God of God

by Mark Kraver

  Numen paused, considering his next words. “I could not let them go back to their homeland because they were already thought to be dead. So, I brought them with me to a region of this planet not far from our current destination on one of my regularly-scheduled pilgrimages to visit—” Numen paused.

  “Yes, go on. To visit what?”

  “To visit you.”

  The silence was audible. Up until this point, Yahweh had felt like he was abandoned for his entire hibernation. He had envied El, and even Ra, for their seraphs’ devotion while his own was gallivanting around the world impersonating deities, plotting genesis and exodus strategies, and developing superior hominin phenotypes in Atlantis.

  “To visit me,” Yahweh said quietly. He no longer felt abandoned like a useless subroutine. This must be how the humans feel towards one of their own, he thought. A sense of family. He missed his own human family. His mother, father, and especially his little sister, Nina. He thought of yesterday, when he was with them on Omega Prime orbiting Heaven.

  “It is surprising this planet has not fallen the way of Hell by now,” Yahweh said, trying to break the emotion of the moment.

  “Yes, and yet another reason for your timely resurrection. The region of this planet we have just departed is very unstable. Fractured between religious and ideological boundaries, they are wanting to prove their importance among the world populations.”

  “Importance?”

  “The country called Iran has recently bought and stolen certain technologies.”

  “Yes?”

  “Nuclear weapons.”

  “Oh, that’s dirty, nasty technology.”

  “As we speak they plan to liberate their region with one such device. The recent history of this planet is riddled with nuclear mishaps that could have triggered a worldwide holocaust if not for the vigilant eyes of my Atlanteans and their faithful cherubim escorts.”

  “Interesting. Interesting, indeed. You are truly the guardian angel of this planet.”

  Numen said nothing. His mitochondrial-core processed circuits were too busy storing his master’s last input and reviewing it in a near infinite loop.

  The connectome continued to pulse with thought:

  “You were proud of Numen, though he left you?” Lanochee asked.

  “I was young and needed a friend,” Yahweh said.

  “Do friends forgive so easily?” Nadira asked.

  “Yes, I believe true friends do.”

  Chapter 56

  Suspense is worse than disappointment.

  Robert Burns, 1759-1796, Earth

  Library of Souls

  Escape

  “It’s time to go. Limo is waiting,” Mac said, walking into Logan’s spartan interrogation room. He set a banana on the table and threw her a hoodie sweatshirt with a Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon logo on the front. “Come on, Dr. Conrad is already being escorted out of the building as we speak.”

  “What?” she asked, picking up the banana and peeling it open. “Where are we going?”

  “An apartment, not too far from here. You’ll like it better than this.”

  “They let us go?” Logan asked, her words slurred by a mouth full of mushy fruit.

  “Not exactly.”

  “Not exactly? What does that mean?”

  “Meaning, they’ve got their time tables, and we have ours.”

  “We, meaning the boy?” Logan asked, pulling on the sweatshirt. As she adjusted the hood around her neck, two cherubim popped out of nowhere, scaring the daylights out of her.

  “Yep, he’ll be here any minute,” Mac said. He looked at the flying cherubim and added, “Let’s not keep them waiting.”

  “Good. I’ve got a few issues to discuss with him myself,” Logan said as she stood. Surveying the area for her belongings, she noticed on the bare table an empty can of nuts and the two flying buzz bombers hovering close by. “Okay, nothing here looks like mine. Let’s go, we’re hungry.” The two babies frowned.

  Mac let her walk out of the room first, then he snapped his fingers, signaling for Oscar, Melvin and Theodore to conceal their escape. Logan looked down the long empty hallway and asked, “Where is everyone?”

  “Oh, they’re around here somewhere,” he said, noticing that the door to one of the conference rooms ahead was open. He gestured to Logan and they carefully skirted past the room full of agents conveniently looking the other way. “Keep walking,” he said as they approached the elevator at the end of the hall. It opened automatically, so they never missed a step.

  “That was good timing,” Logan said.

