Earth Keepers

by Jorge Alejandro Lavera

  On the following pages, there was a series of exams with the answers and the answers to an email that he had to answer to start the process. He remembered having seen the email, tried to answer it but didn’t understand anything and couldn’t figure out one clue. It wasn’t much work, he just had to go to a website with the solution that the letter said, and then go to an interview in which it didn’t matter what he said, because Marsan would change the results later. He just had to tell Marsan by sending him a message via a telephone number that he’d left on the papers, which was a disposable cell phone that would be destroyed once the message was received. Later, Norberto would receive instructions to go to the city to work, for which he had to move to Argentina. He spent a few months thinking about it, since he wasn’t excited about going to the other side of the world, mostly because with the money he had, he didn’t have much incentive to do it. Until one day he got a letter that didn’t need to be signed (it wasn’t) to know it was from Marsan. It said simply:

  “Know that if you don’t decide to act soon, I can pay someone else the same I paid you for another person to take care of you...and get my money back.”

  Norberto knew a threat when he saw it, and he got the process started immediately.

  And that’s how it all happened. In a year Norberto was admitted to the city and they assigned him a security guard job. For three years, he’d been waiting for the perfect opportunity to fulfill the contract. His position in security gave him the perfect opportunity to be close to his objectives, although he’d only seen them one at a time or at most two of them together, like Tzedek and Althaea. Eventually, he managed to get a large caliber weapon with a little ammunition into the city, in a small container that got through the detectors at the entrance. His work was boring, but he had all kinds of luxuries in the house they assigned him, and he certainly took the opportunity to live comfortably.

  UNCERTAINTY

  Rho, November 27, 2027. 6:30 p.m.

  Tzedek and Nogah listened to Norberto’s tale.

  “When I found out that everybody had died a few days ago, I knew that what Marsan had told me was true. I wish I had acted sooner. I wish that with all the information Marsan gave me, he’d mentioned the detail that you’re bullet-proof,” Norberto said, dismayed.

  “In fact, we saved as many people as possible, some of the best of humanity, but our idea was not that everyone should die, but to genetically modify the species so they would be more...peaceful. It was Marsan who made the virus, who lied to everyone, and who took care of exterminating all of humanity, except the vaccinated ones.”

  “That doesn’t make sense, why would he tell me to kill you, if he was thinking of killing everybody?”

  “Hmm, Marsan didn’t have access to us, just to the humans. He also knew that only a major crisis would bring us all together. And that you would be there when that happened would only happen if you were always with one of us, as it did in effect happen.”

  “Almeida was assigned to guard Damaris,” Nogah said.

  “But I don’t understand what Marsan hoped to achieve by killing us,” Tzedek asked.

  “Maybe to take over control of the city himself.”

  “Seeing what he did with the virus, it’s clear he was crazed by hatred of the humans, but he was already in charge of one city of humans, together with the others. What would he want with another city? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “He didn’t give you any clue why he wanted to do this?” Nogah asked Norberto.

  “He told me that you were extraterrestrials and that you were going to kill everybody. Well, I’ve seen you with your hands, and your appearance, and I’ve seen that you killed everybody.”

  “First, we’re not extraterrestrials and second we didn’t kill everybody.”

  Tzedek looked at Nogah and he looked at Norberto. He concentrated for a few moments, and Norberto frowned. He felt a pressure inside of his head, but considering the pain he already had in general, it was nothing.

  Finally, Nogah stopped looking at the hitman and became uneasy:

  “I know what it is that doesn’t make sense...what bothered me from the beginning. Why didn’t Marsan tell him that he’d need several shots to eliminate us?”

  Tzedek shrugged his shoulders and the prisoner looked confused.

  “I’m going to see the others.”

  “I’ll take care of this. The laboratory always needs volunteers for the experiments with prototypes,” announced Nogah, and Tzedek left, in the face of Norberto’s look of fright.

