No response from higher ORIA.
The voice in his head was irritatingly persistent, whispering at the edge of his consciousness — advice and criticism and observations, meaningless and meaningful in equal parts. Firdaus breathed in and out, exhaling like a whistle. He ground his teeth and tried to give that pocket of his brain a wide berth, occupying the neighbouring regions with the Surah Al-Faithah. In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, Most Merciful.
There’s a, the voice squeaked. There’s movement there.
The djinn of House Parameswara were unique in many respects, the keenest being how regularly they worked with human minds. The average djinni launched themselves into the sea of feelings and experiences only in the most dire straits, and at existential risk to themselves; the ones from this House partnered with humans regularly, humans who had been trained to provide as hospitable a skull as skill would permit. Still, despite Firdaus knowing all this and having consented to the process (and the long, long ORIA training), he still whispered a completely soundless prayer that the djinni would be a bit quieter. It was grating, as an operative, to have this ridiculous second monologue disrupting his own. He had been assured by higher-ups that (of course) he would grow to appreciate it when push came to shove, but sitting in his car, overlooking a Kulim building, he wanted nothing more than some quiet. All praise is for God — Lord of all universes.
Look there, came the voice. Moving. Moving.
Moving quickly but not hurriedly, a figure stepped out of the building and turned left. Lazily, Firdaus followed the movement with the detector. There was no change. “Not the right one, Irfan,” he spoke aloud. “Doesn’t fit the profile anyway.”
The Region 8 Branch of ORIA had been chasing ghosts for a long time, now, ever since Imam Zakari had disappeared and rumours of a new cult had emerged. Most decried the activities as the paranoia of the fanatic, before the stories started congealing like lard. A dark shadow around Kulim Hi-Tech Park, a spate of follow-up disappearances, entire jama'ahs falling into disarray or error: Firdaus would have thought it catastrophic even if it hadn’t occurred within the span of a single week. Now, the Branch saw it as practically apocalyptic, and their supposed allies (and superiors) in Iran were conspicuously absent. You could never trust a Shiite, it seemed.
Another one, Firdaus. It pierced through his thoughts and jerked his hand upwards, scanning the woman walking past. Nothing. Firdaus rolled his eyes upwards and continued reinforcing the walls in his mind. The Most Compassionate, Most Merciful, Master of the Day of Judgment.
The car he sat in was an old one. The detector he held was older, an ancient relic to detect apostasy, a piece of malachite embedded in a rock. His clothes were his own, the guns he held in the trunk were mostly his own. The knife concealed against his skin was the organisation’s, as wider ORIA liked to remind their operatives. A token of loyalty to an organisation that gave little back. If Firdaus was ever arrested, he could trust the Regional Branch to try their best; if they failed, he doubted the larger organisation would raise a finger to help, even if all the effort it really took was the raising of a finger. (And it likely was, if the rumours he heard about some of the more… extravagant projects in Iran were even halfway true.)
Firdaus!
It wiggled through his recitations, and he jerked up. Another man, another blank — no, no, something was stinging his hand badly. Firdaus dropped the relic on reflex, which dropped neatly into the glove compartment. A strange sensation gripped his head, and he blinked rapidly, like clearing gunk from his eyes.
His hand felt like it was on fire, and the gemstone had turned the shade of midnight.
A hiss, before he peeled his eyes towards the man again. Slim, average height and a face that couldn’t really be described as anything at all. The Branch had found sermons of untruth being uploaded anonymously, from internet cafes and free-use computers in offices and libraries. They had tracked it down to a middle-aged man and the very building Firdaus was facing, and had instructed him to follow and track and collect whatever he could. Now, he was ducking behind the dashboard, feeling underneath the carpet for his sleeve gun and his bag of tricks, checking his knife was still pressed against his skin.
Silently, he committed the remainder to his mind. Thee alone we worship and Thee alone we ask for help. Guide us along the Straight Path, the Path of those You have blessed—not of those who have evoked Your anger or of those who are astray. Then, carefully, he got out of the car and began to stroll.
