Chapter 3 #3
“The wild men who live isolated from everyone else. Please. You are the only creature on the planet that stopped evolving.”
A laugh flew from the Monster’s mouth, although it could have been a grunt.
“And is it too much to ask for the real reason of your visit, or do we have to pretend like this is a social call?” His deep voice washed over me, like hearing a song I had long forgotten but used to love.
I shook my head. What a way to think about a Monster who wanted to eat me.
“When’s the last time we saw one another? Fifty years?” The stranger took his whiskey to one of the chairs and sat down, enjoying a lingering sniff before tasting.
“Forty-nine years and ten months. The last time you made the long trek up my mountain.” He sipped his mead, the large pewter goblet looking tiny so close to his large head. The Monster nodded toward the stranger. “I hope it’s to your liking.” Both creatures laughed.
“I figured sending you a bottle would be preferable to a telegram.”
“I'm not debating that.”
“So, Camazotz, it is past time for you to return to the land of the living. You have moped up here by yourself long enough.”
“And you’re here to tempt me? After what happened the last time?” Camazotz—now that he had a name, I couldn’t call him The Monster any longer—held his goblet and watched the stranger like a lion watches an antelope.
“No, I am here to convince you.”
“Well, Chaac, you and I know how unlikely that is. But give it your best.”
“Good. You’re curious. If you had been paying any attention, you’d know AI is about to change everything. From here on out, it’s make or break.”
“I hope you’re kidding. You think to interest me with such things?” His initial look of surprise turned into disgust.
“The only thing that matters is power. Control the supply and maintain power. Gold, pewter, gemstones, water, oil, stock futures. Throughout the millennia, change has happened slowly. Until recently. The last fifty years have seen leaps in innovation, the last twenty even more. You’ve been asleep while the humans have practically evened the playing field.
We need to get ahead of them somehow, or at least be involved in everything.
Especially AI. Control the information and control the world. ”
“Go, then. Be the king of the ants. I won’t stop you.”
Chaac put his head back and laughed. “You never change. At least you’re predictable.”
Camazotz took a long look at his companion. “How can you stand it? Dealing with the worst of them.”
We both studied Chaac as he drank his whiskey, seemingly unperturbed.
He was one of those men who aged well, if he even aged at all, since this sounded like a meeting they held every fifty years.
Chaac stood and held out his glass. “Fine, if it means we will make some progress, take this for a moment.” Camazotz took the glass with a smirk.
And with a shake, Chaac’s body shimmered for a moment in the firelight before transforming.
He grew about a foot in height and half a foot in mass.
Clothing melded into some kind of wrapped outfit worn by the ancients.
Horns formed on the top of his head, along with two large, leathery wings.
His horns curled backwards, more like a ram’s. His skin was a lighter shade of gray.
This sudden transformation didn’t faze me.
Why? I wasn’t sure. But I did compare the two creatures as they stood in front of the fireplace like two ancient gods.
Camazotz, my original Monster, was larger than his guest. Probably listening to my loud thoughts, he shifted his stance, giving me the full view of his face and wide chest, golden from the light of the flames.
He was completely alien and yet strikingly beautiful, like a mako shark.
I had been struck by the strange beauty of those creatures one night, watching a program showing how deadly and efficiently they ruled their watery world.
They weren’t evil. Just especially good killing machines.
“You shouldn’t write off the human race so easily, you know,” said Chaac, interrupting my musing. “They can do a lot for you.”
“They are selfish, stupid, and cruel, only interested in their measly lives. As if their minutiae mattered, denying till their last breaths that they won’t turn to ash soon enough.
Everywhere you look, they are destructive and wasteful.
I remember when they built beautiful things, buildings, paintings, sculptures, and tapestries, treasured their belongings, but now they’re only obsessed with humiliating themselves in front of as many people as possible and polluting the world with their small, mean ideas.
The landfills are brimming with trash. The mountains are being leveled for their greed, and the oceans are being emptied of life, all for some whim, some trend, some passing appetite.
They disgust me. I want nothing to do with them. ”
His anger grew the more he spoke, and by the end, he was seething with it. When he finished his rant, he looked right at me.
I fled from the room and the ruin.