President Swan turned the page of a storybook, and held it high so the gathered kindergarteners could see the illustrations.
“And then, King Philip and King Frederick saw each other at the ball, and, ohhhh,” he cooed, “when their eyes met they fell in love!” Swan smiled as if he were sinking into a warm bath. His face tingled, and his fingers brushed his cheek—it was happening. “Children,” he exclaimed, wringing his hands, the book falling to the floor, “I’m in the midst of a phenotype shift! Let me see, let me see—uhm, what shall I become this time? Can anyone guess?”
As the class observed the transformation, a gray bodyguard approached the president and whispered in his ear.
“Are you serious?” the president demanded, his face an undulating mass of excitement.
The guard nodded, and babbled excitedly: “Seventy-three warheads made it through their defenses. Their population is ninety-seven percent destroyed, and the survivors are projected to die within the following two weeks due to radiation exposure. The place is now a wasteland, and all their cities are rubble.”
Swan rose from his chair into a springing leap, hands meeting in a balletic arch.
“This is amazing!” he yelled in rapture, landing daintily. “I knew it was only a matter of time before the Muslims would pull it off.” The phone embedded in Swan’s ear piped an organ ring tone, and he tapped his ear lobe to answer the call. “Herbert Hommler, are you there? Do you know what just happened?”
Frenzied laughter pillaged Swan’s ear drum.
“Yes! By all the dark gods, our prayers have been answered! It’s all scorched earth now—no more jealous Hebrew God. With His people dead, He too will die! Soon He’ll be just a hateful little memory corkscrewing into the soundless dark of oblivion.”
Swan raised a finger in triumph.
“I am not an abomination,” the president declared to the class. “I sleep with men as Yahweh intended me to sleep with women. But do you know what? Divine Color has vanquished Yahweh from the land. No more will homophobia be grounded in Christianity and Judaism—because both religions, along with their progenitor, have been vaporized! The nationalist, apartheid state of Zion is destroyed!” The president scampered to an old, undigitized world map. Grabbing a permanent marker from a desk, he notched a large “X” over the country of Israel. “So fuck you, Leviticus!” He mocked, then cringed at his naked expletive.
“Little children,” he turned and opened wide his hands, “I apologize for my excitement. You see, even we adults must act gleeful on certain occasions.” He looked at the teacher, an ecstatic mound of gray flesh who had heard enough of his conversation to guess the complexion of world events. She smiled at him in admiration. “And, I must be going because, as you will doubtless hear on federal television and radio, something wonderful and special has just happened. I would love to tell you about it myself, but suffice it to say that what just occurred will provide for a brighter, more tolerant, more pluralistic world. The tyrant mono-God is dead, along with His people. His country is destroyed—and Divine Color will streak in on beams of rainbow to seize His empty throne and save us all!” He spun two revolutions on one shoe, his finger pointed toward the ceiling. “Meet me back at the House, Herbert. We have much to discuss. Much to discuss!” the president exclaimed, tapped his ear, then bounded from the class.
In the FCP’s conference room, the mood was somber. Hans folded his arms and stared at the table. George rubbed the calluses where his fingers met his palms. Margaret pressed her fingers to her temple, eyes shut. Kim stared at the ceiling, a jacket around her shoulders, eyes ringed from tears and sleeplessness. Max stared numbly at a levitating news screen depicting animations of what the scorched earth was theorized to look like across Israel. Even satellites couldn’t pierce the black fallout clouds hanging over the Near East. Low flying drones were launched by news agencies but the skies were turgid, swirling, and the visibility was no clearer than water from a muck-racked Floridian everglade.
“At least they managed to get some of their own nukes off before they got smoked.” The youth frowned. “Tehran’s fuckin’ gone, so is Baghdad and Damascus. I’m just pissed they didn’t hit Istanbul too. Why didn’t they hit Turkey, Dad?”
