God's Plan

The Clergy Motel was a rather quaint structure compared to the Hospital, yet still the elegance of it's simple design impressed Henry 38, long ago when he was first shown it by his Nun during his Innocence. A tall tower with a neon sign on which one single green word glowed 'MOTEL' (just below an empty space on the plaque). A U-shaped structure encircling a modest plot of concrete, used mostly for waste disposal, with three floors-worth of individual rooms linked together by a simple outdoor metal staircase and scaffolding system. Just a quick flight up a few steps and the insertion of a private key was all that was separating Henry from complete privacy. Naturally, with this being the only housing unit of it's kind in Haven, the rooms therein were rare, and thus reserved only for the most essential of Clergy, except for Nuns who lived in the Hospital itself. As Henry walked up the flight of stairs and proceeded down to the corner of the second-level scaffold, to gaze upon the door that read 'HENRY 38' in bold white paint, a familiar sense of relief swept over him, compounded moreso when, upon opening the door with his key, he made the outline of a Reward Basket lying gracefully on his bed.       The contents of the Reward Basket would change depending on the season, but always contained some variation of food and drink usually privy only to God and the highest level of Clergy: fresh fruits and vegetables, bread, sliced or cured meats, and most importantly, nuts. He was really hoping for nuts this time, and surely there, right next to the apple, was a bag-full. He had big plans for this bag of nuts, and it seemed like they would finally come to fruition the next day. He was ogling the bag tenderly when he heard a knock on his door. A familiar five-tap. He knew who was behind that door. He grabbed the bag of nuts, dashed into the bathroom and shifted loose a tile on the floor, revealing a small secret compartment in the floorspace, which currently held in it a jar full of nuts, clearly assembled after months of saving. Henry gently placed the bag right next to the jar, put the tile back on, then took a few breaths to slow his heartrate down a bit, before casually stepping up ot the door and opening it.       There, standing coyly with a slight snicker on her face, was Luna 6. She was slightly shorter than the average Luna, but just as svelte, and much more flexible, thanks to the missing ribs at the bottom of her ribcage. Her volumnous straight grey hair rested over her shoulders, partially covering the sewn-up chasm where a right blue eye would have been. Her skin, a haphazard patchwork of pearly white and mocha brown, always amused Henry, as did her usual stance; full body weight on her left leg, hand resting assertively on her far-protruded hip. Though this stance was likely necessary for Luna to stand firm on her wildly uneven legs, Henry did have to admit he liked the way it accentuated her form. Seeing her standing in the doorway at this hour, he couldn't help but let loose a cheeky grin. Luna instantly reacted by brushing past him, and limping into his room to settle down on his bed, right beside the Reward Basket. "So...you got another bad guy, huh?" "Why is it the only times you come visit me are when I got one of these on my bed?" "I just figure; all these spoils and no one to enjoy them with...what fun is watching good food rot? Why not celebrate with a friend?" "Friend? That's a strong word for what we are, don't you think?" "Listen: we both know you're not gonna kick me out. I can see the tension in your eyes, you need to relax. And you know that I know exactly how to help you... relax."       Henry couldn't argue with either of those points. He was tense, especially after his unnerving encounter with Lucas 40, and Luna 6 was easier on the eyes than the usual women of Haven, especially considering there were roughly half as many as men. Though she was a common worker living in the Village, her official chore being a Cleaner, Luna still maintained a much more comfortable lifestyle than most, thanks to the favors she accrued daily using her other talent. Henry was certain he was by far not the first flock whose home she entered this day, and yet he was still somewhat glad to see her. Despite his objection, he did think of Luna as a sort of friend, of whom he honestly had so few, given his title as Shepherd. So, after a brief pause, Henry sighed and dropped his act. "Alright, let's party!"

