Lessons on Destroying the World

by Gant, Gene

  “But the two of you do, huh?” It was my turn to sneer, and I included both Antonio and Titus. “That’s why Candace is dead. You killed her!”

  “We didn’t kill that lady,” Antonio responded quietly. “Ibrahim did it.”

  I froze, shocked again. Then I clenched my fists in fury. Ibrahim’s using the orb against Candace had kept me from saving her. “Where is he?” I growled. “I will—”

  “He’s already paid the price for his stupidity,” said Titus, waving dismissively toward the far corner of the den.

  I turned and looked. Ibrahim’s mummified body sat on the floor, back propped against the wall, legs splayed. He was as shriveled as a prune, his skin leathery. “What happened to him?”

  “After we got the machine,” said Antonio, “we saw this vision of you and that Candace lady.”

  “In that loft you stole!” Titus interjected.

  Antonio went on as if the reverend hadn’t cut him off. “You know Ibrahim hated you, and he was angry at Candace for the way she threw herself at you.”

  “I made her do that! It wasn’t her fault.”

  Antonio ignored my outburst as well. “We didn’t realize what Ibrahim was doing until it was too late. Somehow, he got the machine to conjure up those flesh-eating bugs. They were supposed to get both of you, but you protected yourself.”

  “The machine used that heathen’s own blood, every ounce of it, to make the bugs he wanted,” Titus added. “It dried him out completely. He was so full of rage, he wanted to strike you down with his own body, and the machine gave him his wish. The man was a fool, but he was right about one thing. Sinners should pay the price for their sins.”

  I stiffened, chest swelling with insult on top of the anger. “Sinner? You don’t know me, old man!”

  “I know your actions,” Titus snapped. “You are a sinner of the basest sort. A blasphemer, a thief, a murderer. A stupid little heathen whose every action is motivated by greed and vile lusts. A girl running around dressed like a boy, wanting to have sex with other girls. Vile!”

  I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move.

  “Yes, Antonio told me everything,” Titus went on, superiority and satisfaction in his face, obviously enjoying the pain he was causing me. “You dressed as a girl until you were thirteen, at your father’s insistence. You dressed as a girl when Antonio met you and became attracted to you. But then you went to your mother, wailing about being in the wrong body, begging to be ‘Micah’ instead of Michaela. And your foolish, sinful mother let you. She bought you boy’s clothes and spent money to legally change your name, something she could ill afford. That was more than your father could stand, and rightfully so. It drove him out of the house.”

  I shot a look at Antonio filled with all the outrage and hurt I felt. “Why’d you tell him that? I thought we were friends.”

  Antonio looked hurt. “We are friends. I care about you, Mike. When you started dressing like a boy, cut your hair like a boy, and told me you were Micah and not Michaela, I went with it because you said it would make you happy. But I don’t think you can really be happy this way. I like you, and I want what’s best for you.”

  “Then let me be who I am. That’s what is best for me. That’s what will make me happy.”

  Titus sighed loudly, the sound full of frustration and annoyance. “What a fool you are,” he said to me. “Your friend is trying to help you save yourself, and you refuse to listen. He cares more about your soul than your mother did. Don’t you see that you are an abomination in the eyes of God?”

  I wanted to cry, not so much because of what Titus said, but because of Antonio. He had been the only friend who stood by me. He had been the only friend who seemed to understand. How could he have sided with this shortsighted, bigoted man against me? I couldn’t look at him any longer. I turned away from him and looked directly at Titus.

  “You’re wrong,” I replied, my voice shaking with anger. “My mother loved me. My mother understood me. She wasn’t sinful, and I am not an abomination.”

  “Your mother was a fool, and so are you.”

  I would have paralyzed the good minister then, just to shut him up, but I didn’t know how much control he and Antonio had over the orb. The thing wouldn’t feed me their thoughts; I tried to sense what was in their heads now and nothing happened. I couldn’t risk getting hit again with that nausea-inducing feedback and being helpless before them, even for a moment. I therefore tried to bluff my way through.

