Earth Keepers

by Jorge Alejandro Lavera

  Now, facing Lionel, her eyes saw a person, but his system...there was nothing. As if in place of a person she were watching a movie. Where she should be receiving a cascade of data, she was receiving absolutely nothing more than an image.

  Sofía was even more alarmed and put all of her concentration into capturing what was in front of her, barely two steps away.

  “Sofía?” asked Alexis, startled, because she was holding his arm to the point of it hurting.

  With her concentration at maximum, Sofía saw all those around her as beings with brilliant auras of colors according to the filter she chose to see. But Lionel, she could only see as Lionel. She closed her eyes and made even more of an effort to concentrate. The jewels lit up. For an instant, less than a second, where Lionel was she saw a flare of red. Then, nothing again. As if there were a hole in the fabric of reality.

  Sofía opened her eyes and without letting go of Alexis, took a step back.

  “What are you?” she asked.

  Lionel had got serious. The others looked at him for a minute. Althaea, who was carefully following the exchange, took two steps back and took out her weapon.

  “What do you mean? I’m Captain Robert’s first officer.”

  “You know exactly what I mean!” she shouted.

  “Sofía, calm down. What’s happening?” asked Alexis.

  She breathed deeply and tried to calm down. She thought about how to explain what she was seeing and suddenly she realized how. She looked at Alexis, then at Althaea and at her father, concentrated lightly and entered their minds.

  “Look at what I see,” she told them mentally, transmitting them the images she saw around her, as well as a recording of what had happened a few seconds before.

  Alexis looked at Lionel frowning and without thinking, backed up a step, with Sofía still attached to his arm. Althaea raised her weapon and pointed it at Lionel.

  “Lionel? What’s happening?” asked Alexis, almost in the same tone Sofía had had a second before.

  Lionel dropped his shoulders.

  “I’m not a danger to you all. That is, as long as you don’t try to attack me. Believe me, if I wanted to harm you, you’d all be dead already and you couldn’t do anything to stop it,” he affirmed, with a half-smile, looking at Althaea who was still pointing her weapon at him.

  “I don’t understand, you’re an officer of an American ship, how did you fool the controls...” Alexis started to say when Lionel broke into a laugh.

  “Are you serious? Coming from you, no less?”

  Alexis almost replied but pressed his lips together and said nothing.

  “It’s clear you aren’t one of us. Why don’t you enlighten us a little?”

  “What do you think I am, an Atlantean?”

  “I don’t feel like a guessing game,” said Alexis.

  “Anunnaki...” murmured Sofía.

  Lionel laughed again.

  “The correct term is Anunna, girl, but any label you put on us is that, a label.”

  “You? We had information that you were very tall, with long hair, beard, and pale...” said Althaea.

  “And it wasn’t hard to plant that information for you to get. However, you had the real information in front of you and we could never get rid of those sources.”

  “What real information?”

  “Let us make man in our image and likeness,” does that sound familiar? Certainly we made them physically the same as us. On the outside, of course. On the inside, despite what they think they are, they continue to be very similar to the primates from which we took their genetic material. Though...I see that nobody here is our work. It is interesting how all species play with genetic manipulation as soon as they get the necessary technology. The combination with nanotechnology, hmmm, that’s different.”

  Alexis and Althaea moved forward at the same time and suddenly were frozen. Lionel laughed again.

  “You think I can’t hear what you’re thinking and that you can surprise me? As I said before, I’m not interested in killing you, on the contrary...” frowning, he noticed that Sofía hadn’t frozen. She felt like a giant hand was pressing her and she reacted by crossing her arms in front of her, which created a shield around her. She moved forward a step, trying to penetrate the defenses of the being, which she felt give way. Lionel raised a hand and took a step back, Sofía felt the force that tried to take her over step back, at the same time that the creature became once again impenetrable to her senses.

  “Interesting. You’re something special. Obviously, I mustn’t underestimate you. You seem human but...”

  “Free my friends, now,” ordered Sofía.

  Lionel seemed to consider it for a moment, and suddenly Alexis and Althaea stumbled back a few steps, as if they’d been pushed.

  “Don’t try that again,” Lionel advised them. “I wanted us to have a civilized chat.”

  “Since when are you interested in chatting?” asked Althaea.

  “Since forever, of course. Unfortunately, it isn’t normal to find beings with the minimum capacity necessary to be able to talk to us. Now, with just a handful of each species, unless you want to be protagonists of the extinction of all the technological beings present in this world, it would be good for us to agree on some things.”

  “Your intention was never to agree to anything, you were spying on us and if Sofía hadn’t discovered you...” said Alexis.

  “It’s true. But what happened, happened and the situation changed.”

  “So what are you? I mean, why are you here?” asked Sofía.

  “Well, for fun.”

  They all frowned and looked at each other.

  “Fun? What do you mean?” asked Sofía, exasperated.

  “Well, what I said. You don’t know what fun is?”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t make sense to me that you’ve invaded a world for fun.”

  Lionel looked fed up.

  “How about if we go someplace more comfortable? I get bored being in the same spot.”

