God's Plan

      Hours later, riding around aimlessly through the Ruins of Babylon with the noon sun pummeling light down onto him, Henry 38's confidence waned. He rode around every corner he could think of, occasionally stopping and shouting Evelyn's name at the roads, at the buildings, at every direction, hoping to hear some kind of reply from the wastes, and receiving none. Without any kind of marker or direction, without a single clue, Henry realized just how unprepared he was to find, let alone retrieve this mysterious stranger. What was she like? How did she think? Would she even stay in the Ruins at all? Maybe she'd been long gone by now, choosing instead to flee into the desert proper, vanishing into the dust forever? That particular thought made Henry cringe: not only would it mean his complete failure to retrieve her, but it would also mean that he'd never again get the chance to look upon that woman, the perfect being who saved his life.       Henry decided to stop. Often when facing difficulties on the job, he found it effective to take a moment to breathe, clear his head, and find a way to get a fresh perspective on the problem. And so he brought Kawasaki to a halt, twisted it's keylock into slumber, sat back down on the seat, and took one long, full breath in and out of his lungs. The sudden quiet of the unusually still afternoon relaxed him, as normally the frequents desert winds would force the sand they carried to crash against the walls and corners of the Ruins, drowning these alleys with noise. He envied the wind for it's ability to navigate even the most twisted of paths around any corners... and that's when inspiration struck. Immediately Henry twisted Kawasaki's keylock back into action, steered around, and headed for the one place he knew would give him a new perspective.       While most of the Ruins of Babylon lay in broken chunks on the desert earth, a handful of buildings did somehow resist the sands of time, remaining defiantly upright in the wind, and none was more impressive in this than the Trust Tower. This monstrosity of metal and concrete boasted 60 stories, easily looming over the Valley of Haven, and indeed all of Babylon with it. Henry had tried to climb up to it's zenith before, but it was always too much for his poor lungs and half-tired constitution to handle. However, he remembered that one of the major staircases in it's interior was just large enough for two full-sized flock, or one four-wheeled Stallion, to fit in nicely. With Kawasaki's help, Henry committed himself to reaching the top of that magnificent tower, to finally gaze upon the splendid view it's rooftop beheld, and perhaps in so doing to reach some kind of epiphany that would help him finally locate his target.       He raced towards the base of the tower, which had been coated in a thick layer of sand reaching all the way into the main entrance to the building, obscuring the majority of the concrete Square surrounding it from view. Henry stopped temporarily to gaze upon the two strange statues made of a rusted, jade-colored metal that were poking out from the sandhills. They were shaped like two naked women, running forward with their spines curved outward and their heads pointed right up at the sky, each clutching a scarf or shawl that danced gracefully around their bodies. These two metal women had always amused Henry with their lack of grace in their running stance, or their lack of sense to try to cover their bodies with the very shawls they were carelessly flinging about. Surely they'd know not to expose so much of their skin to the scorching sun. Whatever pretensions the Babylonian sculptors who made these statues had, they were lost on Henry entirely. He gave them one final glance, then raced through the main entrance door, above which just one simple word was etched in large blue metal letters: Trust.       The interior of the Tower was a spacious open floor plan with several beams scattered throughout the middle, now coated to the end with a thick layer of dust. Every surface, like every surface on every ruin in Babylon, had been scrubbed clean a long time ago by the sandy winds, leaving only smooth monochrome stone and steel arranged in amusing and decadent shapes. A simple turn to the right, and then a turn to the left, revealed the largest of the stairways built into the backside of the Tower. As soon as he saw it, Henry pulled on the throttle to increase velocity, aiming straight at the steps ahead. He felt a bump, and then a sharp jolt backwards, as the Stallion was now aimed about 40 degrees upwards and bouncing on the steps of the stairway. Once the Stallion had leveled out again, Henry steered it around to the left, and repeated the process again, initially being careful to lean into the staircase every time he'd tackle it, to maximize balance between the front and back tires, so as to keep his vehicle upright. After about five or so iterations of this, a nice comfortable rhythm had been acheived, as Kawasaki valiantly strode higher and higher up the staircase, echoing it's bellowing engine roar as it ascended. As he rode, Henry occasionally glanced upwards to check if any part of the staircase had been destroyed, but to his delight it seemed the entire staircase had stayed fully intact, all the way to the 50th floor. As Henry rode up the last flight of stairs, he charged straight into the doors ahead, which swung open with a loud thump that even briefly deafened the roar of the engine. It was at this point that the throttle was finally released, and Kawasaki paused it's clamour, instead lightly grumbling as it stood at attention. The winds seemed to intensify at the higher altitudes, so Henry had to pull his scarf up to his face and strap on his googles, as he leapt off of Kawasaki to take a few paces forward towards the nearest chasm where a window once had been. He gazed outside briefly to observe the ruins in their immaculate splendor, laid to waste beneath his feet like sand-castles.       