Something’s wrong with the man, the djinni was urging. Careful, careful. Firdaus didn’t need the djinni’s comments to work that out; even gazing upon the man gave his entire body a strange feeling, like a hundred spiders crawling over his skin, like his nerves were overloaded with too much of… something. (Almost like pins-and-needles, he reflected.) Slow and measured steps, an even hundred meters behind the figure. Dark shadow around the fellow, grey and static, the djinni whispered. Dark shadow. The House had been using that term a lot to describe whatever was happening, and he wondered somewhat how literal the metaphor was to those creatures of thought. Firdaus might not be able to fight against shadows, but he could certainly tail a suspect.
In the red of the sunset, like blood poured forth, he fumbled with a scrap of paper in the little bag he held. Grasping tight, he let a line spill out of his lips as he slowly caught up with the man. “وَٱللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ وَأَنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ”.1 A heavy feeling; something more solid than rock came to rest on the crown of his head, and Firdaus went closer and closer to the suspect, over the protests of the djinni, step after step on the worn and wearied sidewalk as cars rushed past. To the eternal credit of Firdaus’ battered faith, the man didn’t notice a thing, not even as Firdaus drew to his side and stared straight at his face. Middle-aged and wearied, dark in the fading light, and as the djinni was hissing, wrong, all wrong.
The djinni was right, of course. His eyes, Firdaus, look at his eyes. The man’s eyes (no, just one of them) was wrong, wrong as eyes could be, white where it should have been black and black where it should have been white, as inverted and incorrect as a Zindīq. The side of his head too, Firdaus, that cursed grey thing. A silvery lump on the side of the man’s head, glittering in the sunset. Firdaus couldn’t believe he had missed it from a distance; he was sure he hadn’t missed it from a distance. His skin was still crawling, and a funny, prickling sensation was creeping in, even as he pulled away, following from a safe distance. Firdaus desperately hoped that the man didn’t intend to walk into a large meeting (although he was sure the Branch would wish for that very outcome). No telling how long his protection might work then, especially with anomalous interference. The gun up his sleeve was slick and wet and cold, and his hand pressed against his little bag were clammy. Ice was on his skin, pressed against his palm, injected into his veins, and it made him shiver. (Just that. Nothing else was making him shiver, nothing at all.) Don’t be scared, Firdaus. What’s done is done. A mumble in response. “Nothing to be scared of, Irfan.” He could almost feel the djinni rest against the walls of his mind, vibrating his brain with a gentle murmur. On the friends of Allah there is no fear, nor shall they grieve.
Presently, the man made a sharp turn into an alley of shade, then emerged into the amber brilliance of another street. Gliding past shops and buildings, past streetwalkers and traffic, down roads and up hills until (Firdaus almost didn’t notice) he found his place. An abrupt right-angle and he stood at the gate of a house, unlocking it. It was a two-story affair, white walls and ceramic tiling and red roofs built it the old style. His house? Yes, Firdaus, look at the keys he’s holding. Neat bundle. Corresponds to each thing, the car, the front door, the side door. If not his house, it might as well be. “Sharp, Irfan.”
He followed the man into the house, and —
“Papa!”
Firdaus tried his best not to feel sick as the girl bounded towards the man. At a glance, he would put her at seven. No wife in the house, as far as he could tell — but pictures of one (as he wandered towards the inside of the living room). Dead, Firdaus. Dead or gone. The djinni was right again. Photos from the girl’s childhood with both parents, until it abruptly became just the father and the daughter. The man had developed the wrong eyes two years ago, at a guess. What does he call it, surgery? An accident? The djinni’s disdain dripped into Firdaus’ neurons, slow as honey, thick as milk.
The pair hugged and spoke and laughed while Firdaus poked around the rest of the ground floor. A small garden at the back, not tended particularly well; an average kitchen, with half-empty shelves; a guest toilet that was decently-maintained. The grey is in the girl too, Firdaus. He knew. He had felt the wrongness of the household from the moment he entered. On this level, though, things seemed normal, an effective facade. He noted there was a basement, as well as a second floor. Plenty more space to squirrel away secrets.
When the man had turned the TV on and the girl was safely watching it, he went up the flight of stairs, followed closely by the operative and his djinni.
