The universe was behind schedule, over budget, and, just as there was a single flare of optimism to crush, the angel Metatron had discovered kanban boards.

God had yet to say, ‘Let there be light’. Powerpoint…  on the other hand…

Metatron slapped another illuminated box with his staff, “Lucifer!”

Crammed behind a forest of wings, robes and inconveniently placed halos, he had thought himself invisible. Besides, it wasn’t his fault.

“Yes?” Lucifer squeaked.

“Do you have an update for us on the Sun?”

“Er… we’ve had… the supplier issue, but we’re expecting delivery soon. Very soon. Just waiting for the Almighty’s creation of time…”

“You mean we still don’t have the Sun? What’s the geology department been doing then?” a different voice wailed.

“Ice ages.” Another added, “It’s all gone a bit snowball.”

Metatron harumphed and struck the next task on the list. Lucifer breathed out, sinking back into the usually safe anonymity of the back row as Metatron selected his next victim.

For some reason, quite a few of his fellows talked at length about their niche areas. None of which mattered to Lucifer. By the time he was paroled back to his office, his mind resembled serially reheated porridge.

With hours unfinished (after space but before less important things like the atom or Basingstoke), three cups of coffee had passed when a clipboard thrust itself between an infinite depth of spreadsheets, and his eyes.

“Sign ‘ere!”

“Where is it?” he yelped, roused from his stupor scratching his quill across the proffered parchment.

“Yer hydrogen’s in room 3b.”

“Hydrogen?” Lucifer froze, his signature glittering.

The visi-vested angel shrugged. “I don’t make em guv.”

“But I ordered a star!” he shouted at the slamming door.

Standing, he hesitated, very carefully did not throw his laptop into damnation, and embarked on his crusade for room 3b, toolbox in hand.

***

Room 3b… room 3b… here we are… He burst through the door, not giving his eyes a chance to get on with the perception business, leaving him standing under a number of pained glares. Petrified, he took  in the suits, gold braid and powerpoint slide enthusing about the long term prophet strategy.

“Sorry.” He whispered, scurrying out. He glared at the metal room label, melting it slightly. But only slightly, while the Almighty had his devotion, Facilities had his fear.

 Down two flights of stairs, Lucifer found another room 3b lurking along a grotty corridor, the door underneath a scrabbling-snuffle in the plastic ceiling tiles. The door squeaked unhappily as he peeped in.

Inside, thin metal shelves ran to an infinite horizon, all infused with a mist of dust, intermittently illuminated by a few flickering bulbs.

More immediately, a robed figure teetered atop a wobbling stepladder, buried in a beige box. A line of curses, etched into the concrete wall, still glowed.

“Hi Sophia.”

The ladder froze. “Arg! oh. Hi Lucifer.”

“How are your rocks?” he said with forced cheerfulness.

She glared at him as she clambered down,

“Do. You. Know. How. Tedious it is to make sure all of the damnable things have the correct uranium decay products in them!”

“What? I thought the Earth was only going to run for six thousand years?”

“Yes! But somewhere in that ineffable plan we can’t just have some rock. Everything has to look properly billions of years old! And don’t ask about fossils! Netzach’s still sad trilobites got vetoed and-”

“Sophia… can you just tell me where room 3b is?” Sophia raised an eyebrow. “The other 3b.”

“I’ll show you. A nice diversion from rocks at least.”

“And deadlines can’t exist yet.” Lucifer smirked.

“A small mercy.”

***

At last. The metal door slammed shut behind them as they walked though the nebula filled room, leaving a trail of swirling, glittering clouds in their wake.

“Some assembly required then.” Lucifer grumbled. “One entirely normal yellow star coming right up”.

They pushed the hydrogen together until it sparked. Blue.

“Damn.” Said Lucifer, wiping his brow. Didn’t we want yellow?

Sophia shrugged. “A star’s a star. It’s the space guys’ problem now.”

“Good thinking… Early lunch?”

At this point, the star exploded, spraying gas back across the room, leaving a glowing point behind, hovering over the workbench.

“Ah.” They said together.

A moment later, the fire alarm went off.

Its shriek burrowed into their ears, muting all words as they trudged outside.