The journey further up the tower was now unknown to Henry 38; he had never gotten this far before. He strode first to his left, then towards the opposite end of the floor, until he found another set of stairs leading upwards, this one completely encased in concrete. It had a remarkably pristine quality to it, and, to Henry's surprise, retained it's ancient paint almost perfectly: grey walls on a grey concrete flooring, with blue metal railing, and numbers written on each floor marking the level in crisp detail. It was such a gift to see even a fragment of the old Babylonian architecture as it truly looked before the city fell, and to Henry's eyes it was magnificently sleek. Perhaps the architect of this stairway was inspired in part by the God of Haven when they designed it; it had the same efficiency of design, the same purity of purpose. Unfortunately, this staircase was too narrow for Kawasaki to fit, so Henry decided to leave his Stallion behind, and climb the rest of the way on his own. He felt a tingling sensation on his fingers as they gripped the cool metal railing. His head felt light as he pressed down every step, almost as if dizzy from the excitement. Realizing that this entire vertical tunnel was unusually well lit for an enclosed space with no apertures or light sources, Henry looked up to spot the blue sky directly above him, presented in the shape of a tiny square. As he climbed each level, Henry started noticing traces of sand around the corners of the stairway, which increased in volume as he ascended. As he approached the zenith, the faint howl of the winds above gave him pause. He slowed his step, checking for cracks in the walls and floor, and found them soon after, increasing in severity as he reached the top. Soon, before him lay the final rung of the staircase, and an open empty daytime sky beyond it. As he stepped onto what passed for the final platform into the great outdoors again, the blinding winds forced Henry to hold his arm up to keep his goggles or scarf from flying off his face. Through this guard, he looked around to observe the top of the Tower. His intuition was correct: the entire top section of the Trust Tower had been knocked clean off, probably by the winds of time. Whereas these winds merely blew the windows out on lower floors, allowing the winds to pass through, the top of the tower, having no windows, took the full impact, until it didn't. Henry guessed he was probably on the 58th floor of this building, the other two floors likely hiding under piles of sand on the ground directly below. He took careful steps on the rocky ground of this jagged floor, to reach the edge of the Tower, and gaze upon the view it offered at the top of the world.       The entirety of Babylon lay crumbled at Henry's feet. Every gargantuan monolith, every paved street, every odd sculpture, all of it seeming so tiny beneath him, continuously swept away by blankets of sand. To Henry's left, beyond the limits of the ruins, he could see the tiny specks of the Clergy Motel and the Hospital, and beyond that the dome that was the Gardens of Haven. And to his right, and in every other direction, an unending sea of sand stretching all the way to the horizon, enveloping the entire world in a clean blanket of gold. In that moment, despite the billowing winds blowing in his face, despite the pain in his legs and joints, Henry felt a peculiarly calming sensation throughout his body, as if total serenity had been granted to him by the whims of fate for the first time in his life. It was an enchanting feeling, and as he continued to gaze upon the majesty of the view from atop that tower, the feeling continued to spread through him. It was only when he realized he was mistaking serenity for numbness that panic began to set in.       Before he could realize it, one of Henry's knees gave way, toppling his body down onto the rooftop ground, forcing him to put his hands in front of him to catch the ground before his face would. Henry's mind raced to search for a meaning to this sudden loss of muscle control, and then it hit him: Insulin. In all the excitement of the past several days, Henry realized at that moment he completely forgot to take his regular Insulin injection, and was going into what the Nuns described as a 'diabetic shock'. Realizing he was losing consciousness, Henry concentrated the remaining morsels of focus he had left to push his body backwards, as far away form the roof's edge as he could. The last thought his mind could muster was of Evelyn, the woman he was up on top of the entire world to find. Certain that he would never wake again, he lamented that he didn't get one last chance to see her face before he would pass into nothingness.

