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SOUTHCENTRAL IDAHO:
FBI agent George Pickowski sits in his unmarked sedan and watches the driveway leading up a hill to Menno Simon’s private home. A tall chain-link fence surrounds the five-acre parcel and keeps prying eyes from viewing the mansion, but Pickowski has been following Menno’s limousine all day and knows he is there.
The explosion of Menno’s research facility was more intense than even Menno expected. Plastic explosives caused the initial explosion, but an extremely volatile explosive must have been manufactured at the facility to cause so much damage. Menno’s Federal Registration License stated it’s a genetic research facility, and the FBI was called in to investigate and find the person or persons responsible. Menno denied any knowledge of the incident, but the FBI decided to keep him under surveillance.
Pickowski sees the ornate steel gates open and starts the sedan’s engine. The limousine drives through, and Pickowski follows it for nearly three hours before it turns off the main highway, onto a dirt road winding through thick evergreens. He drops back and loses sight of the limousine to keep from being spotted and nearly misses the side road the limo took. Only a lingering cloud of dust catches his attention, and Pickowski slams on the brakes.
He backs up to follow, and is about to stomp on the accelerator to catch up when he sees the red flash of taillights through the trees, just around the bend. He waits, thinking he’s been spotted, but the taillights don’t move. He eases the door open, grabbing the small binoculars sitting on the seat beside him. As he steps out and focuses on the taillights, he hears muffled voices. The words are indistinguishable, but he can hear two separate people talking.
He hears laughter, then the taillights blink out, and he hears the limousine drive off. He knows trying to get past the checkpoint will be useless, and he doesn’t want to tip them off Menno is being followed. He isn’t dressed for hiking, but the underbrush doesn’t appear to be too thick.
Pickowski climbs back into the car and backs out to the main dirt road. Now the problem is where to hide the car. He continues past this turn off so anyone going to the same place won’t spot his vehicle. A quarter mile farther, he finds an abandoned road and backs the car into the trees. As he steps out, he realizes how quiet it is in the forest. He decides he can hear a car coming for quite a distance, and he can duck into the trees if he hears one approaching. He grabs the binoculars and jogs back to the turnoff.
After the quarter mile jog, Pickowski is sweating in the eighty-degree heat, his white shirt sticking uncomfortably against his back and chest. He’s slightly out of breath as he approaches the turn off the limousine had taken.
When he hears the noise of an engine growing louder, he jumps the culvert and ducks into the trees, stifling a groan of pain as a small stick pokes into his left ankle just above his street shoes. When he’s sure he can’t be spotted, he stops and listens. The engine noise changes pitch and he can hear it change direction.
He follows the sound to his right and sees several flashes of bright light through the trees, caused by the sun’s reflection off the chrome on the vehicle. A few moments later, the engine noise drops to an idle, and he hears voices at the checkpoint, sixty-feet to his right. He continues in the same direction, occasionally stifling a groan of pain as his ankles are subjected to more pokes, then he sees the vehicle is still stopped.
When the vehicle drives away, Pickowski continues through the trees until he is well past the checkpoint. With a sigh of relief for his tortured ankles, he steps back onto the road. Another car approaches, and he ducks into the trees again. He stays within the concealment until they end on the edge of a vast meadow.
The perimeter is lined with cars and recreational vehicles, and a large crowd of people is sitting on the grass in front of an elevated platform. There are no chairs, speakers, or microphones on the stage, and no one is standing on it.
Below the stage and to the left is a long table, and two young men are setting large trays on it. Whatever is on the trays seems to sparkle in different colors, but as the sun disappears behind the mountains, the meadow gets dark and he can’t tell what the objects are.
He works his way through the woods to sit with the others on the grass so he can see and hear what’s going on. He works his way through the woods and steps out from between the cars and RV’s and finds a place to sit forty-feet from the front of the stage. He hopes no one will see the blood on his socks around his ankles.
The man sitting next to him asks for the time, and Pickowski tells him. He wants to ask the man what this is all about, but knows it might make him suspicious. It turns out he doesn’t have to.
“So where are you supposed to take your seeds?” The man asks.
