--E N G I N E E R E D--

A woman wakes after a horrific accident to find that her whole world has changed.

 

“Open your eyes.”

Maria tried to open her eyes. The lids were heavy and glued together with sleep. Her throat was raw and her teeth furred with plaque. She sensed pressure on her left forearm, a grip. Her body rocked slightly, her head lolling on the softness of the pillow.

Her vision was blurred and her eyes watered. Her arm moved again, her shoulder clunking awkwardly in its joint. There was a noise this time hushed, insistent and urgent in her ear.

“Open your eyes.”

Maria worked her jaw, it ached. She raised a hand to her face it felt alien to her. A grating sound rose in her gullet as she attempted to form words.

“Shhh…” She felt the pressure of a hand over her mouth and her heart began to thud. “Don’t be scared, I’m here to help you. Now you need to keep quiet and do exactly what I say, do you understand?” The voice was thickly accented.

She nodded, the agony of cramp lancing upwards into her skull as she did so.

“Just bear with me child, this will be a little uncomfortable.”

Maria felt a sickly pulling sensation as the man slowly dragged the naso-gastric tube from her nostril. She felt the slim plastic tube sliding up her gullet from her stomach and she retched. “Okay, okay that’s good. I’m just going to remove this drip and then that’s it, okay?”

The man quickly disconnected the drip and tugged the cannula from her forearm, the skin tingled.

“Good, now can you move? We have to get out of here as soon as we can.”

With assistance, Maria managed to shuffle forward into a sitting position and swung her feet over the edge of the bed. Her back and limbs were stiff and weak and she shook with the effort. The man wrapped a thick coat about her shoulders and tied the belt off in the middle. The coarse material rubbed against her exposed flesh and made her skin sting. The floor was cold and hard, stone. Sharp arthritic pain exploded in the balls of her feet and she had to lean heavily on the man to stand.

“Don’t expect to move too easily,” the man whispered pulling her arm across his shoulders and taking her weight. “You haven’t used your muscles in a long time.”

 

 

Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano, Rome.

Michael snatched the phone from its cradle on the second ring. The caller’s voice was distant and the line crackled.

“We’ve found her.”

Michael closed his eyes. “Where is she?”

“She was found in a monastery in Guatemala, a little place just outside San Marcos. I have a man down there now.”

“Guatemala? How did they get to her?”

“We’re not sure what happened, all I know is I have two men dead. She disappeared from our Institute two weeks ago. It’s a miracle we found her at all...”

“Have they operated?”

There was a slight pause.

“Have they operated?”

“We have no proof yet... but I would suspect so... yes...”

“I’m coming to you.”

“Your Eminence, I cannot guarantee your safe-”

“She is my sister. I’m coming to you.”

“As you wish your Eminence,” the caller replied guardedly. “I will see you tomorrow.”

 

 “How are you feeling?” The man said staring at her in the rear view mirror.

Maria pressed her cheek against the window, feeling its cool sleekness against her skin. She stared out as the darkened landscape shifted and blurred in front of her eyes. Her ragged breathing fogged the window and she raised trembling fingers to smear it away.

“My name is Luis,” he said by way of introduction. “Father Luis Morales Cantú.”

“You’re… a… Priest?” He throat was still parched and her voice hoarse.

“Among… other things… yes,” he replied.

“What… happened?”

“You were involved in an accident... you have been in a coma,” he said leaning back in his seat to pass her a canteen of water. She grasped it with both hands unscrewed the cap and pressed it to her lips.

“Not so quickly, you’ll be sick. Your stomach hasn’t accepted food or water for some time, it will have shrunk some.”

She coughed and wiped her mouth feeling the water soak her chin and run down her throat.

“A coma? For how long?”

“You have been in a coma for a little under a year.”

“A year? My God...I remember nothing.”

Luis rubbed his unshaven jaw. “We found you in a facility in Mexico and brought you here... 

“Mexico? Where am I?”

Luis said nothing for a moment, his dark eyes darting from the road ahead to the rear view mirror. Headlights flickered briefly into view, glimmering through the trees as the road twisted.

“A place called San Marcos in Guatemala,” he said quietly. “But now we have to move again.”

“Why am I here?”

“Please. No more questions now. Rest. You’re safe.”

He pressed his foot down onto the accelerator and the car lurched forwards.

 

 

Maria’s dreams were fraught. Images peppered the frightening blackness, faces she recognised and some she did not, alien sounds and sensations plagued her. Her mind reeled.