Outside was, of course, still dark. What light there was shimmered off the scaffolding stretched across sky where angels, reduced to specks, placed the stars among the firmament. Still held in its cables, another crew chipped away at the moon.

Around them, every other denizen trooped out of the office, as a visi-vested Metatron patrolled, clipboard at the ready.

Lucifer shuffled a little further into the growing crowd, but Metatron was already working his way down, checking names off.

“Sophia.” Lucifer whispered. “We haven’t invented fire yet.”

“Yeah…?”

“So why do we have a fire alarm?”

“I don-”

“Ah. Lucifer.” Drawled Metatron. “You were in room 3b yes?”

He gulped. “Yes.” He squeaked from under Metatron’s infinite eye gaze.

“Hmm… No harm. No harm.”

The angels around them had shuffled away, leaving them uncomfortably exposed.

“Mandatory remedial voluntary training I’m afraid… fire safety in the workshops I expect.”

With that, Metatron’s gaze and ire moved on to the next in the line. They both exhaled.

“But we haven’t even invented fire” lucifer groaned to himself.

Time, of course, didn’t exist yet, yet he felt the moon was considerably less square when they were finally released. His internal grumbling continued as he walked back to his office (the damn-ned workshop 3b could wait), the building’s a perfect dream! It can’t even catch fire. I’ve tried! It’s even got sprinklers. And fire doors! And his usual thoughts of screaming why!? Sophia had left him to these thoughts. Presumably, they were making her do some actual work, the poor creature.

Stomping into the kitchen area, he grabbed a mug, shoved it into the coffee machine and jabbed the filter coffee option. The touchscreen opened the settings menu. Another flurry of prods, and it told him the drink was on its way. The ominous grinding groan was a good start.

Long ago, it had been decided that these machines should maximise employee job satisfaction. Thus, the screen showed the motivational thought of the day (today’s being Think of the mortals that will one day enjoy thy holy works!) and played a hymn. Lucifer rather liked music, but the tinny, overly-compressed noise the machine regurgitated was music only in the way rotten food was a sumptuous meal.

The grinding stopped.

The music stopped.

The screen told him to enjoy his coffee responsibly.

The mug was still empty.

Lucifer swore a word which left the machine a crushed, melted mess.

He froze, double checked the kitchen was empty, and ran.

Slamming his office door, he slumped back into his creaking desk chair and spoke again, weaving the words of creation.

With a suitably angelic shimmer, accompanied by the echoes of a thousand voices singing amen, a large steaming mug of coffee appeared on his desk.

His email went ping.

Cradling the cup, he glared at his inbox.

New: Disciplinary Notice – Improper use of the Words of Creation

New: Course Assignment – Elementary Fire Safety

Unread: IT Outage Alert

Unread: Company Newsletter – Announcing the Restart of our Angel of the Month Program

In despair, he opened the course Metatron had prescribed as penance.

Lord Almighty! He thought helplessly at the unskippable clip-art animated videos. When he tried to tab out, to actually get some work done, the calm voice told him to re-activate the window as his full attention was required. Thus, he was trapped, the badly recorded voice telling him banal trivialities were as good as adamant barbs hammered into his brain.

I thought we were perfect emanations of the Almighty. Who do I have to blame for this existing? He shouted in his head. More treacherously, is the Almighty not perfect, are they unable to sit at a desk and not burn it down with a stapler? Does carpet smoulder in their presence? Do printers… no wait, printers do that anyway.

Eventually, dragged to exhaustion by chains of tedium, he reached the quiz at the end, and what a mirage of sanity it proved to be.

Question 1: Upon seeing a fire should you… A) throw oil over it, B)…

Two attempts later, he was finished. Enough time that he was sure someone had dutifully thrown away his carefully procured star-stuff, all in the name of a tidier office.

But in this moment, it was quiet. He stood up and stretched, revelling in this moment of serenity, coaxing the black clouds despair from his mind.

Choosing the worst possible moment, the laptop went “BING!”

He froze, fury still bubbling within him. Oh, go away! He thought, looking at it anyway.

A meeting.

A meeting now.

He sighed, and trudged out, slamming the door both in a foolish quest for catharsis, but also to stop the black clouds’ enthusiastic pursuit.

