by Steve Alten
Dominique, this vault is a secured sensory pod, its power source and life-support systems independent of the rest of the ship. Its walls create white noise which serves to shield its occupants from telepathic communication—in essence, rendering it a quiet zone.
Manny looks around. At the center of the chamber are two cryogenic pods. Myriad hoses and wires run from each machine into the floor, linking the pods to one another.
The power source blinks ACTIVE. Manny rubs the frosted glass of the pod on the right, revealing a body inside. “My God.”
Michael Gabriel is unconscious and naked, sealed in an amberlike wax. Star-shaped electrodes are melded to points along his scalp, crown, forehead, solar plexus, heart, sacrum, and feet.
His mother is sealed in an identical pod on the left.
More ghostlike thoughts are purged from the chamber.
Why is Mick in there? What are you doing to him?
The experience of fighting off the Abomination for so long has damaged One Hunahpu’s mind. The only way to restore his sanity is to rebuild his memories. The post-human’s technology gives us the ability to manipulate Michael’s mind, to place him into soothing, safe, virtual environments that will allow us to nurture him back to sanity. But the therapy requires a hands-on guide, someone who knows One Hunahpu intimately … someone he trusts. The therapy will not only heal his damaged mind, it will allow the two of you to be together. Once inside the pod, you will not be able to distinguish your shared virtual existence from the real world.
Manny stares at the two pods holding his parents. “Lying bastards. They sealed you up in their cryogenic goo and left you for God knows how long.”
One hundred twenty-seven million years.
“Dad? How—?”
Your mother and I were joined in a virtual never-ending reality, our consciousness programming its own immortality and fulfillment. Like the Balam, this starship is controlled by an artificial intelligence designed to serve our bloodline. Over the eons, our fused consciousness was able to effect repairs and maintain the vessel’s antimatter chamber to prevent the ship’s orbit from decaying. Unable to perish, our souls remain anchored to our bodies, which can never be revived. Allow us to move on, Immanuel. Release us from this purgatory.
“How?”
Shut down the power source to our pods. End our existence in the physical world so our souls can move on.
“I will. I’ll do it. But first I need your help. Julius told me that only One Hunahpu could prevent the strangelet from consuming the Earth.”
The black hole that threatens Earth is a conduit to the eleventh dimension—Xibalba Be, the dark road descending into Xibalba … Hell. The passage can only be sealed from within the Underworld itself. Julius suspected I was One Hunahpu, believing I could seal the strangelet from Xibalba based on his interpretation of the Mayan Popol Vuh’s creation story. When I entered the serpent’s wormhole in my time, I became One Hunahpu, and was trapped in Xibalba by Lilith’s son. In that cause-and-effect off-ramp of existence, your brother, Jacob, freed me. Trapped in this endless state of bridled consciousness, I can no longer access the eleventh dimension. I am no longer One Hunahpu.
“Then Earth is doomed. As you said, I’m not worthy enough to save it.”
Immanuel, the test of existence is not a test of perfection, it is a test of transformation.
“You were imprisoned in Xibalba; Jake was defeated. If the two of you failed in Hell, what chance do I have? Hello? Dammit, answer me!”
Filled with rage, Manny grabs hold of the power couplings linked to his parents’ chambers and violently rips the hoses from the control panels—severing the connection.
The panel lights go dark.
The chamber shudders.
Manny’s hair stands on end, the room suddenly charged with electromagnetic particles as the unleashed souls of his mother and father encircle him, causing the flesh beneath his false skin to spark.
His mother’s voice lingers in his ear. You were chosen for this mission, Manny. Figure out why.
Gravity tugs on his being with the force of several Gs, expanding his atomic structure even as it yanks him through space and back inside the extraterrestrial vessel. Doubled over in pain, he never feels the light-speed acceleration until the Fastwalker reenters Earth’s atmosphere. Charged with electricity, the high-speed conveyor of volcanic ash short circuits the E.T.’s engines.
