Instruments_of_Chaos

Note: please read this page, if you haven't already -> Four_Short_Stories

 

Instruments of Chaos

Genre: Sci-Fi 

Language: 1

Violence: 3

Sensuality: 1

 

Alistair rubbed his eyes. He had been awake for over twenty four hours. He was tired. The air was still smoky from the fire used to burn the goat entrails. The smell was awful. At least it was quiet now. The young man and woman locked in the cage behind him had screamed and cried and carried on for hours. It gave him a headache and made it very difficult to concentrate on the details of the summoning ritual. It was a relief when they had finally wore themselves out.

He had spent decades researching every possible summoning ritual, categorizing stories by ingredients, methods, number of alleged successes. He had spent the last year in preparation by ticking off each one of the seven deadly sins.

And now he was here, a scientist, in a laboratory with sinister symbols scrawled on the floor. An eviscerated goat lay nearby, it’s entrails smoking in a bronze brazier situated under a laboratory ventilation hood. A crow, robbed of its blood, hung from a string tied around one of the disabled fire sprinklers.

He had just recited the text of the ritual the ninetieth time. He was beginning to have doubts. He looked back to the cage. Greg—the young man—sat with his back to Alistair, his head and shoulders slumped in defeat. Cassie huddled against Greg’s side, seeking comfort, or warmth, or perhaps both.
He turned back to the summoning circle, debating whether to repeat the text again, when a movement caught his eye. A faint wisp of red smoke appeared in the center of the circle. It expanded, sending small tendrils of reddish smoke in every direction. The candles guttered as if by a sudden gust of wind. The smoke began to coalesce into a form and then, so smoothly and yet quite suddenly, there stood a man.

He was a handsome man, of medium height and build, with a slyness in his eyes—an expression of amusement, but there was a hint of disdain as well. The corners of the mouth seemed just on the verge of smirking. He was dressed in a dark blue suit; the kind Alistair had seen worn by the billionaires who showed up at alumni gatherings at the university to impress each other.

For a time the two men stood staring at one another in silence. Alistair was vaguely aware of rustling and soft but agitated whispering in the cage—the sound of Cassie trying to quietly rouse Greg. Given her effort to be silent, Alistair assumed she must have observed the means by which the newcomer entered the lab.

“You’re not… him… are you?” Alistair said. It was more of an observation than a question. The slightest hint of disappointment in his voice.

“I am A him.” The stranger responded, his voice seemed to carry the same, near-smirk as his lips. His eyes and arms gesturing to his own physique.

“Yes, yes,” Alistair waved a hand negligently, looking down briefly, “but you’re not… not… him… No, of course not He wouldn’t come himself, not for a first meaning with an unknown, a nobody. That would be silly I suppose."

The stranger smiled slightly. “You are an intriguing individual.” He spoke silkily, “But there are quite a number of people in the world at any given time trying to enlist, and many make claims they are unable to make good on. There is a sort of misconception that we run about recruiting anyone and everyone, that we offer outlandish promises to any soul who will join our cause. It really isn’t so.” He stretched his arms, palms upward and shrugged. “We are actually quite particular in who we enlist, very discriminating. We only employ the very best, you see. “

The stranger began to pace importantly, his hands clasped behind his back. “So you could say,” he paused for a heartbeat, tilting his head ever so slightly “this is your first interview. We have had a look at your resume – chaos device, you call it? That phrase is interesting, but we really haven’t seen anything compelling thus far. You have been pretty evasive in your writing. You’ve been studying human auras—interesting, but we are not quite sure how you intend to manipulate them, to influence behavior. You seem to be making something of a leap in logic there, without evidence to back it up. Were it not for your previous work, you would be written off as a fraud. Your success in past endeavors however, has given justification to hear you out.” At this, the stranger gestured magnanimously.

Alistair turned for a moment, took two steps away from the stranger, head down, stroking his chin thoughtfully. He turned back again abruptly. The two steps had taken him to the side of a console, which he rested his hand on. “That thing with the smoke,” he asked curiously. “Do you really materialize… teleport… aparate… or… was that just for show? How exactly does your kind get around?"

