Armageddon

Chapter Twelve

Headquarters, Randi Institute of Pneumatology, The Pentagon, Arlington, VA

“I see you finally got your new offices.” Julie Adams looked totally different from her first visit here less three weeks ago. Her hair was washed and shining, she was wearing skillfully-applied make-up and was smartly, fashionably, dressed. As with all the latest fashionistas she was wearing chic aluminum foil hat that covered her head and extended down the back of her neck. Producing elegant headwear out of aluminum foil had proved a challenge but the French and Italian designers had come through with flying colors. Julie’s aluminum hat had more to do with her change in appearance than her clothes or make-up. For the first time in many, many years her eyes were quiet and rested, she looked at the world with peaceful confidence not abject terror.

“They’re nice aren’t they.” The Amazing Randi was sitting behind his desk, sorting through the letters received by his unit, trying to pick out the genuine prospects from the fakes. It was a harrowing job. “Our General bullied the decorators until they did what we wanted. By the way, the walls are foil-lined, we’ve got monitoring equipment here and we can’t pick up any extra-dimensional signals. So it looks like we’re safe. I guess the next set of building codes will stipulate aluminum foil in all walls and ceilings.

“Anything.” Julie shuddered at the memories of what Domiklespharatu had done to her.

Randi smiled again, understanding her expression like any skilled cold-reader. “Julie, would you like to get your own back? Punish Domiklespharatu by hurting him the way he hurt you?”

“Sure. Of course. Can I?”

“Come to the laboratory.” The two went into the next room. There was a comfortable reclining chair with some electronics behind it and a swinging table with a microphone. “Don’t ask me how any of this works, I’m a conjuror, not a physicist.”

“It’s quite easy James.” One of the men in white coats was talking. “The baldrick mind control works by quantum entanglement, essentially they transmit their mind signal to a victim and force its mind pattern to match theirs. When we intercepted the baldrick signal, we identified both the baldrick’s pattern and that of Miss Adams. So we just reversed the procedure and we’re going to try and entangle its mind pattern. The catch is its much easier for hell to transmit to us than us to transmit to them. So, since we’re not short of raw electrical power, we’re going to boost it upwards until we can transmit to hell. If we’ve done this right, you can speak into this microphone and broadcast straight into Domiklespharatu’s mind.”

“Thank you gentlemen, I still don’t understand how it works but you’ve done wonders, that I know. If this goes well, what we plan to do is to open a new radio station transmitting to everybody in hell. And, Julie, you’ll be our first newsreader. Now settle down and start to try.”

Julie slipped into the chair and pushed her headset on. Earphones and a simple microphone. Behind her, the systems specialists started to ease the power up, seeking the threshold that would tell them they had breached the barrier between the dimensions. In her seat, all Julie could hear was the signals hum, slowly increasing in pitch and intensity. Then, suddenly it stopped, there was an eerie silence at the other end and Julie could sense the suspicious questioning as Domiklespharatu felt a new presence in his mind.

“Remember me Domiklespharatu? I’m Julie Adams, the woman you got your kicks from torturing. Well, I’m back only I’m in your mind now. I can get into your head but you can’t get into mine any more. So guess what, Domiklespharatu, its my turn to have some fun and yours to suffer. Let’s see, where shall we start? Oh yes, here’s a good one. We’re coming for you and all your kind. You had the impertinence to invade us and we’re slaughtering your kind here. You don’t stand a chance against us. We’re coming for you and we’re going to free all of our people you hold and hand those of you that survive over to them. We’re going to hand you over and watch all our people do to you what you have been doing to them. There’s a new order coming and we’re the ones on top. So, you’d better start running Domiklespharatu because we’re coming for you and we won’t stop. Not now not ever. You’ve pissed off the human race Domiklespharatu and, oh boy, what a price you’ll pay for doing that. Oh, and tell that freak you have in charge there, he’d better find a good lawyer. He’ll need one for the war crimes trial.”

The system powered down and Julie took her headset off. There was an enthusiastic round of applause. Randi laid an approving pat on the shoulder. “Impertinence. That was great. I guess you’ll be taking the job then Julie.”