***

Skulking into the meeting room, Lucifer hunkered down to endure the inevitable first fifteen minutes of what’s-his-face’s undying enthusiasm for reminding everyone that they’d been rebranded into the Forging Connections Team in accordance with the various Deliverance Deliverables, what a good thing this was and how happy they should be at this state of affairs.

Doodling in his notebook, the requisite eternity passed by as his co-workers slung their words at each other. It might have been important. Once.

Seven pages in, he gave up. Standing, he declared the loudest angel was clearly correct and that he had been oh so very sadly double booked and to continue without him.

And fled.

***

Stomping his way past the surviving photocopier’s queue, he slunk back to the workshop.

Flinging open the door, it was still a mess. And had since been colonised by a remarkably depressed angel, seemingly entranced by the glowing speck left by the earlier sun attempt.

“What in the not-yet-built-hells are you doing in my workshop?!”

The angel looked up, “It’s happened again.”

“What has?” Lucifer spat, hot threads of irritation pulling back his lips. “Speak, Haniel.”

“It’s a singularity… Just as I’m nearly done something like this happens and back to the drawing board we go… I thought we’d fixed this.”

Lucifer stood there stunned. “You’re telling me that the BASIC PHYSICS keeps breaking?”

“Yes”

“Oh Ineffable Lord.” Lucifer cursed. “Bodge it. Bodge it now.”

“But they’ll find out! Is not the Lord omniscient?”

“Hasn’t spotted mine.” Lucifer added darkly. “So what’s the actual problem here? And hurry up. It’s lunch time.”

Haniel made a guttural grunt, then spoke, “You’ve made a point of infinite density and zero space.”

“AND?”

“AND” Haniel shouted back, “The moment one springs into existence it breaks space. Everywhere. Instantly.”

“HOW?”

“Well… suddenly every object in the universe has an infinite attraction to it. And then the dimensions break.”

Lucifer’s stomach rumbled.

“Can’t you just add something that… I don’t know… hides them or something?”

“Not fast enough.” Haniel sighed.

“How about…” said Lucifer, thinking fast and about lunch, “We just limit the interaction speed?”

“What? But everyone’s assumed we’d produce an infinite speed of light? Changing it now will break everything!”

“Just… give it a big number so everything else works fine!” with that, he stomped off, cutting down their protests with the echoing door slam.

***

The egregious length of the cafeteria queue did nothing to improve his mood, instead, the inescapable hubbub of everyone else’s prattle crushed his thoughts until they dripped anger.

The line shuffled past a sign proclaiming it to be a ‘cultural testing and development lunch’. No words of doom, so carefully written and focus-grouped for revelation to the prophets, brought as much terror as that multi-coloured comic sans banner.

Having quality assured the cuisine of all the human cultures, someone had thought it wise to include other life chemistries, just in case they were needed.

A sub-banner, with equal earnest, read Enjoy your silic-ates for this lithic lunch!

Oh. Silicon based life. Hooray. Lucifer still remembered his petition to repeat the most popular cultures. He’d got quite a few people to sign it. But alas, budget constraints they said.

He got as far as the first menu item (lime-stone) and swapped to the soup queue.

At last, he levered the lid off the great vat and inside…  lava. He closed it and looked around.

Desert was crumble with molasse. Another counter had a steaming pile of rock cakes.

Neither madness nor asylums had even been conceived (an eventual product of a rushed job from the mortal frailties and temptation team) but he, watching the bucolic faces of his fellow angels, had the acute feeling of straight-jacketed sanity.

Eventually, he skulked out with some elderly bread rolls and a chocolate bar and into the cavernous dining hall, appropriately geologic tables stretching long past any horizon.

He made a beeline for Sophia. Who was unwrapping a sandwich.

“When I find out whose fault this is…” he muttered, sitting across from her.

“Schist-y even by their standards. I’m sure the rock people will enjoy them. If we ever get around to shipping them.”

“I’m not even sure it’s part of the oh so wonderous ineffable plan. Didn’t we rule out silicon life ages ago. Not that anyone paid attention?”

“I still miss when they were working though the Indian subcontinent.”

