by Jeff Kirvin
"You have no idea what's really going on. Everything that has happened on this planet over the last four years has happened because I willed it. I was the one that kept the demons just far enough away from you that you could get your story to the press. I manipulated Satan into tipping his hand before he was ready, letting him fall into my trap. I engineered the collapse of your national governments, knowing you'd have no choice but to embrace my rule. Everything has happened exactly as I intended, and I'm not going to let one insignificant human stand in the way of my master plan."
Michael was very close now, almost close enough to reach Daniel with his good arm. Almost, Daniel thought.
"But now it ends,” Michael said. “First you die, then your inconsequential rebellion. I only hope that now, at the end, you realize which of us was truly right.” Michael began to reach down towards Daniel.
"I do,” Daniel said, raised his arm, and launched his final two rockets.
Both hit Michael square in the chest, knocking him away from Daniel. The concussion of the explosion knocked Daniel flat on the ground, but not before he saw Michael's armor blow apart.
As the ringing in his ears began to fade, Daniel became aware of the sound of cheering human voices, coming from the direction of the giant golden building that had until very recently been the seat of all earthly government. The angels had been defeated.
It was over.
The Dawn of a New...
"Mister President, they're waiting for you."
Daniel Cho thanked his aide and checked his tie in the mirror one last time. Not too bad, he thought. Very presidential.
Daniel had had a very busy six months following the fall of Heaven and the end of the Angelic Jihad. Despite his other flaws, Michael had succeeded where Ghengis Khan, Alexander the Great and Napoleon had failed. He united the entire world under one banner, one government. When the angel died, he left a vacuum of power in his absence that threatened to plunge the world again into chaos.
Once again, Daniel had stepped into the fray. Opposing vocal and powerful proponents of a return to nationalism, he claimed that the idea of a central world government was valid, so long as no single person ran it. Daniel conceived, championed, and eventually sold to the masses the idea of a worldwide representative democracy, patterned after the governments of the United States and Canada. The Terran Republic slowly took form, with the former sovereign nations of the world now functioning much as the states of the former United States. Each sent their representatives to a central world Congress in Geneva. A bicameral legislature took form, but they still needed an executive branch.
Daniel won by a landslide, opposed only by power hungry niche players who failed to win the trust and confidence of the masses that Daniel enjoyed. With Jack Harris as his vice president, Daniel was elected to lead the people of Earth just five and a half months after Michael's destruction. His term of office would be five years, with the possibility of a second five year term. After that, he would have to step down.
Daniel wasn't sure he was ready, but he doubted anyone sane enough to do the job correctly ever was. If he wanted the job for his own sake, he shouldn't have been allowed to do it.
Still, he thought a lot about those that preceded him, or tried to. Not a day went by that he didn't think about Satan and Michael, and what they tried to accomplish.
Satan wanted a world of utter chaos, total Darwinian survival of the fittest. Only through struggle and blood, the demon had said, could mankind strive to be something better. Mankind under his rule would have been reduced to paranoid barbarism, with only the strongest and most ruthless living to fight another day. Barbarians had little use for art or culture, and under Satan most of the finer aspects of humanity, the things that separate humans from animals, would have disappeared.
Michael, on the other hand, put a great deal of emphasis on civilization, cooperating with others instead of fighting them. However, the angel also took it too far. Michael decided to strengthen the human race by breeding out the qualities he arbitrarily decided were unfit. While his ideals seemed nobler on the surface, Heaven quickly deteriorated into a sterile, merciless institution, no better than a thousand dictators throughout the history of mankind. Pure, unquestioned order was no better than pure chaos.
Still, Daniel thought, in their own ways, each had humanity's best interests at heart. Both sought to improve and better the human race. Angel and Demon both wanted the same thing: the continued existence and improvement of humanity.
The very same goal which Daniel now faced.
Daniel turned away from the mirror and walked out the door. It was a sizable walk to the outdoor display stand where he was to give his inauguration speech. Several aides had offered to write a speech for him, but he preferred to “wing it", speaking from the heart. He still had no idea what he was going to say. Flanked by security men, Daniel huffed up the stairs to the walkway that led to the display stand. He was still getting used to the Swiss mountain air in Geneva.
Over the last month or so, Daniel had begun to understand his two immortal foes a little better, and he developed a growing understanding of where they went wrong. Both Satan and Michael had valid philosophies, on the surface. Satan was right; humanity had made its greatest advancements in times of great stress. Michael was also right; it was order and community that made humans people instead of animals.
The problem was that each went too far. Too much of anything is never a good idea, Daniel mused. The angels and demons lacked balance.
Balance had become a very important concept to Daniel recently, so much so that he decided to make the symbol of the Terran Republic the Tai Chi Tu, the Chinese Yin and Yang symbol. Two opposing forces, each containing the seed of the other, in perfect balance. Light and darkness. Activity and rest. Order and Chaos.
Humanity needed Satan's chaos to strive, to develop, to change. Without some degree of chaos, society would become static, unable to adapt to changing conditions.
But humanity also needed Michael's structure and order, so that the changes induced by chaos would have a solid foundation to build upon. Without order, chaos would be a destructive force rather than an agent for necessary change.
Both immortals were right, and both were wrong.
Suddenly, as Daniel heard his introduction and walked out onto the display stand, billions of eyes watching his every move, Daniel had his speech. After clearing his throat he began, his voice determined and strong.
"The destiny of humanity lies between Heaven and Hell."
Copyright © 1997 Jeff Kirvin
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