"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 circ.u.mstances. 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."

TWENTY-EIGHT.

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 a.s.signed 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 sh.o.r.es 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 M.O.C. code, which explicitly forbade (1) drinking, (2) leaving one's post and (3) playing more than 9 rounds of golf on a single day. His reports became desperate cries for help, with t.i.tles like "South American Locusts Decimate Irish Tobacco Crop: Ottomans To Blame?" But still there was no word from his superiors.

Finally, one damp Sat.u.r.day evening some twelve years after his a.s.signment 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 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 6 pints of beer at the local pub.

As fate would have it, that very evening, while he was spending an untroubled night pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sumed 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 cla.s.sified him as AWOL and revoked his interplanar communication privileges. A thorough review of Eddie's a.s.signment was conducted, which concluded after 20 minutes with the consensus that perhaps it would be better all around if n.o.body brought it up again. Eddie was sent a terse communique which read in its entirety: .

Your services are no longer required. Good luck!!!

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 need to meddle. This need, in fact, is what separates angels from lower beings. 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 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. 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 const.i.tution rebelled, forcing him to sober up. As he did, he again found himself in contact with the other human, and 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.

TWENTY-NINE.

"All of these people are going to see Harry speak?" asked Mercury incredulously. "Is he that good?"

Christine shrugged. "Don't underestimate the appeal of unwarranted moral certainty."

They were sitting at the back of a city bus, surrounded by overly cheerful people who were on their way to the Covenant Holders conference. They had just transported through a temporary portal, appearing about a mile from Anaheim Stadium. Evidently that was as close as Uzziel could get them without raising suspicion that the Hosts of Heaven were violating the Accord. Having been handed a program by one of their fellow conference-goers, they were relieved to see that they had a good twenty minutes before Harry was scheduled to take the stage. Still, they were anxious to get to Karl before that happened.

"You're a stubborn bunch," said Mercury to a gaggle of folks wearing bright yellow t-shirts emblazoned with a giant CH CH logo. "Hard to shake, as it were." logo. "Hard to shake, as it were."

A middle-aged woman in the center smiled back at him. "I'm sorry?" she said.

"The earthquakes," he said. "They'd have scared a lot of people away."

"Not us," said a teenage boy. "It would take Armageddon to keep me away."

"That's an interesting coincidence," said Mercury. "It took Armageddon to get me here."

The Covenant Holders nodded and smiled, their mood not dimmed by their obvious confusion at Mercury's comments.

Mercury turned to Christine. "Most people would think twice about holding a conference like this only a few hours after two relatively major earthquakes," he said.

"It takes more than a couple of earthquakes to derail an event like this," said Christine. "Especially in Los Angeles."

The Covenant Holders nodded and smiled.

"I hear it might rain later," said Christine.

Their faces paled.

Mercury looked quizzically at Christine. She shrugged and rolled her eyes. "Los Angeles."

Mercury nodded understandingly.

"Speaking of earthquakes," said Christine, "there's one thing I still don't get."

"Only one?" said Mercury. "Are you sure this is your first Apocalypse?"

"Well," said Christine, "I've frankly given up trying to understand most of what's going on. A lot of this stuff is over my head. I've decided it's pointless to try to understand the angelic bureaucracy with its panels and committees and bureaus. And I've come to the conclusion that in the end, none of you really understands where this SPAM, or the so-called Divine Plan, is coming from. You all just sort of a.s.sume that someone else understands the details."

"True enough," said Mercury. "You're starting to see why I decided to sit out the whole business."

"But there is one specific thing that has been bugging me. The Four Attache Cases of the Apocalypse. What's the story there?"

"What do you mean?"

"Who created them? And why?"

"Ah," said Mercury. "The creation of the cases was a joint effort, the result of complex negotiations between Heaven and h.e.l.l. You see, as long as human conflict is conducted with human weapons, the chances of things getting truly out of hand are rather small. It was hoped that the creation of nuclear and biochemical weapons in the 20th century would help Armageddon along, but there are some problems inherent in weapons of such destructive power." century would help Armageddon along, but there are some problems inherent in weapons of such destructive power."

"Because there are no winners in a full-on nuclear war, you mean."

"That's MAD."

"Of course it is."

"No, I mean Mutual a.s.sured Destruction. MAD. And that's only part of it. As you imply, the problem with MAD, from the standpoint of one trying to bring about Armageddon, is that there is no rational motivation on either side that would prompt a first strike. And if no one strikes first, there's no war. That's the first problem."

