30. Journalism
The rising sun paints the desert in pink shades and long shadows. A jeep appears on the top of a dune, then sinks over its crest in a cloud of sand.
There is a screeching noise, a wheel sinking into the sand and turning futilely.
The motor is turned off, then started anew. The screeching noise continues.
A sigh. "Are we stuck again?"
"It's not my fault! If you were doing your job as a navigator…"
"If you were looking where you are going…"
"Well I can't really see behind a dune, can I?"
"And what am I supposed to do with that as a navigator, eh, egghead?"
"Well you can grab the shovel and get us unstuck, for example."
"Hmpf. I may also shove it up your ass. Remind me why we only brought one shovel?" With that grumbling, a figure in a long black and yellow coat steps out of the car and opens the boot. They take out the shovel and start digging the sand around the wheels, taking their time.
"Oh for heaven's sake, give it here!" Another figure opens the driver's door. It's a bald, seemingly young man in white pants and a green jacket with a golden pin on the collar. He takes the shovel and does a marginally faster job at using it while the other one watches with a smug expression.
The one in the black and yellow coat is a demon, a Duke of Hell called Musdur. When the sand is leveled around the wheels, they place a cut piece of carpet in front of each wheel while the one in a green jacket, an ordinary angel named Zadkiel, takes the driver's seat and starts the car.
The wheels turn futilely for a moment, but then get friction and the car moves again.
They get stuck twice more before they get to the massive walls, and pause once more to refill the cooler.
Finally Zadkiel stops the car under the walls and looks up.
"Ahem," he says.
"Ahem. What was the plan for getting there again?"
"I don't think we got that far."
"Riiiight." Musdur opens the door and steps out of the car.
Zadkiel follows, looking left and right along the wall. "I thought there were supposed to be gates here. Four gates, ideally…"
"Uhm. Only I don't see any."
"Maybe on the other side."
They get back into the car and drive along the walls.
"No gate," Zadkiel says when they get to the same place they started from.
"No gate," Musdur confirms.
"We would need a really long ladder."
"Yeah. And a much bigger car to carry it. About the size of a Mack Titan road train."
Zadkiel's eyes shine.
"No," Musdur mutters. "Don't even think about it. Imagine trying to get that thing unstuck from the sand, no thanks."
"What will we do then?"
"Well, let's just ask if anyone's home, shall we?"
"I guess that's an option too," Zadkiel shrugs and puts his hands like an megaphone in front of his mouth.
"Hello?" he calls. "Is anybody there?"
He gets no reply.
"We are from the Escalator! We just want to ask a few questions!"
Silence.
"Are you there, Commander Aziraphale? It's me, Zadkiel! I served in your platoon. You probably don't remember me..."
"Zadkiel? Of course I do, dear boy!" sounds from the top of the wall, followed by: "Angel! We were supposed to stay quiet!"
"I'm sorry dear, but it's Zadkiel and… oh."
There is silence at the top of the wall again.
At first Zadkiel is too excited to register the reason. "Oh, they are there!" he turns to Musdur. "We found them! We really found them! See? I told you they would be fine!"
Then he notices the silence. Musdur is pointing at themselves, their eyebrows raised.
"Ah. Dammit," Zadkiel murmures. "I forgot."
He puts his hands to his mouth again. "We mean no harm!" he calls. "This is Duke Musdur. I know you have a… rather close acquaintance with them, but they were just doing their job, nothing personal! We are both journalists now! Strictly neutral!"
The top of the wall keeps its silence.
"We would just like some answers, that's all! Then we will leave you alone if you want!"
No response.
"We can wait! We will wait, okay? Take your time to think about it! No hurry!"
He waits a while longer, but when no reply comes, he sighs and sits down in the car.
Musdur joins him after a moment. "So. Nice mess up. What now, egghead?"
"And whose fault is it? You should have stayed in the car! Now we wait."
And they wait.
As the sun travels across the sky, they move the car along the walls to stay in the shade. Zadkiel has the feeling that someone is moving along with them at the top of the wall, but is maybe just imagining it because he can't really sense any presence through the no-miracle field that surrounds Eden.
This is not the first time they have ventured into the desert. They are prepared, with pieces of carpet to put in front of the tires if the car gets stuck and a shovel for the same reason - but only one, to fit more supplies into the light 4x4 jeep. Because in the no-miracle field, their bodies need water and nourishment.
They share sandwiches and drink the water from the bottles in a big cooling container, as sparingly as they can.
