The Crooked God Machine (32 page)

I pulled myself out of his grasp, and wheeled around. The prophet’s son choked on the apple jammed between his lips and made a gagging sound.

“I would advise you to not go up there!” The prophet called after me.

We kept going.

As we made our way up the mountain we came to a cave, surrounded by a sheer cliff face.

Inside the cave an endless array of televisions flickered to life, and I saw the walls inside the cave were not made of rock, but of hard faced steel. God in his black mask stood facing the camera on every television screen, motionless except for the breath that stirred in his black chest.

“Backup electrical generator,” Camp said before anyone could ask, “at least that’s my guess. God should be comfy up in his creepy cave castle while we’re all freezing to death, of course.”

At the end of the cave we found a spiral staircase leading upwards out of the cave. At the foot of the staircase lay a dead plague machine, its stomach bulging with dead insects and arms outstretched like electrical wires.

“Have we come the right way?” Leda asked, “Where are the guards? The servants?”

We ascended the stairs and entered God's castle. The walls inside breathed and glistened wet like the trembling muscle that lay over bones. The ceiling hung transparent above us, like a filmy mucous membrane, revealing the sky above its quivering frame.

When the last heretic stepped off the staircase, the plague machine down below whirred to life. The cave echoed with the sounds of a brewing storm.

At the end of the hallway we came to a television bolstered above a closed iron door. The television flickered to life.

“This broadcast is to the citizens of the capital only,” God said from the television, “And particularly to those who have blatantly disobeyed my commandments that were decreed since the beginning of time. No one who disobeys me will go unpunished in the afterlife. No one will escape...”

Camp headed toward the door.

“Wait,” Leda, “We don’t know what’s behind there.”

“You’re right. Everyone get out of the way.”

Camp raised his gun and turned the doorknob. It unlocked with a soft click, and he pushed it open. Several other heretics drew their guns and got into position for opening fire.

When Camp saw what was inside the chamber beyond the door, he lowered his gun and grew still.

“Camp?”

“I found out what happened to everyone,” Camp said, his voice hoarse.

Inside the chamber we found about a hundred of the castle staff dead.

Servants and guards lay on the ground, slumped in chairs, collapsed against tables and walls. Glass cups littered the floor and the tables, and some of the dead were still clutching cups in their hands.

Through the transparent ceiling I saw dusk rise up, and the black moon emerge from the cool dust. The black light shone down on the dead faces and seemed to turn them into stone.

We walked through the chamber, stepping over bodies, without speaking. The only sound came from the television and the plague machine churning in the cave below the castle.

“They killed themselves, didn’t they?” I asked once we entered the next hallway.

“Yes,” Leda said, “you saw the cups. They drank poison.”

Leda ground her teeth together to keep her jaw from shaking.

“Someone told them to do it,” Leda continued.

“Why?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe they knew a secret.”

We approached the next door at the end of the hallway.

“Stop talking,” Camp said. He raised his gun and moved in to position to knock down the door.

Before Camp could act, the door swung open. A hot light busted through the hallway and I threw my hands up to shield my face.

“Come in, come in!” spoke a familiar voice. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s been a rough last couple of hours here in the capital city, but soon you’ll be returned to your normal broadcasting schedule.”

I followed Camp and Leda into the room and lowered my hands from my face. In the center of the room, Teddy sat on his gray bed beneath the hot light, in front of a camera bolted to the wall. Delilah lay on the bed next to Teddy. She stirred in a bad dream and her arm fell across the side of the bed.

Teddy lifted up his arms as if to embrace us and hot wire spiders spilled from his hands.

“I’d like to introduce to you the troublemakers that have been responsible for all of this,” Teddy said, “say hello to the heretics from block six!”

Chapter Fourteen

All those years I'd pictured Teddy and Delilah as terrifying demi-gods, larger than life, sequestered away in some version of reality that was brighter, bigger, and more real. Except Teddy and Delilah were as flat and pale as bad watercolors. Only now did I realize how small they were.

