Phobos: Mayan Fear (7 page)

“On a metaphysical level, the light is love, the darkness—hatred. Love is the only weapon that can overcome one’s enemy. When Jacob stole his twin’s birthright, Esau wanted to kill him, forcing Jacob’s mother to send him away in exile. When Jacob returned, Esau had grown in power, commanding an army. But the moment the twins confronted one another, Jacob’s love removed Esau’s hatred and drew him back into the light, and Esau forgave his brother. You see, deep down Esau still felt love for Jacob, which means there was light in Esau.

“Now let’s look at you and
your
twin. Jake has overshadowed you since birth. He pushed you to train hard since the day you started walking. No doubt he drove you crazy with this Mayan prophecy nonsense, but he also warned you about using the Nexus for selfish reasons, and he was right. Your ego got the better of you, and you became intoxicated by the light, in your case the limelight that came with fame. Things changed when the moment of truth finally arrived: Jacob insisted you accompany him to the Mayan underworld, only you refused. We have no way of knowing the ramifications of that decision, but I suspect something positive may come from it.”

“How do you know that?”

“Think about it, Samuel. Jacob overstepped his boundaries, he tried to use his physical superiority to forcibly drag you aboard the
Balam
; in doing so, he robbed you of your free will. And what happened? Your genetics suddenly kicked in—you became his physical equal and stopped him.”

“You think that was intended to happen?”

“There are no accidents, Son. We may not understand it, but God has a reason for everything.”

Manny snapped. “Does that include Lauren’s death?”

“Lauren’s death was a pebble tossed into a pond. We have no idea where the ripples may go or what outcome they were meant to affect, just as your decision not to follow the hero twin’s legacy has no doubt sent ripples across the fabric of space and time. What’s important here is that, like Esau, you lose your hatred and negativity and complete your transformation by moving toward the light.”

“How do I do that?”

“By living a selfless life. By using the powers God gave you for the greater good. You know, I remember how things were, leading up to the events of 2012. Greed and corruption ruled Wall Street and Washington. While people lost their jobs and homes, the two political parties were more focused on waging war against each other, everyone vying for control. The media poured gasoline on the flames, dividing the country in half. Two wars raged on, fostered by hatred and corporate greed, while the stepping stone to World War III loomed in Iran. Fear ruled the day when the tinderbox finally burst into flames. Only a miracle, precipitated by your father, prevented the end of our species. But from that darkness—from that overwhelming negativity and divisiveness that pushed society toward the brink of annihilation—came a new doctrine. Alternative clean energy replaced fossil fuels, forging new industries while helping to heal the environment. The people rallied to change the political process, removing the variable of money from the equation. With lobbyists and big businesses strictly forbidden from the halls of government, Washington began working for the betterment of society instead of for its own self-interests. Once people started working to help one another, the darkness that veiled the light was lifted.”

“Dad, I’m not Jake. I mean, look at me! I’m lost physically … emotionally—”

“Focus on the spiritual side, Samuel. The rest will come.”

Completely naked, Immanuel Gabriel jumps down into the five-foot-deep, freshly excavated hole.

The two bodyguards look at one another. “You sure about this, kid?”

“I’ll be fine. Go on. Bury me up to my neck.”

The sand is cold and coarse, each shovelful stinging his skin. Manny focuses his gaze upon the dark silhouette of the carob tree, its leaves dangling pods of edible seeds. In Roman times, the purity of a gold coin was weighed against the weight of the seeds: twenty-four carats or seeds equaling a pure gold coin, twelve carats being half gold, half alloy. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his son had subsisted on the seeds for thirteen years.

Like the famous sage, Immanuel Gabriel’s intent is to channel the spirit of a righteous man, hoping to discover his own path to fulfillment.

The sand reaches his neckline. Beck hides the shovels beneath a bush while Kurtz collects the backpacks, offering Manny a sip of bottled water. “Pep will be stationed below, I’ll guard the trail from above.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“You’ll be in a transcendental state, which means you’ll be vulnerable.” Kurtz removes a small matchbox-size transmitter from his backpack, the device attached to a three-pronged spike. He counts off five paces from the Gabriel twin’s head, then pushes the object into the ground. “On the quarter of every hour I’m going to do perimeter sweeps with my pain cannon. The transmitter will seal you off from the microwaves, anything outside this perimeter gets lit up like a Christmas tree. So if you have to pee, pee in the hole.”

