Acts of God

by James Beauseigneur

  Decker really didn't want to leave a message with a secretary. That would hardly seem like appropriate behavior from someone who had been missing for the past four days. He quickly discovered that the option was not really open to him anyway.

  "Mr. Hawthorne," Kwalindia said, "Jackie Hansen left orders for me to contact her immediately if you called. She said not to let you off the phone until she talked with you."

  Decker thought fast but came up with nothing. This was not working out as he had planned. If Jackie was so insistent on talking to him it probably meant that Christopher wanted to talk to him, and he was not at all prepared to do that just yet: not until he had time to think this whole thing through. But he couldn't refuse to talk to her. There was nothing to do but hope he could talk to Jackie briefly and try to appear as if nothing was wrong. "Put me through to her," he said reluctantly, with a pasted-on smile.

  "Jackie Hansen," came the answer a second later, followed by, "Decker! Where have you been!?"

  Decker was about to try to answer when he heard another voice from out of camera range. "Decker??" the voice said. It was Robert Milner. "Let me talk to him!" A second later Milner came into view on the screen. "Decker, where have you been? Are you all right? We were about to send out search teams!"

  Mentally Decker groaned, but his face maintained its smiling innocence. "I'm fine," he answered. "I just decided I needed a little vacation."

  Milner was dumbstruck for a moment that Decker would so trivialize their concern by not even offering an explanation. "I'm sure you deserve it," he said, finally, "but it's customary to let someone ... at least someone on your staff, know where you're going and when you'll be back."

  "I'm really sorry," he said, trying to come up with some believable lie. "I mentioned it to Debbie Sanchez before I left. I guess I didn't make a big deal of it. I should have been clearer. I certainly didn't mean to worry anybody."

  "Just so you're okay," Jackie interjected.

  "Yeah, I'm fine. I hope that Christopher .. ."

  "No," Jackie responded, anticipating Decker's question. "I asked him about you yesterday, thinking that he might have sent you on some mission somewhere; but I didn't tell him why I was asking or mention that nobody else knew where you were. I didn't want to worry him before I knew if something was really wrong; he's got enough on his mind right now."

  "Good, good," Decker said. The look of relief on his face was in earnest.

  "When can we expect you back, then?" Milner asked.

  "I'm not sure," Decker replied. He wished he could just leave it open-ended but he knew he had to give them some kind of answer. "Maybe a week," he said finally.

  "Where will you be?" Jackie Hansen asked. Decker didn't want to answer. He needed uninterrupted time to think things through and once this conversation was done he didn't want to have to talk to anyone close to Christopher for a while. Worse still would be receiving a call from Christopher himself; Decker was certain that Christopher would be able to see through his act and know something was wrong. Still, he needed to give an answer.

  "I'll be at my house in Maryland," he answered. "I'll see you when I get back," he added, hoping to bring the conversation to a close.

  "Okay," Jackie said, instinctively complying with his intention. "Well, I'm glad you're all right."

  "Thanks," Decker responded.

  "Enjoy yourself," Milner said halfheartedly. "And next time you decide to take off, make sure you have your phone with you."

  "Yeah, I'm sorry," Decker said. "I guess I left it in my office."

  And with that Decker ended the call. Milner knows something's wrong, Decker thought. He didn 't believe me. Quickly he ran over in his mind everything he had said for anything that might have given him away. Then he remembered: Debbie Sanchez had not been in the office the day before he left. If Milner followed up on it, that mistake would surely confirm his suspicions that something was indeed wrong.

  Before he left the restaurant, Decker made two more calls: one to arrange for passage on the next U.N. flight to the U.S. and the other to have Bert Tolinson, the man at the agency that took care of his house, get the place ready for an extended visit.

  That evening Decker caught a United Nations troop transport in Tel Aviv bound for New York. The accommodations were less than those to which he was normally accustomed, but there was no one else on the plane except the crew, so he had plenty of privacy. Though he tried, he could not sleep. From New York he took a commuter flight to Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. It was on this second leg of the flight, and on the way to his house in Derwood, that he first began to notice something that he would soon realize had far greater meaning than he could have imagined.

  Having raced the sun across eight time zones, Decker arrived at his house in Derwood, Maryland, at about the same time of evening that he had left Tel Aviv. Now, despite all that was on his mind, after visiting the grave of his family in the backyard, he went inside and quickly fell asleep.

  Monday, June 8, 4 N.A. (2026 A.D.) — Derwood, Maryland

  Decker rolled over on his back and allowed his eyes to open slightly. Closing them again, he groaned and fell back to sleep. It was seven minutes after noon before he was finally really awake. He woke with one thought so clear that it had doubtless been deliberated for hours by his unconscious mind. In the brilliant light of day, with the sound of birds outside, it seemed inconceivable to him that he ever could have imagined such awful things about Christopher. Yes, there were some things that needed to be explained, but he must have been out of his mind to have thought .... He didn't even want to think about what he had thought. It was all so ridiculous. He shook his head in disbelief and more than little embarrassment.