  IMMORTALS

  Rho, November 27, 2027. 5:50 p.m.

  Damaris and Althaea dragged Juan Carlos and Sofía from where they were to one side of the Control Center, out of sight. Althaea made a pillow out of some jackets and put them under their heads so they’d be more comfortable.

  Juan Carlos was the one suffering the most. He was convulsing and groaning in pain. Sofía also moaned, but was quieter and white as a sheet. Juan Carlos suddenly arched backward and screamed. When he fell he was panting, but he opened his eyes and looked around, before fixing his sight on his injury, which had stopped bleeding. Just then Sofía gave a heartbreaking scream and when she relaxed, she also opened her eyes.

  Althaea looked at Damaris and requested:

  “Go find some wet rags and clothes for them.”

  Sofía’s mouth was dry, but she protested:

  “No, please stay, Damaris. Why don’t you ask for help?”

  “Given the circumstances, we don’t know who to trust right now and besides, I don’t want anyone to know yet what has happened.”

  Damaris got closer to Sofía, and gave her a kiss on the cheek, surprising her.

  “I’ll be right back.” Damaris ran out. She was back in a couple of minutes with a pile of clothes, rags, a bag and a couple of bottles of juice.

  “Water,” Juan Carlos requested.

  Damaris handed him the juice and gave the other bottle to Sofía. Juan Carlos drank straight from the bottle and emptied it. Sofía drank more slowly, leaving half of it.

  Juan Carlos sat up with difficulty and panted, before leaning up against the wall, touching his chest. He looked around at the red blood staining everything and jumped when he saw a little gold on his hand.

  “What happened? What did you inject us with? Who was that crazy man? Why aren’t we dead?”

  Althaea sat on the floor next to him and started to talk while she got a wet towel that Damaris had brought. She took off his bloody shirt, full of holes. She ran her hand over his chest and then began to wipe off the blood with the cloth.

  “I have no idea who that monster was, but Tzedek and Nogah are finding out right now. And I’m sure they’ll know soon.”

  Juan Carlos moaned in pain, feeling a sharp pain in his head, but it passed almost immediately.

  Althaea continued:

  “What we injected you with explains why you aren’t dead. Look, I told you that we aren’t immortal because our species is that way, but because we developed a technology that keeps us that way. That technology is what we injected you with.”

  Juan Carlos stiffened up. Sofía looked at Althaea and for a moment, forgot to breathe.

  “Nanotechnology?”

  “Exactly. We injected you with the same nanites that keep us alive. The first couple of minutes they were adapting to your bodies, and then they started repairing the damage. They self-replicate and feed from the same chemical energy as yours, just as eating feeds you, too. It works faster if you take something with sugar in it. That’s why I brought you juice,” explained Damaris.

  Sofía touched her side where the bullet had penetrated and passed through, and saw that it was closed now. Damaris took her t-shirt off and cleaned her with a clean cloth.

  “What you need is a shower,” observed Damaris, “but this will do until you get to your house without drawing attention if you run across anyone. By the way, we were never able to choose your house.”

  Sofía looked into Damaris’
eyes and said:

  “I suspect I won’t be with Dad much of the time anyway.”

  “What exactly do you mean by that?” asked Juan Carlos.

  “That I’d like to live with Damaris, if she wants me to, of course,” answered Sofía simply.

  “I’d love that, and my house is in this building. It’s the same with Althaea, so you can come live with me and your dad can live with Althea.”

  “My dad with Althaea?” Sofía asked, surprised.

  Juan Carlos turned red.

  “You listen to me a minute—you’re only 14.”

  “And she’s incredibly mature for her age,” confirmed Damaris. This time it was Sofía who turned red.

  Althaea rummaged around in the clothes. She tossed a pretty red t-shirt to Sofía, and found a white t-shirt for Juan Carlos.

  “Can you put it on?”

  Juan Carlos found it was easier to move now, and he put it on. He tried to stand up and discovered he could.

