by Neil Gaiman
“This isn’t how I imagined it, chaps,” said War. “I haven’t been waiting for thousands of years just to fiddle around with bits of wire. It’s not what you’d call dramatic. Albrecht Dürer didn’t waste his time doing woodcuts of the Four Button-Pressers of the Apocalypse, I do know that.”
“I thought there’d be trumpets,” said Pollution.
“Look at it like this,” said Famine. “It’s just groundwork. We get to do the riding forth afterwards. The proper riding forth. Wings of the storm and so on. You’ve got to be flexible.”
“Weren’t we supposed to meet … someone?” said War.
There was no sound but the metallic noises of cooling motorbike engines.
Then Pollution said, slowly, “You know, I can’t say I imagined it’d be somewhere like this, either. I thought it’d be, well, a big city. Or a big country. New York, perhaps. Or Moscow. Or Armageddon itself.”
There was another pause.
Then War said, “Where is Armageddon, anyway?”
“Funny you should ask,” said Famine. “I’ve always meant to look it up.”
“There’s an Armageddon, Pennsylvania,” said Pollution. “Or maybe it’s Massachusetts, or one of them places. Lots of guys in heavy beards and seriously black hats.”
“Nah,” said Famine. “It’s somewhere in Israel, I think.”
MOUNT CARMEL.
“I thought that was where they grow avocados.”
AND THE END OF THE WORLD.
“Is that right? That’s one big avocado.”
“I think I went there once,” said Pollution. “The old city of Megiddo. Just before it fell down. Nice place. Interesting royal gateway.”
War looked at the greenness around them.
“Boy,” she said, “did we take a wrong turning.”
THE GEOGRAPHY IS IMMATERIAL.
“Sorry, lord?”
IF ARMAGEDDON IS ANYWHERE, IT IS EVERYWHERE.
“That’s right,” said Famine, “we’re not talking about a few square miles of scrub and goats any more.”
There was another pause.
LET US GO.
War coughed. “It’s just that I thought that … he’d be coming with us … ?”
Death adjusted his gauntlets.
THIS, he said firmly, IS A JOB FOR THE PROFESSIONALS.
AFTERWARDS, Sgt. Thomas A. Deisenburger recalled events at the gate as having happened like this:
A large staff car drew up by the gate. It was sleek and official-looking although, afterwards, he wasn’t entirely sure why he had thought this, or why it sounded momentarily as though it were powered by motorbike engines.
Four generals got out. Again, the sergeant was a little uncertain of why he had thought this. They had proper identification. What kind of identification, admittedly, he couldn’t quite recall, but it was proper. He saluted.
And one of them said, “Surprise inspection, soldier.”
To which Sgt. Thomas A. Deisenburger replied, “Sir, I have not been informated as to the incidence of a surprise inspection at this time, sir.”
“Of course not,” said one of the generals. “That’s because it’s a surprise.”
The sergeant saluted again.
“Sir, permission to confirmate this intelligence with base command, sir,” he said, uneasily.
The tallest and thinnest of the generals strolled a little way from the group, turned his back, and folded his arms.
One of the others put a friendly arm around the sergeant’s shoulders and leaned forward in a conspiratorial way.
“Now see here—” he squinted at the sergeant’s name tag “—Deisenburger, maybe I’ll give you a break. It’s a surprise inspection, got that? Surprise. That means no getting on the horn the moment we’ve gone through, understand? And no leaving your post. Career soldier like you’ll understand, am I right?” he added. He winked. “Otherwise you’ll find yourself busted so low you’ll have to say ‘sir’ to an imp.”
Sgt. Thomas A. Deisenburger stared at him.
“Private,” hissed one of the other generals. According to her tag, her name was Waugh. Sgt. Deisenburger had never seen a female general like her before, but she was certainly an improvement.
“What?”
“Private. Not imp.”
“Yeah. That’s what I meant. Yeah. Private. Okay, soldier?”
The sergeant considered the very limited number of options at his disposal.
“Sir, surprise inspection, sir?” he said.
