The Last Enemy - Work In Progress
'The last Enemy that thall be Destroyed is Death' 1 Corinthians 15:26
Olmec temple dig site, Argentina. November 30th, 2012
Professor of Archaeology, Miguiel Sormando, stood at the door to the temple, working late into the night. He looked at the beautifully intracate markings on the doors of the roughly 3,500 year old temple, shedding a tear at what he was about to do. He raised the sledgehammer in his hands, and brought it down with all the force he could muster on the wooden doors, locked from the inside. He heard a crack, and then heard the heavy wooden bar that held the doors closed fall to the floor. He pushed on the door with all his might, and the door began to move inward ever so slowly, and was greeted with a great rush of air, passing him into the roome he was about to enter.
Sormando gave the door a final push, and slipped into the room, turning on the generator mounted floodlight he had tugged along. His jaw dropped. No longer were there intracate markings of religious dieties, but smoothe polished wood. Rows and rows of benches sat aligned with tabled filled with scientific instruments that were obviously just as old as this room. Miguiel shook his head, This wasn't possible. Here he was, standing in a temple older than most Civilization, and yet he was surrounded by technical instruments of all kinds. However, in all his amazement, there was one table that caught his eye. He walked over to the blood stained table, and looked at the two objects on it, a stark contrast from the rest of the room, the tables cluttered with apparatus' of all shapes and sizes. He reached out and touched the closer of the two, a book with a leather cover, the image of a serpent eating it's own tail, the Ouroboros, tooled into the cover. As he finished looking over the book, afraid to open it in this open environment, he reached out and grabbed the box. As he touched the vessel, he felt the surprising feel of metal, and as he brought the box closer, he saw the box was mirror-like Iridium. He moved the tightly sealed Iridium container in his hands. How could they have machined this?
Miguiel exited the temple through the doors in which he entered, dragging the Floodlight out, along with the book and Iridium box. He used all of his stamina to shove the gargantuan door closed, and carried the Ouroboros laden book, and the Iridium box back to camp, away from the dig site.
Federal Archeological lab, Buenos Aires, Argentina. December 19th 2012
Miguiel Sormando hastily shoved his last notes in between the pages of the Olmec book, and placed the vial on top of the book, before closing the safety vault. God, How could this have happened? No, God had nothing to do with this, this was his fault. Miguiel let out a rasping cough, before he picked up his briefcase, and bolted out the doors of the Lab, and into the chaos. Dead lay in piles, as military in gas gear and riot uniforms holding back panicking civilians. In less than 48 hours since the accident with the Elixir, Buenos Aires had gone from a Mega-city of technological marvels, to something reminiscent of the Dark ages. Sormando waited for a moment as a EOD tech went about setting a thermonuclear landmine in the entrance of the building, and then he ran off down the street. He saw the Sikorsky up ahead, and he increased his pace to a full sprint, and dived into the helicopter, as a gang of angry civilians, their faces bloody and swollen from the infection, tried to climb aboard the Sikorsky, tugging at the legs of those lucky enough to get a ride out, attempting to throw the passengers out of the Aircraft to ensure their own survival. Two special operations soldiers hurriedly stomped on hands and paws, and kicked the unwanted passengers to whatever fate awaited them on the ground. The lucky ones died when they hit.
Around five miles out of Buenos Aires, Miguiel saw the first flash, then another and another. As the flashes kept streaming up out of the ground, he understood what was happening. Nukes. Obviously, the UN had decided that, in the best intrests of the world's population, the Elixir needed to be destroyed b any means. As the others in the cabin panicked, Sormando layed back in his seat, and relaxed, exen as the first shockwave hit the helicopter, throwing people out of the side doors like ragdolls, before the heat wave struck. Mercifully, Miguiel felt nothing as he was incinerated by the 40,000 degree heat, vaporizing soft tissue, and a few seconds later, distintegrating his skeleton as the helicopter turned to molten steel slag.
Buenos Aires outskirts, Argentina. August 7th 2042
The two figures moved silently through the rubble, the Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk helicopter that had let them off into the city now long gone. They both wore bleach white suits, designed to keep out the synthetic plague that had originated here, as well as protect them from any lingering radiation. As they picked their way through the maze of burnt out cars, and carbonized skeletons, they lingered for a moment around a helicopter not dissimilar from their own, a Blackhawk, the land faring model of the SH-60. Had they looked closer, they would have seen the charred remnants of a briefcase, the label marked Mig__el _orman_o.