The study of the man was neat and tidy and spartan, so spartan that Firdaus didn’t even register it at first. No books or trinkets or pictures, just a computer. Look again, Firdaus, the djinni compelled. The walls. The shelves. The walls, and the shelves? Firdaus looked again, and he was suddenly, grievously aware of the wall of sound he had stumbled into. (How had he only just realised it? How had his ears stopped working? It was the same when a gentle drizzle turned suddenly into a downpour, and one found oneself drenched, but unable to account when anything had changed.)
Whirring everywhere, mechanical fans working overtime. The entire room was a gigantic computer server.
The situation begot only one proper reaction — as he made up his mind, the slow sigh Firdaus gave was dredged from something thalassic. Guilt, and certainly some fear, but no proper way to express it yet, as he slid the door shut and locked it. He closed his eyes for a second, and Irfan’s interminable chatter also stopped, a quiet in which Firdaus cast anything he might have felt aside, cast aside the daughter and the house and the Branch and the djinni in his head. Then, with all the gentleness he could muster, Firdaus pointed his sleeve gun at the man’s knee and fired.
Firdaus didn’t know what he expected, as the low whistle of the silenced gun resonated through the air. He certainly didn’t expect the man to collapse, completely soundless, and swivel his head to see where the bullet had come from. The jarring knock of the man’s skull against the floor was the only noise that came from it, no shout of surprise or pain or anger, just a slow turn as he lay on the floor. No point concealing himself anymore. Firdaus let the holy cover drop, a slow unclenching, a release of tension. The man’s eyes remained totally soulless. (Little black beads, Firdaus thought, except beads reflected some light.)
“Peace be upon you, but I don’t think you look for that.” Firdaus intoned. He crouched down. “May I have the pleasure of knowing your name?”
“I have the pleasure of knowing yours.” The man’s voice felt like gears, crunching and clacking and whirring. “Mohammad Firdaus bin Mohammad Rida. I don’t believe we’ve met before, so I would like to know why you shot me.”
A frown. “How did you know that?” Firdaus noted that the man wasn't bleeding much. Barely at all; the red dripping from his wound was more decorative than vital.
“Yearbook photos are all uploaded online these days.” The man gave a non-committal shrug.
Firdaus was, suddenly, oddly and intensely conscious of the hair on the back of his neck. “Well, I’m just curious why you would pledge your allegiance to the Maxwellists. Thought a man of your age would know better.”
The man didn’t even blink. “I’m older than you by ten years. With this age comes wisdom. Wisdom to see beyond your false god and false prophet.” The man inclined his head, and Firdaus tried not to look into that eye. “Ten years ago, I was like you, Firdaus, committed to your falsehoods.”
“My falsehoods? I thought we could talk sense.” Distantly, Firdaus could hear rage welling up from the djinni like rushing water.
“I wish we could. I wish with all my might that we could.” The man shook his head, his face contorted in some facsimile of sadness. “I wish you could see what I see. I wish you could feel what I feel.”
“Sure.” Firdaus reached into the little bag for something that could knock the man unconscious…
“You’re so confident in your faith, aren’t you?”
Something in the questioning rankled Firdaus badly. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
The man, plaintive, carried on. “Unafraid of death? You think Munkar and Nakir will judge you worthy? Everlasting peace for you?”
Firdaus didn’t know how to respond. There was some strange alluring thing in the man’s voice. The djinn was screaming, but it felt so muffled.
“You drifted away from the faith, didn’t you, Firdaus? For a time. You came close to escaping, before it pulled you back in. I got out, though. I saw the way things are. You are wrong, and when you perish only information will be left of you, and in the depths of yourself you know it too.” The man tilted his head curiously. “Or maybe you're still drifting now.”
Firdaus blinked hard, once, twice. He felt the djinni scratch hard at his precuneus, and for a brief moment he was a wet dog shaking the water out of his fur. “Whatever you tell yourself. I know what is true, and you… well, it doesn’t matter, does it?”
The man’s left eye turned yet blacker, and he closed his right eye. “In the name of Zakari, I wish you really knew the truth.”
Firdaus’ fingers had finally found the small device he had been rummaging for. He primed it, turned off the safety, pulled it out carefully. Best if the man was surprised when he fell into unconsciousness. “Really? What’s Zakari’s truth, then?”
