The Sin of Moloch

by Andrew Gordinier

  Chapter 38

  The Emissary put a sealed envelope on the table in front of Conrad and several others. “The formal acceptance of your terms are there. We have been in touch with most of the other regents, and they have mostly agreed to attend. Either way, it will be the largest gathering of mages since ancient times.”

  “Where?” Asked Shades.

  “Rome.”

  “Are we renting out the Colosseum?” Conrad asked with a wry smile.

  “No, there are several options under consideration, but the most likely one will be a theater.”

  Conrad broke the seal on the envelope and examined the papers inside before asking, “When?”

  “Four days. Is that acceptable?”

  “Of course.” Conrad mused that it would either be enough time or it wouldn’t, there was no point in arguing.

  “Very well.” The emissary stood up and straightened his vest. “Are there any new developments we need to discuss?”

  “Not on our end.” Shades looked carefully at the Emissary.

  “I did have an opportunity to discuss your friend with mine.” The Emissary said as he made eye contact with Conrad.

  “And?”

  “It seems the situation is more complicated than I was lead to believe, but still very much as you said it would be. I talked to several of the others about this, and while it has raised questions, it changes nothing.” The Emissary remained standing but put his hands on the back of the chair.

  “I didn’t suspect it would, but I wanted to be as transparent as I could, Young John has ruffled a few feathers, and I’m sure he makes a lot of people nervous.” Conrad folded the handwritten pages and put them back in the envelope.

  “You have been a calming influence on him, but it is true, he remains an unpredictable variable.” Conrad didn’t like the way the Emissary said ‘variable’ as if people were factors to be controlled or eliminated.

  “Well, isn’t he a charming bastard.” Shades said after the emissary had left.

  “I suspect his promiscuous mother is the least of our concerns.” Conrad said as he turned towards Eric.

  “I know what you’re going to ask, and I don’t have any good news. Tracking a Censor is like trying to find a specific black cat in New York during a power outage.” Eric spoke quickly while shaking his head.

  “The ability to teleport is going to make it extremely difficult to find where he has them.” Conrad said somberly.

  “I can’t even narrow down where to look, if I could, I’d be able to focus my search.” Eric poured himself a glass of water.

  “I wasn’t aware that our plans focused so heavily on finding John’s girlfriend.” Shades looked at Conrad pointedly. “I know a rescue was always in the works, but when did it become part of our plan for survival?”

  Conrad was silent for a moment. “It’s not so much John’s girlfriend, Radha, as it is the other young woman that was also kidnapped. John had her working on his project that, while foolish at the time, might just be what we need to resolve this crisis. Or, at the very least, give us the upper hand if it turns ugly.”

  “If it turns ugly, there isn’t going to be much we can do about it, even with that program working.” Shades said quietly.

  “I would tend to agree, Lenoard.” Conrad paused. “Be that as it may, how is our progress in getting it to work without John’s partner in crime?”

  “I have a few people working on it.” Eric commented. “But, the issue is that Deanna was creating a unique algorithm. One that my people say borders on a new form of math, and they are having a hard time getting a grip on it.”

  “I remember hearing the phrase ‘the next logical progression’ a lot when I was younger. Usually, when it came to nuclear weapons. There always seemed to be an excuse or reason to build a more powerful bomb. We could be starting something very bad.” Leonard shifted in his seat, and the lights flashed off his ever-present sunglasses.

  “I would tend to agree, but at this point, the cat is out of the bag. We either make friends with it or face the consequences of how to dispose of it.” Conrad said grimly.

  Chapter 39

  Deanna had almost given up on finding Radha, she and Yvonne had lost each other in the dark a couple of times. The threat of being lost and alone in the jungle was very different in Deanna’s mind than being lost with two other people. She had no idea what she would do by herself, she had not lied to herself about her bravado and humor through the whole ordeal, she knew she was doing it for Yvonne and Radha. What she had not understood was how codependent that relationship was. She needed them to give her purpose, to force her to make an effort. She could have only gotten so far by herself, and it was that realization that made her so persistent in keeping up with Radha.

  “I found her!” Carried through the trees and brought a much-needed burst of energy to Deanna.

  “Where are you?” She called out and waited breathlessly.

  “On a small hill, there is a road here!” Yvonne’s voice carried a sense of hope. Deanna jogged in the direction she thought Yvonne was in and soon heard her calling again closer this time, but off to her right. She changed direction and soon found herself standing on a dirt road a short distance from Yvonne and Radha, who was lying on the ground.

  “Her fever is really bad.” Whispered Yvonne, when Deanna was close enough.

  “Did she say why she ran?”

  “I don’t know, she just keeps talking in Hindi and crying.”

  “She must be delusional from the fever.”

  “We need to get her help soon. Which way do you want to go?”

  “I don’t know.” The dirt road ran East and West, looked well-traveled, but there was no way to know which way was the nearest town. “We go East.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that takes us further away from that son of bitch faster.” Deanna took hold of Radha’s arm and started helping her up, Yvonne joined in, and they were soon half carrying her down the road. Radha continued to mumble and cry gently, nothing they did seemed to soothe her.

