To THE LAND OF THE ELECTRIC ANGEL: Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist Author (The Frontiers Saga) (37 page)

They looked at each other a long time, then Rio said, "Do you want to remove him from ... from between us?"

Blake took another deep breath. "Probably. I can't say I like the way he has treated you, just abandoning you because it might be politically too delicate to save your life. And there's the matter of Doreen."

Rio looked satisfied, and took Blake's hand. They pushed through the mob as they ran to where the aircars were parked. Most were empty, but they found one with a driver nursing a bloody arm in a sling.

"Take us to Bibleland!" Blake ordered.

"Can you fly this machine?" Rio asked, pointing at the man's arm.

The pilot nodded and they jumped in. When the ship rose straight up, Blake caught a glimpse of the samurai robot standing in the middle of a street nearby, blocking it with its bulk and with its long, slashing sword. In front of the fighting robot lay several wrecked Riotmasters, a litter of body parts, and a police personnel aircar on its side.

Bibleland Park was on the other side of the Oakland hills, past the biggest of the arcologs and not far from one of the faults of the San Andreas, now rendered relatively safe by forced water lubrication – one of the methods used by modern seismologists. The park took up the entire roof of the highest arcolog in the area, a building more than half a kilometer square, and its most obvious landmark was a huge revolving, illuminated cross atop an artificial hill.

"It's deserted," Rio said, looking down.

"Everyone probably ran for cover when this started," the pilot said. "Where do you want to sit down? Landing pads? St. Carol's Square?" He looked back at Blake quizzically.

Blake studied the park and pointed down. "There, by that patch of green."

"That's the 'Garden of Eden,' " the pilot said. " 'The Creation' is right next door, in that building there. Quite a show, too. Starts out in black with this deep voice, and you see everything taking place. Damn near makes a believer out of you – except I heard the same actor do a commercial."

"Come back for us in an hour," Blake said.

The aircar set down on a grassy lawn near a waterfall. Timid animatronic deer sipped water warily, and after the aircar had lifted away, Blake and Rio could hear birds.

"So peaceful," Rio sighed.

"It's all phoney," Blake said, fingering a green plastic leaf.

There was motion beyond some bushes, and Blake pulled Rio down. They crouched warily. Blake's laser was aimed at the flicker of movement.

Out walked an almost nude man and woman, flanked by a lion, rubbing his mane against Adam's thigh, and a unicorn, prancing prettily next to Eve. The two humanoids wore fig leaves, and Eve's long blond hair concealed her breasts.

Blake made a snort of disgust as he and Rio moved on, the quartet of robots paying them no attention at all as they strolled happily through the garden. Blake and Rio walked by a towering tree in which a glittering snake moved sinuously, his forked tongue slithering in and out. He hissed absently at them as he waited.

"Let's not go out the main gate to the garden," Blake said, pulling Rio toward a side exit.

They pushed open the door marked NO ADMITTANCE and walked past a fierce-looking St. Michael standing with blackened sword just behind an opening. Blake could see tiny holes in the sword that emitted the gas. The fine wires that held the archangel figure off the ground had not been camouflaged in this instance.

Blake and Rio passed through another door and emerged cautiously into the public street. Across it was what seemed to be the entrance to an ancient city. They could hear music and shouts of laughter coming from it, so they ran, crouched, across the street and flattened themselves against the wall, then peered in through an arch.

The street inside was twisted and narrow, with many branches. Blake could see animatronic robots hanging out of the windows and standing beneath arches. They were all human figures, so gross and overstated as to border on the unrealistic. The men were coarse and lecherous-looking, the women over-endowed and bawdy. They all had one expression: a leer. The costumes were vaguely Biblical, the jewelry heavy and barbaric. The music was throbbingly suggestive.

"Where's Lot?" Rio asked.

They moved into the tiny city-within-a-city cautiously, hoping to find a real human in the midst of the hundreds of fakes who populated the reconstructed Sodom. They caught glimpses of people through small arches and windows, but no actual orgy scenes. Everything was hinted at but not graphic. But the figures were so real as to give Blake and Rio the jumps whenever one happened to look anything like Voss.

"Why do you think Voss switched sides?" Blake asked Rio as they exited the electronically controlled pageant.

