- BB -

"Guys!"

Madzistrale and Tom turned their heads as a female voice interpelled them. A tall and strongly built woman jogged to catch them.

"Hey Clara!" the siblings waved.

They bear-hugged, and Tom playfully let out a stiffled breath by the force of Clara's hug. "Sorry, baby," she giggled, easing the strength.

"I got a favour to ask; I want to cook something for my special gal tonight, she’s back from her trip. Can I indefinitely borrow some of your garden goodies?" Clara asked Madzistrale, stepping in their rhythm.

"As always," Madzistrale proudly replied. She then reached at her friend's ebony braid's ornament: "Wow, isn’t that a woodpecker feather?"

"Yep, I found it in my backyard. A downy woodpecker."

"Isn't it your zodiac sign, if I remember well?" Tom asked.

"And a few days before my birthday... Must be a sign," Clara proudly replied.

"So how's your mission going?" Madzistrale excitedly inquired.

Clara's ebony eyes darkened.

"I've only been able to try a few communities, but I've received no replies from their chiefs. One of them even dared telling me I didn't know what I was talking about... For God's sake, I'm as pure of an Algonquian as he was, the little twat...."

A sad bleat welcomed the trio, and Clara approached the wooden fence. Three brown, caramel, and chocolate mixed-coloured goats clumsily ran to meet her hand, and she scratched them playfully.

"Hey girls, you've been missing me? I know, I know, I've been missing you too."

She turned toward the garden laying before her, where Madzistrale and Tom strolled on the stone pathways.

"Oh, you've expanded a bit more! And added a little patch of aliens here..." she joked, kneeling to stroke a dozen purple kohlrabi.

"Serve yourself, as always," Madzistrale handed her a worn-out weaved basket.

"And what about you guys? Do you have enough to begin that little dream market of yours?" Clara asked as she began harvesting around.

The siblings scoffed.

"Regulations are in our way. One would think with the rise of homesteading and urban garden projects that municipalities would be more flexible by now... Nope. But they'll allow the building of a new Walmart in the leftover space between the bank and the Subway down Station Street."

"It's always like that." Clara sighed, as the siblings followed her with their own baskets. "A bit of that… oh, nice, some radishes… Oh, is your honey ready?"

"We're leaving it a few more days; the temperatures were rough for the bees, so they need their part for their little babies," Tom explained, pointing at the sunburnt wildflowers spreading past the luscious garden, up to the very far back of their backyard, where three beehives stood.

"Ah well, keep me a jar when it'll be ready, will ya?"

"Aye, aye."

Clara waved them goodbye, gleefully skipping away with her full basket.

"Say hi to Gab!" she shouted.

"Will do! 'Till next time!" the siblings shouted back.

Madzistrale looked at her grocery bag and her basket.

"So... the chores are done... and it's only 1 p.m ... Now what?!"

Tom's belly rumbled.

"Cake?" he implored his sister with his unbeatable pouting expression that he mastered.

Madzistrale sighed.

"Fine, fine."

The siblings entered their house, and yelled their usual:

"Tadaima!!!"

Silence answered back.

"Huh? He's not home?" Madzistrale wondered.

Tom listened intently.

"I hear some basses; I think he's still in the basement."

"What's he doing now?" Madzistrale shook her head while she put on her apron.

**********************

Norwegian symphonic metal music was flooding Gabzryel Summerfield’s basement. Gabzryel was nodding to the music, letting it invade his heavy heart as he buried himself in his hobby, soldering a wheel on a complex metallic assembly. His brown eyes were focusing on the task at hand, his short brown hair messy from an obvious lack of combing.

The door leading from his basement to the ground floor of his house swung open as Tom and Madzistrale entered, the latter tapping away the last bits of flour from her hands into her apron.

“I’m bored. Got anything fascinating to show me?” she asked as she plopped herself on a nearby couch, folding her arms and staring ardently at him.

“Come on, give her something,” Tom said as he closed the door behind him, before seating on the couch as well.

“‘Good afternoon, Gabzryel!’ ‘Good afternoon to you too, Mad and Tom’...”, Gabzryel sarcastically replied. “Beside, since when are you two so keenly interested in my stuff?”

“Since little sister is bored,” answered Tom, elbowing Madzistrale.

“It’s called video games,” Gabzryel distractedly answered.

“Been there, done that. Can’t beat our five minutes record for eight stages...” Madzistrale pouted. “Hey, where has your black hair from yesterday go? I love the white patch in them; don't dye it away, it makes you look like a cute skunk...” she trailed off awkwardly, realizing how it sounded.

“Okay! Done!” Gabzryel exclaimed, completely ignoring her last question and proudly dropping down his soldering machine. “Voilà!”

