Spanners - The Fountain of Youth (6 page)

“I did,” said Adam.

“Each spanner has their own unique power,” said Diego to his son. “Adam is a tree-class spanner, and part of their power is that they use their vast experience to predict the future. They’ve seen every situation a thousand times before, so with a mere glance they can tell what has happened and what is
going to happen
. After my brothers had gone to sleep, I told Adam our tale, and his eyes flashed green with horror.”

“I saw that Juan was going to take the power of the Fountain,” said Adam. “I saw that he would take that power and place the entire world in his torture rack.”

“He would have succeeded too,” said Diego. “The world was at a vulnerable part of history, and he would have bent it to his will; I know not how, but the Fountain contains the powers of life and death; he would have used her to accomplish dark things.”

“So what did you do?” asked Diego’s son.

“Harsh leaders must meet their ends in harsh ways,” said Diego, “and Juan was powerful and wouldn’t be deterred from his goal by reason or by force; the only way to stop him was to end him. The Lord spoke to me through the angel Adam Parr, and I knew the only way to end my brother was to do a devilish act, one that I hadn’t thought of until Adam came to guide me.”

/***/

“Adam and I waited until the night and then freed our child guide Koriuaka, and I whispered to him in his native Arawak that we’d had a change of heart. As proof I delivered the heads of his elders, and then told him that we needed to rectify what we had done.

“So we freed the Fountain and bid her travel north, west or east; as long as it was out of our clutches. She disappeared
, and the next morning my brother Juan came in, horrified.

“‘
Hermano
,’ Juan said, ‘
what’s happened
?’”

Diego took one more sip of white tea and then sighed.

“I knew Juan was going to be dangerous as soon as he realized my treachery, so I attacked him with the axe that I’d used to unshackle the Fountain. I hacked him to bits; I knew that he would survive, but blows like that would keep him out of commission for a day or two at least.”

“This is where our paths parted,” said Adam.

“Indeed,” said Diego.

“The plan was for us to take him back to Hispaniola,” said Adam. “He was to be tried for disobeying the queen’s orders and would have been imprisoned back in Spain.”

“He would have gotten out,” said Diego.

“The Fountain would have been safely hidden by then,” said Adam.

“He would have found her no matter where she hid, and you know this to be true,” said Diego. “He would have escaped, and he would have found her.”

Adam thought for a moment and then nodded; Diego was right.

“I know you disapprove of what I did, Adam,” said Diego, “but you didn’t stop me, and you didn’t correct my actions after the fact.”

“I didn’t,” said Adam, “
though perhaps I should have; no man deserves that punishment.”

“No man does, but you didn’t interfere because you knew that it was the
only way
to protect the world from Juan’s lust for power.”

“Perhaps,” said Adam.

“What did you do?” asked the young boy.

Diego nodded his head one more time and then looked directly at his son.

“I took his body back to the village in Florida; the journey was slow, and every night I had to chop at Juan with my axe lest he come alive and run away. When I arrived at the village, the few remaining Arawaks there healed their decapitated brethren. It was a grisly few weeks, but soon they were whole and had to decide what to do with my brother, and there was only one punishment for their kind.”

“Burial,” said Adam, his voice sounding hollow.

“Indeed,” said Diego. “Typical capital punishment for an immortal spanner is a century, but the Arawaks punished their own much more harshly than that, and Juan’s sin was so grievous that they decided to punish him indefinitely. They put him in a metal box that we had brought and put him deep in the swamp, in a place that no one would ever find. I agreed to the punishment, and I even helped dig his grave.”

“And five hundred years later, he’s out,” said Adam, “and he’s still a threat.”

“He’s a greater threat than ever before,” said Diego, “because now my brother Juan Ponce de León is
angry
.”

/***/

The child was now sleeping and Diego patted his son’s head.

“His eyes glow while he rests,” said Diego.

“Dreams produce an intensity of emotion not found in real life,” said Adam.

The women brought in some of the raw fruit that produced the tea.
It was crispy and white with hard edges, and somewhat flavorless, but still good; it was like eating warm snow. Adam took a few bites and looked darkly at Diego.

“So we didn’t complete a job five hundred years ago,” said Adam, “and here we are, dealing with the consequences.”

