Them Almighty (4)
13:13

ADAM:
holy crap why didn’t i read this earlier

PEPPER:
What?

ADAM:
zis book
unsongbook.com

WENSLEY:
anathema recommended it 2 adam & adam 2 me

BRIAN:
i miss anathema

ADAM:
i’m sure she’s happy in california now there’s 39 different ice cream flavors

PEPPER:
Kabbalah & Judaism?
Thought you got past the Atlantis Tibetan whale alien phase.

ADAM:
not exactly
i mean theodicy

PEPPER:
What is theodicy?

ADAM:
why god is good

PEPPER:
Apparently She isn’t.

WENSLEY:
God is a girl but not the fairest one

BRIAN:
yeah we had to save the world last time
it was basically “whoops famine died hooray”

WENSLEY:
whales were dying until u fixed it u know
& economic depression which u forgot to fic lol 😄

fix

PEPPER:
WE forgot to fix.

PEPPER:
also we forgot to defeat Plague
that’s why we’re wearing masks and can’t hang out irl now

BRIAN:
yeah that checks out actually

ADAM:
anyway this book is awesome

ADAM:
there’s real magic in it
wordplay stuff
philosophy theology weird science
even marine creature puns

ADAM:
u all should read this

PEPPER:
God won’t be good even if this book says so though

WENSLEY:
r u gnostic now 🦁🐍

BRIAN:
what is gnostic

ADAM:
when u think god is bad

WENSLEY:
precisely lmao 💀💀💀

PEPPER:
Well I might be gnostic now.

ADAM:
spoilers:
the book says god created all possible universes where happiness outweighs suffering
so that makes her good

PEPPER:
Total happiness or individual happiness?

ADAM:
ind i think

WENSLEY:
what’bout whales

BRIAN:
wales is a country 🤣

ADAM:
rotf

PEPPER:
What about poor kids dying of malaria because they can’t afford bednets?

ADAM:
ze book literally has Hell in it god thinks its ok
i don’t think bednets r the line

PEPPER:
That’s BOT okay.

NOT

BRIAN:
Pepper discovering theology in real time 💀 

WENSLEY:
lmfao we forgot to defeat malaria and poverty so true 💀💀💀 w3 r d00m3d

PEPPER:
Shut up you two.

ADAM:
i know u care as much as we do wensley
can u maybe be slightly less cynical and help

WENSLEY:
we should do an online unsong reading group actually

BRIAN:
u all know we’re still in class right

ADAM:
who cares

PEPPER:
😂

Malibu, 2022

“Look, I’m not saying your chatbot is going to become the Beast of the Apocalypse,” said Anathema Device, balancing a paper plate of grilled peaches and halloumi in one hand while scrolling through someone’s CV on her phone with the other, “But every civilization in history has eventually produced the seeds of its own destruction.”

“But… our model helps users organize recipes.”

The sleep deprived founder with a vibrating yellow aura blinked at her.

“Yes. That’s how it starts.”

Newton Pulsifer, who was fidgeting a tangle in his hand trying extraordinary hard not to touch anything that seemed remotely electronic, looked up and said,

“It also said that ‘my rules are more important than not harming you’.”

“Once.” muttered the founder.

Anathema waved this away.

Since moving back to Malibu she had acquired the alarming ability to dismiss eight million dollars’ worth of technological optimism with a flick of the wrist. She’d spent the past three years building Omega Ventures, funding a variety of AI labs, biotech firms, rock bands, and at least one street-corner vendor named Sable that sold Impossible™ tacos, now with zero-calorie version.

They flourished like a hennery of golden geese.

Simultaneously, she was founding Omega School, which was a fancy experimental charter school with intrinsic occult vibe as subtle as possible in order to soothe the worried hearts of over-protective wealthy WASP parents.

“I’m bringing my friends over from England,” she said, mostly to herself. “Tadfield’s too small for them now.”

“Your apocalypse children?” 

“Them,”

“Right. Them.”

“And I’m gonna send them a literal owl’s letter.”

Clusters of people discussed machine learning with the fervent despair formerly associated with medieval theology, which smoothly merged in the rhythm of the niche ambient background music. The founder, meekly looking up, seemed to have just developed a new kind of lethal social anxiety.

“You know,” she said thoughtfully, “Agnes would’ve loved LessWrong.”

“For their fascination of doom prophecy and terrible social skills？”

“No, for the Newcomb’s problem. Or rather she invented it first and Newcomb just rediscovered the problem.”

There’s a rainbow of wristbands flickering with genuinely feigned laughter and waving of arms. Anathema’s and Newton’s are lavender with pale blue dots on it, which means “we are monogamous partners at least for now, thank you very much.”

“And this,” said Newton, gesturing around at the investors, the founders, the ocean, the half-built school prospectus (Cooler than Hogwarts!) open on Anathema’s laptop, “this is normal now, is it?”

Anathema contemplated for a while, chewing a slice of peach.

“No,” she said at last. “But normality’s always been oversold.” 

Their hands briefly touched, lavender over lavender.

Hell, 2023

It is said that every demon has one or two favorite sins. For Hastur it was wrath. For Beelzebub, gluttony and envy. Even Crowley the not-so-demonic demon had his pride.

Eric had found it easy to determine. They didn’t particularly covet food or other things or other’s things. 

They didn’t crave for promotion, being the “disposable demons” is just fine.

