Spanners - The Fountain of Youth (12 page)

/***/

Balthasar walked the halls of the compound all day, thinking about what Juan had said. Juan was known to speak of grandiose, impossible things, but Balthasar knew that those things usually came true. He had spoken of expanding the compound, and they had moved into a bunker twenty times the size of their previous estate. Juan had spoken of capturing, taming and then sending out the populous to capture other spanners, and they had done just that. Juan had spoken of recruiting human guards to work for them, and now they had an army of loyal servants who would do anything in exchange for the promise of a piece of the Fountain’s power.

But he speaks of eradication, and I’ve not considered that,
thought Balthasar.

Balthasar had done what was asked in the past, but would he be able to do it again, on a much larger scale? Balthasar thought back on all that he had witnessed wh
ile Juan had lain in the ground: the wars, the crime, the vice and the devastation. He had seen more uprisings and counter-uprisings than he had cared to remember, and looking back on his life, his memories simply held an uninterrupted sequence of violent events.
The 1910 civil war of Mexico killed a million people,
thought Balthasar.
Coup and counter-coup in endless succession, one group seized power while the other plotted to take it back.

Balthasar thought back to the time
of the Mexican Revolution and remembered foolishly escaping to Europe, only to find himself trapped in the throes of World War I, watching as men on both sides volunteered to die in the trenches by the millions. The war ended and Balthasar fled back to Mexico, the civil war not yet complete.

The conflict in Mexico never ended,
thought Balthasar.
Each side’s victory was just an assassin’s bullet away from another coup.

Balthasar thought back to a time
fifteen years after World War II when he worked as an engineer for the Van Horn diamond mining company in the Belgian Congo. He had needed an adventure and thought he’d find one in Africa, but found only strife and bloodshed.
When they broke free of Belgium, things took a turn for the worse,
he thought.
They started a civil war and haven’t ended it since. It’s not their fault, of course; humanity’s instinct is to reproduce and consume, and then kill all others so that they can reproduce and consume more. This has been the only story I’ve seen the past five hundred years, from Hispaniola to Mexico, from Europe to Africa.

Balthasar thought of what Juan had said, of thinking of eradication as a solution to humanity’s ills. It seemed counterintuitive and cruel, but what had history been, if not that? Wars never ended with a truce, because truces only set the stage for the next coup. When wars did end, they ended only with the
eradication
of which Juan spoke. When one side was completely eliminated, the peace would last; if both sides remained, the peace would only last until the losers found time to organize themselves.

There will be no more civil wars if the world population declines to ten thousand,
thought Balthasar.
There will be no more coups, no more assassinations and no more violence if the world’s population decreases and Juan controls those who remain
.
He’ll be like a strict father keeping his house in order. Eradication is a part of this, and if the time comes to push the button to start the process, I have no option but to press it.

Balthasar was also mystified by Juan’s mention of a final battle, though. He had seen his share of fights over the years
, of course; in fact, it was rare that he’d live a year without seeing one. But he’d never led a battle, let alone a “great battle to decide the fate of humanity.” Arawak legend or not, Juan had brought it up, and what Juan mentioned would always have to be taken seriously. If he mentioned a battle, Balthasar would have to prepare for it.

But who would fight for us?
thought Balthasar.
Will the populous be our army? And who would we be fighting against?

“Sir,” interrupted one of the human guards, meeting him as he walked. “Circumstances require your attention.”

“Speak.”

“Two spanners have volunteered themselves for commitment,” said the guard.

That’s odd,
thought Balthasar.
In all my years I’ve never had a spanner voluntarily
surrender
himself to this place, let alone two.

Balthasar nodded at the guard
, and they walked towards the interrogation room to question the prospective detainees.
Juan’s course is the right course,
thought Balthasar.
I’m prepared to do ignoble things and I’m prepared to bring eradication because that’s what it will take to bring the world to its next state of being. If a final battle comes, I’ll be prepared for that too. I’ll do what needs to be done, no matter the cost.

/***/

The two spanners were an odd pair. The first was a trog-class spanner that was built like a wrecking ball. Balthasar knew that he was strong enough to break everything in the room even though he sat calm and dull-eyed next to his blond friend. The blond boy was a shivering kid with greasy hair and a dirty face, and would have passed for a simple bed-hopping runaway were it not for the fact that his eyes glowed occasionally.

“Names?” asked Balthasar.

The trog grunted and then looked at the blond boy.

“His name is
Gurk,
” said the shivering kid. “My name’s Trevor.”

“Class?” asked Balthasar.

“He’s the caveman-class spanner, I think,” said the boy. “I don’t know what I am. All I know is that I want to be with my own kind.”

“Why would you turn yourself in?” asked Balthasar.

“I don’t want to be kicked out again,” said the boy, “and I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore.”

“Very well,” said Balthasar to the guards. “Take them to be processed, registered and analyzed. Keep an eye on both and put double security on the big one.”

A trog’s strength is almost that of Cannon’s
, thought Balthasar
. If he gets angry, bad things could happen.

/***/

Late that evening, a female guard knocked on Balthasar’s quarters.

“The t
rog’s currently throwing a fit,” said the guard. “Please tell us what to do.”

Balthasar dressed
quickly, putting a tie on over a buttoned silk shirt, and followed the guard to the security room. The female guard pointed to the seventh monitor, and Balthasar saw that the trog was in the process of destroying the dormitory and had turned over the desks around him and made them into a makeshift fort. Three guards had surrounded him but were too afraid to approach.

