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LastArmageddon

The battlefield near Megiddo is a panorama of chaos and defiance. The skies are dark, choked with the smoke of burning vehicles and the shimmering contrails of high-altitude missiles cutting arcs across the heavens. On the ground, soldiers from all corners of the globe, NATO and IDF among them, stand shoulder to shoulder, their faces grim and eyes wide with a mixture of fear and determination. The sonic assault from the heavenly host — a weapon of pure, concussive sound, prophecied in Revelation 13:3 — has rent the flesh of hundreds from their bones, shattered the eardrums of tens of thousands, but not their resolve.

As the ear-splitting, disorienting waves continue to pulse through the battlefield, some soldiers clutch their helmets in agony, trying to block out the insidious noise. Others, gritting their teeth against the pain, take aim with their rifles and machine guns, their bullets whizzing through the air only to ricochet harmlessly off the shimmering armor of the angelic beings. Michael, the Archangel, glides through the haze, a figure of awe and terror. His flaming sword cuts arcs of blinding light through the smoke, each swing sending human soldiers flying, their armor and bodies broken by the sheer force of divine might.

A British sergeant, a grizzled veteran of countless skirmishes, takes cover behind a burning armored personnel carrier. He glances over at his comrades—young, scared men and women—then peeks over the top, squeezing off a burst of rifle fire toward an approaching figure. The bullets hit Raphael squarely in the chest but flatten against his golden armor, clattering to the ground like pebbles. The sergeant mutters to himself, "Don't bring a flaming sword to a gunfight," before ducking down again. A nearby private, his face streaked with dirt and blood, hears the remark and offers a grim smile, despite their dire situation.

Further up the line, a Ukrainian platoon commander yells orders in a hoarse voice, his commands almost lost in the cacophony. "Aim for the wings!" he shouts, hoping to target what he assumes must be a vulnerable spot. The soldiers obey, their rifles and shoulder-fired rockets aimed upward. The missiles explode in brilliant flashes, momentarily blinding the battlefield, but as the smoke clears, the angels emerge unscathed, their wings folding and flexing, shimmering like polished metal. One angel—clad in resplendent white and gold—raises a hand, and a wave of force sweeps out from him, knocking the Ukrainians off their feet.

Meanwhile, in a secure bunker halfway across the world, the tension in the teleconference room is palpable. The leaders of the world's nuclear powers—America, Britain, China, France, and Russia—argue back and forth, their voices rising. The decision to use nuclear weapons on their own troops is unthinkable, but as reports come in, describing the invincibility of the angels and the futility of conventional weapons, the gravity of the situation becomes clear. "It's either them or us," the Russian premier states bluntly, his face drawn and pale. The sociopath had to say it, but it's true. The room falls silent as the realization sinks in.

Back on the battlefield, the human soldiers are desperate. A squad of US Marines huddles behind a crumbling wall, the remnants of an ancient structure now caught in the maelstrom of modern warfare. One of them, a corporal with a patch over one eye, breathes heavily, his mind racing. He looks up just in time to see an angel bearing down on them, sword raised high. "We need air support, now!" he shouts into his radio, but he knows it's too late. The angel lands among them, his feet touching the ground with a lightness that belies his fearsome power. In an instant, he sweeps his sword in a wide arc, and three Marines fall, their bodies crumpling to the ground like ragdolls.

Yet, even in the face of such overwhelming might, the humans do not relent. A French paratrooper, his uniform scorched and tattered, charges forward with a bayonet fixed to his rifle, screaming defiantly. The angel facing him hesitates for a moment, almost bemused by the human's audacity. The paratrooper leaps, thrusting his bayonet toward the angel's chest, but the blade snaps in two against the divine armor. The angel responds with a backhand swipe that sends the man flying backward, crashing into the dirt.

We see human soldiers fight valiantly but hopelessly, interspersed with small snippets of old missiles being launched into the sky, reaching apogee, separating their warheads, and the warheads coming down. Some of the missiles, about half, fail; dud launches, spinning out of control, incomplete separation; the others continue on their Newtonian path.

One angel, towering over the battlefield with six wings fanning out behind him, surveys the carnage with a mixture of sadness and resolve. His eyes burn with an inner light, and as he raises his hand, a blinding beam of light shoots forth, cutting through tanks and bunkers alike. A Ukrainian commander, hiding behind the wreckage of a Humvee, sees the beam coming and shouts a warning, but it's too late. The beam cuts through the vehicle like paper, incinerating everything in its path.

