Faulty Prophet

by Karl Beecher

  The meathead opposite looked around, suddenly nervous. Tyresa's wrist computer was still sticking out of his chest pocket. A red light on it was flickering. She knew what that meant.

  The sounds above returned, still loud but more like a continuous rumble.

  "It's right above us!" shouted Gilper, straining to look through his side window. "Do something!"

  Tyresa heard the vehicle speed up. Everyone was jostled as the van snaked from side to side.

  The cop beside her yelled nervously at the camera. "Um, sir, what's going on?"

  "Quiet!" replied Gilper. "And keep your—ugh!"

  Something bathed the cab in brightness, causing Gilper to squint. Light streamed through the tiny slitted windows in the van's back doors. Nobody seemed to recognise what the hell was going on. But Tyresa did. The light was a tractor beam. And she had a pretty good idea what was going to happen next.

  Sure enough, the van jolted upwards. The side to side motion instantly changed, as though the vehicle were swinging on the end of a rope rather than weaving along a road.

  She grabbed hold of the bench and braced herself. She hoped she was right about this.

  "Ade!" she yelled towards the wrist computer. "Fast roll, plus ninety degrees!"

  Gravity shifted violently to one side. The side of the van behind her became the floor. Tyresa, already pressing her back against it and holding on tight, got off lightly as the van rolled over.

  Not so the other two.

  The cop beside her slid backwards and whacked the back of his unprotected head against the metal. He looked around startled and struggled to sit. Tyresa saw her chance and brought her elbow down hard against the guy's nose with a crunch. His eyes rolled backwards, and blood streamed down his mouth. That was him out for the count.

  The other cop, meanwhile, had flown across the compartment and thudded face down by Tyresa's other side. He was shaken but rallied quickly. Something else had fallen beside her too. Tyresa went for the rifle. The cop saw her and got his hands to it as well, trying to wrench it away. She gripped onto the weapon as though her life depended on it because it probably did.

  She pulled so hard that the cop rolled on top of her, the rifle ending up over her neck. He instantly changed tack and, still grasping the rifle, raised himself onto his knees. The tug of war had become a push of war. The cop thrust the rifle down towards Tyresa's neck. Tyresa pushed back just as hard to prevent herself from being throttled. Her arm muscles quickly started screaming out for mercy. The metal of the rifle pressed against her flesh. She bucked and wriggled, but it was no good. She was trapped, her hands cuffed. There was nothing she could do.

  The cop continued to push. "Stupid…weakling…woman…"

  Then he made his mistake. He raised his hips, probably trying to bring more of his weight to bear.

  But Tyresa's legs were now free.

  "Being a…woman…" she breathed, "I don't have…these!"

  Her knee shot upwards into his groin. The man's face became an instant vision of pain. Eyes, mouth, even his nostrils flared wide open. A pathetic rattle struggled from his throat as he sucked in the air. His body went limp as a sandbag.

  Now was her chance. She kicked him square in the chest with both feet, sending him toppling backwards, then snatched up the rifle and took aim. The stun bolt slammed into his gut, and he collapsed like a sack of potatoes. The poor guy wouldn't know which bit of himself to clutch first when he woke up.

  Tyresa struggled to her feet. There was little time to take stock of herself. She hurt all over was about the size of it. She ignored the pain as best she could and pulled her wrist computer from the unconscious cop's pocket. A channel was open.

  "Ade? Do you copy?"

  "I do indeed, ma'am," came his reassuring voice through the speaker. "May I be of further assistance?"

  "Sure as shit you can, Ade," she said, stumbling over the unconscious cop towards the rear doors. "I need to get out of here before these sleeping beauties wake up."

  "Sleeping beauties, ma'am?"

  "Long story." She flipped the computer onto her wrist and tightened the strap. It was tricky with the cuffs still on. "Lower the cargo winch."

  "Certainly."

  She undid the latch and kicked the lower door. It flopped open to become a horizontal platform onto which Tyresa crawled. The van was floating several metres above an empty highway that stretched through the Procyan countryside, brown fields, and tall trees as far as the eye could see. A couple dozen metres above was the Turtle, its howling jets keeping it afloat. It wasn't a large ship, but it still dwarfed the van. Seeing it above felt ominously like having a building floating over your head.

