Chaos Theory: A Feel Good Story About the End of the World

by Colin Robertson

  "Is that what it appears to be?" gasped Chuck Todd.

  "I hold in my hands," said the President, "the key to Heaven itself."

  "You hold in your hands the key to the Apocalypse!" shouted Charlie. As he said this, he struggled to lift himself from his wheelchair. His hands shook with the effort, and stabbing pain paralyzed him. As he reached for the device, one of Reverend Duke Norman's acolytes stepped forward to block him. The second acolyte drew a pistol from his jacket and aimed it directly at Charlie. Charlie collapsed back into his chair, caught by Alex.

  "You can't have guns in the Oval Office!" shouted Jim Hornswell indignantly. He then added, weakly, "...or doomsday devices, for that matter."

  The President shook his head sadly. "You never really did believe in the second amendment, did you, Jim?"

  The Secret Service drew their own weapons. For a moment they were confused as to whom to point them at, and consequently waved their guns about in a noncommittal manner. It was Charlie, after all, who had threatened to attack the President, but it was the acolytes who had drawn weapons. On the other hand, the President seemed to be threatening everyone in the world, including himself. Still, shooting him just felt wrong.

  "Put down your weapons and get out!" ordered the President. The Secret Service codename for the President was 'Bubble Wrap', and the agents knew that obeying a direct order from Bubble Wrap was rule number one. Reluctantly, they re-holstered their firearms and backed slowly from the room, eyeing everyone with equal suspicion.

  "Upside... there must be an upside to this..." muttered Jim in a panic nearing mania. This will actually help us with the doomsday prepper vote, he thought, and with any religious nuts excited about the Rapture. In other words, anyone actually looking forward to Armageddon as a day to gloat. Still, he decided, that can't be anywhere near a majority, except possibly in Texas. Even without poll results he felt fairly confident that most people of either party didn't want the world to end or, at least, not their half of it. At that moment, the Chief of Staff's phone buzzed.

  "My fellow Children of God," the President continued, cradling the steel canister like a holy relic, "We are all God's children. As Jesus said on the sermon of the mount, I love you, you love me, we're a happy–"

  "Mr. President," Jim blurted, "I think you'll want to see this."

  The President looked peeved. He jabbed his thumb towards the cameras and muttered under his breath, "Not now Jim. I'm speaking to the world!"

  "I realize that, sir, but something is happening right now that has a direct impact on what you're doing." With that, Jim pressed a button on a small remote control. Hidden panels slid up in the bookshelf opposite the President's desk, revealing the three television screens behind. Jim pressed a second button, and the first TV turned on. "Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?" Jim changed the channel to Al Jazeera showing a live broadcast from a television studio in the Arab Emirates. On screen was a terrorist, looking unsettlingly similar to the President with his long beard and flowing robes, standing behind a podium. Karim glanced down at his notes and continued, "... and to Abbas, and Abdel, who never stopped believing in me and the cause. We did it fellas!" At this Karim gave a heartfelt thumbs-up to his offscreen co-conspirators.

  "What the hell is this?" shouted the President.

  "In yet another twist in this growing scandal we're now calling Heavensgate," Chuck Todd explained, "Jim Hornswell has turned on what appears to be some sort of... terrorist awards ceremony, perhaps?"

  "Thank-you," said Karim, choked with emotion. "Thank-you all. For without your support we could never have reached this day, this wonderful day, this day of absolute triumph!" With that Karim thrust his own metal canister high above his head. Camera flashes strobed the moment. Tears of joy ran down Karim's cheeks.

  "I don't understand," said the President of the United States, staring back and fourth between the canister in his hands and the identical one on TV. "Loose Thread is a People's Choice Award? What does that even mean?"

  "It means, it's a trick," asserted Duke Norman. He glared at Jim accusingly.

