Pantheocide

Chapter Thirteen

DIMO(N) Conference Room, The Pentagon, May 2009

“Well, did you escape with your virginity intact?” General Schatten looked at Colonel Paschal curiously.

“I tell you Sir, those pheromones are dangerous. It’s all right when there’s ventilation or the room is large enough but in a closed space like a limousine, they’re insidious.” Paschal reflected that he’d noticed all too late that Lugasharmanaska hadn’t had the air conditioning in her limousine turned on. “Even when one’s expecting them and prepared to discount their effects, they sort of sneak up on one.”

“So he did lose his virginity to her.” Dr. Surlethe put a great deal of satisfaction into his voice.

“Well, it’s not surprising. Remember that tabloid journalist? From the Enquirer or the Star, one of the supermarket things. Made contact with her, wanting to do an expose on ‘Sex Secrets of the Succubae’ or something. Apparently, she sucked him in and he crawled out of her apartment two days later, hands shaking so badly he couldn’t even type for a week. He’s been singing her praises ever since.” A guffaw ran around the room, the power the succubae had to seduce people was already legendary.

Paschal went bright red which caused an even greater outburst of laughter. “I told you, I didn’t lose my virginity to her…”

“I guess you’d lost it somewhere else first then. Careless of you.” Dr. Kuroneko spoke suavely. “Of course you realize she’s now got your sperm stored away? She’ll transfer it to an Incubus who will then impregnate a woman with it.”

“Ugh, squick.” The executive assistant taking meeting notes in the corner of the room shuddered with distaste.

“You know Colonel, you could be in serious trouble there.” The emotionless, uninflected voice sounded strange in contrast to the joking that had been going on. “The recipient of that Incubus’s attentions could well sue you for paternity. After all the courts have already ruled that a woman who impregnates herself with the contents of a discarded condom has a right to demand child support.”

“You’re joking.” Paschal sounded genuinely panicky. “Aren’t you?” Then he looked at the speaker more closely. “I thought your company had lost its contract when the new administration came in.”

“It did. But the number of people who can do the sort of work we do is very limited. So, when the old company loses the contract, we all get laid off but the new company has to hire staff to do the work. We’re the only ones available so they offer us our old jobs back. In the old days, we used to clear our desks one afternoon, go home, pick up the recruiting call and be at our new desks the next morning. These days things are much more efficient. The old company just transfers the lease on the building and our employment contracts to the new company and we don’t even have to move offices.”

“Has it always been like that?” Schatten was fascinated by the insight.

“Mostly, McNamara bought his own people in from outside, the whizz-kids they were called, and they made a pig’s breakfast of everything. But they went when he did and things got back to normal. Or as close to normal as anything gets inside the beltway. Anyway, Luga’s back on the team?”

“She is. Thanks to the brave Colonel’s sacrifice and devotion to duty.”

“Good, I like Luga.” The targeteer settled down in a seat.

“Why does that not surprise me?” Schatten opened his pad, “You all heard about the attack on El Paso and Ciudad Juarez last night?”

A ripple of acknowledgement ran around the room and the meeting got serious very suddenly.

“We have preliminary casualty figures. More than 30,000 dead, about three quarters of them in Ciudad Juarez. Just over 6,000 in El Paso itself. To put those numbers into perspective, the population of El Paso is roughly 750,000 while that of Ciudad Juarez is 1,300,000. So, the death rate was 800 per hundred thousand or 0.8 percent in El Paso and 1,846 per hundred thousand or 1.84 percent in Ciudad Juarez.”

“That’s very interesting.” Dr. Kuroneko looked at the numbers he’d scribbled down. “The differential is statistically significant.”

“It’s more than that, take a look at this.” Surlethe reached up and flipped the chart over to an acetate overlay map of the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez metropolis. Some of the areas were shaded black and it didn’t take much imagination to see that the depth of the shading represented the proportion of the population that had died.

“It’s related to population density. Hardly surprising.” The monotone voice was not impressed.

