Christine thought for a moment. "How did you know I had the case?"

"Lucky guess. I knew you were with Isaakson when he died. And I'm one of the few angels or humans who knew he had the case. I figured he must have mentioned me, which is why you showed up at the house."

"That girl, Ariel she seemed to be expecting me."

"She was, in a sense," replied Mercury. "I gave her a list of the P.A.I.s, along with pictures when I had them. I figured it was only a matter of time before one of them showed up. Synchronicity, you know. The illusion of free will is straining under the weight of determinism."

"The what is doing what under what?"

"Certain things have to happen for the Apocalypse to take place. They're going to happen, no matter what you and I do. We can go with the flow, or we can fight it, but the river is going where it's going. All we're doing is splashing around in the stream."

"So then... what's the point, if nothing you do is going to make any difference in the long run?"

Mercury shrugged. "Splashing is more fun."

Christine's eyes fell to the scattered red dots on the screen. "May I try?"

"Sure."

"How do I get it to..."

Mercury tapped a globe icon in the corner, and the blue-green image of earth appeared again.

Christine spun the globe until the west coast of North America was visible. She tapped until the Bay area filled the screen. Dots of red appeared here and there, seeming to spiral out from an epicenter in Oakland. She zoomed to their approximate location. No state boundaries or other markings were present; she had to go purely by the topography and the ma.s.ses of red dots marking congested areas.

"Allow me," said Mercury. He deftly navigated the terrain until Highway 4 was visible not a red line marking the highway, but what looked like the actual highway. His finger zipped along the highway until he found a pathetic patch of green amid the desert-like landscape. Tap-tap Tap-tap, and a little brown building was visible. Tap-tap Tap-tap, picnic tables. Tap-tap Tap-tap.

"Holy c.r.a.p, that's us us," said Christine.

"That's about as close as it'll go," Mercury said. He looked up and waved.

A tiny figure on the screen, barely recognizable as Mercury, waved up at Christine.

"Now slap me," he said.

"Okay," she said, and slapped him across the face.

"Ow! What the h.e.l.l?"

"You said to slap you."

"Yeah, but normal people hesitate a little."

"Sorry. I don't really like you."

"Clearly. Okay, now watch the screen, and then then slap me." slap me."

"Okay."

She drew her hand back to slap him again, then looked at the screen. Next to the figure of Mercury was a smaller figure cloaked in a bright red aura.

"See that? Violent intentions. You don't even need to actually slap me for the..."

She slapped him again.

A flash of red lit up the screen.

"Ow!"

"Sorry, I wanted to see what would happen."

"Glad to be able to satisfy your curiosity," Mercury said, rubbing his reddened cheek.

"Also, I wanted to slap you again."

"Yeah, I got that."

"So in this instance at least, the case was accurate."

"Yes," Mercury said. "It will reflect any violent intentions. It also gives a lot of false positives, however. So it's pretty accurate if you know what to look for, but if you just scan an area for violent intentions, you'll get a lot of bogus info."

He tapped a spygla.s.s icon, and then double-tapped the screen several times, causing the view to zoom out. He then drew a circle on the screen with his finger and tapped a b.u.t.ton bearing a sword icon. An hourgla.s.s appeared for a second, and then the screen zoomed in on an area south of Sacramento.

"Hmmm," said Mercury. "Maybe something happening in Lodi." He zoomed in further, until a bright red pinpoint appeared on the screen. He zoomed in on the red point, until a brightly glowing red figure was visible in the center of the screen. The figure appeared to be climbing onto the roof of a small building. A few yards away was another building, over which waved a flag bearing the familiar logo of Charlie's Grill.

"Lodi?" Christine asked. "You mean...?"

"Yeah, like the song."

"You said what's-his-name, Keith, the Antichrist, was in Lodi. Is that him?" She pointed at the red dot.

"Hard to say," said Mercury. "I know he shows up at Charlie's Grill openings sometimes. But as far as I know, these sort of celebrity appearances generally don't involve the celebrity climbing onto the roof of the building next door."

"So who...?"

On the screen, it appeared that a crowd was a.s.sembling in the parking lot. The figure now glowed so brightly that his or her features were obscured.

