The Mayan Resurrection mp-2

by Steve Alten

  But the man in white is too skilled and far too quick. With out so much as a glance over his shoulder he launches a thrusting rear kick that shatters the warrior’s mask, snapping his neck in two.

  The would-be killer collapses, dead before he hits the ground.

  Immanuel feels nauseous as he watches the man in white step over his dead assailants, kicking the skull-ball back to his ebony-clad teammate.

  Dr. Mohr points as two more warriors step out of line to greet their opponents, now quickly advancing the skull-ball toward the eastern goal. ‘This is not quite how the Mayans played, but it’s how the Under Lords of Xibalba challenged the Hero Twins.’

  The blood rushes from Manny’s face.

  White clubs the object to Black. The skull-ball takes a wild hop over the soldier’s foot. Turning to retrieve it, Black is barreled over by one of the replacement players, a 260-pound brute masked in a crimson demon’s mask. Leaping over the man in black, the brown-skinned warrior kicks the skull-ball to his teammate, who races barefoot across the field toward the western ring… and the goal mounted below the observation window.

  White, by far the most skilled athlete on the field, overtakes the Mayan and trips him from behind-just as the warrior strikes the ball.

  Manny and Dr. Mohr instinctively duck as the airborne head smashes against the glass with a dull thud, the battered face leaving a bloodied imprint on the partition.

  White rebounds the wild bank shot and heads back the other way, controlling the wobbling skull with his feet and stick. Evading another assailant’s knife, he angles for the eastern wall and its stone hoop.

  Two more linebacker-sized warriors abandon the line to cut him off, each man’s club brandishing a two-foot-long obsidian spike.

  Manny squeezes his fists, measuring speed and distance. This is it

  … there’s no way he can escape this double-team.

  In an incredible move combining soccer, kung fu, and gymnastics, White casually flips the skull-ball over the advancing warriors’ heads, then leaps off the ground and executes a stunning airborne double side kick from a full split, the heel-to-face impact a double deathblow that shatters the shocked combatants’ temporal bones into brain-slicing fragments.

  ‘Jesus…’

  White lands, takes three strides forward, and in one continuous motion kicks the skull-ball, sending it end over end toward the stone ring.

  With a sickening thwack, the severed head banks high off the eastern wall and passes through the hoop – instantly transforming the arena into something entirely different.

  Gone is the Mayan Ball Court. In its place-the valley of a hellish underworld, its mountainous horizon bathed in vermilion twilight cast from a subterranean roof of volcanic coal. Whiffs of brown smoke roll beneath the emberlike ceiling, creating shadows of movement throughout the terrain.

  Manny’s limbs turn to Jell-O. He leans against the glass for support.

  At the heart of the valley is an enormous crater lake, its molten silvery surface simmering. Rising along the far bank is a great alabaster tree, its entanglement of ivory-colored roots knotted and thick, its sequoia-sized trunk dripping a white ooze.

  The bare limbs of the monstrous tree stretch outward in every direction, twisting in the hot wind as if animated with life.

  Suspended from one centrally located knot along the trunk is an object – a human skull.

  Dr. Mohr points. Coming into view-the two soldiers, still clad in their respective white and black body armor. They are double-timing it, approaching the crater lake from the east, the man in white now wielding a double-edged sword.

  The center of the lake begins bubbling as they approach.

  Immanuel grips the cool iron guardrail in his sweaty palms, unable to move… unable to breathe.

  Something large is rising from the depths of the lake. Thick globs of silvery ooze drip away… revealing a tall alien biped.

  Lead gray silicon-like skin. Two arms and legs, heavily segmented, as if adorned in body armor. The anvil-shaped skull is disproportionately large, like that of a monstrous fire ant. Instead of being positioned above its three-humped shoulder, the skull extends horizontally in front of the chest like a turtle’s neck, giving the creature an upright yet squat appearance. There are no facial features other than a slit of a mouth and two pupilless eyes, which blaze a burned yellow against the dark skin covering.

  The eight-and-a-half-foot being continues to rise out of the silvery lake, its tall, grotesque, angular body devoid of hair or clothing. The thorax is V-shaped and powerful, the abdomen slender, connecting to a pair of squat legs-humanoid in design-except they are twice as thick below the knee as above.

