The Apostates

by Lars Teeney

  Hades took deep breaths to center himself: chasing off the panicked state that had nearly overtaken him. He willed his vision back into focus and watched the Inquisitor’s moves intently. Hades feigned shock and disorientation, and he ignored the pain that he genuinely felt. Hades desired to lure the Inquisitor in. What Hades thought was going to be a gentlemanly duel, steeped in honor and tradition, had turned into a deadly game of deception. He lamented the loss of honor in the world. Even this man, who had claimed to have valued the lost arts, was a cheap poseur. Hades thought he had known “Roddy” well; not well enough it seemed.

  The Inquisitor was cautious, but also anxious to end the fight, and he smelled blood. Eager to capitalize on this momentary weakness, the Inquisitor wound up a huge swing and brought his blade around in a horizontal arc, knocking away Hades broken sword. The Inquisitor’s blade hurled toward Hades’s chest. Hades pushed himself backward, allowing the Inquisitor’s Blade to catch his armored cuirass, which the blade sliced through and grazed Hades’s flesh, but Hades had avoided the deep slash that the Inquisitor had aimed for. Hades’s armored cuirass fell into two pieces, and the Inquisitor was left wide open from that wide swing he took. In that instant, Hades used the broken tip of his sword and plunged it into the Inquisitor’s side below the arm, fracturing several ribs, and piercing lung. Rodrigo cried out in pain and felt his lung fill with blood. Rodrigo whipped his sword around, chopping at Hades’s shoulder in a downward motion. Hades moved quickly inside the swing to embrace the Inquisitor. He wrapped his arm around the Inquisitor’s sword arm, and with both hands twisted the Inquisitor’s wrist, wrenching the lion-head blade from his grasp. Hades then pulled down on the Inquisitor’s forearm, snapping the joint against Hades’s shoulder. A sickening snap was heard. Hades incapacitated the Inquisitor’s sword arm. However, the Inquisitor countered by pulling the sword tip from his side with his left hand and stabbed with as much force as possible into Hades’s collar bone. The strike did sink in slightly, but all the blood on the shard just caused it to slip-up into his hand when it impacted with Hades collarbone, which resulted in more damage to the Inquisitor’s hand. Hades launched a strong left hook into the Inquisitor’s temple, which sent him careening backward, disoriented, weak, and coughing blood. He spat a mouthful to his side.

  “Well, it’s been quite awhile since we had a tumble like that, eh Evan?” The Inquisitor managed to get out, between blood-soaked coughing fits. Hades stood upright. He walked over and collected the Inquisitor’s lion-head, sword-cane contraption. He kept it at the ready.

  “It certainly has, Roddy,” Hades replied.

  “You know, you hurt me deeply. You were the only one I ever felt anything for. Then you went off and messed around on me. Did you think I would not find out?” The Inquisitor wiped blood from around his mouth and struggled to keep himself upright.

  “Well, Roddy: it was just good, clean fun. It happened all the time in the field: gay or straight. I didn’t know you would take personal offense. But, then I also had no idea you would use the full force of your power to try to assassinate me for it either.” Hades confessed to Rodrigo.

  “You just didn’t understand my endless feelings for you. Once you scorn me there is no end that I would not take to make my pain be known to you.” Rodrigo worked himself up with repressed rage but was robbed of it by the fact that he was dying.

  “Well shit, that’s an understatement. You were willing to sacrifice it all just to get your revenge.” Hades assessed his former lover’s frame of mind.

  “This is true, and it cost me everything, now. Well, my time is nearly here. Regardless, I am glad it was you, my love, that were finally the one who laid me low.” The Inquisitor beckoned Hades toward him. Hades complied holding the cane-sword at hand.

  “It has been a privilege to have known you, Roddy, and to be the one to put an end to you.” Hades knelt down, bringing his face closer to the Inquisitor’s face.

  “Kiss me. I love you,” Rodrigo confessed.

  “I love you too.” Hades put his lips to Rodrigo’s lips and they shared an old, familiar kiss.

