 
# The Twelve Attunements

## Cassandra Sturdy

All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.

Copyright © 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016 by Cassandra Sturdy

First published 2012

Revised 2013, 2015, 2016

Cover art and design by Aurelien Pumayana Floret, www.pumayana.com

Character illustrations by Xilveroxas, www.xilveroxas.deviantart.com

Cover layout and interior formatting by Penoaks Publishing, http://penoaks.com

Cassandra Sturdy asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

ISBN-13: 978-1479107742

ISBN-10: 1479107743

www.cassandrasturdy.com

For Granpa, who was an eccentric philosopher who loved to look at the stars, who never took life too seriously, and who encouraged me to write.

#  Acknowledgements

My love and gratitude go to everyone who has helped or supported me to create this book over the years in all of its various evolving forms. To my sister Naomi, thank you for sharing the vision with me and, of course, for helping me to lay the foundation for the artwork that exists today. To Mum and Dad, for your ongoing love and support. To Bean, for believing in the story when I didn't, for convincing me to keep going when I would have given up, and for the proof reading and corrections. To Barbara, for your excellent editing skills and for answering all my silly questions. Thanks to you, I finally have a sense of completion with this book. To Alf, for letting me focus on the work. To my spirit guides, for helping me learn to believe in myself and in my creative skills. To Brook, for the brilliant cover image you created for the first edition. To Frank, for feedback, typesetting, and formatting. To David, Lizzy, and Tim, for feedback and corrections. To Angie and That Guy, for your help with the cover layout for the previous editions. To Aurel, for the new, beautiful visionary art cover. To Xilveroxas, for the new character illustrations. To Rachel and the team at Penoaks, for your help with the formatting.

And a special nod of thanks to Joseph Campbell, Christopher Howard, Duane Elgin, Brian Swimme, David Icke, Terrence McKenna, Rupert Sheldrake, Alex Grey, and Alfred Lambremont Webre for inspiring me.

# About the Author

Cassandra Sturdy is an Australian author and transformational coach. Her writing blends ideas about metaphysics, conspiracy theories, consciousness, spiritual awakening, and self-empowerment into action-packed, entertaining adventures. Her non-fiction and courses further explore some of these topics.

Cassandra has a degree in journalism and a background in mainstream media. She is passionate about storytelling and has studied story design with Pixar and Robert McKee. She has more than seven years of experience as a transformational coach and is certified in a number of transformational and metaphysical practices, including Master Practitioner of NLP, Results Acceleration Master Coach, NLP Trainer, First Degree Priestess, Core Shamanism, Reiki, and Hypnosis. She lives in Perth, Australia, with her son, Patrick, and her cat, Monkey.

" _New messages, new perceptions of ourselves, of the world, and of life, will inspire us to the new behaviour now needed to head humanity in a direction that honours life, love, and peace, leading to a sustainable existence on planet Earth."_

\- John Raatz

# Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One: The UFO

Chapter Two: The Arcturian Stargate

Chapter Three: The Low Frequency Field

Chapter Four: The Holographic Drive

Chapter Five: The Twelve Attunements

Chapter Six: Maintaining Control

Chapter Seven: The Gaian Rebels

Chapter Eight: Chi-Quan

Chapter Nine: The RFID

Chapter Ten: When LVBs Attack

Chapter Eleven: Intergalactic Activators

Chapter Twelve: One World Currency

Chapter Thirteen: The Eccentric Shaman

Chapter Fourteen: Plant Teachings

Chapter Fifteen: The Fallen Angel

Chapter Sixteen: The Handover

Chapter Seventeen: Moldavite

Chapter Eighteen: In the Akashic Library

Chapter Nineteen: The Last Grey

Chapter Twenty: Resonance Frequency

# Prologue

This may come as a surprise, but the universe you live in is just one of many. So many in fact, it's pointless telling you the exact number. Because it is simply unfathomable. They grow in little dome-shaped holders that sit on mantelpieces in offices that belong to transcendental beings. The transcendental beings grow the universes from scratch and guide them along, doing all sorts of fancy things to them and helping them unfold out of nothing into everything. Not only does this involve transforming quantum dust into matter and spirit, but it also involves guiding and overseeing every single soul in each universe to its full ascension, something that can take a soul many lifetimes to achieve.

One of the transcendental beings who do this is called El-Quan-Tem. While you don't really need to know what El-Quan-Tem looks like, given he's a transcendental being, you're probably a little bit curious, so I'll just give you a quick description.

Compared to other beings in his reality, El-Quan-Tem is small and short. He has shoulder-length white hair that ebbs and flows out of his head in spindly tubes of light, sparkling blue eyes (they quite literally sparkle), and skin that, when you look at it close up, has billions of tiny pixels dancing all over it, making a shimmery haze all around him. El-Quan-Tem is fairly old in transcendental terms, although it's pointless to tell you his exact age because that is as unfathomable as the number of universes there are.

El-Quan-Tem likes to wear a flowing turquoise suit with a long tail coat and dangling sleeves. But his clothes aren't made from fabric like yours are; they're made from light. That's because El-Quan-Tem is himself a manifestation of pure quantum potentiality at the highest vibration possible. Something to aim for, I suppose.

Given his profession, you'd think that El-Quan-Tem's office might be somewhat swish, with things like star-encrusted drinks bars and supernova-laced coffee machines in it. But it's actually quite plain and contains nothing more than a small desk, some bookcases crammed with old manuals, some shelves cluttered with models of colourful planets, and a cupboard filled with universe crafting apparatus (things like energy spinners, Akashic combiners, and quantum suffusers). Oh, and there's the mantelpiece, too. That's where El-Quan-Tem keeps the current batch of universes he's working on.

El-Quan-Tem's official job title is Universe Crafter. Throughout his career (so far), El-Quan-Tem has successfully crafted hundreds of universes out of quantum dust into pure quantum light, which is no easy achievement, even for a transcendental being. Most of the beings in El-Quan-Tem's realm have no idea of the amount of hard work involved in universe crafting. They think it's just a case of sprinkling a bit of quantum dust into a dome, adding the appropriate mixer, giving it a quick shake, and voilà—all El-Quan-Tem has to do is sit back and watch as a universe transforms by itself into twinkling stars and swirling worlds. But it is far more complicated than that.

For starters, El-Quan-Tem needs to know more universe crafting theory than you could shake a galaxy at. From metaphysics to multidimensional reality, and from the creation of single-celled organisms to advanced planetary algorithms, El-Quan-Tem is expected to know it all. Even then, there's no guarantee his universes will succeed.

That's because, nine times out of ten, the souls he is guiding in each universe will go and do the complete opposite of what he wants them to do. El-Quan-Tem can craft an energetic path for the souls that's so astoundingly clear and well-defined it may as well flash with neon-pink signs that say, _Your Ascension: This way_ , and the souls will still ignore it and veer off on mostly pointless tangents.

That's because whether or not the souls choose to ascend and how long they take to do so is their choice, and their choice alone. It can get more than a little frustrating for El-Quan-Tem and the other universe crafters as the souls keep going around in circles. The souls blame the universe crafters for this, of course—either that, or they just ignore them completely. In the end, you see, there is only so much a universe crafter can do.

Take the last batch of universes El-Quan-Tem crafted. There's always nine universes in every batch: obsidian black, ruby red, amber orange, topaz yellow, tourmaline green, azurite blue, amethyst violet, jade purple, and opal white.

El-Quan-Tem started this batch off like any other. He placed the dome-shaped holders out along the mantelpiece and got the pots of quantum dust out of the cupboard. He sprinkled the required amount of quantum dust into each of the holders and added the appropriate mixers. Fairly soon, each universe exploded into life. They were forming nicely and there was nothing to suggest that this particular batch was going to pose El-Quan-Tem any problems at all.

That was when he noticed something was wrong with the opal white universe.

_Sigh._ El-Quan-Tem had done everything by the book. He'd added the same ratio of water to quantum dust (the universe crafters always use water as the mixer for the opal whites) and left it to settle as the first stars and planets started bursting out. El-Quan-Tem had coded the DNA sequences through (not too fast, not too slow) and set all the proper geometrics in order. Then it had been time to begin the soul ascensions, so El-Quan-Tem employed all the necessary crafting techniques to enable each soul to raise its vibration and transform itself over its many different lifetimes.

That was when he noticed that several planets in the opal white universe weren't activating like they were supposed to. Activating, by the way, is when a planet that is home to intelligent life attunes itself to a higher vibration. The intelligent life living there is then able to become aware of other planets of intelligent life that are also attuned to that same vibration. It's how a universe awakens to itself. Without activating planets, a universe stagnates and the souls inside it can't continue their ascensions.

El-Quan-Tem didn't know what to do. Unless he could fix the problem soon, the problematic planets in his opal white universe ran the risk of holding up the entire batch.

It was in that moment that there was a knock at the door, and in walked El-Cos-Mol, a transcendental being who worked in the office next door to El-Quan-Tem. You don't really need to know what El-Cos-Mol looks like, either, though you might be interested, so I'll just give you a quick description of him.

El-Cos-Mol has fuzzy golden hair and bright green eyes. He's a bit younger than El-Quan-Tem (in transcendental terms), but again, there's really not much point going into it. El-Cos-Mol is skinny and wears a long purple jacket with a huge collar, a frilly white shirt, and very tight trousers.

"Hello!" said El-Quan-Tem, glad for the interruption.

"Greetings," said El-Cos-Mol, waltzing in with a glittery opal white universe cupped between his hands. "I'm having some problems with the planet Earth in my opal white," he said, setting the universe down on El-Quan-Tem's desk. "I just can't seem to get it to activate," he said. "Any ideas, old boy?"

Well, El-Quan-Tem nearly fell off his chair. Earth happened to be one of the planets he was having trouble with in his opal white universe, too. Every opal white universe the crafters create has the same overall design, so there's always a planet Earth in each one and it's always in the same place. If you look at the top right of any opal white universe, you'll find the Virgo Supercluster. Zoom down through that until you get to the Local Group, then zoom down through that until you get to the galaxy, just left of the centre. That's the Milky Way. In the Milky Way, there's a star in grid reference OW87/OW23. Earth is always the third planet out from that star.

Deciding that two heads were better than one, the two transcendental beings set their opal white universes down next to each other, got to brainstorming, and came up with a plan. Whipping out El-Quan-Tem's energy spinners, they crafted a wormhole from the upper layers of the atmosphere of Earth in El-Cos-Mol's universe to the upper layers of the atmosphere of Earth in El-Quan-Tem's universe. The wormhole linked them together. The idea was that humans from both planets would make contact and assist one another with their activation.

_Genius._ Or so the universe crafters thought. But the wormhole actually made things worse. El-Quan-Tem and El-Cos-Mol were beside themselves. Having exhausted every single crafting technique available, they were left with no choice. They would have to throw their opal white universes away and start again. That meant that every single soul in each universe would have to begin its ascension all over again, too.

It was in that precise moment that they noticed a human being on the planet Earth in El-Quan-Tem's universe. Her name was Sophie Archer.

# Chapter One

## _The UFO_

It was a Friday afternoon in mid-November, and grey clouds were hanging over the city of Melbourne, blurring the tops of the skyscrapers into the dull sky. Sophie Archer was sitting at her desk, which was located on the twelfth floor of the offices of _The Melbourne Star_ , a popular tabloid newspaper that had a reputation for printing everything except the news. She glanced around the office. Everything was exactly the same as it always was. There was nothing to suggest that anything out of the ordinary was about to happen.

Sophie's colleagues had the usual vacant expressions glazed across their faces as they tapped and clicked away at their computers like zombies. News of doom and gloom was blaring out of every one of the six television screens that loomed over the newsroom floor, and the clock was taking just as long as it always did to tick to 5 p.m.

Sophie sighed. Aside from the usual restlessness that comes with being stuck in the office on a Friday afternoon, she was feeling anxious about a story she'd handed in earlier that day. The editor had asked her to write a political piece on Rod Morgan, a candidate running for prime minister in the upcoming Australian federal election.

A front page piece. Sophie had felt privileged to write it, particularly because she had only been working at the newspaper for six months. She'd worked incredibly hard on the piece, staying up until the early hours of the morning for two weeks, rewriting and rewriting again until it was perfect.

But it wasn't the writing Sophie was anxious about; it was the angle she'd taken. After much research, Sophie had concluded that not only could Rod Morgan not be trusted, but that he was part of a secret group of global elite that included bankers, CEO's of major corporations, royal families, and other politicians, all of whom had joined forces to control the world from behind the scenes. They would stop at nothing less than total global domination.

She knew this sounded far-fetched, but after much research and late nights surfing the Internet in her one-bedroom apartment, Sophie had found out (and it wasn't that well hidden) that this ruthless bunch were holding meetings two to three times a year in secret locations, the doors to which were always closed, and the minutes and records to which were always encrypted. Sophie wondered what were they talking about and why they were keeping it so secret from the general public.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Sophie had found out all sorts of questionable things about this group, like how they were flooding third world countries with mountains of debt, rigging elections, manipulating the global economy, and rolling out plans to set up a one-world government called The New World Order. Sophie knew it had been a risk to take the angle she'd taken. It wasn't the sort of thing _The Melbourne Star_ normally published, but people deserved to know the truth. Besides, it was about time the newspaper published some real journalism instead of the usual drivel.

Sophie Archer, was twenty-six years old and had wavy caramel hair that fell down past her shoulders, blue-green eyes, and a warm smile. Not the sort of person to go in for things like fashion or brand names, she usually wore blue jeans, a T-shirt (often with a slogan on it), and an old pair of black and white runners.

After she had finished high school, she had spent some time searching for something meaningful to do with her life, a job where she could make a difference. NGO's, charity work, teaching—Sophie had considered everything, trying this and that, but no matter what she'd come across, nothing seemed to ignite her inner spark or give her the sense of purpose and belonging she was looking for.

And so it was that Sophie had turned to journalism. At least that way, she'd thought, she could write about things that mattered, get the truth out, and shape the world. Upon finishing her degree and getting a job as a journalist, however, she had come to realise that the things that mattered weren't always top priority in the mainstream media.

Instead, Globe-Net (the corporation that owned _The Melbourne Star_ and most of the other mainstream newspapers around the world) preferred to run with the latest celebrity scandals, sensational sports hype, and anything else that suggested the world was superficial and hopeless. Day after day, the news never really changed. The stock markets went up and the stock markets went down, another famous person hit the front page for another scandal with no bearing whatsoever on anybody's life, and another footballer disgraced himself. Journalism like this was hardly the meaningful career Sophie had envisioned. She even had a sneaking suspicion that if they just printed the same newspaper everyday and changed the names nobody would actually notice.

"We're doing the best we can," a charming voice said from the television, "to make sure our citizens keep living the way they're accustomed to."

Sophie looked up to see President Fox Rockenfeld's handsome face staring out from every screen around the newsroom. With dark brown hair, piercing hazel eyes, and a chiselled movie-star jaw line, Fox Rockenfeld was widely regarded as being not only the most popular American president of all time, but also the best looking. He had an annoying habit of acting like he also knew this, Sophie thought. He was forever parading around in stylish, tailor-made suits and dark sunglasses, as if he thought himself more rock star than politician. And judging by the way he was posing smugly in front of the television cameras now, today was no exception.

Rockenfeld was standing on the tarmac in front of an aircraft hangar at Area 51, the military base in Nevada where he liked to spend most of his free time testing military aircraft. (He also happened to be a qualified test pilot.) He was dressed in his Air Force One jacket, jeans and dark sunglasses. A journalist was holding a microphone under his chin, asking him questions about a new Internet threat and intelligence warnings.

Sophie leant forwards, trying to catch Rockenfeld's response, but just as he started to speak, someone yelled her name across the newsroom floor.

"Archer!"

Sophie turned around. The editor, an older man with grey hair and rubbery skin, was standing outside his office door pointing a piece of rolled-up paper at her like a baseball bat. "Get in here," he yelled. "Now!"

Sophie walked across the office floor, already regretting she'd handed the story in. Why had she been so stupid as to think he might actually consider it?

Not one of her colleagues looked up to see what all the fuss was about. They were all too busy staring into their computer screens. As a consequence, no one paid much attention to the next news report, either, not even Sophie. Like the rest of the news, it wasn't particularly factual. Yet nobody (not even the journalists) would have been able to guess its full implications and what it heralded for the world.

A friendly-looking journalist was standing in front of a model of a big, yellow banana, describing how someone had sighted a UFO in the tourist town of Coffs Harbour on the East Coast of Australia earlier that day.

Ray and Dave, a couple of Coffs Harbour locals with wild beards and tatty T-shirts, had been wandering past the Big Banana on their way back from the pub when a large, silver, disc-shaped object had whooshed down from the sky and stopped above the famous tourist attraction. It had hovered there for a few seconds, then flown off.

"Perhaps the aliens were doing a sight-seeing tour of the East Coast?" the reporter joked after Ray and Dave finished retelling their story (in a slightly drunken manner). The news reader in the studio thought the whole thing was hilarious and commented that perhaps Ray and Dave had just drunk one too many. Then the news reader moved on to the next story: new fears about another global economic meltdown.

Sophie smiled timidly as she walked past the editor into his office, a dull place filled with celebrity gossip magazines and half-eaten doughnuts. The editor slammed the door shut behind her, walked over to his desk, and sat down in his leather chair. Still armed with the rolled-up paper, he stared fiercely at her.

Realising it was her article, Sophie took a deep breath and sat down in the chair opposite him. She waited for him to speak.

"I'm not even going to tell you why this won't go into print," he said, waving the rolled-up paper at Sophie in a threatening gesture. He tossed it across his desk like a piece of rubbish. "Rewrite it and have it back on my desk before you go home tonight."

Wondering if there was any point trying to argue with him, she picked it up. "Don't you think we should be telling the public about this?" She had always thought this was the point of journalism. Unless she had missed something somewhere along the line.

Sighing, the editor picked up the nearest doughnut and took a bite as he considered Sophie's question.

She glanced over his shoulder and out his office window at the grey buildings that rose up through the city like tombstones. She could also hear the cars beeping impatiently in the smog-filled streets down below. And she suddenly remembered a dream she'd had the night before. A bizarre abstract being made of golden light with crackling dreadlocks and a sparkling cloak had appeared and introduced himself as Apex. It was one of those dreams where you think you're awake, but then you wake up and realise you must have been asleep. She could only remember bits of it now, but she was sure Apex had asked her to prepare for something. A journey of—what had he called it? Awakening? And something about trusting in El-Quan-Tem? Whatever that meant.

A bright light flashed between two of the buildings outside. Sophie blinked. _What was that?_

"This newspaper," the editor was saying, his mouth full of half-chewed doughnut, "is pro-Neocon." He was referring to the political party in power in the United States. "And that includes politicians here who are associated with them. Like Rod Morgan."

Sophie couldn't believe it. She'd had her suspicions that there was a preferred editorial stance, what with Ralph Murphy, Chairman and Founder of Globe-Net, being close friends with President Fox Rockenfeld. But she'd never thought the editor would just come right out and say it. So much, she thought, for unbiased journalism. "But our readership relies on us to tell them what's going on," she protested. "That's our job, we're not political side-takers."

The editor shook his head. "The sooner you realise you can't change the world, Archer, the better." And with that, he shooed her away with his hand.

But Sophie didn't move. For a brief moment, it was as if time were standing still. For a brief moment, it was as if reality might unravel into one dimension or another. And then, almost as if there were some greater force guiding her that she couldn't explain, Sophie knew there could be only one outcome.

"Well, then," she said, getting up to leave, "I quit."

And just as she said these words, a curious thing happened. A jolt of energy whooshed through the crown of her head and all the way down her spine to her toes. She wondered what it was, but it seemed to subside as quickly as it had arrived, so she dismissed it and walked back across the newsroom to her desk, where she collected her belongings and left.

Not one of Sophie's colleagues looked up as she left. The editor was the only person who watched her go, and he didn't say a word to stop her. She was young and naive, he thought, it wouldn't be too long before she came to her senses and learnt the real ways of the world. He had forgotten, of course, that he had once been like her, young and with similar values and ideals. In fact, that had been why he had gotten into journalism in the first place—to get the truth out, no matter what. But over the years, a numbness had crept in...an apathy towards life. His existence had grown so regular, routine and monotonous, it was as if he had fallen under a hypnotic spell from which he would never awaken. And what was even worse, he no longer even remembered he had ever been any different.

Clutching her box of belongings and regretting her sudden rashness, Sophie jostled her way through the bustling crowds of workers on the sidewalk down below. What was she going to do now? What if working at _The Melbourne Star_ had been her one and only chance and she'd just blown it?

Her mobile phone rang. She was fumbling in her purse for it when a man in a suit rushed past and almost knocked her down. Swearing, she answered her phone. It was her landlord, "just giving you a courtesy call, my dear, to let you know your rent is going to increase." He was very sorry, but he couldn't cope with the rising interest rates any longer. He would understand if Sophie wanted to move out.

She stopped at the next pedestrian crossing. To the east of the city, a pastel peach sky shone through grey clouds over the Dandenong Ranges National Park. That was what she needed. Trees, nature, peace and quiet. She would get out of the city and go camping for the weekend. Get some space to think.

Something glinted above the mountain range and then was gone again.

What was that? She remembered the light she'd seen earlier from in the editor's office. Surely it had just been a ray of sunlight glinting off the wing of a plane. But she hadn't seen any plane. She wondered if she was going insane.

Across the street, the walk signal began to flash. As Sophie stepped out onto the road, a fighter jet rocketed overhead. That must have been what she'd seen. No doubt the government was spending more money on the military budget. Heart disease killed twenty million people every year, and terrorism had so far killed less than one per cent of that number, and still the government kept using terrorism as an excuse to spend valuable taxpayers money on weapons and warfare.

A cool breeze was blowing through the air as Sophie arrived at the campground at the national park. She threw her backpack onto the grass and glanced around at the willow trees and boulders that framed the camping area. Even though she was just a few kilometres outside the city, the campground had something about it that made her feel like she was far away from civilisation. She was pleased to see she was the only one there. Good, she thought. She'd had enough of human society for the time being.

She made her way over to the willow tree where an old rope swing hung. The sun had just set and the cicadas were chirping loudly. All those years, Sophie thought, slumbering in the darkness to make that long climb up through the dirt for a brief moment in the light. She wondered if it was worth the effort.

Sitting in the old rope swing, she began swinging back and forth, watching the leaves of the willow twirl around her. She began to wonder what she was going to do. She didn't want to end up being just another worker in the system, wasting her life away, doing something she cared nothing about for someone she knew nothing about. She wanted to do something meaningful. She wanted to make the world a better place. Most people, she knew, weren't satisfied with their lives but had surrendered to a numb resignation. But life could be so much more, couldn't it?

She sighed. Maybe it couldn't. But change was possible. Wasn't it? She sighed again. Maybe it wasn't. Earth certainly did seem to have a lot of problems stacking up on it. Climate change, global debt, energy and resource problems. It was as if humanity were going backwards instead of forwards, and nobody really seemed to know what, if anything, to do about it.

She peered through the willow leaves up at the sky, where a handful of stars were now shining. Were there other planets with intelligent life on them out there?

Of course, you'd think that if the average human being stopped to consider this for a minute, the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone, combined with the number of galaxies in the known universe, would lead them to conclude that they probably weren't altogether alone.

Sophie continued to reflect on this. And if other intelligent life did exist elsewhere in the universe, she asked, was it messing its planet up as much as humanity was messing up Earth?

Somewhere nearby an owl hooted softly.

"Universe?" Sophie whispered to an invisible force, although she didn't really think anything or anyone was actually listening. She didn't realise that extremely close-by, two small beings were sitting in their tiny spacecraft waiting for her to utter a single word.

"I don't know what to do anymore," Sophie said aloud. "Please help me."

And with that, another whoosh of pins and needles surged through her body, top to toe.

Wondering again about the source of this strange sensation, she just shrugged her shoulders and finally put it down to being tired. She scuffed her feet along the ground and the swing came to a halt, then she got up and made her way over to her backpack. She had to put her tent up before it got too dark.

It was just then that a faint, low-pitched humming began sounding around the campground. It was unlike anything she had ever heard before. It sounded like...well, like a faint, low-pitched humming.

She looked around. Everything had become incredibly still. The cicadas had stopped chirping, the breeze had dropped off...it was as if the national park were anticipating something. But before Sophie had time to ponder the subtle interconnectivity of Earth's energy fields, a ball of light suddenly appeared in the middle of the clearing.

About the size of a grapefruit, the ball of light was hovering two metres above the grass, nonchalantly at first, and then (when it could be sure it had gotten away with this) it began to move. Slowly at first, it bobbed gently over the campground, as if following an invisible dot-to-dot pattern.

Sophie gasped. The grass was moving too. The blades were dipping down and curving around. They were forming some sort of design.

Realising she was watching the formation of a crop circle, she tried to come up with a rational explanation for what was happening. Who could blame her? Sophie had grown up believing the universe was fixed and solid. Because of this, a shiny orb weaving its way over a field and making the grass below bend into patterns troubled her immensely. She had always assumed that crop circles were made by drunken teenagers out late at night.

The orb finished its work and started zooming over the clearing as if doing a victory dance. Faster and faster it moved, making Sophie feel uneasy. Was it going to explode? Should she hide?

She made a run for the nearest willow and ducked behind it, peering around as the orb continued dancing. By now, it seemed to be whipping itself up into a frenzy. It grew so bright that Sophie had to look away. She watched the light reflected on the willow leaves instead, still wondering what it could possibly be. And then, like a candle flickering out in the wind, the light was gone.

Sophie listened for the humming noise. That had gone too. There would be a perfectly logical explanation, she thought. Probably just a military exercise or something. Having decided this, she made her way back out into the clearing.

But she didn't get very far.

She froze. Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw now. Well, actually, that's a figure of speech. Obviously something could have prepared her. A little book titled _How to Prepare for What You Are About to See_ could have dropped down from the sky. Possibly opened to the odd diagram or two. And Sophie could have read it quickly and prepared herself. But in a figure of speech sort of way, nothing could have really prepared her. Because there, suspended five metres above the ground, slap bang in the middle of the clearing (and only just fitting between the willows) was a large, silver UFO.

She had definitely gone insane, she told herself, and she was glad to have reached a conclusion. What she didn't realise, though, was that in that particular moment, she was in fact the sanest she had ever been in her entire life. Her journey of awakening had just begun.

# Chapter Two

## _The Arcturian Stargate_

At least two minutes had passed. The fact that the UFO was still hovering in the clearing combined with the ever so casual way in which it was doing it caused Sophie to start questioning her insanity.

Shiny and smooth, the UFO had a flying saucer shape and was about the size of a bungalow with a dome-like area on top. Sophie screwed her eyes up, trying to see if she could see anyone (or anything) in the dome, but it was too dark. She examined the rest of the spacecraft. It had three rows of circular windows dotted around it like cabin windows on a cruise ship, and there seemed to be a logo, a spiral of some sort. How strange, she thought. Aliens surely didn't have logos, did they? This thing must be a human vehicle, after all.

She was just trying to work out what to do next when a beam of blue light shot down from the bottom of the saucer and illuminated the crop circle below.

The sensible thing to do at this point, thought Sophie, would probably be to make a run for it. But she couldn't run. Whether because of mere curiosity or from some deeper intuition, she was glued to the spot. And then she gasped as something appeared at the top of the beam. Two small shadows had emerged. They were hovering in the beam...and Sophie could see one thing for certain: they were not human.

Aliens! Real, live, actual aliens. About to abduct her, most likely, and perform all sorts of horrific medical experiments on her.

But then she got a better look. It couldn't be.

The two aliens were three-foot tall, animal-like creatures that looked like a cross between a mouse and a kangaroo. They had pointed noses, pairs of round ears, two hind legs, two front paws, and springy tails. They didn't look like the stereotypical aliens Sophie had seen in movies and magazines. And that wasn't all. One of the creatures was bright yellow. The other was royal blue.

Sophie looked around the clearing. There had to be a camera crew hiding there somewhere filming it all. But if there was, she couldn't see any sign of it.

The two creatures continued to hover in the beam of blue light in such a nonchalant way that one would be forgiven for thinking they did this sort of thing all the time, like, it was perfectly normal, everyday hovering-down-to-Earth business. But when they got to about one metre above the ground, they stopped moving.

Sophie froze. Had they seen her? She gulped, hardly daring to breathe.

The creatures seemed oblivious to her. The yellow one was busy kicking the side of the beam, the blue one was scratching his chin. They were stuck.

Sophie couldn't believe it.

Then, without any warning, the beam blipped off and Yellow and Blue tumbled down to the grass, landing in a tangle on top of one another.

Sophie smiled. Creatures as clumsy as these surely couldn't pose much of a threat, even if they were aliens.

"That piece of junk!" Yellow exclaimed in annoyance, getting up and shaking a paw up at the saucer. Then he checked his reflection in the mirror-bright hull, styled his plume of green hair back into place, and struck a pose. "I'm tellin' ya, Rodge," he said, lending a helping paw to his blue friend, "they oughtta give us something better for this kinda work. These standard fleet models are _so_ lower dimensional."

Sophie was astonished. Not only was the creature speaking in English, but he sounded like he had an American accent. What was going on?

"Given current budgetary constraints," Blue replied in what was more of a proper and academic English accent, "that is highly unlikely."

Blue looked older, Sophie thought. He had the air of a professor about him with his silvery fly-away hair and the spectacles perched on the end of his nose. And both of them, she noticed, had a glittery haze shining around them. What were these creatures? Where were they from?

"At least your circle's okay," Yellow remarked, scurrying around the pattern in the grass and inspecting it more closely. "This'll give 'em something to think about! Reckon y—"

He was about to say how much he thought his colleague's artistic talents for circle making had improved, but he stopped mid-sentence.

And Sophie froze. There was no doubt this time. He was staring straight at her.

It was difficult to tell who was more surprised. Zalzibar Thermoil was an Arcturian, and although he'd been watching over Sophie her whole life, this was the first time he'd ever seen her watching him back.

Sophie was equally, if not more, surprised. It was one thing to see a UFO, another to see an alien, altogether another to see an alien that looked like a brightly coloured kangaroo-mouse hybrid, and then to hear it talking in an American accent.... Had her curiosity not been so great, she probably would have fainted.

Blue, now busy polishing his spectacles with a snowy white handkerchief, looked up to see what had caused his usually very talkative colleague to suddenly go quiet.

"Good gracious!" he exclaimed as he spotted what Zalzibar was looking at. He clasped his blue paws together in a prayer-like gesture and dipped his head in a bow before elbowing his yellow colleague. Yellow bowed, too.

By now, Sophie was gob-smacked. What were they doing? She dipped her head awkwardly in response, unsure what the correct etiquette in such a situation might be.

Blue whispered something to Yellow (Sophie could have sworn she heard him say something about manners), and then they both started walking towards her.

Sophie ran back behind the willow. Should she run away? Who and what were these creatures? And what did they want? What might they have planned for her? Suddenly more curious than fearful, she stuck her head back around the tree.

"How you doin', kid?" Yellow was now standing less than a metre in front of the tree. He was also jumping up and down in excitement.

Blue was behind him, waving in such a way that suggested he was embarrassed by his friend's behaviour.

Sophie came halfway around the tree. She had the strangest feeling she'd seen these creatures before. But where?

"Hi," she sputtered. "Um... _who are you?_ "

Yellow bowed. "Zalzibar Thermoil," he replied. "And this's my buddy, Rodge!"

Blue cleared his throat politely. "That is Roger Von-Fonstein," he said, correcting his yellow friend.

Sophie didn't move. Zalzibar Thermoil? Roger Von-Fonstein? What kind of alien names were those? "And um, what are you?" she asked.

This question was perhaps more pressing than mere names.

"We're ANGELs," Zalzibar replied. "From Arcturia. At yer service," he added with a wink.

They didn't look like any angels Sophie had ever seen in the famous paintings or even heard of.

"Wait a minute," said Zalzibar, realising what Sophie was thinking. "We're not those fluffy-cupid thingies that flutter about and harp on about love and eternal divinity and live in pastel clouds. Nah. We're real ANGELs."

"Right," said Sophie.

"It's an acronym," Roger interjected. "It stands for Advanced Nurturing Guide of the Energetic Light. And it is our pleasure to finally meet you in person, Miss Archer."

Well, _nothing_ could have prepared Sophie Archer for that. Not even a whole library of books falling down from the sky with pop-up instructions and cart-wheeling flip charts. Her perception of reality had been brushed away in less than fifteen minutes, and all she had left was a blank canvas of utter confusion. Though she didn't know it yet, this was an existential ordeal she would come to experience a lot more often. Such was the nature of the journey she had just embarked upon.

"How do you know my name?"

"We are your guides," Roger replied with a knowing nod.

Zalzibar nodded, too.

"My guides?"

"We're from the higher dimensions," Roger said. "We're currently stepping down our vibration to match yours. We're communicating with you—I believe the proper word is 'talking'—via energetic transference."

"Oh." By now, Sophie was wondering if she had inhaled some fumes from some sort of hallucinogenic plant as she hiked into the campground.

"You are decoding this energy in your mind," Roger continued. "Translating it into your own subjective reality. We've never been allowed to transmit directly to you like this before; but because you consciously asked for our help, we're allowed to make ourselves known to you. And offer our guidance." He gave her his best reassuring smile.

"Oh. Sophie had officially reached the bifurcation point, which is the point at which you give up trying to work out what's going on and just accept whatever is happening because to try and understand things from your current level of awareness (which is _clearly_ quite limited) is a complete waste of time.

"Anyway," Roger said, pulling a large, golden pocket watch out of an invisible pocket, flipping open the lid, and consulting it, "we really ought to hurry." He looked up at the sky, then down at the watch in his hand again. "Oh dear! Oh dear!" he said, "We shall be too late!"

"Late for what?" Sophie was still trying to process what was going on.

"Get you back, of course," Zalzibar said in a very matter-of-fact sort of tone.

"Back where?" Now she was starting to panic. When she had asked for help from the universe, this wasn't exactly what she'd had in mind.

"My Giddy Aunt!" Roger suddenly exclaimed, nudging Zalzibar and pointing up at something in the sky.

Two lights were trekking high over the city towards them.

Zalzibar saw what Roger was looking at. "Holy El-Quan-Tem!"

"Miss Archer." Roger sounded flustered. "We must get you on-board right away. We will explain everything to you en route." He held out a blue paw for her.

She gave the blue paw a blank stare and retreated back behind the tree. Was this even happening? Who in their right mind would choose to get on a spaceship with two talking aliens? Let alone multicoloured ones that looked like kangaroo-mouse hybrids. She stuck her head around the tree again. "I...um," she began, "I have...a few things I need to be getting on with, actually."

"Hey, kid," Zalzibar said, "it's cool." He also held a paw out for her. "It's all taken care of. Under control. We got yer rent increase covered, emails drafted out to yer friends 'n' family sayin' you've gone travelin. We got updates 'n' everything all set to go."

"You've done what?"

"Zalzibar!" Roger was now standing on tip-toes and pointing his nose up in the air like a meerkat on guard duty. "We shall be late."

Zalzibar turned around. The two lights were almost directly above them. "Yo, kid! Please!" He was doing a frantic jig.

Sophie retreated back around the tree, then stuck her head around again. "I can't go with you," she said. "I'm sorry." She couldn't go, and that was that. She didn't know either of these creatures from a bar of soap, not to mention she might be hallucinating.

Roger released a sound that is best untranslated.

Two black, triangular aircraft swooped down from the sky and roared just above the trees.

"Aurora Stealths!" Sophie suddenly recognised the aircraft. They were the same type of plane President Rockenfeld liked to fly, special hypersonic aircraft the American military used for important missions.

But what were they doing in Australia? Were they hunting for spacecraft?

"Come quickly!" Roger reached around the tree for Sophie. "Please come!"

"C'mon, kid. Let's go already!" Zalzibar tugged on Sophie's jeans.

"Just go!" Sophie stepped backwards. "Quick! Or they'll catch you." She knew the American military would want to take the aliens away and run experiments on them.

The Aurora Stealths rocketed across the clearing again, and a shower of red lasers zapped down like fireworks on the spacecraft.

"Argh!" Zalzibar came round the tree and hid behind Sophie as the lasers hit the grass, setting patches of it on fire.

Sophie swore. If she stayed here, there was a fairly good chance she would end up toast, but if she went with these strange creatures...then what? Reluctantly, she realised (for the second time that day) that there could be only one outcome.

"Okay. I'll go."

"Great work, kid!" Zalzibar grabbed her hand in his paw and pulled her around the tree.

"Ready?" Roger asked. He looked up at the warplanes again.

Sophie nodded.

"Go!" yelled Zalzibar.

The three of them ran across the clearing towards the spacecraft, dodging licks of leaping flames. Sophie scooped up her backpack as she ran past it. They reached the bottom of the spacecraft, but the beam was still off. Roger and Zalzibar tried wiggling around on the spot, but it seemed that neither of them had thought this far ahead.

The Aurora Stealths were plummeting back towards them, their engines louder and louder.

Zalzibar put his paws over his eyes. "Pray to El-Quan-Tem!"

Sophie screamed and closed her eyes. She was about to get fried to death.

"Thank El-Quan-Tem for that!" gasped Roger as the sound of the Aurora Stealth engines faded to a high-pitched ringing.

Sophie felt her feet lift off the ground. She opened her eyes. The beam of light was back on and they were rising up through it. Everything she could see had turned an iridescent blue. Zalzibar wiped his yellow paw across his brow as the hatch clunked shut beneath them.

Sophie forgot the Auroras. She was overtaken by the interior of the spacecraft as they moved upwards. It was like being in a lift shaft, only there was no lift. She and her new friends floated up past archways leading off into brightly coloured hallways that were furnished with bookcases, paintings, and potted plants. It was actually rather cosy, she decided, not what she'd thought the interior of an extraterrestrial spacecraft might look like. It looked, in fact, rather like her grandmother's cottage.

The beam finally brought them up to the top level. Roger hopped out of the beam.

"Just step off, kid," said Zalzibar as he hopped off, too. He held out his paw for Sophie.

She took a deep breath and stepped out of the beam, swaying on the spot for a moment as she regained her balance. "Wow." She looked around. Judging by the high-tech panels flashing and whirring around them, they were on the bridge. At the front of the spacecraft (assuming it was the front; it's hard to tell on a circular vehicle) a row of steps ran up to a platform where three pilot seats were mounted in a cockpit-like area, complete with two steering wheels on tall columns and a long window. Just below this was an open plan living area where a handful of purple beanbag chairs were scattered around on an orange shag-pile rug. She could also see a desk and a bookcase, both of which were brimming over with maps, charts, and navigational instruments. It all looked a bit like the _Starship Enterprise_ , Sophie thought, albeit a smaller, friendlier, version.

"Welcome aboard the _Pegasus Galactic_ ," Zalzibar said as he made his way towards the cockpit. "Your exits are here, here, and here," he chuckled and waved his paws as he scurried over the shag-pile rug and ran up the steps. He hopped into the pilot seat on the far left.

Roger, meanwhile, had scurried over to a locker and was rummaging around in it. "That will have to do," he said as he jammed it shut before making his way up to the cockpit. "Come along, dear child," he said to Sophie. He sat in the seat on the far right. "We put this seat in especially for you," he said as he pointed at the seat in the middle. It was slightly larger than the other two.

"Uhh...thanks." Sophie sat down and clicked her seatbelt in. This must be a dream, she thought. There's no other logical explanation.

Zalzibar pulled on a pilot headset and started flicking switches. His half of the cockpit was papered with pictures of small flying saucers with racing patterns on them, plus several photos of himself holding trophies. Roger's side was neater, though there were two pieces of paper with some complex looking squiggle-like equations on them taped to the dashboard.

"Prepare for take-off," Roger said as he reached across to a silver panel in front of Sophie and swirled one blue paw over it. A blue dot flickered up on an oval screen mounted above the panel. "The UPS is on," he said to Zalzibar.

Something above Sophie's head caught her eye. When she looked up, she saw a crowd of multicoloured figurines dangling from the ceiling. Gold, purple, crimson, green...they were somewhat abstract in form, and as Sophie tried to focus on them, they morphed into different shapes. One of them—a sparkly golden one—looked strangely familiar. Where had she seen this before?

"So long, lizards!" Zalzibar pulled his steering column towards him.

Sophie's head sank down into her neck and she clutched onto the sides of her chair as the spacecraft zoomed up into the sky.

"We have lift-off!" Roger said, unnecessarily, Sophie thought.

Below them, the clearing was shrinking, and within seconds, Sophie could see the national park fading into the outer suburbs of Melbourne, then there were just the lights of the city, then the skyline. Then all she could see was the outline of eastern Australia. What had all seemed so daunting earlier that day, she told herself, was now becoming rather insignificant in the greater scheme of things.

As they continued to rise, everything on the bridge began to rattle. The locker Roger had just closed burst open and a couple of newspapers rolled out, along with some postcards and a yellow souvenir key-ring from the Big Banana at Coffs Harbour.

Sophie looked at Zalzibar. Was this a normal part of the flying experience? Should she be worried? He seemed perfectly relaxed.

She had to ask. "Does it usually make this much noise?" She'd always imagined flying saucers to be smooth and silent, but this one sounded like an old wreck, like it was about to fall to pieces.

"It's all perfectly fine, kid!" Zalzibar yelled back. He looked more closely at the blue dot on the oval screen and adjusted his steering column. "Frikking fractal beams!" he exclaimed, looking at the oval screen again.

Two red triangles had just appeared below the blue dot.

"Rodge, we're bein' tailed," he said.

"Oh dear me." Roger looked at the oval screen. "We're still eight super-strings away from the stargate. Well, I'm switching the anti-gravity on now. We'll have to jump it." He reached to his right and pressed a big, red button.

The spacecraft shot upwards even faster. As her body sank down into her seat, Sophie felt extremely heavy again. The land below was getting smaller and smaller, and she could see all of Australia and New Zealand as they climbed higher towards Earth's stratosphere. Behind her, another locker popped open and things exploded out of it. The noise from the spacecraft was so loud now that she was sure it was going to explode, too.

Zalzibar yelled something.

"What?" Sophie yelled back.

He yelled again, but she still couldn't hear.

And then...silence.

"Stabilised," said Zalzibar. He pushed a lever down.

"Thank God for that," Sophie said as her weight returned to normal. Outside, clouds were moving over the window, parting every few seconds to reveal a deep blue horizon which was gradually becoming more and more curved.

And then...they were there.

"Wow!" Sophie had never seen anything like what she was seeing now. It was like looking up at the stars when you were down on Earth, only they surrounded her in every direction. And she suddenly felt very unsupported, like she was going to fall away into nothing. It occurred to her that the universe had no right way up or down, and that Earth was just hovering there in the middle of it, as if the whole planet could just drop away into oblivion if it wanted to.

Zalzibar moved the steering column back to its neutral position, and the _Pegasus Galactic_ swept off at an angle, bringing Earth into full view below.

It was a remarkable sight. A beautiful blue marble with swirls of white clouds floating over it. A single thing, a ball of life, nurturing everything on its surface as it spun delicately in the celestial plane. Seeing the planet like that, all at once, Sophie thought as she looked down, made her realise how it was all just one interconnected thing.

The spacecraft moved off at another angle, and rays of sunlight came glinting over the top of the planet, shining over it like a halo.

_Crash!_ Red lasers went streaking past the window, and the _Pegasus Galactic_ jerked sideways, flinging everyone to one side in their seats.

An alarm sounded below decks.

"Those damn Aurora Stealths!" Zalzibar looked anxiously at the red triangles creeping up the oval screen towards the blue dot.

"But they can't fly in outer space!" Sophie protested. There was no way the Aurora Stealths could have followed them, that was impossible, they weren't built for space. She'd never read or heard any news reports about this.

"Kid," said Zalzibar, "there's a lot you haven't been told. Rodge, coordinates!"

Roger nodded and reached across to the silver panel again. When he swirled his paw over it, a line of numbers and letter flashed up on the screen. "587D, 517T to 849D, 419J," he read.

"Well, folks," said Zalzibar, "hold on to your hats." He pulled his steering column back.

The spacecraft leapt forwards.

_Crash!_ All the lights in the bridge began blinking on and off.

"Why are they firing at us?" asked Sophie, thinking it was typical of humanity to attack something they didn't understand.

"Long story, kid." Zalzibar adjusted the steering column and pushed a lever up.

"The stargate is still five super-strings away," Roger said as he tapped one of the instruments on his side of the cockpit.

Zalzibar looked up at the figures dangling above Sophie's head and whispered something to them under his breath. For a second, they seemed to glow.

_Crash!_ Maps and charts cascaded out of the bookcases.

"Is there anything I can do?" Sophie asked, feeling totally inadequate, just sitting there.

Zalzibar looked across at Roger with the sort of look on his face that, if he were your pilot, would be of particular concern. "We gotta go up to the dome and fend them off."

"Preposterous!" Roger pulled his steering column to the left. "Someone needs to stay here and fly the spacecraft. There's no way the autopilot will cope with these attacks."

"I'll fly it!" Sophie couldn't believe the words had come out of her mouth. She didn't know how to fly a spacecraft.

"Are you sure?" Zalzibar asked.

"Yes. I think so."

Roger shrugged his shoulders. "Lock it onto the stargate," he said as he unbuckled his seatbelt. "Then all she has to do is hold us on course."

"Yes, do that," she said. What had she gotten herself into?

Roger made his way over to Sophie, placing a blue paw on the arm of her chair to steady himself as he pointed at the oval screen in front of her with the other paw. "That's us," he said, pointing at a blue dot at the centre of the screen. "And that's where we're going," he said, pointing at a silver circle flashing above it.

"You'll have to fly from my side," said Zalzibar. He took off his headset and handed it to her. Then he unbuckled his seatbelt.

Sophie scrambled over to Zalzibar's chair. She tugged the seatbelt over her lap and put the headset on. Both were very tight, and all she could hear through the headset was a high-pitched mumble-beep.

"Good luck, dear child!" said Roger. With a few gestures at the displays, he scurried down the steps and scrambled through the mess rolling back and forth across the floor.

Zalzibar jumped after him.

"Wait," Sophie called. "Where are you going?" She hadn't realised they were going to leave her alone.

"Just follow your intuition," Zalzibar called back. "Trust the universe!"

And with that, he and Roger hopped into the beam, which swept them up towards the ceiling, where they disappeared through a hatch that shut behind them.

"Bye, then." Sophie gripped the steering column as tight as she could. "First I meet aliens, then I'm attacked by the military, and now I'm left by myself to fly a spaceship."

_Crash!_ The spacecraft rolled to the right.

Sophie swore and looked at the oval screen. It's just like a computer game! All I have to do is pretend the steering column is the controller. I have to nudge the blue dot into the silver circle.

She looked out the window again. Stars stretched out to infinity, space was so vast. She knew they were travelling extremely fast, but it didn't feel like they were moving at all...everything was just as far away in space as it was when you were back on Earth. How could the universe be so big? It was unfathomable.

And then she saw something that made her blood curdle. Up ahead, right where the silver circle indicated the stargate was supposed to be...right there was a massive black hole.

Sophie had never seen a black hole. No human has, at least not in real life. But she figured the gigantic void of swirling darkness was a fairly good indication that this was what it was.

