Destroyers by Dave Mckay (latest novels to read TXT) 📕

in the world would be expected to recognise him as being part of Levi Xu Dangchao's royal family. Moses tested it out by getting a few clothes, but other than that, he had little interest in buying anything, since he had more than he needed back at the palace anyway.

Moses never saw Dangchao himself until almost two weeks after he arrived, and then it was almost by chance, as they passed in the hallway.

"Ah, Moses Chikati! So good to see you," the Secretary-General exclaimed when he saw him.

"Hello," Moses said quietly.

"So how is everything? Are they taking good care of you? Do you like it here?"

"I have all that I need," Moses answered haltingly. He added a drawn out, "Thank you."

"We have a press conference planned for next Thursday," Dangchao announced. "I want the world to know that you are my son. Moshe will tell you what to say."

In fact, Moshe had been preparing him for more than a week already. There was a speech therapist, working overtime to improve on his voice, but Moses' primary duty at the palace had been to work with a physiotherapist who had been assigned the task of getting his facial muscles to form a smile. He could now make the corners of his lips draw up into his cheeks, enough to create a reasonable imitation of his trademark grin. The main problem, however, was that he still had to consciously will himself to do it; there was nothing spontaneous about it, because he had no sensations to make him feel like smiling.

ButnMoshe had conditioned Moses to hear and respond to a signal that was only just barely audible to the human ear. Using this signal, Moshe could get him to make the smile at appropriate spots in the speech, which he (Moshe) had prepared. Together they might be able to convince the world that the old Moses was still alive.

 

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Chapter 31 The Entertainment Hall

Chapter 31. The Entertainment Hall

Moses spent most of his time in his room, where (when not sleeping or sitting motionless in a soft chair) he would browse through the books that had been placed there. Novels were of no interest now, whether based on truth or fiction. He could not relate to any of the characters, and even if he could, he had no interest in what they were going through, just as he had no interest in what he was going through. But he did have a casual interest in some of the reference books, especially those with plenty of pictures.

He left his room for most meals, and often on the way to or from the cafeteria, on the far side of the palace, where he usually ate by himself, he would check out some of the other rooms. The palace staff had been briefed to ignore his occasional interruptions to business meetings (which never held Moses' attention for more than a few seconds anyway). But, between therapy sessions, he spent time in and around the heated pool, where he learned that he could get more free massages.

On the morning of Moses' second day there, Moshe had pointed out the huge hall where Dangchao offered free entertainment to visiting diplomats each evening. Moses had not been back there until one Sunday evening, two weeks after he first arrived in Jerusalem... the day after he bumped into Dangchao in the hallway. The evening meal had finished a bit later than usual that night, and he was returning to his room, when he heard a noise, like someone was in pain, coming through one of the many almost soundproof doors that led to the hall.

The young man pushed through the door and entered a small stadium; but the sound had stopped by the time he entered. A hundred or more people, mostly men, sat around the perimeter of a smoke-filled room, overlooking a big oval-shaped stage that was a good ten feet below them. Empty seats at the back of the room were much higher than those at the front. Moses moved down to the gold railing on which arms and chins were resting, so he could get a closer look at what was happening down in the polished timber pit that served as a stage.

Below them, on the stage, someone was putting body parts into a wheelie bin, including the head and torso of what must have been a young boy, still in his teens. Moses guessed that it must have been the dying screams of this same boy that had caught his attention. He sat down in a seat near the railing and continued to watch as the cart was taken away, and as the stage was sprayed clean of blood by water coming from little jets built into the sides of the entertainment area. Everything disappeared down a drain in the middle.

"And now for some lighter entertainment of a sexual nature," said a voice over the speaker system.

There was almost a groan of dissatisfaction from many of those in the audience. Most viewers moved away from the rail, to rest their backs.

Moses must have looked confused, because a middle-aged woman in the seat next to him turned and spoke to him as if she knew she was explaining things to a novice.

"It's always like this on Sundays," she said apologetically. "Something to do with organising the sacrifices. Someone's day off, I think. Instead of sacrifices, they mostly do the same old sex shows. It'll be more than half an hour before they do another sacrifice."

"What do you come for?" Moses asked politely.

"Oh, I come for him," the woman effused, and she nodded her head toward an ornate throne on the opposite side of the arena. It was empty, but Moses guessed that it was for Dangchao.

