The Unification Chronicles: Between Heaven and Hell

by Jeff Kirvin

  Daniel managed a quick smile as Ricardo approached. “So it's done?” he asked.

  Ricardo nodded, still out of breath from his escape. “If they try to dig through and follow us, we'll be long gone before they get out of that tunnel. If they just radio in and close down the city—"

  "We've already got ways around that,” Daniel said. “Good work, Ricardo."

  "Daniel, how'd they find us?"

  Daniel looked around, then put an arm around Ricardo's shoulder and took him aside. “I have an idea, but I wanted to wait until you got here to test it. You're still the boss in L.A."

  Not anymore, Ricardo thought, looking first at Daniel, then at the remains of the Los Angeles Underground packing into the evacuation trucks. “What's the plan?"

  Rhaumel, or “Lewis Malone", waited in line, impatient to get in the truck. The injured and elderly were being helped in first, and those rebels cursed with being ambulatory had to wait. As he looked around, he noticed Jones and Cho walking towards him. He was initially suspicious, but they were both smiling and chatting happily. They probably knew nothing, he decided.

  "Lewis!” Cho called out. “We need your help with something."

  Rhaumel pointed to himself with a questioning look.

  "Yes, you,” Cho said, smiling even wider and chuckling to himself.

  Reluctantly, Rhaumel stepped out of line. He didn't need to draw undo attention to himself by refusing whatever they wanted outright. “What do you need?"

  This time, Jones did the talking. “We're short-handed loading some of the cargo, and Daniel here says you've got a pretty strong grip. We sure could use the help."

  Rhaumel scowled. Bad enough the rebels escaped Gabriel's assault, but now they wanted him to do manual labor?

  "Come on,” Daniel said, “it's the least you can to pay us back for all that insulin.” He playfully jabbed Rhaumel in the shoulder.

  "All right,” Rhaumel said.

  "It's this way,” Jones said, pointing the way, “We'll meet you in a second.” Rhaumel began to walk in the prescribed direction. As soon as he was ten meters or so away from the line, he heard Cho shout “Now!"

  From hiding places behind trucks and crates, a dozen rebels raced out and grabbed him. He'd been tricked!

  He quickly glanced around and assessed the situation. None of the rebels holding him were armed, but there were several just beyond arm's reach that were. Cho and Jones stood directly in front of him, and even with his strength and speed he didn't think he could break the grips of a dozen humans and reach either of the ringleaders before the armed rebels could fire. He decided to maintain his cover and try to play it off as a big misunderstanding. Humans were fond of that. It was the basis for most of their comedy.

  "What's ... what's going on?” he asked in the most terror-stricken voice he could muster.

  "A test,” Cho said, unsheathing a knife. “I've had doubts about you ever since we first met. Now I'm going to see if I was right."

  Rhaumel struggled, but the humans just barely held him in check. Cho stepped forward and slashed quickly along Rhaumel's arm with the knife. The wound had already begun to heal by the time Cho sheathed the knife again. The other rebels tightened their grips, now that what they were dealing with had been confirmed.

  "What's your real name?” Cho demanded.

  Dropping all pretense of humanity, the angel answered promptly. “Rhaumel. How did you know, rebel?"

  "You should have picked a better cover ailment. Very few diabetics could have really gone three whole days without insulin, and none of them would have been as strong as you were after a sugar reaction. I just wish I'd thought of that before tonight, when I saw you were the only one other than the sentries already up when the attack began. All this death could have been averted."

  "So what now, rebel?"

  Cho shrugged, a maddeningly casual gesture. “We're leaving. You're dying. Goodbye."

  Cho turned and walked briskly away, already resuming the job of coordinating the rebel departure. As Rhaumel looked around, he saw Jones glaring at him, the hatred exceedingly obvious, a rebel preparing a small plastic explosive device, and another rebel stepping in front of him and leveling a pistol at his head. Rhaumel struggled again, but he couldn't get enough leverage to break his bonds.

