Walter Greatshell - Apocalypse blues

Wilting, I asked, "Is that why the world was so messed up? With wars and everything? Because of you people?"

"Lulu, we're not God. We can't change human nature-all we can do is cash in on it. I'll tell you one thing: Nothing purifies a corrupt or stagnant system better than all-out war. Total destruction can be healthy."

"Would you say we're healthy now?"

"Hey, at least the Arabs and Jews aren't fighting anymore."

Nearing the front of the crowd, Sandoval and I paused to appreciate the music. The Blackpudlians were wrapping up a blistering version of "Come Together"-they looked like they were singing for their lives up there, drenched in sweat. It was hard not to climb the flower bed and touch the sail. It was so unreal. I wanted to ask Sandoval what this evening was all about-what was the big mystery?-but the music was too loud for conversation. Some of the Moguls were weeping nostalgic tears, eyes closed in reverent appreciation.

The song ended, leaving a residue of applause like silt in a bucket after the amplified music, and the band took a bow. As they did so, a couple of them saw me and nudged the others. Their eyes seemed to say, Look out. I nodded back. Then they sardonically addressed the crowd, in character as John, Paul, George, and Ringo.

"Thanks. Thank you very much. It's been grand-how often do you get to fiddle while Rome burns?"

"And without a fiddle, at that."

"That's a myth, John. The fiddle hadn't been invented in Nero's time. Only the lyre."

"I hate bloody liars."

"No, the instrument. Like what they play in 'eaven."

"What do they play in 'ell, then?"

"Apparently, old Beatles songs." Rim shot.

"And now we'd like to introduce a man who needs no introduction. The magnanimous magnate who has made all this possible: Mr. James Sandoval!"

I was startled, though I don't know why I should have been. Obviously, they had all been waiting for him to arrive. As applause rose and vanished into cavernous heights, Sandoval mounted the "stage" and accepted the microphone, saying, "Weren't they great? Gee, what a treat." He clapped for the band as they took another bow.

Someone touched my elbow, and I turned to find Dr. Langhorne standing at my side. Her eyes were intent on Sandoval, but she spoke to me:

"Enjoying the party?"

I didn't know what to say.

"You should be," she said grimly. "You're the guest of honor."

"I didn't have any choice," I pleaded. "I didn't know. What was I supposed to do?"

"Shh. Listen."

Without a trace of irony, Sandoval said, "Ladies and gentlemen, the Mogul Research Division and I are so pleased to welcome you all to this little shindig, which would not have been possible without your generous support. I do not exaggerate when I say that you gentlemen are carrying the world on your shoulders, or that your noble efforts to keep the flame of civilization alive will someday be the stuff of legend."

This was the speech he had asked me to punch up. He gave a subtle signal, and the Blackpudlians began softly harmonizing-an undertone at first so soft as to be almost inaudible, accompanied by mournful-sweet strains of the electric organ, but rising.

"Am I presumptuous to speak of future events?" he continued. "You may wonder who will be alive to read of these glorious endeavors. You men are realists. You don't believe in fairy tales. Since the earliest beginnings of the Mogul Project, you have expressed again and again your skepticism about our ultimate goal, preferring to focus on the less-sensational milestones along the way. Yet what milestones! Cracking the proteome. Creating the means of designing life, and programming it to serve our interests. The Autonomous Self-Replicator. These things were not narcissistic pipe dreams. They were about AIDS and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. They were about ending human suffering.

"Perhaps that all seems very quaint now. Naive. My colleagues in the Research Division"-he indicated Dr. Langhorne-"harbor no illusions about your opinion of them: freeloaders, charlatans, crackpots. Fools and hucksters who have left us in this quagmire with no means of escape, all the while filling our heads with schemes and nonsense. You worry it's all been a confidence game, the scam of all time, and you the suckers who bought it. I myself have even acquired a funny little nickname-we've all heard it: Ponzi de Leon. But in your hearts, you're sick. Sick at the cost of it all. The ruin. The loved ones you've lost. You think nothing can ever make up for it… and perhaps you're right." He stooped, slowly shaking his bowed head, letting the microphone dangle at his side.

An awful silence settled on the crowd, a gulf of dead air that grew wider and wider until the offended Moguls began filling it in with grumpy asides and throat-clearing. Some of them were gloating feverishly over Sandoval's capitulation. They thought he was throwing himself at their mercy.

Then Sandoval lifted his head and put the mike to his lips: "But. We. Did it."

The band erupted in a blaze of guitars and screaming-the opening of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Dr. Langhorne left me and climbed up to join Sandoval. They embraced in the spotlight like Hollywood royalty, and he said, "Dr. Alice Langhorne, ladies and gentlemen!" It was getting crowded up there.

When the music died down to an expectant hum again, she said, "Thank you, Jim. Gosh. You know, when you sift through the hysteria about Maenad Cytosis-Agent X-what you find is that in many ways the Mogul Project was an unqualified success. We did achieve what we set out to, and if it hadn't been for one bad apple, we would have been heralded as the saviors of the human race. Has this epidemic made us lose sight of that basic truth? It has, hasn't it? When the emphasis is all on developing a cure, a return to the status quo, that means we have failed. All a cure means is that you are back to where you started: doomed. Succeeding at that is nothing but a death sentence. So what I have to say is this: Who needs a cure? What does a cure avail us, other than a few paltry extra years in our aging carcasses? No, I say no. Why settle for the booby prize when you can have it all?"

A heckler in the crowd yelled, "Have what?"

"What you paid for in the first place. What the faithful have been promised from time immemorial." She descended from the sail, taking the mike with her. Sandoval followed, then the rest of us. She didn't go far, only to a low wall of ice on the far side of the sub, where the grass ended. The crowd spread out along the barrier, looking across.

There, behind the fairwater, in the half of the dome that had been deserted and dark until then, a single spotlight shone. We could see a man standing in its harsh beam, perhaps fifty feet away. He was a Xombie, or at least had that familiar blue cast to his skin, but he was not grotesque-though at first sight of him, the crowd gasped and drew their laser pointers in alarm. He was wearing a white robe, and it gave him the bearing of a Greek god. Sea green light webbed across him from a polynya at his feet-it was all that separated us from the striking, unearthly creature. As he stared back, I had the feeling of being watched by some vast dispassionate intelligence. I couldn't believe how different he looked from the homunculus I had seen in the tank.

In a hushed voice, Langhorne said, "Everyone, I'd like you to meet Homo perrenius."

It was Mr. Cowper.

"You have seen them die, and you have seen them rise," said Langhorne. "But you ain't seen nothin' yet. Gentlemen, I direct your attention to the man on the conning tower."

Sandoval had climbed stairs up to the port sailplane, the one opposite the band, and was picking up an elaborate compound bow. It was camouflage-colored, with Day-Glo arrows attached to it, and with practiced grace, he removed one, nocked it, and cranked back the string. His posture with the bow was heroic, Olympian.