Ascension: Invocation (8 page)

"I guess that's a yes," the caller laughed. "G.B. you freakin' rock, dude. You're cray!!"

"Okay, Muffin Man, take care. Line 2, what's up?"             

"Romans sixteen, seventeen and eighteen. 'I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive.' What does your spaceman have to say about that, heathen?"

"The caller makes a good point," Graham said. "How do you respond, blasphemous spaceman?"

"The pending events are not contrary to your scriptures."

"What do you mean by that?" the caller demanded. "Now you're claiming to be my Lord Jesus Christ?"

"This is incorrect."

"Well, that's only person I'm expecting to descend from the heavens and He will do so on a day of great judgment."

"You may shortly be troubled in your world. Do not fear this for it has been predetermined."

"There ain't nothin' in the Bible about spacemen landing and evolving us."

"This is correct."

"You sayin' the Bible is wrong?"

"This is incorrect. It is unfortunate that your sacred scriptures have been altered. However, this too, has been predetermined."

"Oh, this is stupid. Somebody re-wrote the Bible and took out all of the stuff about spacemen?"

"This is incorrect."

"I hope you enjoy your time burning in hell." The caller hung up.

"All right," said Graham. "We're off to an interesting start. So, Spaceman, why do we have to evolve now? How about next Tuesday? That works better for me."

"It must happen at this time. It is predetermined."

"Why so urgent? See, we humans like to procrastinate."

"Your presence is required on another plane."

Graham laughed. "We have an appointment in another dimension?"

"This is correct."

"All righty then. We're up against the clock. Apparently, quite literally. We'll take a break and be back in four." Graham closed the mic and the network took over. He walked out of the studio and into the hall where Mike and Chris were waiting.

"How's it feel to be a national radio star?" Mike asked.

"Did you hear this guy? He's actually threatening to make an appearance." Graham was obviously a bit rattled.

"Oh, that would be sweet, dude!" Chris gushed.

"Will you calm down," Mike said. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"Mike, clearly this guy is some sort of nut. Maybe he's been quiet for three days because he's been planting bombs all over the city. Have you thought about that?"

"You're just nervous, Graham. You don't need to be. You're sounding great."

"What am I going to do when nothing happens at four? The whole concept goes down the toilet. You realize that, right?"

"Well, I've already thought about that. At four o'clock, you'll be giving away five thousand dollars," Mike said.

"What?"

"Yep. Enlighten your new audience with that. Start handing out free money and these listeners will forget all about specifics. Not to mention your affiliates will be thrilled. He's left the door wide open for you on this one, buddy."

"Shit. Can I get five grand to give away on my show too?" Chris asked.

"Get syndicated, boy, and we'll talk. So, you see, Graham, you got nothin' to worry about."

"I just don't like it when he gets in to all of this Bible stuff. The end of the world thing kind of creeps me out."

"So change the subject. It's your show."

"What I need is a call screener."

"The network says you'll have one tomorrow. The phone company fucked up the routing."

"I know," Graham said and took a deep breath as he covered his face with both hands and exhaled.

"Graham?”

"Uggggh. What?"

"Break's almost over, son"

"Shit."

"Knock 'em dead, Graham!"

Graham ran back into the studio and had fifteen seconds to the show theme; an eternity in radio. He hadn't prepared his next break. He'd just go back to the phones, he thought. Chris left to continue prepping for his show, and Mike whistled a tune as he made his way to the lobby. Graham's program was being loudly fed into the hallways via the speaker system in the ceiling. It sounded terrific, Mike thought and he was quite proud of himself for coming up with the money giveaway on the spot. Once Graham settled in to the program, everything would be fine. As Mike rounded the corner to the lobby, standing at the front desk was a familiar face.

"Dr. Trumboldt! What brings you back here?" Mike asked as he reached out to shake the man's hand.

"I heard the show's gone national," Charles said, shaking Mike's hand.

"Indeed. The first show is on the air right now. It's sounding great."

"Yeah, I was just listening here. I'm glad it's going well. Look, Mike, can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Absolutely. Come on upstairs...” Just then, Mike heard a burst of static through the hallway speakers in the midst of Graham's program. “Um, give me just a minute, Doctor.” Mike walked briskly back to the engineering room and found the station's chief operator hovering over a pizza. “Did you hear that?” Mike asked.

“Yeah, looks like we're experiencing a bit of heat lightning,” the engineer said as another static discharge interrupted the show.

“This isn't feeding down to the affiliates is it?”

“No, it shouldn't be.”

“Well, check on that and make sure, all right?”

“Will do.”

Mike returned to the front office and apologized to Charles. The two men made their way upstairs to Mike's office. Mike cringed each time he heard another static burst. In his office, he looked outside and saw the lightning in the distance. It was standard fare in Alabama on especially hot and humid days; a complimentary light show to go along with the unbearable heat. Mike was pissed that it had to happen on the day of Graham's national debut. “What can I do for you, Doc?”

“Well, these static bursts you're hearing, that's one of the reasons I'm here.”

“The heat lightning?”

“Colleagues of mine have reported an extraordinary amount of magnetic energy being detected in the area in recent days. Outside of this particular event, have you experienced any other interference?”

“Not that I'm aware of.”

“Strange. The amount of energy that they're reporting should make radio broadcasting nearly impossible in these conditions. No issues reported by your competition?”