“Tell me what you know of my brother,” said Diego, “and I’ll do what I can to help.”

“Your brother has recovered completely,” said Adam. “He lives in a compound with his new crew: Balthasar
, his steward, a scourge-class spanner; a blur-class spanner; and a tweener named Cannon. He has quite a few humans working for him too; Balthasar leads the operation and they work under the guise of science.”

“Balthasar the steward leading the operation,” said Diego. “It makes sense; he did everything Juan asked him to do.
Balthasar has a conscience, but his desire to do Juan’s bidding overpowers it.”

“He’s intelligent too; Balthasar’s inflicted more pain on the spanner community since then,” said Adam. “He and his crew trap other
spanners in their compound and do experiments on them to take their powers.”

“And their compound exists in normal society?”

“Yes,” said Adam. “Somehow they coexist.”

“
I understand how they coexist,” said Diego. “A man like my brother will always fit in with society, especially with Balthasar second in command. They’ll do bad things while no one’s looking and pay tribute to whomever is in charge, be it gold to Spain or a patent to some financier. They probably take a spanner’s power, turn it into a medicine and the world leaves them alone for it.”

“Rumor has it that they have the Fountain,” said Adam. “Five hundred years later
, they have the Fountain.”

“Like I said,” said Diego, “if Juan is free, he’d find the Fountain wherever she is.”

“What’s he going to do with her?”

“Extract her power,” said Diego, “or at least try to. That’s Juan’s one weakness; he can command others to do things, but can’t do them himself. The Fountain’s power is so arcane that he won’t be able to figure her out. He and Balthasar will be able to take other spanners’ powers, but not hers, or at least not soon. Right now she’s just an immortal spanner who gives immortality with her blood
, and nothing more.”  

“Her presence is deadly, or so I’ve heard,” said Adam.

“Indeed,” said Diego, “her blood brings life, but her skin brings death because she holds the power of both life and death within her. The cold controls her powers, but if she’s in normal temperatures, I’d advise you to stay away from her, Adam.”

“Will Juan extract her power?”

“Eventually, yes,” said Diego. “With time, my brother and Balthasar will do just that.”

“The power of life and death,” said Adam. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t quite know, and neither does Juan, but it’s powerful,” said Diego. “And Juan will take those powers and rule the world with them.”

“Rule the world? How?”

“Most likely by taking death and turning it into a poison, a plague or something else and killing large numbers of people,” said Diego. “He’ll raise an army and give them the power of life until they’re invincible. I don’t understand quite what he’s going to do, but make no mistake, he’ll accomplish everything I say and more; he’s capable of anything you can imagine, a thousand times over.”

“How do you know this?”

Diego smiled and took another bite out of the white fruit.

“Legend,” said Diego. “The immortal Arawaks have him
as part of their mythos. They say that there will be a great battle for the Fountain, and the winner will control the fate of history. There hasn’t been a battle yet, but their legend seems to describe a man like Juan well.”

“I’ve heard this tale too,” said Adam. “It’s become spanner lore.”

“Indeed,” said Diego, “and legend or not, I know my brother. Given the chance, he’ll turn the world into a dark place.”

“If Juan is destined to take the Fountain and use her to rule the world,” said Adam
, “how do I prevent it?”

“There’s only one way to prevent another’s destiny,” said Diego. “It’s to take that destiny for yourself.”

“So you want
me
to take the Fountain?”

“Precisely,” said Diego
. “Assemble a team and break into my brother’s compound and take her.”

“Assuming we can do that,” said Adam, “what would we do with her afterwards?”

Diego thought for a moment and then nodded his head.

“You can’t kill her; she’s immortal,” said Diego, “but you can help her reach her destiny by extracting her power for yourself.”

“How?”

“There is a spanner who lives far in the north who can extract her power,” said Diego. “
He is the fourth member of our party—my brother, Santos de León.”

Adam knew of Santos de León; every spanner did. Adam hadn’t seen Santos since the day he left Diego, but the lore around Santos had permeated the spanner
community, and he wasn’t a benevolent figure. Legend had it that he lived in the north and did bad things to spanners; his nickname was
the Surgeon.

“I know that Santos brings fear to the average spanner’s heart,” said Diego. “But he maintains that aura only so that others will leave him alone, and I assure you he detests Juan on a level far greater than you.”

