Hedrick turned to Anubis, ‘Would you like a drink before we eat? I have a meeting after lunch, so I am sticking to water, myself.’
‘Water’s fine with me.’ Anubis replied.
‘I suggest we have the plat du jour, meal of the day. I enjoy the anticipation of not knowing what I am going to eat before it arrives.’
‘You don’t ask what the plat du jour is before you order it?’ Anubis said, pronouncing the French words with a mocking tone. ‘Well, if that’s what you normally do, I’ll go with that.’
Hedrick looked up at the maître d’ who’s pad and pen were poised ready to take their order, ‘On boit juste de l'eau et nous voulons tous les deux le plat du jour.’
‘Merci, messieurs.’ Jean-Marie said, before turning and steering a course through the tables towards the kitchen.
Anubis leant forward and said in a low voice, ‘Why are you talking to him in French… and why are you translating for me? Haven’t you read my personnel file? I wrote the first language utilities for the insertion drones, it was my first project after leaving the Academy. I spent three years working with a pack of vengeful angels. Do you realize there are over twenty thousand planetary languages in the database? They made me learn every single one of them… just out of spite. They insisted it was impossible to design the software unless I understood every nuance of every language.’
‘I cannot understand why the system is so complicated.’ Hedrick said, as he tracked Jean-Marie’s path to the kitchen.
‘You’re right. The Dark Matter enrichment process does seem very cumbersome. The trouble is that no single lifeform can produce all the elements we require. The variations in their chemistry and temporal physics rule that out. The result is a wide diversity of lifeforms which, due to their individual physical structure, require unique languages.’ Anubis stopped speaking and turned to see what Hedrick was finding so absorbing. Jean-Marie had been distracted en-route to the kitchen and was talking to the occupants of another table, delaying Hedrick’s food order. ‘I can’t stand pretentious waiters, calling himself Jean-Marie, who does he think he is?’ Anubis snapped. ‘If he wasn’t so dumb he’d have a decent job. And let’s just speak normally, okay! None of this French crap!’
Hedrick turned back and sighed, ‘Humour me, Anubis. This is just a game Quark and me play out each day. Jean-Marie was my idea. The nickname just seemed in keeping with our French conversations. I started using it as a joke and before I knew it… everybody was using it. And by the way… there is no plat du jour.’ Hedrick said, using the same mocking tone. ‘Quark simply chooses a meal he thinks I will enjoy, it is all just a bit of fun.’ Hedrick now leant forward and lowered his voice, ‘And that pretentious waiter, as you put it, is far from dumb! At one time he was a director himself controlling a major division. That was before your digital revolution. Distractions in his private life which, let us say, were pink in nature, resulted in the loss of two universes. Needless to say, that did not go down too well with Those-On-High. I was appointed as the investigating auditor; this was about two and a half millennia ago. Anyway, I managed to convince them that he be demoted to a menial job, rather than the dire alternative you can imagine. They consented, but only on the understanding that his new career was in full view of the other directors and CEO’s, as an example of what can happen if you take your eye off the ball. I found him this position in the Directors’ Club and he has been here ever since. It was only when I became a club member that we met again. So be careful, Anubis! Or you may end up here as a dumb waiter yourself.’
Hedrick relaxed back into his chair as a young waiter arrived carrying their entrée. Nothing was said as the bowls were set down in front of them. ‘Enjoy,’ the waiter said as he withdrew.
‘I hate that,’ Anubis snapped. ‘Enjoy! What’s that supposed to mean? Enjoy the rest of your life, enjoy your next shag, enjoy this bowl of… whatever it’s supposed to be!’ Looking down, Hedrick also struggled to identify the anonymous liquid.
Amy stood in the elevator watching the floor indicator tick down towards zero. As the doors slid open she held back, letting the other occupants leave the carriage, before stepping out into the glass-fronted atrium which housed the reception area of the Auditing & Administration building.
