Have you not considered how your Lord dealt with 'Aad –
[With] Iram – who had lofty pillars,
The likes of whom had never been created in the lands
And [with] Thamud, who carved out the rocks in the valley?
And [with] Pharaoh, owner of the Pyramids? –
[All of] whom oppressed within the lands
And increased therein the corruption.
So your Lord poured upon them a scourge of punishment.
Indeed, your Lord is in observation.
//
2045
The car vibrated beneath Jake's fingers as he spun the steering wheel wildly, whooping all the way. His bangs fluttered in front of his eyes as the SUV careened over the dunes, struggling to navigate the shifting sand. His girlfriend shrieked at him half-incoherently, gripping on to her seat for dear life, eyes bulging in fear. "SLOW – DOWN," she warbled, barely audible over the roar of the engine, and Jake flipped her off with barely a thought, cackling madly.
Dune-bashing had been a time-honoured tradition in his family. His father had been an avid adrenaline junkie. He'd spent many hours cruising over the deserts of Saudi Arabia, his entourage in tow, travelling in style, and Jake, whether consciously or not, was currently doing the same. Such was the life of the son of a billionaire. As his father's third child, he was not in line to inherit his shares, but he'd been given access to a sizeable trust fund, and that was enough for him.
"Mr Musk," cried the Arab behind him (Jake had forgotten his name), "please! The car cannot keep up such speeds –"
"We've got enough fuel," Jake shouted, revving the engine further, and slid on his sunglasses with one hand, squinting into the distance. A few of his friends had driven on ahead, just to make sure that there weren't any obstacles, and a few drones buzzed overhead, filming his escapades. Once he was back in Abu Dhabi, he'd compile the footage into a video and upload it to his YouTube channel.
Abruptly, he stepped on the brakes and executed a thoroughly untidy drift, sending a thin wall of sand flying. His girlfriend (what was her name again?) clutched his arm, knuckles white, and Jake patted her head with one hand patronizingly. The SUV juddered beneath him, and for the briefest instant, he wondered if there really was something wrong with the engine.
Then he cast the thought out of his head and careened wildly forwards. The cars in front of him spun around, rolling with his abrupt pivot, and shot ahead, bouncing over the sands. The world was juddering violently, and Jake suddenly realized that it wasn't just him. It wasn't just the sheer abuse that he was putting this SUV through.
The earth was shaking.
Half-heartedly, as an afterthought, he tapped the brakes, slowing the wild movement of the SUV, but not enough to bring it to a stop. He glanced out the window, gazing out over the dunes as they seemed to warp and twist. For whatever reason, he grew fixated on a small mound in the distance. It resembled a shifting flame to him, dancing and cavorting with the wind, a pillar of sand soaring many storeys into the sky –
"STOP THE CAR," his girlfriend shrieked, voice cracking, and Jake turned to gaze out the windshield. He turned just in time to see one of the cars in front of him sail over the lip of a crater that hadn't been there a moment before.
To his credit, he slammed on the brakes almost immediately. The SUV skidded, its wheels struggling to find purchase, and slid forwards for a few heart-stopping moments. As it did, Jake took in the scene before him. A sinkhole had opened, so large that he could barely see the other end of the rim, and he couldn't see the bottom. It was a hole carved out of the landscape, stark and unyielding, and as the SUV slowly coasted to a stop, Jake slumped back in his seat, chest rising and falling, heart throbbing madly in his ears.
"Get out of the car," he croaked.
They got out of the car.
"What are we going to do?" Max moaned. He'd been handed a camera, and it was probably still filming, but he'd probably forgotten all about it. "Oh, geez. Dan, Ollie, Bill…" He took a few quaking steps towards the crater, thinking to peek over the rim, but lost his nerve. "They… they're gone."
Jake swallowed, turning. The cars behind him had skidded to a stop, and their passengers were emerging from within, shell-shocked, mouths gaping, as they took in the scene. He hadn't known any of the people in the cars in front – not truly – but some small part of him twinged with guilt. You brought them into this situation, his much-atrophied conscience whispered. It's your fault.
And then something started to emerge from the crater.
Jake wasn't sure what it was. He was only faintly conscious of individual facets of it – skin, fire, feathers, eyes – but the scales left his eyes after a few moments.
The closest thing that he could compare it to was an upside-down pyramid, albeit comprised from a million individual pieces, like a Rubik's cube. Everything was vibrating with a terrible energy, spinning in a slow, lethal arc, studded with emeralds and gold, and Jake's nose was filled with the smell of blood and mud-baked brick. He felt as though it was staring at him, and no wonder – it had eyes covering every inch of its… whatever it was.
