Chapter 2

For Ashton, he felt strange sitting next to the man who had just called himself Merlin. He had been taken to another to be alone from the guards and just the wizard.

He sat down in a room that did not seem attached to what Ashton thought of the ancient world that he had awoken in. Apparently, that world was above them somewhere from what he could tell.

“Tlaxcalan is a tad strange in this area of the world in the aftermath of the Great Flood.”

Ashton looked shocked. “The Biblical Flood?”

Merlin nodded as he poured a drink for him a metallic container. “Yes, that is the same one. I knew of the one that you know as Noah. He was considered mad by the rest of our people. If we had just known what the Aztecs were planning.”

Ashton tried to figure out what that meant. “You knew Noah?”

“We were both from a land that no longer exists. It was destroyed by Atlantis which triggered a failsafe that destroyed them.”

Ashton made a note. “Was it Athens?”

Merlin chuckled. “You are more read than Arthur was at your age considering you know of Timaeus and Critias, but I believe he is a better fighter.”

“Well, swordplay wasn’t well practiced in my day except for by the nobles. I can fire a gun, and my father taught me how to box.”

Merlin sat down in a well-kept chair in the middle of the room. He offered another to Ashton. The boy sat down, but he didn’t take any drink.

“I am glad to hear that someone finally redeveloped guns. I hope that the nuclear weapons haven’t been redeveloped as well, but the two go together.”

Ashton sighed. “The two went together.”

Merlin sighed. “Probably the people of Xi. I remember after the great flood how some of the ancient nuclear weapons were found by the people of India.”

Ashton sighed. “So, the Bhagavad Gita wasn’t aliens?”

Merlin sighed as he looked down. “No, there are aliens and oddly for you probably are demons as well, but the weapons that were used at that time were remnants of my people and the Atlanteans.”

“So ancient India was full of even more ancient technology that no one remembered where they had discovered it, but what happened between your people and Atlantis. Was it Mu?”

Merlin laughed. “The name of my continent did start with that sound like the Greek letter, but Mu will work for a name. We were Murau. Our nation was something else. We were a people that valued freedom and spiritual enlightenment. It was a different age then. Before changes occurred after the event, what you called Earth had two major powers in my nation and Atlantis, and the world stood on the edge of war.”

Merlin looked at the ceiling. “The war would have happened, but then reptilian aliens arrived from another part of the universe. That forced the Atlanteans and my people to work together.”

Pictures of giant reptilian men appeared, but then metallic giants appeared to fight the tall creatures. Merlin added. “Working together the two Empires created weapons that helped fight the aliens especially their giant subclass.”

The picture showed a white almost scaled like metallic robot that fought the giant lizard. Merlin swirled a hand. “And the Atlanteans built their own.”

Whereas the Murau robot looked like a knight, the metallic bronze Atlantean giant looked less human like and ultimately it seemed to be a machine with tentacles like something out of H.G. Wells’s tripods only upright as oppose to horizontal. There were more of the Atlantean ones. “Atlantean machines were more basic. Atlantean tech was based more on their principles of castes and make sure that no one should challenge the top or their concept of equality.”

Merlin slurs the words. The teenager figured that it was because the device in the wizard’s ear slid a bit. Ashton asked a simple question. “What do you mean about equality?”

The wizard nods. “The people of Atlantis had a ruling group of councilors called Archons, but everyone under those hypocrites was to be equal despite their caste. That alone destroyed creativity in the people. They were little better than machines. And that drove the elite of that infernal island to alter the people of Earth into those infernal castes. That was originally what lead to the clashes between my people and Atlanteans.”

Merlin sighed. “Some of the outer colonies that were in the steppes of Asia were attacked by the Atlantean warrior caste. They attacked towns of people just trying to live their lives. That lead to a fight which left many of the colonies being destroyed before the Great Enemy arrived. That war forced us to unite with the Atlanteans before a time of peace followed by more conflict. Those people from the Murau colonies that survived those conflicts became your ancestors, Ashton.”

