Published: 31 Oct 2016

Part II

THREE WORLDS
Formerly Published as “0300 Books I, II, and III”

Chapter 4: Hamish and Matthew—A Bright and Glorious Future

After breakfast and another stop at the outhouse, Matthew and I were put on a train. One of the new Deputies locked our feet into shackles that were chained to staples set in the floor of the train car. There were two other Deputies and a Reverend in the car, as well as several people I guessed were Citizens.

Most of the cars carried coal. I remembered what that was. My father was a farmer, but many of the men in the town were miners. Their job was the more dangerous. Their sons followed them into the mines when they were as young as six. I remembered that accidents at the mine killed people—men and boys—several times a year. I thought of the Remembrance Services at the chapel. I know my parents were afraid that since they had two sons, I’d be selected for the mines. Instead, I was selected to be a farmer—at the Sheriff’s Ranch. I’m not sure any of us knew when it happened just what that would mean.

The Deputies on the train did not speak to us except to give orders. On a shelf at one end of the train car was water in a tall bucket, with a dipper that everyone used. When we asked, they took us to get water, and to a kind of a mobile outhouse. It was like the ones at the camp except that I could see through the hole the ground rushing past. It must have been like this on the train that brought me from my home, but I didn’t remember much about that trip. At noon, a serf brought paper bags holding a sandwich and some dry, tough carrots to all the passengers, including the Deputies—and to us. I thought it was strange that we were eating the same thing as the Deputies, but they didn’t seem to think so.

The train stopped several times, but we didn’t get off. Sometimes, other passengers would leave. Sometimes, new passengers would get on. We were still on the train when it got dark. We slept a little bit, but kept waking up because of the screeching of the wheels and the constant bouncing on hard, wooden seats. The Deputies lay across the seats and had blankets, but we didn’t. It was cold.

After two days on the train, I felt especially dirty. We had not bathed since last Sabbath Eve, but I was accustomed to bathing only once a week, so it wasn’t that. My hair hung to my shoulders, lank and nasty. One of the Deputies would probably cut it, next bath—we never knew when one of them would decide to cut our hair. There were so many rules, but not one about that.

I saw the engine of the train belching black smoke as the train went around a long, sweeping curve. The smoke, I thought. That’s what’s making us so dirty.

At dusk the second day, the train stopped. A deputy unlocked the shackles and led us from the train.

Matthew and I gasped when we stepped onto the platform.

Mountains that were painted like a purple-gray hid the setting sun. The hills that bordered the road opened to reveal a lake held back by a huge dam. Even the guards were silent, as if impressed.

One of the guards, younger than the others, said, “Scudder Dam. The greatest engineering marvel of our time. That’s the Lake of the Lord you see.” One of the older guards frowned, and the youngster said no more.

After supper in a mess hall, Matthew and I were again locked into a room with a barred window—a jail cell. Once again, we were given a single blanket each. Once again, we cuddled together for warmth. Once again, I woke in time to roll away from Matthew and escape the punishment that would follow should a Deputy find us lying together.

After breakfast our hands were manacled, but our legs remained free. The young Deputy who had named the lake the day before was waiting beside a motorcar. I remembered that. The Reverend in my town had driven a motorcar.

“Sit in the back. The doors cannot be opened from the inside.” That was all he said before he took his position at the tiller. He drove the car across the dam and then into a canyon. Matthew’s hand found mine. I was afraid that the Deputy would see us in the mirror mounted in the center of the windscreen, but he was looking at the road. I squeezed Matthew’s hand. I hope he understood that I was trying to offer him something. What? Hope? Not that, for I had none. Comfort, perhaps, although I had little of that.

By late afternoon, the motorcar reached the outskirts of a city. I had never seen anything like it. Buildings rose into the sky. I knew the alphabet and Mother had taught me to read a little. Although that was only two years ago, it seemed longer. I tried to spell out the signs, but the words were not familiar, and Las Vegas meant nothing. I recognized the Sheriff’s station—the eight-pointed star-and-cross had long ago been burned into my memory.

The young Deputy turned us over to another Deputy who removed our manacles, and asked, “You need to use the crapper?”

“Please sir, what’s a crapper?” I asked.

“They’ve probably never seen indoor plumbing,” the first Deputy said.

The new Deputy led us to a small room that held a seat with a hole in the middle, sort of like an outhouse, but with a pool of water instead of just a deep hole under it. He showed us how to flush it, and how to turn on and off the water at the sink beside it. After we’d used the crapper, he locked us in two cells, separated from one another by bars. Like the room we’d been in before, these had windows closed only by bars. And we were separated—we’d not be able to cuddle, and the night would probably be cold.

We had not had lunch. Supper was brought to us: a bowl of stew and bread. It was better than what we’d had on the train, and much better than anything we’d had at the Ranch. After a trip to the crapper, we were left alone, and the lights were turned out.

“Hamish? Why are we here?” Matthew’s whisper was just loud enough for me to hear.

“Matthew, I don’t know. I don’t even know where here is,” I said. Impulsively, I stretched my hand between the bars and touched Matthew’s shoulder. Instantly, Matthew grabbed my hand.

“Hamish, I’m so afraid!”

I didn’t know why I spoke, but I did. “We are together, Matthew. We are together, and together, we are strong. Remember, Captain said we were to be together.”

I hope he meant that, I thought.

I hope he meant that, Matthew thought.

The next day was Sabbath. I was surprised when breakfast was brought to us, and counted days on my fingers to be sure. Yes, it was Sabbath, and the bowls held oatmeal mixed with sweet, black nuggets. Raisins, my memory told me.

After breakfast and a trip to the crapper, we were taken to a room where a Reverend stood. The Reverend was a young man—younger than any Reverend I’d seen, before. He wore the same black trousers, shirt, and jacket that Reverends wore. His white clerical collar made his face look especially red.

“These are the ones?” he asked.

The Deputy nodded. “Sent from the _____ County Sheriff’s Ranch.”

“Sir!” the man in black snapped. “Sent, sir!”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” the Deputy said. I felt the tension between the two men, and realized, it’s not like the Deputy really means that. Then, I understood, the Deputy hates the Reverend!

“They stink,” the man in black said. “They’re filthy.”

And the Reverend hates the Deputy, I thought.

“We weren’t expecting you until 1200 hours,” the Deputy replied.

“Are you blaming me for your shortcomings?” The man in black spit out his words.

“No, sir. My fault for not knowing you’d come early,” the Deputy said.

The man in black looked for disrespect in the deputy’s face, but the deputy had years of experience. His face was almost as blank as one of the serf’s faces.

“Clean them,” ordered the man in black. “I will wait outside, where the air does not stink.”

The Deputy gestured, and we followed him out a door. “Stand there,” he said, and gestured again. Matthew and I stood against the outside wall of the Sheriff’s Station, wondering what would happen. It didn’t take long. The door opened, and a Deputy came out, pulling behind him a canvas hose. He held a brass nozzle in his hand. Yelled commands flew through the open door. The nozzle was pointed toward us. A hurricane of water blasted us into the wall, ripped our clothes, threatened to fill our lungs.

“Enough, already!” the Deputy shouted, and the water stopped.

Coughing and sputtering, we helped each other to stand, forgetting that we were not allowed to touch one another. When I remembered, it was too late, but the Deputy didn’t seem to notice. “Follow me,” he said.

