“That’s ridiculous, William. There’s no way you could develop an understanding like that by studying the code.”
Childriss shrugged.
Fearing that Childriss would bring up the cave in the valley in order to explain his strange commentary, Didi pressed ahead with his original intent. “Anyway, William, from what you’ve gathered on the blueprint, have you determined whether or not the thing is monstrous? Should we use it?”
“Monstrous or not, it is powerful. It would be a shame if we didn’t use it.”
Didi turned to the door suddenly, then said, “You said you made variations?”
“Streamlined versions not so dependent on event-release mechanisms. I made twelve variations, actually, each with different qualities that can manifest.” Didi nodded once, then made his way toward the stairs. He could hear Childriss speaking quietly, as if to himself. “A superman and his disciples, if you will, old friend.”
Yes, thought Didi. I will.
* * *
While the Head of the DoS lay on his sickbed and a hundred or more well-wishers and rumor-mongers buzzed about him and listened to his final gasps, Didi, the Head of the DoR, sat alone in his darkened apartment, sick to his stomach. Didi absentmindedly rummaged through the drugs that sustained his body, knowing full well that none of them was the cure or cause of the physiological response to his distress.
Didi checked over the voice-activated program on one of his computers and made sure that all was in order. He had done this again and again for the past hour. For distraction, he checked and answered his electronic mail. The messages were not just from those who sought guidance from the Head of the DoR, but from a few that were confused about their place in the scheme of things within the DoS now that the Head seemed to be on his way out.
How desperate they are, he thought. His stomach lurched again, and he doubled over in his chair. How sorry and sad and desperate.
He heard footsteps in the hallway and the pain increased. This worry is only the ghost of an old morality troubling me. All that is about to transpire is necessary to the species. This is a necessary battle in a war that others would rather pretend is not occurring.
The door opened suddenly. Childriss entered and Didi could not help but think, The trap is laid.
Didi turned to Childriss. In the half-light he saw that Childriss’s features were contorted in mania. The years of resignation were gone from his face, and he looked as he had not looked in a long time: Wild, bestial, and more than a little mad.
“Now it’s time!” said Childriss. “The scene is set!”
He truly is frightening, Didi thought as he hunkered down into his chair. Then he remembered the script, and the need to elicit certain responses from certain stimuli. “So you mean to do it?” Didi cleared his throat painfully, then added, “You’re actually going to tamper with the genes of an unborn?”
“Of course!” Childriss spat. He stumbled near and thrust his face near Didi’s own. Didi smelled alcohol. “You cannot exactly follow through with your own plan, can you, Didi? I mean to do it. No one can stop me.”
Didi smiled slightly, just enough for Childriss to see, but kept his voice even as he said, “It is a crime, you know.”
Childriss whirled away and laughed, but hunched his shoulders up strangely as he said, “It’s a crime for the slave to tamper with his master’s business! Breaking a law devised by slaves, for slaves! Hah! I’ve never been afraid of such nonsense. You know that, Didi, so you also know that this crime will make us masters. Masters of a new world… a better world!”
Didi scratched his chin, smiled again, and said, “What if I tried to stop you, Childriss?”
Childriss stopped suddenly, then stabbed his eyes into Didi. “Stopping me would only kill your own designs, now, wouldn’t it? Nobody can stop me, Didi. Out of feeble human flesh, I will make a god.”
Didi paused for a long time, then produced the sphere he had gained from the cave in the valley along with an analyzer he had made and attached to it. He handed them to Childriss, then produced the frozen sample of the god genome he had created. “All is here, ready for mixture. Find a random zygote, mix the stuff, then scan the zygote with the NeuSen analyzer attached to the sphere. Hurry, old friend, and above all, do not get caught. Hurry back to me once it’s done.”
