by Samuel Fort
Chapter 21 - The Meeting of the Four
The four senior lords of the Peth-Allati met in a Nisirtu safe house in downtown Denver. The building was an abandoned church masquerading as a college textbook storehouse and was initially used by Peth-Allati from the Seven Houses when they needed refuge from the Maqtu. That had been years ago, however, and the Maqtu were now effectively crushed, so the building was rarely needed. Still, it was swept regularly by Peth security forces and kept ready for any contingency.
Moros was the last to arrive. He walked alone into the basement and took a seat at collapsible table that was already occupied by three other men.
“Good evening, Lord Moros,” said the man to his right, a Peth-Allati Lord of the Second Kingdom named Belusmar. He was an elderly and dignified man with thinning white hair and a sharp chin and was the only man present wearing spectacles. He wore a dark red turtleneck and held an ivory pipe in one palm.
“Good evening, Lord Belusmar,” replied Moros. “Lords Nizrok, Disparthian,” he added, nodding at the other two men as he pulled his chair forward.
Six of the remaining seven kingdoms had a Peth lord in charge of its military forces; the military leader of the Fifth Kingdom had been assassinated two-weeks prior and not yet replaced. Though the Nisirtu preferred to script Ardoon militaries to do their bidding, there were times when that was not possible. Also, the Families were prone to warring against one another every few centuries and the unwritten rule was that scripts could not be used to settle civil wars, since any slip-ups could expose the existence of the Nisirtu to their slaves. That endangered the whole of the Nisirtu. Instead, the wars were decided by the Peth-Allati of each house. Only the Maqtu had dared to violate this rule, knowing that ultimately it would not matter.
The Maqtu, and Moros. But Moros was the senior-most commander of the Seven’s Peth and was allowed certain latitude. The other commanders, in descending order of authority, were Nizrok, Disparthian, and Belusmar. The two Peth lords not present were junior to these four men and had not been required at the meeting because they played no active role in the events that were about to unfold, though they were well aware of them.
Nizrok, Peth lord of the Fourth Kingdom, a middle-aged, balding man with eyebrows cut to resemble inverted V’s, said, “I heard that you swapped a few words with that devil Fiela at the Ziggurat.” The man was born in Ukraine but spoke Agati, as did the other men at the table.
“Yes,” mumbled Moros in the same tongue. “I had gone there to meet with a local contact and found not only her but also Lilitu and her new slave husband. Imagine, in the Ziggurat, a whore and slave, sitting together! It’s sickening.”
“I thought you had banned Fiela from the Ziggurat as a result of her…insubordination?”
Moros studied the table. “She figured out where the perimeter guards were. They were not expecting her and she was…creative. The ceremonial guard never stood a chance. This, and she had already killed my newest fetch while I was away.”
Disparthian, Peth lord of Sixth Kingdom said, “She’s quite determined, Lord Moros. You chose the wrong enemy.” Disparthian was French. He was the youngest and handsomest of the collected men, blond with brilliant blue eyes and perfectly formed lips that ensured that he rarely spent his evenings alone. “But anyway, you have many other fetches, yes?”
“Most are running errands for me abroad. I have none left in the United States.”
“It would take a week to get a new one assigned,” observed Nizrok.
Disparthian pulled a leather case from an inside pocket and flipped it open to reveal a row of black cigarettes. He placed one in his mouth and mumbled, “Moros, why not leave the girl alone? You have taken too personal an interest in her. It is unseemly for a man of your station to issue scripts against another member of the Seven, much less a girl who is so utterly inconsequential. Let the Maqtu kill her.”
“The Maqtu have been trying to kill her for years and all they have to show for it is a mound of bloodless corpses,” seethed Moros.
“Still, this girl is not your concern. Wait. Perhaps in the future you can make her your fetch.”
“A Peth?” asked Belusmar, affronted.
Disparthian shrugged. “The rules are changing soon, are they not? Give it a week, Lord Moros. Concentrate on the matter at hand.”
“The person who should concern you,” rasped Nizrok, “is Lilitu, that bastard daughter of the mad king. The whore was to die childless, the end of his wretched line. She had no family to provide her dowry yet today she is married and may produce prodigy.”