She walked over to the reception desk to retrieve the shoulder-bag she had checked in. She waited while the receptionist dealt with a telephone enquiry. When the call finished, she looked up at Amy, ‘Congratulation!’ she said, admiring Amy’s new office suit. ‘Did they give you a grilling… the last candidate only lasted six months, shame, he was really hot, I fancied the pits off him-’
Amy interrupted, ‘I’m sorry to rush you but I’ve got a lunch date. Do you think I could grab my bag back?’ The receptionist handed it across the counter, just as another call arrived.
The GOD complex was arranged around a central plaza some five hundred metres long, lined with identical towering glass-clad buildings, each one a hundred floors tall. Along one side were the DNA & Evolution Control, Academy and Planetary Insertion buildings. Facing these in a mirror image, were the Dark Matter Extraction, Auditing & Administration and Universe Seeding towers. At the far end was the Grand Depository, an imposing building only twelve floors high, yet visible from everywhere in the complex.
Dividing the plaza was a series of gardens, the grassed areas populated with ornamental fish ponds and sumptuous flower beds. Either side of the gardens were tree-lined walkways. The centrepiece was a fountain some ten metres in diameter, at the centre of which was a sculpture depicting three, infant creationists, playing together. Standing over them was a cloaked guardian with water gushing from its outstretched arms. Between the towering buildings were arcades of shops, restaurants, cafes and bars. In contrast to the planets of the Space Dimension, Creation has no weather; every day is perfect, no wind, no rain, no snow, just a constant temperature of twenty-four degrees centigrade. The sun, which never moves, shines directly overhead in a clear blue sky; there is no dusk or dawn, with day changing to night as though someone had thrown a switch.
Amy squinted for a moment while her eyes became accustomed to the bright sunlight. She reached into her shoulder-bag and, retrieving a pair of sunglasses, placed them precisely on the bridge of her snout. She made her way to a small cafe called Micco’s, hidden away between the Grand Depository and PI buildings. A collection of round tables with chairs were arranged on the plaza in front of the cafe, spreading into the passageways between the buildings. The interior of the cafe was divided, the tables and chairs at the front giving a panoramic view of the plaza while to the rear, were a series of discreet, enclosed wooden booths providing a more intimate setting.
Micco’s was extremely popular and all the tables to the front of the cafe and on the plaza had already been taken. Amy managed to find a vacant table in the passageway next to the Grand Depository. She had barely sat down before a waiter arrived to take her order and she simply asked for a coffee. Opening her bag she took out a notebook and pen and started to draft her strategy for the afternoon’s meeting.
Hedrick and Anubis ate their soup in silence. Anubis’ mood had changed, ‘I apologise Hedrick, this is a very good restaurant. I appreciate the invitation and, in spite of the soup’s appearance, it is delicious.’ Both chuckled. ‘But your friend, Jean-Marie, is a perfect example of why digitisation is so important. While it wouldn’t have stopped his indiscreet liaisons, it would have averted the loss of those universes. Digital systems never sleep, they don’t go to lunch, they don’t take holidays, AND they don’t make mistakes. They work in real-time; if you had a digital workstation on your desk you could check every aspect of a universe’s development, down to the position of each atom. You would know exactly when a universe was seeded, its coordinates in Space and, to within nanoseconds, when the resulting Dark Matter would be extracted.’
The young waiter approached the table and removed the empty soup bowls, quickly followed by Jean-Marie bearing two plates of steami
ng plat du jour. As he placed them on the table he announced, ‘Messieurs. Nous avons la pintade rôti avec des légumes du jardin, bon appétit.’
Hedrick raised his hand, ‘Jean-Marie, I think maybe we will save our French conversations for another day.’
Anubis interrupted and said to the maître d’, ‘Monsieur, la pintade est l'un de mes plats favori et elle est cuit à la perfection. Veuillez donner mes compliments au chef.’
Jean-Marie acknowledged with an almost imperceptible bow. ‘Merci, monsieur’.
Hedrick smiled, ‘You are beginning to grow on me, Anubis. There may be hope for you yet.’ The table fell silent again as they sliced into the succulent guinea fowl.
