I have published a new book that is entitled Roswell Redeemed- Humanity After Disclosure. See: http://hpanwo-bb.blogspot.com/2018/12/roswell-redeemed-is-here.html. It is a sequel to Roswell
Revealed- a World After Disclosure, which means it is the third part
of a trilogy. I've decided to do the same thing as I did with Rising and Revealed: put up a sample first segment online. This
will hopefully give readers an idea of what the book is about and encourage
them to purchase the complete book. For those of you
who have not read the first and second novels, I advise you to do so before
reading this sample or the third novel because it is a continuation of the same story and also
contains a few spoilers about the first book.
I hope you enjoy the
sample below.
Roswell Redeemed- Humanity After Disclosure
by Ben Emlyn-Jones
Chapter 1
Brendan Quilley opened his eyes. It was morning and light
glinted off the walls and ceiling of his bedroom. There was a brightness and
texture to the sheen that was different to the usual. He hardly dared hope as
he got out of bed, but when he looked out of his bedroom window his hopes were
confirmed and his heart soared. The world outside was blanketed with snow.
Almost before he knew what he was doing he had dashed out of his bedroom and
was thundering down the stairs. His father was already waiting for him, stood
at the bottom of the stairs holding Brendan's winter jacket and woolly hat.
"You'll need these, son." he said with a wry smile on his face.
"Thanks,
dad." He bundled into his warm clothes as quickly as he could.
His mother called
from the kitchen. "Brendan, what about your breakfast?"
"Can I have
it later, mom?"
She chuckled.
"Okay."
Brendan pushed the
front door open; immediately he was met with resistance. He pushed harder at
the drift blocking the door. The sound of the snow being displaced by the door
was like a smoother version of the rustling of leaves. He stepped outside and
his feet were enveloped in the chilled caress of fresh powdery fall. The sky
above was almost as white as the ground and the overcast was featureless. He
took a few steps, relishing the obstruction the snow caused. He could feel the
popping, crackling sensation of the snow compacting under the soles of his
feet, through the thick material of his boots. The chilled air on his face made
his cheeks glow. Condensation formed on his eyelashes. His father had already
retrieved his son's sledge from the garage. It was a wooden one that the two of
them had built the previous spring and this was the first time he had used it.
Brendan dragged the sledge behind him by a loop of blue nylon cord as he
clumped down the garden path and out into the street. There were only a few
rows of footprints at this early hour on this small residential road. They were
neat foot-shaped depressions in the fall that resembled cookie-cutter holes in
the pure, smooth icing whiteness. The beds of the spoors were compressed down
without melting. He reached out and pulled a clump off the top of a garden
wall. It felt soft and fluffy through his insulated mittens. He chided himself
for spoiling the immaculate perfection of the fallen snow, that magical
substance. He looked behind him and saw his own footprints filing between the
lines made by the runners of his sledge. He reached the main road and there
were a few more footprints. There were places on the pavement where they merged
to create irregular patches of trodden snow where it was easier to walk. The
wheeled snow-mountains of cars trundled past, their engine sound muted by the
acoustics of the snow. The low rumble of petrol engines, the roar of diesels
and the high-pitched warble of Digby Carrousels sounded more alike today. A
snowplough was working its way down the carriageway. It was a large yellow
council vehicle with a rotating scoop at the front. It excreted a prism of
broken snow behind it in the gutter. There was a bleeping sound from Brendan's
roamphone. He took of his mittens and pulled the device out of his pocket.
There was a cascade of social media posts from his friends; they were all
heading for the golf course. He seethed with excitement. It was just perfect
for him that the snow had fallen today. It was a Saturday; that meant no school
and no church. He was completely free to have fun all day.
The Red Gate Golf
Course enjoyed a mystical status in the culture of Brendan and his friends. It
was private property and access was strictly forbidden, which was one of the
factors that most drew them towards it. There was a high fence around the
course but it was full of rusty holes so that it was not hard to squeeze
through. Once inside there was no end to the supply of amusements; climbing
trees, rolling down the fairways, games of soccer and baseball, hide-and-seek;
and, their favourite, dodging the groundsmen. Today, however, there would be
nobody there and it was safe to enter through the main gate. The view of the
open spaces drenched in pure white took his breath away. Snow turned familiar
surroundings into another world. He began trudging over the clean unbroken
cover as if he were an arctic explorer. He knew where everybody would be; the
seventh hole. The fairway was a steep concave drop from the line of trees in
the rough to a row of bunkers at the bottom of the hill. A perfect place for
sledging. As the location came into view he saw that a number of boys were
already there. Many of them had shop-bought sledges injection-moulded from
brightly coloured plastic. As he approached, one of the bigger boys
straightened up and stared at him. "Hey, Quilley! What are you doing here?"
Brendan pulled up
dead in his tracks. Because of their winter clothing he had not recognized any
of the boys ahead of him. The one who had challenged him was Walt Nomatski, a
sixth-grader at the new junior high school Brendan had started attending at the
start of the last term. There had been an instant mutual dislike between them;
indeed Walt seemed to enjoy that hostility. He felt it for many fifth-graders,
especially those who were considerably smaller and less aggressive than he was.
If Brendan had known Nomatski was there he would have given the place a wide
berth.
Nomatski sneered. "Quilley,
this hill is for cool kids with cool sleds only, not dumb kids with stupid sleds
made of sticks their dads built for them. So scram!" A few of Nomatski's
big ugly friends were standing at his shoulder, glaring at Brendan from under
their woolly hats. Their mouths were hard thin horizontal lines above their
scarves.
Brendan turned
around and walked away; there was nothing else he could do. He felt no anger or
humiliation at his dismissal by Nomatski's gang; this was just normal life for
him. He pulled his sledge over the rise through some more rough, and the
fairway beyond was empty. He knew from his roam that some more likeable
companions were congregating on a neighbouring hole, but he was quite happy to
have some time to himself first. He watched the fragments of snow being kicked
up by his boots as he plodded along. He stopped. He kicked a big clod across
the surface of the fall and it rolled into a small ball. He suddenly had the
desire to build a snowman, but then a noise in front of him made him stop. The
noise was coming from the tree-line ahead on the next rough at the side of the
fairway; it was the beehive buzzing of a flyer engine. For a moment he was
worried that it might be his father, come to take him away from this ice
crystal idyll; but when he saw the vehicle he relaxed. It was a far bigger
craft than his father's. The flyer rose above the treetops, interlaced for a
moment with the skeleton of winter branches. It was a blank grey coin-like disc
against the steely miasma of the sky. In moments it had vanished into the drooping
cloud base. A new text message appeared on his roam: "Bren, I'm by the fourth green. Dave." Brendan smiled to
himself and changed course; his trail of footprints banked to the left. His
heart soared; Dave was his best friend. All adversity would be forgotten when
he managed to reach Dave's side. He was heading right towards where the flyer
had taken off.
Dave looked very
small. He was hunched over, hugging his knees, on the slope at the edge of the
green. In the snow of the flat surface of the green was a circular depression
where the flyer had landed. "Who was that?" asked Brendan.
"Who was
who?" Dave was wrapped tightly in tartan-coloured winter clothes. His dark
face was framed by the lace edges of his hood.
"Who was in
that flyer?"
Dave stared hard
at him. His chestnut eyes seemed more intense surrounded by the snowy
landscape. He gave a very long pause. "Friends."
"Dave, are
you okay?" Brendan sensed that something was on his friend's mind."
"Just
thinking how much I love the snow."
Brendan sat beside
him, the fall on the berm through his insulated trousers making a most
comfortable seat. "Me too... Do you want to do some sledding?"
He hesitated
again, failing to meet Brendan's gaze, making his friend feel more awkward.
"I'll miss the snow. I won't be seeing it again most likely."
"What do you
mean?"
After Dave
explained, they felt uncomfortable with each other. They made a pretence of
play for a while, taking it in turns to drive Brendan's sledge down the slopes,
but it was a relief when Brendan managed to think of an excuse and say goodbye
to his friend. As he walked back across the golf course, following his own
approaching footsteps from earlier, tears budded in Brendan's eyes. He looked
around himself, hoping that the old Indian was there, but there was no sign of
him; and Brendan dared not contemplate the other friend he had recently lost
because if he did he would simply break down and cry all day in the snow. He
headed straight home as quickly as he could, hoping he could get there before
the dam broke. Tears were rolling down his face as he ran up the garden path as
fast as the snowfall allowed. He left his sledge by the door. "What the
matter, honey?" His mother ran forward as soon as she saw him come in.
"It's Dave...
He's moving away! I'm never going to see him again."
"Oh,
baby!" His mother put her comforting arms around him and gathered him up
onto her lap in the armchair.
"He's my best
friend." Brendan sobbed.
"Where's he
moving too?"
"Africa."
His father came
into the room. "I'm sorry, son. I had heard rumours about this, but didn't
want to say anything till I knew for sure."
Brendan looked up
at him. His vision was warped by tears. "Why, dad?... Why's he moving to Africa?"
"David's dad's
a physician. The word's got round that he'd signed up for the Return to Africa
programme."
Brendan had heard
that term before on TV, but didn't know what it meant. "What's 'Return to Africa'?"
"A few
countries in Africa have asked for Americans, especially
those with skills and education, to go and live and work there."
"But why
Dave's dad?"
His father paused.
"Because he's a black man."
Brendan frowned in
confusion. "What does that matter?"
"Black people
in America all
come from African families."
"Dave
doesn't! His family come from Baltimore."
"Back to his
granddad or great-granddad's time maybe, but what about before that?"
"Who cares
who was before that? It's too long ago."
"Some people
do care about that, Bren... I'm sorry." His father reached down and patted
his head.
Brendan started
weeping again. "He was my best friend."
"You can stay
in touch." said his mother. "Talk to each other on the Mesh. We can
even take you to visit him now we've got flyers."
"Dr King is
black; why is he not moving to Africa?"
"Dr King is
the president-elect." said his father.
Brendan went to
his bedroom and lay down on his bed. Snow was falling outside his window again,
but all the wonder it had filled him with that morning was gone. He felt a stab
of anger for his parents. The heartbreak he was feeling was one he had had to
deal with many times because his family were always uprooting themselves and
moving. Each time he expected it to become easier but it never did. He had been
born in Ireland
and had moved to New York City when
he was four. He had started kindergarten there and had experienced the newfound
joy of extra-familial relationships with the other children. These
relationships were instantly and totally cut off when the Quilleys packed up
and moved to Las Vegas where he went through elementary school making new friends;
Harry, John, Marcus, Pete, Charlie and many others. He enjoyed a certain status
among the other boys there because his adult sister Siobhan was on television;
she presented the news on CBS. He was growing bigger, stronger and happier
every day, but then everything went wrong and his life fell apart. His father
had a stroke and almost died; and then a sinister old lady entered the
household and arranged medical treatment for him... Brendan stomped on the
brakes of his train of thought. There were some things he could not allow
himself to think about.