            A vague and fuzzy dream of Mexico, of Cancun, of a hotel, stark white against the azure of the sky, the warmth of sunshine and laughter and the powdery softness of sand… perhaps not a dream at all. A memory.

A bus. Candy yellow and rust spotted. The rough road rushing past through splits in the floor. A family, a young girl with dark flashing eyes and her father, moustachioed and swarthy, clutching a chicken by its feet… its ink spot eye, unblinking and concentrated.

Then everything jolted and spiralled out of order. Screams. Blood. Smoke. Fire. Pain.

 

The car pitched again and Maria cried out, grabbing for a handhold.

“It’s okay,” Luis grunted, turning the wheel. “But you might want to hold on. It seems we have been followed.”

He reached across as the car bounced and tore down the uneven road and flipped the latch to the glove compartment. His fingers fumbled momentarily with an item inside and then he withdrew it, cocked it and placed it in his lap.

 

 

Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco, Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico.

“What do you mean she’s gone?” Montero said. His knuckles whitened as he gripped the phone. “There is no way she could have-”

He chewed the inside of his cheek and felt a rivulet of sweat roll down his back as he listened to the voice on the other end of the phone. “That b*****d Cantú. Listen to me Rodolfo, her brother will be here inside of six hours. Get her back... at all costs. This means everything, absolutely everything, do you understand? Get everyone on it!”

Montero slammed the phone down and massaged the bridge of his nose. He closed his eyes, his chest ached abominably and his left arm tingled. Moments later, the phone began to vibrate, skittering gently across the wooden desk. He stopped it with one finger and spun it to view the screen.

Cardinal Michael Castillo.

He let it ring.

 

 

“Listen to me, you will be fine,” Luis said, twisting in his seat. His face was partially obscured by shadow but the moonlight cut a silvery profile. She could feel his eyes upon her. “These men who are coming for you, I am going to stop them, okay? Just stay inside the car.”

“I… I don’t understand,” Maria sobbed. “I haven’t done anything.”

“You must trust me, do you trust me? Do you?”

She nodded her sallow features forming a pale haunted mask in the gloom.

“Good, now just stay here. Do not get out of the car for any reason, no matter what you hear, okay?”

Luis slipped out of the driver’s seat and melted into the darkness.

Scarcely thirty seconds had passed when approaching headlights lit up the interior of the car. Maria’s mind whirled, the sudden brightness causing explosions of light to bloom before her eyes, dazzling her. The thump of two car doors and the gentle crunch of footsteps. She buried her face in her hands and doubled over, trying to hold in her erratic breathing.

The two men approached the car from the same angle, placing their backs to the dense vegetation. Father Luis Morales Cantú hunkered down in the blackness, his left hand nursing his rosary and his right curled around the grip of a Jericho 941 semi-automatic pistol. He loathed the feel of it, its hideous weight in his hand, how well it fit his grasp.

 

Truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

The two men reached the car.

 

In one sweeping movement Luis stood and moved quickly and soundlessly from cover, leveling the pistol and firing twice. The first round slammed into the neck of the closest man and exiting in a bloody ragged spray. The second round smashed through the temple of the furthest man, crunching through bone and brain and rendering all bloodied pulp.

Both men dropped without a sound.

Luis tucked the weapon into his jacket, feeling the heat from the barrel burning against his ribs.

 

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

 

He climbed into the driver’s seat and gunned the engine. The tyres crunched and spun and the car thundered back onto the dirt road and into the darkness.

“You... you killed them...” Maria whispered.

Luis did not speak.

“You said you were a Priest...”

Luis’ dark eyes flashed in the rear view mirror. “I am a Priest. But sometimes there are things, acts that need to be committed that... that transcend the things we should do as men.”

Luis pressed his foot to the floor and the car roared away.

 

 

“What do you mean you’ve lost her?” Michael said, an angry flush spreading up his neck, his eyes glistening.

Montero closed his eyes. “We have leads. I am waiting for my men to-”

“Leads? You told me you had her.”

“We did. We thought we did.  They’ve moved her.” Montero said, bowing his head.

“Who?”

“A defrocked Priest. Luis Morales Cantú.” Montero pushed a grainy black and white photograph across the desk. “I’m waiting for a phone call now.”

“Why was he defrocked?”

Montero did not look up, his fingers interlocking and tightening in front of him.

“Sexual offenses.”

 

48 hours later.

Puerto Barrios on the Gulf of Honduras, Guatemala.

