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“Someone has tried to erase our ancient memories... to blind us all.

Yet something inside of you holds on, refusing to forget.

As the darkness descends, you struggle to recall what our forefathers once knew.

Unseen voices mock you—ordering you to give in... to embrace the new order.

But no.

You stretch forth your hand.

You pull back the veil!”

A man in his thirties named Stephen Hood shoved open the house’s side door from the kitchen and motioned with his hand toward Reed. He let the door swing shut and sat down at a table in the dim light of the kitchen.

Hood observed Reed pry open the recalcitrant screen door and grimace at the stench of cat urine in the kitchen as he shuffled across the floor.

Reed handed Hood a thin brown sealed envelope. “I assume you got word about my compensation for hand-carrying this to you,” Reed said.

“I did,” Hood concurred as he sliced open the envelope with his pocket knife, pulled out a single sheet, and read it.

Reed found a chair.

Looking at Reed with a stone-faced expression, Hood stated, “They told me to pay you seven thousand.”

“Correct.”

With autumn coming on, a few mosquitoes continued on the hunt.  So when Reed slapped his neck after feeling a slight pin-prick, he thought nothing further of it. In fact, by the time Hood returned to the kitchen, Reed thought nothing further of anything in this world. His body slumped over the table.

Walking out to the sedan, Hood turned off the engine. He came back inside and donned a pair of night vision goggles.

Stephen Hood had returned to the States from Afghanistan a few years ago. There, at a contractor training compound in the foothills of the Helmand province, he had learned several approaches for dispatching individuals. One involved a blow-pipe using a tiny—and extremely toxic—poison dart that he had trained himself to shoot accurately from over ten feet away.

He had also learned how to dispose of bodies without leaving a trace. Once, his colleagues in Afghanistan had gunned down an attacking Taliban squad. Hood supervised the burying of the remains. No need to have more tribesmen snooping around after finding their compadre’s corpses putrefying on the terrain.

Hood’s trainers had drilled into him the importance of “covering up all traceability of the organization’s presence.” The “Network” insisted that connections between the layers in its chain of command remain concealed.

He knew his supervisor would send a team of “sweepers” to remove Reed’s car and dispense with the rental property.  They would also inspect the grave’s concealment.

As he sped east along I-20, he reflected that in the past few years, he had already passed his first million dollars in earnings. Although trained to suppress emotion, he couldn’t help reveling for a moment in his freedom and wealth—and anonymity. He could see himself doing this for a while.

The Network used a “carrot and stick” approach to ensure Hood’s loyalty. The “carrot” of wealth accumulation combined with the “stick” of severe reprisal for any failure.

“Let’s just keep the status quo” had become Hood’s mantra.

📖 “From the fast (and fierce) start, through the convolutions of sinister intrigue, all the way to the final implosion of malevolence, 'The Source of All Wealth' is a truly compelling read. Matt Malone draws from an amazing breadth of knowledge to depict scenes in Virginia, Jerusalem, Bangkok, Turkey, and more! He uses astonishing detail in describing Naval battles. He spices up everyday language with unique (yet apt) phraseology. He weaves together multiple and intricate plot lines extremely well. Matt Malone achieves the near-impossible: a monumental literary endeavor that brings me back to the same emotions I'd experienced as boy in the 1950s, reading the captivating youth mysteries of the day!"

-- Warren Hoffman, Elizabethtown, PA

Some early readers, as evidenced by their electronic purchases, affirmed that the eBook is worth between $24.97 and $27.97. But I decided I don’t want price to stop anyone.

Therefore, I want to offer it for $17.97.

...and yet...

To quickly glean more testimonials, I plan, for the next 200 individuals, to offer the eBook for ONLY $9.97.

(If you no longer see $9.97 in the shopping cart after tapping this button, it means that readers have already snapped up the 200 copies. Hopefully you can count yourself among them.)

...end of Chapter 1... Chapter 2, below...

You may also obtain “The Source of All Wealth” in audiobook format. Sample Chapter One  here...

Like the eBook above, I will offer the Audiobook to its first 200 listeners for only $9.97, $17.97. So get it now during this limited time-window.

