"So. You've got plenty of Pagans in your little outer Faither society."
"Did you just try to be subtly clever? Using the word Faither rather than the offensive term, Jew-Christian, in a complete sentence."
"Did it impress you?"
"Kinda." Elliott watches him. "Judge Stein, you were a sitting Justice of the Old Supreme Court under the T. Wilson administration."
"I was on the Court before he became President, and since there is no Old Supreme Court, just like there is no US Constitution anymore, I don't see how any of that past matters. I was thrown out on the sidewalk because I cast the only dissenting vote not to abolish the Constitution. I've been unemployable for life."
"Judge, I'm talking to you because I've known you a long time, but I'm not sure what you think I can do."
"Introduce me to people. I hear there is a whole pro-Faither atheist community in the Japan territories."
"Yes, but every one of them is vouched for by a Faither with unimpeachable credentials."
"You can vouch for me. You've known me for over twenty years now. You said so yourself."
"To vouch for someone is not a simple thing. It's actually a whole quasi-legal proceeding with impartial witnesses. It has to be certified. It says that if the one being vouched for goes afoul of Faither society, then both parties receive the same punishment. Vouching for someone is a very serious matter. My wife and kids will not be allowing me to vouch for anyone in this lifetime."
"You make it sound like it's not a common occurrence."
"It's not."
"I see."
"Why would you be pro-Faither? No wonder you can't get a job. Not very politically savvy, are you?"
"I'm always on the side of the underdog. That's just how I was made. The monkeys I evolved from were like that."
Elliott smiles. "Not every Faither will take to your brand of Pagan humor."
"Everyone likes humor."
"The Shogun."
"The Shogun?"
"They're the ones with the atheist community in Japan. And they're agnostics rather than full atheists."
"Same difference to me. So let them decide my fate. Let me be judged by other atheists whether I'm in or not."
"What are you going to tell them when they ask why you want to leave Tek World for our outer Faither societies, as you call it? Living with the underdogs is a somewhat weak argument, if I do say so myself, Your Honor."
Stein remains quiet for a moment and then says, "I'm old."
"That's it?"
"When you're old, you'll understand too. They won't leave me alone—the government. The bullying, the persecution. I can handle them—I've been doing so for six decades—but I want to live my end days in peace. That's not too much to ask. Surely you can understand such an argument. Wanting to be at peace and stop the fighting for once in your entire life, if even to see what it feels like."
"I understand, but do recognize that Faither communities are paranoid, xenophobic, and unforgiving."
"I'd expect that."
Elliott sets his coffee on the table. "I'll set it up then. I can do that, but these atheists you are so eager to petition before are...not nice people. They're ex-gangsters."
Stein waves his hand through the air. "Gangsters? That would describe most of the government thug agents that stood in my court. I can handle gangsters easily."
"Okay. I'll work on it and get back in touch with you."
"Good. I'll be waiting. Not that I have anything else to do with myself."
The men stand and Stein extends his hand, smiling. Elliott shakes it with a smirk. Handshaking is a Faither custom; Pagans shunned it decades ago as an overtly 'religious' practice—though that is not its historical origin. Stein leaves through the open entrance and then out the main doors of the building.
Elliott walks out of the meeting room. His assistant sits at a desk writing on a tablet with her stylus pen. Dressed casually in tan, with her hair in a ponytail, she looks up at him angrily.
"Why must you try to help everyone?" she says with an annoyed tone. "Goth Lila told you to be careful. Once your name gets out there in the chatter-verse as a point-of-contact, all kinds of people will seek you out for every possible thing under the sun."
"Too late. I'm already permanently part of the chatter-verse."
"I don't know why you do it. Stick with our people. Here." She hands him his palm tablet.
"Who are 'our people'?" He reviews his messages.
"The Continuum is our people. That should keep you busy enough."
"Are you my sister or my mother, sis?"
"All sisters get double duty when it comes to their younger brothers."
He collapses the tablet to put in his jacket pocket.
"The Continuum will never allow him to join. He's a Pagan spy," she continues.
"You're so sure of that?"
"Yes, I am. His District handler must be overjoyed at his good fortune and thinks that because you've known him for so long that you'll be an easy dupe."
"I'm many things, but never an easy dupe. I'll be sending him to the Yakuza Fukkatsu."
"Oh." She smiles.
"Do you approve?"
"Oh yes, I do. They'll gut him and dump him in the ocean."
"Listen to my Jewish gangster sister talk. I think Stein is legit."
"He's a Pagan spy."
"They'll find out for sure."
"Dumped in the ocean. That's his only destination. Oh...are you speaking before the Continuum?"
"I don't think I should until after my preliminary meetings, but I will be at the general session."
She looks at him for a moment. "There seems to be a pattern with you."
"You don't approve again."
"Stein is nothing. Even if he were approved, he'd be living with Gnostics, away from us. This is our people, dear brother. We had three civil wars. No other Order has gone through so much internal turmoil as us. This route you and the others are taking...it could open up all those deep wounds. People will not live next to collaborators—no matter how far in the past, no matter how sincere their plea for forgiveness."
"These are our people and we should be together."
