For The Death of Satan

The angel knew it was time to leave. It had chosen this body because of its emotional potential, but the emotions of the man had gotten in the way of success. The angel determined to be more careful with its next choice. Right now, this man's body was shaking so fitfully between rage and insanity the angel could hardly hold the gun steady at its forehead. Hard to miss your own head, but the man's autonomic nervous system shook beyond the angel's control. Finally, for a moment, the hand steadied long enough for the angel to push the weapon against the man's sweaty forehead and squeeze the trigger finger.

The explosion caused a slight shock of disorientation to the angel, but it recovered within a few minutes. Messy but necessary, there had been no easer means of death at hand. No matter. The angel began to detach its essential self from the blood and guts that made up the dead man, slowly cell by cell, he pulled apart and lifted up and out of the body with the ease of long practice. Hovering above, he looked down disgusted at the sprawled form of the stupid little man who had served him for fifteen years. The one that was supposed to finalize the goal and bring his domination to fullness. The little man should have won.

The sound of machine gun fire outside the bunker reminded the angel to call his workers up to get the body. He had enough time, even with the enemy at the door, but he no longer wanted to view this dead, wimp of a man who had risen to the top then fell into madness.

Immediately at the angel's mental signal, workers popped into the bunker like corks out of a bottle, grabbed up the body's legs now angled in impossible contortions and readied to pop back out again on the angel's signal. Looking once more at the scene, blood and brain matter now splattered off the dead man’s head onto his new bride Eva who lay poisoned on the couch. Mustn't leave the bride out of hell. The angel snickered and indicated with a nod that this body should be taken as well.

The angel shook its head. It never failed of itself; it was always the humans who proved too inadequate or weak to finish a job. The angel slid into the time sphere of the operating room confident that the bodies would be operated on then put back on earth in the exact time frame from which they were taken, as if they'd never left the place. Gobbles would burn both bodies to ash as he'd been instructed. This generation's science was primitive but the angel wanted no detectable evidence laying around for scientists of the future. Best to think ahead, something these sub-humans often failed to do. Abruptly, he decided to discontinue mundane thoughts of the present time and think about his plan for the future.

An idea had formed during the last battle that gave the angel a hint of who would fit best as its next habitat, but he needed to check the time records before making the final decision. His workers called the people he inhabited victims behind his back. What tripe. Hitchcock stepped into his own creations too. I too play a part. He chuckled in anticipation at how the next part would play out. The man Hitler had been corrupt from the beginning, too high strung, but this next one would be perfect because he planed to join a century of good breeding with his own genius mind.

In a corner of the dim operating room, Dea and Sharon, because they were both so short and small were almost hidden by the instrument cart in front. As they sat huddled against the cold walls of the rocky cavern they each threw a hard layer of nonsense thoughts over the top of their secretive messages to each other. Sharon shook her baldhead in fear, her large eyes black in the dim light. But her slightly elder twin, Dea, also genetically without hair as all the workers were, was determined to go through with the plan.

"We must," she argued finally in a normal voice, "If we don't we will never get free. You know this. And he is getting more violent each generation."

"But what if he finds out?" She sniffed back a tear of fright. "You know what he’d do."

She visibly shuddered and Dea felt sorry for her. "We don't have a choice. I’ll do almost all of it."

"I don’t want to know." She pleaded.

"You won't. Maybe at the end, that's all."

Dea gave Sharon a gentle squeeze of encouragement but reminded her to keep the chatter of nonsense thoughts playing inside her head. They had learned to use these surface thoughts and silly speech to cover up their real thoughts because he had access into any one of their minds he selected if he chose to listen.

When the angel, still in his spirit form, popped into the cavern's operating room, he noticed the two doctors huddled together in the corner as if whispering secrets. He listened for a moment to each of their words and thoughts but herd nothing but rubbish. Silly girl talk, not worth my time. He smiled at his own joke because time had become his playground; it was the use of time that made his physical travels back and forth to the surface undetectable. He smiled an invisible grin. A walk in time, greatest discovery ever made

The angel sent a sudden mental shout to the huddling doctors, “Visiting time is over. I'll be in the archives. Call me as soon as you set up.”