“Not quite no, it’s a reasonable assumption and one we made at first.” Surlethe flipped another acetate overlay on to the map. “This is the population density distribution. You can see that it doesn’t quite fit, there are substantial discrepancies. But when we use this overlay, the fit is exact.”

Surlethe flipped a third acetate overlay into place and the attendees nodded. The fit was indeed exact. “And what is that map?”

“It’s a map of the city divided into areas by relative income. And the conclusion is very obvious. Where people are rich, nobody died. Where people are poor, some died. Where they were destitute, a large number died. Even then, the number of surviving humans far outweigh the dead. But every cat, every dog, every rat, every bird, every animal of every sort is dead. Rich neighborhood or slum neighborhood, it doesn’t matter. The animals died, all of them. But the rich didn’t die but the poor did. What does that prove?”

“That Yahweh is a Republican?” One of the staffers trotted out the crack, then looked embarrassed at the lack of response.

“Quite.” Dr. Surlethe’s comment was withering. “It strongly suggests that it’s wealth that provided the defense against this kind of attack. We’re assuming an Archangel called Uriel is responsible by the way, we’ve got circumstantial evidence for that and can tie it to a lot more attacks like this down south. They all show the same pattern by the way, poor areas got hit much harder than rich areas.

“So, how do the rich differ from the poor?”

“They have more money.” The targeteer reflected that the comment was a BLIFO, a Blinding Flash of the Obvious. “and that means they buy better things. Newer things as well, not old or second-hand stuff. The really poor do without or pick up trash. How did these people, and the animals come to think of it, die anyway?”

“That’s the curious thing, the coroners and medical examiners are hard at work trying to find out. The problem is, of course, that the majority of the victims are poor and in poor health to start with. They had a lot of pre-existing conditions that could have caused their deaths, would have done given time, so disentangling what they actually died of is a problem. Then, again, some of the dead did die of natural causes, run down to give one example when a car went out of control because its driver died. The scene was a bit like the attack on Fort Knox in the film of Goldfinger.”

“There’s much easier ways of knocking over Fort Knox than that.” The targeteer spoke idly. “Anyway, do we have any reliable autopsy results?”

Doctor Surlethe fought down the intense desire to ask what was the best way to rob Fort Knox and opened a file. “We have none from the American side, but we do have some preliminary results from an autopsy of an eccentric rich resident of Ciudad Juarez. Apparently, he believed that tinfoil hats were a plot by the United Nations to take over the world and refused to wear one. He did, however, cover his house in aluminum foil. According to the autopsy, he just died of not living. There was no actual cause for his death, he wasn’t in perfect health but he had no conditions that would explain how he died. He just stopped living. The Mexican medical examiner, a good doctor by the way, the people in El Paso speak highly of her, admits to being beaten by this one. There’s no reason why he died, he just did.”

“Was he found inside or outside his house?” The targeteer had leaned forward slightly.

“Sort of both, he was on the patio. The roof was foil-covered but not the sides. Why?”

“We know the Baldrick’s mind control powers work by biologically generated electro-magnetic radiation. That’s why we all wear hats these days.” Unconsciously he touched his ‘Nuke the Whales’ baseball cap, a gesture that was repeated by several of those present. To humans, headwear had become the same sort of good-luck talisman that had once been represented by rabbits feet, crucifixes and Saint Christopher medallions. “They can use that capability to project images into the human mind and make us believe, and act on, those images. They can’t read minds of course, never could, but they can possess our minds. So, suppose this Uriel fellow has the ability to simply suppress the parts of our minds that keep us alive. You know, make our hearts beat, keep us breathing, all that good stuff.”

The targeteer thought for a second. “I wonder if there’s an eccentric old lady in El Paso who put a tinfoil hat on her much-beloved little dog? And, if there is, I bet that dog is still alive.”

“But if that’s the case, why the differential between rich and poor. Everybody has a tinfoil hat these days.” It was the same staffer who had made the crack about Yahweh being a Republican.

