The Mayan Resurrection

16

‘… nineteen… twenty… twenty-one…’

Eighty-two-year-old inmate Pierre Robert Borgia sucks air through his teeth, his face red, his muscles trembling as he completes his daily regimen of sit-ups.

‘… twenty-two… twenty-three… twenty-four…’

It has been nearly fifteen years since the former secretary of state was incarcerated for ordering the murder of Michael Gabriel.

‘… twenty-five… twenty-six… twenty-seven…’

Borgia has been a model prisoner. He has helped tutor inmates in a literacy program. He has led prayer groups on Sundays.

‘… twenty-eight… twenty-nine… thirty…’

Daily video-mail has kept him apprized of his family’s efforts to reduce his sentence. He knows parole is just around the corner.

‘… thirty-one… thirty-two… thirty-three…’

Exercise has helped keep Borgia’s blood pressure in check. Daily meditation has preserved his sanity.

The thought of revenge keeps him alive.

‘… thirty-four… thirty-five… thirty-six…’

Borgia’s anger had once been directed solely at the son of his arch rival-a man who had assaulted him onstage three decades earlier, costing him his right eye.

With Michael Gabriel dead, Borgia’s anger has been redirected at someone else.

‘… thirty-seven… thirty… eight… thirty… nine… forty!’

Borgia lies back on the cold linoleum floor of his four-by-seven-foot cell. He gazes at the projection of a tropical shoreline on his wall as he catches his breath.

‘Computer… activate CNN.’

The holographic ocean disappears, replaced by cinder block. The news broadcast begins a moment later.

‘… in the wake of Jordan Ann Katras’s death late last week, former U.S. president Ennis Chaney was nominated earlier today as Secretary General of the United Nations Security Council.’

‘Ahhhh!’ Borgia kicks the wall, Chaney’s face distorting on his shoe.

‘In other news, the World Basketball Association has added two new European teams to its Eastern Conference…’

‘Computer, cease broadcast!’

The transmission ends.

Borgia’s pulse races, his blood pressure soaring. He wheezes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly. Repeats the exercise until his pulse stops pounding in his ears, then gets on his hands and knees, resuming his workout.

‘One… two… three… four…’

There is one person Borgia despises more than any other human being, one person whose very name causes his blood to boil, his ulcer to bleed…

‘… five… six… seven… eight…’

Parole is coming.

Pierre Borgia counts the days.

Longboat Key, Florida 2:35 p.m.

‘Come on, Manny. Apply the formula, then figure out the answer!’

Immanuel Gabriel stares at his Vision-Station, a high-resolution curved computer monitor, five feet tall and six feet wide, that encompasses his entire forward field of vision. ‘I told you, Mr. Hopper, I can’t do it.’

‘Sure you can,’ the tutor insists. ‘Watch and learn.’ Scott Hopper leans over the teen and types in an equation designed to calculate G forces and the speed of light. ‘There, I plugged in the values, now you do the math.’

‘Who cares about this stuff? I’m not interested in being an astronaut, I’m gonna play pro ball.’

‘Sure you are. Now just apply the damn formula so we can end the lesson.’

‘I’m ending it now.’

‘Sit down, please-’

‘No. I want to shoot hoops before dinner.’

‘Not until you finish the rest of these problems. Your brother finished an hour ago, and he’s doing quantum physics.’

‘Whoop-dee-do.’

‘Sit down!’

‘Drop dead.’

Hopper swallows his retort as Jacob enters the classroom. ‘Jacob, see if you can talk some sense into your brother; he won’t listen to a damn thing I have to say.’

The instructor walks out.

Immanuel kisses his middle finger, then flips it at Scott Hopper’s back.

‘I need to talk with you, Manny. I spoke with our father again.’

‘And I spoke with the Easter Bunny. He says they need you back at the Funny Farm-’

In a lightning maneuver, Jacob grabs his brother by his hips and hoists him clear off his feet.

‘Let me go-’

‘I’ve had it with you, Manny. You’re way behind in your training and-’

Immanuel kicks his brother in the chest, the blow powerful enough to send both boys tumbling to the floor.

The dark-haired twin leaps to his feet. ‘I’ve had it with you, too, asshole. I’ve had it with your stupid delusions, and you always bossing me around. Most of all, I’m sick of living in this prison camp.’

‘It’s for our own good. There are crazy people out there-’

‘There’s crazy people in here!’ Immanuel picks up his chair in frustration and smashes it through the computer screen, sending shattered fragments flying in all directions.

‘Stop! Do you have any idea how much that costs?’

