Armageddon: The Musical (Armageddon Trilogy)

by Robert Rankin

  Gloria hung her beautiful head. ‘You are right. It would be murder.’

  ‘Exactly, we must rule with love, care and feeling.’

  ‘We must, we must.’

  ‘Even if, when all is said, he is just another man.’

  ‘Even if.’

  ‘Representing, in microcosm, all men.’

  ‘Even if.’

  ‘All men with their shallowness, lust, greed and craving for power.’

  ‘Even if.’ This ‘even if’ had about it a more prolonged and thoughtful quality.

  ‘Even if he did crap in our bidet.’

  Gloria gave Ms Vrillium a very knowing look.

  ‘I’ll nuke them out then, shall I dear?’

  ‘Best to, eh?’ Gloria ran intro.

  Over the hills, but not a great way off, was another vast concrete pyramid. It was the headquarters of number two in the Big Three.

  L. Ron Hubbard the twenty-third lounged on the comfy rear-ends of a dozen nubile lady acolytes. As with the previous twenty-two L. Rons, who had gone before him to wherever it is those lads go to, this one was rotund and ruddy and bore a striking resemblance to the late and legendary Andy Divine. Plumping himself upon those who were grateful for it, he nodded towards she whose job it was to work the controller. And then he watched the wall screen with an eagerness which many might just have considered a smidgenette unhealthy.

  And way up over on the other side of town, Pope Joan knelt alone in the viewing chapel of Vatican City. Actually it wasn’t really a city at all, just another dirty great concrete bunker, but city says something that bunker just can’t seem to. For Joan there were never any pleasures of the flesh. Such were strictly proscribed. To fall into such iniquity would be to fall from the true faith. When you fall heir, or in her case heiress, to a legacy of pious turpitude, which includes within its holy ranks such exemplars as Pope Alexander VI and Innocent VIII, you have something to live up to. Mind you, the weekly burnings were, as they had always been, something of a turn-on. And although the Dalai wouldn’t actually be broadcasting live from his bunker prison, the mere thought of his forthcoming immolation sent pure frissons of pleasure all around where the rosaries dangled.

  She genuflected, whacked herself a couple of times across the naked shoulders with a plastique flagrum and pumped up the volume.

  Down in the bunkers, Mr and Mrs Joe Public whacked into today’s deliveries and kept on watching that screen. It was a bit early in the day for all this mega-excitement, but they were feeling fine about the whole thing. Today’s deliveries had been suitably laced for the occasion.

  Gloria’s face filled the screen. Gloriously. Her green eyes were red-rimmed and welled with tears. Her exquisite cheeks streaked. Her lipstick smudged, just so. The makeup department had really excelled themselves. ‘It’s now an hour since the telepathic communication from our beloved Dalai Lama. My dear friends, I’m lost for words. My grief is your grief. For if the loss of one of the world’s greatest figures isn’t enough in itself to fill our hearts with sorrow, the ghastly news that I have just received, and which I now convey to you, is more terrible yet. It was previously believed that the Devianti was a separatist group acting upon their own insane dictates. But this isn’t the case. The terrorists are in the pay of one of the other networks. Even now another kidnapping is in progress. A Devianti death squad is penetrating the security of . . .’ Gloria choked back a tear and blew her nose on a handkerchief of crepe de Chine. Then the screen crackled and went dead.

  L. Ron Hubbard collapsed into a turmoil of heaving buttocks.

  Pope Joan pulled the plug from her flagrum.

  ‘Joan,’ screamed Hubbard. ‘The treacherous . . .’

  ‘Bastard.’ Pope Joan finished the sentence. ‘You’ve done it this time, Ron. This means . . .’

  ‘War, I should think.’ Gloria pressed the firing button.

  ‘You really are a genius, dear,’ sighed Ms Vrillium. ‘Do you think we should take to the shelters just to be on the safe side?’

  ‘Now, why on Earth should we do that? No-one is going to be shooting at us, now are they?’

  Mungo Madoc buried his face in his hands, and said, ‘Oh, calamity.’