Once Childriss was gone, Didi sighed, pouring out as much of his tension as possible. He turned to the recording he’d just made of their conversation and played back parts of it. How maniacal Childriss sounded, and how surprisingly stern and safety-conscious he himself sounded! The thing would have to be edited with a heavy hand, but still, there was enough here to destroy the friend who stood in his way.
Didi turned away from his computer monitor and sat in the darkness. After a while he got up, shuffled painfully to the bathroom, threw up violently, then returned to his seat. He thought of his friends in his secret alliance and wondered if either of them were capable of making sacrifices of this magnitude. Then he realized he did not want either of them to have to. He wondered what future generations would think about him, if they knew that their survival and their enjoyment of the light had depended on his actions and his darkness.
Is this evil? he wondered.
Hours passed in the darkness.
Only by the reckoning of weak men.
The door opened suddenly and Didi hastily executed the recording program and turned the monitor off.
“Did you do it?”
For a moment, the shadow of Childriss seemed to sag, old and tired. But it must have only been an illusion, for in the next moment Childriss wheeled about the room, cackling and alive with raw energy. “I did indeed!” he shrieked. “I followed through with our plan, old friend, and gave a child the potential to become a god.” Childriss shot out a finger. His hand shook violently, and he hissed, “Now you must wonder which of the two of us is a coward, Didi, and which of us had the strength, the will, to follow through with our agreed-upon plan? Hah!”
Didi paused, not out of shock, but to add a silent footer to the recording, and said, “Then hand over the NeuSen device to the coward, and let us see just what you’ve done, criminal.”
Childriss handed the device over with a grand, condescending flourish, then stumbled over to Didi’s couch. Didi connected the sphere to a computer, then checked its readout. Through the NeuSen readout he saw a dull, green shape throbbing, warm and alive. The NeuSen Array had indeed been connected to a lifeform, to something modified and unnatural. Something that would redeem all future generations, and even redeem this horrible night which was about to become even worse.
Didi rotated his chair slowly and stared at Childriss, who was laid back on the couch, breathing evenly. Didi readied himself for the final plunge.
“Childriss. I’m going to turn you in for what you’ve done.”
There was silence. Didi realized that Childriss had passed out.
“Childriss. Wake up. You must leave Haven and never come back. This is the only way. The only way to cover our crime in darkness so that I can stay in power.”
No response.
Didi picked up a jar of pencils and tossed it across the room. It smacked into Childriss’s head, spilling everywhere, and Childriss jerked awake.
“Childriss. What you’ve done was for the benefit of all. You are a hero. But I cannot trust you to remain silent, so I’m going to turn you in if you do not leave Haven forever.”
Immediately Childriss rose, shrieking without confusion, as if he’d known all along what the world had in store for him. “You son of a bitch, Didi!” he screamed, and the violence in his voice was terrifying, and Didi knew there was no going back.
“I’m going to turn you in, Childriss. You will answer for your crime.”
“You tricked me into doing your dirty work, Didi, you son of a bitch!” Childriss rocketed forward, grasped Didi on either side of his head, and pushed him into his desk and computer. “You can’t do this!” he shrieked directly into his fa
ce.
Didi laid a hand gently against Childriss’s head, cold and hard, with the reek of alcohol burning in his nostrils, and slowly said, “Your only other option, Childriss, is to leave Haven, forever. To leave here and never come back.”
Childriss’s head rocked back and forth, his agony torturing Didi, but his grasp weakened. “Didi, I - I’m going to kill you! I’m going to kill you, Didi!”
“These conversations are being recorded, Childriss, and will come to light in the event of my death. Besides, how would you know that our superman was in safe hands if I were dead and you were in prison?”
Suddenly disgusted by the thing in his hands, Childriss released Didi and stumbled backwards. “You son of a bitch, you silent, scheming monster... I swear to you, Didi, someday I will kill you!”
