Ezekial's Train, Chapter Thirteen

“I'm sorry, Ezekial, but you do not have a choice.”

And the world falls away.

Break

The sun is rising as Daniel and Mordechai are floating over a city, or the coast of a city. It crests the horizon behind them as they look down on the docks and Daniel knows that it is on the Eastern coast of the U.S. Somehow he can sense that this is a changed Miami and that he and Mordechai are floating near the same spot where he rendezvoused with Elijah and Ester all those years ago. The city has changed, yes but as the buildings are taller he still recognizes that it looks like it did for a moment when he could see it across the centuries in any direction, flying over the ocean that night.

Mordechai speaks to Daniel but it is not through a box this time, it is in his head. “This is the wrong year. The Watchers are still not as skilled as the Host. Give us time.” The words echo in Daniel's head as if from deep within, not in the stiff crackling voice of the box Mordechai carries but in a scratchy, animistic one, the words barely coherent as English.

Break

The coastline is the same but the lighting is different and he can sense that it is late afternoon. The sky before was cloudless but now it is overcast and Daniel can see the condensation floating around him as if he and Mordechai sit on the outskirts of a cloud high above the rippling ocean waters. Below them, from directly underneath where they float freely, the beginnings of a long pier stretches toward the shore, still under construction. Even in the foundation pylons he can see there is a strangeness to this work. There is an inhuman aspect innate to the structure as if it were organic rather than architectural. Wispy metal framework extends toward and grows larger near the shore , laying across the water like the web of demented spider forming a long tunnel shaped by wind. It is the beginnings of an artwork perhaps, but on a massive scale.

“I have seen this.” As Daniel speaks he realizes that there is no sound but he senses that Mordechai hears him. They are here in spirit alone, or whatever may be closest to a spirit. This is a different kind of vision.

“When I was flying at the whim of the Angels, this was what I saw and the future besides the past, all at once. It was too much to take in then.”

“Eze--” Mordechai hesitates before going on, “Daniel. They were using you then as a tool to measure things you could not, cannot comprehend. Though I suspect you could more than others of your race.”

Daniel pauses and there is a soft surprise in his voice as he speaks to the shape of the bear. “And why is that?”

“You are more receptive to the parts of comprehension and . . . you would say science that your race cannot normally measure. More than any other man alive now or then, more than any they had found since your ancient times we think.”

Staring at the strange metalwork below Daniel finally embraces a realization that he has kept from the edges of his mind for more than a generation. “You mean, as you all call me Ezekial?”

“It seems, from what we have stolen of their records, yes. But that is over now.” Mordechai sighs. “There is more.”

Break

Again it is late afternoon but now they are close over a structure lit brightly with spotlights, the same structure they'd seen before, but complete. A long, sinuous tube, it snakes out from the shoreline and far into ocean, more sculpture than pier. Undulating curves and waves of thick aluminum sheet and polished steel seem to pulsate out from the shore, such is the fluidity of the structure spearing into the Atlantic.

“How?” Daniel sees the thing is man made, that much is sure, but the tensile strength required for some of the structure goes beyond any methods or technologies he knows and the effect of the insane structure is more shocking because of it. “And if building is possible, why at such expense?”

“Many things have changed in a very few years. Come.”

As Mordechai speaks Daniel feels a pull and they move down over the structure as the sun begins to set and the spotlights appear to glow brighter in a clean white light on the shining metal. Swooping down he can see that the structure is huge and hollow, filled with ornate latices and intricate supports that he can see are mostly ornamental. The interior is well lit and populated by many people, all finely dressed and aimlessly wandering the floors.

Hovering closer and looking in through the open slats of the exterior, through holes that Daniel hesitates to call windows, he realizes that this must be an opening ceremony. Some sort of gala opening for the pier, put on at great expense. He has been to enough building openings in his time as an architect in high demand in New York to know the look of the event even if the cut of the clothing is as different as the food served.

“The Host has been busy by this point, before you ask. They have guided individuals just enough to help this . . . artwork these humans are calling it be built. The Metatron. . . There is a new architect in this time but even he could not do this without what you provided at that pivotal time. He is not as aware as you were then and in all time, there is always more than one architect.”

For the first time Daniel begins to wonder, not at the motives of the alien beside him, but at the soul. Who is this creature that says he fights for humanity? “You were an architect, weren't you Mordechai?”

The bear looks at him with eyes that once again exude a sadness, even in this state. “Yes. All of The Watchers were.”

A silence stretches between them as the pair comes to rest on the floor of the structure and Mordechai guides them toward a crowded area near the farthest edge of the pier, farthest into the ocean. It suddenly occurs to Daniel, “But, will they see us?”

“We are not here. Time works differently for us. You humans are a simple race in many ways. It is too much to explain, but this is the future as it is now, as it will happen. This is a difficult thing to show you. Look.”

Pointing toward the focus of all the well clad party goers, his is not the only hand gesturing upward. Projected in high definition on the wall of the structure is an incredibly detailed set of blueprints, page after page worth and each dozens of feet across. They show the intricate pylons and framework of the pier and the artistry within.

Daniel's feet stop moving and he stares up at the diagrams, mouth agape. What he sees there is like nothing he can imagine, even with it right before his eyes. “But, this. . . This doe not make sense. This is not possible.”

Suddenly he is pulled back and into the air, sucked out of the wide open space at the end of the pier with Mordechai calling all the while, “Come! Quickly, I have misjudged.”

As they pull away from the pier's edge, whatever it is that Daniel occupies in this space, whatever body or spirit in this time, it can feel the vibrations of the structure and sense the distress of those within it. The shocked shouts and screams from the people inside drift up to him as they pull away and Daniel realizes that it is not the shaking of the pier or the structure at all he feels or senses, it is the shaking of the world.

Not an earthquake but the shaking of all matter around them. The dock, the metals, the concrete, the people inside, screaming and clutching their skulls, the hors d'œuvres and the spotlights, the ocean and all that's in it shake violently. The air and the time surrounding the area quiver and pulse and even through the muffle that their being in another time provides Daniel feels as if he is being pulled apart from inside.

Looking to the other figure beside him as they slow and come to rest high above the structure and hundreds of yards out to sea he sees that Mordechai's already ephemeral shape is quivering and flickering as it points down and yells for Daniel's attention once again.

Light begins to pour from within the pier and Daniel is not sure if it is his sight or some other sense that tells him that the interior has been sterilized of all that is not necessary for the support of the tunnel. All the people inside, all their accoutrements gone in an instant while the light pours from within. It is a white light that is uniform from land to ocean is whiter and clearer than any light he's ever seen and he begins to think again of what Mordechai said of sciences, senses, sheer parts of space and time that humans cannot comprehend. This must be one of those parts.

Then, with a sound that is more than a sound and less than a feeling, with a vibration that begins on an atomic level and boils outward, pulling the water apart around the pier at a molecular level and sending streams of plasma away and into the ocean, boiling the seawater as it goes, Daniel sees the tunnel is no longer empty.

The Puma Space Train has arrived.