Now, you have to understand the context. The Union just loves to play test-of-loyalty games. The odds are very good that UV and IR sensors have the elevator covered six ways from Sunday and they’re just hoping I’ll try to escape now, when they’d be justified in shooting me down. It’s not as good as resisting arrest, but attempting escape is right up there on the list of causes of death for Union operatives in trouble. I decide to stay right where I am and wait for the power to come back.
The guard has his own ideas.
Maybe three or four minutes after the power goes out, he leans down to me and whispers, “Don’t worry, Mr. Albacastle, we’ll get you out of here just fine. "
“Of course you will, ” I say, while wondering what’s up with the whispering. “As soon as the power comes back..
“No, sir, it’s not that, ” the guard interrupts, continuing to whisper. “I mean out of this facility and onto the Freedom Road. ”
This has got to be a trap set for me. The Freedom Road is one of the most nauseating gatherings of Union dissidents I know of, legendary for its collective self-righteousness and tendency toward religious delusion. Naturally the guard assigned to me right now happens to sympathize. Of course. Uh huh. Pull the other one—it jingles. “Thank you, but the whole point of this is that I’m entirely loyal to the Union. I intend to clear myself. Heading out as a notorious fugitive would not look good on my record. ”
“Sir, this is no laughing matter, ” he insists. “You have to get out of here before it’s all destroyed. "
“Destroyed? ”
“Yes, sir. The paperwork’s in process for a general sterilization after extended contamination on the memetic and bacteriological levels. They say that someone violated containment protocols on hematovore specimens and besides, we have too many troublemakers. ”
“Do they now. ”
He’s oblivious to the irony in my voice. “Yes, sir. But you need not to go up in smoke. That’s why I have to do this now. ” Suddenly he’s tightening up the straps holding me in place and prying open the elevator doors, illuminating the space with a pocket flashlight tucked into my handcuffs. Oh, shit, the realization dawns on me, the fucker’s serious about this.
“Tell me, Agent, " I say as cautiously as I can. “Why me? ”
“You’ve been so close to the truth, ” he continues with that deeply annoying, earnest tone, “that the Road needs you to help them prepare. ”
“So they’re going to break out other prisoners? ” That would be surprisingly prosaic for that crew, and something I could actually get behind in at least some cases.
“No, not that. ” He gets impatient. “I mean that you’ve had personal encounters with the real locus of sin in the world, and we need your experience. ” My hope immediately fades; I can’t get behind this in any case I can think of.
“That’s rather unusual terminology, ” I finally manage. “Has there been an update to policy on discussion of ethical consequences I missed? ”
“This isn’t about the Union, ” he snaps, “they’re part of the problem. The real problem is that the Lord of Sin is gathering up those who bear his curse, and whatever he’s up to, it can’t be any good. ” By this time he’s got the doors opened and is pushing me down a hallway lit only by the battery-powered secondaries. Not all of those, either. Could we be under attack by someone able to engage in a bit of photovoltaic damping? That wouldn’t be good.
I decide to keep it honest. “I don’t believe in anything like your Lord of Sin and certainly haven’t seen anything to suggest that I’ve run into him. So what the hell are you talking about? ”
He stops for a moment, and sounds surprised. “The Lord of Sin, of course! The first murderer! Cain! Don’t the boys in Ragnarok Strat Ops spend any time looking at these things, even if they don’t believe them? ”
The truth is that we spend a lot of time look' ing at a lot of bullshit, and I have computers to keep the archives constantly indexed precisely so that I don’t have to remember it myself. No human brain is big enough to encompass all the ways people try to explain creepy strange things making their lives miserable. “Assume for the moment I haven’t and brief me, " I try. I look around, noticing more of the battery lights flick' ering. I’m having trouble working out just where we are. Beyond a vague sense of service passages at ground level and immediately below, I frankly don’t have much of a clue. If anything happens to Sin Watcher Boy here, I could be in real trouble.