“and now it turns out the physics isn’t even done yet.” Lucifer whined on. “If the Lord can give us an ineffable plan, we can be given a proper set of customer requirements!”

Sophia ignored him as she macerated though her sandwich.

Alas, no lunch break is long enough to contain adequate catharsis. Although this was rather unfair, Lucifer felt, given time itself was, with a smidgen of irony, behind schedule.

***

Back in his office, and very much still hungry, he logged on, braced for the deluge of unread emails.

Meeting minutes. Memos. Newsletters. He scrolled past them all.

Of course, some of the messages needed something doing about them. Usually his signature, declaring he’d read and approved them. Requisition requests, expenses and timesheets, he signed them all, with a total apathy for anything beyond the first page.

Several later, the apathy creeped up, hovering somewhere between first sentence and paragraph.

What a lovely thing accountability is, he thought, his brain now totally disconnected. I wonder if any of this means anything?

Next document.

What would happen if I just threw all this away? Would any of them even notice?

Another eternity later marinading in his own suffocating despair, he breathed in. And out. Somethings done, at least.

#H’s BH

Lucifer jumped as the door suddenly creaked open. Spinning around, he looked up as Haniel entered, holding a seemingly empty jam jar, which he plonked on Lucifer’s desk with an air of satisfaction.

“Take a look. A souvenir of this wonderful new physics.” Haniel said as Lucifer peered closer.

Indeed, it wasn’t quite empty, a point inside was a mote of absolute blackness, haloed in the distorted light available from the dull ceiling strips.

“What is it?” Lucifer asked. It wasn’t a quiet darkness. Not a mere spot of paint or shadow, it had depth. With every moment he gazed at it, vertigo tickled his throat.

“Your new invention. If light moves slowly, then by definition there are places it is too slow to escape… An event horizon.” Haniel added reverentially.

Lucifer gulped. “Are these going to actually exist? They’re just here to cover up edge cases… right?” It had the air of an abyssal maw, of eternal, inhuman hunger.

Haniel shrugged. “You made one with a not especially massive star, so they could be pretty common.”

“I’m not sure I’m okay with a pockmarked universe. This feels like something the Almighty might spot.”

“It’s your name on the change document.” Haniel said supportively. “And-”

The computer went ping.

They both glanced at it. Oh, an IT question.

“Or maybe the Lord has found penance for you already.” said Haniel. “I wouldn’t want to distract you from having to rebuild everything now, would I?” he added, leaving.

An easy enough reply. Not Lucifer’s problem, not for a while. He forwarded it on with a terse note about double checking whose responsibility it was. Not his specifically.

Ping!

The IT problem was back, the reply-all sigil lurking in the header.

Ping!

Ping!

He stared at the exasperated exchange. And decided that was enough. He stood up and fled the building. On his way out, he met no eyes and said no goodbyes even slinking through the busy corridors.

***

Unfortunately, he was creature emanated to serve the ineffable plan, permitted no purpose but this.

Thus, an instant later, he was pushing his way back in, awkwardly swiping his clock-card as he juggled a lukewarm cardboard coffee cup.

It could not be said he was refreshed and raring to go. Not when the delights of yet another morning team meeting awaited.

Metatron was there already, of course, standing in front of his unchanged kanban board bearing the strained smile of ‘I was here five minutes early, why weren’t you?’.

Lucifer wasn’t last this time. Worryingly, this earned him a seat towards the front. Inconveniently exposed. As the rest of the angels filtered in, exposure twists to claustrophobia, as he was pressed between the sitting crowd and Metatron’s gaze.

Then Metatron did proclaim, “The First Day of Creation is upon us! The Lord will speak light into existence! I trust your deliverables are ready.”

Lucifer opened his mouth just to hear another voice his words, “You can’t just change the schedule like that!”

“The Lord has assured me that it is within all you and all your team members’ capabilities to meet this revised deadline… Now, let us see how your KPIs are doing…”

The next slide may have been promising, but he wasn’t paying attention. Sticking us in here with your prattle is a fascinating choice after moving the schedule so much, he thought to himself. Why, in the ineffable project plan, is there a crunch period?

