Great White Throne (14 page)

And then I was in the machine, my senses reeling. This crater was the same place as the training. The
other
something was sharing the controls, channeling my thoughts away from Naomi, away from the past, and toward what was facing us: the dragon.

The black creature stood on its hind legs with wings spreading across the crater. Its jaws snapped open and unleashed a roar that sent stones tumbling down the crater’s sides. But as the roar hit me, words came into my mind:
You understand me?
 

I nodded. I felt like the
other
was grinning. If the machine could have grinned, it would have too.
 

What is in this machine?
I asked in my head.

The dragon leapt off the ground and roared again.
Your partner. Azazel.
With a flick of his wings, the dragon soared up into the sky.
Follow
.

Azazel? Who was that? And how was I supposed to fly? As if answering all my thoughts, the
other
, this
Azazel
, directed my mind to my back. The option to fly appeared. We chose it, and we set our tracker on the dragon and flew straight up like a missile.
 

What are you?
I asked.
 

No answer. I looked down. The earth was far away, and our trajectory flattened, almost like reaching orbit. My mind felt out of control as it went to the machine’s core. Options appeared: diagnostics, usage, shield, and charge. I chose diagnostics. Then, in the machine’s view, my view, a screen flashed. It showed a hundred numbers, impossible to parse at once. In the center were two names with percentages.
 

Elijah: 50%.
 

Azazal: 50%.
 

I tried to make sense of it. We shared the machine, but I felt like I barely had control. Azazel’s presence was like a shadow, hard to see, impossible to grasp.

The dragon roared up ahead. The sound washed over me, and again I understood it.
Destroy everything. Leave the Mahdi to me
.
 

We dove toward the earth like two crashing meteors. The machine’s enhanced vision revealed the terrain below, and the targets. We were heading straight for Tehran, the sprawling city wedged against a wall of mountains. Fires burned throughout. Columns of black smoke billowed into the smoggy sky. Don’s other machines were advancing from all angles, except from above. That was us.

Just as I could make out armored soldiers manning rockets below, a cloud of blackness spewed out of the dragon’s mouth. Its roar pulsed in violent waves like a sonic attack. Surely every person within miles could hear it. The sound became words of raw, gut-curling hate in my mind:
Follow, detonate, BURN.

The dragon landed atop an immense building. My machine’s feet came down beside it. The building stood on two outspread legs in the center of a vast grassy area. The machine was almost as tall as the building, and the masses of soldiers gathered around like armored ants.
 

As they opened fire, the dragon lifted his head in the sky and roared:
Dig
.

Again Azazel took control. The machine leapt off the building to the ground. I could
feel
the crunch of men beneath me. Their missiles were gnats buzzing around. The machine’s legs sprang into my mind, followed by options. One was dig, and suddenly the legs shifted and combined and transformed into an enormous drill. It bored into the ground, throwing dirt. The machine’s head dipped below the earth. I could see nothing but brown.

In moments, the ground below gave out and the machine dropped. I landed with a hard crash of metal, but the machine sprang back to its feet, rising in an immense cavern of gleaming metal and blinking lights. A group was facing me. Maybe a hundred soldiers, their faces shocked, their guns raised.
 

A man in the center—the Mahdi—began to shout in Farsi. V translated: “Hold fire. It’s useless. If the drone attacks, we detonate. Pray to Allah.”

Detonate?
I scanned the cavern and understood immediately. Dozens of missiles were clustered in the center of the room. Each bore the familiar symbol of a black and yellow wheel. This was a nuclear silo.

Steady now
. It was Azazel’s thought. He was speaking to me.
 

Probabilities appeared on a screen overlaying the machine’s vision. They showed a 0.07% chance that we’d kill all these men before they could detonate the missiles, unless the machine unleashed so much firepower that it set off the missiles here and now.

I tried to force my mind away from the machine, away from Azazel. I tried to pray.
God! Help me! What do you want?
 

WAIT
, came His voice.
 

Wait?
Again? I scanned the room, confused. I noticed a smaller, cloaked figure behind the Mahdi. A woman.
Wait.

Azazel shoved the thought away. He directed me to the machine’s wrists. An array of attack options appeared. I summoned every ounce of will to pick nothing, to wait, but it was like trying to stay motionless in a raging ocean.
Fire now
, Azazel demanded.
 

I fought back.
Wait.

Fire now!
Azazel pressed harder. I resisted. I did nothing. The machine did nothing.
Fire or we kill Naomi.

NO
, I thought.
Wait.

The group of Persians began to stir. The woman came to the Mahdi’s side and whispered into his ear. Then she turned to me. I knew her almond eyes. It was Aisha.

I TRIED TO make the machine speak:
Aisha
. But no noise came as she stared at me. She saw only a metal behemoth.

Azazel’s will slammed into mine. He wouldn’t let the machine talk. I wouldn’t let it attack. He was rage and fury. I was trust and wait. Stalemate.

Aisha whispered again into the Mahdi’s ear. He looked hesitant but nodded to whatever she’d said. He issued a command that rang out in the cavern. V translated: “Return to your stations.”
 

The men scattered around the room. Most of them sat in chairs like mine in Don’s control tower, with syncing helmets covering their heads. They were probably in battle above ground.

