Cookbook from Hell Reheated

by M. L. Buchman

  “No, it just answered questions.” He scooped up some cream cheese icing from the plate, but it never made it to his mouth as his excitement continued to roll.

  “That thing on your computer, however it got there, is light years ahead. The scale and depth of its knowledge shouldn’t fit on a super-computer never mind a laptop. I thought it might be in the cloud, so I unplugged its network cable and turned off the wireless. It’s definitely not accessing the Internet. It’s just that damn knowledgeable. And on top of that, the software is smart. Way smart. We can’t do that yet. Someone somewhere is really, really sorry to lose that software.”

  Valerie sat back and stared out at the rain for a while. A question itched along her spine, until she turned back to him and asked.

  “ ‘We’ who can’t do that?”

  He looked away, uncomfortable. Now that she’d focused on it, he’d been uncomfortable since arriving at her apartment. Even when she stormed into his office he was always relaxed, but tonight he’d been…different with her. She reached out a hand and rested it over his for a moment. That drew his attention back to her.

  “What is it?”

  For the longest moment he looked into her eyes. Really looked. Enough for her to withdraw her hand.

  He cleared his throat.

  “No one on earth wrote that software.”

  Why did she know that was a change of topic, even if he was answering her question? Her mind continued to puzzle at that while her mouth responded.

  “What? Aliens? Little apple-green programmers?” she wanted to laugh in his face, but he shook his head.

  “Uh, do you believe in God?” He asked the question in a rush as if in a hurry to get it out.

  “Not particularly. You?” Then the weirdness of the question struck her and she could feel her jaw go slack.

  Once again he stared out the window into the gray morning for a long time. She barely heard his whisper.

  “A lot more than I did last night.”

  # # #

  “Ah, a change of faith is always refreshing, no matter what it may be.”

  Valerie looked up as Uncle Joshua pulled over a chair and joined Eric and her at the table.

  “It shows that you’re thinking.” Joshua set his large steaming mug of coffee on the corner of the table close by Eric. Anne set a cup of decaf in front of Valerie and topped off Eric’s hot chocolate before joining them herself with a tall ice tea sporting a bright slice of lemon.

  Valerie took Anne’s hand and squeezed, then didn’t let go, both of them perfectly content to simply sit and hold hands. Valerie always loved how cozy it felt when they all crowded around the tiny table, as they often did to share a meal or play a board game. It was always cozy despite her uncle’s bulk. She glanced sideways at Eric to see how he was taking it. Landau Fucking McKenzie had hated it.

  Eric appeared to drink it up, gaining him another point in the unknown and scoreless game.

  “So, you are our Valerie’s boyfriend.”

  Eric simply gawked at Joshua.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” Valerie protested, but Joshua waved it away without further comment. She knew arguing with him was pointless. The weirdest thing was it felt true. Then she blinked and wondered if it was going to be true, in the future tense? Was Joshua serving up another dish before she knew she wanted it?

  At least this time, she’d seen the menu. Eric was a good man for coming in the middle of the night to help her. She liked him, always had since the moment she’d interviewed and hired him last year. But boyfriend? She’d have to chew on that one for a while.

  “And what has caused your rising faith in God?” Joshua was being even more intent than usual.

  She hoped Eric was up to it. Valerie didn’t have parents anymore, so Joshua had decided he was her guardian angel. And after her own choice of Landau F. M. over Joshua’s protests, maybe she’d listen more carefully to Uncle Joshua and his opinions hereafter.

  Anne placed a restraining hand on Joshua’s arm as Eric tried to find somewhere to lean away to. His shoulders bumped against the bright glass of the front window revealing Seattle’s sidewalks, still wet, but now glistening with the sun that had found the first break through the clouds in days.

  Eric managed to glance away from Joshua’s inspection and looked over at Valerie. The question was clear on his face and she shrugged her permission. He’d always been easy to communicate with.