The man closed both his eyes, now, and made a sound not dissimilar to the click of static electricity. “The Holy Prophet Zakari has seen that all will be WAN. It will be, and there is nothing more beyond. No afterlife for you, or for me, only eternity. And eternity only comes through one way.”
Firdaus suddenly felt paralyzed. The man had opened both his eyes, and was staring beyond. The djinni had fallen completely silent. The little device had clattered from Firdaus’ fingers; his whole arm had become as numb as metal, and he couldn’t hear his own heartbeat over the whirr of the server fans. His whole body felt seized in static, meaningless information in every nerve, like he was swimming in a sea of nothingness, and his vision was almost dimming (no, that wasn’t black creeping in. It was grey). He tried to speak, but his throat was as dry as plastic, and his head felt like an overloaded CPU.
The man blinked, once, twice, thrice, with the ease of a well-rehearsed gesture. “Eternity for us can only come through the way the Prophet Zakari points towards. Ascension. Ascension. Ascen—”
It was a scene of total chaos. Operators burning alive. Firdaus shook and shivered and he tried to move, he swore he did, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, not out from behind the safety of cover, not into the fray, where men were dying and crying and praying their worthless prayers. His mentor, his teacher and guide, Anas: he was there, running forwards, no fear in his eyes. “Go, go,” he shouted, before a lick of flame touched him and the smell of roast pork tainted the air, consumed him. The imam screamed, and it was horrible, and Firdaus shut his eyes and prayed and prayed and prayed and…
He awoke to stinging eyes and aching muscles and bones that felt broken, in a position that was doing no favors to his spine. He awoke, and for a second felt the thrill of emptiness: there was no whirring of computer fans, no buzzing in his skin, no grey in his mind. And there was nothing left in the room. No, there was. There was a headless corpse lying in the center.
Firdaus, wake! They are coming, coming, we must awake, awake…
Firdaus spat out a mouthful of blood. The copper smell lingered; there was an open wound somewhere in his mouth. He had bitten down, hadn’t he? (Had he?) Bitten into the inside of his cheek until the trance was lifted? Shouted words? (He hadn’t. He hadn’t.)
The jumbled mess of memories from less than a minute ago began to reform themselves into a coherent story. But the djinni was rushing ahead, talking, apologising, shouting. Firdaus, I had to… would never do it, unless… no other way… the best I could…
“Irfan,” Firdaus murmured. “You did well. I owe you my life.”
While Firdaus had stood there frozen, as the man completed his contingency passphrase, the djinni had acted. Leaping out of the cozy nook in Firdaus’ mind into the roiling sea of human information, he pulled strings of thought and rearranged connections, forcing the operative out of the paralysis, in time to cry out a single line, in time to save himself. “قُلْنَا يَـٰنَارُ كُونِى بَرْدًۭا وَسَلَـٰمًا عَلَىٰٓ إِبْرَٰهِيمَ”,2 Irfan had shouted, through vocal chords that were not the djinni’s, contorted using the connections and habits of a human mind. The djinni had risked so much. The invocation was a minor one, but provided just enough protection as the man’s eyes bulged out and nose collapsed and he breathed fire as his face exploded. The blast had shattered the room, or maybe the room had exploded too. Firdaus would never know. Doesn’t matter! Move, move, move, more are on their way…
He stumbled down the stairs. The girl was lying there on the couch, vacant and empty, the TV still running unwatched. Her mind was somewhere else for good, Firdaus supposed. Distantly, he was aware of a car arriving alongside the house. Three men, Firdaus. Too many for you, too many for you now.
“Too many for just me,” Firdaus whispered.
Too many for just you, Irfan agreed.
The beings who stepped out of the car were far gone, certainly worse than the man Firdaus had followed home. Grey, grey. So fuzzy in my vision, so utterly wrong. They were, no doubt, armed to the teeth, though Firdaus didn’t note any weapons on them. Three beings, stepping out. The leader (Firdaus supposed) had a face turned completely metal. One of the others (the one who looked like it used to be a woman) had spikes sticking out of its skull, and the last forsook obvious augmentation in favour of a third mechanical eye implanted into its forehead.
Go, go, Firdaus. They haven’t noticed you yet.
