The Revelation
Detective Harry Murphy had, just moments before, navigated the turbulent emotional currents of the frantic mob that had gathered outside his office door. Now, he found himself enveloped by the strange, almost unsettling silence and solitude within the familiar confines of his own small, eight-foot-by-eight-foot cubicle. The air, still vibrating with residual tension, seemed to press in on him. His gaze, weary but sharp, immediately snagged on an anomaly on his computer screen: an odd, insistent message, one he had never, in all his years of police work, encountered before. It flashed on and off, starkly proclaiming: “New Email Message – Click Here.” It was utterly unorthodox, a digital phantom beckoning. A strange current of curiosity, overriding his ingrained caution, prompted his fingers to click.
What followed was an immediate, astonishing immersion. The walls of his familiar cubicle seemed to dissolve, and the room was, quite literally, filled with the scene. He was no longer in his office but suspended, a ghost observer, above a sun-drenched street, witnessing with horrifying clarity the moment Kerry Albertson and her sister were walking, just before the white van appeared. Harry found himself utterly transfixed, paralyzed by the vivid, undeniable reality of the abduction unfolding around him. He sat motionless for the entire duration of the impossible viewing, and for long, silent moments afterward. His mind struggled to reconcile what he had just witnessed. Was this some incredibly elaborate, sick joke? A hallucination brought on by stress? Or was this… was this truly for real?
With movements born of profound bewilderment, Harry slowly made his way from his desk to the Captain Rico Sanchez’s office. His voice, when he finally spoke, was raspy, laden with a disbelief he couldn’t articulate. He brought his superior back into his own small cubicle, a space now charged with an undeniable, profound mystery, and initiated the playback again. Captain Sanchez, a man of hardened composure and a pragmatic worldview, was equally astounded. His face, usually a mask of weary authority, crumpled in a mixture of shock and dawning comprehension. He immediately barked an order for Detective Murphy to follow up. Murphy, his hands still trembling slightly, checked the van’s license plate displayed in the recording. And sure enough, it belonged to an Andrew Slogan. His mug shot from previous arrests, the home address, all of it matched precisely what had appeared with such impossible clarity on the screen.
The arrest was made swiftly, an almost surreal efficiency born of irrefutable, otherworldly evidence. Sanchez and Murphy were left in the abrupt aftermath, two seasoned officers now pondering the morning’s bewildering events, grappling with the fundamental how and the what that had just shattered their understanding of the world. The implications resonated, vast and unsettling.
The enormous, almost incomprehensible potential of OrTerra had just been dramatically played out, undeniably proven in the swift, miraculous recovery of Kerry Albertson. OrTerra, truly a recorder of history, revealed itself as a tool that, in the right hands, held the power to liberate the world from the insidious grip of all crime. It could lay bare every hidden injustice, every whispered deceit, a beacon of absolute transparency.
John, now back within the quiet, impossibly vast interior of OrTerra, the hum of its energy a low thrum against his newly refined senses, pondered these staggering new thoughts. The weight of his understanding pressed in on him, heavy and profound. It became terrifyingly clear that in the wrong hands, this power—this absolute clarity of observation and intervention—could just as easily be weaponized. It could be used to benefit only a select few, to control, to manipulate, leaving the rest of mankind vulnerable, utterly at their mercy. The thought was a cold shadow across his burgeoning sense of wonder, a stark realization of the double-edged nature of ultimate truth.
“Adju, I need your help!” John projected, his thought urgent, resonant within the shared space.
“Certainly, John,” Adju replied, his voice calm and knowing. “You are Ascendant. My purpose is to assist you.”
“No,” John clarified, his thoughts precise. “I mean… I need your advice.”
“Can you advise?”
“I can,” Adju responded, his voice resonating with a depth that suggested a comprehension far beyond mere programming. And perhaps he did know what John was thinking, the precise contours of the moral precipice upon which John now stood.
“This is an enormous amount of responsibility,” John mused aloud, the words a silent burden. “Not only have I witnessed a kidnapping, rescued the victim, apprehended and assisted in the arrest of the criminal—all of which is, wow, impossible to believe. But even more fascinating, I traveled in time to see the building of the pyramids in Egypt, the destruction of Rome, and what civilization was like millions of years ago.” He paused, the true nature of his dilemma solidifying. “You’re telling me I have a choice. I can be Ascendant, have control of this ship, and be the most powerful man in history with no strings attached?”
“Yes, John. You are Ascendant,” Adju affirmed, his voice unwavering, devoid of judgment.
“And if I walk away,” John pressed, the unspoken gravity of the question hanging in the air, “what happens?”
“Well,” Adju replied, a faint, almost imperceptible tremor of something akin to humor in his ancient voice, “I will be very bored. I am not programmed to seek out Earthlings; I must wait for them to seek out OrTerra.”
Now I know we’re not alone, John thought, the phrase echoing with profound significance, resonating with a cosmic loneliness now replaced by an infinite expanse of discovery. My goodness, what’s next? The question, however, was no longer rhetorical. It demanded immediate action.
“Adju, where is Samantha now?”
Instantly, the familiar imagery of OrTerra’s inner screen displayed Samantha’s car, a luminous projection. She was just minutes from her home, navigating the familiar suburban streets. Take me to Samantha’s home, John commanded, his mind already racing, formulating the impossible truths he needed to convey, the carefully constructed facade of his old life about to crack.
