The Messiah Choice (1985) (31 page)

"You mean it expects to anoint a human being, the Antichrist, on Halloween?" MacDonald felt a little ill. "And that person will lead the world into—atomic war?"

"I fear so. That's why it was so circumspect up to now and why at this stage it is moving much faster."

"And who will this be? The Dark Man, whoever he is?"

"I think not. We've done a good deal of thinking on this, and come up with the usual hundred theories, but we must factor in how this is progressing and with whom. Remember, we're not working so much on what the full literature says, in allegory and symbolism, but on how this literal machine interprets and acts upon it. I believe I have its monstrous scenario, which explains the rest, but I want to check and double-check everything before throwing it on the table."

"So what we have, then, basically, is a mad computer," MacDonald said, thinking it all over.

"But how does this explain invisible monsters and this great power they have over people's bodies and minds?"

"Science," Lord Frawley stated flatly. "Allenby is a think tank for the west's greatest scientists and engineers and theoreticians. All of that work, some of it considered so far out that no government or corporation would finance what would be necessary, went into SAINT, and SAINT has access to the full resources of Magellan. We have no idea what incredible things were worked out on that computer and using graphics models. Most of the great minds involved probably believe the work is still in the theoretical stages, but that's where they have the edge.

They can send an apparently valid order to a thousand places, each building and testing small components of a system, all cloaked by national security seals, and then assemble it when and where they wish. I find it difficult to believe that a computer such as SAINT could act as you describe unless told to do so, but, much as I hate to admit it, Alfie's got the basics down. I think you'll find humanity more than capable of providing sufficiently demented brilliant minds to carry it out with tools like SAINT, alas. It's actually an old story—the misuse of breakthrough technology for evil ends—but we have progressed so far in our knowledge and resources that the potential for this dwarfs Hitler."

"Perhaps," said the Bishop. "Perhaps. But there are inconsistencies, holes in it all, as our young friend here pointed out. There's no room up there for secret laboratories and wide scale experimentation on people. It is a close community and is rather open to all. A think tank, not a place for experimentation. I've seen the blueprints. There is no way such labs could have been added without everyone noticing; they take time to build and expert, specialized staffs to maintain. No, my friends, this is the real thing. This is Satan's work, working through men as he always does. People will regard the Antichrist as a great human being capable of miracles and speaking in God's name. Our materialism, the materialism of our society, leads us to reject the truth when it stares us in the face. Hell has been handed the opportunity and the method and it is taking advantage of it. Do not dismiss their off-handed powers lightly or try rationalization too much, or we shall lose."

"Oh, Willie, enough of that spiritualistic clap-trap," Frawley snorted. "Next thing you'll say is that since it's in the Bible we shouldn't stop it, that it's our duty to let the world be destroyed or dominated by these madmen."

"No, we must try and prevent it at all cost. God is not as absolute as all that. Men and women must struggle to the last breath against Satan and retain their trust in the Almighty. God's mercy saved this brave lad in the church from their pet demon. Still, I can not deny that I worry about our role in this."

"Eh?" MacDonald felt like an observer at a tennis match.

"The beast shall be delivered a mortal wound by the people of God, and that wound will be healed, or so it says. The beast will be apparently vanquished, then resurrected by the Antichrist.

We've come far, gentlemen, and we've accomplished a lot under their very noses, but I worry that this is partly playing into their hands. I can't help but wonder if we are the instruments that are to mortally wound the beast in God's service. We could very well triumph in this and actually advance their own mad cause."

* * *

After so long sleeping on hard straw mats or the harder ground, Angelique found it next to impossible to sleep on a bed even when it was covered with a silk sheet. They had made her slippers which allowed her to walk through the whole of the house, which was mostly carpeted, and that certainly had lifted her spirits, but the clothing was more important to her, as it restored a sense of both freedom and dignity.

She stood there as Maria tied off and put the finishing touches on a beautiful light blue silk dress. It had been designed as a
sari,
and it gave her an exotic, third-world appearance that seemed almost natural in an international and cosmopolitan setting. It took some time to get used to moving in it, feeling something soft against the skin, but it felt almost sensuous. With a little help—some cleaner and polish for her jewelry, which was welded on, and some dark red lipstick, and a touch of exotic Oriental perfume, she hardly knew herself looking in the full-length mirror.

The girl that she saw there was yet a third
persona,
not the crippled and defenseless girl from Quebec nor the priestess of some ancient time, but rather an attractive, exotic, even sensuous woman from some far off land, who looked quite foreign but even more mysterious and sensual for all that.

The men of the house, even MacDonald, were equally impressed and affected by it, and by the inner change it seemed to bring in her. She felt human again, part of the human race, and it showed.

With Maria's help in translation, they had quickly worked out a somewhat elaborate sign language for her, so she had a method of communicating even with those she no longer could understand. She was now feeling somewhat irrepressible. She wanted to feel some of that freedom in more than this cloistered setting. She wanted to go out and see this place, this new corner of the world.

At first they were hesitant, but they realized that no one can be a freak and a specimen but so long without going mad. She needed to reclaim her humanity.

The first few forays were brief and in a lot of company—a walk down the narrow streets of Sausalito, feeding the birds on the pier, eating ice cream bought from a vendor. She drew some stares, it was true, but also a lot of admiring glances from strangers, and after she saw some of the normal denizens of the Bay area in their crazy costumes and painted faces, she realized why the location had been chosen.

Ultimately, one of the staff would drive just her and Maria into the city itself. She liked the feel of San Francisco, and liked browsing in the shops, particularly in the silk shops of Chinatown.

Maria was always there, dressed in a curly blonde wig and dark glasses, the worldly-wise guide.