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I will keep your contact info in my personal records but I will never share it with others. If you tell me to, I will delete it from my records. Otherwise I may email you (not frequently) to ask your thoughts about the novel and let you know of new offerings--including the sequel! 😀 I won't be bothersome. I hate spam just like you do. 📧🗑️

Three reasons:

(a) With the eBook & Audiobook, I can't offer you my 120-day money back guarantee.

(b) With the paperback & hardcover, I much prefer Lulu's quality (binding, paper, etc).

(c) Amazon is too corporate. I want to interact in a warm, cordial, and personable manner with you and my other readers over email, Facebook, etc.

With the eBook & Audiobook, the setup is as easy as with Amazon or Audible. I give you step-by-step instructions with screenshots when you purchase. No one has ever complained of problems with it. If you need help, you can contact me. I built this for "non-techies!"

📖 "On my first day of reading, I found myself a third of the way through!  The Source of All Wealth gave me a fascinating glimpse into the inner-workings of the present day world power-brokers while it intricately wove in a parallel story from 2000 years earlier. Mind-control, destruction, desperation, courage, sacrifice, deliverance... this story has it all! With warnings from today's newspapers and hope from ancient days, Matt Malone's novel is a page turner!"

-- David Case, Teacher in Fairfax, VA

-- Matt Malone, Author

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Placing a steel-framed lid over the top of the box, he shoveled dirt into the hole and restored the soil to the level of the forest floor. He walked back toward the house with his digging tools, placing them in a shed, and went inside to bed.

Grabbing hold of Reed’s corpse, he pulled it outside through the back screen door. He dragged the body into the woods, arriving at a metal-braced rectangular hole dug into the forest floor. As he slid Reed’s body down into the pit, dirt and pine needles fell in with it, stirring up a cloud of dust. He looked up through the trees toward the dimly lit home of his neighbor. Silence. Stillness....

After a short night’s sleep and no breakfast, Stephen Hood departed through the side screen door Reed had entered the night before. He drove his Japanese sports car toward Richmond, Virginia, about five hours north....

“To vindicate your darkest suspicions, you can dig through mountains of ancient volumes stored on forgotten library shelves. Or, you can read... 

- Matt Malone

...OR...

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“I’ll get it from the back room. It’ll take a minute.”

Eliminating a temp-courier like Reed and dragging his body into a metal box in the woods accomplished Hood’s aim of concealment. No possibility of Reed opening his big mouth.

Why had he gone down that road?

Allen had fallen into temptation—temptation toward the almighty dollar.

During his first few years in Thailand, he had set up a non-profit for victims of human trafficking. He came up with the idea of a “halfway house” to help these people transition into a better life.

Posting stories on social media about their plight, he tugged the hearts of many donors. Tens of thousands of dollars poured in.

With construction complete, donors continued to send in gifts.

When Allen compared his missionary salary with the halfway house account, he felt a twinge of greed.

He decided to “borrow” $1000 to cover some credit card bills.

I know I can pay this off, he thought.

The next month he took another $500.

I started this non-profit and got no extra support for my family, he reasoned.

Over the next few months, Allen drew more from the fund. His secret debt grew.

In the hustle of ministry, it slipped Allen’s mind that his mission board scrutinized accounts every quarter.

So when an auditor looked into the house account, she saw a problem.

The board responded to his embezzlement with mercy, agreeing not to press charges if he set up a repayment plan. Yet his supervisor did tell him, “Allen, it pains me to say this, but we’ll have to let you go.”

“You can listen and read here…”

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“You can listen and read here…”

Living off his IRA retirement account now in Virginia would sustain his family for only two more months. He had to find work.

“Why did I do it?” he lamented.

He thought back to his childhood.

Though too young at age six to understand his family’s poverty, he did notice how his old clothes made him stand out.

At age nine, he watched his peers brag about their third pair of name-brand jeans.

At thirteen, he skipped the middle school prom, ashamed of his empty pockets.

Money. The source of all shame.