He quite nonchalantly flicked a small button on the console. A light next to the button flickered from red to yellow. There was a gentle click and then a soft hum rising from a low to high pitch, then all but disappearing as the light changed from yellow to green.

The stranger smiled, then turned to smoke again. Before the smoke completely faded, the stranger reappeared in precisely the same location, there was the faintest hint of puzzlement in his eyes.

Alistair looked at him with interest. “So, it is something like teleportation then? You tried it just now, didn’t you? but it didn’t work?”. Alistair was fully in his scientist brain now. Eagerly observing, absorbing data. “No red smoke when you reappeared, so that is just for show then? An illusion? Holographic projection? It involves manipulation of mass-energy, yes? In fact, that is how we can see you now isn’t it? Normally we can’t see your kind, but you are among us. Your composition is a form of matter that resides right on the mass-energy boundary, yes? Particles too fine to be observed or detected by Human eyes? Were you here the whole time I was doing that summoning ritual? Just… watching?”

"What did you do?" The stranger's voice was lower, softer than before, the arrogant confidence giving way to uncertainty/

Alistair turned and walked to a cabinet. “Are there others here as well we can’t see?” He pulled an object from the shelf that vaguely resembled an oversized, old-fashioned, movie camera, but with various wires and other bits protruding from it, giving one the impression that someone had taken an old camera and decorated it to use it as a cheap, sci-fi movie prop.

“Is that your ‘chaos-ray’?” The stranger asked, seeming more out of a desire to gain control of the conversation than out of any real curiosity about the device in the scientist’s hands. “The device which will accelerate Armageddon, and tip the scale in our favor?”

Alistair chuckled humorlessly. “You have been around before then. Or one of your associates has been keeping you informed.” He pointed the camera at the stranger and began fiddling with various dials and switches, Eyes intently focused on a small display affixed to the top of the device.

The stranger was walking forward slowly now, his expression shifting ever so slightly towards dangerous. “Why did you summon me?”

“Oh, well,” Alistair began. “You can only do so much in laboratory. At some point you have to put theory to practice.” He made another minute adjustment to a dial. “I’ve reached the point where I need your assistance.” His eyes shifted rapidly between the stranger and the screen as he spoke. Finally satisfied, he began to scan the room with the device. As he finished, an expression of concern crossed his face.

At that moment there was a brief flash of light, a sparking sound and a scream of agony just a few feet in front of Alistair, directly above a red line on the floor. Alistair quickly directed the device at the location, and relief showed on his face, he scanned the area of the room directly around him, and around and in the cage. His face becoming visibly more relaxed as he did so.

Another flash and another scream, this time to the very back of the room. He pointed the device toward the end of the room, then panned left wall to right wall and ceiling to floor.

“So, two of you then. Do you have the ability communicate telepathically? Is that by chance working? I would assume yes between the two of you, but what about any others elsewhere?”

The stranger reached his hand out as he approached the red tape line on the floor. Another burst of light and the same sparking sound. Sparks and small bursts of blue flame could be seen racing along the stranger’s hand, he let out an inhuman scream and drew his hand back. It was blackened and bubbling, with tears in it that reminded Alistair of pulling cotton candy apart.

“What is this?!” The stranger demanded, with undisguised rage, and an undercurrent of fear.

“Alistair?” The voice was timid, quiet, barely more than a whisper. Alistair turned. Cassie was gripping the bars with trembling hands, halfway between standing and crouching. The look of fear in her eyes cut Alistair to the quick. “Alistair, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? Who is that? Please Alistair, please let us go.” Greg was awake as well. He was not as composed though. He had moved to the very back of the cage, eyes wild as he stared at the stranger.

“Just a few minutes more Cassie.” Alistair murmured, and turned back to his guests. “Have you called him? I would think this would warrant his personal attention. Has he responded?”

