Hedrick reached forward and poured some water into a glass tumbler. Not a sound was made as he sipped from the glass and placed it back on the table. ‘You can imagine our dismay when recently a second universe showed the same symptoms. We could have just extracted this universe too, but we had to understand the underlying problem, the source of the contamination, and how it was being spread. The source was eventually tracked down to a single blue planet, hidden away in an insignificant galaxy. It became obvious, that this was not a spontaneous event, it had to have originated from within Creation, and so a plan was devised to track the culprit down. An internal audit would have been futile; whoever was involved knew our systems far too well for that. So I devised a plan to carry out a covert investigation under the guise of an apprentice’s assignment, and that Apprentice, Amy, was you.
Daniel awoke to find Anubis and the Gatekeeper, either side of his bed. Before he realized what was happening, they had unlocked the handcuffs, rolled him onto his side, and manacled his arms behind his back. The Gatekeeper, who had released Daniel and Anubis from lockdown had become hysterical; ‘Abraxas is coming! Abraxas is coming!’ he cried out, ‘Quick, let’s leave him.’
‘No, he comes with us! He’s got the encryption key!’ Anubis attempted to drag Daniel off the bed, but he resisted by looping his leg over the side rail. For his trouble, Daniel received a hail of punches directed at his face, each one feeling as though his head was about to explode. He rolled over and threw himself onto the floor. Anubis ran around the end of the bed and, targeting Daniel’s reproductive pits, kicked him in the abdomen with such force that he almost lost his balance.
Overwhelmed by the sickening pain Daniel cried out, ‘Okay, okay!’ He lay motionless, and then turned and looked up at Anubis, ‘You really think Haamiah’s going to let you go, just because you’ve got me as a hostage?’
‘Haamiah won’t, but Hedrick will.’
Anubis looped his arm through Daniel’s and pulling him to his feet said, ‘Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard-’
Daniel interrupted. ‘You’re not going to get away with this! They’re onto you and there’s nowhere to hide.’
‘Maybe not in Creation, but there’s always somewhere to hide.’ Anubis replied, dragging Daniel towards the door.
The Gatekeeper was looking around him, ‘Abraxas is coming, Abraxas is coming!’ he repeated endlessly as they left the room.
Daniel was frogmarched along the corridor, desperately trying to figure out how he was going to escape. When they arrived at the elevator station, Anubis nodded towards the staircase door, ‘We’ll take him down there.’ The Gatekeeper released his grip on Daniel’s arm and pushed against the door, which opened easily. Daniel took his opportunity and wrenched his arm free from Anubis. He turned and started to run down the corridor but, before he could take no more than a few steps, the Gatekeeper was blocking his path. Anubis grabbed Daniel’s mane, dragged him backwards through the door and sent him cartwheeling down the stairs. ‘I told you not to fuck with me!' he said, following two steps at a time. Daniel struggled to his knees, bright crimson blood staining the fur on the side of his snout. Anubis stood over him, his eyes full of hatred, as he spat out the words, ‘Okay, so now we’re going to do this the hard way!’ He kicked Daniel in his chest, sending him tumbling down the second flight of stairs. This time he followed at a leisurely pace, one step at a time, smirking with satisfaction. Daniel had managed to roll over onto his back just as Anubis arrived, ‘I think it’s time for us to say goodbye, Daniel.’
Anubis raised his foot above Daniel’s head and was about to crush his skull when the Gatekeeper intervened, ‘Anubis, NO! Abraxas is coming! We need him alive. Remember, the key! In the time it took for Anubis’ foot to descend, the Gatekeeper had merged with Daniel, forming a rippling mass whose form was halfway down the next flight of stairs by the time the boot slammed onto the stairwell floor. Anubis threw his head back, howling with frustration. Then he turned and followed the fading voice of the Gatekeeper, ‘We have to go now! Tanka is waiting for us. Abraxas is coming! Quickly, before it’s too late!’
After running across the plaza and up the twelve flights of stairs, an exhausted Anubis emerged, panting heavily, through the stairway door. For Daniel the journey had been like a fairground ride, swinging this way and that, as the Gatekeeper sidestepped the stationary bodies on the plaza.
