The Christ Clone Trilogy 03 - Acts Of God
By
James Beau Seigneur
The Fourth Angel
10:51 a.m., Saturday, June 27, 4 N.A. (2026 A.D.) —
Derwood, Maryland
It didn't take a genius to see the pattern. Each of the recent plagues had begun
on the Sunday of the past three consecutive weeks. If another plague was coming,
it was only logical to assume that the same pattern would be continued. That
meant that whatever the next affliction was, it would probably start within the
next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. There was no way to know exactly when,
for though the turning of the salt and fresh water had occurred relatively
quickly, the lesions had originally appeared only as dry itchy skin, and had
grown worse throughout the day. Perhaps the next plague would also start as
something minor and grow worse over a period of a day or two. There was,
however, a way to know what the next plague would be.
Decker sat on the couch in his living room and took Elizabeth's Bible from the
leather satchel on the coffee table where it had been sitting since he arrived
from Israel three weeks before. When Scott Rosen had given it to him in Petra,
Decker had thought of it as simply a remembrance of Elizabeth. He had read her
handwritten notes and the sections she marked by yellow highlighter only to see
into her thoughts during the time he had been held in Lebanon. To read it now,
though — after having the dream again . . . after entertaining doubts about
Christopher — seemed like collusion with the enemy or tacit admission that there
was value in its words. He did not need that additional guilt added to what he
felt already. There he was, hiding there like a hermit in a cave while the world
suffered around him — hiding, in truth, from Christopher, who except for that
damned dream, had never done anything to cause Decker to doubt him. And so the
satchel had remained unopened since he left Petra.
Now, however, he told himself that there was a good reason to read it: to
understand the adversary. For that same reason a year and a half earlier Decker
had read another copy of the Bible and found the verse which gave him the idea
to use for the mark to prevent the fundamentalists and the KDT from taking the
communion.
On the plane to Jerusalem after his resurrection Christopher had said that the
plagues brought on by John and Cohen had occurred exactly as they were predicted
in the book of Revelation. But that was before John (the author of Revelation)
and Cohen had died. Decker assumed their deaths had put an end to such
catastrophic events; the past three weeks offered convincing evidence to the
contrary. So, if by reading Elizabeth's Bible he could determine what Yahweh was
going to do next, Decker reasoned, it would not be disloyal to Christopher for
him to do so; rather it would be insane for him not to. Still, the discomfort
did not pass.
Finally Decker opened it and turned to the back to the book of Revelation. He
quickly found what he was looking for: there was the plague of sores, and the
seas turning to blood, and the fresh water turning to blood. And there was the
description of the next plague, which would be the fourth in the recent series:
The fourth angel poured out his bawl on the sun, and the sun was given power to
scorch people with fire. They were seared by the intense heat.. ,
How hot would it get? How much heat was 'great heat?' More importantly, Decker
wondered, how could he prepare for it? Presumably, it would be significantly
hotter than the normal summer heat. How would his air conditioner handle it? The
subject of air conditioning had been a major concern when plans for housing were
being made for Babylon, where temperatures can reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit. He
remembered hearing that standard air conditioners were able to cool a house only
about 15 degrees to 20 degrees below the outside temperature. The air
conditioner at his house in Derwood was as old as the house itself, which meant
it would not be nearly as efficient as the newer models and, thus, would not
cool nearly as well. There was not enough time to do anything about that,
though. Nor did he have time to better insulate the house. Whatever preparations
he could make had to be made in the next twelve to twenty-four hours.
After some consideration, Decker decided his best course of action was to limit
his efforts to a single room. The house didn't have a basement, which would be
naturally cooled by the earth around it, so the obvious choice was the laundry
room. It was on the ground floor and the concrete slab had never been covered,
and thus it was the coolest room in the house. It had water and a floor drain
down which he could flush wastes. It was also small enough that he could quickly
add insulation to the walls and ceiling.
Decker prepared a list of materials and got on the phone to Bert Tolinson, the
caretaker. So far Tolinson had been willing to get Decker whatever he asked for,
never realizing that by making such purchases he was in violation of United
Nations law and could have been jailed. He just assumed Decker had the mark, and
drew the money for the purchases directly out of the account that had been
established for upkeep of the house. Although the account was well funded in
case of emergency, Decker's shopping list did raise some questions.
Decker had tried to get by without running the air conditioner in order to keep
anyone from realizing the house was occupied. Now the neighbor, George Rollins,
and his son knew and it didn't matter anymore. So even though it was a pleasant
day, Decker closed all the windows and turned the air conditioner on full blast
to cool the house in preparation for what was coming. If it got too cold, he
would put on a coat. Next, he found his hand tools — a handsaw, a drill, a
hammer and a pair of pliers — and then moved everything he could out of the
laundry room. He would turn off the gas to the hot water heater after he had
finished his preparations and showered.
