The Devil's Origin Story

"I…." Maribel hesitated, "can't say."

His focused gaze bored into her, "Can't say… or won't say?" He asked.

Suddenly, she regained her composure. She would not be cowed by this… bully of a man. He thought she was weak, that she would crumble. In the same way that her father thought she needed protection and coddling, he expected that he could bend her to his desires. A stray, tangential, definitely unwanted thought crossed her mind, but she brushed it away. She would not bend, she would not be bullied, and she certainly would not enable criminals.

"Both, actually," she replied, staring back at him defiantly. "If I did know, I wouldn't tell you. I know why you want this. Do you think I'm stupid, Mr. Camal de Leon?"

Rafi leaned back in his chair, his intensity vanishing in a second. His beautiful smile returned, a simple tool in his arsenal she knew. "Maribel, I know you are a smart woman. That's what I'm counting on, in fact. I know you think my business is… cruel and heartless. I must confess that sometimes it is… but I am not. I am a person with the same compassion and empathy as anyone else." His smile faded again, this time replaced with a cold, frightening, and somewhat distant animosity. "It pains me to see my people suffer in poverty and hunger. My father, as you can tell from my name and I'm sure from your research, was Mayan from a small village. His village was overrun by government soldiers in the 1980's, before you were born. They killed any man who did not flee, my father included. They beat the children they could catch, myself included. And I won't say how the women were treated… including my mother. They were Guatemalan government soldiers. They were directed by 'advisors' from the United States sent to stop the spread of Marxist ideas, like the Sandanistas in Nicaragua and even next door in El Salvador."

He picked up the glass of Chilean Pisco that had sat untasted, in front of him until now and took a slow sip, then looked at the glass, swirling it and watching as the ice moved in slow, deliberate circles like a tiger walking around and around in its cage. Still watching the ice, his face grew less intensely angry, and a little more melancholy. "The United States feared that the crazy Marxist idea of socialism, the idea that everyone shared equally in a country's wealth, would appeal to the poor, down-trodden villagers of Guatemala as it had in these other places. That they would embrace socialism, and it would gain a foothold right on their doorstep. Instead of showing the benefits of capitalism, and there are many I admit, that decided it was best to be pro-active and crush the peasants before the peasants decided to embrace the evil ways of the Sandanista rebels."

"It wouldn't have mattered in the end. Whether it's capitalism or socialism, democracies or dictators, it's all the same. 'Absolute power corrupts absolutely' as the saying goes. Those in power, those who can gather the country's riches around them like a warm blanket, will never share that blanket willingly. They use the people to weave them even more blankets, keeping them poor, keeping them hungry. The squalor of the poor is part of what makes being rich so appealing, after all. Look at those animals; we are so much better than they are. God must love us so much more because he has given this country's wealth to so few of us." He drank down the rest of the Pisco in one savage gulp and set the glass down on the table.

"Do you blame me, Maribel? Do you blame me for giving the rich Americans the things they ask for? The things they are willing to pay for with money from the lands they stole from the indigenous peoples who lived there before the boats came from Europe? Did you know that the earliest settlers here were also outcasts. Denied freedom in their own countries, they came across the seas to find it. When they got here, the first thing they did was take freedom from others. It is human nature. Do you blame me for human nature, Maribel? Do you blame me for the cruelty of the soldiers who came to our Mayan villages with the Spanish flag five hundred years ago, or those with the Guatemalan flag who did the same thing in 1988 when I was 7 years old?" Rafael pushed his chair back and stood up. His voice was louder now, projecting strength drawn from anger. "I am the one who feeds these people. I give them work. I take care of them. I give them revenge on those who supported the governments that sent the soldiers after their sacred ancestors. Do not blame me, Maria Isabel Flores. Do you know where the gangs started? The first gang members were young men driven from their homes by the soldiers of their own government, men who may have watched their fathers killed, their mothers… brutalized. Men who fled to the safety of the shining streets of gold in the United States as refugees to find themselves shut-off from promise in the land of promises, by the color of their skin, by their accents, by the lack of education and poverty in the land from which they fled. They grasped at whatever they could reach through the bars of their cages. They could reach violence, they could reach intimidation, they could reach the drug-addicts and the drug dealers. Do you blame them, Maria Isabel Flores? What would you have done if you lived in a poor village and the soldiers came for you? What would you have a seven-year-old boy from your village do when he finally stopped running?" He stopped. It was as if he suddenly realized what he was saying, as if he hadn't meant his emotions to get the best of him. He glanced at her. She hoped not long enough to see her eyes welling up with unbidden tears. Then he abruptly turned and stalked toward the door. "This meeting is over. Go back to your comfortable house, Maribel. I will call you and tell you what I want in a few days. Do not try to contact me or any of my people. If you see them near your operation, do nothing. They will not interfere with you or your workers… For now." He did not slam the door as he left the room, but he did not close it gently either. It closed with the sound of finality, the sound of fate closing a door on future paths.

