And Thy Mother Read online

  Jim returned at this point and saw his colleague puffing away like there was no tomorrow. Shaking his head in disbelief, he got back into the car. Mike rejoined him after getting every last drag he could out of the butt. By then, Parker had resumed his examination of the Bible pages.

  Jim considered himself a moral man, but not a deeply religious one, so it took him some time to find a passage he recognized. But there, finally—something he knew: the Ten Commandments. He started reading, but didn’t find anything unusual. He always got a chuckle out of this one here—“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” It made him wonder about the ancient people who had written these things. The Sabbath Day, as everybody knew, was an annual holiday, on the last Monday in March, devoted to the purchase of sheets, blankets and pillow-cases. It was just like Labor Day (with its emphasis on barbecued meat), New Year’s Day (beer and football), or Freedom Day in May (auto racing). What was so “holy” about bed-linens?

  He read further and—stopped. This made no sense, he told himself. He read the line again. This is not right. He opened the new Bible which he had just purchased in the bookstore across the street, thumbed through the pages, found the matching lines. He looked. He compared.

  “Hey, Mike, check this out.”

  Mike looked at the sections Jim indicated, being careful not to actually touch the older pages. He also compared. The two men stared at each other.

  No doubt about it—Parker and Wilkins, for the first time in their lives, were certain that they were looking at un-Treated text. The new Bible didn’t waste words like this older one did. It contained the famous “Three-Word Commandment,” as it should have, while the antique’s version was twice as long. Obviously, removing clutter was the purpose of Treatment.

  It was Mike who put their common thought into words.

  “What the hell is a ‘mother’?”

  CHAPTER 4

  There are a lot of very important men in Washington, DC, but he fancied himself to be the most important of them all. G. Waddington Wellington—even the name screamed “important.” He was a descendent of the great Wellington, of the Battle of Waterloo. With a name like that, he had to be the most…

  Well, all right, he allowed, maybe the second-most important—can’t forget about you-know-who in the White House.

  His job was very important, of course; probably the most important job in government (I mean second most, his mind reluctantly thought—right behind the Big Guy). He was responsible for staffing and coordinating the teams of agents who would scour the country to find the people that were known in his circle as “Section Fifteens,” named for the portion of the legal code which defined their existence. The list was updated daily, with new names being added constantly, and old names being removed occasionally. These changes required a continuous shuffling of manpower.

  These… degenerates (he could think of no other sufficiently insulting term for them at the moment)… what they had done to rate inclusion in “Section Fifteen” was unknown to him, but it didn’t matter—the mere presence of a man’s name on the list meant that he had to be found and… dealt with.

  It was a difficult job. But it was very important, and he was good at it.

  Most of the time.

  The red phone on the edge of his desk rang, startling him. The caller had to be the only man in government more important than him.

  He answered the phone, unconsciously standing up as he did so. “Good morning, Mr. President,” he said briskly and efficiently. Brisk efficiency—his boss liked that.

  Most of the time.

  “Our old friend ‘Mr. S.’ is back,” said the unmistakable voice of the Chief Executive.

  The President sounded unhappy, and G. Waddington Wellington was therefore also upset.

  “That cannot be... sir,” he stammered. “He was reported—no, verified—killed in a truck explosion about six years ago.” He said this to buy enough time to find his case file on the notorious “Mr. S.” buried among the important papers on his cluttered desk.

  “I have a report, from reliable sources, that he was sighted two days ago.” The President’s measured and deliberate tone indicated even greater unhappiness.

  At that moment, the important Mr. Wellington saw an envelope on top of a pile, on the other corner of his desk, meaning that it had been placed there within the last few… days, he realized in dismay. The front was stamped “Eyes Only,” so the material it contained was clearly very important.

  Opening it, he found a report saying that the elusive and unscrupulous “Mr. S.” had indeed been spotted just outside Toronto, by—

  “The question is,” the President said preemptively, in an even more measured, deliberate tone, “why did I hear about this from the local police in Toronto?”

  “I just got—” were the only words Wellington was allowed to say.

  “Why didn’t I hear about this... from you?”

  No explanation was offered, since the President had hung up. Therefore, G. Waddington Wellington knew no explanation would be accepted.

  He sat back down in his chair, behind his desk covered with important papers.

  The President’s desk was also covered with papers—three piles of them, to be exact, all placed face-down for privacy. Nevertheless, when the conversation with his important underling was finished, he reached into one of his desk drawers for more forms. A folder at the front contained numerous copies of a “boilerplate,” a generalized form which requires only the addition of a name and some other information to become a complete document. He removed two copies from the folder.

  The set of his jaw mirroring his determination, he took one form and wrote in the full name of the infamous “Mr. S.” This time for sure, he thought grimly.

  His anger ebbed somewhat as his mind took a break from his major problems to ponder a minor one, the just-completed phone call. He can’t keep track of “Mr. S,” he thought disparagingly. But then again, he reasoned with himself, who can? Certainly his predecessor couldn’t, even before his rather abrupt… resignation. He thinks he related to Napoleon’s conqueror, his mind asserted. True, he’s probably not, he mentally insisted—but who can tell, these days? I’m probably a closer relation than he is.