* * *

Henry was shocked to discover that he was, in fact, waking up again. He unhinged his eyes to stare at a ceiling, and after turning his head around a few times, realized he was back down at the 50th floor, right next to Kawasaki. The sky outside had gotten slightly darker and considerably more orange, suggesting to Henry that he'd been unconscious for several hours at least. However, there was still the mystery of how he'd gotten himself all the way down to the 50th floor. He certainly couldn't have been swept away by the wind, and then tumbled perfectly down 10 flights of stairs with seemingly no injuries. As he looked around for clues, his eyes finally adjusted to the light, and his mind finally registered the hunched-over figure of a young woman with blonde hair and green eyes, wearing a white jumpsuit, sitting on the Stallion and munching on some dried fruit.       It was Evelyn. She was sitting right there, munching away as gracefully as Henry had seen anyone eat dried fruit. Her golden locks, now considerably dirtied with sand, still shone perfectly in the afternoon sun, and her eyes glimmered with the same intense brilliance he remembered back at the Market. As he observed more features of her form, she seemed to be becoming more and more beautiful to him by the second; from the musculature of her legs and knees, to the dextrous twists of her fingers maneuvering the jar, every part of her looked perfect, as if sculpted by the greatest architect of all. As Henry reminded to himself what exactly it was that sculpted her this way, Henry lightly chortled, which immediately got Evelyn's attention.       Her previously placid demeanor instantly tightened into a frozen stare, as she locked eyes with Henry expectantly. They both continued this stare for a good long while, until finally the young woman's mouth opened up to speak. The voice that emanated from her was like the softest, gentlest melody to Henry's ears. It soothed his soul as he heard it, so much so that he realized he wasn't even paying attention to the words, which she was now repeating at this point. "Umm...hello? Do you understand me?" "Yeah, sure I can... I mean...yes of course...your Grace." "Oh good, at least you guys speak English... wait, did you just call me Grace?" "Oh, I'm so sorry, I just assumed your parent's title would apply to you as well. Should I call you something else?" "My parent... did my dad send you here?" "Dad? Yes? That is why I'm here. God wants you to return to Haven, as soon as possible. It sent me to escort you back." "Wait wait wait... God? He really called himself God? And you all worship him? Great." "Well I guess from your point of view it wouldn't be that great, but God created all of us, and it gave each of us a life in Haven. For that I am forever grateful." "Look, buddy... I've been awake for like, a day I think, and the last thing I remember, I'd rather not think about right now... or at all. So can you just, like, stop talking to me like I have any idea what's going on or how long it's been since... Evelyn's speech trailed off into silence as her eyes focused more intently on Henry's. Unsure of how to react to this, Henry nervously returned her gaze. He could feel sweat forming on his forehead in this uncomfortable moment they were sharing. "You look familiar." "Uhh... Yeah, we met yesterday morning, there was an earthquake at the Square. My friend and I fell into the chasm that opened up in the ground. We would've died, but you saved us both. For that, I also wanted to thank you." Henry decided, at this moment, to bow his head in front of Evelyn, but as soon as he did he felt incredibly foolish. Thankfully, Evelyn got him out of this awkward spot instantly. "Stop that, stop it, it's fine, whatever. What's your name?" "Oh it's Henry. Henry 38." "What the fuck... you even look a bit like him... is everyone in your little cult also named Henry?" "What? No, we got lots of names. Elijah, Luna, Lucas-" "Alright alright. Just... what the hell happened here?" Evelyn gestured out to the window, towards the ruins down below. "You mean, to Babylon? Well...we don't know exactly why it fell, God doesn't like us talking