The Apocalypse Script (21 page)

“
I’ll call Mr. Fetch, then. I
think we’re done here. Fiela, help me with the dishes so that we’ll
be ready to go when the car arrives.”

“
Yes, Sister,” the girl said
innocently. Standing, she added, “May I ride in the backseat with
our husband on the way back to Steepleguard? It is unfair that I
should have to sit in the front seat on the way back
also.”

“
I thought
you
wanted
to sit up front,” said Lilian.

“
But I’ve verified the roads are
safe already.”

The older woman made a show of
considering her request. “I certainly do not think Mr. Fetch would
miss you. What do you think, Mutu?”

Fiela looked up at Ben hopefully.
He said, “I think there is room in the backseat for all three of
us.”

The Peth’s face fell.
“But-”

“
That’s true,” said Lilian.
“Fiela, you may sit next to the window and watch for your roadside
bombs. I shall sit between you and our husband.”

Chapter 18 - The Scripts

Ridley met Ben at the door and
read his expression. “Apparently Lilian has told you the dire
truth.”

The other man said, “What she
calls truth, yes. I’ve got some questions for you.”

“
I’m sure you do. Lilian and Fiela
have some other matters to attend to. Let’s talk.”

He led Ben back to his study and
gestured for the man to have a seat in front of his desk. Sitting
behind it, Ridley put his fingertips together.

“
What questions do you have,
nephew?”

“
First, why am I
here? I was told that you wanted me here to inspect and possibly
decipher the Tiwanaku tablets. Lilian, however, has just told me
that she needed a husband and that you are, in some way,
responsible for ensuring she gets what she wants. I’ve signed a
marriage contract that has no legal merit but I’m beginning to
think that is why I am
really
here.”

“
Ah,” said
Ridley, setting his sights on the ceiling as if he were a professor
preparing himself for a class lecture. “Would it be trite to say I
have brought you here for
both
reasons? The facts are that she
needed a husband and I needed a researcher. There are many men who
might qualify to be her husband who know nothing of ancient writing
systems but there are precious few who know about such writing
system who could pass the screening necessary to be her
husband.”

Ben raised his voice a notch. “You
tricked me, then. Into a Nisirtu marriage.”

“
Two marriages actually, but I
should point out that I have also saved your life.”

“
Meaning you brought me here
thinking the world will end.”

“
Knowing it will.”

“
What happens when it
doesn’t?”

Ridley raised and dropped his shoulders. “If it
doesn’t you can return to your old life.”

Ben studied the old man. “There
would be no repercussions?”

“
You mean, would you be hunted
down and killed?”

“
For example, yes.”

The elderly man responded
cryptically. “Not by me.”

“
That’s not the most comforting
answer, Ridley.”

“
It’s the best I can
do.”

“
What about Lilian’s ludicrous
hopes that I might be a king in her world.”

“
Well, she is your wife. Is not
the wife of a king a queen? I think she would like that role very
much.”

“
But it’s all fantasy!”

Ridley shook his head slowly. “You
were born and raised in the land of fantasy, Ben. Only today are
you in the real world.”

The researcher groaned and pinched
the bridge of his nose. “You, Lilian, and Fiela maintain that the
Nisirtu control the world and I’ll admit up front that you’ve
provided evidence that you can do incredible things. But I can’t
accept that you have
absolute
control. Someone would have caught on by
now.”

The old man replied, “No, at least
not recently. We, the Nisirtu, conceal our actions with both time
and complexity. We usually work dozens of degrees from our
objectives and our scripts can take decades or even centuries to
unfold.”

“
Centuries?” challenged the
linguist.

“
Yes.”

“
Give me an example,
then.”

Ridley thought for a moment.
“Consider the beloved one-world currency conspiracy theory. If the
Delphic Order of the Nisirtu wanted a single world currency – which
we never did, by the way - we would initiate thousands of carefully
prepared scripts, all with start points perhaps twenty degrees
removed from the objective and a convergence point decades in the
future.

“
One of those
scripts might ensure that some child went to the right kind of
school and got the right kind of education, and that he obtained
employment in a government trade or commerce department. There he
would rise rapidly through the ranks, with our unseen assistance.
When, as a result of
other
scripts, his nation’s economy suffered as a
result of ‘unfair’ trade policies imposed by wealthier nations, or
because the currencies of those nations are more easily manipulated
than his own, he would, if we did our job right, be predisposed to
favor a single world currency.

“
At that point he could be nudged
toward similar people created by similar scripts in other nations,
all of whom would be guided to a position that would give them a
say in the matter. These people would become secretaries of
commerce and trade, influential academics, authors, actors,
parliamentarians, senators, presidents and prime
ministers.

“
Thousands of
concurrent scripts would contribute to the objective by causing
deflation, riots, war, famine, and so forth. Strictly speaking, a
collection of scripts is called a
scenario
if they all lead to a
single objective, but in practice the two terms are used
interchangeably.

“
Some of a
scenario’s initial scripts are written to solicit a strong
emotional response from the Ardoon populations. Outrage,
preferably, or fear. We use those outlying scripts to create what
we call a
channel,
which is an environment conducive to the desired
outcome that increases the probability that subsequent scripts will
be successful. A single script may support multiple scenarios, of
course. Scripts and scenarios intersect within a web of
possibilities.”

