As soon as he reached the top of the staircase, he knew something was wrong. He had only
been gone a few hours to meet with the city leaders, and had left his young student working to encrypt
a message to Venice.

"Enreffie" he called out as the door swung open. It wasn't locked and there were signs of the
door being forced open. He cautiously entered having pulled out the dagger he always carried under his
robes.

The room was a mess with his books and papers strewn about. Obviously someone had been
looking for one of the valuable ideas or writings he possessed, but hopefully not more. Quickly he
stepped over the mess to reach the work room where he had left Enreffie, both anxious and nervous as
to what he may find.

His heart sunk as he saw the young man slumped on the floor. He rushed to his side, observing
the blood hoping beyond hope that he was still alive. A weak voice raised his spirit as Enreffie spoke in
obvious pain and a gasping voice. "Master, I tried to stop them. I hid the document before they could
break in. I did not recognize them, but they talked about the plans for the coming battle."
As the Master held him, he could see the multiple wounds in his stomach and chest were fatal
so he did his best to comfort him in his last moments. "You did well my friend, I will find them and they
will pay for what they have done to you. I will insure your family is taken care of. You have served me
well and faithfully. Now rest and let God bless you with peace." He continued to hold his young friend
for the few moments that were the rest of his life.

After Enreffie took his final breath, the master gently laid his head down, took off his cloak and
covered him. Before bringing in the city guards, he went to the bookcase. Pushing the panels in the
secret key pattern then slid the back area open exposing the hidden alcove. There were ten hand bound
books and three bundles of papers inside. Checking to insure that all was proper, he swiftly closed the
alcove and reengaged the lock and replaced the covering. Only then did he leave to call the guards
standing outside on the street, assigned by the city fathers to protect him.

To those that worked for him, and many around the world, he was simply the master. Born to
simple people, Leonardo da Vinci was truly a master. History would record him as the great Renaissance
man. His sculptures, art, alchemy, engineering was the most advanced in the civilized world and he was
called on by Princes, Kings and Popes to give them access to his capabilities.
Now, one of them would feel his wrath.

|||

 

It had been a while since their last broadcast test of the Watcher communications. The
development team had been engaged in designing a different approach to injecting power into this
unique cross dimensional pattern. They needed to extend the open window time and be able to reduce
time between transmissions.

If the next series of tests were successful, they would begin to tackle the harder design effort
needed to receive and interpret incoming communications. The problems were extremely complex.

Their designs had to operate across many dimensions and effect energy vibrations at levels so small that even light particles were like planets compared to the focus of their engineering points.

They had been able to send simple tones for short periods of time lately. Their task now was to
reattach the image generator and send a set of new patterns.

They spent much of their time and massive amounts of energy to build the simple tools needed,
but their results had been confirmed, this new form of communications would effect a change across
the universe. Luckily they had access to the being that had opened their eyes to this historic capability.
The being had not been aware of his uniqueness, but now was treasured more by the "Old Ones" than
anything else.

Finally the team was ready for their next step forward and announced their intentions across
their galaxy communications network. The preparatory signal was issued to let those across the galaxy
of Sxvy know that the next test was about to be engaged.

|||

After a sad evening, the Master sat in his bed trying to find a way to sleep. As was his habit,
water, pen, ink and paper were on his night table. It was often he would wake with a new idea or a
solution to a troubling problem. He would jot down notes that would guide his work in the following
days allowing his mind to then ease back to sleep.

The past days and weeks had been difficult, for some unknown reason, there were periods of
time when everything became irritating, much like a burr was in his shoe. It would come and go. His
physician could not explain it. Today had not been one of those days, but instead he had lost a friend
and promising student. So sleep seemed impossible.

While the master sat up in bed to insure proper digestion as was the tradition, suddenly his
mind was overwhelmed. The image of a strange and wonderful site, unlike anything he had ever seen or
heard of blasted into his mind. The images of strange beings of blues, greens, black, white, brown;
strange shapes to their heads and bodies.

All seemed amazed as if they too were suddenly being thrust into this wondrous scene taking
place. The field of beings seemed to stretch into the infinite as the master quickly tried to take it all in,
trying not to miss anything. As if the skies opened, suddenly there were strange symbols appearing
above their heads. With each symbol was an object. There were two key sets that appeared.
The master focused on each set as they burned into his mind.

