When Professor Vasiliou returned to the living room she carried what appeared to be a late model laptop computer-thin and light weight. It was already running on battery power and open to an email program.

"Oh my gosh. What's that for?"

"You had told me you wanted to meet some real Amazons earlier. Remember?

"Yeah . . . but. . ."

"Well, earlier I contacted a few. And they'll be sending you messages this evening through this email."

Daniela was speechless.

"The account here is now yours, Daniela. I think you'll find the information they share with you very . . . liberating . . . toward that freedom you want."

Daniela only blinked her eyes in confusion a the professor placed the computer on the coffee table in front of her.

"This will be your own account while you're in contact with them. It can naturally be from where ever you are in the world. And there's no obligation to keep it if you choose not to."

"Gosh. I don't know what to say . . . Nefeli . . ."

She was truly astonished by the strange offer.

"You may use this computer as long as you are here. It works perfectly upstairs in your room or anywhere in the house. I took the liberty to give you this username."

Daniela could see typed into the username box: Anaea_4356.

Below that, in the password cell was another strange code.

"You see . . . Anaea is an ancient Amazon name taken from Greek literature and myth. Her name meant 'rising up.' She was a young woman warrior for whom a city was named near Karia on the Anatolian Peninsula of Turkey. It was home to the Amazons and located across from the Greek island of Samos. It was also the goddess Hera's sacred island."

"I . . . I'm just . . ."

"Don't be. The number 4356 is how many other women have adopted this name in our society at the present time. You are the latest if you wish to join us and keep it."

"Wow. . ."

"There are of course other Amazon names with many other numbers attached to them. Our organization is expanding all the time.

Daniela just stared at the name on the illuminated screen.

You see, Daniela, these are women, just like you, who wanted to come into the light of independence and do something important with their lives. And historically, many have done so secretly. Each day in their own way these women put their energies and talents to work. The sisterhood focuses on many issues which affect the well-being and rights of females all over the world. We all work in concert to make these necessary changes for women . . . and the effects are just now emerging and being recognized finally. All over the world. Even as we speak."

Daniela was speechless again. She felt a bit dizzy with excitement.

The professor took a step back from her and left the computer open on the table.

"Read the messages they've sent you, Daniela. There's no obligation for you to become involved, but I want you to just read their words tonight."

The professor placed a hand warmly on Daniela's shoulder, then left her alone, returning back up the stairs, presumably to her office for the evening.

Daniela was in disbelief as she leaned closer to the table and peered onto the email page before her. She could see that, indeed, her name was, at least for now Anaea_4356. She could also see as she hesitatingly clicked the mouse on the "In box," that she already had several emails since earlier that day, when Professor Vasiliou had obviously notified these individuals.

Running her finger slowly over the mouse pad, she selected the first message:

"From: Hippolyte_2822," the email read in bold print.

She pressed the enter key and the message opened:

Dear Anaea_4356:

I have been asked to contact you, as is customary with possible new members of our organization. You have been selected by one of our female founders as someone with a keen interest in what our sisterhood stands for and why it has existed for so long. You are also reported to have talents and qualities we are seeking among women who can make a difference in our world. What you are about to read is confidential and we hope you respect the secrecy of our society, as it serves to silently help all women. Everywhere. Even if you choose to decline any further involvement, your absolute silence assists us in our efforts.

Daniela could not believe what she was reading. She went on, perusing the message slowly. . .

As a fellow female, and one with a desire for independence and strength, I am confident you will not compromise our longstanding causes to improve the lives of so many females on every continent who need our assistance. Rather, we wish for you to help us in our goals. To fully actualize them. It is our hope that you will choose to become engaged with our society, a sisterhood of exceptional women which began with great resolve over three-thousand years ago. Yes! I said three-thousand years!

Even though the light of that vision may have been dimmed during history and many tumultuous events, it never was totally extinguished. This was in great part due to the courageous spirit of a few women like you. Working in secrecy, they managed the keep an ancient flame alive. Today we work tirelessly to turn that flame into bright fires which burn to improve women's conditions. We will not rest until we have established sustainable improvement in the treatment, rights, advancement, and the physical well-being of women and girls globally.

I think you would agree that as females, we are long overdue in helping our many sisters in critical need, whether it is those oppressed, exploited, abused, kept in bondage, suffering torture, or just struggling desperately to feed and nurture themselves and their children.

Should you want to proceed with information about who we are, what we do, and how you can become involved in reducing the victimization of our gender, please read on and log on to the link below. It presents the first in a series of 'illuminations' written by members of our society just for you, and others, to fully understand our history, its aims and current operations worldwide

Daniela could feel the intrigue growing inside. She was compelled to read on and looked to the empty stairway where Nefeli had already disappeared . . .

These writers are courageous and generous women who have become involved in all disciplines of our work. Should you advance completely through this series of contacts, you will be given guarded instructions as to how to proceed at each step toward real and challenging involvement with us. That commitment will ultimately be your own decision. But for now, we are grateful for your interest and motivation. There is great joy in cultivating yourself while at the same time assisting your many sisters globally toward a better world for all.

