CHAPTER 186: I MEET RAFAEL CAMAL DE LEON IN PERSON

While Joe was building the new android me, I decided it was time to go talk to Rafael and Mirabel. As I arrived in the rural community of Laguna Larga, I was filled with doubt. If Rafael decided he didn’t want what I was going to offer him and instead still insisted that Maribel’s promise to make him President of Guatemala be kept, I was going to have trouble. I didn’t even have a back-up plan. Just moments ago, I had been so sure, now...

There were about six people in line waiting to speak with Maribel and Rafael. They were seated at a small folding table and filling out forms for the each person as they arrived at the head of the line. They were signing people up for medical screenings and vaccinations and registering them as repatriated residents of Laguna Larga. One young woman had a traditional, brightly colored woven shawl wrapped around her, tied in the front, in back it was formed into a pouch and held her baby boy. He was maybe a year old, and the shawl held him tight against his mother’s back. His head rested against her shoulder blade. His arms and legs hidden inside the sling.

I went and stood at the end of the line and waited for my turn. The others in the line were all of strong Mayan descent, short, stocky people. At six feet tall, I towered above them. When Rafael, looked up from his paperwork, he saw me at the back of the line and locked eyes for a second. At first his face was unreadable, almost as if he had no reaction to seeing me. If anything, he radiated a coldness, a calculating patience. Then, all at once, he seemed to change, Recognition and joy seemed to flow into him, unfreezing the muscles of his face, his eyes got brighter and a big warm smile appeared. He whispered a couple of words to Maribel, then stood and crossed the distance to me, with his arms out to the side almost as if he were going to throw them around me in a hug. He brought them in to shake my hand while placing his left hand over the top of my hand warmly as he reached me.

"Timothy! What a pleasure to see you! Come, there’s no need to stand in line, let’s get into the shade and talk. What brings you here to Laguna Larga, my friend?"

His handshake felt warm and comforting, and his voice was full of emotion, he sounded so happy to see me, that it made me feel good inside despite myself. I envied his natural charm. Then I realized that he had made a conscious decision, in that moment when his face had been cold and empty, he had been calculating what sort of an emotional response would get him the most traction, warm and friendly, he had decided, put Timothy at ease, make him feel like an old friend. Make him trust me. I had spoken with Joe at length about Rafael and his ability to choose to feel whatever emotions he decided would work best for him, but once he chose it, he was all in. He conveyed them convincingly, so convincingly he almost felt the emotions he portrayed on the outside. Sometimes he even did feel them. Something inside me decided that today was not one of those times.

I smiled back ,but awkwardly and a little too late, his careful gaze would see through me and know I was uncomfortable in his presence, and he’d find a way to use that. His eyes never left mine, increasing my discomfort, making me want to avert my gaze.

"Finish up your work. Don’t let me interrupt you," I say. "I can wait."

"No, no, Maribel can take care of it. She’ll be embarrassed if I tell you this, so not a word," Rafael leaned in close and let his voice drop as if confiding a deep secret to an old friend, as if he had confidence in me, it almost made me feel special, trusted, "The reason we get such good turnout for these things is because she’s here. Everybody wants to see Santa Maribel, speak with her. To receive her smile is a blessing from God, they say. Her touch can cure anything. In a few years, they’ll have her walking on water and then scooping it up to turn it to wine." Rafael chuckled, "Sometimes, I think they’re right. She has such patience and caring, always smiling, always a joy to be around." His smile grew as he said, "The same with you, her nephew. It must run in the family, eh? Come, can I get you some cool water? We can talk inside. Maribel will join us when she finishes here."

With a hand on my shoulder, he guided me inside the clinic and opened the door to a small office. He held it open for me to enter first, then closed it as he stepped through. He gestured toward a chair and I sat down. He grabbed another chair and pulled it across the floor until it was right in front of me. He sat down just close enough to make me a little uncomfortable, just inside my personal space boundaries. His intense, all-seeing gaze still locked on my eyes, he asked, "Tell me, Timothy, why are you here." Something about his gaze and the tone of my voice made me want to just tell him everything I was thinking, just get rid of all the tension of keeping things from him. Exactly as he intended, I knew.

"I wanted to offer you an opportunity," I say.

I watched his face change without moving. His mouth stayed in the shape of a smile, but the smile left his eyes completely, transforming his aspect from warm and friendly to cold and predatory. "Another promise of an opportunity, Timothy. Like the promise that I would be President? What fairy tale will you offer this time to have it melt away like smoke?"

"Well, Rafael, there’s a lot I need to tell you first. You’ve seen some of the technologies we use?"

"Yes, from the scientists and labs of Maribel’s father. The teleportation device you used in Ukraine? I had no idea it could be used at such a scale. That is a powerful weapon."

