Blind Faith (11 page)

'Care to grab a bite of lunch?' Trafford said to Cassius.

Cassius looked up and Trafford smiled. He had been
waiting for this moment all morning, looking forward to
it eagerly despite the danger of what he knew they would
discuss. For Trafford, the office had suddenly become a
repository of secrets, a place of excitement in which only
three people existed: himself, Cassius and Sandra Dee. The
rest, as far as Trafford was concerned, were no more real
than the pixilated avatars prancing about on their
computer screens with which they endlessly amused
themselves through their long, pointless days at work.

'I'd be delighted,' Cassius replied.

'Praise the Love,' said Trafford.

'Big time,' Cassius replied with enthusiasm.

It was Trafford's turn to choose the restaurant and he
took Cassius to McDonald's.

'Are we celebrating something?' Cassius enquired.

McDonald's was the oldest and most venerable of all the
numerous food-consumption chains that crowded every
mall and retail hub. Established long Before The Flood, it
was one of the very few institutions to have survived into
the Age of Faith. It therefore had a certain cachet and was
seen as a cut above the rest, classy and special. Full nudity
was not allowed and it was the number-one choice for
christenings, celebrations of the solstice and weddings.

'Yes. Yes, we are celebrating something,' Trafford replied
as they wheeled their little food trolleys to a table that had
just become vacant. 'We're celebrating the day I begin to
defy the Temple.'

'How splendid,' Cassius remarked as he began to clear
their table of the usual mess of food spills, empty cartons
and snotty tissues. 'And how exactly do you intend to
achieve this excellent ambition?' he asked. He always
spoke like a guru figure in a kung fu video game but
Trafford suspected that it was not from these that he had
picked up his style.

'I want to go through with what we discussed,'
Trafford replied.

He said it loudly, firmly, feeling inside himself a sense of
liberation even as he did so. Another secret to keep,
another act of defiance, and this time one which might
even deprive the Temple of another soul.

Cassius's expression did not change. He continued to
smile as he unwrapped some of his cartons of food and
took a bite of burger. This caused the smile to disappear
briefly from his face but he had it fixed once more as he
replied, wiping the sticky sweet mayo from his chin.

'Is your wife in agreement with this?' he asked,
before muttering irritably, 'They even put sugar in the
damned mayonnaise.'

'No, Chantorria has forbidden it,' Trafford said defiantly.
'But I don't care.'

'If we're caught you'll be stoned, you know, or burned,'
Cassius said.

'I lost a child. I can't imagine a greater pain than that.'

'Easy to say, but think of the flames licking about your
feet. If at the point of punishment you could save yourself
by sacrificing the thing you love, wouldn't you do it?'

'Perhaps I would – but fortunately that's not the order in
which I have to make the choice. All I know is that right
now I have the courage.'

The two of them chewed for a while in silence as all
around them hundreds of voices shouted about the
food, about celebrity gossip and about the latest diktats
of the Temple.

'So, will you do it?' Trafford asked. 'Will you vaccinate
my daughter?'

'Of course.'

'Even though my wife forbids it?'

'I would vaccinate a child against the wishes of both
parents if I could, just as I would attempt to rescue a child
from a father who held a knife to its throat. It is not about
the parents, it is about the children. I have a duty to save
them. I've told you, it's my faith.'

'Do Vaccinators believe in God?'

'Some do. Many don't. It is not required. Certainly none
are followers of the God that the Temple imagines: a
vengeful, murderous, insufferably quixotic and illogical
God who apparently has the time and inclination to know
each individual's heart and hear their prayers and yet kills
and maims utterly indiscriminately.'

Their conversation was suddenly drowned out by loud
music. A very large noisy birthday party was assembling
at the next table and a number of the guests were
broadcasting their personal choice of entertainment to the
entire restaurant. Huge containers of whipped ice cream
filled with crushed sweets were being placed before the
guests and party sacks containing many more kilos of
sweets were being distributed, to whoops and squeals of
delight. Interactive balloons sang 'Happy 50th Birthday,
Stargazer' when they were patted, and a large flat screen
was playing a lengthy series of loud video tributes from
those who could not attend the party. All this, added to
the cacophony that had already filled the room, made the
noise in the restaurant almost deafening.