Dr. Surlethe snorted. “That’s easy to figure out. We covered it earlier. The rich have more money, they buy better things. I bet if we compare the tinfoil hats worn by the rich people in the area, they’re a lot better made than the ones the poor have. And I bet the rich were the first to upgrade their houses to have metal screening built into the walls.”

“That comparison is easy to make.” Dr. Kuroneko pulled a spare cap from his briefcase. “Standard U.S. protective hat, the insulating lining is a sandwich, two layers of aluminum foil with a thin layer of foamed aluminum between them. That’s pretty much what everybody has and if you buy a hat at any mall, this is what it’ll have built into it. The standard aid cap, the one given out to people across the world is just a single layer of aluminum foil, its just folded cooking foil really. I’ll run some propagation tests but my guess is that our caps have an order of magnitude better screening effect on electromagnetic radiation than the standard aid cap.”

“You needn’t run the tests, I can guarantee that is so.” The targeteer smiled. “That laminate was designed to shield military equipment, its ability to shield against incident electromagnetic signals or surges is very high. This use for it was purely serendipitous. Worked in our favor though, the sheer scale of production needed for hats has cut the cost of the laminate way down.”

“EMP resistance.” Kuroneko wasn’t really asking a question.

“You got it. Also shielding bridges on warships from their own radars and other emitters.”

“Well, that just about explains the differential. But, there’s something else that is worrying me. Why is the death toll so low? According to the Sanchez letter, Uriel killed anything and everything within his lethal radius. Here, he’s achieved that against unprotected animals but his score against humans is tiny. Even against the worst-protected of our people, he’s scoring less than five percent and if our distribution map is to be believed, even poor shielding cuts that to almost zero. There’s something else here people, and we’re missing it.”

Headquarters, League of the Holy Court, Eternal City

Lemuel-Lan-Michael sighed gently and eased back in his seat. The pursuit of idolators, blasphemers and heretics sounded glamorous but the fact of the matter was that it usually ended up as a mass of tedious paperwork. The hunt for the source of the human potion that had been found in Ishmael’s possession was turning out to be exactly that kind of hunt. The interrogation of Ishmael had been all too effective, faced with the threat of another session under a bucket of water he has spilled out everybody whose name he had even heard of. The problem had first been going through those names and eliminating the insignificant. Of course, therein lay the first problem, how could he know who was significant and who was not?

Even after the obvious candidates had been taken off the list, it was still a frighteningly long document. The next step had been to compare that list with all the others they had, ones obtained from other heretics and blasphemers, lists of those suspected of being part of idolator groups, others who had, perhaps, too elevated an idea of their position in Heaven. There were those who did not comprehend that even being allowed into The Eternal City was privilege enough and they should be eternally grateful for it. This had led to another problem, every time the same name appeared on Ishmael’s list and one of those other lists, it resulted in a chain of linkages that spread across dozens of scrolls. Lemuel-Lan-Michael had given up trying to keep a mental note of all the cross-references and had created a chart that covered most of the wall of his office.

It was that chart that had resulted in him running head-on into the third of his problems. He had some of his Ishim clerks copy out the lists on to the wall and then he’d painstakingly drawn in colored lines to indicate the linkages. The wall had swiftly vanished behind a mass of color but the picture that had emerged was rather frightening. It suggested that all the lists were linked and cross-linked, that what the League of the Holy Court had been treating as separate cases were, in fact, part of a great underground conspiracy. It was also apparent that Ishmael himself was only a very minor cog in that conspiracy. That was chilling for one of the consequences of the chart drawn on his wall was that the conspiracy had extended to include angels in its ranks. This was not unprecedented but the precedent that existed was not one to ease the mind of an investigative angel. It reminded him all too clearly of the time, uncounted millennia before, when Satan had been planning his revolt. Was he, Lemuel, looking at the battleground of a repeat version of the Great Celestial War? And did Heaven have the strength to continue the war against the humans if it was split internally by a civil war? Michael-Lan needed to know of this immediately.

