The Balance Omnibus

by Alan Baxter

  It only took a few moments to find a quiet corner down one of the hundreds of corridors in the huge hotel. He checked around, then travelled, glad to be getting out of this alien, artificial palace of excess.

  As soon as he arrived in the lounge of his flat, right beside the old, threadbare armchair, he knew he was not alone. He spun around, gathering a huge ball of raw energy in his hand. There. In the darkened corner, under a little triangular shelf holding a vase of long dead flowers, was a demon. Twisted and ugly, all lumpy, slick skin, sharp black teeth. Isiah raised his hand preparing to release the energy, send the little bastard straight back to Hell.

  The little demon quickly danced from one foot to the other and back again. ‘Wait, wait,’ it cackled, its gleeful voice a gurgling, throaty sound. ‘I have news for you! A message especially for you!’

  Isiah was suddenly concerned, he thought these little shuriken had been quiet too long. ‘What?’

  ‘Satan just thought you might like to know that we have the human Samuel Harrigan! We got him, we got him!’ The slimy horror danced about, laughing like a lunatic.

  With a roar of rage, Isiah threw crackling energy directly at it, engulfing it briefly, before destroying it completely. It vanished with a shriek of pain, the smell of burning quickly filling the small apartment.

  Isiah sat down hard in the old armchair, dropped his head into his hands. ‘Fuck!’ So much for Baker helping him to find Sam. He didn’t want to consider what he would have to do next.

  4

  Isiah sat in the old armchair despairing his fate for a long time. Eventually he took a deep breath, rubbed his eyes. Sitting back in the chair, composing himself, he closed his eyes and let the molecules of his body slowly separate. When he opened his eyes again there was nothing but bright white nothingness surrounding him and a sense of complete peace pervading. Even the various versions of Heaven, Nirvana and so on didn’t make him feel this comfortable. They were other people’s ideas of paradise, after all. This was simply somewhere that he could relax. Nothing could touch him here, none of the numerous enemies he had made, human or otherwise, could reach him.

  He lay back, hands behind his head as though on a reclining lounger, one leg out in front, the other cocked up on an imaginary coffee table. He breathed deeply for a while, enjoying the peace. He was far from a stranger to any number of natural and artificial highs, states of altered perception, but nothing could compare to this. Sometimes, when he had been involved in a particularly trying job and needed real rest, he would come here, chill out in peace for as long as he could get away with. After a few minutes making the most of it, he called out, ‘Come on then, I know you’re only being kind. We need to talk.’

  THIS IS NOT GOOD.

  ‘Straight to the heart of the matter as always. Did you see this coming?’

  IT IS OFTEN A MATTER OF INTERPRETATION.

  ‘And you never managed to ‘interpret’ Satan getting his hands on Sam first? What are we going to do?’

  YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO, ISIAH.

  ‘Aw, come on, please. I hate it there!’

  YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO.

  ‘There must be another.’

  IT MUST BE SAMUEL HARRIGAN. SOME THINGS ARE PREDESTINED AND THEY MUST FOLLOW THEIR COURSE.

  ‘I know, I know. But Sam being dead already kind of undermines things, doesn’t it?’

  HE’S ONLY PHYSICALLY DEAD. HE’S SUFFERING HORRIBLY IN THE HELL OF HIS TWISTED BELIEF, BUT HIS SOUL IS YET TO BE BROKEN AND BOUND FOREVER. IF YOU GET TO HIM BEFORE HE ACCEPTS HIS FATE YOU CAN STILL SUCCEED IN THIS.

  Isiah sighed expansively, rubbed his forehead. ‘That’s such a messy, difficult thing to do. Why must Samuel be the one to go to South America? Why South America, who has to die and who are we protecting?’

  ALWAYS HAVE TO RATIONALISE BEFORE YOU CAN FUNCTION. The voice of the other was soft, gently scathing, a parody of so many voices, including Isiah’s own.

  Isiah smiled. ‘Partly because I know how vague you are most of the time, and that bugs the shit out of me!’

  There was the soft, chiming sound of the Balance laughing. YOU WANT THE WHOLE STORY?

  ‘As much as you know for certain. Don’t give me any ‘interpretations’ you can’t confirm.’

  VERY WELL. THERE IS A TRIBE IN THE DEPTHS OF THE AMAZON BASIN, DEEP IN INHOSPITABLE JUNGLE. THEY HAVE A GOD WHO, VIA THEIR FAITH, IS REALLY RATHER POWERFUL. THEY ARE A LARGE TRIBE, SPREAD OVER A VERY LARGE AREA OF RAINFOREST, BUT THEY ARE DYING. IF THEY DIE, SO DOES THEIR GOD.

