Armageddon?? (8 page)

“None
Sire. Although we do have a message that was transmitted by one of their
warlords. It refers to a Predator aircraft.”

“And
just what is a Predator?” Satan was struggling to keep his temper under
control.

“A
hunting bird.” The voice came from a tiny minor demon on the floor. Satan
glanced sideways and his glance mashed the speaker into a purple pulp that
drained away through the stone floor.

“Does
anybody else want to state the obvious?” There was a sudden shuffling of cloven
feet and demons glancing sideways at each other. The more astute of them were
already trying to work out the best place to take cover when their infernal
overlord decided it would be necessary to stage a massacre.

“There
is another problem with that message.” Asmodeus spoke carefully. “The warlord
spoke of ‘major enemy leadership figure’, we assume that means an important
person here. Yet there was nobody on that stand of any importance, a few
relatives of Abigor, that is all. None in the leadership and none of any
importance. We do not understand this.”

“Perhaps
I can explain.” Beelzebub was also speaking carefully. “The warlord also spoke
of ‘information received from reliable informants’. There can be only one
explanation for that comment. There are those of your Infernal Majesty’s
subjects who are in contact with the humans and are passing information to
them.”

A
horrified gasp went around the hall. The whole concept was a nightmare to
contemplate yet was also eerily plausible. Who here had not sold information on
an ally to an enemy in order to bring about a tactical advantage?

“But
Sire.” Asmodeus was appalled, his voice terrified at even speaking of this
idea. “Nobody important was killed.”

“Nobody
important perhaps.” Beelzebub spoke almost as smoothly and calmly as Satan had
done. “Not in our terms perhaps. But the traitor – or traitors – who sold the
information to the humans may have been using them to settle a private score of
his or her own. Who knows where treason might end?”

Even
Satan was silenced by that thought. The hall was still, silent as the occupants
absorbed the implications of what Beelzebub had said. Then, the glances that
they were exchanging underwent a slow change from apprehension at what might
Satan might do next to suspicion at what their neighbors might be saying to
these upstart humans. No matter how intense those suspicious glances became,
they couldn’t match the ones Satan was casting at them.

Room
352A, Arkham Asylum, New York City, NY

The
voices had been haunting Julie since her sophomore year of high school. Every
time she'd tried to tell them to go away, they simply laughed at her. And when
she denied they were real, they'd whisper to her, caressing her mind like an
unwanted lover, telling her secrets – what was happening far away, what others
were thinking about her, telling her things that were never wrong.

And
they were always right, always there, always just out of her senses, dripping
across her mind like black grease. Even after she'd tried to kill herself – it
hadn't worked; they'd told her that it was pointless, that someone was at the
door just as she'd watched the blood stream from her wrists with morbid
fascination – even after the suicide attempt, when her family had tearfully
waved her goodbye, and she'd gone to Arkham for treatment (which hadn't worked)
and incarceration, they were telling her things, what was happening outside.
The conquest was on, they'd said. The infernal deal that had haunted her
nightmares since she was five, that had haunted every waking moment since the
voices had first come, was sealed and complete. Heaven's gates were closed and
locked, the whole of humanity damned without hope of rescue or reprieve.

Her
cell was locked, as always. The white walls were padded, and she was sitting on
her cot in the corner murmuring to herself when one of the voices –
Domiklespharatu, it called itself – whispered, "Look to the door!"
She did; the lock on the door clicked and lifted. "They're coming to get
you ... coming to take you away ... to experiment on you ... to rape and
torture and mutilate and humiliate you ... ."

The
voices were never wrong. She hurled herself back into the corner, away from the
strange people filing into the room. Then there was Dr. Becky, her presence a
welcome familiarity that was dispelled by the presence others, more people in
uniforms and more in white lab coats. Domiklespharatu laughed. “Look at you, pitiful
little girl.” The floor reared up, and she stumbled backward into the walls.