about it." "What the fuck? Babylon? This is clearly Atlanta! Just a really messed up version of it. Is this the future? Am I dead?" Henry's eyes widened with glee. He knew Elijah 47's mind would be blown with the revelation of knowing the true name of Babylon: Atlanta. But he soon noticed the distress on Evelyn's face. Then a thought occured to him. "Evelyn, I'm sorry I ain't got any good answers for you. But I think maybe God might? It told me to bring you something. It's on my Stallion." "Oh really? Where is it?" "Oh just right behind you, that small box in the corner." Evelyn twisted her torso around, leaving her slender legs perfectly still in her cross-legged position, and reached for the small box in the corner, which she opened in a flash. She unfolded one of the paper wrappings hurriedly, to reveal a strange assortment of food: slices of tomato, lettuce, and cured meats layered in between two slices of bread. Evelyn looked upon this contraption with knowing eyes. Henry, by contrast, was baffled by it. She laid it aside, and unwrapped another package, to reveal a small bottle containing a dark red liquid Henry has never seen before. It had a piece of paper stuck to the side of it, which Henry could just barely make out had text of some kind written on it. Evelyn looked upon the text on the bottle, a slight sneer on her face. She put the bottle down too, then looked over once again at the box to check if there was anything else in it. She froze briefly, then extended both her hands and pulled from the bottom of the box a flat black rectangle, with one sleek shiny surface, and the other hard matte. By it's design this rectangle reminded Henry of the small box he wanted to obtain from George 32 the day prior. By the way Evelyn was looking at it, Henry could tell she recognized what it was. He did not dare speak, but instead watched intently as Evelyn looked at the object in her hand, in the desperate anticipation of what it might do, or she with it. Evelyn pressed down on a button on the edge of the screen, and to her surprise, but more so to Henry's, the top surface of the rectangle lit up, illuminating Evelyn's face with a cold white light. Henry saw a rapid shift in Evelyn's facial expressions from trepidatious to outright confident, as she then started swiping her fingers all over this surface. In that moment Henry mustered the courage to stand up and come closer to Evelyn, who did not seem to notice his approach at all, enraptured by the technicolor light-show before her. It was when Henry stepped around behind Evelyn, and finally got a glimpse of this light-show, that he began to understand Evelyn's fixation on it.       This rectangle was one large screen, similar to a computer, but much flatter. Also unlike the computers Henry saw at Haven, this one appeared to require only the touch of one's finger to operate: Evelyn was moving through various screens on the display by swiping left, right, up, down, in all manner of directions, and pressing with her fingers directly onto the surface, which responded accordingly. To Henry, this was a technological marvel, yet another in a series of miracles from the divine to which he was gloriously privy, and yet he could see and hear the frustration mounting inside Evelyn. Every second or third swipe or press would be followed by a half-muttered 'fuck' or 'shit' from her lips. Suddenly, the mutterings and frustrations seemed to stop altogether, and Evelyn simply stared at the screen. Henry leaned in to check what has gotten her so fixated.       The screen displayed a white rectangle, with a series of numbers written on it in a sequence. Upon first impression, these numbers seemed entirely random, with no evident pattern to them. What Henry did find interesting was the inclusion of occasional punctuation marks, like periods and commas. Henry continued to try to study this strange numbered script, when a loud shriek from Evelyn disrupted his concentration. "Oh my God, I don't get it! What is this? Henry, do you know what this is?" Evelyn pushed the rectangle into Henry's chest, and he then repositioned it into his own view. He tried, once again, to read the script in front of him: "1325 4511851920 5225122514, 251521 1185 141520 41851139147. 