The God Machine

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  He took the bag and placed it inside the framework of a pyramid-shaped device constructed from strips of copper. A bank of machines nearby immediately began to click and chatter. Colored lights flashed wildly as a black needle on a gauge gradually began to move from right to left, measuring the degree of residual power stored within the medicine bag.

  "Excellent," he stated, anger abating as he watched the needle fluctuate very close to the maximum level.

  Absolom then took the medicine bag from within the pyramid, walking across the subterranean room to store it with the other items they had obtained over the last few days. The pallet was overflowing with objects collected by his clockwork drones--religious statuary, rare limited-edition books, children's toys--all items loved, and in turn, saturated with an energy created from adoration, an energy that would eventually be put to a far greater purpose.

  He set their latest prize down beside an urn filled with the ashes of a writer who, if what Absolom understood was true, had established his own religion, setting himself up as some kind of earthly deity receiving messages from a being that lived amid the stars.

  Blasphemy.

  It took all of his self-control not to smash the man's remains to the ground for formulating such sacrilege, but he held his anger in check, for the faith-instilled power stored in the funeral urn was far too valuable to waste on a fleeting display of anger.

  He turned away from the items to see that his followers had returned to their appointed chores. There was much still to be completed to set the stage for their god's arrival, and he was overjoyed to see that they had embraced these tasks with great determination. There were other things that required his own attention, Absolom knew, and he headed back to the clockwork drone still standing at attention where he had left it.

  "What of your brethren? Who prevented their return?" Absolom reached out to his silent servant, cupping its cold, pale cheek. The corpse was that of a young man, its face gaunt from sickness. "If only I'd given you the gift of speech, eh?"

  He removed a penknife from the pocket of his jeans and used the blade to slice open the decaying flesh of the drone's stomach. He reached into the cavity, feeling around for its power source. Recognizing its shape, he withdrew the battery for inspection. The spirit-energies were nearly depleted, he saw, and disconnected the power cell so that it could be recharged.

  Absolom heard the sound of someone approaching and turned to see the dog gingerly padding toward him. "What is it, Silas?"

  The mechanical voice box bolted to the shaved flesh of the dog's throat crackled to life. "Only one returned," Silas stated in a hollow, metallic-sounding voice.

  Absolom started to feel the first twinge of regret for having constructed the device that allowed the canine Electricizer the ability to communicate.

  "Shouldn't you be outside, patrolling the property like I asked?" he said, using a cloth to wipe the foul-smelling fluids of rot from the surface of the battery.

  "What could have done this?" Silas prodded. "What could have prevented the others from returning to us?"

  "It is not your concern." Absolom approached the dog and patted his large, blocky head. "Go back to your assignment."

  "But what if there are forces that have learned of our return?" Silas asked, moving his head away from the man's comforting touch. "What if, like before, they are gathering to stop us from completing our sacred task?"

  Absolom sighed. The thought had crossed his own mind, but he had not wished to give it credence.

  "If only we could see what it saw," Silas's voice crackled. "Then we would know for certain if our plans are in danger."

  The sudden pain inside Absolom's head was sharp, causing his eyes to water. It wasn't the first time he had felt such agony, like having steel needles driven through his skull. He called them his spells, and they signaled the beginning of some new, wondrous idea, when his mind would be filled with the designs and the knowledge to build the most incredible of machines. They were a gift from his god, the means by which to guarantee Qemuel's eventual arrival to the world of man.

  "Absolom?" he heard the dog-Silas call to him, his electronic voice box the result of a spell very much like this one just two days ago. But Absolom was already in the grip of his vision, and his hands twitched eagerly to create that which was now burning in his mind.

  He moved like a man possessed, snatching up pieces of metal, circuitry, and wire at a fevered pace. In a matter of minutes, the image inside his head had become a reality, and the pain inside his skull began to fade as he attached the last of the wire connections to a power source. Absolom gazed down at his hands to find them smeared with blood, tiny razor cuts in the tips of his fingers weeping crimson as the device neared completion.

