Mercury Falls (20 page)

"You're supposed to use a carrot and lumps of coal," said Christine.

"I had to improvise," Mercury said. "Problems of scale. The point is," he said, turning back to the panel, "there is never any reason to wreck a snowman. Wrecking a snowman is just pointless destruction."

"Mercury," said Cravutius, "I've had about enough of this. If you don't start telling me what you know about this rebellion, I may decide that you are of no more use to us."

Mercury went on, unfazed. "That's what I'm telling you," he said. "I've figured it out. I'm the rebellion. I'm the one you want. I realized it when Uzziel wrecked my snowman. I realized what side I'm on."

"And that side is?"

"The one that doesn't wreck snowmen. I'm on the pro-snowman side."

"All right," said Cravutius. "That's enough. Take Mercury away. Perhaps the woman—"

"Listen," said Mercury. "I'll tell you want you want to know. I will. But I want some assurances first."

"Assurances of what?"

"Assurances that you won't harm any more snowmen."

Even Christine was now ready to desert him. "Mercury, are you sure that's the condition that you want to make?"

"Absolutely," said Mercury. "There's no reason to destroy a snowman. I want assurance that you won't hurt any more snowmen."

"Fine," said Cravutius impatiently. "Now tell us. . ."

"Nor, through inaction, will you cause any snowmen to be harmed."

"I can't possibly make such assurances. The Apocalypse is nigh. Some snowmen are inevitably going to be harmed."

"I'm afraid I can't accept that," said Mercury.

"Mercury," said Uzziel, "enough of this silliness. Get a grip on yourself. This is a real conflict, with real consequences. Are you really willing to allow your fellow angels to come to harm in order to protect
fake people made out of snow
?"

Mercury replied without hesitation, "An angel may protect himself, as long as doing so does not conflict with the first or second laws of snowman protection."

"Look," said Christine. "Let's be reasonable. I'm sure Mercury is willing to make some concessions regarding the protection of snowmen if you seraphim will simply listen to us and try to understand where we are coming from."

Mercury shrugged.

The angels glanced at one another. Finally Cravutius sighed resignedly. "We will listen to what you have to say," he said.

"Here's the thing," Christine said. "I understand that you believe you are acting in the interest of the Divine Plan. But what if we're misinterpreting the Divine Plan? If God had needed a bunch of unquestioning robots—"

"Or snowmen," Mercury added.

"Right," Christine went on, "if God had wanted a bunch of unquestioning snowmen to execute his plan, He could have created them. But He created us. Human beings and angels who have minds, who question things. He gave us the ability to question this so-called 'Divine Plan.' Why? Maybe because it needs to be questioned sometimes. Maybe, in fact, it's not the Divine Plan after all. Maybe this is all some sort of test."

"Blasphemy!" shouted Uzziel. "Don't you see what you're saying? If you start questioning the Plan and saying, 'Well, maybe there's another plan above this one,' what's to stop you from saying maybe that's not the real plan either? Maybe there's another plan above that, and another above that. Where does it stop?"

"It stops," said Christine, "
here
. It stops with us, right now. We stop following orders for the sake of following orders. We stop going along with arbitrary rules just because someone told us that it's God's will. We stop this plot to destroy this world.
My
world."

"Yeah!" exclaimed Mercury. "Let's stop it! How are we going to stop it?"

"The Apocalypse is not simply a plan to destroy the world," Cravutius said. "I understand that is how it must appear to you. . ."

"No," Christine said. "I mean, yes, it does appear that way. But that's not the plan I'm talking about. This is what we've been trying to tell you. Lucifer is reneging on the Apocalypse deal."

"The Antichrist!" bellowed Mercury. "That's it! We have to stop them from killing Karl!"

"The renegades?" said Cravutius.

"There are no renegades," said Christine. "Izbazel and Gamaliel are working for Lucifer. They're going to kill Karl and blame it on Michael. They'll withdraw from the Apocalypse Accord and attack the Mundane Plane on their own terms. They've used the Attache Case of Death to start targeted earthquakes that have reconfigured the energy channels, allowing them to open a portal in my condo. They're going to send a horde of demons with anti-bombs through to wipe out Earth."

"Nice summary," observed Mercury.

"Thanks," said Christine. "It's taken until now for me to put it all together."

The panel of seraphim sat in stunned silence. After some time, Cravutius spoke.

"Where is the Antichrist now?"