Is that the stargate? Am I supposed to fly the _Pegasus Galactic_ through this? It'll crush us to pieces! No, this has to be a mistake. Maybe Roger put the wrong coordinates in? Maybe the black hole just sprang up here? "Guys!" she yelled out. But the hatch had long since closed.

_Crash!_ More alarms went off. The steering column flew to the right all by itself. Wrenching it back, Sophie wondered what to do now. If that really was the stargate, and she steered around it, the Aurora Stealths would blast them to smithereens. But surely it was better to take their chances with a couple of interstellar planes than a black hole?

She took a deep breath. Calm down. What was it Zalzibar had said? Just follow my intuition? Trust the universe? How? She looked up at the abstract figurines dangling above her head. They seemed not to have a care in the universe. As she looked at them, a thought struck her. Maybe humans were wrong about black holes. We were wrong about aliens.

_Trust the universe_. It was as if she could hear a voice within her, somewhere inside herself she had forgotten existed, and now it was guiding her. _This is your path_ , it seemed to be saying. _This has always been your path. Take it. There is more to reality than you can possibly imagine. You will be okay. Trust the universe._

Holding the steering column steadily in both hands, Sophie stared fiercely into the void before her. Yes, I'll fly the _Pegasus Galactic_ through it. She closed her eyes, and as the tremendous web of magnetic gravity engulfed the tiny saucer, it leapt forwards at warp speed.

Surrendering her fate to a greater force, what Sophie felt was relief. For the first time in her life, she knew she was on the right track. Not only that, but she felt connected to something that went far beyond her individual self. _This was her purpose_. This was where she belonged. At some level, she knew these creatures, she knew this path. Her whole life had been building towards this. All she had to do now was hold on and keep going.

Another tingle of pins and needles rushed down her spine, but she barely had time to think about it before everything went black.

# Chapter Three

## _The Low Frequency Field_

When Sophie woke up, two beady eyes were staring directly into hers. The face containing the eyes was so close in fact, they were nose to nose.

"Argh!" She sat straight up and whacked her head on the headboard behind her.

"Argh!" Zalzibar toppled off his stool.

Sophie rubbed her head and wondered where she was. Her mind was hazy. And then, it all came flooding back: The orb... The crop circle... The UFO... The aliens... The Aurora Stealths... The black hole...

Zalzibar climbed back up on the stool. "Sorry, kid. I was just checkin' ta see how you were." He sounded slightly embarrassed.

"What happened?" Sophie looked around the room. She had been tucked up in a bed in a room that had metallic pink wallpaper and a silver plastic chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Beside the bed stood an antique chest of drawers that looked like it had belonged to somebody's great aunt. A brass reading lamp and a purple figurine stood on the top. Sophie squinted at the figurine. It looked just like the ones she'd seen hanging above the cockpit on the _Pegasus Galactic_. She was just about to enquire what it was when she noticed the green curtains drawn across a window at the foot of the bed.

"Ya went out cold," Zalzibar explained. "Lost consciousness. Quite normal when ya go through yer first stargate...but you get used to it after a while. We carried you in here when we docked. You've been asleep for about eight hours."

"Really?" She didn't feel like she'd been asleep for that long.

"Space-lag."

"Oh." She swung her legs over the bed and made her way over to the window. "Where are we?"

"Halfway between Earth and Arcturia," he replied. "On a space station."

Sophie pulled back the curtains and gasped. Stars glinted like jewels in every direction. Down below, a jetty-like runway poked out of the space station. The runway was brightly lit up in red and blue lights. A handful of spacecraft that looked a lot like the _Pegasus Galactic_ were zooming along one side of the runway before whizzing off into space as others were coming back along the other side before disappearing under the window, presumably to dock.

A door behind Sophie swished open. She turned and saw Roger come scurrying through, his silver fly-away hair standing up on end between his ears.

"Ah, how are you feeling dear child?" he asked, studying her through his spectacles.

"Okay, I think," she said. In truth, though, she had a terrible headache and was feeling quite sick. But in the scale of things, being sick didn't seem to be really all that important. "Please, can someone tell me what's going on?"

"Of course." Roger looked at Zalzibar and winked. "Follow us, dear child, and we'll explain everything."

"As you already know," Roger began as the three of them made their way down a windowless corridor painted yellow with green polka dots, "we are your guides and we were sent to collect you."

Sophie nodded, trying to listen whilst simultaneously trying to take in the warped style of interior decorating the Arcturians had employed throughout the space station. "Sent by who?" she asked as they turned into a brown corridor with orange and yellow swirls on the walls and ceiling.

"By El-Quan-Tem, who—" Zalzibar said.

"Whom you haven't have heard of," Roger interjected, "but who happens to be the most important being in the entire universe. And _of_ it, too," he added in a philosophical tone.

"But who is this El-Quan-Tem, then?" Sophie asked.

Zalzibar slapped himself in the forehead. He'd known his whole life that Sophie didn't know who El-Quan-Tem was, but the thought still shocked him like he'd only found out yesterday. Everyone in the universe, he thought, should know who El-Quan-Tem was. In fact pretty much everyone in the universe did know who El-Quan-Tem was. Well, he amended this thought, not humanity. He launched into an explanation.

"El-Quan-Tem's the steamy froth in yer carasopia tea first thing in the morning." He began waving his yellow paws around dramatically. "El-Quan-Tem's the beat in yer jazz tune late at night. He's the particles streamin' over yer spacecraft when yer loopin'-the-loop through an interdimensional stargate. And El-Quan-Tem is—" Here he stopped short. Now that he had to explain it to someone else, it was actually quite difficult. "Never mind," he muttered.

Ah, yes. Everyone has their own unique way of expressing it, and the metaphors have run through everything from drops of morning dew on wild flowers to pendulums of eternity swinging through time. All of it is very profound. And often quite poetic. But Zalzibar's explanation is nice, and, besides, it's grounded in everyday reality, meaning, it just goes to show you don't need to paint an entire chapel to express something that is really quite obvious. Although you could if you wanted to.

Roger decided to give their guest a slightly more scientific explanation. ""El-Quan-Tem is the force that creates and guides a universe from infinite potentiality to full activation. El-Quan-Tem gives rise and form to all things and permeates all stars, planets, and beings."

Sophie had to work hard to understand what Roger had just said. "That's who you work for?" she asked as they walked underneath another plastic chandelier. "An all-encompassing and invisible abstract entity?" What with the questionable interior furnishings and the bizarre job descriptions of her new friends, she was beginning to wonder if these guys might be a few incense sticks short of a meditation room.

Zalzibar, clearly not getting her sarcasm, looked at Sophie and grinned. "You got it, kid!"

Sophie smiled awkwardly. Perhaps, she said to herself, it was best to keep her thoughts to herself until she had further information.

They walked out into a purple entrance hall. The first thing Sophie saw was the multicoloured, baroque-style chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Opposite, an archway opened into a tube filled with blue light.

"Incidentally," Roger asked, coming to a halt beneath the chandelier, "what do you think of the place? We designed it with humans in mind. The conditions here mirror Earth in terms of oxygen and gravity, but we also factored humans in when it came to practical things such as height and furnishings. We've done our best to make you feel at home," he said, smiling proudly.

Zalzibar nodded.

"Oh...gee...it's lovely." What else could she say?

Roger smiled, then scurried across the room to the archway and hopped into the blue tube. Zalzibar turned to Sophie and gallantly held out his paw.

"So you breathe oxygen, too?" Sophie asked, as they wafted down the tube of blue light. She felt herself swaying ever so slightly from side to side, but other than that, the beam was relatively stable.

"No, silly," Zalzibar said in the sort of tone that suggested she really should have known this already. "We're quantum. We ascended past breathing gas for energy way back."

Sophie nodded. "Of course."

"I suspect it will all take a bit of getting used to," Roger told her as they drew level with another floor and he led her out of the tube and through another archway. "Many questions will surely arise before you feel like you have any real answers."

"No kidding," she muttered.

And with that, they all made their way down another curiously decorated hallway.

They stopped at an orange door. "Here we are," Roger announced. "My dear, I must just warn you," he added, his tone now deadly serious, "you will not like everything you're about to learn. But this is a necessary part of the awakening process."

Wondering what he meant by this, Sophie watched as Roger stepped up to a panel beside the door and waved a paw over it. The door swished open and Sophie and her two guides walked into the room.

Several Arcturians were working away. An orange Arcturian was sitting at his desk and leafing through a pile of what looked like architectural plans as, nearby, a green Arcturian was sitting at a computer and scrolling through information that looked suspiciously like the results of a Google search. In the middle of the room, three more Arcturians were huddled around a table covered in models of missiles, fighter jets, and space shuttles. They were picking the models up and inspecting them before scribbling their observations on their tablets.

But if Sophie thought any of this might be peculiar, it was nothing compared to what she saw when she looked toward the back of the room. There, hanging on the wall, were fifty-odd photographs of human beings, each one labelled with a squiggle. A scary feeling began to creep through her stomach as she realised who the people in those photos were. Here on an Arcturian space station, she was staring at the same group she'd been investigating before she'd quit _The Melbourne Star_ ... the secret group of global elite.

She recognised Donald Darpen, Prince Oliver-Langley, Doug Icke, Ralph Murphy, and the rest. She didn't know them all, but she recognised most of them. And dead centre, smiling as charismatically as always, was none other than President Fox Rockenfeld.

"What the hell is going on?" she asked.

Zalzibar made a strange mumbly-beep noise to the others and they all looked up. After staring in awe at Sophie for a few seconds, they began nodding at Zalzibar. He nodded and mumbly-beeped again, and they understood. Collecting their belongings, they shuffled silently out of the room.

Roger immediately scurried to the back of the room and pulled out a stool for Sophie. "Please, dear child, come and have a seat."

She followed him and, taking a deep breath, sat down. Roger and Zalzibar stood in front of her, each with a grave look on his face.

"Everything you have been told about your world is a lie," Roger said flatly. "Your religion. Your history. Your science. Two thousand years ago, your planet was covertly invaded by interdimensional beings. Using their advanced mastery of energy and technology, they secretly infiltrated human society and gained positions of power. Then they installed a low frequency field over your world."

"What?" Surely, Sophie thought, he wasn't being serious.

"This low frequency field," Roger continued, ignoring her interjection, "cuts Earth off from the higher dimensions and keeps humanity stuck at a lower vibration. So they cannot see or interact with Universal Society, which operates at a higher vibration in the higher dimensions."

"What do you mean by 'vibration'?" Sophie asked. This was sounding very complicated.

Roger nodded. He'd prepared this lecture very carefully. "Each being is an individual field of energy vibrating at a certain frequency," he explained. "Lower-level energy vibrates at a low frequency and is dense and heavy. It's usually associated with negative thoughts and emotions, such as sadness and fear. Higher-level energy, on the other hand, vibrates at a high frequency and is fine and light. It's usually associated with positive thoughts and emotions, such as happiness and inspiration. And this is why the interdimensional beings controlling your planet are using a low frequency field. Beings are easier to control at a lower vibration, you see. They're more susceptible to limited thinking." He folded his paws and waited for her to react.

Sophie stared at him blankly. Low frequency field? Interdimensional beings? Vibrations?

He continued. "This low frequency field also acts as a barrier to the life force of the universe. Earth has been disconnected from the life force and has been unable to replenish its energy. Which is now manifesting in planetary crisis."

Sophie pressed her lips together. He couldn't be serious! There was no way aliens could have invaded Earth without anybody noticing. "But...but...wouldn't we have seen them?" she asked, now surer than ever that her new friends were a few stars short of a galaxy.

Both Roger and Zalzibar shook their heads.

"They're able to project the vibrational frequency of a human being," Roger said. "They do this to disguise their true form, which resembles a large lizard. They are known throughout the higher dimensions as the Annunaki."

Sophie tried not to laugh. Earth certainly had a lot of problems stacking up and many people were certainly lacking in the brains department, but was this because of a low frequency field created by large lizard-like aliens? No no no, it was too far-fetched.

But Zalzibar nodded. "And humans think they're all alone," he said, his eyes drooping like a sad puppy's. "They don't realise there's friendly higher-vibrational beings out here in the rest of the universe. And humans can't tap into their full cosmic potential 'cuz they're stuck at a low frequency."

Sophie didn't know what to say. This was quite possibly the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. But, then, she reminded herself, earlier that day she probably would have said the same thing about Roger and Zalzibar, too.

"The reason the Annunaki are doing this," said Roger, "is because they refuse to be part of El-Quan-Tem's cosmic society, where each and every being is aligned with the ascension process. By cutting themselves off and using the low frequency field, the Annunaki think they are freeing themselves from what they believe is a dictated way of life."

Zalzibar nodded. "It means they don't hafta take responsibility to raise their vibration and transform themselves."

"They also believe that by utilising Earth to achieve this outcome," Roger said, "they are doing humanity a favour and freeing them from El-Quan-Tem at the same time."

"And that's not all," Zalzibar stuck in.

Sophie looked at her friends in disbelief. There was more?

Roger nodded. "We have evidence to suggest that the Annunaki are planning to stage a massive false flag attack against the citizens of Earth. False flag attacks are when a government carries out an attack on its own people and blames somebody else for it. We don't yet have the full details, but we have intelligence that suggests the Annunaki are planning to carry out a false flag in several countries simultaneously, killing millions whilst making it look like higher-vibrational entities are the perpetrators. Aside from the lives lost, humanity's collective vibrational frequency is already so low that an event like that might push it to a point from which it will never be able to recover. Earth will be permanently disconnected from the higher dimensions forever."

"Yeah," said Zalzibar. "We think they wanna repeat the same process with other planets, too."

Sophie didn't know what to say. She must be dreaming. This couldn't be real. Lizard-like aliens staging a false war against humanity? Interdimensional beings using a low frequency field so they could disconnect themselves from an all-encompassing life force? "But surely," she ventured, "surely there would be records of such an invasion?"

"Destroyed," Roger said. "The Annunaki have planted false evidence about the history of Earth. And all sorts of disinformation about science, the universe and the nature of reality."

"But—" Sophie was trying to hold on to the last few threads of her belief system. She was about to say that if such a thing really was happening, _somebody_ would have worked it out. _Somebody_ would have done something. But now that she came to think about it, everyone was so incredibly distracted, it was as if the whole world was walking around in a trance. Was this because of the low frequency field? Was this because of the Annunaki? Earth was, after all, just one tiny planet in a seemingly infinite universe that, now that she began to think about this too, surely must, by sheer odds alone, be teeming with life. And some of that life was bound to be older than humanity and therefore more advanced, and surely this more advanced life had developed advanced warfare strategies such as this sort of thing...

The horrible feeling continued to creep up through Sophie's stomach and rise into her chest. She studied the photographs again. Now she was feeling quite sick.

Roger, recognising that Sophie was now entertaining the ideas he'd given, decided it was only a matter of time before the harsh truth finally set in. "Their leader," he said, "who goes by the name of Ahmkarah, has taken many human forms over the years." He paused. "He is currently taking the form of the American President, Fox Rockenfeld."

Sophie gulped and stared up at the centre photograph. Was it true? Seeing them all together like that, there did seem to be something eerily similar about their faces.

"Does it not strike you as odd," Roger continued, "that humanity has always thought itself alone in the universe?"

Sophie thought back over her life. She had always felt disconnected from something, although she'd never been able to work out what that something was. She'd assumed it was just her, but those in positions of power did always seem to favour their own factions, only ever offering band-aid solutions that promised their re-elections, maintained their power, or maximised shareholder returns. And, more often than not, she realised, this was at the cost of the masses, the environment, or both. She had often wondered how one species could create so many problems for itself. Now she was beginning to understand. Humanity hadn't done that creating. The Annunaki had.

She gasped. Black oval slits had just appeared in Rockenfeld's photo, slits flickering through his pupils.

Roger stepped forwards and laid a paw on Sophie's shoulder. "Your brain is starting to decode them," he said quietly, "see them in their true vibrational form as you change your beliefs about what is possible." She turned and glanced at him, then returned her gaze to the photographs on the wall. Roger continued. "You'll see them like this for a few minutes, and then when you get used to the idea, you'll decode them back into their projected human vibration again. One small shift in perception isn't enough to permanently sustain full awareness of this dimension."

Sophie was still staring at Rockenfeld's face. His eyes...they were morphing into yellow ovals, black slits leering out of them. And his eyebrows were twisting up into a ridge, sweeping over the back of his lizard-like head as his Florida-tanned skin turned to dark green scales.

It was like looking at one of those figure-ground, hidden image pictures, she thought, but one that was revoltingly real. Now the other images were changing, too. A whole row of disgusting lizard-like beings were now staring down at her. How could this happen? Sophie didn't want to believe it, but somehow it made perfect sense.

Zalzibar stepped forwards and laid a paw on Sophie's other shoulder, but there was nothing either of her guides could do as Sophie Archer woke up to the reality of the nightmare that was planet Earth.

# Chapter Four

## _The Holographic Drive_

"But—but," she began to sputter, "but why hasn't anyone rescued us?"

There they were, all these higher vibrational beings out in the rest of the universe, with advanced technology and goodness knew what other kinds of special powers, and all they'd done was sit back and watch whilst poor, unsuspecting Earth had been totally ambushed. How could they have allowed things to get so out of hand?

Roger shrugged his shoulders and sighed. "We've wanted to help for a very long time," he said. "I myself took part in a string of protests back on Arcturia. What the Annunaki have done is an atrocity. But we haven't been allowed to do much about it."

"Why not?" Sophie was finding it hard to believe there was any reason good enough to jeopardise the fate of an entire planet.

"Because it's against universal law for higher-vibrational beings to interfere with the ascension process of lower-vibrational beings." His tone suggested he wasn't particularly happy about this.

Zalzibar rolled his eyes. He was clearly of the same opinion.

Roger took up the explanation again. "It's deemed the responsibility of each and every being to raise its own vibration and ascend according to its own free will. If a higher-vibrational being—we refer to them as HVBs for short—attempts to help a lower vibrational being, an LVB, El-Quan-Tem deems it to be interference. LVBs are unlikely to obtain the learnings required to raise their vibration if they are helped directly."

Sophie could only stare blankly at Roger. HVBs? LVBs? Clearly there was much more to reality than she had previously suspected.

"But we were invaded," she argued, "then surely universal law doesn't apply in this case? Humanity has been cut off and they don't even know it!"

Roger nodded sympathetically. "Unfortunately, universal law _is_ universal law."

Sophie shook her head. "I can't believe that. So now what?"

Zalzibar turned to Roger. "Can we show her?"

Roger nodded. "We haven't been sitting around up here twiddling our paws, you know. If you will?" He nodded towards the door.

Getting up to follow them, Sophie took one last look at the photographs on the wall. She'd known the global elite were up to something...but this? It was unbelievable, far worse than she had previously suspected. Would the Annunaki succeed in cutting Earth off from the higher dimensions forever? Or was it finally time for humanity to wake up and realise what was going on? Shuddering as she pondered the implications, Sophie followed her guides out of the room.

Her mind was churning with questions as she hurried through the corridors of the Arcturian space station with her guides. Did the Annunaki control everything on Earth? Where had they come from? Why were they so against El-Quan-Tem and the higher dimensions?

"Here we are," Roger announced as they walked into an official-looking entrance hall with rainbow-coloured wallpaper. A glistening model of Earth about the size of a football was hovering all by itself in the centre of the hall. Sophie could see clouds moving over its surface as if it were a real, miniature planet. In the marble floor beneath it was a silver plaque engraved with spindly etchings which, when translated from Arcturian, read as follows:

We pledge to guide the energetic light of

El-Quan-Tem as it ascends into higher vibrations and dimensions.

Roger and Zalzibar walked carefully around the model without paying it the slightest bit of attention and came to a halt in front of the double doors in the opposite wall. The same spiral pattern Sophie had seen in the crop circle swirled across these doors.

"What's that the symbol of?" she asked as she made her way around the model planet, fighting the urge to stick her finger in it.

"That's the spiral of El-Quan-Tem," Roger said as we waved one paw over a panel beside the doors. "Here at the program, we all work for El-Quan-Tem. I guess you could say it's our official logo."

"What program?" Sophie asked.

"This one." Zalzibar held his paws out in a welcoming gesture.

The doors swished open to reveal a bustling hub of Arcturians beavering away in a huge office. Some had their noses almost stuck in plasma screens, whilst others were chatting loudly amongst themselves in mumbly-beep or dashing about with paperwork.

"Welcome to the Earth Guidance Project," Roger announced.

"Wow." All Sophie could do was stare in astonishment at the multicoloured sea of fuzz.

Roger smiled. "This is program headquarters, where we co-ordinate our missions to Earth." They went in. "We set the program up just over fifty years ago. It was about 1968 on your planet."

Sophie had to smile. So that explained the interior design scheme. Few of the busy Arcturians noticed her as she followed Roger and Zalzibar. They were too focused and hard at work to be distracted by visitors.

"What made you change your minds about helping?" Sophie asked. "I mean, well, that universal law...."

"Metatron arrived with the program instructions from El-Quan-Tem," Roger replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "They started building this space station and setting up an ANGEL training program. We've recruited some of the best HVBs in Arcturia."

Zalzibar grinned proudly.

"Who's Metatron?" Sophie asked as they made their way past an orange Arcturian sitting at a desk. He was sliding a silver disc about the size of a coin across a map covered in star constellations and relaying the information to a lime-green Arcturian beside him. The lime-green Arcturian was nodding as she waved her paw back and forth over a silver panel. Lines of squiggles scrawled across a screen in front of her.

"Metatron is El-Quan-Tem's personal messenger," Roger said.

"And not a very good one," Zalzibar muttered.

Roger looked at Zalzibar and tut-tutted, then a couple of the Arcturians looked up at Sophie, and their cheeks flushed as she smiled at them.

"They're not used to seeing humans up here yet," Roger explained. "Zalzibar and I were the first Arcturians through the ANGEL training. You're the first human to arrive."

Sophie nodded, hoping she'd understand pretty soon, as they walked past four Arcturians wearing silver triangles on their heads. They were standing underneath a large screen with a map of Asia on it and they all had their eyes closed and were swaying from side to side.

"Prior to working here," Roger continued, "I was a professor of metaphysics. Zalzibar was a professional space racer."

Zalzibar grinned proudly and at the same time ran a paw through his green hair. "Yeah. An' I was good, too."

Sophie nodded, only half-listening as she continued to watch the four Arcturians with the triangles on their heads. As they swayed, they were also murmuring something under their breaths. Sophie noticed about twenty dots of light were flashing on the map.

"Channellers," Zalzibar whispered. "Dream work."

Now Sophie was speechless. Was he implying they were sending messages to human beings in their sleep? What other powers did these colourful beings have? And more to the point, what did they want with her?

"We carry out most of our operations from here," Roger continued as they made their way across the floor. "We do regular scouting trips to Earth to keep an eye on things. And perform various campaign jobs."

"Campaign jobs?"

"Brief UFO appearances. Crop circle formations. Interdimensional propaganda. That sort of thing. It's all part of our work as ANGELs."

Zalzibar winked "We're keepin' them lizards on their toes."

"Interdimensional propaganda?" Sophie hoped one of them would elaborate.

"Anything that's subtle guidance," Roger said. "And can't be deemed as interference."

Now they walked past a row of Arcturians sitting in front of plasma screens and swirling their paws over panels below the screens.

"They're puttin' stuff on th' human Internet," Zalzibar explained. "Stuff that can help humans work out what's goin' on without our tellin' them specifically."

She didn't know what to say. Nor quite what to think. It seemed that these furry creatures had been having a much bigger impact on humanity than she'd suspected so far. "Uhhh, so what's in the job description of an ANGEL, exactly?" she asked.

"The instructions state that we are to help humanity with the awakening process," Roger said, "but in such a way that we don't actually do it for them. As such, the training was fairly broad. We had to learn everything from energy channelling to human cultural studies."

Zalzibar rolled his eyes. "It was a lot of work!"

And Roger shook his head. "Not that he would know. He was absent from most of the classes."

Zalzibar grinned. "Can I help it if I'm already good at everything?"

Roger shook his head again and said, "Sheldrake?"

A turquoise Arcturian who was wandering past with a clipboard looked up and blinked several times when he saw Sophie.

"Sheldrake, could we get some carasopia tea, please?" Roger asked politely. "Over at our desks?"

Sheldrake nodded and scurried off.

"Do ANGELs know all Earth languages?" Sophie asked.

Roger nodded. "Yes. They're quite easy for us. All HVBs can channel into the LVB frequency range after a bit of transmission training. LVBs decode our communications into their own language, putting it in their own everyday words and phrases. Sometimes when Zalzibar and I speak to each other in our native Arcturian, you hear us speaking in English. That's because you're automatically decoding." As Sophie gave this some thought, he added, "Quantum communication is very tricky to understand, particularly if you are an LVB. If I were you, I wouldn't worry about it."

Admitting defeat so far, she ploughed on with her next question. "So humans are LVBs, then?"

"Yes. But please don't take offence! Every being is doing the best it can within its current vibration."

They now arrived at the two empty desks that belonged to Roger and Zalzibar, judging by the sheets of equations and racing prints stuck into pigeon-holes.

Zalzibar pulled a stool out for Sophie. "Fire her up?" he asked Roger, pointing at his computer.

Roger nodded as Sheldrake returned, carrying a tray upon which stood three wooden bowls, three silver straws, and a steaming jug of hot liquid, along with a pile of crispy orange leaves. "Thank you, Sheldrake," he said.

Sheldrake put the tray down and said something to Roger in mumbly-beep before scurrying off again. Roger picked up a pawful of the orange leaves and crumbled them into the three bowls. He then picked up the jug and poured a white frothy liquid into each bowl, after which he placed a silver straw in each one, gave all three a stir, and offered one to Sophie.

"Thanks," she said, hoping it wasn't poisonous. Orange vapour trails twisted up from the bowl and emitted a wonderful smell of citrus and spice.

"Carasopia tea," Roger said. "It's made from dried cara leaves and sopia nut milk. They're trees native to Arcturia."

Putting one end of the silver straw in her mouth, Sophie took a sip. "Mmmm," she said. "That's good." It tasted like carrot, orange, honey, and ginger, all dancing together in a fragrant infusion.

"My favourite," Zalzibar said as he reached for his bowl.

Roger went back to the subject at hand. "And when you were born," he said, "we began our main mission, which has been to guide you."

" _What?_ "

Hearing her, several Arcturians close by looked up from what they were doing. Realising Sophie was actually present in their office, they sent a wave of excitement rippling through the room.

"We've been guiding you your whole life," Roger said, perhaps too casually. "Nothing too dramatic, of course. The odd message in a dream here, the occasional idea when you were day-dreaming there, hiding certain objects to make you early or late so certain events could occur."

"My god!" Sophie nearly choked on her tea. How much control had these beings had over her life?

"Nothing you didn't have free will over." Roger was apparently reading her mind. "We've also been working here at the program headquarters, trying to find out as much as possible about the low frequency field and the technology behind it." He pointed at Zalzibar's computer screen.

Sophie nodded. She was keen to find out more about the low frequency field the Annunaki had been using. How could anyone manage to manipulate an entire planet? It had to be very sophisticated.

Zalzibar moved a paw over a silver panel on his desk and an image of a snowy landscape flashed up on his screen.

"The low frequency field is beamed out from a base in Alaska," Roger said.

Zalzibar zoomed down through the image to an area filled with pine trees. In the middle of them a dome-shaped building was standing. It was surrounded by a ring of sheds, each of which had a strangely shaped antenna poking up out of its roof. Zalzibar continued to zoom down towards the dome-shaped building. A device was poking out of its roof, too. It looked a bit like an industrial-sized telescope.

"Surely someone must have seen that place?" Sophie asked. It wasn't exactly the most incognito dwelling she had ever seen. How had the Annunaki managed to keep it hidden?

"The official name the Annunaki have given this outpost is the Gakona Weather Station. They say they're conducting an atmospheric research program there. They have two scientists permanently stationed at the base." He turned to Zalzibar. "Put the inner chamber up."

A new image flashed up. It was a round room, presumably the interior of the dome-shaped building. The base of the telescope-like device was protruding down from the roof toward lots of complex-looking boards of scientific equipment.

"If you look here," Roger used his silver straw to point at the base of the telescope-like device, and Zalzibar zoomed in again. Sophie saw a hole in which a tiny, white, star-shaped crystal was spinning by itself.

"That's an interdimensional crystal taken from a planet already attuned to the higher dimensions," Roger explained. "All high vibrational planets have these crystals in their central energy vortex. They contain crystallised versions of what we call 'resonance frequency,' the collective vibration of the energies that permeate the higher dimensions."

Sophie nodded. She wasn't really understanding what he was saying, but she tried to follow the basic outline all the same.

"The Annunaki have reversed the vibration of this interdimensional crystal," Roger said. "They're using it to project a negative frequency out through Earth's energy fields. That's how they've managed to cut Earth off. By reversing the natural process."

"But can't you just switch it off?" Sophie asked. Surely it was just a case of sneaking in when nobody was looking and shutting the thing down?

"Kid, it ain't as easy as that," Zalzibar told her.

"That's the brilliance of their design, you see," said Roger.

Zalzibar scowled at him.

"Zalzibar, you know I'm against what they've done," Roger said defensively. "But you can't argue with their genius." Turning back to Sophie, he continued. "If the low frequency field is just switched off, Earth's energy fields will be thrown into chaos. Nothing would survive."

"So what do we do?" Sophie asked. There had to be some way of shutting it down, right?

"The crystal must be re-attuned to the resonance frequency first," Roger told her. "Then, and only then, can we switch the low frequency field off."

"But how do we do that?" Sophie asked. And where exactly, she asked herself, did she come in to this?

"Zalzibar?" said Roger, "bring up the holographic drive."

Nodding, Zalzibar reached down and opened a drawer under his desk. He took out a small silver capsule and handed it to Sophie.

"Thanks. What is this?"

"This is the device the Annunaki originally used to reverse the vibration of the crystal with," Roger said.

She inspected it. It looked no more high-tech than a USB stick.

Roger pointed at a small slot in the base of the transmitter. "If this is attuned with the resonance frequency by a human being and reinserted into the main system here, the crystal will re-attune, Earth's energy fields will rebalance and the crystal can be removed, thus preventing the low frequency field from being switched back on."

"By a human being?" Sophie asked. What was coming next?

"This is why the Annunaki design is so genius," Roger said. "They've managed to get around universal law by claiming that humans can switch the field off whenever they like. But they know they can't. How would a human even know about the higher dimensions and resonance frequency under the low frequency field?" He smiled. "But they underestimate the will of El-Quan-Tem. He has selected a number of human beings and given each one a unique task to help end Annunaki control and help humanity awaken. You are one of these human beings, Sophie, and your task is none other than to attune the holographic drive itself."

Sophie looked from Roger to Zalzibar and then down at the holographic drive. "But I don't know anything about frequencies or vibrations," she said. "You'd be better off finding somebody who's more qualified."

"El-Quan-Tem has designed your task," Roger said, "so that as you complete it, you will raise your individual vibration to resonance frequency, which in turn will attune the holographic drive."

Sophie just looked at him.

"We've adjusted the holographic drive so that it will attune to your vibration as long as it stays close to you. As long as you can raise your vibration, the drive will attune automatically. You don't need to know anything about the science behind it."

Sophie was still staring blankly. This sounded very abstract. "And how do I raise my vibration?" she finally asked.

"Ah," said Roger, "uhh, well, we're not actually too sure."

"You don't know?" This was sounding like the vaguest, most makeshift plan she'd ever heard.

Roger wasn't finished. "The instructions state that no human or their ANGELs are allowed to know the details of each task until the human has fully committed to it," he said. "It's El-Quan-Tem's way of making sure universal law is adhered to."

Sophie was both sceptical and speechless.

"This's probably the most important task there is," Zalzibar said, as if this were meant to make her feel better. "It's been all over the news back home."

"Great," Sophie managed. Was she really sitting here, hearing this? She knew she had wanted to make a difference in the world, but was this how that would happen? "How do you know El-Quan-Tem has chosen me specifically, just out of curiosity?"

"It's in the instructions," Zalzibar replied.

"Of course it is." She couldn't keep the sarcasm out of her voice. "But how do I know if I can do it if I don't actually know what I'm meant to do?"

"El-Quan-Tem would never give you a task you weren't capable of carrying out," Roger replied as reassuringly as he could. "Zalzibar and I will be guiding you the whole time."

Sophie could only nod, unsure whether this last point made her feel better or worse. She looked down at the holographic drive in her hand. She didn't know what sort of tasks El-Quan-Tem had given the other humans who had also been chosen, and she had no idea who those people might be, but her task had the capacity to alter the destiny of Earth forever. Talk about pressure! It would be better if she turned it down. Let them give it to somebody with more experience. But, then, if she didn't try, what made her think anyone else would bother? And if the Annunaki really were planning something terrible, then Earth was running out of time.

That feeling of dread continued to creep through her as she realised that, at some level, this was her purpose. This really was her task. She had been preparing for this her whole life, but she'd never known it until now. This was the path she had been trying to find. Besides, what was the alternative? Go back to Earth and pretend that nothing had happened? She'd always be wondering, and if it was one thing Sophie disliked more than failure, it was not knowing something.

"Oh all right then," she said. "I'll do it."

"Fantastic!" Zalzibar jumped up onto his desk, whooping and waving his yellow paws over his head.

Everyone turned to see what the commotion was about.

"The first human has committed to their task!" Roger announced.

Bursts of applause and cheers erupted around the room.

All Sophie could do was blush. She looked at the holographic drive again. What on Earth (or off the Earth?) had she just gotten herself into? She tucked it safely away in the pocket of her jeans. As she did this, another tingle of pins and needles surged through her body, and for the fourth time since first experiencing this strange sensation, she wondered what it was. Then she forgot about it...after all, she had far more important things to worry about now.

# Chapter Five

## _The Twelve Attunements_

As the commotion in the room subsided, Sophie looked at her guides. "So," she said after a minute, "what do we do first?"

"We have to wait for Metatron, I'm afraid," Roger replied as he collected the empty carasopia tea bowls and stacked them near the end of the desk.

"Should we send him a message?" Sophie was wondering how everyone communicated out in the higher dimensions. Obviously, she said to herself, with the use of very advanced technology.

Zalzibar replied. "No need to do that. El-Quan-Tem'll tell him." His tone suggested that she really should have known this already.

Sophie raised an eyebrow. "But how will El-Quan-Tem know?"

"He just knows," Zalzibar said.

"Right," said Sophie. So they were waiting for an unknown entity who sounded like he might not even exist to realise that a human being was waiting on a space station in the middle of the Milky Way to meet with one of his key staff. For some reason, she didn't fancy the chance of this happening. "You've seen him before, though," she said a little desperately, "haven't you? This Metatron?"

Zalzibar nodded. "Yup. Unfortunately."

"What do you mean?" Why had Zalzibar's tone changed?

Roger suddenly pulled out his pocket watch, opened it with a big gesture, and looked long and carefully at the face. "Well," he said, obviously changing the subject, "let's get some dinner shall we?" As Zalzibar looked at him and nodded, the blue alien added, "The space station runs according to Greenwich Mean Time. We do this so ANGELs can sync-up with their humans more easily. It helps if we're all following the same sort of routine, don't you know. And right now, it's time for dinner."

"Great idea," said Zalzibar, "I'm starving." He swirled his yellow paw over his computer panel and got up from his stool.

And with that, Sophie followed her ANGELs back out into the corridors of the space station, her mind still buzzing with questions.

"Are you sure Metatron is going to come?" Sophie asked. She had just finished her first Arcturian dinner—jub-jub steamed in haraki leaf, an Arcturian dish that tasted a lot like chicken in a spicy coconut sauce.

Roger looked up from his nearly empty plate. "Certainly he is."

The three of them were sitting together in the dining hall, which was a lavishly decorated pink and purple room located on the second floor of the space station. The usual white, beaded chandeliers graced the ceiling and star-patterned wallpaper covered the walls. Although Sophie had found the Sixties-style interior design a bit much at first, she was getting used to it now, almost to the point of liking it. All around them, Arcturians were sitting at tables of three or four, muttering away to each other in mumbly-beep as they tucked into their dinners after another busy day working at the program. Occasionally, someone would look up and stare at Sophie for a minute or two, but apart from that, they were all very polite and gave her privacy with her guides.

"Because we're the first ANGELs in the program and you're the first human up on the space station," Roger was explaining as he mopped up the last of the juice on his plate with a lime-green haraki leaf, "nobody really knows how long Metatron will take." He began nibbling the leaf. "I expect, however, that he'll come tomorrow."

Sophie nodded. "But maybe we should send a message, anyway? Just to be on the safe side?"

"Nah," said Zalzibar. "Waste a time." He had finished his dinner ages ago and was now halfway through dessert, which was a silky orange pudding made from a fruit called jayana, which smelt a bit like dates and cinnamon.

"Channelling to beings beyond the higher dimensions is a bit hit and miss," Roger explained as he stood up and reached for Sophie's empty plate. Then he headed off towards the kitchen.

Sophie looked at Zalzibar. "Beyond the higher dimensions? Where is Metatron, then?"

Zalzibar shrugged his shoulders. "Akashic Library, probably." He scraped up the last of his pudding with his spoon.

Roger returned from the kitchen carrying two bowls. "Jayana pudding for you," he said, passing one to Sophie.

"Thanks." She put a spoonful into her mouth. It was like eating a warm, gooey cake made from a hundred different fruits and spices.

Roger watched her as she swallowed and smiled. "All organically grown," he beamed, tucking eagerly into his. "We have greenhouses here on the space station for all our fresh fruit and vegetables."

"It's delicious," said Sophie, amazed that space food could taste so good. "So what's the Akashic Library?" she continued, still keen to find out how everything worked and where this alleged Metatron was supposed to be.

"The Akashic Library is the store house of all information in the universe." Roger was clearly quite excited to be teaching her so many things.

But Zalzibar just shrugged his yellow shoulders. "'S just a fancy library. Nothin' ta write home about," he added with a huge yawn.

"You're just jealous," Roger said, winking at Sophie.

Zalzibar screwed his nose up in annoyance. "I am not."

"What happens at the Akashic Library?" Sophie asked. It seemed for every question she was asking, another five were springing up in its place. The store house of all information in the universe? Was there really such a place?

"Metatron works there with the Librarian," Roger explained. "That's the being appointed by El-Quan-Tem to maintain all the soul records...although," he added, his voice quietening to a whisper as he leant towards Sophie, "nobody knows for certain whether the Akashic Library or the Librarian actually exist—a lot of it is HVB speculation."

Sophie stared at Roger. Had she misheard him? Nobody knew if either the Library or the Librarian actually existed?

Roger nodded. "Apparently you can only access the Akashic Library with the special staff Metatron was given by El-Quan-Tem. It has a rare green interdimensional crystal called moldavite on the end of it. We think that's what enables Metatron to pass in and out of the Akashic dimension and into all the other frequencies he can vibrate so easily into. He has the rare ability to maintain his higher vibration whilst simultaneously vibrating at the same frequency of the beings he is visiting. Any LVB can see him. They don't have to raise their vibration first."

Sophie was now thoroughly confused. "You mean there are other dimensions? Beyond the higher dimensions? Where are they?"

Roger shrugged his blue shoulders and gobbled down another mouthful of pudding. "We don't know. Just because we're HVBs, that doesn't mean we have all the answers."

"Oh." She had just assumed they did.

Zalzibar winked. "I've got most of 'em, though," he said.

Sophie waved her hand over the silver panel beside her bedroom door and the door swished open. Somebody had obviously been in, because the curtains had been drawn and the reading lamp was on, bathing the room in a soft golden light.

"Got everything ya need?" Zalzibar asked from the doorway. He and Roger were standing there. Following a possibly too thorough, late night tour of the space station, they were waiting to say goodnight.

They'd shown her around the whole complex, from the docking areas on the ground deck to the greenhouse on level two, and from the cloakroom on level three (where a nice crimson Arcturian had informed Sophie he would be fitting her with her very own spacesuit within the next few days) to the ANGELs' bedrooms on level four. There had been so much to take in, Sophie felt like she could spend an entire week there and still not see everything.

"Yes, thanks," she replied gratefully, smiling at the pair of blue pyjamas lying on her pillow. She pointed at the purple figurine standing on her bedside table. "Can I just ask something? What is this, exactly?"

"Oh," Zalzibar replied, "that's Ma-Mah-Sah. He's a Light Master."

"That reminds me!" Roger suddenly exclaimed. He turned around and shot off down the hallway. Zalzibar looked at Sophie and shrugged his shoulders.

"What's a Light Master?" Sophie asked.

"They work directly under El-Quan-Tem. Very advanced-level beings."

"This is a model, though. Right?" She thought she'd better just make sure.

Zalzibar laughed. "Of course, kid! Whaddja think?"

She carefully picked up the purple figure and studied it. It appeared to be some sort of glowing plastic that constantly changed form. One second, it had a human face, the next, it looked like some sort of animal. Then, just as she thought she had it figured out, it morphed into something more abstract.

"Here we go," Roger announced, scurrying back into Sophie's room with a pile of books in his arms. "I got these translated when I was doing my transmission training." He placed them on Sophie's bedside table. "I thought you might like them. I know I don't like to do any travelling without a good book or two along."

"Thanks." She began inspecting the books. There was a thick gold one titled, _An Encyclopaedia of Light Masters_ and two smaller brown ones called _Channelling and Dream Work For HVBs_ and _LVBs and the Art of Patience_.

"Brilliant," she said, hoping the books contained more substantial information than she had received so far.

"Well, good night, then," said Roger, retreating towards the doorway.

"Night," said Sophie. "And thanks for everything."

"Night, kid." Zalzibar grinned at her, and then the door swished closed behind them.

Sophie smiled, thinking how lucky she was to have met her guides. They were so friendly and helpful...well, if perhaps a little bizarre. She thought about all the other humans back down on Earth who hadn't yet made contact with their guides. If only there was something she could do to help them. Maybe when she got back to Earth she would think of something.

With a look at the pyjamas, she reached inside her pocket and took out the holographic drive. Setting it on the bedside table beside the Light Master figurine, she whispered, "Keep an eye on it." And with that, she got undressed and put on her new pyjamas.

Not in the least bit tired, however, she walked over to the window and pulled the curtains back. Outside, stars glistened all across the Milky Way, all of them a billion miles away from anywhere. Sophie wondered how many other beings were out there in the galaxy, and how many of them were pondering the situation on Earth, perhaps even watching it on their news broadcasts and maybe podcasts. Down below, on the runway, all was quiet. There wasn't a spacecraft anywhere in sight.

After a minute or two, she turned and walked to the table to look at the books Roger had given her. She already knew which one she was going to start with. Picking up the thick encyclopaedia with the gold covers, she climbed into bed and propped her pillow up behind her head. Even if Metatron took a whole week to arrive, she thought as she opened the book, there were far worse places to be stranded.

# An Encyclopaedia of Light Masters

## Introduction

There are twelve known Light Masters in the Universe: Apex, Sedna, Az-Karan, Siron, Ma-Ra-Sol, Ma-Mah-Sah, Yokono, Ra-Jul-Li, Ramtak, DaBen, San-Din-Yah, and Kryel. Each one is a fully ascended being, possessing multidimensional awareness and interdimensional journeying skills. It is thought that the Light Masters ascended long before the first planets began to activate. Some say they are not even from the higher dimensions, but have lowered their vibrations to come and work here for El-Quan-Tem to guide higher vibrational beings in their work with lower vibrational beings.

Sophie paused. So the Light Masters were guides for HVBs? Did Roger and Zalzibar have their own guides too then? Where were they? In this dimension or an even higher one? She continued on.

Each Light Master is made from pure quantum light, the highest vibration of a soul known. HVBs cannot ever call a Light Master, they appear entirely of their own free will. It is understood that each Light Master has a physical base in the universe for entering and exiting the higher dimensions and The Realms Beyond. However, we only know of a handful of these locations.

Sophie paused again. The Realms Beyond? It was hard enough getting her head around life and civilisation beyond Earth, let alone something beyond the higher dimensions. The scale of existence, she was thinking, seemed to be absolutely ridiculous. Did it ever stop? She supposed even beyond the last thing, there had to be something else. Admitting defeat, she sighed and went back to the book. She read quickly through the rest of the introduction and came to the next section where there were holographic portraits of all the Light Masters with descriptions.

Then she turned another page. "Oh my god!" She nearly dropped the book. She was staring at the being from her dream: the golden being with crackling dreadlocks and a sparkling cloak.

"Apex!" she exclaimed, suddenly remembering his name. She could see a bright celestial haze shining all around him, making it difficult to tell where his body stopped and where the space around him began.

She turned her head and looked at the glowing purple figurine of Ma-Mah-Sah on her bedside table. Both Ma-Mah-Sah and Apex were weird digital-abstract blends of what looked like a human being, a monkey, and a lion. And, just when Sophie thought she finally had them in focus, both of them shifted in form. He must have channelled to me in a dream, she thought. But why? She tried to remember what had happened in her dream, but it was a complete blur now. She hoped it hadn't been anything important.

Eager for answers, she read on.

During his career, Apex was a highly skilled interdimensional shaman who was renowned for journeying in altered states of consciousness through other dimensions to alter belief systems and help HVBs accelerate their ascension. Sadly, however, Apex went into early retirement after the Pleiadians made allegations against The Silver Ray (a progressive HVB organisation renowned for their vibrational-guidance technologies). The Pleiadians alleged that The Silver Ray helped the Annunaki rise to power. Apex had been working with The Silver Ray as a high-level guide prior to this, and upon the culmination of his task, it is thought the group used the knowledge Apex had given them to create the low frequency field that now covers Planet Earth in the Solar System.

Sophie stopped. She shook her head to try to clear it. HVBs had helped the Annunaki take over Earth? Apex had been involved? That must be why he had channelled to her. Maybe he wanted to make amends or knew something that would help? She turned another page.

Apex currently resides on the Blue Moon Rangala, which orbits the Planet Morlongo in the Salph System. Rangala is famous for its rocky surface, which is composed of Rangal, a luminous bright blue rock. Rangal has intense multidimensional properties, which the complex vegetation and wildlife on Rangala use as their energy supply. As such, Rangala's ecosystem is unlike any other in the universe. Apex is a passionate botanist and it is thought he retired there to study this ecosystem.

Sophie made a mental note to ask Roger about Apex first thing in the morning. Not only had Apex tried to contact her, but she was sure he would also know about the low frequency field around Earth. And he probably wanted to get rid of the Annunaki, too.

Amazed at how things were already starting to slot into place, she turned to the next section of the encyclopaedia. Sedna was a very beautiful, if somewhat scary-looking, purple Light Master. Apparently Sedna was one of the more mysterious Light Masters (because, yeah, Sophie said to herself as she read, the rest were all so normal) who did something with the deep unconscious.

Sophie continued paging through the encyclopaedia, marvelling at each image. She was just trying to work out if the shiny golden skin on Az-Karan's face was in fact scales, when a bright glare suddenly shone through her bedroom window.

She looked up. A brilliant white spacecraft was hovering outside the space station. But it looked more like a monster truck than a flying saucer, with a chunky spoiler at one end and what looked like claws reaching out from underneath. She gasped as she thought, Was that Metatron? Surely a spacecraft like that had to belong to somebody very important. She watched as it manoeuvred along the runway and flew into the space station.

