Armageddon Crazy

Before the big ship with the presidential seal on the side even touched, four men swung down from the open passenger door. They wore protective helmets and body armor over dark conservative business suits. Their weapons were at the ready. They had to be Dreisler's crack team. Next out was a cameraman, hair blowing in the prop wash – the event was being recorded for posterity. The helicopter settled on its landing gear, and more deacons clambered from the door. Some of Donahue's men were looking nervous. Maybe it was a Trojan horse? The deacons formed a protective semicircle. Larry Faithful stepped down, with Dreisler right behind him. They walked quickly to where Carlisle was standing. The cameraman was working overtime. This was the stuff of history: the landing pad on the top of the high tower, the long black shadows cast by the lights of the helicopter, the slowly turning rotors. This was the Fall of Larry Faithful.

Dreisler shouted over the roar of the engines. "You did a good job, Carlisle."

Carlisle did not want Dreisler's commendation. He nodded and mumbled, "Thank you."

"Lieutenant Carlisle, I want you to meet President Faithful."

Even at a moment of such gravity, Dreisler could still muster the sardonic smile. After the magazine pictures, the posters and billboards, the thousands of television hours, the president looked like an alien. Nothing about him seemed real. The features – the prissy rosebud mouth, the phony compassion around his eyes – were all parodies of the image. He was small, not more than five foot three, a bantam rooster who walked on the balls of his feet. His face was covered in thick television makeup that was streaked by rivulets of sweat. The flesh beneath it had the inhuman regularity of expensive plastic surgery. How was it possible for someone who looked so fabricated to have caused so much trouble?

Carlisle inclined his head slightly. What could one say to a president whom one had just deposed? Faithful's eyes gleamed briefly and locked on Carlisle's. The lines were still there, but the compassion had vanished. His voice was too soft to hear, but even by lip reading, the power of the venom was obvious. It was a flash of black ice anger.

"May you rot in hell, Lieutenant."

Carlisle was still blinking when the shouts came. One of Dreisler's men was quickly beside him.

"Sir, you'd better take a look at this."

Dreisler stabbed a finger at Faithful. "Guard him with your lives."

Carlisle hurried after Dreisler as the deacon strode to the edge of the roof. Out on the water, well beyond the tip of Manhattan, three huge figures of pure light, basking in their massive vapor columns, were advancing out of the night, bearing down on the city. Dreisler looked at the nearest aide.

"I thought we'd canceled Mansard's show."

"He seems to have uncanceled himself, sir. We could send in helicopters to break up the images."

"And we'd look ridiculous. It'd be a remake of King Kong. No, let him run. Arrest him when he's finished. If Charlie Mansard wants to put on the Day of Judgment, let him."

Mansard

Charlie Mansard gazed in awe at his own creation. The new projectors were a quantum advance on the ones they had used at the Garden. The image density was magnificent. His towering figures were no longer ghostly; the light seemed almost solid. He stood brace-legged on the yacht's gently rocking deck, hands clasped behind his back. The yacht was steering a course some distance out from the barges, so Charlie could see the full effect. All around him the party had stopped. An anxious silence had settled. Nobody seemed to want to stand next to him. Even Lynette was keeping her distance. He held his breath for a long time. Finally he let it out with a sigh.

"Yes, I think these are pretty much okay."

The relief among the crew was like a lifted weight. Charlie had given his seal of approval. They gathered around, slapping his back, hugging him, and pumping his hand. Champagne corks popped.

The Beast came first. It was a roughly humanoid demon with hunched shoulders and spindly, angular, almost insectlike legs – a cross between man and mantis. Mansard had borrowed heavily from mid-twentieth-century monster movies for that one. It stalked up river with a menacing shamble. The scales on its body were a deep bottle green and they gleamed with highlights of midnight blue and acid yellow. Its eyes were upswept emerald slits that glared balefully as it swung its head from side to side as if seeking its prey. Mansard had chuckled the first time he had seen the animated motion.

"Checking out who's been naughty or nice?"

Two spiky projections that could have been either antlers or ante

The second figure also had its roots in the pop culture of the twentieth century. Mansard had used the movie goddess Elizabeth Taylor as the basis for the Whore of Babylon. She reclined on a shell-like litter that was born on the back of a roiling, multiheaded, serpentine thing. Mansard would never have admitted it, but when they came to the dragon they had been a little short on memory for the complex image and had been forced to disguise the fact by making it look as if it were half underwater. Although the thing that carried the shell was something of a half measure, every care had been taken in creating the figure that was riding in it. Mansard had not spared a byte in lovingly fashioning the Whore exactly as he had imagined her. She lolled in her litter, lascivious, leering, and drunk. Her gaping peignoir was the same scarlet and gold as the scales of the thing, and it shimmered with its own internal light. Her hair was a cloud of curls, black as the void, that seemed to ripple with a life of their own. Her lips were dancing flames begging the moths to come to them, while Cleopatra eyes made sultry promises, a menu of original sins. She raised a huge gold goblet, encrusted with evilly glowing gems, in a toast to the city that was still called Babylon on the Hudson. Wine, the color of dark blood, splashed over her all but totally exposed breasts. What did the Bible say the wine represented? The 'abominations and filthiness of her fornications'. In his newest creations, Mansard had pushed the moral envelope as hard as he could. From the start, he had roared at his design team.

"Go for it! There's no point in covering up her tits. The bitch is supposed to be bad, goddamn it! As bad as it gets!"

He did not want to think that the final group of figures, his original Four Horsemen, were in any way eclipsed by the new ones. They had been greatly improved since the Garden. In addition to the greater density and realism, improved computer capacity had given them a more comprehensive range of movement and gesture. The horses reared and pranced, and their riders looked from side to side as if surveying their domain. War pointed with his lance, and Death swung his scythe out over the river as if taking in all of New York in a single sweep. The sleeves of the robe of Pestilence flapped like giant wings as he broadcast his contagion, while the new levels of contrast made the black hollows of Famine's eyes look like the pits of hell.

Mansard noticed that there was a strange sound coming from across the water. It was not cheering; it was more like the confused shouting of a mob.

A PA moved up beside him, holding out a radio headset. "It's Jimmy, chief. He wants to speak to you."

Mansard held it to his ear.