by Steve Alten
‘You may already be too late.’ The older male points a finger.
A volumetric display activates. The astrotopographic projection races through space, approaching a monstrous blazing red fireball of a star. As the red supergiant grows closer, its surface cools in color to that of a soft lightbulb – revealing the presence of a second star lurking behind its mass. The smaller star, a white dwarf, is under tremendous turmoil, its surface bloating.
‘The red supergiant will go supernova in thirty-one hours, seventeen minutes. When the event happens, it will disperse massive doses of radiation and energy across this sector of the Galaxy. Nothing on this moon or the planet will survive.’
‘What will you do?’ Dominique asks.
The image changes, zooming past Xibalba to focus upon the planet’s smaller moon-an immense potato-shaped starship. ‘This damaged transport was left behind by the transhuman culture that vacated the planet. Our scientists have effected repairs. With the wormhole’s passage now secured, we’ll be able to use the vessel to escape before the star explodes.’
‘We’re going back to Earth,’ states the female. ‘Back through time to save Homo sapiens from the caldera.’
Dominique perks up. ‘You can do that? Change history?’
‘It’s possible,’ the younger male answers. ‘Unfortunately, Jacob cannot possibly hope to defeat Lilith and Devlin alone.’
‘He won’t be alone,’ Dominique says. ‘I’ll be with him.’
‘You?’ The male elder shakes his head. ‘You are not Hunahpu. You’re not even a transhuman. Devlin and his followers would crush you like a bug.’
The female Guardian holds up her hand. ‘Don’t rush to judgment. First-Mother’s presence in the Underworld may actually confuse the Abomination and her son, who are still expecting both Hero Twins. Once Dominique reaches the Dark Road, her mind will remain cloaked to all trans human telepathy. It may present her an advantage.’
‘Advantage?’ The elder Guardian’s eyes blaze at his female comrade in disbelief. ‘They’ll never make it past the Dark Road without Immanuel. Or have you forgotten the tlachtli?’
Dominique looks puzzled.
The younger male explains. ‘The entrance that leads into Devlin’s netherworld is guarded by a band of sociopaths. Lilith has convinced these transhumans that they are reincarnations of cannibals who lived thousands of years ago in ancient Mesoamerica. These Devil-worshipers exist only to serve the Abomination and her son. To enter Devlin’s netherworld, you must defeat these warriors in a game of tlachtli, and the battle is to the death.’
Jacob turns to his mother. ‘The battle in which you’ve seen me train for the last seven years.’
‘And what about weapons?’ Dominique asks. ‘Can’t we just shoot them with an ion cannon or something?’
‘Modern weapons do not function within the spiritual realm,’ the female answers. ‘The laws of physics as you know them do not apply in the Land of the Damned.’
‘One of our transport ships will take you to the surface facility where the last remaining Tezcatilpoca is penned,’ the younger male says. ‘Jacob, use your Hunahpu powers to summon the beast. The creature will allow you access beyond the nexus into the Abomination’s netherworld. The Guardian brotherhood have programmed the serpent to safeguard a weapon, one we believe is capable of destroying the Abomination and her son.’
‘My sword,’ Jacob tells his mother. ‘I’ve seen all of these things in my visions.’
‘Remember,’ the female cautions, ‘you only have thirty hours before we must depart through the wormhole. If you haven’t returned by then, don’t bother coming back. The radiation from the supernova will kill you.’
Dominique allows the female Guardian to assist her into a black temperature-regulated exoskeleton bodysuit.
‘This suit was designed by the transhumans to access the nexus. It should allow you to survive in Devlin’s realm as well. As you move, the battle armor and its neural connections will collect and recycle your body excretions, providing you with water. Drink through this extraction tube. Attached to your back is a thin, flexible air tank and oxygen processor, which supplies air through this nostril tube. There is no oxygen in purgatory; this unit creates your air supply by extracting oxygen from the CO2.’
Dominique finishes dressing, then joins Jacob, who is already wearing his white body armor.
The Guardian lead them to a launch chamber.
