Incident 27 (22 page)

Chapter
XVI

After
a brief interlude, Ev found himself back at Stonecroft—or what
used to be
Stonecroft. The crater was still there, along with hundreds of gallons of blood
splattered all over the place from the recent battle. The
Sancta Praesidium
was nowhere to be found.

Suddenly,
a multitude of figures blinked into existence around him. “We’re back!” someone
shouted, and they all erupted into joyous yelling.

“I
thought we were going to die in that dark place!”

“Thank
Bethos! He saved us.”

“I’m
just glad the Nephilim are gone.”

“Ev!”
Maya ran over and embraced him. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Same
here,” he replied. “But I wanted to more than anything.”

She
asked with some concern, “Where’s Arcturus?”

“Dead.
I had to kill him. I’m so sorry, Maya; I never should have gone along with
him.”

She
smiled sweetly. “Well, we can talk about that later. For now, all that matters
is that you’re back and the world is safe.”

He
remembered Arcturus’ prediction for the coming god war. “Yeah. For now.”

Brandon,
Freya, Jaysin and CiCi came over to greet Ev. Everyone else gathered in a
circle around them. “Where’s the Ark?” Freya asked.

Ev
shrugged. “I don’t know. The last I saw of it, I was telling it to return the
world to the way it was. After that, your guess is as good as mine. But I did
bring you a souvenir.” He held out his hand, and the Blood Key appeared. He
handed it to Freya.

“Thank
you, Ev,” she said. “Now we can return the Tower of Babel to where it belongs.”

“That’s
great, but what about Arcturus?” Brandon said. Ev repeated the news about his
death. “Then it’s over. We won.” He shouted to the crowd as loud as he could,
“We won!” Their cheers almost destroyed Ev’s hearing.

“I
think it’s a little early for
you
to be celebrating, though,” Freya said
to Ev. “The President has a lot of questions for you.”

He
froze. This would not be pretty.

* * *

In
Bethos’ office, Ev recounted everything that had happened after he left the Academy.
He talked about the attack on House #4, the attack on the Adlo facility, the
Asshole Three’s attempt to kill them, and their subsequent capture by the
Sancta
Praesidium
. Freya hadn’t been joking; he
did
have a lot of
questions.

“Why
did you bury the Ark under Stonecroft?”

“Arcturus
said it was necessary for activating it.”

“And
where are the bodies of Jorg, Relm and Priscilia?”

“Jorg
and Priscilia died just outside McCormack Technologies Incorporated. But the
paramedics or whoever have probably moved the bodies by now. I don’t know what
happened to Relm. Priscilia suggested he had gone to kill Arcturus, but I
honestly have no idea.”

“All
right,” Bethos said. “Let’s go back to the part where you, Maya and Arcturus
were held prisoner aboard the
Praesidium
. I assume you were
interrogated?”

“We
probably would have been, if not for the Ark activating and knocking out all
power aboard the thing. If you’re worried we gave away Academy secrets, I swear
to you we didn’t meet whoever was in charge up there.”

After
an hour of questioning, Bethos leaned forward. “I have to be honest with you,
Ev. You collaborated with the enemy and put the entire world at risk. According
to the rules, I have to expel both you and Maya. And this time, you can’t
threaten to join Zero Grade because we both know they’d just as soon kill you.
Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

Ev
had thought about this all the way back to Mt. Orleia. He knew there was only
one thing he
could
say. “I’m guilty, sir. I abandoned everyone here
except for Maya who I coerced into helping me go along with our insane plan.
She’s innocent in all this. Do whatever you want with me, but please—just let
her stay.”

“Come
on, Ev. That’s a rehearsed statement if ever I heard one. You obviously didn’t
think the plan was so insane when you carried it out. But having us all get
stuck in Gehenna changed things, didn’t it? You almost got billions of people
wiped out, you know.”

Ev
was silent. He knew the extent of his crime, and no amount of apologizing could
make up for it. It would sound so pathetic, anyway.

Bethos
continued. “People must be held accountable for their actions. However, it
occurs to me you’re as much of a victim as the rest of us. If we hadn’t made
those mistakes and then tried to cover them up, you would never have become so
lost. It would be hypocritical of us to punish you. Therefore, I’ve decided to
pardon you and Maya.”

Ev
felt a jolt at the pronouncement. “Really? You mean it?”

“Yes,
Ev. I mean it. But on one condition.”

Uh-oh.
“What’s the condition?”

“We
can’t simply pretend like nothing happened. That’s what got us into this mess
in the first place. Therefore, you’ll need to appear before the student body
and take responsibility. You know, explain what happened and apologize. You
think you can do that?”

Ev
stood up. “Just give me a microphone.”

