Infernal

“Bullshit!” Richard cried.

They’d returned to their bodies in much the same manner they’d left them. Richard felt the hook-like sensation in his chest—pulling backwards this time—had passed out of the light and into a dark tunnel and then opened his eyes to find himself still seated on the edge Eliana’s bed.

He’d lost all but the essence of their—conversation? communion?—while within the circle. Had little memory of their actual words and meaning. What he did recall was the warm brilliance surrounding them and the musical lilt of their language; the exquisite resonance of a thousand wind chimes stirring harmoniously in a breeze.

“There’s really no other choice,” Stephen told him. He looked to Eliana and she nodded her head. “She must be destroyed.”

“Fuck that and fuck you!” Richard exclaimed, rising to his feet and leaning over the older man. “I will not kill a child!”

Eliana rose. She turned Richard’s face to her and took his shaking hands in her own.

“It has to be done,” she said soothingly. “If I could do it myself, right here and now, I would, but I can’t die on this Earth. No cut would bleed and no gunshot would stop my heart. If I left this Earth to do it, my autism would return before I had the chance. It’s my sacrifice to make. For humanity and the ALL. I’ve accepted that.”

He looked at her, his expression a mixture of sadness and disbelief.

“Well I don’t accept it,” he said. “And I won’t do it.”

“You must,” Stephen said. “The survival of mankind is imperative.”

Richard rounded on Stephen.

“If it so goddamned important,” he spat, “then why haven’t you done it yourself? Why bring me here to do your dirty work?”

“Because I cannot leave this world.”

“Sure you can,” Richard said, “but you could die within minutes and you can’t have that, can you? It’s okay to sacrifice the kid. Why the hell not? But risk your own life in the process? No fucking way.”

His voice had entered a low register barely above a whisper that he recognized immediately. It was a tone of warning, of impending violence. He’d been pushed too far and was about to plummet over the edge of the abyss where his darkest, most brutal instincts lie. Whether or not he could inflict real damage to another human being on this sanctuary Earth was irrelevant. He was about to respond with unchecked fury. He pulled himself back, both mentally and physically, before that could happen.

“You’ve been hiding out on this Earth for decades, knowing what was coming and doing nothing about it. You’re a coward,” he added before stepping away.

“Cowardice is a human affliction,” Stephen said, “and like any emotion, in these forms we are subject to them. Slaves to them. Be that as it may, I don’t agree. The knowledge I have acquired on this Earth, a mere fraction of which you are now privy to, simply cannot be lost to us. To lose that knowledge with our rebirth would give BanaTech an advantage that we could never overcome. Destroying Eliana would only be a temporary measure at that point. Given time and the continued counsel of the Infernal they would eventually succeed at creating an artificial Rip without our intervention.”

“Then she stays here.” Richard said. “BanaTech doesn’t know where she is and couldn’t possibly track the Rips I traveled to get here. She stays here and I go back and find a way to destroy their machine.”

Eliana crossed the room to and again took Richard’s hands. She gazed into his eyes.

“We can’t stay here, brother,” she said. “They won’t stop looking for me. Ever. Eventually, even if it takes a hundred years, they will find me. And if they stumble across a sanctuary Earth, if the Infernal learn of their existence and their effect on human longevity, BanaTech will seek them out and inhabit them. They would be nearly immortal. What damage could they cause, with or without their Focal Point Generator, if their Elder lives forever?”

Richard looked for a flaw in her reasoning but could find none. He sighed.

“Then we run,” he said. “Far and fast. We go back and get Sophia and pull a Pink Floyd. Run like hell. We’ll avoid the sanctuary Earths and stick to the more remote worlds where BanaTech has no presence. The RLP will alert us if and when BanaTech shows up and we’ll hightail it out of there before they catch up to us. If I can learn to call upon Rips at will, they won’t stand a chance. It’s an infinite Multi-verse. We can run until you find a way to destroy BanaTech and their machine or until, if necessary, we all die of old age.”

Eliana looked questioningly at Stephen. He looked back with questions of his own in his eyes.

“It’s the best offer you’ll get from me,” Richard told them. He took Eliana’s face in his hands and turned it upwards to meet his own. “Your mother could not have wanted you to die. If she had she wouldn’t have tried so hard to find me. I will not kill you.”

“It won’t be easy,” Stephen cautioned, “traipsing across the Multi-verse with an autistic child in tow, with BanaTech hot on your heels. You’ll be dependent on the woman and her RLP for Rip travel. We have it in our power to control the Rips ourselves but it is a skill it took me decades to learn. You’ll no doubt find it equally as difficult.

“Also, you’ll find little help or succor with other humans. They aspire to great and wondrous things but are also capable of great acts of treachery and deceit. As Keepers we would readily see through their deceit to the heart of their duplicitous nature. In human form, it is not so easy.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Richard told him, lovingly holding Eliana’s face in his hands. Her eyes were clouded with doubt but beneath that he saw something else, small now but growing.