Back in the familiar quiet of Samantha’s neighborhood, the air tasted of late afternoon and impending evening. No one was immediately visible. The cul-de-sac was still, anticipating the settling dusk. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone around, so I’ll just de-stasis here on the porch and wait for her,” John mused aloud, the thought rippling through OrTerra. As his hand instinctively went to the amorganon, the familiar, inescapable weight of his physical form returned. The ethereal lightness of stasis was replaced by the dense reality of gravity, the solidity of muscle and bone.
Moments later, Samantha’s car pulled into the driveway, its engine a soft purr. She stepped out, her expression a mix of relief at seeing him and lingering confusion from their last strange exchange. The very first words from her lips, however, brought John back to earth with a jolt, cementing his decision: “Where is your truck?” John muttered to himself, a wry, internal acknowledgment: Well, I guess I’ll have to tell her the truth. “Let’s get into the house, Sam, and I’ll explain everything,” he said, his voice earnest.
He led her into the living room, a space now imbued with a sudden, profound significance, about to bear witness to an unveiling. “I want you to be sitting down when I show you something,” he said, his voice quiet, serious, “just in case you have a tendency to fall.” He held out the amorganon, its subtle gleam barely perceptible in the ambient light. “I’m going to put something on your wrist, and when I do, things are going to change. You’re going to experience a loss of your body weight. You’re going to feel like you’ve never felt before, and then I’m going to introduce you to someone. Are you ready?”
Samantha’s brow furrowed, a flicker of worry in her eyes, mixed with a growing exasperation. “Are you okay, John? You’re really not making any sense. Maybe you should be the one sitting down.”
“Please, Sam, just bear with me,” John pleaded, his gaze unwavering, imbued with the conviction of his recent experiences. Samantha nodded her head slowly, a gesture that conveyed more reluctant agreement than true readiness. “Okay, I’ll go along with this,” she finally declared, a note of brave skepticism in her voice. “I’m ready!”
As John gently placed the shimmering bracelet on her wrist, Sam felt an immediate, bewildering rush: a sudden, exhilarating loss of weight, a profound freedom from all her bodily functions, from the very constraints of her physical form. Her eyes widened with obvious shock, and she whispered, as though someone unseen might hear her, “What just happened to me?”
“I’ll explain,” John replied, his thought-voice calm, reassuring, now speaking directly to her mind. “But first, I want you to meet someone. Now, take my hand and walk a few steps!” As she tentatively stepped forward, her form now ethereal, she effortlessly moved through the physical confines of her living room and, in a breathtaking transition, entered OrTerra. Before her, standing in the vast, impossibly beautiful interior, was Adju.
“Pleasure to meet you, Samantha, I am Adju.”
Samantha was quite charmed by Adju, her initial shock giving way to an almost childlike fascination with the ancient, benevolent entity. And I, observing them, sensed that Adju, in turn, was equally taken with Samantha’s vibrant human spirit. To give her a taste of the impossible, to bridge the chasm between her reality and John’s newfound one, I (as John’s silent guide) took her on a small, yet profound, journey. First, a trip through the vivid tapestry of her own childhood, moments and memories played out around her in breathtaking three-dimensional clarity. Then, a quick, exhilarating trip out to the pale, silent moon and back, a cosmic ballet danced in mere seconds. It seemed to her like only a few bewildering minutes had passed, yet the Anaphero indicated it had, in fact, been a few profound hours before we brought her back, seamlessly, to the familiar comfort of her own living room.
“Samantha,” John began, his voice imbued with the weight of the moment, “this is truly enormous. It will take time for both of us to fully make sense of it. It seems wonderful and magnificent and, of course, utterly unbelievable right now. But on the other hand, it’s also the most powerful device ever created.”
He turned his thoughts to Adju, a question forming in his mind. Adju, can she keep this?
“You are Ascendant, John,” Adju quipped, his tone carrying a profound truth that transcended simple affirmation. The decision, the ultimate authority, rested with John.
John looked at Samantha, his gaze firm. “Keep this bracelet on you at all times,” he instructed, his voice low, urgent, “and don’t say a word to anyone. Not yet. I still have to figure a few things out on my own, to understand the full implications of all this.”
With a heavy heart, knowing the secret he was asking her to bear, John pressed the “off” button on Samantha’s bracelet, ending her brief, exhilarating journey into stasis and physical freedom. Then, immediately after, he pressed the symbol on his own. The familiar, inescapable weight of his body returned, gravity a sudden, heavy cloak. “You have to trust me,” he urged, his voice resonating with sincerity. “Don’t talk to anyone about this until I can figure out what to do. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
And with that, John was back on OrTerra. Within seconds, the vessel transported him back to his truck, parked precariously at the cliff edge where this whole impossible journey had begun. The drive back to Las Vegas stretched out before him, a long ribbon of highway. It became a time for profound contemplation, his mind grappling with the greatest day of his life, and the vast, uncertain landscape of what might lie ahead.
Adju had spoken of this astounding power, this OrTerra and all it encompassed, as: “a gift given to mankind with nothing asked in return except, a hope that mankind will, in the pursuit of knowledge, embrace truth and peace.” As John drove, the enormity of that statement settled deep within him. Even if he wanted to, he realized, he couldn’t keep this a secret. This wasn’t merely his gift; this was a revelation meant for the entire world, a profound offering for all mankind. The question that echoed in the quiet of his truck, beneath the vast Nevada sky, was stark, singular, and overwhelming: Where do I go now? What do I do?