* * *

Henry 38 was awoken by the rays of the sun peeking into his window the following morning, his eyes squinting and lazily scanning the bedlam that was his room. Banana peels, plastic bottles, containers which previously held cured meats, and a ragged twist of clothes surrounded him on his bed and on the floor below. He turned on his side to examine the now empty space that Luna 6 occupied the night prior. He assumed she'd snuck out of his room earlier that morning, after he'd fallen asleep. Despite the regularity of this event, a part of Henry still somehow felt disappointed by the result. It wouldn't stay that way for long, as disappointment was soon interrupted by a light panic, causing Henry to jump up out of his bed and rush to his hiding spot behind the toilet. He reached with his hand to the tile behind the seat, and was relieved to extract the jar of nuts he was desperately hoping Luna 6 wouldn't find. Though she was not cold-hearted, strictly speaking, the fact that it was still there indicated to Henry that she had not yet found this hiding spot. And it was a good thing she hadn't, for Henry had big plans for that jar of nuts.       Henry took a quick shower, put on his usual full-body suit, filled his backpack with all his treasure, and stepped out into the crisp morning air of Haven. The winds seemed to have subsided since the day before, which Henry chose to take as a sign of good fortune for himself and his endeavor. Exchanging the occasional 'Good morning' to the few neighbors he saw on the way, Henry walked down the flight of stairs to the main concrete platform, and aimed himself directly towards the Square, where the weekly Market was most likely already underway. He'd have to make one small stop first, to retrieve his trade partner: Elijah 47.       Every Friday, all residents from Haven got together at the open Square near the Village to participate in the Market: a grand exchange where flock could barter for goods and services as needed. The rules were simple: You arrive with the goods and services you can offer, and see if someone will give you what you want for something that you have. Flock with more goods than services, such as Farmers who'd worked up a surplus that week, would usually set up shop in one of the surviving stalls that were placed there by flock over the years; various carts and wheel-rooms scavenged from the Ruins of Babylon.       Though the Square was officially intended as the gathering place for scheduled sermons, the weekly Market was one of the few traditions in Haven that was not created by God or Clergy. The flock themselves just started trading goods one day, and at first God was not pleased. Yet when it was clear that, no matter how many arrests they'd make, flock would still trade in secret, and that this system made the flock much happier than the previous rationing system imposed by the Clergy, God decided to bless this tradition as Holy, and so it was given a specific day of the week, and has continued since it's inception... at least that's what Elijah 47 claimed. He conjectured that the Market was founded at least a century ago, but this number was arrived at from pure speculation rather than documentation or evidence.       "Hey, Hen! Was wondering if you were even gonna show up! I take it you got what I need?" Elijah, sitting as always in the pile of rags he fashioned into a bed, welcomed Henry inside his cozy tent. Henry didn't bother sitting down, but got straight to business. "Sure do, Eli! Came in yesterday." Henry flung his backpack around his shoulder towards his midriff, and flipped it open to pull out the pristine (and full as of yesterday) jar of nuts. Elijah' eyes lit up with excitement. "Holy- well a deal's a deal. Here you go then." Elijah tipped over sideways, then rolled over to where his pile of documents were, next to his computer. He pulled a panel off of the computer's case, to reveal a glass jar of his own, this one containing white pills. "There's 17 in there. Been saving them up for the past week. Will be glad to pop one of these again when this is over; my back is killing me." "Trust me, Eli, it'll be worth it." "If you say so. Seemed to me like just a sleek little black box." "If I'm right...it is so much more than that. Let's go." Henry pulled the wheelchair from behind the pile of documents, unfolded it, then lifted Elijah up and sat him down into the chair. The two men then proceeded to roll out and into the main Market grounds. There was a Scout named George 32, who found a rare Babylonian artifact: a small black electronic rectangular device with an eye on the back. Henry, having had spent more time in the Ruins than most, knew very well what this little black box could be. Trying his best to feign indifference, he managed to strike a deal with George: he was willing to part with it, but only in exchange for a jar of Oxycodone pills. Though their hallucinatory effects were well known among the flock, only those deemed by God with severe chronic pain would be allotted these by Clergy at daily intervals. Luckily for Henry, Elijah was one of those flock. So Henry had been taking on every available mission for the past week, hoping to receive as a reward the one thing Elijah would be willing to give in exchange for all those pills: a jar of nuts, his favorite. Now, with the pills in his possession, Henry was ready to make the deal, and obtain what he'd hoped would be the key to unlocking the mysteries of Babylon.       