  “Now, go to sleep!” With that, Hades drove the cane-sword through Inquisitor Rodrigo’s heart, twisting and jerking upward to make sure the job was done. The Inquisitor let out one last gasp, then expired thereafter. Hades shed one tear; but only one. He retrieved the cane-sword and wiped the blood off with the late Inquisitor’s overcoat. A great sense of relief had befallen Hades. His vow, and his mission, was at an end. Hades tore off the L.O.V.E. patch from Rodrigo’s uniform. Hades could now love again.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  Pride-Swarm, Gale-Whirlwind, and Angel-Seraphim rode with the column through upper Manhattan. They had been fighting running battles periodically with Ranger and regular forces through the streets on the way to the Bronx. Their objective was the old Yankee Stadium, which was being used as a B.A.G. venue for the region. The Apostate militia met stiffer resistance the closer they came to the Bronx. The Apostate armored column came upon Macomb’s Dam Bridge. Gale ordered the A.P.C.s drawn up in a protective circular formation, in an open area that looked to have once served as a park.

  Gale, Pride, and Angel exited their respective A.P.C.s to assess the situation. Using field-glasses, Pride-Swarm observed both ends of the bridge and noted the significant fortifications: a formidable bunker commanded the approach to the bridge, and a barricade barred entrance. He wasn’t quite sure, but Pride thought he had caught hints of movement up in the metal girders high above the platform. He was certain that this meant concealed snipers.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  The large screen behind President John W. Schrubb flashed images that seemed to be the opening ceremonies of an event. Ravine judged the video feed to be displaying the opening of the Born Again Gathering. He walked slowly down the central aisle of the sanctuary-like chamber. President Schrubb urged him forward. Ravine stumbled, and caught himself on the end of a pew. By now Ravine’s eyes had adjusted to the movie theater-like conditions of the chamber.

  “What is this place? What do you mean “welcome home”?” Ravine was confused, and battling the after-effects of the ‘Database’.

  “This is my personal chapel. I built it: long ago. Long before the Church Hierarchy was put into place. It would have been passed down to my successor, had this experiment, I call New Megiddo, lasted longer,” President Schrubb mused.

  “What do you mean?” Ravine asked. President Schrubb waved a dismissive hand.

  “Never mind that. What’s important is that you are here.” President Schrubb faced the masses of machinery and cables in front of the screen, and rubbed his chin, contemplating some matter. The hulking terminal’s processor made audible hums as it crunched numbers.

  “You said “welcome home” before. What did you mean by that?” Ravine demanded an answer. President Schrubb took a deep breath from his small respirator unit, concealed under his suit. The tubes delivered pure oxygen to his lungs. He seemed to be annoyed by Ravine’s question.

  “Good Lord! You don’t remember, do you? Well, I do suppose you were young back then. You have a very special origin. I— or rather the Church—how should I put it? We adopted you.” The President was too vague, and Ravine grew more impatient. A splitting headache plagued him.

  “What do you mean? Where did I come from?” Ravine growled out the questions.

  “Wow, you grew up to be quite demanding. No matter. I have some time to spare. Maybe “adopt” is the wrong term to use. We purchased you: from a stock that the Vatican keeps, for, how to put this lightly—extra income,” President Schrubb said casually. Ravine had to take a seat on the front pew, with the video feed on the massive screen flashing in his eyes. Some form of recognition ceremony occurred on-screen, like that of a graduation. He forced himself to stop focusing on the images, but they were extremely distracting.

  “You bought me? Like a slave?” Ravine grew angry. He did not want to believe what the President told him.

>   “No, nothing like that. More like a very important person that needed New Megiddo’s protection. You are special and have a very big part to play,” the President announced coyly.

  “Special? How—what the fuck do you mean?” Ravine snarled.

  “Easy, no need for obscenities. The Catholic Church has lost influence in the Americas mostly due to my efforts, in spreading the Faith of New Megiddo. The Vatican maintains a fresh supply of “holy blood” on hand for some extra tidings on the side. It’s not an officially-recognized venture mind you. Needless to say: we acquired you from the Vatican for your special trait,” the President opened up a little more. He walked approached a liqeuer cabinet to pour himself a drink from a decanter filled with scotch. Everything he heard from the President seemed like sheer madness to Ravine.

