Existentially Challenged, page 23
Nita Pavani herself was sitting in the middle of the explosive display, typing away at her computer like a bored church organist. When she came into view, Anderson slowed his noisy freight train advance, clasped his hands behind his back, and continued approaching in what he thought was a casual saunter, kicking his legs up high with each step and sending a fresh wave of tremors through the floor every time his feet came down.
“Hello, Sean,” sighed Nita, not looking around, already tired from the effort of pushing those two words through her glumly pouting lips.
“All right, Nita?” said Anderson chummily, standing behind her and rocking on his heels in a manner suggestive of an oil pump jack. “Still saving the world one tweet at a time?”
“I suppose,” she muttered.
“Boy, that Miracle Dad friend of yours,” continued Anderson, rearing back and folding his arms. “Really knows how to work a crowd, eh? Kicked up quite a stink with that last interview.”
“So I hear.”
Anderson was beaming happily at the ceiling, not even acknowledging her responses. “Pity he doesn’t realize he’s swimming with the barracudas now, eh. Oh, he did a lovely job dunking on that cardboard-cutout vicar you set up for him the other night, but oh bugger me, is he in for it when he comes on Evening Issue tomorrow. The bloke the church has got lined up . . . blimey. Miracle Dad’ll be like a holiday camp entertainer warming up for Aerosmith.”
Nita finally looked at him. “Why are you telling me this?”
Anderson grinned like a freshly polished cemetery. “Just hoping that Modern Miracle realize what they’re getting themselves into,” he said with relish.
Nita returned to her computer screen and gave the Enter key a vicious swat, as if trying to kill a fly. “And why do you assume I have any insight into what Modern Miracle do or do not realize?”
Anderson’s smug pose and expression didn’t change, but after a few seconds of frozen silence, an air of awkwardness began to creep in like the smell from a poorly covered septic tank. “I . . . thought you were doing their PR,” he finally said.
“Well, I’m not,” she said, spitting the words.
“Oh” was all Anderson could say.
“And for the record, it wasn’t me who set up that last interview,” said Nita, seemingly addressing her keyboard. “That was the idea their other PR person had. And now it seems Miracle Dad has decided he only needs one PR person.” She smashed her Enter key again and sniffed deeply, hoisting her nose high. “Perhaps I had a few too many X chromosomes for his liking.”
“Right. I get you.” Anderson took a step closer. “So who is doing their PR?”
Nita rolled her eyes. “Nice try, Sean, but I’m not giving you any ammunition. Even if they do think showy media stunts are more important than real societal change.”
Anderson realigned his posture and gave a little huff to get his energy back. “You know what? Great. Now I know you’re not actively plotting against the state religion, maybe this government can go back to working together as professionals. Just as well, really; my budget for contract killers was running low.” He rubbed his hands together theatrically, but deflated again when he saw Nita still refusing to pay him the slightest attention. “Oh, bollocks to you people. I’m gonna go yell at Education. They’re good for a decent punch-up.”
THE NEXT EVENING
38
In contrast to Shgshthx Tonight, Evening Issue was a serious political debate program scheduled to air just after dinner, right when the audience was fully energized and about to start drinking.
As the severe drumbeats of the opening theme faded, the spotlight came up on one of four leather swivel chairs arranged in a semicircle against pitch blackness. The presenter, Pippa Mormont, dressed in a dark gray pantsuit with lapels sharp enough to pierce an apple, looked to camera with a severe but curious look. “Good evening,” she said. “On Evening Issue tonight, the ongoing question of magic and religion. With new protections for extradimensional citizens made law, should the Christian Church be held accountable for magical appropriation?” She spun with dazzling grace in her chair to face a different camera, one that was framing her with the two chairs on her right. “Arguing that it should, we have Miracle Dad, the high priest and chief spokesman of the online extradimensional community Modern Miracle.”
A light came up on the nearer chair to reveal Miracle Dad, who had been forced to exchange his usual T-shirt for a featureless button-down dress shirt by the wardrobe department. He was sweating uncomfortably in this more formal setting and was clutching his legs hard enough to leave dents in his kneecaps. “Hello.”
“As well as Modern Miracle’s chief public relations adviser, Mr. Rajesh Chahal.”
“Good evening, Pippa,” said Chahal as his spotlight came on. He was dressed in a suit jacket and tie and was sitting comfortably with his legs loosely crossed. He offered the camera a confident smile, briefly flashing his teeth like a glimpse of a concealed dagger in a sleeve.
“And arguing that it should not, we have Pastor Thaddeus Barkler, chairman of the North American Evangelical Fellowship for Christ,” said Pippa, turning the other way.
The man sitting to her left looked into camera as if it had just been introduced to him as his daughter’s new girlfriend. He was tall and slightly overweight with no discernible chin and an angular mass of gray hair sculpted harshly around his ears to frame his features. His lips were tight, puckered, and constantly twitching, as if he was extremely unaccustomed to keeping his mouth closed. “God bless you,” he said, the sentiment of his words at extreme odds with the naked fury blazing in his eyes.