When Bert Tolinson arrived with the items that Decker had said he needed 'right
away,' Decker was ready, all bandaged up, including his right hand. Tolinson
might well think he was crazy because of the shopping list, but he would
certainly not leave thinking that Decker did not have the mark.
It took Tolinson fifteen minutes to get everything into the house. Looking over
the items which, except for some groceries, Decker had him leave in the foyer
and living room, Tolinson removed the Washington Senators baseball cap he always
wore, wiped the sweat from his brow, and scratched the back of his head where he
still had hair. "If you don't mind me asking," Tolinson said, "what in the hell
is all this stuff for?"
Decker looked at the items stacked and displayed before them — ten rolls of
fiberglass insulation, a staple gun, twelve rolls of duct tape, two
battery-powered lamps, two flashlights, two dozen assorted long-life batteries,
a large plastic tub, two boxes of twelve penny nails, eight large picnic coolers
filled with twenty-two bags of ice (all that Tolinson could get because of the
recent water problems), six eight-foot two-by-fours, three window air
conditioners, and three heavy-duty 100-foot electrical extension cords.
Decker wanted to answer Tolinson's question. If he could help it, there was no
reason to let Tolinson and his family suffer through what was to come. But how
could he explain how he knew that the next plague would be heat? He sure
couldn't say he read it in the Bible. Not that the Bible was outlawed or
restricted or anything, but nobody but the fundamentalists actually read it or
believed what it had to say. Then an idea occurred to him.
"There's going to be another plague," he said. "Starting tomorrow, I think. It's
going to get terribly hot."
"How do you know?" Tolinson asked, his voice registering his concern. "Did
Secretary Goodman tell you?"
That was an explanation Decker hadn't considered and he paused for a second,
thinking it might be a better answer than the one he had planned. Ultimately,
though, he saw the flaw and rejected it. If Bert Tolinson warned anyone else, he
would have to explain how he knew and even though he was pretty good at keeping
a secret, it might come out that he had gotten the information from Decker.
That, of course, would draw attention to the fact that Decker was in Derwood. He
needed to give an answer that was of a source common enough that if Tolinson
repeated it, no one would question its origins.
"No," Decker answered. "A psychic I know warned me about it."
Somehow, the explanation had seemed far more believable to Decker before he
actually said it. Now he wondered if there was any chance that Bert Tolinson
would buy it. Perhaps it would have been better if he had said nothing. To
Decker's surprise, Tolinson accepted his answer without question.
"So what do you plan to do?" Tolinson asked anxiously.
Decker paused a second to compose himself before answering. "First of all,
you've got to promise me that if you tell anyone else about this that you'll say
you heard it from a psychic. Don't mention my name at all."
"Of course not," Tolinson assured him, a little offended that Decker felt it
necessary to even say it. In the fifteen years he had been responsible for
upkeep of the Hawthorne house, he had never told anyone of Decker's comings and
goings, and he didn't need to be reminded now of his responsibility for
discretion.
Decker sensed his offense but launched into his explanation without apology. He
would use the insulation, he told Tolinson, to cover the walls and ceiling and
door of the laundry room two layers thick. The tape and staple gun were to hang
the insulation. One air conditioner he would put in the laundry room window and
the other two he would mount in holes he would cut in the laundry room door. The
two-by-fours would serve as braces to help support the weight. These two would
draw the pre-cooled air from the rest of the house and cool it further. He would
use the extension cords for the two air conditioners in the door so that he
wouldn't overburden the circuit in the laundry room. The third cord was an
emergency backup. The plastic tub would catch the condensation from the two
units mounted in the door. The ice and the coolers were just in case everything
else failed. Decker admitted that it was probably overkill but after everything
else that had happened, he didn't want to take any chances.
"What about food?" Tolinson asked.
"With what you brought me, I have enough for about two weeks," Decker answered.
"I'll keep a couple days' supply with me in the ice chests. I figure that no
matter how hot it gets during the day it's got to cool down at night, so I can
get more food and ice from the refrigerator in the kitchen then.
"What about the lamps and flashlights and all those batteries you had me get?"
Tolinson asked.
"Oh, well," Decker said, trying to hide the fact that he didn't have a good
answer for that question. "The . . . uh, well, I just thought it might be a good
idea to have some flashlights around. And you can never have too many
batteries."
To Decker's relief, Tolinson simply nodded agreement. Then looking around the
room again at Decker's inventory, apparently running mental calculations of his
own requirements, Tolinson thanked Decker for telling him and then quickly left
to buy what he needed for his own house.
4:51 a.m., Sunday, June 28, 4 N.A. (2026 A.D.) — United
Nations Research Station at Mount Erebus on Ross Island in the Ross Sea of
Antarctica
Though it was the middle of summer in the north, in the southern hemisphere it
was the dead of winter. The temperature on Ross Island, 700 miles below the
Antarctic circle, should have been well below zero, but it wasn't. Instead, Brad
Mulholland, the lone scientist assigned to the U.N. research station, sat on top
of a table, dressed in just his first layer of long underwear trying to radio
the U.N. World Meteorological Organization to report his situation. There was no
response. Outside his shelter, the stars of the four-month-long night sparkled
down and were reflected by a large and growing lake of water that had been ice
only twenty-four hours before. Inside the shelter, the water had seeped in
around the door and was now four inches deep.
