God’s momentary excitement stalled, then faded. He frowned, and seemed to be embarrassed that He’d gotten so exuberant. He turned back to the city below. “I get so discouraged sometimes, you know. Seeing the wars, the ignorance, the subjugation. My creation continues to disappoint Me even after so much time, and it fills Me with hopelessness. With anger. Sometimes I just want to…” His eyes still on Earth, He clenched His fist around the orange. Pulp burst from fresh lesions in the crushed fruit, and God’s meaning became all too clear. He sighed. “But no, I can’t give up yet. There’s still time. The tests do work, if slowly. The humans grow smarter and more moral over time. The suffering and evil in the world is necessary for that, and if I intervened in Earth’s problems, then yes, I would ruin My precious tests. But I don’t think I could stop the suffering on Earth even if I wanted to.”
“On Earth, perhaps. But what about what happens to people after they die?”
“I keep those people here, as valued friends.”
“And the people who don’t pass their ‘tests’?”
God shook the sugary sludge off His hand, and laughed bitterly. “Look, Thorn. I’m dearly sorry that you’ve suffered. I’m sorry that so much suffering is necessary. I watch it every day, and I feel it, and it breaks My heart. But I just can’t be sure people will be good enough unless they’ve been through the fire.” God’s voice grew even louder, dropping its last small pretense of hospitality. Thorn tried to interject, but God plowed right over him.
“I’m not doing this for Myself. I need strong minds, and I can’t just make them from scratch, so instead I created a world where they could evolve, not just physically, but philosophically, morally. And I needed help, okay? I couldn’t keep track of a whole planet alone, so I created angels to help Me run things. I thought they’d be just like the automatons I’d created before: the failed creations who couldn’t think for themselves. I didn’t know, Thorn! I didn’t know how it would turn out.”
He grabbed Thorn’s collar as if to plead with him, soiling Thorn’s suit with the remnants of the orange He’d crushed. His face was flushed red. A tear escaped His eye. He breathed deeply in and out, in and out, as if trying to calm Himself again. His breath smelled bitter and rotten. “You have to understand, when you angels first started asking questions, when you first started your rebellion, I saw you as malfunctioning machines, not as sentient beings like Me or the humans. I was new at the whole creation thing, and I didn’t realize that I’d accidentally given free will and independent minds to you angels, too.”
Thorn had heard enough of this sob story. He flung God’s hands off of his suit. “So You
killed
us? We confused You, so You slaughtered millions?”
“It was like deleting a buggy program from a computer, okay? I didn’t know, Thorn! I’ve spent the last four billion Earth years regretting My choice to make war. I didn’t even think My actions would cause a war.”
“And even when we almost destroyed Heaven in our rebellion, You didn’t rethink Your position?” Thorn surprised himself with how much he still cared about the initial rebellion after all this time. Perhaps being face to face with his Creator had brought the resentment out from within him.
God leaned against the windowsill and buried His head in His hands. “No. No, I just decided to get rid of you. I didn’t have the power to kill you all at once, so I sent you to Earth to deal with you later. Stupid choice, really. Days later I spotted My error and realized I’d given you all free will, but by then billions of years had passed on Earth. Humans had already sprung into existence, and the war had grown worse than ever. I couldn’t just extend an olive branch.”
“We would have burned it.”
“Exactly. So I slowed down time. I commanded the angels to retreat to Heaven and end the war. I decided to bunch you in with the humans. To test you, so that the best of you might one day return to Me.” He turned His back to Thorn. “But I learned, to My dismay, that you weren’t like the humans. They were brutal and violent at the beginning, full of tribal chauvinism. You were too, but the humans aspired to better themselves; whereas you demons aspired to nothing but destruction. To selfish gain. I’d inadvertently given you the need for independence, but not the need for growth.” God turned to Thorn and placed a hand on his shoulder. Thorn thought he saw hope in His eyes. “But over time, some of you developed that need anyway.”
Thorn backed up a few steps, away from God’s outstretched arm. God rubbed His hands together, and a twinge of annoyance crept into His voice, souring His kind words. “You’ve never been damned, Thorn. Wanderer and his cronies spread the lie that I wouldn’t accept you back, but I’ve always wanted reconciliation, even with Wanderer and Shenzuul and Gorhrum and the other leaders.”
