Lessons on Destroying the World

by Gant, Gene

  “No, not at all,” she said kindly. “You know you can have the machine bring your father back.”

  “What for? You and Tony and Frankenstein out there will just kill him again. My dad’s an adulterer and a drunk.” The dead space in me seemed to get heavier.

  “As long as he’s willing to accept Christ, we will embrace him. He’ll learn everything else in the church. And so will you.” Monica slid her arm slid around my shoulder. “Come on, Micah. Let God work through you. I promise you it will make everything clear.”

  I slumped forward heavily, my upper body collapsing onto the tabletop, eyes staring at nothing. My entire being, body and soul, felt leaden. The emptiness in me went far beyond any lack of food and rest, far beyond any draining grief.

  Monica stood over me, waiting patiently.

  It took nearly ten minutes for me to pull myself together enough to speak. “I have to go,” I said.

  “Go where?”

  “It’s not far. I’ll be back.”

  “We’ll come looking for you, Micah. We’ll find you through the machine.”

  “I’m not running away. I just need some space for a while.” I stood up. “I promise I’ll be back.”

  I vanished.

  25

  I BEAMED to the cemetery. It was a huge, sprawling place of rolling hills, rugged old trees, narrow asphalt roads, and granite headstones that seemed to shine white in the bright moonlight. I had not been there since my visit a week after Mama was buried, but I remembered exactly where her grave was.

  I materialized at the crest of the little hill. The grass had grown back in, and I was glad the grave no longer looked like a big, raw, brown scar on the skin of the earth. Standing there, I stared down at the simple headstone that read “Celeste McGhee, Beloved Mother.”

  Something made me hesitate. I wanted so very much to talk with her again and hear her musical laugh. I wanted her to sing away all my troubling thoughts. Traffic was light on the street outside the cemetery, and the night was warm and peaceful here, the silence broken only by the rustle of the breeze through the treetops. Just being there made me feel a little better. I would have stood there for a while, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before Monica and the others summoned me back.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Then I made my wish.

  There was a sigh in front of me. Her voice was as sweet as I remembered. “Hi, baby.”

  We looked at each other across the soft, green cover of her grave. The white silk burial gown draped over her slender body, as flawlessly clean as the day I last saw her in it. Her feet were bare and delicate. Her skin was smooth and pink. Her long, full, brown hair lifted and fell with the breeze. She smiled at me.

  “Mama…,” I said, and suddenly I felt choked.

  “Look at you,” she replied happily. “Look how you’ve grown, sweetheart. You’re almost as tall as I am.”

  I fought back tears and tried to catch my breath.

  She knew everything. When I had the orb resurrect her, I made sure it gave her knowledge of her death and mine and the events I had experienced since.

  “Mama,” I said again. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so much.”

  “I’m sorry I had to leave you, Micah,” she said quietly. “But you are doing so well. I’m very proud of you. I would have preferred that you stayed in school, but that was your decision to make, and I respect it.”

  “Where did you go after you died, Mama?”

  She didn’t flinch when she answered. “You know where, Micah. I went into this hole in the ground.”

  “No, I mean your soul. Did it go to heaven?”

  “I honestly can’t say, sweetheart. I went to sleep in the hospital, and I woke up here, looking at your handsome face. That’s all I remember.”

  “Mama, I’m afraid.”

  “I know.”

  “I think I’m a bad person. I’ve messed up so many things.”

  “Your heart was in the right place. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “These people… that Reverend Titus… what they want me to do is wrong. I’ll just mess up even more if I go along with them. But there are three of them, and I don’t know how to stop them.”

  “Oh, sweetheart. You’ve dealt with bullies before.”

  “But I can’t fight them. They have access to the power like I do. If we fight each other, we could end up destroying everything.”

  “Then don’t fight them. There are other ways to deal with bullies. Sometimes you have to outsmart them.”

  “How?”