Manny smiles. “You’re like a protective Jewish mother.”

“Somebody has to watch your ass. I mean, what would I do without you?”

“Have a life.”

“I have a life. And I get laid a helluva lot more than you do.”

“The Israeli waitress from Carmel?”

“Actually, she’s an American, Arlene Lieb. She teaches English in the West Bank. Forty-two and divorced, with a set of hooters that could feed a starving African nation. Speaking of which—”

Beck rejoins them. “Perimeter’s secure. Salt talkin’ about his new woman again?”

“You’re so jealous.”

“Know what he told her? He told her he was a film producer, scouting locations for the next Zach Bachman movie. You should see the posters he made up.”

Kurtz’s frat house laugh is infectious. “I said I couldn’t get her a speaking part, but if she could play sexy I might be able to use her as an extra in the opening brothel scene.”

“You never change. I remember you pulling the same crap when Jake and I lived at the compound.”

“What can I say? I’m a dirty old man.”

Beck smirks. “You’re definitely old.”

“You’re only as old as your penis. Remember your penis, Pep? It’s that thing hidden somewhere beneath your belly.”

“All right, you two, go. I’ll see you at sunrise.”

Manny waits until they’re gone before closing his eyes, shifting his brain’s biorhythm back into Theta waves—awaiting the midnight hour and the channels that will open, allowing him to communicate with the higher dimensions.

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA

MAY 2, 2047

4:56 P.M. (EASTERN STANDARD TIME)

The facility lies on 140,000 acres of wildlife refuge, located on two barrier islands situated to the northeast of Cocoa Beach, Florida. The smaller landmass wedged between the Banana River and the Atlantic Ocean is Cape Canaveral. Just west of the Cape is Merritt Island, a much larger domain harbored between the Banana and Indian rivers. Two decades ago, Merritt Island was home to the Kennedy Space Center and her sister organization, NASA. Now, both islands are the property of Project H.O.P.E.

The privately owned site is protected by a small militia and an electrically charged, forty-foot-high perimeter fence. Gun towers are positioned along each corner, two by the adjacent beach, one more along the shoreline of the Banana River. Aerial drones patrol 24/7. No one gets in or out of H.O.P.E. without permission.

The completed Mars shuttles are located in twelve of the twenty-two steel and concrete structures situated on the southernmost tip of Cape Canaveral. As wide as a football field and three times as long, each of these seven-story buildings contains two monstrous bay doors that lead onto one of two launch tarmacs. Unlike the antiquated STS shuttles employed by NASA, the Mars fleet are space planes, designed for horizontal takeoffs and landings.

The private office of Lilith Mabus is located on the fifth floor in Building 1. Bay windows look down upon one of the twelve completed Mars passenger shuttles, the transport vehicle four times larger than those designed seventy years ago by NASA’s engineers and more than twice the girth of H.O.P.E.’s original Earth-orbiting space plane. The CEO works at her computer, carefully finalizing the list of 875 passengers and twenty-four pilots who will be granted salvation on Mars Colony.

The remaining eight thousand elitists who were guaranteed passage, along with the world’s other 9 billion people, will remain behind on Earth to die.

Selecting the survivors had been a tricky process. To design and build the Mars Colony and the fleet of space planes and supply shuttles necessary to complete the venture had required fifteen years, two trillion dollars, and a small city of skilled laborers, engineers, and rocket scientists. Acquiring the talent and money while safeguarding Yellowstone’s rapidly changing timetable had required cunning. Lilith knew how to play the game, offering passage for favors, the threat of cancellation ensuring secrecy. It never bothered her that her financial partners in the New World Order would be left behind. In truth, Lilith had no use for the vermin on Mars; her priority was to amass the most qualified experts in the fields of science, engineering, agriculture, and medicine, then scrutinize the gene pool. Variety was as essential to ensuring the colony’s survival and future expansion as the tens of thousands of frozen plant seeds already en route to the Red Planet. Just as important was compatibility. Democracy was a luxury reserved for large populations—a useful tool that provided the masses with the illusion of freedom.

Mars Colony would function best under autocratic rule. No one perceived as a potential future threat to the Mabus clan’s leadership would be permitted on board.

