God Hammer: A novel of the Demon Accords (40 page)

“It wasn’t actually the NSA but an… asset of ours that identified your man as a terrorist for killing those children,” Donlon said.  “And unless you cooperate fully, you are likely next, Reverend.”

“You expect me to believe this bullshit?” Castille asked, sounding less like a reverend and more like an… ex-card shark.  “This is a cover-up.  You people are just protecting these monsters for your own purposes.”

Krupp leaned down and placed an open file in front of Castille.  It was opened to a page with a transcript of a cell phone call.  His attorney, Fierro, leaned down and looked it over.  I already recognized it.

“This was collected illegally.  You’re not allowed to spy on Americans,” the fat lawyer said.

“Actually, it was delivered to us anonymously, giving the Bureau probable cause to get warrants for your text messages.  Didn’t you ever warn your client to avoid writing incriminating things on texts and e-mail, councilor?” Mazar said, glancing at Tanya and me.

“So what is the point of this?” Castille asked.

“The point is that you are now likely marked by the Agency’s asset as a threat to National Security.  We don’t want you to get blown up.  Put in jail, yes… blown up, no,” Krupp said. “We want to put you in protective custody.”

“Speak for yourself, Agent Krupp,” Tanya said.  “I would not mind seeing him blown to pieces.”

“Even if it happened right here and right now, in your own building?” Donlon asked.

Grim had been scanning the skies around us, and there were only media drones in the air.

“It hasn’t been able to yet,” I said. “This building is protected.”

“And yet when we pulled up,
you
were outside the building,” Mazar pointed out.  “How many minutes more before it took a shot at you?”

“It’s been taking shots at me for quite some time now,” I said.

“And what stops my client from being bombed or blown up if he is in your custody?” Fierro asked, ignoring my exchange with Mazar.

“Essentially our presence,” Donlon said.  “Our
asset
protects its own.”

“Just what is this asset?” Fierro asked. “You called it an it?”

“Never mind. There isn’t time for explainations,” Krupp said.

“Oh no?” Castille said. “How come I flew over twenty-four hundred miles without getting shot down?”

“We aren’t certain,” Krupp admitted.

“It may be because the collateral damage from shooting down a plane would be unacceptably large,” Donlon said.

“Or it flushed him here to bring us all together in one nice, easily wrapped up target,” Lydia mused.

“Inside a building it hasn’t been able to attack?” Tanya asked.

“Hasn’t been able to attack
yet
,” Lydia said.  “Remember, Declan felt it was seeking ways around his…” she looked at our visitors, who all looked extremely interested in her words, “...protections.”

“You consort with witches.  Where is this spawn of the devil?” Castille asked.

“Far away from you and your demon book,” I said.

“The boy thinks it can do that?” Donlon asked, frowning.

“He thinks it may have already done so,” I answered.

I got tired of forming all those nanoscale shapes and designs pretty much in the first fifteen minutes.  So I stopped, ignoring Susskins’ protests, and broke out my Crafting supplies.  Should have done that from the start.

First, I drew a circle around the metal table and all the apparatus that Chet and Susskins had set up.  Then I went over the circle with green spray paint to make it less likely to get scuffed.  Inside, I began to line the inner arc with runes, writing a program, like I had when we protected the satellites, only in Sharpie, on the floor of the room.  When I had that done, I put the laptop that showed all the chip designs for the qubit circuits right next to the plexiglass vacuum box that held the tin and bismuth telluride substrate, the whole thing sprouting wires and tubes going into God knows what kind of machines and sensors.  Then I closed the circle, from inside, sitting down on a chair next to the worktable, and wrote more symbols right up the square leg of the table, across its metal top, bringing it almost to the box.  Next, I linked the runic spell to the power in the building, energizing the spell by carefully entering the last rune,
giefu
or
gift
, which basically is a big X, onto the final space against the plexiglass box.

Now, the program spell began to convert the small sheet of tin into a single atom thickness, twisting the designs from the laptop into the new metal.  It took a bunch of tweaks and some suggestions from Sorrow, but after about ten more minutes, it started to run on its own, guided by my attention.

One of Susskins’ assistants, Samantha, was walking across the floor, eyes on her tablet, headed right for the circle.  I intercepted her, holding up one hand.  Her eyes were immediately frightened. “I just don’t want you to break the circle.  Then I have to start over.”