Spinning out of control, the vessel plunges toward a flat desert terrain before regaining enough of its antigravity propulsion to pull out of the dive. The belly of the extraterrestrial ship skims sand and rock before crash-landing upon its intended landing zone—
—Area 51.
37
I, at any rate, am convinced that He [God] does not play dice.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN,
LETTER TO MAX BORN,
DECEMBER 4, 1926
ABOARD THE BALAM
NAZCA, PERU
In the corridor of a starship that predates their own existence, a naked man and woman caught in a loop of space-time join as one, doing their part to conceive the first generation of an advanced race who may one day build the very starship they now inhabit.
The act of copulation over, Mick rests his weight on his elbows, staring into the eyes of his predestined soul mate. “So beautiful …”
Her eyes closed in a state of bliss, Dominique smiles, clenching her legs tighter around the small of his back. “Admit it—this whole Doomsday thing … it was just an excuse to get me in bed.”
“The first time I saw you … I knew you were the one—the one I’d spend eternity with.”
She opens her eyes and notices his irises radiating azure blue. “Mick, your eyes!”
“Yours too.” He rolls off of her, his mind racing.
“What’s happening to us?”
“Our Hunahpu genes are active.” He pulls on his pants.
“Where are you going?”
“To the command center. If I’m right, we now have control of the ship.”
She dresses quickly, following him into an onion-shaped control room, its domed ceiling three stories high. Mick stands in the center of the chamber. Closes his eyes …
A neon-blue beam illuminates the top of his skull. Seconds later, the onyx glass panels light up like a Christmas tree, the floor reverberating beneath their feet as the Balam’s power plant activates for the first time since dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
“Mick, what are you doing?”
“I need to see that black hole. I’m going to fly her into space.”
“Her?”
“It. Does artificial intelligence have a gender?”
“What about Beck and Kurtz? Break free of this mountain and you’ll bury them in rubble.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Stay here, I’ll get them, just don’t touch anything while I’m gone. Don’t even think. Think about baseball.”
“I hate baseball.”
“Then think about the fertilized egg growing inside your womb.”
“Michael, shut up and go!”
MAJESTIC-12 (S-66) SUBTERRANEAN FACILITY
15 MILES SOUTH OF GROOM LAKE AIR FORCE BASE (AREA 51)
NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
Lying on his back on the coarse desert sand, Immanuel Gabriel gazes up at the turbulent brown sky, the seemingly endless heavens of volcanic ash racing north at more than five times the velocity of a commercial jet. Exceeding supersonic speed, the generated forces cause the atmosphere to crackle and growl, the earth to rumble.
Turning to his left, he sees the simmering remains of the extraterrestrial vessel. The electricity generated from the fast-moving debris clouds has short-circuited his unknown “hosts’” transport ship. He has no idea whether the craft had been remotely piloted or if there are life forms inside.
Turning to his right, he sees the heavily armed MPs. Emerging from the bunker, they duck low, wary of tornadoes spontaneously blossoming across the open terrain. Grabbing him by his arms and le
gs, they carry him roughly inside the bunker.
ABOARD THE BALAM
NAZCA, PERU
The earth trembles. The trident marking the mountain’s western face slides into the sea as the fractures deepen, rending the dispersing geology into an avalanche of rock and soil that collapses upon the Paracas shoreline—revealing the starship Balam.
The 722-foot dagger-shaped star cruiser rises into the heavens. Inside the command center, Michael Gabriel grins like a teen given the keys to a new sports car. Thought control has revealed a 360-degree viewport, offering the four passengers a view of the diminishing Peruvian coast.
Dominique squeezes Mick’s hand as they pass through the churning volcanic ash, the atmospheric tsunami polishing the Balam’s soiled hull to its original golden luster as it rocks the ship.
