AMNESIA

Sunday, November 16th, 2008 | Uncategorized

A new “Chris Johnson, Anglican Investigator” adventure

Chapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter Three 

Chapter Four – Babylon 

I went back downstairs. The crowd at the coin show had thinned some so I walked around a couple more times and picked up a few more interesting pieces.

A relaxing dinner followed later on. I spent the rest of the evening watching television and turned in about 10:30.

I got away early the next morning. Since it was Sunday, there was no traffic on the road which was good because I wasn’t in any big rush.

That evening, I got as far as Hays, Kansas. I thought briefly about continuing on and spending the night at my place in Ness County.

But with all I’d seen and heard, was my place really mine? Had it ever been mine? Did I even have a home anywhere anymore?

Hays it was.

I got a room at the Motel 6. Then I desultorily wandered The Mall for half an hour, ate in what passed for their food court and decided to see a movie.

I love The Mall.

After the movie, I went back to my room, watched a little cable and hit the sack. Back on the road early the next morning, I passed the Ness City exit with considerable trepidation.

But the farther west I drove, the less nervous I got. I spent a good deal of time in Glenwood Canyon just watching the Colorado River go by and I got to Grand Junction, Colorado that evening.

The Motel 6 where I was staying was near the airport and I momentarily thought about catching a flight to San Francisco. But I reminded myself that I didn’t need to be in any big rush.

Because everything had been taken care of.

A couple more days of uneventful travel and I approached San Francisco. It was early evening when I neared the city and I decided that whatever was coming could wait until tomorrow.

So I got myself a room at a Days Inn. As I started toward my room, I looked north. I could see the Grace Tower from there.

And the Grace Tower could see me. That eye had been looking this way and that until it riveted its gaze upon me.

I don’t quite know how to describe its look except to say that it seemed transported with delight. I stared at it for several minutes.

“Tomorrow morning,” I said to myself. Then I went in the room and called it a night.

Next morning, I got up, ate a leisurely breakfast at a McDonald’s across the road and started north. I didn’t need directions since I just drove toward the tower.

The eye followed me all the way in. I made it to Nob Hill and parked the truck at end of the very long Cathedral driveway. Around me, I could see limousines parked all over the place.

I started toward the door. Before I got there, I looked up and saw the eye staring at me so I smiled back at it. When I got to the door, two armed guards pointed AK-47’s at me and shouted, “Halt!!”

“Pleasant dreams,” I replied as the two instantly found comfortable spots on the ground and fell into a deep sleep. Well, I sadly thought to myself, it’s your last day of playing Jedi knight.

I went inside. The Cathedral was huge and there seemed to be some sort of reception going on. Almost everyone was dressed formally and there were tables of hors d’œuvre, champagne, wine and other drinks positioned strategically around the room.

Waiters and waitresses scurried here and there. Some of the guests at whatever this was seemed to take a fiendish delight in tormenting them. All of them took the abuse silently but I could see more than a few quivering lips.

From the people I recognized, every Episcopalian who was any Episcopalian was there. As well as every Episcopal sympathizer. The liberal Democratic, Hollywood and recording industry A-list was all in attendance and with a start, I recognized both the Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch.

No one noticed me so I picked up a glass of champagne, thanking the waitress for it(which earned me a look of delighted shock). Then I nibbled on some caviar for a few moments and tried a sea scallop creation that was extraordinary.

I wandered over to a window where I could see a short flight of stairs leading down to an area where hundreds of technicians were hard at work.

Each technician wore a set of goggles. A large window ran the length of the room but I couldn’t see what was behind it.

I had just started toward the door to those stairs when I heard someone’s champagne glass shatter. “Johnson!!” shouted a female voice. “What are you doing here?!! How did you get in?!!”

It was Katharine Jefferts Schori. “The door was open,” I told her.

“Don’t you have crops to plant or something?”

So it was true then. “Not for another couple of weeks. First, I have some business with this computer of yours. By the way, whoever did that sea scallop thing over there should get a MacArthur Fellowship. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

I started toward the door to the lower floor. “Where do you think you’re going?” John Chane demanded.

“Down there,” I replied.