On the Shore of the Styx River, Fifth Ring, Hell

The woman was crouched behind a rocky outcrop on the edge of the Styx in the fifth circle, watching the scene unfold in front of her. Luck was an amazing thing, wasn't it? For thousands of years, she'd been purposefully moving through hell, taking account of the humans who suffered here – some worthy of her attention, others, weaklings, worthy only of her contempt. Of course, given the billions of souls – there must be billions, now – she could only rely on her instinct to guide her. And now, this. Just as she was in the area, some new arrivals had escaped with apparent ease, had tackled the demonic overseer with impunity, stabbed and bludgeoned it to death with skill, and had just crucified it to the rocks in front of her. Such open defiance was unprecedented and dangerous.

In ten thousand years, she had learned many languages from the screams and gibbering cries of the tormented, so with only a little difficulty she recognized what they were saying. The woman was speaking to a man, something about resistance. She smiled to herself. If only they knew… As they turned to go, she stepped out from behind the rock.

"Hello!"

The two newcomers whirled, the bronze spikes they carried up and ready. The woman smiled and spread her arms, revealing herself unarmed. "I have seen what you have done. Excellent work."

The apparent leader of this group was a woman, short, already healing from the gang rape. She gestured to her companion and he lowered his weapons, though they still stood cautiously at the ready. All were in excellent physical shape, save for the quickly-healing wounds and scars. "Who are you?"

"A fellow resistance member." Suddenly, the woman felt a stab in her back above the kidneys. She almost fainted with terror, had a demon caught her for the spikes against her were certainly the bronze of a trident. She turned slowly, looking over her shoulder. There were more newcomers behind her, one armed with a cut down trident, the other with a club made from the section of haft that had been removed. The woman was shocked, she’d been so pleased at tracking this group, she hadn’t seen they’d spotted her and had set up an ambush.

Now, the leader of the group was speaking, her voice hard, cold, suspicious. "There's already a resistance?"

"Of course there is. There has been a resistance in Hell since it began."

"Well, take us to its leader."

The woman again spread her arms. "I will certainly do that. But first you must tell me your names."

"When we meet the leader."

"Okay. Then follow me; we're going to the rim between the fourth and fifth circles." And she turned and stepped into the waist-deep muck, wading past the still-bleeding corpse of Jarakeflaxis. The six newcomers followed her at a distance. The woman didn’t notice but two of them dropped out of sight, following from the flanks.

Over her shoulder, the woman said, "If I duck under the mud, you do the same. As long as the demons on patrol don't see us, we'll be fine."

The Tango flight members exchanged glances, that remark was more telling than the woman had realized. It should be the demons who lived in fear. First rule of establishing liberated area – those who stayed out of it were safe, those who entered it, died. Obviously what she meant by resistance wasn’t what they meant. Kim started to form a mental picture of what the resistance here really was, probably groups of escapees hiding out, spending their time avoiding capture. Kim had in mind something far more ambitious.

The Galaxy Turkish Bath and Massage Parlor, Bangkok, Thailand

The succubus slipped into the bar carefully, keeping in the dark as much as possible. Once it had been easy to fool the humans but no more. Now fewer and fewer of them seemed vulnerable to mind-masking. This group seemed to be though. All women, that was good, massacring them would cause great alarm and misery. There were a group of them by a long wooden table at the end of the room. The succubus kept her self-image clearly in her mind, a young Asian woman dressed as these were, short skirt, skimpy top, baseball cap perched on their heads. A couple of women were dancing around a pole on a small stage, under a sign that said “Coyote Dancing”. Well, they could wait until last.

The succubus went up to the group by the table, picked the one at the end and drew back her clawed hand ready to plunge it into her victim’s chest and tear out her heart. Then she paused, she’d never realized quite how big a half-inch could look when it was pointing straight at her face.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking, can you kill me before I pull the trigger? Well, seeing as this is a. 50AE Desert Eagle, the most powerful semi-automatic hand gun ever made, you have to ask yourself one question. Do you feel lucky?” The human woman chuckled. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

The succubus looked around carefully. She was the center of a ring of gun barrels, all aimed at her, all obeying the third law of gun-fighting – calibers measured in inches should begin with a “. 4” or greater. It was pointless, over. She let her image drop and from the lack of shock on the faces of the women, she realized her illusion had been just as pointless. These women had recognized her as soon as she had entered and they’d trapped her.

“So kill me.” She’d failed, it was hopeless. Death was the consequence of failure.

“Perhaps not. Sit down. Don’t try anything stupid and we won’t shoot. Why did you do this?”

“It was my mission. Deumos sent me to seduce a leader and bend him to our will.”

“So Deumos is your pimp.” The woman with the Desert Eagle put a mountain of disgust into the word. “That doesn’t explain why you came here to try and kill us.”

