Scifi Motherlode

by Robert Jeschonek

  This time, I can't hold back. "Shut up, she-devil! Save your lies for the gates of Hell!"

  "Okay, listen." Brigid leans closer as we walk. "I'm sorry."

  "Sorry?" A proto-Christ has never apologized to me before. "Sorry for what?"

  "For calling you 'jackoff,'" says Brigid. "And also for having to tell you something you won't want to hear."

  I glare at her. "Tell me what?"

  "The undead aren't the only thing the King has lied to you about." The look in her eyes contains pity or sympathy or both. "He has lied to you about everything, Clement."

  I snort in disgust and look away from her. "I feel sorry for you. The King has already judged you. Your terrible punishment is carved in stone."

  Her shoulder brushes against mine. There is no hatred in her voice when she speaks. "Everything you know is a lie, Clement. Everything."

  *****

  Twilight has fallen by the time we reach the huts. There are three of them clustered together, decrepit and half-collapsed...leaves missing from the roofs, bark missing from holes in the walls. Ashes, charred wood, and bones litter the muddy patch between them. The air is so thick with the stench of excrement and rot, I can taste it. I see no light and hear no sound as we approach, as if the place is deserted.

  But it is not.

  Someone crawls out of one of the huts on hands and knees. Someone so far decayed, I can't tell if it's a man or a woman. Undead.

  Instantly, I swing the scythe around and thumb it to full power. This zombie might look far gone, but it could still do some damage if I let down my guard.

  "Hello," Brigid says to it.

  "P...p...puh." The crawling zombie spits out teeth with its consonants. "Kuh...kuh...k..."

  "Poor dear." Brigid looks at Imago. "We have to help her."

  I've had about as much of this proto-Christ as I can stand. "Hey! Are we here for a reason?"

  Brigid flashes me a smirk. "Not the one you think."

  Imago turns to her. "Help?" The fireflies in his belly are agitated. "How can we help?"

  "We can't!" I barge between them. "The undead are beyond our help!"

  "That's a lie." Brigid points at Imago. "And you can prove it."

  "Don't listen to her, Imago." I clamp my hand on his warm crystal shoulder. "You know the forces of darkness always seek to mislead us."

  Brigid elbows between us. "But what if I'm right about this? What if you can help her? What would it hurt to find out?"

  I hear the sound of something cracking nearby. Spinning, I see another undead monstrosity emerge from a hut. This one shuffles toward us alongside the first, squinting from a misshapen face like the caved-in mush of a rotten jack-o'-lantern.

  "Hel-l-l..." Again, I can't tell the undead's gender from looking...but the deep voice is that of a man. "P-p-ple-e-e...p-ple-e-e.."

  "Enough!" When I snap out the word, the children, as one, take a step away from me. "We're leaving!"

  Brigid backs toward the huts, eyes locked on Imago. "You're M.D. certified, aren't you? Fully stacked for medical diagnosis and treatment?"

  "Yes," says Imago.

  "Then boot up the protocols for alpha-leprosy," says Brigid, "and get over here."

  Imago's fireflies whip around like campfire ashes in a stiff breeze. He looks at me for a long moment without a word.

  "Don't do it, Imago." I shift the glowing scythe from one hand to the other, hoping he picks up on the underlying threat. "That's an order."

  Imago looks at the undead creatures by the huts and makes a sound like a sigh. "What will it hurt to find out?" he says, and then he marches over to join Brigid.

  My hands twist on the handle of the scythe. Little by little, she's taking him away from me.

  So what do I do next? I have it in my power to kill them both, and all the undead around us besides. After that, I could move on alone and slaughter any undead I find, scorch the UZ earth of anything remotely resembling a hidden proto-Christ.

  But what if there's still hope? What if I could still fix Imago? Shouldn't I at least give him a chance?

  A thought occurs to me, and I frown. For the first time, I realize something about Imago. And it makes me think I'm the one who needs fixing.

  Since when do I care about a robot?

  I hear humming and beeping from Imago as he treats the undead. Rays of light flare from his stained-glass body, beams of green and blue and gold combing and flashing through the twilight jungle shadows.

