Chapter 18
In which everyone has a rendezvous with the Deep State
LUCY
I sighed heavily. Nevras and I had hung around a lot lately. We were on a boat together after all, and brooding silence could only get so far before we had to break down and talk. There were loads of conversations we had but the author is being lazy so I'll let readers and screenwriters alike decide what we talked about. I think Nevras was okay talking to me because it wasn't even like talking to sisters or twins but the same person. I was Ambrosia in every way that counted, if one looked past the purple hair and darker eyes. I used to look downright evil, especially around the eye area, but Jesus had cleaned some of that up when he pulled me from Ambrosia's body. She was the real evil one, with all of her deadpan conversations. I started mumbling to myself, when Tamashii patted me on the shoulder, and asked if I was okay. I let got of my grievances. Ambrosia was herself, and I was me after all.
Though I couldn't help but be jealous. Even though I was the warmer and more sociable one, he seemed to prefer her to me. I didn't understand him. How could he love her when he had me? Who was this man that I traveled with?!?
NEVRAS
I sighed heavily. I was in another cabin thinking about things. Lucy approached me again yesterday, and asked me to explain ska music, and the conversation eventually led somehow to Second Temple Judaism. Lucy had smarts and charisma that I knew Ambrosia also had, but wasn't in touch with.
It wasn't that I love Lucy less or more than Ambrosia. I knew that I love Lucy just as much, because they are the same person. Everything I love about Ambrosia, I love because she is part of a whole person, and Lucy is another part. Hell, I could count Sapphire too, but there is something unrelatable to most people about God. They subconsciously think of God is some sort of impersonal spirit, whether or not that's true.
It was just... even though I knew Ambrosia and Lucy were the same person, I didn't see this as the same thing. My dad was always only interested in one woman, and it seemed like I would be too. But here was a different same woman, and as much as I'd like to say that I would remain faithful forever, I think everyone fails at marriage in some way. Some men are faithful, but don't work very hard and drink beer all day while the wife has to support everyone and clean the house. Others have annoying habits. Still others are affectionate to the wife but not good with children. There are better or worse husbands, but I am afraid that no perfect husbands exist, at least not that I have seen. Maybe I'm wrong, there was that one guy I met at a club who seemed to have it all together. He was probably gay or unmarried though, so maybe not. That guy was awesome though.
I told myself I wouldn't fall for Lucy, and that was that! Really. I mean it.
I eventually stopped brooding long enough to realize that nobody was steering the ship, and it was a good thing too, because in taking a course that passed between the southern island of Phoenix and the northern part of the octopus-like island that comprised Goji, the now defunct town of Seikai, and the outskirt village of Qurac, we had overlooked on small but significant island made of solid rock. I turned just barely in time, and then noticed I was heading instead for the island where the Anti-Government Council convened. No thanks. I turned south and headed down the coast.
I generally had no problem with the Council members as people. After all, my parents were among the regular members. But when they all got together in the same room, otherwise interesting people suddenly became pompous assholes and a room that seemed bright and well-decorated turned stuffy.
However, even trying to actively avoid trouble from the rulers of towns, they always seem to want to bother you. You build a house near an active volcano. If taxation auditors can make it safely to your house, they will charge you property tax, hoping to take your money or you house, despite never laying a single brick. Thankfully, income and property taxes were no longer things. But ships from the Council followed us like guards from the Daggerfall game immediately after you have been caught in a crime. We hadn't even done anything yet!
Anyway, they stopped us, and demanded know where we were going. When we told them we were going to the Garden of Eden, the people on deck looked shocked. "They know too much!" one of them said. Uh oh.
The guards pulled out their longbows and started firing arrows at us. "Zeno's Arrow!" Tamashii called out, focusing her powers against the area. This wasn't one of her natural powers, mainly limited to bending spoons and other feats of telekinesis, flame based abilities, and healing. She had needed to work pretty hard from infancy to age nine to get her powers under control. Before that, she was a brilliant child who unfortunately caused everything around her to warp or shatter by random stray emotions. One day, she had been very bratty, and we tried to spank her, and we had to rebuild the house because she had managed to shatter it. She started crying even more than when spanked her, realizing the hardship she had put us through. She was a good child, but unlike most kids, I imagine her worst period was her early childhood, not her teenage years, solely because she was an absolute freak when she was just being born, and getting her to the point where she was normal took major training. But after training to control her powers (mostly, she still had issues having nightmares or when she was drunk, later on), she had to train even more to develop them. Contrary to the Dungeons & Dragons version of a psionic, a Soulfire isn't overpowered at all, once they control their powers. It's a matter of retraining them to use more power once they have control.