Lilith is reviewing the medical histories of three hundred electrical engineers when the video communication blinks to life on one of her monitors, establishing a connection with Mars.

Alexei Lundgard’s face appears, the bearded Russian engineer’s expression grim. “The supply ferries arrived. We’re still short seven hundred metric tons of steel.”

“Two more supply ships will launch on the tenth.”

“This does me little good now.”

“What about mining operations on the two moons?”

“Deimos is yielding water and organic compounds. Phobos appears to be a hollow mass of iron, we’ve destroyed three drills attempting to excavate its surface. There is some potential good news. One of our tomography satellites detected a vein of metallic ore approximately 220 meters below the surface of the Vastitas Borealis basin. If usable, there should be more than enough to complete the third biodome.”

Lilith accesses a map of Mars on her monitor, quickly locating the basin. “The area’s not volcanic, it used to be a primordial sea. How could—”

Devlin bursts into her office, the teen’s pale cheeks flushed, his blood vessel–laced eyes wide with excitement. “Did you feel it? There’s a disturbance in the higher realms.”

“What sort of disturbance? Has Immanuel finally entered the Nexus?”

“It’s not Immanuel, it’s Jacob. His light is filtering down from the Upper Worlds.”

4

Dreams that you gather, until the day that you are taken
from the Earth. Dreams are the substance of the heavenly
juice, the heavenly dew; the yellow flower from heaven is
dream. Perchance have I taken from you your time, have
I taken from you your sustenance?

—CHILAM BALAM,

THE BOOK OF THE ENIGMAS

MIDNIGHT

W
aiting for Lag b’Omer to arrive, Immanuel had dozed off. Now, as a wave of energy zaps his brain like a neurological tuning fork, he opens his eyes to an ebony sky seasoned with a billion stars: a tapestry of glittering perfection—spoiled by a cosmic fissure. Dividing the heavens like a celestial spinal cord, the dark zigzagging rift bulges with sporadic cloudlike clusters, each cosmic vortex representing a million suns.

So bewitched is Immanuel Gabriel by the Milky Way’s galactic womb that several moments pass before he realizes he is no longer buried. He looks around, baffled. There is no hole. No cave. He is lying on the ground, his groin covered by a breechcloth made of cotton. Sitting up, he discovers that his chest hurts and his right shoulder burns and his hands are covered in blood.

“Beck? Kurtz?”

He stands in the clearing surrounded by a dense forest and hears heavy breathing. In the darkness revealed by a waxing moon rising above the jungle canopy, he sees the jaguar. A big male, it is on its side panting blood, the hilt of an obsidian dagger protruding from its heaving chest. One of its front paws is cleaved with blood, its sharp claws matching the four dripping track marks oozing from Manny’s wounded shoulder.

The forest rustles.

He drops to his knees by the dying beast and yanks the blade free, releasing a tortured growl and a reflexive upward twist of the wounded predator’s head.

The big cat’s heart ceases beating before gravity returns its skull to the hard limestone earth.

Weak, Manny staggers into a defensive crouch and waits.

The Spanish conquistadors seep out of the jungle. White men and facial hair and fire sticks that spit out hot insects. The blood drains from his face. The heavens spin and the forest swoons and his body folds beneath him, his glazing eyes staring up at the dark canyon splitting the midnight sky.

Daylight burns red behind his closed eyelids. He opens them to morning streaming in from a rectangular hole set high in the straw and mud hut.

“Balam?”

The female native lying on his chest looks up at him through dark brown pools, her raven hair wild and unkempt. She is naked, her warm brown skin sepia … like his.

“Another vision?” She speaks in the Nahuatl language of the Toltec and somehow he can understand her—his brainwaves tracking his shifting consciousness, completing the transformation of his altered identity.

He is Chilam Balam.

He is the Jaguar Prophet.

Communicating in her native tongue, he responds to his soul mate’s question. “I saw the bearded white man.”

“The great teacher returns?”

“No, Blood Woman.” He slides out from beneath her, his body void of the wounds from his dream. “The bearded white ones are invaders. On one Imix they shall arrive by sea from the east bearing a symbol of their god. By violence and death they shall introduce their new religion.”

He kneels by the long parchment lying on the bare floor and begins painting new images, translating his last vision into Mayan glyphs. “Go to the Council. Advise them that I shall seek the assistance of the great teacher in his sacred temple tonight.”

