The Milestone Protocol Ernest Dempsey (best short novels of all time .txt) 📖

that would purge the earth of its iniquity and bring balance once again. We know that there was a cataclysm at least one other time in this planet’s history.”

“The flood?”

“Sure,” Magnus agreed partially. “Almost every culture has a flood story, but was that the first cataclysm that struck the planet? Was there another before it?” He let the question hang for a moment before he continued. “One that was engineered by the ancients of this world?”

“We have no evidence that human records go back that—”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Magnus chided, waving a finger in the air. “While the records of the Aboriginal tribes of Australia are scarce, we have found evidence of their existence going back as far as thirty and even close to forty thousand years. And then there is the new genetic sequencing issue that shows DNA from Australia mingling with that recovered in South America. It is clear that we don’t have an accurate timeline of events for human history on Earth. Most adhere to the Biblical timeline of history, but that doesn’t account for its own stories from Genesis.”

Magnus noted the question in his guest’s eyes and motioned toward the lift. “Come. As I said, much faster to take the lift. That walk is a good half hour, and there’s nothing to see in there but tunnels.”

Kevin wanted to protest. Just to see the precision of the tunnels and how they were hewn into the mountain would have been a huge thrill, but he also understood that they were on the precipice of ending civilization and that he would have months down here in this underground hole to explore and see everything there was to see.

He followed Magnus over to the lift and stepped on as one of six guards held open the bars until everyone was on board. Then the man, sporting a thick black beard and matching hair, closed the lift gate and nodded to another guy in the same nondescript black uniform.

The second pressed a button on the control panel, and the maintenance elevator began to descend.

The winch overhead hummed to life, and the lift dropped into the shaft. Lights fixed to the sides illuminated the vertical tunnel, as did lights fixed to the elevator platform. Kevin was glad for the lights. He was already unnerved about going so far underground, though he’d read some mines, such as those in Russia, went down nearly four thousand feet into the earth’s surface.

Diamond mines—indeed, most kinds of mines—were marvels of modern engineering, and the men and women who worked them were a different kind of tough than ordinary people Kevin had met in his “normal” life.

The lift stopped at another level about eighty feet down. This corridor was encased in steel, with covered fluorescent lights lining the angled walls above where they met the ceiling. It reminded the archaeologist of science fiction stories he’d read about spaceships in faraway solar systems and galaxies.

The guard who’d closed the gate before pulled up a pin and opened the gate again, allowing everyone to step off. The armed men led the way down the futuristic tunnel to another elevator door that stood open. Unlike the previous lift that looked like it was something miners used every day, with beaten and scratched red metal railings and a worn floor, this elevator could have been right at home at the core of the most modern of skyscrapers, though wider and taller—Kevin assumed for moving large items or shipments.

The gunmen stepped in and waited for Kevin and Magnus to board.

“We were talking about Genesis and timelines,” Kevin reminded his employer as they crossed the threshold into the lift.

Once on, thick steel doors closed. The control operator inserted a black card key into a slot and then pressed the bottom button on the panel. In a heartbeat, the elevator dropped rapidly, causing Kevin to momentarily lose his balance.

Magnus pretended not to notice as he held on to a rail at the back of the small room. “The Genesis timeline is an interesting one,” he began. “I’ve heard some people say that it doesn’t jibe with the thirteen-thousand-year hypothesis because of the lunar calendars that were used in the past. There are also theologians who claim that the dating techniques for discovering certain pieces of evidence are flawed or inaccurate.”

“And what do you think?” Kevin asked, his legs finally returning from their gelatinous state.

Magnus turned to him. “We are told in the Biblical scriptures that the first humans lived in the Garden of Eden. There are other scriptures that reference a paradise-type place where early civilization thrived. If those people were immortal, as we are told, then they would have no accurate accounting for time. Why would they? The Bible tells us that Adam died at the age of 930 years, but was that time after the expulsion from the garden? Humanity could have lived for thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of years before the exile from the Tree of Life that gave them the gift of immortality. I also imagine that the technology they had access to was capable of sustaining the planet in a perfectly symbiotic manner, which was part of the punishment when they were kicked out. There’s also the little problem of the land of Nod.”

“Nod?”

“Yes. Cain left his family after killing his brother. He married a woman from the land of Nod. Where was this magical place? And who were the people that lived there? This is another example of poor accounting by those who translated the ancient scriptures. Of course, as we advance forward we can learn more about that ancient world, unimpeded by the masses of people overcrowding our modern one. We will be able to uncover new evidence from history and propel humanity toward a greater future.”

The elevator slowed dramatically and then glided onto the bottom floor with a subtle bump. The heavy steel doors opened, and the men stepped out into a massive control room that would have rivaled anything NASA ever created.

“Welcome,” Magnus said, “to our