The Messiah Choice

by Jack L. Chalker

  “It is partly owned by Magellan,” the Dark Man told her, “but not entirely, nor is it controlled by Magellan. I wish to know of your past in this company. I want to know where, and to whom, you have delivered things since you joined it two years ago.”

  She rattled off what names she remembered, and dates, and places, and people. A lot of embassies, a few government agencies in both the U.S., Britain, and western.Europe, and several small companies, none apparently connected. The government names were interesting, particularly those of minor nations, but the companies were more intriguing to him, for the majority of them had no connection with Magellan at all and were based in small countries who chartered them for profit with no questions asked.

  There could be no question in the mind of anyone listening that the primary purpose of the service was to bypass traditional computer and telecommunications channels, no matter how good today’s scramblers were. And there was also no question that all formed some sort of intelligence network outside of normal channels.

  “What are you thinking now?” he asked her. “Speak freely.”

  “I’m thinking you have to do somthing. I’ll be missed. You got to kill me, I guess.”

  The Dark Man sighed. “My dear, you have been thrown deliberately to the wolves, an expendable lamb brought in because you knew the least. Tomorrow that helicopter will return, but it will not make it. It will crash into the sea and be lost from sight. There will be no survivors, and no recovery of your body, although sufficient effects will wash up to make your death credible.” He got up from the chair and towered over her. “Now—rise. Rise and come to me.”

  She stood up, and found herself walking right into him. She did not meet a human form or any resistance, but seemed suddenly cold and surrounded by darkness, with no form, no solidity. And then, quite suddenly, she was again on solid ground, but outdoors, atop a weird looking rock in the middle of a pretty, moonlit meadow. She was still naked, and walked to the other end, the low end, of the rock and turned to face the Dark Man, who stood on the rounded high point.

  They were not alone. She had some limited freedom, and looked around to find that there were figures around the rock. They were all women, ranging in age from the teen to perhaps the thirties or forties. All were naked, and all had a wild, savage look on their faces and in their eyes, and all were looking at her.

  “You have a free choice to make,” said the Dark Man calmly. “One choice and one only. You are of no use to me unless you are joined with us, freely and of your own will.”

  The women took up a chant, and the Dark Man made a pass with his hand. Lines of light seemed to run fluidly across the grass of the meadow, forming an intricate pattern that surrounded the stone. There was the sudden crackle of electricity in the air in the area between the Dark Man and the terrified woman, and the onlookers, the worshippers, fell down and continued to chant some more.

  The shape in the center took form, a strange and wondrous form, of a creature that was humanoid but not human. It was an angelic form, with great wings mounted at the shoulders and down the back emerging from flowing robes, and a face that was at once beautiful and wondrous and beyond any description.

  “Behold Belial, once an angel and now a prince of Hell,” the Dark Man said. “Fall down and worship him, and give yourself to him and to his Lord and sovereign. We offer you pleasure. We offer to sponge away all guilt, all worry, all fear, and exchange it for that which is wondrous. We offer life, and beauty, and truth, in exchange for your acceptance of and worship of those who would rule a proper universe against a God gone insane. Few are offered this clear choice with such clear evidence.”

  The creature in the center was so wonderful, so beautiful, that it almost commanded worship, as it had an ancient days, for the angels were created second only to God, and the rulers of Hell were angels always.

  “Now consider a God who would not only permit but encourage war and plague and massive suffering and misery. Consider a God who would not only allow, but command the Lord Satan to do his worst to humanity. Fall down and worship now, and give your soul freely to the ones who will end this madness! You know the words, for they have been provided you! Do it now, or die in horrible torment here, piece by piece and bit by bit, so at last in your death your soul will go to your God who will not help you now. He’s here! Now! All around you! He sees and hears and knows this, and could stop it in an instant, yet he allows it, as he allowed Hitler and Stalin and Mao, as he ignored the anguished screams of the Holocaust and a thousand other Holocausts over the ages. Fall down now, and give yourself to sanity!”

  Her terror had not diminished, but the sight of the great creature and the words of the Dark Man penetrated a level of consciousness beyond the terror. She hadn’t been to church since she was fourteen, and she hadn’t given anything religious much thought, but now it faced her, and the clock was running out on a decision.

  “Do you think a God who would allow His own son to be agonizingly crucified will intervene to save you? Pray now, for now you begin to die. Now you must decide—to join freely with us, or to go to your God!”

  The angelic creature changed suddenly, in a moment, into one of terror, a monstrous, misshapen thing that roared and drooled and slobbered and shook its bat wings, and gestured to her with a taloned finger from which came a living stream of electrical fire. It struck her and she was instantly in horrible agony, the most terrible pain she could remember or imagine. She cried out, “No! I will do anything! No!”

  The agony stopped, but she could feel its aftermath and smelled in her own nostrils the smell of her own charred flesh. Again the figure was angelic, and it waited.

  Her mind cracked, and she fell upon the stone, and the words came as she asked them to. “I worship thee, oh mighty Prince of Hell,” she gasped, “and give my immortal soul now and forever to thee and thy Lord Satan, now and forever more to the end of time!” The words had been placed there by others, but at that moment she meant every word of it.

