Getting into Santalmo was ludicrously easy. Lucia told the guard to fucking let her in and he did. She told a man in a lab coat to fucking give her his keycard and he did. It was all rather anticlimactic.
The entryway and front offices were filled with enough natural light to make Finsternis twitch and were tastefully decorated in warm wood tones and lush greens, accented with blues that invoked summer days and tropical beaches. Everywhere were huge pictures of growing things: seas of corn, rippling wheat fields, close ups of ripe apples, succulent peaches, glistening pears.
Lucia’s stomach rumbled. “I don’t suppose we could visit the cafeteria?”
Finsternis shook his head, hair a brilliant purple halo under the skylights.
People bustled about, as attractive as the decorations, women in dark, sharply tailored suits and stiletto heels, every glossy strand of hair in place, men in dark, sharply tailored pinstriped suits and colorful ties.
Lucia looked at her own dress and for once didn’t feel shabby and out of place. She couldn’t be sure what anyone saw when they looked at her, but more than a few men gave her appraising glances and several of the women lingered on her sandals. All of which would have delighted Lucia if this weren’t the one time she wanted to pass unnoticed. Despite that, no one denounced the pair as inhuman or attempted to stop them as the progressed farther into the building.
Back in the labs, behind massive metal doors with guards on both sides, the decorating ceded to practicality: white walls, tile floors, chrome and locked doors. Conversations were hushed, shoes were flat, clothes were comfortable and covered by white lab coats.
“Um, Finsternis? Do you realize we don’t have any idea how to find Famine? We don’t even know his real name.” Lucia kept walking anyway, cork wedges silent on the tile, the only sound the quiet jangle of her big, dangly earrings. Finsternis, as always, made no sound at all, though it seemed his heavy combat boots ought to have.
“Yet you have not slowed down one whit since we entered this place,” he replied.
As soon as Finsternis spoke, Lucia felt it, an inexorable pull forward. Had God himself appeared in front of them, Lucia didn’t think she could have stopped. It was an effort not to attempt to walk straight through the walls to get to-
She smacked face first into a windowless metal door. Frantically, Lucia waved her stolen keycard in front of the reader. A tiny red light blinked once. Of course. Not every employee of Santalmo would have access to every lab.
Lucia turned to Finsternis. “What do we do now?” she asked frantically. She needed, more than anything, to get through that door.
“Do not worry, Famine can feel it, too,” he replied calmly.
As soon as he was done speaking, the door opened. A man poked his head around cautiously, eyes widening at what he saw. Before he could duck behind the door, Lucia smiled as widely as she could, and chirped, “Hi! Nice to meet you! We have so much to talk about!” as Finsternis grabbed the door and held it open.
Lucia walked forward, forcing the man to back up out of her way. Behind her, Finsternis stepped into the lab and closed the door behind him. Lucia stopped, allowing the man to put some space between them. Despite his slack-jawed terror, Famine seemed like a perfectly nice man in his late 50s to early 60s, overweight, most of it around his middle, round faced and double chinned. Greying brown hair in need of a trim faded into a fully grey beard, also in need of a trim. Rimless glasses sat on a pug nose, enlarging brown eyes. A crisp white lab coat covered a worn yellow dress shirt and charcoal slacks.
“What . . . what . . .” he stammered.
“I’m Lucia, daughter of Satan.” Lucia gestured at Finsternis. “This is Finsternis. He’s a demon. From Hell.” She looked at Finsternis, who was displaying every fang in a look that could only be called bloodthirsty. “Stop that, Finsternis.” He glared at her, but closed his mouth.
“I . . . um . . . security?” Famine offered.
“You know, I think you should sit down. You don’t look well at all.” Lucia led Famine to a chair behind a desk covered in graphs and printouts. She turned to Finsternis. “Find him something to drink before he passes out.” Finsternis growled, but obeyed, picking up a bottled water on a nearby shelf and handing it to Lucia. “Here, drink this.”
Famine drank the water, closed his eyes, then opened them. “You’re still here.”
“Well, yes,” said Lucia.
“You have elf ears,” noted Famine weakly.
“Yeah, not really sure what that’s all about. Satan doesn’t have them,” replied Lucia.
She happened to glance over at Finsternis, mostly to make sure he wasn’t silently threatening Famine again. Finsternis’ face was caught in a look somewhere between surprise and revelation.
“Um, why are you here?” asked Famine, recapturing her attention.
“Oh, well, as it turns out, the Apocalypse is upon us,” began Lucia.
“Like in the Bible?” asked Famine.
“Yes, just like that. And, well, as it turns out,” Lucia paused. Famine was a nice, middle-aged man. He needed a haircut and some new clothes and likely took cholesterol lowering medication. If he had any hobbies at all, they were probably the same sort of geeky things Lucia herself enjoyed. He probably knew the exact number of redshirt deaths in every Star Trek series. And she was about to ruin his life. She sighed. “As it turns out, you are the first Horseman of the Apocalypse, Famine.”
