Escaping

by Sebastien Acacia

  Helena, despite being sixty years old, wasn’t complaining about working in the rice fields or in the cricket farms. As she liked to say to her daughter, Matilda, again and again, she was tired of being with old people, and her daughter was answering immediately she understood the reason was she would rather not be working with her. Despite her sarcastic answer, Matilda was really troubled that her mother was doing everything to avoid every kind of religious ceremonies, whether it was the mass or Inosanto’s great yearly celebration

  Helena had the huge honour of being one of the chosen women granted with the gift of a child. She was 41 years old when Matilda was born. Matilda would have sworn her mother was neither really devout nor religious and Helena was always answering, “I’m too old to get children any more, so why should I waste my time with the good Lord.” And she wasn’t completely wrong. She got pregnant before being 41 years old, just a few weeks after a terrible plague caused by quite a violent virus took the life of a few hundred inhabitants. Matilda was delighted Father Matthew wasn’t strictly following the law. Without this kind acceptance, her mother would have been thrown in jail quite a few times. Other communities weren’t lucky to have such a tolerant and adaptable Church representative as him. Matilda had already heard some stories about stringent abbot applying the inquisition’s principles without restraint - any unjustified absence at the ceremonies was directly reported to the Milicia Christi, who was strictly following the law, an immediate appearance in front of the inquisition court, and if no remorse were shown and if no radical changes happened, the offenders would be incarcerated and deprived of their belongings. Some people even spoke about strange disappearance. In case of rebellion, the sentence was declared then directly executed by a militiaman, death. However, in Kali, Father Matthew had always preferred the soft way and this was working quite well as the small community had one of the lowest criminality rates of the sacred lands of Africa, nearing zero. Also, he considered a woman who had been chosen by God to give birth was under divine protection and if the Almighty had nothing to say about her misconduct and was granting her a long life, how could he, as a mere mortal, decide otherwise? A community without any incident was inevitably attracting the attention of the Holy See, he confessed one day to Helena. Therefore, he was sometimes reporting some behaviours opposed to the divine laws, such as alcohol consumption, fornication without being married, recurrent and unjustified absence during the labour or physical assault and robberies. The last two one became very rare as the punishments inflicted by the Milicia Christi were very harsh.

  It was almost noon, and the sun was at its brightest. Helena had taken the habit to eat before everybody else. She was just starting her dessert when most of her colleagues stormed into the canteen to share the daily meal. The information program was shown continuously on the screens fixed on the wall of the huge canteen. Due to the lack of space, Helena was quickly annoyed by her fellow believers who were taking her entire personal space.

  “Hello Helena!” A tall man nicely named Dino said.

  “Hi Helena!” Mahalia, a former colleague in the cricket farm who had recently been transferred to the rice fields, added.

  Helena formally answered hello to them. She was annoyed by the cutlery noise on the plates and by the hubbub of the numerous talks. She couldn’t hear properly the details of the noon news which were mentioning the development of the investigation about an attack which happened a week ago against the atomic pile factory located in the contaminated regions. The announcer was mentioning a group of unidentified terrorists and was encouraging denunciation. According to the investigation services of the Holy See, this group was the one, who had stolen a Milicia Christi’s atomic aircraft two months ago, usually known as an MRU for Militarized Response Unit.

  “They won’t feel that clever when the MC will find them,” Dino commented loudly.

  “There is no doubt about this. These scums will pay for all the harm they have done to us!” Mahalia added.

  “If you allow me,” Helena cut them to stand up and leave the table with her tray.

  “You’re already leaving?” Dino asked her.

  “My round doesn’t wait,” she replicated stoically.

  Helena had to do a round around the plantation to drop off the new rice seedling and make sure the afternoon workers would be able to work. In order to do this, she had a small solar quad hauling a trailer overfilled with rice seedlings which would be methodically planted in the area which had been recently harvested. In a way, she was happy not to eat with her fellows. Helena had never been a very social person. And in the recent days, because of the plague, she was delighted to avoid being too close to anybody. She knew that avoiding physical contact with the folks, as she sometimes used to refer them, was protecting her from any possible contamination.

  An unexpected apparition forced her to stop for a bit on the path leading to the next rice fields. It was an old bearded man carrying a khaki backpack and in a poor shape. He was standing fifty yards away, in front of her quad. They stared at each other without moving. Helena didn’t understand straight away what was happening, but while tears of happiness were desperately trying to find a way to the fine skin of her cheeks, two impressive drones suddenly erupted and took position on each side of the intruder. The surprised man looked at them one after another with apprehension.

  “Don’t move, don’t move at all,” Helena whispered in a very low voice.

  One of the two drones slowly got closer to the old man and scanned his face with a red laser pattern.

