by Stuart Slade
Throne Room, Infernal Palace of Dis, Hell.
“And exactly how did they spontaneously explode?” Satan’s voice had a silky, oily quality to it that was far more unnerving than any of his berserk rages.
“We don’t know Sire. We found bits of metal in the wreckage so we think it was one of the human machines but we don’t understand it.”
“A machine? A human machine you say? They invaded my territory and killed four of my subjects with a machine?” The silky, oily quality was fading, replaced by the hysterical screams of rage. The audience found that immensely reassuring, it was business as usual. The unnatural calm had been horrifying from its unprecedented nature. A raving, screaming temper tantrum was much more familiar. “And nobody saw it?”
“None Sire. Although we do have a message that was transmitted by one of their warlords. It refers to a Predator aircraft.”
“And just what is a Predator?” Satan was struggling to keep his temper under control.
“A hunting bird.” The voice came from a tiny minor demon on the floor. Satan glanced sideways and his glance mashed the speaker into a purple pulp that drained away through the stone floor.
“Does anybody else want to state the obvious?” There was a sudden shuffling of cloven feet and demons glancing sideways at each other. The more astute of them were already trying to work out the best place to take cover when their infernal overlord decided it would be necessary to stage a massacre.
“There is another problem with that message.” Asmodeus spoke carefully. “The warlord spoke of ‘major enemy leadership figure’, we assume that means an important person here. Yet there was nobody on that stand of any importance, a few relatives of Abigor, that is all. None in the leadership and none of any importance. We do not understand this.”
“Perhaps I can explain.” Beelzebub was also speaking carefully. “The warlord also spoke of ‘information received from reliable informants’. There can be only one explanation for that comment. There are those of your Infernal Majesty’s subjects who are in contact with the humans and are passing information to them.”
A horrified gasp went around the hall. The whole concept was a nightmare to contemplate yet was also eerily plausible. Who here had not sold information on an ally to an enemy in order to bring about a tactical advantage?
“But Sire.” Asmodeus was appalled, his voice terrified at even speaking of this idea. “Nobody important was killed.”
“Nobody important perhaps.” Beelzebub spoke almost as smoothly and calmly as Satan had done. “Not in our terms perhaps. But the traitor – or traitors – who sold the information to the humans may have been using them to settle a private score of his or her own. Who knows where treason might end?”
Even Satan was silenced by that thought. The hall was still, silent as the occupants absorbed the implications of what Beelzebub had said. Then, the glances that they were exchanging underwent a slow change from apprehension at what might Satan might do next to suspicion at what their neighbors might be saying to these upstart humans. No matter how intense those suspicious glances became, they couldn’t match the ones Satan was casting at them.
Room 352A, Arkham Asylum, New York City, NY
The voices had been haunting Julie since her sophomore year of high school. Every time she'd tried to tell them to go away, they simply laughed at her. And when she denied they were real, they'd whisper to her, caressing her mind like an unwanted lover, telling her secrets – what was happening far away, what others were thinking about her, telling her things that were never wrong.
And they were always right, always there, always just out of her senses, dripping across her mind like black grease. Even after she'd tried to kill herself – it hadn't worked; they'd told her that it was pointless, that someone was at the door just as she'd watched the blood stream from her wrists with morbid fascination – even after the suicide attempt, when her family had tearfully waved her goodbye, and she'd gone to Arkham for treatment (which hadn't worked) and incarceration, they were telling her things, what was happening outside. The conquest was on, they'd said. The infernal deal that had haunted her nightmares since she was five, that had haunted every waking moment since the voices had first come, was sealed and complete. Heaven's gates were closed and locked, the whole of humanity damned without hope of rescue or reprieve.
