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        On foot, Eric approached the Institute, following the ridgeline high above the Valley. Cloud clogged the valley, rearing high above the very ridge itself. The ridge divided east from west, cloud from clear. Cloud to the east, the setting sun to the west. You could, if you wanted, throw a stone right into that upheaved mass of cloud. And Eric, in a moment of childish liberation, did exactly that.
        The setting sun was echoed in that gauzy mass of cloud, where a weak and watery disk of fuzzy light sustained a transient existence. The Brockenbow. He was seeing, not for the first time, the Brockenbow -- the anticorona. As Eric tossed a stone at that solar ghost, he cast a shadow in the setting sun. His shadow, thrown into phantom life on the wall of cloud, gesticulated hugely, its swollen ambition dominating the visible universe.
        A voice spoke.
        "God is bigger than you are."
        The voice was in Eric's head. A battleship voice which revealed itself in soft and distant thunder. Eric had no doubt, no doubt at all, that this was Basilica speaking to him. And, for a moment, he fancied that he saw Basilica rearing up over him, speaking down to him from the cryptofascist battlements of Theory.
        He waited for more.
        But there was nothing.
        It was late, and cold, and he was losing the light. Hurry on? No. He was tired. Less than sure-footed. Racing would be a recipe for disaster. And so, methodically, he plodded on toward the Institute. Eric the Plodder, the lexicon man. Eric, to whom God had begun to speak. Well, let's just hope there's a medication to silence God, if God won't shut up of his own accord.

*


        As the last light of evening failed, Eric finished his trek to the Institute. All closed and locked. Empty. Eric smashed his way through a window and entered, smelling dampness, mold, decay. He tried a lightswitch, but the electricity was off. No problem: Eric had come prepared.
        Cautiously, Eric began to explore by flashlight. Cavernous darkness. Water dripping from the ceilings. Walls of echoing concrete. Carpets gone, drapes gone. Uninhabited, the Institute had become an instant ruin. Memories. Dull committee meetings -- Alvin complaining about inadequate maintenance, Gelhammer explaining that their funds were not limitless.
        "Alvin's room," said Eric.
        His feet remembered the way. And, pushing open the door, he shone his flashlight around. The light played on Alvin's print of one of Michelangelo's paintings for the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. God reaching out to Adam. The face of God.
        "God," said Eric, involuntarily.
        The word resonated in his head, hugely golden, triggering other words. God. Father. Pater.
        An image painted itself across his universe. Gelhammer's smiling, dominating face. Converted instantly by irrefutable truth, he knew then that Gelhammer was his father -- loving dominator, all-knowing font of wisdom, bigger and wiser than any Big Brother ever thought of. More formidable than Stalin, more imperially overwhelming than Hitler on the day of Anschluss, more flawlessly perfect than the rouged and smiling visage of Chairman Mao.
        Gelhammer was love. That was axiomatic. Love must be obeyed. That, too, was axiomatic. You cannot argue with an axiom. The tools which permit reason are not designed for self-destruction.
        "Gelhammer is love," said Eric obediently.
        Then the moment passed, and he was alone in the room. He shivered. What the hell was happening to him?
        "Do I love Gelhammer?" he said.
        No. Gelhammer was a failure. A leader who had betrayed his followers by killing all too many of them in a reckless series of experiments. Success absolves, but Gelhammer had won them nothing. So now he was in jail. Where he belonged.
        "Get the disk," said Eric, giving himself an order, "and get out."
        The disk, the DVD. Where was the closet? There! But the door was gone. Had been stripped away from the built-in closet. Someone had been here before him.
        The door into Alvin's room slammed open. The overhead light burst into life, flooding the room with revelation. The intruder was Coil Ranch, the Institute's enforcer -- a huge man, his natural bulk swollen with slabs of body armor, a pump-action shotgun in his hands.
        "Surprise," said Coil Ranch.

