Tag: Conspiracy

‘The Secret Gospel of Mark’: The Art of BS

I’m old and my mind is going. Too much drugs, too much useless information clouds my brain. Which is why a lot of common knowledge straight up misses me.

As you are aware, I’m a nerd for New Testament/Early Christian history. Am I a Christian or a religious person? Not really, but I don’t understand the question enough to give a definitive answer (remember, my mind is going). I simply obsess over 1st Century Christianity because, as Bart Ehrman asserts, it might just be the most important era in Western History (I disagree. I think it’s the second most).

Unfortunately, there’s just not enough concrete information to definitely say what happened during Jesus’s real life ministry. Of course, speculating is part of the fun, but it’s also a curse. Because there’s so many gaps in the timeline, this invites a multitude of con artists and conspiracy mongers to perpetuate fabricated stories.

Which brings me to the “Secret Gospel of Mark”.

The actual Gospel of Mark, the one we have in the New Testament, is quietly the most important text in Western thought. I say this because the Gospels are certainly more widely read than something like Plato’s Republic, and Mark is the Gospel that Matthew and Luke based much of their texts on (the other source they both used, the hypothetical Q source, I would argue the author of Mark was familiar with as there are too many similarities…which would make Q the most important text. But Q remains hypothetical). Mark is therefore the oldest surviving account of Jesus’s life (the oldest surviving Christian writings, however, are the seven verified Epistles of Paul, with 1st Thessalonians being the oldest).

Now, there are A LOT of questions for Mark. Too many to recount here. It is the barest of the four canonical Gospels with plenty of peculiarities.

But what if someone credentialed allegedly came across evidence to fill in these gaps?

Enter Morton Smith, a Ph.D from Hebrew University and Th.D from Harvard Divinity, and professor of ancient history at Columbia University. Pretty impressive right?

I was made aware of this story when reading Ehrman’s Lost Christianities. I’ve never heard it before and I was shocked at my ignorance. Now Ehrman is probably the leading academic in the field of Early Christianity, and even he doesn’t quite know what to make of this story.

Briefly, Smith claimed to have found a lost letter from Clement of Alexandria, an early Christian theologian, which describes a variant of the Gospel of Mark and even provides a couple of passages. And boy oh boy! What passages they were!

The problem is that, allegedly, this lost letter was transcribed in the 18th Century, and Smith couldn’t provide the copy because it was property of a monastery in Jerusalem. He DID, however, provide photographs of the letter and scholars have determined that these writings were indeed in the style of Clement and Mark (and the handwriting was also of 18th Century style).

Additionally, Ehrman recalls a story of hearing another academic claiming to have seen the letter himself, despite the library still refusing to permit research into it. So, it’s safe to say that this letter genuinely existed.

Whether or not it was written in the 18th Century is a different story.

You see, because if there was one person on this planet that could have forged that document…well enough to fool many academics…Morton Smith was that man. And, apparently, he had a motive to do so (see Ehrman’s Lost Christianities).

For the record, I think the letter is a total, unambiguous forgery. Too good to be true+motive+means=bullshit. But I gotta tip my hat to Smith.

Every bullshit artist knows that eventually they’ll get caught in the lie. But the trick is to leave a shred of doubt. And Morton Smith either made the discovery of the millennium, or the greatest forgery of all time.

😀 Hate mail! 👍

I never thought anyone would take my shit posting seriously enough to write out an entire comment longer than the initial post itself. But I forget, “the internet ruined everything”.

Btw, this comment was made on my “your damn right ignorance is bliss!” post.

I don’t know if this person was real or some bot trying to spread some article around (about COVID, a subject that I don’t recall discussing on this blog), but my response was “the post was a joke”.

But then I got to thinking: was I joking?

Sure, the intent was to post some stupid thought that crossed my mind. But the more I think about it: hell yeah an existence void of desire and knowledge of good and evil sounds pretty damn good!

