The Apocalypse Script (48 page)

Lilian nodded. “He did well. I
haven’t read the entire thing, but I do know that anarchists
toppled some nearby cell towers yesterday afternoon and that the
Army notified local law enforcement of a military exercise near
this location. Also, all the roads leading to Steepleguard are
buried under ten feet of mud, rock, and debris from the storm. Not
that it matters, really. The world is falling apart. We are quite
forgotten.”

“
I wonder where he’s gone,” Ben
murmured.

“
As do I.” She drew away and
looked up, saying, “That reminds me. You should inventory the books
in his study when you have an opportunity. I think you will find
the collection quite extraordinary and certain books to be
particularly useful in the days ahead.”

“
Such as?”

“
Livy’s
Ab Urbe Condita
Libri
.”

Ben raised his eyebrows.
“
The History of Rome?
I could use a refresher, but I’ve read all of Livy’s works,
Lilian.”

“
I doubt you’ve
read them
all.
”

He sighed. “Okay, I’ve read all
his
surviving
works. Over a hundred volumes of
History
have been lost.”

She pushed out her lower lip and
gazed at the sky. “Well, I wouldn’t say
lost
. The Nisirtu didn’t care for
the content in some of books, especially once Livy started swapping
notes with Julius Obsequens. Troublemakers, both of them. You’ll
find that Ridley has the complete set.”

Before the google-eyed researcher
could respond, Lilian continued, “There is also a Greek text
by
Diophantus
that Ridley said was critical to his script calculations.
Apparently the man stole some Nisirtu scripting methods and then
had the audacity to improve upon them before his work was, shall we
say, liberated from him. And there are some unpublished works by
someone called
Louftcraft
that Ridley said you would find
interesting.”

“
Doesn’t ring
a…wait,
Lovecraft?
”

She shrugged. “Perhaps. I don’t
care for the pulp stuff and I’m surprised you do. Anyway, you’ve
got plenty of reading material to keep you occupied when winter
comes.” The woman lingered against him for a second longer before
rousing herself and kissing him. “I’ll get to it, then.”

Ben resisted the urge to sprint to
Ridley’s study to confirm what Lilian had told him. Instead he
returned to the command center and began scanning the monitors that
displayed the latest internet and broadcast news coverage of events
around the world. He found himself in a state of awe as the
headlines rolled in one after another.

…
Japanese Prime Minister
assassinated during visit to Malaysia. Cage’s variant with 99.97%
mortality rate spreading like wildfire through Africa and southern
Europe. U.S. warns of imminent launch of ICBMs from North Korea,
Iran. Twenty-six Interstate and Major Highway Bridges destroyed in
U.S. overnight, crippling transportation system. Cigar-shaped
objects seen over every continent. World stock markets in ‘death
spiral.’ Thousands reported ill after water systems in Europe and
Russia found contaminated by unknown microbe. Marxists storm Moscow
demanding return to Soviet ‘prosperity.’ Internet brought to a
crawl by ‘Gilgamesh Virus’. U.S. president unlikely to recover from
Cage’s, vice president also reported ill. Paramilitary forces
overrun seven U.S. National Guard bases in upper Midwest and Texas.
Mexican forces reportedly positioning themselves near the Texas
border…

“
My God,” said
Ben as he slowly pivoted and tried to take it all in. Every monitor
in the room glowed with its own distinctive version of doom: Fires,
explosions, sour faced reporters, terrified citizens, and the
words
BREAKING NEWS
flashing at the tops and bottoms of almost every
screen. There were so many things happening at once, all of them
disastrous, that it was impossible to focus on any one.

Disparthian said, “This is what
Lord Moros called ‘tenderizing’ the Ardoon. The fibers of society
are being broken down. Half of what you see on the monitors above
is a fiction, Anax. It is misinformation being introduced in order
to influence how the survivors behave after the lights go out. The
scripts are playing on their fears. People believe what they want
to believe most of the time, anyway. Once the sounding boards are
removed, they will be transformed from believers to
zealots.”

Ben gave the Peth a withering
look. “Many of these are your scripts, aren’t they?”

“
Yes,” said Disparthian, not
avoiding the man’s glare. “I did not write them but I had them
written. I did what I had to do to remain in the Seven’s confidence
but varied from the objectives when I thought changes would go
unnoticed. For example, I was supposed to funnel the population of
Southern California to Los Angeles for an imaginary sea evacuation,
when in fact there is a nuclear bomb on a freighter there at this
very moment.”

“
There’s a nuke in Los Angeles?”
gasped Ben.

“
It’s one of many that have been
placed across the globe, Anax. The cities in which they are placed
are called ‘colanders.’”

“
What were you supposed to do to
get people to go to L.A.?”

“
Had I followed orders, you would
be seeing false reports of dirty bomb detonations in San Diego.
Reporters would be sent to selected locations within the city that
have been irradiated and coaxed into using Geiger counters on live
television. At the same time, texts and emails from thousands of
anonymous people would flood social media complaining about nausea,
burned skin, breathing problems, and the like.”

“
But people in San Diego would
have known, right?”

Disparthian shook his head. “Who
knows what a dirty bomb looks like? With those reports circulating
would you keep your family there?”

Ben said, “In time people would learn the
truth.”

“
But there is no time, Anax. The
scripts elevate everyone’s fears and then shut down any mediums
from which they could learn the truth.”

“
Are you telling
me you
didn
’
t
run that
script?”

“
No, the script is running. I
merely swapped the names of the cities,” said the Peth, nodding at
one of the monitors.

