Virtually Real Page 12

  “Put pressure on them. It will not look good for them. Whether they agree or not, we are going to invade. Our populations will be so enraged that they will not oppose us. And make it clear that all followers of Y’shua are suspect and are to be captured and rounded up.”

  “But Antoni – that will release a full scale war with Israel and they have some of the world’s best weapons and military skills.”

  “You will defeat them this time. As their population has lost their trust in this Y’shua so has their morale been lost; and with true morale goes courage and determination. We will win! The gods, if there be gods, are on our side!

  “And one more thing – capture as many of their scientists and engineers as possible. We will need their skills so do not harm them. The rest you can do what you like with.”

  With that Antoni dismissed his officers and called in Aaron.

  “Aaron. I want you to prepare and arrange a wedding between Ming Si, Chou Yi’s daughter, and my nephew Hans. Do not action anything yet but get the plans ready. This wedding must take place at the right time. We are fortunate that they both have some fondness for each other, but that is not the issue. They are to do as Chou and I tell them for the sake of peace between our empires. The wedding is to have all the pomp and circumstance we can arrange. It is to be a public spectacle with news and press articles covering the event and gossip for weeks. But none of this is to be made public at present. We want to glorify our Nimrah religion and arrange hints of my future deification. Is that understood?”

  “Yes it is. But I have already been thinking that it is about time you were given a more, let us say, glorious title than your current one of President. I know that is useful for the people to feel that you are not beyond them, but perhaps as the head of Nimrah you could be called ‘Supreme Illuminator of Nimrah’. This will be a title conferred by me as the High Priest of Nimrah and will be because of the wisdom and insights into the nature of the source of our strength and self reliance that you have revealed and brought to the world – along with your wisdom in ruling secular affairs. The title will not be used for secular purposes but will be the start of the process that you desire.”

  “You’re ever the flatterer, Aaron. But I’ll take to heart what you have said. Prepare for the title to be conferred, but I must be seen to be completely taken by surprise by it, and humbly accept it only after much pleading by many leaders and dignitaries. It would not look good for me to take such titles for myself. They may think I’m becoming deluded!”

  “I will proceed as you say, your Excellency.”

  “Yes and arrange for that title to be used also for the secular issues I deal with. Again I do not wish to accumulate the titles which could distance me from being a father to the people. But if the people insist …”

  And so began the gradual self-aggrandisement of Antoni. The words he spoke to Aaron were almost prophetic as his sense of invincibility and of his divinely appointed right to rule increased. Like other leaders before him he was beginning to believe his own lies and call it right and positive thinking, and he was less and less able to receive any kind of correction or caution from the few people who may have been bold enough to speak truthfully to him. Loyalty was more important than truth, and many truth-tellers were regarded as disloyal!

  Having set his ‘spiritual’ affairs in order, Antoni addressed the issue of the invasion of Israel.

  Judah ben David hurriedly called a meeting with Jeremy and Isaac. He needed to get his own mind clear before involving his Cabinet.

  They began with prayer – particularly for wisdom – and after about twenty minutes a sense of peace pervaded the meeting.

  “Y’shua is with us,” began Jeremy, “but I sense that this nation will undergo much trouble and turmoil. We have been given much and much has been expected of us as a nation. We, on the whole have not honoured our part. This is not a harshness or vindictiveness of Y’shua, but because of the role we are to have in our final destination beyond this life it is necessary that cause and effect, choices and consequences be clearly understood. The degree of evil that we see is still less than the degree of blessing and good that’s given to those who keep faith.”

  “What are you trying to tell me?” Judah cut in.

  “This nation will be taken over by Antoni and we can’t stop it. But we can ensure that our people will be treated fairly if we surrender to him. We have stopped having Y’shua as our ruler so he is giving us over to Antoni. Antoni seduced us as a nation, we believed his lies because of the increased wealth it gave us and now he will be allowed to rule us.”

  “Spoken like a true prophet, Jeremy! You tell us things that are too hard for us to take in and I doubt that the nation will buy into it. So many of our people now have taken on the Nimrah beliefs of self-help, and embraced it more enthusiastically than Aaron himself. They will never quietly stand by and let their lives be taken over. They do not see that they have already sold themselves to the highest bidder and therefore belong to him. I believe you Jeremy, but I seem powerless to stop the tide.”

  Isaac spoke up, “ben David is right. His hold on power as Head of State is already uncertain since most of the Knesset has now converted to Nimrah. All that can be done is to spell out what we believe the alternatives are and the foreseeable consequences. As I see it we can resist Antoni and be over-run with much bloodshed, or we can yield him and trust Y’shua will keep him from oppressing the people too much. The choice must belong to the Knesset otherwise there will be no mandate on which the Government can act.”

  “So be it,” said Judah.

  Judah put the questions to the Knesset. There was silence at first then the shouted arguments.

