PART I: THE WAY TO TREASON
Life is now peaceful, reliable and prosperous. Development is now even across borders but there was only one sacrifice needed to make this happen:
The abolishment of Religion.
A young man who is very inquisitive stumbles upon a website that talks about history and one day gains access to something the world considers the manual for treason Is the world right to abolish Religion or is there another way, more terrifying but much more fulfilling?
LEVERAGE
Psalm 23:4
Even when the way goes through Death Valley, I am not afraid when you walk at my side. Your trusty Shepherd’s crook makes me feel secure.
(The Message Bible Translation)
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil,” muttered the man who was sitting on ‘seat 39’ with his head bowed and his eyes closed.
“Young man won’t you hide your valuable things before they enter the bus? Stop chanting like a mad man, ” said his plump seat mate who was trying to stuff her gold-plated Rolex watch in her underpants. Her husband had told her it would be dangerous to travel a long distance with such an item on her person. She had said she was careful. It seemed in this circumstance her careful nature didn’t matter much.
“For thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me, ” continued the young man. The presumed robbers, who had stopped this bus on its way to Lagos, entered the large Marco Polo bus and one of them bellowed in the direction of the driver.
“Driver! On all the lights!”
The lights came on and the young man reciting a passage of Psalms raised his head to see the obstructers of this rather pleasant journey. They were four and the one in front seemed to be the leader. They didn’t wear masks which was strange in the Nigeria of the midtwenty first century, where everything was documented including faces of the citizens. The leader pulled out a cell phone which seemed really sophisticated and then began looking from his phone to all the passengers on the bus. One of his followers or minions pulled out a cellphone as well and scanned the passengers on his left while his boss repeated the procedure on his right.
The young man bowed his head and continued, “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.” The presumed robbers were still searching and getting closer to his seat. He had this weird feeling that they were looking for his kind.
“Will you shut up? You will attract attention,” hissed his seat mate who had successfully hidden her jewelry in places only an indecent man would dare search.
“Thou annointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over, ” continued the now tense young man.
The men were approaching his seat.
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me. ” His seatmate
rolled her eyes in frustration. The leader of the invading gang got to his seat and looked at him. He then looked at the phone he had extended before him then he smiled.
The young man quickly bowed his head and continued, “…all the days of my life…”
“You! You are coming with us!” bellowed the leader in his deep South-South accent. He signaled two of his men behind him to grab the praying passenger.
“…and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” whispered the young man as he was hoisted up forcefully to his feet and as his seatmate shrieked.
“Shut your trap woman. We aren’t interested in you. Or are we boss?” asked one of the hooligans.
“The boss smiled then shook his head.
“Just this one for now, ” said the boss.
As the young man was dragged away he whispered, “…and ever, Amen.”
The boss made a call as the young man was pushed into a Renault car.
“Operation Leverage complete,” said the boss into the phone.
THE RABBIT HOLE
Matthew 7:7
Ask and you will receive. Search and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened for you.
[Contemporary English Version]
He was more than sober today but due to his reputation for not being social in school, it wasn’t surprising that almost no one noticed, almost. Imma had, however, noticed that his best friend was more sober than usual. He wondered if Chibueze was just on a depressive chain reaction or maybe there was something academic going on that he didn’t know about. If it was academic his friend would’ve told him. But he hadn’t said anything ,so Imma safely assumed that Chibueze or Bueze as he was fondly called, was mentally occupied. He would stare at his phone for hours even during lectures which was something that Imma knew Chibueze never did. Maybe it was a girl matter but Imma doubted it because Chibueze always shared his new discoveries about girls. It was an unspoken rule between them. Another unsettling thing was the way Bueze constantly was looking at his wrist watch even when talking to Imma. Right now Imma could see his friend just standing on the balcony of their department, which was the physics department. He was just looking at people going on with their lives.
After watching his friend scare the hell out of him for a couple of moments, Imma decided to confront him rather than chase down and chat up the pretty girl he had been contemplating approaching all week. As he walked to the elevator, he considered turning around but he was really worried and if he didn’t get a reasonable answer he was going to throw Bueze off the balcony, without hesitation.