'How will we do it?' Trafford shouted at Cassius, who
was scarcely half a metre away from him.

'Well, it's a question of which vaccine I have available
and when,' Cassius replied at the top of his voice. It
seemed strange to Trafford to be conducting such a
dangerous conversation at such a pitch but it was clear that
there was little chance of anyone or any microphone
overhearing them. 'Many things kill kiddies,' Cassius
went on. 'One jab does not cover them all. We can only
do our best.'

'Where do you get the vaccine?'

Just then the noise dipped suddenly. Trafford had been
lucky. Had he begun his sentence a fraction later, he would
have screamed the dread word 'vaccine' into the lull and
who knew what the results might have been.

The relative lull had occurred because the duty manager
had asked the fiftieth birthday party if they could tone
things down a little as there was a funeral lunch being
conducted at another table. At first the partygoers had
refused, pointing out that they had paid for their food,
that they were as good as anyone else and had as much
right to do whatever they liked wherever they liked as
anybody did. However, when the manager had pointed
out that the funeral was for a kiddie they had grudgingly
agreed to reduce the volume somewhat.

Inevitably the noise level began to grow again but for a
little while Cassius and Trafford were able to converse in
something below a scream.

'There is a network,' Cassius said, answering Trafford's
question. 'Some is created in kitchen laboratories here in
London or out in the country. Some is smuggled in from
abroad. The North European members of the Alliance of
Faith tend to be a little more liberal in their view of this
sort of thing than we do. Vaccination was actually legal in
Scandinavia until fifteen years ago but pressure from the
Great Ally put paid to that. No faith means no military
umbrella, you see, and with upwards of half the world's
population flooded out and anxious to come and live with
us you need a military umbrella, don't you? Or perhaps it
would be more apt to say military wellington boots.'

At this point conversation was halted once more as a
particularly large and heavily tattooed male reveller from
the birthday party backed into their table. The table was
bolted to the floor but it shuddered as the huge backside
crunched down and the scarcely covered buttocks spread
across the plastic surface like two vast hairy draught
excluders and ended up touching the sides of Trafford and
Cassius's milkshake cartons. The man was attempting to
get sufficient depth of field to record the party on his
communitainer, and each of the guests was videoing the
scene on their phone. Apart from eating, it seemed to be
the principal activity of the group. It was almost as if the
party had been held simply in order that people might
record themselves attending it.

Trafford and Cassius sat quietly. They did not admonish
the man who had intruded on their space and who was
now virtually sitting in their food. London was getting
more crowded each day, everybody was on edge and
society was divided firmly into two types of citizen, those
who sought to provoke and those who did their utmost
to avoid giving provocation. Trafford, and everyone who
preferred a quiet life, had learned early on that those
who were most vigorous in upholding their right to do
what they chose were the first to consider themselves
disrespected if anybody should seek to uphold their right
not to be inconvenienced by them. It was as certain as the
Sun going round the Earth that any objection made to the
man who was sitting in their food would provoke nothing
but righteous anger, accusations of disrespect and
probably violence. Trafford and Cassius, in unspoken
communion, therefore resolved to wait until he went away.

But those who wish to provoke rarely take no for an
answer and something in their silence seemed to alert the
intruder to the ever-present possibility of disrespect.

'You got a problem with me sitting here?' he demanded,
attempting to swivel the upper part of his huge torso so
that he faced them.

'No. Not at all,' Cassius said quickly.

'Cos if you have, we can sort it out right now if that's
what you want, if you know what I mean.'

'We don't have a problem, I assure you. You're at a party,
go for it.'

'Cos I'm just taking a fucking vid, that's all,' the man
stated, beginning to realize that he would find no fight
here but still reluctant to give up.

