The Aussie flashed an angry glance toward the robed figure with the blue trim before returning to a neutral expression. "I see." She picked up the duffel bag and opened it, revealing the Heart and scrutinizing it, her eyes growing wide.
"Why the hell did they defend us?" Dirken asked. "They didn't know shit about us!"
"Hey, fuck-face," Weed the greasy recruiter said. "Show a little fucking thankfulness for their sacrifice."
Dirken was about to retort when the Bloodhawk's slave interrupted, her voice sad and quiet. "We know more about the pair of you than you think. But they didn't die for you. Their sacrifice was for something much greater."
"There have been many sacrifices," the bearded swordsman said, his voice thick with Spanglish accent. He lowered his hood as well. "Let us hope there will not be others."
"Governor Juarez!" Yiorgos said.
Dirken blinked in surprise. It was, indeed, Markus Juarez, Governor of the Americas, the man who hired them for the job of escorting the Heart to Nüwa.
"Governor, si," Juarez said, "and Priest of AVA."
"I don't understand," Yiorgos said. "Why go to such lengths to get the Heart when you had it at the start of all this?"
"All will be made clear, but we must get moving. We are not far from the temple, but others are coming. Time is of the essence."
Temple? Dirken thought.
"The lights are green," the Aussie bartender said, looking up from the Heart. "She's alive!"
"Praise be!" Governor Juarez said, as the others echoed him.
"Who? Who's alive?" Dirken said.
Yiorgos frowned and answered for them. He pointed to the Heart. "It's so clear now."
"I don't understand," Dirken said, looking at the cyborg.
"Why do you think they call it a heart, Dirk?"
Dirken looked back to the sphere and blinked. "You mean…."
"Yes," Juarez said, "you have been carrying the central processing unit for AVA, the most powerful artificial intelligence ever created… and the hope for all mankind."
"In a duffel bag," Dirken added.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
MURDEROUS PACIFISM
The Acolytes all had their blasters leveled at Dirken and Yiorgos. Weed stepped up and put handcuffs on Dirken, glaring into his eyes and sneering. Dirken stared back. "You'll be the first one I kill," Dirken said.
Weed just laughed, then leaned forward to snarl in his ear, "Not if I kill you first, fuck-face." Then Weed handed the key to the Aussie, who opened the top of her robes at the neck and tucked it into her lacy bra.
Yiorgos lacked one hand entirely, and the other was badly burned, so they didn't bother with handcuffs. Instead, the Bloodhawk's "slave," who still wore the red slave collar, used the cord around her waist to tie Yiorgos's arms together at the elbow behind his back.
With Dirken and Yiorgos in the middle, the group marched single file. Juarez's bodyguard carried the duffle bag with the Heart, walking one person ahead of Yiorgos. He handled the bag reverentially, taking pains to protect it. Dirken laughed inwardly, thinking of how much the Heart had survived up to this point, including a battle with a murderous barrage bot, firefights, the crash-landing of the Raptores, and being used as a cudgel against 'TakTrak.
Spider monkeys whooped and leaped between limbs, running ahead of them. They scared a small flock of green parrots with red faces and yellow bills, which startled from the canopy and squawked a rhythmic high-pitched call as they fled.
Dirken glanced behind him. The Governor walked directly behind Dirken, abreast with the Aussie. Dirken asked, "Juarez, what makes you think AVA will save mankind? It's been lost for a thousand years."
"Not lost," he replied. "The world's governments have known she existed all this time, hidden deep in an old missile silo in what was once called Montana, in North America. And she has been highly-guarded, inaccessible to any of us — until I came to power. The silo is crumbling and beyond repair, so AVA had to be moved. With careful political maneuvering, I made sure the Council of Governors was aware that the Acolytes were powerful and would find AVA eventually, and thus the decision was to move her to a safer location, off-world, until a new vault could be prepared. I arranged for AVA to be sent to Nüwa."
"Ah, I see." Dirken stepped over a series of downed limbs. "But you never intended to get it there, did you?"
Yiorgos gave a wry laugh. "I thought it seemed awfully convenient that a pirate was waiting in ambush with three ships, just as the Excellentia came out of fold. You tipped them off!"