As Bueze saw his friend exiting the elevator, he knew the reason for the visit. He had been occupied studying the forbidden application the girl called ‘Shift’ had given him. She had warned him not to show it to anyone and she meant anyone. It was so captivating and it was applicable to everything he saw, did and even thought about. He quickly exited the application and navigated to the home screen of his cellphone as Imma approached.
“Idiot, what are you doing?” asked Imma.
“Nice to see you too, Imma. I see you missed me. Any better for me?” asked Bueze naively trying to throw Imma off the scent he was unearthing.
“Missed you? You must think highly of yourself. Anyway you sure you ’ re okay?”
“Yeah I am. Why you asking?”
Imma looked at his friend closely, something was definitely going on, and the question was whether he was going to chase this. Well, he had passed on an opportunity to go after that pretty girl, so he was going to follow this through until he got a satisfying answer.
Bueze knew that his friend was contemplating buying the ‘nothing is wrong ’ statement but if he knew anything about Imma, it was that curiosity and girls were the two things he couldn’t say no to. So he was already working a way out of the inevitable interrogation.
“Bueze, what is her name?” Imma had decided to go direct; all guns blazing!
“There isn’t any girl. Have you started hallucinating? I haven’t spoken to a girl in a while or did you see me with Nneka and think it was another girl?”
“Dude, I’m not talking about your sister and must I see you talking to a girl physically, what about the fact that nowadays you ’ re permanently on your phone?”
“Come on Imma! Now you are just being ridiculous. There are many things to do on a phone besides chatting.”
“Like what? Don’t say games cause you are one of the orthodox gamers that prefers PCs and consoles. Also you can’t say music because most of the time you aren’t wearing an earpiece.”
“So, who you feeling like now? Sherlock?” asked Bueze.
“Who is Sherlock now? Don’t tell me; one of your history characters,” Bueze was about to speak when Imma cut him short and continued, “Well it’s not like it is affecting me but let me just be plain with you…get a life man. You are stepping on my nerves and irritating me with your ‘I am a melancholic saddist’ behavior. Have fun with whatever you are hiding behind or from.”
“Now you sound like my girlfriend. Baby, is there any other thing you would like to tell me or should we just kiss and make up?” Bueze said girlishly winking at Imma.
Imma raised his fingers while wearing a disgusted look. “I’m going to eat lunch and go girl hunting before our next lecture. Sher-whatever signing out.” With that Imma turned and began walking away.
“Later man. And its Sherlock you illiterate. I wonder what am
doing with a dummy like you?”
“I agree. I was dumb enough to consider being your friend. I’m out.”
Chibueze smiled as his friend walked away. He felt bad taking his friend on rigmarole. They had been friends since the first party they had attended in university. They had been the only guys who had refused to smoke Marijuana that day. From then on they had become partners in crime in everything until recently when Bueze had stumbled upon something that had-without exaggeration-changed his life forever.
2
The ‘life changing experience’ as it would be eventually called had ensued from the habit of Chibueze surfing the net for social and political history. He loved reading about the past but most fractions of the past had been obscured from the public since the Metamorphosis. Therefore, Bueze was part of quite a number of exclusive internet fora that uploaded aspects of history that wasn’t legally available to normal citizens of the world. These parts included things like the history of the Vatican City that was once in Italy and which had gone bankrupt and had been converted to a massive estate of barracks for the soldiers of the Adhesive Force of Earth, termed AFE. This was just one of the hidden stories or events dating over a hundred years old.
Bueze in his curiosity had gathered quite a library of illegal documents from these websites. And then on the 17th of July, he had gotten more than he had bargained for. There was a website that had ‘juicy’ information on world history and it was from this site that Bueze had learned about the Vatican. The website named signboard.com had kept him interested beyond his usual curiosity, quick browse and download. For a long time, he had immersed himself in the streaming stories, unbelievably heart-thumping even to an irredentist like Bueze. Bueze had then become an active member gaining increasing clearance (by gaining online points) to access various documents in the website. Points were obtained by reading articles and submitting a review based on the idea of the reader. If the review attracted the attention of the website owners, they awarded
online points which were used to access various stratified documents. Chibueze had become somewhat obsessed with the website and so he had gained numerous points in a relative short period of time. He had seen a bunch of archived files that required a thousand points to access and had worked hard reviewing articles and gaining points. Then after reviewing the article on the Vatican and discussing the contents with the website online members, he had gotten a thousand and forty seven points and without hesitation, he had used the points to download the thousand points worth archive file. He had used the school wireless internet services to download the file.