"And the second?"

"MAD only applies when there is approximate parity between two nuclear powers," Mercury explained. "If you have disparity, such as at the end of World War II, when the United States had nuclear weapons but no one else did, the side with nuclear weapons is so much stronger than its compet.i.tors that there's no need to use them. I mean, after the initial demonstration. It didn't matter that the United States had only two bombs, because they never had to use another one. For that matter, they probably didn't need to use the second one."

"So in either case, whether there is parity or disparity, there's no incentive to use nuclear weapons."

"No rational rational incentive," corrected Mercury. "A crazy person might still use them, but it takes more than a single crazy person to start Armageddon. Armageddon requires escalation, and the only escalation you're going to get with a lunatic launching a nuclear missile strike is every other nation on earth uniting to wipe the lunatic off the map. It's not pretty, but it's not Armageddon either." incentive," corrected Mercury. "A crazy person might still use them, but it takes more than a single crazy person to start Armageddon. Armageddon requires escalation, and the only escalation you're going to get with a lunatic launching a nuclear missile strike is every other nation on earth uniting to wipe the lunatic off the map. It's not pretty, but it's not Armageddon either."

"What if the lunatic has control over a vast nuclear a.r.s.enal, like Russia's?"

"Well, first of all, that's harder to bring about than you might expect. Truly crazy people not just paranoid like Richard Nixon or sociopathic like Pol Pot, but truly bats.h.i.t crazy have a hard time working their way up the ladder of political power, even with supernatural a.s.sistance. And again, even if he did manage to get control of such an a.r.s.enal and launch a first strike, you'd have every other nation in the world retaliating instantaneously. There'd be ma.s.sive casualties, but no war to speak of. It would be over in hours."

"And that's not good enough for the psychotic b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who are planning this thing?"

"It's not Armageddon. Armageddon is a battle. A struggle between good and evil. The point is to put human society in the crucible and see what happens. To do that, you need to provoke a conflict that involves everyone in the entire world. More than a conflict, in fact. A global crisis. Something that threatens to turn brother against brother. Something that strikes at the core of humanity itself, thereby revealing the true nature of humanity."

"So Armageddon is a test?" asked Christine.

"Something like that, yes. That's my understanding, anyway. Personally, I've never seen the point of deliberately bringing about suffering just to see what happens. There's quite enough suffering on this plane to satisfy one's curiosity."

"Okay, so how do the attache cases fit into this?"

"Ah. The deal with the cases is that they give the user what appears to be the power to change the balance of the problem in his or her favor. But the cases also create collateral damage, as you've seen. They all have some a deliberate design flaw built into them, so that they are reliable only two thirds of the time. That thirty-three-point-three percent chance of error ends up creating just enough side effects that you end up with slightly more problems than you started out with. I mean, you might solve the problem you were trying to solve, but more problems will crop up its place. So you use the case to solve those those problems, and still more problems arise. It's deceptive, because you feel like you're making progress, and sometimes you really are, but in the end it's like playing roulette. The house always wins." problems, and still more problems arise. It's deceptive, because you feel like you're making progress, and sometimes you really are, but in the end it's like playing roulette. The house always wins."

"And the house, in this case, is the angels who are trying to bring about Armageddon."

"Correct."

"So Izzy was right. There really are only two sides: pro-Apocalypse and anti-Apocalypse."

"Izzy's a liar," said Mercury. "He's working for Lucifer."

"But if he weren't, if he really believed what he said... that would be the right side, wouldn't it?"

"The side that wanted to put a bullet in Karl's head, you mean?"

"Oh," said Christine. She had forgotten about that.

"There aren't any good guys here, I'm afraid," Mercury said.

"Just you and me," said Christine.

"Yeah," said Mercury. Then, after a moment's pause, he went on, "You know, about that...."

"Don't you dare abandon me now, Mercury!" snapped Christine, more afraid than angry. The situation seemed hopeless even with Mercury on her side, and without him....

"Oh, I'm not going anywhere," said Mercury. "You're stuck with me. I'm just not sure you want to count me as one of the good guys. I haven't always been very helpful in the past."

"Forget about it," said Christine. "I mean, I'll admit I don't understand what would possess one to play ping-pong at the brink of the Apocalypse, but then I don't understand half of what you angels do. The important thing is that you're on the right side now."

"Yeah," said Mercury. "I guess I feel like I should tell you, in case something goes wrong or whatever... that is, I wouldn't want you to hear from Uzziel or somebody...."

"What? What are you talking about?"