  27

  . . . the underground. There’s always an underground. Tradition nurtured this one. And the Book. Because it had all come so far. It had to be seen through to the end. We all had to know what was on the K-squared carbon, in whatever form it was now hidden. Of course rival factions split, reformed, re-split. But at the core of them all was the certain knowledge that at the core of it all was some fabulous treasure just waiting. So the conviction became obsession and in no time obsession became religion. Some members of the underground became wholly convinced that some kind of cosmic warrior was coming, that he would unlock the secrets of the carbon and set the world to rights. Some said he was here already, some that he would soon be born. Others, and this includes the Devianti, split from the underground in the early years. Developed this cult of the Born Again. A sort of other Christ. We let that one spread, put the wind up the Big Three.

  The Suburban Book of the Dead

  The missile Gloria dispatched was the last of its breed. A Sneaky Reekie. Designed in the late nineties, its brethren had done a thorough job of laying waste to the greater part of the known world. Dan had been saving it for a very special occasion. It hedge-hopped, or it most certainly would have done, had there been any hedges extant for it to hop over. Shall we say that it rubble-hopped? It slunk out of the tradesman’s entrance of the Nemesis Bunker, looked both ways to assure itself that it wasn’t being observed, ducked into a Metro terminus, soared along a trackway, snook up a ventilation shaft, near the Tomorrowman Tavern, now undergoing extensive renovations. Created a cloak of invisibility, through the adaptation of Einstein’s Unified Field Theory, turned up Park Avenue and finally nuzzled its nuclear nose into the front parlour of the late Aunty Norma. ‘Gotcha,’ it said. Loudly.

  The switchboard at Earthers Inc. jammed. Minor employees scurried up and down the membrane tubes. Board members paced the lush and tufted carpetings. One or two of the more highly-strung took the opportunity to fling themselves from upper windows. Mungo Madoc sought divine guidance from He of the Nose Enormous. But as is so often the case with deities, old Holy Hooter was being just a little backward in coming forward. He was keeping out of this one. At length, Mungo rose from the kneeling position, pinched his nostrils and took himself off to the lift. For a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

  Jason Morgawr met him on the boardroom landing. The intense young Phnaarg had never looked more so. ‘No warning,’ he shrieked, ‘well, not enough at any rate. My team isn’t ready. This is really too much. Really too much.’

  Mungo brushed him aside. ‘Are the other board members within?’

  ‘Those that still remain amongst the living.’

  Mungo sighed as only he could sigh and ordered the door aside.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he declared, although the appellation seemed inappropriate to describe the bunch of jibbering ninnies now huddled at the far end of the Goldenwood table. ‘Please be seated. There is no, and I repeat, no need to panic.’

  The unmagical mushroom cloud rose above Aunty Norma’s bunker. At 500 feet it flattened against the artificial cloud cover, which had been expressly designed to cope with such eventualities. The poisonous residues reflected downwards and outaways. The long-range cameras atop Nemesis which had been recording the great event, retracted into their blast-proof housings.

  ‘We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when,’ sang the Lamarettes, clad soberly in black arm-bands, although very little else.

  ‘And remember,’ Gloria mopped at a tear and smiled bravely, ‘if you are in the latter stages of pregnancy or even giving birth at this very moment, give your EYESPI a little wave. Because you could be carrying the next incarnation of the Living God King himself. Here today and here tomorrow, that is the watchword of Buddhavision. Tomorrow belongs
to you.’

  ‘For I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day . . .’ Fade out.

  L. Ron Hubbard’s glory girls freighted their precious cargo at great speed towards the Chosen One’s thinking quarters. Scores of vacuum-eyed young men, with swish black suits, clutching antique filofaxes to their bosoms, followed at the double. ‘Arm ‘em up!’ trilled the portly Thetan. ‘Run every son-of-a-bitch through the E meter and send ‘em out.’ The pale young men shouted into their radio-phones and did what they could to add to the general confusion.

  ‘And get my chef down here,’ L. Ron continued, ‘I want to discuss lunch.’

  Pope Joan stayed put. Popes don’t rush about in panic, it simply isn’t done. She merely addressed the assembled clergy.

  ‘Consider the guns blessed. Aim them directly at Hubbard and discharge them. That is all.’

  The lads at the Nemesis motorpool grudgingly paid off the chief mechanic. One bright spark suggested a whip-round to get up a wreath for Rex. But no-one was particularly keen, so they got on with the business in hand. ‘Who will give me evens on the Jesuits?’ asked the chief mechanic, who was feeling lucky.

