Particle 06: Closer to God
War with God is seldom a good idea.
Such was the contemplation of one man sitting on his cot in an obligatorily dark cell.
Ikari Gendou finished cleaning the lenses of his glasses with his gloved fingertips and pushed them back in front of his eyes in characteristic one-fingered gesture, clutching the pointing wrist with his other hand.
His wrists were bound with zip-ties.
Yui…
---------
The doors burst open again.
Wolfwood looked up sharply from having his hands lavishly licked, the appendages in question still bound behind his back at angles that hurt his shoulders.
…Sir!
Integral Hellsing and Walter C. Ddollneazz strode into the room, the former in front of the latter, while all of the pastors and volunteer witnessers stood defensively, many half-crouched as if ready to pounce or flee at the slightest change.
Silence. The only sound was a printer's components whirring back and forth with intermittent noises and stops.
The initial shock died down. Nerves tuned to a steady tightness.
Integral smirked, fully satisfied.
The printer groaned as it dropped its page. The page dropped into the pan, edges clicking against the sides, as the printer sucked another page into its reel.
Pastor Dan, Wolfwood's buddy of odd sorts, cleared his throat.
"May we help you?"
Integral made a small noise of 'Huh!' and gestured behind her back to Walter. Walter pulled the manila folder out from under his arm, allowed it to flap open on his palm, searched its contents, and handed a paper to the knight.
"Pure Soul Protestant Unit, sector 7-G, you are hereby under the direct control of the Hellsing Organization. We are taking control of your operation."
"…WHAT?"
"The order has already gone through," said Integral. She appeared to be pleased with the turn of events. "This is the official order, signed by the Royal Knights and by your superior."
"But—but—"
"Your superior was far from being the Christian patron you thought he was." Integral smirked; she was clearly enjoying this. "You were only allowed to follow through with this on his money to torture his select enemies. The ones initially turned into you were his."
Integral offered the paper to Dan. Dan snatched the paper from her gloved fingers and scanned the type. He dropped the paper to his side after a moment and gave her a wan look.
"…why are you doing this?"
"Because we, like you, are Protestant."
"…oh." Dan thought for a moment. "Can't we just make
an alliance?"
Bang.
The congregation ducked and covered their heads. White, paper-like dust fell from the ceiling.
Integral lowered her upraised gun arm and smirked.
"Get out."
---------------------
"Well, that was efficient."
Wolfwood looked around the suddenly spacious control room and edged further underneath the desk. Sir Integral and Walter had gone into the adjoining room, though it would only be short time until he was inevitably discovered.
Their history was rocky.
"So... eh… are you guys with them?"
"Technically, we are always with them. At the moment, we are acting independently."
"Oh. Then, why are you here?"
"We just wanted to see what was happening. Watch your fingers."
The nylon rope jerked up sharply, pulled taut, and then fell from Wolfwood's wrists. Wolfwood cradled and rubbed his abused limbs to restore circulation. His hands were in the blissful stage of numbness before daggers announced the reawakening of the nerves.
"Don't worry about that. Your circulation was fine. The Police Girl got a snack out of your wound."
"They're still numb." Wolfwood looked over his shoulder at the second entity. "Hey there, Seras."
"Good morrow, Mr. Wolfwood."
"Feeling better?"
"A little, thank you. I hope you did not mind."
"Nah, not at all. The blood is doing more good nourishing you than running on my clothes. Having a good time seeing what's here? Quite a show, huh?"
"It is nothing new," said Alucard. The light slanting in across the desktop revealed that he was working on his Jackal, moving white-gloved hands over the black casing, intermittently feeling a nook or a switch. "As long as they have been around, Christians have been forcing their views on the rest of the fucking world."
"Yeah; whatever. So, why aren't you helping your master now that she's here? I thought you were bound or something."
"…hm."
"Oh," said Seras, "she's none to happy with Master right now. We're avoiding her."
"Really?" Wolfwood turned around and squinted at Alucard in the poor light. An amused grin began to twist the corners of his mouth. "What did you do?
"Snuck out."
"No shit, huh. How pissed is she?"
The corner of Alucard's mouth twitched into the ghost of a grin. "Royally."