  The creature looked down at her and gave a wondrous smile, and reached out and touched her head, and instantly her wounds were healed, her body made not only whole but better than it was, powerful and beautiful and totally free of blemish. She surrendered utterly and felt tremendous peace and joy, and she would do willingly whatever was commanded of her.

  She got up, and faced the creature, and it took her wrist and made a single sharp cut across a vein, but it didn’t hurt a bit. She turned and got down from the rock, and saw the other women gather around, and they, too, had identical cuts. And she took each in turn and drank a little of their blood, and they a little of hers, and it burned like fiery liquor in their mouths.

  And the creature turned and gave its blessing to them all, and the cuts faded, healed as if they had never been, and then it faded out, like a will o’ the wisp in the night, and then the glowing liquid forms of energy on the meadow faded as well, and they were at peace and filled with joy.

  The Dark Man chuckled softly to himself and took out his hornpipes and blew a tune, and soon they all were dancing to it, she along with them, without a thought or care in the world.

  Angelique had gone to her suite after being dropped off by Greg, and the girls had prepared a light snack at the kitchenette installed in the adjoining converted suite where they now lived. Being constantly tired of late, since the dreams had become so regular and so vivid, she elected to go to bed early, and they made no objection.

  Still, lying there in the near-darkness, she didn’t immediately go to sleep. She kept thinking of Jureau, of the scratches, of how real the dreams seemed, and she couldn’t help wondering and worrying. Perhaps Greg was right, she thought. I am still a stranger here, and far out of my element. Had she simply been overwhelmed by it all, or in truth was she now a key pawn in some great struggle for the heart and soul of a monster corporation? Had she, in fact, delivered herself into the very hands of the enemy and refused to take herself out of harm’s way?

  She knew al
most at once that she would go, particularly now that Greg had indicated that he, too, wished to leave. She resolved, at last, to tell him so the first thing tomorrow, and to move out with all possible speed. That decided, she sank into an increasingly deep sleep, the best sleep she had experienced in perhaps weeks.

  She awoke suddenly, her mind clear, although she had a slight headache from the depth of the slumber. There had been no dreams, at least none that she could remember, and she was thankful for that.

  It was still dark; she turned her head to the left to see the illuminated face of the clock that was always on the night-stand, but she saw nothing. She was aware now of an odd smell, of damp wood and mustiness that certainly should not be in a place as newly remodeled as this. It was difficult to see, but she sensed something strange and different about the place, and began to imagine phantoms moving in the darkness. The sound of insects seemed abnormally loud, and, now that she thought of it, it seemed pretty sticky and oppressive in the room although it should have been air conditioned and filtered. Either there had been some sort of power failure, or…

  She became suddenly frightened as she realized that this was not her bed or her bedroom at the Lodge. This is not real! she tried to assure herself. This is just another one of those realistic dreams.

  But she didn’t believe it. This was as real as anything she had ever experienced, without any of the mental fuzziness or odd changes she went through in the dreams.

  She lay there for quite some time, unable to move, unsure as to what to do. Finally she tried to call out for help, for assistance, but her throat was sore and her voice could barely manage much above a hoarse whisper.

  And then, quite suddenly, she felt rather than saw or heard someone enter. She was not, in fact, even sure how he entered, for there was no sound of a door opening and closing, but she knew he was there, knew it as certainly as she had known it back in her father’s study.

  “My apologies for being delayed,” said a deep, resonant voice, and she gave a start and an involuntary little cry of terror. “We had not expected to reach this point quite so soon, but you rushed us with your actions and showed great power to overcome the holds designed for you, and we have had to account for some people and baggage we did not expect and would not have had to deal with at all otherwise.”

  It was an additional shock to realize that he was speaking not English but French, even matching her Gaspe accent.

  “Who—who are you?” she rasped weakly.

  “You know who I am. They call me the Dark Man, although that’s just a descriptive term created by a string of voodoo and obi cults in the Caribbean and west African areas. It fits rather well, never the less, and will do for now.” There was a sudden flash and a dark finger touched an old fashioned kerosene lamp which caught and then grew into a warm, flickering glow. It illuminated the room, but not the Dark Man, whose entire form seemed a seamless shape of the blackest black.

  She was, she saw, in some sort of log cabin; a one room affair with a small cast iron wood stove, some cabinetry and pots and pans hanging from wall hooks, and some wicker-style furniture. There was a single solid wooden door with a wood bar for a lock, and that bar was in place. The area just next to the stove had a small window, and there were two more small windows with wooden shutters hooked closed on either side of the door.

  “Where is this place?” she asked him. “Where have you taken me?”

  “It is a cabin in the woods on the island. It’s been here for years. It’s to the west of the Institute and down about halfway, about a hundred yards in from the western cliffs. It was built just after your late father purchased the island, and housed the planners and surveyors who came first, to plan the whole thing. There were several, but only this one wound up being kept in good repair, primarily because your father liked coming down here in the early days, when things were just building up top, to spend some time in solitude. The others were dismantled and are long gone, but this one has been here, forgotten by almost everyone, unused for more than seven years, its lone trail pretty well overgrown.”