  She smiled again, sadly this time. “Oh, I can’t tell you that, Micah. But you’ll think of something. I have faith in you.”

  She seemed to be glowing slightly, a ghostly shimmer outlining her limbs. A moment later, I realized that was the effect of the moonlight beginning to shine through her. The molecules of her body had started to drift apart.

  The realization scared me. “Mama, you don’t have to go. You can stay here. You can have your life back.”

  “I know, baby. And it’s a really sweet offer. But there’s a time for everything and everyone, and my time is over.”

  “It doesn’t have to be. I’m lost without you. Please stay.”

  “Don’t exaggerate, Micah. You are not lost without me. You found yourself a long time ago, and you’re holding on to who you are just fine.”

  I went to her, wrapped my arms around her waist, and buried my face against her shoulder. “Don’t go.” I reached out with all my will, channeling the orb’s power into holding her together.

  She stroked my hair softly. “That won’t work, little darling. I’m going because I want to. I love you to the bottom of my heart, but I don’t belong here any longer.”

  I couldn’t talk anymore. I was crying too hard.

  “Oh, Micah, stop crying. You’re going to be all right. Everything is going to be all right.”

  She sang to me. She sang to me for what seemed a long time. I stopped crying but kept my face buried because my nose was running.

  At some point, I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was lying alone on the warm grass of my mother’s grave.

  26

  I RETURNED to the kitchen of the Reyes home. Monica was still waiting for me in the kitchen.

  “I see you made it back,” Monica said, smiling. “Did you make a decision?”

  “Yeah. I’m with you. But on one condition.” I told her what the condition was.

  Monica laughed. “Micah, that’s so wonderful. Come on.”

  Antonio and Reverend Titus were huddled together over the orb in the middle of the floor when Monica led me back into the den. They were praying. Monica stopped so abruptly that I almost walked into her.

  The prayer ended seconds later, and the two of them raised their heads. Antonio clasped the orb to his chest. I looked at Titus, whose narrowed eyes and curled lip told me I fell somewhere between an overripe animal carcass and raw sewage in his view of things.

  Monica walked forward, stopping in the middle of the room. Antonio waited, holding his breath, eyes flitting back and forth between Monica and me. Titus scowled as if he already knew he was not going to get the response he wanted.

  “Micah is with us in the Lord’s service,” Monica announced quietly.

  Antonio broke into a grin. “Thank God!” He hurried across the room, the orb tucked under one arm while he clasped me enthusiastically to his chest with the other. His grip was strong enough to constrict my chest, making it hard for me to breathe, but I didn’t protest. Titus was overjoyed as well; the crease in that space between the big gray caterpillars propped over his eyes actually relaxed.

  I had come to the conclusion that, at least in one aspect, they were right. I was no different than them. When I had exclusive access to the orb, I murdered people I hated and imposed my own moral codes on others. I realized that was unlikely to change as long as I had emotions and my own set of beliefs. There was, perhaps, only one way to end the dilemma the
four of us faced.

  “But he has a provision,” Monica continued, “one with which I have absolutely no problem.”

  The crease came right back to Reverend Titus’s brow. “And what is that?” he asked me with his customary belligerence.

  “I don’t know what God wants, and I don’t believe you guys know what God wants, either.” My voice was listless, soft, and although I could see Titus and Antonio straining to hear me, I made no effort to speak louder. “If we’re going to do this conversion thing, I want it to be done by a neutral standard and not any one of ours.”

  Antonio frowned. “What standard are you talking about?”

  A white, leather-bound Bible materialized in the air, transported from the bookcase in the living room at Monica’s request. It floated gently down onto the coffee table in front of the sofa.

  “I trust you two have no objection,” she said, looking first at Antonio, then at the Reverend Titus.

  Reverend Titus’s craggy face tightened with suspicion. “What is this? Our intention all along was to follow Biblical law.”

