Chapter 147 - Untold History (1/2)
After all of them left, Daniel also stood up and went to a corner of the room. He took a black object shaped like a spire and one foot long and stuck half of it in the ground at an inconspicuous point in the wall. A slight buzzing sound came out as the spire started to move on its own and entered the ground. It was clearly a specific kind of key. As it went down a small crevice opened up at the corner of the room enough for one person to walk sideways through it.
”Follow me,” said Daniel and led them through the crevice. At the other end was a small room about 12 feet wide in both directions and only 8 feet high. There was a small table with chairs and a vending machine in the room. Daniel sat at one of them and signalled the three to do the same.
”Whatever I tell you doesn't leave the room. None of the current members of the table are allowed in this room. Only a select few who managed to persist and were willing to guide the next generation are allowed here. By bringing you here, you should understand that I am about to tell you things that usually only the current head, Walter is qualified to know. You are the three that I am sure will be the ones guiding the next generation in my place, if you live long enough. I expect you to remember this and act accordingly and not disclose any of it to your peers, loved ones, even on threat of death. Doing so, would only put you all in more of harm's way,” threatened Daniel.
”We understand Daniel. None of it will leave this room under any circ.u.mstances. We realize the severity of the situation and were expecting something like this,” said Arthur and the other two nodded in agreement.
”Well, where do I begin?” asked Daniel looking at the wall as he thought about how he would explain to them. A minute later, he had gathered his thoughts and decided to explain it from the start.
”The table of Ouroboros had been maintaining peace behind the scenes for a long time. Over time, we have come to know of many secrets of this world. A number of them were things that the world wasn't ready to know. The same goes with a number of our personnel too. That is the reason we compartmentalize a lot of this stuff,” said Daniel.
”We also have a few rare allies. This is something most of us don't know,” said Daniel.
”Aren't the Price family our allies?” asked Vargrave. ”Almost everyone our age is aware of the fact, especially after we married some their members.”
”The Price family, eh?” asked Daniel smiling like he was looking at a naive kid. ”They are a sub-ordinate family to us. Walter knows it and everyone qualified to enter this room does. Our behavior outside is just to fool prying eyes,” explained Daniel.
”Evelyn and Harvey Price are aware of this too. They also just play along,” said Daniel looking at Winston who had a shocked expression on his face. ”They are yet to be strong enough on their own to match us. If they reach such a stage technologically, we will consider them as allies. They are the most powerful subordinates that we have and there is no doubt at that.”
”There are three things which we need for us to consider someone as an ally. One, they need to have strengths and capabilities to match our own. Two, we need to have a common goal or a common enemy and third is that they should maintain a low profile and the world shouldn't be aware of their actual capabilities,” said Daniel counting them on his hand.
”If we ever ally with anyone not satisfying these three conditions, we are as an organization in mortal danger or have fallen down from our current standing in the world,” said Daniel. ”Now the ally I currently wish to talk about was mainly due to a common danger that we were extremely worried about.”
”Is it the knights? They are the only unknown variable that we could think of. You have known of them beforehand?” asked Arthur. He was unable to believe that they would keep such an organization which was responsible for the deaths and severe injuries of few of his friends.
”No,” said Daniel derisively. ”The knights are a new menace, though I don't disagree with your point. There is little to no information about them. That is what makes this meeting so important,” said Daniel. ”The enemy we were aware of are the apes. As a completely different sentient species with a civilized society, we have always expected them to compete with us sooner or later.”
”You are aware of the apes' existence from before?” asked Winston. This was something that surprised all three of them. None of them ever expected that something that had been threatening the entire human race had been known to Daniel and his peers all along.
”It had been known to us for quite a long time,” said Daniel scratching his head. It was topic that was very hard to explain especially because most humans found it hard to believe, even after the first fights that happened in the latter half of the 26th century. So, even though they had known of it for a few centuries, it wasn't most sensible to tell other as the world would refuse to believe of a new species that was developed technologically and intellectually on par with the humans.
”It is kind of hard to convince most humans of it, but we had to have precautions,” said Daniel. ”Think it from that perspective. We had to handle the information and prepare for a fight in a society which wasn't prepared to accept the danger they were in and would rather beat us up as they would think that we were wasting essential resources.”
”This was at an ancient time when humans were trying to get out of their original home planet and spread to the galaxies. Think about the effects of one simply suggested to prepare for war at this time,” suggested Daniel as he leaned back on his chair with his hands folded. There was no need for the three of them to do that. The read enough history to understand it. The need and advantages of terraforming was something that every human was taught during their childhood. The entire table went silent in contemplation.
”You could have still had us better prepared,” said Vargrave breaking their silence.