Acts of God

by James Beauseigneur

  Charging to where he had left Decker's truncated head and body, Christopher grasped the sword, dropped to one knee, and with all his might brought the edge of the blade down squarely just in front of Decker's right ear, splitting his skull from side to side with a sharp crack and spilling Decker's brains out upon the floor.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Signs

  "WHAT?!!" Christopher shouted, still seething with rancor. Cautiously his office door opened and Robert Milner came in.

  "You said you wanted to see me . . ." Milner began sheepishly, even before spotting the decapitated remains on the floor.

  Christopher shook his finger at Milner as he spoke. "I want the World Health Organization, the military, the security forces, and the police to do whatever it takes to round up and execute every last follower of Yahweh. I don't want any to escape — not one!!"

  Milner heard Christopher's words but his attention was now clearly focused on the carnage at his feet. "What happened?" he asked. There was just enough of Decker's face showing for Milner to be relatively certain it was him.

  Except for a glare, Christopher did not answer. "And tell the guards that I want the prisoners to suffer before they die. Beat the living shit out of them! Humiliate them! Rape them!

  Torture them! Mutilate them! Tell the guards to do whatever they want to them — whatever it takes — but I don't want to see any more of them smiling before they die!"

  "I'll take care of it immediately," Milner answered obediently, finally giving Christopher his full attention.

  "And get someone up here to clean up this mess," Christopher scowled, finally acknowledging the existence of Decker's remains.

  "I'll call Security. I guess I can say he attacked you," Milner said, and then looking at the two cleaved pieces of Decker's head separated by at least a yard of carpeted floor, he added, "but I'm not sure how to explain the ... uh ... circumstances."

  "No one will ask!" Christopher said slamming his fist on the desk. "Just make sure you get someone up here that we can count on to keep his damn mouth shut; and make it clear to him that if he says anything, he'll get the same!"

  Milner nodded nervous agreement.

  "Tell him to dispose of the body at one of the execution facilities."

  Milner nodded again and reached for the phone to make the call, but then remembered something and stopped. "I talked to Jackie Hansen as she was leaving a little while ago. She knows Decker was here."

  Christopher shook his head, discounting Milner's concern. "Jackie Hansen is mine," he said. "She's always been mine."

  Friday, July 17 — Central Iraq

  Three miles north ofJadad, Iraq, along the banks of the Euphrates River, a small team of civil engineers completed the final steps to close the massive water gate and thus divert the flow of the great river through the Wadi Ghazila to the lake called Mileh Tharthdr. No one on the team was sure why they had been given this assignment. The gate had originally been put here to control flooding, but there was no risk of that this time of year. The rainy season would not start for at least another month. If the gate remained closed for long, navigation farther down the river toward Babylon would become impossible. But there was nothing in the order that said when the gate should be reopened, only that it was to be closed. The order gave no reason for any of it. It said only to do it, and so they did.

  Friday, July 24 — Chongqing, China

  Su Lien Chu finished her bath and began to dry herself, taking extra care not to irritate the numerous painful sores that scarred her body. As she stood naked before her mirror, she shook her head in disgust at the sheer ugliness of the open wounds. The largest formed a rough circle that had grown to about six inches in diameter at the base of her neck and spread out onto her right breast. "I hate you!" she said in her native dialect as she looked toward heaven, and began to weep. Holding her face in her hands until she was composed, she wiped the tears with the backs of her hands. When she looked in the mirror again she averted her eyes to try not to look at the large lesion. Nonetheless, she could not help but see that there had been a change: the sore seemed to be smaller. Staring in wide-eyed disbelief, she held her hand up to the sore to get a rough measure. It was clearly smaller, and she soon realized that so were all the other sores on her body.

  She decided to test for a connection between what she had said and what happened. "I hate you," she said again, this time in a clinical manner without much feeling. There was no apparent change. "I hate you!" she yelled emphatically. Now the change was immediate; the sores shrank before her eyes. That was proof enough. "Damn you, God. I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" Yelling as loud as she could, her eyes twinkled with delight as she watched the ulcerous maledictions diminish and finally disappear altogether.

  From a few similar events word spread quickly of the cure and within hours the reports reached the international news media. At about 2:00 p.m. Babylonian time, Robert Milner released a statement confirming that this was, indeed, the first of the three signs which Christopher had promised. "As we curse Yahweh," Milner said in his release, "we take away his control over the earth. The most immediate result is the healing of our own sores. But as we join our voices," the statement continued, "and unite in our cry of liberation, we set in motion the greater process that will lead to Yahweh's ultimate downfall and to our own glorious ascendancy. We must curse him unceasingly, even when our sores are gone. We must join as one voice, continuing our defiance of the tyrant, and carry that defiance as our banner and our shield into battle against Yahweh and our enemies in Petra until all Humankind is free."

  Milner's statement concluded with the promise that the second sign would follow in one week and the third, one week after that.

  Friday, July 31,4 N.A.

