John Dalmas - The Second Coming

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The Second Coming

By John Dalmas

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Contents

Prologue

The apartment was small, its furnishings expensive and conservative. As usual, its

occupant ate alone—a TV supper in a plastic tray. Meat, mashed potatoes, mixed

vegetables and a brownie, the portions meager for so tall a man, and there weren't

even salt and pepper shakers on the table. His appearance had been likened to

Lincoln's, before Lincoln grew the beard, but the resemblance was strictly skeletal.

His mouth was nearly lipless, his hair disciplined and straight. Creases bracketed his

mouth from nose to chin, curving sourly at the bottom, reflecting the absence of

humor.

Just now he was eating to television, to the Authors Channel, waiting for a scheduled

interview. An unauthorized biography of General Rodney Beauchamp had been

published. Beauchamp had reoriented and reorganized the army for twenty-first-

century needs, then been forced to retire for publicly criticizing foreign policy. The

diner knew the general, and approved of him.

Meanwhile the coverage was for a book on someone of whom the diner did not

approve at all. While he watched, his fork transferred small bites of food to his mouth.

He chewed them thoroughly, as he'd been taught when a child.

On the screen, two men sat half facing each other, half facing the camera. "I've read a

number of Ngunda Aran's columns," the host said, "and heard him lecture on TV. I

find his viewpoints interesting."

"Actually," the author said, "I find them interesting too, but you need to consider

them in context. Before Ngunda the writer and lecturer, there was Ngunda the

philanthropist, whose good works brought him broad notoriety. Now he uses that

base, that foundation of respect, as a public platform from which to expound his

beliefs—if that's what they actually are."

The host interrupted. "But most columnists expound on their beliefs. And he hasn't

proposed crimes, hasn't recommended civil disobedience, hasn't even been

discourteous. What, exactly, is your complaint with him?"

"First let me point out that the bonds holding society together are stretched thin today,

and fraying. And the ideas he expounds are foreign to the American social psyche.

They add seriously to the strain. People admire him or they hate him, and polarization

is something we don't need more of.

"Meanwhile, his Millennium Foundation has become a public relations organization

for his self-image and metaphysical philosophy . . ."

The tall man pressed the mute switch. Idiot, he thought grimacing. He's got something

worthwhile to say, and dresses it in liberal-humanist babble. His fork pierced a cut

bean, some peas, and a fragment of diced carrot, raising them to his thin lips as the

two men mouthed soundlessly on the screen. Ngunda Aran. Again he grimaced. Satan

smiling, garbed in good works.

He would, he decided, explore some possibilities.

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Contents

PART ONE

A TIME OF DISORDERS

. . . . Ngunda Elija Aran is one of the more dangerous men in the world. He is

far more dangerous than E. David Hilliard was, not because he appears more

plausible—he doesn't—but because he has emerged in a much more

dangerous time, when an increasingly large part of the population is

susceptible to such fraud.

Charles Heilemann, D.Sc.

Emeritus Professor of Physics

California State University, Northridge

Letters page, San Francisco Chronicle

It even began oddly, the door chimes startling Lee, making her jump. Ben was

downstairs doing laundry, so she put aside the Times business section, went to the

door, and after a moment's hesitation, opened it.

A brown, brightly cheerful face confronted her, topping a small wiry body wearing

jeans and a black T-shirt. The T-shirt was decorated with a running, space-suited

figure pursued by a unicorn.

White teeth flashed. "Mrs. Shoreff, I've come to talk with you and Ben. My name is

Lor Lu." The figure bowed, palms pressed together in front of him. "Holy man

extraordinary," he added, eyes laughing. When she simply stared, he spoke again.

"He's in the basement, doing laundry. Would you get him please?"

The strange introduction had deranged her usual poise. "Is—he expecting you?"

"No. We met in the WebWorld."

"Come in," she said uncertainly. "I'll get him."

Turning, she strode through the house, disturbed at her state of mind. It occurred to

her she hadn't asked what he wanted to talk to them about. He might, she thought, be

a salesman. Or a collection agent! The thought alarmed her.

At the head of the basement stairs, she closed the door behind her and called down.

"Ben?"

"Yes?"

"There's someone to see you. Us."

Ben Shoreff came out of the laundry room, sleeves rolled to the elbows, forearms

thick with dark curly hair. "Did he say who he is?"

Lee frowned. It was unlike her not to remember; she was good with names. "Lou

someone." She lowered her voice. "And, Ben, he knew where you were: downstairs

doing laundry!"

Frowning, Ben started up, rolling his sleeves down as he came. At the top he paused

to button them. His attention was on who the visitor might be, rather than on Lee's

odd comment. Lou was a common enough name; he must, he thought, know someone

named Lou. Together they went to the living room, where he found an Asian he didn't

recall seeing before. Asian-American, he corrected. He stands like an American, holds

himself like one.