“I got a call from Craig Morris. He owns the Christian station in town. He was insisting that the new dishes we've set up for Graham's show were interfering with his signal. Of course, that's impossible. He's kind of a dumb ass.”

“What kind of interference did he report?”

“He said his signal kept fading and then, well, static bursts like this,” Mike said as another flash of static buzzed through the speakers; thunder began to roll in the distance.

“Interesting. Any idea what's going to happen at four o'clock?”

“We're giving away five grand!” Mike said proudly.

“Would you mind if I hung around for the big event?”

“Make yourself at home, Doc. There's sweet tea downstairs and I'm having sandwiches brought in later. You're welcome to stay.”

“I think I'll take you up on that.”

Charles suspected that something strange was occurring. He walked outside to the front porch and took a long look at the sky above him. There were no menacing clouds; the sky was a beautiful blue, in fact. Yet, the thunder continued to growl, and the sky flashed regularly now. He returned to the air conditioning and poured himself a glass of tea and settled in to the conference room. Charles messaged colleagues as he listened to Graham's program through the static.

“Welcome back to the Graham Barry Program. I am, in fact, Graham Barry, and we're joined by our faithful Space Man as always. You up for more calls?”

“It is better that we discuss the coming events.”

“Yeah, we're about ten minutes away from something exciting!”

“Indeed. This is true.”

“Well, I guess we can let the cat out of the bag,” Graham intended to supersede whatever the pirate had in mind with the cash giveaway. “At the top of the hour, we're going to welcome all of our new listeners by giving away a ton of cash!” Graham ran an exciting music bed under his delivery. “That's right, be listening all next hour, for your chance to score one hundred bucks every minute! I want you to light up those phone lines as we pay off some of your bills. It's a grand total of five thousand dollars, fifty one hundred dollar winners. You could be one of them! Exciting, huh?”

“This is very exciting,” the voice said genuinely. “I am happy with this news.” Graham felt a wave of relief come over him. It looked like the pirate was playing along. Maybe he was a decent guy after all. Perhaps he was just as nervous about what was going to happen at four o'clock as Graham had been. Everything was going to be okay. “All right,” Graham said. “How about some White Stripes to celebrate?”

“This is acceptable. However, we must first inform our listeners of what they will physically experience in moments.”

“What? Elation? Relief that we're taking care of that pesky wireless bill?”

“Difficulty breathing...”

“Sure, I'd be excited too!”

“Dizziness and nausea may also be experienced, but this will be temporary.”

Graham laughed. “Yeah!”

“Do not fear this. We will soon be visible to you. No harm will come to you...”

Graham felt the board in his studio begin to vibrate; the floor also seemed to throb. The lightning outside began to create a strobe effect as it flashed intermittently. Graham could hear voices outside his studio and he thought he heard someone say something about an earthquake. Graham noticed now that the vibration seemed to cling to the air. He held his hand up and could feel it.

“This will take only a moment,” the voice continued. “The Dark Age is now complete.”

Graham and the rest of humanity suddenly felt a crush of heat wash over them. This was quickly followed by choking. It was as if all oxygen on the planet disappeared for three or four seconds. When he could breathe, Graham felt incredibly dizzy and light headed. He felt like he was going to throw up. Then, an incredible high pitched shriek rang worldwide. Graham felt as if his ears would bleed. A massive flash of white light covered the planet for a second and then all electricity in the building went out. Graham heard the generators outside kick on, and the emergency power was thrown. Just as quickly as they fired up, however, power returned to the building, and they shut down. The hum in the air continued as Graham heard screams coming from the hallway. “Oh my God!” he heard the receptionist yell.

Graham forgot that he was still on the air. “What the fuck was that?” he said to thousands. Realizing his mistake, Graham immediately tossed the show back to the network. He stepped outside the studio and saw that the front door of the building was open. The entire staff had collected on the front lawn. Graham joined them outside and saw that everyone's gaze was fixed on the sky. He looked up and saw a massive black hole that appeared to float in midair. Lightning surrounded the tear in the sky and the hum continued. Graham saw Charles pacing back and forth on the porch, frantically on the phone. “It's incredible,” he heard him say. “I'm looking at it right now. You can't see it? Is there data yet? Please send it to me as soon as you can. Holy shit.”

“Best... promotion... ever!” Chris said as he placed his hand on Graham's shoulder and looked skyward.

“Yeah,” Graham concurred.

He was sure that he was late for his break. Stunned, Graham returned to the studio as his cell phone began to ring. It was his girlfriend, Kelly, calling from work. He explained that he didn't know what was happening yet but told her he'd call back as soon as he had any explanation for the sudden hole in the sky. He jumped back on the air and did his best to explain to the audience what he had saw. “Ladies and gentlemen, we're not entirely sure what has happened...”

“We have opened a door,” the voice explained.

Graham cleared his throat. “A door? A door to what?”

“This is a door that will join our worlds. We will soon be one.”

Charles entered the studio, and Graham motioned him to the second microphone. Charles hurriedly placed his headphones on as Graham raised the volume on his mic.

“Um, sir...” Charles didn't know how to address the voice.

“Hello, Charles.”

“Hello. Um. Wow. I have so many questions. First of all, should we be concerned about radiation emanating-”

“You are in no danger.”

“Okay. How did you do this? This concept of opening doors to other worlds has been theorized, but the potential openings would be sub-subatomic in size, and only exist for small instants of time. How are you able to keep the door open?”