Kristin (10 page)

‘No point, thou wilt soon
be dead.’

The terrible destruction
continued apace, spreading to the visual cortex, blinding him instantly. He
clawed pitifully at her, begging for knowledge, but the work of the maleficent
presence was thorough, irreversible. The parietal lobe of Baabda’s brain was
mashed to a pulp, his remaining senses annihilated, and he staggered to the
glass screen like a headless chicken.

‘DIE, FUCKER!’ it screamed.

A concave shape one inch in
diameter appeared above his left ear. And then another, above his brow. More
appeared, his body jolting with each addition. They joined, forming a large
crater. There was a cracking sound as the integrity of Baabda’s cranium was
compromised, and it imploded, exposing a gaping, bloody, brainless cavity.

Baabda’s body slumped to
the floor. It twitched for a few seconds and then it was still.

Sixteen

The Beast regained awareness to find itself
confined in a small space with no means of entry or exit. The side-barriers
were built of rough, whitish blocks and the area was lit by a single source of
illumination that hung at the end of a frayed power supply in the middle of the
battered top-barrier.

Its host was bound. It
shifted the strange weight until its orientation seemed normal and leaned back
against the ice cold barrier, trying to determine what it was. But the search
for its own identity proved unsuccessful and it decided to simply accept the
reality of whatever it was, or had become.

In a violent flashback, it
recalled what it had done in another other space nearby, but it felt no guilt.
It had been threatened and had defended itself. It was no longer at war with
itself and felt an inner peace now that it hadn’t known before. Above all
though, it felt power, unlimited power — the ability to do anything that
needed to be done. And there was much still to do.

It concentrated on the bindings,
and before long they’d loosened sufficiently to be shrugged off. The Beast
touched its host’s newly exposed surface:
What was this strange
,
warm membrane in which it had been encased
?
Curious, it made an incision with the sharp end of one of the digits it had
been bestowed with, in the flat area near the left visual organ. It pulled up
the end of the covering and tugged it downwards, tearing off a large strip. The
action made it feel uncomfortable, angry:
was the sensation it was feeling part of a primitive
self-protection system integral to
  
the membrane
?

It dangled the strip in
front of its host’s visual organs, explored it with the twin-shafted olfactory
organ. Then, inquisitive, it poked the piece into its oral cavity and mulched
it with the bony projections inside. ‘Shit!’ it yelled, ejecting the membrane
immediately. Clearly, it wasn’t meant to be devoured. It would find something
else to consume, something to quieten the gurgling noise in what it imagined
must be its digestive sack later, after it had taken some time to contemplate
the success of its campaign so far.

Things were going to plan.
Its malevolence was infecting humanity readily, making them turn against one
another in great numbers, with unbridled hatred. The teachings of the abomination,
Jesus Christ, were being renounced everywhere. Many were dying, the rest were
almost ripe. The disciples of the eastern deities had reached a deadlock with
the adipose, Western World and humanity stood on the verge of armageddon. But
if it deemed it necessary, if things were moving too slowly for its liking, it
would trigger one of the weapons of mass destruction held in the Middle Eastern
or Far Eastern lands, or in the Americas. Reprisal would doubtless be swift,
devastating. Millions would perish, and hatred would leach into the hearts of
men where it would remain, inexpungeable. The sickening goodness of the Christ
would be nothing more than a bad memory, and it would reign supreme forever.

But it would leave nothing
to chance. It would find the Christ, it would kill the Christ, whose presence
could be guaranteed with its father’s creation now in such mortal peril of its
own making. It thought that it might have been close once or twice, could sense
a nauseating benevolence close by, but it had been mistaken.
It must keep
searching
,
it must find before it was found.

The Beast tired of the
novelty of captivity quickly, and its deliberations had made it restless. It
lifted its body from the resting place and drifted effortlessly through the
thick, dense barriers of the space into the freezing night air, its mastery
over physical matter absolute.