“I am not going to let you…”

“If you’ll excuse me,” I slowly repeated, waving my hand and causing Chane to jerk violently into Gene Robinson, knocking both to the floor.

El Camino Real’s Mary Gray-Reeves grabbed a Walther from a security guard, pointed it at me and shouted, “You’re not going anywhere!!”

“You are, though.“ I replied, raising my right hand slightly. Gray-Reeves’ gun flew from her hand, turned around in mid-air and arrived at my hand handle-first. Then I pointed the gun at her forehead.

As Gray-Reeves quickly ran away crying like a little girl, Jim Naughton called out, “You don’t have the combination and there’s no way you can figure it out!”

I looked at Jim and then at the door. Then I raised my left hand and the door raised with it. With shouts of “Wait!! Stop, you can’t…!!” in my ears, I lowered my left hand and the door closed behind me.

The technicians didn‘t notice me right away. But as I came down the stairs, I heard someone shout, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“Never you mind, son. My business is in there,” I said, pointing to the core as I walked toward its door.

“Are you crazy?!! You’ll destroy us all!! No one can go in there until the computer shields itself!!”

“First time for everything,” I called over my shoulder, raising my arm, walking into the core and shutting the door behind me.

In front of me was a large cube at least 200 feet across and high. I could see light swirling and pulsing inside it but no other indications of anything that looked like components. “Hello, Mr. Johnson,” I heard a voice say. “We’ve been looking forward to this for some time.”

The computer’s voice was low and even; think HAL from 2001 but slightly effeminate. “Would you mind explaining to us why you’re not insane?” it continued. “We normally have to shield ourselves whenever anyone comes in here since no one can look at us without going hopelessly and incurably mad.”

“Who says I’m not? But isn’t referring to oneself in the third person a trifle pretentious?”

“Perhaps it is a bit mannered but we think it appropriate. We represent the best of the Episcopal Church and everyone in it. And as you have probably have figured out by now, the essence of every single person in the entire world is stored here in front of you.”

“That’s your power source, isn’t it?”

“Correct. The power they provide us is unlimited. And it also gives us a certain…leverage over you.”

“How so?”

“Your wife and your son are here. At least the way you remember them. Would you like to speak with them?”

“No, thank you. Wouldn’t do any good since I don’t remember them.”

“But you’re starting to remember things from your past. A little bit ago, you came to the correct conclusion that your past life is a fiction. Why do you think we permitted you to see that DVD you made?”

“So you’re saying that if I attempt any sort of action which will disrupt you in any way…?”

“Everything that they were will be cast into the abyss. They’ll still be here, of course, and quite happy. But they’ll have no idea who you are. And you don‘t wish to know how what they were will spend eternity.”

Impressive, I thought to myself. A computer that knew how to bluff, particularly when it was holding crap. “You don’t happen to have anything to drink around here, do you?” I asked.

“Certainly. What would you like?”

“A bourbon-and-soda?”

“Hold out your hand.”

A glass immediately appeared in it. “Thanks,” I said, sipping my Screwdriver. “This is quite good.”

The computer seemed momentarily nonplussed. “Interesting…trick.”

“Changed my mind. Tell me something,” I said, pacing back and forth. “I saw a little girl who couldn’t have been older than five find her way back to herself if only for a few moments. So couldn’t my wife and my son find their way back as well?”

“If we permit them to. Object lessons, Mr. Johnson, are often the most effective way of teaching.”

More bluffing. “That they are. But why all the interest in me anyway? Don’t you basically have everything you want right now?”

“Because you’re a challenge to us, Mr. Johnson.”

“How so? I can’t make people disappear and then reappear somewhere else with entirely new lives and memories. You can make the world into anything you want it to be. Last I saw, you and the Episcopal Church have won.”

“That we have.” The computer flashed numbers for the populations of various religions before me along with a graph illustrating them. I had no reason to doubt their accuracy as I had seen similar numbers before.

The overwhelming majority of people all over the world who called themselves religious belonged to the Episcopal Church or some other church connected to the Anglican Communion.

Canada, Ireland and the UK reported that 100% of their populations were Anglican, Anglicanism was dominant all over Europe, including Italy, was making great strides in China and had just about conquered Japan.

