Awakening The Past

Chapter 1

Stirring wildly in his bed, Alexander could not sleep as nightmares haunted him, and he would wake up in a sweat struggling to breathe. Over the last two hundred years, his search for techniques to calm his mind had given him no peace, and he knew tonight would be the same. He reached his hand over his shoulder to feel where the needle pierced his skin and changed everything as he still had a phantom pain that would pierce through.

Getting up from his bed in a silent acceptance of inevitable insomnia, he looked out over the city of Devon from his penthouse apartment. The orange glow of the sunrise was starting to crest on the horizon.

“The start of a new day gives way to new hope.” He said to himself.

Alexander wondered how his life could have been if immortality had not been forced on him all those years ago, but it was only one way to explain his existence. Being immortal was not a representation of his life. In his youth, his teachers taught him to believe that immortality was heroic, even having him think that one could be almost unbeatable. But the stories of immortality did not include the pain, hunger, or loss of loved ones over time.

Walking around his balcony and studying the city below, he could see that the electrical combines below the surface of the river were operating with enough efficiency that the other buildings in the city still had enough power to give a dim glow from building to building and hold the holographic shield over the lower part of the city. He admired the sunrise view from his balcony because he felt closer to the sky, and it gave him a peaceful setting to practice his training exercises and meditate.

His penthouse was in the northern tower of a twin tower complex located in the city’s heart. Being the tallest building in the town, he was only twenty meters below the edge of the electromagnetic barrier in the sky that Marcus had installed that protected them from the nuclear radiation left behind from the Fall of the mortals.

It is ironic that I would find my way back here even after all that has happened, he thought. This city tends to keep pulling me back.

Over time and to pass the time, Alexander would go from room to room on the city’s outskirts and collect what he believed to be ancient treasures. Books, artwork, and anything from the mortal civilization, he would try to piece together the world of his youth, the world from before the war. His apartment became a monument to the era of mortal civilization.

After years of banishment from the rest of the immortals, Alexander lived out his days in Devon on the fringe of the world, and it gave him a chance to become the man he had always wanted to become true. After so many years of running and pain, he returned to his birthplace, where he again found his home.

Before the war, the scientific community saw an opportunity to create factories and a city with a labor force starving for work, so they began to take over the city. They made underwater labs built under the river. They ran between the towers at the center of the town and branched off into tunnels that would take the workers anywhere in the city. Skyscrapers that twined the two original cities into a metropolis were built, and Devon became one of the most potent mortal cities in history.

Devon quickly became the science headquarters for the mortals, and laboratories were built to develop surveillance devices protection during the war. With the fight taking a toll on energy reserves, they installed the combines to purify the water and create a flow of water that powered the factories they used. Bridges ran between the two towers to travel quickly between them. But when the mortals lost the war, the city was abandoned and fell into decay and ruin over time.

He could hear the elevator doors open, and he knew that Marcus was walking to judge his form.

“You are not concentrating, Alexander, and your movements are sloppy,” Marcus said, walking onto the balcony. “If you remember your breathing and stopped waiting time, you would be ready by now. You do remember how important this is, right?”

“Marcus, can you not see the sunrise? Does it not inspire anything in you? Or have you become numb over the years? I sometimes need to remind myself why I am doing this.”

“My emotions are not what is important right now. I know that your emotions are a major distraction, and your training suffers. If this fails, we will not be able to make the jump.”

“It has been hundreds of years that I have been doing these training sessions with you, and I think I have it ingrained into my muscles. I am trying to remember why life is worth saving.”

“It is not your muscles that you need to train….”

“I know it is my mind.”

“Oh, and you think you will find the answers in the sunrise instead of your training?”

“That is not what I mean. Marcus, look at the beauty that is all around us. It is a part of us. It would be here with or without us, so why should I decide to save our race when this majestic universe does not need us?”

Turning from the window to look over his collection of books and treasures on the shelves that spanned the length of the wall, he could not help thinking that they represented a much simpler time. These books had such creativity and passion for lives that were worth living, and they inspired Alexander to be a better man. They sparked the imagination and could carry the reader to other worlds or convey such knowledge that Alexander hungered to know more. It was the last collection of stories and documents that would ever be assembled in one place under the reign of the immortal Counsel.

