The facility used to be a former Soviet military hospital, where wounded soldiers from the occupation of Afghanistan were treated. After the last troops left Hungary in 1991, it was abandoned for more than a decade before being purchased by a wealthy foreign investor who wanted to operate it as a private neurological research center. But the initiative never seemed to materialize. A full decade after the facility became private property, the lawns remained overgrown, the buildings worn and crumbling in parts. And generally, the surrounding woods gradually encroached on the property, so that it appeared as if nature desired to snuff out every trace of human activity. Soon it seemed that the entire Hungarian nation had decided to simply ignore the entire twenty-five acres of the abandoned space like a bad dream.
Which was entirely according to the wishes of the mysterious foreign investor whose abandonment of the property was only the initial phase of his plans, for the activities it would operate would be hampered by a hypocritical sense of responsibility the country's public bureaucracy would assume, inciting them to periodically turn up sometimes unannounced to supervise operations ongoing. And the foreigner would then be forced to pay hefty ransoms for conducting unethical medical procedures (or any such legal jargon the simpletons could devise), or worse: be forced to make meddlers disappear.
Presently, however, more than fifteen years after it had been purchased by the foreigner in 1997, the entire property had been completely transformed. Two years of construction saw the original buildings torn down to their foundations and rebuilt in almost pristine condition. The lawns were tended and glistened in the sunlight, the woods had been pushed back and the roads reconstructed so that now the facility functioned as a seasonal educational center for teenagers and adults alike. From an abandoned asylum to the New Age Institute of Creativity and Innovation.
It seemed like a spontaneous transformation, but unknown to the hundreds of people flocking in and out of the facility every couple of weeks, the development of the site came only after another project had been completed in another facility on another continent. That project had been given new life in an underground level beneath the main buildings. And it was because of that project that the foreigner, whose identity was unknown to anyone other than the Director of the Institute, was heading for the site right now.
A helicopter landed on the designated landing pad atop one of the outbuildings that operated as a restricted accommodation block among other things. The foreigner stepped out, dashing in an overcoat over a pinstripe suit and a hat. He took a breath and gazed around the surrounding landscape about him. He saw dozens of people having fun in the outdoor sports area and was filled with a repulsion opposite to the excitement and joys on display down there. He pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket and put it over his mouth just as his body shook with a dry and hacking cough. When the coughing passed, there was blood on the handkerchief. He gritted his teeth and started for the elevator that would take him down into the building.
But the Director came out before he got there.
She bowed graciously and said, "My Lord, you're welcome."
The foreigner nodded irritatedly and gestured for her to lead the way. She understood the need for urgency immediately. He wouldn't have shown up here otherwise.
The Director led the way into the elevator and pushed the button that would take them to the restricted medical wing beneath the building. Before they got down the ten floors and one to their destination she had had to support her employer because his coughing had grown thus severe to make him lose his balance. She already called for help through the tiny wireless transceiver in her ear, so when the doors slid open a gurney was waiting along with several attendants to wheel him into the operating theatre.
"Hang in there, my Lord," the Director said as she followed the procession into the theater. "We're not far now."
The man who had once upon a time been known as Lord Raymond III of Tripoli did not hear that last part. He had been fitted with a respiratory mask and felt lightheaded as his system was flushed with anesthetic gas that pushed him gently down, away from the stream of consciousness and perception, into another stream. One of dreams, where past, present and future converged.
He found himself back on that ship eight hundred years ago, when he turned his back on God and cursed himself for all eternity.
*
His eyes shot open as he woke from a nightmare. As a trained warrior he should have been alert enough to sleep lightly and not lose his orientation upon waking. But he had been so shaken for the past few days that he had lost all identity of warriorhood or nobility... or any other sentiments that were only borne out of privileged upbringing and were completely alien to the peasants who knew only endless daily toil and struggle to acquire the meanest benefits. He remained barely human only by the awareness of the fact that he had not fallen into such despair as to suffer a complete nervous breakdown.
Raymond straightened himself up on his feet and stared out at the horizon. It was daytime, yet growing dark with the clear approach of a heavy storm. Thunder boomed like a seal of condemnation against his decision to desert the Holy War, and his heart froze. But then a few seconds later, looking still at the coal-colored storm clouds he smiled. Because he still felt fear. That meant he was still sane.