She suddenly felt nervous. Apart from the shock of learning that Metatron—if she had indeed actually seen his vehicle—actually existing, what would a being who worked directly for El-Quan-Tem think of a mere human being who had been living under a low frequency field her whole life? Probably not much.

Now raised voices and footsteps began sounding along the hallway. Sophie wondered if she should get dressed, but before she had time to make a decision, her bedroom door swished open and in marched a tall, silvery-white being.

Composed of a fluid metallic substance, this being had a pair of insect-like wings that spiked up behind his back, and he was wearing a helmet with two slits in it for his eyes and another where his mouth was. In one hand—or was it a claw? —he carried a sparkling blue scroll. In the other, he was holding a white staff with a milky green rock on top.

Remembering what Roger had said about Metatron's staff, Sophie now assumed it was indeed him.

"She's asleep!" Zalzibar was yelling at the top of his voice as he ran into her room. He was wearing his pyjamas, which were footed and had superhero designs.

"It's fine," said Sophie, somewhat shocked by Zalzibar's lack of courtesy towards the silver being.

"They're all asleep," the silver being snapped. "All of them." Rows of teeth glinted through the mouth slit in his helmet. "It's the only thing they're good at."

"Kid, this is Metatron," Zalzibar said, unnecessarily, to Sophie. She couldn't help but hear the mockery in his voice. "El-Quan-Tem's personal messenger."

Well, she would be more polite. She dipped her head in a sort of awkward bow. "Hello," she said. "I'm Sophie Archer." She offered him her hand to shake.

Metatron ignored her and glided over to the window and looked out.

Sophie bit her lip. This was El-Quan-Tem's personal messenger? Whatever Zalzibar's problem was with Metatron, he obviously had a point. This Metatron didn't seem particularly friendly.

"Well, Zalzibar," Metatron sneered, swivelling his helmet to face the Arcturian, "it seems you at least got one of them to wake up." There was a clicking of teeth. "Will wonders ever cease."

Zalzibar pulled a rude face back at Metatron. "And you're soooo awake."

"I'm more awake than you will ever be."

The crescendo was interrupted as Roger scurried into the room. He was wearing a nightshirt and nightcap. "What's all the noise about?" He took in the scene and the visitor. "Good gracious," he said. "Metatron." He pulled off the nightcap and dipped his head in a bow.

Again, Metatron ignored the greeting.

"It's called divine timing, buddy," Zalzibar continued, still arguing with Metatron. "The rest'll wake up when the time is right. Not that you'd know anything about that, given your lack of punctuality over the years."

"This may come as a surprise," hissed Metatron, "but I have more important things to do than deliver your insignificant little messages all the time. You have no idea what lies in The Realms Beyond or what I know of the Greater Mysteries."

"And given that you won't tell us," Zalzibar was not backing down, "how are we s'posed to know?"

Roger coughed and took a stance between the combatants. "It's good of you to come," he said politely.

And Sophie suddenly wondered why Roger and Zalzibar wore bedclothes when they wore nothing during the day. They really were the most curious creatures she'd ever seen.

Roger looked pointedly at the blue parchment in Metatron's hand. "Do you have Sophie's scroll?" he asked.

"Of course," Metatron hissed. He glided to Sophie's bed and pointed the scroll at her head.

She drew back. This was the second time in less than two days that someone had threatened her with a rolled-up paper. The consequences following the first altercation had proven somewhat challenging, to say the least.

"By accepting this scroll," Metatron said in such a flat tone that it sounded either memorised or like he didn't care, "it is assumed you have committed to your task."

Sophie nodded. "I understand." She reached out to take the scroll.

But Metatron just stood there, glaring at her.

"Yo! Just hand the scroll over, already," Zalzibar growled.

Metatron let out an exclamation, "Oh, but of course!" and deliberately dropped it on the bed near Sophie's knees. "El-Quan-Tem," he recited, "assures you he is watching over you. However...I wouldn't be so sure."

"Thanks," Sophie replied. Before she could say another word, Metatron swept out of the room and the door swooshed closed behind him.

"Unbelievable! Flittin' unbelievable!" Zalzibar stomped over to the window and watched as Metatron's white spacecraft lifted up from the space station, paused outside Sophie's bedroom window for a few seconds, then flashed away in a whoosh of light.

"Overgrown aluminium stick-insect!" Zalzibar shook a yellow fist at the window. "He doesn't appreciate his job. Or El-Quan-Tem. Or his spacecraft!"

"Zalzibar."

"What, Rodge?" Zalzibar turned around. "Oh. Sorry, kid."

"It's okay," Sophie told him. "Not exactly the nicest being in the universe, is he?"

Zalzibar shook his head. "He don't know the meanin' of nice. He's been boastin' about 'being more ascended than anyone' ever since I c'n remember. Reckons he's the same vibration as a Light Master. In his dreams! He's got a bad case of PA syndrome, if you ask me."

"PA syndrome?"

"Thinks because he's El-Quan-Tem's personal assistant he has as much power as El-Quan-Tem does. He even said once that he's the one who does all the work. El-Quan-Tem just sits back and watches!"

"Oh." And the thought suddenly insinuated itself in her head: did Metatron have a point? After all, what did El-Quan-Tem actually do?

"Uhhh," she began, "uh, why did El-Quan-Tem pick Metatron for the job? I thought beings who worked close to El-Quan-Tem would be a bit...well, nicer.

Zalzibar shook his head. "El-Quan-Tem only knows."

Roger stepped forward, picked up the scroll, and handed it to Sophie. "Let's have a look at your scroll, shall we?"

Having gotten over the whirlwind that was Metatron, she was amazed to be holding it in her hands. It had been hard enough, she thought, coming to terms with the fact that Roger and Zalzibar existed and had been watching over her, but now that she'd seen Metatron...well, she had to face the reality that El-Quan-Tem existed, too. To think there was someone beyond them all, watching over every single being in the entire universe. That was really something. She unrolled the scroll and held it out for them to read.

"Ooooo!" Zalzibar exclaimed.

Electric blue handwriting sparkled across the parchment. The text was written in an ink known as Akasha.

"Oh, my," Roger said as he put on his glasses and began reading aloud...

The Twelve Attunements

  1. Say no to the old paradigm.

  2. Ask for help and guidance.

  3. Trust the universe.

  4. Commit to your soul's task.

  5. Realise that your challenges are tools for transformation.

  6. Understand that everything is energy.

  7. Take responsibility for your emotional state.

  8. Use your imagination to create the future.

  9. Recognise that your beliefs create your reality.

  10. Know that you have chosen everything for a grander purpose.

  11. Forgive others, for we are all one.

  12. Realise that in order to transform your world, you must raise your vibration.

That sounds very impressive, Sophie said to herself. Aloud: "Are these the things I have to learn?"

Zalzibar slapped himself in the forehead. "Duh! Typical of Metatron to only give us half the information."

Roger put a blue paw up to his chin. "Hmmm," he said. "The word 'Attunement' means 'to bring into harmony.' Sophie, I think you are meant to integrate these twelve Attunements...somehow."

"Right." She had figured that much out for herself. "How exactly do I do that?"

Roger was still pondering. "Well...," he said after a minute, "well...I don't know."

Sophie looked at her guides. She'd expected them to be a bit more useful than this. Then she had a sudden realisation. "Oh my god!" she exclaimed.

Roger and Zalzibar looked at her in surprise.

"I think I've already started!"

"Really?" asked Roger.

"Huh?" Zalzibar was still none the wiser as to what they were really talking about.

"When I quit my job," said Sophie, "I refused to rewrite my story the way my editor wanted. In a way, that was saying no to the old paradigm! And I kept feeling this weird rush of energy, like pins and needles. And then when I asked the universe for help," she thought back to how she had experienced pins and needles again whilst sitting on the rope swing, "and then, when I came to the _Pegasus Galactic_ and I had to fly through the black hole, I mean the stargate...well, that's why I did it. You said trust the universe! It surged through me just as I decided to fly the spacecraft through! And when I committed to my task!"

Roger was shaking his blue head in wonder. "By El-Quan-Tem above," he murmured.

And slowly but surely, Sophie began to see how in each moment of frustration, annoyance, or challenge in her life, she had chosen to think or act differently, and it was as if this new way of thinking had somehow manifested itself in her surroundings. She looked at the scroll and realised she could read it. "Number 5. _Realise that your challenges are tools for transformation_."

Sure enough, another tingle of energy rushed through her as she integrated the Fifth Attunement into herself.

"By The Realms Beyond!" Roger exclaimed. "This means you've already started to raise your vibration. But of course...we should have known."

Zalzibar looked at Roger. He was still bewildered. "Known what?"

"Human beings can only see and communicate with us once they have raised their vibration to two thousand etherics!" Roger exclaimed.

"Bro, I don't get it!"

"Once a human has integrated the first two Attunements," Roger said patiently, "that's what their vibration reading is bound to be! Hang on," he added as he turned around and zoomed out of Sophie's room for the second time that night.

Zalzibar looked at Sophie. "Yo, Kid, you got any idea what's goin' on here?"

Sophie was amazed. For once, she actually did. But she wasn't sure how to put it into words. She gave it a try. "Basically, as I've started to think differently, my energy field—or something like it—has changed."

He still wasn't getting it. "Oh. B—"

"Here we are," Roger announced, zooming back into the room with a golden device in one paw. It looked to Sophie like a golden mobile phone. "Do you have the holographic drive?" he asked her.

She nodded and pointed. The drive was still sitting on her bedside table.

Roger made his way over to it. "As Sophie integrates each of these concepts," he explained, pointing the golden device at the holographic drive, "this causes an energetic Attunement which is raising Sophie's vibration to the resonance frequency."

"What's that thing you're carrying?" Sophie asked.

"It's a vibration reader," Zalzibar said. "Reads vibrational frequencies."

Roger was studying the device. "Oh, my," he muttered.

"What?" Zalzibar sounded impatient.

"The vibration of the holographic drive has already increased to five thousand etherics."

"Five thousand?" Zalzibar shook his head. "Nah."

"Is that good?" Sophie asked, hoping she hadn't just made it worse.

"Most certainly," Roger beamed. "You need twelve thousand etherics in total to reach resonance frequency, so you're just under halfway. My dear girl, you've started your task already!"

She didn't know what to say. Had she really been raising her vibration this whole time? "Can I see it?" she asked.

"Of course." Roger put the holographic drive in her hands.

She turned it over in her hand. It didn't look or feel any different. Neither did she. It wasn't as if she'd started turning into light or anything. She didn't know why, but she'd expected something more, well, exciting...profound...to happen.

Zalzibar gave a jaw-cracking yawn. "Well, now we've got the list of Attunements and you're already halfway through, the rest is bound to be easy. I say we do as little as possible and have a sleep-in tomorrow."

Roger scowled. "Honestly, my friend, if you'd ever bothered turning up to your ANGEL training classes, you would have learnt that El-Quan-Tem makes the first part of the tasks easy so they can get started." He turned back to Sophie. "It gets much harder after that."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll be fine," Zalzibar said, waving a dismissive paw at his colleague. "I'm goin' ta bed. I'll see youse guys tomorrow." And with that, he was off.

Roger looked at Sophie, who now had a very worried look on her face. "Don't worry, dear child," he said, sounding almost maternal. "As I said before, El-Quan-Tem wouldn't give you a task you couldn't carry out. And you've already integrated the first five Attunements."

"So what happens now then?" Sophie asked. The longer she took to get the remaining seven, the more time the Annunaki had to roll their plans out.

"We can discuss it in the morning." He switched Sophie's reading lamp off. "Try to get some sleep, my dear."

"Oh, I was having a look at your encyclopaedia," she said, suddenly remembering.

Roger paused at the door. "Yes?"

"I think the Light Master Apex may have tried to channel to me in a dream. Right before I got the first Attunement."

"Really? That is odd...Apex hasn't had anything to do with El-Quan-Tem for quite some time. He renounced him, in fact. Very publicly. Oh, well, get some rest and we'll discuss it all in the morning." And the door swished closed behind him...

...leaving Sophie alone with the stars to contemplate the complex interconnectivity in El-Quan-Tem's universe and all the beings therein.

# Chapter Six

## _Maintaining Control_

Whilst Sophie and her ANGELs were busy working out what their next step was going to be, Ahmkarah, the leader of the Annunaki, had already worked out what his next step was going to be, and he was busy executing it, too, with the usual amount of obsessive compulsive disorder he liked to apply to such things. It involved doing everything he possibly could to keep humanity's collective vibration at an all-time low whilst doing everything he possibly could to lower it even more.

It was a Monday afternoon and Ahmkarah, standing behind a lectern in the press briefing room at the White House before a gaggle of journalists, was vibrating in human form as President Fox Rockenfeld, wearing a snazzy navy suit and maroon tie.

He smiled at everyone in the room whilst at the same time pondering how gullible they all were. Of course, he added to himself, when you're the most popular and best-looking President of all time, getting people to believe everything you say isn't the hardest job in the universe. Ahmkarah had always maintained that if something was worth doing, it was worth doing properly. Consequently, whenever he decided to take the form of a president (something he had done four times now since his arrival on Earth), he always tried to push the edge of the envelope a little bit further. As President Fox Rockenfeld, he had already branded himself as the ultimate of all presidents, a messiah-like figure with more celebrity status than most celebrities, and a champion of the utmost cool. What was more, he was carrying it off with a charisma and air of grace that the PR strategies of A-list film stars couldn't even begin to match.

Ahmkarah leant into the microphone, grinning as he adjusted it ever so slightly and making sure he paused long enough for the newly-installed spotlight to catch Rockenfeld's white teeth and give off that little sparkly glint he loved to see when he watched himself on TV. He then leant backwards ever so slightly, so the soft overhead lighting could shine down on his head and shoulders. The lights illuminated him like the deity he was. Just over his right shoulder, the logo of the Neocon Party (a huge all-seeing eye) gazed beatifically out at the cameras.

"Hi, everyone," he began. "I hope you had a nice lunch."

A hush fell over the room.

"It makes me proud to be an American today when I say that after years of hard work and planning, Project Indecta is officially launching." His voice was friendly and comforting, making the crowd feel like they were down at the pub listening to an old friend.

"This..." he paused to create the right effect, "global security initiative...will enable total unified surveillance of all Internet and phone usage using the latest memetic algorithm and keyword search technology, so that as always..." here he leant forwards to whisper the next sentence so they would feel like he was telling them a special secret, "people can continue to live the way they are accustomed to."

The room cheered.

After a satisfied nod, the president said, "I'd like to hand you over to Mr, Donald Darpen, our Head of Information and Awareness. He'll be able to answer any technical questions that are beyond my scope of understanding." He made sure the microphones picked up his humble chuckle before he stepped around the lectern and gave a modest red-carpet bow.

The cheering continued as a thin, dishevelled man stepped up to the lectern and adjusted the microphone, his eyes shooting around the room with intense paranoia. Becoming Head of Information and Awareness had this effect on every Annunaki that held the job for any period of time. Spying, hacking, surveillance, and fraud...the Department of Information and Awareness was charged with keeping a watchful eye on the populace whilst staying alert to possible threats. Darpen's latest task had been to hack into the United Nations' computer network and adjust all their war casualty figures. This sort of work did nothing to help him sleep at night, which gave him no end of anxiety.

Darpen spun off a few facts that nobody cared less about, and then the reporters filed out of the press room like robots going to their next task. Not one of them asked if such a mammoth security measure was actually necessary. They hadn't been invited to ask questions. Although the White House never told the press to be specifically positive in their reports, the reporters somehow knew what would happen if the critical-thinking fairy suddenly decided to pay them a little visit. The invitations to the exclusive press conferences would stop. Their editors would assign them to soft news. Over time, their careers would fizzle out. Yes, it was much easier for ambitious journalists to follow the path of least resistance. Besides, it was always difficult to find out what the truth actually was these days. There was so much information out there, all over the Internet and the social media, and you could never get hold of anyone to do any real fact-checking of true facts, as opposed to false facts. The press agreed by consensus: if everybody else was reporting it, then it must be true.

The twenty-two invite-only members of the press thus went back to their offices to copy and paste a few facts and other bits of information from the official press release the White House had given them, to which they added three or four dramatic quotes from the president. And that was that. Another piece of fine mainstream journalism was published to keep the masses informed.

An Aurora Stealth swooped down from the dark winter sky and landed at the far end of the main runway at Area 51 in Nevada. It taxied towards the southern hangar, where two men dressed in suits with heavy scarves around their necks were engaged in an argument outside a black sedan parked there.

One of the men was Donald Darpen. The other was Doug Icke, a large man who, with his huge, shaved head and cold grey eyes, looked more like a tree trunk than a human being. Doug Icke held the important title of Secretary of Defence. It was a job he was very proud of because he really enjoyed blowing things up. His latest achievement had been blowing up a group of thirteen year-old children in Afghanistan.

"You tell him, it's your stuff-up," Icke was growling at Darpen.

"There's no way my department is taking the blame for this," Darpen shot back.

There was a brief moment during which it looked like Icke might punch Darpen in the nose, but as the Aurora Stealth drew up alongside them, they quickly recomposed themselves as it rumbled to a halt.

The cockpit door flew open and out jumped Ahmkarah in the form of President Rockenfeld. He was dressed in his usual pilot gear: an Air Force One jacket, a pair of stylish jeans, and a pair of more stylish combat boots, plus leather gloves and, of course, his signature dark sunglasses (even though there was no sun to be seen). He had arranged to meet his top two personnel at Area 51 for his weekly security and intelligence briefing, something that never seemed to have a fixed time or place, much to the annoyance of both cabinet officers.

They never found out when a meeting was going to be until the last minute, and because Ahmkarah's aircraft had been fitted with special anti-radar gear, everyone was kept very much on their toes. Why the leader of the Annunaki wished to remain off radar on the planet he himself controlled was just one of his many secrets. It caused air traffic control no small amount of chaos.

Ahmkarah strolled over to Darpen and Icke, who saluted him and enquired how he was. After commenting on the weather, all three of them then climbed into the back of the sedan, and it sped up towards the main base, leaving the Area 51 technicians to tend to the Aurora Stealth. At the north edge of the base, the sedan turned a corner and drove down a concrete ramp to a security checkpoint. Here the driver got out and opened the passenger doors. The three politicians climbed out and made their way to where two military guards were standing beside a lift shaft.

Having already picked up on the tension in the back of the car, Ahmkarah understood that Darpen and Icke had been arguing again.

"Don't tell me you two have had another lover's tiff?" he joked, flashing his clearance badge at the guards (a mere formality) and pressing the button for the lift.

"It's best we talk about it in the briefing, sir," said Darpen, throwing a nervous glance at the guards.

"Sure."

The doors to the lift shuddered open.

Whilst all this was perfectly normal and routine running a country from behind-the-scenes stuff, what happened next was far from it. Because as soon as the lift doors closed and it began to descend, something very odd happened. The skin and the clothing of the three politicians began teeming with tiny pixels that arranged themselves like a swarm of static fizz over the men's bodies, gradually morphing them into another form. President Rockenfeld's eyes reconfigured into yellow ovals with black, slit-like pupils as his skin and clothing transformed into dark brownish-green scales. He grew taller, hands rippling pixel by pixel into three stubby fingers and a small thumb, each sprouting a blunt claw.

Darpen and Icke underwent similar transformations, Darpen turning into a lizard-like being that looked just as malnourished as he had in human form, and Icke morphing into a lizard-like being who looked just as huge and solid as he had in his human guise. He was a reptilian, walking tree trunk.

As the vibrational energy field of every atom on the bodies of the Annunaki finished rearranging at the quantum level, Ahmkarah murmured, "Much better," and stretched his tail out behind him.

The lift dropped deep into the ground and finally reached the bottom, where the doors opened to reveal a mass of what appeared to be human beings moving around the vast underground centre, each of them attending to his work with fixed and calculated intent. Some were studying real-time satellite imagery of various locations around Earth, zooming through streetscapes as they located and tracked specific humans, whilst others were staring at rolling search returns that were filtering out of various computers, analysing the results for suspicious-looking patterns and trends.

Area 51 Underground wasn't the only location the Annunaki conducted their surveillance operations from. They had more bases on Earth than anyone might guess. Most of these bases, like this one under Area 51, were buried deep underground at otherwise normal, top-secret military installations. Area 51 Underground was however their most advanced base and held the latest in black budget equipment that would not find a place in the public market for at least twenty years, if it made an appearance there at all.

From Area 51 Underground, the Annunaki fed every organisation that served their agenda pre-planned information at specific times. Decisions made at Area 51 Underground trickled down through the system, their final destinations usually not even known to those at the top, such was the importance of compartmentalisation.

The trick was, the Annunaki believed, to keep the masses in a tightly controlled reality. The more the Annunaki repeated the same imagery, ideology, and belief systems through media, education, and culture, the more habituated the average human being would become. A controlled environment from birth meant people grew up with predictable behavioural patterns. The Annunaki could thus engineer values en-masse, meaning, a mostly unconscious state of mind could be maintained in every human being with relative ease. Too weighed down worrying about how to pay their bills, avoid war, disease, and all the other nasties that filled the news, nobody had any energy left to worry about anything else, least of all what lay beyond Earth and what the point of their existence actually was. And thus consensus reality continued to propagate, and any chance humanity had to raise its collective vibration was crushed a little bit more with each new day.

Ahmkarah surveyed his headquarters and smiled. It was only a matter of time now before the Annunaki would reach the negative tipping point they'd been working so hard to achieve. Then they would be able to snap away from El-Quan-Tem and his controlling vibrational system of ascension forever.

Nobody batted an eyelid as three humongous lizards stalked out of the lift on their hind legs and made their way to a door guarded by two armed men. They passed the guards and lumbered into the corridor on which Ahmkarah's private office was located. Inside his office, Ahmkarah surveyed the paperwork on his desk before making his way over to the drinks credenza, where a silver jug stood with six silver goblets.

"Still warm," he said as he picked up the jug and poured a shot of what looked very much like blood into three of the goblets. Balancing the goblets in one broad, scaly palm, he walked to his desk and handed one each to Darpen and Icke. They all sat down.

There were no windows inside Ahmkarah's underground office. Instead, heat lamps ran across the ceiling, making a constant humming noise. Not only did Ahmkarah enjoy the warmth from the lamps (there are some things you simply never evolve out of), but he also hated silence and the uncomfortable feelings that sometimes arose when it struck. Slurping his drink, Ahmkarah waited for Darpen and Icke to begin.

"There have been some anomalies, sir," Darpen began in a quiet voice.

Ahmkarah nodded and took another sip.

"Minor increases in HVB memes," Darpen went on, his eyes fixed on his clipboard so he could avoid eye contact with Ahmkarah. "Mainly through channellers... Intel suggests some sort of...mass awakening."

Ahmkarah put his drink down. "Just increase the intensity of the low frequency field," he said. "Use Indecta. We haven't spent all this time staging all these false flag attacks for nothing."

Darpen nodded.

Ahmkarah sensed Darpen was keeping something from him. "What is it?" he hissed.

"There's been an increase in HVB spacecraft sightings, too; Arcturian mostly. Some over major cities worldwide."

Ahmkarah leant back in his chair, wondering why he was being bothered with such trivial issues. "Under universal law," he said, "HVBs aren't allowed to reveal their spacecraft for any longer than a few minutes at a time. And humans can't see HVBs whilst they're at such a low vibration." He cracked his green knuckles. "So what's the problem?" Another crack. "Use disinformation to cover it up. This is why we have all of these organisations at our disposal."

Darpen nodded and scribbled something down on his clipboard. Then he looked up again.

"What is it?" Ahmkarah snapped.

Now Icke sighed and sat forwards, his chair creaking under his weight. "An Arcturian craft was detected in Melbourne, Australia, on Friday," he said. "We got there as quickly as we could, but Information and Awareness took too long to give us the Intel." He aimed an accusatory glance at Darpen. "They got a head start—"

"How dare you blame Information and Awareness!" Darpen shot back. "It's not our fault your lot couldn't catch them—"

"Catch them?" Ahmkarah interrupted. "Why would you want to catch them? That's not the protocol."

Darpen and Icke looked at each other, each hoping the other was going to deliver the news.

But Ahmkarah had had enough. He slammed a scaly fist down on the desk. "What the hell happened?"

"They took a human," Darpen blurted. "Just a young journalist," he added, attempting to soften the blow.

Icke nodded. "We chased them to the Arcturian stargate, but they used that stuff on us...those rays... We lost two Aurora Stealths."

Staring at his two top officials, Ahmkarah remained silent for so long they were beginning to sweat by the time he spoke. "Why wasn't I told about this?"

Darpen and Icke looked at each other.

"We didn't want to worry you," Darpen said in a small voice. "Not with the Indecta launch com—"

"You didn't want to _worry_ me? As long as humans have been living under the low frequency field we put over this planet, they haven't been able to raise their vibration. That's how we know they'll never be able to make contact with HVBs. That's why we got the Silver Ray to design the field the way it is. So only a human can re-attune the crystal to resonance frequency." He sounded like he was lecturing to the feeble-minded. "That's how we claim humanity have submitted voluntarily. But we know they'll never be able to do this whilst they're living under the field." He half-rose from his chair. "And now you tell me that a human has managed to make contact with HVBs?" He leaned over his desk. "And you didn't want to _worry_ me? Would someone mind telling me how the hell this happened?"

Darpen and Icke shrank back into their chairs.

"I'm sorry, sir," Darpen stammered. "We don't know."

Icke spoke up now. "We've sent two of the new Scorpions out after them. They should catch the little bastards soon enough."

Ahmkarah stood up, knocking his chair over on its back, and walked back over to the credenza, where he poured himself another goblet of the blood-like substance. He threw it back in one gulp.

"Um, sir?" Darpen ventured.

"What?" Ahmkarah slammed his goblet down on the credenza.

"I'm afraid that's not all."

Ahmkarah glared at him through unblinking yellow eyes.

"Intel has confirmed the high vibrational energy waves are definitely coming. They're due to hit on the twenty-first of December. That's only two weeks before Project Blue Beam."

Ahmkarah poured himself another goblet of blood and knocked it back, too. Crossing his arms over his chest, he stared up at the heat lamps. "I'm so sick of El-Quan-Tem and his HVB police trying to control the entire goddamn universe." He fixed his underlings with another stare. "Get Gakona up on the video-conference," he said, hurling his goblet at them. "Now!"

They ducked to avoid the goblet and launched themselves at the flat screen television surrounded by a clutter of video-conferencing equipment. Fumbling around and swearing at each other, they worked to get the tangle of wires and electrical equipment to work.

Ahmkarah shook his head, picked up another goblet, poured himself another drink, and stomped back to his chair, his tail flailing back and forth. An image crackled up on the television screen.

A twenty-something human with blonde hair and an unkempt beard was sitting at a computer, carefully airbrushing an image of a flying saucer on his monitor with his mouse.

Icke adjusted the speakers and stepped back.

"Wright!" Ahmkarah yelled at the television.

The blonde-haired man leapt up, startled to see Ahmkarah staring at him on the video-conference screen.

The man's name was Dr Edward Wright, and his official title was Head of Research and Development at Gakona Weather Station in Alaska. He was one of two scientists permanently based there. The official story of the Gakona weather station was that it was a remote base used for research and development of new atmospheric-based weather systems. When it came to disinformation, the Annunaki had come to realise that the vaguer they were in their initial disclosure, the more humanity would end up inventing for themselves to fill in the gaps, with ideas so far removed from the reality of the situation that the last thing they ever had to worry about was anyone finding out the real truth.

"I'm bringing Project Blue Beam forwards by two weeks," said Ahmkarah. "That won't be a problem for you, will it?"

Wright fidgeted in the sort of way that suggested it probably would be a problem, but there was no way this side of the moon he was going to say so. "N-no, sir," he stuttered. "W-we just tested the n-new images in the transmitter this m-morning. Crystal clear...just loading them up...should beam t-through the f-field nicely," he said anxiously, twisting the end of his beard.

Ahmkarah smiled. "Good. I want you to load all the HVB spacecraft holograms into one program and put it on an automated start. That way we don't have to worry about any of the remote bases stuffing up their start times."

Wright nodded. "Certainly, sir. I'll get Zimmerman onto it immediately," he said, referring to the other Annunaki being who worked with him at Gakona.

Ahmkarah turned away from the television and pointed a claw at Icke. "I don't want those missiles taken up into orbit until the last minute," he said. "Just a few days before, so we have just enough time to hook them up to the satellites before launch."

Icke frowned. "But, sir, it would be better if we could send them up now," he said. "Then we'd have time to run the proper checks—"

"Are you telling me there's reason to believe any of these missiles won't launch?"

"No, sir. It's just—"

Ahmkarah turned back to Wright. "Tell Zimmerman to hook the missiles up to the same program," he said. "When everything is running off the same system; it'll be much easier to control. Darpen will contact you with the new timing details later," he finished, dismissing Wright with a flick of his scaly hand.

Wright nodded. "Yes, sir." An awkward moment followed during which the computer scientist didn't know what to do with himself before Darpen finally worked out how to switch the video-conference off.

"You know I hate to rush social engineering," said Ahmkarah as all three sat down again. "But I reckon if we launch Project Blue Beam at the exact same time those high vibrational energy waves hit—assuming they even get through the low frequency field—humanity will just associate the new energy with fear from the attacks." As he grinned, his rows of decaying teeth shone through his thin lips, covered in the blood-like substance he'd just been drinking.

Darpen and Icke nodded, both of them looking much better than they had done at the start of the meeting. Icke reached for his goblet, and Darpen did the same.

Ahmkarah wasn't quite finished. "Make sure I get Intel on that escapee human as soon as it comes in," he said. "We need to rectify that situation immediately. No matter what I'm doing, interrupt me."

"Certainly, sir." Darpen set his empty goblet down and collected his paperwork. Icke did the same, and the two Cabinet officers shuffled out of Ahmkarah's office, their tails trailing on the floor behind them.

The door closed. Ahmkarah looked at the clock on his desk. Just two hours to go before his video-conference with the Chinese Prime Minister and he still hadn't finished any of the associated paperwork. Grumbling to himself, he rooted out the necessary forms from a pile on his desk. If there was one thing he detested more than stuff-ups, it was paperwork. Being the leader of a race of beings secretly controlling an entire planet certainly had its perks, but it wasn't always all it was cracked up to be.

# Chapter Seven

## _The Gaian Rebels_

The two opal white universes continued to hover above El-Quan-Tem's desk. Subtle patterns of rainbow-coloured light moved over their surfaces, glimmering from the hundreds of billions of galaxy clusters and nebulae within. A silver thread hung between the two universes. Although it looked like spider silk, it was really a tube of etheric plasma, a complex substance with multidimensional properties used by universe crafters to create wormholes, or tunnels through space-time. This particular wormhole ran from the upper layers of the atmosphere of the Earth in El-Quan-Tem's universe to the upper layers of the atmosphere of the Earth in El-Cos-Mol's universe. Or the other way around, depending on your perspective.

El-Cos-Mol squinted at the Earth in his opal white universe and frowned. It was in exactly the same mess it had been in when he had first walked into his colleague's office to ask for help. The oceans were still murky and bubbling with acid, the rainforests were still desolate wastelands of charcoal stumps, and the sky was still nothing but a thick, toxic smog. As for the human beings, they were still mutated beyond all recognition. And from this mess, there would be no return.

It was their own fault. In an attempt to adapt to the increasingly inhospitable environment they had created through their destructive, lower-vibrational ways, they had tried to engineer new genes into their DNA. But in doing so, they had transformed themselves into something so utterly different from their original form that El-Cos-Mol had had to reclassify them as an entirely new species. _Greys_ , he'd called them. Short little things, about four feet tall with rubbery grey skin, bulb-shaped heads, and almond-shaped eyes. Some of them had hair, but most did not.

But their experiment had not been a complete disaster. They had managed to genetically modify themselves to cope with most climate extremities and could therefore breathe almost any gas. Which was just as well, because the gases circulating around their planet were rather awful.

El-Cos-Mol and El-Quan-Tem had hoped to fix this situation on the Greys' Earth by creating the wormhole. But so far, the wormhole only seemed to have made things worse. Even more frustrating for El-Cos-Mol, was the fact that his planet Earth was five hundred years older than El-Quan-Tem's, meaning that it really ought to have activated by now. Tapping his transcendental foot impatiently on the floor, El-Cos-Mol scanned the planet for the only Grey who had ever shown any hope of raising its vibration.

It was a Wednesday afternoon in early December, and the usual blanket of smog was hanging over the commercial greenhouses at the Gaian Rebels' base in Minnesota, North America. Zetan Rumli, a middle-aged Grey with blue eyes and a mop of sandy hair, was wandering through the rejuvenation shed, a long greenhouse that was fitted out with UV lamps, humidity regulators, and other atmosphere-controlling devices, all of which were designed to ensure that conditions inside were nothing like conditions outside.

"Any luck?" Zetan asked two fellow Greys as he wandered past.

Dressed in brown oilskin coats, the two arborists were busy inspecting a bench of potted saplings, which (just like the last collection) were looking fragile and withered.

One of the arborists looked up at Zetan and shook his head. "Nothing, sir," he replied.

Zetan sighed and adjusted the rim of his cowboy hat. Then he thrust his hands into the pockets of his blue camouflage jacket, the official uniform of the Gaian Rebels, and kept walking.

He made his way down the greenhouse aisle to where another Grey was standing beside a large, cage-like enclosure. This Grey's name was Xemal, and he was the second in command. Like Zetan, Xemal was dressed in blue camouflage, but unlike Zetan, he had neither cowboy hat nor hair.

Zetan peered into the cage. Two African elephants, looking old and frail, lay huddled together on the floor.

"Have they eaten anything?" he asked Xemal. The trough in their cage was overflowing with apples and bits of straw.

Xemal shook his head.

A stocky young Grey walked into the cage and patted one of the elephants. Seeing Zetan standing outside, he shrugged his shoulders and smiled sadly.

Zetan smiled back. It wasn't as if the zoologist could do any more than he already had. He'd created as nice a home for the elephants as possible and given them everything he could think of, from a soft floor to clean water and fresh fruit and vegetables. He'd even tried playing classical music to them, but nothing seemed to make much difference.

"It has to be the journey," Zetan said to Xemal. But he had no idea which part of the journey was so harmful. The cargo spaceships the Gaian Rebels used to carry the creatures back in were the most state-of-the-art spaceships around. They had a perfectly controlled atmosphere. And the collectors were always extremely careful when they beamed the creatures up.

Spotting a hose on the floor of the cage, Zetan walked around to the gate and went in. Twisting the nozzle, he dragged the hose over to one of the elephants, held it up to the creature's lips, and let a trickle of water run out.

"Come on, boy," Zetan whispered, patting the elephant on the side of the head.

"It's no use, sir," said the zoologist.

The elephant looked at Zetan with such resignation in its eyes that Zetan respectfully stepped away and turned the hose off.

"Is it too late to take them back?" he asked the zoologist. He didn't want such beautiful creatures to die. Too much of Earth's life had already been wasted.

The zoologist nodded. "I'm sorry," he said, "but they won't move again."

Zetan walked out of the cage and slammed the gate behind him. Still frustrated, he kicked a piece of green rock that was lying on the greenhouse floor. The rock sailed through the air and smashed against the glass on the other side of the greenhouse, very nearly shattering it.

"Sorry!" Zetan called out to a couple of Greys standing below where the rock had hit. He began walking away, swearing under his breath and casting his mind back to how it had all began.

He had grown up much like any other Grey in his generation: haunted by the knowledge that his planet was doomed. At the same time, he'd always wondered how previous generations had managed to make such a mess of things. At the age of twenty-four, he had become so distressed with the state of his planet and so annoyed at his government for never doing anything but make more of a mess that he had set up a resistance movement. He had called the organisation the Gaian Rebels.

An underground movement of an unknown number, the Gaian Rebels carried out campaigns, protests, hacking, and subterfuge...anything to create anarchy and resistance in the hopes of bringing about an end to the hierarchy of the ruling elite that was still creating so much destruction.

Little did Zetan realise the folly of his ways. Instead of awakening and raising his vibration, he was using lower-vibrational behaviour to try to combat lower-vibrational behaviour. As a consequence, the Gaian Rebels were not successful at initiating long lasting change. Eighteen years had gone by like this, and Zetan and the Gaian Rebels had nearly lost all hope.

Then one day Zetan had stumbled upon a wormhole. Following a strange dream in which a glittery old man in a long purple jacket, a frilly white shirt, and tight trousers had instructed him to fly out into space to a specific set of coordinates, the young Grey had taken a solitary flight into space. Because he didn't believe in anything that couldn't be proven by science, certainly not in things like spirit guides or messages from God (God didn't exist, he maintained; there was no way God would let such horrible things happen to such a beautiful planet), he normally wouldn't have acted upon dream guidance. But he had nothing better to do that day, so off he went. (By the twenty-sixth century on El-Cos-Mol's Earth, such an epic journey was quite normal.)

Zetan had hopped into his spacecraft, whizzed off, and soon discovered a strange tunnel of a plasma-like substance embedded in the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere. After flying through the tunnel for several hours, he had finally come out the other end, which (though he had no way to know this) lay in the upper layers of the atmosphere of Earth in El-Quan-Tem's universe.

So far so good, El-Quan-Tem and El-Cos-Mol had thought. Now it was only a matter of time before both types of human being started working together for the betterment of their worlds.

But Zetan got it wrong. Instead of realising he was in a different universe on a different planet Earth, he concluded that he'd found a way to time travel. After all, the far end of the wormhole had the exact same coordinates as the near end. But here at the far end, the skies were blue, trees and plants still grew on the planet's surface, and a multitude of creatures were living in a fully functioning ecosystem. Judging by the vehicles he could see on the surface below and the other aircraft he occasionally passed in the sky, he assumed he was in the early twenty-first century.

After his initial excitement wore off, he decided there had to be a way to use the wormhole to aid the Gaian Rebels' cause. Was it to be their task to go back in time and warn the humans of the past about the perils of the future? Were the Gaian Rebels supposed to persuade the people of the past to change their ways? Not much point in that, he thought. The damage had already been done. Besides, he knew that even when the truth was staring them in the face, humans had an uncanny knack of staying in denial.

His only option, he believed, was to try to make positive change on Earth in his own time (in what he considered to be the present). And so, during a number of reconnaissance missions through the wormhole, Zetan developed a plan. He would approach the government of the past—a U.S. president called Fox Rockenfeld, a member of the Neocon Party, that had just been elected—to see if he could strike up a deal with him. He would offer Rockenfeld advanced technology in return for live specimens of animals, birds, plants, and reptiles. Genetic engineering had destroyed the human species, Zetan said to himself, but maybe it could save some of the other species.

And so, at around the same time that Sophie was celebrating her twentieth birthday, Zetan flew through the wormhole and arrived in the upper layers of the atmosphere of Earth in El-Quan-Tem's universe. Still believing he was in the past, he flew to Area 51, where he caused something of a security stir as he hopped out of his interstellar spacecraft and demanded to meet with President Fox Rockenfeld.

It was not a cordial meeting. Zetan immediately decided that he couldn't trust Rockenfeld. He wasn't sure why, there was just something about him that made Zetan feel uneasy. So, instead of revealing his true identity to Rockenfeld as a human from the future, Zetan explained that the Greys were a race of beings from a galaxy far, far away. And then, he pitched his idea.

Ahmkarah listened carefully to the space-traveller's offer and decided that advanced technology would come in handy. Without revealing his true identity as an Annunaki (so that both men were, so to speak, in disguise and were lying to each other), Ahmkarah agreed to give the Greys the specific levels of clearance they needed to collect certain species from around the world.

Quantum processors, interstellar craft, particle accelerators...the Greys brought Ahmkarah all sorts of exciting things. In return, they beamed livestock and vegetation up when nobody was looking and shipped it off through the wormhole.

Zetan also recruited some of the best scientists in his world. He hoped they would discover how to clone the specimens they brought back. But everything they brought to their Earth died before they could begin any sort of experiment. He couldn't understand why, after all this time, they still hadn't been able to solve this problem.

Xemal caught up with Zetan and the pair walked through the greenhouse together towards the exit.

"We need access to all levels of Earth's ecosystem in the past," Zetan complained. "Not just the few levels Rockenfeld gives us access to now and then. It's the lack of complexity in the ecosystem here that's the problem. We can't recreate all the subtle relationships Earth's species had in the past."

Xemal remained silent. He could tell Zetan was trying to convince himself as much as anyone else. Nobody knew why everything they brought back from the past died so quickly. Even the best scientists in the world hadn't been able to work it out.

He tried to change the subject. "Any idea what we'll offer Rockenfeld next?"

They had almost exhausted their patent list and were rapidly running out of bargaining tools.

"We've still got the RFID." Zetan was referring to the Radio-Frequency Identification Chip he'd so far tried to avoid using because it was so mediocre. "It's not exactly advanced technology, though. I can't see Rockenfeld giving us much for it." He sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "But I guess it's worth a try."

Although Xemal also had his doubts that President Rockenfeld would be interested in something as simple as a data storage device, he nodded.

The two Greys remained silent as they walked past a pen where two dead sheep lay on the floor. A Grey in an oilskin coat was bending over the shaggy carcasses with a clipboard, running the usual checks to see if he could identify what had killed the creatures.

Zetan and Xemal continued towards the exit in silence, stopping at the air-adjustment chamber, where Zetan pressed the button. After a few seconds, the chamber door opened and they stepped inside, where they waited for the walk signal above the door to flash before it swished open.

Outside, a hot, dusty wind was blowing across the barren, grey landscape. A red dot that shone through the smoggy haze that covered the sky was sinking towards the horizon.

Xemal was still thinking. "We could offer him some moldavite," he joked, kicking another piece of the green rock on the ground.

Zetan smiled. Chunks of moldavite had been falling on Minnesota since the Gaian Rebels had moved to the base. Amazingly, nobody had ever been hit by these meteorites, which always fell at night when nobody was outdoors. At first, the dropping rocks had been a novelty, and the Gaian Rebels had sold them on the Internet and used the profits to fund their cause. But now the moldavite fell so often and was so common that demand had ceased. The green rocks just lay all over the ground.

Zetan sent another piece of moldavite sailing through the smoggy air. "What's the point of having all this technology if we can't use it for something good?"

"I don't know, sir," Xemal replied.

Zetan looked up at the blurry sky. "Do you think there's other intelligent life out there? And if there is, do you think they're messing everything up as much as we are?"

Xemal shook his head. "No, I don't. The space exploration we've done, we would have found something by now."

"You're right," said Zetan. "I guess it's probably for the best. If there's anything else out there that is remotely like us, the universe would be in real trouble." To punctuate his sentence, he kicked another piece of moldavite.

# Chapter Eight

## _Chi-Quan_

Concluding that Zetan wasn't about to have any major epiphanies any time soon, El-Cos-Mol made a quick trip to the tea room, where he brewed a fresh pot and then rejoined El-Quan-Tem in the office. The two transcendental beings poured themselves cups of tea and nibbled at biscuits before checking to see how Sophie was getting on in El-Quan-Tem's universe.

Two weeks had passed. Sophie and her guides were back on-board the _Pegasus Galactic_ and were now flying as fast as they could toward Rangala, a blue moon that orbited the planet Morlongo, which orbited the star Salph in the Orion constellation.

Setting out had been a simple decision for them to make, given that they'd had no other options. The three of them had been sitting in the dining hall having breakfast the morning after Metatron had visited.

"What else do you know about Apex?" Sophie had asked Roger. She was trying again to work out why the Light Master might have contacted her in a dream.

"Apex was one of El-Quan-Tem's most faithful Light Masters," Roger had replied. "He carried out all sorts of advanced tasks for El-Quan-Tem, one of them being to train the Silver Ray, a progressive HVB organisation. He taught them everything he knew about multidimensional journeying, altering belief systems, and so on, so they could create powerful yet subtle vibrational-guidance technologies to help LVBs ascend. Apex assumed the technologies would be used in accordance with the will of El-Quan-Tem," he sighed here, "but as soon as Apex finished working with the Silver Ray, they went straight to the Annunaki and gave them everything they needed to set up the low frequency field over Earth."

"That's terrible," Sophie said.

Roger nodded. "Apex blamed El-Quan-Tem. He quit his job as a Light Master, moved to Rangala, and became a recluse. Nobody has heard from him since."

"But it wasn't El-Quan-Tem's fault, was it?"

"Apex thought it was," Roger replied. "And he is a much higher-level guide than we are, so who knows? Either way, he's still the biggest lead we have."

After that decision was made, Sophie had assumed they would be able to get going fairly quickly. But what with Roger's obsessive tendencies, which surfaced in his packing, and Zalzibar's need to do an interview and photo shoot with almost every Arcturian publication, it had taken them four whole days to leave the space station. From pencils to food and from oxygen tanks to Arcturian spices, Roger had made an exhaustive (and exhausting) list, packed the lot, and checked off even the tiniest items before he and Sophie had painstakingly carried everything on-board the saucer.

Were they overdoing it? Sophie wondered about that. Obviously they would need oxygen (well, she would, anyway), but would they really need six barrels of sopia nut milk and three whole sacks of cara leaves for carasopia tea?

"It's Zalzibar's favourite," Roger explained as he and Sophie rolled the barrels into the supply room on Deck One whilst Zalzibar was giving another interview to the _Arcturian Times_ , whose reporter had flown to the space station to meet with him "exclusively."

"He'll be most upset if we don't bring it," Roger added, "and he's difficult enough on long-haul flights as it is."

During those four days Sophie made several trips to the space station cloakroom for her spacesuit fitting, a prerequisite for all humans who might have to land in alien climates with their guides. Sophie's spacesuit was light, white, and flexible, and she could wear it over tight-fitting clothes. (It was a bit like wearing motorcycle leathers.) The material contained intelligent nanofibres, and the suit had a built-in gravity regulator that automatically adjusted itself to external air pressure and gravity levels. She had also been given a pair of chunky white space boots, a pair of white gloves, and a helmet, the latter with a built-in oxygen system and a microphone/speaker set so she could communicate when she had the whole kit on.

Four days later, after Sophie and Roger had finished packing what seemed like the entire contents of the space station onto the _Pegasus Galactic_ , and after Zalzibar had made sure he would appear on the front covers of at least six different magazines while they were away, they finally set off.

It was now a Thursday morning in early December, and they had been in space for two weeks, and even though Sophie was now directly involved in a conflict against one of the most dangerous LVB races in the galaxy, she had settled into a comfortable routine on-board the spacecraft and was quite enjoying herself.

Every morning (even though in outer space there is no difference between night and day), Zalzibar knocked on Sophie's cabin door (located on Level Three with the other two bedrooms) and brought her a bowl of hot carasopia tea. He always said good morning and set it down on her bedside table, then scurried over to the small window on the wall, where he drew open the little curtain, after which he left her alone.

Sophie sat up in bed and drank her tea, then took a morning shower in her adjacent en-suite and got dressed. Then she wafted down to Deck Two, where she joined Zalzibar at the breakfast bar whilst Roger cooked breakfast for them in the kitchen.