Uzziel answered. "He's with Harold Giddings, the owner of the
Banner
. We expect Harold to officially denounce Karl as the Antichrist this evening at the Covenant Holders conference in Anaheim."

Now Christine was confused. "I thought Harry was giving a speech about religious media or something," she said. "What's this about him denouncing Karl?"

"Harry believes he's on a divine mission to herald the arrival of the Antichrist," said Uzziel. "Our understanding is that he was selected by Prophecy Division to receive certain information about the Apocalypse via Angel Band. We haven't been able to get any details, of course. You know how it is trying to get any information out of Prophecy. We think something may have gone wrong, though. We've recently learned that he has had contact with one or more fallen angels for some time now. Possibly years."

"Harry has been talking to angels?" Christine asked incredulously. "
Fallen
angels?"

"Listening to them, at least," said Uzziel. "The MOC has apparently known for some time that he has had contact with one of the Fallen, but the information has only just made it to our division. And it's still not clear to whom he's been listening or for how long."

"How is it possible," interjected Cravutius, "that this Harold Giddings has been able to receive transmissions from fallen angels without us knowing?" He turned to Uzziel. "Don't you people track these sorts of interplanar communications?"

"Of course, Your Holiness," said Uzziel. "But that's just the thing: it doesn't appear that the angel, or angels, have been using interplanar frequencies."

"So. . .angels have been visiting him in person? And somehow you failed to notice that?"

"No, Your Holiness. They are communicating via Angel Band. The transmissions seem to have originated on the Mundane Plane."

"So there's an angel, or angels, on the Mundane Plane somewhere, who has been talking to Harold Giddings over Angel Band, possibly for years, but you have no idea who they are, where they are, why they are talking to Harold Giddings, or what they are telling him?"

"Er, yes, Your Holiness," acknowledged Uzziel sheepishly. "You see, we're not set up to track intraplanar Angel Band communications. Normally one would expect the angel's superiors to keep tabs on what that angel is doing, but since we have no idea who these angels are, we have no idea who they report to. Clearly someone has gone off the reservation, but it's impossible at this point to know who. Harold Giddings has, of course, been under surveillance since being classified as a Person of Apocalyptic Interest, but it's very difficult to intercept these sorts of intraplanar communications.

"In any case, what we do know is that Harold believes that he has been chosen to proclaim the beginning of the Apocalypse. And he is now convinced that his whole life has been leading up to his public denunciation of the Antichrist at this Covenant Holders conference."

"That's where they'll kill him," said Mercury. "It's their best opportunity. Karl will be on stage, in front of forty thousand people. And once Harry denounces him, there will be no question as to Karl's legal status as the Antichrist. They'll kill Karl, and Lucifer will blame it on Heaven and cancel his plans for a war in the Middle East—which he was never going to follow through on anyway, because his focus is on Southern California."

"If this were true," Cravutius said, "we would be powerless to do anything about it. That is, we can convene a hearing into initiating an investigation into the alleged violation of the Accord. . ."

"Yes," said Christine. "Be sure to look me up on my molten slag heap of a planet and let me know what you find out."

"It's true," said Mercury. "There's nothing they can do. If agents of Heaven are seen interfering with the denunciation of the Antichrist, it will have the same effect as killing him. Lucifer will cry foul, and the rest of his plan falls nicely into place."

"So. . .what?" Christine demanded. "We do nothing?"

"No," said Mercury. "
They
do nothing." He motioned toward the panel. "
We
can still stop this."

"Out of the question," said Uzziel. "The two of you cannot be allowed to run rampant on Earth. You will both be quarantined indefinitely until we can verify your claims."

"There's no time for that!" Christine said. "The Covenant Holders conference is happening right now. Harry could take the stage at any minute. And you know we're telling the truth. Everything fits. Get your noses out of the SPAM and use your own judgment for once. Even if we're lying, how much damage can the two of us possibly do? Mercury was busy building a snowman when Uzziel picked us up. What are you worried about, that he's going to raise up an army of giant snowmen to wage war on Heaven?"

"More importantly," Mercury said, "Christine is a Person of Apocalyptic Interest. You can't quarantine her without calling a special meeting of the Committee on Persons of Apocalyptic Interest."

"Fine," said Cravutius. "We will hold you until the Committee on Persons of Apocalyptic Interest can be convened."

"Do you have a Writ of Deferment?" asked Mercury.

"A writ of what?" Cravutius replied.

