(I just realized I can't edit my first post to link to this continuation, which is upsetting, but it can't be helped. For the first part of this
story, click
here).
Marcus chuckled at the off-beat question and waited for the punchline. Curtis sipped his coffee and waited, a slight smile in his expression.
"What, you're serious?" Marcus asked, and Curtis nodded. "You mean the room full of men in dark suits smoking cigars, plotting the end of the
world?"
"Is that what you think they are?" Curtis said.
Marcus stammered, trying to land on a single question. Finally, he said, "Why are we talking about this?"
Curtis set his mug aside and crossed his arms. "In 1776, a Bavarian philosopher and professor named Adam Weishaupt founded the Perfectibilists, or
what you know as the Illuminati. Their goal, Weishaupt wrote, was 'to put an end to the machinations of the purveyors of injustice, to control them
without dominating them.' In part, he opposed a great deal of the religious influence over political and social matters."
"Uh-huh."
"To make a long story short, secret societies were outlawed in Bavaria by a number of government edicts, the last of which came in 1790. By then the
Illuminati had spread, notably to Portugal. A year prior, the Military Order of Christ in Portugal had become secularized. You follow?"
"Hanging on by my fingernails," Marcus said with some amusement.
"Okay, so rewind a few hundred years. You've got the Knights Templar in the Holy Land fighting the Crusades, up until 1312 when they were dissolved
and their members imprisoned, executed, or sent into virtual exile. Namely, to Portugal, where the Military Order of Christ absorbed them."
"You're saying the Templars ended up in the Illuminati."
"Some of them, yeah. And that order persists today."
"I'm still waiting for the punchline," Marcus said. "What's with the history lesson?"
"Finish your coffee." Curtis gestured for Marcus to follow. The older man gulped the last of his drink and set the mug aside, hurrying to follow
Curtis out of the kitchen.
"You put a king in power," Curtis said as he led Marcus down the hall they had come through. "You give him a taste of that power, then one day you
tell him he can't be king anymore. You banish him, and tell him he has to submit to his betters now. Tell me, how well do you think he's going to take
it?"
"He's not."
"During the Crusades, the Templars were as kings, riding roughshod over the Holy Land--and Europe--doing as they pleased for two centuries. In
Portugal, they passed their legacy down to their sons, and so it went until the arrival of the exiles from the Illuminati. By then the Templars had
reestablished themselves, and continued in secret what they had done in public. And in the Illuminati, they found kindred spirits."
Curtis paused at a door in the foyer, adjacent to the staircase that led upward. "The Illuminati were as children to the grandfathers of the Templars,
but what the Illuminati lacked in experience they made up for in enthusiasm. Both groups had established themselves and operated with a great deal of
power, but the question remained: could they coexist?"
Curtis opened the door, revealing a staircase leading downward. He flicked the light switch, and began a slow plod down the poured concrete steps.
Marcus followed, shivering slightly as the air grew colder. He fought back a sneeze at the damp smell.
"They found a way, over time. The Templars dealt in goods, cash, and property. The Illuminati made currency of information. Neither could really
operate without the other, and it worked out to their mutual benefit until somewhere around the middle of the 21st century."
"What happened then?" Marcus asked, if only to stave off his own frustration and keep his mind off the cold pouring from the bare concrete walls.
"Quantum computing, more or less. The emergence of a computer that could teach itself."
"Artificial intelligence?"
"It's real, Marcus. And it tore the Templars and the Illuminati apart, almost completely. They called it Voltaire. You know, 'if God did not exist it
would be necessary to invent him?' Gives you an idea of what they thought of their machine. They built it as an impartial governor, capable of
predicting outcomes. The end goal was to let Voltaire run the world, to a more perfect end than men in their finite wisdom could manage."
The pair reached the bottom of the stairs. Curtis flicked another switch, illuminating a cavernous room filled with what looked like sundry storage.
Boxes lined the walls, covered in dust, in between covered furniture and what might have been works of art wrapped in butcher paper. Across the room
was a pair of metal doors recessed into a frame. Marcus realized as they drew closer it was an elevator.
Curtis pushed the single button for the elevator with his thumb. Light passed across the button, as if scanning his thumbprint, before he dropped his
hand from it.
"The Illuminati and the Templars took a vote. If they could reach a point where secret societies were no longer necessary, where mankind could be
ruled openly without the manipulations that had been necessary, that seemed like a good thing to some. To a slim majority, in fact."
"But the others didn't want to relinquish the perks of playing king," Marcus said.
Curtis smiled. "That's right. The group split into four: the Templars, the Illuminati, and a third group comprised of those looking for their open
utopia. And the fourth group," he said as the elevator doors opened. He stepped inside, and bid Marcus to follow. "The fourth group we call Knight
Fall."
edit on 21 11Nov 222022 by Factis because: Added a link to the first part of the story.