Infernal

Sophia moved closer to Richard on the bench truck and laid her head on his shoulder. Consolation? Commiseration? He didn’t know but appreciated the gesture.

The boy soldier had somehow managed to fall asleep. Battle fatigue, Richard thought. And maybe, just maybe, relief.

They sat like that, silently, as the truck bounced over roads that had seen their share of wear and tear from a war that was now, in one final act, over.

After a few miles, Richard spoke up: “Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

“What?” Sophia straightened up on the bench but did not move from his side.

“Hatfield mentioned a new religion that had sprung up recently. The Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Richard explained. “We were discussing religion and faith. Or rather, I was; and what I think are holes in Christian doctrine. Things left out. Things misinterpreted or missed. But that’s not what I’m thinking. Jehovah’s Witnesses on my Earth have been around for decades and believe that a literal number of their ranks are marked to ascend to heaven. No more, no less. The rest of their number will live eternally in a paradise on earth. That number is one-hundred and forty-four thousand.”

Sophia pondered this a moment. “So you think you and the other Primes may be linked to these Jehovah’s Witnesses?”

“No,” Richard answered. “Hatfield’s reference to them just helped me remember something I didn’t before. The number one-hundred and forty-four thousand is mentioned several times throughout the Bible but more specifically in the book of Revelation. In chapter seven the apostle John speaks of the Sealed of Heaven. In verse two he speaks of an angel ascending from the East with the seal of the living God. This angel commands another four angels, each standing at one of the four corners of the earth and holding back the wind, not to harm the earth or sea until the servants of God have been sealed. He gives the exact number; one-hundred and forty-four thousand, and further breaks that number down into twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. The book of Revelation is steeped in vivid imagery and symbolism and according to modern doctrine the list is highly stylized. As is the number itself.”

“What do you mean by stylized?” Sophia asked.

“The number twelve represented completeness to the Israelites. By squaring it and multiplying it by a thousand it represents, symbolically, a more vast number. Just as Jesus Christ told Peter to forgive his brother seven times seventy times in Matthew 18:21-22. He wasn’t telling Peter to forgive his brother four-hundred and ninety times and then punch him in the face. He used a symbolic number to tell Peter to always forgive his brother, no matter how many times he offended him.”

“All right,” Sophia said as the truck bounced through a particularly bad stretch of road. “I understand.”

“John then goes on,” Richard continued, “in verse nine I believe, to describe a great multitude which no one could number; of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, who are standing before the throne and before the Lamb. Those who, according to verse fourteen have come out of the great tribulation and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. In other words, this multitude, and not the one-hundred and forty-four thousand, are the redeemed who will ascend to Heaven.”

“So who are the one-hundred and forty-four thousand?” Sophia said.

“That’s where the waters become murky,” Richard said. “There’s no further mention of them or their role in the apocalypse until chapter fourteen where John speaks of the Lamb standing on Mount Sion with the one-hundred and forty-four thousand. All bear His Father’s seal on their foreheads and are singing a song that none could learn. They are described as being without guile. Virgins redeemed from among men, and without fault before the Throne of God According to verse four they follow the Lamb wherever he goes.”

“Virgins?” Sophia said.

“Obviously more imagery, “Richard said. “The word virgin represents a moral purity of spirit, if not of body.”

“And what is their role?” Sophia said. “Christ’s personal vanguard?”

Richard shot her a sour look. “Again, the text is unclear. It is commonly believed that after the Rapture, once God’s church is in Heaven and the rest of the redeemed are under His protection, they are to be His voice in a world marked by rampant sin and darkened by the reign of the Antichrist. They are sealed. This means they have the special protection of God from all of the divine judgments as well as the Antichrist. The seal is supposed to defend them during the tribulation as God pours out His wrath against those who would stand in rebellion against Him, allowing them to faithfully proclaim the gospel of Christ in the face of persecution inflicted on them by God’s enemies.”

“And you think this is the role of the Primes throughout the Multi-verse?” Sophia asked. “Ministers of God during the apocalypse?”

“I don’t know,” Richard admitted. He brushed his hand across his head and sighed. “The number may just be a coincidence, though it’s a rather specific one I think. I’ve believed for a very long time that the Bible is only a glimpse of what we call God and his methods. A quick-start guide and not the complete manual. In the face of what I now know about the RIPS, the Source, and the Multi-verse, it’s hard to grasp that everything we’re supposed to have faith in and live by is in there.

“Besides,” he added, “you said yourself that BanaTech has been trying to work out the meaning of a constant number of Primes for centuries, all to no avail. It’s hard to believe I could have figured it out in a matter of days.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Sophia said as the Jimmy hit another pot hole—this one the size of a six-pack cooler—that threatened to throw the both of them and the now startled awake soldier to the floor of the truck. The youth grumbled a bit, reset himself on the truck bench, and went back to sleep. “You Primes are known for leaps of intuition that rival that of the Quantum Crays. It’s one of the reasons Jefferson has enlisted so many of you in his cause.”

