The General didn’t make a sound as he fell more than 200 feet to the stone floor of the elevator pit. The sickening thud echoed through the cave as everything else fell silent. I sat up, breathing hard and shaking at what I had just done. I had killed another human being. Something I had thought I was never capable of doing. The robot and the old guardian approached me and stood there waiting for me to recover. As I stood I removed the medallion from around my neck and handed it back to the old guardian.
“I have killed another human being,” I said. “I am not worthy to be the guardian.”
The old guardian smiled and began to talk. The robot translated.
“When we first came to the cave last year I knew you had the heart and soul to be the next guardian. When you offered yourself to the robot in order to save the rest of us I knew you had the courage you needed to be the next guardian. The only thing left to be determined was, were you willing and able to fight to the death to protect the secrets in the cave in order to save the lives of millions of innocent people you have never met.
“The men who died here today came to take what did not belong to them. They came with weapons to seize technology far beyond their capability to understand and use responsibly. They came with destruction and death in their hearts and they have received as they were prepared to give. The rules of engagement were theirs, not yours. You have performed with courage and righteousness. You have defended the cave and the old technology honorably. You have earned the right to be the next guardian and proven yourself worthy in every respect.”
The old priest once again placed the medallion around my neck and bowed before me. The tears flowed down my cheeks as I finally felt I was who I was supposed to be: the worthy guardian of all that was and what would one day be again.
I heard the elevator start and could sense the movement of air in the cave as it moved up to our level. As the elevator came to a stop I saw the Buddhist monks from the temple standing around the broken body of the General and the bodies of the four men who had descended earlier. I looked at the old guardian.
The robot spoke. “They live to serve and protect the old knowledge. They, like you, put their lives on the line to protect what is here — each one willing to die in that process. As you travel back out into the world, you will be our first line of defense. They will be the last line of defense here in the cave. They are your brothers and you are theirs. It is an honor to have you as one of us.”
I turned toward the group of Buddhist monks still standing on the elevator platform and bowed to them. They bowed in return. It was the single greatest moment of my life. All that remained now was to get back home to Tia, John and Ed.
It was after eleven at night as I walked up to the front door of the building in Denver where we all stayed. The guard rushed over to me.
“Are you all right, sir?”
“I’m okay,” I replied.
He opened the front door for me and yelled, “Carl’s back.” Two other guards in the front room rushed over to me. It was a lot more attention than I was comfortable with. John came out of a second floor hallway to the railing that ran across the back of the main entry room.
“Carl, are you okay? We were so worried.”
Tia came out of the hallway, took one look at me and raced down the stairs, her robe flowing behind her like angel wings.
“Oh my God, Carl, what happened to you?” she said. “What happened to your face?”
John came down the stairs and Ed emerged from a door off the main entry room. As they gathered around me, John said, “Ed told us about what you were doing. What happened?”
I looked at Ed. “I finally confronted my past,” I said. “Thank you for your advice. It worked.”
Ed held out his hand. I took his hand, shook it and pulled him close to me and hugged him. It was the first time I had felt close enough and safe enough to do that, since I had gone to federal prison. I hugged John and then Tia. As I held her, the tears were flowing down both of our faces. It felt so good to be back with her again.
“So what happened?” John asked.
“I can go through the whole thing in detail in the morning,” I said, “but for now General Strom and his men are dead and everything else is safe.”
I glanced at the guards. John caught my meaning and moved our meeting into a private room.
“Okay,” John said, “you can talk freely now. What happened?”
“General Strom came for me and took me back to the cave in Tibet. He wanted the advanced technology so he could conquer the world.”
“You said they were all dead? And you managed that all by yourself?” John asked.
“No,” I said, as I shook my head. “I had a lot of help from some very special friends. Not only was the robot in the cave, but the old guardian was there along with all of the monks from the temple. They took care of General Strom’s men while I dealt with the General.”
“You look like it was quite the fight,” John said. He reached out and touched the bruising on my face.
“It was,” I replied. “If not for the powers from the medallion, I would be dead now.”
“So how did you manage to get back here from Tibet?” John asked.
“The robot gave me a ride,” I replied.
“Those flying machines actually work?” Ed asked.
“As far as I can tell, everything over there works,” I said.
John smiled, “So how long did it take you to fly back here?”
I looked at my watch. “Three minutes.”
“Three minutes?” John shouted. “That’s half way around the world.”
“Well,” I said, “it took about thirty seconds to get out of the atmosphere, another thirty to get back in, and the rest was moving through space. No air resistance. So, yeah, three minutes, give or take.”
“Could you see outside of the craft?” John asked.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “And the view was spectacular. We crossed over the North Pole on the way back.”
“That’s some huge acceleration and deceleration,” Tia said. “How did you survive the G forces?”
I thought about my experience in the vimana on the way back to Denver. “I didn’t feel any acceleration or deceleration,” I replied. “In fact it felt like I was falling in whatever direction we were moving.”
“You were falling up?” Tia asked.
“Yeah,” I replied thoughtfully. “Or sideways when we travelled across the north pole, if that makes any sense.”
She stared at me with her penetrating look. I could feel her mind working toward a solution.
“Did the vimana make any noise?” she asked.
“Nope. Absolutely silent.”
Tia looked at John. “It’s got to be an anti-gravity drive. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.”
“I didn’t know anything like that was even possible,” John said.
“Obviously it is,” I replied. “It got me from Tibet to Denver in around three minutes.”
Tia’s mouth was hanging open. “Could you see the outside of the craft?” she asked.
“Some of it, yeah.”
“Was it glowing?” she asked.
“Yes, it was. The glow was white in color. The faster we traveled, the brighter the glow.”
Tia looked around at us. “I’ve read about this before in a theoretical physics journal. It’s a plasma field. That means the anti-gravity drive is electrical.”
“The Higgs Boson,” I replied.
Tia looked back at me. “You figured it out?”
“Sitting in the vimana on the way back here,” I replied. “That’s what they realized at CERN with the discovery of the Higgs Boson. Gravity isn’t a function of mass; it’s the result of an electromagnetic field on the subatomic level. It can be manipulated and controlled. The key is being able to generate a voltage high enough to affect the subatomic field.”