Michael-Lan noted down the list of angels identified as being part of the rival conspiracy and decided he had his list of volunteers for pouring the next Bowl of Wrath. Then, he swept out, leaving Lemuel looking at his chart, a sense of fulfillment buoying his spirits.
“Noble One?”
“Yes, Gazardiel-Lan?”
“How could sin and corruption have spread even into angelic ranks?”
“It is the influence of humans, their accursed determination to think for themselves ever leads them into heresy and blasphemy. That is why The One Above All decided that their should be no more admissions of humans into Heaven. See what their mulishness has led them to? If only they had accepted what they were told without argument, the doors of Heaven would still be open to them.” That thought made Lemuel look pensive for without humans, what would Angels use as menial servants?
Then, another thought occurred to him and it troubled him greatly. For the bottle of elixir was truly sin and corruption but it was of a different kind to the arguments over faith that dominated this conspiracy. It was hard to imagine theological disputes over the interpretation of The One Above All’s words to be lubricated by human elixirs. So where did that bottle fit into this? It couldn’t, surely. Looking at his chart, Lemuel-Lan-Michael found his eyes drawn to the small number of names on Ishmael’s list that were not linked to the conspiracy he had uncovered.
Chapter Fourteen
DIMO(N) Office of Nonhuman History and Research, Pentagon, Arlington VA
Norman Baines sat at his desk quietly leafing through a text in medieval French recently transferred from the Vatican archives. To be truthful, ‘desk’ was an understatement, as the main table in his office was piled with various books as high as six feet and was becoming more of a fort. There were hi-res digital scans on his computer of course, but Norman absorbed the information better if it was in his hands.
“Anybody home?” A voice called in an atrocious cockney accent, “I’m looking for Professor Dumbledore.” A knock at the doorway snapped Norman out of his work.
“Charlie!” Norman jumped up, knocking over a pile of scrolls at his left and smiled. Rushing over, he gave his twin brother a big hug and then stepped back, “Hey, check out the hardware,” he made a motion of shining his brother’s rank insignia “Captain Baines, eh?”
“Reporting as ordered.” Charles smiled and presented a Vulcan salute to his brother. The memories from their youth made both men laugh. “After I brought your work to them, and did a bit of assisting on some of the new projects DIMO(N) working on, they felt a promotion was in order.”
“Oh yeah?” Norman raised an eyebrow. “What’s your new posting?”
Charlie paused, somewhat confused, “Uh… here? Norm? Bro… I sent you an email a week ago. I’m the new military liaison between the DIMO(N) Applied Technologies at Yale and the head of the civilian researchers here.”
Norman furrowed his brow and turned around to his desk, pressing a button on his keyboard, made of brass and faux stone. A familiar chime sounded, and after quickly scanning the text Norman whirled back,
“That’s great, Charlie, it sounds like all that engineering finally paid off! Well, let’s introduce you to the rest of the department, starting at the top!” Norman went to the doorway and called to his assistant “Carol, who’s the head of R amp;D now that O’Shea got kicked upstairs?”
Carol sighed slightly. “You are, Mister Baines. For almost a month now.” She shook her head and smiled. “You really need to stop reading demonology texts during department meetings.”
“Oh…” Norman walked back to his computer and tapped through another few e-mails, then shrugged his shoulders. “Then I guess… Welcome to DIMON, Captain Baines! We hope you’ll have a hell of a time.” He shook his brother’s hand. “Why don’t we get some dinner and then I’ll show you around.”
“It’s 10 a. m, Norman.” Charlie shook his head at his brother.
“Oh,” Norman checked his watch and Charlie noticed the numbers were a system he didn’t recognize. “I guess I did that whole staying-up-late reading thing again. Carol!” He called, “how long have I been here?”
“Almost two days, Sir. Today is Thursday. There’s a change of clothes on the hook in your bathroom. You can freshen up there.”
Norman glanced at his brother questioningly, and Charlie made a display of holding his nose in one hand and pointing with the other. Norman returned the salute and dashed off to his private bathroom while Charlie sat down, chuckling. “So, you’re the one who’s keeping my brother fed, watered, and fully-dressed?”
“Yes, Sir, Captain Baines; As much as can be expected. Sometimes he wanders off through the archives and we can’t find him. We gave him a GPS tracker, but he lost it.” Carol continued reviewing and compiling reports for Norman. “He’s a brilliant man, Captain, he just tends to get tunnel vision. A good assistant knows how best to direct and guide the people they work for. You should see some of the intel he pulls out of those texts, it’s astounding.”
“Yeah, you should’ve seen him when he was a dungeon master. Memorized about forty books in under two months.” He grinned. “The adventures were fun, too.” Carol smiled mischievously and held up a small, amethyst dodecahedron, “They still are, Captain. I have a level 9 Tiefling. Tuesday night is game night.”
Just and Charlie began to ask a follow-up question his brother returned, “Alright, let’s eat!” Norman bounded out the door, showered and dressed faster than any would have believed possible. “I think there’s a place in the food court that has fried chicken,” He stopped short and peered into the hallway, confused, “though I don’t actually know where it is…”
DIMO(N) Offices, Pentagon, Arlington, VA
After an enjoyable lunch, nearly an hour away from reading musty parchment, Norman was far more social and tuned in to the world around him. He was enjoying showing his brother around the massive suite of offices in the C-Ring that DIMO(N) now occupied. They came up to a large set of double doors and Norman chuckled, “Oh, now this is a great place, man. You’re going to love these guys!” He opened one of the doors next to a sign that read ‘Innovative Universal Dynamics’ and they stepped in. Charlie stood in awe at one end of a heavily modified by a mid-sized lecture. The walls were rife with computer screens, white boards, blackboards, and even squares of cork with thumbtacks. Diagrams, parchment, maps, charts, blueprints and unidentified documents spanning 3 millennia were plastered on every surface. Throughout the room dozens of men and women paced, strolled, stalked, or ran amongst the clutter, studying this chart or that text, conferring, arguing, and occasionally shouting. They worked at tables and computer stations set around seemingly at random, and off to one side there was a lounge set up with sofas and a small espresso machine where a handful of people were dozing peacefully.
“What is this place?” Charles asked in amazement.
“This,” Norman waved at the room in a grand proclamation “is where we try to make sense of it all. Since the discovery of the existence of Hell and Heaven, physicists have had to throw out a lot of what they thought they knew and start over. We’ve got people here from all over the spectrum that try to take what’s been observed about hell with what we know about our universe and try and fit them together. It’s sort of like a mad scientist convention, only with fewer super-weapons.”
A man in his late thirties walked up to the pair of brothers, and shook Norman’s hand. “Good to see you again, Norm! You here for another round?”
“No thanks, Doc. I’m just showing my brother our facilities, he’s the new liaison from ApTech.” He motioned to his brother “Captain Charles Baines, this is Doctor Junghalli, Lord of the Tank.”
“The Tank?”
“Oh yes, that’s what we call it.” Dr. Junghalli swept his arms around and up, as though he was addressing the masses of an imaginary throng. “Free-spirited discourse on the nature of existence- I suppose we could have called it a Salon but, well, these things tend to go their own way. If you’ve ever got some free time, Captain, feel free to stop by. An engineer with a military mindset could help immensely.”