"When God flooded the Earth, I'm sure all those people outside the ark were sincere in their pleas for forgiveness to be allowed in. But God didn't tell Noah to open up the doors to them, did he?"
"So your words to the Exiles is what? Die?"
She doesn't hesitate. "Yes. And most feel as I do."
"Well, that I know. I'm only meeting with them. Nothing is decided."
"My brother has become a big softie. You thought as I do once."
"I listen to everyone—all points of view. I always have. Who's driving me there?"
"Tobias, and then you'll transfer to the Persians to take you the rest of the way. They'll be your security detail."
"Good. I'm off."
"And please be careful."
"I always am."
"Seriously. The Orthodox Christians vanish in Russia. The Russians exploding a fission bomb in peacetime against their own treaties, right in the vicinity of our own Continuum forces. The rumor is that they were deliberately targeting us."
"That is nonsense. The Russians did it as a show of force against the Americans, CHINs, and Caliphate."
Ignoring him, she says, "They say that their own president is literally transforming himself into some kind of monster and lives at the bottom of their presidential bunker and never comes out. That they send down chunks of animal meat to him."
Elliott shakes his head and laughs. "Where do these rumors come from?"
"I bet it's all true."
"They're wrong."
"Be careful."
"Yes, sis. I will."
"Always remember that Haman plots against us. Always. There are no coincidences in this world."
Midwest Wastelands (Trog-land), Florida
10:59 p.m., 23 October 2096
The black jet flies through the night only ten feet from the g
round with an accompanying contingent of defense drones surrounding it.
Elliott reflects as he sits quietly in the center sitting compartment of his transport. Collaboration is a big sin in Faith World. President T. Wilson—expected to sail into his fourth conservative term as American President with no end in sight—the man who sought to destroy all Faithers in America. Haman is the slur that Jews call him. The Christians, Galerius. The Mormons, Boggs. The historic Haman was the fifth-century BC noble of the Persian Empire who instigated a plot to kill all of the Jews of ancient Persia, but was foiled by Queen Esther. The Mizrahi feel as strongly against the Emperor Al-Siddiq of the Supreme Islamic Caliphate. The Shogun Christians feel the same against the Chinese-Indian Alliance (CHIN) President Ri Wen.
All around him sit his Persian security detail, armed, in robotic suits, and speaking loudly amongst themselves in their language. He's fluent in Persian too, but always pretends he can only speak Hebrew and English.
"We're arriving," one of the Persian bodyguards says to him in Hebrew. The man's cybernetic goggles make his pupils look like they are made of blue light.
Private High-Rise Apartment Complex, Florida Panhandle
7:50 p.m., 24 October 2096
He once met an Amish girl named Kristiana at a meeting who remarked to him that non-Anabaptist Faithers "speak so loud." They do. Elliott is the meeting's star attraction in the underground town hall room of this enclave housing complex of Exiled Jews. Their own building, their own security, and their own governing body. He views it as an odd set-up. He sits on an overly padded single-seater couch in the center, with one larger couch on one side with four leaders, and on the other an identical couch with an equal number of leaders. The audience of residents sits in folding chairs throughout the meeting room facing them, more arriving all the time. It reminds him of some kind of old-style television talk show. He was introduced to the less-than-enthused crowd. He feels their looks of disgust and contempt—he is the "enemy" to them, despite being invited. They hate everything about the Continuum and him—even despite the fact that no one else in the Continuum will talk to them. The leaders don't look or carry themselves as leaders should—they look to be in their pajamas. In fact, no one is dressed appropriately for a meeting as important as they claim it to be. One man sits in the front with nothing on but swim trunks and slippers. Half the crowd is half naked; the others are in sloppy casual clothes. Many stare at him like hawks. He fights his impulse to glare back at them and keeps his eyes roving. They are a surly, disrespectful, and angry bunch—far from 'shining examples' of Jewry. Elliott now wishes he were elsewhere.
As the questions come, Elliott realizes that he will be conversing with only the eight leaders assembled on the couches on either side of him.
"Aren't you registered with the government?" a woman asks.
"I'm registered with the government as a Jew so I can try legal cases before the government to defend Jews, Christians, and other Faithers. I'm proud of my efforts to keep the government away from us—physically and legally. Little pinpricks over time can do as much damage as a straight stab from a dagger. However, my registration is not the issue. Yours is. Most in the Continuum consider anyone who voluntarily allows themselves to be put in the Grid database to be untrustworthy."
"Everyone is in the Registry," a man challenges. "You're born and you're automatically in a database."
"Most of our citizens are not."
"That you know of. That you think. I bet they are. The government has every human in one database or another."
Elliott shakes his head. "Our people are not. We made sure of it."
The Registry is the Grid government's database of every American and non-citizen in the nation and is tied to everything: national identification file, national tax profile, national medical profile, and national census data. It is mandatory from birth, but Faithers and other off-Gridders do not register (and never have), which in itself is illegal.
"The first question they will ask—"
"Who's 'they'?" a man interrupts Elliott.
"I think you know who 'they' are. 'They' is our Jewish leadership. 'They' is the people who will not be amused by any attitude or subterfuge."
