Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Malevolent

"What did you say your name was?"

The Chairwoman's voice echoed around the room bouncing off the walls and floors in the large open space, causing something of an echo to reverberate through the room. The GA council sat in full for the first time in centuries, multiple delegates, multiple political leaders, and many military leaders sitting straight-backed in their chairs , staring with mixed expression at the two men standing at the center of the room.

The human delegation sat in unrestrained awe, their mouths hanging wide, their eyes as wide as moons staring from their faces. Off to their side, the Drev council sat warily staring at their allies, back and forth between the human delegation and the source of their awe.

Between them, the Celzex delegation had not strayed markedly from their usual air of dispassionate calm. Lord Celex looked almost bored, though that was made up for by his son, who leaned forward with great interest., and all around the room reactions were mixed, there was fear, skepticism and even annoyance on the face of the delegates mistrusting of what they were seeing, skeptical of what they were being told.

"My name is Adam, though for the sake of avoiding confusion, you can pick one of the many iterations. I Like Adham personally. I like the way it rolls off the tongue, but Adom would work or Adama if you would like." With a smile the man's eyes flicked towards the Drev delegation, "I understand that some of you cannot pronounce that though, so Ka'an might be a good substitute."
All across the room multiple translation implants took the word and ran it through algorithms faster than firing neurons inside brains.

Ka'an

The first.

The man smiled.

Off to the side Admiral Kelly stood her face wrinkled into a deep frown, "Ka'an, the first, and you claim your name is Adam. Forgive me for presuming, but are you tying to say that you are.... The First Adam, as in Adam and Eve, as in the first man?"

Before them on the floor, the man smiled, his timeless, ageless raceless face breaking into a perfect replication of what a human smile was designed to be, "If I were to say it outright, that would take all the fun out of your speculation."

Despite his non-answer, the human delegation muttered with shock glancing between each other with wide eyes, some in complete disbelief while others looked on with some measure of awe.

The Drev representative stood turning to look at the human delegation, "With no disrespect to our human friends, and on behalf of the rest of the council, I think all of us would like to know the significance of that statement."

There was nodding around the room.

The human delegations looked between each other, but eventually, it was Admiral Vir who stepped forward.

"Our apologies, council, we would be happy to explain." His voice failed him for a moment, lost in his mouth as he searched for words which were also lost somewhere on their way from his brain to his mouth." He struggled for a moment, trying to figure out how to phrase what he wanted to say, and eventually took a long deep breath.

"In human history there has existed a single story that has been passed down through generations first by word of mouth, until finally it was written. Once written this story became the foundation for multiple religions that survive on earth until this day, three of those major religions Judaism, Christianity , and Islam. All three have seen splits since their foundation and have multiple iterations, but the one thing that they tend to agree on, is the use and existence of a set of books called the Old Testament."

Overhead the alien council listened in rapped attention, the Drev quite intrigued, as their society too had been founded on faith and spirituality.