"This is pointless," Musdur says three days later, when they are running out of both. "We should just leave them alone, clearly they don't want to talk. Ah, and we have the last two sandwiches. Ham and cheese or avocado?"
"Avocado."
"Excuse me, you have cheese?" a voice sounds from the top of the wall.
Zadkiel almost drops the sandwich that Musdur just gave him. "Uhm. Yes. Want some?"
There is a long silence.
"How about wine?" another voice asks.
"Sorry, no wine. But we can get it, if you want!"
Another long silence.
"No, cheese is fine."
A rope ladder is thrown from the top of the wall, but not lowered enough to reach the ground yet.
"So, our conditions. You stay on the outer side of the wall. We'll make a platform for you, but try anything and it drops down."
"Fine," Zadkiel agrees.
"Second. No photos, no recording. You give us all your cameras, phones and everything else that can be used for it and you are not getting it back." Zadkiel recognizes the speaker's voice as Crowley's.
"No writing, either," Aziraphale adds. "If you want answers, you'll have to remember them."
There is silence on Zadkiel and Musdur's side now as they are debating the condition quietly.
"Agreed!" calls Musdur after a moment.
"And third," Crowley continues, "bring the cheese. No cheating."
"The ham too."
"Right, angel. The ham too."
"Here's the whole sandwich," Musdur raises it in their hand.
The rope ladder is lowered and Zadkiel takes the sandwich and starts climbing first.
While he does, a little balcony-like construction slides down from the top of the wall.
Zadkiel reaches it and climbs inside. It's made of wood and secured by a rope bound on the other side of the battlement. He understands quickly that the line of the no-miracle field must run there. If they try anything, the rope gets cut and the balcony crashes down. He wonders if his corporation would survive such a fall.
They are waiting there, an angel and a demon, side by side. Looking much better than last time Zadkiel saw them. Their wings are out, ready to take off at any moment. They are wearing clothes similar to those he saw many times on the archive photos and Earth surveillance records, although some shades and materials are a bit off and Crowley is not wearing sunglasses, his serpentine eyes fully revealed and gleaming dangerously.
"Don't cross that line. Put the sandwich and all your recording devices on the tray," Crowley says in a business-like tone. There's indeed a golden tray prepared on the balcony, laid just across a line marked with red colour.
Zadkiel thinks it a bit too paranoid, but then realizes that if Satan and all of the Upper and Lower management is hunting for you, being paranoid is very reasonable. Suddenly he's starting to doubt whether they will get out of this alive. He doesn't let those thoughts show, though, just obeys and steps back.
Musdur enters the platform at the same time and takes out the smartphone and microphone from their coat pockets.
Aziraphale tenses with the sight of the demon, his breath getting faster and shallow.
Crowley takes his hand reassuringly. "It's all right, he said they were just doing their job. I don't even remember them."
"But I do," Aziraphale murmurs, but then takes a deep breath and relaxes a little, pressing Crowley's hand.
Crowley reaches with his other hand and pulls the tray to their side behind the red line.
"Careful, I just bought that camera. It got a 26.2 megapixels full frame," Zadkiel mutters.
Aziraphale watches the things on the tray and seems a bit unsure about which one is the camera. "Uh, alright?"
"Now. Explanations," Crowley interrupts. "What the heaven are you doing here, how the hell did you find us and what the fuck is the Escalator."
"Well… that's a rather long story, actually," Zadkiel says. "So, remember the War, right? I've been in the Flaming Sword platoon, you see, and…"
"Cut it, egghead," Musdur snarls. "It was these want ads about a job in the torture department that were all over Hell…"
"...and when that censored version of the thing was shown on all the screens in Heaven, I just knew there was something off about it…"
"...something off about that torture, but I just couldn't put my finger on why…"
Aziraphale is pressing his temples. "Gentlemen, please! One after the other. Zadkiel, do you mind starting? I am familiar with the War, so from that censored show, if you don't mind."
And so Zadkiel speaks and then Musdur speaks until the moment where their stories align.
Aziraphale and Crowley listen and sometimes it looks like it's too much, too raw, their hands seeking each other, pressing so hard that it looks painful (but it's not; invulnerability spell, Musdur remembers), their wings touching in a way that it makes Musdur feel some strange things (that they now understand better thanks to Zadkiel and working for an independent medium). But they listen and ground each other and reassure each other with touch and don't interrupt the unlikely pair of narrators.
"So I got the tapes and a few copies of the latest issue of Infernal Times, and after the next episode of the show… and it was a bad one, with Aziraphale crying and saying what a terrible angel he is but it wasn't on the tapes from below so I assume it must have been taken above while my colleague here was busy with torturing Crowley…"
"Yes," Aziraphale says quietly.
