by Den Warren
“Wha . . . no one! Anyway, I might as well ask you. What do you think?”
“I think it was maybe not so smart to go there.”
“No, I mean, do you think God is real?”
Randy looked up at the shuttle’s ceiling for his answer. Then he said, “When I’m in school, I don’t really think so. I was at a funeral once, and when I was there I did kinda think that God was real.”
Milton said, “Well that’s no help. That sounds like a whole lot of . . . hey! That’s subjective criteria!”
“Really,” Randy said. “Wow.”
Milton said, “So I guess when you are in school, you have more faith that evolution is true and I guess when you think about dying you have more faith that God is real.”
“I guess so,” Randy said.
“Well,” Milton asked, “is what I said true or not?”
“I think it is,” Randy said.
Milton smiled. “Randy, you’re a genius.”
“Yeah. I get that a lot.”
Milton slowly turned to look at Randy who was staring out the shuttle window as if he was all-knowing, green hair and all. Milton was pleased at his breakthrough in understanding subjective criteria. Milton thought that perhaps now he could build upon what he knew, to find out more about God.
Chapter 5
“Look!” the nearly life-sized holographic image of the super-heroine Pink Arrow a member of the Pain Posse said as she saw the trail of blood going up the stairway. The entire stage at the holoplex was filled with realistic looking three dimensional actors and scenes that changed like the old two-dimensional movies.
“You definitely got him,” the Blue Retaliator said, “But I have dealt with this guy so many times before. Do not underestimate him.”
The superhero team also included Exo, Roid Rage, Purple Harold, and Coyote-Man. They all crept up the stairs as quietly as possible in a very tense scene of the show.
Just then Randy Klosterman took a big slurp of his pop and the sound of the air bubbles in the straw broke the quiet of the holographic movie scene.
Milton elbowed Randy in the rib. Milton said, “Hey. People are watching.”
“Ow!” Randy said, not in a whisper.
“Shhhh!” came from behind.
Randy belched. He looked at Milton and said, “You caused it.”
“Quiet!” someone said in a loud whisper.
Suddenly, the Pain Posse’s holographic arch-nemesis Corpus DeLuxx suddenly came flying down the stairway with an arrow stuck in his thigh and he slung his trademark exploding fireball down on the team, hitting Coyote-Man directly in the torso and sending him out of the scene. The sound of the blast vibrated throughout the holoplex and made everyone forget about Randy’s soda-induced eructation.
Purple Harold, Corpus DeLuxx’s personal arch-enemy flew up to meet him in the air. He swiped at Corpus and his long claws and raked open the front of his supervillain uniform, drawing blood.”
“Yeah!” Randy said.
Whenever Purple Harold could get in close against Corpus with his claws, the audience knew the good guys had a chance. Corpus could not throw his energy fireballs. So Corpus DeLuxx knew he had to break off the close combat and fly away, which he did, with Purple Harold in flying after him in pursuit.
It was the end of the movie. The next scene focused on Coyote-Man. Massive Collateral damage was everywhere throughout the fictitious Neogothic City. Not only that, but Coyote-man clearly was not going to be revived.
Pink Arrow said, “As long as we remember him, he will never die.” Then the touchy-feely background music started to play as the holographic closing credits scrolled upwards in mid-air.
The somber audience left the theatre as they lost one of their heroes, albeit a minor character. But they all knew that Corpus DeLuxx would be in big trouble when Pain Posse 7 came out.
“That was stupid,” Milton said.
“What? I liked it,” Randy said.
“Oh, the movie was okay. I just mean the last part.”
“What part?” Randy asked. “I won’t miss Coyote-Man at all. I thought he was stupid anyway. All that howling.”
“No, not that. It’s that stupid thing about, ‘He will live as long as we all remember him’. That guy is as dead as anything ever was dead. He got splattered all over. I’ll remember him as dead, because he is.”
Randy said, “That’s because they were talking about his memory.”
“Okay, fine,” Milton said. “Someday, or at least in real life, every one of those characters will die off. In fact, everyone watching that story in the holoplex will be dead too. There won’t be anyone left in the world to remember Coyote-Man or anyone else at all, because they will be dead too.”
“Hey, that’s not very nice.”
“Then why do they have to say such stupid things? I’m getting tired of not being able to say things that are true because some people think they are offensive. I think that stupid line by Pink Arrow in the movie was offensive. What about that?”
As they exited the holoplex and were walking toward the transit worm stop, Randy said, “It’s just a movie, Milton. Quit making a big deal out of it. You gotta not take it so seriously and forget about it.”