251521 1185 141520 4514. 251521 1185 141520 914191145. 251521 81225 19913161225 25514 715145 61518 1 1215147 209135. 181521781225 69225 8211441854 25511819. 132138 8119 38114754 914 25152118 121951435. 9 814 8151654 2015 2011211 2015 251521 12152120 11212 208919 914 16518191514, 22120 920 19551319 25152118 914192091432019 11931154 914 201515 192018151471225 21161514 25152118 1231115149147. 9'13 1915181825 2015 81225 31514691454 251521 914 192138 1 191311212 1916135, 9 11141523 81523 132138 251521 81205 208120, 22120 208120'19 2085 91432121201518 45199714 9 31135 2116 239208, 1144 209135 23119, 1144 192091212 919, 156 2085 5191951435..." The script went on in this manner all the way until the end, and Henry was just as dumbfounded by the time he finished reading it as when he started. He lifted his eyes to meet Evelyn's expectant stare, his apologetic grimace only serving to irritate her more. "Seriously? You have no idea?" "I'm sorry, no... but look: these numbers have several punctuation marks in places... maybe this is a coded message?" "Oh that's just fucking great, Henry, just fucking fantastic! I'm stuck in the middle of some kind of horrible dystopian Mad Max future with some freaky religious cult, and the only person I know is my dad who, as per FUCKING USUAL, can't just tell me what the fuck is going on in plain English like a normal person, but instead has to cloak everything in codes and metaphors like I'm some kind of rat in his lab experiment! Oh, and I suppose this shitty sandwich and this bottle of wine are supposed to endear him to me, so I come in quietly right back like all's forgiven!?" Evelyn angrily gestured towards the odd food contraption and bottle of red liquid lying beside her. "So that's what those are called..." Henry whispered under his breath. To his dismay, it seems he didn't say it softly enough, as Evelyn immediately turned her attention to him. "Did you say 'so that's what those are called'? You... you don't know what a sandwich is? What the hell kind of crappy world is this? What'd you call it, Haven?" "Yes, it's where all the flock of God live." "Uh-huh... and where is it?" "Well you did emerge from our Square, but it it just West of here, just a half-hour on my Stallion." "You mean this quad-bike? You know it's not alive, right?" "Maybe not like you or me, but it does have it's own personality. This one is named Kawasaki." Evelyn stared at Henry with a look of utter bewilderment for a good ten seconds, before bursting into an obnoxious uproar of laughter, even grasping the sides of her torso as if to try to contain the laughter within. Henry didn't understand what he said that made Evelyn laugh, but he was glad to see her smiling for the first time in this whole interaction. He politely waited for the laughter to subside, which eventually it did, after which Evelyn proceeded with her tirade of questions. "You said you don't know what happened to the city, right? You called it Babylon." "Yes, but I guess I should call it Atlanta now. All we know is that the God of Bab- uhh, Atlanta was a greedy and prideful God, and that it was this hubris that led to their downfall." "Yeah... I guess that's kinda true. We did kinda fuck the planet over, so... since we're in an actual desert now, I'm guessing the planet finally fucked us back." "Wait, you said 'we'. You mean you were a flock of Atlanta?" "Well yeah, I'm from Atlanta. My dad's not, he was born in New York City. My parents had me a little while after moving here." "But..." "Look, Henry, I don't mean to burst your bubble or whatever, but I promise you that whoever you think God is, if it's my dad, then he's not a God. He's just a guy who knew a lot about medicine, and had lots of powerful friends in the tech sector. But this kind of climate change... to turn Atlanta into a desert wasteland... this kind of change would have to take centuries. There's no way he could've lived that long... or me, for that matter."       