"He didn't. He was always on that side, the side of power. He simply went where the power structure was." She touched Blake's arm. "He was unconventional, but never a revolutionary. He simply chose to make the best of it within the existing power structure."

Blake nodded as they moved toward the entrance of a big building. "A lot of people make that choice."

"I don't suppose Jean-Michel thought he had a choice. I
know
him. He wouldn't have cared to hide out in the underground for the next four or five hundred years."

Blake smiled at her. "You know I keep forgetting that part. I can't quite believe it, I guess. I mean, I feel okay. But maybe ... well, maybe I thought I'd feel like a superman or something."

The building was empty and almost dark. They grew quiet and made no sound as they crept along inside.

Blake was suddenly aware of a glow to his left. He pulled Rio down and they watched as light grew upon a mountainside.

They were high up, along a cliff path. Far below lay fertile valleys, and sheep grazed. An ordinary bush now burst into flames and a tall, impressive figure strode out from a crevice. The bearded, robed humanoid began a conversation with the bush as Blake and Rio relaxed and started moving on, bent over and alert. At the exit, they turned a last time to see bolts of holographic fire leap from the bush to carve out symbols in rock.

In the next chamber they stood on a rock and watched Moses part the Red Sea far below, as the chariots of the pharaoh raced after the Jews.

"Are you after Jean-Micheh just to avenge Doreen, or to punish him, or..." Rio hesitated. "Or to kill him so that ... so that–"

"So that you will be free?" Blake shrugged. "I don't know. First things first. He killed Doreen for no good reason. He chose sides and he didn't switch back when he had the chance. He gave us no help in the Arena."

Blake started to leave the chamber, which now echoed with the thunder of falling water and the recorded screams of the Egyptian charioteers.

"Don't kill him," Rio said. "He can't help it..."

Blake laughed as they left the building and looked up and down the empty street. "You mean, he's the poor product of his environment? Poor little rich boy? You're confusing–"

Part of the doorway arch spattered behind them, and a long groove appeared in the wall. Blake lunged across the street, pulling Rio with him. They threw themselves beneath a patroncounter and rolled into the darkness within.

"Where did that come from?" he asked, his laser ready.

"It must have been from this side, further along," Rio whispered. "Let's creep through here and circle around."

She started to move, then Blake took her arm.

He grinned at her and said "Suddenly a hunter? Now are you convinced?"

Rio didn't answer, only crawled toward the building. "Let's go in and find the back door," she said.

Inside, Samson was in the process of demolishing the temple when the second laser shot cut away a strip of Blake's tunic and the third put a hole through Delilah.

Blake fired back blindly, sending a shot into several different dark spots. He flung himself behind some fallen stones. Then the lights went out, and he heard running feet, followed by a grinding noise, many scrapings, and the whir and hum of machinery. In a few moments the lights came on again, and Blake found that he and Rio were no longer hiding behind stones. The temple of Dagon had been reconstructed, ready for the next visitors. Delilah stood serene and imperious, except that her right arm did not work. Samson in chains again stood over the motionless feasters.

"He went out that way!" Blake said, and started running.

Rio raced after him. They crossed through a backstage area – a workshop where a robed Philistine reveler lay gutted on a workbench – and wound up on a battlefield.

To the right were the Philistines, row upon row of animatronic warriors graduated in scale to give great depth. In front of these stood the giant Goliath, bearded and armored, a massive robot a meter higher than Blake. In the center was the watercourse known as the Terebinth, and on the left were the few Israelites. Before them, standing amid the corpses of the slain, was the young David, whirling his sling.

Blake caught a glimpse of movement in the ranks of the fear-frozen Israelites and cried out to Rio, "Down!"

Two long grooves cut into the fake rock near their prone figures, then Blake fired back. David hurled his stone, an Israelite warrior tilted oddly to one side, and Goliath uttered a great roar and crashed down. Blake jumped up and bounded across the ravine as David sawed at the monster's head and then raised it high.

Crouching behind the Israelite army, Blake saw nothing. He called out to Rio, then she, joined him and they waited while the darkness reknit Goliath's head and David returned to the Israelite ranks.

Quickly, Blake and Rio passed by another David peering at a bathing Bathsheba, then skirted a scene of David's son Solomon in a luxurious setting with the dusky Queen of Sheba.

