by M C Rooney
He had sex with monkeys!
“He allowed the newly formed humans freewill and before leaving he promised,” the Professor now sighed loudly, “to return to earth at the end of the world to kill the baddies and rule forevermore, blah, blah, blah … and blah.”
Do people have any idea how long ‘forever’ is?
“Paradise would become a form of torture.”
It would eventually drive you insane, the voice agreed.
“The tenets of Cykam,” the Professor continued with another sigh, “are to strive for peace at all costs, all men are created equal, and ten percent of your wages are to be donated to the church.”
Geez, that all!
“To go forth after the apocalypse and populate the planet with the faithful. Defend yourself and your faith. Obey the priests who speak on behalf of God—”
“Yes, I think I get the drift,” the mayor interrupted. “So I am guessing there is no proof of human evolution being influenced?”
“No,” the Professor replied. “No proof, as is always the case.”
But what about the strange stuff?
“Well … there are some odd things about humanity’s past,” the Professor said hesitantly. “Old technologies that could not be explained by modern science.”
The scientists never queried the strange, the voice said; they were either privately or government backed, so you couldn’t appear to be too ‘weird’ or you would lose your funding.
“They had their belief that mankind’s technology evolution was one straight line, and they wouldn’t budge from that.”
They never entertained, publicly, the fact that knowledge could have risen and fallen over the three hundred thousand years of modern man.
“Indeed.”
Now you’re getting it.
“But this Lord Cykam …” prompted the mayor. It was hard not to get a migraine listening to him. It was a three-way conversation with only two people involved.
“No, I never heard of it, and I am old, as you know … Oh dear God!” the Professor cried out as he looked at the next page on the computer screen and then hid it away from the mayor’s eyes.
“What’s wrong, Professor?” the mayor asked urgently.
Is that what I think it is? the voice asked.
“Please … please, give me a moment, Mayor.” The Professor said still shielding the computer away from the mayor.
She is going to be so pissed off when she finds out.
“Well, wouldn’t you?”
Yes, just a tad.
The Professor looked again at the details of the origin of the cult and the many pictures drawn like a comic book in crayon which included the storyline of the luminous being called Lord Cykam defeating the dinosaurs and holding a newborn human baby in his arms.
“So it’s a primary school story project,” the Professor mumbled looking at all of the drawings.
Written by a child with the surname McKay.
“About an alien called Lord Cykam.”
The boy had a good imagination. I like the drawings of the sun and the spacecraft.
“And the cult followers didn’t notice the similarities in their names Cykam and McKay?”
You see only what you want to see, the voice replied.
“The father must have turned his son’s story into a crazy cult religion.” The professor said in disbelief.
Either that or a grown man uses crayons to draw.
“Possible, but why do people keep following these nutjobs?”
Keep telling a lie to a group of people and one of them will always believe you. Keep telling a lie to a million people, and ten thousand will believe you.
“So it is a matter of statistics.”
Yep, as simple as that.
“But is it as crazy and disturbing as other religious stuff?” the Professor mused.
Not really, the voice said. People will believe anything if you make them.
“A talking bush.”
A talking snake.
“The Overlord Xanadu.”
I don’t think that was his name?
“Seventy-two naked women in paradise.”
Like God was in charge of a Playboy Mansion.
“Infanticide.”
Genocide.
“But a loving and merciful God.”
And wise and just.
“Cherry pickers.”
This passage is the word of God, but this one isn’t.
“The evils of being left-handed.”
The evils of eating seafood.
“The planet Kolob.”
Magical Underwear.
“Ha, that one can’t be true.”
The list goes on.
“Hmm, yes, it does make this cult Cykam sound a bit boring, really,” the Professor said with yet another big sigh.
“Ahem,” Lily Dayton said impatiently.
Quick, get on with it. She looks like she wants to strangle us.
“Hang on, Mayor,” the Professor said timidly. “I need to know all the facts before I tell you.”
Type in McKay and Cults, the voice said.
“Okay, here we go,” replied the Professor as he went through the cult’s history, and there he was, McKay, with a young boy who was most likely his son.
The kid with the crayons, perhaps?
“I hope so. Either that or the father can’t draw for shit.”
Indeed.
“More photos of McKay drinking and womanizing.”
A cult leader from the mid-twentieth century, the voice said. Alcoholic, drug addict, sex addict, died as a fat, bloated man in his eighties.
“Sounds like a rock star.”
The Professor quickly went through all the files.
“The underwater cities of McGill,” the Professor mumbled. “No doubt the others had their people protected somewhere.”
And McLaren placed people around Australia, all waiting for the day they could take over from the ruined societies.
“Yes … in cryosleep of all things.”
He never mentioned he could do that!
“He never mentioned a lot of things.”
But fifty-seven years from the day, and they still hadn’t taken over this island, the voice said.