It had not finished emerging from the crater. Its upside-down tip seemed to still be buried deep beneath the earth, and its base – which faced the sky – seemed to extend into infinity. As Jake looked up, throat working, he saw a cloud scud past one of its soft, feathery wings.
After a certain amount of time passed, Jake turned and saw that the Arabs who'd accompanied him had fallen on their knees, prostrate. A few of his compatriots had fallen to their knees, too, and his girlfriend was weeping soundlessly, tears streaming from her bloodshot eyes, ruining her makeup. That fact struck him like a bolt from the blue, returning him fully to the present, and Jake sniffed sharply, taking a few steps backwards, still feeling for all the world like something enormous was staring at him.
"Max," he said, roughly, "start filming me." His voice came out strangely flat, as though there was less oxygen in the air than usual, as though the whole world had been swathed in an absolute stillness.
Max jerked. "What?" His voice, too, sounded flat, stripped bare of emotion, a simple unit of meaning hanging suspended in mid-air.
Jake snapped his fingers. "Start filming me, idiot. Start streaming, too. Do you have reception? I want to be live on Instagram in five. YouTube, too. Hell, why not Twitter?" He smiled shakily. "This'll be a moment for the history books."
"Sir," one of the Arabs murmured, his accent bleeding through, "we must leave. This is not a – we should not be here."
"Yeah, yeah. Sure." Jake rolled his eyes. "One minute." Clearing his throat, he glanced at Max and was gratified to see that he'd given him a thumbs-up. Instagram, then. A few of his friends had struggled to their feet, following along dutifully, in dogged adherence to the routine that he'd set on all his previous trips into the desert.
None of them were looking at the upside-down pyramid, but it was looking at them.
Jake swallowed and turned to look up at the angel.
"Hi," he tried.
The pyramid said nothing. Jake ran his tongue over his dry lips, thinking back to the Mexican nanny who'd half-raised him. His family wasn't religious, but she'd been a devout Catholic, and he still remembered a few of her old prayers. In halting, broken Spanish, he recited the Lord's prayer, tripping over his words, voice rising at the end of each sentence, as though he was asking the angel a question.
It did not answer.
Jake turned, smiling weakly, squinting at the Arabs. "Any of you got a Quran?"
The Arabs glowered at him mutely. One of them spoke up. "Mr Musk, we must leave."
"Okay, okay." Jake wiped his damp palms down on his jeans. The atmosphere was starting to get to him, and his lizard brain was shrieking at him to flee. "One minute –"
And then his girlfriend began to sing.
Her name, Jake remembered, was Phoebe. She'd been born in Philadelphia. Her parents were both evangelicals, and she had a ton of siblings. A dozen? More? Jake didn't remember. He'd never met any of them, but she'd complained to him about how radical they'd become in recent years, what with Albion and whatnot.
Anyway, that wasn't the point. The point was that she was singing.
The air seemed to vibrate as she sang, and Jake felt as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Her narrow shoulders trembled as she leaned against the SUV, the melody wrenched out of her lungs, and Jake stared at her, enraptured.
It wasn't that her voice was magical. It was a little husky, and more than a little hoarse, given how much she'd been screaming just before. Nevertheless…
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
Phoebe's face was anguished. It was clear to Jake that she did not want to sing, but still she sang, the melody rising high above the sands, drifting into the sky, until there was nothing but the hymn.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
Jake's entourage began to hum along, joining their voices to the song, and Jake – to his own muffled consternation – found that he, too, was singing. His lips contorted and twisted painfully, as though under the control of something that did not know how human mouths functioned.
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal";
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.
Their ragged voices rose, louder than they'd ever been before. Jake's throat ached.
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
The SUVs were crumpling, now, as a dozen tongues of flame descended upon them. The rubber tires supporting their enormous frames popped and melted, and Jake's ears were filled with something that sounded very much like the beating of a million monstrous wings.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
His skin felt stretched-tight over his bones. Faintly, Jake wondered if Max was still streaming.
He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.
Phoebe's voice cut off abruptly, but she did not pant. She hadn't paused for breath. None of them had. A dreadful silence reigned over the dunes.
And then the angel sang.
//
When it was over, a tentacle-hand-claw emerged from the spinning upside-down pyramid.
It extended over the dunes, playing over the clouds of white dust that had once been alive, and as it did, a few stray grains lifted into the air, congealing into a swirling sphere of white. This sphere of white eventually resolved into a crude cuboid – a book, ruined beyond all recognition, but nevertheless recognizable as a book.
The cuboid twisted. The discrete shreds of tattered paper regained form, and swirling curlicues of black stretched out across the pages. These pages flipped, to and fro, to and fro, flicking from front to back to front to back, before the book winked out of existence, followed shortly after by the hand that had conjured it back into being.