Her cell was locked, as always. The white walls were padded, and she was sitting on her cot in the corner murmuring to herself when one of the voices – Domiklespharatu, it called itself – whispered, "Look to the door!" She did; the lock on the door clicked and lifted. "They're coming to get you… coming to take you away… to experiment on you… to rape and torture and mutilate and humiliate you…"
The voices were never wrong. She hurled herself back into the corner, away from the strange people filing into the room. Then there was Dr. Becky, her presence a welcome familiarity that was dispelled by the presence others, more people in uniforms and more in white lab coats. Domiklespharatu laughed. “Look at you, pitiful little girl.” The floor reared up, and she stumbled backward into the walls.
Dr Becky Skillman had worked at Arkham for fifteen years, and in all that time she’d never been visited by the government. Two men in suits, with dark sunglasses, guns, and no sense of humor had knocked on her office door, shown her a pair of bright and very impressive badges, and asked her for a list of the patients at Arkham for whom treatment had done absolutely no good. Especially the ones who heard voices.
She wasn’t one to deny the government a request, especially not in this day and age, with the Message, a quarter of the Arkham staff were gone, and the strange reports filing through the news were unsettling. There was fighting, of some sort, the sort that reminded her of the nightmarish hallucinations of her patients. The men had been from the Secret Service and they’d thanked her cordially, gone, and then a half hour later were back with an entire platoon of men in fatigues with rifles, asking to be taken to Room 352A on the third floor.
Julie Adams had been at the top of the list, and they’d decided to take her first. Before Skillman had a chance to ask any questions, they’d waved a piece of paper – subpoena or something like that – in her face, and were demanding the case files.
Adams was an untreatable schizophrenic, and had only gotten worse through the eight years she’d been in Arkham. No treatment had worked – and they’d tried them all, from the newest drugs to some of the oldest tricks in the books, the sort that the staff all mutually agreed to keep quiet because people who didn’t work at psychiatric hospitals just didn’t understand. And now the government wanted to take her away?
Skillman shrugged. Eh – not her place to question or worry. As they filed into the pure white cell, Adams was scrabbling against the back wall, face contorted in fear, the greasy tangles of her long, black hair swabbing the wall. “No! NO! I’m not gonna let you take me!”
The soldiers impassively moved forward, seemingly deaf to the woman’s harsh, pathetic screams. Reaching down, two deftly warded off her slaps and kicks and lifted her by the shoulders so that she hung between them like a rag doll. Brushing past Skillman, they filed back out of the room, Adams’ screams echoing down the corridor. The two men in black thanked her, and walked out, leaving her standing in the silent room, listening to the sick woman being dragged down the hall.
Temporary Headquarters, Randi Institute of Pneumatology, The Pentagon, Arlington, VA
James Randi sighed and rolled his eyes. While the search teams were scouring the nation’s medical facilities for the apparently insane who might not be insane after all, the fakes and charlatans had continued to pour into the Institute in unimaginable numbers. The publicity combined with the persuasive talents of the US Secret Service and the FBI had achieved results that even his million dollar prize had failed to attain. Privately, Randi kicked himself, he should have involved the Secret Service earlier. They’d even brought John Edwards and Sylvia Browne in, over those two unworthies angered protests. I
t had taken only a few minutes testing to discredit that pair of mountebanks, after which they’d been unceremoniously ejected from the building. As Agent Stella Carter had remarked ‘Hey, guess what. Sylvia didn’t bounce.’
Up to now, that had been par for the course. There were still the palm-readers and card-players who waited in the antechamber for their turn, all dressed up in beads and eye liner and all sorts of clothes that looked mysterious in smoky, underlit rooms but just appeared absurd under fluorescent business lights. They were the routine dross that had to be inspected, just in case. Even so, there was hope for the plea for any real psychics or necromancers to come forward had brought in five or six possible hits – all quiet, shy people who worked ordinary jobs and lived ordinary lives.
He was just about to call the next person in when his cell phone rang. He checked it; it was a 555-1000 number. He answered. “Randi here.” After a moment, he nodded and said, “Will do. Please bring her in.”
