To Beat the Devil

by M. K. Gibson

  “Why are you so cordial with this guy? I thought he was the Devil. And what the fuck is that?” Maz asked, pointing at T.

  “I’ll explain later.” I waved dismissively.

  “I’ll behave for now, little…thing, whatever the fuck you are,” Maz said to Nick. He turned to Grimm. “The bodies there, they don’t have souls. It is something we have been noticing more and more. We have found comatose bodies without them. Which is odd, because there are plenty of you cockroaches running around without them anyway.”

  “No souls?” I asked. To be honest, I never really believed in them anyway.

  “Yeah. Well, not much of them anyway. Like you all are running on empty. You’re good though.”

  “How do you know?” I asked

  “Eh,” Maz shrugged, “you smell it. You sense it. I may have been born up here and not in the infernal paradise, but all demonkind can sense the presence of a soul. One of the reasons it is so hard to sneak up on a demon.”

  “That possibly explains the spells,” Grimm murmured to himself. “And this phenomenon is something you and your district superiors have noticed?” he asked.

  “Who the hell are you anyway? I know you are the Grimm guy I saw the other night at Dante’s with Salem. But who are you?” Maz asked. How was Maz standing in Grimm’s presence? Last time Grimm was near, Maz was quaking.

  As if on cue, Grimm, not looking at Maz, raised his hand and made a gesture. Maz began to tremble. Small sobs came from Maz and he began to go weak in his knees. It was disgusting. Grimm stepped up to him.

  “Answer my questions, Hell spawn.”

  “Grimm!” I yelled. “Cut the spooky crap. You want my help, then respect my friends as well.”

  Grimm looked at me and considered. Instantly Maz breathed deeply and visibly calmed. I went over to help Maz up and he shook me off violently. Weakness was not in a bishop’s makeup. Maz stood up and glared at Father Grimm. I positioned myself between them.

  “OK, let’s deal with the issue at hand. Maz, you said your people have seen this before? And that humans are walking around without souls?”

  “Yes,” he said, still staring daggers at Grimm. “It is becoming common for your people to be soulless. The archdukes already know, which means the princes know. And before you ask, no, it has not trickled down to me as to why.”

  “We need to talk to some people,” said Grimm. “I have a theory, but I need to do some preparation. If you all will please excuse me, I have research to perform. Amuse yourself in the meantime. We will depart soon.”

  “Come,” Nick said, walking toward one of the arches leading out. “He gets like this. We go to workshop. I fill in on cybernetic upgrades I make to your system.”

  “Upgrades?” Maz asked.

  “Oh. Demon not know?” Nick said.

  “No. He didn’t,” I said.

  “Then he won’t,” Nick said. One of his arms shot up and released a burst of electricity. Maz hit the ground. Nick waddled over and injected Maz with a hypodermic needle. “Memory eraser. Not recall anything before Grimm make him go sleepy time. You safe.”

  “Why do you have that? Wait, let me guess. It was for me in case I didn’t agree to join you?”

  “Hah, hah…da."

  ********

  I looked around Nick’s workshop. It was just as impressive standing as it was when I was strapped down to a hospital bed. I checked out his equipment. Some of the machines I recognized. Many more I had no idea what they were. All of it was cutting-edge and the majority was homemade. Everywhere I looked I saw some machine or display that was a love child of steampunk and Star Trek.

  Nikola Tesla was a man out of time when he worked for Edison. Now, he was a genius in his element. I was in the presence of greatness. Something my father taught me: When you don’t know what is going on, shut up and learn. My mother said similar things, but she was nicer about it.

  I looked at my tech bracers, again noticing modifications done to them. The same with my pistols. There were obvious mods, but damned if I knew what they did.

  “Hey Nick, what did you do to my gear?” I asked.

  “Oh, had fun. Da. Had much fun. Tech was good. Very good. I make better. No more power supply.”

  “What do you mean? What powers them now?” I asked.

  “You.”

  “Come again?” I said, confused. “OK, I think you’re going to have to take this from the top.”

