there?”
The screen was blank, at first it appeared the video link wasn’t working but swirling patterns showed that the cameras were sending footage, it was just that the dust was blanking everything out. What did come through was the audio link. “Well, it’s really horrible Anita. The dust here is so thick that visibility is down to three or four feet. The crew, all of us, are holding on to each others belts to make sure we don’t get separated. Nobody dares take a chance on driving, just down the road from here, an ambulance tried to get to a car accident and drove straight into a utility pole. Took the power out to quite a few houses around here. The wind has slackened a little bit but we have to fight it all the time.”
“Are you all right JiaoJiao? Your voice sounds very muffled.”
“We’re lucky Anita, we were all in Hell a couple of weeks ago and we brought our dust masks back from there. So we’ve got goggles and breathing filters. But, some of the local people got caught in the open and they’re in a bad way. The good news is, people inside seem to be all right, houses built these days are much more dust-proof than the ones back in the 1930s. We’ve telephoned a few local residents and the consensus is they’re doing OK, they’ll just ride the storm out. There’s one old couple just over the road from here who remember the original dustbowl and they’re determined to stick this one out.”
“Thank you JiaoJiao. Well, we’ve just had a release in from DIMO( N) Public Relations. Preliminary samples of the dust suggest that it’s a mixture of Earth and Hell Dust. To find out what that means, we’re going to Norman Baines, Director of Research at DIMO(N). Mr Baines, what is the significance of the mixed dust?”
“Hi Anita, good to talk to you again. Well, this proved that the dust storm is not a natural occurrence. We know that there was a windstorm brewing up today, I think your own weather forecast predicted that, and that somebody opened a portal from Hell and dumped a whole mass of helldust through that portal into the wind stream. That acted as a seed for the dust storm. The hell dust ground up against human soil and abraded it to much finer particles and that set the scene for the storms. It’s the same basic mechanism that was seen in the 1930s dustbowl but the actions taken after that tragedy have prevented similar dust-storms. So, somebody had to find another way to start one.”
“Somebody being Yahweh?”
“We have to recognize he is the most likely suspect, yes, Anita.”
“Well, Sir, that raises another question. Were the 1930s dustbowl his work as well?”
“It’s certainly a possibility although it is more likely that the 1930s storms were normal events and the similarity is pure coincidence. Of course, the 1930s dustbowl may have given him this idea.”
“If it was Yahweh, Mister Baines, what is he trying to do and what do we plan to do about it?”
“That’s two questions Anita. What is he trying to achieve? Well, these dust storms are undoubtedly the Fifth Bowl of Wrath. Revelation speaks of people sitting in a great darkness and chewing their tongues with pain. They’re certainly sitting in darkness and in the 1930s, people choked on the dust and that could be described as chewing their tongues. I’ve been asked by my technical staff to pass out a warning and could I ask your station to assist in this. The dust-charged atmosphere is causing a lot of static to build up and touching a metal object may well result in a severe electrical shock. Also, the spark may ignite inflammable vapor. So, even after the storm passes, a lot of care will still be needed.
“Now, as to what we plan to do about it. We plan to kill Yahweh of course. We’ll get him, you can be sure of that. We’re humans, we don’t worship self-proclaimed gods any more. We tolerate them if they don’t annoy us and we whack them if they do.”
The newsroom staff burst out laughing. “Mister Baines, that is the clearest statement of intent we’ve ever heard out of a Government department. Thank you for your time and patience. Brandon?”
“Political news now. Washington is still reeling from the results of the special election in Massachussetts. Now, over to our correspondent Nikole Killion in Hell who is discussing the implications of the result with the late Senator Edward Kennedy.”
Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.
“Just what is the impact of this storm?” President Obama was terse, it was already being reported that the dust storm that had started in Oklahoma was swinging across the country and would reach Washington soon.
“It’s pretty bad Sir. The problem is that once the dust-storms start, they’re quite hard to stop. Each storm pulverizes the ground into smaller and smaller particles that are smoothed off by abrasion as they are carried by the wind. That means they are easier to lift by the wind and they stay up longer once lifted. So, once the first storm has formed, it makes things progressively easier for other storms to follow.
“Now, as to the longer-term effects, these storms are bad news. They’ll hit agricultural production that’s already been hammered by the weather attacks we’ve been suffering for over a year now. The Oklahoma panhandle is technically semi-arid and its productivity isn’t high so losses there won’t be too bad. It’s the overflow of dust into richer ground that’s the real problem. We were just getting on top of the food supply problem as well and were able to increase the rations. Now, it looks like we’ll have to reverse the increase at the very least.”
Obama’s mouth twisted in distaste for that idea. “That’ll be a hard one to sell. We should never have passed that ration increase. Better to have kept things as they were and stored the extra.”
“With hindsight, yes Sir. But, people need a lift. This long stalemate is wearing the people down. Anyway, back to the dust storms. The real problem was people caught outside by the leading edge of the storm. That contained a very high proportion of Helldust. Helldust is mostly powdered pumice and breathing it is extremely dangerous for first-life humans. We can expect a lot of those people to develop severe silicosis very soon. Since it is our opinion these storms will continue for some time now their formation cycle has been jump-started, we’d better start distributing breathing masks and goggles as well as tinfoil hats. Fortunately, we already have very good masks and goggles in production for the armed forces.”
There was a long pause as the people at the meeting made ‘action-it” notes. “Doctor Surlethe, have you and your teams got any additional information for us?”
“We’re still hunting for a way into Heaven Sir. The information we got from monitoring Michael’s jumps proved to be a bust. I’m afraid we got overconfident with the way we walked all over Satan and his forces; Michael-Lan appears to be a really bright boy. What we are beginning to learn is that there appear to be an almost infinite number of bubble-worlds in Universe-Two. We could start jumping around in them at random but we’re reluctant to do that. We don’t know what we would run into and another war is something we really don’t need right now.”
“We do have one bit of good news Sir. If you like rice that is. ASEAN, the Association of South East Asian Nations, have offered to put 20 percent of their rice production into a common pool to help out countries whose own food production is inadequate.” The Secretary for Agriculture paused and thought quickly. “I don’t say we should call on their generosity now, but it’s a start. And, of course, paddy fields won’t get wiped out by dust-storms.”
“They got hit by the Third Bowl though.” Doctor Surlethe was also considering the implications of the proposed food bank. “But that’s a thing of the past now. We dealt with it. This is the Fifth Bowl, no doubt about that. Just two more to go and Heaven’s pretty much shot its bolt. If we can ride them out, we’ll be in a much better position.”
“What are the next two bowls? Can we prepare for them?”
“The next one is a bit odd. It seems to be just the river Euphrates drying up. Of course, back in the day, the Tigris and Euphrates pretty much marked the known world for those who were writing the fables. So, one or both drying up would be a real disaster. Now, losing one would be more of an annoyance. The Seventh is a bit more worrying. It speaks of massive earthquakes and boulders falling from the skies. The Russians are looking at the last part of that, they have nuclear-tipped surface-to-air missiles that may provide a defense against boulders dropping in on us. What worries us are the Beasts. We nailed the Leopard Beast and saw off the Scarlet Beast. There’s the Lamb Beast and the Dragon to come. Given the way the severity of the threats is escalating, they’re likely to be a real problem. Then, there’s that Israeli rogue sub out there somewhere. We want her dead and dead fast. So does the Israeli government.
“Our guess is that when the Bowls of Wrath and the Beasts have run their course, that’s when we get invaded by the Angelic host. One way or the other, Mister President, I’d say we’re getting close to the end-game on this.”
Chapter Forty Eight