“They tried, son, they tried. But you’ve gotta remember, for decades Turkey and Israel were allies. They shared so much damned military technology—don’t know why the hell they did that with an Islamic country—not that the U.S. was any smarter. I heard on the news that ten nukes were launched at Ankara and Istanbul but that they just sort of disarmed and clunked to the ground harmlessly. People are speculating that those nukes were produced in a collaborative effort and at least some vital component was manufactured in Turkey. Clearly, that component was wired to shut off the weapon if directed at a Turkish city—very clever.”
“It’s those multiple reentry vehicles that are so deadly.” Margaret sighed.
“Yeah, MIRVs. Multiple something-or-other reentry vehicles—I think that’s the acronym,” offered George.
“The ‘I’ stands for Independently-targetable.” Max frowned, turning off the news with a snap of his fingers. “Developed in the late twentieth-century but refined in the past twenty years. They’re saying the nukes that were fired were built in the 2040s.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Kim, hands pressed against her stomach. “If they can shoot all those nukes at Israel then they can shoot them at us.” She sniffled, and tears ran anew down her face. “Why does everyone have to want to kill everyone else? I hate this world.” She sobbed, and the youth wrapped his arm around her and stroked her cheek.
“Well, this is little consolation,” rumbled Max, “but don’t count on the Muslims shooting any nukes into the U.S. They want our cities, our agriculture, our factories intact. They intend to take this land for their own—seizure of a charred wasteland wouldn’t justify crossing the Atlantic.”
“But totally destroying Israel couldn’t help them, either,” reasoned the girl. “I mean, they killed millions of Arabs living there too and that didn’t seem to bug them. And wouldn’t they have wanted to at least keep Jerusalem because it’s like holy to them, too, right? But they didn’t, they just blew everything up.” Her final words were almost inaudible. “So I don’t believe you, Mr. Stewart,” she choked.
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” Stewart said.
Joshua Evans strode into the room, his eyes zealous magma. His hands were open and held out to each side as if communing with divinity. Wordless, he walked the length of the table to the head of the room and turned to face his audience.
“Why do you all look so glum?” he asked.
“Because ten million people were just incinerated in Israel,” Hans uttered coldly. “Why the hell do you look so shit-face happy?”
“Brothers and sisters, don’t you know that today is a day for celebration?” The preacher’s grin was saccharine.
“God damn it.” Max shook his head. “Son, please escort this man to the door because I can’t take his psychotic BS right now.”
As the titan rose, Joshua held out his hands in placation.
“I’ll leave in a moment,” assured the pastor. “I just wanted to impart to you all that the nuclear events that just occurred mean nothing but good news for the Christians of the world. Because the second coming of Jesus Christ is now imminent, as foretold in Revelations! Have no fear, for the Lord Jesus will take the souls of the children of Zion into his everlasting kingdom. The Armageddon was biblically foretold and heralds the advent of our Lord. So, buck up everyone, and take heart. And fall down on your knees and pray forgiveness for your sins and . . .”
Hans seized the man by his collar, opened the door, and hurled him down the hall. Joshua’s arms pinwheeled from the velocity and he tripped and skidded to the floor. Within the conference room, Max and the rest could still hear his ravings.
“Jesus, oh Jesus,” he intoned. “I’m waiting for you to descend upon us and bl
ess us with your love and everlasting life.” His voice was rich and fit for enlivening a congregation. “Come down to us now. Redeem us. We pray for your holy redemption in a world where evil has run amuck.” But now his voice cracked. “Jesus, my lord, I seek thee. Where are you, for we, your sheep, are lost without your guidance. Where are you? Where are you? Where . . .” His voice was husky, and a sharp sniffle cut short his invocation. “We’re alone in darkness without you.”
The FCP members listened in silence to his breaking prayers, and, moments later, to his sobs.
