by David Beers
“Because we’ve waited so long. Because those before us waited so long. Because Jerry believes so strongly. I want this to end, Leon. I want The Genesis to fall and I want humanity to have some say in what happens to it.”
Leon laughed and Paige leaned back against the chair, surprised.
“So you don’t buy what The Genesis says?” He asked. “You think humanity alone should decide what happens to the entire world??”
“To have The Genesis’ viewpoint, you have to think humanity is evil. You have to think that our core is designed to destroy what we touch. I don’t believe that. I believe that at our core, we create.”
“What if you’re wrong, though?” Leon asked.
“So what if I am? Don’t we get to decide that, what happens to us? Not a police force, not a God, but us?”
Leon nodded. “I’d never heard anything like this until Caesar started talking crazy, now there’s a whole compound full of people talking like this. I still don’t buy it, though. I still think The Genesis has it right. If we can’t moderate ourselves, then something else has to.”
Paige tilted her head, looking at Caesar’s friend. That thought was deeper than most of what the rest could or would think in the cities. She disagreed with it, indeed, would kill for her disbelief in what he said, but at least he had logic behind it. At least he wasn’t a complete sheep.
“And Caesar?” She asked.
“Him? Oh he’s on board with you guys about all that. Lost his goddamn mind, if you ask me.”
“That happens when your family’s murdered, I suppose,” Paige said.
“You want Jerry to be right, though?” The voice came from the entrance to the kitchen. Paige and Leon both looked, finding Manny standing in the doorway. How long had he been there? How long had he heard their conversation?
“Don’t you?” Paige asked in return.
“I want him to be, of course, but he’s not.”
“And how do you know that?” Leon asked before Paige could say anything else. But not just asking, challenging, his voice taking on a hardness that it hadn’t the entire time he spoke with her.
“What’s he done to show that he is?” Manny asked, not walking inside the kitchen, but remaining in the doorway.
“I don’t know,” Leon said. “I don’t know what any of you have done to be considered anything important anywhere, but apparently you all consider yourselves the saviors of humanity. So from my point of view, he’s done exactly what you have. Maybe more, because he actually put his life on the line. Have you?”
Manny smiled. “Not yet,” he said.
He turned and walked out of the kitchen.
Chapter Twelve
Gary Pierre walked along the streets again.
He was discovering that he liked being outside. That as long as the streets weren’t covered with other people, he enjoyed the weather, the sun, the breeze, the feel of concrete beneath his shoes. He enjoyed it all. He took a lot of walks now, the city still trying to hide from some invisible monster. Everyone had read The Genesis’ announcement, but The Genesis still hadn’t executed those people it called The Named, so the citizenry stayed inside.
Most people, anyway. The streets were becoming busier, and that was a bummer, for sure. It caused Gary to walk to one side of the street or other, depending on who was in front of him. He still walked, hadn’t given it up yet, but he certainly wasn’t going to be walking next to someone else. He would have to give it up soon, he knew that. Eventually people would wise up and believe The Genesis, eventually they would come back outside. The trains would run on full schedules again and the streets would buzz with the busyness of a beehive. For now, though, he could enjoy it. He could take his two-hour long walks and still go back home in time to finish his work.
Why, oh, why couldn’t The Named keep blowing things up? Why couldn’t people remain just as terrified as he was, because when they found their terror, he was able to let his go.
He looked in front of him, down the street a ways, and saw a man coming towards him. Great, he’d have to cross. He had time though.
Gary kept walking, his eyes moving from the concrete to the man on the street, checking his distance, making sure he had enough time to cross the street so that he wouldn’t get unnecessarily close to the man. Gary forgot all about the day, forgot all about the world around him. All he could focus on was walking and where in relation to his walk the man up the street was.
And with twenty feet left, Gary decided enough was enough. He looked at both sides of the road, although it was only out of habit because very few trains barreled along anymore. He’d make it across and not see a single one.
