Earth Keepers

by Jorge Alejandro Lavera

  Gea hesitated a second and then took his hand and went with him.

  They went walking along the road, and passed by the hill just as the sun set behind it. There was no need for words. They both stood admiring the sunset for a few minutes. Then Alexis led her back along the path until, arriving at a small forest, they went off on a small path.

  “Now I know where we’re going.”

  “You know it?”

  “I know the area, the only thing here is the Walkers’ Inn.”

  “I hope you like it.”

  “Are you kidding? I’ve been here hundreds of times with my friends.”

  Alexis was surprised.

  “What, you think I don’t have any friends?”

  “No, no, it’s that I’ve been here hundreds of times, too. I was wondering how I never saw you.”

  “When I come with my friends, we generally fill the place up.”

  “Oh, I see, that makes sense. Yes, sometimes we came here and had to go someplace else because it was full, which is odd, because it’s a big place.”

  “Those must have been the days I came here,” Gea said, laughing.

  The inn was quiet. There were few people and they asked for a corner with a view outside. The interior light was soft. In the center, there was a small fireplace and the smell of wood smoke perfumed the air.

  Gea and Alexis enjoyed a quiet dinner, sitting side by side.

  “What are you thinking about doing going forward? Do you really like being a coach?”

  “As you know, I’m very good at it, and I like it, but I was also thinking about dedicating myself to sailing. I’m a little bored doing the same thing all the time and some years at sea would be a challenge. Although...lately I don’t remember very well why I wanted to leave.”

  “I can make you the captain of a ship, if that’s what you want. I have some influence, you know.”

  Alexis stayed quiet.

  “I appreciate it, sincerely, but that isn’t what I want. For one thing, I want to earn things through my own merit. And for another, I prefer to not go far right now.”

  “What’s happening right now?”

  “It turns out I like being with you. And that complicates everything.”

  “Why does it have to be complicated?”

  “Because you’re a princess and I’m sure that one day you’ll be queen. And I’m a nobody, I don’t have anything to offer.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, you have prestige. You’re the best at what you do.”

  “Even so, I’m sure that if we go forward, many will say I’m a social climber.”

  “Well, you need to get thicker skin so the darts don’t hurt you. Or I can decree the death penalty for anyone who speaks badly of you, when I’m queen.”

  Alexis got serious.

  “You actually could if you wanted to. It scares me to think about the power you’ll have.”

  Gea put her arm around his shoulders, and turning his head, gave him a long kiss on the lips.

  “Forget about all that. We don’t even know if we’ll get that far. Just relax and let’s enjoy the present.”

  “You’re right, though sometimes I envy the humans. They say that drinking alcohol makes them happy and they forget their problems, can you believe it?”

  “Yes, I studied about that. A little bit of alcohol produces that effect; too much and they get rowdy, irresponsible and dangerous. And very few humans know how to control themselves.”

  “Well, sometimes I’d like to deactivate the nano-organisms to try a little of that famous alcohol.”

  “If the nano-organisms reject it, it’s because it’s toxic. I don’t think you’d like to ingest something toxic.”

  “Okay, to our health,” offered Alexis, raising a glass of grape juice.

  “Same to you,” Gea offered, clinking her cup.

  Alexis accompanied Gea to the palace and they met again at the next training session. One day after every training session, they went for a walk, sometimes to new places and others to places they liked the most. Their going out became habitual.

  TIARA

  Rho, December 2, 2027. 1:00 p.m.

  Althaea took out the treasure chest of the Atlanteans as Tzedek had done many times before.

  “Isn’t it a little ostentatious?” asked Sofía.

  “It isn’t for ostentation. Gold is one of the few materials that can last unchanged for hundreds of thousands of years,” Althaea explained.

  “What is that engraving? It looks Greek. Let me see it,” Sofía asked.

  She looked carefully at the inscription on the chest: ‘κίνδυνος θανάτου’ and immediately interpreted what it said.

