[justprompts] Sacrifice.
This is based on a AIM conversation I had with helovedher's mun briefly and when she suggested we continue it...it became this very clearly ex-post facto after the conversation.
Mentions nolegalmurders, helovedher abused without permission, but-he's fun to abuse? :D
In three years he will be dead.
And it looms over him, instinctive, a ticking clock. He can hear its beat, slow and steady in his chest, it’s just a matter of time.
Or sobriety, legally he shouldn’t be driving but one look from one hapless patrolman had been enough to send the poor woman back to her bike-speeding off into the distant evening. He was Richard Blake, the man who’d found Rotti Largo and brought him to the forefront, the world stage. He was John the Baptist to the old man’s Jesus Christ and his Salomé was afraid to leave their fucking house.
Tomorrow he will get up and ask America to lead the world in declaring that the crisis had grown critical. There were no more outlets, no more options. In order to survive the unthinkable must be considered and he…he can’t do that sober.
He’s been drunk quite a bit lately between trysts with Maggie’s nurse. It’s only fair, between Charlotte locking the fucking door to the front of her building, his boys wrapped in white like ghosts, like mummies, he can’t think. There’s only the skeleton of a girl in a private hospital reminding him why the hell he keeps going.
Why the fuck he keeps doing what needs to be done.
In three years he will be dead but he refuses to die without explaining his story, without telling someone the honest-to-god truth. The sacrifices that he has made for the peons asleep in the capitol, dead in waiting-the only constant you could count on anymore, even the government had to rescind the idea of taxes lacking the bodies to pay um’.
He could not wait for history; history was a cold and cruel mistress brushing her hair standing cold and imperious waiting for him to die so she could lie.
Call him a monster like Roma had.
Say that he’d compromised his principles. That he was in the pocket, on the take, dirty, a disgrace to his office and profession. Doctor Richard Blake, Senator, Husband, Father, cheat, con-man, murderer, dozens of hats for a party he’d never get to attend.
In his fevered brain she looked like Charlotte, hair shaved from her head, eyes bright with madness as she locked the door and kept her children inside. All that white, it was unnatural and obscene and History was clothed in it, pristine.
“…You have no right.” He muttered, “…You have no right to judge me you hear me you ungrateful slut. No right, you have no-“
“Senator?”
The woman resolved into an older man staring at him-perplexed-his eyes narrowing behind glasses, “….Senator, what are you-“
“…Hi. Wallace.” He staggered forward, “…I got somethin’ I need you to see but first I need to sober up.” He hiccupped, “…It’s good to be the fucking king but I don’t want to be pulled over again. Don’t want to be judged-that’s for her-“
She hung on his peripheral vision, wrapping an arm around Wallace before whisking herself away to never-never land, the place where all the hallucinations Drunk or otherwise live.
“…That’s for the slut to do.”
-----------------
He hadn’t elaborated. Nathan couldn’t help but wonder at the who and how-not that he’d press the man at the wheel.
Senator Blake was as sober as he was going to get and had insisted-against Nathan’s own wishes no less-that they leave the building together. They’d been driving for the better part of a half an hour, skirting the capitol buildings, looming in the evening like events on the horizon.
“If you don’t tell me where we’re going I’m going to scream.”
“It’s not far.”
“This is kidnapping.”
“Don’t accuse someone who is on a personal basis with the Director of the FBI of kidnapping. “ Blake leered at him in the dark, “…But in any case-we’re here.”
Here was a grim monolith of stone, unguarded. It took Nathan a moment to recognize it. Each urban area had devised a means of dealing with the ever-rising body count. Places with more land mass were able to build sprawling gravesites. Closely set urban areas dealt in catacombs beneath the city, or failing that grim mass-tombs like the one they were about to enter.
“…Senator?”
He could hear their footsteps on the marble. Scuffed and dry, it was exposed-left to the elements. You could trace the epidemic through its labyrinth. The earliest victims were buried full, allowed to rest as the creator had apparently intended. As the body count rose so did the lack of space.