He stepped out onto the street and crossed.
Or rather, tried to cross, because as soon as he looked up, he saw someone standing there, on the other side of the street. This person wasn’t walking; he stared right at Gary. Their eyes even met.
A chill moved from the crown of Gary’s head down his spine. The man wasn’t looking away. He wasn’t making eye contact mistakenly. He was staring, looking directly at Gary.
Gary looked back to the other side of the road, but the man that had been walking towards him was stopped now too. Looking at Gary. Both of them looking at him as if he was food of some kind.
His bladder let go, leaking down his leg. Conscious thought stopped and Gary started to run. He didn’t scream, just ran, his lungs heaving in and out to try and move his unaccustomed body at the speed he wanted. The man on his left started running too—and NONONONONO—Gary had never seen someone move that fast. Gary took three large leaps before the man was on him, covering fifty feet in seconds, and as the fear grew to a level Gary never knew before, the man brought his hand down across the bridge of Gary’s nose, and all the fear stopped.
Blessed be that hand, because all the fear stopped.
* * *
Gary Pierre lay in a heap on the same concrete floor that Caesar had woken up on a few hours before.
Caesar stared at him, waiting on Jerry to return. They had to restrain Pierre and they needed supplies for that, so Jerry left just after dropping him off.
“What if he wakes up?”
“Hold this under his nose,” Jerry had said.
The small packet rested in Caesar’s hand while he stood above the man. The autistic. Caesar had never met someone like this before, only read about them in books. Jerry seemed to understand what would happen and that’s why, after watching Pierre for a couple of days, they approached on opposite sides of the road. Still, the response was surprising. The man pissed himself as he fled. He didn’t look like he was in control of anything, like panic ruled him completely.
And then, Jerry had moved, and Caesar felt a bit of that panic inside him as well. No one could move like that; Caesar barely believed that he actually saw Jerry making the path he did. That speed, that power, and yet the ability to stop so quickly and gracefully, each motion perfectly controlled. He cracked Gary’s nose and blood gushed out onto the road, but with that much speed behind him, he should have crashed into the autistic and broke his entire body, not just one bone with his hand.
That’s what Jerry was talking about.
That Caesar had to become that. He had to be able to move like that. He had to travel as fast and powerful as one of the trains.
He had to change his genetic make-up. He had to become a machine.
Caesar said they would most likely die before he ever had a chance to grow old. But what if he didn’t? What if they won this and he lived forever, watching everyone he knew die? Watching people he loved die, year in and year out, while he kept on going? Watching the consequences of his actions, the actions that he took here today, so that he could live out the truth of whether The Genesis should survive? He knew what he believed, but what if he was wrong? With Jerry’s body, he’d have to see how wrong he could be. He might have to witness the destruction of the world.
That’s propaganda. That’s years of The Genesis telling you if humanity thrives then the
world must die. It isn’t true.
Three quick raps came from the door, scattering Caesar’s thoughts.
“Jerry?”
“Yeah.”
He walked over and opened the door. Jerry carried a chair in one hand, a flimsy thing, and digital tape in the other.
“Give me just a second,” he said.
Caesar watched as the man who looked ancient, who shouldn’t be able to hurt anyone without seriously injuring himself, quickly scooped up the person lying on the floor and sat him in the chair, and then with an efficiency that only The Genesis could have created, strapped the digital tape onto the man. Four pieces, one covering each limb and attaching it to the chair.
He turned around and looked at Caesar.
“Are you ready?”
“No,” Caesar said.
Jerry laughed. “Well, it’s probably time to get ready.”
Caesar threw his hands in the air. “I don’t know what the fuck to do here? We’re going to wake him up and what? Ask him some questions?”
* * *
The saying was that the ends justified the means.
Jerry needed the means to justify the end here. He didn’t know how it was going to work yet, but this was the time. Something needed to arise for that ruthlessness to show itself. Jerry believed it was here, but he had to see it, and this was the time.