  After several hours of walking, they came to a small shack by the side of the road. It seemed unimportant and forgotten, but they searched it out of desperation. The ancient rotary phone wasn’t connected to a line, there were some rusted cans of “mysterious nasty” that Deanna avoided, and nasty rags hung from a hook on the wall. As they stood outside, despairing and about to give up, Yvonne smiled suddenly.

  “Do you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” Deanna was feeling desperate for hope.

  “I hear an engine!” Yvonne stood up with a hopeful smile on her face. “It’s getting louder.”

  “I can’t…” Deanna paused, and suddenly could hear it, a distant grumbling and complaining motor. “I hear it, I hear it.”

  Soon enough, a rusted and dented old bus was laboring up the road towards them. Deanna tried to rouse Radha, but she only mumbled incoherently. It was clear to Deanna that they had a chance to save her, but it was fading fast.

  Chapter 40

  “We have to what?” Christine looked at her nameless boss in shock.

  “Not we, you.” He said calmly.

  “I can’t.”

  “You will because it’s an order, and if you don’t, a Congressional committee will be crawling over us looking for anything and everything.”

  “When I was brought into the FBI, I was told that only the President and a few others knew about the mages, and-“

  “And, that it was a matter of national security that as few others learn as possible.”

  “That is still the truth and still a necessity. It, however, does come into conflict with any efforts on our part to avoid a war.” The man with no name fixed her with an unflinching gaze.

  “If I brief the heads of the NSA and the CIA they are going to want in. They’ll try to take over-“

  “If the worst happens, they won’t have time. If things work out, we can leverage their knowledge and conflicts of interest
towards our own goal.”

  “What is your final goal here? If we prevent the war, things can’t go back to what they were. You’re clearly not going to ignore the mages. If you want me to run part of the strategy, then you need to start letting me in on what the end game is.” Christien was sick of being a well-connected pawn.

  “What I intend to do is set up an international program that will not answer to a single government. It will work with the mages, hopefully, include them. I connected you with those guys at NASA for a reason. Either by magic or technology, humanity is going into space. I don’t know what's out there for sure, but it drove a mage insane and scares the hell out of the rest of them.” Her boss paused to lite a cigar. “Think about that. It scares the hell out of people who can alter reality.”

  “I have thought about it. And it worries me.”

  “It should scare the living hell out of you! It should scare every human being enough to make them stop arguing about their petty shit and work together.”

  “You’re talking about world peace.”

  “I’m talking about the survival of humanity.”

  “Then why build it and put me in charge? This is the sort of thing that goes down in history.” Christien saw it was possible, and that it could be done without compromising oaths or ideals she had held for so long. In fact, it seemed to, in many ways, justify those ideas.

  “I hide my name for a reason.” He said as he stared at the ember of his cigar. “There is too much blood that has been spilled across this desk. This is decades of my predecessors ordering, or allowing, deaths. There have been cover-ups of terrible things that might still come to light. I’ve played a deep role in many things, and those stains will never wash off. All I can do is set this up, pick who is going to run it, and step back. Unless we all get killed in the process.” The man without a name smiled.

  Christien sat there silently and realized she had been wrong. She wasn’t a well-connected pawn. She was the queen in waiting. The responsibility of shouldering such an ambitious dream suddenly seemed enormous, and more than she had ever bargained for.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll do fine. I picked you for a reason. Now, go brief those idiots so we can get this over with.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chapter 41

  “Look, this isn’t that simple.” Eric watched the kid run his hand over his freshly shaved scalp for the hundredth time as he explained the situation. “I tried to debug it, I tried to de-compile it, and I understand SOME of how the program works. It’s elite code! I mean, this is slick stuff! I just don’t get it.”

  “What is there not to get?” Conrad’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses.

  “The math, if you can call it that. Whoever wrote this was messing with geometry that violates some pretty basic laws. As in it looks non-Euclidean, that’s why we’re calling it the Box.”

  “What?” Conrad looked to Eric for answers.

  “Please, don’t ask.” Eric rubbed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.

  “Because,” The young man smiled. “It looks and sounds like the puzzle box out of Hellraiser, the Lament Configuration box. All those algorithms they only fit together in very specific ways. When they do, they change completely and interact in new and totally different ways. Just like the puzzle box. Did you ever see Hellraiser?”

  “No.” Conrad said flatly.

  “You should check it out, it’s about-“

  “I lack the time for a summary of an obscure movie-“

  “It was a major hit, with lots of-“

  “I said that I don’t have time!” Conrad snapped. After recomposing himself, he looked at the young man and spoke again in a calmer tone. “What I need to know is what you need to make it work, how long it will take, and if there is any way you can prepare a demonstration of it.”