Yet still, the meeting wobbled on far too long, wasting another morning as each angel stood and described yesterday’s work with a special emphasis on how crucial they’d been to proceedings.

Then, Metatron’s eyes pass to Lucifer. His turn to stand. His turn to waffle incoherently.

Something inside him snaps.

“Why were we not told this at our last meeting?”

“The ineffable plan-”

“So the plan cannot see into our next meeting then?”

“It is a design greater than even our comprehension!”

“AND? We’ve sat here chattering even, EVEN, when you’ve dropped this new deadline. Or is your petty need for control more important than us doing actual work?” Lucifer was standing now.

Magmatic anger still bubbled through him as he pushed through the crowd and slammed the door.

He grumbles all the way back to the workshop. And I just know word-a-minute Metatron will find a way to blame me when his insane schedule implodes. By the time he kicked the door open, his hands are heavy with despair.

Inside, Sophia and Haniel look up.

“I take it you’ve heard about our new timeline?” Haniel says despondently.

“Even more ineffable.” Sophia adds.

“I… tell me you’ve got light working again?”

“Er…”

“Oh no”

“So when you suggested it have a finite speed-”

“So this is also my fault?” Lucifer interrupted.

“No!” Sophia said quickly. “It solved it. And quite a lot of other things.”

“But?” Lucifer spat.

“It can’t shine by itself now. Needs a medium.”

“How does talking to ghosts…?”

Sophia raised a hand. “Something to travel through. And the luminiferous aether team-”

“Are a bunch of snakes who couldn’t eat a Lorentz factor if you choked them on it.” Haniel said.

“So now we need to do the firmament. You know. Second day stuff. And maybe a little fourth day stuff as well!” said Sophia.

“You’ve been ruminating productively I see. Nice to know some else here knows what they’re doing.” said Lucifer.

“Please, Lucifer, there’s at least… five of us?”

“And we have a plan.” Sophia added smugly.

“Let me guess. Everyone’s so overworked creating a twelve-thousand year old world that looks EXACTLY like a five billion year old one that it’s easier just to leave it for a few billion years and fiddle with the timestamp at the end?”

An awkward silence percolated though the room.

“And how does Urania, vice president of lesser heavenly light affairs, feel that you’re throwing all her work out? All those lovely, carefully constructed constellations she’s approved?”

“Bloody ecstatic.” Said a new voice as Urania, vice president of lesser heavenly light affairs, stepped into the room. She closed the door calmly and slowly sat down, but to Lucifer’s sight, the hardness around her eyes, the flicker in her halo, were omens of rage.

“We’ve been done four times but someone, SOMEONE” she glances at Haniel “kept changing the physics.”

“You said there was a plan?” Lucifer interjected as Urania wound up for a monologue.

“We do the entire universe. Here. Now. At once.” Sophia explained.

“Isn’t that our glorious and beneficent Lord’s prerogative?”

“It is. But you’ve missed a line of our brief.” Haniel plays his ace. “And dependencies. Space, time, photons, the works… if it’s a dependency, we can mess with it! And I’d like to meet someone who didn’t like work done for them.”

Urania grinned. “Let’s see what you’ve got then.”

They gathered around a workbench, as Haniel turned off the lights. Leaving them, for a moment, in silent darkness, before it was broken by distant chatter filtering through the economically-efficient soundproofing.

Haniel took out a bubble wrapped jar and upended it, freeing a brilliant speck of light to float above the bench.

“Here we are… one universe worth of mass, packaged for shipping. I give it a little nudge like so…” He pushed a cable connected instrument towards it gingerly, as if he were lion taming with a conductor’s baton.

“Sophia, if you would…” She clicked the breaker down, sending a spark arcing down the wires, and into the nascent universe.

It wobbled. Becoming a ring, then a sphere, folding constantly back upon itself.

“A few more plank times I think.” Haniel muttered.

For the angels, several tight heartbeats passed before the sphere collapsed under an event horizon, back to its previous perfect, infinitesimal point.

“Ah” Urania added.

“We’ve already turned gravity down as far as possible.” Sophia grumbled.

“This is all your fault, Lucifer. Without your stupidly low speed of light, we could have a nice, fast expansion that outpaced even our ridiculously weak gravity.”