Henry's mind was rattled. He was always curious about the civilization that built this impressive city, especially since God and it's Clergy seemed to discourage discussing it, but now here before him was a living descendant of that God telling him the inconceivable; if she is to be believed, not only was the God of Haven merely a man, like himself, but also a former resident of the same 'Babylon' he was taught to despise. The weight of this revelation caused Henry to fall back onto the ground, where he remained in utter stupor. Evelyn looked down on him, first with pejorative glare, but eventually with compassionate concern. She grabbed the sandwich and bottle from the Stallion, and slid down to Henry's level.       "Hey, sorry man, I... look, I'm actually starving, and I sure as hell could use a drink. How about we split this sandwich and wine?"       Henry turned towards the divinely enchanting goddess offering her company and meal to him, and then promptly nodded with an enthusiastic smile. Evelyn then proceeded to rip the sandwich in half, handing one half to Henry and putting the other on her lap, then undid the tediously circuitous packaging on the bottle, and removed the cork top, which emitted a loud pop that echoed throughout the empty barren walls of the floor. She lifted the neck of the bottle up to her lips and proceeded to swallow a few gulps of the dark-red liquid, then passed the bottle to Henry, beckoning him to take a swing. Henry cautiously grabbed the bottle, took a look inside, then brought the neck to his nose for a quick sniff. To his surprise the aromas he detected were mostly fruity and sweet; a wonderful bouquet of scents, some of which he'd never smelled before. Confident in his assessment, he then proceeded to chug a mouthful of the stuff down his throat. He soon discovered this to be a big mistake, as the liquid burned the insides of his mouth, and constricted his breathing. He spilled some of the red liquid on the ground as he choked on it, which only seemed to amuse Evelyn to another bellow of laughter. After regaining her composure, she lightly patted him on the back to help his breathing. "Whoa, sorry! Let me guess, no alcohol in Haven, huh? What a crappy future this is." "I'm so sorry, your Grace, I spilled some-" "Don't worry about it, Henry. I'm sure daddy's got plenty stored up somewhere. And stop calling me 'your Grace'. Just call me Evelyn. And for now let's just enjoy the view and this...sandwich..."       Evelyn nervously eyed the contents of the sandwich, then suddenly bit right into the middle of it, and closed her mouth. After a few analytical chews, she spat her entire mouthful out, which produced a light chuckle in Henry as he observed it. She turned angrily towards him. "What the fuck kind of meat is that?" "What, you didn't have meat back in Atlanta?" "Of course we had meat, but I'm asking you: what kind of meat is this? What animal?" "Animal? What do you mean?' "Chicken? Pork? Beef? Fucking... I dunno, vulture? What the hell is that?" "I don't know what any of those things are. This is just meat. Sometimes God gives it to us as reward for good deeds." "Wait... hold on... so you guys live in Haven, right?" "Yeah." "How many people live in Haven?" "Hmm... about a thousand, I guess." "And aside from the... flock, was it? Is there anything else that's alive in Haven?" "Well... there's the Gardens, where the farmers grow the plants from which we harvest food... we have Angels, but they're also made of metal... so if you don't think the Stallion is alive, then I guess you wouldn't think the Angels are either."       Satisfied with the answers he gave, Henry proceeded to munch on his half of the sandwich, but Evelyn appeared to be getting increasingly disgusted. Her complexion changed from a rosy pink to a pale green, and suddenly she got up and ran to the side of the building. Henry got up to follow her, but then stopped once he heard the familiar sounds of vommit leaving Evelyn's body and taking flight off the side of the Trust Tower onto the ground below. After a few minutes of gagging, Evelyn wiped her mouth, and sat back down next to Henry, snatching the bottle of wine, and consuming the entire thing in one anguished swig. After loudly burping, she loudly proclaimed:       "What a crappy fucking future this is."