“Provisionatedly classificisioned at this time,” said Famine, who had spent years learning how to sell to the federal government and could feel the language coming back to him.
“Sir, affirmative, sir,” said the sergeant.
“Good man,” said Famine, as the barrier was raised. “You’ll go a long way.” He glanced at his watch. “Very shortly.”
:SOMETIMES HUMAN BEINGS are very much like bees. Bees are fiercely protective of their hive, provided you are outside it. Once you’re in, the workers sort of assume that it must have been cleared by management and take no notice; various freeloading insects have evolved a mellifluous existence because of this very fact. Humans act the same way.
No one stopped the four as they purposefully made their way into one of the long, low buildings under the forest of radio masts. No one paid any attention to them. Perhaps they saw nothing at all. Perhaps they saw what their minds were instructed to see, because the human brain is not equipped to see War, Famine, Pollution, and Death when they don’t want to be seen, and has got so good at not seeing that it often manages not to see them even when they abound on every side.
The alarms were totally brainless and thought they saw four people where people shouldn’t be, and went off like anything.
NEWT DID NOT SMOKE, because he did not allow nicotine to gain entry to the temple of his body or, more accurately, the small Welsh Methodist tin tabernacle of his body. If he had been a smoker, he would have choked on the cigarette that he would have been smoking at this time in order to steady his nerves.
Anathema stood up purposefully and smoothed the creases in her skirt.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “They don’t apply to us. Something’s probably happening inside.”
She smiled at his pale face. “Come on,” she said, “It’s not the O.K. Corral.”
“No. They’ve got better guns, for one thing,” said Newt.
She helped him up. “Never mind,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll think of a way.”
IT WAS INEVITABLE that all four of them couldn’t contribute equally, War thought. She’d been surprised at her natural affinity for modern weapons systems, which were so much more efficient than bits of sharp metal, and of course Pollution laughed at absolutely foolproof, fail-safe devices. Even Famine at least knew what computers were. Whereas … well, he didn’t do anything much except hang around, although he did it with a certain style. It had occurred to War that there might one day be an end to War, an end to Famine, possibly even an end to Pollution, and perhaps this was why the fourth and greatest horseman was never exactly what you might call one of the lads. It was like having a tax inspector in your football team. Great to have him on your side, of course, but not the kind of person you wanted to have a drink and a chat with in the bar afterwards. You couldn’t be one hundred per cent at your ease.
A couple of soldiers ran through him as he looked over Pollution’s skinny shoulder.
WHAT ARE THOSE GLITTERY THINGS? he said, in the tones of one who knows he won’t be able to understand the answer but wants to be seen to be taking an interest.
“Seven-segment LED displays,” said the boy. He laid loving hands on a bank of relays, which fused under his touch, and then introduced a swath of self-replicating viruses that whirred away on the electronic ether.
“I could really do without those bloody alarms,” muttered Famine.
Death absentmindedly snapped his fingers. A dozen klaxons gurgled and died.
�
��I don’t know, I rather liked them,” said Pollution.
War reached inside another metal cabinet. This wasn’t the way she’d expected things to be, she had to admit, but when she ran her fingers over and sometimes through the electronics there was a familiar feel. It was an echo of what you got when you held a sword, and she felt a thrill of anticipation at the thought that this sword enclosed the whole world and a certain amount of the sky above it, as well. It loved her.
A flaming sword.
Mankind had not been very good at learning that swords are dangerous if left lying around, although it had done its limited best to make sure that the chances of one this size being wielded accidentally were high. A cheering thought, that. It was nice to think that mankind made a distinction between blowing their planet to bits by accident and doing it by design.
Pollution plunged his hands into another rack of expensive electronics.
THE GUARD ON THE HOLE in the fence looked puzzled. He was aware of excitement back in the base, and his radio seemed to be picking up nothing but static, and his eyes were being drawn again and again to the card in front of him.
He’d seen many identity cards in his time—military, CIA, FBI, KGB even—and, being a young soldier, had yet to grasp that the more insignificant an organization is, the more impressive are its identity cards.
