WHITE SMOKE, BLACK FIRE! c 1986, 2001

       It was a time of antithesis.
       The new millennium had arrived with much fanfare, but little noticeable consequence. For consequence had already evolved. It was the new 'Enlightened Age' to many of high-tech, scientific persuasions; a new 'Dark Age' to those who saw beyond gadgetry and genetic cross-breeding and cloning to the reign of the one who, for all time had been foretold would arrive and reveal himself in the darkest hour as the antichrist.
       Worldwide terrorism, epidemic diseases, a tsunami of moral depravity had washed the world in a gray matter of ambiguity and malaise. The entire global culture had become a cesspool of an amoral value system that could, quite easily, if one were so inclined, be justified in the Holy Book itself.
       In the latter part of the 20th century dramatic changes had occurred in the world power structure. A metamorphosis few even saw, even fewer realizing the future ramifications. The spoils of innumerable revolutions, civil wars, corruption and the fatigue of virtue had laid bare the victim, exposed the body of man to the pollution of power and made him prey to the pull of the beast. Animals all, embattled and embittered, in a battle for survival of the fittest.
       One beacon of hope stood above the swirling sewer of modernism, extending her beam universally, offering refuge to the wanderer, to the lost. The lightkeeper, vigilant through the centuries, began to lose focus. The rays became dimmer as the storm grew stronger. In recent times, maintenance of the lighthouse had been neglected. Cracks appeared in the walls. The once impenetrable fortress on the rock began showing stress signs. The stable gate buckled, the seams became a sieve. The structure was wavering as the waves lashed against her foundation.
       Though crippled and caring, proud and poor, indigenous and infinite, she would not fall. Leaning perilously to port, she wavered on the edge of the precipice. What would it take to topple her? Quite possibly a cataclysmic event that would send shock waves of terror through the foundations of faith.
       As the years, months, weeks and days passed, a nefarious legion waited and plotted for this very consequence which would shatter the total spectrum of the world's structure as it had been since recorded history had begun.
       Details of how were scarce. That is how the legion worked. It took unprecedented wisdom to glean the particulars for goodness was a rare commodity. Still