  Of course, there were extenuating circumstance that facilitated Decker's willingness to believe such things. After all, he had been kidnapped; and while the KDT apparently had not intended to harm him, he did not know that at the time. It was a traumatic experience and he realized now that it was foolish of him to think that he was immune to its ill effects. One of those effects, no doubt, was being open to suggestion: the suggestions of Scott Rosen and of the dream.

  The clock beside his bed said it was 12:30 p.m. Adding eight hours to that meant that it was 8:30 in Babylon. He toyed with the idea of whether he should call or just get on a plane and go back. He opted for the latter. Right now, he was going to get out of bed, go downstairs, and fix himself some breakfast. Then he would call and find out when the next plane was leaving for Babylon.

  Decker opened the refrigerator and freezer in unison. Bert Tolinson had done his job well — all his favorites were there. For a fleeting moment he thought maybe he wouldn't go back right away after all. He really could use a vacation. As he fixed breakfast, with the smell of bacon and waffles and coffee in the air, it was hard not to think back to better days: days of getting up early and having breakfast with Hope and Louisa before they headed off to school, days of driving to the kiss-and-ride at the Metro with Elizabeth. He would never have that back.

  But he would have Elizabeth.

  Christopher had promised him that. The joy of that thought made him all the more embarrassed that he could have doubted Christopher.

  Decker carried his breakfast into the living room and turned on the television. It wasn't the same as having breakfast with a real live person but it was better than eating alone.

  The picture came on immediately and Decker was greeted by a very unusual sight: the reporter on the screen had bandages on her forehead, cheek, chin, and two on her neck. She was obviously in some discomfort. Decker's first thought was that she had been in an accident or mugged but it was not just the one reporter. The camera moved to another reporter who was wearing multiple bandages as well. The scene then went to a reporter on a nearly abandoned street, interviewing whoever could be found of the local citizenry. Had Decker looked more closely at the background, he would have recognized the scene as DuPont Circle in Washington, D.C., not far from the headquarters fo
r NewsWorld Magazine for which he and Tom Donafin had both worked, and normally one of the busiest areas of Washington. But Decker was not interested in where they were. What had captured his attention was that almost everyone in the picture was bandaged. The few who were not revealed by their lack of gauze and tape what the rest had hidden: ugly, red, ulcerous lesions.

  "TV stop," Decker said, and the picture froze. "Restart at beginning of this program." Instantly, the program started again at the top of the hour. Decker had always found this to be one of the most useful features of interactive television. Without missing a thing, it was possible to have any program in the past two months replayed. It was even possible, as the current example demonstrated, to restart a program that was in progress by accessing a delayed video feed.

  Replaying from the beginning revealed that the whole program was focused on an unexplained worldwide outbreak of lesions which affected nearly the entire population. According to the news anchor, the epidemic had begun with a reddening of the skin and mild itching which continued to worsen until lesions began to form and finally erupt. Suddenly Decker recalled something he had noticed that had been too insignificant to pay much attention to before: people scratching — nothing ominous, just minor but repeated scratching. It had been most obvious on the shuttle from New York and on the Metro ride from the airport. But as he thought back, he remembered seeing some of the crew on the U.N. troop transport scratching, as were people at the restaurant where he had eaten in Jerusalem. Then, as he recalled his phone conversation with Jackie Hansen, he remembered that she too was scratching.

  Decker flipped through the channels. On most of the general interest channels the story was the same, with pain-racked, bandaged reporters interviewing bandaged health officials or bandaged politicians or bandaged people on the street. Nearly all business had come to a halt. Only the hardiest ventured out at all. Most governments around the world had shut down except for essential services. Later, there were public service advisories on how to treat the lesions to prevent infection and reports of long lines of people waiting to buy gauze, tape, and pain relievers at the few drug stores that remained open.

  "As for the cause of the lesions," one of the reporters was saying when Decker paused on that channel, "while most scientists tell us it is still too early for any scientific evidence to have been collected and analyzed, one scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaking off the record, told me that there is clearly one distinguishing factor between those who have the sores and those who do not. So far, only those who have taken the communion have the sores."

  It's happening already, Decker thought. This is what Rosen was talking about when he said that things were going to get much worse fast. There must be some connection between this and why he had seen so many KDT arriving in Petra. But though he recognized the connection, he had no idea what the KDT were planning next.

  Decker did not call that day to make arrangements for passage back to Babylon, nor did he do so the next. He told himself that there was no hurry and that if he went out in public and was recognized, it would not be received well that someone so close to Christopher did not have the mark and the sores. At the same time, it made no sense to Decker to go out and get the communion when that would cause him to get the sores. He had enough food to last for a while and anything else he needed Bert Tolinson would get for him. It was far more reasonable, he thought, just to wait. In reality, however, Decker was again beginning to wonder if he had not been right about the dream after all. What had changed his mind? he wondered, though he could not yet admit to himself that a change had occurred. Why had the certainty of a few hours before so quickly evaporated? Was he now thinking more clearly or was he once again falling into the role he had played two thousand years earlier: a part he played so well that after two millennia the role still bore his name — Judas.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Red Tide

  11:25 a.m., Wednesday, June 10, 4 N.A. (2026 A.D.) — Derwood, Maryland

  Wednesday morning, two days after it began, Christopher addressed the world to discuss the frightening outbreak of the lesions. Decker watched on television.