Of course, that’s not how my hater saw it. He/she thought I was embracing “keeping the masses ignorant”, or “listening to establishment propaganda”, or blah blah blah.

I get it. I got lost down that road of political ideology too. I’ve spent all of 2021 trying to get over it. That’s why I created this blog for fuck’s sake.

But there is no truth in ideology. That’s why it’s ideology. We have to form these ideologies. You know why? Because the truth is too terrifying to handle.

That’s why I always thought that Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the shit in The Matrix, “the truth shall set you free”, etc. kinda miss the point. To get the gist of what I’m trying to say, Slavoj Zizek, whatever you think about him, once said about the shitty film The Joker (paraphrase): “it’s through the mask that we can be our true selves.”

Because there is nothing underneath the mask.

So you want the truth?

Here it is:

The “establishment”, however you want to define that, doesn’t give a shit about you. They don’t even give enough of a shit to form a conspiracy to fuck with you. They don’t think about you. They don’t fear you.

You are nothing.

You were born from standard biological processes and one day you will return to nothing. Most people you know do not think about you. When you die, only 3 or 4 people will truly mourn for you. After a few weeks, you will be forgotten.

This has been the story of billions of people throughout history. Statistically speaking, you will be totally, utterly forgotten.

Beyond this life lies nothing.

So in this life, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from doing the most heinous crime you can think of. Absolutely nothing. You can do it right now.

So what are you gonna do with that freedom?

You think there’s someone pulling the strings? Well guess what buddy, it’s worse than that: NO ONE’S pulling the strings.

The universe is just there. It’s infinite. YOU’RE NOT. You will never make sense of it.

I hope everyone reading laughs at this, because that’s the only sane response.

So now you can understand why I want to be “ignorant”. We should admire the Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Hindus, etc etc. Hell, I’ll even admire Conservatives, libs, leftists, rightists, libertarians, etc. At least they believe something.

There nothing wrong with sublimating our beliefs and desires into ideologies, but, taking from Sigmund Freud, the aim of this life should be to “sublimate well”.

Anyways, gotta go. Left my wallet at Hardee’s. Bye ✋

the joker sucks II: suck with a vengeance

Furthermore, I’m not some postmodern lunatic claiming that real truth doesn’t exist and therefore it’s pointless to speculate on the nature of it.

What I AM saying is that Immanuel Kant was RIGHT. And philosophers from his day onward have been pissed off because of it.

Kant claimed we can’t know things “in themselves”. Meaning we can’t perceive objects and nature in their true form. We can only perceive “phenomena”, or nature though the prism of the human mind. In other words, the human mind is VERY active in shaping our reality.

No one likes this.

And they don’t like it because they know it’s true.

To perceive objects and nature without the human mind would mean to transcend the human mind. OR, ceasing to become human altogether.

As it currently stands, that’s impossible and we run into many metaphysical holes when we try to speculate on that.

Now, that isn’t to say we are “cut off” from external reality. But we are hobbled by our own physical brains. The universe is seemingly infinite, but our brains are finite.

We are like a small hole in the bottom of a beach, where only one grain of sand can pass through at any one moment.

Lame example, I know. But that’s how it feels.

But my larger point is how the Internet affects all of this. Is our logical faculties, rooted in a material brain, designed to handle this shock load?

In our evolutionary development, we developed our facilities to handle immediate needs. Tools and complex communication emerged from this, leading to advanced society and advanced technologies that have seemingly advanced passed our understanding.

I often like to think that art is an unintended byproduct of this development. Literature, drama, paintings, etc. got spat out and reabsorbed back into the machinery. It became an integral part of our language.

Along came the internet and telecommunications where we are bombarded by intellectual work. Now we can’t help but see the archetypal dramatic progression written in the fabric of the universe.

In other words, the internet permits us to live in our own fantasy world….a fantasy that objectively doesn’t exist….it’s a prism on top of a prism.

Are we made to sit behind a computer?

And is it worth tearing the world down because of Jon Gruden’s emails?

