The Apocalypse Script (29 page)

Mr. Fetch said, “We have a bottle
of the 1937. Would that be satisfactory, sir?”

The attorney laughed merrily.
“It’ll do in a pinch, lad.”

Soon dozens of additional guests
began to arrive by air and land. Ben was initially amazed that such
ostensibly powerful men and women could drop everything they were
doing to respond to Ridley’s invitation, especially given the short
notice, but then recognized that it was their power that allowed
them to do so. They ruled their own lives and answered to no one
except their kings and queens, who, from what he could tell,
required nothing but their subjects’ loyalty.

The guests were an exceptional
lot, physically. The Nisirtu men were generally tall and chiseled,
the women were slim and gorgeous, and the children were adorable
and seemingly wise beyond their years. Most newcomers arrived
dressed in the kind of leisurewear that could only be purchased
from specialty stores. Two hundred dollar polo shirts and five
hundred dollar khakis. Sneakers, boat shoes, and sunglasses that
topped a thousand dollars each.

By midday the parking lot held a
great variety of luxury and sports cars, many of a make Ben had
never seen before. He stood outside the doors to the Great Hall
admiring them and contemplating a closer inspection. He wasn’t a
gear-head but he didn’t need to be to appreciate the mechanical
marvels that were collecting in
his
new front yard.

“
There you are,” came a voice from
behind him. He turned and saw Lilian and Fiela striding toward him,
hand in hand.

“
Just enjoying the view,” he said,
turning back toward the cars. Lilian appeared to his right and
Fiela to his left, though the Peth had stopped a half step
back.

Lilian said, “A friend of the
family, Willie Barnum, would like to meet with us in about an hour.
He’s an attorney who has reviewed the marriage contract and wants
to make sure all the T’s are crossed.”

“
That’s probably a good idea since
I didn’t understand most of what was in it. I signed it anyway, of
course. That’s how I ended up in the Marines. I never seem to
learn.”

“
We’ll meet in Ridley’s study,”
said Lilian. “The three of us and Willie.”

“
Okay.
Fiela
!
”
yelled Ben over his shoulder, “you’re giving me the creeps standing
back there. Did you forget your sunglasses?” He knew the girl was
extremely sensitive to light but the skies were
overcast.

“
No, Mutu,” she said, taking hold
of his arm but not moving.

“
What, then?”

Lilian made a clicking noise with
her tongue. “Don’t be silly, Sister. Stand next to your husband.”
To Ben, “It’s customary for the serretu to stand a little toward
the rear if the asatu is present. I doubt you care about such
things.”

“
You’re right,” he replied.
“That’s ridiculous. I’m officially nixing that custom by whatever
authority that document I didn’t read gives me.”

“
Done,” said Lilian decisively,
and motioned Fiela to move up with a wave of her hand.

“
Thank you, Mutu,” the Peth said,
kissing him on the cheek when she was beside him.

“
Are all the guests arriving
today?” he asked.

“
No, perhaps a third,” said
Lilian. “The rest will arrive tomorrow. I’ll need to introduce you
to many of them.”

“
That’s what us trophy husbands
are for, right? To be shown off?”

Lilian laughed. “That, and other
things.”

More seriously, Ben said, “Explain
something to me. I get that everyone in the Nisirtu is wealthy by
proxy. And powerful. But how is it that everyone – and I mean
everyone – is either handsome or beautiful?”

“
Do you think I’m
beautiful?”

The man laughed curtly. “You must know that,
Lilian.”

“
Yet you have never said
so.”

“
Lilian, Fiela, you are
the two most beautiful women I have ever laid my eyes on.
Clear?”

“
Thank you, Mutu,” said
Fiela.

“
Thank you,” added Lilian,
before saying, “Yes, Nisirtu women are, by Ardoon standards,
beautiful, just as Nisirtu men are tall and handsome. Our ancestors
were superb horse breeders and reasoned that it made no sense to
carefully breed lower animals but to leave the breeding of high
order animals like humans to chance. So for five thousands years we
have been selectively bred. The brightest, strongest, healthiest,
that sort of thing. As a result our IQs are generally quite high,
we have very long lives, and we are immune to many
diseases.”

“
And you’re bred to be
beautiful? ”

“
Beauty is merely a side
benefit of the pursuit for the healthiest offspring. I should point
out that the program is voluntary and that the Nisirtu aim only to
enhance positive traits. We are too wise to use race, religion, or
other unrelated attributes in mapping our genetic futures. Such
foolish polices are,” she said, with irony, “
exclusive
to the Ardoon.”

“
That’s why you’re immune
to Cage’s, isn’t it? You’ve got a specific genetic identity. Ridley
said the pathogen was designed to bypass you.”

“
That’s right.”

Before Ben could explore the topic
further, a young couple walked up to them. Both were
Hollywood-perfect. He bore a marked resemblance to one of those
carefree polo players shown in cologne advertisements in
gentlemen’s fashion magazines and she looked like the head of an
Ivy League sorority that catered exclusively to homecoming queens.
Ben was surprised they weren’t both carrying tennis racquets and
sipping champagne.

“
Annasa,”
said the man,
showing his perfect white teeth, and Lilian held out her hand so
that he could brush her knuckles with his lips. The young woman
next to him repeated the ritual.

Lilian said, “You are kind but I am not a
queen.”

“
But you will be,” said the woman.
“Soon, we hope.”

“
It is time that
the world was returned to its proper order,” said the man, eyeing
Ben.
“
Anax?
”
he
probed.

Ben held out his hand.
“Ben.”

“
Rightful son of Sargon,” said
Lilian with gravity.

