Calculating God

by Robert J. Sawyer

  “We’re getting out of here,” said the man. “Each of you put your hands up.”

  I lifted my arms; so did Christine. Hollus and the other Forhilnor exchanged a glance, then each lifted their two arms, as well. The Wreeds followed suit a moment later, each lifting all four arms and splaying all twenty-three fingers. The man who wasn’t Cooter—he was taller and older than Cooter—ushered us farther into the darkened Rotunda. From there we had a clear view out the glass-doored vestibule. Five uniformed Emergency Task Force officers were beetling up the outside stairs to the museum’s glass entrance. Two were brandishing heavy guns. One had a bullhorn. “This is the police,” called that cop, the sound distorted as it passed through the two layers of glass. “We have the building surrounded. Come out with your hands up.”

  The man with the submachine gun gestured for us to keep moving. The four aliens were bringing up the rear, forming a wall between us humans on the inside and the police on the outside. I wished now that I hadn’t told Hollus to land her shuttle out back on Philosopher’s Walk. If the cops had seen the shuttle, they might have realized that the aliens weren’t the holographic projections they’d read about in the newspapers but instead were the real thing. As it stood, some hotshot might assume that he could pick off the two armed men standing behind the aliens by shooting through the projections.

  We made it out of the Rotunda, up the four steps to the marble landing between the two stairwells, each with its central totem pole, and then—

  And then everything went to hell.

  Coming quietly up the stairwell on our right from the basement was a uniformed ETF officer, wearing a bulletproof vest and brandishing an assault weapon. The cops had cleverly made a public stand outside the main entrance while sending a contingent up through the staff entrance from the alleyway between the ROM and the planetarium.

  “J. D.,” shouted the man with the buzz cut, catching sight of the cop, “look!”

  J. D. swung his gun and opened fire. The cop was blown backward, down the wide stone steps, his bulletproof vest being put to the test as it erupted in numerous places, bleeding out white fabric stuffing.

  While J. D. was distracted, the cops on the front steps had somehow opened one door—the one at the far left, as they faced it, the one that was designed for wheelchair access; perhaps the ROM security guard had given them the key. Two cops, safe behind riot shields, were now inside the vestibule. The inner doors didn’t lock—there was no need for that. One of the officers reached forward and must have touched the red button that operated the door for handicapped patrons. It swung slowly open. The cops were silhouetted by streetlamps and the revolving red lights of their vehicles out on the street.

  “Stop where you are,” shouted J. D. across the Rotunda, its wide diameter separating our motley group from the cops. “We have hostages.”

  The cop with the bullhorn was one of those now inside, and he felt compelled to keep using it. “We know the aliens aren’t real,” he said, his words reverberating in the darkened, domed Rotunda. “Put your hands up and come out.”

  J. D. jerked his large gun at me. “Tell them who you are.”

  With the shape my lungs were in, it was hard for me to shout, but I cupped my hands around my mouth and did the best I could. “I’m Thomas Jericho,” I said. “I’m a curator here.” I pointed at Christine. “This is Christine Dorati. She’s the museum’s director and president.”

  J. D. shouted. “We get safe passage out of here, or these two die.”

  The two cops hunkered down behind their riot shields. After a few moments of consultation, the bullhorn erupted again. “What are your terms?”

  Even I knew he was stalling. Cooter looked first at the southern staircase, which led up, and then at the northern staircase, which led both up and down. He must have thought he saw something move—it could have been a mouse; a giant, old building like the museum has plenty of them. He fired a shot down the northern staircase. It hit the stone steps, jagged shards went flying, and—

  And one of them hit Barbulkan, the second Forhilnor—

  And Barbulkan’s left mouth made a sound like “Ooof!” and his right mouth went “Hup!”

  And a carnation of bright-red blood exploded from one of his legs, and a flap of bubble-wrap skin hung loose from where the stone fragment had hit—

  And Cooter said, “Holy God!”

