Chapter Fifty-Nine
THE CHOSEN
1
Snake and Jonesy walked around the rear of the Pinecrest house. The house was on a slope with the backyard sloping upwards fairly steeply.
‘We got good access into the yard around the side of the house here, Jonesy.’
‘Yeah, Snake, I reckon we could get a shippin container in here OK, no problem.’
‘Yeah, an we could dig it into the hill an bury it in there.’
‘We could bury it deep, all the way underground.’
‘We gotta git ourselves a container, Jonesy, an a backhoe.’
It was Thursday, September 14, 2023. Cowboy led a hike, with fully-loaded packs, up to the summit of Pike’s Peak. They all decided that it was smarter to drive to as close to the Peak as they could and walk from there. They took the Sonora Pass Highway, turned off onto Forest Route 5N12 and parked their vehicles on the side of the dirt road adjacent to a foot trail that led to the summit of Pike’s Peak.
Snake had a truckload of supplies sitting out in the street that he didn’t know what to do with. He knew that they weren’t going to be able to take them up the mountain and he suspected that they wouldn’t be there when, and if, they ever came back down. After discussing it with Jonesy, they got the idea to transfer all the supplies into a shipping container, which they could then bury around the side of the house. They figured that that would give them the greatest chance of finding the supplies intact when, and if, they returned.
They found their shipping container in Sonora, about 30 miles down the road. They also found a backhoe operator, called ‘crazy’ Clyde, on the edge of town. Clyde used to be a gold prospector back in ‘the good olden days.’ These days he found his solace at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. He lived in a ramshackle, old cabin and kept fairly much to himself. The boys found him sitting in his rocking chair on the porch, whiskey glass in one hand and a smoke in the other. Willie Nelson was crooning from within the weathered, paint-peeling boards of the disintegrating hovel.
‘What brings you boys all the ways up here?’
‘We needs your backhoe an we needs it fast.’
‘I ain’t too sure if I got any room in my schedule for you boys.’
Snake was known for his fast thinking and sharp negotiating skills.
‘I was thinkin that maybe twenty cases of Jack might help change your mind.’
They brought the empty container up to Pinecrest on the back of a flatbed. They marked out the dimensions of the container on the ground as a guide for Clyde’s digging. When the space was excavated out of the side of the hill, a crane that also came up from Sonora lifted the empty container off the flatbed and placed it into its new resting place. Clyde backfilled the sides and piled the rest of the dirt on top of the container, leaving the front exposed so that the doors could freely be opened and closed.
Snake told Clyde where he organised for him to pick up his twenty cases of Jack Daniel, Old No. 7, plus he gave him five-thousand dollars in cash as a bonus ‘for doin such a fine job.’
The following day, everyone helped to transfer all the survival supplies from the truck to the shipping container. Nothing with a use-by date was included. The container was closed and locked with a padlock, the key to which Snake hung around his neck.
They all rode up to the base of Pike’s Peak in the truck on the morning of the 23rd. Everyone dressed in tough, all-weather, camouflage-design, mountain clothing. They all wore quality hiking boots, polarising sunglasses or ski goggles, and carried all their personal survival gear, hiking tents and supplies, on their backs, either in their back packs or strapped to them. They each carried a compass, a hunting knife, a pistol with a silencer, ammunition, fishing line with plenty of hooks and lures, and a fine fishing net. Cowboy and Snake, who it was decided were the best shots in the group, carried long-range, sighted, sniper rifles for hunting game. Everyone shared in carrying extra ammunition for the sniper rifles. Melvin carried a crossbow and a substantial quiver of arrows. Ludwig and Ace carried a pair of powerful binoculars each. Trixie carried the first aid kit. They all carried solar-powered walkie-talkies. They calculated that they carried enough food, water and butane gas, in the form of small cartridges for their camping stoves and lanterns, to survive for two weeks. After that period, they would be required to live off the land. Jonesy was in charge of the rope that would bind them all together as they waited on top of Pike’s Peak for the hoped-for time shift.
