The Prometheus Objective

18

Caleb stood on the rooftop edge, looking down the face of the Masonic Lodge. The chopper started up, blades whirling, wind kicking up from his back, swirling with the winds coming from the east, over the buildings of Manhattan.

He smelled smoke coming from somewhere in the distance, as the sun dipped below the skyscrapers, as the clouds rolled over the horizon toward him. Cars were on fire down there, and flames were spreading in other places. Traffic was stalled, cars left in places as motorcycles tore through the streets, and others just abandoned their vehicles and sought refuge elsewhere. He saw some huddled in groups or alone in doorways, with their smart devices out, hopefully watching Victoria’s recording and taking some solace.

Calm was needed, and Caleb thought that maybe in some small way, this shared suffering and monumental confirmation of something beyond the material world would bring people together in a way nothing else could. People were certainly re-evaluating everything, from their own petty squabbles, to relationships, to the meaning of life and God and what happens after death.

Speaking of which…

Caleb heard the pilot calling him, but waved him off, holding up his index finger, asking for time.

He had to go with that last thought, with his previous impression of who Raiden might really be, what he had found in Antarctica, who this mysterious ‘brethren’ could be and…

Yes, what happens when we die?

He thought of his father. Thought of Lydia. All those he had known and lost.

Did they pass on, and are they… elsewhere?

Or is it as some thought, and we get a choice?

Stop those questions, he thought, and ask the right one.

The one he’d been thinking about ever since the President had said it downstairs.

How did he know my father?

The winds kicked up, pushing him forward and back, then more gently as he closed his eyes and the sun dipped lower and darkness cascaded over his inner sight, to be replaced by:

Base camp, Kathmandu, Nepal. A breeze warmer than expected ruffles the tents and flutters the Himalayan banners. A mirror held to a face…

Philip Crowe stares back. His eyes, so much like Caleb’s, who won’t be born yet for another fifteen years. A thick beard, grown for warmth in anticipation of this sacred quest, this bucket list item Phillip has fantasized about for years. He puts the mirror down, checks his bags, securing the straps on the harness and backpack and sled, and he steps out of the flap. Gazes past the bustling activity of other climbers and adventurers readying their supplies. The yaks and guides eating and drinking in preparation for the long ascent.

Far up there, in the perfect visibility of this August morning, the pinnacle awaits, without a hint of the dangers or difficulty ahead.

“Piece of cake, this,” says a voice at his side. Thick accent, the man is just a youth himself, barely out of his teens. Bronze skin, a slight attempt at a mustache, and dark eyes brimming with excitement below a bushy head of black curls.

“Good morning, Hassid.” Phillip expels a deep breath. “I sure hope you’re right, although nothing this spectacular should come without heroic effort.”

“True words, my new American friend.”

Phillip smiles. “And you, where are you from? Last night over tea far too strong to be purely medicinal, you claimed to be ‘a man of the world’”.

“Are we not all that?” He grins back, then dons some thick black sunglasses he must have picked up at the bazaar. They still have a price sticker on the side. “But I was born in Pakistan.”

Phillip glances at him. “Ah, then well met, Hassid of Pakistan.”

“Well met indeed! I feel, my friend, we are on the same path.”

Phillip’s gaze follows the winding road past the markers and the warning signs, past the fluttering banners and the yaks getting their final rest. A trio of black birds circle lazily, hungrily overhead. “That we are. And I’m glad for the company.”

“What is it exactly you seek up there?”

Phillip squints as the sun glints off the snowy white heights, and fishes for his own sunglasses. “Enlightenment.”

“Ah. Then we both have come to the right place. One of the wonders of the world, surely.”

“Natural ones, for sure. From such a height, I can only imagine the transition we could experience. Our souls and bodies, at the top of the world.”

His new friend nods. “For me, it is not only this that calls me. Everest is but one of many such experiences I have tugging at my soul.”

Phillip gives him a sideways look of respect. “Then perhaps we will meet again, should we survive this ascent.”

“I have a feeling we shall. Survive for sure, and for sure, our paths will cross again.”

Phillip closes his eyes and trembles. His breath catches, and he gives his friend a sudden look of concern.

“What is it?”

“I… I don’t know. Sometimes I… see things.”

“Like in your head?”

“Yes. Sometimes they’re real, sometimes, not. Or not yet.”

Hassid laughs and adjusts his belt and jacket. “Perhaps you have the gift of Sight. My mother had it. Claimed I was destined for great things. That I would become like Shiva himself one day.”

“God of all or Destroyer of Worlds? Which incarnation?”

Hassid flashes him a look of admiration. “You know your mythology. Our mythology.”

“I have a lot of… interests. In many studies. Can’t read enough.”

“Commendable, my friend. Very un-American of you!”

“Hah, thanks. But seriously, I saw something.”

“Tell me, oh seer, of my great and noble destiny? Perhaps my mother was right, and all my questing and traveling leads me to some ultimate treasure, some wondrous artifact of the gods bestowing ultimate power and magic control of the universe!”

Phillip winces again, and a flash of something green passes between his eyes. He’s seen it before. “Do you know anything of ancient Egypt?”

