Alex Drake's father died when she was seven. He had told her on his deathbed, with a grin full of rotten yellowed teeth, that he had been a raider, a brute, a savage from the north. He had slain half a dozen men with his bare hands. His left had been well and truly paralysed by then, so, to emphasise this point, he had raised his trembling right, clenched it into a feeble fist of strength--and then opened it like a blooming flower, laid it on Alex's wrist. "It'll be our little secret, okay?"
And in those dying breaths, he told Alex one, final story, a rather dark one he had never told her before.
“Do you know why I settled down? Do you? Well, I couldn’t go on.”
Her father’s smile faded.
“My friends and I found this bobble. Laid on the side of the road, up near Daytona Beach. Thing was like…a little human, a homunculus, I think, a boy dressed in blue and with golden hair. He looked so…warm. I couldn’t help--I couldn’t help but pick him up."
Alex understood perhaps a third of her father’s words, but she understood the little sob that emerged from his mouth.
“I had the strangest dreams, you know. But--but some feral ghouls--came in the night. Came to our come. They--they killed the others. All of them. But I--I had the bobble in my hands. So I lived.”
Alex continued looking on, puzzled. Her father noticed, and smiled again.
“Listen, Alex. Stay strong. Whenever you feel blue, remember--that little boy will always be with you.”
Alex knows now that his words can't be true; the sea devils are saying that White City's old petty chieftain would have never allowed any outsider into the village's walls, let alone a savage such as the man the self-proclaimed Red Richard of Roanoke had claimed to be.
But surely the bobble is on her side?
***
Alex isn't sure why it's this particular memory is flashing before her sun-creased eyes as she looks up, through the barrel of a laser weapon, at the blue-capped man standing above her. From here, cast against a bright blue sky, he’s more silhouette than human, the sea devil who looks like a sailor from one of her mother’s tattered old pre-War comics.
Perhaps it's because Alex wishes she had that sort of charisma. A little charisma would do her quite a lot of good about now. The metal of the sea devil’s gun is close enough to her face that she can feel its pulsating waves of heat scorch her skin. The bobble might do her some good, too.
"I'm--I'm with the Order," she's trying to say, "just--just like you."
Well, that won’t do. Not after she tried to take after her father and intelligently pounce on him. The sea devil’s response, however, takes her rather aback.
“Then what is our creed?”
Well. This should be easy enough. She’s heard the sea devils’ chant plenty of times from the station that had once been at the centre of White City before--before that day. “I believe in one secret and secret--and infallible--one infallible…” She desperately searches for the next word. “One infallible Moon.” She exhales. “And in one Sun--"
“Hylic bastardry,” the man cuts her off.
He laughs, a series of heart-stopping chortles that shake Alex’s whole body.
“But…” he says next, looking to the sky, "your heart is in the right place.”
And Alex Drake’s little eyes watch the laser gun as it drops out of his loosened hands and down to the sun-crackled pavement of US 1.
***
If Alex Drake closes those eyes, she can see, in her eyelids, a great head, like that of a massive, floating balloon. Its hair is golden, its teeth white. This--this is the bobble, the one her father described. That smile is so beautiful--it’s welcoming her. She’ll be safe from the sea devils.
But its eyes are as black as the shadow. And they’re staring right at her, piercing through eternity.
Alex Drake can’t help but shudder.
***
This sea devil’s name is Jonathan Agnew. That’s not the sort of name Alex associates with the sea devils, but he insists that’s his name, and he has the gun to prove it. He says he’s a Knight of the Seven Seas. Or, perhaps, an Illustrious Knight of the Divine Secret. Alex has heard it both ways.
This Jonathan has taken her inside the house nearby, and now he’s telling her to repeat after him. This, Alex does; she has no particular desire to die.
I believe in one secret and ineffable Monad
What the hell is a Monad? And what the hell does “ineffable” mean?
and in one Star in the Company of Stars of whose fire we are created
She’s seen stars, but they’re usually clouded by red smoke. Do the sea devils believe the stars are nuclear bombs themselves?
and to which we shall return
This, she can believe. Alex has seen the world around her burn itself more times than she wishes to count. She isn’t sure what praying to this Monad or these stars will do.
and in one Father of Life, Mystery of Mystery, in His name Yaldabaoth the sole vicegerent of the Sun upon the Earth
Right. Whatever--whatever that means.
