by Stuart Slade
“Most Noble One, you have not eaten this evening?” Perpetiel-Lan-Paschar faked the concern beautifully.
“No, I came straight here, feeling a most urgent need to join in a chorus of praise to The Nameless One.”
Perpetiel grinned to himself, this urgent need to pray was a lot more chemical than emotional. In fact, it put a whole new meaning on the phrase ‘hooked on phonics’. The amount of opiates he was consuming was beginning to have its effects of Lemuel. Even the Tylenol he took for his headaches, ones that were growing more frequent every day, was actually Tylenol 4 and contained sixty milligrams of codeine per tablet. It was time to up the ante a little.
“Most Noble One, you are not alone in this problem. One of our experiences here is that so many of our congregation come here straight from their daily duties and do not have time to eat. So, as part of our temple we have a small eating place, one where food can be properly reverences and then served to the needy. After all, is not sharing good fortune and spreading one’s advantages to those in need also a form of service to the One Above All?”
Lemuel nodded, that made sense after all. He followed Perpetiel out of the main chamber of the temple to a central courtyard where the smell of cooking meat wafted deliciously across the garden. Perpetiel waved in the direction where two female angels were tending what appeared to be an old-style reverential altar, one where hot coals were placed underneath a metal grid and food offerings were placed over the flames, to cook in the heat. Humans had once made their offerings to The Almighty One that way, but they had ceased doing so. Lemuel reflected it was good to see the old traditions being restored. Perhaps if they hadn’t fallen into abeyance, things would not have reached this pass. Then he shook his head, for some reason his thinking seemed a little fuzzy these days.
One of the angels had been working quickly. She had taken a small, round loaf of leavened bread and split it in half. Then, she had placed some green leaves on the bottom half, added a red sauce and put it to one side. A white sauce had been added to the top half before it too was put to one side. Then, she lifted a cake of cooking meat off the altar, placed it in the loaf and handed it to him with a respectful smile. “It is called a hamburger Most Noble One. Enjoy it in the spirit in which it is intended.”
Lemuel took a bite of the meal and found it was good. So much so that he had finished it almost before he was aware of the juice dribbling down his chin. One of the female angels wiped it for him and respectfully offered him another hamburger. This one took him a little longer to eat but the sensation in his stomach was that of warmth and satisfaction. He suddenly realized he was actually happy, for the first time in a long time.
“This is most kind of you Perpetiel-Lan. Your community here is an example to us all. I am sure He Who Must Not Be Named would be profound in his recognition of your services to him and to our community.”
Like Hell, Perpetiel thought. He’d massacre us all on the spot. “That thought is profoundly pleasing to us Most Noble One. Might I suggest you try these poor snacks? They are called fries.”
An hour later, a well-fed Lemuel left the Temple, already writing his report in his mind. There was no doubt, no doubt at all, that this Temple was the center of human influence and the portal by which human goods were arriving in Heaven. The situation saddened him, it was obvious that the people here were working from the best of motives but the whole Temple of Ceaseless Compliance set-up was an example of how sin and depravity wormed its way into the heart under guise of honest virtue. Lemuel sighed, he really didn’t want to go home this evening. Compared with the temple, it was a cold, unwelcoming place and after Onniel’s behavior earlier, he had no doubt that it would be even more so. Instead, he decided to go back to his office and write up the report that was forming in his mind. That decision made, as he stepped out of the door of the temple, he turned right for his office, not left for his home.
That change saved his life. The concentrated sound blast that hit the wall of the temple was above and behind him, not directly over his head. The outer wall collapsed under the blast, dropping a great pile of masonry where he would have been standing. Lemuel was caught on the outside of the avalanche, rocks hit him and threw him to one side. His skin was lacerated by the shattered sheets of sapphire that followed the masonry down. But, he lived and was merely stunned by the explosion. Dumbly, his mind still fuzzy and confused, he realized that an attempt had been made on his life. This was unhead of, nobody ever tried to harm another being in Heaven. Well, not another Angel anyway, humans didn’t count of course. Then a shocking thought struck him. The assassination wasn’t aimed at him as a casual worshipper at the Temple of Ceaseless Compliance, it was aimed at him as an investigator of the League of the Holy Court. Somebody knew exactly who he was and had tried to take him out.
Inside the temple, the meeting was breaking up as the ‘worshippers’ got ready to head back to the Montmartre Club for a few badly-needed drinks. The crash of the front wall’s collapse brought the hasty preparations to a grinding halt. Perpetiel led the race to see what had happened and stopped dead at the sight of Lemuel, sprawled out on the sidewalk with masonry on top of him.
“If I’d known we were going to kill him, I wouldn’t have used the top-grade hamburger.” Lailah-Lan sounded slightly grumpy. She was justifiably proud of her hamburgers.
“We weren’t going to kill him. This is somebody else.” Perpetiel looked at the figure on the ground. It was moving, trying to get up. “He’s alive, get him inside, make sure he stays that way. Whoever did this might try again.”
DIMO(N) Conference Suite, Pentagon.