  ‘News teams are covering both the rival stations,’ said Ms Vrillium. ‘We are monitoring all their broadcasts, internal as well as external. We will relay all relevant information to the viewers the moment anything truly significant occurs.’

  ‘You consider that a state of war now exists?’ asked Gloria.

  ‘Oh yes, dear. No doubt about it.’

  Gloria was all smiles. ‘Good. And technical are going to run all the appropriate archive footage? Threats, recriminations, cover-ups, scandals, corruption in high places. All the horny stuff?’

  ‘The stuff we have been manufacturing for years, dear? All taken care of. Overkill, is, I believe, the expression.’

  ‘There is, I trust, no chance whatever that Dan might have survived the blast?’

  ‘None. Intelligence informed us that a bomb had been fitted to Rex’s air car. We took the liberty of exploding that first. They had nowhere to run to.’

  ‘Shame,’ said twenty billion Phnaargs. But they remained glued to their sets, all the same.

  ‘Good.’ Gloria stretched languidly and ran her fingers through her hair. ‘I am, of course, very sorry about Rex. But, as they say, you can’t make a really good lubricant without breaking eggs.’

  ‘You certainly can’t,’ Ms Vrillium willingly agreed. I wonder what an egg is, and where you can get one at this time of day? she mused.

  ‘Oh, boo and hoo and boo hoo hoo,’ sobbed the Sneaky Reekie. ‘I’m a dud. A great big dud. The shame, the shame.’

  Rex patted the blubbering bomb upon the dented nosecone. ‘Never mind,’ he said encouragingly. ‘It’s all for the best, you know.’

  ‘The last of my line,’ wailed the missile, ‘and how does my world end?’

  ‘Not with a bang but a whimper?’

  ‘Oh cruel, cruel.’

  ‘But let’s look on the bright side,’ Rex was all for that, ‘you could have injured us badly.’

  ‘Injured you badly? I would have atomised you. My destructive capabilities are ... were ..should have been ... oh, the shame . . .’

  ‘Hey, hold on there,’ Elvis put in. ‘If it wasn’t this SOB that exploded, something made one Hell of a bang out there.’

  ‘I think I might be able to explain,’ said Fergus Shaman. ‘There was a bomb in Rex’s air car. It was detonated by remote control from the Nemesis building. I fear it must have set off the Dilithium Crystals in my spaceship causing the major explosion. Luckily for us the rear end of this loquacious missile absorbed the impact upon the bunker, sparing our lives. There’s always a logical ex-planation if you are prepared to stretch credibility far enough,’

  ‘Hang on there.’ The voice belonged to Rex. ‘What bomb in my air car?’

  ‘The one he placed in it.’ Fergus pointed the finger of guilt toward Dalai Dan. ‘To destroy the car as soon as you had picked up Mr Presley.’

  ‘Oh I never did,’ lied the Living God King. ‘As if I would.’

  ‘What about me?’ wailed the Sneaky Reekie. ‘My reverse gears are banjoed also.’

  ‘Talking bomb,’ muttered Elvis. ‘Pile of horse poop.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, chief. Logical progression, life always imitates art, you know. Remember that science fiction film, Dark Star, on the aeroplane, when we were on our way to Hong Kong?’

  ‘Hell, yeah. That where the idea was swiped from?’

  ‘Bound to be, chief.’

  ‘But in the movie, the bomb finally blew up.’

  ‘Yeah chief, just what I was thinking.’

  ‘You put a bomb in my air car?’ Rex was now shaking the Dalai by the throat.

  ‘Rex, no, please, ouch. You can’t believe him . . . gag .. . gurgle . . . What about our working relationship, your pension plan? Ow, gulp . . .’ Rex took his hands from the holyman’s throat and kicked his chair over. He turned away in fury to confront a bunker wall of no particular interest. Gloria’s face lit up the TV terminal.

  ‘As a special tribute to the Dalai Lama, who cast away his Earthly form this very morning, we are going to screen a selection of humorous out-takes and bloopers from the last series of Nemesis. These show the more muddled, human side of our beloved Dan and it was his express wish that we show them, should an eventuality such as this occur.’