“It turns out that there’s more truth to some of the biblical early history than you might think, ” he explains. “There actually is an individual called Cain, and has been for as long as we can dig up records. And he’s got a power that simply doesn’t fit Union models at all... which is just why I’m with the Road now. I was part of a field team assigned to track and debunk some of these stories in ex-Soviet territories, and we found that we couldn’t. ”
“Uh huh, ” I say noncommittally. Ex-Soviet? More likely that he got his brains addled by leaking toxic waste or something of the sort.
“You don’t believe me yet, but that’s okay. " That surprises me, since I don’t usually expect that level of awareness in crypto-religious fanatics. “You’ll find out soon enough, I think. ” He looks around the comer. “Damn. ” I wheel myself around to see, and agree with him: half a dozen steps up to an emergency exit. The backup lights there are completely off, I notice, too. “Hold on, I’ve done this before, ” he says, and almost before I can react, he’s managed to tilt me back and haul me up all six steps. He’s scarcely even breathing hard. “Hospital orderly, ” he comments by way of explanation.
Then we’re heading out of the main building and along a covered walkway, past currently vacant truck stalls. All at once the canopy ends, letting me look right up into the night sky. The moon is right about new. (I shake my head at chat. Memory tells me it was nearly full that first night in Bosnia. Of course memory inserts the full moon often into moments of emotional significance; I’ve seen the studies. I just hate confirming a generalization about human frailty like that. ) A flash of movement catches my eye, and I turn to see dark, more or less human figures running across the lawn substantially faster than most actual humans can, and leaping up a full story and more to clamber up the complex’s buildings.
“Vampires, ” the guard says, just as I say, “Hematovores. ” Same thing in practical terms. He takes hold of the wheelchair’s handgrips and starts pushing me just short of a flat-out run. At the inner perimeter, he pulls me to a halt alongside one of the security vans, pushes open the side door, and manages to hoist me in without too much effort. Once he’s got the motor running, I say, “I’d like to watch for a minute. I’ve never actually seen them in operation like this, not at liberty. ”
He glances at me before turning back to survey the whole complex. “You don’t think they’ll come for you, too? ”
“Not so fast that you’ll have no time to respond. ” That pleases him, I can tell. It’s good to have something to be pleased about, because these fuckers are destroying the whole place. They’re astoundingly strong, for starters, capable of punching through the reinforced doors and windows and yanking out the shattered remains. They’re fast, and they’re keeping up longer than I’d expect, knowing as I do that they rely on finite stores of blood and related chemicals. Efficient bloodsuckers, then.
The guards inside and the automated turrets outside are both firing away, but it doesn’t seem to do much good. When one of the hematovores is silhouetted on the rooftop, I can see blood fly out of the back of her head (from a well-placed sniping shot) only to curve around in mid-air and plunge back in. Before the thing’s even out of my line of sight, the wound seems to have healed over. I’ve never seen a report of anything like that.
Nor has my rescuer, apparently. But unlike me, he thinks he’s got this answer. “This is just what I was going to tell you about next, ” he whispers while three vampires take turns pulling technicians out of one of the second-floor labs, ev
iscerating them, and drinking the arterial spray.
“What can your Cain have to do with this? ” I’m actually more curious than angry.
“I told you, ” he says with a touch of petulance. “Cain was—is—the first vampire. Whatever it is that folklore records as the mark of God on him, something happened to him to make him immortal but dependent on blood. And he can pass the power-slash-curse on to others. ”
“So the heirs of an early Semitic clan are ripping up our friends? ” Sometimes flippancy is what keeps you together. I’m watching more massive gunfire tear through the hematovores with deadly precision, and I’m watching it not matter at all to them. If I were in among my colleagues, I’d be dead or dying now myself.
“The last heirs, yes. ”
“Ehr The kookery has just taken a turn for the unexpected.
