Mort listened, fascinated, as the administrator spoke at length about the complex, the society which had formed within it and the rules and regulations they must all abide by to ensure the survival of the race. Eckenberg reminded everyone that human survival was not guaranteed, even with the help of the Archons. In many places, the epidemic still raged. There were wars and rumors of war. There had been nuclear incidents. They had recently lost contact with a Midwest refuge called Eden and believed there had been some kind of battle there with militant survivalists. They had not heard anything from the camp in several days, and were waiting for news of the camp’s fate from the Archons who were active in that region. He revealed there were currently seven known DOD camps being used by the Archons to house survivors in North America, not counting Eden, all in radio communication with one another. All told, something like 17,000 people had survived the zombie plague in the United States, so there was hope. With the Archons stepping forward to help, he said, there was even greater hope.
“Now before I turn the podium over to Mrs. Walters, I think it would be good for our spirits if we all rose and said the Pledge of Allegiance together,” Mr. Eckenberg intoned. There was a great round of applause to that.
The teenage boy from the registration office quickstepped from the wings of the stage with the United States flag and the applause grew even louder. The woman sitting next to Mort broke down in tears. Mort felt tears on his own cheeks, and saw that Pete was rubbing his eyes, too.
Mort rose to his feet as everyone did. He put his hand to his heart and said the familiar words, his voice lost in the chorus of his fellow survivors, swearing allegiance to a country that might, for the time being, be dead, but that might also—that must!—rise from the dead like the zombie hordes which had so recently tried to consume it.
As Mort spoke the words, he felt a needling pain inside his skull. He winced, looking instinctively toward the left wing of the stage. There, behind the curtains, standing next to an emergency exit, was one of the Archons.
The creature was staring at him.
It was hideous. Bleached white skin drawn tight across the sharp angles of its skull. Great gleaming black eyes. Red lips encircling rows of shark-like teeth. How could anyone think those things were beautiful? Were his fellow survivors all mad, or was the delusion his—a manifestation of the damage the psychotic Da Vinci had inflicted upon him?
Mort’s tongue felt nerveless. His mouth was suddenly dry as cotton. He clutched his head as the pain intensified.
Pete nudged him.
Mort tore his eyes from the Archon and saw his buddy mouth, “What is it?”
Mort nodded toward the Archon, his heart laboring.
Pete leaned forward to look, then turned back to Mort with a shrug. “What?”
Mort looked back at the Archon, which appeared to be frowning in his direction. He felt another stab of pain, even stronger, and cried out. He sat heavily, but no one noticed because everyone was sitting now. The Pledge reaffirmed, the entire assemblage was returning to their seats.
Pete leaned toward him. “What is it, Mort? You’re white as a sheet.”
Mort shook his head. The pain had begun to abate. What had been dirty slivers of glass stabbing into the tender gray tissue of his brain moments ago had diminished to a dull throb behind his right eye. He peeked toward the Archon and saw with relief that the creature had lost interest in him. It was gazing toward the stage now.
As Mrs. Walters took to the podium to address the assembly, Mort examined the theater more closely. He spotted a second Archon standing in the shadows on the other side of the auditorium. It was smaller, thinner: a female, perhaps. It gave the impression of femininity, despite the fact that it had no breasts and was, like the others, completely bald. It was, thankfully, paying no attention to him.
Mrs. Walter detailed housing regulations, and then a fellow named Howard Brewer spoke about work assignments and the credit system. When Brewer had finished talking, another man rose to speak about the (for want of a better term, he said) “zombies”. Everyone around Mort seemed suddenly uncomfortable. Anxious glances shot to and fro as the speaker, some kind of scientist, apparently, discussed what they knew about the zombie outbreak, nothing of which was a surprise to the people sitting in the audience. They all had plenty of experience dealing with the ravenous creatures. No one knew for sure where the bacteriophage had come from, the scientist said. A guy in the row ahead of Mort muttered something about military experiments. Someone behind Pete said it was bible prophecy, the dead rising, only it wasn’t exactly what people had thought it would be. Mort didn’t know and didn’t think it mattered where Virus Z came from. You didn’t question where the sharks came from when the fins were circling you in the water. You just got the hell out of the water!
The presentation was coming to a close. Doctor Whalen climbed onto the stage from the theater floor and said that the infirmary still needed volunteers to help distribute iOSAT. The iodine supplements would help reduce the uptake of irradiated iodine should any fallout reach their community from the regions where there had been nuclear incidents.
“Please keep in mind, this is simply a precaution, but I think it is a wise one. We do not know how much radioactive fallout we may be looking at,” Dr. Whalen said. “Hopefully, weather patterns will persist as they have, in our favor, but we have to be prepared for any eventuality.”
A frightened stir in the crowd.
Before anyone could think about it too much, Eckenberg stepped back to the mic and thanked the doctor. He urged anyone who wished to volunteer to sign up on the volunteer forms in the lobby. He smiled a toothy politician grin. “Now, I know you’re all very curious about the creatures who have stepped forward to assist us in this, our most dire hour of need. Please help me welcome the spokesman of the Archons, Yaldabaoth!”