  The winch, dangling from the ship's underside, dropped down a few seconds later. The thick, heavy cable barely drifted in the wind. Tyresa reached out a leg, shoved her foot in the hooked end and grabbed the rope tightly.

  "Okay," she yelled. "Haul up!"

  The winch began to retract, lifting her up like a fish on a line. The cargo lift on the Turtle's underside had been lowered, and she could see the inside of the cargo bay. Not the most comfortable way to enter the ship, but she had little choice. All she could do was hold on tight until the winch brought her up and onto the lift.

  As she emerged above the overturned, floating van, a bolt of energy suddenly whizzed past her head. It didn't have the white glow of a stun shot; it had been red. Someone had shot to kill. It was Gilper, poking up through his door's window.

  "I'll kill you, you damned unnatural harlot!" he cried with a look of rage on his face. "I'll send you back to the underworld with all the sinners!"

  He squeezed off another shot with his pistol, which flashed past Tyresa's hip.

  She squatted, trying to make herself a smaller target. She was still hopelessly exposed.

  "Give the van another turn, Ade," she said to her wrist. "Make a full one-eighty."

  "Very good, ma'am."

  The van tilted again. Its roof soon pointed at the ground, but it kept rotating. Gilper's face turned to panic, and he dropped his pistol as he tried to grab hold of the door. He looked like a man scrambling to stay upright on a capsizing yacht. He disappeared from view as the van completed its rotation.

  Tyresa put a cupped hand up to her mouth. "Blessings upon you, Gilper!"

  A moment later, he reappeared again, falling from the window with a high-pitched scream. It was only a few metres to the ground, not enough to kill him, but enough to give him a few nice, shiny bruises. Maybe even a broken bone or two if Tyresa was lucky.

  The winch pulled her up until she reached the cargo lift. Finally, she stepped aboard, and the lift retracted up into the cargo bay.

  "I'm aboard, Ade," she said to her wrist as the cargo lift closed and sealed airtight. "Release the van. Gently. There's a couple of unconscious dudes in there."

  "I cannot say I'm surprised, ma'am," Ade's voice came back.

  "When you've done that, take us up."

  Tyresa perched herself on a box and got her breath back. Pain throbbed from several points on her body. The next couple of days were going to be a joy waiting for those to heal.

  A moment later, the engines roared, and Tyresa felt the thrust as the Turtle ascended. There was no time to sit around, she had to find out where Colin was. She jogged past various crates and containers and took the elevator up to the bridge. Ade was there, sitting in the pilot's seat.

  He turned as she stepped off the elevator. "Apologies, ma'am," he said. "I appear to be in your chair."

  She stopped him as he went to stand. "No, no. I think you've more than earned the honour to take us out of here. Put us into orbit. We might need to make a quick exit."

  "Very good, ma'am."

  Tyresa flopped exhausted into a neighbouring chair.

  Ade noticed her scratching at the cuffs and reached towards her. "Allow me, ma'am," he said. In one smooth motion, he snapped one of the metal links, freeing her.

  "Thanks, Ade," she breathed. "I'm glad to
see you're okay, at least."

  "My day has not been entirely escapade-free, ma'am. A few hours ago, two young gentlemen from the local constabulary presumed to board the vessel with a rather urgent disposition and proceeded to fire at me."

  Tyresa looked at Ade. There wasn't a mark on him. "What happened?"

  "Fortunately, ma'am, they had engaged their rifles in stun setting."

  That explained it. Ordinary stun weapons were designed with biological life forms in mind. They didn't work on an android like Ade.

  He continued. "After observing their weapons having no effect, the young gentlemen's subsequent panicked babbling led me to conclude they believed me to be some kind of demon. I thought it prudent not to dissuade them of the notion, ma'am. After performing a suitably…" Ade coughed. "…demonic display for them, the two gentlemen were easily persuaded to leave."

  Tyresa smirked and tried to imagine Ade pretending to be a devil, putting on a show for his captive audience. She found it hard, and anyway, there were more important things to do now.