‘Doesn’t cost me a damn thing.’ Immanuel reaches for another chair.

Jacob intercepts, grabbing him in a powerful wrestling hold. ‘Knock it off, Manny. I don’t want to hurt you.’

‘Hurt me?’ Tears of frustration flow from Immanuel’s ebony eyes. ‘You’re killing me.’

‘How am I killing you? Answer me!’

‘Get off-’

Jacob releases him. ‘We live in paradise. You have everything you could ever want or need.’

‘Bullshit, What I need is freedom. I need friends my age. I’m tired of playing pick-up games with the guards. I want to compete on teams. And I want to meet some girls. Girls, Jake, as in the opposite sex, or did that Hunahpu gene take away your balls?’

‘I have sexual desires, I even have a girlfriend.’

‘Yeah? Who? Rosie palm and her five sisters?’

‘Her name’s Lilith. We talk on… on the Internet. She wants to get together, but I can’t.’

‘See, that’s what I’m talking about. Go see her! Screw your brains out.’

‘It’s not like that. I love her, which is why I have to break it off.’

‘Huh?’

‘She’s becoming a distraction.’

‘A distraction? From what?’

‘You still don’t get it, do you? You still refuse to acknowledge who we are, or what’s at stake.’

‘Oh, God, here we go again-’

‘Time’s running out, Manny, we only have six more years.’

Immanuel’s eyes widen. ‘What happens in six years?’

Jacob shakes his head. Turns for the door.

‘Hey, asshole, I said what happens in six years?’

‘Just train, Manny. Train like your life depended upon it.’

The azure-blue specks blaze at him from beyond the white mist of the nexus.

Jacob, I did it, I finally did it! Quenton tried to rape me, but this time, I slipped inside the nexus… I beat the crap out of him!

I’m glad.

You don’t sound it.

Sorry.

It felt so good to hit him, I felt so powerful. It was even better than when I hurt those boys.

What boys?

Never mind.

Lilith, what boys?

Just some assholes I met at a party. They won’t be bothering me anymore.

Lilith, you just can’t go around beating people up.

Excuse me, but I’ll do whatever I have to do to survive.

What’re you saying? This doesn’t sound at all like you.

It’s the new me. Uncle Don is teaching me how to use my powers.

Uncle Don?

A distant relative who’s come to visit.

Is he… Hunahpu?

Yes.

Jacob?

Lilith, I can’t talk to you now. I… I need to speak with my father.

And I need to feel your arms around me.

I told you before, I can’t see you now.

And I’m sick of these excuses. I need to nestle in your warmth. There’s no warmth in my life, Jacob, just like there’s no more warmth in your words. You’ve become cold and calculating, and I don’t like it.

Sorry, but things are happening. I didn’t ask for this life any more than you asked for yours.

Try taking your own advice and change things.

I’m going to. Starting now.

Meaning what?

Meaning I can’t see you. Not outside the nexus. Not within.

I thought you loved me?

I do… but I can’t communicate with you while you’re in contact with another Hunaphu.

He’s my uncle.

It doesn’t matter. My destiny… I can’t take a chance.

To hell with that stupid Mayan stuff, it’s our destiny to be together.

It’s not stupid. My father warned me To hell with your father, your father’s dead!

Don’t say that.

Think, Jacob. Necromancers like us can only speak with the dead.

You’re wrong.

Don’t leave me, Jacob! You’re all I have!

Look, I don’t wish to hurt you, but things are happening… there are more important things at stake.

What’s more important than love?

Lilith Answer me! What’s more important than love?

I’m sorry.

Jacob shudders as Lilith’s venomous energy lashes out at him.

You go to Hell, Jacob Gabriel! You go straight to Hell!

Lilith The sudden emptiness of the nexus closes in upon him.

Hell. Exactly where I’m headed.

Father, I need you!

I’m here, Jacob. Tell me what’s wrong?

I feel so lost. Manny’s still not Hunahpu, at least he’s not like me.

Give him time.

I don’t know. He wants a normal life.

In the end, Manny will fulfill his destiny.

He hates his calling, he just wants to live his life. He wants to be in love.

What did you tell him?

I told him love is a distraction, that it makes men weak. You don’t agree?

Jacob, love is the most powerful force in the universe. The love I feel for your mother has kept me from giving in. It was your love for me that reached out and saved me.

You’re far from saved. When Immanuel and I find you and rescue you, then you’ll be saved. Until then, I don’t have time for the nonsense of love. At least not now.

You found a girl, didn’t you? Someone special.