"Thought so," Zadkiel nods sympathetically. "You were already gone by then, but Heaven was quite behind with the show, the censorship must have taken a long time. Well, I mixed the newspapers between the Celestial Observers, but I had to somehow tell the truth to our platoon. They were all really confused and sympathetic, but the idea that the Archangels had been lying to us had not occurred to them. If I hadn't met with Musdur, I wouldn't have believed that either. But I managed to find a service on Earth that burns the tapes on DVDs and we watched those in little groups when Caliel had a solo shift in Earth surveillance… remember Caliel?"
"Of course," Aziraphale nods. "So she's working in Earth surveillance now? She always had great attention to detail."
"Well, actually she's doing politics now, but I'll get to that later. It was quite a lot to take in, you know. For 6000 years you believe that your superiors actually… I don't know… care. That they wouldn't lie to you or use you as they see fit… and then you find out how much they have been twisting the truth for their own goals."
Aziraphale nods sympathetically. "Yes, I can imagine."
"There were some who just wanted to storm to your rescue before the video was over. I had to forcefully sit them down and explain that you somehow… rescued yourselves. That was really impressive, Commander, took us a few rewatches to figure out what actually happened."
"Who? Ah, you mean me? Well… thank you, I guess…" Aziraphale blushes a little and Crowley smiles proudly.
"Yes…. well, they couldn't storm to your rescue, so they wanted to storm the Archangels' office."
"Uh-hm," Crowley mutters. "Not a good idea."
"Yes, that's what Caliel pointed out too. She said we needed more angels on our side to even attempt something like that. And somehow it went from there…"
"How somehow?" Crowley asks a bit skeptically.
"Infernal Times was full of speculations and theories about the two of you, so when it... somehow ... started showing up in Heaven, even those who were going to burn it with holy fire did take a peek before. More people started to carry the Flaming Sword insignia, not just those from our platoon… I hope it's alright?"
"Yes. Yes, of course, dear." Aziraphale nods, a bit stunned by it all.
"Good, good. Because then we leaked the videos on the Ætherealnet and even more angels started to carry them."
"Ah," Aziraphale says faintly.
"And Infernal Times was not enough, even when I started writing for it under an alias. The demons were curious about the explanation for what they saw as well. So we put together a small team of a few angels and demons and founded the Escalator. The first truly neutral journal."
"Wow. And nobody ripped out your intestines for it?" Crowley asks.
"There were a few incidents. But we've got journalist passes now."
"Ooooh-kay," Crowley nods, but doesn't seem like he knows what the angel is talking about.
"For a new body," Musdur supplies. "Abridged paperwork."
"Well, that's handy, I guess," Aziraphale says. "But really, the Archangels? They're allowing it?"
"If they didn't, it would seem like they have something to hide."
"They certainly do, though."
"They do have their own version for everything, of course. That's what the Celestial Observer is for. Many still believe what's written there."
"Oh," Aziraphale murmures faintly. "It's… strife in Heaven, then? Because of us? Of me? I did not want this…"
Crowley wraps him closer in one black wing. "They brought it upon themselves."
"It was long overdue, if you ask me," Musdur says. "They're going to have elections soon, it's gonna be fun."
"Elections." Crowley tastes the word like the first mouthful of a suspicious meal.
"Yes. Caliel is leading the Flaming Sword party."
"If she wants to win, she should change that name," Aziraphale murmurs.
Crowley glances at him, but doesn't say anything to it. "But… the Archangels?" he asks instead. "In Hell you could climb the ranks, sure, but I thought in Heaven they were given?"
"It's a title, not rank," Aziraphale explains quietly. "You know, like captain can be a rank under the mayor, but also the Captain of a ship. Gabriel's a seraph, for example. Sandalphon is a regular archangel and that's even below principalities, but he got the Archangel title for his… uhm... merits."
"I see," Crowley nods thoughtfully. "Well, it's a better solution than a bloody revolution, and I know what I'm talking about."
Aziraphale nods and absently rubs his wrists.
"Will you give us your version of the story, then?" Zadkiel asks. "For the Escalator. It might help to sway some undecided voters."
"Strictly neutral, eh?" Crowley smirks.
"Well, neutral on the Heaven-Hell axis. There's a complete archive in that tablet," Zadkiel points at the heap of gadgets on the golden tray. "You might get a better idea from that. We have weekly double pages on empathy and understanding different feelings for demons and columns on human culture and arts for angels. We even got some human correspondents recently."