The archive file opened easily to reveal three files within. The first file was a file titled Word with the extension .por which meant it was a portable file and would work on any portable device. The second file had the same name as the first but had the extension .exe which meant it was for personal computers. The third file was a pdf file which meant it was just a document. A sudden weight of fear fell on him as he leaned back and stared at the product of a thousand website points. He questioned his psychological preparation for what was in the files. Finally, the fearful part of his brain lost the battle and then he began installing the portable version of the Word application on his Acer Metacarpal 9 mobile phone. As the application was being installed, he looked around to make sure that no one knew exactly what he was doing. To be on the safe side, he reduced the screen size to an area of ten by ten centimeters.
That was the joy of hologram technology which was more popularly called atmosphere technology. It allowed the user to convert a portion of his surrounding to the display portion of his computer device and, therefore, the size of the virtual screens and input devices were flexible depending on the desire of the user.
After what seemed like an eternity to Bueze but what was actually a minute and a half, the installation of the application was completed. He rubbed his hands vigorously and licked his lips then asked himself again if this was a good idea. He opened the application and saw it had a label that made his urethra contract and his heart stop beating. The urge to urinate was so strong that in his mind’s eye, Bueze could smell his urine. The application he had spent a thousand points on was
labeled Holy Bible.
His face contorted in an imaginary pain as he remembered stories of hopeless Bible Believers being arrested and never being heard of or seen again and the shunning the families they left behind faced.
He knew exactly what this application was. It was the single most illegal book to possess in the world! There were other religious books that were forbidden but there were rumors that the Bible was capable of corrupting anyone that read up to a sentence in them. There were rumors that it had the power to make anyone lose his or her mind. He looked at the application that was currently asking him if he wanted to take a tutorial to get to know the feature of the application better. He looked at his mobile device like it was playing a horror movie on the screen. The mobile device suddenly felt hot in his hands and Bueze fought an impulse to drop it. He looked down at his extended hands and at the corner of the opening page of the application, there was a notification stating that if the user hadn’t read the pdf file that had come with the application, that he or she should read it and use the code found at the end of the pdf file to access the application fully.
Chibueze thought about what to do next and then decided to open the pdf file as this in itself wasn’t a crime. He minimized the Bible and then opened the pdf file. The first thing that caught his eye about the pdf file were the warnings! They were stated in bold fonts. ‘The owner of this application is fully responsible for any trouble that possession of the Bible will bring’ .
It also stated that it would be in the best interest of the user that others didn’t know about the existence of the Bible and the document even went as far as suggesting ways to hide the file.
He read it over and over again until he had the disclaimer, found in the pdf file, in his head. He thought a bit and decided that he would wait till later in the day where he would have sufficient privacy to read the file properly. Suddenly, from the corner of his right eye he saw someone stare at him. He turned immediately and saw a young girl about his age stand up from a bench some thirty feet away from him and begin walking towards the main parking lot as she fumbled with her phone. Without spending as much as a second to contemplate
what to do he stood up and went after the girl who turned to see him coming and increased her pace.
As he followed her, he couldn’t help but notice that the girl had her natural hair on her head alone and that in itself was rare in this new world where synthetic hair came in so many desirable forms. He also noticed that she was quite fair in complexion and had walked with the gait of someone who was involved in a form of sport. He suddenly realized that if he didn’t break into a run, he wasn’t going to catch up with her.
Just as she was about to enter her red or maroon colored Honda (Chibueze wasn’t good with colors and didn’t know what shade of red this was), he was within arm ’ s reach and instinctively grasped her wrist before she closed her car door.
They stared at each other for a moment without saying or doing anything, it was like they were waiting for permission to speak!