Doctor Dea nodded and rose with the grace of her kind, but Sharon had been in such a frightened state of mind that his mental shout shocked her. She stood up too quickly and bumped the instrument cart so hard that one of the scalpels slid off the cart, flew through the air a number of feet, then dropped to the stone floor with a sharp clang.

For a moment the angel wondered if it had been an attack against his person, but no, he instantly realized, impossible while he was in his state of non-physicality. They lacked such inventive talent. Yet, her clumsiness had broken his concentration and this called for censure.

“That was an expensive piece of steel,” he said then left the cavern.

The doctor turned whiter and doubled over throwing her small arms around herself as she dropped to the cold, gray tiles.

Dea could do nothing but watch in horror as Sharon fell to the floor. She knew first hand what the sharp jabs of searing pain and mental agony felt like. Also, she knew there was no way to stop the pain. She was receiving a smaller portion of the pain herself as were all the workers near-by in the cavern. As soon as she could assume he was gone, she bent down and held Sharon close as her tiny body trembled then finally relaxed in exhausted relief. The pain had stopped now and Dea lay Sharon gently back on the floor. She breathed a sigh as the pain left her too, her own tears dry on her cheeks.

They both needed to put the scrubs on because the dead bodies would be rolled in soon and the mental leads needed to come out quickly. But Dea let Sharon rest for a few longer minutes and hoped this would be a short session. She did Sharon's job as well, setting up the tools they would need. They weren't given instructions ahead of time and had to be ready for any number of bodies. The only thing Dea truly wanted to be ready for this moment was to stick a sharp knife into the monster’s inner core.

Impossible. She sighed and let her anger dissipate. Five masters of operations had tried it before her time, five failed. Rumors all agreed that they suffered horribly each and every moment of life and that they were never allowed to die. She shuddered. I have a better way. But would she dare? One of those five had been her mother. Yes, she would dare; she spent every moment of her own life secretly dreaming up ways to kill the thing that called itself an angel. The people of earth had the right name for him. They called him Satan.

The opportunity to get rid of the monster had never come, so she decided to make her own arraignments. She intended to use a different type of knife, not made of steel. She smiled, but only for a moment and only to herself. Not even Sharon knew how the plan would unfold. Too dangerous to tell her. Besides, she couldn't complete her plan until she learned who his next victim would be. The door opened and when only two bodies arrived, Dea sighed with relief. There had been times when as many as twenty bodies were off loaded at once and the doctors had had to work around the clock to empty them of the mind leads. Only one of the nodes belonged to Satan, the other character nodes belonged to those he considered impeccably corrupt enough to receive the honor.

Dea slipped the knife into the brain's frontal lobe past the node. Then with deft fingers she reached in with the help of the magnifying tool pulled out the small mind node that looked like a piece of sand off a beach. When she got done cutting the strands of nerve endings off it, Sharon would place it in a nutrient bath. With steady nerves Dea held the small grain between the tweezers and wished she could snap it in two, but it would never break. As far as she and a few hundred others could discern it was indestructible. Maybe a solar furnace if she could find one, but more important, how would she get it there without being stopped by Satan? She signed and handed the crystal to Sharon to clean and get ready for its insertion into the next victim. Very soon, they would be performing the operation in reverse.

Although his present state was bodiless, the angel managed to hover above the tablets of destiny and, with a little effort, flick through the archival pages forwards and backwards until he found the right person. From there he went to the stored television images. He was certain of his choice now and only needed to confirm a few facts. He didn't want any loose strands to come along later that might interfere with his work. This time he wouldn’t need to lift a person up from the bottom of social ladder; although, such a person could be dynamite, this time he wanted to choose someone already seeped in power and greatness. But not a pope. The angel paused as he remembered himself as a pope confined in the holy cage of the Vatican. The only mistake I ever made. This next choice will be perfect. After he satisfied himself that all the particulars were correct, he called in the transport workers and gave them the specific directions as to where his next habitat could be found and picked up.

