"Come on, Jack," Sophia urged as she pressed her mouth to his to give him a breath.
Jack held her for a moment and kissed her, but she jumped back quickly. Getting to his feet, Jack looked at Sophia and Maya for a moment. "How long was I out?"
"Jesus Christ, Jack, we thought you were dead," Sophia said still infuriated by his actions.
"Oh, come on, it wasn't that bad," Jack argued.
"Not your kiss," Sophia stated. "You were dead for a few minutes." She wiped her mouth.
"Can we go home now?" Maya asked interrupting the two.
"What do you mean 'go home'?" Jack questioned. "We can't quit now when we're so close."
"So close to what?" Sophia argued putting her hands onto her hips. "You've almost died more times than I kept up with. These Disciples won't give up. All three of us almost died on your roller coaster of death there."
"Maybe I should open up a theme park," Jack said as he looked up the mountain and then at the debris around them.
"Grow up, Jack," Sophia yelled as she stormed off down the snowy trail.
"What about you, Maya? Do you want to continue?"
"I don't know," she replied softly. "This was just so much. I couldn't handle this. We could've died."
"But we didn't," Jack explained. "We can finish what we- what your father- started. We can solve this puzzle. The dagger led to the sundisk. And without the Book of Origin, we couldn't have figured out where to go from there."
"But we lost the medallion from the ark," Sophia said as she turned back to them, but she kept her distance.
"No, no we didn't," Jack told her as he reached into his pocket. "I stuck it into my pocket before the ship went down."
Maya smiled at his quick thinking. "You're brilliant, you know that?"
"Well, I try not to brag," Jack said modestly.
Sophia rolled her eyes at the egotistical man. She knew what this meant. This meant her job wasn't done yet.
"Sophia, bring me the sundisk and the book," Jack ordered. "I think it's time we find out where we go to next."
Sophia moved toward him and pulled her pack off her back and thrust it hard into his chest.
Jack opened up the pack and pulled out the sundisk and tried matching the medallion to one of the remaining holes. It slipped into the hole that was sitting on the eastern side of the disk with the medallion from the book on the northern side. "Perfect fit. Sophia, translate."
Sophia sighed heavily as she looked at the sundusk's surface. "From the resting place of the ark of Noah, traverse, but watch your step. It's right beneath your feet, if you can't find it, ask for help."
"What does that mean?" Maya asked.
"I haven't the slightest clue," Jack answered. "This puzzle is getting more and more coded."
"You said yourself, Jack, that the Garden of Eden was possibly located nearby, right?"
"Well, in theory--"
"Yes or no is all you need to say," Sophia told him.
"Fine, yes," Jack stated.
"Okay, then, its talking about the garden of Eden," Maya said. "So, what now?"
"Well, it says its right below our feet," Sophia began to explain.
"Does that mean we're standing on it?" Jack asked.
"I don't think so," Sophia replied. "Remember in the book of Genesis, Eden was not on a mountain top, but rather in a valley. It was near the mouth of a river."
"Wait, it was near the sources of the Euphrates, Tigris, Pishon, and Gihon," Jack remembered.
Maya turned to the west and pointed out toward the horizon. "Then its that way. The source of the Euphrates is about one-hundred and fifty miles that way."
"That's a long way out there," Jack said.
"If I remember correctly, Eden was the place where the four rivers were," Sophia stated.
"Yeah, so?" Jack asked.
"The garden is supposedly in the eastern part of Eden," she explained.
"Where exactly does that put the garden?" Jack asked.
"I don't know, exactly," Sophia responded as she began to walk off. "Come on. We'll get off this mountain and see."
Jack's mind was working overtime on where it could be. He was so anxious and tired and beat up. It had been a rough trip so far. It could only get worse. "So, you're all for this now, huh?"
"There's still pieces of the puzzle missing, Jack," Sophia told him. "That means there's still something to do."