  "Everyone get away from his head,” the pistol-wielding rebel said, and just for a moment Rhaumel thought he had enough freedom of movement to get away. But he wasn't quite fast enough.

  Town Meeting

  "What?” Michael said, incredulous.

  Gabriel stood before him in the throne room, still clad in his charred armor and holding his helmet in his hands. He spoke quietly. “Cho escaped, and we lost contact with Rhaumel. We believe his cover was blown, and he's presumed dead."

  Michael nodded, stood, and walked to the window, its vast expanse overlooking the pre-dawn Los Angeles below. “What you're telling me,” he said, “is that you knew where Cho and his band of traitors were, you took them by surprise, killed nearly half of them, yet not only did Cho and the other rebel leaders escape, but you lost three of your own men and the mole we sacrificed a Care Center to plant?

  "Is that what you're telling me?"

  Gabriel stared at the floor. “Yes, sir."

  Michael whirled on his subordinate. “This is intolerable! Gabriel, you've served me well over the millennia, and that's the only reason you're still alive. I will not accept this sort of failure any longer. They're only humans! You're an immortal! Act like it! From this point on, I'm assigning someone else to run security around here. Your job, for every second of every day, is to find Daniel Cho and deliver his dead body to me.

  "Is that understood?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Michael pointed to the door. “Get out of my sight."

  Scowling, Gabriel left.

  The trucks filtered into San Diego by morning, and Daniel found the members of the San Diego Underground very receptive. Their leader was a burly Mexican named Manuel Nogales, and he seemed particularly pleased to have Daniel in town.

  "So you're the Great and Powerful Daniel Cho,” Nogales said, enveloping Daniel's hand in a beefy palm and shaking vigorously.

  "Just Daniel,” Daniel smiled, finding the large man's enthusiasm infectious. Daniel looked around the compound as the other Los Angeles Underground members started unloading the trucks. It was a vast underground maze of forgotten irrigation tunnels, hard to find and protected from aerial strikes. Daniel approved. “Quite a place you have here, Mister Nogales."

  "Please, Daniel, it's Manuel. Come this way. There's someone who wants to see you.” Manuel put a tree-trunk arm around Daniel's shoulders and half led, half dragged him away from the trucks and further into the tunnels.

  Further in from the entrance and “loading docks", the tunnels had been substantially modified to provide living quarters and other makeshift rooms. Most of the “walls” were nothing more than sheets of pressboard or drywall propped against one another, but it was a more elaborate headquarters than they'd had in Los Angeles. As they passed, all activity stopped and as one the denizens of the San Diego underground turned and watched Daniel walk by. Daniel was a little disturbed by their silence.

  "Your reputation precedes you,” Manuel said, noticing Daniel's discomfort. “You're a hero to these people, and others around the world. I hope their reverence doesn't cause you undo discomfort."

  "It's a little unnerving,” Daniel said, looking around at one awed face after another.

  "It shouldn't be. You discovered the immortals and exposed them. You were present at the destruction of Hell. You're the only human to publicly defy Michael and survive. Can you blame them for thinking you walk on water?"

  Daniel didn't have an answer. He didn't think of himself as a hero. He just did what he had to do.

  "We're here,” Manuel said. “My office."

  The “office” was a plywood shack inside one of the largest tunnels. Manuel opened the door and ushered Daniel insi
de. The interior was sparsely decorated, all the furniture obviously pillaged from junk heaps and dumpsters. Daniel noticed none of this. He was busy smiling at the man behind the ancient steel desk.

  Jack Harris, his old second in command, stood up and gave Daniel a quick salute. “Good to see you, Colonel."

  Jack had turned down a posting at Heaven, instead preferring to retire and enjoy the newfound peace. At least that's what he had said at the time.