“They’re soaked!” the man in black said.

“You said to clean ’em,” the Deputy said. “Sir.”

“Please sign here… sir.”

The man in black took us to a motorcar driven by a serf. We drove down a wide road bordered with buildings with signs. I tried to puzzle out the signs. One word kept repeating itself. “Casino.” I didn’t know that word, though.

The car stopped at a huge and tall building. The sign in the front read, “_____ Palace Casino.” I knew what “palace” meant; it was a wonderful and huge house where princes and princesses lived. Mother had told me stories about them. We didn’t go in the front door of the palace, but were taken to the back. The Reverend led us into the building, down a long hallway, and into a large room. In the middle of the room was a pool of water. A bunch of men in green robes stood around the pool.

“Sir, this bath is for initiates—” one of the men in green said.

“Damn you!” the man in black said. “They’ve got to be clean. Unless you want to explain to the Scudder—”

The man in green turned white. I felt his fear.

Chapter 5: Paul Stewart—Fleet School Edmonton

The shuttle from the Enterprise dropped us off at the Edmonton school’s spaceport. One of the tactical officers was waiting, and herded us onto the maglev for the short ride back to campus. “Report to your element leaders,” was all he said.

My element leader was puzzled; I had to push before he remembered me. He didn’t seem interested in where I’d been, and just told me that I was back on duty, and to check the schedule. He didn’t notice the battle ribbon I wore on my jump suit. Someone in some Fleet office in Geneva had decided that the Battle of Jamnagar was important enough to award a unit battle ribbon and that since the kids from Edmonton had participated at GQ and combat stations, we should get the ribbon, too.

My iPad had automatically linked to the school’s computer network as soon as I’d reached the spaceport. I scanned the iPad while I walked to my room. I wasn’t scheduled for any duties other than my regular classes. I guessed I’d been taken off the roster when I left, and wondered how long it would be before the element leader remembered to put me back in the pool. I’d better push him to do that or someone is likely to become suspicious. Not that I’m anxious to do KP!

“How did you—” Dmitri’s question of how I could open the door to our room—supposedly keyed only to the occupants’ biometrics—was interrupted when I pushed him and held out a plastic baggie.

“I got thirty Enterprise patches for your Potemkin patch,” I said. That must have triggered the memories of the other boys, too. They all accepted the patches I’d gotten for them, but none of them seemed interested in what I’d done while I was away. They would have known about the battle. It had been reported in All Hands and Navy Times and on the Fleet news channel. They just didn’t seem to connect me with it, even though I wore the ribbon.

The rest of the boys in my element had forgotten me, too. I pushed a little, and passed out the patches I’d gotten for them, and they started to remember. It took a few days before things got back to normal, if normal were the right word.

In September, shortly after we’d arrived at Edmonton, and while the weather was still warm, all the junior cadets had been issued weapons. Not real ones—we were, after all, only between six and eight years old—but super soaker water rifles. They were plastic, but looked a lot like an overweight version of the Fleet standard MK-7 rifle. They were even colored with olive drab camo. Most of our physical training was done with our element. We were on teams and competed with teams that had kids within a couple of years of our age. That included water sports and battles with the super soakers.

“The arena covers ten acres,” the element leader said. “The floor as well as the walls of the blinds and conceals are padded and covered with waterproof plastic. Drains are in the floor at the edges of the walls. There’s nothing sharp, hard, or unpadded. You can still get hurt, though. Remember what you learned about how to fall, and don’t get carried away and hit someone with your weapon… other than with the water, that is.”

The school was very conscious of safety. Our shoes were slip-ons, but tight, made of rubber with knobbed soles for traction, and even the little boys wore cups under our brief swimsuits. My roommates and I had giggled and blushed when we saw what we looked like.

Dmitri had threatened to pull off his jumpsuit to prove to the supply sergeant that he needed a large cup, but the sergeant didn’t fall for it. Somehow Dmitri managed to get a large, though and strutted around the room until we ganged up on him, pulled off his swimsuit, and replaced the large cup with a small—which was adequate.

“Questions?” the element leader asked.

“What about reloading?” Colin said.

“Reload ports are built into the walls and are marked with a red circle. They’re recessed and automatic. Just stick the butt of the weapon in the hole, with the fill facing up. They’ll reload in about six seconds, and shut off. Good question. Any others?”

“How do we know if we’re dead?” Dmitri asked. Dmitri, Colin, Hans, and I were the only first-year cadets in our element. The others had done this, before, and the element leader seemed to forget that we would not know the details. Well, at least Dmitri, Colin, and Hans. I’d done a mind-vacuum thing, and had a pretty good idea what to expect. I wondered if my invisibility were affecting my roommates, or if the element leader was just forgetful.

“If you’re shot anywhere above the waist, you’re dead. Fall down, stay down for at least a couple of minutes, then resume play. Don’t shoot anyone who’s down, and give the person who shot you at least enough time to get out of your sight. Okay?”

A whistle blew, signaling the beginning of the game. We ran toward our designated entrance. I think some of the elements tried to use strategy, and a couple of the older cadets in my element paired up to protect one another when they reloaded. For the little boys, however, it was all pell-mell.

“Ha! You’re dead!” a boy from another element called.

“Nuh uh!” I replied. “You only got my leg.” I fell as if my leg had collapsed, firing as I did so—a burst of water that caught him in the chest.

“You’re dead!” I called, and then giggled.

He looked at his chest and at the water that streamed down his tummy. “Good shot! Pooh! I’ll get you, next time!” He collapsed onto the ground.

I felt water hit my back, and spun. It was Dmitri. He grinned, and grabbed his crotch as if to say he’d gotten me back. I sensed that he wasn’t angry, so I saluted him, fell to the ground, groaned, and twitched a few times for effect. Dmitry laughed and ran away.

I had fallen only inches from the boy I’d just shot. “Hey! What’s your name?” he asked.

“Paul,” I said. “Element Oscar 225. You?”

“Ike, Delta 060. If I hadn’t forgotten to pump up the pressure, I’d have gotten you.”

“Yeah, I did that a couple of times.”

“The guy who shot you—you know him?”

“He’s one of my roommates.”

“Are you boyfriends?”

I understood Ike was wondering about Dmitri’s gesture, so I told him about Dmitri and the cup.

He giggled and then said, “We’ve been dead long enough. Truce to reload?”

I agreed, and covered him while he reloaded; then he did the same for me. We saluted one another, and ran in opposite directions.

I was happy with these games. Although I was faster than the other boys and could usually sense them in time to avoid ambushes, there was enough—I guess the best word is chaos—in the games, that I couldn’t excel too often. Some of the other boys, even those not in my element, seemed to remember who I was, at least during the games, when we made temporary alliances. I sometimes felt a bonding from others, but was afraid to pursue it. Now, as I write this from my teens, I rather wish I’d been a little less—shy? I guess that’s the right word. It sounds better than “afraid.”

After a few weeks it got too cold for outdoor water sports. We were issued new weapons: another version of the MK-7. The MK-7 was an over-and-under rifle. The “over” fired bullets or flechettes; the “under” fired grenades. The ones we got were modified for laser tag in the over part. The under was designed for paint ball. They said we’d do that in the spring. After some additional safety training, we were certified to participate in laser tag.