“Books Luga?” Colonel Baylor was surprised. Somehow he hadn’t thought of Luga actually studying anything. Surreptitiously he put his foot near one of the floor vents. To his relief he could feel the air current, the system was running full blast.
“Law books. I have decided to study law. I think it is hard to live here unless I am a lawyer. There are so many laws covering so many things. So I must study law.”
“Didn’t you have laws in Hell?”
“Only one. If Satan gets mad, take cover. Other than that, the law is what the strongest person says it is. Here it is different.”
“Our Luga a lawyer. Now there’s a terrifying thought.” The voice came from the stenographer sitting in the corner. The interjection got her a stern glance from Colonel Baylor, stenographers by job definition were supposed to be neither heard nor seen.
“What about Heaven Luga? Do you know much about the laws there? Do they have any?”
“They do although I do not know much about them More or less the same as your ten commandants. That should not surprise you. They came from the same place after all. They have a sort of police in Heaven, it is called The League of the Holy Court. I think it is mostly concerned with keeping the humans in Heaven in order.”
“There are humans in Heaven then?”
“Of course, there are many of them. The Angels use them as menial servants.”
Baylor sighed. If Lugasharmanaska could be believed, and that was always open to question, everything in the Second Life was very different from the pictures that had been presented. “Right Luga, today, I’d like to talk about the wars here on Earth. Particularly about the other beings, ones we think of as gods.”
“Why do you want to know about that bunch of losers?” Luga was openly scornful.
“They existed then?”
“Certainly. They probably still do. We ran them off Earth, Yahweh and Satan together did. They had a good-cop, bad-cop act going for them.”
“I wonder who the Bad Cop was?” The stenographer got another angry glance from Baylor.
“Usually Satan. But we converted their followers and deprived them of power. By the time we’d finished they had so few followers it wasn’t worth them staying. Only one of the groups really put up a fight and we had to strike a deal. If they went, their followers wouldn’t be tormented in Hell.”
“So that’s what G
aius Julius Caesar meant when he said he and his friends were protected by powerful gods.” Baylor spoke thoughtfully. “There always were rumors that he and some other Romans were part of a mystical cult. Whatever it was, it must have saved their necks.”
“You’ll have to talk to him about that.’ Luga was dismissive. “There were quite a few others as well. I think they were the first ones out of the Hell-pit.”
“Hardly surprising. So there are other beings from other bubble-worlds in Universe-Two.”
Luga took a moment to work that one out. “Certainly. But they haven’t been seen on Earth for millennia. We saw the last of them off at least three thousand years ago.”
Luga spoke for a couple of hours, describing the battle for control of Earth. “So, you see, most of the religions are based on memories of those other groups. That’s all I know really.”
Baylor relaxed and the stenographer signed off on the transcript she’d created. Then, he leaned forward again. “Do you really want to become a lawyer Luga?”
“No, but I want to understand the law. These laws you have are a new concept to me. My television show makes me too much money for me to give it up.”
Baylor couldn’t resist asking. “How much do you make on that show Luga.”
She grinned exposing her long yellow fangs. “When we broadcast, one thousand dollars per day. Or, as my bank manager says, ‘how now, green thou’.”
Chapter Thirty Five
Home of George and Rose Matthews, Cæsaraugusta, Cisalpine Gaul, New Rome, Hell
He was sitting in a cold, dark street, the constant rain soaking him to the bone while the bitter wind chilled him until every joint in his body ached. Starvation gnawed at him, cramping his stomach and making his insides clench with pain. Soon, he would have to root through the garbage for something to eat, fighting the rats for the worm and maggot-riddled fragments of food in the filthy trash. Even when he found something, the relief it would bring would only be temporary, lasting just long enough to add emphasis to the agony of starvation when it returned full-force. Even worse, while he was foraging, he would have lost his place around the fire and would have to fight his way back in. George Matthews sighed and started to dig into the trash. If he was lucky, he might find a piece of rotten meat.
“Wake up George, it’s only a nightmare.” He opened his eyes and saw his wife looking down at him, a gentle smile on her face. A younger face, much younger than he had remembered looking down on him before, in the moments between feeling the agonizing pain in his chest and left arm and the darkness closing in on him. Now, she looked as if she was in her mid-forties,a very well preserved and elegant mid-forties. He felt no jealousy because he too had undergone the same rejuvenation and looked around the same age. That had been one of the subtle torments of Hell, to be restored to one’s best only to suffer all the agonies had made Hell what it was. But all that was in the past and now he had a future to look forward to. He had been found in the First Circle of Hell and taken to the reception camps on the Phelan Plain. There his name and particulars had been taken down and fed into a computer. There had been a celebration when the answer came up for so very few of those recovered found close family they could turn to. Amid the applause, he’d been told that his wife was waiting for him, that she already had a home waiting for him and he could join her as soon as he wished.
Quietly, without saying anything, he had worried about that. How much had she been changed, what had she suffered here in Hell before she had been rescued? What sort of home had she managed to build here? Then he had met with her, she had run to him and held him and everything seemed to be good again. She’d explained that she had died after Hell had been conquered and that she’d brought all her assets with her. She’d used them to buy this villa in the new city of Caesaraugusta, in the province of Cisalpine Gaul of the New Roman Republic. She’d registered it in both their names and owning property made them Roman Citizens. Even now, months into his Second Life here, he wondered at the good fortune that had led him to marry the woman who had so painstakingly built a home for him to return to. He shook the sleep from his head, got up from the couch and hugged her. “Rose.” There was a world of love and admiration in that single word.