Setting the radio down on the table, Mulholland again faced the question which
had thus far eluded answering: what to do next. He checked the outside
temperature again. It was 47 degrees Fahrenheit, up another three degrees in the
last hour.
In the starlight, except for the outlines of Mount Erebus which was 18 miles
away and Mount Terror which was even farther, all he could see was water. There
was no way of knowing how deep it was but he assumed that for the most part, it
was not much deeper than the water in his cabin. Whatever the current depth
though, it was getting deeper and would continue to do so as long as the heat
continued.
Beneath the station was about 91A feet of ice between him and the true surface
of the island, at least there had been when the station had been erected. Now
there were a few inches less. He could try to make it to McMurdo, the permanent
U.S. base camp; at least there were other people there. But he had radioed them
earlier and they were having the same problems staying dry that he was. Mount
Erebus in the distance offered higher ground — or rather higher ice — where he
might wait out the thaw, but that would mean wading through 18 miles of ice
water with everything he could carry and no way of telling how long he'd be
without shelter before he was rescued or could return to the station. Still he
knew he couldn't just stay there and wait while the building slowly sank into
the melting ice. It was not deep now, but if the heat continued the station
would be under water in a few days.
6:07 a.m. — Queenstown, New Zealand
Two thousand, two hundred and seventy miles almost due north, nestled in a
valley east of the Richardson Mountains near Lake Wakatipu on the South Island
of New Zealand, the people of Queenstown awoke to the shrill wail of police
sirens. Like Ross Island, New Zealand was in the middle of winter, and though
the warm oceanic winds generally made for mild weather, Queenstown's location on
the eastern side of the Southern Alps made it one of the coldest spots on the
island. It had been colder than usual this winter. Frequent and heavy snows
blanketed the mountains with a thick coating of white, and the cold temperatures
had frozen Lake Wakatipu with ice 14 inches thick. Yet, overnight the
temperature had risen
dramatically and it was now 68 degrees. The sudden heat was melting the snowfall
on the mountain, resulting in growing torrents of water cascading down the
mountain in flash floods, threatening the city.
9:18 a.m. — north of Monrovia, Liberia
Thirty-five hundred miles still further north and halfway around the world, on
the west coat of northern Africa, warm weather was the norm. Located just seven
degrees north of the equator, winter was little more than a story told by
immigrants and tourists.
In a small nameless community on the northern outskirts of Monrovia, Elizabeth
Lincoln, an elderly woman of eighty years, removed the white cloth from the
kitchen table and draped it over her head for protection from the sun. Under her
arm she held a half dozen old bed sheets and assorted rags. The temperature was
over a hundred degrees inside her small but immaculately kept home. Outside it
was worse. Still she knew she had to leave her house and go outside to tend her
garden. If she didn't water the plants and cover them with the bed sheets to
protect them from the intense rays of the sun, many would wither and die and she
would have nothing to eat. She had refused to take the communion so she could
not apply for assistance from either the government of Liberia or from any of
the United Nations agencies.
She did not actually own the small plot of land or the house in which she lived.
She had at one time. In fact, the property had belonged to her family for 160
years. Her ancestors had been among the first of the freed slaves from the
United States who had come here to build a new life. Because she had refused the
communion, she had been officially evicted and the property now belonged to the
government. But because her nephew was the local constable, he had thus far
turned a blind eye to her being there.
After giving the garden a thorough soaking, she covered the lettuce, peas,
potatoes, and other plants she thought were least likely to survive the intense
sunlight. Sweating profusely and panting for breath, she returned to the house,
sat down in a rocking chair that had belonged to her great-great grandmother,
and passed out from heat exhaustion. She never opened her eyes again.
11:34 a.m. — Derwood, Maryland
In Derwood, Maryland, the temperature was 128 degrees. The streets and highways
around Washington were virtually empty. No one ventured outside, and even in
air-conditioned buildings and homes temperatures were as high as 115 degrees
with almost none below the century mark. Decker, however, was relatively
comfortable with the two door-mounted units running, drawing the pre-cooled air
from the rest of the house. To replace the moisture being pulled out by the air
conditioners, Decker kept a steady stream of water running onto a splash pan in
the utility sink.
Though he was glad to have avoided the heat, he took minimal pleasure in his
foresight. Instead, his thoughts were tormented by the ubiquitous spectacle of
suffering and death which he saw on television. There were none of the usual
man-on-the-street interviews: the few reporters and cameramen who were working
outside would not leave their air conditioned vehicles. This gave the reports a
rather cold, inhuman quality, as cameras captured the silent anguish of homeless
people — some panting for breath as they lay in pools of sweat under whatever
shade they could find, others already dead. Studio newscasts were shot with the
least possible lighting to avoid making the studios any hotter than they already
were. And there was really only one story to cover. Everything that happened was
either the result of, or an attempt to deal with, the oppressive heat.