Before the first game, our tactical officer briefed us on strategy and tactics. In fact, he briefed us before every game. I had read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, and realized that he was taking us through it, a few principles at a time. What he said didn’t always apply to the game that followed; but after a while, things seemed to come together. I watched my element begin to function cohesively, and I watched us start winning consistently.

I guess I was partly responsible for that. I could usually tell where all the enemy forces were, and sometimes what their strategy would be. I wanted us to win, but I believed that using my knowledge was, somehow, cheating. I wanted to talk to someone about that, but was afraid to confide in anyone.

“We made it!” Dmitri crowed as he pushed his way into the room. “We’re in the top ten elements!”

Dmitri always seemed to know important things before anyone else, including me. “Top ten in what?” I asked, even though by now I knew.

“In laser tag,” he said. “We get to fire real MK-7s! We go to the range tomorrow.”

The other thought thatt was way cool. Privately, I grinned, thinking of the Gatlings, 32-inchers, and rockets I’d fired while on Enterprise.

Our graduation exercise was to be a war game in the mountains northwest of Lake Louise. By now, it was nearly December, so we were fitted with winter gear and given lightweight oil and heavy-duty batteries for the MK-7s, the ones with laser tag lasers.

The mountains of western Alberta and eastern British Columbia were classic basin and range topography—rows of mountains running roughly south-east-by-north-west separated by valleys, usually holding a river or lake. According to our intel, the Green Forces were on the other side of the next range. The terrain was too rough for ground vehicles, and there was no place large enough for a shuttle to land. My element, part of the Blue Force, was walking single file down a rugged trail on a western slope when the boy in front of me jerked, and fell backwards. About three seconds later, I heard a shot. I triggered my comm. “Take cover!” I called. We’re under attack.”

The rest of the boys dropped. I had unconsciously pushed, and hoped that the element leader wouldn’t realize it. I crawled toward the boy in front of me. I heard the sharp ping of a bullet ricocheting off rock, and then the sound of another shot.

There was a hole in the chest of the boy’s parka, and blood. I grabbed the zipper and pulled on it. It jammed about halfway up where it had been torn by the bullet. I pulled the survival knife from my boot, and started cutting.

More blood. Lots of blood. The element leader had reached us. He saw what was happening, and reacted quickly.

“Good. Get his parka off so I can see the wound,” he ordered, and then activated his command-net radio.

“Element Oscar 225 under attack by persons unknown. One cadet has been shot—projectile weapon. This is not a drill, this is real.”

He handed me the radio, and pulled out a first aid kit. “I don’t think they had this in mind when they designed this kit,” he said. “Use my radio. Call for medevac and close air support. Tell them there’s a bad guy with a rifle out there, somewhere.”

I relayed those words while he put a pressure bandage on the hole in the boy’s chest. Now that his parka was off, I knew who it was: Cadet j.g. Garreth LaCombe, one of the Canadians. His teeth were clenched, and his eyes were open. He was still alive.

The assistant element leader had crawled to us by this time. “Everyone’s well under cover,” he said.

“Any idea where the shot came from?”

I knew. I felt the mind behind the shots. “I saw a muzzle flash from there,” I said, and pointed.

“Take a bearing,” the element leader said to his assistant. “Radio that in,” he told me.

At that moment, the radio squawked. “Oscar 225, update.”

The element leader nodded for me to report. “One cadet shot in the chest,” I said. “Alive. All others under cover. Two shots fired from 200 degrees magnetic from this position. Probable sniper rifle, probable range 3,000 feet.”

The radio acknowledged, then added, “Angel Flight 2 minutes away. Close air support 5 minutes away.” There was a pause, and then, “Angel Flight will accept the risk of recovery without cover. Out.”

“How did you know the range?” the Assistant Element Leader asked.

“Counted three seconds between muzzle flash and report, sir,” I said. “It’s a guess, ’cause I didn’t compensate for temperature or altitude when considering the speed of sound, but it’s probably close.”

The Element Leader touched his throat mike to activate the system that connected him to the element. “Oscar 225, this is command. Baby Huey for medevac inbound. As soon as you see him, initiate laser fire 200 degrees 3000 yards. Keep your heads down. He’s got a real gun. I want to flush him out or blind him but I don’t want any of you hurt.”

The Baby Huey hovered a foot off the ground between the bad guys and us, shielding us from any additional fire. Medics wearing safety harnesses leaped from a hatch, and gathered up Colin. They didn’t bother with a stretcher. The Huey made its pickup and was gone in less than 30 seconds. Minutes later, two Guns-a-Go-Go arrived. I still held the tactical radio, so I heard their chatter. They located the source of the shots by infrared sensors. Apparently the shooter was an idiot: he popped off a round at one of the craft. That was sufficient under the rules of engagement. Four Gatlings from each of the Guns-a-Go-Go returned fire. We could see them tearing into the vegetation, and blasting away rock.

“Who was he?”

The exercise had gone on without my element. We were released from the exercise and evacuated to the school. Colin was going to be fine. The laser-tag sensor plate on his chest had robbed the bullet of some of its energy, the thick parka and his Kevlar long johns, more than that. Still, the bullet had damaged one lobe of his lung, but that had been replaced. He would be on light duty while ribs healed. We—his element—were gathered around his bed.

“It was kind of hard to identify him,” our Element Leader said. “After taking seven hundred, one-inch slugs from the Gatling guns, there wasn’t much left but hamburger. He was traced through the serial number on the rifle, and then his ID confirmed by DNA testing of a couple of his relatives. He was a member of an Idaho survivalist group. They knew we did exercises in the mountains each year.”

He paused to allow that to sink in, and then continued. “It would be easy to blame the opsec guys for not seeing this; however, that wouldn’t be fair.”

He grinned. “The opsec—operations security—guys are the ones who are supposed to be paranoid. And Fleet’s are the best. There’s no way, however, they or anyone can predict a random threat like that.”

The Survivalists were unique to the United States of America and were mostly clustered in some northwestern states: Montana, Idaho, and the Dakotas. Some of them had decided that Armageddon was going to be a human-caused event. Fleet was the only entity known still to possess nuclear weapons (although Israel and South Africa were still suspect). Regardless, many of the Survivalists were preparing for nuclear war—wrapping two-way radios in aluminum foil to protect them from an electromagnetic pulse, for example. They were—in their own minds, at least—prepared to survive the chaos and emerge as key members of a new anarchist world order. Others claimed that Fleet had no jurisdiction in the USA, despite the clear treaties that put Fleet in control while preserving the original constitutional protections. There were a few similarly radical folks scattered in the Old South states of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, relics of the Ku Klux Klan and other White Supremacist movements. They seldom posed a real threat, and were usually dealt with by local authorities.

The New Year was an important festival, and it was customary to give gifts to family and friends. I didn’t have any family to shop for, nor did I have friends. To be safe, I peeked into the minds of my roommates, and then the rest of the boys in the element. They all had plans for simple gifts for each other, but my name wasn’t on any of their lists.

That didn’t stop me from joining them—well, riding in the same maglev—for a shopping trip in Edmonton. The second maglev stop was a huge, indoor shopping mall. The 2,500 or so boys in the train boiled into the shopping center. I followed, more slowly.

I had money to spend. Actually, I had quite a bit. Even though people didn’t remember me, computers did. When Fleet set up a bank account to hold my salary as a cadet, money that had been held in trust for me from my parents’ estates was automatically deposited. I had money, but no one to spend it on.

