It was the Book of the Red, dropped by an Ugly priest who had lost a finger to a bullet. Wodan had seen him pick the book up but had, thankfully, let the matter drop.
He read aloud, just under his breath. “And if your eye should cause you to sin, pluck it out, throw it into the sand. If a hand should cause you to sin, saw it off, cast it to the wolves. And if another member should cause you to sin, cut it off, tie a stone about it, throw it into a well... for a thing unwanted can be gotten rid of, an unwelcome thing can be made to disappear...”
* * *
“I wisht you’d just consider it,” said Walter Kyner. He sat with Wodan on a bench just outside his grocery.
“Goodness, I dunno,” said Wodan. “I mean, I can’t really say I have an alternate plan.”
“See! You’re goin’ to University, but don’t plan on teachin’. See?” He pointed to the grocery, said, “Man’s got to have a plan for how he’s gonna live his life. How to earn his keep. Now, we’re gettin’ fierce competition from Pelmer’s, they get higher volume an’ can afford to charge less. Honestly, business has been bad. But!” And here his wrinkled face shone with life. “Pelmer an’ his wife what run the place, they’re gettin’ old, an’ never had any blood to pass the store on to. They only got a few years left in ’em, really. An’ you’re gonna graduate ’fore you know it. So I’ll set you up as a manager at my place. Run anything you want, I know you can do it. Boy, I’ll be blowed over if you weren’t the best dang worker I ever had...”
Wodan blushed and laughed.
“An’ I know I was hard on you, an’ you might feel sore for it. But I was younger’n you when I had my first store. An’ I’m older’n my own Pa was when he passed on. Son, you work for me in the store, and then when the time comes, an’ the Pelmers are ready to move on, we’ll buy their store. Call it Kyner’s. Call it Wodi’s if you want! But it’ll be yours. An’ you can make an empire from it, if you want, I mean, I know you got big dreams, an’ all...”
Wodan sat in thought.
“Remember how you used to drive that truck fer me? Even ran it off the road a time or two... but you was good at that job, still.”
Something about the whole thing seemed a little farfetched in terms of its mediocrity, and Wodan couldn’t really take it seriously. Tutored by the great Korliss Matri himself, survived the horrors of the wasteland and seen friends die... and then he would move on to manage a grocery store?
“Pelmer’s is a big store,” Walter said, somehow gauging his son’s thoughts.
“Well, listen Pa,” said Wodan. “I’ve got some things to work out today. Gotta get to the bottom of some things. But...” and he looked at his father, smiled a little, said, “I’ll think about it, alright?”
* * *
Aegis took me to a luncheon to see a lot of Senators. Boy, it was really something! I thought they’d never get tired of talking to me. And he was just all smiles. There was a leader of some big coal company there, and you should have seen the way he listened to Aegis! I said we should bring my friend Maxil next time, it would be great to hear him say something mean/funny to all those big wigs. But I think Aegis just wanted to be around me.
-from Rachek’s Red Diary
* * *
The sky was sharp blue, and a light snow was falling. Wodan walked through the University grounds, his cloak held close. He saw the apartment house ahead, nestled among others. He was very nervous.
He climbed the stairs, picking his way over a legion of empty bottles. He found the door and rapped twice. Darel cracked it open almost immediately. He wore a rough shirt with some band’s name on it, a pair of sandals, hair gelled neatly. He looked cross, and his mouth worked nervously. Wodan entered.
There were even more bottles and more empty wrappers than in the hall. Wodan paid little heed to the filth; he kept papers scattered about his own room. Back when he had a cat, it hid under the papers, tunneling about before a good pounce. Those days were long gone.
“Darel, right?” said Wodan.
The boy nodded, then crossed over to his computer and sat before it. He turned away from Wodan.
“Okay,” said Wodan. “So, what’s up with that list you sent me?”
“I’m going to tell you some things,” said Darel. “Secret things. And I know you’ll keep these things confidential, because we have mutual enemies.”
