The Lawless One and the End of Time

by Lonnie Pacelli

  “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m asking Caleb Todd to keep HoloMate channel FFF-29a open 24/7 for government use to provide information to citizens and reassure them that we are getting things cleaned up. I don’t want rogue fake news reports creating even more panic. I’m also dispatching the ethnarchy military, first to major cities across Europe, then to smaller cities. They will gather personal effects, take headcounts of who is gone and who remains, and keep order. There will be people who will see this as an opportunity to loot and commit other crimes. Strict curfews will be implemented between nine at night and six in the morning. Military commanders will be authorized to use whatever force necessary to keep order, including execution. I will coordinate with core service organizations, power, water, and communications to maintain service delivery. Sal, I will need you to get with SynFood and assess production capability.”

  No answer.

  “Senator Carlotta?”

  “Sorry, yes I’ll do,” Sal said. He was on the senator meeting from Mykonos, still on the balcony where Zola was raptured hours earlier.

  Paul continued, “After I’m done here I’ll talk with the other chairpersons around the world to understand their status and inform them of our plans.”

  Paul took another sip and changed his tone from directive to reassuring. “Look, I know you all are probably very scared right now, I’m scared too. We need to channel the fear into action, the nervousness into focus. No one will want to follow someone who looks like he or she is falling apart. If you feel like you need a few minutes to vent, do it with me. Let’s show the citizens we are taking care of things. Use your networks to reach out to your constituents and tell them it will be alright. Let’s plan on reconvening each day at eight in the morning and five in the evening to debrief. Any questions?”

  Nothing.

  “Good. Let’s get to work.” Senators rapidly disappeared from the HoloRoom.

  Paul shifted into gear, doing all he said he would do. He talked with the military commanders who still remained, deploying them to the Europe Ethnarchy’s largest cities. By the time they reached the cities, many citizens had already picked through abandoned property and had started looting deserted businesses. The military picked up truckloads of garbage, personal effects, MDChips. They set up massive sorting operations, salvaging those things which were usable, and burning the rest. Martial law was instituted with strict curfews. Violators were dealt with swiftly, with the military authorized to use force to keep peace. Sal talked with MacLurig at SynFood to assess food production. About half of its staff was gone.

  “You’re still here,” Sal said to MacLurig.

  “And you too,” she said.

  Paul spoke with the nine other chairpersons, none of whom was as composed and deliberate as Paul. His actions in Europe became the blueprint for how the rest of the ethnarchies would execute. He kept to twice-a-day communication with the senate, maintained the HoloMate FFF-29a government channel to keep citizens informed, and demonstrated crisis leadership qualities like no leader in history. The world followed Paul’s leadership, but one region saw the chaotic situation as an opportunity to act.

  Seven Years

  2062

  I T had been a week since millions around the world were raptured. For Ryan, it was a roller-coaster of sadness, disillusionment, anger, fear, loneliness. Hayley’s clothes still lay on the chair in the living room where she sat right before disappearing. He went to Bert’s apartment each day, seeing the piles of clothes, HoloSpecs, and jewelry still in the chairs where Bert, Laura, and JT sat when they were raptured during their HoloBlog broadcast. He walked down the narrow streets in Naples, his favorite gelateria ransacked by looters, melted gelato in the showcase, dripping onto the floor. All through the streets, clothes were still on the ground, soaking wet from a rainstorm the prior day. He wore Hayley’s gold wedding ring on a chain around his neck. His daughter in Germany hadn’t answered her phone since it happened.

  He was the only one in his family still here.

  Through his mourning, Ryan took comfort in watching Bert, Laura, and JT on their Growing Up Autistic with the Winns HoloBlogs. He decided to start from episode one and work his way through all one-thousand. He sat in his chair with his HoloSpecs, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying at things his son and his young family did and said. It was one episode, though, that brought a clarity to what was happening around him.

  The episode started with Bert’s introduction. “Welcome to Growing Up Autistic with the Winns. Today we are going to talk about a spiritual topic called the end times.” In the past week, Ryan had heard the term as HoloMate pundits talked about how the Bible and current events intersected. He didn’t know Bert dedicated a HoloBlog episode to the topic. He turned up the volume on his HoloSpecs.

