held. We had to contain him against his will.”
“Silas was one of you?”
“Yes, he is one of us. You’ll probably actually see him later,” replied Jordan.
“And ego? What, or I guess who, do you mean by that?”
“In your investigation years ago, you probably knew of him as Agent Chivington,” explained Jordan.
“So you guys have to keep tabs on all this?” Jessica asked.
“Yes. And what makes this even more complicated is that when one of us dies among men, we lose our memories. If we aren’t quickly recovered, we are even more susceptible to the mal-intentioned.”
“That would be scary, particularly for an embodiment of ego or war,” Jessica said.
“Absolutely. We work to make sure our specialists know who they are and are in control. Carlos, for example, knows who he is.”
“And just who is he?” Jessica asked.
“He’s the one who receives the truly grotesque requests,” Jordan said. “If there are those who are causing serious interference, Carlos knows about them. He will help us track them down because they must never know we’re coming.”
“Why not?” Jessica asked.
“Ori can read all the thoughts a man can and will ever have. You will never know that he was inside of your head. But he can’t read the thoughts of those like me without them knowing. And if they sense him in their heads, they could intentionally cause other interference that creates a ripple of new future events that we haven’t planned for. To get inside the head of one of us, we have to go through the minds of a human who’s being impacted by them, one person per being of light. The catch is that, even then, the only time we can get through without them knowing is between the hours of three and five in the morning, when people are most deeply asleep. So we have to cast these incredibly complex webs. They must never know that they are trapped until it’s too late. You see, we have seen the future, and we are working back into the past. If the interference creates many new futures, then it could take Ori and Evelyn too long to come up with another plan.”
“I don’t know what she’s been telling you,” Vau gave Jessica a conspiratorial look as he and Ori walked back into the room, “but use your judgment.”
“You doubt me,” Jordan replied playfully. “I gave her the facts. Now you’re just messing with my flow.”
Vau added, “In all seriousness, most of our kind in the field have spent lifetimes doing great work. They make up our network. We partner with them to set things in motion. We all work together to correct major interference. We use our network to identify recruits or to identify target interference. Since colleagues of our network are typically trusted, loved, and respected members of their community, we can access anything we need. All with discretion.”
“It’s our shared purpose,” Ori said. “They want to fulfill their purpose and help both humanity and Earth.”
“Plus, Earth is the only place in existence that we, too, can create new life,” Vau said.