Belusmar added, “How incredibly clever that girl is. I’m sorry, Lord Moros, but it’s true. She has done the impossible - she has legally obtained a dowry and permission to marry from a deceased father, and,” he snapped his bony fingers, “just like that, can produce children capable of renewing her father’s royal bloodline.”
“What of her husband?” asked Disparthian.
“I cannot understand why she selected him, of all men,” admitted Moros. “He was born a poor Ardoon of better than average intelligence and spent a few years in the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan for various spy agencies, though he himself never really knew which ones. Afterwards he obtained some advanced degrees in ancient languages. He has become prominent researcher in that field.”
“That, then, was Ridley’s doing,” said Belusmar, “and not Lilitu’s. Only the Great Sage would choose such a man.”
“Toward what end?” asked Disparthian.
“Isn’t it obvious? He seeks a replacement. Since he is no longer allowed scribes, he will use Lilian’s husband instead. The slave is a smart man with interests that parallel Ridley’s own. Whether Lilitu is impregnated is of no consequence to the scribe.” Belusmar relit his pipe. “However, the fact that he has wed his great niece, Fiela, to the Ardoon suggests he wants his own bloodline preserved.”
Disparthian blew smoke into the air. “Then he is a foolish old man. No one cares about the bloodline of a scribe and neither Fiela nor the Ardoon are fit to be nobility. Neither have royal blood. Lilitu is marked and her father’s throne occupied by a legitimate king. She has no army. It is a pointless arrangement in all ways.”
Moros shook his head. “Do not call Ridley foolish, Lord. When he was active his scenarios never failed, though many required thousands of concurrent scripts. Some of those scripts were fifty or even a hundred degrees removed from the desired outcome. Mind you, he wrote them without the use of computers.”
Nizrok gave a reluctant nod. “The scenarios were so complex that there were whispers the old man dabbled in magic. Surely, it was said, no man could do in his head or with his little pegboards what today’s most-advanced computers cannot do. Such projections are impossible. There are an almost infinite number of variables.”
“Why was his life spared if he is so brilliant an adversary? Did he not serve King Sargon? I was told that all the king’s allies were killed.”
Moros answered. “He assisted in Sargon’s capture and, at any rate, was too admired to kill. There was fear of a revolt among the other scribes if he was. That is why he was not only spared but afforded privileges. Lilitu and Fiela would be dead if not for the scribe’s intervention on their behalf. Allowing him custody was, in my opinion, a mistake.”
Disparthian sighed to express his boredom. “I fail to see how any of this matters, gentlemen. If Lilitu gives birth, we slay the child. If the Ardoon starts writing scripts, we slay the Ardoon. Neither can occur for months and by then it won’t matter. Surely, Lord Moros, you did not bring us together from the far corners of the earth to rant about Lilitu and her slave husband?”
“No,” the senior Peth said, annoyed at the younger man’s audacity. “I summoned you here to brief me. Do you have any issues I should be made aware of?”
The Frenchman sprayed blue smoke into the air. “Me? Absolutely not. The markets are near collapse. I can make it happen anytime. The viruses are active and the autobots ready to be tr
iggered. Our market makers are blindly following the script devised for them, believing they will become rich if they execute their trades exactly as directed. I have a thousand fetches ready to buy or dump billions of shares of specially selected stock on my command. When the fall comes it will be swift and epic. It will make the 1929 crash look like a soft landing.”
“And the internet? The media?” asked Belusmar, for these were also within Disparthian’s domain.
“They are congested with contradictory ‘reliable source’ information. Social media addicts clamor endlessly about wars and rumors of wars. Cage’s disease,” he gave a respectful nod to Moros, “can now allegedly be contracted from municipal water supplies. Many physicians and websites are said to have confirmed this. There are also ‘leaked’ emails and texts from the Center of Disease Control that suggest Cage’s corpses have been reanimating.”
Nizrok cackled loudly. “Zombies? Ha! Ha! Diz, you have outdone yourself.”
The other Lord smiled. “No, no, I watch too many movies, if we are honest. But I thought why not add some flavor, yes? I am sure there will be a few thousand believers in the graveyards tonight digging up bodies to chop off heads.”