These are the questions worth asking.

Ok, BYE ✋

the joker sucks

I wasn’t cut out for politics.

I’m easily persuaded because I know that my own understanding is limited and people should be open to new information as it becomes available.

That’s what sensible people SHOULD do.

But that’s heresy in the world of politics. And purity of ideals is currency.

I remember, what felt like a million years ago but was actually last year, when Joe Rogan said he’d vote for Bernie Sanders because he’s been “consistent”, or whatever. In many circles on Twitter, “consistency” became a buzz word and some took it up as a badge of virtue.

I always thought that was odd.

Maybe I’m crazy, but what if you’re consistently WRONG? How is consistency a virtue then?

I dunno. I’ve spent the last month not paying attention to the news and honestly…it paid off. I don’t miss it.

Or I didn’t miss it.

Unfortunately, like a bad habit, I got sucked back in. And after not looking at the news, or Twitter, or any of that bullshit for a month, the world just looks stupid.

Post 9/11, when the 24/7 news became the hottest show in town, politics slowly began to take the stage as the #1 form of entertainment. That’s pathetic.

This is why your conspiracy theories are absolute trash: because politics is our entertainment, we see the world as an ongoing…totally coherent, totally plotted…drama. There are heroes, and there are villains. The left hand always knows what the right hand is doing….and they’re both plotting against you and people like you. You’re the hero, fighting the good fight on social media. And it’s all a wet fantasy.

Politics is business and business is a boomin.

And when business is boomin, out comes the con artists and cult leaders. Any dickhead with a camera, microphone, and smartphone wants in. And when their lies are exposed, they have to double down.

Is the mass media lying to you? Yes. That’s just business my friend.

Is your paranoid uncle or anarchist roommate on Twitter and Facebook lying to you? You bet. And they’re in it for the love of the game.

If you’re a person with any, and I mean ANY sort of political convictions, you are broadcasting to the world that you are someone that can’t be trusted.

How do I know that?

Your mind is objectively finite and the world doesn’t conform to your narrow parameters. But you will deliberately bend or distort the truth to claim it does.

You’re a terrible person.

What I do find interesting though are the psychological effects of unprecedented technological advancement. That’s the real question no one wants to ask because the answer might mean we’d have to log off for a few days.

I’m just always astounded when people can claim with absolute certainty that they know the truth of the universe. God exists, God doesn’t exist. Capitalism good, capitalism bad. That sort of shit. How can people still hold certainty of correctness during the era of the Internet?

Obviously, not everything on the Internet is true. You have to be adult enough to use your fucking head when you see bullshit. But claiming ignorance of opposing views and facts is getting tiresome.

You have the most important tool ever created by man at your fingertips. So use it wisely, jackass.

Delete all your social media accounts.

Be happy and embrace the fact that you live in a non-homogeneous world. Be open to the challenge and don’t claim CONSPIRACY! when confronted with something you don’t understand or contradicts your narrow view.

I’m right. You’re wrong. I’m better than you.

And my dick is small

“dr. sí” part vii

We stole guns off some guards that Angelika brutally murdered and ran down the corridor.

“The time weapon is is being held three floors above us,” Angelika said.

We began to feel tremors all around us. I asked Angelika the last time this volcano erupted.

“About 25,000 years ago,” she said.

“Then this thing could go off at any moment. We better hurry.”

We went down the corridors and up the stairs in an attack formation. Angelika and I covered the front. Mr. Ree and Oppenheimer covered the rear.

When we reached the room holding the time weapon, the Kill Squad…along with Izzy….was there. They altered course and stormed into the volcano earlier in a bloody, devastating firefight. Not many survived.

“Thank goodness you’re alive,” the Admiral said. “And you found J. Robert Oppenheimer. Excellent work. Lt. Captain, please dispose of the scientist.”

Lt. Captain cocked his pistol and raised it up to Oppenheimer’s head.

I raised my rifle to Lt. Captain.