  “Da. While you … busy with Grimm, I tinker. I think, ‘make better guns.’ But your guns already good. Trick was, find new power source.” T moved to a monitor and activated it, and a holo projection of—well, me—floated in the air.

  T moved about the projection pointing out areas as he talked, zooming in and out. It was pretty decent tech. “I break your comm link encryption to nanite Collective. Have chat. Convince them I good guy. After chat, they agree to make you better. Better home for them. They still mad you electrocute self and kill generations of them. No worry though, I smooth over. Also, we rewire your brain.”

  “Whoa, what? My brain?” I interjected.

  “Da. No interrupt.” Nick gestured toward the projection. The image showed my previous pathways mapped out, and overlaid, the new ones. Hell, they had done nearly four times the work in the time I was out.

  “Collective agreed to rewire brain. Lay new neural pathways. Expand net. New path tap directly into memory centers. Now you able to record and playback as need. Heh. I make you living UD-DVR. New ability similar to ability to old skills for senses. Concentrate on desire, let nanite do the rest. Also, new faster pathways make reflexes faster. Muscles stronger. New eyes also. Da, was good idea. You see normal, infrared, night vision, telescopic, microscope. Grimm want to carve Denochian glyphs on cornea, see magic. I make him wait. You make that choice.”

  I sat down on one of the workbenches. I felt more than a little violated. But I had to admit, this was pretty cool.

  “OK. So what else, Q?”

  “Q? Oh. Bond. Da, is funny. Moving on.”

  “So, only you can tell jokes and be funny?” I said.

  “Da. Am funny. You, so-so amusing. Let joke telling for me. Am older, am expert. Respect your elders.”

  “Heh heh, sure thing, T. So what is this me being a power supply thing?”

  “Da. I figure, you already machine man like me. I generate power, so you generate power. We begin with power generation. I provide plans and materials, they build. Now you create more than plenty power. But you need to eat. Lots. Otherwise you run out of power. Your new mass serve as cellular capacitor. Store energy. Excess power also stored in tech bracers. Weapons and gear run off your inner supply. You walk, you move, you exist, you make power. You now walking generator. I want fusion reactor, but nanites not too happy with radioactive waste. Settle on wireless generator. For now. All weapons, tech, now powered from you. Also mean no one use your gear but you. You could power buildings in time. Neat trick, da?”

  “Hell yeah, it is. What about my bracers? What did you do to them?”

  “Not much. Mostly just clean and wire for your energy signature. Oh, I add mass inducer.”

  “A what?”

  T’s animated head was smiling. “Mass inducer. Absorbs ambient matter. When need to punch hell out of anything, bracers will add exponential mass. Bad guy become greasy smear. Oh, I also add energy shield deflectors with twist. I found your hard light camera. You invent? No no, you smart wrench turner but not idea man. So anyway, I take the camera, work the energy deflectors to create tangible shield. Now you protected from energy and physical. Works in conjunction with super punch. No shatter fist. But, real neat trick is hard light camera capable of replicating nearly any attachment for bracers, tools, weapons, whatever you need. Please, no applause, am genius. Is what I do.”

  “That’s incredible. My father never thought of that.”

  “Otac? Your father still alive? How? Him cyborg like you?”

  “No. He is and isn’t alive. My mother too. It�
��s complicated; it would be easier to just show you. When we are done with Grimm’s mission, whatever it is, you come by my place and it will make sense.”

  “U redu. But I stay back here. I babysit demon, keep him sedate. You field test new gear. Where you going…you need,” Grimm said.

  “Why am I not going to like this?” I asked.

  “You feel all nervous? Good. I get giddy comfort from your squirming.”

  “Anyone ever tell you you’re an asshole?”

  “Da. Edison. Many times. But, he dead, and I live. Is OK. World knows I smarter and him rip-off artist. All is well. Have fun in wasteland.”

  Father Grimm rapped his knuckles along a wall to get out attention. It bothered me that I was unable to hear him coming. I had to figure out his trick.