*


        At first, Eric simply couldn't believe that the lights were on. He had tried switches, finding them dead. Then, blinking against the irrefutable harshness of the illumination, he realized someone must simply have turned the electricity on at the mains.
        Coil Ranch stepped to one side, making room for the entry of Gelhammer Jantz. Gelhammer Jantz, impeccably dressed. Cashmere suit. Glossy black shoes. One new, garish, uncharacteristic element -- a gold tooth, which revealed itself as Gelhammer smiled. Eric's pulse was sprinting.
        "Good evening, Eric," said Gelhammer.
        "But they arrested you!" said Eric, disbelieving.
        Was this the real Gelhammer? Eric was still having trouble crediting the reality of that gold tooth. Philosopher kings don't take the gold tooth route. (These days, who does?)
        "Lawyers," said Gelhammer. "You ever heard of lawyers? Best thing since sliced bread. Oh, and bail, let's not forget bail. If you'd been keeping track of things, you'd know all about that."
        "Yeah, well," said Eric, wondering if he had the strength to break Gelhammer's neck. "I've been busy."
        "It's okay," said Gelhammer, speaking to settle Coil Ranch as Eric took a step forward. "Remember -- I am God. Right, Eric?"
        Gelhammer cocked his head to one side in that manner he had when he was waiting for a certain response. Eric waited, but nothing happened. No voices spoke to him inside the privacy of his skull. Waiting, Gelhammer frowned, minutely.
        "You are God," said Eric, since it was obviously what Gelhammer wanted.
        "A bit slow," said Gelhammer, conversationally. "Try this. Strangle yourself."
        This absurd command was so unexpected that Eric almost burst into laughter. Just in time, he realized it was not a joke. Gelhammer was serious. So he ham-acted self-strangulation, complete with some I'm-finding-it-hard-to-breathe throttling noises.
        "Stop!" said Gelhammer.
        His voice was huge, crushing. Hearing that voice was like being hit by a falling anvil. The shock stunned Eric into immobility. His body became wet spaghetti. His arms fell and dangled, hands limp, nerveless. His mouth fell open.
        "Shut your mouth," said Gelhammer.
        Eric's mouth slammed shut, making an audible click as teeth impacted against teeth.
        "Okay," said Gelhammer. "Let's get going."

*


        In the carpark, Jarline Plab was waiting in a four-wheel drive vehicle. The four of them -- Eric, Jarline, Gelhammer and Coil Ranch -- drove off into the night. Looking back, Eric saw nothing but darkness.
        "This never happened," said Gelhammer calmly, seeing where Eric was looking. "We were never here. Neither were you."
        "Right now," said Jarline, "we're in New York with our alibi witnesses. Coil is cooking lobster for us."
        "Yeah," said Coil. "I'm a pretty good cook. You didn't know that, did you?"
        "You've chosen to drop off the face of the Earth, Eric," said Gelhammer, rubbing it in. "Who knows where you've gone? Barkeeping in Boston, perhaps, or abducted by aliens. Who knows?"
        A little later, Eric realized where they were going. To Northgrape Farm. The place with the crematorium.

*


        Inside the farmhouse, it was warm. The smells -- garlic, green pepper, a tangy sauce -- suggested that someone certainly was a good cook, even if it wasn't Coil Ranch. The smells made Eric conscious of his hunger, and hunger renewed his consciousness of the fatigue of the long day on foot which had taken him to the Institute.
        They sat him down at the big kitchen table and asked him the big question.
        "Eric," said Jarline. "Where is Alvin?"
        Great! They didn't realize Alvin was dead. And yet, if so, in the forging of the letter supposedly from Alvin -- by now, Eric was fairly sure it was a forgery -- why had they presumed him possibly dead? Maybe they guessed that Alvin was dead, and had acted accordingly, but they weren't yet sure. And they wanted to know. Their ignorance gave Eric a lever.
        "I'm ready to tell you," said Eric. "But only under certain conditions."
        "I think I'll get the file," said Jarline.