Bueze became aware of many things almost at once. First, it was the fact that her skin was smooth and the distribution of melanin was even. Her wrist was small and she had delicate looking hands, slender fingers and she didn’t keep long nails. He lowered his gaze to look at her face and saw a pretty female staring at him. She had brown eyes and rather very short lashes for a female; it was obvious that she didn’t have much regard for synthetic-aesthetic products. She had average sized lips and he wondered just for a moment, how soft those lips would feel to the touch.
She noticed that he had sunken eyes that consisted of jet black pupils, his eyes sat on a nose that was just at the border of being very wide. His hands were thick heavy and strong. It was like she was being held by a mechanical clamp. His almost six feet frame was blocking natural light from entering the car. Was he staring at her lips and what was this deal of her heart pounding so hard? Maybe it is from the brisk walk and from being spotted or maybe it is because you are attracted to….
“Do you mind letting go of my wrist or are you considering taking it home with you?” she asked.
“I’m sorry. Just wanted to get your attention before you left.” With that, Bueze let go of her hand.
“Okay. You have my attention. So what can I do for you?”
“Well you can start by telling me why you were looking at me and why you fled when I noticed.”
“I didn’t flee and I was looking at you while I was thinking of something else. You must really think highly of yourself to consider that I was really looking at you. You are not that handsome,” she knew she thought otherwise.
“I’m not saying I am, I just want to know why the whole drama.”
“I-“ she didn’t want to lie. “I can’t tell you. ” She had to get out of here. She put her thumb on a spot on her dash board and the car came to life.
Chibueze knew he was losing her so he said, “Wait! Please tell me what this is all about.”
She had regained her composure and was reversing the car, “Be careful where you open that app, I am sure you don’t want to be caught breaking the law.” She was satisfied to see the gape of surprise on his face and with that she smiled and waved him bye.
He was so shocked that he didn’t call after her. He was rooted to that spot long enough for the girl to drive out of the campus. He walked away scared, apprehensive, anxious but somehow…excited.
3
He got home later that day with the urge, the need and the desire to read what he had downloaded. Why was he itching to read something that was going to get him into trouble? Bueze wondered if he was compensating for all the delinquent attitudes he had avoided which plagued his age group. He hadn’t had any or caused any trouble for his parents or friends and now to possess not one but two copies of the Bible was just outright dangerous not only to him but to his family, especially his eighteen year old sister. She thought the world of him. He was her idol, hero and she had been his winglady in his infamous sexcapades (a term she coined for his sexual escapades). She was currently telling him how one of her girlfriends thought he was ‘hot’. That day he had ended the conversation rather abruptly and gone
upstairs to his room. Usually, that conversation would last for another thirty minutes with him fantasizing about how he could get his sister’s friend into his bed but today he had very important things on his mind. He threw an uninterested smile her way and turned to leave. Maybe he had hurt her feelings. Oh well I will apologize when I am done with what I have to do, he thought.
When he entered his bedroom, the first thing he did was to say, “Scott wake up!” If his gardener wasn’t operating the lawn mower outside, he was sure he would’ve heard the soft hum of his full verbal control artificial intelligent computer coming on. This computer had two five hundred gigahertz processors with one terabyte of RAM. It had the latest atmosphere technology and for all its processing and display demands, it consumed just a hundred and fifty watts of energy.
“Welcome, sir!” said the computer.
“Thank you Scott. We have work to do. First of all install this application under the name rabbit hole. ” He used his hand to swipe the file to the holographic screen that was following him around the room.
“Yes! And Scott?”
“Yes sir?”
“Ensure the file is hidden. And I mean top priority fully hidden. Don’t ever display it unless I say the name of the file and ask you to display it. If I am using it and someone enters the room, hide it. Got that?”
“Certainly sir.”
“Now search the whole web for anything related to the website signboard.com. Consider anything important. Is the installation done?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good.”
Bueze faced the virtual screen and compressed it till it was a size of twenty five centimeters by fifteen centimeters then dragged the screen to his bed and sat down.
