The Devil Delivered and Other Tales (9 page)

“This isn’t a condemnation, Daniel. It’s an embrace. Not so different after all. Human. Just human. A return to the old ways is a return to the wrong ways. I’m very sorry for that. It seemed so pristine. Paradise, but the nations had been birthed, the plains flooded with hunters on horseback, and the buffalo lost their final sanctuary—the deep plains. You already had your us and them. You were on your way, well on your way.”

“Jesus,” Daniel breathed, “it’s freezing out here. This storm, Max, we talking snow?”

“Fucking ice age, Danny. This will slow us down, the last thing we need.”

“No,” William said, his tone bringing all three around. “The pillar must rise. Daniel, hear my words, now, before the feast. Your vision is true. I’ll not hinder you. The storm is my legion, and I will lead it around you.” William smiled again suddenly and winked at Max. “The eye-spies still up there are old ones—they will be blind for days. Come now, come with all your technology, your workers, your supplies and set your genius to work.”

William raised his arms, then turned to face the bitter wind. After a moment, he began walking, along the ridge, eastward, away from the valley. He felt the three deathly cold men study his back, measuring his movements, wondering at the sudden falling off of the wind.

NOAC Net

“Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own,” the Securicom official went on to say. Recent reports that a third surveillance satellite has been sabotaged will not be confirmed by Securicom. The official described the present investigation as close to achieving the “cessation of terrorist activities,” adding that the full measure of law enforcement will be vigorously expressed in the subduction of the terrorists.…

… beneath the storm’s cover. Unconfirmed reports indicate that construction at the new Ladon Site is now underway. A press release deemed “grossly incomplete” by NOAC and NUN representatives, issued yesterday by Ladon Inc, reveals that the project’s chief engineer is Maxwell Ohman (a continuation of that posting from the Boxwell site), a man believed to be the Lady’s lover.…

… admitted that the trade sanctions against the Lakota Nation are “riddled with defiance on the part of free-standing corporations, unaligned nations, and Third World peripheral groups.” The Minister went on to say that “health conditions in the closed nation are cause for gravest concern. On humanitarian reasons alone, NUN would be fully justified in direct military intervention.”

NUN Security Council member Elias Ruby has denied the veracity of the Minister’s claim, and repeated the Council’s position on military intervention: “The EET (Extraordinary Economic Tribunal) has concluded that direct intervention between an unaligned nation and a corporation it has contracted with is permitted under very strict, clearly outlined circumstances. As of yet, neither Ladon nor Lakota Nation has breached any of these conditions.”

At a second press conference the Minister refuted both the Security Council’s and the EET’s position. “I am very sorry, but if this project hasn’t direct military application potential, I don’t know what does. It seems clear that those very world organizations in place to protect us have been collectively cowed by the might of a single corporation and a single people. My God, what next?”

… One soweth, and another reapeth.…

… lifted up the serpent in the wilderness as this Lady gazes upon the works of men, and sees before her the shape of a wheel that covers the valley, where within this circle are laid down spokes; this wheel that she sees sets now upon her lips the name giveth by the wise men who hunt no more: Medicine Wheel.

The axle will turn. It will pierce the heart of heaven.

… Ladon: Greek, a mythological dragon that encircles the Tree of Life.

Net Happynews

The formal entrance to the lifts leading down into the NUN Central Complex in Brussels was bioflicked yesterday at 5:10
P.M.
local time. The dispersal agent is yet to be identified, but the toxic mix is confirmed as containing neurotoxins. Confirmed dead is at 175, including the suspect.

At the moment, investigators are unable to explain how the terrorist managed to elude in-place detection systems.…

Communications worldwide have been disrupted by joystick terrorists working in concert in behalf of Ladon Inc. and the Lakota Nation. “The in-built firewall defenses on com sats are notoriously outdated and ineffective,” said a NOACom representative on condition of anonymity.…

Seized tanker attempting to enter San Francisco Harbor contained 212 New Jihad terrorists and weapons, including four SINJO-made tactical nukes. The New Jihad Organization is a nonreligious fanatic group (known colloquially as NERFs) with no known manifesto, although most members are recruited from refugee populations resettled from inundated Pacific islands.…

Net

LUNKER:
This is getting out of hand, gentlemen.