  “This thing is a monster. To run it effectively you need a supercomputer, we are talking massive computing power. And, that’s a guess, because I can’t get it to work for more than a few seconds. So, there is no hope of me doing a demo of something that is essentially useless, but brilliant, code.”

  Conrad sat back in his chair.

  “So, you are telling us that the only person who has a chance of getting this working, is the person who wrote it?” Asked Eric.

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you just say that?” Conrad asked softly.

  “I did.”

  “Eric, I think we should leave before I ask you to kill this young man. Or, dispose of his body, after I kill him.” Conrad stood and moved towards the door.

  “It would be easier if you guys let me have an internet connection, I could source some of this-“

  “As I recall, you are here for your own protection because you dug too deeply into the wrong questions. This Box, as you call it, is not only the wrong question. It provides answers. I hope you can appreciate how dangerous that is.”

  “Yeah, I can.”

  “Of course you can.” Said Conrad without confidence.

  Chapter 42

  John found the temple that orbited the black hole. It was on a smashed and fractured asteroid with sharp and jagged spires jutting out at awkward angles, it looked fake. John considered that it might very well be fake as he searched its surface for the entrance Finley had told him about, a crystal-lined doorway. It stood out, just as Finley had described it. John entered it cautiously and followed a long hallway that ended in double doors of carved crystal. No matter if it had been done by hand, or magic, the work was detailed and impressive. John opened the doors easily and entered what Finley had called the temple.

  It was a vast chamber with an arched ceiling supported by thin pillars of translucent crystal. In the center of the chamber, there was a small pedestal that stood empty. John considered how human it all seemed, even though it was clearly built by a being that, while a distant ancestor, was by no means humans. Yet, there was so much about the way they did things that seemed human, at least to John's eyes. They had left their story for people to find, sought to ensure that some part of who and what they were survived, wasn’t that very human?

  John set up his tent, crawled in, and waited for it to pressurize. Perhaps it was better to consider what about them was not human? Were they also ancestors to the world that he had found that was blasted and ruined. Where only a shadow etched into stone by atomic fire testified to the last desperate moments of an entire species. Would they look at him, at humanity, and see a family resemblance? Would that be enough to foster friendship?

  John longed to see Radha, to talk to her about the things he had learned, to know that she was all right. When he left to chase Finley, John had known that this was part of a trap. When and how it would be sprung, he wasn’t sure. Now that he was on his way home, he was more worried about her than ever, and it was thoughts of her that filled his mind as he fell asleep.

  At first, John was unsure why he was awake. Sitting upright, he looked around, wondering what had happened. Then the ground shook, and he heard a distant muffled booming noise. John quickly donned his spacesuit, started packing his gear up. His first thoughts were that the asteroid had collided with something and was slipping closer to the more dangerous regions of the black hole. Then as John was unsealing the crystal doors, the ground shook hard enough that even in the low gravity of the asteroid, it knocked him off his feet violently. Rather than struggle to his feet, John teleported away from the small asteroid and hoped not to be leaping into greater danger.

  Once clear of the asteroid and the small cloud of debris that it was being smashed into, John could see the alien ships. They were similar to the ones he had seen with the fleet. They appeared crystalline in structure, with sharp edges and long slender bodies that seemed to flash and burn with a fire inside. There were perhaps thirty or so ships, keeping a very safe distance from the black hole, and they were firing blue-white bolts of light into the asteroids. From the patterns of the bolts, John saw they were a mixture of gravity and intensely he
ated gases. It was obvious they were targeting the larger asteroids first and ignoring the smaller debris. John didn’t know if they were following him, looking for someone/thing else, or what. He wasn’t going to find out either, he had to get home, he had to save Radha and tell Finley’s tale. Not losing his sense of caution, every time John teleported, he waited to see these aliens had a way to track him home.

  Chapter 43

  The bus driver had been hesitant to pick them up, more hesitant than Deanna was comfortable with. She didn’t know Spanish, but Yvonne knew enough to convince him to let them on the bus. What Deanna did understand of the conversation made her nervous. The words “diablo” and “morte” were easy to pick out and hard to mistake. Once on the bus, the other passengers had seemed to take pity on them, giving them food and water. An older woman ministered to Radha, singing what sounded like a lullaby all the while. There clearly wasn’t much that could be done without antibiotics, but she cleaned Radha’s wounds better than she or Yvonne could have. In her exhausted and drained state, Deanna was jealous, she wanted someone to care for her, look after her unconditionally. It wasn’t often that she felt lonely or wanted someone to lean on, but there were moments for Deanna. She didn’t like them. She felt they made her weak.

  In a few short hours, the bus arrived at a small village. A collection of small whitewashed buildings clustered around a central plaza that seemed like something out of another era. The driver stopped the bus in front of a building and spoke quickly to Yvonne, who translated that this was the home of the local doctor. He helped them get Radha off the bus and waited with them while the other passengers on the bus looked on. The doctor opened the door, he was a smallish man, but very young and handsome. The bus driver and he talked hurriedly for a moment before the doctor turned to the trio and spoke in halting English.