Still, she felt only a visitor here, not a part of things. She could read none of the signs, understand none of the prices, and could make no sense at all out of the ceaseless babble around her.

One evening in late September they were walking back to the car as it was growing rapidly dark. They had limited themselves to the daylight, mostly for safety's sake, but Angelique found she had no sense of time at all and Maria had lost all track of it. The area where they'd parked seemed now full of shadows, dim and deserted.

They didn't even notice a group of four big, young men on a street corner until, when they were actually at the car and Maria was fumbling for the keys, they were suddenly all around them in the otherwise deserted lot.

Strong hands pushed both women with force up against the car and then turned them around.

The four stood there, grinning and leering, and there were knives in the hands of two of them.

"Look, you can take the money, the car. Just go and leave us alone," Maria told them, trying to sound brave when she was actually scared to death.

"Yeah, well, maybe we take more than that, babe," said one, obviously the leader. "What's she?

Some kind of
Af
frican princess or somethin'?"

"Y—yes. African. She doesn't speak any English."

"I never had no
Af
-rican meat before," one of the others noted. "Not the genuine article. And you, babe, you look good for the bunch of us yourself."

Angelique could not make out the words, but she felt almost overwhelmed by Maria's terror and there was no mistaking the intent of the men. She repressed her own fear and mentally called for the spirits to attend her, even in this desolate and unnatural jungle.

One man reached out to undo Maria's jeans, while another closed on Angelique with intent clear in his mind, and something snapped inside her.

Feet shot out powerfully into one man's stomach, knocking him back into the one behind.

Somehow, in one motion, Angelique had landed on her feet with the knife from the first one in her hand. It was a strange sensation; she was working on instinct and with such speed that the men all seemed to be moving in extreme slow motion.

The knife plunged into the one closest to Maria while Angelique's body knocked the other away. Although tiny, Angelique had tremendous power and speed. Her
sari
unraveled and fell away, and as they were getting up to come at her she was already in their midst. She leaped like an antelope, a foot striking one's Adam's apple while the other came down, maintaining perfect balance. She whirled, and before another could leap on her the knife in her hand whirled, too.

Maria watched, stunned, unable to believe what she was seeing, in spite of knowing that Angelique had taken care of the two guards in the boat house back on the island. This was unnatural, perfect; Angelique was a killing machine and she was enjoying every second of it. The sight of it, the combination of the attack and her friend's response, and the welled-up tension of the past weeks all seemed to gang up on her at once, and she panicked and started running blindly away from the parking lot towards the street and people through an alleyway.

Angelique was on such a high that she didn't even notice, but now, standing over the bodies of her victims, she looked around and saw nobody there. She was suddenly aware once more of where she was and what she had just done, although she could still see no alternative. She knew, though, that this place would not stay deserted for long, and that when the authorities came they would find her and take her in and there would be fingerprinting and descriptions that would go out across the country and would be seen and heard by the ever-present listeners even on their remote island. And the Dark Man had a very long reach.

She looked around, found the crumpled
sari
and hastily moved off into the shadows, clutching it. Only in the safety of the darkness did she pause and retie the thing as well as she could manage. She had had a lot of practice. The whole thing was held in place in the end by one inner safety pin that had given way at her first leap. Fortunately, the pin had remained embedded in the cloth.

She knew she had to get out of there and fast. She couldn't waste time looking for Maria, not now, and she was sufficiently exotic that even if they discounted the idea that such a small woman could have taken and done in all four attackers they would run her in on general principles.

There was, and had always been, a contingency plan in case of any separation. There was a place where far-off people visited, the Place of the Fishers, which was always brightly lit and was right on the water. If anybody was separated, they were to go there—Maria had shown her the exact spot—and wait near the old sailing ship until help came. It was an open area, so someone could observe the spot without actually being there and thus make certain of rescue before exposing yourself. But she was not near the water, but well into town, in the places of business and guest houses rising to the sky, and it was dark, the high buildings and city lights obscuring any view even of the sky and moon. She turned a corner and found herself on a hilly street filled with pedestrians and horseless wagons with bells and bright, garish lights, and she was alone, with only a rumpled
sari,
hopelessly lost and confused, with no command of any language she might encounter, with no money. She had had no real fear of the four men; they had been evil ones, barbarians who had to be dealt with, and she had the power and the skills to do it. But now, here, alone in this strange city, she began to feel afraid.

12

AND ALONG CAME THE SPIDER ...

The headline in the paper read, "FOUR THOUSAND DEAD IN MIDEAST SUICIDE

ATTACK." The sub-head was "Gunman kills 40 in Chicago Mall." The madman who hacked and slashed nine people to death in Philadelphia, including five children, did not even make the national news.

Three bloody revolutions erupted simultaneously in Africa. No one from outside could get in or out, so it would be some time until the death toll was known, which was still the headline.

Nobody much cared which side won.

There were forty-two revolutionary groups in various stages of fighting throughout Latin America, while in Sinkiang, China, a general at the Lop Nor nuclear facility went mad and was stopped just short of launching four atomic missiles into the heart of the Soviet Union. Nor were the Soviets immune, although little of that news leaked outside. In Leningrad, however, police were still baffled by the Canal Slasher, who mutilated and tortured at will despite the best efforts of the police and KGB. It was rumored that he was himself either a top KGB man or perhaps a top party official.

The Secretary of the Air Force was attempting to keep quiet, while demanding to know the cause, why no fewer than twenty two-man nuclear missile launch teams had had at least one officer go mad during quiet times, so much so that he either shot or had to be shot by the other.

There were two assassinations and five attempted assassinations of world leaders during a forty-eight hour period. No motive or connecting thread could be found. Thirty-seven nations now boasted that they had atomic bombs and delivery systems for them. The others who had them weren't telling.