Despite their fear, the human forces refuse to surrender. They press on, fighting with every ounce of strength left in them, knowing that their chances of survival are slim. In the distance, the first of the nuclear warheads reaches apogee, the payload separating, preparing for its final descent. The battle is far from over, but for now, humanity's spirit remains unbroken. The soldiers fight on, holding the line as best they can, waiting for whatever comes next.

And that's when the nuclear alert klaxons sound.

While the battle took place on the ground, It took a tense 15 minutes to agree on strategic nuclear weapon deployment, a few more minutes to input new coordinates into the ancient targeting computers in missile silos, and about 30 minutes for the ballistic missiles to fly on their paraboloid arcs. Of the survivors of the human armies, those who are in tanks batten the hatches, those who aren't try to hide behind armored vehicles or whatever they can.

The angels mistake this for a route and go on what they think is the final, glorious charge, slaughtering thousands.

And then it's over.

Gabriel, the Archangel herald, points to the Jesus and shouts in an otherworldly voice, "Let there be light...."

Jesus rises from the battlefield, bathed in the divine light, and two seconds later, the nukes hit all around and then smack on top of Him. The warm, suffusing divine light is dwarfed by the malevolent, cold-white luminosity of hundreds of nuclear fireballs.

Every camera in the area shorts out, everyone not wearing eye protection goes blind. The few surviving angels, battered and thrown about by the pressure waves but not incinerated by the fireballs, since they are divine beings, quickly regenerate their eyes -- they are that resilient.

The Archangel Michael is one of them. He orders a regroup, and what's left of the Heavenly Host obeys. He surveys the desolation to see that the humans have fared worse, they're gone, vaporized...

But then they are charged by the humans who survived the blast. They're bleeding, coughing up their own lungs, frenzied and half-blind and burned, charging on top of what few old diesel trucks would still start after an EMP blast. It looks like three parts Osowiec and one part Mad Max. The attack of the dead men.

The angels are confused, uncertain, leaderless. They believed themselves to be invincible, but the poisonous light of Cold War madness has shown to them that they are not. They, too, are battered; wings broken, armor dented, bleeding that won't stop or regenerate.

This time the fight is a lot more even. The few functioning tanks and field guns fire their shots into the remnant of the Host of Heaven. This is a clash from the days of old.

Both remnants go at each other with rifles, swords, bayonets. It's another massacre. But this time the humans have the advantage of firearms; the remaining weakened angels cannot fight as efficiently anymore, and everyone who's left knows that they can be beaten.

Even so, Michael was created for this sort of battle; the humans are dying to radiation poisoning and it once again looks like that the Angels will win the field after all. He tries to not think about how tiring it is to fly, how he's more or less the only one who still can. Radiation takes its toll. A black rain falls. The air smells of ozone. Michael surveys the battlefield -- other than the black rain falling, it looks more like the ones he is used to. The last desperate charge of the humans is over. He looks around for Raphael and Jesus, but doesn't have time to.

Humans have global logistics, you see. Reinforcements arrive from behind a ridge -- a motley assortment of fighter jets, flown in from all over the neighboring countries, and on the ground a Polish light-armor brigade, of all things, NATO vehicles decorated with Winged Hussars decals -- they were the first ready to go after hunkering down when the nuclear sirens sounded -- and the Angles find themselves on the defensive.

They don't know how to fight on the defensive. Michael, their general, sees that Jesus and Raphael are nowhere, turned into proton soup by a direct nuclear hit maybe. He exhorts his surviving legionaries to fight. He fights himself, as hard as he can. But before long the effects of radiation poisoning manifests. The humans who survived the blast and managed the forlorn-hope charge fall first, but soon after it's the Angels who also begin to slow down. They can't fly fast enough anymore, and are cut down by jet fighters. They fall to their knees or to the ground. The humans have mustered fresh troops, coming in from wherever they could. Each Angel is more than a match for ten soldiers in a fight, but they're outnumbered forty to one.

And then the unexpected happens. The humans... give quarter. Offer surrender.

Michael is incensed, and decapitates one of the angels who tries to give up. The fight continues, but by now it's obvious which way it'll go.

The angels' final stand resembles the battle of Shiroyama, mighty celestial warriors armed with swords, facing regular soldiers with modern weapons.

Turns out that after all, you can't bring a flaming sword to a gunfight. A sniper team of ten from a nearby hill take aim at Michael with anti-materiel rifles; they wait for some kind of atmospheric data from one of the vehicles, do quick mental math, take aim, and then fire in unison. Half the bullets near-miss due to the chaotic post-nuclear winds. The other half hits, shattering his kneecaps, wing roots, and elbows. Michael falls in a heap.