However, the next few hours were not so humorous. In only an hour the storm caught up with their vessel and they suddenly found themselves in a fierce battle for survival with the impersonal fury of nature. Raymond remained with the men on deck who showed great courage and spirit in trying to keep the ship from surrendering to the storm, while everyone else -- women, children, and the elderly -- took shelter below decks. Raymond only affected his effort. In reality, he could hope for nothing more than for the ship to turn over its side and be plunged down the depths so that he could finally be at peace.
Because he was tired of all this fighting.
As the skies raged and the oceans roared the ship gradually lost the fight to remain afloat, yet curiously Raymond wondered why he didn't simply cast himself into the bubbling waves despite seeking nothing but oblivion. He seemed to have lost the ability to exercise his will in any way, surrendering all responsibility to the forces of nature. But reflecting on this he remained somewhat blind to the fact that he was holding onto a rope for his dear life.
In the end, it didn't matter. In one mighty effort, the sea hurled the ship over its head and pounded into it repeatedly as if it sought to drown the wooden vessel herself along with her passengers. Raymond found himself sinking... slipping out of consciousness and into oblivion. He closed his eyes and stopped fighting, trying to keep the water out of his insides. He took one powerful breath--
And opened his eyes to harsh fluorescent lights.
*
Living under the radar had been hands down child's play up until the start of the twenty-first century. The internet in the nineties had started the trend but it wasn't until the turn of the century when it gained widespread usage that competent intelligence agencies thought to combine an online network with regular surveillance devices like security cameras and satellite imaging devices to create more sophisticated means of observing things and people that didn't want to be observed. The infamous terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 took security measures to a whole new level, and finally, in the twenty-tens with the mass adoption of smartphones which couldn't function without an internet connection, it became virtually impossible for any one of the ten billion human beings on the planet to pass a moment without dozens of analysts in countless special government-sponsored intelligence agencies all over the world picking that moment apart to find precursors of potential terrorism and any number of capital crimes against the State.
Sonia had no inclinations towards terrorism, but she had some important reasons to detest the current global village and the intrusion of the spooks in the name of protecting national security. Chief among them was the Gilgamesh Project, an obsession of the modern scientific community with the search for an end to man's supposed prime enemy since the birth of their species many millions of years ago. There was something more than a little ironic about the current scientific search for immortality, a concept which until recent decades was the domain of myth and superstition. For a woman who was older than most countries, the entire world had now become a threat.
Sonia held onto a few principles that helped her survive in anonymity in the modern world: she crossed national borders as infrequently as possible and always under false identities; she had a few but exceedingly competent regular human allies who handled all of her financial responsibilities; and others who handled still more sensitive operations using technology every bit as sophisticated as those used by modern governments to wage their endless cold wars.
Just like a terrorist. But the difference between Sonia and regular religious fanatics is the fact that her antisocial precautions were a result of her being a completely different creature to ordinary Homo Sapiens, while the terror groups only shared a different culture with that of the groups they attacked. She looked like a regular Sapien, but the same could be said that regular Sapiens looked like her. The only reason she didn't retire completely from their civilization was that she still had some tasks unfinished, and would spend the next thousand years without peace even if she had every other thing she could ever want. There were demons from her past which she had to destroy irrevocably, and at the moment they were still out at large in the world, wreaking havoc which she would never stop feeling guilty for.
She owned multiple houses in most countries, with cabins built in exotic remote locations in those same countries so she could enjoy exhilarating solitary retreats without interacting with international border patrols too far. And she had been staying in one such retreat when she dreamed of him.
Each cabin was built near a waterfall, or else any other variant of high altitudes and large natural bodies of water, and unfailingly every morning she welcomed the sunrise with a tour within the waters or the surrounding jungle.
That morning had started like any other. She woke up looking forward to braving the two thousand meter high waterfalls located in a small province in Peru, a one hundred and fifty-year-old country on the west coast of South America. She liked that site particularly not just because of its breathtaking drops and climbs but its many relics of the Old World. And finally, it was the land she had been born in, a very long time ago. Long before the imperial powers of Europe drained their lands barren and sent out ships in search of more land to infest.