"He may have circled back," Rio said, and Blake agreed.

They moved to the right, passing out through a shuttered and deserted food-dispensing area that featured "Manna,"

"Fishburgers,"

"Goat's Milk Malts," and the "Original Menu from the Last Supper." Blake shook his head but remained alert.

They next looked in on a Noah's Ark that bobbed beneath threatening skies. Long lines of animatronic animals waited patiently to board.

"Let's go the other way," Blake said. He looked up, seeing some high-flying aircars. "I hope those aren't Army reinforcements," he said.

They entered a new area, this one done more in pastels than in the bold, almost gaudy colors of the previous part of Bibleland. They passed a stable filled with animals and a glowing child, then several crowds watching a silent mature Christ. Blake searched for Voss as an uninvited guest at the Last Supper. His eyes stopped on Peter, and in his mind he said,
You never thought it would come to this, did you? A pope with a laser, a lecher wearing the triple crown, robot Christs and electronic miracles.

Blake saluted his predecessor with his laser, and he and Rio headed toward the scene of the Crucifixion with all their senses on alert. They were nearing the end of the big Biblical park and Voss had to be someplace

The Earth trembled and lightning slashed across a sky boiling with black clouds. Wind whipped at the robes of the centurion and his soldiers as they gazed upward at the three figures on the crosses. People were standing around the base of the hill, singing; but their number was too few for the great heavenly chorus Blake and Rio heard.

Blake tore his gaze away from the tortured figures and sought Voss in the crowd. One figure was not singing, and Blake caught the flash of a glittering eye as a robe fluttered open and a fistful of laser was aimed at him.

Blake fired. A praying figure at Voss's side lurched and fell.

Voss's millisecond pulse missed, slicing into the floor. He fired again, but Blake and Rio had already dodged behind a group of onlookers.

The room darkened until now only lightning flashes illuminated the diorama. Voss's laser bolts were more easily seen in the darkness. Blake fired between the legs of the Christians.

The thunder and the chorus made verbal communication impossible, so Blake finally poked at Rio and pointed toward the exit. They emerged into the dying daylight gratefully and sagged against the wall. Blake searched the doors and corners nearby as he spoke to Rio.

"Now what do you think? Is he on our side or not?"

"All right, Blake."

"Do you want me to spare him now?"

Rio did not answer. She swallowed hard, then asked, "Where can he be?"

"Only two places we haven't looked. The offices, which are down there, and over here ... the hill..."

"There's something on the hill," Rio said as they neared it. Then she read the sign. " 'The Last Judgment.' Oh, Blake!"

"Stay here," he said. "There's no reason for you to go in."

"I've come this far."

"And you shouldn't have. I'm the one with the training, what there was of it. I'm the pope, too."

Rio smiled wanly. "Pulling rank?"

Blake nodded his head. He leaned over and kissed her, then went toward the door to The Last Judgment.

The chamber was dark and quiet. Blake had no idea of its size, except that the building on the hill was fairly large. He glanced back at the light of the entrance and saw Rio's head. He waved her back and melted into the darkness to the left.

It's blackshirts and rip-offs,
he mused.
Kid stuff, playing in the long halls and labyrinthine service corridors, Jerry and me against Bud Silva and Karen Blanchard, the Tigers versus the Werewolves, Deck 980 against those scrubs from Level Ten.

Blake had learned stealth then, many years before.
Watch your shadows and watch for theirs. Don't rub against anything, it makes noise. Don't surprise a serviceman. He just might curse you and give you away.
If you were a blackshirt, you had to make the attack; if you were playing a rip-off, you'd had to hole up and let them find you.
Wear dark clothes, blend in. Use the slidewalks, skipping from lane to faster lane deftly. Learn to breathe without sound – through your mouth, not your nose.

Use your senses. Listen for the scrape, the breath, the tinkle. Smell the sweat, the steam, the oil. Separate the clunk and throb of the machinery from the slither and scratch of the enemy. Feel for the vibes, out-doublethink the slobs, doublethink your moves, do the unexpected, react swiftly.

The music began softly, but it was startling to Blake. He instantly rolled, heard a "Hah!" and saw the faint ruby beam cut into the floor next to him.