  Jim didn't notice. His phone was once more playing Lollipop, the ringtone he'd assigned to high priority Defence Department alerts. "Yes?" he answered. "What?" Jim's incredulous expression silenced the room. "No, put it through to the Oval Office on line one." Jim hung up and stared back. He opened his mouth to say something then, finding no words, simply lifted the remote again and turned on television number two. The screen filled with what was a live feed from a drone helicopter hovering outside Mathias Boltzmann's estate in Munich. The bird's-eye-view showed Colonel Rynard Gruber on the outside terrace, surrounded by a ring of German police. Rynard was shirtless; his body battered from numerous shrapnel fragments and gunshots. His muscular physique glistened with sweat and blood. For all his many wounds, he appeared unaffected. Instead, he moved with the tenacity of a cornered cat, his head darting back and fourth constantly. While a dozen men in blue flak jackets surrounded him, it was clear he would not be blindsided. Despite the untenable odds, it was Rynard who was in control of the situation. In his hands, he clutched a shiny steel canister.

  "Who the hell is that?" screeched the Commander-in-Chief.

  "That is Colonel Rynard Gruber. A mercenary in the employ of Mathias Boltzmann, the arms dealer who originally obtained the canister. So the reports were true. Like us, Boltzmann thought to make copies."

  "We made copies?"

  "Just one, Mr. President. You ordered it."

  "I did?"

  "You may have been asleep at the time."

  "Oh," said the President, nodding. "I do move in mysterious ways..."

  "It was a clever idea."

  "Hmm, that does sound like me."

  "Then that must be the real thing!" Alex exclaimed.

  "Alex's right," said Charlie. "Boltzmann must have sold a replica to Ali Madda and kept the real thing for himself."

  "Not if Carl Weiss mixed them up as also reported, but possibly. If so we switched a fake for a fake," agreed Jim.

  "No! No!" protested the President. "I refuse to accept this. I'm the President of United States! If anyone's going to destroy the universe it should be us! We made it!"

  "The universe?" asked Alex.

  "No, the bomb!"

  "Technically it's not a bomb..." said Jim.

  "Ahhh!" The President almost threw the canister at him. He stopped himself and lobbed a commemorative pen instead. His Chief of Staff ducked.

  "Don't be fooled, sir," shouted Duke Norman. "Everyone in this room is lying to you!"

  "You're in this room," said Jim.

  "Well, yes, but—"

  "He's opening it!" shouted Alex, pointing at the TV. On screen Karim was trying, unsuccessfully, to unscrew the lid of the device.

  "That heathen, he can't get to open it!" screamed the President. "Well, not if I open mine first!" With that the President also began frantically tugging at the canister lid. Charlie, unwilling to risk that the President might have the real thing, tried once more to lunge forward. Again, an acolyte intervened, this time slugging Charlie in the belly. Charlie doubled over in agony.

  "Stop!" Alex screamed as he threw himself at the burly henchman, only to be tossed easily to the floor. Alex attempted to jump up. Charlie, despite nearly blinding pain, grabbed Alex's arm to hold him back.

  On TV, Karim was now alternating between trying to twist off the top, and banging it on the floor to loosen it.

  "Mr. President, let me try," offered Duke.

  "I've got it!" insisted the Commander-in-Chief. The President then sat in his chair, placed the canister firmly between his legs, and began pulling with all of his might. His face grew first red, then purple from the effort. The President then began to make squeaking noises like air escaping a balloon. He paused to rest a moment, panting, "God damn it!"

  "Mr. President," chided the Reverend.

  "I mean, gosh darn it."

  "We may have welded it shut," Jim pondered. "I hone
stly don't remember."

  "He's going to open it!" exclaimed Alex.

  "He's going to try," said Charlie.

  "No, on TV, the German guy!"

  All eyes turned to the first television where Rynard Gruber was now holding the canister high above his head like a trophy. One hand gripped the bottom, while the other gripped the top. The Colonel threw his head back, looked directly at them and laughed.

