Eternals Among Us: Book one

by Larry W. Miller Jr.

  Vincent moved over to the door and led the group out into a conference room with large overstuffed chairs, refrigerators stocked with snacks and drinks, and a viewscreen for visual projections.

  Vincent moved to the head of the table and sat down. He began working the controls as the others, including David, found chairs and sat down. They were all eating and drinking stuff when Vincent completed his preparations.

  “So, the question has finally been raised over who Marshall is and what was my role in this entire affair.” He said to the group. He looked around to make sure he had everyone’s attention before resuming. He did.

  “To begin this story, we have to go back to pre-launch history.” He declared. Lock gasped. The rest remained silent. Vincent continued. “I was immortal, in fact I still am. The years went by for me as I watched mankind reach for the stars. I watched them do a lot of things. I saw wars, and plagues. I saw era after era unfold and the hatefulness of mankind was always evident. No matter what situation they are in, greed is the main motivating factor in your lives.” He said with no emotion in it save pity. I had been quietly earning a vast fortune in my homeland and that brought me power. I became a quiet voice uttered in back rooms and alleyways, always there but rarely seen. I moved the lawmakers and I bought juries. There were no limits to my power since there was no limit to what money could be amassed. But I was bored. I had been living for centuries in the shadows. Stories began to surface about something called a vampire and many of the attributes and abilities they were given were based upon my own. Of course, I do not run around killing people to suck their blood. But blood, specifically my blood, is definitely the key.” He said.

  “So, you are a fictional character? A vampire?”

  Vincent eyed Lock. “I am very much real. No, I do not consider myself a vampire. Like I said, I can coexist with the general populace without eating somebody.” He declared. “I have lived among regular people for almost as long as there are records. My blood defies every test that has ever been applied to it. I do not know how to explain it better than that. Since I cannot use regular blood in the event of a catastrophic injury, I have stored quite a bit of my own blood over time. I sat quietly by and watched mankind evolve. But one cannot stay hidden in plain sight forever. I was spotted at a crash site many years ago. Someone had managed to put two and two together and I was located. There was little denying the resemblance between me and my former self some one-hundred and sixty years prior.”

  “The government pulled me aside and demanded explanations. Their testing was just as fruitless as mine had been. They could not explain my blood just as they couldn’t explain my longevity. They had a trial experiment where a man was injected with my blood to see if I was compatible with humans. They were already refusing to call me human at that time.”

  “The test subject became really strong and resilient to damage, but his internal organs could not sustain with my blood. They simply atrophied with the lack of oxygen. He died painfully of almost every organ failure there is. It was horrifying.”

  Lock sat back, having realized that he was leaning forward, listening intently. “So, you began working on the oxygen problem…” He pressed.

  Vincent nodded. “Well, I didn’t but the government did. They wanted to make my blood work for everybody so that they could all be strong. They were trying to create the ultimate soldier. Once successful, they planned to implement it on an army scale. It would have made an unstoppable army. But that was never my intention.” Vincent added.

  “I was interested in having others to go through time with, sure. But I never wanted to create an elite fighting machine that could spend hundreds of years training and not dying. I decided that the government and I differed too greatly in our pursuits. I ran away.” He said at last.

  Tina was not as close as Lock, but she hadn’t missed a word of this. “Surely they didn’t just let you go?” She asked.

  “No.” Vincent said with finality. “They did not just let me go. They were determined to make me one of their projects whether I wanted it or not. They had spies everywhere. They had operatives searching everything about me. They froze my assets and my vast wealth. They confiscated my mansion in the homeland. They took everything of value from me. Yet still I did not appear for them. I went into deep hiding. Money was not a problem for me, I could live with or without it. Hunger can be ignored a lot when you can’t die from it. I would become part of the woodwork.”

  Mrs. Hull spoke up. “Like you did here initially.” She said and Vincent looked over.

  “Essentially yes. Years went by and those that were looking for me retired or were deceased. I killed none of them. I remained hidden. I knew that I could out-wait them no matter what it took. I was immortal after all. I watched from nearby as the troops searched the houses fewer and fewer times until it all eventually stopped. The case had gone cold and was eventually closed as a cold case. I was free to come out, yet I waited some more. Not all of the troops or the politicians had perished yet and someone could still remember me. I waited another ten years for the rest to die out. Then I stepped out into the streets of my beloved hometown. Nobody knew me anymore. I was free to relocate. There were no lands or title to bind me here. I carried no currency, but I could find some and begin to invest. Long term investments were meant for somebody like me.” He said with a smile.

  “I began to quietly amass wealth. My new name and house were established and soon I was quietly pulling the strings of society once more. Nobody knew who I was, and the past had been successfully left behind.”

  “It is funny though, the government lab that housed my blood samples was still working on them, trying to make their soldier. The other benefits would be to rid the body of all sickness, but that little element was being ignored. They did manage some minor trials later and the subjects lived for several months before succumbing to the oxygen deprivation. They made elite killers with limited lifespans and hard target missions. It was not good. Their families were heavily compensated for the loss of life. The risk and dangers were one thing, but to have your family taken care of after you were gone was a sweet deal in that day and age. Recruitment was high. But they had one real problem… They only had a small amount of my blood.”