As suddenly as it had appeared, the image was gone. With the image still fresh in his memory,
the master fumbled to retrieve his pen and paper. It was far too much to capture on a simple piece of
paper but he had to try. After jotting down the symbols and their associated objects, the master rose
from his bed and moved to his work table. For the rest of the night he jotted down notes to attempt to
capture as much of the experience as possible.

With the rising sun signaling the new day, the master remembered the meeting with the local
church bishop. Strangely, unlike normal dreams, the night’s images were still fresh in his mind as if they
had just happened.

After washing, changing his night cloths for appropriate robes and having a simple meal of
cheese and bread, the master headed out for his appointment with the bishop. The day before, the
newly arrived bishop had sent a message asking for the meeting, but had not indicated the reason. This
was a new bishop that had recently arrived in Milan from Napoli in what was considered an unusual
move that indicated some type of power play happening within the Church of Rome. His position
provided him great power in Milan and he was known as someone to not ignore. Leonardo knew little
of his background and assumed that other than general information he knew little of Leonardo’s true
position.

 

When the master entered the bishop’s office, he bowed and per tradition, kissed the extended
ring, showing his allegiance to the church and the bishop as the designated ambassador of the church.
The bishop indicated that he should sit. "My son, how are you doing after the tragic events of
yesterday? I have been told how much you cared for that poor boy. We have joined with the city
officials to start an investigation, but at this time we have no idea of who may have done this horrible
deed."

"I am very sad father; he was a talented and intelligent lad. I will miss his energy and
companionship."

"I am sorry to interrupt your time of morning, but I have heard you have been commissioned to
provide a plan of extending the defenses for Venice. I was wondering if it was true and if I could provide
you any help."

The mention of a Venice commission instantly caught the master’s attention. The message
traffic from Venice always came through a private encrypted message using his hidden massager. Only
three men could know what his communication was for, and no one in the church was part of the
private information.

Few knew Leonardo was a grand master of the secret group known as the Freemason’s. The
message had come from his first assistant in Venice. The word on the street was that the church was
attempting to discover the leadership of the Freemasonry in an attempt to capture their financial bank
holdings to cover losses from a failed attempt by the church in Italy to capture lands and holdings from
the Eastern Church in Constantinople.

Enreffie had been encrypting a reply to Leonardo’s next in command based in Venice when the
attack took place. The message dealt with defense plans against the expected assault invasion of their
storage building by members of a private army assumed controlled by the church.
To Leonardo, it was obvious that the bishop was probing for information. What the bishop did
not know was Leonardo's position in the secret society and as such, he knew far more about what was
actually happening. In turn, the bishop just exposed his hand in the expected attack and possibly in the
death of Enreffie.

Leonardo could not expose the depth of his involvement. "Father, I have only been dealing with
the wine merchant Defancio (Leonardo’s next in command) from Venice. He is attempting to negotiate a
commission for a sculpture of his daughter for her upcoming wedding. I have no knowledge of any
defense commission, although if such work is being sought, I would be interested in the commission.
The extra work would be most useful at this time in helping to fund the support of Enreffie's family."
In an attempt to draw out the killers if they were tied to the church, Leonardo continued.
“Father I would like to tell you about a great concept I am working on. Last night I had a revelation of a
new defensive system that could be used to protect a building or a city. These new machines will give
the owner, both an ability to provide great defensive abilities that could not be overcome. So again, if
there is a commission to provide protection, please let them know that for a reasonable commission, I
can guaranty protection.”

“Amazing my son; having heard of your great abilities and having seen some of your amazing
work first hand, I am sure you would not be stating this if you were not totally convinced this was
achievable. Surely you must be taking steps to be able to protect this great ability.”
“Yes father, I have a hidden compartment in my kitchen that stores my most precious
documents. But surely, you must not allow this to be known. I trust you will protect this information as
part of the protection of the confessional. I have great faith in the church and therefore in you to
protect my most precious of secrets.”

“Of course my son, I would not divulge anything we have talked about here. You can trust your
life with me and the church.”

“Then father I will take my leave of you. Again, if you hear that Venice is seeking protection,
please be sure to pass along my interest in the commission.”

“Of course my son; again, please pass along my greatest condolences to the young man’s
family.”

When Leonardo returned to his home, after insuring the guards were positioned outside, he
went to the kitchen and asked the staff to please leave for the afternoon. As soon as they had left,
talking his tool set, he began the job to build a hidden compartment. Unlike his actual safe, this had a
flaw that if someone looked closely, they would discover the location. With a little work, the location
could be broken into. His plan was ready.