  Mac smiled, nodded his head, and pointed to her forehead while tapping his foot to the beat of the boring elevator music. Logan, figuring out why Mac was pointing at her, flipped the hood over her starry forehead just as the elevator door opened to a lobby full of people walking back and forth.

  “Walk straight for the door,” Mac said, “and don’t look at anyone in the eyes. The Limo is right up front.”

  They strolled out of the elevator and past the security desk. Logan glanced that way and, for just a second, locked eyes with the man behind the counter.

  “Hey,” yelled the security guard standing up.

  Lightning bolts zipped down her spine and into her gut, making her brain shout, Run!

  “Keep walking,” Mac said, placing his hand on her shoulder to keep her from running to the door.

  The security guard moved from behind his desk and raced for them as they were about to exit the building.

  “I told you to not come in this building anymore,” the guard growled at a young teenage boy, carrying a skateboard through the front door.

  Logan squealed at being shoved through the revolving door, and out onto the busy street.

  “Get in,” Mac said.

  As the back door swung open, Logan could see Conrad waiting inside. “Vince,” she gushed as they embraced. “Sorry for getting you into all of this mess,” she said hugging him.

  “Are you kidding? I’m broke, and Mac here is footing all the bills. Right Mac?” Conrad said, forcing a smile. Another stabbing pain shot through his abdomen, up his spine to his shoulder and out his right pinky fingertip. He turned to look out the window to hide his discomfort.

  “Right,” Mac said with concern.

  “I’ve got something to tell you.” Logan said, feeling a little kick in her side again.

  “Sure,” Conrad said, focusing on not letting his face show how he was feeling.

  “It can wait. We first need to meet our company,” Logan said, not knowing how to approach the baby news.

  “That’s right,” Mac said.

  “Company?” Conrad asked.

  “You know who,” she said. “And I’ve got a few bones to pick with him.”

  Mac grinned, a flash of delight falling over his face. “You know, I’ve never seen our Lord before, so don’t spoil it for me, will yah?”

  Neither Conrad nor Logan bothered to answer their former satellite employee turned legal counselor. Logan didn’t want to tell him she was going to let his Lord have it with both barrels as soon as she saw him.

  Chapter 57

  The goal of all life is death.

  Sigmund Freud, 1859-1939, Earth

  Library of Souls

  Concubine

  The penthouse apartment in downtown Manhattan overlooked Central Park Zoo. From the moment the doors swung open and they walked into the bright expansive space, the view was breathtaking.

  “Spectacular,” Conrad commented, hiding the discomfort he felt in his gut on the private elevator ride as it accelerated against gravity to the top floor.

  The outer walls of the apartment were comprised almost entirely of floor-to-ceiling picture windows. Yahweh sat on a couch in the middle of the spacious room with Numen kneeling between his legs. Numen’s hand was behind Yahweh’s back. They both turned their heads at the same time to acknowledge their arrival.

  “Hello, Doctors Logan and Conrad,” Numen said,
as Yahweh moaned with pleasure.

  Everyone, including Mac, were taken aback, all thinking the same unspoken question: What is happening? Numen turned back to his master and twisted out a nutritive cylinder he had inserted into Yahweh’s backpack, then stood handing his master the rest to drink.

  Mac exhaled and stepped forward, bowed and gave the obligatory fist to chest salute toward the couch.

  “Maximilian,” Numen acknowledged. “I see you have taken good care of our Prophetess and her concubine.”

  Logan tried to keep a stern face and put her hand to her mouth to suppress her laughter.

  “Concubine?” Conrad half snorted, clearing his throat with resentful laughter. In a burst of pent-up emotion, this sent the three humans in the room into an uncontrollable contagious giggling fit. Even Yahweh was amused; he winked and tugged on his earlobe as he finished drinking his nutritive drink.

  “Oh, have I misspoken?” Numen asked. His confused tone of voice added to the group’s hilarity.