I thought of sending gifts to the boys in the element, but knew the gifts from me would probably trigger a memory of me, and remind them that they’d forgotten me. I thought of sending gifts anonymously to the entire element, including myself, but didn’t think that would be a good idea, either. So, I wandered the mall, looking in store windows, occasionally entering a store for a closer look at something. At noon, I went to the food court, and bought pizza and lemonade, and sat alone at an otherwise empty table in an overcrowded space, and felt sorry for myself.

After lunch, I took the maglev back to the school. There was nothing for me at the mall. There wasn’t much for me at the school, either, but at least I had my iPad.

My roommates hadn’t returned by 1700. I thought maybe they’d gone straight to the mess hall, so I put on a jumpsuit and went there. I could hear the babble of voices long before I arrived.

It took a while to sort out what people were saying, but I cornered one of the tactical officers, and pushed.

“Students at the mall, mostly cadets, were attacked by a mob. Fists, only. None of the boys were seriously hurt although several were injured and taken to hospital in Edmonton. The mall was locked down until just a few minutes ago. The first maglev should be here with injured in 10 minutes. They all should be back by 1900 hours. The mess hall will remain open and taps will be delayed. Tomorrow’s schedule will be revised and nothing will start before 1000 hours.”

He looked at me and furrowed his brows. I thanked him, and disappeared as fast as I could get away. After getting a supper tray, I logged onto the school computer using my iPad. I used a backdoor into the personnel system I’d created a few days after I got here. My roommates were all safe and relatively uninjured, although Dmitri would have a wonderful black eye. I’d have to ask about that! One of the boys in my element was in hospital at Edmonton, but was in good condition, and would be released, tomorrow. He’d been hit in the face, and the paramedics saw him covered with blood from a nosebleed, and triaged him as “serious.”

When I sensed my roommates arrive, I pushed, and they joined me at my table. It didn’t take much to get Dmitri to talk.

“Черт луддитов!”

I read what he said, but the others pestered him into speaking English.

“Damned Luddites!” he said.

The Luddites didn’t have a national border; they lived everywhere. However, they were few and disorganized. They were people who thought Fleet had killed their golden goose. Anyone who thought they or their ancestors had been left worse off when Fleet took over might become a Luddite. Fleet, which has a monopoly on spaceflight, anti-gravity, and maglev technology, slowly put most aircraft manufacturers and airlines, and later, the automobile manufacturers out of business. When Fleet started operating solar power satellites, they put the coal and shale oil companies out of business. The process took years; people had ample warning and ample opportunity to adapt to the change. Some refused, and they and embittered descendants still tried to cause trouble.

“I hit him сильно — hard!” Dmitri said when we returned to our room. He showed the abraded flesh on his knuckles.

“You’ll have bruises, there. And you must put antibiotic on your hands,” Colin said.

“I did not bleed,” Dmitri said, “therefore I need no antibiotic!”

Colin, Hans, and I exchanged glances. Hans and I tackled Dmitri, and held him down while Colin applied alcohol and antibiotic cream to Dmitri’s knuckles. The alcohol was probably unnecessary, actually.

Chapter 6: Hamish and Matthew—The _____ Palace Casino

Matthew and I stood by a pool of water. Fat men in green robes surrounded it. The Reverend who had brought us here had demanded that we be bathed, and invoked the name of the Scudder when one of the men had protested.

The Scudder? I thought. He’s here? I had no more time for thinking. The men in green told us to remove our clothes, and step into the pool of water. That’s wrong! I thought, and turned to the Reverend, who was leaning against a wall. Before I could speak, he yelled at me.

“Obedience!” Then he frowned, crossed his arms, leaned back against the wall, and stared at me.

The men who bathed us wore their robes, even in the water. They were all fat. I knew about fat even though I don’t remember ever seeing anyone who was fat. Their cheeks were smooth, as if they were still youngsters. My cheeks, too, were smooth, but I knew that in a few years they would sprout the hairs that would mark me as a man.

Something bothered me. It wasn’t their fat or their smooth cheeks. No, there was something more. Partly, it was their high-pitched giggles and the way they rubbed soap onto my body. It was also the looks they exchanged when my penis stiffened. There was something more. I don’t know what it was, they were hiding something, and I wasn’t happy.

The men scrubbed us with brushes and soap. They washed our hair over and over again.

I saw that Matthew was in the same predicament I was. His penis was standing out from his body. The difference was that Matthew blushed. The men who bathed him seemed to find that very funny.

The young Reverend stood against the wall and watched. His face remained stiff, but whenever I looked at him, I saw something dark, something to be feared—something that meant danger for me and for Matthew. I was afraid.

He was the first Reverend I’d seen since being taken away from my parents, my home, my little brother and sister. The Chaplain at the ranch wasn’t a Reverend, just an ordained Deputy. All Deputies and Reverends were to be feared, but this was something different. This Reverend—in spite of his youth—was more than a danger. He was an enemy.

The men in green said things I didn’t understand: “What a shame, such pretty boys.” and “We were once like them—but we were the quiet ones, the docile ones.” To which another responded, “You were never that pretty!”

What did they mean? I had no idea, but their thoughts created something else for me to fear.

Other men in green robes who had not been in the water with us, dried us with soft towels and then sprinkled powder on us. I wanted to slap away the hands of the one who rubbed powder into my genitals, but I was afraid. I was so afraid that I did not get an erection even though the man fondled me. I was glad for that. Matthew’s penis did stiffen, and the giggles of the men drew the attention of the man in black—the Reverend. He frowned at what he saw, but there was something else in his face, something blacker than his clothes. I saw again the thing that I feared but did not know. What am I seeing? I wondered. And why am I seeing it?

The men gave us sandals, and pulled white robes over our heads. I thought for a moment of the pictures of Angels that children were shown in Sabbath School. The six-winged Seraphim were the highest, and closest to God. Below them, were Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, and regular angels, including Guardian Angels. I wondered why I didn’t have a Guardian Angel. I knew I didn’t have one for surely, if I had one, he would not have let my number be drawn to be sent to the Ranch.

Matthew’s hair was like a golden halo around his head. He must be a Cherubim, I thought. And then realized how silly that was. Matthew and I didn’t have wings, and I knew we weren’t Angels. No, there was something dark going on.

I could not remember being this clean, ever. At home, before I’d been taken to the Ranch, a bath was a Sabbath Eve ritual. No matter that water for baths took nearly all my father earned, no matter that we had to share the water. At least it wasn’t like at the Ranch, where a hundred boys might bathe in the same tub. We are told we must be clean to come before the Lord, but at the Ranch, it’s… it’s not real! “Rub your privates! Rub your arse!” It’s like they’re just pretending. Why pretend? The Lord God isn’t fooled any! And why is there so much water here? From the Lake of the Lord, I suppose. Why do serfs live in places in need of water? And why is the Ranch where it is, without water except for the fields?

“Take them to the refectory,” the young man in black told one of the men in green.

I don’t know why he said that, ’cause he walked down the hallways and we followed him. Maybe, I thought, maybe it’s just ’cause he can. I tucked that thought away for later.

The refectory turned out to be a mess hall filled with tables and benches, but it was cleaner and brighter than the one at the Ranch. We didn’t have to stand in line; food was brought to us by fat men in green robes.

