It is a crude and boring name to label the oldest of secret sects merely the Ancients, but that was what they preferred to be called and they were the ones who revealed the secret of the Arctic vault and maintain the unbroken history spanning all of humanity.
They have successfully maintained their secrecy for countless generations and pass on their knowledge as an oral tradition. They rely on many mundane items to help them remember a very detailed history. A few of their number have attempted to transcribe on paper of their work in various cache's around the world, including one in the Politiburo. It was revealed to me by one of the Bureau Chief's who confessed he was a member of the Ancients and offered it out of fear of the sisters.
The sisters were gaining considerable success infiltrating many institutions and were sinking their hooks into the Ancients, which he rightly feared would be disastrous. A surprise of sorts was that Karl Knutmudsen was being initiated into the Ancients at about the time the uprising of the Artesians began. His access to those once lost tomes of knowledge helped him complete his greatest works.
It was to the horror of the Ancients that they watched the rise of the Artesians and now the Neo-Artesians as a somewhat mutated strain of their own. And their greatest horror was the creation of the sisters. They felt it would be their undoing and an end to their most important task to protect humanity by preserving our past.
An elder of the Ancients made contact with madam Olivia to reach a truce and compromise. Teresa Fitzsimmons, the elder beseeched the sisters to no longer harass her group. She groveled at their feet for fear of losing all of humanity's collected efforts. She revealed the Arctic vault and several other secrets including some technologies they had hoped to never reveal including the computer brain. She warned that the computer brain was unplugged for good reason by their ancestors as it was on the verge of gaining sentience. The devil beetles destructive power would pale in comparison.
I asked if the devil beetles could be destroyed and the Ancients confirmed it was possible. I asked why they had not considered or acted on this before and they said there were far more scary things including the computer brain. As careless as it may sound the devil beetles would be humanity's insurance against the awakening of the computer brain. And even more incredulous the computer brain resides within the hollow shells of each of the devil beetles.
A monster that can think on its own, act on its own. It would become the next evolution of mankind and our creations would not look down kindly upon us like roaches scurrying about. This felt like the talk of mad men and indeed the Ancients pondered how or why our ancestors could conceive and build such monstrous things then leave little explanation like arming nuclear bombs, painting them vibrant and colorful then placing them ready to detonate in the hands of naive little children.
Olivia was the more understanding of the madams and she took Teresa's plea to heart. She withdrew all of her sisters, but she could not convince the others who became even more obsessed in finding what they knew. Teresa in her despair, took her own life and soon many of the senior Ancients did the same than risk having their secrets known by the sisters.
It was to the Bureau Chief Smith's despair that he feared much of it has already been irreparably lost and blames the rise of the Artesians and of Karl Knutmudsen for all of this. That name stabs painfully in the heart of each member of the Ancients. Smith's was sharing all of this as his time was short and he planned to join the rest. He gave me the whereabouts of the hidden tome and wished me luck.
I went to retrieve the tome and began reading it in my office. No sooner than I could turn a few pages there was a knock at the door and it was the sister from the train, Jamie-Lynn who invited herself in. She demurred and gestured towards the book. I asked her to sit for a chat as I continued to skim through the book and we spoke about the computer brain and why the sisters would want to seek out such a dangerous thing. Jamie assured me this is not the case, but rather for safekeeping as the Ancients have proven no longer reliable and were partially to blame for the discovery of the Arctic vault. In many ways, the Ancients brought about the near downfall of mankind once again.
She proceeded to leave and allowed me to hang onto the book for a while longer. She asked me to meet her at Gertrude's in a few days when I was ready to hand over the book. She warned me not to do anything foolish and rather she believed by reading the tome to my satisfaction I would understand why the sisters want to safeguard it and the Ancients would, let alone the Politiburo would do a very poor job.
It was Edgar, she reminded me who knew full well the destructive power of the devil beetles and unleashed them, twice. Men like that are far more dangerous than the sisters, the Neo-Artesians, than anyone still alive. He wears a mask and deceived everyone.
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