Courage (5 page)

Chapter 4

Now that the hard part of selecting a thousand troops was over, the really hard part of speaking to all the hesitant ones began. Baku sent the soldiers’ minds back to their bodies, along with a portion of his consciousness with many of them. Many had an earful ready for him. All the negative perceptions of him tore at his heart. He had no reason to be angry in return. He split his consciousness into several hundred shards, each of them bearing the appearance of the god their respective mortal saw, and sent each of them where they needed to be. Then he brought his main body and consciousness to just outside the Oval Office of the White House, with twenty five-year old Roger Alcadere’s soul in tow. Roger’s body was back on base, frozen in time. Roger was nephew to President Chris Alcadere. They were going to need each other in the precious moments before the war began, and Roger was an important link to one leader of the country whose troops were being commandeered. Among other things, he spared Baku the need to speak to yet another mortal face-to-face.

Before him loomed a white door with two guards in black suits, oblivious to Baku’s presence. He’d once again bent time to a standstill.
If only gods were affected by time in the same way...
But “ifs” wouldn’t stop Nexus’ war. He turned to Roger, who stood beside him in his BDU, eyes wide, body tense and hands in fists. His stare was fixed on the two guards, who were equally oblivious to his soul’s presence. “They can’t see you, Roger,” he said gently.

Roger flinched then looked at the old god. Baku knew Roger saw an older version of his Italian father in his place. He wanted to put a hand on the young man’s shoulder, but he restrained himself. Roger needed to warm up to him at his own pace, if he decided to. These individual meetings with his less willing soldiers weren’t an attempt at gaining popularity, but to solidify their resolve to fight and accept their new perception of reality. They needed to focus on giving their all to the war and, above all, gain some peace of mind.

“Where are we?” He rushed the words out. “And how did we get here?” He looked up and down the hallway, at each wall, the door, and at him, as if he were hunting for an escape route.

“We are just outside the Oval Office. I took the liberty to teleport us here. I’m sorry this is really jarring, but time is of the essence.”

Roger touched the wall nearest him, checking to see if it was real, brushing against an ornate picture frame to a painting of a quaint house on a meadow. “We really are here,” he said to himself.

The young soldier’s mind craved to understand how teleportation worked, how it was even possible. He was accepting his new location, although adrenaline kept his limbs taut.

Roger turned back to the guards. He swayed to one side and watched the guards’ eyes ignore his motion. He swayed the other way and held still a moment, then straightened up and looked at the carpeted floor. “Why’d you freeze them like that?” His tone was accusatory and bitter.

“I did nothing to them. I stopped time for them. You have some questions for me, do you not?”

Roger turned his bitter gaze on the guards for a moment, then nodded, eyes dropping back to the floor.

“Would you care to sit down?” Baku gestured to a pair of wood chairs facing each other a few steps away.

“No, sir.”

“Then go ahead and speak your mind. I’m listening.”

Roger looked up, his grey eyes livid. “Why don’t you just read my mind? You know everything I’m thinking, don’t you? You’re all-powerful and all that bullshit.”

“To read every single thought of each and every mortal of mine is a waste of energy. I pay more attention to your emotions and your actions. They create ripples that bounce off each other like that of raindrops on a lake’s surface. Sometimes these ripples are chaotic. The rest of the time: more peaceful. You have a mind and thoughts of your own. Right now I’m here to listen to you, not just to talk
at
you. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?” Baku folded his arms behind his back and clasped his elbows.

“You’re trying to meet me on even ground?” Roger said with a raised eyebrow. It was more a statement than a question, albeit a skeptical one.

“Essentially yes. You’ll get more satisfaction out of this talk if you actually speak your mind, instead of me addressing each and every writhing thought in your head without you saying a word. It would be too disorienting for you.”

After a moment’s thought, Roger said, “I concede that much. But why bother talking with me at all? You never show your face like this. Once my sister died, it was easy to assume you never existed in the first place. Why are you suddenly showing your face, and why did you let my sister die?”

Baku held Roger’s challenging gaze a moment, then bowed his head and sighed. “There’s a long, detailed reason as to why I don’t normally show my face to my mortals. The very short answer is that it’s a choice I made long ago. The short answer is that I weighed the pros and cons between keeping myself at a distance, or living among you all.” Baku looked up. “I chose the former to encourage the exercise of my greatest gift to my creations: free will.” Some gods reveled in the extra attention and it didn’t detract from their mortals’ happiness. In other scenarios, not so much. If Baku were to make a habit of showing himself on Earth after all this time, it would create chaos on a global level. “I stand by the choice I made, however I’ve been forced to make an exception for you one thousand soldiers.”

“Why?”

Baku looked Roger in the eye, then closed his own and sighed in defeat. Even if his mortals managed to successfully defend themselves, chaos was going to ensue with a vengeance. There wasn’t any way around mentioning the existence of other gods. “The war. There are many gods in the universe and we don’t always live peacefully.”

“Then why are you dragging us into it?” Roger made fists at his sides.

“If I don’t, then I forfeit you, your family, your country, all of Earth, everything I’ve ever created, to a greedy and wrathful god. I know you don’t like me, but you don’t want this god--”
my son
“--to take over. He will bring Armageddon.”

“Well, if you’re so much better, then why did you let my sister die?”

Baku met Roger’s glare, who had reddened eyes and tears down his cheeks. His sister, Lena, had died in a car accident. She’d been talking on her cell phone while driving at night and not noticed that she’d drifted into the oncoming lane. The last thing she’d seen was a pair of bright headlights right before she and her car had got flattened by an eighteen wheeler. The truck driver had caught a glimpse of her shocked face in his headlights right before impact. And now he couldn’t bring himself to get into large vehicles.

