BZRK: Apocalypse

“Now watch.”

Bug Man wiped tears and blood from his face and tried to focus. The Pope, but not wearing his tall Pope hat.

Bug Man knew what was coming next.

“This is your work,” Lystra said approvingly. “The man is very healthy, it seems. I couldn’t find a biological sample anywhere. But you got me his cells.”

“My mouff …” He groaned and wept again, despairing. There would be no happy ending for his life: he saw that clearly now. Unmistakably. His lip was swelling. He swallowed more blood; it hadn’t slowed yet. “Why ’o I haff to wash?”

“Why do you have to watch?” Lystra seemed puzzled. “I thought you’d want to see. Look! It’s starting. Look at him staring around, trying to figure out where the bugs are.” Then she sighed happily. “Plus, I suppose I like an audience. Genius unappreciated and all that. Get ready. This is going to be epic. It’s one thing to show people they can’t rely on their politicians and famous brains and all; it’s another thing altogether to say even God can’t stop what’s coming. This will scare the hell out of people.”

His Holiness the Pope stood with the benign expression the world had come to expect and love. It was a sort of half smile, eyes crinkled, hands folded in front of him.

He was bored to tears. He was often bored by these ceremonial events. Although at least this was out of doors, under a partly cloudy sky just brightening to the richer blue of early afternoon from the bright blue of morning.

The Pope sometimes walked in the streets of Rome in disguise. He disliked the fishbowl in which he was kept, always surrounded, always watched. If he was to lead the Church, then he must know its people.

Once he had gone out disguised as a priest. That had ended badly, with tourists recognizing him and crowding around him, twenty, fifty, two hundred people, a mob within seconds. His security detail had had to practically lift him and carry him through the crowd to a waiting SUV.

Then he became more creative: a toupee, jeans, and an “I heart Rome” T-shirt. He was followed on these excursions by Swiss Guards in plainclothes. He had negotiated with them to keep their distance. And they had agreed to stay at least a hundred feet away.

He was considering such a trip for the evening. What a joy it would be to find a cramped table in some little osteria, drink wine and eat antipasto, pasta, and perhaps a nice piece of fish. Watch regular people. Eavesdrop on their conversations.

Then, what? A limoncello in lieu of dessert? A walk by the river? Or succumb to the lure of the beautiful array at some well-tended gelato stand?

It might be his last excursion for a while. The world was going mad. He had been shown the footage of the British prince, the poor young man. Drugs, most likely. But contacts with intelligence agencies around the world suggested that suspicion was growing that something connected it with the self-murder of the American president, the Nobel massacre, the Brazilian president and vice president—perhaps the earlier attack on the UN in New York and even the bizarre tragedy in Hong Kong.

If it was terrorists of some sort, no one seemed to know who they were or what they wanted.

The Pope frowned, realized he was being watched by many eyes, and relaxed into his blankly beatific expression.

Yes, just as soon as he got through today’s event, a tableau vivant of the manger scene. It was a group of Italian children, specially chosen, prepared, and rehearsed. The production was done with some of the biggest names in Italian theater, with costumes from great fashion designers. There would be music.

The Holy Father had managed to get it moved to the morning on the theory that he needed his rest in the afternoon. In fact, he needed to be back at the Vatican in plenty of time to slip out for dinner in the evening.

A small lie. He would confess it and be absolved.

He hoped the presentation was wrapping up. He didn’t want to sneak a peek at the printed program or it might betray impatience. But if memory served, this was the last song, which would be followed by applause, then kind words for the child actors and singers and the adult organizers.

And then, he was out. Done by the afternoon. They’d promised him that.

Perhaps a nice piece of cod. He liked cod when it was not overdone.

Yes, the final chorus! Applause from the thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people in the square. Time to applaud, time to enlarge the benign smile, time to …

The Pope blinked.

Then he frowned.

What was that? What was he seeing? Some sort of … it looked like an insect, a bizarre insect. He was seeing it, but … but it was nowhere around him.

He looked around, puzzled and a little concerned. No one else seemed to see anything unusual.

And now … now another vision. Like a movie screen lit up inside his head, like two of them, really, and both of them showing fantastic insects.

The one insect, he could see its face.… He could … he was hallucinating. Clearly, he was hallucinating. Was it a stroke? He dreaded a stroke; his father had died at age fifty-four of a stroke.

The insect face … It …

“It’s me,” he said in his native Spanish.

Then, as quickly as it opened, one of the windows in his head closed. Gone.

“Ah!” he cried out. “Ah!”

He sank to his knees, and now everyone was looking at him, now the TV cameras and the phone cameras all swiveled toward him, as he cried, “Oh, oh, oh!”

The Pope began to laugh. He began to laugh and laugh and then he was screaming, he knew he was screaming, though he felt no pain.