Great White Throne

by J. B. Simmons

  “How did you end up here?” I asked.

  The old man’s wrinkled face went somber. “This is a sad tale.” He looked to Moses. The two of them seemed to communicate without a word. Eventually Moses nodded, and Zhang Tao spoke on. “We do not run from sad tales, for we know the world is fallen. We learn from the suffering, we grow from the trials.”

  He gazed at the floor, his eyes distant as he ran his bony hand along his beard. “It begins with the love of my life. Her name was Xi. Her beauty rivaled the sun. Her energy—” he smiled toward Naomi— “it was like yours. We married fifty-nine years ago, in 2007. We had five children. We raised them in Guangzhou, in our home by the beautiful lake. Our children grew as our church did—slowly at first, and then all at once into adulthood.”

  He paused, staring at me. “I have known the joy of a rich, full life. That is why I know now the meaning of pain and suffering. Remember, Elijah, what does our enemy want most?”

  “To take God’s place?”

  “Yes, and that means in everyone’s soul, too. Think of how he does that. First he must make us weak. He hates God for creating us. He hates us for being free in a way he cannot be. Through many years he has mastered the art of stealing our freedom. For some, he uses pleasure and abundance. For me, he destroyed half of my soul. The devil stole Xi from me. It drove me to anger. I have confessed, even forgiven, but still I feel the anger surge up within me, like a fire I can barely contain.” He closed his eyes and fell silent, but his hands clenched into fists, shaking.

  “What happened?”

  His eyes opened and met mine with a fierce edge. “You see to the heart of things, Elijah. The devil would not be content to let us die in peace, or even in pain. He attacked on a perfect Sunday morning. The spring cherry blossoms dusted the shores of the lake by my church. As I taught our people, Xi sat in the front, smiling at me, encouraging me as always. Don stormed in with a force from the Chinese military. They slaughtered everyone who would not bow to him. Two thousand three hundred sixty-four died. But not Xi. Don made me watch as he extracted memories from her precept. He stole everything she’d seen and heard and lived—our wedding night, every anniversary, every secret. Then Don transferred the memories to a young woman who was with him and, with his eyes on me, he slit Xi’s throat. Androids held me, made me watch, as her life spilled out.”

  Tears filled the old man’s eyes. He started to say more, but his voice broke.

  Brie put her arm around his shoulder. “You don’t have to talk about this.”

  “I do. Elijah must know.” His sad gaze turned back to me. “You will be the one with a chance to speak, and your soul must understand suffering to tell it right. The souls of millions, maybe billions, could be saved.” He pressed his eyes closed, sighed deeply, then continued. “That day, the young woman who stood beside Don wore a slim, silk red dress. She looked at me as Xi had. I knew her, and she knew me. ‘Zhang Tao,’ she said, with all the affection I’d known of my wife. ‘You were always weak. You will never have the strength of my love,’ she taunted, and then she turned to Don Cristo and kissed him. He called her Xing Xing.”

  Xing Xing. The woman who’d been in Don’s tower in Geneva. The rich Chinese woman who had known Don. “Do you know what happened to her after that?” I asked.

  “The woman was the daughter of China’s leading general. I think Don used her to cement his influence with my country’s government. The woman had all the life-force of my Xi, and all her memories, but with a soul hollowed out for evil. Don became her only desire, her only end.” Zhang Tao paused, breathed deep. “Never has my faith been so tested. I think Don did not kill me that day only because he hoped this torture would break me and turn me from God. That would be a greater victory to him than my martyrdom with the rest. But Don underestimates the Lord. He always has. God gave me strength. He used this trial to refine me. Never have my prayers been so focused, so intent on defeating the evil one.”

  The group fell silent after that. Eventually Naomi spoke. “What will you do next?”

  “I will join the order’s last warriors in battle,” Zhang Tao said. “It is a battle we will lose, but we fight because we must. As long as such evil reigns, we live to defeat it. Our Christ is a warrior king.”