  “You believers in Y’shua are all the same – no guts. We can do this ourselves, we have the skilled people, our military is the best in the world, our intelligence is able to know what Antoni plans before he knows it himself. We can beat whatever is thrown at us, we are an invincible people. I say we resist. Let us prepare our defence forces now and put the country on a war footing. Then Antoni will see that we are not an easy target.”

  The belligerent back-bencher who shouted these words would have ordinarily been ignored but now he summed up the majority feeling.

  A vote was called for and Judah was forced to accept that the nation now had to put itself on a war footing. And he knew his time as Prime Minister was coming to a close.

  It did not take long for the events to gain their own momentum. It seemed, in the realm of the v-people, that once an idea had been sown and accepted somewhere it started taking a life of its own. Some took longer to germinate than others but in due course it would develop into an influence on others and finally give rise to action. The more extensive the idea, the more far-reaching its consequences!

  Antoni’s henchmen had simultaneously organised a car bomb explosion in the EEMEC headquarters building at the same time as an ‘attempted’ explosion at the main Nimrah temple in the revitalised city of Babylon on the Euphrates River. His control of the press ensured that there was widespread public outcry and frenzy for revenge.

  Antoni capitalised on this exactly as he intended. He expressed deep regret to his colleagues who had been hurt or killed; he portrayed his own escape from injury as the blessing of knowing the Great Power behind Nimrah, and the blessing that Aaron had brought the people through his teaching and ministrations of the religion. He vowed to find the killers and perpetrators of this terrorism.

  “The people who have done this will be found, they will be tried fairly with our law and they will suffer the full consequences. We will show no mercy until security is again properly established. No group is presumed to be behind this outrage because we will not forfeit our reputation for true justice: but we will find out.” This was Antoni’s constant public message for the next few weeks.

  He also, however, got his propaganda experts to quietly pass round the rumours that it could only be the followers of Y’shua that would do such a thing. It was
well known that they were opposed to his ruler-ship of the EEMEC, and what’s more had a loathing of the Nimrah religion which had an entirely different premise from that of Y’shua. Y’shua followers proclaimed peace and love of one another they would say, but who knew what their real motives were? Thus doubt, suspicion and hatred toward Y’shua followers were engendered.

  At the same time his press agents were linking Y’shua followers to Israel.

  “If the followers of Y’shua are behind this evil act; then where are their greatest numbers, but in Israel? Israel is our friend and many of her people are followers of Nimrah. But if we find that the terrorists are hiding in that land, then nothing will stop us from finding them and taking them out.” These words, and variations of them, appeared in the all the public media but nowhere more vehemently than on the internet.

  It only took about eight weeks for Antoni’s agents to come up with sufficient ‘evidence’ to ‘prove’ that it had indeed been the work of the Y’shua-ites as he called them, and that Israel was indeed harbouring these rebels.

  Chapter 18

  A Time of Quiet

  The real world

  Eli was grieved that many of the v-people who trusted in Y’shua would have to experience the suffering that was coming. They would suffer by what they saw was happening in their world, they would suffer from rejection and ridicule, and they would suffer the hardships of deprivation. Some would be imprisoned, tortured and executed. These were the v-people he loved dearly and would in time be his companions.

  “I just don’t understand you Eli,” said an exasperated Anna. “You have put so much into this project, you have a great love and affinity for these v-people that have been created and yet you will allow them to suffer unspeakable things. I have seen this program operate and I have seen some of the things that have happened to the virtual women and children – and to men! I know they are in a computer-generated virtual world but the experience is real to them. Do you really know what you are doing?”

  “It grieves me too Anna, but it must be that way for now.”

  “But why?”

  “Why is not a question I usually answer – either for the v-people or for my colleagues. But I will touch on the process so that you may have some peace of mind.”

  “Go on.”

  “The whole of the v-world has a cause-effect thread running through it. That is the only way it could have been created and ‘as born so lives;’ as the saying goes. Now cause and effect not only runs through the space-time and energy components, it also permeates the relationship mathematics that governs the prime information codes of the project and the self-modifying character codes of the creatures and especially the v-people.

  “What has happened is that Lucas exerts an influence that will draw them deep into corrupting the character or personality codes that are at the core of their being, and I seek to influence them toward the behaviours that harmonise with all other parts of their world. Now each one is free to choose what, or who, they believe, and as they walk further down a path the consequences become more firmly embedded in them and there becomes less inclination to change or to believe that they can be changed.

  “But no matter how far astray they go, any desire to acknowledge the truth and to seek help from ‘El’ as they call me and our team, will result in changes happening. We have been over this before. Now the greater the test the greater and more rare is the honour. Those who love Y’shua at this time in the v-world will face hard testing of their trust in me, and those that persevere will attain a greater place in our world. For there will be a difference of reward for those that trust Y’shua. The half-hearted will have the reward of the half-hearted, and the zealous the full reward of their zeal. There is no unfairness.