"Most people watch the shows on TV these days," the woman said, "Or they go to the Temple during the week. Only diplomats get to see him here. It's not the same if you watch him on TV. You have to be here in person to get the full effect."

Diplomats had reasonable access to Dangchao in his role as Secretary-General, so Moses wondered why this woman would be making such a big deal over seeing him in person. But she was not the only one who wanted to be there to see Dangchao. Over the next few minutes others started to enter the hall, filling up the vacant seats. Curiosity was not a part of his new personality, but Moses had nothing else to do and he was not tired. So he chose to stay a bit longer.

"The Secretary-General comes on at eight o'clock each Sunday; it's the only night he appears here. Everyother night he goes to the Temple shows," the woman continued, with her hands clasped over her heart like a starry-eyed teenager. Her eyes rolled upward as she tried to imagine (or perhaps to remember) how it would be when the man of her dreams made his appearance."It's too hard to get close to him at the Temple, but here we are only a few metres away."

The half-hour of live sex that preceded Dangchao's appearance was far more than live sex. It involved animals, rape, children, and some audience participation. But, as Moses had observed ever since his strange recovery at the Aga Khan, none of this fazed him. He knew it was wrong. He knew it would have sickened him in the past. But he was a different person now... with only an academic interest in what was happening all around him. He took more interest in the arrival of new spectators, turning to gawk each time another door opened, as he took in the actions of the "entertainers" down below.

There was, for his part, little to interest him when Dangchao came out also, despite great fanfare from an invisible orchestra. By this time, at least three or four hundred diplomats had squeezed into the tiny arena, and they were totally silent in anticipation. While Moses had enough memory to understand that spectators would find the atrocities exciting, he still could not understand what was the special attraction about Dangchao himself.

Suddenly there was a deafening roar, and every spectator in the stadium dropped to their knees in the space between their seats and the ones in front of them... everyone, that is, except for Moses Chikati. The raspy roar was coming from Dangchao's face, which had changed to the face of a creature that was half-animal and half human. His expression was so horrible that the reaction from everyone else in the room was totally understandable to Moses as he looked on from his unique perspective. Dangchao had not noticed that Moses was in the hall until this happened, and then it was not clear whether he was angry with the young man for his indifference, or whether he was proud of him as his "son".

Moses was not thinking about Dangchao's reaction at all, however, for his mind was occupied with a search for where he had seen that same hideous face before. And then it came to him. It was the face that had appeared in the clouds of smoke over the burnt out forest in his near-death experience. Dangchao (or whatever it was that was manifesting itself through Dangchao's body at that particular moment) had been present in his near-death dream... if it really was a dream.

Moses simply rose to his feet and walked out through the same door he had used to enter the arena. He wandered casually back to his room while pondering this simple observation. If there was anything more that Dangchao said or did during his TV appearances, Moses did not know, nor did he have any interest in knowing. He never returned to the entertainment hall.

 

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Chapter 32 The Alien

Chapter 32. The Alien

"Here! In the Palace! One of the aliens!"

Moses was just finishing breakfast in the cafeteria the next morning, when a young office worker sat down at the table next to him, with news for others at that table that one of the aliens had just been captured at the airport, trying to hijack a plane. "They're bringing him here now," the informant explained. Moses got up from his chair and walked over to the table where the announcement had been made. Because the people seated there were all staff members, and because they all recognised him, they did nothing to stop Moses from listening in.

"They're bringing him here?" asked a woman at the table nervously. "But he could kill us!"

The man next to her gave a little poke with his elbow as he glanced quickly toward Moses. Locals had come to think of Moses as Dangchao's son, even though the young man had hardly even met his benefactor. In the minds of most palace workers, anything said to Moses would be passed on to Dangchao.

"Obviously, Dangchao is going to use him as bait... to get the other one here," the elbow-jabber piped in. "Don't worry, Naomi, Dangchao knows what he's doing. He's the most awesome leader the world has ever known. Take it from me, we're safe as virgins in chastity belts." The others laughed nervously. They were clearly not convinced.

In the palace? Moses thought to himself, as he tried to imagine where Dangchao would put the alien.

He turned and walked away from the table, then wandered the corridors of the palace in search of the alien, before coming to a room