Armageddon?? (11 page)

“We'd
love to help in any way we can.”

They
discussed the details of the deal for fifteen minutes, then hung up. McShurley
heaved a sigh – two in one day! Wow!

The
phone rang again fifteen minutes later. It was General Dynamics Ordnance and
Tactical Systems, wanting again cooperation, tax breaks, etc., to get another old
plant up and running, this time to manufacture AIM-120C missile casings.
McShurley was more than willing to cooperate.

Before
business hours ended, three more corporations had called. One wanted to acquire
land to build a fourth railroad track south through the city; apparently, it
was working on a line south from Chicago to Cincinnati and the Ohio River to
supply raw materials from the mines in Minnesota and Ontario down to barges on
the Ohio. The second had bought two abandoned warehouses on the south side of
Muncie and wanted to open up the old trackyard to the warehouses to help supply
the rejuvenated factories. The third was applying for a construction permit for
the properties northwest of town that had so recently been slated for urban
sprawl.

804
South Tillotson Ave., Muncie, Indiana, USA

Jim
Schenkel had been a tool machinist for forty years before being laid off from
his long-time job in 2003. He'd elected to retire instead of pursuing another
job, and for the past five years he'd followed the same schedule: up at six,
drink his coffee, read the morning paper over toast, an egg, and a glass of
orange juice, tend his gardens until lunch, eat a peanut-butter and jelly
sandwich, monitor his investments and piddle around in his workshop until dinner,
eat a bowl of soup, then watch the news until 10.

It
was 1:30 AM when the phone rang. Groggily, he rolled over, and picked up the
receiver on the sixth ring. “Hello?”

“Jim?
Jack Roberts here.” Jack Roberts was his old supervisor at the ABB factory, before
they'd all been fired and the place shut down.

“Jack?
Why the hell are you calling me at –“ he squinted at the clock – “1:30 in the
morning?”

“Jim,
you're re-hired. We need you in tomorrow morning at 6:30.”

“What
the hell's going on, Jack?”

“The
factory's been started back up for the war effort. We need all the equipment
repaired and retooled; the management wants the lines rolling in a week.”

“...
the hell? I'm retired, goddamnit.”

“Like
I said, we need you back. To be blunt, Jim, you don't have a choice. We'll send
men out to get you if you can't make it on your own.”

“I
don't give –“ he stared at the receiver, listening to the audible dial tone.

The
next morning, at 6:30, he pulled into the parking lot of the ABB factory on the
south side of town, and stared. It was packed with cars, and people were
streaming toward the factory. The factory itself was brightly lit; the loading
docks were packed with semis, and parts were already starting to form small
piles waiting to be taken inside. He parked his car and joined the flow of
humanity heading back to work.

That
morning, The Star Press headlines read, “Look out, Baldricks! Here comes
Muncie!” That day, the Mayor's office received eight more phone calls from
corporations, and the first semis and trains started to roll into the city as
construction equipment started to move away from the university – which had
agreed to put its new dorm on hold for the time being to aid in the war effort
– and toward the old, broken-down factories. Overnight, the city had been
transformed.

And
it wasn't alone. All across the eastern Midwest, the rust belt was being
de-oxidized. Surveyors were entering old factories, cleaning companies entering
and sweeping up dust, weeds being cleared and broken windows replaced. Lights
that hadn't shone for decades were being turned on and replaced; cars were
parking in lots that were more grass than gravel and hadn't been touched by
tires for thirty years. More and more trains were rolling out of yards and
thundering down the immense but ailing network of tracks connecting American
cities to each other, and tractor-trailer semis were moving down the highways
in huge fleets, carrying piping and wires and tools and other implements of the
new war economy.

If
Satan could have looked up from Hell and seen this, if he had wanted to learn
about his enemies, if he had been capable of comprehending the vast network of
the US economy and felt the rage at betrayal coursing through the collective
veins of that nation, he might have felt that he was seeing the first traces of
life in the resurrection of a giant long dead. But in the next dimension,
sitting on his throne, lording over his sulfurous domain, and trying to figure
out how fifteen of the senior generals in Abigor's army had spontaneously
exploded, these thoughts never even occurred to him. Ignorance is bliss, until
the first bombs start dropping.

Moscow,
Russia

And
these changes were hardly unique to the US. In Russia, Vladimir Putin had
immediately accelerated the redevelopment of the military; old factories closed
during the economic woes of the 1990s were being reopened, old mines and oil
wells were being rechecked for viability. The storage depots and military
installations were being searched for equipment, tanks, armored carriers,
artillery that had been sitting in storage for a decade or more was being
refurbished. New tracks were being laid, and the first of tens of thousands of
new T-90S tanks were rolling off the final assembly lines even as he walked
toward this meeting, flanked by security forces.

Putin
entered the church, and crossed himself before the altar before he turned to
the men gathered there, about ten in all: the heads of the Russian mob. He
spoke first, taking charge, as always. “Gentlemen. You are not stupid; you know
why I've gathered you here today.”

They
all nodded with varying degrees of alacrity. Putin continued. “Now, the human
species faces a threat greater than anything it has ever faced in its past. We
– I and all of you – face not just extinction, but eternal damnation. This is
now our reality.” He paused to evaluate what he saw in their faces. Blank,
hard, determined – they share the vision, he reminded himself, just like every
live human now. “Therefore, in return for amnesty from prosecution for any
crimes which may have been committed prior to the Message, I would like to
request that all of you cease from any illegal activities in which you may now
be engaged.”

There
was a small stir in the room. One, a fat man with an unlit cigar drooping from
his lips, spoke. “Sir, with all due respect, why do you take us for criminals.”

As
he spoke, Putin fixed him with a lidless stare until the other man dropped his
gaze. “We are not stupid, you nor I. You know that I called you here today; you
know that I am aware of who you all are in actuality and where you may be
found. These things are not unknown to the government.”

