“C and C?”
“You know, Christians and Cult Hunters. The song you were humming is how each game would begin. You must have played C&C as a kid, it’s been part of the international fitness initiative for decades.”
“Oh, of course. We just didn’t abbreviate it.”
Her voice is slightly higher in pitch than normal, she has no clue what I’m talking about. Who in this world doesn’t play C&C in grade school? Unless… she never went to grade school. She’s a Christian. The corps always suspected Christians were having children at home to keep them off the grid.
I sing the song the kid chosen as “Cult Hunter” would use to begin the game:
Where are you hiding, you children of the night?
Will you come out and see the sun and trade the truth for lies?
We’ll find you, we’ll find you, you cannot win this fight,
Stop hiding in the darkness now and we’ll teach you what’s right.
Martha remains silent for a while.
She’s never heard the song before. I don’t believe it. I’ve finally met a Christian and she’s here to kill me.
“So that was your early cult hunter training,” she says. “I bet even then you were the best cult hunter on the playground.”
I’m lying here with my eyes closed. If she was sent to kill me, why not just do it now?
“I’m surprised you’d think that considering I told you yesterday that I’m a big fraud.”
Maybe that’s what’s keeping me alive.
I hear her first sit then lie in the grass beside me.
“I don’t think of you as a fraud. If anything my respect for you has increased. The world thinks you tortured people to break the final code. Some even say you butchered Christian’s alive to get the information. The corps admits that they had super computers working day and night and they couldn’t break it either. To think that you did it while sitting in a room alone and applying your intellect is mind boggling.”
Of course. First they want to know how I did it, then they’ll kill me.
“So you don’t think of me as a dangerous killer?” I ask.
“A killer no. But you could be the most dangerous person in the world. They say the final code was so complex that you’re still the only one who understands how it works. Anyone with that kind of ability must be dangerous.”
“I told you, I just solve puzzles.”
I feel her warm hand on top of mine.
When’s the last time someone touched me? I don’t think I know.
“That was a big sigh,” she says.
Did I sigh? I wasn’t aware of it.
My body stiffens as I re-exert control over my thoughts and emotions and I regret it because it causes Martha to remove her hand and sit up. I open my eyes and am disappointed to find she’s looking at the sky rather than at me.
Damn the corps. If they’d let me talk to some Christians maybe I’d be prepared for this. None of the usual Cult Hunter scare tactics are going to work on her.
I let her resume the conversation to see where she goes next.
“I’ve been thinking about the extra credit project you offered in World Religion class, about whether love for technology is a form of ‘self-worship’. Care to help me with that puzzle?”
“How about if we talk about it over an early dinner? I’ve hardly eaten all day,” I reply.
Martha gets an uncomfortable look on her face. I never go out to eat and I’ve forgotten that the social convention is to have sex with someone who buys you dinner.
“Oh my. I didn’t mean to say--” My face feels flushed. “What I mean is we could go Dutch treat.”
“I’d love to.” She can barely contain laughing at my sudden discomfort. “Do you like Lebanese? There’s a great place just off campus.”
I’ve never let my guard down like this. But maybe I can gain her trust.
When we leave the park Martha pays no attention to the nearby hover bus stop and just keeps on walking. Most people would do just the opposite. I’m impressed that she likes to walk but we continue in awkward silence to the edge of campus until I think of a way to start a conversation.
“The retail district is a great opportunity to view man’s creations. I think you might find your own answer if we just make observations as we walk to the restaurant. Tell me what you see.”
“Unlimited electricity allows the world to be automated. Machines can be designed to do almost everything man used to do by hand,” she says.
“Including that.” I laugh and point to a storefront renting realistic robotic prostitutes by the hour. “What else do you see?”
“Well, since people no longer need to work most choose to spend their time in leisure pursuits.”
I want to laugh at her choice of words but I don’t. ‘Leisure pursuits’ is nothing more than a common euphemism for sex and drugs.
“Have you ever listened to the speeches that were given when Sunspot Three came on line?” I ask. “They went on and on about how once all of mankind was relieved of the drudgery of work we could make great leaps forward as we would take on scientific, intellectual and cultural pursuits.”
“Didn’t we?”
“We did for one generation. They cleaned up the pollution, they cured the diseases, they invented things, and they created unprecedented amounts of literature, music and art. Everyone was excited to work to make those things happen. When they passed the torch to their children only about half were still choosing to work. Now less than a tenth of the population works and most of them are designing and building the machines to make new leisure pursuits possible.”
“You’re saying you don’t consider robotic prostitutes a great scientific, intellectual or cultural leap forward?”
Now I laugh.
I’m pretty sure that was flirting.
I thought it would be difficult to drop The Cult Hunter persona and gain her trust but she’s making it effortless for me, like we’ve been having conversations for years.
Just then Martha and I approach a “selective pregnancy” kiosk where a girl who looks to be about fourteen years old has her stomach exposed and the machine is scanning her. I look in another direction.