***
President Swan walked solemnly into the rectangular conference room. The sun managed to elude the November clouds momentarily, spilling gold onto cherry wood furniture and gray flesh. A sour look from Swan, and a hunch-backed aid slowly lowered a blind over the massive, wall-spanning windows. Hommler eased back in his chair, his head cocking as the blind descended, the warm glow guillotined on the table—bloodless and efficient. Across from the vampire sat Jackson Gibbles. When Swan entered, he slid the child’s clothing catalogue he was studying beneath the table to his lap. Quietly, he turned a page and side glanced the little boys and girls in formal wear. Also seated at the table were the other most powerful women and men in America, the gray buttresses and struts of the regime. Hommler looked at the assembly with pride, but coughed as the stuffy air became fouled with their breath.
“I apologize for the inconvenience this emergency meeting may have caused you all,” opened the president.
“No problem, Terry. We’re there for you when you need us. Just call us and we’ll come,” Gibbles volunteered.
Field Marshall Edwin Rummel, the dignified general, eyed the sycophant with disgust.
“Thank you, Jackson,” the president said. “You’re a paragon of loyalty and an example for the rest.” Swan eyed the assembly, a little suspiciously. “As you all are aware, Mr. Gibbles presides over NAMBLA, and is missing a meeting to be with us here today. Unlike some of you, he selflessly volunteered his time. I appreciate that you all arrived, but my aids report that some of you were reluctant to attend on such short notice. See that, next time, you proceed to the House without hesitation, or you will be replaced.”
“But Terry,” protested a woman, skin slippery like gray milk, “I have a valuing diversity meeting in forty-five minutes. Then I have to discuss implementation of new legislation prohibiting all Aliens from admittance to college. Do you think I can duck out of here a little early?”
The president coffined her in his black eyes, and buried her with thirty seconds of silence.
“Now,” Swan began anew, “I’ve summoned you here today to discuss implementation of a plan. To some of you, this plan might initially seem monstrous, but I think you will agree that it will serve our objectives of racial purity and unity. As you are well aware, the Muslims did the world a great service by expunging the provenance of monotheism. This provides new challenges, however, for the Hebrew Deportation Initiative, which has hitherto transferred American Jewry to Israel. Now that Israel is destroyed, what are we to do with the Jewish Aliens still living and hiding among us? Any recommendations?”
“Ship them to Madagascar or something,” a woman recommended, her green crew-cut sprouting oddly from her gray scalp like fetid cheese.
“Why ship them anywhere?” Field Marshall Rummel snorted. “Why not just compel them to Americanize so they’re no longer Aliens? Then we needn’t worry about them anymore.”
“Needn’t we?” posed Swan.
“Well, why would we?”
The president fanned his fingers, and stretched his arms along the table toward its distant end. At the table’s opposing side, Scott reached his own fingers toward those of the president in a playful ‘miss you’ gesture. After moments of smiles and winks, Swan reassumed his gravity.
“Field Marshall, if, Divine Color forbid, we were Christians attempting to convert the Jews to Christianity, could we be confident that our efforts were successful merely by splashing them with baptismal water and assuring they attended our churches?”
“I believe so,” the general spoke tentatively. “I don’t see why not.”
Swan laughed, and shook his head.
“The field marshal is well-intentioned, but misguided,” offered a man, his face teeming with purulent acne.
“Ah, yes, Doctor Mangallah.” Swan smiled. “Time and again I’ve been dazzled by your accomplishments as Surgeon General. Please—dispense your wisdom on these matters.”
The doctor webbed his fingers on the table; his right hand was abnormally large and spider-like. His hair was gelled ebony, and a moustache hung down to the glistening crevices of his lips.
“Pardon my bluntness,” said Mangallah, “but when you’ve ripped open as many bodies as I have, you know that people are far different on the inside than they are on the outside.”
Swan gulped, and wiped perspiration from his head. “Go on,” he urged.
