“Don’t come any closer,” Juan threatened to the three approaching, but remembered his translator was nowhere to be found. The navigator had to be near, so he raised his voice and shouted into the vast jungle, “This tree is loaded with gunpowder and I will set it off and destroy the source of your power if they come any closer.”
Juan’s eyes darted between the approaching bowmen and the jungle behind them. He never even saw or heard the navigator as he stepped out from behind the enormous tree trunk to yank Juan’s hand away from the tree. Juan pulled the trigger as quick as he could, but the weapon discharged harmlessly into the air.
“Neither of us wants that,” the navigator said in an accommodating tone before shoving Juan off the cluster of roots where he landed flat on his back in the mud below. Oh, how Juan longed to touch that mud with his hands a few moments before, but now he cringed at its soggy embrace. He had lost.
The navigator retrieved the bag of gunpowder from the tree and tossed it into the pond before stepping down from the tree to kneel beside Juan. “Despite what you may think, I’m not an evil man. I put that device there to help people, not hurt them.”
“I suppose that makes you the Good Samaritan, then?” Juan taunted with great effort through his labored breaths.
“You have seen for yourself the devastation that diseases brought from Europe are having on the native peoples of this land. Hundreds of thousands have already died, and millions more would perish if you pulled that trigger.”
“Millions you plan on converting to worship the devil you serve,” Juan managed to say through labored coughs. “It would have put an end to you, and that result is worth any price.”
“My longevity has nothing to do with that device,” the navigator said in a quiet that carried a tone of compassion with it. “I would continue to go on with or without it. However, you will have perpetuated a great evil upon this new world by stopping my ability to cure those diseases. You fought me for all the wrong reasons; I am not an agent of the devil.”
“Who are you, then?” Juan asked as tunnel vision began to set in and bring death that much closer. “I only have a few more moments of life. No one else will ever hear the words of your answer, and I’d like to meet my maker with a clear conscience. Tell me truly, who are you?”
The navigator seemed to dismiss the plea initially, but then considered his response before answering, “I am a traveler from another world, one of those points of light you see in the sky at night. You thought me evil and fought me, but the real evil is in the ones who came here with me, the Alpha. The plague your people brought with you to the New World was their doing, their evil. You lost this battle with me, but you can meet the afterlife knowing that defeat will likely save all humanity from the Alpha in the future.”
Juan absorbed the absurd words and wished his vision was not completely black, even for a moment. He would use that instant to read the man’s face and determine if there was any truth to his words. He wanted to know if his Savior would reward his efforts against this man’s evil, or would the Almighty punish him for all eternity for trying to stop him.
He drew his final breath and exhaled his last words. “Hard to believe, but I’ll learn the truth about your nature soon enough.”
“That would be nice,” the navigator responded as the darkness claimed Juan. “I don’t even know the truth about myself anymore.”
Chapter 46: Painful Reminder
HASTELLOY OPENED HIS eyes at a glacial pace and found himself lying in his bed. He was alone in the room he shared with fifteen other patients at the Henderson Home psychiatric facility. He glanced to his right and verified through the tall, narrow window that it was daytime. Judging by the hunger in his stomach it was probably lunchtime, which is why his fellow patients were gone.
The orderlies must have sensed that Hastelloy needed his rest and let him be while they ushered the others to their second meal of the day. Hastelloy was pleased to find that he had made it through the night. That was one day down with six more to go before meeting with Dr. Holmes again to start the endgame of his master plan.
Before that could happen, Hastelloy was left with the haunting memory of his conflict with Juan Ponce de León. It began as a struggle between good and evil, even though neither was truly evil. Their conflict was born from misperception, rather than fact or intent. Juan died as a result, but so did countless natives.
Far too many perished before Hastelloy arrived to spread the cures. Many more died at points of contact too numerous for Hastelloy and his crew to manage. Still other natives perished at the hands of greedy exploiters who worked them to death, or made intentional efforts to infect them, such as giving them blankets laced with small pox and other deadly contagions. It was a true evil without equal until the reign of Hitler, and Hastelloy lamented the part he played in the tragic events that were the Age of Discovery.