The food was wonderful—bread that was white and without grit, and butter. I hadn’t seen butter since before I had been taken. Soup, rich with droplets of fat. Meat without gristle. Apples baked with a spice. I remembered the taste, but not its name. I had almost forgotten that today was the Sabbath. When I remembered, I wondered whose soul was damned for working to prepare our food, and if bathing us was counted as laboring.

After the meal, the young Reverend took us to a room that held a televisor and two beds. There was a door in the wall between the beds. “Your bodies are clean; however, before the next step, your souls must also be clean,” the young Reverend said. “You will spend the next weeks with those who will teach you what you must know.”

I was afraid to ask what the “next step” would be.

He left the room. Before the door closed, one of the fat men came in. He opened the door between the beds and showed us a room that held a crapper, and a sink.

“Wash your arse and your hands well after you use the crapper,” he said. “Use the soap and the brush. If you smell of shit, you will be punished.”

He left. I heard the door lock behind him.

Matthew sat on a bed, and started crying. I was afraid for him, but also afraid of the Reverend. I knelt at his feet. “Matthew? Please don’t cry.”

Matthew practically fell off the bed; I caught him so he wouldn’t hit the floor. He wrapped his arms around me, and hugged me like Mama used to. I wanted to hug him back but, “The Lord and The Scudder see everything!” I said. “We must not—”

“I don’t care,” Matthew whispered. “They didn’t see us cuddle when we were locked up in those rooms when it was so cold. And if they see everything, why do they let the fat men touch touch us where no one is supposed to touch?”

My arms answered before my mind could, and I hugged Matthew tightly. He stopped crying after a while.

When he’d calmed down, I told him about his hair and thinking he was an angel. He giggled, and told me he thought my red hair was like the fire of the Holy Spirit that surrounded the image of The First Scudder that hung in every chapel in the land.

I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I thought, I hope not. I hope the Holy Spirit doesn’t find out about me and about Matthew. I wasn’t sure what I didn’t want the Holy Spirit to find out, but I knew something we were doing was wrong.

The next morning after breakfast Matthew and I were led to a room and told to sit on the floor. There was nothing in the room except a table on which lay a Bible. We jumped to our feet when the young Reverend came in. He told us to sit, and then opened the Bible.

The man read, “Where the Reverends are, there also is God. Where the Reverends are not, there is evil.”

He closed the Bible, and then said, “There are rewards on Earth, and in Heaven. That you have been selected is itself a reward.” I thought of the food, the baths, the clean clothing, the soft, warm bed I had slept on last night. And I thought of the other boys in my barracks. Why am I being rewarded? I’ve done nothing to deserve all this. If I am being rewarded for nothing, are they being punished for nothing? For surely, service at the Ranch must be punishment.

The man was speaking, again. “You will address me as Deacon Jerome. You may ask questions by raising your hand and waiting for me to tell you to speak. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Deacon Jerome. Yes, Deacon Jerome,” we responded.

Deacon? I thought he was a Reverend! What’s a Deacon? I didn’t want to know badly enough to ask, though.

Deacon Jerome opened the Bible, again, and read. “From the dust, the Lord God created the perfect man, Adam. From Adam’s rib, the Lord God created Eve to be a helpmate. But Eve was imperfect, and fell prey to the wiles of Satan and ate of the forbidden fruit. Adam succumbed to the wiles of Eve, and ate, too. Thus are all men cursed, but are all women cursed more greatly.

“The curse of men is that they shall create seed that is itself, cursed.”

Before I could ask about that, he turned to another passage, marked with a ribbon. “The Apostle Paul wrote to the Saints in Rome, Chapter 1, Verse 5: From the Lord God we will receive grace only through obedience to the faith and to the Reverends who are in authority over us.”

“Repeat that.”

Matthew and I stuttered through the passage. He read it a few words at a time, which we echoed, until we had memorized the entire passage.

“Remember that those in authority over us… over you, are the Reverends,” Deacon Jerome said. “And, remember that I represent them.”

The rest of the morning, Deacon Jerome read from the Bible. He made us memorize some verses; he explained the meaning of others.

There were four tables of boys and three tables of girls in the refectory at lunchtime. We’d not seen them, yesterday or at breakfast, today. They were wearing robes, like ours. The boys talked together, some even laughed. One pointed to Matthew and me, and said something to the boy who sat beside him. That boy shook his head. I wondered what had been said, and why Matthew and I were separated from the other boys.

The girls’ tables were quiet. The girls seldom spoke, and never laughed. Two of the girls looked at Matthew and me, but neither of them pointed to us, and both quickly averted their eyes.

After lunch, one of the fat men in green gave us lessons in how to prepare and serve drink and to serve food. I thought we might become servants in the refectory, but there was something different about what we were being taught, different from what the servers in the refectory did.

“This,” the man in green said, “is a kind of alcohol. This one is named bourbon. Smell it, and remember the smell, for if you are asked to serve bourbon and serve something else, you will be punished. It is prohibited to anyone other than a Reverend to drink bourbon or any kind of alcohol. Should you taste of it, you will die. If the alcohol does not kill you but a Reverend discovers you have tasted it, you will be killed. Do you understand?”

Matthew and I nodded. I could feel the terror in Matthew’s mind.

“The Reverends will instruct you to serve them bourbon and other alcohols. Sometimes, the alcohols will be mixed with other things.”

The man in green showed us mixers that ranged from water to exotic things like cola and branch. He chuckled, and told us that branch was simply water, but we were never to let on that we knew that. It was the first time one of the men in green had ever opened himself to us in that manner, and I vowed to try to remember his gift.

“I know you do not understand how or why the Reverends ingest—drink—bourbon and other alcohols. You don’t have to ask the questions that are in your minds. All I can say is that the ways of the Reverends are inscrutable—difficult to understand. And, that you should not ask questions, but simply obey.”

That evening, after lessons, Deacon Jerome watched while we were bathed and given clean robes. The fat men in green were careful not to touch our privates when the deacon was watching, but they seemed to make opportunities to—not just touch, but fondle us when he could not see.

Our days became routine: Deacon Jerome read the Bible to us in the morning, explaining some verses and requiring us to memorize others. The man in green taught us more about how to be a servant to the Reverends in the afternoon. We learned about vodka, gin, and tequila, among other alcohols. We learned to shake martinis, and to ask if the Reverend wanted salt on the rim of his Marguerita glass. We learned what neat and on the rocks meant.

“Sometimes, a Reverend will simply tell you, the usual. You must remember what each Reverend usually asks for, so that you can prepare that for him when he says that.”

Before supper, we were taken to the bath. After supper, we were locked in our room. We saw the other boys and the girls at their tables, but only at lunch. I wondered who they were, and why they seemed so different from Matthew and me.

On the fifth morning, Matthew and I waited, seated on the floor, for Deacon Jerome. And waited.

“Should we go look for him?” Matthew asked.

“We were told to wait, here,” I said.

“They didn’t say we couldn’t go look for him,” Matthew said.

“How long had you been at the Ranch?” I asked.

“Two months, but what’s that got to do with it?”

“Do only that which is permitted, do nothing that is prohibited,” I said. “You hadn’t been there long enough to learn that. I think it applies here, too.”

