Armageddon

Chapter Four

Oval Office, White House, Washington D.C.

“Sir, newsflash just in, Former President Clinton has just killed a baldrick at the McDonalds just down the road.”

“Damn, that will cost us at least one more seat in the House.” President Bush looked pensive for a moment. “I don’t suppose we could get my pappy to whack one?”

His public relations advisor shrugged, if one turned up in the right place it could be arranged, probably. But that was asking too much. “No Sir, not that we can rely on anyway.”

Bush’s mouth twisted, a pity to be disappointed so late in the evening. “How did it happen anyway? How did Bill, I suppose we’ll have to call him Wild Bill now, manage it? And what were the Secret Service up to?”

“The details are very brief, Sir, apparently he just blasted the baldrick with an automatic shotgun. Doctor Surlethe, the National Science Advisor is waiting outside, perhaps he can give you some more details.”

A sigh wafted gently across the room, President Bush really didn’t like being briefed by scientists. They tended to use such long words. Like any good politician, Bush knew that the time taken to say a four-syllable word was greater than the attention span of the audience. “Trot him in.”

Bush leaned forward in his seat, giving the impression of studiously examining the papers on the Presidential desk. “Doctor Surlethe, good to see you. A great achievement by the former President, but one that raises a few questions I think?”

“Indeed so sir. Mr. Clinton was very lucky that the baldrick in question was a new type, one that apparently has some unnerving capabilities. In accordance with your instructions, we’ve started naming the baldrick types we encounter. For example, the we’ve designated the flying baldricks as harpies, the aquatic ones as leviathans and the land-based one as behemoths. The one killed by Mr. Clinton was human sized and gave every appearance of being a human female, a very seductive one. It changed appearance into what we assume was its real form only when blasted with several dozen rounds of double-ought buckshot and automatic pistol fire.”

“Wait a minute, this thing was able to simulate people’s appearance? It’s a shape shifter? That means it could be anybody, you, me, anybody could be killed and replaced by one of those things.”

“Yes Sir, although things may not be quite that bad. The other thing is that this baldrick, we’re going to call this type a succubus, just materialized by the former President’s table and started to speak to him. The Secret Service men thought they’d fouled up badly but nobody saw that thing before it was standing next to the former President and speaking. It’s as if it simply materialized there.”

“That’s appalling. It means nobody is safe, one could materialize here and now.”

“Well, that all depends Mister President. There are pretty much two possibilities. The first is that the succubus really is a shape-shifter and can teleport around. If that is the case, then we can take the entire science section of the Library of Congress and toss it on to the landfill. Everything we thought we knew about the physical world is wrong. However, the other possibility is much more probable and something we can handle.” Doctor Surlethe paused for a second. This was going to be the tricky bit. “This option is that the succubus doesn’t change shape or teleport, it simply makes us think it looks the way it does.”

“How can it do that?” Here comes the long words Bush thought to himself.

“Mister President, are you familiar with the concept of quantum entanglement.”

Knew it Bush thought. Four syllables at least. “I’ve heard the term.”

That means no. Doctor Surlethe said ruefully to himself. Oh well, here we go. “Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in which two or more objects influence each other at a quantum level even though the individual objects may be spatially separated. This leads to correlations between observable physical properties of the systems. For example, measurements performed on one system seem to be instantaneously influencing other systems entangled with it.”

Surlethe looked at the President, he wasn’t sure but Bush’s eyes seemed to be rotating in different directions. “What this means is that one quantum state can duplicate itself, transit information on itself if you like, to another without a direct contact. This has been experimentally demonstrated within a laboratory and we are just beginning to appreciate the implications of the phenomena. Now, the workings of the brain and nerves all use various kinds of energy fields, you’ve heard of brainwave measurement and things like that. We’ve been doing that for years. Now, theoretically, its possible that the succubus can entangle its energy field with those around it so that it transmits information to them, in effect it duplicates itself in them. So, the succubus holds a mental image of itself in its mind and uses this ability to entangle the sense transmissions in those around it so it duplicates that image in them. In short, all those around the succubus see it the way the succubus wants them to see it. It doesn’t change shape, it simply changes the way people see its shape.”

“And the teleport thing.”

“Easy, the succubus simply transmits an image of itself that isn’t there. It isn’t invisible, it simply tells the senses in its victim that it isn’t present. Now, if this is correct, we should be able to detect that energy field, there isn’t a part of the electromagnetic spectrum we can’t detect and measure, and work out a way to stop it. Only, we’ll need a live succubus for that and we haven’t got one. Until we get one, we won’t know which explanation is correct.”

“We don’t need a succubus Doctor, we’ve got the evidence we need.” Bush grinned to himself, just because he didn’t like using four-syllable words and usually mispronounced them when he did, didn’t mean he couldn’t understand them.

