Ramone tried to make small-talk with Pascal, but Pascal was too pre-occupied to show any real interest.

Christian pulled a silver timepiece out of his pocket and studied it for a moment.  Then he looked at Ramone. “Oh really now.  Where are Anne-Marie and Brendan?” he asked, with a touch of irritation.

Ramone shrugged, “I asked them to be here...”

Pascal glanced from Ramone to Christian, “We don’t have much time.  If they’re late...”

“They’ll be here.” Ramone said.  He turned away and muttered to himself: “Otherwise I’ll kick their asses when I see them!”

Christian scowled.

The door suddenly opened.  Anne-Marie strolled in; Brendan followed her, grinning to himself.

Ramone nodded at them, then he turned to Christian, “I told you they’d be here!”

“Yes, well,” Christian mewed, glancing at his watch again, “Better late than never, I suppose...”

Brendan smiled at Christian, ignoring his subtle jibe, “What’s going on?”

“Something big!” Ramone said, “I guess we’re about to find out what...”

Christian’s face creased into a careful smile.  He glanced at Pascal as he spoke, “I think perhaps ‘big’ is something of a dramatic understatement.”

“Ok, now I’m intrigued!” Anne-Marie said, striding across the room towards Pascal.

“And so you should be...” Christian mewed, “So you should be...”

Anne-Marie and Brendan exchanged a quick glance.  This was no ordinary gathering of ‘the team’.  Something huge was about to happen.

Ramone held his hands out, palms-up.  His big tanned face was a mixture of confusion and curiosity, “What?  What is it?”

Christian nodded at Pascal.

Pascal, still sitting on his desk chair, turned slowly towards the huge screen on the wall.

Ramone, Brendan and Anne-Marie gathered around him, with growing interest.

Pascal flicked a few keys on his keyboard.  An image appeared on the screen.

At first, it appeared to be a still image: a big block of silver-blue colour.  They all stared at it, silently.  Then Anne-Marie noticed something.  “It’s moving... it’s... pulsing.” she said, squinting at the screen.

“What is it?” Ramone asked.

Pascal appeared to be mesmerised by what he was seeing.  “Energy,” he whispered.

Brendan looked confused, “Energy?  What kind of energy?”

“All energy.” was Pascal’s simple response.

Brendan and Anne-Marie exchanged dubious looks.

Christian spoke, from across the room, “Perhaps, Pascal, we should show the original...”

Pascal nodded.

He flicked a small switch on the desk.  A motor whirled gently into life on the back wall.  Brendan and Anne-Marie span around in unison.

The life-size replica of Michelangelo’s painting, ‘The Creation of Adam’, was being slowly retracting into the thick wooden picture frame, revealing a bizarre metal grid which was entwined with cables, like black spaghetti.  Behind the metal and the cables, sunken into the wall, was a block of pulsating silver-blue colour.

“What the hell?” Ramone whispered.

“This is the Navitas,” Christian said.  There was a touch of awe in his voice.

Anne-Marie glanced at him, “The what?”

“The Navitas.  The Energy.  For four-hundred years it has been in my possession.  For four-hundred years I have wondered at its meaning... its purpose.” He glanced at Ramone, then Brendan, then Anne-Marie, “And now, thanks to Pascal, the answers have finally been revealed.”

“What the hell is this?” Ramone asked, glancing from Christian to the strange tangle of metal and wires which the painting had been hiding.

“Pascal...” Christian said, prompting the young genius to take over the dialogue again.

Pascal cleared his throat, drawing everyone’s attention.  “There are ten-thousand super-high-spec digital cameras attached to the metal frame, each covering a two-inch square section of the Navitas.  Each camera captures ten frames per second, at super-high-resolution.  The cameras are connected to a rack of blades,” he paused and glanced at Ramone, then Anne-Marie, “ – or ‘servers’ – which are networked up in the storage room, back there...”

Pascal spun around on his chair, so that he was facing the huge television screen.  “And this... is the result...”

Brendan studied the screen carefully, “What is it?” he asked, growing curiously impatient.

