Limbo 56 - Mike Morris (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud TXT) 📗

untidy scrawl. “I know these Devils, at least I’ve heard of them. They’re up and coming class one Demons. They represent the new order down there.” He paused ruminatively. “You know, after the living obtained nuclear weapons, we all knew that Satan had lost his battle with the Almighty. The Atomic Bomb was such a terrible weapon. Two of them killed hundreds of thousands of people, and almost everyone in the world found out about the bomb and its terrible destructive power. Down in Hell, we were expecting humanity to weep for all the men and women, the children and unborn babies who died in agony. We expected, once the ultimate weapon was out of the box, humans would turn to Ggg…, the guy upstairs, beg forgiveness for inventing such a thing. We thought that, from that period on, all that we would see in Hell would be a tiny trickle of certified madmen.”

He paused. “What happened? Humans shrugged and went about their business. Scientists built bigger and better bombs, Hydrogen Bombs. Even in countries where the people were allowed to protest, pitifully few did. Then we knew that we had won. Once the inevitable happened a few billion sinners would be crawling over each other to enter the gates of Hell. Up there would get a few million squalling, motherless babies and a few innocents and morons who had never heard of the bomb. We waited while a handful of countries built enough bombs and missiles to kill everyone ten times over. More countries got into the act. The United States and its allies, the Evil Empire and its satellites were poised daily to throw mutual death and destruction at each other. Then, even smaller countries got their own little stockpiles. Every day was crisis day; it was permanently 11:59 on the death clock. We watched in Hell as the human race sped down hill forever, in a car with no brakes, faster and faster, each hairpin bend more difficult to navigate.” Jasper paused once more. “Those were exciting times,” he said, eyes shining. “Sorry, Arthur,” he said, collecting himself.

“And what happened?” he continued. “Nothing happened, except small wars with better guns and bombs, and better ways to patch up broken bodies. Even the Evil Empire stopped at the brink and became a rather less evil empire. Naturally, humans continued to develop more sophisticated weapons, even as they threw the old ones away. We were pleased when world-class biological weapons were developed, but we were never quite as sure of ultimate success as in those early days. After all, there were only a couple of hundred or so countries.” He paused again. “But this new idea, that these three Demons on the contract came up with, was really a stroke of genius.” Jasper looked at Arthur. “It was really simple, and not new, just an old idea taken to its logical conclusion in these modern times.” He paused for effect “International Terrorism. It’s global. It’s not constrained by national boundaries. Instead of a couple of hundred countries run by relatively sane governments, you have six billion humans, some of whom are bound to be insane, or self-destructive, or both.” Jasper sucked his teeth. “Maybe I was premature jumping ship,” he said, thoughtfully. He coughed. “They wouldn’t let me go back, anyway, Arthur.”

“Why us, why did they choose my Limbo,” Arthur moaned.

“Because you’re the bottom of the totem pole,” Arthur said heartlessly. “You’re the closest to Hell, the most miserable, the most easily corruptible…”

“Alright, alright,” Arthur interrupted, “I understand. I have to call the Angels right away and tell them what’s going on.”

“Think before you do that,” Jasper said. “There are certainly others here who signed that contract. Tell the Angels now, and the first thing they’ll do is send a stiff note to Hell, demanding to know if these charges from you are true. And the first thing Hell will do is suck the gold downstairs and pop it up in another Limbo. Then, they’ll tell the Angels that you made the story up because you’re having a nervous breakdown, or you’re trying to divert attention to the fact that you’re poaching recruits or some such thing.” The Demon nodded. “Right now, you’re the pathetic Governor of an extremely poor and ratty Limbo. I doubt if Hell even knows you exist.” He sniffed. “Poke them in the eye and they’ll swat you like a fly.” Arthur bristled, then nodded resignedly. “Besides,” Jasper added, reverting to form. “We can hide the gold and sell it off ourselves. Just think what we can do for Purgatory56,” he added hastily.

“Still looking for that Demon, first class award?” Arthur asked. “Well, think about this. If we don’t find the Terrorists who collected this money, they’ll find us, and we’ll all go to Hell – on their terms.” Jasper shivered. “I have no way of knowing where these people are; they could be anywhere in the world. Do you have any idea?” Jasper shook his head miserably. “So we’ll try to get the gold on to the world markets, and take whatever we get, and use it to defend ourselves. The Devils are just agents in this; with £2 billion, we can buy them off. Quite frankly, I’m more scared of the terrorists.”

“You should be,” Gladys said, sitting down, “Osama is a very frightening person.” Arthur knocked his beer over. “I only saw one of them,” Gladys continued calmly. “They managed to clone three before the template gave out.” Jasper was staring at her, his beer tipping precariously. “He’s the one behind all this gold, though,” she finished calmly. “You’ll spill that if you’re not careful, she said to Jasper. Did you tell Arthur about the solid-gold ashtray?” she asked.