Even so, with a supreme effort, the Archangel Michael declares his unwavering faith in the Lord, gets up on his knees, and sticks his sword in the ground, like a cross, before falling forward again.

Now it's really over. Silence, punctuated by a geiger counter crackling and the radioactive rain falling, the sounds blending into each other. There are no cheers of triumph -- not yet.

The angels brought hell to earth. But even in this desolation, once it's clear that the enemy is down and the remaining troops who can retreat, medics come in. Some in hazmat suits, some willingly taking the risk because there wasn't enough protective equipment, they swarm the battlefield. They drag away anyone still breathing, human or angel. Hazmat squads in a grimmer grey color collect what doesn't really qualify as remains anymore; severed angelic wings, formerly flaming swords. To fight the all-knowing, we must be ever-learning.

By the stars, a few days have passed. But in another sense, this is now another era.

Colopatiron, Angel of Liberation, wakes up in a field hospital; his right leg is missing, his left strapped down to a reinforced hospital bed, as are his wrists. There are tubes going into his arms. Instead of pain, there is numbness. "Hey, this one, he wakes up!" a nurse, a large Slavic older lady, calls out in accented English. A thin man wearing a suit, sunglasses, and an earpiece -- looks like the Men in Black -- walks to the Angel's bedside. He clears his throat, and says something in an ancient Semitic tongue. "I am an... investigator. You are a prisoner of war. You will not be harmed. You will be healed. You must tell me your name and your purpose."

Colopatiron, Angel of Liberation, does just that, more out of surprise than anything.

"This one is cooperative" the agent tells the nurse, then continues "If you would let us use enhanced chemicals-" The nurse stops the agent in his tracks. "Human or angel, these here, are my patients. No truth drug, no removing painkiller. I tell CIA, I tell FSB, I tell MI6, now I tell you. Understand? Good."

"Yes ma'am" the agent answers. Even government spooks back off in front of field nurses.

We quickly see that Colopatiron is one of the sane ones; at least he can talk. He heals, and is introduced to an old professor of semiotics, who asks him questions, with the man in black a mute witness. We learn briefly of the War in Heaven, the fall of Satan, the pastiche of Abrahamic and Canaanite myths. It is unclear whether these are real angels or just very advanced aliens, but Colopatiron truly believes that he serves the one true God, and the professor, Dr. Eko, agrees; this was the prophecied Armageddon. The MIB, perhaps predictably, of course, does not agree -- he's seen Angels bleed, but he's still an atheist.

A few angels are likewise a little cooperative. Most are not.

Some Angels defiantly declare that they would prefer to be killed than made slaves, and refuse to acknowledge that prisoners of war aren't treated that way anymore. Some try to get back up and fight, and have to be sedated -- we hear in passing that the first two who tried that had to be shot in the head. Some Angels simply give thanks to the Lord for their victory, and flat out refuse to believe that they've lost, even when shown video. According to them, Jesus will now heal the Earth and, in 75 days after Armageddon, assume formal dominion of it. The "man in black" muses that at least it's some actionable intel, and duly sends a report to unknown superiors; two months and a bit to get ready for a possible second wave.

In general, Angels simply do not understand the possibility of a deviation on the divine plan. They think they know everything they need to know, and refuse to learn anything different. Michael is still in a coma; the medics had to extract the blood of dead Angels for transfusions for him. Is he ever going to wake up?

On the human side, the butcher's bill was horrendous, between the Host of Heaven and the nukes, almost a million people died, soldiers, civilians caught in the blast, first responders who died of radiation poisoning.

There aren't even mass graves: the bodies are so radioactive that they mus be processed as if they were spent nuclear fuel. A great black marble monolith is erected as close to the site of the battle as possible, to be brought to ground zero someday when radiation levels decrease.

More will die; the fallout will give cancer to untold thousands, nuclear blast was enough that the world is going to experience a brief nuclear winter, crops will fail, even the rich countries of the world will see food rationing make a comeback for a year or two.

Raphael has been found -- well, his head and part of his right shoulder, anyway.

Jesus.... hasn't. That's the big unknown variable. Should humanity expect another attack? What if this was a scouting force or ceremonial guard sent to demand surrender, and the real Angelic army is a lot larger?

Nobody knows. Everyone is rearming. Nuclear power plants all over the world are shut down to make fuel rods available for the production of more ICBMs.