“Then I’ll have to hope I’m wrong,” Richard said, “because there is no mention whatsoever in any Biblical text I’m familiar with of what the one-hundred and forty-four thousand are up to while everyone else is waiting around for the apocalypse. And because of the phrase ‘doúlos tou theoú.’

“Which means?” Sophia prompted.

“Modern translations of the New Testament repeatedly use the English phrase ‘servant of God’ as opposed to the original Greek phrase doúlos tou theoú. I suppose it was the translator’s way of sanitizing the text and removing a distasteful phrase with dark historic attachments.”

“Okay, then, what exactly does it mean?” Sophia asked.

“Slave of God.”

“This,” Devil Anse’ Hatfield said, extending his hand to Richard, “is where we part company.”

The column had come to a halt several miles outside of Charleston. Richard steeled himself for whatever was to come. Would Hatfield live up to his end of the bargain? Or were he and Sophia to be executed by the side of the road?

The third option—that they would be handed over to Jefferson’s goons—seemed improbable. Given that Jefferson had betrayed Hatfield and tried to kill him and his men right alongside Asa McCoy and his followers, and that Hatfield now had an RLP in his possession and intended to use it to flee the planet, it seemed unlikely Jefferson would be invited to whatever party was about to commence.

The fact that as the convoy stopped the soldier that accompanied them did not cover them with his weapon and instead helped Sophia to her feet was encouraging.

Richard took Hatfield’s hand and shook it. He did not know why. The man had just murdered thousands and was now running from the scene like a punk from a street cop. Perhaps it was the look in his eyes. Haunted. Mournful. Richard thought that Hatfield would hear those thousand voices that had had no time to scream every night for the rest of his life.

“I have done a terrible thing,” Devil Anse’ said as if reading Richard’s mind.

“You have.” Richard released his hand. “And you will have to live with it. By letting us go you may save far more lives than you took here today.”

“I hope you’re right,” Hatfield said.

Johnse, at his father’s side and bearing the RLP gestured towards the front of the convoy. “The Rip is about a mile from here. Don’t try to follow us. Don’t try to come through. We’ll be waiting until it closes. If we see you, we’ll shoot.” With that he pocketed the RLP and he and his father turned away.

“Wait!” Sophia cried. “You can’t take the RLP! We’ll be stranded without it!”

Devil Anse’ turned back. Whatever moment had passed between he and Richard was gone, as was the remorse he’d worn like a mask as they’d spoken.

“Be that as it may, young lady, we are taking the device. There are no guarantees that the next world will be any better than this one.”

“It will be of no use to you,” Sophia pleaded. “It times out every sixty minutes and you don’t have the code to reset it.”

Richard groaned inwardly. He’d been happy to let the convoy go on its way before the RLP timed out, giving them time to clear the area before Hatfield realized he’d been duped. By the time he and his men had returned to this spot to find them and get the code out of them he and Sophia would have been long gone and the Rip would have closed. Anse’ Hatfield and his soldiers would be stranded here on this world with a useless RLP where maybe, just maybe, justice would be served.

Johnse turned back at Sophia’s outburst, a cunning grin on his face. “SOPHIA63, right? The code you typed in back at the bunker? You should check your surroundings a little more often, ma’am. You never know who might be skulking around outside a door with a pair of binoculars.”

“You son of a bitch!” Sophia shrieked, and would have launched herself at him if Richard hadn’t stopped her. Guns previously pointed at the ground were now leveled at their heads.

“Young lady,” Devil Anse said in an exasperated voice one usually reserves for idiots and small children, “you would do well to have more confidence in your man. He is far more resourceful than you give him credit for.”

As the Hatfield’s returned to their vehicle at the head of the column, Richard struggled to restrain Sophia.

“He’s killing us all!” she shouted, trying to twist from his grasp. “We have to stop him!”

“It’s all right,” Richard said. “It’ll be okay.”

The last truck in the convoy passed them. Soldiers peered out in bewilderment as Sophia turned her anger on Richard and punched him on the jaw. He staggered back and she began pummeling his face, his arms, and his chest. The blows, save the first, were mostly ineffectual.

“Shit!” he yelled. “Would you stop it?”

“I will not stop it!” She screamed with tears of frustration and rage in her eyes, and then lowered her fists. She swiped angrily at her wet eyes. “Without the RLP we’re stuck on this Earth. No way to get home. No way to find the Key. We were the last hope for the Multi-verse, Richard. You were the last hope. Now there’s nothing to prevent BanaTech from finding the Key and opening the Focal Point.”