  “Fucking crazy, man. You know you got swindled, right? I certainly ain’t no “holy blood”—I’ll tell you that.” Ravine scoffed at the absurdity of the situation. To think that the Vatican was so desperate for funds that they were human trafficking counterfeit descendants of Christ sounded like the plot from one of those dose of ‘Database’ he did once, encoded with fiction from the Twentieth Century.

  “Perhaps. Perhaps, not: it matters little. All that matters is that you are here and what the people are led to believe. That is the nature of faith: it is the ultimate trust that one can give. One must suspend skepticism and critical thinking in order for faith to work. Because the Virtuous population has faith, I can instruct the Reverend here to announce that something is so, and the Virtuous take it on faith that it is true. You are the Son of Man—well maybe the great, to the forty-sixth power, Grandson of Man.” The President gestured to the gesticulated mass of fleshy membranes, steel plates, and cables that converged upon a central hub in front of the screen. Ravine surmised that this must be the Reverend Wilhelm Wainwright: a pulsating mass of techno-organic computing, being piped into the heads of the citizens of New Megiddo. He wondered if the Reverend had ever been a living, breathing man.

  “Very noble. You do realize that the faith that you rely upon is crumbling, that there are uprisings all over the country, and that the Apostates are assaulting New Megiddo City, right? You destroyed what the United States of America had been, and you’re proud of that?” Ravine wanted to dig deeper into the man’s psyche.

  “Destroyed it? My boy, I have lived a very long time. If you had been alive at the dawn of the Twenty-first Century maybe you would have understood. Look—are you familiar with the story of Constantine the Great: the first Christian Roman Emperor?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’ve heard the name. What of it?” Ravine was perturbed because this seemed to be a tangent with no significance to the current situation.

  “Constantine had fought and won a civil war against other usurper emperors. He inherited a fractious, and unstable empire that was made up of hundreds of different faiths, ethnicities, and regional cultures. The Empire was vast and ungovernable, and he needed a unifying force, to codify all the disparate people of his Empire into a single-minded citizenry. Constantine was a shrewd politician and a practical man who saw the utility in, the once slave religion: Christianity. He harnessed Christianity’s unifying power to cement the peoples of his empire together. Constantine made it the state religion of the Roman Empire and he established a new capital, where the old had represented the old order,” President Schrubb had the tone of a preacher in his voice, and his voice with filled with noted of inspiration when he recounted the story.

  “So, he bulldozed centuries of culture and tradition to create a theocracy for himself. Great,” Ravine’s sarcasm bit into the President.

  “No! You missed the point completely! Constantine took a dying empire, on the verge of collapse and breathed new vitality into it. By ushering in the age of Christianity, he extended the life of the empire, in the west by a century, but in the eastern half, the empire lived for another thousand years! This is exactly what I did for New Megiddo: I infused it with vitality and new life’s blood.” The President coughed because he began to overexert himself, due to his passionate speech.

  “Well, that may be the case with Constantine, but you overlooked one major difference between the two of you,” Ravine said.

  “Oh, and what would that be?” The President wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. The scotch had not helped his frail system.

  “Constantine’s system continued long after his death: it was viable for his time period. Your system was a cult of personality, that required you to micromanage it, and it will die when you do. It only lasted this long because you keep yourself alive artificially.” Ravine pointed out the fatal flaw.

  “Yes...yes. You are correct. My brand of Christianity was based on a particularly virulent, but ultimately finite strain, built around the promise of the Return of the Lord to harvest the souls of the righteous; to spirit them away to Heaven. It’s a death cult, with an expiration date hard-coded in. Which is why I intend to make good on my promise. I foresaw this when the concept of New Megiddo was born. I promised myself that my administration would not be brought down in a popular uprising or coup. I would not be dragged through the streets like some third-world dictator. New Megiddo would pass into the annals of history on its own terms, and the Virtuous would be rewarded for their loyalty with a quick end to their worldly suffering.” The President had a sparkle of crazy in his eyes. He gazed upon the Reverend and patted it lovingly with his hand. Ravine cocked his head, trying to process everything he had learned.