Since the final days of the war, Queen Priam and the Counsel would never allow these ideas to flourish. “Ideas and subjects concerned the mortals should not be studied unless for the better of the immortals. For example, why study medicine when all immortals could heal themselves. We will develop the future by a mage.” The text came directly from the private Counsel discussions, and they were always recited when the eternal laws were broken. Alexander could not believe they were still so ignorant of the past after all this time.

The Fall of the Mortals, the war developed out of anger, fear, and jealousy. It was avoidable, but neither side wanted to exist with the other. All the mortals looked past their religious and cultural differences to unite against a common enemy, but the immortals could not be distinguished from a mortal. It could have been anyone. The mortals were in the process of creating a test to differentiate the immortal gene. Still, it was too late, and eventually, as they fell into the decisive battle, they tried to take the future away from the immortals by dropping nuclear. After the destruction of the mortal civilization, the few surviving mortals begged for immortality to avoid the pain of the aftermath of the bombs. But the bitter taste of the war was too high, and the immortals hunted down the last of the sects of the mortals and killed them off.

Since The Fall, Devon was abandoned for a century, and the science facilities were left to accumulate dust or be destroyed by the beasts. If it were not for the electric shield barrier that Marcus installed, the nuclear radiation would have made a living in the city impossible throughout the century. With the radiation finally falling off in the last few decades, the beasts became more prominent and ambitious.

Walking away from the window and running his fingers over his collection of books, he enjoyed the texture and felt of the books as he could feel the bindings, paper, and how the ink felt against his fingertips. The Counsel wanted everything to be electronic and stored in a database in the Capital where they could survey and regulate what was being read. He came to a spot in his collection of books that always made him pause, ‘Unlocking the potential of the Human Genome and the keys to the future of humanity; by Marcus Bainnel.’

“It was just a simple gene that caused so much loss and pain,” Alexander whispered. “I did not even have the choice. Why did you put this in me, Marcus?”

“Well, sir, solely because I do not have those memories anymore, I cannot give you an accurate answer. That was when I was still in my human body and as I am now. However, after studying my work, I could make an estimation. I would say that I believed it would help humanity and not destroy it,” Marcus stated as he walked across the room with the projectors.

When Alexander was only a child, the doctors told him why they needed him to save the world. His blood was the key to immortality. There was a unique DNA sequence that no other human had, and it was his genes alone that the modifications to other human DNA could be modified. Therefore, make them also immortal. But since he was only a child, he struggled to understand what they were talking about.

“The key is in your DNA, Alexander.” The doctors told him. “It is your duty and responsibility to pass this on to the rest of humanity. We will be taking your blood now to start creating the serum. This will change the rest of the planet.”

Alexander believed that immortalizing everyone could not be the right thing to do, and for that reason, he ran away from the doctors and went into hiding.

After years of running, he was eventually caught, but the Counsel no longer needed him or his blood because no mortal sect remained. For his freedom, he traded the carrier specification with the Counsel. They agreed to his terms but banned him to Devon, where he was left to himself. If the Counsel ever knew about Marcus or his other secret, they would not hesitate to erase him and the city from existence.

Since his banishment to Devon, Marcus had always been a loyal friend to Alexander. Alexander’s father, who died before the immortality change occurred, uploaded his conscience of Marcus into a program that would allow Marcus to continue his work. However, Marcus’s entire memory could not be saved, and he became more of Alexander’s personnel assistant and coach rather than the scientist he was in his former life. Alexander believed that even though he did not have his memories, Marcus still resented his position, and when the science industries fell, Marcus was trapped as a holographic image. Alexander did everything he could to help him. He installed a holographic projector all over the city to allow Marcuse mobility and eventually gave him a mobile holographic imager. Alexander also gave Marcus’s access to all programs and data in the immortal database. Because of the databases, Marcus found the hidden safe that stored DNA of the old era. Alexander knew that it was a slim chance that they would find them. Still, he went out to the wastelands, retrieved the containers, and moved them to Devon, where he had Marcus reopen the Devon science facilities to start secretly returning the mortals to life.

