Dead & Godless (8 page)

“You
can’t escape that easily. Saying that your genes urge you towards a certain
choice is not the same as saying that one choice is
truly
better than
another. All you’ve done is return to the starting point.”

Corwin
heaved a sigh.

“It
sounds persuasive, but once again your argument hinges on the notion of truth. Instead
of accepting god, the old me might just as soon have decided that nothing in
life is truly good or evil.”

“Then
it’s fortunate that the old you is already dead,” Ransom said blithely. “And
frankly, I don’t believe that. Say what you will about truth and justice, you
don’t have it in you to give the starving girl the razor blade apple. By their
fruits you shall know them. Your actions reflect where you really stand.”

It
can’t be that simple,
thought Corwin. The angel’s assessment felt appallingly
unfair, not to mention insulting, yet he wasn’t quite sure how to wriggle out
of it.

“Do you
honestly mean to tell me that I’m a theist in denial?”

Infuriatingly
calm, Ransom seemed more interested in his cigarette than in Corwin’s existential
crisis.

“You
did end up as one of my clients, and I don’t represent the hopeless.”

Before
Corwin could protest, he heard a small voice at his feet.

“Thanks
for the apple, Mister,” said the girl.

She
was no longer shivering. The color had returned to her cheeks and her eyes were
bright with a newfound vitality, a healthy glow that no ordinary apple should
have been able to bring about.

In
spite of his inner turmoil, Corwin managed a smile and instantly felt a tinge
of relief. His attorney was right in one respect. He would never dream of
inflicting senseless harm upon this child, nor any innocent person. To do so
reflected far more than a mere “difference of opinion” in his mind.

“We’ve
spoken much on the subject of morality,” said Ransom, “but that’s just one
dimension of values. The same applies to other scales, as well. The scientist
who values knowledge above ignorance, the rationalist who values reason above
emotion, the artist who values the beautiful above the bland . . . They all
proclaim ‘This is how man should live!’ And in doing so, they all appeal to a
higher order.”

A
clanking, hissing sound erupted from down the street. As Corwin’s head swiveled
for the source of the noise, suddenly the girl leapt upright. There was a loud
thoomp
and something whistled through the air.

“Mister,
watch out!”

She
threw herself hard into Corwin’s side, shoving him out of the way as a wire net
ensnared her. Steel spikes stabbed the cobblestones and the net pinned her to
the ground. Catching his balance, Corwin stared past Ransom and the captured
girl to see a hulking mechanical monstrosity.

The
steam-powered robot marched towards them one heavy step at a time. Its metallic
sides were navy blue and a shield crest embellished its chest plate, marking
the machine as an enforcer for the city watch. Mounted atop armored shoulders,
its head was a cross between a tube television and a deep sea diving helmet,
aquamarine light flooding the glass.

Raising
an arm that ended in the barrel of a net gun, the mechanized watchman broadcast
an electronic voice.

“Code
484: Unlicensed act of charity detected. Halt and surrender yourselves at once!”

The Divine Supermarket

The metal
enforcer plodded closer. Clunky gears revolved in its joints and jets of steam
vented from the exhaust pipes on its back.

“You need
a license to be charitable in this city?” balked Corwin as he retreated a
cautious step.

Ransom
was scratching his chin.

“Ah
yes, it seems I forgot about that.”

Glancing
above the shop window where they had found the girl, Corwin noticed a panning
security camera, its lens now pointed their way and smoldering with an angry
red light.

“Violators
will be prosecuted!” droned the robot.

They
heard the
hiss-click
of another round being loaded into its net gun.

“Such
a nuisance,” grumbled Ransom. “You’re interrupting my valuable attorney-client
session time.”

In
his right hand he juggled the infamous green apple, casually tossing it and
letting the fruit drop back into his palm. The enforcer leveled its gun towards
them. With a swift twist, Ransom’s arm became a blur and he pitched the apple
straight at the robot’s glowing face. It splattered on the screen, the glass bursting
as a thunderous ball of fire blasted the torso of the machine into a thousand
charred pieces. Corwin ducked and covered his head.

“What
the hell did you stuff into that apple!?”

Shards
of scrap metal whizzed past, raining down amidst curls of smoke and blazing sparks.
The robot’s sturdy feet were still planted right where the rest of it had stood
only seconds before. Somewhere in the distance, a siren began to wail.

Waltzing
over to where the girl was trapped, Ransom reached down with one hand and
grabbed the wire netting. A powerful tug ripped the net loose, taking several
of the road’s cobblestones with it.

“Grab
the girl!”

“Is
that even possible?”

“It
is now.”

Corwin
bent to scoop her up, and this time his body proved solid enough for the task.
A clanking clamor echoed through the streets as he hastened after his attorney.
They crossed the road, high-stepping over the charged iron rails. Ten thousand
volts of electricity crackled between Corwin’s legs. Clearing the last rail, he
blew the girl’s hair out of his eyes. Her arms were locked around his neck and
her face buried in his shoulder. Just ahead, Ransom kicked in the boarded-up
door to a deserted tenement building, littering the lobby with splintered wood.

