Earth Keepers

by Jorge Alejandro Lavera

  “And yet, it happened.”

  “Yes,” Robert revealed, shrugging his shoulders. “In any event, we can’t do anything about it.”

  Leora wanted to question him—it was evident he knew more, but somehow she realized he wasn’t going to tell her anything. She sighed and directed herself to the officers.

  “Well, keep taking care of people—make sure no one is lying around after a spill. Check cabins if you can’t locate someone. I’m going to continue with the interviews,” she announced, and left again to see the next one on the list.

  SOFÍA

  Rho, November 28, 2027. 10:00 a.m.

  They traveled the hallways for five minutes until Althaea stopped at an intersection to check directions, and Juan Carlos noticed that Sofía wasn’t with Damaris.

  “Where is Sofía?” Juan Carlos asked.

  Raquel, Althaea and Damaris looked around.

  “I thought she was with Damaris,” said Althaea.

  “And I thought she was with her mother,” Damaris exclaimed.

  “We have to go back to look for her. Immediately. Anyone remember when you saw her last after we left the bunker?” asked Juan Carlos.

  “I thought she was behind me, she was there when we left, but then I didn’t pay attention. I’m sorry, I never thought she’d stop following us,” stammered Damaris worriedly.

  “But why did she stop following us? Did she go back to the bunker? Where did she go?” asked Raquel.

  They left the path, almost running, looking for Sofía.

  Rushed, they forgot to be as careful as they had been when they left the shelter. At the second intersection, they ran into eight armed men, guns drawn. They were so taken by surprise, they couldn’t do anything, and Juan Carlos realized that trying to resist would mean being under a hail of bullets. He remembered what Althaea had said—immortal but not indestructible.

  To their despair, the men took their weapons and forced them to go to the nearest exit, which ended at the Control Center building. Surrounded on all sides, they forced them towards the room.

  Sofía unlocked the bunker door that led to the control room and pushed it silently, taking a weapon in each hand. Her eyes traveled around the room. She could see two side guards watching near the entrance, and Marsan with his back to her, working at a console. Without waiting a second, she shot towards the guard with the sonic gun she had in her left hand. Since it was a broad range firearm, it wasn’t necessary to aim precisely. Both guards were thrown violently against the wall. Marsan lifted his eyes, but for a second failed to understand what was going on. When he started to turn his head, Sofía, who had already lowered the sonic gun, shot him. She heard the sound of broken bones along with his scream of pain when he was slammed against the console desk.

  Sofía moved quickly. The guards were trying to react. They were both grabbing their guns. She aimed the laser with her right hand at the guard’s head, but hesitated. The guard managed to raise his gun and aim at her, and then Sofía shot him. The guard died in the act.

  A bullet took out some debris from the wall near her body. The shot came from the other guard’s gun, who was pointing at her from the ground. Sofía targeted him in turn and killed him. Only then did she face Marsan.

  He was trying to pull himself together and raise a laser gun. Sofía shot him again, with the sonic gun. He was thrown back in his chair on wheels, hitting the wall behind him. The gun he’d had flew out of his hand. He sat there, panting.

  “Stop, child, I’m unarmed. You won,” Marsan spit out with difficulty.

  “I won? What have I won? They’re all dead. My girlfriend and best friend. Everyone I knew. The whole damned planet. Is it true that you created the virus to kill us?”

  “Do you really want to know? Will that make my murder easier? If you kill me, you won’t be any better than me, you know that?”

  “Come on, I want to know. But don’t talk, think. I want to know you’re telling the truth.”

  “Of course. Some people created the virus according to my specifications, others tested it, others created the vaccine, and others distributed it. I coordinated and supervised it all. So if you’re looking for who’s ultimately responsible, it’s me,” she heard Marsan in her mind, with a tone of pride.

  “I had a friend. I loved her, and she’s dead because of you,” thought Sofía.