He shivered when he realized the warmth under his feet was the furnace. They couldn’t turn it off; the workload was too high…
Blake’s voice was thick, counting, looking for a row or perhaps a number. They stopped in the early stages of the plague at a marker beside a Federal Agent and a homemaker. Enterprising businessmen had designed glass or plastic cases to hold mementos, tributes to the dead. The one beneath the marker that had so captivated the Senator held a stuffed cat.
Wrapped around it were the tattered remains of something that had once been fabric, a blanket perhaps or a shirt. There were flowers there too, massive blossoms reposing next to an old DVD of “The Lion King” and a book-the pictures fading in the night.
“….You never saw her.” Blake’s voice is soft and strange and Nathan finds himself…worried. (Not fear, never fear.) “…I wanted you to see her.”
It hit Nathan Wallace then, “…This is-“
The Marker read Laurel Blake. It accompanied that statement with a painfully short sentence-ten year on the earth and a prayer-the hope that her soul would rest in peace with the rest of the slain.
“…I bring her flowers. Maggie, before she got sick used to come but I try to bring her flowers every day. There’s no-no day guard yet. We’re working on getting one installed but until then…you know-people steal things…”
He gestured to the plastic cases, some torn open, lives ripped apart.
“…So I…I make sure. I promised her-when-when you’re a dad you don’t leave your little girl alone.” His hand traced the marker, “…You do your best but what with the workload I-I hadn’t seen her in forever and…I had to.”
He looked at Nathan, hoping for absolution, “…I had to see her.”
This man is not well. “…Why have you brought me here Richard?”
Blake had been kneeling. He got to his knees with a grunt, just in time to stare Nathan in the face. Eyes rimmed with age, with horror, with trying to carry the world on his shoulders for far too long. He looked paunchy and exhausted and old…
Old above all
“…I need you to understand this before I show you what I needed to show you.” He stumbled, “…This was my daughter. Do you understand that? Our oldest, when you have kids-your oldest is the test kid. You do everything wrong and everything right and when Maggie and the boys came Laurie…” He wiped at his eyes, “…Laurie always felt left out but I promised her I’d take care of her.. No. I did more then that-I tried to teach her that when she was in a position of power she had a responsibility to look after people who needed her. She was the oldest…”
His voice trailed off, “…She should have been there to keep them all safe.”
“…Senator…”
“No. Hear me out. Hear me out and you’ll never hear from me again. You saved my daughter’s life-“Blake’s eyes were wild, “…I’m trying to help you. I need to help you-because-“
He struggled for a moment, “…Because if I help you…If I try…I can help myself. I can absolve myself; History will vindicate me because someone…someone understood. Do me this one favor Doctor Wallace.”
He hadn’t called him that since they’d first met.
“Please.”
Nathan lowered his head, “…Only if I can drive.”
There is a trace of the old Richard Blake, devil may care and beloved by the masses, handsome and all American on his face, “…Capitol then. And step on it.”
-----------------------
The seat of government is one of the few buildings still guarded.
The guards are enfeebled but they’re still there and it makes enough of an impression. Three nods and they’re crossing into the senate floor.
Richard looked over his shoulder to see Wallace hesitate a fraction of a second-staring up at the chairs where the speaker and the vice president sat, “…Afraid?”
He watched the man’s eyes narrow, “…No.”
Then, “…Why have you brought me here?”
“This is the seat of American Power.” Richard spread his hands wide, “…For over two hundred years the men who have sat here have shaped our destiny, not just our destiny, but the destiny of the entire planet.”
He crossed the seal, “…Wars have been declared here Doctor Wallace. Policy has been made, done in the best interest of our nation and our place in humanity. Politicians are not…”
He swallowed, looking down at his shoes, “…We are not evil men. It seems that way-you hear-“He laughed, “Jokes. Always jokes. Our crimes have been stupid and foolish but never motivated by malice. Never by evil. “
“…So what motivates you?”
The grand moment, “…One day Nathan, you’ll understand this statement, at least I pray that you will.” He straightened, “… You’ve seen what motivates me, what guides every thought that I have.”