  Logan had arrived intending to be mad at Yahweh, but now she couldn’t stop laughing. She knew she didn’t look, sound or even feel mad, but pushed ahead anyway because she knew she should be mad. Trying to regain her composure, she blurted out, “Yahweh, I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”

  “Okay, pick my bone,” he answered, setting off another round of uncontrollable laughter.

  Numen stood, trying not to look out of place, and started to generate artificial laughter. His seraph attempt at laughter was making the situation unbearable, and Logan laughed so hard she looked like she was about to vomit.

  Yahweh rose and approached her. “There, there. Calm down or you will become ill.”

  “Whew, I haven’t laughed like that for years,” Logan said, catching her breath and still hearing giggling in her head.

  “Why is that?” Yahweh asked.

  “I guess life hasn’t been that funny for me,” she said, striking a gloomier tone that stopped the laughter in everyone, including her newly acquired subconscious mental companion.

  Mac looked down, not wanting to bring his past deceptions into the conversation. Even Conrad couldn’t add anything to the somber reference to Logan’s past.

  Numen entered his calculated response. “It all worked out the end.”

  “The means justify the end? That’s your answer to screwing up my life? My whole life? Please tell me you had nothing to do with my real parents—”

  “Death?” Yahweh asked, with a concerned voice after reading her mind. “Numen I order you to tell her what you know about her biological parents. Leave nothing out. Good or bad.”

  Before Numen could begin, Logan spoke up. “Numen, Yahweh told me you have followed my every move with those flying freaks of yours; it was you who were the voices inside my head,” she said, connecting more of the dots. “But up until a couple days ago you let me believe I was talking to God.”

  “Yes, that was how your mind perceived it when all else didn’t make sense,” he admitted, “but most of the time it was a cherub talking to you.”

  “You mean one of those little flying freaks talking to me right now?”

  Numen and Yahweh paused. Neither had detected any cherubim talking to her.

  Numen answered her. “Yes, you have never been alone, your entire life.”

  “Even now you have a new companion,” said Yahweh, pointing to her noticeably distended abdomen.

  Conrad frowned.

  “I guess I should thank you for taking care of me,” she said, sitting down on the spacious couch. She propped up her swollen feet and shifted her body uncomfortably.

  “You are most welcome,” Numen answered.

  Those four words made her face twitch. The implications of Numen’s admissions were sinking in. Squinting her eyes and frowning her lips, she transformed into the evil satellite queen, blasting her to her feet. “You told me to become an astrophysicist?”

  “Yes.”

  “You gave me the answers to all the tests?”

  “Yes.”

  “You got me all my jobs?”

  “Yes.”

  “You got me the satellite project?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hell, I haven’t done anything for myself, have I?”

  Numen was silent.

  “You found Vincent, yourself,” Yahweh said, breaking the cycle of jabs at poor Numen.

  “Tell me about my parents,” she gasped, ready to weep.

  “You may not like what you hear,” Numen answered.

  “Do it!” she yelled spraying spit at the top of her lungs, startling everyone in the room, including Yahweh.

  “Do it,” Yahweh told Numen.

  “Your parents were never married,” Numen said beginning his report.

  “Sounds familiar,” she said, looking at Conrad, and not in a loving way.

  “They were both housed in the same facility.”

  “Facility?”

  “Psychiatric facility.”

  “Oh my,” Logan said, with a bit of a twitch in her face. “Go on, don’t stop, keep it coming.”

  “Very well. Both were committed to Yale New Haven Psychiatry Hospital at a young age. Your father—”

  “His name?” she interrupted.

  “David was a medical student, and your mother, Sarah, was an art major. They both developed undifferentiated schizophrenia in their early twenties. Your father had used a scalpel to hold everyone away from a cadaver in his medical school gross anatomy class. He kept saying it was his childhood friend who drowned in a canoeing accident during a boy scout jamboree ten years earlier. Your mother lost herself inside her bizarre paintings and was committed by her mother while she was attending school at Yale.”

  Logan exhaled, “Undifferentiated. That was what I was diagnosed with when I was five,” she summarized. “Go on.”