  “Ah! This is my favorite part of the Born Again Gathering! The Reverend is almost on. He had always delivered the most brilliant and inspiring sermons, in my youth. I found a way for him to always be with me, throughout my long life.” The President looked like he was on the verge of tears, as he stroked a fleshy protrusion on the side of the Reverend. It quivered at the President’s touch.

  “The Reverend isn’t a person after all,” Ravine remarked.

  “Well, I wouldn’t call him an artificial intelligence. He is still composed of his flesh, cultured from his dying body and used to create the biological material for his current form. The Reverend has enjoyed the best of both worlds: organic and digital. He has the power to now reach millions-upon-millions more souls than he ever did when he was a mere mortal. But, now here he is, the last of the Prophets, nearly god-like himself.” The President fetishized the Reverend in his current form. The thought turned Ravine’s stomach slightly. The Reverend’s human form appeared on the screen behind the President. It looked to be some three-dimensional projection, before all the Faithful within the stadium. He began to spout a passionate and sweaty sermon to the people in the audience, but Ravine was too distracted by his current situation to listen in on the Reverend’s words.

  “Holy shit: you are deluded. The people only cling on to your Reverend’s words because existence under your Regime is so dismal. There’s not much joy or hope except for what you and the Reverend offer them.” Ravine’s headache subsided a bit, enough for him to get surly.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be that way. Things didn’t work out as planned: losing the Holy War...It was supposed to be a one thousand year—that’s irrelevant now! Decadence and excess are what lead to the fracturing of American morals and values! Multiculturalism, and equal protection for degenerates and the corrupt allowing the creeping influence of false religions, I fortified this society from those tainted aspects. I gave the people a singular vision: one goal for the people to focus on, and one God to pray to. Now then, the time is nearly at hand: the Reverend is nearly finished with his sermon. It is time for you to play your part,” the President informed Ravine. He gestured toward a palm scanner atop the heaving mass of tissue and cables that was the Reverend.

  “And what part would I have to play in this farce?” Ravine was confused.

  “When you were first delivered to me I used your D.N.A. to be the lock and key mechanism for the initiation of the Second Coming. It is the reason why you were able to acce
ss this chamber in the first place. None of the Church officials have ever set foot in this place. Of course, I had hedged my bets by purchasing others of the litter that you were spawned from, but they have passed on—but you have returned! That’s how I know it’s your destiny.” The President urged him forward to fulfill what was predetermined for him.

  “I take it you also know that Graham Wynham had done everything in his power for years to undermine your Regime? I mean, the son of your closest friend and the family that helped you rise, wanted to topple your Regime,” Ravine offered the barbed commentary and waited for the President’s response.

  “Yes, Graham Wynham: the whelp. It was a generational thing, the problem with inherited wealth: the young lose their respect for piety and frugality. My children paid for their hubris with their lives. The same fate met Graham Wynham as well. But, he actually served a function. He may have arranged your disappearance long ago, and your recruitment into his little rebellion. But, the end result was all the same. You have ended up here, the way I foresaw it. Now all there is left is for you to do what you were born to do: offer up your divine touch...the Proxy Messiah, to begin Armageddon!” President Schrubb was elated as he spoke, with both hands in the air. Then he broke into a coughing fit.

  “Fine, fine. I see that you are fixated on this idea that I fulfill my destiny. I suppose there is only one choice for me anyway. After all, my whole life has been a lie, manipulated by one after another. I mean, shit, I “died” once already. I would like this to be done with. Just allow me to pray the only way I know how to first.” Ravine made this last request from the President. Schrubb glanced at him and then to the Reverend in the screen.

  “Yes. Get on with it—whatever you have to do. But, make it quick the Reverend is nearly finished,” the President barked, and let his annoyance be heard in his voice. His body was frail and having gone so long without his longevity therapy had made him weak. He was eager to get the business done with.