"A Writ of Deferment. You need one if you want to hold Christine until the committee meets. And of course, to hold me, you'll have to charge me with violations of the SPAM. But if you do that, then you have to give me unfettered access to my judicial representation."

"And who might that be?"

"Christine here," said Mercury. "I think she could be an excellent lawyer. Of course, she'll be in Los Angeles. . ."

Uzziel protested, "Christine can't be your lawyer. She's a mortal. And she's not an attorney."

Cravutius, however, seemed less certain. He could see where this was going: the bureaucratic barriers that had been erected around Christine, as a Person of Apocalyptic Interest, made it virtually impossible to hold her without running afoul of some agency or other. An informal detention such as Uzziel had arranged at the planeport was one thing, but now that the Arbitration Panel of the Subcommittee for Adjudication of Matters of Alleged Violations of the Apocalypse Accord was involved, it could take weeks just to figure out what branch of the bureaucracy was empowered to detain her, and under what circumstances. And Mercury, with a knowledge of red tape that came from skirting it for centuries on end, was doing his darnedest to hitch his wagon to Christine's, so that they couldn't touch him without first touching her.

"Enough," said Cravutius wearily. "I recommend that we name a committee to investigate the alleged violations of the Apocalyptic Accord. This panel is not empowered to do anything else about this matter at present."

Christine was about to protest when the angel continued:

"We find that neither of these witnesses has anything further to offer, and that they should therefore be returned to the Mundane Plane, to be released on their own recognizance. Uzziel, prepare a temporary portal. This panel is adjourned."

How Harry Giddings came to believe that he was chosen to proclaim the end of the world is a strange and fantastically unlikely story revolving around an angel named Eddie Pratt. Eddie Pratt was the closest thing to a demon living in Cork, Ireland.

There is, of course, a lot of disagreement on Earth about whether demons actually exist, what they want, and how much of the tax code they are responsible for. Technically speaking, a demon is simply a fallen angel, which is to say an angel who is in rebellion against Heaven. Many times this rebellion is quite overt and intentional, while in other cases—as in that of Eddie Pratt—it's more a matter of bad timing.

Those who knew him would never have guessed he was a demon, mostly because to the extent that the residents of Cork thought about demons at all, they tended to imagine that they were somewhat more frightening, not to mention motivated, than Eddie Pratt.

Eddie, who adopted that name after tiring of the funny looks he was getting when he introduced himself, was a cherub who was assigned by the Mundane Observation Corps in 1973, as a result of an impressive series of clerical errors, to observe southern Ireland for signs that the Ottoman Empire was weakening. Eddie's protests that the Ottoman Empire had collapsed a half century earlier and that its influence had never, in fact, touched the shores of Ireland, fell on deaf ears.

For several years Eddie did as he had been instructed, filing weekly reports via the interplanar energy frequencies, commonly referred to as "Angel Band."

"Ottoman Empire Still Collapsed," a typical report would read. After a while he started to get more creative, with entries such as "Ottoman Empire: Has Its Time Come at Last?" He was particularly proud of "Ottomans: No Longer under Foot?"

After several years of this, he had become convinced that no one was actually reading his reports. He grew desperately bored and depressed, the upside of which was that the neighbors stopped calling him "that frightfully cheerful bloke." His other eccentricities were chalked up to him being an American, which he was not, but he spoke strangely and had excellent teeth, so there was no blaming them.

He might have been able to cope were it not for certain particularly cruel aspects of the MOC code, which explicitly forbade (1) drinking, (2) leaving one's post, and (3) playing more than nine rounds of golf on a single day. His reports became desperate cries for help, with titles like "South American Locusts Decimate Irish Tobacco Crop: Ottomans to Blame?" But still there was no word from his superiors.

Finally, one damp Saturday evening some twelve years after his assignment began, when he simply could not play one more round of
I think it's going to rain no perhaps not although on the other hand maybe yes but it's hard to say
, he snapped and downed six pints of beer at the local pub.

As fate would have it, that very evening, while he was spending an untroubled night passed out on a rubbish heap in a dank alley smelling of cat urine, his superiors chose at last to make contact. Unable to raise him on Angel Band, they assumed that he had abandoned his post. When he missed his next two report deadlines, they looked up his past several reports only to find incoherent gibberish about Moorish jellyfish attacking Belfast, immediately classified him as AWOL, and revoked his interplanar communication privileges. A thorough review of Eddie's assignment was conducted, which concluded after twenty minutes with the consensus that perhaps it would be better all around if nobody brought it up again. Eddie was sent a terse communique which read in its entirety:

He spent the next three years falling off barstools in pubs in and around Cork, ranting to the locals about the unfairness of it all, on which point they tended to agree with him, as long as he avoided the specifics of his situation, which tended to confuse and frighten them.

