99 Palms: Horn OK Please (4 page)

“Stuff your funny bone, Chief. Pay attention. We are not talking about a disorganized bunch of evolved minds here, it is far beyond what I can even fathom. I’m just telling you what I know. Maybe, they are trying to make contact with you despite of your low IQ. Now that is a possibility too. They speak from their minds, they may probably find telepathy the best way to deal with you for they may sense my levels of exasperation when I try to explain things to you people”, she said plainly.

“You mean we’re communicating with the Nine Unknown?” quizzed Hound in disbelief.

“I would suppose so. Take it from me, Hound, they exist. You must believe me”, said Natalie, looking at Hound straight in the eye.

It wasn’t easy to digest this. I looked at her cigarette to see what she was smoking.

***

CHAPTER FOUR

***

Roses are red and violets are blue,

We want loads of money, we want a life with everything anew;

We’ve heard of a legend, a Lost city of Gold,

Some say it’s paradise, it’s very old;

We got ready to roll, sense & sensibilities unheeding,

Who cares? We’re always broke, my bank account’s bleeding;

If we get to the Lost City, we’ll plunder with all our might,

We need unlimited wealth, health & onto that we set our sight;

A land of untold riches, a place of unlimited gold,

A place not for the commons, a place to tread for the bold;

We shall go there, take from them, we don’t call it ‘stealing’,

It’s ‘borrowing’, to spend the rest of our lives just chilling;

They say Shambala is the place of alternative reality,

It’s a world of precious stones, untold riches, it’s a lost city;

They say the place is the fountain of knowledge & health,

Of untold riches, secret books, a place of good health;

It’s guarded by the Nine Unknown, a legendary society,

Born of the years, a secret well kept, well, what a pity;

But if smiles and Imagination make you say ‘Cheese’

Drive on, for that’s the philosophy of Horn OK Please…

***

The Dream & Nine Unknown:

There was an eerie silence in the room as we tried to fathom this barrage of intelligence from the beauty.

Taking a sip from her cup, Natalie seemed lost when she said, “It could be that the notion of an International Secret society comprised of beings of evolved thought and highest intelligence, spiritually transformed by the sheer passion in pursuit of knowledge that has catapulted them from a zone of classical Physics to a deep level of meta-physics would render them useless in this world of plain, vanilla levels of thought. They would hold secrets. Real dark secrets to be withheld from lowly beings like us today.”

The lady was as imaginative as her name. The four pairs of blank stares brought her back to terra firma. Natalie said, “They would unleash certain inventions and discoveries to the world at large via someone of high intelligence for the betterment of mankind only. Legend has it that there was such a society that was called forth in 269 BC. This is the secret society of the ‘Nine Unknown’ men who were spawned off by Emperor Ashoka after the bloody Kalinga war.”

“That’s so cool! A real Secret Society? Now that’s what that madman of a fakir would have meant. Driven to his flashpoint of craziness , his highness meant just that”, said Hound proudly for having been able to find the most obvious correlation.

“Whatever. Legend has it that post the Kalinga war, the horrors of the aftermath which led to the transformation of Emperor Ashoka when he embraced Buddhism led him to renounce the idea of unifying rebellious people by force”, replied Natalie plainly.

The whole thing was starting to make sense now. Natalie was really trying hard to come down to our level of intelligence and explain it to us. She seemed to be succeeding. Making sure we were with her in her analysis, she said, “Now that I know you are with me, here’s the big one. It is said that Emperor Ashoka in his cruel avatar was privy to much knowledge around various subjects. His scientists invented missiles, rockets, biological weapons, aircrafts and spaceships for him that he used for massive destruction and annihilation. In order to prevent this knowledge from falling into wrong hands again, he founded the most powerful secret society on earth; that of the ‘Nine Unknown’ men. This group was vowed to secrecy. From what little I know of it today, for the next two thousand years, all researches and scientific tests were to be hidden behind a veil of secrecy and myth. The power of this knowledge was immense. The knowledge of science of these nine men in various fields was deep.”

“Hey! You’ve got a point, Miss Natalie. That’s exactly what that Nitwit of a guide seemed to allude to, yesterday”, quipped Goose, trying to ensure he had Natalie’s attention.

As a teacher would look at an over-excited student, she stared Goose down as she spoke, “Yes, It is said that the makers of modern India, the science and space programs, medicine and all sciences are being shaped by these Nine Unknown Men. Earth representatives of the Nine Uknown receive messages and advise from them to bring about inventions and discoveries at the right time to protect the world. How do you think Agni-V and beyond were even conceptualized? These secrets have been hidden for over two thousand years and naturally, these minds would have further evolved beyond death.”

There was a brief silence in the room as Natalie let all this wisdom pass through the four thick skulls that sat nodding at her in disbelief.

Shamballa, the Lost City of Gold and the broken piece of Clay tablet:

“OK, Miss, so far I suppose you do make sense about the linkages between the recurring dream, the secret society of Emperor Ashoka’s Nine unknown men and the fakir. It sounds perfectly logical. But how do you explain the broken piece of clay tablet that Hound found? Is there any correlation at all?” I asked her for I hoped she would address that quickly.

Still playing with the broken piece, she replied, “Now this is a tough one. I’m sure there is, but I’ve told you all that I know except one thing. Per the ancient scripts of Buddhism, there is a place, a higher ground or place where people of higher life and evolved thought are gaining knowledge, bettering their sciences. Give it whatever you would per any ancient scriptures – Atlantis, El Dorado or anything. In Tibetan mythology, this place is called
Shambala”
, said Natalie as she narrowed her brows and leaned on her desk, “They say those scientists worked towards saving the world from the impending disasters of December 21
st
, 2012 when they imparted secret knowledge to some ordinary people to save the world and they did.”