“You’re really quite clever, you know,” Teddy said, “Turning the plague machines against the monsters? Shutting down the entire power grid for the city? Took me a while to realize what you'd done and reverse the damage. But now the city’s up and running and the plague machines are working properly.”

Teddy’s head snapped back toward the camera.

“Which just goes to show you, folks, you can’t ever defeat those who are on the side of God.”

Camp pressed the muzzle of his rifle against Teddy's chest.

“You're wrinkling my suit,” Teddy said, “you know my viewers expect a certain level of professionalism. Do you want to be responsible for their disappointment?

“I don't give a damn what your viewers think,” Camp said, “we need to find out where God is.”

“You'll see him soon enough. We are going to do such great things. You should be very excited.”

Teddy brushed Camp’s rifle aside. I put my hand on Camp’s shoulder.

“Stop,” I said, “let’s listen.”

“Yes, listen to him,” Teddy said, “I think you’ll find I have an offer you can’t refuse. All of you out in the hallway, come in here. You’re a part of this as well.”

The rest of the heretics filed into the room. Some with guns raised, but most with their weapons at their side, their eyes like empty televisions.

“Wouldn’t you agree that these sinners should be destroyed?” he asked the camera, “but though God is powerful and swift in his justice, he is also merciful.”

“What happened to those people in the chamber then? The ones who drank the poison?” I asked.

Teddy ignored me and continued speaking.

“These miserable heretics, the lowest of the low, who have committed the worst type of sin and attempted to defy God himself, will be given a second chance. Right here, right now, on live television broadcast across the entire planet.”

“What is this?” Camp whispered.

Teddy smiled.

“Beg for forgiveness, heretics,” Teddy said, “show God that you are repentant and you shall be spared.”

No one spoke.

“Come on! I was expecting a little more enthusiasm than that. Step right up. Don’t be shy. Just turn to the camera there and ask God to forgive you. Then God will ensure your immortality in paradise at his side. That’s all! No catch!”

“So what you’re saying is,” Camp said, “all we do is say that we’re sorry and we just get to walk out of here?”

“Walk out of here?” Teddy said, and laughed, “oh no, of course not. You misunderstood me. ”

Teddy produced a small vial of blood from his inner jacket pocket and held it out in front of us and then toward the television. Old blood, dry and crusted black.

“Your body will be destroyed, but we will preserve a small amount of your blood in God’s coolant storage system forever.”

“That’s insane,” I heard myself saying.

Teddy’s head snapped toward me.

“Tell me your name,” Teddy said to me.

“Charles,” I said.

“Charles,” Teddy repeated, “Is not the parts equal to its sum, Charles? In a single drop of blood lies the essence of a human being. Did you know that one human cell contains the genetic code for creating a complete replication of an individual? Don't you see what I'm offering you here? There are only 144,000 spots in heaven, and through God's benevolent will, you can achieve salvation. Right here. Right now. For the whole planet to witness."

"A drop of blood is not the same as a human being," I said, "You can't just kill us, store our blood in a freezer, and call it salvation."

"My dear boy," Teddy said, "what did you think heaven is?"

"This is bullshit," Camp said.

"Wrong," Teddy said, "did you think salvation meant we would allow you to retain your individuality, your disgusting sinful earthly bodies? Did you think we would let you into heaven with your sex and bile and sickness? Simply by existing you betray God. Your bodies rejected the very thing that would have made you worthy of salvation. Your bodies received a glimpse of eternity, and in response they withered and died.”

"The slip implants?” I said.

"There were attempts before that. Even the prophet's bodies eventually reject their spheres. The prophets grow sick and die young because a human body always rejects God's gifts. And despite God's blessings upon them, they are still human. And no matter what you say, the fact remains. There is no place for humanity in heaven."

Teddy ran his hands through his slicked black hair and smiled his spider eating smile.

"So what's it going to be, folks? Salvation or hell?"

Teddy paced up and down the room.

“No one? Come on!”