  “According to the psychiatrist’s notes,” Numen continued, “your parents, when asked why they wanted to make a child, they said that God wanted them to create the savior of the world.”

  “Savior of the world? I am the savior of this world? What kind of sick shit have you been up to, Numen? I’m some kind of science project? You made me like you’re making my baby?” she said, flashing her eyes to Conrad’s puzzled face.

  “You’re not pregnant. Not anymore, remember?” Conrad asked, wondering if her mental condition was resurfacing.

  “Isn’t that right, Numen?” she said, ignoring Conrad and stepping to confront the non-human creature, spitting phlegm out of her bright red face. “He ordered you to tell me the truth, so do it. I want the truth,” she yelled.

  Numen stood without blinking his optical sensors.

  “Tell her,” Yahweh said.

  Numen nodded, but first he turned to where Conrad and Mac stood silently watching the intense dialogue unfold. “Dr. Logan,” he said, “is pregnant.”

  Both Conrad and Mac squint their eyes. The unexpected revelation was like feeling ice water on a red-hot toothache.

  Numen turned back to Logan to inform her just how special she was to everyone. “But this is no ordinary pregnancy. You are pregnant with the first Elohim born to Earth. You are the savior of the world—the mother of this planet’s genesis,” Numen proclaimed. “And like it or not. It is done.”

  Logan collapsed onto the couch with exhaustion. Conrad rushed to her side as she sobbed, supporting her downcast head in her hands. Mac began to look like the Mac of old, the innocent detached fool trying to scramble somewhere safe, not wanting to be implicated in any wrong doings.

  Yahweh looked at the unfazed seraph and telepathically sent him a message to fill them in with all his Elohim plans.

  Numen continued his report. “You are to deliver the first child born into a generation of Elohim.”

  Logan and Conrad were both too numb to enter into any more conversation on the subject. Numen and Yahweh both could sense this but forged forward.

  “The Anti-Babel—or Judgement Day as it is now called—is a great aw
akening of the human spirit. A correction in history. It is the way it should have been if the natural course of development was allowed to unfold upon this planet.”

  “You mean the blackout?” Conrad asked.

  “Affirmative. The Anti-Babel is moving across the globe, taking a census of all, as we speak. A cataloging of every Homo sapiens, all flora, fauna, and minerals. It is a census of everything and more.”

  Conrad felt wakened by his words and sat up. “Why?” he asked. “What is the census for?”

  “Inventory data,” Numen said. “In preparation for the exodus of this planet to the star Heaven, we will need to know what resources are available. But you will also see an immediate improvement on the human condition. Peace will reign, crime will cease. Every disease afflicting humankind will be diagnosed, treated and eradicated. Every human on Earth should expect to live a long, and healthy life.”

  Logan shook her head in disbelief. “Ha,” she said. “I’d like to see that.”

  Numen tilted his head, processing her skepticism. “But you will. Even now as we speak, hospitals and prisons are becoming obsolete.”

  “But why are you doing all of this?” Conrad asked.

  “You are now my children,” Yahweh said.

  “He likes to play God,” Logan said.

  “I am not God,” Yahweh corrected her bluntly, “I am Elohim. I am here to save you. To save you all and deliver you to Heaven,” he reiterated.

  “But you’re just a kid,” Conrad said.

  Yahweh paused for a moment and lowered his gaze. He was an adolescent in their eyes. He thought of his little sister who was also a child when he left on this mission. He wished he could see his family again, but they were all lost to time.

  “Yes. I am a child. A child born on a planet over six thousand lightyears away, thirteen thousand years ago,” Yahweh answered.

  The gravity of what they just heard trumped everything they wanted to say to the boy Creator. It put an entirely new light on their situation. Even Mac was stunned to hear Yahweh’s words. Logan, and now Conrad and Mac, had grown somewhat accustomed to the strange presence of this boy alien and his emotionless robot. But realizing that Yahweh was born on another planet during this planet’s last Ice Age was enough to freak them all out. Humans living on Earth at that time were still living in caves and eating insects out of their neighbors’ hair for breakfast.