Ashton looked shocked. “So, I am part Murau?”

Merlin nodded. “Of course, there were other bloods in your veins most likely, but you are still all that is left of my people.”

“And the DNA of my people is required to use the machine men.”

That shocked Ashton as he looked at the man. “The Atlantean machine men were never created to last just be semi organic and strong. That’s how they looked at the world. They created weapons and devices that never last. If their final plan hadn’t been built better . . . That’s not important, but that’s why the Tlaxcalan priests opened the time portal to find someone to be able to use the last machine men that had been found in the cache.”

“So why were all of us drawn in?” asked Ashton.

Merlin sighed. “The magic that was used is kind of hard to control and stinks of Atlantean blood magic, and the first time, I had not been around. Some of my equipment detected the spell. Those infernal machines decided it was time to wake me up after their initial draw of recruits had been less than satisfactorily.”

Merlin got up and started to lead Ashton somewhere. “Half of the recruits had abandoned the Tlaxcalan and joined the Aztec with their machine men. So, after I found them a cache of weapons that anyone could use, they demanded that I give them a pilot for the last machine man left that they had discovered. I argued against using that Atlantean spell, but they did so again.”

Merlin signaled for Ashton to rise, and they walked into a hallway followed by the guards. Then they walked through what felt like an airport gangway to climb up into stone hallways out of the metallic ones. They exited outside and into a massive amphitheater, and standing there was a massive twenty-foot robot. It had an unusual white colored armored body that seemed like scales. It had a metallic head that looked hooded.

The face had two red eyes with a metallic plate where the mouth would have been. Embed into the metallic plate underneath the face was a scrawled-on smile. The body seemed to have wings made of the same scaly white metal. The wings made the machine look it had a cape. The hands appeared to be claws, but Ashton decided that the sleeves of the mech appeared to be guns.

“The main weapon is a sword. The palms were designed to have an energy weapon. However, they were never installed before deployment. That last war ruined many things,” said Merlin.

Ashton tried to locate the sword, but he couldn’t see it. “It’s between the wings,” said Merlin.

“Now, let’s see if you can interface with it.”

Merlin led him up the stone stairs. “Unfortunately, the machine man was meant for a Prince, and I was just a lowly diplomat. It is amazing that it survived in this cache of other machines so long. The wonders of time stagnation technology.”

Already something seemed different as the mech’s cockpit opened as they got closer. “The Tlaxcalan lent me this amphitheater and had drones build the stairs, but this is the first time that the machine has opened without a key. I wish that they would stop calling it Quetzalcoatl. Let’s see if you can start it up now.”

Merlin took the teen inside the cockpit, and he showed him the chair that appeared to be more like a throne. Inside there was a climate system that had already started.

Ashton felt a bit of hesitation, but he sat down in the chair that existed in the machine. Merlin stood outside after getting out of the cockpit. “I will instruct you from out here.”

Suddenly the cockpit closed. Darkness was all that greeted him sitting in the dark. Suddenly a sword appeared on a screen as something snaked behind Ashton. It lowered a crown on to his head.

“This is a throne,” said Ashton suddenly.

And then he heard a hum and lights started to appear which revealed that the throne sat in a sphere. The sphere started to display the outside world.

Letters and words appeared on the front screen, but changed quickly. “Merlin, is this an OS turning on?”

And then Ashton heard Merlin speak. “OS? Are you seeing words?”

“OS means operating system. And yes, there are words and things starting to turn on.”

Merlin laughed. “In my day, we called it Instructions or a Geass.”

He then continued. “I want you to press the right button right next to your hand.”

Ashton did so.

Suddenly the cockpit opened, and Merlin stood there. He examined the words on the screen, and as he did so a smile grew. Ashton felt fear as the man’s smile grew. Before it went too long. Merlin pressed a button behind the lad, and the machine started to turn off.