Chapter 7: Paul Stewart—Flin Flon and Beyond

Dmitri was a good sport about the alcohol we rubbed on his injuries, and after he’d short-sheeted us all one night, we called a truce. That was a good thing, too. We were too busy with classes and ice hockey for pranks.

Flin Flon is in northern Manitoba (mostly Manitoba—some of it is in Saskatchewan). It had a reputation for impressive aurora borealis and some equally impressive hockey. It also had a historic statue of Josiah Flinabbity Flonatin, for whom the first copper mine and later the town were named. We didn’t find out about that until afterwards, though. My element plus another of the same ages had joined to make a single team. We won the Cadet j.g. division of the ice hockey tournament, and were to play the Flin Flon junior team. The trip wasn’t to be all sports, however. We would also spend several days at the Fleet High Altitude Aurora Research Program, or HAARP, and tour some of the mining operations.

As soon as we arrived, we were paired with members of the Flin Flon junior ice hockey team, and stayed in their homes. My host was Andre Elliott Trudeau, a seven-year-old French Canadian whose father was a scientist at HAARP.

“There’s only the one bed in my room,” he said. “I will sleep on a pallet beside it.”

“The bed’s big enough for two,” I said. I read his reaction and added, “And I like to cuddle. May we sleep together, please?”

Andre nodded his head vigorously. So we did. Cuddle. We were, after all, only seven years old, and although we could get erections and good feelings from touching and cuddling, we weren’t ready for any real boyfriend stuff.

The first several days were split between morning practice on the ice rink and afternoon tours of mining and ore processing facilities. Despite asteroid mining, it was still cost-effective to mine some of the more pure veins found on Earth. The most recent ice ages: Mississippian, Illinoin, and Wisconsanin, had scraped a lot of the surface soils from Canada down to the States, exposing rock and ore, making access easy.

We spent another five days at the HAARP facility in the evening, from 9:00 PM until midnight, slept late the next morning, and practiced in the afternoon. They gave us three more days to practice and scrimmage, and to get our body clocks back to normal. Then, the tournament began: it was to be best-three-of-five, and the boys from Flin Flon gave us a run.

I could have been the star of our team, but I learned that if I helped other boys, not only was everyone a lot happier but we scored more and were scored against less. So I did—helped others, that is—and made Dmitri the star of our team, with two Canadian boys in the other element close behind.

It took all five games to decide a winner, and the boys from Flin Flon were good sports about it. “You have the honor of painting the thumb,” Andre said.

He realized I had no idea what he was talking about. “Oh! You flew in, you didn’t see the statue!”

I knew what statue he was talking about. On the road leading to Flin Flon (the only road, actually) is a statue of Flinabbity. I’d seen a picture on the internet: it’s a cartoon figure (he was, after all, a character in a science fiction book) who sort of looks like a Mountie, with one hand shading his eyes as if looking for something.

“When you come up the road, it looks like his thumb sticks out between his legs like a penis!” Andre said. “Every year, the team who wins the local championship paints it red! The town leaves it that way for a while—everybody on the council played hockey and painted it when they were boys. This year, we decided to let the tournament champion paint it. That’s you guys!”

Apparently out tactical officer had gotten an official blessing, because he didn’t say anything when we all piled into a HAARP shuttle and rode to the statue. It took a lot of giggling to paint the thumb, and then more giggles as we took pictures with our iPads of each other on the statue as seen from down the road.

That night with Andre was especially nice. We “rubbed tummies,” stimulating our stiffies until we were exhausted, and kissed before falling asleep. I nursed a hope that Andre would remember me, but was afraid to try to find out, later. I did send a bread-and-butter letter to him and his parents, thanking them for being my hosts.

The Royal Canadian Air Force—a home defense force, with National Guard status and a mutual support agreement with Fleet—maintained a number of antique aircraft, including Beavers and Otters with skis and pontoons, as well as twin-engine tail-dragger planes that we “Yanks” called the DC-9 or Gooney Bird, but the Canadians called the Dakota. They all had AG units to back up their piston engines, of course. That was our transportation from and back to Edmonton, and was a highlight of the trip.

Except that on the morning we were to depart, it was so cold the piston engines wouldn’t start. They could have made the flight on AG, but tradition was tradition. I got to help hand-prop the Dakota! Not like one would hand-prop a small, single-engine plane, of course. We stuck a crank into the side of the engine and slowly spun up a flywheel. When it was up to speed, the RCAF officer who was supervising signaled the pilot who “popped the clutch” and transferred the momentum of the flywheel to the engine. After the first engine started, he bled hot air to the second engine, and then started it normally.

As I write these things, some from memory and some from my journal, I wonder why I chose to write certain things, and not others. I think I wrote so much about Flin Flon because it was there I felt more than elsewhere the comradeship of not only Andre and my team, but the Canadian boys, too.

The summer after my eighth birthday I pushed for a transfer to the Fleet school at Cardiff, Wales. The Fleet communications, electronics, and nanotechnology laboratory is there, and that’s where they were doing research on artificial intelligence. After learning about MEG, I wanted to know more about that. I was disappointed, however. They weren’t really working on AI, more like “expert systems” that could capture human knowledge and use it to solve problems. It was simple decision-tree stuff. But there were some wonderful things at Wales. If cricket can be called wonderful.

They took only about 4,000 of us to the Spring Cricket Tournament. It was to have been held in Wales, but the weather in Wales was forecast to be awful (i.e., typical for that time of year). Somehow, my element was selected, along with some 200 others, to be the cheering section for our team. Cheering seemed to consist of sitting in the bleachers and saying things like, “Blimey” and “A bit of okay, that.” Just kidding.

The tournament was held at a national park on the southeast coast of Sri Lanka. There were plenty of cricket pitches, but not enough quarters, so they set the troop ship in the water a hundred yards offshore, and ran gangplanks to the beach. There was room in the troop ship for about 2,000 cadets from the Madras Technical School to join us and, in fact, the tournament was changed at the last minute to allow the team from Madras to compete.

It was a good change. The Madras school was part of the Fleet School system, administered by the Fleet Council—as were all the best schools on Earth. The screening was just as rigorous as for the other fleet schools, and the kids were just as bright and motivated as those of us from Cardiff. Their cricket team was “spot on,” and the competition was fierce. If anything about cricket can be called, “fierce.”

I met a cute Indian boy from the Madras School. His name was Pavi. He had black hair, and eyes, and teeth that gleamed against his brown skin. His English was stilted, with the emphasis in the sentences coming at odd places; the rhythm sounded funny to my ears. Of course, he spoke not only English but also Hindi and Bengali.

It didn’t take me long to learn both Hindi and Bengali—the mind vacuum thing—and Pavi’s smile when I addressed him in Bengali was bright. I felt his desire, and invited him to my room. My roommate was happy to give us some privacy.

Pavi was excited about getting naked with another boy, cuddling, and touching one another’s penis, and that’s how we started. But Pavi was also anxious to try fellatio. He’d done it, once, and liked it, so we did. We discovered that just sucking didn’t do much, but that running a tongue around the tip of the penis felt good. It was, I think, better than tummy rubs, and I knew that when we were older and made seminal fluid, it would be quite a different experience.

Afterwards, I had some second thoughts. Did I take advantage of Pavi? I had felt his desire, I knew he would like it. But another boy wouldn’t have felt that or known that. Am I using my telepathy only to satisfy my desire? I spent a long time thinking about these questions without finding answers.