An hour and a half later he heard his mother call him for food. It was at that point that he realized he had been reading since he returned from school. His shoes were even on his feet! He was like
Alice in Wonderland and at this point in time considering what he had been reading for the past hour and a half, he was going to visit this wonder world very often. He took off his shoes and went downstairs to eat rice and beans. He planned on chugging down the food and levitating back to his room without much delay!
4
For the next two weeks Bueze was immersed in a study material that was embedded in the Bible application for his personal computer. The study material contained two distinct articles and there was information as to which of the articles to study first.
The first article he studied was titled The Creator. This article was all about the existence of a Supreme Being. This was contradictory to everything that Bueze had been thought to believe in since his birth. The human race felt they were the most advanced creatures in existence and, therefore, the idea that there was something or someone greater than man was pure stupidity and also a breach of the law. He had heard the stories and studied in history the adverse consequences of seeking this higher being. He had read of a time that the world had been at war because certain people felt that those who didn’t seek this being their way were unbelievers and therefore not fit or qualified to live. It was a time when God, as the higher being was called, was the reason for every disagreement between men. Due to this, certain groups had come up with the solution to war.
This concept began with a philosophical thought called Relativism. This was further developed by a certain Swedish philosopher who was, ironically, a professor of Liberal Systematic Theology. He postulated that if human minds could be conditioned from an early age of five years to see as/and dismiss as illusion, the notion in a higher Supreme Being, humans would soon see themselves and each other as gods. This in turn, would build mutual respect and bring world peace!
This philosophical development led to the passing of the bill which abolished religion and therefore qualified disobedience of the world-wide bill as treachery. Bueze had been told like every other person in this generation that the bill had been peacefully accepted
and that no one had opposed it. Since then, there had been no war and there was relative world peace to the amazement of all, especially the doubters.
In his various studies, Bueze had stumbled on commentaries on the success of the bill. He had marveled at the simplicity of the solution to a complex human tragedy like war. Finally, man had succeeded in dismissing God from the equation and had achieved peace with a single stroke of the pen!
Therefore, since he was a child, he had been taught that there was no higher power and that the power to achieve anything was to be found within. Looking at it now after a careful study he realized that maybe he had been told a lie. Maybe there was a higher power, maybe God was watching and laughing at the stupidity of humans. Maybe God was angry and waiting for the appropriate time to wipe out the world or maybe God didn’t exist and this was a conspiracy to throw the world back into chaos designed by a person or group of people who would benefit from the world being in shambles. Maybe, he was crazy for thinking like this and buying this app.
What did he know? After all, he was still in his youthful years where matters of such weight were unheard of. What have I done? He asked himself. He was afraid of being entangled in matters beyond his understanding and wisdom – certainly not in religion. He had all he wanted in this world; loving parents and a sibling. His parents were even comfortable, wealthy by many standards – able to afford luxuries for him and his sister. He cautioned himself to take care not to jeopardize his good fortune. However, Bueze could not keep thoughts of his studies off his mind. Try as he may, thoughts of God dominated his waking hours. At night, he was buried in dreams he could not understand!
From the study, God created the world in five days with the Word of His mouth and he created man on the sixth day from dust. This threw his brain into confusion, if someone that strong existed then why hadn’t he made himself known and forced everyone to worship him. If he existed then why was he allowing his creation which he made out of sand despise and mock his existence? It didn’t make sense that a being that powerful would be intimidated by people
who couldn’t stand up to him, his own creation. Even though it didn’t make sense, he somehow felt that there was more to existence than enjoying life. This article made a mess of the big bang theory with all the hypothesis about the evolution of man and of life in general. In order to finish the study and see where this all lead to, Bueze decided to humor the author and assume-just for the duration of the studythat there was indeed God.
By the end of the sixth day, Bueze had begun the second study. At this point he had been late in submitting an assignment in school and had only barely passed a test which had been relatively easy just because he hadn’t read for it. He was missing lectures and wasn’t talking much to people, especially his best friend. He was spending time in the school library for two reasons. First, he was there because the cubicle system of the library gave him privacy enough to study the Bible and carry out the activities and assignment in the study material. The second reason which Bueze only admitted to in his sub consciousness, was that he was hoping to see the pretty girl he had run into the day he had gotten the three apps which had altered his life. He didn’t know what he would do if he saw her but he was certain that he really wanted to see her – again.