"Sí," Juarez answered. "As you have seen, our members have been strategically-placed. One Acolyte drops mention in a bar to a mafioso. Word gets to the don, and with some reinforcing words from another Acolyte who is the court musician, the don sends a messenger to a pirate. The pirate gets the notice and, with a few well-placed notices fed to him from yet another Acolyte who serves as his slave secretary, the pirate decides to act. Meanwhile, an Acolyte serving on the United Worlds destroyer as a yeoman keeps watch over you. Then another posing as an escort did the same when you were being delivered to us. And those are just the Acolytes you know of."
Wincing, Dirken wiped blood off the side of his face where 'TakTrak had sliced him with his beak. It was coagulating now, staunching the flow, and joining with other dried blood from the various small wounds since the firefight on the ship, the crash, and the tussle in the jungle. "The Bloodhawk used military-grade barrage bots to attack the destroyer. Pirates can't buy those from just any underground arms dealer. I don't suppose you had anything to do with that?"
Juarez laughed. "You are an astute one, for a rogue."
"And they somehow managed to get the code to get a boarding party into the Excellentia's hangar," Yiorgos added. "Only someone with security clearance could manage that — like a yeoman."
Juarez just smiled, as did the yeoman, who now sported a number of painful-looking bruises and hastily-healed lacerations. It was with no small amount of respect that Dirken wondered how the young man had managed to stay alive through the bombardment and hunter droids.
"Impressive," Dirken said, marveling at the complex and decentralized nature of the scheme. "No paper trail. No money changes hands. It's all word of mouth and placement of operatives."
"And the legend of AVA is enough to guarantee action," Yiorgos added, slipping a bit on wet leaves as he went around some draped vines. "When AVA goes missing, it appears that it was stolen by pirates or mafia. What mafia don or pirate captain could resist possessing a murderous artificial intelligence that nearly obliterated all life on two planets?"
"Not murderous!" Juarez spat. "We are pacifists. AVA is a pacifist."
"Sure," Dirken said, "and those blasters you're pointing at us are pop guns."
Yiorgos grunted. "I seem to recall that AVA threatened to launch all weapons systems on both Mars and Earth. Seems like the opposite of pacifism to me."
"Have you ever heard of M.A.D.?" Juarez said. "Mutually Assured Destruction?"
"That was a weapons philosophy back in the nuclear era, right?" Yiorgos asked. "Ancient nations building so many nukes they could destroy the whole world. Part of those missile silos you mentioned."
"Sí," Juarez replied. "Ironic that AVA would be kept in one, is it not? M.A.D. is the idea that any aggressive action between two nations would result in the destruction of them all. Thus, no one would risk it, and you have peace."
"No one sane would risk it," Dirken corrected.
"AVA is not insane, amigo. She is far more logical than any human. She had calculated that when given the choice between disarming all systems or having civilization destroyed, humanity would choose to disarm."
"How can you claim that?" Yiorgos asked. "Opposing nations threatened each other, and their Mars colonies, with annihilation, each thinking the other had made the threat."
"AVA would not have allowed it to go so far," Juarez replied.
Dirken squeezed through a thicket, then wiped the sweat from his brow.
"And this is why you think AVA will 'save mankind?' That she will threaten to destroy the Earth unless we disarm?"
"There is more to the story. In my position, governing half of Earth for the United Worlds, I can say that we are in a precarious time. Nüwa and Tesla are more economically stable than Earth, without the overpopulation, pollution, famine, and extreme climate, and are self-sufficient now. They threaten to break away. Secessionists are gaining power. Pirates and gangs, like the ones you encountered in the last couple of days, threaten our safety and commerce… as do smugglers like yourself," he added with disdain. "And Earth needs those worlds for protection from alien civilizations like the Reptiloc Empire or the Aquarian New Dawn, who wish nothing more than to invade and take what resources we have left. Earth is rich in water, after all."
Dirken slowed to a stop and rested a moment, turning around to face Juarez. His armpits were saturated with sweat. His wrist had grown raw from the handcuffs. The heat and humidity of the jungle left his throat dry and his head woozy. "I can relate. I'm very thirsty. Do you have any water?" His gaze dropped to the hilt of Juarez's sword. There was what looked like an activator switch. Maybe some form of plasma blade? But he had no chance to lunge for it. Too many weapons aimed at him.