  "Shoot him! Shoot him now!" Jim shouted into his phone. "No, no, not the hellfire missile, just bullets, lots and lots of bullets!" The order should have come from the President, or at least the Secretary of State, but the men on the other end of line weren't arguing.

  The German Landespolizei opened fire. They were joined by several unseen German snipers, US operatives, and the drone itself. The blistering barrage of bullets boiled the skin on Rynard Gruber's body. All the while Gruber's maniacal grin never wavered, even as he was tossed about like a human lawn sprinkler, flooding the green grass with bright red blood. The force of the gunfire was so fierce it actually sawed his torso in half. The shooting stopped. Amazingly, the shredded mercinazi still stood for several seconds more. Then, like a felled ironwood, the top half of Rynard Grubber crashed to the concrete floor of the terrace. In his hands he still clutched the two ends of the canister. For a moment his lower half continued to stand before, slowly, its knees buckled and the half man sank to a kneeling position. There it remained, still overflowing with blood, flooding the terrace like a gruesome zen fountain.

  "Ech," said Jim.

  The President gaped.

  Duke Norman gagged, covering his mouth with a silk handkerchief so as not to vomit on his suit.

  Charlie clutched Alex's head to his chest, shielding his eyes. The boy was in shock. He'd seen worse in movies, but somehow knowing it was real was different.

  "That was close," said Charlie.

  One of the German police officers stepped forward to reach for the device. He tried to tug it from Rynard's grip but found that he could not. Stymied by what he assumed to be rigor mortis, the officer let go to gain a better grip. Rynard blinked. The officer stared in shock as a final grin traced itself across Rynard's lips. Rynard's hands then spasmed violently and yanked the two halves of the canister apart.

  There was a collective gasp from around the Oval Office.

  Nothing happened.

  The devil light in Rynard's eyes guttered and dimmed to the defeated, distant gaze of the dead.

  The German policeman kicked the bisected corpse to make sure it was finally, truly deceased. He then bent down and picked up the silver container and its lid. Even from the drone camera they could see that it was empty, save for the small note Mathias Boltzmann had inserted in all of the fakes that read simply, "Bang!"

  "Ha! Stupid kraut!" shouted the President of the United States at the television. He then turned and shook his finger at the assembled guests. "I knew it; I've got the real one. Hee! Hee! And you all thought I was crazy!"

  On the other television, Karim and his entourage had their canister on the floor and were busy shooting at it. One of his men nursed an arm maimed by a ricocheted bullet.

  Seeing this, the President turned and started whacking his own canister upside down on the Resolute Desk. "This normally does it with pickle jars!" The Acolytes closed ranks to warn off Charlie or anyone else who might attempt to stop him.

  "The Arab guy has his off too!" shouted Alex, pointing at the screen.

  The gunfire had dislodged the lid and Karim was now holding the open canister and peering inside, puzzled. His men began shouting excited and confused suggestions in Arabic. Seeing nothing, Karim turned the container upside down and whacked the bottom several times with the butt of his pistol. When nothing continued to happen, he threw the canister to the ground and he and his men resumed shooting at it.

  With everyone in the Oval Office transfixed by the TV, Charlie saw his chance. He reached out and karate-chopped the gun from the nearest acolyte's hand. Before the man could react, Charlie then launched himself from his wheelchair, straight at the President of the United States. Too weak to fight, he allowed his momentum to carry him, landing a head-butt directly into the Commander-in-Chief's gut. The President flew backwards into his chair, tossing the canister high into the air. For a moment everyone froze and simply watched as the device seemed to spin in slow motion up to the ceiling. There, it dislodged a chunk of plaster from the Presidential Seal, before falling back to Earth. Duke Norman tried to catch it but tripped over Charlie, who was now on his hands and knees, contorted in agony. The other acolyte reached for it as well, but fumbled the catch with one hand and butter-fingered it with the other. This did, however, redirect the device under the desk. There, Alex dove and caught it by the top, inches from the floor. For several seconds the room held its collective breath. Alex nodded and said, "Got it." The room exhaled. At that moment, the bottom detached from its lid and landed on the floor below with a clunk!