  “Well,” Eric sipped his hot chocolate to clear his throat. “There’s this virus that has infected Valerie’s computer.”

  “A computer virus has increased your belief in God? Isn’t that a bit unusual?”

  Eric nodded.

  Valerie had to admit, it was one of the least sensible things she’d heard in a long time, even though he’d half convinced her over lunch. This was real. A Jewish deli, a fine meal, close friends. There was no way that the conceited program on her computer was actually what it said it was, the Software that Runs the Universe. She felt better than she had all day, knowing it was just a virus, even if it had eaten her cookbook.

  “It is odd, I admit,” Eric responded to Joshua. “But it keeps asking me if I know how to find God?”

  Something changed in the room. Valerie sensed it though Eric didn’t appear to. The brief sunlight that had haloed Eric vanished as the clouds moved back in. There was a sudden tension to Joshua and Anne’s silence, as if it were stretching thinner and thinner like a piece of overworked taffy.

  It snapped back into place when Aunt Anne spoke in that splendid soothing voice of hers, “What a curious thing to write into a computer virus.”

  “Maybe it’s not a virus. Maybe it’s a program. I’ve certainly never seen anything like it.”

  “A computer program,” her uncle rolled the words around on his tongue as if they might have a bitter taste, but he wasn’t sure yet. “One that asks for…God.”

  “Right.” Eric drank some of his hot chocolate. “It claims that it’s the Software that Runs the Universe and that it has been seeking God ever since some ecumenical council.”

  “The Council of Nicaea,” Valerie barely heard Anne’s whisper even though she sat close beside her. Her skin had gone white.

  “What was that?” Valerie leaned forward and rested a hand on her aunt’s arm.

  Anne blinked rapidly and stood, tugging on Joshua’s arm as she did so. Valerie’s fingers tightened on her aunt’s arm, but Anne just patted her hand absentmindedly and stepped away.

  Joshua cleared this throat a few times. His complexion was just as pale as his wife’s as he rose to his feet.

  “I would, ah, suggest, strongly suggest that you format the drive. Obliterate whatever is on there and be done with it.”

  “It won’t let us, I tried.” Eric had caught up with the feeling that something strange was going on. “I thought—”

  Joshua cut him off. “Find a way.”

  And then they were gone from the table.

  Valerie and Eric looked at each other. It was clear that he no more knew what to think than she did.

  She whispered to Eric, “Any idea what the Council of Nicaea is?”

  Eric just shook his head and looked toward where Anne and Joshua had disappeared back into the kitchen.

  Chapter 9

  “So. Peter.” Michelle tried to measure out each word carefully to avoid throttling the man. “What in the name of My Domain am I doing in Heaven?”

  Peter had finally gained the sense to set aside the knife when he’d started mincing the pasta, the little bits and pieces flying all about his kitchen, pinging off framed paintings of the life of Jesus, a couple of goofy photos of some apostle reunion, and scattering across the dusky orange-tiled floor, before he’d realized what he was doing.

  “I’m, uh, having a b-b-bit of a problem.” He stammered badly.

 
“Are you trying to tell a lie in Heaven?”

  He smiled weakly at that. “I was trying to be wry. Or perhaps sardonic. Because frankly I’m at my wit’s end. I’m in it deep.”

  “So,” she let the thought roll around in her head and she didn’t like it much. He hadn’t stammered at all when mentioning the problem as bad. No evasion there. She didn’t like that much at all. That meant…

  “himself didn’t invite me for dinner. You did. Except you didn’t. You invited me to fix Heaven because you two broke it and neither of you nor god is smart enough to fix the damned thing?” By the time she was finished, she’d risen to her feet and the glassware was shivering again at the tone of her voice.

  Peter shrugged, “Essentially, yes.”

  That took the wind out of her metaphorical sails.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  Peter turned off the burner under the pasta water. “Let’s go for a stroll before dinner.”