Decker flipped through the channels.
"I pray every day for the death of Christopher and for the destruction of all
'Humankind,'" the man sneered through the bars of his cell. "Yahweh is a
righteous and holy God. He demands payment for your evil ways," he ranted as
sweat dripped from his chin. "Humans were not made to rule but to serve.
Repent!" he screamed, though he gave no indication what he wanted his listeners
to repent of.
Decker paused from his 'channel surfing' long enough to watch for a few moments
as the incarcerated man railed at the interviewer. It seemed that no matter what
the interviewer asked, the man's answer was the same: fear God and repent. How
different the man seemed, Decker thought, from the people he had met in Petra.
But this was not the only fundamentalist leader who made such comments. At least
half a dozen others who were interviewed made similar pronouncements, and the
news media said that there were hundreds of others as well.
9:00 p.m., Sunday, June 28,4 N.A. (2026 A.D.) — Babylon,
Iraq
As evening set in Babylon, Christopher again addressed the world as he had with
each of the previous tribulations.
"Thousands of innocent men, women, and children are dying," Christopher said,
"and there can be no doubt it is the cult of Yahweh — the KDT and
fundamentalists — who bear the guilt for this atrocity. This cannot go
unanswered.
"The time has come to employ more forceful measures to separate from society
those who by their own actions and words have proven their inability and
unwillingness to take part or even co-exist with the rest of Humankind! For our
own survival and for the survival of our children, indeed for the survival of
the planet itself, we must have the courage of our convictions. Humankind must
be free.
"We must separate from the rest of society those who insist upon such regressive
tenets. We must reject those whose karma it is to be rejected, to free them from
their own blindness so that the slate may be wiped clean and through rebirth
they may once again join Humankind on its bold evolutionary journey.
"As it has been with their leaders, so their sentence shall be. It is my hope
that this form of penalty will be dramatic enough to bring many to their senses
and that the death of a few will spare many more, who will realize the futility
of their ways, and will cease their crimes against Humankind.
"Ultimately, however, their fate rests entirely with each one of them. No one
will die who does not of their own accord choose to die. Each will be asked a
simple question: 'Are you willing to relinquish your belief that your way is the
only way; that your truth is the only truth; and to acknowledge that the beliefs
of others may be equally as valid for them as your beliefs are for you?'
"If they will answer 'yes' to that question and demonstrate their willingness to
peacefully coexist by denouncing their allegiance to Yahweh, they will be
allowed to go free and will be welcomed back into society.
"If, however, even this simple and reasonable requirement is too much for them,
then we will have no choice. We must deal with regressives or we doom ourselves
and our children to a life of subservience to Yahweh.
"Now, as to our current situation: this wretched curse of heat that has been
heaped on us by the one who claims to be a god of love. The true measure of
Humankind's fitness for the New Age is our ability to rise above our situation,
to take that which seems to be a weakness and to transform it by the sheer force
of our own will, into strength. The trials that face us today are a test of that
fitness and I am confident that from our current suffering shall spring our
strength — a strength so steadfast that even Yahweh must yield before it.
"We must turn our suffering not into sorrow but into anger, not into surrender
but into defiance, not into acquiescence but into hatred of the one who has
caused our pain: Yahweh, himself!
"We must make it clear that we will never go back. We, as individuals, must free
ourselves from any residual love or respect we might feel for the one we used to
call 'God.' We must rid ourselves of any quaint myths of Yahweh which may have
been implanted by well-intending parents or grandparents. For we have seen the
real Yahweh: we have heard his hatred and invectives; we have tasted his
indiscriminate cruelties; we have felt the suffering that comes from his
sadistic temper.
"We must make it known by our scorn that we are no longer his slaves. I urge
you, I plead with you! For your own sake, for the sake of all Humankind, for the
sake of this planet. The universe itself awaits your decision. We must go
forward; we cannot go back. Raise your voice in anger and outrage at Yahweh!
Curse him and curse his name! Rid yourself of the final vestiges of respect and
fear of this sinister menace."
After Christopher's speech and the standard banter from the network
commentators, Decker switched channels to a public affairs report advising
viewers of how they could stay cooler. Most of it was just common-sense things
like staying inside, out of the direct rays of the sun; moving into a basement;
drinking lots of water; taking cold baths; wearing clothes that were lightweight
and light in color. "One other item," said the young female reporter — chosen as
much for the fact that her face was free of the sores as for her abilities in
front of a camera — "as we reported earlier, most life completion clinics are
closed because of the heat." The screen shifted to a scene of half a dozen
bodies, killed by the heat and baking in the sun as they lay outside a life
completion clinic. "Officials say that even if you have an appointment, you
should call ahead to be sure the clinic is open."
