“You’ve never stopped to ask yourself who’s keeping the lights on and restocking the supermarkets.”
He shrugged. “You saying it’s not Woolworths?”
It was like he’d been brainwashed. “A moment ago you said Father Clarence came back. Where from?”
Pat stood up. “I meant his mind came back.”
Now he was being evasive. “Where did they take him?”
“Wish I knew.”
That was a flat-out lie. Pat walked over to the lab bench and began toying with a perspex vial of white powder.
“Listen, I need to know,” Luckman persisted. “It’s really important.”
“I dunno how they did it,” Pat admitted, shaking the vial.
The powder inside began to glow like phosphorescent snow.
It might have been nothing more than a high-school chemistry trick but the glow kept growing in intensity. It was captivating.
“What is that stuff?” asked Luckman.
“Monatomic gold. We use it to run our power system.”
“Doesn’t look like gold.”
“It’s gold that’s been broken down to an atomic powder.”
Luckman felt he’d like to know more but right now it was very much a secondary concern.
Pat stared into space like he was trying to remember something. “The Others took Clarence somewhere we couldn’t follow.”
“Pine Gap’s not exactly Alcatraz,” replied Luckman. “The base security’s good but it’s a massive perimeter. I could…”
“They took him somewhere else. Long way away.”
“What if I was to ask Pao…”
Pat threw up a hand. “Don’t say that fella’s name.”
“Why not?”
“That bugger always seems to know when someone speakin’ his name. Always drops in when he’s not wanted. We just call him PF.”
Luckman smiled inwardly. Finally he was getting somewhere. Whatever was tampering with people’s minds had not wiped Pat’s memory completely. Perhaps this bunker offered some degree of protection. “OK, PF it is. Who is he? What is he?”
“He lives in Rome – at the Vatican. Under the Pope’s protection.”
Luckman laughed derisively. “I really don’t get you people.”
“He knows things. About the church. Dangerous things no-one supposed to know.”
“Mel says he’s really old.”
Pat appeared impressed by this insight. “You ever heard of the Nephilim?”
“They were the children of mortal women who slept with fallen angels – if I remember my Old Testament.”
“Genesis says the Nephilim were on Earth when the sons of God were getting jiggy with the daughters of men.”
“There’s a translation you don’t hear in Sunday school,” Luckman told him. “So who exactly are the sons of God?”
“They sound like Christian bikers, eh? They were also called the Anunnaki. Lived on Earth thousands of years ago. People worshipped them as gods. They from another planet.”
“And you’re saying PF is one of them?”
Pat’s eyes widened and he nodded solemnly. “Him Nephilim. Half-caste. He been alive since before Jesus was a boy. Father Clarence says PF was there when the Roman Emperor Constantine brought all the Christian bishops together at Nicea to make them toe the line. Back then half those bishops believed Jesus was just a wise Jewish prophet and nothing more. Those fellas were called the Arians, the followers of Arius. They reckoned God was without beginning and came before all things. So because Jesus was born, he had an origin. Arius reckoned this made Jesus inferior to God. It made him a man.”
“Makes sense,” Luckman conceded.
“But Constantine wanted religious peace, ’cos he thought it was the only way to keep his empire under control. So the bishops took a vote and Jesus was democratically elected the Son of God.”
“What’s PF’s view on the matter?”
“He’s with Arius. He says Jesus was a revolutionary, but a human being like the rest of us.”
“Them’s fighting words,” said Luckman. “The Vatican is harbouring a heretic.”
“There are bishops in Rome today who know the whole thing’s made up. But it’s only heresy when you say it out loud.”
“What was Paulson’s take on all this?”
“He said the spiritual search was internal – part of the journey to discover who we are. The external world is only a reflection of that. Clarence said churches are just middle men, that we should use them for guidance but never let them dictate the terms.”
“What about you?”
Pat smiled. “I was raised to be a God-fearing Christian. The fear part means you never question the stories you’re told. Father Clarence made me stop and think. A virgin birth, three wise men finding a baby born in a stable, the Son of God turning water into wine, original sin…”
“Rising from the dead was the one I’ve always struggled with,” Luckman admitted.
“It’s a fairy tale. It doesn’t hold up to rational analysis.”
“So you’ve lost your faith? You don’t believe in God?”
“Just not that version of God. I’m more of a God 2.0 type of guy.”
“Is that how you think of the Others? God 2.0?”
“No way. They’re more like God 1.666 – the corrupted version.”
“How is the Catholic Church connected with the Others?”
“The Vatican hates the Others. But they keep each other’s secrets ’cos it’s in their mutual interest. PF is Rome’s envoy. He keeps the two sides in contact.”
“And Paulson was the meat in the sandwich.”
“He and PF were playing both sides against each other.”
“And when Paulson decided to speak out they killed him,” Luckman concluded.
“The Others don’t tolerate dissent. The church isn’t too keen on it either.”
“I think I’ve heard enough.”
“What are you gonna do now?”
“I probably don’t need to tell you every intelligence service on Earth would kill to get hold of that viewing chair of yours. Surely it can tell me about the Others.”
“The chair’s no good to you. It can only view events in this world.”
“So the Others aren’t human?”
“They’re human all right. But they’re not of this world. Here, but not here… somewhere else. We call it the Dreaming. Science calls it another dimension.”
Luckman felt glad he was sitting down because his knees might have given way at that moment. Yet Pat was so at home with all of this he seemed unaware the revelations even had the capacity to shock. It could be the trance. Like everyone else in Alice Springs, he appeared to have no curiosity for events beyond the town limits. He hadn’t asked a single question of his visitor.
“You have to take me to Pine Gap,” Luckman decided.
“It’s not safe.”
“I’m a big boy. Humour me. I’m not talking about driving up to the front gate. I just want to have a look at the place – from a distance.”
Pat rubbed a finger on his cheek as he pondered the request. “You gotta do something for me in return.”
“Tell me what you need.”
“I need to get my cousin Wozza outa jail. The cops are fitting him up.”
“I’ll do whatever I can,” Luckman heard himself say.
“Then I’ll take you out there,” Pat declared solemnly, holding his hand out. Luckman shook on it, although he had no idea how he might keep his word. Pat began to walk back toward the bunker entrance. He turned back when he realised Luckman wasn’t following. “You coming or what?”
“First I want you to take me back into the golden vault.”
There were a multitude of Earthly secrets he might choose to explore. The chair would reveal all of these and more. Pat Williams and the Verus Foundation probably already knew the answers to the planet’s greatest mysteries. But there was only one issue on which lives hung in the balance.