Roger liked to use breakfast to discuss any overnight reports he'd received from the space station, reports which usually involved the latest Annunaki antics and any stand-out news that the Arcturians at the space station thought was of particular importance. Given that this news tended to be fairly negative, it was perhaps not the cheeriest way to start the day, but talking about the news certainly served to remind them of the bigger picture of what they were doing and why. Consequently, by the time the three of them got up to the bridge, they were filled with much motivation (plus some frustration) and were ready to tackle the day.

Roger next rolled out the relevant star charts and poured over the route they'd be taking that day, calling the coordinates out to Zalzibar, who double-checked everything in the Universal Positioning System (UPS), a device comprising the silver control panel and the oval computer screen that sat in the middle of the cockpit. Not only did this ingenious technology automatically adjust their flight path, but it also detected other spacecraft and objects nearby (or relatively nearby), such as comets and asteroids. Then it made minor adjustments to their course to prevent possible high-speed interstellar collisions which might prove fatal.

Sophie and Zalzibar left Roger to do the daily instrument checks as they beamed down to the engine rooms on Deck One. There, they checked on the fuel and replaced the empty fuel tanks with full ones.

The fuel the Arcturians used amazed Sophie. According to Roger, there was a recurring natural energy source that flowed through every high-vibrational planet and could be collected from energy centres known as vortexes. Because this energy was constantly replenishing itself, the Arcturians had all the fuel they would ever need at no cost, either to themselves or to their environment.

After Sophie and Zalzibar had changed the fuel tanks, they rejoined Roger in the sanctum on Deck Two. Besides housing the indoor greenhouse (where Roger grew all the fresh fruit and vegetables they ate along the way) the sanctum was Sophie's favourite place on-board the _Pegasus Galactic_.

A softly-lit room, the sanctum contained an altar, above which a hand-stitched tapestry showing the spiral of El-Quan-Tem was draped behind another collection of brightly-coloured Light Master figurines that stood proudly amongst flickering candles and an array of glistening crystals. Beanbags and cushions were scattered on the floor (which resembled a dance studio), and various shelves hung from the walls, each one holding several books, some of which were in English so Sophie could read them, on topics that ranged from multidimensional healing to HVB planetary prophecies. This was Roger's library.

Yes, Sophie loved the sanctum. She felt an immense peacefulness there that she had never felt anywhere else, and as she was sitting on her beanbag beside her two Arcturian guides doing her morning meditation on this particular Thursday, she was so relaxed that she was finding it difficult to keep her eyes open.

"And when you're ready," Roger said, bringing the meditation to a close, "you can open your eyes."

Sophie opened her eyes. She smiled. She'd been able to observe and detach from her thoughts for much longer that morning and had not been carried off by them.

Roger had noticed. "It gets easier with practice." Then he turned to his teammate. "Zalzibar!"

The yellow Arcturian was fast asleep in his beanbag again, his nose practically in his lap. At the yell, he awoke with a start. "Sorry," he said, looking guilty as he rubbed his eyes.

Trying not to laugh, Sophie looked away. She was glad she wasn't the only one who found meditation tricky.

Roger stood up and dragged his beanbag to one side of the room. He turned back to Zalzibar. "You're supposed to be setting a good example."

"I wasn't asleep! Really! I wasn't!" Zalzibar pushed himself up, stretched, and dragged his beanbag after Roger's. "I was just really deep! Practically into The Realms Beyond!"

Roger shook his head and looked at Sophie. "If you just do the opposite of everything he does, you'll be fine. Anyway, an idea came to me during meditation. It's about the next Attunement."

Sophie's eyes lit up. "Really?" She'd been hoping Roger might have an idea about how she could integrate the next Attunement. She'd been trying to do so ever since they'd left the space station but without much luck. When Roger had said El-Quan-Tem made the tasks harder after they got started, he hadn't been kidding. Sophie couldn't believe she'd integrated the first few Attunements without consciously trying, and now that she had the rest written down, she couldn't attain a single one of them. Zalzibar had argued that this merely supported his theory of doing as little as possible.

"I think it might help if you learn Chi-Quan," Roger was saying. "We weren't planning to teach you Chi-Quan until we were getting ready to return to Earth, but it came to me during meditation that we should teach you now."

"What's Chi-Quan?"

Roger looked at Zalzibar. "Maybe you can show her without falling asleep?"

Zalzibar walked up to Sophie and bowed. "Allow a Master of Chi-Quan ta demonstrate the ancient art of HVB healing," he said proudly.

"Oh, this should be good." The sarcasm in Roger's voice was unmistakable.

But Zalzibar ignored him and held his paws out in front of his chest. Much to Sophie's surprise, a spinning wheel of white light appeared on each paw.

"Wow!" She stepped closer to him. About the size of a dinner plate, each wheel was made from thousands of sparkling pixels, all darting about to make a single surface.

As Zalzibar wagged his tail from side to side, she saw a wheel of light appear on the end of his tail, too.

"Although everything we see may look solid," Roger said, "at the quantum level, it's all just vibrating energy fields. Each physical object, and each being in the universe, is made up of this same energy. Beings are smaller, more tightly-packed versions, you might say, all operating within the larger field of energy that permeates the universe."

Sophie raised an eyebrow. She was a vibrational energy field? So were physical objects? She'd always thought other things were composed of molecules and particles, but now she wondered if Roger was implying that she, too, was composed from these same tiny pixels of light. She looked closely at her hands and dismissed the idea. All she saw was just skin covering bones and blood vessels and muscles.

Roger was still lecturing. "An energy exchange occurs where our personal energy field intersects with the universal energy field. It takes place through energy vortexes known as the chakras." He nodded at his yellow colleague. "Zalzibar?"

Seven spheres of coloured light appeared on Zalzibar's body in a vertical line from the crown of his head down to his groin.

Zalzibar grinned.

"Each chakra," Roger said, "operates simultaneously in multiple dimensions of reality. They connect us to the universal energy field. The chakras take in new energy to revitalise us physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. They also move unwanted energy back out into the universal field."

Sophie looked down at her body. No spinning lights. "I've got chakras, too?"

Roger nodded. "But of course," he replied. "Each chakra is associated with energies that have a direct correspondence to a particular area of your life. For example, this one here is the base chakra." He stepped forward and pointed at the red sphere of light between the tops of Zalzibar's legs.

Zalzibar blushed.

"The root chakra grounds you in the physical world," Roger said. "It is associated with the will to survive, with inner security and stability. If too much or too little energy is flowing in or out of this chakra, you will experience imbalance in those areas of your life. If they are left unattended or unaddressed, these imbalances can eventually cause disease to manifest at the physical level of your being."

Sophie was still sceptical. "Really?" Maybe in the higher dimensions, quantum beings had this sort of makeup, but she didn't think humans did.

"The second chakra is the sacral chakra." Roger pointed at the sphere of orange light just below where Zalzibar's belly button would be if he had one. "This is associated with creativity, imagination, sensuality, and desire."

At which Zalzibar wiggled his eyebrows up and down suggestively.

"The solar plexus comes next," Roger continued, ignoring Zalzibar's eyebrows and pointing at the yellow sphere of light in the area between Zalzibar's invisible belly button and his heart. "Ego, individuality, expansiveness, power, self-control. Next," he pointed at the green sphere in the centre of Zalzibar's upper chest, "the heart. Zalzibar," he said, "you're doing a marvellous modelling job." (There may have been some sarcasm in his tone.)

Zalzibar stuck out his tongue.

"This," said Roger, still pointing at Zalzibar's heart, "is the centre for energies related to compassion, unconditional love, empathy, and giving. Again, any imbalance here can result in unwanted experiences to do with this energy."

Zalzibar smirked. "I think the Annunaki were out of town when El-Quan-Tem was dishing this one out," he said.

Sophie laughed.

Roger ignored them both and pointed at the blue sphere at the base of Zalzibar's neck. Standing up on his tip toes, Zalzibar burst into a loud, high-pitched operatic tone. "Thank you, Zalzibar," Roger said, obviously restraining himself from further comment until he added, "Expression, inspiration, communication and eloquence. Not that Zalzibar would know much about the latter."

Next he pointed at the sphere of indigo light in the middle of Zalzibar's forehead. "This chakra is better known as the third eye," he said. "Intuition, clear-vision, and foresight. And finally," he pointed at the white sphere sitting on top of Zalzibar's head, "the crown chakra. Spiritual connection and cosmic consciousness."

"Wow." Sophie was suddenly wondering if she experienced problems in her life because of imbalances in her chakras. Or if she experienced imbalances in her chakras because of problems in life. In truth, it was both at once and neither at the same time, such is the bamboozling nature of non-dual reality.

"So what are these little wheels for?" Sophie asked, pointing at the spinning plates of light on Zalzibar's paws and tail. Surely Roger wasn't implying she had these strange things as well as chakras?

"Well," Roger said, "you asked what Chi-Quan is." She nodded and he turned a page in his mental lecture notes. "It is the art of consciously tapping into the universal field of energy and channelling it through the body in order to remove energy blockages and restore balance. All ANGELs have wheels on their paws and tails for this very purpose." He flicked his own set of wheels out. "We use the back wheel to draw energy in from the universe..." he slowly wagged his tail "...and we direct it out through these two front wheels." He waved his paws.

Sophie was impressed. "Amazing," she said. "But how do I do this?"

Roger flicked his wheels back into invisibility. "You use your hands," he said.

"Sorry?"

"Close your eyes."

Even more sceptical about where all this was heading, she closed her eyes. She wasn't quantum like they were, she told herself. She wasn't even an HVB.

Roger was still speaking. "I want you to imagine silvery wisps of energy growing out from the top of your head and the bottoms of your feet," he was saying, "connecting you to the universal field of energy that is flowing all around." His voice had fallen into a soft, hypnotic rhythm.

She imagined long strands like a spider's web spindling out of her body, and soon, in her mind's eye, she could see a latticework of lights radiating outwards from her body in indigo rays, connecting her to the cosmos.

"Now," said Roger, "focus on this energy and feel it flowing in and out of you. Intend to become a channel for it. For the purpose of rebalancing." He took Sophie's hands and turned them so they were in front of her chest and facing each other.

She could hear Roger and Zalzibar moving around the sanctum, and then she felt a strange tingling sensation prickle down the back of her neck. What were they doing?

"Keep focusing on the energy, dear child," Roger instructed.

Was she supposed to have done something by now? She felt a bit silly, doubting very much she was going to suddenly acquire quantum super-powers of her own.

While she stood motionless before the altar, Roger and Zalzibar continued to move around the room, drawing the ancient initiation symbols of Chi-Quan over her just as they themselves had once received the symbols from their own guides.

Sophie felt another prickle of energy, just a faint wisp, moving above her head, where this alleged chakra was supposed to be, and then...and then it was as if she was no longer in the sanctum.

She was drifting away, floating out through the magical trails of the universal energy field, intertwining with different dimensions of reality as her awareness expanded. As if in a dream, she found herself standing at the foot of a mountain that was covered by a thick layer of snow. Its summit towered over her, reaching towards a brilliant sun, and all around her, brightly coloured trees and other plants began to grow through the snow.

And she could see something else there. It was there, but not there...a latticework of indigo light moved through the mountain, through the trees and through the very air itself. She sensed that this latticework connected this dimension to other dimensions, weaving the mountain's reality into realms beyond, sewing everything together in a multidimensional cosmic tapestry.

Two butterflies fluttered past, one orange, the other turquoise. They settled on her shoulders for a moment before fluttering off again, twirling up the mountain as if guided by a single thought.

"And now," she heard Roger saying from somewhere nearby, "consciously intend to channel the energy of Chi-Quan out of your palms so you can rebalance everything it comes into contact with. And when you're ready...open your eyes."

Sophie opened her eyes. She was back in the sanctum, and she was also feeling quite dizzy. She looked down at her palms, not really expecting to see anything, and was amazed to see faint but very real rays of white light glowing out of her hands and glinting off her fingertips. She turned her palms outwards, and the light beamed out from her hands as if she were shining a torch.

She couldn't believe it. All she could do was whisper, "It's real. It's really real."

"Kid, of course it's real," Zalzibar said. "Now you just gotta practice."

She gasped, suddenly realising the truth inherent in the Sixth Attunement. "Everything is energy!" She thought she'd understood the idea before, but now she knew it in both mind and heart. A surge of energy tingled through her body. "It worked! I got the Attunement!"

"Way ta go, kid!" Zalzibar flicked his wheels away and raised a paw for a high five with Sophie. "You'll be rebalancing the Annunaki in no time!"

"What do you mean?"

"You know...transforming the lizard men." He spoke in the sort of tone that suggested she really ought to have known what he was talking about.

Roger helped her. "Chi-Quan is how we defend ourselves against the Annunaki."

She was still bewildered. "How we defend ourselves? You mean, we don't shoot them? Or anything like that?"

"Of course not," Roger replied, sounding insulted. "We're HVBs... We don't use violence. That's far too old-paradigm for our liking."

Sophie was stunned. She'd gone from amazement to horror in less than five seconds. "But...but...we'll be killed," she protested. "There's no way we can possibly win."

"It's not about winning, dear child," Roger said. "It's about ascension. We channel the high vibrational energy of Chi-Quan and direct it into the energy fields of the Annunaki. They have free will to use the energy to raise their vibration and ascend. Or they can block it and reject it."

"But—"

"The problem with the Annunaki is that they refuse to ascend. They insist on living as disconnected from the universal energy field as they can be. They go out of their way to hold onto old patterns and negative energies, and when they receive the higher vibrational energy of Chi-Quan, it sends them into such a state of inner conflict that they...well, they self-destruct."

"They self-destruct?"

Zalzibar nodded. "It can get messy," he said.

Roger looked at his big pocket watch. "Well," he said in a definitively topic-changing tone, "I make it lunchtime."

"Great!" Zalzibar, now wheelless and looking chakraless, sprinted towards the sanctum door.

Sophie followed her guides out of the room in silence. As they walked along the hallway to the kitchen, she found herself lost in her thoughts. A race of beings like the Annunaki, hell-bent on destruction and control, and their only line of defence was high vibrational energy waves that could result in them self-destructing? Just how powerful was this new skill she had acquired? Could it possibly cause such a thing to happen? Or were her guides overstating all this? She opened her hands and looked down at her palms. They looked like plain, ordinary, human hands. She would only believe all this energy was possible when she saw it for herself.

Little did she know, this would happen a lot sooner than she was expecting.

# Chapter Nine

## _The RFID_

A couple of days later, two triangular, army-brown spaceships, complete with triangular logos painted on their hulls, were descending from an overcast winter Nevada sky. The logo was that of the Gaian Rebels, and the bulky spaceships were known as Rumblers.

The two Rumblers paused above their designated landing spot in Area 51—a patch of dead grass located beside the central hangar—and waited for landing permission. Then they hit the ground with two soft thuds, after which a hatch on one of the spaceships flew open and a Grey wearing a cowboy hat and carrying a sleek silver briefcase climbed out onto the wing, jumped down, and walked around to the other spacecraft, where he climbed up and rapped on the side.

A door opened, and Xemal appeared.

"I think it might be best if you wait here," said Zetan.

"Are you sure?" Xemal asked.

Zetan nodded. "He's more likely to agree if it's just me. Stay here and keep an eye on things. I shouldn't be too long."

Xemal nodded and closed the door behind Zetan, who jumped down and stood impatiently as the usual white van drove across from the central hangars. It pulled up beside the Rumblers and the back doors opened. Out climbed two armed military men who made their way toward Zetan and stopped two metres in front of him and saluted.

Zetan saluted back and put his briefcase down. He clicked it open to reveal a tiny capsule about a centimetre long and 2 mm. wide.

Satisfied, the guards nodded.

Zetan raised his arms above his head and allowed the men to search him.

Formalities completed, Zetan clicked his briefcase shut, walked to the van with the guards, and hopped into the back with them. The doors closed and the van screeched away towards the north of the base, where it turned a sharp corner, drove down a concrete ramp and came to a halt at a security checkpoint.

"Make sure everyone's in human form and send him down," Ahmkarah instructed security through the intercom. Vibrating in human form as President Fox Rockenfeld, he was sitting at his desk in his underground office, half-buried under a mountain of paperwork because he had gone into the office over the weekend to catch up on some of his normal presidential duties. It seemed that he had dramatically overestimated his enthusiasm, however, and spent most of the morning up in the stealth hangars playing with some of the new black budget aircraft.

When he heard the knock at the door, he pushed his budget papers aside, glad for the interruption and said, "Come in."

The door opened and Zetan walked in. "Greetings," he said, putting a hand up to the rim of his cowboy hat before closing the door behind him.

"Zetan," Ahmkarah returned. It still made him smile that a race from the other side of the galaxy had taken to human clothing the way Zetan and the other Greys who visited Earth had done. Ahmkarah wondered how the Greys had managed to steal the clothes without anyone noticing, but then he supposed that, as he had given them permission to abduct certain species at random, the odd item of clothing here and there wouldn't be too much of a problem for them.

Zetan walked over and set his briefcase on Ahmkarah's desk before climbing up into one of the empty chairs, his short legs dangling over the edge.

Ahmkarah eyed the briefcase hopefully. It had rounded corners and a tiny digital screen on its top. This, he told himself, was the sort of briefcase you might carry something useful in. He hoped so, anyway. The last thing Zetan had brought him—a design for a fancy particle accelerator—had been so confusing to his engineers that he'd simply given up and allowed them to release it onto the public market. Two and a half years on, and a team of humans in Geneva were still trying to get the blasted thing to work.

Zetan's glance took in the stack of paperwork. "I hope I'm not interrupting," he murmured.

Ahmkarah shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. "Not at all. Budget papers." He rolled his eyes. "Maths is not one of my strong points."

Zetan smiled. _Neither is being a president_ , he thought, but he decided to keep this observation to himself.

"How's the zoo going?" Ahmkarah asked, trying to pry information out of Zetan like he usually did.

"It's really coming along," Zetan lied. "We could always do with more exhibits, though." He was wondering if he should ask Rockenfeld for clearance to all six levels of Earth's ecosystem now, or if he should wait and gauge the president's reaction to the RFID chip.

Ahmkarah merely grinned. "I'd like to come and visit your zoo one day. You must have a real collection coming along by now." He studied Zetan's reaction, but the Grey remained neutral. Ahmkarah had long suspected the Greys were doing something else with the specimens they took from Earth, something far more sinister than populating a simple zoo that Zetan had always assured him he was "building," but what with his care factor being so low, Ahmkarah's curiosity never amounted to anything more than a few questions.

"Whenever you like," Zetan lied again, hoping Rockenfeld didn't really mean it about a visit. So far, Rockenfeld's administration had behaved like any other typical government at the height of empire, using the Greys for anything that would help them maintain power whilst holding no regard whatsoever for the consequences.

When Zetan had first made contact, he had assumed Rockenfeld would want to send some men back with him to inspect his home planet and conduct research for the benefits of Earth. But all Rockenfeld had cared about was the weapons and technology Zetan could bring him. He had never once asked Zetan about his home planet or if he had any technology with health benefits or philanthropic uses. And because Zetan had been unable to find any information on Rockenfeld's government when he had researched them back at rebel headquarters, he assumed Rockenfeld's administration had committed more atrocities than most and thus someone had wiped their entire period of office off the digital records.

"As soon as it's ready," Zetan added smoothly, "I'll take you there myself."

Ahmkarah smiled. He had no intention of going anywhere with the Grey. He turned his attention to the briefcase. "What's in the box?"

Zetan leant forwards and swiped a rubbery finger over the digital screen. There was a beep and the lid clicked open, revealing an interior lined with black velvet and containing nothing more than a tiny capsule about the size of a large pharmaceutical pill.

Feeling somewhat embarrassed by the size of the briefcase in relationship to the device, Zetan picked the capsule up between his thumb and forefinger. This was the smallest briefcase Xemal had been able to find. When Zetan had suggested it might be better to carry the RFID in his pocket, Xemal had insisted it would look more exciting this way. Zetan wasn't convinced.

"It's an RFID," said Zetan, placing the capsule on the desk before Rockenfeld. "Radio-Frequency Identification Tag," he added.

Ahmkarah picked up the RFID and peered at it.

"It contains an integrated circuit for storing information," said Zetan, "and a radio-frequency signal. It can be programmed to perform specialised functions." He was racking his brains to try and think of something else that would make the RFID sound better than it really was. "It's got an antenna for receiving and transmitting information. And signals can be sent via satellite from ground-based locations. You can use it for remote monitoring...that sort of thing..."

Of all the technologies he had ever brought back to the past, Zetan thought, the RFID was by far the worst. Just a silly little chip you could use to store information on. Even back in the twenty-first century, they already had similar things in credit cards and passports. Zetan sighed. Maybe he should have brought some moldavite after all.

"Really?" Ahmkarah screwed his eyes up as he studied the miniature electrical coil running through the centre of the chip. "It's very small."

Zetan sighed again. Rockenfeld wasn't the least bit interested in the chip.

Ahmkarah slid the RFID back across the desk. "Remote monitoring?"

Zetan nodded. "You can program it with anything." Was Rockenfeld mocking him? "Healthcare information, bank details, car licenses, security restrictions..."

Ahmkarah slumped back in his chair, tapping his fingers on his armrests and staring up at the heat lamps.

"Look," said Zetan, finally admitting defeat. "I know it's not much, but it's all I've got left to offer, and we really need to get more of Earth's species for our collection. I was actually hoping we might be able to get full clearance for all six levels of your planetary ecosystem." He waited for Rockenfeld's response, but the president merely continued to gaze up at the ceiling.

"Well," Zetan picked up the RFID, "I can see I'm wasting my time," he put it back in the briefcase and clicked it shut.

Rockenfeld remained transfixed by the heat lamps in the ceiling.

"Goodbye, then," Zetan mumbled. He jumped down from the chair and picked up his briefcase. "If you think of anything else we–"

"Put the case down." Ahmkarah fixed him with a stare.

Zetan put the briefcase back on the desk and climbed back up on the chair.

"Get me five billion more of these by next Friday."

Zetan's jaw dropped open. "Mass production has never been part of our deal." Why would Rockenfeld want one RFID, let alone five billion?

"I'll give you unrestricted clearance to levels one, two, three, and four," said Ahmkarah, flashing Rockenfeld's signature rock-star grin at the Grey.

Zetan's jaw dropped open for the second time. "Consider it done," he said. Okay, he told himself, it wasn't all six levels, but being able to take specimens from the first four levels would give his team the chance to attempt some form of ecosystem symbiosis, which was bound to help the creatures stay alive.

Zetan hopped down again and grabbed the briefcase. He wanted to get out of there before Rockenfeld changed his mind.

"Leave that one with me."

Zetan shrugged his shoulders and set the briefcase down. "Sure." He swiped a rubbery finger over the screen again and clicked the lid back open.

Just then the intercom buzzed.

Ahmkarah whacked the button in annoyance. "I'm busy," he growled.

"Sir...it's urgent," Darpen's voice hissed through the speaker. "It's about the human."

"I'm done anyway," said Zetan, wondering why Darpen was referring to another human as "the human."

"Get down here," Ahmkarah told Darpen. Then he turned his attention back to Zetan. "Nice doing business with you."

"Likewise," Zetan lied, making his way towards the door.

"Oh...and by the way..."

Zetan turned around.

"Whatever happens," Ahmkarah warned, " _do not get seen_. There's too much at stake now."

Zetan was about to ask the president what he meant by this, but the office door flew open and in marched Darpen, who had a determined look on his face. He gave Zetan an annoyed look and marched right up to the president's desk.

"He's just leaving," said Ahmkarah, making shooing gestures with one hand.

"Have a nice day!" said Zetan, shuddering as he walked past the carafe of what he was sure was blood on Rockenfeld's credenza.

"Five billion!" Rockenfeld called out after him.

Back out in the corridor, the Grey sighed and shook his head. Rockenfeld was insane. With madmen like him at the helms of great nations, no wonder Earth had turned into such a mess. And then he felt the usual pang of guilt. After all, he was selling dangerous technology to rogue governments. He himself might be having a negative impact on the state of the planet back in the present time. _But_ , he assured himself, _the damage has already been done._ _It doesn't matter what we do in the past_ , _only what we do in the present_.

He was about to make his way down the corridor when he realised that the door to Rockenfeld's office was still open. Glancing at the guards standing at the end of the corridor, he stuck one hand into his jacket pocket, pretending to be looking for something. He inched a little closer to the open door. He pricked up his ears.

"The Scorpion crews have found her," he heard Darpen saying. "Over in the Magnesium Spaceway, close to the Orion Stargate. They're closing in shortly."

"How long?"

"One or two hours," Darpen replied. "Icke assures me he has it all under control. Although I myself am doubtful."

Zetan realised one of the guards was watching him suspiciously. "Aha!" He pretended to find what he was looking for and continued on his way, wondering briefly who "she" was.

Darpen picked up the RFID and scrutinised it.

"Just a tiny capsule," said Ahmkarah, getting up and walking over to his coat stand, where he took down a stylish dark green suit jacket and put it on to be ready for his casual lunch with the United Nations diplomat from South Africa. Considering all the pointless meetings he had to attend, he muttered to himself, it was amazing he managed to get anything useful done at all.

Darpen was still examining the RFID. Ahmkarah turned to face him. "We'll start by making it the standard access card for the new global currency," said the president as he adjusted one of his platinum American flag cufflinks. A swarm of pixels bubbled over it.

"Access card?" Darpen asked, wondering how anyone could possibly use such a small thing as a bank card. They'd never be able to find it.

"Of course," Ahmkarah said. "Nobody will be able to access the new currency unless they've got one of these inserted in their arm."

"Oh," said Darpen. Now he understood.

"Then we'll move everything else onto it, too," Ahmkarah continued, rummaging through the paperwork on his desk to find the notes for his lunch meeting. The United Nations diplomats always had a habit of asking very annoying questions he could never remember the answers to. "Healthcare information, driver's licences, passports...everything," he continued, finally finding the notes he was looking for. "If anyone plays up..." He snapped his fingers.

Darpen looked at the capsule for a moment longer, then set it back inside the briefcase. "What did we give him?" He was not entirely certain humans were going to agree to having capsules stuck in their arms. But, then, he hadn't seen them agreeing to Indecta, either. And they had.

"Unrestricted collection clearance to levels one, two, three, and four of the global ecosystem," Ahmkarah replied, his tone saying this was nothing.

"Permission to ask, sir," said Darpen, "but why don't we just give him access to the whole lot? That's what he's after, isn't it? What difference does it make to us?"

"Because," Ahmkarah replied in a patronising tone, "if we give him access to the whole lot, we'll have nothing left to control him with." How little his colleague understood about the laws of power! "I'll draft up a press release for the RFID tonight," he added, "and we'll roll it out with the new currency next week. Perfect timing."

Darpen nodded. "Yes, sir."

"In fact," the president added, "I might get Murphy to increase the media to a grade one negative as of tomorrow."

Darpen looked confused. "But—"

"I know, I know. It's earlier than we were planning. But we may as well start tomorrow. Just to be on the safe side." The President of the United States walked over to the credenza and poured himself a goblet of sticky red liquid.

"You don't think we're rushing things?" Darpen asked, instantly regretting he had done so as his boss scowled.

"No. I don't." He sculled the drink down. "I don't want anyone getting even a sniff of those high-vibrational energy waves. Understand?"

Darpen nodded, then excused himself, and marched out the door. He wanted to leave before he got himself into any more trouble.

As he walked down the corridor, he wondered how Ralph Murphy, who was the Annunaki being that was Founder and Chairman of Globe-Net, the biggest media organisation in the world, could possibly increase the media to a grade one negative from what it already was. Globe-Net was already broadcasting a heightened state of alert twenty-four hours a day. Cyclones, pandemics, the ever-looming threat of another global economic meltdown. How could Murphy possibly do anything else to make the news any more negative?

Ah, yes. Media manipulation was the keystone to the Annunaki agenda. By filling society with repeated negative imagery and fear-based news, the Annunaki anchored negative emotions in the collective unconscious. It was one of the most effective techniques they had to prevent humanity's collective vibration from rising.

_Oh, well_ , Darpen concluded as he reached the end of the corridor and made his way past the guards, _that's Murphy's problem, not mine._

Meanwhile, up on the surface, Zetan was being escorted back to his Rumbler by the same two guards. He saluted them, then walked to Xemal's spacecraft, jumped up on the wing, and rapped on the door.

The door opened. "Don't tell me he took it!" Xemal noted the distinct lack of briefcase.

Zetan nodded, being careful to keep an eye on the guards who were still watching him from their van. "Unrestricted clearance to levels one, two, three, and four!" he whispered to Xemal, barely able to contain his excitement.

Xemal's eyes lit up. "For an RFID?"

"He wants five billion of them. In six days."

"But—"

"I know, I know. I'll talk to the guys down at the plant. They can do it," Zetan said. "I can't believe after everything we've offered him, this is what he wants the most," he added, pulling a packet of cigarettes out of his blue camouflage jacket pocket. He took one out and lit up. "I've never seen them so busy down there."

"What are they up to? And what does he want with five billion RFIDs?"

Zetan shrugged. "Obviously he's going to chip everyone."

"But nobody is chipped in the present."

Zetan shrugged again. "Maybe it doesn't work out," he said, his mind already veering off on another tangent. "I'm going to take my crew out into space here and check something out," he muttered.

"What?"

"There's some human out there," Zetan replied. "A female civilian, by the sound of it. She seems to have stolen some black-budget craft... They're paying her a lot of attention. I'm gonna see if I can find her first. She might come in useful, now we're out of bargaining tools. I want those last two levels."

"But what about the collection?" Xemal asked. Surely, he thought, Zetan would rather stay and oversee what was going to be their biggest operation yet.

"I've got a hunch," Zetan replied. "Get that RFID order back to base immediately." He flicked his cigarette butt down onto the dead grass and leant in closer to Xemal. "And get this place under full surveillance," he whispered. "Radio me about every single craft that comes in and out."

"And the collection?"

"Get as many carriers back as you can."

As Xemal nodded, Zetan jumped off the wing and walked back to his own spacecraft.

"But what if they just die when we get them back again?" Xemal called out anxiously.

One leg inside his Rumbler, the other out, Zetan turned back to Xemal, a look of desperation flashing momentarily in his eyes. "They won't." And he climbed inside his spacecraft and closed the door behind him.

# Chapter Ten

## _When LVBs Attack_

The _Pegasus Galactic_ was whooshing down the Magnesium Spaceway, past the binary star system of Sirius A and Sirius B, and towards the Orion Stargate. Even though it was sixty-two millions miles away, the light from Sirius A (the brighter of the two stars) was still shining on the silver hull of the _Pegasus Galactic_. It would have made the interior of the spacecraft incredibly bright, too, had it not been for the light-absorbing shield Roger had switched on to protect the spacecraft.

Inside, Zalzibar was reclining in his seat up at the cockpit, his paws folded casually behind his head, his feet resting on his instrument panel, as he focused all of his energy and attention into...well, doing nothing.

He checked the time. With thirty super-strings still to go, they wouldn't be at the stargate for another forty-five minutes. All in all, he reflected, it had been a fairly boring night in space. Nothing of any interest had happened, not since they'd passed Craig's Comet eight and a half hours ago, and even the comet hadn't proved particularly interesting.

Aside from its pretty lilac tail, the only thing interesting about the comet was that Roger didn't know why it was called Craig's Comet, or even who Craig was. All he had remembered was an omen from Arcturian folklore. It said Craig's Comet appeared before the onset of apocalyptical events.

Well, Zalzibar told himself with a yawn, that had been almost nine hours ago, and seeing as nothing of any significance had happened since then, he was thinking the omen was a phoney.

Down on the planning desk, Roger had two thick books open on the table, one titled _Interdimensional Vibrational Theory,_ the other, _Getting LVBs to Activation Point_. Every now and then, Roger stopped reading and scribbled something into his journal, adding to the vast collection of notes he was compiling for his _Complete Vibrational Theory of Reality_ (which, I'm afraid to say, by its very nature, would never be complete).

And Sophie? She was sitting on a beanbag on the orange shag-pile rug and reading _LVBs and the Art of Patience_ , a highly abstract book about how HVBs had to allow LVBs to make mistakes without condemning them or interfering so that the LVBs could properly raise their vibrations themselves. If an HVB just jumped in and told an LVB what to do, she read, they could actually stunt their ascension, and in some cases even send them backwards. It had left Sophie wondering if Roger and Zalzibar perhaps knew more than they were letting on.

A sigh of boredom erupted from the cockpit. "What's for midnight snacks?" Zalzibar wondered aloud.

"Roast caranums with beroji berries," Roger replied without looking up.

"I'm bored of beroji berries."

"That's what you said last night." Roger turned a page in each book. "But that didn't stop you from eating all of yours, plus the ones Sophie couldn't manage."

Sophie closed her book and got up from her beanbag. "Fancy a game of Spirals and Reptilians?" she asked Zalzibar.

Glad to have something to do, Zalzibar nodded enthusiastically. "You betcha, kid!"

Now Roger looked up. "I don't really think that game is appropriate."

"Oh, come on," Zalzibar said. "It's just a bit of fun."

He and Sophie had invented Spirals and Reptilians one night when they'd been bored. They had taken one of Roger's old star charts down from the bookcase and drawn a spiral grid over it, dividing it up into squares. Then they had drawn lizards with long tails on it, connecting certain squares together. The aim of the game was to be the first one to get your spacecraft (one of the small silver discs Roger used for his navigational planning) from the centre of the galaxy to the last square on the outer edges, by rolling a die and moving forwards by however many places. If you landed on a lizard, though, you slid backwards and had to make the distance back up again.

"There is no luck involved in ascension," Roger said in a pedantic tone. "It is not a mere game of chance."

"Rodge, nobody said anything about—"

He stopped. Not because he had suddenly comprehended the symbolism inherent in their creation, but because something outside had caught his eye.

Hundreds of stone pillars, each one about two hundred feet high and with a blue light flashing on its top, had suddenly appeared. They were floating through space, trailing off into the distance as far as the eye could see. And that wasn't all. Behind the pillars loomed a vast floating heap of wrecked spacecraft, random machinery, and other miscellaneous items. Everything was churning around in a huge sea of...

"Space junk!" Zalzibar shouted. "This means we're near the stargate!" He remembered the cosmic eyesore from previous trips.

Sophie made her way to the cockpit to look out at the space dump. "Jeez," she commented, "I thought humans made a lot of mess." Then she pointed at two red dots that had just appeared on the bottom of the UPS screen. "What're those dots?"

Zalzibar gave the UPS screen a suspicious look. "Hey, Rodge—come 'n' see if you can get a match for these guys."

With a huge sigh, Roger set his pen down and walked up to the cockpit. He swirled a paw over the UPS panel. "Curious," he muttered. "It doesn't seem to be picking up any sort of vibrational match at all."

"Annunaki!"

"No, it's probably just traffic for the stargate. Nothing important." Roger turned his back on the UPS and returned to his books.

But Zalzibar wasn't convinced the dots were nothing. "Let's hide in the space junk, anyway," he said. "Just in case."

"Out of the question," Roger said. "The UPS won't work in there. It's out of the universal transport web."

"Just to be on the safe side," Zalzibar said. And he tilted the steering column forwards, aiming the _Pegasus Galactic_ towards the pillars.

Roger didn't even look up. "Fine," he muttered. "But if we get lost, it'll be your fault. I'll see if we have an old chart for this sector," he grumbled as he began rummaging through the bookcase.

As the _Pegasus Galactic_ glided between two of the pillars, a translucent blue substance swept over the window like a sticky veil. Then a flat green line appeared on the UPS screen. Sitting down in her seat, Sophie clicked her seatbelt on. She hoped her guides really did know more than they'd been letting on.

But Zalzibar was looking back and forth in confusion.

"Do you know where we're going?" she asked him.

"Sure, sure. Been to this tip heaps of times. There's an old docking station just up from this liner," he said, pointing at an abandoned spaceship up ahead. It looked like a giant submarine.

As they flew around the old liner, Sophie couldn't help but notice a distinct lack of anything that looked remotely like a space station. Then she heard Zalzibar grumbling.

"They've moved it."

"Found one," Roger announced, returning to the cockpit with a star chart folded over his arm like a napkin over a waiter's. He laid it across his instrument panel and pointed at some squiggles in the top left-hand corner. "We must be here," he said, glancing outside at the space junk to get his bearings. "We should be able to fly directly to the docking station if we continue along this channel another five super-strings." He turned to Zalzibar. "From there, we turn right into the first channel and continue along that for twenty super-strings. That should bring us out just in front of the stargate."

Zalzibar rolled his eyes. "I knew that was the way."

Sophie was staring at the wrecks around them. Many of them had shattered windows and pieces missing. They were traveling in a graveyard for spaceships. "What's all that green stuff?" she asked, pointing at what looked like some sort of plant growing on some of the older-looking vehicles.

Roger looked up. "Space moss," he said. "It's native to this sector of the galaxy, hence, why the junkyard is here. It aids in the decomposing process."

Sophie blinked. Plants that grew in outer space and helped metal to break down. Humanity certainly had some catching up to do.

Zalzibar was twitching. "Hey, is it me, or did it just get darker?"

"We're in outer space," Roger replied. "Unless a star has just gone out, how could it possibly get darker?" But then he looked out the window again...and he realised it had indeed gotten darker. It was almost as if there was something behind them, something blocking out the light. "Pretend we're a wreck," he said.

"What?"

"We need to look like a wreck. Kill the engines and turn off the lights!" Roger reached for the light switches and keyed them off.

Darkness fell across the bridge. The only light left was coming from the faintly glowing Light Master figurines, which were swaying back and forth above Sophie's head.

Next they pulled up beside an old saucer-shaped spacecraft that looked eerily similar to the _Pegasus Galactic_ , though it was obviously a much earlier and now very outdated version. The last hum of the engines faded away.

"Do you think they followed us in here?" Sophie whispered.

"El-Quan-Tem only knows," said Roger, watching the green line on the UPS screen.

The crew sat together in silence, waiting.

Seconds ticked past.

Nothing happened.

More seconds ticked past.

Still nothing.

Five whole minutes went by, and nothing happened.

Zalzibar sighed impatiently. "Well, that was a bust," he said as he reached for the engine switches.

And just then a shadow crept across the window and a spaceship came into view. It was twice the size of the _Pegasus Galactic_. Oval in shape, it had two pods mounted on its front like claws and a pointed tail. Which was probably why it was called a—

"Scorpion!" Zalzibar yelled as he recognised the Annunaki spaceship.

"Neoco–" Sophie started to say, but suddenly corrected herself. "Annunaki!"

Up until that point, Sophie had only half-believed what was happening. A part of her had kept thinking she was having a surreal dream, a hallucination or a bizarre voyage in her questionably sane mind, and so she didn't need to take what she was learning seriously. Another part of her kept thinking even if it really was happening, everything would be relatively easy. After all, the first few Attunements had taken place without much effort on her part, and now she had her guides with her. But as she stared at the terrifyingly real Annunaki spaceship beside them, she realised she was not dreaming.

"My giddy aunt," Roger was muttering as the Scorpion crawled along outside, scanning the wrecks and debris on both sides of the channel for its prey. "We stick out like a supernova!"

Any second now, Sophie thought grimly, the Scorpion would glide along beside them, and the Annunaki would board. Either that or they would just blow the _Pegasus Galactic_ into pieces.

"They've stopped moving!" Zalzibar looked like he wanted to hide under his chair.

Sure enough, the Scorpion had ground to a halt, a mere sneeze away.

"They must be preparing to board us," said Roger.

But it was a false alarm. Apparently concluding there was nothing alive in that sector other than space moss, the Scorpion's commander ordered the engines started, and the huge craft swept forward along the channel, knocking bits of space junk aside as it disappeared into the distance.

Roger let out the breath he'd been holding. "Thank El-Quan-Tem for that."

"What about the other one?" Sophie asked. There had been two red dots.

"I'll go up to the dome and have a look," said Roger, unbuckling his seatbelt and scurrying down across the bridge. He hopped into the beam and was swept upwards.

A minute later, they heard him calling down. "All clear! But I'll stay up here and keep a look out until we reach the stargate."

"Jeez, that was close," Zalzibar muttered as he restarted the craft. "Let's keep the lights off, just to be on the safe side."

"Good idea," said Sophie. As they began moving under their own power again, she began to wonder how many other Annunaki were still out there. Were they looking for her? She had escaped from the mind-control system they had placed over her planet. Did they know that she was trying to shut it down? Would there be more waiting for her back on Earth? The idea of facing the Annunaki and having only Chi-Quan to defend herself with now seemed akin to suicide.

"There's the docking station!" Zalzibar was pointing at an old complex that, like everything else in the junkyard, looked derelict and ancient with broken runways sticking out of it and lots of shattered windows.

Zalzibar flew the _Pegasus Galactic_ around some metal containers and manoeuvred into the first channel on the right, as per Roger's instructions.

Sophie felt herself beginning to calm down. "What is a stargate, anyway?" she asked.

"They're energy vortexes," Zalzibar replied. "They connect different parts of the galaxy together through the universal energy field. They're like shortcuts. We use 'em ta fly ta places in seconds that'd otherwise take weeks. Or months."

"Wow."

Zalzibar nodded. "My grandpa reckons when he was young they didn't have any. Can you believe that!"

Sophie laughed nervously. She could hardly get her head around normal space travel, let alone stargates.

"There's the perimeter," Zalzibar announced as the flashing blue lights on top of the pillars came into sight.

Sophie breathed a sigh of relief. _Thank El-Quan-Tem for that_ , she thought.

But this prayer of thanks may have been premature, because in that precise moment, a Scorpion leapt out into the channel up ahead and began pelting back towards them.

As Sophie screamed, Zalzibar grabbed the steering column and pulled it backwards. The _Pegasus Galactic_ shot upwards out of the channel, ricocheting off the miscellaneous debris.

"Scorpion!" Roger cried out from up in the dome.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious!" Zalzibar called back as he attempted to navigate the _Pegasus Galactic_ through the space junk without the use of the UPS.

A shower of red lasers shot past the window.

"In the name of El-Quan-Tem!" Zalzibar swore, moving the steering column almost in circles.

"Is there anything I can do?" Sophie asked.

Zalzibar shook his head. "You can't fly the ship manually through here, kid, and the autopilot won't work without the UPS."

She screamed and pointed. "There's another one!"

More red lasers came zapping past their window.

She couldn't just sit there. She had to do something. "I'll go and check on Roger."

"Kid, put your spacesuit on. In case he has to open the dome."

Wondering why Roger would want to open the dome, Sophie made her way across the bridge to where her spacesuit was hanging, fumbling into it and nearly falling over as the _Pegasus Galactic_ jolted sideways again. Pressing the button on her sleeve to activate the intelligent nanofibres like the crimson Arcturian had shown her, she felt the material suck onto her body. She picked up her space boots and stuck a foot into each one before scrambling for her helmet and gloves.

Up in the dome, Roger was preparing one of two mechanical chairs mounted on a platform in the middle of the observatory-like area. Seeing Sophie step out of the hover beam, he protested. "Dear child," he said, "it's too dangerous up here. You must go back down."

"But I want to help," insisted Sophie, her heart missing a beat as she saw how close the Annunaki spaceships were. She and Roger were like shooting targets nicely positioned in a glass display box.

"Very well. Put your helmet on. You can help me with the Chi-Quan." He pressed the button that closed the hatch.

"Are we just going to beam it straight at the spaceships?" Sophie asked, looking around the dome to see if there was some sort of firing device up there.

Roger nodded. "All you have to do is penetrate the energy field of the spaceships," he said. "The Chi-Quan will do the rest." He led Sophie up into one of the chairs and clicked her boots into place.

"But I don't think my Chi-Quan will be strong enough," she protested. Yes, Roger could blast high-vibrational energy out of his wheels at long range, but her powers were nothing compared to his. She was sure she wouldn't even make the distance.

"Your Chi-Quan will be amplified through the rose quartz nanofibres on your gloves," he said as he pulled Sophie's head brace down. It pressed into her chest like a roller-coaster harness.

Sophie looked at her gloves through the screen of her space helmet. Tiny pink gems coated the material, glistening in changing hues of light as Sophie moved her fingers.

Roger looked at her fingers. "Watch where you're aiming them," he added. "Ready?"

"Yep," she lied. Her hands were trembling and her heart was thumping. What if her Chi-Quan didn't work? How could a few pretty crystals possibly amplify her Chi-Quan to something strong enough to work on a spaceship? What if a laser hit her? As Roger tucked himself into the chair beside her, she took a deep breath of the oxygen provided by her helmet, thinking that if her helmet screen cracked or broke once the glass dome rolled back, she'd suffocate, and if she came unfastened from her chair, she'd float off into space. _No! Don't think negative thoughts!_ She snapped herself back into the present. She had to stay calm and centred.

Roger reached for the button that opened the dome.

"Wait!" Sophie yelled. A stream of red laser beams was propelling towards them. They exploded above the dome like fireworks.

"Good galaxies!" Roger exclaimed. "That was close!" He laid one paw on the button. "Here goes." He pressed the button.

The dome opened, sucking all the air away. Sophie suddenly felt weightless. She was glad for the harness.

"Okay, lizard folk," Roger yelled as he flicked out the wheels on his paws. "Let's have you!"

Rays of white light shot out of the wheels on Roger's paws, flying towards the two Scorpions, hitting one of them directly in the hull. The damaged Scorpion seemed to glow for a few seconds, then it swerved and crashed into some space junk nearby.

Sophie was gobstruck. "It works!" Perhaps they could win this battle after all. But would her Chi-Quan be as effective as his? She took a deep breath. All around, she could see a shimmering indigo light. She held her hands up and aimed her palms at one of the Scorpions.

A red laser beam came shooting at her.

She ducked. Roger pointed at it and sent white light flaring out to meet it. There was an explosion of red and white and the laser disappeared.

"Thanks," Sophie gasped.

"You're welcome." He blasted more Chi-Quan at the closest Scorpion.

Sophie closed her eyes. She could visualise the universal energy field filled with colours and vibrations. This, she knew with a certainty she'd never felt before, was the mysterious energy of El-Quan-Tem, the guiding force of existence that connected everything together throughout all dimensions in space and time. Sophie was part of it, and it was part of her. Feeling a warm glow from her palms, she opened her eyes. Two white rays were shining out of her gloves, amplified into bright spotlights by the rose quartz. She turned her hands towards the nearest Scorpion, consciously intending to send the energy into the spacecraft to help the Annunaki awaken and ascend.

The Chi-Quan flew towards the Scorpion. The spacecraft glowed for a few seconds before falling sideways.

Sophie whooped for joy.

"Well done, dear child."

"Thanks, Roger." She was astonished that her Chi-Quan was having such an impact.

Another volley of red lasers was sweeping towards them. "Look out!" Two rays of light flew out from Roger's palms to meet the red beams, transmuting them again just in time.

Sophie's face had turned pale. What had they ever done to the Annunaki to warrant such an attack? Who did the Annunaki think they were?

One of the Scorpions was rocketing towards them.

Sophie raised her palms. "Come on, then," she yelled.

Nothing happened.

She looked down at her gloves. The light had disappeared.

"Focus," Roger shouted, "focus!" He fired more Chi-Quan as more lasers flew their way.