This one was hellishly impressive. His lips moved as he read it again, all the way from “The Lord Protector of the Common Wealth of Britain charges and demands,” through the bit about commandeering all kindling, rope, and igniferous oils, right down to the signature of the WA’s first Lord Adjutant, Praise-him-all-Ye-works-of-the-Lord-and-Flye-Fornication Smith. Newt kept his thumb over the bit about Nine Pence Per Witch and tried to look like James Bond.
Finally the guard’s probing intellect found a word he thought he recognized.
“What’s this here,” he said suspiciously, “about us got to give you faggots?”
“Oh, we have to have them,” said Newt. “We burn them.”
“Say what?”
“We burn them.”
The guard’s face broadened into a grin. And they’d told him England was soft. “Right on!” he said.
Something pressed into the small of his back.
“Drop your gun,” said Anathema, behind him, “or I shall regret what I shall have to do next.”
Well, it’s true, she thought as she saw the man stiffen in terror. If he doesn’t drop the gun he’ll find out this is a stick, and I shall really regret having to be shot.
AT THE MAIN GATE, Sgt. Thomas A. Deisenburger was also having problems. A little man in a dirty mack kept pointing a finger at him and muttering, while a lady who looked slightly like his mother talked to him in urgent tones and kept interrupting herself in a different voice.
“It really is vitally important that we are allowed to speak to whoever is in charge,” said Aziraphale. “I really must ask that he’s right, you know, I’d be able to tell if he was lying yes, thank you, I think we’d really achieve something if you kindly allowed me to carry on all right thank you I was only trying to put in a good word Yes! Er. You were asking him to yes, all right … now—”
“D’yer see my finger?” shouted Shadwell, whose sanity was still attached to him but only on the end of a long and rather frayed string. “D’yer see it? This finger, laddie, could send ye to meet yer Maker!”
Sgt. Deisenburger stared at the black and purple nail a few inches from his face. As an offensive weapon it rated quite highly, especially if it was ever used in the preparation of food.
The telephone gave him nothing but static. He’d been told not to leave his post. His wound from Nam was starting to play up.54 He wondered how much trouble he could get into for shooting non-American civilians.
THE FOUR BICYCLES pulled up a little way from the base. Tire marks in the dust, and a patch of oil, indicated that other travelers had briefly rested there.
“What’re we stopping for?” said Pepper.
“I’m thinking,” said Adam.
It was hard. The bit of his mind that he knew as himself was still there, but it was trying to stay afloat on a fountain of tumultuous darkness. What he was aware of, though, was that his three companions were one hundred percent human. He’d got them into trouble before, in the way of torn clothes, docked pocket money, and so on, but this one was almost certainly going to involve a lot more than being confined to the house and made to tidy up your room.
On the other hand, there wasn’t anyone else.
“All right,” he said. “We need some stuff, I think. We need a sword, a crown, and some scales.”
They stared at him.
“What, just here?” said Brian. “There’s nothin’ like that here.”
“I dunno,” said Adam. “When you think about the games and that, you know, we’ve played … ”
JUST TO MAKE SGT. DEISENBURGER’S day, a car pulled up and it was floating several inches off the ground because it had no tires. Or paintwork. What it did have was a trail of blue smoke, and when it stopped it made the pinging noises made by metal cooling down from a very high temperature.
It looked as if it had smoked glass windows, although this was just an effect caused by it having ordinary glass windows but a smoke-filled interior.
The driver’s door opened, and a cloud of choking fumes got out. Then Crowley followed it.
He waved the smoke away from his face, blinked, and then turned the gesture into a friendly wave.
“Hi,” he said. “How’s it going? Has the world ended yet?”
“He won’t let us in, Crowley,” said Madame Tracy.
“Aziraphale? Is that you? Nice dress,” said Crowley vaguely. He wasn’t feeling very well. For the last thirty miles he had been imagining that a ton of burning metal, rubber, and leather was a fully functioning automobile, and the Bentley had been resisting him fiercely. The hard part had been to keep the whole thing rolling after the all-weather radials had burned away. Beside him the remains of the Bentley dropped suddenly onto its distorted wheel rims as he stopped imagining that it had tires.
