Dystopia's end
“Thank you so much for dropping us off, Dad. I know how busy you’ve been.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said, kissing his daughter on the cheek. “It’s been wonderful having you both visit. I only wish we could have spent more time together.”
The drop-off zone of the airport terminal was busy. Cars and taxis and hotel transports lined the curb and jostled for the next open spot. Many of them were double parked. There were people running late, bags over their shoulders, dragging luggage as they darted through the hectic maze. Others stood idle, biding time, and smoking cigarettes, adding to the stink of the exhaust filled air. The sounds of slamming doors and trunks and honking horns swirled around, bouncing beneath a concrete roof.
Dr. Paul Landis removed four pieces of luggage from the trunk of his car. Two rather large rolling suitcases and a much smaller carry-on. Last was a small, pink rolling case that belonged to his seven-year-old granddaughter. The little girl stood wide-eyed, casting her attention around at all the excitement. She was a child of wonder, innocently unaware of what the future might bring. This flight with her mother, back to their home in New York, would be only her second time on an airplane. She spent most of their ride to the airport talking about how she would like to become a pilot herself when she grew up.
“Are you sure you can handle these bags?” Landis asked his daughter.
“Yes, Dad. We can handle it. We’re big girls now. Isn’t that right, sweety?”
Her young daughter looked up with pride. “We’re big girls,” she proclaimed.
“Alright, can’t fault an old man for looking out for his family.” Landis was a little embarrassed for his doting.
He squatted down on one knee and gave his granddaughter a hug. “Before you go, I have something for you,” he said to her.
Her face filled with delight.
He pulled something from his shirt pocket and then opened his hand to reveal it to her. It was a thin gold chain with a heart-shaped locket.
“This is a very special gift I have just for you. It is very important. But before I give it to you, you must make me a promise. You must promise me you will never open it and look inside. Do you understand? You must never open it.”
“But why Granddaddy? What’s inside it?”
“It’s filled with God’s love. If you open it, that love will fly away and never come back. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”
“Oh no, Granddaddy, I don’t want that at all,” she answered sincerely. “I promise, and I’ll keep it forever. Thank you, thank you so much.”
“Now you be a good girl and give your granddaddy a kiss.”
Paul Landis hugged and kissed his granddaughter and her mother and wished them well. Then he watched them disappear into the terminal.
Landis fought traffic for the next forty minutes. Every year the congestion grew. There were so many people. The old were living longer, and the young continued to reproduce. He wondered sometimes where would they all go? Would there come a time when there would be no more room, no more resources to support them? How many fish could live in a barrel?
He thought of his own family, his daughter, and her child. He had taken the day off from work to see them safely begin their trip home. It was a nice visit, but far too short. It was a visit that he gave much thought to in anticipation. And now that it was over, he felt good. Spending time with his granddaughter left him with a fresh feeling of hope.
He turned off the interstate and headed toward the facility where he worked. Even though he had taken the day off, he felt his time would be better spent at the office. He was a widower. No one waited for him to come home, and now that his visitors were gone, his house seemed far too empty. Besides, he thought, today was too special to sit at home alone.
As he approached the facility, he saw the mob of protesters at the gates. They’d been camping out for weeks, holding signs and hurling insults. Their numbers grew more each day. Landis believed they were fools. They couldn’t possibly understand the work that he and his colleagues were doing. They knew nothing of the implications. Landis felt contempt for them as he slowly drove through their ranks. They pounded at his windows and spat on his hood. Simple minds were dangerous minds.
Security guards came forward in mass and pushed back the crowd so that Landis could pass through the fortified gates.
When he arrived in his office, he found he was much more distracted than he expected. He stood staring down from his high plate-glass window. Below was a beautifully manicured lawn. It stretched like a no man’s land to the towering perimeter wall and the front gates, where the guards stood vigilant against the mob. He was aware of the rising political pressure, spurred by the growing protests. He even heard rumors that he and his fellow scientists might be called to testify before a special committee.
It would be just like the government to shut down their work. Handing the reigns of science to politicians was the ultimate absurdity. They would base their actions on populism, on the trends of intellectual fashion, on the self-serving results of the next coming election. Wasn’t that the core problem of the world, he thought? People acting upon their own self-interest, for their own thought circles and private tribes. That kind of foolishness would be the end of mankind. As far as Landis was concerned, he was doing what he called God’s good work, and who were these miscreants to tell him differently?
These were the same fools who refused the inerrancy of his beliefs. They would argue with their twisted logic. Spew their sanctimonious reasoning. Deny the tenets of faith itself. And when asked the most profound of questions, would proudly announce, I don’t know, but neither do you.
The laziness of such statements clawed and irritated every fiber of his being. Landis did know. The things he discovered, the things he created with his own hands, were of such power that he had to know. There was no margin for error. In his mind, that was proof of divine intervention. How else was it possible that one man, one small group of scientists, could control such forces, forces that only a god could claim?
Evidence, his detractors would shout, Show us the evidence. But even if he could speak his mind, even if he could reveal the pinhead upon which the world balanced, they still would not believe. Simple-minded, these heathens would ask for the fire’s burn to confirm its heat. They’d need to taste the poison to believe in its lethality.
So be it, Landis concluded. He would show them the evidence. He would force the very hand of God himself.
The artificial virus he created was deadly on a biblical scale. Once released, it would spread across the globe, unrelenting. Created as a tool to defend against such occurrences, it gave promise to antidotes and vaccines. But this one was the granddaddy of all deadly viruses—for this one, there was no method of cure or prevention.
If the virus escaped, then only God had the power to save the world from destruction. Surely, the divine being, the creator of the universe, would not let the whole of his creation come to such a dismal end. He would have to act in order to save the world. And His intervention would be clear for all to see. There would no longer be any question of His existence. The glory of His revelation would be undeniable.
Looking into the sky, Landis saw the vapor trail of a passing jetliner. He was certain this was not the same one that carried his family, but he could imagine them sitting on one just like it. He could picture his granddaughter curiously fingering the heart-shaped locket hung round her neck. He felt good about what he’d done and for the role that his family would play. Now it was in the hands of innocence and in the hands of God. For God so loved the world that He sacrificed His only son, and who was Landis to choose any other path?