  And J. D. turned around, and he said, “Sweet Jesus.”

  And they both apparently realized it at the same moment. The aliens weren’t projections; they weren’t holograms.

  They were real.

  And suddenly they knew they had the most valuable hostages in the history of the world.

  J. D. stepped backward, moving behind the group; he’d apparently realized he’d been insufficiently covering the four aliens. “Are you all real?” he said.

  The aliens were silent. My heart was jumping. J. D. aimed his submachine gun at the left leg of one of the Wreeds. “One burst from this gun will blow your leg right off.” He let this sink in for a moment. “I ask again, are you real?”

  Hollus spoke up. “They” “are” “real.” “We” “all” “are.”

  A satisfied smile spread across J. D.’s face. He shouted to the police. “The aliens aren’t projections,” he said. “They’re real. We’ve got six hostages here. I want all of you cops to withdraw. At the first sign of any trick, I will kill one of the hostages—and it won’t be a human.”

  “You don’t want to be a murderer,” called the cop over the megaphone.

  “I won’t be a murderer,” J. D. shouted back. “Murder is the killing of another human being. You won’t be able to find anything to charge me with. Now, withdraw fully and completely, or these aliens die.”

  “One hostage will do as well as six,” called the same cop. “Let five of them go, and we’ll talk.”

  J. D. and Cooter looked at each other. Six hostages was an unwieldy group; they might have an easier time controlling the situation if they didn’t have to worry about so many. On the other hand, by having the six form a circle, with J. D. and Cooter at the center, they could be protected from sharpshooters firing from just about any direction.

  “No way,” shouted J. D. “You guys—you’re like a SWAT team, right? So you must have come here in a van or truck. We want you to back off, far away from the museum, leaving that van with its motor running and the keys in it. We’ll drive it to the airport, along with as many of the aliens as will fit, and we want a plane waiting there to take us”—he faltered—“well, to take us wherever we decide to go.”

  “We can’t do that,” said the cop through his megaphone.

  J. D. shrugged a little. “I will kill one hostage sixty seconds from now, if y’all are still here.” He turned to the man with the crew cut. “Cooter?”

  Cooter nodded, looked at his watch, and started counting down. “Sixty. Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight.”

  The cop with the bullhorn turned around and spoke to someone behind him. I could see him pointing, presumable indicating the direction to which his force should withdraw on foot.

  “Fifty-six. Fifty-five. Fifty-four.”

  Hollus’s eyestalks had stopped weaving in and out and had instead locked at their maximum separation. I’d seen her do that before when she had heard something that interested her. Whatever it was, I hadn’t heard it yet.

  “Fifty-two. Fifty-one. Fifty.”

  The cops were moving out of the glass vestibule, but they were making a lot of noise about it. The one with the bullhorn kept speaking. “All right,” he said. “All right. We’re withdrawing.” His magnified voice echoed through the Rotunda. “We’re backing away.”

  It seemed to me he was talking unnecessarily, but—

  But then I heard the sound Hollus had heard: a faint rumbling. The elevator, to our left, was descending in its shaft; someone had called it down to the lower level. The cop with the bullhorn was deliberately trying to drown out the sound.

  “For
ty-one. Forty. Thirty-nine.”

  It would be suicide, I thought, for whoever would get in the car; J. D. could blow away the occupant as soon as the metal doors split down the middle and started to slide away.

  “Thirty-one. Thirty. Twenty-nine.”

  “We’re leaving,” shouted the cop. “We’re going.”

  The elevator was coming back up now. Above the doors was a row of square indicator lights—B, 1, 2, 3—indicating which floor the car was currently on. I dared steal a glance at it. The “1” had just winked out, and, a moment later, the “2” lit up. Brilliant! Either whoever was in the elevator had known about the balconies on the second floor, overlooking the Rotunda, or else the ROM’s own security guard, who must have let the police in, had told him.

  “Eighteen. Seventeen. Sixteen.”