“I don’t seem to be able to talk with him.” The stranger said through gritted teeth, “If you will kindly undo whatever it is you have done—” At this the stranger gestured at the console, “I would be happy to request his presence.”

“Oh, that would be truly amazing!” Alistair replied. “I would be so delighted to have him here!”

“However,” Alistair returned to rummaging though various shelves, collecting an assortment of random, innocuous looking parts. “given your tendency to dishonesty, passion, retribution and chaos, I should think it more likely you would simply leave, and then seek the first opportunity to obliterate me for the discomfort I have caused you, rather than helping me see my project to fruition.” Alistair climbed onto a step ladder to reach a plastic bin from a top shelf.

“No,“ he continued. “I believe for now you will have to remain my captive audience. At least until we are settled regarding the viability of this endeavor.”

“We can be trusted at our word.” The stranger retorted. he gestured skyward in disdain. “He’s the dishonest one, he’s the deceiver! Why do you trust his words? It is the books written by his skulking henchmen that convince you we are dishonest.”

“Oh no sir.” Alistair objected. “I’m not drawing my conclusion from the Bible.” Alistair waved his hand dismissively. “Or the Quran or any of the other holy books. No, no. Empirical evidence my boy. I have studied every story, legend, fable, cave drawing or other rendering of supernatural history I could find."

“You see, the mistake most people make—particularly in my profession—is believing that humans have incredible imagination." Alistair descended the stepladder, having found the part he sought. "They really don’t.”

“They embellish stories, they misremember facts, they alter details, but they really don’t create new ideas wholesale. Just look through the history of human invention. Or movie making for that matter, a purely ‘creative’ profession, and yet every movie you see is just a regurgitation of one of the dozen or so plots that they always use. Different names, a different setting, a different way of telling the story. But still the same story. Nothing new, really, just variations on old themes.

“Observing that, one must inevitably conclude that the old stories, while corrupted by time are in fact, at their heart, true. Thus, I believe there are—at least two—supernatural factions operating in opposition to one another. One is aligned to the ideals of… law… and self-sacrifice as the path to progress, the other.” Alistair paused in his gathering of parts to incline his head toward the stranger, indicating he was one of 'the other', “is aligned to the ideals of chaos and self-interest as the path to progress. And collective history says you can’t be trusted. Sorry.”

“I don’t see how holding me - a general in the armies of hell – prisoner, in any way will endear us to your cause, nor how this demonstration will help us tear down the walls of heaven. Unless….” The stranger’s rage faded and he regained his composure, “You believe this… technology… will also work on heavenly beings? Or, his face darkened, was the talk of a chaos ray merely a ruse?”

“General eh? No stars?” Alistair teased, “Just ‘General’?“ Alistair had stopped collecting items at this point and began assembling them. “I am afraid that title doesn’t impress me. I’ve spent enough time around military to observe their hierarchy is really much the same as corporate hierarchy. Any large organization of people ends up looking and acting very much the same, in fact.”

Alistair paused his assembly to gesture with his hands as he continued, “You’ve got the workers, you see—teams and team leads, privates, corporals and the like. They are the one’s who get things done. Unfortunately, they tend to only see things from their local perspective—don’t see the bigger picture. Then there’s the Top Brass; Commander in Chief, the 5 Stars, CEO’s and such. They are not nearly as important as they tend to think they are—get far more credit and compensation than they deserve, but they are important in that they do see the big picture—keep everything moving in one direction. Sadly, they are oblivious to the minute details.”

“And then there are the generals. The upper-middle management. They were no good as soldiers and workers, so someone promoted them to get them out of the way—stop them from breaking things. By and large, they take up space, consume resources, and get in the way of those trying to actually get things done.”

“As for your questions," Alistair returned again to assembling parts, "no, the Chaos ray is not a ruse, it is my life’s work. As for the technology working against your opposition, I am quite confident it will. They are, of course, how this endeavor got started."