Acknowledging Tanka, the Gatekeeper released Daniel. Anubis walked towards him, his lips tightly pulled back into a snarl and his hands clenched into fists. Tanka stepped between them. 'There will be no violence here!' he said with an air of authority which contradicted his appearance. ‘Without him… we’re fucked!’
Anubis stopped, shaking his head and mane to regain composure. ‘He's ruined everything… they know everything… it's all over now.'
'They know nothing!’ Tanka snapped, ‘Do you think we would be standing here if Those-On-High had a clue what was going on?'
'Tanka, Abraxas is coming!’ the Gatekeeper repeated, this time more forcefully.
'We better not hang around then, had we Orion?' Tanka said, sarcastically using Amy's nickname. He turned and looked at Anubis, 'Have you finished testing the modifications?'
'Almost, but not with a live subject.’
'Well, if Orion’s right… then we’re your live subjects.’ Tanka turned and looked directly at Daniel, ‘You have a simple choice, cooperate or die. Now what will it be?'
Anubis stepped forward, 'Let me deal with him now-'
Tanka put his hand up, 'I will deal with this, Anubis,' then turning to Daniel, said, 'Well?'
'Difficult choice, I guess I’m going to have to… cooperate,’ Daniel muttered.
The party made their way in single file with Anubis leading the way. Daniel was between Tanka and the Gatekeeper, his hands still handcuffed behind his back. They were obviously terrified of Abraxas, so if he could delay things long enough, maybe Abraxas would come to his rescue. As they passed the corridor leading to Mo's lab, Daniel realised that they were heading for the Drone Launch Platform.
In addition to rescuing the Technician Mohammed, Haamiah had instructed Abraxas to find Daniel and so, while reassembling the Dude, he had also been searching every nook and cranny in Creation. Being omnipresent, the angel was able to explore numerous locations simultaneously, taking millennia to complete his search, yet return with his findings in the blink of an eye.
It was a young, female cockroach, scuttling along a corridor in the Medical Centre that gave Abraxas his first lead as to Daniel’s whereabouts. He took up the appearance of a mature male of the same species. At first she was extremely wary, but as Abraxas refined his presence, her demeanour changed and she started to coyly preen her antennae, using the tips of her front legs. She was obviously attracted to him and emitted a mist of seductive pheromones that Abraxas found difficult to resist. They side-stepped in a circle, antenna to antenna, communicating via bursts of information-loaded pheromones. It appeared that the cockroach had had a narrow escape when one of the security guards, pushing a trolley-bed along the corridor, had tried to stamp on her. But, as she scurried away, the molecules tumbling from the bed told her it was carrying an injured creationist.
The dance continued as Abraxas tried to find out where the guards had taken Daniel. They were only five metres from the intersection of two corridors; had they turned left, right, or pushed the trolley-bed straight on? The question seemed simple enough, but each time he asked the same pheromone encoded reply came back; they entered the third wilderness.
‘Take me to the wilderness,’ Abraxas demanded. The instruction Take me is quite difficult to encode as the irregular verb to take is chemically encoded by a pheromone, while the pronoun me being the direct object of the verb, is conveyed by touching the tips of one’s antenna together. The noun wilderness, which can be confused with starving or famine, is expressed by laying the abdomen as flat as possible to the ground while emitting the pheromone for I’m hung
ry.
At first she refused, encoding, it would be too dangerous! Whoever goes into the wilderness never returns! Abraxas slowly expanded his presence until he was three times the size of a normal male cockroach. She stood with her head arched back, her antennae spread wide in amazement. This time, when he asked the question, she agreed, and they took off together, flying across the intersection towards the wildernesses. They flew passed a door to the left, then a second to the right, and as they approached the third door she descended and landed next to it. This is the wilderness they entered, she encoded. Abraxas now realized that the wildernesses were the rooms behind the doors that lined the corridor, the rooms from which cockroaches never returned.
Abraxas re-imposed lockdown on his companion and inflated his presence to that of an angel. There was a notice on the door written in large red letters which read: INFECTIOUS ISOLATION WARD – MEDICAL STAFF ONLY. The door was fitted with an airtight seal, so the cockroach myth about the wildernesses had been well founded. If they had entered the room, it was highly unlikely they would ever get out.
