by J. K. Norry
“So what happened?” The skeptical young woman had the best grade in this class. She was no Maya, or Allen; but she was one of the few pairs of eyes that he saw every day that were not dull and glassy. “Where did these civilizations go?”
“Pole shifts happened,” Mallory answered. “Sun flares, climate changes, meteor impacts, tidal waves and tsunamis, massive volcanic eruptions, global flooding. You name it, the Earth has survived it. Not all of her inhabitants have, however. Geological studies show that our planet endures a catastrophe of such epic proportions that nearly everything is wiped clean every six to eight thousand years. It’s like nature’s reset button. Genetics traces all of our roots back to two or three thousand people who were likely the only human survivors of the last extinction event.”
“And when was that?” The skeptical student looked a little concerned.
“About six or eight thousand years ago. There is no reason to think that was the first time, either; evidence to the contrary already exists. Human civilization has risen a number of times, only to fall and be forgotten. We are likely the descendants of a group of people that started as a small tribal band, fighting for survival in a harsh environment few of us could withstand. They were likely survivors of a huge extinction event, the few that were left of the billions they once were. Perhaps they knew that they too came from a small group of survivors, and so on.”
Mallory felt the device in his pocket buzz. He pulled it out and looked at the lighted screen. There were a half dozen missed calls, and a text message.
“That’s all for today,” he announced. He slipped the device back in his pocket and headed for the exit.
Chapter 4
On a high mountain plane, a stone’s throw from the Canadian border, a lone figure rode the worn trail along a high fence. It had to be done daily, more to keep her promise than to keep anything in or out. When Susan’s daddy had been dying he had made her swear to ride the fence line every day, and keep it in good repair. The livestock never wandered this far, and there was always plenty of deer and elk and small game on both sides of the towering electrified barbed wire. Still she rode it each morning, usually on horseback, only going back for the four wheeler when she needed to make a repair. She kept her promise, and it helped clear her head. There was no one in the compound that she felt close to since she had taken over her father’s role. Susan’s entire sheltered existence had become a slave to his legacy, and she woke every day with a desire and a plan to make her dead daddy proud. Hundreds of miles away…
“Oh my gosh, this is so good.” Elayna found a moment between bites to comment on the meal.
Professor Mallory smiled. “Thanks, hon. You act like you haven’t eaten in days.” He looked at each of her friends in turn: Maya, and then Todd; his eyes finally rested on Allen’s.
“Please tell me you kids are eating right,” he said.
Allen squirmed under his gaze.
“We eat what we can afford, and what we have time for,” he responded uneasily. “Fast food, like the rest of the country.”
“That’s not food,” Mallory said sternly. “The animals and the produce in those places are poor substitutes for real food. Factory farming churns out a nutritionally inferior product laced with harmful pesticides that have been genetically altered to have a longer shelf life and to ripen during shipping. These farms are not just starving you under the guise of feeding you, they also spread pestilence across the land. Nearly every virus that goes around in our country starts there, disrupting and ending lives; yet people keep eating the food substitutes and catching the flu.”
“John.” Elayna said it quietly, like she always did when she called him by name. She had done it once, as a little girl, and the rant he had been on had disintegrated to laughter. The effect had changed over the years, as Elayna came to resemble her mother more and more. Mallory felt tears come to his eyes, and he cut a slice off his steak. He put it in his mouth and chewed it slowly, savoring the flavor on his tongue as he savored the pain in his heart. He swallowed them both.
“The tomatoes are from my garden,” he said proudly. “So is the lettuce. The onions and potatoes are from a co-op of local farmers that grow everything organically.”
Maya’s fork and knife were poised over her steak.
“What kind of meat is it?” she asked.
“It’s beef,” Mallory smiled. “Free range and grass fed. There’s some elk in the freezer, but I didn’t think that would be the best idea.”
Elayna smiled at him.
“Is this what you asked me to bring them for?” she asked. “To give us a lecture on how McBurger Queen is poisoning us and charging us for it? We know, Dad. Everyone knows. Nobody cares.”
Mallory laughed. “No. I have some news. I thought you would all like to hear it. A new chamber has been discovered in the Great Pyramid. There is reportedly writing all over the walls, and no one can read it. I’ve been asked to come and have a look at it.”
Elayna beamed. “What did you say?”
“I told them I need to bring my own team.” Mallory eyed them each in turn, except Todd. It would have been difficult to get his attention, anyhow; his face was inches from his plate, as he shoveled heaping forkfuls of food in his mouth. He was clearly not listening.
“They told me I could bring three others,” Mallory said. Now he did look at Todd. He was still fervently feeding.
“Would the three of you go with me?” he asked. “I know the timing is bad, and the dean won’t be happy about it, but this could be archaeological history in the making.”
“I’m in,” Allen said. “Who needs a degree?”
“I’m sure we can work something out,” Mallory assured him. “It will be a of couple weeks at least, though. You’ll all miss mid-terms.”
“I’m in too,” Elayna said. “You’re not going to Africa for two weeks without me.”
