Project Antichrist

by Pavel Kravchenko

  “No, not really. Why are those things hunting me, Doc?”

  “In a moment, Mr. Whales. For a race as technologically advanced as they were, it would be very easy to convince the population of their divinity. If you and I appeared to the ancients in a helicopter, we would be Gods. Probably of thunder. Now, if you created the species and supervised their breeding for a thousand of years, I imagine the task would be even easier.

  “Most historians agree that modern civilization, or the ‘material world,’ suddenly began in Sumeria around six thousand years ago. I also agree. I think the numbers were then sufficient enough for Gods to begin it. They showed humans how to build cities, they taught them to buy instead of exchange, they encouraged the development of science and technology. They taught humans about humans, they taught them about the divine. First scriptures appeared. Written word turned out to be an incredible tool of control. Media Therapy, Mr. Whales, the same I’ve mentioned just yesterday, existed for several thousand years.

  “Today, written word’s influence is surpassed by imagery — TV — because it requires less effort and achieves, as the imagination faculties of an average human being deteriorate due to stagnancy and neglect, faster effect. Today the planet is almost ready.”

  “For what? I thought you said they already rule.”

  “Well, I did and I didn’t. This is the confusing part, Mr. Whales. You see, ‘ruling’ the humans as a concept holds no meaning for creatures as powerful as Gods. The notion is comparable to people ‘ruling’ the cloned sheep, or video game characters. Essentially, the lord-vassal relationship is only possible between beings of equal — or should I say equally low — level of development, preferably of the same species, which is amusingly paradoxical, don’t you think?”

  I nodded uncertainly.

  “In other words, humans can only be ruled by humans, hence the caste of Administrators was created to maintain order and direction. The aliens — Gods — after a period of rather hands-on monitoring the beginning stages of our brand new civilization, departed, leaving behind the Administrators, armed with knowledge and certain tools to keep the wheels turning. Religion was one of the tools. Written Word and all subsequent forms of Media Therapy was the other. There is the third tool, closely related to the first one, and, perhaps even more effective, especially now. For seven thousand years, this powerful tool of control and development has remained virtually unmodified. Would you like to venture a guess what it is, Mr. Whales?”

  I wasn’t ready to venture anything. I was doing fine listening to what he was saying, even understood some of it in an indifferent, dull sort of way, but answering a question was presently beyond my mental capacity. My mind was too full of last night’s events, of Lloyd, of my immediate future. As far as I could tell, none of what Dr. Young had said up until then, had anything whatsoever to do with me. There wasn’t a passage in that speech that in any way touched on the reason why a couple of angels wanted to eat Luke Whales, and to me, that was all that mattered.

  Yet, at the same time, I felt I almost had it. It was as though the answer was closely orbiting my brain. If only I could hook it and reel it in…

  “War,” Iris said. A hostile, almost hateful expression distorted her pretty face.

  Dr. Young regarded her.

  “Remarkable, once again,” he said respectively and even “ventured” a bow. “And quite correct. Please elaborate.”

  “War produces fear. Fear leads to the desire of protection, the illusion of which is provided by both, human rulers and religion, in exchange for obedience. Obedience leads to war.”

  “And it is also one of main incentives of technological progress,” Dr. Young finished.

  “But every religion on Earth preaches peace,” I argued. “Thou shalt not kill, right? Treat your neighbor the way you wish to be treated?”

  “So does every government, Mr. Whales. Yet you would be hard pressed to locate a decade in the last couple of thousand of years during which there wasn’t an armed conflict going on somewhere. You see, by preaching peace as fervently as they do, the war is made to seem something quite out of their hands. A horrible, abhorred thing, but something no one can control. And as for condemning it, I, for one, am not able to recall an occasion during which a prominent clergyman of any denomination would declare that every military man is going to hell for killing.”

  “Not to mention those who send soldiers to kill,” I said grimly.

  “Yes, that seems to be the popular opinion. Soldiers are guiltless, because they simply follow orders.”