  The dog's tail wagged happily as he approached. "Was it something I said?"

  "The eyes," Absolom said. "We'll see what it saw through its eyes."

  He took out his penknife again and extended the blade as he approached the drone. There was little time for subtlety. He simply shoved the blade into the corner of the clockwork man's eye and popped the gelatinous orb from its socket. He repeated the process with the other eye, leaving just enough of the optic nerve dangling from each.

  As he had suddenly known how to build the bizarre device, Absolom knew how to operate it as well. He brought the eyes to his workstation and carefully inserted two long, needlelike sensors into the ends of the dangling nerves.

  His creative spell had caught the attention of the others, and they had wandered over to see what new invention their god had bestowed upon him. He didn't mind, for what they were about to see would help them in their task, showing the potential threat to their mission.

  "As you're all aware," he said, flicking switches and turning dials on the front of the virgin device, "eight of our agents were sent out to recover yet another object of worship, but for some reason, only one returned.

  "With this machine, we will see what our servant saw." A twenty-two-inch monitor, one of many scattered about the subbasement, came to life, the image upon it starting out barely visible, but slowly coming into view.

  Absolom stepped closer, squinting, trying to discern the blurred images. "Who are you?" he asked, as two shapes slowly began to take form.

  He reached down to the eyes resting upon the surface of his worktable, making sure that the connection to the optic nerves was solid. He gave one of the attachments the slightest jiggle, and the image appeared as clear as day--as if they were looking through a window.

  And his disciples gasped, Annabel Standish letting out a tiny, frightened scream.

  A woman, flames blazing from the tips of her fingers, and even more disturbing, a red-skinned monster, had appeared upon the monitor.

  "Brothers and sisters," Absolom said, unable to tear his eyes from the nightmarish visage. "We knew that our attempts to bring our god into this world, to purify the evils here, would draw the attention of those who would stand against us. Our worst fears have been realized."

  He reached out, tentatively touching the image of the crimson beast upon the screen.

  "It appears that the Devil himself attempts to thwart our plans."

  The first thing Tom Manning noticed as he opened the door into the lab was the extreme drop in temperature. He could actually see his breath.

  "Why is it so cold in here?" Liz asked, entering behind him.

  He had met up with the agent as she left the infirmary and been a bit startled to see the extent of her injuries. She wore a loose-fitting tank top, and the exposed areas of her face and arms were covered with small bandages. After he'd confirmed that her injuries were mostly superficial, they had headed for R and D together, while Liz briefed him on the mission that had earned her those wounds.

  Now Manning stopped short and Liz stumbled against him. His eyes fell upon the mangled body lying on the floor, then he stared at the two ghostly apparitions floating in the air above Hellboy, Abe, and three of the Bureau's top science geeks.

&nbs
p; "Can't let these guys out of your sight for a minute," Liz muttered.

  "Join the party, boss," Hellboy said as he caught sight of Manning. "I was duking it out with one of those robot zombie things and when I busted open its power source...well, we got ghosts. Call the exterminators."

  Manning stared at the floating specters, jaw hanging open in astonishment.

  "Oh, God," Liz gasped.

  It took Manning a second to realize that she wasn't reacting to the ghosts--it was hardly the first time she'd seen one--but to the charred appearance of the female phantom, who had obviously burned to death. Manning figured the burned woman stirred up disturbing memories from Liz's past, of the day that she'd lost control of her unique ability and killed her entire family in a flash fire.

  But Manning's astonishment was reserved for the other ghost, the male specter who floated beside her.

  "Uncle Steve," he said softly. He moved toward the apparition as if pulled by some powerful force, not really wanting to believe in the sight before him, but suddenly realizing that everything that had happened to him of late now made a twisted kind of sense.

  "Hiya, Tommy," the spirit said cheerfully.