Dea was anxious to know who his next victim would be so she could make her own plans so felt relieved when the drugged victim was rolled into the room and the cart locked down in front of the computer interface. The body was that of a man in his mid forties, handsome but somewhat plump around the waist with dark hair and large, hairy eyebrows. She turned on the computer to begin the scan. As the computer moved over the deathly still human, Dea watched each detail as it became visible on the long, life size screen, every pore, hair follicle, scratch, or scar was entered into the program. The view from inside the body showed even more minute details of nerves, ganglion, brain synapses, vital organs even down to individual cells, in short, everything a body needed for life, except, of course, the spirit, life’s vital essence. His over-riding crystal character node would supply that. The complete physical status of the man had been stored inside the program within less than an hour. Now the person’s memories started playing out on the screen which was the only reason the man was still alive. Even their super computer couldn’t copy memories from a dead mind. They need a live, drugged person to make copies, which the computer did very effectively. Dea stood by the cot and watched the person's life flicker like a strobe light in front of her eyes. Now she knew the person inside and out, everything except the man’s name.

Dea glanced at the vitals once more, but the name had not been included. This was odd. She mouthed ‘name’ and gave her Sharon a questioning look, but she shook her head. Unusual, this put a hold on her own plans.

Had the monster made a mistake? No, it never made mistakes. There must be some other reason for the person to remain nameless. Dea shrugged off the concern for now as attendants wheeled the drugged man away to be disposed of. Other attendants had already brought the blank body form up from the freezer vats, thawed and ready to be reformed. Like a piece of raw meat. Dea felt a queasy spasm in her stomach which reminded her why she stayed a vegetarian.

While she had been busy copying the victim's vital organs and memories into the computer, Sharon had taken Satan’s personal node out of the serum bath and set it out with the proper operating tools on the tray. She then wheeled the blank body form to face the center of the long computer screen. They were both practiced at what they did, no mistakes were tolerated, so they didn't make any.

Watching a pink slab of meat rise and fall with breath was enough to give anyone a nightmare. Took getting used to, that’s for sure. She looked down at her hands and realized for the hundredth time that she wouldn't be doing an operation so much as an art form; she would inter-weave the code stored inside the computer with matter, much like sewing a leather purse together. The computer did most of the tedious work of replicating the physical and mental aspects of the body; her job was to oversee that every cell converted in proper sequence.

As she worked the computer, her mind drifted and again she found it distracting that the name of the person was missing. Surly he hadn't learned of her plans, they were hardly formulated as yet. Why did he leave off the name? There must be special plans brewing for this habitat. Of necessity, he had to reveal certain information to his highest workers like the operating managers, which is me, this shift. So why not a name? As a last step, she made the microscopic cut in the new formed skull and inserted the node into the brain matter and attached the nerve endings. All this was done by remote controlled instruments. Now the life form was ready for Satan's personality to be switched on. Not unlike Frankenstein, Dea thought. The transition will soon be complete, a piece of hibernating, raw meat changed into a living person.

Dea opened her mind and called to him that the set up was ready. She felt his presence as he entered the room and, still invisible, lay down on top of the new formed body. Dea pulled up the information of Satan's essence held in an encoded computer program. A flick of her finger and the node became activated. Dea saw the man’s small finger twitch and then the mouth move as the nostrils expelled a breath. The chest rose and fell in rhythm. Now two personalities rode in one reformed body, man and monster. Dea held her scream inside.

As soon as the operation was done, Satan sat up on the table, shook his head as if to clear it and stepped down and began to walk around the operating room prancing like a Bantam rooster. Dea knew he would leave soon because he was in double time. As a doctor, she knew that no matter how much he bragged about having all the time in the world, double time deteriorated his body by cutting years off his new life. He would remain in the chosen body until death, natural or induced. Right now, he’ll go back up to earth side and re-enter at the exact same instant the real man had been picked up and brought down to the cavern. A little twist of time was all it took. If he didn't get accustomed to the new body right away, he would feign sickness. But she doubted he’d have any trouble; he had been changing bodies for thousands of years. Rumor had it that his real body had dissolved long ago and that he needed each new body to stay viable.

He isn’t the only one with tricks, Dea said to herself. Her mind could just as easily step though time. She also knew about the time folds and how to play the game. Regardless, she would need to use great caution to slide her own plan between the cracks of time. She intended to stick a new actor on Satan’s stage. Shakespeare said that all the worlds a stage. He didn't know how right he was, or did he?