“Tell them to fire their tranquilizers,” said Balthasar.

“I already have, sir,” said the female guard. “No effect.”

His biology has changed such that tranquilizers
are useless
, thought Balthasar.

“Can we kill him?” asked Balthasar. “Jus
t shoot him and be done with it?”

“I wouldn’t
, sir,” said the guard. “The bullets might slow him down, but he could get angry and kill our guards in retaliation.”

“Then suggestions?”

“I suggest we evacuate the guards from the dormitory and lock down the heavy doors around him. He’ll be contained and we can figure out what to do from there.”

“Make it happen,” said Balthasar. “But tell me, where is his companion, the blond youth?”

“There, sir,” said the guard.

The blond kid was sitting in a corner
, observing the whole situation with blank, glowing eyes.

“Lock him in too,” said Balthasar. “Get our men out, and we’ll proceed from there.”

/***/

Outside the compound, in the RV, one of the Treys was driving and the other nodded and looked at Adam.

“We’re in,” said Trey. “She evacuated the room; that’s our signal.”

“Good,” said Adam. “Cattaga’s made it
inside, but she’ll only be able to disable the alarms on the outer doors; we’ll have to do the rest.”

“I’ll handle it,” said Mayfly.

“Our goal is to get the Fountain,” said Adam. “Everything else is secondary.”

Mayfly nodded without making eye contact.

/***/

Mayfly and Adam exited the RV and ran into a chain link fence. There was barbed wire on top and Adam was about to climb it, but Mayfly stopped him and then scampered up the fence himself, popping over the blades without a scratch. He stopped, took out some wire cutters from his pocket and snipped the top until Adam had a clear path. Adam then climbed the fence, taking twice the time Mayfly had taken
.

Mayfly had studied the blueprints of the compound well and soon found a heavily chained door. He took out his lock pick from his pocket, and within moments all the chains fell to the floor. Mayfly opened the door to reveal a guard in the halls coming right at them. They hid around the corner, but it was no use; they had been spotted. Adam gave Mayfly a look to tell him to grab the guard and do what needed to be done, and Mayfly nodded. The guard came out and Mayfly pushed her into a prostrate position and prepared to knock her out.

“Wait!” said the guard. “It’s me!”

Mayfly instinctively let her go and then smiled.

“Sorry,” he said.

“It’s me,” said the guard to Adam, right as her eyes started to glow. “Cattaga.”

/***/

They walked down the halls with Cattaga in
the disguise of another woman. She had changed her DNA until her bone structure, skin and hair were different; for all intents and purposes, Cattaga was the guard she was pretending to be.

“The control room is up ahead,” said Cattaga. “If anyone stops us, I’m escorting you.”

Adam and Mayfly followed her into the security guard’s room and when they arrived it was empty, save for the woman Cattaga had impersonated, who was now bound, gagged and tranquilized underneath the desk.

“Here we are,” said Cattaga. “All the guards are busy trying to deal with Brogg, so the rest is up to you two now. We need to open the Fountain’s door and then give a clear path to the exit.”

Adam looked over the control board and the video monitors, and was immediately lost. He looked at Mayfly for help, but Mayfly was already moving forward with dismantling the advanced parts of the compound’s security systems. Mayfly typed for five minutes uninterrupted, and then brought up a few interfaces that Adam couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

“Their computer architecture is old,” said Mayfly. “It’ll take time, but I’ll be able to get in.”

Mayfly typed at the computer for a few more minutes, and the words and symbols went by the screen so fast that Adam got a headache. Adam noticed that Cattaga’s eyes began to glow a bit, and she nodded; she understood everything that Mayfly typed and even gave him a bit of advice at points.

After five more minutes, Mayfly smiled.

“It’s open,” said Mayfly. “We’ll get the Fountain, and then free the rest of the spanners here.”

“I’ll get the Fountain myself,” said Adam. “She’s dangerous.”

“The cold dampens her powers,” said Mayfly. “They’ve even given her a cold suit so she can walk outside. I’ll be fine.”

“Any amount of her power that leaks out could kill you,” said Adam.

“You’re taking me for two reasons,” said Mayfly. “The first is that the Fountain might not want to go, and I can be very persuasive.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Adam. “You can’t just—”

“The second reason is that you can’t speak her language,” said Mayfly, “and I became fluent in Arawak this morning.”

/***/

Adam and Mayfly opened the heavy door to the Fountain’s room, and frozen air spewed out from its edges. They closed the door behind them but didn’t shut it; Adam wanted to conserve the cold but was afraid of getting locked in. Her room was like a walk-in freezer, and she was placed in a metal container built into the wall. The structure looked like the place that coroners stored cadavers, and it had multiple locks on it. Mayfly analyzed the locks and then opened two, and then had Adam put his hand on a sensor to open the third. They pulled the slab open and the Fountain came out with a puff of frozen air, still sleeping.

She was a strikingly beautiful girl with Indian features, but she had the platinum hair and the porcelain skin of an albino. Her eyes glowed red underneath her closed eyelids and her whole body was perfectly white, the color of milk. She was bound to her slab with chains and had a tourniquet in her mouth, but Adam pulled Mayfly back nonetheless.

“Think of her as radioactive,” said Adam. “She may not mean you any harm, but—”

The Fountain awoke and started to panic
; she struggled against her chains and screamed. Adam put his hands to his lips to quiet her, and she became quiet. Mayfly kept his distance, but spoke to her in Arawak until she started to nod in agreement.

Adam took the gag from her mouth. She spoke softly to Mayfly.