"What could someone possibly want to page me for?" said Rastaphur, glaring angrily at the little black box that was beeping away, blissfully unaware that it's next beep was it's death knell.

Rastaphur's fist came down, utterly destroying every conceivable piece of the beeper except the one that actually did the beeping. This piece was operating quite successfully still.

"Call Svegtarr," suggested Johnson. Johnson felt like a first-class gimboid since he had put the object of his friend's annoyance into his hands in the first place.

"Why?" asked Rastaphur. "It's not like I want to hear anything he has to say about this---"

"This is tiring," Anubis interrupted. "And in the two minutes we've sat here talking about this, you've completely forgotten that I'm in charge."

Rastaphur ignored him and picked up a phone.

"Svegtarr!" he barked into it. "No, I will not `hold, please'."

There was a pause as the voice on the other end argued with him a bit.

"It's just your boss, nobody important."

Svegtarr's voice continued for another few seconds and then cut off.

Rastaphur placed the receiver very carefully in it's cradle and then smashed the phone violently.

"I take it he wasn't very helpful," said Johnson, risking a beating as usual.

"Helpful?" said Rastaphur. "He was having phone sex on the other line. Helpful is not the word I would use to describe him."

"Something is going on out there," said Anubis. "I shall go find out what it is."

Anubis blew the doors off their hinges and marched out the door.

"Doesn't he know that if he does that too much, it'll be cliché?" said Johnson.

Rastaphur just mumbled darkly to himself and followed Anubis.

Johnson shrugged and joined them.

Walking out of the office of the former Satan, an entirely depressing site greeted their demonic little eyes.

Instead of rows of friendly little computers with devils and demons sitting at them working efficiently away, there were hardened men and women holding spears at the throats of a group of devils and demons confined in a pen and cowering for all they were worth. Svegtarr was the only demon left at his post, and he was so involved at the phone that he was providing his own means of confinement. In the distance, there were screams, but not the screams of the damned, these were the screams of demons and devils and they were horrific. The group of men and women were staring intently at the three new people in the room, the only sound was the sound of a balding man typing quietly away at one of the few remaining computer terminals, quite oblivious to everything going on around him, it seemed.

"Oh joy. The damned souls are revolting," said Rastaphur, surveying the damage with angry eyes.

"And they smell kinda funny, too," said Johnson.

Rastaphur smacked Johnson on the head with the back of his hand.

"I am Anubis, what is the meaning of all this?" shouted Anubis. He was very good at shouting so he continued, "Tell me now or I shall strike you all asunder."

"Actually, I think you shall be unconscious very soon," said one man dressed only in a loin cloth. He held out a small device which produced a large electric shock that knocked Anubis to the floor and, consequently, unconscious.

Johnson applauded loudly for a minute and then stopped abruptly when all the stern faces in the room convinced him his death was imminent.

"Well, he was a bit rude about it, but the question still stands: What is the meaning of all this?" asked Rastaphur. He crossed his arms, and despite the overwhelming number of people in the room who seemed happy to bludgeon him into the next life, he managed to focus his anger into a gaze that could burn through old growth forests, a gaze he focused on the man who had tazered Anubis.

The man in the loincloth looked at an imaginary wrist watch and hurried away.

"And most importantly," said Rastaphur. "Who paged me?"

"Ah, that was me," said the little man sitting at the computer.

He stood up, which only made him a foot taller, and extended a hand to Rastaphur.

Rastaphur shook it gingerly and said, "Well, who the @#&% are you?"

"I'm the leader of this little rebellion," said the balding man. "My name is Bill Isle. I used to be an oil company executive up top-side."

"Why are you doing this? Hell is like it is for a reason, the damned must be punished. You can't just revolt."

"Yes, yes. But are we the damned because you punish us, or are you the damned because you're forced to punish us?"

"I . . . "

Bill Isle walked into Satan's office, Rastaphur and Johnson trailed behind him.

"Don't bother to give an answer, I'm not sure there is one. But really, the important thing to know is that I'm in charge---Ooh, very nice office, this'll do just fine."

He seated himself in the chair behind Satan's desk.

"You see," Bill continued, "when you installed all the computers, I knew something must be up. Satan, in this case," he said pointing to the ceiling. "And when your entire staff got completely distracted by the new toys they had, well, I knew it was time to turn the tables, put the whip in the other hand, so to speak."

"So, what happens to us?" asked Rastaphur.

"Well, I imagine you'll be punished for the next thousand years or so." Bill smiled, pushed a button on the desk and two men came and escorted the demons out.

Epilogue:

"Well, this is kind of -ouch- ironic, isn't it?" said Johnson. He was tied to a post and was being systematically whipped by a robot with a black leather mask and a shirt saying, "Have a nice day."

"How -ouch- so?" said Rastaphur, who was tied to the post next to him and was being whipped by the same robot.

"Well, we set out to modernize hell -ouch-, succeeded, destroying the natural order -ow- in the process, and now here we are being tortured by machines that we implemented."

"Irony is vastly -ow- overrated," said Rastaphur.

"Where did we go wrong?" said Johnson.

"Oh, we didn't. -ow- We did everything exactly right," said Rastaphur, looking upward for a moment.

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it, you've got all the time in the world."

The End

Copyright © 1994 by Robert T. Bakie

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four