From Machu to London
Eye of the Beholder - Chapter 8
This is a continuation of my epic awakening adventure Saga:
Eye of the Beholder - A Story of Remembrance!
If you haven’t begun the Eye of the Beholder series please start here:
The night air in Cusco carried a sharp chill as Montez, Sam, Lisa, and David slipped through the outskirts of the city, avoiding the main roads. Their clothes were dusty, their adrenaline still high from the escape beneath Machu Picchu. The relic, safely wrapped in Sam’s pack, seemed to hum with an unseen energy.
Montez exclaimed, “Well, that was quite the rush, I don’t think I’ve felt this alive for decades! Thank you so much for inviting me into your quest—I am beyond grateful for the opportunity. At this point, I must bid you farewell and wish you Godspeed for this most important mission of yours! I’ll contact Penfield and tell him to get his trekking boots out! And please—don’t hesitate to reach out if you need help deciphering anything related to pre-Inca, Mayan, or even pre-Mayan traditions. There’s a whole hidden lineage there most people overlook.”
He paused, reaching into the folds of his jacket and pulling out a smooth, blackened stone etched with swirling geometric lines. “This,” he said, pressing it into Sam’s hand, “was passed to me by an old Q’ero shaman. He said it would guide the right hands in times of shadow. I believe those hands are yours now.”
Then, with one final nod, Montez slipped discreetly away into the darkness.
“The BBG won’t stay trapped for long,” David warned, his voice quiet in their earpieces. “They’ll have backup teams already sweeping the city.”
Lisa exhaled, rubbing her arms. “So, what’s the plan? We can’t just waltz into the airport and buy tickets. They’ll be watching.”
“We need a ghost route,” David replied. “No paper trail, no digital footprint.”
David had already infiltrated flight systems, forging them passage on a cargo flight bound for London. The three of them moved swiftly through the darkened alleys, finally arriving at a nondescript warehouse where a contact—one of David’s AI-assisted connections—waited with forged IDs and clearance codes.
“You’re clear to board,” the man said gruffly, gesturing toward a transport truck idling nearby. “Cargo bay’s been arranged.”
The flight was rough and long—over 17 hours with little food, a few snacks and granola bars to sustain them, turbulence rattling the crates around them—but it was anonymous. They barely slept on the rocky ride, but they knew the stakes were higher than ever and they needed to beat the BBG to the Grail. No official records linked them to the journey. As dawn broke, the plane began its descent into London.
The moment they touched down, the stakes changed. The city’s vast surveillance network was their new enemy.
“We have a problem,” David murmured. “London has one of the highest concentrations of CCTV (Closed-Circuit Televisions) in the world. Facial recognition, behavioral tracking—it’s all active. If the BBG has any access to these feeds, we’ll be spotted within minutes. I can shadow us for a while, but the sheer quantity of feeds makes it near impossible to ghost us completely.” David hovering fully camouflaged a few hundreds feet above the cityscape, speaking via their phones and earplugs.
Lisa swore under her breath. “So much for blending in.”
As they moved through the shadows of Heathrow’s back corridors, the city's atmosphere felt oppressive—watchful. Sam caught his own reflection in a convex mirror and instinctively ducked his head. A public screen nearby glitched, then briefly flashed Lisa’s face from a previous security feed before it pixelated and vanished—David working frantically to overwrite it.
Sam tightened his grip on the relic. “Then we move fast and stay unpredictable. David, can you handle the surveillance?”
“I can disrupt it temporarily. But I’ll need access to a data hub to do something more permanent.”
They slipped through Heathrow’s service exits, navigating the maze of back corridors. Already, David was intercepting security feeds, redirecting cameras, and scrambling facial recognition databases. For now, they were invisible—but that wouldn’t last.
“We need to get underground, off the grid,” Lisa said, pulling up the hood of her jacket. “Fast.”
David’s voice crackled in their earpieces. “I have an idea. There’s an old service tunnel near Paddington Station. If we reach it, I can reroute our digital footprint before the BBG catches up.”
With the city watching and the enemy closing in, their escape had only just begun.
Lisa glanced at Sam. “We need to move fast.”
“Agreed,” Sam muttered, his hand on the door handle.