Adam mulled over his options, and didn’t like any of them.

“Take the Fountain from Juan and bring her north to my brother Santos,” said Diego. “He will
extract her power and give it to you; I assure you of this.”

“And then what?”

“And then you’ll have it and not Juan,” said Diego. “This is all I know.”

Adam knew that Diego was telling the truth, but also knew that his truth was incomplete. Diego had given Adam the best option, but didn’t know precisely where it would lead.
Still, Diego can be trusted and Juan must be stopped,
thought Adam.
At this point, this is all I have to stand on.

Diego tried to get up from his sitting position, but had eaten so much of the fruit that he fell down and started to cough.

“You said when you first came to this island that
we’re not gods
,” said Diego. “Do you believe that?”

“Completely,” said Adam.

“Well you’re correct,” said Diego, coughing once more. “Neither you nor I are gods; we’re simply two old men hiding from the world. Are you ready to come out of hiding?”

“Yes,” said Adam.

“Good,” said Diego. “For though you and I admit we’re not deities, my brother Juan believes himself to be one, and if he gains the power of the Fountain, that may become true. He’ll grant himself strange powers and will do things that you can’t even imagine.”

Diego got up, coughed once more and then looked at Adam.

“I know not what the Arawaks’ legend of destiny says, nor what power the Fountain truly holds. But I do know that you must take the Fountain and bring her to my brother Santos,” said Diego. “For if Juan Ponce de León gains her powers, Juan
will
become a god. And he will
not
be a benevolent one.”

MAYFLY

The City

One of the girls had awoken. The other remained draped perpendicularly across his grey hooded jacket on the bed, still collapsed from the pills she had taken. Mayfly took care never to let his dates overdose on the drugs he brought, but she had passed out from her own stash and wasn’t overdosing, so he let her sleep. The girl that had awoken was crying softly, but deeply. Mayfly took a look at her and his heart sank. Her tears weren’t from pills or alcohol; her tears were real, and she was completely sober.

I met her four hours ago and she’s already fallen for me,
thought Mayfly.
If she had taken drugs, at least her emotions would have been subdued.

Girls fell in love with Mayfly quickly. That was part of his spanner class’s power, but he didn’t enjoy it because it always left the girl hurt at the end. He’d catch their
attention with his clear brown eyes, youthful face and soft smile, and being just over five feet tall with the taut musculature of a jockey, girls would find it easy to approach him. Even the tall girls would become smitten by his charms, each and every time. Once they ran their fingers through his short, brown hair and kissed him, it was done. They would love him forever, and they would inevitably end up hurt when he left. He thought the girl next to him would be an exception, but as he listened to her tears, he knew that it wouldn’t be the case.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I’ve never felt a connection like I’ve had with you,” she said. “It’s just hitting me all at once, and it doesn’t feel good, you know? It’s just all these emotions at once—”

“It’s ok
ay,” said Mayfly.

Mayfly knew this wasn’t going to end well. He cared for this girl he just met, but he had cared for girls in the past and they spent the rest of their lives missing him, even after they’d only known him a few hours.

Mayfly reached in his bag and went through a half-dozen bottles until he found the one he wanted, a drug they called the
Mind-Eraser
.

“Take this,” he said.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s a cousin of GHB. It leaves you intact, but it takes away the short-term memories you have now,” said Mayfly. “Tomorrow you won’t remember who I am.
”

“But I want to remember,” she said.

“No you don’t,” he said. “Take it and I’ll tell you everything.”

The girl took the pill. She curled up close to Mayfly and kissed him twice. He saw that she was fading a bit and then decided he could tell her the truth. She’d remember him as a feeling, or perhaps
think of him in a dream, but she wouldn’t recall enough to be heartbroken. Most importantly, she wouldn’t remember the truth he was about to tell her.

“First of all, what’s your name?” he asked.

“Kassandra,” she said. “What’s yours?”

“Technically, I don’t have a name,” he said with a laugh, “but I go by my class name,
Mayfly
.”

“Your class name?”

“My spanner class.”

“You’re one of those guys with weird lifetimes, right?” she asked, her voice slurring a little more.

“Yeah,” he said. “My class lives only six months. A friend of mine named Adam extended my lifespan, but it’s like fixing a house of cards. You can only extend my life so long—”

“What’s your power?” she asked, her eyes closing
. “All of you guys have powers, right?”