"Wow," said Mercury.

"What? Who is it?"

"That, if the case is to be believed," said Mercury, "is one very angry individual."

THIRTEEN.

A common belief on the Mundane Plane is that the lack of free will is what separates angels from human beings. This, of course, is rubbish. Given that the Almighty has preordained all things, free will is necessarily an illusion. As illusions go, however, it's an extremely convincing one, and we angels are just as subject to it as humans are. The difference is that humans, being mortal, don't have an eternity to make up for their mistakes, and therefore take the illusion much more seriously.

One of the consequences of the hold this illusion has on human beings is the disproportionate amount of their limited time that human beings spend trying to figure out just how much freedom they don't have and what, if anything, they can do about it.

Two schools of thought have emerged on the issue.

The determinist argues that in a universe governed by the principle of cause and effect, every event must have a cause. Further, if every event has a cause, then there is no such thing as 'freedom' every event is determined by the prior succession of events. The actions of human beings are not immune to this rule: Everything a person does must have been determined by prior causes. Free will, then, is an illusion. Everything human beings have ever done and will ever do has been determined for eternity.

The advocate of free will blames the determinist for excusing all sorts of crimes, from child abuse to ma.s.s murder. After all, if everything we do is determined for us, then there can be no such thing as guilt or responsibility.

The determinist responds, "Well, what are you blaming me me for? I didn't make the rules. Don't shoot the messenger and all that." for? I didn't make the rules. Don't shoot the messenger and all that."

The free will advocate replies, "Why shouldn't shouldn't I shoot the messenger? After all, if I do, it won't be my fault. It may simply have been determined from the beginning of time that I was going to shoot you." I shoot the messenger? After all, if I do, it won't be my fault. It may simply have been determined from the beginning of time that I was going to shoot you."

Eventually the determinist concedes that perhaps the best option is for everyone to pretend that we have free will, since we don't really seem to have any choice in the matter, and he rather likes not being shot at.

The free will advocate begrudgingly accepts this compromise, but insists that he is being magnanimous and was in no way obligated to do so.[8]

In the end, there isn't much practical difference between the two positions, which explains how most people on the Mundane Plane are able to believe, to some degree, in both of them simultaneously.

One such person was Danny Pilvers, who had been predestined from the beginning of time to be a would-be a.s.sa.s.sin. Danny Pilvers took very seriously indeed the illusion that he was making choices of his own free will. He had, he believed, made up his own mind to a.s.sa.s.sinate Karl Grissom, the Antichrist, while simultaneously believing that a.s.sa.s.sinating Karl Grissom was his inexorable destiny.

As fate would have it, he managed to be wrong on both counts.

Christine didn't know, of course, that Danny Pilvers was a would-be a.s.sa.s.sin. To Christine, who was just pulling into the parking lot some fifty feet away, he looked very much like an actual a.s.sa.s.sin. The fact that no one else noticed Danny was a testament to how still he was able to be, as well as how preoccupied the spectators were, because his green camouflage clashed badly with the brick-red tile roof of the Burger Giant.

Christine gunned the accelerator.

"Get down!" she shouted. But the Camry's windows were up and the Charlie Nyx theme was reaching a crescendo. Even the roar of the engine was drowned out by crashing of cymbals.

Karl Grissom stood next to his car, fumbling with his keys. He was wearing a black polyester Antichrist costume which, despite having been custom made for him, appeared to be at least three sizes too small. On his head was a football helmet sans sans faceguard that had been spray-painted black and had two large goat horns glued to it. What with the goat head helmet and metal-studded black leather gauntlets, Karl was having a h.e.l.l of a time with his keychain. faceguard that had been spray-painted black and had two large goat horns glued to it. What with the goat head helmet and metal-studded black leather gauntlets, Karl was having a h.e.l.l of a time with his keychain.

Most people would consider what happened over the next three seconds to be a highly unlikely set of coincidences. In fact, it was a highly unlikely string of events occurring in rapid succession, topped off with two minor miracles.

First, the Charlie Nyx theme ended, and the polarized crowd erupted in polite applause and hisses, respectively, depending on which side of the cheeseburger demarcation ribbon they were on.