  As the “2” lit up, I did my part to muffle the sound of the elevator doors opening by coughing loudly; if there was one thing I did well these days, it was cough.

  The “2” was staying lit; the doors must have opened by now, but J. D. and Cooter hadn’t heard them. Still, presumably one or more armed cops had now exited onto the second floor—the one that housed the Dinosaur and Discovery Galleries.

  “Thirteen. Twelve. Eleven.”

  “All right,” called the ETF officer with the megaphone. “All right. We’re leaving.” At this distance I couldn’t tell if he was making eye contact with the officers on the darkened balcony. We were still by the elevator; I didn’t dare tip my eyes up, lest I give away the presence of the people on the floor above.

  “Nine. Eight. Seven.”

  The cops moved out of the vestibule, exiting into the dark night. I watched them sink from view as they headed down the stone steps to the sidewalk.

  “Six. Five. Four.”

  The red lights from the roofs of the cruisers that had been sweeping through the Rotunda started to pull away; one set of lights—presumably from the ETF van—continued to rotate.

  “Three. Two. One.”

  I looked at Christine. She nodded almost imperceptibly; she knew what was happening, too.

  “Zero!” said Cooter.

  “All, right,” said J. D. “Let’s move out.”

  I’d spent much of the last seven months worrying about what it was going to be like to die—but I hadn’t thought that I would see someone else die before I did. My heart was pounding like the jackhammers we use to break up overburden. J. D., I figured, had only seconds to live.

  He arranged us in a semicircle, as if we were a biological shield for him and Cooter. “Move,” he said, and although my back was to him I was sure he was swinging his large gun left and right, preparing to fire in an arc if need be.

  I started walking forward; Christine, the Forhilnors, and the Wreeds followed suit. We stepped out from under the overhang that shielded the area by the elevator, went down the four steps into the Rotunda proper, and started crossing the wide marble floor leading toward the entryway.

  I swear I felt the splash against my bald head first, and only then heard the deafening shot from above. I swung around. It was difficult to make out what I was seeing; the only light in the Rotunda was what was spilling in from the George Weston gallery and from the street through the glass-doored vestibule and the stained-glass windows above it. J. D.’s head was open, like a melon, and blood had gone everywhere, including onto me and the aliens. His corpse jerked forward, toward me, and his submachine gun went skittering across the floor.

  A second shot rang out almost on top of the first, but it hadn’t quite been synchronized; perhaps in the darkened balcony above, the two officers—there seemed to be at least that many up there—hadn’t been able to see each other. Short-haired Cooter moved his head just in time, and he was suddenly diving forward, trying to retrieve J. D.’s gun.

  A Wreed was in the way; Cooter knocked him over. With the alien splayed out and flailing around, the sharpshooters apparently couldn’t clearly see Cooter.

  I was in shock; I could feel J. D.’s blood dripping down to my neck. Suddenly the Wreed who was still standing flew up into the air. I knew it had been wearing a device to help it walk comfortably under Earth’s gravity; I hadn’t realized that it was strong enough to let him fly.

  The other Forhilnor kicked the large gun, sending it spinning farther out into the Rotunda. Cooter continued to scramble toward it. The Wreed who had fallen was pulling himself to his feet. Meanwhile, the flying Wreed had now risen three meters off the ground.

  Cooter had made it to the gun and rolled onto his side, shooting up into the darkened balconies. He pumped the trigger repeatedly, spraying out an arc of lead. The bullets hit ninety-year-old stone carvings, sending debris raining down upon us.

  The other Wreed took to the air as well. I tried to get behind one of the freestanding wall segments that partially defined the edges of the Rotunda. Hollus was moving quickly—but going in the opposite direction, and soon, to my astonishment, she had reached the taller of the two totem poles. She flexed her six legs and leapt the short distance from the staircase onto the pole, wrapping her various limbs about it. And then she started shimmying at a great clip up the totem. Soon she was out of sight; she could go all the way to the third floor. I was glad she was apparently safe.

