In 1975 Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson published The Illuminatus! Trilogy. It remains a seminal work of conspiracy fiction. Today, The Omnivore continues a serial-fiction experiment: Illuminoimia.
Everything You're Afraid Of Is True.
The Illuminati are about to end the American Experiment. They've gathered in DC under the Capitol to conduct the rite that will seal America's destiny.
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Previously On Illuminoimia
Ch 16: The True Kings of the World
Ch 17: The Second American Revolution
Ch 18: Angels In The Architecture
Ch 17: The Second American Revolution
Ch 18: Angels In The Architecture
Chapter 28: A Widening Gyre
Washington DC, Christmas Eve
Directly beneath the rotunda of the United States Capitol building is the crypt. It is a brightly lit round room with 40 doric columns, thirteen statues, and a marble compass engraved on the floor where the four quadrants of the District of Columbia meet. It was originally built as an actual crypt--to hold the remains of President George Washington (he declined: he’s buried at Mt. Vernon).
It’s a public room, most days, and a stop on the Capitol tour. If you were standing there tonight you’d notice two things out of the ordinary: Two specially constructed black tarpaulins over two separate objects. They are made of space-aged materials, ultra-low albedo high-density polymers. Where they touch the floor they create a seal that is air-tight and light-proof. Both are made to measure so that they entirely conceal what they cover.
One covers the statue of Samuel Adams, created in 1876. The other object covered is a gold case that once held one of the original versions of the Magna Carta. Other than these two blacker-than-black shapes, you might walk through it without difficulty, noting only that the security around the building seems almost absent.
It isn’t.
Overhead an E-6B Boeing 707 (a part of the formerly known Looking Glass Operation designed to create an airborne command center after a nuclear war) circles Washington DC in a widening gyre. Onboard, its battlestaff of 20 personnel monitor powerful communications and control gear capable of activating nuclear missile submarines, ICBMS, and strategic bombers. In the Pentagon the DEFCON status is a frosty green 4. In the air, in the red-lit cabin, the reality is DEFCON 2.
Across the road arteries entering and leaving Washington DC there are roadblocks populated with black-masked Department of Homeland security forces and Nuclear Emergency Search Team gear. They are using biological contaminant kits, chemical detection inhalers, and complicated giger-counters and electromagnetic sensors to look for any existential threat.
More mundane “sobriety check-points” are scattered throughout the inner ring with specially trained dogs, facial and emotional recognition software cameras, and orders to apprehend anyone with any degree of suspicion. Some of those taken in will vanish: in 24 hours it won’t matter anyway.
Before the white house is ‘The Pentagram,’ a network of streets created in 1791 by Freemason Pierre Charles L’Enfante in the shape of the five-pointed star. Along the avenues streetlamps glow and the roads are devoid of traffic. The city is not so much asleep as in a security induced coma.
As the Christmas party gets underway in the White House, and the upper and lower chambers of the Capitol struggle to reach a deal that seems to move further and further away, below the legislature, below the fallout shelter underneath the crypt, and reachable only by the private underground train-network that the Capitol runs, is ‘The Pyramid.’
The meeting room is actually in the shape of an inverted tetrahedron with black chairs stacked in rows up each of the three sides and, at the bottom, which is a flat floor (a smaller tetrahedral room sits beneath that, mimicking the eye-of-providence on the back of the dollar bill. It is used for executions), is the dais and the lectern from which the speaker can address the group.
Not every chair is filled--but most are. The men (and a few women) sit in dark judges robes with a deeper black fringe of alchemical symbols and primal signs. They are emotionless--looking on at the large man addressing them--looking up at the sitting True Kings of the World. Few outsiders have seen this address and fewer have lived to recall it afterwards.
The ceremony is as simple as it is important: what happens above--the President announcing his retirement to head the United Nations, the implementation of Directive Five (the closing of major travel arteries in the event of a rapidly spreading deadly influenza), and the unconstitutional appointment of the Secretary of State to the Oval Office (only during the transition, of course--and the country has been primed for a female leader by network television the same way they were primed for a black president) will be the exoteric portion of the process (that the Secretary of State will never make it is, frankly, immaterial: there will be others--there always are--the Senate Majority Leader will be as good a choice as any).
The esoteric portion of the act that ends the American Dream--happens here, beneath the legislature. It consists of a reading--an anti-prophecy--and a declaration of the mastery of the laws of the universe done in such a way as to neither acknowledge nor imply obeisance to any creator. It will be a statement of emancipation from any State of Grace. It will be The True Kings of the World’s Magna Charter against all the hopes and dreams of man.