“I failed, we were told that politicians here were easy to seduce but I couldn’t make mind-contact with them. I hoped killing you would buy enough favor to save my life. People here no longer are deceived by our mind mask.” The succubus thought for a second. “What is a pimp?”

“Somebody who lives off the money we earn.”

“I do not get paid.”

“Then you’re a sex-slave?” The women in the bar were genuinely shocked. They frequently told their tourist clients they were poor women, tricked into a life of sin by unscrupulous brothel-owners but that was just a line to get some sympathy-money. They were all Bangkok girls, born and bred in the city. Country girls couldn’t compete with them and didn’t try. Not one of the girls in the bar had ever actually met a real sex-slave.

“Aren’t you?"

“No!” Noi, the girl with the Desert Eagle, was horrified and insulted. “We are business-women. We are free professionals and paid as such. Why last week I made more money than an office lady makes in a year. Look… What’s your name?”

“Lugasharmanaska.”

“Look Lugasharman… do you mind if we call you Luga? Nobody has the right to go around telling you who you can have sex with. Not unless they pay you for the trouble. It sounds to me like this Deumos person has been treating you pretty badly. You’d be better off staying with us that going back to him.”

“Her. Deumos is a female. A Greater Demon.”

There was another round of indignant snorts. “That’s disgusting. A woman treating you like this? A man, perhaps I can understand, they always want it for free but another woman? That’s sick. You should be free to make your own living. It’s your body.”

“I could make a living doing it here?” Lugasharmanaska’s voice was uneven, curious, confused.

The women in the bar laughed, although that didn’t affect the way they held their guns. “You bet. A real demon whore? There’d be men lining up out the door to do you. You could look like yourself, or like their favorite actress or whatever. You’d make a fortune. Why a couple of months and you’d own a bar like this. Less if an American warship pulled into Pattaya.” A chorus of happy sighs ran around the bar. To the women, an American warship full of Walking ATMs was their idea of the Great Cornucopia. Noi continued. “Look, Luga, last time one American carrier pulled in for a week, I made enough money to buy a new pickup truck. Cash down. Lin over there paid for a whole year’s college tuition for her younger sister and Dip bought a house for her parents. How do you think we all ended up with American guns? Tourists are profitable enough, we all make a good living off them. And this Deumos person makes you do it for nothing. It’s not just disgusting, its unprofessional.”

“Well what can I do?” Lugasharmanaska almost wailed out the question.

The girls did a quick conference. “Come with us, we’ll take you to the Army. They’ll look after you, they know if they don’t look after our friends, they’ll never get any in this city again. I’ll get my truck and we’ll go around to the Cavalry Depot in Thonburi.”

Five minutes later, one succubus and five ladies of the night were piling into Noi’s pickup truck, Lugasharmanaska having been strongly cautioned not to scratch the paint with her claws. A ten-minute drive took them to the depot gates where, for the second time in an evening, Lugasharmanaska was surrounded by guns.

“Hi boys.” Noi’s voice was bright and friendly.

“Sisters, you do know you got a baldrick in the back there?”

“Of course. Her name is Luga. She wants to surrender so we brought her here. We don’t trust the police.”

“I can understand that. I’ll have to call the Officer of the Guard.”

Another ten minutes and the group were telling their story to the Officer of the Guard, making it very clear that the succubus was under their protection and if she was hurt, nobody in the Second Cavalry Division would be welcome in a Bangkok bar again. Most of the troops had gulped at that threat and mentally promised to guard their prisoner with their lives. Within 30 minutes, the Thai MoD was on the telephone to Washington.

Headquarters, Randi Institute of Pneumatology, The Pentagon, Arlington, VA

“Well, it’s a step forward but it doesn’t really get us that far.”

“I thought Julie did well.”

“She did, and we told her she can use the equipment any time she likes to torment Domiklespharatu. But its one-to-one communication. It’s using a telephone and we want to use something like radio. We want to transmit to everybody and this system just can’t do that. It needs a mind-pattern to lock in to, like I said, it’s one-to-one.”

“But baldricks can deceive large numbers of people at once.”

“Sure, but we don’t know how. We’re a long way out from knowing that.”

The telephone on Randi’s desk rang and he picked it up, mouthing an apology as he did so. As he listened, his eyebrows lifted.

“Well, this might change things. That was the Ministry of Defense in Bangkok. We’ve got a defector.”

Tip of the hat to Surlethe who wrote the hell section of this installment.