Nathan’s head lowered in respect as Blake whirled, turning away, and “…That in the end is what motivates any man. These are pretentions that we put over a much simpler backdrop, a much…much simpler stage. Dressing. You understand? We’re proof of Darwin, proof that we weren’t just happenstance, we’re just animals that moved to a bigger stage.”
He laughed again, “…Or in the case of some budget meetings, monkeys that got bigger piles of shit to fling.”
Nathan spoke, quiet, “…Why are you showing me this?”
“…Because tomorrow I’m going to change the world Doctor Wallace. Here in this place where great men and small men have done all they could I’m going to alter the course of humanity by asking for a vote on a bill that will take one of our most sacred commandments-thou shall not fucking kill-and turn it on its ear.”
“Because for the better part of the past three years I have begged, borrowed, stole, and sold everything that I have to earn a unanimous vote in this fucking congress for you. Not for Largo, but for you. Do you remember what you said to me the day you took over my daughter’s case?”
Nathan looked ready to bolt, ready to be affronted, ready to kill himself, “…I said, GeneCo will do everything it can.”
“Will it?”
Richard needed to hear it.
“…Will it? Will it do good? Will it use the power that these men and women who have shaped the world give it? Will it be just and honorable, will it step down rightly when there is no longer an instance that it is needed? Will it bow here-“He drew his hands back like a performer on the stage to indicate the greater seal on the wall, “…To the seat of real power? It’s not much…”
He shrank down, “…But it’s all we have and I fought for it. I fought for it in the second gulf war when you were just a kid. I fought for it here, pushing for education reform, ending General Conway’s bloody rampage across Africa by having the man sentenced to death for his treason. I have fought for the power that I have…”
“…Fight that means nothing.” Blake slumped, “…When confronted with a dying child, a spouse, a loved one. You can struggle all you like but in the end it’s all window dressing to a need to continue the species. We put names to these instincts, trying to scratch out feeling only to…revert back to our most primal instincts.”
“…Instinct that serves us well.” Nathan murmured, “…It’s not wrong to love your daughter.”
“No.” Blake said with a swallow, “It’s wrong to allow people to murder in her name. In the name of her roommates back at the tomb. “
“Richard, you need to sleep…”
“No.” Blake snapped, “No. Not yet. Not until you hear what I have to say goddamnit. Arrogant bastard, so secure, think you’ve suffered. You don’t know shit buddy-not yet-I-“
He stared him down, every inch the politician, the trained figurehead. Uncle Sam come to life, the statue of liberty- all of patriotism was in his stance, his look.
“…Two things.” He held up two fingers, “…First. I’m telling you this Nathan because I need someone to know that I am not a monster. That I’m not-on the take or bribed or anything. Because…” He was pleading again, “…Because I believe in what Rotti Largo wants to do. I want to continue the species, I want…”
He started to sob then. Nathan took a step back as Blake crossed his arms, “…I just want Maggie to live. I want my boys to live. I want my wife to come out of her house and there to be a fix. Any fix. Do you understand? Do you understand how much I am willing to do to fix this? The best thing I can do for my race is continue the species, the best thing I can do for my children is…is love them enough to take this sin on my own soul but I can’t go down like that.” He stopped, taking a deep breath, “…I had to say something.”
He snorted, “…Fuckin’ asshole to the end I guess.”
He stared at Nathan, “…The second thing is that I want you to understand-tomorrow everything you and I grew up with is going to change. A major societal rule is going to end, something that hasn’t been okay since…since ever. They will come after me and in the end they will come after you. They’ll call you a monster, a murderer. They might even try to kill you.
You are jeopardizing your entire future and the future of your loved ones by doing this. Not just in terms of what people will accuse you of doing? But in terms of what you will lose by doing this, what you will cease to feel. You are at the forefront of a new species and someday-if you have children with Mag or someone else those children will be different from you and I.”
“They might think we’re demons. They might think we’re monstrous. I…I need you to be strong enough doctor to make sure that they know we weren’t. That in the end we weren’t evil or cruel or bribed we were just desperate. We were hurt and desperate and we did what we had to do to save ourselves. They are not bound to make our choices.”