Wodan had a feeling that the boy had made up the statement hours before and had been practicing it all morning. Wodan could tell he was trying to act tough and confident, like a character from a movie. “Mutual enemies?”
“I’m a member of a group called the Chaos Consortium. What we do, specifically, is none of your concern. But I have been privy to information that does concern you.”
“A group?” said Wodan. “Who’s your leader?”
Darel was visibly thrown off balance, then chuckled harshly. “That would be Michonardo. He’s passed out in the back room. It’s kind of funny... I dared him he couldn’t chug more Cogito Brand than me, and the damn fool staked his claim of leadership on the bet. I let him win, but guess what? My bottle was full of water! He got the spins and just puked all over the shower.”
Wodan laughed, said, “Some leader!”
“Guy’s great, just great,” said Darel. He realized he had strayed from the script. “Anyway... so, I guess you could say I’m the information broker of the group. I’m all over the net. Half the mysterious personalities who’re out there gathering intel and making statements, well, they’re actually me.”
“Is that so?” Wodan smiled.
“Yeah,” said Darel, leaning back. Something like self-assurance filled him.
“So you found something about me? About my exile?”
Darel turned around and navigated through his computer’s programs. “It was a year ago. November the seventeenth... I’ll never forget it. I got real ambitious and hacked into Professor Korliss Matri’s account.” Darel stopped suddenly, then said, “You know he’s real thick with Sevrik Clash, the top Guardian, and Didi, head of the DoS/DoR, right? Thick as thieves? You knew that?”
Wodan held his head back. Does he want me to try to impress him, the way he’s trying to impress me? “I know they cooperated a lot, back in the day.”
“Cooperated? Hell!” Darel forced out a laugh. “Man, those guys ran Haven at one time. If it wasn’t for Matri, there wouldn’t even be such a thing as Party rule. The Senate had to make up a position for “majority leader,” the Senate Voice, just for Aegis Vachs. Believe me, Vachs would’ve been washing bedpans if it weren’t for those guys. And because of all that, the DoS/DoR and the Guardians got more funding than they ever did in all of Haven’s history. And that’s allowing for inflation, too, mind you.”
“Hm. So what happened on the seventeenth of November?”
“Oh. So, I thought about hacking into Clash’s account, but he’s got a Guardian account. And they got protection all their own that is pretty serious. I even tried to hack into Didi’s, but man, if there’s anyone who’s better at comp-tech than me, I think it’s him. So, I hacked into Matri’s account. And I got a ton of old emails he’d sent and received over the years. Not only that, but I was able to use his connections to find emails sent and received by both Didi and Clash!”
“No kidding?” said Wodan, guarded.
“Believe it, man. Korliss Matri was the weak link.”
Darel brought up a massive text document.
“Mind if I have a look?” said Wodan.
“Be my guest,” said Darel. “It might take a while, though. Want a drink? Smoke?”
Wodan shook his head and took Darel’s seat from him.
An overpowering excitement seized Wodan as soon as he saw the document and all the names. It was a massive document, years in the making. Wodan breathed deeply to calm his heart, then plunged into the sea of forbidden data.
* * *
Sevrik Clash sat in his office. Photographs of his old units and his family lined the walls. A Main Force
general sat with him. He was older than Sevrik and completely bald. Both wore ornamented white suits. Yarek, dressed in black and without decoration, sat to the side. He had said nothing to the general, had barely even acknowledged his presence, for the entire morning. They listened to Sevrik’s computer where Wodan’s voice was rambling on, at length, about the nature of the Ugly.
The general spoke over the recording, said, “Clash. This boy, you know him. He’s trustworthy?”
“I know him,” said Sevrik. “He’s a good boy.”
“You think this is something we should worry about? Some of them did make it over here. They crossed the sea just to get killed by us.”
Sevrik leaned back thoughtfully. “In Haven’s twenty generations,” he said, “we’ve never had to deal with the outside world. To us, the wasteland, which, as far as we know, is the entire outside world, has always been a looming theory. A threat, sure, but still just a theory. The thing is, before someone can invade, they’d have to scout the territory.”