  “If you don’t give me that machine right now,” I growled at Titus and Antonio, “I will tear this house apart piece by piece until I find it.”

  Vaughn sneered at this. He started to respond, but someone else beat him to it.

  “You don’t have to do that, Michaela. It’s right here.”

  In the doorway to my right, Monica Isom stood holding the orb.

  SHE SMILED so kindly, it was disarming. The anger and apprehension went from me, leaving only puzzlement. “Monica? What’s happening? What are you doing here?”

  “We have to talk, Michaela,” she said.

  “Don’t call me that! I’m Micah.”

  She shrugged, and then she nodded. “Okay, if that’s what you want, Micah. There are things you need to understand.”

  “I understand, all right.” I shifted an accusing look to Antonio. “I told my ‘friend’ about the machine, and now he’s got you all trying to steal it.”

  “No, Micah, that’s not it at all.” Monica walked into the room and stood next to Antonio. “Antonio didn’t tell Reverend Titus, Ibrahim, and me about the machine. You did.”

  I frowned deeply, and I could feel the doubt shining in my face.

  “It’s true,” Monica assured me. “You reached into each of our minds—when you called me to watch over you while you were sleeping, when you shared your memories with Antonio, when you pulled Ibrahim out of that airport in England, when you gave Reverend Titus back the life you took out of him. And you left us knowing about the machine. You gave us access to its power. Once I realized that, I retrieved it from where you left it buried.”

  “But… how did I do that? I didn’t mean for any of you to know—”

  “It doesn’t matter what you intended, girl,” Titus said. “It was God’s will for us to know.”

  Pointing at Titus, I turned to Monica. “This is who you trust? That man is crazy.”

  “No, he’s right,” she replied. “You’ve touched the minds of thousands of people since you found this machine, but none of the others know this thing exists. We’re sure of that because we asked the machine to show us everyone who knows about it, and the only faces it came up with are the ones in this room.”

  “That can’t be a coincidence, Micah,” Antonio said quietly. “This is God’s will.”

  I didn’t like where this was going. That none of them had made an effort to remove Ibrahim’s desiccated body only added to the eeriness of the whole scenario. I was determined to get the hell out of there—with the orb.

  Walking forward, I held my hand out to Monica. “Please let me have it.”

  Antonio stepped up, sliding a tentative arm around my shoulders and turning me away from Monica. “Mike, sit down,” he said. “Let us talk to you for five minutes before you do anything. Five minutes, that’s all I’m asking.”

  I was convinced that would be a fat waste of time all around, but the looks Monica and Antonio gave me were so damned earnest, I couldn’t refuse. I nodded, slid out of Antonio’s embrace, and plopped myself down on the floor in the corner farthest from Titus. That put me right in front of Ibrahim’s ruined remains.

  “Get him outta here,” I muttered sotto voce, and the body evaporated instantly.

  Antonio and Monica seated themselves on the sofa. Monica tucked the orb against her side as if it were a baby.

  “This,” said Monica, patting the machine gently, “is a gift from God. It has to be used carefully and in the right way.”

  “And I’m sorry, Mike,” Antonio
added, “but we just don’t think you’re capable of using this gift in the way God intended.”

  “So I’m supposed to just turn it over to you three, huh?” That, I thought, was the worst possible thing I could do, especially with Titus being involved. I knew very well the long list of things he had done in the name of the Almighty, and few of them were good in my opinion. “Look, I’ve messed up some things, I admit, but I don’t see where I’ve done such a bad job with this power—”

  Scowling, Titus cut in, “Aside from starting a war in Africa?”

  I stared at Titus for several seconds, speechless. Then I turned to Monica again. “See? He is crazy.”

