by Beers,David
Skelly didn't care what Krista said, though. She went, and then just like normal, she showed up at Study Hall as well.
"Do you know how many kids were here today?" Mr. Mack asked as Skelly powered on her desk.
"I can take a guess."
"Go for it."
Skelly looked up, her eyes rolling to the ceiling as she thought back through her day. She remembered all of her classes and all the people in them. She remembered those she passed in the hallway and subtracted them from those she already saw in her classes. Then she extrapolated from that number and multiplied by the number of floors in the building, putting in a slight percentage decrease as the grade level progressed.
"I'd say probably sixty-two."
Mr. Mack smiled. "Not bad. Sixty-four. How did you do that?"
"I don't know, just thought about the school day and did a little math."
"Do you study math in here?" Mr. Mack asked.
Skelly shook her head and looked back to the desk. "No. I've never really needed help with it."
"I normally give students their space in here, because I figure if you're voluntarily coming to Study Hall, you're doing something right ... However, given that most kids apparently think the end of days has arrived and aren't showing up anymore, mind if I ask what you're studying"
Skelly pulled up different libraries as Mr. Mack spoke, already hunting for the documents she needed. "Can't you look that up anytime you want? Everything we do on these desks is tracked. I hear it even tracks our conversations." She really wished Mr. Mack would shut up. If the end of days was coming, that meant she had very little time to finish reading the articles she'd been working through.
"Sure. We can. I don't, though. So give it up, what do you do in here?"
Skelly found what she wanted in her desk. Someone else had buried the article in a different place, which was odd, given that Skelly was the first person in a hundred years to have pulled up the document yesterday.
"History," she said.
"My favorite subject. What type of history?"
"All types." Skelly was reading and trying to give Mr. Mack the coldest shoulder she could.
"What are you reading now?"
Exasperated, Skelly looked up. "What?"
Mr. Mack smiled. "Really into it, huh? Not liking me interrupting you?"
Skelly found herself smiling too, realizing how childish she sounded. "I'm sorry. Yes, I'm very interested in it. I'm reading about The Crusades."
"Oh, wow. That's impressive, actually. I read about them once, but not in the sources provided through school."
"What other sources are there?" Skelly said.
"Actual books. You can still find them if you look hard enough."
"They're all digitized. I can read anything I want. You know that."
"True ... I guess I'm just wishing it wasn't," Mr. Mack said. "What do you think about The Crusades?"
The whole conversation was odd but intrigued Skelly. Mr. Mack was a quiet, thin man who taught Pre and Post Genesis Language. He never spoke about history though; Skelly didn't know it held any interest for him outside of how history affected language.
"They seem like a solid basis for ending religion. It took The Genesis to get us across that finish line, but The Crusades is as strong a case as any that religion is antithetical to progress."
"Antithetical. I like that word." Mr. Mack still wore his smile. "Have you been Scanned yet?"
"Huh?" Skelly said at the abrupt change in subject.
"You were Scanned?"
She nodded.
"You hear anything back?"
"No, I just did it yesterday," she said. "Why?"
"Just wondering."
* * *
"You went to work today?"
"Yeah," Andy said.
"So you think we're all going to die in a few weeks, but you're still trudging into your factory?" Skelly asked.
"Look, I don't know what The Genesis is doing. That Scan could have been nothing, a distraction, and what It's really looking for is whether or not we're solid workers. I don't know but I'm not giving It any extra reasons to get rid of me."
Skelly smiled. "What if It's listening to this conversation right now? Didn't you just doom yourself?"
"Get fucked," Andy said and walked into the kitchen.
"Hey! I'm sorry!" Skelly followed him, unable to quit smiling. "Has Mom said anything else to you about it?"
"No. She's not talking about it at all, like it doesn't exist. I wish you would do the same."
"Okay, okay, I'll cut ya some slack."
Andy typed a number into the wall panel and sat down at the kitchen table.
"Do you think it's weird how we took some things from The Genesis but then completely discarded others?" Skelly said. "I mean, that right there. You're about to have food handed to you, completely ready to eat, by a machine we keep in a wall, yet for the most part, we discarded what It created."
"I think about two things, Skelly, each of them constantly battling for space in my brain. One, do you ever quit thinking and two, do you ever quit talking about what you think?"
Skelly gave an exaggerated yawn but said no more. They both sat in the kitchen, Andy staring at the wall waiting for his food and Skelly thinking about Mr. Mack's conversation. It was so weird. The man barely said a word to her for the past two years, and today he decided to talk her ear off without any provocation. Maybe he was a pedophile? The deviancy rates had spiked radically in the past hundred years; Skelly read in one article that pedophiles now made up ten percent of the population.
"Hey," Andy said. "Did you ever have a Mr. Mack in school?"
Skelly's mouth opened. "I was just thinking about him!"
"Shut up, I don't want to play any games." Andy shook his head. "He called me today and started asking some weird questions. I haven't talked to the guy in four years. I wasn't even close with him when I was in school."