And then they are through, the sky darkening into space. A billion stars greet them, along with the aurora borealis. Below, the planet’s Western Hemisphere is visible, its lower latitudes, from the South Pole to the line of soot just north of the equator, now clear of volcanic ash. The rest of the Earth’s clogged heavens continues to drain into space like the sand from an inverted hourglass. The charged atoms of this cosmic rainbow bleed away from the North Pole into a twisting particle stream that rises ten thousand miles above the Earth—where it swirls into the gushing mouth of the strangelet’s event horizon.
Kurtz stares at the ominous aperture, the eye of the galactic storm as large as the diameter of the moon. “What the hell is that thing?”
Michael Gabriel is no longer smiling. “It’s called a strangelet. Believe it or not, it’s a man-made black hole.”
“Man created that?” Beck rasps. “Why?”
“Forget the why,” Kurtz snaps. “Will it harm the Earth?”
Mick points to the trail of debris being inhaled into the black hole’s event horizon. “All that ash is feeding the monster positively charged atomic particles. The particles have given the strangelet size and mass—enough to stabilize it inside the physical universe. When the remains of the volcanic ash are swept into space, the strangelet will be drawn to the planet in order to continue to feed. This time, when it passes through the core, it will consume the entire Earth.”
“How do we stop it?”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
MAJESTIC-12 (S-66) SUBTERRANEAN FACILITY
The elevator plunges down the subterranean shaft, stopping at Level 29. Secured in shackles, Immanuel Gabriel is dragged down a bright empty corridor and through a security checkpoint.
The prisoner offers no resistance. Manny’s mind’s eye is absorbed in a bizarre slide show of subliminal images—Chilam Balam’s journey through the sacred cenote’s wormhole … his capture by Seven Macaw … Blood Woman’s execution … Lilith’s decapitated body … his journey through the 2047 wormhole—the images repeating over and over, accompanied by the double pulsating beat of two synchronized hearts.
The pain is sudden—a thousand nails hammered into his flesh, driven deep through his bones. He cries out, instinctively knowing the source. The heartbeats … Jake and I have been conceived. The same soul cannot exist in the same dimension within two separate vessels. I’m being torn apart by the presence of my own fetus!
Squeezing his eyes shut, he slips inside the Nexus.
Relief is immediate, the gravitational forces easing. He looks around, realizing the corridor of existence bridging the physical universe and the upper realms has changed. Below the soothing ether is a dark hole, its mass latching onto him, attempting to drag him into its swirling orifice.
The strangelet … it’s crossed through the Nexus.
Rising from the eleventh dimension’s portal is Seven Macaw.
The blue-fanged abomination circles Manny, its icy presence terrifying.
Chilam Balam … I’ve waited all eternity for this moment. Enter the dark road and I shall serve as your personal escort into Xibalba.
The surgical suite has three operating tables. Laura Agler is strapped to the first, her twenty-year-old daughter, Sophia, to the second. Pierre Borgia stands next to the gorgeous younger woman, his right hand smoothing her hair back as if she were a pet, his left holding the scalpel.
Leaning on his cane, Joseph Randolph instructs the MPs to handcuff their barely conscious prisoner to the third table. Then he dismisses them.
The white-haired director leans over Manny. “Wake up, Mr. Agler.” He slaps his face. No response. “What’s wrong with him, Pierre?”
“He’s taken refuge in the Nexus.”
“Draw him out.”
“How?”
Randolph motions to Sophia. “Cut her.”
Laura closes her eyes, slipping inside the Nexus. She finds the light of her husband’s soul caught in a tug-of-war with the gravitational forces of a black hole, his being circled by a malevolent force of nature, the presence of which curdles her blood cold.
Seven Macaw’s red eyes appear from within the vapor, paralyzing Laura in fear. Blood Woman! How I’ve missed the taste of your soul. I have the sun, and now I have the moon. And soon I shall possess the souls of every spark of the shattered vessel of creation. And the serpent in the garden shall be the Creator!
Serpent in the garden …
Serpent in the garden.
A surge of adrenaline jolts Manny’s being as the words, encoded into his subconscious by his father during their last encounter, reveal their true meaning.