  “Risk of Death,” Sofía commented. “That isn’t very auspicious.”

  “It’s for the humans. Remember that any contamination with nanites can be fatal. Throughout the centuries, several have tried to rob the chest, for the gold, and died soon after getting contaminated with the nanites. They aren’t compatible with humans,” she added.

  Althaea took out a tray that took up half of the box that held a row of containers, which Sofía knew held the original Atlantis nanites, and put them on the desk. Then she removed a partition panel. Below it a tiara and two gold bracelets could be seen.

  “These are Gea’s tiara and bracelets,” indicated Althaea with reverence.

  “Are they gold?”

  “Not completely, they’re made of a complex alloy of gold and superconducting ceramics.”

  The jewels weren’t very ornate, but their design was complex. The tiara formed a golden arc interrupted every quarter inch by vertical cutting lines with different gold joints between segments, located at different heights, which gave the appearance of asymmetric complexity to the design. At the ends, made to attach to the ears or in the hair, the tiara was no more than a quarter of an inch high, whereas in the front it was an inch high. In the center, it had a wider space and embedded in it was a huge round emerald with yellow highlights.

  The bracelets were made of similar segments, but had a constant width of an inch and were open.

  “Do you see these segments?” Althaea pointed to one of the quarter inch blocks of the tiara. “They’re made with a technology that was lost to us. Each block is a molecular computer printed at the quantum level. There are so many trillions of circuits in every quarter inch of this material, that all together it has more computational power than all the computers existing now on Earth,” Althaea sighed. “This was super advanced technology even for us. The secret of its production was lost with the old Atlanteans.”

  Sofía took the tiara from Althaea’s hands. The minute she touched it, the tiara lit up softly and she felt it vibrate. She gasped, startled, but didn’t let go of it and asked:

  “Is this normal?”

  “No...let me see it,” asked Althaea. Sofía passed it to her and when she stopped touching it, the tiara went back to being inert again. Everyone looked at it. Damaris took the jewelry from Althaea’s hands and turned it over several ways, but nothing happened. Then she stretched out her hand and it reached Sofía...she barely touched it and it started to vibrate and softly light up.

  Sofía looked at it, fascinated. She put it back in its box, where it immediately became inert again, and picked up one of the bracelets that started to vibrate and gently lit up as soon as she touched it.

  “And what are they supposed to do or what are they for?” asked Sofía.

  Althaea and Damaris looked at each other.

  “The truth is that no one besides Gea could use them. Others tried and couldn’t. The material reacted in some way that made them sick,” explained Althaea. “Gea used them all the time. We knew that they helped her to govern, but we don’t know exactly what she did with them or how she handled them. No one ever knew. We only know that they had incredible powers, including for us.”

  Sofía played with the bracelet before putting it on her wrist. The bracelet suddenly closed with a click and stayed lit, though it
didn’t vibrate any more.

  “Wow, it’s beautiful,” exclaimed Sofía, while she picked up and put on the other one.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” stammered Damaris.

  “I’ve never worn jewelry, you know?” Sofía commented, succumbing to a moment of vanity and admiring the bracelets. She moved her arms from one side to the other looking at the reflections of light on the gold. “I feel like Wonder Woman,” she laughed.

  “Like the one in the comics?” asked Damaris.

  “Yes, the Amazon who had some bracelets and she used them like this to stop bullets,” imitated Sofía, making a gesture like a shield crossing one arm in front of the other and joining the bracelets. At the moment they touched, a barely visible bubble appeared out of nowhere around Sofía.

  “Wow!” exclaimed Damaris. Sofía jumped, separated her hands and the bubble disappeared.

  “What was that?” yelled Sofía.

  “Probably one of the many functions of the bracelets, that we have no idea how to manage or control,” Althaea said ironically, raising an eyebrow.

  “There’s no manual?” Sofía inquired jokingly.