Ben turned and saw the
words
NEWS FLASH BREAKING NEWS NEWS
FLASH
in red at the top of one of the
international cable news stations. Below that,
DIRTY BOMBS REPORTED DETONATED IN LOS ANGELES
and a color map of southern California with
concentric circles around the city of Los Angeles.

“
You’re pushing
them
out
of L.A.,” said Ben, understanding.

“
Yes, Anax. I could not stop the
apocalypse, but I could save a few thousand lives.”

“
Ardoon lives,” Ben pointed
out.

“
Human lives,” said the Peth lord,
meeting his gaze. “The real bomb will detonate in only a few hours,
however. I’m afraid most of the population will still be
lost.”

“
Why didn’t you just remove the
bomb?”

“
That was not my domain. I had no
role in the military scripts and was not told where the bombs
are.”

Ben watched the screens. “I still
have to hate you. For being part of this.”

“
I understand, Anax.”

“
But if what you say is true you
will save a lot of lives, and you fought to save the lives of
Lilian and Fiela when Moros attacked. I honestly don’t know what to
think of you, Lord Disparthian. I really don’t. I think our
relationship will be complicated.”

Disparthian nodded once. “Welcome
to the Nisirtu, my king.”

The Fleming Stradivarius that
Lilian had played since she was a child had been on “perpetual
loan” from King James II of England since the late 1600’s. The king
had loaned it to one of her ancestors who, posing as a royal
advisor, provided James intelligence that assisted him in quashing
a rebellion in southern England. Never mind that the rebellion was
scripted to both occur and to be crushed, the Nisirtu nobleman was
fond of music and so accepted the violin on condition that the king
write in his own hand a letter stating that the instrument was a
loan and not a gift. That letter, sealed in wax, was still in
Lilian’s possession, and should the late king or his descendants
ever appear to reclaim the violin, she would hand it over without
question.

Until then she would take good care of it.

She surveyed the ballroom as she
lifted the violin to her shoulder. Most of Steepleguard’s residents
were present. Lilian imagined that many Nisirtu attended because
they deemed it impolitic to reject the queen’s invitation but hoped
that her reputation as a virtuoso attracted many more. The Ardoon
present seemed pleased just to have something to do.

Her program called for her to play
a few pieces and then to sing a few songs before returning to the
violin. A mezzo-soprano, she had included in the program excerpts
from
La damnation de
Faust
,
Giulio
Cesare
, and
The
Marriage of Figero
. To conclude the
evening she had arranged a performance by some of the
children.

She looked at a distant clock and
saw that the apocalypse was about to begin in earnest. Smiling
radiantly at those gathered before her, she raised her bow and
said, “Tonight, let us remember our ancestors.
Qualis artifex pereo!
”

There were murmurs of approval and a respectful
silence.

At last she smiled and said, “Now, Paganini’s 24
Caprices,” and began to play.

The first major crack in the
veneer called
civilization
occurred at 7:27 PM, Mountain Time, when one of
the major U.S. news networks ran the banner
I
nternet Outages Reported
Worldwide.
On the screen, a perplexed
female reporter held one hand to her ear, nodding and while she
held the other hand in the air in a gesture that said,
“Wait.”

“
Turn up the volume on monitor
eight,” said Ben. He watched as the volume bars grew from left to
right at the bottom of screen.

“
Yes, Jason,” said the woman on
the television, studying a sheet of paper in front of her, “right,
okay…yes.”

She looked back toward the camera
and said, “We are being told, telephonically, and anecdotally, that
the internet is down in many…what?...okay…I should say, is
reportedly down in many places around the world, to include Atlanta
and New York. Unfortunately, many of our network’s wire feeds are
internet-based, so paradoxically, we are unable to collaborate from
our usual sources how widespread this outage really is.”

The camera zoomed in on a
stern-faced reporter to her right, a man with gray hair and a
bowtie. “Sue, everyone I’ve talked to, and I mean everyone, is
reporting an outage. Of course, any voice-over-internet-protocols
are - is that the right term, Scott? It’s okay? - right, so any
computer-based or internet-based phones are down, too. That’s what
I’m trying to say. This has put everyone on their
heels…”

“
Definitely,” said the woman, “and
it couldn’t come at a worse time, because there have been some
amazing and, I think it’s fair to say, unbelievable reports
appearing on the web these past few hours - everything from
launches of nuclear weapons to alien spacecraft spotted - what?
Okay, right, I must emphasize that these are, to say the least,
‘unsubstantiated’ reports.”

“
Right, Sue, but
it can’t be a coincidence that this internet outage has occurred
simultaneous to the rumors of war that -
unsubstantiated
rumors of war
between the United States and-” He tilted his head down, listening
to someone speak to him via his earpiece. “Fine, fine. I’ll just
shut up then. Vance is here - Vance, what could cause
this?”

Another reporter appeared, a young
man without a suit coat. “Any number of things can cause a
temporary outage, but one as widespread as this? I mean, in the
booth we’re seeing reports of this from every television news
channel we monitor, so it’s clearly not a local
problem.”

“
A virus, maybe?”

“
It would be one heck of a virus.
It could be a combination of different types of attacks, to include
physical destruction of the infrastructure that makes the internet
possible, though the effort required to do that would
be-”

“
Vance, sorry to interrupt, but
assuming this is a worldwide outage, will it affect texting
services, emails, things of that nature?”

“
Without question, yes. It will
shut everything like that down. We’re essentially back to the 1970s
until a solution can be found, but that will be problematic given
that the people who solve such problems largely rely on the
internet to communicate with one another. You can imagine the
isolation being felt by literally billions of people who suddenly
find themselves detached from the rest of the world. It’s something
the current generation has never had to deal with.”