From Oblivion's Ashes

by Nyman, Michael E. A.

  “Now, carrying along on that line of thinking, there is something in God’s DNA that answers to the organism as ‘not human’, and he’s excluded from interactions altogether, just like every other animal or plant on the planet. His cells are all but invisible to the organism, and it ignores him. Why does God register as not human? Who knows? But I’ve been trying to isolate the cause for months without success. On a genetic level, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack of needles at the bottom of a lagoon during a Tsunami. It could be, quite literally, anything. Is it the part of his genome that determines the length his canines will reach? Is it the part that determines hair growth? Maybe it’s a recessive gene that hearkens back to early Cro-Magnon man? Or is it a tiny, lost variant of Neanderthal coding that now exists only as a leftover half-bump on God’s DNA string? Whatever it is, it contradicts whatever criteria the organism uses to identify its human prey.”

  “So how does Frank fit in to all this?”

  “Okay. Let’s make use of our starship metaphor again. We land our troops, stun everybody from our target group - let’s say, the Mexicans - and start rounding them all up-”

  “Hold it, hold it… The Mexicans?”

  “It doesn’t’ matter who they are. Pick any ethnic group you like; in this context, they represent the distinction of human cells versus all the rest of the animals and plants in the world. In my metaphor, Starfleet is rounding up Mexicans. They put them in detainment camps, learn Spanish, and basically ignore the rest of the world unless they present themselves as a threat.

  “In order to do this, they would first need a way of identifying Mexicans, a means of separating them out from all the other peoples of the world. They wouldn’t want to accidentally pick up any Germans or Australians, would they? So they use their super-computers to create a scanner that distinguishes Mexicans from non-Mexicans. The problem is that this scanner isn’t flawless. In fact, it’s only accurate 99.99995 percent of the time, and every once in a blue moon, something pops up in the system that the programming doesn’t know how to handle.

  “For example…God? Even though he’s Mexican, for some reason God keeps coming up on their scanners as Swedish. So Starfleet warns him off, pushes him out of the way, and goes back to hunting Mexicans. Doesn’t matter what he does. They believe he’s Swedish. Not only do they not speak his language, they don’t have the diplomatic reach to go around arresting Swedish citizens. So God gets a pass.

  “Frank, on the other hand, is Mexican-American, and they snap him up right away. Later, after he’s in their system, however, they get a better look at his passport, realize the mistake, and release him. Before he can hit the streets, however, they re-discover him, re-arrest him, and the whole process rinses and repeats. He’s a never actually processed like the rest of the Mexicans, but due to being caught up in the system, he’s never actually set free either. Instead of being processed, he’s sitting, handcuffed, in the police station all day. He’s mingling with the police. He eats lunch with them, goes to the bar with them, talks sports with them, and after a certain length of time, they start to believe he is one of them. Maybe he starts to think he’s one of them too.”

  He frowned, as if trying to decide which was most true.

  “Either way, it hardly matters,” he shrugged. “He’s almost certainly gone insane by now. But when zombie-Frank is sufficiently moved to start shouting his problems in the police station, Starfleet gets confused and thinks it’s another crew member talking. And Frank… can’t stop thinking about… Cassandra.”

  He leaned back in his chair with a confident expression.

  “We’re responsible for that conclusion,” he said, “and we’re learning more each day. It’s absolute nonsense to prosecute me with murder. I think that should be obvious by now, even to the unimaginative, closed mind of a police detective, that I am innocent. Now, get these shackles off of me!”

  Marshal stirred, a look of irritation crossing his face, but Krissy was quicker, and she placed a hand on his shoulder. He caught the cue, and kept silent.

  “I’m not so sure, Nicholas,” Krissy said. “Let’s explore a little, shall we? The way I remember the zombie-Frank incident, it wasn’t actually your department that got the whole ball rolling, was it?”

  She couldn’t have gotten a more dramatic reaction if she’d punched him in the stomach.

  “What? I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes,” Krissy said, “you do. There was already a growing mass of opinion regarding zombie-Frank, wasn’t there? The idea to confront him with a photo of Cassie came from somewhere else, didn’t it?”

  “Don’t!” Scratchard was a mask of disgust. “Just don’t! There is no possible way that you could relate that… his nonsense to our discussion here today!”

  “It goes to motive, Nick. Do you remember why we first came to you, Nick? Do you remember who first proposed the idea? And most of all, do you remember why?”

  “This is ridiculous!”

  “It was God, wasn’t it? He had a different theory, didn’t he? And it was his theory that inspired Cesar to propose the photograph idea. It was only after that started catching fire that Marshal suggested we’d be smart to run it past our resident super-scientist.”

  “Which showed good sense,” Scratchard said. “Marshal comes from a scientific background, and isn’t one to-”

  “What was God’s theory, Nick?”

  “Do you mean,” Scratchard answered with icy sharpness, “his infantile suggestion that zombie-Frank was haunted by the ghost of Frank?”

  Krissy shrugged. “Do you object to that idea?”

  Scratchard’s response exploded from him like a burst of steam.

