The Branch Page 12

  “So what?”

  “Jeremiah revived him.”

  “And you call that resurrecting the dead?” scoffed Moore. “Hell, any Boy Scout can perform artificial respiration!”

  “There’s nothing in the prophecies that says he has to dig up a moldering corpse and magically return it to life,” replied Bernstein. “His companion was dead. He revived him. Q.E.D.—and he’s batting at least .750.”

  “It’s a crock of shit, and you know it.”

  “I don’t know it and neither do you, or you wouldn’t have had me bring Milt over,” said Bernstein stubbornly.

  “Oh, come on, Abe! Jeremiah’s a beggar and a thief, he’s as dumb as people get to be, and he’s not exactly on the road to establishing a kingdom in Jerusalem or anywhere else. I’d say he’s as unlikely a candidate for Messiah as you’re ever going to find.”

  “At the risk of sounding religious,” replied Bernstein, “he won’t be the Messiah because he’s a likely candidate, but because he is the Messiah, plain and simple.”

  “Horseshit. He’s no more a Messiah than you or me. If there was a Messiah at all, it was Jesus.”

  “You don’t believe that anymore than I do.”

  “No, I don’t,” said Moore. “But almost half the people in the world think Jesus was the Messiah. Maybe they know something we don’t know.”

  “To quote my employer: horseshit.”

  “Then look at it another way. The Jews have been established in Israel for a century, and they’ve been trouncing the Arabs every decade or so. Maybe the Messiah showed up when no one was looking. Maybe he was David Ben-Gurion.”

  “An interesting notion,” admitted Bernstein. “But unfortunately, it doesn’t explain Jeremiah away.”

  “I don’t want to explain him away,” said Moore. “I just want to kill him. Hell, your rabbi did a beautiful job of explaining Jesus away, and billions of people still believe in him.”

  “It doesn’t make them right.”

  “It doesn’t make them wrong, either.”

  “Why should an avowed atheist suddenly defend Jesus’ divinity?” asked Bernstein. “Could it be that if you can force yourself to believe in the Christians’ Messiah you won’t have to face the grim reality of the true one?”

  “Perhaps,” admitted Moore uncomfortably. He sighed. “I suppose the next order of business is finding out whether or not Jesus was really the Messiah.”

  Bernstein laughed sarcastically. “Hundreds of thousands of scholars have devoted their lives to finding that out. What makes you think you’ll succeed where they failed?”

  “They didn’t know who to ask,” said Moore. “I do.”

  Chapter 11

  It had achieved a measure of fame out of all proportion to its appearance. It was structurally unimpressive, just a little building divided into a foyer, a file room, and twenty cubicles. It was a branch of the Reality Library, known by reputation to tens of millions of people, and misunderstood by almost all of them.

  Moore left his bodyguards at the door, entered the building, and walked up to the sole attendant, a portly, middle-aged man who sat behind a cluttered counter.

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Moore. Solomon Moody Moore, I made an appointment.”

  The man typed the name into his computer terminal. “Ah, yes, Mr. Moore. I’ve reserved cubicle number seven for you.”

  “Do I pay you now or later?”

  “Our fee is twenty thousand dollars an hour, and we require at least two hours’ payment in advance.”

  “Fine,” said Moore, scribbling down the identification number of his personal account.

  “Thank you,” said the attendant. “You can begin in a few moments, just as soon as our computer transfers the funds. Your bank has been notified that this transaction will take place, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever used the Library before?”

  “No,” said Moore.

  “Do you know how it works?”

  “Only what I’ve heard.”

  “Then perhaps you might appreciate a little backgrounding,” said the attendant, producing a pamphlet from behind the counter. “Here. You might want to read through this. If you have any questions after you’ve finished with it, I’ll be happy to answer them.”

  Moore thanked him, then walked over to a chair, sat down, and began reading.

  The Reality Library, said the pamphlet, despite the incredible complexity of its techniques, was basically a form of entertainment, the logical culmination of all that had gone before. Phonograph records and audio tapes appealed to only a single sense, theater and the cinema to only two—but even if one found a medium that appealed to all five senses, as the short-lived feelies had attempted to do back in the 2020s, one would still be only a spectator, a voyeur whose experience would remain totally vicarious.

  But the Reality Library had changed all that. When a user (the pamphlet disliked the word “customer”) sat down in his cubicle, he would find two nodules that he would attach to his temples, as per the carefully rendered illustration. He then flicked a switch on the right arm of the chair, and contact with the main bank of the Library in Houston was immediately established.

  The Library had more than a quarter million works of literature recorded. The user had merely to select any character, no matter how great or small, from any book in the tape catalog, and he would for all practical purposes become that character for the duration of the tape.

  He would feel exactly what the character was feeling, know what he knew, see what he saw. The user would be unable to act independently or change the prerecorded pattern of what occurred in the chosen work of literature; rather, he would seem to find himself in a secret section of the character’s mind, sharing every thought and experience, and following him through to the conclusion of his saga.

  The pamphlet went on to explain how actors had originally been tied in to vast banks of machines that sorted and stored their reactions, which were then temporarily transferred to the brains of the Library’s patrons. The results were less than satisfactory, since what the patron was then receiving was an actor’s interpretation of an author’s work, and of course wars and death scenes were almost impossible to manage.