"And two seconds ago you were ready to pack up and go home," Jack reminded her.
Yeah, well--" Before she could finish her sentence, the ground gave way and dropped the trio into a shaft that angled at forty-five degrees. She slid down ahead of the others, but Jack was right behind her.
Maya was behind Jack in their quick descent inside the dormant volcano. There was an abrupt drop off that landed her on top of the other two.
"That wasn't so bad, huh?" Jack asked from between the two girls.
"Get off me!" Sophia cried from the bottom of the pile.
"Hey, I'm not complaining," Jack stated. "A nice Jack sandwich is just what you two want." He slowly got up after Maya crawled off. "Everyone okay?"
"No," Sophia said as she rose to her feet. She dusted her clothes off as thoroughly as she could. "Where are we?"
"Inside the mountain," Jack pointed out as he looked around the large cavern. He walked toward the edge of a ledge the overlooked a deeper area. "Hey, girls, take a look. It's like 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' all over again."
"Jack, that's the garden," Sophia announced.
"Inside the mountain?" Maya asked. "Why?"
"It's the perfect place to hide something like this," Sophia replied.
"No way the Disciples did this," Jack said as he continued to stare over the edge. "I mean, it's inside a mountain."
"Well, Eden was the first place in the bible to be created for men," Sophia began to explain. "Noah's day on top of Mount Ararat came much, much later. The way I understand it with the way that tectonic plates work, its possible for the volcano to just appear."
"Well, let's go down and see what we can find," Jack stated as he looked for a way down.
"And what exactly are we looking for?" Maya asked looking between Sophia and Jack.
"Good question," Sophia responded.
"Anything from the bible," Jack told them both. "The tree of knowledge of good and evil, the tree of life, all that stuff."
"Great, are you going to eat of the tree and get us kicked out?" Sophia questioned him with much sarcasm in her voice.
"Oh, come on, you don't believe in all that do you?" Jack laughed. "The story is obviously made up to scare people from eating of the tree."
"I thought it was to tell of the defiance of God," Maya interrupted them.
"Well, that's how we perceive it, because that's what we're taught," Jack explained. "Now, from the Disciples of Origin point of view, you're not supposed to eat from the tree because then you'll have knowledge of something. They never banked on people actually finding the garden." There it was, the way down. He started down the stone staircase that descended into the garden.
"So, what is that we're not supposed to know?" Sophia asked her boss.
"When I find the tree, I'll let you know," he answered.
"But isn't the tree supposed to be apple or fig or--"
"It can be anything," Sophia announced.
"So, we're looking for a flea on an elephant's ass," Maya stated.
"Needle," Sophia corrected her. "A needle in a hay stack."
"Anyone remember where exactly the tree was located? Anyone?" He paused for a moment for an answer, but only got silence. "Anyone at all?"
"Jack, it's the only tree of its kind out here," Sophia told him as they reached the center of the garden.
"Why was it called a garden if no garden is planted here?" Maya asked.
"It's possibly because it was originally a place where humans were planted to grow," Sophia replied to her. "Had the story not ended with Adam and Eve being booted from here and had they obeyed God, they might have flourished and procreated."
"I see."
"There," Jack said in a gasp as he pointed to the tree in the center of the garden. "The tree of knowledge of good and evil."
"It's a fig," Sophia said saddened. "I would've guessed apple, seeing how they're brain food."
"There's your apple," Maya showed her.
"So, the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil," Sophia said as she began to think aloud. "So, why are these two so special? What kind of knowledge do they hold?"
"According to the book of Genesis," Jack started, "good and evil is a merism, a figure of speech." He plucked a fig from the tree. "Being of both good and evil means that it is of all or everything."
Maya stayed back, and kept quiet, as Jack examined the fig.
"So, its the tree of all knowledge," Jack finished. "It holds the knowledge of the universe."
"Is that really a good idea?" Maya asked as the fig approached Jack's lips. "I mean to hold the knowledge of everything is. . . dangerous."