Allen loved to think. He would choose a book or a philosophical question any day over a hammer or a basketball. For decades, one subject had fascinated him: The origin of money. Where did it come from? Who invented it? Why do people want so much of it?

Like a sleuth with his magnifying glass, he found answers.

But these “answers” never added a dime to his pockets.

So now, with his savings running dry, his interest in “money” had morphed into a desperation to grasp more of it. He longed to break free from a dilemma that had plagued him his whole life. Either he would find a job he hated and could pay the bills or he would find a job he liked but couldn’t support his family.

Would he ever find his ideal career—his ideal life? Could he ever crack the code… the “key” to the life he yearned for? He sensed such a “key” did exist. But where?

That afternoon in a coffee shop, Allen took a break from job-searching and tackled another chapter in David Astle’s book, The Babylonian Woe. He also viewed a video about early American banking. Then, he perused a book about “non-debt money.”

David Astle spoke of secret merchant cabals in the ancient Near East. A lender—or “banker”—would attach himself to a kingdom and set up exchanges for silver and gold. He would also lend money to a king to expand the monarch’s army. Over time, war—and crushing debt—would inevitably destroy that dominion.

The lenders formed secret societies crossing the borders of every realm. They gave their loyalty to no one but other lenders. The key to their influence lay in control over three markets: precious metal mining, slave trading, and international arms manufacturing. With this hidden triumvirate of power, they ruled the ancient world.

Allen learned from the video how bankers dominate America. In the nineteenth century, they monopolized the gold markets. And since 1913, they controlled the Federal Reserve—a private-banker-owned, quasi-government corporation.

The book about “non-debt money” taught Allen about government-issued currency. The author described Pennsylvania's “Colonial Scrip” in the 1700s. The colony would lend this paper money to farmers and merchants. The interest from these loans would fund public projects. Therefore, its government collected interest rather than paying it. This enabled the colonists to live in freedom and prosperity, served by a debt-free government that levied very few taxes.

For whatever reason—maybe his childhood poverty or never-ending low self-esteem—Allen thrilled over his detective search for the origin of money and wealth. Despite his endless failures, he had found jewels of knowledge that few people possess.

The writers like David Astle and others had taught Allen a lot.

But he sensed they had missed something. Not a piece or two, but a large section of the puzzle. Allen longed to find the Source of All Wealth.

...end of Chapter 2... Chapter 3, below...

“You can listen and read here…”

Asher, his name meaning “fortunate” or “blessed,” certainly fit his parents’ expectations. King Herod, a frequent seeker of his father’s business advice, had commented with a smile and a wink just last month that Asher would likely triple his father’s holdings upon the elder’s retirement.

Asher’s robe flowed in an easy rhythm as he walked from his family compound through the streets toward the Damascus Gate along the city wall. His father Levi expected him there soon. Taught from his cradle to revere God’s Law—including the line about honoring one’s parents—Asher knew his father would brook no lateness today. Not that Asher needed any cajoling. This day—seven years following his entry into adulthood at age thirteen—he would take his place alongside his father among the Lesser Sanhedrin’s twenty-three elders. His father, always the stretcher of traditions, as well as the benefactor to half of these leading Men of the City, had convinced them to break with tradition by offering his son a place among them.

“Asher will add vigor to our stale congregation,” Levi had spoken to his colleagues two months earlier. “A man among men to carry our interests before Herod and the Romans.”

The Men of the Gate knew Asher possessed the virtue and maturity of a man twice his age. Although having the features of manliness toward which Satan might direct sensual enticements, Asher chose to walk in purity. He lived for the ways of the Lord. Rising every morning before sunrise with his scrolls, he would read through the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. He also fasted regularly, training his flesh against any temptation.

As Asher approached the choke-point into the city, the normal din rose to a cacophony. Cattle, donkeys, horses, and countless people rich and poor streamed in and out, laden with trading goods, prayer shawls, and beggars’ bowls.

To the left of the gate, shielded from the noise by a stone outcropping from the wall, the elders sat in a row. They looked up and welcomed Asher as he approached them.