'Absolutely. Go right ahead. Please, be our guest,' Cassius
assured him. 'We'll move if it would make things easier.'

'Good. Glad that's settled,' said the man, turning back to
continue recording his companions' revelry.

Cassius and Trafford sat self-consciously waiting him
out. It was not possible to conduct a conversation of any
kind while looking directly at a person's buttocks. They
could only sit and watch the sweat flow down the great
cleft and disappear into his bottom cleavage, then re-emerge
on to the table (having soaked through his tiny satin
shorts) and form a spreading puddle in which their food
cartons stood.

Finally, with a tremendous creaking and bending of the
table, the man raised himself to return to his companions.
He farted hugely as he did so, to the enormous amusement
of his friends.

'Oh, I
do
beg your pudding,' he said with heavy sarcasm.

Trafford and Cassius smiled through gritted teeth. If
they left the restaurant or moved table, this might easily
draw forth an accusation of disrespect. After all, the man's
flatulence was as good as anybody's and there was no law
against farting.

Eventually the unpleasantness dissipated and Cassius
and Trafford were able to resume their life-and-death
discussion, one that might mean life for Trafford's
daughter and death for him and Cassius.

'Who makes the serum?' Trafford asked.

'Chemists. People who secretly study the forbidden
science.'

'All science is forbidden, surely?' Trafford said.

'Don't be ridiculous, of course it isn't. Science runs
what's left of the country. It pumps the flood water from
the Underground lines; it drives the trains and buses. It
packages and preserves the food, runs the microwaves
and freezers.'

'Oh I see, you mean wisdom.'

'No, I do not mean wisdom,' Cassius replied testily.

'Wisdom reflects attitude and opinion. Science deals in
facts. The Temple may call science "wisdom" when they
teach those bits of it that they require for their own
purposes. But what they are actually teaching is what
remains of what was once called science.'

'Wisdom, science?' Trafford asked. 'Does it really
matter? It's just words.'

'Yes, words with completely different meanings.
Wisdom is subjective. Science is objective. Don't you see
how important that is? Science has nothing to do with
faith
or
feelings
. Science is about what can be established
through observation and deduction, what can be
proved
.'

'Yes, yes, of course, I see,' Trafford replied eagerly.

He was fascinated, thrilled even. Everything Cassius was
saying was in accordance with his own secret thoughts,
thoughts which he had never before had the opportunity
to discuss.

'The problem for the Temple and its lackey the
government,' Cassius went on, 'is that they
need
science.
They may claim to despise all that was known and
discovered in the time Before The Flood but in fact they
rely on that learning absolutely. The surgery they force
upon women; the physics that keeps the remaining
aeroplanes aloft and guides the missiles that they fire at
migrant infidels; the chemicals which grow and preserve
this foul mess we're eating; above all, the microtechnology
that delivers what they call information to everybody,
everywhere, every second of every day. All this was the
work of that very same intellectual community which they
condemn and despise, that same community which once
developed vaccines and put a man on the Moon—'

Trafford interrupted him, excited but also incredulous.
'Do you really believe that men once walked on the
Moon?' he asked.

To the Temple, the so-called Moon landings were the
most celebrated conceit of all the lies and myths of the time
Before The Flood. They had been a trick rigged in a television
studio, a complex plot to prove that man was cleverer
than God.

'The Moon landings happened,' Cassius said firmly.

'It seems incredible,' Trafford replied, suddenly doubtful.
'I mean walking on the Moon? Flying through space?'

'Incredible? You really think so? That idiot over there,
giggling about his flatulence, holds in his fist a device
which can record sound and vision in perfect detail and
broadcast it instantly via the internet to any corner of
the planet. Do you find that incredible? I do. The
cheapest child's communitainer contains technology
many thousand times more complex than that which took
men to the Moon. The Moon landings were a matter of
simple ballistics and the harnessing of the force of gravity.'