  “You sound like you don’t think so.”

  “I don’t, Mr. Whales. Those who enlist in armed forces expect to be given orders to kill. Why enlist, then?”

  “Don’t have much of a choice anymore.”

  “Very true, which is why such an overwhelming majority supports the draft. People hate choice. Well, our little pill helps also.”

  “So I take it that draft notice I got started the whole thing. But why did it even matter if they got me or not?”

  “Mr. Freud’s employer seems to believe your role in their plans is too significant for him to just let them have you.”

  “One of these days I am going to kick his ass.”

  “If I am correct, Mr. Whales, you will probably thank him.”

  “Right… But if these ‘Administrators’ or whoever had plans for me, then why did they send those… things to kill me?”

  “Most likely because they realized that Mr. Freud’s employer had a hand in helping you evade them.”

  “So what, they just sweep me under the rug and go to plan B?”

  “Quite so.”

  “Great.”

  “But…”

  “Yeah, I know. ‘I have other friends.’ For all I know, I am only alive because your ‘employer’ has plans for me still.”

  “I have reconsidered my attitude towards employment some time ago, Mr. Whales. As to his plans for you… Trust me when I say, few things could be worse than the bidding you would end up doing for the other side.”

  “But you don’t know what it was.”

  “No, I do not know. I do have suspicions, however.”

  I leaned back in the loveseat and shook my head. Lloyd was dead. He was really dead. He had been alive yesterday, and he was dead today. I seemed capable of only one clear thought. Looking around me, I suddenly realized I had no idea where I was. I sighed.

  “You said the planet was almost ready, Doc.”

  “Yes, Mr. Whales.”

  “For what? Second Coming?”

  “You surprise me. The Second Coming, as you call it, has already happened.”

  Oh, I surprise him? “What?” I gaped and glanced at Iris, who didn’t seem quite as shocked.

  “The creatures yesterday. The ‘saviors’ are already here.”

  “So what are they waiting for?”

  “For the Antichrist to show himself, of course. Can’t have the play without the antagonist.”

  “The play? You mean—”

  “Precisely, Mr. Whales. The War to end all wars. The end of the world.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  In a cool, sterile, loft-like office with a view on Chicago River, behind a desk of glossy black ceramics just wide enough for a person to spread elbows, plump, stately Dr. Colin Wright sat erect and unmoving, peering into the dark brown leather of a couch standing against the opposite wall. He was breathing heavily and was painfully aware of a sweat bead sliding slowly from his armpit down the curvy side. He felt it tickle the roll of fat just above the waistline of his slacks, hang from it for several long seconds, then plummet down to splash on the shirt. Dr. Wright allowed himself a grimace, but only that. His eyes moved towards the digits on the cylindrical desk clock.

  Ten minutes had passed since the phone monitor returned to displaying the picture of his wife, Nora against the backdrop of the Great Pyramids of Giza. Five more to go.

  He went through this every single time they called him
, because there was no other way.

  It was fear, but in the real world he was not afraid. They had never attempted to scare him overtly — not even when one of them called to blame him for Whales a few days back — but even if they had, Dr. Wright was not an easy man to scare when he was awake. He was too pragmatic. He’d seen too many things.

  Dreams were another matter. The tranquility of his child-like sleep was one thing he truly obsessed about. It was that one window of escape from reality he could not bear losing. And they possessed the ability to take it away, he knew.

  The irony of it was, he had not had a nightmare in fifteen years. Not ever since that one time in the beginning when he woke up in the middle of the night with half of his hair turned completely gray. Inconvenient, but nothing a little dye wouldn’t fix. Ever since, however, he was manically terrified of the possibility. One can get used to anything, except for that which he has tasted once and which has not happened since.