  “Yeah, yeah, but I want to be sure we’re not acting on your interpretation of that law,” I said. I didn’t like the idea of using the Bible, because we would be imposing one religious view on the entire world. But I was outnumbered, my spirit was crushed, and I was tired of arguing. I knew they would never agree to using anything other than their religion as a standard. “Let’s go with the real thing, word for word. We look at what the Bible says and measure each person against that. If the person doesn’t meet what the Bible requires, he’s gone. Done. His life’s over.”

  Monica smiled. “Let he who is without sin….” Her confident gaze shifted from Titus to Antonio. “Well, Antonio? Reverend Titus?”

  “I trust the Lord,” Titus said. “I’m not afraid of this. We separate the wheat from the chaff, and what is left will be the true flock of Christ.”

  Antonio sighed uneasily. Monica and Titus turned inquiring gazes upon him. I already knew what the anguish creeping behind Antonio’s eyes was about, and I looked away.

  “You have a problem with this, Antonio Reyes?” Titus asked.

  “I want to stay with our original plan,” Antonio replied, “where we go to the people and take them into the church based on what we see in their hearts.”

  “Your small friend just rejected that method,” Titus pointed out.

  Monica said, “What’s wrong with doing it Micah’s way?”

  Antonio spun on her, pleading and fear like a raw wound on his face. “I could lose my mom that way.”

  “Your mother is a nonbeliever?” The tone of Titus’ voice was chiding and thick with disgust. It was clear that he had a low opinion of a Christian who could not get his own house in order.

  “No, she believes. I know she does. But she’s never been baptized; she’s never accepted Christ as her savior.” Antonio was actually trying to convince himself with those words, and it didn’t work. He paused for a second, and in the next moment, his eyes filled with pure anguish. “She has doubts about God’s existence! If she’s judged by Biblical law, she’ll fail, and she’ll die. I can’t let that happen to her!”

  The Reverend’s hawkish face softened, letting through a trace of sympathy. “I understand that you love her, son, but you must remember what we’re about here. God’s will must be done. Your mother will be judged; you can’t save her from that.”

  “Antonio,” Monica added, “if your mom’s not willing to accept Christ, I don’t see how the outcome would be any different even if we went with the original method.”

  “She just needs more time,” Antonio pleaded. “I can teach her what the church is about and what her relationship with God should be. Once she understands that, I believe she’ll fully commit herself to Christ. But I need time to help her get there. Doing it Micah’s way won’t give her that chance.”

  In the silence that followed, I sensed faint, invisible electrical impulses arcing from the brains of both Antonio and the Reverend, rippling silently across the orb’s shiny surface. The tall man and my friend scowled at each other.

  “You’ve blocked me from your thoughts,” Titus said to Antonio.

  “Isn’t that what you’ve been after me to do all along, protect my brain?” Antonio answered. “You were so worried that Micah would take over my mind before we were ready for him. Well, I’m just doing what you asked.”

  “You wouldn’t be committing the sin of mendacity, would you, Antonio?” Titus quickly raised his hand, stopping Antonio as the guy opened his mouth to answer. “Think carefully before you say anything. Your soul is on the line. My instincts tell me that your mother is simply not a believer, and you are doing this to protect her from the judgment her lack of faith has earned her. If that is so, you are every bit as deserving of damnation as she is. Your allegiance should be to God above all. Now, does your mother believe?”

  Antonio stared at Titus for several seconds with unblinking eyes, his body upright and rigid. The tears that trickled down his face were his only answer.

  Titus smiled sadly. “How unfortunate. And how foolish. Your mother’s a public school teacher, isn’t she? No doubt she accepts the outlandish notion that humankind grew up from apes. Yet she doubts the existence of the God who made everything.” He shifted his attention to me, the newborn respect in his eyes barely discernible but there nonetheless. “And you are shrewder than I thought, young lady. I suspect that you tried to use Mr. Reyes’s love for his mother to distract us from our purpose. You won’t accomplish that, but you have again served God’s will by getting us to realize that his word should be the sole guide here.”

