unknown in all our history.”
“The flesh is corrupt,” the dead man said. Updike was uncertain if he was speaking of the flesh in the human context, or if he meant his own so he addressed both.
“We shall cleanse the flesh when we liberate the soul!” Updike held the dead man at arm’s length. “But first my brother, we must prepare you for the mission that lies ahead, for all of His fine ministers must be duly anointed and cleansed. You have been translated my brother, and now we must help you shed the unclean burdens of your former life.” Updike led the dead man toward the waiting limousine. The driver seemed nonplussed, hesitating a moment before opening the door.
“Make way!” proclaimed Updike. “You are in the company of God’s messenger.”
“But sir!” The driver seemed embarrassed. “I’ll have to pay for-damages.” His dark eyes roved over the dead man’s spattered attire.
“I understand,” Updike hesitated. He turned to the dead man. “Your name, brother?”
The dead man’s face hung slack a moment, his eyes glazed over looking inward. He seemed reluctant to pronounce the name, as though his state would be made real with its utterance. Finally, he said, “Able Stoneworthy.”
Updike’s mouth dropped open. “Able Stoneworthy?” Almost unrecognizable under the stains and marks of death, but it was him. “ The Tower Builder?” He pushed his teeth together. “Of course.” The former recognition came home to him. They had met in the past, on several occasions, but briefly. In those days Stoneworthy’s passions were focused on the Tower, and the future it represented. He had been dismissive of Updike then, but not unkind. The preacher knew that his preoccupation with the past ran contrary to the minister’s.
“Yes,” the dead man mumbled-his strength was on the wane. “I am Stoneworthy.”
“Then,” Updike shouted, slipped an arm around the dead man’s shoulders and gestured to the driver with the other. “Get a car blanket-get something, so that this fine Tower Builder can travel in a manner that befits his stature.”
The driver opened the trunk of the limousine, moved Updike’s luggage, and brought out a gray quilted blanket. He spread this over the leather seat, and then held the door aside as his passengers entered-concern a cloud on his dark features. Updike set the dead man into a comfortable position, gently placing his limbs before him.
“Rebirth Foundation,” the Captain ordered, as he rubbed Stoneworthy’s cold hand. The airport dropped quickly behind them as the limousine sped down a ramp and onto the Skyway. The City’s jagged skyline loomed over them. Central to it, Archangel Tower pointed at Heaven like a gleaming sword.
“You must be proud of your work, Reverend.” Updike watched the dead man.
“We have sinned,” Stoneworthy said in reply.
“Humanity has strayed from the Word of God. Like an errant child, humanity must not be spared the rod.” The preacher allowed himself that admission of punishment. His dead companion said nothing. “You spoke to the Lord your God?” he asked, finally.
“ He spoke to me. He gave me the message.” There was a mild injection of emotion in the dead man’s voice, but it was not pride. “Because you are chosen.”
“ Hallelujah! We must remind the world of the Lord’s wrath.” Updike watched the Skyway pass. “For there is sin in the City, and for the world to come under the watchful eye of our Lord again, it must change utterly. We must clean the works of man!”
The dead man nodded. Updike watched him for signs of passion or feeling, but his wounded humanity had slipped below the surface. Putting himself in the dead Reverend’s shoes, Updike knew that there was a great test going on in the minister. Men of God did not lightly speak of war.
“We shall triumph!” he reassured Stoneworthy. “We shall put the sinners to the sword. And the hilt of our sword shall be a holy cross. Hallelujah! But first, we must offer the Lord’s pity. Only when that is refused shall all our actions be righteous.”
The dead man nodded-relieved, his eyes blinking slowly, as though he were falling asleep. His dead face wrinkled in a grimace. Pain or acceptance worked molten inside his skull.
“My poor brother.” Updike stroked the dead man’s stained cheek. “Poor brother.”
41 – The Silo
The armored Authority Transport roared off the road spraying tall wet tails from its six solid rubber tires. It catapulted through the twenty-foot steel gate and rumbled up a stone path toward the central complex. The wall around the compound measured fifteen feet in height with spools of razor wire on top. The protected area was roughly square, one mile on each side. In the center was a brick office building beside a massive concrete pad. Twenty-four steel hatches, thirty feet in diameter, evenly divided the pad’s length. There was a well-armored machine gun nest on top of the brick building and soldiers patrolled the grounds. Most of the complex was hidden a half-mile underground, protected by rock and blast-proof doors.
The security measures were overkill, considering the setting, but essential. Since the Change, few people traveled off major highways, and fewer still knew or cared about the Westprime Air Defense Missile Station City One. War was unheard of in a world where nature herself had turned on humanity. And most thought that the Middle Eastern Nuclear Holocaust, and the Asian War that followed on the heels of the Change was lesson enough for all. So, few could dream such a defensive measure would be necessary. Station One was situated twenty miles to the south of the City, and formed the lower part of a triangle of such facilities. Station Two described the inland point and Three occupied the northernmost location.
Despite this misconception, the Prime knew the security was essential. If anything could entice malcontents or terrorists to cross the Landfill, tangle with undead bandits and feral animals; it would be the chance to capture intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The Prime collected them. There was something familiar and even comforting about the old-fashioned form of annihilation. True, the computerized versions were rendered obsolete by the Change, but the world’s first versions of atomic nightmares were developed in a simple cable and explosive technological world. So, recreating their own arsenals post-Change had been the first order of business for the surviving countries as their populations teetered toward civil war and chaos.
Before the advance of an interconnected governing Authority, these vestiges of civilizations considered themselves vulnerable to external attack. And as those surviving enclaves evolved into New Age countries with governments similar to Westprime’s the smart ones had secretly elected to work on their own weapons of mass destruction. The raw materials were there. They just had to be retrofitted to a useable post-Change form.
Prime found the devices comforting because they were a link to a time when death was dished out by human hands, when Infernal and Divine interference was hidden or negligible.
The Prime’s transport kicked up more mud as it hurtled toward the central building. The Prime had ordered a face-to-face with General Franklin Topp. He was in charge of the base and the Prime owned his ass.
The General went for a bargain basement price too. He was easily handled, purchased and wrapped. A large paycheck, a Sunsight apartment in the Tower, and a lifetime supply of young prostitutes kept him happy and loyal, if a little tired. The Prime bugged the rooms and offices of all his subordinates and kept round-the-clock surveillance on them. He’d taken great interest in the General’s bedroom at the missile base after a review of the photographs showed the military man killing one of the prostitutes in his care, and paralyzing another with a bayonet. The Landfill had come in handy in both cases.
But the Prime knew the man’s passions were his undoing, and he purchased the General’s mortal soul outright.
Vibrations from the wheels made their way through the transport’s solid body and awakened the Prime’s second penis where it coiled uncomfortably under his leg. He gasped and shifted in his seat. Lincoln Carter, his aide, smiled in a good-natured way and asked if the Prime was well.
“No problem, Mr. Carter. These damned transports are so uncomfortable,” he grumbled. Carter raised his eyebrows before mopping the heavy sweat from his brow.
The second penis was a gift from one of his Demon allies, or a symptom of the Union. It grew into place