“Cassie,” Alistair turned to face the cage, “do you remember the lecture on auras all those year ago? It was where we met. Your father took you—you were seventeen, I think, a senior in high school. I was just a few weeks from my Doctorate in Biochemistry. I’m still not sure why you befriended me.”

“Because you were kind, and respectful” the voice barely more than a whisper. “Lots of people showed up to make fun of the speaker, you stood up for him, asked sincere questions. You seemed a bit sad too, I guess I wanted to try and cheer you up…” Her voice trailed off uncertainly.

“Yes,” Alistair nodded, “I suppose I have always been sad. Haven’t I?” He paused lost in thought.

“Not without reason,” Cassie said, her voice surer now. “You saw your parents murdered when you were nine, You saw that boy get beaten nearly to death in the foster home when you were ten…”

He recognized her strategy, she was an avid student of psychology, and had taken particular interest in negotiation tactics. She was building a rapport. She was establishing a point of connection from which to begin negotiating—talking him down.

“And you were homeless when you were thirteen. Really it is amazing—inspiring, what you’ve accomplished in your education, and with your life.”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” he contemplated, the corners of his mouth curled upward in a smile that failed to reach his eyes. “I admit I was skeptical at first, when he started talking about auras, and theories about spirits. Then he mentioned the study that doctor did all those years ago—weighing people right before and right after they died, and reporting a very minute reduction in weight. For some reason that story grabbed me.”

“What if people really had a spirit? What if all the talk about good and evil spirits was in fact, real? There were enough stories of people seeming to glimpse them, after all. And then as the dissertation progressed, I came up with an idea.”

He began to pace now, absorbed in the story. “I had been doing some research related to the triple points of some compounds.” He paused, turning to look questioningly at Cassie, “Do you know what a triple point is?”

Cassie shook her head.

“A triple point is a specific temperature and pressure at which a substance can exist in all three forms—solid, liquid, and gas—simultaneously. Water for example, can exist as ice, liquid water, and water vapor, all at the same time, at a temperature of 0.01 degrees Celsius and a pressure of 611.657 pascals.”

“That led me to the thought, what if spirits are a substance that rests right on the boundary between energy and matter? You are of course familiar with the equation e=mc2—Einstein’s formula establishing a relationship between energy and mass. It suggests that energy can become matter, and vice versa. What if matter, spirit, and energy are analogous to solid, liquid and gas?”

“It could explain the occasional sighting—when conditions were just right to cause a shift toward the 'mass' state. Similarly, a shift to the 'energy' side could explain some of the strange electrical phenomena often associated with spiritual activity.”

Alistair resumed pacing. “I didn’t say anything to anyone about this idea, of course. First, I am fairly certain It wouldn’t have been taken seriously. Second—in case I was right—I didn’t want… them…” he gave a barely perceptible nod of his head in the direction of the stranger” to know what I was doing. They might have interfered—contaminated my research.”

“That was when I started studying aural photography.”

“You were researching electromagnetic fields around physical bodies.” Cassie injected, trying to follow Alistair’s dialogue.

“Yes, that is how I described it. That sounded innocuous enough—practical enough that I could get funding for the research based on possible commercial opportunities it might someday present. And it gave me a cover for what I was really up to.”

He directed his focus back to Cassie, his eyes intent, “I was trying to find a way to detect spirits.”

Cassie watched intently as he spoke. The look in her eyes suggested she was debating with herself whether he was slightly rational or fully mad. The mysterious appearance of the stranger was likely the one thing keeping her from immediately concluding the latter.

“I experimented with every sensing technology I could get my hands on," Alistair explained, as he resumed pacing, his hands punctuating hie words. "I hybridized various technologies for energy detection, wave detection, particle detection..."

“Of course, the process was fundamentally flawed, as I was pointing at living subjects - small animals, and the occasional volunteer person- and hoping that a spirit would happen to be in the periphery."