"I'm Ben Shoreff," Ben said. "Have we met?"

"On the WebWorld. I'm Lor Lu. From Millennium. We chatted."

Ben frowned, not recalling. "And you came here to . . . ?"

The grin reappeared. "I had asked to speak with Mrs. Shoreff. I'd read her business

posting." He paused to grin at Lee, then turned back to Ben. "She wasn't at home, but

you seemed interesting, so I asked you some questions. We need to expand our

accounting office, and I like your skills and experience."

The Asian paused, turning again to Lee. "But it was your business posting I was

actually following up on. I'd contacted the references you'd posted, and liked what

they said about you."

Lee Shoreff stared, on the edge of being horrified, but interested in spite of herself.

From Millennium! A cult! She had an automatic fear of cults, but economic

depression had struck worldwide, and her young consulting business was clinically

dead. Ben had posted résumés of his own, but meanwhile they were seriously in debt,

and the mortgage company had sent a foreclosure notice.

"What—would I be expected to do?" she asked.

"Millennium is expanding rapidly, and our operations chart just sort of grew; we need

something a lot better. We've tried adapting generic OCs, but they haven't been

adequate, so Dove—that's what we call Ngunda—said to get someone who can come

in and do the job right. I showed him your posting and the comments I'd gotten, and

he told me to hire you."

Lee licked her lips. What in the world did a cult need an operations chart for? And

Millennium was out west somewhere: Oregon or Colorado. Why hadn't they talked to

her by Web, instead of sending someone all the way across the country?

"I suppose I can handle that," she heard herself saying. "The principles apply to

anything. If you saw my posting, you know my fees. I'll give you a questionnaire, so

you'll know what information to fax."

Lor Lu shook his head. "That's not how we want it done. We want you on site. Our

operations and services are unlike any you've had experience with, and you'll need to

be personally familiar with them to handle the job. Get to know the people."

She cast a quick glance at Ben. She was, she realized, afraid of this job. "I—how long

on site? I have a husband and two school-age daughters."

Lor Lu gestured. "No problem. Bring them. We'll provide a three-bedroom house,

furnished, and we have a state-licensed school on the premises. Our employees

consider the school better than average, and you can take your meals in our dining

room if you'd like. The cost is nominal." He laughed. "Cheaper than buying groceries,

and the kitchen staff takes care of the cooking and cleanup."

Inwardly Lee squirmed, feeling somehow trapped, vaguely desperate. "But—how

long?"

"I can write the contract for two months, with extensions as necessary. And we pay

transportation, of course, including freight for belongings up to fifteen hundred

pounds."

"Two months? I'm sure it won't take that long. One at most."

"Two months. We'll want you there to debug it, and groove our people in on it. And

we are, after all, an international operation, so there will be some travel. Two months,

with extensions as necessary. Then, if you like us and we like you, we may want your

expertise on other things.

"Your rates are reasonable enough for short-term jobs of the sort you usually do, but

because of the length of the contract, we'll want to pay you by the month. We were

thinking in terms of sixty-five hundred dollars, with credit transfers on the fifteenth

and thirtieth."

He stopped, arms folded now, but the grin was still there. Again she looked at Ben,

interested in spite of herself. At Mertens, Loftus, and Hurst, her salary had reached

$7,500 a month, but in the fourteen months since she'd quit, she hadn't come close to

that. She'd topped $3,000 only three times. In the month previous she'd grossed just

$375, and that by cutting her rate drastically. She was good at what she did, the best,

but in times like these, businesses weren't hiring consultants or anyone else. And

effective promotion would cost more than she could borrow. Especially now, with

their credit rating down the drain.

Ben spoke then, his tone diffident, but the words to the point. "You said you were

interested in hiring me, too. What would I be doing?"

"You'll be in our accounting office, helping set up procedures that will work

efficiently in your wife's new system."

Ben gestured. "Have a seat, Mr. Lu."

They sat. My God, Lee thought, I never asked him to sit down! He's offering us jobs,

and I never asked him to sit down!

"What would my job pay?" Ben asked.

"It would start at thirty-five hundred dollars."

"On the basis of my posting and a WebWorld chat?"

"I did other research. On both of you." The Asian gestured casually. "And of course

there are your auras."

Our auras?! Lee thought. Our auras?!

Ben glanced at his wife, then turned to Lor Lu again. "How soon do you need a

commitment?"

"My plane leaves tomorrow morning at 8:57."

"When would we have to be there?"

"There's a degree of urgency. We need a new OC in place as soon as reasonably

possible. We want both of you there by the first of next month."

"Have you got a number we could call today? This evening? My wife and I need to

talk about this."

