Resurrection, Inc.

by Kevin J. Anderson

  As Danal stonily walked past the hooded forms, he saw no faces, only the mixture of colors on their robes—Acolytes, Acolyte Supervisors, and Coven Managers. Around him he could smell the gathered musk of tense human beings. Some clutched their printed program leaflets; more leaflets lay scattered on the floor.

  The grotto around him looked only superficially different from when he had been the High Priest a lifetime before. The chamber had been expanded to accommodate more cultists, and fountains of sculptured poured stone had been installed all around the perimeter, painted and molded to look like springs from a living cave wall. White, foamy water gushed up with a sighing sound that echoed in the chamber.

  Danal could not say anything or make any call for help. Nathans had been very careful, very explicit. “Command: You will be silent during the ceremony, unless I specifically ask you to speak.” Danal felt his vocal cords go dead—it would do him no good to cry out now anyway. He had to have faith in his plan—not irrational Faith like that of the neo-Satanists, but a confidence in his own abilities, a trust in Gregor and Rikki and all the Wakers.

  He didn’t move his head, but memories passed in front of him. All the times when he had been here, roles reversed, leading the willing sacrificial victim… all the times he had stood over the altar in the black and red robe, looking down at a trusting face as the crowd waited—

  Danal pushed those thoughts away, holding onto the good times, even remembering Francois Nathans and the stimulating discussions they’d had when it had been no more than food for thought. But when Nathans made the ideas real—then it had all changed. Vincent Van Ryman had been too much of a coward to help put those ideas into effect—that was how Nathans must see it.

  Danal felt a chill as a new idea came to him, haunted him. For a long time Nathans had treated neo-Satanism as a game, too, disappointed and amused at its surprising success. He had done no greater damage than sanctioning the occasional voluntary sacrifices until Vincent Van Ryman had betrayed him. Vincent: his student, his hope, his apprentice.

  And in his anger at that, Nathans had struck back. Danal remembered his dumbfounded disbelief—even while it was happening—that his mentor could do such a thing to him. Nathans had arranged for the murder of Julia, his first real victim; he had killed Vincent and brought him back, while letting Stromgaard masquerade as High Priest. And finally he’d lost patience enough to arrange for the slaughter of all the neo-Satanists. Danal felt certain Francois Nathans would never have done that before Vincent had betrayed him.

  But Danal would not accept that blame. He had paid too high a price already.

  His obedient legs carried him up to the stage one step at a time. He felt like an animal being led to slaughter. The altar stone spread out before him, cold and waiting. The gathered worshipers crowded closer on the stone benches below… and Danal knew he wouldn’t be the only victim.

  Nathans turned to face the crowd, putting on an exalted expression as he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, “Danal, Command: Lie down!”

  Unable to resist, and not wasting energy with the effort, the Servant turned around and slowly lay back, feeling the cool, rough texture of stone against the fabric on his back. The white robe fell open, showing his gray jumpsuit. He stared up and saw the papier mache stalactites hanging down like knives from the ceiling of the grotto. For one disoriented moment he thought he saw the black tunnel of Death opening up for him again. He felt a strange new fear—would Death be the same the second time through? Or did he get only a single chance?

  Danal thought about slowing everything down by viewing it through his microprocessor, making his last moments seem like years in subjective time, savoring life. But he decided against it. Not microprocessor speed now. No. This was real, and he would finish out his life in real time.

  Nathans gestured, and two Acolyte Supervisors appeared from alcoves beside the altar platform. They took Danal’s bloodless Servant hands and lifted them over his head to meet the manacles; the other assistant then chained his feet.

  That wasn’t necessary, Danal thought. He could bind me as effectively with a Command phrase. Nathans still didn’t trust him. The Servant felt a warmth creeping inside. Nathans was afraid.

  Before the appearance of the High Priest, one of the ranking Coven Managers had led the neo-Satanists in the elaborate rituals listed in their Sabbat program leaflets, ceremonies that Vincent and Nathans had long ago designed using choreographers and cultural specialists. The crowd was sated with ritual now, brought up to a different fever pitch, waiting for something more.