“That’s the rest of the story, ” he says while slowly backing the van up toward a gateway that seems intact and away from the hematovores’ area of interest. “Cain is taking his gift back. You saw it in Bosnia. ”
“One of the hematovores is killing the others?"
“That’s about as useful as saying that the chariot of the sun is passing beneath us now on its way to the gates of the east. Just because you can describe a phenomenon in reductionist terms doesn’t mean that it has just a reductionist truth. "
I prefer not to concede any merit to that claim, even though I’ve argued it myself in other contexts. “I’ll stick with my observations and evidence until something better comes along. But say you’re right. Certainly there was something preying on the victims of EU1. What’s that got to do with this? ”
“These are the ones allowed to remain. They have disproportionate strength because what power Cain hasn’t yet taken back is now distributed among fewer hosts. ”
“That’s it? ”
“That’s it. ” He’s concentrating on turning around to drive through the gate, so he doesn’t have time to notice or react when I grab his gun. I shoot him once in the head and twice in the chest, and push out the body for the hematovores to take care of, if they want it. Then I maneuver myself behind the wheel, unfold the rods I use to poke the pedals when I have to drive a vehicle that isn’t already adapted for legless operation, and drive off. Behind me, years of work and two hundred dedicated men and women all perish.
* * *
Robert Like most shamans, I usually operate alone, but that doesn’t mean I lack contacts. As I prowl along the sidewalk, hoping to pick up some residue of Mike or Louie’s death that might help me understand more, I think about people I might contact.
The more I think about it, the more I’m reminded of one of Bruce Cockburn’s songs. “If this were the last night of the world, what would I do different? ” I look up at the nearby skyscrapers, several of them surrounded by scaffolds and cranes, and think of them never brought to completion. Two pregnant women sit on a stoop the next block down. Will their children be born? In the tree that provides me a scrap of shade here, a young male robin sings his mating song. Will it matter? It’s very tempting to just pull myself into a hole and wait for however long it might be.
I smile briefly at the thought of that spacecrafter Anders. The news would make his day. Didn’t he say he wanted to play his final concert someplace prominent, like the Arc de Triomphe? Maybe he can have enough time to get the gig together and divine out the right moment for it. Then there’s my one-time mentor, the mostly crazed anti-Technocracy one-man guerrilla movement, Xoca. If I tell him, he’ll just find some way to blame it on the Technocracy and try to figure out the biggest blaze of glory he can manage in the time remaining.
There’s a rustle in the gutter despite the absence of breeze, and I spot the Rubbish tumbling along through old newspapers and wrappers. Its antics make me smile. “Hello, ” I greet it. The passersby will just see me talking to the gutter, but as long as I don’t make any trouble for them, they’ll take it in stride and dismiss me as one more braindamaged veteran of the drug wars. New Yorkers are good at that.
The Rubbish waves a classified ads section back at me. “Hello, Robert! It is a happy day to be with you, and to be just me. ”
“What was it like to be doubled that way? ” Not that I really expect a good answer from a creature that can’t really talk about anything but the present, but then life is full of surprises. For a little while yet, at least.
Pieces of the Rubbish flutter in uncoordinated manner. “I am just me. Not comfortable to be me and someone else, too. I like being me, not want to be part of everything. Not want the judge. ”
“You know about Telos and the rest of it? ”
“I know it in your knowing, Robert. The necessary wisdom flows between us. I understand what your soul needs me to understand. So I understand that it is time to judge. ”
I squat a little closer, ignoring the occasional disparaging glance thrown my way by the young men come to stock up at the liquor store for the night’s impending parties. “What does that mean to you? ”
The Rubbish makes a little hand to point at the rest of itself. “I am all these things. Someone looks at them and says this is good, that is bad, and gives me a reward for the good. ” The voice turns a little pleading. “A reward is nice, yes? ”
I chuckle at that and gather several cigarette butts into a loose pyramid. The Rubbish gratefully sucks on the remaining intact portions of tobacco. “It is nice, ” I say. “But tell me about judgment. ” “I am judged and I rest. All spirits rest. ”
“Forever? ” But there’s no hope with that; the concept just passes the Rubbish by. We set the subject aside and chat about the disturbances in the neighborhood. The Rubbish can still feel the echoes of Mike and Louie’s prison, and seems to have a general sense of distress about the whole thing.