  "I had a bad feeling about the angels from the beginning,” he said to Daniel and Manuel, the three of them crowded around Manuel's desk. “Something that occurred to me while we were in Hell. Heinrich and I were pinned down, just about out of grenades, and facing more demons than we had a chance of destroying. Just when I was sure our numbers were up, the angels arrived in their shiny white armor and blew the demons to smithereens, never even glancing our way to see if we were all right.

  "And I noticed something. The demons never stood a chance. With the firepower and protection of that armor, the angels could have destroyed Hell and everything in it long before they actually did. Why did they wait?

  "I started thinking more and more that it wasn't a coincidence that the angels didn't make their move until after the United States government fell apart. They weren't waiting until they were ready to attack. They were waiting until we had no choice but to accept them."

  Daniel slumped back in his seat and exhaled sharply. “That's it,” he said. “I knew for the whole year I lived in Michael's golden trophy that there was something about them that didn't sit right, something over and above their smug self-righteousness, but I could never put my finger on it. That was it."

  "I wanted nothing to do with them,” Jack continued, “but I kept an eye on the news, or what that damn toady Richardson chose to report. When I saw that you'd left and been declared a heretic, I not only knew I was right, but that you'd seen it too, or something worse. Given what's happened in the last twelve months, I gather it was worse."

  "So why didn't you come to L.A.?” Daniel asked.

  "I was busy. I've spent the last several months setting up the Underground in Chicago. I flew down here two weeks ago because I didn't want the angels getting suspicious if I flew into Los Angeles. I had just arranged with Manuel for ground transport to your L.A. headquarters when we got word you were coming here."

  Manuel leaned forward. “So what now, amigos?"

  Daniel brought his hand to his face and stroked his chin. “I think it's time for a town meeting."

  Daniel's “town meeting” took nearly a week of frenzied activity to set up. When all was said and done, they had the leader of every Underground branch in the world online for a conference over the Internet, the one form of media Michael had been unable to control. Through the use of audio encoding, the final result was one gigantic conference call.

  "Greetings, and thanks for doing this,” Daniel began into the microphone. “By now, I'm sure many or most of you are aware of what happened a week ago in Los Angeles. This latest attack has brought into sharp relief the need for a coordinated effort from the Underground. Our random strikes and acts of defiance aren't really getting us anywhere, and it just pisses them off. So what I'd like first is a sense of the room. What is the angelic occupation like outside southern California?"

  One by one, the other leaders gave Daniel a progress report of their situation.

  In China and most of the Far East, the angels held their position through intimidation and violent oppression when necessary. The Asian mythology didn't allow for the same reverent grace period the angels enjoyed in Christian/Jewish/Muslim countries, so the angels had resorted to time tested political methods.

  Australia and New Zealand fell to the same religious and political pressures as most of Europe, but the angels kept a heavier hand there because of the geographic isolation. Sydney had become a police state after a few public protests, and the penalties for disobedience of the angels’ edicts were swift and fierce.

  The angels were particularly merciless in India, where they took a no nonsense approach to controlling its nearly one billion inhabitants. Angels rarely appeared there without armor, and they had a habitual practice of sweeping the streets clean of vagrants with their flame-throwers.

  Africa was well under control. The Muslim population had gone along with Michael's wishes very early, and had thus been spared the purging endured by the Indians and Chinese. The angels had recently been increasing their patrols, and invoking ever more strict regulations, but by and large the people obeyed.

  Europe was hit harder than anyone but the Japanese by the fall of the United States economy, and thus relied heavily upon the angels to rebuild. The angels were as dominant a presence in Europe as they were in North America, and the Europeans had similar problems organizing their resistance movement.

  South America found itself in an angelic stranglehold. The vast majority of the population was Catholic, and had initially done anything the angels asked. Only much later did they realize that the angels didn't value much in South America, and that the people had only succeeded in caging themselves at the angels’ behest. The angels were rarely seen in South America, but order was strictly maintained by religiously fanatical human dictators left in place by the angels.

  Elsewhere in North America, the situation was much the same as in California. People led their daily lives without much interference by the angels, so long as they stayed firmly within the increasingly confining rules. Those that rebelled, or forgot the rules, were swiftly removed from society. Even jaywalkers were often carted away by police and seldom seen again.