“In the late twentieth-century, sociologists and anthropologists argued that race didn’t exist, that it was merely a construct invented by humanity to stratify society. Even before we later proved that race does exist and inheres in our biology, any medical doctor or forensic expert could have attested to the reality of race. Yet, for political reasons, science prioritized fantasy over fact, and sided with the anthropologists until technology offered irrefutable and overwhelming proof to the contrary. Not only is race a reality—phenotype can, on rare occasion, be an unreliable indicator of its manifestation. The soft tissue of the lips and nose, even the pigment of the skin can offer misleading indications. Far more accurate measures of a person’s race are their skeleton, their guts, their blood, their biology.
“In sum, my friends,” Mangallah continued, “who a person is on the inside is sometimes more important than what they look like on the outside. So here lies my concern—how much do we really know about Americanization? Perhaps Hommler can better inform us than I, but is there a possibility that a Jew could still retain some core monotheistic impulse in his biology even post-Americanization? Even after he is gray like we are, could a Hebrew hear the beckon of Yahweh in his mind? Perhaps even reinstitute His cult?”
“You’re brilliant,” declared Swan. “I was troubled by the same possibility. My question is, do we even want the Jews to Americanize? What if Americanization is an incomplete catharsis, and vestiges of their monotheistic madness remain? They will taint our diversity, our perfection. Perhaps even Divine Color would bypass our planet on Its celestial voyage due to their impurity.”
“But . . . what’s the alternative?” Rummel asked nervously.
“Our alternatives,” salivated Mangallah, “are as varied and trenchant as an array of surgical blades. Why don’t you ship them all to me at Sanity One, Terry. I’ll find uses for them, to be sure.”
“As if they would go willingly to your arch-asylum.” Hommler cackled. “Everyone knows what fiendishness transpires there.”
“They’d no sooner go to Castle Vayvels,” said the doctor, “because the fiendishness that transpires there would have humbled Elizabeth Bathory.”
“Touche.” The vampire rolled back his upper lip to show some fang.
“All right,” Swan slapped his hand down on the table, “enough morbidity. Herbert, Americanization is your creation. Is there a possibility that trace elements of an individual’s former self can survive treatment?”
“Of course,” conceded the vampire. “An individual’s pre-treatment personality certainly impacts post-treatment personality. But you, more than anyone, are sensitive to the will of Divine Color. Would It be offended if we were to convert, en masse, the children of Yahweh?”
Swan clasped his hands in piety and stared toward the ceiling for long moments.
“Yes!” he concluded decisively.
“Well, what do you suggest we do about it?” Hommler wore a faint smile on his open mouth.
The president crossed his legs high, and his eyes narrowed.
&n
bsp; “I fear we have no choice but to liquidate them.”
Chapter 28
The vice president of the United States was unaccustomed to fear. Bitterness, frustration, and a tinge of guilt, yes. But as he stood alone in the corner of the ring, and darkness swept the Aztlan Super Arena, a primeval trepidation settled in his mind. From colossal speakers, Aztec war drums began to pound, and the crowd of a hundred thousand rose from their seats in anticipation. What transpired evoked more passion and emotion than the world’s most ardent orator could generate in a lifetime. The entrance theme for a national hero had begun.
A deep-voiced rapper, interweaving Nahuatl with Spanish, extolled the prowess of the Aztec champion amid the percussions. Pyrotechnics jetted skyward, and the crowd’s cheers were epic and fanatical. Smith paced nervously, his gray cornermen sinking low behind the ring apron.
From a portal decorated like a temple entrance, Eduardo Tlaxtatl drew back a tuft of vines and emerged amid a cone of green light. His retinue followed—a grim throng of submission specialists, striking experts, and training partners. His chin was high, his cape was jade, and he rested a maqahuital sword against his shoulder like a slugger striding to the plate. Policemen did their utmost to clear his entrance route, but fans were hurling themselves into his path, and more than once the procession was slowed as a cuffed youth was led away, looking back, still bucking.
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