by Alten-Steve
39
Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
—WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
“Manny, follow my voice …”
Lying in the pit in bone-deep cold through an eternity of emptiness and darkness, he detects the pattern of pink behind eyelids sealed in amber.
“—try to open your eyes.”
He struggles against an immovable weight until he realizes he has no arms.
“Fight your way out. Create pain.”
He stands amid blackness and feels for the wall, bloodying the cold stone with his face. Over and over he strikes the dungeonlike enclosure until he finds his hands tingling somewhere in the abyss. Encouraged, he bashes the pit’s rounded walls harder, all the while opening and closing his long-lost appendages, the pain giving birth to arms. His fingers walk up his broken upper torso to the diseased flesh he has bashed into pulp and claw at the amber sealing his eyes until he unveils the light—
—an onion-shaped chamber, its curved onyx walls illuminated in multicolored controls, encircled by a 360-degree viewport of the Earth, as seen from space.
His soul mate leans over and kisses him. “Welcome back.”
“Laura?” He sits up and hugs his wife, his energy spent. “I missed you terribly. What happened? Where are we? Where’s Sophia?”
“I’m here, Dad.”
Immanuel turns toward the hologram, the image of a Las Vegas hotel suite appearing in the center of the command post. His daughter is standing between Mick and Dominique. Kurtz and Beck are seated in the background, the two bodyguards eating room service on a balcony facing the Strip.
“I don’t understand? Laura, where are we? Where’s Sophia?”
“She’s safe, back on Earth. We’re aboard the Balam … inside the Nexus.”
“The Balam? How? Why?”
“You’re aboard the Balam because I’m pregnant,” Dominique answers, offering a wry grin. “We had no choice. You were dying, Manny. Apparently, the same soul can’t exist simultaneously in two different vessels during the same time.”
“We landed after the Mars moon sealed the strangelet,” Mick explains. “The starship protected you by moving into the Nexus. The dimensional corridor will keep the cruiser hidden from radar and telescopes.”
“But what happens when I’m born … again?”
Laura helps him to his feet. “It’ll be okay. Come, I want to show you something.” She escorts him to the viewport.
“My God …” Swirling out in space is a wormhole, its event horizon stable and beckoning. Hovering close to the entrance are several hundred extraterrestrial vessels of varying sizes and shapes.
“What are they doing out there?”
She squeezes his hand. “They’re waiting for you.”
“The wormhole … where do you think it leads?”
“I don’t know, baby. How about we find out together?”
“Laura, no … I can’t let you do that.”
“I’m coming with you, Sam … er, Manny. Sorry, that’s going to take some getting used to. But we were meant to be together, I know that for sure. So just dismiss any thoughts of leaving me behind. I waited eleven years to be with you, now you’re stuck with me. Besides, I’m Hunahpu, too.”
He leans in and kisses her. “What about Sophia?”
“I’m going to stay behind,” his daughter replies. “Mick and Dom said I can stay with them. It’s going to be hard to be normal again, but I have to try. Besides, they’ll need help with the twins.” She smiles. “How many people can say they babysat their own father?”
“The child won’t be your father,” Mick says. “The time loop has been unraveled, your father’s lifespan is a loose end, not a repeating circuit of space-time. Whatever happens from this point forward can’t be prophesied. Maybe that’s a good thing.”
Kurtz joins them. “The president knows what you did, Manny. He’s keeping it quiet, but your family will be well taken care of. Mick used the Balam to destroy the underground complex at Groom Lake. Majestic-12 is history.”
“What about Borgia?”
“Borgia’s in jail for murdering Randolph. They should both rot in Hell.”
“Mitch, there’s something I need you and Beck to do for me. It’s very important.”
“Name it.”
The Balam leaves Earth’s orbit, gliding silently toward the entrance to the wormhole. Immanuel Gabriel hugs his wife and soul mate, his heart full—
—a new destiny awaiting.
With a sudden surge, the golden starship enters the conduit, the extraterrestrial ships following in its wake.
Seconds later, the wormhole disappears, transporting its passengers across time and space.