  Tina was the next to interject. “So they didn’t really give up on finding you, did they?” She asked.

  “No, not really. They already had evidence that I was immortal. They knew the game I could play just waiting. They also had a plan to catch me whenever I showed up. It was… surprising. I had been moving along quietly as I do through some of the worst parts of history. I saw many things go down that made me afraid for the human race. I saw hardships heaped upon the weakest members of society while greedy men at the top horded all of the wealth. I must admit that I was a player in that game. But I did more for those poor people than any of them. I, again very quietly, began to funnel money into slush funds that supported communities. The children were being fed. The chain of events that happened next shows the level of diabolical planning they used to find me.” He said. He closed his eyes for a moment, looking back on some of the darkest of his memories. Things you would bury and hope never surfaced again. When he opened them again, his face was almost stone, completely devoid of all emotion.

  “They came for me through the money. They had purposefully starved out the general populace to watch for me to intervene. So much suffering for such a single-minded goal. I couldn’t believe the depths to which they would stoop.” He said shaking his head. “Anyway, they found me. I was helping one of the shelters when they shattered the glass doors and barged in. They cared nothing for the children and opened fire when they saw me. I thought they were sent to kill me so that the blood they had would be the only source of it and thus the only army to ever be created. But their plan was deeper than that. They wanted to incapacitate me. If they could keep me in a coma, then they could take transfusions regularly and replenish their supply.”

  Vincent shook his head.
“I never realized just how manipulative and imaginative people could be just for money and power. But the evidence of it was right there in front of me. I was well trained, and they were almost as well trained. The poor victims around us were not so lucky. Most of them fell in that first wave. Again, I had underestimated just how badly they wanted me. More troops were still coming in. There were at least twenty of the elite corps there. Even I would be well pressed to escape that. I killed the first two that had entered through the plate glass. Blew their heads clean off. Rapid fire guns filled the air with smoke, hot lead and fire. My ears were ringing and the whole place was filled with debris of all kinds. I dodged aside and cut down two more of them. This brought out their fighting frenzy. They rushed as one across the deadly space. One of them got in the way of his fellow shooters and went down. He would recover given enough time. I had one chance and one chance only. I dove for one of the fallen men and grabbed at his belt. He had flash grenades on him. I could use the momentary distraction to get free. Getting out of that building was my only goal at that time. I grabbed two grenades and tossed them right away, making sure to avert my eyes. Then I grabbed a third one in the chaos and fled. I could hear the cursing as they struggled to regain their senses. I tossed the final flash grenade back through the doorway as I turned and fled down the street.”

  “The chaos of that day still haunts me.” Vincent said. “The government was not pleased that their sting operation had failed. What’s more, I had cost them several of their fighters. These were men who had already received my blood. Since they had a finite amount of my blood, those men were suddenly priceless. The search for me began again in earnest.”

  Tina nodded. “I know what it’s like to be wanted. Every screen was broadcasting my picture and my name to the entire ship.” She complained.

  “Yes, it was. I have seen to that though. When your court date comes, we will handle it together.”

  Tina looked up. “Court date? I thought you cleared me with that video! I still have to go to court?” She asked.

  Vincent nodded. “Of course, charges were filed against you. You must appear in court if you want to have any chance of having those charges dropped.” He said plainly. Tina looked nervous again. “Look, you are innocent, things will be all right.” He said trying to reassure her, it wasn’t working.

  Lock was slightly perturbed that the conversation had drifted away from Vincent’s story. “Can you please continue?” He asked pushing ever so slightly.

  Vincent nodded but took a moment to compose himself. “As I was saying, I went back into hiding. I was still accumulating wealth and through a series of unscrupulous investors, most all of it was hidden from view. The raids around the area that I was last reported in continued. Many innocents were butchered trying to extort information from them. But nobody even knew me, let alone who I was or where I had gone. It was all such a waste.” He said disgustedly. The elite men had no sense of the value of a life. I blame their training. They were singularly focused on one goal, finding me. Meanwhile I had gotten pretty far from that scene. I had crossed two borders, ran on foot, hitched rides, and even caught a ride on a small mail plane. I was nowhere near the site any longer. I continued to help others with my charitable donations. It was all I could do since I could no longer go to these places and volunteer myself anymore. It was a very frustrating time for me. War was on the horizon and I didn’t know how to stop it. The companies that manufacture weapons had bought senators to push for a foreign policy that was more than a little bit pushy. Things were escalating quickly and if I didn’t find some way to intervene, the world would be at war, again. With the advent of large explosives, there was little chance the world would survive another global scale war. I had to do something. I discovered that my own wealth could compete with these weapons manufacturers. I began to slowly buy in to those companies and steer them towards less destructive wares. It wasn’t long before an age of prosperity flourished where war seemed imminent. It was then that I infiltrated the government that had been searching for me for centuries.”