He stepped aside to reveal the device on his table. It was composed of a complex set of machinery, attached to a wheel and had a table lamp plugged to the whole set.

“Theoretically,” Gabzryel explained, “this wheel will create a continuous and never ending motion in this complex machine. This should create enough electricity to power up this lamp.”

He strongly spun the wheel and looked at the siblings with a proud smile. Unfortunately, it faded after five minutes. The lamp still hadn’t turned on. Gabzryel frowned and was agitated as he looked for external flaws.

“What’s wrong with it?” he mumbled, scratching his brown hair, rendering them even messier.

Tom and Madzistrale attempted to hide their amusement, with no great avail. Finally, Gabzryel tossed the machine in a drawer, and faced them with a frustrated smile.

“It give us great hopes for your other inventions,” Tom commented, smiling.

“You try to make a free electricity generator, genius,” Gabzryel replied defensively, loudly fickling with his instruments.

"You're okay?" Madzistrale asked worryingly, frowning.

Tom looked bemusedly at her sudden comment; then Gabzryel dropped his head and chuckled.

"Always astutely right. That's my Mad."

"What happened?" Tom echoed his sister's question.

Gabzryel sighed and leaned against the table.

"Shalom is in a coma since 9 weeks," he revealed.

The siblings gasped.

"Your old teacher? Why, how?"

Gabzryel fought back the knot in his throat.

"Same thing than with her. A stroke."

Madzistrale rose from the couch and hugged him tightly.

"Sad thing... he doesn't have a family to pay for the bills. No one answered to the hospital's calls," Gabzryel mumbled in her neck.

"What's gonna happen?" Tom asked, visibly worried.

"What do you think?" Gabzryel answered with a small smile. "I signed the papers to be his caretaker. He can remain plugged in as long as he needs to."

Tom chuckled.

"No wonder people finds us weird. Only you would take care of a teacher you didn't even got along that well with."

"You know why I do it," Gabzryel replied sadly.

"Sorry," Madzistrale repeated as she separated; her friend returned a small smile.

"How did you know?" Tom asked.

Gabzryel straightened up and messied his hair even more as he attempted to look cool after that vulnerable display.

"I tried to see him at his office, but his secretary told me. I know his penchant for history and its observable patterns. I wanted to ask his opinion on something. We always debated, but he always had views I wouldn't otherwise know of."

"Can we help?"

"Always. I wanted to share my concerns, but then..."

The siblings waited... and waited.

"So...?" Madzistrale asked irritatingly.

"Oh, sorry. So, I think something is about to happen soon."

Madzistrale and Tom raised their eyebrows in mockery.

“Really? That explains everything," Madzistrale mocked.

“Shush, you have to let me get my stuff first," Gabzryel said, walking to an alcove in the basement.

"Stuff or not... nothing’s clearly happening ‘soon’; nothing’s happened for the last seventy years, not since the last major war! Heck, we can't even get anyone to get anything remotely remarkable done soon.”

“Exactly! That’s the best time for something to happen!” Gabzryel argued, opening a notebook.

“Fine, what’s your worry?” Tom asked, cutting to the point.

Gabzryel turned to them, displaying the most serious facial expression the siblings ever saw on him, holding his notebook as he answered very dramatically:

“The Apocalypse.”

Tom and Madzistrale looked at him blankly for a moment before bursting into laughter.

“Hey! It’s not funny!” Gabzryel said, offended.

“I thought you were Buddhist since three days?” Madzistrale asked between chuckles.

“I am. Believe it or not, we Buddhist believe in a sort of Apocalypse, though it’s much more different and slightly more logical than your Western philosophy. Ever heard of Matreya?”

“Did you noticed how he easily went from liking Western philosophies a week ago to now mocking it?” Tom whispered to Madzistrale, barely listening to Gabzryel.

“I heard that,” Gabzryel said, interrupting Tom. “For your information, I am not criticizing your beliefs; I am merely stating a fact…”

“Okay, so what were you saying about this supposed Apocalypse?” Madzistrale intervened, as she finally regained a somewhat straight face.

“It will come soon,” Gabzryel answered, as if it was the most obvious answer.

“Yes, you told us that, but what makes you believe so?”

Gabzryel opened his notebook, filled with rough sketches and illegible scribbles.

“While browsing the military public site…”

“Meaning ‘while hacking in their officious files’...” Tom corrected.

“... I stumbled upon a very interesting file. Project Cyan Ray. It was discovered by a journalist, who died of a heart attack some years later. It was one of the most publicized official proof of governmental deceit, and heavily spread by conspiracy theorists, so my bet is that Project Cyan Ray is now dismantled.”

“So why are you A): bothering with it, and B): basing your Apocalypse thing on that?” Tom sighed.