“We should be safe here for tonight at least,” Luis said fingering the curtain aside and pressing his face to the wall to peer out. Maria sat on the bed, her arms folded protectively across her stomach as she surveyed the small room. Spartan and unwelcoming, the room sat above a smoky backstreet bar, accessed by a narrow uneven staircase. The sounds of the drinkers, raucous and inebriated, drifted up from below.

“I have a man meeting us tomorrow, he has a boat, he will take you across the Bahia to Punta Gorda in Belize.”

“Belize? But I don’t want to go to Belize...”

Luis nodded, turning his eyes back to her. “I understand... I do. But you have to trust me, you will be safe there while we organise passage to a permanent place of safety.”

“You mean... home?”

“You have to realise Maria, the people who are looking for you are as determined and as resourceful as they are many, it’s quite possible that they engineered the accident that brought you to the facility. You must understand, it may not be possible for you to return to Italy for some time.”

“But I don’t understand,” she said brokenly, tears pricking at her eyes once more. “I haven’t done anything.”

“It’s not what you’ve done Maria, it’s who you are... more importantly, the line from which you were born.”

 She felt dizzy and weak and her muscles ached terribly.

“Look. You should get some rest,” Luis said, his eyes flitting up and down the darkened street below. “We will talk more of this later, but I promise you, what little information I have, I will tell you... I will tell you everything.”

“I need to wash...” Maria said, rubbing her arms self-consciously. “I feel... I don’t feel clean.”

“Of course.”

Her hands shook as she slowly drew the dirty hospital gown down over her shoulders and twisted the taps. Cloudy water splattered noisily into the chipped enamel bath. Moving away from the bath, she gripped the wash basin, her lank dark hair falling over her face. Tentatively she reached up and placed her hand against the mirror, inhaling through her nose and out through her mouth. 

She closed her eyes and tried to picture her face.

She couldn’t.

She gently fingered the thin silvery scars on her arms, the spidery burn on her left wrist. The tender raised welt that snaked low across her belly.

Maria lifted her face to stare at her reflection...

 

            Luis stood at the bathroom door, his hand and his forehead pressed against the gloss painted wood, his breathing uneven.

 

5.30am.

            Dawn cut jagged shadows onto the street as the two cars rolled quietly to a standstill. The occupants emerged, shrouded and hunched in the shadow. Montero dispatched two men to seal off the end of the street. Michael Castillo stood at his shoulder, flanked by two dark suited, brutish men clutching pistols.

            “I want Cantú alive...” He said. “But only just.”

 

            Maria twisted in the covers, her body aching, her mind awash with frightening images. The shock of her badly scarred features had been almost too horrible to behold. Luis had offered her some form of warning, but nothing had prepared her; nothing could have prepared her. Her body was a network of scars, burns and marks. Most of the lacerations seemed to have been badly or hastily sutured with little care or concern for the aesthetic. It was that sounds of razors through flesh and the mewling cry of babies that finally brought her awake. Her eyelids fluttered open, her heart thumping in her chest.

Luis dozed fitfully in the chair, his rosary wrapped tightly around his left hand and the

Jericho 941 in his right. His breathing was laboured, his face twitching in the half light as if he was struggling with his own internal demons. Perhaps he was...

 

 

And then it was there, the snaking flicker of a shadow beneath the door, a frightening precursor to what was about to come. Maria’s eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat.  

            The next few moments were a blaze of noise, adrenaline and movement. The door crashed inwards, the weak hinges splintering from the wood. A gunshot roared, filling the room with light and ringing concussion. Luis slumped back into his chair the Jericho spiralling from his grasp. Two men were upon him in a second, seizing him and dragging him to the floor. One of the men pressed the muzzle of his pistol to Luis’ temple and held it there. The Priest did not make a sound. Blood began to pool on the floor from a tattered wound at his shoulder.

            Two figures stepped through the door. The first, a short paunchy man with receding hair and with a thick moustache. The second, tall, rangy, sallow skinned and hollow-eyed. Cardinal Michael Castillo stared down at Luis’ prostrate form, his hands clasped casually behind his back.  He turned his eyes slowly to Maria, his face a mask of impassivity. He stared at her for some time.

            “Hello sister...”

            Maria’s mouth worked but no sound came out.

            Michael approached the bed, his fingers hooking themselves around the bed sheet. In one sudden movement he tore the sheet aside and pressed a hand to Maria’s abdomen.      Michael’s eyes narrowed and darted back to Luis. “Where is it?”

 He moved across the room and crouched in front of him, his fingers forming an inverted pyramid between his legs. “And you call yourself a man of God...”

