Virtually Real (19 page)

“How does this FI work and why don’t we have one?” quipped an interjector.

“Israeli military intelligence comes from many sources, but everything is catalogued and filed in their computers. The heads of intelligence use super-computers with advanced meta-file search abilities to bring it all together, and to create a whole picture of moves and events. Only, no one person can have access to all information. The computers ‘fragment’ the integrated data so that only a team can see the whole picture by deliberate cooperation and sharing. This prevents any one person becoming too powerful and controlling.

“We don’t do that because Antoni works differently and wants himself to be the only one to see all things. Israel’s method could lead to a coup, so Antoni believes, it is too much of a risk and will not allow it.”

“OK. Go on Ivan. Where do we come in?”

“We know enough to take out ninety percent of them. This will enable some rockets to get through – provided a mass strike has been initiated.”

Chapter 21

The War

The virtual world

Antoni proceeded to conquer and was bent on conquest. He would be ruthless with Israel; he would be ruthless with followers of Y’shua; and he would be ruthless with any group or persons who dared oppose him in any way.

The war with Israel was not going to be easy but he was going to win!

In due time Antoni’s forces infiltrated Israel’s strongholds of technology and disabled the shield defences and the full force of Antoni’s firepower was unleashed upon a hapless population. Within a few months, Israel capitulated and Antoni marched triumphantly into Jerusalem.

He was not pleased however. Many orthodox Israelis were still celebrating the very old traditional sacrifices and worship of El, who they believed was the God of their forefathers, and they were doing this in a temple that had been built after Israel’s previous victory. His anger fuelled a burning desire within him and brought his arrogance to new heights.

He called Aaron.

“Aaron, I want you to come quickly with me to this Israeli temple and I want the news media and the leaders of Israel to be present, and I want it done now! You have one hour to arrange everything. I will have no opposition from anyone. Do I make myself clear?”

Aaron was startled at the vehemence behind Antoni’s command. “Yes your Eminence,” he replied. “I’ll be with you in forty five minutes and it will be done.”

Sixty minutes later Antoni and Aaron entered the Israeli temple which was packed by jubilant EEMEC military generals and cowering leaders of Israel.

Antoni strode up to the altar, tore the curtain from the most sacred place within the temple and stood in the inmost sanctuary.

“I am here today as the Illuminator of the Nimrah religion; the one who has brought all things into being; who has made himself incarnate to lead all mankind to the fullness of the beauty and potential with which I intended from the beginning. From now on, all the sacrifices in this temple are to be to me, for I declare to you now I AM God; I AM your creator; I AM your saviour who made myself incarnate for your sakes. I will return to you the god-like qualities that are your right, and have been lost through ignorance and false teaching – and especially by the name of Y’shua.

“I decree that all who believe in, or who mention the name of Y’shua will be beheaded. You do not know the ruination that has come on you all because of the thought energies of these people. All who acknowledge Y’shua, all who worship El, will be beheaded. That is their fate! See to it!”

There was stunned silence followed by an uproar from the crowd, “Antoni, he is God: Antoni, he is God.”

Meanwhile believers in Y’shua quietly left to seek escape from the holocaust they knew was coming.

At this point many other things began to happen; natural disasters such as had never been experienced before. V-world disasters occurred that approached the scale of devastation of the time of the flood of Noah which had been replicated from the real world. Fresh water sources became polluted and undrinkable; diseases broke out seemingly at once over the whole world; there were simultaneous catastrophic earthquakes; innumerable tsunamis; the oceans choked by poisonous red algae, and darkness – times of deep blackness that was almost tactile.

The real world

“What are you doing Eli?” cried Anna. “Don’t the v-people have enough to contend with in Antoni whom you continue to allow to live? I can only see that your Y’shua followers will all be wiped out and Lucas have everything under his control.”

“Anna,” Eli gently spoke. “You have become identified so much with the v-people that you have lost sight of the end game – although for me it is not a game. Remember when I made my own self code as Y’shua in the virtual world? Remember that he was killed – a sacrifice at the hands of my own creation. Well it must be also with those v-people who would follow him. Those who have truly surrendered themselves to him, who trust him no matter what, who love as I and he have both commanded and taught them; they will undergo what he went through.”

“What a waste Eli. I could understand you offering yourself as a v-person sacrifice and bringing a new start to the lives of many who would believe, but do all these others have to endure the same thing?”

“Yes,” Eli continued. “Remember he was restored to life! Those who would follow Y’shua will become like him and like me. They will share our joy and blessings in the real world. They will be people with whom we can have close fellowship, people we can trust and look eye to eye, man to man. They will be with us in this real world long after the temporary virtual world has vanished. It is worth it Anna.