“Because, after a bit of digging, I found out that Project Cyan Ray wasn’t in fact military or governmental in origin. It was privately funded. Yet, somehow, whoever was behind Cyan Ray was able to blame it on the military and the governments... without them noticing. Or, if yes... then with their permission!”

“Okay... But what about what you just said? It received too much publicity, so it got dismantled?” Madzistrale reasoned.

“Project Cyan Ray received too much publicity. But the private founders were never found nor inculpated. Nothing stops them from doing another version of that project. And now, because the government was ‘involved’ last time, next time, everyone will blame them, and not the real criminals.”

“I still don’t get it,” Tom said, sitting down on a couch. “It was an obscure thing, about what, forty to fifty years ago? Nothing came out of it, and it certainly doesn’t bring the Apocalypse.”

Gabzryel sighed, and he sat on the table, smoothing his lab coat, and passing his hand through his now extremely messy hair.

“Cyan Ray was actually about the Apocalypse. Its entire existence was to bring the Apocalypse.”

Seeing the blank and slightly annoyed face of the siblings, Gabzryel endeavoured to position himself better on the table, looking like a cool professor, and explained further:

“According to the files I stumbled upon, this shady group wanted to bring the population down. As we are aware, there is a slight problem with the amount of the population on Earth; we both know that it’s just a question of making housing and farming more efficient and less space invading, and to…”

“Gab? The point?” the siblings interrupted.

“Yes, sorry, so, too much people according to this shady group; now, add to that their personal ambition to bring forth the famous Next Terrian Society, and become single rulers of Earth. So, they created Project Cyan Ray. They were to create a show in the skies. Back then, people believed a lot in alien invasions, and more religious yet open-minded ones believed that Lucifer was a bad alien, and Jesus a good alien. So, this shady group used it to their advantage. They were going to simulate an international alien invasion. Spaceships and lights in the skies, big explosions, stuff like that. During this time, plenty of occasions to kill a good couple of millions people per country. Then, the ‘voice of God’ would speak to all, in all languages, and request their worship to be saved from the aliens. Then, ‘Jesus’, someone from the shady group, would ‘appear’ and ‘save’ humanity from the ‘Devil/aliens’, and ultimately enslave the surviving population.”

Madzistrale and Tom looked at Gabzryel with raised eyebrows.

“Seriously? Who would be stupid enough to believe that?”

Gabzryel snorted in derision.

“Quite a few, actually.”

After a quick consideration, the siblings ended up nodding derisively as well.

“Point taken.”

“But, as I’ve said,” Gabzryel continued, “I firmly believe that, back then, Project Cyan Ray was just a big pile of useless paper. Too much publicity, too far-fetched, too costly for such a small group of person. Just seemed to be a big hoax to wrongfully accuse and muddy up the government.”

“What makes you think that it is more useful now?” Tom inquired, curious.

“No one believes in such things now. Everything that happens is always the fault of someone obvious, like the military or the government, according to the majority of the people. So let’s say that there is actually a shady group. They’ve been around for awhile, in the shadows, always getting by without being noticed. The few mistakes they do gets blamed on the military or the government. And slowly, they grow in strength. People of wealthy business somehow gets mixed up, they get more money, more power. Until, in the near future, they are strong enough to act openly. And the biggest occasion they’ll get to diminish the population, and then rule over the survivors, is by bringing the greatest massacre of history: the Apocalypse. And who’s going to stand up to these people?”

The siblings looked at him with blank faces. Gabzryel stared back at them expectantly; they finally understood.

“What, us? No way!”

“Why not?” Gabzryel replied, confused. “We’re smart, capable, well-equipped… We already know so much through our own projects and experiments… What can go wrong? They’ll never expect us!”

Tom and Madzistrale rose in bewilderment, and the latter replied incredulously:

“Okay, Gab, usually, you have great ideas, but this one... I think you passed too much time breathing soldering fumes in the last few hours while building your... free-energy thing.”

A little beeper beeped on her belt.

“My cake!!” she exclaimed before rushing out of the basement.

“Look Gab, I just think that logically, no one would bring the Apocalypse; too risky for their own lives. Beside, we’re not that kind of heroes,” Tom replied to Gabzryel, trying to defend his sister’s view.

“Tom, what do you think we’ve been trying to become since we all met?” Gabzryel retorted. “We’re here to prepare and to try to make a difference in the world when no one will.”

Tom sighed, and followed his sister up to the ground floor. Gabzryel stayed behind in the alcove, gazing down to his notebook. His gaze then turned to his dozing Afghan hound, laid on his belly against the floor in a corner.

“They don’t understand how important it is, Loki. We must try.”

Loki rose his pointed muzzle at his master, and answered only with a confused and sleepy gaze.