Maya frowned down at her plate for a moment, then sighed.
“What the hell,” she said. “I’m in too.”
Todd looked up suddenly, his cheeks round with food.
“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”
“Sorry, Todd,” Mallory said. “They said I could only bring three people. Besides, you don’t want to miss your last couple games, or the playoffs. At the rate you’ve been going, it’s a lock.”
Todd waved his fork in the air and swallowed loudly.
“Message me the name and contact information of the researcher in charge,” Todd said. “I’ll talk to my dad.”
He went back to eating, appearing to ignore them.
“Hey Professor Mallory,” Allen piped up. “Would you have circumcised Elayna if she had been born a boy?”
“Allen!” Elayna frowned at him over the food. “We’re eating.”
“We’re all scientists here, or scientists in training,” Allen pointed out. “Surely we can handle discussing religious persecution and genital mutilation while we eat.”
“I’m not a scientist in training,” Todd remarked, surprising them all by both swallowing his food before talking and by showing that he was still listening. “I’m a senator in training. You all pretend that science is somehow dedicated to truth. It’s clearly not. Science is subjugated to politics. They say what we want them to say, or they lose their jobs. They research what we tell them to, and avoid the research that is off limits according to our dictum. Science is not here to serve any purpose any higher than that of the politician. Pretend you’re scientists all you want; the level of science that you get to work at is due one hundred percent to how good you are at politics.”
Maya gaped at him. “How rude!”
“It’s true,” Allen said. “I don’t think he was being rude. It’s just Todd’s way of pointing out that he can stomach even more than we can. We could all stay calm and clinical examining a cadaver, or exploring ancient cities, or discussing circumcision. The thought of ruining thousands or millions of lives, of sending men and women to kill and die for their ideals altho
ugh they are actually fighting on false pretense, doesn’t bother him at all. We could examine a corpse, and in many cases tell what the cause of death was. Todd will be the cause of death for many corpses in his career, and he handles that knowledge with the same equanimity that we would handle said autopsy.”
“Now who’s being rude?” Todd nudged Maya.
“Is anything I said untrue?” Allen ventured.
“Nothing I said was untrue,” Todd shot back.
“Alright!” Elayna shook her head. “This is even worse than the ‘what if Elayna had a penis’ discussion. Let’s just go back to that. Dad, would you have circumcised me if I had been born a boy?”
“Or, more along the lines of what Allen really wants to know,” Maya interjected. “Would you have subjected her to female genital mutilation if she had been born in a mostly Muslim country instead of a mostly Christian one?”
“That’s different,” Elayna crinkled her nose. “Circumcision is about cleanliness and infection, not sexual discrimination and oppression.”
“You sound just like a Muslim talking about female circumcision,” Allen said. “Women are much more prone to infection than men, however; so the argument actually makes more sense from the other side. Since there is no medical research that supports either claim, let’s just set that entire argument aside.”
“Well, it looks different,” Elayna commented.
“Actually,” Maya frowned. “That’s what they say about female genital mutilation as well. If all of the women around you were cut, you would look as unusual and unappealing to men down there as uncut men do to you.”
“I didn’t say unappealing,” Elayna pointed out. “Besides, they all look the same when they get hard.”
“Elayna.” Mallory made his first comment in some time. “Please.”
“Sorry, Dad.” She flashed him a smile. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s an issue people should definitely research before drawing any conclusions,” Mallory responded. “And definitely before cutting their kid, or having someone else do it. The only reason I’ve ever heard of a grown man doing it was to look the way a woman or women expected him to. That being said, plenty of grown men do it in America. Are we calling it circumcision here, or genital mutilation?”
Allen and Maya answered at the same time, as they tended to do.
“Circumcision,” Allen said, resolute.
“Genital mutilation,” Maya said firmly.
They looked at each other.
“What do you call it when it is done to a male?” Allen asked.
“I call it what it is,” Maya retorted. “Genital mutilation. The gender doesn’t matter. It’s an unnecessary procedure either way. Everyone’s reasons for doing it are social or religious, not medical. We can call it elective surgery, if it’s requested by a legal adult on themselves; but if we do it to babies without their consent, it’s mutilation. We could chop everyone’s noses off at birth, get rid of that unsightly and unnecessary protrusion. If you were the one person with a nose, how long would it take before you paid someone to chop it off?”
“Gross, Maya,” Elayna giggled.
“I agree,” Allen said. “With both of you. We’re calling it gender mutilation, Professor Mallory. Unless it’s a surgery that the individual elects for as a legal adult.”
“Well, then,” Mallory said. “To answer your original question, I would not have mutilated Elayna’s genitals even if they had been different. I can’t claim any high-minded ideals, other than being a hippie in love with another hippie. We weren’t Jewish, and we weren’t completely ignorant on these matters, so I think I can say that we would have agreed.”
“Are you sure?” Allen asked. “It turns out that mothers often sway fathers on their opinion on this just by saying ‘it looks better’ or ‘it’s easier to keep clean’. Guys don’t want their kid to be the only one in the locker room that looks different than everyone else.”
