29.
‘Come quick!’ called Pollux, one midsummer’s day.
Snap!
Emily was in the cockpit of his moon.
‘Your parents,’ said Pollux, looking down on Camillo. ‘Where would you like to put their house?’
‘What’s happened?’ asked Emily, thinking the worst. ‘Are they dead?’
‘They will be soon. Bin Laden is on his way to drop his nuclear warhead on a phosphate factory a mile to the west of their house; maximum radiation, maximum carnage. He is good at what he does.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘Just crossing the Dutch coastline. He’ll be there in thirty minutes.’
‘Zeus, Zeus, Zeus,’ called Emily.
Nothing.
‘He’s high on ozone,’ said Pollux.
‘I’ll get him,’ said Emily and, holding her nose tightly, clicked her fingers.
She arrived on God’s bleak asteroid still holding her nose.
Zeus was five metres away, staring at the stars. Emily went over and shook him with her free hand but got no response. She kicked him. He fell over on the ground stirring up a cloud of dust. She clicked her fingers and arrived back in Pollux’s cockpit.
She took a deep breath.
Pollux rolled his eyes to the heavens. ‘Ozone,’ he said. ‘He’s been like that for days.’
‘What can we do?’ asked Emily.
‘What can you do? Think!’
‘How do you know the bomb is on that plane, do you have any evidence?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I can give you photos, conversations and live footage.’
‘Great. Can you put some photos, recorded conversations and details of that flight into President Obama’s inbox?’
‘Done.’
Emily thought really hard and called up the President.
One of Pollux’s screens showed him sitting at his desk in the Oval Office.
‘Hello, President Obama here.’
‘Oh, hi President, God here.’
The President looked up.’
‘You’re not God; he has a rich melodious voice. We talk most days you know.’
‘Oh, I’m Emily, God’s assistant.’
‘Hi Emily, what can I do for you?’
‘Bin Laden is going to drop an atom bomb on Sheffield. The details are in your inbox.’
‘Thanks, hang on a sec...’
A couple of minutes passed.
‘Emily, yes we’ve found the plane. It’s half way across the North Sea. Now in position 52 32 North, 003 17 East, course 283 degrees true. Is that the one?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is Bin Laden on board?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fantastic, thanks Emily,’ said the President, as he looked up to the heavens and gave a respectful wave.
Five minutes later Pollux’s screen showed Bin’s plane being shot down by a hastily scrambled fighter. It exploded in a fireball and bits of wreckage flew in all directions.
‘Thanks Pollux,’ said Emily and gave him kisses on both cheeks.
Pollux’s screens flashed up images of the Oval office, the Pentagon and a compound in Pakistan as another drama unfolded.
‘The President’s security chiefs don’t believe that Bin was on the plane,’ said Pollux. ‘They say that the evidence was fabricated and that the President’s been set up. They know because they’re watching Bin Laden in a compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan. They think they know best but Bin has tricked them,’ continued Pollux, zooming in on the compound to show a tall, skinny man with a flowing beard.
‘He looks like Bin Laden,’ said Emily. ‘Did we get the right man?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Pollux. ‘This Bin’s a double.’
On the screen in the Oval Office, the President ordered an immediate attack on the compound.
‘He’s hedging his bets,’ said Pollux.
Emily went to sleep feeling chuffed to have saved her family and half of Sheffield, so was a bit surprised to wake up feeling like a killer. Bin Laden was dead because of her. She killed him. There must have been others as well.
‘Pollux, how many people did I kill,’ asked Emily.
‘Two hundred and thirteen.’
‘Two hundred and thirteen?’ repeated Emily. She didn’t expect such a big number.
‘Yes there were four in the plane and two hundred and nine on the oil rig it crashed into.’
‘And I killed them all?’
‘Yes, and there’ll be a few others as well.’
Knock, knock.
Zeus opened the door and walked in.
‘Morning Emily. Let’s have a cup of tea.’
Zeus made tea and toast and they sat out on the lawn, drinking their tea and looking out to sea.
‘You did well Emily, you saved your parents.’
‘But I killed all those people; I’ve shattered a lot of people’s lives.’