  ‘You’ll get yours, Gloria,’ spat the floor-bound Dan from between seriously gritted teeth. ‘You see if you don’t.’

  ‘We shall, of course interrupt this comic relief with any up-to-the-minute newsflashes of the war currently waging between the Jesuits and the Fundamentalists. Om-mani-padme-hum.’

  Dan took to screaming and thrashing in a manner most unbecoming.

  28

  . . . yeah, certainly, 1 work for the department. And all I’m saying is; if it came through here, it came through me. Nothing comes in or goes out except if it’s through me. It gets checked in. It gets evaluated. It gets authenticated, or not, as the case may be. It gets indexed. It gets catalogued and it gets filed. All through me. Now, the date you are talking about is a date I’m hardly going to forget, am I? It being the date that the last object ever came through here. Although, as you can see, I’m sitting at my desk in case something else might come in. Which is unlikely as the digs have been closed for twenty years. But I’m still here. Boring? A pointless existence? Twenty years? funny you should mention it. Do I get resentful? Do I get resentful? Sitting here looking at these four walls, while my life ticks away? What?

  So regarding this object, this very last object that 1 ever recorded. And which by implication would indeed appear to be the very object you seek. And which you would like me to show you. Buddy, it would be more than my job’s worth to pull a stunt like that. And I‘m not messing.

  The Suburban Book of the Dead

  ‘There now,’ said Mungo. ‘Did I or did I not tell you not to panic?’ The board members responded somewhat indifferently to Mungo’s question. It was almost as if they needed a mite more convincing.

  Jason put up his hand to speak. ‘Sir, the fortuitous survival of Dan et al does, if I might dare voice the feelings of the entire board, does take a fair bit of swallowing, credibility wise.’

  ‘Let us not beat about the bush, Morgawr,’ Mungo dusted pollen from his lapel, ‘something specific on your mind?’

  ‘Well . . . er . . .’ Jason stared about at the surviving board members. Their faces said, ‘Go on, screw yourself up.’ ‘Ah, nothing. A lucky chance. Fortuitous is the word I shall stand by.’

  ‘Good. Now regarding your technical staff. How long before they will be ready for the off?’

  ‘An hour, sir. Two at the most.’

  ‘And Morgawr, you are totally au fait with the situation, plot-wise?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir.’ Jason’s face bobbed up and down. ‘Armageddon, that’s what it’s all about now, eh?’

  Mungo made a thoughtful face. ‘Yes,
well it is and it isn’t.’

  ‘It is and it isn’t.’ Morgawr tried to look enlightened. ‘It is Armageddon, but it’s not Armageddon. Yes I see. I know it’s not the Armageddon. Which is to say, that although it is our Armageddon, which will appear to be their Armageddon, it is not really the Armageddon. Which is what you are saying, is it not?’

  ‘What I am saying is that whoever’s Armageddon it turns out to be, it must have a happy ending. One which will satisfy the backers, the Holy Writ and the viewing public. Raise the ratings, not infuriate the advertisers, and allow me to sleep peacefully in my bed, should I ever wish so to do. This is the kind of scenario, in fact the exact scenario which you envisage, is it not?’

  ‘Well. . .’ said Jason Morgawr. ‘Well. . .’

  The doors of the Dalai’s private lift opened into his equally private apartments. These occupied the entire floor toward the very apex of the Nemesis pyramid. The four glazed, sloping walls displayed the panorama of endless blue, beneath which, and in terrible contrast, the artificial cloud heaved like a poisoned sea.

  Gloria took a step forward but checked herself. Dan’s presence still hung in the air. An unsavoury psychic miasma. It said, ‘Just you try it.’ Gloria trembled, assailed by sudden doubt. She had done the unthinkable. She had murdered the world’s foremost religious figure. The man which many regarded as God. That he was un-questionably a merciless tyrant hardly seemed to come into it. He was worshipped, adored. Gloria Mundi had murdered God.

  And for what? For the common good? For the sake of mankind? The future of the race?

  Gloria shook her head. Out of revenge, out of a lust for power. And now she had it, what was she going to do with it? She realized for the first time that she really had no idea at all.

  ‘Come on dear, I’ll fix us both a drink.’ Ms Vrillium placed a fleshy palm upon the small of Gloria’s back.