  ‘So we’re protecting one of the little guys, that much I knew. It’s that important?’

  HE IS AS IMPORTANT AS YAHWEH, OR ALLAH, OR SHIVA. YOU KNOW THAT.

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  AND HE IS NOT REALLY THAT MUCH OF A LITTLE GUY. The Balance had a slightly sarcastic emphasis with Isiah’s words.

  ‘So how will Samuel’s visit to South America save this deity?’

  SAMUEL MUST KILL A SOUTH AMERICAN MERCENARY.

  ‘Or?’

  OR THE MERCENARY WILL KILL AN AMERICAN JOURNALIST CALLED KATHERINE BAILEY. SHE IS DESTINED TO SAVE THE TRIBE, AND THEIR GOD. THEY ARE DYING FROM A SIMPLE DISEASE, SHE WILL CONVINCE THEM TO TAKE INOCULATION.

  ‘Complicated route to save Katherine Bailey, isn’t it?’

  NO ONE MAKES THE RULES, ISIAH. THEY JUST ARE.

  ‘I could go to South America and take out this mercenary myself,’ Isiah suggested, his head cocked to one side, smiling hopefully. He knew he was testing his luck with no hope of success, but he had to try all the same.

  SAMUEL HARRIGAN’S INVOLVEMENT IS NOT SIMPLY FOR THE KILLING BUT FOR THE METHOD. THE REPERCUSSIONS.

  ‘Yeah.’ He sat back again. ‘So the mercenary and Katherine are atheist in all respects?’

  YES. THEY CANNOT BE REACHED. IT IS THE UNEXPECTED ACTIONS ON THE PART OF THE MERCENARY THAT IS CAUSING THE PROBLEMS. IT WAS UNDER CONTROL WITH SATAN SENDING SAMUEL HARRIGAN TO FETCH THE CRYSTAL SKULL. THEN SAMUEL CROSSED SATAN.

  ‘So, let me get this straight.’ Isiah sat up a little, concentrating. ‘Samuel, in his search for this skull, will stumble across the mercenary and kill him. That will prevent the mercenary from killing Katherine Bailey. That means Katherine Bailey will survive to save the Amazon tribes’ god, by saving his people.’

  THAT IS HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO GO.

  ‘Funny how the atheists so often end up saving the deities.’

  HILARIOUS.

  ‘You realise that all this depends on me managing to get Sam back and convincing him to go to South America after all?’

  NO ONE SAID IT WOULD BE EASY. YOU MAY NOT SUCCEED, BUT YOU MUST TRY.

  ‘And Satan will dog our every move once he realises I’ve nabbed Sam back. He’ll be livid.’

  SAMUEL HARRIGAN HAS METHODS TO DEAL WITH THAT.

  Isiah was surprised. ‘Are you serious? You condone that? Did you see that young girl?’

  SOME THINGS ARE NECESSARY. YOU HAVE METHODS TOO, ISIAH. IF YOU CAN’T MANAGE TO KEEP SATAN OFF YOUR TAIL, MAYBE SAMUEL HARRIGAN CAN HELP.

  Isiah sat forward, elbows on his knees, chin cupped in his hands. ‘This Katherine Bailey will be in South America?’

  YES. THE TIMING IS VERY IMPORTANT. SAMUEL HARRIGAN MUST LEAVE FOR SOUTH AMERICA ON THE DAY HE WAS SUPPOSED TO AND CONDUCT HIS SEARCH FOR THE SKULL IN THE MANNER IN WHICH HE WAS GOING TO ORIGINALLY. THIS WAY, THE PATHS OF SAMUEL HARRIGAN AND THE MERCENARY WILL CROSS JUST IN TIME.

  Isiah wore a pained expression, gently shook his head. ‘I’m so tired of this shit. How long are you going to make me keep doing this?’

  HOW MANY TIMES ARE YOU GOING TO ASK THAT?

  Isiah set his jaw. ‘Whatever.’ He thought for a few moments. ‘This is a real mess, you know that. What if I can’t do it? What’s really at stake? I mean, let’s take a worst case scenario. Assume I can’t get Samuel Harrigan back on track, or we mess up the timing, or Sam doesn’t kill the mercenary. Whatever, basically this Katherine Bailey woman dies. So what? Balance is
a little upset by the death of this not-so-little-guy deity, but how much impact can that have on the greater scheme of things?’ Isiah knew he was testing the patience of the Balance. But he was the one with the outrageously hard and dangerous task ahead of him. He wanted a little knowledge of what was really at stake.