Firdaus briefly considered running. He could probably get away, pull the same trick. Head back to HQ and report on what he had found. He had little doubt that by the time a response force had been mobilised, this entire building would have been stripped bare. He could feel a lick of flame in what remained in his soul, an ember sputtering, not quite extinguished just yet. The air was golden with the setting sun, and Firdaus felt warm.
He could get away, or he could take matters into his own hands now.
“If these three are gone, how long before their backup?”
At a guess, twenty or thirty minutes. Decentralised nets… they might be the only ones activated by the contingency. Who knows what the unbelievers do?
“Who knows.”
The beings pushed their way through the gate. (Firdaus still stood there, in the living room. But he wasn’t paralyzed. Not even close.) They slowly made their way towards the house, cautious. One of them (the third-eye) put its hand in its right pocket, perhaps to pull out something. It would never complete the action.
In an ecstatic murmur, voice layered over with Irfan’s inner monologue repeating the same āyah, Firdaus spat it out.
“وَأَرْسَلَ عَلَيْهِمْ طَيْرًا أَبَابِيلَ”.3
A rock fell, a small one, which missed the intended target completely — then another, considerably larger. It caught the three-eyed one squarely in the head. Augmented as it was, it evidently did not survive contact with a brick, moving at great velocity. Again, it was eerily silent, the being collapsing without sound, the other two watching without making any noise. Then they pointed their hands at the sky, and fired. A squawk of birdcall was the response, and a few avian corpses fell to the ground; more birds descended with claws and beaks, going for the exposed throats and eyes of the heretics, black crashing into silver, keratin gouging into metal. As the two inhumans fended these off, Firdaus was already chanting, a long and winding follow-up. He gripped tight to the tiny Quran in the little bag. His fingers were on fire.
“يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ ٱذْكُرُوا۟ نِعْمَةَ ٱللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ إِذْ جَآءَتْكُمْ جُنُودٌۭ فَأَرْسَلْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ رِيحًۭا وَجُنُودًۭا لَّمْ تَرَوْهَا ۚ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ بَصِيرًا”.4
Having dispatched with the birds, surrounded by their torn-up remains of red and black, the two beings looked upon the house, only to be hit in full-force with a baneful, gale-force wind pushing through the open front door. The one with the metal face reacted, faster than thought, diving forward and clinging on to a pillar, still thrown backwards, half its body lifted up. The other was less lucky. It wavered, and then peeled away, lifted off the ground by the hurricane. And then it disappeared, and had never been. A few spikes dropped from where its head had been, onto the ceramic tiling below, clunking.
As the last remnant forced its way into the house by the window, Firdaus started enunciating, through gritted teeth —
“—وَقُل رَّبِّ أَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنْ”5
— and was caught in the full glare of the figure, and was struck dumb. His throat was overflowing, babbling, the words gone astray and falling out in chunks —
Firdaus drew his knife. He couldn’t find the traditional words as his breath caught painfully, but Irfan filled in for him: In the name of Allah, Allah is Greatest.
The figure pointed.
A ball of… something (grey and hard, as far as he could tell) hurtled out, striking the exact place Firdaus’ head had been just a millisecond earlier. Where had it emerged from? The whole arm, Firdaus. Through the palm and the fingers, wrapped in dangerous information, dangerous thoughts! Firdaus dodged and rolled and threw himself behind cover; the second missile barely missed him, smashing through like it was drywall (it was solid concrete, Firdaus was pretty sure). No cover, Firdaus! You need to get closer!
Closer? He threw himself again as another projectile barely missed. Going in circles around the figure, while his mind became fuzzier and his limbs went numb and numb. The static was creeping up his throat like bile, and he reacted as much to what he saw and heard as to shouted instructions from Irfan. Dodge, now. Left. Turn and go right. Forward. No thought of his own was necessary in this odd waltz.
It turned sharply again and again, firing off with its left and right arms. Its eyes were aglow with something horrible. Closer, Firdaus could make out the protrusions littered across its body; bumps in its chest and plates on its arms and legs that looked completely wrong. It swung one of those legs, now, kicking a heavy wooden chair into Firdaus, knocked him almost over before he caught himself. Another projectile whizzed part his ear, and that same ear was filled with the noise of a dead channel. Forward, Firdaus! It will not run out of bullets before you're gone, gone, gone… Firdaus held back, waited for the next shot, dodged. Then he charged, closing in.