40
Once more unto the breach, dear friends …
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, HENRY V
Belle Glade, Florida
September 22, 2013
12:21 a.m.
Seventeen-year-old Madelina Aurelia thrashes naked beneath a sweat-soaked bedsheet as she cries out to her foster father, “Get this goddamn baby outta me!”
Quenton Morehead, an ordained minister and struggling alcoholic, squeezes the teenaged girl’s hand, his dark eyes lingering on her exposed pelvis. “Don’t blaspheme, child, the midwife’s on her way.”
“Where’s Virgil?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find him!”
The minister cringes as the girl’s high-pitched screech penetrates his brain like a tuning fork. He hears the front door open and sighs a quick Amen.
“Virge?” Madelina stops thrashing. “Virgil, honey? That you … you cheatin’, whorin’ sonuva bitch!”
A heavyset black woman enters. “Calm down, baby, everthin’ gonna be just fine.”
Madelina tears at the mattress as another contraction grips her torso. “Vir … gil!”
The midwife turns to the minister. “Go on and find him. I can handle things here.”
Quenton backs out of the bedroom, then hurries out the front door of the sweltering stucco home and into the night.
Reverend Morehead enters the strip club fifteen minutes later, his senses immediately seized by the smell of alcohol and smoke and sex. He heads for the bar, then sees his son-in-law in a back room, receiving a lap dance.
“Virgil! Get your heathen butt home, your son’s on the way.”
“Aww shit, Quenton, give me two more minutes.”
“Now, boy!”
“Sum’bitch.” Virgil climbs out from beneath the stripper, squeezes an exposed breast, whispers, “I’ll be back soon,” then follows Quenton into the parking lot.
Temple University Hospital
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
12:43 a.m.
Dominique Gabriel gazes through feverish eyes at her foster mother, Edith Axler, as another contraction begins. The wave of pain crests higher, the pain excruciating. “Edie, get me drugs!”
“Hang in there, doll. Mick went to get the doctor.”
“I need drugs, now!”
“Okay, okay.” Edith rushes out of the birthing room to find the nurse.
“You do not need drugs,” says Chicahua. “The uterus is a woman’s center. If the uterus is not in proper position during birth, nothing in the child’s life will be right.” Placing her hands on Dominique’s pelvis, she begins to massage the exterior of her daughter’s swollen abdomen and lower back, softening the muscles while repositioning the uterus.
Mick enters the room a moment later, in time to see the old woman extracting a red-faced newborn from his wife’s birth canal. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What I have done since before you were born.” She spanks the blood-streaked, fair-haired child lightly on its rump, encouraging an air-breathing gasp. “Hold your son while I fetch his brother.”
Michael Gabriel stares teary-eyed at his offspring, the child’s eyes wide and azure blue. “Hey, Jake. Daddy
’s here for you this time, pal.”
Moments later, Jacob Gabriel’s dark-haired brother is born, announcing his arrival with a healthy wail.
Belle Glade, Florida
12:57 a.m.
Reverend Morehead hears the sounds of a baby crying as he reenters the sweltering stucco home. “Madelina?”
The rotund midwife is in the kitchen, an infant in her arms. “Look. There’s your grandpa. Say hi, Grandpa!”
“My Lord, will you look at his eyes, I’ve never seen eyes so blue.”
“Silly, it’s not a he, she’s a little girl.”
“A girl?” Quenton feels the hairs raise along the back of his neck.
“Where’s the father?”
“Puking his guts up outside. Quickly, take the child and—”
The screen door slams open and Virgil approaches, a line of spittle running from his lower lip to his stained T-shirt, a ring of white powder visible in his left nostril. “Okay, le’ me see my boy.”
Quenton and the midwife exchange frightened looks. “Now, Virgil, take it easy. We need to talk.” The minister steps in front of the wailing infant.
“Outta my way, Quenton, I said I wanna see my son.”
“Virgil, the Lord … the Lord has blessed you with a child. A daughter.”