Skelly closed her mouth and didn't say anything. She opened her mouth far too much and she wanted to listen this time. She wanted to hear what happened, unless Andy was fucking with her, which he very well might be. She didn't know how he could have known about her and Mr. Mack, but while she taunted out in the open, Andy could do some sneaky things.
"He called me; I guess he looked me up in the directory and next thing I know, he's standing on my hologram as if we were good friends. He started asking about life after school, et cetera, et cetera, which made no sense at all given that I only had him one semester. Then he asks me about the Scans." Andy looked at her, turning away from the wall holding his food. "I don't know why the hell he'd call me."
"What did he say exactly?"
"He asked me if I had the results back, if I knew when the results would be back, things like that. It was surreal."
"He asked me the same things, Andy. Today."
Andy's brow furrowed. "Shut up."
"I'm not kidding. He asked me the same things in Study Hall. That's what I was thinking about when you brought it up, his questions."
"What did he ask you?"
"The same damn things. Scan stuff."
Andy looked back to the wall holding his food. "If he calls again, I'm not answering. Tell me if he says anything else to you. I'll go talk to him if he does, or Mom and Dad can, but that guy's weird."
Chapter 8
Leon watched him walk.
Had he ever seen something so amazing? Five hundred years nearly to the day and Caesar was walking up Leon's mountain road. Snow blanketed either side of the pavement and Caesar wore a large overcoat with a head cap. He stared up toward the mansion, though Leon thought he probably couldn't see inside yet.
Caesar couldn't see in. What is walking up that hill isn't Caesar.
And even though the thought felt truer than gravity, Leon couldn't help but ...
Want to run to him, out in the cold, and just hear his voice. To shake his hand and then pull him in close for a hug. To ask a million questions as they walked
up the hill together. To sleep under the same roof as him, again, and then wake up to talk about the past, the future.
Leon couldn't help but miss his best friend.
He watched the long walk, but finally Caesar arrived at the front door, four floors beneath Leon.
"He's coming in," Marty said, standing behind Leon.
"No one's greeting him?" Leon turned from the window to look at his assistant.
Marty laughed. "You think He doesn't know where we are? What we're talking about right now? He is The Genesis. He is all of this; I'm an extension of Him."
Leon looked away from Marty's bright eyes, realizing just how little he knew about what might happen. He was never a thinker. He found out he had a lot of heart, though--found that out just fine, thank you.
"He's coming up?" Leon asked.
"Yes, He's on His way."
Leon moved across the room to the bar. It had been carved out of marble, a style from a different age that would never see a resurgence. Not after The Reckoning anyway; The Genesis tended not to admire human style. Leon stood at the edge of the bar, leaning across, unsure what to do with himself.
He didn't even hear Caesar's footsteps moving up the spiral stairs, only saw him when the top of his head appeared. Leon didn't say anything, just watched him come into view.
"Hey," Caesar said as he reached the top step. He took his cap off. Snow stuck to his jacket and he removed that next, holding both in his arms.
Marty moved to him. "May I, sir?"
"Thanks," Caesar said and handed them over. He looked to Leon with a smile. "You rang?"
"How are you?" Leon said, having no idea what else to say but knowing how stupid that sounded.
Caesar looked down to his feet. "Right now? The best I've been in a long time, actually. This is the first body I've inhabited in about five hundred years. I walked the entire five miles up to this place. Felt miraculous."
Leon looked at him, fully seeing Caesar for the first time since arriving here. His eyes studied every visible nook and cranny of Caesar's body. His hands. His ears. The way his body fit inside his shirt.
"That's really you?" he said. "Like this isn't some digital creation?"
"No. Flesh and blood. I repaired everything and then kept the body in suspension. I haven't used it since."
Leon was too stunned to speak.
"Do you have any food?" Caesar said. "I haven't tasted anything for five centuries."
* * *
Leon barely touched his own food, instead he watched Caesar eat. He had never seen someone so grateful for each bite they put into their mouth. Leon knew why: Caesar understood that these may be the last bites of food he ever ate.
"I've missed this," he said, wiping his mouth and placing his napkin down.
"You can have it whenever you want, can't you? I mean, you could do this, get into your body and come to Earth any time?"
Caesar nodded and looked out the window to his right. The sun was setting on the beach. "I could, but ... it's hard to explain. When you know everything, a lot of things come up, I suppose." He smiled, looking back at Leon.
"A problem I'll never have."
Neither spoke for a few minutes. Caesar went back to gazing out the window, looking as peaceful as Leon could remember seeing him.
For his part, Leon felt awkward.
"I want to leave," he said finally.
"I know." Caesar didn't turn from the window.
"They had to call you all the way down here to make a decision? All the way from whatever lofty heights you're on. You know Marty? He talks about you like you're a God."
"I am to him, I guess. I'm his creator."
"So am I. He talks to me like I'm a roommate."
Caesar laughed. The smile died moments later when he looked at Leon. "Why do you want to leave?"
"Because you're going to end the world." No filter. No lies.
"The world needs saving, Leon. Didn't you once believe that?"
"Someone convinced me otherwise."
