For Special Agent Hercules of the World Wide Environment Bureau, this particular late fall day had started off in typical fashion. Things changed into alert mode as he set down his half-full Odwalla container to read a text message just sent from the bureau in Libya, flagged Urgent.

"Environmental crisis," the display revealed. The message continued, "Giant nukes here ... come ASAP."

Hercules realized this meant trouble. World legislation had banned the manufacture of all nuclear products some five years previously, in 2025 when all major governments on the planet had sworn support of the embargo and destroyed their nuclear plants and weapons. So this new report meant either that a private multinational corporation had obtained nuclear technology through illicit means ~ or else, some nation had broken the agreement.

More light was shed very soon: on the way to the airport Hercules got a text from his top-ranked superior, that a missing stockpile of WMD had been hidden back when the ban took place. And at that time a secret militia was set up by one of the greatest world powers, in order to assure continued dominion. The type of defense weapons shown in surveillance photos were unmistakably the same as those documented to be from the missing arsenal.

Within hours Agent Hercules arrived in Libya. He checked into the hotel and waited for his WWEB contact to arrive for debriefing.

It was a bad situation, and deteriorating rapidly. Attempts by the local bureau to penetrate the site had been thwarted by sentry defense weapons. His contact brought surveillance photographs showing local agents who’d mercilessly been eliminated as they attempted to clamp down on the nuclear still. In each case, as the team of Marines approached the plant, a cloud of nuclear dust was generated from the fortress, and none who attempted to get beyond it had survived.

His commanding officer had given Hercules parting advice as he bid him farewell for the assignment: "Rise by kneeling; conquer by surrender; gain by giving up. You must succeed in this mission."

Now, in Libya, Hercules contemplated this advice as he studied the intelligence report on the situation. No longer a secret to the local inhabitants, radiation leaks emitted from the buried arsenal had polluted the surrounding atmosphere for a seven mile radius from the compound. People were evacuating the entire island as the surrounding vegetation had begun to turn dayglow colors. He immediately realized he had to speed up his work there on account of all the radioactivity leaking in the air.

Staking out his target, Agent Hercules came up with a plan to use post-nuclear laser technology to sneak beyond the seven-mile radiation protection device. Using his smartphone he summoned WWEB munitions to be transported in, and prepared to ambush the compound from one side by remote, and to sneak in, himself, from the opposite side.

Having chosen this strategy, our hero set the plan into action and began his attack. The cordoned off area in which the nuclear plant was located had been dormant, but to his surprise it began to come alive with mines ~ like fireworks, shooting out from every direction. Weapons began to emerge from the huge nine-sided tomb, creating a tower much larger than the power plant's original size.

Out of the roof popped up a veritable fleet of weaponry, all buzzing to find and eliminate intruders. As the whole situation seemed to flash by, he remembered the advice, "Rise by kneeling." So he jumped down from the advance point and crouched on his knees, as his one good option came to mind ~ use his smartphone as a radiation deflector that would funnel the energy from all the radioactivity coming at him, back to the ground underneath the plant.

At this point he figured he’d be a goner, anyway, what with all the radioactivity, and it seemed like all the makings of a world scale meltdown. Yet he held his ground best as he could, as he pointed a tiny-but-powerful RPG simulator in the direction of the ground directly underneath the towering nine-sided building.

Within a flash, something even more extraordinary happened. The stolen arsenal, with all its nuclear potential, was contained underground beneath the building in a lead-shielded rocket ship. And the energy flow from his phone was somehow kicking off the missile’s launch sequence.

As he watched from his crouched position, the giant missile pushed the now-animated cache of advanced and powerful nuclear weapons, out into the atmosphere. Its lighted path moved in a crest far across the sky, and upward into the heavens.

In a moment, as he took in the spectacle, Hercules paused to realize he’d survived. How this had happened, he had no idea.

The last known, remaining nuclear stockpile on earth, on a course far away from the planet, had just been jettisoned and was breaking up in the most outstanding fireworks, out into the universe.

Loosely based on the Scorpio myth from Alice A. Bailey’s book, The Labours of Hercules

Symbology of the Myth
Hercules’s Labour in Scorpio

In this eighth challenge faced by Hercules as he traversed all 12 signs of the zodiac, he took down a nine-headed monster, symbolizing nine tests. The ancient story portrayed Hercules, who tried to cut off the heads separately ~ which resulted in two heads growing back in place of each. Finally when he raised the beast into the light, it lost its power.

This supreme test represents raising the monster ~ all the accumulated evils, mistakes, and failures of long past ~ into the air of the spirit, wherein those energies cannot live. In the original myth, Hercules was told to find the nine-headed monster that lived in a stench-filled swamp. In the caverns of the mind, this beast ~ the nuclear stockpile of our modern day story ~ lives in us. The sinister invader is not to be found easily, having established its permanent residence in our subconscious.

Finally we, as individuals, recognize such a fierce creature dwells inside us. For Hercules, each time a head was chopped off, two grew in its place. Much as, every time a low desire or thought is overcome, another takes its place.

What is needed to accomplish this labour, which we all face? Using discrimination, we must first recognize the need to find the monster. Next, to discover its lair, we apply patience and muster up courage to proceed. Humility finally brings the slimy fragments of the subconscious to the surface, into the light of wisdom.

Hercules’s labor in Scorpio has nine facets. Each one represents a problem to be faced by the courageous person on the path. As we follow Hercules on the reversed wheel, beginning each cycle with Aries and ending in Pisces, we are yearly challenged at the time of Scorpio to become more aware of our subconscious, base desires that originally manifested at the time of Taurus. Six months later in Scorpio, we are given the opportunity to become our true selves through the process of eliminating the vices represented by this one ugly nine-faceted head.

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