.............
The following morning the family got into the ground car
and, like they did every Sunday morning, drove to church. Sometimes when the
weather was warm they walked together along the streets of Rockville,
Maryland USA,
their hometown; but usually they drove or flew. Mass began at ten AM sharp, although sometimes they would
attend the later short masses without music or the other frills. The church was
a strange dome-shaped structure with a thin central spire and high
narrow-arched gables for the windows and main door. Neighbouring it was an
older chapel of a more traditional architecture that was only used for special
occasions. There was a life-size white marble statue of Jesus Christ in the
driveway. They walked into the narthex with the other parishioners, saying
hello to familiar faces. Brendan kept a lookout for his own acquaintances among
the younger members of the congregation. He dipped his finger in the holy water
and crossed himself, feeling revolted as he always did. The water in the pot
might be holy, but it looked very dirty and usually had slime floating in it. After
all the fingers that were stuck in it there were probably all kinds of bacteria
and viruses in suspension. The family tended to sit in the same pew, as all the
regular congregation did, even though there was no official seat allocation. It
was just mutually-agreed habit. They sat quietly while they waited for the mass
to start. The organ played soothing ambient music. A few people were kneeling
and praying. Brendan's parents sometimes sat quietly, muttering the rosary.
Then the organ music would change to a grander tone and a server would ring a
bell. Everybody stood up and sang the opening hymn as the priest walked in from
the sacristy. The parishioners' attitude to the local clergy was very
paradoxical. They regarded them with reverence, as vicars of Christ ordained by
the holy sacraments from God. At the same time they often made affectionate fun
of their quirks and mannerisms. Several of them had humourous nicknames. When a
priest appeared that they had recently been lampooning Brendan's father would
often nudge his son and look down with a smile. Brendan would return his gaze
and giggle.
Today it was
Father Costello, a tall and extremely thin Jesuit with a highly set nose and
sunken cheeks. His vestments hung off his ancient frame as if he were a coat
hanger. Behind his back he was sometimes called "Dr Relic". His
physical opposite, the chubby young deacon, carried the liturgical texts behind
him. As the music stopped, Father Costello took his place at the front of the
nave. "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." He
said in his high-pitched nasal Southern accent.
"Amen."
everybody replied in unison. Then there followed the rites of penitence and
then the Gloria. After that the children would leave the nave for a small room
adjoining the sacristy where they would receive the children's liturgy; bible
stories told by a teacher from the local elementary school in a manner intended
for children to understand and enjoy them. Here finally Brendan was able to
interact with his friends. At the end of the children's liturgy they all
returned to the nave for the Eucharist, the principal part of the mass; then
the priest would end the service with a blessing and they headed for the church
hall for tea and biscuits.
There was a burst
of excitement from his parents and several other people there when Siobhan
arrived. There was the humming sound from outside and people rushed to the
windows to see a dark blue flyer descending into the carpark and his parents
bubbled over with delight as Siobhan decamped from it. Brendan's sister was
seventeen years his elder. She was an adult; and this felt strange from the
point of view of his friends whose siblings were all just a handful of years'
difference in age. They often talked about their brother or sister in the grade
below or above them. Brendan found it normal to have a sister who was out of
school and in the same alien world of adulthood as his parents. He remembered
lying in her arms as much as he remembered doing so with his mother. Often she
used to pick him up and cuddle him when he cried. She looked very like his
mother, with a similar face and hair; she always had. He had not seen her for a
month and he was surprised how much she had changed. Her hair was cut shorter
and she had put on a lot of weight. Her abdomen was swollen like a beach-ball. Accompanying
her as always was her best friend Jenny, a bright-eyed older woman with unkempt
greying hair and a lively intelligent face. The whole family walked home from
church together and gathered in the lounge to talk. Jenny drove Siobhan's flyer
over and was waiting for them in the driveway. Brendan was given the job of fetching
tea and biscuits for everybody. When he came back into the room they all turned
and stared at him with quizzical smiles on their faces. "Brendan."
said his father. "We have something to tell you... You're going to be an
uncle."
"Eh?"
Brendan shook his head in confusion.
"Siobhan is
having a baby, honey." added his mother.
Brendan stared at
Siobhan. "Really?"
Siobhan nodded her
head almost imperceptibly.
"But...
how?"
They all laughed.
"What's so
funny?"
"It's nothing
to worry about, Bren." said his mother. "It's just Siobhan's time to
have a baby, just like it was my time to have you when you were born."
Brendan sat down,
his mind churning. "I'm a... an uncle?"
"Yes."
"But I can't
be! I'm a kid. Uncles are all grown up."
They chuckled
again. "Not necessarily, baby." said his mother. "To be an uncle
all you need to do is have a brother or sister who has a child. I've heard of
uncles and aunts who are younger than their nieces and nephews."
He nodded his head
after processing this information.
"And I'm
going to be a grandpa." said his father with a rueful half-smile.
"When will
the baby come out?" asked Brendan.
"The end of February."
said Siobhan. "Also it's not just one baby; it's two."
His parents' and Jenny's heads swung away
from Brendan and focused on Siobhan like a trio of high-speed lighthouses.
"What!?" exclaimed his mother.
"It's twins,
mom."
"Are you
sure? Have you been tested?"
Siobhan shrugged.
"Kind of."
His father
whistled in surprise. "Wow!"
.............
Brendan felt perturbed as he trudged through the ageing snow
to school the following morning. He met up with his friends and put on a good
act of being his normal self; but inside, his mind was in turmoil. The bell
rang in the playground. He dropped the snowball he had been about to throw and
headed inside to his locker to collect the books he needed. He sat at his desk
in his classroom in silence, staring at the Stars and Stripes hanging above the
waxboard. The girls on the row of desks to his left were turning to face each
other and talking. They giggled inanely at some joke that was both inaudible
and incomprehensible. Girls, Brendan mused, were surely the most repulsive
creatures in all of God's creation. Their obsessive vanity, their banal chatter
about irrelevant subjects, their fixation on their clothes, their hair and
cosmetics; their propensity to play with dolls, meaningless objects that were
good for nothing except targets on a catapult range... However they were
essential for human reproduction. For some reason, known only to Himself, God
had made humanity with the inherent burden of a degenerate lower half. Brendan
had known about the facts of life for quite a while. It was the previous year
that a seventh-grader he knew had let him borrow a biology textbook he had just
taken out of the senior library all about "the birds and the bees".
It was entitled Sex and Childbirth- an
Introduction. Brendan had pored through its pages with a mixture of
fascination and horror. It had taken several weeks, but he had managed to put
this upsetting reality into the slow oven of his mind for long-term integration.
However the announcement of his sister's pregnancy brought the whole sordid
quandary crashing down on his head again. The process involved unthinkable
acts, such as inserting parts of a male body into parts of a female body, the
emission of substances and objects that he couldn't even have imagined
existing. The engendering of evil-looking piscine mutants with ropes of flesh
sprouting from their navels that unbelievably took on human form and eventually
squeezed their way out into the world and became a baby. He still could not
accept that he, like everybody else, had begun his own life as one of those
deformed homunculi... He shivered and a wave of nausea passed over him. He knew
that he could never become a father. How on earth was any baby ever created
when adults were forced to perform such disgusting actions? Is that the best
method God could come up with? It amazed Brendan to think that his own parents
had had sexual intercourse, not just once, but twice; in order to create both himself and Siobhan. How did they
achieve this feat while keeping their mental health intact?
Brendan's first
class of the day was art, one of his favourites. The main reason he liked it
was that he got to sit next to Dave, however when they sat down together his
friend was strangely distant. He greeted Brendan far more formally than usual
and declined to enter into their usual conversation. To begin with Brendan felt
hurt by his reticence, but when he looked at Dave's face, and realized how sad
his friend was, he understood. Dave was as dejected at the prospect of being
parted from Brendan as Brendan was from him. Their mutual company had now
become painful with the knowledge that it was finite and leading up to an
appointed permanent end. Dave just wanted to get it over with now.
"Now
then." said Miss Spreale, the art teacher. "Today I'd like you all to
produce a picture of a friend you have not seen for a long time and really wish
you could. Somebody you really miss badly."
The class nodded
their collective head. The teacher placed a sheet of paper and a jar of
coloured pencils and crayons in front of them and they got to work. Brendan looked
at the jar closest to him. His hand reached out and picked up the blue and
green crayons. He had a strange feeling while he did so, as if he knew
something terrible was about to happen, he was the one doing it and he still
couldn't stop himself. He drew a line of green across the paper and then drew a
line of blue on top of it. He stopped and stared. The two superimposed crayon
marks mixed like paint. The resulting purple colour made his breath catch in
his throat and tears fill his eyes. He felt as if he had split into two
separate entities locked in combat. One half of him yelled at him not to risk
it; these were forbidden fortresses within his memory. The other urged him on.
He carried on drawing, his hand moving automatically. It took him twenty
minutes to complete the image. Miss Spreale walked over to his desk. "Oh
Brendan." she shook her head sadly. "Why do you always have to be
difficult?"
He didn't dare
look up at her. He hoped his voice would not betray his emotions.
"Miss?"
"The
assignment I set you, like I set this whole class, was to draw a picture of a
friend, one you haven't seen for a long time and one you miss. All you have
done is drawn some kind of cartoon character."
Suppressed
sniggers broke out from around him; the entire class were eager spectators to
his reprimand.
Brendan felt his
cheeks blazing like radiators. He wished badly that he had been able to stop
himself drawing that picture. He shrugged evasively.
"I'm waiting
for an explanation, Brendan." growled the teacher in a threatening tone.
"He is a
friend, miss. His name's Boggin."
His classmates
burst into raucous merriment.
"Quiet!"
snapped Miss Spreale at them. "Brendan." she began is a gentler tone.
"Was this your imaginary friend?"
"He wasn't
imaginary. He was real." He sniffed loudly.
There was a long
pause. "Alright, Brendan. Carry on." The teacher moved to the next
desk. Brendan looked up at her departing back.
..............
"How does it feel to be ten years old?"
