The GOD Box (16 page)

When he let her go, she started crying. This wasn’t startling to Dane,
who was laughing. In pity he just pulled her in for another hug to help calm her. The difference of her and Dane’s mother was black and white.

“Six months!” She protested
into Dane’s shirt. “I’d hate you all if I didn’t love you so much.”

Dane kept smiling.
Janine was probably about five foot five, and more petite than expected after knowing May. She had dark brown hair that hung to her shoulder blades, it had wrinkles in it like it was trying to curl, but gave up in exhaustion. Her face looked tired but pleased from the day – a regular 1940s house wife. With a few wrinkles she looked in the beginning stages of aging.

May was sitting with her daughter on the bench they called a couch and the girl was
chattering excitedly to her mom, telling her all about her aunts and uncles and the games they play. Most of it was nonsensical. Janine let go of Dane and wiped the tears off of her face, took some deep breaths and said,

“Okay! Introduce me to everyone.”

Obviously she knew Samson, but not Miek who went up and introduced himself… she laughed when he did so. Eventually Gabe decided Miek must have been joking, because they clearly knew each other. Of course she was anxious to hear about Gabe and Jonathan who were almost three times the average age of all in the group, but she didn’t seem the judging type. However, these weren’t their typical dinner guests. They were old men who stayed drunk in the bars and did their research in lonely classrooms. Not old men ready for an adventure with young adults. Gabe realized he was being oddly submissive and waited to be introduced. He frowned and heaved his breathes every so often so he was noticed and taken pity to.

He looked around the small house. It was too small for any
more than two or three people, in any practical sense. There was one open area that was a kitchen on the left and living area on the right which is what they just walked into. To the right there was a dark hallway that looked like it had two more doors. Probably bedrooms. The farthest door led into the attachment Gabe noted earlier. The living room was small and crowded. There were two ‘couches’ (as they called them) that were benches with those old chair pads, which people used to put on their dining chairs, strewn in no organized manner over the bench and the floor. The colors looked like they once matched but they were all dingy. Blankets were mostly folded, with a few disheveled ones where people had slept and not straightened. The kitchen was quite orderly, though dark. Gabe looked back at Janine.

Jonathan seemed friendlier than ever. Oh brother. Gabe sighed again and looked from Jonathan to May’s mom. She was attractive, and Jonathan, despite all of his sullied
emotional walls, noticed.
Let’s not get into this mess
, Gabe warned Jonathan with a look. That’s the last thing they need right now… physical or emotional “attachment”. Still, Jonathan was a good fifteen years older than her, so maybe she wouldn’t go for him anyway. Not that she would, in any circumstance go for Gabe. His frown changed slowly into a scowl. Dark brunette, soft eyes and lips, feminine jaw line, unlike May’s, she was tender and childlike though she was likely in her late thirties or early forties.

Old, decrepit Gabe.
Why can’t I just die?
He would never have pleasure again… no happiness again, ever. Everything about him was undesirable, for any woman, or anyone. Gabe looked at May, who now stood with the three year old propped on her hip.

She had seen what Gabe saw… and had seen the jealousy he felt. So shameful and dishonorable, but at this point, he
was pretty sure he didn’t care.

“Samson, watch those two, will you? Jon
athan, no one is impressed.” She said, passing a reproving glance at Gabe as if he was responsible for Jonathan’s lust. That comment was almost encouraging to Jonathan except he now had Samson to get through. Then, she and Dane left to the front of the house again. No warning for Gabe not to think about it, no need, clearly.

Janine
invited them to sit at the table. Gabe moved quickly so that he could get the seat across from the window. Jonathan sat on the other side of Gretchen, talking to her kindly. Gabe fumed to himself:
you’re a frickin dinosaur, shouldn’t you have learned by now to be okay with jealousy? Shouldn’t you be at peace with life?

Outside
, Dane had picked up the child and she was crawling from his chest to around his head and shoulders. May was smiling at her daughter and standing casually, conversing easily with Dane who was responding in between his playing with the little girl.

Finally, May
ran around for a little bit with her, playing tag. They teamed up on May because she was playing hard to get. Dane picked May up in the fireman carry and let the girl poke her now.
How sweet.
Inside, Gretchen was asking them questions about where they came from. Fortunately, ‘the past’ just sounds crazy, and Jonathan was trying to impress her, so he lied. Gabe didn’t care, so he went back to watching the little family outside. After quite some time, the little girl tuckered out and Dane picked her up and she laid her head on his shoulder. It was clear that they really loved him. May and Day’s smiles faded. Now the talk turned serious. They seemed to be deliberating about something. Not really arguing, but using lots of facial animation. Even when dinner was announced, they didn’t come in.

Around dinnertime,
in the house, they were joined by several other children – May’s siblings, and they all came inside.

Within thirty seconds of being inside, they were all outside again, realizing there was just not enough room.
Gabe counted five other children besides May. Thomas was the oldest boy who was near May’s age… in his twenties at least. Everything happened so fast with the in and out that Thomas was the only name Gabe caught. The middle child was probably sixteen, also a boy. There was another boy around fourteen or fifteen. Then the two youngest were five and three, a boy and a girl.

Every single one of them was chattering loudly to May and Dane
outside. Apparently Dane was just like a member of the family. How long had he stayed in this town before they left? Gabe didn’t understand why they weren’t hated, though… just disappearing the way they did.
Oh well.
Gabe followed them and went outside so that he could listen to their interactions with each other.