Her experiences there in the modern age were perpetually soured by the guilt she carried. Yes, the human Age of Exploration that began in the mid-fifteenth century would have caught up with the land anyway and rolled over the native cultures that existed there, but that did nothing to reduce the pain of being personally responsible for the extinction of her tribe.
Sonia woke up on the floor of the cabin long before dawn and stretched, peeling away from the big jaguars cuddling and sleeping soundly with her. They barely stirred. The morning chill was like a gentle breeze on her naked skin as she left the cabin and trekked through five hundred meters of dense jungle to the waterfall. As she got close enough to hear the rush of the river as it ran towards the edge of the two thousand-foot-high cliffs, she broke into a sprint. The sky was still dark but she didn't need any external source of light, or any at all to navigate her physical environment. During the day her eyes stored photons coming down from the sun and by sunset, they released the photons out into the surrounding environment which bounced back onto her retinas to give her extraordinary nightvision.
She skipped across the forest so fast each foot barely touched the ground before moving to overtake the other. Her heart hammered inside her chest as the wind tried to fight her progress, but it failed and instead spurred her on. It wasn't the physical exertion that made her heart race -- she wasn't even doing anything -- it was because something was bothering her and she didn't know what it was. She didn't like that.
She cut outwards and ran on along the riverbank leading to the falls. When the steep edge of the cliff came in sight fifty yards away she jumped sideways and cannonballed into the water. She oriented herself at once and propelled herself forward from zero to forty knots in three seconds, which meant that in three knots she covered the fifty yards to the drop in three seconds. A huge bald rock humped out of the river right at the edge of the cliff and upon this she decelerated instantly, coming to rest like an Olympic gymnast playing for gold.
She took a deep breath and stood erect, just as the sunrise filled the horizon with a golden glow, like a universal round of applause. She breathed out slowly; the gods were still with her.
She remained at that perilous point for several moments, long enough for the sun to rise and enhance the magnificence of the scenery below. The dense jungles with only a few cloisters of villages here and there were one of the last places on the planet where the trees were more than concrete structures. She blinked and gazed downwards into the massive amphitheater-sized pool at the frothy bottom of the raging cascade of water... preparing to jump.
Then it came.
A sharp raw burning chill seized her without warning. She grunted as her legs buckled but she fought to regain her balance. She waited for the seizure to subside then slowly sat down on the rock. The fire cooled everywhere in her body but her head, and it hurt so bad to think hot tears crawled out of her eyes with the slightest effort. It was taking every ounce of her being to remain conscious so that she didn't fall off the rock and haphazardly down two thousand feet. Even though as a water spirit she would recover perfectly after a few hours, she would still break several bones and maybe even her neck. Right then she felt very vulnerable and small, and the depression inside her chest grew more intense as the pain in her head abated, giving her space to attempt to deduce what exact malady had struck her.
And when she found out that it had stemmed from the curse she placed upon herself nearly a thousand years ago her heart went cold as ice. She hurt, but it was a different kind of pain. The devil himself had been revived and was plotting again.
Sonia took a deep breath and rose to her feet. The sun had completely elevated into the perfectly blue sky and all of nature below heralded the great life-sustainer. She took one look down and jumped, without any ceremony.
She flew down like a missile. But it wasn't just her body that shot towards the frothy pool below, but her soul as well, through her body and down into the whirlpool of time to the days of her youth, when she condemned her entire village to death by saving the life of one man.
*
Raymond felt disappointed to wake up and find that he was still alive. A scorching sun in a clear blue sky baked everything on the beach so that he was gasping out of thirst within moments of waking up. He felt personally slighted as if the universe had some personal vendetta against him finding peace. He was on the shores of a strange sunny coast with the debris that were the remains of their ship. All about him here and there were pieces of driftwood, explaining to anyone but the blind the fate of the ship and its passengers. There was not a single human being in sight.
