A Divine Madness

by Colin P. Davies & David Redd

Table of Contents
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appear in this issue.

conclusion: London 2108

As she scrambled over charred timbers, blasting broken masonry before her, working ever closer to the huge arched doorway, Diana began to believe that this was the place. Here, at the edge of the ruined city, an island of hope rose before her. Behind the encircling wall of the fortress, the golden towers and glass domes within spoke to her of comfort and purpose. To the goddess, the enclave was a glimpse of Heaven after so long spent in the devastated Hell that the Earth had become.

Could her journey of two millennia finally be over?

Screams close by told her that the crazed still lived in these ruins, no doubt attracted by the prospect of luxuries within the fortress. But a screeching alarm sounded up from the fortress, and Diana continued clambering towards the entrance unmolested.

She was tired, in her mind if not in her body. A goddess should live in Heaven, not Hell. Since Etna she had wandered the world and sought a time of quiet that would not come. She had gone on destroying, killing, exercising her powers over all. She had brought down the towers of Shanghai and razed the monuments of Rome. Others, mortal and insane, slaughtered and smashed their way across every continent.

Yet this destruction was not enough for Diana. On arrival back in England, she turned her power below the Earth, increasing magmatic pressure, fracturing the mantle, building inexorably towards a holocaust of unique and wonderful proportions. The ground trembled beneath her feet, and she laughed. She no longer needed to work at it. Soon the world would destroy itself.

And yet, now she had stumbled upon this place, this fortress that somehow seemed to invite her to it. Now other feelings seemed to dilute her divine anger. She no longer saw her purpose clearly. Death? Of course, but there were things to be learned still about the world and, perhaps, about herself.

The ground levelled out in a cleared zone near the entrance and Diana found herself walking faster. She started to run, only to be brought to a halt by the alarm cutting out and the doors swinging silently outward. A tall man wearing a clean white suit came forward. He was flanked by two younger men in similar attire and carrying rifles. Clothes and weapons were of unfamiliar designs, but clearly denoted authority and power.

Diana was suddenly aware of the grubbiness of her rough jacket and old-style jeans and of her hair being knotted and dirty.

“Welcome back,” said the leader. His smooth-shaven face was calm and strong, though lines around his eyes suggested maturity. His eyes were intense, penetrating. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Diana did not understand, and the knowledge that, for the moment, this man had the advantage of her made her angry. She could snuff him out in an instant! But she calmed herself. She needed to learn more.

“Please, come inside,” he said. He turned and gestured for her to follow.

Several ragged figures leapt from cover and ran, screaming, for the entrance. The armed men felled them with unhurried ease, then followed Diana. Impressed despite herself, she walked into the fortress.

She found herself in a courtyard of blue and white terrazzo. Ancient oak trees rustled in the breeze until the doors closed behind her, as silently as before.

One of the young guards approached the leader. “You were right, Master Angelo. I did have doubts... yet she has come back.”

“She,” said Diana, “can speak for herself, boy!”

Master Angelo placed a hand on the young man’s arm. “Thank you, Richard.” Then he spoke to Diana. “I’m sure you have many questions.”

“Perhaps...” Diana gazed around at the magnificent structures within the enclave: the towers that burned with the dawn sun, the mirrored domes that held the blue sky trapped within, and so many intricate crystalline statues of birds and animals and men. Nearby, a terraced garden displayed ranks of red and yellow flowers in regimented order. All wonderfully strange and worryingly familiar. “Yes... many questions, and one question above all. Who is Rosalita?”

“Ah. Soon, I will be able to answer that. I am called Angelo. What is your name?”

“Diana. Is my fame forgotten?”

“We are isolated from others here — we have to be, to survive.”

As he spoke Diana saw twenty or so white-suited men and women appear, hurrying from building to building about their business. Some slowed to peer at her.

“Please...” said Angelo. “Come with me.”

He took her through a doorway under the largest dome, then down a coolly lit corridor and into a small room. The chamber was furnished in a homely manner with a rich blue carpet, a white table and a reclined armchair. On one wall a DV screen showed the progress of a huge bird gliding over snow-dressed mountains. The table held a bowl of yellow-green apples that would have been priceless outside.

“Please relax here a while,” said Angelo. He moved to the open doorway. “I’ll have some food brought to you. Then we can talk.”