*


        It hurt more than Eric could have imagined, even though she was just doing a little "vampire cosmetics," as she put it. The Gestapo had been on the right track. But Eric resisted, even though Jarline was busy with the file for a solid hour. Then Gelhammer made his move.
        "Eric," said Gelhammer. "This is an order. Where is Alvin? Tell us."
        Helpless to resist, Eric felt massive dictionaries of quotation launching themselves in his head. His mouth was in babble mode. He could not stop himself.
        "Paprika," said Eric. "The sushi is Russian, the chewing gum. Newt Gingrich, remember him? I'd like my cigar back, thank you, Monica. Seven ate nine. The bank account is under the mat, along with the car keys. No, daddy, I didn't do it, honest."
        "Shut up!" said Jarline.
        Still unable to help himself, Eric looked at Gelhammer, who nodded assent. Released, Eric fell silent.
        "Poor integration with the speech centers," said Jarline.
        "What did you expect?" said Gelhammer. "This is still experimental. All of it. Just the first baby step. Okay, Eric. One more chance. Tell me -- and I'm speaking here as your friend, not as God -- where is Alvin?"
        "Why do you want to know?" said Eric, stalling.
        "Eric," said Gelhammer, calmly. "Bite off the little finger of your left hand."
        And Eric's finger was dreaming its way into his mouth. He bit down. Distantly, he was amazed at the shearing strength of human teeth. White pain laced its way through his enitre body like a sheet of lightning. He felt his teeth grate together, completing the job.
        "If you give me any more trouble," said Gelhammer, with glacial resolve, "I will have you dig out your own eyes. Slowly. With a teaspoon."
        And Eric knew that he could do it.
        "Give me the finger," said Jarline.
        Another command like the Word of God. You have not one God but two. Obediently, Eric handed over the amputated finger. Blood was running freely from his wound, but he could not, did not, would not look at it.
        "I ask you as your friend," said Gelhammer. "Not as your God. As your friend, Eric -- where is Alvin?"
        "He's dead," said Eric. "He took Luxembourg but didn't like the result. The trip to Brazil -- remember? He ran the experiment on himself down in Rio."
        "How did he die?" said Gelhammer.
        "The mountains," said Eric, simplifying, watching the blood, helpless to keep himself from watching the unavoidable blood jumbling across the kitchen table. "Hereabouts. He jumped off a cliff."
        So much blood. Could you bleed to death from the stump of a finger? What should he do?
        "The blood," said Eric, simply.
        "I think he's telling the truth," said Gelhammer, ignoring Eric's appeal.
        "Me too," said Jarline. And smiled. "That means we can move to the next step."
        "So it does," said Gelhammer. "Okay, Coil. Put the gun on the table."

*


        The table. On the table, the gun. Facing Eric across the table, Gelhammer Jantz. To his left, Jarline Plab. To his right, Coil Ranch.
        "One last experiment, Eric," said Gelhammer. "There's a gun on the table. A semi-automatic pistol. It's loaded. The safety is off. Shortly, I'm going to give you a command. I'm going to order you to pick up the gun. I'm going to order you to shoot yourself in the foot. That's only for starters, of course."
        Eric felt as if his body was filled with torrents of white-hot insects. Gravity washed over him in swamping waves. The light dimmed, almost darkened into a dead faint. He put his good hand flat on the table. Tried to remember the habit of breathing. Gelhammer was distant, hard to hear.
        "This is an order," said Gelhammer. "Pick up the gun. Pick it up. Shoot yourself in the foot."
        Eric picked up the gun. Weight in his fist. Gelhammer was saying something, sounding startled. Coil Ranch was pushing himself back from the table as the gun angled his way. Eric pulled the trigger. Coil Ranch escalated backwards, becoming disconnected from his chair. Eric turned, deliberately, taking his time, and fired right into the yammering heart of Jarline's outraged shout. Gelhammer was on his feet, yelling like an auctioneer. Eric shot him, too. The round punched through Gelhammer's throat.
        A true child of an age of ultraviolence, Eric had seen all the movies in which people in body armor get up after being shot, bruised but full of fight. And he knew people who are bleeding out are still potentially dangerous. Keeping his distance, he pumped two bullets into each fallen body.
        "I, Lucifer," said Eric, in a moment of remote lucidity, shooting God again, for luck.
        Gelhammer made no response, but bubbled blood as he struggled to breathe. Not dead yet? How incredibly difficult to kill this kind of animal! Eric knelt, ground the barrel into the bone of the skull, and pulled the trigger one final time.