Famine blinked at her, took off his glasses, examined them for smudges, put them back on. “What?”
Finsternis lunged, grabbed Famine by his neck and hoisted him out of the chair one-handed. Finsternis’ eyes were amethyst fire, his voice a chilling, multi-toned howl. “You are Famine, first Horseman of the Apocalypse and if we do not kill you, you will bring starvation and death to billions.”
“Kill me?” Famine struggled weakly, unable to dislodge Finsternis’ hand.
“Put him down, Finsternis,” Lucia said tiredly. “Please.”
“Since you asked so nicely,” he hissed, the sound of every poisonous snake that ever killed because it could, and threw Famine into the opposite wall, sending bookcases full of printouts, books, magazines and knickknacks flying. A picture landed face up on the floor in front of Lucia, the glass broken. A smiling Famine with brown in his beard held an infant in his arms. Lucia picked up the picture, handed it to Finsternis.
“Is this your child or your grandchild?” asked Lucia softly as Famine sat up, rubbing at the back of his head. Finsternis looked at the picture and his face softened, eyes dimmed.
“My son. He’s 8 now. My wife . . . we tried for so long and nothing, and then she thought it was menopause. She cried and cried and then,” Famine smiled. “We had a son. His name is Matthew.”
“ ‘Gift of God,’” whispered Finsternis.
“See, Finsternis? It’s not just demons who have children they’d like to save,” said Lucia.
Finsternis snarled, but his eyes stayed on the picture.
Famine struggled to his feet. “I’m Zachary Grant. I don’t understand. Are you here to kill me or not?”
“Nice to meet you, Zachary,” said Lucia automatically. “Finsternis is right. If you aren’t stopped, you are going to do something that leads to billions of people starving to death. He thinks the only way to stop that is to kill you. I’m hoping there’s another way.”
Lucia expected Famine- she couldn’t think of him any other way- to be surprised or offended, to deny what she said at the least. He didn’t. He looked thoughtful. “This doesn’t surprise you?” Lucia asked.
“Not really,” said Famine. He stood up, then glanced nervously at Finsternis, who was carefully placing the picture on Famine’s desk. One of Famine’s shirt tails had come untucked and his glasses were askew. Lucia wanted to pat him on the head and tell him everything would be okay.
“Why doesn’t this surprise you?” asked Lucia.
“Here, let me show you.” Famine pointed to his desk, but made no move towards it.
“Finsternis guard the door,” said Lucia.
“What was that, Lucia?” he asked threateningly, eyes flashing fire, fangs on display.
“You scared Famine for no reason, so you can go have a time out while the adults talk,” said Lucia pleasantly. Demon or no, he was going to learn some manners.
“I don’t think you should-“ Famine’s warning ended in a squeak. Lucia didn’t blame him, Finsternis looked like he was ready to erupt, which in his case tended to be spectacular. She pointed at the ceiling.
Fortunately, Finsternis took her meaning. He walked to the door and said darkly, “We are going to have a very long conversation about this later, Little Light.”
“Oh, yes, we are,” promised Lucia. She turned to Famine and gestured at the desk.
“Yes, so,” he sat in front of the computer, logged in, started up a program Lucia didn’t recognize. “It’ll take a few minutes for all the data sets to load up.”
He studied her curiously. “So, what are you? A nephalim. Nephal?”
“You know, that’s been bothering me, too.” She looked at Finsternis. “ ‘Nephalim’ is plural. Wouldn’t I be a ‘nephal’ or something?”
“Are we speaking Hebrew?” asked Finsternis.
“I guess not.” Lucia looked back at Famine. “You were raised religious, too?”
He shook his head. “We were holly-lilly Catholics growing up- attended Mass only at Easter and Christmas. You ever see those movies, the ones with Christopher Walken about the war in Heaven?”
“Prophecy? I love those movies!” exclaimed Lucia. Finsternis rolled his eyes. “Hey, Christopher Walken was a great Gabriel. Very bitter and disillusioned, filled with ennui. It was great,” said Lucia.
“The real Gabriel is an arrogant monster who longs for the day he can decorate Heaven with the heads of all Hell’s children on pikes,” spat Finsternis.
“Well, that’s just not right,” said Famine. “What did children ever do to him?”
“They exist,” answered Finsternis.
“I don’t know what’s worse, finding out that angels really do exist, or finding out that they’re a bunch of racist assholes,” said Famine.
“I know just how you feel,” agreed Lucia. She pointed to the screen, now displaying strings of numbers. “What’s that?”
“Genetically modified K. Planticola, or, as they call it around here, K. Granticola,” replied Famine.
Lucia laughed. “What is it?”
“K. Planticola is a bacteria that is found in the root system of every plant on Earth. It aids in decomposing dead plant matter,” Famine explained. “The problem is, it doesn’t work very fast, so farmers take the leftover debris from the previous growing season and burn it to get it out of the way.”
“I bet that’s not good for the environment,” said Lucia.