“Pull that trigger and you’re dead,” I told him.

“But Colonel James,” the Admiral said, “this time travel stuff is against the laws of God. We must destroy all of the evidence.”

“No,” I said. “Oppenheimer has as much right to exist as the rest of us.”

Dr. Sí then rushed in with his guards. “Well well,” he said. “Glad you’re all here.”

We were surrounded. We dropped our weapons.

Dr. Sí walked up to the Admiral. “I’m happy to see you’re doing well Admiral,” he said.

“This ends today doctor,” the Admiral replied.

“I think not,” he replied.

Dr. Sí walked over to a control panel. In a corner across the room, the floor moved, revealing a lava pit.

“I’m sorry Admiral,” the doctor said. “But you can’t go where we’re going.”

The guards grabbed the Admiral and pushed him towards the pit. “You’ll never get away with this,” he yelled.

“Of course I will. I control time! Think about the possibilities Admiral! We could have taken over the world. You never understood that.”

“Izzy, don’t let them do this,” the Admiral screamed. She walked over to him and the guards.

“You’re one abusive son of a bitch,” she said. Izzy then roundhouse kicked him into the fiery pit. When the screams stopped and the flames died down, Izzy turned around.

“Can I go home now,” she asked. “I didn’t want to be here anyway.”

“I’m sorry madam,” Dr. Sí replied. “I cannot let anyone leave here alive.”

“So what happens now? This volcano will erupt at any moment,” I asked.

“Exactly Colonel. In a few moments, I will time travel out of here and this volcano will erupt, destroying the evidence.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Angelika said. Dr. Sí walked up to her, grabbed her hair and put his lips on her.

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out between us,” he said. “I gotta go.”

He went back to the panel and a countdown started. A laser dropped down from the ceiling which would release a plasma field around its target, triggering a spacetime ripple that would permit time travel.

“Before I forget,” Dr. Sí said to me, “here’s the $1 million I owe you. Where I’m going, this money is no good.”

He threw a metal briefcase as my feet.

“Alright,” the doctor said, “let’s get this bullshit over with.”

The laser then fired out a beam, creating the field around Sí. While the guards were mesmerized by the sight, Oppenheimer ran into the field, pushing the doctor out.

There was a bright flash of light, then Oppenheimer was gone…lost somewhere in time.

“You fool!” Dr. Sí yelled.

Out of the confusion, Angelika attacked the guards and took a gun. She began spraying bullets across the room. I picked up the briefcase and ran for cover.

I grabbed a rifle from a dead guard and began shielding Izzy. Mr. Ree then engaged in the firefight.

When all the guards were dead, Angelika threw down her semi-automatic and grabbed Dr. Sí. He tried to put up a fight.

“Angelika!” he screamed. “This volcano will go off any second. We don’t have time for this!”

“Time’s up bitch!” she said. Then she threw him into the lava pit. A large flame shot up in the air.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ree was monitoring communications between guards over the radio. “Reinforcements will be here in a minute,” he said.

I handed the briefcase to Izzy. “Make sure Miriam gets this,” I told her.

We shared one last look. “Mr. Ree and I will give you cover while you escape,” I said. “Angelika, go with her.”

“But I didn’t get the weapon,” Angelika responded.

“Let it go,” I said. “You can save humanity without it.”

I reached out my hand to hers and we looked deep into each other’s eyes. “Goodbye Angelika.”

She gave a pause. “Goodbye James,” she said.

Izzy and Angelika, along with a few surviving members of the Kill Squad, ran back down the corridor. The tremors were beginning to pick up.

Mr. Ree and I stood behind the control panel, waiting for reinforcements to arrive. “Ready to go where no man’s gone before,” I asked him.

He put a cigar in his mouth. “You’re reading my mind.”

As guards were pouring into the room, Mr. Ree provided cover while I fiddled with the controls. The laser pointed in our direction and released a beam. The field surrounded us.