“The fortunes of being a small community, I guess; people tended to forget you were there.”
“Professor,” the Mayor said sharply, “I need to know now.”
“Well, um … promise you won’t be angry with me.”
“I’ll try,” the mayor replied. “But I won’t promise.”
“Well, it seems as though an actual man called McKay had built a small cult religion around … an imaginary story about a Lord Cykam written by his ten-year-old son in the early nineteen fifties.”
“You’re joking?”
“Unfortunately not, Mayor, and he made lots of money from it,” the Professor replied. “And nearly a hundred years later some brainless cultists still believed this story to be true,” the Professor finished.
“And then?”
She’s tapping her foot.
“Not a good sign,” the Professor whispered.
I know.
“And then members of the inner council, unbeknownst to me and the seven others, must have collaborated with these cultists,” the Professor continued, “and provided them with sanctuary around the world on the day of the Collapse. They were a building block, you might say, for the new human society. They were a very small minority before, but now they are a well-armed majority.”
The mayor paused for a long moment. A very long moment.
“So are you saying,” she finally said, with a very red face, “that the mainland of Australia, and possibly the world, has been overrun in the last fifty-odd years by religious fanatics who are unaware that their belief is based on a child’s imaginary story dated a hundred and fifty years ago?”
“Um, yes, that would be correct.”
“Right,” the mayor said.
The mayor seems t
o be breathing very deeply, the voice said.
“Yes, and her hands are clenched into fists,” replied the Professor.
If her son wasn’t here, I think we may have copped a mouthful by now.
“Yep.”
“No offence, Professor,” the mayor eventually replied, “but people in your age were very gullible.”
Stupid is the word.
“No arguments here,” the Professor replied. “But I have more bad news.”
“More?” the mayor replied in alarm.
“They are all men.”
All men are created equal.
“What do you mean?”
“The photos and videos.”
Lily looked again at the computer images on the screen and saw there were no photos of women, none at all. Where were all the women on the mainland? Why did religions and cults always treat women as second-class citizens? A feeling of dread overcame her as she thought of the images of the victorious black army. She looked across at Rachael and Lillian, laughing and playing with their mother at their side. Was their freedom to be lost?
“Holy shit!” the Professor suddenly said.
What? the voice replied.
“Where did McLaren place his people?”
Holy shit!
“Professor, what now?” asked the mayor in a tight voice.
“I think I know why the north is rumoured to be a cult.”
“Oh no!” the mayor said loudly. “McLaren?”
“Yes, Mayor,” the Professor replied. “He must have placed some people in the north.”
“But why has it taken them so long to come south?” the mayor asked. “It’s only two hundred kilometres away.”
“It’s a mystery, Mayor.”
I hate not knowing.
“Me too,” the Professor whispered.
The mayor was tapping her chin thoughtfully with her finger.
“Can you see if you can contact the North?” she asked.
“Oh yes, it can, I think,” the Professor replied.
One hundred-kilometre radius.
“Indeed, the midlands tower helped them, just like the East.”
The Professor quickly looked up the Tasmanian phone directory on his disk.
You stored a lot in there.
“Sure did. I was a hoarder. I also have six Holophones.”
Why?
“No idea, a two-for-one bargain, perhaps?”
But you have six?
“What can I say? I had a very busy social life.”
You did not!
“How do you know?”
The voice sighed.
“Okay, Mayor.” The Professor called a number of random numbers, and finally, a man answered.
“Good afternoon, may The Mother Nature bless you,” he said.
The Professor hung up.
That was strange.
“Yes, it was strange,” the Professor replied quietly. That man’s response made him feel very uneasy.
“The Mother what?” the mayor asked.
The Professor ignored her and rang a few other numbers until a young child appeared. “Good afternoon, sir, may The Mother Nature bless you,” the child said politely.
The Professor hung up.
This is scary. The voice shivered.
“One more call. It can’t be true; it just can’t be true,” the Professor despaired. “Our whole way of life and evolution could be in terrible jeopardy.”
A whole community of people up there may have been destroyed by inaction, the voice replied.
He finally got through on another random number and a pretty woman with thick blonde hair in a ponytail appeared on the phone.
“Good afternoon,” she said brightly with a big smile, “may The Mother Nature bless you.”
Oh my god, three times!
“Mother what?” the Professor replied shakily.
“The Mother Nature,” the woman replied, still smiling.
“Oh, dear sweet Mother of Xanadu, have mercy on us all,” the Professor now cried out.
“Professor, what is wrong?” Lily Dayton said worriedly. “You look very pale.”
Righteous Apathy, the voice said.
“It’s worse than I ever thought imaginable, Mayor,” the Professor replied in despair. “The north … the north … has been taken over by … by … hippies.”
Slacktivists, the voice panted.
“I’m sorry, what?” the woman on the other end of the phone replied.
“What?” the mayor said as well.