“Wait,” she said. “How did I find this place?”

He came closer. “You had no choice. It’s in your genes.”

Diana was confused and cautious. She felt that she should understand what was happening. Yet why should she be concerned? She was a goddess and invincible.

The armchair sighed as she eased herself down into the soft crimson upholstery. So much time had passed since she’d felt such luxury, its contours adjusting their shape to hers. She stroked one of the velvet arms — warm, like a living thing.

Fatigue overwhelmed her then, and she struggled to keep her eyes open and upon Master Angelo.

“I see you are relaxed now,” he said. “I must apologise for the use of sedation nanobots, but we only spotted you fifteen minutes ago and we’ve had little time to prepare. Your abilities startled us, to say the least.” He took a step backwards and the air shimmered in front of him. “This shield is precautionary.”

Diana frowned. Sedation? Everything around her was shimmering.

Angelo bowed slightly. “It’s good to have you back, Rosalita.”

Rosalita! That name again, sparking anger within her. “Why call me that? Why Rosalita... I’m Diana... a goddess.” She forced out words slowly and with effort.

“Your name is Rosalita. Diana is a stranger to me — a name given to you by your surrogate mother in ancient times. And you’re not a goddess. You’re human. You’re one of us.”

“I AM A GODDESS!” Diana summoned her divine power and sent fire to incinerate this liar... but the flame lacked intensity and faltered against the shimmering curtain.

“Please rest,” said Angelo. “A null-inertia shield surrounds you. Your behaviour is irrational. As we expected, you have the madness.”

Diana had to regroup her thoughts. She lay back, too tired to think clearly. “What about that food?”

“Later, perhaps. Right now nothing can get in to you, or out... only data. Even vision and voices are digitized.”

A tremor shook the room. An apple rolled from the bowl and fell to the carpet. Diana smiled. The Earth was with her... and time was with her. She knew she could overcome this wish to sleep. “I refuse to accept that I’m one of the crazies. I’m not mad.”

“A divine madness, perhaps.”

“You’re mocking me.”

Angelo shook his head gently. “Not at all. I want my Rosalita back.”

“Your Rosalita?”

She received no answer, for young Richard entered the room. He glanced at Diana, then held up a device for Angelo to read. “The data is being downloaded, Master. We should know the answer shortly.”

“Thank you. Return the moment you have it.”

Richard left the room.

“The answer to what?” said Diana

“To the virus, the madness — the life cycle and all its tricks and defences. Its spread through humanity has been slow, but it could not be stopped. So for centuries you’ve been harvesting virus samples for us. That part of the plan, at least, has gone well. Now we are harvesting the data from you.”

Diana wanted to sleep, but knew she had to fight the need. This fatigue could be overcome... she just had to think... think. Some sort of deception was taking place. Angelo could not be trusted. She would find his weakness. “If I am not a goddess, how do you account for my divine powers?”

“They are an unforeseen development.” Angelo picked up the fallen apple and polished it on his sleeve. “When we sent you back down the timeline to be reborn, we had no idea what two thousand years would do to your fledgling telekinetic ability. You’d shown the merest hint of talent, just as so many of us have the beginning of a power.”

He dropped his hand below the apple and, for a moment, the apple hung in the air, then dropped into his palm. “It seemed of little importance.” He sat on the edge of the table. “Our intention was only to gather information on the plague that is destroying humanity.”

Diana listened to his words, but her focus was inwards, upon the fatigue. Although she did not understand how it had been done to her, she knew that experience and willpower would find a way to beat it. She did not have to rush. She had all the time in the world. “How can you account for my immortality, if I am not a goddess?”

“If we had permitted your memories to remain, you would know the answer to that. But it was kinder to have you start afresh, rather than be aware of the agonising centuries ahead of you.”

A wave of coolness washed through Diana. The fatigue was lifting as her inner power rose again. She held her face calm to mask the change.

“We developed the morph cells together, Rosalita. You were our best innovator.”

Diana turned her focus to the shield. Rather than attack full on, she concentrated her efforts on a single point. She pushed.

“It’s not exactly immortality, but longevity,” said Angelo. “And you are the only one to receive the cells. We did not desire extended lives of only madness.”