  “What do you know about love? How long were you in love, a month? Two? A year? I had a perfect mate, Sitre, for more than twenty-five thousand years. You can’t begin to understand what that means. All so that in one minute, because of a sabotage by a damned human, and Tzedek’s order, I lost her forever. Well, this is my revenge. There won’t be any more damned humans, nor anyone to guide them,” Marsan thought with rage.

  “Well, you didn’t get rid of all the humans, there are still some of us left,” thought Sofía.

  “How long do you think the humans who survived will last? In a generation, they’ll all be dead, and that species will finally, finally be extinct forever,” he thought with derision.

  “You killed billions of beings and the leader of the Atlanteans, for revenge? And do you feel better now that you’ve done it?” thought Sofía.

  Marsan got a smile on his face, showing all of his teeth.

  “Yes, indeed. The humans only existed to destroy us, created as puppets to obey the orders of their masters. And out there, someplace, hidden among them, are the puppet masters. Now the invaders will be exposed, we must find them and destroy them.”

  Just then, the door opened and Marsan’s men entered, surrounding Althaea, Juan Carlos, Raquel and Damaris.

  “Boss, look what we found...” one of them started to say, but went quiet when he saw the dead guards and a second later, Sofía aiming at Marsan’s head.

  “Tell them to let them go or you’ll die,” Sofía thought towards Marsan.

  “You’re going to kill me anyway, why should I let them go? At least there will be fewer of you,” he answered.

  “If you let them go, maybe my father will spare your life and keep me from killing you,” Sofía thought.

  “Yes, that’s very possible, your father could be that stupid,” Marsan agreed.

  “Let them go, now,” Sofía ordered out loud.

  “No, you lower your gun or we’ll start executing the prisoners,” threatened one of the men, pulling back the trigger and pointing his gun at Juan Carlos’ head.

  Sofía thought fast. If she let Marsan go, they’d never get out of this alive. If she killed him, they’d have a chance. She’d never killed anyone until today. She’d killed the guards, but they were armed and ready to kill her. Could she kill Marsan in cold blood? Did she have the strength to kill an unarmed person?

  “My dad doesn’t believe in gods or in live after death. Do you believe? Do you believe that your wife is out there someplace?” she asked him.

  “Of course. Your dad is stupid. And someday I’ll be with my wife again.”

  Sofía thought that it was bad to kill. She was sure of that. And before her was a mass murderer. The last mass murderer, the exterminator of humanity. If she killed him, she wouldn’t be any better than him.

  Suddenly, a memory jumped up, of the man who had attacked them, her and her father, and who her father wanted to disarm, but she had insisted on leaving him alone. Marsan would never leave them in peace. And he’d never quit fighting for what he thought was right.

  And if Marsan was right?

  Sofía shook her head.

  “Wherever your wife is, I don’t think there’s any chance you’ll end up in the same place. Mass murderers don’t end up in the same place as those who were victims. You’ll never return to your wife,” Sofía sentenced him. She let Marsan process that thought for a second. When she saw him stop smiling and start frowning with worry, she evoked all her losses, both personal and global, all of her anguish, let all her hatred flow, and fired.

  Sofía kept the trigger pulled back. The first pulse of the laser hit Marsan.
Then another and another. For a second nothing happened, while he started to look panicked. His nanites absorbed every shot as much as they could, but suddenly, where there had been a frown, now there was a stain. Time seemed to pass slowly. Smoke started to come out of his frame. Sofía felt the force of Marsan’s mental assault as if she were being punched, and it took all of her will to keep pulling the trigger, while his nanites made a last effort to repel the deadly bolt and the men began firing. Sofía felt a bullet bounce off of her shoulder, but despite the strike and the pain, she didn’t stop pulling the trigger. The light on her gun turned yellow. She got hit again, this time in the hip, and she yelled in frustration. While she kept firing at Marsan, more bullets hit her. Finally, the beam penetrated the Atlantean defenses. His left arm turned to ash, leaving a smell like plastic and burned flesh that for a minute, made his body arch. Marsan fell limp to the ground.