“That’s weak-mindedness,” Mallory argued. “You can’t blame an opinionated woman for a man’s spinelessness. If he changes his mind, that’s on him. It would be more telling to point out that our country has legislated a woman’s ability to conceive and give birth to a child without informing the biological father, or even meeting him. If that child is male, and a single mother decides to have the doctor cut him, that is about the most extreme example of genital mutilation we see in our country.”
“That’s absurd,” Elayna said. “Muslim men have their daughters mutilated at birth, and it’s way worse. They do it so she isn’t as sensitive to sexual pleasure, and to give the man greater sexual pleasure.”
“Sweetie,” Mallory said. “Those are the exact same reasons people have for mutilating little boys. The head of the penis is no longer protected by the foreskin, making it less sensitive. The decreased sensitivity leads to prolonged sexual pleasure for his presumably female partner.”
Elayna crinkled her nose. “What about cleanliness?”
“Turn the argument around,” Mallory said to his daughter, for the nine-thousandth time in her life. “Do you pull back your clitoral hood when you empty your bladder, like an uncircumcised man can pull back his foreskin, or do you just smear urine around with paper after?”
“Dad!” Elayna flushed. “If you must know, I use wet wipes. I clean myself very thoroughly no matter what call of nature I’m responding to. I use them after sex, too. Hot steamy sex with-”
“With condoms,” Mallory finished for her. “I hope. I’m just glad you kids are talking about these things, and exploring different angles of different issues without compunction. It gives me hope.”
“You’re all missing the point of why you’re even arguing about this.”
All eyes turned to Todd, the only one who had already cleaned his plate. He took a drink of water, and went on.
“Muslims don’t all circumcise their girls, although most of them do circumcise their boys,” he said. “It’s just been pegged to their religion as part of our war on them. There are plenty of parts of the world where the practices are much worse, but we aren’t trying to confiscate any natural resources in those parts of the world yet. The media is serving the government, as it should. Rather than dehumanize the enemy to our soldiers, we look for any opportunity to dehumanize them in the eyes of our entire population. They suppress women; we give women special rights and privileges, like a polite society should. It’s a no-brainer to use this to our advantage. Killing is not as wrong as oppressing women, according to the court of American public opinion. So let’s get ‘em!”
They were all quiet, thinking. After a moment Todd spoke up.
“Hey Professor Mallory,” he said, breaking the silence. “That was great. Thank you. Got any dessert?”
Chapter 5
Deep in the earth, under a large international airport, was an intricate network of passages. The steel-reinforced concrete walls were two feet thick and lined with lead. The hallways bustled with activity, both military and civilian. Some brought fresh food stores in or expired food stores out; others moved pallets of toilet paper and paper towels, toothbrushes and soap. Everyone had a job to do, and everyone was bent to it; everyone except Melissa. She came here with her father, against regulations, to sit in his office and use the facility’s lightning-fast wi-fi to keep up on her public profiles and electronic journal. He ignored her in the most welcoming way every day until lunch, when they would eat together and talk about the drought aboveground and the developments he was making in fruit and vegetable farming underground. It was the most peaceful part of the day for both of them. In another international airport, far from here…
“Rogers! Todd Rogers!”
The voice hailed them, urgency driving the pitch and volume up as it called out again.
“Todd Rogers!”
The others watched Todd turn slowly away from the sound, until his back was to the speaker as he approached. They were in line, trapped by the people waiting in front of them and behind th
em. Thick red ropes held the line straight on either side. Maya, Elayna, Allen and Mallory all turned toward the man as Todd turned away. He gazed at a lighted screen full of arrival and departure times as if it was the most interesting thing he had ever laid eyes on.
“Todd!” The man was out of breath. A sheen of sweat covered his face and darkened his sweatshirt all around the team logo emblazoned across his chest.
Todd didn’t take his eyes off the screen. “Sorry, no autographs.”
“Hey coach,” Maya said, elbowing Todd.
“Rogers!” The coach’s face reddened. A security guard glanced over at the outburst; he looked away when no violence erupted. The line moved forward one glacial step, and they all moved with it.
Todd turned. “Hey Stimson.”
“That’s Coach Stimson,” he spat.
“Not anymore.” Todd beamed. “Didn’t you get my message?”
“I did.” Stimson reddened further. “You can’t quit. You have a season to finish, Rogers. And then playoffs. This is your last year.”
“It was,” Todd shrugged. “Now it’s over, at least for me. Good luck.”
“How are we supposed to make the playoffs without you?”
The line inched forward again, and Todd waited until everyone had settled their carryons and themselves two steps forward before responding.
“You’re the coach,” he said. “Aren’t you the driving force behind the team? Aren’t you the reason we always do as well as we do? Aren’t you the one who stays up late working on strategy while we chase girls and drink beers? Aren’t you the tireless heart and soul of your team? You lead them to victory. I’m done.”