The World's Game

by Jacobo Izquierdo

His words unchain a series of negative comments about the leadership.

  “Now we’re free!” Another one shouted.

  “I would’ve liked to be a teacher and teach our origins to the youngest inhabitants,” it could be heard among the crowd. “Cabolun prohibited that to me. He told me I had to be a soldier.”

  “I wanted to be scientist, as Grias was,” vociferated a fourth brave one.

  “And I wanted to be a sculptor. As our ancestors who decorated the pyramids were.”

  Palac went to the top of the cabin and stood next to the captain.

  “Calm down,” he started, “there’ll be time to look for new jobs. From now on, the important decisions will be debated among everybody. During the years my father had the power, we stayed behind in the technological career with respect to the rest of the planets. The important thing now is to recover the place that belongs to us, the one that Grias and his team struggled to maintain.”

  “Most of the people gathered here are a bit more than two thousand years old. The old ones who decided to follow Cabolun now have the mission of inculcating the younger ones the values my grandfather taught you. Those who lived in those times shout with me our battle cry. Taukuaya!” The captain of the midarian army shouted raising his fist in the air.

  Taukuaya is an old word used by the first warriors. When they died in a battle, they used to shout it in their last breath. Its literal meaning is: my niolar will persist eternally. Over the years, such tradition got lost. However, when Beiler arrived to take control of the captaincy, he restored it, but with a different meaning this time. Its use consisted of regrouping his soldiers in blocks in case of enter in strategic chaos. When the captain of the midarian army shouted «Taukuaya!» All of them gathered in a block and acted as a single fighter. Until Cabolun came to power, instructors taught their fighters that shout as a symbol of brotherhood.

  “Now the rest!” Beiler shouted. “Taukuaya!”

  This time there was a massive response. The two million soldiers gathered in the esplanade of Nalactia shouted as one, making a strident noise on every corner of the planet.

  Chapter 60

  Margaret swore up and down not knowing the precedence of the mysterious object found in her bag. The curious thing about all this was that none of the airport scanners had detected it.

  “We’ve been lucky. Stealing a relic of this caliber could take us to jail,” Josef said with a serious expression. Either because of that or due to the conversation in which she seemed to be in love with him, since they arrived in Albuquerque they had not seen each other again. They had not called each other either. They were disconnected one of the other, quite the opposite of what his mother had told him.

  One afternoon, he was sitting on the table of the living room looking closely at every detail of the object. He was using a small philatelist magnifying glass and he was inspecting every millimeter in search of a hint that gave evidence of its usage. «What will happen if I take off the cap?» On several occasions, he felt tempted to remove the cap on the top, but the fear to the unknown prevented him from doing it. Suddenly, his phone started to ring.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello,” Margaret said saddened.

  Josef stood up and started to walk all over the room.

  “What happens?”

  “Nothing,” she answered. “I can’t do anything…”

  “What are you talking about?”

  The girl started crying inconsolably. «So in love is she?» He thought.

  “Why are you crying?”

  “My father is in critical condition.”

  “What has happened?”

  “Some months ago, when he was operated of peritonitis, the pain wasn’t relieved. He went to the doctor almost once a week because of strong stomachaches, but he was always diagnosed with the same: gastroenteritis. The day we left to Egypt, he had an endoscopy done. Yesterday the oncologist called us telling us he had to be hospitalized urgently since the results have shown stomach cancer. However, today we were told that it had spread all over his lungs and liver,” she burst into tears again.

  “I don’t know what to say. What hospital is he in?”

  “His condition is irreversible, so we chose to leave him at home.”

  “Is he conscious?”

  “Yes, but he hardly open his eyes.”

  “I’m coming. I’d like to say goodbye to him.”

  When Josef entered the room, he found dozens of relatives. Some of them had made hundreds of kilometers to give him the last goodbye. None of them was speaking. That was an authentic wake. Margaret’s mother was sitting on a chair crying accompanied by her sisters. On one of the walls, a hand carved wooden Christ stuck out. In front of them, two priests were blessing and praying in a low voice. Josef greeted everybody there, and after some relatives came out of the room, he entered and closed the door. That was what he had arranged with his friend. «Let me enter alone. I want to tell him about Wiros so that he isn’t afraid.» Ten minutes later, he came out, kissed he girl’s cheek and went home.

  The following morning, he called to ask about state of health of Margaret’s father and she told him that he was apparently a bit better. The doctors that visited him daily interpreted such recovery as something negative. «In medical terms, this phenomenon is known as the pseudo-improvement, which is something that happens a short time before an agonizing person dies.» One of the doctors said. He called twice a day to ask about his health and he was better every time. Owing to his recovery, the doctors decided to take him to the hospital to examine him again.

  “Hello,” Josef whispered barging in the room 334 of the hospital.

  Margaret smiled at seeing him and ran to hug him.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said with tears in her eyes. “Some days ago everything was lost and now we were told that he’ll probably live. The doctor showed us a photograph of the first endoscopy and another one of one performed today. The tumor reduced to half its size!”

  “You’re a sweetheart,” Margaret’s mother said full of hope. “You called every day. Now I see why my daughter appreciates you so much.”