Dr
Becky Skillman had worked at Arkham for fifteen years, and in all that time
she’d never been visited by the government. Two men in suits, with dark
sunglasses, guns, and no sense of humor had knocked on her office door, shown
her a pair of bright and very impressive badges, and asked her for a list of
the patients at Arkham for whom treatment had done absolutely no good.
Especially the ones who heard voices.

She
wasn’t one to deny the government a request, especially not in this day and
age, with the Message, a quarter of the Arkham staff were gone, and the strange
reports filing through the news were unsettling. There was fighting, of some
sort, the sort that reminded her of the nightmarish hallucinations of her
patients. The men had been from the Secret Service and they’d thanked her
cordially, gone, and then a half hour later were back with an entire platoon of
men in fatigues with rifles, asking to be taken to Room 352A on the third
floor.

Julie
Adams had been at the top of the list, and they’d decided to take her first.
Before Skillman had a chance to ask any questions, they’d waved a piece of
paper – subpoena or something like that – in her face, and were demanding the
case files.

Adams
was an untreatable schizophrenic, and had only gotten worse through the eight
years she’d been in Arkham. No treatment had worked – and they’d tried them
all, from the newest drugs to some of the oldest tricks in the books, the sort
that the staff all mutually agreed to keep quiet because people who didn’t work
at psychiatric hospitals just didn’t understand. And now the government wanted
to take her away?

Skillman
shrugged. Eh – not her place to question or worry. As they filed into the pure
white cell, Adams was scrabbling against the back wall, face contorted in fear,
the greasy tangles of her long, black hair swabbing the wall. “No! NO! I’m not
gonna let you take me!”

The
soldiers impassively moved forward, seemingly deaf to the woman’s harsh,
pathetic screams. Reaching down, two deftly warded off her slaps and kicks and
lifted her by the shoulders so that she hung between them like a rag doll.
Brushing past Skillman, they filed back out of the room, Adams’ screams echoing
down the corridor. The two men in black thanked her, and walked out, leaving
her standing in the silent room, listening to the sick woman being dragged down
the hall.

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

James
Randi sighed and rolled his eyes. While the search teams were scouring the
nation’s medical facilities for the apparently insane who might not be insane
after all, the fakes and charlatans had continued to pour into the Institute in
unimaginable numbers. The publicity combined with the persuasive talents of the
US Secret Service and the FBI had achieved results that even his million dollar
prize had failed to attain. Privately, Randi kicked himself, he should have
involved the Secret Service earlier. They’d even brought John Edwards and
Sylvia Browne in, over those two unworthies angered protests. It had taken only
a few minutes testing to discredit that pair of mountebanks, after which they’d
been unceremoniously ejected from the building. As Agent Stella Carter had
remarked ‘Hey, guess what. Sylvia didn’t bounce.’

Up
to now, that had been par for the course. There were still the palm-readers and
card-players who waited in the antechamber for their turn, all dressed up in
beads and eye liner and all sorts of clothes that looked mysterious in smoky,
underlit rooms but just appeared absurd under fluorescent business lights. They
were the routine dross that had to be inspected, just in case. Even so, there
was hope for the plea for any real psychics or necromancers to come forward had
brought in five or six possible hits – all quiet, shy people who worked
ordinary jobs and lived ordinary lives.

He
was just about to call the next person in when his cell phone rang. He checked
it; it was a 555-1000 number. He answered. “Randi here.” After a moment, he
nodded and said, “Will do. Please bring her in.”

At
last. Randi sighed the words to himself. Ever since his discussion with that
charming Thai General, he’d been waiting for the first of the medical subjects
to arrive. Then, he squared his shoulders and opened the door to the
antechamber and just stood there, looking out toward the outside door. It
opened, and eight national guardsmen marched in, wearing full combat fatigues.
Two of them were carrying what appeared to be a heavily sedated woman, her
glassy eyes half-open and a bit of drool trailing down her cheeks. Behind them
were three men in lab coats, looking like stereotypical doctors. As they
reached where Randi stood, one of the men in lab coats strode forward past the
soldiers and offered his hand. Randi shook it, and the man said, “James Randi? Dr
Ed Bullmore, psychiatry and neurology at Cambridge. Pleased to meet you.”