  THE IMPACT OF THE SMALLEST ACTIONS CAN HAVE ENORMOUS CONSEQUENCES, ISIAH.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I know. A butterfly flaps it’s wings in Hawaii, yadda yadda yadda. But what about this time?’

  Isiah rocked back, his breath a surprised gasp, as his brain was assaulted with a rush of movement and flashing images. The Balance was cutting out the middle man. It seemed Isiah may have pushed too hard and now he was going on a journey.

  The rushing images slowed and coalesced, the mental flight landing. He saw a tribe of Amazonian natives dancing and celebrating. They were worshipping an idol, offering prayer and faith. At the back of the celebration a few people sat wrapped in blankets and large leaves, looking sick yet still rejoicing, joining in the spirit of the event.

  The scene changed to one of a camp of the native people, a woman crying over the body of an infant. A man, weak and emaciated, trying to hide his own tears as he comforted his wife.

  The image blurred and slid, regaining focus in a clearing of forest, bodies piled high in a mass funeral, the people conducting the rites were almost dead themselves, their faces pained and suffering. A man reached up toward the skies, crying out in anguish and confusion, desperately asking why.

  Isiah’s vision was carried upwards and outwards, for a moment through sliding darkness then fanning out into the presence of a once powerful deity. The god’s power was waning as he looked onto his people and wept. He was a creature of the forests, a conglomeration of animals and men, as imagined by the various members of his believers. But the images were slowly winking out, differing aspects of his presence disexisting. As his people died in torment, not understanding his forsaking them, he began to fade and shrink. The sicker they got the more they needed him. But the sicker they got, the weaker he became. Isiah watched in pain as the people and the god slipped from existence.

  That much I knew. But what next?

  His mind lurched as the images rushed and blurred again. He saw a man in a suit, pointing to a flip chart and to maps. The man was describing an enormous area of Amazonian rainforest and the wealth of timber there. He was telling the consortium before him how the area used to be populated by a large and widespread tribe. It was an area that afforded considerably easy access to vast tracts of timber forest, previously untouchable, even through illegal logging, due to the presence of large numbers of indigenous people. But the tribes had died of a mysterious illness. Now was their chance. They could circumvent certification and exploit. With the tribespeople gone, with no actual humans in the way, the protests would be less enforced, easily silenced.

  Again Isiah’s vision shifted. He saw the same man in a dark car park, talking in hushed tones to a government official. A large suitcase changed hands and the men left in separate cars.

  His mind rushed back and out once more. He saw huge tracts of rainforest razed to the ground. Enormous spaces, ripped open by the commerce of timber, lay like ragged scars. The broken stubble of a vast, roughly shaved and decimated land. He saw thousands of native fauna running and dying, starving and homeless.

  Then rains came. Huge, unexpected rains, and floods poured across the land. The presence of new, huge gaps in the forest did nothing to stop the flooding and it built up, rushed on. Unprecedented. Uncontrollable.

  He saw thousands of native peoples in other parts of the forests running from the floods. He saw people in small settlement towns in mass exodus as their homes were overwhelmed, their lives destroyed.

  Then there were more raped landscapes, more vast spaces stripped of their life. More destroyed towns, more people dying, more suffering, more torment.

  Once again he saw the men in suits, scared and angry now rather than conceited and greedy. He saw the government and the people at odds as the balance of power throughout the entire region began to shift, as more and more people became endangered, disrupted, uprooted, killed. Images began flashing across Isiah’s mind faster than he could comprehend. Devastation, destruction, despair.

  ‘Enough!’ he cried out.

  Instantly he was back in the total soft safety of white nothingness. He said nothing, staring at his hands for a few moments while he recovered from the onslaught of information.

  THE LOSS OF THE DEITY IS BAD ENOUGH IN REGARDS TO THE BALANCE OF FAITH IN THE WORLD. THE CHAOS THAT WILL ENSUE FROM THE INSTABILITY IN THE REGION IS FAR MORE DEVASTATING. THE TRIBE THAT KATHERINE BAILEY WILL VISIT IS A LYNCHPIN IN THE REGION.

  YOU HAVE ONLY SEEN A FRACTION OF THE CONSEQUENCES.

  Isiah nodded. ‘Katherine Bailey saving this deity is actually saving thousands of lives beyond its faithful?’

  POTENTIALLY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS. AND OTHER TRIBES AND THEIR DEITIES. BALANCE, ISIAH. YOUR WORK IS NEVER PETTY.

  ‘Once again the biggest faith of them all is responsible.’ Isiah made a wry face.

  THE BIGGEST FAITH OF THEM ALL?