“Excellent,” said Merlin. The wizard took off the crown, and it slid back into somewhere else in the cockpit.

“You can use the machine knight. Probably not a bad idea to imprint it to you as well.”

Suddenly, Merlin pressed several buttons, and words appeared, and then Ashton felt like camera and scanners came alive again. And then a voice said. “Lord Accepted.”

Merlin helped Ashton up. “What did it mean by Lord?”

The wizard laughed. “You are descended from the upper classes of my people. Your blue eyes are a sign of that. My purple eyes were a lot more common in those days. I have always found it odd that my eye color is rarer now. It has probably gotten worse by your day.”

Patting the boy on the back, Merlin lead him down. “With that out of the way, we are going to need to do the rest of the training in trainer back in my ship.”

Ashton stood shocked. He felt that he had his mind expanded beyond his own body. “What was that?” asked the teenager.

Merlin chuckled. “When you use one of the machine men, it expands your experience into the machine. It’s like suddenly being ten times taller with eyes not exactly like your own. It can do things to a man if he is not careful.”

Ashton looked confused. “Why did you shut it down so quickly? And what did you mean by ship?”

Merlin nodded as he helped the boy. “I just needed to know that you could control it. Now that you have been accepted unlike my last attempt, we can begin the true tests soon.”

The wizard swept his hand. “It took the Tlaxcalan too long to figure who was worthy of a machine man. I didn’t want you to dumbly start walking around in this city like most of those fools earlier before I arrived. Things take so much time to make in this age, and I’d rather not extend my drones to do a city clean up again.”

Ashton nodded before asking another question. “Why don’t you teach them how to make things better again?”

Merlin sighs and sits down on the third step from the bottom. “Do you know the lands of the Aryans?”

Ashton thought about it. “You mean the Indians?”

Merlin nodded. “Once long ago after the disaster that destroyed Atlantis and Murau, the people of India had gotten ahold of the tech of Atlantis and Murau lead by an Atlantean ghost influencing a Murau surviving noble. They fought like children with technology that had been lost in the great disastrous flood, and then due to the weakness caused by the weapons, they lost their nation to a few other of Murau descendants because they did not understand what they had acquired. Though most went to Europa. When I traveled once to the land of the Indians as you called it, I found it wrong. A gross mockery of Murau with the trapping of Atlantis sickened my stomach. It was like nothing of my culture had survived there.”

Merlin wept. “It disgusted me more than you can ever imagine. And then I traveled to Europe again. It was there that I met a young warlord name Ulric.”

As he talked, the tears stopped. “Ulric wasn’t perfect. In fact, I’d say that he was scum, but I saw a bit of the spark that my people for freedom and justice. I entrusted him with a sword. That sword was Excalibur.”

Merlin looked up at the ceiling of the amphitheater where his guards stood. “However, Ulric though he had been a good warrior was a terrible king. His son Arthur however was a better ruler, and he started to rebuild the society that I suggested.”

“And then Mordred came,” said Ashton.

“Mordred was a second son,” said Merlin.

“Second Son?” asked Ashton.

“What you never heard of Gawain?” asked Merlin.

“But he was Arthur’s nephew.”

Merlin laughed. “Of course, she would influence that. She went out of her way to destroy my second attempt at bringing back the culture of my people. Then again, my first in Rome was not her fault.”

For a moment, Merlin let that air, and then he explained further. “The first attempt lasted a long time, but it in ways that I did not expect changed. I honestly expected the eventually arrival of an Emperor, but I did not expect the pettiness that would follow. 192 AD was a hell of a year.”

“If you were there during the year of 5 Caesars, why didn’t you do anything?” asked Ashton.

The ancient got up, and started to walk out of the hanger. “Your training will begin tomorrow. I’ll send some servants to prepare you sleep. There will be no shortcuts.”

And then Ashton was alone as the guards appeared and lead him down the tunnels.