“Gazardiel.” Lemuel called out for one of his messengers, a trustworthy Malachim who would gain immediate access to Michael-Lan. Gazardiel-Lan-Lemuel received his instructions, bowed respectfully and took off, leaving Lemuel to ponder the problem that he was uncovering. So lost was he in the great chart before him that he failed to notice Michael-Lan entering the offices.

“I see you have unusual taste in wall-decoration Lemuel-Lan-Michael.”

Michael-Lan’s friendly jibe jerked Lemuel back into the world. He dropped to one knee, folding his wings across his face as he did so. “Michael-Lan, you honor me with your swift arrival. I have uncovered something that concerns me greatly.”

“This is concerned with the source for the human elixir you discovered?”

“In a way, High One. I thought the best way to start would be to find out who Ishmael knew and who would be likely to have supplied him with such a thing. In doing so, I have uncovered what appears to be a plot of the gravest dimensions.” Lemuel looked at Michael-Lan and saw the cloud of concern sweeping across his face. Once again, he reflected on his great good fortune to count such a perceptive Archangel as his friend. “Look, each one of these lists came from the arrest of an idolator or a heretic. The one here, on a blue background, is from Ishmael himself. His own links to others are also in blue. Links from those others to yet more members of the groups are in green, then further links again in red. See how they spread.”

Michael-Lan was studying the lists, disentangling the lines and noting the names linked and, to him, much more importantly, noting the names that were not on the lists or remained unlinked. “But, Lemuel-Lan everybody in Heaven is linked like this. You know the old proverb, everybody in heaven is linked with only six degrees of seperation.”

“I do, High One, but this is different. See how self-contained this list is. Yes, there are linkages that spread all over the texts, but follow them and they remain within defined limits. Those who are linked, retain their links within the same small group and do not stray outside it. There is no link beyond that circle. Michael-Lan, this is not just a normal social network, this has every sign of a conspiracy. Worse, look at some of the names, there are Angels, Ishim, Elohim, Malachim, even Seraphim and one Hashmallim involved. Does this not remind you of the time before the Great Celestial War?”

Michael-Lan studied the charts again. He had to agree with Lemuel-Lan, this had every appearance of being a conspiracy, in some ways worst of all, it wasn’t his. “Lemuel-Lan, you have done noble work here, but this is work that demands the utmost in secrecy. Keep this chart covered at all times, it is for your eyes and mine and nobody else. I feared this discovery the moment you showed me the bottle of human elixir and now those fears have become very real. You are right, there is a blasphemous conspiracy here and one that must be nipped in the bud right away. I will leave you to deal with the humans involved in this while I deal with the angels who need reminding of their station in the great scheme of things.”

Michael-Lan noted down the list of angels identified as being part of the rival conspiracy and decided he had his list of volunteers for pouring the next Bowl of Wrath. Then, he swept out, leaving Lemuel looking at his chart, a sense of fulfillment buoying his spirits.

“Noble One?”

“Yes, Gazardiel-Lan?”

“How could sin and corruption have spread even into angelic ranks?”

“It is the influence of humans, their accursed determination to think for themselves ever leads them into heresy and blasphemy. That is why The One Above All decided that their should be no more admissions of humans into Heaven. See what their mulishness has led them to? If only they had accepted what they were told without argument, the doors of Heaven would still be open to them.” That thought made Lemuel look pensive for without humans, what would Angels use as menial servants?

Then, another thought occurred to him and it troubled him greatly. For the bottle of elixir was truly sin and corruption but it was of a different kind to the arguments over faith that dominated this conspiracy. It was hard to imagine theological disputes over the interpretation of The One Above All’s words to be lubricated by human elixirs. So where did that bottle fit into this? It couldn’t, surely. Looking at his chart, Lemuel-Lan-Michael found his eyes drawn to the small number of names on Ishmael’s list that were not linked to the conspiracy he had uncovered.