  I hung my head and did something I had not done since my mother had died. I prayed. Foreboding had begun to creep through the numbness I’d settled into. My instincts were starting to protest against my plan.

  Monica had her arms wrapped around Antonio, patting his shoulders, whispering soothing words at his ear as she attempted to console him over the imminent demise of his mother. But Antonio had finished with grief, or at least with the public display of it. He gently removed Monica’s hands from his shoulders, swallowed his tears, cleared his throat, and turned to me.

  “So, how do we program the Bible into the machine?” he asked, his voice still somewhat choked. He reached down and opened the Bible that Monica had placed on the table.

  I had been hoping, and now praying, that Antonio would somehow not go along with this and I could win him over to my side. That small hope seeped right out of my heart at that moment. I closed my eyes, afraid to look at this friend who apparently cherished his Christian beliefs more than he loved his own mother. Monica, Antonio, and Titus were all smarter than I would ever be. Yet, it still seemed the fate of mankind belonged in the hands of a being far wiser than any flawed, flailing human.

  “We don’t need that,” I said as I opened my eyes and gestured at the Bible.

  Titus swelled like a puffer fish at this and fired off an indignant glare at me.

  I raised my hands, cutting off his protest. “Look. The machine has recorded everything that’s happened on earth since the planet formed. The Bible’s already in there, along with every other book that was ever written.”

  Titus turned angrily to Monica and Antonio. “We agreed that the Bible, and only the Bible, would be the—”

  “The Bible will be the only book we use for this,” I said listlessly. “One of us just has to send instructions to the machine, tell it what we want it to do with the Bible.”

  “Each of the three of us already tried to do that,” Titus pointed out, “and the machine did nothing.”

  That was my second hope, my backup plan. A single human mind wasn’t enough to get the orb to do anything on a global scale. I figured they would be forced to do what they wanted one bit at a time, as I had, and that would give me time to come up with a way to stop them.

  “That was because we tried individually,” Monica said, “and our minds were too small to ge
t the orb to work on such a major scale. But now we’re going to work together and focus our minds into one will. With the four of us, working together, I think it will work.”

  That set off my instincts again because what Monica suggested might actually work. But it was also likely that even four minds together would still be too small to command the orb to do something so big. And if it did work, I still had one more plan up my sleeve.

  There was a bit of verbal wrangling as we tried to settle on which of us would be the “transmitter,” the mind through which the other three minds would focus their will. I said that I should do it because of my relative illiteracy when it came to the Good Book. That, in my humble opinion, would make it less likely that any subtle prejudices would make it into the transmissions. Titus rejected that idea, arguing that I had my own biases, had been so strongly opposed to their plan at the outset, and would probably try to exempt myself and my “kind” from Biblical law. Furthermore, he didn’t want me to even touch the orb just yet, suspicious that this could all be a ruse on my part to regain possession of the thing. Annoyingly, he was actually right on some of those points. Titus also had reservations about Antonio, afraid the guy’s love for his mother might cause him to make some sort of exemption for her. I, in turn, was not trusting of Titus. In the end, Monica was elected to the job.

  Monica started to take me aside then. “Give us a second,” she said to the others.

  “No,” Titus snapped. “We’ll have no secrets now among us. If you have something to say to each other, say it here and now.”

  Surprisingly, Monica rolled her eyes at the man. “Fine. It’s no big deal.” She turned to me. “Micah…. Michaela, I want to know if you are willing to completely accept God’s law. If you don’t, the machine is going to end your life. I’m sure that won’t stop it from carrying out the orders we give it, but I don’t want you to be lost. Do you accept God’s will? Will you be what he wants you to be?”

  She was essentially asking me to put on a dress. It touched my heart that she cared enough about me to ask me that, but there was no way in hell I was ever going to be untrue to myself simply to make someone else feel better.