  “It’s incredible,” he said, surprised, touching the wound on his chest once again. “How do the nanites know that this is what they needed to repair?”

  Althaea and Damaris looked at each other.

  “It’s rude to talk secretly in front of other people,” she thought, and she was shocked when all three of them jumped.

  “Did everyone hear that? I thought that only Althaea...”

  “The nanites give us our ability to communicate mentally, if we’re only a short distance apart,” Althaea heard in her mind. “We must focus on who we want to transmit our thoughts to, or we all hear everyone’s, like what just happened. It’s easier to focus talking out loud.”

  “Talking just mentally can be very useful, but it takes a lot of energy, and afterwards we’re hungry. But anyway, I don’t think we’ve talked about everything you’ve ...acquired, along with the nanites,” Damaris said.

  “To start with, besides being able to speak telepathically, the nanites create an energy field around each person. It’s invisible,” commented Althaea when she saw Juan Carlos looking at himself and touching his arm, “but it reacts to impacts. The bigger the impact, the more the reaction. With a gunshot, it works like a bulletproof vest. Look.” She raised her t-shirt to show where she’d recently been shot. There was just a bruise that was disappearing even as she spoke. “It’s painful, and can take your breath away, but it’s gone in a moment. The problem is if they shoot at you several times in a row. Your system accumulates energy, but a shot at close range takes it out of you quick. Three or four shots can exhaust the shield’s functioning, and then the bullets penetrate the body. Fewer shots, if it’s large caliber.”

  “Then other functions of the nanites start working, these robots are smaller than your tiniest cell. They can repair broken cells, stimulate them so they reproduce and weave together, sealing a hole, replacing lost blood, and can repair any kind of cell, but they can’t reconstitute the lost neural connections. They can also eliminate defective or altered cells, for example, mutations or illnesses like any cancer,” explained Damaris in detail.

  “But the most, um, important, thing is that besides all that, the nanites can repair and renew the telomeres...do you know what those are?” Althaea asked.

  “They’re the endings of the chromosomes, which shorten with age,” Sofía explained.

  “Exactly, and they play an important role in aging,” explained Althaea.

  Juan Carlos’ pulse sped up.

  “Wait a minute, you’re saying...that we’re immortal like you?”

  Damaris and Althaea looked at each other.

  “Yes, Juan Carlos. Now, you’re both immortal. Immortal, but not indestructible and not invulnerable, remember that. It’s just that you won’t be at the mercy of illnesses, and you won’t age anymore,” Damaris clarified.

  “I’ll always be fourteen years old?” asked Sofía, frightened.

  “No, well, I hope not. You should continue to develop until you’re about 25 years old, and you, Juan Carlos, will lose some of the indicators of your actual age. Your white hair will go back to its original color and you’ll definitely feel less tired at the end of the day. Your body will return to how it was at twenty-five, more or less,” Althaea answered.

  “It’s important for you to know you’re not invulnerable. Above all, to electromagnetic fields. An EMP doesn’t do anything to a human, unless you have a pacemaker or something that could be dangerous, but for us it would deactivate all the nanites at once,” Damaris said.

  “The nanites aren’t just regenerating your whole body, all the time, but also many of them are replaced and carry out vital functions, integrated with your organs. If you had blood taken right now, it would be gold-colored, as you’ve seen. If all the nanites died at once, you’d die, too. If we, at our age, were affected by an EMP, we’d end up like a sort of pulp. And of course, separating the head from the body would also be fatal, of course,” Althaea shuddered.

  “Now I understand how prepared this city is,” Juan Carlos mused.

  “Truly, though most of the protection is for humans to live here and the technology. The most important thing to protect from an electromagnetic pulse was ourselves. Thanks to the nanites we can resist almost anything, including high or low temperatures, radiation or impacts. What we can’t resist well are EMPs or famines. The nanites need energy and they themselves make sure we don’t have more than a small percentage of extra fat, so if we don’t eat and that reserve is used up, we could end up with no energy and our system would collapse.”