The second study consisted of the fate of man which – based on the study – was judgment and then condemnation to death. From what he had read, it was more of a continuous death. The person would be sentenced to a prison named hell after death where he would be tormented by the warden (as Bueze liked to call him) forever. The thought of that gave Bueze a chill down his spine. How could anyone survive that? And as if the study was reading his mind, the next sentence said that the person was alive forever no matter what was done to him or her. This hell business made Bueze eager to see what crime a man would have to commit to qualify for such a hell. The answer to that question shocked, amazed and scared him.
From the study, what qualified him to be sent to hell was not loving God and or accepting him. Next question was how did you love God? From the study, loving God was classified as hating evil. Upon reading that, Bueze relaxed mentally because he was sure that he hated evil. He even stood up and went to the fridge to get a can of beer
(after all, the society deemed him old enough). The problem was with the next question, what can be classified as evil? When he saw the answer he gave up and told himself that if God did exist and all these things stated were true, then no one was going to escape hell. That was his final theory and therefore, there was no need to continue the study. So, he stood up and told Scott to close the application. This happened on day ten. There were four more study days left.
5
He resumed his normal life which he had dropped unknowingly due to the application he had downloaded. He even took the girl that had told his sister that he was hot out on a date. He felt he needed the excitement to forget what he had read. Why was he even bothering himself with all that?
Well considering how easy it had been to convince her to go out on a date with him, he was sure that what his sister had said about her was true. He hadn’t met her before or if he had he didn’t remember because there was no recognition when he saw her. Faces flashed as familiar or unfamiliar with him and tonight the girl’s face was flashing unfamiliar. From what she was wearing, he was sure of one of two things. It was either that she lacked self-confidence or she was just aroused and wanted to be satisfied. The clothes were too ‘showy’. They revealed everything. Anyway, why was he being hard on her when he had classmates who dressed like that to school?
He had a plan for tonight with the girl and it ended in his bedroom. Like the buddying playboy he was, he would try to keep the preamble in the restaurant interesting for her so he didn’t look like he was just interested in her body. So he took her to an average priced restaurant where couples and families were sitting all around. It was a Friday and the place was stacked with customers. While waiting for the main course, Bueze tried having a conversation with the girl.
“Hope you like the place?” asked Bueze.
“Yeah I do. This place seems expensive though.”
“Well extraordinary places are meant for extraordinary girls.” He had used that line many times on girls and for the sixteenth time…it worked.
The girl blushed a lot and even rolled her hair then she had that predator look in her eyes that Bueze knew all too well. She was lusting after him and this meant that his plan was moving at an accelerated rate. He tried to remember her name because he needed it if she was going to agree to follow him to his bedroom or to hers, whichever she preferred. He thought back through all the layers of conversations he had had with his sister and then remembered her name. Tiffany it was. He was sure.
It was time to drop the bait so he asked, “Tiffany what do you consider fun?”
She licked her lips slowly ensuring that Bueze was looking at them then she said, “Anything that turns me on. ”
“And what turns you… ” His statement was interrupted by the waiter who gave him a note and asked if they were ready to order their meal?
Bueze opened the note and froze. He momentarily forgot the girl sitting opposite him. He even forgot where he was and the insulting statement he had wanted to serve the waiter. All he could do was ask where the note had come from. The waiter said he didn’t know and then Bueze frantically looked around and that was when he spotted her.
She was standing by the door which he was sure led to the kitchen of the restaurant. As he stood up, she dashed through the door. He didn’t even hear the protest of the girl sitting opposite him. He just got up and hastily moved across the large eating area. When he got to the door and opened it he ignored the protest of the cooks in the kitchen. He could smell female perfume and he followed the scent like a hound on a blood trail. As he got to the parking lot for staff which was at the back of the building, he saw her enter her Honda and turn it on. He made up his mind at that instant that she wasn’t going to evade him a second time and so he ran through the customer parking lot. On his way a staff intercepted him and told him to pay for his stay at the restaurant. Bueze emptied his wallet into the guy ’ s open palm and kept running. He saw his Dad’s Mercedes Benz and on reaching it said, “Open doors, start engine.”