  She thought her heart was going to jump out of her chest. She pointed her guns towards Marsan’s men. The indicator on the laser gun was red. Three of them lunged at her, while she fired with both guns. One was thrown back, another was shot down on the spot. When the third flew onto his back, she saw that her group hadn’t waited around for the results of her encounter with Marsan.

  Juan Carlos had taken advantage of the second when the guard had diverted his sight towards Sofía and Marsan. With his right hand, he made an arc from left to right, hitting the man’s wrist hard. The revolver he had been holding went flying. It hadn’t hit the ground when Juan Carlos took advantage of the same impulse of his movement and kept turning his body, grabbed him by the wrist he had just hit, and forced him to the right, unbalancing him. He stretched his left leg, kicked back towards the front of the man’s right leg. The guard, who hadn’t yet recovered from the surprise, was hit full on, his leg flew out and he lost his balance when it stopped supporting his weight, collapsing. As he fell, Juan Carlos grabbed him by the nape of the neck, and followed his movement down, making him end up crashing his face against a table to the side. There was a muffled scream and the sound of a nose breaking. The man fell to the ground unconscious while Juan Carlos followed his fall to take his secondary weapon.

  Damaris and Althaea took advantage of the same moment as Juan Carlos had to attack their guards. Damaris used the distraction to land a kick in the genitals of the closest man, who screamed and fell, completely incapacitated. As he fell, a shot was heard and Damaris felt a painful impact in her shoulder from the side. She yelled in pain and as she turned to see who was attacking her, she heard a scream of fury and watched as the man who shot her was separated from his head by Sofía’s laser. Althaea was struggling with another man, grabbing at his weapon with both hands and keeping it pointed upwards, while shots were fired off one by one. When the revolver clicked, she stopped struggling, kicked his leg, causing him to fall, and on the way to the floor, she punched him. The last guard was aiming at her when another shot was heard, and the man collapsed with a bullet in his head. Raquel was shakily holding a smoking pistol, that she had taken from the guard who had shot at Damaris, and Sofía had killed. She let out a sob. For a moment, all that could be heard was the groans of the survivors.

  “Papa!” she called and ran to see how Juan Carlos was. At that moment, the first guard who had been pushed down by the sonic weapon shot from the floor directly at Juan Carlos’ head. Fortunately, the energy of his nanites was intact and the bullet bounced off of his head. The impact, however, was like getting hit with a hammer. Knocked backwards, he fell to the floor unconscious.

  They all shouted in fright. Sofía roared in terror and fury: “Noooo!” At the same time, they all fell on their knees, clutching their heads. In a single movement, she aimed at the man and fired both weapons, transforming him into a burned corpse. Her laser turned off, and she dropped it on the ground. Althaea got there at almost the same time as Damaris and checked to see how Juan Carlos was.

  “He’ll be okay,” Althaea said finally, “though he’s likely to have a contusion. We must let him rest to give him time to recover.”

  Althaea moved with speed and precision. She took some plastic fastening strips, used to hold cables, from a drawer and carefully tied the hands behind the backs of the guards who were still alive.

  After tying all of them, she went to a console and spoke through the city communication system, focusing her portable device towards Marsan’s inert body, and Althaea’s words were heard everywhere.

  “Marsan is dead. All the men and guards in the Control Center are, too. To Marsan’s men who are still in the city, if you stop your attack and turn in your weapons right now, your lives will be spared. Those who continue resisting, you’ll be executed in the act. There’s no point in fighting. Turn in your weapons and you’ll be pardoned.”

  Later, when they were moving the bodies to get them out of there, someone got Marsan and yelled when he stirred, protesting. They called Althaea, who immediately took charge of the situation.

  “No one, I repeat, no one, can know about this. Take him to the maximum security area and send him a doctor,” she told those present, while she thought about what to do. Could she keep this a secret? Not only could she, but she had to.

  COUNCIL

  Rho, November 28, 2027. 2:30 p.m.

  All the Atlanteans were in the Control Center main room. Althaea closed the door, and faced Damaris, Halius, Nikaia, Ponteus, Apollo, Niobe, Nogah and Harmonia.