  A famous and expensive psychiatrist who had failed to diagnose his own mental condition, Dr. Wright had analyzed this odd, even unnatural lack of nightmares long and hard. Eventually, he had come to the conclusion that nightmares’ absence was a sort of a mental block facilitated by them, and that every conversation carried a veiled threat of removing that block, and maybe, worse yet, sending some nightmares his way. It was never anything blunt — a hint here, a transparent clue there — but it was enough.

  In the course of years since that discovery, meticulous in his madness, Dr. Wright worked out the ritual he was presently performing. He would sit motionless for exactly fifteen minutes after every call from them, sweating and imagining an inflated cuff, the kind nurses used for blood pressure measurement, only full-body sized, squeeze his body until it was hard to breathe. He visualized the nightmares, possibly “planted” within him by way of telephone transmission, rising like steam up, out of his wet, dyed hair and through the floors of the skyscraper above out to cosmos, back where they came from.

  No matter how insane something might seem, if it works one will stick to it. And it was working for Dr. Wright. The same lack of nightmares that terrified him so much and caused the madness in the first place, also proved the effectiveness of the remedy.

  Of course, no one aside from Dr. Wright ever knew any of this. His secretary had long ago been instructed not to bother him under any circumstances when a call came in on that line. If she thought it was weird, she was paid more than well enough not to show it.

  Sighing disgustedly at the fifteen minute mark, the red-faced doctor leaned back in his chair, relaxed, relieved and slightly nauseous from feeling the shirt cling to his wet back. Two calls within a week. That never happened before.

  He glanced at the blue bottle of brand-new pills and picked it up from the desk. No more failures, the man from New York had said. The new medicine was better, but he needed to step up the counseling.

  “Why don’t you do it yourself, then, you powdered son of a bitch,” Dr. Wright said distinctly, confident in his defiance and defiant in confidence, twisting his chair around to face the city. “Do it yourself,” he repeated after a minute, and, with a satisfied nod turned back to his desk, pressed a button and said, calmly now, “Jane? Darling, please check when the appointment is scheduled for Mr. Chase.”

  * * *

  His side of the room was darkened, but a sheet of sunlight hung like a yellow screen on the opposite wall. Under it, in a recliner, with half of her face illuminated, sat Grace, staring into the twilight under his bed. Her purse, like a sundial, cast a triangular shadow on the table next to her.

  Brome moved his hands, aimlessly, just to see that he could. An IV tube was attached to the back of his right wrist.

  With a small cry Grace jumped towards him.

  “Oh, God, Olie! I was so scared! When Brighton called me…” She was by the side of the bed, clasping his free left hand. Her own hands were warm and a little moist. Somewhere in the haze of his instincts he found a comforting smile.

  “Don’t worry, baby. I’m all right. A couple of bruises, nothing more. Where’s Anna?”

  “I took her to the babysitter before coming here. She doesn’t know. She kept asking about you and I just kept smiling and telling her…” She began to sob. “God, Olie. I thought I was going to go insane in the time it took me to drop her off.”

  “I’m sorry.” He pulled her closer and kissed her lips. It felt good. He felt good, he suddenly realized. Despite the hospital bed, despite the IV he felt better than he could remember in a long time. He got the bad guy. Didn’t quite catch him, but…

  Letting Grace go, he planted his hands at his sides and pushed up into a sitting position. Pain, dull and distant, like a muffled scream in the next room, spread through his body but caused little discomfort.

  “The button, Olie. Just push the button,” Grace said with concern, taking hold of his hand again.

  “It’s okay,” he said, noting the IV bag above his head. “I’m okay. See how it is.”

  Spreading the gown’s flaps apart, Graced leaned over to look. He heard her gasp and regretted the request.

  “It’s all purple down here. Jesus, Olie…”

  “Nothing to worry about,” a confident voice said behind her. Grace turned and stepped aside, revealing a tall, lanky man in a white robe. Streaks of gray hair shone on the sides of his deeply tanned face. His smiled shone, also. He shook Grace’s hand. “Dr. Kent.”