  "Hanson's taken Colin," Tyresa said as the pale blue sky outside darkened to the black of outer space.

  "I am most aggrieved to learn that," replied Ade. "As I was when I discovered that you were being taken away in a police vehicle. I am grateful that we were able to extricate you from your predicament."

  "We need to find where Hanson's taken him," she said. "But where the hell do we start? Who around here would help us?"

  "We do have one friend on Procya, ma'am," said Ade.

  "Spudge? Sure, but he has nothing to do with Hanson. What help could he be?"

  "He may be able to help us establish whether Mister Hanson remains on Procya, at least."

  "True," she replied. "All right, open comms. Let's see if we can reach him."

  It didn't take long to reach Spudge. When they had, the young technician turned out to be plenty helpful. He checked the spaceport records and found that Brock Hanson had his own private starship, the SS Rabbit, which had left spaceport just a couple of hours earlier. Naturally, Spudge couldn't be certain of its destination. However, by calling in a favour and checking the control tower departure logs, he was able to project a course along the ship's last known heading. Tyresa looked at it to determine whether it led towards any particular star system. It did. Slap bang into a relatively nearby and obscure little star system.

  When Tyresa saw the system's name, a cold shudder went through her.

  Was Brock Hanson nuts?

  6

  Colin lay alone in bed, which was normal for him. It had been a depressingly long time since he'd shared a bed with anyone. Technically it had been about two millennia.

  He stared up at the ceiling of his empty room. Thoughts ran through his mind. Unanswered questions taunted him. One question, in particular, troubled him greatly.

  What was the name of the British Colonel played by Alec Guinness in Bridge on the River Kwai?

  It was no secret Colin had a tendency to distract himself with trivia in the face of unpleasantness. But now, he was combining it with another old habit: seeking inspiration from history to solve his own problems. In years gone by, he'd sought inspiration from things like Churchill's wartime struggles, Napoleon's great gambles, or Socrates's martyrdom. Admittedly quite melodramatic examples when the worst problems he'd faced in life prior to his illness had been things like a belligerent plumber or a funny-looking mole on his back.

  This time, however, he was truly in hot water. The situation reminded him of prisoners of war. He'd been taken against his will and his captors wanted cooperation. ‘What would Alec Guinness have done?' seemed a perfectly appropriate question to ask. Sure, the Japanese had imprisoned Alec in a sun-baked box for weeks on end, whereas Colin occupied not so much a box as a box room—and an environmentally-controlled one at that. Plus, he was pretty sure he'd been here for less than a day (he couldn't be sure since he'd been napping on and off).

  The parallels might have been weak, but still the original question refused to leave him alone: what was Alec Guinness's character called? He wanted to say Nixon, but he couldn't be certain. Come to think of it, wasn't Nixon the name of a Prime Minister implicated in some kind of water-related scandal? He must have seen Bridge on the River Kwai close to a hundred times. How, then, could he have forgotten the main character from his favourite film played by his favourite actor? It was just another example of things that were slipping his mind.

  If anything, his forgetfulness had become worse since his operation. And then there were the headaches and a generally unwell feeling that had bedded in his bones. Gunga kept assuring him these were after-effects of surgery. The Doctor surely knew what he's talking about. If there was a real problem—say, perhaps, the surgery hadn't gone completely to plan—Gunga would see it and do something about it. If he and Hanson wanted something from Colin, it made no sense to leave him terminally ill, right?

  Right?

  Colin heard a click. The red light beside the doorway turned green, and the door opened to reveal Arfang. The huge man said nothing, merely pointed at Colin and gestured for him to follow. Not wanting to disappoint a man who looked like he would wrestle a bear just for something to do, Colin obeyed.

  He trailed Arfang along the passageway of the only spaceship he'd known aside from the Turtle. Hanson's ship was quite a change. It wasn't lit by boxy strip lights, and it didn't feature pipes and cabling hanging from the ceiling. Instead, dark wooden panelling covered the walls. Illumination came from bulbous lamps straight out of a Victorian gentleman's parlour. It wasn't so much a ship as a luxury space yacht. Evangelism was clearly a lucrative business in Abrama.