  “But…” I tried to find the right words. How could I ask this man, whose ancient body had no strength left in it, how he could expect to challenge Don. “How will you fight?”

  He rose to his feet, swaying slightly. He bent forward and lowered to his knees. He closed his eyes, clasped his hands together, and raised his head to the ceiling. “Like this.”

  “Prayer?” I couldn’t shake my skepticism. “Hasn’t the order been praying against Don all along?”

  Zhang Tao nodded. “And we won’t ever stop.”

  “The order will pray to give you cover,” Moses said.

  “Cover for what? I’m not leaving you again.” Naomi frowned at him the way only a daughter can at her dad. “Where would we go anyway?”

  Zhang Tao was staring at me. Moses and Brie turned to me as well.

  “Well?” Naomi asked again.

  My words came out more confident than I felt. “We go to face Don and the dragon in Jerusalem.”

  Naomi gripped her son tighter. “I know about your dream,” she said, “but how do we know if it means we’re supposed to go that far? We’re safer here. Why walk into Don’s hands?”

  “Naomi, our goal is not simply survival,” Zhang Tao answered. “We must seek to glorify God. The Lord seems to have shown Elijah where you are called to go. Perhaps you have a special role to play in the end. You will rest here a while, then you’ll leave with an escort of unseen angels and prayers.” He rose from his knees. “From the four corners of the earth, the order will pray for you. I pray with the righteous fury of a man tortured by Satan and saved by Christ. I pray until my last breath, when I will drift like a blossom in the wind to my Xi’s side, where she rests with our Savior.” He let out a sigh, his face softening. “But before that, let’s share a meal and sleep. Let’s enjoy these little blessings that remain on earth.”

  “ONE MORE DAY, one more night, and then your time will come, Elijah.”

  Gabriel stood before me, relaxed and joyous. His face shone brighter than I remembered. “Run the race with endurance,” he said. “When you reach this place, you will want to say, as Paul did: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

  Behind the angel was a round gate of pure white. It stood in the middle of a wall that loomed high above and stretched from one horizon to the other. The foot of the wall had the red luster of the earth, above that was a stretch of blue sapphire, and all the way up were stripes of more jeweled color.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “We are in the place that is to come.”

  I remembered what I’d read months ago, at sail with Ronaldo. The pearl gate, the immense wall of precious stones. “The new heaven and the new earth?”

  Gabriel nodded. “He sent me to show you this, to give you hope.” The angel clasped my shoulder and looked deep into my eyes. “The last mile of the race is the hardest.”

  “But you’re protecting us.”

  His expression became solemn. “I cannot save you, any of you. None of us wish for pain, but sin will not perish without a fight.”

  “Sin? You mean Don Cristo?”

  “Both.”

  I began drifting back, away from Gabriel and the gate and the wall. “Wait,” I said. “Can’t you tell me more?”

  “Keep the faith. Finish the race.” The angel lifted his arm in farewell.

  The ground rushed beneath my feet. A gale wind blew behind me, whipping my hair forward. I glanced back to a cyclone of clouds and lightning. It was sucking me in.

  I tried to step forward, but the pull of the storm was too great. It erupted around me. The beautiful wall and gate were gone. The storm swallowed me whole and spit me out on a cot in an apartment building outsid
e Jerusalem.

  I sat up. The room was dark, quiet.

  The cot beside mine was empty. Naomi was gone. I felt a rush of panic but breathed deeply. She had to be safe. This was the order’s place. A prayed-in place. I rose and walked out one of the doors to the building’s balcony.

  Two figures were to my right. As I approached them, I breathed easier. It was Moses and Naomi.

  “Want to watch the dawn with us?” Naomi asked.

  I nodded, glancing down at the baby swaddled close to her chest. His eyes were closed. “He woke you up?”

  “He woke the whole room up.” Moses’ low laugh was like distant thunder. “Everyone except you. You’re some sleeper.”

  “I was dreaming.”

  “What did you see?” Naomi asked.

