Read The God Complex: A Thriller Online
Authors: Murray McDonald
The God Complex: A Thriller (42 page)
Sophie and Kyle kept their eyes fixed on the spot where Cash had last been seen, desperately willing him to fly back. Wake Island was over five hundred miles away to the north. Far too distant to see or hear if Cash had crashed or had changed his mind. All they could do was watch and pray that the plane appeared back.
“Whoa!” said Kyle, closing his eyes at the
sun-bright flash of light that filled the northern horizon and most of the sky.
The light died slowly, keeping the brightness on the horizon for some time.
“If that was a takeoff, maybe it means Dad’s okay?”
“That was one
giant explosion, not anything lifting off,” said the captain.
Joel tried to move into the pyramid but its vibrations threw him out as he struggled to steady himself with only one good arm. A crack sounded, which he was sure burst his eardrums, and a bolt of light erupted from the top of the pyramid and shot straight up into the sky.
H
is eyes followed the bolt, his mind realizing everything had stopped. The vibrations had stopped, the rumble and shaking had stopped. He walked towards the entrance, where he found Rigs stumbling uneasily towards him.
“Are you
alright?” asked Joel, struggling to help him with one arm.
“Yes, a few chipped teeth but I switched it off,” said Rigs.
“Not fast enough, I don’t think. Something just shot into the sky.”
“For my son,” replied Anya. “And his family.”
“Antoine, the toxin?” asked Bea urgently, realizing Anya’s intentions.
They were expecting the plane to crash into the platform and
Atlantis
, but it didn’t. Before Bea was able to register Antoine’s nod to hit ‘yes’ and thereby kill half the population, the plane exploded into light, engulfing the entire island and everything within fifty miles in a power so intense that everything simply ceased to exist, incinerated into oblivion. Anya had used her new fuel to devastating effect. The Nobles were gone, along with their transports and plans.
Cash was almost blinded by the explosion as he bobbed in the
ocean’s swells, safe in the A380’s escape pod. The rich really did have it all, they could even escape a plane crash. The pod’s sensors had inflated a raft as it touched down on the ocean surface, its mayday beacon pinging after already having pinged his remote location directly to the aircraft manufacturer the second his mother had insisted he eject.
Understanding the sacrifice he would make for his family to stop what they were doing had finally made Anya realize how lost in their own world the Nobles had become.
Her act had destroyed everything, far more than he would have achieved simply using the A380 as a guided missile. He would have upset their plans, she had destroyed them. Anya had finally realized, they had not created life, as Cash had pointed out to her, they had merely made a very slight alteration. That did not give them the right to decide life and death, like gods.
The last transporter was ready. The final few hundred had boarded. He stood and looked out on the world that had been their home for over five million years. Five million wonderful years. A civilization beyond equal, the most advanced they had discovered in the universe that they had explore
d.
He looked at their sun
. In the next few hundred years it would explode and destroy their world. It had kept them warm, grown their crops and given them life for five million years. He walked back towards the pyramid-shaped ship and with a final wave to his home, climbed on board.
“Ready,” he said to his crew
as he boarded. He had always wanted to be the last to leave.
“Sir
e, we’ve just received a signal, it says, ‘We’re ready to welcome you to your new home, the Nobles!’” said his pilot.
The King paused
. The Nobles, a name he hadn’t heard in a very long time.
“You’ve never met a Noble, have you?”
he asked.
The pilot shook his head.
“
Neither have I but my father used to tell me old tales. I swear he made most of them up. They were one of the families sent to find and create a new world. They were given a planet very far away. If I remember correctly, there’s only a window every two thousand years that you can even get to it. Our new home is far closer and was always the favored option but nobody told the Nobles. They were the biggest troublemakers we ever had, so power hungry and constantly trying to win favor and influence in the Senate by any means possible. They were always causing upset and unrest amongst our own people. We are a peace loving people, always have been. But the Nobles, never. They were godless warmongers. They were only sent out to find the new world in order to get rid of them; it took some time and I believe some ingenuity, but their ships had only enough fuel to go one way and their communications systems were nowhere near powerful enough to reach back here. The chosen planet, if I remember, was primitive. If they’ve created a world to welcome us to, trust me, it’s not one we’d ever want to go to, certainly not if they’re still there.”
“Do you want me to respond?”
asked the pilot.
“Good god no, they might track us to our new world, leave them on the one they created for themselves
!”
I don’t often feel the need to give background to my storylines, although I’m sure sometimes it would help with some of my more ‘out there’ thriller
s. However, a short while ago I stumbled across a book I had picked up on what had been a particularly miserable holiday in Portugal. Before the days of Amazon and Kindle, you had to pack your suitcase carefully, always ensuring there was plenty of room (and weight allowance) for the English language novels that would see you through your trip to foreign climes. Unfortunately, on that particular trip the boredom of the resort far outstripped the demand for reading material I had envisaged.
After scouring every newsagent
and store in the small and woefully inadequate village (excellent shopping nearby, according to the holiday brochure!) I came across one stand with, if I remember correctly, four English language novels, two flowery romance novels (I wasn’t
that
bored), one book I had already read and one other. A tome that was weighty enough to see me through perhaps a couple of days.
It
, as emblazoned on the front cover, offered proof of flesh and blood gods that had visited us in the past. I have to thank Portugal for its boredom factor at this point, as I’d have never picked up the book otherwise.
Gods of the New Millennium
(
GOTNM
) by Alan F. Alford was fascinating, certainly more so than the Portuguese resort, and sent my mind racing as fantastical after fantastical wonders of what the ancient civilizations had achieved were revealed. And that’s why I felt the need to add this note. The majority of the information I have written about the impossible size weight and intricacy of the stone work across the ancient sites is fact, not fiction.
There are stones at Baalbeck weighing up to a 1,000 tons having been cut, moved and placed with a precision that we would still struggle
with today. Unfortunately the tent outside is also there, complete with the glass cabinets, which I had the misfortune of being ushered into with a Jewish friend. That’s five minutes of my life I don’t want to ever relive. Pumapunka likewise is scattered with amazingly intricate stonework. Saksaywaman, huge stones carved to fit so precisely it’s as though the stones are fused together. The Great Pyramid at Giza in itself defies all logic that something built so long ago was so perfectly constructed, to the point we’d find it difficult to replicate even today.
There is
some debate as to exactly how we did evolve to where we are today so quickly and why for example would we lose body hair through evolution, only to have to wear clothes to stay warm?
The first half of
GOTNM
was fascinating and has to this day always made me wonder. The second half went off at a bit of a tangent and it’s no surprise the author has retracted a large portion of that section since writing it.
As for
The God Complex
and the Nobles, well there are a few families out there with a power and influence that has lasted many centuries. Okay, not millennia, or at least not that we know of! Joking aside, I really do hope you enjoyed the story and if so, please leave a review for others to encourage them to enjoy the ride too.
Many thanks, and thank you, Portugal!
Other titles by Murray McDonald
Scion
Critical Error
Divide & Conquer
America’s Trust
Traitor
(Young Adult
– The Billionaire Series)
Kidnap
Assassin
Please visit
www.murraymcdonald.net
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