"I can't connect!" She was panicking now. She could feel the energy of El-Quan-Tem all around her, but she couldn't tap into it.

"It's because you're angry," Roger said, turning his wheels to face the Scorpion that had just come up underneath them. "Chi-Quan only works when you are in a positive emotional state."

"Well, they made me angry!" she protested.

"No, they haven't," Roger replied. "You've made yourself angry!"

"I haven't! They have! They're trying to kill us!"

Roger zapped another load of Chi-Quan at the nearest Scorpion. "Yes, but you are choosing to be angry about it. In any moment, you have a choice about how to feel, and right now you're choosing to be angry, which is costing you the ability to connect with the source of your power!"

Another volley of red lasers was coming towards them. Roger sent two more rays of Chi-Quan out. But a jet of white light jolted back into his front wheels and, for a second, Roger lit up a bright blue as if he were being electrocuted.

His head fell into his chest and he went limp.

"Roger!"

The Scorpion was directly behind them now. Sophie turned. She could see tall figures moving around in the bridge. Any second now, both she and Roger would be fried. She suddenly wished they had weapons, lots of weapons. How dare the Annunaki attack them? She felt like blasting them all to smithereens.

And then she realised...Roger was right. The Annunaki hadn't made her angry at all. She was choosing to be enraged at their behaviour. Yes, they were trying to kill her, but it was up to her how she reacted. It was her choice, and her choice alone.

Sophie closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. It was up to her to take responsibility for her emotional state. Only she could choose how she felt. Nobody else was in charge of her emotions.

And just like that, her anger disappeared, her body relaxed, and she could think clearly again. A shudder of energy tingled down her spine as the Seventh Attunement swept through her. As it did, two rays of white light shot out of Sophie's gloves, hitting the Scorpion head-on.

The Annunaki spacecraft glowed for an endless second, then tumbled backwards, crashing into the other one. Both spaceships went spinning off, whirling and smashing into each other. There was a huge explosion of light and then...nothing. They were gone.

"Thank God." Sophie reached for the button to close the dome.

Gravity returned and she released her head brace and boots, then stumbled around to Roger to unfasten him. Scooping him up, she carried him to the hatch.

"Hold on, Roger. Hold on." She pressed the button to open the hatch and stepped into the beam, cradling the ANGEL in her arms.

"Zalzibar!" she yelled as she stepped out onto the bridge. She laid Roger on the floor.

Zalzibar turned around to see what was happening. "Holy El-Quan-Tem! Hold on to something, kid. We've just locked into the stargate!"

Sophie pinned Roger to the floor with one arm and braced herself against the nearest locker. A second later, the _Pegasus Galactic_ leapt into a swirling tunnel of interdimensional plasma and spun through several different layers of green and purple light before shooting back out into space.

Sophie was amazed to find she was still conscious.

Up in the cockpit, Zalzibar reached for the engine stabilisers, and the _Pegasus Galactic_ began to slow down. He looked at Roger. "What happened?" he finally asked.

"I think some of the energy backfired," Sophie said as she wrenched off her helmet.

Zalzibar put a paw over Roger's forehead. "He's totally out of whack," he said. "We need to Chi-Quan him."

Sophie looked at him doubtfully. "Are you sure? Chi-Quan knocked him out."

Zalzibar nodded.

As Sophie took her gloves off and rested her hands on Roger's chest, a small but very necessary dose of Chi-Quan flowed into the Arcturian's body and began rebalancing his chakra system.

Roger opened his eyes.

"You okay, buddy?" Zalzibar asked.

Roger nodded, then sat up and rubbed his head with his paw.

"That was close," said Zalzibar.

"You have no idea." Sophie breathed a sigh of relief.

"My giddy Aunt!" mumbled Roger. He was pointing at the cockpit window.

Sophie and Zalzibar turned around. A dark green planet covered in a dense, foggy shroud, was looming before them.

Realising he'd forgotten to switch the flight mode back over to autopilot, Zalzibar swore as he hurtled back to the cockpit and over his chair to grab the steering column. The spacecraft shot up at a steep angle before crashing back down again.

Sophie and Roger slid across the bridge and into the lockers.

"We're caught in the gravity field!" Zalzibar yelled.

Four seconds later, they had broken through the planet's upper atmosphere and were being engulfed by foggy green clouds. Zalzibar reached for the drag switch, but they were sinking through. Three seconds later, they came out of the clouds. A rainforest seemed to be speeding up towards them.

"We're going to crash!" Zalzibar cried, pulling back on the steering column as hard as he could. It snapped off in his paws. Swearing, he made a dive for the one on Roger's side and yanked it back. The _Pegasus Galactic_ jerked forwards and levelled out slightly. But it was too little, too late. Two seconds later, the saucer had made contact with the tree tops and began bouncing and skimming across them like a pebble on a lake.

"Pray to El-Quan-Tem!" Zalzibar cried.

One second later, the _Pegasus Galactic_ went smashing through the tree canopy, breaking through branches before finally careening down towards the ground.

# Chapter Eleven

## _Intergalactic Activators_

A glittery cloud of energy hissed out from the underside of the _Pegasus Galactic_ as the spacecraft hung in a waving tangle of trees and creepers in a dense alien jungle. A reddish-brown monkey with bat-like wings swung across from one of the trees and ran over the top of the spacecraft, sniffing at it to see if it was edible. Disappointed, it swung away again.

Inside, in the cockpit, Zalzibar picked himself up and gingerly made his way down the steps and through the debris that had recently been the bridge to where Sophie and Roger were lying in an explosion of lockers. "Are you guys okay?" he asked as he yanked a slab of wood that looked like it had been part of the planning desk off Sophie's leg.

She nodded. A few scratches here and some bruises there, but other than that she was remarkably unscathed. "You?" she asked.

Zalzibar nodded and they both turned to Roger.

"I'll be fine," he said, dusting himself off and placing his spectacles back on the end of his nose. He looked around. "Which is more than I can say for this spacecraft."

It was a mess. Star charts, blankets, navigational devices...bits and pieces had come loose everywhere and were scattered about the place like so much duck food. The electronics were flashing and twitching, and a couple of the beanbags had exploded, covering the orange rug and half the cockpit in a haze of white beans.

Sophie stood up (very carefully) and began ploughing through the white beans up towards the cockpit window. She pressed her nose against the glass. "Where are we?" Outside, trees and creepers seemed to be weaving themselves around the spacecraft. But she could also see the sun shining through the hole they had just smashed in the rainforest canopy. She also saw that the sky was green.

Roger scurried over and peered outside with her. "Wherever we are," he said, "it's almost midday."

Zalzibar joined them for a look. Then he whacked the UPS to get a reading out of it. "Blasted thing!" A swarm of static fizzed across the oval screen, but it showed what appeared to be merely an impression of what it was supposed to show them.

"Surely we can get something to work," said Sophie. "What about the radio?"

Roger went over to the radio and began twisting the dials back and forth, attempting to pick up a signal. "Oh dear," he said into the silence. "This was not part of the plan."

"Not to worry," said Zalzibar. "It'll be fine." He kicked a piece of panel that was half-hanging off the wall. It fell to the floor. "We'll just call Spaceway Assistance," he added. "Hopefully they'll bring us a new spacecraft." He gave the debris another kick. "I'm so over this piece a junk, anyway."

Roger tut-tutted. "And how do you propose we call Spaceway Assistance?" he asked. "When our radio is down and our UPS isn't working?"

"Oh." This was something Zalzibar hadn't thought of. He quickly bent down and picked the piece of panel up and tried to stick it back on the wall.

Roger could only shake his head. "I'll check the engine rooms," he said. He picked his way across the bridge and climbed down through the hole that had recently been the hover beam.

Sophie looked outside again. There was something odd, she thought, about the way the trees had wrapped themselves around the spacecraft, almost as if they had caught the _Pegasus Galactic_. "Does it look to you like the branches have bent themselves around us?" she asked Zalzibar.

Zalzibar peered outside. "Ya know, kid, El-Quan-Tem works in mysterious ways."

Roger poked his head back up the beam shaft. "I'm afraid we have a problem."

"Great," Zalzibar said sarcastically. "We were just starting to run low."

"Our fuel has leaked out," Roger said. "It's all gone."

White sludge splattered up the side of Sophie's boots as she squelched along after Roger. Green vines were twisting amongst purple ferns on both sides of the track, and bizarre birds and creatures called out from the mysterious jungle, hinting at but never quite confirming a complex reality waiting to play with the strangers.

They'd been trekking for a good three hours now, and Sophie was hot and tired inside her spacesuit, not to mention that the two barrels she was carrying were quite heavy, even if they did happen to be empty.

"Are we there yet?" Zalzibar moaned from the back of the line, echoing Sophie's thoughts. Zalzibar's pace had been getting progressively slower for the past half hour. Every so often, he looked closely at one of the empty sopia nut milk barrels he was carrying and gave a little sniff. Having to tip the contents out had been the worst thing to happen since they'd left the space station, at least in his opinion.

Roger sighed, looked back at his crew, and set the two barrels he was carrying down on the muddy jungle floor. "I'll check again." He took out the vibration reader and waved the golden device through the air. "Ten kilometres east."

"That's what you said last time," Zalzibar complained.

Sophie agreed. "Are you even sure this planet has an energy vortex?"

"All planets in the higher dimensions have energy vortexes."

Sophie took a reluctant step forward, then another, then another. "Well let's hurry up, then," she said. At the rate they were going, she was sure the Annunaki would take control of the entire galaxy and several super-clusters before they'd even found the energy vortex, let alone filled their barrels, fixed the spacecraft, and got back out into space.

Suddenly Roger raised one hand. "Shhhh!" He pointed at the golden-orange orb the size of a tennis ball that had just appeared in the treetops and was floating slowly down towards them.

"What is it?" Sophie whispered. The last orb she had seen had heralded the arrival of a spacecraft. Were they about to experience a similar ordeal?

"Well, jeez, it's an orb," Zalzibar said.

"I can see that," Sophie replied. "What's it doing?"

"You get them when there's a lot of high vibrational energy around," Zalzibar told her.

"Then that means we're near the vortex," she concluded hopefully, watching the orb as it bobbed away again through the trees.

And just then, a high-pitched chirping noise started up somewhere in the distance. It sounded like a thousand giant cicadas, all waking up at once on a midsummer's night.

Zalzibar jumped. "What's that?" He edged a bit closer to Sophie for safety and looked nervously around the jungle.

"Zalzibar?" Roger turned around. "Do you remember the story about the energy weavers of Altaiea?"

Zalzibar nodded. "Yeah. I remember that rhyme: _Weaving, weaving day and night, out of sight, out of sight._ Hey, wait a minute—you're not saying—"

"That's exactly what I'm saying," said Roger.

And before Sophie had time to ask him what he was talking about, all she could see was Roger's blue tail disappearing among the ferns.

When Sophie and Zalzibar finally caught up with him, Roger was standing on the edge of a cliff and looking out over a valley. (All well and good you might say, perfectly fine to ogle the odd vista every now and then.) But it wasn't the landscape Roger was admiring; it was the golden orange, multi-tiered, monolithic structure rising up from the middle of it.

"Wow," said Sophie. "It looks like a huge, orange wedding cake. What is it?"

"The Altaiean Acropolis," Roger replied in a reverent tone.

"But," Zalzibar stammered, "they're...they're a myth!"

"Clearly," said Roger, with a hint of sarcasm.

"What's going on?" Sophie asked. She wished someone would explain things.

"When I was a professor of metaphysics back on Arcturia," said Roger, still staring down at the mound, "I spent a lot of my spare time developing theories about how and why El-Quan-Tem works the way he does. And how beings in the universe come to ascend. One of my theories concerned the Altaieans. They're multidimensional beings who live as a single mind. They spin high-vibrational energy frequencies into orbs and send the orbs out into the universe in waves of light, using the stars as a transference grid."

"Nice theory," Zalzibar muttered. "The only problem is that they don't actually exist."

"Actually, there have been several sightings of the Altaieans throughout the ages." Roger sounded a bit defensive. "And there's plenty of footage, too. All you have to do is research it."

Zalzibar scoffed. "It's all fake."

Ignoring him, Roger turned to Sophie. "The Altaieans are said to have a powerful queen who channels the energy from the vortex of their planet into orbs so the Altaieans can spin the higher-vibrational frequencies into them. They all live together in one big acropolis-like city. It's an interconnected structure alleged to look just like that." He pointed at the mound. "It's said to align with various celestial bodies."

"Wow," said Sophie. "And what do they do all this energy spinning stuff for?" Why would anyone want to go to such an effort?

"Nobody knows for certain," Roger said. "But I have a theory."

"Of course you do," Zalzibar put in.

Roger was still ignoring him. "I believe it has something to do with planetary activations. Which occur when enough of the beings residing on a planet raise their individual vibrations to a high enough frequency, whereby it actually causes the collective vibration of a planet to attune to a higher frequency. The beings living on that planet can then see and interact with other planets of beings already vibrating at that same frequency."

Puzzling over what Roger had just said (it sounded very complicated), Sophie asked, "So that's how everyone in the universe joins up and becomes aware of each other?" To her, it sounded like a huge dot-to-dot pattern in which you could only become aware of the next layer of dots once you had reached a certain level of mastery with the dots you had already joined together.

"Precisely," said Roger.

She drew another conclusion. "So that's how Earth was originally part of the higher dimensions. Before the Annunaki cut us off," she added.

Roger shook his head. "Um, not exactly."

"Kid," Zalzibar said, "Earth has never been part of the higher dimensions."

"What? But you both told me the Annunaki cut us off using the low frequency field. Didn't you?"

"They cut Earth off, yes," Roger said, "meaning, Earth was no longer connected to the universal energy field, so it couldn't join the higher dimensions. But Earth has always been a lower dimensional planet," he said. "It's nothing to be ashamed of," he added when she looked shocked and disappointed. "There are still several LVB planets in the galaxy. It just means humanity is younger in terms of its vibrational development."

"And we've stayed that way, too. Thanks to the Annunaki."

Roger nodded sympathetically.

She had more questions. "How can the Annunaki interact with the higher dimensions, then? Surely their vibration is too low to see HVBs? You said so yourself. You said I had to be a certain vibration before you could make yourself known to me. Two thousand etherics."

"Kid, there's no pulling the low frequency field over your eyes, is there?" Zalzibar joked.

Roger looked at Zalzibar and rolled his eyes. "Not in the best of taste as per usual," he said. He turned back to Sophie. "The truth is, dear child, we don't know. When the Annunaki arrived in the galaxy and took control of Earth, nobody in the higher dimensions could work out where they were from or why such an obviously unascended race was able to access the higher dimensions. My theory is that the Annunaki were once HVBs and somehow fell from grace, but they also managed to keep their vibrational attunement to the higher dimensions. Somehow..."

Sophie stared out across the valley, perplexed. She had expected Roger and Zalzibar to know a little more about the Annunaki than they did. It seemed that even when you were an HVB, the universe was still filled with mysteries. "Have you tried asking El-Quan-Tem?"

Roger nodded. "Over the years, I've given Metatron several memos outlining my theories. Asking El-Quan-Tem to confirm or reject them. I thought that might help get around the problem of universal law, but Metatron has never returned with anything for me, and whenever I've asked him about it, he's always said that El-Quan-Tem has no new information."

Zalzibar pulled a face at the sound of Metatron's name.

"So what do the orbs have to do with the planetary activations?" Sophie asked, returning to the original point of their conversation. "How does it work?"

"Ah," said Roger. "I don't think planets reach activation point by themselves. I think there's some sort of trigger or pull from El-Quan-Tem that provokes them, some sort of embedded design in the fabric of the universe that guides everything...well, I think the orbs the Altaieans send out have something to do with it. There is evidence to suggest that the vibrational frequency of light from the stars closest to planets prior to their activation increases."

Zalzibar gave a huge yawn.

Roger continued. "I suppose you could say that what the Altaieans do is a bit like a Chi-Quan healing. But on a much bigger scale."

"They might be able to help Earth, too," Sophie ventured. Getting multidimensional beings to send high vibrational energy waves across the galaxy seemed like a much safer option than taking on the Annunaki single-handedly.

"How will they be able to help when they don't even exist!" Zalzibar snapped.

Sophie turned to him. "What's gotten into you?"

When Zalzibar declined to reply, Roger explained. "There's a story we tell children back on Arcturia," he said. "If you don't behave yourself, the Altaieans will come for you while you're asleep, spin you into energy, and send you out into the universe in a million tiny pieces."

"Oh," said Sophie. "Like boogie-men." She understood Zalzibar's reaction now.

"It's just an old wives' tale," Roger admitted. "But, well, there may have been one or two reports of the Altaieans being somewhat hostile...a couple of beings have been known to go missing on Altaiea. But who knows what really happened?"

"Oh," said Sophie. "This vortex the Altaieans get their energy from...is it the same one we're meant to be getting our replacement energy supplies from?"

Roger ran a paw through his silvery hair. "Yes," he said, but he gave a nervous laugh.

The chirping noise started up from the acropolis again, bouncing around the valley in haunting tones.

Roger listened for a minute, then looked up at the local sun. "I think they're getting ready to send the energy," he said. "It's said to occur when their closest star is directly over the acropolis."

"Ummm," Sophie began, "if we just go down there and politely explain our situation, do you think they'll help us?"

Roger shook his head. "The vibration the Altaieans send out isn't strong enough to penetrate the low frequency field, so even if they do offer to help, it probably wouldn't work. Besides, if the Altaieans really are as hostile as everyone suspects, we risk the possibility of not finishing the task at all."

Sophie looked at the acropolis again. "So what are we going to do?" There was something so grand and beautiful about the acropolis, she thought, yet something so sad, too. If El-Quan-Tem really had created such beings to carry out this work, why was it so easy for the Annunaki to undermine it? It all seemed like such a waste. "Well," she suggested after a minute, "then let's stick to Plan A. We'll just sneak in, get the energy, and get back out without being seen."

Zalzibar shook his head so hard his whole body vibrated. "I am not going down there to that overgrown insect mound to get spun out into a million tiny pieces, and that's that!"

Within minutes, Sophie and her guides were standing huddled together underneath a fan-shaped plant opposite a footbridge that looked like it was made of orange quartz and ran into the acropolis. Above their heads, the chirping noise was ringing out from the top of the city. It was as loud as an emergency siren or an air raid warning.

"For goodness sake," Roger yelled at Zalzibar, "just run over there and hide behind that hut. You're keeping Sophie from her task!" They had been standing under the leaf for five minutes now, trying to get Zalzibar to move.

"You're the ones that want to go in there," Zalzibar argued. "I'll just wait here."

Sophie could only sigh. "All right," she said, growing impatient, "I'll go by myself." And with that, she picked up her barrels and made a run for it. Roger stared at Zalzibar for a few seconds and shook his head disapprovingly, then, without a word, picked up his barrels and chased after Sophie.

Whimpering at the prospect of being left alone, Zalzibar dithered for a moment or two, then dashed after them. "Wait for me!"

Halfway across the bridge, Roger had to pause and look more closely at the inscriptions carved on the bridge. "How curious," he said, running a paw over the glyphs.

"Come on!" Zalzibar hurtled past him.

Sophie was already standing behind a hut and peering up a passageway that snaked into the city. Hundreds of hut-like dwellings filled the space, all jumbled together like a shanty town, but all decorated with multicoloured flags and what looked like wind chimes. There wasn't an Altaiean anywhere in sight. Where was everybody?

"Good work, kid," said Zalzibar, arriving beside her and putting his barrels down. He gave an apprehensive look back over his shoulder.

"Everyone must be up at the sending," Roger suggested, arriving beside them and causing Zalzibar to jump.

"Don't do that."

Sophie shook her head. "Let's get on with it," she said. If all the Altaieans really were up at the energy sending, she had no desire to be there when they got back down here.

And so off they crept, tip-toeing from hut to hut through the acropolis, making their way deeper and deeper into the city, pausing only when Roger needed to check the vibration reader or when Zalzibar's nerves got the better of him. They were going so well, in fact, that it almost looked like they were going to succeed. But the sound of Altaieans shuffling down the passageway towards them quickly put an end to this hope.

Sophie's first thought was to look for somewhere to hide. "Over there!" She pointed at a nearby hut.

The three of them ran over and dived behind the hut, then stood flat against its back wall. As the marching grew louder, they hardly dared to breathe.

And then the Altaieans were directly outside the hut. And then they stopped.

Had the Altaieans sensed the presence of the alien intruders? Or had they just decided to stop outside that hut for a rest? Either way, the twenty seconds that passed whilst the multidimensional beings stood still just metres away from Sophie and her guides were amongst the longest Sophie had ever experienced.

And then, the Altaieans were marching again.

"Thank El-Quan-Tem for that," Sophie gasped in relief. She peered around the side of the hut.

Six Altaieans were marching on their four back legs. They were five feet tall and had iridescent green bodies with pincer-like arms and a small set of glittery wings, insect-like heads, two oval eyes, and a pair of antennae. Each one was carrying a drawstring bag over its shoulder, each bag bulging with orange orbs.

Sophie watched as they disappeared around another corner. "Amazing," she whispered.

"Aren't they just?" Roger muttered. "They're going up for the sending."

"Good riddance," mumbled Zalzibar.

And with that, they crept on.

"My giddy aunt!" Roger exclaimed. Now they were making their way down a tunnel towards the energy vortex of Altaiea, at least that's what Roger thought. Threads of spidery inscriptions wove across the walls, which were lit by small orange orbs glowing out from alcoves every few metres.

"It appears to be some sort of record," he continued, stopping every few steps to get a closer look at another inscription. "By El-Quan-Tem above," he squinted at one set of squiggles in particular, "it's the stars they've sent the orbs to. And when!"

Sophie stopped to get a closer look. Behind them, shuffling along in a sulk, Zalzibar grumbled. "It's not natural, the universe being programmed by a bunch of bugs!"

"Come on," said Sophie. She was much more concerned with the task at hand than with trying to work out what the Altaieans did or didn't do.

Up ahead, the tunnel curved to the right. An orange light was shining around the corner. "I think we might have found it," Sophie whispered back to her friends. She made her way around the bend.

Now she could see that the light was coming from a doorway. Tip-toeing up to it, she peered inside. Orange and amber rock glistened, and down in the centre of what looked like a chamber in a cavern, a throbbing ball of golden light was hovering and sending waves of energy washing out over everything and emitting a sense of warmth and peace.

Even Zalzibar was amazed and impressed. "Not bad," he murmured.

Roger was more than impressed. "Oh, my! It's the energy vortex of Altaiea!"

They made their way quietly into the cavern, climbing down a set of steps carved into the rock towards the golden sphere. Arriving at the bottom, they put their barrels down and stood in silent admiration.

Roger pointed at an orange, star-shaped crystal spinning in the middle of the cavern. "That's one of the interdimensional crystals I was telling you about."

Sophie was mesmerised. It was as if she could see the life force of Altaiea itself flowing in and out of the crystal.

"Stand back, kid," said Zalzibar.

She watched as the Arcturians flicked out their wheels and turned to dip their tails into the ball of energy. A trickle of orange light that looked like a fibre optic cable began flowing from their front wheels. Aiming them over the barrels, they began filling each one.

"That'll do," Zalzibar finally said as he shook the last trickle of light from his front wheels before turning to see how Roger was getting on. But Roger wasn't paying any attention. Orange light was overflowing out of his keg, spilling all over the floor.

"Roger!"

"It's Earth." Roger was staring at some inscriptions carved on the cavern wall opposite them.

Sophie and Zalzibar exchanged confused looks.

"Are you okay?" Sophie asked Roger.

But his eyes remained fixed on the cavern wall. "There's going to be a sending."

Suddenly the sounds of marching came from somewhere along the tunnel, causing both Sophie and Zalzibar to jump.

"They're coming back!"

"Over there," said Sophie, pointing at a pile of boulders across the cavern.

"Come on, buddy!" Zalzibar clapped his paws an inch from Roger's nose.

With a shake of his head, Roger came back to himself and picked up his barrels and ran with his friends to the boulders to hide. They climbed behind them and listened anxiously as footsteps entered the chamber.

Were the Altaieans looking for them?

And then, seconds later, they were marching out again.

Sophie waited until the footsteps had faded away down the tunnel. "Let's get out of here!"

Her guides agreed. Clutching their barrels, the three climbed back over the boulders and tip-toed back across the cavern, back up the steps, and along the tunnel. Back outside and past the huts they went, and finally over the footbridge again, not stopping until they were safely concealed under the cover of the green and purple jungle.

"You guys okay?" Sophie asked, panting for oxygen.

Zalzibar nodded. "I'll be glad to get off this blasted pla—" He didn't even finish the word, because in that precise moment, his barrels went flying out from under his arms and rolled away over the white mud. At the same time, his feet rose off the ground. "What in the name of El-Quan-Tem?!"

Sophie and Roger barely had time to register what had happened when their barrels went flying out from under their arms, too.

Hovering in mid-air, Sophie spotted five Altaieans marching along the path towards them, their iridescent green bodies contrasting brightly against the purple ferns. The tallest was carrying a white glow stick and waving it back and forth as he marched. Sophie could feel herself rocking from side to side. "He's controlling us with that stick," she shouted.

"Oh dear," whimpered Zalzibar. "This is not good."

As the local sun moved closer to the centre of the green Altaiean sky, hundreds of the multidimensional, beetle-shaped beings were gathered in a huge circle of tall orange stones. They were standing on the summit of the acropolis, eagerly chatting in loud chirps and other high-pitched tones.

Sophie and her guides had been whisked out into the centre of the circle, leading to a wave of excitement in the crowd.

"They're going to send us out in a million tiny pieces!" Zalzibar shrieked.

Sophie was trying to get the attention of the Altaiean with the white glow stick. "Please let us go," she pled.

But it was no use. Not one Altaiean could hear a word she was saying, let alone understand her.

"Well," said Zalzibar, "nice knowing you guys."

Just then, a booming voice rang out over the throng. "Release them!"

Sophie and her guides dropped to the ground and a tall, hooded figure in a green cloak came gliding through the Altaieans. The figure came to a halt before them and pulled back its hood.

Sophie gasped. She'd never met this being before, of course, but she recognised the humanoid from Roger's encyclopaedia. The sea-green eyes, the golden skin (or was it scales?), and the turquoise hair like tinsel flowing behind her.

"Az-Karan," Sophie murmured, dipping into a bow before the Light Master.

"Who dares to interrupt us?" Az-Karan was clearly not that impressed by the visitors.

Sophie looked at Roger and Zalzibar for help, but all they did was look away and shrug their shoulders. So she stood up straight and stepped forward. "Ma'am," she said, "My name is Sophie Archer. I'm a human being from a planet called Earth and these are my guides, Roger and Zalzibar. They're from the planet Arcturia. We're on a task for El-Quan-Tem." But, she wondered, how much should she tell the Light Master? "We're trying to find a way to remove a low frequency field that has been put over my planet by some beings called the Annunaki." No reaction. "They were chasing us when our spacecraft crashed on your planet. We didn't mean to interrupt you. We're...we're sorry." She bowed again.

Az-Karan was staring at her. "So...you are one of El-Quan-Tem's awakening human beings, eh? Perhaps this time, Earth may actually activate."

Sophie shook her head. "It can't. Because of the low frequency field. Perhaps you could help by sending some of your high vibrational energy?"

"We have never been able to penetrate the low frequency field," Az-Karan replied. "But perhaps a human might help to bridge the energy." She began looking Sophie up and down as if testing her for something.

Sophie suddenly felt uneasy. "I doubt I'll be able to do anything that you can't," she said. Was Az-Karan considering sending her out in a million tiny pieces? What could she possibly do that multidimensional beings and a Light Master couldn't do?

"You are more powerful than you realise," Az-Karan was saying to her. "What is your intention for Earth?"

Sophie thought for a second. "For it to be free and able to join cosmic society," she answered.

"And how will you know when that has happened? What one specific thing has to happen?"

Sophie looked back at Roger for prompting, but he merely shrugged his shoulders again. "The low frequency field will be switched off, I suppose," she said, wondering if this was what the Light Master was getting at.

"Then that is the moment we will use for the sending." Az-Karan clapped her hands together with a sparkly explosion.

A hush fell over the Altaieans.

Sophie looked at Roger and Zalzibar.

"We send to Earth once more," Az-Karan announced to her people. "And we pray to El-Quan-Tem that this time, we will get through."

Murmurs of disapproval erupted from around the gathering. The Altaieans seemed not to be happy about this.

"And," Az-Karan added, "this time we will use a human being to bridge the energy."

Everyone started chirping wildly again. "Altaieans! Take your positions!"

Sophie gulped.

Az-Karan raised her hands above her head, bringing them down in a cutting swoop.

Sophie felt a warm glow of energy tingling over her.

"Girl," said Az-Karan, "visualise the moment in which your intention has been fully realised."

Sophie racked her brains. What would that look like?

The Light Master leaned a bit closer to her. "Use your imagination," she whispered.

Sophie nodded. Closing her eyes, she pictured herself in the inner chamber of the low frequency field base at Gakona. She saw Roger and Zalzibar standing beside her. Now she was inserting the fully attuned holographic drive into the slot. Now Earth's energy fields were being rebalanced. And now she was pulling the crystal back out.

"Now," Az-Karan boomed, "add more energy. Amplify the colours. The sounds. The feelings."

Sophie made the image brighter. She turned up the volume. She made the feelings more intense...all the while wondering how this could possibly be of any use to anyone.

She heard Az-Karan's voice again. "Now...send that moment and all of its energy up to join the rest!"

Wondering what Az-Karan meant, Sophie opened her eyes. She was amazed to see every Altaiean holding a glow stick. Their heads were swaying back and forth as they waved the orange orbs of energy above the circle in a huge whirlpool of light.

Amazed to be working with a Light Master, Sophie made the image in her mind float up into the mass of orange orbs.

The chirping was getting louder. The orbs were whooshing around faster. Az-Karan shouted in her alien language, and the orbs shot up into the sun in a great flash of light.

And now Sophie felt a deep conviction arise from within her soul. She would complete her task, no matter what. At some level, it was as if she had already done it. She was creating her future, and it would ring true.

And with this awareness, Sophie realised the power inherent in the Eighth Attunement: Use your imagination to create the future. A shudder of energy tingled down her spine and Sophie smiled...she was back on track.

# Chapter Twelve

## _One World Currency_

It was nine o'clock on a Friday night in the middle of December, and an unusually large downpour was lashing against the Nevada desert. So much so that the TV weather people were commenting how it was shaping up to be the rainiest December on record. The rain was collecting in puddles around the succulents and patches of dried grass, where later it would turn to frost and ice as the overnight temperatures dipped towards zero.

Deep below the desert at Area 51 Underground, Ahmkarah was lounging in his leather chair in his nice warm office, his green lizard-like feet up on his desk. He was enjoying an incredibly rare night off.

The weather on the surface was in fact the least of his concerns; as the Annunaki had all sorts of advanced technologies to manage trivial things like that. Ahmkarah was scrolling through the channels on his television, trying to find some news worth watching.

"Good evening, I'm Victoria Leavy," a pretty blonde news reporter announced from the plasma screen opposite. As the Globe-Net logo flashed in the bottom right-hand corner, Ahmkarah smiled. This was precisely the type of coverage he'd been looking for.

"Coming up on _Late Night Tonight_ ," Victoria smiled sweetly at the camera from behind her desk, "more severe weather warnings as scientists release new climate change data, Russian medical authorities claim to have discovered a new strain of Ovis Flu they say is twice as contagious as recent strains, and police are forced to use new holonic sound guns as violent protesters continue to cause chaos throughout the streets of London."

Ahmkarah smiled again. "Good stuff," he said aloud, turning the volume up.

"But first," Victoria announced almost breathlessly, "our top story." The camera zoomed in on her flawless skin and ruby red lips. "World leaders at the emergency G40 summit at Brussels have today announced they've finally reached an agreement to address problems following last week's horrendous global market collapse. World leaders have been in deadlock at Brussels for three days, but it appears President Rockenfeld has managed to negotiate an outcome. Jessica Monroe is live from Brussels with more."

The camera cut to an attractive, twenty-something brunette standing on some steps in front of an important-looking building with lots of flags flying on top.

"Thanks Victoria," said Jessica.

Ahmkarah swung his green feet down from the desk and reached for the silver jug that was balanced on one of the many piles of paperwork covering his desk. Above him on the ceiling, the heat lamps hummed and outside in the corridor, all was quiet.

Jessica began her report. "Members of the G40 today announced they've agreed on a resolution following the horrific aftermath of what many investors are now calling Black Doomsday. For the first time in world history, it looks like we will be seeing the formation of a one-world economy and a single global currency."

Ahmkarah poured the usual blood-like liquid out of the jug into his goblet, not in the least bit fazed as a stringy red lump plopped into his drink. "About time," he said, sitting back in his chair and slurping at the drink.

As he watched, a gust of wind blew through Jessica's hair and sent the flags flapping behind her. "The new global currency," she was saying, "will be called The Phoenix. It is set to roll out through the four world economic unions over the next few months. The World Bank is currently holding emergency talks on the best way to implement the new structure, so as to avoid any more short-term economic damage to markets. President Rockenfeld, the current Chair of the G40, says we must find a way to rise from the ashes and create a new era of world unity and global reform."

"Rise from the ashes." Ahmkarah chuckled. "Damn, I'm good!"

The TV picture cut from Jessica to President Rockenfeld standing behind a lectern, presumably somewhere inside the important-looking building. Rows of sullen looking politicians were sitting around the hall fiddling with pens or staring numbly at the president. Many of them had translation devices in their ears. Just below the president, the usual gaggle of press were huddled like sheep in their pen, eagerly waiting for Rockenfeld to finish his speech so they could fire the usual pointless questions at him.

"While we would have preferred to have done this under different circumstances," said President Rockenfeld in a sober tone, "a global currency was always inevitable."

Back in his office under Area 51, Ahmkarah smiled and turned the volume up a bit more as he tried to suck the red stringy blob that had just become stuck between his two front teeth. His lip curled as he watched a man with white hair and wearing a brown leather jacket stand up in the middle of the press pack on the television.

"Mr President?" the man called out in an Australian accent. He was waving his microphone as though it were the Olympic torch. He was obviously far too passionate a journalist for Ahmkarah's liking. Everyone turned to see who had dared to interrupt the president before he'd finished his speech.

Rockenfeld merely gazed down with a serene look on his Messiah-like face, waiting patiently for the man to ask his question. "Yes?"

"Is it true there are still members of the G40 resisting the Phoenix? I understand the French Prime Minister has referred to the G40 as a bunch of bullies and has said the French won't be joining. How do you expect to create a global currency when important countries are refusing to join?"

Gasps erupted from around the hall. Whoever this rogue journalist was, he certainly had a nerve. The TV cameras scanned the hall and caught the politicians looking at the president to see how he would take to such a direct line of interrogation.

But the president merely continued to smile serenely. Internally, however, Ahmkarah had been making a mental note to himself to find out who this man was and make an example of his behaviour. Clearly, he said to himself, the Annunaki were slipping in their social engineering skills.

"You can't blame people for resisting change," the President replied in his most sincere voice. "It's perfectly human. And believe it or not," he chuckled again, "the French are human too!"

Everyone in the hall thought this was hilarious. Everyone except for the French. In his office, Ahmkarah laughed out loud and slapped a green thigh.

"Like any major restructure," President Rockenfeld continued on the television screen, "there's always going to be a few teething problems, but I hope the citizens of Earth can bear with us while we iron these out. In the long run, it will be a much safer economy. With more security for everyone." And with that, he stepped forward to take a bow.

The man in the brown leather jacket tried to ask another question but was drowned out by the rest of the press as they erupted into a feeding frenzy, elbowing each other out of the way in their attempts to ask the president their own questions. They needn't have bothered, though, because the president turned around and walked away.

"So," said Jessica as the camera cut back to her on the steps outside, "it looks like we're going to see the Phoenix no matter what. Let's hope it's everything they say it will be. Back to you, Victoria."

An awkwardly long period followed during which the camera continued to focus on Jessica holding her smile with furious effort. Finally, the broadcast cut back to Victoria in the studio.

Ahmkarah laughed. "Oh," he drawled, "you have no idea!" Dangling his drink beside him between two stubby green fingers, he contemplated his current situation. It was all too easy, he thought. Too easy being the best world leader in history. Too easy controlling an entire planet. Too easy manipulating lesser ascended beings. He had been born for this work. This was his purpose, his true calling. He looked at his desk again. If only it hadn't come with quite so much paperwork.

The intercom buzzed, which made him jump. His chair went crashing backwards and his drink went all over the floor. Swearing loudly, the giant lizard-like being got back up, pulled his chair upright, and whacked the intercom. "What is it?!" he hissed through his narrow lips, wondering who possibly dared to interrupt him in one of his free time slots.

"It's me, Darpen."

"What do you want?"

"I just saw the news, sir. Excellent work today."

Ahmkarah grinned and cracked his knuckles as he sat back down. "Well," he said modestly, "it's pretty easy ushering in a one-world currency on the back of the worst global market collapse in world history. So thank you Donald." As they both laughed, he remembered that he'd been interrupted. "I said what do you want?" he snapped. "Don't tell me our little grey friends are falling behind with their order already."

There was a short pause before Darpen replied. "No. They started shipping the chips in yesterday. We're actually running out of storage space—"

"Well what are you waiting for? Chip away!"

"Um, we would," Darpen stammered, "but there's been a problem with media sign-off at Globe-Net. We were wondering if you could speak to Murphy?"

Ahmkarah shook his head. These damn, annoying details kept getting in the way of The Big Picture. "Fine," he said after a minute. "I'll call him later. What about Blue Beam? Everything under control?"

"Yes," Darpen replied. "Wright's nearly finished the images and Zimmerman is running the final tests on the master computer program. I've just sent extra security up too. Everything is going accord—"

"What?" Ahmkarah yelled. "What do you mean you've just sent up extra security?"

"I just thought that—"

"Well, don't!" The last thing Ahmkarah needed was unnecessary media attention up at Gakona. How could he justify extra security at a weather station manned by two scientists? This was precisely the sort of thing that would give the real journalists like that Australian chap something to investigate.

"Get them back," he ordered. "We've got the shepherd op. That will be enough risk management," he added, referring to the standard social engineering technique used with every false flag attack the Annunaki carried out. It consisted of a staged drill conducted a few hours before the false flag and going much along the same lines.

It was rather handy for three reasons. Firstly, if there was ever a leak regarding the false flag attack, the Annunaki could blame the emergency drill. Secondly, it made the false flag attack much easier to carry out because if people were already expecting a drill, they were less likely to act on a real attack. And, thirdly, when everyone eventually found out that there had been an emergency drill going along much the same lines as the attack on the very same day, they would conclude that it was so ridiculously coincidental, so outrageously far-fetched, that they would rule the government out of having anything to do with the real attacks. Human beings had an uncanny knack of maintaining such cognitive dissonance.

There was another pause, this one slightly longer, before Darpen replied again. "Um, what shepherd op, sir?"

Ahmkarah slammed his fist down on his desk. "Get Icke in on this call!"

There was static on the other end, and finally, Icke started speaking. "Icke here, sir. What seems to be the problem?"

"Icke," Ahmkarah replied, "tell me Darpen is just being his usual bumbling self and doesn't know you've organised a shepherd op for Project Blue Beam?"

There was another pause, this one longer than before, and then Icke replied. "I didn't think it was necessary, sir. I thought it might look a bit suspicious if—"

"We always do a shepherd op with every false flag attack!" Ahmkarah's tail was lashing from side to side now. "The precise reason shepherd ops work is because they _look_ suspicious!" He then finished correcting Darpen and Icke on the finer points of all this, after which he informed them that he was not to be interrupted during his free time slot again.

Pouring himself another drink, he went back to the TV and began scrolling through the channels in the hopes of catching his favourite soap. Much to his annoyance, the intercom buzzed again. He slammed his beaker down, sending red liquid splashing all over the budget papers. "Now what?!"

Darpen again. "Um, sir..."

Ahmkarah glared at the intercom, wondering whether to pick it up and hurl it across the room.

"Sorry to interrupt again, sir, but we've got company. You'd better come and have a look."

Area 51 Underground was now relatively quiet except for security personnel and a few shift workers. The shift workers were doing what they usually did, working at their computers and keeping a watchful eye on the populace for threats and dissenters. Security would have been doing what they usually did, too, lounging back in their chairs, keeping a watchful eye on the base, had it not been for the alarming sight on their security monitors.

Darpen, Icke, and the three security guards on duty were all watching live footage of a glimmering white beast of a spacecraft hovering over the landing area usually used by the Greys when they visited.

"Metatron," said Ahmkarah, immediately recognising the spacecraft as he entered the security room in human form as President Rockenfeld. He was dressed in his Air Force One jacket and carrying an umbrella.

"What's he doing?" Icke asked.

"Waiting for landing permission, I expect," Ahmkarah replied. "Radio up and grant it." He turned and walked out of the room.

"You're not going up to meet him are you, sir?" Darpen called after him.

Ahmkarah paused, turned around, and shrugged his shoulders. "What's he gonna do? Universal law. Remember?"

Darpen gave the spacecraft on the screen another suspicious look. "Take some guards up with you, at least," he said to the president. "We don't know what he wants."

Ahmkarah sighed. "Fine." He turned and walked up the corridor.

El-Quan-Tem had known for some time that Metatron wasn't happy. The long hours spent travelling around El-Quan-Tem's batch of universes delivering scrolls and vibrating in and out of countless dimensions, only to be met by complaints from various beings, had clearly taken their toll on the messenger. But the energies Metatron had chosen for that particular incarnation were challenging, to say the least. Instead of taking responsibility to raise his vibration and work towards his personal task, Metatron had started seeking fulfilment from the external realm and had managed to get it into his head that fame and glory would provide the salvation he was looking for.

El-Quan-Tem had long been aware of this, but had decided to leave Metatron to it. Aside from being busy guiding and overseeing all the other souls in each of the universes he was currently crafting, El-Quan-Tem knew that Metatron had his own ascension to work on like anyone else and, as such, he needed to be left to face his challenges.

It was with this in mind that El-Quan-Tem watched with El-Cos-Mol as the Hermes 13000 settled down to the ground at Area 51, its monster-like paws pressing into the dead grass at the guest landing area beside the central hangars.

A door at the base of the Hermes 13000 opened and a ramp protruded. Out stalked Metatron, looking as tall and insect-like as always, his silver helmet glinting under the airbase floodlights and his staff glowing a spooky grey-green in his hand.

Heavily wired and in direct range of three snipers that had just been positioned around the landing area, Ahmkarah climbed out of the back of his sedan, which had just pulled up. Still vibrating as President Rockenfeld, he grumbled and put his umbrella up. It was raining buckets.

"Remember to signal if you want them to shoot," Icke hissed from the back seat of the sedan, where he was buried under a heap of surveillance equipment.

Ahmkarah nodded and gave Icke a sarcastic little wave before slamming the passenger door. Making his way over to Metatron, he swore loudly as he stepped in a puddle. His socks now soggy and cold, he reflected that he would much rather still be down in his nice, dry office enjoying his soap on TV.

"We meet at last," Metatron hissed through his helmet, "I am Metatron, El-Quan-Tem's—"

"Nice lamp," said Ahmkarah, pointing at Metatron's staff.

Metatron pretended not to hear. "As I was saying, I am Metatron, El-Quan-Tem's—"

"I know who you are!" Ahmkarah had been spying on Metatron for many years and had long ago come to the conclusion that both Metatron and El-Quan-Tem were far too passive to ever pose a threat to his agenda. "I also know you know who I am. As good looking as this guy is, we both know it's just for show. What do you want?"

"To talk," said Metatron. The downpour was getting heavier.

Ahmkarah smiled. "Well, you've achieved your goal. Was there anything else?"

"In private," Metatron hissed in annoyance. "Without wires."

Ahmkarah wondered how Metatron knew he had a wire on, but, then, he supposed it was fairly logical that someone of his stature would take such a precaution. "Fine," he replied in a nonchalant tone as he reached inside his Air Force One jacket and ripped out the wire. "Let's go somewhere a bit drier," he said, pointing at one of the nearby hangars. Without a glance at Metatron, he started off towards it.

"Fine," Metatron grumbled.

Inside the hangar, plastic sheeting was draped over aircraft and other advanced technologies, revealing only shiny glimpses of black budget expenditure in the darkness.

Shaking his umbrella out, Ahmkarah turned to face the luminescent being. "So what's up?" he asked, noticing a sniper on the hangar opposite.

Metatron glared at the president through his helmet slits. "El-Quan-Tem is aware of your plans," he hissed.

Ahmkarah smiled. "You guys have been sending your fuzzy friends down to spy on us again, have you?" He was referring to the Arcturians.

This time it was Metatron who laughed. "El-Quan-Tem has omniscient awareness," he said. "He doesn't need to rely on other beings to spy for him."

"Oh, come on!" said Ahmkarah. "You don't seriously expect me to believe El-Quan-Tem is a transcendental being guiding and overseeing every soul in the universe, do you? The Annunaki have known the truth about El-Quan-Tem for quite some time. He's just a regular being who's come up with some fancy propaganda to try to control everyone with. He's not doing too bad a job, either."

"You're wrong," Metatron replied. "And he's probably watching us right now."

"He's not the only one," Ahmkarah said, looking through the open hangar doors at the sniper on the roof opposite.

"It doesn't matter anyway," said Metatron. "Everyone has free will... I can do whatever I want."

"Good for you!" Ahmkarah said, wondering why his visitor felt the need to tell him this. "Well...if you want...you can tell El-Quan-Tem to stay out of Earth's business. It's against universal law to interfere. We won't be part of any prepackaged illusion he's created."

Metatron nodded. "I agree," he said.

"What?" said Ahmkarah. This wasn't the sort of response he expected.

A flash of lightning lit up the sky. Metatron flinched and looked up as if he expected to see someone (or something) standing above them. "I've had enough of El-Quan-Tem," he said in a low voice. "Look at humanity. They won't wake up in time. Changes must be made. We should make them together."

Ahmkarah raised an eyebrow. How naïve was El-Quan-Tem? Did he really think he, the planetary leader, would be stupid enough to fall for such an obvious trick? He pretended to play along. "Oh?"

Metatron nodded. "Using the same tactics you've employed here on Earth, you and I will go into partnership and get other planets to submit to Annunaki rule. We will spread out through the galaxy. The entire universe."

Ahmkarah was still wondering what El-Quan-Tem was playing at. "Why the sudden change of heart?" he asked. Was El-Quan-Tem trying to work out how far the Annunaki planned to go?

"I have no faith in El-Quan-Tem anymore," Metatron said. "Why should he be the only being that gets to say how things should be run?"

Ahmkarah had a few questions of his own. "And why would I want you on my side?"

"I have access to the Akashic Library," Metatron replied, quivering as if he had just let slip a terrible secret.

Ahmkarah laughed. "That's just El-Quan-Tem's propaganda. You don't seriously expect me to believe such a place exists?"

"I've been there myself! And what's more, I can use my access to control the soul tasks."

"Soul tasks?"

"The tasks all the souls who are using this universe for their ascension are working on," Metatron replied. "Once they have signed their tasks off, we will have complete control of their ascensions. Both in and out of incarnation."