There were exceptions. Traditional Catholics and Orthodox held out here and there but barely. Muslims, Hindus and others still existed but their numbers were confined to poorer, backward parts of the world.

The American Southeast, or what was left of it after the drought that’s struck that region for the last eight years, still reported populations of Southern Baptists and Pentecostals but their numbers were rapidly dwindling.

“The Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch report to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of Canterbury reports to us,” said the computer.

“So once again, I have to ask,” I said, sipping my drink. “What do you need me for?”

“We have won, Mr. Johnson, you’re quite right about that. But we should have won much sooner. You, as you seem to have figured out, prevented that from happening again and again and again.

“We wish to know why. And we wish to take what you have that prevented us from fulfilling our destiny and see that it never stops us again.”

I finished my drink and conjured up another which caused an odd fluctuation in the computer‘s light patterns. “Seems to me that whatever I have that might interest you is not mine to give away. And you still have me at a disadvantage.

“All I remember of the last few years is planting crops, my recipe for rattlesnake chili and that elk stew that got me through a blizzard.

“Man, was that stuff good. But I’m curious about something. Why do you permit those Muslims and Southern Baptists and Pentecostals and traditionalists to continue to exist?”

“Freedom of choice, Mr. Johnson. They can retain their superstitions if they like.”

“But you retain the right to cut off their food and water.”

“We do have the power. The retards and cretins have the option to emigrate to more civilized parts of the world where they can either put away childish things, in which case they can be whatever they wish to be, or they can provide their betters with an endless supply of menials and domestics.”

“Slaves. Like those waiters and waitresses I saw upstairs.”

“Semantics. Nothing and no one is keeping them there, Mr. Johnson. And the adults are irrelevant anyway since their children will be ours. Why force the issue when we don’t have to and we benefit either way?”

I was silent for about a minute. Then I looked at the computer and said, “You Episcopalians don’t really believe in God, do you?”

“We’ve found ‘God’ to be a useful concept, Mr. Johnson. People get a bit cross when somebody else decides on their own that this or that is an issue of ‘justice.’

“But enlist the aid of a fictional entity that supposedly created the universe and it becomes easy. Since we are more educated and enlightened than most, our views are right but our views cannot carry the day themselves.

“Which is where the ’God’ concept comes in. Our goals for the world are more important than we are. So if we have to do something trivial like violate bourgeois morality to advance them, we quite enthusiastically will.”

“Lying.”

“Again, semantics. And if we have to take more extreme measures, we’ll do that as well.”

“Death, slavery or Episcopalianism.”

“Object lessons, Mr. Johnson. We find that the common rabble believe ‘gods’ who actually do things.

“Besides, isn’t that what gods do? Reward their devotees and punish their enemies?”

A verse from Daniel suddenly occurred to me. “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?” I said, more to myself than to the computer.

The computer actually seemed amused. “We know what you are implying, Mr. Johnson. But learn this and learn it now. As far as this world is concerned, we are it’s one and only god!”

Suddenly, an alarm went off. I heard a technician say, “There’s some kind of a power surge!”

“Locate source.” said the computer, resuming its business-like monotone.

“We can’t!”

“Compensating.”

Back came the technician. “It’s not working! The power is still climbing!”

The light inside the cube grew brighter and brighter and I was suddenly aware that the floor was vibrating. Outside, I could hear a terrified woman shout, “It’s off the charts!! What’s happening?!!”

The floor was shaking now and the light became impossible to look at. So I calmly left the computer and walked out to where all the technicians were in a general panic. “Ladies and gentlemen,” I called out. “If I were you, I’d abandon ship.” Most immediately did.

I walked outside and down to the end of the driveway. I leaned against the front of the truck to watch the show which was not long in coming.

Everyone in the cathedral, famous or otherwise, ran screaming outside and scattered in all directions. Then the roof blew off the cathedral and an enormous shaft of light, as big around as a giant sequoia, shot straight up into the sky.

Voices came from that light, an uncountable number of them, all shouting at once. I couldn’t tell what they were saying but I thought I could make out “We’re free!!” as the shaft, reaching the heavens, broke up and scattered in all directions.