  Michelle set aside her half-finished wine and followed him to the door.

  “I’ve always enjoyed this view.” Peter waved a hand toward the pinnacles of Heaven soaring above the Elysian Fields. The icy peaks shone against the sky, now an achingly rich sunset gold. “Beats the daylights out of the Sea of Galilee. I’m still sick of fish. If I never eat another fish as long as I live, I’ll be a happy man.”

  “You’re dead, Peter,” Michelle couldn’t resist the barb.

  That didn’t slow him down a bit. “If I never eat another fish as long as I’m dead, I’ll be a happy man.”

  “Are you happy?” As soon as she’d said it, she was sorry. It was part of Michelle’s solemnly sworn duty to tease the denizens of Heaven, but the sudden sadness on his endlessly youthful and cheerful face wasn’t good. So she made it a real question.

  “Why not?”

  Peter turned from the view and wandered down the graveled path around the back of god’s house. They moved into a pleasant little garden, not inundated with masses of flowers, but a tasteful bed of roses and a few mums. Bird and bee song rippled through the lavender-scented breeze and left the taste of honey like a grace note on her awareness. The flowers were clustered merrily around the feet of an old apple tree.

  Michelle looked at it more closely. A really old apple tree. She wasn’t about to ask, but did glance up when the opportunity afforded itself to see if a snake lay among the branches. She didn’t spot one. Maybe it was hiding.

  Michelle looked about herself more carefully. The back of god’s villa was a broad patio of gray and burgundy slate flagstones set in pea gravel overshadowed by a heavy wood open trellis covered in grape vines, their leaves nodding gently in the soft breeze. A stone barbeque pit graced one side, and a laurel hedge the other. Around the feet of the old apple tree, garden paths began, meandering off in several directions but looking as if they were in no hurry to get there. A small stream burbled over large stones and a Japanese-garden style wooden bridge arced easily over both.

  Peter sat at a wrought iron table, painted white. The table was set for tea. A large pot of it brewed in the center. Behind them god’s house warmly reradiated the day’s heat into the cooling evening.

  “I often come here in the evenings, when it’s quiet like this. An angel keeps the tea ready for me. Want a cup?”

  Michelle nodded and looked around while Peter poured. Old Yahweh had done well for himself. The garden and the area surrounding had charm, not the overwhelming sappy perfection that always irritated her elsewhere in Heaven. Life was messy and the afterlife wasn’t all that much neater, but as long as it was dressed up nicely, most former mortals didn’t care. Shallow fools.

  This however was both real and pleasant.

  She waited until Peter was taking his first sip from his own tea before asking, “You’re not trying to get me to go on a date with you, are you?”

  While dark tea spluttered from his lips and dribbled down the front of his white toga, she continued.

  “Because if you are, you’re on the right track, but I’m looking for someone with a little more life to him. Even if he is dead.”

  This time he choked, spilling a few more splatters of tea down his front.

  “For one thing,” she took a sip of her own tea, delicious of course. A rich green tea with a hint of spearmint and honey. “You still haven’t answered any of my goddamn questions.” She noticed that the green grass around her chair turned a little yellow. Interesting. She watched it closely as she continued. “Because I sure as Hell want some goddamn answers. Don’t spew any more shit about…” A brown patch of whimpering Heavenly turf surrounded her chair for several yards around. This place was far too pampered.

  “Poop!” she shouted down at the ground. The brown verge jumped out a couple feet in every direction all at once. Bored with that, she turned back to Peter.

  “Well?”

  He too had been eyeing the retreating grass with genuine concern but was wise enough not to intervene on its behalf. Instead he picked up a couple napkins and began dabbing at his tunic.

  It was clear that he was avoiding some topic. She’d never been good at it, but she’d try being pleasant for a few moments.

  “How are all of the hosts of Heaven? I haven’t talked to Jesus or Mary Magdalene in ages.”