"She's quite scary when she's displeased, Mr. Wolfwood."
"Ah, just call me Wolfwood. There's nothing about me fit to be called 'mister'."
Seras hugged her knees and bit her lip, still fighting back traces of the bloodlust. "Actually, I think you're quite a gentleman, unlike some people here I could name."
Alucard grunted and checked the sight down the barrel of the Jackal.
Wolfwood smiled and ruffled Seras's hair. "Why, thank you, miss."
Seras purred. Wolfwood looked at Alucard.
"So, how long until she lets you get some again?"
Click.
Wolfwood crossed his eyes to focus on the gun pressed point-blank into his forehead. The barrel was freezing—no life, no heat, silver nitrate—nitrate? It is nitrate? Ohshit…
"I-I didn't mean that!" Wolfwood laughed and raised his hands defensively. "Hey, come on now…"
Alucard stared sideways at Wolfwood for a moment before lowering the Jackal and continuing its maintenance. Wolfwood sighed and leaned against the desk leg.
"So, now what do we do?"
"We are leaving."
"Oh. Good. That was what I was hoping you would say."
"After we have some fun with the Catholics."
"Oh…" Wolfwood allowed his shoulders to slacken. "That was what I was hoping you would not say."
"Um, Master, would Sir Integra approve of that? I mean, I know she doesn't like them very much, but without her permission…eh…"
Alucard snapped a lever on the gun with a resounding clack. Seras's expression fell flat.
"Yeah, that's what I thought you would say."
----------------------------------
"So, basically, the Grail is a pussy."
"Basically, Mr. Kiryuu. Basically."
"For what it's worth, I believe the implementations are far more sacred than would warrant the term 'pussy'," said Hakkai.
Hakuryuu arced his neck around his master's from his perch on Hakkai's shoulder and gave a firm "Kyuu" of agreement.
"I agree with Ryuu-san," said Fuu. She was one of approximately half of the party in attendance that was giving Touga irate looks of varying degrees.
"Oh, his name is Hakuryuu. See? Say hello."
Hakuryuu extended his slender neck to Fuu and gladly allowed her to scratch his ears. Fuu smiled.
"Wow, he's gorgeous!"
"Do you want to hold him?"
"Sure! That is, if he doesn't mind…"
Hakuryuu untangled his claws from the back of Hakkai's silk shirt and fluttered onto Fuu's folded legs.
Touga looked over Dryden's shoulder at the Bible the latter had broken open in his lap.
"Did you find those passages yet?"
"No; this is a rather extensive volume. You'll have to give me a moment." Dryden brushed his hair out of his eyes and looked over his shoulder toward a far corner. "How much longer do you think our Paladin friend will last before he breaks up this little party?"
Anderson looked up slightly from his burrow in his hand. He was sitting in a chair in the furthest corner of the room from the group, having long since given up any attempt to reason with his class. For some reason, he managed to look even more stubbly and haggard than was his custom.
He did not look amused.
"Oh, I'd give him five more minutes."
"I'm pulling for ten."
"While I'm looking here, ladies and gentlemen—" Dryden returned his attention to the Bible and flipped a page, pushing his glasses back into position for reading. "—perhaps you should continue that color argument we were having. It would be a good use of time."
"…blue."
"No, green. The evidence is all in place."
"Can't we just say that both colors work?"
"Both, no," said Miki. He regarded Hakkai carefully. "And why are you in here, at any rate? I do not think that you qualify as an intellectual."
"The definition is being given great liberties for this project, I think."
"Yes, but the Church is acting on the assumption that anybody who is reserved and spends a good deal of time reading is an intellectual. It's not true at all. Romantics can be quite the opposite."
"Well, let's extend our group definition to romantics and intellectuals. Just rebels, all right? I'm as sure as hell not brainy." Utena leaned back on her tailbone and stretched out the knots in her shoulders, pressing interlocked fingers in a cradle beyond her knees.
"Fine. We're all just here," said Vash. "Let's just try to have a good time."
"Am I really non-conformist?" asked Hakkai.
Touga leaned back on his arms next to Utena and flicked his hair over his shoulder with a jerk of his head. "You're merely reserved, though society's gentleman in every sense of the word. I honestly don't know. Why are you asking me?"