Yet to be seen
, was whether Thomas was trying too hard to impress May and Dane with his savvy political jargon, or if he was actually smart. They listened genuinely and didn’t try to blow him off, so they either loved him enough to care, or actually thought what he said was of value. The younger children tried to push Thomas aside to have their turn. Dane made a few playful comments to Thomas about girls.

Dane was moderately attractive according to twenty-second century expectations, but Thomas’ face fit every qualification without any photo shop or coloring. He was a few inches shorter than Dane with tawny brown hair that was long and sticking out every which way. Lack of a farmer’s build seemed a little out of the picture, but he was average size.

Inside, Janine made dinner with the help of a couple of the boys: Miek and the sixteen year old who both volunteered. Turned out to be something like a mix of vegetable stew and egg drop soup. Tasted… edible, but Gabe knew he’d be hungry in an hour. Good thing he had some beef jerky, just in case.

Gabe suggested that he and Jonathan go outside to talk while
Janine was near, so that if he refused he looked like a jerk. He thought that was pretty clever. The children were in back of the house finishing up dinner and preparing for final chores. A game of some kind was started. Dane wasn’t playing, but was standing and watching the scientists at a distance from the side of the house.

Gabe needed to know what Jonathan was thinking. They still needed to be on the same team… or at least on the same page… or at
the very least know if they really did have different motives and purposes.

Both were pacing in opposite directions.

“Look, they are doing okay. Maybe we just leave them be.” Gabe said.

Jonathan’s immediate reply was terse, “
Hell no. We haven’t seen everything yet to be able make a decision. Besides, I don’t think you are emotionally capable to make life and death decisions right now.”

“As if you ever have been.” Gabe retorted.

“No. The discovery of the last city is going to let them progress too quickly.”

“And slip ups and matches and your pills
hasn’t?!”

“Well, if we could have finished conditioning our Adam and Eve, we wouldn’t have this mess.
And it doesn’t matter, because you know we will start over, just like every time before. They’ve learned nothing to compromise us.”

Old news.
There were several reasons why the conditioning didn’t work. Gabe wished he would stop bringing that up. While they had tried to decide how to condition them, the most interesting conversations took place among the political, economic and religious leaders chosen to help with the project. How would they condition them? That was the question. Many thought that if everyone was the same religion, what would be the need for politics?

___

One day, in an old mental hospital they gathered them all together and sat them down to talk about it. Up in a small room, Gabe, Jonathan and their employers looked down at them through a double-sided mirror. All in all, there were about fifteen people in the little room above and thirty in the room below.

One of the group below started a list of morals that people should have according to the bible and all present religions, then, crossed off ones that were exclusive until they got a list of collective morals. Not even the complete Ten Commandments made it through the process. Everyone, meaning the scientists, philosophers and psychologists watching from the room above were laughing hysterically. How could you argue the Ten Commandments if you believed in the bible? And yet… they did… sort of. Still, some said that those weren’t collective, that God is merciful and loving, and not condemning. Gabe never got that… because then what was the point of the commandments? But then somehow at the same time they got on a kick of ‘I’m more righteous than you, so
of course
I keep the Ten Commandments’.

Someone even said that that expectation was too high, especially for a set of people who are supposed to repopulate the earth, create government, form religion, decide what is right and wrong, create a money system, organize a society,
and
start out by limits on every side. It just wasn’t practical… of course, as much as they would love for everyone to love God and keep commandments, expecting that from mere mortals, just wasn’t realistic. No one could expect them to be perfect.

Next, they tried to take their ideas and combine them with the politicians, some of whom were religious, some were not. What was barely agreed upon was
to do unto others as you would have others do to you. Can’t go wrong that way, though, it was decided.

Gabe and Jonathan
had watched the group from behind the glass; not laughing. Quite disgusted, actually. It was embarrassing to watch.

Technically
they weren’t the head of the project, yet they had their own ideas already of how to set things off. There would be no God. Religion caused too many wars, too many judgments, too many rules. Religion was, what they called it, household conditioning. Kids could grow up to make their own choices… but not really. Childhood lessons were already ingrained. They assumed that most religionists would be fairly convinced on the point of God, being all knowing and merciful, would reveal himself if he saw fit, to a new society who needed him. The scientists convinced them that God was never gone, just religion. Disappointingly, it wasn’t all that easy for them to accept because if God knew they’d made the choice to abandon religion, he would likely punish the nation instead… at least at first. Then again, if those people were innocent, they wouldn’t know anything, and thus, by all knowing God, couldn’t be blamed. Of course, some were more attached to their religion than to God, so that was a problem, too.

Certainly, it didn’t help their faith that certain prophecies were not being fulfilled. What could they answer to that?

The politicians worshipped organization, checks and balances, power and control. Marxists, Democrats, Republicans, Capitalists, Oligarchies, Dictators of every sort. Questions that arose concerned what is freedom, do people need to be free to be happy, do they need to be happy to be civil? What is the purpose of government, why are their regulations to be enforced? The Religionists picked them apart with the incessant question, why? If people are to be regulated, why? If we ought to be free, why? If happiness is the goal, why? If people deserve happiness, why? Because they need to get along and allow others’ freedom. Because all of us are capable of thought and we will progress better and be happier if everyone can utilize their own experiences for good.  Because, why not? People respond better when they’re happier. Because if the ultimate goal is survival, people have to want it.

They quoted everyone from Freud, Aristotle, Marx, Mother Theresa, Gandhi, Budd
ha, Jesus, to The Beatles and Elvis Presley.