  “Of course, I object!” he shrieked. “It’s superstitious rubbish! Are you mad? I provide the community with hard science and real data, and God jumps up and usurps all reasonable dialogue with a plot from the Scooby Doo show! Do you know what is starting to happen? He’s starting to get followers! Idiot! There are morons who are actually starting to believe that this sick, brain-addled man…”

  He trailed off, his eyes widening.

  “Goes to motive,” he said, recalling her earlier words. “Are you actually suggesting that my… my contempt... might be a motive for murder? Unbelievable! Oh, bravo, detective! And here I accused you of being unimaginative!”

  “It tracks, doesn’t it?” Krissy said, smiling coldly. “People are crediting him - not you - for eliminating the threat of zombie-Frank, aren’t they? It’s well known that you never liked him, and now there are more people are listening to his theories than yours. That has to be driving you crazy, right? Maybe, out of jealousy, you did attempt to murder him, and are only trying to cover your ass with all this talk of research. It’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “Jealous?” Scratchard demanded in outrage. “Because he is more popular than me? Are you a complete idiot? Why not go and ask Masterpiece Theatre if they’re jealous of the Teletubbies, just because they get more viewers? Ask anyone. My ego mass is substantial enough to shake planets in their orbits and remains, I assure you, unassailable by a foolish prat with wild delusions of grandeur.”

  “Well, you’ve got me there,” Krissy admitted.

  “Besides,” he added. “There’s that word ‘murder’ again. Can you not, at least, wait to see if he actually dies before you accuse me of a premeditated murder I do not even believe will happen?”

  “Attempted murder is a serious offense too, Professor,” Marshal said, stirring in his chair. “But you make a fair point. How about we recap the actual crime? According to witnesses, God was in one of the common rooms, surrounded by a number of children who had come to listen to him talk. What’s your side of the story?”

  “But God,” a young boy asked, “how did an elephant wind up on the fiftieth floor of an business building? That’s crazy.”

  “It is crazy,” God agreed. “Elephants don’t belong in office towers, do they? They get in the way, and no
work gets done. But there were some people – there almost always are – who wanted elephants to be a bigger part of their everyday lives, so they made some calls, and – presto! – suddenly there was an elephant running amok in the middle of the office tower.

  “When the CEO of this particular office building heard of this, he started to panic. What was he going to do? He didn’t know anything about elephants. He was a businessman. But he calmed himself. Maybe, he thought, he could just ignore the elephant and pretend it wasn’t there. Maybe, no one would notice.”

  God exhaled a deep breath, shaking his head.

  “After a week,” he said, “and several incidental tramplings, the CEO knew that this plan wasn’t going to work. It had turned out that elephants were extremely noticeable.”

  Several children giggled at this.

  “So, with great reluctance, he summoned his smartest executives, a whole army of them, and ordered them to go and find out what an elephant was.

  “ ‘We can’t keep ignoring the elephant in the room,’ he told them. ‘It has apparently smashed out all the lights, interfered with smooth delivery of the mail, stomped on all the potted plants, and eaten every last peanut in the building. Go and find out what we’re dealing with, then come back and tell me what we should do.’

  “So the executives went to the fiftieth floor, but because it was so dark now with all the lights smashed out, they couldn’t see what the elephant looked like. Instead, they were all reduced to feeling around in the dark. It took some time, but eventually they all found the information they came for and returned to the CEO.”

  “Did any of the executives get stomped?” a little boy asked.

  “Oh several,” God said, “but since they were executives, everyone just assumed they were taking late lunches. The important news came from the ones who got back.

  “ ‘I have the answer, sir!’ the first executive said. ‘The common elephant is a long, constantly changing, snaky thing that picks you up and smashes you into the ceiling when you grab it, making you see pretty colors. I recommend that we worship it, dress it up in all kinds of pretty, colored costumes on holidays, and hopefully, it’ll smash our competition for us.’

  Again, the children giggled.

  “The CEO was shocked. He hadn’t expected this kind of answer. He was just about to speak, when another executive jumped forward.”

  “ ‘He’s wrong, sir,” the second executive cried out. ‘The elephant is a hard, sharp, pointy, sword-like thing, that stabs you when you try to grab it and makes you bleed. I recommend that we offer it a cup of blood, and hopefully, it will stab our competition for us.’

  “ ‘No, sir,” another executive broke in. “The elephant is a big, heavy thing that sits on you, squashing you flat until the tremendous weight of it is so great you cannot breathe. I recommend that we obey the elephant in everything, flatten ourselves to the floor, and hopefully, it will squash our competition for us.

  “Then yet another executive stepped forward, and said, ‘Sir. All these people are speaking nonsense. I consulted the Enlightenment encyclopedia, and learned everything that there is to know about elephants all at once. I’m happy to report that elephants are, to judge by their picture, only one inch tall, vegetarian, and incidentally, only live in parts of Africa and India. We are all worried for nothing. I recommend that we simply pick it up in our palms, move it to another building, and it will quickly become our competition’s problem.’”

  “That’s not how you get rid of an elephant,” a little girl laughed.

  “I know, right?” God said, making a face.