He patted a metal surface hot enough to fry eggs on.
“You wouldn’t get that sort of performance out of one of these modern cars,” he said lovingly.
They stared at him.
There was a little electronic click.
The gate was rising. The housing that contained the electric motor gave a mechanical groan, and then gave up in the face of the unstoppable force acting on the barrier.
“Hey!” said Sgt. Deisenburger, “Which one of you yo-yos did that?”
Zip. Zip. Zip. Zip. And a small dog, its legs a blur.
They stared at the four ferociously pedaling figures that ducked under the barrier and disappeared into the camp.
The sergeant pulled himself together.
“Hey,” he said, but much more weakly this time, “did any of them kids have some space alien with a face like a friendly turd in a bike basket?”
“Don’t think so,” said Crowley.
“Then,” said Sgt. Deisenburger, “they’re in real trouble.” He raised his gun. Enough of this pussyfooting around; he kept thinking of soap. “And so,” he said, “are you.”
“I warns ye—” Shadwell began.
“This has gone on too long,” said Aziraphale. “Sort it out, Crowley, there’s a dear chap.”
“Hmm?” said Crowley.
“I’m the nice one,” said Aziraphale. “You can’t expect me to—oh, blast it. You try to do the decent thing, and where does it get you?” He snapped his fingers.
There was a pop like an old-fashioned flashbulb, and Sgt. Thomas A. Deisenburger disappeared.
“Er,” said Aziraphale.
“See?” said Shadwell, who hadn’t quite got the hang of Madame Tracy’s split personality. “Nothing to it. Ye stick by me, ye’ll be all right.”
“Well done,” said Crowley. “Never thought you had it in you.”
“No,” said A
ziraphale. “Nor did I, in fact. I do hope I haven’t sent him somewhere dreadful.”
“You’d better get used to it right now,” said Crowley. “You just send ’em. Best not to worry about where they go.” He looked fascinated. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your new body?”
“Oh? Yes. Yes, of course. Madame Tracy, this is Crowley. Crowley, Madame Tracy. Charmed, I’m sure.”
“Let’s get on in,” said Crowley. He looked sadly at the wreckage of the Bentley, and then brightened. A jeep was heading purposefully towards the gate, and it looked as though it was crowded with people who were about to shout questions and fire guns and not worry about which order they did this in.
He brightened up. This was more what you might call his area of competence.
He took his hands out of his pockets and he raised them like Bruce Lee and then he smiled like Lee van Cleef. “Ah,” he said, “here comes transport.”
THEY PARKED THEIR BIKES outside one of the low buildings. Wensleydale carefully locked his. He was that kind of boy.
“So what will these people look like?” said Pepper.
“They could look like all sorts,” said Adam doubtfully.
“They’re grownups, are they?” said Pepper.
“Yes,” said Adam. “More grown-up than you’ve ever seen before, I reckon.”
“Fightin’ grownups is never any use,” said Wensleydale gloomily. “You always get into trouble.”
“You don’t have to fight ’em,” said Adam. “You just do what I told you.”
The Them looked at the things they were carrying. As far as tools to mend the world were concerned, they did not look incredibly efficient.
“How’ll we find ’em, then?” said Brian, doubtfully. “I remember when we came to the Open Day, it’s all rooms and stuff. Lots of rooms and flashing lights.”
Adam stared thoughtfully at the buildings. The alarms were still yodeling.
“Well,” he said, “it seems to me—”
“Hey, what are you kids doing here?”
It wasn’t a one hundred percent threatening voice, but it was near the end of its tether and it belonged to an officer who’d spent ten minutes trying to make sense of a senseless world where alarms went off and doors didn’t open. Two equally harassed soldiers stood behind him, slightly at a loss as to how to deal with four short and clearly Caucasian juveniles, one of them marginally female.