He stared up at the seal again, “…We have laid a great frame for them to build a beautiful world in-they are not bound to make the same mistakes that we have made. Their choices are not ours-they don’t have to be murderers. Show them…Keep them…”
“They can make it right.” He slid to the floor, “…They can make it right. Show them that-show them they can fix what we did-what we’re going to do here on this floor tomorrow. Please-“
Nathan moved forward, “...Richard-“
“Promise me! Your kid or dozens of kids, if you and Mag decide to buy a fucking school in fucking Africa-PROMISE me! Promise me this doesn’t end with us being the generation that made mankind killers after centuries of healthy progress. Promise me that I’m not going to be the man who will send us back to the primordial ooze to grow claws again! ….PLEASE!-“
“….I promise.”
--------------------------------
In three years he will be dead.
But today he is very much alive as he stands at the forefront of a nation, “…Ladies and Gentlemen of the Congress of the United States, I ask for a yea vote on this bill. All those in favor please rise.”
Alaska, Nebraska, Wyoming, Delaware. His colleague from California. All colors, all races, all creeds, ethnicities, sexual preferences, religions.
They stand together for the first time in human history.
Observers seething in their own juices perhaps rejoice that not a one-not a single senator or congressional officer can look the other in the eye.
In the back of the auditorium Rotti Largo puts his hands together. His sons and daughter do as well. Richard’s gaze rises to Mag and Nathan and Marni-their latest companion. They do not clap.
He loved them for it.
The vice president rises, adjusting her oxygen mask before stepping to the podium.
“…The motion carries.” Her hand raised the gavel and Richard couldn’t help but notice how it shook under the weight, “…Unanimous. And to history I say this. Let it be on us. Let this terrible thing we are about to do be on us and let it be known that when the greatest crisis in mankind came to a head…we did what needed to be done and took the sin of these actions upon ourselves.”
“…the repossession of organs by licensed individuals through assassination has been made legal and no longer bears any penalty under United States law.” She paused, “…May god have mercy on our souls.”
The gavel came down.
Standing there watching the room sink wearily to their seats, the press taking pictures, photographs, Richard Blake thinks and reflexes. He can feel it pulsating in his chest, a ticking crocodile, a clock. In three years he will be dead.
Rejoice. Rejoice.
Mentions nolegalmurders, helovedher abused without permission, but-he's fun to abuse? :D
In three years he will be dead.
And it looms over him, instinctive, a ticking clock. He can hear its beat, slow and steady in his chest, it’s just a matter of time.
Or sobriety, legally he shouldn’t be driving but one look from one hapless patrolman had been enough to send the poor woman back to her bike-speeding off into the distant evening. He was Richard Blake, the man who’d found Rotti Largo and brought him to the forefront, the world stage. He was John the Baptist to the old man’s Jesus Christ and his Salomé was afraid to leave their fucking house.
Tomorrow he will get up and ask America to lead the world in declaring that the crisis had grown critical. There were no more outlets, no more options. In order to survive the unthinkable must be considered and he…he can’t do that sober.
He’s been drunk quite a bit lately between trysts with Maggie’s nurse. It’s only fair, between Charlotte locking the fucking door to the front of her building, his boys wrapped in white like ghosts, like mummies, he can’t think. There’s only the skeleton of a girl in a private hospital reminding him why the hell he keeps going.
Why the fuck he keeps doing what needs to be done.
In three years he will be dead but he refuses to die without explaining his story, without telling someone the honest-to-god truth. The sacrifices that he has made for the peons asleep in the capitol, dead in waiting-the only constant you could count on anymore, even the government had to rescind the idea of taxes lacking the bodies to pay um’.
He could not wait for history; history was a cold and cruel mistress brushing her hair standing cold and imperious waiting for him to die so she could lie.
Call him a monster like Roma had.
Say that he’d compromised his principles. That he was in the pocket, on the take, dirty, a disgrace to his office and profession. Doctor Richard Blake, Senator, Husband, Father, cheat, con-man, murderer, dozens of hats for a party he’d never get to attend.
In his fevered brain she looked like Charlotte, hair shaved from her head, eyes bright with madness as she locked the door and kept her children inside. All that white, it was unnatural and obscene and History was clothed in it, pristine.