Pascal took a deep breath and pressed some keys on his keyboard.  Slowly, the image on the screen zoomed-in.  The effect was a little like zooming into a map – reminiscent of GoogleEarth.  At first, an entire area just looked like a block of colour... then it took on more definition... then more... then more... until eventually, small individual blobs of colour could be seen.  The blobs of colour were moving, attracting towards each other, then repelling, some appearing to be magnetised together, some floating freely.

“This is what the cameras are capturing, from the Navitas,” Pascal whispered, “For many days we pondered over the images.  Until, eventually, we realised that the Navitas is a giant Energy map.  It quite literally shows, in miniature, how all the energy around our world is interacting... how energy is expanding and transforming...”

“Are you serious?” Ramone asked in a whisper.

“Quite serious,” Christian said, “As incomprehensible as it seems... that is precisely what you are looking at: a map of Energy interacting in our world.”

“Where did it come from?” Anne-Marie asked, breathlessly, “Who made it?”

“Honestly, my dear, we have no idea.” Christian mewed, fixing her with a half-smile, “Suffice it to say, that it came into my possession many centuries ago, through a series of events that I would not care to explain.  Of course, I have always known it held a great significance... but only recently have we possessed both the means to activate its power AND the technology to analyse it.”

He paused and gestured towards Pascal, “Pascal, of course, has taken care of the technological aspects... and Brendan’s recent trip to Russia provided the activation device.”

A look of confusion crept into Brendan’s face.

Christian smiled at him, “The dagger that you brought back, Brendan.  The silver dagger that dear Patrick bestowed on you... Unbeknownst to you, the key to the Navitas was concealed in the handle of the dagger – a small piece of crystal which one fits into the side of the great object.”

Brendan glanced at the screen again, momentarily mesmerised by the pulsating blobs of colour.  “Does it run off electricity?  Or... what?”

Christian shook his head and gave Brendan a wry smile, “Apparently not.”

“We are uncertain what the power-source of the Navitas is,” Pascal said, “It just... works.”

“Who on earth could have made such a thing?” Anne-Marie asked.

“Perhaps,” Christian mewed, “its makers were in fact not of this earth...”

“What are you saying?” Anne-Marie asked, incredulous, “That it was made by aliens?”

Christian smiled, patiently, “My dear girl, I truly do not know what to say about the origins of the Navitas... they are as mysterious to me as they are to you.”

“What does all this mean?” Ramone asked, ever-practical, “What does it mean to us?”

“It means everything,” Christian said, turning from the small crowd and taking a step away.

Ramone waited for Christian to elaborate, but he didn’t.  He turned to Pascal instead, inviting an explanation.

“Ok,” Pascal said, “This is the weirdest part...”

“Can it get any weirder?” Anne-Marie whispered to Brendan.

Pascal pointed at the screen, “You see how some of the blobs of colour appear to move together?  As though some force it acting on them... keeping them orbiting around a central point...”

Ramone studied the screen, carefully, “Yes, I see it.  What are those things?”

“Living entities,” Pascal said.

Ramone looked bemused, “Living entities?  Like...”

“Like... people.” Pascal said, nodding.

Anne-Marie glanced at Brendan, then at Pascal, “You mean... those groups of coloured dots floating around on the screen... are... people?  As in, real people?”

Pascal nodded, “Yes.”

“And you may notice,” Christian mewed, still looking away from the gathering, “That people have many different energies in their aura; some bright, some deep in colour, some dark, some light.  The colours of course relate to different tones of energy.  But fundamentally, as you can see, the blobs are either brightly coloured, or they are dark... good energy and bad energy.”

“That’s freaky,” Anne-Marie whispered.

“I wonder what my energies look like.” Brendan whispered back, “I bet that’s freaky.”

Pascal glanced at him, “Want to see?”

“Oh, no way!” Brendan said, “You haven’t tied those... blobs... to real people!  You can’t show... me... on there... can you?”

Pascal pressed a few keys.  A small input-box appeared on the screen, prompting him to: “Enter Entity Reference”

Pascal typed in “Brendan”, and pressed the Search button.

There was a pause, then the image zoomed out... then back in again, on a different area... zooming in... zooming in... zooming in... until the blur of colours became defined again, showing numerous blobs and dots of colours.