The autistic was sweating awful. Big, full drops of water beaded on his forehead before falling down his face and onto his soaked shirt. Tears streamed from his eyes in a constant stream, mixing in with the sweat as they both traveled the same paths down his skin.
Caesar stood in front of him. This had been going on for twenty minutes maybe, perhaps longer. The autistic crying and Caesar screaming at him. Even that was shocking, more than Jerry had ever seen from Caesar.
Inches from Pierre’s face. Screaming at him. Spit flying from Caesar’s mouth onto Pierre’s face, where he shuttered each time the drops landed.
“TELL ME WHERE IT IS!”
“THE TOURIST. WHERE’S IT HIDDEN?!”
And so on and so on it went, with Pierre growing more terrified with every word.
Caesar stepped back and looked over to Jerry. He was sweating too, his chest heaving up and down from his own exertions. Caesar didn’t say anything to Jerry, just looked, his eyes speaking instead of his mouth. He didn’t know how to continue, didn’t know what to do to get this man—this person who could barely handle human contact in any form—to talk.
That was fine. Exasperation was fine. They would find out where The Tourist lived if Jerry had to cut it from the man’s brain. That’s not what Jerry wanted to see here.
Caesar looked away and went to the wall. He grabbed the only other chair in the room and sat it down in front of Pierre.
“I want you to leave, Gary. I want you to get out of here safe and sound and get back to your apartment. I mean that.” He looked down at his feet. The autistic had pinned himself back against his chair, trying to stay away from Caesar, trying not to touch him or be touched by him. “I can’t let you go, though, unless you tell me. You understand that? I need to know that one thing, where The Tourist resides, and then you can go. No more screaming. No more me spitting on you or standing over you. You walk out that door over there and you never see me again.”
The autistic’s eyes were almost closed, squinting so hard like if he could just block out the people in front of him then maybe they wouldn’t really exist.
“Tell me, Gary, and you get to go home. Tell me and all of this can end.”
Caesar didn’t know he was lying to the man. He believed that when this was all over, Pierre would go home while Caesar and Jerry went on their merry way. Jerry looked on, understanding that wasn’t a possibility. Understanding that one way or the other, Pierre wasn’t making it out of here alive. He couldn’t. The moment he left this room, he’d scream at the top of his lungs until an application showed up and listened to him. Then it wouldn’t matter if Caesar and Jerry understood where The Tourist was at, because The Genesis would know they were looking for it. No, Pierre wouldn’t leave this room alive.
The ends justified the means, and Jerry had to figure out what end would justify this man’s murder. Because Caesar had to commit it or Caesar would end up dead here next to Pierre. If Caesar couldn’t do it, then all of this ended. If Caesar couldn’t kill, then none of it would work, none of it could go forward. Caesar would die and Jerry would leave The Named, because there wasn’t any sense pretending that they had a chance. There wasn’t any sense in any of this, if Caesar couldn’t do what was necessary.
Jerry watched as the autistic pressed his lips together, his face scrunching together like crumpled paper. “Junisper,” he whispered. “Junisper. Junisper. Junisper.” The words left his mouth almost as softly as wind on an open field. Over and over he said them, repeating them like they were a ward to keep Caesar from screaming at him, from touching him, from getting close to him at all.
Caesar looked up at Jerry, his face haggard, his eyes red.
“Is that what we need? Does it make sense?”
It did. Jerry knew the city. Across the globe but he knew it. The Tourist lived in Junisper.
Jerry nodded. “Yes.”
Caesar let out a relieved sigh. “Thank God.” He smiled looking up at Gary. “See, that wasn’t so hard. You get to go home now.”
Caesar stood from his chair and walked away from Pierre, wiping the sweat from the back of his neck.
“Havetotellhavetotellhavetotell,” the words spilled from Pierre’s mouth like oil from a pressurized well, an unstoppable stream.
