THE SLIDE: PART 3

Chapter 37: Zed: part one

His Re-Birth

Recap

All of the Scarlet Service agents met in Zed’s Secret, secret office. The short agents were jammed into the small space.

“Sir, we have failed you,” Q spoke hurriedly. “We have assassinated none of those on the list.”

Zed paused, his face fattening and turning red. He exploded into raucous laughter. “As I recall (haw-haw-haw) most that were on the list died (haw-hah-haw) in this tragic disaster,” he managed to blurt out between laughing. Then, a pause, and more laughter.

The others joined him. And while they got carried away with laughing, Zed stopped abruptly and waited to see who would follow his cue.

A halted his laugh and stared at Zed a moment before looking down. The others followed suit.

“I need you all to find out who was not killed and use plan M to make them disappear. In the meantime, I will be on a 72-hour vacation. A will be in command. Dismissed.”

Normandy, Crique de la Mère

Zed arrived in the sleepy hamlet of Crique de la Mère on a small tributary to the Seine. There was a grocer and a bait shop. Tucked along the cove, was a huge dome-shaped structure in disrepair. It had three tunnels that jutted into the green murky water.

He recognized the other electric vehicle as belonging to Brigadier General Marie Bissett. He rushed through the entrance of the small structure. Startled, she nearly shot him. She apologized as did Zed.

“Did you bring a recordist?” Zed asked.

“Oui. He’s over there, in a heap, sedated until X comes.”

Zed looked at “the heap”. It was a boy, a teen.

“Who is he?” Zed asked and quickly added, “Forget it I don’t want to know.”

They exchanged human chit-chat. Zed stretched out and fell asleep while Bissett watched over the scene eating green apples and a bit of cheese.

Zed’s Origin Dream/Vision

Young Zed was traveling with his mother and father across the Upolu Sea from the outer islands to the Inja mainland. Upolu meaning “shallow” was 50 to 100 feet deep and subject to frequent unexplained disruptions in the sandy bottom. The boats that transversed along routes from various islands to ports on the mainland were flat bottom crafts with several centerboards to keep the craft stable.

It was a windless sea in the afternoon hour. The fifty passengers aboard were apprehensive because of the disruptions previously reported when a boat was becalmed. So, when breezes kicked up there was a collective sigh of relief.

It was premature. The breezes ceased. It was uncannily still. The taste of the air changed. An acrid odor filled the air. Some passengers vomited.

Waters churned and swirled. Six large black creatures came up from below. The two that hit the boat tore the vessel in half despite the design of the craft being meant to “hold together” in case of such an event.

A single larger creature emerged that was at least four times as large as one pair. The three pairs descended into the shallows amid bubbling waters. Young Zed, at four years, was pulled from his mother’s grasp and slid into the waters. The larger creature captured and appeared to swallow Zed. Most of the passengers and crew slid or fell into the chaotic waters and expired.

The creature glided along the surface of the water, a glistening mound of moving scales and flesh. Zed, unconscious, was neatly tucked into a nook and suctioned fast on one of her tentacles. The creature exuded a film around the boy creating a bubble of sorts. When the cocoon was finished she dove beneath the surface of the water to the sandy bottom where she swam by sucking in water and squirting it out. This gave the ancient one tremendous speeds and flexible mobility. Once in her circular lair surrounded by objects configured in sacred geometrical patterns, she began deeper telepathic contact with the boy.

I am Ombolo having survived for millions of your years. I have selected you to be my voice to your people the curious humans. Do you, oldest of souls, understand, comply with my wishes?

Yes, Ombolo, mother, I feel your love. I will serve you. You have chosen wisely, I hope, Zed thought.

What is this “hope”?

Hope is an uplifting feeling of what is expected in the future, Zed flowed with effortless thinking from his old soul self.

Ah, a human illusion. This concept of “time” is wrong. It interferes with truth and the survival of your species and with all beings everywhere.

The exchange went on for hours, days, weeks…

Ombolo brought him to an isolated shore, extending one of her longest tentacles onto the beach, and left him there.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Suni said. “I have a feeling about this one. He is special. What do the instruments say?”

The four observers scurried about the camouflaged post where they had a clear view of the boy.

“You may be right, about him being special,” the tallest assistant said. “Look at this.”

Suni picked up the paper feeds, nodding and “hmming”, “Yes, some scant evidence to support my gut feeling.”

They tagged him and brought him to the nearest village. He was eventually claimed by an aunt and uncle. At age six and then again at age thirteen, he was drawn to that beach. Under the cover of darkness, so came Ombolo for lessons and travel on the seas.

At age fifteen when he was deposited on the beach, Suni and his three assistants captured him and brought Zed to their secret laboratory. He was injected with particles into his bloodstream and given a drug to wipe his memory of what had happened.

X Arrives

When Zed woke he remembered, as he always did even when the first vision occurred, that he had had the drug and that Ombolo had absorbed the particles and was turned into an ally, X, for the SS. As am I, he thought.

“She is close,” Bissett stated flatly. “The recordist is in the wakefulness process.”

“Good,” Zed said, abruptly and fully awake.

Ombolo’s longest tentacle appeared. Moments later she arrived as c to Marie Bissett and X to Zed.

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Thank you for reading.

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