“We have Mister President?”

“This is Washington Doctor. The city with one of the highest crime rates in America. Knocking off fast-food restaurants and shooting the staff is a daily event. Or was, until the places started installing video surveillance cameras. Now, if I follow your explanation properly, the entanglement thing you talk about works on the energy fields in the brain. Surveillance cameras don’t have brains. The film should show us what is really there, not what it wants us to think is there. So, lets get that film.”

It took just under an hour. The manager of the 19th Street McDonalds had the interesting experience of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III arriving to collect his video surveillance tapes personally. Director Mueller carried the tapes went back to the White House where they were set up in the projection office just off the Conference Room. By the striking of the hour, the audience had assembled and the tapes were run.

“Right, here we are, we can see the former President and his two Secret Service men entering the restaurant… will you look at that!” Mueller’s voice was incredulous. A jet black figure, human-sized but with a set of rounded stub horns and a long pointed tail entered through the open doors of the restaurant, only a foot or so behind the rear Secret Service man. By the time the doors had closed, it was inside. “He’s getting his food, going to the table.” The succubus had walked less than a couple of feet in front of the Secret Service agents, both had looked directly at it, but neither of them had seen it. The succubus spoke with Clinton while he ate, then the two left together. A few seconds after they left, there were the brilliant flashes of gunfire outside.

“There we are, Doctor Surlethe, it doesn’t teleport and it doesn’t shift shape. It just makes us think it does, so you can start to look for your energy field, right?”

“Yes Sir.” Bush relaxed in his seat, running the implications of the scene in his mind. “Doctor Surlethe, your Quantum Entanglement theory was very interesting and, as far as I can make out, plausible. Don’t concentrate on it to the exclusion of other theories though. I’ve seen that happen all too often.

“Gentlemen, we’ve proved something else today. We can rely on our optical sensors even if we can’t rely on our own eyes and ears. That’s worth spreading to the troops, to everybody in fact. I doubt that this succubus thing that Bill killed so emphatically will be the only one that we run into, there will be more and we need to be on our guard against them. Closed-circuit television surveillance, remote surveillance so that the operator isn’t within the zone of control of these things, is essential. By Executive Order, I’m making the installation of such equipment a tax-deductible expense as from now. See that gets out as fast as possible.”

James Randi Educational Foundation, Florida, USA

James Randi rubbed his eyes. The last few days had been tiresome in the extreme, ever since the announcement that all mediums were being tested so that their abilities, if any, could be used in the war effort went out, the Foundation had been besieged by applicants. The big names, of course, had refused to show their faces. They were scared spitless of The Amazing Randi and with good reason. He knew the tricks they used and how to expose them, submitting to tests by him would destroy their livelihood. That reasoning hadn’t helped them, they had found themselves being picked up by the FBI, bundled into the back of a Chevvy Suburban and brought down to the Foundation. A few hours later, they had been on their way back, their fraudulent claims exposed and discredited.

“Not one. Not one genuine medium in the whole lot. There was a time when that would have delighted me but not now. We know there’s something out there but we can’t get at it. It was easier being an atheist, now I don’t know what to believe. Guess that makes me agnostic.”

“No, James. I know that the idea an agnostic lies between the extremes of atheism and religious fanaticism but it does not. It is a separate line of thought. An atheist denies the existence of any sort of god, the theist affirms it. An agnostic believes that the existence or non-existence of a god can never be proven, the Gnostic believes that the existence or non-existence of a god is subject to rational proof. If I understand your position correctly, you were a Gnostic Atheist. You denied the existence of a god and thought you could prove that your denial was correct.”

“And I was wrong, General.”

“Why James? We know now that there is life after death, that is undeniable. We know that the afterlife is ruled by beings. Why do you believe those beings are gods? We have already proved we can kill their servants with almost absurd ease. Why cannot we kill them as well? They’re probably more trouble than they are worth anyway.”

“We don’t like our gods, so we kill them. Now that’s a soldier talking.”

“No James, it is not. A soldier fights for those who cannot fight for themselves. Today we fight for all those who have died, who are being held in horrid slavery. We fight for all humanity, past, present and future. You are part of that fight, don’t forget it. In this war, you are as much a soldier as I.”

“General, while we are speaking on this subject, may I ask something? How does The Message affect you and your people? Few or you are Christian.”