“…You have no right.” He muttered, “…You have no right to judge me you hear me you ungrateful slut. No right, you have no-“
“Senator?”
The woman resolved into an older man staring at him-perplexed-his eyes narrowing behind glasses, “….Senator, what are you-“
“…Hi. Wallace.” He staggered forward, “…I got somethin’ I need you to see but first I need to sober up.” He hiccupped, “…It’s good to be the fucking king but I don’t want to be pulled over again. Don’t want to be judged-that’s for her-“
She hung on his peripheral vision, wrapping an arm around Wallace before whisking herself away to never-never land, the place where all the hallucinations Drunk or otherwise live.
“…That’s for the slut to do.”
-----------------
He hadn’t elaborated. Nathan couldn’t help but wonder at the who and how-not that he’d press the man at the wheel.
Senator Blake was as sober as he was going to get and had insisted-against Nathan’s own wishes no less-that they leave the building together. They’d been driving for the better part of a half an hour, skirting the capitol buildings, looming in the evening like events on the horizon.
“If you don’t tell me where we’re going I’m going to scream.”
“It’s not far.”
“This is kidnapping.”
“Don’t accuse someone who is on a personal basis with the Director of the FBI of kidnapping. “ Blake leered at him in the dark, “…But in any case-we’re here.”
Here was a grim monolith of stone, unguarded. It took Nathan a moment to recognize it. Each urban area had devised a means of dealing with the ever-rising body count. Places with more land mass were able to build sprawling gravesites. Closely set urban areas dealt in catacombs beneath the city, or failing that grim mass-tombs like the one they were about to enter.
“…Senator?”
He could hear their footsteps on the marble. Scuffed and dry, it was exposed-left to the elements. You could trace the epidemic through its labyrinth. The earliest victims were buried full, allowed to rest as the creator had apparently intended. As the body count rose so did the lack of space.
He shivered when he realized the warmth under his feet was the furnace. They couldn’t turn it off; the workload was too high…
Blake’s voice was thick, counting, looking for a row or perhaps a number. They stopped in the early stages of the plague at a marker beside a Federal Agent and a homemaker. Enterprising businessmen had designed glass or plastic cases to hold mementos, tributes to the dead. The one beneath the marker that had so captivated the Senator held a stuffed cat.
Wrapped around it were the tattered remains of something that had once been fabric, a blanket perhaps or a shirt. There were flowers there too, massive blossoms reposing next to an old DVD of “The Lion King” and a book-the pictures fading in the night.
“….You never saw her.” Blake’s voice is soft and strange and Nathan finds himself…worried. (Not fear, never fear.) “…I wanted you to see her.”
It hit Nathan Wallace then, “…This is-“
The Marker read Laurel Blake. It accompanied that statement with a painfully short sentence-ten year on the earth and a prayer-the hope that her soul would rest in peace with the rest of the slain.
“…I bring her flowers. Maggie, before she got sick used to come but I try to bring her flowers every day. There’s no-no day guard yet. We’re working on getting one installed but until then…you know-people steal things…”
He gestured to the plastic cases, some torn open, lives ripped apart.
“…So I…I make sure. I promised her-when-when you’re a dad you don’t leave your little girl alone.” His hand traced the marker, “…You do your best but what with the workload I-I hadn’t seen her in forever and…I had to.”
He looked at Nathan, hoping for absolution, “…I had to see her.”
This man is not well. “…Why have you brought me here Richard?”
Blake had been kneeling. He got to his knees with a grunt, just in time to stare Nathan in the face. Eyes rimmed with age, with horror, with trying to carry the world on his shoulders for far too long. He looked paunchy and exhausted and old…
Old above all
“…I need you to understand this before I show you what I needed to show you.” He stumbled, “…This was my daughter. Do you understand that? Our oldest, when you have kids-your oldest is the test kid. You do everything wrong and everything right and when Maggie and the boys came Laurie…” He wiped at his eyes, “…Laurie always felt left out but I promised her I’d take care of her.. No. I did more then that-I tried to teach her that when she was in a position of power she had a responsibility to look after people who needed her. She was the oldest…”
His voice trailed off, “…She should have been there to keep them all safe.”
