The Chronicle of Belthaeous
by John W. Steele
Rodney Neumann, a brilliant student of mathematics, has earned a scholarship at Columbia University. After years of spiritual struggle he has adopted materialism as his personal philosophy. In graduate school, he studies under, Dr. Adrian Nacroanus, an eccentric scientist who heads the Department of Genetic Engineering. The doctor’s advancements in biotechnology have earned him a reputation as a near-mythological being. In time, he and Rodney form a master-student relationship based on deep theosophical insights that Nacroanus reveals to him.
Dr. Nacroanus has developed a serum called Eternulum that he claims will increase human longevity. But before he can bestow his gift on humanity he must retrieve a mummified angel named Belthaeous, who has lain entombed in the Cave of the Ancients for thousands of years.
Rodney and Nacroanus journey to the Himalayas to find the hidden entity. Deep in the mountains, Rodney witnesses miracles that shatter his understanding of reality and confront him with forces of ultimate malevolence.
Chapter 45: Tubes
The shimmering screen of energy dissolved, and the white matter began to fade. My vision darkened until I fell into an unconscious state. I know not how long I remained in this condition, but gradually I surfaced from a deep slumber. When I awakened, Belthaeous stood before me with his back turned.
We stood inside a huge tunnel. I knew immediately by the layout and design of this place that we had found our way to the Genibolic compound. A cylindrical support column bore a plaque with the number 24 embossed on the face.
I stared into the distance and cringed. Three Reptoid storm troopers were heading straight for us. I screamed to Belthaeous, “We need to get out of here now!” But it was too late. The soldiers were upon him, and there was no time to run.
Despite their threatening presence, they acted indifferent to us and passed through Belthaeous as if he weren’t there. When they neared me, I closed my eyes and waited. A feeling like a puff of cool mist flowed through me, and my ethereal body tingled. I turned and watched the guards continue down the corridor.
Belthaeous remained still. I walked around and faced him. “What the hell’s going on?” I asked.
It was the first time I ever saw him smile. “We’re still in the Astral,” he replied. We exist at the atomic level Our subtle body holds great awareness. No one knows we’re here. I can block our energies even from the Vulpeculans.”
“Where are we?” I asked.
“You know where we are,” he said.
“Okay, why are we here?”
“The time has arrived for you to understand where this abomination is heading. Beneath Level Seventeen, there are seventy-two floors in the Genibolic compound. Each one is nearly a square mile in area.
“Deeper still, five miles deeper, to be exact, lies the massive cave of Tartarus, Mammon’s Draco Reptilian incarnation on this earth. Tartarus rarely leaves his grotto. It is the command center from which he controls the affairs of the entire world. If he ventures from his cavern, something unprecedented is about to occur.
“The place we are about to visit represents the latest casualties in the war of essences. There are forty-seven floors beneath this level, each one filled to capacity. These areas are tended to by the biodroids who care for and maintain the theomorphic embryos.”
“What do you mean, ‘embryos’?”
Belthaeous ignored my question. “I warn you, you are not going to like what you’re about to see, but you need to be aware of the depth of Mammon’s depravity. Only the Reptoids and a few select personnel have witnessed what I’m going to show to you. Follow me.”
Like phantoms, we drifted down the hall until we reached enormous vaulted stainless steel doors. I was about to protest, but Belthaeous grabbed my arm and yanked me through the entry. I emerged on the other side of the gates, my mouth still attempting to form the words of my remonstration.
Inside the chamber, endless rows of clear glass cylinders stretched as far as the eye could see. The tubes were arranged in perfect symmetry, in clusters of six cylinders per group. Each group formed a pyramid composed of six groups, and each pyramid formed a monad six cubes high. A golden mist hung overhead, illuminating the vast ceiling of the cavern with a supernal radiance.
Atop the vessels sat a chromed cap that looked like an elongated lid of a thermos bottle. The cylinders were filled with a bubbling inky fluid the color of blood-tinged plasma.
I stared at the jars. “What is the purpose of these things?”
“The containers have been created to act as an environment to house the theomorphic awareness. In terms you can understand, I will refer to them as batteries. They are filled with a life-sustaining oxygen allotrope. Oxygen is required to sustain the body, but oxygen is poison to the spirit. Prajna energy cannot penetrate this gas, and electromagnetic fields are distorted and weakened in its presence. That is why Mammon chose to blanket his creation with this toxic element.”
Inside the vessels, traces of shapes could be discerned but the opacity of the fluid obscured their complete view. Belthaeous remained still and I pondered the meaning of the glass enclosures.
Like the needle of a galvanometer, a memory surged from the past. These vessels were nearly identical to the glyptography I’d witnessed in the Cave of the Ancients: a man encased in an amphora filled with a mysterious fluid.
Belthaeous read my mind. “You are correct in your assumption, Dr. Neumann. Nacroanus has allowed Mammon to imprison the Light on a grand scale. Eternulum is not only an anti-aging formula, it is a hallucinogen, as well.”
“I’m not sure what one has to do with the other,” I said.
“Tell me something, Dr. Neumann. What has mathematics revealed to you about the nature of electrons?”
I pondered his question. “When I was in college, I’d nearly proven that electrons act as engines harnessed to power the universe, as if they are held in slave-like captivity by the nucleus they serve.”