Little was said during the meal, but as the waiter placed their coffee before them, Hedrick looked up at Anubis and said, ‘Energy, now that is something that has always intrigued me. Just think of it, that packet of energy we use to make a universe is microscopic, less than the size of a grain of salt. And yet, until it is ignited, it has no mass, no gravity, emits no light, no heat, in fact it could be a finger’s length from the end of your snout and you would not be aware of it. But, when ignited, it generates all the matter required to form a universe, trillions and trillions and trillions of tonnes of matter… amazing.’
‘It’s only amazing until you stop thinking in three dimensions,’ Anubis replied taking a pen from his jacket inside pocket. ‘Mass, energy and time are directly related, look, do you remember this formula from the Academy.’ As he spoke he wrote a series of letters and numbers across his napkin.
‘No, I cannot say that I do.’
‘Well, it shows the transition from temporal to physical matter. Once the energy packet is ignited, the Big Bang as you put it, the temporal constant “t” and the dimensional phase “Theta” cancel each other out, and the Julian constant “j” is reduced to zero. So the formula becomes,’ Anubis wrote e=mc² under the first formula and underlined it twice. ‘It’s the transition from temporal to physical domains that generates the matter.’
This was getting far too technical, so, before Anubis could continue, Hedrick said, ‘That has made things so much clearer, but you were telling me about your research, writing planetary insertion sub-routines, is that the correct term?’
Anubis leant back in his chair and raised both arms like a conductor about to release his orchestra, ‘It was fantastically exciting work! I designed and wrote the firmware for some of the first planetary drones. But it will be easier if I start from the beginning.’
Oh joy! Hedrick thought.
‘Remember that the purpose of the whole operation is the production of Dark Matter. We are like farmers and the crop we harvest from Space is Dark Matter. Now before your time-’
Hedrick looked up from his coffee and raising an eyebrow, said, ‘my time?’
‘I’m sorry, Hedrick, no offence, but you know what I mean. Before your time the farmers were the angels, they created universes and ensured that intelligent life developed on the blue planets. The ghosts monitored the evolution process, telling the poltergeists when it was time to extract, or harvest, the Dark Matter. But as the demand increased, they just couldn’t cope. That’s when Those-On-High introduced Creation, a sort of industrial revolution.’
Hedrick raised a finger, ‘What do you think Those-On-High do with all this Dark Matter?’
‘According to the Rules of Creation, they use it to create new dimensions… Was that a trick question?’
‘No, I am just curious. Only, if that is true, at some point in time Heaven will become saturated, what happens then? Will production stop? Will Creation become redundant… like the Angels did?’
Anubis paused. Was Hedrick trying to get him to reveal himself? Had he discovered the true purpose of Dark Matter? Anubis brushed the questions aside, ‘Who knows, Hedrick. And who cares, as long as it keeps us all in a job! Now look… there are five stages in the production of Dark Matter, and they all start with the creation of a universe.’
‘Ahhh the Big Bang!’
‘Yes, but the big bang is only the start. Remember it’s intelligent life on the blue planets that create the temporal elements needed to enrich the Dark Matter. Think of it like making bread. You put a whole heap of flour, salt and water into a bowl and what do you get… gloop. But add yeast enzymes, invisible little organisms, and then what do you get, dough to bake into bread. That’s why-’ Anubis stopped mid-sentence. Hedrick, who had been fingering his coffee cup, looked up. Anubis’ eyes were fixed over Hedrick’s left shoulder, his mouth frozen open around his last syllable. There was a look of unease about his expression and fine beads of sweat started to sparkle around his nostrils. Hedrick turned round to see what he was staring at. A female angel from the group dining on the other side of the restaurant was making her way towards them. Her progress was smooth and constant as though she was gliding on ice. The other diners couldn’t resist watching her, their conversations pausing as she passed. By the time the angel arrived at Hedrick’s side, the room was in complete silence.