Ben said, “The computations
necessary to do what you’re talking about would be extraordinary.
I’d be surprised if even the most powerful computers could perform
such calculations. How could they have been done in ancient
times?”

The scribe said, “They were done
by hand, at first, using various mathematical formulas. Some
scribes developed tools to assist in them. I prefer the scripting
boards developed in Egypt, but I am a stick in the mud. Two
millennia ago a calculator of sorts was developed, one of which now
rests in the hands of the Ardoon.”

That intrigued Ben.
“Where?”

“
I believe what is left of it is
maintained in Athens. It’s called the Antikythera mechanism. I’m
sure you’re familiar with.”

“
You’re shitting
me,”
said Ben, unable to control
the outburst.

“
I’m
not
shitting you,” responded Ridley with a wry smile. “There were
once hundreds of such instruments in the ancient world. The
devices’ primary function was to calculate script start and
completion dates based on the location of various celestial bodies.
I have two such devices that I toy with from time to time. Mine are
far more accurate than the ancient versions because they are
machined to precision. In antiquity all the components were made by
hand, so there was a built-in failure factor.”

Ben, speechless, simply stared at
the other man.

Ridley cleared his throat and
said, “Enough about scripts. I did not bring you here to write
scripts. Would you not like to know about the Tiwanaku
tablets?”

Chapter 19 - Empyrean Glossa

“
Lilian told you how it was that
the tablets ended up in my hands, correct? Of the Sillum, his
enslavement of the local population, and his failed attempt to
bring his god’s minions into this world?”

“
Yes,” said Ben, “and she said
that the Nisirtu who found the tablets shipped them to Argentina to
a society building or something like that. A few centuries
ago.”

“
Actually, it
wasn’t
a few
centuries ago. It was fifteen centuries ago,” said
Ridley.

Ben laughed mirthlessly. “There
was no contact between South America and Europe or Africa at that
time.”

Ridley shrugged. “No Ardoon
contact, but we, the Nisirtu, were present on every continent at
that time. You say that is impossible, but is it not also
impossible that we should be able to forecast all world events
before they happen?”

He’s got you there,
Ben.

Ridley continued, “In fact, the
Nisirtu who stumbled upon the ceremony was a scribe, like me. He
shipped the tablets and his report back to Queen Sodietti, then the
ruler of the Fifth Kingdom, who, being a skeptic, had the tablets
thrown into a vault. She wrote off the Tiwanaku episode as
unscripted Ardoon civil unrest. That would have been the end of it
had not King Sargon, Lilian’s father, stumbled upon the scribe’s
account and the tablets during a restoration of one of his
residences in Argentina some twenty-odd years ago.”

Ridley lowered his chin. “Packaged
with the tablets was an unopened scroll that contained the scribe’s
theories regarding how the Sillum gained control of the locals. The
scribe believed, based on his interview with the Sillum’s followers
and others, that the stranger had been gifted with what the scribe
called the
Empyrean
Glossa.
”

Ben helped himself to the bottle
of whiskey Ridley kept on a nearby table. As he poured, he said,
“Language of the Heavens?”

Ridley nodded. “Let us just refer
to it as
Empyrean
. The scribe suggested that Empyrean was the
primal
language of all
sentient beings - a language that is hardwired into our
consciousness. It is our
animal
language.”

“
I don’t understand what that
means.”

“
Animals are born with languages.
They are not learned. A dog’s bark in one nation is understood by a
dog raised in another. The mating call of a bird on one continent
is understood by a bird of the same species born on another. The
languages are inherent to the species.”

“
I’d hardly call
a dog’s bark a
language
, Ridley. A form of
communication, yes, but not a language.”

“
A form of communication then,”
allowed the other man. “It is not a perfect analogy, I admit. In
any event, the scribe suggested that the language spoken by the
Sillum was the language that nature, or the gods, intended humans
and other self-aware beings to use. It is thus the language not
only of the angels, demons, and gods but also of the Adams and
Eves.”

“
A single language spoken by
everyone?” Ben swirled his drink. “I don’t like it. That would put
me out of work.”

Ridley chuckled. “Yes, and because
the language is
primal,
it would be the language that
all
human communication descended
from. It would be
perfect
, which means that extremely
difficult concepts that would take thousands of words in a
derivative or
diluted
language like Spanish or English could be expressed in
Empyrean in far fewer. Perhaps as few as one or two.”

“
One or two?”

“
Yes, if they
were the
right
words. Words that you and I cannot comprehend because they
carry so much meaning. Words worth a thousand pictures. A speaker
would not only express himself perfectly, he would be able to
convince any listener who did not speak Empyrean to do or believe
anything. The speaker could, in a few syllables, send a listener
into panic, or the throngs of ecstasy, or into a rage.”

Ben shook his head. “Again, I
don’t follow you.”

The sage explained. “All humans
are persuadable. Politicians are experts at persuading people, as
are dictators, propagandists, lawyers, writers, poets, salesmen,
priests, advertisers, and marketers. They use words and images to
convince listeners to believe what they want them to believe or to
feel what they feel. People can even be convinced they saw
something that never happened. Yet this takes time. Hours, week,
months, or, in the case of advertisers, sometimes years.

“
In contrast, a
speaker of Empyrean would need only
seconds
because his ideas would
be
perfectly
expressed
. They would therefore
register as
uncontestable truths
to any who heard them.”