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Earth
2199
The
reporter shifted uneasily on her chair and smoothed the grey
skirt of her formal austere dress in an unconscious
movement. The man in front of her didn't bow to piety, nor did he
believe in God the Almighty's regency. Of that she was sure. As
sure as she knew that he definitely wasn't afraid of the
Antagonist, either.
The man on
the other side of the table in front of her didn't look like he'd
passed a hundred-and-thirty two years ago. A little silvery ash
at the temples of his otherwise golden hair was the only visible
sign that the man before her was over thirty. He focused on her
with eyes of an almost obscenely bright green, contrasted by his
pale skin and pitch-black clothes.
The
Fallen One's servant... undoubtedly. She'd never met someone
disdaining the god-given – and government controlled –
order of dress with such flagrancy.
But
what did she expect when interviewing the man who still stood by
an atrocity of mind-reader, calling the ungodly creature
his wife?
Her hand trembled when
she put the recording device onto the table between them. "Do
you agree to a recording?" she asked in the low, devout
voice she'd cultivated for her job.
His
mouth twitched. "This interview would be useless if I
disagreed, wouldn't it?" He snorted. "The officially
indoctrinated sanctimoniousness doesn't believe in people's
memories any more."
"People's
memories are too easily violated by the Fallen One's servants,"
she reminded him icily.
"Only
if you let them," he shrugged.
The
Fallen One's servant... indeed.
She'd
volunteered for this interview, volunteered, for it was likely
the only chance to learn something about a past now gone for more
than her nineteen years of life, about a past where mind-reading
atrocities lived among God's children, where the ancestors of the
children today had mingled with God's creation... wreaking havoc,
serving the Antagonist.
It was a
dangerous interview, and she knew she'd have to spend long weeks
in seclusion afterwards to cleanse her soul from these influences
– and the haughtiness that kept whispering in the back of
her mind, that she was the best for the job, that her name was
going to be remembered as the one who'd interviewed–
"Are
we going to start sometime?" he interrupted her thoughts
rudely.
And she started.
"Yes..." she replied hastily and he began to speak,
told her of the past, of the achievements of the League and that
it had been their work that had secured Earth enough
for...
She wanted to stop him,
to end this sermon of lies, but she didn't dare. It wasn't right
to interrupt an old man's memories and so she listened, and began
to fear that it wouldn't be weeks but months she had to spend in
retreat afterwards...
But she
was here to learn, to listen... and to bring back the information
the righteous government's forces needed to finally end this
threat. Though she wondered about the fear a 132-year-old caused
in the divine rulers...
A crash
came out of the darkness in the back of the tiny house, something
moved clumsily there, and he was up and at the woman's side in a
blink of an eye, reducing her doubt about the dangerousness of a
not-old-looking old man to nothing. The pious government was
right to distrust such a predator among their sheep.
She
watched him steady the stumbling woman with the shockingly
uncovered hair, helping her to the rocking chair she'd left a
moment ago. Someone with hair that red should always wear the
appropriate coif.
The woman
looked towards her out of veiled bluish-green eyes. Veiled! She
gasped. That had to be the atrocity living with him...
He
whirled round, reminding her that it was said he himself could be
a mind-reader, but though he was tested every week, all the tests
had been negative. Now his eyes glowed predatory cold, zeroing in
on her face, assessing her expression, dismissing
her.
"Leave. Now." The
voice was threateningly calm. "Your isolating drugs have
done her enough harm. She doesn't need your–" the
following word was beyond God's horizon of acceptance "–hate
in addition."
And she fled
the house with inappropriate haste...
The
task force, storming in only an hour later, found the little
house abandoned.
A handwritten
note on the table, secured with a violet orchid and a sleeve
insignia showing a growling wolf's head, read:
Thanks
for confirming that the world we gave our oaths to doesn't exist
any longer.
Seven
hours later, a small, armed ship asked for landing
clearance on Andor.
And was
welcomed...
END
~~~~~
In the
wake of tightened registration and immigration rules for people
of the Islamic faith in most of the Western countries, we should
all keep in mind that it's not Islamic fundamentalism we have to
fear, but fundamentalism in general. Any religion capable of
evoking strong faith in its followers can be turned into
something dangerous if we aren't careful. In this story I used an
unspecified sect of Christianity because I know it best, though I
am not religious in any way. I don't intend to hurt or offend any
specific religion or church with it. I just want to cause a
little thinking.
Ann
~~~~~
Thanks
to S. 'Trivia' Blank for correcting my English if not my ideas! |