One group of blobs were much bigger than the others; composed of bright colours.  The word: “Brendan”, was floating over top of a bright white blob at the centre of the group.

Brendan’s draw dropped a notch, “How the hell?...”

“Not that hard really,” Pascal said, nonchalantly, “Iunctus are easy to spot.  Our energy centres are much bigger than everyone else's.  I've written a basic program which scans the images, looking for abnormally large blobs... and when I find one, I 'tag it' with a label, and the software follows it around.”

"Quite ingenious," Christian muttered.

"Quite freaky!" Anne-Marie corrected.

"But how do you know that that is me?" Brendan asked.

Pascal nodded, "We have been playing with this for many weeks now.  I have hundreds of hours of recorded footage.  Actually, it is surprisingly easy to spot events, retrospectively, when you know what you're looking for.  Every event causes an interaction between energies, and if you know what happened, then you know what energy patterns to look for.  In your case, Brendan, I took a point last week when you interacted with Ramone - on Fight-night.  Here it is..."

Pascal tapped numerous keys and entered various numbers into input-boxes.  The screen changed to a still image; a tangled mass of colour.  Then Pascal pressed another key, and the colours started interacting with each other, sparkling and expanding dramatically.

Pascal glanced at Ramone, then at Brendan, "That, is the two of you, fighting in the gym last Wednesday."

Ramone, Brendan and Anne-Marie watched the screen, speechless, as the blobs of colour twisted and merged into each other.

"Ramone won, by knock-out..." Pascal said, "Here it comes..."

Several of the coloured blobs suddenly swelled in size, then several other blobs shrank and faded.

"That was Brendan being knocked unconscious," Pascal said, "Definitive identification.  From that point, the software has tracked those energy blobs around... tracked you Brendan... and you Ramone...”

Brendan rubbed the side of his head as he mentally relived the painful memory of Ramone's elbow smashing into his skull.

“So, the Navitas is a map?” Anne-Marie asked.

“Not a conventional map.” Pascal said, “The position of the energy blobs don’t correspond to physical locations.  Energy doesn’t really work that way.  It’s more like, magnetism, acting on unseen forces...”

"What's that black line?" Anne-Marie asked, "It's connected to... Brendan..." she winced as she said it, uncomfortable with referring to a blob of colour on a screen as someone she knew well.

Pascal glanced at Christian before answering, "That’s his connection to his Demon."

Brendan's eyes suddenly bulged open, "What...?  Really?  You can see that..."

Pascal nodded, "We can follow that black line of energy all the way to Sadie's entity..."

"Go on..." Ramone said, breathless.

The look in Brendan's eye said he wasn't sure.  But he didn't protest.

Pascal pressed a few more keys and suddenly the screen zoomed out... then in again... focusing on a very dark collection of coloured blobs; a mass of black dots and lines, circling around a central point.

"That... is your Demon, Brendan.  That is what Sadie's energies look like..."

Brendan’s face scrunched up.

Christian cleared his throat and checked the time on his pocket-watch, “Ah-hum... Of course this is all most fascinating... but I am afraid that time is getting away from us.  No doubt you each have a multitude of questions.  However, tonight we are somewhat time-constrained.  Pascal and I wish to undertake a most important experiment; an experiment which will require the three of you to lend us your aid.”

Brendan shook his head and exchanged bewildered looks with Ramone and Anne-Marie.

Christian started to stroll back and forth, “Earlier this afternoon,” he mused, “Pascal was able to predict not only the precise time, but also the precise location of a murder which took place in China Town, London.”

“It is true to say that the Navitas shows energy,” Pascal said, slowly, glancing from Ramone to Brendan to Anne-Marie, “However, what is shows is not how the energies of the world currently stand... but how they will stand thirty-six hours in the future.”

“An unfathomable fact,” Christian mewed, “But a fact, nonetheless.”

“... and so...” Pascal said, talking slowly and deliberately as he delivered the ultimate punch line, “... we are able to see into the future.  Thirty-six hours into the future to be precise.  And because we are able to tie the energy blobs on the Navitas to people... we are able to foresee certain events happening to said people, thirty-six hours from any given point.”