Richard sighed and crossed the road to where their REAPERs and weapons had been dropped by one of Hatfield’s men. He picked up his pack, dusted the dirt off, and shouldered it.

“Let’s go,” he said. “It’s not safe here.”

Sophia scowled but said nothing as she retrieved her pack and weapons. Richard headed off the road in an easterly direction, into the wind and away from any fallout from the devastated cities behind them.

“Wait,” Sophia called from the middle of the road, gesturing to the north, the direction Hatfield and his men had gone. “Aren’t we going to go after them? Get the RLP back on the other side?”

“You heard him,” Richard said over his shoulder. “We go through that Rip and they’ll shoot us. I don’t think they’ll be aiming for our legs.”

Sophia hurried to catch up to him. They entered a stand of maple trees that were just losing their color and went on as far as the eye could see.

“We can’t just let them go,” Sophia argued. “We have to get the RLP back.”

“We can’t make that Rip before it closes.”

“Goddamn it, Richard!” She grabbed the strap of his REAPER and tugged him to a halt. “We’re screwed. Can’t you see that? Everything is screwed. Aren’t you in the least bit concerned?”

“We’re alive,” he said simply. “That counts for something.”

He turned away from her and continued on through the woods.

Not a word passed between them as they continued to the east. Richard felt rage coming off Sophia in waves. Her mind was no doubt reeling, alternating between devising some way to get the RLP back and her anger at Richard for being so damn nonchalant about the whole thing. At times it was obvious she was restraining herself from kicking him or launching into another frenzy of screaming and punching.

They crossed one stream and then another, their waterproof boots sloshing up water and leaving short-lived mini rainbows in their wake. The sky to the south, when they could see it through the foliage, was an angry shade of red. Lightning flashed between and around the tops of twin mushroom clouds above Tennessee and West Virginia.

An hour and a half later, once he was certain the Rip near Charleston had closed, Richard stopped and shrugged off his pack. He unzipped the side pocket and took out his mother’s copper trinket box.

“Feeling nostalgic?” Sophia asked, the question dripping with sarcasm.

Richard ignored her and worked the latch on the box. It sprang open and he removed a slim black object from within. Grinning, he held it up where Sophia could see it.

“How…where…” she gasped, her eyes widening in astonishment.

“This belonged to your Mirror.” He held up the RLP. “At the time I didn’t know why I put it in here. As it turns out, this box makes a nice little Faraday cage. Any idea what the code is?”

Sophia’s jaw was hanging open. She snapped her mouth shut with an audible click.

“You…bastard,” she said and advanced on him. He thought she might take another poke at his jaw but instead threw her arms around him and hugged him to her. She smelled awful, but her body was warm and a feeling of desire, though not sexual in nature, thrilled through Richard.

At that very moment he understood what it was he was fighting to save.

Sophia pulled away from him, a startled look on her face. Perhaps she too had felt the pure and innocent wave of warmth and love that had washed over him

Sophia placed her hands on her hips and spoke in a scolding tone, like a mother speaking to an unruly child. “Why the hell did you wait so long to tell me?”

“It didn’t seem important until we lost the other RLP. And then I wanted to be sure Hatfield and his men were through the Rip before I opened the box.”

“Why should that matter?” she said.

“It was the last card I had to play with Hatfield. I had hoped the RLP he took would time out before he reached the Rip, but after he let us go. Once he realized the RLP was useless without the code he’d have spent hours searching for us and the Rip would have closed, trapping him and his men here forever. Your antics back there on the road foiled that little plan. At that point, if he hadn’t already had the code to the other RLP, I would have given it to him. It was either that or risk them using violence to get it out of us.”

“And you knew you had this RLP to fall back on.” It was a statement, not a question.

“So did Hatfield.” Richard said. Sophia’s eyebrows went up and he continued. “It was what he said about me being more resourceful than you gave me credit for. He would have opened the box. It was right there on the table in front of him and the latch is not all that complicated. He knew I had another RLP and for some reason decided to keep quiet about it. He could just as well have taken it along with the other.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you waited almost two hours to let me in on your little secret.” Sophia was still fuming.

“I wanted that RLP—your RLP—off this world before I exposed it to the Source. BanaTech couldn’t track it in the trinket box and had probably written it off as being destroyed, either by your Mirror or in that little dust up back at my house in Kansas. Whatever the case, they may no longer be actively tracking it. Instead they’re tracking an RLP on another world in the hands of someone who is not looking for the Key.”

A slow smile spread across Sophia’s face. “They won’t know where we are or where we’re going.”

“Finally,” Richard said, “she sees the light.”