"Cool, mom." A couple of years
earlier Brendan's mother would have scooped him onto her lap, but today she merely
embraced him as he stood in front of her. He felt nostalgic regret about that. It
struck him very much at that moment how much he had grown. He really was
significantly bigger than he had been on his previous birthday. His eyes were
on a level with his mother's shoulder and she looked diminished in size. In a
world where every adult previously appeared like a giant, he began to perceive
scale among them. It actually felt very odd to be ten years old. For the first
time ever there were two digits associated with his age. He recalled being six
or seven and thinking how ancient ten years old appeared; but now he was there
it was unearthly. Time seemed to be passing so quickly.
"Happy
birthday, son." His smiling father clapped him hard on the shoulder.
"Ten years; it's quite a milestone."
"I guess
so." Brendan replied.
"Have you
given any thought to your outing?"
"Not really,
dad."
"We should make it a special one this
year." Every year on his birthday, Brendan's parents took him and a
handful of his school friends, as many who could fit in the car, out for a day
trip to somewhere of his choosing. Sometimes his father would help him by suggesting
a place. On his previous birthday his father had been recovering from a stroke
and so they had had a trip in the spring and Brendan got the feeling his father
felt that was insufficient. Sometimes his friends asked Brendan if he minded
his birthday being so close to Christmas. Brendan had never given it much
thought seeing as it was when his birthday happened to be, and he knew of no
other. He got the feeling his friends who had birthdays at other times imagined
that the significance of Brendan's birthday was diminished because Christmas
was only two weeks later, but he didn't feel that way. In fact he regarded his
birthday as a happy prelude to Christmas; both festivals enhanced the other. He
regarded New Year the same way. "Look at this." His father was
sitting at the kitchen table with his matchbook computer open in front of him.
"A place has just opened in London
called 'the London Planetarium'. Shall we go there?"
A thrill rose
within him and he jumped in the air. "Yeah!" He had no idea what a
planetarium was, but the thought of going all the way to London
was delicious regardless of the purpose of the adventure.
"London?"
his mother frowned. "London, England?"
"That's the
only London I know of." His
father grinned at his wife sardonically.
"But, Clane;
it's not safe."
"It's
perfectly safe."
"It's a war
zone!"
"No it's not,
Gina." he scoffed. "Not any more. It's under full LoW control these
days. I've seen travel brochures urging people to go to England."
"Of course;
they want people's hard American money... Clane, I don't feel comfortable with
Brendan going to England.
There are plenty of other planetariums he can go to. There's a very neat one in
Chicago."
Brendan stared at
his father in fear, silently begging him. His two parents had a debate for
about three minutes. When he was younger they used to get angry and shout at
each other, but they had mellowed in the last couple of years; probably because
they had both suffered serious illness. In the end Brendan could bear it no
longer. "But please!" he interjected. "Mom, dad; I really want
to go to England!"
They both turned
their heads in unison and looked at him blankly.
.............
The evening before the outing Brendan's father went to pick
up the flyer. Brendan stood in the driveway, the slush soaking into his
slippers, waiting for his father to come back. The vehicle was a large sleek
black object with tinted windows. It descended over the treetops in the garden
opposite and settled gently on the tarmac, buzzing smoothly. Like most flyers
it resembled a large family car without wheels. "Wow, dad!" exclaimed
Brendan.
"Pretty hot,
huh?" His father got out and ran his hand along the shiny roof.
"Can we keep
it?"
He guffawed.
"Oh, I wish!... No, we have to take it back to Jenny's factory when we
come home. We're only borrowing it."
"It's way
cooler than our flyer, dad."
"Damn right;
she's got a lot more power. Four disc, sixty-seven lateral G's. Very sexy! We
could have done the trip in our own, but it's only got five seats. You couldn't
bring as many friends. Also this baby has a life-raft which we should have
really." His father opened the luggage hatch at the rear and showed his
son a bright yellow box attached to the sidewall.
"Why do we
need that?"
"In case we
have a breakdown transatlantic."
Brendan found it
difficult to sleep that night. He lay in bed seething with anticipation. He got
up before everybody else and ran downstairs to make breakfast. His parents rose
from slumber in more leisurely manner. They snapped at their son a few times as
he tried to cajole them along. Eventually, after enough cups of coffee, they
both stopped yawning and the bags under their eyes retracted into their faces.
They returned to their bedroom to put on their clothes and finally they were
ready to leave. The interior of the flyer was immaculate and smelled of rubber
like a new car in a showroom. It had a similar layout to a car, with a driving
seat and front passenger seat at the front; then a row of three seats in the
middle and two seats at the back. "Don't make a mess back there!"
warned his father. "I promised Jenny we would bring this thing back in the
same condition we took it. She has to sell it to somebody next week." He
started the engine and the vehicle drifted upwards. He moved uncertainly to
begin with, getting used to the unfamiliar controls. "Jeez, the pitch
lever on this bird is heavy." he muttered. After a few minutes of circling
over their street at about two hundred feet he set a course for Henry's house.
Brendan relished Henry's gaping face as he looked up at their flyer in awe as
it descended elegantly into his back garden. After that they went and picked up
Chris, Pete and Albert. Brendan was enthused by the presence of his friends and
they all eagerly stared out of the windows as his father drove the flyer higher
and faster. Soon they were breaking through the clouds and the sky above was
vanilla blue.
The flight to London
took an hour and a half. They traversed the eastern seaboard. New
York and the snowy backdrops of Nova
Scotia and Newfoundland
passed below them. Once over the Atlantic Ocean his
father brought them down to four thousand feet so they could watch the sea
scrolling beneath them like an old movie. They passed a few ships; coloured
blobs that whipped below their undercarriage before they had a chance to have a
good look at them. A haze appeared ahead of them that solidified into a green
landscape free of snow. His father eased back on the throttle and the vehicle
slowed so that they could see more of the fields, rivers, roads and towns that
they flew over. "Welcome to England."
he said.
"Have you
been here before, Mr Quilley?" asked Pete.
His father's face
became grim. "A long time ago, before Saucer Day."
The countryside
below them grew more built up and soon they were flying over a huge city. A
wide meandering river flowed through the metropolis. Some boats floated along
it, looking like twigs from this altitude. Brendan recognized many of the buildings
because they were famous historical landmarks and tourist attractions, Big Ben,
Tower Bridge
and St Paul's Cathedral. He and his
friends had their noses pressed to the windows. "Wow!" "Look at
that!" and other exclamations were their only words.
"Where can we
land?" asked his father.
"Not
sure." replied his mother. She was studying the navigation display in
front of her seat. "I can't see any official flyer pads listed."
"Damn it! I'm
going to put down where I can and hope the LoW don't give me a ticket." He
dived towards a triangular patch of green, a verdant wedge among the grey
rooftops. He levelled up and slowed until he was hovering above a small park in
the middle of a busy urban district. He landed the flyer on the grass and they
all eagerly decamped. The air was warmer than at home. The sky was blue with
small clean clouds. A road lay beside the park with a wide pavement on the far
side. Multiple vehicles drove past including a very tall red bus with two
floors like a moving house. "Stay close to me, everybody." commanded
Brendan's mother. "Clane, where do we go from here?"
"To the
nearest subway station; they call it the 'Underground'... There." He
pointed to a sign which showed a thick red circle with a blue equatorial line
overlaying it. "Now be careful, all of you! Especially when crossing the
streets. They drive on the wrong side of the road over here. We need to get a move
on; it's already mid-afternoon in England."
They walked along the wide pavement, looking at the shop fronts that skirted
the tall grey-brick buildings. When they got closer they saw that the
Underground station was called Shepherd's Bush. "Shepherd's Bush?"
They all laughed. "Do shepherds have bushes?... What a crazy name."
The adults bought tickets for them all and they descended via an escalator to
the subterranean platforms. It was very similar to the New York Subway only
more compact. The trains were cylindrical in shape and the carriage roofs
curved in overhead giving the interior a suffocating atmosphere. A few times on
the journey the train was so full of people that they had to stand; their
shoulders, chests and backs pressed against other passengers. They had to
change trains at one point and walked along passageways and escalators to
another platform. It was quite a relief to climb back up onto another bustling
city street. "Ladies and gentlemen." announced his father grandly.
"We are now on Baker Street.
This is where Sherlock Holmes lived."
"Hey!"
"Neat!" "Wow!" they all called out in unison. "Is he
still there, dad?" asked Brendan. "Can we go visit him?"
His parents
laughed loudly.
There was some
commotion at the junction as they walked towards their destination. Traffic was
at a standstill because of it and some of the drivers were sounding their horns.
A squad of riot police with light blue helmets were holding back a crowd of
angry people who were blocking the road. Brendan recognized the uniforms as the
League of the World Peace Corps. The crowd was a political demonstration; the
people held aloft placards that read: "ELECTIONS
NOW!", "LoW OUT!" and
"FREE BRITAIN!" "They want their own
government." explained his father. "They've been under LoW occupation
for a long time now. A bit like our own Provisional Government, except so far
there are no plans to change that situation in Europe..."
He cut off and gasped. "Look!" He pointed at a banner sporting a
strange emblem, a red oblong centred by a blue circle inside a white circle. A
white jagged line, like a bolt of lightening, cut the blue one in two.
"What's that, dad?"
"Mosleyites!"
"What are
they?"
"Fascists!"
His father led him
swiftly away from the protesters. "God, I thought all that was over."
he muttered uneasily. A few hundred yards down the road they came to a steep dome-shaped
structure neatly embedded into a street corner like an eyeball in its socket.
It had a signboard above its entrance that said LONDON PLANETARIUM. "A show is about to start." said his
mother. "Come on in, kids." They bought tickets and entered the
softly-lit auditorium. The place resembled a cinema except the seats were
arranged in a circle around the centre. The space in the middle of the dome,
right under its apex, was taken up by a strange machine that looked like a
robot or a spacecraft mounted on a stand. When he sat in a seat Brendan was
surprised at how far back it was reclined. It was more like a dentist's chair
than a cinema seat. The room darkened and the done above their heads lit up.
The device in the centre was a projector and it beamed a realistic image onto
the curved ceiling. "Welcome to the London Planetarium..." said a deep
masculine voice through a loudspeaker. The voice gave a running commentary as
the concave screen displayed very vivid images of the night's sky. Planets came
into close view, stars wheeled around the zenith; constellations were
highlighted and described. To Brendan the display looked as if the roof had
been lifted off and they had moved forward six hours in time. It was as if he
were looking at the real night's sky. A yellow globe appeared and the
commentator announced that they were looking at a diagram of the sun. "The sun is a star, a luminous globe of gas
producing heat and light by nuclear fusion. It was born from a nebula and
consists mostly of hydrogen and helium gas. The brightest stars have masses one
hundred times that of the sun and emit as much light as a million suns. They
live for less than a million years. The faintest stars are the red dwarfs, less
than one thousandth the brightness of the sun. They can live for hundreds of
billions of years. Towards the end of its life, a star like the sun swells up
to become a red giant. Eventually it explodes with enormous force. This is
called a stella nova. It loses its
outer layers and these become a planetary nebula. Finally it will shrink to a
fraction of its former size to become a white dwarf. During this process, the
earth and most of the planets will be completely destroyed, but don't worry.