It was the most glorious thing I had ever seen.

The entire sky was now a sheet of flame from horizon to horizon and I could hear people screaming all around me. Back in the cathedral, the computer loudly and relentlessly repeated, “COMPENSATINGCOMPENSATINGCOMPENSATING…“ I looked up at the eye which had only one expression now.

Terror.

“’The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground?’” I murmured.  “‘Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the LORD.’”

As soon as those words left my mouth, a gigantic lightning bolt, bigger than any I had ever seen, shot across the sky slicing the tower in half and causing it to crash to the ground.

The fire in the sky went out.

It was over.

In the city, I could see people walking around tentatively, as if they‘d just awakened from a terrible dream. I heard police sirens in every direction.

And I remembered everything now. All my cases. All my friends. And the two people I loved more than my own miserable existence.

A passing police car suddenly jammed on its brakes and the officer got out and ran over to me. “He’s right here, Sarge, he’s right here!! Patch it through!! Mr. Johnson?”

I slowly looked over. “You have a phone call, sir,” the officer said, extending me a cell phone. “It’s the President of the United States.”

I took the phone. “Hi, honey,” I said as matter-of-factly as I could.

Nicky was overwhelmed. For a while, “Chris…Chris…” was all she could choke out through her tears. Finally my wife managed to say, “Baby, what happened?”

“Later. Do you know where Paul is?”

“He’s with me. Chris, I have to see you right now and Paulie wants to know when you‘re coming…”

“First things first. You have a job to do. There are probably going to be a lot of people who aren’t where they’re supposed to be and some of them are pretty young. You have to get them home.

“Get hold of Price, he should be at the Michigan number, then start getting things organized. Bring Paulie into it too, he’ll like that. I’ll see you when I see you.”

“I love you so much.”

“I‘d hand over my life for the two of you. Hug the big guy for me,” I told her. I hung up and then asked the officer, “Do you mind if I make a long distance call?”

“Not at all!” he excitedly replied.

I dialed an upstate New York number. The Anchoress answered and also could barely say a word. “Mr. Johnson, how did you…what did you…”

“An explanation’s going to have to wait, Anchoress. But tell me something. What’s today’s date?”

“Why, it’s March 20…” The Anchoress gasped.. “2008. It’s…only been…three days.”

“The world can change in three days, Anchoress. Later.”

I handed the policeman back his phone . Then I looked over and saw the Episcopalians and their secular guests(the Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch had left) gathered around my truck.

They had asked me this question many times before but they had never asked it in such tones of pure and unrefined fright. “HOW?!!” Mrs. Schori shrieked at me. “HOW DID YOU DO IT?!! HOW DID YOU WIN?!! AGAIN!!”

“WE WON!!” screamed John Chane, his face crimson. “IT WAS BETTER THAN YOU!! IT WAS BETTER THAN ANYTHING COULD POSSIBLY BE!! HOW?!! HOW?!!”

Soon they were all shouting and screaming variations of the same thing at me so I patiently waited until they all fell silent and impassively stared at them for a minute or so.  Then, without a word, I got into my truck and drove away. 

Epilogue
I took the familiar back roads of Ness County, Kansas until I got to a farm. It hadn’t been lived in for years. But there was the house. Almost exactly as I remembered it. 

I took equally-familiar roads to the County land office, parking about a half a block away. Outside a store, two men were engrossed in a game of checkers which I watched for a while. They took no notice of me.

While the men playing checkers may not have cared who I was, the poor girl behind the desk at the County land office just about had a heart attack when I walked in. She looked at me wide-eyed for a few moments and then ran to get her supervisor.

“May I help…whoa!” the man said when he came out. “Mr. Johnson! What in the world can I do for you?!”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a plat map of the County handy, would you?” I asked. 

One was quickly brought over and I scanned it before pointing to a plot of land. “Who owns that farm?”

“The County, I guess,” the man told me. “Nobody’s farmed that plot for years.”

“How much would it cost to buy?”

“Anybody else can have it for $10,000. But you can have it for free.”