2
The comet and its armada of projectiles hurtled towards Earth like a cosmic shotgun blast.
The President, who was safely ensconced with his family in a survival bunker one mile under the Mojave Desert, argued with his chiefs of staff.
‘The people should be warned.’
‘You gotta get this straight, sir, the people can never be told the truth about an impending catastrophic event. It has been government policy since 1947 that any and all events, especially ones like meteor or comet strikes, be treated with absolute terminological inexactitude. If you have a problem with that, sir, it is government policy to terminate your tenure on this planet. Your choice, sir. I would strongly suggest that you get with the program.’
‘But I am the President of the United States!’
The General unholstered his sidearm and put it up to RG3’s forehead.
‘Only until I pull this trigger, sir.’
3
Mecca sat low in the water. Every cubic inch of space within her was full of provisions. As well, her fuel and drinking-water tanks were completely topped up. There were many favourite things they all wanted to take but couldn’t in order to leave as much space for food and survival gear. Eva looked back at the house and began to cry.
‘I just realised how much I love this place. Do you think the house will be alright,
Lloydie?’
‘Well, a big, surging tsunami would certainly make a huge mess of the place.’
Sophia hugged Eva to console her as Alex untied the bow rope from the jetty. Lloyd fired up the diesel and motored away.
It was early morning of September 21, 2023. The crisp, spring morning was cloudless as a gentle, west wind blew Mecca through Sydney Heads into the vast, South Pacific Ocean. Lloyd instructed his crew,
‘I need everyone to put on their safety harnesses and clip them to the guardrail. I want you all to be clipped to the boat 24/7, whether you are above or below decks. This skipper is not losing a crew overboard on this trip.’ Everyone obeyed.
Although the group had no idea that Alex was one of the chosen ones, they suspected, through Alex’s junk-DNA research, that something hugely catastrophic was going to happen on the 23rd. Unbeknownst to any of them, Lloyd’s fastidious seamanship ensured that they all conformed to the rule of connectedness, which was what was required for them all to be pulled through time with Alex, along with their boat and dinghy.
They sailed about twenty miles out to sea, out beyond the most easterly extremities of the continental shelf, where the water was over 2000 metres deep. Once out there, they continued to sail in a large circle to wait for the 23rd of September to pass on by. Lloyd postulated,
‘We’ll be as safe here as anywhere in the event of a mega tsunami. How about a cup of tea, darling?’
‘Cup of tea everyone?’ Eva asked.
Alex and Sophia raised their hands.
‘We are fortunate that the sea is so calm,’ said Lloyd.
‘We are pretty out of range of any kind of media out here, aren’t we Lloyd?’
‘We should pick up some shortwave tonight, Alex.’
4
Noah arrived late in the evening of September 21st. He found Thebe, Lucy and Slater busy preparing for their time shift into the future.
‘We can only take our favourite small things because there is not that much space in my ship,’ said Thebe.
The levitation suits and surfboards were a priority.
It had been decided that they would do their time shift from within Thebe’s space ship, which would hover a few hundred feet above Noosa. Slater would be strapped to the interior of the ship by the wrist, as would the two women. Thus, through connectedness, they, as well as the ship, would be pulled through time by the time chip implanted in Slater’s left leg, just above the knee.
Noah left for Green River at 6.00am on September 24, 2023, Australian East Coast Time. They knew what he meant when he said,
‘See you in a few hours a hundred years from now.’
He flew across the Pacific and parked his ship above the same butte that he parked above in prior years. Green River time was exactly 2.13pm, September 23rd, 2023. He levitated the ship just above the ground, in the centre of ground zero, directly under the plummeting comet. Just before he stepped outside the ship, he pulled the master time chip out from under his ‘second skin’.
5
Half an hour after Noah flew off to Green River, Thebe, Lucy and Slater entered Thebe’s ship and lifted into the sky.
…….