  Bert continued. “Laura and I attended a sermon on what will happened during the end times and it caused us to do more study on the topic. We want to talk with you about what we learned.” Bert’s hologram took a sip of water then continued. “Without warning, those who believe that Jesus is their Lord and Savior will leave this earth and be taken to Heaven. That event is called the rapture. To those who aren’t raptured, it will look like people simply disappeared, but all their earthly effects like clothes and jewelry will stay on earth.” Laura interrupted. “When we are raptured, we’ll shed our earthly bodies and be given new bodies, bodies that have no blemishes, no aches and pains, and no fabric sensitivities.”

  “That’ll be great won’t it, Laura?” Bert said. “It will be great to not have an aversion to certain types of clothing.”

  “Yes it will.” Laura had dealt with clothing sensitivities her entire life due to her autism.

  Bert went on. “In conjunction with the rapture, there is a seven-year period called the tribulation. There are different points of view on when the rapture happens during the tribulation period. Some believe that people will be raptured prior to the seven-year period, some halfway through, and some at the end of the seven-years. The points of view are called pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, and post-tribulation. Laura and I believe that the rapture will happen at the beginning of the seven-year period so that’s how we’ll explain it.”

  Laura took over. “Like Bert was saying, the rapture starts a seven-year tribulation period. At the beginning of the tribulation, a very charismatic world leader beloved by many will broker a seven-year peace agreement between Israel and its neighbors. This world leader will be highly intelligent, a great speaker, will understand economics and politics, and will persuade millions to love him. During the first half of the tribulation period, there will also be increased strife in the world including war, famine, disease, and natural disasters. These events are known as the seal judgments. There are a total of seven that happen in the first half of the tribulation.”

  Bert chimed in. “The first half of the tribulation sounds bad but believe it or not, the worst is yet to come. At the midpoint of the tribulation, this great leader will suffer a head wound and is expected to die, only to miraculously come back to life. His sidekick, called the False Prophet, will commission the erection of a statue of the Antichrist in Jerusalem. Satan himself will indwell in this leader who then becomes known as the Antichrist. It’s at this point that the second half of the tribulation, or what is known as the Great Tribulation, begins. The first thing the Antichrist will do is break the peace agreement with Israel and its neighbors, effectively disbanding Israel and its people. He will then deem himself as God, and with the help of the False Prophet, force people to worship him or pay the consequence of refusing. Scripture says that anyone worshiping the ‘beast,’ another name for the Antichrist, will have a 666 mark on his or her forehead or right hand. Those that don’t have the mark won’t be able to buy or sell.”

  Ryan paused the HoloBlog and took off his HoloSpecs. This was a lot to take in. He went to the kitchen and poured a glass of wine, and went back into the living room, thinking about what Bert and Laura had described, and wonder
ing how it could possibly get worse.

  Bert continued. “During the Great Tribulation period, there will be an additional 14 judgments, known as the trumpet and bowl judgments. This three-and-a-half-year period will see devastation never seen in history. Millions will suffer and die through man-made and natural disasters. The Antichrist and False Prophet will continue their control over the entire world, with three leaders ultimately rising up to challenge the Antichrist. The challenge will happen at the end of the Great Tribulation and is known as Armageddon. It’s at this point that Jesus comes down from Heaven, swoops up the Antichrist and False Prophet, and throws them into the Lake of Fire. Satan, the one behind it all, is also bound and thrown into something called the Abyss for a thousand years.” Bert stopped to get a drink and let Laura tell the rest of the story.

  “After Satan is bound, Jesus will establish heaven on earth in Jerusalem, also known as Holy City, which will come down out of Heaven. Jesus will then live on earth, where there will be no more death, mourning, crying or pain. Those who have accepted Jesus will live with him on earth, those who haven’t will be cast into the Lake of Fire. The events are described in the book of Revelation, chapters six through 22.”

  Bert closed out the blog. “Laura and I realize some of this may sound hard to believe. Some of you may laugh at it or get angry at us. Others may choose to ignore it. As for Laura and me, this is what we believe, and everyone needs to make their own choice.”

  Ryan took off his HoloSpecs, grieving over what Bert and Laura had to day. What he once thought was a fairy tale was starting to play itself out in real life. If the rest were true, he feared for the world for what it was about to experience but was happy the rest of his family wasn’t there to see it.