As if reading his mind, the Aussie waved her blaster at him. "Keep moving, mate. There'll be water at the temple."
Temple? he wondered again. Damned cult. "There's that astounding 'pacifism' in action, I see." Dirken turned and kept walking. "So, you want to re-activate AVA in the hope it can convince the other worlds to stay in the United Worlds federation, is that it? Somehow I don't think an A.I. overlord with an itchy trigger finger and a penchant for hacking is the answer."
"Enough talk for now," Juarez growled in response. "It is time to walk in silence. And speed it up!"
A number of the small devices incorporated into the Acolytes' robes were buzzing or lighting up, and this was met with what seemed like growing alarm. Dirken heard the Aussie whisper something to Juarez. He couldn't make it out, other than the words "coming soon." After all they'd been through, Dirken truly didn't want yet another crisis on top of the already fucked-up situation they were in.
They marched through the jungle in silence for about twenty minutes. The low hills gave way to a flat plain. The leaf litter and vines gave way to lower, thinner trees and a wet, sometimes mushy ground. Dirken was accosted by a swarm of mosquitoes. Most animal species, including man, had suffered heavy losses from a couple hundred years of rapid climate change, he thought glumly, but these damned blood suckers seemed to thrive. He swatted at them as they hummed in his ears, but the handcuffs made his attempts fruitless. Mosquitoes were another reason to avoid this planet. He didn't really think of Earth as his "homeworld," anyhow. Birthplace of humanity, sure, but also its deathplace, leaving humankind spread across the stars with no common world. Earth was barely habitable now in most places.
They followed a trail that skirted the worst of the wetness and greatly sped their progress. The trail was raised and oddly straight as if built upon some long-forgotten causeway. Soon the first signs of civilization appeared. But it wasn't recent civilization by any stretch.
At first it just seemed like random piles of ashy-gray rock covered in vegetation. But the piles grew larger. Followed lines. Had straight edges. And then, peeking through the foliage, Dirken spied a mound, half-buried in ages of soil, made with a base of these gray stones and rising about ten meters to where a much larger gray slab emerged from soil and ferns. Intricate carvings covered it, heavily-weathered. Dirken picked out a masculine face in profile with a feathered headdress. Sloped forehead. Long, rounded nose. Large disk earrings. Rounded yet blocky designs surrounded the sage visage. And then they marched on and the mound was lost in the undergrowth.
Dirken pointed at the mound and looked back at Juarez. "Is that…?"
"Sí," Juarez said. "Just wait, smuggler. You will see."
"Look, Governor, you have the Heart back. If that's all you wanted, why not just let us go?"
"You know too much, smuggler. Besides, we still have use for the two of you."
Dirken looked ahead to Yiorgos, who was stumbling through some ferns. "Then at least let my partner go. You can hold me hostage to make sure he doesn't talk to the feds."
Juarez gave a wry laugh. "Who says it is you we wanted?"
Dirken blinked in confusion at this, unsure how to respond.
In moments the jungle opened up to a clearing spotted with low trees. Before them, rising with noble antiquity, towered a complex of crumbling step pyramids, broad plazas, and raised platforms, all constructed of gray rock.
"Behold!" Juarez said, "the ancient Mayan city of Edzná!"
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
PYRAMID
Now free of the jungle trail, the party picked up its pace, moving in a near straight line through rocky platforms decorated with simple pillars and ancient foundations. To Dirken's right, an archway peeked around a short wall. To Dirken's left, a mound ascending some twenty meters was topped with an open chamber.
Then the party marched through a long courtyard with deteriorated, sloping walls. Midway through, on the wall to either side, were projected half-circles of carved rock, which looked as if, prior to being broken, may have been massive rock rings.
"An alley," Dirken grumbled. "Lowlifes like you are right at home here."