Teddy grabbed my arm. His grip was cold.

“Come on, just look in the camera and smile,” he said, “the whole world is watching. Tell them you beg for God’s forgiveness. Tell them!”

When I glanced down I saw that his hand was not a human hand but a calcified, bent organ of glass.

And it started to change.

“Let go of me,” I whispered in a dry voice.

The hand bulged. It turned black, and then gray. The knuckles stretched out like animal claws, rearing and spitting right underneath the skin. He tightened his grip and I gasped.

“Let go!” I said.

Teddy laughed. Leda raised her gun and shot Teddy in the chest.

His body jerked back and his head slammed into the light above the bed. Delilah squealed and turned her face away. The bullet tore through his chest but there was no blood.

"I'm very disappointed in you all," Teddy said.

He stood up from the bed and headed toward the door. As if in a dream, several of the heretics moved to let him pass. His footsteps disappeared down the hallway.

"What is wrong with all of you?" Camp said.

He stepped in front of the television. Delilah hissed and writhed in the bed behind Camp, but never made a movement to get up.

"Listen up," he said, "I don't know if anyone can hear me right now, or if this camera is even broadcasting, but if it is you need to listen. We're the heretics from block six, and I'm going to tell you everything that God's been hiding from you. We escaped from hell several years ago..."

Camp continued speaking to the camera. I went down the hallway after Teddy. Leda, Wires and several others followed after me. Teddy crossed the hallway through an open door, which led to an antechamber. Past the antechamber I followed him onto an exterior bridge that led to a large, domed chamber. The place where God always broadcast his messages. God's throne room.

Televisions on the walls and floor of the bridge showed Camp in front of the gray bed, waving his gun in front of the camera and talking about the horrors he'd seen down in hell.

“Listen to me carefully! God is not on our side!”

I heard a sound like a loud pop, then wind and freezing water rushed through the antechamber and onto the bridge. It rushed through my skin, knee-deep, and spilled down the sides of the bridge into the chasm below. In the city below the plague machines churned, kicking up a storm. Black angry clouds with horse faces descended down on the capitol from above.

Like almost every room in God's castle, it was nearly empty, a hollow, cold slice of the universe.

Teddy walked toward a black gilt throne in the center of the room.

“You think you can kill God?” He said with his back turned to us, “you think this world would be better without us here to protect you from yourselves?”

Teddy reached the throne and reached for an object resting on one of the. God's black mask. Teddy placed the black mask over his face.

"Well, it seems your defiance has convinced us to start the end process a little quicker than we would have. Without you on this planet, we will create paradise. Unchanging, clean. Perfect."

Cold water rushed into the sanctuary at our feet. Down the hallway, we heard the shouting of guards. Gunfire.

"It doesn't have to be this way, I said, "it never did."

"Spare me the trite sentiment, Charles. That's your name isn't it, Charles?"

As Teddy continued to speak, his voice crackled and turned dark, warped at the edges. He spoke like the black water that carried Jeanine's butchered swans across their glassy surface.

"You thought you were going to kill the creator of the universe," he said, "but who would you be without Him? If you killed God, humanity will drift through space alone until it destroys itself."

"That can't be," I said, "I saw the pictograms in the old temples. I know there was a world before this one. The monsters used to be equals to God. The machines fought the monsters instead of tormenting us with plagues. Do you expect us to ignore our history, when its remains are all around us?"

"There were those who once rose up in defiance against the almighty God," Teddy said, "but they were hurled to the earth below and destroyed."

"You're lying," I said.

"What were you expecting?" he asked, "that you were going to kill God, go home, and make utopia out of nothing? You already ruined one world with your ignorance and sin. Will you have to ruin another before you realize you deserve this annihilation?"

Though I couldn't see Teddy's face behind the mask, I imagined him smiling.

"Without God you will die alone chained to this planet," he said.

“I don’t believe you,” I said, “I’ve been to the ocean. I heard the voice. It said help was coming. Someone, or something, is coming to save us.”