“But one day, I got a visual. It was a particular subject where I had my first success—Rose was her name. In talking to her, I learned she felt she had a special connection to her grandmother, who had passed away some years ago. I was able to fine tune my detection equipment through frequent sessions with Rose, and after that I managed to consistently see beings in various locations. The images were more silhouettes, with no distinguishing details, but clearly humanoid.”

“As i continued my experimentation I made another breakthrough discovery." Alistair turned his attention to the stranger once more. "There were some spirits which I could get a clear, solid visual of, but there were others which were fleeting. I would see a brief flash and then it would vanish."

“That led to another hypothesis,” Alistair returned to his work of assembly. “Good spirits are generally associated with order and law, while evil spirits are associated with chaos. What if the very structure of their beings mirrored that? I began researching chaos mathematics. I started designing equations to predict and inject chaos theory into my detection algorithm. I loaded my equipment into a van and headed down to that alley off ninth street—the neighborhood where the drug dealers and prostitutes congregate. I reasoned there was a higher probability of evil spirits there. That is where I spent the next six months—every evening—tweaking my algorithm.”

“It was tricky work. It seems that most spirits exist on a sort of continuum between pure good and pure evil—the more evil the being, the more chaotic their structure, while the more good, the more ordered and the easier to detect.

“Evil spirits are tricky. The sensor has to utilize a feedback algorithm to actually adjust the equation. It is something like an integration over a random number series. It's difficult to quantify, but it works.”

Alistair glanced at the stranger. “I suppose that when a good person turns evil over time, the nature of their spirit changes, yes? It develops that chaotic quality?”

“Your chaos ray,” the stranger said through clenched teeth. “Is it real, or is it just a work of fiction, created to lure me here?”

“Oh no,” Alistair patted the device he had been assembling. “That has in fact been the goal since nearly the beginning. I have just been careful to not let on what its purpose really was. You assumed—based on my study of human auras—that I was building a device to foster chaotic behavior in good and average people.”

“What then is the purpose?” The stranger nearly shook with contained anger. "What are your two victims here for exactly?"

Alistair's gaze shifted back to the cage, where Cassie stood holding the bars, eyes wide with fear and uncertainty as she waited to learn her fate. "Bear with me Cassie a moment longer."

Alistair examined the device closely, checking individual wires and fittings in a final inspection. “You may have noticed that I am not a particularly happy man. I have seen too much of sadness in my years. As Cassie mentioned, I was just a boy when I witnessed my Mother and Father murdered during a botched mugging by a strung-out addict. I saw plenty of horrors in some of the foster homes—not all of them were bad mind you, but some...” Alistair paused, a haunted look in his eyes as he recalled past events

“And I saw even more horrors during my homeless years. Then of course I managed to drag myself out of the morass, joining the ranks of the academic elite, where I found that things were really …no different. They are of course more removed from the victims of their conquests, and their means and motives are more subtle—more sophisticated, but deep down in their heart of hearts, they are really not so different from the … ’unwashed masses’ as they pretend.”

“There were times, as you likely know, when I felt the human race needed to be wiped off the planet. I even toyed with the idea of trying to develop a biological tool to achieve that end. I believe some of those casual experiments were what you were referring to when you mentioned… past successes—Weapons of mass destruction which were swept up in military contracts.”

“But that all changed with the discovery that spirits were actually real.”

Alistair picked up the assembled device, which now resembled an over-sized steampunk ray gun prop. He flipped a switch and a high-pitched whine could be heard as the device energized.

“You see until then, I was an atheist, or at least very agnostic—how could there be a God and him not do something about all the evil that happens to decent people? I had to re-think all that after I started seeing them for myself."

“My present working theory is there is a contest between the two sides, each trying to gather more souls to their cause. And we humans are caught in the middle of your struggle for supremacy.”

He adjusted a dial on the device and flipped up a small display.