  “Yikes, in that case, will you go out to eat with me?”

  Althaea laughed. Damaris was holding the clothing and the bloodied towels in a bag and Althaea told her:

  “It isn’t a bad idea. We have a lot ahead of us and a lot to do. It’s best we eat something first.”

  “I was tired before but I’m not now,” Sofía noted. “Do you, that is, well we, or...you know what I mean, do you sleep?”

  “Yes, but much less. Three or four hours is enough, and we can go three or four days without sleep if need be,” Damaris clarified.

  “Excellent!” Sofía exclaimed.

  Juan Carlos was distracted.

  “What are you thinking about?” Althaea said.

  “You don’t know?” Juan Carlos asked.

  “Not without your permission. Before I could access your mind because if I didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to access mine to answer me, but not since you have the nanites. That’s how it works now,” Althaea said.

  Juan Carlos felt disappointed and relieved at the same time.

  “Well, then, I was thinking, does this mean we’re like you now—we’re not human?”

  “Define ‘human’ Juan Carlos,” said Althaea. “If you mean a specimen of the Homo Sapiens species, you’ll never stop being one. Although you’re an atypical specimen. From your DNA sample, we know you’re a hybrid of a human and an Atlantean, otherwise the nanites wouldn’t have worked with you.”

  “You know what I mean...”

  “All I see is a whirlwind in your mind, so, no, I don’t know. Hmm, trying to see into your question-storm, I’d say, no, we can’t have children in the normal way, that is, having relations, but that doesn’t happen with the Atlanteans, either. We need artificial procedures to have them. We can use telepathy only to about five feet of distance. Yes, I like you and don’t mind staying with you. Until we get tired of each other or you get bored, or it’s forever, it’s the same to me. You’ll learn that long term plans aren’t always practical. Things can change a lot in a couple of millennia. And as you’ve noticed, there isn’t much chance of infidelity being able to read minds.”

  “Um...ah...excellent. And Tzedek...” he turned red again.

  “Tzedek is my engineer and biological father. My mother is dead. He is also our regent—of all of our species, I mean. In his time, he was a king of Atlantis. He wasn’t the last and his reign was very brief, only a hundred years or so, because he was a king between queens. At
lantis was always governed by women except in times of force majeure.

  “So, you’re an Atlantean princess?” Juan Carlos said slyly.

  “Just Althaea to you. There isn’t much sense in using titles if there is no kingdom to govern.”

  “Well, Rho is basically a kingdom. In fact, the construction with a wall enclosing it and towers in the center seems like some kind of castle. Except the technological distances, of course.”

  Althaea smiled broadly.

  “Do you know who I was for the Greeks?”

  Juan Carlos looked at her thoughtfully.

  “You told me that you influenced the Greeks a lot, but...are you telling me what I think you’re telling me?”

  “The Greeks knew me as Athena. And my father was Zeus, of course. Damaris was Demeter, and on and on with all of the Atlanteans. To the Greeks we were gods, of course. Imagine—we don’t grow old and more than one tried to kill us, in vain, of course, which reinforced the idea, and which we didn’t try to deny or encourage. Nor did we need to, they created a whole mythology around us. I liked the statues and temples they made in my honor,” Althaea remembered, smiling.

  “Athena? The goddess of wisdom, justice, the arts, of strategy, and I don’t know how many other things?”

  “What can I say, I’m versatile,” Althaea said, still smiling. Then she got serious. “During that time, I also fell in love with a human, Aristotle. He was a genius, even by our standards. He absorbed like a sponge anything I told him or suggested, and came out with astounding ideas and developments, especially considering the technology of the time. I would have liked to give him immortality, but he was human. At any rate, he told me that if he stopped being afraid of death, he’d lose his love for life.”