“…Senator…”
“No. Hear me out. Hear me out and you’ll never hear from me again. You saved my daughter’s life-“Blake’s eyes were wild, “…I’m trying to help you. I need to help you-because-“
He struggled for a moment, “…Because if I help you…If I try…I can help myself. I can absolve myself; History will vindicate me because someone…someone understood. Do me this one favor Doctor Wallace.”
He hadn’t called him that since they’d first met.
“Please.”
Nathan lowered his head, “…Only if I can drive.”
There is a trace of the old Richard Blake, devil may care and beloved by the masses, handsome and all American on his face, “…Capitol then. And step on it.”
-----------------------
The seat of government is one of the few buildings still guarded.
The guards are enfeebled but they’re still there and it makes enough of an impression. Three nods and they’re crossing into the senate floor.
Richard looked over his shoulder to see Wallace hesitate a fraction of a second-staring up at the chairs where the speaker and the vice president sat, “…Afraid?”
He watched the man’s eyes narrow, “…No.”
Then, “…Why have you brought me here?”
“This is the seat of American Power.” Richard spread his hands wide, “…For over two hundred years the men who have sat here have shaped our destiny, not just our destiny, but the destiny of the entire planet.”
He crossed the seal, “…Wars have been declared here Doctor Wallace. Policy has been made, done in the best interest of our nation and our place in humanity. Politicians are not…”
He swallowed, looking down at his shoes, “…We are not evil men. It seems that way-you hear-“He laughed, “Jokes. Always jokes. Our crimes have been stupid and foolish but never motivated by malice. Never by evil. “
“…So what motivates you?”
The grand moment, “…One day Nathan, you’ll understand this statement, at least I pray that you will.” He straightened, “… You’ve seen what motivates me, what guides every thought that I have.”
Nathan’s head lowered in respect as Blake whirled, turning away, and “…That in the end is what motivates any man. These are pretentions that we put over a much simpler backdrop, a much…much simpler stage. Dressing. You understand? We’re proof of Darwin, proof that we weren’t just happenstance, we’re just animals that moved to a bigger stage.”
He laughed again, “…Or in the case of some budget meetings, monkeys that got bigger piles of shit to fling.”
Nathan spoke, quiet, “…Why are you showing me this?”
“…Because tomorrow I’m going to change the world Doctor Wallace. Here in this place where great men and small men have done all they could I’m going to alter the course of humanity by asking for a vote on a bill that will take one of our most sacred commandments-thou shall not fucking kill-and turn it on its ear.”
“Because for the better part of the past three years I have begged, borrowed, stole, and sold everything that I have to earn a unanimous vote in this fucking congress for you. Not for Largo, but for you. Do you remember what you said to me the day you took over my daughter’s case?”
Nathan looked ready to bolt, ready to be affronted, ready to kill himself, “…I said, GeneCo will do everything it can.”
“Will it?”
Richard needed to hear it.
“…Will it? Will it do good? Will it use the power that these men and women who have shaped the world give it? Will it be just and honorable, will it step down rightly when there is no longer an instance that it is needed? Will it bow here-“He drew his hands back like a performer on the stage to indicate the greater seal on the wall, “…To the seat of real power? It’s not much…”
He shrank down, “…But it’s all we have and I fought for it. I fought for it in the second gulf war when you were just a kid. I fought for it here, pushing for education reform, ending General Conway’s bloody rampage across Africa by having the man sentenced to death for his treason. I have fought for the power that I have…”
“…Fight that means nothing.” Blake slumped, “…When confronted with a dying child, a spouse, a loved one. You can struggle all you like but in the end it’s all window dressing to a need to continue the species. We put names to these instincts, trying to scratch out feeling only to…revert back to our most primal instincts.”
“…Instinct that serves us well.” Nathan murmured, “…It’s not wrong to love your daughter.”