“If only the Counsel could understand what we have done and why. But I know that it is impossible now. If they knew our plan, they would hunt us, destroy the city, and kill the mortal population again.

“You speak of destiny, Marcus, but what do you mean? For all we know, I could be following the instructions of a crazy old man that lived over a hundred years ago.” Pulling up the imagers and looking over the thousands of mortals hidden in the underground city, Alexander felt the panic rising and returned to his breathing techniques to concentrate once more. There were too many details to take care of that he could not lose focus now.

“The project is almost complete, sir. The workers are in the factory around the clock to finish, and my calculations suggest that it will be within the next few weeks that it will be complete. However, sir, you know that we need one piece, and you will have to go to her to get it.”

“I know, Marcus, but I am not eager to see her again. It is also not exactly an open invitation.” Alexander said.

“The piece is needed. That is all I am going to say about it.”

“Marcus, what right do I have to do this? It could change everything.”

“Isn’t that the point, sir? Besides, the process has already started, and there is no point in dwelling on the small decisions anymore.” Alexander could see that Marcus was getting frustrated with the argument again, and he watched as Marcus quietly left the room.

“I never believed that we would have to raise so many mortals, Marcus. We have thousands in the city now. Just the food demands and the waste are enough to raise questions from the Counsel. Going beyond the barrier to finding food and water is extremely risky and necessary for this process to continue.” Alexander said.

After the nuclear wars, the land became a desolate wasteland. The lakes and oceans dried up, and the immortals were lucky that some rivers were left. Life became complicated and scarce. The winds could pick up at 200 km/h in less than 5 minutes, causing a wall of dust and debris that could rip flesh from bone. The animals that remained became highly violent and mutated into almost human size. There was speculation that the mortals were the cause of the mutation, but it had not been proven. Species began to mix and breed, and there was a theory that even the mortals became genetically intertwined with other animals. Only the barrier protected the wastelands from the habitable land. If the wall did not cover the city, this experiment would not be possible.

It was too late for him to turn back now. It will be challenging to keep this from Priam if she ever sent an inspection or came to visit him herself because mortal production was an illegal process that could cause another war. Since the war, it had been outlawed, and the established fundamental immortal laws were.

“Priam will never admit that the immortal society has destroyed everything. If I have the power to go back and change things, then I need to take the chance and save what we were and what we could be again.” Alexander said.

Of course, having literature and artwork was also against the law, but it was a reminder to Alexander of the dying age, and it was essential to try to bring them back. If Alexander’s plan were discovered, Priam would not waste any time or resources to find a way to destroy the mortals that he gave a second life and torture them for the rest of eternity.

Since the war, the immortals have shown they are in the last two centuries since the war. They believe they are better than the mortals. However, Alexander could see that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The immediate benefits of being immortal were extraordinary. It was everything they were searching for, long life, even regeneration at a cellular level. If the body were not severely injured, it would automatically regenerate to a peak level for the immortal body. But after so many years of existing, the sense of urgency was all but gone from the spirit. With regeneration, most industries fell into ruin. There was no pressure to get things done with no need to eat, drink, sleep, or even exercise, and no time restraint. The last staple of the mortality to fall was religion. Most immortals believed that religion was no longer necessary because they would never have to meet their end and face their faith.

The immortals that remained split into many different sects. Priam and her Counsel believed that maintaining order and structure was of the utmost importance. But there was the other side of the coin, and the immortals wanted nothing to do with the old era. They tried to move on into a world that could grow and expand.

“It was not what they expected,” Alexander said to himself. “They believed immortality would change everything. This reset needs to happen.” Looking in the mirror, he noticed that his body was still in perfect condition, even though without all the training he pushed his body to endure, it would still be the same.

“Do not forget Alexander; there needs to be two of you to make the trip. If not, there will not be enough life force to make the trip, and everything will burn in chaos.” A voice from his past whispered in his mind.

“Marcus believes there will be a candidate within the mortals, but they will not survive the jump if they are mortal. How can I ask someone to risk so much? Marcus has also sent for my spies to the cities in the last hope that he will find someone worthy.”

Hopefully, I am doing the right thing, Alexander thought and shut down the imagers so that he could continue to do his exercises alone and finish watching the sunrise in peace.