Montezuma’s discovery and use of the replicator stood as yet another shining cautionary tale about the risks of technological interference and its cultural contamination. The Aztecs misunderstood the technology as a gift from their god. They gave their deity thanks and praise in the only way they knew how. They sacrificed a life for every life spared and in doing so wreaked havoc and terror on those tribes residing around them.
They made many enemies, but at their core, the Aztecs were not an evil people. Nonetheless, there was a reckoning, and as fate would have it, that retribution was delivered by Hastelloy.
He had every intention of ruling the Aztec people through Montezuma. That would have allowed Hastelloy to dole out the stem cell serum with complete control. However, the greedy nature of man put an end to that plan.
Hastelloy returned to Tenochtitlán and found the city in complete upheaval. The soldiers heleft behind had attempted to extort more gold from Montezuma and executed him in front of the city when the sum they demanded was not paid. This left Hastelloy no choice but to finish conquering the Aztecs through force rather than cooperation and diplomacy in order to keep control over the replicator’s location.
As a result, history came to know Hastelloy as Hernán Cortés, a bloody tyrant driven by a bottomless appetite for gold. The one good thing to come out of that dreadful business was the people of the Aztec Empire were dispersed far and wide by the fighting. This let the antibodies they carried spread all the more quickly in the New World.
That along with generous use of the serum allowed Hastelloy to limit the native death toll from nine out of ten dying to one in ten. It was not ideal, but it was the only victory Hastelloy could claim from that era. The reality was that within a hundred years of Europe’s “discovering” the New World, numerous Native American nations were left in ashes: the Aztecs, the Mayans, the Mississippians, and the Incas. Millions died and great cultures were torn asunder. The fact that it was not ten times the number of casualties did little to sooth Hastelloy’s mind. Even though the resources of the New World played an integral part in defeating the Alpha on Mars, it still haunted him to no end as he lay his head back down on his pillow to forgo lunch. He no longer had much of an appetite.
Epilogue: Only the Beginning . . .
Vasco stepped into the Lodge of Edinburgh, Scotland, and was well pleased with what he found. From the moment he stepped off the boat returning from the New World with Juan’s instructions, he got the word out to assemble. Now, a month later, he entered a rustic-looking tavern playing host to over two hundred agents from their network of allies among the various great powers of Europe.
Portugal, Spain, France, England, Italy, Germany, and the list went on. None of the men in this room ruled those nations in name or title, but they held significant influence over the policies and decisions. The network had achieved much in their study of the undying navigator and his allies, but there was still much more to learn. That knowledge was now in jeopardy of being lost without the leadership and resources of their benefactor, Juan Ponce de León.
To avoid such a fate, Vasco gathered all the
men in the know to set up a formal hierarchy that would see their secret society not only continue, but also grow in knowledge and influence to fight the evil that stalked them all from the shadows. Their enemy could live for generations, and now humanity’s ability to fight that enemy would also live on.
“Gentlemen, you have my most sincere gratitude for making the long journey here to attend the founding meeting of our Fraternal Order of the Freemasons. We have much to discuss . . .”
Help me out:
I sincerely hope you enjoyed this installment in the story of Hastelloy and his crew. I would greatly appreciate your feedback with an honest review on Amazon.com.
First and foremost, I’m always looking to grow and improve as a writer. It is reassuring to hear what works, as well as receive constructive feedback on what should improve. Second, starting out as an unknown author is exceedingly difficult, and Amazon reviews go a long way toward making the journey out of anonymity possible. Please take a few minutes to write an honest review.
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Mark Henrikson
DON’T MISS THESE OTHER
EXCITING ORIGINS TITLES
Origins Series:
Book 1: Origins
Book 2: Centurion’s Rise
Book 3: Reformation
Book 4: The Reich
Book 5: A Greater Good
Crew Chronicles Series:
Book 1: Discovery
Book 2: Revolution (Spring 2017)
Book 3: Empire (Spring 2018)
Book 4: Emancipation (Spring 2019)
Book 5: The Great War (Spring 2020)
Origins: Discovery Page 27