Yes.

And you love her?

Sometimes I can’t stop thinking about her.

I was the same way with your mother. At times, my love for her seemed to consume my every waking moment.

Exactly why I had to break it off. She was disfocusing me, interfering with my training.

Jacob Why prolong the hurt? In six years, I’m out of here, right? You of all people should understand why I did what I did. After all you’ve told me about the loop in space-time, about our failure during our first attempt Maybe I was wrong to allow this communication.

You’re preparing me for what lies ahead.

Or condemning you to it. If it was only my existence at stake, I would have given in long ago, I would never have allowed you to speak with me.

It’s okay.

It’s not okay! It infuriates me! Why must my family suffer so? Why must my sons and their mother have to go through this hell?

Dad, calm down… the Abomination might register your anger.

Let it, let God feel it, too! Do you hear me, God? I know you’re out there listening. What kind of God allows good people to suffer so? Why does evil often go unpunished? Where’s the justice in your universe?

Dad I hate you, God! Do you hear me? I hate you as much as I hate myself!

Jesus, Dad, you’re scaring me! Dad?

Dad?

I’m… I’m sorry, Jacob. I’m sorry for everything. If I had been stronger… if I’d been wiser, I would never have allowed the Guardian to manipulate and deceive me the way they did.

What? The Guardian deceived you? What did they do?! Father, tell me, I need to know.

I’m sorry… it’s so hard to focus through the rage. It blinds me… scatters my thoughts.

Then take it slow. Go back to your journey, to Bill Raby’s journey. That was his name, right? The space traveler who had escaped the coming holocaust.

Bill Raby… yes… yes, I had become Bill Raby.

And the transport. Tell me what happened after you crash-landed on Xibalba.

I remember now. I remember thinking I must’ve blacked out, because when I awoke, the cabin was pitch-dark and people were screaming.

Why were they screaming?

Our landing… the impact caused a flash fire. It must’ve been a bad one. A dozen colonists were dead, dozens more injured.

But you were okay?

No, I don’t think so. Something had happened, but not to Bill, to Michael Gabriel. All my thoughts, all of my memories as Michael were gone. From that point on, I was Bill Raby, marine geneticist, marooned on an alien world. It was as if Mick had never existed.

Okay, okay, so what happened then? Try to remember.

We were surrounded by darkness, still fumbling within the powerless cabin, when we heard scratching sounds outside the ship. Pressing my face to the viewport, I scanned the terrain, looking for the source.

The sun had set hours ago. Unable to see through the darkness, I located a pair of night-vision scanners and placed them over my eyes. The lenses cut through the night, turning everything olive green… revealing movement outside.

There were billions of them-huge beetles-a foot and a half in length, maybe twenty to forty pounds, God only knows what the gravity was like on this desolate world. They were scurrying up through the volcanic fissures by the hundreds of thousands, their grotesque black shell-encased bodies marked by occasional flashes of luminescence that set off the night like tiny strobe lights. My first thought after I swallowed back the bile of terror was communication… that the lights were a form of alien language, sort of like the fireflies back on Earth, only far more intelligent. But as they piled upon one another, rising up the viewport glass to test its thickness with their tripod-shaped horns and sickle claws, I knew these beings were more like the horrible hordes of army ants that devastate Africa, the ones that operate as a single collective, stripping away the flesh and bones and vegetation of everything that stands in their path.

We watched, helpless and frightened, as they scampered over the moss-covered terrain in ebony waves. They covered the ship, and for several terrifying hours, all of us feared they might eat through the steel plates.

After a tense night, the first rays of dawn sent them fleeing back to their underground dwellings.

When it became apparent that the swarm would not venture into the daylight, our shuttle leaders organized an exploratory team. Several men approached and asked me to join them outside.

Forty minutes later, a dozen of us, all dressed in space suits, stepped out from the shuttle’s airlock to join leaders and scientists from the other eleven vessels. Armed with measuring devices, we probed the land and air.

The more we learned, the more fearful we became.

The planet’s atmosphere contained high levels of carbon dioxide, along with smaller amounts of carbon monoxide, methane, and ammonia. Like Mars, the scarlet sky was devoid of an ozone layer, but unlike the Red Planet back in our end of the galaxy, there was no shelter on this desolate world other than our broken vessels, and no raw materials to access to gain a foothold.

After three hours, our teams returned to our respective vessels, the reality of our situation too overwhelming to bear. We were marooned on a world lacking fresh water, vegetation, and breathable air. There was no ozone layer to protect us from the alien sun’s ultraviolet rays, and in five months, our ship’s supplies would run out… assuming the nocturnal scavengers did not devour us first.