  "I loosened it," said the President.

  Everyone in the Oval Office stared in silent alarm. The NBC cameraman zoomed in. The cameraman knew that, if he caught the end of the world on close up, he was a shoo-in for an Emmy. The world watched and held its breath as the canister bottom rolled in decreasing concentric circles, until it came to a stop. Once more, an astonishing amount of nothing happened.

  "Well, I'll be," said the Commander-in-Chief.

  "Ahhhh!" screamed Jim. The White House Chief of Staff pounced on the President of the United States, throwing him to the ground and began pummelling him. The two men rolled about in a heap, like schoolchildren in suits. The President pulled off Jim's glasses, while the Chief of Staff had his boss firmly by the beard.

  "Yeeee!" screeched the President, who then began vigorously slapping the Chief of Staff's bald head.

  The Secret Service, hearing their master's voice, burst into the room. Assessing the bewildering scene, they holstered their weapons and began trying to separate the two men. By this point, the Chief of Staff had the President of the United States's hand in his mouth and was biting it hard. "Yow!" shouted the President. Reverend Duke Norman began looking for an exit, but found himself blocked by Chuck Todd and his crew. "I have a few questions I'd like to ask you," said the reporter.

  Alex helped Charlie slowly to his feet and back into his wheelchair. Once successfully seated, Charlie closed his eyes to cope with the pain. He clutched Alex's hand. His grip was too tight, but Alex didn't care. Alex was still trying to make sense of it all. "So if it wasn't Boltzmann, or Ali Madda, or The President, who has the real thing then?"

  "It must have been a hoax," gasped Charlie between breaths. "Maybe it stopped working. Maybe it never worked in the first place."

  "But why?" asked Alex. "Why make up such a fraud?"

  The Secret Service by this point had pulled the two men apart. Jim's shirt was open and missing three buttons, and his tie was pulled loose. His glasses, while recovered, were bent cockeyed on his face. The President of the United States was worse off, having lost a tooth and a good chunk of his facial hair.

  "Well," said Charlie, "it was the Cold War. Bluffing was the name of the game. It was a weapon they could never use anyway, so as long as the Soviet's thought we had it, then that was probably enough. Then again, maybe Dr. MacGuffin just had a great sense of humour and it was all a big joke." At that moment, Charlie realized he was on camera. He waved the news crew away.

  "And there you have it," said Chuck Todd. "Was it all just a giant joke? The theatre of the absurd at play on the world stage? Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Perhaps we all are. One thing we can say for sure, things are not looking good for this President going into the midterm elections." Behind Chuck, the President now sat defeated on the corner of his desk. He was hopelessly trying to reattach a dislodged tooth the Secret Service had found on the floor. This was an effort made all the more futile by the fact that the tooth they'd found wasn't his, but rather belonged to Gerald Ford. "Back to you, Lester," said
Chuck Todd, "back to you."

  * * *

  The old woman wandered along the narrow alleyways of the Fluß Ruhr Industrial Park in Germany. She was dressed in layers of sweaters, despite the warmth of the summer night. She pushed the requisite shopping cart issued to homeless persons the world over. A miniature schnauzer trotted faithfully at her heels, pausing to sniff the occasional scent, before hurrying to catch up again. Regularly spaced floodlights created bright pools of light, holding off the weighted darkness from above and joining the places between with shades of grey. The bleak factory-filled suburb of Frankfurt was originally built as part of the rubber boom in the early twentieth century. The park had been a critical component of the Nazi war effort, cranking out tires for cars, trucks, and anything else with wheels. Consequently, it had been blasted to rubble by Britain's 'Bomber' Harris. The park had then been replaced with poured concrete, uncomplicated by any of the character the original factories might have possessed. It would be easy to get lost amid the moulded grey blocks if not for the large numbered identifiers painted on every street and building. Fluß Ruhr Industrial Park was not so much a place, as a system of organizing space.