In the midst of our conversation, someone taps me on the shoulder and says, “Hey, ’scuse me? ” I turn around to see... truthfully, I’m not good at judging the age of guys like this. He might be fifteen or thirty, with his slightly out-of-date skateboarder style and goatee. Physically he’s intact, but his aura is one of the most disturbing things I’ve seen. The top of his aural crown is completely gone, and wisps of his essence are trailing out the top. And since there’s a shower of spirit rain now, the spiritual equivalent of black sludge is falling in. He seems alert, or at least no less glazed than most skater dudes, but I fear that he might collapse from the trauma at any moment.
He looks down straight at the Rubbish and waves. “Hey, little trash guy. ” The Rubbish seems as surprised as I am, but waves back. ,
“Um, ” I begin in my boldest, most confident way. “Hey. Um. What can I do for you? ”
“I’m not sure, but. It’s like this. I was sitting at the bus stop over there, and thinking about the last time I saw 2001 all good and stoned. I could see that red eye of HAL’s almost like it was floating in front of me, and then there was this big ow like someone smacked me in the back of the head, only not with a hammer. You know. "
“Actually, I do, I think. ” If the Red Star makes a habit of manifesting in pop cultural terms, this could all get very, very messy indeed.
“So I’m sitting there with God’s own headache, and then I look around me. Looks like almost everyone’s on fire in a cheap movie, oozing little bits of smoke. Except you. Well, you and the garbage dude here. You’re not smoking, you’re all crisp. So I figured that you might know what I should be doing. ” He clutches his head, and I can readily believe the spirit rain hurts here.
“Here, give me your hat for a sec. ” He hands over his Yankees cap without a word. I tug on it, roll the lining around a bit, and pick up little dusty fragments of the Rubbish to run along the band. That should provide him with some protection for the moment—enough to get more information, maybe. It sounds like this guy just went through a spontaneous shamanic awakening, and obviously I’d like to know more. “Okay, here you go. ” I hand it back and gesture at the lobby of my hotel. “Let’s get in out of the street. You�
��ll think better there. ”
“Okay, makes sense, ” he says. I can see that the hat is indeed bouncing off some of the spirit rain, but when he turns his head to look at a couple of gorgeous women across the street, black sludge oozes out of his ears. The unawakened don’t see it, but they can sense something’s wrong, and they’re all giving us some extra space. I don’t think the skater’s noticed yet, preoccupied as he is.
I introduce myself once we’re seated, and explain that yes, I’m sort of a traveling advisor to people having problems like his. I try to steer clear of shamanic imagery, since it often confuses or irritates people already distracted by weird-to-them developments. He says his name is Lenny, a good old Brooklyn name, and that up until now he never had anything like this except, you know, on really good dope. He wouldn’t be the first latent shaman whose talent lay forever untapped and brought to the surface only in altered states.
Lenny looks worse and worse as we talk. How much spirit rain got into him, anyway? He starts quietly freaking out. “Everything’s alive, Bob. It’s all crawling around and it’s all talking at me and I can’t handle this. ” The desk clerk gives me the hairy eyeball. I shrug, but figure I need to get Lenny out of there. And honestly, I would have liked to, except that fate intervenes—or judgment maybe. Lenny looks down at his hands and sees the individual spirits that normally merge their identities to make up the human soul. They’re unraveling. Fast. I grab for the major strands, but the things burn as if they’d been dipped in acid. He has time for one very loud shriek before his soul positively explodes in a dark mist, and then his body collapses for want of anything to animate it.
World of Darkness - [Time of Judgment 03] - Judgment Day Page 19