The Book of Josiah - Chapter 23c

Part a is here.
Part b is here.

“The shields - the whole shielding system - it was your idea, you designed it.”

    “You designed it, is it going to work?”
    “What do you want me to tell you?”
    “I want you to tell me that we’ll do it, that we’ll save Luna-city, and ourselves. Ammi will have our child and we will all live happily ever after.”
    Jonah looked down sadly.
    “I wish I could tell you that, but deep down in my heart I know that is not how this story ends.”
    “Yeah, I know. The whole ‘IN THREE HOURS’ business. What was that about?”
    “It’s called prophecy, Josiah.”
    “You’ll excuse me if I don’t immediately accept that as an answer.”
    “I will,” said Jonah, smiling devilishly, “but for the purpose of this conversation let’s just take it as read.”
    “Okay, fine. So how do you get into this whole prophecy gig?”
    “You are chosen, and believe me, it is as much a curse as a blessing. I have been walking the earth for many lifetimes now, but soon it will be time to rest.”
    “If you can’t be more cheerful I might become more sceptical.”
    Jonah laughed again. Somehow, despite the growing patch of red and orange, that signalled the approach of Security, despite the growing image of Luna-city projected at the front of the bridge, somehow they had found calmness. But Josiah knew it was just the eye of the storm.
    “I shall endeavour to be optimistic, at least in conversation.”
    “That’s all I ask.”
    “So Josiah, what do you dream about?”
    “Haven’t we had this discussion before? I have the strangest feeling of déjà vu.”
    “Yes we have but times change and so do dreams.”
    “And is there nothing else to talk about?”
    “Nothing else worth saying - the world is run by dreams, the world is changed by dreamers. One should never cheapen the power of dreams.”
    The power of dreams. Yes, the phrase itself struck a chord within his soul but he could not say why. Power…
    He flicked the third switch. It was a delicate balance - too much plasma all at once and the whole engine could blow, ruining any chance they had of saving the city. Too little and they would not change course in time.
    The first rumblings pulsed through the ship as the starboard thrusters filled with plasma. Everything shook, first gently and then with increasing ferocity until Josiah had to cling to his chair, and was half afraid his teeth would fall out.
    Then the shaking subsided.
    “Well that was exciting,” Jonah said, sitting up and brushing dust from his clothes.
    “Yes but it wasn’t enough, we’ll need more to push us off course.”
    He looked up at the display - Luna-city seemed so close now, he could make out all the different buildings, the roofs, the domes, the towers. Was that Ammi’s hospital? It was hard to say. But this was what he was fighting for, and he would not let it go.

The Book of Josiah - Chapter 23b

Part a is here.

And then he knew what he had to do. He did not know how but he had no doubts, no doubts at all...

    If he had had any doubts, he should never have begun. Now there was no choice, no choice at all. Lovecraft sank to the floor, a gaping hole in his chest. Blood splattered across the corridor, spraying all over Duke’s clean clothes and Thee’s white glove. And everything seemed to happen so slowly.
    Was he doing the right thing? He knew he was right, and Amber agreed but now he had to deal with it. There was no choice - he would not let Amber die.
    A ghastly smile on his face, Lovecraft crashed to the ground. And already Duke was turning, his mammoth body turning so slowly. The gun in his hands would never fire. He could not think, he had to shoot, if not for himself then for Amber.
    He aimed the gun, closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger. What else could he do? He had been left with no options, no options at all.
    Duke’s right hand dropped the gun. His left hand moved up to his chest instinctively as Josiah’s bullet passed clean through it, and exploded out the other side in a fountain of vivid red. Duke’s lifeblood boiled away. He had no last words but his face was a picture of stunned shock.
    A flash and something hot burned across Josiah’s back. Another flash.
    He looked up at saw Theano fall to the floor, her brains scattered against the walls. Amber held a gun in her shaking hands.
    “She…” Amber forced herself to swallow. “She was going to shoot you.”
    “We’re safe. You can drop the gun.”
    “We killed them,” she gasped, her eyes were wide open, staring into the middle distance, her knuckles were white from clenching the grip.
    “We did what we had to do,” he answered, as gently as he could. They had not had any other choice. If only they had listened to reason.
    Amber nodded somewhat doubtfully, and managed to release her hold on the gun. It clattered to the floor.
    Josiah put his hand to his back. It came back red with blood. Theano’s bullet must have literally scraped across his skin.
    “Come on,” Josiah said, “we have to get out of here.”
    She nodded again, gulped down a breath of air and together they headed down the corridor towards the skyway.
    It was unbelievable, really. How had he managed to do those things? Not long ago he hadn’t even been able to fire a gun. How was he able to keep walking, as blood trickled down his back? The human mind was truly a powerful thing. Such power…
    “Lean on me,” Josiah said, seeing that Amber was still limping.
    She put an arm round his shoulders and they hobbled down the corridor, the skyway just ahead of them, past the pools of blood on the concrete floor.

