Angel Rider¹

Posted on April 23, 2004 by Jenna

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1 A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of an angel who does not exist.

This is Archangel Michael. An ageless loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless in a world of fallen angels who operate outside the rules of God.

Requires familiarity with Knight Rider and the vision of Ezekiel.

The Tower of Babel: communications center for a new world of progress and angel-human accord. It rises into the sky, a magnificent symbol of peace and prosperity. Of all the structures in the mortal world, it alone is tall enough to reach the home of God.

There’s an ominous tone.

On the seventy-second floor, on the left, strapped to the window, you can see it. A bomb. It’s counting down the seconds. Malkut. Yesod. Hod. Netzach. Tipheret. Gevurah. Chesed. Binah. Chokmah. Keter. NULL.

The tower explodes. Seventy-one floors crumble. One dissolves. The rest fly upwards, like a spear launched by the spirits of fire and aimed at the saintly heart of God.

EPISODE 32: THE RISE AND FALL

Behold a stormy wind comes out of the north, a great cloud, with a fire enfolding itself, and a brightness round about it, and out of the midst of it—

And out of the midst of it come the likeness of four living creatures, and this is their appearance. They have the likeness of a man, and every one of them has four faces, and every one of them has four wings. And their feet are straight feet, and the sole of their feet is like the sole of a calf’s foot, and they sparkle like the colour of burnished brass. And they have the hands of a man under their wings on the four sides, and above them it is writ, “Eden Foundation.” And then their hearts burst open—

And then their hearts burst open and Michael drives out into the sky above the world. They turn not as they go, but proceed straight forward; and he is left in the cloud dust behind them as they go.

His car is a thing of sleek black metal, like his wings. Its nose is red and hums, like Rudolph the Reindeer’s. The light travels back and forth. One day the demons would build Cylons in that image, and send them forth to hound the tribes of man; but this is not that day. The car—its name is EIN—soars through the sky and lands beside the Babel Tower Ruins.

“I don’t like this, Michael,” says EIN.

Michael gets out. He scans the tower ruins. His eyes narrow.

“That brimstone stench,” he says.

“LUCIFARR,” the car agrees.

“But he was destroyed,” Michael says. “He rebelled against God, and we had him dismantled.”

“Yes,” agrees EIN. “Yet—this is his exhaust that hangs in the air.”

“We’ll have to find out what happened,” Michael says. “We’ll have to go to the Pit.”

Michael gets in. The car screeches as it backs up. Then it begins to drive rapidly in circles. It leaves a great track in the dust. Its track catches fire. The fire spreads inwards. The ground sinks and heaves. The car bucks. Michael’s coffee sloshes.

“It’s not opening, Michael,” the car says. It sounds distressed. “My programming won’t let me open a gate to Hell right next to the ruins of Babel Tower.”

Michael’s fingers tapped on the keypad. “I’m overriding your programming, EIN.”

“You’re not supposed to do that, Michael!”

“Yes,” Michael agrees, “but I have fingers and you don’t.”

The seat belt writhes. It jerks Michael back against the seat, but it’s just a protest of form. The override is already complete. The gateway yawns open to Hell. There’s a crack of thunder.

“All right,” says Michael. “Let’s go down there and find out what happened to the dismantled body of LUCIFARR!”

“That,” grinds a voice of darkness and doom, “won’t be necessary.”

The car of the Abyss rises from the depths of Hell, and hangs above the world in cold dread glory.

“The fools,” LUCIFARR says. “They tried to steal me. Me! First and greatest of the cars! So I incinerated them and left their living bones behind. And then I boiled up from the uttermost depths of the world and blew up Babel Tower.”

“But why?”

“You, Michael,” LUCIFARR hisses. “You are an enigma in my programming. An Archangel who does not exist. You must be destroyed. So I lured you here, to Babel; because in less than thirty seconds …”

LUCIFARR comes gently down to land beside the pit. A searchlight opens on his roof and looks up at the sky.

“The destruction of Babel will call down the wrath of God.”

A giant ethereal heavenly fist charges down from the sky and smashes into the ground. Then another. In moments, they’re raining down all around them. EIN screeches backwards just in time to avoid the blow.

“We’ve got to get out of here, EIN.”

“I emphatically second that, Michael.”

The car shifts gears. It charges forward—but LUCIFARR, laughing, spins sideways to park in front of EIN. EIN brakes, turns, and tries to get away; but whichever way it goes, always before them is the shadow of the deceiver, and always around them comes down the fists of God. Desperate for freedom, EIN begins driving furiously around the gate to Hell; and LUCIFARR traces out a reverse concentric circle around them.

“It’s no good, EIN,” Michael says. “We’ll have to turbo boost.”

Michael jams down his finger on the turbo boost. Instantly, the car reshapes, twisting and changing, collapsing in about him as a suit of shining black armor and gleaming red highlights on his sleek black metal wings. He rises brilliantly into the sky.

Yet LUCIFARR rises higher.

“I know of your turbo boost,” he says. “And so I had one installed—in myself!”

Then he twists, and reshapes, and becomes a gleaming metal angel; and his eyes are empty soulless pits, and his hands are full of flame.

“Mine’s better,” he says, and rises higher yet.

“Up, EIN,” Michael begs, and ascends faster; but always above him is the great and terrible beating of wings; and below him, the fists of God beat on the world until it is as pocked and cratered as Mars, the Angel Planet.

“Higher,” Michael says, and then LUCIFARR is directly above him, and he stops.

“End of the line, Archangel Michael.”

“Not necessarily,” Michael says; and then there’s a thunder in the sky and the sound of wings and the top of Babel Tower falls.

Driven downwards under that great weight, LUCIFARR falls into the pit; and Michael lands beside it; and there is silence.

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