 “Erm…” said Lucifer, as a flush rushed to his face, the deadline’s impending doom wrapping bands of fear around his chest. “We could give it a special nudge, some extra energy to space itself? It’s not like the mortals are going to be around long enough to check?”

“What?” said Sophia “add an entirely new thing, just to what? Inflate it?”

“It’ll end in tears, mark my words” Uraina added. Besides, it was usually correct.

Haniel shrugged and reached for the dials. “Another few notches to vacuum energy… Sophia, the breaker please…”

Another spark.

Again, the point was changed, again, taking the form of a writhing ring, then the folding sphere.

They held their breath.

The sphere twitched.

Then expanded. The single point now a basketball sized universe of energy.

They watched as space itself cohered, as particles sprang from primordial energy to dance with their antimatter twins. Then, they began to annihilate. Sophia quickly tweaked things so some matter was left at the end. Another disaster averted.

Haniel zoomed out, letting more time flow in.

Things cooled. Marginally. Energy became particles, became bigger particles as they watched tens of thousands of years rush by.

There was only one problem.

“Why’s it still dark? Tell me we didn’t forget to add light?”

“Lord.” Murmured Sophia, “what did we miss?”

“It’s fine. It should be fine. Why isn’t it fine?” Rambled Haniel.

Interrupting them, the door creaked open, spilling light over the workshop’s imperfect darkness, to reveal the many-eyed form of Metatron, silhouetted by the office lights.

Everyone froze. Except Sophia, who shuffled in front of the nascent (and still rather dark) universe.

“Lucifer” Metatron said with possibly feigned joviality, “I’ve just received this memo regarding your team’s changes to various underlying physics systems, and I don’t believe they’ve been appropriately flowed though to the rest of the division… We’re having an interdepartmental synchronisation session… it would be ever so helpful if you had a free moment…?”

Lucifer gulped. Then nodded.

“Now’s good.” He squeaked, before closing the door a tad overenthusiastically behind him. Not that Metatron seemed to notice.

“I didn’t know your assigned tasks affected Urania’s working group?” Metatron asked innocently.

“There were some… unexpected… externalities.” Lucifer desperately invented.

“Very good. Nice to see some initiative in cross-team collaboration and synergising.”

Trapped, there was nothing for it but to let Metatron lead him back up the stairs, up and up to the gilded lands where the chairs had lumbar support and the desks double monitors.

“Who am I about to be talking to?” Lucifer asked wearily.

“Oh, yes, it’s the revelation marketing, engagement, and delivery quaterly townhall.”

“Oh. Them.” He grumbled as he was ushered in to what would have been a comparatively pleasant and airy meeting room, if not for the enormous table which seemed to preclude any movement. Or escape.

“So!” Metatron said brightly, sitting beside him, “This is Lucifer everyone, we’ve only got him briefly, but he’s here to update us on recent developments… Can’t have the mortals in ignorance of our divine works now can we?”

Lucifer’s spirits plumed new depths when an unfamiliar angel, tightly wrapped in a three piece suit, stood up, gesturing at an unreadable powerpoint slide.

“It might help if you had some background…” he said, seemingly through his nose. Please, no, thought Lucifer. It really wouldn’t.

He droned on.

And on.

Oh, another unreadably wordy slide. How nice.

“Just to make sure I understand this.” Lucifer interrupted, simply to reinvigorate himself, “Divine truths are revealed to your prophets yes?”

“Oh yes, we thought piecemeal revelations would drive higher engagement metrics.”

“But I don’t have anything remotely scripture related. We agreed that the workings of the universe were something the mortals uncovered as part of the great test, yes?” Lucifer’s halo threw a red spark.

“I know we’re rushed on the First Day announcement” the suited angel squeaked, “but won’t the nature of light fall under divine rather than physical purview?”

“Ugh.” At least he knew what level of idiocy he had to deal with.

“Light’s a physical thing.” Lucifer said flatly. “there’s a range of experiments that reveal its nature slowly, and we think the wave-particle nature will nudge their other efforts down the right path.”

The presenter looked blank. Lucifer could almost see his mind working, trying to think of a suitable question about a topic he had definitely not understood.”

“But what if it’s too much for them?”