He paused for a moment, then continued. “From what we’ve heard about these Ugly, they seem like a suicidal bunch. Just crazy enough to make moves against a stronger foe. Still, they must be run by people who aren’t suicidal - people who profit from the group’s continued existence - and those leaders aren’t going to blindly throw their followers into a war with as many unknown variables as Haven has for them.”
The general nodded his head. “From what we’ve seen, and from this boy’s account, their technology seems pretty pathetic. I don’t know how they could scout our land without us knowing about it, much less invade.”
Yarek cleared his throat. The general gave a start. “It’s not our advanced tech that’s going to repel them,” he said. The general caught a glimpse of the cruel fire in his eyes, and looked away.
* * *
Wodan read. There were old messages from Didi to Aegis Vachs, who was then Senate Voice. Vachs seemed to be Didi’s Senatorial connection, a man he spoke to only to procure funding for the Department of Science and, after it was formed, the Department of Research. The tone of these emails was usually not professional. In many of them Didi seemed half-mad, making sweeping references to grandiose things. At one point Didi mentioned a theoretical virus that could “spread happiness” to all life on earth, then the idea was dropped without further discussion. Didi referenced the creation of some sort of “ultimate weapon.” Vachs often made half-hearted replies, like a bureaucrat covering his ass rather than replying outright to any statements made.
Didi rarely made direct references to anything particular that he was doing. He wrote of his ambition, and Wodan could very nearly track his development from research assistant to junior scientist to scientist to Head of the DoS, then founder and Head of the DoR. He seemed unstoppable, a man completely wrapped up in himself and his wild dreams.
Sevrik’s emails had letterheads with his rank and office clearly displayed, and the text of his emails was always curt. Wodan wondered if he had been promoted so quickly, had even become the Head of Guard itself, simply because he was a man that it was easier to obey than to command. Professor Korliss wrote hundreds of emails to students concerning his diverse studies. These emails tapered when he became Department Head of Humanities, then increased sharply when he gave up the position in order to focus on teaching again, some ten years ago. Wodan realized that many of these emails were over twenty years old, and some of the earliest ones were nearly forty years old, putting the three in their... sixties? Wodan hadn’t realized they were so old. None of them seemed old.
Wodan looked through Vachs’s emails to the three, then found a series of emails he had written to other people. There was nothing at all incriminating. In fact, they were boring to read, and noteworthy only because the man could speak without saying anything. Wodan whizzed through these messages when they came up. Wodan found some emails between Shem Udo and Sevrik; sometimes, Udo seemed barely literate; other times not, and these Wodan assumed a secretary wrote for him. Sevrik treated the man dismissively, confident that Udo could offer him nothing. There were no emails regarding the Jebedians or Rudy Seavers, which seemed odd.
He found references to a Project between Didi, Korliss, and Sevrik, the three men who supposedly once “ran” Haven; according to Darel, that meant that they had funneled a lot of money out of the government. Wodan did word searches and looked up everything he could find about Project. He found nothing but references to the thing, but no clear definitions. Many of the references were simply places or times where they agreed to meet in person; it seemed they usually agreed to meet at Korliss’s home to discuss the thing in person. There was something about an “ultimate weapon” which began some thirty years ago, and went on vaguely like this for several years.
Wodan re-read a lot of the emails from that time. What interested him most was the way they discussed humanity in general, as if the species itself was some project-in-development. Vachs, Udo, or the scientists who wrote to Didi - none of them ever wrote in such terms. They were data in, data out, or just idle chatter.
On the one hand, the three men seemed like giants, men unrivaled in position and scope of thought. On the other hand, they seemed to live shadowy double-lives, doing some things in secret and other things in public to get what they wanted from small men like Aegis Vachs and Shem Udo. Wodan remembered something from the dinner party, something Sevrik had said. Something about some good coming out of Didi’s upcoming trial, because of something they had worked on... Wodan was determined to piece the truth together. Why would a scientist, a mytho-philosopher, and a warrior cooperate on something so secret and so far-reaching that it could affect all of humanity? Finally Wodan stumbled on a message made some twenty years ago, and the strangeness of the thing chilled him. It was addressed to Didi from a man called only Childriss, and in great bold letters it said simply
DIDI I’M GOING TO KILL YOU
Wodan did a word search, but found nothing else about Childriss in the entire record.