  “I am ready. Let us move out.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “To talk to some gods,” he replied.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Origins of God at 180 mph

  We flew through the morning air at 180 mph and accelerating. It was brisk and cold. After being stuck underground and—well, tortured—it felt great to ride again. My fusion bike rode alongside of Father Grimm’s four-wheeled outrider. A combination of dune buggy and Humvee with no top—only a cage, roll bar, and windshield for structure. It bristled with obscure tech. Nick’s signature was all over it. Around noon I was getting impatient. Grimm had not spoken the entire time and I was getting bored with my music.

  “Where the hell are we going?” I asked into my headset.

  “Through the south outer waste, and then west,” Grimm replied.

  “Those are directions, not the answer to my question.”

  “Then be more specific in the future. To answer your inquiry, we are traveling to an outer town, near the base of the old Appalachians.”

  Outer towns were places which existed beyond the safety and laws of the supercities. They usually sprang up based on a need. Gold, water, salvage, whatever was needed. Much like the shantytowns of the American Old West. Few of the outer towns ever lasted more than a couple of months. I have heard of a few that survived longer. Years, in fact. But sooner or later the dangers of the waste would claim them.

  The open roads of the fallen world were cracked and derelict. Wreckage of the old world was littered everywhere, picked clean of nearly all usable parts. Husks of cars, buildings, businesses, homes. Signs of nomadic people were left behind. Campfire rings, garbage, and occasionally a body. And not all the corpses were human. When demons fell within their hierarchy and saw no way to climb back, the wastes of the old world were all that was available to them. The lands were devoid of structure and stability. Day-to-day existence was about survival. Where your next meal came from and where you could sleep safely—those were the primary concerns.

  The real dangers of the waste were The Abominations.

  What people today don’t realize is that when Hell rose, all of it came up. And that included your friendly kudjas. But their larger, and more terrifying cousins came too. Those were The Abominations. The giants. The walkers. The fleshwings. The horrible monstrous creatures that could not be housed in a city. They were used in the times of the wars. But when Hell was done with them, they were banished outside the city gate. Left to roam. Left to live or die.

  I kept my eyes open. They tended to congregate near the gates of the cities, ready to feed on the helpless societal castoffs.

  “So what did you mean, we are going to talk to a god?” I asked, clearing my mind of The Abominations.

  “That is not what I said. I said gods. Plural. And I meant what I said; I need to speak with them. Although one of them does not speak. So, your original statement is half true. I stand corrected.”

  “But what do you mean gods? God is gone.”

  “I did not say God. We need to talk to gods. Little g.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “You will, soon,” he said back.

  “I have a crazy idea—just hear me out—but maybe you could speak plainly for once?” I said. I could hear his deep sigh through the comm link. I could tell he wanted to talk to me about it, but this was not the time or place he had planned.

  “Let me begin by asking you a question. How did the world come to be?”

  That was an odd but honest question. I was agnostic growing up, despite my mother’s teachings. But after seeing God almighty in the sky on G-Day, it kind of made a believer out of me. I relayed as much to Grimm. “I always guessed it was a mix of biblical parable of seven days of creation mixed with science and evolution. God made the earth, each day was like millions of our years. And here we are.”

  “What about the Garden of Eden?” he asked.

  “Allegory for man’s sin? Or maybe it was real. I haven’t given it much thought.”

  “What about other religions? What about the Olympians, or the Norse? Native American tribes have vastly different creation stories, as do the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Japanese. Old Slavic deities. Why are they all wrong, but Christianity is right?”

  “I have a feeling you have a point somewhere in your rhetoric. Mind getting there?” I said, agitated. At my age I hated being preached to.

  “My point is, why can’t they all be correct? To one degree or another, that is,” he said.

  “They all are too different,” I said. “Doesn’t make sense.”

  “Not really. Powerful entities derived from a single source created creation. Nearly all the myths have stories of the beings that predate the gods. The Titans, the Giants. Chaos, Gaia, Chthon, Nyx, and many other primordial deities. Let me ask you, what is the difference between God and Allah?”

