MoonFall (23 page)

“Honestly, ma’am?” Noah said. “I ain’t even the kid who listened in horror to Jimmy’s pa’s war stories. I been on my own a long time, and that ain’t left me with much but selfishness and cowardice. I sure as hell ain’t the guarding type.”

“I think you’ve proved that’s not true, Mr. Brennan.” McCloud stopped on the steps of the Council Chamber, an old town hall with stone pillars out front and a clock at its peak that never told the time. “The question is whether you want to believe it.”

She held out her hand and he shook it.

“Good luck,” she said. “Whatever you choose.”

He kept hold of her hand for a moment, looking her in the eye.

“What do they want from me?” he asked, suddenly suspicious of why he’d been summoned. He remembered the Elder wielding that knife on the night Jen was killed, the whole crowd chanting along with the red robed figure. An air of seriousness hanging over proceedings that set his nerves on edge.

“I imagine that they want to congratulate you,” Captain McCloud said. “And to thank you. Your courage and keen observation helped to turn the tide of battle, to save civilization from the Dionites. I’m just surprised it’s taken them this long to acknowledge your achievements.”

She pointed toward the doors of the Chamber, a guard stood on each side.

“Just keep going straight ahead,” she said. “You’ll know where you’re going.”

With that she left.

His mind heavy with uncertainty, Noah walked up the stone steps and toward the doors.

“I’ve got a meeting with the Elders,” he said to one of the guards.

“We know,” the guard replied and pushed the door open.

Noah walked through the doorway and it slammed shut behind him. The sound echoed around a hallway tiled from floor to ceiling. It smelled old in a way almost nothing did anymore, the scent of untouched dust and stale air. People must come and go through this hallway every day and yet it somehow managed to feel like a place untouched by human footsteps, perfectly preserved while the rest of the world evolved around it, adrift in history.

He strode down the hallway, passing paneled doors to right and left. McCloud was right, he knew where he was going. It was the only place that so exalted a group as Apollo’s town Elders could possibly have locked themselves away. A play of deliberate and ostentatious tradition.

At the end of the hall a pair of double doors awaited, not just paneled like those along the sides, but ornately carved with repeated abstract patterns and polished so that they shone like the mythical heartwood of some ancient forest. Framed by pillars, or at least the image of pillars, emerging from the wall and topped with a crossbeam of stone so thick and ancient looking it must have been placed there by Stone Age men. Noah was almost impressed.

A huge brass knocker hung from each door, but he ignored those. Instead, he turned the handle and pushed, the door creaking inward before him, and stepped through those doors without further summons or invitation. If the Elders wanted their guests to stand on display waiting for them, then they’d summoned the wrong guy.

They stood, a dozen men and women, mostly in ordinary clothes apart from the blue sashes around their waists, anticipating his arrival. No chains of office here, no long red robes, no grand magnificence.

There was one exception. In the middle of the group stood a short woman, her skin Indian brown. Her black haired flowed all the way to the floor, as did her long blue robes. Jewels and fragments of mirror glittered from folds of the cloth, catching the sunlight that spilled down through a round ceiling window. She held her hands wide.

“Noah, we’ve been waiting for you,” she said.

Yet for all of her splendor Noah found his eyes drawn to something else -- a low platform in front of the Elders, a squat gray body about three feet high. Its surface was gray plastic, dotted with gaps, inlets and holes, most no larger than his finger. There were letters down one edge and a hazard sign on one corner. It sat cold and dead and gray as any other piece of machinery in the modern world.

Amongst all this grandeur, the sheer absurdity of it overwhelmed him and he burst out laughing.

“Is that a computer?” he asked.

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the question and just kept staring at Noah. The one in the long robes stepped forward around the high tech altar and stood before Noah looking up into his eyes. Her own were wide, dark pits that gleamed with a hint of madness.