Anyway, Zeno's Arrow was something she had to study, because it involved making use of theory in order to enhance her psionic powers. Soulfire powers appear to work because of something called Territory. That is, within a certain range, personal reality is entirely subject to them, but they have no power at all outside that range. This meant that if she imagined a swamp within her territory, without really casting a spell, the terrain would become more muddy. Tamashii knew she couldn't attack them as their boats were too far away, while their arrows could probably hit her from 100 yards away. And so, she used a defensive ability to minimize this disadvantage in her favor. Zeno's paradoxes were a series of theories that that gave reasons why motion was impossible. One of them said that at a fixed speed moving towards an object, it would continue to move and the object would never reach it. Another said that it if you divided time into instants, at no point would it be moving because it was frozen, so movement was impossible. The last one divided the distance between the starting point into half, then a quarter, then an eighth, and so on, until all distance was divided so no motion could occur. The arrows stopped midflight, and I knocked them back, yelling "Jump Thrust!" as I swung my sword. A cutting gust of wind somehow ignored these paradoxes, and cut the arrows apart as it forced them back.
Portia used her magic of creation to manifest some large totem poles in the water to restrict their boats, which was good, because now there were a bunch of mages moving onto the deck. As powerful as her abilities were, she would be at a disadvantage against conventional casters without her range limitations. She might be able to make a force field against spells, but we'd have to move closer fight back. As we were leaving, Sastra and Lucy tried to use their powers. Lucy's Oracle powers were too overspecialized, and Sastra's abilities were better suited for short range. About all Sastra could do was lob balls of darkness or fire (which they could counter), or breathe Hellfire at them (which they couldn't, due to Hellfire's tendency to burn runes). But Sastra's Hellfire also had a range issue, so we only managed to burn up the closest ship. Dealing with government types was a nuisance. Our only hope was that they didn't follow us.
I imagine I knew why they wanted to keep Eden protected. An incredibly vibrant forest should be an endless supply of food. If all food suddenly became cheap, it might disrupt the local economy. No worries there, we only were likely to collect enough to replenish our ship's supplies, and we wouldn't tell anyone about the island. After an hour or two, we looked back. They didn't appear to be interested in following us after all. But you could never tell.
RENA
I couldn't believe I was doing this. I was seriously considering betraying Jesus. And worse, for a few cheap tokens from the priests, to sell him out to the Atlantean royal guard. The Atlanteans weren't particularly kind to the hybrids, as to us, it didn't matter that we were humans or not, we couldn't breathe underwater and didn't have psionic abilities. They saw us all as inferiors. As a citizen of Israel, this seriously annoyed me, and I couldn't believe I was colluding with them. But it wasn't his soft treatment of them that caused my defection, either.
It all started weeks before, though. I had been so sure that I knew what Jesus was all about. While most people thought the Messiah was here to fight Ancient Israel's enemies, I knew better, I said.
As I say, I was a Hebrew and a hybrid. I was devoted to the religion of Judaism, and I was devoted to Jesus. I thought that Jesus was simply another rabbi, who was here to reform Judaism. I thought he was the Messiah, yes, but I wasn't as sure anymore what that meant. I had been convinced that Jesus was here to bring justice to the hybrids, and have the Jews treat them as equals.
But now Jesus was arguing with the temple authorities! Even if Atlantis was not the enemy, this was no way to secure our equality. Jesus even called them whitewashed tombs, and warned us to listen to their words, but not follow their actions, because they liked to be greeted in the marketplace and hold places of honor, while the poor and widowed are suffering under their laws. That made sense, though, I guess. It was just troubling to see him fighting the priesthood.
But the thing that made me really me question Jesus was when we were in a marketplace, and he smashed the place up and freed all the animals. What was Jesus thinking?!?
JESUS
I suppose I should explain. The early followers of God were the Hebrews, but lately the stiff-necked people who ran the priesthood, I had taken to calling Jews. That is, these people weren't the same as the Hebrew that God called, but a race of people who had devised for themselves man-made laws. These laws were the rabbinic teachings of Talmud rather than the written Torah. They were laws that the Pharisees (basically the lawyers) enforced on everyone, despite the fact that most people had no time to study the law.
While Israel was occupied, regular people were in survival mode. Their concern was not being sure to note that they had avoided carrying more than 15 lb of grain on the Sabbath, it was making sure their taxes were paid, and that they children didn't starve to death. So to add to their oppression by foreign troops, they had a set of man-made religious laws condemning them as a sinner, and trying to burden them with added monetary commitments.
Let me explain this using an example. Let's take two people, one of them an Atlantean citizen and one of them a Hebrew citizen. I'll call the Atlantean citizen Triton, and the Hebrew citizen Ariel. Triton is an Atlantean tax collector. Being a member of the ruling Atlantean state, their income taxes are collected at the time of income. They are given an income sheet, the bank treats it as a check to be cashed to two different people, the state and the person. And no, there isn't such a thing as a counterfeit income sheet. The Atlanteans knew what they were doing. There was no tax day, or paperwork designed to torture Atlanteans who failed math. Money was taken directly as a cut, and without hassle. The people of Atlantis did not have other taxes aside from a simple and direct income tax, and maybe the occasional sales tax.
