Dome War

What he saw was something truly diabolical. Symbols, cults, governments and even more symbols. The video took him to the white house, zoomed into a board meeting through the window and slid under a stack of classified documents sitting in front of a senator to review the title ‘Hail the Hollow Earth’. It then fast forwarded to the pentagon, pyramids, Victoria Falls, Taj Mahal and the statue of Liberty and it toggled through X-ray vision on each site showing an explosive allegedly rigged inside since each discovery/construction. Then Black people appeared, beaten and bruised black people multiplying each frame before a negative filter was added and all their eyes glowed red. Then a very deep masculine voice loomed over vaguely explaining the ‘Hollow Earth’s’ ties with the Bermuda Triangle, the Holocaust, Swine Flu and the Nazis. Simultaneously a slide show of Nazis deploying the scorched Earth policy on Jews, Africans dead or drowning in their own blood during the scramble for Africa, every UFO sighting ever, the illuminati (a little inevitable in every detailed excavation of secret society history ever) and the scariest one yet, Harrison Enterprises in the centre as all clips collected to form a mosaic wall collage, during which Chuck also noticed the seven plagues of Egypt, weeping African women and children being beaten and stripped of their clothing in front of their families while on shackles at the precipice of the slave trade with their men escaping from boats and drowning to escape the hell at the hands of the Caucasians, the unjustified and unproven female persecution of the Salem witch trials, a more recent clip of a young Asian girl at the mercy of her abusive male employers raping and beating her to death for freeing birds while laughing and having a ball and lastly and titled ‘least’ was a man of colour being given the dignity of asphyxiation under a White policeman’s foot in a brutal and equally necessary act of cleansing. ‘The second coming is hear,’ the voice continued, ’Surface Earth, enjoy your retribution!’ Interrupting his new piece of mind were brisk footsteps approaching but he didn’t flinch. Rotating his office chair to face the incoming bogeys, he watched two well-built officers bang at the door. ‘You cannot be here!’ complained yours truly, the best and probably pro bono assistant, Susan! ‘Relax Ms, I’ll take it from here’, said Mr Harrison while giving the most explicit body language translation of, ’I don’t give raises to people for not having a life outside the office!’ Having practically scanned these beefy civil servants in a second, he was surprised to not have noticed two familiar tattoos on both of their necks earlier. He gasped as he realised he had seen the symbols defining their ‘Hollow Earth’ allegiances in the snuff film faster than they could pull their guns out and point them at him!

Mano a mano they say, that is when you are in Spain where you do what the Spanish do. When you are in a slightly claustrophobic cutting edge technological laboratory point blank situation you do what captives do. Say, ‘I don’t want any trouble. Take what you want’, and wish you had not sent away the only person probably versatile enough to adapt from getting their boss a double macchiato to handling a hostage situation. Chuck submitted instead of adopting the cliché movie protagonist’s composure in the face of being at the business ends of two six-shooters. Talking into their walky-talkies, one of them said, ‘We have found the breach, apprehending him now.’ There was a tiny pause. ’Copy. For crimes against Hollow Earth, threatening to expose our underground presence and unauthorised possession and tampering of Project ‘Second Coming’ data, you are coming with…’ ‘Stop you idiot this could be the real one!’ his partner interrupted. Even before his rude interjection could give Chuck some much needed exposition, a window shattered behind them and not a wink after a small canister landed on the floor in front of them, dissipating some kind of smoke. The goons started shooting at the unclear figure that was now doing the most exquisite gymnastic manoeuvres to dodge the gunfire and to successfully throw a crescent knife deep into a shoulder. He threw a gasmask at Chuck, which he immediately put on but dropped the all so precious flash drive while he was at it. The other henchman, now clearly being affected by the assassin’s caustic smoke screen, grabbed the device and fired a few shots while backing away with his wounded partner through the door, closing it behind them. The masked figure that Chuck now had the confidence and admiration to call his hero grabbed and tugged at the door handle that would not budge for obvious security reasons, turned around and barked, ‘Card. Now!’ while extending a gloved hand. Chuck, recognising the voice as his own when deepened, could not be in any more awe of his other worldly counterpart as he traced his body in search of the card. Having lost patience, the masked person ran to the centre of the room and grabbed a centrifuge to throw at the glass door. It shattered and through it leapt a very disappointed ninja at the sight of his escaped targets and in his fury, went back to the science lab to punch Chuck unconscious.