"This was a game arena," Juarez said, condescension in his tone. "Men played on teams with a rubber ball, hitting it with their thighs in an attempt to get it past the other team." He pointed to one of the broken stone rings. "If you got the ball through a ring, you won instantly." He paused for effect, then added. "It was all deeply religious — a ritual reenactment of the creation of the cosmos. It is said that sometimes the losers would be sacrificed to their gods."
Dirken scoffed. "And what did they know of the cosmos, Juarez? Where are their gods now? A barbaric game for a primitive people."
"Bloody? Sí. But primitive? No. They were very advanced for their time, amigo. What we see around us was a metropolitan area with tens of thousands of citizens, ruling an empire that dwarfed anything in Europe at the time, calculating astronomical events with such precision they predicted solar eclipses hundreds of years ahead. Their gods ruled the cosmos with the same precision. Bloodshed was a way of cementing their devotion."
"And now you have your own god to worship, Governor," Yiorgos said. "How are you going to show your devotion? Bloodshed?"
"AVA is like a god, yes, with powers you will see soon enough. But bloodshed? That is up to you. Let us hope you do as we say and neither of you needs to die."
They exited the arena northward into a vast plaza. To their left a colossal, rampart-like wall bordered the full length of the plaza. Ahead stood a small, stepped pyramid with stairs on each side and a vaulted chamber at the top. But off to their right, up a steep set of stairs to a plateau, sat a gigantic pyramid. The party turned in that direction.
The devices on the Acolyte robes were buzzing and lighting up even more.
"We must hurry," the Aussie said to Juarez, loud enough that Dirken overheard. "They'll reach orbit any time now."
"Who's coming?" Dirken asked. "I do like parties, you know." He shivered in mock excitement. "And to think, I forgot to bring the beer."
"Move faster!" Juarez commanded, without answering him.
Dirken didn't know who was "almost to orbit," but from the sound of it, they didn't seem to be someone Juarez liked. The Bloodhawk? He'd rather take his chances with these idiots. He considered slow-walking it, but reconsidered after the Aussie poked him in the back with the business end of her blaster.
The group double-timed it, almost jogging, to the stairs, then they climbed. The steps up the plateau were made of the same light gray rock as everything else, each stone large enough that it would take many men to heft it. There were hundreds of thousands of such stones in the structure, maybe millions, rising four tiers upward. Since Yiorgos's arms w
ere tied behind his back, Dirken did what he could to help his partner climb, lending him a handcuffed hand.
Overheated and dehydrated, Dirken's head was woozy by the time he reached the top of the steps. All of them were huffing and puffing. They took a moment, bent over, to catch their breath. Off to the side was a pile of canteens. One of the acolytes, the curly blond-haired young man who'd been a yeoman on the Excellentia, handed Dirken and Yiorgos a canteen. The water was hot from sitting in the blazing sun but still refreshing. He drank deeply. Yiorgos did as well, but then he started coughing and sputtering.
"We must keep moving," Juarez commanded.
"In case you haven't noticed," Dirken said, "my partner is badly injured. We just survived a fucking crash-landing, after all, and a firefight to boot, then a march through the damned jungle."
Juarez nodded toward the acolytes, who responded by raising their guns toward the pair. "I said, keep moving."
Dirken put his hand on Yiorgos's shoulder. The cyborg stopped sputtering and gave one more cough. "I'll be okay," he gasped, but the biological part of his face was pale. He blinked rapidly, seeming to have trouble focusing. Heat exhaustion, Dirken figured, but he didn't say anything. Mechanical legs, or not, it was still hard on what remained of the man's heart and body to lug all that weight around. He helped his partner to his feet, then the party moved along, gaining speed.
At the top of the plateau was what Dirken could only think of as an acropolis. Even more grand than the last plaza, there was a stepped pyramid at both the north and south sides of the plaza, each impressive in its own right. But what drew his eye was the gargantuan step pyramid that he'd seen rising above the jungle, now directly ahead. Each "step" of the pyramid consisted of a story about as high as two people, and there were five stories rising up to a central chamber at the top. Each story had multiple open doorways, dark and looming, like portals into the past. A steep central stairway dominated the front of the pyramid rising to the top structure. At the very top, above the final stone room, a slotted rock wall rose even further like a crown upon the pyramid's head.
The First Nova I See Tonight Page 20