Later, when she was certain Satan had left for the surface, Dea slipped into the archive room. Her hope was that his search would have left a trail of who the man was on the cart. Dea was one of the few who had access to the pages of destiny, though danger lurked the closer for her because of it. After a quick search, she noticed his imprint after WWII. That made her job easer because she could check through the television runs. Soon her search narrowed to Europe about fifteen years after the war. The image of the man who had been on the cart suddenly popped up in news clips around the world, the movie clips showed him being crowned as King Alexander.

This is it, the one who would bring the dreaded end-time, the end of freedom and hope. It would occur at some time during this man’s life that Satan will conquer all of earth. If she didn’t act soon, it would be forever too late. This is why he wanted this choice kept secret. He knows that many of us would stop him if we could. Does he also suspect that up till now they had managed to disrupt most of his sure wins? His plans were always so grandiose that toppling them had been simply a matter of pushing the good people of earth to move against him. This time, through concealment and deceit, he meant to defeat all of them with an earth shattering event that would capture all the people and hold them in a never-ending loop of servitude. Not if I can stop him.

This is what Dea intended when she sent her mind searching back months though time. She found her perfect fulcrum in Ireland: Joanne, a poor, shabby girl whose breast were still growing and whose small face glowed beneath a bushel of wild, dark hair. She was an aspiring poet, which was exactly what Dea hoped to find, and she also had a quick, open mind. If she hadn't, Dea would have needed to keep searching.

Joanne liked to lay down amid the heather and brilliant green grass and contemplate mysteries that swam beyond the green hills, and that is where Dea first spoke to her. Not many people would have been able to listen to an unattended whisper in the ear with equanimity, but Joanne did. She smiled and accepted the whispers the first time Dea spoke.

Wisely, Dea didn’t reveal her own needs to Joanne immediately; besides, she had come far enough back before the end time to give them both the long months they needed to earn each other’s trust and friendship. The extra time would also help Dea keep to her usual schedule in the operating room plus give her the time she needed to order certain secret supplies. During their many visits they talked about philosophy, science, and heaven. Joanne had picked up the notion that Dea was an angel whispering in her ear. She didn't deny it, her only lie to her during their friendship. Finally, on one of the visits, she explained why she had come.

“I need a job done. One that only you can do.”

“I am like chosen, or something?

“Yes, exactly.”

“Chosen for what?” Joanne flipped her hair back and it rippled beneath the cool sunlight in a wild mass of henna highlights.

Dea yearned for massive locks just like Joanne, dark and sensuous but Satan had destroyed that possibility. They were all born bald now. She sighed and said, “You will be an actor in a play who steps on the stage at the right time.”

“That's all? Sounds like fun. When do we start?”

“As soon as I set it up.”

“But why? I mean what’s it for?”

“Rid the earth of evil.”

“You’re kidding! Right?”

“No. Not.”

“Wow. This is big.”

“Yes it is. Bigger than you can imagine.

Dea left in a worried state of mind. Satan had to be stopped, but Joanne was so innocent. Dare she use her for such a purpose? Well, David brought down Goliath didn't he? All they needed was the right size stone.

In the meantime, Satan was on earth enjoying the new body he had chosen. His chosen king wasn't aware he had a resident companion yet, but soon would be. Already his personality fit his own so easily the first thing they did together was decide which war to fight; because, of course, there must always be war. He looked smugly out from the king’s eyes as he shoved papers to the side of his desk. Then he moved into the king’s interior mind and joined him as he sat back thinking of the extra work the Indian ambassador had caused him. He chuckled and pushed the king’s anger into a higher gear. The king had begun keeping a tight schedule too; he fired anyone who dared be late. Soon he would have a heart of stone. He already disliked “The stupid heads of state who believed they should always get the best accommodations.” The king often sent these pompous visitors to sleep in the coldest room of the palace. With a single decree he could fire the whole staff. All this with only a few months of my influence. Oh, the disorder we can accomplish together. He chuckled out of his king’s throat and liked the feel of it. The king seemed unnerved for a moment. He chuckled again.