Where…or when…we were going, only God knew.

Then there was a brilliant flash of light….

*********

Izzy, Angelika, and the Kill Squad made it out of the volcano just as it erupted. As they watched the explosion from a safe distance, Izzy turned to Angelika.

“Do you think they’re dead?”

Angelika looked to the ash cloud hovering over the jungle. She thought for a moment.

“No,” she replied. “They’re out there…somewhere in time….”

THE END

“dr. sí” part vi

“This is science gone haywire,” J. Robert Oppenheimer said. “I should have never agreed to help Dr. Sí.”

“Don’t beat yourself up,” I said to him. “We’ll get you out of here and back to your own time.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” he replied.

“Sure it does. It’s science! Anything is possible.”

“We can’t just go ‘back in time’. Doing so would violate all sorts of Newton’s laws. When the quantum field is generated, the individual is transported to an alternate timeline. The laws of physics remain the same and the outcomes in these timelines might be similar to our own, but it’s not the same timeline. Am I making sense?”

“Nope,” I replied. “But we’ll get you as close to your timeline as humanly possible.”

“Forget it,” Oppenheimer replied. “Our best option is to disarm the weapon to prevent this from happening again.”

“How do we do that?”

“There’s a special property in the element of gold that penetrates through space and time. If the gold is removed from the nano chambers, the weapon would be powerless.”

“Sounds like a plan Bob.” I looked over to Mr. Ree. “Do you think the Kill Squad will alter course and find us?”

“I doubt it,” Mr. Ree said. “I don’t even know where we’re at.”

“We’re at the bottom of a dormant volcano,” Oppenheimer said. “They’ll never find us.”

“Shit,” I said. “Then we have to take matters into our own hands. We just need an opportunity.”

Angelika then peered through the opening of our cell door. “James,” she said, “just hold tight, I’m gonna get you out of here.”

“Angelika,” I replied, “I thought you were with Dr. Sí.”

She then reached her hand through the opening to touch my own. “Dr. Sí is no friend of the Ionian Liberation Front. He’s no friend of peace and justice. I don’t want this technology to fall into the wrong hands.”

“Get us out of here and we’ll destroy it,” I said.

“No! Think about it James. With this weapon, we can right all the wrongs. We can undo our violent past and create a better future.”

“I don’t know Angelika.”

“Please, I’ll get you out of here. But let me have the weapon.”

I thought for a second and agreed to her terms. Then she grasped my hand tightly.

“What’s your wife’s name?” she asked.

“Miriam”

“She’s a lucky woman. Perhaps in another time….”

She let go of my hand and closed the opening. I heard some rustling outside, then a few gunshots. After a few moments, the cell door blasted open.

Angelika walked across the rubble wearing a skintight leather suit and holding a Heckler & Koch M27.

“Alright boys,” she said. “Let’s blow the top off this volcano.”

“dr. sí” part v

“Well shits assholes,” I said to Dr. Sí. “We’ve been looking for you. I guess the search is over! Can I go now?”

“Not so fast,” he responded. “I need to know where your Kill Squad is going.”

“First I want to know what happened to Angelika,” I demanded.

“Fair enough,” he said. Then Dr. Sí turned to the corner of the laboratory. “Angelika, come join us.”

Angelika stepped out, all dolled up with her red hair flowing down to her shoulders. “Sorry James,” she said. “You’re not my type because Dr. Sí is my type.”

The two kissed passionately in front of me.

“I do want to thank you, Colonel James, for returning her to me,” Dr. Sí said.

“Hey, not a problem,” I replied. “Can you return the favor by removing this explosive collar from around my neck? Once when they realize Angelika’s missing, this thing will blow my head off.”

“First, where is the Kill Squad going?”

“They’re probably coming here!”

“We are certainly not at where they are going.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

The doctor turned around and looked at a computerized map of the Hawaiian islands. “I am a man of science, colonel. In order for my experiments to work, I need EXACT measurements. I cannot afford unpredictability. So again…where is the Kill Squad going?”