Ariel, on the other hand, suffers greatly under Triton. She has to pay for imports, exports, bridge tolls, road money, town dues, and many other taxes. And to make matters worse, there was zero oversight. Another tax collector Arpelio might accost Ariel on the way to Triton's booth, he could collect her taxes on the spot, but none of it would be reported to Atlantis, so he would tax her again. If she of course couldn't pay both of their taxes, either one would say she had tax debt. Needless to say Ariel was working very hard to avoid drowning in debt, and thus having to work full time, including during the Sabbath. All of this made her a sinner, which means she needed to bring an animal for a sacrifice of atonement. This might involve a lengthy trip to the temple, where the animal might get injured or die. If it died, she would need to buy a new one. And since the animal needed to be without blemish, even an injury would disqualify it as a sacrifice. Further, the temple officials could simply call it blemished, and demand another sacrifice be paid for. And of course, they couldn't use secular money in the temple, so this meant their secular money was collected in order to be changed and then collected again as sacred money. I saw the abject poverty of these people, I saw how they were labeled sinners, while the rich were call righteous, and I saw how some classes of people such as lepers, menstruating women, and hybrids couldn't even enter so their sins couldn't be forgiven. Well, if it were up to men, not God. But since it was up to God, I made sure to show them that God was pissed. I flipped tables before it was cool, I made a whip and used it to drive out the money changers, and I set free all of the animals.
It should have made a difference that I cared even for the little animals, but I could tell by the look in Rena's eyes that she didn't understand, and that I had let her down. To her understanding, I imagine my mission looked like what later people would unironically call social justice. She saw the people I chose as my disciples as filling out some sort of quota, and that I would would make everything right. To give equality for all sounded to her like something I'd do.
Rena was too sweet to think in terms of revenge, and she had once been human herself. But it was all too tempting to see me as bringing equal rights to demons, merfolk, angels and hybrids in regard to humans. But my kingdom was never about this world. My goal was to build a temple of God's kingdom atop the physical reality. Of course, the powers that be misunderstood and felt threatened by the idea that they wouldn't be in charge of things. And so, they did everything from change the shape of the Earth (it was obviously a flat Earth with a domed atmosphere, with light projected from outside the Earth at the sun and moon, which were objects inside the atmosphere), to corrupting my teachings, to setting up evil governments to keep the Earth in a state of war. But all of this happened after the first time I came, when Rome ran the world rather than Atlantis. When I came this time, everyone was blindsided. And for a time, I did bring about perfect peace as the Messiah ought to. But let's talk about that later. The point is, Rena didn't understand what my purpose on Earth was, and because of that she betrayed me. I don't blame her, though. God's plan was hard to follow, as it needed human help in order to be realized on Earth. Otherwise, the only changes are in Heaven.
RENA
That very day, I made my way to Zerubbabel's Temple. Later accounts will tell you it was Herod's Temple, but well, history is muddled up thanks to the Babylonian occupation. The Jews forgot that they used to be Hebrews, and have countless centuries erased from their personal history thanks to living in the lands of their enemies. Their history has Zerubbabel's Temple built in 520 BC and the exile being before that. But all of these was distorted record from their conquerors. Actually, Zerubbabel's Temple was a much more ancient second Temple, and Herod's temple was literally built millennia later.
So anyway, I went here to talk to the Pharisees. "I've had enough," I said to them, "I have no idea what Jesus is planning anymore. He isn't working for equality for people like me. He isn't working for Israel either. For all I know, he might even be working for our enemies. If you're here to arrest Jesus, I'll help you." They smiled, the sort of slimy smile that you'd see on a toad, "We also don't know what Jesus is planning, and what we know, we don't like. Meet with us later to discuss plans to betray him, and we will give you thirty coins of silver. This is the price you deserve." It wasn't about the money. But the money was worth roughly $600 in spending power in today's terms (standards of living were much lower back then), or $194 in metal value. To them, however, it was not a decent payment, but an attempt to further humiliate me. This is the most that I expected to see in my lifetime, but I knew each one had thousands of shekels.
But the joke's on them. That money eventually became priceless, and the land that was bought from my apparent demise (Akeldama) continued to help provide a place of burial for foreigners for centuries to come. Moreover, as I later restudied these writings hoping to make sense of them, I learned that 30 shekels was the redemption (dowry) price of a bride.
Some part of me thought that I might still be able to help Jesus. Like, if someone tried to arrest him, he would respond with force, fighting off all the people who were creating injustice, and showing everyone that he was the real Messiah. But in order to do this, Jesus had to have a lot of people in one place to witness his kingship. Earlier this week, he had already entered the Eastern Gate (also known as the Golden or Beautiful Gate), the gate that the Lord's anointed was supposed to come through. After that, it would be sealed, except as God wished it. It would take only a little push, and Jesus would prove he was Messiah. Yes, it seemed now like I was betraying Jesus. But I was helping him.