Immediately the giant engine came to life and he hopped in,
reversed the vehicle and went after the girl who had been in his mind for almost two weeks straight.
6
He drove as fast as he dared and that wasn’t even warm up speed for the high grade engine that he was controlling. He saw her fifty meters away from him in that Honda and pressed his foot against the accelerator. Even after crossing eighty kilometers an hour and reaching a hundred, he still wasn’t closing the gap between them. He realized that the girl was a better driver than he. He got out of the side street and followed her to the main dual expressway. Suddenly, within the heavy traffic and high speeding cars he couldn’t see the Honda at all. He increased his speed by another twenty kilometers, struggling to keep the car under control but still he couldn’t find the girl. He had already given up and was applying a little brake to the speed when he saw her on the opposite lane of the highway. She wound down her window and with a smile shouted,
“You’re not a bad driver if I must say, centuries away from catching up with me but not bad at all. Pay attention to the note I left and maybe we will see again.”
“What is your name and how can I reach you? Can you give me your number?!”
“I’m not that type of girl and also sleeping with that other girl will not make you forget what you already know.”
At this time the heavy traffic had cleared and the line of cars behind him were honking their vehicles angrily at him. He moved the car a bit and looked to see the girl speed off.
He went home afraid and felt he was being watched because there was no way under the sun that the girl would have known to drop a note like that. The note had simply said, You have to finish the study to get the full picture so don’t give up again until you are done.
That night he continued the study. The study stated that anyone who didn’t obey God’s commands was wicked and therefore not fit to enter heaven. The next two days explained the wicked nature of man which he was born with. This answered the way each person in the world had a sin that he was weak towards no matter how much he tried. It explained why it was easier to agree to do wrong instead of doing right. Bueze didn’t know when he scribbled, Is there anything a man can do to be redeemed?
The study was just on cue, it said that there was a way to be saved. It said that the solution had been formed before man had made a mistake because God knew everything, including how man would stray away from him and become enslaved by the evil one (whom Bueze had come to know as the fallen angel, Satan). So God motivated by love provided a solution. The price for sin was death therefore something had to die as the consequence of sin.
So, in order to save the whole world with everyone in it and those yet to be born, God sent his only son to come to earth as a man, grow up, live a life without breaking a single law, and then die a painful death on a tree which was called a cross. The shedding of innocent blood was then the price paid for the souls of men. The price had effect on everyone who believed in God and accepted the gift. The gift was the life of Jesus Christ; God’s Son. This was the final day of the study and it ended with a question:
Do you see the need to be saved and if you do will you accept the gift?
Even as Bueze told Scott to shut down that night he knew the answer to those questions. Another question troubled him. Would he be able to face the consequences of rebellion?
Prov 16:9
A man's heart deviseth his way; But Jehovah directeth his steps.
[American Standard Version]
She blamed herself for being late to the briefing and departure. Her younger brother had decided to ride his bicycle into a car. She was grateful to God that the car had been parked but he hadn’t been spared from bruises and a sprained right wrist. He was busy smiling as they xrayed his hand. She knew him well and knew that he would tell everyone in his school, who cared to listen, that he had been in a ghastly motor accident but had come out with few scratches. Well, it was all expected from an eight year old boy.
Deborah was jolted to the present when the elevator stopped. She was at the bottom of a supposedly dry-cleaning complex. If she remembered correctly, this was the third floor below the surface. The elevator doors opened and she saw that they were all waiting for her. Even Daniel was earlier than her and that meant she was really late.
“You’re late miss,” said the tall very fair Easterner who was more pleasant than his appearance.
“I am very sorry sir. My younger brother had a minor accident.”
Daniel wore a face of fake anger then asked, “What did you do to my lil’ hommie?”
She ignored him and instead said, “Shall we?”
As they walked to a door at the end of the room she read the printed version of the briefing she had missed.