* * *

Ev
stood behind the podium on the stage in Hercules Hall. All eyes—as well as the
bright lights—were upon him. He was nervous as hell; he had no idea how
everyone would react to the words he was about to say.
Oh, well; here goes
.
“As you all know by now, I recently ran away from the Academy and befriended a
former member of Zero Grade. He enlightened me on certain secrets that had been
kept from me by the Academy.” Now for the part he had been dreading. He told
them all about how the Academy had been involved in the death of his father,
the single most traumatic experience of his life. It wasn’t that he
wanted
to tell them; he desperately wanted to avoid it. But he knew that in order to
gain everyone’s forgiveness, he needed to be honest with them. “And so, when
Arcturus told me about his plan to create a new world using the Ark of the
Covenant, I saw it as my one chance at redemption.” He shook his head. “No,
that’s not right. In reality I just wanted a do-over. But that doesn’t make
what I did right. I ended up dragging everyone into that mess, and some of my
fellow students died as a result.” He told them about the Asshole Three’s
attempt to kill him, Maya and Arcturus.

Eventually,
he got around to explaining what he had learned from this whole experience.
“Arcturus believed this world was hopelessly corrupt and cruel, and it
definitely is cruel and corruption can be found everywhere. But I don’t buy
into it being hopeless. We’re here at this school because we believe the world
can be changed. We’re trying to become gods so we can guide mankind into the
future. I thought forcing change on everyone was the answer, but now I know
it’s not that simple. We need the wisdom to work with the mortal world, to show
them the way. But before we try, we have to make sure
we’re
ready to
take that first step.

“Uh,
so...I realize I’ve been talking for a while now. I just want to say I’m sorry
and it will never happen again. Thank you.”

He
walked off the stage. Nobody cheered, but nobody booed, either. There was an
eerie silence as everyone tried to process what he had just said.

Brandon
and Freya met him in the hallway. “Well, that was certainly different,” Brandon said.

“I
guess they didn’t like it,” Ev said.

“You
can’t expect instant forgiveness after what just happened,” Freya said. “You’ll
have to work to win their trust back. But you went up there and opened your
heart to them. For now, that’s the best you can do.”

The
students filed out of the auditorium. Ev expected a punch or two, but most of
them avoided interacting with him. A few of them did, though. They patted him
on the back.

“You’re
well on your way to winning them back,” Brandon said.

“That’s
good to know,” Ev said. The two professors turned to leave. “There’s just one
more thing.”

“Yes?”
Freya said.

“Arcturus
said something that stuck with me. He said there’s no justice in this world. I
think he’s right, so I’ve decided what kind of god I’m going to become. I’m
going to be the god of justice.”

The
two professors exchanged glances. “Think very carefully about this, Ev. That
kind of god carries a heavier responsibility than most other deities.
Dispensing justice is a lot trickier than you think.”

He
stared them down, his face a resolute mask. “Then teach me.”

* * *

Maya
waited until after Ev was done talking with the professors before approaching him.
“That looked important.”

“It
was. I told them I’m going to become the god of justice.”

“Wow,”
she replied. It took her a second to come up with a real response. “For what
it’s worth, I think, after all you’ve been through, you’re more qualified than
just about anyone here to become that god. Ev Bannen, you’ll be a
great
god of justice.”

“Thanks,
Maya. I have a feeling that, sometime soon, the world will need justice more
than ever before.”

Her
face darkened. “You mean the war with Zero Grade. Do really think it will
happen?”

“Arcturus
was convinced it’s inevitable, and he was in a position to know. We have to
make sure we’re ready.”

She
took his hand in hers and both felt the warmth. “We will be. But for now, let’s
just enjoy this peace.”

TO
BE CONTINUED.

Afterword

As
I write this, I haven’t even published
God
School
yet. In fact,
I’m currently editing these two novels simultaneously.
God
School
is still in beta phase, and
Incident 27
hasn’t gotten that far. What am I
waiting for? It has to do with my desire to deliver the best product possible.
I won’t release
God
School
until it meets my high standards, and
that means I still need to hear back from my beta readers, commission a cover
and hire an editor. And those last two cost money. I’ve never hired an editor
before, so I want to try and get the best rate before I do.

But
enough about that. If you’re reading this, you want to know about the process
of writing
Incident 27
. You got it.

Even
before I finished the first draft of
God
School
, I was kicking
around ideas for the next books in the series. Would I go ahead and start the
next god war in the second book? No, I decided to save that for a later day.
What if I had Ev get possessed by Satan? That’s a possibility, but one I’m not
ready to explore yet.

Ultimately,
I was taken with the idea of Ev meeting what essentially is his predecessor.
This man was originally a clear-cut villain named Arcturus something-or-other.
I honestly don’t remember what his last name was going to be, but it wasn’t
Reich. I settled on the name Arcturus Reich because it sounded sinister to me.
But in my oh-so-humble opinion, the best villains are the ones with valid
points to make, so I changed him to more of a tragic figure that Ev could have
become had his situation been just a little different. This presented a
challenge; if I made him too blatantly evil, Ev couldn’t be expected to follow
him, and yet I clearly show him murdering people. I came up with the solution
of having Arcturus hide or downplay his homicidal tendencies, even to the point
of outright lying about it. Furthermore, Ev’s emotional turmoil causes him to
go into denial about his friend’s true nature. Add to the mix Maya’s strong
distrust of him, and things get even more complicated. I needed her to stick by
Ev’s side, but she can’t just blindly follow him like a puppy. She has to have
her own voice and opinions. So I gave her some inner conflict; she knows
Arcturus’ plan is insane, but at the same time, she doesn’t want to push Ev away.
She decides she’ll stick by him and do her best to protect him from both
Arcturus and himself.