“Darel,” he said. “Who’s this man Childriss?”
He heard Darel shift behind him, grunt, then he said, “No clue, man.”
Wodan turned quickly. He saw Darel sitting on a low stool, nursing a beer. He looked incredibly sleepy. There were empty cans around him. “You don’t know about this?” said Wodan, pointing at the large letters.
Darel blinked, squinted, said, “Oh-h-h, that. Yeah, it’s kinda weird. That email account was opened and closed on the same day. S’far as I know, that’s the only email that was ever sent from that address.”
Darel looked at a clock. “We better wrap this up soon,” he said. “You gotta get outta here before Psycho gets home.”
* * *
Several Days Ago
“You idiot. You fool. You waste of skin, waste of my time. I can’t believe the depths of your stupidity!”
Luumis Lamsang stood before Nicholas, shoulders drooped, jaw clenched, feeling truly horrified by his inability. Feeling as if he were betraying the simple, true, warm moment that had caused him to turn away from the mass murder he had, only yesterday, committed himself to.
He worked his mouth slowly, trying to apologize.
“I don’t want to hear it, you incompetent idiot!” Nicholas snapped.
Luumis glanced upwards. He saw the man sitting at the desk. He was leaning forward, face scrunched up like melted plastic, eyes blinking rapidly, ears flaming red. The ridiculous purple cap he wore, with its white pom-pom on top, jerked back and forth on Nicholas’s head. The scruffy brute behind him stalked back and forth, arms folded, staring at Luumis. This was the man sworn to protect Nicholas. This man was probably a murderer. Luumis wondered if the man would be ordered to kill him.
“So,” said Nicholas. He tapped the bag on his desk. “We went to all the trouble to find out where all those fat-cats were going to be, we set you up with a bomb small enough to not be noticed but big enough to kill every scumbag in the place, and you say you went a-a-a-all the way
out there - and then didn’t do shit?”
“I, uh,” said Luumis. “Uh, I mean, I did go in, at least...”
“You did what?!”
“I snuck in,” said Luumis. “To the dinner party. I just... I wanted to see what they all looked like, what they were doing...”
“Fool! Where’d you hide the bomb while you were partying with those bourgeois devils?”
“I t-took it in with me...”
Nicholas slapped a hand to his forehead. “You incredible retard,” he said quietly. “You were carrying an explosive device strong enough that the very possession of it could get you probably twenty years in prison, and twenty years for every person associated with it - that’s me, dimwit! - and what did you do, but rub elbows with wealthy criminals in a place crawling with security? Why aren’t you dead yet? Why haven’t I killed you?”
Luumis decided, at that moment, that Nicholas was not the Dove. The Dove, by his writing and his acts, had proven himself to be a great man, a man who fought for justice, a man strong enough to commit so-called “crimes” against an evil state. He was a warrior who fought in the name of love. But this guy Nicholas? He was a prick, a mean little soulless asshole who reveled in the fact that he was degrading Luumis. The Dove would instantly see the mark on Luumis’s soul; this dickwad Nicholas was oblivious to the greatness that burned inside Luumis. Even if Nicholas was possibly lucky enough to work for the Dove, Luumis felt sorry that the Dove had to work with such people.
“Tell me, Lumi,” he wailed. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do with someone like you!”
“Gimme another chance,” said Luumis, weakly. He felt like crying.
“And let you get caught with this thing?” he said, glancing at the bag. “Lumi, a kid like you...” he waved his hands in the air in tight little circles. “I know your kind. You kids, you come in here with a lotta big talk about making the world a better place, but when it comes time to blow up a bunch of stuff, you just can’t go through with it. Worse, you’d probably get caught and end up getting me thrown in prison while-”
[Demonworld #2] The Pig Devils Page 12