The White House: America’s hub of democracy and the seat of world power. Within its 233-year-old walls are routinely discussed the future… and fate of humanity.
Lilith Robinson-Mabus, newly crowned queen of Mabus Tech Industries, saunters past the big Victorian fireplace of the State Dining Room, pausing to read the inscription set upon the mantel.
‘I PRAY HEAVEN TO BESTOW THE BEST OF BLESSINGS ON THIS HOUSE AND ON ALL THAT SHALL HEREAFTER INHABIT IT. M AY NONE BUT HONEST AND WISE MEN EVER RULE UNDER THIS ROOF.’
– PRESIDENT JOHN ADAMS
Lilith scoffs. ‘Male chauvinist fool. If women had been in charge around here, the world would be a lot less screwed up.’
An aide enters the room, one of President John Zwawa’s personal assistants. ‘Mrs. Mabus, on behalf of the entire White House staff, let me extend my deepest condolences-’
‘Don’t bother. What time is my meeting?’
‘The president says he can see you immediately. If you’ll follow me.’
Lilith Eve Robinson’s descent into the Mexican cave had exposed her schizophrenic brain to an extremely powerful low-frequency electrical field. Like an electrostatic tuning fork, the effect served to rephase the girl’s already imbalanced brain waves.
Thought is analogous to energy. Firing at microseconds, it possesses no boundaries, not even the limits of time and space. In a manner transcending the principles of radio wave propagation theory, thought energy can be sensed by remote viewers who are highly tuned to these psychic phenomenon.
The phenomenon of reliving a previously seen or experienced event (memory) is an example of present-thought energy interacting with one’s past. Though the encounter is usually brief, the mental interplay, or deja vu, is quite real.
Exposure to the cave’s electromagnetic amplification enabled Lilith’s pathological mind access into the psychic realm. Shortly after her descent, she began hearing another voice, one far different than those of her self-created companions.
‘I can hear whispers,’ she had told Don Rafelo. ‘The voice speaks to me as I fall asleep.’
‘It is telepathy. The communication is meant to guide you.’
‘But who is it? How do they know me?’
‘The whispers originate from both the near future and distant past.’
‘Why do you speak in riddles? Just tell me who is speaking to me.’
The old man grinned. ‘You are in communication with… yourself.’
Three years after her ‘descent’ into the Mayan Underworld, the seventeen-year-old beauty, now traveling under the name Lilith Aurelia, had arrived at the 2030 World Entrepreneurs Association Meeting in Miami in search of a mate. To bait her hook, she wore a strapless cocoa ‘flesh-hugger’ evening gown that matched her skin and barely contained her breasts. Long, wavy ebony hair fell past her tantalizing cleavage clear down to her taut, exposed stomach and gold belly button ring.
The barely legal man-eater sipped her martini as she casually scanned the ballroom crowd. Nothing but pawns, and a few gray-haired bishops. The Queen of the Succubi is here, now where is my king?
She watched as her escort, NRA activist Ben Merchant, worked the room. The middle-aged defender of the Second Amendment, dressed in a white Armani tux, wore a black rose tucked in his lapel buttonhole and a Beretta in his ankle holster. Lilith liked the homosexual, whom she had met a year earlier in Mexico City. He was shallow and greedy-easy to read, with the type of weaknesses she enjoyed exploiting. The constant name-dropping was annoying, but nonetheless, he was loyal and seemed to get things done.
‘Excuse me, have we met?’
She turned to her right, glancing down at the slight Hispanic man in his late fifties. ‘And you are?’
‘Deputy Mayor Raul Hernandez, at your service. Are you a… um… local girl, or-’
‘Deputy Mayor? Is that something one volunteers for, or do you get season tickets to the theater with the title?’
‘Excuse me?’
Her azure eyes blazed violet as her temper rose. ‘Go away, little man, before I eat you.’
Hernandez blushed, choked on his retort, then, seeing the almost maniacal look in the girl’s eye, decided it was best just to leave.
Ben Merchant approached, snorting a quick hit of cocainelaced BLISS from a designer thimble. ‘Well, darlin’, what do you think?’
‘Pimps and pawns. There’s no one here who could fill our bill. I need a real power broker, someone with some backbone, someone I don’t have to constantly manipulate like a marionette. Powerful and rich, Benjamin. Filthy rich.’
Merchant grinned. ‘I know just the man.’
The handsome jet-setter with the oily black ponytail took his time licking the olive from the redhead’s size 47-D cleavage, allowing his right hand to grope beneath the woman’s miniskirt.
At only twenty-three, Lucien Mabus, son of the late billionaire, Peter Mabus Jr. was already wealthier and more feared than his deceased father. He had more money than he could spend in three lifetimes and met more women than he could possibly bed… and now he was bored.
What Lucien Mabus yearned for was a challenge.
The adrenaline junkie’s eyes followed Ben Merchant as he approached from across the room. On the gun lobbyist’s arm was the most captivating woman he had ever laid eyes upon.
‘Lucien, dear boy, imagine running into you here.’
Lucien retracted his hand from beneath the redhead’s skirt. ‘Cut the bullshit, Merchant. My yacht’s been docked here all week. Introduce me to the lady.’
‘I’m sorry… Lucien Mabus, this is Lilith Aurelia. Lilith, Lucien Mabus, president and CEO of Mabus Tech Industries.’
Lucien extended his hand.
Lilith shook it, then inhaled its scent. ‘Be careful, your date’s ovulating.’
Lucien’s laugh carried across the crowded bar. Turning to the embarrassed redhead, he shoved a hundred-dollar bill in her cleavage, and yelled, ‘Go the hell away!’
The redhead stormed off.
Lucien flashed Lilith a coy smile. ‘I like you. Ever been aboard a yacht?’
‘No.’
‘Join me for a drink. Merchant won’t mind, will you?’
‘Not at all. Got a full day tomorrow anyway. Watch out for this guy, Lilith, he’s a handful.’
‘Mmm… I hope so.’
Oval Office, The White House 11:43 a.m.
John Zwawa, the forty-seventh president of the United States, has made sacrifices to attain the highest office in the land. Entering the political arena after years as a human rights activist and heavy metal rocker has forced him to shorten his once shoulder-length blond hair, which now runs mostly gray. The thinly shaven goatee is gone too, as are the sideburns. The only remaining physical evidence of the president’s years as a musician are his tattoos. On his right bicep is an image of a leaping lion holding two drumsticks, on his left-a large Polish falcon grasping a banner inscribed with his children’s names.
The president enters the Oval Office to find Lilith Mabus hovering next to Alyssa Popov, the new director of the United States Geological Survey-Earthquakes Hazard Program.
‘Lilith, so sorry about Lucien.’
‘Thank you, John. Lucien was young, but drugs had taken their toll on his heart long ago.’ She tilts her head, accepting the formal peck on the cheek from a man she has slept with more than a dozen times, on two occasions with her late husband.
‘And Ms. Popov. I hear you’ve been busy at Yellowstone Park.’
‘You could say that, sir.’
‘I gather you two ladies know each other?’
‘Intimately.’ Lilith winks, enjoying the president’s blush.
‘So? What’s this meeting about? Next year’s midterm elections?’
‘No, John, it’s about the end of the world and the survival of humanity.’
Zwawa’s grin remains frozen on his face. ‘Lilith, I don’t have time for these-’
‘Show him, Alyssa.’
‘Computer, play program Popov-One.’
Along the far wall, the holographic image of the bookcase and fireplace reverts to a large floor-to-ceiling smart-screen.