  “It was the least I could do,” he said blushed. “Where is he?”

  “He has been taken a while a go so that doctors can carry out some tests on him,” her mother answered. “Doctors from all over the country have come here to study his case. Without any treatment at all, the tumor is disappearing, and what is better, his organs are regenerating.”

  Margaret pointed to the television. The case of her father was being broadcast. Some representatives of the church were celebrating the miracle as if it were a sports victory. Images of convents and churches crowded with people thanking God for his blessing. The news about the miracle was spread as gunpowder when a local clergyman called reverend William claimed to have been visited by God in his church and that he asked him to heal him.

  “Who’s reverend William?” Josef asked laughing.

  “It’s the priest of our church,” Margaret answered. “Why do you laugh?”

  “I think it’s funny. Just that.”

  Josef telephone started ringing and he go out of the room. After several minutes, he entered again.

  “Who was it?” Margaret asked.

  “Steve. He asked me how your father was. The other day we talked and I told him the situation. He said that his case is being talked about a lot in California.”

  The door opened and Margaret’s father appeared smiling. He was accompanied by three nurses and five doctors. One of them explained to them that all the test were fine.

  “Without this leaving this room, from now on I’ll believe more in God,” the oldest doctor said. “Cases like this one make you realize that we’re still too far away from understanding certain things. No one will ever be able to explain what happened.”

  “Faith in God is very powerful and can beat anything,” Margaret’s father said leaning back on the bed and with this voice still very weak. “Reverend William had
managed to communicate with God so that a miracle could take place. I’ve never doubted about his existence. Never!” He exclaimed raising his eyes.

  “You’d better leave now and let him rest,” the doctor said.

  Following his advice, Josef left the room and went home. The following morning, before he had got up, the bell started ringing insistently. He looked at his phone and he saw Margaret waiting at the door. She was carrying a box. «A present? I don’t like presents,» he thought moody.

  “What happens?” Josef asked with his eyes half open because of the sunlight that burst at his door.

  “I have to tell you something important.”

  “Is it something bad?”

  The girl shook her head no and got into the house. He went to the kitchen and prepared two coffees and served some chocolate cookies. Next, he sat on the sofa by her side. She had a box on her lap.

  “What’s in there?” He asked.

  Margaret opened it and took a flat, rectangular electronic gadget from inside it. Josef looked at it, but he could not deduce what it was.

  “What is it?”

  “An USB player,” she answered hastily. “With it you will be able to see what the device that appeared inside the chest contains.”

  “Where have you taken it from?” He asked surprised.

  “My father had it in the attic.”

  Josef disappeared for several minutes and came back holding the small storage device in his hands. Margaret connected the player to the television while he was absent. Then, he gave her the object and her friend inserted in one of its slits.

  The reproduction started by showing Josef with only a few weeks after having been born; he was crawling. His mother was running after him smiling. His father was recording all that with a small video camera and commentated on the situation. The scene was totally endearing: a pair of novice parents enjoying their newly born baby.

  “I had no idea about what it contained. I’ll keep it as a treasure.”

  Margaret stopped the reproduction. She looked at him hesitantly.

  “What’s wrong?” He asked blushed. “You haven’t stopped staring at me since you arrive.”

  “As I told you when I got here,” she smiled “I have to tell you something.”

  “Well, tell me…” he said moving on the sofa.

  “I’ve come to tell you the reason why I wasn’t able to go to Wiros with you.”

  “Finally the remorse for having left me alone was stronger than you,” he joked.

  “I was there,” she said with a shaking voice.

  Josef startled and bent his body forward. He picked the cup of coffee, stirred it for a while with the spoon and placed it on the table again. The girl was looking at him with a serious expression and did not seem to be joking.

  “There where?” He asked nervously.

  “Some years ago my husband and I were travelling on a secondary road with our baby, who was only some month old,” some tears started to roll down her cheek. “Face or bad luck wanted us to have an accident. Both of us died. Minutes later, and without having been able to say goodbye to my baby, I appeared in a place alone. It was a magical, special place where it is said that it’s impossible to feel sad, but oblivion never disappears. I don’t know how much time passed before I met my husband and my relatives, but I still remembered my baby. Suddenly, one day I left that place and came back to Earth with this body. I think that’s the reason why I couldn’t enter Wiros.”

  Josef breathed deeply and took her hand.

  “That’s a very sad story,” he said empathizing with her. “Why hadn’t you told it to me before? I thought there weren’t secrets between us.”

  Margaret looked at him astonished. «Hasn’t he understood anything?»

  “It isn’t easy to tell something like that. I thought you’d think I was crazy.”

  “Your childhood must’ve been very hard. It can’t be easy to grow up remembering such negative moments…”

  The golden haired girl grew more nervous every second. She had confessed him her better kept secret and Josef had not understood anything.

  “Haven’t you understood it yet?” She asked raising her voice.

  “Of course. I guess you can’t go back to Wiros until you die. Because after having…”

  “I’m not talking about that!” She shouted. “I don’t care that!”

  Josef shrugged, Crestfallen, he picked the cup of coffee and sipped it.

  “I’m your mother!” She exclaimed in tears.