It is nearly sunset by the time Chilam Balam leaves his dwelling.

He follows the
sacbe
, the raised dirt road cutting through the dense Yucatan jungle. Farmers work the fields, growing maize and other crops. Laborers clear brush for new trails. Faces turn, heads bow. Chilam Balam is revered.

He heads south in the direction of the blood-red pyramid, the Kukulcan rising in the distance like a giant ant colony to tower a hundred feet over the vast ceremonial center. Thousands crowd the esplanade, bartering their wares. Potters display vases and plates, growers their food, weavers their breechcloths and dyed skirts—the fabric provided by the ceiba, a pentandra tree whose fruit is a six-inch pod containing seeds surrounded by a fluffy, cottonlike yellowish fiber.

Thirty thousand Maya: drawn together to discourage enemy raids, bound by their affiliation with the Itza clan, tasked with servicing their gods and their community.

Chilam Balam makes his way past craftsmen and healers until he arrives at the pyramid’s northern balustrade. The prophet remains the most important advisor to the J-Men, Ix-Men, and Mayan priests who rule the Council. He is the architect of the katuns, each twenty-year epoch of existence foretelling a vision of the future … visions that come to the Jaguar Priest in dreams. He has seen the bearded white men arriving in wooden ships. He has witnessed their fire sticks spitting death among his people. He has envisioned the Itza warriors suspended from wooden crosses, tortured by the white men’s god.

What confused Balam was that the great teacher, Kukulcan, had been a bearded white man. His arrival had raised the Itza, his wisdom had ensured food during times of famine. Most important, his knowledge of the heavens had provided them with the sacred device wheels that served to organize and prepare the Itza for things to come. Before he departed, the Pale Prophet had promised the Itza-Maya that one day he would return.

That Chilam Balam is able to channel the great teacher’s spirit is what renders him such a powerful seer. But the great teacher had been a man of peace. These bearded white men clearly were not.

Seeking answers, Chilam Balam climbs the narrow steps of the pyramid’s northern face and enters the sacred temple. A fire burns on the charred stone floor. Bowls are filled with fruit and cacao leaves.

The Jaguar Priest closes his eyes and mumbles an ancient chant, waiting for the arrival of Kukulcan.

The night sky reveals the dark road to Xibalba, the galactic womb only a day away from converging with the horizon. The fire is gone, reduced to smoldering embers.

“Balam.”

Kukulcan appears before him, the pale Caucasian dressed in a white ceremonial robe that matches his long flowing silky hair and beard. His azure eyes share the luminescence of the jaguar.

Chilam Balam bows in reverence, his forehead kissing the warm stone. “Great teacher, I ask your help in interpreting these latest visions. Does the arrival of the bearded white men portend your return or our demise?”

“Both. For I am here with you now, and I offer salvation.”

“Instruct me, teacher.”

“Amass the Itza-Maya tomorrow evening at the sacred cenote. Instruct the farmers to bring with them enough seed to ensure bountiful harvests for at least three tuns. Instruct the healers to do the same with the seedlings that sustain their medicines. Instruct the laborers to bring their tools. Instruct the people to bring only the belongings they can carry on their backs. Leave everything else, including your books. The invaders shall conquer the Azteca, whose lust for blood rivals their own. When they enter Chichen Itza, they shall find a city of ghosts.”

“Teacher, where shall we go? Do you wish us to hide in the jungle?”

“At midnight the dark road to Xibalba shall arrive. All who venture down its path shall henceforth be known as Hunahpu. The Hunahpu shall seed the sixth great cycle of man. A thousand times a thousand katuns shall pass before the Hunahpu return. When the race of white men slips into the darkness of ignorance, oblivion, and despair, the wisdom of the cosmic light shall again return, offering mankind a means of salvation at the end of the fifth cycle.”

The fire suddenly returns, crackling with energy.

The great teacher is gone.

The Council convenes at midday atop the platform of the Temple of the Warriors. Chilam Balam recounts the great teacher’s words, only to be openly challenged by a rival priest, Napuctun.

“The arrival of the bearded ones from the lands of the sun must be met by the sons of the Itza. They are bringers of a sign from our Father God. They bring blessings in abundance!”