The concept of murder, the
finality of death, fascinated the Beast. Countless numbers had been senselessly
maimed or slaughtered by their fellow human beings since the siren sounded,
since the transference of its thoughts: it had issued its instructions to
humankind and most had listened to them, obeyed the directive. But still it
wanted more. It decided to go and see one of the great weapons of death, to
absorb its power, its beauty. On a global scale, the carnage the missile would
wreak would be truly irresistible.

Exercising but a fraction
of its ability it instinctively dispersed the cells of its membrane, lifeblood,
and boney substructure, making them transient. Employing the crude organ of
thought to help it locate the weapon it arrived microseconds later in time, as
measured on Earth, and reformed the cells to find itself near the base of a
mountainous rock face. The terrain was very different here. Clearly, it had
travelled some distance, although it had no idea in which territory it stood.
Neither did it care.

At the base of the
escarpment it noticed a hollow in deep shade. Inside, it could make out the
shape of something big, something that had been hidden.

Walking into the subdued
light it could see the weapon had been covered, it imagined to protect the
mechanisms from the clouds of fine rock dust that swirled around, and lay piled
up in frozen drifts against the ochre face of the edifice. It undid a series of
clasps holding the cover down, grasped the edge and walked backwards, dragging
it away. Then it stood back and gazed in wonder:
Had it underrated humanity
?

Something approached ... its
pace quickened. The Beast pivoted to see a human being rushing at it. The human
stopped, removed what seemed to be a small weapon from the top of its upper
limb and pointed it. The Beast concentrated its thoughts on the human’s
circulatory organ behind the protective structure of bone and made it stop
beating. Then it turned back to the great weapon of death, enraptured.

The Beast guessed the
missile to be around five times longer than its physical height. It had been
constructed from a smooth, human-made metal alloy and finished in a dark colour
as ominous as its purpose. The nose cone, which it suspected housed the most exquisite
part, the nuclear warhead, was coloured like a flame in hell. It pointed
  
skywards, mounted high on a large
means of transport.

Carefully, it climbed up
and sat astride the weapon.

Below, it could see the
dead human; its body was quite different and yet they seemed to belong to the
same species. It became confused — the human’s face was large, angular
and rough, with short hairs disguising its features from the olfactory organ
down. Its own face was small, round and soft, with no hairs, no subterfuge. The
front of the human’s body was flat beneath its coverings, whilst its own was
raised, with two gentle swells.

It slipped a digited limb
end under its topmost covering, felt the swells and experienced immediate
pleasure. Instinctively it moved lower, down between its limbs of mobility,
where it found soft hairs, a moist opening. It pulled the digit out urgently
and held it to its olfactory organ, inhaling the sweet musk:
what was wrong
with it
,
was
it
sick
?
At the top of the opening its digit encountered a protuberance, a little knot
of membrane, and it groaned in ecstasy. Now it could not wait to see what its
hidden body looked like. It pulled and yanked at its coverings impatiently
until it was naked, and found that it was beautiful — perfect in every
way.

Hungry for more of the
sensation it started to gyrate the large girdle bone attached to its limbs of
motion, forcing the little knot harder and harder against the missile. Leaning
right forwards it ran the tip of its fleshy organ of speech and taste up and
down the frozen cylinder, groaning with satisfaction, and its organs of vision
filled with fluid that flowed down its face in narrow streams. ‘Father, isn’t
it magnificent?’ it cried, looking to the heavens. ‘So powerful, so destructive
... the bringer of death on an unparalleled scale! How proud thee must be of
thy creation to have manufactured such a murderous device?’ But, as usual, it
waited in vain for God’s answer.

The physical pleasure, the
euphoria of the moment in time had passed when it heard the voices. Their
owners were nearby; the vibration of their vocal chords originated from within
the rock face.

The Beast modified the
trillions of cells once again, merged into stone and partially materialized
just beneath the surface of the thick barrier to a small, natural chamber,
clearing an area, microns thick, through which to see.

