The Remnant

Chapter 1

Chapter One Two days earlier, over North-East Lincolnshire, the United Kingdom

Following the coordinates imposed by Enki, the alien spacecraft hovered over the woodland near the north-east coast of Lincolnshire. The alien mission was blessed by good fortune since an ideal specimen was sitting astride a strange contraption—their advanced devices revealed a means of transport known on the planet as a BMX bike. It also informed them that the subject was a healthy Caucasian male aged eighteen Earth years, thus placing him ideally within Enki’s parameters.

The aliens, therefore, had no hesitation in beaming the earthling aboard their space shuttle along with his bike, which they immediately consigned to a disintegrator. The youth, paralysed with fear, was taken to a restraining cell, where he could not self-harm. Gently encouraged to drink a potion, he slipped into a blissful, restorative sleep designed to fill him with positivity. Within moments, travelling at a speed unimaginable to homo sapiens, the shuttle reached the mother ship, stationed behind the Earth satellite, hence hidden from the prying telescopes that the primitive species used to peer out into the universe.

In his enhanced dream-state, Mark Fisher knew nothing of the docking and transfer to the most advanced vessel in the Annunaki fleet, ship NB46. Inside his head, he pictured the amiable two-legged, two-armed upright creatures with their delightful multi-coloured reflecting scales and curious beaked faces, who only wished him well. But not just well, his brain told him, they wanted to provide him with everything his heart desired. Their yellow slit eyes and strange variety of beaks, giving them a misleadingly reptilian appearance, should not induce him to fear them, his subservient brain persuaded him. After all, wasn’t his cousin Amber crazy about lizards? She nurtured basilisks, skinks, iguanas and geckos—her little dragons, she called them and adored them. Admittedly, they didn’t have bills, but it just showed how loveable reptiles could be.

All these soothing thoughts passed through Mark’s brain while, unknown to him, the aliens strapped him carefully to the table in the analysis laboratory. Within moments, each thought and memory in his brain was transferred via a helmet to the multiprocessor. Not only that but the rest of Mark’s brain, the dormant unused part, was subjected to analysis. So, momentarily, the Lincolnshire youth was brainless but not dead. Quite the opposite. His body had never felt so alive—just that he had no control over it. It would be fair to say that these were the moments that Mark Fisher ceased to exist as an entity.

(TWENTY-FOUR HOURS BEFORE)

Darren Fisher, appropriately to his name, a frozen fish processing operative, confirmed his earlier statement, this time to a detective sergeant, not a uniformed constable as earlier. Meanwhile, Betty, his wife of twenty-seven years, sat weeping into a handkerchief, comforted by a uniformed female officer.

“Our Mark goes to Weelsby Woods on his mountain bike every morning at dawn.”

“Why so early, sir?”

“Well, he says he likes the air to be pure, and it’s before the early-morning dog walkers get out on the trails. You see, it could cause a nasty accident, Detective Sergeant, at the speed our Mark rides. He always times himself. Only the other day, he told me that he wanted to break the twenty-minute barrier.”

“So, he always takes the same route?”

The sergeant appeared to Darren to be in his early thirties; the factory worker didn’t care much for the shaped sideburns, modishly cut across with parallel lines carefully shaved out, nor for the trendy short back and sides. To be sure, in his day, the army would have liked that, but it wouldn’t have stood for those sideburns. Darren vaguely registered the question and, after a brief hesitation, replied, “Oh, yeah. As I told that constable earlier, always the same course.”

“And do you know the route, sir?”

“Yeah, I do. I’ve walked it with our Mark and Jasper.”

“Jasper? Is that another son?”

“Ha-ha! No.” To the detective’s surprise, he let out a sharp whistle, and a Jack Russell terrier skidded across the parquet floor to sit looking from its owner to the police officer. “This is Jasper; he’s all right, he won’t hurt you. Not as long as you’re with me and not prowling around alone in his territory.”

The policeman looked sourly at the terrier; he preferred big dogs. His favourite breed, given the choice, was the golden retriever. His sister had one, an exceptional dog, Hoffman—named after the actor. DS Carlisle had often wondered why his sister hadn’t called the dog Dustin. Still, there was no accounting for taste. “So, sir, why don’t we take a walk through the woods, following Mark’s route? We can take Jasper for a walk—” At that word, the dog leapt and barked excitedly.

“Come on, let’s get your lead, boy!”

DS Carlisle checked his watch, considered what time the sun rose in this autumn season and decided that Mark Fisher had been missing for thirty hours. His preliminary questioning had not detected any reason for Mark to run away from his parents, to whom he seemed particularly attached, and his school report from the Lower Sixth, displayed with pride by his father, seemed to indicate that the lad’s Advanced-level courses were all proceeding very well. Mark had recently applied for and received an offer from the University of Nottingham, dependent on grades.

Thirty hours were not so many for a missing person’s case, Carlisle knew that, but he feared the worst, putting all the elements together. Something untoward had happened to Mark. DS Angus Carlisle felt sure that the young man had not done a runner. A walk along his route, especially with the family dog in tow to sniff out his young master, would reveal Mark if he had been injured and thrown into the undergrowth: or worse.

Onboard the alien craft, the Annunaki were busy. Their primary intention was to reverse the errors of genetic programming committed in Mesopotamia millennia ago. Thus, following Enki’s orders, they perfected the human specimen’s body and brain so that both would be an example of current Annunaki perfection in the field of genetic engineering. Having completed this work in an astonishingly brief time, thanks to the latest Nibirian technology incorporated into the multiprocessor, they set about providing Mark Fisher with new memories; in short, a completely new identity. They had furnished him with a new face, arising from the perfected genetic modifications, hence the earthling would be irresistible to the females of his species, but, following Enki’s orders, they had programmed his brain to resist all female overtures but for the allure of one woman in particular. s****l attraction would not register in his consciousness except for her. He was also, not so much programmed, as mentally equipped to avoid other pitfalls that weak humanity had proved susceptible to over the ages: drugs, alcohol and other stimulants.

Much preparation time had been devoted to the Earthling Renewal Programme, as it was known on Nibiru. However, the All-Wise had renamed it Adam II, as a reminder of the earlier experiment and the importance of success this time around. Many interventions had been enacted on documentation and archives to create the total credibility of the subject over many years.

The aliens stood back to admire their handiwork. All that remained now was the erasure. That would have to be done aboard the shuttle. It was the stage where Angel’s brain—Enki had selected the name Angel Sirius for Adam Two—would be erased of all memory of the alien presence. A backpack they had provided, containing written material, was ready to help him when he entered his new home, for he was bound to be somewhat disorientated initially. The All-Wise preferred to leave his earthling in the familiar surroundings of his hometown, which they had incorporated into his new memory.

So, now, he would again walk the streets of Cleethorpes at the beginning of his new life. It would be a life destined to change the world, but all in good time. Enki had spoken of the prolonged lifespan of Angel Sirius as sufficient for the Renewal Programme. The All-Wise had hinted at a further debate after the deposition—that moment when the shuttle would deposit Angel Sirius in the back garden of his new home.