  “You must have gone crazy in the submarine, then,” Alexis commented.

  “Well, I didn’t have any choice then. Here we can go someplace else...shall we go?”

  “We can go to the central park, it’s big, green, airy, and sunny,” suggested Sofía.

  “Very considerate on your part. I’ll go with you.”

  The central park was a plaza full of trees, well cared for lawns, benches for sitting, sculptures...

  Lionel stopped at an exquisite hourglass and smiled.

  “What?” Sofía asked.

  “Nothing, I wonder how many artifacts are inevitable in civilizations so different. It’s like a tribute to the ephemeral within the eternal.”

  “Can we get to the point? The suspense is killing me,” Sofía grunted.

  “Things didn’t turn out the way we wanted. You interfered and ruined our plans. Besides, you made me lose a bet, and that upsets me.”

  “Can you be more specific? What if we start at the beginning? Explain it to me as if I were fourteen years old.”

  Lionel smiled.

  “I wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating you, Sofía. Though if it makes you feel better, you are as much a child as they are with their tens of thousands of years.”

  Althaea raised an eyebrow.

  “Our species has billions of years more than yours, Althaea. We developed for millions of years and later started to explore space. Our technological development was our damnation. At some point, we became immortal.”

  “Big deal, we did, too,” Alexis laughed.

  “No, no, immortal for real. Indestructible. Eternal. That is, there is no way that we can be destroyed. We are God. Or what every civilization that we created remembers and knows as God, anyway.”

  Everyone looked at each other.

  “You’re saying that so we won’t try to kill you,” Althaea said.

  “Oh, no, no, please. You can try it, but I’m afraid that my defenses would probably kill you
automatically. I’d like to chat for a while, if you don’t mind.”

  “How can you know that you’re indestructible?” asked Sofía.

  Lionel fixed his sight into the distance for a minute.

  “I walked down a river of magma. I was adrift at the bottom of an icy sea, hell—I was stranded there for several thousand of their years until I could walk out of there. I was in the center of a nuclear explosion. In the vacuum of space. Buried under tons of rock.” Lionel shook his head and sighed.

  “And that bothers you? You don’t seem happy,” observed Sofía.

  “Happy? Try living billions of years without escape.”

  “You can’t even commit suicide?”

  “No. I wouldn’t be here if it were possible.”

  Sofía looked at Althaea and Alexis. Even Atlanteans could commit suicide if they got tired of life.

  “If what you say is true, it must be awful...how old are you?”

  “In years? No idea. Not only your planet, but not even your solar system existed when I was born. What would be the point of telling time in our lives, when you have no termination date? How could I measure in years, when my planet of origin no longer exists?”

  “And what are you doing here?”

  “I told you, looking for fun. Something that will make life bearable. Billions of years ago we invented the instantaneous transport system, bending space, and since then, we have been expanding throughout the universe. We arrived at its limits. We sent probes that install the transporters and as they connect, we go exploring other worlds. When we find life, we play with the species of the place to see what we can do. We make changes and then go to other places, and then come back to see what happened. We never found another intelligent species like us.”

  “Until you found us, of course,” said Alexis.

  Lionel laughed.

  “What egos you Atlanteans have. When we found you, you were primates with potential, so we modified you to make you more intelligent, and we left. When we came back, we found you with your moral codes, and advanced technology, your utopic society and all that crap. We had to look for a way to destroy you, of course. You were sooo boring.”

  “We evolved naturally,” Althaea started to say.

  “Please. If we hadn’t intervened, you’d still be primates.”

  “Are you saying you created both species—humans and Atlanteans?”

  “And many more, of course. Giving velociraptors intelligence was fun. They devastated the planet and provoked a massive extinction. They were born hunters, poor things, they couldn’t help it. Almost like humans, but they took tens of thousands of years and the humans, just a few hundred,” Lionel smiled.

  “You think that’s funny?”

  “It’s was personal achievement. They bet me that I couldn’t create a weak, dumb species and still get it to ruin the planet, and what do you know, I won that bet,” laughed Lionel.

  “Wait a minute, what do you mean you had to look for another way to destroy us?”

  “Do you really think the miserable sapiens were capable of sabotaging your generator and sinking your continent?”

  Alexis’ face transformed and he tried to jump on Lionel, but the others stopped him.

  “And now?” asked Sofía.

  “Well...we’d love to leave you in peace for a couple of centuries to see how you handle things, but the problem is that our Atlantean friends destroyed our transport home and the probes to replace them still haven’t arrived.”

  “A thousand years.”

  “What?” said Lionel disconcertedly.

  “Give us a thousand years and I’ll help you to go as soon as possible. I know how to do it.”

  “Interesting. Let me consult with my friends.”

  Lionel shut his eyes for a minute. He frowned, then smiled and finally laughed openly.

  He opened his eyes and looked at them.

  “Done deal, young one. I know you’ll do it. You have one year to restore the transport system and we’ll use it and not come back for a thousand years. It will be fun.”

  “I’ll fix it in the transport center near here. How and when will your pals arrive?” asked Sofía.