Little did the scientists know that it was we who saved the world. So this was not a yarn, it was the real deal. She may not know how we saved the world on the 21
st
of December, 2012 in
‘Horn OK Please – The Scrotum Scrolls’
, neither did we know, but probably it may have been that we had been mysteriously helped by the
Nine Unknown Men
.

“It is said that this land could be anywhere, it is not just a physical piece of land. It’s much more than that. It’s not just a lost city of gold, it’s a lost world!” Natalie continued to speak as she got up from her chair and started walking towards the window at the far end of the library. It was probably the only portion of the room open to the world outside and it overlooked the seaside.

She struggled with the bolts, pushing the doors of the small window to let the breeze in. The fresh sea air wafted into the room. It was close to sunset now.

Taking the broken piece of clay tablet from Hound’s hand, she stared at it for a while. Leaning against the window, she said, “There is a security system to Shambala, not anybody can get there. According to Buddhist belief, this is the place where the Nine Unknown Men conduct their research for the benefit of mankind and keep it a secret from everybody. I examined this clay tablet and I have a theory.”

Toying with the piece of the broken clay tablet, she said, “Something is written on this in the Brahmi script, reminiscent of Emperor Ashoka’s era. In your dream, you kept mentioning about the broken clay tablet. This could be a piece from Emperor Ashoka’s clay tablet that you see attached to his chest armor! Of course, it is a long shot on how this piece could have survived for so long. But, hey, whenever archeologist dig out stuff from the earth around lost civilizations, don’t they dig out broken clay pots? Who knows? But this is just my guess….I could be completely wrong about this one though.”

Hound proudly pointed at his prized possession and spoke with glee, “See? Maybe, this would be very useful for us after all. You idiots should thank me for picking this up from Kalinga!”

“Yes, Hound. If this hypothesis is true, it is going to be your clue in finding what you may be looking for to rid yourselves of this dream. Who knows? Someday, this very piece of broken clay tablet could save your lives?” said Natalie smiling. She was beautiful and she was a nice person, I liked her, we all did. I’d love to ask her out tonight.

What the hell is 99 Palms?

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Natalie  slumped to the ground as we sprang from our beanbags. I looked out of the window and saw no one. I could only see the sea. Whoever shot Dr. Natalie  in the back was a coward of the lowest order and was definitely trying his best to prevent us from discovering more.

Derek held her in his arms as spurts of blood gurgled out of her mouth. Goose rushed out to find help while I was on the phone trying to dial 100, call the cops. Bitch! No signal! Hound rushed out and was at the entrance of the house in no time, gunning up Motormouth, trying to see if we could save her life by taking her to the nearest hospital.

She was almost gone. In between gasps she managed to say,
“99 Palms...Books of Nine unknown…Shambala…meet Monica, number on the table...diary...Run.”

She died bleeding as Derek and I watched shell-shocked.

And then there was smoke in the room bellowing from all corners. I lunged at the table and picked up the diary on the table to make sure we did what Natalie wanted us to do.

“Run! It’s a smoke bomb, I saw someone lob it!” yelled Goose and managed to wake us up from our trance, “Drop her, Derek! She’s dead! We need to get out of here!”

Leaving her body gently down on the carpet, tears streaming down his face, Derek looked at me and said, “Unfair.” My eyes had filled up as well. I eased Hound’s treasure from her hands and pocketed it. We gathered our wits and ran trying to find our way out of the house amidst the thick black smoke. Goose shot a beam of light at us from a torch and kept yelling, “Over here!”

We managed to get out of the house, straight into our SUV, Motormouth. Hound was behind the wheel, stepped on the pedal while Goose slammed the door and buckled up. Derek and I barely closed the doors and we were on the road, racing towards our resort.

I looked back. Smoke bellowed from her library. This was getting dangerous. My heart wept silently for Dr. Natalie . Someone was trying to stop us from finding out the truth.

That night, we decided that we would unlock the secrets to the place called Shambala, go there, hunt down these Nine Unknown Men and beat the shit out of them till they rid us of our dreams. Evolved thought be damned, we’d make ‘em pay for Natalie Jackson as well.

“Here, keep your soul-pebble safe. It just cost us one life”, I said angrily as I tossed the broken piece of clay tablet at Hound, “We’ve just been forced into a new adventure, thanks to you. Hope there’s some good money in it at least!”

***

CHAPTER FIVE

***

Roses are red and violets are blue,

We found the scriptures of 99 Palms, known to very few;

It’s an old set of scriptures, written on palm leaves,

It shows the path to Paradise as one believes;

A guarded secret by the Nine, deep inside the earth somewhere,

It talks of a land of pure science, it tells us how to get there;

The 13th rock edict at Kalinga is an aberration, or so it is said;

The Great Emperor hid a secret, an offering to the dead;

Kalinga witnessed sorrow, a place as ugly as it stands,

The Great Emperor killed them all, he had blood on his hands;

It is here, he went through a transformation,

So he wrote 14 edicts, instructions to create a peaceful nation;

He created the society to keep destructive sciences in control,

For mankind is ruled by warmongers & creatures with no soul;

The Nine Unknown, good or bad – the scriptures don’t say,

So it must be cool to steal from them, just take a little away;

Not just power, but adventure came calling,

With the 99 Palms in my hands, I could see my ATM smiling;

If smiles and Imagination make you say ‘Cheese’

Drive on, for that’s the philosophy of Horn OK Please…

***