“Why should I?” Milton said. That movie is telling everyone a big fat lie. Why is it okay to promote a stupid idea like that just because it is in a movie? Once you are dead, you are dead. And what really makes the Pain Posse the good guys? To me, there really is not any difference between them and the Tolerance Consortium. What is the purpose of living anyways?”
Randy became perturbed and said, “I thought we went there to watch some action and see bad guys get beaten up, not to try to learn things or think about stuff like that. I guess I was wrong. You want to make Pain Posse 6 into this big lesson or something and spend all night thinking way too much about it.”
Milton saw a couple of girls about their age walking toward the holoplex looking at their devices. He asked them, “Do you girls believe in God?”
They huddled together and continued walking, only faster.
“You can’t do that,” Randy said, grabbing Milton by the arm, trying to pull him to the side.
Milton would have none of that and stood his ground and jerked his arm away. “Why not?! Why is it so bad to talk about God?! Something is definitely wrong with this world! I’m getting tired of this!”
Randy said, “What’s the difference if God is real or not, it doesn’t matter to us!”
Milton said, “Seriously? If there is no God, then we were not made with a purpose. If there is no God, then we are just a random accident and it won’t matter or not if I made my bed this morning. If God made us, He did for a reason and I want to know what it is.”
“All that kinda talk is what they call clone envy,” Randy said. “Clones are raised for a purpose and we freely conceived people are just random. No one expects that much out of us, which I think is good. It takes a lot of pressure off of us.”
“I am not jealous of clones,” Milton said, “and that is just loser talk, and has nothing to do with what I am saying.”
“Loser?! I’m just a realist,” Randy said. “My grandma says I am a very well adjusted young man, not a loser. You just need to relax. All this stuff will go away. I promise.”
Chapter 6
The next day in school Milton was still full of frustration and hostility. He felt a void in his life, in his future, and was being treated like a criminal just for having a basic question that he believed should be asked by everyone on earth. But it seemed like Sleepy was right; asking other humans was the only way he would ever find out anything he could believe in about God.
Milton asked Norton Burton, who he thought to be the smartest kid in his class, “Do you believe in God?”
Norton looked nervous. He said, “Um . . . What do you think?”
Milton couldn’t get any kind of commitment out of Norton one way or the other. It seemed like Norton was just trying to guess what M
ilton wanted to hear.
Dave and Dale Urbano were a set of identical twins in his class who were good in sports. He had always heard that twins and clones were good to use in experiments because they had the same DNA. Besides, clones went to separate, more demanding schools than freeborn, and he didn’t know any clones personally.
So he asked the Urbano twins separately if they believed in God. Dave shrugged his shoulders and said, “I dunno.”
Dale just made a face and walked away, so the twin thing was inconclusive.
Milton did not want to get a bad name among the girls in his class by asking them awkward questions, but he was not doing well with the boys. So he approached Norma Blanchester, the one whom he admired greatly, and asked her if she believed in God.
Norma panicked and ran away.
He saw Sylvia Gonzalez. She should be good because she liked to talk all of the time. So he asked her the same question. Sylvia looked a little startled and she said, “Yes, I do.”
Milton said, “You do? I mean, thank you, Sylvia. He wished he had thought out this impromptu survey better, but he could not think of what to say next, so he said, “Thanks again,” and he walked away.
Milton looked behind and heard Sylvia laughing and talking to other girls, so he concluded that she was just playing him with her answer. He was not so glad that she talked a lot anymore.
As he made his way down the hall, he ran into Mr. Chang, the social studies teacher. Mr. Chang told Milton to report to Principal Stafford’s office at once.
*******
Mr. Stafford said, “Okay, Milton. So what is this all about, you going around imposing harm on your fellow students?”
“Imposing harm? I’m not imposing anything on anyone.”
“Look, Thomas. Don’t act all innocent with me. I know you are playing games with the minds of our children here. I promise you that I will not stand for it. So you better decide right now to give up this nonsense.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong, and I am not changing my mind about what I am doing at all. All I did was to ask my friends if they believe in God.”
“No. You need to stop and think, Milton. What if these children don’t feel good about themselves? What if you disturb them to the point they take their own lives? Do you want to be responsible for that?”
“I’m not responsible for anything like that, Mr. Stafford. I just want to know what they think.”
“That’s the problem. You can’t expect people to start thinking about troubling things like that. It bothers them. There is such a thing as separation of Church and State and hate speech. That’s why you can’t talk about it at school. Read your history; people who used to believe in God were not tolerant of others. God was just their excuse to hate people. Your little game puts a lot of stress on people and makes them feel like others disapprove of them or hate them for no reason.”