"She's right," Sophia agreed. "Eating from this tree would be stupid. Didn't you go to Sunday school or church?"
"Why?" Jack argued. "It was always the same old thing. The preacher would banter and bash other religions and cultures saying they were wrong in what they believed." He bit the fig in half and chewed on the piece. "Oh, this is tasty." Finally, he swallowed it. "I don't feel different. I don't feel smart." He ate the rest of the fig and waited for a moment.
"See? Nothing," Maya said as she let out a deep breath.
"Well, that just sucks," Jack cried out. "I was hoping for a reaction."
"Maybe it will work over a period of time," Sophia told him.
"Or it doesn't work at all," Jack replied. "I should've known. The bible is so full of false--" He lurched forward cradling his stomach as he fell to his knees. He groaned quite loudly.
"Jack?" Sophia and Maya yelled as they rushed to his side.
He continued to groan as he fell over to his side.
"I guess two-thousand year old fruit doesn't agree with him," Maya stated.
"We need to do something to help him," Sophia urged their new friend. "It could be killing him." She compressed his stomach with hers hoping to get him to throw it up."
Jack suddenly stopped moving in the fetal position and lay unconscious.
"Does he always get into positions like this?" Maya asked.
"Well, he most certainly does," Sophia answered the thirty-something year old Indian woman. "This is why he drags me along. If something happens to him, I must help him."
"I surely hope he pays you well," Maya told her.
"Trust me, he does," Sophia said with a smile. "Okay, he's alive for now. I don't know if its poisoning his system or just made him a little sick. We should go."
"Who's going to carry him?" Maya asked as she stood from her kneeling position.
"I can't do it alone, so we'll have to work together on this," Sophia responded.
Maya scanned the garden with her eyes for a moment. "He's going to hate us for taking him out of here."
"He'll get over it," Sophia stated as she stood. She grabbed one of Jack's arms and ordered Maya to do the same. Once they had him up, they headed through the garden to get out.
"Do you know where the exit is?" Maya asked between breaths. Jack was heavy, almost too heavy for her.
"No, do you? Come on, it can't be hard to find." Sophia stopped when she spotted some type of spring. "That has to lead out, right?"
"Hey, I'm just along for the ride, because I wanted to see what my father was so obsessed about."
"Right," Sophia nodded as she guided them all down the side of the stream. She stumbled a little, but didn't fall completely. Jack's weight was more than she anticipated.
"You okay?" Maya asked to be friendly.
"Yeah, lets keep moving," Sophia urged even though she was getting tired.
The ground began to rumble beneath them as the volcano began to wake. The trio paused for a moment.
"Is that what I think it is?" Sophia asked as her eyes widened.
"The volcano. . . its not so dormant anymore," Maya realized. "Run. Now!" She and Sophia moved fast with Jack hanging on their shoulders. The ground below began to crack and cave in. "Oh, shit!"
Sophia moved her legs as fast as she could to avoid being dropped into the middle of the volcano. Suddenly, they all fell, but not into a fissure. The ground sucked Jack into, forcing the girls to try and pull him up, but it was too difficult. Sophia strained as she pulled her boss out of the hole and onto solid ground.
"Okay, can we go now and stop playing around?" Maya asked as she panted.
"You have my vote," Sophia replied as they all began to move again. They reached a point where they could finally see an exit. They saw light. Parts of the large cavern began to drop around them. They hastened their escape from a brisk walk to a sprint. The ground cracked and caved once more, but the group was close to the end. As it gave way, they slid out of the mountain and down the base of it.
"Thank God," Sophia said as they came to a stop at the bottom. "Land."
Maya looked up at Mount Ararat as the quaking came to a stop. "It's over. Just a little quake." She tired to catch her breath as they lay on the ground.
Sophia slapped Jack. "Wake up. Come on. I'm not dragging your ass back to the plane."
To Be Continued. . .
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