Pickowski thinks quickly. “The East Coast.”
“I’m headed for Florida.” He points at the girl sitting in front of them. “She has to go all the way to Kuwait. She and about fifty others have to catch a chartered flight first thing tomorrow morning. A friend of mine is Russian, and he’s taking a bunch of seeds to his friends over there. Man, people are taking seeds all over the world.”
Pickowski looks at the tables and trays. What the hell are these seeds?
The rumble of voices suddenly dies out, leaving the pitch-black meadow in eerie silence. Up on the stage, a beam of pale blue light suddenly appears in the center. Pickowski tries to see where it’s coming from, but can’t spot any light fixtures around the stage or in the trees.
The light grows wider by the second, but only reaches a height of ten-feet above the stage. When it’s five-feet wide, it ceases to grow and looks as though something is materializing in the center. At first, it’s just a white silhouette, then the outline of a body takes shape.
A moment later, a person steps out. With the blue light behind the body, there are no discernable features, only a white-robed figure standing with its arms at its sides. The figure extends its arms and rises into the air, until it’s four-feet above the stage, then stops.
A voice suddenly echoes across the meadow, as if amplified through a huge speaker system, which Pickowski didn’t see.
“The time has come, my children.”
Pickowski finds the baritone voice soothing, and he can’t take his eyes off the robed figure floating in blue light. He feels like he’s in a dream.
“The age of the machine is about to end,” the voice continues. “We will once again breathe clean air and the war machines will cease to threaten our planet with global destruction. We will live in peace once more. I am a messenger from God, and I command you to spread these seeds of peace throughout the world.”
The voice drones on, and Pickowski feels lightheaded. Yes, it makes sense.
“And when you have fulfilled my command, God will once again live among you in a world full of love for all the life forms he has created. Come forward, my children, and gather to your bosoms the seeds of world peace and begin your journeys to the far corners of the planet.”
As Pickowski watches, the figure appears to float back into the blue light and seems to disintegrate. He feels sad, as though someone very precious has been taken from him. When nothing is left of the figure, the blue light shrinks to a thin line and vanishes.
Pickowski hears the meadow erupt in muffled conversation, as flashlights are turned on throughout the crowd and they all get up.
The man next to him turns on his flashlight and stands, but now that the person in the blue light is gone, Pickowski feels empty, and remains seated.
“Are you coming, brother?” the man asks.
Pickowski looks up and smiles. “Yes! Oh, yes!”
The man reaches down and Pickowski takes his hand, but when he stands, a searing pain shoots through his ankles. Suddenly his mind clears and he realizes where he is. The man is frowning with concern and Pickowski realizes he must have flinched. “I guess my legs fell asleep,” he says and smiles.
The man grins, and Pickowski joins him as lines form back and forth across the meadow. He looks toward the stage and sees a steady line of people passing in front of the table with the trays.
That son of a bitch hypnotized me! Pickowski realizes as he follows in line. He sees the people who have already been through walking toward the vehicles. In their hands held close to their chests are small glass vials of sparkling colors. Some have several of them, others only one or two.
He didn’t notice it before, but there is a crescent moon straight up above him. He thinks it strange he can’t see any craters on its surface, but dismisses it as an optical illusion created by the atmosphere.
As he passes in front of the table, he sees the trays hold thousands of the small glass ampules, all sparkling in rainbow colors. He watches the man in front of him take one vile and clutch it against his chest, so he does the same and follows the crowd back to the vehicles. He makes his way to the last car, and when he’s sure no one is watching, dashes back into the trees.
There is enough light from the vehicle headlights filtering through the woods for him to see his way around the underbrush, as he makes his way in the direction he figures the main road is. His sense of direction is correct, and half an hour later, he emerges from the woods onto the main dirt road.
When he finds his car, he climbs in and starts the engine. With the lights off, he drives down the road until he is close to where the headlights are emerging from the side road. He waits for a break in the traffic, pulls in behind a large recreational vehicle, and turns on his lights. A moment later, another set of headlights pulls in behind him, and he sighs with relief for not being discovered as an imposter.