  “We’ve already fixed the rib fractures. The procedure went splendidly. We’ll keep him here overnight, but tomorrow morning you can take him home. Painkillers for a week and he’ll be better than new.”

  Damn, Brome thought. They can fix fractures within hours, but they can’t get rid of the stupid bruises? But it came and went, like a whiff of some unpleasant smell.

  “Thanks, Doc.”

  “No thanks are necessary. You do your job and we do ours. Besides, the Bureau always pays the bills on time, unlike some other agencies I could name.” They all grinned. Grace patted Brome’s shoulder. Dr. Kent checked the IV bag, bent around to glance at the bruises on Brome’s back, nodded, satisfied. “Well, I’ll leave you to it, then.” To Grace he added, “It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Brome. You should be proud of him.”

  “I am,” Grace said tearfully.

  Dr. Kent nodded to both of them with a restrained smile and left. Grace left two hours later. She needed to pick up the baby. Before going she assured him she would be there first thing in the morning to take him home. Brome took a nap. When he woke up it was dark and quiet.

  With the push of a button he raised the bed and rolled his head around to work his neck. He heard a juicy crack and smiled. Careful not to pull too much on the IV tube, he stretched his arms. He wiggled his toes, curled and uncurled his feet. Languid tingling of muscles and joints, rested after what felt like years of hard, uninterrupted work, spread through his body. He somehow knew that wrinkles in the middle of his forehead and in the corners of his eyes, the ones Grace had always complained about, and Annie often tried to pull apart, stretching the skin with her tiny fingers, were gone. Never before solving a case felt so satisfying and refreshing. Even his brain crackled with energy inside its shell, greatly rejuvenated and ready for another marathon. It wasn’t until he felt its crispness that Brome realized how tired his brain had been. Probably more tired than any overworked limb or muscle.

  He sighed. He didn’t want to think back, because he already knew what had really happened. Whatever his worn out mind thought he saw in that hole, supposedly big and black, had been in reality a man’s silhouette, Freud’s silhouette, dark against the brightly illuminated room. The gun, the one Lloyd Freud clutched in his hand to the last breath, gleamed with reflected light, causing Brome to open fire. Good thing I didn’t share any of that nonsense with Brighton, Brome thought, rolling his eyes. At least I had enough sense to prevent that from happening. And to think I felt perfectly capable. It’s a wonder I ended up in the right place at the right time.
Likely a coincidence more than anything else.

  It occurred to him then that stopping the pills had been a stupid idea. He would call in a refill as soon as he was discharged. First thing in the morning. But he still had some pills left… He looked around, wondering where his clothes were.

  The plastic door slid to the side, letting in the night nurse. She was a short, neckless, impetuous woman of around fifty, with a squinty grin on her face.

  “Awake, agent Brome? How’s the hero of the day? Hungry?” She darted about, checking the machinery, the sheets, the bed’s angle and plastic bags. Not waiting for his answer she asked, “What will it be? We don’t have much, especially at this time, but a nice sandwich with some drink should be no problem. Dr. Kent also said he had nothing against a double portion of dessert.”

  “Ham, please. On wheat. Mayonnaise, mustard, onion, lettuce.”

  “Not afraid of a little onion breath? That’s a good boy. People stress over those things too much these days. Well, everything seems to be in order here. You’re comfortable, right? Good. I’ll return with the food in a jiffy.”

  “I was wondering…”

  “There’s a button for the TV if you feel like hearing about yourself on the news. Pretty sure it’s all over the country.” She pressed the button under Brome’s left arm. A TV slid out of the ceiling, flicking on. A familiar rum commercial was just beginning. “Volume is on the other side. You’ll figure it out, won’t you? Good. You know, I knew from the start that boy Luke Whales couldn’t kill anyone. He’s just too cute, isn’t he? Ah, but you wouldn’t know anything about that.” She patted his leg through the sheet. “Ham on wheat coming right up. Anything else you needed while I’m awake? I’m just kidding you. I won’t sleep till my shift is over.”