  Over the years, though, the Library’s technology had grown increasingly more sophisticated, to the point where a user could now live a book without having it filtered through actors, directors, adapters, or any other middlemen. A single tape usually took a team of four technicians between two and three years to complete; and with half a million technicians under contract and more being trained each day, the Library’s catalog was growing geometrically.

  Moore read a little further, found nothing except an inordinate amount of self-congratulatory hyperbole, and finally returned to the counter.

  “Any questions?” asked the attendant, taking the pamphlet back and putting it out of sight behind the counter.

  “Does it hurt—attaching these things to my head?”

  “Goodness, no!” laughed the attendant. “Who would come back a second time if there were any pain involved?”

  “You’d be surprised,” said Moore, thinking of some of the more notorious exhibits at the Thrill Show.

  “I assure you that you won’t feel the slightest discomfort, Mr. Moore.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” said Moore with a shrug.

  The attendant’s computer terminal beeped twice.

  “Ah! Your money has been transferred.”

  “Your prices must scare away a lot of customers,” commented Moore.

  “Not as many as you might suppose,” replied the attendant. “We offer you experiences that nobody else can duplicate. Have you ever wondered what the female orgasm feels like? You can become Fanny Hill, live her life, feel her sensations. Do you dream of empire? You can be Caesar, Elizabeth, Bonaparte—not just observe them, mind you, but become them. Do you fantasize about your physical abilities? Then be Tarzan, locked in morta
l combat with Numa the Lion.”

  “How long does it take to run through a tape?”

  “It varies, but by and large you can live a tape in about forty minutes. Of course, if you wish to be Natasha in War and Peace, it will take a little longer. And, conversely, if you wish to be a character who appears in only a single chapter of War and Peace, it might run only two or three minutes.”

  “What if I want to be a character at only one point of a story?” asked Moore. “How can I do that?”

  “You must signify which portion of the story you want, in advance,” answered the attendant. “You will be totally powerless to act independently once it begins. In fact, you won’t even be aware that you are living a tape rather than a life. Therefore, all limitations must be decided beforehand.”

  “Where can I find a list of your tapes?”

  The attendant gestured toward a door. “Go through there, and you’ll find yourself in our Catalog Room. Write down the titles and code numbers of the tapes you want, as well as those portions of the tapes that you wish to live. Then bring the list to me and I’ll feed it into the master computer while you arrange yourself in your cubicle.”

  Moore went into the Catalog Room and returned with his list half an hour later.

  “Ah,” smiled the attendant, looking at the titles. “I see you are a religious man.”

  “Not especially,” replied Moore.

  “Then you wish to become one?”

  “Not especially.”

  “You’ll feel differently after you have died for our sins and risen again.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Then why should you wish to be Jesus?” asked the attendant, curious.

  “I don’t,” said Moore, scribbling down the character whose life he wanted to live. “Let’s begin with the Gospel of John.”

  He went to his cubicle, attached the nodules to his temples as directed, felt a pleasant drowsiness come over him, and …

  He was Judas Iscariot, and he was furious. Jesus had entrusted him with the bag that contained the disciples’ money, solely so that he would be held accountable if anything was missing, and he resented it. He was a thief, and now there was nobody to steal from except himself.

  Why had he ever fallen in with this gentle, white-robed man in the first place? Surely this was no Messiah, but merely a teacher, a rabbi with strange, revolutionary ideas. He should leave, should be out trying to make or steal a living … and yet, there was always that chance, that minute possibility.

  How long, how many times, had his people implored the God of Israel to unleash His Messiah and reclaim the former glory of the race? Claimant after claimant to the Messiahship had come forth, tried to rally the masses, and been stoned to death or crucified for his trouble.

  And although he would bide his time before deciding if this man Jesus was the One his people had been awaiting, he felt certain that in the end he would prove no more of a Messiah than any of the others.

  Still, while he watched and waited, he had to do his master’s bidding, and it enraged him to play the part of a holy man of peace. He sat now in the house of Lazarus, watching while Mary, the sister of Lazarus, took out a pound or more of very costly ointment, placed it on Jesus’ feet, and rubbed it in with her hair. Finally Judas could stand it no longer.

  “Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?” he demanded.

  He cared no more for the poor than for the Romans, of course; but the profit from the sale would have helped fill out the money pouch—and if Jesus turned out to be nothing but a man, there would have been that much more of a stake for Judas in whatever new life he chose for himself.

  “Let her alone,” answered Jesus firmly. “Against the day of my burying hath she kept this, for the poor always ye have with you, but me ye have not always.”

  The other disciples all stared at him in mute disapproval, and for perhaps the hundredth time he cringed in humiliation before his master.

  He nurtured his hatred, let it grow and blossom within him. Soon they would go to Jerusalem for the Passover. Then he would act. The money he would receive for betraying his master would make three hundred pence seem like so many grains of sand in the desert.