The shield flickered, but held. Angelo slid down from the table. He turned towards the wallscreen and the mountains. The picture changed to one of a woman who looked like Diana... and there was Angelo, standing beside her. Their hands were clasped together.

Angelo faced Diana again, a sadness softening his eyes. “If you had kept your memory, you would also remember that you are my wife.”

Diana’s power fell away from the shield. Wife? This was another trick to confuse her. Angelo had realised she was weakening the shield. “It’s you who have the madness!” she yelled. Again her anger took over and she released flame against Angelo. Again it failed against the shield.

Richard ran into the room. “We have it, Master. Synthesized and ready.”

Angelo took a capsule from Richard. “The end of the madness. This is your victory, too, Rosalita. You helped form the plan.” Calmly, surveying her, he swallowed the capsule. “Knowledge that took centuries to acquire — a Trojan prion created by nanobots within minutes, to render the virus harmless.”

“She must accept the cure,” said Richard. He held up another capsule.

“I will accept nothing!” The goddess unleashed another fire attack against the shield.

“She’s getting stronger,” said Richard as the flame died away.

Diana lifted herself up in the chair and again focused her power against the shield. She pushed and it flickered.

“She needs the cure,” said Angelo. “Yet we dare not lower the shield.”

“Then our work comes to nothing,” said Richard. “She is now the plague.”

“I am Diana, and a GODDESS!” she screamed. She concentrated on the apple in Angelo’s hand, trying to squeeze through sufficient energy to show what divine power could do. The Master became aware that something was happening. He gave a flick of his hand, and as the apple rose it exploded into fragments. He wiped his hand on his white trousers. His expression remained disciplined as he shouted instructions to unseen others. “She leaves me no choice!”

Dimly, Diana realised that she should have aimed her power at the Master, not at the apple. The effort had drained her and she lay back in the chair.

“We have no time left,” Angelo told Richard. “Her powers are too great, and no-one here can challenge her. I had hoped, for my own sake, that it would not come to this.”

“It’s too great a sacrifice,” Richard told him.

Angelo shook his head. “I have to go back. I must become a god.”

Richard grabbed his arm. “But you’ll have to remember everything. You’ll know that you have to endure two thousand years before you can return to us. How can you bear that?”

“I have to do it... for you... for all of us. And for Rosalita. I have to match her abilities.”

“You can do nothing for me,” said Diana. “Your shield is weakening. Soon you’ll know the vengeance of my divine madness!”

“You’ve forgotten the ancient teachings,” said Angelo. “Love is the divine madness... and the madness is mine.”

He hugged Richard, then slowly drew himself away and left the room. “Good luck,” the young man whispered.

More trickery and confusion, thought Diana. But it would not save them. She pushed herself up and concentrated her power on the shield, working to penetrate again at one small point, to cause a fracture that could destroy it entirely.

Richard collected the pieces of shattered apple from the floor and dropped them into the bowl. Then he leaned against the wall and examined the tablet in his hand. “Don’t you remember me at all?” he said.

“I remember nothing.”

Suddenly everything shifted... jolted, but this was not a tremor. The moment itself seemed to skip.

“It’s done,” said Richard. “Master Angelo has gone.”

Diana shrugged off the interruption. She resumed pressuring invisible force at the shield while Richard observed her, his face drawn and sad. She was too intent to speak to him, and he seemed edgy and distant... waiting for something.

At last Diana felt the shield give. The incessant pressure had worked; the shimmering curtain fell away in silence. An excitement raced through her with the sudden knowledge that she had won, and now it was time to kill. Master Angelo first, wherever he was. She threw herself out of the armchair.

Richard jerked upright, startled. The capsule dropped from his hand.

An alarm sounded then, the same alarm Diana had heard upon her arrival in this place.

“Someone approaches the gate,” said Richard. The picture on the wallscreen changed to show the face of Master Angelo, suddenly gaunt, but his eyes still intense and purposeful.

Slowly Richard knelt before Diana, the goddess, and picked up the capsule from the blue carpet. He stood again.

Diana felt a strange sensation then, as of some unseen presence reaching towards her... and she sensed Angelo’s soft words: I’ll be with you soon. She hesitated, unsure what to do, what to think.

Richard held up the capsule, the cure.

“Time to take your medicine, Mother,” he said.