  “It began as a civil war in Ethiopia,” Titus continued. “Some of the other starving areas of the country, which you failed to ‘bless’ with food and water while you were there, went running with guns to Adfer soon after you left. It seems those you ‘blessed’ weren’t eager to share. The Ethiopian government sent in troops. And then some of the other countries in the region, with starving populations of their own, chose to intervene militarily.” Titus was almost gloating now. “The situation is, to put it mildly, a mess. It’s on all the news channels. Should we turn it on for you, girl?”

  He didn’t have to. I accessed the thoughts stored in the orb and discovered that everything Titus had said was true.

  “There’s more,” Monica said. “That house where you lived was bombed two hours ago by people who wanted to kill you. The explosion caused the house next door to cave in. Three of your neighbors are dead. The highways are jammed with people trying to get into the city, and riots are breaking out everywhere. All from people desperate for help from you.”

  I was drowning in emotion, guilt being the dominant one. “I-I can fix that,” I stammered. “I can fix everything.”

  “Mike.” Antonio gazed at me sympathetically. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You said yourself that you messed things up. Let Reverend Titus, Monica, and me take over.”

  I admired Antonio and Monica, both of them intelligent, both of them from good, solid families. But I didn’t trust them, not with Titus in the picture. Monica studied my face. While my thoughts weren’t open to her, she seemed to read my fear perfectly anyway.

  “Yes, Micah,” she said. “We are going to use the machine to unite the world under a single church.”

  “Okay, I’m through listening.” I got up and started across the room, reaching toward Monica for the orb.

  “Think about it, Micah,” Antonio said quickly, eyes lighting with excitement. He blocked my way again. “All the world joined under one church, one religion. Everyone following God’s law. There won’t be any more war, no crime or poverty.”

  My admiration for Antonio’s intelligence dropped a bit and, for the first time since I’d known him, I looked at him with pity. “Uh, I know I’m not exactly up there on your level in the smarts department, but there’s something close to seven billion people in the world, and the majority of them are not Christian. Hell, you can’t even find two Christians who agree on everything when it comes to religion. What makes you think you can—?”

  “We will implement God’s law,” said Titus. “Anyone, anywhere who violates any tenet in the scripture will suffer the prescribed penalty.”

  “You can’t do that!” I was horrified.

  “It is what God wants.” Titus pointed reverently at the orb. “And that is the holy avatar of his will.”

  “It’s a machine, dammit!” I looked from Monica to Antonio to Titus, wanting to shake sense into them all. “It’s a piece of technology. It’s about as divine as a can opener.”

  “Do you know who built this machine, Mike?” Antonio asked.

  “No,” I admitted reluctantly.

  “Then how do you know it wasn’t God who made it?” He walked over to me and placed his hands on my shoulders. In his eyes, I could see how desperately he wanted me to understand. “You used to say that you trusted my judgment, remember? Well, trust me on this, Micah. I believe this is the right thing to do. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”

  “Hold on.” I paused, trying to give myself time to organize my thoughts. I was never very good at expressing myself, as I tended to get agitated in trying to argue a point. “If God gave us this machine to do his work, why don’t we use it to contact him directly? I want to hear what God wants from God himself.”

  Monica raised her eyebrows, as if I’d said something highly offensive. “God is bigger than creation, and he has no limits. You can’t look him in the eye, even with this power.”

  “I can agree with that,” I said, nodding and moving away from Antonio in the process. “But that also proves my point, doesn’t it? I mean, God can do anything, right? If he really wants to do something, like wipe out certain people, he can do it himself. He doesn’t have to do it through us. What this is really about is you guys wanting to wipe out people you don’t like.”

  “This isn’t about our not ‘liking’ any particular group of people, Micah,” Antonio said. “It’s about right and wrong. What has a baby in the womb done to deserve the taking of his life? Having an abortion has to be a sin, man. It’s murder. Sex outside of marriage has to be a sin because it leads to so much disease and misery. There have to be standards, Micah, laws that we live by. There also has to be punishment for breaking those laws. Even you agree that God is superior to man, so what is your problem with having a world governed by God’s law?”

  “I don’t have a problem, Antonio, if the law is really coming from God,” I replied. “Like I keep saying, what bothers me is that I think this is about what you want, not what God wants.”