VORPAL:
So there’s blood on our hands. We have killed, I admit it, but it was in the service of a greater good.

LUNKER:
You seem so sure of yourselves, but dammit, this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.

VORPAL:
You must be kidding, Lunker. There’s some nasty trackers after us. We’re just trying to stay alive.

LUNKER:
Look, stop using weather sats for your pinballing. They’re big, and they come all the way down. If that’s not bad enough, wait till some unmapped hurricane rolls across some unsuspecting atoll.…

VORPAL:
Conventional options still exist. All right, I’ll slow down some, get more selective.

LUNKER:
Thanks. Where’s Blanc Knight?

VORPAL:
On the run. He started breaching Securicom Net Defenses, making haywire. He’s busted down every secure system on the line. Man, you wouldn’t believe the information spewing out.

LUNKER:
Bound for Ur reports NUN aircraft invading Lakota airspace, but being turned back by one helluva snowstorm. The word goes on and says the project’s ahead of schedule. Does that make any sense at all? Yeesh.

VORPAL:
Two unmanned spy-shuttles collided over Eastern Iowa. Crossed wires in the flight control data—don’t fret, no ground injuries. That storm’s circling the Hole right now, so I imagine NOAC will get the go-ahead for unilateral ground recce from NUN. Wonder what they’ll see?

Entry: American NW, July 8,
A.C.
14

Sitting Bull crouched beside the hub of stones. The white sky made the prairie grass silver on the knoll, pewter in the valleys. The rifle sat on his lap, red-hawk feathers hanging straight down and slowly spinning.

William walked up to the ancient ghost. “It was supposed to be a level playing field, Sitting Bull. Information was God, we rode the highway of His back. We rebelled against secrecy, but the revolution was illusory, wasn’t it.” He sat down beside the ghost. “All they did was change the meaning of words. Freedom meant forbidden. Access meant denial. Sitting Bull, I won’t accept the lie. They called the dead a living memory, but it isn’t. I’ve discovered that now.”

The Lakota chief squinted skyward. “I have never been a follower, William. All those ghosts in your wake, it’s a path I can’t take.”

“I don’t think God is inside liquid crystal,” William said. “I don’t think He superconducts, either. He doesn’t ride fiber optics. I’ve begun to believe our faith is misplaced, Sitting Bull. We don’t need more information. We need enlightenment.”

Sitting Bull swung his empty gaze on William. “Species die, William. And yes, our hand has been in it, as far back as you could think to go.”

William nodded. “To the days when we all lived in Africa, black-skinned under our wiry hair. The upright primate’s God-given right. Maybe we came from Mars, fleeing the first world we fucked up. Maybe we didn’t. It doesn’t matter. What I want to know is, when did God finally recognize His own face in ours? Fifty million years ago? Five million years ago? A million? When did the light really dawn, Sitting Bull? Answer me that, please.”

“Do you hold all life sacred, William?”

“Hell no,” he answered. “HIV-37 sacred? The CFS nanoviral group? Pneumonic plague?” William studied the clouds overhead. “Life isn’t sacred. If it is, we’re all going to hell.”

Sitting Bull smiled. “We already have, friend. Isn’t that your message?”

“I have a message? Writing letters from the Hole doesn’t stake any claim to prophecy.”

“Ahh, I see.” Sitting Bull was nodding. “You have doubts.”

William pulled a crinkled layer of skin from his left hand and held it up to the sun’s broken light. “I’ve realized something.” He looked at the chief. “Culpability’s not something you grow out of, is it?”

“Don’t speak to me of regrets, son.” Sitting Bull turned away, scanned the nearby ridge of hills. After a long moment he said, “Those thoughts can consume a soul, William. And in the end, what’s the point? You hold the weasel in your hands until its twisting and squirming is known to you absolutely. The time comes to let it go.”

“I’m tired,” William said as he released the sheath of skin and watched it flutter away in the breeze. “Tired of seeking enlightenment. I no longer believe in that light turning on in your head. It’s a myth. There’s no discernible process, no sudden eureka. Such realizations are well after the fact, because when it happens, you’re too busy to notice.”