At last they had arrived at the Square, where the Market was already abuzz with chatter and excitement: almost all the stalls had already been occupied by the usual Farmers and Crafters, offering common foods, chairs and tables made of wood, clothes and shoes stitched from scavenged fabrics and rubber, amusing baubles made from glass shards, and the rare Babylonian artifact. Henry's eyes, by now having become accustomed to filtering out the various looks of fear and spite in the occasional Villager, scanned the Market left and right, hoping to find George 32 among the crowd. "I don't see him. Do you see him, Eli?" "Nah, but maybe he ain't got a stall this week. Maybe he's walking around like us?" "I guess we better catch him soon as we can." Henry once again grabbed the handles of Elijah' wheelchair, and doubled his previous pace, trying to out-yell nearby bidders and hagglers, both to get out of the way, and to direct him to George 32 if anyone has seen him, all the while practicing in his head the speech he'd give if George would suddenly get greedy and demand more pills. Finally, they got some information from one of the few flock who'd actually bother talking to them, coincidentally another Henry. He mentioned that George 32 might not have even come to this week's Market, and that he's likely just sitting in his own tent somewhere in the Village. Henry halted at that, stood in the middle of the hasty crowd for a solid minute, before Elijah interrupted. "What a jerk, eh? Probably decided to keep the thing for himself!" "No...no, I'm not giving up. We're gonna go find him." "You can't make someone trade what they don't wanna give, Hen! That's the rule." "I can try to persuade him. I got the pills he wants. Maybe he just forgot about my offer. I gotta try!" "Fine fine, I guess I'm coming along for the ride too! Not like I can go anywhere by myself anyway-       Suddenly the ground began to rumble underneath Henry's feet. At first it was a soft vibration that only lightly rattled the stalls of the Square, but as more and more people halted and quieted down to listen to it, they all slowly realized it was not subsiding, but increasing in intensity. It was only when the first glass bottle fell off a nearby table and shattered on the ground when true mass panic erupted at the Market. An earthquake was afoot!       Screams of panic and desperation now filled the air as flock rushed in every direction away from the Square, leaving all of their posessions behind. The tremors under the Square had intensified to a monstrous degree, such that even standing upright was a challenge for those with two fully grown legs, to say nothing of those with limps or crutches. Henry's mind blanked only for a second before he regained focus. He needed to get Elijah to safety, then carry as many people out of the quake zone as he could. He gripped the wheelchair's handles even tighter, then bolted for the first direction that seemed safe, ignoring Elijah' desperate pleas in front of him, or the screams and yells of panicked flock all around him. Pretty soon even those screams became muffled completely by the deafening roars of the earthquake below, yet Henry persisted at the fastest pace he could to reach safety. In his persistence, he neglected to notice what was happening directly under his feet.       A crack in the concrete had formed directly underneath the both of them, suddenly splitting apart and swallowing them whole. The combined suddenness of this rift and coarse ground on which Henry was now scraping his sides made him lose the tight grip he previously had on his companion's wheelchair, but the strength of the vibrations had almost completely reduced Henry's sense of direction to near absolute zero. In that moment Henry could only make the snap judgement to try to save himself from peril, and his hands switched to clawing onto whatever purchase he could grip on the cliffside he was now hugging. After several painful attempts, he finally secured a ledge with his right hand, finally stopping his descent. He used this moment of stability to search for his missing man, but every second spent looking around and not finding him sent Henry into deeper pitfalls of despair. 'A Shepherd must always look after their flock' or so the sermon goes. And here he was, dangling from the side of a rift in the rocky trembling ground, failing to save just one member of his flock, and only barely keeping himself alive. Who knows if Elijah 47 would have been safe had Henry not insisted on walking across the Market for his artifact. Elijah wouldn't have been at the Market at all had it not been for Henry's incistence. Despite the rumbling earth threatening to so easily swallow him whole, Henry instead felt an overwhelming sense of shame, in which he chose to dwell as he clung for dear life.       This moment of guilt was interrupted by a flash of color Henry spotted out of the corner of his eye, in the depths below him. A glimmer, or rather a pair of green lights, shone up at him from below, and it was only when he focused on them that he realized that they were getting brighter, and closer. Before Henry knew it a swift blur flew upwards past his face. It had Elijah 47 dangling unconsciously in it's arms, and was hopping from tiny ledge to tiny ledge almost effortlessly up towards the surface, soon ducking out of Henry's view, leaving him stranded on the edge with just a frail grip and a feeling of awe. Henry snapped back into focus soon after, and started looking around for more ledges to climb on, when suddenly the mysterious stranger appeared before him again, this time hanging from above him, hand extended, palm facing upward. It was at this very moment that time itself seemed to stop for Henry, for despite the tremulous rattling of the earth around him, despite the pain in his joints, or the dirt in his exposed nostril-holes, despite every fear for the safety of the flock... in this moment Henry got a good look at his savior.       It was the most beautiful young woman Henry had ever seen, with long white-blond hair, green eyes, and a toned complexion full of life and vigor. Her body, clad in what looked like a skin-tight white jumpsuit, seemed like a delicate instrument, perfectly balanced for beauty and function, strength and elegance alike. But the most remarkable thing about her sent a shocking chill down Henry's spine: she was perfect. Not a single body part missing, nothing out of place or in improper order. She was perfect.       Henry was so struck by the vision of this mysterious stranger, he didn't even notice the rims of his own vision blurring and darkening, as he was rapidly losing consciousness. The last sensation Henry could feel before falling into darkness was the touch of this young woman's hand, grabbing his wrist with a soft but firm hold. It felt heavenly, and so brought Henry an unanticipated sense of peace.