***
In her next blink, Alex can see the head again. And she can see the cosmic axis it’s settled on, the one the head’s rapidly processing about with much the same motion as a joyfully wobbling top.
Beneath the bobble’s head sprawls a great city. It seems to sprawl on and on and forever, hugging azure southern waters and a gently arcing coastline. Spires rise from the city’s heart, fashioned from glass and glistening in the sunlight brighter than the finest jewel. Alex can see the monorails that are spun in a silken web across its streets, and she can the gardens, lusher than any Alex has ever seen, lusher than Alex can imagine it were possible to dream.
***
And I believe in one Earth, the Mother of us all
Alex has--had--a mother, yes, but she’s not the Earth.
and in one Womb wherein all men are begotten
Alex isn’t a man, either, for that matter.
and wherein they shall rest, Mystery of Mystery, in Her name Babylon
Oh, if Babylon meant gardens, she’s already seen gardens, and--
***
Alex Drake can see that city again in her next blink. Night has fallen, and with it, a thousand thousand little electric lanterns have flickered to life. They cast pools of enlightenment all up and down its roads and up its dreaming spires and in the heart of each and every last house. She wonders what it must have been like to live in somewhere so beautiful, to walk amidst the gardens, to walk past so many stars preserved in crystal.
But is it just her, or is the bobble’s grin just that little bit even brighter--
She doesn’t have time to think before she sees night flash into day. And, just before the blink ends and her eyes open, she sees all the lights of that city go out, one by one.
She can feel a million screams.
***
And I believe in the Serpent and the Lion
…
Mystery of Mystery, in His name Baphomet
…
And I believe in one Gnostic and Catholic Church of Light, Life, Love, and Liberty
…
the Word of whose Law is Sophia
Sophia. Sophia. Sophia.
***
Alex can see the ruins beneath her, the thousand thousand lanterns reduced to a thousand thousand crumbling skeletons all twisted in agony. There aren’t the blessed ones.
These are the ones that have been stripped of life by the bobble.
She looks up in anger. Some of the bobble’s skin has peeled off, and she can see the mangled tangle inside his cheeks and under his eyes. But his hair is more golden than ever, and--
--and that ----ing bobble still smiles. Its like a white mirelurk’s pincer aimed straight at her soul.
She’s going to make that bobble go away
go away go away go away go away
***
And I believe in the communion of Aeons
Alex will believe in anything now.
And I confess one Baptism of Wisdom whereby we accomplish the Miracle of Incarnation
She needs a miracle.
And I confess my life one, individual, and eternal that was, and is, and is to come
Yes. Yes, she can do that.
***
My shoes are Japanese
Have you ever thought to be wanderers in the fourth dimension?
My trousers, British
Have you? To be exiles?
The red cap on my head, Russian
This is a false goddess! I shall destroy her!
Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me?
the Word of whose Law is Sophia
Alex can still see that horrid bobble face. But now she can see the thousand, the million, the billions and billions of lights from behind. They build and build, coalescing and floating together and blossoming, until the starfield’s brighter than the bobble’s face, and the bobble sinks down, down, deeper down, drowning in the light.
Come along and sing the song and join the jamboree!
The bobble shall no longer bother her.
***
Om mani padme hum
Om mani padme hum
Om mani padme hum
These words themselves are meaningless. They're in some arcane tongue of the Old Orient, a tongue long ago swept away in the radiant rain of an atomic monsoon. But they are jewelled words of power, and Alex needs power now.
***
Alex Drake is spinning through time and space. Maybe she’ll land back in White City, maybe she’ll land in Celebration, maybe she’ll land in Shanghai or Moscow, or Tokyo or Baghdad, or Chang'an or Nineveh--no, the Earth has ceased to exist.
Well, that’s fine. All she can do is stare at the glowing starry rivers of the cosmos around her, and wherever she lands--she’ll be safe from the bobble there, surely.
***
When Alex Drake opens her eyes, she can recite the whole thing. She doesn’t need a second revision. She isn’t bothered by how unlyrical the lines are. She doesn’t even need to work around the fact that her head feels like a pounding hammer.
I believe in one secret and ineffable Monad; and in one Star in the Company of Stars of whose fire we are created, and to which we shall return; and in one Father of Life, Mystery of Mystery, in His name Yaldabaoth the sole vicegerent of the Sun upon the Earth; and in one Air the nourisher of all that breathes.