             Luis grimaced. “At least I understand the meaning...”

            Michael cocked his head slightly, blinking. “Do you?” He gestured to the men. “Get him up.”

            The suited men hauled the Priest to his feet and thrust him backward into the chair.

            “Where is it?” The Cardinal reiterated.

            Luis shook his head.

            Montero powered a brutal right cross into the Priest’s face. Blood poured from his nose.

            “We can do this all day Father,” he said flexing his fingers.

            “Where is it?”

            Luis pushed a tongue in front of his teeth and spat blood.

            “Michael... my God... what are you doing?” Maria stammered.

            The Cardinal jerked his head towards her. “Take her down to the car,” he said to the suited men, “she doesn’t need to see this.”

           

            Luis’s left eye was completely closed, his cheekbone pulpy. He blew small bubbles of blood through his broken teeth as he breathed. He shook with the effort of remaining conscious as he clutched his ruined right hand to his breast. The fingers now reduced to bloodied stumps, sharpened bone fragments gleaming white against the ruined flesh.

            “I am not afraid to die.” Luis coughed.

            “Where is the child?” The Cardinal whispered. “Tell us and we can put all this unnecessary violence behind us.”

            Luis shook his head. “What you have done is an abomination.”

            “The abomination is allowing the world to function the way that is it!”

            “The Vatican would not stand for this...”

            “Quite the opposite, there are growing facets who have a vested interest in this project; the days of collision between science and religion are over.”

            “You are not exercising God’s will, no matter how you pervert it. You cannot force His hand!”

            “Do not test me; you don’t know what I am capable of.”

           “I am beginning to see. You used your own sister. ”

            “It is the highest honour. She was a vessel handpicked to carrying the most important of seeds.”

            “You cannot engineer Christ!”

            Luis’ eyes closed tightly as Montero pressed a pistol against his temple.

            “Where is our saviour?”

            “You cannot bring about the Second Coming, it will be an abomination!”

            “WHERE IS HE?!”

            Luis grabbed suddenly for Montero’s pistol, his slippery fingers finding purchase and squeezing.

            The resulting concussion was deafening. Luis stiffened and slumped to the floor.

 

            Cardinal Michael Castillo watched the Priest die, his face blanched with rage before snapping his gaze back to Montero. “I want your men to scour every hospice, every ward, every clinic... that child has the blood of Christ flowing in his veins. He means everything do you understand? EVERYTHING!”

 

The Carlos Duarte Costa Orphanage, Santo André, São Paulo, Brasil

Sister Mary Elisabeth Lopensa adjusted the blanket and smoothed a lock of dark hair from the child’s head and stared down at him. 

Sister Lopensa smiled as the baby curled his tiny hand around her finger and squeezed slightly. He stirred in his sleep, his legs kicked and his eyes darted beneath the closed lids as he dreamed.

“Sleep on little one,” she whispered. “Sleep on...”

 

 

Reviews

[Preeti]

Very interesting. I don't think I've ever read a story in which the antagonists try to engineer the second coming of Jesus! The beginning of the story made me think it was going to be about something else (Mary as an android or something) but the ending was a pleasant surprise. The writing is pretty decent. A nice, well-rounded piece you have here!

[Carla (trying to make e..]

of course another wonderful Howie story. Love it....

[Doreen]

It twists, it turns, it holds the reader captive and it delivers. Believable characters, great dialogue, and fantastic story and plot. Wonderful write. I've enjoyed everything that I've read from your work so far. :)

[Vesa Lee]

*applause*
Thoroughly enjoyed this read. All the characters were intriguing and believable; the character Luis was executed exceptionally well (no pun intended).
Only wished it hadn't ended so soon...*smile*

[The Viking]

This story is brilliantly crafted. I love the tension and the way you keep the reader guessing is perfect. I'd like to see this become a novel - the mix of science and religion is an interesting topic. I'd love to see what flows from this; my mind already has created several possible continuations of this story. Seriously, this kicks a*s.

[.Bunnie.]

^.^ Wow wtf the whole time you had me wondering who was the bad guy in this story.... You know you just HAVE to continue and make this into something more--right?? You have to or else I'll just never ever forgive you!! Awesome job with imagery and PERFECT GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION AND STUFF!! I love that. You got the formatting and stuff down perfect, too. I'm a wee bit of a perfectionist, so it's always nice to see something clean, smooth, and flowy. And I know that flowy isn't a word but it's my word so congratulations you've now learned a new word! ^.^

And okay I'm anxiously awaiting more!! :O