Jerry tilted his head slightly to the right as he looked at the autistic, understanding what he was saying over and over. Have to tell. Have to tell. Pierre realized what he had done, realized what he had just told the two men and now realized that he had to alert someone.
Oh, blessed be the meek—could Jerry have asked for anything better? The ends justified the means, and if this wasn’t the most perfect way to show it, then none existed.
Caesar turned around from the wall. “What’s he talking about?”
Pierre still hadn’t ceased repeating the phrase over and over.
“He’s going to tell The Genesis what just happened,” Jerry said, looking at the autistic instead of Caesar. “He’s going to tell what he just told us and it won’t matter in the slightest what we just found out, because when arrive at The Tourist, The Genesis will be waiting.”
Caesar turned and looked at the man, his eyes closed, sweat still coming down like rain, and his mouth whispering the same words over and over.
“What do we do?” Caesar asked.
“We can’t let him leave.”
Caesar quickly looked back to Jerry. “You’re fucking kidding me. After what I just told him? You’re saying...what? What are you saying, Jerry?”
“If we leave and he’s alive, we’re signing our own death warrants. That’s what I’m saying.”
“So, what?” Caesar asked. “We kill him? Because he might tell on us?”
“There’s no other choice. He’s sitting there telling you what he’s going to do. Your parents’ death? Doesn’t matter. Everyone at the compound dies. We die. Everything ends.” Jerry didn’t look up from Pierre. The time of truth had arrived. Who had he chosen? Caesar would determine that now.
“Here,” Jerry said, pulling a small weapon from his pocket. He held it in the air toward Caesar. “It’ll be quick. Painless for him.”
“What is it?” Caesar asked, his voice almost as hushed as Pierre’s.
“You put it to his head and you pull the trigger. It has none of the violence one of those old guns had. A momentary shock inside his head and then everything ends for him.”
Caesar shook his head. “I can’t do it.”
“I told you that this ends when The Genesis is dead or we are. What you’re saying now is that we’re going to die, and you’re okay with that?” Jerry looked at Caesar, finally.
The autistic kept his incessant whispering going.
“I can’t kill him, Jerry. I just told him he was going home. I just told him that if he gave me what I wanted, I’d let him go home.”
“And now he’s telling you that when he gets home, he’s going to report you. When he gets home, everything that we’ve worked for ends, that’s what he’s telling you right now. Your parents, their death, that little girl, maybe even Paige. They all die and for nothing.”
Jerry saw fear living in Caesar’s eyes, bright and big. Fear of murder. Fear for Pierre. Perhaps fear for his own soul.
“I don’t want to,” he said.
Jerry still held the weapon out to him. He didn’t pocket it. Didn’t put it down. He still held onto his faith. He hadn’t picked the wrong person. He just needed prodding. Needed a gentle push.
“Your parents didn’t want to die either, Caesar. I didn’t want a chip inside my head and a body that refused to die. The Genesis did all of that, though. The Genesis shoved it on us. And now this one man is going to make sure that it can continue to shove whatever it wants on whoever it wants. If you walk out of here and that man in that chair is still living, you’re guaranteeing that an endless number of parents—just like yours—are melted down like old toys. You can stop it, though. Right now. The ends here are far greater than the means, Caesar. The ends are a world where parents aren’t killed because of a computer’s whim.”
Caesar looked down at the weapon, breaking his eye contact with Jerry. Ten seconds passed with Pierre still going on and on about needing to tell someone. Ten seconds passed, the future of the world weighed on Jerry as they did. Caesar’s choice here, with this one man, would decide the world.
He raised a shaky hand to Jerry’s and took the weapon into his own. He held his hand there for a few seconds, looking at the deadly machinery.
“In the end, it’s worth it,” Jerry said.
Caesar looked to the autistic and Jerry followed his glance. Pierre’s eyes were closed and his lips still moved.
Caesar stepped forward, slowly, the weapon at his side and his hand shaking like he had Parkinson’s.