Raymond collapsed back onto the sand out of both despair and exhaustion. He simply wanted to lie there and wish himself out of existence, but his body's natural forces thought differently. His stomach grumbled loudly and he groaned. With burning hatred in his heart for all the forces in the universe, he forced himself to his feet and started to survey his surroundings for anything he could to quell his hunger, or end his life.
He found something within half a minute, but it wasn't food he found. Lying half-buried in the sand was something that reassured him that his life had become nothing more than a joke to God -- his sword. With a scowl, Raymond walked past it and started for the woods that loomed before him. But then common sense took charge and he returned reluctantly to retrieve the weapon. He was shipwrecked on a strange land, with no provisions. His biggest problems right now were not the Crusades or the anger of the Pope -- or even of God. His biggest concerns right now were his next meal and a shelter for the night.
He started into the woods, not much more confident with his sword than without it. He had a very feeble resolve to live, but he was too much of a coward to simply lie there and starve to death. He wished that something would show up and terminate his life abruptly. What kind of a world was this where a person couldn't even die when they wanted. What in hell were the odds of him being the only survivor of that ship? Perhaps this was God's punishment for him then, for deserting His Cause.
With that thought Raymond steeled himself and went cold inside as he walked on, falling under the spell of malicious rage. He cursed God under his breath, cursed the world and everything inside it; cursed himself for having the misfortune of being born into such a damned existence.
He gritted his teeth together hard enough to crush stone and forced out the thoughts, and only focused on placing one foot in front of the other. His objectives now were to find something to eat and some shelter. Once upon a time he had been an expert hunter, and warrior... and many other things. Were it not for his current physical state, he wouldn't have had any problems sustaining himself in the jungle until such a time is he could find a means off the island. His education at court in Jerusalem had been total, covering everything of impact in the world because it would be necessary in defending the interests of the Church. He had mastered virtually every weapon and learned to survive in the wilderness before he turned fourteen. At the disaster that was his last battle, he had managed to escape only because he was skillful enough to evade the enemy warriors who had been sent to capture him. He didn't escape alone -- half a dozen of them made the break on their horses while the rest resolved to be martyrs -- but he honestly couldn't tell if anyone else was still alive up till now. Then, realizing his current circumstances he thought that maybe it made no difference whether the rest were alive or dead. They had each drawn upon themselves Divine damnation, and so every action they carried out would be cursed and fruitless.
But at least whatever happened from now on, it would happen of himself, under no pretensions towards any other soul. So thinking he decided to rest for a bit. He climbed up a sturdy tree and settled against the trunk and tried to relax. He was on his own now, and that strangely seemed to be more reassuring than being a knight of the Church. He eased his breathing, making no effort to even take note of the thoughts that endlessly buzzed inside his head like angry bees. He couldn't change what had happened until now and he probably couldn't change what was coming in the future, so worrying or not worrying about it wouldn't change a thing, but it would certainly affect his chances of catching his next meal.
When he was well-rested he would find some edible plants to give him that little energy boost which would make hunting game more focused. He smiled... briefly. He wasn't done yet. If God wouldn't spare him all this suffering then he would thrive in spite of it. He soon drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
Which didn't last long. He felt a sudden sharp sting in his side, and tried to brush away the nuisance without disturbing his rest too much, only to be stunned by still a more brilliant sting. This time his eyes shot open in time to see a long yellow snake falling off the branch to the ground below.
Raymond gasped in shock and then in pain as the snake's venom started to course through his system. His body went stiff and he lost his balance on the branch and toppled down messily to the damp earth. He whimpered, when he had planned to scream. His body was on fire and he screamed with all his might, but it barely came out as a sigh.
*
Sonia found the stranger because it was her job to notice anything untoward that went on inside the forest. She knew he wasn't a native even before she saw him. He smelled different and his soulfire was different. By the time she got to him he was unconscious, and seconds away from passing into the afterlife.
Sonia didn't panic; instead she stole away and returned with a small bunch of leaves which she crushed into a paste in her hand. She applied the paste over the open wounds... and waited. Within moments the stiffness in his limbs eased away and his breathing grew peaceful.
But it wasn't over. She had only eased away the pain and prevented his soulfire from leaking completely out of his body, buying him about an hour of life. Sonia perceived the environment to ensure that there were no spies around, and carried him home.