The scenario I have just described will not begin for at least six billion
years..." The show ended soon afterwards and the lights came on. The
audience got up out of their couches to leave, including his parents and
friends. "Hey, what's the matter with Brendan." Henry said. Brendan
couldn't move. He was totally paralyzed. He lay in his couch staring at the
white dome above his head. His heart was pounding; his mouth was dry. He heard
his mother's voice: "Brendan?... Brendan!... BRENDAN!... Brendan, what's
wrong!?" Brendan couldn't reply. All he could see was the blazing fiery
sphere of the swollen sun engulfing the planet earth. Everything around him was
bursting into flames; the trees were igniting like matchsticks, the mountains
were melting, the oceans were boiling.
............
He couldn't remember how he left the London Planetarium. He
had some vague recollection of his father coaxing him to stand up onto his
feet. He was being half-carried down the London
street they had walked along earlier. It was now dark and the shop windows were
glowing with electric light. He was trying to walk, but could not support is
own weight; his legs felt like noodles. Henry and his father had a hand each
under his armpits to support him. "We need to call a goddamn
ambulance!" he heard his mother yell.
"No!"
his father retorted. "We need to get him home!"
"I told you
we shouldn't have brought him here!"
"How the hell
was I to know this would happen!? Are you saying in Chicago
it wouldn't have!?" They travelled on the Underground back to Shepherds
Bush and returned to the flyer. Brendan lay on the back seat, his eyes out of
focus, as they flew back across the Atlantic as fast as
they could. Slowly the sky lightened as if at dawn. When they arrived home they
were back in the US Eastern Time zone and it was still early afternoon. After
dropping off Brendan's friends, his parents took him to the doctor. The
family's GP was an old man with wispy grey hair and a long pointed nose. He
looked very much like a creature from a science fiction film Brendan had seen a
few years ago. He examined Brendan as the boy lay on his examination table. He
took his temperature, blood pressure and listened to his heartbeat. While he
was doing this Brendan's parents told him what had happened. The doctor looked
down Brendan's throat, in his ears and shone a light into his eyes. "Well,
Mr and Mrs Quilley, I can't find anything wrong with him. His observations
appear normal; although his heart-rate is up a bit."
"But there is something wrong with him!"
insisted his mother. "He can hardly walk! He hasn't said a word for hours.
He's in some kind of trance."
"I think he
has suffered some kind of emotional trauma. I'd like to treat him for shock.
I'll also make you an appointment with the child psychiatrist."
His parents
gasped. "Emotional shock!?" shrilled his father. "Why!?...
How!?..."
"Dr Flynn, we were having a day out in London
for Christ's sake!" said his mother. "Nothing, absolutely nothing
happened that could cause Brendan emotional trauma. We were having a lovely
day..."
"Mrs Quilley,
I can only address this case based on the symptoms I observe." The doctor
shrugged. After the appointment was arranged they went home. By now Brendan
could walk properly, but he still had not spoken. When they got home he
collapsed onto the settee. His father went to the kitchen and came back with a
tub of chocolate ice cream. He held it in front of Brendan's face. "Look
at this, son. Can I interest you in a scoop or two?"
"No thanks,
dad. There's no point." Brendan's voice cracked slightly as he spoke. He
coughed.
His father leapt
back and yelled: "Gina! He said something! He spoke!" There was the
clatter of feet on the floor and in moments both his parents were crouching in
front of him. "Brendan!" His father stared hard into his eyes.
"Can you say something else? You said there was no point eating ice cream.
What did you mean, son? Why is there no point eating ice cream?"
"Because
we're all going to die. The whole world is going to die."
"What do you
mean?"
"What do you
mean, honey?" chimed in his mother.
"The sun is
going to blow up and destroy the earth. It said so in that planetarium
place."
They both gasped;
then they almost laughed. "Son!" said his father. "Is that it?
Is that what has been bothering you all day?"
"Baby!"
his mother leaned forward and caressed his shoulders. "You don't have to
be concerned about that. It's not going to happen for millions and billions of
years!"
"That's true,
son." said his father. "I had no idea you were so upset by this. I'm
so sorry. I should never have taken you there... But you must know, we could
never have guessed such a minor thing would distress you so much."
............
Brendan felt a bit better the next day. It was Sunday so they
all went to mass at church as always. Then they spent the afternoon visiting a
few family friends. They got home when dusk was falling and Brendan went out
for a walk. He strolled along the streets to Rock
Creek Park
where the dregs of the snow were most abundant. It lay in crusty, granular
patches, vitrified by a week of partially melting and freezing every day and
night. He walked along the pathway through the trees until he came to an open
patch of grass with a number of logs one could sit on. The overcast was
breaking up and the sun peeked through a gap between two thick clouds. It
glowed red like the eye of Satan. Brendan glared at it hatefully. The same sun
which gave life to the earth would eventually take it, destroying everything it
had sustained throughout the history of the solar system in a bath of fire. He
then noticed that there was a man sitting on one of the logs on the far side of
the glade; Brendan had seen him when he'd sat down. The figure was the size of
a small adult man and was clad in a parka and Wellington
boots. There was something wonderfully familiar about his posture. Brendan stood
up and walked over towards him, hardly daring to hope. The man lifted his head
and smiled from beneath his hood. Brendan's heart leaped for joy.
"Indian!"
"Hello,
Brendan." said the old Indian.
Brendan threw his
arms around his friend as far as they would go and squeezed his insulated body.
"Indian!... Indian!"
"It's good to
see you too, Brendan. I'm sorry you did not have a happy birthday this
year."
Brendan looked at
him hard. "Is it true, Indian? What they said at that place, the London Planetarium?"
The brief pause that followed before the old Indian spoke was like an
adrenalin-soaked temporal singularity. Brendan felt like the defendant in the
dock waiting for the foreman of the jury to say guilty or not guilty. At
that moment he would have given everything he had, or would ever have, to hear
the Indian say no.
"Yes."
A second eternal
moment passed as Brendan dug his nails into his sanity to stop it falling away.
"So it's true? The sun will one day swell up and burn up the earth?"
"Yes it is,
Brendan. I'm sorry... But it will not happen for eight and a half billion
years. Astronomers have underestimated the sun's life cycle by two-point-five
billion years... Do you know how long a time that is? How long do you think a
billion years are?"
"I don't know. Will it happen after I've
died as an old man?"
The Indian
chuckled. "Oh yes... A billion years is a thousand times one million
years; and a million years is a thousand times one thousand years. And that has
to happen more than eight times. You will not live more than just over one
hundred years, if you're lucky; and that is just one tenth of one thousand
years. An event that far in the future? For practical purposes it might as well
be never. The earth is only about five billion years old; it's barely middle
aged. You know how old the dinosaurs are? Well they never even appeared until
about a quarter of a billion years ago. So you have no cause to be concerned,
Brendan."
Brendan had buried
his face in the Indian's jacketed lap. "Why, Indian?"
"Brendan,
look up at the sky."
Brendan raised his
head. The sun was now just a smudge on the horizon, filtered by the leafless
undergrowth, and some of the stars were visible in the lavender zenith.
"Do you know
how many stars there are up there, Brendan? More than anybody could ever count.
More than anybody could even imagine... But one day, all of them will be dead;
in the same way one day, far sooner, all the people alive in the world today
will be dead. But when that time comes, there will still be stars in the
universe; in the same way when all people today are dead there will still be
people on earth... Everything dies, but everything also carries on. When stars
explode they release a huge quantity of material that eventually transforms
into new stars and new planets. This is the same as people having children who
grow up and outlive their parents, and eventually have their own children who
outlive them in an everlasting cycle."
"Why did God
make the universe this way? Make it so that everything has to die. Why couldn't
He just make it so that everything lasts forever?"
He felt the Indian
shrug inside his winter jacket. "I don't know."
Brendan gasped.
"Why not? I thought you knew everything!"
"I don't. I
am not God... No more than you are anyway."
"I thought you knew all the things God
knows."
"I do not...
The only reason I know more than you is because I have a better view. I'm like
a man standing on a high mountain. I can see far more than a man standing in a
valley, but it doesn't make me any smarter than the man in the valley."
Brendan sat next
to him silently, mulling over this concept. He felt the weight of misery that
had been crushing his shoulders for the last twenty-four hours lift slightly.
"Do you feel
better now?" asked the old Indian.
"I guess. A
bit."
"Good. You
will continue to recover your spirit, young Brendan. It will take a long time,
but it will happen; slowly but steadily."
"Thanks,
Indian." Brendan leaned forward with his face on his knees and his eyes
squeezed shut. "How's Boggin?"
The Indian began
stroking his head as if he were a cat. "Very well. He sends his love as
always. He watches you regularly."
"Does he have
a new friend now?"
"Yes."
"Who?"
The Indian paused.
"A young girl."
"Who is
she?"
"I can't tell
you. She lives a very long way from here."
"Where?"
"She doesn't
live on this earth."
Waves of curiosity
and envy flowed though him. "How many earths are there, Indian?"
"More than
there are years before the end of the world... Be patient, young Brendan; one
day I will tell you all about it." He stopped stroking Brendan's head.
"Why not tell
me now?" He waited for the old Indian to reply and when he didn't Brendan
raised his gaze and saw that the Indian had gone. Brendan was sitting alone on
the log. He shrugged to himself. The Indian always vanished into thin air like
that, but usually less suddenly; usually he said goodbye first. It was almost
dark now and thousands more stars shone from between the clouds. He stood up
and went home, feeling happier.
Chapter 2
The house was full of people; some were neighbours, some
were his father's friends and colleagues from Washington
DC. Siobhan and Jenny had also turned up.
There was loud friendly chatter from downstairs in the kitchen and lounge. Brendan
sat on his bed reading a comic book under his bedside lamp. Outside his window
the night was as black as oil. He knew it was almost time for bed and, as
always, the soothing canon of adult voices downstairs would lull him off to
sleep. The New Year party would still be going strong long after he had dropped
off. He heard his mother's footsteps coming up the stairs and put the comic
down, preparing himself to wish his mother goodnight. There was the standard
evening knock on the door and his mother poked her head round. Normally she
just walked in and kissed his cheek. "Brendan?... Brendan, honey?"