“No.” Blake said with a swallow, “It’s wrong to allow people to murder in her name. In the name of her roommates back at the tomb. “
“Richard, you need to sleep…”
“No.” Blake snapped, “No. Not yet. Not until you hear what I have to say goddamnit. Arrogant bastard, so secure, think you’ve suffered. You don’t know shit buddy-not yet-I-“
He stared him down, every inch the politician, the trained figurehead. Uncle Sam come to life, the statue of liberty- all of patriotism was in his stance, his look.
“…Two things.” He held up two fingers, “…First. I’m telling you this Nathan because I need someone to know that I am not a monster. That I’m not-on the take or bribed or anything. Because…” He was pleading again, “…Because I believe in what Rotti Largo wants to do. I want to continue the species, I want…”
He started to sob then. Nathan took a step back as Blake crossed his arms, “…I just want Maggie to live. I want my boys to live. I want my wife to come out of her house and there to be a fix. Any fix. Do you understand? Do you understand how much I am willing to do to fix this? The best thing I can do for my race is continue the species, the best thing I can do for my children is…is love them enough to take this sin on my own soul but I can’t go down like that.” He stopped, taking a deep breath, “…I had to say something.”
He snorted, “…Fuckin’ asshole to the end I guess.”
He stared at Nathan, “…The second thing is that I want you to understand-tomorrow everything you and I grew up with is going to change. A major societal rule is going to end, something that hasn’t been okay since…since ever. They will come after me and in the end they will come after you. They’ll call you a monster, a murderer. They might even try to kill you.
You are jeopardizing your entire future and the future of your loved ones by doing this. Not just in terms of what people will accuse you of doing? But in terms of what you will lose by doing this, what you will cease to feel. You are at the forefront of a new species and someday-if you have children with Mag or someone else those children will be different from you and I.”
“They might think we’re demons. They might think we’re monstrous. I…I need you to be strong enough doctor to make sure that they know we weren’t. That in the end we weren’t evil or cruel or bribed we were just desperate. We were hurt and desperate and we did what we had to do to save ourselves. They are not bound to make our choices.”
He stared up at the seal again, “…We have laid a great frame for them to build a beautiful world in-they are not bound to make the same mistakes that we have made. Their choices are not ours-they don’t have to be murderers. Show them…Keep them…”
“They can make it right.” He slid to the floor, “…They can make it right. Show them that-show them they can fix what we did-what we’re going to do here on this floor tomorrow. Please-“
Nathan moved forward, “...Richard-“
“Promise me! Your kid or dozens of kids, if you and Mag decide to buy a fucking school in fucking Africa-PROMISE me! Promise me this doesn’t end with us being the generation that made mankind killers after centuries of healthy progress. Promise me that I’m not going to be the man who will send us back to the primordial ooze to grow claws again! ….PLEASE!-“
“….I promise.”
--------------------------------
In three years he will be dead.
But today he is very much alive as he stands at the forefront of a nation, “…Ladies and Gentlemen of the Congress of the United States, I ask for a yea vote on this bill. All those in favor please rise.”
Alaska, Nebraska, Wyoming, Delaware. His colleague from California. All colors, all races, all creeds, ethnicities, sexual preferences, religions.
They stand together for the first time in human history.
Observers seething in their own juices perhaps rejoice that not a one-not a single senator or congressional officer can look the other in the eye.
In the back of the auditorium Rotti Largo puts his hands together. His sons and daughter do as well. Richard’s gaze rises to Mag and Nathan and Marni-their latest companion. They do not clap.
He loved them for it.
The vice president rises, adjusting her oxygen mask before stepping to the podium.
“…The motion carries.” Her hand raised the gavel and Richard couldn’t help but notice how it shook under the weight, “…Unanimous. And to history I say this. Let it be on us. Let this terrible thing we are about to do be on us and let it be known that when the greatest crisis in mankind came to a head…we did what needed to be done and took the sin of these actions upon ourselves.”
“…the repossession of organs by licensed individuals through assassination has been made legal and no longer bears any penalty under United States law.” She paused, “…May god have mercy on our souls.”
The gavel came down.
Standing there watching the room sink wearily to their seats, the press taking pictures, photographs, Richard Blake thinks and reflexes. He can feel it pulsating in his chest, a ticking crocodile, a clock. In three years he will be dead.
Rejoice. Rejoice.