The Project

“Huh,” Constance said. “Well.”

Everything looked more or less the same as the original. To just about any other being in the universe, it would seem exactly the same. But Constance was an angel, and she had senses beyond the ken of mortals. Something just didn’t… feel right. Like a sock a size just too small.

“You call this, what was it?” she asked.

“Earth-17,” said Ben hesitantly.

“Hm,” she said. “Why not Earth-2?”

“Oh, well, erm…” Ben clasped the ends of his wings and fiddled with them a bit. “It’s the, er, 17th attempt, you see, so, I thought, well, Earth-17.”

“Ah,” said Constance. “Well, it’s nice. I really do love it. You added more flowers to those desert bits and got rid of the wasps, good touch. I gotta ask, though, why are you making another Earth?”

“Well,” Ben said, “the, erm, Flood. You know. The big one. Everyone gets drowned. And I thought, well, the, erm, humans, might need, erm, another world. To live in. You see.”

Constance closed her eyes. “Ben, how long have you been in Heaven, exactly?”

“Oh, since the beginning!” Ben said happily. “I’ve been in Choir! Mostly in the back, I missed a trumpet and I was late so I ended up behind a really tall angel in bass, his name is Francis I think, but it doesn’t really matter, I get lost in the music, the Alleluias, the stars-”

“I see,” Constance said. “So you noticed the Flood… when?”

“Well, there was a memo,” Ben said. “About the Flood. Forty days of rain. We prepared a dirge. “Ooooo Dilivium…”

“I think I know it, yeah,” Constance said. “Did you read the follow-up memo?”

Ben went pale under the glow of his halo. “Follow-up?”

Constance sighed and produced a paper from a pocket in her robe, this one with a shimmering rainbow on it. “Incidentally, have you read any memos since then?”

“Well…” Ben said. “I’ve, erm, been concentrating on the Earth project since then. I didn’t think there would be. Since, you know. Well. The Flood.”

“Oh boy,” Constance said. “Okay, next stop, Records.” She tapped her halo. “Monica? Me. Yeah, I’m sending one of the Choir guys over, he’s going to need a catch-up in history. Can you queue up the scrolls from, oh, whenever the Flood was to now? Yes, the Flood. Noah, arky arky, two by two? Yeah. Thanks.”

She tapped again to chime off and turned back to Ben. “Okay, just head over to Records, find Monica, and you’re all set. Have fun! Brace yourself though, some of it is not pretty.”

Ben raised his wings to go. Then he paused. “What, erm, happens to all this?” He waved around at Earth-17. A bunny hopped through distant woods.

“Well-” Constance began. She was about to say that it would need to be scrapped. No need for it now, after all. Then again…

“Why don’t you hang on to it,” she said kindly. “You never know; we might need a spare. The humans keep fiddling around with nukes lately.”

“What?”

“You’ll get there. Oh, and Ben?” Constance said, sniffing.

“Yeah?”

“You’re going to want to switch those percentages of oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere back around. Otherwise this thing’s gonna devolve into a monster hellscape with fires everywhere and giant roaches and all. Not fun.”

“Oh,” Ben said. “Okay, yes ma’am. I’ll do that. Right away.”

“Yeah,” Constance said, trying to stifle a laugh. “Do that.”

He raised his wings again. “Erm-”

“Records is that way,” Constance said, pointing.

She watched as he flew away, sighing again. Choir kids. It wasn’t even the first time.