Ignoring it won’t make it go away.
As we pass the electronic voice says, “You are twelve hours and twenty-three minutes post implantation, how would you like to proceed?”
The screen in front of her has a menu of choices and the default setting is always the same, “abort”. I’d like to say something, but as always I bite my tongue.
“Move On,” the girl says.
It’s short for “move on with my life and pretend this never happened.” I wonder if the abort rate would be so high if the girl was required to say “kill it”.
A finely calibrated hypersonic pulse will now break up the small ball of life inside her without harming any of her tissues in the process. Some say the sensation is even pleasant. As we walk away she’s talking into her com and saying she missed her record by just twelve minutes.
Going, going, gone forever. Three billion killed in the Final Holy War is a drop in the bucket compared to these machines.
The thought of what’s happening inside the girl’s body leaves me lost in sadness. I’ve spoken with colleagues about it and while they all agree it’s a shame to lose the evolutionary potential, none understand why it should make me feel sad. Selective pregnancy is the basic right of all women once they reach the age of sexual maturity and therefore I’m expected to mind my own business when it comes to the choices that others make. Even so, that small bundle of life represented an unimaginably complex and unique combination of genes that can’t be duplicated by all of our amazing technology. Whatever potential was inside that girl, it’s been blasted away by the hypersonic pulse and is never coming back.
“Paradise,” Martha says beside me, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“What?” I find that she’s staring at me again, like she’s trying to
hear my thoughts by watching my face.
Oh man, she’s good. I had no idea the Christians were so well trained at undercover work.
“Isn’t that how you described our world in your advanced lecture? Our own Garden of Eden? No more disease, everyone has whatever they want so there’s no envy and therefore no reason for wars, everything is clean and perfect.”
“Perfect? I suppose it depends on how you choose to define perfection.”
“What do you mean?”
“What some might call perfection another might see as a simple lack of consequences,” I say. “There are no diseases and pregnancies are ended with a simple voice command so there are no consequences for sex. Once natural alcohols and tobacco were made illegal, synthetic versions as well as drugs became engineered to get you drunk or give you highs without being addictive, so there are no consequences for intoxication. Obesity is fixed with metabolism bots so there’s no consequence for being a glutton. Even basic food and housing are free so there’s no consequence for laziness. From the perspective of an ancient Christian our manmade Garden of Eden is an all you can eat buffet of forbidden apples.”
“Since the Bible was banned I don’t know much about the Garden of Eden, but wasn’t it bad when they ate the apple and got thrown out of the garden? Aren’t we better off without the consequences?” she asks.
“Our bodies are better off without the consequences, but what about our minds?”
It would have been fun to use the word “soul” and watch her reaction but I don’t dare say it aloud on the public streets.
“Maybe man still needs some consequences in his life to help guide him, to keep him striving for more than this,” I say.
Martha stops walking and cocks her head to give me another intense stare.
“You really are an unsolved puzzle. Tell me then, what are the consequences in your life that keep you striving for more? What keeps a cult hunting history professor motivated?”
“If there are any consequences in my life, I guess they’re all self-imposed,” I reply. “Though I do sometimes wonder why I continue to do research into the past. Why did I bother to learn ancient languages? Why are a few doctors still striving to find new cures for diseases that were cured by their great grandfathers? Why are a few scientists still trying to find new energy sources in a world that has more than it needs? If this is so perfect why does it need further perfection? But most of all, if it’s all so perfect why do I see signs like that one?”
We’ve arrived at the Lebanese restaurant. On the roof of the building across the street is a billboard that reads “Tried it all and ready to be done? Maybe it’s time for assisted suicide. Guaranteed painless.”
I point to the sign.
“If this is paradise, why would anyone want to leave it and why did that girl abort a baby rather than sharing paradise with it?”
Martha’s jaw hangs open.
“Professor, I…”
“I’m sorry Martha, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that. I still have a lot on my mind. Why don’t we just end by saying that even a lack of consequences has its own set of consequences?”
“We can end on that note if I can add that you really should be teaching philosophy instead of history.”
***
During dinner Martha continues to swing back and forth over whether faith in man’s ingenuity is a form of self-worship or not. When dessert is over she still hasn’t resolved which way she should write the essay. She starts drumming her fingers with frustration.
“Did you run out of nail polish?” I ask.
She laughs and looks at her hands. The eight fingers are done with a light pink polish but her thumbs are still natural.
“No, I ran out of time.”
“I thought everyone had a machine to do all ten at once.”
“I still use an old machine that belonged to my grandmother, it does one at a time.”
I’ve been enjoying the conversation so much that when the check arrives I tell my com to pay the bill without thinking about the implications.
“Professor. I’ve had a great time and I appreciate you picking up the tab but I’m hoping you won’t be insulted if the evening ends here.”
“Of course I won’t be insulted. In fact I think I might have been a little insulted if you’d expected the evening to continue. You know from class that sex with my students isn’t my style.”