Two million years ago, our ancestors had managed to survive their own harsh beginnings in the jungles of East Africa. The first humans had migrated into new lands and faced life-threatening challenges. They had sought shelter in caves, and crafted tools to hunt with. They had learned how to harness fire and to farm, and had built thriving civilizations. Ever the explorer, man had eventually constructed great vessels, crossing dangerous oceans in order to satisfy both his need to improve his lot in life and his inquisitiveness.

And now, in a sense, so had we.

As Michael Gabriel, I had once remote-viewed a member of Christopher Columbus’s crew. Sharing Bill Raby’s consciousness, I could finally experience what these brave explorers must have felt as their voyage across the Atlantic grew more desperate.

The hopelessness.

The fear.

The constant bickering.

Twelve Earth ships had crash-landed in a toxic environment. Twelve ships possessing a limited supply of air, food, and water.

Twelve ships. Six hundred-plus opinions.

Long before we had launched from Earth, Mars Colony and its ten thousand chosen inhabitants had been preorganized into five districts. We had appointed representatives and even a newly elected president. The multiple party system had been tabled for the moment, but democracy would rule the Red Planet just as it had shaped America, with a new Constitution and a Bill of Rights.

None of that had any bearing on our present dilemma. We were castaways, forever separated from the collective. In space, the crew had called the shots, but now the ships were dead, and anarchy ruled the day.

If we had been a colony of ants, we’d have been working side by side before that second dawn. If we had been a beehive, there would have been no question of authority.

But we were modern man, cursed with ego, full of self. So before we could begin searching for food and fresh water, before we could start designing shelters, before we could see to our most basic needs

… first, we had to decide who was in charge.

Imagine twelve cramped space vehicles filled with hundreds of emotionally crazed passengers and a limited number of atmospheric suits. It took three hours of negotiations on the ship-to-ship communicators just to determine where the first council meeting would be held and who would attend.

Atmospheric scientists wanted to be heard. So did the geologists, horticulturists, medical staff, engineers, architects… in fact, everyone wanted to voice an opinion. It was an endless gaggle of babble, compounded by the hopelessness of our situation.

Finally, one man rose above the fray to bring order to the chaos… the only man who could.

Devlin Mabus.

Mabus? Father, was he related to Peter Mabus, the billionaire?

He was his grandson. Devlin’s company, MTI, had financed a third of the Mars Colony. His team had selected more than half of the survivors on our space vehicles. He had already been appointed to the president’s new cabinet as vice president and was easily the highest-ranking Mars official present among us.

More important, Devlin had boarded his private shuttle with two dozen heavily armed bodyguards, all loyal to the influential billionaire and his poisonous mother.

Devlin decided each ship would elect three representatives to serve as liaisons to communicate with the newly formed Council, over which he would preside. This hierarchy worked well enough… until the day one representative openly voiced his disagreement, causing a rift among the leadership. Devlin took it all in stride, then had the dissenter relocated to his own ship so that the two could ‘come to a political resolution on behalf of the colony.’

The dissenter’s opinions changed. Two days later, he went for a ‘stroll.’

The ‘stroll’ was a walk outside the shuttle without an environmental suit.

The ‘stroll’ was suicide.

This Devlin sounds an awful lot like his grandfather.

I have no doubt he was even worse, having met his mother, a woman who could manipulate a small nation with her beauty, and crush them in her evil embrace. She was as alluring and as deadly as a Venus flytrap, and she was Devlin’s best friend and only confidant. The two of them made quite the pair, and yet, as much as I feared them, our colony survived on the virtue of their combined strength.

With each passing day, our situation grew more hopeless. Exploration teams would leave every dawn in search of food and water, but could never venture too far, forced to return before the giant beetles made their nightly appearance.

Traps were set to capture a few specimens. We learned the insects were blind, existing on microbes found within the volcanic rock and moss.

Unfortunately, the alien insects were not edible.

As hope faded, the suicide walks increased. Sometimes it was an individual, sometimes an entire family. Depression spread like the plague. A limited supply of environmental suits kept most civilians confined to their ships, increasing our feelings of isolation.

Still, our colony was blessed with some of the best minds our species had to offer. Using spare parts, engineers were able to upgrade an unmanned aerovehicle one of the children had brought on board. Each morning our drone scout would venture forth like Noah’s dove, searching for salvation.

And then, on the afternoon of our forty-third day on the planet, we found it…