"What does that mean?" a woman asks. "We know what's said about us. They still think we're collaborators."
"Ma'am, you are collaborators." Elliott stares at her for a moment.
She averts her eyes as the constant chatter from the audience continues.
"That was many years ago," her husband says. "We've been punished. We've been exiled for almost three decades. When does it end? How many times do we have to apologize? We were kids back then—all of us were. The government had stormtroopers after us, spies everywhere, drones in the sky. We thought we were finished. We had Jews fighting each other in civil wars. We lost Jewish Israel. Then the Muslims took it over and then Muslims destroy Palestine Israel. We believed we had to work with the government to survive. To protect our families. To live. Why don't they understand that?"
"Sir, I'm not here to re-litigate the past. I am here to assess your current proposal. That's it."
"You're calling us liars," the woman says.
"I'm saying you are not being honest with the reasons you're telling me for wanting to rejoin us. And no, you haven't been exiled. It is far, far more serious than that. You've been excommunicated. To the Jewish Continuum, none of you exist."
"The Russians," another woman speaks up. "They're dropping bombs. We hear they're moving against all their religious citizens. Once again going after Jews. Our president is friends with theirs. We hear this Russian president is a demon, in truth, a demon monster. How long will it be before they start dropping bombs here too? The Russians were not the great champions they want us to believe in the last world war. The atheist Nazis invaded Poland to get the Jews. The atheist Communists invaded Poland to get the Jews. They'll start dropping bombs here too."
Elliott gives her a look. "What are you saying exactly? You all want to rejoin us, why? Because you feel they're going to drop bombs on us?"
"Yes," the woman answers. "Aren't you preparing for that?"
"Suicide. You called me here—this whole proposal is because you all want to commit suicide?"
"You make it sound so cheap. A people should be together as a people at the end, that's what it is," a man says.
Elliott takes a breath to calm himself as everyone watches him.
"We may have a lot of enclaves named Masada, but unlike the historical one, none of us is ever going to be killing ourselves in the face of enemies. Masada means 'a final stand' to us; we will retreat no further and if you confront us, we will throw you down the side of the mountain." He looks across the audience before looking back at the leaders. "No one is going to be dropping bombs on us. Your information is false. We also possess the means to protect ourselves from any attack, and the government knows it. That being said, I appreciate your sentiment, but we have no intentions of being obliterated anytime soon."
"That's what Jewish Israel said."
"We are not the government of Jewish Israel. Ladies and gentlemen, the hour is late and I have a long way to go."
"Wait." A woman stands. "You can't leave. We still want to rejoin. Can't we still do that?"
"But this is your home. The tek-cities are your home. Out in the wastelands is ours."
"We're not stupid, Mr. Elliott," another woman says. "We know you've built your own cities out there. We know you're thriving out there. You are thriving while we hide in the shadows here, shrinking and dying off. My own children want nothing to do with me. I did what I did for them. To be a mother for them. Raise them in safety. And they disown me and my husband because we won't renounce religion. We did it for nothing, all the sacrifice."
"I'm sorry to hear that, but it doesn't change the situation. You must find other options besides us."
"What about India or the Asian Consortium?" a man asks. "They speak English. Why not go there?"
"That's
an option for you," Elliott answers.
"Sikhs and Hindus are there. They don't bother us," the man continues.
"Sikhs never. Hindus are split. But there are also Vampires, witches, and other anti-Faither groups there. And the region is surrounded by the Caliphate, the CHINs, and a new anti-Faither Russian Bloc."
"What about Canada?"
"They got more Muslims there than here."
"And then there's all those Star Trek people—Vulcans and the rest," a woman says with disgust.
"They don't bother us," Elliott says.
"Where are all those Jedi idiots?"
"The West Coast," an old man answers.
"Where do the Mormons hide?" another leader asks Elliott. "You never see them, but we know they have a lot of people."
"I won't be answering that question—ever. So is this about rejoining the Jewish community or finding out where everyone is hiding, to use your completely erroneous term?"
"We're hiding and so are you. You just want to pretend you're not. We're at least honest about it."
Elliott looks at him. "We don't hide." He realizes immediately that he has lost his calm, cool composure again. They've gotten under his skin, he says to himself. A complete breach of his lawyerly demeanor. The man is smiling in triumph, realizing what he has accomplished.
"Seems like you really don't like us," he says.
"I could have told you that beforehand and saved myself a trip. You are asking the wrong questions. You have the wrong attitude. You're not even dressed appropriately for a meeting as important as you claim it to be. The others won't meet with you. So if you don't like me, then that's too bad. I'm all you got. In legal terms there's what's called a grace period. The two parties go to their own corners and let some distance and time pass. You and I need a grace period. You need to decide if you're really serious about moving forward, because it will not be easy, and ultimately, and very likely, you will be denied. I also need to decide if I want to move forward with you. Because should a miracle happen and you jokers do get in, it will be my name associated with you forever. I need to think more about that. Because I'm not convinced you will behave yourselves."
"Behave ourselves. What does that mean? Will your enclaves micromanage how we behave too?"
Pure Conspiracy (The After Eden Series): The Genesis of World War III Page 3