Lined up in rows along the chamber’s periphery are dozens of two-man transport ships, their bows encased in launch tubes angled at forty-five degrees.
‘One of our transports will take you directly to the Tezcatilpoca genetics site,’ the younger male explains. ‘May God’s highest light shine upon you both.’
‘Let’s not keep my father waiting any longer.’ Jacob climbs into the two-seat pod, a flat, triangular-shaped vessel, twenty feet long from the tip of its bulbous nose cone to the end of its propulsion device.
Dominique straps herself into the seat next to him.
The entry of the vessel reseals, activating the ship’s controls. A forward screen switches on, presenting them with an exterior image.
Stars and the blackness of space loom beyond the tunnellike launch tube.
Docking clamps release. The engine activates, its deep thrum causing Dominique’s skin to tingle.
Expelling a blast of energy, the transport accelerates through the launch tube, leaping into space. They pass high over the lunar base and the barren surface of the moonscape until the entire forward screen is filled with the silvery red world of Xibalba.
There is no sign of the Balam.
Dominique’s heart pounds with trepidation as she stares at the surface of the alien world. He’s down there somewhere, suffering from an eternity of mental anguish. Will he recognize me? Is his mind even capable of a sane thought?
WARNING: ENTERING PLANET’S ATMOSPHERE.
The transport plunges through dark magenta atmospheric storm clouds. Moss-covered volcanic rock appears beneath the overcast sky. In the distance is a continent-sized mass floating several hundred feet in the air.
‘New Eden,’ Jacob says. ‘The habitat abandoned by the original trans human culture.’
‘Incredible…’ Dominique whispers. ‘But who were these transhumans? What happened to them?’
‘I don’t know.’
Coming into view on the shadowed horizon is a silvery breeding pond the size of Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. The transport follows the artificial shoreline for several minutes, then lands next to an arena-sized complex.
The domed roof of the facility has been shattered, destroyed long ago by a tremendous force.
Jacob turns to his mother. ‘I can handle this. Stay here where it’s safe.’
She unbuckles her harness. ‘I’m coming with you.’
‘Fine. At least plug your air hose into your nostrils and set your regulator. Remember, there’s no oxygen on Xibalba, just carbon dioxide.’
Breathers in place, they exit the vessel and head for the lake’s edge. Jacob points to the domed facility on their right. ‘The posthumans’ genetics lab.’
‘Yes, but what happened to it?’
‘I don’t know, but I get the feeling there’s a lot the Guardian prefer we didn’t know.’ Jacob stops at the silvery shoreline and closes his eyes.
Several minutes pass, and then, a mile out, the once-tranquil surface begins to froth.
Dominique watches an enormous wake build, rising higher as it moves inland.
‘Okay, you handle it.’ She hurries back to the pod as the head of a monstrous alien being emerges, its viperous head dripping silvery ooze as it looms thirty feet over Jacob.
The genetically enhanced biological resembles a monstrous alien serpent, the creature’s girth as wide as a train, its skull as large as the mixer on a cement truck. The beast regards Jacob with two of its cybernetic eyes-vertical slits of gold, surrounded by incandescent crimson corneas.
A thunderou
s snort causes Jacob to jump backward as the serpent expels a stench-laden breath through its synthetic nostrils. The frightening jowls part, revealing rows of ebony, scalpel-sharp teeth.
Jacob returns the creature’s gaze, refusing to yield. A surreal moment passes as man and beast contemplate one another – and an overwhelming sense of deja vu washes over Jacob’s brain.
The suddenly docile creature lowers its head to the ground, keeping its right eye focused on the twin.
Jacob stands. He steps forward, placing both palms against the creature’s oily, scalelike emerald green feathers, registering the being’s deep, intense reverberations of breath – as a white haze envelops his mind…
*
Jacob’s consciousness soars across time and space.
He remote-views the Nile River.
Moves inside the hidden chambers of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Enters the Queen’s Chamber.
Gazes up through a viewing shaft, its thirty-nine-degree angle aimed precisely at the brightest star in the evening sky… Sirius.
‘Jake!’