“Also Anna, to answer the first part of your question I have ordered ever-increasing disruption of the natural systems in the virtual world so that some of the v-people may see and recognise that there is something, or rather someone, higher than themselves and outside their own space-time domain. Some may yet turn to Y’shua and know his peace and love in the midst of the turmoil. If Antoni is “God” and all this trouble is occurring perhaps he will not be worshipped as widely. Each individual v-person is given the opportunity to choose whom they will follow.”

The virtual-world

Although the worship of Antoni was universal and outwardly enthusiastic it was sustained by fear. Yet even that fear did not stop crimes of murder, theft, lying, witchcraft, sexual exploitation and every other evil behaviour known to man – even virtual men! It was as if the corruption that was hidden in Antoni had free reign among the majority of v-people.

Antoni’s power and influence was now total and even Chou Yi was very careful of his own moves. It suited Chou anyway to cooperate with Antoni in exterminating all who believed in Y’shua and their associates. He therefore now joined in the persecution which became utterly ruthless and all pervasive. Now there was no place to hide: persecution was global, and apart from very few, nearly all followers of Y’shua were found and “processed.”

Now Antoni ensured that all commercial transactions, even the smallest, had to be done cashless and only by computer systems. The convenience and generous incentives that e-commerce brought, enabled this form of control to be brought to all communities. All that Antoni required now was that each v-person had a unique identification code that must be used for any transaction; any buying or selling. Antoni decreed that this code had to be visible on the person’s body, and to get it, allegiance had to be sworn to Antoni himself.

Antoni knew that this would immediately flush out the remaining real believers in Y’shua for their Book spoke of this event and they would never allow themselves to be marked in this way. Those who gave in and renounced their trust in Y’shua, did not matter anyway. V-world believers knew that Y’shua would keep them as long as he required them to live in the v-world, but they also knew that this was a time when they would be apparently defeated; some to starve, some to be imprisoned, tortured and killed.

They also knew with the utmost clarity that when their time in the v-world was over that there was a better place, where, in the words of their Book there would be, “…no more crying and no more pain… for the old had past and the new had come…” In that new place was joy, fulfilment and all manner of beauty and pleasure.

In the meantime, for some reason, best known only to Antoni, the preferred method of killing was beheading.

The real world

Lucas called in Ramgee and Nimmon. “I want you to keep a very close eye on Eli, but without him being aware. I feel uneasy that he is allowing his favourite Y’shua followers to be killed and obliterated by our Antoni. I see the grief and sadness in him. I see the love he has for these poor deluded creations; and yet he continues to allow the slaughter. I feel uneasy about something and I need to find out what it is. Do not mention this to anyone else, or you will be as one of them! Do I make myself very clear?”

“Yes; as always,” they both replied.

As each went their separate ways, neither Ramgee nor Nimmon mentioned their own disquiet that their leader, Lucas, had uncertainty within his heart. Something big was going to happen!

Meanwhile Eli was talking to his closest advisors, which included Hagos Neuma and Y’shua. (Now it should be noted that although Y’shua had been an exact replication of Eli in v-world code, it also meant that after his death he had, by the use of science yet unknown to others, become another separate person in the real world. Eli called him his son.)

Eli began, “The end of the v-world project is near. In spite of all the warnings, all the signs and all the witnesses I have sent into the v-world, the number of those who are mine is close to completion. I will now draw all things to a close.”

“Am I to go back to the v-world shortly then?” asked Y’shua.

“Yes but it will be different this time. You are to go in victory and it will be your role to see the demise of Antoni, Aaron and those who have irrevocably aligned themselves with them.”

The two worlds

Antoni was elated. After pronouncing himself as God, as the one who had created everything, his followers quickly sought out and found all the remaining believers of Y’shua and all who put trust in El. He had organised engineers and large corporations, as well as the resources of the armed forces, to streamline the process of capture, transport and killing. Some had argued that Hitler’s gas chambers would be more efficient than guillotines but such was the brutal efficiency of the regime that the whole process was completely automated. Once believers were captured and placed in specified holding pens they had no more chance of escape than a lamb in a freezing works!

There were many who would joyfully hand over and betray these believers; some for altruistic motives believing they were doing “God’s” or Antoni’s work, and some solely for the significant rewards that Antoni had promised.

So thorough was the pogrom that no believers in Y’shua, or any who trusted El were left within the v-world. They had been corporately destroyed as a body; just as the individual body of Y’shua had been destroyed. An uneasy silence pervaded.