  “Rubbish,” said a voice from the corner.

  Several people looked around at this interruption.

  “Oh yes,” God said, offering a slight smile, “I forgot. There was also one executive who, upon reaching the fiftieth floor, explored the darkness and did not manage to find an elephant at all. ‘It’s all a crock, sir,’ he told the CEO. ‘I checked, and there is no elephant. All the damage was caused by nothing more than people panicking because they were afraid of the dark. I recommend that we fix the lights, and likewise inform our competition the truth about elephants. Elephants are bad for business all round.”

  “Very cute,” Scratchard said, standing up from his chair in the corner. The chess set on the small stool next to him spilled pieces across the floor as he stood. “And what, if I might ask, was the fate of this last enlightened executive? Did they listen to his wise advice?”

  “They would have,” God admitted, “if they had not found him later, mysteriously trampled to death next to the peanut section of the snack bar. It was a shame, really. The poor, confused CEO was left to choose from the other, obviously less enlightened executives, and the business has gone downhill ever since.”

  “Well, that’s irony for you, I suppose,” Scratchard said, coming over to stand next to God. “If I may, however, I would like to propose an alternate ending.”

  “By all means,” God said agreeably. “Let’s hear it.”

  Scratchard smiled thinly at God, ignoring the audience completely.

  “The final executive,” he said, “called an exterminator.”

  God said nothing, but the children were appalled.

  “You can’t kill the elephant,” a little boy exclaimed. “That would be cruel.”

  “It would make you a murderer,” another agreed.

  “Elephants are peaceful animals,” a little girl scolded him primly. “They’re majestic, and they make everyone feel happy. It’s not the elephant’s fault that it’s in the office building.”

  “You are absolutely correct, my dear,” Scratchard said, looking at the little girl and placing a hand on God’s shoulder. “But what you don’t understand is that exterminators these days are peaceful too. They wouldn’t kill the elephant. Their weapon would be a tranquilizer dart that would put it to sleep. That way, it could be rescued from the office tower and safely transported to a zoo, where an elephant should be. Then, it could live out its days behind protective bars, safe and secure, for the exclusive viewing pleasure of children, disbelieving parents, and history professors seeking tenure. That doesn’t sound so bad, does it? And by extension, this wise executive would have removed the elephant from an environment where it so clearly did not belong.”

  He looked at God with a wry grin. “No more tramplings.”

  The children considered this ending.

  “Well,” the girl said. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “Yeah,” a boy said. “I like zoos.”

  “History professors?” God asked, looking amused.

  “Why not?” Scratchard’s eyes narrowed. “If you would relegate human history to blind fools, fumbling in the dark, then let me personally be your final executive. And if I’m to be blind, then let me be Loki’s puppet, the blind god Hodor in Norse mythology. And let my tranquilizing dart pierce the elephantine and obsolete God of Light and condemn him to eternal slumber, that the world be renewed in Ragnorok’s Age of Illumination.”

  God’s smile grew bigger. “Why Nicholas! You’re-”

  “Look, everyone!” Scratchard shouted, pointing. “It’s the Easter Bunny!”

  All the children turned to look in surprise and disbelief.

  “Thus,” he muttered, “I throw my dart at thee, dear brother.”

  With a quick move, he seized God’s head firmly. Then, with his other hand, he removed a syringe from his pocket and deftly injected its contents into the base of God’s skull, right where the spinal cord entered the brain.

  “Ow!” God complained in surprise, even as Scratchard removed the needle. “What in the world…? You stabbed me, Nicholas! You actually… stabbed… Oh!”

  And he slumped to the floor, even as the children present began to shriek.

  “You actually said those words?” Krissy asked incredulously. “ ‘Thus, I fling my dart?’”

  “Well, he started it,” Scratchard said irritably, “preaching to children, with all his p
retentious metaphorical garbage. How could you not expect me to meet him on the allegorical field of battle?”

  “You said that?” Krissy shook her head in disbelief. “What you’re describing is pre-meditated, unrepentant, cold-blooded murder, Scratchard! Jesus Christ, you even tried-”

  “He’s not going to die!” Scratchard insisted.

  “But that was the organism in that syringe, wasn’t it?”

  “Well… yes.”

  Krissy shuffled some papers, as she came around to stand next to him.

  “And your research team,” she said, holding up one of them so he could read it. “They all have testified that the sample in that syringe had been artificially induced into accepting God’s blood as viable prey. You mixed his blood with other human blood so that it would take his blood by accident in the bargain.”

  “A great success of ours,” Scratchard said. “To complete your thought, yes, the organism in that syringe recognized God as prey.”

  “Are you insane?”

  Scratchard frowned. “I don’t understand. The danger of actual transformation was infinitesimal. Even with all our efforts, God remains immune. However, the knowledge to be gained from even a short term infection would be astronomical to our research, potentially leading to-”

  “I think I’ve heard enough,” Marshal interrupted. “I read the report on my way over, Professor Scratchard, and you’re not being honest with me. According to your research team, there was a great deal of uncertainty on whether God would be immune to this version of the organism.”