"Well, I can certainly see why the completion clinics would be very busy right
now," said a male reporter, commenting on the scene of crumpled bodies still on
the screen.
"Yes, Bill," the woman reporter responded, "especially when you realize that
they will come back to a world that is much better than the one they left.
Still," she pointed out, "as the pictures we just saw indicate, a trip to a life
completion clinic right now may end your life, but it might be in a manner far
less pleasant than you had intended."
10:05 a.m., Tuesday, June 30, 4 N.A. (2026 A.D.) —
Derwood, Maryland
Decker slept fitfully and awoke to find himself in a sweat. The air conditioners
were not running. He checked the light switch. Nothing. He checked the circuit
breakers in the fuse box. Everything seemed okay and yet nothing was running.
The power to the house was out. The thermometer read 92 degrees. He turned on
the portable television, which had a battery backup. The answer came quickly:
the primary power company that provided electricity to Decker's house was using
a "rolling blackout" to cope with the tremendous power drain caused by the heat.
Ordinarily, other suppliers on the power grid would have stepped in to cover the
demand — that was supposed to have been one of the benefits of the break-up and
deregulation of the power companies. The other companies, however, were
experiencing the same problems and were themselves using rolling blackouts. The
bottom line was that the electricity would be off for another two hours. By
then, even with all the extra insulation, the room was likely to get pretty
uncomfortable. Decker opened one of the ice chests and scooped up a few of the
remaining pieces of the ice and put them in his mouth.
6:45 p.m.
The blade of the guillotine sliced quickly through the air and with similar ease
cut through the neck of the fundamentalist, severing his head from his body and
dropping it into a large plastic barrel.
"Oooh gross!" mewled Bert Tolinson's youngest daughter, Betty, who was watching
the executions on television with her two older sisters.
Without pause, the body was removed and another fundamentalist was brought up to
take the place of the one before. "Will you disavow your allegiance to Yahweh,
take the communion, and save your own life?" an officer of the U.N. Department
of World Justice asked.
"I will not," the man answered.
"Then you leave us no choice," the official said, as he pointed toward the
guillotine. "In your next life, you will thank us."
"I told you not to watch that," Martha Tolinson said to her daughters, and then
paused long enough to watch the next blade fall. "Now change the channel."
"Oh, Mom. It's not as bad as watching people die from the heat," the middle
daughter, Jan, said as she amused her sisters by pretending to collapse in a
manner imitating a homeless person they had watched die on television.
"Besides," Megan, the eldest added, "it's so boring being stuck here in the
basement with nothing to do."
"Just be glad your father had the foresight to prepare the basement so we
wouldn't be out in the heat with everyone else."
"But you said the fundamentalists deserve to die," the youngest chimed in.
"That doesn't mean you have to watch it. Now, isn't there something else on?"
10:09 p.m. — north of Lexington, Kentucky
It was a miserable night. The cloud cover, which would have been welcome during
the day to block the sun, had waited until night to roll in, making the night
all the hotter by blocking the release of the heat absorbed by the earth during
the day. North of the city, against the blackened background of night,
occasional whispers divulged the presence of creatures alien to this dark world
where rats and roaches ruled. The lure of fresh garbage had brought them — the
men, the rats, and roaches — for all had empty bellies. A veritable mountain of
waste — old tires, bed springs, broken appliances, and other household debris —
hid secret caches of nourishment: table scraps, rotting fruit, and vegetables.
Quietly, to avoid detection, the men gathered all they could find, tearing open
bags of garbage and scraping bits of food from discarded cans. It was unlikely
that anyone else would be out in the heat, but they could not take chances.
Suddenly, the unexpected snarl of a gasoline engine broke the silence. An
instant later, the night evaporated as a ten thousand candlepower light ignited
the sky, revealing a tableau of a score of men seemingly frozen by the light.
None of them bore the lesions or the mark.
"Police!" came an amplified voice.
Instantly men and mice scattered, but for the men, their attempts at escape were
futile. They were entirely surrounded. One by one they were captured,
handcuffed, and put in a truck for transport. It took only minutes for the
police to finish their work and then they were gone, leaving the dump silent and
dark, restored to its previous occupants.
Soon the rats were out of hiding again, foraging for whatever they could find.
One of the rats, had he the intelligence to reflect on what he saw as he emerged
from under a pile of rags, would have considered this his lucky night, for there
before him lay a hill, ten times his size and weight, of the choicest garbage he
had ever seen. The humans were good gatherers, there was no doubt about that.
Instinctively he sniffed the air for danger as he approached. The strong scent
of man still lingered, but this was no time for timidity: soon a dozen other
rats would be here, after his spoils.
