Domain by Steve Alten Page B

I’d probably be flirting …
    “Dominique, it’s very important, very very important that we trust each other. I need your help, and you need mine, you just don’t know it yet. On the soul of my mother I swear I’ll never lie to you, but you have to promise to listen with an open mind.”
    “All right, I’ll listen objectively. But the question still stands. Do you believe mankind will end on December 21?”
    Mick leans forward, elbows on knees. He stares at the floor, pinching the bridge of his nose between both index fingers. “I assume you’re Catholic?”
    “I was born Catholic, but raised in a Jewish household since I was thirteen. What about you?”
    “My own mother was Jewish, my father, Episcopalian. Do you consider yourself a religious person?”
    “Not really.”
    “Do you believe in God?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you believe in evil?”
    “Evil?” The question startles her. “That’s a bit broad. Can you clarify that for me?”
    “I’m not talking about men committing heinous acts of murder. I’m referring to evil as an entity unto itself, part of the very fabric of existence.” Mick looks up, his eyes focusing on her. “For instance, Judeo-Christian belief is that evil first personified itself by entering the Garden of Eden disguised as a serpent, tempting Eve to bite the apple.”
    “As a psychiatrist, I don’t believe any of us are born evil, or good, for that matter. I believe we have the capacity for both. Free will allows us to choose.”
    “And what if … what if something was influencing your free will without you knowing it?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Some people believe there’s a malevolent force out there, part of Nature. An intelligence unto itself that has existed on this planet throughout man’s history.”
    “You lost me. What does any of this have to do with the doomsday prophesy?”
    “As a rational person, you ask me if I believe humanity is about to end. As a rational person, I ask you to explain to me why every successful ancient civilization predicted the end of humanity. As a rational person, I ask you to tell me why every major religion foretells of an apocalypse and waits for a Messiah to return to rid our world of evil.”
    “I can’t answer that. Like most people, I just don’t know.”
    “Neither did my father. But being a rational man of science, he wanted to find out. And so he dedicated his life and sacrificed his family’s happiness in pursuit of the truth. He spent decades investigating ancient ruins in search of clues. And in the end, what he found was so unfathomable that it literally pushed him to the brink of madness.”
    “What did he find?”
    Mick closes his eyes, his voice inflection softening. “Evidence. Evidence deliberately and painstakingly left for us. Evidence that points to the existence of a presence, a presence so malevolent that its ascension will signal the end of humanity.”
    “Again, I don’t understand.”
    “I can’t explain it, all I know is that—somehow—I can feel its presence growing stronger.”
    He’s struggling to remain rational. Keep him talking . “You say this presence is malevolent. How do you know?”
    “I just know.”
    “You’re not giving me a whole lot to go on. And the Mayan calendar’s not what I’d call evidence—”
    “The calendar’s only the tip of the iceberg. There are extraordinary, unexplainable landmarks scattered across the face of this planet, astronomically aligned wonders, yet all pieces of a single, giant puzzle. Even the world’s greatest skeptics can’t refute their existence. The pyramids of Giza and Chichén Itza. The temples of Angkor Wat and Teotihuacan, Stonehenge, the Piri Re’is maps, and the drawings along the Nazca desert. It took decades of intense labor to erect these ancient marvels, the methodology of which is still a mystery to us. My father discovered a united intelligence behind all of this, the same intelligence responsible for the creation of the