"It’s a powerful tool, the person who uses it could make it a weapon, but we choose not to."

Rafael raised his eyebrows as if surprised or disbelieving. "Perhaps but taking an entire army off the battlefield is more than just a tool. Maribel said you could have easily drop them into the deep ocean, or let them fall from the sky to rain down upon the Kremlin itself crashing to the ground in a pile of one hundred thousand broken bodies."

I shook my head, "I don’t think she said that. Those sound more like your words."

Rafael chuckled and shrugged, "Perhaps I have paraphrased, but the truth of it remains."

"Yes, we could have done that, but we didn’t and we won’t. Our goal is to make the world a better place, for everyone."

Rafael nodded, "Yes, Maribel says to kill an enemy is a coward’s way, a brave man claims him as a brother and brings him back home."

"Wow, she said that? That’s pretty good." I smile and chuckle, "No wonder they called her Santa Maribel."

Rafael smiles again, but this time it’s different, it seems to go deeper than the surface, true happiness, "Your aunt is an amazing woman, Timothy." His whole demeanor seems to soften, becoming less... I hate to use the word, but less alien and more human. "I watch her way with people, how she treats them, how she truly cares for them. It is amazing to see. She is a remarkable woman in every way."

I nod, "Yes. But I think we should wait for her before we go much further in our discussion."

"So this plan for me, is not hers? She told me that she is the one who offered me the Presidency, on the spur of the moment, without the backing of her father or the others in his group."

"Yes," I admit, "We were all quite surprised." Rafael’s eyes seem to catch something in my words.

"So, Timothy, you said ’we were all surprised’. Are you one of the leadership council in her father’s organization?"

"The short answer is yes, but there’s more to tell, and Maribel should be here for that."

"It makes sense. You are his grandson, his only one so far."

"We should wait for Maribel. Tell me about your work here at Laguna Larga?" I ask, trying to change the subject.

Rafael smiles, seeing that I don’t want to discuss the organization until Maribel is here. "It is one of Maribel’s projects." I notice that every time he speaks her name, his features seem to soften just a little, a result of the extensive direct implant therapy we put him through to try to quell his violent, sociopathic tendencies. He continues, "This was ancestral land of the Maya. Until perhaps seven years ago, a community still lived here, subsistence farmers, taking what they needed from the land, a small central village with a school, a small store that had goods delivered by a truck over the poor roads of Peten once a week. The people sent hand-crafted items, the colorful shawls of the Maya, wooden carvings, and yes, they also grew coca for my organization. It was the most profitable thing they could grow on a small scale. But they were independent, I did not have people here. The truck delivering goods for the store, brough their goods to a buyer, who in turn sold them at market, and delivered the coca leaves to my processing lab. The proceeds ensured the store was stocked, and the villagers could order what they needed, tin for the rooves of their houses, for example. A simple arrangement. Most of their farms grew food for the village, and a little extra for the market." Rafael stood and went to a small stand-alone water cooler with a twenty five liter clear plastic jug inverted atop it. He grabbed a glass from a shelf next to the cooler, and began filling it from the blue spigot. "Cold water, Timothy? This heat must be uncomfortable for you, after spending your life in the United States." He studied my reaction as he spoke with his calculating direct gaze.

I hadn’t even been aware of the heat and humidity. My android body damped senses that were unnecessary or would cause discomfort automatically. I wasn’t sweating or flushed as one might have expected from someone not used to the rainforest climate. Rafael must have noticed that fact, and was using the water to investigate. "Water, would be great, thanks," I tried to sound tired as if the heat were draining, I don’t think he bought it. "I’ve actually spent a lot of time in Florida lately. It’s not quite as hot as this, but it’s close. I’ve gotten used to it."

Rafael stepped toward me with the glass of water. He did not immediately hand it to me even though I had reached my hand toward it. He held it back just out of my reach. "Florida. I see. Still, to not even sweat in this heat, in that heavy shirt..." He summoned a relaxed comfortable smile to his face. Then slowly, to make the point he was in control, handed the water glass to me. I was intimidating, the way he stood over me, his every move and word, a calculated choice for the effect it would have on me.

I needed a familiar voice if only the silent one in my head. Joe, are you sure he’s finished therapy? He seems... dangerous. I mean, in a real-life situation, I’d be very scared right now."

King Tim, this is a real-life situation, but perhaps you mean if it were your real body and you didn’t have me watching out for you? Anyway, yes, his therapy has progressed as far as it can. I told you that I could not give 100 percent certainty that he would not revert to violence. In other circumstances, under your mandates, he would still be considered a potential danger to others and would not have been released. However, the special circumstances of his selection by your mother, when she was playing Maribel here, and his public presence in our efforts have made him an exception.