  As morning rolled across the face of the planet and the people of the world awoke in turn, no one had long to wonder about the second sign. If the sudden and overwhelming feeling of strength and vitality was not enough to convince them, it took only one look in the mirror to confirm its reality. Five, ten, fifteen years of youth had been restored to older people in a single night. Tens and scores of pounds of useless fat had simply melted away, leaving the beneficiaries trim and strong. Those already in good health sensed new power rushing through them. A general outbreak of health, energy, and stamina, far exceeding what had resulted even from the communion, filled the people with the assurance that what Christopher had promised was true, and gave them hope of victory over their foes in the coming battle at Petra.

  6:30 p.m., Thursday, August 7, 4 N.A. — Petra

  Chaim and Rose Levin walked the steep path up the mountain called Umm Al Biyara, from which they could view most of Petra. Below them the rows and columns of tens of thousands of tents, set off by interwoven strips of garden, formed a huge quilt pattern which seemed to stretch on forever. Scattered about throughout the lush valley, groves of fruit trees offered their harvest to all who came to pick. Bisecting Petra from east to west, the crystal clear waters of the wadi Mousa flowed into their ringed refuge, directed there through an ancient tunnel cut through the mountain. And in the morning, they were sure, the life-sustaining manna would again settle upon their camp, just as it had six mornings each week for the past three and a half years. Neither Chaim nor Rose had said much since they set out on their trek — ostensibly for their evening walk — but both had the same thing in mind.

  "It's all happening just as they said," Chaim whispered, as much to himself as to his wife as they reached the end of their journey and stopped to rest. "All of this," he said with a broad wave of his hand over the valley below, "the plagues, the extermination of the Christian fundamentalists. And soon, no doubt," he said nodding, "the armies of the world will be at our door."

  7:40 p.m. — Famborough, England (south of London)

  lan Wilder sat on the bare wooden floor leaning against his assigned bunk in the World War II vintage barracks. In his lap sat one of the four books he had been given to read about the New Age. A
fter three weeks of waiting with literally nothing else to occupy his time, he decided to try to read one of them in earnest, instead of just flipping through the pages. Three weeks before he had been assured that this was not a prison and that he would only be here long enough for his paperwork to be 'out-processed' and then he'd be returned to fulfill a useful role in society. He had taken the communion and the mark of his own free will, they reminded him, and that meant he was a citizen of the New Age, with all the associated rights and privileges. It did not matter, they had told him at the time, that he had made the choice only minutes before he was scheduled to be executed; only minutes, he remembered, before his wife — refusing to listen to reason and just too stubborn to see logic — had submitted to her own death. It was just as well he supposed: she never would have let go of her old religious beliefs and never would have been happy in the New Age. Still, he was glad that he had not had to watch her die.

  It all seemed like a dream now. In a single day they had been betrayed by his brother, arrested, loaded into the back of a cattle truck, and sent to be executed. When they arrived they were taken to a large holding cell and crammed in with a hundred others to wait. Next to them, another holding cell was being steadily emptied as its occupants were taken to the guillotine. On the wall in front of the cell, a television screen alternately showed close-ups of the executions and scenes of various prisoners, usually young boys and girls, being brutally raped or mutilated by guards before being taken to their own deaths. Music was playing over the prison's speaker system at ear-splitting volume to drown out any praying or singing of religious songs. lan covered his ears but it offered only minor relief.

  When the other cell was emptied, the guards came to lan's cell and began taking those nearest the door. The executions progressed so rapidly that in minutes only about half the prisoners remained. At about this time, another truckload of people arrived and were put in the other cell to wait. lan stayed close to his wife, though he could not help but feel resentment that she had gotten them into this by insisting that they not take the communion. Soon the guards came and took lan and his wife and eight others from the cell. Going down a series of long corridors, the sound of the music finally faded and, though their ears were still ringing, they could now begin to make out the crack of the falling guillotine blades as they performed their intended function. The sound became more distinct as they were taken out a door into a poorly lit exterior passageway.

  Turning a comer, they came into the open courtyard where the executions were taking place. The scene was overpowering and lan's wife nearly passed out. The man behind lan vomited. Three rows of six guillotines each dropped head after head after head into blood-spattered grey-green plastic barrels until they could hold no more. Bodies were rolled or heaved by brawny men onto conveyors which deposited them unceremoniously into waiting dump trucks. Here and there, bodies which had missed their mark on the conveyor or heads that had bounced and rolled free from the overfull barrels were left where they fell until a convenient time for removal could be found. The cement floor of the courtyard was sloped with a drain in the center, but the blood poured so quickly from the victims' bodies it made a pool several inches deep and formed a continuous whirlpool which emitted a sickening sucking sound over the drain.