“This
place will do.”

Steel
wheels scraped the stone behind them as armor-plated streetcars rolled into
view. Corwin’s pulse raced, but what seized him wasn’t anything like the
creeping dread that he had felt in the alley. The danger here was something he
understood, and fear robbed of mystery was a beast robbed of its claws. Still,
he worried for the girl, and wouldn’t abide leaving her to the mercy of the
city watch, which he suspected wasn’t very merciful.

The
inside of the tenement was a dusty, decrepit mess. Flakes of paint were peeling
off the walls and cobwebs clung to rusty chandeliers. Rats scampered out of the
way, their beady eyes shining in the darkness as the three fugitives rushed up
the stairs to the third floor. Ransom led them into an apartment that
overlooked the road. Shutting the rickety door, he joined Corwin by the window.

The
glass was thick with frost, but not so thick that they couldn’t see the army
amassing outside. Rear bay doors swung upwards on the troop carriers and squads
of watchmen filed out with steamrifles in hand. Several more of the mechanized
enforcers had also shown up, their diver helmets aglow, probing the tenement like
aquamarine searchlights. Corwin rubbed at the window’s icy coating to get a
better look.

“I
wouldn’t do that,” warned Ransom.

As
Corwin glanced back at the angel, a loud bang rang out. A lattice of cracks
split the glass and a bullet buzzed his ear.

“Oh
shit!”

Tripping
over his feet, he scrambled frantically away, and not a moment too soon. Another
volley shattered the window and chewed holes through the wooden frame.

“Can’t
you do something about this? You made quick work of that robot!”

“Scrapping
a hunk of metal is one thing,” said Ransom, “but taking human lives is the sort
of business I usually try to avoid.”

“You
should have thought about that before you got us into this mess!”

Rapid
footsteps drummed the floorboards of the lobby below.

“No
good deed goes unpunished,” Ransom muttered.

“How
about you snap your fingers and make that bedroom door lead somewhere else?”
suggested Corwin.

“I
could do that, but where shall we go?”

“Gee,
I don’t know. How about
anyplace where they’re not shooting at us?”

“We’re
supposed to be preparing for your trial, not sightseeing. Plus we’ve got an extra
passenger now.”

Ransom
looked to the girl with a cheerful smile and she innocently returned it, neither
one showing much concern over current events. Corwin wondered glumly whether he
was the only sane person in the group.

“Unless
that skeptical mind of yours is harboring some incisive objection, I’d say that
we’ve covered your three hopes,” stated Ransom. “Do you still consider belief
in God to be irrational?”

“No,
not irrational!” spouted Corwin. “You haven’t convinced me that god exists, but
to believe in some sort of higher power . . . It’s not completely beyond reason.”

“Only
partially?”

“All
that you’ve established is a vague notion of god, a distant creator that may or
may not be knowable to us. But religion doesn’t stop there. As an angel, you’re
no doubt speaking of the Christian God, of Jesus Christ, Father, Son and Holy
Ghost and so on. What about all the other gods? Why shouldn’t I believe in Zeus
or Odin or Ra or Vishnu? God only knows how many millions of gods there are out
there!”

“A
fair point,” considered Ransom. “These days the greatest objection to
Christianity isn’t that it’s a false religion, but rather that it’s
just
another
religion.”

Muffled
shouts filled the outer hallway and a splintering boom rocked the walls, the
sound of watchmen breaching a nearby apartment. As quietly as he could, Corwin leaned
his shoulder into an oaken cabinet and slid it against the door. Even as he did
so, he knew that the barricade wouldn’t hold for long, and then his
unpredictable attorney would have to do something.

The
surest ways to get Ransom motivated seemed to involve cigarettes, liquor or a
compelling argument. Corwin didn’t have any cigarettes or liquor.

“Every
religion claims to worship the ‘true’ god or gods or goddesses. Every religion
claims that all the other religions are false. The way I see it, you’re not so
different from me. You’re an atheist when it comes to ninety-nine percent of
the deities that man has dreamt up. I just happen to believe in one fewer god
than you do!”

“Religious
pluralism is a vapid trope,” replied Ransom. “Not even you believe that all
conceptions of God are equal.”

“They’re
all equally devoid of empirical evidence!”

“And
what of philosophical evidence? What of the law of non-contradiction? That the
scope of man’s knowledge encompasses more than the empirical is a fact to which
you already agreed.”

“Whether
or not one god is more logically consistent than another, the point remains
that I can no more disprove Zeus than I can disprove Invisible Zombie Jesus. Moreover,
the whole notion that one religion—a single faith among thousands—is the sole
inheritor of divine revelation seems preposterously arrogant.”

Ransom
paced thoughtfully, his face downturned and his hands behind his back. He might
have looked less absurd were it not for the young girl mimicking his motions
two steps behind. All of a sudden he straightened up, clapped and eagerly
rubbed his palms.