I checked email only once a week, and then only from habit and a sense of duty. If there were an official message I would get an alert, and no one sent unofficial messages. I was surprised to find an unofficial email in my inbox. I was even more surprised that it was from Andre.

“Bon jour, Paul. The Edmonton cadets have arrived for the tournament. It’s a different bunch of boys. I was disappointed you weren’t there. I was looking at the pictures we took when we painted Flinabbity, and remembered you. I remembered the last night we spent together, too. It was a lot of fun. I told my father that I think I will be homosexual, but he said it was much too soon to know, and to have fun any way I wanted until I knew. I found you at Cardiff. You said you were a Yank, but you are at your second Commonwealth school. Are you sure you’re not a Brit? I am, of course, a rabid French-Canadian Separatist. Not really. Not the Separatist part. They’re still around, but are mostly just drinking clubs. You know the drinking age in Canada is 16—two years earlier than in the States. I think it’s 16 in Wales, too. Is that why you’re in school there? You can watch the tournament on CBN-3. The tournament is a big deal since we started including Edmonton. We had to compete against a Fleet team before it became important, I guess. I’ve taken Fleet aptitude tests, and may get to attend a Fleet technical school to learn electronics. Then I’ll be able to work with my father at HAARP. I would like that. Please tell me what you’re doing. Andre.”

“Why are you crying?” It was Penn, my roommate.

“I just got an email from a friend I’d forgotten,” I said. “I was kind of mad at myself for forgetting, I guess.”

Andre and I exchanged emails for a couple of months before he got accepted at the Fleet Comm-Electronics School at Cardiff. By that time, I had pushed to be promoted to Senior Cadet and transferred to Nazca, which was also the location of the Fleet Medical School. I figured that a medical degree would not be recognized anywhere, but at least I would be able to learn all I needed for one, and maybe, just maybe, learn a little more about what I was. Andre and I sort of lost touch. Other than hockey, we didn’t have much in common, and we didn’t play hockey at Nazca. We played ullamaliztli.

Ullamaliztli was an ancient game played by many peoples of Mesoamerica. Of course, no one really knew how it was played. We played by rules common among the local peoples, except that our court was not rough stone, our protective gear was not deerskin, and the hole in the goal was actually large enough to get the ball through on occasion. The game was fun and fast, and once again I found that by making others the stars of the team, my element won more often.

It didn’t take long to realize that a nine-year-old Senior Cadet was about four years too young, and much too confusing for people, but that I could make people think I was older without consciously trying all the time. I figured out that the “push” that I could use to make people do what I wanted had a subconscious component that I nicknamed “the veil.”

Officially H5, 9 N1,5,2,1 S, it was descended from H1N1, the virus that was responsible for the Great Pandemic which incubated in the trenches of the Franco-German War of the early 20^th century. This new one had two types of hemagglutinin: 5 and 9; and a chain of four neuraminidase structures: 1, 5, 2 and 1 again. The two H proteins allowed it to attach to host cells in two different ways; the four N proteins did a number (no pun intended) on the host cell, literally exploding it when the “daughter” viruses escaped.

It wasn’t long before someone started counting letters in the alphabet: 5=E, 9=I, 15=O, 21=U. They turned H 5 9 N 15 21 S into “Heinous.” It was appropriate and predictive.

We seldom heard any real news from the Mujahedeen bloc. The only official news outlet, Al Jihadi, had one television transponder on a satellite over the Arabian Sea just east of the African coast, and an internet feed. Every once in a while, someone—often one of the Catholic-religious from Rome or Constantinople—would try to block the signal or hack the site. Fleet always shut the Catholics down. What was coming out of Al Jihadi was almost always pure propaganda, but sometimes there was useful information. Besides, Fleet wasn’t in the censorship business. If people wanted to believe in invisible powers who judged people based on a confused set of rules and soi-disant moral principles, that was up to them. Fleet was willing to “suffer fools gladly,” as long as the fools kept out of Fleet business and didn’t directly hurt anyone.

I had been at Nazca for three months when the commandant received a flash message from Fleet Intelligence: people in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were dying by the thousands, and whatever was killing them was spreading. Suspicion on our side was raised when Al Jihadi started pushing disease prevention, including hand washing. Not a trivial thing, really: most of the Mujahedeen world still wiped their butts with their hands—their left hands—and ate with their right hands.

When Al Jihadi put out a fatwa from the Caliph that Friday prayer services in the Arabian peninsula were to be suspended indefinitely, Fleet got really concerned, and looked hard at what they called “technical systems,” their code words for image, electronic, and other discrete intelligence gathering.

The message to the commandant was read during lunch. A disease of unknown type and origin is sweeping over the Arabian Peninsula. Based on our limited information (see Classified Note 1), we believe it to have originated in Riyadh. Symptoms match influenza. Deaths in Riyadh metropolitan area are estimated to exceed one million. At least two members of the royal family are known to have died.

I was amazed that Fleet was able to get this much information. This was before my first deep intelligence briefing, so I was unaware of the resources Fleet had committed to monitoring the Mujahedeen bloc.

The school at Nazca became the focal point of Fleet medical and intelligence activity. The vision screens in the mess hall were given over to maps of the Middle East with red blobs showing the spread of the disease, and numbers at the bottom of the screen showing estimated deaths. There were a lot of new people at the school, too. Men in dark jump suits: lieutenant commanders, commanders, and a couple of captains. They and their staffs took over several classrooms and posted armed guards at the doors.

Fleet made offers through both official and unofficial channels to the Mujahedeen Brotherhood. All our offers were rejected. Al Jihadi broadcast speeches by the Caliph including a fatwa that blamed the disease on Fleet, which he called the Great Satan. He admitted the existence of the plague—which told us just how serious it was—and declared that it was an attack on the True Faith. Would-be martyrs were encouraged to report to their mosques for training. Fleet declared Defense Condition Red Three.

One of the screens in the mess hall was slaved to a display in Geneva that showed the positions of Fleet assets. I saw the Enterprise over international waters in the Arabian Sea, and thought about Phillip, and wondered who was on the port weapons console.

The first case of Heinous outside the Mujahedeen world was in Paris. Not surprising. The French colonial empire had included a lot of territory now held by the Mujahedeen, and the French were notoriously slack in securing their own borders. As soon as Fleet found out about the case in Paris, they slapped a quarantine on the entire country. Fleet Marines, augmented by National Guard troops from Germany, Italy, the BENELUX countries, Switzerland, Spain, and elsewhere patrolled the border, with shoot-to-kill orders. The area within 100 miles of the French border, including the seacoast, was declared a “no-fly” zone. After Fleet shot down an airbus that had left Paris with 300 passengers and was nearing the Mediterranean Sea, France grounded their ancient aircraft fleet.

The people who came to Nazca with biological samples containing the disease—samples that included several corpses—spoke little. The samples were tagged with the location from which they were taken: Paris, Orleans, Dijon; Riyadh, Mecca, Sana’a; Petra, Damascus. As soon as the first samples were received, academics were suspended. Everyone in the school was pressed into service.

The first analysis told us that it was a tough bug and that it was spread by aerosol from sneezes and coughs as well as through the exchange of body fluids. The only good thing about it was that it wasn’t a retrovirus. In fact it was so complicated, that any mutation ever seen or modeled tended to destroy its entire structure.