Meanwhile at the Super-Secret Planetary Leadership Headquarters Treehouse Fortress

"Oh my God. He's batshit crazy," Dad said. We were all thinking pretty much the same thing. Well, I was. Who can say what a super-intelligent quantum computing AI was thinking? Whatever Joe was thinking, he remained silent after Dad's exclamation like the rest of us. We had two drones in the room for the meeting at La Ciela, one followed Rafael out of the room and tailed him closely. The other remained above Mom's head alert for any threats and fully armed to deal with them should any materialize. A third was in the hallway outside, a fourth watching the lobby, a fifth larger unit watched the car outside, yet another watched the nearby area from a higher altitude. We had many more elsewhere in the country, watching various key players, monitoring communications and data transfers, and the traffic of vehicles tagged as relevant according to the intelligence we had collected.

We watched as Mom sat there for a full minute after Rafael's departure, seemingly as stunned by his outburst as we were. Like us, she was probably realizing that he would not stop here. He would never quit until he had his answer about the capabilities of our processing machine one way or another. Would he try to steal it? He said he would not bother the Food First operation. Was he lying?

Dad broke the silence first. "Joe warn the guards at the warehouse to be on high alert. He may try to steal the machine and reverse engineer it, whether the software gets deleted or not. Of course, he has no chance. Most of the machine is just for show to hide the fabrication mech inside. Make sure that if there is the slightest bit of trouble, the fabrication mech is whisked away by LITV booth. Every bit of alien tech not in active use, should be stored here in the treehouse. Guards will keep radios and shield rings, nothing else alien for now. Joe, standing orders to blow the power supplies on those if they fall into enemy hands, minimize collateral damage, but under no circumstances allowed them to be brought intact to any enemy facility. Confirm."

"Orders confirmed," Joe replied.

I suddenly had a thought from the physics I had learned. "Joe, will a Faraday cage stop you from reaching the devices to trigger self-destruction?"

"No, we use IDC (Interdimensional Communication) protocol. It does not move through space, at least not as you think of it. Therefore, it cannot be blocked by physical constructions of any kind. There are fields that can block it, including extremely intense gravitational fields such as those in the immediate vicinity of sizable black holes, but there is nothing any Earth-based technology can do to block me from reaching those devices equipped with IDC."

The monitor in the room was still active, and even as Joe finished his reply, we heard Mom's voice. I should say Maribel's voice since that was who she thought she was… Anyway, they had left La Ciela and were in the Prado, pulling out on to the street. As soon as they were clear of the property, Mom… Maribel said, "Luis, call the guards at the warehouse. I want them on high alert until further notice. Tell them there is nothing we know of coming right now, but the possibilities just got much higher. Bullet-proof vests and weapons on them at all times. Doors locked and opened only for entry and exit and immediately relocked, even during operating hours. No one whose face is not known to the guards, based on the personnel photos we have on site, should be permitted entry under any circumstances, even if accompanying a known employee. We need to find some way to reinforce the doors. Damn, even the walls are insecure. Anyone could drive a car right through there. Can we get a contractor to add a cement barrier around the building's perimeter? Something that will stop a pick-up truck at least. If you or Carlos have any other ideas about increasing security in light of what happened here, I need to hear it. Do NOT report this to my father. He'd yank me out of here so fast it'd look like I was teleported by magic."

I thought, wow, Mom's really on the ball. And she didn't know how right she was about being teleported out of there… Except I knew we couldn't. Maybe we could… Would it be so bad, if the whole operation just evaporated?

"She's doing everything right, from her limited perspective," Dad said. "She doesn't know about the alien tech, or the true mission. I guess that's all out the window now, though. We have to pull her back here. I don't see how we can continue the operation… Maybe we can salvage it, we'll have to think about it. People will be at risk though, no matter what we do. Even if we pull out, those involved in Food First will likely get picked up for questioning by Rafi's people. Damn, that went fubar real quick."

I didn't know what fubar meant, but it didn't seem like a good thing. "We'll pull Mom back as soon as she gets back to Sacapulas, "I said. "Joe, signal Luis to find a place for a private call and tell him to get Mom to the LITV booth in the warehouse for evacuation. Have him use the father's instruction code to compel her. As soon as she gets here, snap her out of the Maribel personality."

"Confirm, silent signal sent via his IDC radio. I will inform you when he calls in."

"Good. Dad, I think you and I should work out a variety of contingency plans for either wrapping up the operation immediately or, if possible, for continuation, stressing the safety of personnel. I think if we work independently, we'll come up with a broader range of options. Then we can all meet and discuss it with Mom present as well. Joe, assist each of us, but do not share ideas between us for now. I'm going up to the Lookout Tower to hash out some plans. Let me know, when Mom's about to arrive back here." I walked over to the elevator disk and went up into my favorite retreat above everything, looking out over the countryside. Up here it almost felt like I was looking out over the whole world, though I was only a few dozen feet above the treetops. From here, I felt like the king of all I surveyed. Sometimes, that feeling was better than others.