"Mom?"
"Would you
like to come downstairs?"
"What?"
"You're ten
years old now; old enough to see in the New Year... Put on some nice clothes
and join us in the den."
Brendan felt
excited as he slipped on his black terylene trousers and a white shirt. He
descended the familiar stairs of his home into the alien world of adulthood.
All the strangers in the lounge greeted him. The men were in suits and women
were in low-cut gowns; glittering jewellery shone from their wrists and
earlobes. His father was rosy-cheeked and smiling. He thrust a glass into
Brendan's hand. "There you are, son. Get that down your neck!"
"What is it,
dad?"
"Blue
Nun."
Brendan sipped.
The drink's taste reminded him slightly of the shampoo the school nurse had
once given him to treat his head lice, but it was much more pleasant. He
circulated, moving from the lounge to the kitchen, but he was disappointed to
find there were no other children there. The forest of adults towered over him
and their arcane conversations bored him. The television was on in the corner
of the lounge and he found a fairly good view of the screen; only once every
few minutes did somebody walk in front of it. It was showing the standard New
Year variety broadcast with locations shot in Times Square.
A rock and roll band played; a journalist gave a political commentary of the
year about to end. A giant clock on the wall of the square counted down the
minutes and seconds to midnight. His
glass was almost empty. The drink was making him feel strange. His head was
dizzy and sounds were muted, but he felt abnormally relaxed and content.
"Have some
more, son."
Brendan jerked
slightly with shock as his father poured some more drink into his glass.
"Thanks, dad."
"It's almost
twelve." The adults gathered around him to watch the TV. Their trouser
legs and skirt hems brushed against Brendan's shoulders. The TV announcer
chanted excitedly and the adults copied him: "Ten... nine... eight...
seven... six... five... four... three... two... one... ZERO! Happy New
Year!" Fireworks cracked and flashed on the screen. The illuminated
numbers "1963" lit up above the streets in far off New
York City. Outside the window Brendan heard more
fireworks from elsewhere in his own neighbourhood, booming like distant
thunder. The adults all linked arms and sang Auld Lang Syne above Brendan's head. Their voices were raucous and
amplified with alcohol so he plugged up his ears. The quiet then allowed him to
ponder. So this was now a whole new year, 1963. He wondered what came next,
presumably 1964. What happened when they got to 1969; would the year after that
then be nineteen-sixty-ten?
"Come on,
Bren."
He started again
as his mother laid a hand on his shoulder.
"You've seen in
the New Year now, honey; time for bed."
...............
Brendan woke up feeling ill. He had a pounding headache and
an unpleasant taste in his mouth. He could tell by the quality of the light in
his bedroom that he had slept in late. "Mom?" He got out of bed and
went downstairs. A twinge of nausea passed through him as he walked. His surroundings
orbited around him as if he were on a merry-go-round. His mother was in the
kitchen mopping the floor. "Mom, I don't feel too good." he said.
"What's
wrong, Bren?" She sat down at the table and pulled forward a stool for him
to sit on.
When he described his
symptoms he was astonished and annoyed to see his mother laugh. "Why is
that funny, mom?"
"Brendan,
you've got a hangover."
"A
what?"
"I'm sorry to
laugh, honey. It's your dad's fault. He shouldn't have given you a second glass
of wine... Whenever somebody drinks too much liquor they get a hangover; but
don't worry, it won't last long." She got up and poured him a large glass
of water. "Here, honey. Drink this. You'll feel better in a couple of
hours."
Sure enough,
Brendan's hangover had eased by midday.
He read some comic books and looked at a few Meshboards on his matchbook for a
while; and then he began to feel his familiar craving for a sugar rush. He went
downstairs and approached his mother again. "Mom, can I have some money
for candy?"
She scowled at him.
"After all the candy you got over Christmas? You must have eaten your
weight in chocolate. God help your teeth!"
"Please,
mom."
"No. You can
have some more candy when school starts again." She went back to her
chopping board.
Brendan knew from
her gestures and tone of voice that her decision was non-negotiable. He
returned to his bedroom growling to himself in disappointment. He lay down
prostrate on the carpet to pull out some old comics from the archive under his bed.
A cloud of dust was kicked up as he removed the ream, making him cough
slightly. Along with the old comics came a few fragments of loose crumpled
paper. One of them made Brendan stop and look more closely. Its texture and dark
greenish-white colour was familiar, and it filled him with a wild hope. He
unravelled it and saw that, sure enough, it was a one dollar bill. His heart
leaped. He looked over his shoulder at the open door to his bedroom, making
sure nobody was watching him, and then he slipped the banknote into his pocket.
He put on his outdoor clothes and walked down the stairs as calmly as he could
so as not to arouse suspicion. "Mom, I'm just going out for a while."
he called.
"Okay."
his mother responded from the kitchen.
It was a cold and
dry day with no snow, so Brendan got out his bicycle for the journey to the
market square. He locked it up at a rack by a shopping centre. There had been a
lot of development in Rockville
during the last few years including a network of pedestrian malls in the town
centre. Brendan had explored them all thoroughly and had a very accurate mental
map in his head of all the best places to buy sweets. There were a number of
supermarkets with confectionary aisles, Giant Eagle, Walmart and K-mart; but
Brendan's favourite was Melissa's Candy,
a small independently-run shop on a corner Gibbs
Street. "Hi, Brendan. Happy New Year."
The rotund but pretty young woman behind the counter greeted him as he walked
into the shop.
"Happy New
Year, Mel." he smiled back at her.
"I've got
some Mini-Bristols in, 'specially for you." she grinned. "Your favourite."
"Cool!
Thanks!"
"How's your
ma and pa?"
Brendan conversed
with Mel as he stocked up from the shelves, his mouth watering. He took his
goods over to the counter and produced the repossessed dollar bill from his
pocket. Mel froze and gasped as she took it from his hand. "Sweet
Jesus!"
"Is there
something wrong with it, Mel?"
"Brendan,
where did you get this?"
"It's
mine."
She handed it back
to him. "I can't accept this, Brendan. I don't know where you got it from,
but you shouldn't have it."
"What are you
talking about?"
"Get it out
of my shop!" she yelled at him. Her rosy cheeks were now glowing crimson
with rage.
He paused and then
opened his mouth to speak; unsure of what to say.
"GET IT
OUT!" Mel shouted.
Brendan backed
towards to the door and fled. He felt tearful as he dashed into a nearby public
garden and crouched behind a shrubbery. He had never seen Mel so angry. After
taking a few minutes to recover, he walked back to where he'd parked his
bicycle, his brain churning with upset and confusion. He sat on his saddle and
took another look at the dollar bill. It looked completely normal; it had the
usual portrait of George Washington on one side and the Reverse Great Seal on
the other. What was the problem? He rode his bicycle northwards through Rockville
along the main road. It had a wide cycle track which made the journey safer and
easier than usual. After several miles he came to Johns
Hopkins University
where he knew there would be the traditional New Year American football game;
something he hoped would take his mind off his troubles. As soon as he arrived
he saw that something strange was going on. The stadium was in the grounds of
the new campus and on a bowl game day it would normally be bustling with
students, fans, cheerleaders and family members cheering on the players as they
walked out onto the gridiron. Astonishingly it was almost empty. Only a few
gloomy-looking groundsmen wandered around. Brendan went and double-checked and
there was still a banner above the gate that clearly said: "Johns Hopkins Montgomery New Year1963 Bowl. January 1st, 3 PM".
There was no mention of a cancellation. He left the campus and rode back into
central Rockville. In doing so he
realized something that he had noticed subconsciously on his journey out, but
it had not registered at the time. There was very little traffic on the roads,
even for a public holiday. He passed an occasional car, but far fewer than
normal; and there were no buses or lorries. When he arrived back in town he saw
a group of people standing on a street corner. They were clustered close
together outside the door of a solicitors' office. Brendan thought there was
something wrong about their posture. He slowed down to listen to their voices. They
were all weeping. Their heads were bowed, they were covering their face with
their hands and they wailed pitifully together. Brendan pedalled harder and
sped away from them, feeling afraid for some reason. He turned his bicycle onto
Park Road and followed it
under the railway bridge into a residential district. He then spotted four
people sitting in a front garden outside a house; three men and five women.
They were crouched on the grass crying. Brendan was so surprised that he pulled
up by the kerb and stared. The people didn't notice him; they never looked up.
They stayed where they were, half-sitting on the grass with tears dropping from
their noses. Brendan rode on. Less than a minute later he passed an old man
walking down a lane crying openly. Then he saw a married couple whom he knew by
sight, but whose names he couldn't remember. They were also weeping profusely.
Brendan was unnerved so he headed home as quickly as he could. On the way he
encountered a number of other people all in tears. It was as if the entire town
had turned into one big funeral. When he got home he left his bicycle in the
garage and entered his home. "Mom, dad, are you there?" He walked
into the lounge and saw his mother and father hunched forward on the settee
watching television. "Mom, dad, why is everybody crying...?" His
words caught in his throat as he saw tears in his parents' eyes. They were
clutching each other's hands as if seeking support from each other. His eyes
moved to the TV screen where a narrator was speaking in a sombre voice: "...the true magnitude of what has been done
for more years than we currently know..." His mother leaped for the TV
remote control in a panic and almost threw herself on top of it. The screen
went blank. She got to her feet and faced her son, her face trembling.
"Brendan, go to your room now."
"Why? What's
going on?" Brendan asked as a very half-hearted interrogation. He knew he
had no choice but to obey. As he reached the top of the stairs he heard her
bark behind him: "Wait!" She ran up the stairs and pushed past him
into his bedroom and came out carrying his matchbook.
He reached out for
it. "Oh no, mom!"
"Go to
bed!" she responded in a tremulous voice and pointed at the door.
"It's only four o'clock!"
She slammed the
door of his bedroom behind him as soon as he was inside.
He passed an
anxious evening reading his books, cut off from the outside world because of
the loss of his matchbook. He stared out of the window as the sky darkened. He
went to the bathroom a few times and tried to overhear the conversation or TV
dialogue from downstairs but was unable. He changed into his pyjamas and got
into to bed early; he struggled to fall asleep.
.............