It was hope.

“You don’t want to die,” Richard said, realization setting in.

“Of course not,” Eliana replied, looking away. She broke their embrace and returned to the window.

“The strongest instinct any living creature has,” Stephen explained, “is the will to survive. And it is fiercest among humans, even those with mental defects such as autism. Eliana can no more overcome the desire to live than you can overcome the revulsion you feel at the idea of killing her. Our human emotions are, at times, a heavy burden to bear. We feel their anger, their regret and jealousy, their petty greed just as they do. But it is also a great strength. Strength greater than any we knew as Keepers of the Throne. It goes beyond mere submission and obedience and endows us with a greater understanding of what it meant to have existed within the light of the ALL.”

“Why would the ALL want us to experience that?” Richard asked.

“One assumes that it was the intent of the ALL that we protect this realm and the souls of the humans,” Stephen answered. “We’re more likely to defend that which we understand completely.”

Richard put his head in his hands, considering.

“But that’s…nuts,” he said.

“I don’t understand,” Stephen said.

Eliana turned away from the window, her attention again on Richard.

“You’ve told me that the ALL created this realm and humanity so that they could ultimately join with It. Become one with the ALL, as you put it. Then It created a manuscript, a Dummies’ Guide if you will, telling them just how to do that. But before the manuscript could be delivered the Infernal got all pissy and stole or destroyed important parts of it, leaving humanity confused and grasping in the dark for answers.”

Stephen nodded. It was an oversimplification, but he followed Richard’s train of thought.

“After that,” Richard continued, “the Infernal started a war and the ALL cast them down; and us along with them for good measure. Then the ALL washed Its hands of the whole mess and bugged out for parts unknown, leaving us to clean up the Multi-verse and keep the Infernal in check.”

“That is how I understand it,” Stephen said.

“But why leave us to defend the Multi-verse,” Richard asked, “with no memory of who we are and just what it is we’re supposed to be protecting? Why lock us in these fragile forms with such volatile emotions—emotions that serve only to drive us further away from enlightenment—essentially without power and dependant on a fluke of nature like the Rips to awaken us to who we truly are?”

“I’ve never dared question the intent of the ALL in this matter,” Stephen said simply.

“Paaah!” Richard blew air through his lips in exasperation and returned to the bed, seating himself. Eliana joined him. “The Infernal stole choice for themselves, but the ALL granted it to us. It may have had to place us in these forms to do it, but It did so nonetheless. And with choice comes questions. Why leave us locked in this struggle with the Infernal? Why not simply destroy us all? Why abandon this realm and the souls It created, the souls It wanted to join with? What is it It wants us to understand? Seeking answers to our existence is an unavoidable consequence of free will. We were meant to question why this was done to us, because we were meant to find the answers.”

“It doesn’t seem relevant in this instance,” Stephen pointed out. “We know who we are now, and what must be done.”

“That’s an assumption based on the knowledge you’ve acquired here, as a man, over the last two centuries,” Richard said. “You yourself said that we’ve been trapped in human form for millennia and that our minds aren’t capable of containing the knowledge we once shared. Nor do we clearly know the intent of the ALL. The course of action you’ve chosen—that you’re insisting is the only option available—is simply the easiest. ‘Kill the child and the balance will be restored.’

“What if you’re wrong, Stephen? What if the ALL’s intent was that we evolve beyond what we were? As Keepers it didn’t matter to us if we killed. We felt nothing. No pity, no remorse, no guilt; as long as we were obeying the will of the ALL. As men we not only feel these emotions but have an obligation to act on them. To be human. Perhaps that is what the ALL has wanted for us all along.”

Bana considered this as Richard stood and motioned Eliana to his side. He knew the path before them was awash in shadow. Filled with pitfalls and uncertainty; danger, and perhaps, ultimately, death. He felt his immediate course, however, was clear. Remove the Key from this world, retrieve Sophia from the other, and run until a way to destroy the Focal Point Generator and defeat BanaTech could be found.

Still, the feeling that there was more to this than defeating BanaTech, more than denying the Infernal access to the souls of the humans and thus preserving balance throughout the Multi-verse nagged him. Like an aged photograph that has faded around the edges and can no longer be made out clearly, he felt certain there was a much bigger picture to be seen here.

The answers he sought might be found in the manuscript the ALL had bestowed upon humanity. But it was lost to them and believed by Stephen to be destroyed.

Was it? Richard asked himself. Would the Infernal, even before the fall, have had the power to destroy such a thing? Or is it still out there somewhere? Stashed away on some remote Earth just waiting to be found?

On the heels of that thought: If found, could it somehow be used to contact the ALL?