"Is green or blue the color of geniuses?"
"I don't know, Icchan."
"Color has no effect on mental capacity," said Hojo dully, sitting against the wall and staring at the opposite side of the room with peripheral vision. "That is a myth."
"But every genius—"
"You will watch how loosely you use that term. Most book-toting pseudo-intellectuals fall far, far short of that standard. Literacy is a minimum skill, as is regurgitation of facts and ideas."
"Oh, well, excuse me, Mr. Hojo. Is green or blue the color of… book-toting reserved people?"
"I think it is green," said Fuu.
"Because that's your color, but you didn't pick it," said Miki. "And before you begin, I am not arguing any more in favor of blue. I have merely found the color to be soothing to the mind."
"My school uniform is for an elite prep school, therefore—"
"I think there's a stone or something called blue something that is supposed to be for opening the mind… or something…"
Vash's voice trailed off amid stares. Knives smirked.
"And the presence of this simple-minded fool is not enough proof that we are separated on the basis of our intelligence?"
"Hey!"
"What I said," said Hojo.
"But let's look at this logically," said Fuu. "There is a dichotomy of blue and green as the colors of introversion and book-toting. They are equally used colors. Ikuhara tends to favor the blue, I believe."
"I believe that is so," said Ami.
"Hehhh…" said Icchan. "Toting: what a cool word!"
"But I heard that geniuses pick green."
Utena tightened her lips. "Not in my world, anyway…"
"Nonsense. There is no concurrence—"
"But perhaps the wavelengths of light absorbed and reflected by such pigments of blue and green appeal to the complex biochemical-electrical signals within an advanced mind."
Hojo looked at Ami and sighed. "Girl, human consciousness is a mere epiphenomenon of electrical impulses along tissue. Ion pumps. Ions. Difference discharge across a membrane. That is all it is. It is one great mistake."
"Mistake?!" Vash leaned forward and gaped. "But how can love be a mistake? Beauty?"
"If you weren't conscious, you wouldn't give a damn if those emotions existed or not, now would you?"
"So the wavelengths reflected by green and blue pigments somehow correspond with complex electrical signals—they're all energy, aren't they? Green and blue are both in the same area of the color spectrum, so the wavelengths are almost congruent—"
"But following that argument," said Knives, holding up his hand to silence Ami, "those who wear black, which absorbs all, would either be utterly moronic for lack of want for intellectual stimulation, or utterly brilliant for their… lack of need."
"Goths? All those kids who wear fishnets and follow each other like herds of black sheep? Sure. They're really brilliant."
"No, maybe…" Fuu set Hakuryuu on the ground next to her and leaned forward on her knees, tracing a path on the concrete floor with her finger. "…it's a parabola shape. A function. There is a peak around the nanometer markings for blue and green, and then it tapers off at both—"
"Found it!"
Dryden slammed the Bible shut, realized that he just lost his place, and snapped the book back open in an attempt to find the place where the pages were furthest split before the binding settled back into alignment. He caught the page before it melded with the rest of the tome.
"Aha! Now, Father—Father?"
"Oh dear, he appears to be gone."
Fuu sat back on her legs and pushed her glasses up her nose. Touga smirked and flicked his hair once again.
"I wonder where our dear father went."
"You know, we could have a conversation about something worthwhile, like how to get out of here, instead of yammering about color wavelengths and ion pumps." Utena sat up straight and looked around the congregation. "You do realize that we are prisoners, don't you?"
"Oh, we do," said Dryden. "We are only trying to make our ordeal as pleasant as possible. I am actually quite enjoying this."
"Well, now that Anderson is gone I say that we get the hell out of here."
Utena strode to the door and pulled on the handle. The door was locked.
"…air vents. Are there any air vents?"
"Not a one."
Hakuryuu started chirping.
"Hakuryuu, shhhh…" said Fuu, smoothing his feathers.
The dragon scrambled away from Fuu and clawed up Hakkai's back. Hakkai winced and twisted around to untangle himself from the squeaking, hysterical creature now using his skin as a potential blanket.
"Hakuryuu! What's wrong?"
The lights went out.
"…oh, shit," said Vash.
"Does anybody have a lighter?"
"Can't help you," said Dryden.