“I pack a whole life in
half a year,” he said. “So I only sleep an hour a night, my IQ is three hundred seventy-five and I’m really good at getting people to befriend me, or in your case, fall in love with me.”

“Do you love me …?”

“I do,” he said. “We’ve only known each other a few hours, but you’re a big part of my life. I’ll think about you before I die.”

“Don’t die,” said Kassandra
. “Don’t die …”

“If only it were that easy,” said Mayfly.

There was a crash from the kitchen outside and the sounds of a man fumbling for something, most likely a weapon. Mayfly looked out of the penthouse apartment at the moonlit city below and took it in one more time.
When we’re young we throw our time away so carelessly, but towards the end, we realize that every moment is precious and can never be had again.

Mayfly listened outside for the sounds from the kitchen; whoever it was out there, it sounded like he had a knife and was frightened.

/***/

The girl passed out, and Mayfly made sure she would be ok
ay before he left to face the person in the kitchen. Mayfly found the man standing nervously behind the granite countertop, and he felt sorry for him. The man was scared, but instead of a knife, he had a gun, and his hands shook as he pointed it at Mayfly.

“Who are you?” he asked. “And what are you doing in my house?”

Mayfly kept his hands up but took a look at the gun; it wasn’t loaded.
Still,
he thought,
it’s not fair to this guy. I’ll give him the truth, and then have a drink with him. He looks like he needs a friend.

“I broke into your house with two girls,
and both of them are now passed out in your bedroom,” said Mayfly. “I haven’t stolen anything and don’t plan to. I saw how well you lived and wanted a piece of it, and nothing more. I’ve got a few weeks left to live at most, and wanted to spend the night here.”

Mayfly’s eyes glowed just a bit. The man didn’t notice it,
but put down his gun.

“I’m sorry,” said the man.

“What’s your name?” asked Mayfly.

“Paul,” said the man.

“Well, Paul,” said Mayfly, “I’d like to be friends with you. Do you want to have a drink with me?”

“Yeah,” said Paul. “Yeah.”

/***/

Five minutes later, Pa
ul was sharing some Louis XIII Cognac with Mayfly. Mayfly laughed.

“What’s so funny?” asked Paul.

“A friend of mine named Adam also drinks Louis the Thirteenth,” said Mayfly.

They drank heavily for the next hour
, with Mayfly checking discreetly on the girls to make sure they were still okay. They were, so Mayfly told Paul a few stories, but nothing that would reveal he was a spanner. Paul told Mayfly that he hadn’t had this much fun since his divorce three years ago, and got a little weepy when he thought of Mayfly dying.

“This isn’t a wake, Paul,” said Mayfly with a smile. “I didn’t set out to make you sad tonight. I’m tired of making people miss me before I’m even gone.”

“If you didn’t come to make people miss you, what are your plans tonight, then?” asked Paul.

“I want to get fucked up with you Paul,” said Mayfly
. “More fucked up than anyone’s ever been in human history.”

/***/

They did three lines of cocaine to get the party started, and then Mayfly took another swig of cognac.

“Paul, you’re one of my closest friends, so promise me you won’t overdo it?”

“What do you mean?” asked Paul, “I haven’t laughed this much since my divorce and I need—”

“I’m dying, you’re not,” said Mayfly. “I won’t forgive myself if you get hurt. So just take it easy?”

“Sure,” said Paul. “Will you?”

“I’m gonna die soon anyway,” said Mayfly, “so I’m gonna do what I want.”

“I don’t know, man,” said Paul. “You look pretty healthy, and if something were to happen to you—”

Paul started to weep again, but he held it in this time.
Emotions aside, I can’t do this to Paul
, thought Mayfly.
I want to overdo it, but if the police find a dead mayfly and two young girls in Paul’s room, bad things are gonna happen to him.

Mayfly wrote down an address and handed it to Paul.

“I tell you what,” said Mayfly. “If I pass out, take me to
this
doctor. No other doctor. Can you do that?”

“Sure,” said Paul.

“Then let’s get the party started,” said Mayfly with a smile.