He was in too awkward a position to fire, and by the time be had twisted around it was too late and he thought better of giving away his new position. He quietly edged away, taking his time getting to his feet, then found a wall.

The music grew into a symphony unknown to Blake, but a powerful theme, which gave him shivers of foreboding.

He felt
the red light almost before he saw it, and threw himself back onto the floor into the darkness, rolled, hit a row of seats painfully in the hip, then crept between them.

The whole hemisphere over him now became churning clouds flicked with distant fires. Demons gobbled the perimeter, leering down at the empty seats trapped in a pit edged with flame. Blake risked one quick look over a seat but did not see Voss.

The music crescendoed, then paused dramatically for a shrill trumpet call. From all around the edge of the seats rose the dead, climbing into the light, toward the parting clouds. The light from the rift was blinding, illuminating the amphitheater brightly. The demons howled, the dead moaned, the celestial chorus sang, the music thundered, and something ripped off the tops of two seats just over Blake.

He reversed his motion and started to crawl backward; then something told him to move ahead. Quickly he reached the aisle, and looked around carefully. One of the demons in the shadow of a rising stream of dead moved curiously and Blake shot, but missed because of his position. The figure ducked, and Blake threw himself across the aisle and between the rows of seats on the other side.

He waited, all senses keen, trying to filter out the sounds of the climactic spiritual event going on overhead. It was no use. He had to rely on sight.

He gathered himself, then sprang up quickly in the middle of the row, moving his laser as he moved his eyes. sweeping the room in a swift search for Voss. A dark figure at the back of the amphitheater moved, and they both fired almost at the same time. But Blake's laser exploded a second after he fired, burning his hand and cauterizing a groove along the top side of his forearm.

He dropped the ruined remains of the weapon as he ducked again to the floor. Frantically, he replayed the last few seconds in his head. Everything had happened so fast he had not grasped it all. Again he saw the figure, felt his hand tighten on the firing stud, saw the faint red beam, saw the figure fire as it started to topple backward, felt the stinging explosion of his ruptured laser.

Blake waited a moment, using the light from the domed ceiling's projections to examine his hand. Then he crept out a side aisle and along the wall. He looked around beyond the last row and saw a motionless figure lying on the floor, illuminated by the flickering light from the 'Judgment.' He watched it for several moments, but the body did not move. Cautiously, he got to his feet and stepped closer. The face was turned away, partially in shadow, but Blake saw who it was.

Voss.

"Don't move," Voss said from the shadows beyond.

Blake did not move. Only his eyes did, and he saw the lean figure of the financier rising from the darkness. Overhead the dead were being separated. Some were rising, some were falling, and the demons danced in glee.

"You have been rather devastating to my subordinates," Voss said, moving into the light, a laser steady in his hand. "To say nothing of my plans."

"Why did you switch sides?" Blake asked.

Voss looked surprised. "Switch sides? I never changed allegiance. I've always been on the same side:
this
side, the side of power. I still am. Your revolution will fail. I will show them all their hero. You will be on every screen in the world, my pushy friend. You will tell them you were mistaken, you will tell them to stop, you will tell them it is hopeless."

"With a little help from drugs, I suppose."

Voss smiled. "Of course. They have made some excellent advances since my ti – since our time. Subtle changes can be made at the very core of your thinking, and from then on you will react normally, with your usual vigor and blind faith."

"Mind control."

"Just another way, another technique..." Voss waved to the scene above them, to the celestial choir and the light in the clouds. "Just like that one. Fear. That's all it is: fear. Obey the rules, or suffer for all of eternity. Obey the inks, or I will kill you. Obey the rules, even when the rules are insane, because the alternative is more horrible. Drugs and hypnotraining are much easier on one than the truncheon. You might even enjoy it." He smiled wickedly.

"You think those dedicated fighters will stop just because I am captured?"

"Oh, no. But you will be a factor, just as you were a factor in the rebellion."

Blake looked up toward the scene of religious hysteria being enacted. "The Last Judgment is really about to commence, Voss."

The lean man laughed sardonically. "For you, yes."

Blake looked at him. "Why did you kill Doreen? She did you no harm. She was one of us."