  “Who knows. Maybe some memory in some nanite can show us what it could do and how to use it, but it could be that the information has been lost.”

  Sofía crossed her arms and nothing happened. Then she uncrossed them, concentrated and once again nothing happened. She crossed them again and the bubble appeared again. Sofía said something, but they only saw her lips moving. Althaea and Damaris looked at each other. Damaris got a pen from the desk and put the point on the bubble. There was no reaction, but she couldn’t get through it. She pushed with all her might, but nothing happened.

  “It’s like pushing on a wall...of steel...” Althaea said.

  Sofía looked at her and uncrossed her arms. The bubble burst and she announced:

  “I couldn’t hear what you just said.”

  “Yes. We didn’t hear what you said, either. The field is so strong that it doesn’t even let air vibrations that form sound cross through,” explained Damaris. “Speculating on what I’ve just seen, I’d venture a guess that it’s a field hundreds of times stronger than what the personal nanites generate.”

  “I said that it doesn’t work if I just cross my arms or just think about the shield. It does activate if I think about the shield and at the same time cross my arms, with the bracelets touching each other,” explained Sofía.

  “In that case, how lucky was it that you wanted to do that. Is there anything else that Wonder Woman did that we could use?” asked Damaris jokingly.

  “I don’t think so...she also deflected bullets with the bracelets, but I don’t see the point of that, having the shield. I don’t remember that she did anything else with them,” she countered seriously. She sighed and looked for a way to open one of the bracelets. Then she looked at the other one. She shook them, ran her hands over them, opened them, and then exclaimed: “Open!”

  “What’s going on?” asked Althaea, concerned.

  Sofía was a little pale.

  “I think they want to stay with me, they won’t open.”

  Damaris took one of Sofía’s arms, moved and studied the bracelets for a few minutes.

  “I don’t see any break in the design, it’s as if they had always been closed.”

  “We know they weren’t,” responded Althaea.

  “Well, it’s like Sofía said, it seems like the bracelets have a different idea,” Damaris noted.

  “Okay, let’s not panic. I don’t think it will hurt for me to keep them on,” Sofía conceded, as she went towards the window to look at them better. However, as she got closer to the window, her pulse sped up and she started feeling bad. She looked at the bracelets and didn’t see anything strange in them. She leaned on the window and started panting.

  “Sofía?” Damaris said worriedly, running to her side. “Do you feel bad?”

  “Yes,” she confessed. No point in lying about it, and she leaned on Damaris.

  “Come on, you’d better sit down,” Damaris said, and brought her to a chair next to the chest.

  As they got nearer, Sofía felt better. When she’d sat for just a few seconds, she felt fine again, just like before.

  “Wow, I think the message is clear,” Sofía exclaimed. She picked up the tiara, as Damaris and Althaea both protested: “Don’t put it on!”

  Sofía just held it in her hand, and then stood up and walked towards the window again. This time nothing happened. She looked at the intricate design of the tiara and how it matched the bracelets.

  The tiara was as light as a pair of glasses.

  “Maybe the way to take off the bracelets is a command from the tiara.”

  Without thinking about it anymore, she brought it up to her head and put it on. Even though it seemed rigid, she could feel it adapting to fit her head comfortably. She could almost feel the segments moving. As soon as it made contact with her forehead, the tiara lit up with a golden light and a green halo came out of the emerald in all directions. The bracelets were lit up, too. Sofía collapsed.

  STRANGERS

  Atlantis, Year 5 of the Interim Reign of Tzedek

  Alexis showed Gea the small bush full of yellow flowers he’d found.

  “They’re beautiful. Did you feel the perfume?” asked Gea.

  “Of course, that’s how I discovered them in the first place.”

  “Thank you for showing them to me.”

  “Your happiness is my pleasure, Princess. And vice versa, too.”

  Gea laughed.

  “Let’s go to the Inn, it’s close by.”

