The Apocalypse Script (23 page)

“
Toward what end?” asked
Disparthian.

“
Isn’t it
obvious? He seeks a replacement. Since he is no longer allowed
scribes, he will use Lilian’s husband instead. The slave is a smart
man with interests that parallel Ridley’s own. Whether Lilitu is
impregnated is of no consequence to the scribe.” Belusmar relit his
pipe. “However, the fact that he has wed his great niece, Fiela, to
the Ardoon suggests he wants his
own
bloodline preserved.”

Disparthian blew smoke into the
air. “Then he is a foolish old man. No one cares about the
bloodline of a scribe and neither Fiela nor the Ardoon are fit to
be nobility. Neither have royal blood. Lilitu is marked and her
father’s throne occupied by a legitimate king. She has no army. It
is a pointless arrangement in all ways.”

Moros shook his head. “Do not call
Ridley foolish, Lord. When he was active his scenarios never
failed, though many required thousands of concurrent scripts. Some
of those scripts were fifty or even a hundred degrees removed from
the desired outcome. Mind you, he wrote them without the use of
computers.”

Nizrok gave a reluctant nod. “The
scenarios were so complex that there were whispers the old man
dabbled in magic. Surely, it was said, no man could do in his head
or with his little pegboards what today’s most-advanced computers
cannot do. Such projections are
impossible
. There are an almost
infinite number of variables.”

“
Why was his life spared if he is
so brilliant an adversary? Did he not serve King Sargon? I was told
that all the king’s allies were killed.”

Moros answered. “He assisted in
Sargon’s capture and, at any rate, was too admired to kill. There
was fear of a revolt among the other scribes if he was. That is why
he was not only spared but afforded privileges. Lilitu and Fiela
would be dead if not for the scribe’s intervention on their behalf.
Allowing him custody was, in my opinion, a mistake.”

Disparthian sighed to express his
boredom. “I fail to see how any of this matters, gentlemen. If
Lilitu gives birth, we slay the child. If the Ardoon starts writing
scripts, we slay the Ardoon. Neither can occur for months and by
then it won’t matter. Surely, Lord Moros, you did not bring us
together from the far corners of the earth to rant about Lilitu and
her slave husband?”

“
No,” the senior
Peth said, annoyed at the younger man’s audacity. “I summoned you
here to brief me. Do
you
have any issues I should be made aware
of?”

The Frenchman sprayed blue smoke
into the air. “Me? Absolutely not. The markets are near collapse. I
can make it happen anytime. The viruses are active and the
autobots
ready to be
triggered. Our market makers are blindly following the script
devised for them, believing they will become rich if they execute
their trades exactly as directed. I have a thousand fetches ready
to buy or dump billions of shares of specially selected stock on my
command. When the fall comes it will be swift and epic. It will
make the 1929 crash look like a soft landing.”

“
And the internet? The media?”
asked Belusmar, for these were also within Disparthian’s
domain.

“
They are
congested with contradictory ‘reliable source’ information. Social
media addicts clamor endlessly about wars and rumors of wars.
Cage’s disease,” he gave a respectful nod to Moros, “can now
allegedly be contracted from municipal water supplies. Many
physicians and websites are
said
to have confirmed this. There
are also ‘leaked’ emails and texts from the Center of Disease
Control that suggest Cage’s corpses have been
reanimating.”

Nizrok cackled loudly. “Zombies?
Ha! Ha! Diz, you have outdone yourself.”

The other Lord smiled. “No, no, I
watch too many movies, if we are honest. But I thought why not add
some flavor, yes? I am sure there will be a few thousand believers
in the graveyards tonight digging up bodies to chop off
heads.”

All the men laughed until at last
Disparthian said, more seriously, “Our scripts are running on every
newswire. The latest news releases include stories of a massive
meteor headed toward earth, dangerously high solar flare activity,
mysterious objects in the sky above major cities, construction of
covert FEMA internment camps in the Midwestern states, possible
coups in several nations, Chinese submarines off the west coast,
the transfer of Russian troops and equipment to Eastern
Europe…well, I could go on all evening.

“
Suffice to say, the internet has
served its purpose well. There is much gnashing of the teeth. No
two survivors of the days that follow will be able to agree on
exactly what went wrong and no one will trust anyone, facilitating
an enduring period of anarchy. Fertile grounds for the Nisirtu
renaissance.”

“
But there are some who are trying
to counter your scripts, are there not?” asked Nizrok.

The Frenchmen nodded.
“Unavoidably, there are a few sensible Ardoon who have pleaded for
the public to remain calm, but we have cast them as ‘deniers’ or as
participants of a conspiracy to keep the ‘sheeple’ in blinders. The
more effective spokespersons for reason are scripted to suffer
accidental deaths, which, merely fuels the conspiracy fires.” He
waved his cigarette in the air, making circles of smoke. “And in a
few days, the coup de grace. The
blackness
.”

“
Are the Ardoon being herded as
the Families require?” asked Moros.

“
But of course,” said Disparthian.
“Before the lights go out, all the major internet news sites and
the larger social media sites will report nuclear detonations or
biological attacks in the required locations. There will be no time
for the Ardoon to verify anything before the collapse occurs. Word
will spread by word of mouth afterwards. That will ensure that the
correct regions are vacated while other regions are avoided. The
Ardoon herds will go where we have scripted them to go. It is a
simple matter.”

Belusmar said, “I envy you, Diz. Your assignment
allows for creativity. Mine is too simple, too mundane.”

“
I assume that means you have
encountered no problems, then,” said Moros, looking at the man with
the pipe.