/***/

It took Mayfly a half-day to recover from the stomach pumping, and when he came to, Dr. Shaw looked at him with fierce eyes that glowed pale blue. Julius Shaw was a spanner and also a doctor. He worked with humans mostly, but if spanners came to him he’d treat them without revealing their secrets. He was one of the few spanners who had fully integrated himself into normal society, and he was a grumpy son-of-a-bitch.

“Are you angry?” asked Mayfly.

“Beyond angry,” said Dr. Shaw.

“If you think I’m gonna give away spanner secrets to the humans I party with,” said Mayfly, “I’m not. I always cover my tracks and—”

“I don’t care about spanner secrets,” said Dr. Shaw. “I’m angry that you’re throwing your life away.”

“Throwing my life away?” asked Mayfly. “I’m gonna die any day now.”

“Adam extended your lifespan by a month.”

“By two months,” said Mayfly.

“By two months, but you’ve been partying. The drugs have overloaded your system, so now it’s down to a month.”

“I guess that’s too bad,” said Mayfly. “Life’s short.”

“No, it’s not,” said Dr. Shaw. “There’s so much you can do, even in the brief time you have left.”

“What can
I
do?” asked Mayfly. “Tell me, in the month I have left on this earth, what can
I
do?”

“You can stop taking drugs and help Adam,” said Dr. Shaw. “He’s hoping to stop Juan Ponce de—”

Mayfly got up and put his hands up in the air.

“Oh no,” said Mayfly. “I’m not helping him fight a five
-hundred-year-old psychopath.”

“He needs your help,” said Dr. Shaw. “He can’t do it without you.”

Mayfly thought about it, and then shook his head.

“Adam understands a lot,” said Mayfly. “But he doesn’t understand mortality. What little time I have left on this earth, I can’t spend
it chasing a mythical spanner who might not even exist.”

“Juan Ponce de León exists, Mayfly,” said Dr. Shaw. “He’s back, and he’s dangerous.”

“All the more reason to avoid him, then,” said Mayfly with a smile as he got up.

“Take care of yourself, Mayfly,” said Dr. Shaw.

“I will,” said Mayfly.

“No, I mean it,” said Dr. Shaw, his eyes glowing with anger again. “You don’t want to help Adam, that’s fine. But know that Juan Ponce de León and his crew are out there now, and they’re dangerous. They roam the streets, collecting spanners and doing experiments on them. If you don’t want to stop them, that’s your business, but next time you do drugs, make sure you don’t wake up in their clutches. They love collecting
spanners—especially mayflies.”

/***/

Mayfly put on his grey hooded jacket, went to the liquor store, got a bottle of
Belvedere
vodka and headed out on the town. He knew Dr. Shaw’s heart was in the right place, and a few months ago Mayfly would have jumped at the chance to help Adam stop Juan Ponce de León, or whoever needed stopping. But times were different now, and he had to take care of himself.

Mayfly walked through the city, taking a few gulps of the vodka
, and looked upward, trying to take everything in at once. He loved every bit of the city, even the bad parts, the predatory corners and the things that could hurt you. He saw some girls at a street corner giggling, approached them and offered them some of his vodka. They agreed, but when he pulled out his bottle, it had already been emptied. The girls were already smitten with him though, and one of the girls offered to get him into a fancy club downtown called
the Atrium.

“I can’t wait to show it to you,” said the girl before she kissed him. “You’ll love it.”

Mayfly smiled and hid the fact that he had been to the Atrium three times in the last week.

/***/

“Do you think that RV is following us?” asked Mayfly.

“I don’t care,” said the one of the girls.

Mayfly looked through the back window of the taxicab and saw an odd RV van following them. There was a young blond teen inside driving, and next to him was quite possibly the biggest, hairiest man he’d ever seen in his life. There was movement in the back of the RV; it was clear that it held a group.

“I don’t care,” said the girl
again with a laugh, taking Mayfly’s face and pulling it away from the back window. “I just care about you. What’s your name?”

“Malachai,” said Mayfly. He hated to lie but didn’t want to go through his normal speech about spanners and mortality.

“Mal-kai,” said the girl, her speech slurred with booze. “I just care about you, Mal-kai.”

/***/

Mayfly ordered the girls shots and pounded three of them at the bar before bringing them back to the group. His girl was about ready to pass out, and he stopped her before she had another.