“Ok, now this is starting to freak me out.” Ramone said, shaking his head.

Christian afforded him a faint smile, “I did warn you, did I not, that the word ‘big’ was something of an understatement.”

“You weren’t joking,” Anne-Marie whispered.

“Of course,” Pascal said, “I have been recording the images from the Navitas continuously for many weeks now.  Sadly, it is not possible to record at the resolution I would ideally like – there is simply not enough disk-storage capacity in existence for that.  But I have managed to capture sections of energy interchanges at a reasonable level of accuracy, enough to show us what we needed.”

“Which was?” Ramone asked.

“We wanted to find an event that we could recognise, between living entities that we could track, close to here.  And we found one: a coming-together of two entities which resulted in the death of one.  We used video surveillance to track the movements of the two entities... one was a tramp, the other was a member of a gang who the tramp stole off.”

“We need not recount all the details now,” Christian interrupted, “we are short on time.  However, suffice it to say, that we were able to witness, via a CCTV camera, the precise moment when the murder happened – precisely when the Navitas indicated that it would.”

“That’s unbelievable!” Ramone said.

Christian’s wry smile widened a millimetre.

“And... I believe another such event will transpire this evening,” Pascal said.  He glanced at the clock on the desk, “In one-and-a-half hours.”

“Uh, Pascal...“ Ramone said, “I’ve always known you’re a genius... but this is seriously creepy!  You know that?”

Pascal shrugged and gave Ramone a careful smile.

“Another murder?” Anne-Marie asked.

“No,” Pascal said, “But a coming-together of two entities, with extremely negative consequences.”

“How can you possibly know the consequences?” Brendan asked.

Pascal pursed his lips, “Watch...” he said, looking towards the screen, “Here is the event happening on the Navitas... This was recorded thirty-four and a half hours ago... so it should come to pass in another hour-and-a-half.”

All eyes turned to the screen.  Pascal did his magic; his fingers danced around the keyboard for a few seconds, then the screen changed, and the blobs of colour started moving, swirling around.

One group of blobs had the word ‘Harriet’ floating over top of it.

“Harriet is the victim of the encounter,” Pascal said, “She is a young woman, twenty-seven years of age, works for an Insurance company, catches the train to work...”

“Yes, yes,” Christian mewed, well-aware that Pascal had done meticulous background research, and could probably recount the woman’s entire life-history, if time permitted – which it didn’t.

Pascal looked affronted for a moment, then he continued, “There are two other entities involved.  Two men, we believe.  Though we are less certain of this... they have proven harder to definitively identify.  We have code-named them ‘Tom’ and ‘Dick’ – as in, Tom, Dick, and Harri-et.”

A smile played on Pascal’s lips; his subtle humour amused him.

“Now watch this...” Pascal said, “This is a fast-forward of the energy movements around those three entities, starting four weeks ago, and finishing thirty-six hours in the future...”

Pascal tapped keys, and the screen split into three separate windows, each showing a section of the Energy-map – one focused around the group of blobs, labelled ‘Harriet’, one on ‘Tom’ and one on ‘Dick’.

The colours in each window started swirling around, expanding, and contracting.  The coloured blobs attached to ‘Harriet and ‘Dick’ started out pure and bright; those attached to ‘Tom’ were dark, with lots of black dots interspersed between them.

As the recording played, “Tom’ and ‘Dick’ interacted, multiple times.  Every interaction left a trace, and gradually the colours in ‘Dick’ took on the same dark shades as those in ‘Tom’.

“Watch the time and date in the top-right corner.” Pascal said, “this is three days ago... two... earlier today...”

Suddenly, the group of blobs labelled ‘Dick’ swirled into view on the window showing the group of blobs labelled ‘Harriet’; the two groups collided, and then the ‘Harriet’ blobs took on the same dark colour as ‘Dick’... except worse.  The ‘Harriet’ blobs started infecting all the other blobs around them; infecting them with the same blackness that they had been infected with.  More and more blobs turned black as the ‘Harriet’ entity seemed to spiral out of control, passing the darkness on to everything it came into contact with.