*


        Okay, now. The finger. Here. What a mess. Looks like a dog's been chewing on it. Any chance of getting it stuck back on? How about the insurance? Are we covered? They've got an out -- acts of god? No, I don't think that applies. Anyway, let's find a phone ....

*


        Why had he been able to disobey God? At first, Eric put it down to sheer force of will. Possessed of free will, the fallen are capable of any error. But, later, he figured out a simpler, more logical explanation.
        Subcortical processing -- that was it. In times of fear, thought tends to take shortcuts. Avoiding the slow and cumbersome centers of higher consciousness, we make our decisions in the primitive subcortex, the brain's basement which evolved long before we began to be spoken to by God or by angels.
        So much for our analytical science! So much for our houses of reason! Get the right animal jolt, and you're a hunted animal again, running in screaming panic, fighting wildly when cornered. The angel mind is only an overlay. Down deep, we're pure crocodile. Given sufficient fear, Faustus will become a pleading ape, a pleading ape or a squealing pig, immobilized by fear or running amok in a terror of wordless rage, his libraries of alchemy and theology lost in the dissolving chaos of the trampling mobs unleashed by the summoning of incoherent flame.
        So.
        Because you were too much of an animal, the control mechanism didn't work.
        And that was all Basilica ever was. Just a control mechanism. That's all. That's what those nine years of effort went on producing. Gelhammer Jantz could have been the brightest of the bright. But he had chosen to fall. He had chosen the path of brute power and dominance, rather than attempting the higher heavens he might have achieved.
        Still thinking in the traditional mode of Western thought, Eric? Of course. How can I be other than that which I am? Still entertaining neoplatonic possibilities. I still believe that, had we been the true aspirational scientists of an ideal world, we could have built something which could have liberated ourselves from our animal flesh. We could have pierced through the hormonal veil to the metarealm of pure thought which lies beyond.
        But you still have a life to lead ....
        Yes. He had a life to lead. He would be a teacher. He would awaken young minds to the challenges of the great. He would introduce his students to Alfred Korzybski, Noam Chomsky, Alfred Tarski. He would teach the joys of the science of linguistics. He would lead the best of his students to the dizziest of intellectual heights, where they would grapple, finally, with the challenge of Wittgenstein.
        Wittgenstein?
        A machinegunner ... a gentleman from Germany who fought in the fields of frozen blood ... an intellectual scholar who chose to put his finger on the trigger ... a patriot ... a soldier ... wrong on Germany, Eric. I remember now. Born in Vienna. Fought in the Austrian army on the Russian front. He who can't remember teaches -- right?

*


        In his first days as a teacher, at the outset of his new life, Eric found himself dreaming repetitively of snow. Of snow and of ashes. The ashes from a burning map.
        He dreamt of red lines across a continent, demarcated in barbed wire. He dreamt of smoke, black smoke shifting upwards from a landscape of utter white blankness. He dreamt of the dreams of children. The dreams were made of ashes. He dreamt of ashes and of snow, both together everywhere falling. The ashes were the depleted gray of the exhaustion after rage. And the snow? The snow was white.

The End

This story, "Upgrade", made its first appearance when posted online by Hugh Cook on 2003 June 14 Saturday.