Ahmkarah was about to start laughing again when he realised that Metatron was actually serious. These HVBs were more insane than he'd previously thought. How could they believe such nonsense? Soul tasks? Ascensions? What hogwash!

Meanwhile, on the roof of the nearby hangar, the sniper was still standing in the pouring rain. He locked his finger around the trigger even more tightly. Was this the tense moment he was waiting for?

Metatron seemed oblivious to Ahmkarah's lack of belief. "Who are they going to trust?" he asked rhetorically. "An abstract idea they can't see and argue about, like El-Quan-Tem, or a real-time divine being who can vibrate into their own frequency range? Make me your divine figurehead. Think how easy your PR will be with the spiritual leader of the universe on your side. After you stage the HVB attacks, I will appear in my spacecraft over Washington and announce that I have come to help you fight the HVBs and create a new dawn for mankind and the galaxy."

Ahmkarah chuckled. "And what's in it for you?" he asked.

"The respect and admiration I deserve. I'm the one who does all the work. Not El-Quan-Tem. It's about time I got the credit I deserve."

"Even if I did buy your Akasha idea," Ahmkarah replied, "which is all very nice...I seriously doubt that all you want is respect and admiration. Anyway, I'm not interested." He'd spent far too long talking to this ridiculous being when he could have been inside watching his soap. "You tell El-Quan-Tem the Annunaki are creating a future where there won't be a need for any spiritual leaders." And with that, he put his umbrella back up and walked out of the hangar.

Another fork of lightning blazed across the sky, and on the hangar opposite, the sniper watched the target.

Metatron stormed out of the hanger. "I'll get rid of the human for you!"

Ahmkarah stopped. "What human?" he asked, turning around. Surely Metatron didn't know about the escapee human, too?

"The human you've been looking for in the higher dimensions. That person is still alive."

Ahmkarah shook his head. "That human is no longer a concern," he replied, trying not to get annoyed by the fact he'd now lost four of his favourite stealth craft trying to catch her. "Whatever she's doing with your fuzzy friends, well, it won't affect us."

Metatron laughed. "You really are more asleep than I thought! She is one of the special ones. Or didn't you know?"

A thunder clap rolled across the sky. "What special ones?"

Metatron smiled. He finally had some control over the conversation. "You don't know what she's doing, do you? What they're all trying to do?"

Ahmkarah shrugged his shoulders, trying to pretend he didn't care. "Whatever."

"El-Quan-Tem has given her a task that is enabling her to raise her vibration to the resonance frequency. That's the same frequency needed to re-attune the interdimensional crystal that controls your low frequency field. I think you will find your original programming drive at Gakona is missing...."

Ahmkarah's eyes shone wide with fear. " _What?_ "

"El-Quan-Tem has got all sorts of HVBs helping her," Metatron continued. "And when she's finished, her and her _fuzzy friends_ will come back and shut your precious low frequency field down. And then what? Face it, Ahmkarah, you need me to get rid of her. And your own staff are utterly incapable of doing it."

Ahmkarah could only stand there. He couldn't argue with that last point. But was Metatron telling the truth? How could the Arcturians have taken the programming drive? That was against universal law! "What do you suggest?" he finally asked.

"Let me dispose of her and bring you back the device. We can work out how they've been doing it and stop them from trying again. Then, after Project Blue Beam, we will take Earth back from El-Quan-Tem and use it as a model to free the rest of the universe from his grip." He paused. "Do we have a deal?"

Ahmkarah merely stared at his visitor. It couldn't hurt, he thought, to test Metatron's allegiance. If he actually was telling the truth, he couldn't possibly be any more incompetent than his own staff was. And if he brought back the stolen programming drive, he could get his reverse-engineering team to find out what the human and the HVBs had been doing to it. "Fine," he said. "Welcome aboard."

Yet another bolt of lightning ripped through the sky, followed almost immediately by a thunder clap so loud that it seemed to the whole state of Nevada. It was so loud in fact, that it caused the weather people on the television to comment that it must have been the loudest thunder clap on record. Nobody, not even Metatron, knew that the thunder had absolutely nothing to do with the rain and the lightning and everything to do with mysterious forces at play beyond the confines of their universe. (Well, transcendental beings need to release their anger from time to time too, you know.)

# Chapter Thirteen

## _The Eccentric Shaman_

Not only is your universe just one of many in any one batch that is being crafted by a transcendental being at any one time, but once every soul in it has completed its ascension and all the planets in it have become fully activated, it is sent off to another transcendental being, who begins the next level of crafting. The whole process starts all over again.

You didn't think it stopped, did you? It never stops. Each soul starts a new ascension then too, although this time the soul chooses to tackle more complex energies in a different dimensional landscape. You will be pleased to know that each soul gets to retain the vibration it has already obtained from its previous universes...so there's no need to ever go back and repeat anything.

This is how El-Quan-Tem recruits his Light Masters, each of whom is a fully ascended soul from an already-crafted, previous batch of universes. Instead of going to another universe crafter to begin their next ascension, the Light Masters decide to stay on with El-Quan-Tem and return to a new universe he is working on to act as his highest-level guides. They also help oversee the crafting.

Receiving their tasks via El-Quan-Tem's messenger (who is usually another fully ascended soul who has also chosen to stay back and help), the Light Masters perform their duties for El-Quan-Tem, whilst also working on their own advanced, personal tasks. They don't know this consciously, of course; waltzing around a universe when you know you've already ascended from another one is enough to drive anyone bonkers. Instead, the Light Masters choose to forget all this when they incarnate.

This is why, when Apex vowed never again to have anything to do with El-Quan-Tem after the Silver Ray sold their mind control technologies to the Annunaki, El-Quan-Tem was more than a little upset. Aside from being one of the best Light Masters El-Quan-Tem had ever had, Apex had, up to that point, also been his most advanced soul. El-Quan-Tem had expected Apex to complete his work without any hiccups. And he was really rather fond of him.

As the _Pegasus Galactic_ began to make its way down through the upper atmosphere of the blue moon Rangala, therefore, El-Quan-Tem was understandably sitting (metaphorically) on the edge of his seat. Would one of Earth's human beings finally help his Light Master return to his senses? Or would he have to watch as yet another soul wasted yet another incarnation?

It was early on a Saturday morning and Sophie was dozing in her cabin on the _Pegasus Galactic_ , when a knock sounded at the door.

"Hey, kid—rise and shine!" Zalzibar pranced through the door in a mood she found annoyingly loud and happy for first thing in the morning. He set a bowl of steaming orange froth down on her bedside table and switched on her reading lamp.

She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. "What's the time?" she groaned.

"It's 6.30 a.m." Still smiling, he took a step backwards.

She looked at the bowl. The familiar smell of spicy-citrus carasopia tea was rising from it. "I thought we threw it all out at Altaiea," she said.

"I saved a bit when Roger wasn't looking." He winked. "For special occasions."

"Oh?" She picked up the bowl and sipped at the frothy contents through the metal straw. "What's happened? Has Roger received a positive report from the space station for a change?"

"We're landing." Zalzibar scurried over to Sophie's cabin window and drew the curtain open.

"Rangala!" She got out of bed and ran to the window and looked out.

Dark purple clouds were swimming against the glass, a rather nice change to the infinite starlit view which—although was very pretty and quite immense—had started to get a bit monotonous. What mysterious new world lay below these clouds and what kind of reception would they get from Apex?

Sophie and her guides had left Altaiea four days ago, after the Altaieans had very kindly repaired the _Pegasus Galactic_ , using their knowledge of things so advanced that even Roger hadn't understood. Along with a couple of engine modifications, the Altaieans had given them enough high-vibrational energy to trek across an entire super-cluster and back and, because the energy was so powerful, the spacecraft was flying five times faster and smoother than ever (not that it could have really gotten much worse). Zalzibar hadn't complained about it at all since they'd left the planet, which had made for a refreshing experience up in the cockpit.

"We're here a whole day early," Sophie said with a smile. How novel it would be, she thought, to experience a landing without crashing.

"Those Altaieans, huh? I've always said they know their stuff," Zalzibar said. And with that, he left the cabin.

Sophie smiled. Then, realising she wanted to see as much of the landing as possible, she set off for the bridge without even getting dressed for the day.

"Good morning," she said to Roger as she stepped out of the hover beam and made her way across the bridge.

Roger was busy up at the cockpit, flicking switches up and down and running the final landing checks, but he looked up at her. "Good day, dear child," he said.

Zalzibar had just joined him in the cockpit and was now sitting with his headset on and gazing out the window. "Time to see what this blue moon's got to offer," he said as he reached out and switched the flight mode to manual.

Sophie sat down and watched as the clouds grew thinner, they finally parted to reveal a luminous world, its curved horizon becoming flatter as they descended toward a blue-tinted landscape covered in rainforest whose treetops were covered by pockets of turquoise mist.

"It's beautiful!"

"It most certainly is," Roger agreed. "Zalzibar, fly us to coordinates 372J, 412D to 87M, 32B, please."

The _Pegasus Galactic_ swept off at an angle with a smooth whoosh (just the way you'd expect a spacecraft to fly), levelling out just above the tree tops, where it skimmed whiffs of the turquoise mist. Below, a deep canyon of craggy blue rock stretched into the distance. They winged their way towards it, hovering down to a cobalt-coloured area, where they stopped about five metres above the ground.

Roger reached for the radio and twisted the dials. " _Pegasus Galactic_ to Earth Guidance Project Headquarters, do you read us? Over."

Twenty seconds later, a garbled crackle followed by a short series of mumble-beeps sounded through the speakers.

Roger nodded. "We have landed at our destination. We will be stationary at Rangala until further notice."

Another twenty seconds passed before another crackled response came with more mumble-beeps.

"Roger that," said Roger. Then he turned the transmission off.

Zalzibar laughed and slapped a paw across his thigh. "Gets me every time!"

Ignoring him, Roger continued to move various levers up and down and adjusting the spacecraft to the new gravity conditions before turning off all the deep space gear.

Zalzibar stood up. "Time to find out if the old guy's home," he said.

Roger threw him a cold look.

"What do you mean?" Sophie asked. "You channelled ahead, right?" She assumed they hadn't just travelled halfway across the galaxy on the off-chance that Apex would be home.

Zalzibar looked at Roger and waited for him to say something.

Roger cleared his throat. "Apparently," he said, "the channellers haven't been able to get through. They sent us a message, but we didn't receive it because it was when our communication was down. I only realised that last night." He gave an awkward smile.

"Oh," said Sophie. So they had just travelled halfway across the galaxy (further than any human in the entire history of humanity had ever been) on the off-chance Apex would be home.

"It's okay," Roger said reassuringly. "I have a feeling. We'll just have a quick spot of breakfast and then we'll go and investigate."

"I'm telling you guys," Zalzibar said, "there's not even one conscious being on this stupid moon!"

They had reached the back of the canyon where, according to Roger's somewhat outdated atlas of Rangala, Apex was supposedly living.

"I'm surprised you even know what a conscious being is!" Roger just kept walking along the bottom of the canyon, following the nearest wall to an area further down where they could see some shadowy caves.

Sophie stared up through her helmet screen at the ridge overhead. Steep blue cliffs towered up to a purple sky. There was no sign of civilisation anywhere to be seen. What were they going to do now? They arrived at the caves.

"And how do you propose this sign got here?" Roger asked. He pointed at a rickety sign hanging in a crevice beside one of the caves.

Sophie reached for the sign. Like everything else on this moon, it was covered in blue dust. She wiped the dust away with her glove and saw the spiral of El-Quan-Tem etched into the metal underneath, along with some inscriptions she couldn't read.

"I suppose signs are taking over the universe now, are they?" Roger said to Zalzibar. "Ascending into a new form of navigational complexity in places where no conscious beings exist?"

Zalzibar scowled at him.

Sophie ignored the bickering. She couldn't help but notice there was a large scratch right through the middle of the spiral. Had the Annunaki already been there? She turned to her guides. "What does this say?" she asked.

Roger squinted at the sign. "It's in Pleiadian," he said. "It says that all beings are protected by the Light. I suspect Apex hung it here to mark a passage." He peered into the cave entrance and sniffed. Then he stepped inside. "There appears to be some sort of path," he said, stepping forward into the darkness.

"I said it was this way all along," said Zalzibar, running in after him.

"Well, then," Roger stepped aside as Zalzibar caught up with him, "you won't mind going first then, will you?"

Zalzibar huffed and took the lead.

Sophie followed.

Blue stalactites and stalagmites grew inside the cave and luminous green plants sprawled in blue water on shelves and in crevices along the walls, lighting the area in glowing colours.

They made their way deeper into the cave. Zalzibar whimpered as he stubbed his toe. "Ouch!" he complained.

"Call yourself a guide," Roger muttered. "Oh, look, there's a ladder at the back there." He pointed at an old wooden ladder running up to the ceiling. "It leads to a trapdoor," he said as he jumped up onto the first rung. As Sophie and Zalzibar watched, he climbed up to the ceiling, where he heaved open the trapdoor and climbed through.

Sophie followed Zalzibar, being careful not to slip. They clambered up, went through the trapdoor, and found themselves standing out in the open. To the left, another sign marked the edge of the canyon below, and to the right, a rocky slope stretched down to the rainforest.

"Now what?" Sophie asked. Didn't they have any direction at all?

Zalzibar looked around at the blank landscape. "I told you guys this was a stupid idea."

Without deigning to reply, Roger set off down the slope towards the jungle. "Apex is a botanist," he called back. "I expect he lives this way!"

As they made their way along a questionable path into the rainforest, Sophie began to feel there was something odd about this moon that she couldn't quite put her finger on yet. It wasn't the strange flora or fauna, although the stringy green vines, the cobalt leaves, and the frilly plants were all very interesting...no, it was something else. After another five minutes, she realised what it was. She felt like she was being watched. It was as if the plants had eyes or at least some sort of intelligence. Perhaps she was just imagining it, but she was sure that one blue vine in particular was following them, twisting from tree to tree. She kept turning around trying to catch it in the act, but every time she did, it was merely draped across a branch.

"Nice pad," Zalzibar remarked sarcastically as they walked into a clearing where a tumbled-down shack was standing in the middle of what looked like a junkyard. Made of corrugated metal and covered in vines and creepers, the shack looked like it had been dropped from a great height. Scattered around it in what Sophie supposed was the front garden was a rusty two-seater spacecraft covered with faded psychedelic paintwork, some random bits of space debris, a banana-shaped bathtub, and objects that looked like they might have once been musical instruments.

"Let's see if he's in, shall we?" Roger suggested in a tone so positive it was clearly fake. Stepping up to what looked like it might be a front door, he rapped loudly and stepped back.

There was no answer.

Sophie and Zalzibar exchanged a concerned look.

Roger rapped again.

Again there was no answer.

"Oh dear," said Roger. He turned to face his team.

"Wait," said Sophie. She was listening through her space helmet's speakers. A faint, low-pitched humming seemed to be coming from behind the shack. It sounded like...well, like a faint, low-pitched humming.

They made their way cautiously around the back, where they found a greenhouse that was half-buried under a tangle of plants and creepers and covered in blue dust, making it impossible for them to see if there was anyone or anything inside. The greenhouse door was slightly ajar, however, and they could hear a voice within. It was chanting.

Sophie walked slowly up to the door and peered in. What she saw were benches overflowing with unfamiliar plants with yellow, spiral-shaped flowers, pink cone-like fruits, and green bell-shaped leaves. Rafters criss-crossed under the ceiling, each one laden with hanging baskets and other odd items like rattles, tambourines, and saucepans. Vines sprawled across trellises, and tables were cluttered with tubes of bubbling liquid. She also spotted the same blue vine that had been following her through the rainforest. It raised a leaf as if it were waving at her. But if she thought that was bizarre, it was nothing compared to what she thought when she finally saw Apex.

Having already met Apex in a dream and having already seen his picture in the encyclopaedia, she thought she had a rough idea of what to expect. He was a tall, glimmering, golden being and, just like Az-Karan and the model of Ma-Mah-Sah, he was an abstract blend of colours and forms that she couldn't seem to get into full focus, even when standing in the same room with him. He looked, she thought, like he was part monkey, part human, and part lion...with crackling dreadlocks and a sparkling cloak. But what Sophie hadn't expected was to find the Light Master hunched over hanging baskets and having a very serious conversation with the plants in them.

"Don't listen to him, Cecil," Apex was saying to a purple-leafed vine. "He's just a spartlock, his vines have yet to see a full eclipse, _hon-shan-zu_."

"Er, excuse me?" Sophie called out politely.

Apex spun around, his dreadlocks sending sparks out into the space around him. He stared at Sophie for a few seconds before muttering something. " _Hon-quan-zu_ ," he said.

Sophie dipped her head politely. "Hello," she said timidly. "I'm Sophie Archer, a human being from the planet Earth. These are my guides, Roger Von-Fonstein and Zalzibar Thermoil. They're from Arcturia."

Roger and Zalzibar both bowed.

Apex remained both motionless and silent. Which made Sophie wonder if he'd seen a human in real-life before. She was just about to mention her dream when he said, "I'm not interested," and turned around to talk to the plants again.

Roger gave a little cough. "Er, excuse me? Apex? We understand your time is important," he began, "but we're on an important mission for El-Qua—"

"Do not speak that name in here!" Apex shouted, spinning around so suddenly that his dreadlocks created an explosion in mid-air. "I know why you're here," he growled. "You're wasting your time."

Roger turned to face the other two with a _now what?_ look on his face. Zalzibar shrugged his shoulders and looked at Sophie. Sophie stepped forwards. "But you channelled to me in a dream," she said, "and you said I was going to go on a journey of awakening and to trust in El-Quan-Tem."

White sparks began fizzing softly in Apex's eyes. "So I did," he said sadly. "Every now and then, I have a day where I regain my faith. But then I look at the way the universe is, how so many beings are suffering, and I remember how El-Quan-Tem abused his power and guided me to do something I have regretted ever since. I'm sorry. You must have caught me on one of my more naive days." He gestured toward the door. "Go home."

"So we'll just leave you to it, then," Sophie said bitterly. "It's not like this would have been the perfect opportunity for you to make amends for what happened and regain a sense of purpose or anything."

Apex grunted and picked up a jar of silver dust from a nearby bench. Unscrewing the lid, he sprinkled the contents over the purple vine's leaves, which gave little shudders.

Sophie turned to her companions. "Come on," she said. They trudged back out of the greenhouse. But halfway up the garden path, she stopped. "Listen!" she said. Roger and Zalzibar pricked up their ears. They could hear Apex laughing.

"Unbelievable!" she exclaimed. "Let's get off this stupid blue moon. He was right about it being a waste of time." They turned back to the path.

"Wait!"

They turned again. Apex came sweeping up the path towards them. He looked up at the purple sky. "This is it, isn't it?" he called to the clouds. "You old rascal!" He waved his arms as if summoning a great power. "I should have seen it coming," he began laughing, "but you never do, not until the learning manifests, _hon-quan-tem-tzu!_ "

Sophie looked at Roger and Zalzibar. All three of them were perhaps even more surprised by this behaviour than they had been by hearing Apex talking to the plants.

"I'm sorry, Sophie," Apex called warmly, clapping his hands together. "If your guides will permit me some time alone with you, I will see if I can impart something to you that may be of use."

"Are you sure?" She was not entirely sure meeting with Apex was such a good idea anymore.

He nodded as if he were reading her mind. "I lost my faith in El-Quan-Tem for many years," he said, "but now I am beginning to see it was part of a far greater plan. There are many twists and turns along the path of ascension." Before she could react, he added, "I trust you will use the information I give you in accordance with the will of El-Quan-Tem?"

Sophie nodded. "Of course."

Apex turned to Roger and Zalzibar, who were both looking a bit miffed they wouldn't get to attend the proposed meeting. "I hope you don't mind," he told them, "but the training is for Sophie only. Too many guides spoil the soul."

And with that, their work began.

# Chapter Fourteen

## _Plant Teachings_

Sophie followed Apex through the greenhouse, brushing past exotic plants and hanging baskets to a wicker-like table and chairs that were sitting amongst some potted trees.

"Oh. My. God!" Sophie exclaimed, nearly falling over in surprise. Resting lazily in the corner of the greenhouse on a large perch, his head buried snugly against his feathery chest, was a two-foot-tall brown eagle.

"That's Hercules," said Apex. "He's a shamanic eagle. He'll be helping us."

"Wow," said Sophie. It was the biggest bird she had ever seen.

"Go and say hello if you like," Apex added before turning around to work with some test tubes filled with green liquid.

Sophie made her way over and stopped a few feet in front of the eagle. He lifted his head and squawked. She stepped back.

"He likes you," Apex said as he set a small collection of plants and jars and a test tube on the table before sitting down on one of the chairs. "That's good. He can be quite particular."

Sophie had an urge to stroke him, but his beak looked dangerously sharp. "I'll take your word for it," she said and she sat down at the table. Then she pulled out her parchment scroll with The Twelve Attunements on it and handed it to Apex. "I brought this with me," she said.

But he brushed it away with a glittery flick of one paw. "Not necessary, thank you," he said.

"But Metatr—"

"—as I understand," said Apex, "you've come to learn something from me about the nature of beliefs."

Wondering how he knew this, she nodded. "The next Attunement I have to integrate is all about recognising your beliefs create your—"

"—if you tell me any more," he interrupted her again, "we'll be falling into a grey area with universal law. And El-Quan-Tem only knows we wouldn't want that."

"Okay."

Apex pointed at one of the plants on the table. It had yellow clam-shell-shaped flowers and wispy leaves. "Allow me to introduce you to Phyllis," he said.

Sophie had never held a conversation with a plant before, but she was game to give it a try in this unusual greenhouse. "Umm, hi," she said, determined to keep an open mind. After all, just because Apex talked to plants, that didn't mean he was completely mad.

"And this is Terrence." He pointed at a blue vine in a pot sitting beside Phyllis.

Recognising the blue vine from the forest, Sophie nodded. "Nice to meet you both," she said, trying to sound as sincere as possible.

"They're quantum plants," said Apex, as if this should clear everything up.

"Oh, good," replied Sophie. What else could she say?

Apex rummaged around in his cloak and pulled a burnt-orange tambourine out of one of the pockets. He began shaking it gently whilst chanting something low and obscure. A rustle of leaves moved around the greenhouse. It seemed as if all the plants were waking up.

Apex looked at Sophie and smiled. "I've asked the plants to remove the Rangalan gasses from the greenhouse and replace it with oxygen for you so you can take your helmet off."

Sophie looked at Apex through her helmet screen. Was he joking?

"They're quite talented," he added.

"Oh, it's fine, thanks," she said, unsure whether he was being serious or not and having no desire to test his claim if he actually was.

"It's no trouble," he insisted. And before Sophie could say a word, he had sprung up, reached across, grabbed her space helmet, and yanked it off her head.

"Are you insane?!" she yelled, jumping up from her chair and trying to reach her helmet, which Apex was now holding high above her head.

"One can only hope," he replied. "To be sane on the inside is something worth striving for."

"But I'll die!" She was trying not to breathe.

"And thus will begin your transition to another dimension," he said. "But that will not happen today."

This continued for two more minutes until it became clear to Sophie that she wasn't dying and nor did she feel like she was going to any time soon. Forced to accept the inevitable conclusion that Apex was telling the truth, she sank back into her chair, suspiciously inhaling the earthy greenhouse air.

He laughed. "Quantum." And he set the helmet down on the greenhouse floor. "Now then..." he steepled his fingers, "beliefs. Beliefs are far more than statements you hold to be true about yourself and your reality. At the quantum level, beliefs play a part in creating the very nature of reality itself."

Sophie leant forwards. This sounded like just what she was looking for.

"Beliefs can be empowering and disempowering," he went on, "and can therefore create both a desired reality and an undesired reality."

As Sophie nodded, he continued his lecture. "The Annunaki have humanity believing all sorts of things they are largely unconscious of. These beliefs have been programmed into mass society and are passed down from one generation to the next, proliferated by the media and other institutions. At the individual level, these beliefs determine how you filter and decode reality, what you are capable of, and what comes into your world. At the collective level, your shared reality on Earth is the sum total of everyone's beliefs, all amalgamated together in an unspoken consensus agreement...a critical mass, as it were."

He reached over to the yellow plant and stroked one of the petals. "Could I trouble you for a petal, please, Phyllis?"

As Phyllis twirled a single yellow petal towards the Light Master, he picked it and rolled it up into a tube, held it over a jar on the table, then ran his fingers along its length. A yellow drop dripped into the jar. He then picked up a nearby test tube filled with a green bubbling liquid, added a dash of the liquid to the jar, and swirled the mixture around. "There you go," he said, offering the jar to Sophie.

"Oh, I'm not thirsty, thanks anyway," she replied politely. Breathing air from quantum plants was one thing, but drinking them was quite another.

"It's perfectly safe," Apex insisted.

"What will it do?" she asked, wondering if it was some sort of hallucinogen.

"It will help you to journey. It's a shamanic tool we use to collect information from non-ordinary reality."

"Non-ordinary reality?" Sophie asked. "As opposed to now?" She found it hard to believe reality could get any more non-ordinary than it already was.

"Sometimes we must try in order to see," he replied mysteriously, still holding the jar out towards her.

Slowly and oh, so carefully, she took the jar and raised it to her mouth. If it was going to help her get an Attunement, she told herself, well, it couldn't hurt. Besides, it wasn't as if things could get any stranger. She tipped the jar back, almost retching as liquid of a sludge-like consistency slipped down the back of her throat. "Thanks," she gasped as she swallowed and set the jar on the table.

"What's one belief shared by humanity?" asked Apex. "That both at the individual and collective level disempowers you all in some way, creating an undesired reality?"

Sophie shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not sure," she replied. Did he really expect her to know all this stuff? This was why she had come to see him. To learn from him.

He rested his chin on one paw. "Well, what about the belief that you are all disconnected?"

"Disconnected?" she asked, unable to stop staring at his dreadlocks, which were now popping and fizzing into different colours and wiggling in and out of each other.

"At the collective level," he went on, "the belief that you are disconnected creates things like war, environmental destruction, and fragmented societies. At the individual level, this belief manifests into all sorts of things like depression, disillusionment, and in some extreme cases disease."

Sophie nodded. But she had always thought beliefs existed because of reality, not the other way around as he was saying.

"But enough abstraction," he said. "Let me show you." He put two fingers to his mouth and gave a sharp whistle, at which Hercules squawked and jumped down from his perch, strutting across the table towards them and knocking several plant pots over in the process.

Before Sophie had a chance to work out what the lesson was, Apex had sprung up again, plunged Sophie's helmet back onto her head, picked her up, and lifted her onto Hercules' back.

She hung on for dear life as the eagle swooped towards the greenhouse door. Apex ran ahead and flung it open. "Enjoy your journey!" he called, waving as Sophie and Hercules soared past.

Sophie hung onto clumps of feathers as Hercules soared up into the sky. How, she wondered, did she fit on a bird's back? Had she shrunk?

As they flew high above the Rangalan rainforest, the trees below got smaller and smaller, eventually looking like broccoli florets that carpeted the land.

"Out here in the higher dimensions..." Apex began.

Sophie looked around. He wasn't anywhere to be seen. It was just her, Hercules, and the purple clouds they were flying towards. What was going on? "Where are you?" she cried, tightening her grip on Hercules' back.

"We believe the opposite," the voice said.

Hercules plunged into the purple clouds and they were enveloped in a thick fog. The eagle gave another squawk, and now it felt to Sophie as if they were flying through something sticky, as if the clouds had turned into candy floss or glue. There was a bright flash and then...all Sophie could see was...absolutely nothing.

"What's happening?" She couldn't even see her body, let alone Hercules or the purple clouds. All she was aware of was an empty, colourless, featureless space. It was as if they had flown beyond any reality she might recognise and somehow lost themselves.

The voice of Apex came out of the empty space. "You are journeying through quantum potentiality," it said. "This is the state of being that exists throughout the entire universe at the smallest level."

Sophie felt something go whooshing through her, and, with an intense sense of clarity, she realised it wasn't just whooshing through her. _It was her_ and _she was it_.

"It's here," said Apex, "that the tiny subatomic waves of potentiality dance and weave together as one. It's precisely here that these waves begin to manifest as sparkling dots of being. Which then manifest into denser vibrational forms."

A shiny bubble came whizzing out of nowhere (quite literally out of nowhere) and collided with another bubble before whizzing off again in another direction. What was happening?

"Now," Apex was saying, "see yourself as quantum potentiality giving rise to the first stages of complex life...a DNA helix."

As a blue ladder twisted past her, she sensed she was the ladder, spinning at the cellular level.

"Feel yourself resonating with this awareness," Apex said. "Know that you contain the divine codes that will give rise to new life and new living systems."

Sophie was amazed. She knew she had everything inside her that she needed to create cells, which could in turn create organs, muscles, bones, and skin.

"And all the time remember you are this quantum potentiality manifesting in the physical realm. Now feel this potentiality manifesting as life force energy moving in and out of the chakras and connecting you to the original quantum source."

Sophie looked down. She was relieved to see her body was back, along with Hercules and the purple clouds. She could sense the energy moving through her, flowing in and out of each chakra, just as Apex had said.

"And now," he told her, "quantum potentiality manifests into even denser forms; beings that are able to contemplate the force which has created them."

Hercules screeched and plunged back through the clouds. The rainforest reappeared below.

"From the ants shuffling over the lunar surface," Apex continued, "to the birds soaring overhead, all is the same force of El-Quan-Tem manifesting in various ways. Are you all right?"

Sophie gasped. She was sitting back in the greenhouse on the chair opposite Apex. Her helmet was on the floor, and Hercules was back in the corner, dozing peacefully on his perch.

"What happened?"

"We were talking about beliefs," Apex said. "I was saying that if enough humans recognised and cleared the disempowering belief that they are disconnected and then installed the empowering belief they are connected and are all part of the same quantum source, the collective reality of Earth could actually change according to the new belief system." He paused to let her catch her breath. "I expect you would like to know how to clear an unwanted belief?"

Her head was still spinning. Had that flight just happened, or had she hallucinated it? She couldn't remember landing, let alone coming back inside the greenhouse. What was in that plant juice?

"May I?" asked Apex. He reached across the table to the blue vine. As Terrence twisted a leaf towards the Light Master, Apex picked it off, rolled it up, and squeezed another drop into a jar on the table. Then he added some more of the bubbling green liquid.

Sophie leaned away from the table. "I've had enough for one day," she said, "but thanks, anyway."

Apex held the jar out anyway. "Terrence's task is to simply seek out the disempowering belief you wish to clear. He'll weed it out and plant an empowering belief in its place...if you'll excuse my pun." He grinned.

Sophie wasn't sure. How could a plant change her beliefs? With a sigh, she took the jar and gulped the contents down as fast as she could. She was relieved to find that Terrence didn't taste half as bad as Phyllis. Leaning back in her chair, she waited. What surreal trip awaited her this time?

Opposite, Apex remained silent, tapping his fingertips together in sparks of light.

Nothing happened.

Sophie looked around the greenhouse. Everything was still. The plants were all behaving like normal plants and over on his perch, Hercules was still fast asleep.

Another two minutes ticked past.

Still nothing.

Sophie was just about to say that she didn't think anything was working when Apex spoke.

"Oh, well," he said, picking up Sophie's helmet and handing it to her. "Divine timing is divine timing. Our work together is done."

"But I haven't integrated any of the other Attunements," she protested. She couldn't leave now, not after coming all this way. Surely there was more Apex could teach her?

"That is all," said Apex, pointing a golden paw at the door.

"I've always said there was something dodgy about that guy," said Zalzibar.

Sophie was back on-board the _Pegasus Galactic_ , sitting with her guides on the now-mended beanbags on the orange shag-pile rug, eating some spiced Arcturian rock cakes Roger had baked whilst she had been out.

She sighed. "It's my fault. I didn't really understand what he was talking about half the time." She was now thoroughly annoyed with herself for not asking the Light Master more intelligent questions.

"Hey, kid, don't go blamin' yourself," Zalzibar said, his mouth half-full of rock cake. "The guy does talk to plants, ya know."

"I suppose so," she said. "I'd like to try again, though. Maybe if I go back tomorrow?"

Roger dipped his cake into his tea. "I was really expecting more from a Light Master," he said in a disapproving tone.

Just then, a crackle sounded from the radio. Roger got up from his beanbag and hurried up to the cockpit.

"To be honest," Sophie said to Zalzibar, "I didn't actually think it was going to work. I mean, beliefs exist because of reality, not the other way round. And you certainly can't go changing them by drinking a jar of plant juice. Can you?"

Zalzibar gasped. "By El-Quan-Tem above, kid, that's it!"

"What's it?"

"What did you just say?"

Sophie looked at him blankly. "That I didn't think it was going to work."

"You mean you had a disempowering belief that Apex's technique wouldn't work?" He wiggled his eyebrows up and down.

Sophie had to think about this for a few seconds until she suddenly realised what Zalzibar was getting at. "Oh. My. God! That's why it didn't work... Because I was holding a disempowering belief it wouldn't! And because I didn't believe it would work, it didn't!" She paused as this new truth hit her. "So your beliefs really do create your reality."

A rush of energy tingled through her body. The Ninth Attunement.

Zalzibar was watching carefully. "Nice work, kid!" He held out a yellow paw for Sophie to high-five. "I've always said that Light Master knows his stuff!"

"Roger!" Sophie ran up to the cockpit, eager to tell the professor her good news.

But Roger was just staring at the radio, looking as pale as a ghost.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

He turned around, making his way back down to the beanbags in silence. She followed him. He finally spoke. "Our fears about the Annunaki have proven to be correct."

Sophie and Zalzibar both gulped.

"They are going to stage a mass-scale false-flag attack on Earth. It's to be called Project Blue Beam. They'll be projecting holographic images of HVB spacecraft over several major cities, using the low frequency field, whilst simultaneously launching missiles from orbiting satellites."

Sophie and Zalzibar both exclaimed in horror.

Roger nodded grimly. "Millions of human beings will die. As we've feared, Earth's collective vibration is likely to be pushed over the negative tipping point, permanently preventing Earth from ever being able to reconnect with El-Quan-Tem or join the higher dimensions. Even worse, the Annunaki are going to use the attacks as an excuse to go to war against the higher dimensions and spread out into the galaxy."

"But they can't do that," Zalzibar protested. "El-Quan-Tem won't let them!"

"According to universal law," Roger replied bitterly, "humanity has allowed all this to happen. He can't interfere."

Sophie shook her head in disbelief. Was there no end to the depths the Annunaki would sink to?

"The attacks are due to take place the same time the high vibrational energy waves from Altaiea reach Earth on the twenty-first of December. That's just six days away. The Annunaki obviously see the waves as a threat and are trying to counteract them."

"We won't even make it back in time, will we?" Sophie was thinking about how long it had taken them to get to Rangala.

"It is doubtful," Roger said with a sigh. "But with the Altaiean fuel, it's not impossible."

Sophie jumped up. "We have to stop them! Can we disable the satellites?"

Roger shook his head. "It will take too long, and they're only planning to take them up at the last minute. The only way to stop the attacks is to shut down the low frequency field at Gakona. They're controlling them from the main system there."

"Well, we were going to do that anyway," Sophie said defiantly. "So now we'll just have to do it sooner."

"That's the spirit kid!" Zalzibar cried out. "Let's go kick some lizard butt!"

Feeling panicky, they hurried up to the cockpit. Sophie looked at the glowing Light Master figurines dangling over the cockpit and wondered...was El-Quan-Tem really watching over them? Or had they just deluded themselves into believing a nice philosophical framework to make beings like the Annunaki and their atrocious behaviour more sufferable? With just six days to go before the scheduled false-flag attacks, it wouldn't be much longer until she found out.

# Chapter Fifteen

## _The Fallen Angel_

The _Pegasus Galactic_ was winging its way back across the galaxy, and its passengers were frantic. Through the constellation of Orion, it sped, passing again through the swirling tunnel of interdimensional plasma that was the Orion Stargate. It whooshed past the bright binary star system of Sirius A and Sirius B before whizzing along the Magnesium Spaceway. Finally, the spacecraft began travelling across the last sector of the grid on Roger's Milky Way star chart it needed to cross before it would reach the solar system in which planet Earth was spinning, completely unaware of the peril it was in.

They didn't encounter even the slightest hint of Annunaki en route, which made the trip relatively uneventful, even though Sophie, Roger, and Zalzibar remained highly anxious.

Roger theorised that this did not bode well. "The Annunaki must be confident Project Blue Beam is going to work," he said, "regardless of the threat Sophie poses." It was December 21, the day of the false flag attacks, and all three of them were sitting in the cockpit.

Having received reports from the space station that the missiles would be launched simultaneously at precisely 11.11 p.m., local Gakona time, that night, the crew were growing more impatient with every second that ticked past on Roger's pocket watch, which he had now reset to local Alaskan time.

Amazingly, the Altaiean fuel had enabled them to fly faster than they expected, which gave them a small speck of hope. At their current speed, they would be arriving at the low frequency field base in Gakona by 8.30 a.m., which meant they had the whole day to break into the base and shut the system down.

What they didn't have, however, was any idea about how they were going to do this. Sophie still hadn't integrated the remaining three Attunements, which meant the holographic drive was nowhere near the twelve thousand etherics it needed to be at. But it wasn't for a lack of trying. They'd spent the entire journey back from Rangala reading and rereading every single book on the ship, mulling over topics from free will to spiritual awakening, radioing the space station back and forth for as much information as they could get, meditating in the sanctum, and praying to El-Quan-Tem. Yet no matter what they tried or what amazing new insights and understandings Sophie discovered, the Attunements simply wouldn't come.

"It doesn't make sense," Roger said. "The Attunements Sophie has integrated so far have come when certain events have synchronised in her external reality with her internal understanding."

Zalzibar screwed up his face as he tried to understand what Roger had just said.

Roger nodded. "She's tried learning everything possible to internally understand these last three Attunements," he continued. "But nothing has happened externally, not even the slightest hint of an accompanying synchronicity. It's as if this time we have to wait for El-Quan-Tem to do something. Which is more than a little frustrating."

"You're telling me!" said Sophie, her mind churning with what-ifs. Did she have any control over her task? Or was the whole thing down to El-Quan-Tem? Had she ever had any control to start with? Or was she just a pawn in a transcendental being's cosmic game?

"Kid," said Zalzibar, "trust in El-Quan-Tem. Everything will come together exactly when it's meant to."

Roger nodded again. "Zalzibar's right. You must keep your faith, now more than ever."

Sophie looked out at all the billions of stars peppering the galaxy, most of them high vibrational energy transmitters for surrounding planets that were already attuned to the higher dimensions. Heavy with the weight of responsibility that had been laid on her shoulders, she sighed. "I hope you're right."

A crackle sounded on the radio, causing them to jump. Roger reached across and twisted the dials, his paws trembling as he anticipated yet more bad news from headquarters. So far, every update they'd received since leaving Rangala had been another report of an Annunaki attempt to lower Earth's vibration even more. From the passing of countless bills in the American Congress that erased civil liberties to the drastic action of establishing police states in almost every major Western country, it had become clear that the Annunaki were on a rampage.

Fizzy static sounded through the speakers. "I can't seem to pick it up," Roger said.

Suddenly a voice hissed out at them. " _Pegasus Galactic_ , this is the _Hermes 13000_. Do you read me? Over."

"Dearie me," said Roger, throwing the others a nervous look. "That's Metatron's ship. It's most out of character for him to make contact like this."

Sophie took a deep breath. This couldn't be a good sign...unless El-Quan-Tem had decided to intervene? Maybe he had finally realised how unfair humanity's situation was? And yet something inside Sophie told her to be wary. Something wasn't right.

Roger twisted the dial to respond. "This is the _Pegasus Galactic_. We copy, over."

"I have a message for you," hissed Metatron. "Meet me at the Grengarian Space Station one Earth hour from now. In the control room. The coordinates are 1221B, 4158A to 8741N, 2212A."

"Roger that," replied Roger, writing the coordinates down and switching the transmission off.

For once, Zalzibar didn't laugh. "You know," he said, "I've got a bad feeling about this."

"Me, too," said Sophie.

Roger tapped the coordinates into the UPS. "Zalzibar," he said, "you always have bad feelings. And, Sophie, dear child, you need the remaining three Attunements...Metatron may have some information from El-Quan-Tem that will help."

"I suppose so." She sighed. And just like that, her logic overrode her intuition.

"It's practically on the way, anyway," Roger said as the location flashed up on the oval UPS screen. "How curious," he added, still studying the UPS. "This space station hasn't been active for over a hundred years. I wonder why Metatron picked it?"

Zalzibar shook his head. "This is a bad idea, I'm telling you, it's a bad idea."

"Like the Altaieans were a bad idea?" Roger muttered. "And Apex?"

Zalzibar huffed and looked outside again as he nervously pushed a lever up and down, opening and closing the rubbish shoot in the kitchen.

And the _Pegasus Galactic_ sped on.

The Grengarian Space Station hovered on the edge of the Grengarian zone, an unpopulated and desolate system in the Milky Way. Nobody used this section of the galaxy anymore, not since the Grengarians had ascended to a higher dimension that nobody else had been able to access (not even the Pleiadians, which was saying something, because the Pleiadians were widely regarded as being the most high vibrational of all HVBs in the galaxy).

Nobody knew what had happened to the Grengarians. One day they had been there, milling about their three planets and taking part in higher dimensional universe society like everybody else, and the next, _poof!_ —they'd vanished without a trace. Even the planets they'd been living on had disappeared, and all that remained now was a couple of old intergalactic outposts.

The Grengarian Space Station was one of these. Covered in space moss and cylindrical in shape, it continued to spin on what was left of its back-up generators as a silent monument to a planetary race that had been way ahead of its time. It therefore caused something of a stir in the energy fields of this part of the galaxy as a white spacecraft with blacked-out windows and a ridiculously large spoiler drew up and began manoeuvring inside the space station, completely unaware that—just outside its own UPS range—a triangular spacecraft was following it.

Zetan had found it rather easy to follow the _Hermes 13000_ in his little Rumbler since Xemal had tipped him off about its landing at Area 51 a week previously. Having gotten over the initial shock of seeing the _Hermes 13000_ arrive at the base on his watch, Xemal had wondered how Rockenfeld had managed to build such an advanced-looking piece of equipment and accompanying robot. He had promptly radioed Zetan about the sighting.

Busy rumbling around the Milky Way in his spacecraft looking for Rockenfeld's elusive human, Zetan had quickly made his way back to Earth, where he managed to catch Rockenfeld's mystery craft just as it was leaving Area 51. Zetan had then proceeded to follow it in the hope that it might lead him to the human, or at the very least give him some clue about what Rockenfeld was up to.

Zetan had now been tracking Metatron for a week, even though he was barely able to keep up with the white spacecraft in his little Rumbler which, although it was very futuristic, was nothing compared to the _Hermes 13000_.

Sitting up in the cockpit of the Rumbler with his co-pilot, Zetan picked up his radio. "You're not going to believe this," he said to Xemal, who, having concluded nothing much was happening at Area 51, was now on his way back to the Gaian Rebels' base. "There's an old space station out here. I can't imagine how humans in the past managed to build such a thing so far away from their home."

There was a long pause before Xemal replied. "How the hell did it get out there?"

"No idea." Zetan dimmed the lights in the cabin so he would remain out of sight as he flew up the tunnel behind the other ship. "But we're going inside after the target."

An hour later, a silver flying saucer pulled up outside the Grengarian Space Station and it, too, made its way along the tunnel into the bowels of the derelict building.

"This place is giving me the creeps," Zalzibar complained with a shiver as the docking gate clamped shut behind them like a huge jaw.

Sophie nodded. The docking bay was quiet, and shadows fell across old Grengarian pods that looked like they'd been abandoned like boats on a pier during a storm.

Spying Metatron's spacecraft to the far right, Zalzibar tilted the steering column sideways and flew the _Pegasus Galactic_ over to dock down beside it.

"I'll put my spacesuit on," Sophie said, unbuckling her seatbelt and making her way down across the bridge.

"Well," said Zalzibar, admiring the _Hermes 13000_ for slightly longer than he wanted to before hanging up his headset, "let's get this over with."

"Are you sure this is the right way?" Zalzibar asked. He and Sophie were following Roger down a dim corridor inside the space station. A thick layer of space moss covered the walls, infiltrating each nook and cranny with decay.

"Quite sure," Roger said. "The control room is always at the top of these space stations," he added. "They're known as Bernal spheres because of the way they spin. It gives them constant gravity."

Zalzibar was not impressed. "Whoopee-do. Why can't Metatron just meet us on his spacecraft, anyway?" Aside from thinking it was suspicious that Metatron wanted to meet with them in the middle of a derelict building in an empty system in the first place, Zalzibar harboured a secret desire to see inside the _Hermes 13000_.

"I'm sure he has his reasons," Roger called back as he turned a corner up ahead.

"Yeah. Like being a weirdo," Zalzibar said under his breath.

Something made Sophie pause. "What was that?" she asked.

"What was what?" Zalzibar asked.

"I thought I heard footsteps," she said, turning around. She couldn't see anyone. "Probably just my imagination," she reasoned. She tried to put it out of her mind. It was an old building, that was all. She was beginning to be annoyed at how paranoid she was being. If she was like this now, what was she going to be like at Gakona? A horrible feeling crept through her. _If they even made it to Gakona_.

"Aha!" said Roger. They had just walked into a dingy entrance hall. Opposite, a grey beam of light flickered through an archway. He marched up to the archway and peered through it. "It's perfectly safe," he said, hopping into the flickering beam.

But Zalzibar hesitated for a moment before following. He held a paw out for Sophie, and the three of them made their way up through the space station.

Sophie glanced out at all the empty floors and shivered. Shadows seemed to leap out of every corner, and a feeling that ghosts were lurking filled the place, as if something terrible had happened there.

They reached the top of the beam and stepped out onto a dark floor. A row of chairs stood in front of a long window that looked out into space. They looked out and saw stars twinkling in a lonely system in the distance. Looking around the room they were standing in, they saw old counters dotted with instruments that had buttons flashing like strobes and sending a manic glare dancing across the room at random intervals.

"Well, well," came a hissing voice. "Just look at you three. One big happy family."

A chair swivelled around and there sat Metatron. His staff glowed a spooky grey-green in the darkness.

"Metatron." Roger couldn't help coughing.

Metatron's helmet jerked in Roger's direction. As it did, Sophie thought that just for a split second she saw Metatron's face shining through it. Only it wasn't a face. It was a skull. A horrible, rotten, caved-in skull.

Metatron started to laugh.

Sophie looked at Zalzibar. "Something isn't right," she whispered to him.

Zalzibar nodded, putting a paw up to the side of his head, twirling it as if to imply Metatron was crazy. "He's lost the plot," Zalzibar whispered back to Sophie.

"Do you have the message, please?" Roger asked.

"You'd like a message?" Metatron laughed and thumped his staff on the floor.

This made the three visitors step back in fright. Sophie instinctively put her hand in her pocket and grasped the holographic drive.

"How about this message?" Metatron growled. "El-Quan-Tem has been fired. I'm in charge now. And I'm making a few changes around the place."

Zalzibar's jaw dropped. "You can't even do your own job, let alone El-Quan-Tem's!"