“The
pleasure’s mine, Dr Bullmore. What do we have here?”

Bullmore
spoke with a pleasant British accent. “Untreatable schizophrenia patient from
New York. Name: Julie Adams. Onset at age sixteen. Reported ability to read
minds.” He looked meaningfully at one of the soldiers, who spoke up, sounding
shaken. “On the way over here, she told me about my daughter who drowned. No
way she could have known about that – she was locked up for years before Kelsie
was born.”

Randi
thought for a moment. “Bring her in.” Briskly, the white-bearded man walked
back through the door. He glanced over at his secretary. “Jane, please request
brain-imaging at the nearest hospital ASAP. Play the DoD card if you have to.”

Neuroimaging
Center, Arlington Hospital, Arlington, VA

Julie
Adams woke up in a little tube of metal, found herself immobilized, and felt a
little whisper in the edge of her mind. “See? I told you soooo!” Then she
slipped back into unconsciousness.

When
she next woke up, she was sitting in a chair, leather straps holding her wrists
to the chair arms. Sitting across the table from her was a
grandfatherly-looking man, bald but with an enormous white beard. A voice
danced across her vision, and she said, “James Randi?” The man raised one
eyebrow, dropped it, and continued to regard her over clasped hands. She
struggled with the bonds.

“They
told me you’d do this to me! They told me!”

He
spoke, his voice, calming and authoritative. “Who told you?”

She’d
never been asked that before. Before, they’d always assumed the voices weren’t
real, that she was crazy. She wasn’t crazy; she just heard voices. “They did.”
A warning buzzed across the back of her mind – “Don’t trust him. He’s going to
rape you.”

The
man smiled. “Have they ever told you who they are?”

These
questions were completely foreign to her. “Uh … I … no … .”

His
eyes twinkled through his spectacles. “Well, Julie, we want to help you. We
know they’ve hurt you. We’re going to hurt them back, and we’d like your help.”

It
was tempting. She’d always thought of them as enemies, even when they were
telling her the truth. But they’d been enemies of her enemies, and so they had
been her friends. But now, this man was offering his help to her, to her …
“DON’T LISTEN TO THEM!” screamed a voice, and spots erupted behind her eyes as
Randi morphed, grew – black scales erupted on his face, horns growing from his
bald head, his glasses falling to the desk, shattering; furred bat wings
unfurled, spread, brushed the walls and ceiling, looming over her. And now a
smell like rotten eggs was strengthening; the room was darkening, and she could
hear faint screams in the distance, like a chorus of damned souls.

She
was dimly aware of her own screaming, of the stabs of pain spiking through her;
the thing across the desk was prodding her with a pitchfork, leering at her. It
stepped backward and lustily licked its lips, grabbing a giant organ from
between its legs and –

The
hellish scene shimmered and faded suddenly, and the previous scene returned
with the bald, grandfatherly man looking concernedly down at her and two men
with chiseled faces hovering right above her. One of the men said, “Hold still,
sister. You’re almost safe.” There was a prick in her arm, and then she was
happy, floating free down toward blessed oblivion.

Randi
straightened up and looked over toward the door. The psychiatrists and a lab
technician were filing through the door. “Did you guys get it?”

“Yes
James, we did,” said Bullman. “Before we hashed the room with electronic white
noise, the electronic surveillance system we had set up caught a faint signal.
It was a miracle we picked it up at all, it was right on the edge of the
spectrum covered by the ESM but it was there and we’ve recorded it. It has some
strange properties, and we’re sending the records to the physicists next door.
They’ll digitize it, feed it into our threat libraries and we’ll be able to
monitor for it. Also, if we can feed the waveform into the computers controlling
our own emitter systems, we should be able to transmit ourselves.