  “I might also add that those who side with Lucas’ team will suffer accordingly – to the measure of their selfishness will be the measure of their suffering. But do not try to judge which is which. There are many who belong to me even although their behaviour is offensive; they are walking in the right direction as far as I am concerned and just have a longer way to catch up than others. And there are many that you may think are close by their good behaviour, but I can observe that they are actually going away from me. These things are not easily discerned, but, Anna, I want you to now look for this in some of the individuals.”

  “Thanks Eli, but do they have to suffer so much?”

  “Lucas and those that follow him in the v-world, have been given vast freedom of choice of action. Their actions often cause much pain and sorrow. I could restrict that choice and program the experiment accordingly but to do so would limit the depth, breadth and quality of character that I would like to have as my friends. When we are finished with the v-world, and it will come to an end, those that are transformed to our world will have a moral quality which I can respect. Those will be the ones I will relate to best.”

  “I bet Lucas is not worried about such issues.”

  “No! Lucas will not want equals. He only wants the power for himself, and the honour that goes with it. However we need not worry about that.”

  “What will become of Lucas?”

  Eli smiled.

  “I know the wicked way Lucas is manipulating the v-world and recently he has become more vehement in this. He is interfering more and more directly in the running of the lives of the v-people and driving many of them to do things that they would not normally even think of. I will increase security about my v-people and will ensure that greater inner resources are released to them to handle the problems that will be faced. I have already instructed Hagos in this and he has authority to be far more pro-active than in previous times. The forthcoming trials and disasters will not be prevented, they must take place, but I will ensure that they will be brought to an end before too much is lost.”

  “That helps Eli, but you did not answer my question.”

  “When you understand what happens in the v-world we have created you will understand the place of Lucas and the consequences he will reap. Enough of this!”

  Meanwhile Lucas was not having any philosophical debates – he was well past that and could only focus on his schemes. He saw victory in sight. He now had so much control of Antoni, and many of his followers in the v-world, that he would be able, within the constraints of the project, exercise much more direct manipulation of the v-world.

  He had always thought Eli a fool. He was a fool for a number of reasons but the chief one is that he had respect for the cause-effect rules that had been set up in the project and would not violate these. Lucas had no such inhibitions and it was for this reason he could be confident of out-witting Eli for the complete control of the v-world, and through that gain much more power and influence in the real world in which he was living.

  He called in Ramgee Chukka.

  “Ramgee, you are the expert on the Asian issues in the v-world so I want you to listen carefully.”

  “OK.”

  “Do not think that you can manipulate the actions and deceptive beliefs held by Chou Yi to the detriment of my own plans. I know you think you have the ability to do this and gain some control of the project for your self; but I also know that you quickly dismiss those thoughts which is why I can trust you. Co-operate with me and you will be well rewarded. Have I made myself clear?”

  “Yes Lucas. You have no need to be concerned on my account and you are quite right I have thought of the possibility of how to gain control of the v-world through Chou Yi. But I only did this to ensure that you could not be undermined by any of our colleagues. I have complete confidence in what you are doing and that you will pull this off.”

  “That is well. We now have much work to do in persuading our little v-friends to be more completely devoted to Nimrah and therefore to Antoni and Aaron and therefore to us. Go to it!”

  Chapter 19

  Invasion

  The virtual world

  Antoni had ‘proof’ that Israel was harbouring the terrorists that had exploded bombs
at the EEMEC headquarters and at the Nimrah High Temple. And he had ‘proof’ that the followers of Y’shua were against all that Nimrah stood for and against all the well-being that the EEMEC brought to the world and its people.

  Even more important to Antoni was that he had the anger of the people behind him. Indeed he showed himself quite willing to be reconciliatory to Israel but they rebuffed his overtures. This increased his standing and incensed the populace even more. Israel would be invaded!

  He would offer amnesty to those Israelis who followed the Nimrah religion and specifically renounce Y’shua and swore allegiance to him. He would also ruthlessly persecute Y’shua followers. But those that believed they could win against him by applying the principles of Nimrah he would treat as prisoners of war until ‘re-educated’ to understand that Nimrah and himself could not be separated as he was the light and revelation of its principles.

  Israel had its defence mechanisms in place in anticipation of an invasion. They had won the last war with clear ease, and they had developed their weapons since then. They knew that the surrounding nations hated them and yet were afraid – as if there was some power that was on Israel’s side. The military commanders spoke confidently that they were ready and the propagandists reinforced the special skill Israel had and that no other country, or group of countries, would be able to defeat them.

  Israel’s espionage agency, Mossad, still had the upper hand in knowing what Antoni was up to – at least what his top generals were planning. They knew that Antoni rarely shared his schemes widely, if at all, and he could have decisions made but not yet told to his staff. In any case they had to deal with real threats and not speculations.