The following morning Brendan awoke while it was still dark
outside. He poked his head out of his bedroom and heard somebody moving about
downstairs. He descended to the kitchen and saw his father sitting at the table
eating a bowl of cereal. A coffee mug sat at his elbow. He was dressed in a well
ironed white shirt and tie. His suit jacket hung on the back of the
neighbouring chair. His work identity photo badge glinted in the piercing glare
of the neon lights on the ceiling. The window blinds were raised and the
darkness outside reflected the interior of the room on its panes like a heavily
tinted mirror. "Morning, dad." said Brendan.
His father looked
up sharply, a trickle of milk running down his chin. He wiped it away with a
serviette as he stared at his son, appearing not to recognize him. It reminded
Brendan of the heartrending days when his father had been incapacitated by a
stroke. "Hello, son." he said breathlessly. "It's only
six-thirty. What are you doing up this early?"
He shrugged.
"Because I went to bed early I guess."
His father
chuckled sadly. "We can't keep you in bed forever can we?"
"What's going
on, dad?"
He sighed
tremulously. "Sit down, Bren."
Brendan poured
himself a glass of orange juice from the fridge and took his place on a stool
opposite his father.
"We didn't
want to expose you to what's happened. It's too horrible. The reason I'm up so
early is I'm heading into DC to deal with it. I've got a meeting with Jack
scheduled for eight AM."
Brendan felt adrenalin surge through his
body. His father looked genuinely perturbed, more so than he had ever done
before. "What's going on, dad? Why was everybody crying yesterday?"
"Jack told
the country something awful yesterday afternoon, some really bad news. He's
been holding it back for a long time; keeping it secret, just like in the old
days... He never even told me. I was pissed off at first, but now I understand
why. I know why Jack made sure nobody could know; and anyway he's told the nation
now."
"Told the
nation what?"
His father bowed
his head and raised his hands to his brow, as if experiencing a headache.
"It's... it's all to do with children."
"What about
children, dad?"
"Before R-Day...
in fact even before Saucer Day, the government kept children prisoner. Some
were children taken away from their moms and dads; some were children who never
had a mom or dad. Some were only part human; they were hybrids."
"What's
that?"
"Kids with
one parent who is human and another who is ET; like Kerry, Siobhan's friend...
There were millions of these children, mostly living in the underground bases.
And..." he shuddered. "And the government did some really cruel
things to them."
"Like
what?"
"I can't tell
you; you're too young to know." he tittered ironically. "I think
we're all too young to know."
Brendan gazed at
him curiously.
His father looked
up with a different expression and said in a stronger voice: "Right, I've
got to go to work and you should go back to bed till your mom wakes up. She's
still asleep but she'll be up soon."
"Dad, can I
come with you to work?" Brendan blurted out the question before he knew
why he was asking it.
His father made
the facial expression he did just before he said the word "no"; then he paused. "You
really want to come with me into DC?"
"Yeah."
"You'll get
bored."
"Can't I go
off and explore while you work?"
"I guess so.
And your mom's going to be out all day so you'll be stuck on your own otherwise."
He looked sad again. "And... I could well do with your company."
Brendan smiled.
"So I can come?"
"Yeah, why
not; but I'm leaving in a minute so go get your clothes on now."
Dressing took
Brendan about thirty seconds; he simply tore on the clothes he had been wearing
the day before which he'd left lying on the floor. He reached the bottom of the
stairs as his father was buttoning up his jacket and picking up his briefcase.
"Right, let's go." said his father. "Your mom needs the flyer
today so we'll have to take the ground car."
The air outdoors
was cold, damp and fresh, and the sky was as dark as night. The streetlamps
bathed the silent pre-dawn street with a carotene glow. His father drove the
ground car out of the garage and Brendan got in. To his excitement he was
allowed to sit in the front passenger seat. The Digby driven car accelerated
slowly along the lane, lacking the power of the petrol engine saloon the family
used to drive before they sold it. There was more traffic when they reached the
highway into Washington DC.
His father sat hunched forward in agitation, cursing other drivers for minor
mistakes. "First thing I've got to do is go through some of the arrest
warrants with Jack." he muttered. "He's ordered the FBI to start
rounding up some of these folks."
"The ones who
hurt the children?"
His father nodded.
"We don't know where they all are; there were too many to monitor. Some of
them might work out what's going to happen and split."
"Jack's the
president. He'll find them."
"He's not the
president." His father's voice was deadpan. "He's head of the US Provisional
Government; that's not the same thing. The United
States doesn't have a Federal executive at
the moment. It won't get one till Dr King is inaugurated in a couple of
weeks... This is the last thing Jack needs right now. He's up to his ass in the
transitional process with MLK." he chuckled. "Funny how
practicalities still rear their ugly heads, even during incidents like
these."
Brendan nodded,
not understanding.
The traffic became
thicker and the buildings grew taller as the car approached the US Capitol. The
line of cars and other vehicles grew slower and slower until it eventually
ground to a halt. "Shit!" His father thumped the steering wheel with
the palm of his hand.
Brendan felt his
cheeks redden at his father's exclamation. "Dad! Mom says it's bad to
cuss." he reproached.
His father
laughed. "You're a good boy, Brendan... Sorry, it's just annoying. It's seven-thirty
and we've got a gridlock."
Brendan looked out
of the window. A man on a motor scooter pulled up beside the car. He looked
down and his eyes met with Brendan's. He smiled. He appeared to be sucking
something in his mouth, a toffee or gobstopper. Brendan looked away. He recalled
the incident the previous day in Mel's sweet shop and related the story to his
father as they waited stationary in the traffic jam.
"Have you got
the dollar on you now?"
He reached into
his pocket and found it there. He pulled it out and handed it to his father.
"Ah! No
wonder. This is a pre-Disclosure bill. It's no longer legal tender today."
"You mean
it's not proper money anymore?"
"Unfortunately not. You can't buy anything with this."
"But I didn't
know that... And why was Mel so angry with me?"
"A lot of
people feel really uncomfortable about the old single; look at this." He
flipped the note over and pointed to the motif on the right hand side of the
reverse. "Do you know what that is?"
"Looks like a
pyramid, one of those big stone things they have in Egypt.
I've seen it on TV a few times."
"It's the
reverse of the original Great Seal of the United
States. The people were told the eye in the
capstone of the pyramid was supposed to be the eye of God watching over the
nation. What it really means is the Illuminati own the nation."
"I thought
the Illuminati was supposed to be secret. That's what they told us in school.
Why would they leave clues like that on our dollar bill if they didn't want us
to know?"
His father
pondered for a moment. "I'm not quite sure. Perhaps they just liked to
laugh at us for being too dumb to see what they were showing us. Maybe they
felt that if they showed us they were the real boss and we did nothing to stop
them, then it was kind of our own fault."
Brendan nodded;
this time he understood perfectly. He recalled that a few months ago some of
the sixth-grade bullies at school had assaulted him in the toilets and told him
that it was his own fault for not being able to stop them. It was a moral
equation that everybody at school was very familiar with and accepted.
"So these
days when some people see that symbol it upsets them a lot. Mel must be one of
them. It's like in Germany
after the war; people burst into tears if they saw the Nazi Swastika.
Here." His father leaned over to pull his wallet out of his pocket and
extracted a banknote from it. He handed it to Brendan.
"What's
this?"
"The new
dollar bill. If you feel like some candy today go buy some."
"Thanks,
dad." The new dollar was very different to the old one. It was not made of
paper, but instead felt more like plastic. It was also slightly larger and was
a different colour and shape.
"It's made of
polymer instead of paper; that means it won't turn to mush if you forget to
take it out of your pocket when you put your pants in the laundry."
The obverse looked
fairly unchanged, with the portrait of George Washington in the middle, but on
the back there was no reverse of the US Great Seal. Instead there was simply the
obverse Great Seal on the left and on the right was a circle of glinting shiny
yellow material. Brendan pointed to it. "What's that?"
"Gold."
his father grinned. "One dollar's worth of gold leaf, straight from the
reserves at Fort Knox.
Jack is changing the monetary system back to the gold standard. What better way
than to put the gold itself inside the bills. Of course when you get up to the
Benjamins you have a problem. Jack is currently getting the Treasury to design
a bill with a hundred dollar's worth of gold in it. It'll probably end up being
some kind of hard plastic thing, like a credit card... Oops, we're
moving!" The queue of cars ahead started trundling forward in a
caterpillar-like undulation. By the time the crest of the wave reached their
car, his father had the Digby rolling and the vehicle in gear. They drove the
rest of the way to the Capitol in ten minutes. The glowing dome appeared ahead
in the distance as they turned a corner onto a long straight boulevard and it grew
bigger and bigger as they approached it. They parked the car in his father's
reserved space and walked across the lawn towards the grand building. The sky
was beginning to brighten and the overcast was now lit dark grey by the
invisible sunrise. The Capitol was illuminated by hundreds of lights. In
daylight it was ivory white. To Brendan it resembled an enchanted castle from a
fairytale. They climbed a long wide stairway up to the entrance. A single Stars
and Stripes hung from a pole in front of the doors. Brendan looked behind him
and saw the National Mall stretching all the way to the obelisk of the Washington
Monument; looking as if some giant
pharaoh had lived in Washington
long ago and that was the remains of his palace. At the entrance, a uniformed
policeman greeted them. "Morning, Mr Quilley."
"Hi, Eddie.
Long night?"
"Almost time
for bed now, sir." The officer examined his father's ID badge and then
smiled down at Brendan. "And who's this young man?"
"This is my
son, Brendan. I thought I'd show him round."
"By all
means, sir; so long as you let the security chief know... Hi there,
Brendan."
"Hello."
Brendan returned the man's greeting blandly.
They were then
allowed under a classical portico and through a pair of black wooden doors.
They walked down an echoing marble corridor with a spotless shining floor that
emerged into a huge circular open space stretching upwards like a cathedral.
Brendan craned his neck to see the space above him, which he guessed correctly
from its shape and size must be the interior of the dome. "Wow!" he
exclaimed.
"Pretty neat,
huh?" His father grinned at him proudly. "Welcome to the
Rotunda."
A stiff-looking man
in a suit approached them. "Mr Quilley, sir. Chief Executive Kennedy is in
the House Speaker's office and will receive you now."
"Very
well." His father led him along an opposite corridor and turned a few
corners before coming to an archway where he had to be vetted by another
security guard. Beyond that was a surprisingly small and cosy room with several
settees and a low table. Jack sat in an adjacent armchair. "Clane, how's
it going?" he waved as they entered.
"Hi, Jack.
You're going downmarket a bit aren't you, meeting here?"
"Ooh!"
Jack hissed in mock-reproach. "Don't let Lennie hear you say that!"