  “They’re doing fine,” Peter only managed to enlarge the stains on his toga and so he stopped fussing. “I had dinner with them recently.”

  His teacup seemed to suddenly be of immense interest. She waited, but he didn’t continue. A less informative answer would be hard to imagine. There must be a nice way to get him talking about god, but the only torture that came easily to mind was to force him to join a chess club and then make him hang around with football jocks all at the same time and see if he were more forthcoming then. She took a deep breath to calm herself.

  “What about Mother Mary the Virgin?” Michelle surprised herself, she wasn’t usually this patient. She sat straighter and pushed her cup and saucer aside. She’d never even met Mary.

  Peter looked a little grim, “She never spoke to God after her first meeting with him.”

  She leaned forward. Michelle didn’t want to be sidetracked, but this had to be juicy. Something in Heaven had to be. “What happened? What did she say?”

  “She wasn’t angry about having to bear God’s child. She was angry that Joseph had lived out his days in fear of offending God every time he touched the mother of the Son of God. She scorched God up one side and down the other for that. When she found out sex wasn’t allowed in Heaven she became even less happy.”

  “Hold it! No sex? Why? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Peter reached for another napkin to do some more daubing and she slapped his hand aside.

  “It was a rule God created, instantly regretted, but it was too late.”

  Michelle sat back for a moment and stared up at the tree. The tree beneath which sex had been created. And modesty and guilt and a bunch of other crap, but most importantly sex. A brilliant creation.

  But god had made a new law. And his security authorization in the Universal Software was limited to Creation rights only. She was system owner of the rights to Modify or Delete. And he’d no more think to ask her to delete the rule than she’d ask him to… Actually, she wasn’t sure that god had ever been paying enough attention to understand that She, the Devil, had the Modify and Delete privileges on the Universe. Maybe he hadn’t even known to ask.

  “So, he was stuck,” was all she said, rather than revealing her own powers. She’d keep that hand held close until she knew how best to play it.

  Peter nodded, “We all were. Mother Mary moved to a far corner of southeast Heaven and apparently hasn’t spoken to a single man other than Jesus since.”

  “But the New Testament says Joseph lay with her after Jesus was born. Or at least the original version did before your
church got a hold of it.”

  “He did, but neither very willingly nor often. They had children, but he was always fearful for months afterward that the mighty Hebrew God of the Old Testament would strike him dead. It’s not a particularly accurate book to begin with, but the Hebrew chroniclers managed to scare the daylights out of true believers like him. And why does the Devil read the Bible?”

  “I read it like a trashy novel that really needs a good editor.” Mother Mary sounded tough. Michelle was going to have to meet her, some other time. Peter had managed to say God without flinching too badly. It was time to start talking about his demise.

  “So, what happened to God?”

  Peter only shied off for a moment. Refilling his tea cup from the stunningly ornate teapot decorated with tiny golden flowers on a field of dark Italian blue glaze, but not picking it up to drink.

  “You know about Newton?”

  “Sir Isaac? Smart dude? Imprisoned by the church for knowing how to do math so he refuses to leave Hell even though Heaven keeps inviting him in? That Newton?”

  “That Newton.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  Peter looked up abruptly, “Oh, you’re joking.”

  Michelle tried not to sigh.

  “Well, you know how each great thinker’s discovery actually changes reality.”

  She did. It was one of her better inventions. She hadn’t been able to create, but she’d been able to slip in a modifying command that made truly great thinkers’ ideas auto-update to a permanent status of reality.

  Pythagoras thought up the golden ratio for triangles, and for the first time in all history, triangles made sense. Homer cooked up the first epic poem and the form thrived for the next three thousand years. That invention did have some distinct drawbacks, you couldn’t walk down any avenue of Hell without stumbling on thousands of poets. Street poets, beat poets, modernist, romantics, classicists, they were worse than ants at a picnic.

  “So, gravity is making you unhappy?”