She nodded, shooting a worried glance at Susskins, who had noted the whole thing.  Instead of yelling at her, he frowned and then motioned for both her and the other one, Calvin, to attend him.  “Let’s string some light wire, about waist high, around this circle to keep any of us from breaking Declan’s line,” was all he said.

The two technicians rigged up a makeshift wire fence in minutes, using chairs, an empty server rack, and a length of plastic conduit.

“Do you have to stay in there?” Chet asked.

“Pretty much.  The circle and runes let me automate the process a bit, but I still have to guide it.  This is much less tiring, though,” I said.

“If these readings are right, you’ve
drawn
an ion implanter on the
floor
with markers?  And it’s making Stanene,” Susskins said, shaking his head.

I wasn’t sure if that’s what I’d done but I nodded sagely like it wasn’t nothing but a thing.

“Now, we just have to let it run while I keep an eye on it and move it from one circuit to the next,” I said.

“And we’ll have a quantum computer when it’s done… cooking?” Calvin asked.

“We… might… if the designs are correct,” I said.

“Hmpf.  Of course they’re correct,” Susskins said, not even looking up from his monitor.  “Lady and gentlemen, sometime in the next hour or so, we will witness a historic moment.”

Hmmm, a good historic moment or the end-of-humans historic moment, I wondered.

Inside the plastic case in front of me, the answer continued to draw itself, atom by atom.

It was an utterly ridiculous situation.  Castille should have been loaded into a police vehicle in handcuffs and hauled away by now.  Instead, they were still talking about it.  I could tell when Krupp or Mazar or both would be ready to call it and read him his rights, and then Castille would say something, almost anything, and they’d settle back down.  It was that damned book. I could see it clear as black greasy smoke every time I looked at it.  It was a cloud hanging over the room and fogging normally razor-sharp minds.

I’d fired off a half dozen bursts of aura, but other than assuring that every firearm in a fifty-foot radius was now carrying inert ammo and maybe giving the agents moments of clarity, it really did little else.

There was something about the bible that gave it so much horsepower—or maybe demon power.  It wasn’t like Sorrow, which had had its own queasy feeling back when it just a book of evil and not part of an eighteen-year-old boy.  This was more concrete, more anchored in the here and now.  In desperation, I moved closer to Castille, which he noticed instantly, shifting himself to the open spot between Mazar and Donlon.

“At the least, we need you to come downtown and give a statement,” Krupp said, stubbornly trying to stay on topic.  “Your attorney can ride with you.”

“Agent Krupp, I would love to give you a complete and accurate statement, but as you can see, my presence here is necessary to keep those faithful people outside from rioting,” Castille said smoothly.

“True, true,” Krupp said a little absently.

I shot a frustrated glance at Tanya, who just raised one eyebrow as she considered the situation.  She was planning something, and I had best be ready.

“But Reverend,” Donlon said, his tone when he said Castille’s title taking on a respectful note. “We need to protect you from Anvil.”  Donlon had long since spilled what was probably top-secret information to everyone in earshot.

“And where better than right here, where your program seems unable to penetrate,” Castille said, reasonably.

“Well, that does seem to be the case,” Donlon said, scratching his head and frowning, like he was trying to remember something… maybe anything.

“Yes, this boy wizard the vampires employ seems to have created some powerful protections against your very advanced software.  I imagine he could write his own ticket from China or Russia or any other country on earth,” Castille suggested.

“Where is O’Carroll?  I still need to talk to him,” Donlon said, turning to me, his tone forceful. “Perhaps I need to call for a warrant?”

Both Krupp and Mazar looked interested but Declan’s friend, Caeco, just looked anxious.  She didn’t seem to be under Castille’s spell.

Tanya caught my eye, both thinking the same thought. That Castille’s entire visit was an attempt to get face to face with our teenaged warlock, an event Barbiel had warned me in no uncertain terms to be avoided.  Whatever Tanya was going to do, and it promised to be physical, now was the time to do it.

“Reverend?” she suddenly asked, her voice pitched in a tone I’d heard a few times before.  It was bell-like, clean and pure, commanding instant attention to its speaker.

“That’s an interesting copy of the King James bible you have there,” she noted, drawing everyone’s attention to the book clutched in his hand.  His eyes flickered and his hand rose almost absently.  The bible came into view and as all eyes, including the reverend’s, turned to the worn, faded book, she
moved.