The screen froze abruptly.

“That’s as far forward as we can see,” Pascal said, “The full effect of the event cannot yet be known.  However, it looks certain that the overall impact is extremely negative.”

“It seems,” Christian mewed, reclaiming the attention of the gathering, “in summary, that ‘Dick’ was an innocent and generally positive entity until ‘Tom’ came into his life.  ‘Tom’ infected ‘Dick’ with his evil energy... and this was passed via ‘Dick’ onto poor ‘Harriet’, who appears subsequently to spread the evil far and wide.  The three of you must stop this event happening.  You must stop ‘Dick’ and ‘Harriet’ interacting this evening.”

Anne-Marie swallowed, cautiously. “Ok, I mean, sure, this is amazing...” she said, “But can it be wise?  Can it be wise to medley in this way?”

Christian frowned at her, thoughtfully, “That, we cannot be certain of.  But of two things we are certain.  One: we must do something to buck the current trend – dark times are closing around us; we are at war with evil, and we are losing the battle.  Two: fate, it seems, has conspired to give us this opportunity.  The Navitas has found its way to us, as has the key to activate it; and the one with the means to interpret its signals... and I cannot believe that these things are mere coincidences, meant to be ignored.  I have given the matter much thought.  And I have concluded that we must act.  We must take positive moves to stop the spread of evil.  We must use this gift for the greater-good.”

Ramone glanced at Brendan.  Brendan glanced at Anne-Marie.

“Why do you say that we are losing the battle against evil?” Ramone asked, “Have you not always believed that Good will always prevail... that love conquers all?”

Christian’s face creased into a rueful smile.  “Indeed, I have long believed in the power of love.  However, the Navitas has given me pause on the subject.”

“Why?” Anne-Marie asked, “I thought you said it was a gift?  A gift which could be used for the greater-good.”

Christian looked meaningfully at Pascal.

Pascal flicked a few keys, and a white box appeared at the top of the huge screen; a white box with a black number.  The number had many decimal places, the less-significant of which were decreasing at a rapid rate: 72.23452366... 72.23452365... 72.23452364... 72.23452363...

“What is that number?” Brendan asked.

“I call it the ‘White-count’,” Pascal said, “It is an approximate measure of the percentage of positively charged energy, shown by the Navitas.”

Brendan thought about this for a moment, “So... 72 percent of all energy is positively charged... and 28 percent is negatively charged?”

“More or less.” Pascal said, “There are various complexities to the formula... but yes, in a nutshell, the world’s energies are currently 72 percent positive.”

“And falling by the second,” Christian added.  A hint of stern authority had edged into his voice, “Although the decrease appears slow, Pascal predicts that the ‘White-count’ figure could be as little as sixty-five in ten years time... If it ever dips below fifty percent, then I fear to imagine what sort of world we would find ourselves living in.”

“This is his plan.” Brendan mused, suddenly dumbstruck by the revelations, “When I was imprisoned, in the Demon’s fortress... I was told that he – the Demon’s leader – strived to turn the energies of the world dark... he strived to banish love and hope from existence...”

“And gradually he is succeeding.” Christian mewed, meeting Brendan’s gaze with concerned eyes, “The energies of the world are changing... they are turning darker.  We must buck the trend.  And we have discovered a means of doing so.  If our experiment works, then the implications are enormous.  Do you see?  We may be able to spot – in advance – key events which would result in negative energy transfers, and we may be able to prevent them.”

Pascal handed them print-outs: photographs of ‘Tom’, ‘Dick’ and ‘Harri’.

“We believe it will happen in Cardiff,” Pascal said, “In... one hour and twenty-seven minutes.  Harri gets the train home from work.  Based on her movements over the past few days, I predict the event will take place somewhere on her way from the train station to her house.”

“And Cardiff is a good one-hour drive from here,” Christian mewed, “The three of you must make haste... Stop this event from happening.  Stop ‘Dick’ and ‘Harri’ interacting.”

Anne-Marie looked dubious.

Brendan looked unconvinced.

Ramone looked bewildered.

But Ramone snapped them into action with a loud clap, “Come on then!  Let’s go...”