Catastrophe!
“I know!” the Professor wailed.
Find out more, quickly, the voice said urgently.
“So what is this Mother Nature you’re talking about, young lady?” the Professor desperately asked the woman on the phone.
“The Mother Nature provides us with all of our needs and daily requirements. We want for nothing else,” the woman replied with a dead face and flat voice. She was no longer bright and cheery.
“Oh, dear Lord,” the Professor said in anguish.
I’m amazed that she isn’t dancing around the room naked right now, praying to the Goddess of the Eucalyptus Tree, the voice said.
“What is going on, Professor?” the mayor asked urgently.
“Well, we now know that we will have no problems from the northern people, Mayor,” the Professor said trembling.
Hippies, the voice shivered. They’re back.
“Why is that?” the mayor asked.
“These people will never come south,” he replied, “as it is too much of an effort for them to get off the couch.”
What on earth is he talking about? the mayor wondered yet again, but the way that woman had responded to the Mother Nature question sounded a bit strange to her ears. Almost as if she was forced to say it.
“Well, I think you can hang up now,” Lily said calmly. What exactly was a hippy? she wondered The poor woman on the other phone looked very confused as well.
“Oh, okay, then,” the Professor replied. “Well, goodbye, hippy,” he said to the confused woman. “Go back to smoking bongs, doing nothing, and smelling bad then.” With that, he hung up.
“I do not smell—” the woman said angrily before being disconnected.
“We may need to send someone up there to see what is going on,” the mayor said thoughtfully after a moment. She knew how … eccentric … the Professor could be, but it still all felt very odd to her.
“Yes, these are filthy hippies, not Cykam,” the Professor said worriedly “Send someone who will blend in, someone who doesn’t like soap, perhaps? And get them to look out for Molly’s friends, Michelle and Roland,” he finished.
“Good idea, Professor,” the mayor replied.
Phew, back in the good books.
“For the moment,” the Professor whispered.
Hippies, the voice shivered again.
“Such a tragedy,” the Professor said softly.
Molly had now finished her conversation with Tom and had come back over to his bedside.
“Professor, what’s wrong?” she asked. “I heard the name McLaren.”
“I’m sorry, Molly; we may have a major hygiene problem in the north, but we have a greater problem coming from the mainland.”
“I’m sorry, what was that?” Molly replied. A hygiene problem?
“They are back,” the Professor said with great sadness and shame.
“Who?” Molly asked.
“The Four Horsemen that Mayor Dayton warned us about. They are now under the guise of McKay, or Cykam as they are now known. I had hopes they were gone forever, but how foolish I was to think that.”
Molly looked quickly through the images and descriptions that the Professor had found. She felt like her happy world had suddenly been destroyed.
“My grandfather was a horrible man,” Molly said in disgust.
“But …” Locke said as he pointed at the Professor.
“But what?” Molly asked the young boy.
“Locke,” Lily said sternly.
“Can someone please tell me what is going on?” Molly asked, confused.
“Another time perhaps,” Lily said as she looked at the Professor, who gave a nod in thanks.
Molly shook her head and got back to the matter at hand. “Then what do we do?” she asked. “I won’t have my girls treated like cattle. I just won’t.”
“When they come for us,” Lily said with a determined face, “we must drive them back into the sea.”
‘There will be dangers to face to the north in your lifetime,’ the woman in white had said to Lily in a dream ‘but the real danger will come one day from the icy continent to the south. His name is Jaxmin.’
“The Professor can make more of our old suits,” Molly said. She really didn’t want to kill again, but freedom was worth fighting for. It was the only thing worth fighting for.
Tell them, the voice raged. Tell them they have renewable weapons in the earth and in the air.
“Professor,” Lily said. She noticed that he was gazing into the distance. “What can we do?”
“How far are you willing to go, Mayor?” he asked. “What are you willing to do?”
“Whatever it takes,” she replied.
“Look at the children in this room,” the Professor said. “Are you willing to send their families to war?”
Lily looked at her son, Locke, and her great-nieces, Rachael and Lillian, the latter who was named after her. Would she be prepared to send their parents into battle to defend the newfound rights of her citizens? Everybody was equal in the new world they had built here. Was that worth dying for?
“We will do whatever it takes to preserve our freedom,” the Mayor of Hobart replied firmly. “The Four Horsemen will never enslave us again.”
She is a true leader, the voice said.
“Then we must help Buzz finish his tower as soon as possible,” the Professor replied. “For they are not only providers of electrical energy, they are weapons of defence.”
The mayor went to the Holophone and began calling her allies.
The Professor looked at the mayor as she finished talking to Jeremy in the west, Tom and her brother Jesse in the south, and Todd Abercrombie in the east. He again felt an overwhelming sense of shame. He had not known the full extent and agenda of The McKay Group, but he had been a part of it all.