The Book of Josiah - Chapter 21

    At the next meeting, Josiah could barely keep still. At last he would be able to make a contribution to the project. The safety of thousands, maybe even millions, of people who would come to live on the moon would be thanks to his insight. And to find the problem in the design process before construction had even begun, would save thousands of dollars as well. The youngsters would know that he still had some life in him, that he could still hack it in the fast-paced world of technology. Yes, he would show them all.
    He longed just to get up and say everything - to prove his genius then and there. His legs kept almost standing, beyond his control. But he had too much respect for Eliphaz to show him up in front of his colleagues. He had to wait until the end of the meeting, then he could have a word with him in private. It would help Eli save face when he realised his mistake.
    But the agony of waiting, the words burning a hole inside his head. ‘I was going through the notes,’ he would say, calmly and measuredly, ‘when I came across some anomalies. I was wondering if you could explain them to me.’ But there was no explanation that could be given. The entire structure of the protective shield was dangerously unstable. There might be no problems for years - it was possible that the shield could last for decades without having any problems at all - but then again, under the wrong circumstances, the shield would suffer a catastrophic failure, followed by the collapse of all backup systems. The result would be the annihilation of Luna-city. But he had seen the flaw, it would be put right, and it would all be thanks to him.
    With these thoughts running through his mind again and again, Josiah found it nigh on impossible to listen to the meeting. Something about gardening. His fingers twitched, his legs jerked up and down, a nervous tension grew in his stomach.
    “Josiah,” said Eli, breaking off whatever conversation they had been having, “you look agitated. Do you have something to add?”
    All eyes turned his way, youthful and mocking.
    “Uh, maybe I could have a word with you after the meeting,” Josiah stuttered, totally thrown by this sudden turn of events.
    “Sure, if you want,” said Eli in his calm way. “Is it about the project?”
    “Uh, yeah, it’s about the project.”
    “Well why don’t you just tell us all now, while we’re all here.”
    “No, I’d really rather just speak to you later.”
    “We have no secrets here, what’s on your mind?”
    This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. The eyes were filled with disinterest and derision. What had he planned to say?
    “There’s a flaw in the shield system,” he blurted out, “a really serious flaw, I mean, really deep-rooted, and if we don’t do something about it, we could have a really serious problem later on down the line, I mean, when we come to build it, because then we’ll have to replace all the inducers.”
    He thought he heard the Wicked Witch cackle quietly to herself. They won’t listen, he thought, and his heart plummeted. But Eli was listening and would hear what he was trying to say.
    “Why don’t you just pause a second and then start from the beginning,” Eli said sympathetically.
    Josiah took a deep breath, tried to gather his thoughts, and began at the beginning. He pulled out the now ragged bits of paper, criss-crossed in red scribbles and black arrows, referencing first one part and then another of the design specifications, gathering momentum all the time. Why was he nervous? After all, he knew he was right, and Eli would listen, even if the others were too blinded by prejudice to see the truth. He didn’t care what they thought, only Eli mattered. His mind grew wings and soared, each sentence he spoke was perfect, his argument faultless - they would all recognise the truth of what he said. This was the perfect flash of inspiration, everything came together and he understood it on a new level - this was the feeling he lived for, the sheer energy, the power of the mind.
    He was reaching his conclusion and knew it to be irresistible.
    “And so, in conclusion, you can see that the structure of the defensive shield has an inherent weakness. It can be struck by a meteor and not sustain a scratch, but if subjected to vibrations of a certain frequency, a frequency not uncommon, the plasma flow will be interrupted, causing a catastrophic failure of all systems, primary and secondary, resulting in depressurisation and total annihilation of the city.”
    There was a moment of silence that seemed to stretch into an eternity. All eyes looked at him but he could not tell what they thought. He found, to his great surprise, that he was standing up, and perhaps had been for some time. They stared at him forever, pens held limply in their hands. In this moment of silence, Josiah felt Ammi’s loss more profoundly than he had for years, though he could not explain why. And then the silence ended.