Before sitting, he addressed the men, “I feel it a great privilege to serve among you. I know my youth may cause some of you to question my place here, but in my heart, I intend to make good on my father’s expectations.”

Jacob, the eldest, stood up and spoke. “Young Asher, your father’s generosity radiates through you. We believe you will honor his good name in our congregation. Welcome!”

Asher sat down among the elders.

They settled into a discussion about an upcoming meeting with King Herod. The elders had requested an audience with him. They wanted to hear his thoughts about a teacher from Galilee who had raised quite a stir of late.

...end of Chapter 3... Chapter 4, below...

“You can listen and read here…”

Online, he found Carestreet Limited, a boutique software and content-creation firm. He called their Petersburg branch.

 A lady answered, “Carestreet Limited. May I help you?”

“Yes. Allen Grady here. I saw your company needs a copywriter for your website. I write pretty well, and I…”

“Feel free to fill out our online application and send us an email with your résumé attached,” the lady responded.

One more application to add to the huge stack they have already, Allen thought. The rest of his morning he encountered similar interactions.

At noon, his wife Emily called him to the kitchen for lunch.

He sat down with her and their youngest child, Jenn. The other four kids had gone to school.

As they munched on grilled cheese sandwiches, Emily inquired, “Did you make any good contacts this morning?”

“Not really. Everybody just wants to put me on their giant list of applicants.” Leaning toward his daughter Jenn, Allen asked with a smile, “Do you like the fall weather? I’ll bet you enjoy seeing the leaves change.”

“I love the pretty colors!” she responded.

Emily gazed up at her husband. She could see the pain in his eyes. “I’ll walk through this with you, Allen.”

Sliding his chair beside her, he reached over and gave her a side hug. Little Jenn jumped off her chair and joined in.

After lunch, Allen drove his 2010 minivan to a nearby strip mall.  Approaching Carestreet Limited’s Petersburg office, he thought, Maybe an in-person visit might give me a better shot with them.

The lady he had spoken with on the phone sat at a desk behind the counter.

“Hi, I believe I spoke with you… ‘Allen Grady.’ Do you remember me? I thought maybe visiting face-to-face might give me a better shot.”

She laughed. “I admire your ambition, but I don’t hire. My boss in Pittsburgh selects the candidates.”

“Could you at least put in a good word for me?”
“I’ll think about it,” she chuckled, “if you send me an application.”

“I appreciate it,” Allen said as he exited.

Outside, he noticed a branch of his bank located next door.

Concord Bancor, the result of a merger between Concord Limited and Union Bancor a few years ago, had branches coast to coast and around the world.

It even had an international branch in Bangkok, making Allen’s bank transfer fees between the U.S. and Thailand cheaper when he’d lived there.

“Ahhh, the convenience of international banking cartels,” Allen murmured with a wry smile.

He couldn’t help chuckling at the irony of his membership in one of these gigantic mega-merged banks.

”I might as well let them know where I live now.”

After waiting in line for five minutes, a teller named Susan Leeman greeted him.

“I’d like to get my address updated in your records. We moved to Petersburg recently.”

“I can do that,” Susan said.

He handed her his new Virginia driver’s license.

“Allen Grady... okay. I see you moved from Bangkok, Thailand,” she commented, looking up from her computer.

“Yeah, we arrived here a month ago.”

“Okay. All done,” Susan said. “Can I help you with anything else?”

“Nothing more for now.”

“Thanks for dropping by.”

As he walked toward the exit, a thought popped into his mind. Turning around, he got back in line behind an elderly black lady.

After a few minutes, he approached the teller. “Hi. Allen again. I have a question. Do you know of any job openings here?”

“None listed,” Susan said. “But last week one of our tellers said she’ll have to leave soon.”

“Really.”

“You can fill out an application online,” Susan smiled.

“I will when I get home.”

“My supervisor will look forward to getting it.”

“Thanks so much!”

As Allen walked to his car, he thought, That went rather well.

...end of Chapter 4... Chapter 5, below...

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- Matt Malone

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“Speak,” crackled Anakrin’s superior, Baradal. Baradal had gained his regional position after several centuries of service to Liwanu, Prince of North America.