Metatron's eyes flickered and he stood up, menacingly pointing his staff at Zalzibar. "I suggest you start treating your new leader with respect, Arcturian. A single hit of energy from the moldavite in this staff will fry you to oblivion."

"Oh, really?" Zalzibar retorted. "I can just transmute it." He flicked out his wheels and aimed them at Metatron.

There was an awkward moment during which nobody said anything, and then, finally, Roger spoke. "Is that the time?" He glanced at his pocket watch in fake surprise. "We really ought to be getting on. Thanks anyway, Metatron." He turned to leave.

Metatron leapt behind them and cut off their retreat. "No one's going anywhere until I get that holographic drive," he growled.

"What has gotten into you?!" Roger exclaimed, shocked by Metatron's behaviour. "We have tried to be nice, but it appears you no longer understand how to be an HVB." He flicked his own wheels out and stood beside Zalzibar, who had turned around and was now pulling a rude face at Metatron.

Sophie gulped and turned her palms outwards, too, glad she was wearing her space gloves and hoping they would be as effective at close range as they were at a distance.

Metatron merely snarled, then laughed and raised his staff. "You fools! Chi-Quan isn't strong enough to transmute _this._ It was made in The Realms Beyond!"

At that, Roger panicked. "I think he may have a point," he whispered to his companions.

"Holy balls of El-Quan-Tem," muttered Zalzibar.

A shot of green light exploded out of Metatron's staff.

Six rays of white light went whooshing back at it.

"You low-life!" Zalzibar yelled, ducking away from the moldavite light. Then he jumped back up and hurtled himself at the silver being, landing with a kick in Metatron's stomach.

Metatron toppled backwards dropping his staff before landing in a heap on the floor.

Sophie dived towards the staff, but Metatron scrambled back up and snatched it away.

"Not so fast," he hissed, whacking Sophie in the back.

Pain seared up Sophie's spine and she fell sideways onto a panel of switches, promptly setting alarms off all over the space station. She started to panic. What was going on here? Metatron was supposed to be on their side!

At the same time, Roger and Zalzibar sent another surge of Chi-Quan energy at Metatron. White light whooshed into the silver being, and he let out a high-pitched shriek before charging back at them.

As the ANGELs jumped away in opposite directions, diving behind the nearest counters, Metatron turned his attention back to Sophie. This time, he aimed his moldavite staff directly at her head.

"Get down, Kid!" Zalzibar yelled, leaping out from behind the counter.

A jet of green light shot out of Metatron's staff.

Sophie ducked, just in time to see it go whizzing over her head.

Zalzibar landed beside her "Are you okay?"

Sophie nodded.

He pointed at another counter. "Over there."

They crawled over before Metatron noticed, and Sophie took a deep breath. She had to stay calm so she could channel her Chi-Quan energy. Metatron was ridiculous, she told herself. He couldn't take on the overriding power that existed throughout the entire universe. Nobody could! El-Quan-Tem _was_ the universe. Beings had to learn to work with El-Quan-Tem, not against him. Closing her eyes, she centred herself and connected with the multiversal life force of El-Quan-Tem. It was all around them.

Zalzibar peered over the counter. "Ready?"

Sophie nodded and they leapt up. Four rays of white light went zapping towards Metatron.

Yelling in agony and swaying back and forth, he clutched the sides of his helmet. Clearly the Chi-Quan energy was affecting the higher level being. But it didn't seem to be strong enough to stop him.

As Roger ran out from the counter he'd been hiding behind, Sophie screamed, "Look out!"

A jet of green light from Metatron's staff was flying towards the professor.

"You poor excuse for an LVB!" Zalzibar jumped up and charged towards Metatron. He crashed into his knees.

At the same time, Roger dived sideways, just avoiding the green light. He jumped back up, turned around, and ran back towards Metatron, jumping higher than anyone could have thought possible, landing slap-bang on Metatron's helmet. Aiming his wheels through its eye slits, he sent two blasts of white light shooting into Metatron's face before jumping back down again.

Howling in agony, Metatron stumbled forwards, tripping over Zalzibar and practically squashing him.

Sophie ran over to the melee, kicking at Metatron and pulling Zalzibar out from under him. But Metatron jabbed a cold fist into Sophie's shin, encircled her leg with long fingers, and pulled her to the floor.

"Get off me!" she yelled, kicking him with all her might.

Clamping his other arm around her neck in a headlock, he began using his free hand to search her spacesuit for the holographic drive.

"Get off her!" Zalzibar tried to pry Metatron's arm from Sophie's neck.

But a hand was thrusting into Sophie's pocket.

Mustering all her strength, she aimed a massive kick at the fallen angel's private parts. As Metatron howled in agony and rolled away, she picked herself up. But she could see the drive in Metatron's hand. "He's got the drive!" she yelled, casting another load of Chi-Quan energy at him.

Roger leapt back up onto Metatron's helmet and sent more light into his eyes. Unable to see what he was doing, Metatron started firing shots of green light randomly, driving Sophie and Zalzibar to aim more Chi-Quan at his legs. Swaying back and forth like a drunk, Metatron looked like he was going to fall. He grabbed Roger and ripped him away from his helmet.

"All these years," he hissed at Roger as the blue Arcturian dangled helplessly in mid-air, "all these years, you've been giving me your theories like a star student of El-Quan-Tem's, expecting me to hand them in and return with feedback. Did you honestly think I would lower myself to run errands for one such as you?" And with that, Metatron hurled Roger across the room.

The professor slammed into a cupboard and dropped to the floor, his eyes rolling in the back of their sockets.

Sophie and Zalzibar ran to his aid. Zalzibar saw the staff move again.

"Kid, look out!"

Metatron was aiming his staff directly at Sophie...and now she had nowhere to hide.

As the green light shot out of Metatron's staff, Zalzibar leapt up, throwing himself into the line of fire. The green light struck Zalzibar in the chest. His body twisted around, and then fell to the floor, broken.

"Zalzibar!" Sophie screamed. Heedless of the green light, she ran back towards the Arcturian.

Zalzibar looked up into her eyes. Fear and sadness shone in them for a second and then...they closed.

"No!"

"Stop!" a voice said. A short grey being in blue camouflage gear and a cowboy hat jumped out of the beam, quickly followed by three others. Each of the grey beings was armed and pointing his weapon at Metatron.

"Greys," Metatron hissed in disgust.

"A bit unfair," Zetan remarked, "attacking a defenceless girl, don't you think?" He looked from Metatron to Sophie, but was unable to see either Roger or Zalzibar's body because of his lower vibrational frequency.

Metatron laughed. "Still stagnating away at the lower end of your universe, I see. No idea what's going on. As usual."

"Who are you?" Zetan demanded.

But Metatron ignored him and turned to face Sophie. "Look at what your race has got to look forward to," he said.

But Sophie wasn't listening. She didn't care what Metatron was saying or who the new beings were. All she knew was that Zalzibar was on the floor. She crouched over him and laid her hands on his yellow chest, willing with all her might to bring him back. Chi-Quan energy poured into the ANGEL's lifeless form.

"Please."

But it was no use.

Metatron pointed his staff at her.

"Put your weapon down," said Zetan.

"I've got orders from Rockenfeld," Metatron hissed.

"I don't care if you've got orders from God," said Zetan. He stepped closer to Metatron. "What are you?" he asked, prodding Metatron in the stomach with his gun. "Some kind of robot?"

"I'm a high level guide," said Metatron, looking down at Zetan's gun and realising that while he was vibrating within the same frequency range as the Greys, they would be able to kill him like anyone else. "Take her, then," he spat. "No doubt you'll manage to kill her off like everything else you take back to your poor excuse for a planet."

And with that, before anyone could say anything, Metatron flew to the beam, jumped into it, and disappeared.

Zetan said several rude words and briefly considered going after him, but decided not to. If the robot was indeed working for Rockenfeld, he didn't want to push it. He walked over to where Sophie was crouching, wondering where she had obtained the advanced-looking spacesuit she was wearing. "Did that robot bring you here to kill you?" he asked.

But Sophie couldn't speak.

Roger had crawled over and was crouching beside her now, staring numbly at his friend's body, tears pouring down his blue cheeks. "You must run, dear child," he whispered to her.

She wasn't listening. Her journey through the stars had turned from a surreal dream into a terrible nightmare. Zalzibar was dead. Metatron had taken the holographic drive. The Annunaki would launch their missiles. Earth was done for.

Zetan looked around the room, then looked again at Sophie. "Take her back to the ship," he ordered his crew.

Two of the Greys walked over to Sophie, but before they could touch her, she stood up and yelled, "Get off me!"

With a sigh, Zetan reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pen-sized container. He popped the lid off and took out a syringe.

"No!" Sophie screamed. She felt the icy needle come through her sleeve. She felt a cool liquid shooting into her arm. Her head was starting to swim...her body was growing heavier...the Greys were dragging her across the floor. Still unable to walk properly, Roger was clinging to her ankle.

She wanted to stay with Zalzibar. She had to bring him back...but she couldn't keep her eyes open. And as everything faded and the Greys dragged her into the beam, the last thing she saw was Zalzibar's broken yellow body, lying dead on the space station floor.

# Chapter Sixteen

## _The Handover_

It was a freezing cold morning in Alaska, where rays of light from the closest star to Earth had just started shining on the low frequency field base located at Gakona. The two Annunaki beings permanently stationed there, Dr. Edward Wright and Dr. Frank Zimmerman, grunted and rolled over in their beds as the alarm went off. Frank whacked the device in annoyance and they both got up, dressed in warm clothing, and stomped out of their cabin into the cold snow.

At the large, dome-shaped building in the middle of the base, they swiped their security passes and walked inside, weaving their way through the labyrinth of corridors that snaked through the building, finally arriving at the laboratory in which they conducted most of their work. Pouring themselves cups of coffee, they sat down at their desks and switched on their computers preparing to review everything they'd planned for the day ahead. It would be the day that would mark the pinnacles of their careers. Even though they had checked, double-checked, and triple-checked everything they could possibly think of, Edward and Frank both knew that the smallest stuff-up today would result in not only the ends of their jobs, but of their lives, too.

"It's a shame we won't get to see it," Edward commented as he admired the 3-D image of the _Pegasus Galactic_ he had spent so long digitally airbrushing on his computer screen. The hologram of the Arcturian saucer, along with the other images of various higher dimensional spacecraft, was, without a doubt, the epitome of his life's work, even if he said so himself. It would be a shame not to see it in real-time later that day when it was projected over major cities through the low frequency field.

"Are you nuts?" said Frank. "We'd be blown to pieces." He scanned another line of code in the computer program he had written. It was also, without a doubt, the epitome of his life's work, even if he said so himself, too.

They weren't far off the mark. The images of spacecraft Edward had designed were amazingly realistic and would have passed as the real deal even to most HVBs. Anyone looking up at the sky in New York, London, Mumbai, Buenos Aires, Moscow, Johannesburg or Melbourne at 11.11p.m. local Alaskan time that night would have no reason to suspect that the spacecraft were in fact three-dimensional optical holograms and sounds being projected through a low frequency field.

And the master computer program Frank had written to control the image projection and the accompanying missile firing sequence was incredibly sophisticated. It was, in fact, a shame that his energy had not been directed towards something more positive. But Annunaki will be Annunaki.

"We'll be able to watch it on the news," said Frank. "I'm sure Ralph will do a good job with the coverage," he added, referring to Ralph Murphy, the Annunaki being who was founder and chairman of Globe-Net, the world's leading media organisation.

Ralph Murphy had already been tipped off about the attacks and was waiting to make as much profit as possible from what was going to be the most sensational story in human history. Not only was humanity about to find out that aliens actually existed, but they were also going to declare war on them. Fear, panic, terror...it was the scoop he'd been waiting for, with all the makings of a once-in-a-lifetime news media opportunity. Humanity's collective vibration would be pushed over a negative tipping point and Earth could snap off from El-Quan-Tem's system of vibrational control to become an example of planetary independence. That was Murphy's opinion, anyway.

As for the humans...they were much too busy queuing in the streets and waiting to get their microchips implanted to worry about anything like an extraterrestrial invasion. In New York, which was four hours ahead of Gakona, thousands of human beings were already queuing for blocks in the cold winter weather and waiting to get their RFID chip inserted at one of the many mobile implant labs set up across the city. All the chips had to be inserted before the World Bank deadline later that night.

Across the Atlantic Ocean in London, English human beings had been queuing for five hours longer than the New Yorkers, and they weren't very happy about it. As if Black Doomsday weren't enough, now they were expected to drop all their plans and queue up on a freezing cold morning to get something stuck in their arm, right when they had Christmas shopping to do. But apart from complaining, nobody was doing anything about the situation, which demonstrates the saying that people get the governments they deserve.

Actually, this isn't entirely true. There were a handful of humans that had started to think for themselves and ask questions. Was something bigger going on? Was something happening that they couldn't quite see? Was there a trend happening? Where was the trend heading? There did seem to be a lot more disasters on the news lately, including mutterings of a third world war and dire warnings from scientists. And always the barrage of images on the television screens. Doom, gloom, no hope for the future. Was the news indicative of Earth's final hour? A coming apocalypse from which there would be no return? A select few had even started suggesting that perhaps (oh, shock, oh, horror!) that there was a conspiracy afoot.

Yes, the C-word was being used more and more frequently lately, although nobody apart from welfare recipients and protesters ever seemed to take conspiracies too seriously. And so nobody did anything about anything, and Earth continued to turn towards its final and inevitable demise. It was a mark of the ingenuity of the Annunaki that they could pull off their global agenda, that they (in their human form, as the New World Order) could be accused of the very thing they were doing and still keep doing it.

Metatron was especially looking forward to watching civilization on planet Earth unravel. And as the silver being hovered above Area 51 in his sparkling white spacecraft, he tapped his fingers on the side of the bridge and grinned to himself. Soon he would be the spiritual leader of the universe...The Divine Figurehead...The Big God in the Sky. Then he would sweep away El-Quan-Tem and his bumbling ways and actually start getting a few things done around the place.

"Come on," he hissed at the radio in his snazzy, luminous, orange and blue cockpit. He'd been waiting for landing clearance for ten minutes now. What was taking them so long?

" _Hermes 13000_ ," someone with an American accent finally said, "this is Area 51 control, your landing permission has been granted."

"About time," hissed Metatron, pulling back on his steering column and gliding the _Hermes 13000_ down to the landing dock below.

Outside, it was another overcast Nevada day. Grey clouds hung over the base, bothering neither to release their rain nor to float away. A black sedan was making its way down from the north and past the old shutter-style hangars towards the landing dock. It came to a halt and out climbed the driver, who opened the passenger doors so the president and his top two assistants could get out.

Ahmkarah, Darpen, and Icke were all in human form and looking incredibly important in their black suits, thick overcoats, and—even though there was no sun to be seen—dark sunglasses. As they walked across the dead grass to where the _Hermes 13000_ was parked, Ahmkarah muttered in annoyance as a chilly wind swept across the area and destroyed his freshly-gelled hairstyle.

As the engines of the _Hermes 13000_ faded to a soft hiss, a door opened and a ramp extended down from it. Metatron appeared in the doorway, looking mysterious, metallic and incredibly important. Gliding down the ramp almost like a ghost, he slid off the end (so smoothly you'd be forgiven for thinking he'd been practising) and stabbed the end of his staff into the ground.

"Where is it?" Ahmkarah asked him, not wishing to engage in conversation with Metatron for any longer than he had to.

Metatron answered with another question. "Our deal still stands?"

Ahmkarah smiled. "Of course. I've had our image artist prepare a celestial-style light show for your arrival in Washington tonight."

Metatron smiled and pulled the holographic drive out of a pouch attached to his belt. He hesitated for a moment, then handed it to Ahmkarah.

As the drive fell into his glove, Ahmkarah's face turned pale and he stumbled backwards. Swaying, he put a hand up to his mouth as if he were about to vomit.

"Are you okay, sir?" Darpen asked.

Ahmkarah remained silent. Somehow the drive was churning up strange feelings inside him.

Darpen took a step closer. "Sir?"

"I'm fine," Ahmkarah finally snapped, shaking the odd feelings off and putting them down to the cold weather. He looked at the programming drive resting in his glove. This ridiculously small object had nearly ruined the entire Annunaki agenda. Tucking the drive in his overcoat pocket, he decided that as soon as he had finished with Metatron, he was going to take it down to the reverse-engineering team in the stealth hangars and have it analysed.

He looked at Metatron again. "Where's the human?"

Metatron paused. "She's dead," he lied.

"That's interesting," replied Ahmkarah. "A little birdie told me something different. And what's more, that little birdie is now using her as a ransom tool against me." He stepped forwards and grabbed Metatron by the throat. "I don't appreciate being lied to."

"I'm sorry," Metatron croaked, half-choking. "The Greys showed up and—"

"I don't want to hear your pathetic excuses," Ahmkarah spat. He released his grip and pushed Metatron away.

As Metatron tripped backwards over the ramp of his spacecraft, fell into the mud, and dropped his staff, Ahmkarah turned to Darpen and Icke. "Kill him."

Metatron struggled to stand up. "Wait! I'll get her back!"

His plea was unheeded. Icke pulled a large gun out from underneath his overcoat and blasted Metatron five times. There was an explosion of fluid metallic light as if someone had just blown up a can of silver spray paint. All that remained of Metatron was his staff.

"Too many overlords spoil the system," muttered Ahmkarah, bending over to pick up the staff.

But just as he touched it, a furry yellow paw with a slight ethereal glow reached out of thin air and wrapped itself around the staff. Both paw and staff vanished.

Ahmkarah turned to his assistants. "Did you see that?"

"See what?" Icke asked as Darpen shook his head nervously.

"Never mind," Ahmkarah said. "At least we've got the spacecraft." He looked at the _Hermes 13000_ , admiring its sleek bodywork. "I'm going to check it out." He stepped onto the ramp.

But as soon as his foot touched it, the ramp retracted. Ahmkarah tripped backwards and fell into the mud. Within seconds, the _Hermes 13000_ lifted up into the sky, turned around gracefully, performed a loop-the-loop, and disappeared in a brilliant flash.

Ahmkarah glared at the clouds and shook his fist. "By the end of today," he shouted, "we will never have to deal with El-Quan-Tem or any HVB again!"

# Chapter Seventeen

## _Moldavite_

Sophie opened her eyes to see Roger pacing back and forth. He was holding a piece of chalk and talking to himself. "A fully traversable wormhole," he was muttering, "definitely not enough dilation for...no, it's just not possible..." He stopped and scribbled another line of equations across the wall next to him.

Sophie was lying on a mattress on the floor in a box-like room with grey walls and no windows. The only light was coming from a fluorescent strip on the ceiling. Sitting up, she put her fingertips to her throbbing temples. What had happened? Her head was pounding. And then it hit her like a thousand icicles stabbing her in the chest. _Zalzibar was dead_. Pain swept over her as visions of what had happened swept through her mind. There was Metatron's skull-like face...the jet of deadly green light that had shot out from his staff...and Zalzibar's broken body crumbling to the floor. Tears began streaming down her cheeks as she saw again the look in his eyes before they had closed. He'd known.

Roger noticed that she was awake. "Ahhh, dear child, how are you feeling?" He stopped pacing and came to stand beside her. "The Greys injected you with a sleeping drug," he said, examining her through his spectacles. "Nothing to worry about, however. I've been using the time to work on a theory." He pointed at the chalked equations on the wall.

Sophie had no interest in theories or equations. "Why did Metatron turn on us like that?" she asked. "Why did he betray El-Quan-Tem?"

He laid a paw on her shoulder. "There, there, dear child. It will be all right."

She looked up at the professor. Zalzibar was dead, and Roger seemed to be acting as if nothing significant had happened. He'd known Zalzibar for a very long time; perhaps, she thought, this was his way of dealing with grief. "Are you okay?" she asked him.

"I'm fine," he replied in a tone that suggested he really was.

"But what about Zalzibar?" she asked. "He's d—, he's de—." Her voice trailed off. She couldn't even bring herself to say the word. She couldn't help but smile, however, as she thought back to some of the moments she'd shared with her yellow Arcturian friend. The enthusiasm he'd shown her when they'd first met on Earth. Sitting with him up in the cockpit and laughing at his awful jokes. Staying up late with him to play Spirals and Reptilians. Annoying Roger with their derogatory comments about LVBs. Drinking carasopia tea with him.

"Yes, Zalzibar is dead," Roger admitted. "To us, anyway, and that is why we grieve."

"What do you mean?"

"He has departed from this dimension," Roger explained. "Which is a shame. It means he won't be able to help you finish your task. But who knows what the little rascal is up to now?"

Sophie stared blankly at Roger. "I don't understand." And then she remembered; the attacks. "Oh my god! What's the time? And where are we?"

Roger pulled out his pocket watch and looked at it. "It's 1.30 p.m., Alaskan local time, on the twenty-first of December. As for where we are," he paused and ran a paw through his silver flyaway hair as he gave this some thought, "we are in Minnesota, North America."

Sophie's jaw dropped. "We're back? Back on Earth?"

"Yes...but," Roger paused again, "but we appear to be about five hundred years too late."

"What?" Suddenly she noticed something else was missing. "Where's my helmet and gloves?" She was still in her spacesuit and boots, but where were the missing parts?

"The beings who abducted you took them off you to study when we were on their spacecraft," Roger said. Before she could speak, he rushed on. "They're called Greys. They carried you here in their spacecraft, which flew through a wormhole in space-time, and we are now on Earth in the future. Sometime in the twenty-sixth century," he said with a nervous laugh. "I must say, though," he added, "I'm not entirely convinced."

Sophie stared at him. "You're kidding, right?" Accessing higher dimensions of reality beyond the low frequency field was one thing, but travelling forwards in time? Perhaps Zalzibar's death had tipped him over the edge?

Roger nodded. "That's not all," he said, laughing more nervously. "Apparently, the Greys are what human beings will look like in the future. We knew from our scouting trips that they were visiting Earth, but we just assumed they were from a different galaxy."

"What do you mean?"

"From what they were saying on the spacecraft," he replied, "and all the supporting evidence, I fear they must be some sort of genetically modified or mutated human. Everyone here is the same."

"But they can't be! Humans don't look anything like that!"

There was a knock at the door, and in walked Zetan, carrying a metal bowl and spoon. "I thought you might be awake," he said to Sophie. "Hungry?" He offered her the bowl.

Sophie shook her head. Eating was the last thing she felt like doing.

"It's soup. Made from organic lentils," Zetan reassured her. "We grow them here ourselves."

As Sophie looked from Zetan to Roger, she suddenly realised that the Grey couldn't see the Arcturian.

Roger picked up her thoughts. "His vibration is still too low," he said, and she nodded as she remembered how a human being needed to raise their vibration to two thousand etherics before HVBs could make themselves known.

She turned to Zetan. "Who are you?" She hoped he wasn't really a human being.

"My name is Zetan Rumli," he said, "and I'm a Grey. I'm the leader of the Gaian Rebels." He offered his hand for her to shake.

She studied him suspiciously for a minute before she replied. "I'm Sophie Archer." She shook his hand, trying not to cringe at the feel of his rubbery skin.

"You should probably know," he told her, "and this might sound kind of weird...but we're five hundred years later than when you're living. We brought you here through time travel."

"Told you so," Roger said with a grin.

Sophie gulped. But this still didn't mean Roger was right about the Greys. "But that doesn't mean...uh, are you...are you a human being?"

Zetan nodded. "I'm afraid so," he said, smiling awkwardly. "Not what you were expecting, huh?"

Sophie put her hands up to her mouth. If Zetan really was a human, then she must have failed. Metatron had taken the holographic drive, she had been abducted and taken to the future, the Annunaki had achieved their negative tipping point, and humanity had mutated as a result of being stuck at such a low vibration. Her thoughts were halted when Zetan began asking questions.

"Why did Rockenfeld send that robot into space after you? And how did you get out there to that space station? And what's that space station doing out there, anyway?"

Sophie looked at Roger for help. She was still trying to deal with the implications of what Zetan had just told her.

"You can try telling him the truth," Roger said. "But I doubt he'll believe you."

Sophie decided to give it a try. "It wasn't a robot," she said. "It was El-Quan-Tem's messenger, Metatron."

"What's El-Quan-Tem?" Zetan asked. "Some corporation Rockenfeld owns?"

Sophie couldn't believe what she was hearing. Zetan didn't know who El-Quan-Tem was. But of course! Why would he, if she had failed?

"El-Quan-Tem," she began...but she wasn't sure she even knew anymore. Did El-Quan-Tem even exist? Or was he just a concept HVBs had invented to feel better about an otherwise pointless and unfair reality? She bit her lip to hold back more tears as a thought struck her. Zalzibar wouldn't have wanted her to lose faith. Not now. She began again.

"El-Quan-Tem is the steamy froth in your carasopia tea first thing in the morning," she said, smiling as she repeated the explanation Zalzibar had given her when she had first asked the same question. "El-Quan-Tem is the beat in your jazz tune late at night. He is the particles streaming over your spacecraft when you're looping-the-loop through an interdimensional stargate."

Roger had to smile. "Ahh, yes, Zalzibar's explanation was the best."

But Zetan was looking at Sophie as if she were bonkers. "Like God, you mean?"

"You could say that, I suppose," she replied. "But not in the traditional sense. Have you ever heard of the Annunaki?" she asked, wondering if humanity had ever found out about the evil aliens or if they had managed to roll out their entire agenda in complete secrecy.

Zetan shook his head.

Sophie sighed. Zetan had a lot of catching up to do. Taking a deep breath, she decided to start from the beginning. "About two thousand years ago," she said, pausing to correct herself to take current circumstances into account, "about two thousand five hundred years ago, humanity was covertly invaded by an extraterrestrial race of interdimensional beings..."

And so Sophie told the Grey everything she knew. How Roger and Zalzibar had appeared in the _Pegasus Galactic_ and carried her away from Earth. How the Annunaki were then—and probably still were—covertly controlling humanity via the low frequency field from a base in Gakona, Alaska, which had been cunningly disguised as an advanced weather station. How she had been given the precarious task of attuning a holographic drive to twelve thousand etherics, which was the resonance frequency, and to rebalance Earth's energy fields before shutting the transmitter down. More importantly, how unless she got back to her present, quick, pronto, millions of humans were going to die because of the Annunaki false flag attacks. How if they succeeded, Earth would be permanently cut off from the higher dimensions.

"So you've got to take me back," she finished. "In fact," she added, her eyes lighting up as the thought resonated in her mind, "if you take me back to just before we arrived at the space station, I can save my friend, too."

But Roger shook his head. "The wormhole doesn't work that way," he said gloomily. "Time runs linear in both dimensions. As such, we can only ever go back to what has already happened."

Sophie sighed. It had been worth a try.

Zetan was still staring at her as if she were insane. "And one of these so called HVB ANGELs is sitting here with you...with us...right now?" he asked. He clearly was not believing a word she was saying.

"He won't believe anything until he's said no to the old paradigm," Roger said. "And asked for help and guidance."

"Can't you just show yourself, anyway?" Sophie asked, but Roger shook his head.

"He needs to integrate the first two Attunements to raise his vibration to two thousand etherics," he said. "I can only step my vibration down so much."

"You can't see him," she told Zetan, "until you've integrated the first two Attunements and started to raise your vibration."

Zetan laughed. "That is some story."

"But you've already seen Metatron," she protested. Surely this alone proved she was telling the truth?

"And he's one of the higher vibrational beings, is he?" Zetan asked in a highly sarcastic tone.

She gave up. "Whatever."

Then Zetan noticed Roger's equations on the wall. "Anyway," he said, "I came here to tell you I've got to hand you over to Rockenfeld."

"But he'll kill me!"

"I'm sorry. But it's the only way he'll give us what we need. Things aren't in a great shape here," he added, turning back towards the door. "We leave in a few hours." He stopped and turned around. "Don't you think something as big as an extraterrestrial invasion would have been recorded somewhere? There's no history anywhere of the attacks you're talking about."

Sophie looked at Roger, but the professor only shrugged his shoulders. Then a new idea popped into her head. "Can I look outside?"

"Why?"

"To see the future Earth, of course." In truth, she wasn't sure why she wanted to look outside. It was just an overwhelming urge that she couldn't explain.

"It's not a pretty sight," Zetan warned her.

"I can handle it."

"Fine. But no running off, or I'll shoot you myself." He opened his jacket to reveal a gun wedged into his belt. Sophie nodded.

As she made her way down a stainless-steel corridor with Roger following along right behind her, she inspected her surroundings. The building they were in was industrial, with a jumble of pipes running along the ceilings and doors leading to laboratories on both sides of the corridor. She stopped and looked into one of the labs. A group of Greys were prodding at some petri dishes on metal benches covered with scientific-looking apparatus.

"What is this place? What are they doing?" she asked.

"It's an old test centre," Zetan replied. "Ironic, really, it's where the Next Human Program began. That was a global program to evolve new genetic features for the human body so we could adapt to climate change conditions."

"I knew it!" Roger exclaimed.

"What happened?" Sophie asked.

Just then, three Greys walked out of one the laboratories ahead. As they strolled towards them, they barely reacted to Sophie. It was, she thought, as if seeing humans from the past walking around was a fairly common occurrence. The thought made her shudder.

Zetan was still explaining. "Human DNA was injected with artificially intelligent nanogenetic sequences. The new genes meant humans could breathe carbon dioxide and other air pollutants without any adverse effects, deal with UV rays without any risk of melanomas, and break down and digest chemical-ridden foods. But the gene sequences mutated and dominant genes sprang up. They spread like a virus. By the time scientists had developed a cure, the damage had been done and human DNA had been permanently altered. Every baby born after that had the genetic make-up of yours truly." He pointed at himself. "At first, people had abortions, but after a while disgust just faded into numb apathy. I was born a Grey."

Sophie was silent. The entire human race had been wiped out in less than five hundred years, and Zetan had grown up knowing he was a deformity that had never been meant to exist. How awful.

"And what are you doing here?" she asked, thinking it was best to change the subject.

"We're bringing back species from the past for reverse engineering," he said. "The plan is to overthrow the government here and put a global initiative in place to rebuild the planet. But you can't rely on the government to do anything anymore. There's too much corruption, too much concentration of power in the hands of a select few. And the elite only care about themselves. So we've taken matters into our own hands."

Roger, who had looked in two or three of the labs, shook his head and muttered, "So that's what they're doing."

"We're not having much luck, though," Zetan added. "Everything we bring back dies within days...and nobody knows why."

"Well," said Roger, "if Earth has been disconnected from the universal energy field all this time, that would explain why nothing stays alive. Earth's life force was fairly diminished five hundred years ago. El-Quan-Tem only knows what it must be like by now."

Sophie glanced down at the professor. "That's it!" she exclaimed. This proved she was telling the truth.

Zetan looked at her. "That's what?"

"The species you bring back don't have access to the universal energy field because of the low frequency field. They need it to survive. It's the life force of all living things."

"Oh, sure," he began to laugh. "Of course it is. I don't know why our scientists haven't figured that out yet."

Sophie sighed. You could lead a horse to water....

They reached a heavy door made of smoky brown glass, and Zetan swiped his security card over a panel. "You'll only be able to stay out there for a few minutes," he said. "Any longer, and you'll get pollution sickness."

Sophie nodded as the door swished open. The first thing she noticed was that the glass in the door was in fact clear. It was the air outside that was smoky brown. She looked down. A smog-ridden land of grey dirt trailed off into the horizon to meet an equally smog-filled sky. There was no real distinction between land and air. It was as if the whole world were enveloped in a huge cloud. She could just make out a crowded city skyline in the distance, tall skyscrapers packed tightly next to each other, competing for the almost nonexistent sunlight. Other than that, there was no life to be seen, no trees, not a blade of grass or a single bird. She was looking at a choked and silent world.

Roger was also gazing at the bleak landscape. "Oh, dear."

Tears welled up in Sophie's eyes again. This couldn't be the future! There had to be a mistake!

Taking his cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, Zetan lit one up. "For hundreds of years," he said casually, "people talked about the end of the world. They predicted a third world war. A new apocalypse." He blew out a puff of smoke into the smoky air. "And all the time, it was happening right before their eyes. They destroyed so much of the planetary ecosystem in such a short time that the negative feedback loops were too much for Earth's ecosystem to cope with." He kicked at a piece of green rock lying on the ground.

"But this is because of the Annunaki," Sophie told him. "Don't you see? It doesn't matter what you do now. The low frequency field the Annunaki put over Earth in the past is why everything is dead!"

Zetan shook his head and blew more smoke into the air. "You're wrong," he said. "Humanity is why everything has died. And I'm proud to say I'm not one of them. No offence."

Roger, meanwhile, had wandered off and was busy inspecting the many pieces of green rock lying on the ground. He picked one up and studied it more closely. "My giddy Aunt!" he exclaimed.

"What are you doing?" Sophie asked in a whisper.

"Ask Zetan if you can take a piece of this rock with you," Roger told her.

"Why?" She was already starting to cough and her eyes were running.

"Just ask him," said Roger.

"We'd better get you back inside," said Zetan, flicking his cigarette butt away. "I don't think Rockenfeld will be too happy if I give you back half dead."

"Can I take a piece of this pretty green rock, please?" Sophie asked, bending down and picking up the biggest piece she could see. It looked strangely familiar. "As a souvenir?"

Zetan laughed. "Sure," he said. "Take as much as you like."

Back inside, Sophie and Roger listened as Zetan's footsteps faded away down the corridor. She handed the green rock to Roger.

"What is it?" she asked.

But he was busy wiping away a line of equations on the wall and writing another in its place. Then he made more corrections and stood back to study his work. "If the wormhole was located in a dimension beyond both universes...well, that would make sense."

"Roger, I hardly think now is the time to be catching up on your maths!"

The professor ignored her anger. He turned and smiled. "We're in a parallel universe," he said. "On an Earth, but not your Earth."

She raised an eyebrow. "There's a parallel universe with another Earth in it?"

He nodded. "Yes, and the wormhole must link the two universes together. That's why the Greys have never been able to travel back to any other time. It does seem strange, though, that both Earths are so similar." He shrugged his shoulder and made another minute correction to an equation. "But then El-Quan-Tem does work in mysterious ways."

Sophie was completely overwhelmed. She didn't know what to believe anymore. Another Earth in another universe? A dimension beyond both universes? Humans as aliens and aliens as humans? She didn't care which Earth was which, whose universe was whose, or even if anything made any sense at all. She just wanted Zalzibar to still be alive and to finish her task and to go home. She'd had enough.

"Don't be discouraged," Roger said. "We must trust in El-Quan-Tem. Now more than ever." He pointed at the green rock in Sophie's hand. "That is a piece of moldavite...a higher vibrational crystal."

Sophie looked at the rock. Moldavite, the same stone as the one on the end of Metatron's staff. The same stone that had killed Zalzibar. She felt like smashing it against the wall. "And what am I supposed to do with it?"

"You are going to use it to open your third eye and alter your state of consciousness so you can go on inner journey to another dimension called the Akashic Library. You might be able to access valuable information there that can help with your next Attunement." Roger smiled at her. "It was intuition that told you to go outside a moment ago. Of that I am certain. Therefore, you are exactly where you are meant to be at this stage of your task. Dear child, El-Quan-Tem is still guiding you." He smiled again.

Looking down at the moldavite, she sighed. "I doubt it," she said. "But I guess it's worth a try."

# Chapter Eighteen

## _In the Akashic Library_

Sophie was lying on her back on the mattress with the piece of moldavite balanced on the middle of her forehead. El-Quan-Tem and El-Cos-Mol were very excited. Finally...a human being was using the moldavite in the way they had intended. The two transcendental beings had been dropping pieces of the higher vibrational stone on Zetan's base for years, in the hopes that he or one of the other Gaian Rebels might start experimenting with them and begin to awaken and transform. But all the Greys had ever done was sell the lumps of meteorite or kick them around.

"Breathe rhythmically whilst focusing on your third eye chakra," Roger instructed her. "This, combined with the vibration from the moldavite, should alter your brainwaves and enable you to go on an inner journey to the Akashic Library, which is said to contain information about every single soul in the universe. If you can get there, find the Librarian and ask him to show you your own Akashic record. It may help you with the Tenth Attunement: You have chosen everything for a grander purpose."

Sophie nodded, being careful not to jiggle the moldavite. "Got it," she said. In truth, however, she wasn't convinced this would work. Aside from thinking what Roger was telling her sounded a bit far-fetched, she also knew she hadn't, in fact, chosen everything. She hadn't chosen the Annunaki invasion of Earth or the death of Zalzibar...or her own abduction by the Greys.

Roger wasn't finished yet. "And don't worry about any side effects from the moldavite."

"I wasn't until you mentioned it," she replied, but she suddenly started worrying that it was a jet of energy from a piece of moldavite not much bigger than the one on her forehead that had killed Zalzibar.

"Moldavite is a tool," Roger was saying, "and like all tools, it can be used with a positive or negative intent. Do you have any questions?"

"Nope," she said. "But I think we should hurry up. We don't want Zetan walking in at a critical moment."

"You're quite right." He leaned over and waved a paw over the moldavite as if summoning a hidden power within it.

Sophie felt a tingle on her forehead.

"And," he said, "if you're not back within one hour, I'll call you back myself. And remember to watch out for Metatron," he added.

"He needs to watch out for me!"

Roger shook his head. "Remember, we are HVBs by free will," he said. "We do not lower ourselves to LVB mentality, even when we're provoked. Now relax and still your mind."

Sophie closed her eyes and inhaled deeply through her nose, suddenly becoming aware of the multitude of images churning through her head. There was Zalzibar's dead body on the floor of the space station. There was Metatron laughing over him, his skull-like face glaring through his helmet. There was the smog clinging to the skyline of the city of the future. There was Ahmkarah, standing behind a lectern draped in Neocon ribbons and grinning cynically.

Trying to let the images go, Sophie took another deep breath. She was quite aware she was never going to journey to the Akashic library if she didn't get focused. But the movie in her mind wasn't finished yet. There was Metatron again, doing laps of a racing track in his _Hermes 13000_. Then his ship broke down and Zalzibar came whooshing past him in the _Pegasus Galactic_ , proudly claiming the podium.

It wasn't working. Her thoughts were starting to morph into dreams. And then, sure enough, she was fast asleep.

Roger studied her closely, trying to work out if her heavy breathing indicated that she was in the Realms Beyond.

In her dream, Sophie decided she may as well look for the library. But where was it? Where should she look?

_You know where it is_ , a voice from another part of her said. _You've been there before, many times, and you will return again, many times_.

And she was amazed to find herself standing at the bottom of a staircase that led up to a magnificent white temple. Marble columns rose up to support a pyramid-shaped roof. She was looking at the Akashic Library. But was she really there, or was it a dream? _Every dimension is a dream_ , the voice told her. _Some dimensions seem more real at times than others, but it is all a dream inside a dream inside a dream_.

Sophie climbed the steps to the temple, making her way between two of the columns and into a sublime hall. Tapestries of geometric designs graced the marble walls. When she looked up, she saw a mandala set in the ceiling. It showed stars spiralling out from its dark, galactic centre and colliding with planets. Other parts of the mandala showed hundreds of beings of different colours, shapes and sizes standing together and linking, fingers, toes and wings.

Then she saw a human figure in the mandala. She squinted to get a better look. It was a man. He was holding hands with an Arcturian on one side, and...an Annunaki on the other? Sophie wondered what pictures of the Annunaki were doing in the mandala, in this holy temple.

The sound of squeaky footsteps got her attention, and she turned around to see a little old man in a turquoise suit walking across the marble floor.

"Can I help you?" he asked in a high-pitched voice.

"Thank God," said Sophie, relieved it wasn't Metatron. The thought of coming face to face with that horrific being now seemed quite disturbing.

"Well, yes," the man replied, "but I'm on a break at the moment."

"Sorry?" She was unable to stop staring at the old man's hair. It looked like tubes of sparkly white light ebbing and flowing out of his head.

The man sighed. "Unfortunately I have to use my time to catch up on some paperwork. If I'd known how much work came with the job, I never would have taken it."

Sophie looked at him blankly. What was he talking about? "Are you the Librarian?" she finally asked.

"You can call me that," he replied with a smile, holding out his hand for Sophie to shake. She took his hand, feeling a warm glow tingle over her as she shook it. "I'm Sophie Archer," she said.

"How can I be of assistance?" he asked.

"I'd like to see my Akashic record, please."

The Librarian shook his head. "Sorry. Completely out of the question."

"Why can't I?" She was quite taken back. It was her Akashic record. Why shouldn't she be allowed to see it?

"Imagine experiencing all the energies you are working on in your current lifetime in one hit," the Librarian explained. "Most souls have a hard enough time dealing with them over the course of an entire lifetime."

Well, she thought, it couldn't be any more intense than anything else she had experienced so far. "Please?"

"Well," he said, sighing, "you do have free will, I suppose. Come on, then." And he spun around and light-footed away across the hall, his turquoise tailcoat fluttering behind him.

Sophie followed him through a hall filled with bookshelves that towered up to the ceiling. Every shelf was stacked with sparkling blue scrolls.

"You see what I mean by the paperwork?" the Librarian said.

Sophie was looking around in wonder. Were these really the records of every single soul in the entire universe? What did they say? Why did he keep all these scrolls?

"Luckily," the Librarian added, "I have a good filing system." He beckoned to Sophie to follow him through a doorway into another hall that was almost identical to the first one.

They continued passing through immense, scroll-lined halls for a long time, and by what must have been the thirtieth hall, Sophie was feeling so overwhelmed and insignificant that she was sure her head was going to explode.

The Librarian finally came to a stop. "Now where did I put it?" he muttered, scanning the shelves in this hall with his sparkly blue eyes. "Aha!" He said, crossing the hall to a rolling ladder resting against some shelves.

Sophie's heart was thumping by now. Would she see how she was going to die? What if it really was too much for her? But, she sternly told herself, it's too late to worry about that now. I've committed to this task. That means I can only give up when I've done absolutely everything within my power to complete it.

The Librarian stepped on the lowest rung of the ladder and pushed off, rolling along the shelves until he came to a stop about halfway down the room. He flew up the ladder and searched through some scrolls, flipping one out and catching it behind his back like a cocktail barman.

"Sophie Archer," he announced.

Bracing herself, she took another deep breath. But no sooner had the Librarian's feet landed on the floor, than he had flown back up the ladder again and put the scroll back where he'd found it. "I've got a better idea," he said, landing back on the ground with a puff of air. "I'll show you somebody else's. Then you don't have to worry about going insane."

Sophie was stunned. "I'd rather just see my own, thanks," she said. She didn't think looking at somebody else's soul record was going to help her with her own Attunement. She was also beginning to suspect she was already insane.

"I insist," said the Librarian. He walked off again.

Sighing in frustration, Sophie followed.

"You don't think they'll mind?" Sophie asked as they stopped. The Librarian was standing in front of her and holding a sparkling blue parchment.

"Not at all," he replied. "At some level, they've already agreed."

Sophie took the scroll, amazed at how light it was. She unrolled it and held it up so she could read it.

"But there's nothing on this." The scroll was blank. Was the Librarian playing a joke on her?

"Oh, yes, there is," the Librarian replied. "You _must_ see it."

Screwing up her eyes, Sophie focused through her third eye as Roger had taught her. Now she was looking through the scroll instead of at it. A few seconds passed. Nothing happened. No writing appeared. She was just about to enquire exactly what she was meant to see when another flurry of images started flashing through her head. The images settled into a scene. It was as if she was looking through somebody else's eyes, experiencing life from their perspective. She was watching someone's memory.

Whoever the memory belonged to was sitting at a desk in an office that seemed vaguely familiar. Bookcases were stacked with manuals and star charts, and shelves were cluttered with spinning globes of many colours and models of different types of beings. Opposite, the Librarian was sitting in a chair and writing on a piece of parchment with a fancy gold pen. He looked up and smiled. "I realise you haven't been doing this for very long," he said, "but you have been doing marvellously well in your first few incarnations. You'll have completed your ascension before you know it!"

Whoever the memory belonged to was delighted the Librarian would say such a nice thing. And then Sophie realised. The memory was of a time the soul had been between different lifetimes. When it had existed as a non-physical entity. The soul had been meeting with the Librarian in the Realms Beyond. But why? The memory continued to play...

The Librarian tucked a thin tube of light behind his ear. Now he had a question. "How would you like something a little more challenging?"

The soul wasn't sure. It didn't think it was ready for anything challenging just yet.

"It's okay," he reassured the soul. "If you're not successful in this lifetime, you can just try again in the next one. There's no rush. You'll get there in the end. We all do, eventually."

_Well in that case_ , the soul decided, _then it couldn't hurt to try._

"Good," said the Librarian.

As the soul waited for him to finish, it looked at the mantelpiece over the Librarian's shoulder, where nine majestic domes sat, each one shimmering with celestial light. The soul wanted to get a closer look at those domes. There was something about them that was incredibly enticing. The soul didn't know how, and it didn't know why, but it just felt like diving into them, as if each dome were an entire universe filled with learnings and experiences beyond the soul's wildest dreams.

"There you go." The Librarian put down his fancy gold pen and passed it across the desk. "Have a look and if there's anything you don't like or want to change, let me know, and we'll make the necessary adjustments."

The soul nodded, eager to see what was in the parchment.

"Oh—I almost forgot," said the Librarian. "Would you like any soul mate contracts?"

The soul didn't know what the Librarian meant. What was a soul mate contract?

"It's when you pair up with other souls throughout different stages of your life and help each other with specific learnings," he explained. "Sometimes you're both learning the same thing. Other times, your learnings are complimentary or mutually supportive. Your soul mates act in ways that help you understand certain things about yourself."

The soul thought that sounded brilliant, but how was this any different to normal? Wasn't this what the soul had already been doing in its first few incarnations?

"The learnings in soul mate contracts are a bit trickier," the Librarian explained. "That's why you help each other. We all help each other during the ascension process."

Well, in that case, thought the soul, it would definitely like some.

The soul waited whilst the Librarian searched through some of the other parchments lying on his desk. "Leading with compassion and authority," he muttered. "Recognising that fear leads to control... Aha!" He picked up a parchment and studied it for a minute. "This soul is working on forgiveness. You won't be able to help them until much later on in your life because their incarnation is a lot shorter, but if we time it right, this soul will be able to help you with your learnings, too."

The soul watched the Librarian's fancy gold pen dance across the parchments. As it watched, it felt mesmerised by the two snakes that coiled up around its stem, meeting at the end to form a tiny set of wings.

Finally the Librarian put his pen down, rolled the scrolls back up, and passed the first one back to the soul again. "The other soul will have to agree to the energies, of course," he said.

The soul nodded.

"Just sign it and pop it back in my pigeon hole when you're ready."

And the soul left the office.

The soul was being born. He became a boy with brown hair who lived on a beautiful planet called Lyra, which was located in the Lyran System in the vast Elbethian galaxy. He was lucky to be a Lyran, as it was one of the few higher vibrational planets in the galaxy that had aligned with the ascension process. The Lyrans now had life spans that lasted for thousands of years. They lived in harmony with each other and the many other diverse species on their planet. The soul was happy, fulfilled, and content. The Lyrans had everything they could possibly need and acted as higher level guides for lower vibrational beings.

