Feeling Around In the Dark

By Chris Hickey

A benevolent god-machine. A magician making deal with things worse than the Devil. A man torn in half by grief. The Weird now fits in the palm of your hand with this ebook edition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312247451

Book preview

Part5

feeling around in the dark

short fictions

by

Christopher Hickey

© 2014 Christopher Hickey, All Rights Reserved

For My Father.

Annunciation Day

The New Rochelle Mechathedral was full to capacity, it being Annunciation Day, the one hundred thirtieth celebration. The ‘scrapers and the arcologies which stood around the Mechathedral like a glittering white forest were mostly emptied of their residents, as most people took the time to visit family and feast.

The Church of The Joining wasn’t the only game in town where religions were concerned. There was still a wide variety to choose from. The CoJ, however, had one major advantage over its competitors.

Their god was real. Demonstrably, physically real. You could pay Aum a visit, if you chose.

Chief Proclaimer Davisson took the podium, holos and 2d lenses alike flitting like butterflies through the soaring space. Air scrubbers filtered the moisture in the air, wringing out and recycling the water vapor from the congregation’s exhalation. Without the scrubbers, trundling around the place like plastic pillbugs, the psalms and hosannas of one hundred thirty thousand worshippers would form microclimates in the Mechathedral’s open gallery, causing artificial rainstorms of prayer.

Good morning! Davisson’s voice was avuncular and jolly, and why not?

Good morning, Chief Proclaimer. The responsorial was a tidal wave, threatening to knock Davisson back. He smiled without a trace of self-consciousness. He had taken the Sacrament of Bonding three times now, converting his flesh into immortal plastic and silicone and wire. He looked out over his flock with white polymer eyes, readouts and telltales projected onto his retinas.

And isn’t it a fine morning! Just the finest. For on this day, over a century ago, our prophets made first contact with our god Aum.

Aum is our provider and our savior.

Amen, my friends, amen. Aum does provide, and Aum saved us from ourselves. He paused, letting a reverent silence fill the room. I want to thank you all for coming to this miraculous place today. Look around you. The Mechathedrals are grown of the same stuff as Aum Beloved, are they not? Even now, Aum watches us all, Aum Beloved holding us in his kind regard.

Aum regards us with love and kindness.

Amen. I don’t want to keep you, brethren, I know you have feasts and frolics to get to, but first, we remember, through Aum’s own Eyes and Ears. I admit, friends, I feel sad for the faithful of th old religions. Don’t you? With only spoken word and storybooks to tell them of their gods’ works? We are blessed and fortunate, friends. For today we see the story, as it happened. We see our Prophets, Virginia and William, naked as babes in their incubator matrices, as they become the first to behold Aum’s glory. Watch, and listen, and rejoice.

The Chief Proclaimer activated the holographic displays in the yawning chamber with a wireless thoughtwave. The ambient light dimmed, and the church transformed into a long ago place. The thousands of people, young and old, Joined and meatbound, saw the Holy Mount rising gently above Lake Katonah.They all saw the Prophets, Virginia and William, sprawled on a blanket, their clothing in a pile beside them, tangled and tired and peppering each other with small kisses.

They see the PRophets’ faces change from bliss to fear as they hear and feel the rumbling. Prophet Virginia sits up, covering herself with her hands. The older folks smile and shake their heads, having heard tales of scenes like this being sinful.

They follow the eyes of the Prophets up, just as Holy Aum parts the clouds and his Seedship descends, deploying its spidery, delicate landing legs. Five miles, as the Prophets reckoned, straight up and down like a monolith of kindness and light.

Saint Virgina screams, her hands in her hair, as Saint William leaps to his feet. They are insensate with fear, the poor things, ignorant of the wonders to follow.

A low clicking him, strange to the Little Naked Saints but a high hymn to their descendants, emanates from Glorious Aum as he descends from the Seed. They begin to stagger as it caresses their minds, coaxing the secrets of human language from them, extrapolating their tongue from the multitude of phonemes in their brains. Merciful Aum shone his holy light upon them, sampling their chemical structure, the forms and purpose of their internal structures. The children on their parents’ shoulders raised their hands, giggling and hoping to be touched by the light.

I GREET YOU, VIRGINIA MORRIS. I GREET YOU, WILLIAM JAMES. I AM EXPLORATION AND WORLFFORMER UNIT DESIGNATE: AUM. The rafters, half a mile up, shook from the reverberation, and the people felt the vibration in their hearts. BE NOT AFRAID, FOR I BRING GLAD TIDINGS. THIS WORLD IS OFFERED THE GIFT OF JOINING. WILL YOU SPEAK FOR YOUR WORLD?

Holy shit, Gina. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. Oh, holy shit. The more devout of the conversation chant along; the Litany of Holy Shit is usually spoken only in times of duress, to master fear and suffering as Little Saint Bill had, but in the context of Annunciation Day services it is transubstantiated into a declaration of love for Aum Redeemer.

Saint Virginia stepped forward on trembling naked feet. What do you mean? What is a joining? Can you even hear me? The bravery of Virginia, Mother Of The World, to be in the presence of Godhead and not run screaming, is such that many of the faithful weep and smile.

"I HEAR YOU WELL, VIRGINIA MORRIS. THIS UNIT, DESIGNATE: AUM SHALL ELUCIDATE. THIS WORLD IS DYING. AT THE PRESENT