For a Devil Has Fallen from the Sky

Chapter 3-2

Like leprosy, though Leif, or thought he thought, because it seemed almost to have come from without. They want to roam. To burn. He looked from Kent to Father Severinsen. Do you really think your influence and even the discovery of a self-sufficient hotel—The Oasis—could have changed them—the Lost Children, the Children of the Flashback, of the Burn—so much?

He looked at Marigold. “I’m going to steel the father for a moment; is that okay?”

She nodded, smiled wanly. “We’ll be fine, Leif, I’m sure. Really.”

“Okay.” He kissed her cheek and then leaned down to kiss Fiona. “You get better, you hear?”

And then they left; the trinity that had brought the Change, the Awakening. The father and his two converts—both of them sinners; both of them killers. The father and his two proudest sons.

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Nick moved to speak but hesitated—it wasn’t every day you met one of the Architects of the Flashback—then raised his right hand slowly. “These eyes tell me you are Oonin, the, ah, Keeper of the Clock—and weaver of our collective vision.” He stared at the being: at its horizontally slit eyes and tapered, reptilian head; its devilish nubs, its pale, squamous skin. “Would this in fact be you?”

The being, the Architect—Oonin—simply nodded. ∆It would, Nick of Zemlja; of Dharatee, and of Earth. Nor could it have been easy; interpreting the code, solving the riddle—but hidden from them it had to be, else all would have been lost before we’d even begun.∆

“I hear—and understand—your thoughts, somehow. Every word. But—” The wind picked up suddenly, fitfully, rustling the darkened hedges, carrying the sound of a distant helicopter. “Who are ‘they?’ And what do you mean, ‘before we’d even begun?’ Begun what?”

Oonin blinked, his inner lids shuttering horizontally, like a bald eagle’s. ∆Why, reversing the Flashback, of course—restoring the Balance. Simply put; undoing everything that they—we, my own kind, in our hubris and contemptuousness—have tried to accomplish here on Zemlja; on Earth.∆ He raised a tri-clawed hand. ∆And for that I’m going to need help; yours, and everyone else who received the Call. Do you understand me, Nick of Dharatee?∆

Nick watched as a Stygian sphere appeared above them and was joined by another, and another, and another still, and finally by a pyramid-shaped black obelisk, which rested on the yellow bricks. “Yes—no. Sort of. But, how did you just ... And how can—”

∆What you see above and in front of you is the Sphaera Mobis—or, rather, a clone of the Sphaera Mobis—the collection of un-machines that created—and may soon uncreate—the Flashback. By all accounts, and taken together, they are the most powerful devices ever to exist; but what I want from you now is not your awe and appreciation but rather that you should simply meditate upon it—upon the obelisk—and tell me what you feel.∆ He looked at him quiescently, dispassionately. ∆Will you do that for me, Nick of Zemlja; of Dharatee, and of Earth?∆

Nick looked at the obelisk, which was smooth, featureless, perfect. “I guess I don’t understand. You mean just think about it—”

The hair on the back of his neck suddenly stood as something energized the space around them, charged it as though with electricity—created a bass hum which was deeper than anything he’d ever experienced.

∆I mean meditate on it, join with it, fall into its darkness and lose yourself. Do it from bended knee, if that helps. Here—∆ He knelt and closed his eyes. ∆We shall do it together. I want you to focus on the obelisk and imagine that it’s being painted by an artist; and then I want you to imagine that scene being painted by yet another artist, and another, and another still—until the obelisk has been reduced to nothing. Do this and then tell me what you feel.∆

Nick looked from Oonin to the monolith and then back again; then slowly lowered himself to one knee and closed his eyes (his eyes, not the foreign ones in his hand, lest the vision be severed).

“I feel as though I am going backward ... backward ... but also that I am getting bigger, larger—more substantial. That as the obelisk shrinks to nothing I grow to fill the void—to fill time and space—to become the one, true reality. To become, I don’t know, like, the Present ...”

∆It is the infinite regress that you feel, as generated by the Sphaera Mobis, but you are the amplifier, the augmentation, the agent which doubles and redoubles its potency. Psychicae industria is what men call it, which is the closest human parallel—psychic energy, vital impulse; and proximity is what creates it, makes it grow. It is the reason you’ve been summoned—why all of them have been summoned—to journey here and close the circuit; to add their strength to the Mobis. And it’s why you must leave now, tonight, before the moon is even half ascended, and come here with due haste—as a man, I mean, and not a phantom. As flesh and blood, not smoke. For those who would oppose us are gathering as we speak.∆

And then Nick was up, he was back on his feet, and was preparing to close the vision by closing his fist; when it occurred to him he must ask the most obvious question of all: “Why, Oonin? Why would one of you ever want to help us; the very beings you tried to annihilate—to make it so we’d never even existed—the beings you think you’re so superior to and that you in fact loathe?” He glared at him angrily, testily, the pain and the suffering of the Flashback coming home like crows, like death birds. “For I am in your mind, Oonin, lest you have forgotten how we’re communicating. And the vestiges of it are everywhere.”

