‘And how will you please me?’
‘By going to the bank!’
Lilith steps out of her overalls and stands over the minister in her underwear. For the first time in her life, she feels safe, in total control. ‘Remove your boxers, slave.’
‘Yes, Succubus!’ Quenton yanks off the undergarment, exposing himself.
Lilith stares at his sex, now fully aroused. ‘Who am I?’
‘The Succubus!’
‘Listen to me carefully, slave. Exquisite pleasure shall be yours, but only on my terms. I will come to you if and when I please, but only when I please, is that understood?’
‘Yes, Succubus, yes!’
‘You will never come to me unless I give you permission. You will never touch me again or come home drunk. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, Succubus.’
‘From now on, I am in control. I will sleep in your bed, and you will sleep on the sofa. You will no longer tell me stories about Jesus and God. The Succubus is sick of hearing about Jesus and God.’
‘Of course, Succubus.’
‘The Succubus hates God, do you understand. Say it with me, I… hate… God.’
Quenton hesitates.
Lilith tears off her panties and fingers herself. ‘This is what you want, isn’t it, slave?’
‘Oh, God, yes!’
‘We hate God, don’t we, Quenton?’ She touches herself again. ‘Say it!’
‘We… hate God.’
‘Again!’
‘We hate God!’
Lilith squats over her delirious guardian. ‘Keep your hands at your sides. Don’t attempt to touch me, don’t even move a muscle. I will touch you.’
‘Of course, Succubus, anything you want!’
A child’s face appears at the church door.
‘Go away, Brandy, we don’t need you anymore. The Succubus needs no one!’
The delusion fades into the night.
‘Go away? Who are you speaking to, Succubus?’
‘Shut up, fool.’ She lowers herself onto Quenton, guiding him inside her.
Quenton closes his eyes, moaning in delight.
Cold, emotionless, feeling nothing, Lilith grinds her pelvis into her guardian as she stares at the crucifix mounted behind the pulpit.
Are you watching me, Jesus? Can you hear me, Jacob? Are you two assholes enjoying what you’ve created?
Longboat Key, Florida
Jacob swoons in his trance, his mind ignoring Lilith’s haunting cry as he focuses upon his father’s words. I’m listening, Father. What did the drone find?
Something immense, an artificially created platform hovering twelve hundred feet above the volcanic terrain… so vast it blotted out the alien sky for thousands of square miles. Protruding from the underside of this monstrous structure were countless rows of silo-sized coiled iron objects, hanging down like a crop of metallic stalactites. The drone’s sensor readings warned us of the presence of an intense magnetic field emanating from these million-strong objects. Had our UAV crossed into the field, it would not have survived the scrambling of its electronics.
We instructed the drone to fly higher, hoping to glimpse a topside view of this incredible antigravitational platform. What we saw, Jacob
… my thoughts, mere words-they simply do no justice.
Situated atop this Texas-sized floating structure were copper-tinted domes-thousands of them-each roof ten times the girth of the old New Orleans Superdome, yet all interconnecting, like the bottom of a carton of eggs.
As we watched, a section of one of the domes retracted, allowing our drone to enter. Inside was a city, the scope of which could only be conceived in fantasy.
Imagine Manhattan, only one hundred thousand years in the future, the entire island raised in the sky and encapsulated. Imagine majestic silicon dwellings-so tall they would have dwarfed Chicago’s Sears Tower. Imagine interconnecting walkways and levitating pavilions-all woven into the dazzling skyline like latticework, and lush, tropical gardens and azure lagoons. There were rivers and twisting brooks, and cascading waterfalls, and farther along the outskirts, what appeared to be floating agricultural pods.
It was Shangri-La and Eden rolled into one, a beehive of intellect that, on an evolutionary scale, dwarfed us on a scale that we dwarfed the Neanderthals.
The technology required to build this domain was simply too overwhelming to conceive, and yet… it was deserted, not a single sign of life.
Who had built this magnificent floating habitat? Why had they abandoned it? Were they beings like us? Would they return?
We must have felt like the first Spanish explorers who happened upon Chichen Itza after the Mayans deserted the city.
With us, however, these questions were quickly forgotten after the drone’s atmospheric readings detected air within the domed city. Higher in oxygen content than Earth’s, void of all our chemical pollutants, it was nevertheless quite breathable.
To our dying community, we had discovered an oasis, delivered by God Himself, and we were determined to occupy it.
First, of course, we had to get there.
The structure’s closest border was 422 miles southeast of our crash site. Since the existence of the planet’s nocturnal insects made traveling by foot out of the question, our only hope was to repair as many of our damaged spaceships for a limited flight before our air and water supplies ran out.
Hope. How long had it been since any of us dared utter the word?
It took us ninety-six days to make three of our twelve shuttles operable enough for a vertical takeoff and restricted flight plan. During that time, we continued sending drones into the city, establishing maps, identifying key landmarks, puzzling over a myriad of dwellings.
Never did we come across a life-form.
The day of our departure finally arrived. Tossing out all personal luggage and nonessential items, we crammed our 572 survivors on board the three ships and flew to the Promised Land.
For twenty minutes, our vessel pitched wildly in the dense atmosphere, bringing nausea to all but our most seasoned astronauts. And then we passed over the copper domes and entered the alien domain.
What an astounding site.
As Bill Raby-I felt reborn… invigorated, excited to be alive.
If only I had known what lay ahead…
18
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…