“This thing we have created is greater than either one of us, Childriss. I am sorry. I swear to you, by our friendship, that I am truly sorry. But I need the events of this night to disappear into darkness, and I cannot do that with you around, hollering and shrieking and grasping after the shadow of power. You are a fool, Childriss. You always were. This matter will require a subtle hand. The office of Head of the Department of Science will be safe in my keeping. But this matter does not... require... you.”
Softly, softly, Childriss sat back down on the couch. He sobbed bitterly and Didi watched him for a long time. Then Didi hated himself still further, for amidst the agony of his friend he thought to himself, I’m going to have to edit this part out of the recording.
Childriss rose slowly and felt about with hands wet with tears as he stumbled in the dark. Without another word he left Didi’s apartment. Then Didi cried also.
In the days to come, many sighed in relief over the tragic disappearance of Professor William Childriss. The Head of the Department of Science died. Didi edited the recordings and shut them up in a secret place. Didi became the next Head of the DoS. The child Romana Wodan Kyner was transferred back into the body of his mother, Ruby Eulabelle Kyner, and the NeuSen Array remained connected to the secret Project for twenty years.
But sometimes, alone in his skull, Didi wondered if any of it had been worthwhile.
* * *
William Childriss woke to find himself in a small civilian plane without fuel sitting on its side in the middle of a scorching, wind-blasted wasteland. As the sun slowly cooked the insides of the plane, Childriss laid on his side, completely immobile, trapped in an emotional butchering-grounds and in the middle of the most excruciating hangover of his life. There was no way back, no way at all, ever. He had been abandoned by a people who would never know his worth, and betrayed by the only man who ever did. The only mercy extended to him was the knowledge that he would soon be dead.
That night he gained the strength to pry open the door and relieve himself. He looked about to see if he could find something to cover himself against the cold and found that he’d had the sense to bring food, water, and a tent. He was further surprised to find that he’d also brought the designs for the twelve modifications of the god-genome. They were completely worthless to him outside of Haven, but as he ate a little and thought on the matter, he decided that he’d most likely brought the designs in order to keep them away from Didi.
My guardian angels, he thought bitterly. All those years of work, those nights of unrewarded effort… how I would trade it all for one chance to kill Didi.
* * *
Childriss stayed one more day, then left the plane so that he could die in the real world, not a construct. The first night in the endless waste, and the next day, were the worst. He realized, in that alien land of nothingness, that there was nothing worse than being away from the comforts of home. To be taken away from those you lied to yourself about “hating” - those were the ones you loved, all those mediocre faces, all those inept interactions. Something in him had been crushed, trampled by reality. He wept over those long-lost bullshit interactions and he realized that a man who weeps over such things has no room to prattle on about masters and slaves, supermen, and wars against demons. No room at all.
As awful as it sounded, he just wanted to go home and see Didi once again.
* * *
Childriss crouched in his wooden cage. He glared at the villagers bent over in their dusty field, hating their cruel simian faces, their shrewd little eyes. When children scampered near, he screamed at them. Usually they ran, but sometimes they fainted and had to be dragged away. Polite, alien chatter filled his ears, polluting the serenity of his meditation on vengeance. A farmer’s donkey strayed near him once and even that filled him with such renewed loathing that he forced a hand through the bars of his cage, desperate to grab one of its ears and pull until the flesh ripped free. At night he screamed and he knew he must be keeping the villagers awake, but they refused to kill him, and only tucked more straw and mud into the gaps in their huts to muffle his shouting.
One day a lord among those people came into the village to see the giant screaming freak. He was squat and muscular and wore ornate robes, and as he drew near the villagers fell before him and groveled in the dust. The lord took short, confident steps up to Childriss’s cage, then glared at him with tiny, slitted, imperious eyes. His hands moved to the handle of a long, curved sword.
Childriss flew into a rage. In the back of his awareness he was only vaguely aware that his body felt pain as he screamed his throat raw and pounded his fists against the cage’s wooden bars. Several spearmen ran to join the little lord. As the lord extended his hand to the cage’s locking mechanism, Childriss kicked the lock, laughed as the spearmen stumbled back, then set to kicking the lock over and over again, spitting and shrieking with each kick.