The man was grinning again. Like a cat with a mouse under its paw, Lee thought. "I'm

at the Veldrome Hotel, at the airport. The number is 614-555-7100, Room 312." He

spelled his name for them. "Call me any time before eleven."

He left copies of Millennium's standard employment contract for them to read, then

shook their hands and left. It seemed to Lee his grip had some sort of electrical

charge.

* * *

She stared after him. What had he said when he'd introduced himself to her? Holy

man extraordinary. Good God! And he'd known that Ben was in the basement doing

laundry.

"Ben," she said, "I don't want to go out there."

He looked at her. "Why not?"

"Honey, it's a cult! And you know what happened to Laura."

He did know. Laura had suicided. Her favorite cousin. "That was the Church of

Universal Truth," he said, "not Millennium."

"They're both cults."

"And because the Truthees screwed some people over, broke up some families,

Millennium is dangerous?"

Her lips thinned. "And I'm afraid of that man!"

"Of Lor Lu? Why?"

"He's—strange!"

Ben smiled. "Strange is what your parents call me. Why they don't like me. That and

because nominally my mother's Catholic and my father's a Jew. With a touch of

Falasha at that, though they don't know it. But you married me."

"And he knew you were in the basement! Doing laundry!"

Ben nodded, a completely inadequate response.

"And Ngunda Aran is a guru," she went on. "He writes a syndicated new age column.

You read it every day."

"Sweetheart, the term for people who write columns is columnist, not guru. And I

don't read it every day. He only does two a week."

"That's beside the point! He is a guru! And this Lor Lu introduced himself to me as a

'holy man extraordinary'! Ye gods, Ben! And he knew you were in the basement . . ."

"Doing laundry. Right."

"How could he have known that?"

He laughed. "Maybe it's the kind of thing holy men know."

"Dammit, Ben, it's not funny!"

He nodded. "You're right, it's not. It's about you making sixty-five hundred, and me

another thirty-five hundred, which total ten thousand. A month. With the possibility

of employment that could last us through the depression."

"He wants us to move out west!"

"We have to move at the end of the month anyway. We're being evicted, remember?

Without enough money to move our stuff or store it. And you've already told me you

couldn't stand to move in with your folks. Especially with the girls."

Lee cringed at the thought of Becca and Raquel exposed to the judgements and

sarcasms of her parents. "But—there's a mob of hippies there, probably smoking dope

and screwing one another all over the place."

"I'm sure we won't have to join in."

She glared.

"He didn't invite them, he doesn't cater to them. And their camp is miles from

Millennium headquarters. The ranch is a big place." He shifted the conversation.

"You've read about Iiúoo, the Ladder. It was featured in the Sunday Times a few years

ago. Among other places."

She did remember, vaguely. Ladder was a program providing free counseling on

Indian reservations, and supposedly had had impressive success. She'd never put

much stock in psychological counseling, or in free anything.

"Then you know who started it," he said.

"Ngunda Aran. Your goo-roo." She exaggerated the syllables.

"He's not my guru, sweetheart," Ben answered gently. "I simply read his columns.

He's a licensed psychotherapist who had a highly successful clinical practice and did

pro bono Life Healing in the Colorado penitentiary. Then he spent two summers on

the Crow Reservation in Montana, dealing with alcoholism, drugs, and futility."

Her husband, she thought, was sounding like a Millennium flack. "What's that got to

do with hippies flocking to him?" she asked.

"I suspect they're like a lot of other people; they've lost faith in a system that screws

over certain groups and then punishes them for not fitting in. But the hippies' main

interest isn't therapy. They're looking for a spiritual fix, and they like what he says in

his columns and talks."

For a minute she didn't say anything. She was thinking of $10,000 a month. Finally

she gazed thoughtfully at her husband. "Is that why you're attracted to him? Because

you're looking for a spiritual fix?"

"I'm attracted to Ngunda because he's been effective. And because to me he makes

sense." He paused. "Let me ask a question now. It's my turn."

She nodded.

"How much faith do you have in the system?"

She examined the question. "It's never worked terribly well. Socioeconomic systems

are composed of human beings, and we know what they're like."

"What are they like?"

"Let's say we're—imperfect. Irrational and perverse, not to mention greedy and

dishonest." She paused. "Not everyone, but enough. What was your original question

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TheSecondComingByJohnDalmasBack|NextContentsPrologueTheapartmentwassmall,itsfurnishingsexpensiveandconservative.Asusual,itsoccupantatealone—aTVsupperinaplastictray.Meat,mashedpotatoes,mixedvegetablesandabrownie,theportionsmeagerforsotallaman,andthereweren'tevensaltandpeppershakersonthetable.Hisappea...

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John Dalmas - The Second Coming

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