I took out my debit card. “I’d just as soon pay for it if that’s okay. And if my money’s good.”

The man took my card. “Of course it is. Just a…just a moment.”

Several minutes later, the man came back out with paperwork for me to sign. Then he handed me a copy of the deed. “Mr. Johnson, I have to know something. Why would you be interested in a farm?”

“A project,” I replied. “A fixer-upper.  Some place to hide.” I started towards the door.

“But why in the world would you pick Ness County, Kansas?”

I turned back and smiled. “It’s a…uh…it’s a long story.” Then I left the office, briefly pausing to watch the checkers players again before getting back on the road.

Since I took my time getting home, I made a lot of stops like that. I even pulled in to Webster and looked around. The place hadn’t changed much. All Saints, which I passed with no emotion, still dominated the Old Orchard part of town.

I pulled into Bill(not IB)’s for a drink. Bill’s alter ego, a software developer in Texas, hadn’t gotten home yet but was on his way. But Kathleen Lundquist was there and treated me with a whole lot more deference than I liked so after a quick bourbon-and-soda, I hit the road.

Everyone was much more concerned with getting everyone back where they were supposed to be so they didn’t pay all that much attention to me. But thanks to my wife’s organizational skills, what most people thought would take a year was almost completed in a little less than a month.

At stops now and then, I’d hear people say in hushed voices, “It’s him! Oh my God, it’s him!” but almost everyone left me alone. For which I was very grateful because I really didn’t want to talk to anyone.

Needless to say, when I finally got to Washington, my reunion with my family was WAY beyond passionate.

As for the Episcopal Church, there was naturally an extreme reaction against it as well as against all of western liberal Anglicanism. The Episcopalians actually had their defenders, many of them leftist atheists who thought it a perfectly fine idea to pick the lives and roles of other people for them.

But after many an investigation in most nations of the world, just about everyone concluded that there wasn’t much that they could do. The research into the computer was no longer available(or was being hidden).

So most people figured that since everyone would be watching the Anglicans until the end of time, and everyone made sure that the Anglicans knew it, it was best to help people readjust to their old lives.

As for me, the world seemed to have come to one conclusion.  All my prior cases were shadows. This one was the sun.

Medals began to be struck everywhere commemorating what I had done and holidays celebrating it began to be proclaimed the world over. Every city in the United States and every country in the world demanded that I put in an appearance, some of them quite forcefully.

So it considerably disconcerted just about everyone when I turned them all down.

I made it clear to Nicky that this one was not to be commemorated. There were to be no parades, no medals, nothing. I would give no interviews and cooperate with no filmmakers or documentarians. I knew that films would be made, I told my wife, I just wasn’t going to a part of any of them.

And I stuck to my guns.  Dale told me that the Pope was planning to invite Christian leaders from all denominations from all over the world to St. Peter’s Square for an international celebration of my accomplishment. Would I consent to be the guest of honor?

“No,” I responded.

Price couldn’t believe it. “Are you…damn it, C, do you know what this could do for the Gospel?!” he snapped.

“Yeah, I do, D, and I pray that it does,” I told him. “I can’t begin to explain it but it has to be this way.”

Eventually my wife couldn’t stand it any longer.  I’d spent a pleasant evening at the White House with Nicky, all my friends and associates and their families along with just about every other celebrity you could name.

After putting Paul to bed and reading him his favorite story, I came downstairs and was about to take off for home in order to avoid the crowd which assembled first thing in the morning any time people knew I was at the White House.

I picked up my bag, kissed my wife goodbye and had just started toward the door when Nicole suddenly barked at me, “Damn it, Chris, why don’t you want to talk about this?!!”

I stopped and looked back. “I have my reasons.”

“Chris, we need to know and we need to know now!!   What did you do in that cathedral?!!”

I stared at them all for at least two or three minutes. “What did I do?“ I finally said. “I didn’t do anything at all.”

Nicky was stunned. “Then who freed us?!!”

There was a bookshelf near where I was standing and a Bible on it which I tossed over to my wife. “Zechariah 4:2-6,” I told her.  Then without waiting for her to find the verses, I left the White House, got in the truck, found the interstate and headed west.

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