“If I might start with our guests from Modern Miracle,” said Pippa, turning away from the American pastor with undisguised relief. “Your organization has been the source of this debate since it began. What exactly is it that you want the church—or indeed, any of the world’s leading religions—to do?”
Chahal smoothly took the lead, anticipating the plaintive look Miracle Dad was about to give him. Miracle Dad was clearly out of his element without an admiring audience to work off. “Pippa, I would argue that this debate began with the X-Appropriation Act, or at least should have done,” he said in a calm and measured voice. “What we want hasn’t changed. We want organized religion to be held to the same standard to which the law holds everyone else. To either prove that their figures of worship do exist and exert extradimensional influence upon the world or stop claiming that they do.”
“Pastor Barkler,” said Pippa, with an enormous inward sigh of depressed anticipation. “Do the beliefs of the Christian Church violate the X-Appropriation Act?”
Barkler’s lips were already quivering with rage so hard that it took him quite a lot of effort to sneak a few words past them. “This television show is an affront to the lord,” he seethed, with eyes like peeled grapes rising to the top of a pot of boiling water.
“Hm,” said Pippa, nodding interestedly with one hand supporting her chin. “But if I could press you to address the specifics of the question . . .”
“The lord is all things, and all things are the lord,” clarified Barkler. “The lord cannot violate the law of man. It is only the law of man that violates the lord. You are all guilty of crimes against the unassailable word of god.” It was clear what his favorite words were from the way he heaved them from his mouth like corpses being dumped over the side of an overloaded boat.
“What do you say to that, gentlemen?” asked Pippa, to break the suddenly frozen atmosphere.
“Er,” began Chahal, before getting back on track and opting to direct his words at Pippa. “We at Modern Miracle certainly aren’t trying to antagonize religion, or any religious person. We want the law enforced in its original spirit. To protect extradimensionally infused people, and to ensure that people seeking extradimensional services, such as Modern Miracle’s healing practice, know that they’re getting the real deal.”
“The lord is the real deal,” countered Barkler, jerking forward as if he’d just sat on a hedgehog. “There is no power but the lord’s power!”
“Oh, is that right?” said Miracle Dad, perking up now the discussion was turning combative. “I think El-Yetch might have a couple of things to say about that. There’s a little boy who was gonna die inside a year who the lord didn’t seem to be coming through for. He came to us, and he was doing cartwheels in the garden after ten minutes.”
“Pastor Barkler, I understand that you conduct faith healing sermons at your own church in Missouri,” said Pippa, feeling the need to stir the pot.
“The lord rewards those of us who have faith,” said Barkler, raising a pointed finger as if erecting a cross. “You peddle in the droppings of satan. All those you taint are damned to burn in hell. Suffer not a witch to live!”
Chahal blinked. “I’m sorry, did you just say that extradimensionally infused people deserve to be killed?”
The tactic of appealing to Barkler’s sense of shame immediately proved ineffective. “I am just a deliverer of the lord’s message,” he declared, folding his arms. “It is not our place to question the word.”
“Is this a joke?” asked Miracle Dad, addressing Pippa. “How are we supposed to debate this nutcase? He’s off his trolley.” He looked Barkler up and down. “Probably thinks trolleys are the work of Satan.”
“Do not mock the lord,” countered Barkler. “The power of the lord is greater than you can possibly imagine. You must end your rituals of satan and beg the lord for forgiveness or be dammmmmned.” He kept the m in damned going for a full three seconds.
“All right!” said Miracle Dad, sitting forward. “Since it sounds like the lord’s up for a proper fight, why don’t we cut to the chase? Let’s have a contest. The lord versus El-Yetch. Whenever you like.”
“Er . . .” said Chahal, staring at him.
“What are you proposing, Miracle Dad?” asked Pippa, recrossing her legs. “A contest of what exactly? Faith healing?”
“Yeah!” said Miracle Dad, his energy fully restored. “We’ll line up two sick kiddies, put them in the same room—he can have one, and my Miracle Meg can have the other. We’ll see who gets healed first. Do it all scientifically and the like. Sound good?”
“Do not test the lord,” warned Barkler, shifting uncomfortably. “The miracles of the lord will not appear for the unfaithful.”
“El-Yetch’s do,” pressed Miracle Dad. “We’ve got them on video. Livestreamed and everything. And they work on pretty much anyone. Turns out it’s, like, pretty useful for miracles to work on the unfaithful as well, because they tend to become faithful really bloody quick. Come on, don’t you want to show the world how powerful the lord is?”
“I won’t let you drag the lord down to your level,” said Barkler, determinedly refusing to make eye contact.
Miracle Dad was leaning forward and pointing at Barkler provocatively. Chahal leant in and nervously plucked at Miracle Dad’s outstretched sleeve. “Perhaps we should get back on topic . . .”
“Oh sure,” said Miracle Dad, sitting back and folding his arms smugly. “If he’s not up for it, he’s not up for it. Guess he doesn’t have as much faith in his lord as we thought.”
Barkler had been starting to slouch in his seat and cringe a little bit, but he instantly sat fully upright again with an audible pop of bones. “How dare you?! My faith in the lord is unshakable!” The pointing finger came out again. “The lord will meet your challenge. And He shall strike you all dumb with the power of faith.”