In the aftermath there will be no America. There will be, in fact, no more nations--no more tribes nor races nor pride. There will be blood and circuses and some bread … but not too much. With the possibility of Grace gone the future of humanity will become a single straight gray road under the shadow of the Cathedral where the murder of crows in their night-black robes look down forever on their domain.
The man at the lectern wears one of his bespoke business suits. He is fat, unlike most of Them, and his eyes glitter as he speaks--a hint of a smile contrasted to their rock hard expressions of satisfaction. The Magician--The Hierophant--The Psychopomp--will conduct the final ceremony.
“The Gates of Mercy,” he says, his voice a deep rumble, “are closed. The light of Vision is blinded. I have received no prophecy--no guidance--no enlightenment. Mankind,” he says, “is Abandoned.”
There is a pause. At the bottom, across the floor from the lectern, is a raised bench with three figures. The one in the center nods: this is not unexpected--in fact the reverse, a vision granted after Mankind is Abandoned, would be troubling.
‘Abandoned’ is an old word--a Roman word. It does not mean “left alone” or “lost.” It means left-available-for-someone-else’s-command.
“It is in the blank spaces,” he says, “that we see Truth.” He means that the absence of prophecy is the sign of success. “The Host is weak. It’s breath--” he looks up, eyes traveling to the triangular roof above which the parties squabble and banter wasting away the lasts precious moments of their will. “--wasted.”
“I have meditated. I have Asked--” he means ‘prayed’ after a fashion--something the crowd finds revolting at an almost cellular level. “I have asked the stones--” he means Urim and Thummim, the white and black stones of cleromancy, “--and I have prepared the drawing of entrails.” He looks at them.
“There will be one ordeal--for which we have prepared--and then nothing.” He raises his hands. “The prophecy is complete.”
Back in the car, on that day when she had sought him out, The Magician had asked Evergreen what she wanted with him--why she had sought him out.
“I want to make something,” she had said, “disappear.”
“And then,” he had said, “reappear. You must, you know: Symmetry.”
She had nodded. Had he known? All along? It had terrified her to think that he could--that her deadly secrets could be so transparent to him. Could he literally read her mind?
“You have the bomb in your possession,” he asked.
“A team of mercenaries does--I hold the leash--for now.”
Her voice had caught and she’d placed her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking.
“Very well,” said The Magician with a slow nod, “This is what will be done.”
A CASTOR module for the containment of nuclear waste from Russian stockpiles would be moved--quietly--almost immediately to a staging area at the Hafia docks in Israel. It would be painted all but identically to the one transporting the real bomb. When the swap would be made, by compromising exactly one agent at the exactly perfect time (which was not a problem for the Hierophant) the counterfeit container, filled with a weight-matched slug, would continue to the Nagev reactor. It would detour, of course, towards the newly built temple--where it would wait for the orders on Christmas day.
The actual bomb in the real container would be diverted to a ship where it would enter America undetected en route, ostensibly, to Yucca Mountain.
Evergreen had seen this happen--invisible compromise--personal agents of the Hierophant able to effortlessly change roles and impersonate handlers and operatives. The Hierophant had explained to her that the plan would place the bomb in a garbage truck--with instructions to penetrate the outer security ring around the White House on Christmas eve. If successful, it would make it to the inner ring. If successful, on its timer, at midnight, it would detonate.
The CASTOR container was supposed to conceal any possible radiological signature--but a visual inspection at a checkpoint? It would fall apart.
One of the Dark Judges is recognized: his eyes sparkle with a crystalline clarity.
“What of our Judas,” he asks.
The Magician spreads his hands, palms open, “The truck is enroute--she is called to account. It will reach the outer ring and no further.”
The Dark Judge nods once: “Very good.”
It will end then--as was always The Plan. The truck will be stopped. The Temple of Solomon will be desecrated by entirely conventional means. The symbolic ingredient of a betrayer will be satisfied to no effect.
This is The Plan. It was always The Plan.
So the bomb was unnecessary, in the end? Huh.
ReplyDeleteKinda glad that my guess turned out to be right. But I'm still not sure what game the Heirophant is playing here.
Also, I'm curious about the gender balance of Them. Why are they so dude-ly?
PS: Two possible typos. "judges robes" should probably have a possessive apostrophe and "what of our Judas" should probably have a question mark.