All the men laughed until at last Disparthian said, more seriously, “Our scripts are running on every newswire. The latest news releases include stories of a massive meteor headed toward earth, dangerously high solar flare activity, mysterious objects in the sky above major cities, construction of covert FEMA internment camps in the Midwestern states, possible coups in several nations, Chinese submarines off the west coast, the transfer of Russian troops and equipment to Eastern Europe…well, I could go on all evening.
“Suffice to say, the internet has served its purpose well. There is much gnashing of the teeth. No two survivors of the days that follow will be able to agree on exactly what went wrong and no one will trust anyone, facilitating an enduring period of anarchy. Fertile grounds for the Nisirtu renaissance.”
“But there are some who are trying to counter your scripts, are there not?” asked Nizrok.
The Frenchmen nodded. “Unavoidably, there are a few sensible Ardoon who have pleaded for the public to remain calm, but we have cast them as ‘deniers’ or as participants of a conspiracy to keep the ‘sheeple’ in blinders. The more effective spokespersons for reason are scripted to suffer accidental deaths, which, merely fuels the conspiracy fires.” He waved his cigarette in the air, making circles of smoke. “And in a few days, the coup de grace. The blackness.”
“Are the Ardoon being herded as the Families require?” asked Moros.
“But of course,” said Disparthian. “Before the lights go out, all the major internet news sites and the larger social media sites will report nuclear detonations or biological attacks in the required locations. There will be no time for the Ardoon to verify anything before the collapse occurs. Word will spread by word of mouth afterwards. That will ensure that the correct regions are vacated while other regions are avoided. The Ardoon herds will go where we have scripted them to go. It is a simple matter.”
Belusmar said, “I envy you, Diz. Your assignment allows for creativity. Mine is too simple, too mundane.”
“I assume that means you have encountered no problems, then,” said Moros, looking at the man with the pipe.
“None,” confirmed the elderly man. “Limited nuclear strikes and EMP detonations will occur at the times specified by the scripts. The only challenge will be ensuring events happen in sequence. For that reason I may need to run some one-degree scripts on the final day. If events were to happen out of sequence, there would too many survivors, or worse, we could see a contamination issue.”
Moros said, “I trust you to do what is necessary. The Families will not be happy if we hit our target mortality rate but half the earth is uninhabitable.”
“Thank you, Lord. In any event, most of the nuclear forces will be disabled before they can launch missiles. We only need a few launches to achieve our purpose.”
“What of the conventional forces and the weapons stockpiles?”
“The stockpiles we will leave intact for our own use. The conventional forces are already decimated by Cage’s. The U.S., Chinese, European and Russian militaries are at around thirty percent strength and dropping. One of Diz’s computer viruses, or the EMP strikes, will put most of the ships and subs out of commission.
“Any surviving vessels will be alone in the wild without the ability to contact their commands or other vessels and will be clueless as to what is happening, aside from the misinformation Diz has scripted. The crews will also be unable to replenish fuel, food, or water. At some point Cage’s will kill most of the survivors and the ships and subs will have to be abandoned.”
“The satellites?”
“They’ll be taken out by a combination of kinetic weapons, the EMP blasts, and viruses. The U.S. and Europeans are scripted to knock out the Chinese and Russian satellites and vice versa. Some will be left in orbit but the viruses at the ground stations are already in place and will make them unusable until the grid goes offline. At that point it won’t matter.”
“Well done,” said Moros, who turned to Nizrok. “And you?”
Nizrok toyed with an eyebrow and said, “The grain blight is causing some localized famine this year but the harvests next year will be the best measure of my success. The products my fetches have been developing for the larger agricultural conglomerates are designed to stunt crop growth at the most inopportune time for farmers, several months into the growing season. The wheat, corn, soybean, and rice harvests will be abysmal. The genetically modified crops they’ve been selling are tailored to cross-contaminate surrounding non-GMO crops.”
He held his hands in front of him, palms up. “Not that it matter so much the first year, since the farmers will be without functional farm machinery or vehicles to deliver whatever they eek out of the ground. But in subsequent years even the use of oxen will be futile. The famine will be epic. As our ancestors once lamented, the canals are rich with salt.”
Looking at Moros, Nizrok said, “It is unnecessary for you to brief us, Lord. Your achievements are already well documented. But perhaps you would indulge us anyway?”