  Nathans raised his hands, and the background noise dropped off as with the chop of a guillotine blade. The organ music ceased.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Walpurgis Night Sabbat!” he called to the crowd. “I am your new High Priest, and I come to you with a promise. I have such confidence in your faith, in the truth behind what we’re doing, that if you believe—we, you and I, can bring Satan back among us with this one last sacrifice!” Coldly he swept his hand behind him to indicate Danal on the altar.

  The crowd cheered and whistled.

  “It will be tonight—I guarantee it!”

  Danal tried to sit up, but one of the assistants firmly pushed his head back down. He could have resisted with his strength, but decided to play passive for the moment.

  “You have followed all the rituals, read all the Writings, attended all the Sabbats. I’m proud of you. But tonight, this magic night, is Walpurgis Night, the greatest Sabbat of the year. All the stars and planets are in their ideal positions. Tonight, neo-Satanism will come to its climax, and you’ll all be part of a new age. For the return of our Master!”

  More cheering. Nathans strutted back and forth across the stage. He seemed tense, hyperventilating, but Danal could see a well-hidden smugness in the man’s bearing. Nathans refused to turn to meet Danal’s eyes; the Servant couldn’t tell if the man avoided looking at him out of guilt and anger, or if he had simply become too caught up in his role.

  Then Danal realized something else, something that might have been useful had he not been under a Command of silence—he didn’t think Nathans had ever killed before, not directly, not with his bare hands. Danal wondered if the man would have the nerve to murder his former student, his apprentice.

  “The time is now!” Nathans cried, and his voice cracked in its enthusiasm. “Are you ready?”

  The resounding shout from the audience chilled Danal. “Rah hyuun! Rah hyuun!”

  Nathans whirled and stepped behind the altar. He was moving too fast; the Servant could tell he wanted to get this over with. The thought surprised him—he had expected Nathans to gloat, to savor the moment of his ultimate victory.

  From a slot in the side of the altar stone, Nathans snatched out the wide-bladed arthame, the jeweled sacrificial dagger. He held it up with both hands over his head.

  The crowd shouted again. “Rah hyuun! Rah hyuun!”

  Danal knew the pain would come, a bright flash of Death, but still he stared up at Nathans to the last. By the look in the man’s eyes, he could see that Nathans didn’t dare hesitate or else his doubts might win through. Nathans’s expression softened for the briefest instant, but he hardened it again, fighting against his feelings. Danal could see infinitely clear droplets of sweat on the man’s scalp, glistening like beads among the painted symbols on his head.

  The audience fell completely silent, sitting motionless on their stone benches in hushed anticipation. Nathans cocked the blade and tightened his grip on the hilt until his knuckles whitened. “Ashes to ashes, blood to blood; fly to Hell for all our good!”

  Then Julia stood up in the audience, shrugging down her hood and exposing herself as a blank-faced, bald Servant.

  Startled and distracted cries broke from the worshipers.

  Nathans flicked his gaze up, and his face contorted in angry surprise. “Who has brought a Servant here to our most sacred ceremony!”

  Scattered t
hroughout the audience, the Wakers stood up. Only forty-three of them, but they were well dispersed among the hundreds so that the effect was increased. Gregor threw off his Acolyte Supervisor robe, crumpled it in his large hands, and threw it to the ground. He proudly displayed his gray jumpsuit, his pallid skin, his hairless visage.

  “You don’t want to lay a hand on him, Mr. Francois Nathans,” Gregor shouted.

  The other Wakers exposed themselves, standing up as gray-clad Servants. Nathans stood aghast, staring at the sudden appearance of the Servants—Servants! His mouth hung open just enough that Danal could see the depth of his shock. The ceremony had been interrupted—Danal convinced his Servant programming that Nathan’s Command no longer bound him to silence.

