“You don’t understand. They were sealed in, forever if need be, for the day they might be needed. In case the magic inscribed in the tombs wasn’t enough to keep the oppressor race away. In case they needed the savant of their species that gave us this writing to work his magic again. Only, by breaking the seal, we exposed the bodies to aging and decay.”
“So, not mummies. Nothing so primitive. More like alien cryogenics.”
“Yes.”
“Well, what do we do now?” Ramon’s voice had regained that sense of urgency.
“We have to find the other cabbalistic symbols hidden in your amulet. This is the first step of the reawakening process. We’ll need the other mantras to complete the reanimation. And complete it we must, because without the savant’s help, we won’t know how to put them back as they were. Or…”
“Or…?”
“I’m probably just being paranoid,” Lar confessed.
The earth shook beneath his feet. This time the source, and the reason behind it was entirely different. So, not only are you not being paranoid, Lar, you’re not being paranoid enough!
“What the hell…?”
“I’m guessing that’s another failsafe,” Lar explained. “If the savant can’t save his people in time, the planet self-destructs. Anything to keep his people from falling into the hands of the oppressor again.”
“Self-destructs! Um, you want to explain this one to Victor? I’m feeling a bit sheepish on the matter.”
“We’ll need to isolate the exact sequence of events to know how to stop it, if we can stop it, and how long we have,” Lar said, strangely calm.
“So, that’s what we’ll do. And if we can’t figure out how to stop it, we’ve got our own plan B, right? Just reanimate dead savant and entourage here.”
“But the instant the savant’s mind is awakened, it will draw the master race.” Lar stared up at the alien reverentially. “Her mind evolved to where it could no longer resist the allure of the collective. The power it generated brought it into resonance like a tuning fork with the group mind of the master race. That’s why she put himself on ice, as it were.”
“So, we’re damned if we do; we’re damned if we don’t.” Ramon studied Lar, who’d been talking as if entranced, eyes unblinking, his voice—well, like a psychic channeler, sounding like the entity doing the speaking. “How can you know any of this, for sure?”
“Remember when I said I was determined to turn my klutziness into a superpower? Well, Captain Klutz is able to engender some superpowered fuckups, which Lar could only dream of. And he understands the nature and results of his own magic better than I do.”
“But I thought the idea was to have good things come of the klutziness, not bad.”
“Maybe this is a good thing—in a very roundabout way. Maybe we have to defeat this alien race to learn what we need to learn to defeat an even more powerful enemy that comes after them. And without this little training exercise—”
“Now you sound like Victor.”
“No, Soren. Soren suspected all along he and the rest of us were being moved like pieces on a chessboard by a celestial wizard able to manipulate many moves ahead. If he could yank Soren’s and the beast’s strings, why not Captain Klutz’s?”
“So, is this the last remaining member of the master race doing the string pulling?”
“I guess we’re about to find out.” Lar stopped staring at the savant, who he took to be the mother, as she had an even bigger, more elongated cranium than the father. But this was an alien species they were talking about. For all he knew, that wasn’t a head, so much as a womb. That, or they were one and the same thing.
Ramon fretted. “Once Victor gets his hands on this information, it won’t matter if we can stop the earth from falling apart without the savant’s help. He’ll reanimate her just to draw the alien race, just to have another contest to win against the celestial wizards of space-time.”
“Try your magic now,” Lar said, ignoring him. “See if you can get us out of here.” While prone to digressions himself, the falling rock overhead from the latest earth tremors was doing wonders to keep his mind on point.
“Why? What’s changed?”
“If the master manipulator is finished with this little scene of the drama, and we’ve learned all we can learn here, for now, I suspect your magic will work again.”
Ramon gave it a try.
His palm chakras fired up, lighting up the chamber, and bringing the creepy alien family into even bolder relief. It was a hell of a last impression to haunt their nightmares for a long time to come.
And in the next moment they were back in Victor’s apartment.
***
“Victor.”
Victor had been so caught up in his delight of adding the container to his collection that he hadn’t even noticed Ramon in the room. “I’ve learned to work the amulet,” Ramon said, holding it up in his hand, the one he’d been working on ever since Victor assigned him the problem.