Moros nodded modestly. “It’s true. Cage’s disease has been a remarkable success. It is spreading at an exponential rate and no Ardoon scientists have been able to figure out what it is because of its stealth design and the decoy variants we’ve released.”
In fact, Cage’s disease, named after the first known victim, Sally Cage, was a Nisirtu modification of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a neurodegenerative disorder spread by pathogenic agents that caused abnormal folding of targeted cellular proteins found primarily in the brain.
Horrifyingly sudden and rapidly progressing dementia was the first symptom, followed days later by memory loss and delusions. Mood swings kicked in as the victims became increasingly paranoid and depressed. Then the victims’ bodies began to fail. They lost control of their muscles, suffered loss of balance, myoclonus, and seizures. In short, the afflicted first lost their mind, then their bodies, and five to six weeks later, their lives.
The fact that it was an airborne pathogen that he and his sycophants had nursed to life in a hundred or so of the world’s most populous cities and busiest airports ensured a pandemic. The bug had been designed to bypass Nisirtu, who through thousands of years of managed breeding had acquired a sufficiently unique genetic identity to make that possible. Cage’s disease was designed to reduce the world’s population to under a billion people.
“So, two, maybe three days until it all comes together?” asked Belusmar.
“Until the start, anyway,” agreed Disparthian. “The embers will continue to glow after the fire has been extinguished. But inevitably, they will go dark.”
“Exciting times,” beamed Nizrok.
Belusmar grunted unhappily.
“What is it old man?” asked Disparthian.
Belusmar put his hands together under his
chin as if in prayer. “I would like to know whether any of you have been given any guidance as to your roles after the destruction of the Ardoon?”
The others exchanged uncomfortable glances.
Moros finally said, “Why do ask?”
“We - the court of the Second Kingdom - had received assurances that a roadmap would be in place by now. That is to say, our queen led the Second Peth to believe that there is a plan for what will happen after the cataclysm. Yet, with only days left, we have been told nothing of it.”
“That does not mean there is no plan,” challenged Disparthian.
“True. The Queen has not stated that we are without a plan, yet each day she appears increasingly agitated, as if a suitor has failed to appear as promised. For that reason and others…we wonder.”
“Has she directed you to stop your operations?” Moros asked circumspectly, spinning a biology textbook on the table.
“No, never, and at this point, the scripts are practically writing themselves. The scenarios are almost a decade old and too many genies have escaped too many bottles. How, for example, could you undo Cage’s? How can you, in days, replant all the crops in the world? These things cannot be undone. No, we are committed.”
“Why not ask your scribes for information if you are so concerned?”
“The scribes have been restricted from talking to anyone but the Queen. Why, I do not know, but I see them too often in the corridors of the royal abode. Far too often. They seem confused and without purpose. Why are they not writing scripts? The world after the collapse will be a chaotic place, ripe for the rebirth of the Nisirtu, but they seem as lost as me. I haven’t a clue what the role of the Second Peth will be.”
“Why should you?” scowled Nizrok. “We are Peth-Allati! We are neither scribes nor royalty. The Families have no duty to share their plans with us and you should not be putting your nose into their affairs. If my king directs the Fourth Peth to march into the underworld, we will, and we will not ask why.”
Looking frustrated, Belusmar downed the glass of water in front of him and said, “The underworld is likely where we will end up without a map.”
Disparthian scratched his chin. “Perhaps you subscribe to the theories of the mad king? Do you think, Belusmar, that the Sillum is scheming to usurp the Nisirtu? Shall you rally the Houses and march on Bolivia?”
“I never said that,” the other man grumbled. “You’d be well-advised not to mock me.”
“Disparthian, you forget yourself,” said Moros. “Belusmar is concerned for the future of his House, as well he should be. We are each bound to protect our Families and our citizens.”
Turning toward Belusmar, he said, “But Lord, you ask questions that should not be asked. Even if there were no plan, the Nisirtu will continue to rule the surviving Ardoon. We did in the day of the Madihee, when we had only horses and spears. Unlike the Ardoon, we have a network, and purpose, and understanding. We have stockpiles of equipment, food, materials, and weapons. While the Ardoon are groveling for scraps and killing one another in the ruins, we will be building empires.”
“Unless,” mused Disparthian, concealing a grin beneath one hand, “the Sillum beats us to it.”