Danny Pilvers took a deep breath.

Karl Grissom removed the goat helmet and placed it on the roof of the Saturn.

The director of marketing for Charlie's Grill said, "Let's have one more round of applause for the Antichrist. Give it up for Karl Grissom!"

Everyone looked toward Karl, who was now completely hidden from the crowd by the Saturn and the goat-head helmet.

Karl dropped his keys and bent over to pick them up.

Danny Pilvers, who had trained the sight of his rifle precisely between the goat horns, squeezed the trigger.

A bullet traveled from the barrel of the rifle toward the area that Karl's head had occupied roughly four tenths of a second earlier. The bullet punched a finger-sized hole through the front of the helmet.

The same bullet then punched a similar hole through the back of the helmet.

The bullet, having thoroughly enjoyed this hole-punching business, proceeded to punch holes in the windows of four nearby cars, finally coming to rest on page 328 of a dog-eared copy of Gravity's Rainbow Gravity's Rainbow, which is 186 pages further than anyone else had ever gotten.

The helmet flew off the Saturn, caromed off a Dodge Caravan with two shattered windows, and smacked Karl Grissom in the forehead, knocking him unconscious.

Gasps of horror, excitement and/or glee escaped from the crowd.

Christine's Camry slammed to a halt in front of Karl's Saturn. She threw the door open and yelled, "Get in!"

Karl did not get in, because having been struck on the head by a football helmet 2.8 seconds earlier, he was still unconscious.

Danny Pilvers, whose view of the Antichrist had been obscured by a rented Camry, decided to redirect his anger to a more accessible target. He set his sights on the plucky brunette behind the wheel and squeezed the trigger again.

At this point, Minor Miracle Number One occurred: The bullet discharged by Danny Pilvers' rifle decided, halfway between Danny and Christine, that it didn't share the hole-punching affinity of its comrade. It decided, in fact, to stop in mid-air, reverse course, and jump right back down the barrel of Danny Pilvers' gun. It did this with enough enthusiasm to throw Danny Pilvers off balance, causing him to roll off the tiled roof of the Burger Giant, bounce off the limb of a nearby shade tree, and break his collarbone on the value menu next to the drive-thru.

Immediately thereafter, Minor Miracle Number Two occurred: The left rear door of the Camry opened by itself. Karl Grissom's limp ma.s.s rose three feet off the ground and floated into the Camry, coming to rest gently on the back seat. The door closed itself.

Christine, half expecting a pillar of fire to descend at any moment and void her insurance, turned and stared dumbly at Mercury.

"This would be a good time to leave," Mercury said.

She nodded and threw the car into reverse, peeling dramatically out of the parking lot. Screams and shouts from the bewildered bystanders followed them.

"Well," said Mercury. "That's going to get us some attention."

FOURTEEN.

"I don't get it," Christine said. "Why does this stuff keep happening? Is this part of some kind of plot?"

She was having a hard time processing the sheer number of explosions, killings and near killings she had experienced over the past few days. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. Was this what she had to look forward to for the rest of her life, however long that would be? Just a series of random explosions? Where was the Universe going going with this? She was beginning to feel like a character in one of Katie Midford's juvenile novels, in which she had heard every chapter ended with an explosion to keep the reader's interest. with this? She was beginning to feel like a character in one of Katie Midford's juvenile novels, in which she had heard every chapter ended with an explosion to keep the reader's interest.

They were back on the freeway, now headed south on I-5. Karl lay moaning and holding his head in the backseat. Mercury had looked him over and determined that he hadn't been seriously injured. Christine had to trust that angels knew about such things. Karl's house wasn't far; Mercury had rattled off the address apparently from memory in response to Christine's rhetorical hand-wringing about what to do with Karl. She figured she'd drop Karl off at home and then continue to her home in Southern California.

Mercury was in the pa.s.senger's seat, fiddling with the controls of the Attache Case of War. "Man, things are heating up in Syria," he said.

"Well?" Christine demanded.

"Well what?"

"Is there a point to all this, or is it just the Universe toying with me again?"