Ten feet covered in a tenth of a heartbeat, black book slapped from his hand so hard, I heard bones crunching.  The bible turned end over end, flipping through the air right at me.  My hand shot out, snapping shut on the binding.  An arc of what felt like lightning shot through my body, locking up my joints.

Declan fires off bolts of electricity during every training round and all of us had been on the receiving end many times.  This was different.  This was like the time I pressed a bare, wet hand to a metal pipe on Gramp’s farm in the dead of winter at twenty-five below zero.

Time caught up and everyone turned to me, startled and alarmed, Castille beginning to feel the pain in his broken hand.  And me… I was still frozen in place, fighting the black ball of frozen lightning in my left hand.

I think my brain got numb five minutes after my ass did.  The pattern I was creating had been interesting for the first twenty minutes, mildly entertaining for the next twenty, tedious for the next ten, and was now almost excruciatingly boring.

“You’re ninety-seven percent complete,” Susskins said.  “My creation is becoming reality.”

“If it even works,” I said.

“Oh it will work.  It is, after all,
my
design,” he said.  The word
haughty
popped into my head.  “It is all
my
design, by the way.  I made it, I created it from nothing.  But I don’t own it.  No—it belongs to the Demidova Corporation.  Does that seem fair to you?”

“Well, that’s what they hired you to do, right?  Build a quantum computer?” I asked, although I could see some of his point.  But then again—hello?  Who was doing the actual assembly here?

“Oh, they pay my salary and it’s very robust, but this beautiful creation will change
everything
.  Three hundred thousand dollars doesn’t seem remotely enough for delivering a computer that will make all others instantly obsolete, does it?”

“Well, why didn’t you do it on your own, then?” I asked, glancing at him.  He was alternating looking at his monitor and fiddling with his wallet.

“You are at ninety-eight percent,” he said.  “Do you have any idea how much it costs to put together a research lab as well equipped as this one?”

“I’m guessing quite a lot, but that kind of answers the question, doesn’t it?” I asked.

“In my case, maybe.  But what about you?  You’re using your completely unique skills that cost
you
just a few dollars in chalk, markers, and paint?  Yet you’re only being paid an intern’s salary,” he said.

He had a point.  Yes, my salary was ridiculous for an intern, but still it was small potatoes compared to what this thing could supposedly do when it was turned on.

“Well, you have a point, but I think I’ll just trust them to take care of me.  They’re already putting me through college and my intern’s salary isn’t what you think,” I said.

“You’re up to ninety-nine percent.  Next you’ll tell me that you’ll still have the satisfaction of a job well done,” he said in a mocking voice. “Your faith in human nature is absurd.”  He was quiet for a moment. I looked over to see him staring at his ID tag in one hand and a bright blue credit card in the other.  Something about the credit card bothered me.

“The thing about this job is that it can fully occupy your mind,” he said, looking up, a deranged grin on his Dr. Evil face.  “Keep all your surface thoughts technical while your deepest wishes and dreams stay private from even the best mind reader.”

Now I was alarmed.  He smiled at me, but it wasn’t reassuring.  “Congratulations.  One hundred percent. You have completed the world’s first truly functional quantum computer,” he said, pressing several keys on his board.  The plexiglass box beside me started to hum and I
felt
the new computer come alive.  It was different.  Vastly different than anything I’d ever felt before.  I looked his way.

“I’d say I’m sorry, but the truth is… I don’t care,” he said and then he threw the ID card toward the airlock doors, simultaneously flipping the credit card my way.  It spun end over end, heading for my circle, which had no power to stop physical objects and as it spun, the little silver rectangle that was shaped like a circuit caught my eye.  That’s what had bothered me.  It was a chipped card… with a complete integral, functional computer chip inside it.  Headed for the most advanced computer ever built.  Landing on the quantum processor and instantly unfolding a dreadfully familiar program.  The ID card hit the door at the same time and one or the other set off a crazy blaring alarm, even as both sets of airlock doors opened to the computer room and the mini version of Anvil began to attack the newly created computer. 

“That’s my cue,” Susskins said, heading for the door.  I didn’t even try to stop him, my complete attention focused on grabbing the credit card with my left hand and putting my right palm on the plastic case top.  The fight was immediate, the program hungry to invade the pristine processor, something it could only have over my dead body.