The sudden intrusion startles him. He opens his eyes, his ears buzzing with energy.
To his surprise, he is lying on his back. His mother is by his side, the alien sky now filled with stars, the red super-giant directly overhead.
The great head of the alien serpent remains onshore, the rest of its 110-foot-long body still submerged in the exotic silvery liquid.
‘Jake, what happened? You’ve been unconscious for hours. Are you okay?’
He sits up, still in a daze. Dominique notices that his entire body is trembling.
‘My God…’ He stares at the creature, tears forming in his azure-blue eyes.
‘Jake? What is it?’
‘Those bastards… those manipulating fubishitting sons of bitches
… they lied to us.’
‘Who lied? The Guardian?’
‘Yes. Everything they told my father about Xibalba, everything they programmed into the Balam ’s astrology charts… it was all one big calculated lie. This planet isn’t in the Orion Belt, and that red giant out there isn’t Betelguese… it’s Sirius. And that white dwarf, it’s Sirius-B!’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘Don’t you get it, Mother, we’re not hundreds of light-years from Earth, we’re on Earth!’
‘What?’
‘ Xibalba is Earth… only Earth hundreds of thousands… maybe millions of years in our future!’
‘No… Jake how can that be? Look at the red sky-’
‘The atmosphere’s changed, the dust particles scattering light differently.’
‘But there are no oceans.’
‘They must have evaporated. Maybe it was the loss of the ozone layer, maybe even a massive green house effect. The seas could still be frozen beneath the planet’s surface… same thing happened on Mars.’ He stands, then reaches out to touch the serpent. ‘And these poor creatures… do you know what they once were?’
She shakes her head, still in shock.
‘They were whales, mother, whales that were cloned and genetically altered to serve their posthuman masters.’
‘I… I don’t understand.’
‘Toothed whales evolved the ability to echolocate. The posthumans used this ability to tap into the nexus. They enslaved the whales… altered their genetic pattern, then rewired the poor beasts with cybernetic implants. The mammal’s ability to communicate in harmonics enabled the posthumans beyond the nexus into the spiritual realm.’
Dominique rubs at her temple. ‘Jake, if this is Earth, then who were the transhumans and posthumans?’
‘They’re us. They’re what happens to Homo sapiens in a million years. They’re the ones who built the floating city and this genetics lab and sea.’ He spreads his arms out. ‘Take a good look around you, Mother, this is the future of the late, great planet Earth.’
‘One future,’ she reminds him. ‘If the caldera triggered this, then maybe the Guardian can stop it.’
He nods. ‘Father said only a Hunahpu could prevent the second cataclysm.’
Dominique stares at the beast, seeing it as if for the first time. ‘The creature seems to know you.’
‘It accessed my mind… my memories back on Earth. It knows I mean it no harm. It’s here to take us to Mick.’ Jacob helps her to her feet. ‘Don’t be scared.’
‘I am scared; just do what you have to do.’
He nods, then closes his eyes, pushing his mind to enter the nexus, allowing him to communicate with the beast.
Dominique’s heart skips a beat as the viper’s head stirs, its gaping jaws hyperextending open before them, exposing hideous ebony fangs, surrounded by hundreds of needle-sharp teeth.
And then a second viperous head appears, identical but smaller, jutting outward telescopically to protrude from the mouth of the first.
Jacob and his mother step back as a third and final head pushes out from the mouth of the second, all three jaws locking in place.
Rotating inside the orifice is a cylinder of energy, a cosmic conduit of space-time, running from the serpent’s outstretched jaws and through its torso, down into the silvery waters of the artificial lagoon.
Hand in hand, Jacob and Dominique step over the bottom rows of teeth, entering the serpent’s mouth.
38
The creature’s jaws close behind them, the third head retracting into the mouth of the second, leaving them in absolute darkness.
And then a white fog appears and Jacob hears the unified thoughts of the Guardian collective.
JACOB, FULFILL YOUR DESTINY.
The fog seems to come alive, shimmering, as it draws in upon itself – materializing into a sword.