The Book of Josiah - Chapter 18

    It wasn’t his fault. Not really. He was afraid of his dreams and so he fought the darkness. What had happened to his beautiful dreams? Once he had dreamt of other worlds and other times, when a man could be a hero, where he was free to live out his fantasies. But he had squandered his infinite dreams and now was left with only two.
    In one, he watched a cup of tea fall to the floor, so elegant, so graceful, and shatter into a thousand pieces like a drop of rain as it hits the ground; and an inhuman screech filled his ears as brakes burned, tires slid and a car, all too close, collided with a brick wall. It was inevitable and he was bound to watch, over and over again.
    But relatively speaking that was the good dream. In the other, he woke up in his bed to find Ammi lying beside him, worn by the passing of years but as beautiful as ever. And he would wake her up and tell her about the strange dream he had had, and how he had imagined the crash, and her funeral, and his sorrow, and she laughed and said “what a funny dream” and they both laughed together until Dinah came to find out what was going on; and she was so beautiful it ached his heart, and he told her about his strange dream, and how she had died and he had gone to her funeral and been unable to say a word, and he laughed because she was so full of life - they all laughed.
    Joe felt himself falling asleep again and drove his nails harder into his leg - he had to stay awake. it wasn’t his fault that he kept falling asleep in this meeting. How could he go to sleep at night knowing what waited for him in the shadows?
    His head jerked backwards and he knew that he couldn’t help himself. In a few minutes he would be asleep, and there was nothing he could do about it. No, he wouldn’t accept that.
    Eli was still talking but it was just a senseless drone, like an itch at the base of Joe’s mind. He did not understand a word that was being said but couldn’t ignore it. He had to seem interested but to do that he had to stay awake. Rising from his seat in what he hoped was a surreptitious manner, Joe went over to the water machine and poured himself a large cup of water.
    ‘I need something stronger than water,’ Joe thought but then was immediately angry at himself for thinking it. He did not drink any more.

The Book of Josiah - Chapter 12 - JOE

 

Chapter 12 marks the half-way point for the Book of Josiah. We've heard a lot from Josiah and Jos, but what about Joe? We last saw him in chapter 6 when an old friend asked him to help terraform the moon.

    Joe had already been awake for nearly an hour when his alarm went off. He had barely been able to sleep at all, his mind full of niggling doubts and vague worries. Today was the day.
    He had gone to bed early, to be at his best, but sleep had deserted him. For hours he had tossed and turned, unable to hide from his memories, unable to slip into darkness, away from thought and fear. When he had finally drifted off, sleep had been capricious. He had woken more times during the night than he cared to remember. No, it wasn’t his sleep, it was his dreams that had betrayed him, over and over again. And then, at 6:34 he had woken and that was it. Since then he had done nothing but stare at the clock and replay his thoughts.
    It was 7:30 am. There was no real need for Joe to get up quite this early, but he had been anxious that he might not have enough time. He didn’t want to be late, nor have to rush. But now, in the harsh light of day, Joe couldn’t bring himself to stir. It had been too long and he wasn’t sure he could trust himself. What if he failed? This was a big chance, an opportunity to do something and leave a mark on the world. What if he said something stupid or irrelevant? How long had it been? He watched the seconds and the minutes ticking away and couldn’t muster the will to move his legs. Today was the day.

The Book of Josiah - Chapter 6 - JOE

   A soul-tearing screech. Everything flew everywhere. Blood exploded in a fountain of crimson. They had to get to the hospital. Everything would be alright! They had to be alright! Her skin grew pale, all life fled from her eyes. Her breathing slowed, slowed, and stopped.
    Joe woke up slowly, his bones aching with the remembered pain of decades. It had been the same bad dream he had had for twenty years, and it no longer chilled him the way it had done. Over the years, he had grown accustomed to the images, expected the visions to come. It was a spur to action, a call from the past that came to him each night. He badly needed a drink.
    Joe peeled back the bed-sheets and rose carefully to his feet. His right knee was troubling him, as it often did at night, but he ignored it and headed for the stairs. The red wood of the bannister was dark with use; Joe gripped it firmly as he stepped down. The pale carpet was discoloured, the textured wallpaper torn and ragged. The house needed serious work, thought Joe. One of these days, I must get around to it. One of these days. When I have more time.
    The withered carpet felt like sand beneath his feet as Joe crept down the stairs. He switched on the light and rubbed his eyes to clear away the sleep. It smelt damp and old, a thick layer of dust covered everything and heavy cobwebs hung from the ceiling, drifting slowly in the draught. Pictures hung from the walls but everything blurred together into shades of grey. In the end though, it hardly mattered.
    A single bulb lit the kitchen, and it swung relentlessly to and fro like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. Each swing measured a moment lost to time, a unique, singular instant that was unrepeatable. Second by second, time leaked away. But each swing had an echo in the swing that followed, action and reaction, motion and counter-motion. With the right energy, Joe could soon make time itself recur, moments long-since passed return. Or so he hoped. Sighing, Joe turned from the light and filled his limescale-ridden kettle with water.
    The clock told him it was five to six in the morning. Hardly worth going back to sleep. He never slept well anyway.
    The kettle took exactly a minute to boil. Joe threw a tea bag into a chipped mug and poured vaguely clear water over it. Part of him wanted something stronger, even after all this time, but he didn’t touch alcohol any more. Now he had his time machine to finish.