“
None,” confirmed the elderly man.
“Limited nuclear strikes and EMP detonations will occur at the
times specified by the scripts. The only challenge will be ensuring
events happen in sequence. For that reason I may need to run some
one-degree scripts on the final day. If events were to happen out
of sequence, there would too many survivors, or worse, we could see
a contamination issue.”

Moros said, “I trust you to do what is necessary.
The Families will not be happy if we hit our target mortality rate
but half the earth is uninhabitable.”

“
Thank you, Lord. In any event,
most of the nuclear forces will be disabled before they can launch
missiles. We only need a few launches to achieve our
purpose.”

“
What of the conventional forces
and the weapons stockpiles?”

“
The stockpiles we will leave
intact for our own use. The conventional forces are already
decimated by Cage’s. The U.S., Chinese, European and Russian
militaries are at around thirty percent strength and dropping. One
of Diz’s computer viruses, or the EMP strikes, will put most of the
ships and subs out of commission.

“
Any surviving vessels will be
alone in the wild without the ability to contact their commands or
other vessels and will be clueless as to what is happening, aside
from the misinformation Diz has scripted. The crews will also be
unable to replenish fuel, food, or water. At some point Cage’s will
kill most of the survivors and the ships and subs will have to be
abandoned.”

“
The satellites?”

“
They’ll be taken out by a
combination of kinetic weapons, the EMP blasts, and viruses. The
U.S. and Europeans are scripted to knock out the Chinese and
Russian satellites and vice versa. Some will be left in orbit but
the viruses at the ground stations are already in place and will
make them unusable until the grid goes offline. At that point it
won’t matter.”

“
Well done,” said Moros, who
turned to Nizrok. “And you?”

Nizrok toyed with an eyebrow and
said, “The grain blight is causing some localized famine this year
but the harvests next year will be the best measure of my success.
The products my fetches have been developing for the larger
agricultural conglomerates are designed to stunt crop growth at the
most inopportune time for farmers, several months into the growing
season. The wheat, corn, soybean, and rice harvests will be
abysmal. The genetically modified crops they’ve been selling are
tailored to cross-contaminate surrounding non-GMO
crops.”

He held his hands in front of him,
palms up. “Not that it matter so much the first year, since the
farmers will be without functional farm machinery or vehicles to
deliver whatever they eek out of the ground. But in subsequent
years even the use of oxen will be futile. The famine will be epic.
As our ancestors once lamented,
the canals
are rich with salt.
”

Looking at Moros, Nizrok said, “It
is unnecessary for you to brief
us,
Lord. Your achievements are already well
documented. But perhaps you would indulge us anyway?”

Moros nodded modestly. “It’s true.
Cage’s disease has been a remarkable success. It is spreading at an
exponential rate and no Ardoon scientists have been able to figure
out what it is because of its stealth design and the decoy variants
we’ve released.”

In fact, Cage’s disease, named after the first known
victim, Sally Cage, was a Nisirtu modification of Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease, a neurodegenerative disorder spread by pathogenic agents
that caused abnormal folding of targeted cellular proteins found
primarily in the brain.

Horrifyingly sudden and rapidly
progressing dementia was the first symptom, followed days later by
memory loss and delusions. Mood swings kicked in as the victims
became increasingly paranoid and depressed. Then the victims’
bodies began to fail. They lost control of their muscles, suffered
loss of balance, myoclonus, and seizures. In short, the afflicted
first lost their mind, then their bodies, and five to six weeks
later, their lives.

The fact that it was an airborne
pathogen that he and his sycophants had nursed to life in a hundred
or so of the world’s most populous cities and busiest airports
ensured a pandemic. The bug had been designed to bypass Nisirtu,
who through thousands of years of managed breeding had acquired a
sufficiently unique genetic identity to make that possible. Cage’s
disease was designed to reduce the world’s population to under a
billion people.

“
So, two, maybe three days until
it all comes together?” asked Belusmar.

“
Until the start, anyway,” agreed
Disparthian. “The embers will continue to glow after the fire has
been extinguished. But inevitably, they will go dark.”

“
Exciting times,” beamed
Nizrok.

Belusmar grunted unhappily.

“
What is it old man?” asked
Disparthian.

Belusmar put his hands together
under his chin as if in prayer. “I would like to know whether any
of you have been given any guidance as to your roles after the
destruction of the Ardoon?”

The others exchanged uncomfortable glances.

Moros finally said, “Why do
ask?”

“
We - the court of the Second
Kingdom - had received assurances that a roadmap would be in place
by now. That is to say, our queen led the Second Peth to believe
that there is a plan for what will happen after the cataclysm. Yet,
with only days left, we have been told nothing of it.”

“
That does not mean there is no
plan,” challenged Disparthian.

“
True. The Queen
has not stated that we are without a plan, yet each day she appears
increasingly agitated, as if a suitor has failed to appear as
promised. For that reason and others…
we
wonder.
”

“
Has she directed you to stop your
operations?” Moros asked circumspectly, spinning a biology textbook
on the table.

“
No, never, and at this point, the
scripts are practically writing themselves. The scenarios are
almost a decade old and too many genies have escaped too many
bottles. How, for example, could you undo Cage’s? How can you, in
days, replant all the crops in the world? These things cannot be
undone. No, we are committed.”

“
Why not ask your scribes for
information if you are so concerned?”

“
The scribes
have been restricted from talking to anyone but the Queen. Why, I
do not know, but I see them too often in the corridors of the royal
abode.
Far too
often
. They seem confused and without
purpose. Why are they not writing scripts? The world after the
collapse will be a chaotic place, ripe for the rebirth of the
Nisirtu, but they seem as lost as me. I haven’t a clue what the
role of the Second Peth will be.”