  Titus closed his eyes, rubbing his hands over his face. When he looked at me again, there was vulnerability in him I’d never seen before, a momentary lapse in the corona of the self-assured Man-of-God image he usually radiated.

  “I’m tired, Michaela McGhee. I’m tired of laziness and cheating and robbery and murder. I’m tired of hatred and war. I’m tired of being afraid. I want my little granddaughter—I want all children—to grow up in a world that is safe, where morals and principles actually count for something in our dealings with one another. Following God’s law will accomplish that.” Here, the vulnerability vanished, and the Reverend’s tone became sharply admonishing. “If you had truly studied the Bible, you’d know that God has worked his will through man down through the ages. What we are doing now is no different.”

  I actually sympathized with the man’s weariness at the lack of morality in the world. That was scary. “Believe it or not, Reverend, I know exactly what you mean about being tired. But I still think this is about you three forcing your prejudices on everybody else.”

  Titus threw his hands in the air. “This is pointless! The foolish child is not a Christian. She will never understand.”

  “I understand that it isn’t right,” I smugly replied, “to force religion—any religion—on other people.”

  “That’s not what we’re talking about here—” Antonio protested.

  “This feels wrong, man,” I said, shaking my head, cutting him off. To my mind, it was useless to argue with them. The only way I had a chance of stopping them was to get the orb out of here. Maybe, if I had sole physical contact with the machine, I could sever their access to it. I turned away from Antonio and looked at Monica. She was watching me closely, but she didn’t appear to be making any effort to shield the orb from me. I felt confident that I could grab the device from her. Getting out of the house with it before any of them could stop me was another thing altogether. I still had no idea how much control each of them had over the orb, and I preferred not to find out through confrontation.

  Titus stood up, the top of his head nearly brushing the ceiling. His eyes, blazing with rage, went from Monica to Antonio. “I told you this would be a waste of time!” he barked at them. “The girl will never understand. She can’t. The girl is a heathen.”

  Maybe, if I could distract them…. �
��I’m not going to sit here much longer and listen to you insult me. You haven’t lived my life. You don’t know what’s in my heart or what’s in my soul. I’m a guy. I’ve felt that all my life. I feel all the things boys feel. I just wasn’t born with the right body.”

  Titus looked as if he wanted to punch me in the face. “God doesn’t make mistakes.”

  Teeth bared, I got to my feet and began charging across the room toward Titus, feigning more rage than I felt. I had no idea what I would do once I reached him. I just hoped that whatever I was starting would play out to my advantage.

  Antonio grabbed my arm, hauling me back. “Micah, please stop!”

  I shoved away from him. “Man, get off me,” I said. “You think that bigoted old fool has any more respect for you than he does for me?”

  Titus looked at me, a bitter, amused smile on his face. “You’re overly sensitive, Mister McGhee. It was God himself who declared people like you an abomination. I am simply a follower of God’s word. That does not make me a racist. That does not make me a bigot.”

  “No, your damn attitude makes you a bigot,” I shot at the towering man. Antonio had caught me by the shirt, and I struggled to pull free. “You look at people like me, you look at gay men and women, and you do everything you can to hurt us. You lead your whole church in doing everything you can possibly do to make life hard for us.”

  “The church doesn’t make life hard for you,” Titus said dryly. “You do that to yourself, through the choices you make. All of you can turn your lives around and enjoy the same privileges as every decent human being by embracing righteousness.”

  “In other words, by living the way you want us to live, instead of the way we were meant to live. To be okay with people like you, we have to give up who we are. It’s stupid to think people can live healthy, happy lives that way. You’re all just a bunch of crazy, superstitious, hateful hypocrites.”

  Titus’s bitter smile turned into a smirk. “Listen to yourself. To you, all people of faith—and you seem to conveniently forget that your mother was in that category—are a bunch of ‘hateful hypocrites.’ If you’re looking for a bigot, girl, get a mirror.”