This was a mission of evacuation and it seemed simple but to Deborah nothing was ever simple. They were to extract a Christian couple who had been discovered and who were about to be arrested. They would hide them here at the den for a few days until new identities were made for them and then they would be taken to a new location. Even to Deborah it seemed too easy and that unsettled her. What if it was a trap?
At twenty-two years of age, their unit leader was by age the second youngest person in the group. However, he had a brain with a processing power of a million gigahertz. He walked up to her and said,
“I know what you are thinking and this mission was prayed over and we got a go. Besides, the informant has never been wrong so don’t be anxious. You know we risk everything to save one of our own. Or would you rather have it another way?”
She shook her head and calmed down a bit. He had a way of
solving challenges and always tried to set an example. All these attributes pointed to the leadership qualities that he possessed after meeting Christ.
They entered a sublevel parking lot and then she asked which one they were using. There were many vehicles parked there.
Daniel tossed her a remote device and said, “We are using the Hyundai armored car. ”
Deborah looked at the black vehicle and said one word, “Nice.”
To the ordinary eye the car looked like any other jeep made in the right generation. In truth, it had been an ordinary jeep until believing engineers had worked on it. After enhancing it, they had made the car thick enough to withstand a grenade attack, an RPG attack. It was bullet proof, had electrical and electromagnetic pulse guns which could disarm anything with electric control, even a missile. The tires had pumps which inflated them when burst and in the event that the pumps didn’t work, the tires could keep on moving for ten kilometers. It could be controlled from outside through a transmitter in the roof of the car. In truth, it was a war car and that was what Deborah was going to drive. As the wheel-lady of the group, she was in charge of transportation. She never set her mind on competitions but there were rumors that she was the best Believing driver in the state. She could drive and fly anything although her love waxed stronger on the ground.
She knew the neighborhood they were going to and she hoped in her mind that ‘he’ was doing fine. During the walk from the main office of the den to the parking lot she had memorized the route to their mission and had mapped out four different routes back to the den to prevent being trapped in case they had to make a run for it.
The four people who made up the group entered the vehicle and then the leader led them in prayers. After the prayers, Deborah put her hand on the palm-read panel located on the dashboard and the car came to life. She could feel the power of the engine on the steering wheel but that didn’t dwell much in her mind. She was hoping this would be a mission that wouldn’t require her to use the black object under her seat. She really hoped it would be as simple as the briefing she had just read.
Bueze was eager to go back home and dwell on his new secret. The bus to the house was taking time. His dad had recently made a new habit of driving the Mercedes which hadn’t been the case in the past. He was looking out the window thinking of what the decision he had made three days ago meant. First, there was joy that he felt purposeful and useful in a picture bigger than the few pixels of his life. Words couldn’t describe or explain the peace the calm, stillness of his inner person. He felt like another person was living inside his body. This Being talked to him silently but the weight of the words that came weren’t misplaced on his attentive ears. He noticed he loved his family more and for the first time in his life didn’t see his parents as vending machines. He desired a relationship with them. After the joy, came the fear of what could happen to him if the wrong people found out what and who he had become. What overcame that fear was the belief that even if things went south here, everything would be lovely where he was going to. That thought process had been the course of events for the last three days. He couldn’t read his Bible in school for fear of being seen; he had to wait till he got home each day. There was also the matter of him losing interest in things that he liked before but now saw as filthy and sinful. The leader of these activities being a promiscuous lifestyle which had been his hobby but now was nothing more than a shameful memory to him. His sister had noticed it and his friend whom he was now afraid of hanging out with was also suspecting some psychological shift in him. He knew that if anyone would connect the dots of his life he was sure that his best friend would and at this point he didn’t know whether his friend would expose him. Looking at it from Imma’s point of view it wouldn’t be unthinkable to expose a friend who had become an outlaw. While he was caught up in his thoughts he felt the bus stop. He looked out of the window to see the familiar houses and the familiar junction. He dropped and looked at the three hundred meters he would have to walk in order to get to his house. He turned on his portable device, wore his earpiece and then accessed the hidden audio files in the device. Scott his computer had aided him in searching the