“Maybe they need to be bothered with it. I just want to know if God is real. That’s all. If there is a God, then maybe there is life after death. If there is life after death, and you have to live a certain way or do something to get it, then that is the way I will live, no matter what anyone else says. Maybe those other kids wouldn’t feel so weak if they knew for themselves why they believe what they believe. But all I see are people who feel threatened by the thought of God. To me, everyone ought to be asking the same questions I am.”
“Think about what you just said, Thomas. You think everyone else should think the way that you do. They don’t, and you should realize by now that how you are imposing your views on them is selfish and hateful. You are violating their right to privacy. You are just passing your own terrible thoughts and emotional instability on to others. It won’t continue here. I think you have a lot of mental and emotional problems you need to work out; probably because your father is in reeducation camp. Since you are having problems understanding the meaning of your freely conceived life, or some other nonsense, I’m going to tell your mom that you need professional help for your clone envy. Otherwise, I’ll have to suspend you from school. Now why don’t you just forget about all of that and join one of the sports teams or clubs we have here?”
Milton asked, “Don’t you care about people?”
“What do you mean by that, Thomas?”
“Everyone says I am the one doing harm, but all I am trying to do is find out about God. Knowing about God would be good for everyone, but nobody really cares about that part of their lives.”
Principal Stafford said, “I don’t know who is feeding you this stuff, but I want it to stop. Got it?”
Milton felt more anger than ever at Principal Stafford. For the first time he felt like lashing out at him. But that imagined situation would have ended extremely badly. Milton still believed that he had not done anything wrong to anyone. “I know that to you I’m just another stupid kid, except that I don’t agree with everything that you are paid to tell me to believe.”
“Get out of here Thomas. And you better watch yourself. I’m being real serious here.”
*******
That evening, things got progressively worse for Milton.
“Mom!” Milton objected to the idea she of having to go to counseling with a psychiatrist.
“What do you want me to do, Milton?! I’m not going to have my son kicked out of school for out-of-control behavior!”
“I’m not! All I did was asked some kids if they believe in God!”
“I’d rather you keep that at home. People take that sort of thing personal.”
“No,” Milton said, “that ain’t it! At school we talk about personal stuff all the time. They are just afraid to talk about God. It makes no sense at all.”
“Milton, all you have to do is tell the counselor, or whoever, the same thing you just told me. Just do it and see what they say.”
“Okay! Fine! Maybe everyone will just get off of my back then! All right?! Daaa!”
*******
Later, Beth had to get her daily dig in on Milton. She said, “Hey dummy! I hear you were going around and asking the girls a bunch of personal questions and getting them all embarrassed and mad. Way to go.”
“No, I wasn’t!” Milton said. “I mean, they took it all wrong.”
“That’s not what that Norma chick was telling everyone online.”
“Don’t believe everything you see.”
“I don’t. I just believe what Norma said.”
“Whatever,” Milton said. “It’s not my fault if they get mad.”
“Duh! Whatever!” Beth mimicked. “Everyone keeps asking me what’s up with my weirdo brother. I don’t like it.”
Milton was just grateful that his mom didn’t tell Beth about his appointment with the counselor.
Chapter 7
Boston, Homeland
“You said, what?!” the excited bald clone said to Andy the Android.
“I told another android that was also named ‘Andy the Android’ that I was not trying to steal its identity, and just by being named the same as the other android, it did not constitute identity theft.”
“No, not that part, the other part of this magnificent story of yours!” the bearded clone said.
“You mean the part about me explaining how true identity theft is done correctly and effectively?”
“Yeah, that would be it! You went and told another android how to skim off someone’s account?!”
“Yes, but it was only to correct his wrong assumption that I was stealing his identity because we had the same name. He didn’t know what he was talking about.”
“No you didn’t!” the blonde clone said with his hands on the sides of his head. “Andy, all you should have said was that your same names were a coincidence, not an effort to steal its identity!”
The bearded clone said, “Andy. Stop and think about what you said to that android.”
“I see the problem now. It turns out I’m not very good at being a cybercriminal.”
The bearded clone said, “Some things re
quire competent deceit; such as our business. If you are in this business and fail at deceit, the cost is extremely high.”
The blonde clone said, “I know we will end up going to jail because of this droid. Who thought it was a good idea to have it help us in our enterprises?”
The bald clone sighed and said, “Fine. Then let’s just get rid of him. I agree that there is no possible way it will make us any money; without us ending up being culled.”