  “I suppose we’re meeting to talk about the girl,” said Halius.

  “My father told me something important a couple of days ago, something I didn’t know before. You know how he liked his secret experiments.” Althaea couldn’t help making a gesture of pain thinking about Tzedek.

  “Don’t tell me that Sofía is another of his experiments, though that would give more meaning to what’s happened recently,” added Ponteus.

  “She’s just a child. A human child,” Damaris said.

  “Sofía is almost a clone of Gea,” Althaea affirmed.

  Several Atlanteans talked at the same time.

  Althaea raised her hands.

  “I won’t give you all the details now, but he made it very clear that this girl is practically Atlantean. Even better, since she won’t have our weaknesses. Whatever caused the Anagnos disease doesn’t affect humans. So she could be carried to term safely and even if the base is human, for all practical purposes, she’s a replica of Gea.”

  “She may be all you want, but she isn’t Gea. Please, she’s only fourteen years old. I don’t think you even remember what it’s like to be fourteen,” exclaimed Damaris.

  “I suspect that Tzedek planned to let her grow and prepare her ahead of time. Unfortunately, the circumstances are very different. He is no more.”

  “You’re still in the line of succession,” Halius informed her.

  “I...I cannot reign.”

  Althaea covered her eyes and started to cry. The others shuffled their feet, embarrassed. She lost control for a minute and then got herself together little by little.

  “I’m sorry...you can see that my emotional control is, on top of everything else, overloaded. My father has just died. The father who every year during the reign of my mother made sure to tell me that I didn’t have what it took to be a queen.”

  “That’s a shame, especially since it isn’t true. I know you, and you’re qualified to do it,” Nikaia supported her.

  Althaea thought for a moment, but then shook her head.

  “No, no I couldn’t. I lack firmness. And determination. What this girl did? I’d have spared Marsan’s life and lived to regret it. And you?”

  The Atlanteans looked at each other without saying anything.

  “She doesn’t even know anything about our culture and doesn’t have the slightest preparation. How many years did Gea prepare for the throne? Hundreds,” Halius pointed out.

  “That’s all easy to fix and you know it. All rulers have a Council. There are only nine of us Atlanteans left. Our species is fi
nished. There are still some thousands of humans, but without guidance, in a short time their species will be as finished as ours. And the world will be open for colonization by whoever wants it.”

  “We can’t let that happen.”

  “Of course not. And we need someone who can take control and make decisions that will be unpleasant sometimes. This girl, as you call her—I don’t know if you noticed that she always takes the initiative. It’s in her temperament. She’s only fourteen. But that will solve itself over time.”

  No one said anything.

  “In favor of preparing and proposing Sofía Navarro as our queen?”

  All but Damaris put their open hands to their chests and lowered them.

  “Against?”

  Damaris put her open hand to her chest, looked around and snorted.

  “Damaris, you felt the mental power of this girl. If she had been an adult Atlantean, I think she would have cooked everyone’s brains. I think Althaea is right,” Halius considered.

  “I felt her in my mind from several miles away. I was just entering the city when I heard her as clearly as if she’d shouted in my ear. If you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Apollo recounted.

  “Besides, it’s our only opportunity to have the slightest chance of controlling her. At some point, she’s going to grow. We cannot allow her to grow and allow her to develop her powers randomly,” reflected Ponteus.

  Damaris crossed her arms.

  “I’ll speak with Sofía,” Althaea affirmed.

  “Will you tell her the truth?” asked Damaris.

  “Yes.”

  “The whole truth?”

  Althaea looked at Damaris.

  “The most important part for her.”

  NEW GOVERNMENT

  Rho, November 28, 2027. 4:30 p.m.

  Sofía was next to Juan Carlos’ bed, holding his hand. Her father still hadn’t regained consciousness, but his vitals were stable. Several hours had passed since the fight at the Control Center and now they were in a room in the city’s hospital. As far as they could tell, there had been no more battles after Althaea’s message.