“But what is the force that powers the electron?” he asked.
“No one knows. It requires impossible amounts of energy to maintain the momentum of electrons in this universe, but we have not been able to discover where it comes from.”
“The energy required to sustain matter is stolen from the Divine awareness of the theomorphic consciousness. Without this energy Mammon’s universe would implode upon itself.”
Belthaeous raised his arm, and a fluorescent radiance illuminated the fluid inside the vessels.
My jaw dropped and I stood petrified with awe.
“Here are the newest additions to this power grid. They represent the work of the last decade.”
I drew closer to the jars and gazed at the contents within. Human hearts suspended in the core of the containers beat in a steady, even cadence. The vermillion fluid seemed to serve as the hematological plasma that sustained them. The plasma pulsed with energy that appeared to control the rate and rhythm of the myocardium. The fluid entered through the inferior vena cava and surged upward into the aorta. Traces of the carotid arteries could be identified but they were obscured by the chromed caps on the jars.
“This is sick,” I cried. “What is going on?”
“Once the heart and mind of the theomorph is imprisoned, its body is no longer needed,” Belthaeous said. “The Genibolic surgeons dissect the body of the specimen and preserve the heart and the brain in plasma titrated with Eternulum. The wet cells are housed in these biological containers where their every physiological activity is regulated.
“The brain and the sensory organs located in the head are encapsulated in the virtual helmets and fed a constant stream of data. The theomorph is not even aware it is in a state of synthesized awareness. It thinks it is alive. The Vulpeculans extract energy from the batteries as needed by altering the type and intensity of stimuli created by the circumstances of a virtual life programmed into the senses.
“None of this was possible on this scale before the advent of Eternulum. But now, Mammon has preserved over one hundred million Light Beings in the course of the last one hundred years.
“The specimens are procured from every section of the globe and every race. Hordes of demonic Enukai soldiers abduct beings of Light and bring them here in their time cruisers, where the Genibolic ghouls harvest their hearts and minds.
“Through the power of Eternulum, their life and awareness can be extended for a thousand years or more. When the essential organs begin to decompensate and their energy fades, they will be discarded.”
I felt nauseated and tried to puke, but there was nothing inside me and I suffered a bout of dry heaves. “That’s impossible,” I pleaded. “No one could endure such a fate. They would die or be driven insane. To be encased in a contraption of that nature is a fate unimaginable.”
“That’s exactly how I felt when I descended into the Matrix and assumed human form,” Belthaeous said. “In the beginning, it was horrible but, in time, one adapts. The Eternulum plasma, like the veneer of beauty on this earth, can be used to pacify the senses.
“Once imprisoned in the tube, a theomorph suffers virtual torment or ecstasy as Mammon sees fit. Their energy is exploited and those with the deepest Light are stimulated unmercifully. In time, most of them learn how to allow the demons to siphon their energy. Those who resist are fed to the Enukai.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks. “I cannot accept this. Is there no mercy in the counterfeit creation?”
“Only for those who worship the beast,” Belthaeous said.
The Avatar raised his hand to his ear. “Time has caught up to us. He peered into the distance. “They are here. You must choose your allegiance, Dr. Neumann. You don’t have much time, and Mammon covets you dearly. Give me the Eye. I am the only one who can enter the time portal and close it forever.”
The room began to dematerialize like the white noise on the screen of a television. Belthaeous flowed into the molecular mosaic, leaving a stream of glimmering particles in his wake.
The corners of my awareness curled and began to spin in a swirling motif of energy. The sound of a bull drum exploded in my head, and I awakened with a start.
I gazed up at the telescreen. The face of Nacroanus peered from the monitor. “Open the door, Dr. Neumann. It’s time for us to leave.”
I shot out of bed and slammed the entry button. Nacroanus stood in the annex surrounded by four reptilian storm troopers. He wore a black flight suit. His eyes burned with determination.
The guards towered over him like mighty Titans. Their full-body armor glimmered with the luster of onyx and, in their hands, they held the rods of power.
The largest of the trio gripped an enormous steel battering ram. One of the Reptoids tossed me a flight suit. “Cover your body,” he croaked in a low-pitched sough.
“We need to hurry,” Adrian said. “The day of the awakening is at hand.”
“I thought we had three more days,” I replied.
“In our world, crows are white. If you trust anyone in the new order, they will use that weakness to destroy you. It will be as written in the Chronicle of Belthaeous: ‘And their trust shall lead them into the pit of darkness’.”
“What about the data you needed?” I asked.
“The data is of no importance. A mind like yours needs to be occupied or it falls into the quagmire of reason.”
“Why did you batter the hatch down? You scared the hell out of me?” I said.
Adrian sneered. “It will be as it was in the days of the Blitzkrieg. The Gestapo knock in the middle of the night will shock the patriots and cause the brave to tremble.”
I shook my head. “This is inhuman.”
Adrian shot me an icy glare. “Why would you give a damn about anyone else? You’re one of us now... aren’t you?”
A hollow feeling consumed me. The dream was over and I would never have time to test my theory on the particle laser.
As usual, Nacroanus had won. Treachery had always been the crowning jewel of his genius. All hope evaporated. Only one burning question remained: What was my purpose in this nightmare?
Copyright © 2014 by John W. Steele