"Oh, I'm sure you left it with your bongs."
"So, does anybody care for a round of 'seven minutes in heaven'?"
"Shut up, Touga," said no less than five people.
"Hey, I think I found something."
There was a spark close to the ground. Vash grunted and maneuvered his metal-laden foot to a better angle and pulled on his lowest buckle, striking it against the ground. There was another small spark.
"Hey, I'm getting light!"
"Oh, that's good news. Even I can't see an inch in front of my face in this light."
The last voice was new, carrying with it a musical quality that indicated liberal practice in public speaking. The group stopped dead.
"…who are you?" Utena finally asked.
"Aha, let me see here, I think I have a match on me."
There was the sound of rustling through rough-textured clothing and a small 'A-ha!' A long match was struck against the wall: one blazing arc that flared to life at its apex and revealed slender, bone-white fingers before flaring down to a subtle flame.
The wielder held the match close to his fleshless skull. Eyeless sockets stared back across the flame, casting fluctuating shadows across the white planes of a skeletal face. The bone was somehow more solid and clear than its surroundings, based upon shadow and form and subtle light instead of hard, black lines and tri-color cel shading.
The skeleton grinned.
"Let's get you out of here."
-------------
Gendou's attention was caught by the flare of a match in the adjacent cell, the flame then moving to an old candle in an ornate holder to settle. The occupant, who had through Gendou's entire stay remained supine upon his bed in a state of supposed sleep, shook the match vigorously to extinguish the flame.
"Quite a convenient twist of fate, would you say?"
Gendou shrugged and pushed his glasses further up his nose. The old man on the other side of the bars sat down at his table with the candle and arced his fingers in a cradle over his lips. It was a pose Gendou himself used as custom.
"Yes, fortune smiles upon us."
"Fortune can be coaxed to smile more often, good friend."
"Yes. Tell me…" Gendou aligned himself square with the old man. "Why do refer to me so familiarly? I do not know you."
The old man smiled knowingly, staring across the flame through delicate glasses with flat, purple eyes, aged to near blindness and denied relief even with reincarnation. He had wavy, silver hair tied in a low tail at the nape of his neck and a thick moustache of the same tint. Gendou estimated his clothes to date during the European Renaissance era.
Gendou waited for an answer.
"I know of you, my friend. We are men of like minds," said the man.
"Then you should know the danger of associating with me. Men like myself are better left to their own devices."
"I have a proposition to offer you."
"I'm not interested."
The old man raised his hand for silence. "Hear me. Your organization, NERV, fell as my organization fell. We are both geniuses left in disgrace, in ruin, without funding or means to finish our work. One failure should not stop our grand ideas from progressing."
"Have you ever considered that we failed because we were wrong?"
"We failed because others meddled in our plans. I am not asking you to carry out your plans exactly as they were executed at your last attempt. No, I want your aid in the greatest scientific endeavor of our age."
"Age is rather relative in this place."
"Then, in history. We will collect the brightest and the best minds in the Nexus. We will gather our funds from across the Roads. We will succeed. I am sure of it. Everything will proceed according to plan."
Gendou maintained his level stare. If the man had failed in a way that was in any way like his own failure, he would be well aware of the fallacies and chaos inherent with any plan. They were inherent in the scope that anything that could go wrong, would go wrong, at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way, with the greatest amount of drama, tragedy, and explosions.
This was sounding like a bad idea.
"What is your idea, old man?"
The old man smiled and told him.
"…hmmm…" Gendou thought for a moment. True, this opportunity had been at the forefront of his desires since his youth, though he had always been aware that the stakes were higher than a student on morphine and that the chaos curves thrown everywhere would be sure to shoot the project through the gut. This sort of gray area even he thought impossible to control, though there were times when he thought that the Eva Project was going to be impossible. The doubt he had shown nobody.
The Human Instrumentality Project had been 'impossible' as well, though there were times when he wondered if things would have been better if it had been impossible after all.
…though this just sounded like fun.
Revenge on the world? Sure. Why not. You're doing nothing else with your second life.
"We might be able to resurrect your wife."
Gendou snapped his gaze to the old man, the latter of whom was smiling winningly. He knew that he had Gendou hooked.