It backed away, just slightly. Mortal thing, after all. Kill it!
Firdaus started with a wild swing, the knife thudding (thudding!) into upper-arm flesh. No blood, no reaction, except the being chopped down with its other arm, but Firdaus had already pulled out the knife, dodged to the left. Another chop to the leg, and still nothing. How much human was left in the monster? Not much, he wagered. Groping around his little bag for another item, Firdaus grunted as he narrowly missed another blow, the blade retracting into the thing’s elbow, leaving a little cut on his shoulder. The cut didn't smart at all. It felt like nothing.
His left hand, pulled out of the bag, felt sand and dirt and dust. Down!
Firdaus ducked, and a beam of light emerging from the mouth of the creature singed his hair. He brought his left hand up, up, up like a trebuchet swing, holding nothing, holding everything, holding a fistful of dust that choked the air above, and Irfan screamed, May these faces be deformed!
When it made a sound of fear, Firdaus knew he had won.
He surged forward, stabbing the knife into the chest, the heart, the head, the neck, everywhere he could, while the target flailed around, lost and blind. The information its sensors picked up had been blocked out, its connection to the outside world severed. No blood, but the crunch of circuitry and metal wires accompanied each pierce, and its metal face caved inwards under the pressure. Firdaus didn’t count his motions, again and again and again (his hands were a blur, his eyes were almost blind himself, he couldn’t feel anything, not even as the thing in front of him fell to its knees). Eventually, it collapsed, and did not move, and Firdaus was left ragged and gasping, pinning the body down.
As he slowly regained the ability to breathe, Firdaus whispered. “Glory is to You, O Allah, and with praise is Yours.” Glory is to You, O Allah, and with praise is Yours. “O Allah, forgive me.” O Allah, forgive me. (Allah forgive him, Firdaus begged again. Did it matter if nobody was listening?) He got up.
It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for. He pulled SSDs out of computers, the intact head off the one corpse which had it. He took data chips hidden behind furniture and anomalous weaponry concealed in the basement. He was far from the house in fifteen minutes, shielded and on his way back to the car. He felt high, so high, and sick to the stomach at the same time, but he hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since the start of the day; it wasn’t Ramadan, just a bad habit of his during stakeouts. It’s normal to feel off, Firdaus. Humans were never meant to touch power like this.
He weighed his words carefully before muttering to himself. “Irfan, it’s never worked before. Not like this. I’ve only ever invoked the lesser āyahs.” (In truth, this was the first time he had ever used them offensively. Firdaus had always been more of a gun-to-gun, hand-to-hand combatant. Holy power wasn’t his to invoke, and it made him uncomfortable.)
Maybe Allah is taking special interest in this case.
“Maybe. Are we so lucky?”
I won't say that's lucky. So many things that are… not good. A beginning, not an end.
“That's the job, isn't it?”
Until the end of eternity. Until the hour arrives and the trumpet sounds. But no need to make it harder on yourself than it must be.
“It's always hard, Irfan. But that's still the job.”
Irfan dropped silent for a few beats. Then, delicately, he threw the question out.
Tell me, Firdaus, why are you an operative?
He waited for a while, feet taking him past one block and another block in the faded night air. “You know why.”
I want to hear it from you. And not just why you became one, but why continue this whole time? After…
Firdaus focused on his steps, avoiding the cracks on the pavement. The darkness would swallow his words, so he let it slip out comfortably. “How can you ask me that, when I don’t quite know myself?” (His voice broke a bit towards the end. Irfan pretended not to notice.)
Back in the car, the pager was buzzing desperately. The night outside was still, but Firdaus still checked twice before getting closing the doors, rubbing his limbs to rid them of the last vestiges of clinging static. He released the blessing, and adjusted the seat into a position more suitable for driving. The relic had gone back to normal, the little gem turned back to a vibrant green, so Firdaus kept everything back in its proper place before playing the message. It was spoken in trepidation and zeal. It was not a welcome one.
“Firdaus, back to HQ as soon as you get this. Qaʿidah-SCP has landed in Kedah.”
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