  The upper arms are dense and powerful, and hang stiffly from the wide shoulder girdle. The elbows are ball joint in design, allowing the heavy forearms to rotate 360 degrees.

  Most frightening of all are the being’s hands. Huge and clawlike in appearance, they support four slender, scalpel-sharp fingers. The digits are three times as long as the palm and spaced wide, giving each hand an almost spiderlike appearance.

  Fully exposed, the being walk-glides across the lake’s mirrorlike surface, sloshing toward the eastern shore.

  The two soldiers race to reach the alabaster tree before the alien.

  Ten seconds until Nexus. The computerized voice startles Manny.

  Nine… eight… seven…

  Dr. Mohr moves closer to the glass, his expression suddenly all business. ‘Come on, come on, you can do it this time.’

  The alien approaches the thickly rooted tree, reaching for the skull.

  Three… two… one Twin streaks of ice-blue lightning… a blinding flash of crimson… then nothingness.

  The violet lights return.

  The lake is gone, as is the alien, the tree, and the entire hellish underworld. In its place-the sterile gray emptiness of an immense holographic suite.

  Down on one knee, holding his cloaked head in his hands, is the warrior in white. His companion in black is gone.

  Dr. Mohr waits a moment, then touches the comm link on his shirt collar. ‘Are you all right?’

  The soldier nods weakly.

  ‘Success?’

  The man in white shakes his head-no.

  Mohr pinches his brow, obviously disappointed. ‘Dominique is here. She brought her son.’

  The man in white stands. Limps toward the glass wall and looks up. Reaches for the hidden latches of his body armor. Slowly removes his hood.

  Immanuel presses his face to the glass.

  The white hair is longer, the eyes still piercing azure blue, cold and calculating.

  Jake…

  28

  NOVEMBER 22, 2033: THE WHITE HOUSE,

  WASHINGTON, DC

  11:34 a.m.

  It is the most prestigious and powerful address in the world, a political village heavy with history, situated on eighteen acres. First occupied by President John Adams on November 1, 1800, it nearly burned to the ground fourteen years later at the hands of British troops. The home would be rebuilt and refurbished, with colonnades and office space added to both its east and west wings. While a vast subterranean control center would later be excavated beneath the dwelling, the 132-room mansion itself has remained virtually unchanged for over two centuries.

  The White House: America’s hub of democracy and the seat of world power. Within its 233-year-old walls are routinely discussed the future… and fate of humanity.

  Lilith Robinson-Mabus, newly crowned queen of Mabus Tech Industries, saunters past the big Victorian fireplace of the State Dining Room, pausing to read the inscription set upon the mantel.

  ‘I PRAY HEAVEN TO BESTOW THE BEST OF BLESSINGS ON THIS HOUSE AND ON ALL THAT SHALL HEREAFTER INHABIT IT. M AY NONE BUT HONEST AND WISE MEN EVER RULE UNDER THIS ROOF.’

  – PRESIDENT JOHN ADAMS

  Lilith scoffs. ‘Male chauvinist fool. If women had been in charge around here, the world would be a lot less screwed up.’

&nbs
p; An aide enters the room, one of President John Zwawa’s personal assistants. ‘Mrs. Mabus, on behalf of the entire White House staff, let me extend my deepest condolences-’

  ‘Don’t bother. What time is my meeting?’

  ‘The president says he can see you immediately. If you’ll follow me.’

  Lilith Eve Robinson’s descent into the Mexican cave had exposed her schizophrenic brain to an extremely powerful low-frequency electrical field. Like an electrostatic tuning fork, the effect served to rephase the girl’s already imbalanced brain waves.

  Thought is analogous to energy. Firing at microseconds, it possesses no boundaries, not even the limits of time and space. In a manner transcending the principles of radio wave propagation theory, thought energy can be sensed by remote viewers who are highly tuned to these psychic phenomenon.

  The phenomenon of reliving a previously seen or experienced event (memory) is an example of present-thought energy interacting with one’s past. Though the encounter is usually brief, the mental interplay, or deja vu, is quite real.