“Not really my thing. But I’m sure it will be on my list.”

“How about ancient lighthouses? Or any lighthouse for that matter? Personally, I’m obsessed, fascinated by them, especially the Pharos—”

“Can’t say I’ve thought about them much, but I can see the attraction. Beacons of light and hope and safety and all that. And I hear the society of Keepers are a pretty cool bunch.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Well, next for me is actually a much colder place than the Egyptian deserts.”

Phillip shivers. “Colder than where we’re about to climb?”

“Antarctica! That’s partly why I’m here — climatizing myself to the elements.”

“A little different, I’d say. Different altitude and all, but I’m impressed you’d choose such a desolate place. Not many would think to go there, even after considering the length of time to sail and the lack of ports or hospitable places to stay.”

“Definitely won’t have that tea from last night!”

“True. I’m curious though. Why there?”

“I don’t know exactly.” His face turns away, and looks to the south, somewhat longingly. “I’ve always felt a pull. I’ve drawn it. Been fascinated with maps, highlighting a certain area like it’s special to me somehow. Maybe in a past life!”

“Oh… right. Hindu?”

“I am. Although, who can say. We may believe in reincarnation, since well, it makes more ideological and moral sense than your Christian one-and-done message. But this may be something else. I do not know for sure.”

Crowe thinks for a moment. “Speaking of maps, have you seen the Piri Reis map from 1513? It shows—”

“Antarctica ice free!” Hassid’s excitement mounts. “Yes, yes! And recent satellite imagery confirmed the actual outline to be as it was drawn. Meaning…”

“Meaning either the good Ottoman cartographer had access to older maps, from some ancient seafaring race from a time Antarctica was in a different climate, or—”

“Or what? What else could it be?”

“Or it could be that he was psychic. That he has… this Sight, or whatever you would call it. Maybe he could see into a different time and map how it once was. A thousand, ten thousand, a million years ago even.”

Hassid lowers his glasses and stares at Phillip, wide-eyed. “I am indeed glad we have met, my new friend. Destiny, perhaps. And I do hope we meet again on our respective paths to enlightenment.”

“I don’t know. I hope so as well, but I feel… not.”

“That is a shame, then. I hope you’re not as good a seer as you think.”

Phillip shrugs. “I’m just figuring this out. New to me, and maybe it’s nothing but a hangover from that exceptionally wondrous tea, but still, I sense our story is not done. It’s like…” He stares at his friend some more. “I don’t know how to put it. I’m trying to see it but it’s like I’m not asking the right question.”

“That’s an odd way of putting it. What should be the right question?”

Phillip thinks for a minute. “Maybe: ‘How will our destinies coincide again?’”

“Ah, if not in person, then perhaps in what we do. What we find, who we influence?”

“Perhaps. Or maybe it means something to do with our… children?”

Hassid grins. “Yes! For that, I would need to eventually find a woman, but that too, is on my path of enlightenment.”

Phillip laughs again. “As it should be. For me as well.”

Hassid coughs, then raises his hands. “Perhaps not children, even. Maybe your ‘right question’ should be, if not us directly, and if reincarnation is the truth of our existence, in our next lives, do we meet up again? Perhaps both the wiser and stronger?”

“That is a real possibility,” Phillip admits. “Maybe as the avatars of Shiva and… Thoth I would guess.”

He shudders and again looks at Hassid differently.

But Hassid has moved. He makes his way forward, hefting his backpack and calling for the guides. “Come, my American friend in search of knowledge! Let us ascend the great mountain and challenge the gods themselves!”

“Crowe… Crowe…”

The chopper pilot called his name again. And again, and for the longest time, Caleb waited for his father to answer.

Then he came back to the present, to this New York rooftop on the opposite side of the world. The winds were much warmer here but just as fierce, vying for his attention and pushing him toward action — or understanding.

What did it mean?

That Pakistani man, definitely not the crimson enemy he had just viewed. He would have been his father’s age by now — pushing seventy at least. And of course, the wrong race.

But he assured Caleb that he had met his father, and this is what the vision showed him. The one connection — Antarctica. Something there…

And what else had they talked about?

Making more logical and moral sense than your beliefs?

Reincarnation?

Caleb had to probe this angle more, but the pieces were falling into place. What he didn’t understand was even if that were the case, and the crimson enemy, this Raiden, was also this wide-eyed, enthusiastic young soul journeying with his father decades ago, how did Raiden recall that event? He wasn’t psychic, which meant there was something else at play, something to deny the typical amnesia aspect of the process. The reincarnated souls typically did not remember anything of past lives, and that was the point: to start again with a clean slate. Of course, there were stories about dreams and glimpses under hypnotic regression, but for the most part you remembered nothing.

Caleb turned and made his way to the chopper, sensing the urgency had just notched up.

The pilot was screaming now, something about a breach and the building under attack. “They’re coming up! Hurry!”

Caleb broke into a run, still thinking about the possibilities, about the arrogance he sensed in the red man, about his claim to have collected the experiences of countless lives. And he thought of Antarctica, and the cavern that was, even now, calling to him.

All the answers would be found there.

When they lifted off, he had a call to make.