48 Just an old man

After leaving Dolminico's restaurant Uriel was holding on to the seat for the life of his. The woman behind the wheel proved to be a reckless driver, dodging other cars across the city without a care for the speed limit or transit laws.

"Can you please slow down?" Uriel shouted, scared out of his skin as the vehicle sped across the city in heavy traffic.

"I told you before, we're in a hurry. Something like this wouldn't be necessary if someone had picked up his phone before!" She gazed at him lifting a brow, but the split second she took her eyes from the road only served to scare him even further.

"Please look ahead!" Uriel was on the verge of tears. His joy after seeing his bully knocked out cold in the ground was outshadowed by his current fear of death.

"Come on! don't be such a coward!" She let go of the wheel entirely and placed a hand on top of his leg, using her index finger in a seductive caress, yet all Uriel could think about was the imminent crash they were bound to suffer because of her recklessness.

Contrary to his expectations, though, their race against the clock ended without a hitch as the car started braking in a soft manner. Thanks to its advanced suspension it was barely noticeable and since Uriel kept his eyes closed he didn't notice when they had arrived at their destination.

Much to Uriel's amazement, as soon as they got off the car it moved by itself to the nearest empty parking spot. He gaped at the incredible car, but at least now he knew how it was possible to move so fast even in heavy traffic. It must be one of those self driving cars the Mapple corporation owned.

"This is a Nikola, it's able to drive on its own and it's unaffected by cryptids' FOD so I could technically take that baby even to incursions without any issues." Nika said with a smug grin as she watched the miraculous car park on its own.

The place was the Mapple corp. headquarters and there were about twenty bodyguards waiting for them already, each and everyone taller and more muscular than the average soldier all dressed in what looked like really expensive clothes. 'This clothes... I've seen them before.' Uriel pondered as he gazed at the long coats. Those were Mapple corp employees and they were all of the ascended rank.

The woman walked right past them, rushing her steps to get to the door before the young student. Uriel didn't miss that when she walked by they didn't flinch, yet as soon as he walked in the middle of the corridor every bodyguard bowed politely towards him. The building was extremely luxurious, the floor was neat and the hall was so tall it was inefficient. If he knew anything from his studies on past civilizations was that the more inefficient a building is the more money they owners had.

Automatic doors opened and closed as they walked by, until they finally reached the spacious backyard where the Mapple zeppelin was located. Uriel was still trying to catch his breath after following Nika all around the place when a tall figure emerged from the zeppelin's door.

"Miss Nika how dare you rush our esteemed guest!?" An old man wearing expensive clothes with an appearance similar to Mister Scofield, scolded the woman.

"But, Mister Walter, the zeppelin was about to depart! I needed to rush him or else..."

"Nonsense! how can we depart without mister Sage!? I'll have a serious talk with you later. I apologize for our employee's behavior Mister Sage, she's nothing but a trigger-happy warmonger and lacks any form of common courtesy." The old man bowed down deeply in front of Uriel.

just judging by his appearance Uriel already liked the old man who introduced himself as Walter, but now he heard him speak so politely left a deep impression on him. Walter led him to the first comfortable chair as he clapped his hands to call for service. Then a young blonde stewardess hurried up with a cart filled with all sorts of delicacies, and poured a glass of cold water for Uriel. He gulped down the content of the glass in one go, more nervous than thirsty, because of the VIP treatment he had received so far.

"Is there anything else I can get you mister Sage?" The blonde girl asked worriedly, as if her life depended on it.

"No, thank you for the water, it was delicious." Although he was top of his class and generally considered as a very smart person, his mind simply stopped working when he replied. 'Delicious, who says water is delicious, it's just water' he scolded himself inside his own mind. As soon as Uriel regained his composure he looked around with a clueless look. The only ones present in the hall were Walter, Nika, the stewardess and himself which could only mean he was in front of someone of importance in the ranks of the Mapple corp.

Walter didn't miss any of it and then proceeded to speak.

"I understand your confusion Mister Sage, please allow me to introduce myself first. My name is Walter Works and I'm really pleased to finally meet you." The man said as he extended his hand for a handshake, Uriel then replied with a dubious expression.

"You have the same name of the founder of the Mapple company." He laughed jokingly, but the man didn't seem to react.

"Ah! Yes, actually, I am the founder of Mapple corp. but please don't think much of it and just call me Walter. I'm no longer the CEO, I'm just an old man. Now, let's get down to business." He made a small pause and then presented in front of Uriel a strange map which was clearly hand drawn. "I believe you're familiar with this place."

"Of course I am! that's Chichén Itzá, one of the most important pre columbian remains known to date... Well, after the Mapple project I suppose there's not much else to find there anymore." Uriel sighed.

"On the contrary!" Mister walker exclaimed. "There's just so much we don't know about so many places and that's precisely why we're setting up this expedition." To say Mister Walter was charismatic would be an understatement and he had Uriel's complete attention, even after being informed that he was in front of one of the most important men in history he could only focus on the conversation.

"And what exactly are you expecting to find?" Uriel asked with a glint of distrust in his eyes.

"To be honest, we're pretty open minded about it. Anything we find will most likely be a ground breaking discovery, from the strong material used in the construction of the underground structures, to even the fountain of youth!" Walter said excitedly.

"The fountain of youth? But that's just a myth!"

"A myth, is it? We've found that many of the cryptids that had been laying waste to our civilization have been at least mentioned in folklore from the old times. In fact, I've been informed of an interesting young lady who presented to us an outrageous theory that's starting to make more sense the more we think about it."

"Could that person's name be Luna?"

"How wonderful! So you know each other! Had I known that from before I would have asked her to come along too." Walter said in a regretful tone.

"It's fine, I don't think she would have been interested in coming anyway. So, what was that about the fountain of youth?"

"I knew you'd be interested. Now let me be clear, I don't think we've found 'El dorado' or anything like that, but one of our archaeologists has been studying Ponce de Leon's travels for years and he believes he did actually found the fountain of youth and then staged his own death so no one else could find it." Uriel frowned at the mention of Ponce de Leon, he was a Spanish 'conquistador' who came to the continent searching for the fountain of youth. That legend used to be really popular but besides being depicted as water that could make someone younger and heal any wound there wasn't much information to go around. Noticing Uriel's disbelieving look Walter continued. "Like I said before, I'm not really expecting to find an actual fountain of youth. I'm just an old man that wishes his dream to become true."

"A dream?"

"Yes, ever since I was young, before even founding the Mapple corp. I dreamed of being an archaeologist traveling to exotic places and uncovering all sorts of mysteries but, a dream is just a dream and in the end I fell prey of my own success. When I founded the Mapple corp. my responsabilities were too great and I kept postponing my dream, but now that my son took over the business and I'm retired I can finally do whatever I want." Walter spoke with a melancholic voice that showed how much he regretted wasting all those years working non stop, but there was still a glint of hope in his eyes.

"Then, what you're saying is that you wouldn't mind if all you find is ancient kitchenware and religious objects?"

"Precisely, I'll be thrilled if we discover something new or if we make a groundbreaking achievement, but I'll still be satisfied if we find artifacts that help us understand how did people from past times lived their ordinary life." Despite being an old man, Walter exuded the charisma and self confidence of a man at his peak. Walter spoke with such passion that Uriel couldn't help but become enthralled by the person in front of him and time flew by as they conversed about the subject of their passion, archaeology.