In a strange way, Armageddon had been successful, bringing back war, death, pestilence and famine. In that sense, the angelic host has won a pyrrhic victory.

Power rationing due to nuclear fuel redirection; food rationing due to a nuclear winter guaranteeing poor crops for the next two years; fuel rationing due to a large part of the Middle East being too radioactive for oil extraction.

Yet, like an anthill that was stepped on, society squares its shoulders and rebuilds itself, hesitantly first, then with vigor. Grandmas teach their grandkids about Depression-era poverty recipes. Power rationing brings back the custom of neighbors bringing potluck dinner to the one house with a working TV to watch it together. Kids and adults kicked off game consoles rediscover street soccer and hockey. Data centers shut down, forcing the web to shed ads and go back to simple text and images.

Meanwhile, laboratories across the planet study angelic flesh, blood, hair, feathers, clothing, weapons, armor. Shuttered factories are reopened to replace military materiel destroyed or made too radioactive to use.

The world's militaries have little more than two months to reload, and, helped up by a majority of society, they do. But on the 75th day, nothing happens.

Michael has woken up; he is interrogated, by intelligence agents, by scholars. He isn't even arrogant; he is steel-strong in his belief that his God has won, and the evidence of his eyes and ears can be dismissed. He manifests his intention to, once released, walk or fly to the magnificent Temple of Ezekiel that should exist right at ground zero, where in reality is a collection of small craters so radioactive that they can't be approached by man or robot.

The surviving angels are, for the most part, likewise trapped in similar delusions, to varying degrees. There is discussion on what to do with them; a POW camp was a reasonable temporary solution, but now they have largely healed, and they cannot be kept there indefinitely. Medicine has learned much from angelic regeneration capabilities, and there's talk that in 10 or 20 years we may be able to copy it to regrow lost limbs. But... we don't do concentration camps anymore. Never will we again.

Let them try to fly back to their heaven? Give them an island on which to settle in exile, like Napoleon? Systematic medical experiments, since they are not human and not covered by treaties? The debate, in lecture halls, on TV, and in boardrooms, continues.

Now that the spectre of a common enemy has receded a little, and people grow weary of displaying resolve, the world's old balance of power reasserts itself. Old nationalisms buried by common religious identity come back. Theocracies, most of which were based on Abrahamic beliefs, stop existing almost overnight. Conflict, even small civil wars; no major wars, though, as the nuclear powers won't allow it -- the big guns must be kept ready for an external enemy that we now know exists.

The world will change much in the next few decades, but it will do so by human hand.

A retired American general, largely unknown to the public but respected in the military community, even by former enemies, for a long career distinguished by a lack of heroism and an abundance of quietly getting result, makes a proposal: the United Nations shall write a proposal of armistice -- not surrender -- and hand it to Michael for his God to sign at the Temple that he thinks exists at Ground Zero, and if any angels wish to follow him, they may. Any who are sane enough to not follow their general into a radioactive hellscape can be granted conditional release, each in a separate location. This would solve a number of problems in one go, from adherence to international diplomacy norms, to the logistics of where to put the remaining Angels, to the ethics of medical study, as those remaining would be well-compensated for their cooperation. After a few days of percolating through the bureaucracy, the proposal is accepted, and a team of scholars is formed to write, in ancient Semitic tongue, such a proposal. The old general will deliver it to Michael himself.

Under the diplomatic flourishes, the proposal is simple: leave humanity alone. Never return, and we won't hunt you; come back in anger, and we will destroy you again. Linguists have gone through a lot of trouble to present the document as an armistice between equal powers, not as the ultimatum it actually is. There was protest about that at the United Nations, but ultimately, the wording passed.

Michael, having recovered enough to begin flying again, and being allowed to do so within the confines of a former hangar for airliners, is told of the general's arrival. He listens to a brief recount of the old man's triumphs and tragedies, but has nothing to say. Then: "I will listen to the pleas of this man."

The general is ancient, closer to 100 than 90; his skin is dry; he walks with a cane, and an aide is discreetly nearby to catch him if he falls. He has seen things, done things. He was born with biplanes and retired with space shuttles. He's been the good guy and he's been the bad guy, many times. Michael, four times his size, looks down on him with contempt, then sits and locks eyes with him, and his expression subtly changes; the archangel acknowledges the old man with a nod.

The general presents the document without a word, and Michael reads it with supernatural speed.

"Your body fails you, General. You will soon face judgment."

"And I will do so with a clean conscience."

"Your ancestors would have begged me for mercy."

