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

the room, meeting every pair of eyes before continuing. His gaze fell upon the tablet, specifically the engraved ibis. “The symbol of Thoth was prominent at each location,” Sean said. “Among the hieroglyphs, we noticed a continued reference to the deity, along with his usual stylus and scroll that is seen in so many of his depictions throughout the Nile River Valley. It wasn’t until recently that Tommy and I started concocting a wild theory about what the pyramids were really for.”

“Which is?” Magnus asked.

“Basically,” Tommy said, “they’re a global cataclysm engine.”

The room fell deathly silent for several seconds. Then Kevin burst into laughter. Magnus and Tabitha watched him laughing, curious and uncertain what he found so funny.

When his laughter subsided, he leaned back on the sofa and shook his head. “Seriously? That’s your theory? That the pyramids all around the world are somehow going to bring about the end of days? I suppose next you’re going to tell me that the Colosseum was built as an alien landing port or that Machu Picchu was built by elves.”

Tommy pressed his lips together and took the jabs with silent grace.

“I can see why you don’t like him,” Magnus said to Tommy.

“It’s the other way around, Magnus. I have a great deal of respect for Kevin’s work. And he’s right to think it’s a harebrained theory.”

Kevin looked sheepish all of the sudden, like a child who’d been chastised.

“The fact is that there are pyramids all over the world. As we stated before, one must ask why. Were the ancient Egyptians evangelizing the entire planet with their religion? To date, we have no record of civilizations existing in the places where we discovered pyramids. The religions of the indigenous people in North and South America are well documented. And while there are similarities or common ground between their belief systems and that of the ancient Egyptians, they are far too different for me to believe that they were one and the same. So, again, why did they construct these pyramids unless they were instructed to do so? The Aztecs and Maya used them in ceremonies, much like the Egyptians, but were the ceremonies a cover?”

“Fine,” Kevin said. “I’ll go along with your idea for a minute. Let’s say that all the pyramids were built by the ancients as some way to bring about the end of the world. Why? Why would they do that? They would be killed in the process.”

“Not necessarily,” Sean hedged. “And remember, in reference to the shadow caste we were talking about before, they don’t want to end the world. They merely want to optimize the human population.”

“Optimize the population?”

“Throughout the ages, there have been wars, pandemics, mass extinction events that appeared to either be engines built from greed or anger or merely by nature itself. But these events, these things that take the lives of so many people, seem to follow a bizarre and terrifying trend. Our theory is that this cult is behind it all, that they are the ones who create the diseases or help spread them, incite wars, and decimate Earth’s population to ensure that humanity as a whole can survive and continue on until we have the technology to support a higher population.”

“Or colonize another planet,” Tommy added. “Why do you think some of these billionaires are throwing all of their money into privatized space programs? There are dozens of them investing in their own rockets and ships. Is it because they’re bored? No. It’s because they all know the truth.”

“Which is?” Kevin asked skeptically.

“That this planet can only support so many people. From time to time, mass extinction events or wars have to occur to reduce the population and enable civilization to continue. Otherwise, all of the resources would be consumed. Humans are, after all, like locusts. We move place to place, stripping the land of everything until there is nothing left, then move on to greener pastures. Only in recent years have we started to really focus on changing our ways, but it may be too late.”

Tabitha had fallen silent for several minutes, listening closely to everything Sean and Tommy said. She wasn’t sure she believed them yet, but the pieces of the puzzle started falling in place. “The recent virus,” she mused. “You guys think that was done by this…shadow caste?”

“Probably,” Sean answered first. “Look at the facts. You had global superpowers blaming one another for its creation as a bioweapon. In the United States, you even had people who believed our own government created it to disrupt or completely dismantle the entire structure. Look at how many people died as a result. A fraction of the global population, sure, but when you combine it with hunger, natural disasters, ongoing conflicts in various locations—particularly the Middle East—and additional manufactured diseases like AIDS, which has to date killed over seventy million people, the numbers start to get bigger and bigger.”

The answer stunned Tabitha, even though she was already on the same train of thought.

“How many have died as a result of wars in just the last hundred years?”

She shrugged her response.

“High estimates suggest more than 180 million in the twentieth century. Spanish flu, fifty million.”

Her mouth nearly dropped.

“And you’re saying this group, this Thoth Cult, is behind it all?” Kevin sounded dubious.

“Not all,” Tommy corrected. “But a lot of it, yes. Their mission is to make certain we can continue the human race on this planet until we can find a way to leave it and colonize elsewhere.”

“But their old ways of doing things aren’t working as well anymore,” Sean said. “Scientists are finding treatments for diseases, cures for others, vaccines to prevent illness. They need something new.”

“Or to be more precise, something very old,” Tommy corrected. He saw the question oozing out of Kevin’s hazel eyes before he even asked. “Before you ask, yes, based on what we saw at those two pyramids, along with what we learned about in Bolivia, we have reason to believe that the pyramids could be