At last. Randi sighed the words to himself. Ever since his discussion with that charming Thai General, he’d been waiting for the first of the medical subjects to arrive. Then, he squared his shoulders and opened the door to the antechamber and just stood there, looking out toward the outside door. It opened, and eight national guardsmen marched in, wearing full combat fatigues. Two of them were carrying what appeared to be a heavily sedated woman, her glassy eyes half-open and a bit of drool trailing down her cheeks. Behind them were three men in lab coats, looking like stereotypical doctors. As they reached where Randi stood, one of the men in lab coats strode forward past the soldiers and offered his hand. Randi shook it, and the man said, “James Randi? Dr Ed Bullmore, psychiatry and neurology at Cambridge. Pleased to meet you.”
“The pleasure’s mine, Dr Bullmore. What do we have here?”
Bullmore spoke with a pleasant British accent. “Untreatable schizophrenia patient from New York. Name: Julie Adams. Onset at age sixteen. Reported ability to read minds.” He looked meaningfully at one of the soldiers, who spoke up, sounding shaken. “On the way over here, she told me about my daughter who drowned. No way she could have known about that – she was locked up for years before Kelsie was born.”
Randi thought for a moment. “Bring her in.” Briskly, the white-bearded man walked back through the door. He glanced over at his secretary. “Jane, please request brain-imaging at the nearest hospital ASAP. Play the DoD card if you have to.”
Neuroimaging Center, Arlington Hospital, Arlington, VA
Julie Adams woke up in a little tube of metal, found herself immobilized, and felt a little whisper in the edge of her mind. “See? I told you soooo!” Then she slipped back into unconsciousness.
When she next woke up, she was sitting in a chair, leather straps holding her wrists to the chair arms. Sitting across the table from her was a grandfatherly-looking man, bald but with an enormous white beard. A voice danced across her vision, and she said, “James Randi?” The man raised one eyebrow, dropped it, and continued to regard her over clasped hands. She struggled with the bonds.
“They told me you’d do this to me! They told me!”
He spoke, his voice, calming and authoritative. “Who told you?”
She’d never been asked that before. Before, they’d always assumed the voices weren’t real, that she was crazy. She wasn’t crazy; she just heard voices. “They did.” A warning buzzed across the back of her mind – “Don’t trust him. He’s going to rape you.”
The man smiled. “Have they ever told you who they are?”
These questions were completely foreign to her. “Uh… I… no…”
His eyes twinkled through his spectacles. “Well, Julie, we want to help you. We know they’ve hurt you. We’re going to hurt them back, and we’d like your help.”
It was tempting. She’d always thought of them as enemies, even when they were telling her the truth. But they’d been enemies of her enemies, and so they had been her friends. But now, this man was offering his help to her, to her… “DON’T LISTEN TO THEM!” screamed a voice, and spots erupted behind her eyes as Randi morphed, grew – black scales erupted on his face, horns growing from his bald head, his glasses falling to the desk, shattering; furred bat wings unfurled, spread, brushed the walls and ceiling, looming over her. And now a smell like rotten eggs was strengthening; the room was darkening, and she could hear faint screams in the distance, like a chorus of damned souls.
She was dimly aware of her own screaming, of the stabs of pain spiking through her; the thing across the desk was prodding her with a pitchfork, leering at her. It stepped backward and lustily licked its lips, grabbing a giant organ from between its legs and -
The hellish scene shimmered and faded suddenly, and the previous scene returned with the bald, grandfatherly man looking concernedly down at her and two men with chiseled faces hovering right above her. One of the men said, “Hold still, sister. You’re almost safe.” There was a prick in her arm, and then she was happy, floating free down toward blessed oblivion.
Randi straightened up and looked over toward the door. The psychiatrists and a lab technician were filing through the door. “Did you guys get it?”
“Yes James, we did,” said Bullman. “Before we hashed the room with electronic white noise, the electronic surveillance system we had set up caught a faint signal. It was a miracle we picked it up at all, it was right on the edge of the spectrum covered by the ESM but it was there and we’ve recorded it. It has some strange properties, and we’re sending the records to the physicists next door. They’ll digitize it, feed it into our threat libraries and we’ll be able to monitor for it. Also, if we can feed the waveform into the computers controlling our own emitter systems, we should be able to transmit ourselves.