“I have faith they’ll work it out.”

At this point, they all looked to Metatron.

“A compromise perhaps? We get a prophet ready just in case the mortals are unable?”

“Fine.” Said Lucifer. It seemed the fastest way to end the meeting.

“In that case, Lucifer, why don’t you pick a name for your soon to be light luminary and you can go back to work?”

“Not exactly a heavy role?” a previously silent, yet no less suited angel whispered. Presumably in place of an actual sense of humour.

“I mean, they’d have to get the whole electromagnetism deal… but… You’ve got a lot of Ms on your list… so… how about…” Lucifer stabbed his finger at an unassigned name, “Maxwell? To go with the rest of them?”

Another twerp piped up, “Could we have a little more continuity? Just to keep the brand synergised?”

“J C Maxwell?” Lucifer tried, wishing he was doing something pleasant, like beaver rewiring.

“Oh yes, my mortal relations team will love that!”

Oh good. Was Lucifer’s only thought. Can I go now? Aloud, “I think that’s everything from me, I’m sure Metatron can give you my email if you have any other questions.”

With that, he stood, attempted a beaming smile which didn’t quite hide his abyssal contempt, and fled.

It said things about this shift, that his sanity filled sanctuary was a dark workshop where they were bodging the universe together, pausing only to invent increasingly esoteric laws of physics  just to stop anyone noticing the cracks.

Creeping back in, they didn’t even look up as the door swung, letting another moment of light in. Too busy staring at the orb and its continued blackness, although Lucifer could just make out swirls in the smoky universe.

“Stars. We’ve got stars. In there. Somewhere.” Haniel said in monotone defeat.

“Then… we’re done?” Lucifer said without a mote of hope.

“Does this look like light to you?” Sophia added.

“Rather, are any of the bloody suits going to call this light?” Urania grumbled.

“So? What now?” Lucifer said. It wasn’t as if there was anything else to say.

“The aether idiots are going to be insufferable.” Sophia spat.

“Maybe. A little more time? Just a bit?” Haniel moaned, his voice cracking.

“We’re not making Metatron’s stupid deadline anyway.” Lucifer said.

And so they waited, watching those swirling clouds. Occasionally, a star, bright blue would shine though a gap, and a moment of hope would dawn inside them. Before it vanished, back into the dark hydrogen clouds that seemed to be all this universe had to offer, leaving the sting of stolen hope.

And then they saw it.

Even through the haze, it was beautiful. A writhing, irregular whirlpool of stars and dust, every moment birthing new constellations, new stars.

No planets. Not yet. But that could be tomorrow’s problem as the dust cleared.

They were too tired to cheer.

Lucifer nodded at Haniel and said, “Let’s dump this on Metatron’s desk and call it a day.” to a chorus of sluggish agreement.

“Lucifer.” Sophia said as they stood and stretched, unable to take their eyes of this galaxy, sparkling now with the flicker of supernovae. “I’m not doing this again. Not this kind of deadline drop. Next time Metatron does this he can go s-”

“Tell me about it.” Said Haniel quickly.

Lucifer shrugged. “They do this again, I’m unionising.”

“Count me in.” said Urania.

***

It would have been nice if, maybe, heads had turned, other angels had stood back, or even given space, as they processed though the heavenly offices and queued for the lift.

With as much triumph as they could muster though heavy clouds of exhaustion, they flung Metatron’s door open, and dropped the orb on his desk with a reverberating thunk.

“Light, the universe and everything!” Lucifer announced.

“Oh, this is really rather marvellous.” Metatron said, smiling, “You’ve all outdone yourselves here.”

Their hearts rose.

“So how’s the client delivery presentation pack going?”

And sank again, hot lead weights dragging down their guts.

***

The official story was, of course, recorded somewhat differently.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light a customer requirements management workshop before a bidding phase. God saw that the light was good delivered after the electrical and magnetism teams had to be merged for budget reasons.

God separated the light from the darkness observed the reionisation process that let the first stars shine . The light was called day, and the darkness night, having been thoroughly focus group tested.

And then there was evening end of business. And there was a crunch period before dawn.

After all their hard work, Lucifer felt the final version rather stole the credit.