God’s assurances, His excuses, felt empty to Thorn. God seemed to care about the demons less as prodigal sons and more as test subjects.
I and all the other demons are just pawns on a chessboard to Him.
“It would have been easier to just tell us You wanted to reconcile,” Thorn said. “We would have spat in Your face at first, sure, but eventually we’d have come around. And You could have avoided all the whispering we’ve done to humans. All the suffering we’ve caused.”
“I would have liked that, but the tests…” He hesitated. “I almost killed you, you know. After you saw Xeres as an angel a few months back. You weren’t meant to see him, and I was sure that an accident like that would tip My hand and ruin your test.”
Thorn paused a moment, partially for emphasis, partially because God’s words had stunned him. “You would rather have had me dead than let me know that You still cared?”
“Well, I value thinkers too much. You would have been worthless to Me if you hadn’t reached the conclusion to become good on your own. Which you did, fortunately.” He smiled His nervous smile again.
Thorn stepped forward and let the full depth of his vehemence show on his face. “I’ve always reached my conclusions based on the information I had. That’s what a thinker does. I’ve only ever done wrong because
You
gave me no reason to do otherwise. If I hadn’t seen Xeres that day, I might have turned back to darkness, or killed myself. And You’d have had the impudence to send me to Hell?”
“Oh, take some responsibility, Thorn. It’s not
all
My fault. It was always your choice to stay in your wicked life.”
“And what about the humans? They’re lost in a philosophical quandary of Your design. How can you expect them to follow You when You’ve given them no evidence that You even exist?”
God broke eye contact and exchanged a cryptic glance with Thilial. One of the bodyguards glared harshly at Thorn, as if he’d asked a forbidden question.
“Um,” God said. He started chewing on His holy thumbnail. “Tell you what. You accept My offer to become an angel again, and we’ll take you upstairs to give you your wings back.
Then
we can continue this conversation.”
Thorn watched the room’s many angels watching him. He sensed a trap.
If God needs a commitment before revealing any further information, He must be hiding something truly devastating. But what choice do I have?
God would certainly send Thorn back to Hell if he refused the offer. But as glad as he was to be safe from hellfire, he wasn’t sure he could stomach serving God again after everything he’d just heard. God’s motives seemed suspect, His methods needlessly convoluted and cruel. He’d brought most of His problems on Himself. Thorn had fought tirelessly to be able to choose his own purpose—had even sacrificed his life for a purpose chosen by no one but himself. He wasn’t ready to surrender that newfound freedom.
Yet now that the sweet prize of life was dangling before him again, he was sorely tempted to seize it, even at the expense of his own autonomy.
Before he could think further on the matter, the pastel tones of the room dipped into a deep red, and a shrill, deafening rumble shook the ground beneath Thorn’s feet. Transparent displays of numbers and images foreign to Thorn rose from the floor. God’s bodyguards glanced around warily, and most of the hundred angels in the room abruptly took flight. Thilial left God’s side. The harpist abandoned his instrument. They joined the others beside a number of the transparent displays, which Thorn guessed were some sort of celestial workstations. The angels’ hands scurried over the digits and figures, manipulating their positions within each display.
“Again?” God said nonchalantly. “So soon?”
God was still standing by the glassless window and studying His city, which seemed even more alive with the bustling of angels than it had a moment ago. The mountains and buildings were all bathed in a reddish tint. Most strikingly, the giant Sanctuary wall’s thousands of small screens had been replaced by one single giant screen.
“What’s happening?” Thorn asked.
“Demons. Six of them have entered the Corridors and are moving toward a Sanctuary. Never good. We usually watch you guys closely enough to predict this behavior ahead of time, but sometimes one sneaks through. Rarely a group though.”
“So none of them will become a human for the testing? None of them might be saved?”
“Well if they all spontaneously decide to become good together, then of course they’ll be welcomed back. But I’m not holding My breath. Nor will the Sanctuary turn any of them human. If I turn
one
of them human, the rest will just freak out and kill him. If I turn
all
of them human, they’ll kill each other. It’s what always happened, way back when I tried that sort of thing.” God called out to the angels. “Will someone shut the alarms off?”
