"Chapter 14" - читать интересную книгу автора (BeauSeigneur James - The Christ Clone Trilogy 03 - Acts of God 1.5.html)
The Christ
Clone Trilogy 03 - Acts Of God
By
James Beau Seigneur
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Fourth Angel10:51 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.
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.
The Christ
Clone Trilogy 03 - Acts Of God
By
James Beau Seigneur
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Fourth Angel10:51 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.
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