  “All right,” shouted Cooter in his accented voice, as he aimed the submachine gun at Christine, the second Forhilnor, and me in turn. His voice was edged with panic. “All right, y’all. Nobody move.”

  There were cops back in the vestibule now, cops up on the balcony, two Wreeds flying around the Rotunda like crazed angels, one Forhilnor standing on one side of me, Christine standing on the other, and the corpse of J. D. exsanguinating all over the marble starburst of the Rotunda’s floor, making it slick.

  “Give it up,” said Christine to Cooter. “Can’t you see you’re surrounded?”

  “Shut up!” shouted Cooter. He was clearly at a loss without J.D. “Just shut the hell up.”

  And then, to my astonishment, I heard a familiar two-toned bleep. The holoform projector, which, as always, I had in a pocket, was signaling that it was about to come on.

  Cooter had backed under the overhang of the balcony; he could no longer see the sharpshooters, meaning they could no longer see him. An image of Hollus wavered into existence, full-blown, almost indistinguishable from the real thing. Cooter turned around; he was panicked and didn’t seem to notice that the missing Forhilnor had suddenly rejoined us.

  “Cooter,” said the Hollus simulacrum, boldly stepping forward. “My name is Hollus.” Cooter immediately aimed the submachine gun at her, but the Forhilnor continued to close the distance between them. We all started falling back. I could see that the police in the vestibule were confused; Hollus had apparently interposed himself between them and Cooter. “You have not shot anyone yet,” said Hollus, the words like the beating of twin hearts. “You saw what happened to your associate; do not let the same fate befall you.”

  I made motions with my hands that I hoped the others could see in the dark: I wanted them to fan out so that none of us were along the same line that connected Cooter and Hollus.

  “Give me the weapon,” said Hollus. She was now four meters from Cooter. “Relinquish it and we will all depart from here alive.”

  “Back off!” cried Cooter.

  Hollus continued to approach. “Give me the weapon,” she said again.

  Cooter shook his head violently. “All we wanted to do was show you aliens that what these scientists were telling you wasn’t the truth.”

  “I understand that,” said Hollus, taking another step forward. “And I will gladly listen to you. Just give me the weapon.”

  “I know you believe in God,” said Cooter. “But you haven’t yet been saved.”

  “I will listen to anything you wish to say,” said Hollus, inching forward, “but only after you relinquish the weapon.”

  “Make all the cops leave,” said Cooter.

  “They are not going to leave.” Another six-
legged increment toward the man.

  “Don’t come any closer, or I’ll shoot,” said Cooter.

  “You do not want to shoot anyone,” said Hollus, still advancing, “least of all a fellow believer.”

  “I swear I’ll kill you.”

  “You will not,” said Hollus, closing the gap even more.

  “Stay back! I’m warning you!”

  The six round feet moved forward again. “God forgive me,” said Cooter and—

  —and he squeezed the trigger.

  And bullets erupted from the gun—

  And they entered the Hollus simulacrum—

  And the force fields that composed the simulated body slowed the bullets down, retarding their motion more and more, until they emerged from the other side. They continued to fly across the Rotunda, traveling another two meters or so in parabolic paths that brought them clattering to the stone floor.

  The simulacrum moved forward, reaching out with its force-field arms to grab the submachine gun by the muzzle, which surely was now so hot that no flesh-and-blood being could have managed to hold it.

  The real Hollus, upstairs, presumably on the third floor, yanked her arms back, and her simulacrum, down here in the lobby, yanked its arms back, too. And Cooter, startled that the being he’d just filled with bullets was not dead, let go of the gun. The avatar spun around and quickly retreated.

  The police surged in through the vestibule and—

  It was unnecessary now. Totally unnecessary.

  One of the cops squeezed off a round.

  And Cooter staggered backward, his mouth a wide, perfect “O” of surprise. He hit a wall segment and slumped down in the dark, a trail of blood like a claw mark following him to the floor.

  And his head lolled to one side.