“Much more importantly, we’ve already figured out how to keep her, and others like her, safe and sound from any further interference.”
Randi cocked his head curiously. “And what’s that?”
“Well, James, the signal in question isn’t that much different from an electromagnetic pulse, you know that thing the scare stories have claimed would wipe out electronics worldwide. We’ve known how to defend against that for decades and the power levels are much lower here. So, building on that experience.” Bullman grinned and pulled a shiny contraption from his lab coat. “A hat made of aluminum foil.”
Recon Team Tango One-Five, Wadi Haran, Western Iraq.
“Control, we have baldricks, column advancing along the Pipeline Route. Estimated battalion force with company-level harpy cover.”
“Very good. Engage and harass.”
Lieutenant Jade “Broomstick” Kim acknowledged, the transferred her attention back to the mast-mounted sight on her AH-6J helicopter. A deft touch on the controls and the aircraft rose slightly so that the ball of the sight just peaked over the ridge. The picture hadn’t changed much, even though the column was mounted on the rhinolobsters, they were moving slowly. Well, slowly by United States Army standards, Broomstick guessed that by medieval standards they were fairly galloping along. That was excruciatingly slow when compared with the way the First Armored Division was moving up.
A long rectangle of rhinolobsters, each with its rider and a small group out in front. They’d have to be the command group. The primary subject of interest, the cream of the crop in this target-rich environment. Eliminate the command structure first, leave the combat elements floundering around without orders. It was a process the United States Army called ‘shaping the battlefield’. “Tango Leader to all Tango birds. Select Hellfire missiles, target the command group in front, ripple fire both missiles.”
Spaced out down the wadi, the three Little Birds gunner their engines slightly and lifted up still further. The column ahead was oblivious to their existence, even when the laser target designators locked into place. On her display, Broomstick could even see the designated targets starting to shift and scratch as the lasers irritated their skins. Then, a gentle squeeze on the firing button and the first of the
Hellfires streaked off across the desert. Off to her left, a split second later, Tango-one-five-Bravo fired its first missile with Tango-one-five-Charlie following an instant after that. Broomstick had already selected her next target when she fired her second missile, as soon as she saw the explosion from the first hit she swung the laser to her selected victim and watched the Hellfire missile obediently switch targets. The explosions four thousand yards away seemed an almost continuous rolling thunder as the six missiles devastated the command group.
“All Tango-One-Five elements, jobs done, let’s get out of here.”
“We got a problem ell-tee.”
Broomstick looked across at the burning patch of desert where the baldrick command group had been. Above it the harpies were heading for the position of her three Little Birds, coming in very, very fast.
“Bug out, everybody bug out now. Max speed.” She rammed the throttles forward, swinging her helicopter into its high-speed position, trying to get away from the cloud of harpies that was closing on her.
“No good ell-tee. They’re faster than us.”
Broomstick didn’t acknowledge, she didn’t have to. The AH-6 could do about 180 miles per hour flat out and the harpies were closing the range. She pulled back and swung the nose round, flipping her armament selector switch to the pair of Stingers mounted on the side of her cockpit. The annunciator tone was mixed, even in the cold of a desert night, they were having difficulty locking on. It was no good, whatever lock they had would have to do. She fired into the mass of harpies, watching as one missile went through the formation without exploding, the other struck home and she saw a harpy briefly outlined in fire as the Stinger tore into it. There was another flare as well, but Broomstick had no time to congratulate herself or anybody else. She was turning away, diving, obeying the old rule, no matter how little height you have, trade height for speed. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Tango-one-five-Charlie had left it too late. The Little Bird was engulfed in jets of fire from the harpies, its fuel tanks exploded and the flaming wreckage fell out of the sky to earth.