  “Gabriel was there. I think he gave me a glimpse of eternity, of the New Jerusalem.”

  “No dragon?”

  “Not exactly. There was a storm behind me. I think it was sin and Don Cristo and evil. It sucked me away from the city and Gabriel.”

  “Did Gabriel say anything?” Moses asked.

  “He told me to keep the faith and finish the race.” I looked out to the east. The first touch of gray light filled the horizon. “And he told me I had one more day and one more night. I think the world might end tomorrow.”

  I turned to find Naomi and her dad gaping at me.

  “It could be so,” Moses said. “Bart thought the end would come this year. Zhang Tao has sensed we are close.” His long face took on a sudden resolve—an exhausted runner ready to sprint across the finish line. “We don’t have much time. We must make the most of it. Today we can prepare.”

  Naomi peeked down at her son. Her lips stretched into a smile. “Adam.”

  My breath caught. “You named him?”

  She nodded. “His name is Adam.”

  “Anyone in your family named Adam?”

  Moses smiled. “Only the father of all mankind.”

  “I’m ready,” Naomi said. Her green eyes fixed on mine. “I’ll go with you into Jerusalem. We’re going to trust the Lord to return.”

  “Why the change of heart?”

  “I received a word.” She paused, as if savoring the memory. “As I drifted off to sleep last night, as I prayed, the Lord spoke to me: Will I not protect the least of these?”

  “And what did he answer?”

  “He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to—the question was all I needed.”

  “Why? What does it mean?”

  “Who could be less than an infant? Especially an infant whose father has the spirit of the devil inside him.” Naomi ran her hands along the baby’s soft head. “God will protect Adam, no matter what the devil intends, no matter where I take him. I can’t protect him. I can’t save him. Only God can.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “We finalize our plan,” Moses said.

  We spent much of the morning talking with the others. Brie spoke on behalf of Chris. She said he wanted to attack now, while the technology was gone, to try to free some of those Don had captured. Zhang Tao encouraged everyone again to pray, to be thankful and hopeful. “How many souls might be saved before the end?” he asked. No one had an answer to that.

  Around midday Brie let me join her to survey the perimeter. The sun was the only warm thing about the December day. The air was cool and the breeze carried scents of burnt destruction. The angels were nowhere to be seen. I asked Brie about it.

  “They are messengers,” she said. “After they finished their task of bringing you and Naomi here, maybe they went somewhere else.”

  “Like where? We need them for this battle. What I saw yesterday …” I took Laoth’s advice and refused to let my mind dwell on the evil creatures. “The enemy has powers that only the angels can fight.”

  Brie nodded. “Some say the spiritual forces attract each other. The angels could be protecting us by staying away. We’ve managed to keep hidden so far.”

  “Is that your only plan?” I asked. “Just to hide here until Jesus comes again?”

  “No.” She gazed up the slope of the hill before us. “Just over there, Chris is gathering whatever forces he can. They will assault Don Cristo at the Dome of the Rock. His drones have had the entire old city on lockdown. Chris and his men have a few hideaways still, and a few tunnels like the one we used.”

  This sounded bad. “A direct assault might be a suicide mission.”

  “And?” She turned to me. “It’s not suicide if the devil kills you. What choice is left? Chris would accept nothing but to go down fighting.”

  “It’s a little surprising, he spent years pretending to be a watered-down, government-sponsored pastor. Now he’s leading the fight, out in the open?”

  “Which path takes greater courage?”

  I didn’t have an easy answer. “I guess they both do.”

  “It takes a man of immense strength and faith to hold true to his beliefs while walking the line of worldly acceptance. He’s like a tightrope walker above a canyon, with no harness. You saw how he fell.”

  “He survived.”

  “He always has.”

  My mind went to a memory—her memory, which she had given me months ago in New York. “I’ve shared much of what you remember of him,” I said. “I’ve remembered your love.”

  Her cheeks flushed, but I pressed on, thinking of Zhang Tao’s story.

  “You left out some important memories, though.”

  “Like what?” she asked, as if she knew where I was going.