That evening once the remaining staff had left for the day, Leonardo left with his guard in tow to
visit the city leaders to discuss the investigation into Enreffie’s murder. As he left, he made sure that
the handle on the door was left in the upright position. This was an indicator to his private massager
that a message needed to be picked up in its usual location.

There were always two messages, a benign unencrypted message and the real encrypted
message encapsulated in a special cryptx that only the receiver could open and decode based on a series

of previously passed, predefined books and established numerical code sequences.
When Leonardo returned later that evening, the handle on the door had been rotated to the
downward position indicating that the message had been retrieved. Upon entering his quiet home, he
walked to the kitchen and as he had expected, the hidden location had been tampered with and papers
moved. The thief had been above average, but had left tale-tale signs of his presence that only
someone as observant the Master could catch.

The Master was now convinced that the bishop and the church had been involved and
responsible for Enreffie’s murder and the attempted theft. If his plan worked, the church was in for a
surprise.

|||

Across the galaxy communications channel, word that the Watcher had received the message
was greeted with excitement. The Watcher had been having bouts of nervous irritation prior to the
message and there appeared to be a correlation to the broadcast tonal tests, so the team decided they
needed to find a better test method in the future.

A second broadcast would soon happen to prove that the new power connection worked
properly and word of the second pending broadcast was made to insure all was ready.

|||

The thief’s returned with the detailed decryption of the contents of Leonardo’s safe. As per
instruction, they left the papers in the safe, but took detailed notes of what was on the papers. Their
fee was paid and they proceeded to leave the building by the docks in Milan.

As they walked along the river headed out of town, a flurry of bolts from a shadow alleyway
struck and in an instant they were dead. Quickly the leader of the archers, snuck out of the darkness,
rifled their bodies retrieving the packets of gold coins. Their dead bodies were then rolled into the river.

The leader that had paid the thief’s had already begun to study the papers delivered and
recognized the plans for defense of the Freemason bank in Venice. Given his instructions to attack the
bank and access key information along with grabbing of funds of the Freemasonry, he now knew their
planned defense. Given the plans, an approach to overcome the defenses could be now be devised. He
had planned a frontal approach, but the open courtyard would be a fatal approach given the
information in the defense plans.

The small team would leave Milan in the morning for Venice to meet up with the larger force in
Venice. The instructions were to capture the information and money before the next full moon that was
only two weeks away.

The papers showed two new unique objects that would be utilized. The first was some type of
flying machine that would support a man that could defend above any building in a mobile unit. The
second was a large vehicle that seemed to contain a number of men that could maneuver within an
armed force overpowering them from the ground. While he had never seen anything like these two
objects before, he was dealing with a master engineer whose capabilities could not be underestimated.
Many had gambled on overcoming the master’s defenses before and all had fallen in battle.
His plans needed to have his small army prepared to avoid these two unique objects. If they
could be made useless then his force could overpower the standard defenses of a small force backed by
doors and locks. The Freemasonry Mason’s did not have the manpower to employ overwhelming
forces, they were know as having uniquely unusual and cryptic defense systems, but not employing
overwhelming force.

|||

Leonardo sat working on a painting, a picture for a private commission covering movement of
funds to Leonardo from the Freemason private banks. The image with Freemason symbols were part of
a future code to be used for handling key banking transfers. The symbols were integrated into an image
of a woman (a painting that in a future version would become known as Mona Lisa). As he made a key
brush stroke, a new Watcher communication struck. The effect caused him to spill paints on the work
that was in its early stages, he would have to start again.

The image that struck his mind as a bolt, again showed the alien population in what could only
be understood as a flowing never ending ocean. He could see the individuals, but could only
comprehend the image when he saw it as an ocean of beings. As before, the symbols and their
adjoining objects flashed into the sky overhead. The same symbols, but different objects occurred. This
difference in objects gave more understanding to the symbols.

As before, the image suddenly ceased. After a short time allowing him to collect his thoughts,
Leonardo sat aside his work on the painting and walked over to the hidden alcove. After he retrieved his
working papers, he spent the following hours detailing out the images and symbols.