“What do you want me to say?” Baku asked.

“I want an explanation,” Roger said in a thick voice.

“There’s no point in explaining anything, until you’re willing to listen. I could apologize or say exactly what you want me to say, or explain the truth, but none of it will bring you peace in the state you’re in.”

“She was only seventeen, damn it!” His eyes glistened and were wide with desperate rage. “She was too young to die. Give her back!”

“How do you propose I do that?” Baku asked softly.

“You’re God. You can do anything.”

“Yes, I’m your god, but no, I can’t do ‘anything’.” He gazed back with a calm practiced over eons.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I have revived people, but there are very strict circumstances for it.”

Roger looked up, face red and eyes wide and bloodshot.

“A person getting crushed by an eighteen-wheeler doesn’t meet the criteria. The body has to be salvageable, something that can go on living. Also, the soul in question has to have the will to go on living, go back to living. Such a scenario is incredibly rare. Do you understand so far?”

Roger glared a moment, his eyes livid. He broke away and stomped over to one of the chairs, dropped into it, then put his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. Strained sobs broke through his will to not cry. Baku calmly crossed to the empty chair and sat down. He rested his elbows on his thighs. Roger was finally facing the pain that he’d buried for the past five years. Sobs wracked his uniformed body. Baku felt Roger’s emotions shift from bitter resentment to despairing acceptance of the truth. He both patiently and impatiently waited for the young man to ride out his tears. Even though Baku could stop time for mortals, he couldn’t do the same for immortals. They lived outside the strictures of time. He hoped he had enough time to brace his one thousand soldiers for Nexus’ war.

“I still want my sister back, even though I now understand I never will.” Roger took a few deeps breath and wiped his nose on a sleeve.

“You’ll always want her back. Death leaves holes and wants in its wake. It’s the way things are.” Baku hastily conjured the tissue box sitting in Roger’s bedroom and handed it to him.

“Hey, that’s mine! How’d you do that? And why is death this way?”

“I’m a god. That action in no way affected anyone’s free will, and I wasn’t going to steal from a store or factory. And as far as your death question...” Baku shook his head and gave him a rueful smile as Roger reached for a tissue. “I could debate with you
endlessly
. You would have counterpoints for all my points, and I counterpoints to every last counterpoint of yours. In fact, the nature of death is still in debate, if that gives you any clue as to what goes on behind the divine curtains.”

A comprehending raise of the eyebrows passed across Roger’s face. “So then why didn’t you push Lena’s car back into her lane?”

“She was the one who decided to talk on her cell phone while driving. She was the one in control of the steering wheel. She was the one who paid no mind to a pair headlights getting closer.”

“So?” Roger took the box and pulled out another tissue.

Baku sat back in his chair. He wanted to tell him that the truck’s headlights glaring in Lena’s eyes should have been plenty of warning, but she’d been more interested in her phone conversation. But telling Roger that would diminish his memory of his sister. “All my actions are restricted by free will. By giving you the power of free will, I extinguish the power to push you around like chess pieces. I can give guidance when you ask for it, but I cannot run your lives for you. Besides, it’s best when mortals help mortals, instead of me.”

“What about your ‘plan’--” he made quotations with his fingers “--for us all that devout believers talk about all the time?”

“My only plan is for all of you to enjoy life in your own way. However, free will doesn’t let that go according to my hopes just because I want it. All the bad things that happen, all the negativity that disrupts happiness and peace is the result of choices mortals have made, not me. But the thing is, you’re all equipped to cope with such adversity.
You
choose to become victim or survivor of a devastating occurrence.
You
choose to grow stronger or deteriorate.” He put his elbows on his thighs and leaned forward. “I am there, in the background, to support you if you ask for it.”

Roger gave him a measuring look. “Then tell me this: why do people go insane and crap like that? Why do we have cancer and diseases, psychological scarring, and all that messed up crap?”

“To truly understand the designs of all that I’ve created, you’d have to possess the intimate knowledge of biology that I do. A lot of it is cause and effect. Say, for example, a cough. Lungs must be dry. Anything that doesn’t belong in there triggers your cough reflex. You need that reflex in order to protect your lungs. So, when you get a chest cold, the coughing can hurt, but you’d die if you couldn’t cough.” He put his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. “Now, this is only the tip of an iceberg-sized explanation, but hopefully you can begin to fill in more of the blanks as you keep thinking on it.

“And as far as the psychological aspect of things goes, your minds are your own gift and curse. There’s a balance to it, and balance is the root of all my designs. You have the capacity for great wisdom, but things can go wrong on either a biological level or psychological, or both, making it possible for an individual to fall into great madness.” Baku sighed. “There are so many details to explain, Roger. You’ll never run out of questions for me. The more I teach you, the more you’ll realize there is to learn. Do you understand?”

“I’m beginning to, I think,” he said weakly.

“Thinking is good, my dear boy,” he said with a soft smile. “And right now you might want to start thinking about your Uncle Chris.” He held out a hand.

“Why?” Roger took it and stood, clutching his tissue box in one hand.

“Forces are being mobilized for otherworldly reasons. You’re about to have an interesting chat about that, and you’re the best person for him to talk to.” He led them to the door the two guards were posted at and stopped before them. “Also, you’re both going to need each other’s support during this pointless war.”

“Pointless?”

Baku searched for words. “Actually there is a point, but I can only guess at it. Now, go ahead and talk to your uncle. This may be your final goodbye. I leave it up to you to decide what and what not to say.”