It is difficult for someone not in Eddie's position to appreciate his situation. What one must remember is that the one thing that unites all angels regardless of their position in the Heavenly hierarchy is the overwhelming desire to meddle in the affairs of lesser creatures. More than a simple desire, in fact, this urge borders on biological compulsion. Angels
need
to meddle. This need, in fact, is what separates angels from lower beings.

Angels have no business of their own. Angels don't tend gardens, build cities, or invent hydrogen bombs. Whereas humans are taught at a very young age to use the natural beauty around them to make dismally ugly creations out of macaroni, construction paper, and pipe cleaners, angels instinctively recognize the futility of such tasks and are content merely to intervene in the creative activities of others.

In a sense, lower creatures are to angels what pipe cleaners and macaroni are to human beings. An angel would never paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but he would be more than happy to drive Michelangelo crazy with constant admonishments that it "needs more green over here."

Most angels take for granted the opportunities they are afforded to meddle in the affairs of lesser beings. Eddie, however, had subsisted on Earth for several decades in the absence of any viable prospects with whom to meddle. He was afraid to reveal himself to the locals for fear that he would be completely ostracized, and he was convinced, despite his superiors' obvious and total lack of interest in him, that something horrible would happen to him if he ever left southern Ireland. So Eddie sat and stewed in pubs, yammering on about angels and demons, events real and imaginary, oblivious to the fact that no one was really listening. And when he ran out of people to talk to, he would broadcast drunken and increasingly apocalyptic missives over Angel Band, forgetting that no one could hear him.

Until the day that someone did.

One dreary, drunken night, at the tail end of roughly 1,347 other dreary, drunken nights, Eddie came across a human who seemed to be able to receive Angel Band transmissions. Eddie, you see, had been prevented from broadcasting to other planes but was still perfectly capable of communicating via Angel Band within the confines of the Mundane. Ordinarily, this would be a little bit like having a perfectly good cell phone on Venus, as there are so few creatures on the Mundane Plane capable of receiving Angel Band transmissions that the odds of raising one at random are virtually nil.

Ecstatic to have found a being capable of receiving his transmissions, Eddie blathered drunkenly for several hours. He couldn't determine much about the person, other than the fact that she was a young female living somewhere in the southwest United States. She was unable to consciously transmit to him, but she was clearly capable of receiving much of what he sent her way.

Eddie was saddened to find, however, that as he began to sober up, he lost his connection to the girl. This, coupled with his burgeoning hangover, put him in a truly dismal mood. And it was at this point that he discovered
another
human being capable of receiving his transmissions—this one a young male, not geographically distant from the girl. Confused with this turn of events, irritated with the apparent capriciousness of the situation, and now in the throes of a real humdinger of a hangover, Eddie vented all of his frustrations of the past several hundred years on the poor lad.

When he awoke the next morning, unable to raise either of the two, Eddie resigned himself to the idea that his experience had been a one-time fluke and began once again to get exceedingly drunk. As the alcohol kicked in and his mood improved, he once again found himself able to communicate with the girl. Having realized the connection between his insobriety and his ability to connect with her, he resolved to remain drunk for as long as possible. Eventually, however, his angelic constitution rebelled, forcing him to sober up. As he did, Eddie again found himself in contact with the other human, and he spent the next several hours grumbling about the unfairness of it all.

Eddie eventually settled into a pattern of drinking binges followed by painful periods of sobriety, spending roughly equivalent periods of time yammering to each of his new acquaintances. Much of what he told them was true, and a healthy portion of it was false, but all of it was colored by the mood he was in at the time.

So it was that the boy—who was during the initial contact only a fetus—and his mother both became recipients of angelic missives, such as they were. The mother, who joyfully pondered the not-always-coherent communications in her heart, became convinced that her son was to be a great prophet, the very herald of the Apocalypse, and named him accordingly.

The young boy, who became so sober and fatalistic in his outlook that he had to work hard to live down the nickname "Apocalyptic Harold," clearly got the worse end of the deal.