  Exposure to the cave’s electromagnetic amplification enabled Lilith’s pathological mind access into the psychic realm. Shortly after her descent, she began hearing another voice, one far different than those of her self-created companions.

  ‘I can hear whispers,’ she had told Don Rafelo. ‘The voice speaks to me as I fall asleep.’

  ‘It is telepathy. The communication is meant to guide you.’

  ‘But who is it? How do they know me?’

  ‘The whispers originate from both the near future and distant past.’

  ‘Why do you speak in riddles? Just tell me who is speaking to me.’

  The old man grinned. ‘You are in communication with… yourself.’

  Three years after her ‘descent’ into the Mayan Underworld, the seventeen-year-old beauty, now traveling under the name Lilith Aurelia, had arrived at the 2030 World Entrepreneurs Association Meeting in Miami in search of a mate. To bait her hook, she wore a strapless cocoa ‘flesh-hugger’ evening gown that matched her skin and barely contained her breasts. Long, wavy ebony hair fell past her tantalizing cleavage clear down to her taut, exposed stomach and gold belly button ring.

  The barely legal man-eater sipped her martini as she casually scanned the ballroom crowd. Nothing but pawns, and a few gray-haired bishops. The Queen of the Succubi is here, now where is my king?

  She watched as her escort, NRA activist Ben Merchant, worked the room. The middle-aged defender of the Second Amendment, dressed in a white Armani tux, wore a black rose tucked in his lapel buttonhole and a Beretta in his ankle holster. Lilith liked the homosexual, whom she had met a year earlier in Mexico City. He was shallow and greedy-easy to read, with the type of weaknesses she enjoyed exploiting. The constant name-dropping was annoying, but nonetheless, he was loyal and seemed to get things done.

  ‘Excuse me, have we met?’

  She turned to her right, glancing down at the slight Hispanic man in his late fifties. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Deputy Mayor Raul Hernandez, at your service. Are you a… um… local girl, or-’

  ‘Deputy Mayor? Is that something one volunteers for, or do you get season tickets to the theater with the title?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  Her azure eyes blazed violet as her temper rose. ‘Go away, little man, before I eat you.’

  Hernandez blushed, choked on his retort, then, seeing the almost maniacal look in the girl’s eye, decided it was best just to leave.

  Ben Merchant approached, snorting a quick hit of cocainelaced BLISS from a designer thimble. ‘Well, darlin’, what do you think?’

  ‘Pimps and pawns. There’s no one here who could fill our bill. I need a real power broker, someone with some backbone, someone I don’t have to constantly manipulate like a marionette. Powerful and rich, Benjamin. Filthy rich.’

  Merchant grinned. ‘I know just the man.’

  The handsome jet-setter with the oily black ponytail took his time licking the olive from the redhead’s size 47-D cleavage, allowing his right hand to grope beneath the woman’s miniskirt.

  At only twenty-three, Lucien Mabus, son of the late billionaire, Peter Mabus Jr. was already wealthier and more feared than his deceased father. He had more money than he could spend in three lifetimes and met more women than he could possibly bed… and now he was bored.

  What Lucien Mabus yearned for was a challenge.

  The adrenaline junkie’s eyes followed Ben Merchant as he approached from across the room. On the gun lobbyist’s arm was the most captivating woman he had ever laid eyes upon.

  ‘Lucien, dear boy, imagine running into you here.’

  Lucien retracted his hand from beneath the redhead’s skirt. ‘Cut the bullshit, Merchant. My yacht’s been docked here all week. Introduce me to the lady.’

  ‘I’m sorry… Lucien Mabus, this is Lilith Aurelia. Lilith, Lucien Mabus, president and CEO of Mabus Tech Industries.’

  Lucien extended his hand.

  Lilith shook it, then inhaled its scent. ‘Be careful, your date’s ovulating.’

  Lucien’s laugh carried across the crowded bar. Turning to the embarrassed redhead, he shoved a hundred-dollar bill in her cleavage, and yelled, ‘Go the hell away!’

  The redhead stormed off.

  Lucien flashed Lilith a coy smile. ‘I like you. Ever been aboard a yacht?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Join me for a drink. Merchant won’t mind, will you?’