"All right. I'm in. May I have your name?"
"Ah, forgive me. I must have forgotten to introduce myself. I know everything about you, Mr. Ikari. It hardly seems fair for my identity to remain an enigma."
"Hm."
The old man nodded cordially. "I am Sir Isaac Newton. You may call me Isaac."
-------------
"Smithers!"
"Um, yes, sir?"
"Who are those lackwits in sector 7-G?"
"Homer Simpson, sir?"
"No, not that sector 7-G, the other sector 7-G."
"Oh, you mean the sector 7-G in the brainwashing camp in which you took a heavy investment?"
"Yes, man, that sector 7-G."
Mr. Burns lifted his eye from the purple and carefully-labeled 'BRAINWASHING CAMP' telescope ocular lens on his desk and sat back in his chair, steeping his hands in front of his mouth thoughtfully. He tapped his forefingers together.
"So, who are they, Smithers?"
"Um… pastors, sir."
"No, look, man! Good god, would I ask about something as boring as pastors?"
Smithers made a small noise of apprehension and concern and leaned over to see what was bothering his master. Through the odd fish-eye lens he could barely see a platinum-haired man—woman?—poking around in the abandoned wreckage of a control room, followed by an older man carrying a clipboard.
"Oh… I believe that's the Hellsing Organization, sir."
"Hell-sing-what?"
"Organization, sir."
"I heard you the first time."
"They're a special British unit deployed to handle the undead, sir." Smithers paused. "They've just left the room, sir. The silver-haired one, whom I assume is the leader Sir Hellsing, looks to be in quite a temper."
"Undead; pish-posh. They're just trying to encroach upon capitalist territory. Brits, eh? I'll show their socialist Parliamentary asses a thing or two." Burns looked up. "Smithers!"
"Yes, sir?"
"Call out the guard. We'll show them who's in charge of this plant!"
"Um… that wasn't the plant, sir."
"Smithers, do I need to repeat myself? And while you're at it, get me one of those nifty little Japanese drinks with the jelly at the bottom. It's all I can digest nowadays."
Smithers shuddered. "Right away, sir."
"And make sure it's cherry!"
"Yes, sir."
"With a durable straw that won't snap the moment I try to push it in."
Push it in. Push it in. Ah… dammit, man, get a grip on yourself! Cherry!
Smithers blinked out of his momentary stupor and mumbled a quick "Right away, sir" before leaving the office.
------------------------
"Was it really necessary to kill everybody in the breaker room?"
"Dead men tell no tales, Priest."
"Yeah, but the place is in upheaval anyway. The alarms are already going off."
Alucard sighed and looked over his shoulder at Wolfwood, the latter of whom was stumbling after him in the dark hallway. "Look, Priest—"
"ALUCARD!"
Seras winced. Sir Integral waiting at the end of the hallway, arms crossed and as mad as hell. She was staring blindly into the dark hallway in the general direction of Alucard's voice. Alucard slowed his striding gait and relaxed, forcing his jaws into a grin.
Oh my god we are so nailed…
"Master, hello," said Alucard.
"Oh, shut up. Why did you blow the energy reactors for the entire damn complex?"
"Humans are at a disadvantage in the dark. The Police Girl and I can see perfectly in this situation."
"As if humans need even more of a disadvantage against you."
"I happen to enjoy games of hide and seek."
Seras repressed a giggle. Yeah, as I'm sure she knows really well…
"Don't even start," said Integral.
"I have no idea as to what you are talking about, Master," said Alucard.
"I'm sure. Is Nicholas D. Wolfwood with you?"
"The Priest? Yeah, he's here."
Wolfwood ran into Alucard's back.
"And the monk?" asked Integral.
"Haven't seen him since Russia."
"I know he was the one who aided your escape."
"He has his uses at times."
"Right. The Hellsing Organization is pulling out of this mess. There is nothing more to salvage here. Hopefully, a merger will occur soon."
They're never very useful…
"Why did we get ourselves into this mess in the first place, Sir?"
"We have our reasons, Miss Victoria. Those reasons have been deemed invalid."
Seras sighed heavily. Secrecy. Great.
"Fine. Come on, we can access the main hallway if we take a shortcut through a cell block."