  ‘Money. The Almighty Dollar. You know, one day our work will be pointless because everybody will only believe in the power and the glory of the great god Moolah.’

  YOU MUST GET SAMUEL HARRIGAN TO THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME, ISIAH. THEN KATHERINE BAILEY WILL TRAVEL ON TO THE AMAZON BASIN AND SAVE THAT TRIBE AND ITS GOD. THE FUTURE YOU HAVE SEEN IS NOT YET SET.

  ‘And my work goes on. When was Sam going to leave?’

  BY YOUR CLOCK, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, AROUND MIDNIGHT.

  Isiah looked up, his expression incredulous. ‘What? I have to get things arranged, get Sam, stop him from freaking out and get him back onto his original course of action by midnight Thursday? Are you kidding?’

  YOU HAD BETTER GO. TIME IS RUNNING OUT.

  ‘You bastard! Shit, I hate rushing these things.’ Isiah grimaced, trying to ignore that soft chuckling. ‘Right, I’m off.’ He began to gather his will, then thought of something. ‘This mercenary that will otherwise kill Katherine Bailey and screw everything up. What’s his name?’

  CARLOS VILLALOPEZ.

  Carlos sucked his breath sharply through his teeth, his eyes wide with pleasure. The sharp, hot pain of the stitch being pulled out through his still tender flesh sending shivers through him. There was an advantage to these poorly equipped missions if you enjoyed pain the way Carlos did. The nurse moved the tweezers to the next stitch, lifted it, slipped the scissors underneath. With a quick snip she severed the stitch near the knot, pulled it out slowly. Carlos breathed deep again, savouring the pain. He could feel his cock engorging under the light, stained hospital sheet. He didn’t care if the nurse noticed; he hoped she did.

  Father Paleros was there, of course, trying to ease his suffering, the bastard. Carlos really hoped that he noticed. Didn’t matter anyway, there were twenty eight stitches in his leg, and a dozen in his head. Time enough. He had been refusing pain killers all morning to make the most of this. The priest looked into his eyes, his expression concerned. Carlos stared back at him, drilling his eyes into the priest’s soul, using the pain to help him imagine the inevitable death of this holier than holy motherfucker.

  The priest glanced down, saw the slowly enlarging bulge in the sheets as the nurse pulled out the third stitch and looked away. When he looked back Carlos was grinning broadly, Do I scare you?

  There was a look of disgust on the priests face as he watched the removal of the stitches. Yet still he would try to save Carlos’ soul. Carlos grinned through the pain. Save his soul? The same way that the priests so long ago had saved his soul? Their methods were rather less benevolent than this Paleros had so far proved to be, but no matter. They were all the same underneath.

  One of the nuns came in and called the priest over. The grey haired, pot bellied freak went over and spoke with her for a while, then followed her out. Carlos smiled to h
imself. Your time will come, fucker.

  Isiah arrived back in his apartment, angry and tired. These things were always so complicated, he was used to that, yet even now he still became despondent with his fate, sick of it all. He often wondered what would happen if he simply refused to do it any more, stopped cooperating.

  He sat down in his armchair to think, preparations needed to be made. He had just over forty eight hours until Samuel needed to be on that plane to South America. He would have to go with him, he realised, babysit the whole thing from now on. That was the first order of the day. Find out what flight Samuel was planning on taking and try to get himself a seat on the same one. There couldn’t be too many flights leaving from the local airport for South America around midnight on Thursday. That in itself presented a small problem. When people spoke of South America it conjured images of Brazil, Chile, Argentina. Samuel was after a crystal skull of Mayan manufacture, however. The Mayans were the ancient indigenous people of Mesoamerica, modern-day Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, El Salvador. All Central America, not South. When he had been told that Samuel was going to South America, did that mean Mexico? He picked up the telephone, dialled the airport enquiry line. He travelled a lot in his line of work, it was a number he knew by heart.

  After a few seconds he was connected to the irritating hold music that all large corporations seem to use in an effort to alienate and annoy all their customers. It was a couple of minutes before the line clicked again and a voice that was obviously far happier than its source said, ‘Good evening, Flightline information, Carol speaking, may I help you?’ She managed to say it as though she really meant good evening and she really wanted to help him at the same time as being bored out of her brains.

  ‘I hope you can,’ Isiah said, trying to sound as jolly as the operator. ‘I want to know if there are any flights leaving at midnight on Thursday for South America.’ Start off general.

  ‘Where in South America, sir?’ her voice sounded kind and friendly, but with a hint of you dumb bastard, South America is fucking huge.

  Isiah smiled. ‘Tell you what. Just check all the flights leaving around midnight on Thursday night and tell me any that are going to anywhere in South America.’