  "People of the world," Christopher began in a somber but defiant tone. "People of the New Age of Humankind," Christopher paused, "nothing worth having comes without cost. . . even in this New Age.

  "I shall waste no time today on platitudes. In simplest terms, Humankind is under attack with this cruel affliction. For more than three years the world has been at peace — with no war, with no famine, and with disease nearly eradicated. The future of Humankind, our future, rose like a brilliant light before the eyes of all the universe; a future that welcomed all people with open arms.

  "No one has been forced to join our cause, to see our vision, to take up our enterprise. All people have been free to live out their lives in peace. Never, in fact, throughout all history has change come more peacefully than it has to the entire planet in this, the New Age of Humankind.

  "But for some, it seems, choice is too great a burden, even when it is being made by someone else. Like their spiritual predecessors — those who opposed women's legal, sexual, and reproductive freedoms, those who imposed unrealistic and puritanical drug laws, and those who opposed an individual's right to choose their own time to die — our opponents are opponents of choice. They are unwilling to allow others to make their own decisions.

  "And yet, even when those who oppose us reverted to heinous acts of violence to shut down the communion clinics, we responded with only enough force to prevent them from interfering with the rights of others.

  "Today, all who love Humankind and freedom know and feel the anguish and grief that Yahweh inflicts in his obsession to obstruct us. You know it by the wounds you bear. And yet our enemies continue to absurdly claim that Yahweh is a 'god of love.'

  "I know your pain. Though I do not bear the sores, I, too, have suffered and even died to bring about the New Age for all of Humankind. I beg of you, do not allow this temporary discomfort to the physical body, these vile attacks to the flesh, to divert you from your spiritual goal. Do not allow the KDT, or the fundamentalists, or the demon god they serve to stay us from our course. Our goal is too noble, our purpose too great, our ambition too high to yield to anyone, whether man or god.

  "Instead, wear your wounds as badges of honor and defiance and take heart in this: the evil that Yahweh and his followers do will not go unanswered. Yahweh's only hold upon this planet is in the grip of his confederates — the KDT and the fundamentalists. If their resolve is broken, so too, will the last vestiges of Yahweh's power upon earth be broken.

  "To break this grip, the Security Council has authorized the following actions to reduce the strength of the fundamentalists and the KDT and any others who would seek to force their will upon the rest of Humankind: first, that no one who has not taken the communion and does not bear the mark shall be permitted to buy or sell, under penalty of arrest; and second, the arrest and incarceration of fundamentalist leaders and members of the KDT.

  "Prohibiting the right to buy and sell is an altogether appropriate restriction for those who by their own actions have demonstrated their desire to separate themselves from the rest of Humankind. If they insist upon separation, then separation they shall have. Let us see how well they make out without the rest of society. As for the fundamentalist leaders, they will be treated with respect, and any who swear to cease their efforts against Humankind will be released on their own recognizance.

  "There are many who will say that our response is not strong enough, or who fear that the fundamentalists and the KDT will respond by calling down even worse plagues — but it is not our desire to punish preemptively. We wish only to make the point that actions against Humankind will not go unanswered. It is our hope that from this, those who wish us ill will learn not only that Humankind cannot be attacked with impunity, but also that we are just and merciful, not meting out punishment beyond what the offense demands.

&n
bsp; "Nevertheless, to our foes — to the KDT and the fundamentalists — despite the suffering that you have brought on the earth because of your blind obedience to Yahweh, still we offer you the olive branch of peace. Renounce your allegiance to your god of pain and suffering and we will welcome you as brothers and sisters!

  "But if this plague continues, or if others follow, know this with all certainty: Humankind will not continue to suffer your malevolence forever." Lightly pounding his fist to accentuate his words, he concluded, "We will not allow you or anyone to change our course, to deter or deny our destiny!"

  Decker wanted to cheer. It was a moving speech. Christopher had shown both decisiveness and great restraint in not striking out more harshly at his opponents. Somehow it eluded Decker for the moment that, because he had not taken the communion, the restrictions on buying and selling applied to him as well.

  Based on the World Health Organization's records, 87% of the total world population, or just under 2.4 billion people, had received the communion and the mark, leaving approximately 364 million who had not. After Christopher's speech the insta-polls found that of those who had taken the communion, 64% agreed that the action of the Security Council in restricting the right to buy and sell was appropriate; 36% felt that the action was not strong enough; and virtually no one said they felt the action was too severe. Of those who did not have the mark, the numbers were much different: 93% disapproved and only 7% approved. Of the 7% who approved, nearly all indicated that they would take the communion within the next week. Those who disapproved gave several reasons for doing so: about one half of one percent said they considered it a violation of their civil rights; 3% — presumably fundamentalists — said they would not take the communion or the mark for religious reasons. The remaining 96.5% said they didn't want the communion because they didn't want to risk getting the lesions. Not surprisingly, the polls which, after the lesions appeared, had shown a drop in Christopher's approval rating from 97% to 85%, rose 5 points, back to 90%.