  Zaid Rahn

  2062

  Z aid Rahn had a long history of creating havoc in the Palestine region. Raised in Amman, Jordan, Rahn was bred to resist Israel’s statehood. He came from a long line of resisters, beginning with his great-grandfather, who resisted the formation of Israel as a state in 1948. The ethnarchy formation in 2025 particularly roiled Rahn for two reasons. The Palestine region was now governed by Chairperson Chiyo Ikeda from Japan. Ikeda was a very competent leader who diligently worked to ensure all countries in the Asia Ethnarchy were well represented, but in Rahn’s mind she wasn’t Palestinian and couldn’t possibly understand their issues. The second reason was even more bothersome to Rahn. When the ethnarchies were formed, Israel was included under Europe’s Ethnarchy, where it enjoyed its protection from Israel’s neighbors Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt Sinai. Europe’s army was the most powerful on earth, and any military action in the Palestine region could easily be squashed by Europe. Despite being included in the Asia Ethnarchy, the four formed the Palestine Coalition to increase their bargaining power in the ethnarchy and ensure their interests were represented. Rahn was the coalition’s leader, with his singular focus on the liberation of the Palestine Coalition from the Asia Ethnarchy and the annexation of Israel.

  Rahn was meeting with his coalition lieutenants at his sparsely appointed headquarters in Amman. “Now is the time to act. Europe is in turmoil and won’t be able to defend Israel. We need to move.” With the rapture happening a week earlier, the Europe Ethnarchy’s military had been focused on restoring and keeping order. Looting, rape, murder, vandalism, and assault were rampant across Europe. Even with an active military, there weren’t enough resources to control the throngs of citizens taking advantage of the situation. Rahn continued, “Their military is so preoccupied they’ll never be able to devote resources to defending Israel against us.”

  “What about Ikeda?” one of Rahn’s lieutenants asked.

  “What about her? She’s got the same problem,” Ikeda was a close ally of Paul and had been a dedicated follower of his playbook to restore order. The Asia Ethnarchy military was working to restore order in its own cities, they couldn’t dedicate resources to an Israeli/Palestine conflict.

  “If we do this we’ll lose any leverage we’ve got with Ikeda,” another of his lieutenants said. If the Palestine Coalition attacked Israel, they’d be the scourge of the Asia Ethnarchy.

  Rahn paused to think, taking a sip of his Arabic coffee. The brew must have sparked something in his mind. He smiled. “I’ll call Popov.”

  Rahn had met Russia Chairperson Popov several times over the years. They were acquaintances at best, aware of each other but not good friends. Popov, like Rahn, was not happy with the ethnarchy formation and wanted an opportunity to get back at Europe for the perceived injustice.

  “Chairperson Popov, I have a Zaid Rahn who is insistent he talk with you. What shall I do?” Popov’s assistant poked his head into Popov’s office to get Popov’s direction. Popov was a burly, balding man with an ever-present cigar and gruff voice, almost a reincarnation of Winston Churchill. He took a puff of his cigar as he tried to recall the name, remembering him from a summit they both attended years back. He recalled being impressed with Rahn, seeing him as a brilliant but unpredictable leader. He was intrigued.

  “Put him through,” Popov said as he put his cigar in the ashtray on his desk.

  His assistant pulled his head from the door and closed it, then Popov’s phone rang.

  “Yes,” Popov said as he picked up his phone.

  “Chairperson Popov this is Zaid Rahn. Thank you for taking my call. We’ve met several times. I’ve always been impressed with your leadership.”

  “What do you want, Rahn?” Popov was a no-nonsense guy who didn’t take well to being buttered up.

  Rahn was undeterred by Popov’s surliness. “Chairperson, I’m the leader of the Palestine Coalition which includes Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt Sinai. Since the ethnarchy formation, we’ve been irate with Europe because they annexed Israel, our deserved land. Israel is and should be ours, and we want it back. With the chaos in Europe right now, this is an opportune time for us to act. If we do it, we’ll lose Ikeda’s support and have no leverage with her. I want the Palestine Coalition to secede from Asia and join the Russia Ethnarchy after we take control of Israel.”

  Popov was intrigued but also a shrewd negotiator. “Why would I do that?” Popov asked.