  The undead children stay behind me, watching with mouths hanging open. The flashing accelerates to a fever pitch. A shrill whine races up the scale, quickly reaching a level so piercing that the undead kids have to cover their ears.

  Then, suddenly, it's over. The lights and noise die away all at once.

  I already know what the result must be, of course. The only cure for the undead is extermination. Imago has surely failed.

  I start to worry that there might be an unexpected side effect, though. Brigid and Imago block my view, but I can see Imago's crystalline body shaking fiercely.

  "Imago?" I rush over to him, heart pounding, ready for anything.

  But I'm not ready for what I see.

  Looking over Imago's shoulder, my eyes are drawn downward. This is what's making him shake: a sobbing figure with head and hands pressed against his stained-glass surface--a middle-aged woman with long brown hair, kneeling where an undead monstrosity once was. Through the rags she wears, I can see her skin is smooth and unblemished. She is crying tears of joy all over Imago.

  As she wraps her arms around him, someone rises from the ground beside her. He is also middle-aged and dressed in tatters, and his hair is black. Like the woman, his skin is undamaged, unmarked.

  This is impossible.

  "I can't thank you enough." The man wipes away tears of his own and reaches for Imago's hand. "My wife and I were so far gone, we'd even been exiled from the leper colony. I never imagined we would ever be cured."

  Imago looks at me as the man shakes his hand. "Alpha-lepers," says Imago. "That's what they were."

  "No, Imago. This is some kind of trick." My voice is firm and steady.

  "So many you've killed," says Imago. "I could have cured them."

  "No!" I shake my head hard. "That's not true!"

  "You didn't know?" says Imago. "You really didn't know?"

  "No, I did not," I tell him. "Because it isn't true."

  He stands there a moment, eyes locked with mine, thinking his clockwork thoughts. I can almost see them chugging and revolving in his stained-glass head.

  Then, Brigid calls him over to cure the undead children and he turns away, leaving me to wonder about the results of whatever secret calculations he's just run.

  *****

  As we march onward with our retinue of seemingly cured zombies, I run calculations of my own. I consider the possibilities of what I have witnessed, weighed against the experiences of a lifetime.

  How does it feel? Brigid's words echo in my mind. Knowing that all those people you've murdered weren't zombies?

  I suppose she wants me to feel regret, but I don't. I have only ever known one King, one master, and I've slaughtered the undead in service to him. I killed them to defend the Kingdom of Free Will, and that hasn't changed. Whether they were undead zombies or alpha-lepers, they still opposed the Kingdom. They still opposed Paradise.

  But what if I've been wrong about Paradise? If the King lied about the undead, could he have lied about Paradise, too?

  Brigid tries to persuade me as we slog through the jungle at night. "Your King is the Great Beast prophesied in the Book of Revelations."

  I scowl and shake my head. "The Christ is the Great Beast. He is the Great Evil."

  "Your King rules through deception and force," says Brigid. "But that is about to end. The awakening of the Christ will usher in a millennium of true paradise."

  "Paradise has already arrived," I tell her.

  Brigid cocks her head and stares at me in the glow
of Imago's body-light. "Have you ever had sex, Clement?"

  I turn away.

  "Before you experienced it for the first time," says Brigid, "did you truly know what it was like? How good it would feel?"

  I don't answer.

  "That is what true paradise is like, Father," says Brigid. "It's not like anything you've known."

  "Shut up." I walk faster to get away from her.

  "Your whole life has been a wet dream, Clement," says Brigid, "and you're about to wake up."

  *****

  In the darkest heart of the night, we arrive at the village. It looks like a fort in the jungle, surrounded by a high, circular wall of crudely cut logs. Smoke and light and noise rise from the interior, curling up toward the star-littered sky.

  Brigid walks up to a door in the wall, a slab of galvanized metal, and knocks with her handcuffs. I post myself beside her, gripping my atomic scythe tightly.

  I don't like the fact that I can't see what's behind the door or walls. At this point, anything can happen.