Running to the heap of victuals, he began to eat as quickly as he could. But no
sooner had he taken his second bite of baked apple than, without warning, he was
heaved upward by the garbage beneath his feet. Tumbling over, he scurried for
cover back under the mound of rags. Turning to see what had happened, he saw a
man emerging from beneath the garbage.
Jason Baker shook the filth from off his clothes and out of his hair and beard
and looked around, hoping that he had not been the only one to escape. Softly,
he called out to his comrades but there was no answer. He called again, a little
louder, but with the same result. The only thing to do was to gather up as much
food as he could carry in his pack and head back.
Ten minutes later, he stepped through the hole they had cut in the fence around
the dump and headed for the abandoned farm where the others, including his
parents and wife, waited. It was a long walk — he guessed about seven miles. He
prayed that some of the other men had escaped, and he struggled with each step
to try to find the words he would need to tell the others that their husbands
and fathers and brothers had been captured. In his despair, he hardly noticed
the heat. Maybe he would catch up with some of them on the way, or maybe they
would catch up with him. Maybe one of the other men would get to the farm before
him and the responsibility for sharing the bad news would not fall to him alone.
It was two and a half torturous hours of walking, sweating, and panting in the
heat before he reached the farm. The clouds had finally lifted, giving way to a
beautiful starry night. Without the starlight, he might have missed the farm
completely. Soon he would wish he had.
There was no sign of life at the farm, but that was exactly as it should be.
Except for his band of friends, no one had lived here since the Disaster —
twenty-three years before — and now forest, thicket, and weeds encircled and hid
the small sanctuary from any who did not know it was there. Altogether there
were nearly a hundred in the camp. For the most part they lived on wild berries,
roots, vegetables, fruit from a nearby orchard, trapped game, and a few items
they had purchased before they lost the right to buy and sell. They had a few
shotguns, but did not dare use them for fear of alerting someone to their
presence.
With the heat, the game had disappeared and the berries quickly shriveled,
leaving only a few wild beets and onions for food. That was why the men had
decided to risk going closer to town to try to find food.
Quietly Jason Baker approached the enclave and the old barn where many of his
number slept. They would not be asleep tonight, though. They would all be awake,
waiting for the men to return. As he approached, he listened closely, still
hoping that one of the other men had gotten there before him. He heard nothing.
He dared come no farther without announcing his arrival with the appropriate
password, lest they think he was an intruder. "He will return," he said clearly
but not loudly.
With this the encampment came visibly, but barely audibly, to life.
"Who is it?" a single voice called out in a loud whisper.
"It's Jason," he answered.
"How'd you make out?" said a man in his sixties as he emerged from the shadow.
This was the logical first question but not the one Jason Baker had expected and
he did not have an immediate answer. Obviously they did not suspect the gravity
of the news that he brought.
"Thank God, you're okay," Baker's wife said as she ran to him.
"Are the others behind you?" another woman asked expectantly, as now nearly the
whole camp came to meet him. His silence revealed the weight that was on his
heart.
"The police," he managed. "I don't know how many others got away."
Even in the dark he could see the distress on everyone's faces. In all his life,
Jason Baker could not remember anything more difficult than having to deliver
this news.
Then something even worse happened. It was imperceptible at first, but the sound
grew quickly as a multitude of armed state police came from nowhere and
encircled the camp.
Jason Baker suddenly realized that his escape had not been by providence at all,
but was a cold and calculated maneuver to find the encampment.
2:21 p.m., Wednesday, July 1, 4 N.A. (2026 A.D.) —
Derwood, Maryland
It was 137 degrees outside and not much less than that inside. Decker lay naked,
flat on his back, panting for breath and dripping with sweat, drawing every bit
of relief he could from the comparative coolness of the bare cement floor. The
power had been off for six hours. This time it was no rolling blackout; it was a
full-fledged power failure. No one was sure how long it would last.
Decker longed for the next plague, which ironically, offered hope of relief from
the current one. He had read what was coming and he knew that with the next
plague would come the end of this accursed heat. In fact, after the heat, the
next two events described in Revelation seemed rather innocuous by comparison.
Decker considered the words he had read:
The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom
was plunged into darkness. Men gnawed their tongues in agony and cursed the God
of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of
what they had done. The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river
Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the
East.
Right now darkness sounded like soothing balm to relieve the heat. After all,
how much harm could be done by darkness? While it might be considered a curse in
a few primitive countries, in most of the world it would be a mere
inconvenience. Even if the electricity didn't come back on, most people would be
able to make do. And Decker was ready for it: he didn't have the sores, so he
didn't have to worry about 'gnawing his tongue in agony because of the pain of
the sores.' And as for the darkness, that was why he had Bert Tolinson buy the
lanterns and extra batteries. Of course he didn't tell Tolinson about that at
the time. It was one thing to know about one plague before it happened. It would
be quite another to know about the next two, as well. Compared to all the other
plagues, the sixth one about the Euphrates River drying up sounded like a joke.