A shared belief of women from all ages is that we have the gift to nurture and strengthen ourselves collectively, independent of men. History has shown we can accomplish this when we assist and support each other with strong resolve. This was demonstrated most compellingly through the elusive society of females known as the Amazons in distant times. These females who broke tradition to form their own nomadic tribe, once roamed a great territory on horseback near the Black Sea in the ancient world. Though their actual existence has for millennia been debated, and their legend has appearing to us most eloquently in art and mythology, we know today that such women warriors actually existed physically, sometime between 1600 - 1200 BCE.

We only recently have become more aware of this ancient society's resiliency and power, but more importantly of their actual placement in time and place. Theirs was an era of profound influence upon other cultures, particularly the Greeks who encountered them with violence in the Late Bronze Age. What eventually happened to the Amazon culture is more of a mystery today than whether they, in fact, existed.

It is believed today by many Eurasian and Near East cultural anthropologists that they were eventually absorbed into or dispersed by other horse bound tribes which existed with men, and then simply continued a migration north-eastward further into Asia. It is there where as an entirely homogeneous grouping of females, they totally disappeared as in independent culture. DNA evidence exists that they mixed genetically with the nomadic horse-dependent tribes still found today in the Steppes regions of Eurasia.

Nevertheless, the world has great records of the Amazons as a romantic or exotic idea though mythology and art. But ancient historians definitely wrote of them, describing their customs and their bold decision to live apart and compete with men for survival. While the Amazons disappeared physically, their spirit was kept alive and preserved to remerge, most remarkably through historical individuals who understood the importance of keeping alive their solidarity and cause. We are confidant that you will appreciate our efforts to further preserve that spirit as it has been secretly done for thousands of years.

The impetus for our present efforts of expansion and current accelerated growth to preserve such a sisterhood, originates from an as yet, unreported archaeological discovery made some twelve years ago by members of our own society. That find, soon to be made public, will once and for all confirm the great tenacity and power of these visionary women as a collective force and extension of our present sisterhood.

We are committed to keeping alive that vision as many determined women before us had done, and for literally thousands of years. With the advancements in digital communication and other cutting-edge technologies, we are today able, like no other period in history, to tap into our collective powers as women to bring about improved conditions. We ask only that you become more enlightened about us, and get involved in the many changes which are happening around the world through our efforts, even as you read this message. As a woman, first and foremost, you have the strength to do so.

--Hyppolyte _2822

To learn more: Log on here to proceed to our password-sensitive site: www.html.amazonamachia_now/illumin_1.http.

To leave this encrypted message and discontinue any further correspondence with us. Log on here: www.html.amazonamachia_now/cancel_us.http.

Daniela's heart was beating faster as she was given this option to continue or not. She was genuinely interested by what she had just read. And though it was too much to digest in total at that moment, she understood perfectly now why the professor had given up her academic career and gone into hiding. It was to promote something she and other women had seen as profoundly important to females everywhere. It was something originating back to what they had discovered as researchers.

By some machination of fate, she herself was now being asked to look into that world more closely and to follow them, as obviously many women had also done. It was a calling from other females who had joined much earlier over the centuries and in the same spirit.

Daniela moved her face away from the light of the laptop screen and sat more comfortably back into the divan to contemplate her resolve to proceed. She was certain she wanted to know more, but felt also nervous about the commitment to continue. The professor had not come back down the stairs and had perhaps had truly retired for the night. It was, nevertheless, obvious she was giving Daniela time to absorb the magnitude of it all. What was clear was that it would be her own decision now to continue with the information, and perhaps the sisterhood itself.

For strength Daniela quickly finished her glass of wine. She sat back in the divan and closed her eyes. It all seemed so surreal to her, when she considered where she was and what she was engaged in now there somewhere on the other side of the world. Clearly, however, she was at the threshold of an epicenter Nicasio and his own professor had wanted so profoundly to find. There existed traces of her previous commitment to Nicasio to cooperate. But also she could not deny the sensation she had been harboring to be detached from him and all else about her life back in San Francisco. She knew now that any decision she made about going forward with what she was learning through her own personal quests would now be exclusively her own.

Looking at the small laptop screen and the light blue links she was invited to open, Daniela knew she could be in possession of that further information at a simple mouse click. Quietly, without any further hesitation, she leaned forward, directed the cursor to the designated URL to continue-and logged on.

After a several second pause, there appeared a new screen from some undisclosed origin and location. This webpage simply consisted of a large, black-on-white heraldic design, encompassing the greater part of the page. It was a heavy black outline of some type of emblem. Daniela could see it was tantalizingly simple-a symmetrical battle axe, circumscribed by an elliptical, arched outer border, the points of which converged at the top and bottom of the axe. On either side of this symmetrical weapon's handle was a pair of letter 'A's in ancient Greek script. These first letters of the alphabet in tandem possibly signified two words or a cryptic phrase. The entire circumference of the enclosed emblem rested on the image of a graceful and open crescent moon.

Daniela looked over the total symbolic design once more carefully trying to interpret or decipher it, but had little success in ascertaining its meaning. At the bottom of the page, under the mysterious configuration, was a pair of standard security clearance boxes, blinking, and awaiting her new username and password to proceed.

She quickly typed in Anaea_4356 as her username and the strange code left with her on the sticky note, still adhering to the laptop screen--Labrys_1249. Completing these codes and pressing the Return Key brought up a blank screen for several more seconds. It was as if some security mechanism-activated in some unknown, far away location of the world, had now fully vetted her full clearance.

* * *