“I concluded that if humanity was ever to have a hope for peace, one of you had to go. And as you are the group aligned to chaos. You are the ones who encourage violence, selfishness, anger, hate…”

Alistair paused, leaving the thought incomplete. He toggled a button on the pedestal's console. “June 7, 2018” He spoke, “I have successfully summoned two supernatural, mass-energy boundary entities—MEBE’s for brevity, or at least two of them were in the target zone during the summoning exercise. One physically manifested, and I have been able to detect the other with ChaoCam Prototype seventeen, with some re-calibration. There are still drift issues in the imaging—I assume my chaos differential will need further refining. They are strongly inclined toward chaotic composition, and the materialized being has mostly confirmed my theories regarding two primary groups of MEBE’s corroborating the historical traditions of two groups, typically referred to as angels and devils

“The barrier system appears to work. They have not been able to cross it by any means. I can see no evidence that they are able to telepathically communicate through the barrier either. Contact with the barrier appears to cause pain and physical harm.”

“I am now preparing to test the chaos ray, starting with the non-manifesting subject.” Alistair focused on the small display, bringing a flickery silhouette in line with a reticle on the display. “Test firing in 3…2...1… Mark”

Alistair depressed a button on the device. There was a sharp hum as a beam of blue-green light burst from the end. It interacted with the invisible barrier, creating a starburst effect as it passed through. Then it struck an invisible object. The beam spread out slightly in an effect which reminded Alistair of someone being struck by a stream of water from a hose. There was a sickening, sizzling sound and the hum was amplified.

The scream of agony nearly drowned those sounds out. The beam partially illuminated a humanoid shape, which seemed to be trying, but unable to move out of the beam, as though the beam had grabbed hold of the thing.

It was not immobilized—there was plenty of thrashing and jerking occurring, but the beam seemed to hold the being in check, preventing it from escaping the beam itself. Small purplish tears appeared on the ghostly form. The screams grew louder. There was a strange ripping sound and red-black smoke seeped from the widening tears.

Otherworldly flames appeared and engulfed the being. The flames consumed the creature in a matter of seconds, then disappeared. The screaming stopped, and the beam of light now reached to the back wall of the room.

Alistair released the trigger.

“First test appears successful." He spoke to the recorder.

“You destroyed him…” The stranger seemed shocked.

Alistair paused and turned, “Your tone and your choice of the word ‘destroyed’ strikes me as significant. Have you never seen a spirit die before?”

“Not dead…” The stranger responded, still in shock, “Destroyed. He’s gone! Forever! Nothing left, I… I can’t feel him…”

“Ah, so you do communicate telepathically. That would seem to suggest that is a similar form of energy transmission, as it appears to be blocked by the barrier as well then. At least, you don’t seem to have been able to communicate outside of the barrier. I have seen no evidence that you have been able to call anyone to your aide.”

“You destroyed him!” There was definite anger now. And fear. “You un-created him! How is that possible?! It can’t be possible! Not even God can do that!”

“Can’t he?” Alistair questioned, intently curious. “Are you certain he can’t, or are you saying that because, to your knowledge, he never has?”

“I!” The stranger began, then paused uncertainly.

“It seems if I am capable, he must be capable as well.” Alistair concluded, mostly to himself. “Perhaps he doesn’t destroy your kind because you are his creations, and he can’t bring himself to destroy his own creations. Most parents would find it difficult or impossible to kill their own living offspring after all, even if their behavior makes such action… necessary.”

“What makes you assume we are his offspring? What makes you think he isn’t the one causing the chaos? You claim I am the liar, but all you have are stories, legends, and cave drawings, have you not considered that all of those stories came from him? From his agents?” The stranger was quite animated now, speaking with extraordinary passion.

“Think for a minute, about those stories. Zeus, a lying, adulterous, manipulating perverted old man, who tried to keep men ignorant and stupid, dependent on him for everything, who, when humans rose up and sought knowledge, he unleashed unspeakable horrors on them through pandora’s box.”

“Or what about the Old Testament? You accuse us of being unreliable, chaotic and violent, how many times does the Old Testament God obliterate entire nations, either by his own means, or by ordering his followers to do so? One of his prophets summoned bears to slaughter an entire group of youths, just because a few were making jokes about his bald head. The first humans were kicked out of the paradise he created for them just for eating a bit of his fruit!”