  “I had a working pseudo name and my new voice was heard by the highest people in the land. Overpopulation was becoming a serious threat and planetary resources were dwindling fast. We needed to go somewhere else. I began funding research into colonization. I also began preaching it to the ruling elite. The greedy cronies at the top saw themselves as fat cats making their way to a new resource for full manipulation on their behalf. Of course, they were in. The legislature that brought about the project had my own words in it, but not my name on it. I had worked from the shadows expertly. The money came from many sources for that is how you get things past the government blocks. You don’t rely on them to pay for it. Because I had been funding research in colonization for some time, I became the expert on the subject. The project brought me in on that first day. I was originally there to supervise on construction and engineering projects, but that soon changed as I put my stamp on everything related to this project. I became the solo push for the entire thing. Memos and meetings took up most all of my day every day. I was finally getting the attention and respect I deserved.”

  Vincent paused as he thought back on that. “But at the same time, I feared that they would come for me again. Violence on the home front was becoming more and more prevalent. I couldn’t remain incognito forever. What if this project grew longer and longer and I wasn’t aging? Someone would eventually notice this. I had to push things along ever faster.”

  “The ship was being built now. The sub systems were already in place. The main portion of the hull was constructed in pieces and then launched into orbit for final assembly. The project took on a scale that had never been seen before in human history. The titanic was small compared to this venture. The Nostos would be the grandest construct that humans had ever built. It would be sent out among the stars to colonize any planets that were the appropriate size, temperature and could sustain life.” He stopped to see that his audience was all caught up. “You know the rest of that.” He conceded.

  “Anyway, the ship was being built and the people of earth all wanted to go. It didn’t matter that almost nobody on board would ever see a new planet. The grand voyage held enough mystery and mystique to draw in the masses. But only the best and brightest would be allowed to go. It was agreed that no political people would be allowed to go, or they would have rigged the selection process. So scientific people, engineers, tradespeople and families were the first slated. The crew had been selected and were in constant training. I was also given a seat because of my contributions, both financially and intellectually. My companies were all involved with the construction and soon we were ready to launch. The day of the launch was one of nerves for everybody. The tension was thick, and the faces of the crew were serious and fearful. Yet the great day passed, and we launched on time. You should have seen this mighty ship leaving the mooring of the bay in which it was built. We had a sendoff of shuttles that had brought so many supplies and parts up into orbit. The ship even crossed the view of the sun and the light gleamed off its side. It was picturesque. Then we were underway, and everyone soon forgot about Earth and its troubles.”

  Lock had a question… “So, the government wasn’t after you anymore?”

  “A good question and one I still cannot answer to this day. I left my old life behind completely. I began to look for individuals with whom I could maintain this ship so smoothly that the general populace would remain unaware of my presence. The council was formed to govern things. I slowly began to convert people into eternals. Only a few and those were carefully screened.” Vincent said.

  Tina looked up. “But you said your blood would not carry oxygen. It would be a death sentence for anyone to receive it.” She blurted out.

  “Quite right you are.” Vincent agreed. “Except that many of the technologies required to get us into space were also helpful with my procreation dilemma. You see, we have environmental suits that use oxygenated liquid for divers or spacewal
kers to breathe. This liquid, when combined precisely with my blood, does the job your blood does and also gives a bit of my special chemistry to the recipient.” He explained.

  “They might not be quite a strong as I am or live quite as long, but they will be greatly enhanced from their normal human selves.” He said proudly.

  “So, you are saying that you are not human?” Lock pointed out.

  Vincent shrugged. “Honestly, I do not know. My birth was so long ago that nobody remembers it at all. There were no records and I do not recall a mother or father. I was raised, if you can call it that, in a church by women who hated all men, especially those young impetuous children of Satan that they were instructed to deal with. I was happy to finally be free of that place when I reached age enough to leave.

  Mrs. Hull made a sound. Everyone looked over at her. “Typical.” She said. “You have had this life-giving blood forever and you keep it from those who ask for reasons only you can decide. Your power over life and death is too much for any one person to have.” She protested.

  “I understand that you are bitter. You were in the program but got rejected. The reasons for that are unknown to me at this time, but I will look into it. It is possible that you were simply not compatible, like David here.” He said with a wave.

  “David, I have been calling him Marshall so long, it just doesn’t sound right to call him David.” Mrs. Hull replied. “But honestly, I no longer wished to be immortal. I mean, maybe for someone younger…” She let the thought trail off having planted the mental seed into her daughter’s mind.

  Vincent seemed to miss her hint altogether. “Well, Marshal is his title so you can still call him by that.” He replied, trying to be helpful.

  Tina let the whole idea slide by. She had concerns of her own. “You explained your involvement, but where does Marshall, er, David fit into all of this?”

  Vincent looked across at David and grimaced. “Okay, I’ll tell you.” He said as if admitting that he knew for the first time. “Marshall was sent from Earth before the launch to find me and to see if I was that same man living forever through time. They still wanted my magic blood. This time though, they didn’t commit everything to me as they had in the past. They were trying to be sneakier.”