“
Chosen successor of the Great
Sage,” added Fiela.

The younger man took the proffered
hand and shook it enthusiastically. “You are an inspiration, sir.
Son of Sargon and chosen of the Great Sage. I have made it a point
to read all of your books and I am amazed at your intellectual
prowess, truly. I am a student of ancient
civilizations.”

Ben was happily surprised.
“Really? Any specific region or period?”

“
The Pacific and
Southeast Asia are what interest me most. I am preparing a paper
on
Lemuria
, in fact.”

“
Lemuria.” Ben
nodded approvingly but wondered who would ever see the paper if the
universities were abandoned. “You have an interest in mythos, then.
I’d certainly be interested in reading the finished product. I once
authored an article on
Mu
. It was a pop piece for a travel
magazine, but I’d be happy to share my notes with you. I didn’t
catch your name?”

“
Augustus,” the man said. “Lilian
knows my family. Oh,” he said, stepping back. “I’m sorry, this is
Theda, my wife. She’s a marine archaeologist.”

“
Anax,” said the woman, gently
twisting Ben’s outstretched hand and kissing the signet ring on his
finger. She raised two hypnotic blue eyes to meet his as her lips
pushed against the cuneiform inscriptions. Ben tried to hide his
embarrassment as Fiela’s grip on his arm tightened.

“
Ben,” he corrected her, politely
withdrawing his hand. “A marine archaeologist and a student of
Lemuria? You two were destined to be together.” He spotted another
couple headed his way. Clearing his throat, he said, “It was a
pleasure meeting you both but I’ve got some matters to attend
to.”

“
Of course,” the visitors said
almost at once, and after a few parting pleasantries the couple
continued past him to the Great Hall.

“
Sister,” said Lilian, “I should
stay here to greet some of our visitors. Why don’t you escort our
husband to the sanctuary of his study? I do not think he is
desirous of our visitors’ attention.”

“
We can go to
the bedroom,” the girl said, tugging at his arm. “Perhaps you would
like to nap?
In the
bedroom?
”

“
A nap?” exclaimed Ben. “What am
I, your grandfather?”

“
Oh, Mutu,” lamented Fiela as she
pulled him away from the door. “Fine, let’s go to your study and
stare at your stupid tablets.”

“
You’ve got a
sound system!” Fiela said excitedly. She had been slowly circling
the study with her hands behind her back while Ben tried to
reconstruct on paper some of the lines he saw on
Tablet 3
. The red lines
behaved in a curious way on that tablet.

“
Huh?” he said, holding a
magnification glass to the inscriptions.

Fiela didn’t answer. She was
standing in front of a cabinet of audio equipment playing with the
buttons. Eventually she found the right combination and invisible
speakers throughout the room began to pump out music.

“
Oh this is so great!” she
exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me you had this?”

Ben sighed and looked up. “I
didn’t know I had it.”

“
Do you like music?”

“
Some,” he said, looking back down
at the tablet.

The girl turned up the music
slowly, watching him to see how far she could push it. It didn’t
take long for her to find the ‘scowl’ threshold, at which point she
stopped playing with the dials and began to sway left and right,
her arms above her. “Do you like to dance?”

“
Nope.”

“
I love to dance,” the Peth said.
“No matter where I was fighting, I always found a place to
dance.”

“
Mm-hmmm.”

“
Do you like this kind of
music?”

“
I don’t know what that kind of
music is,” he replied.

“
You know, dubstep, electronic,
that kind of thing?”

“
I’m a linguist and I still don’t
know what you’re talking about. I don’t suppose you like Robert
Johnson?”

The girl dropped her hands to her
sides. “Mutu! You’re not ancient. You’re only like thirty years
old. How can you be so behind the times?”

Ben placed his hands on his desk
and looked up. “It’s my job to be behind the times. A few
millennia, normally. Anyway, you’re one to talk, Miss
Babylon.”

The girl’s eyes lit up. “I know
how to dance the veils! You’d like that, I bet. It’s really,
really
old. I don’t have
the veils, though…”

“
Some other time then. Anyway, I
don’t have anyone available to behead at the moment.”

“
Ha!” laughed
the girl. “Now you’re thinking of your
other
wife.”

Fiela began to dance again, her hands above her, her
hips moving slowly left and right, up and down, as she worked her
way around the room.

While still dancing, she said,
“Once when I was in Prague, I got involved in this running skirmish
with some rebels that lasted like three hours. At first we were
chasing them, then they were chasing us, and then it was just them
chasing me, but they were tired by then and I never get tired, so I
got behind them and finished it, and then I went to dance. It was
this little place with a name I don’t remember, but I was covered
in blood, you know, what? They didn’t even care.”

Placing the magnifying glass down and leaning back,
the researcher said, “Do you always dance after a fight?”

“
Uh-huh,” she said as she danced
towards him. “It’s a perk of being a night fighter. There’s always
a bar or club open when you’re done. It helps, you know, get rid of
the tension.”

Her eyes lost some of their focus.
“I remember that night I had to kill this other girl. She was my
age and she kept begging me to let her go but, you
know…
I couldn
’
t.
” The
girl frowned and shook her head. “Anyway, the music was great that
night. I really love music, Mutu. It makes the whole world
disappear.
”

The man wanted to look away, to
show Fiela that he was uninterested in this kind of thing. Dancing?
He hadn’t danced since high school and had no plans to start now.
Fiela didn’t seem to care. She seemed to take a great deal of
satisfaction in dancing
for
him and he found himself unable to stop watching.
It was a form of hypnosis, the way she rolled her hands up and
down, left and right, the motions effortless, smooth and
perfect.