Virgil stops. Facial muscles contort into a mask of rage. “A girl?”
“Easy, son—”
“A girl ain’t shit! A girl’s nuthin’ but another goddamn mouth to feed and clothe and listen to her whining.” He points at the screaming infant. “Give her to me!”
“No.” Quenton holds his ground. The nurse stands, preparing to flee with the child.
“I want you to sober up, Virgil. I want you to go to my home and—”
Virgil punches the minister in the gut, dropping him to his knees.
The midwife tucks the infant under one arm, brandishing a kitchen knife in the other. “Y’all git outta here, Virgil. Go on!”
Virgil stares at the blade quivering in the fat woman’s fist. In one motion he grabs her wrist, wrenching the knife free.
The midwife screams, backing away.
Virgil stares at the infant, then hears someone moaning from inside the bedroom. “Madelina? You’re dead …” Wielding the knife, he ducks inside the bedroom, locking the door behind him—
—surprised to find a massive black man inside, seated in a folding chair.
Ryan Beck looks up from reading the newspaper. “Evening, Virgil.”
“Who the hell are you? Where’s my wife?”
“Someplace safe. You’ll be happy to know her Uncle Sam is going to take care of her from now on, along with your daughter, Lilith. Your little girl will be raised in a safe, loving environment away from you and her pedophile grandfather.”
“That so?” He brandishes the knife. “What’s in it for me?”
“For you? A hearty congratulations.” Beck smiles. “You’ve won a Darwin award.”
“Darwin award? What the hell’s that?”
“It’s an award given to those who remove themselves from the human gene pool in order to improve it.”
Beck joins Kurtz in the van ten minutes later. The former CIA assassin is cradling the turquoise-eyed newborn. Madelina is sedated in back.
“She’s a cutie, isn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d her old man die?”
“He accidentally stuck a butcher knife up his own ass.”
“Hey, it happens.” Handing Lilith Eve Aurelia to his friend, Kurtz drives the van, heading for the commuter airport.
EPILOGUE
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.
—ATTRIBUTED TO SRI CHINMOY GHOSE
Evelyn Mohr opens her eyes. The world is spinning in vertigo, her flesh tingling. For a moment she fears she has been struck by lightning, then she remembers.
The cruise ship … the hole in the Atlantic!
She is lying on her side in a darkness so complete she cannot see her hand in front of her face. She can hear grunts and groans, but she has no idea where she is. Feeling around the carpet, she manages to locate her i-glasses. Tries to contact her husband, Dave, but gets only static.
Adjusting the smart glasses’ setting, she changes the lenses from tint to night vision. The impenetrable blackness becomes an olive-green corridor, harboring several dozen bathing-suit-clad passengers, sprawled out in clusters. Most remain unconscious; a few are sitting up, disoriented, their eyes glowing a nocturnal silver.
Searching the corridor, Evelyn locates the steel hatch leading outside. Standing on wobbly legs, she pushes open the watertight door and ventures out onto one of the ship’s privacy sun decks.
“Oh my …”
The sun is long gone, the night sky sparkling with constellations and nebulae and distant spiral galaxies as vivid as images taken from the newest Earth-orbiting telescopes. To the north she sees Jupiter, as big as the moon, its moons twinkling like diamond dust. To the east is Saturn; beyond, Neptune—a neon-blue dot partially eclipsed by its sister planet’s rings of ice.
Her eyes catch movement in the heavens—two small moons. One orbits directly overhead, the other is moving unusually fast, rapidly dipping toward the inky ocean horizon.
“Where the hell are we?”
“A different time, a different place.”
She sees him standing by the guardrail, a lanky Adonis with long dark hair and a bodybuilder’s physique. His eyes appear azure blue in the lunar light.
Evelyn approaches. “You’re Anna’s friend, the one who saved me.”
“Julian. And you’re Evelyn, Dave Mohr’s wife.”
Her heart races. “Did Lilith send you?”
“My mother sent me. You can trust me, I’m a friend.”
“What happened to us?”
“The cruise ship was dragged down a wormhole. Our presence in the portal created an alternative universe of space-time.”