Eralah appeared as they left the monastery. No Rip had formed and there had been no flash of light or claps of thunder save those coming from inside the hurricane that raged around them. One moment she was not there and the next she was, walking alongside Richard with her delicate wings folded against her side as if her appearance were nothing out of the ordinary at all.

“You must go at once,” she told him. “The Elder’s minions have located your companion and will be upon her soon.”

“I understand,” Richard said as she smiled up at him shyly. She—it—has four heads, he reminded himself, resisting the urge to stroke her golden hair and caress the fine porcelain skin of her cheek. This is not her true form. I would probably run screaming if she showed it to me now.

“This will do,” Stephen said. He closed his eyes and a look of intense concentration washed over his face. After a moment he raised his arms above his head, and then brought his hands together with a mighty clap. Like water running down a drain in reverse, a Rip opened before them. Warm, multi-colored light flooded Richard’s eyes. He looked over to see Stephen grinning.

“The flourish is unnecessary, of course, “Stephen said, “but adds a touch of theatricality, don’t you think?”

“I’ll be happy to learn to just get one open,” Richard said flatly, “and not end up on some alien planet a billion miles away.”

“A simple matter of will,” Stephen told him, then produced a sheet of paper from the folds of his robe. He handed it to Richard.

“You’ll need this,” he said, “for Eliana.”

The page contained a list of drugs. Richard recognized most, one he did not. Adderall, an amphetamine and Ritalin, a methylphenidate, were stimulants frequently given to children with autism. Zoloft, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), was used to combat depression and anxiety. Haloperidol or Haldol, he believed, was an antipsychotic. He was unfamiliar with the last, Carmazepine, and asked Stephen about it.

“It’s for seizures,” Stephen said. “Trade name is Tegretol. You’ll need those and perhaps Tofranil, to prevent bedwetting. You’ll have to be very careful administering them. I can’t tell you the dosages; they vary by age and the severity of the symptoms. Nor can I tell you where you will acquire them. You have chosen the most difficult course of action here, brother, and I do not envy you the years to come. But it may also be the wisest. The destruction of one of us at the hands of another has proven to have dire consequences for the Multi-verse in the past.” He extended his hand to Richard, and then embraced him.

“I will keep her safe,” Richard assured him.

“Take care my brother,” Stephen said, then knelt and hugged Eliana.

When they’d finished Eliana turned and embraced Richard as well. He knelt, returned the hug, and then held her at arm’s length, a puzzled expression on his face.

“I won’t be the same once we pass through this portal,” she told him. “The autism will overtake me quickly and I won’t be able to communicate with you. So in a way, this is goodbye.”

He felt his eyes fill with tears at the thought of losing this intelligent and beautiful child.

“Will you fight me?” he asked. He knew that autistic children tended to reject the unfamiliar, sometimes violently.

“I don’t know,” she replied, gently wiping away a tear that had overflowed Richard’s eye and traced down his cheek, “but I don’t think so. Most people think children with autism are cut off from reality, blind and deaf to others and their surroundings. In truth, autism is a higher state of awareness. We’re receiving too much information. Too much stimulation, and in that state, with the limited abilities of the human mind, we just can’t process everything coming in all at once.”

“Are you telling me that people with autism are closer to The Source? Closer to the ALL?”

“I don’t know,” she told him, her brow furrowing in thought, “Maybe. But that awareness, that openness is what makes me so important to BanaTech. In my autistic state I’m aware of who I was and what I’m capable of. I just can’t control it or communicate it to others.”

“So you may remember who I am,” Richard said.

“Even better,” Eliana said, smiling, “I may trust you.”

“You’ve already trusted me with more than you know.” He felt the weight of his promise to keep her safe settle upon his shoulders like a blanket. It was not an altogether unpleasant sensation. Richard rose to his feet and took Eliana’s hand in his own. Before he stepped into the Rip he turned once more to Stephen.

“How will I contact you if I need to?” he asked.

“As before,” Stephen answered, gesturing to the Cherubim who had remained silent through all of this, “Eralah will be of assistance.”

“And how do I contact her?”

“I will know when I am needed,” Eralah answered. “Now go. There is no more time.”

Richard took one last look at Stephen Bana and Eralah—but not the very last, he thought, certain he’d see them again—before shouldering the small pack of clothing they’d assembled for Eliana. He felt the pull of the wound on his arm, now sealed with cyanoacrylate, and remembered how he’d laughed when Stephen had handed the bottle of super glue over to close the cut with.

It’s about a hundred and fifty years past its expiration date, Stephen had told him, but as you’ve seen, things tend to last longer here.

There was no pain from the wound now but he was sure to feel something momentarily.

“Goodbye, brother,” he said to Stephen. The word felt right in his mouth, as the truth often does.

Together, Richard and Eliana stepped into the Rip.