He moved his gaze downwards and slightly to the right. "Hey, Brendan. I
heard you were joining us."
"Hi,
Jack." Brendan smiled at his father's friend. Jack was a lively and kind
adult who often brought Brendan presents and told him jokes whenever they met.
He had two children of his own whom Brendan had encountered a few times. One
was a rather aloof girl called Caroline, a few years younger than him; and the
other was a toddler called John Jr. Neither were much fun to play with. Jack's
wife Jacqueline was a calm and maternal lady. To Brendan, the Kennedys were
rather like a popular uncle and aunt.
There were half a
dozen other people on the settees, only one of which Brendan knew; Martin
Luther King who sat at the end beside Jack's chair, his elbow propped on the
velvet arm. Next to him was a thin and loose-limbed white man wearing a college
blazer and brogues. His hair was smooth, light brown and neatly parted. It
seemed strangely unattached to his head as if it were a toupee. His facial
expression was constantly changing and he responded to everything everybody
else said with a sly half-smile, a half-wink with his electric blue eyes and an
impudent flicker of his eyebrows as if teasing the person he was addressing. He
spoke in a transatlantic upper class accent and radiated arrogance. When he was
introduced to Brendan he merely responded: "Greetings, little boy!"
before turning away and ignoring him. His name was William F Buckley and he was
described as the "vice president-elect". Brendan assumed that this
would make Martin Luther King his boss. Seeing them sitting together on the
sofa, Brendan got the distinct impression that Dr King and Buckley did not like
each other very much. He felt sorry for Dr King having to work with such an
unpleasant man.
The adult's
conversation was very hard to follow and, as his father predicted, he soon
became bored. He whispered in his father's ear that he was going off to explore
the city and his father nodded. Brendan left the office and headed out of the
Capitol building. Before they'd arrived, his father had given him instructions
to report back to the security guard at the entrance when he returned and his
father would be informed to come and pick him up. Brendan wandered along an
extensive road leading away through the Capitol with a leafy park on both sides
with lawns as smooth and thin as baize. He crossed over at a set of pedestrian
lights and beyond were the tall, oblong buildings of various Federal government
departments and agencies; and then, further along, private banks, corporations,
public buildings and grand hotels. There were few people around. Nobody was
crying today, but the handful of passers by he encountered had gloomy and
frightened faces. He arrived at a concrete corner block with the chrome-framed
letters National Press Building
above the door. He remembered his father talking about this place and so went
in. He saw from a direction signboard that there was a "national
Disclosure museum" on the sixth floor. He took the lift up and followed
the arrows on the wall until he came to the museum. More plaques on the wall
explained that this used to be the Charles Ross Television Suite, but had been
converted into the museum. The TV studio had been preserved and Brendan was
amused to see that there was a waxwork model of his father sitting in front of
a TV camera facing another dummy of a man in a suit wearing glasses. The
effigies were very lifelike and his father was easily recognizable, although he
was clearly many years younger. All this happened before his son was born. Brendan
left the National Press
Building and continued walking
along the street. He was lost, but quite enjoyed the thrill of that. He stopped
at a supermarket to buy some sweets with the money his father had given him. An
open space appeared ahead and the river Potomac stretched out before him. The
far bank was thickly wooded, promising a rich opportunity for frolics. The
shore was a spider's web of pale winter branches. He felt the urge to reach it
and started looking for a bridge. Sure enough, there was one a short distance
downstream to his left. It was a wide road-bridge, but there was very little
traffic that day and there was a narrow pavement behind a row of crash
barriers. At the crest of the bridge he got a much better view and could see
that the forested far bank was actually an island and there was another reach
of the river beyond it. Even better! He had to climb over the parapet and slide
down a tree bough to reach the land; there was no official access from the
bridge. He was disappointed to find that the woods were not as impenetrable as
they had first appeared from a distance and there were many well-tended
pathways and patches of mowed grass. It was more like a park than a jungle. He
decided what was the most overgrown part of the island he could find and then
crawled into the gap between three bushes where he settled down on a patch of
leaves to eat his sweets. He could peek out from between the branches to spy on
one of the green spaces and he saw an old man sitting on a bench nearby eating
a sandwich and reading a newspaper. Brendan reclined back onto a patch of
leaves to eat his sweets when he felt a jagged lump under his back. He sat up
and turned round to remove what he suspected were stones concealed by the
ground litter, but he saw they were bones instead. They were clean, dry white
bones. He wondered what animal they had come from; they were quite large. He
poked around, picking them out one at a time, until he came across the skull.
He had been worried for a while that he might have found human bones, based on
the size of them, but when he saw the skull he was relieved to find that this
beast had been something very different. The skull was elongated and tapering.
It had huge orbits and a nasal cavity at the very front. Its jaw was straight,
its mouth very wide and it had fifty to sixty teeth all of which were the same
type, long and jagged like a shark's.
Brendan dropped
the skull, his hands were shaking. He knew instantly what it was. He remembered
R-Day as much as anybody else did; it was still less than a year ago. There
were some facts of life his parents could not shelter him from and millions of
people suddenly shape-shifting into reptilian humanoids was one of them; not
least because his own family played a crucial role in making it happen. He
found that out when the reptilians all suddenly dropped dead after his sister
and her friends broke down the method by which the creatures disguised
themselves and then destroyed the particle collider in Canada.
Afterwards, Jack had ordered that all the rotting corpses of the reptilians be
cleared up as quickly as possible, but naturally they would end up missing a
few. This one must have died right here in Washington
DC, just a short walk from the White House.
Laying under a bush on this river island it went unnoticed and decomposed
quietly while the world passed it by. Brendan climbed out from under the bush.
The man who had been sitting on the bench had got up. He was standing by the
bench examining his folded newspaper one last time; then he threw it down on
the bench and walked away, perhaps because he had finished reading it and was
leaving it for the next person who sat there. Brendan waited until he had gone
then he went up to the bench and sat down. He picked up the newspaper. It was
that day's edition of The Washington Post
and the headline read: UNDERGROUND CHILDREN-
MORE DETAILS EMERGE and underneath in slightly smaller lettering: PROV-GOV PUBLISHES NEW L.N.E. FILES.
Brendan read the front page article and the inside features. The story carried
on through half the pages of the newspaper, all the way to the centrefold. The
paper was, of course, aimed at adults, so Brendan did not understand every word
of it; but he managed to grasp the general gist. His father had told him the
truth, but had omitted the devastating details. The underground bases that had
been discovered after Disclosure, such as Area 51, were far larger and more
extensive than had previously been thought. They existed in a massive network
that covered the entire earth, like a secret rabbit warren of evil beneath
their feet. The explorers who were sent in to survey the network after R-Day
had come across many locations where crimes were committed against children on
a horrifying scale and severity. These crimes included kidnapping,
non-consensual medical experimentation, satanic ritual abuse, sexual abuse, torture,
mutilation, murder and many other atrocities that Brendan couldn't comprehend.
Bodies had been found in their millions. Some were children who had lived their
whole lives down in that artificial hell and others had been taken from human
families in the surface world. They were some of the thousands of children who
were reported missing every year. The Provisional Government had decided not to
release this revelation immediately to the general public; partly because it
was so appalling, but also because there was a criminal investigation involved.
The FBI believed that there were a great number of people still at large; in
other words they were not reptilians, but they had colluded with the reptilians
and the Illuminati, to a greater or lesser degree, to aid and abet these
offences. The FBI had begun arresting the suspects and so Jack had decided to
publish the truth after the New Year. Brendan now understood why so many people
had been weeping in the streets yesterday. He understood why a black cloud of
gloom still hung over everything around him.
He jumped to his
feet and threw the newspaper onto the ground. He felt a sudden desperation to
be with his father. He ran along the path looking for a way off the island.
Eventually he had to use a footbridge on the far side of the island that
deposited him on the right bank of the Potomac at Arlington,
Virginia. From there he made his way along
the riverbank to the bridge he had come over on so that he could cross back
into the District of Columbia. He
could see the Washington Monument
poking above the treeline and so found it easy to navigate his way back to the
Capitol. He walked along the Mall from the Lincoln Memorial but had to take a
diversion to avoid a gang of rough-looking adults who had gathered outside the
Smithsonian. They had the mien of protesters. Brendan had seen several street
demonstrations during the turbulent years of his young life and subconsciously
knew all the signs. He checked in at the security office and his father came to
fetch him. Brendan embraced him wordlessly and hard. "Hey, Brendan!"
His father hugged him tight back laughing. "Are you alright?"
He nodded.
"Cool beans.
I'm nearly done here. One more hour and we can go home, okay?"
It was still
overcast as Brendan and his father headed back to the carpark. The January
afternoon was dimming slightly as the clock's hand drooped below three PM. His father was talking on his roamphone
as they walked to the car. When he'd hung up he explained to Brendan.
"That was the Secret Service. There's some trouble in Georgetown
and they've recommended we take a detour."
"What
trouble, dad?"
"Some people
blocking the roads, yelling and throwing things around. Apparently they're
targeting cars with Federal government plates."
"Has our car
got Federal government plates?"
His father nodded
grimly. "The police are dealing with it, but we should go home a different
way just to be on the safe side."
Brendan and his
father drove slowly and steadily through the evening traffic, heading out of Washington.
There were more police around than usual, and several helicopters and flyers
hovered above the rooftops. His father kept pressing buttons on his
sat-director to recompute a different route home. After a quarter of an hour
they turned off onto a smaller road through a residential district of terraced
houses and shops. It was much darker now and streetlights had come on. They
pulled up at a red light...
BOOM!... Both Brendan and his father
yelped in shock. A large heavy object had just struck the windscreen. The glass
was starred and warped. "What the fuck...!?" his father swore. A
group of men had surrounded the front end of the car. They hammered on the
bonnet and rocked the vehicle on its suspension. Their faces were contorted
with hate. One of them was carrying a crudely-painted placard. In his state of
adrenalin-washed terror Brendan's senses were enhanced and he noticed every
detail. The words had been applied with a thick paintbrush, but they were still
legible: STOP THE ARRESTS! KENNEDY OUT!
His father shifted the car into reverse and backed jerkily; he swung round to
look over his shoulder and swerved to avoid hitting the car behind him which
was also backing. "Motherfuckers!" he yelled. The Digby Carrousel
under the bonnet strained with the effort. His father shifted the gears again
and the car leaped forward around the gang of troublemakers. It accelerated
into the opposite lane until they had cleared the junction and were safe.
Brendan stared at the damaged windscreen. "Dad! Why did they do
that!?"
"I don't
know, son."