  "All right then." My voice is a whisper. "Once we're inside, stay out of the way. Make a wrong move and I'll kill you."

  She doesn't even try to lower her voice. "Why?" She looks at me like I'm crazy. "What do you think you're going to find in there, exactly?"

  I lay the blade of the scythe against her throat. "The Second Coming. An army of off-the-radar proto-Christs. I'm sure you think they'll save you, but they won't."

  Brigid looks amused, then disappointed. "You haven't changed, have you? Even after everything you've seen."

  Something bangs heavily against the other side of the door. I hear the clanking of chains. "Just do as you're told," I tell her.

  As the door opens inward, Brigid smiles sadly. "I said there's an army of us. I said your kind doesn't stand a chance. But I never said we were proto-Christs."

  "What?" My hands twitch on the handle of the scythe. "But you said you would lead us to the Second Coming!"

  "I did." Brigid nods. "And I have."

  *****

  I keep the blade at her throat as we enter. "Where then?" Anger surges within me. "Where is the Second Coming?"

  Inside the village walls, the undead converge on us from all directions. They stare and shamble in the firelight, upright masses of peeling and suppurating flesh.

  "Where is the Second Coming?" I direct my question to the villagers. "Tell me, or I'll kill her!"

  "Let her go," says an undead male at the head of the group.

  "Is it you?" I ask him. "Are you the Second Coming? The one who seeks to topple the Kingdom of Free Will?"

  "Not him." An undead female steps forward.

  Keeping a firm grip on Brigid's arm, I sweep my glowing scythe toward the undead woman. "It's you then? You're the one who'd put an end to the daily holidays and ice cream and Heaven on Earth?"

  The man steps in the path of my blade. "What are you talking about?"

  "The Second Coming!" I flick the scythe across his rotting chest, connecting his seeping sores with a fine line of blood. "Who among you is the Second Coming?"

  "Wha...wha..." A third villager hobbles forward. Half his face has fallen away. "Wha...is-s-s...thuh...Se-cun...Cum-un...?"

  My heart races. I turn in a circle, flashing the scythe overhead.

  "They don't know about the Second Coming," says Brigid. "Not yet."

  "Lies!" If they won't tell me who it is, they leave me no choice.

  Leaping forward, I slash the half-faced villager to pieces with the scythe. Then, I sweep the weapon around behind me and kill the other two without looking.

  Singing the "Our Father," I wade into the whole damned horde of them, whirling and hacking and slicing. Body parts fly everywhere, and blood fountains into the night sky.

  This is what I was born to do. What I was trained for. Graceful annihilation in the name of the King. The noble dance of the warrior priest, carving up monsters like a hibachi chef carving up vegetables.

  "Our father, who art in Houston, hallowed be thy flame..."

  When I am done, my King will reward me for my service, for saving the Kingdom. He will summon me to Texas and erect statues in my honor and declare a new feast day and ice cream flavor in my name. All will be right with the world.

  This is what I am thinking when someone hits me from behind. When my legs go out from under me, and I drop to the muddy ground on my knees.

  I scramble to get back on my feet, and someone hits me again. This time, the blow to my head leaves me dazed. I fall back in the mud and go limp.

  That's when I see him. The middle-aged black-haired man, the first zombie treated by Imago. He leaps onto my chest, stone in hand.

  And he hits me in the face. He pounds me, again and again.

  The world goes watery and melts together in a blur of color and sound and pain. The man keeps pounding my skull with the stone, and I feel myself slipping away.

  Wait. These are my final thoughts. Things are not what you think.

  And then the world runs down into darkness, like a painting in the rain. And then everything is black and silent and still.

  *****

  "Clement? Father Clement?"

  Those are the first words I hear when I return. When the faintest glimmer of awareness flutters into my mind.

  "Wake up, Father. It's begun." A woman's voice. "Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey." Brigid's voice. That's what I hear.

  Instinctively, I open my eyes. This happens at the same moment I realize I shouldn't have eyes to open because they were smashed in by a rock.

  But it doesn't seem to matter. I see Brigid staring down at me, silhouetted against a bright blue sky.