  ‘Not at all. Got a full day tomorrow anyway. Watch out for this guy, Lilith, he’s a handful.’

  ‘Mmm… I hope so.’

  Oval Office, The White House 11:43 a.m.

  John Zwawa, the forty-seventh president of the United States, has made sacrifices to attain the highest office in the land. Entering the political arena after years as a human rights activist and heavy metal rocker has forced him to shorten his once shoulder-length blond hair, which now runs mostly gray. The thinly shaven goatee is gone too, as are the sideburns. The only remaining physical evidence of the president’s years as a musician are his tattoos. On his right bicep is an image of a leaping lion holding two drumsticks, on his left-a large Polish falcon grasping a banner inscribed with his children’s names.

  The president enters the Oval Office to find Lilith Mabus hovering next to Alyssa Popov, the new director of the United States Geological Survey-Earthquakes Hazard Program.

  ‘Lilith, so sorry about Lucien.’

  ‘Thank you, John. Lucien was young, but drugs had taken their toll on his heart long ago.’ She tilts her head, accepting the formal peck on the cheek from a man she has slept with more than a dozen times, on two occasions with her late husband.

  ‘And Ms. Popov. I hear you’ve been busy at Yellowstone Park.’

  ‘You could say that, sir.’

  ‘I gather you two ladies know each other?’

  ‘Intimately.’ Lilith winks, enjoying the president’s blush.

  ‘So? What’s this meeting about? Next year’s midterm elections?’

  ‘No, John, it’s about the end of the world and the survival of humanity.’

  Zwawa’s grin remains frozen on his face. ‘Lilith, I don’t have time for these-’

  ‘Show him, Alyssa.’

  ‘Computer, play program Popov-One.’

  Along the far wall, the holographic image of the bookcase and fireplace reverts to a large floor-to-ceiling smart-screen.

  For the next thirty minutes, the president of the United States is absorbed in the details of a Top-Secret UMBRA report.

  ‘Computer, end program. Shred Popov-One and all minutes of this meeting.’

  A stunned John Zwawa sits head in hands at his desk, the weight of the world upon his shoulders. He whispers, ‘How could this be happening? Why wasn’t I told?’

  Alyssa shook her head. ‘With everything civilization’s been through in the last three decades, Yellowstone’s never been more than a passing interest. It’s only because
of recent breakthroughs measuring geothermal changes that we learned of an impending eruption.’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘A decade or two, tops.’

  The president loosens his collar. ‘I… I can’t breathe-’

  ‘Take it slowly, John.’

  ‘How bad will it be?’

  ‘Worse than you can possibly imagine,’ Alyssa says. ‘The explosion will release ten thousand times more debris than the Mount St. Helens explosion, instantly killing the surrounding population. The Midwestern states will become ground zero, wiping out our crops. Within a few days, the atmospheric debris will blot out the sun.’

  ‘And that, John,’ Lilith coos, ‘is when the shit really hits the fan. We’re looking at a volcanic winter, with global temperatures plunging as much as a hundred degrees. Power grids will fail, populations become isolated, the economy lurching to a standstill. Millions will perish during the first few weeks just from the cold. Roads will be impassable. Within a month or two, those who haven’t frozen to death will starve.’

  ‘Unfortunately, Lilith’s correct, sir. We’re talking major ice age here, make no mistake about it. This is the end of civilization on this world, at least for a very long time.’

  ‘And you say this can happen in a decade or two?’

  ‘Maybe less. When it does happen, we’ll have little to no warning.’

  ‘There must be something our scientists can do?’

  ‘We have teams working on it, sir. So far, nothing looks promising. You’re talking about a major volcanic hot spot. The last time one of these calderas erupted, it wiped out nearly every human being on the planet.’

  ‘Who else knows about this?’

  ‘Lilith’s people, a handful of scientists, that’s all for now.’

  ‘And that’s the way we want to keep it,’ Lilith says, her azure eyes staring through him. ‘We have one shot at saving our species, John, and only if we act now. Secrecy must be maintained at all costs, or all of us will die.’

  President Zwawa reaches into his bottom drawer. Removes a flask and paper cup, his hands shaking as he pours himself a drink. ‘You’re talking about Mars Colony.’