  “Have you brought me here, then, to do away with me? If so, I am ready. I can stand this no longer.” It was brave talk and she didn’t mean a word of it, and he knew it.

  “Do away with you? Certainly not! You are quite special, Angelique, more than you know. Greatness awaits you, a greatness that all will envy and that others will covet, but it is for you alone. You are quite safe here. No one even remembers this place exists, and no one ever comes to this part of the island. It is as virginal as when it was as yet unseen by man. None will harm you, and so charmed are you that not even a mosquito will dare bite you, nor an illness infect you. Unfortunately, it is not yet your time, although that time is soon. It may also be necessary, at times, to produce you or to produce your witnessed prints. So, until such time as all is right and we have need of you, this will be your home. I apologize that it is not as fancy or as comfortable as the Lodge, but it is far more secure.”

  She was appalled. “You expect me to lie here, doing nothing, going nowhere, for days, weeks, months!”

  “Only if we have to. I doubt if that will be necessary, so long as you behave.” He walked to the foot of the bed, his boots sounding very solid on the old wooden floor, and stretched out a dark hand. “Rise, Angelique!”

  And she did so, getting up to a sitting position, shifting over to the side of the bed, then, steadying herself with one hand, getting to a standing position. It was so remarkable, so incredible, that she was overcome with emotion that for a moment blotted out all the other, darker circumstances.

  “I—I stand! I walk! I feel!” she exclaimed. “I am once again whole!” She flexed her fingers and her toes and almost cried with joy.

  “You have never been otherwise,” the Dark Man told her. “The doctors were correct in stating that there was no medical reason for your paralysis. They erred only in being men of pure science. They could not know, and if they had known could not have accepted, the effectiveness of a true curse.”

  Almost instantly, her sheer joy turned to hatred and extreme anger. “You mean you did that to me? You cost me all those years of my life? You made me go through hell!” Her throat was still sore and her voice raspy, but so great was her anger that the room almost shook with the words. She moved to attack him physically, all thoughts of well-being gone, but he put up a dark hand and she stopped, frozen, unable to advance.

  “It was quite necessary, once we realized who you might be and saw the potential there. It preserved you—innocent, virginal, unattached, and naive. It froze you as you were, a young girl unsullied by the world.” He paused a moment, and his tone became more practical. “You will notice that the curse is not lifted, merely suspended at our whim. That suspension can be lifted at any time, for any reason, and you will become as bad as you were or worse than you were. If we wished you could become an automaton, seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, thinking—but unable to control any part of your body whatever voluntarily, doing only what you were told to do. It’s up to you.”

  “You won’t get away with this! I’ll be missed at the Institute. Security will search for me. Greg will—”

  “Greg is most probably dead by now,” he told her bluntly. “I should like to have interrogated him, as I should have liked to talk with your father, but others intervened. I should not count on Security. You will have to bear their watching eyes on their little monitors if you stray into habitable territory, I fear, but don’t expect any help from that quarter. As for any others, this island is at the moment being placed under a security blanket. In modern, tense times like these, those in power tend to believe what their computers print out, particularly when it is confirmed by people in their own employ. This island has become a tiny independent republic for the duration of this—er, emergency, and will be run as one from this point on, with the aid and support of Magellan and the NATO and Caribbean pacts. No one will get on, or off, this island without our knowledge and permission
. No one will be able to communicate in any way with the outside world unless we first approve it.”

  “But you can not keep this up forever!” she told him. “Sooner or later someone will get suspicious and they will demand to come and see for themselves!”

  “By that time, we will be in total control of every living thing here. You would be surprised at how long it could be sustained. You see, we control more than you or anyone has dreamed by now. We can access the data banks upon which they rely, make a saint into a KGB spy, order suspicious probers to duty in Greenland or Antarctica from a dozen military forces. We can cause diversions—wars in the Middle East, for example, and other threats to vital areas—that will take their minds off us. And we do not have to do it forever, only for a short while. Three or four months. People believe their computers. They depend upon them and the telecommunications networks that tie them together. You would be shocked at what we can do without any resort to the supernatural.”

  “What are you?” she practically screamed at him. “Are you a man? A demon? The devil himself?”

  The Dark Man laughed. “Perhaps I am none of those. Call me John the Baptist, if you will.”

  “You profane and mock the sacred!”

  “Well, it has always been the fashion to do so. Perhaps you have been too insulated. The world goes around saying, ‘Jesus Christ!’ at the slightest provocation, and ‘God damn!’ is probably the second most popular profanity humanity uses. The world is full of the profane. Hell is rampant, as it always has been. And do you know why? Because that’s the way God ordered it to be. He’s supposed to be all-seeing, all-knowing, omniscient and omnipresent, yet He’s never gotten over the fact that He made humanity in His own image and humanity proceeded to screw itself up. He ordered humanity tested, and humanity failed, so He ordered humanity to be tempted, tormented, and punished, rather than face the fact that He, Himself, was obviously imperfect or mad, in that He created an imperfect thing.”