CHAPTER 29: Wish to Know

Tangente and Antigua ambled down to a small solid stone door with the large stone brick walls surrounding it. Tangente pulled out a seemingly normal brick loosely to reveal a mechanism Antigua had never seen before by its side on the brick wall. The panel was all black, with many buttons, each containing its own number.

"What does this do?" Antigua said with unsubtle fascination.

"It unlocks the door." Tangente said with a smile. Showing new recruits his fancy and flashy technology never got old, no matter how many generations went by.

"And how do the numbers shine with light? Magic?"

"Pretty damn close. The same stuff that you see as lightning is what makes these buttons glow. This power doesn't last forever, though. We must keep supplying it with energy. Do you ever wonder about those flat blue panels we set across the landscapes? Those harvest the power of the sun and send it here through thin and long strings called wires. And those three-armed poles you see dotting the plains regions? Those use wind's push to generate more power. But those two sources of 'electricity', the common name for this controlled lightning, are not enough to meet our demand for it. That is why we are building a new source of energy that I haven't seen in a good millennium. There is a power, Antigua, laying dormant in every speck of everything you see around you. This immense power, stronger than you or I, has the destructive capability to wipe out nations within the time it takes for you to say your goodbyes."

Antigua paused, unsure how to feel about it. He would've thought to be scared, but he had never seen this power in action.

"What power are you talking about, Tangente?"

"The power of the atom."

"And what does this destructive power look like? I cannot imagine how it does the horrible things you describe."

"You really want to know? Ok, I guess I'll tell you. It all starts with a great ball of metal. Inside this ball, there are a few materials of extreme dormant energy that are contained and set up systematically. This ball, flown in by special winged machines, plummets to the earth above its target with a delayed fall solely for the purpose of not killing its senders. The ball activates mid-air, the first sight of havoc being a harsh white light that radiates for all unfortunate on-lookers to see. To them, a new sun sprouts from the center of their city and blinds and ravages all in immediate proximity and even further beyond. But this light is only the beginning. From this second sun blooms an infernal tree of bright, breathing flames, that seems to grow ever-so-steadily as you watch it in the vast distance. However, this inferno's carnage is moving at a breakneck pace, dashing faster than the words traveling from my mouth to your ears. As this tree of hot and colorful air grows and climbs its way up the sky, multiple circular rings of clouds appear a distance around its immense structure. When it is finished growing, the tree of suspended ash alone dwarfs even the tallest of mountains. You see as the shockwave of violent wind and debris chases towards you from the ground if you're far enough to not be fireballed or blown away immediately. If you had survived, you would look around, only to see even the sturdiest of buildings scorched and turned to rubble. As you look towards the center of its eventual aftermath, there is only a flat black desert of earth for almost as far as the eye can see. Whether they be made of wood or clay, cement or stone, brick or steel, even the largest and tallest buildings are trampled and sucked dry of life and identity, laying only as mere loose gravel on the ground. The survivors cry or lie there in simple shock, unknowing that, though they escaped the fire and gale's wrath, the worse was still yet to come. An invisible assassin lurks in the air and now within the darkness of their bodies, cutting through the very blueprints of life inside every part of their being. Blood Vomit. Dizziness. Headaches. Rashes. It seems like a disease, but it is hiding its true colors. Most of the men, women, and children inflicted by this 'curse' are already marked for death. And death will come, but only at the morbid suffering of its host."

"Are you planning on reviving such a terrible weapon?"

"No. Just as there is a potential for darkness within an innovation, there is also the potential for benevolence. What one man uses to level nations, another man can use to sustain them. That power can safely be channeled for its bountiful energy. The society that I hail from spent countless centuries refining and perfecting such a technology. Now comes the real challenge. How do I replicate it? Ties with my motherland have since been cut, leaving me, an economist, without High Society's technology and without much knowledge on how to create most of the necessary tools to birth a true society in this world of primitives. However, there is one last hope. My wife, who is a genius in her own right. She was born an engineer. Though her main field of work was not in nuclear or biological engineering, we together have paved the way towards a new world. One in which we rule as we make our way to contacting our home deep in the void that you call a sky. Then, perhaps, I can ask them to take a few close friends along with me and my wife. Who knows, you may become one of them."

Antigua again hesitated.

"This… this is my land… this place is my heart. I joined to protect it and to keep a check on your rule. Though I don't mind the idea, we are not friends as of now. However, I see a spark in which our friendship could grow. I still have much to learn about you and the truth behind this world that we explain through gods and goddesses. What are you? What is 'the atom'? What is 'steel'? What is the true nature of 'electricity' and lightning? I wish to know. I want to learn."

"And learn you will. There is no rush, I have much to do and we have an eternity to spend. I am growing this nation through trade and unification. It will not be long before I can start introducing a new way to use currency and invest resources and manpower toward the next stage of technology. We're gonna have banks, baby!"

"What was that last part?!" Antigua said half-jokingly, Tangente saying the last sentence in an unknown language instead of the standard Spanish that he had set up in the schools he had created for the Toltec people many generations ago.

"Nothing..." Tangente laughed it off.

The solid stone door slid to the right, revealing metal rails and an area much more high-tech than the rest of the temple. The hallway had steel beams running across them in the typical triangular pattern. A single shiny metal elevator laid at its end.

"Oh, and, by the way..." Tangente scoffed, a proud anticipation swelling inside him as his fanged smile widened and his gold and silver eyes glistened by the light of the artificial lamps engraved in the ceiling of the hallway.

"The smallest part of this city is the stuff that lies on top..."