  Colin's mind wandered back to Bridge on the River Kwai. He was now Alec Guinness, being taken from his cell for a battle of wills with the camp commandant. Like the Colonel, Colin would have to stick to his guns and hold firm against the demands…whatever they might be.

  Oh, what the bloody hell was that Colonel's name?

  Eventually, Arfang stopped beside a door. He reached up to a button beside it, and Colin braced himself.

  The door opened to reveal an even more opulent space within. Ornately carved wooden furniture stood on a thick, brown rug. A huge bookshelf supported row upon row of leather-bound books. Paintings littered the walls, most depicting battles, martyrdoms, cataclysms and other jolly things like that.

  "Why, hello, Mister Douglass," Hanson greeted Colin. He was sitting in a finely upholstered armchair beside a coffee table and looked to be in a good mood. "Come on in and take a seat. Thank you, Arfang."

  The door closed, leaving Colin and Hanson alone together. Colin quietly planted himself on the sofa beside Hanson's chair. His host stared at him in his usual, unsettlingly familiar way, the kind of look Colin only ever saw from second-hand car dealers.

  "How are you, Mister Douglass?"

  "Fine, thank you," said Colin in his best imitation of British Army officer style.

  "And has the Creator (Grant Unto Him Glory) seen fit to reveal himself to you yet?"

  "I'm afraid not," replied Colin.

  Hanson took the news in his stride. "I see. I was afraid of that. Of course, He knows best. Things will run according to His schedule. Nevertheless, I think there's something we can do to speed things up."

  "What do you mean?" asked Colin.

  "I'm going to tell you exactly where we're going and what we're going to do when we get there. I'm going to lay it all on the line for you. Perhaps that'll stir things up and get that memory of yours jogging."

  "You're that sure I'm your prophet?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Even though I was caught denying it?"

  Hanson paused for a moment. Colin swore he could see the man's brain at work trying to figure that one out.

  "You did what you felt you had to do," Hanson said finally. "You see, you're not strictly speaking in full control of your faculties."

  Throughout his life, Colin had rarely thought otherwise.

 
Hanson continued. "As a prophet, your actions are guided by the Creator (Grant Unto Him Glory). Frankly, Mister Douglass, you're a tool."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Of the Creator (Grant Unto Him Glory). He controls you, albeit it in mysterious ways."

  "I see," said Colin. "I suppose I'm unaware of that control?"

  "Exactly."

  How convenient.

  "But once you receive your revelation," continued Hanson, "everything will become clear. All those details buried in your mind will finally come to the surface. Speaking of which, let's see if we can't bring that revelation on."

  He sat back and began to expound.

  "You claim to hail from the planet Earth, which was once rich and vibrant but is now a desolate wasteland. That's a claim that has seen you dismissed as an eccentric, a madman. Yes?"

  Colin nodded.

  Hanson pressed his hand against his chest. "I do not ridicule you. I believe you. I know what you say is true. I also know what it's like to be laughed at and dismissed, as you have been. It's taught me to hold firm to my beliefs, despite what others say, despite what so-called ‘reality' dictates. It's taught me how to win, how to carry on fighting even as people try to beat you down. You see, Mister Douglass, I am the head of the True Origin Society."

  Colin's muscles tensed up at the sound of the name.

  Hanson clearly saw the realisation on Colin's face. "I knew that name would stir some feeling of recognition. Clearly, we need to keep digging."

  Hanson may have believed he'd tapped into some hidden knowledge divinely buried inside Colin, but the truth was much plainer. Tyresa had already warned him about True Origin people; a cult of religious extremists stuffed with ‘whacked-out nutjobs' as she'd put it. She had urged him to stay well away from them.

  It seemed he'd not quite succeeded.

  Hanson went on. "Our organisation is the keeper of the ultimate truths, those laid down by the Progenitor (He Who Created All Thou Can See And Not See). Most people believe our name comes from our insistence on staying true to his original teachings. This is correct, but our name has another meaning: our belief that we will be guided to the true origin of humanity. Earth."