  “They’ll get here when it’s necessary. Remember these numbers, 14, 29, 42.9487,” -62° 40´ 46.141.” I’ll go now so as not to distract you from your work, I’ve seen enough of you.”

  “How do I find you when I’ve finished?”

  “Just say our true name out loud. No one uses our name in vain these days,” he said, snickering.

  “What name, Lionel?” asked Sofía, irritated.

  “Elohim,” he answered majestically, still smiling, while he opened his arms with his palms facing the sky. He started to rise, slowly at first and then faster, disappearing in a cloud and leaving them all with their mouths open.

  PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE

  Rho, January 1, 2028. 4:00 p.m.

  Juan Carlos had been using Tzedek’s consoles since early, as he did every day. Althaea tried not to bother him, but every now and then she had to interrupt him because he concentrated so much he forgot to eat and drink, sometimes to the point of putting himself in danger. This was one of those times.

  Althaea came over to him, looking at the hieroglyphics on the screens, noticing terrestrial planispheres and lots of text files and schemes.

  “I brought something for you to eat,” she said softly so as not to startle him, before caressing his neck. The interruption irritated him, but her touch immediately appeased him. He appreciatively accepted the juice and hamburger that she offered him.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, intrigued.

  “Keeping a promise. Remember what I promised Tzedek? The Atlanteans never achieved a good technology for cloning, that’s why they depended on new births, and when an Atlantean died, well, he disappeared. Even though there were vaults in Atlantis that contained stasis capsules like the one we have for Tzedek, millions of them, it was the equivalent of our cemeteries. They never thought they’d be able to use them again.”

  “And if that isn’t so?”

  “Humans don’t have the scruples that the Atlanteans do. In public we made great advances with animal clones, since it wasn’t allowed with humans, but you know the military doesn’t have any problem breaking the law when they need to. From what I was able to research, after figuring out how to get into some of the most important military systems in the world, there are installations where they not only researched cloning in humans but were carrying It out. The problem they had seemed to be the genetic illnesses, especially progeria. The clones died of old age in a few years,” he told her enthusiastically.

  “So that doesn’t do us any good,” Althaea said, not understanding.

  “You don’t get it? The nanites would take charge on correcting any genetic illness that was in the clone. And being grown in a short amount of time, they wouldn’t have personalities or previous lives that would conflict with the information of the nanites,” Juan Carlos answered, smiling.

  “That’s great,” exclaimed Althaea, surprised. “And what do we need to do it?”

  “That’s the problem,” Juan Carlos said more seriously. “Part of the research doesn’t seem to be in any document accessible on the Internet. It must be on the Intranet of the laboratories where they did the research. Or in papers published by the laboratories. I was just looking where they had done the experiments and it was all in the northern hemisphere, mostly in Oregon and Michurinsk, which creates another inconvenience for us. We’d have to figure out how to get there, get in, take what we need and return, but first we’d need to find out if the installations were destroyed during the global nuclear attack.”

  “Oh,” said Althaea, clearly disappointed. “So we’ll never achieve it.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no. I’m going to find out. After all, we have time. Oh, you know what else I thought about doing?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  Juan Carlos smiled.


  “In Tzedek’s archives I found a census of Atlantis, a short time before the end. The Atlantean census has images, fingerprints, retinal images, DNA identification, and of course, names. They took registering the citizens very seriously. So, I compared the data with our pathetic database of people in the city, of the ship and the submarine, using the document images. Guess what.”

  “Did you find an Atlantean?” asked Althaea, excited.

  “Well, I hoped to find one, after all, Robert Miles was Alexis Pavilis. But I have here what I found...”

  Juan Carlos moved the controls around, and on each screen appeared a face with a data sheet. Alexis was on the first screen.

  On the second screen, there was a young man with rectangular face, strong jaw, prominent cheekbones and blond hair. The data sheet said: Mederi Democedes, surgeon, royal physician, Central Kingdom.

  On the third screen, a young person with black skin and hair, oval face, small nose and big eyes.

  Underneath it said: Nephele Anastas, warrior, Ninth Kingdom.

  Just then, Alexis and Leora came into the control center. Juan Carlos looked happy.

  “Leora, Alexis, I wanted to show you something.”

  “I know that person,” said Leora, pointing to the middle screen.

  “You know him?” Alexis asked, surprised.

  “Yes, he’s a pedantic doctor who was traveling in first class on the ship.”

  “Mederi was on the cruise?” Alexis asked, his mouth open.

  “You know him?” Now Leora was the one who was surprised.

  “He’s an Atlantean, he was the queen’s doctor, actually for several queens. The best doctor of the whole kingdom.”

  Leora rolled her eyes.

  “Ugh, so he has a good reason to be a pedant.”

  “We must bring him here immediately.”

  Juan Carlos finished what was left of the hamburger while they talked, and rested his hands on the console.

  “What I really wanted to show you was this.”

  The screens erased, then filled with symbols, and then genealogy trees. Juan Carlos had attained a perfect command of the Atlantean system.