“I think you might like this Mercury guy,” Harry said. “He’s not your typical Doomsday Cult leader.”

“So,” Christine asked, “he’s not a narcissistic sociopath?”

“Er….” Harry had to admit that he couldn’t make that guarantee. In fact, from the little he knew about Mercury, he had to assume that he was a narcissistic sociopath. Being a narcissistic sociopath was, after all, the major qualification for being on his list of interview candidates for Christine.

“Look, Harry, I’m sure this Galileo Mercury – the name alone inspires confidence, by the way – is one of the new breed of enlightened Doomsday Cult leaders. But I’m just not interested. The Armageddon thing is getting old. Hell, even our readers are getting bored. You’re not even running half my stories any more.”

“Christine, trust me. This is important stuff. We may not run a story on every End Times cult out there, but it’s important to have someone there, in case….”

“In case what?”

Harry changed course. “Okay, fine,” he said, getting up and walking to the door. He yanked the door open and yelled, “Troy! Get in here.”

Troy strode in, looking puzzled but still hopeful that Christine was in trouble. Harry closed the door behind him and once again took his seat.

“What do we have for Christine other than these Apocalypse characters?” he asked Troy.

“I thought she was going to be interviewing that Galileo person,” said Troy, peering skeptically at Christine.

“He’ll have to wait,” said Harry, trying to sound like he was making a sacrifice on Christine’s behalf. In reality, the Mercurians – as they were being called – had just popped up on his radar that morning, and thus far hadn’t done anything particularly newsworthy. It would probably be premature to send Christine to Berkeley at this point.

“Well,” said Troy. “I suppose she could interview Katie Midford.”

“Katie Midford,” repeated Harry. “You mean the waitress who wrote those Satanic children’s books?”

“Young adult fantasy, yes,” said Troy. “She wrote the Charlie Nyx series.”

“Ugh,” said Christine, who was vaguely familiar with Midford’s books. Her objection to them wasn’t so much that they were Satanic as that they were childish and trite. At least that was the impression she had gotten from skimming one of the book jackets and a review in the Times. If she were perfectly honest with herself, she would have admitted that she was not a little resentful of Midford’s success. While Christine was struggling to survive as a journalist, a talentless hack like Katie Midford was making millions from fabricated garbage about troglodytes and vampires. The only thing worse in her mind than the Charlie Nyx-mania that was sweeping the nation was the anti-Charlie Nyx movement that was being spurred on by Christian publications like the Banner.

“Isn’t that whole thing sort of played out by now?” she asked hopefully. “I mean, she’s on what, book five of the series? I would think that by now the lines are pretty well drawn between the pimply, socially inept dorks in favor of the books and the humorless, self-righteous dorks who are against them. Did a prominent dork switch sides or something?”