I was running out of time. The collar was going to detonate at any moment. Then I remembered…

“$2 million,” I said.

“$2 million?”

“Yes, $2 million and I give up the coordinates of the Kill Squad plus any other state secrets you want in order to sweeten the deal,“ I replied.

I was bluffing about the state secrets part. I didn’t know shit.

“$1 million,” Dr. Sí responded.

“Deal. The coordinates are 113.998N 737.746W. Now get this collar off of me!”

Dr. Sí laughed and ordered the guards to remove the collar. “Thank you for your cooperation colonel,” he said. “But as an insurance policy, I’ll place this collar on one of your acquaintances.”

The guards rolled in Mr. Ree, strapped to an upright gurney.

“They kidnapped me too,” Mr. Ree said. “Can you believe that bullshit?”

“Ohh come on,” I said. “Don’t kill Mr. Ree! He’s cool! Besides, that thing will detonate before the squad reaches its destination!”

“That’s just a chance I’m willing to take,” Dr. Sí replied.

“Look, I don’t give a damn about Admiral Majors or the Kill Squad. But there’s a woman that’s traveling with them: Izzy. Please don’t kill her,” I pleaded.

“Colonel, relax,” he said. “I’m not looking to kill anyone, except for Mr. Ree over there. I just want to see that thing go off.”

“I don’t understand.”

Dr. Sí put his arm around my shoulders and started walking me around the laboratory. “I understand your confusion. You see, has anyone told you the truth about that missing nuclear scientist?”

“To be honest doctor, for this entire mission, I’ve kinda been asleep at the wheel. I don’t even know that scientists’ name.”

“Ah, let me show you.”

Dr. Sí opened a door and out walked an old man in a lab coat. I think I was supposed to be impressed by this.

“I don’t know who this is,” I said.

“That’s J. Robert Oppenheimer.”

“Who?”

“J. Robert Op…the father of the atomic bomb?! What are you? Some kind of fucking moron?”

“You cloned him?”

“No asshole! I brought him from the past into the future! Don’t you get it yet? I invented time travel!!”

I walked up to Oppenheimer and looked him up and down. “Welcome to the future,” I told him. “We killed Hitler.”

“I know that, dumbass,” he replied. “We should have dropped the bomb on him!”

I looked back over to Dr. Sí. “So what? You invented time travel. Big whoop. How can you use that against the Kill Squad?”

“That’s why I brought my friend Oppenheimer to the present. You see, we created a new kind of weapon: a time weapon.”

“That sounds pretty fucking stupid, Dr. Sí,” I said. “How can you weaponize time?”

“Well you see, if you can triangulate the space time continuum, the quantum field fluctuations will…”

“Okay, sorry I asked,” I interrupted. “That science shit is boring. Cut to the chase. What’s gonna happen to the Kill Squad?”

“I will fire a plasma energy weapon at their coordinates. When the weapon reaches them, it will generate a quantum field around them and they will be transported to a different time and place.”

“My god,” I said. “A non-destructive weapon. You’re a genius Dr. Sí.”

“So you’re not a complete fucking idiot after all,” he replied. “It is far more humane than the nuclear weapons of the last 80 years. Imagine: no more nuclear fallout, no more mass death…we simply transport our enemies to a different time, different place.”

I looked around the laboratory…at all the scientists running around, to Oppenheimer, to Angelika, and then over to Mr. Ree.

“I cannot deny your genius, Dr. Si,” I said. “But it appears that the only one in danger here is Mr. Ree. If you’re really are humane, you’d remove that collar.”

Dr. Sí nodded. “I suppose you’re right, Colonel.” He looked to the guards. “Remove the collar.”

The guards walked over to the gurney and removed the collar. As they were about to dispose of it, it detonated, killing and maiming several of them.

Out of the confusion, Oppenheimer attacked one of the guards, grabbing his machine gun.