At most it would harm the crops in the region (if any crops remained after this
heat) and it would halt shipping in and out of Babylon, but so far each of the
plagues except the sores had lasted only six days, so it hardly seemed very
significant if the river dried up for a week or so.
Decker turned on the television for some distraction from the heat. It provided
none. It was not that there was nothing else on, but Decker was drawn by the
habits of a lifetime to turn to the news channels where the stories all centered
on the current adversity.
He came to rest on a 'talking heads' program — a format where a handful of
reporters sit around a table and talk about the news and predict how current
events will play themselves out in the short and long term. In his work as
Director of Public Affairs for the United Nations, Decker had found these
programs a convenient window into the mind of the media. In many ways the
programs served as the fountainhead of self-fulfilling prophecy: a reporter who
opined that a recent event would have a particular impact could be counted upon
to be watching very closely for that impact to occur, thus validating his
prognosticating abilities. Part of Decker's job had always been a mix of
communicating the news and of shaping how the news was reported. Monitoring
these programs and knowing what the press expected to happen sometimes gave
Decker a real advantage. Decker had found that the quickest way to win a
reporter's favor was to call him on the phone and tell him that he had seen the
reporter on a program and agreed with his comments and, what's more, had an
exclusive tip for the reporter that proved the point. It was not unusual for
Decker to orchestrate events on occasion or modify the words of a speech to fit
a reporter's expectations in order to get favorable coverage. On the other hand,
if Decker felt a reporter's interpretations of an event or a policy needed
'adjustment,' he or someone from his office might call and offer to discuss the
matter with the reporter over lunch. The methodology wasn't foolproof by any
means, but it sometimes made a world of difference.
As it was everywhere else, the discussion on the current program centered on the
heat. There was a new twist, however: something that caught Decker by surprise.
The host began, speaking in sentence fragments — a style that, strangely, had
endured for decades in this genre of program: "The American president, Jane
Todd-Sinclair: quoted by sources inside the White House as complaining about
Christopher Goodman's handling of the current crises. Comments."
"She hasn't denied it," responded one of the reporters.
"I don't think she's alone," said another. "From what I hear, President
Todd-Sinclair was simply saying out loud what a lot of other world leaders have
been thinking since this recent set of plagues began."
"I think we all believed that after Goodman's resurrection and the declaration
of the New Age, that the hard times were past. Certainly I don't think anyone
expected anything like what has been happening over the past four weeks."
"Exactly," the first reporter said.
"Something I think we all need to think about," another
reporter suggested, "is how much did Secretary Goodman
know beforehand about what was going to happen before he
took the United Nations and the world in the direction he has?"
Decker shook his head. This did not bode well. These
reporters were not traditional antagonists of Christopher. All of
them bore the mark and the sores. He had known all of them
professionally and personally for years. Instinctively he began
considering strategies to deal with the situation.
"More importantly," another reporter said, "is what can he, and what does he
plan to do to deal with the problem?"
"My sources say that is the real question. Since the leak from President
Todd-Sinclair's office, there are rumors that a number of governments are
beginning to question Secretary Goodman's tactics to end these plagues. I think
they're growing impatient with Goodman's persistent attempts to persuade the
fundamentalists and KDT. They feel the United Nations should be responding more
forcefully. While Goodman is holding out the olive branch of peace, the
fundamentalists and KDT are offering back poison ivy and cattle prods."
"A colorful way of putting it," laughed the host.
"Well, that's why you keep inviting me back," the reporter answered.
"And Robert Milner?" the host asked.
"He'll make another dramatic appearance somewhere on Friday, I suppose — I hope!
— and end the heat. But I don't think anyone is convinced that will be the end
of it. If the pattern continues, we'll have a couple days' respite and then some
other damn plague will hit us on Sunday."
"Not to mention these infernal lesions," added the host.
Decker had to do something. For the moment it seemed that all his apprehensions
about Christopher took a back seat to his instinct to defend him to the media.
He would at least call one of the people from the program after it was over and
try to ... well, he'd play it by ear. Then an idea hit him. He could say that
although other plagues might follow, he was certain that they had seen the worst
of it and that Christopher's policies would be proven effective because any
future plagues would be very minor by comparison. His explanation fit perfectly
with what he knew the next plagues would be, and the reporter would just assume
that he had been given the information from Christopher. He grinned in a sort of
self congratulatory way for his quick thinking despite the heat. For a moment,
he forgot about everything else; his purpose was clear and for just a moment it
seemed that life was back to the way it had been before Petra.
When the program ended, Decker waited a few minutes for the host to get back to
his dressing room. As he reached for the phone, he watched a report on the
arrest of a group of fundamentalists on a farm in a southern state of the U.S.
Halfway through dialing, a recorded female voice came on: "Due to noncompliance
with United Nations regulations, long distance services have been disconnected
for the number from which you are calling. If you need assistance, please hang
up and dial the operator."
Decker's position at the U.N. had thus far kept the police from his door, but it
had failed to impress his long distance service provider's computer.