  "Uncle Steve?" Hellboy said. "You're related to this spook?"

  Manning nodded, unable to take his eyes from the ghost. "He is...he was my uncle."

  "Freakin' small world," Hellboy muttered, crossing his arms and shaking his head in amazement.

  Like a balloon caught in a current of air, the ghost of Manning's uncle drifted across the room to hover before him.

  "It's been a long time, Tommy," Uncle Steve said, his voice sounding exactly as Manning remembered.

  He didn't quite know how to describe what he was feeling; a bizarre mixture of surprise, sadness and a little bit of fear thrown in for good measure. Slowly, he nodded; it had been a long time. Manning thought back to his childhood, when he'd spent two weeks of every summer vacation in Lynn with his eccentric Uncle Steve.

  Steve was an oddball, an unapologetic bachelor with eccentric qualities and even more bizarre interests. Everyone in the family thought he was weird, which was probably one of the reasons Tom had gravitated to him. He'd never tired of hearing his uncle's countless stories about his travels around the globe with the merchant marine, and his uncle never tired of telling them.

  A floodgate of memories from his youth burst open. His first drink of beer, fishing in the Saugus River, learning how to play poker: All of those memories involved Uncle Steve. Even his perspective on the world was partially thanks to this man.

  Unc had always believed that the world was much more than it let on, that it was a place of hidden mysteries. At first, Tom hadn't really understood what the man was talking about, but gradually, as the summers passed, he began to believe that his uncle just might have been a little crazy. Books and magazines on UFOs, lost civilizations, the Bermuda Triangle, Big-foot, and Atlantis littered his apartment; no theory was too wild for his uncle. In the beginning, it had been sort of cool being lectured about the secrets of the world, but as Tom grew older, his feelings began to change.

  He remembered his uncle's phone calls every June, how excited he'd been, wondering when Tom would be coming to stay with him. But after a while, Tom hadn't wanted to go anymore. He'd had more friends around his home, and was starting to notice girls, and the fact that his uncle was becoming increasingly eccentric did not help matters. Tom was growing up and really didn't have time for crazy relatives.

  If Uncle Steve had been disappointed, he really hadn't shown it, telling him that he understood, and that maybe they could get together sometime later in the year or even the following summer, and then would launch into some story about cattle mutilations in Montana, and how he'd like to take a trip out there to investigate. But as far as Tom knew, Steve never did take those trips, instead remaining in Massachusetts, reading his books and magazines, uncovering new secrets about the world from the safety of his La-Z-Boy.

  Darker memories from the last time he'd seen the man pushed their way past the pleasant remembrances, forcing Manning to recall the bad along with the good.

  Tom had lost touch with his uncle over the years. In fact, Steve hadn't even bothered to show up for the funeral of his own sister, Tom's mother. But Tom continued to think of his weird uncle from time to time, wondering where he was and what he was doing. There was even a part of him that wondered if the old-timer had passed away without anyone being the wiser. And then he'd received the phone call from a social worker--Uncle Steve had been arrested for attempted arson and been sent to Mount Pleasant for psychiatric evaluation.

  Tom had tried to ignore the phone call, but he felt a certain responsibility not only to his uncle, but also to his mother's memory. She'd always felt bad for Steve, even though he had pretty much rejected all of her attempts to maintain a relationship.

  Manning studied the apparition hovering before him. The ghost of his uncle appeared precisely as Tom remembered him from those summers so long ago.

  By contrast, the man he had gone to see at the Mount Pleasant Rehabilitation Center had been a pale reflection of the uncle he had known. He'd found a scrawny scarecrow of man, not the merchant marine who had supposedly dined with headhunters in the Philippines. A sick-looking old man, tied to his bed with soft restraints, had somehow replaced him. It was heartbreaking, but there was really nothing anybody could do. His uncle was suffering from severe dementia, and was a danger not only to himself, but potentially to others as evidenced by his attempts to set fire to a house. It was only pure luck that the home was unoccupied and that there had recently been heavy rains that kept the structure from burning to the ground.