  "There you are!" she says. "Welcome back!"

  I close my eyes, then open them again. I feel light-headed. Light-bodied, too. As if a weight has been lifted.

  "How long was I out?" Looking at the brightness of the sky, I try to guess what time of day it is. Just after sunrise, maybe?

  "You mean how long were you dead?" Brigid raises her eyebrows. "Three hours. You were dead for three hours."

  I lift my head from the mud and look around. Imago stands behind Brigid, staring blankly down at me. We are surrounded by a crowd of men, women, and children, all unblemished and dressed in tatters. "What are you talking about?"

  "Don't you remember getting your head bashed in?" Brigid reaches down and taps my nose, which also shouldn't be there. "You died, Clement."

  I scowl and shake my head. "Not possible." Even as I say it, I remember the stone smashing my skull. I remember the pain as it slammed down again and again, and the world melting and fading to black.

  "You were pushing up daisies," says Brigid. "You were an ex-Clement."

  Suddenly, I add things up, and a chill of terror rushes through me. "You're trying to tell me..." I feel a wave of inescapable desperation spread out from the pit of my stomach. "You're saying I was dead, and now I'm not?"

  "Yes." Brigid nods. "Exactly."

  I push myself to a sitting position, fighting the urge to run away. I try to keep the fear out of my voice. "You mean I'm...undead?"

  "Yes." When she says it, my heart sinks. Then, she laughs. "But only in the sense of not being dead."

  I'm not sure what to think at this point. "Even if I was dead, and you could bring me back, why would you?"

  "It wasn't my idea, that's for sure," says Brigid. "But the Second Coming seemed to think you were worth saving."

  I look past Brigid and Imago at the crowd. Which one of them is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ?

  "Apparently, he has a plan in mind for you." Brigid shrugs. "Like I said, it's begun."

  "What's that? What's begun?" I teeter as I get to my feet, still feeling light-headed. My eyes flicker, and I start to fall.

  Suddenly, I feel strong hands catch me and set me on my feet again. When I open my eyes, I see him.

  Imago. Light streaming in rainbow-colored beams from the facets of his stained-glass body. The iron filing features in
his faceplate tracing a smile of black metal fuzz.

  "The Millennium," he says in that soft, soothing voice of his. "We're about to usher it in."

  "Imago?" My own voice falters as I consider the implications.

  "He brought you back." Brigid says it in my ear. "He's the one you've been looking for all this time."

  "The Second Coming?" My heart pounds as I stare at Imago's robotic face. "He can't be."

  "I was only ever his prophet," says Brigid. "I'm not fit to polish the chassis of the one who comes after me."

  My head spins. I'm not sure what to think or do or say. "Imago?"

  The fireflies swirl in his belly. "I am the truth, the way, and the life. He who believeth in me shall never die." The beams of light streaming from his stained-glass facets flare with blinding intensity. "Welcome to Paradise 2.0, Father Clement."

  Lenin of the Stars

  As we sit on the terrace in the oppressive jungle heat, I slide a shot of crystal clear vodka across the glass table. The man who was once Senator Joseph McCarthy taps the rim with one index finger and chuckles.

  "Come on now." He shakes his head, smirking. "You know I don't touch that stuff, Vladimir."

  I shrug and throw back my own shot. Feel the burn rolling down my throat like a slow-motion solar flare. "I've had lots of names," I say as I pour another. "Why do you insist on calling me by that one?"

  "Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov." McCarthy says it with grand sarcasm. "You'll always be Lenin to me."

  "Ha." I down the second shot and clap the glass on the table. "And you'll always be an incompetent fear-mongering bastard to me."

  "You talk like I didn't just kill your hand-picked Red Guard." He gestures at the twelve charred corpses strewn about the terrace. Five are still smoking in the blazing mid-morning sun. "Like it isn't just you and me here now."

  I smile and raise the vodka bottle. The rays of the sun play through it on my face, refracted by the uneven crystal. "How 'bout if I drink you for it?" I shake the bottle. "I'll drink you for the revolution."