The room was sweltering. Anna turned the air conditioning unit to its highest level but the small room in which she was held prisoner was strangely efficient at trapping the summer heat. Luckily they provided her a small fridge filled with cold drinks that kept her hydrated. One of the Delega’s servants delivered breakfast in the morning but nobody had bothered to even speak to her since then. Boredom was setting in. The television cable connector was removed and she only had a few books to keep her company. Seth hadn’t bothered to visit since she refused to speak to anyone but his father almost three days ago.
She flopped on the carpet and started doing crunches, staring at the ugly yellow ceiling. The entire room was painted the same shade and though the brightness was supposed to lighten her mood, it was torture to be trapped within the screaming color without pause.
She sat up as steps stopped outside the door and the lock twisted. The door opened inward and a wrinkled man looked down on her. Vitori Delega looked older than she had remembered the last time they were in the same room almost half a year ago.
“You requested an audience,” he spoke slowly.
“I did,” Anna rose to her knees and then sprung up to a standing position. “If you want what was on Oak Island, then I am going to need some answers.”
“Very well, follow me.” Vitori Delega started walking slowly down the hall. His stride was small and careful. Anna thought a cane might help him but a man as this might see that as weakness. She kept pace with him but stayed silent. It surprised her when he spoke before reaching their destination.
“You’re a smart girl,” he said. “I saw it in the conference room last spring. It’s your eyes, alert, figuring things out. I knew you might be a problem then but Seth insisted otherwise.”
“Problem?”
“Too independent, like having a wild card in a game of poker. The odds change greatly. He insisted he could control you, he knew you, but I wasn’t so sure and look where we are now.”
“How could he have known me,” Anna followed him into the kitchen. Vitori sat down in a booth next to a large window. Outside, the sun shone over the flat land and the Delega’s ranch spread out to meet the horizon. She took the seat across from him. Immediately two women served them coffee and rolls, then scooted away.
“He studied you, your digs, your successes, your failures, your contacts, your friends, your family. He knew you as well as you did. He knew your tendencies, what you liked to eat, how you were with money, he even knew your passwords to your e-mail, bank, and social sites. But still he underestimated you.”
Anna thought she should be upset but that emotion never came. Neither did anger or the feeling of being violated. She just wanted answers. “Let’s get to the point here. What is the significance of the rose?”
“That is a long and complicated answer.”
“It would seem I have time.”
“You may, but your friends might not.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No, it is not. We know about Wallace but we didn’t know about his closeness with Rock and yourself until very recently. That was something my son failed to grasp. Others probably did not miss the connection.”
“The Coopers. You’re talking and Michael and Malcolm.”
“Those names mean nothing to me. But the people they work for, I’m sure would have that string tied together. I would have.”
Anna studied his calm measure. Arrogance shown through, just like Seth. But his eyes were distant, recalling some memory. “You were part of that organization, weren’t you?”
“I knew you were smart.”
“Then who are they?”
“What you took from beneath Oak Island, is what they have sought for thousands of years. And I do not exaggerate that timescale. They don’t seek the pieces specifically, but the knowledge they hold, and that’s what the rose is, just knowledge, nothing physical. They call themselves the keepers of the rose and you have it or so we think.”
“You must know what it is then?”
“Actually no, we don’t, we are only,” Vitori laughed to himself. “Hoping.” He smiled at her. “Believe it or not Anna, my son and I, all this.” He gestured around. “We’re not the bad guys here. I left that organization because I disagreed with what their vision was. I want to save as many as possible, they want only to save themselves.”
“What are you hoping is in the book, and what do they need saving from?”
“The information to continue life without returning to primitive times, that’s what’s in the book. Civilization has been close to this point before and was knocked back. Their gains lost to time and the following generations forced to start anew. We can reach the wall but never climb it.”
“Stop talking in riddles.”
“Time is a series of cycles, space and change march within those cycles. We have little control of those forces. But at the end of every cycle we have a chance to break it and hold our knowledge of the past, but only if we’re ready and that depends upon the people of that time. Our minds have the capability of learning incredibly quickly. Our survival depends on it. But with that comes the danger of not understanding what power we actually possess. There has to be checks and balances, something to keep us from destroying ourselves. It’s like giving a caveman a pile of dynamite and never teaching him anything about it. Something needs to be done so that he doesn’t blow up his entire clan. But we’re talking a much larger scale. We’ve termed it galaxial restraint. It’s a checks and balances for intelligent beings. And our cycle, once again, is just about up.”
Anna wasn’t positive what he was trying to say. His thoughts seemed muddled or there were missing pieces he had yet mention. “If there is this galaxial restraint, how would that specific knowledge ever be passed down,” she asked.
“We believe the idea isn’t to knock intelligent beings back to absolutely nothing but rather to slow down their gains, slow down their evolution of knowledge until they are ready to face the problem of galaxial restraint. When they can do that, they have proven that they can evolve to the next stage of life. Or as the Mayan’s called it, transition together to a higher state of consciousness. Each time we reach this point we are further than the time before, and when we fall, we fall less each time. Eventually, we will be able to tackle the problem and move forward.”
“You’re talking about Dec 21st, aren’t you?”
“Yes. We do believe that is the date things will being to happen and galaxial restraint will begin its march here on earth.”
“Now, I think you’re a nut.”
“Myth is largely based in reality.”
“Based, not is.”
Vitori Delega leaned across the table and stared right through her. “Anna darling,” he whispered. “How much do you know about Atlantis?”
Chapter 28
Tennessee, August 2012