The applause made the walls of the auditorium tremble. Mort clamped his hands over his ears.
On cue, a tall and impressive being glided from behind the curtains. It was an awesome, if gruesome, sight. Standing a good foot and a half over Eckenberg, Yaldabaoth strode regally to the podium. The wizened creature crouched down to speak into the microphone, hesitated as the applause continued, then murmured into the mic: “If I may.”
Its three words silenced the crowd instantly.
“Thank you,” it said. The being possessed a rich and resounding voice.
The contrast between its melodic voice and physical appearance was quite startling. Like the rest of its kind, its flesh was leathery, drained of all color, and drawn tight across the contours of its skull. Yet there was a gentleness in its glittering black eyes when it surveyed the room. Its smile seemed genuine, if ghastly. The first word Mort thought of to describe the being was leonine. It was certainly lion-like, with its broad, flat features, chin like a block of marble, and black, almond-shaped eyes.
“I hope you’ll forgive me if I struggle with your colloquial English. It is not my native tongue.”
Though Mort believed it to be a mild joke, no one laughed.
Yaldabaoth smiled faintly, pressed on: “My name is Yaldabaoth. I am an Archon. I have been chosen to act as a liaison between my people and the provisional government you have established at this refuge.
“My people have shared this world with yours, in secret, for as long as we can remember… and we Archons have a very, very long memory. I myself am over six hundred years old. Among my people, that’s considered only a little past middle age.”
Mort smiled. It—he!—had a sense of humor!
“I know you all must be horrified by our appearance and abilities—“
No! No! the crowd shouted. We love you! You’re beautiful! Angels!
“--let me just reassure you. We have no ulterior motives. We wish only to save your race. We have shared this world in secret with you for millennia and cannot imagine continuing without you. Throughout the eons, we have come to love you. Though we have been called gods by your people in the ancient
past, and more recently angels, we no more wish to rule you than we wish to see you perish. When this terrible crisis has passed, we will vanish from the world of man, and become, once again, the stuff of legend.
“Our people are few and we are solitary beings. It was only this disaster which forced us to recant our vows of noninterference. We have watched your race with great interest and affection for the last five thousand of your human years, hoping you would continue to evolve so that your people could take your place at our sides as stewards of this world.
“I pray that day still comes.”
His words were met with stunned silence.
Yaldabaoth smiled and peered across the crowd, which continued to gape adoringly at him. Mort watched as the creature’s inhuman eyes moved toward him. That needling pain in his head returned as those eyes drew nearer, growing rapidly in intensity. And then the Archon looked at him fully, and Mort jerked in his seat. He lunged to his feet, shouting in agony. It felt as if someone had hammered a railroad spike into his forehead.
The other two Archons stepped toward the assembly, toward Mort, alarm registering on their mummy-like faces.
!!!PAIN!!!
Mort clutched his head. For a moment, it looked as if he were trying to pull it off his neck. He howled uncontrollable, his entire body quaking. Pete reached toward him in concern, shouting his name, but Mort was oblivious to his friend, oblivious to the crowd turning to stare at him with curiosity and surprise, oblivious of everything but the horrid chrome-bright blades of agony stabbing into his brain. Not even Da Vinci’s cattle gun had hurt so badly.
“Mort!” Pete yelled, catching one flailing arm. “What is it? What’s wrong with you?”
Mort’s body arched back, his spine bending until it seemed the bones must snap and come undone, and then he toppled. He fell stiffly against his seat, eyes rolling back in their sockets, limbs flopping spastically.
“He’s having a seizure!” the woman seated beside him cried.
“Somebody grab that doctor!” Pete pleaded.“My buddy needs help!”
Mort slid sideways onto the floor, his body as stiff as a board. Pete tried to grab him before he went over but was jerked off balance, almost fell on top of him. Mort landed face down with a crunch in the space between the seats... and then everything went blessedly dark.
19
Interview with the Archon
In the movies, when someone woke in a hospital after a traumatic event, they opened their eyes to find all their family and loved ones gathered around the bed, faces lined with concern, but life was no movie, and Mort came to alone.
He was in the infirmary.
Again.
He blinked around, disoriented, raised his arm, saw a blood oxygen monitor clamped to his trigger finger and an IV needle taped to the crook of his elbow. A heart monitor beeped steadily beside the bed. He raised his other arm—this one wasn’t attached to any electronics or tubes—and gingerly probed his face. His fingers encountered gauze and tape. He couldn’t breathe through his nose, and it felt like he had the world’s worst sinus headache. He recalled the sickening crunch he’d heard inside his head when he flopped face first onto the auditorium floor. A guy didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that he had broken it when he fell.
Great… like I’m not ugly enough already!
Mort found the bed controls and raised himself. He looked toward the window, saw that it was still night out and had to repress a shudder. He had never been scared of the dark before, but now... now... He pressed the call button and waited for a nurse to respond.
Rather than speak to him over the intercom, a night shift nurse strode into the room. It was a nurse Mort recognized from his previous stay in the infirmary, an RN named Peggy Martin. “Back again, huh?” she said cheerfully. “You just can’t seem to stay away. I’m starting to think you might be sweet on me, Mr. Lesser.”