  The cup of coffee broke into a million pieces after crashing against the floor. The librarian got up and started to move around the room.

  “My… mother?” He asked nervously. “That can’t be…”

  “I knew you wouldn’t believe me…”

  Silence took over the room. Margaret was crying inconsolably while her friend wandered from one side to the other. He remembered every single moment they had spent together: their first day at the cafeteria, the party from which he ran away, her interest in looking him after in the hospital when she hardly knew him. Now everything seemed to make sense: one of the most popular girls of university after a resentful and apathetic librarian. No one understood that relationship. «He’s old,» her friends used to tell her.

  What they did not know was that, at hundreds light years of distance, such dilemma had an answer. The project Yewut had started millions of years ago had had some failures which with Grias’ death were still to be mended. As the niolar failure 1, written on board 9 showed, the zac had duplicated Josef’s mother’s niolar by mistake and had used it again in Margaret’s body, storing all the memories of her previous life. Therefore, with her niolar duplicated and active, it was impossible for her to enter Wiros. She would only be allowed to go back to such place when she died. For that reason, she was not able to accompany Josef in his adventure and she stayed in a timeless place between both planets. She was never aware of that.

  “I wanted to tell it to you on the plane,” Margaret said breaking the silence “but you misinterpreted me.”

  Josef blushed at thinking about how big-headed he had been. «She never tried to seduce me.»

  “What was I wearing on the day of the accident?”

  “Black pants, grey sweater,” she answered without hesitating.

  “Where did he propose?”

  “In Paris,” she answered smiling. “After just two years of courtship and under a heavy rain.”

  “What birthmark…?”

  “A mole on your left ankle,” she answered interrupting him.

  “But… how…? You?” Josef was not able to articulate a single word.

  Margaret got up and they merged in an endless embrace that lasted for an indeterminate time. Fate or chance wanted the girl to appear in a new body in Albuquerque. Since the moment she was born, she longed for the moment in which she could meet her son again. She grew up designing a strategy to approach him without raising suspicion. With secrecy worthy of the best spy, she was aware of every single move he made. She enrolled at the same university as him with the hope of meeting him. She looked at him having breakfast in the canteen every day without knowing how to approach him. «I’m too Young,» she used to say to herself. Everything changed the day on which there was a vacancy for waitress left at the cafeteria. She barely slept the previous night. She was so nervous and she did not know what to say or how to start. Although the day they first met was not as she had planned, she did not give up and she served him again the following day.

  Countless questions were solved that afternoon with all kind of answers. They had so much to talk about. Life had given them a second chance. Josef would be able to know all the details about his mother before she died and Margaret would have the joy of seeing who once was his son grow up…

  Epilogue

  Two weeks later, after knowing Margaret’s best kept secret, that relationship had strengthen even more. Some days, she even spent the night at Josef’s place. Their bond was atypical a
nd honest. In some way, fate had chosen them to meet each other again at the right time. Together, they conquered the most hidden place of the pyramids to use the mysterious cabin to travel to Wiros. Without knowing it, they changed the future of mankind.

  “Who called you?” Margaret asked.

  Josef did not answer. He got up from the stool leaving his dinner half eaten and he turned on the television. The image showed a modern lab and an overwhelming headline:

  Californian lab finds definite cure for cancer

  “Steve!”

  The camera moved showing a prestigious CNN journalist. By his side, Steve was smiling.

  “We’re broadcasting live from the University of California with Steve Parker, one of the best scientists in the world.” His voice was clear and convincing. “His laboratory has dis…” he stopped “…well, news like this one have to be informed by the discoverer himself.”

  “Hello,” Steve said a bit nervous. “Today is a day of hope and joy for those people affected by cancer. My team and I have developed a drug that can heal the affected cells and organs, restoring them to their natural estate. That process is fulfilled by only one injection.”

  “If this is as you’ve just said, we’d be talking about one of the most important discoveries in history. Are you aware of that?” He asked raising his eyebrows.

  “That isn’t something I care about very much,” he said shaking his head. “The most important thing now is supplying the entire world with this drug hastily so that we could save as many terminal patients as possible.”

  “Have you said terminal?”

  “Yes, I have. The drug has been tested with terminal patients and has regenerated a hundred percent of the tumorous cells and affected organs.”

  “I knew he’d make it!”

  “My father’s case was a miracle, wasn’t it?” Margaret asked.

  Josef shook his head no and turned the television off.

  “What happened really?”

  “Do you really want to know it?” He asked smiling.

  “Please...”

  “You’ll see… days after coming back from Egypt I was in the garden cutting some trunks when suddenly I missed the target and I buried the axe in my foot. A big cut of several centimeters opened and I started bleeding uncontrollably. Dragging myself, I got into the house and I searched the phone to call the medical service. Bad luck wanted me to have left it upstairs that day. Strong dizziness blew me violently. I was bleeding to death!” He exclaimed raising his voice. “I shouted to the top of my lungs asking for help, but the glasses of the windows prevented anybody from hearing my words. Too weak to go out, I remained lying in the middle of the living room. Giving almost my last breath, I turned my head and, at only two meters from me, I saw the cylinder on the table.”