‘Director Hedrick, we apologise for interrupting your meal, but we are aware that you will soon be commencing your retirement. We would like to express our appreciation for your long and unstinting service for GOD. There are few who have been so diligent in their duties.’ She turned to face Anubis who immediately averted his gaze, looking down into his empty coffee cup, his hands shaking. ‘Deputy Director Anubis.’ Anubis clenched his fists and squeezed his eyes closed as though he was about to be bludgeoned. The angel paused, her face emitting an enigmatic smile of satisfaction, before continuing using a less intimidating tone, ‘Deputy Director Anubis, you are very fortunate to be following in the footsteps of a director who is so well respected. You should use Director Hedrick as an example of what is expected of you. She turned back to face Hedrick, ‘We are pleased to see that you will have a very comfortable retirement, Director, one that is truly deserved.’ She paused for what seemed like an eternity. ‘We have taken enough of your time; we will leave you to enjoy your coffee.’ Her gaze fell on Anubis, ‘We look forward to working with you, Deputy Director.’ Anubis, continuing to stare into the empty cup, said nothing; the angel turned and, gliding across the restaurant floor, returned to her table as the room filled with excited conversation.
Hedrick had worked with angels all his working life but they still made him feel uneasy. Angels were not just in Creation; they were omnipresent and existed in all dimensions concurrently, including the nonphysical ones. Their appearance was, to him, translucent, yet emitting a soft white sheen. When they spoke, their mouths remained motionless and yet their words were clearly heard. The most extraordinary characteristic was their ability to interact with several different life forms at the same time, each perceiving the angel to be a member of their own species. No one, apart from another angel, knew what they truly looked like.
Hedrick noticed Anubis’ nervous expression. He smiled, ‘It does not matter how long you work with them, angels will always amaze you,’ he said. ‘You will never be able to understand them, Anubis, so do not even try. The most important thing to remember is that if you want to succeed at GOD, make sure the angels are happy.’
‘Believe me Hedrick, there’s nobody who knows that better than me!’
‘It sounds like you have a story to tell?’
‘Oh, yes. I’ve got a few of those.’ Anubis said, smiling knowingly into his empty coffee cup.
‘I’m intrigued… tell me.’
Anubis looked up at Hedrick, ‘Well, when I first arrived, I was seconded to that pack of angels I told you about. They treated me like a social pariah. I’d be left working in total silence while they chatted away telepathically.’
‘Yes… I have been there too,’ Hedrick chipped in.
Anubis sighed, his voice now sad and regretful, ‘How could they do that to me… after all I’d done for them.’
‘Angels do not have our social graces, Anubis… they do not mean anything by it.’
&n
bsp; ‘Yes… but would you shun a family member?’
‘No… but… I do not understand your point?’
‘I was just trying to emphasise our differences, like chalk and cheese.’
‘That is a good analogy,’ Hedrick replied.
‘Anyway… I was telling you my angel story… One day I came back from lunch to find them huddled by a window. I walked over to see what was going on and found them talking to a sparrow on the window ledge. I tried to get involved, but they just shunned me… as they always did. Apparently, the sparrows were being harassed by the hawks nesting in the Depository facade. But the point of the story is that, as far as that bird was concerned, the angels were just three other sparrows.’
Hedrick shook his head, ‘Amazing!’
The waiter placed Amy’s coffee on the table. She thanked him with a smile before taking her first sip. The previous night she had sat with her father drawing up a list of topics that might come up during her interview. As Amy went down the list she was confident that she could cope with any question the director could throw at her.
The lunch period was coming to an end and only three of the booths inside the cafe were still occupied, all by couples. One pair sat staring into each other’s eyes, their fingers touching affectionately across the table. He reached out and took the bottle of white wine from the ice-filled cooler next to the table and poured the final contents into Penny’s glass. She smiled, tightening her grip around his hand, and turned to gaze out onto the plaza. The picture window provided an unobstructed view of the seating areas to either side of the cafe. A young female, sitting alone at a table outside caught her eye; the figure was in silhouette against the bright sunlight, yet there was something vaguely familiar about the profile, but in her daydream, Penny couldn’t put her finger on it. She turned back to her companion, ‘Come on hun, it’s time we got back to the office.’
Creation- The Auditor’s Apprentice Page 4