“Busy?”

William shrugged. “Preoccupied, then. Those brutal necessities of the flesh, the tortured schisms of the spirit. Busy. Busy screaming, busy bleeding, busy flailing at a host of memories and echoes and dead voices and faces that never were but come to you anyway and you can never, never peel them back.”

Water dripped from Sitting Bull’s hollow eyes. He ran his weathered, blunt-fingered hand along the barrel of his rifle. “Swift flight, the rifle ball flies unseen, yet strikes at the heart of things all the same. I heard your words to Jack Tree. They broke him.”

“I know.”

“We would have slain all the bison. Pte Oyate, Buffalo Nation. In the manner that our ancestors slew all the
Bison antiquus,
the very first Tatanka. We would have continued to war on our neighbors, and those wars would have grown, and the blood of feuds would run like the river. We would have gutted the horse of our brother, rather than see it run beyond our grasp. But, William, that history would have been ours, and ours alone. You broke us too soon, left us unmindful of the consequences of our own actions, you left us believing the buffalo would once again cover the plains, and you left us with a belief in our hearts that our hands were clean. For this, William, I can never forgive you.”

“So is Jenine MacAlister right, then? You’re all still children, after all, still unblooded in the ways of inevitability, tottering on the edge of extinction simply because you refuse to adapt, or you’re not able to adapt, because you need guidance in growing up. Am I supposed to believe all that bullshit?”

Sitting Bull smiled. “Our ways are different, William. They are children, yes, but they are my children. Do you think my eternal guidance insufficient? Think on this, son. We spirits whisper lessons to our children; from all that we have seen and all that we were, we tell our children this one thing: There is no such thing as inevitability.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“In the way Mother adapts, in the way she refuses to surrender.” Sitting Bull raised his rifle and sighted down its length. “In my days, the white men and Indian alike gathered the buffalo skulls beside the tracks of the iron horse. We piled them into mountains. They were taken away, and ground up into fertilizer. The fertilizer was used in the breaking of the prairie soil so that crops could be planted, and so the buffalo returned to the earth, and gave forth life.”

“Your irony’s a little too bitter for me, friend.”

“In your words, then, William. Nature revises. She is each life and she is all life, and so she will outlive us all.”

“There’s secret reports,” William said. “Data compiled on the Inside populations—inside the rad shields, inside the cities and complexes. The trends are alarming. Increased toxemia across the board, dropping fertility—inactive, sluggish sperm in low numbers, impermeable ova, toxic lactation syndrome, chronic respiratory diseases, a whole host of immunodeficiency disorders. Projections bring to mind the fate of the Neanderthal in Europe when faced with what could’ve been as little as a point-five percent differential in infant mortality rates, when compared with the emerging true humans. Ten thousand years and complete displacement, absolute extinction.”

“Who waits in the wings this time?” Sitting Bull asked.

William smiled at the Lakota chief. “You already know. Peripheral populations. Pressured populations. Are you ready for that, Sitting Bull? To look upon your children and see that their faces are no longer a match to yours?”

The old man thumbed back the flintlock and squinted as he aimed. “Where I am, these ghost buffalo seem real. I still take pleasure in hunting them.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, William, that my face isn’t the face of God.” He squeezed the trigger.

The loud report echoed dully across the valley.

NOACOM:
Freedom Files require clearance. Who is this, please?

JOHN JOHN:
********

NOACOM:
Welcome to Freedom Files. This information block complies with all New United Nations charters and conventions. Proceed with Query.

JOHN JOHN:
University of Saskatchewan, Applied Sciences Ministry, Department of Anthropology\student field projects\summer 2014.

NOACOM:
Seven graduate field projects are listed. Six are sponsored by USask Board of Funding. One is through private funding. List?

JOHN JOHN:
Private funding only.

NOACOM:
Potts, William. Project Description unavailable.

JOHN JOHN:
Student File, Potts, William.

NOACOM:
Please note: Student File, Potts, William, is docked with Securicom. Proceed?