The boy was older now. Lyra was being invaded. Beings called Carians had arrived and were taking control. They were stripping the planet of its natural resources, destroying its species and ecosystem. Lyrans were being taken as prisoners. They were being experimented on.

The boy was being taken. They were changing him. So much pain! He no longer recognised himself. He was grotesque and warped, a terrible shadow of his former self. Hundreds of years went past. He could no longer control himself or understand the negative energies that had entered his world.

The boy, still older, was filled with rage. What had the Lyrans ever done to the Carians to warrant such an attack? Who did the Carians think they were? He wasn't going to stand for it anymore. He organised an uprising that managed to defeat the Carians, who had grown lazy at the height of their empire. The Lyrans took back their planet and started to rebuild. But too many species had been destroyed. The aged boy selected a group of Lyrans to set out to find another planet like Lyra where they could start over again.

But it wasn't safe in the galaxy anymore. Beings like the Carians were out there, and who knew what else was lurking? The Lyrans needed to come up with new ways to stay safe. But why stop there? It wasn't just the Lyrans that needed help and protection, but all beings. The aged boy knew the truth. Everyone had been led astray by El-Quan-Tem. No one could rely on his system for protection. It was all false. It was up to him and the remaining Lyrans to restore harmony and order.

He found a planet similar to what Lyra had once been. But there were beings already living there. They were lower vibrational beings who hadn't yet awakened to El-Quan-Tem or the higher dimensions. He decided he would try to make sure that the situation remained as it was, that the beings on the new planet would be far better off if left alone. Once the Lyrans had helped this planet, they vowed to help others, too. He renamed the Lyrans the Annunaki, a name he knew would become synonymous with freedom and guidance. The Annunaki set to work.

The Annunaki had taken over the new planet, but the native beings didn't know this, as he had approached only a select few to communicate with. The years went by, and as they passed, he forgot who he was and who he had once been. All he knew was that a dark heavy energy seemed to fill the universe. A low vibration. There was no light...there never had been. It was all a lie. A system of control.

Convulsing, Sophie pulled herself back. "Ahmkarah? But...but..." She was in shock. She couldn't believe the memories belonged to Ahmkarah. It was his soul record.

The Librarian began his explanation. Sophie was not the first being to journey to the Library and learn the central truth inherent in ascension. Nor, he knew, would she be the last.

"The Annunaki are souls incarnate," he said. "Just like you and every other being in your universe. They are as much a part of El-Quan-Tem as you are. But they choose not to consciously remember this. Not remembering is necessary so they can carry out the work they have been sent to do—"

"The work they have been _sent to do_?" Sophie interrupted. "What are you saying?" The same sinking feeling she had experienced when Roger and Zalzibar had first told her about the low frequency field was creeping through her again.

"The Annunaki are souls with their own tasks," the Librarian said. "Just like everyone else."

"Well," she snapped, "they're not doing a very good job! How could El-Quan-Tem let them go on such a rampage? Where is his quality control?"

"Actually they're doing rather well," said the Librarian.

"What do you mean?"

"Humanity needs to reach a certain vibration. They will not do so unless necessary challenges are thrown at them that provoke them to awaken and transform."

"What?"

"El-Quan-Tem sent the Annunaki to Earth to provide a necessary intensification. Without that intensification, if humanity stayed at their current vibration, they would stagnate, and each soul's ascension would cease."

"El-Quan-Tem sent the Annunaki to Earth?" She was unable to believe what she was hearing.

The Librarian nodded. "It's an advanced crafting technique he uses on all planets that are having trouble activating. After 4.5 billion orbits of your local star, your planet is ready for activation. That's when a planet's collective vibration attunes to a higher frequency."

"I know what an activation is." She still couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"But its resident beings, humanity, are not ready," he continued. "To reach the higher dimensions, humanity must first reach a certain vibration. But no matter what El-Quan-Tem tries to stimulate them, they simply won't budge. The souls there have been incarnating over and over again, but most of them are going around in circles. New souls have asked to be included on the planet, so they can try to help, but nothing has worked. Earth is holding up the entire batch."

"The entire batch? Batch of what?" Sophie asked.

"Batch of universes. There are nine universes in every batch El-Quan-Tem crafts at any one time."

"What? I don't understand."

"El-Quan-Tem has tried everything to get your planet to activate," he said. "But to no avail. That's why he sent the Annunaki. It's through navigating the problems created by the low frequency field that humanity will obtain the learnings it needs to ascend to the next level. Ascension occurs through conflict. Conflict is the crux of transformation."

Sophie stared at him. She was stunned. Was he really saying El-Quan-Tem had sent the Annunaki to Earth to help humanity ascend? That he used this technique on all planets that were having trouble activating? That Earth was just one planet in one universe in a batch of nine? This was what they were all doing?

"The Annunaki are present on Zetan's Earth too," the Librarian said. "Zetan's Earth is in a different universe in a different batch that one of El-Quan-Tem's colleagues (another universe crafter) is currently working on."

"Of course he is," she mumbled. Sure thing, she thought. El-Quan-Tem wasn't the only being who did universe crafting. There were others, too. And there were multiple batches. But it wasn't the scope of the work of crafting universes that perplexed her, nor was it the fact there were so many other universes. It was the method being used to force beings to ascend. "So it's just suffering, then, the whole way up?" she asked aloud. Surely, she thought, El-Quan-Tem and the universe crafters could come up with a better system than that?

The Librarian was fully aware that this human being was still failing to grasp the core principle. "Look at what you have been through so far," he said. "Every problem you have encountered has been an opportunity for growth. How have you obtained each of your Attunements?"

"But that's different," she protested. "I haven't been hurting anyone in the process."

The Librarian shook his head. "It's the same process at a different level. What is true for the microcosm is true for the macrocosm, and what is true for the individual is true for the collective. As humanity achieves the solutions to the problems created by the Annunaki, it will collectively raise its vibration. Nobody said it was easy. Even El-Quan-Tem finds it hard to sit back and watch beings suffer...though it is entirely of their own doing."

"How do you know all this?" she asked. "Do you deal with El-Quan-Tem directly? I wouldn't mind having a word or two with him."

"We are on intimate terms," the Librarian replied. "But he is much too busy to talk."

Well, she thought, that's typical! Avoiding scrutiny like everyone else in a position of power does. "So," she said aloud, "why am I bothering to switch the low frequency field off then? If it really is helping humanity ascend, why did El-Quan-Tem give me the task of shutting it down?"

"The low frequency field was designed to exist until humanity starts to raise its vibration," the Librarian replied. "If and when you succeed in your task, you will have the necessary information to be able to show others how to do it. There will be a gradual ripple effect. And the low frequency field will have served its purpose."

"Show other people? How?" She had been assuming that once she had completed her task, she would be free to get on with her life. Now she was expected to show others how to raise their vibrations, too?

The Librarian winked at her. "You'll think of something," he said. "Other humans on your planet are beginning their tasks, too. You have all chosen to be part of this synchronistic process. It's a very exciting time!"

"But what about Metatron?" she asked, wondering how the Librarian might account for such behaviour from a being in his position? Surely this proved the system didn't work?

"Metatron is working his own energies. Try not to judge another soul unless you have experienced their Akasha. Sometimes the energies a soul chooses are harder than they anticipated, and sometimes the energies they are working on require them to play an adverse role."

All Sophie could do was stare at the Librarian. Then she remembered something else she'd seen in Ahmkarah's Akashic record. "Wait a minute," she said.

"Yes?"

"Ahmkarah's soul mate contracts...the one on forgiveness...it's with me, isn't it?"

The Librarian smiled. "Yes."

And as the full implications of the Tenth Attunement shuddered through Sophie, she realised that she really had chosen everything...for a far grander purpose, indeed.

# Chapter Nineteen

## _The Last Grey_

When Sophie opened her eyes, she was staring at the ceiling. But it wasn't the same ceiling she'd been staring at when she'd fallen asleep. Now there were barely thirty centimetres between it and her nose. She sat up, being careful not to bump her head, looked around, and discovered she'd been squashed into the top of a bunk bed in a cabin on a spacecraft, though she had no idea what the spacecraft was. Then she heard Roger's voice.

"Thank El-Quan-Tem, you're back!" Roger was perched in a crevice in the wall. He had dark circles under his eyes. "Are you okay?" he asked.

She nodded, then asked, "Where are we?" She stuck her legs out to try and get some circulation in them.

"We're on Zetan's spacecraft on our way back to Earth," Roger said. "Your Earth. I tried to wake you. So did Zetan. You've been unconscious for nearly three hours."

"Oh dear!" This meant there was less time than she thought before the attacks happened. "What's the time?"

Roger took out his pocket watch and flipped the lid open. "It's 9.25p.m., local Alaskan time."

This nearly sent her into a panic. "We're not going to make it, are we?" Why hadn't they been able to wake her? What had happened? She could vaguely remember a dream about a little old man in a turquoise suit...and he'd told her something important. But what? As she started to remember the "dream," she gasped.

"Whatever is the matter?" asked Roger. "Did you get to the Akashic Library?"

"You're not going to believe this," she replied, her voice beginning to tremble. "I got there and met the Librarian, like you said, and he..." She told Roger everything she had seen and learned. How the Annunaki had once been the Lyrans. How they had been invaded by the Carians. How El-Quan-Tem had allowed them to go to Earth, and how the Annunaki and everyone else were souls incarnated and working on particular learnings as part of their overall ascension. Finally, even though she didn't want to mention this, she told him that Ahmkarah was one of her soul mates. Which meant that somehow she had to find a way to forgive him. Which was more than a little concerning because it probably had severe implications for the Eleventh Attunement: _Forgive others, for we are all one_.

Roger's jaw dropped and his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. For once, he was speechless.

Sophie didn't know what to say, either. She felt more than slightly responsible for...well, for everything that had happened.

Roger took several minutes to absorb what she had told him and what he thought about that. "Well," he finally said, "this explains a lot."

"But that still doesn't give them the right to do what they're doing!" She was thinking that the Lyrans turned Annunaki were just as bad as the Carians before them.

"Be careful, dear child," Roger said. "It seems that the anger the Lyrans carried towards their invaders is what caused them to want to control humanity."

Sophie was about to reply when she and Roger heard another voice.

"You're awake."

They turned to see Zetan standing in the doorway. "You're some sleeper," he said. "I told the crew you wouldn't give us any trouble, so there'd be no need for a tranquilliser. We're landing in twenty minutes."

But Sophie had important things to discuss with Roger and they were running out of time. "Please let me go," she said. "You can't save Earth by reverse engineering it or by overthrowing your government. It's you who have to change. Let me go and do what I have to do. My task. Then I'll come back and explain properly."

Zetan shook his head. "I'm sorry, Sophie, but your task really isn't my problem." With a curt nod of his head, he backed out of the room and disappeared.

"I'm so over LVBs," Sophie said to Roger.

Roger sighed. "Dear child, you must have patience. You were once where the Greys are spiritually. Not so long ago."

Sophie sighed. "I suppose so. But we need to come up with a plan. Fast!"

Meanwhile, the wind was biting across the runways of Area 51 and the usual layer of frost still covered the ground. At the landing area near the central hangars, the floodlights had just been switched on. The Annunaki were ready for the arrival of the Greys. And for the second time that day, a black sedan was making its way down from the north. It pulled up beside the runway and, also for the second time that day, the driver got out and opened the back doors so that the President, his Secretary of Defence, and his Head of Information and Awareness could climb out.

With just a few hours to go before they would have to debrief the world's press about the horrific extraterrestrial attacks on the poor unsuspecting citizens of Earth, Ahmkarah and his top two assistants looked even more self-important than usual. Ahmkarah had even styled his hair again for the occasion.

He looked at his Aurora Stealth, which was waiting on the middle runway ready for him. Soon he would be flying back to Washington, and the Annunaki and humanity would be free from El-Quan-Tem's system of dogma and control. Earlier that evening, he had already given his preliminary victory speech in the subterranean offices in Area 51 Underground.

Most of the Annunaki had been present, having flown in from all over the world, and the President had taken great pride in announcing that everything they'd been working towards for so long would, in just a few hours, come to fruition. It was unfortunate, he added, a sob in his voice, that so many human beings would have to die in order to achieve it, but that was just a sad but necessary part of the revolutionary process. Then, as his audience had cheered and congratulated him, Ahmkarah had stepped forwards to take a bow and then retired to his office to finish rehearsing his response speech. As he rehearsed, he worked on remembering to sound human and to pause at the right moments for maximum effect.

Another black sedan pulled up beside the one already parked. Out climbed four soldiers carrying powerful rifles. Ahmkarah walked over and began giving them their instructions. "And remember," he said, "shoot on my command and not before." The four riflemen took their places.

"And don't harm the Greys unless you have to," Ahmkarah added, slipping one hand into his overcoat pocket to check on the programming drive.

Taking it out, he held it in his gloved hand and examined it again. Something about it perplexed him. Whenever he touched the smooth surface of the silver capsule, he felt slightly uneasy, as if it were triggering something inside him. But that was silly, he told himself. It was just a simple programming stick. Still, he had to wonder: what had the Arcturians been trying to do to it? His reverse engineering team hadn't been able to find anything anomalous in it. Suddenly realising everyone was staring at him, he quickly put the drive back in his pocket and coughed. "Damned Nevadan winters," he said as he looked up at the sky for a sign of the Greys.

But Icke had seen what he was doing with the drive. "You should get rid of that thing. It might be some sort of weapon. We don't know how it works."

Darpen nodded. "For once, I agree with him." He was trying to stop his teeth from chattering, either from nerves or from the cold.

Ahmkarah sighed. "We know precisely how it works because the Silver Ray showed us when they set up the low frequency field. If the Arcturians had done anything to it, our reverse engineers would have picked it up. It's just a harmless programming stick." Just as he looked up at the sky again, a triangular formation of lights appeared. He smiled. "On time, as usual."

Sophie and Roger were studying a series of equations and sketchy maps that Roger had chalked on the cabin floor. "We'll probably be landing here," he said, pointing at a square. Having overheard the Greys say they were heading to Area 51, he had been trying to remember everything he had learned about the military base during previous scouting trips.

Unfortunately for Sophie, none of Roger's notes were very useful. Whilst the black budget craft the Annunaki were hiding in Area 51 sounded interesting, she still had no idea how she was going to escape, much less integrate the last two Attunements and find the holographic drive. That was assuming of course, that Metatron had taken it back to Earth and given it to Ahmkarah and that Ahmkarah hadn't already destroyed it.

Roger studied the dismay on her face. "You must trust the universe, dear child," he said in his most comforting tone.

"Yeah," she said. "I don't have much choice now, do I? Let's go over it one more time. Maybe we'll think of something that might help us."

Roger nodded and handed her his pocket watch. "Take this," he said.

"But you'll be with me," she protested. Why was he giving it to her? Did he know something she didn't?

"Just in case," he said.

With a shrug of thanks, she tucked the pocket watch in her spacesuit pocket just as the Rumbler landed with a thud.

Zetan poked his head around the door. "Ready?"

Sophie looked at Roger.

"You'll know what to do when the time comes," he reassured her.

"I hope you're right," she said, bending down so he could climb on her back. The Greys might not be able to see the blue Arcturian, but the Annunaki certainly would, so she had to try and keep him hidden for as long as possible.

Zetan led Sophie to the rear of the spacecraft, where three other Greys were waiting.

"You guys hang behind me," Zetan instructed his crew. "And make sure you're not armed," he added. One of them had a gun wedged into his belt. "You know they go mental if we carry a weapon here."

With a nod, the crew member stowed the gun in a nearby locker.

Now the door slowly opened and Zetan placed a hand on Sophie's shoulder. He nudged her out onto the wing.

Outside, seven figures were waiting on the ground near two black cars. Sophie couldn't see their faces, but she could easily see that some of them were armed.

Zetan gave her a light push. "Down you go!"

Having no choice, she jumped off the wing, being careful not to let Roger fall off her back. The three other Greys jumped down and landed behind her. Finally, Zetan jumped down.

As they walked across the runway, silence hung in the air. Sophie's heart was thumping. Would she be shot on the spot? Muttering a quick prayer to El-Quan-Tem under her breath, Sophie continued walking towards her fate. The faint warmth of Roger's body on her back was the only source of hope she had left.

One of the dark figures stepped forwards into the light. "I knew I could rely on you," he said.

Sophie gasped. It was the President himself. What did this mean? Should she try forgiving him right now? Just come right out and say it? Fear shuddered through her as she realised that, hidden inside the President's human form was the Annunaki being, Ahmkarah.

"I forgive you," she whispered, realising that she didn't really mean it.

As Ahmkarah's eyes met Sophie's for the first time, a glimmer of recognition passed between the two souls. Confusion surged across Ahmkarah's face before he quickly regained his composure. He turned to Zetan. "Congratulations," he said. "You now have full clearance to Earth's ecosystem." He smiled a far from friendly smile. "I'll have Icke inform our officials immediately."

Icke nodded.

Zetan's smile matched Ahmkarah's. "Thanks."

"I'd hurry up if I were you," Ahmkarah added. "Pretty soon there's not going to be much left."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, I just have a nagging feeling...maybe something's going to happen. Don't worry though," he added. "It really isn't your problem." And with that, he shooed Zetan away as if he were dismissing a pet.

But Zetan didn't move. For a brief moment, it seemed as if time were standing still. For a brief moment, it was as if reality might unravel into one dimension or another. And then, almost as if there were some greater force guiding him that he couldn't explain, Zetan knew there could be only one outcome.

"Actually," said Zetan, "it _is_ my problem."

And just as he said these words, a curious thing happened. A jolt of energy entered the crown of Zetan's head and flew all the way down his spine to his toes. The First Attunement flowed through him. Zetan suddenly realised that he was a soul that, like Sophie, had chosen to carry out a task to help others on his own planet Earth awaken. Without a word, he pushed Sophie out of the way and as she fell, started back towards the President.

"Protect the girl!" he shouted to his crew.

The other three Greys ran to where Sophie had fallen and surrounded her like a living shield.

But this was just the sort of manoeuvre that Darpen, Icke, and the Annunaki military had been trained for. Two of the soldiers rushed forwards and shoved the President out of the way whilst Darpen and Icke also dove at him in an attempt to protect him. All they did, however, was land on top of him.

"Get off me!" Ahmkarah yelled.

While they were trying to sort themselves out, another one of the soldiers charged towards Zetan, even though he had no idea what he would do with the Grey if he caught him because the President hadn't given the order to fire. He needn't have worried, Zetan ducked out of the way, and the soldier went face-down into the mud.

Sophie couldn't believe what she was seeing. She looked around, trying to work out what to do. Should she try and get to the President? She doubted that he would have the holographic drive on him, she knew, but there was always a chance. Besides, she had to get the next Attunement. But how? Somehow back him into a corner and try to explain what she had seen in his Akashic record? Would he believe her if she jolted his memory?

"Watch out!" cried Roger.

She turned. A soldier was thundering towards her.

One of the Greys ran forwards and flung himself head-first into the man's thighs. He toppled sideways and landed in the mud.

At the same time, Sophie spotted the Aurora Stealth parked over on the middle runway. Suddenly she had a plan. Whispering it to Roger, she began crawling away from the mayhem.

They probably would have made it to the aircraft, had it not been for Zetan. "Sophie!" he cried. "Look!"

"He's pointing at something," said Roger. "Oh, my giddy Aunt—it's the holographic drive!" The holographic drive had fallen out of Ahmkarah's pocket and was lying in the mud, its silver case shining under the floodlights.

Sophie jumped up and started running toward it.

But Ahmkarah had seen it, too, and a second later he and Sophie collided in mid-air. Sophie fell first, clamping her fingers around the drive. Ahmkarah tumbled down on top of her. Gripping her wrist, he slammed his elbow into her chest, furiously attempting to unhinge her fingers. Zetan came soaring through the air, landing a spinning kick in Ahmkarah's back. Ahmkarah yelped and rolled away.

"Got it?" Zetan asked Sophie.

"Yes. Thank you."

"You were right," he said. "I should have listened to you all along."

"Oh no!" Sophie cried. "Look!"

Two more black cars had just screeched up and more soldiers were spilling out of them.

Zetan called out to one of the Greys wrestling with Icke. "Take Sophie back to the ship! Get her to Gakona!"

The Grey nodded, dived between Icke's legs, and looked up at Zetan. "But what about you, sir?" he asked.

"Just go," Zetan said. "That's an order."

Sophie found her voice. "But you'll be killed! Look at all the soldiers!"

"Someone needs to stay here and cover you," said Zetan. "This is— _was_ my choice. Go!"

"Thank you." Holding back her tears, she began running towards the Rumbler, holding Roger's paw in her hand. The Grey was right behind them.

Zetan watched Sophie go, wondering why she was running with one arm stuck out in mid-air beside her. He didn't know if he believed even half the things she had told him. He just knew that the old way of doing things wasn't the right way anymore. There had to be an alternative. Looking up at the stars, he began to do something he had never done before. He prayed. "If there really is something out there...El-Quan-Tem, or something beyond," he said, although he didn't really think anything or anyone was actually listening, "I could sure use some help right now."

And as he integrated the Second Attunement, another tingle swept through his body. He looked at Sophie again. And he couldn't believe his eyes. Scampering along beside her was a blue creature that looked like a cross between a mouse and a kangaroo. So she had been telling the truth.

At the same time, Ahmkarah suddenly realised that none of the soldiers had taken a shot at anyone. "Open fire!" he shouted. "Kill the human! Kill them all!"

"No!" cried Zetan. He watched in horror as they obeyed their leader.

The mysterious blue creature tried shooting back with strange wheel-like guns in both hands, but there was obviously only so much it could do, because behind him, Zetan's co-pilot fell to the ground. "RUN, SOPHIE!" Zetan shouted. She and the blue creature both made it up onto the wing. The soldiers were still firing at them, but they got inside and closed the door. A second later, Zetan's Rumbler leapt into the sky, circled the runway once, and zoomed off toward the stars.

Zetan turned and looked at the scene before him. His other two crew members were now lying dead on the ground. Looking up at the stars again, which he could only see when he was on Earth in the past, the Grey felt content. This was where he would be for the final moments of his life. He was standing on Earth as it should be.

He was more than a little surprised, therefore, to see a silver, disc-shaped craft hovering above his head. He saw a logo the shape of a spiral on the side of it. Before he had time to wonder what it was, and before Ahmkarah's men had time to shoot the last Grey, a beam of blue light shot out and lifted Zetan up to safety.

Ahmkarah was filled with rage. He kicked one of his soldiers in the stomach and snatched his rifle, then ran to his Aurora Stealth and climbed up into the cockpit. Seconds later, he was hurtling down the main runway. He switched the hypersonic engine on and lifted the nose of the Aurora Stealth up into the sky. The leader of the Annunaki was Alaska bound.

# Chapter Twenty

## _Resonance Frequency_

The Rumbler raced on through the night, its triangular lights whizzing across the sky at such a speed that, even when somebody down on the ground happened to notice it, it was mistaken for a shooting star, a meteorite, or maybe just a figment of the imagination.

Crammed in the cockpit with Roger, Sophie felt her heart thumping. "I can't believe what Zetan just did," she said. "I bet he and the other Greys are all dead by now." None of them had known her, she realised, and yet they'd all just given their lives for her. Had they all made that choice as part of their soul tasks? Or had it all somehow gone terribly wrong?

Roger was only half-listening as he prodded the cockpit's small computer screen. "Yes, it was rather touching," he replied. He poked at the computer screen again. "Zalzibar would have known how to use this blasted thing," he grumbled. "Technology doesn't get any better with time. It just gets more complicated. And this low cloud cover certainly isn't helping," he said. The clouds seemed to be swallowing the Rumbler.

"Gakona weather station, location confirmed," a female voice suddenly announced.

"Thanks to El-Quan-Tem for that." Roger gave the screen another poke.

"Flight path locked to destination," the computer added. "Please enjoy your journey."

"What a ridiculous piece of equipment this is!" Roger turned back to Sophie, who was now on the verge of tears. "Dear child, whatever is the matter?"

"I couldn't forgive him. I got the holographic drive back, and I escaped. But what if that was my one and only chance to get the forgiveness Attunement? I knew what to do, but I couldn't do it! I'm just so angry at him."

"Understandably so, dear child."

"But then, well...I'm just as bad as he is, aren't I?" She took two or three deep breaths to calm herself. "If I couldn't forgive Ahmkarah, and I have the awareness to know I have to do it, then maybe humanity is set to make the same mistake as the Lyrans-turned-Annunaki all over again."

"Not necessarily," said Roger. "At least you're consciously aware of it. That's always the first step. Besides, sometimes we just have to wait for the energy to—"

Before he could finish, the Rumbler suddenly jerked forwards and he was thrown from his seat. His head whacked against the flight instrument panel, and then he fell back into his chair, unconscious.

"Roger!"

"Impact detected," the computer announced.

"No kidding!" Sophie reached across and took Roger's head in her hands. She began to concentrate. "Come on," she whispered.

Faint rays of white light shone from her palms and surrounded his head. But it was no use. His eyes remained closed.

The computer had another announcement. "Gulf of Alaska, veering left."

The Rumbler shot forwards again and Sophie's seatbelt cut into her chest. She looked out the window. She could just make out the triangular shadow of an Aurora Stealth coming through the clouds and creeping up beside them.

"Rockenfeld." She was now angrier than she had been before.

_Smash!_ The Aurora Stealth rammed into them again and the Rumbler fell into a forwards roll, plunging down beneath the clouds. Sophie could see the snow-covered pine trees, a forest that stretched all the way to the mountains on the horizon.

Another smash, and Sophie cried out in pain and fear as her stomach seemed to leap up into her chest and the Rumbler turned upside down.

"Balance disrupted," the computer announced. Then, "Levelling out."

Smash!

"Impact detected," the computer reported.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious!" Sophie shouted.

A stream of red lasers streaked past the window.

"Hostile vehicle detected," said the computer. A second later, "Moving out of range."

As the Rumbler started back up towards the clouds, Sophie was thrown back against her seat.

More lasers came streaking past the window.

The computer was in control of the Rumbler. "Automatic defence missiles locked to target. Ready for launch in twenty seconds. Launch on command."

" _What?_ " Sophie looked at the screen, startled to see the words LAUNCH ON COMMAND flashing in big red letters beside a green button. The seconds were ticking down.

16, 15, 14...

Sophie panicked. Launching missiles was not something an HVB would do. But, she thought, surely the fate of an entire planet was more important than just one Annunaki?

10, 9, 8...

She reached out toward the green button.

5, 4, 3...

She pulled back. Neither Roger nor Zalzibar would have wanted her to resort to LVB behaviour, not even under these circumstances.

"Automatic launch cancelled," said the computer.

"Pull yourself together," Sophie told herself. "You're an HVB now."

"Location ahead," said the computer. "Landing in six minutes."

Sophie looked out the window. She could just make out a distant clearing in the middle of the pine trees. A white domed building sat in the middle of the clearing. It was surrounded by smaller buildings that were covered in antennas. "Gakona," she said. "Thank God."

Smash!

"Rear engine failure," the computer reported. "Warning. Initiating emergency landing." Seconds later, "Prepare for landing."

"No!" Sophie protested. "We can't go down now! Not when we're so close!" She grabbed the steering column and wrenched it back up.

But the computer resisted. "Warning. Do not adjust steering. Initiating emergency landing. Prepare for landing."

They were going down. The ground was speeding up toward them. Sophie pushed the steering column, but still the computer pushed back.

"No!"

The trees were rising up to meet them. Sophie thumped the navigator screen. Random words crossed it.

The computer spoke again. "Emergency...coordinating...please enjoy your journey." And the screen faded to black. The tension on the steering column was released, and Sophie yanked it back up.

The Rumbler shot upwards. Now everything was shaking. Sophie could just make out the perimeter fence ahead. Behind it ran a single landing strip.

"Come on, Rumbler," Sophie muttered. "Just a bit further." She was straining to hold the spacecraft upright.

But the Rumbler seemed to have other ideas. Things were flashing red. Alarms were going off. Smoke was pouring out from one of the wings.

They were falling.

The forest was scratching against the bottom of the spaceship.

Down the Rumbler tumbled through a tangle of branches, landing nose first into the snow. It rocked back and forth, then skidded sideways for about a hundred metres, ricocheting off trees before finally coming to a stop with a loud crunch.

Sophie's seatbelt seemed to have disconnected itself. She was flung about the cockpit. She hurt all over. Rubbing her head, she reached across to Roger. He was still unconscious and didn't appear to have sustained any further injuries. Remembering his pocket watch, she pulled it out and opened it.

10.45 p.m.

"I'm not going to make it."

She looked outside to check on the wing. At least the snow had put the fire out.

"My gloves!" she exclaimed. An overhead locker had come undone in the crash. She could see her gloves inside it with her helmet. Pulling them on, she placed both hands on Roger's chest. Bright rays began shining into him, but, still, his eyes remained closed.

She had to give up. "You stay here," she told her unconscious friend. "Guard the ship."

No reaction.

With a sad nod, she climbed over the seats, crawled through the back of the Rumbler, pushed the door open, stepped out on the wing, and jumped down into the Alaskan snow.

Well, she told herself, it could be worse. She was standing in waist-high snow, staring at the three-metre-high fence between her and the base. At least, she thought, the fence isn't electric.

Yanking her boots off and throwing them over the fence so she could get a better grip on the diamond mesh with her feet, Sophie launched herself up onto the fence and started climbing. The wire was cold and the Alaskan wind stung at her face, but she managed to reach the top. She was just over when flood lights shone out across the ground.

Quickly letting go, she dropped down into the snow on the other side. Rubbing her shoulder, she listened carefully, but she didn't hear anything. The lights swept above her, shining on the top of the fence. Had someone in the base seen her? She remembered what Roger and Zalzibar had said about it being manned by two scientists and hoped there were still only two men. Realising that she didn't have time to wait to find out, she reached for her boots and pulled them back on. She carefully stood up and looked at the buildings.

There was nobody anywhere to be seen. Just the desolate buildings and landing strip. Deciding it was probably better to crawl, so as to remain hidden, she set off on her hands and knees, pausing every few metres to check that the coast was clear.

She had only crawled about twenty metres when she looked again. A door on the eastern side of the domed building was open. She looked again. Stalking along beside the wall was a six-foot-tall, dark green, scaly lizard-like being.

Sophie's stomach churned. Even though she had seen the Annunaki in the photos at the Arcturian Space Station, seeing one in real life was alarmingly—The Annunaki turned in her direction. She could see its black and yellow eyes piercing the darkness.

Just then, a thundering noise sounded from above.

She looked up. A dark, triangular craft was coming in to land.

Recognising the vehicle, the Annunaki turned around and made its way towards the landing strip.

Seizing her chance, Sophie jumped up and fled towards the open door. But the Annunaki must have sensed something, because it turned back around.

There was no doubt about it now. It was staring straight at her.

Paralysed with fear, Sophie dropped back into the snow. Then, "Everything is energy," she muttered through chattering teeth, trying to convince herself more than anything else. Her heart was thumping. She would have to try to use Chi-Quan...but would it be enough? The Annunaki was armed.

Realising that if ever she needed the Eighth Attunement to work, it was now, she told herself, "Use your imagination to create the future." Then she visualised powerful rays of light shooting out from her palms and into the Annunaki. As she took a deep breath and leapt up, two dazzling beams of white light shot out of her hands and surged into the Annunaki's chest. He screeched in agony and fell backwards into the snow, and seconds later morphed into a middle-aged man with blonde hair and an unkempt beard. Then there was an explosion of white light. Within a second, all that remained was the rifle.

Sophie let out a cry of shock and relief. Something told her to turn around. The Aurora Stealth had landed and was slowing to a halt. She ran over to where the Annunaki had fallen and picked up the rifle. Then she began running towards the base.

"Hey!" a voice called out.

She turned around. The President was running towards her.

"I'm not going to hurt you!" he yelled.

She hesitated. Was he telling the truth? Should she try to talk to him? Maybe this was her chance to get the Eleventh Attunement.

But as soon as this thought passed through her mind the President morphed into a hideous, six-foot-tall Annunaki. With sunken eyes and thin lips, his face looked like it had been sucked through his skull.

Screaming, Sophie ran towards the open door, not stopping until she was safely inside. Bolting the door shut behind her, she looked up and down the corridor. There wasn't anyone else around. She had to find the chamber that housed the transmitter and work out how to shut it down. Picking a direction at random, she took off running, no longer knowing if it was intuition, El-Quan-Tem, or merely adrenalin that was guiding her.

She turned a corner. Up ahead, a door was open. She tip-toed up to it and peeked inside. It was a laboratory. Then she saw a man with short dark hair sitting at a computer, his back to the door. "What was it?" he asked, not turning around. "Another moose?"

A bang erupted down the corridor. Ahmkarah must be inside.

Sophie panicked. Raising the rifle, she stepped into the room. "Sorry to disappoint you," she said. "Take me to the transmitter. Now."

The man turned and nearly fell off his chair. "Don't shoot!" He stood up and raised his hands above his head.

"Take me to the transmitter chamber," Sophie repeated, trying to sound as menacing as possible.

The man pointed towards the far end of the laboratory, where a vault-like door was set into a wall. "It's through there," he stammered.

"Lead the way," she said, levelling the rifle at his chest.

He made his way across the lab and stopped at the door. He fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a security pass, and swiped it over a panel beside the door. As he took one step back, the door opened with a hiss.

Sophie stepped forward. She could see the dark corridor beyond the door. She motioned with the rifle. "You go first."

The man stepped through and Sophie followed, pulling the door closed behind them.

Any second now, she reminded herself, Ahmkarah was going to catch up with her and she would be outnumbered. "Faster," she hissed as she followed the man along the dark corridor towards another vault-like door set into another wall. There was no time to waste. "Open it!"

The man swiped his pass again.

The low frequency field transmitter chamber looked just like it had in the footage Sophie had seen on Zalzibar's computer at the space station. Like an observatory, it had a golden telescope-like device in its centre which rose up through a domed ceiling. Around it stood complex equipment with flashing lights.

Just as Sophie turned to close the door behind them, the man morphed into his true vibrational form. The Annunaki lunged towards her. Before she could even scream, he knocked the rifle out of her hands and pushed her backwards. She fell, but jumped up almost immediately and sent two rays of white light at him.

There was a loud shriek as the Annunaki morphed back into his human form. Then there was another explosion of light and the rifle he had been holding clattered to the floor.

Sophie picked it up and ran over to the transmitter. In seconds, she spotted the tiny, white, star-shaped crystal spinning silently in the base. Another quick search, and she found the slot into which she needed to insert the holographic drive.

Would the frequency she had already attuned the drive to be enough? With a quick prayer, she pulled the holographic drive out of her pocket and set it carefully in the slot, visualising all the equipment shutting down as she did so. "Please, El-Quan-Tem...please."

Nothing happened.

Pulling the drive back out, she stared at it. What could she do now?

"Oh, dear," a voice hissed behind her.

She turned around.

Ahmkarah was standing in the doorway. "It appears, my dear," he hissed through narrow green lips, "that you've failed. You haven't completed your task like a good little servant of El-Quan-Tem, have you?" As he spoke, he spat out stringy mucus and what looked like blood.

Trying not to scream, she took a deep breath. She had to remember that somewhere inside this thing, there was a soul.

"I forgive you," she said. Her words were only a faint whisper.

Ahmkarah started to laugh.

"I forgive you," she repeated, more forcefully this time. But she still knew she didn't mean them. How could she possibly forgive something so utterly grotesque and full of evil?

He took one step forward. "Too afraid of what El-Quan-Tem might say if you pull the trigger?" Another step toward her. "You and your HVB ways—so pathetic!" Another step.

She took a breath. "You haven't always been an Annunaki! You chose to incarnate into this life to experience certain learnings. You're a soul on its way to ascension!"

Ahmkarah just laughed. "I see El-Quan-Tem has brainwashed you well," he said. "Now you can climb his spiritual hierarchy and one day be just like him. Good for you!"

She had to keep trying. "But I've seen your Akashic record. I know what happened to you back on Lyra—"

"You know nothing about Lyra!"

Sophie saw what happened next in slow motion.

Ahmkarah lunged at her. Instead of going for the rifle, he snatched the holographic drive out of her hand and hurled it up towards the chamber ceiling. Spinning through the air, the drive began to fall.

Just before it hit the floor, Ahmkarah lifted one foot.

"No!" She threw the rifle to one side and held up her palms. White light shot out towards him. It hit him just as his heel went crashing down onto the holographic drive.

Shrieking as the Chi-Quan energy surged into him, Ahmkarah morphed into Fox Rockenfeld. There was another explosion of light.

All that was left was the holographic drive...broken and in pieces.

"No!" Sophie cried again. She picked up the pieces up and tried to put the drive back together.

It was no use. There was no way to shut the low frequency field down now. No way to stop the attacks. And Ahmkarah was gone. She fell against the wall. She couldn't even get the forgiveness Attunement. She had completely and utterly failed.

She checked the pocket watch.

11.08 p.m.

In just three minutes time, the missiles would be launched and millions of people would die.

Sinking to her knees, Sophie started to sob. It was all her fault. She hadn't been able to forgive him. She hadn't been able to complete her soul's task. Earth was doomed. And not just Earth. Probably the entire universe. No one would complete their ascension.

But then she paused. What more could she have done? She'd tried to forgive Ahmkarah. She'd used the words. But he hadn't believed her. She couldn't make him understand. She wasn't responsible for him. In the end, she assured herself, there was only so much she could do. The rest had to come from him. It could only ever have come from him.

And then she had an insight: he was just an LVB. You couldn't expect an LVB to behave like an HVB, certainly not if that LVB hadn't awakened to the higher vibration yet.

Sitting on the floor, still holding the pieces of the drive, she thought it through. It wasn't his fault, she realised. It was just where he was at. There was no good or evil, just lower vibrational energies and higher vibrational energies...and all of it was part of El-Quan-Tem. Ahmkarah would get there in the end, she saw. They all would. Ultimately, everyone was one and the same. "We're all souls on a journey of ascension."

And as she said this aloud, she realised, she could finally forgive Ahmkarah and the Annunaki.

A tingle of energy swept through her. The Eleventh Attunement.

"But something still doesn't make sense," she thought. "There's was no way I could have integrated the Eleventh Attunement without Ahmkarah destroying the holographic drive first. Did El-Quan-Tem know this all along? Had this part, too, been part of my task?"

She finally understood what it all meant; what it had always meant.

She had been raising her vibration to attune the holographic drive to resonance frequency. But now she saw that attuning the holographic drive hadn't been important. It never had. That had simply been the task El-Quan-Tem had given her. Everything she had experienced, each situation in which she had integrated an Attunement, had been an opportunity for her to raise her vibration. This had been the real purpose of her task. It had been designed to simulate Attunement inside her.

"Realise that in order to transform your world, you must raise your vibration!"

The Twelfth Attunement surged through her.

"Which means...I don't need the holographic drive. The resonance frequency is within me!"

Standing up and running to the base of the transmitter, she reached inside to where the crystal was spinning. She carefully cupped her hands around it and closed her eyes.

White light shone from her palms. In her mind's eye, she could see it travelling through the crystal and out through the low frequency field, criss-crossing over the planet in a lattice-like matrix.

And in that moment, the high vibrational energy waves she had sent with the Altaieans reached Earth. She saw the entire planet glowing in a celestial light.

And then it was done. She wrapped her hands around the crystal and gently pulled it out.

The humming in the chamber ceased and all the lights went out.

"Nice work, kid!"

Sophie spun around. It was Zalzibar, sparkling with bright yellow light, holding Metatron's old staff (which was taller than he was) in one paw and two blue scrolls in the other.

"Zalzibar!" She rushed to embrace her friend. "What happened to you?"

He smiled proudly and bowed. "You're looking at El-Quan-Tem's new personal messenger. Darn sight better than the old one, too."

"Congratulations!"

He gave a more modest smile. "Congratulations to you, too, kid. El-Quan-Tem sent me here to say 'job well done.'"

"Thanks. I still can't believe I figured it out in time." She fanned herself and took a calming breath. "Talk about going down to the wire!" She blinked. "The missiles can't launch now, can they?" she asked.

Zalzibar shook his head. "Nope. You did just fine."

She felt a surge of panic. "Oh—Roger! He's unconscious. He—"

"Relax, kid. He's waiting for you outside."

Sophie sighed in relief. "Thank El-Quan-Tem." Then, "Ahmkarah's gone," she added. "I didn't meant to, but he..."

Zalzibar shook his head. "Ahmkarah had his chance."

"But what about the rest of them? What's going to happen to the other Annunaki? They're not going to be too happy."

Zalzibar shrugged his shoulders. "I guess they might try to take back control." He sounded altogether too calm.

"But surely they can't do that?" she asked. "I mean, well, once the low frequency field was switched off, wouldn't they all have to leave?"

"I wouldn't worry," Zalzibar, "El-Quan-Tem says it's only a matter of time before Earth activates."

"Well, I hope you're right," she replied. "But, then...well, I suppose if the Annunaki do stay, it will be because they're still needed."

Zalzibar smiled.

Suddenly she remembered what she was holding in her hand. "What should I do with this?" she asked. But when she looked more closely at the interdimensional crystal, all she saw was a star-shaped piece of glass.

"Keep it as a souvenir," Zalzibar said with a wink.

"Thanks." She tucked the piece of glass into her pocket.

Zalzibar took a step toward the door. "Let's go check on Roger, shall we?"

It was a clear night and the Milky Way was shining across the sky. A battered Rumbler was parked beside the Aurora Stealth on the landing strip and two small beings were sitting on one of its wings, dangling their legs over the edge.

Seeing both Roger and Zetan, Sophie's heart soared.

Roger jumped down to greet her. "Well done, dear child!"

"Thanks," she said, embracing him. "I couldn't have done it without you." She turned to Zetan. "Or you." And back to Zalzibar. "Or you."

Zalzibar gave her a broad smile. "All in a day's work, kid. And now, guys, for your scrolls." He stepped forwards and presented Zetan and Roger with a scroll of blue parchment each. "Your ANGELs will know what to do with that," he said to Zetan.

Sophie looked up. A spacecraft that looked just like the _Pegasus Galactic_ was hovering above the runway. "You have your own guides now, too?" she asked Zetan.

Zetan nodded. "All thanks to you, Sophie Archer," he said, taking off his cowboy hat and dipping his head in a bow. "I believe I have quite the journey ahead of me."

Sophie smiled. "You'll do great," she said.

Roger had unrolled his scroll and begun reading. "My giddy Aunt!" he exclaimed.

"What?" Zalzibar sounded like he knew what the scroll said.

"El-Quan-Tem has offered me a job as his assistant," Roger said, his voice filled with wonder. "He wants me to help him with some new universe designs he's developing."

"And that job offer couldn't have gone to a more qualified being," Sophie said.

And just then, a curtain of multicoloured lights shimmered across the sky, lighting the snow below in hues of green and blue.

"The Aurora Borealis," said Roger, marvelling at the spectacle.

"Now that's El-Quan-Tem," said Zalzibar.

The four friends stood and watched in silence. After a while, Sophie smiled, content that everything in the universe was exactly as it was meant to be...even the Annunaki.

Finally, Zalzibar announced it was time to leave. "You guys need a ride?" he asked Sophie and Roger. A shiny white spacecraft with a huge spoiler was gliding towards them.

When the _Hermes 13000_ hovered above the camping area at the Dandenong Ranges National Park, the same place Sophie had begun her adventure just six weeks earlier, it was twilight. There was not a soul to be seen.

A ramp extended out from the base of the spacecraft, and Sophie and her guides walked slowly down to the ground.

"What will you do now, dear child?" Roger asked.

"I'm going to try and find a way to help other humans raise their vibrations," Sophie replied. "But in a way that's subtle and can't be deemed as interference."

Roger and Zalzibar both smiled.

"Your work is only just beginning," Roger said. "Being an HVB requires constant effort. But I'm sure El-Quan-Tem will continue to craft energetics for your path."

Zalzibar nodded. "Yo, kid! Call us if you need anything."

She gave her two friends big hugs. "Thanks for everything," she said as she stepped off the ramp, then waved as the ramp retracted up into the spacecraft. As her guides disappeared inside, she began thinking how much she would miss them and how grateful she was to have had their company and help.

The _Hermes 13000_ seemed to be dancing as it rose above the clearing, it spun gracefully and shot off toward the stars with a flash.

And Sophie went home.

So there you have the story. El-Quan-Tem and El-Cos-Mol were both extremely pleased. Their opal white universes were back on track, and they were able to detach the wormhole and return to work with their normal crafting techniques.

Which brings us to our conclusion. As you can see, being a universe crafter is a challenging job. In the end, there really is only so much beings like El-Quan-Tem and El-Cos-Mol can do. But I'm sure if you asked El-Quan-Tem or El-Cos-Mol, or any of the other universe crafters, they wouldn't have it any other way. To see a soul ascending over time, gradually raising its vibration and awakening to higher dimensions...and to see whole planets activating over time, gradually awakening to other planets already resonating at that same vibration...until eventually an entire universe is fully crafted...well, they might tell you, there really is nothing else like it.

Once a batch is complete, the universe crafters admire it for a little while, and then it's time to send the universes off for their next level of crafting. That's when the universe crafters start the whole process again.
Dear Reader,

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. If so, please would you be kind enough to leave a quick review? It might seem insignificant in the scheme of things, but the more reviews that a book has, the more chances it has of reaching more people. Thank you so much!

Click here to leave a review on Smashwords.com.

Cassandra xo

# How to Raise Your Vibration:

## Twelve Attunements

## to a Higher Vibrational Frequency

by Cassandra Sturdy

Are you concerned about where our world seems to be heading or feeling disillusioned by The System?

Do you sense there is more to reality than meets the eye and a grander purpose for your life and the universe?

Would you like to discover these hidden secrets and go on a mind-expanding journey of spiritual awakening and inner transformation?

You've read the story. Now you're invited to follow in Sophie's footsteps. This book is a complete, step-by-step guide that teaches you how to integrate each of the attunements. These profound yet easy-to-use tools will enable you to raise your vibration and transform every area of your life. With these attunements you will be able to:

  * Break free from The System to live a life doing what you are most passionate about as you discover and commit to your soul's purpose.

  * Manifest your goals with ease and flow as you energetically attract all of the ideas and resources that you need to achieve them.

  * Receive insightful and reassuring spiritual guidance as you open your third eye and contact your spirit guides.

  * Create instant and lasting shifts in your reality as you clear away disempowering beliefs that are holding you back.

  * Develop happier and more harmonious relationships as you lovingly cut energetic ties with unsupportive people.

And much, much more. If you enjoyed the story then you will love the attunements. They are a unique blend of ancient esoteric wisdom and the latest cutting-edge technologies for personal development. Each attunement consists of a lesson and a corresponding practice. Each one also comes with a powerful guided visualisation (mp3) that will enable you to alter your state of consciousness and journey to the invisible realms so you can experience deep internal shifts.

Planet Earth needs changemakers, lightworkers, seekers and awakeners. It needs activists, empaths, creatives and visionaries. These attunements will give you everything you need to make amazing changes in your life and empower you in the role you are here to play. Take your next step today. To find out more, visit:

www.cassandrasturdy.com/how-to-raise-your-vibration-book