“On one level James, The Message does not concern us. I am a Buddhist, so are more than 90 percent of my people. The Lord Buddha was not a god, he was a man. A very wise man who laid down rules for living one’s life as well as possible on an imperfect earth. Good rules that when applied mean one lives a good life. To us, being a Buddhist simply means following those teachings, I could give you a long lecture on what that means but here is neither the time nor the place. When we meditate we simply ponder the teachings of the Lord Buddha and try to seek enlightenment on how they can solve our problems. When we pray to him, we simply are asking him what he would do under these circumstances. Any question of gods or devils is quite irrelevant to that center core belief. In my country, we are animists, we believe that everything has a spirit that lives in it, a spirit we can talk to and who will talk back to us. So The Message didn’t affect us much. On another level, what does affect us is the assertion that all humans go to eternal punishment no matter what they believe. The Message made no distinction between the religions or stated that one would be exempt while another was condemned. All humans are subject to the same fate. So we fight. That’s why governments pay us the big bucks.”

“Which brings us back to where we started. We’ve been pulling in every psychic, every medium, every fortune teller we can find. When we’ve exhausted this country’s supply, we’ll start abroad. Yet, for all our efforts we have not come up with one single person who can actually speak to the dead. What if there are none? What if the dead are indeed beyond contact?”

The General finished her whisky and refilled her glass. “Perhaps we are looking in the wrong place. Perhaps we should consider the possibility that so-called mediums cannot speak to the dead but that those who can speak to the dead are not mediums. After all, let us suppose that one can communicate with the dead. What will we learn? That the dead are subject to an eternity of hideous torture, without hope of end or reprieve. That the same fate awaits us all. Now, the grieving family of a dead person turns up on our doorstep. They want reassurance, they want to know that their beloved husband, or wife, parents or children have gone to the better place promised, that they are happy in their afterlife. Would you tell them the truth? That a terrible fate has fallen on them and that the same awaits their relatives?”

Randi shook his head. Such cruelty would be inconceivable. Thinking about it, The Message itself was an act of diabolical cruelty, one that only a truly foul mind could conceive. When Satan had proclaimed his dominion over the Earth and proclaimed that all its souls belonged to him, regardless of virtue or cause, he had fully lived up to his reputation. “So where do we look?”

The General sipped her whisky, savoring its smoky taste. “Imagine yourself as someone who can speak to the damned dead, know their pain and anguish, feel their agony, know that the same fate awaits you and that there is no hope, that the fate ahead is what inevitably awaits you. What would you do?”

Randi thought for a second. “I think I would go mad.”

The General looked over the rim of her glass. “Quite. So shouldn’t we start looking amongst the mad? Looking at those who hear voices, voices whose messages are so dreadful that they have driven the listener insane? All through history there have been those who have claimed they have heard voices that drove them to acts of rage or despair. They’ve always been treated as though they were insane but suppose they were not? Suppose they really did hear voices, either accidentally or deliberately. In ancient times, such people were described as possessed but in our arrogance we assumed otherwise. We assumed that they were sick, that they had a mental defect that we could treat. Perhaps they were not, perhaps they really were possessed by the demons who now assail us. That they were victims of the hideous game we are now playing to its final act.”

“So we should start looking amongst the mentally ill. That will be a long job.”

“It will indeed, James, but it is one we can move fast on. We are looking for specific kinds of people, those who hear voices that drive them insane. I think computers can help with this, we need to have the records searched so that we can find the most promising cases. Then we can bring them here.”

Office of the National Science Advisor, Washington D.C.

“Call for you, Doctor Surlethe. From Florida.”

“Thank you, put it through.” Surlethe waited for a moment. “Surlethe here.”

“Doctor, this is the James Randi Educational Foundation.” Surlethe recognized the contralto voice, one that had a threatening growl underneath it. The sound of a well-fed tiger that was eying a small animal with the thought that it had just a little room left in its stomach.

“Ah yes General. How is the research going down there?”

“We’ve hit a dead end, our initial concept was wrong so we’re changing tack. We’re writing off the known mediums etc as source material, its pretty obvious they’re all frauds and confidence tricksters. Instead, we’re going to start looking at people who claim to hear voices in their heads and are under treatment for such ‘delusions’.”

“So you and The Amazing Randi think that some of them really do hear voices.” Surlethe’s voice was bitter. Scientists had never forgiven Randi for exposing tricksters whose acts had fooled ‘scientific’ testing. Randi had pointed out that the skills needed to expose a fraud were different from those needed to conduct an experiment. It hadn’t helped, if anything it had made things worse.

“We do. What we need you to do is to get as much information on such cases to us as possible so we can start working through them. Also, I read the note about the search for energy fields? Can you get some instrumentation down here pretty quick, if we do start finding what we’re looking for, we should be able to measure what it is they’re hearing.”

“I’ll get the equipment sent down, along with some experts to install it. Thank you General, and good luck.”

Surlethe leaned back in his seat. A new front had been opened against the forces that were threatening humanity. While the armed forces were picking off the baldricks who appeared in earth, science and reason were striking at the very heart of their power. For the first time since The Message, Surlethe felt good.