“W-well, it seems both sides are amenable to a . . . contest,” said Pippa, adjusting quickly.
“Yes, but realistically,” interjected Chahal, trying to lean back into the center of the shot, “something like that would require some kind of unbiased judge, and I don’t think you’re going to find—”
“Ooh! What about DEDA?” said Miracle Dad, pushing him back. “They declared neutrality when this all started. We’ll get someone from there to organize it. Sort out a venue. And we’ll broadcast it around the world. And whoever loses has to stop pretending they’re really doing magic.”
“I welcome it, for the lord will come through,” countered Barkler, with a little burst of spittle.
“It seems this debate will be continuing,” said Pippa, turning to camera with the kind of confidence one can only have from knowing that everyone else’s mike has been cut. “Will the Department of Extradimensional Affairs agree to arrange a televised contest of magical healing? Will El-Yetch or the lord emerge victorious? Could this really be the only way to settle the differences between magic and religion? I’m Pippa Mormont, and this was Evening Issue.”
The moment the cameras cut, Rajesh Chahal left Miracle Dad and Barkler to exchange contact details at maximum volume, nimbly dodged between a couple of technicians, and exited the studio. He hurried straight down a hall and out into the garage, where he clutched his head and screwed up his eyes in frustration.
The moment the door behind him fell closed, all the stress disappeared from his face and posture. He glanced around to assure himself he was alone, then ducked behind a convenient shelving unit against the nearest wall and dug out his phone.
His call wasn’t picked up, but he wasn’t expecting it to be. He tapped his foot with increasing excitement as he waited for the automated voice to finish inviting him to record a voicemail.
“Hey, it’s me,” he whispered, powerless to stop a smile spreading across his face. “You will not believe how well this is going.”
THE FOLLOWING MORNING
39
Elizabeth Lawrence was making her way into the DEDA building to begin the day’s work. She dodged the now-inevitable protest outside the front entrance—this time it was the turn of the pro-religion side, waving banners depicting cartoon-bearded wizards with crosses through them—and paused with her hand on the door when she spotted Anderson. The orange bristles of his hair were drifting through the crowd toward the building like a shark’s fin at a crowded beach.
Elizabeth paused for less than a second to emit a microscopic sigh, then pretended she had seen nothing and proceeded into the building. She was showing her ID to the guard at the front desk when the doors flew open and she heard Anderson stomp his way up to her like the unfeeling inevitability of death.
Without turning around, she threw up a finger. “Anderson, before you say anything, we are obviously not going to organize or encourage a televised faith healing contest between two cults. You can calm down.”
“Yes you bloody are,” said Anderson calmly.
Elizabeth finally looked at him. His eyes bore the usual degree of balled-up tension and fury, but his mouth was pulled into a mischievous smile.
“You’re not seriously saying . . . that you want this to happen?” asked Elizabeth, scrutinizing every inch of his face.
“O’ course,” he said.
Elizabeth waited patiently for the gotcha, probably in the form of a clarification like “as soon as hell freezes over” or “as much as I want to shove my face into a bucket of used hypodermics,” but he silently returned her gaze. Anderson took the opposite approach to Elizabeth when it came to concealing his true feelings: he usually expressed himself as loudly and aggressively as possible so that the truth became lost in the noise. As such, his calm demeanor came across as total sincerity.
“You left me four voicemails last night,” said Elizabeth levelly. “I only understood about half the words, and most of those were obscene.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve had a bit of time to think since then,” he said, embarrassed. “And now I think it’s worth doing. You see that?” He cocked a head toward the entrance, outside of which several protesters were now performatively praying in front of an inflatable Jesus. “The gridlock from that shit is sending the city down the economical poo pipe, and it isn’t going to stop until they get closure. Preferably sooner rather than later. And this would be sooner.”
“I thought you were on the side of the church,” said Elizabeth.
“I am!” His smile twitched. “I mean, obviously I and this government are unbiased and only want security and happiness for all the people of this nation.” He glanced behind him and lowered the tone of his voice. “But off the record, yes, I am. So what?”
“Anderson, you know what will happen,” said Elizabeth, in the concerned tones of someone chairing an intervention. “Modern Miracle uses actual healing magic. My agents have confirmed that to our full satisfaction. The church is going to be totally humiliated.”
“A church,” corrected Anderson, grinning wider and waggling a pointing finger. “That sect of snake-handling weirdos Barkler runs across the pond. No one in the Church of England thinks he represents them. Hell, most of the nutters in America don’t either. Bloody country’s got more denominations than people with basic health care.”
Elizabeth looked away, attempting to hop onto his train of logic as it steamed through her station. “Even so . . .”
“But it’s all the same to the magic weirdos, isn’t it?” He tapped the side of his head meaningfully. “They’ll chalk it up as a win for their side, calm down, and forget about this stupid suing-the-church idea. And then the whole country can come back together in solidarity over a bunch of mouthy nutjob Yanks getting taught a lesson.”
“And you’re certain of this?” asked Elizabeth skeptically. “You’re certain the church will be happy about the existence of God being disproved on live television?”