“Then this test will be pointless,” Thorn said. “Please, God. Teleport the humans in that Sanctuary to safety and let the demons find it abandoned.”
God shook His head doggedly as the alarms ceased their cry and the red light subsided. “I have to keep up the illusion of the Sanctuaries if I have any hope of saving these demons in the future. Tamior, who are the six demons?”
A nearby angel glanced down at his console. “Donundun, Amos, Hecthes, Drelial, Marcus, and Paxis.”
Marcus?
God also seemed to perk up at the mention of Marcus’s name. “Huh. He must’ve gotten a real taste for Sanctuaries.” He turned and paced toward the angel, leaving Thorn alone by the window. God’s supposition did not satisfy Thorn, who knew that Marcus’s conquests lay only on Earth.
Why would he attack another Sanctuary? And so soon?
“What part of Earth does the Sanctuary simulate?” asked God.
“Looks like Bristol, Virginia,” Tamior said.
“What humans are in there?”
“A lot of them.” Tamior rattled off the names: “Jody Peterson, Dustin Kincaid, Mary Kincaid, Linda Sanchez, Anil Patel, Norma Cafferty, Virgil Cafferty, Karen Noyce, Brandon Carter-Barnett, Heather Gilbert…”
Virgil? Brandon? Heather?
Thorn tensed.
God motioned for Tamior to stop listing the names. His holy eyes darted about. Thorn could practically see the disparate thoughts connecting in His mind. Then His face turned toward Thorn, and His gaze grew panicked. Tamior gaped at Thorn with the exact same expression and raised a shocked hand over his mouth.
I was not meant to hear those names.
The dots connected in Thorn’s mind as well. His first thought was that Brandon, Heather, and Virgil—alive and well—could be used as proof that God recycled humans from one Sanctuary to the next, and thus that Sanctuaries were not for humans, and thus that He yearned to reconcile with the demons.
Does Marcus somehow know everything God just told me? Could he be trying to rescue the humans? Take them away from the Sanctuary, to Earth, to use them as evidence of God’s willingness to forgive?
No, Marcus was a true believer in the war against God. He would never want demons to reconcile with the Enemy. He would never want them to know the truth.
But he would want to stop
me
from telling them.
Somehow Marcus must have known that Thorn would end up here, in Heaven, facing an offer of angelhood. He must have anticipated that, sooner or later, Thorn would seek out Brandon, Heather, and Virgil.
He’s going to try to kidnap them
, Thorn realized.
Take them away from the Sanctuary and hide them somewhere so I can’t use them as evidence.
Unless I get to them first.
The horrified look on God’s face told Thorn that God knew exactly what he was thinking.
God seemed to grow taller. He strode toward Thorn with steps that, ever so slightly, shook the marble floor. “Do you or do you not accept My offer, Thorn?” His deep voice resonated across the room, echoing back and forth.
“I have no designs on those humans,” Thorn lied. He honestly cared little about reconciling the demons with their Creator, but if convincing them that God wanted them back could end His silly Rube Goldberg system of forgiveness and let Thorn live a free life on Earth—away from God and away from the cruelty of demons—Thorn would risk his life for it in a heartbeat. Not even in his most extravagant fantasies had he imagined that true freedom would ever be a possibility for him.
“Good.” God moved forward, now just inches away. The bodyguards surrounded Thorn. Thilial watched hawkishly from the sidelines. “I forbid you from pursuing Marcus or those humans. For now and forever. With that in mind, do you accept My offer?”
If I were made into an angel, would God obtain some new power over me, preventing me from acting independently?
If Thorn accepted, he would be a prisoner here, and if he declined, he’d be sent back to Hell. He thought of fleeing, but he couldn’t hope to outrun an army of angels.
Perhaps my best option under the circumstances is indeed to join God’s angels. At least then I’ll be safe.
But he wouldn’t be free. Every fiber of his being told him he’d regret the choice.
God’s body stood rigid; blood vessels bulged under the skin of His face. The subtle electric currents in His bluish hair strengthened in intensity. He looked like He’d been holding the same breath for several minutes. “Fine,” He said in response to Thorn’s hesitation. “Let Me give you some incentive.”