2.66 Don't Believe Me

Nel had enjoyed much warmth and love from the Dogon tribe and was already feeling much better by the time Neter arrived back in Kergal. Like Zara, she had trembled in fear of Aquilla, she too thought she would perish in the tunnel, and just like Zara, nothing had prepared her for the shock of meeting the Dogons, of discovering Lemuria and the beauty around her.

         Neter sat down by the fire to devour a bowl of food, exhausted from the journey, watching her interact with the tribe. She seemed a lot less beat up than Zara, perhaps she would be able to reveal some more clues. He noticed she was rubbing her eyes in the morning sunlight, struggling to cope with the light.

         She seemed to feel his gaze and turned his way.

         "Panther?" He asked, in between mouthful's of food.

         Nel nodded, curious now of his persona, the twisted role he seemed to play in her mythology text books, she didn’t feel afraid of him like she thought she would. 

         "Me too" he offered up, hinting of his past life in the Atlan Empire. It explained perhaps why she had fared better than Zara. Panther life had been okay, perhaps Panther slaves had the best lives in Atlan. Bakkon wasn't a ruthless psychopath like Atalon, Panthers were sheltered somewhat from his cold hard world.

         Underworld trains? Vikkar was deeply troubled by the unbelievable and horrific briefing, not simply because the news was so troubling, but he had to entertain the possibility that Neter himself was suffering some sort of delusion.

         "Are you sure it was Fina?" He knew of the tunnels were vast, there were many islands still to discover still but the things Neter was describing seemed impossible, surely everyone would know about such infrastructure. On one hand, Neter’s story explained much of the unknown. It explained the damaged slaves that wandered into Kergal every now and then, like Zara. It explained the dogons, once and for all. But he never remembered Atalon being genocidal!

         Most troubling was that he knew his Nefilim crews were loyal, they were the ultimate underground connection to Atlan, they would never have kept those sorts of secrets from him. Would they?

         "It was Fina" Neter insisted. "I told you, don't believe me. Go and see for yourself, you don't even have to take the tunnel, you can go by boat!" He chugged back some wine. "Tell me about Torus."

         "I don't know where he came from, to be quite honest" Vikkar had wondered about Torus too but nothing had arisen to make him press for the truth. "He could be an immigrant for all I know. I just figured he was a younger, modern Gen type Origian" he confessed. "It's not the sort of thing that's discussed..." Vikkar couldn’t help but wonder about that now, if the things Neter was saying were true, would Torus really keep him out of the loop like that too? Torus wasn't in on the book heist loop... He obviously wasn't a key player. Yet Torus was god of the Underworld? Would the Firmary gods really keep such secrets from one another?

         It seemed impossible, yet something was obviously wrong, anyone could see there had been strange things going on, in fact, some of these strange things had been exploited...

         He shook his head as he realized there were in fact layers of convenient coincidences. Business had been booming since Orius left, all kinds of questionable un-sealed business of which no questions were being asked had been carried out. The pyramid construction was having staged bedrock issues... The unexplainable uranium orders being charged to gold accounts... Gold orders being re-directed to Ebar at the last minute...

         Book heists… He had never really stopped to wonder if these things were all related, until now.

         "What are you going to do?" It was almost a rhetorical question. Vikkar knew, there was likely nothing Neter or anyone could do.

         "I don't know yet" Neter replied, staring out across the water towards the smoking city in the distance. "But we have to do something, we can't just let that insanity go on."

         He finished his wine, stood up and walked over to the lookout, he could see the red and white tent tops from here... Movement in the harbor below caught his eye. Through the lower canopy of trees he could barely make out the Nefilim, loading gravel onto Vikkar's ship. They were obviously a good team, how could they not know? Would they really keep such secrets as the Underworld reality from Vikkar?

         Vikkar was starting to believe Neter was right about something nefarious going on, above and beyond his knowledge.

         "You know, I do think there is something strange going on over there right now and I've been kept out of the loop. That celebration drama, it's out of character, I was invited to the party but I didn't go because Atalon wouldn't let me bring Vida. It's very unlike him to let them have fun like that, especially now, given the war plans. The whole city basically shut down for his stupid barbeque!"

         "I wonder what they are barbecuing..." Neter had only heard scattered rumors about the Coming War. "Is he really waging an all out war on Aquilla again?"

         Vikkar filled him in on the latest plans to level the mountain, about the atomic bombs, that the Nefilim miners had been ordered to stay out of the mountain until it was over.

         It was horrific news, but hardly plausible. "Do they have a date?"

         "The eclipse."

         "Of course…" Neter studied the dark profile of Mount Ekar, gravely troubled by the new details, it was just as Mina predicted, worse. Perhaps they wouldn't level the mountain, but there was already a disaster happening over there. They wouldn't have much time to do something about it.