“What are you doing? This is a laboratory, not a playground!” The sharp voice startled me. In the first place, I wasn’t playing. In the second place, I hadn’t sensed Dr. Martin approach me. I was too engrossed in what I saw on my computer screen.

“Not playing, sir,” I said.

“Looks like fractals,” Dr. Martin said. “Playing—”

“No sir,” I interrupted. “It’s a model of Heinous’s reproductive pattern.” I paused and looked at the screen. “It does act like a fractal, though.”

“Model? Heinous?” Dr. Martin was clearly puzzled. I took a chance and pushed just a little.

“Sir, you said I should find something to do that challenged me. I have computer experience. I parsed the steps of Heinous’s reproduction—as much as we know—and added some fudge factors. Not many of those, either. This is what the model generated.”

Dr. Martin was not only convinced, he was fascinated. I showed him the backup materials, and the assumptions I’d made. He sat beside me, pulled up some additional files, and filled in the facts that confirmed or changed my assumptions. It took the two of us less than an hour to update the model. He looked at me. “Your privilege. Push the button.”

I pressed the enter key, and watched the program compile. Then, I watched the new, and even more beautiful fractal unfold.

“Do you know what this means?” Dr. Martin said?

I knew, but only because I was reading his mind. So, I shook my head.

“No, sir.”

“This means that if we can interrupt even one of these steps, Heinous cannot reproduce! It means that we may not have a vaccine, but we have an antivirus—almost.” He sobered a bit, and his voice calmed.

“Let’s see where it is most vulnerable.”

It took another week and the help of the rest of the team, but we developed an anti-virus. It was something that could be administered to people with the virus, and to people who might be exposed. It wasn’t a vaccine: it didn’t cause the body to create its own anti-virus protection. But it did allow health workers to get into the infected areas without fear of their own lives.

The Mujahedeen Brotherhood reluctantly agreed to accept aid from us—as long as Fleet didn’t claim credit. Fleet loaded aerial tankers of the kind used to fight forest fires with the anti-virus and modified the nozzles to spray a fine mist rather than dumping everything at once. They flew over populated areas at night, spraying the stuff. It was hit-or-miss, but it did seem to slow the advance of the virus.

Fleet also prepared and delivered more than 250 million devices much like an EpiPen, containing one dose of the anti-virus in a disposable injector. It took six months and another 100 million of the EpiPens to control the pandemic, during which time it was estimated that 200 million people had died. By that time, we had created a vaccine that caused the body to create an antivirus that would attack both the H5 and H9 components. Without these, the virus could not latch onto cells in its host and eventually disintegrated.

There was no doubt in my mind that Dr. Martin’s team—including me—deserved the Jefferson Prize in Medicine that year. However, Fleet restricted the data from our work. It was just too sensitive, I guess. However we all got a commendation in our files.

After the crisis was contained, we were given two weeks of vacation. Most of the school, both students and faculty, left the school, often in groups, for some destination that promised both fun and education. I elected to remain at the school. I thought, and I thought hard. I had used my ability to learn quickly—the mind vacuum—as well as the push to help solve the Heinous reproductive system and, ultimately, not only the anti-virus but also the vaccine. I read philosophy and the old “revealed religions” that had been mostly put to rest by the Enlightenment. I posed questions on internet discussion groups, carefully hiding behind a false identity. The answer came from an unexpected source. Voltaire had said, “The possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility.” It also was something that applied to an early comic book super hero. It wasn’t really helpful, after all.

As I look back on my journal entries from this time, I understand that I was still a little boy, albeit a brilliant and powerful little boy, and I remembered how the idea of being a super hero appealed to me, then. It was a phase that burned out shortly, but for a while, I dreamed that I could fly.

Eventually, Fleet Intelligence was able to send forensic teams to the Arabian Peninsula. They traced Heinous to the slums of Riyadh. It was suspected, but never proven, that Patient Zero had been a sex slave into whose anus had been squirted so many different viruses and bacteria that such a mutation was almost inevitable.

The screens in the dining hall at Nazca switched back to showing the Fleet news channel, the Fleet Cricket tournament, and current entertainments. All the visitors had left. Things were almost back to normal, when I did something that frightened me so badly, I still have nightmares about it.

Chapter 8: Hamish and Matthew—Obedience

At last, Deacon Jerome came in. There was something bothering him. It was something about a boy he knew. How do I know that? I wondered.

The deacon stuttered a bit when he spoke.

“The lesson in obedience will continue.” He opened the Bible, flipped a few pages, and then read, “The Apostle Paul wrote to the people of Corinth in his second letter to them, Verse 16, Know ye that to whom ye yield yourselves as servants ye are to obey, whether to sin or to righteousness.”

He closed the Bible. “When you were six, you took an oath of obedience to the Lord God and to his servants on Earth: the Scudder, the Reverends, and the Sheriffs. You yielded yourselves as servants to them. Had you not, you might have found yourselves servants of those who would lead you in evil ways. Only the Scudder, the Reverends, and the Sheriffs can lead you to righteousness; obedience to them will be rewarded. Failure to obey will be punished both here on Earth and in Hell.”

I felt the Reverend’s hatred for the Sheriffs when he talked about them, and wondered how and why he hated them—and how I knew that.

“Tomorrow is Saturday,” he said. “Followed by the Sabbath. It is the weekend, and you are to be excused from training on those two days. You will be taken to meals and baths. I will resume your training on Monday.”

Week end? I wondered. And he will miss watching us being bathed for two days? Must be something really important! I stifled a giggle. That night, I thought about sharing that thought with Matthew, but knew he would not find it funny. Everything about bathing and the deacon frightened Matthew.

It became routine. On Saturday and on the Sabbath, we would watch the televisor in our room, and be led to breakfast and supper. On Monday, things went back to normal. Deacon Jerome would read and make us memorize scripture.

“From Proverbs, 29:15, The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth himself to shame and death.” He had us memorize that one, but didn’t explain what it meant.

There hadn’t been a televisor at the Ranch, but I remembered it from home. My family and I had gather around it every night. At 7:00, the power came on, and a picture of the First Scudder would appear. A voice would say, “The blessing of the Lord God and of his Representative on Earth, the Scudder, be upon you.” Then we would see the Scudder, the one who ruled us. Once, I heard someone say he was the fifteenth Scudder, but when I asked my father, he said never to question or to count.

The Scudder would speak, usually to offer some instruction such as “Work hard and prosper,” or a proverb like, “A wise man will build his house upon the rock.” After that, we would hear about things happening in other parts of the world: a famine in Nebraska, and how our grain was saving lives there, or a flood in another place, and how our food was needed there. Sometimes, there were morality plays with people playing the roles of sins, of people, of angels. I liked those, best, even though I didn’t always understand them.

There were also reports of punishments for mortal sins. I remember those most of all. A man who had blasphemed was shown having his tongue cut out, and then a hot poker stuck in his mouth. I was pretty sure he was dead when they took it out.

Boys and girls who had touched each other inappropriately were shown with their genitals burned off, and the number of the beast burned into their foreheads before they were killed, usually beheaded. Farmers who had tried to hide some of their grain or vegetables were disemboweled, the standard punishment for gluttony. There was more.

As always, please let David know what you think of his story: david.mcleod@castleroland.net