“Then
why are we guaranteed amnesty?”

“Because
the fabric of society must not buckle during this war. All of you are hard men;
we need such men to help prepare our society for the terrors of a war on the
very forces of Hell. And we will need such men to administer the territories of
Hell once it has been conquered. I am asking all of you to become respectable,
but I am not asking you to lose profits.”

That
seemed to seal it for most of them. As he walked away, Putin allowed himself a
thin smile. Russia would show the world what she was capable of, and Russia
would play her part in fighting eternal damnation now and forever.

The
Fifth Circle of Hell

Lieutenant
Jade Kim tried to move. She was stretched out on some form of frame, her wrists
secured by an iron shackle with a heavy spike driven through the palm of her
hands. The pain caused by her moving was severe but that was the least of her
problems. She was submerged in a ghastly mass that seemed to be comprised of
equal portions of mud, toxic waste and raw sewage, she was drowning in it, only
able to breath by the occasional drafts of air as the movement of the foul
swamp briefly exposed her face. She had no idea how long she’d been here but
she did know she’d be in this place for eternity unless she did something about
it. Or, worse, she might be hauled out for another dose of the treatment she’d
got when she had arrived. Gang rape was so unimaginative but she knew that if
she hadn’t already been dead, the internal damage the baldricks had done would
have killed her.

Time
for applying the lessons driven home at SERE school. The drill taught by the
instructors, Survive, Evade, Resist and Escape. Lesson in part four was that
all bonds would loosen in time if worked on. Of course she’d never been nailed
down at SERE. The spike through her hand was the first problem, until that was
out, she couldn’t do much else. She twisted her hand around, trying to get a
grip on the spike, succeeded even though the effort sent waves of pain up her
arm. Then she started to rock it from side to side. She had no idea how long
she kept trying for, it seemed like forever, but suddenly she was aware the
spike was moving slightly with her pressure. Encouraged, she kept up the
effort, feeling the motion increasing as the spike worked free. Then, at last,
it was loose and she worked it up through her fingers, exquisitely careful not
to drop it. Who knew how deep this foul muck was and anything dropped would
never be found again.

But,
with the spike free, she had a lever at last. Still with painstaking care, she
worked it around and pushed it under the iron bracket that held her wrist down.
Once more she started to push, levering the bracket away from its frame. In
time, it loosened and she took a deep breath. The way she had been taught, she
crossed her thumb over the palm of her hand and wrenched. Her hand slid under
the shackle, scraping skin off in the process but her arm was free. That made levering
the rest of the ironwork off her much, much easier. Her arms and legs freed,
she was able to move and she now had four spikes as weapons.

The
sight once she got her head out of the muck was grim, some sort of river
meandering through the gray, foul-smelling wasteland. Enough to fill anybody
with despair which was, she supposed, quite intentional. There were rocky
outcrops from the swamp, breaking the featureless plain but they didn’t matter
too much right now. She’d survived and escaped, now it was time to evade. She
stood, sinking in the foul mess up to her waist, and started to make her way to
one of the rocks. It would be a start, but she’d only managed a few feet when
she bumped into another cross under the mud. Instinctively, she reached down to
clean the filth off the face of the victim.

“Hi
ell-tee.” It was McInery, the pilot of Tango-one-five-Charlie.

“Hi
Mac. Hold tight. I’ll help you get out of this.” With her spikes as levers, she
was able to pry the shackles off quickly. “Salvage the spikes, we’re going to
need them.”

She
looked around quickly, it suddenly occurred to her that all the members of her
unit would probably be close at hand. It didn’t take long to prove that correct
and not much longer to get the six members of Recon Team Tango One-Five out.

“You’re
out of uniform ell-tee.” McInery noted the fact casually. Kim looked at him and
laughed, the first time that sound had been heard here for longer than anybody
could remember.

“So
are you sergeant.” She reached out and quickly drew three chevrons on his bare
arm, using the mud that coated them all. “There, that’s better.”

“You
OK ell-tee?” Robinson, her co-pilot on Tango-one-five-Alpha spoke with pity in
his voice, another thing that had never been heard for longer than anybody knew.

Kim
glanced down, the damage the demons had done to her was obvious, even though
the wounds were healing unnaturally fast. “Won’t do much good for my future sex
life.” Then her voice caught and shook as the memory quickly overwhelmed her.
“It wasn’t the size, it was the barbs.” Then she shook herself. It was gone,
past. Now was time for the group to evade.

Only,
something else got in the way. Or, to be more precise, the supervisor of this
area did. Jarakeflaxis was doing his routine rounds, amusing himself by
disemboweling some of the humans choking in the swamp. In truth, he wasn’t
paying much attention to his surroundings, he’d been doing this round for
millennia. He heard something, that wasn’t unusual, moans, screams wails, all
were quite familiar to him. Only this sounded like a human woman yelling “take
him down.” Then six figures smacked into him, knocking him over and swarming on
top of him.

Jarakeflaxis
couldn’t believe it, they were humans. What were free humans doing here? They
were slamming metal spiked into him, keeping him pinned down as he floundered
in the mud. One of the humans was the woman he and his friends had enjoyed not
so long ago. She had a spike in her hand and he could see the gratification in
her eyes as she started her swing. Then, he could see nothing because they’d
driven their spikes into his eyes and he was blinded.

Kim
looked down at the torn, shattered body. Rage, hatred and Krav Maga had killed
Jarakeflaxis, killed him dead. So started the Resist bit of SERE. “Well done
boys. Get him over to the rock there.”

They
dragged the body over, then Kim drove spikes through its hands, crucifying it
against the outcrop. Then, she dipped the hand in its green blood and painted
four letters over the scene.