The Guardian … survivors of an Earth holocaust … destined for Mars Colony … twelve spaceships diverted through wormhole … arrived on Xibalba as Homo sapiens … evolved into transhumans through retrotransposon manipulation …

Dominique grips the sides of her head where the neural implants have been embedded.

‘Stop,’ Jacob protests, ‘you’re overwhelming her.’

The female transhuman blinks, causing the neural transmission to cease.

Jacob kneels by his mother’s side. ‘Are you all right?’

Dominique nods.

‘We will communicate aloud,’ the female commands.

‘I want to see Mick. Take me to him.’

‘One Hunahpu is long gone,’ the elder male coldly states. ‘Our concern now is for the Nephilim.’

Dominique stands. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Michael Gabriel failed,’ voices the younger male.

‘You don’t know even where he is, do you?’

‘We know,’ the elder male retorts.

‘No … you’re lying, in fact, your whole brotherhood is one big lie! This lunar outpost, the Balam … none of it’s yours, you only inherited the technology, you don’t really understand it. You’re like a bunch of children operating a television. You can program it and adjust the volume, but you don’t know the first thing about how it really works, do you?’

Jacob looks at the Guardian elders and smiles. ‘My mother may not be Hunahpu, but don’t underestimate her, or her bond to my father. Tell her everything.’

‘What you say is true,’ the female Guardian admits. ‘The Balam was here when we arrived, we still don’t know its origins.’

The younger male steps forward. ‘Like you, we once lived on Earth as Homo sapiens. But our species was threatened by a great cataclysm—a super volcano, whose imminent eruption would cast Earth into a species-ending ice age. Some of us were chosen to begin our lives anew on Mars. Ours was the last group that managed to escape Earth before the caldera erupted. On our journey to the Red Planet, our twelve ships were seized by the wormhole, which deposited our ships in this time and place.’

Dominique covers her mouth. ‘Wait a minute … are you saying everyone on Earth will die? When will this happen? How soon?’

‘Less than a decade after the Hero Twins’ twentieth year.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘The planet we now orbit was once inhabited by an advanced race of humans. Before we arrived, this transhuman culture made a breakthrough in human evolution. By linking their minds into a collective consciousness, they were able to create a resonant “supermind,” one that would allow them to transcend the physical world into the spiritual. This discovery ultimately divided the culture in two. Those who sought to abandon their physical bodies in order to walk in God’s shadow eventually evolved into a posthumanoid species. Those who opposed this evolutionary blasphemy abandoned the planet.’