  There were quite a few people at the inn. Their favorite corner was empty, so they sat there. Lately they talked about anything that made Gea learn. Her training for the throne was intense, not only physical but mental, and Alexis helped her whenever he could.

  “How do you think the sixth kingdom could improve the production of figs? We must decrease our dependence on imports from the continent.”

  “I believe that the capacity of the earth to grow fig trees has been reached. Maybe we could speak with engineering to grow us a bigger variety of figs. That way, the same number of trees would yield more figs.”

  “Good idea, Alexis. Tomorrow I’ll consult...”

  A scuffle interrupted them. They looked up to see what was happening and noticed that three men were threatening the inn’s server. One of them took out a dagger and pointed it at her neck.

  Alexis didn’t stop for a second. He stood up, pushing the table to one side and headed towards the men. Gea stood up, too, moving her hand to her side, but she remembered she didn’t have her sword. Alexis didn’t have his, either. Had he forgotten? Atlanteans usually weren’t armed unless it was for something specific since crime was practically non-existent, but those who practiced some professions, like warriors or trainers, were armed all the time. As Gea hesitated, and almost everyone else there did, too, Alexis was already in front of the men.

  “What’s going on here?”

  “Well, well, we have one of those effeminates defending the honor of a lady,” the man in front of him spit out, brandishing his weapon.

  Alexis looked at him and quickly noticed his shorter height and hands with five fingers, but those were details. What stood out more was that they were older, more than thirty, which automatically rejected them as Atlanteans. Humans, from the continent east of the sea. And drunk, according to their breath. He remembered that he didn’t have his weapon on him.

  “Put that dagger away before you get hurt.”

  “Or maybe someone will get hurt with it, what do you think about that?”

  The man clumsily but forcefully tried to stab him. Alexis heard Gea call out and he was distracted for a second, long enough to feel a cut on his arm. However, the human metals weren’t capable of beating nano-organisms like Atlantean blades. The weapon penetrated just a little, and besides, the minute the blade was taken out, the wound closed o
ver. Even so, Alexis felt the pain, which made him make a sound of disgust. The man kept attacking, even more angry by his failure, and tried two or three more times, one of which Alexis felt in his arm again, so he moved faster than his opponent could see and with the palm of his hand on his wrist, diverted the next attack. Taking advantage of the same movement, he closed his hand on the man’s wrist and folded it up. The attacker yelled in pain and was forced to drop his dagger.

  Alexis noted that the other two humans noticed that their friend was having problems and moved in to help, so instead of letting him go, Alexis changed the position of his hand and forced the movement he’d started before, breaking the guy’s wrist. The drunk screamed out and Alexis pushed him to the right, where another one of the armed men was coming in, also armed with some kind of knife. As he moved to the left where the other man was, he saw that the one who had swooped in from the right had stabbed the guy with the broken wrist. Alexis punched the guy on the left with so much force, he fainted on the spot and as that one fell, with a simple twist of his torso he elbowed the second attacker in the throat, who dropped like a sack of potatoes.

  “Are you okay?” the serving girl asked, while a couple of security agents who had just arrived took out the humans unceremoniously.

  “Yes, thank you very much. Those foreigners don’t stop drinking and they act worse and worse. When I finally told them I wouldn’t serve them any more fermented beverages, they tried to get it out of me by force.”

  “I’ll be a witness, and will make sure they get deported,” Alexis assured her.

  “If that’s the best they have to offer humanity, I can’t imagine what the lowest is. The policy of having relationships with humans and letting them come here is going to lead us to disaster,” the girl lamented.

  Gea watched the exchange and couldn’t feeling a twinge of jealousy. Jealousy? Alexis wasn’t even her partner. For a moment, she fantasized him defending her like he had the server. As if she needed it, being the best warrior in the realm, she thought with humor. But even the best needs help sometimes. And It definitely bothered her to see him helping someone else. Wasn’t that pure selfishness? Yikes, she was jealous. Incredible. How could she succumb to such an inappropriate feeling? She had to do something about that.