  He filled out the form, something he loved to do, as the two sides of his mind finally found something to agree on. What kind of name is that, anyway? Why can’t he have a normal name? Why can’t he be a “William,” like me, or a “Jared,” like my son?

  For crying out loud, what the hell kind of name is “Waddington?”

  At least, he’s right about one thing, he thought with a smile as he signed the completed document.

  He was an important man.

  He pressed a button on his desk, and a member of his staff came into the room. The President added the two forms he had just finished to the pile of papers on his left, and then handed that entire stack to his assistant.

  “Section Fifteen,” he said.

  CHAPTER 5

  While the two officers sat in Mike’s car, puzzling over the concepts of a ‘mother’ and ‘coveting thy neighbor’s wife’ (whatever that was), Jim’s phone rang again. He looked at it, and saw once again the picture of the book, and the same coordinates as before.

  “I think somebody’s really trying to get your attention,” Mike commented.

  “No… actually, I think we’re keeping somebody waiting,” Jim replied. “Let’s go.”

  They drove a little further through town until they had reached the desired area.

  “OK, Jim, you’re the geo-caching expert. If you were going to hide something around here, where would you put it?”

  “Normally, I’d put it somewhere really out of the way, so that nobody would accidentally stumble over it unless they were looking for it. I’d expect this guy to do something similar, to keep it out of the hands of civilians, but judging from that little ‘reminder’ we got a few minutes ago, he wants us to find it quickly.

  “So, I might try looki
ng some place like—there!” Jim pointed to a small dirt road that turned off the main street and seemed to lead into a small forested area. Mike turned onto this road, drove forward a short way until they were surrounded by trees, and stopped.

  They got out of the car and proceeded into the woods on foot. They had not gone far when Jim noticed a tree stump with what looked like a small patch of freshly-moved earth in front of it. He became certain that their search was over when he saw, affixed to the stump, a foot-long piece of red satin ribbon.

  He gestured back over his shoulder toward the car. “Get a shovel.”

  They only had to dig down about nine inches before they found an airtight container. It obviously had been placed there recently, as it showed no signs of exposure to the elements.

  “So, Jim, is geo-caching always this easy?” Mike wanted to know. “I hardly worked up a sweat.”

  “No, thankfully—if it was, I’d have given it up long ago as way too boring,” Jim replied. “I think, in this case, whoever put it here was more interested in the artifact than the pursuit.”

  They opened the container with little difficulty.

  “I know what this is,” Mike said as he removed the single object that was inside. “It’s an external memory stick for a computer. There’s probably something on it that your mysterious friend wants you to see.”

  “Good guess there, Sherlock,” Jim replied with a semi-sarcastic, ‘no-shit’ kind of look.

  Both men surveyed the ground around the tree stump for more signs of buried treasure. Satisfied that they had found all there was to find, and noting that the shadows were growing long, Jim suggested they find a motel and spend the night in this little town.

  “I assume you brought your computer with you,” Jim said to his associate. Mike gave his superior officer back the same kind of look he had just gotten. The likelihood of Mike going somewhere without his computer was about the same as Jim leaving home without his pants.

  They found a motel with little difficulty and rented a couple of rooms. They then went to a sub shop for some food. Through the front window, Jim could see that the place was a little more crowded than he had expected. When he and Mike entered, a cheer came from a group of men near the door. At first Jim thought he had been recognized and was getting the hated “national hero” treatment, but then he noticed a ball game on the TV, where someone had just scored a run. That explained the cheer, and also the crowd, he thought; in a tiny town like this, what else was there to do but hang out with your buddies at the bar and watch the game?

  They ordered two large roast beef sandwiches to go, and Mike picked up some beer. Jim’s attention was divided between the television, where the local news had replaced the game between innings, and the sandwich clerk asking him what he wanted on his sub. While saying that yes, he did want green peppers, but no, hold the olives, he heard the talking head excitedly announce something about “elements of the Fourth Battalion,” and something else having to do with the “famous Colonel James Parker,” at which point he looked down at his hands, trying to make himself inconspicuous. Mike came over and tapped him on the shoulder, then pointed back to the tube. The news guy had introduced a sound bite, featuring…

  “Chambers?” Jim asked.

  “General, can you confirm that the Fourth Battalion will be coming up to this area in the near future?”

  “Yes,” Chambers replied without hesitation, in his usual no-nonsense style, “it would not be a breach of security to say that portions of that unit will be involved in what we call ‘exercises’ in your area.”

  “Also, General—we’ve had reports that Colonel Parker himself will be leading these ‘war games’. Can you comment on that?”

  “Oh, shit,” Jim groaned. He wanted to look away, but at the same time, he wanted to see the general’s reaction to this relatively minor “breach of security.”