“I hoped you’d say that, though you do know I’d be passing up the chance of a lifetime.”
“The chance of a lifetime?”
“I’d be beating all the statistics,” she says. “The University keeps statistics on student-professor sexual encounters and you’re ranked the number one hardest to get. You’re considered impossible really.”
“I am?”
“Yes, and that includes Professor Cooper who’s at least ninety years old.”
“If I’m the chance of a lifetime why aren’t you trying to talk me into it?”
“It’s not my style either.”
She pauses.
“Besides, in a way it would ruin you.”
“Ruin me? Now I’m intrigued.”
“I can’t explain it, but somehow it would lessen you and your accomplishments. It would make you just another professor.”
“My accomplishments? My primary accomplishments all revolve around silencing people I’d rather have sat down and spoken with. I never wanted to be The Cult Hunter, I just wanted to understand faith.”
Martha cocks her head but says nothing, she’s still processing. If she’s a Christian then she naturally wants to hate me and I’m not making it easy for her.
You’ve pushed too far again. Give her an out.
“Martha, I’ve seen the look that just crossed your face before. You made a mental shift about me when you realized I’m not the person you thought I was. I’d like to get to know you better and I’d hoped you wanted to know me as well, but if this is just another case of hero worship from a student it’s best to walk away now before we’re both disappointed.”
“You weren’t just hunting them down? You were trying to understand the nature of Christian faith? Why?”
Amazing. She didn’t back off.
“I keep telling you, I solve puzzles. Faith is a puzzle I can’t seem to crack so I just need to know what they know.”
You can’t admit it to her yet, but what you really desire is to feel what they feel. You want to know firsthand if faith is a real feeling that will fill this emptiness or just self-delusion like the Atheists insist.
Martha stares at me with a curious look for a long time.
“I think I get it. Your powers of observation and ability to solve puzzles are all about making connections. You were trying to make connections about ancient religions and hunting modern cultists was just a byproduct.”
“So which is more pathetic? Making connections to people who have been dead for centuries or renting a robotic prostitute for an hour?”
“Definitely the robot, but in your defense many of the people in our generation aren’t much better than robots or dead people. How can you seek connections to people who spend their lives dazed by drugs and free entertainment? I’d never want to suggest that your life studying religion has been wasted, but I might suggest you’ve been seeking connections in the wrong places.”
We both know this is a game, but does she suspect my true goal?
“Tell me Martha, where’s the right place?”
“I think you’ll know it when you find it.”
As we walk back onto the campus and prepare to each take a hover bus in opposite directions Martha stops me by grabbing my hand and pulling me to face her. She looks me deep in the eyes like she’s trying to see inside of me then without warning kisses me on the lips. I respond with a passion I’ve never known existed inside of me, like my entire reason for being is to kiss her. She ends the kiss and pulls back abruptly.
“I don’t know why I just d
id that. But how was that for a connection?” she whispers into my ear and is gone before I can respond.
Chapter Eight
The University hover bus includes a private section reserved for faculty, which I take so I can be alone with my thoughts. I’m barely inside when my thoughts are invaded by a buzzing in my pocket. It’s my com, which should have deactivated when I removed it from my ear. I put it back in.
“Cephas, it’s Henry.”
“You can activate my com when it’s out? I didn’t know that was possible.”
“Just one of the perks of being the Director. Besides, they’re never truly deactivated. Listen, now you’re alone we need to talk for a minute. I’ve assigned a special agent to you to act as a liaison. She’s deep cover, nobody knows she works for me. I see you’ve got a new book so we’re sending you on book tour. She’s going to act as your new press secretary and personal assistant. Her name is Janet Tucker and she’s in the front section of your bus, greet her when you get off like you already know her, we think there are at least two people following you right now.”
Public databases are supposed to be secure. They searched your files and stole your book for their own purposes.
I look through the glass to the front section of the bus, which has about a dozen people in it. There are three different couples in various states of undress and three student aged guys cheering them on. There’s a young man with a purple Mohawk hairdo formed up into four gigantic spikes who’s ignoring the spectacle while reading something on a tablet. That leaves a tall woman who’s wearing an expensive but outlandish outfit with oversized matching jewelry. As I wonder if her face is painted on each morning she winks at me with eyelashes that are three times longer than normal, confirming that she’s Janet.
As we get off the hover bus I see that Janet must wiggle back and forth to walk because her outfit is so tight and she’s carrying a very large purse which I presume holds some sort of weapon.
“Cephas!” she squeals in an annoying, high pitched voice as she wiggle runs towards me.
“Janet, it’s nice to see you again. I’m so happy that you decided to come and work with me.”
“You know I could never say no to you Cephas.”
When she reaches me I go to take her hand as I would with any old acquaintance but she avoids my hand and crushes her body up against mine. Before I know it she’s trying to stick her tongue in my mouth and grinding her body against mine. I’m struck by the contrast with Martha’s kiss, this one ignites revolt inside me. I break her grasp as quickly as I can.