By the way he
avoided his gaze, Brendan could tell his father was holding something back.
............
Brendan woke up crying. He sat up in bed, shocked by the
nightmare he'd just had. Along with the shock was the relief that it had not
been real. He switched on his bedside lamp and looked around himself at all the
reassuringly normal things in sight. He jumped out of bed and was about to head
for his parents' bedroom so he could be comforted by them, especially by his
mother, like he always did whenever he had a bad dream; but when he remembered
content of the dream he stopped and returned to his bed to lie there alone.
Like with most of
his dreams, he found it difficult to recall individual details; however he was
left with a very powerful sense of presence and ambiance. He had been back in
his old home in Las Vegas during
the terrible few months when his father had been in hospital recovering from
his stroke. During this period his mother had brought home a very old and
bad-tempered Scottish woman called Millicent. Millicent was a chain-smoker who
filled their home with her noxious fumes, giving Brendan a continuous cough.
Her mother had been obsessively devoted to Millicent calling her "the best
friend I've ever had!" and wanting to spend every moment of every day with
her. In doing so, his mother's personality had radically changed. She had once
been such an affectionate parent, yet now she paid little or no attention to
her son at the best of times. During the worst of times she was openly hostile
and cruel, especially when Millicent was in the house, as if his mother were
showing off for her friend. It was as if Millicent were brainwashing his mother
into hating her own children. It pained Brendan to recall even a moment of that
period in his life, but now he had no choice. In the dream his mother and
Millicent were both scolding him violently for some misdemeanour he had
allegedly committed; but he wasn't sure what it was. He either couldn't
understand or failed to remember. He just stood trembling in front of the
baleful glare of his mother and Millicent; two pairs of flaming eyes, two
screeching voices and two wide open, sneering mouths. His mind churned
helplessly in Kafkaesque bewilderment. The two women paused, panting with
exertion and waited for him to reply. "But... but you haven't heard my
side of the story yet." he protested.
"I don't need to hear your side of the
story!" Millicent shouted at him in her discordant Scottish growl. Then
she turned to his mother. She produced a long silver butcher's knife from her
pocket and handed it to his mother. "Gina, take your only begotten son,
Brendan, whom you do NOT love... and offer him up as a sacrifice to ME!"
Brendan's mother
obeyed without hesitation or question. She took the knife from Millicent's hand
and seized Brendan by the scruff of his neck. It was a very vivid dream; he
could feel her knuckles against his nape and his T-shirt collar tighten around
his throat. She dragged her son over to the kitchen table. Brendan screamed and
kicked in terror but his mother's hand was too strong. She hoisted him up onto
the tabletop and pushed him flat onto his back. Her face was robotic, deadpan,
totally devoid of all emotion and thought; a face with no humanity. She raised
the knife above her head ready to plunge it into her son's heart... At that
point Brendan woke up.
He knew what part
of this dream related to. When he was in first grade he had been mortified when
he was told the bible story from the Book of Genesis- Chapter 22 where God
tells Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham is about to comply, but at
the last moment an angel steps in to stay Abraham's hand. God then reveals that
His commandment was just a test of Abraham's faith and obedience to God. For
days afterwards Brendan pestered his parents with the question: "Would you
kill me if God told you to?" And
he didn't stop asking until his parents had reassured him in the negative at
least a dozen times.
Brendan tried to
return to sleep but couldn't. Luckily it was almost daybreak and soon the sky
became lighter outside. He heard his parents moving about in their room followed
by the sound of them descending the stairs. He got out of bed and followed
them. The family drank coffee and ate breakfast together. His father
straightened his tie. "I've got to go back to Washington
today. Lots of mess to sort out following yesterday's debacle."
Brendan's heart
skipped a beat as he remembered their journey home the previous evening.
"Will you be safe, dad?"
"Sure. The
police have regained their control of the streets."
"But what if
those men come back; the ones who tried to break the car's windshield?"
His father grinned
affectionately at him. "Are you really worried about me?"
Brendan nodded.
"What if I
take the flyer?" He looked at his mother. "Do you need it today,
Gina?"
His mother shook
her head.
Brendan felt a
wash of relief. "Thanks, dad." In the flyer, his father could soar
over the ineffectual raised arms of the bloodthirsty mob, totally safe from
harm. He went out into the front garden to see his father leave for work. His
father waved and smiled as he closed the door of the flyer. The antigravity
drive inside the vehicle activated and began buzzing with that familiar bees'
nest sound. The craft rose slowly into the air and moved forward, accelerating
in both speed and altitude until it was a black oblong against the early
morning sky. It vanished behind the roofs of the houses opposite and Brendan
returned into the warm interior of his home.
He finished his
breakfast, had a bath and then was about to go out on his bicycle, determined
to enjoy the last few days of freedom before his return to school the following
week. "Brendan!" his mother shouted. At the moment he heard her voice
he also heard the sound of a flyer outside. He ran into the kitchen; his mother
was looking out of the window, her head pressed to the glass to see upwards.
"It's not your father. It's the police I think. It's coming down in the
backyard... Oh my God!" She opened the backdoor and ran out onto the
patio. The flyer was a large black vehicle with the words UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE on the flank. It settled down in the
middle of the lawn and its humming dropped in volume. The door opened and a
woman in uniform decamped. "Mrs Quilley?"
"Yes."
said his mother.
"We need you
to come with us."
"Why?"
"We need to
take you to a secure location."
"Why?"
"Come now!
We'll explain on the way."
They gave Brendan
no time even to collect a comic book from his room; his mother just had time to
lock the back door and then they were soaring into the air. The two USSS agents
in the front seats told them what was happening. "The rioting has returned
this morning, Mrs Quilley. The gangs are deliberately targeting senior
Provisional Government officials and their families. Your husband is the senior
assistant executive to Chief Executive Kennedy; therefore we have reason to
believe that you're not safe at home. We're therefore evacuating you to Andrews
AAF Base as a temporary security measure."
"What about
my house? Will it be damaged?"
"We will ask
the Maryland state police to keep
a lookout for it."
His mother paused.
"What about my husband?"
"He is
ensconced at the Capitol and we believe he is safe, ma'am."
She sighed.
The flyer landed
outside a huge metallic building with a wide open door. Vast rivers of flat concrete
stretched away in all directions and Brendan could see several aircraft parked
at varying distances. He stopped to study them, but the Secret Service
personnel urgently ushered him on until they were all inside the building. There
were several dozen people inside the large empty room; one that he realized was
an aircraft hangar. Almost all of them were women and children and they were
clustered on a few circles of plastic seats, like the ones he sat on at school.
He recognized some of them as family of his father's colleagues. Two women with
a large steel urn on a trolley served the refugees coffee. They also had a
luscious pile of comics that the youngsters quickly burrowed into, Brendan
included. An hour later, a uniformed airman wheeled in a large television set
and a shelf full of videodisks. After a brief dispute they all agreed to watch
a new Disney animation. Within a few hours Brendan had made several friends and
it was almost disappointing when the USSS crew came in to tell them that it was
now safe to return home. To his mother's relief, the house had not been touched
since they'd left. One of the Secret Service officers stayed with them.
Twilight fell and
before long a burring sound outside announced the return of his father. Clane
came into the lounge and ripped off his tie. His face was creased and
overwrought. "I'm afraid the Secret Service folks will be staying with us,
for the foreseeable future at least... All
of us."
His mother sighed.
"So they'll have to walk round the mart with me?"
"Yes... And
Brendan, one will have to accompany you to school."
"What?"
Brendan thought for a moment how that would feel. An armed man in a suit would
be standing by the wall in all his classes. Was that a good or bad thing? It
would give him a certain mystique among the other boys, but... maybe that could
have a downside. "But dad, what if the other kids think I'm weird?"
"I'm sorry,
Brendan. It has to be this way for safety reasons... Hopefully it won't be for
too long." He collapsed wearily into an armchair. His mother went and made
them all coffee. He sipped it slowly like a sick man lying in a hospital bed.
"Are you
alright, Clane?" asked his mother.
He gazed at her.
"Oh, Gina... will this ever be over?"
"What was it like in Washington
today?"
"Like the
Siege of Yorktown."
"Oh my
God!... Why? We have Disclosure, goddammit! We've freed ourselves from the
Illuminati! We've exposed the reptilians! In a few weeks a new president is
going to be sworn in!... Isn't that
enough? Why are people still not happy?"
Brendan's father
sighed and his eyes looked upwards as he reminisced. "I remember during
the war. We'd taken the boat out of Pearl
on an exercise. There was a westerly blowing, force seven. Just right for an
underway line-handling drill. Anyway this guy called Hank fell overboard; a
young guy straight out of New London,
junior boatswain's mate. We put her about and started looking for him. He had
his Mae West on so we knew he'd stay afloat. This was warm water too; central
Pacific is like a Turkish bath that time of year. We were well away from shark
waters too so we weren't too bothered for his safety. It took us three hours,
then we saw him bobbing in the swells and waving his hands. We dragged him onto
the casing and he was okay; swallowed a bit of seawater, sure, but nothing
serious... But, I tell you; he was never the same again. He was alright at
first; totally normal, but then he totally lost his shit the following week and
had to be sent to Bethesda. You
see... those three hours floating in the sea destroyed him. He didn't know
whether he'd live or die, he couldn't see anything but water and sky. No sounds
but splashing waves, nothing solid under his feet... He was saved, he was
rescued uninjured; yet he couldn't get over the shock. Trauma is a very strange
thing. It often hits you much later than when you experience what caused it.
Delayed reaction."
"Why do you
bring that up now, Clane?"
He chuckled with
bitter knowingness. "We're like Hank, all of us, as a people, as the whole
of mankind."
"You mean
we've got trauma?"
He nodded.
"Did you really think it would be so easy? We got Disclosure, kicked out
the reps, kicked out the Loomies... and then what, Gina? Everything in the garden
will just be lovely forever and ever? We suddenly become like priests of High
Atlantis or something?... No! The real problem is in here!" He pointed at
his heart. "We're like... like a guy who's hooked on liquor or opium. It's
killing him, it's breaking apart his very body and mind; but he can't stop. And
if you take his habit away from him he loses his wits... You see, in the same
way as a guy hooked on drink and drugs, mankind was hooked on the Illuminati.
There are no rehab clinics for us to check into, no helplines we can call.
We're going to have to do cold turkey."
Brendan got up and
wandered through into the kitchen. He found his parent's conversation extremely
alarming. He looked out of the window. Flyers and helicopters were once again
filling the sky. He felt an inexplicable sense of foreboding.