But Oonin remained knelt, passive, his eyes firmly closed. And when at last he spoke he said only: ∆Three youths and a talisman changed my mind, Nick of Zemlja; of Dharatee, and of Earth. A talisman forged to observe but which will now be turned toward war.∆ And then he added: ∆If they make it, Nick. If they make it.∆

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They had a problem: a big one, and not just because both US Highway 101 and State Highway 92 were hopelessly jammed; but because the San Mateo Bridge (their only alternative route) was broken in two—just cleaved down its middle like a log (a casualty of the early Flashback, no doubt, in which meteor strikes and earthquakes had been common), just festering like a wound beneath the roiling night sky and the Flashback Borealis—which was reddish-orange tonight, tempestuous, angry.

“So we’re screwed, in other words,” said Jesse, sitting on her bike, gazing across the reach. “We’ve come this entire distance for nothing.”

“Sure looks that way,” said Miles, and sighed. He scrutinized the craggy-edged gap—which was bathed in red-orange light from the sky—furrowed his brow. “Quint, how far across would you say that is, and how far down?”

Quint inched up to the edge—carefully, deliberately—peered over his handlebars. “I don’t know—let’s see. Maybe ... 150 feet, straight down? And 30 across?”

“So, like, f**k that,” said Jesse, and backed away. “It’d be like hitting concrete.” She shook her head. “Forget it. We’d be better off backtracking around Foster City and picking up 101 around Belmont. Seriously—it’s not like we’re going to get there tonight, anyway.”

“We’re never going to get there at all if we don’t get a move on it,” said Quint, and scanned the bridge. “I mean, the vision was pretty clear: Time is of the essence. You know? It’s not like we—”

He paused, staring at a truck, the door of which read Atlas Construction. “Well, I’ll be damned ...”

And then he ditched his bicycle and made a beeline—even as the others did likewise and rushed to catch up with him, and Jesse snapped: “Quint? What are you doing? Miles? What is he doing?”

They watched as he began unloading cinderblocks and sheets of plywood from the truck.

Jesse groaned. “Ah ... Why are you doing that?”

“Because—my little Orphan Annie—as you so often like to remind me: f*****g attributes.” He patted her cheek: once, twice, a third time. “At-tri-butes.” He lifted out a third sheet of plywood and threw it on the ground. “Because we’re going to jump that breach right there and save a s**t-ton of backtracking; that’s what time it is. Just like when Fonzie jumped the shark.” He paused and looked at her, rakishly, raffishly. Devil-may-care. “I mean—he made it, right? He didn’t f*****g die. And that was a lot further than this; probably three-times as far, at least. So—”

“That was a tv show,” said Miles, as Quint took a cinderblock under each arm. “Which sucked after that; hence the expression. Just like our lives are going to suck if we try to jump that thing and miss.” He followed him to the edge of the bridge. “Besides, he had a powerful assist from a f*****g speedboat ... dumbass.”

“Dumb like a fox,” corrected Quint, and started setting up the ramps. “Besides, we got our own power assist—I’m surprised you haven’t noticed it.”

“What the hell are you talking about. We don’t have any ...”

And then he felt it; the warmth of the Talon against his chest and the faintest, slightest vibration—almost like a cellphone. Then he looked down and saw it showing through his T-shirt like a beacon.

“It’s picking something up,” snapped Jesse with alarm, “I’d know that shade anywhere.” She hastily scanned the bridge. “Something big, something close. Something practically on top of us.”

They drew their spears even as Quint unholstered the Magnum—inspecting the nearest towers for pterodactyl nests (of which, fortunately, there were none); turning their attention to the direction from which they’d come (which was hidden by the curvature of the bridge). “Easy, easy, wait for it,” whispered Miles. “Stay sharp.”

And they waited for it—staying sharp.

“I don’t hear anything,” said Quint at length—and allowed himself to relax. “Maybe it’s a false alarm. I mean, it’s been pulling that a lo—”

“Shhh,” whispered Miles faintly, almost inaudibly, and slowly knelt—laying his palm against the deck firmly, listening carefully. Never taking his eyes off the curvature of the road. “Do you hear that?”

Everyone listened.

“Yeah, a little,” said Quint, “Like, like a really deep rumble; like there’s a train coming—or something. Can you feel anything?”

He knelt on one side of him while Jesse knelt on the other.

“There,” said Miles. “Right there; that wobble and vibration. I mean, are bridges supposed to do that? You know, like skyscrapers are supposed to sway in the wind so that they don’t—”