“And that’s in his book! The book written by his followers. The book that showcases his best qualities! Have you stopped to consider that?!” The stranger was practically frothing now.

“As a matter of fact, I have considered that.” Alistair stood and faced the stranger, thoughtfully. “It was, in fact, quite a puzzle for me.”

“It all goes back to common threads, you see, what themes are most consistent across most legends?”, Alistair began to pace.

“Every mythology has a story of a great flood; a purging of all corrupted life, rebooting the system so to speak. Every legend has a tree; Yggdrasil to the Norse, Lusaaset to the Egyptians, Fusang to the Chinese, Bodhi to Buddhists, or the tree of life to most nowadays. Some sort of means of crossing from mortality to immortality.

“And then of course, there is the Savior story.”

Alistair returned to standing directly in front of the stranger. “Every mythology includes a story of a woman, or sometimes a goddess, who gives birth to a being, usually a half-deity. Isis and Horus, Frigga and Thor, Alcmene and Heracles, Mary and Jesus..."

“The mother is always a compassionate, loving, nurturing being. A mother beyond comparison. And the son, is equally great. The son performs amazing feats or miracles, protecting, healing or otherwise saving individuals or groups, with no expectation of recompense. Ultimately, he gives his life and is then restored, or elevated to full deity."

“What are the possibilities then?" Alistair halted his pacing and faced the stranger once more, "That both factions are chaotic and somehow this one woman and her son are not? Did they then overthrow, or change the behavior of the group from whence they sprang? Possible, perhaps, but improbable.”

“And then there was that bit in the new Testament, where Jesus says, he does nothing but what he has seen the father do. Most of the mythologies somewhere seem to have some vague reference to this close link between father and son.”

“What then explains the seeming difference?”

“What indeed!” The stranger interjected, sneering.

Alistair continued, ignoring the stranger as he resumed his pacing, “I have a theory again, If the one side follows a certain order, a certain set of rules, and the other side does not. Then the side who does not would almost certainly be willing to manipulate the stories over time. So perhaps the seemingly deranged behaviors sometimes attributed to the lawful side are corrupted versions of the stories by the other side.”

“The curious question then—how did the story of the savior figure manage to come through largely unscathed? It seems almost as if he has some power over you… curious indeed…”, Alistair paused lost in thought.”

“Alistair?” Cassie called again, tentatively.

“Cassie…” Alistair returned to the cage. I am so terribly sorry for the way I have treated the two of you. I hope you can understand why it was necessary.”

“Alistair, I don’t understand any of this.” he voice quavered, her eyes full of confusion and fear.

“You see. I couldn’t risk one of them discovering my real intention. I have worked so very hard to keep this project a secret. I needed to be able to acquire at least one test subject to verify the barrier would in fact contain them, and to verify that the chaos ray would actually kill them.”

“The two of you are my best friends…. My only friends…” He paused, staring at the floor.

“So, restraining the two of you served two purposes. First, for purposes of continuing the subterfuge, it gave the impression that I was willing to sacrifice the two of you as test subjects.”

“And second. It put you out of harm’s way during the initial testing.” Alistair paused. “Assuming of course the barrier worked. Had it not…” his voice trailed off.

“But, it did work, better than I anticipated in fact. And… for the time being… you are safe. I rather suspect that they would use you as leverage to get me to abandon this endeavor.” Alistair looked to the stranger again, his eyes distant, face devoid of emotion.

“And of course, by being here, you two are witnesses. You are my… peer review. You have seen the experiment and the process I used. And you can see for yourself that they—” Alistair pointed at the stranger, “are real.”

“Yes Alistair,” Cassie acknowledged, “they are real. You have proven that, you have bridged the gap between science and religion. This discovery… well, you are almost certain to obtain a Nobel Prize for this! And many other accolades.”

She was negotiating again, playing to his ego. She still didn’t understand.