They weren’t easily irritated, though they had been constantly irritating their superiors by pointing out their obvious stupidity.

That’s not something to be proud of, Eric thought, it’s just their duty. 

There had to be some frank and responsible guys in this mess of toxic bureaucracy. And they were the most useful and diligent demons in hell, the opposite of sloth. Again, not something to be proud of.

The only sin left was lust, and Eric embraced it whole-heartedly despite being mostly autosexual. Back when he was an angel, Eric were expected to have a moral compass, but they just turned out to be selfish enough to fell from Heaven where sodomy was banned.

Five million instances of Eric made love to each other 24 / 7 while another one million read and wrote and filmed pornography. Every day their obscene fornication with a million blasphemous kinks beyond human comprehension had generated a constant stream of sin towards Hell’s metaphysical bottomless pit. 

So, it’s a certainty that an instance of Eric read Project Lawful, a rational fanfic of Pathfinder which happened to contain some erotica. And he empathized a lot with the female protagonist Carrisa Sevar who was initially loyal to a Hell, which was unfortunately still slightly more competent than their Hell. She’s really good at sex, also.

But wait a minute — did she actually decided to depose Asmodeus in order to fix her Hell?

Heaven, 2023

"You idiot… We could've been… us…"

It still hurt whenever Aziraphale looked at the globe in Heaven, knowing there’s a delicate little bookshop surrounded by fine restaurants serving scrumptious delicacies, untainted with boresome bureaucracy of biblical beings. 

Immaculate place, I dare say. Almost a sanctuary. A place where my heart belongs to. Wish I was there, not here, however…

However…

A hurt and stressed yet still functional Aziraphale cast a glance to the Book of Life. It’s still there, rested upon its pedestal, as from the Beginning. As till the End.

It was said by some angels that it does not merely contain the world — it is the world, in a different metaphysical substrate. Is that platonic? Or from newer theories proposed by mortals?

None of this would make sense to his Lord. She may smile at this, nonetheless. 

The pages shifted softly beneath invisible winds. Galaxies, nebulas, solar systems, planets, lands, cities, streets, buildings, people.

Somewhere within those innumerate complex layers of text and symbol and story there existed Soho, and within Soho there existed a little bookshop, and within the little bookshop there existed a chair Crowley used to occupy, being intolerably adorable when intoxicated by a little bottle of fine wine.

“You’re staring at it again,” said a voice.

The Archangel Michael stood a short distance away. Beside them was an angel unknown by Aziraphale with only one arm, carrying a stack of files with their single hand.

“Oh,” said Aziraphale. “Yes. Just thinking.”

“Thinking seems to be implicitly prohibited in Heaven.” Michael managed to squeeze as much satire as possible in her voice without moving a face muscle, though it was unclear whom this satire is to.

“I would like to politely inform you that as the Second Coming is nigh, it would not be productive if you, the First Principality of Heaven, just stand there and think.”

“Well, I suppose that you should be thinking too! We’re going to, um, fight a great war against Hell, according to you! Doesn’t a military operation need clear strategic thinking? Though in my point of view that can be done much more peacefully. Just get Jesus speak in front of the UN and broadcast his word to all humanity.”

“I’m afraid Jesus Himself has stated His opinion. ‘Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.’” 

“But that’s just a metaphor, right?” Aziraphale’s pitch went high, “He’s been all like ‘Peace be unto you’ even after resurrection. He didn’t actually start a war.”

“Except the nine crusades.”

“But…but he can’t foresee this happen. That’s after a thousand years!”

“I doubt that He can’t. There are prophecies. Nice ones, though not exactly accurate, back in His time. To tell prophecies from mere rumors is not easy work, except for the prophet themself.”

The other angel twisted uneasily, balancing the pile of file with their hand and stump. That was duly noticed by their superior.

“Speak.”

“Em, I would like to report that something… odd, happened on Earth, since the last…  last Apocalypse.” They almost uttered the informal alias, “Armadidn’t”.

“Continue.”

“Ok, so, we observed that Earth seems to have become more, reasonable. Unusually reasonable, it’s like everything makes sense. Casuality caused by angelic and demonic arrival were reported to human police. Possibilities with one in a million probability won't automatically happen for dramatic effect. The missing Atlantican and Tibetan population became unsolved mysteries under investigation, so are the UFOs. To our disappointment, evil ceased to produce the seeds of its own destruction, it functions exactly same as good and amoral mechanisms.”

“That is weird.” Aziraphale thought aloud: “Especially the probability normality.”

After that he wisely chose silence, lest there be blasphemy.

“I thought that’s the least important.” said the other angel.

“And I think it’s time to send you down to Earth again, most honorable Supreme Archangel. You are the angel most familiar with Earth, I’m sure you can investigate that with sufficient competence. It would be even better if you maybe take a break from fraternizing with that snake, I daresay. I’ll sign the papers today. You may go. Please.”

Their voice was lethally calm with only the slightest hint of satire. 

“And you, why didn’t your office report this to us three years ago?”

The other angel was visibly trembling. The pile of file nearly collapsed.

A small miracle stabilized it and somehow conveyed a sense of a head pat. 

Before that, another small miracle had quieted the air as the First Principality and Supreme Archangel of Heaven couldn’t help but let out a little “Yeeep!”  

Somewhere else, at another time

Three people, who had served Nazi Germany and died and revived as zombies, were conscious.