11:57 p.m., Thursday, July 2, 4 N.A. (2026 A.D.) — Petra,
Jordan
"Chaim, come to bed," Rose Levin, wife of Israel's High Priest, pleaded with her
husband.
"Soon," Chaim Levin answered.
"When?" his wife pressed.
"Soon," he answered again.
The weather was warm but not at all like the unbearable heat that scorched the
rest of the earth. A soft breeze wafted the canvas sides of the tent that had
been the Levin's home for the past three years. It was one of the largest tents
in Petra, as befitted his position, but even here a raised voice would be heard
clearly by neighbors, so Rose spoke firmly but softly. "You shouldn't be
watching that," she said, referring to the executions her husband had been
watching for more than an hour on television. Rose could not look at the set
herself; she had no stomach for executions.
"Have you seen how they die?"
"What?" she asked, surprised by the question.
"... how they die?" he repeated.
A sickened look came across her face.
"No," he said, realizing that she misunderstood the intent of his question. "I
do not mean how they are killed. I mean the way they die — with confidence. I
have been watching for hours and I have not seen a coward among them."
Rose Levin did not answer. After 47 years of marriage to the scrawny Jewish kid
from Brooklyn, she knew when he really wanted an answer and when he was just
making an observation.
"Even the children seem at peace," he added.
"It's not healthy to watch so much of that," she said.
"It's not healthy to watch any of it," he corrected.
"So why don't you turn it off and save your batteries?" she urged. "You know how
hard it is to get batteries."
"For this television?" he asked rhetorically. "It's impossible. I know. I've
tried to get some for when these wear out. Nobody has them."
"Well, that's all the more reason to turn it off and come to bed."
"Do you know how long these batteries have been in this television set?" he
asked.
Rose Levin was beginning to regret bringing up the subject.
"More than three years," he said, not waiting for her response. "I put them in
before we left Jerusalem. I've never had the batteries in this set last for more
than a few months . . . but these are still like brand new." His attention,
never entirely off the picture on the television as he talked with his wife, was
now drawn back by the frightened but determined expression on the face of a
young girl. Her time had come and she was next in line for execution.
7:10 p.m., Friday, July 3, 4 N.A. (2026 A.D.) — Vilcas
Plateau, Peru
There was the distinct feeling that this should have been getting monotonous. It
was the third time — a time between piqued interest and repetitious boredom
when, according to international traditions in comic timing, the punch line
should have been delivered. Still, with the extreme unlikelihood that anyone
would ever see humor in what had been suffered in recent weeks, this replay of
Robert Milner taking on and exorcising the latest vexation of Yahweh should have
been received more with tedium than with any sense of engrossed enthusiasm. And
yet, with a flair for the theatrical that overwhelmed any feeling of ennui, the
television cameras and all eyes of the world watched with intemperate passion as
the solitary figure of Robert Milner, dripping with sweat and dressed again in
his long, white linen robe,, climbed the jagged Peruvian mountain to the
Viscos-Huoman, the ancient temple of the sun from which the Incan man-god Sinchi
Rocca had presided over countless human sacrifices.
Milner's arrival here was no surprise to the news media: an official press
notice had been issued the day before. Television crews had positioned remote
cameras along the path and at the mountain's summit the night before to capture
the event. That Milner would be doing something like this somewhere was not only
expected — in an unspoken yet nonetheless real way, it was demanded by a world
wearied to indignation by the physical manifestations of the spiritual battle in
which it was now engaged.
Reaching the plateau 11,000 feet above sea level which overlooks the Vischongo
River, Milner came at last to the stone entryway and climbed the thirty-three
steps to the truncated apex of the pyramid-style temple. Dropping to his knees
he prostrated himself in the direction of the setting sun. There were no eager
crowds looking on. Only a few photographers willing to brave the heat for the
sake of the story had been dropped on the plateau by helicopters and now climbed
the stone steps to capture Milner's words and actions for the anxious audience.
Lying there flat on his face, Milner remained motionless until the sun began to
drop behind the horizon. Rising then to his feet, Milner thrust out his open
hands and called out to the sun.
"Oh great Sol, giver of light and life to this planet, I stand before you in
your ancient temple and call upon you to break free and resist the will of the
villain, Yahweh, who torments us by your rays." Closing his eyes, Milner seemed
to wait for a response. Apparently he received the answer he wanted, for a smile
slowly creased his face. Spinning around to the east, he clenched his open hands
into defiant fists, and again shouted as loudly as he could, proclaiming his
purpose and his commission. "In the name of the Light Bearer, and of his son,
Christopher, and in the name of myself and all of Humankind, I declare my
independence and my defiance of Yahweh, the god of sickness and disease and
oppression! We will not yield to you! We will not submit to you! We will not bow
to you! We declare our freedom from you! We spit upon you and upon your name!"
Immediately a cool breeze radiated outward from where Milner stood.