  Rahn was ready for the question. “I know how much Russia hates Europe for what they so wrongly did to you back in 2025. Putting Israel in the Russia Ethnarchy would be a crowning jewel for you and a slap in the face to Europe.”

  Popov would love nothing more than to take something from Europe and declare it as his own. The proposal had appeal, but, being the clever politician he was, he wouldn’t appear eager to act. “I need to think. Call me in three days.”

  This was the best response Rahn could have hoped for. “Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.”

  Popov hung up, picked up his cigar and took a puff, blowing smoke rings as he exhaled. He watched the rings dissipate and smiled at the thought of humiliating Paul’s Europe Ethnarchy on the world stage.

  Three days later, Rahn called Popov, who laid out his non-negotiable terms. Popov would not overtly support Rahn’s military action nor would he provide military personnel. Popov didn’t want to be viewed as openly supporting the rogue action. He would, however, help with supplies and hera. Should Rahn be successful, he would then accept the Palestine Coalition and the conquered Israel into the Russia Ethnarchy. If Rahn were not successful, then the Palestine Coalition would remain as a powerless entity in the Asia Ethnarchy with the Europe Ethnarchy breathing down its neck. Failure to reannex Israel was the worst possible outcome, and Popov wanted Rahn to be positive about the actions he was about to take.

  “Do you understand the terms?” Popov asked.

  “I need to talk with my lieutenants, I will call you in three days.” Rahn said.

  “Call me in two days.”

  “Very good.” Rahn hung up. He met with his lieutenants the next day and discussed the proposal. It was a risky venture, but they concluded Europe was in no way able to defend Israel. They decided to accept the pro
posal and got to work on their supplies and funding ask. The next day, Rahn called Popov. “We accept, I’ll send you our list of our needs tomorrow.”

  “Send it today, then I’ll tell you if we accept after we see your list.” Popov loved keeping those he negotiated with off balance, even if they were to become allies.

  “Yes, Chairperson.” Rahn said. He knew he was being toyed with, but he needed Russia too much to protest. Rahn sent the list to Popov, and Popov agreed to supply only half of what Rahn requested. That was fine with Rahn, because he doubled what he really wanted, knowing Popov would negotiate him down. Rahn and his lieutenants met, they would strike Israel in two weeks on September 22, 2062.

  Four Targets

  2062

  I t was midnight on September 22, a warm and dry evening in Amman, Jordan. Rahn and his lieutenants knew the risks of moving forward. Failure meant no food rations, no economic support, and no voice in government. The Palestine Coalition would be a wasteland of forgotten countries left to rot.

  But the reward was great.

  “Are we a go?” Rahn went around the table asking each of the eight to confirm. One after another each gave their “go.” They would launch their attack on the Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Center districts in two hours via air strikes and surface-to-surface missiles. Their strategy was to ambush with force and speed before Israel and the Europe Ethnarchy could respond, seizing control within 24 hours of first strike. Rahn and his lieutenants were confident in their strategy. They didn’t anticipate what was waiting for them.

  In the two years since being elected chairperson, Paul had built a vast and powerful intelligence network. Under cyberintel director Dominic Natalizio, the Europe Ethnarchy had agents working in all ten ethnarchies, building relationships, paying bribes, and threatening extortion. Paul taught interrogation techniques he honed while prosecuting Catholic ministry abusers. He had dirt on every chairperson, only using it if absolutely necessary to get what he wanted. Rahn had been on Natalizio’s watch list for the past year, with one of his agents secretly serving in Rahn’s inner circle of lieutenants. Natalizio knew of Rahn’s discussions with Popov, including their plan to strike Israel, and where and when they would strike. Paul readied for the conflict, activating battleships and aircraft carriers already in the Mediterranean. To ensure it looked like the Palestine Coalition was firing first strike, Paul would wait until the first plane or missile was in the air before launching his sea-based strikes. He could then claim that the Europe Ethnarchy was merely defending itself from the Palestine Coalition. He also knew that Chairperson Ikeda would denounce the Palestine Coalition strike, which would allow him to annex the coalition countries into the Europe Ethnarchy. Because he himself was concerned about those in the senate who might leak information, he kept the military plan on a strict need-to-know basis.