Her look at the time stats had convinced Dea that her plan needed to be started now. The accuracy of the time stats was not perfect because events changed frequently, but their prediction for general trends was always good, and the latest trend showed Satan already buying up nuclear material and storing it in different countries. Earth's scientists were fast improving their technology which put Satan’s destructive tendencies on a grandiose, Godlike plane. This time around he meant to gobble up earth whole and spit out the parts he didn't want, like giblets. The end-time would likely happen during this victim’s cycle, but she meant to stop it cold, as if it never happened.

The fake lives Satan lived gave him the power he craved and the ability to change events on earth for his own purpose. This was bad enough, but worse was that he lacked a conscience; he thought nothing of leveling a whole city just to attack a single person. But his need to satisfy his human craving was one trait that she hoped to turn against him. Every human had a fault and Satan’s was always a full life of power and sexual pleasure no matter who he chose as his current victim. A love for sexual orgies had become his trademark and she prayed it would also prove to be his undoing.

She watched the time strands as often as she dared to study Satan as he went about the daily business of being a king, admitting heads of state, knighting people, playing power games. By now, other fake people with their own mental nodes had been put in place to help support his goals, but Dea paid them little attention. Mere extras, their job was usually to increase the system's corruption when they received a signal to act. Her plan pivoted on a single fact: Once Satan entered a new personality; he was stuck in that personality until death. The body’s death wasn’t the problem. The node that rode inside the body was. The only time he was weaker was when he was rising up out a body; therefore, it was her job to make sure what ever she did stopped that rise. The end needed to be quick and sudden; his mind would need to swim in confusion for a single second, just long enough for the substance to do its work on his character node. The thought of what she contemplated shivered her nerves in fear so bad she began to sweat, but the fear did not water down her determination.

At her next visit with Joanne, she told her she could begin to play her part. Dea smiled as Joanne’s full mouth grin and big eyes glistened in trust. Did she deserve her trust? Could Dea save her when she toppled Satan? She would give it her best try. Joanne was a good-looking girl whose only fault seemed to be a deep shyness. Maybe that was why she didn't have a boyfriend yet. That might be a reward worth fighting for.

“After this is done, I' am going to match you up with the perfect young man of your dreams.”

“A handsome, smart man with big shoulders and huge hands?”

“Yes.” She laughed out loud into her ear. “I promise.”

Joanne flipped her head back rippling her masses of dark hair. Dea could see the dreamy hope in her eyes.

“But the job comes first.” She said and then explained to her what must be done.

“What! You want me to write poetry to King Alexander! That’s silly.”

“No, that is exactly what you must do. Then get yourself invited into his palace of delights.”

Nervous now, she said, “Is it the only way?”

“Yes.”

“Then I'll do it. I'll write of my secret love for him, and make my poems soulful with longing. It would be easier if he had a different name, but Alexander will do.” She flipped her head then looked down at her tablet as she chewed on a pencil.

“But then what?” she asked.

“You don't want to know.” Dea said and left.

As the next few months rolled along. Joanne's poems to the king found their way into the newspaper and became very popular, so popular that the king could no longer ignore them. He finally arranged for an informal meeting one early evening between himself and the young poet who wrote such sweet lovely poetry.

Now it was time for Dea to set her stage in such a way that it was hidden by a time fold, but ready to be used at the exact moment she chose. The set up had to be exacting as to measurement and place, and done between her other duties, but finally the time folded stage was set up between the palace walls. All she would need was for Sharon to flip a switch.

“Will you do it” Dea asked Sharon. “That’s all you need to do.”

“But what will the switch do? No, don’t tell me.”

“I won’t”

It was best to keep the whole plan to herself so only she was libel. Immediately, she realized the fallacy in her thinking. He would not stop with her; he’d punish all of the workers and people everywhere. Her legs weakened at the thought of the kind of punishment that he was capable of. It meant that she dare not fail.

The time had come. Joanne was escorted into the palace for her evening visit with the king. Satan's hedonistic drive was caused by his lack of true emotions and this drove him to a frenzy to prove to himself he had emotions. Joanne’s shyness should be irresistible. Dea hoped and planned that it would happen on the first night. She called to Sharon and told her to stand in the hidden time fold corner of the palace near the bath room, just in case.