Abraxas passed through the door and into the room beyond. What a perfect place to hold somebody against their will, he thought. The room was virtually soundproof and with the sign on the door, nobody was going to casually enter. The privacy curtain was pulled around the bed. Abraxas passed his head through it, curious to inspect the infected patient. The bed was empty, but the handcuffs hanging from one of the side rails and the rucked-up bedding suggested that whatever the patient had been suffering from, it was nothing to do with an infectious disease.
When they arrived at the outer airlock, Anubis turned to Tanka and said, 'Keep him here, I'll be back soon.' As he went to walk away, Daniel wrenched his arm free and made a dash for the fire escape. But before he could make more than a few paces, he found his route blocked by the Gatekeeper again. He glanced back at Anubis who said nothing, his conceited smirk speaking for him as he walked away.
The Gatekeeper went to speak but Tanka interrupted him, 'If you say that Abraxas is coming one more time you know what will happen.' He turned to Daniel, 'Why, oh why did you and Amy have to get involved in all this? I really like her, she’s such a charming female, intelligent, beautiful. And you, with such a brilliant career ahead of you, it’s all such a terrible waste!'
'Whatever’s going on, it's not too late to stop, Tanka. Just tell Anubis it's over… I'm sure Director Hedrick will understand.'
'Don't be so naive! This is beyond Hedrick's control. Do you think Those-On-High are going to forgive and forget? I don’t think so!' Their discussion was interrupted by the echoing sound of wheels trundling along the corridor.
All three turned to see Anubis come into view, pushing a large, flatbed trolley whose bulky load was hidden beneath a dustsheet. 'Open the airlock!' he called out. Without anyone’s apparent involvement, both of the huge pressure doors either side of the airlock slowly swung open.
Tanka turned to the Gatekeeper who had somehow remotely opened the doors, 'I wish I could do that, it would make life so much easier.'
'If all goes to plan, you'll be able to do anything you like,' Anubis said, as he pushed the trolley into the chamber. Tanka instructed Daniel to follow with a sweep of his arm and all three walked inside. Anubis pulled away the dustsheet to reveal a heavily modified planetary drone. Cut into the smooth, saucer-like disk, were four reclining seats. These were positioned at ninety degree intervals around the circumference, with the back of each seat inclined into the drone’s interior. He turned to the Gatekeeper but before he could speak, the drone levitated from the trolley and floated across the chamber to position itself on the gimballed arms of the launch rig. Anubis smiled at Orion, 'Great minds!’ He returned to the trolley and began unloading the cables and equipment, spending the next fifteen minutes fitting them to the drone. When he had finished he stood back and said to Daniel, 'What do you think? Impressive, isn't it?'
Before them was a construction that resembled a fairground ride. At its centre was what looked like a large rotary clothes dryer, its arms extending out to support cables tethered to black boxes mounted between the seats. Other cables and pipes appeared to be woven into the machine’s interior. Daniel tried to engage Anubis in conversation, trying to stall for time. 'So exactly what is this impressive piece of equipment supposed to do?' he asked.
'Yes, it is impressive, isn't it?' Anubis replied, looking at the modified drone and marvelling at his own genius. 'This, Daniel, is the inter-dimensional teleportation machine that’s going to take you out of Creation.'
'Wow… an inter-dimensional-teleportation-machine,' Daniel said mockingly, 'I've always wanted to travel on one of those. Where are we going... a little blue planet by any chance?' Tanka struggled to suppress laughter, managing to turn it into an unconvincing cough. Anubis on the other hand was not amused and hurled himself at Daniel, knocking him to the ground and burying his fangs into his neck. The Gatekeeper intervened, hurling Anubis across the chamber to land in a heap beneath the mission displays.
'ENOUGH!' Tanka cried out. 'We have not got time for this foolishness. And, Daniel… remember what your options are!' He turned to the Gatekeeper, 'Release him.' The handcuffs fell from Daniel’s wrists and he stood up, feeling the side of his neck, now weeping blood from the puncture wounds. Tanka turned to Anubis, 'Is this thing going to work?'
Anubis got to his feet and walked across the chamber, rubbing the back of his head, ‘Of course it’s going to work.'
'Then let’s get on with it!'
Anubis turned to the Gatekeeper, but before a syllable had passed his lips, the pressure doors spontaneously started to move.