  When the last person stopped talking, Daniel was quiet for a long moment. “We need to organize a counteroffensive,” he said at last. “A world wide effort coordinated to weaken the angels until we can assault Heaven itself."

  "Who will lead such an effort?” asked the representative of the British Underground.

  "We'll have to elect one, I guess,” said Daniel. “The important thing is that the strikes be concurrent. We have to force them to divide their forces. Even they can't be everywhere at once and be effective."

  "We must put this to a vote,” said the representative from Nigeria. “We'll get back to you."

  One by one, they disconnected, leaving Daniel sitting by the computer and looking questioningly at Ricardo, Manuel and Jack.

  Jihad

  The reply came quicker than Daniel expected. Unanimously, the other leaders of the Underground had elected him as their leader, and they now waited for his orders to attack.

  Daniel quickly called a meeting with his War Council, as he'd come to think of Ricardo, Manuel and Jack.

  "Any suggestions on what we do first?” he asked.

  Jack was the first to speak. “The Underground isn't big enough for the synchronous assault you mentioned, at least not yet. Thanks to the angels’ propaganda campaign, a lot of folks don't even know we exist, and most of those that do think we're a disorganized rabble of troublemakers."

  "We aren't?” Manuel asked.

  Daniel smiled and said, “I'd like to think not, Manuel, but Jack's right. We need better press and more recruits if we're going to make this work."

  "What about your friend Richardson?” Ricardo asked.

  Daniel shook his head. “Susan's in too deep. Even if she believes me now, and she didn't a year ago, I don't think she'll openly defy Michael like that. There has to be another way."

  "What if we just make an announcement?” Manuel asked.

  "What do you have in mind,” Jack asked, “paper fliers?"

  "I was thinking television,” Manuel said. “I used to be an engineer at one of the local network affiliates. I know how to do a satellite uplink, and how to run the equipment in the studio."

  "You can get us on the angels’ satellite broadcast?” Ricardo asked.

  Manuel shrugged. “For a few minutes, probably. More than that I don't know. They'll probably catch on pretty quick and block us out."

 
; "A few minutes is all we need. Just enough for a declaration of war,” Daniel said.

  The other three men stared at Daniel as he laid out his plan.

  Two days later, they sat in a van a block away from the television station where Manuel had recently been employed.

  "Everyone knows their assignments,” Daniel asked.

  Everyone in the van gave an affirmative reply. In addition to Daniel, Manuel, Ricardo and Jack, there were four other Underground members, all technical staff that like Manuel, who used to work in television.

  "All right, then,” Daniel said. “Let's move."

  On Daniel's signal, the van pulled up to the service entrance of the studio building. Daniel and his men filed out and into the building with military precision. The instant they were inside, Jack fired a round from his rifle into the ceiling.

  The gathered technicians and crew in the backstage area froze as Daniel stepped forward. “My name is Daniel Cho,” he said with authority, “and we're with the Underground. We'd like to borrow your equipment for a while."

  The only reply Daniel received was silence as everyone in the building stepped away from their posts. No one made a move to stop them as they commandeered the cameras in the news studio. Daniel looked at Manuel in the control booth, and Manuel gave him the thumbs up.

  This is it, Daniel thought. As Jack and Ricardo watched the doors, Daniel took his place behind the news desk. Manuel gave a signal to the camera operator, who then waved four fingers at Daniel, then three, then two, then one.

  "Greetings. I'm Daniel Cho.

  "For the last two years, the collected people of Earth have lived under the oppression of an immortal dictator. We in the Underground have pledged to change that.

  "Most of you don't know what's really going on. Many of you have seen loved ones and friends shipped off to Care Centers for the treatment of various genetic illnesses and defects. What you don't know is that these Care Centers are in actuality death camps where Michael intends to remove those he considers genetically defective from the gene pool.