  “You gave me the time when you first met and the early years of your marriage. The joys, the challenges, and always the love. But you left out the engagement and the wedding. Why?”

  “I gave you what you needed. Some things are still too personal. I hold them too close.” She looked away from me, back toward the hill and Chris beyond it. Her finger twirled the tips of her blond hair. “We’re all flawed,” she said. “I’m selfish. I’ve always been selfish about Chris. He’s mine, but he gives himself to everyone. It’s who he is. It’s the man I love. But the things that are just mine—” She lifted her hand and curled it into a fist. “Well, I hold those things tight. The day of our wedding was the best day of my life. It’s just too much for me to share.” She smiled at me. “You understand?”

  I nodded, and it hurt. Naomi—a wedding day, the best day, a day we’d never have.

  “You’ll see Chris before I do, if Zhang Tao gets his way.” Brie took my hand in hers and placed something in it. “Take this with you. If Don gets his system back online, it might be helpful.”

  I looked down at what she’d given me. A ring. A translucent ring of the order. “Whose was it?”

  “It’s Chris’s. His and Zhang Tao’s are the only ones we have left. It was for my protection, but he told me to give it to you if I saw you. I think he knew what was coming, parts of it, anyway. Bart told him it might come to this. Take the ring, give it to back Chris.”

  “I will.”

  “Thank you. Protect him, if you can. I know the end is coming, but I just want to see him one more time.”

  LATER THAT DAY, while the order was talking and praying in the hideout, two new people showed up. They both wore hooded cloaks. One of them strode through the door like he owned the place. He pulled back his hood, revealing a young face and long black hair pulled back into a knot.

  “Riku!” Zhang Tao said, and they exchanged formal bows. “What news do you bring?”

  “I’ve come from Tel Aviv. I learned more about Don Cristo’s plan.”

  The other cloaked figure had already left, never entering the room. No one else seemed to notice. “Who was with you?” I asked.

  Riku turned to the empty doorway, then back to me with a curious expression. “I’ve come alone. No one followed me. Are you Elijah?”

  I nodded.

  “What did you see?” Zhang Tao asked me.

  “Another person. Someone was with Riku, stood in the doorway a momen
t, then walked away.”

  “Perhaps one of God’s messengers?” Zhang Tao said.

  I eyed the doorway. “Maybe.”

  Zhang Tao smiled. “They continue to protect us. Come, let’s all sit, share some tea, and hear what Riku has seen.”

  Moses served the tea while Riku began to tell us his story. I learned that he had previously served in the ISA in Japan. He couldn’t have been much older than I. He talked about the technology Don had harnessed. “You ever wonder how he operates in so many places at once?” he asked, with his eyes on me.

  I didn’t need to guess. “His drones serve as his eyes and arms.”

  Riku shook his head, wearing a slight smirk. “That’s only part of it. What do you think is behind the drones?”

  “Demons.” I shuddered at the memory. “I’ve felt something at work in them. Something dark.”

  “And how would spirit animate a machine?”

  “Riku, just explain,” Zhang Tao said.

  Riku’s eyes were amused as he stared at the wisened man. “Everyone says this Elijah kid is smart. Just wanted to see if it’s true.”

  I kept my voice calm: “Don’s adviser mentioned superintelligence.”

  Riku nodded. “It’s something like that. The ISA hadn’t succeeded in its research, but Don did. Or was about to.” He looked to Naomi. “But you already knew that.”

  A conflicted look crossed Naomi’s face. “No, I mean, we all know Don has been developing powerful machines.”

  “What about Charles?” Riku pressed.

  Charles. My friend. I’d last seen him at the Super Bowl, but it hadn’t been him. Just his body. I looked to Naomi.

  “The Captain suspected Don,” she began. “There were whispers of UN superintelligence research. The drones had gotten stronger, faster, but they’d never crossed the threshold into their own creative ability. That kept humans in control. Don was pouring immense funds into breaking this barrier. It would have been a catastrophe.”