The Journeys of John and Julia: Genesis (Book 1) ~Complete~

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The conference was scheduled to begin at 11:11 PM, sharp.

The conference room would appear at 11:00 PM behind the old amphitheater.

Eleven minutes would be plenty of time to get the invitations out and for everyone to arrive with time to spare.

It wasn't really an invitation though, it was more like a directive and no RSVP was necessary. Everybody just had to appear. It was a duty. It was non-negotiable. It came with the territory and no one had ever questioned it.

It was highly unlikely for unwelcome visitors to show up in the area at that time - the sites of a conference were always chosen with the greatest efforts to that effect and the old amphitheater lay abandoned in the middle of a vast ancient forest with huge virgin growth trees. Most of them were more than a thousand years old, beholders of events almost too fantastic to believe. They say that the occasions on which human beings stumble into their midst are rare. They reason that a few old stones arranged in a half circle with a big slab of rock in the center and by no means spectacular enough to attract attention is all someone would see. They conclude the site is ideal.

On this particular moonless night, the creatures of the forest were the only witnesses to what was going to happen.

At exactly 11 o'clock, a slight movement disturbed the calm of the scene. In fact, it was more a blur than a movement, really. The dark night air behind the amphitheater became alive, quivered, warped, wobbled, emanated a strange hissing sound - all in astonishing disregard for the laws of physics.

To the uninitiated however, it was no more than the wind in the trees. You had to strain your eyes really hard to notice the conference room emerging out of the empty space between the amphitheater and the bordering trees. It blended so well into the landscape that it was hard to determine whether it truly existed or if the remote forest in combination with a black night triggered the imagination into seeing things. Therefore, despite the fact that the absence of any human being could not be totally assured, the chances of being detected were negligible.

Any of the twenty-two members of the group could summon a conference, and each of them understood that this privilege was never to be abused. It was an unwritten rule that without a good reason - genuine or subjective - no one was allowed to initiate a meeting.

Actually, there were twenty-three associates, but everybody thought of the Siamese Twins as one person. They were not twins exactly - Siamese or otherwise - they were a couple. Nobody though could recall them ever being apart and that fact had earned them their nickname.

Today Theodore Cliffton had placed the call. He was known to behave foolishly at times, but all his colleagues would show up anyway and the conference would happen, no matter who sent out the invitation.

Here he was, a young looking man, dressed in a uniquely patterned colorful shirt, khaki-shorts and sturdy hiking boots, a safari hat lying next to him. He sat on the center rock of the amphitheater, very still with his eyes closed, in deep concentration. Not a muscle on his entire body moved. He could have been part of the landscape - that's how still he was. Just before he opened his eyes, he nodded to himself as if affirming something in his mind. Then he stretched his legs and got up.

As he looked in the direction of the conference room, an opening appeared in the wall closest to him. He knew he had only a few seconds to enter before the building shifted sixteen and one-third degrees counterclockwise and the door would disappear. He picked up his hat and swiftly moved through.

The nondescript exterior of the hall gave no clue of what was inside. The structure was round with a diameter of maybe fifty yards but held only one room. There were no windows, yet the room felt wide and airy. It had a high dome ceiling with all kinds of strange symbols painted on it. The walls were a funny looking metal structure - they resembled a gigantic honeycomb.The metal gave off an iridescent glow, filling the whole room with a soft, shimmering light. There was not a single door.