  From four other doors, lan could see other prisoners being led in. Apparently, the holding cells he had seen were just two of many in the prison. lan could not believe that the number of those being executed was so high. From the televised executions (which unlike the direct satellite feed to Christopher's office did not have a running tally) he had the impression that no more than a few hundred executions had taken place throughout all of England, and perhaps 20,000 had occurred worldwide. At the current rate, he was certain that number would be exceeded at this one facility in a single day. He remembered watching the first execution on television. The condemned was a particularly vocal fundamentalist from the States, a man who was admired by lan's wife, but whom lan had long thought the world would be better off without. The second and third executions had come a few days later. lan was not familiar with these men but they were said to hold beliefs similar to the first. The executions began to occur more often after that, and while it was now possible to watch the executions from somewhere in the world any hour of the day, the novelty had quickly worn away and few paid much attention unless someone famous was to die.

  What lan Wilder could not have known was just how orchestrated the televised executions had been. Secretary-General Christopher Goodman had personally directed that the number of executions should appear small in the beginning and increase incrementally until the full extent of the daily slaughter was shown. Just as in ancient Rome, it took time for some to build up a tolerance and for others to build up an appetite for the spectacle of so many deaths. And that, after all, was the real purpose for televising the executions: that in their approval or at least in their tolerance of the executions, all were culpable, all were responsible, all shared guilt with those who had actually been the executioners; and with Christopher.

  "Will you take the communion and the mark?" one of the guards asked lan.

  Between the shock at what he saw and the ringing in his ears, lan barely heard the guard. "What?" he asked, and then realizing what the guard must have said, he nodded his head eagerly. "Yes! Yes!" he answered. From the corner of his eye he could see his wife's look of alarm.

  "No! No!" she pleaded.

  "Yes! I want the mark!" he insisted as they pulled her hands away, breaking her hold on him.

  That was the last time he saw her. The guard took him to a clinic in the prison and the communion and mark were administered within minutes. He was then put in a van with others who had made the same choice, and brought to this old military base and assigned to these barracks.

  Now after three weeks the only reality he knew was the barracks, and he wondered, as did the men and women around him, if they'd ever get out. He had heard a rumor that someone in one of the other barracks had been told by someone else that orders had come through to move everyone out in the morning, but he had heard the same rumor two nights before, and still they waited.

  Friday, August 8, 4 N.A.

  This was it. A week had passed and now finally it was the day of the third sign. No one knew for sure what it was to be, but it promised to be big. Excitement was everywhere. The media was filled with predictions and guesses of what the sign would be, but even the psychics were not sure. Christopher had intentionally hidden what the third sign would be and even the best psychics could not — dared not — look beyond the veil to see the secret that lay there. But now it was Friday and soon the veil of secrecy would be lifted and the whole world would know.

  The signs — both the first two and the anticipation of the third — had had their desired effect. Not only did they give a foretaste of the magnificence to come, they also served by their contrast as a constant reminder of the suffering and plagues that had preceded. And together they served to focus attention on what Christopher said must be done at Petra so that even greater suffering did not follow.

  The United Nations, Babylon

  At exactly noon Debbie Sanchez, formerly Decker Hawthorne's second in command and now his replacement, came into the crowded briefing room. In her hand she carried a folder. "I have a statement from the Secretary-General," she said as she took her place at the lectern, opened the folder, and began to read.

  '"At its completion,'" she began as she read, '"the New Age will see the evolution of Humankind into the form of pure spirit energy. In this form, matter will no longer place limits on our abilities. As evidence of what is to come, the third sign will be telekinetic abilities for all Humankind who have taken the communion and the mark. These abilities will not be fleeting, as were the psychic abilities which many experienced over the past three and a half years. Instead, the abilities will be permanent and will grow stronger with time.

  '"Of necessity,'" she continued, '"these capabilities will beg
in on a small scale so that Humankind will be able to adjust and deal with this power in a controlled fashion. Soon, however, as we learn to use the power wisely, it will increase until, ultimately, no power in the universe will be able to stand against it.'"

  Debbie Sanchez closed the folder and looked up to answer questions. The brevity of the statement caught most in the room off guard. "Is that the whole statement?" one reporter asked without waiting to be recognized.

  Another reporter apparently had the same question, and though he did not speak or even give second thought to his desire to look at Debbie Sanchez's folder, suddenly and to his great surprise, his wish was fulfilled as the folder flew from the lectern and into his hands. For a moment the room, as well as the millions who watched the briefing on television, fell silent until the reporter, in comic fashion attempting to appear unruffled, looked in the folder and answered the first reporter's question. "That's all," he said.

  Suddenly, the folder flew again, this time back to Debbie Sanchez, who seemed to understand the power and showed relative comfort with its exercise. "Thank you for the demonstration," she said as she set the folder back down on the lectern and held it there with her hand.

  The room exploded with questions, but before any could be answered other reporters began to experiment on their own, raising chairs off the ground, holding microphones suspended, one raising himself several feet into the air. "I wouldn't try that just yet," Debbie Sanchez said to the airborne journalist. "You'll wind up with a whopper of a headache if you're not careful."