LP suddenly opened his eyes to the sound of fireworks cracking overhead. The countdown had started. “Ten; nine; eight; seven…”
LP moved his hand down to the laptop, and entered the password as revellers yelled ‘happy New Year’ again. They must have been southerners on daylight savings time. He waited until exactly midnight, Queensland time, then pressed ‘enter’. Brownie and Mason were celebrating opposite Kato’s holiday house, just a couple of doors down across from a sandy track disappearing into the darkness that led to the ocean foreshore. They spotted LP standing on his verandah alone.
Brownie yelled, “Happy New Year! Did you remember to upload the scroll to George’s website?”
“Yes,” LP replied. “Where were you? Bloody late, as usual.”
Brownie ignored the question, and replied, “The only thing left to do is email or text to the guys who aren’t here, and tell them it’s done.”
LP’s response was sudden and abrupt. “No! Wait till 1:01 a.m. That’s what the second set of numbers must have meant; it’s not just the upload to the web; it must be sent at the correct time. I’ve already prepared the scroll to be emailed.”
Brownie’s connection with Dreamtime, Mason’s secret knowledge going back to the days of Solomon, and LP’s foresight all gave them the understanding as to why the scroll needed to be uploaded into cyberspace.
The alignment of the numbers enabled the knowledge from within the scroll to be revealed. Up until that point in time, technology did not have the ability to connect. However, through the World Wide Web, which would reach maximum capacity on New Year’s Eve, they would deliver the knowledge of a thousand light years as foretold at the Bora Ring nearly forty years earlier. That female Bora Ring, weathered and aged over tens of thousands of years, was the birth place of Brownie’s ancestors who had first started counting the number of stars in the universe. Over time, they had realised that there was more to counting using just number ‘one’, and that ‘zero’ existed, both in the physical and spiritual world. That connection had started the march to this point in time, where the binary numbers of one and zero would intertwine and unlock what was held within the scroll.
With only minutes to go, the wireless signal started to weaken. The two red signals for wireless and send started flashing like a railway crossing. LP was about to lose connection. He yelled to Brownie, “I downloaded the scroll to my phone earlier just in case something went wrong. I’m losing reception here; run down to the beach and send the scroll as a text message.”
Brownie grabbed the phone and headed down the track to the beach, where reception was stronger. It was windy, with some light rain, and a bright, full moon was breaking through storm clouds. LP pressed ‘send’ one minute earlier than he should have, but he had no choice; the signal disconnected and could not be reconnected. It was up to Brownie to pick up reception from the beach.
Brownie walked back up the sandy track, onto the verandah and over to LP’s cooler. He lifted the lid, grabbed three cold beers, twisted the caps off and handed them around, saying, “There’s nothing more to do now other than knock down a couple of coldies and hope the second decade of the new millennium gets off to a better start than the last one.”
Brownie, Mason, and LP raised their stubbies and cracked them together in celebration, knowing that the scroll, as foretold, was now in cyberspace.
LP took several mouthfuls of beer and then stood motionless, staring out into darkness.
The moonlight disappeared behind a swirling mass of storm clouds, just as in his mind, darkness had filled him with gut wrenching panic. What he was now seeing was the future, frozen in time. Ice covered the north and like the darkness of his thoughts, so too darkness would cross the land for thirty nights.
Mason looked towards LP saying, “What do you see out there?’’
LP blinked his eyes and replied, shaking “Brownie, your hope for a better start for this decade will be short lived. What I’ve seen will come to pass. Kato warned the authorities about power failures resulting from the next Solar Maximus.”
Brownie replied. “Don’t worry guys, my ancestors from dreamtime won’t desert us. When the time comes, they’ll help.”
LP replied, “I hope you’re right mate, because that’s the worst vision I’ve ever had. What’s coming will end on the twenty-third.’’