"She was only a diversion, like all the others, just in case the future turned out not to have the kind of woman I was used to. I used her – successfully, I think – to keep you at bay when you were stomping around in that ridiculous Kong. But it doesn't matter about her, or Rio, or any of them. It
certainly
doesn't matter about
you,
except for your slight value as a tool."

"You never cared for Rio?"

"Rio is beautiful, charming, and was quite useful to me. But I find this world has many beautiful, charming women – who will be much more loyal and will have no taint of the Arena. Rio made her choice, so let her suffer for it."

"She didn't
choose
to be arrested!" Blake snapped angrily. "And you made no attempt to get her out."

"I couldn't afford to be associated with you anymore. It cost me almost everything I had to bribe my way to acceptance, then all of my wit and energy to get into a position of power. Your temporary success here will not stop destiny. The Army will come in. We will crush you here, then in all the rebellious parishes."

"And rule the world?" Blake asked bitterly.

"Why not? We have the perfect tool for it! Other conquerors have used steel, some have used the cross or the crescent. We have
both!
We can control their minds with the cross and control their bodies with the whip!"

"Why did you do it?" Blake asked. "You had everything back in our time. You didn't need all this."

Voss's mouth drew into a grim, harsh expression before he spoke. "I didn't want to die. I didn't want to grow old and feeble, ending up in some nursing home plugged into a wall of sensors and with most of me parts of other people stitched on. I didn't want to end up too feeble in body to wipe my ass, too senile to even know I had fouled myself. I took the chance, and I won! I always win!"

"Not this time," Rio said.

Voss was fast. He was firing as he turned, scarring a semicircle of wasted energy into the walls. Blake jumped at him, striking down the flaming laser, making it slice into the seats. He hit Voss hard, driving his fists into his face and stomach, striking with a rage he had never felt before.

The laser fell to the floor and broke as Blake's foot smashed down on it. He slipped, recovered by holding on to Voss's tunic, then struck at him again and again.

"Blake!"

He hit the saturnine face, feeling the teeth against his knuckles, ignoring the stabbing pain, driving his other fist into Voss's stomach.

"Blake!"

The bloody mess that had been Voss's face dropped back as the body fell from Blake's grasp. Voss's head hit the concrete with a sickening thump and he did not move. Blake swayed, staring down at the dead man with bulging eyes.

"Blake." Rio was at his side, holding him, looking up at him anxiously.

"Are you all right?" Blake gasped.

Rio nodded, and hugged him close. "I'm all right," she said. "Now I'm all right."

Blake and Rio sat on a bench in the deserted square. They were silent, and Blake felt nauseated from the aftermath of the adrenaline surge. The aircar slowly, cautiously drifted down, peeking over the treetops of `Eden.' It settled down on the imitation cobblestones, and Blake took Rio's hand and they walked over to it and got in.

The area before City Hall was still filled with people, only now most of them were drunk. A guarded group of prisoners huddled within a circle of jeering revolutionaries.

As Blake and Rio descended from the aircar, they heard the loudspeakers announce that the Council of the United Churches had given its unanimous blessing to the new governments of North America, New America, the nations of Islandia, Allegheny, Nuevo Mexico, and Yukon.

They went upstairs and found Granville.

"They just went on leave," he exulted, "the entire armed forces of the Council of the United Churches. We told them their franchises were null and void and that new contracts would have to be negotiated. They didn't want to antagonize their potential employers, so they gave everyone leave!"

"We've won?" asked Rio.

Granville smiled, and hugged her tightly. " 'Winner and still champion,' the free spirit of mankind!"

"Not without casualties," Blake said.

Rio turned, following his gaze to see someone pull a blanket over Gali Bennett's face.

Kapuki came in just then and they told her about Bennett. She took the news impassively. "You never get used to it..." she said, "but you must go on."

"Well, what do we do now?" Marta asked, coming up behind them.

"They made we give up my toy," Kapuki sulked. "I think I'll open a gladiator school, or maybe sell my life story to the newstapes."

"Constantine says he is going to run for the new congress on the Satanist ticket," Marta said. "I'm thinking of going to Mars again." She looked at their expressions. "Well, I
thought
about going once before."

"I think we are going to some funerals first," Blake said. " 'Living happily ever after' has some dark days, too," he added.