“All right, all left, you got me,” the Imp giggled, having stood up near a door. “So, have you found something?”
“So…” perplexedly said the Fiend, continuing to go around and looking at devices and terminals. “Or not so…”
“What’s there?” the Imp was curious. “Something of sin-terest?”
“Something, or maybe nothing… One thousand of imps!”
“Aye?” replied the Imp. “Did you call for me?”
“Nay, I am just saying that figuratively as people got used to thanks to our efforts,” bitten the Fiend. “Don’t distract yourself, watch the flanks!”
“I am standing, I am standing…” the Imp confirmed unwillingly.
“One thousand of imps!” the Fiend swore once again, inspecting the control panel. “All inscriptions under buttons here are written in some unfamiliar language! It looks like that thing… an ancient angelic dialect! Did you learn old angelic?” he looked interrogatively at the Imp who was scratching his horn.
“Dork!” the Imp started caustically giggling. “Don’t even know that angelic dialect! I, by the way, don’t know it either. Its heaven only knows how old, no one studies it by now! So we didn’t learn it in our fiery school as well. We were passing it through – I mean, just skipped and moved on to more intriguing topics like how to create sinful thoughts for humans.”
“What’s the hell, imp only knows!” the Fiend swore again.
“No, I dunno know. Ask someone else if you manage to find him somewhere left here! You’ll have to push every single button here and maybe something will even be dug out of this!” the Imp giggled once more.
“Maybe something will open out in this,” continuing to go to and fro between control panels, bitterly answered the Fiend. “Now we are totally damned! We have no charts, they said. You will figure in all out in place, they said. Act according to circumstances, they said...”
“So let’s act like that!” the Imp cried caustically, having run up to one from a vast set of terminals. “Just like that!” and with these words, he punched with own paw a blue button of unknown purpose which was located at the top of a terminal. A lingering sound ringed in the air and a holographic image of some planet appeared in the center of the room. This image was living its own life, displaying the flow of planetary time and actions of its certain dwellers. Several indicators in modern angelic dialect appeared near the planet, including ones named as “Good”, “Evil” and “Future”. These indicators were constantly changing, displaying the total amount of both good and evil, produced on the planet by its inhabitance, and the “Future” indicator graphically represented the most probable scenario for the planet, according to current levels of both good and evil.
“How did you do that?” the Fiend twisted his horn in astonishment. “Interestingly, these labels are written in the modern angelic language. Devices are obviously much more ancient than this thing is.”
“Look, that must be the Earth! I recently was there on a business trip! Look here, little men are rushing! Such tiny ones!” the Imp started giggling, having approached the holographic globe and began examining it in details.
“We greet you, earthlings! If you haven’t yet killed each other, take my advice – don’t hesitate to do exactly that!” the Fiend loudly barked, having approached this three-dimensional globe.
“I bet they haven’t heard you yet,” caustically noticed the Imp, “it’s just a projection.”
“Or perhaps they will hear our thoughts?” the Fiend said thoughtfully. “Now I will send to this tired little man who is coming back home from his work my thought that his wife is a traitress and children are ungrateful degenerates,” and the Fiend pointed with a claw into a tiny image of one of the humans. Shortly thereafter this little man somehow strangely stirred up his head, his face strained, eyes darkened, and with an accelerated gait, he continued moving back home. “It works!” the Fiend burst out laughing. “I said I bet that now this jealous fool will come home and arrange a serious beating for his relatives, and a total indicator of evil will rise up!”
“You are a dork!” giggled the Imp. “It works from anywhere in case the inner spiritual state of a man coincides with our thoughts. That’s universal law.”
“You better tell me how to switch off the security alarm system right here, if you are such a genius!” bitten the Fiend.
“Hell, why do you think that I know that?” the Imp interrogatively looked at him. “If I knew that – I would be invaluable.”
“You would be invaluable if they catch us here. In that case, we will both become absolutely priceless beings – in that sense that handfuls of ashes don’t cost too much because they are useless.”
“I have already told you that I don’t know old angelic dialect!” bitterly admitted the Imp. “You may even call for nine hundred ninety-nine more imps, but it will change nothing! You enrage me already!”
“That’s my professional skill, after all,” hemmed the Fiend. “So, what are we going to do?”
“Let’s think about it tragically. It’s an important function and therefore it should be activated by some sort of a big button, or a switch, or something like that.”
“Very tragically!” the hissing Fiend imitated him, having put out his tongue. “And if we start thinking logically, after all, we just can’t push everything at random.”
“Yes, we can! That worked well with the Earth!”
“You was just accidentally lucky enough not to activate some deadly function,” the Fiend has shaken his horns, beholding how his workmate searchingly looks around. “Though in case of Earth it would be better if you have managed to activate it, after all.”
“Look, it seems that I have found it!” the Imp answered with satisfaction. “Big red button! The biggest button on all of these terminals, by the way.”
“Well, if it’s big and if it’s red, then it must be it! It’s an undisputable guarantee of… something! For example, the fact that it opens a hatch on the floor below us and we both fall down into a light boiler!”
“That’s it! I just feel it!” the Imp continued insisting on his own assumption. “I feel it with my hoofs!”
“And I feel that you are a cretin, badass!”
“I am a badass?! And you, you are… fatass!”
“Whom did you call fatass, you, demon?!”
“You!”
“You are a degenerate!”
“Look at yourself, spineless spawn!”
Burning outright with that internal fire of rage that has been consuming them from the inside from the very moment of own births, recent workmates seized each other, tearing and tormenting. The blow was followed by a blow, claws, and horns stuck into flesh. The Fiend obviously surpassed the Imp in both rage, power and survivability – and after the next uppercut, the Imp was thrown aside, having fallen on the control panel with precisely that big red button, which mysterious purpose has become the source of their conflict. The button obediently carved under the weight of his massive body, and a couple of seconds later as if by the wish of invisible engineer all terminals switched on at the same time, and the door through which these guests have previously arrived closed itself with a noise.
“The procedure of The End is complete. The procedure of The Beginning has begun,” a melodious female voice announced its verdict.
“What have you done, degenerate?!” the Fiend seized the Imp and started shaking him. “You… you activated it! Completely! Now we are truly doomed! Wait for the upcoming guest and find a place for final rest!”