“So, what is next Alistair?” She asked tentatively, “What happens now?”

“What happens now?” Alistair stared into the distance. “What happens now, is I eradicate them.”

“Of course, they will do everything in their power to stop me now. I will need to always remain protected. He produced a case, with strap like a backpack, A cable protruded from it and ended in a small box with a series of controls.” He put the pack on, adjusting the straps for comfort. The controller clipped neatly to the front of his belt.”

“This is a portable shield, which should work the same as the barrier.” He flicked a switch on the controller, a small blue indicator illuminated. He walked toward the stranger, passing over the line on the floor. As he did so a glowing ring became visible showing the point of intersection between the two shields, the room shield appearing to open to allow the portable shield to pass through. The stranger snarled and reached for Alistair. His flesh sizzled as he struck the barrier created by the pack, radiating approximately 4 feet from Alistair’s body. He howled and retreated from Alistair. Clutching his smoking appendage.

“Test of portable shield successful!” Alistair spoke loudly to ensure the recorder captured his voice over the stranger's sounds of agony. He aimed the gun. The stranger’s eyes widened, he backed away holding his arms out, shielding himself.

“Wait!” He pleaded, what if your theory is wrong? Okay, yes, you are correct, we align with self-interest, it is what has driven human progress. Your greatest advancements have come out of conflict, you can’t deny that. What if... he…”, the stranger gestured derisively skyward “really does want to keep humans ignorant and stupid? Surely you have to realize that is a possibility?”

“Hmm… perhaps,” Alistair conceded, but unlikely. At any rate there are only three possibilities.”

“Either he is good, loving, and kind, but constrained by some rules—which don’t apply to you—to not interfere so drastically, or he is simply uninvolved, because we are beneath his interest, or finally, he is as bad as you, though much more subtly so.”

“If the first, then my path is quite clear, destroy you, then humanity enjoys peace and prosperity, with limited interaction with him according to whatever natural laws bind him.”

“If the second, then destroying you still eliminates the problem, and humanity—while perhaps not entirely peaceful—will certainly be better off. He will ignore us, we will ignore him and you will no longer tip the scales of human behavior.”

“If the later..." Alistairs eyes narrowed, "then, once I am done with you, either he will see fit to steer clear, or he will meet the same fate.”

“You see, you are still making the mistake of assuming I am some devoted follower of the other side, and that you can therefore induce a crisis of faith in me.

“For all practical purposes, I am still agnostic. I have hypothesis, but I act on what I know. I know you exist, and I know they exist. I know you are a malicious, vile, destructive creature—frankly that is easily deduced through observation. I assume some of your kind are better liars than you. if not, I quite frankly am baffled how you have been so successful all these years.”

"As for him," Alistair indicated skyward with a flick of his head “I still haven’t met him, I don’t know him. If and when I do meet him, I will deal with him appropriately. But for now, I am dealing with you.”

The gun fired again. The beam created the starburst pattern as before when it crossed the shield boundary. The stranger tried to dodge, but the beam seemed to have an almost magnetic effect, drawing the stranger to it. Smoke, screams, flames, and then the beam continued to the end of the room.

Alistair turned once more to the cage. “I am going to unlock the cage now,” he said. "You are free to go if you wish. Only understand—they may hunt you, and try to use you to stop me.” His eyes grew sadder still, “I can’t let them stop me.”

Alistair produced a key and unlocked the cage door. He pushed it open and stepped aside, smiling that same sad smile. Neither Cassie, nor Greg moved.

"The laboratory refrigeration unit is stocked with food—you can use the bunson burners for cooking," Alistair turned and walked purposefully toward the exit. "This entire building is within the protective field, so you should be reasonably safe for several weeks."

"Where are you going, Alistair?" Cassie's voice was tiny. Awestruck.

Alistair pause at the doorway, "I already told you. I am going to eradicate evil from the world. I hope we will see each other again, once this is over. Goodbye, Cassie, Greg."

The Door closed, leaving Cassie and Greg in silence.