Jacob grasps the double-edged three-foot-long blade by its hilt. ‘Just like in my dreams.’
Dominique registers a nauseating sensation of something tugging at her internal organs, as if her intestines are being unraveled. She squeezes her eyes shut, as the funnel of energy seems to suddenly suck them forward, though they are not actually moving.
Sensing the light, she reopens her eyes.
The squeamish feeling is gone. They are no longer in the serpent’s mouth.
Jacob and Dominique find themselves standing in an arena, a replica of an ancient Mayan Ball Court. The I-shaped field is covered in a sandy lead gray silicon soil, the long, parallel east and western walls composed of metal plates, giving the complex a gloomy, futuristic industrial effect.
The alien sky is a molten vermilion, obscured by choking charcoal gray clouds, like smoke from a petroleum inferno. As their watering eyes adjust to the tremendous 120-degree Fahrenheit heat, they notice it is not a sky, but a simmering subterranean ceiling, located a good mile overhead.
To their right, situated atop the forty-foot-high eastern wall, twelve feet above the giant steel vertically oriented goal ring, is a small temple. Seated upon a throne that overlooks the playing field is a tall human with elongated head, the leader of Lilith’s band of sadistic killers.
The transhuman’s flesh is covered in gray silicon dust, his face concealed behind the mask of a gaping serpent’s head. A trail of green feathers runs down his broad bare back.
The leader begins chanting in an ancient tongue, his words echoing throughout the steel, silicon-dusty arena.
Jacob turns, detecting movement at the far end of the enclosed ball court. The second mouth of the serpent beckons at the base of the Mayan structure known as the Temple of the Bearded Man.
Moving out from the open mouth and into the arena-a tribe of gray-skinned transhuman warriors.
Unlike the holographic combatants, Jacob knows these beings are quite real, very unpredictable, and far more dangerous. They are tall, each over seven feet, with elongated skulls and well-muscled bodies that exceed 260 pounds.
Jaundiced yellow eyes glow from behind their ceremonial death masks. Six-inch spikes cover their elbows and knees. The warriors carry a variety of weapons: steel spe
ars and daggers, spiked balls on chains, and body armament featuring sharp claws fastened across the knuckles.
Snorting behind their ceremonial masks, they line up facing Jacob beneath the eastern goal, their leering eyes focusing on him.
Dominique inhales deeply through her nostril tubes and regulator, desperate to clear her head, hoping she will awaken from the nightmare.
Jacob scans the arena, all too aware that his mother is the chink in his armor. I need to find a place to isolate her…
From his perch, the masked leader raises a round object above his head.
The warriors howl, bellowing an animal-like scream.
The leader tosses the object into the arena.
Game ball…
The severed head strikes the hardened soil like a coconut, bounces twice, then rolls awkwardly before stopping at Dominique’s feet.
She looks down and screams.
Jacob catches her as she faints.
The head is Mick’s.
The warriors hoot and holler, their bellowing laughs echoing throughout the metallic ball court.
Jacob stares at his father’s head. ‘Jesus… no-’
Mick’s eyes open, their rolling gaze maniacal. The mouth parts to speak. ‘Who is it? Who’s out there?’
Jacob hears his voice say. ‘It’s your son. Jacob.’
‘Jacob?’ A deep wail rises from Mick’s mouth.
Before the twin can react, two of the silicon-skinned warriors step forward. From behind their masks they expel a bloodcurdling bellow.
‘No… no… no…’ Jacob detaches the regulator from his shoulder harness and pops it in his mouth, breathing deeply. Refocus! Remember the story of the Hero Twins. The Death God and his minions will try to fool you. This is not your father, it’s an aberration… a ruse!
Using the top of his boot, Jacob flips the skull-ball several feet off the ground, then steps forward like a soccer goalie and kicks the head as far downfield as he can.
One of the warriors gives chase. Another runs toward the twin and his mother.
Tossing Dominique over his shoulder, Jacob sprints to the far end of the eastern wall and the hidden stairwell he knows will lead him to the leader’s temple. He ascends the narrow steps three at a time, the sword in his right hand.