'Are you mad?’ Daniel shouted, then turning to Tanka said, 'Without pressure suits we’ll all suffocate.'
'Don’t worry, Daniel. You’re not going to need that body where we’re going,' Anubis said as he connected the umbilical cable hanging from the dome of the chamber to the underside of his drone. He got up and climbed into his seat and, unclipping a small control panel, started typing numbers into the keypad. Immediately the mission displays came alive and started to count down. The klaxon sounded, accompanied by the loud hiss of air being sucked out of the chamber. 'If you want to live, Daniel, I suggest you get into your seat, and NOW!' Daniel ran across the chamber and hauled himself into the seat next to Anubis. Breathing started to get difficult for all but the Gatekeeper, who was now standing next to the chamber’s sealed door.
'For Creation's sake do something, I’m suffocating!' Tanka shouted, starting to panic. Anubis pressed a red button on the control panel just as Daniel thought he was going to pass out. An umbrella of purple light engulfed the drone and they could breathe normally again.
Daniel realized he had become weightless and was starting to drift out of his seat. He quickly grabbed one of the supports and pulled himself back in. 'Are we ready to go?' Tanka shouted, gripping tightly onto his seat’s frame.
'I’ve just got to check the destination coordinates and then-'
Anubis was interrupted by a scream from the Gatekeeper, 'ABRAXAS IS HERE!' They all looked in his direction and saw the angel Abraxas emerge through the pressure door. In a flash the Gatekeeper vanished. As Abraxas crossed the chamber, Anubis pushed himself back into his seat, losing grip of the control panel which drifted away towards Tanka. Abraxas hit the wall of purple light at speed and bounced back, unable to pass through. Undeterred he repeatedly pushed against the barrier, trying every Heavenly incarnation he could come up with. Then slowly, in an unrecognisable, hideous form, he managed to push a spine covered tentacle through the barrier and wrap it around Anubis' neck.
'Press the button! Press the blue button! Press it NOW!' Anubis spluttered as the tentacle tightened around his throat. Tanka grabbed the control panel and, without hesitating, pressed the blue button. Instantly the purple light went out and the three lifeless creationists slumped down into their seats.
17
Presentation
Amy stood
up and started to walk towards the whiteboard. Mo gave a polite cough and she turned to see him holding up the memory cartridge, ‘I think you’re going to need this,’ he said. She smiled and took it. Hedrick had moved from the head of the table and now sat next to the angel Haamiah, his chair angled to give him a clear view of the whiteboard.
Amy paused and thought for a moment, ‘Director, I think we should wait for Technician Daniel to join us. This is as much his work as it is mine – I’m sure he won’t keep us waiting too long.’
‘Daniel will be able to fill us in later, Amy. Now, please carry on,’ Hedrick said, with a wave of his hand.
Amy slid the memory cartridge into the reader and picked up the remote control. An image of a blue planet rotating silently in space appeared on the whiteboard. The metadata displayed below the image described it as planet: 2858013279, of Galaxy: 4567890123, in Universe: 5781256669. The caption at the top of the screen stated that the data had been collected by an insertion drone tagged Riana at mission time: 001672:87632:000172. Amy started to address the meeting, ‘It seems a lifetime ago now. But it was only on Monday afternoon that Director Hedrick gave me the assignment of investigating this blue planet. I assume we all know the chronology of this week’s events, so I will concentrate only on the issues relating to the planet itself. At Director Hedrick’s suggestion, I started my assignment by visiting the Grand Depository. My intention was to audit the archived records stored there but, to my surprise, when I reached the vault where the records should have been filed, they appeared to have been mislaid. When I returned to the office, we discovered that the digital copy had also been deleted. Technician Daniel suggested that the same data could be retrieved from a drone recently returned from scanning the planet’s universe. Fortunately, Daniel’s colleague, Technician Mohammed, was able to download this for me.’ Amy gestured towards Mo, who sat staring into his clasped hands. ‘Although only giving an overview of the planet’s status, the data was sufficient to start working on. Then, the digital copy curiously reappeared, so I started to compare the data. At first there didn’t seem to be any issues, but then I found significant differences, differences so great that I assumed the drone data must be corrupted.’
Creation- The Auditor’s Apprentice Page 14