Steve Alten - The Mayan Resurrection

‘We can medicate him. There’s so many new prescription drugs that-’

‘Nothing strong enough to handle this. Mrs. Gabriel, Jacob needs to be placed in a controlled environment where we can properly monitor his condition while protecting him from himself.’

‘Just call it what it really is, Doctor. You want to imprison him in one of your fancy labs.’

2:17 a.m.

Small waves lap at the beach beneath a cloud-covered night sky.

Fourteen-year-old Jacob Gabriel settles himself into a lotus position and closes his eyes, focusing inward.

Jaaaaacob. The female’s voice seduces him from beyond the mist.

Cut it out, Lilith, I can’t speak with you now.

You never seem to have time for me lately, she pouts.

Hey, you’re the one with all the friends.

Jealous?

No.

Liar. I have loads of friends and you only have your stupid brother, and he can’t stand you.

Whatever.

By the way, Brandy says she wants to come with me when I meet you. She’s already checked into bus tickets.

Lilith, I told you, my mother won’t allow you into the compound. If she even suspected I was talking to someone with Hunahpu blood, she’d never give me another moment alone.

Well, we can’t allow that. You’d never be able to play with yourself.

Shut up.

Do you think of me when you masturbate?

God, Lilith… I think you’ve been hanging out with Brandy too long.

Does your mommy expect you to be celibate all your life?

I told you before, it’s the whole Abomination thing. It makes her paranoid.

Jacob, we weren’t created in a lab. There must be a thousand other people out there with Hunahpu blood. Maybe ten thousand. As for this crazy Abomination thing, I was born a full eight months after you and your brother. Want me to e-mail you my birth certificate again?

No.

Then sneak out of the compound and meet me at a hotel.

I can’t. Lilith, I want to be with you, but things are crazy around here right now.

How can we ever get married if we can’t even arrange a simple date?

What makes you so sure I want to marry you?

Because we’re soul mates and you love me… and you like girls with long hair and big breasts. Want me to e-mail you another picture?

No, I mean, uh yeah, sure. I like that last one. Just make sure that crazy old bastard doesn’t catch you in the bathroom with the digital.

If I don’t meet you soon, maybe I’ll just have to let Quenton have his way with me.

Shut up and go to sleep.

Bye lover. Say hi to daddy for me.

Bye.

Jacob waits until her presence disappears before refocusing his mind.

Father? Father, please answer, it’s been so long since our last communication. Father, please, there are things I need to know I’m here, Jacob. I’m here.

Finally! Where have you been? I’ve tried for so long to reach you.

The movement of space-time affects our ability to communicate. I missed you, son.

Me too. There’s so much I want to tell you. Is it safe to talk?

Yes. I can feel newfound strength in your communication, making it harder for the Abomination to track our thoughts. How old are you now?

Fourteen.

Fourteen. My God. How is your mother?

Not good. The passage of time is causing her to lose faith. She’s doubting her existence as First Mother.

The journey’s hard on her. You haven’t told her about me?

No. She couldn’t deal with it.

And your brother?

Manny still shows no signs of becoming Hunahpu.

You need to be strong for the two of them.

Father, I want to talk more about humanity’s fate. I need you to teach me more about my journey to come.

Imagine time as multilayered highways of energy. As third-dimensional beings, we can only move forward along our own particular level at sublight speed, which we equate to the present. By increasing our speed beyond that of light, we can sling ourselves farther up the highway in relation to our sub light-speed friends, but we cannot move backward in time unless we access an off-ramp that takes us back down the highway from which we began. Wormholes are such highways-gravitational conduits, powered by the massive black hole located at the center of our galaxy. Wormholes provide us the means of looping backward or forward along the space-time continuum.

Sometime in your near future, humanity will find itself following a section of highway that splits our species. The survivors will be taken down a wormhole off-ramp that loops sublight time. The rest of humanity will blindly follow a stretch of road that leads to a dead-end… the end of our species.

The Popol Vuh ’s Creation Myth tells of the Hero Twins’ presence in Xibalba, an event that already happened.

Correct.

Father, if it already happened, then why are we reliving it?

The Popol Vuh tells of what we hope will come to pass, but the myth is not accurate. The truth is, you and your brother failed in your first attempt.

We failed?

Yes. Fortunately, humanity was granted a second chance when the Guardian took the Balam back through the wormhole and ended up at Earth, 65 million years in the past.

And what’s to prevent us from failing again? Manny’s not even Hunahpu. I don’t see how we can win over this Abomination.

You’ll win this time because I’m going to help you. I can be your eyes, advising you which road to take. I can prepare you in much the same way the Guardian tried to prepare me.

Then do it, teach me! Tell me what happened to you after you entered the serpent’s mouth and disappeared.

I didn’t disappear, Jacob. I entered the Guardian’s pod and moved beyond light speed. As the stars passed by like taser fire, I realized the reality of my decision. What seemed like seconds to me would be decades to everyone on Earth. You, your brother, your mother-everyone of my era would be long dead by the time I arrived on Xibalba, wherever that hellish world might lie.

I panicked. I screamed. I ordered the Guardian to return me to Earth.

But it was too late. The highway I was traveling on could only move forward-and it was a dark road that led to the origin of man’s evil.

The Guardian promised they would never abandon me. Those were the last words I remembered hearing before I lost consciousness.

When I awoke, I was shocked to find myself aboard an Earth shuttle, bound for Mars.

I don’t understand? Were you remote-viewing the scene, still unconscious aboard the Guardian’s transport pod, or was it real?

The event was real, only I was living it as someone else, someone from my past but your future. Let me tell my tale, and you’ll understand.

What clued me in to the time period was the space vehicle itself. It was not a shuttle like those NASA had designed and flown during my teen years. This vessel was infinitely larger, with private berths to accommodate fifty-two passengers and a year’s worth of supplies. Nor were we alone on our voyage. There were eleven other shuttles accompanying us, twelve in all, like the twelve tribes of Israel-all crossing the great desert of space on our journey to the Promised Land

… Mars.

You were on a scientific expedition?

No, I’d say it was more like a pilgrimage. The great holocaust I told you of had just overwhelmed humanity. Billions had perished, and billions more were destined to die. Something horrible had happened back on Earth… a cataclysm that caught the general population by complete surprise. But the upper echelons of the government knew, and that’s why we were aboard those space shuttles.

They kept it a secret?

A secret shared only by a privileged few. Years from your present time, clues about the coming cataclysm will be discovered. It will be kept from the public. Only those in power will know, and they will create a secret coven-in essence, an Earth evacuation plan, concealed behind an aggressive program to colonize Mars. Humanity, at least a certain privileged segment of it, would go on. Thousands had already arrived on the Red Planet. Our twelve shuttles would be the last to join our fellow survivors.