  At first his uncle hadn't known Tom, but gradually he had seen the spark of recognition come into the old man's red, watery eyes.

  "Can I go home now, Tommy?" Steve had asked him, the man's once-booming voice reduced to a croaking whisper.

  He'd tried to explain to the old man that he was sick, and that he needed to stay in the hospital until he was well again, but Steve would hear nothing of it, demanding to be allowed to go back to his apartment at once.

  It shamed Manning to recall how he had lost his temper, worn down by having the responsibility for his uncle's care thrust upon him so abruptly. In a condescending tone, he had explained to the old man that the reason he couldn't go home was that they were all afraid that he might hurt somebody.

  Through tear-drenched eyes, Steve had tried to tell him why he had tried to burn down the farmhouse, some nonsense about how something bad had been attempted there a long time ago, when he was just a little boy. It had been stopped, Uncle Steve had told him, but with the house still standing, there was nothing to prevent it from happening again. By burning it down, Steve said he was making sure that the evil didn't have something to return to.

  Manning had realized then that nothing had changed. His uncle's stories had simply become crazier. In the end he'd told his uncle that he understood, and that he would talk to the doctors about letting him go home, and that had seemed to calm him. He'd sat with Steve until the old man finally drifted off into a fitful sleep, then Manning had quietly left the room and signed the papers to have his uncle involuntarily committed. He'd had Steve's best interests in mind, for the man was obviously sick and would require professionals to care for him.

  Steve had passed not too long after Manning had left the FBI and gone to work for the BPRD. The old man had died in his sleep. A decent way to go if you had to choose, Manning imagined, but it didn't change the fact that Uncle Steve had died alone.

  Manning had always intended to visit, to spend more time with the old man in the last of his days. He'd wanted to share some of what he'd seen with the BPRD, wanted to tell his uncle that he finally understood some of those crazy stories he'd told during those early summer vacations, that they really did have some basis in fact. But he never quite seemed to be able to find the time.

  The guilt Manning felt over what he had done--what he hadn't done--was
as painful now as it was then.

  "Why...?" he began, not sure really what to say to the specter from his past.

  "Why am I here?" the ghost of Uncle Steve said, the words seeming to drift from his mouth, just as much phantoms as the man himself. "That's the million-dollar question, isn't it? There's something bad coming, Tommy."

  There was an expression on his ethereal features that Manning could only guess was fear. But what can ghosts possibly be afraid of?

  "The Band of Electricizers," his uncle's ghost said. "They're back."

  Chapter 7

  Lynn, Massachusetts, Winter 1901

  T onight was the night.

  Everything had happened so quickly.

  The god Qemu'el had spoken to them, each and every one of his Band of Electricizers, and in his words they heard a promise of paradise.

  Absolom hurried across the frozen yard and down the winding path to the barn, barely able to contain his excitement.

  He turned up the collar of his woolen coat and held it tight around his throat against the biting winter wind. His Sally had loved the winter, and had looked forward to spending her first in New England. An image rose in Absolom's mind of Sally as he'd seen her last. She'd been nothing more than a horribly burned husk, and yet, her clothing had remained untouched from the heat. Sally had burned from within. Their god had ignited her inner fire, using her life force, feeding on her life spark so that he could speak to them of his plans for humanity. It saddened him that Sally had been taken, but he was also certain that if she had known the importance of the message that the god had wanted to share with them, she would have given her life up willingly.

  He missed his Sally dearly, but what was being offered to them--offered to the world--was so much bigger than one man's love.

  At the end of the path stood his barn, a sturdy structure of unfinished oak with a stone foundation. As their work flourished, the subbasement below the house had grown too cramped, forcing them to relocate to the barn. When the house was being constructed, Sally had worried about the additional expense of a barn, but somehow, he had always known that it would one day become necessary.