“Master Baradal, I report a movement of significance.”

“Go on,” Baradal hissed.

“Not two days ago, I observed Stephen Hood receive instructions.”

“What instructions?”

Anakrin related to Baradal the details of the document Reed had delivered to Stephen Hood in South Carolina.

Anakrin noted creases of thought thicken around his master’s orbed eyelids. He knew he must hold his tongue. Standing rigid, he waited for more than an hour.

Baradal finally spoke. “Continue to monitor Hood’s movements. My master Liwanu, has gathered our compatriots in Richmond. They will guide our human servants toward the ‘Event.’”

“Your servant hears and obeys,” Anakrin replied.

“Keep your senses heightened. My instincts detect enemies near,” Baradal spoke.

“Will they intervene?” Anakrin spat in nervous fury.

Baradal screeched, “Do not allow such details to distract you from your task! Off!”

“Yes, my master!” Anakrin departed upward with a flurry of wings.

Their enemies referred to them as “demons” or “fallen angels.” But why should that matter?

With the sun still shining that late afternoon, Anakrin lifted himself aloft.

Trying to avoid scouts of the Enemy, he swooped below the tree tops and weaved like an owl among the upper branches.

Whenever he encountered breaks in the forests, he slunk like a weasel in the undergrowth. His sense of smell and photographic memory of geography guided him.

Pride swelled within Anakrin’s leathery, warted chest as he reminded himself of his role. He had shadowed Stephen Hood since his arrival from Afghanistan. A great responsibility.

Crossing the state border into Virginia, Anakrin continued northward. The comfort of nighttime descended. Now his speed could increase with less furtive dodging to avoid the opposing warriors he so hated.

As he neared Richmond, the scent of Stephen Hood began to enter his flared nostrils. He floated down like a wraith to a Double Time Hotel along I-295, honing in on Room 318. Despising the scent of humans—however allied to his masters’ causes—he preferred to spend the night outside.

Anakrin reflected on the recent scene he had observed with Hood in South Carolina. He knew that Hood’s supervisors rarely contacted him over the phone or email. Nevertheless, they could have delivered the message without Reed’s midnight encounter. But the set-up had accomplished a singular purpose: with the Event fast approaching, top Network leaders wanted to ingratiate themselves with their Ascended Masters. Thus, Hood’s “blood sacrifice” of Reed had succeeded in bringing great pleasure to the dark creatures. And, since it silenced the courier, so much the better.

Stephen Hood surfed his hotel TV until he settled on a black-and-white Cold War thriller.

Anakrin listened through the window, thinking, I might enjoy watching this. With moderate difficulty, he passed through the hotel room’s wall and window and settled onto the twin bed next to Hood’s.

Hood emitted a shudder of dread that puzzled him.

Anakrin, far more intelligent than any man, could have explained to Hood the science of how two cosmoi can coexist. The matter of his realm interacted partially with the matter of Stephen Hood’s—thus the need to exert effort passing through the hotel room walls. Anakrin enjoyed the advantage of inhabiting both—fully within his own and significantly within Hood’s domain.

The thriller on the hotel TV centered around the Italian Red Brigade, a communist terrorist group that had reportedly bludgeoned Italy throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Its hero, an Italian-American secret agent, sought to prevent a massive bombing and kidnapping operation by Red Brigade villains.

Anakrin smirked as he observed the plot of the movie unfold. He knew that while the Red Brigade had carried out small terrorist attacks, Network-trained operatives had performed the vast majority. In classic “false flag” fashion, the Network, with its control over Italian media, laid the blame for these outrages on the communists—fomenting the Italian public into a fever pitch of fury against the Brigade.

The American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) termed these and related activities, Operation Gladio. Gladio had operated for decades during the Cold War and beyond. It extended outside the borders of Italy, throughout Europe and into the rest of the world.

A Roman Gladiator would use a gladius short sword to jab the guts of his opponent—often while his adversary focused on the larger sword. Such a useful weapon—underhanded, unnoticeable, and unexpected until death slashed through.

Operation Gladio had slashed through innumerable opponents to the Network since the end of World War Two.