  “So many things you don’t know, Francois,” Danal spoke quietly as he lay helpless on the altar, but with a scorn that cut deeply into Nathans’s confidence. “I’m not the only one. I was your great experiment, your guinea pig. But all these other Servants awoke to their memories, awoke to themselves, without any intervention from you. They all remember, Francois. Dozens and dozens of them. Think of how many more must be out there, hiding. Remembering life and death because your resurrection process is flawed.”

  Nathans worked his mouth, but only a wordless whisper came out. Even without slipping into microprocessor speed, Danal sensed that all time had stopped. The crowd fell silent, confused, waiting for their High Priest to react. Danal lay back in chains, unmoving.

  “One more thing, Francois,” he continued slowly, savoring the words. “They are the Cremators. Awakened Servants whose goal is to stop you from creating more like themselves!”

  That was the last straw for Nathans. His eyes became wild, giving him a hunted look. Helpless and frantically desperate, the man whirled back toward the secret rooms behind the altar platform and shouted—

  “Jones!”

  The Elite Guard watched, helplessly horrified, at his station in the spy alcove. As the Sabbat continued toward its peak, he grew sick inside, enraged and disgusted—he had helped Nathans in this? How many other things would be clear if he looked at them under a harsher light? He squirmed, sweating and wide-eyed, as Nathans prepared to make the sacrifice of the hapless Servant. He could not see the expression on the man’s face, but Jones imagined any number of them.

  Then when the Servant appeared in the audience—Julia! he knew it was Julia—Jones reacted as if someone had struck him a sharp blow. It was utterly incredible even to imagine that she could be here! His world began to swim around his senses again, as if the gears of the universe had just become unmeshed.

  Julia!

  What was she doing here?

  Was this something Nathans had set up? To trap him even further?

  “Jones!”

  Stunned, he finally heard the frantic tone in the man’s cry. Interminable hours of Enforcer and Elite Guard training overrode his thoughts for a moment, and Jones lurched into motion. He burst out of the alcove onto the stage, fully armored and bristling with weapons.

  The crowd gasped again at the sudden appearance of the Elite Guard. Their fear of the Enforcers Guild had nothing to do with their belief in neo-Satanism. And their confusion sank deeper.

  “Kill the Servants!” Nathans cried automatically. His voice seemed to be losing its grip on the tone of authority, and it came out with undertones of a manic whimper. The High Priest looked down, as if oddly terrified of the Servant chained on the altar.

  Automatically Jones snapped out one of his projectile weapons.

  —waiting for the holographic images to come at him, simulated attackers—

  Servants. He had done this all before. He turned, crouched, looked at the massed cultists, the scattered Wakers. But these Servants were alert, alive, aware of what Nathans was doing. And this was not the simulation chamber.

  “Kill them!” Nathans stretched out his hand, pointing with the arthame, pointing at Julia.

  —“You’re not here because of any special talent, because you’re the best… You’re not important to him. You’ve been duped. “—

  “Jones!”

  —“And who do you think runs the Guild, Mr. Jones?”—

  Out in the crowd, Julia stood unlike the other Wakers. She did not seem to recognize him; she didn’t seem aware of anything.

  As Jones hesitated, Nathans let out a strange cry and snatched the scatter-stun from the folds of his own robe, brandishing it. “Damn you! Do I have to do this myself?”

  —“He finds a new way to use you instead.”—

  Jones turned calmly,

  —You’ve been duped—

  and pointed the projectile weapon directly at Nathans.

  He took no time to acknowledge the man’s suddenly startled expression before he fired one round into the High Priest’s chest.

  Nathans fell forward, still gripping the scatter-stun like a lifeline, and collapsed across the chained Servant on the altar, sliding slowly to the stage floor. His blood spilled into the center of the pentacle….

  Danal watched Nathans die with an overwhelming hollowness inside, as if his own synBlood were pouring out onto the stage instead. All the plans, all the anger—all the pride, all the fascinating discussions—the betrayal, the revenge—how could he possibly feel ambivalent after that?

