THE SLIDE

Chapter 25 All In — Next

Part 2 | Mystery-Thriller, Fantasy, Crimes

“We made it, and this time with only two casualties,” Louie said.

“Come, Louie, Farha is in trouble. We need to bring the copper suit,” Ivanovich exclaimed.

Inside I feel calm. Outside, my body is twitching strangely.

There was a pop of light. Farha’s light body broke through the film into the worm like dark tube vortexes in the sky and exploded. Light went everywhere.

The explosion had knocked Farha to the remnants of the ancient town that had been duplicated. I’ve been here before, she thought. Her body was ghost like. She managed to stand. Uncle Tem was running towards her, yelling,

“I found him, I found him.”

Her plasma body collapsed in on itself and a light streamer shot out some sixty miles to the northeast back into her physical body surrounded by copper, mostly around her head.

The Courtroom

“You must remember and report,” Zed’s eyes pierced into Farha’s body.

“There are too many images. It’s too confusing. I, I, I cannot…” she feinted.

Ground-Zero

A massing of West-Confederacy Military Forces was entrenched holding the Berbers and the Bedouins near the edge of The Slide. The fire fights were intense. At night, lightning from the Slide shot out, taking out the desert fighters almost exclusively for one night. By the second night, the indigenous desert fighters had broken into small factions spread across a wider area. As a result of this strategy, the attacks from the Slide reached the established military, forcing them to retreat and regroup.

Medical

Three doctors, two healers, and a medical administrator were about to argue for an additional three days break when Farha said she didn’t need a long break. A longer break would increase her anticipation of distress.

A trip to dreamtime the night before assisted her with her decision.

Ground-Zero

In the night, a group of three Berbers and three Bedouins followed the border of the Slide along the desert, north, for nearly seventy miles.

The Berber, Hrez Azyuy, was a lone shaman who stopped abruptly, whispered in broken French, Spanish and Neo-Tamazight (a Berber language, off shoot of Tamazight). Immediately, all six drew into themselves because of the frigid temperatures. Hrez produced three misshapen stones from his inner garments, spit into them, dropped them at his feet, and squatted. They gave off heat, but no light. The others gathered around, huddled together around the stones of heat.

Hrez said, in all three languages at once,

“We wait.”

Day 2 — Testimony in Court

A and Q leaned back from the monitors trained on Izem on the witness stand. Q dialed back the projection machine. And glanced at her brainwave graph and nodded to Q, whereupon Q leaned over and spoke into Zed’s ear in the courtroom.

“You should see the perceptual cues in 30 seconds. Her mind is regaining a semblance of control. From 6 to 9 minutes into her testimony, she will be vulnerable to pressure from you. Q out.”

Do you take me for an idiot? Zed’s thought flooded Q’s mind with rage and stopped abruptly. Again, Zed was flaunting his power.

Farha’s entire body relaxed. She transformed herself into a dove and flew through the ceiling, maneuvering past each molecule in the ceiling and roof. As the dove, she flew into the sky and was free.

“Please proceed Ms. Izem,” the Magistrate suggested, using a form of a manipulative command.

“It was as it was before. The worm-clouds appeared above out of nowhere. They blotted out the sky and the light. It was like night. Some force pulled me out of the shell, that is this.” She pinched a fleshy part of her arm, and continued, “My light shot into the sky and exploded. I became lightning and traveled to the place when we first entered the Slide, that we did not not think it was the Slide, and where Tee was eaten by the chaos.”

“I was slammed into the ground by something like a giant heel. So, so, tired. I either fell asleep or I feinted. I woke up to the sound of a distant, familiar voice. It was Uncle Tem.

“He was repeating three words over and over. I couldn’t make them out. But it was definitely Tem. He was radiant with happiness. It reminded me of a photograph of Tem and Papa at our family home.”

“I saw the estate behind Uncle Tem and then I was yanked out of there. I remembered thinking — No, no, no… It was too soon to go. I craved to know more. I was yellow-white lightning, and I was back in my body again. Ivanovich and Louie pieced the copperhead fragments over and under my head. I felt so sleepy. They were talking but…” Farha stopped talking and took small sips of water.

“And,” the Magistrate insisted.

“The same thing happened again. I slept all day long until several hours before sunset when the worm-like clouds blotted out all the light. I was pulled out and sent to the shattered ghost town.” Farha was sweating, and she dabbed her brow with a nearby cloth. She guzzled the tall glass of water.

“It was Tem running up a dune. He was yelling, ‘I found him, I found him,’ and the very loud:

I found him.

“He was running so fast I was afraid he would not stop. Then I saw a ghost flickering next to him and then inside him, back and forth. I felt the Dark One. It was the Dark One beside and in Tem. Then I saw him,the face of the Dark One.

“It was Ra. Ra was next to my brother, I mean my uncle.”

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