“Put down the gun Oppenheimer,” Dr. Sí said.

“No,” he replied. “You’ve been holding me hostage here. I’m not your puppet!”

“But Bob,” Dr. Sí pleaded. “We’ve been building something special here. Don’t you want to finish our work?”

“No! No more weapons!”

More guards rushed into the room, forcing Oppenheimer to drop his gun.

“Sorry Bob,” Dr. Sí said. “It appears your time is up.”

Mr. Ree was released from the gurney. The two of us were ordered to raise our hands and were rounded up with Oppenheimer.

“Lock these these scum up,” Dr. Sí ordered.

TO BE CONTINUED

“dr. sí” part iv

The Kill Squad met us at Honolulu Airport. While we were unloading in the hangar, Sgt. Private, Lt. Corporal, and Cpt. Sargent gawked at Angelika.

“I’d like to stick my penis into her vagina, if you know what I mean 😉,” said Sgt. Private.

I bashed him in the face with the butt of my rifle. “Watch your mouth. Ms. Antolonolupolopolos is under our protection. She is our guest and you will treat her as such.”

“Enough,” the Admiral said. He walked over to Sgt. Private, pulled out a 9mm, and shot him in the head.

“Jesus Christ,” I yelled.

“I will not tolerate insubordination in this unit,” the Admiral said. “Lt. Corporal, Cpt. Sargent…get rid of the body.”

I walked over to Mr. Ree. “Does the Admiral usually shoot people for insubordination,” I asked.

“Oh yeah! All the time. Don’t worry about it.”

Afterwards, the entire squad, plus Angelika and Izzy, was airlifted by helicopter to a remote location in the jungle…on the other side of Diamond Head. We set up headquarters in a small hut where we planned our excursion.

The Admiral laid out a map on the table. “Dr. Sí and the scientist were last seen at this location,” he said while pointing to a spot on the map. “I believe they’re now here,” he continued while pointing at a different spot. “Do you agree, Colonel?”

“Sure,” I replied. “Why not?”

“Good. We will head out at 0600 tomorrow morning. Load up on extra ammo,” he said to the group. “We’re bound to run into some resistance.”

The squad retreated to their huts around the camp. I ran into Izzy on my way out.

“The Admiral is a great guy, isn’t he,” she asked.

“He’s a crazy asshole. I’ll say that much.”

I noticed that she had a black eye. “You know Izzy,” I said. “If you ever need to talk about anything, you can come to me.”

“Oh, this black eye,” she asked. “This is nothing. We get a little carried away in the bedroom.”

“Well be careful,” I replied. “No choking stuff. I learned that one the hard way.”

Meanwhile, Cpt. Sargent was harassing Angelika in her hut. An explosive collar was placed around her neck in the event she tried to flee or attacked someone in the group.

“If you don’t leave Angelika alone,” I said to Cpt. Sargent, “I’m gonna place that collar around YOUR neck.”

He glared at me as he left her hut.

“I don’t need your protection James. I can take care of myself,” she said.

“I think you do. Any one of us can detonate that collar if you put up a fight. Some men here might take advantage of that.”

I took a seat while she sat up on her cot. I decided to take the first watch.

“The Admiral is gonna get you killed,” she said.

“Probably. But he’s paying me well. That money will help my wife and Amish community.”

“You have a wife? And you’re Amish?”

“You sound disappointed.”

“You’re not my type.”

“Is it because I’m Amish?”

“Just don’t get yourself killed on my behalf.”

We bantered for awhile. She fell asleep and unfortunately I did too.

Later that night, men snuck into the camp. They hooded, muzzled, and kidnapped Angelika and me. When the hood was lifted from my head, I was in a laboratory.

Angelika was nowhere to be found.

They placed me on my knees, hands bound behind me. Even worse, the explosive collar was now around my neck.

A man in a white lab coat walked in front me and lowered himself to my face.

“Hello James,” he said. “I’m Dr. Sí.”

TO BE CONTINUED