“Alright
then, there are certainly plenty of gods out there. Let’s evaluate them!”

The
shift in his tone gave Corwin pause.

“All
of them?”

“That’s
right.” The angel grinned. “All of them.”

Corwin’s
shoulders sagged. This was going to take awhile.

A heavy
crash rattled the barricade, interrupting his thoughts. He reached reflexively
to shore up the cabinet, but quickly yanked back his hands as an earsplitting
barrage of gunfire riddled the wooden furniture.

“Come,”
called Ransom, poised beside the bedroom door. He held the girl’s hand in his. “It’s
a fine day to do some shopping!”

Whatever
that meant, Corwin was more than ready for a change of scenery. He kept his
head low and sprinted for the doorway. His arm shot out, fingers clutching the
hem of Ransom’s jacket. Behind him, the flimsy barricade exploded. Watchmen in
stiff-collared trench coats surged into the room, but Ransom was already
turning the knob. The door cracked and radiant light engulfed them.

“You’ve
got nowhere to–”

The watchman’s
voice was cut off, the commotion of the apartment now galaxies away.

Blinking,
Corwin glanced down at his boots. They were still there, and so were his
companions, but the rest of the world was gone. A sheer white void stretched
infinitely in every direction. Ransom was on the phone.

“Elsie,
what is it? . . . Yes, we ran into a slight complication . . . What? No, I
didn’t get carried away . . . Okay, okay, so maybe it is my fault, but
everything’s fine now . . . No, that’s really not necessary . . . Elsie? Elsie?”

With
a sour expression, he slipped the phone back into his pocket.

“I
never knew you had a heavenly hotline,” Corwin remarked.

“We
used to take calls from the mortal world, but your solicitors are more persistent
than the hounds of Hell.”

Hovering
near Ransom’s side, the girl fiddled with a loose thread on her worn and faded
rags. Corwin wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“That
was a pretty brave thing you did, pushing me out of the way. So what’s your
name?”

“I
don’t have a name,” she said, her voice like a bell, “not a real one, but the
other kids at the House of Colored Glass called me Blue Eyes, or just Blue, for
short.”

The
nickname was well-earned. Deep as the ocean and strikingly clear, her royal
blue eyes put jewels to shame. Breaking their magnetic pull was no easy task.

“They
had never seen anyone with blue eyes before, except for some of the metal
walkers.”

“Where
are your parents?” asked Ransom.

“I
haven’t any. I don’t think I ever did. But there was a boy . . .” She scrunched
up her face, straining to remember. “My husband.”

“Your
husband?” blurted Corwin. He hoped that it was only a child’s play on words.

“From
the place before. He was older than me, just by a little, only it seemed like a
lot, because there were many years in his eyes. He was as brave as an eagle and
as gentle as a lioness with her cubs . . .” Again she paused in quiet sorrow.
“But I can’t remember his name.”

“What
do
you remember,” Ransom prodded her, “from before the House of Colored
Glass?”

“I
remember a garden. I see it sometimes in my dreams. The Starlight Garden. There were green trees and lakes and stars like bright pearls in the sky. It was always
warm and never snowy, and there were no metal walkers.”

“That
sounds like a good place. I’m Corwin, and I promise not to let the metal
walkers hurt you anymore.”

“Are
you and Mr. Apples going to be my masters now?”

“Let’s
not get carried away,” said Ransom. Pulling off his top hat, he gave it a twirl
and hung it on her head. “The truth is that you’re not technically supposed to
be here, but as long as you don’t tell anybody, I won’t either.”

The
angel winked and Blue smiled, pushing up the brim of the over-large hat as it
threatened to sink below her ears.

“So
where is here?” inquired Corwin.

The
great white emptiness felt a lot like nowhere, yet in its simple and unsullied
perfection, it also felt like a beginning.

“You
worry too much about where you are,” Ransom replied. “It’s where you’re going
that matters.”

He
pointed into the distance and snapped. Low, dark columns reared from a remote
point on the horizon, extending towards them like a line of speeding trains—an
image that Corwin could have done without. Taking an involuntary step back, he
narrowed his eyes and focused. The objects weren’t trains, but shelving units.
They stretched and divided, sliding swiftly into position along the floor until
the whole space was neatly sectioned into department store aisles.

Marble
sculptures crowded the shelves, life-size men and women and animals both real
and mythical. They struck gallant poses and bore eyes full of wisdom and fury
and compassion. Beige tiles multiplied underfoot, replacing the stark whiteness,
and seconds later the store was complete. Part cathedral and part shopping center,
it was quite unlike any market that Corwin had ever seen. Sweeping arches
crisscrossed the ceiling and sunbeams lanced through the marvelous walls of
stained glass that served for the storefront windows. Chiseled cherubs spat
rivulets of water into a grand fountain beside the checkout lanes where busy
shoppers were already queuing up.