Once done with the detailed description of the event onto key papers. Details that he could
only relate to passages of Dante’s Inferno, he proceeded to copy the basic images along with the
passage of Dante’s Inferno into his work book where he maintained a list of ideas. He understood that
these two key objects were beyond his ability to build, but he needed to record them along with the key
symbols that could allow him to continue to think about future work that eventually could lead to some
advances as yet unknown. His detailed notes were kept separate from his general work book that
allowed him to collect idea’s that he then referenced to his detailed notes; his private form of cross
referencing his growing library of papers.

|||

 

When the attack took place at the Freemason building housing their funds and key papers, the
force was prepared based on the information stolen from Leonardo’s house. The leader of the force
was confident in his plan and had trained his men on what to expect.

As the time came, the force attacked from the canals and from the streets. As they approached
the building, suddenly a set of unique sounds could be heard by the stealthy force. This was the sounds
that the expected defense their leader had identified based on the masters notes.

Based on the plan of attack, the three different teams changed their approach expecting an
attack from above, while maneuvering into tight alley’s in the expectation of being attacked by a large
object that from the notes could not maneuver in these tight spaces. The attackers continued to edge
forward constantly looking above as they pressed tight against the building walls to avoid presenting a
target for the unique flying machine they expected.

Their plan was flawless in execution as they neared the Freemason.

Suddenly, from the base of the buildings across from walls that each of the three teams were
pressed against, a platform which was integrated and hidden into the wall suddenly rotated down on a
pulley system. On the platform were hundreds of cross bows which released in a synchronized motion.
The flurry of bolts released from the hidden crossbows created a wall of death flying at the attackers.
The effect was horrible, killing and maiming the attackers all within moments.

As the attack teams attempted to recover their dead, all their spotters pulled back upon hearing
the screaming and moaning to the point of attack as they attempted to support what remained of the
attack teams. Those that could help proceeded to bind the wounds of those that they could save.
As the spotters pulled back to support the attackers leaving the canal unmonitored, a boat
slowly exited the building from a hidden door. The boat had been hidden in the Freemason building
giving it direct access to the adjacent canal. With no signs of hurry, the boat moved down the main
canal with only two men onboard as it moved to a main canal with slightly higher boat traffic. The boat
casually headed to the main open waters where a ship awaited to transport the money and all the key
papers away to a new secret location; the papers which carried the secrets of the Freemason society; a
treasure more valuable than the stash of gold coins.

Defancio and his family, including his new son-in-law were already onboard the ship as they
prepared to start a new life. Defancio’s position was exposed and as such he would no longer be of use
to the society in Venice. Only Defancio knew where their ultimate location would be, even his wife and
daughters were not told. With his service now done, he could live a calmer and less eventful life;
hopefully enjoy playing with grandchildren before he died. Besides, the France country side was a nice
place to retire.

|||

When the messenger delivered the encrypted message back to the master using maximum
stealth, Leonardo finally could relax. The operation was successful thanks to his plan. The unusual
objects from on the images he had seen; had been the key to the plan, providing the shaping of the
battle, forcing the attackers just where he knew they would go.

The message indicated that before the bodies were removed, the dead leader was identified as
from the house of Mastrosso, recently arrived in Venice from Napoli. Those that survived were lowly
paid soldiers. What Leonardo did not expect to hear was that the leader of the force was a man that was traced to the Camorra, a violent brotherhood based in Napoli whom the freemasons had been
monitoring along with the 'Ndrangheta. This was a twist he had not expected. Maybe he was not facing
the church, but growing powerful group that Freemason intelligence had indicated was ruthless in their
tactics and moving north from Sicily.

He would have to be careful of the Milan bishop; his allegiance appeared not to be to the Pope.

A week later, the Milan bishop was found dead in his bed. All signs were that he died in his
sleep.

The bishop’s maid had found him and called the attending guards and doctor. She had made
sure to wipe the outside of the water goblet without touching it just like her families friend had
indicated and had proceeded to burn the cloth in the oven fire. After all she had been the one to rub
the bishop’s goblet with the special brush just like her friend had asked her to do. It was the least she
could do for her now departed second cousin Enreffie and his good friend Leonardo who was helping
the family.

Given the power of this new foe along with his age, Leonardo began to contemplate a move.
Perhaps a few large commissions could be fulfilled in France like they had been asking for quite a while
now. His private courier would have to travel further, but it would remove him from danger and allow
him to continue to operate as leader of the Freemason’s protecting their treasure of knowledge.