“You sound like my husband.”
“Your husband no longer exists; he won’t be born for another 127 million years.”
“What?” Her throat constricts as other passengers join them. “How is that possible?”
“Look around you. This isn’t Earth, Evelyn. It’s Mars—back when the Red Planet was green and possessed an atmosphere … just before the great cataclysm.” He suddenly pauses, his eyes darting to focus on the water. “They found us. Everyone back inside the ship!”
The gathering crowd shoves its way back inside the corridor.
Evelyn grabs onto Julian to keep from being dragged away, her eyes catching a glimpse of the terrifying lizardlike creatures surfacing off the starboard bow. “Who are you? The truth!”
“My name is Julian Agler Gabriel. My friends call me Jag. Like my mother, Sophia, I’m full-blooded Hunahpu.”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m here to ensure humanity’s future.”
He drags her inside, securing the hatch behind them as the predatory reptilian Martian race begins its assault on the Paradise Lost—Phobos reappearing on the western horizon, glowing orange in the alien night sky.
To be continued …
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is with great pride and appreciation that I acknowledge those who contributed to the completion of Phobos: Mayan Fear [The Mayan Destiny] and the continued success of the entire Domain [Mayan] 2012 series.
First and foremost, to the great people at Tor/Forge, with special thanks to Tom Doherty and his family—my editor, Eric Raab, and his assistant (now editor) Whitney Ross. Thank you to my copy editor, M. Longbrake. My gratitude and appreciation to my personal editor, Lou Aronica at the Fiction Studio ([email protected]), whose advice remains invaluable, and to my literary agent, Danny Baror of Baror International, for his friendship and dedication. Thanks as well to his assistant, Heather Baror-Shapiro.
A very special thanks to Dr. Steven Greer, former chairman of the Department of Emerg
ency Medicine at Caldwell Memorial Hospital in North Carolina, and the founder and director of CSETI and the Disclosure Project, who generously allowed me to use quotes from his incredible press conference held on May 9, 2001, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. I encourage everyone to visit his website at www.DisclosureProject.org and to watch the entire news conference. As always, my gratitude to my cover artist, Erik Hollander (www.HollanderDesignLab.com), for his amazing cover art, and to forensic artist William McDonald (www.alienUFOart.com) for the original artwork found within these pages.
A heartfelt thanks to the brilliant Jack Harbach O’Sullivan, who offered me his scientific advice; my friend and webmaster, Leisa Coffman, for her continued dedication; and editor Barbara Becker, who also works tirelessly in the Adopt-An-Author program.
To my wife, Kim, and my kids, Kelsey and Branden, for their love and tolerance of the long hours involved in my writing career, and last, to my readers and fans, who have given this series continued life beyond 2012 … mere words cannot express my gratitude.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The Mayan Destiny is the third book in the Mayan Doomsday Prophecy series that began with the release of Domain [UK title The Mayan Prophecy] in 1999 and continued with Resurrection [UK title The Mayan Resurrection] in 2004. Back in 1999, few people knew about the 2012 prophecy, and fewer still probably cared. Nevertheless, over the years I have often been asked, “Do you think humanity will really end on the winter solstice of 2012?” My answer is always to explain that either a natural disaster (asteroid strikes, Yellowstone caldera erupts) or manmade threats (biological weapons—see Fort Detrick and Battelle Labs) could do the job. As the 2012 date approached and man’s ego gave us runaway greed, corruption, and new lows in human morality, I often wondered if we’d even make it to 2012.
The Mayan Destiny simply scares me. Had I known about this very real threat when I penned The Mayan Prophecy I would have written the book you now hold in your hands back then. But this threat didn’t exist back then, and ultimately the series is better for it. Still, The Mayan Destiny gives me nightmares, just as its conclusions scare a small minority of scientists attempting to use legal action to shut down a ten-billion-dollar science experiment. Sadly, unless the silent majority gets behind their gallant effort, far worse than the Mayan prophecy may come true. Theoretically, it may already be under way.