“I am Sanni, Noah,” she said. “I represent the Elders. The Oracle has spoken. The time has come for you to choose. The Fall has come, the ending from which the world will be reborn. You need to decide whether you stand with civilization or with the wild. Whether you will be saved with us or perish.”

She spoke with deep solemnity, as if lives depended on every word. It was everything Noah had expected to find in here, yet faced with it he felt a chill run down his spine. This whole thing – Apollo, the Elders, this building – it was the beating heart of a civilization being reborn, and that sure seemed worthwhile. But there was an intensity to their gazes, a trembling in Sanni’s voice that went beyond serious purpose or passion for rebuilding humanity. He shifted uncomfortably, filled with a desire to get the hell out of there.

“Ma’am, I make choices all the time,” he said. “Maybe you could cut to the chase and tell me what my options are here.”

“The universe does not cut to the chase, Noah,” Sanni said. “It unravels slowly before us, revealing itself to us in all its wonder, unfolding the enacted will of the divine. It is a process of dawning realization, of emerging intricacy, not a race straight toward a finishing line. Patience, above so much else, is a virtue.”

“I’m sure it is,” Noah said. “But I ain’t mighty virtuous, and I ain’t inclined to standin’ around waitin’ on mysteries. So if you want me to think about something, maybe you could tell me what.”

“You have been with us for nearly two months now,” Sanni said. “Among us but not one of us. Not embracing the truth that we have seen, the light granted to us when the gods themselves sacrificed the moon so that we might be saved. Much as you are loved by the people of Apollo, this cannot continue any longer.

“The people of this town are committed to its cause. They embrace what it stands for and where it leads. Apollo is not merely a place, it is a gift from the gods, a vessel which will carry us into their bright, shining light. You must choose to be a part of that, fully part of that, taking on the role that the Oracle assigns to you, or you must leave before you taint the righteous.”

So this was it. Noah had known this choice was coming, but he’d expected to face it on his own terms. And now that the time had arrived, he realized that he’d been avoiding it. He’d kept working here, living here, making friends here, the whole time avoiding turning it from something that just happened into an active decision, into being someone who decided to settle down.

Now, he had to make a decision, and that meant he had to know what would follow.

“You mentioned the role that would be assigned to me,” he said. “So I don’t get to carry on repairing the walls?”

“If you stay then you will have a higher calling,” Sanni said. “The Oracle has seen your gifts – your resourcefulness, your courage, your inquiring spirit. In a matter of days, you understood the terrible threat of the Dionites better than some who have been among the righteous for years. Truly, angels guide you on your path.”

“And what if they don’t guide me down the path you want?” Noah said. “You want my skills, but what if I want to stay and use them in a different way?”

“That is not how Apollo works,” Sanni said. “The Oracle speaks, and the gods speak through it. We merely obey. For the sake of all, everyone who stays must play the part chosen for them. There can be no exception deterring others from that for which they were chosen.”

“And what have I been chosen for?” Anger grew inside him. This was what he hated about this place. Folks trying to boss him around, to tell him how to live his life. Crazies with their Oracle and their gods. This was why he’d spent so long away from people. They just weren’t worth it in the end.

“You will join the guard,” Sanni said. “You will keep Apollo safe and fed, maintain order and justice, protect these good people from the barbarity of a world sent to punish fallen humankind. And you will help in the search for Astra, the salvation the gods have provided.”

There was no denying the appeal of being in the guard. That was where his friends worked, where Molly worked. They were the people he’d fought alongside when the Dionites attacked, and the people who arrested folks like Blood Dog. But a demand was still a demand, and Sanni’s crazed ranting had him on edge, desperate to get away before the madness somehow infected him. He was on the verge of telling her where she could stick her carefully chosen role.

Until she mentioned Astra.
 

Iver had mentioned Astra too. It had been the hope, the dream, the thing the Dionites pinned their future on. If these folks were after it too, then maybe there was something in this Astra.

“Astra,” he said. “What is it?”