“Oh George.” His wife returned the embrace and led him to their dining room. A simple breakfast was laid out on the table, some fresh bread, cheese, mushrooms and wine. None of it was quite what it appeared, the cheese was made from the milk of female foodbeasts, the grain for the bread and the mushrooms were species native to Hell and the wine was actually made from a fermented red fungus but they tasted right and the truth was that humans here didn’t need to eat, not physically. They needed to eat emotionally, communal dining was too deeply ingrained in their psyche to be discarded, but the driving starvation he remembered from the Hellpit was a delusion. He sighed and looked out of the window. The villa was built on the banks of the Askaris River, their plot of land actually ending on the river itself. Across the Askaris was a low range of hills, ironically called The Alps. They were in the adjoining province, Transalpine Gaul, one that was still largely unoccupied. The rolling hills were tree-covered and their dark red foliage complemented the lighter red of the river beautifully.
“What have we got happening today?” George carefully spread some cheese on a lump of bread and took a bite. The sharp, clean taste of the cheese was perfect for cutting through the residue of sleep. That was another thing humans here didn’t actually need but couldn’t really do without. Sleep.
“Well, we have the monthly election coming up. One of the Senators for Cisalpine Gaul has reached the end of his term so we have to go and vote for his successor.” There were 120 Senators representing the individual provinces of the Republic and each served a term of two years. Their elections were spread out so that 1/24th of their number were elected each month. So far, most elections were unopposed. The whole political system was a work-in-progress after all. The previous month Second Consul Jade Kim had been up for re-election and she, too, had been unopposed.
“And I’ve had a message from Naomi and John. They’d like to come visit now we’re established here.” A mischievous grin crossed Rose’s face. “I suppose they must have forgiven me for taking all our money. It shook them when they found we can take it with us after all.”
The couple looked at each other and laughed. “You did well there Rose, that John was always a bit full of himself I thought. Not nearly good enough for our Naomi. Anyway, they’re welcome here. This villa’s got the room for them, thanks to you. Now, time for work.”
Rose nodded, put on her silver cap and gathered up her bag. She’d started work as a seamstress in one of the new factories but had quickly been promoted to a shift manager. She and her husband didn’t actually need to work, not yet anyway. The funds she had brought form their First Life had been adequate to get them started but work was psychologically needed just as food and sleep were. George Matthews had a job on a road-building gang. That had worried his wife, she remembered, all too well, the heart attack that had killed him, but he had reassured her that his health was better than it had ever been on Earth. Anyway, as he’d explained to her ‘working on the road is good, honest work and it feels good to be building something for our future’. She knew what he meant, the Republic was new and raw around the edges but it was their future. “I’ve put your toga out for the election this evening and a new stola for me.”
George nodded in appreciation. Most times people here wore the clothing they were familiar with, in the case of Rose and George, jeans and T-shirts, but for an election, formal Roman attire was required. Even if their senator hadn’t been up for re-election this month, the fact it was election day still meant that he would have had to appear before his constituents to answer their questions and address their concerns. But, this being his re-election meant there would be a formal debate between the candidates with questions taken from the audience, followed by the vote.
Together, they left their home thro
ugh the double set of doors that kept the dust out of their home and went out to the road that serviced their sub-division. At the moment, the area was served by a Beast-drawn bus but in due course, a proper motor-bus would replace it. For a moment, George Matthews thought that the replacement had happened because he heard the sound of engines but it was something different. A small column of military vehicles, a mix of Humvees and armored cars. Human vehicles armed with long-barrelled guns. They pulled up alongside the bus stop and a figure got out, one wearing a breathing mask. Obviously he was still in his First Life.
“Ave Citizens.” The officer’s right hand was extended in a careful Roman salute, the clenched fist striking his chest above the heart and then extended towards the Matthews, upper arm close to the body, lower arm level with the ground, hand open, palm down. Not the way it had once been depicted at all, historians had been quite shocked when they had seen the real thing.
“Ave Colonel.” George and Rose returned the salute. “May we be of assistance to you?”
“Colonel Paschal, DIMO(N). I have an appointment to meet with First Consul Gaius Julius Caesar and Second Consul Jade Kim in New Rome.” Paschal flushed slightly, partly from the effort of remembering to get the formalities right, but also from embarrassment. “We seem to have lost our way. My driver insisted we stop and ask directions.” Behind him, the female driver of the Humvee was grinning. Rose reflected that Hell and Earth had some things in common, a reluctance to ask directions being one of them
Rose smiled at the Colonel. “George and Rose Matthews. It’s easy to go astray Colonel, the roads around here are being built and extended all the time. We Romans love good roads you know. Go straight on for about five kilometers until this road ends in a T junction. Turn left at the junction, that’ll put you on the Aemilian Way. Stay on that, it’ll take you all the way to Rome.”