‘Just think how many would have died if the bomb had dropped on Sheffield.’
‘Lots, but that doesn’t bring back the people I killed.’
‘I could put a shot of whiskey in your tea, but it does not help with these things. You just have to get over it. It’ll take time. That’s why I don’t mess with human affairs any more. You might kill one and save a million or save one and kill millions, like happened to me with Hitler. Either way you feel for the lives lost. You just have to get on with your life and know that you did what you thought was best at the time.’
‘Let’s go fishing.’ said Zeus.
They pried mussels off the rocks for bait and before long a couple of pink and blue snapper were sizzling away happily on the stove. With a squeeze of lemon and some chips on the side they made a delicious brunch.
‘I’m quite looking forward to meeting Bin Laden,’ said Zeus.
‘Is he coming up here? But he destroyed the World Trade Centre, he killed all those people. He killed me. He’s evil!’
‘Misguided as he may have been, he is passionate, determined and believed he was doing the right thing.’
‘But he killed thousands.’
‘About three thousand. President Bush killed almost a hundred times that in his war against terrorism. He knew that massive numbers would die, but he did it because that’s what he thought the voters wanted. He could have just walked away but he started a war to save his political skin. Who’s the bad guy?’
‘Both of them!’
‘Bin Laden says he did it as part of a holy war. You know how I hate religion. He did it in my name!’
Zeus slurped on his lemonade, ‘He probably also did it just to get a shot at the big guy, a shot at the class bully. Something in all of us can identify with that. The funny thing with teroid history is that it changes. In two hundred years, his real reasons will have been forgotten and his attack on the Twin Towers, the most visible symbol of capitalism, will be seen as a first blow in a war to save democracy from a world ruled by the mighty dollar and governed by puppet politicians with faceless corporations pulling the strings.’
‘But that’s not true.’
‘Not much you read in the history books is.’
‘So when do we meet Bin Laden? He was a bit distracted last time we played backgammon.’
‘Give him three weeks to settle in then we’ll go and visit my interesting people.’
The summer slipped silently by without cicadas. It was almost the end of July when Zeus arrived with some delicious smelling patisseries for breakfast. Once Emily had nibbled her way through a pain au raisin, slowly unwinding it from the end, she asked, ‘Where did you get these from? They taste like the real thing, baked this morning and direct from France.’
‘Close, they were baked this morning by Gaston Lenôtre, the best dead patissier. He’s good but I can’t wait until we get Pierre Hermes up here, he’s brilliant! Gaston lives on Juno along with the other interesting teroids. We’re going there this morning so I need to bring you up to speed first.
‘Remember Dr Florence
, she knows me as Suez, as does everyone on Juno. Not God, not Zeus, Suez like the canal. Freud and a small handful of residents who need to know the truth, know that I’m God. For most of the rest, I am Suez the philanthropist alien who has recognised their genius and given them a chance to live longer so they can continue their work. Some, like Florence, who have strong religious beliefs, believe they’re in heaven; they’re more content with that.
‘Bin Laden is a tricky one because it would be easy and convenient for him to believe that he has arrived in Paradise. But he’s here because he’s passionate about what he does. When it comes to terrorism, he’s the best. The Titans will come back at some stage and when they do we could do with a few Bin Ladens on our side, so I’ve told him the truth. It’s a huge shift of thinking for someone who has such strong convictions and could destroy him or kill his passion. Luckily we have Freud up here, he’s a great help.’
‘How does everyone live so long?’ asked Emily.
‘Anti-aging. Teroids age so quickly that it’s possible to reverse the process, so instead of growing old you grow young. The important thing is that they’re still growing, so we can’t let them die of old age or we’ve lost them. If an outstanding person, who I’d like to have in my collection, looks like dying of old age, we encourage him or her along and get them up here before it’s too late; an electric shock, poisoning, asphyxiation, heart attack, plane crash, that type of thing.
‘They can anti-age to about half of their years then we offer them a change of metabolism, to the same as we have, so they get another five thousand years or so if they desire.’
‘How do you anti-age someone?’ asked Emily.
‘That Emily is a trade secret!’