“Or for the farmers’ lungs,” replied Famine. “In order to solve those problems, I spliced K. Planticola together with a bacterium that digests plant matter to produce alcohol.”
“What would that accomplish?” asked Finsternis.
“The K. Granticola is aggressive, efficient. Put the waste plant material in a container with the K. Granticola and in a very short period of time you have alcohol to sell. What farmer is going to burn material he could turn into money?”
“It sounds great, so what’s the problem?” asked Lucia.
Famine sighed. “Look, I used to teach and do research at Boston University. My wife was an assistant professor of sociology at couple of local community colleges. We weren’t rich, but we were comfortable. But, she was fifty when she had Matt. There was a lot of strain on her heart by the end of the pregnancy. They had to deliver Matt early. She just couldn’t work after that, and between her health problems and Matt’s stay in the NICU, we had to tap into our retirement.”
Famine looked at Lucia with pleading eyes, begging her to understand his choices. Lucia nodded, she understood the desperation he must have felt.
“So you understand that when Santalmo saw my work, just a preliminary paper exploring the possibility of turning pollution into income for subsistence farmers, and they offered me a job . . . it was five times what I made at BU,” he finished with a whisper. Lucia would have confronted the rationalization, but Famine clearly didn’t accept it himself.
Finsternis was not so understanding. “Get to the part where your work starves one-third of the planet, Horseman,” ordered Finsternis, “We do not have all day.”
“Yes, that. Really it could be everyone on the planet, depending on how far it spreads,” said Famine sadly.
“Everyone?” asked Lucia and Finsternis at once.
Famine waved a hand at the monitor. “The tests we do around here are always under perfectly controlled conditions with sterile soil, but K. Granticola won’t be used in a lab, it will be used in the real world, where the soil isn’t sterile and conditions aren’t perfect. I . . .” he looked around, lowered his voice, “I stole some. Took it home. Used it on the herbs my wife keeps in pots on the back deck . . .” he looked ready to vomit.
“Why would you use it on living plants?” asked Lucia.
“B- b- because K. Planticola is, quite literally, everywhere. There is no plant on Earth that doesn’t have K. Planticola living in its root system. Not one. K. Planticola is not a danger to living plants. K. Granticola is. Modeling here in the lab shows that K. Granticola doesn’t spread. It consumes the dead plant material and then dies when it runs out of food,” Famine stopped, his face that of a man reliving every mistake leading up to his last, unable to stop his forward progress despite what he knows is coming.
“K. Planticola and K. Granticola can and will interbreed. K. Granticola will spread. I put the herbs in the sunroom, put the K. Granticola in one pot and by the end of two weeks, every plant in every pot was dead.”
“What are the projections on spread if it’s used on a farm?” asked Lucia. She felt cold. Two weeks. It took K. Granticola two weeks to spread from one pot to another. How fast would it move if it didn’t have to cross the gulf of tile or hardwood?
“The executives put too much money into this. They’re losing money on the whole organic food fad, and they keep saying that they’ll make sure people use K. Granticola in closed containers. There will be warning labels, you see. They wouldn’t even let me use company computers to do the projections. They don’t want proof if . . . I did the projections at home, on my personal computer,” said Famine. He took off his glasses and scrubbed his hands over his beard.
Finsternis flew across the room so fast all Lucia saw was a purple blur. He had Famine bent backwards over his chair, straining against the metal to get away from the enraged demon bearing down on him. “How long?”
“Ah, ah, four to six weeks to wipe out everything in North and South America. There’s a possibility they could keep it off the other continents with sufficiently stringent quarantine . . .” Famine trailed off.
“So, what, you were just going to let Santalmo sell the end of the world and not say a word?” snarled Finsternis, a sound like a hundred wolves chasing prey. For once, Lucia didn’t try to stop him. Sick wife and kid or no, what was Famine thinking?
Famine sagged as if all his bones had melted. “You should kill me,” he said. “I deserve it.”
“No!” Lucia didn’t give Finsternis a chance to consider it. “Killing you wouldn’t help now. They already have K. Granticola. They don’t need you to kill the world.”
“Then what must we do?” asked Finsternis.
“The data!” She shoved Finsternis out of the way, grabbed Famine by the lapels of his lab coat and forced him upright. “You have proof, right? You’re a good scientist, you kept a record, right?”
“Of course I did!” replied Famine.
“And?” rumbled Finsternis. Famine started shaking.
“We take the data and put it on the net. We send it to CNN and MSNBC, post it to 4chan and every conspiracy message board we can find, email it to every university we can.”
“You think that will help?” asked Famine.
“Oh, I think it’ll shut Santalmo down,” replied Lucia. “Look at what happened to Obama’s health care plan. That crap about death panels had absolutely no basis in reality, but it killed a program that could have helped tens of millions of people anyway. We get your data out and K. Granticola is done. And we-“ she looked at Finsternis, “move on to Pestilence.”
“War,” Finsternis corrected. “Revelation has the order wrong for some reason.”
“Whatever. Let’s go.”
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