  The two horrified Acolyte Supervisors fought through their paralysis and tried to rush toward Nathans’s fallen body, but the armored Elite Guard snapped up his projectile weapon, pointing it at them. The two assistants scattered and ran. Many of the cultists let out an enraged outcry, rising to their feet. The Elite Guard seemed terrified by the threat of a mob and fired two projectiles at the ceiling. Chunks of papier mache rained down, and the neo-Satanists quieted instantly, stunned and confused.

  The Elite Guard pulled off his helmet, breathing deeply of the thick air. He blinked, looking shocked but defiant by what he had done. He dropped the hard black mask with a hollow clatter inside the pentacle next to Nathans’s blood.

  The lights in the Sabbat grotto flickered and went dim. A low, almost subliminal tone rumbled through the enclosed chamber, nearly beyond the range of human hearing. But Danal could feel it grinding in his bones; it made an unwanted shudder crawl up his spine.

  Jones moved over to the Servant and fumbled with the chains, trying to find some way to free his wrists. He found a hidden catch, and one of the manacles snapped open. Danal sat up and looked into the face of the Elite Guard, the real face, but the emotions he saw were buried several layers deep; Jones was not willing to let them surface just yet. The black man kept flicking his eyes out to the crowd, where Julia stood unmoving.

  Gregor started to shout something, but his words were engulfed by a ripping crash of sound that echoed through the chains of microspeakers embedded in the grotto walls—speakers that only recently had been used to augment the chanting of the neo-Satanists.

  At the same instant a flash of laser light dazzled across hidden mirrors on the stalactites in a lightning web. A dull orange glow seeped in around the edges of the chamber, strongest on the blank wall of textured rock to the left of the altar. A foul-smelling smoke curled up from cracks in the rock. Sulfur. Brimstone.

  Collectively the neo-Satanists let out an awed gasp.

  Immensely powerful words clawed at the air, like the sound of the universe tearing at its seams.

  “YOU HAVE SUMMONED. AND I HAVE RETURNED.”

  Bright orange light stabbed through cracks in the rock wall as the stone began to shift and crumble, exposing a black cavern that seemed to extend to the gullet of the earth. Danal’s eyes stung as sulfur fumes belched forth… and behind the smoke, in ghastly shadows, he saw something move, coming forward, taking shape.

  The Servant’s skin crawled, and the audience let out mixed cries of absolute terror and utter delight. They had forgotten everything else now, the Servants, the death of the High Priest—this was the main event.

  A hulking demon, mammoth in size, with curved horns and cloven h
ooves—true to every nightmare and legend of neo-Satanism—emerged from below. Probing, it set one titan hoof forward with a thump! on the stage, and then it strode forward into full view, lashing its arrow-tipped tail and shattering the rock wall. A violent purple glare burned behind the demon’s eyes as it surveyed the gathered worshipers. Deadly fangs filled its mouth as it snarled.

  Amazingly, Jones seemed startled but unimpressed, and he muttered something that Danal couldn’t hear over the frenzied confusion of the crowd. But the Servant wasn’t listening anyway—his entire conception of reality rocked back and forth. Impossible! Nathans lay sacrificed within the pentacle. Had Stromgaard been right all along? Danal couldn’t accept that, but the demon stood in plain view, real and tangible, not a hologram.

  “You have summoned me! You brought me back. And I am grateful!” The monster ignored the Servant on the altar as Danal freed his other arm and frantically tried to loosen his ankles, fighting his horror. The demon spread his arms and bellowed to the neo-Satanists.

  “Your faith has resurrected me. And I will grant your greatest wish! All of you!” The creature drew in a roaring breath. “For all those who truly believe, return with me now—to the wonderful depths of Hell!”

  The monster gestured to the fountains mounted along the walls. The bubbling foamy water spewed forth a brilliant scarlet, fluorescent, brighter even than arterial blood.

  “This is my blood! Take. Drink. Drink deeply! And join me in Hell!”

  “No, don’t!” Jones said. He must have shouted, but his voice sounded utterly insignificant in comparison to the other. “It’s poison!”

  Nobody seemed to hear him. After an instant of stunned immobility, some of the awed people tentatively rose from their stone benches and glanced at the fountains.