“And?” As pleased as Victor was to hear that, he wasn’t sure now was the time, interrupting his moment of sublime euphoria. Thus, his voice was more than a little testy.
“And I’ve been using it,” Lar said, surprising Victor yet again with one more presence he’d failed to detect in his flat, amidst all his tunnel vision, “as a key to the latest temple in Antarctica. We’re going to need Soren, and I mean, real soon. And, um, his monster. Yeah, definitely the monster too.”
“Why? What have you done now, Lar?”
“That Captain Klutz I meant to invoke and turn into a superpowered hero, well…. He did something really amazing, alright.”
“More amazing than unleashing the cabbalistic magic on Soren?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Lar, say goodbye to the world.” Victor already had his hand out to him.
***
Soren rolled off Naomi. With the active hives of nanites roaming his surface now more like sentient tattoos, forever shapeshifting from one pleasing “birthmark” to another, Naomi seemed to be fighting her repulsion to him less, both in and out of bed; though there may have well been more to her reduced ambivalence toward Soren.
In the aftermath of their lovemaking, he had relaxed enough to take in the deeper implications of all the dark deeds he’d done while under the influence of the beast. The walls of denial had come tumbling down.
Their bed—now the top of one of the pyramids adoring the “Yucatan Peninsula”—allowed him to stare transfixed at the jungle as his feet rested on the last riser step to the apex of the pyramid. The monkey screeches and other animal noises wafting up from the forest below relaxed him further, but only to the same paradoxical ends; letting in still-more painful memories.
Naomi slid over in bed and sat up by his side, hugging him by bringing him against her tighter and kissing his shoulder.
“The things I’ve done.” His very voice burned his lungs.
“You fought your greatest battle in your darkest hour.” His eyes went to hers. “Not only did you win, you cut that many more cords tying our troubled kids to their pasts, giving them their first tastes of true freedom; that you did the only way you could, from the perspective of the beast, using the reverse psychology which only he could embrace. Together you were stronger than you ever were before.”
“But more unbridled, more unchecked. More reckless.” His eyes returned to the forest.
“It’s not a sprint, Soren, it’s a marathon. So many more laps to go until your destiny is entirely your own again.”
He took a deep breath and held it. When he let it out, he said, “I guess the only way out of this maze is further in.”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “That’s true of us all—in no small part due to the hellish pasts we had no choice but to survive, and can expect no quick once-and-done fix for. But we’ll get each other wherever we’re going.”
“Or kill everyone in sight trying; that’s what I’m afraid of.”
; She smiled. “You worry too much; it’s just one of the many flaws in your nature that encourages the beast to cease what he feels is rightfully his. Learn to integrate the dark and the light in yourself, as we all must; don’t be tempted to pull away from your family, for our paths have never been more aligned.”
He smiled ruefully. “I see you’ve inherited some of my skill with giving speeches.”
“I should warn you, the hot air I’m blowing is magically infused.”
“Yes, with your intoxicating scent.” He embraced her once again and they kissed.
But his prophetic words haunted him, burrowing further and further into his mind. “The only way out is further in.”
###
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
So much research goes into even a highly speculative book of this kind. As much as you’d be tempted to believe it’s all imagination, it’s not. To this end I’m indebted to far too many souls to name. But the short list would have to include:
Those witting and unwitting souls who share their work so freely on the internet. In particular, those folks whose discoveries or reportage thereof weighed heavily in granting my prose that extra realism factor.
My primary Facebook newsfeed folks who keep their nose to the ground for all breaking technology news, especially those pertaining to the transhuman era. Gareth John, Marco Santini, Sergio Tarrero, René Milan, Louisa Baqués, chief among them, but there are literally hundreds of others.
And, of course, to the many transhumanist Facebook groups to which I belong, whose mind-trust is invaluable. Not just for the sharing of great intel, but for the willingness of all participants and experts in their fields to answer questions.
A debt of thanks too great to repay is also owed to my loyal beta readers, and to my writer’s circle. They help me to get outside of my own head and help to illuminate all my blind spots when it comes to editing and fact checking.
And last but not least, a great thanks to Lori Brower, who read the manuscript not once, not twice, but three times. If you’d like to avail yourself of her services, you can reach her at [email protected].
That said, all errors are entirely my own. As the buck stops with me.
AFTERWORD
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