Balam puffs out his chest. “Who are you to defy the words of Kukulcan? The raised wooden standard shall come. It shall be displayed to the world, that the world may be enlightened. There has been a beginning of strife, there has been a beginning of rivalry, when the priestly man shall come to bring the sign of God in the time to come. A quarter of a league, a league away he comes. You see the mut-bird surmounting the raised wooden standard. A new day shall dawn in the north, in the west. The bearded ones shall bring bloodshed and death to the sons of Itza, shattering the pottery jars into dust. I am Chilam Balam, the Jaguar Priest. I speak the divine truth.”

The Council huddle together with Napuctun.

After a few minutes, Balam’s archrival addresses the prophet. “Assemble the sons of Itza as the great teacher instructed.”

The Jaguar Priest bows. “Napuctun is wise. It shall be done.”

Dusk arrives in Chichen Itza, summoning tens of thousands of men, women, and children to the grand esplanade. They organize by status, filing in long procession lines before hundreds of clay pots filled with blue dye. The striking turquoise pigment is a combination of indigo and palygorskite, the ingredients heated at high temperatures. The color, known as Mayan blue, matches the intense color of the great teacher’s eyes.

Now blue-skinned, Indians follow the
sacbe
north through the dense jungle. Torchbearers light the way, directing the masses to the sacred cenote—one of thousands of freshwater sinkholes created 65 million years ago when an asteroid struck the shallow sea that would eventually become the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula.

Lunar light from a blood-orange moon illuminates layers of geological grooves sculpted along the interior of the chalky-white limestone pit. Vegetation has turned the cenote’s placid waters a pea-soup green. Four centuries earlier, desperate after the sudden departure of Kukulcan and in direct violation of their great teacher’s law, the Maya had turned to human sacrifice, hoping their acts would force the return of the Pale Prophet. Thousands of men, women, and children had been killed on the pyramid’s summit, their hearts torn from their chests by zealous priests, their lifeless bodies kicked down the temple steps.

The cenote had been reserved for sacrificial virgins.

Unblemished females were locked in a stone steam bath for purification, then led out to its rooftop platform by ceremonial priests. Stripping the young maidens naked, the death merchants would stretch them out upon the stone structure, then use obsidian blades to cut out their hearts or slice their throats. The virgin’s body, laden with jewelry, would then be ceremoniously tossed into the sacred well.

Only at the urging of the Jaguar Priest had the rituals finally ceased.

In the circular clearing that defines the sacred cenote, Chilam Balam stands atop the stone bath house and gazes upon the blue tide of humanity. The crowd occupies every square foot of surrounding jungle for as far as the eye can see.

And they are grumbling.

“Who is the great teacher to demand that we leave our homeland for the underworld?”

“Why should we listen to a man who deserted our people more than twenty katuns ago?”

“What if Chilam Balam is wrong? What if the bearded ones bring prosperity?”

Council members huddle with Napuctan along the far rim of the sinkhole. The rival prophet gestures at the Jaguar Priest.

Chilam Balam glances up at the heavens. The dark rift of the Milky Way slices north-south across the cosmos, its black road meeting the horizon.

Midnight passes. Nothing happens.

A stone flies past Chilam Balam’s ear. Another strikes his leg.

The prophet’s loyal followers crowd around him, forming a protective wall. His soul mate, Blood Woman, moves to his side.

Napuctun beckons from across the cenote, silencing the crowd. “The Itza have assembled, Chilam Balam. Midnight has come and gone. Why have you led us astray?”

“Does Napuctun question our great teacher?”

“I question you! Let us see if you are a worthy channel for Kukulcan. Throw the heretic and his followers into the cenote!”

The crowd amassed on the
sacbe
surges forward, driving Balam’s supporters over the edge of the sinkhole. Screams rend the night air.

The Jaguar Priest grabs his mate by her wrist and jumps!

Chilam Balam and Blood Woman plunge forty feet toward a surface already violated by hundreds of splashing bodies when time suddenly stops. The prophet stares, transfixed, at a droplet of water that hovers before his right eye. His bedazzled mind captures a snapshot of his soul mate’s horrified expression, her hair blown upward, each strand frozen in the moment—

—as the cenote’s waters transform into a raging falls that flow down a serpent’s throat—Xibalba Be—the dark road to the underworld.

The materializing wormhole inhales Chilam Balam and his followers into a parallel universe that, until seconds ago, never existed.