  From a distance, these devices were just looking like small innocent Christian crosses flying in the sky. From close, it was a completely different thing. Their faces had a printed metallic bas-relief of the Christ himself, during the crucifixion, his face distorted by the pain, blood dripping from his forehead pierced by a crown of thorns and his side was perforated. Their impressive size of almost ten feet high, and the way they stood, slightly titled forward, were immediately creating an anxious and submissive sensation in the hailed person.

  Right after the identification, a small metallic trap opened on the device left arm and a calibre 50 gun got out. Helena immediately started her quad engine, while Matilda, who was arriving at full speed on her long board, was yelling her name just a few steps behind her.

  “No! Mum, no!”

  Surprisingly smoothly, the old man started to run toward Helena, avoiding the first burst from the drone. Matilda jumped from her rolling device to abruptly stop her crazy race. Joined by Angelica, they were looking at the scenery, breathless.

  “Did you see that?” Asked Angelica who couldn’t believe it.

  The second burst missed again its target. The surprising stranger jumped to the side over ten to thirteen feet in a single step.

  How is that possible? Helena was wondering, while closing on the confrontation.

  The second drone, which was passive before, also activated its gun of more than 170 rounds per minutes and shot a burst in the back of the skilled old man. He got badly knocked by two bullets on his side and in his left shoulder. He collapsed in the rice field he was jumping toward. The water immediately got red from the blood dripping so fast that the gravity of the injury left no doubt.

  “Guilhabert!” Helena yelled, while jumping out of the vehicle toward him.

  “Mum! No! Don’t get closer!” Matilda, who just joined her, instructed.

  Helena jumped with both feet in the rice field and approached the still breathing body of the old man. Matilda did the same and laid her hand on her mother’s shoulder, trying to restrain her. Ignoring her daughter’s gesture, Helena knelt in front of the man she had just called Guilhabert. He could barely move. While the drones were throwing injunctions to get away with their metallic voices, he painfully pulled his bag out of the water and slipped his hand inside. With a subtle move, almost imperceptible, he pressed an item in the muddy soil of the rice field stained by his blood. He finally looked at Helena, who didn’t dare touching
him. Speaking in and gravelly and deep voice, he told her.

  “Esclarmonde... I’m not dreaming...This is really you... I’ve found you again!” He whispered.

  “This is me... Yes, this is really me. Everything will be all right,” she said sobbing, as she knew how to see death when it was here. “We’re finally reunited.”

  “Inosanto, we’ve to overthrow Inos...”

  Guilhabert died as fast he had appeared. Helena laid three fingers on his jugular and a few seconds later she covered his face to close his eyes.

  “Happy the one living for science and improving the world,” she whispered, with the three fingers of her left hand lying on her forehead.

  She gently stroked his face, while Matilda was looking astonished without understanding yet what had just happened.

  The Legatee

  Angelica, witnessing the event without daring getting too close, squealed in horror.

  “Don’t move!” A deep and imperious voice ordered.

  The light hiss of the drones flying at man level over the corpse became more quiet. While Helena and Matilda were straightening back to see what their interlocutor was looking like, the autonomous response unit moved a dozen yards away to take position on each side of a military vehicle of the Milicia Christi. Three militiamen were standing in front of them and one was dressed unusually. Helena recognised him very fast. She had seen him on one of the programs of the unique TV channel broadcasted worldwide by the Church. He was the Legatee himself. The second most important Church member after Inosanto. The highest representative of the inquisition court and of the Holy repression in the world. Maybe the least merciful man one could ever meet. The two other militiamen, despite the usual traits of Kali’s Milicia Christi, were bearing a specific trait that Helena noticed - a red logo on a black background printed on their chest, representing a Christian cross as a handle for a long medieval sword piercing a huge snake, with a bright sunlight in the background of baroque inspiration. It didn’t take her long to understand they belonged to the special guards of the Legatee and they might be quite powerful. The Legatee himself didn’t have a single hair on his head. Instead, cabalistic tattoos were covering it, giving him an even more disturbing aspect. His eyes underlined with red lines were reminding the former Egyptian gods. Because of his hairless and botox injected face, his facial features were creating a weird doubt about his real age. We could think he was 50 years old as he could be 100 years old. His tunic was completely covering his body, so neither his soles nor a sleeve of an undergarment could be seen. He raised his right hand and slightly turned his head toward the militiaman standing on this right. The militiaman took an identification device and directed it toward the three followers to make sure of their identity.

  “Nothing to report, your Highness,” he said in a monolithic voice. “I’m immediately sending all the data to the Holy See.”

  Then, the Legatee asked Helena who stepped back a little.

  “What are you doing here? Do you know this man?”

  Angelica took a step back, scared by this new turn of events. Matilda stayed on the side behind her mother. She answered instantly without hesitating.

  “I was doing my round to drop the rice seedlings near each field when I saw this man getting shot. I’ve never seen him, if that’s what you want to know.”

  “So, why did you try to rescue him?” The Legatee insisted.