  I thought about it for a moment. Last thing I thought I would be having was a discussion on the origins of God at 250 mph. I could have really used a coffee and a smoke if I was going to wrap my head around this stuff and not wrap my body around a tree.

  “Let’s pull over. I could use a break. I am saddle sore and I would like to wash the dust from my mouth.”

  “Agreed,” he said, and he pulled his outrider over. We found a shady spot near a copse of trees. I did a sweep with my new long-range telescopic vision and saw nothing hostile nearby. These new eyes were pretty cool.

  I sat on an old fallen log. The sun hung high in the sky, and it was warm. The sky was a pretty blue in the late autumn afternoon. Still crisp, but nice. New Golgotha was hundreds of miles behind us, not even a speck on the horizon. I looked around and took it all in. For a wasteland, it was actually quite pretty. I got a thermos and cup from my cycle’s pack, poured some coffee, and offered it to Grimm as he disembarked from his outrider. He took it and had a sip. He kind of smiled and nodded his thanks. I poured myself a cup and lit a smoke as well. At that moment in time, it felt like I was camping again with my mom and dad. Simple pleasures mingled with nature. I suppressed a smile. No sense in getting maudlin for things that had happened almost 200 years ago.

  “Do not do that,” Grimm said as he eyed me sideways. “Do not repress what you feel.”

  “You a mind reader now as well?” I asked.

  “No, a face reader. Something special came to your mind and you pushed it away. Do not do that. Your humanity is just as important as any skill you possess.”

  “Why is my humanity such a thing with you? Why humanity at all? We gave up. We rolled over and went tits up.”

  “You know that is not true. You lived through those times as well as I. That is what you tell yourself in order to feel nothing. Mankind fought. Fought for years and in multiple wars against the demons. However, in order to survive, mankind had to swallow its collective pride and come to an armistice. It was a moment of survival. Not ‘tits up.’”

  I wanted to argue some more with him. Tell him how idiotic he sounded. I wanted to tell him that mankind was nothing more than monkeys pulling the levers for our demon masters. That we were only needed for our ability to understand tech, a concept foreign to demonkind. I wanted to
tell him a great many things. But deep in my heart, I knew he was right. We fought, and in our own little ways, continued to fight. The yoke of oppression has never sat with humans. Even when we enslaved ourselves.

  “Back to the question. What is the difference between God and Allah?” Grimm asked me.

  “Essentially nothing,” I responded. My mother the theology PhD had taught me a thing or two. “It all came down to which side of the bed you follow. The sons of Abraham from his wife Sarah began the Judaic and eventual Christian faith, while his son Ishmael, from Sarah’s handmaid Hagar, was the beginning of Islam. They both believe in the one god and many Old Testament stories reside in both books of faith. Why do you ask?”

  “Correct. I ask because both religions followed a god and they are in essence the same god. The followers were the one to cause rifts in their faith, holy wars, crusades, jihads, and blood in the name of their god being the right god. All that suffering because neither side would just tilt their point of view.”

  “So you have the inside track on how it all began, huh?” I asked, not trying to cover my mocking tone.

  “Let me tell you how it really happened. God, the supreme one, came into this existence and bore his first children.”

  “Angels?” I asked. OK, I had to admit, I was really intrigued by this. My mother would be flipping. Come to think of it. Mom, you online? I thought.

  Yes, dear. Keep him talking. This sounds fascinating, my mother responded.

  Good. Please keep a note of this stuff. But remain silent—I don’t want to juggle too many conversations at once.

  “Yes and no,” Grimm replied. “Angels, as we have to come to think of them, did not exist yet. If you read various scripture, angels have always appeared monstrous. Multiple wings, multiple eyes, flaming eyes, skin like bronze, faces like lighting. But the texts said they could take human-like form and perform as messengers.” Grimm stood and began to pace as he told his tale. I sipped my coffee, smoked, and listened, entranced.