They moved through the crowded London streets with a sense of urgency, blending in with the masses but always alert to the eyes watching from the shadows. The van, waiting at the far end of a narrow alley, was their ticket out. Lisa spotted the nondescript vehicle parked near a row of abandoned shops. It looked ordinary, just another van with faded lettering. But it was theirs—arranged in secret by Dr. Penfield for just this moment.
Sam walked up to the driver’s side, glancing over his shoulder. “Let’s get this thing moving.”
The engine roared to life, and they sped off, heading out of the city, the rush of the van’s tires on the asphalt masking the tension that hung in the air.
“David,” Lisa said, adjusting the earpiece. “Where’s Penfield? We should be meeting him soon.”
“He’s expecting you,” David’s voice replied, calm and controlled. “He’s at his flat. A bit eccentric, but trustworthy.” David hovering high above the van, unseen and unheard, by London’s bustling fanfare.
Minutes later, the van pulled up outside an old, weathered building. Dr. Penfield’s flat was tucked away in the quiet corner of London, a place that felt far removed from the chaos outside.
Lisa knocked on the door, glancing at Sam. “Ready for this?”
“Let’s hope he’s as helpful as David and Montez say,” Sam answered, trying to shake the weariness from his voice.
SO ARE WE ENJOYING THE RIDE?
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If you haven’t started the series, please start here:
For my Paid Subscribers, you are in for a special treat!
I’m putting together a mini novella with one exciting mega chapter coming up soon, here’s just a taste, and it will be an exciting preview of Book 2 - The Search for Thoth, where you are going to meet the main Protagonist (after Sam of course) of book 2, Thoth himself!
Here’s a very small sample of a 3 Act Super Chapter:
Project: "Trial by Fire" – Special Edition Chapter Release
Act 1: Thoth and Sam – The Staff Awakens
The vast holodeck hummed around them, a shimmering cathedral of light and crystal. Sam stood at the center of the circular arena, feeling the energy crackle beneath his boots. Lines of Atlantean script ran through the translucent floor, pulsing like veins carrying the lifeblood of the Earth itself.
In the hush, Thoth stepped forward.
Today was different.
Today was not merely a lesson. It was an anointing.
The others — Lisa, Davida, Jack, Kaito, Aiko — lingered at the edge of the chamber, watching in quiet anticipation. Even they could feel it. The shift.
Thoth’s voice resonated like a drumbeat inside their minds.
"The staff you carry is not a weapon.
It is a bridge.
A magnifier.
A living memory of what you were... and what you must become."
Sam tightened his grip on the ancient Staff of Merlin, feeling it hum in his hand like a living thing. Strange glyphs pulsed along its length, shifting colors with his breath.
"You must understand," Thoth continued, pacing around him slowly, "this artifact does not grant you power. It awakens what already sleeps within. Strength, speed, dexterity, stamina — yes. But more: Will. Sight. The dominion of mind over matter."
Sam swallowed, sensing the moment deepen.
"You have touched the threshold," Thoth said. "Now, you must become it."
Without warning, Thoth lifted a hand. A blast of invisible force slammed into Sam's chest, driving him backward. He grunted, planting the staff down hard, the floor fracturing beneath his feet in glowing spiderwebs of light.
Instead of fighting the push, Sam let go — let the staff anchor him — and found himself rebounding, flowing through the force rather than against it.
Laughter — real, warm laughter — echoed from Thoth.
"Good," he said.
The staff pulsed once, sending a wave of energy into Sam’s core. A surge of strength, clarity, and fire ignited within him. His senses sharpened. He could feel the blood pumping in his companions' veins, could hear the crystalline structure of the chamber singing its silent song.
Sam smiled grimly.
He was ready.
The first trinity had been forged:
Wisdom. Strength. Bridge.
Today, they would awaken the future.
THE OTHER 2 ACTS WILL BE MORE DETAILED, AND WILL FEEL LIKE THE NEO AND MORPHEUS SPARRING SESSION WITH A NASTY SURPRISE FOR ACT 3. THE MINI-NOVELLA WILL BE AT A GOOD PRICE POINT OF 5-7$ DEPENDING ON THE SIZE OF IT, BUT I AM LOOKING TO WRITE A 15-20 PAGE MEGA CHAPTER FOR BOOK 2 AND THIS MICRO-NOVELLA.
My paid subscription is at the lowest it can here, and this is not because I don’t value my work or writing; it is because I want the most people possible viewing my critical information and remember who they truly are, and if possible live from my writing.
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