  “To give him the last sacraments, my Lord. This is what any good servant of Inosanto has to do when confronted to death, isn’t it?”

  Matilda discreetly looked at her mother with disapproval.

  “And you? What are you doing here?” He asked Matilda, who was staring at him in complete fear.

  “We were coming back from the natality worship, my lord, when we...”

  “We?” The Legatee cut her in an intimidating voice.

  “My friend and I,” she answered in a shaking voice, while pointing at Angelica.

  “You know who I’m , don’t you? Do I scare you, young lady?”

  “No... no, I feel relieved seeing you here, my Lord,” she answered after taking a deep breath.

  Good! Very good, my daughter … Helena was thinking.

  In an evasive movement, the Legatee signalled his men to retrieve the corpse and his backpack. Matilda dared asking one question.

  “My Lord, why killing this man?”

  Helena immediately disapproved her curiosity and threw her a dark eye.

  “Please my Lord, forgive my daughter’s insolence,” she intervened.

  “Curiosity is completely normal at her age, isn’t it?” He answered cynically. For your information, young lady, he was a dangerous fugitive, member of the rebellion preparing an attack against the Church. Now, you know what radicals who dare defying the great Inosanto may expect. If you know anything, it’s still time to speak,” he added while stepping toward Matilda who lowered her head as a sign of submission and respect.

  “I fear we don’t know anything more, my Lord,” Helena intervened.

  “So our task here is over, I suppose,” the Legatee concluded with amusement, despite the gravity of the situation.

  He stepped toward the three Church followers still standing in front of him. Matilda knelt first. Her mother and Angelica followed her example as a sign of respect and also more as a sign of submission toward the Church. Nobody should oppose this man. If he would take it badly, he could order their immediate execution and would never worry about it. The Legatee turned back on his position, surrounded by his two guards who stay stolid and impassive, then moved towards the vehicle where Guilhabert’s body had been dropped. The two drones and the land response unit of the Milicia Christi moved away in a very low hiss, while the three witnesses of the scene looked at them in fear. Helena was the first to straighten back. Matilda followed her, while Angelica was barely controlling her anxiety and was still on her knee.

  “We shouldn’t stay here, we must get home!” Helena told.

  “Do you realise what you’ve just done?” Matilda raged.

  “Not here!” Her mother answered discreetly while looking at Angelica.

  She finally looked around to make sure nobody could see them, that the Milicia drones were out of range and she got closer to Angelica who was praying quietly to ask God for forgiveness.

  “Come on, I’m bringing you home,” she told her imperiously.

  “Don’t worry for me! It will be all right. I will walk back,” she answered with distraught.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Completely sure.”

  Angelica moved away insecure, while looking sometimes at the soil, sometime at the sky, probably looking for a divine comfort.

  “Do you realise what you made me do?” Matilda whispered violently to her mother.

  “Not here! I’ve already told you. Take your board and get in the quad, I’m coming.”

  “Get in the quad! Get in the quad!” Matilda was repeating angry.

  She put her long board in the trailer and sat in the rear seat, thinking her mother was following her. She hadn’t moved an inch. She was looking at Angelica moving away on the slope path.

  “So?!” Matilda yelled. “What are you doing?”

  Helena slightly turned back signalling her with her hand to quiet down. A few seconds passed before Angelica completely disappeared from her view. Matilda was silently grumbling with cross arms and a chaotic breathing. Then, Helena got close to the edge of the rice field, stepped over the small dam made of soil outlining it and moved closer to the place where Guilhabert’s body was still lying a few minutes ago. While Matilda was looking carefully, she methodically searched the still red flooded ground.

  “What are you doing mum?” Matilda interrupted her.

  “It was around here, I didn’t dream,” Helena whispered to herself.

  She was going through the muddy and warm floor doing some movement in eight motions while she suddenly stumbled on a very cold small item, probably made of metal or of glas
s and pushed quite deeply in the soil.

  “Here you are!”

  “Mummy!” Matilda grumbled behind her.

  Helena took a small container made of opaque glass from the water. It was stuck in an aluminium shell the size of this former drink, which was now days forbidden, called Coca-Cola. On one of the sides, a small screen was displaying “40°F.” She was mechanically looking around to make sure nobody had seen the improvised excavation. She slipped the container in her tunic and got to the quad.

  “What is this thing?” Matilda asked her.

  “I’ve no idea, but I’m planning to discover it.”

  “Whatever it is, we’ve to bring it to the Legatee!”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “Afraid? If you haven’t noticed, I’m coming back from the natality worship, I’m doing my best to be a good follower in order to be chosen to become a mother... What do you think will happen, if my soul is impure, if I keep such serious secret from God?’

  “Let’s go back home!” Helena sharply replied.

  She started the engine and without caring about her daughter’s hisses, she sped up as fast as she could to travel the few miles to reach their living quarter.