“Astra is the hope of the world,” Sanni said. “A place that holds the key to rebuilding civilization lost in the fall. It is out there somewhere to the north. And through obedience to the gods, we will find it. We will bring humankind through this dark time that has fallen upon us, this judgment for losing our way and our faith in the gods. We will find it, and the world will see the light again.”

“If it’s lost, then how do you know it’s in the north?”

“The Oracle guides us.”

“Yeah, right.” Noah snorted derisively. “Lady, I like this town. I like the people. I like the soft beds. I like the fact that I get my belly filled regularly and it ain’t all rabbit stew. But I ain’t never believed in mystical oracles or none of that mumbo jumbo, and I ain’t gonna start now.”

Some of the Elders began muttering to each other. Sanni just smiled and waved to him to follow her, so that they both stood in front of the computer altar, looking across it at the rest of the Council.

“Would you like to see the Oracle, Noah?” she asked.

The muttering grew, Elders frowning but not challenging Sanni.

“You want me to take my orders like the other good little guards?” Noah asked. “Then yes, I do.”

“You have already seen it.” She held out a hand, bangles jangling on her wrist, and tapped the altar. “You stand before it right now.”

Noah looked down at the gray box.

“This?” he said. “This hunk of junk is your precious Oracle?”

Sanni pressed something on the side. There was a click, a whir, and a portion of the top of the computer shifted back. Something slid out, a block a foot across and black as any pit, yet that somehow shone with an uncanny light. On second glance, it wasn’t so much a block as a sheet, thin as paper. The surface flickered with golden lines like the paths of a circuit board, splintering and growing narrower. It looked like the worst lightning storm Noah had ever seen, jagged bolts spreading and multiplying until they vanished into the consuming darkness in which they were set.

“This is the Oracle,” she said.

Noah stared at it, dumbfounded, as the side facing him faded entirely to black and then flickered into movement, letters and numbers scrolling across it in a muddled, abstract mass. Twenty years. Twenty years he had been wandering the wilderness that had once been the United States of America, and in all that time he had never once seen a working computer. Not even in the homes that had generators or the towns still running small power stations after the fall. These things just did not work.

And yet this one did. Not only did it work, but it worked like nothing he had ever seen. Like something from a sci-fi movie, not a real life computer made of crude plastic with a flat screen and a keyboard.

“How?” he asked and realized he was whispering. “How does it work?”

Sanni laughed.

“Because of the gods,” she said. “They left it to us as a beacon, a guide towards the future. It grants direction, wisdom, a way forward. This town was not rebuilt through the leadership of men, Noah. It was rebuilt through the miracle of the Oracle. That is why the gods must be appeased, why order must be upheld, and why we must do as it says and seek out Astra.”

Noah watched, hypnotized as words appeared on the screen and then crackled to life.

“North by northwest,” a voice said. An artificial voice -- tiny, metallic, and buzzing -- but clearly a woman’s. “North by northwest, distance indeterminate. Please provide further data.”

He took a step back needing to sit down, but there were no chairs. He needed a drink, but he had none on him, and this didn’t seem like a place where that would be allowed. This was the group that kept order in Apollo, that kept it clean of drunkenness and lude behavior just as much as it kept it clear of Dionite attacks and wolves wandering out of the wilderness.

He just stared, trying to make sense of it all. A computer. A working computer. A working computer that claimed to be a guide to some kind of salvation, some way to rebuild the world. Who knew what that might be. A bunker maybe. A secret base. A supply depot. Even some Garden of Eden set up by the gods for their loyal followers – he was so shocked he was ready to believe almost anything right now.

“Time to decide, Noah,” Sanni said, squatting down beside him. She jingled as she moved, jewelry cascading up and down her arms. “What will it be? Are you with us, with the Oracle, with Apollo? Or should we turn you back out into the wild?”

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down to his side, fingers resting on Bourne. The familiar feel of the gun’s grip grounded him, gave him something to cling to amid the tumult in his mind.