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Three days later it happened again. Sara woke up and found herself
dead.
Her soul bobbed against the ceiling as she looked down at her body,
half-tangled in the bed sheets. An exquisite dark-skinned creature
hovered at her side, his wings barely stirring the air.
“Azrael!” she said. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this. Did you get
the right day this time?”
“Um…no. Sorry. Another false alarm. It’s this new software.”
Azrael flicked his glossy black ringlets out of his eyes and bent over
his Pocket PC, stabbing viciously at it with a golden stylus.
“Bloody Microsoft!” he said. “OK, I think I’ve got it now. All
things
going to plan, I shouldn’t be seeing you again for around another fifty
years.”
“That’s if I don’t turn into an axe-murderer or something in the
meantime,” said Sara.
The angel laughed. “That’s not about to happen. You know all that
stuff about free will? Complete bollocks. You couldn’t be bad if you
tried.”
He gave the Pocket PC a few more prods. It chimed in assent. He
smiled
and waved cheerily as her soul plunged into a swirling vortex and
jolted
back into her body.
#
Sara died again later in the week. She was having dinner at her
parents’ home when her soul slipped out, leaving her body slumped in
the
gravy. Her mother screamed hysterically and dragged Sara’s body to the
floor. She threw all of her considerable weight into thumping on
Sara’s
chest, in what Sara could only assume was an attempt at CPR. Azrael
shook his head at the performance.
“You’ll probably have a few cracked ribs from that,” he said. “Look,
I
could just take you now, if you like. You’re going to end up in Heaven
anyway, so what difference does it make?”
“Thank you, no,” Sara said hastily. “Can’t God fix your computing
system? He is meant to be omnipotent, isn’t he?”
Azrael blushed. “The thing is…he’s on holiday.”
“On holiday? God’s on holiday? How long for?”
“Oh, not long. Just a hundred years or so.”
“Well…don’t you have any computer experts in Heaven who can take a look
at it?”
“There’s a few good ones up there, but no good ones, if you know what I
mean.”
“My brother is a…I mean, he’s pretty clued up on computers. I could
ask
him to take a look at it.”
Azrael shook his head. “He’d have to die and go to Heaven before I
could let him have access to the system. Which means we have two
problems. It’s not his time to die, and when it is, he won’t be going
to Heaven.”
Sara sighed. “I’m not surprised.”
“Come on,” Azrael said. “Time to send you back. Third time lucky?”
“I didn’t know angels believed in luck,” Sara started to say, before
she
landed with a thump back in her body.
#
That Sunday after church, Sara paid an impromptu visit to her brother
Cliff. She picked her way past overflowing wheelie bins and banged on
the door to his flat. After a minute he opened the door, dressed only
in a graying pair of boxer shorts. He blinked and squinted in the
sunlight.
“What time is it?” he rasped.
Sara checked her watch. “1:30,” she said.
“Shit,” he said. “I hate it when I’m woken up early.”
He opened the door wider and ushered Sara inside. She breathed as
shallowly as she could. Cliff’s flat had a distinctive smell, of stale
smoke, foot odour, mildew and grease, the latter coming from the
takeaway bar next door.
Cliff found himself a T-shirt and a cigarette while Sara cleared a
space
on the couch.
“Mum told me about your little episode the other night,” he said.
“What
was that all about?”
Sara told him. Cliff blew smoke rings towards the stained ceiling.
“Yeah,” he said, “I bet I know what the problem is with their system.”
Sara nodded. “I thought you might. I also thought that, seeing as
you’re a hacker who is talented enough to be wanted in seven different
countries, you might be able to get into Heaven’s system and fix it for
me.”
“I don’t know, Sara,” said Cliff. “Technically, I’m more of a cracker
than a hacker. I could probably get in – I am that good – but it
doesn’t sound right somehow. What kind of cracker breaks into a system
and fixes it? It would be against the cracker’s code – if there were a
cracker’s code, that is.”
“There’s one thing I forgot to tell you,” said Sara. “You’re not in
Heaven’s database.”
“But if I got into the system,” Cliff said, “I could add my name. And
give myself a Methuselah-sized lifespan while I was at it.”
“That’s if the Devil doesn’t claim you first.”
“No problem. I’ll hack into Hell’s system too.”
#
Cliff rang Sara a few days later.
“Hi, sis,” he said. “Job done. It was a piece of piss getting in –
those angels are so trusting, their system doesn’t have any protection.
Oh, by the way, I’m calling from the hospital. Would you be able to
pick me up? And I need a place to stay and some cash. I had a little
fire at my place.”
“What happened?” asked Sara. “It couldn’t have been a vengeful bolt of
lightning from God. He’s still on holiday.”
“Well, like I said, it was easy getting into Heaven…but the firewall on
Hell’s system is something else…”
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