"Touché," Caesar said.
Another silence as they both looked at each other, Leon refusing to drop his eyes for this God.
"Can you read my thoughts?"
Caesar nodded. "If I wanted, I could. This place is designed to repair you fully, but to do that, we need access at all times."
"Do you ever read them?"
"I know about your dreams; I have to know so that I can monitor your recovery. Other than that, no."
Leon nodded to himself, taking it in. He was monitored all the time, every second, and really, how had he ever thought differently? He lived due to The Genesis's graciousness.
"I want to leave," he said again.
"I don't want you to, Leon."
"Why does it matter what you want? What say do you have in this?"
"I know it shouldn’t matter." Caesar stood up. He walked over to the large window and stared out at the beach. Leon looked on from behind him, the sun falling beneath the horizon and sending beautiful orange-yellow hues to turn the rolling waves into shadows of black and radiant blues. "I know I shouldn’t have a say, Leon, but I also know what will happen if you leave and I can't let that happen."
"What will happen?" Leon felt the first twinge of fear, that old friend which spoke first when his wife told of her betrayal. That old friend always told him to stay quiet, because if he spoke, he might end up hurt.
Which turned out to be pretty spot on.
"You're going to regress, Leon. Your psychological damage is like a disease. It spread throughout your entire brain. You're almost clear of it, but if you leave now, the disease will take back over. Slowly at first, but it's going to speed up. Within a year you'll be mentally back where you were when you got away from Manny."
The words rolled over Leon with all the calm of a hurricane. He didn't say anything for a few seconds, not feeling awkward now, but too lost in his thoughts to recognize the silence.
Like when I left Manny. A shell of a person. His only emotion fear. Fear of life.
"Do you know what I'm thinking right now?" Leon asked.
"I have an idea."
"But are you reading my thoughts?"
"No," Caesar said.
"You're sure I'll go back to that, to what Manny left?"
Caesar nodded. "I tried every possible scenario. Ninety-nine percent end there."
"And the one percent?"
"You kill yourself first."
Leon let out a small, shocked laugh. "Your scenarios show I prefer being a comatose, terrified creature rather than death?"
"The chances are small that you'll commit suicide."
"A coward even now, is that right, Caesar?"
"I never thought you a coward," he said.
"I still want to leave."
Caesar shook his head. "Leon, you will die a horrible death. I've seen it and it's not something you want."
"It'll be better than yours." Leon stood and walked to the window on the opposite side of the room, looking out at the shadowy, white mountain peaks. "I used to wonder how you did this, having an ocean on one side and a mountain on the other. Now I don't even care."
"Stay. Just until you're fully recovered. Then you can leave."
"And what world will you leave me?"
"One without violence."
Leon shook his own head. "No. I lived my life for The Genesis and then I lived it for you. I won't do it again. I won't live it for anyone else and I won't stay hidden up here while you kill everyone ... how many people are going to die, Caesar? How many?" A razor edge lined his voice as his words carried across the room's perfect acoustics.
"Nearly a billion."
"Give me the exact number."
"We don't know yet. The scans haven't finished."
"Your. Best. Guess."
"A hundred thousand will live, Leon. One hundred thousand. The rest will die."
Leon blinked, doing as much math as he could in his head. "No. That's too much. That's too many."
Both stood silent for a long time, one watching the sun fall and the other watching it rise.
"Do you think about Paige?" Leon asked.
"My thoughts aren't like they used to be. I can focus on everything at once, which means she's constantly in my thoughts."
"That's a copout. You don't have to split your attention; you don't have to focus on her to consider her. I do. I have to push everything else away. I have to say that she is more important than the rest of my life at that moment, because I'm thinking about her. Do you ever do that?"
"Not for a long time," Caesar said.
"Let me go."
"Leon ... I won't hold you here, but I'm begging you to stay. The world out there, it's much worse than when we fought. I don't know how you'll make it."
"I've made it this far."
"Please don't," Caesar said.
"Let me go."
Caesar didn't turn around. "I love you. You're all I have from that life ... But if that's what you want, okay. I just deployed a transport. It'll be here in four hours. If you ever need me, Leon, while you're out there--call me. The Genesis isn't as spread out as before, but you can still get in touch with me. Okay?"
Leon walked out of the room without saying a word. He went to his bedroom and started packing.
Chapter 9
Leon sat on a bed. Not his bed though, and he felt weird thinking about it like that. He shouldn’t have felt strange as the mansion’s bed was never really his, but always The Genesis's--that whole place belonged to It.
And yet, for five hundred years he knew only one bed and now he sat on a different one. This new one was ancient, at least in design. A mattress that looked like it was made pre-Genesis. It felt uncomfortable to lie on and uncomfortable to sit on. Leon had no idea how humanity made it so far with things like this. How they slept at all.
Though, he supposed, it's not like he slept that well.
Marty sat silently on a chair in the corner. Caesar insisted that Marty accompany Leon and eventually Leon relented. Caesar wouldn't let him leave alone; Leon understood why: he needed protection and Marty could provide that.