Page 33 of Metatron
“And they shall keep doing those. I’m talking about being visible to the public. It wouldn’t hurt if they did a few heroic things and got seen doing it,” the president explained. “We can talk further about this at our meeting. I’ll have my staff set aside a time for us to gather. Bring a few more of your angel friends. We might need them to convince my generals.”
Judging by Metatron’s face, he did not appreciate the brush-off. I grabbed his arm. “Thank you, Madam President.” Despite the rough start, this meeting had gone better than expected.
“Don’t thank me yet. We still have a military complex to convince.”
We left the same way we came, and only moments before a secret service helicopter landed on the roof to extract the president. Zilla beamed us back unharmed, but we didn’t celebrate—naked—yet. Metatron called a meeting with his choir, which included a few human faces.
He told them of our upcoming meeting with the president. Asked for status reports on everything else. We heard the Atlantis had begun loading passengers and already was starting to have issues with people trying to sneak past the perimeter set around the massive ark, which covered a massive space and yet cast no shadow. Its exterior could blend in so seamlessly it felt as if the sun’s rays hit your face. The only reason you knew it was there? It occasionally turned off the camouflage and hovered. Long enough for people to take pictures of Atlantis. Long enough for those in its shadow to tremble. If it fell… Smush.
Was it wrong I kind of wanted to see it? I didn’t ask Zilla, mostly because I didn’t want her to be jealous if went to see the ark.
We discussed what it would mean to work with the American military to form an offense. We’d have access to much heavier artillery, if the generals didn’t shut out the angels. We also had to contend with the possibility the missiles would fail. If the nukes didn’t blow up Hell, we had to be ready to fight when Hell reached Earth.
The observation was made once again, this time by Eoch, a grim angel. “We need more than just the Americans fighting. What’s happening with other countries?”
“Each one is different,” Metatron grumbled. “Efforts to have them listen have been met with ridicule.”
I snapped my fingers. “You need legitimacy. Someone to declare you’re real and not fake.”
“This disbelief in humans…” Tron shook his head.
Lilith, who’d shown up for the meeting with Aziel, had a perspective from her specialty in communications. “In this age of social media, you need something to make you go viral. Something like the most followed religious figure in the world.”
I gaped before blurting out, “If we convince the pope that gets us a foothold in all kinds of places.”
“Once we’ve got that locked in, we can work on other religions,” Lilith offered as a solution.
“How do we arrange a meeting?” Tron asked.
“Have you reached out at all to the Vatican since your arrival?” Lilith queried rather than replying.
“Overtures were made and rebuffed. I believe some of those exact words were Begone Satan.” Metatron looked utterly nonplussed as he added, “I chose to not waste my time.”
“Well, we’ll need to do something about it now. Having the pope and then the president declaring the angels real will trend, and other countries will be looking to their leaders.” Lilith’s hypothesis.
To it, I added, “Even if other governments don’t join us, they’ll be looking to protect the planet. Their people will demand it.”
“We mustn’t forget that some will think they can bargain with Hell.” A soft reminder by Metatron that Jesus Christ betrayed them.
The meeting ended, and everyone filed out. When I would have, Tron held me back, and I thought it was to further talk about the upcoming invasion until my back hit a wall and his mouth was on mine.
Needless to say, I came quick again. I swear the angel only had to touch me and I was halfway to orgasm.
Those orgasms were the only good thing to come out of those next few days. We spent the days waiting for our meeting preparing and dealing with increasing issues as we went viral but not in a good way.
Images of Atlantis had begun trending, along with the word apocalypse. It led to a mass exodus to that desert location. Drones and even a spy plane from across the ocean, which was shot down, made it dangerous, and so the ark removed itself. Operation Eden Two stalled as they sought a new location to bring people in secret.
To counter the apocalypse trend, the angels began making appearances, the most noteworthy being when Munna saved a child from a burning building. The image of him striding through the smoke, his wings partially extended, his HALO lit, carrying the little girl went viral. It didn’t help the apocalypse trend but rather amplified it. It didn’t help that the imps had been causing trouble of late. People saw little difference between the angels and them, which bugged Metatron.
“How can they not see we are good compared to their evil?” he’d railed.
Because people only saw what they wanted. Narrow lenses didn’t allow for a wider view of things.
Still, I could only hope as a second day passed that the president hadn’t changed her mind about meeting with us. Would the most recent videos of imps causing havoc convince her? They’d been attacking boldly of late.
On the third day, the summons arrived. Six of us went to the White House. Our meeting with the president—call me Jane—went as expected with only a slight surprise. She indicated that Astaroth, the Hell prince, had approached her and tried to parlay. Luckily, she didn’t choose to pursue that deal and appeared to have her generals eager to fight. The war machine at work. But in this case, we needed it.
The president told a country of millions—and by extension a planet of billions—the coming threat. Even showed some trimmed footage offered to give her some credibility. While she worked on uniting a country to prepare for war, others focused on Atlantis and its evacuation effort—with millions already screaming it wasn’t fair it could only take a select number. I didn’t envy Tamara and Zakai, the pair in charge of Atlantis, their job. Wrangling people sucked balls. But Metatron handled it like a pro.