Armageddon Crazy

He lay flat on his chest on the bed in the beat-up Buffalo motel room. For once he was glued to the TV instead of using it to merely ease the interminable waiting. It came and it went. It was yanked off the air and then restored minutes later. For a while, Canadian programming had leaked through the jamming, but that had abruptly stopped. Regular programs would start only to be interrupted by wild, insane footage of the monsters attacking New York and the population going into screaming panic. Even he could see that the monsters were holograms, but the panic was absolutely real. New York had gone crazy, and the rest of the country appeared to be following suit.

Aden Proverb was going on about a country divided and a country reborn. Speedboat switched cha

"That sounds like…"

He sat bolt upright.

"That sounds like gunfire."

There was sweat on his palms as he got off the bed and moved cautiously toward the window. He separated the slats of the dusty blind. Some large vehicle with red lights flashing on top of it sat in the parking lot. One word sprang into his mind. Raid! He looked around the room. There was no back way out. He heard more gunfire, but it was some distance away. There were voices in the parking lot. He caught a snatch of conversation.

"… so I told him, eh, fuck with me again and I'll be taking your fucking blood pressure the hard way."

A loudhailer barked.

"You in the motel, come out of there! Everybody outside in the parking lot! Right now!"

Speedboat stood in the middle of the room. His stomach knotted as he fought off panic. There was no way that he was going to avoid the camp. He went slowly to the door and opened it. He looked out and could not believe his eyes. A massive, dark-green, amphibious tank was parked in the motel parking lot. A tank? Why the hell would the deacons be using a tank? None of the miserable refugees sheltering in the motel was that dangerous. The tank did not even look right. It had the heavy, slab-sided look that was the hallmark of the Russians, or, at least, something based on a Russian design. It was then that he saw the large, red, Canadian maple leaf on the side of the turret. Speedboat could not believe his eyes. The Canadians had crossed the border. One of the tank crew was walking toward him. The collar of his tank suit was unfastened, and his visor was pushed back. He was gri

"Don't look so goddamn miserable, pal. You're getting liberated."

EPILOGUES AND EPITAPHS

It was five days before the armageddon crazy finally Faded. America woke to the worst national hangover in history. The sense of guilt and shame that came with any hangover was buried in a furious binge of what became known as National Reconstruction. Alien Proverb's 'I'm just an American' speech seemed to have provoked a solid response, and the country appeared to have a genuine desire to let go of the Fundamentalist security blanket and really attempt to regain its self-respect. The speech was broadcast over forty times in the week following the Sunday Revolution. Unfortunately national reconstruction did not go as far as many would have hoped. Although some basic civil liberties were restored and thousands of political prisoners were released, the apparatus of repression created by the deacons was largely left in place. The economy continued to founder, and after three years there still had been no elections.

Proverb

Alien Proverb was declared interim president and retained the title until he was shot to death by John Manly Walker during a public address in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The assassination gave Matthew Dreisler the excuse he needed to declare the infamous State of Emergency.

Dreisler

Matthew Dreisler became the absolute overlord of both domestic and foreign security. Although Proverb was president, Dreisler became de facto commander in chief. At first, the Canadians kept him somewhat in check, hut after the pullout, he felt free to start constructing the perfect police state. His design was so self-sustaining that even after he himself was killed in the bomb attack on his private jet, the machine that he had created continued to function.

Carlisle

One month after the Sunday Revolution, Harry Carlisle applied for leave and a passport. He said he was going for two weeks of sun in Rio De Janeiro. He was never seen again. Some claimed that he had changed his name and vanished. Others believed that Dreisler had arranged his murder.

Kline

Around about the same time that Harry Carlisle supposedly left for his Rio vacation, Cynthia Kline also disappeared. Most who had known her assumed that as an operative of the Canadian Secret Service she had merely been given a new identity and transferred to a fresh theater of operations. As with Carlisle, however, there were those who subscribed to a more sinister theory: She and Harry Carlisle had both been killed at Dreisler's instigation.

Mansard

It took the new administration a full six weeks to decide whether Charlie Mansard was a hero or a criminal for having triggered the Armageddon Crazy. Finally they opted for the former, and Charlie went on to become world famous for his theatrical productions using skywalker holograms. He received special Tony awards for his presentations of Wagner's Ring Cycle and the musical The Last Words of Dutch Schultz.

1346408 Stone

Eli Stone got out of Joshua in the first wave of releases. He never, however, really readjusted to life in the outside world. After some months of being unable to hold down a job and treatment for chronic depression, he took his own life in a room in a cheap hotel on Forty-third Street.

Speedboat

Speedboat returned to the Lower East Side. Inside of a year he had pulled off a major narcotics coup and left for Australia, never to return. He surfaced in Sydney, under the name Tommy Wilson, where he successfully managed the popular entertainer A

Parallel shafts of sunlight lanced through the venetian blinds, and traffic noise floated up from the King's Cross red-light district. Down in the street, garish neon flashed and Chinese sailors on raucous shore leave from the aircraft carrier Revolutionary Fervor loudly made their presence known. Up in room 1009 of the Sebel Townhouse, enjoying the soft introspection that was the aftermath of afternoon delight, Harry Carlisle and Cynthia Kline still held on to each other. Their naked bodies were filmed with sweat, and they were both in that half world between satiation and sleep. After New York, Sydney was like a blast of robust freedom. Down the hall, a group of English musicians was having a party. It had been going on for two days. The TV babbled in the corner.

An item about the U.S.A. came on the Cha

"… and each day brings new discoveries that continue to confirm that the Faithful administration is a regime that will live in infamy."

Harry grunted. "Can't he make up his own stuff any more?"

Cynthia's voice was drowsy. "Harry?"