  Soon the moment would come. Soon …

  And suddenly he was thrust into the hot, barbaric world of Kazantzakis’ The Last Temptation of Christ. He was huge, rawboned, virile, with the strength of a bull, and a great red beard that was the envy of every man.…

  He was Judas, and he was impatient. Once, months ago, he had loathed the sight of Jesus, had even gone to a desert monastery to kill him. But the strange, pale-skinned young man with the haunted eyes, the ascetic who seemed always to be running not toward the Messiahship but away from it, had convinced Judas without even convincing himself that he was indeed the One.

  And now Judas grew increasingly impatient. Why did Jesus not wield the sword? Why did he not bring the Romans and the Pharisees to their knees? Why did he dance and drink, and rub shoulders with the scum of the earth? This was no way for the Messiah to act! The Messiah must carry the terrible sword of the Lord’s wrath and vengeance. They were wasting time, Jesus and his scrawny, flea-ridden, cowardly band of followers, and it was up to Judas to show him the way, to convince him that the time had come to strike the blow that would set his people free once and for all.

  But that night Jesus took Judas aside and spoke to him of a vision he had had while lying all alone atop Golgotha. The prophet Isaiah rose up in his mind, holding aloft a black goatskin covered with letters.

  Suddenly Isaiah and the goatskin vanished, leaving only the letters, which writhed like living beasts in the air.

  Sweating and trembling, Jesus had read them aloud: “‘He has borne our faults; he was wounded for our transgressions; our iniquities bruised him. He was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. Despised and rejected by all, he went forward without resisting, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter.’”

  Jesus stopped speaking. He had turned a deathly pale.

  “I don’t understand,” said Judas. “Who is the lamb being led to slaughter? Who is going to die?”

  “Judas, brother,” said Jesus, trying to control his terror, “I am the one who is going to die.”

  “You? Then aren’t you the Messiah?”

  “I am.”

  “I don’t understand,” growled the redbeard, torn between rage and grief.

  “You must help me do what must be done,” pleaded Jesus. “You must go into Jerusalem.”

  “Why do you choose me?” demanded Judas.

  “Because you are the strongest,” replied Jesus. “The others don’t bear up.”

  And because he was the strongest, and the most devoted, he slunk out into the night toward Jerusalem to do his master’s bidding.…

  And suddenly, instead of the hot, arid streets of Jerusalem, he was catapulted down, down, down, to the depths of the Inferno of Dante.…

  He was Judas Iscariot, and he was in such agony as no man had ever known before.

  Above him, beyond him, souls were suffering all the torments of the eternally damned. They endured rivers of fire, hideous mutilations, transformations into serpents, living burials, every monstrous indignity and torture that Hell could provide.

  He would gladly have traded places with any of them.

  At the very epicenter of Hell squatted Lucifer, the archfiend of all Creation. He had three faces and three mouths. In the mouth on the left was Brutus; in the mouth on the right was Cassius; and in the largest of the three mouths, the one in the center, was Judas.

  He had been in that mouth, chewed and mangled by Lucifer and made unthinkably unclean by his very nearness, for all eternity. He would remain there for all eternity. The agony was unendurable, and yet he endured it. He tried to direct his mind away from the pain, but whenever he did so he saw the face of his master looking down at him from the cross, and even the agony of Lucifer’s black, jagged teeth was preferable to tha
t.

  He screamed.

  He had screamed an infinite number of times in the past. He would scream an infinite number of times in the future. He was Judas Iscariot, and he had betrayed his God.…

  Free from the nethermost regions of Hell, he found himself back in the suffering, oft-raped body of Palestine, the land of Asch’s The Nazarene.…

  He was Judah Ish-Kiriot, and he was troubled. The Temple was to be destroyed, and Jerusalem was to be leveled with the earth and trodden underfoot by the gentiles.

  “Who has said these dreadful things, man of Kiriot?” demanded Nicodemus.

  “My rabbi!” wailed Judah. “He who I believed would bring salvation to Israel!”

  Nicodemus shook his head sadly. “Your rabbi has said that he who will not be born again shall not see the kingdom of God. I did not understand this, so I asked him: ‘How can a man be born when he is grown old? Can he enter into his mother’s body again?’ And your rabbi replied, ‘He that is born of the flesh, is flesh; but he that is born of the spirit, is spirit.’ This is true, but are we born of the flesh alone? Is not the Torah our mother, and are not Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob our fathers? So I said to myself, this rabbi’s doctrine is good and great for those who are born without the spirit, or for such as would deny the spirit. And on that day I withdrew from your rabbi.”

  Judah stared at him uncomprehendingly.

  “Is it not possible,” continued Nicodemus softly, “that your rabbi has come for the gentiles?”

  The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed to his anguished brain. And yet, to redeem those millions of souls who had been born without the spirit, he would play his part in the tapestry of pain and death that was yet to come.…

  And from the house of Nicodemus he journeyed to a Jerusalem suspended in time and space, in Dunn’s epic poem, Satan Chained. He seemed insubstantial, shadowy, ethereal.…

  He was Judas, and yet he was not. He was a toy, a pawn in an eternal chess game that had begun when Satan and his demoniac generals had led the revolt. Scenes shifted, time progressed, and yet the battle-game went on, unchanging.