What
makes Arcturus’ plan so crazy? The Ark of the Covenant. In
God
School
we see some of the Artifacts housed in the Tower of Babel, but I wanted to save the biggest, baddest one for later. And to earn its status as the
top Artifact, it had to be something really special. If you’ve read my previous
books, you know I take great pleasure in turning reality upside-down, so it
should come as no surprise that I decided to do it again. In
Secrets of the
New World
I turned a good chunk of Washington into the Gnostagar world of
Pleroma. Well, this time I took it a step further and remade the entire
universe in Arcturus’ image. But unlike the Washington transformation, here the
two worlds end up looking similar, and it’s really only the people and history
that change. This has been done before in other stories, but it’s never been
done
my
way. It’s not the heroes or the primary villains of Zero Grade
that want to reshape reality; in fact, Zero Grade is firmly against it. It’s
one sad, lonely individual who blames the world for the relationships he had to
sever.

Speaking
of Zero Grade and Arcturus—I’d like to talk about the new characters introduced
in this book. We have a few (villains) that I’m proud of. I’ve already
discussed Arcturus, so now I’ll tell you about the others. The Asshole Three
are characters I’ve been kicking around for a while now. In every story like
this, there has to be a rival student, a Draco Malfoy, if you will. While
writing
God
School
, I struggled with this idea. Should I create
such a character? I didn’t do it then because I just wasn’t feeling it. The
notion seemed too cliché and I didn’t have any good ideas for a nefarious
counterpart.

Nevertheless,
the idea persisted, and I realized it had potential. So I started writing
Incident
27
, and before long it came to me. There wouldn’t be just one rival, but a
trio of them. I was partially inspired by the Warriors Three of the Thor comics
(at least in regards to the name), but as these characters would be assholes, I
decided to name them the Assholes Three. I soon dropped an “s” and they were
simply the Asshole Three. They were the best of the best at the Academy, and
each of them would have a special ability. It didn’t take me long to decide
they would also be homicidal opportunists (this is me, after all) who would
force Ev and company to fight them.

On
the other side of the villainy table is Zero Grade’s Set. Following in the
footsteps of my Infini Calendar series, I wanted to have an historical figure
show up in the story. I thought Friedrich Nietzsche would make a compelling–and
ironic—character; he said God is dead, and now he
is
a god. But the more
I thought about it, the less sense it made. It just wasn’t logical for
Nietzsche to make an appearance in a different universe billions of years after
his death. Therefore, I decided to instead have a god who embodies Nietzsche’s
philosophies and who used him as a mouthpiece once upon a time. Thus Set was
born, and it was only natural he and Arcturus would come into conflict with one
another. As someone with Nieztsche’s world view, he cannot accept Arcturus’
nihilism.

But
perhaps my favorite new villain is Medusa. I love psycho chicks, and didn’t
hold anything back with her. She’s as nutty as they come, but with an even more
tragic back story than Arcturus. I wanted her to be pitied rather than
despised. A while back I saw a show on the History Channel about Greek
mythology, and the story of Medusa really stuck with me. After hearing
everything that supposedly happened to her, I thought, “Wow, that would
seriously drive someone insane,” and so I played with that and got the Medusa
in my story.” Even now, it’s fun to go back and re-read the scene with her.

In
the afterword to
God
School
, I talked a little about the process
of creating the world of Narska and how the world itself is perhaps the biggest
character. I tried to map it out before starting the story, but discovered it
wasn’t so easy. For instance, on the crude map I drew, there are only a handful
of land masses, and the Tru Kingdom is a warm Antarctica-size place at the
South Pole. I got to thinking about the planet’s rotation and orbit around the
sun, and I couldn’t come up with a satisfactory way to make it work. Therefore,
rather than being at the pole, the Tru continent is now simply located south of
Mt. Orleia. I have opted to let Narska evolve organically as time goes on,
and I may add islands or continents should the need arise.

I’ve
been talking a lot about the other characters here, but now I want to go back
to the person it all began with: Ev Bannen. It has been my goal to gradually
show his evolution into a full-fledged god. In the first book, he started off
as a weak human who couldn’t defend himself, and by the end he was taking on
Belial. He failed miserably, but still. Despite his growth, though, he was
stuck using his fists. I knew I needed to give him a proper weapon, but which
one? He sucks at conjuring them, so I opted for a more defensive set of tools
that could also be used offensively, and now Ev has his full-length gauntlets.
He continues to grow as a character, and by the end I’m hoping you’ll be
pleased with the results.

As
always, thank you for your patronage, and please continue reading my work.

--August
2014