Jacob cleaved to the tree of life that you see before you, which is why his soul remained pure. You were bound to the tree of knowledge, a dark side that cleaves to the human ego … As powerful as Jacob was, he could not succeed in the eleventh dimension of Hell without your ability to adapt to the dark side …
What you fail to see, Immanuel, is that you are the serpent.
Manny flees the Nexus and opens his eyes, his thoughts focused despite the wave of agony that greets him, his soul’s divided presence in the physical universe threatening to unleash every cell in his body like a miniature Big Bang.
The pain is necessary; to free Laura’s consciousness from Seven Macaw he must draw the devil out of the Nexus.
Raising his head from the surgical table, he stares at Pierre Borgia. “I can smell you, Seven Macaw. I can smell the sulphurous rubbish of your soul. Face me like a true deity; stop hiding within the flesh of this pathetic human. You call yourself the sun and the moon; you consider yourself a creator? Ha! You are nothing. Show yourself, coward, and I’ll descend through Xibalba Be into the eleventh dimension. Continue to hide, and all shall know of your weakness.”
Pierre Borgia freezes, his head cocked to one side. After a long moment he turns to speak, his one bloodshot eye blazing red, his voice a throaty rasp. “Chilam Balam?”
Laura’s inert form reanimates as she expels a deep gasp, freeing herself from the Nexus.
Laura, can you hear me?
Yes, Sam.
Whatever happens, do not follow me into the Nexus.
Joseph Randolph turns to his nephew. “What’s going on? Explain!”
“Answer your master, Seven Macaw. Prostrate yourself like the dog you’ve become. Lick his hand in obedience.”
“Pierre, enough games. Question the Nordic. If he doesn’t answer, begin working on his daughter.”
“You heard your human master. He gave the sun a direct order; he demanded the moon do his dirty work. Obey, you pathetic bag of bones. Obey your master!”
Tightening his grip on the scalpel, Pierre Borgia whips the blade through the air—slicing open Joseph Randolph’s throat. Immanuel Gabriel leaps back inside the Nexus, beckoning his unborn twin, Jacob, from within his mother’s shared womb …
Dominique’s face goes blank, her body rigid, her turquoise eyes widening as her Hunahpu mind receives instructions from her unborn son. Pushing Mick’s consciousness aside, she takes command of the Balam.
Through the void of space, the starship locates the island of antimatter orbiting Mars.
The Balam’s artificial intelligence communicates with the post-humans’ vessel, activating its propulsion system as Dominique has commanded.
The seed of thought had been planted in Immanuel by his father, nourished by a single troubling thought: after 127 million years, why were his parents still alive?
Michael and Dominique’s fused consciousness was controlling the transport ship. Had they truly desired to release their trapped souls through their own physical deaths, they could have simply allowed the vessel’s orbit to decay eons ago, sending Phobos hurtling into the surface of Mars.
Only they hadn’t. They had maintained control.
Why?
The answer was as simple as it was selfless—they knew Manny would need the vessel on the last day of the fifth cycle.
Now, as Phobos races at light speed toward Earth, Manny releases himself from the Nexus, his consciousness falling into the black depths below—
—his soul entering Hell.
38
Hell is a place, a time, a consciousness … in which there is no love.
—RICHARD BACH, THE BRIDGE ACROSS FOREVER
XIBALBA
ELEVENTH DIMENSION—HELL
The sky is a molten vermillion red, obscured by choking charcoal-gray clouds, like smoke from a petroleum inferno. As his watering eyes adjust to the tremendous heat, Chilam Balam realizes it is not a true sky he is observing, but a simmering subterranean ceiling, located high over a mountainous terrain.
The Jaguar Prophet gazes at what was once a fertile Nazca valley. The landscape is covered in lead-gray volcanic ash, the mountain streams degenerated into swampy cesspools of silvery-brown ooze, stagnant with feces, bones, and the smoldering remains of ashen flesh. Twenty-inch scarab beetles feast upon the offering by the tens of thousands, their sharp mandibles creating a nerve-wracking crunching sound as they feed.