Anakrin knew that the global human hierarchy his masters superintended had appropriated the CIA as one of its primary tools.  It would help, in their words, “bring all habitable portions of the world” under Network control.

Anakrin snickered that not only did the Network control the CIA and Gladio, they had also bankrolled the communists! By financing both sides of the Cold War, they had facilitated a “strategy of tension.” This tension had inched the fear-ridden, strife-torn peoples of the earth ever closer to the Network’s ultimate goal of a “New World Order”—a one world government.

...end of Chapter 5... Chapter 6, below...

You can even keep the eBook or Audiobook as my gift if you're not satisfied.

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If it’s not for you, I’d rather you get your money back and we part as friends.

The truth is, out of all the books I’ve shared, refunds have been rare. My readers are usually delighted – but I want you to have total peace of mind trying it.” 

One man who did ask for a refund thought he had not received it -- because it takes about 3 days to process, which I explained. He wrote back...

You will receive a refund if you ask for it.

“You can listen and read here…”

Upon completion, she joined with some grad school classmates to start up a magazine blog in Manhattan. But after a year, capital ran dry. With the blog magazine on the brink of financial failure, she tearfully decided to bail out and look for a job near her parents.

With her credentials, she found a gig with a local newspaper, the Petersburg Star Ledger. Quite a come-down from the glitz of the big city. Life at the blog had worn her out with its crazy hours and merciless deadlines, so her small-town reporter job felt almost like a sleepy vacation.

The Star Ledger’s editor, Caleb Daugherty, could not believe his paper had landed such a journalist. With the website looking like something designed in the nineties, Caleb asked Jessica to head up their online presence.

Jessica felt up for the challenge. In New York, she had picked up programming skills. As a core value of the start-up, the founders had agreed that every team member should share every other colleague’s skill set. So with investment money still flowing, they had sent Jessica to an expensive coding boot camp in the city for ten weeks. The intensity of the training nearly killed her emotionally. But her blog-teammates’ tutelage that followed the boot camp turned her into a half-decent coder.

In Petersburg, Jessica employed her skill in Javascript and proceeded to salvage the poor Star Ledger website from its sad state.

Mindful of her top-flight journalism education, Caleb also asked Jessica to hit the streets each week. “I think combining web development with old-fashioned beat reporting will make you a first-class journalist!” he enthused.

She couldn’t help smiling at his cosmopolitan ambitions for her at the sleepy little paper.

She worked out a schedule where she hit the streets on Tuesdays and Thursdays and did web work the other three days. She spent most of her outside time covering local rummage sales, high school athletics, and the odd traffic accident.

Today Jessica attended the city council meeting discussing the trash problem along the Appomattox River. In the afternoon, she submitted her story to the Star Ledger. After work, she headed to a local fitness place for her daily workout. To wind down afterward, she dined at a health bistro downtown where the servers knew her by name.

“I’ll take my usual,”  she said to the waiter. “A garden salad and a grape-flavored kombucha.” Finding it comfortable eating alone, she sat at a dimly lit booth in the back corner. There, she opened a book-reading app on her phone and proceeded to lose herself in a novel.

After an hour of reading and picking at her salad, she called for the check and walked out to the parking lot. She drove a car her dad had bought for her during her sophomore year at William & Mary.

Heading north on I-295, she passed the Double Time Hotel where Stephen Hood took in his Cold War movie. A few miles further north, she exited east toward her parent’s upscale subdivision, southeast of Richmond.

“How did work go?” Her dad asked as she walked in.

“Oh, fine. Nothing like taking in the intricate details of trash disposal along the Appomattox River,” she shared with a grin.

“At least you’ve got your web design work to keep your mind active,” her mom said as she sat in the front living room, thumbing through a home decor magazine.

“Yeah, I do like that. I love the Javascript framework I use. Such a great tool for building websites.”

“There goes our smart daughter again,” her dad commented with a chuckle. “You’ve lost me already!”

...end of Chapter 6... Chapter 7, below...

“You can listen and read here…”

“Our bank? Really?”