---------------
"Original sin is knowledge, I think."
"I still maintain that a fundamentalist view of original sin, as is shown here, is lust overriding blind ordinance to God's rules. It is succumbing to one's inner feelings and core instincts over blind adherence to a doctrine."
"You mean eating when you're hungry?"
"Vash, why the hell are you in this group?"
"Speaking of blind, Mr. Skellington, could you move that flame a little further back this way, if you don't mind?"
"Sorry, I must see the way up here. Just follow the person in front of you and you'll be fine."
"Yeah. Um, I was meaning to ask, Mr. Skellington—"
"Jack is fine."
"—Jack…" Miki nodded. "How did you get into that room unwarranted? Did you see where Anderson went?"
"Anderson? Don't know the fellow." Jack laughed. Several people hissed for his silence, an order he did not heed. "I—oh, don't worry, this place is abandoned—merely slipped in as a priest of some sort was slipping out, whom I assume is this 'Anderson', took his keys, and listened to your conversation. Your dragon friend detected my presence before any of you did. Seems not to like me very much."
"Ah, he's just nervous around strangers," said Hakkai.
"He was fine with me," said Fuu.
"That's all right. It's my job to be scary."
"But what I was saying about original sin…" said Dryden.
"It's a myth. The entire Bible is a myth. Religion is a myth. For all logic's sake, it's a book, and people assume that it is absolute truth! Who cares as to the interpretation of the book? The book has no substance in the first place!"
"Textbooks are books as well, Professor Hojo."
"That is different. There is scientific fact backing up all of their facts."
"How do you know?" Dryden leaned close to Hojo. "Were you there with every discovery? How do you know that every bit of documentation isn't created, that science in itself isn't a huge conspiracy of a religion, that someday scholars will not look back on your labs as they do at ancient tombs and talk of how blindly these scientists surrendered their faith to a religion worshiping a mechanical universe?"
"…because I've been in a lab and have seen these theories proven firsthand."
"Are you sure?"
"God damn, yes, I'm sure! Get away from me!"
"Well, even if there is a God," said Satsuki, "the Bible was written by human hand."
"Ah, precisely, but just for argument's sake, what is original sin?" asked Touga.
"That is the revelation I was about to make," said Dryden.
"Oh, Christ, here we go…" grumbled Utena.
"Original sin is a lie fabricated to place guilt and suspicion on the very forces that drove the pagan religions: carnal lust and love, enlightenment through these things – why, sex was once sacred and holy instead of being dirty as mandated by the church. And in mandating it dirty the enlightenment that came from sex was avoided—that which might stray people from the absolute teaching of the church into their own world of self discovery in the moment of orgasm."
"Did you just say something about self discovery in orgasm?"
"Let me finish. To seize the apple is to seize knowledge, forbidden as is sex,
spoken in the same curse with original sin. Let us feast in rosy flesh. It all
fits."
"You've been reading Dan Brown again."
"I thought I made a point of the fact that I was earlier. And it makes perfect sense. It is a perfect circle. Original sin is, essentially, the taboo placed to prevent discovery that Christianity might not be the absolute answer."
"And how would you know? Aren't you a virgin?"
Touga smirked at Dryden in the darkness. Dryden smirked back and shrugged.
"And what have you to say about this? Does it really get you closer to God?"
"What, fucking like animals, to feel somebody from the inside? Fixing my flawed existence through sex?" Touga laughed. "Yes."
"Oh god…"
"Yes, Tenjou, exactly."
"So you're saying that everybody should have more sex to gain enlightenment?"
"I don't know." Touga leaned very close to the general source of Utena's voice. "Do you want to find out?"
Smack.
Dryden started laughing.
"Children, let's play nice…" said Vash.
"And what you were spewing about science," hissed Hojo, "applies to your little thriller novels as well."
"Silence," said Jack.
The group fell into silence, Touga nursing his cheek. Jack crept to an iron door in characteristic long-legged, graceful fashion and listened at the keyhole.
"I think I hear voices."
A gun went off inside the room.
---------------
Touga's speech: Nine Inch Nails – "Closer". Not my poetic words of genius.
Dryden's research on original sin and the Holy Grail is the result of he, like myself, reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
