"I'm going to have to admit I did not expect that answer," Johnny said after a second of complete silence had followed her proclamation. Johnny might have expected some scoffing at the idea just by instinct, but not a peep from anyone on the stage or in the audience, at least not enough to be heard. It couldn't be true, he thought, but the woman had somehow had the force of personality to make it to the stage without being stopped and removed, so something of interest was going on. He wished Alison was in sight, but after briefly locking eyes with her she had disappeared. Looks like this was all going to be on him.
"OK, so Anastasia - is that Russian or Greek? You can't possibly be that Anastasia, unless you are the most well-preserved woman in the world."
Anastasia smiled back at Johnny, and while it wouldn't be visible to the folks at home, Johnny found it to be just a touch too wide. He instinctively shied away from it, and the smile immediately became a normal, friendly one. The image faded and Johnny forgot she was anything but an incredibly beautiful woman. "Of course, I'm not that Anastasia - she was shot then run through with a bayonet. Her share of the royal jewels was ripped from her body and stuffed into some Bolshevik's bag, and her body was tossed on the burn pile with everyone else." She said all of this with a smile and a bit of laughter in her voice, and Johnny began to recoil again. She spoke more appropriately as she resumed and drew Johnny back in. "Tragic tale, of course, for the entire family. The adults had made their decisions to get where they were, but not the poor children." She sighed, and this time not even Johnny noticed her scanning the crowd for reactions. Her smile returned, normal-sized and no longer inappropriate, and she continued. "But my dear Johnny, I am the most well-preserved woman on the planet! Or universe, or multiverse, galaxy, solar system, plane of existence, whatever you choose to call it. I am existence itself - or, I will be in approximately 78 minutes. And for the record, it is neither. They both took it from me."
His instincts for interviewing kicked in, and his concerns melted away. She's been throwing out some pretty wild claims, and he was the only one in a position to vet them, it seemed. Time to dig in.
"You said that before, and I think we may have all misunderstood what you were going for. I think the general consensus is that there is a supreme deity - please atheists, wait until we're done before you write your angry letters to the network - and that supreme deity doesn't change. There may be a substantial disagreement about who that God is, and if they actually exist - fundamentalists, feel free to start your letters about my use of "they" there - but I don't know of anyone who thinks of it as a job that can have replacements."
"You'd be surprised at how many people believe that," Anastasia replied. "There was a novel series that took that exact position a few decades back and did well enough. It was a fantasy story, of course, and not in any way close to reality, but when you sell that many copies, at least some of you humans will believe it."
Johnny jumped on her statement. "You humans? While you are certainly strikingly different from most people I've met, you certainly seem human to me. What do you mean by you humans?"
"Oh, Johnny, you are in for a world of surprise." She flipped her fan open, revealing what seemed to be a large group of people gathered around a stepped pyramid, in the act of worshipping what looked like a humanoid panther. She fanned her face for a moment, and a scent began to waft through the room. Much of it traveled to Johnny, and his eyes glazed over slightly before clearing again. "Do you really think I'm just human?"
Whatever the scent was, it was doing things to Johnny that he hadn't expected. Lust, love, adoration - he didn't know which it was, but he felt it coursing through him beyond anything he had ever felt. The death of his father, the thing that had propelled him to become who he is, felt like a minor experience compared to the emotion taking over his brain, removing his ability to think. He wanted to fall to his knees and worship, to throw everything aside and exalt her. Human? Of course she wasn't. She was a goddess in every sense, in every move. He needed to-
The fan closed and rapped the desk sharply again. Johnny shook his head slightly, and his mind cleared up, allowing him to collect himself. "No time for that, Johnny, I need you to focus." She slightly bit her lower lip before continuing. "Maybe later, though - plenty of time in 77 minutes."
"Let's talk about that during commercial," Johnny said with a grin. Sexual banter always played well - he'd get a few complaints which would turn into free advertising for the show, and he'd have teenagers talking about the show and chiding their friends for not having watched. He didn't know yet that this was going to everyone, and ratings were soon to become a thing of the past, so for now, he reveled in how this should give him a nice enough bump that he wouldn't be worried about the late-night wars for years. "I want to come back to that topic later, as I'm not the one you need to convince."
"I don't need to convince anyone," she said, interrupting his chain of thought. "Not anyone currently watching, anyway. This is what it is. In about 75 more minutes - give or take a few, of course - the world is going to change. I'm quite certain that it will change for the better, but I'm also quite sure that a number of your viewers are going to vehemently disagree. The great thing about being me, of course," she said as she turned directly to the camera and unleashed a smile honed by the reactions of the host, "is that as the supreme deity, it really is about what I think." The words were harsh, but the smile made them seem like the most reasonable words that had been said on television.
"I'm going to clarify this one more time, because I can see that most people here are still trying to figure out what exactly is going on. In about 74 minutes, the world is going to change. It is going to change radically, and almost none of you are prepared for it. Everything you think you know about the way the world works is going to be turned on its head, and many of you are not going to survive." Her voice grew cold, and all semblance of laughter drained from it. "The old regime is dying and will end in flames. The new regime - my regime - is rising, and will remake the world from the ashes of the old. The harbingers of an old god - conquest, war, famine, death, pestilence - along with new horrors made possible by the latest are going to set upon the world. Those who adapt to the new world will thrive, those who cannot will be ground into the dirt." Her violet eyes edged towards red, and shadows gathered around her. "Governments will fall, leaders will rise, and armies will be devastated. This is the apocalypse, the end times, and no one will be able to avoid it."
Her eyes returned to their previous state, and she was bathed in the spotlights again. Her smile returned, as infectious as ever, and she went on. "But that doesn't mean we can't have fun doing it!"
Nervous laughter came from the audience, and Johnny's hand shook slightly as he took a sip from his mug. It hadn't been filled with vodka for a long time, and he had never regretted that until now. He finally had enough control of himself to speak, and said, "On that note, I think it may be time for a word from our sponsors. I assume you're going to stick around through the break, Anastasia?" She nodded with a grin, and Johnny returned it. "Maybe we can even talk you into joining us for a game of Johnnyball! See you in a few minutes, folks!" The on-air light went off, and the studio was silent.
After an uncomfortable pause that seemed to last much longer than the couple of seconds that actually passed, Anastasia broke the silence. "I think that went really well! I doubt there is time for any games tonight, Johnny, at least not on the show. Your producer is on her way with your other guests in tow. Let's all gather around the couch and have a chat about what is on the horizon. You and I can have a private meeting after the show, and I can give you deep background, and perhaps play a game of 'Johnnyball'." A bit of red flashed in her eyes again, although only Johnny was in a position to see it. He swallowed hard and returned a wan smile. Her confident statement that Alison was on her way with tonight's guests only briefly registered - the question of how she would know flashed in and out of his mind quicker than he could put any thought towards it.