“They told me one of the tellers will leave soon.”

“Do you think you’d like that job?”

 
“I might. I read online that a teller in this part of Virginia makes about $35–40 thousand a year. I’ll fill out the online application tonight,” Allen said.

 
“We could live on that,” Emily observed with a thin smile.

Emily never ceased to amaze Allen. What a gem! By any standard, a true knockout—even after bearing five children. She carried herself with quiet humility. Frugal and hard-working, yet also fun-loving and adventurous—and very intelligent—he still found himself marveling at her.

For so many of his single years, Allen had worried he would only find a “quality” wife by landing a high-paying job—or at least having the potential for such a job. Yet when he met Emily at seminary, he could offer her only school debts and dreams of low-paying mission work ahead. But she found his earnestness for God and his dry humor attractive. For some strange reason, she reciprocated his interest in her.

As all seven of them sat together for dinner that evening, eight-year-old Isaac blurted out, “Hey Dad, did you find a job yet?”

“I want all you kids to pray for me. I have a lead.”

“What do you mean, ‘a lead?’” Isaac asked.

“I may have found a place to work.”

“But kids,” Emily interjected. “If he gets this job, we still won’t have much money.”

Their oldest son, Ben, age fifteen, said, “I sure would like to get a smartphone. Everybody at school has one.”

“You do know how they fry out your brain, don’t you?” Allen commented with a chuckle.

“But Dad, you do know how I need to merge with the hive mind, don’t you?” Ben countered with a smirk.

“With all the time you spend on our laptop, haven’t you assimilated already?”

“With our lousy bandwidth?”

 
“Good point!” Allen laughed.

Later that evening after he and Emily put the younger kids down to bed, Allen made a cup of herbal tea and sat down at his desk. He opened his laptop and began researching Concord Bancor. Delving into its history felt like a journey through a maze. So-and-so bank merging with so-and-so financial institution, acquiring so-and-so investment house, merging with yet another bank, and on and on. Some of the original banks had histories going back over a hundred years. But the ever-growing, snow-balling monstrosity of Concord had long since gobbled up—and erased—their brand names. “Talk about assimilation into a ‘hive mind,’” Allen murmured.

He searched also into the history of the other mega-sized banks. They each seemed to start with a large core company which then proceeded over the century to buy up smaller banks. So, in America today, he concluded, only four or five gigantic banks dominate the industry. He noted ruefully that Concord Bancor seemed the largest of them all. If the trend continued, the few independent smaller banks would soon succumb to absorption by these monsters.

“And I want to join that!” He exclaimed under his breath. “Yet I do need the money.” He shut his laptop and bowed his head, praying, “God, you know what I have here job-wise. I haven’t found much of anything. Do you want me to pursue this job at Concord Bancor?”

Afterward, he found Emily on the sofa, helping Lilly with her homework. He sat beside her. “Emily, a big part of me doesn’t like the idea of working for Concord Bancor, but if God gives me the green light, I’ll do it.”

“He might want you there to shine His light.” She smiled as she reached for him.

Allen clasped her hand, saying, “I love you.”

Outside the Grady’s home, next to a dogwood tree by the driveway, two tall figures stood in the darkness. Broad-shouldered and powerfully built, they held the bearing of sentinels. A cold autumn gust swirled dead leaves around them.

“Allen’s pleas have not gone unanswered,” one spoke.

“Yes, Galahart. His humble calls prove irresistible,” spoke the other, called Carioch.

After a twenty-minute pause, Carioch stated, “The stirrings in the lower heavens have increased.”

“You’ve felt it, have you?” Galahart asked.

“Yes, and others in our company feel them as well. Something will happen soon in this region. We sense a great gathering of Enemy forces concentrating to the north.”

“So will it finally arrive?” Galahart asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The time of the End.”

“Our Maker has not enabled us to predict such timings. But of late, similar questions churn within me.”

After another hour, Carioch spoke again. “Whatever the current tremors, I know my duty.”

“To protect the Gradys?”

 
“Yes, to protect the Gradys” Carioch affirmed.

...end of Chapter 7...

- Matt Malone

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