"They're not here. I am. And I don't beg for mercy, I offer it. We can go our separate ways."

"Were our positions reversed, our wrath upon you would be eternal. It may yet be."

This is the first time Michael has acknowledged a defeat, even obliquely.

"Son" the general tells to a being a thousand times his age "you are a formidable warrior, but you're a lousy soldier. Warriors crave war. Soldiers crave the moment when it's over and they get to go home. You have been a loyal warrior for your God. I respect that. Now be a good soldier to those serving under you. March them home."

The old man hands a custom made pen, archangel sized, to Michael. The armistice proposal is in two copies. Michael signs both -- it's a receipt of sorts -- but adds a phrase, in ancient cuneiform.

The cameras zoom in, a translator translates, the general's aide is informed via earpiece, and the general is told by the aide's whisper. Michael wrote "It is written that in a thousand years, judgment will be upon this world."

The general nods, smiles, turns around, and commands that the hangars be opened. Michael takes off, majestically. A flock of angels, with Michael ahead, leaves for Ground Zero. A few angels remain. By the time anyone thinks of countermanding the order, they've already left.

"This went better than I thought. But, I did go to Sunday school, so I figured it'd be coming." the general says to the aide, the "man in black" we saw earlier. He ignores his earpiece, a hundred voices are shouting into it about what Michael wrote. They have a few minutes to talk before the place is swarmed with diplomats demanding an explanation.

"How so, General?"

"A sword of Damocles, for a thousand years, to keep humanity together. With any luck... I'm now out of a job."

The aide nods. When the other military and diplomatic brass finally swarm the old general to ask him why he took action without consulting anyone, he walks off through a maintenance door.

He takes off his earpiece, and puts a different one in his ear; it looks retrofuturistic. "Central, General Van Doorn has performed almost exactly as we calculated. Pending a report from Ground Zero, case closed."

The flock of disarmed angels make their way to the wasteland, flying swiftly; they are followed by drones until the interference from radiation is too much for the drones' instruments, then by long-range cameras. They disappear in a radioactive dust cloud, and are never seen again.

For a day, the news is abuzz with the old general's conversation, which was released to the public, and Michael's apostille upon the treaty. The general's opinion that humanity must remained united and vigilant for another thousand years becomes common wisdom. The democratic nuclear powers pledge availability of much of their arsenal to a global defense initiative, and the non-democratic nuclear powers follow suit, lest their people revolt. Almost overnight, the United Nations goes from a joke about ineffective bureaucracy to a real forum where nations can try to solve their disagreements.

Michael's not-so-accidental threat has not banished war from the world, by any means, but it has put it into perspective.

A few weeks later, General Van Doorn passes away peacefully. A few months later, a remarkable construction by the Long Now foundation, a giant fully mechanical automaton, powered by a giant mainspring and controlled from outside the danger zone by wires like an early torpedo, deposits the monolith in the middle of ground zero, along with a steel coffin containing the remains of the Archangel Raphael and of the old general.

A number of such monoliths are erected in the world's capitals; many come with a projector, projecting a millenary countdown on the ground before them.

An epilogue.

Many years later, hardened succulents are beginning to grow at Ground Zero; the monolith is still standing pristine but covered in dust. A desert mouse scurries about in its morning shadow, drinking dew from the plants.

Humanity has long moved past the season of austerity imposed upon it; we see monoliths in Rome, New York, Beijing; they're still counting down, and we see that it's been just past a century, the years digits going from 900... to 899. The cities around them are clean, busy, pedestrian-friendly, with an appropriate amount of greenery and electric multicopters flitting above.

Elsewhere, near a meadow that looks suspiciously like the one on the windows xp default desktop, a small house, and a small vineyard. The house is made of wood, sports a small satellite antenna, and the roof is half Norwegian-style grass, half high-efficiency solar panels. On the porch, rocking in her chair, is an ancient woman, watching her great-great-grandkids play on the grass. She's wearing a comfortable sundress and we see some high-tech life support gadget installed in her shoulder. Through a window we see a photo of the woman, much younger, in uniform, with a medal and a red sharpshooter's beret. Her caretaker brings her a glass of water. The caretaker is one of the angels that stayed -- or maybe a human with wings. He's about two meters tall and wearing a traditional nurse's uniform.

Above, a contrail; it crosses the sky, then abruptly splits in two, one streak white, one grey and going beyond the horizon, indicating that this was a heavy lift air-launched rocket.

This is the original. For the algorithmically padded version see LastArmageddonLMM