"That, and a lot of politics," Musdur admits.
"Right. So you want an interview with us to help your cause, yes?" Crowley asks suspiciously. And if Heaven is like this, what's going on in Hell?"
"Nothing much," Musdur admits. "It seems that God doesn't really care for the political situation in Heaven, so things can change, if there is will for it. But we've got our Boss right there. Questions are allowed, so he lets the Escalator be, but nobody would dare to cross Him."
"I see," Crowley says quietly, words like stones sinking into a bottomless chasm. "How did you even find us here?"
"We limited the search to Earth," Musdur explains. "There was a huge search from Hell's side…"
"...not from Heaven's because officially you haven't escaped," Zadkiel interrupts.
"Yeah. Just the Archangels. But demons popping everywhere. After they searched the whole planet, they assumed you were somewhere in the stars and focused their attention there. It has mostly died down already, they got bored of it. But we thought you wouldn't leave Earth. If your presence wasn't felt anywhere on it, it had to mean you were in some isolated bubble of reality… found it or created it. You weren't in the Tower of Babel, so it was either Atlantis or here. Took us a few months to find the right desert and the way here. You were the only ones who have actually been here and knew where this place is."
"Not anymore," Aziraphale whispers, more stones sinking into some dark place.
"Well, there was also some speculation about you being dead, actually," Zadkiel adds, not noticing the tone. "It wasn't clear from the video, but it looked a bit like hellfire that you got burnt with, Commander. Caliel thought that Crowley would seek holy water for himself if that were true. She thought it was very romantic."
Crowley makes a disgusted face.
"But then we did an interview with a demon who was at your trial, and he confirmed that you are immune to it."
"Yes, we are," Crowley nods slowly, with his best poker face. "So the search died down already? They gave up?"
"Well… Lord Beelzebub is still looking," Musdur says. "Rumours are that Boss is keeping them on a short leash."
"Not doing anything Himself," Crowley murmures. "Typical. So, nobody would have found us. If you two hadn't come looking for a story." He wipes his face with his hand, not hiding his frustration. "Are you aware of what happens if you reveal that you know where we are? Are you aware of what He will do? First to you, if you refuse to tell Him, and then to us?"
"We won't endanger you," Zadkiel says hastily. "Trust me, please. We won't reveal we met you. We will make up another source, make it perfectly safe for you. We would be going against ourselves if we allowed your capture."
Aziraphale and Crowley exchange a look, tired and knowing. They are thinking about causes for revolutions, about martyrs and icons. But Zadkiel and Musdur don't know anything of that, they haven't been around humanity for so long.
But then Aziraphale looks somewhere beyond the walls of Eden and Crowley follows his look. They relax a little as some quiet understanding passes between them. Tentatively, Aziraphale nods.
Crowley sighs. "Fine. We can answer a few questions." He conjures two chairs and a cup. "Tea, angel?"
Aziraphale sits next to him. "Thank you, dear. But we are being impolite to our guests. Would you like some tea as well?"
"No, we are fine," Zadkiel replies hastily, still feeling slightly paranoid about their chances of getting away with the interview. The sun is high in the sky and he is thirsty watching Aziraphale sipping the tea, but he finds it safer to not accept.
He clears his throat. "So, tell us your perspective of the cancelled Apocalypse, please. Why did you think there doesn't need to be a war and what did you do to prevent it?"
They tell him, answering the questions as well as they can. It is nice, having someone who listens. Someone who cares about their opinions. It is flattering, being recognized.
Some questions they avoid by talking around (Z: "How did you get the idea to have the Antichrist raised by humans and use Warlock Dowling as a ruse?"), some they don't answer (M: "How would you rate the torture that has been administered to you, and the individual torturers?"), but most they answer honestly, having nothing to hide anymore.
It's almost dark when Musdur and Zadkiel thank them for the interview and take their leave.
An angel and a demon are standing on the walls of Eden, watching a jeep disappear in the distance between the moonlit dunes.
"You missing the world?" Crowley asks quietly.
"A bit," Aziraphale admits. "The humans, mostly."
"Yeah… And the ducks."
"But we can't return there and I don't mind. You are my world."
Crowley smiles, pressing the angel's hand. "And you are mine."
"Still… it was nice to talk to them, wasn't it? Zadkiel is a good lad and it seems that Musdur isn't as bad as I thought, either."
"Yes. A nice talk."
Aziraphale sighs. "It's almost a pity they refilled their water bottles from the Lethe."