“Damn you!” he shrieked. “Damn you for tricking me! Damn you for using me like some simple, idiotic slave! Damn you for using me as your sacrifice! Damn! You! To! Hell!”
The door to the cage flew open and immediately the lord drew his sword from its sheathe with an ominous sheeeng! and, swinging it such that the point was leveled at Childriss’s heart, he ran into the cage. But Childriss was possessed by the fury of ten doomed men; he charged, grabbed the blade with both hands and pulled the warrior-lord into the air by his own momentum and sent him flying into the rear of the cage, whipping the sword free as he did so.
The short spearmen were stunned, confused by the shrieking giant who stood over them with blazing eyes and threatening them with a sword held the wrong way in shaking, bloody hands. The men fell back, muttering in their alien tongue, and when Childriss turned back to the cage so that he could beat the lord to death with the handle of his own sword he saw that the squat man was kneeling, face twisted with shame. He bowed low to the ground. The spearman did as well.
Childriss looked at the fine sword, gleaming and spattered with the blood of his own hands. He wiped the blood on one spearman’s jacket, then said, “This little thing is the peak of your technology? It’s beautiful… but pathetic. Just pathetic.”
He fumed, but his rage was dulled by the obeisance of the peasants and the lord-of-peasants. He drew himself up to his full height. Dust rolled over the ragged fields. The sun burned overhead, merciless. An old woman chased a little naked boy who chased a half-starved dog. In the distance, on the lord’s cart, the flag of a noble house hung on a spear, and above that flew the flag of the royal house of Ktari, both of them old and tattered, chased by the winds, covered in the grime of the road.
“Get used to calling me master,” said Childriss, stalking among the grovelers. “Because in a very, very short time, I’m going to be running this little show.”
Chapter Twenty
Control
As each day passed, degree by bloody degree, the hunting grounds around the fort became a battleground. For a while, teams of hunters returned without food; eventually, they returned without members. Whether they went out in large, heavily armed units, or small teams moving in stealth, they eventually met with large forces of ghouls, rival dogmen, and reptilian demons. The eyes o
f the forest watched anyone who stepped away from the safety of the fort’s walls. The sense of being overwhelmed and hemmed in was nauseatingly palpable.
Despite the wood they had shipped downriver when they first arrived, no supplies came from Pontius. Any farmer cut off from his land or any dogman from the four remaining tribes who watched the skies and waited for zeppelins to arrive with food or supplies was rewarded only with an aching neck. Nights came when even chieftains went to sleep hungry.
So it was no surprise to Chief Yarek of Asher when a train of shamans from the tribe of Paun visited him in the fort and announced that they would be leaving. While Yarek sat in thought, his Asher guardsmen bristled around him.
“So,” Yarek said finally. “Did you wise men read the signs in a jumble of intestines and figure that it would be better to go into the wilderness than stay here with the rest of your brothers?”
“Chief Yarek,” said a shaman, “we would have done so, only, as you know, there are no intestines to do such readings with.”
“I see,” said Yarek. “Pragmatic shamanism, is it?”
“There were signs in the stars, though,” said a young shaman.
“I’m sure there were. But on top of that, there was hunger.”
The younger shaman looked away guiltily.
“Very well,” Yarek said loudly. “But know this: Once you step outside this fort, once you ally yourselves with the devils of the valley, then you cannot come back. The tribes at the fort will no longer accept you as brothers, ever. Once outside, we are enemies. Understand?”
From the corner of his eye, Yarek saw the blond dogman Magog fingering the hilt of his sword. The shamans of Paun nodded wearily and turned to go.
Once alone, Yarek’s dogman guards cursed and spat. Magog turned to Yarek and said, “This will make things harder for us.”
Demonworld Book 5: Lords of the Black Valley (Demonworld series) Page 30