Arthur glared at Jasper, who slid down in his chair. “I was going to tell you,” he protested, “But it didn’t seem too important.” He blinked at Arthur’s expression. “It was nothing really; I traced the ashtray back to some piddling little terrorist group, something to do with Blue Whales. They were going to sell it for explosives – dynamite and stuff. I showed my horns, and breathed fire on them and they soon came clean. They said they got the idea for hiding the gold in Limbo from some really big terrorist group called Al-Qaeda.” Jasper paused. “So, I confiscated the ashtray and sent them down to Hell,” he concluded nervously.

“You knew Osama Bin Laden was involved in this, and you didn’t think it was important enough to tell me,” Arthur roared, clenching his fists.

“It may not have been our Limbo,” Jasper babbled. “I didn’t think it was important. Anyway,” he asked. “Who is Osama Bin Laden?”


Chapter 22 – Sin City
Osama had long since vacated Pakistan; ‘Soon,’ he thought, I shall be the Chosen One, and I shall strike a blow against the infidels that will make the Twin Towers look like a wet squib at a secular wedding. His piercing eyes scanned the harsh, cloudless sky and traveled across the pastel desert buildings. It was hard, especially hard being here amongst the enemy. Osama sighed and settled amongst the warm bubbles of the Jacuzzi, sipping his Martini, cursing the fate that forced him to hide in this place, to blend in with the sinners. A white-coated waiter approached deferentially with a tray of drinks. Osama waved him away. “Have the limousine brought round to the back entrance,” he commanded. “I think I shall visit the high-stakes poker den at the Bellagio today.”

Arthur was waiting nervously in the boarding area at Heathrow, looking at the vast expanse of wet concrete and the drab hangars beyond. It would be the first time he had been higher than a four-storey building, and he wasn’t looking forward to peering down at the earth thirty thousand feet below. Gladys had dragged him from his foundry three hours before the plane departure time, and had personally scrubbed and shaved him, yelling as she did so. “I just wanted to make sure the gold was safe,” he mumbled. “Ouch!” Gladys was scrubbing him with a distinctly nineteenth century stiff-bristled scrubbing brush. “Why do we have to get there so early,” he asked for the fifth time.

“And I told you, because of the security,” she snapped, “Blame the Terrorists.”

She was still snapping at him when they arrived at the airport. Arthur watched as the line of would-be flyers snaked around barriers, dragging luggage and children with equal grimness. Many looked as if they had arrived the night before to avoid the crush. Pale and wan, they staggered slowly forward, hopping on one foot, removing shoes clutching their children by the collar. At strategic points, a uniformed guard demanded papers, disrupting the pathetic efforts of passengers to board with family and luggage intact. Menacing machines, monitored by more uniformed guards sucked luggage in at one end and spat it out at the other, where it was grabbed by hopping travelers, or, if they were too infirm or slow, by snarling guards who ripped it open and flung all manner of private items onto a table for all to see.

Jasper, who Arthur had reluctantly allowed to accompany him, looked round interestedly, taking notes. “I’ll have to email Hell,” He said. “They could use some of the ideas around here. Well, at least we don’t need to wait.” And they slipped past the barriers, cloaked in Limbo.

“Hey,” a red-faced little man shouted running towards them, “you can’t do that!” He suddenly grabbed his chest and collapsed. Strained faces turned towards him, but none of the travelers wanted to lose their place in line, and eventually two men arrived with a stretcher and took him away. Gladys spent some anxious time looking at the departure displays and eventually they ended up at the terminal. A crowd of tense-looking travelers, dressed in what they considered appropriate attire for Sin City was stamping around impatiently waiting for a giant airliner to carry them in its wafer-thin shell, thousands of miles across the ocean, higher than Mount Everest, to an unimaginable city in an alien land.

Arthur groaned. He would sooner have dived in to the furnace than board one of the huge monstrosities that were coming and going with such hair-raising speed and reckless abandon. “How long does it take?” he asked for the umpteenth time. “How fast does it go?”

“We’ll all go into first class and drink real champagne,” was all she would say after a while. They slipped on board with the first-class passengers, and accepted drinks from a rather puzzled-looking air hostess. They sipped their champagne and Gladys said “Just before I came to Limbo to see you, I used to fly home to Las Vegas about twice a month. It’s an interesting trip, and I’d always watch the passengers. Tourists go to Vegas with the thought that they might, just possibly, come home rich, and the flight is different, because most travelers go to the city to party. Most of them start early.” She pointed to the airhostesses, running around with trays of drinks. “They work hard, handing out drinks, fending off tipsy passengers, and generally keeping order.” She stood up. “Let’s go to the coach section, that’s where the action usually is.”

Awkward, unnoticed, following behind Gladys, Arthur absorbed his first impressions of the USA. The staid English passengers of an hour ago had vanished. Young people from ordinary cities were dressed in strange clothes for the desert. Older couples loosened up, made new friends and talked busily. There was an air of expectancy as they got nearer the Promised Land. Someone started to explain - loudly - his system for beating the slots. Small pockets of silence contained grim passengers,