Three humans similar to the
one it had murdered sat huddled on the ground, their faces lit by naked flame.
One picked up a vessel and sipped at some hot liquid whose strong aroma
permeated the wafer-thin rock, rekindling fond memories from the Beast’s past.
The human being to its left started to communicate with the others in a
repulsive, guttural language that it was forced to translate.

‘The West has interfered
too often, disrespected Islam, angered Allah, for too long. We should blow the
infidels to hell now! Why wait any longer?’

Opposite, the third human
sucked on a fat, white stick. It drew its contents into its respiratory sacks,
exhaled the pungent smoke and considered its words carefully. ‘Our strength
lies in our threat, not in our actions. If we attack, the Great Satan will
respond one thousand fold. Kabul will be annihilated for its complicity. If
Afghanistan ever recovers, we will never be allowed back, we shall have no base
for Jihad, for our operations.’

‘If there’s all out war, if
the Koreans are drawn in too, there will
be
no more operations, no Afghanistan, no
Jihad.
There
will be no more world
. Is that really what we seek?’ said the first human.

‘A simple sequence of
numbers,’ continued the zealot. ‘that’s all ... and then it will be done. Join
with me, children of Allah!’

‘We’ll perish, every last
one of us.’

‘Allah will spare us. In
any case,
my
soul is ready.’

The inhaling human filled
its respiratory sacks with more smoke and studied the others. ‘If we leave the
first strike to the Great Satan, everything we’ve worked for will have been in
vain. All of our people who’ve died by his wicked hand will never be avenged.
His corruption, his avarice, will spread over a receptive world. Islam will
die.’

‘
Then let us act now
!’ said the zealot.

The first human finished
consuming the hot liquid, got up and walked towards the barrier. It bent down,
pushed its digited limb end into a hole and withdrew a small black box. Then it
inspired sharply and lurched backwards, staring at the barrier.

‘What is it?’ asked the
inhaling human.

‘She is near ... I can feel
her in this cave.’

... She
?
The human had referred to it as ... she
!

‘Who is here, what are you
talking about?’

‘The scourge of mankind.’

‘
The girl
? There’s nobody here but us
— you don’t believe that shit?’

 
...
Girl ... it was female ... it had been given human form
!

‘Here me, servant of evil,
western whore! If you believe we are doing this at your bidding you are
mistaken! We had hatred in our hearts long before you came! What we do, we do
for the glory of Allah!’

I am the hatred in thy heart
,
fool
!
She murmured, inwardly.

The first human lowered
itself back down onto the frozen, gritty floor and activated the box. Then it
deactivated it.

‘What are you doing?’ said
the zealot. ‘Launch the missiles!’

‘We shall not be dictated
to by this fucking whore! We will configure the sequence, launch the missiles,
when
we
are ready. But whenever we configure the sequence, launch the missiles ...
if we begin the
war that destroys Islam
,
will Allah forgive us
?’

Inside the stone, she
shrieked, cried tears of crimson blood, and all three humans turned to the
barrier.
Why
dost thou still listen to thy conscience
? she cursed.
Why art thou not driven to act by thy
loathing of the western human scum
? She would not wait much longer.

Her concentration had lapsed, she’d allowed
the cells of her being to over-materialize and the rock now entombed her
earthly body like a shroud, its sharp edges cutting into her outer membrane,
drawing her lifeblood.
Koreans
…
what is that
? she muttered, sourly.
Another region of this pitiful Earth
?
Did the humans
there also possess the means to
inflict large-scale death and if they did
,
why was she not
aware of it
?

In the darkness of the
sarcophagus she shuttered her pitch organs of vision and focused on the ungrateful,
but comparatively advanced mind of the inhaling human. A clear picture became
visible — Koreans was a long way from here, much further east.

She thought hard about the
composition of her physical body, willing it to break down into its component parts,
its complex chemicals, and percolated back through the rock and away from the
Middle Eastern lands, evaporating into the freezing evening air in enormous
pain.