  “Well, if... if… he is part of this operation… and I can’t say for certain whether he is or he isn’t… well, even men of his caliber could use a little practice now and then,” Chambers answered, then turned away, obviously finished with the interview. He tried to be genial, but Jim knew him well enough to know that he became very annoyed when “private information” did not remain that way.

  The subs were bagged up; now all Jim had to do was pay for them. Almost out of here unnoticed, he thought.

  “So, what’s the story, Colonel Parker?” asked one of the patrons from the cheering section near the door. “You leading this ‘war games’ thing?”

  Almost… but not quite. Even up here…

  He looked up, smiled at the group of men who were all smiling at him, and pointed with his thumb at the TV.

  “I was hoping the general was gonna tell me, along with you guys,” Jim said, drawing a laugh from the room.

  He paid the bill and looked for Mike. True to form, he had found somebody to talk with; in this case, two men sitting at a table against the wall. Jim approached and heard Mike close out his conversation by saying, “Sure—what do you have to lose? Worst he can do is say no.”

  They finally made it out, and Jim breathed a sigh of relief. “That ‘being recognized’ stuff just gets on my nerves sometimes,” Jim said, noticing Mike’s amused glance. Changing the subject, he asked, “You and those guys—what was that all about?”

  “Names are Hawke and Freeley,” Mike answered as they got into the car. “They want to start up this company to do… I don’t know that they ever said. Anyway, they need about a hundred G’s to set it up. Then one of them mentioned something about this ‘Ask the President’ program he’d heard about.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of it, too,” Jim nodded. “Started by the last President, I think, as a way to ‘reconnect with the common man’, or some such shit.”

  “Now, don’t be so cynical,” Mike scolded playfully. “Anyway, they said they tried it—each of them asked for half of what they need. And they got their answers last week. Now, here’s the weird thing: Hawke got his money—”

  “No kidding? Fifty grand?” Jim was surprised. “Sweet.”

  “—but Freeley got denied because of ‘budget cuts’.”

  “What the hell?” Jim wondered.

  “So, they’re going to try it again—each asking for half of what they still need.”

  “I don’t know that I’d be doing that, but hey—it worked the first time… sort of,” Jim shrugged.

  When they got back to their motel, Jim got the food organized while Mike set up his computer.

  Mike accessed the external memory, which automatically started his video player. At first, there was no picture—only a voice which made the following announcement:

  “The video which you are about to watch has not, repeat NOT, undergone Treatment. If this is upsetting to you, please turn off the video player NOW.”

  “That guy has an unusually high-pitched voice,” Mike noted, as he got ready to hit the Stop button.

  “Could be just a boy,” Jim replied, as he moved to prevent Mike from doing anything of the sort.

  There was now a picture, but it was just a nondescript table in an anonymous room. The camera moved in for a closer shot of the piece of paper on the table.

  “Very low production value—obviously homemade,” Mike scoffed. He fancied himself something of a movie buff, and prepared himself to reject this video.

  But not for long.

  “Before we begin Part One of this seminar,” the high-pitched voice continued, “there are several terms with which you must become familiar. We will go over them quickly at this time, but more detail will be provided as needed.”

  “Did he just say this is only ‘part one’ of… whatever this is?” Mike asked.

  “Yeah, he did,” Jim responded, adding, “I wonder what we’ve gotten ourselves in for.”

  The writing on the paper was now clearly visible. A pointer, apparently held by the unseen speaker, was used to indicate each word as the narrator pronounced them. Words they had indeed
never heard before.

  She. Her. Girl. Lady. Sister. Daughter.

  And then…

  “Female: the complementary gender to the male of the species. If you remember your basic biology, Colonel Parker, then you know that it is impossible for the members of one species to produce the offspring of another. To produce a human child, a human female must be involved. This is how it has always been done.

  “This is the only way it can be done.”

  “I used to wonder about that,” Jim started to say, but Mike shushed him, as the voice continued.

  “When the human female reaches adulthood, she is referred to as a ‘woman’. The plural of this word is ‘women’. And finally, when the female produces a child, or ‘gives birth,’ she becomes that child’s Mother.”

  Honor thy Father and thy Mother.

  A vivid image of the page torn from that old Bible flashed through Jim’s mind, and he froze. He could hear the faceless voice defining the term: Mother, the female parent; a woman to be accorded the same respect that he had for his father.

  This is madness, he tried to tell himself. Yet the ancients had seemingly demanded this of their progeny.

  If…if… any of this could be believed, Jim tried valiantly to invoke his rational soldier’s mind. This had to be nonsense.

  But, what if, a small corner of his mind resisted, what if there’s a chance that even the smallest part of this is… true?

  What would that mean?

  Had humanity gone wrong? If so, when? How? Did the maker of this video really know?

  While he pondered this, he slowly became aware that the speaker had said “…end of Part One,” that the video had stopped, and that Mike was trying to replay it. It was useless—the data file was corrupted beyond repair. It had self-destructed.