I kept the machine’s eyes on Aisha while holding my resistance against Azazel. She approached a table and began gathering up small metallic objects. I zoomed the machine’s view—she had collected a bundle of bug-like trackers. She placed a circuit board on the side of her head, like the Captain’s except over her dark hair, and she stepped toward my machine.
 

The Mahdi took her arm gently, and they embraced. When she turned back to me, her face was pure resolve. Her stride lengthened into a run as she came at the machine.

She reached the machine’s enormous feet, barely as tall as its ankles. She started climbing up like a spider.

Ankle
, Azazel demanded.
Fire!

I fought for stillness in my mind. I watched Aisha rise up the machine’s metal frame, while Azazel shouted inside it, inside
me
:
Kill her! Fire!
I was a cracking dam against the flood of his rage, but I managed to hold—barely.

Aisha reached the machine’s head. She hung before its camera-eyes, peering into them. With one hand clasped to the visor above those eyes, she used her other hand to place the little metal bugs directly on the machine.
 

She’s hacking me.
It was brilliant. She was going to try to code her way into the machine. The same way I’d hacked into the android in Alexi’s palace. Azazel jerked my mind to different parts of the machine, but my vision filled with the universe eyes from my dream. Those eyes from the throne—stillness and judgment and power—they held me, wouldn’t let me cave, wouldn’t let the machine budge.

Aisha had pulled herself up to the top of the machine’s head as the bugs began scurrying like ants over the surface. Alarms rang out in my mind as the bugs began to burrow into seams of metal, as a foreign code entered into the machine’s operating system.

Then Aisha entered, body and mind. She’d climbed inside.

Elijah!?
Aisha thought in shock.
You’re in here?
And what—who is sharing the controls?

It’s me
.
And one of Don’s servants, named Azazel
.
He’s powerful.

Azazel. A demon’s name
, Aisha thought.
The two of us have to take control. We have to get out. NOW. I’ll try to resist Azazel. You make us fly.

Done
. I thought of the machine’s back. I felt Azazel resisting me, but Aisha was right. The two of us, working together, could contain him. I made the option appear: fly. I selected it and the rumble of the machine’s jets filled the cavern.

I looked up just before we lifted off the ground. The tunnel to the earth’s surface was blocked by machines swarming down. They flooded into the cavern and left no way out … unless I attacked.
 

I’d waited this long. I waited again.
We wait
, I shared with Aisha.

For now
, she agreed.

“Well done!” shouted Don, yanking my gaze back into the cavern. He was there in the body, walking out of one of the machines that had just landed. His eyes passed over my machine, and he nodded as if in thanks. He walked on toward the Mahdi and his men. With six giant killing machines at his back, Don could demolish these men. But he was there, in the open, unarmed, walking toward their raised guns. Could they kill him? A single shot? A nuclear suicide?

Don’s casual stride paraded contempt. “The time has finally come,” he said to the Mahdi, his voice echoing off the metallic walls. “Lay down your arms, bow down to me, and you may live.”

The Mahdi spoke solemnly, and V translated, “
There is no deity but Allah.
”
He continued in English. “It was never supposed to go this far. Take another step, Dajjal, and none of us will leave this bunker alive.”

Don stopped in front of the Mahdi. “You cannot kill me, but I welcome the effort. I always wondered whether you would be used as friend or foe. Go ahead and destroy. Be my friend.”

“You lie, Dajjal.”

“Sometimes,” Don shrugged, “but not this time. Do you see me trying to stop you?”

“It would be better for the world to die than for you to reign over it.” The Mahdi raised his arm, aiming a gun at Don. “Best of all would be you dying. Any last words?”

“You should know that you have been all I wanted you to be.” Don’s voice was sincere, exultant.

Then the Mahdi pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

He pulled it again. Nothing.

“What?” he stammered. “What are you doing?”

Don reached forward, and the Mahdi just stood there in shock as Don took the gun. “Let me try.”
 

He aimed at the head of a man just behind the Mahdi. He pulled the trigger.
BANG
.

The man collapsed. Others rushed to him, shouting.

Don watched them idly, then raised the gun again at the Mahdi. “Silence,” he demanded. The men obeyed. “Last chance. Where’s your faith, brother?”
 

The Mahdi said nothing. His bearded face was solemn.

Don leveled the gun at his head. “Any last words?”

“Shoot me and it all blows,” the Mahdi whispered. “You and everything you care about.” His voice rose. “Rockets in a dozen silos will launch. The lands you’ve taken from me will burn, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Kashmir Mountains. Your crown jewel, Jerusalem, will be a crater in the ground.”

“By all means,” Don taunted, “give it a try.”

The Mahdi shook his head. “You will take the shot. You will bring this destruction, not me.”

“This is your choice. You always knew we couldn’t both rule in the end. Only I am the Morning Star. You will worship me.”

“Never,” the Mahdi growled. “I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but Allah. Take the shot. Paradise awaits me, but you will burn in hell.”

“Sorry my friend, but this hell is the only one you’ll ever know.” Don pointed the gun down and fired.
 

NO!
Aisha gasped in my mind. The Mahdi screamed as he fell, clutching his leg.