Mort smiled politely. “Can you let me out of here?”
His voice sounded funny with his nose broken. Nasal and kind of furry around the edges.
Nurse Martin frowned. “Oh-hhh, no! You’re staying overnight for observation. You had a grand mal seizure in the middle of orientation.”
“But I feel fine,” Mort objected. “I don’t want to stay here. I want to go home.”
He felt weepy. What were they giving him in that IV?
Peggy patted his arm. “I know you do, hon, but Doctor Whalen really wants you to stay overnight.” She tried to distract him: “Do you want something to drink? How about something to help you rest?”
Mort sighed. He really did feel fine, apart from the broken nose. Moreover, he knew exactly what had happened to him. When the Archons trained their attention on him in the auditorium, they’d poked inside his brain with their mind-reading powers—meaning no harm, he was sure, just wanting to have a looksee inside his noggin—and they’d inadvertently triggered a seizure. Now that he was away from them, and none of them were telepathically digging in his brain, he’d recovered. It was as simple as that. But how could he explain that to Nurse Martin? She’d think he was off his rocker. Or disparaging the Archons, and people in New Jerusalem were very protective of their flying saviors. They’d probably start looking for a nice padded cell for him.
“No, it’s okay. No pills,” Mort said, defeated.
It was all coming clear to him now.
Since no one else in New Jerusalem was falling over with seizures, he had to assume that the neurological damage he’d suffered at the hands of the madman Da Vinci was interfering somehow with the Archons’ telepathy. The damage to his visual cortex was why he saw them as they truly were, too. Their angelic appearance was some kind of... of telepathic projection!
But why were they doing it?
So that humans would accept their aid instead of running away in horror, he thought. Or shooting them out of the air like quail.
“Are you sure?” Nurse Martin asked.
Mort nodded distractedly.
Da Vinci had shot him in the head with a captive bolt gun, damaging the part of his brain which processed visual information. The resulting trauma had rendered him incapable of recognizing his shoes when he got dressed in the morning, or being able to tell the difference between an apple and a Frisbee, but it had also made him immune to the Archons’ telepathic illusions.
That’s why everyone saw angels when they looked at the Archons and Mort saw… things. Ugly, shark-faced things. Whatever they were.
Excited, Mort questioned Nurse Martin. “Say, Peggy, have you seen my friend Peter Bolin around? I’m sure he came here with me. Do you know when he left?”
“Your friend?” Nurse Martin asked, fiddling with his IV pump. “He was here just a little while ago. I think he went down to the waiting room to get some coffee. I’m sure he’ll be right back.”
“Okay. Thanks. I don’t need anything else.”
“All right,” the RN said with a reassuring smile. She patted his arm again. “Just try to get some rest. I’m sure Doctor Whalen will let you out of here soon. He’s just concerned about the seizure.”
Mort nodded. He was eager to speak to Pete. Pete would listen. Pete wouldn’t think he was crazy. Pete might not believe him. He might not even understand, but he wouldn’t think Mort was insane.
But there was more to it than that, wasn’t there?
Yes, Mort had to admit.
He was scared.
He needed Pete because he was scared. Pete was the one with the balls. Pete was Mort’s backbone.
The Archons were not what they appeared to be. They were hiding their true appearance. He could understand why they might feel it was necessary, but he wondered what other secrets they might be concealing. It also begged the question: if they weren’t angels, what were they?
Mort heard his friend coming up the hallway. He recognized Pete by the clop-clop-clop of his cowboy boots. He listened as Pete paused to say howdy to the ladies at the nurse’s station. Pete said, “How’s that?” Low conver
sation, and then clop-clop-clop again, a little bit faster. Pete came through the door, grinning. “Mort! You woke up!”
“Yeah.”
Pete sat on the chair beside the hospital bed. “How you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“Man, you scared the shit out of me.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“The doctor said you had a Pall Mall seizure. Said it was probably due to the hole in your brain.”
“Grand mal,” Mort corrected. Mort smiled, but it felt forced. He was trying to think of some way to broach his suspicions with Pete without his buddy freaking out.
“Pall Mall… grand mal. I thought you were dying.”
Before Mort could think of some way to bring up his paranoid-sounding suspicions, someone rapped softly at the door. Mort and Pete looked as one toward the man standing just outside the room. It was Mr. Eckenberg, the chief administrator of New Jerusalem.
Mort’s heart did a little flip-flop. His extremities suddenly felt cold and tingly.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” the man said politely. “I was wondering if I might speak to Mr. Lesser.”
He was still dressed in the blue three-piece suit he’d worn during orientation. Up close, he seemed a little smaller than he had when he was standing at the podium. He was also a strikingly handsome man, very TV-star-like, though tired-looking, with dark circles under his eyes and wrinkles bracketing the corners of his mouth. He seemed anxious, too. His brow was creased, his shoulders hunched, as if he expected trouble.
Pete rose and extended a hand. “How ya doin’?”
Mr. Eckenberg shook his hand. “Good. It’s been a long day, but good.”
Mort: Deluxe Illustrated Edition (The Fearlanders) Page 28