And I believe in one Earth, the Mother of us all, and in one Womb wherein all men are begotten, and wherein they shall rest, Mystery of Mystery, in Her name Babylon.
And I believe in the Serpent and the Lion, Mystery of Mystery, in His name Baphomet.
And I believe in one Gnostic and Catholic Church of Light, Life, Love and Liberty, the Word of whose Law is Sophia.
And I believe in the communion of Aeons.
And I confess one Baptism of Wisdom whereby we accomplish the Miracle of Incarnation.
And I confess my life one, individual, and eternal that was, and is, and is to come.
Om mani padme hum.
Om mani padme hum.
Om mani padme hum.
There. She’s got the whole thing down, even the leaden emphasis on the names.
Her head abruptly bursts through her skull, and Alex only vaguely feels her legs crumble under her.
***
Alex blinks, and emerges from the time vortex to land in the middle of a great green under a bright summer sky.
She’s standing upon dirt, at the end of a little Mobius strip, and she has a bat in her hand, a wide wooden rectangle, more like a greatsword than the baseball bats she’s used to. There’s three pillars behind her, three pillars fashioned into something like a gate holding up the cosmos, along with three mirror images, on the far side of her little dirt strip.
Behind that gate stands a man, and all around the green stand other men, and all around them is a great bowl filled to the brim with people--lost souls from the days before the Flood.
Is this the in-between?
Down blow, there’s a man careening towards her. Like the gatekeeper, this man is dressed in blue and yellow--the colours of the bobble. The man accelerates, swinging his arm from low to high and up and around, reaching the far end of the dirt. But he stops, and a red flash erupts from his raised hand.
It takes her too long to realise that the red flash is a projectile, being hurled straight at her, bouncing off the dirt at the speed of sound. She instinctively raises her bat to defend herself, but it’s too late.
The edge of her bat strikes the ball with a satisfying thunk.
Alex’s eyes snap upwards as she has an epiphany she knows she has no way of having. She watches as the red flash rockets up and up and up and far away, deep past the Melbourne Cricket Ground boundary and deep into the crowd for a six--a deep strike into the bobble’s heart.
Her eyes widen as her mind registers where she is, and what the city she had been shown earlier was--
***
She’s lying on the floor, Knight Jonathan Agnew leaning over her. His mouth is moving frantically, but Alex can’t hear the words. She can tell from her face that this was not normal for the sea devils, and that, by their standards, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.
But there is no time to ruminate now, no time to wonder why she has been shown this. Alex Drake has work to do.
“I need a cricket bat,” she says, with more clarity than she’s ever said anything in her life.
“A what?”
That’s particularly silly. What is a cricket bat? “You people come from a distant land,” she says. “Surely you must know what a cricket bat is?” Her voice has changed. It sounds foreign now, even more foreign than a sea devil. “I’ve got to take it. I know what I must do. I’ve got to go to Melbourne. That’s near here, isn’t it?”
“I--yes, it’s just up the M95. Are you alright?"
Alex, truthfully, doesn't know. She doesn’t know where any of this has come from. All she knows is that this is how she will defeat the bobble.
Jonathan Agnew, Illustrious Knight of the Divine Secret, looks upon Alex Drake with eyes as wide as the Moon. In awe, and in fear.
***
Alex Drake leaves White City--or Akhetaten or whatever it is the sea devils are calling it now--she leaves it the next day. She’s carrying a cricket bat over her shoulder. No one can say where she got it from, not even a sea devil, least of all Jonathan Agnew.
"I'm going to Melbourne," she says, whenever anyone asks her. "I'm going to Melbourne Cricket Ground.”
They all ask her, “Why?”
And she just shrugs and responds, “I’m going to play cricket.”
***
Two vagabonds found the severed, mutilated head, almost unrecognisable as a Vault-Tec bobble, impaled into the flotsam-strewn shore north of Fort Pierce. The feral ghouls all around seemed still, as if something had pacified them.
It was not the head of Ozymandias; this head had been clearly been smashed off its pedestal by a broad, heavy object. It lay in the centre of a pentagram, around which had been scrawled words of power, in Arabesque script too fine and too ornate to have been carved into sand: I believe in one ineffable Monad…
Here’s the thing: Alex Drake isn’t literate.