“The time fold will hide you.” she told Sharon. “You are invisible to him.” and prayed fervently that this was true.

“Don’t move until I say.”

The fright on Sharon’s face stared back at her, but she persisted and said, “Just flip it when I say.”

She would have done it herself, but the switch had to be hidden and made ready for use in the precise instant when needed. She needed to be available to instruct Joanne and decide the exact timing for the change. The need for such exact precision made her nervous, but, as she convinced herself, she was a doctor and therefore had nerves of steel. She rechecked the set up and all was in readiness. She had planned on Joanne’s innocence and natural shyness as the perfect lure. The fake king would not be able to resist. Dea was sure that Satan would choose to play with the young virgin by teasing her into the inner chamber, as opposed to the use of force. Her assumption proved right because, before the evening was done, after sending the help away, King Alexander managed to maneuver Joanne closer and closer to his bedchamber. Sly like a fox. If the situation hadn’t been so chalk writing on the board nerve-racking, Dea might have laughed; as it was she could barely keep still from fear. Every time Joanne innocently skirted away, the king plied her with more tempting sweets and promises of bliss. The music of violins and flutes played while perfume puffed through the air and Joanne backed herself up to a wall and the king pushed up next to her and spilled his red wine on her blouse.

“Oh, all the help has gone.” The king said, “I’ll get you a wrap.”

Now, Dea knew, is the time to act.

Suddenly and quickly, while the king had turned away to reach for a folded wrap set near the divan, as if in readiness. Dea, as Joanne’s invisible angel, whispered instructions into her ear.

“Move towards the bathroom over to your right. Walk in slowly and teasingly next to the sunken bath. Do not step on the soft rug laying at its side. Walk around and to the back of it quickly.”

Joanne did as her angel told her. The king hot on her trail followed carrying the unfolded wrap.

“I’ll take the wrap into the bathroom with me.” Joanne stuttered her words to the king. “I..I..nee…need to get my blouse off.”

This tease seemed a delight to the king who now handed Joanne the wrap allowing her to move ahead into the bathroom.

As Joanne stepped over the threshold of the bathroom, Dea, who had been hiding in the bathroom mentally called to Sharon, “Now.”

The time fold turned as if on a carousel and this changed two contents in the tiled bathroom. Only Dea could detect the change of bath water into liquid nitrogen. At the same time, another time fold turned and deposited a slippery silicone spray beneath the soft rug at the side of the sunken elegantly, tiled bath.

Dea held her breath as Joanne stepped further into the hot steaming room then gingerly walked around the rug to stand in the back. The king followed. He reached through the steam to clutch at Joanne but as soon he stepped on the rug it slid out from under him. Caught off guard, the king’s arms swung up, his face, ghostlike in the billowing steam, twisted in the air, as his body fell into the steaming tub. The room recorded a low, sucking gulp instead of a splash of water.

The moment of truth had arrived. If Dea was wrong, she and all the people in the cavern would be severely punished over and over again for her sin. All those lives depended on the split timing of the carousel turn she had used to switch the tub full of water with one filled with liquid nitrogen.

Dea let out a breath. Did it work? She noticed Joanne still standing in back of the bath and told her to get out and go home quickly. She called to Sharon to come out from the time folded corner.

No pain yet. Dea waited then dared open her eyes to see Sharon half bent over the sunken tub of hot steam. She raised her head and looked at Dea. The black roundness of Sharon’s open mouth and large eyes on her white face would stay with Dea forever.

A spasm of fear escaped Dea as she bent over and stared into the steaming liquid bath. The body must have froze instantly when it fell into the nitrogen bath. It lay shattered into a thousand pieces on the bottom of the hot tub. But what of Satan’s mind node? The thing that passed for his soul?

Still gripped with fright, Dea stood next to Sharon at the bath’s edge. A million slow minutes ticked through Dea’s mind, then an hour dragged by, then two. Finally, Dea breathed a sigh of release.

She stepped over and turned the time fold back in on itself and the bath once more was filled with water but minus a king who would go forever missing.

As she’d promised, Dea searched all of Ireland to find the perfect young man for Joanne. She deserved it.

The End