God's Plan

      Evelyn did eventually have some food for dinner, after Henry 38 showed her the rest of the rations he had strapped on Kawasaki. She handed him her half of the sandwich, and asked for some dried fruit in exchange. Henry politely obliged, holding back the overwhelming feeling of curiosity within him. There were so many questions he had always wanted to ask about the fallen 'Babylon', and standing beside him was a living former resident of it! He feared he'd have no opportunity to speak to her again after he'd returned her to God. What use could a Daughter of the Divine have with a lowly Shepherd. Still the desire burned in him to ask so many questions, to learn so much. Evidently, he wasn't hiding his true feelings very well, because Evelyn soon turned over to him.       "Dude, why are you staring at me? Something on your mind?" "Oh... I'm sorry, but yeah, actually. I don't wanna bother you, but I have so much to ask about... Atlanta. What was it like? How did it look? What did you eat? Where-" "Alright, alright, hold on, I'll tell you. Hmm... where to even start... well for one thing Atlanta wasn't a desert when I was living here. Sure it was hot as hell, but we still had trees and stuff. And of course all of these buildings were still standing... there were hundreds of thousands of people living here. But it wasn't the biggest city in America- "What's America?" "Oh right, you don't even know... well... back then, all of this land used to belong to one country; a giant community. There were about three hundred million of us. And the country was called the United States of America. The State this city was in was called Georgia. Every State had some amount of autonomy, they could pass certain laws and stuff, but all States also had to follow the rules of the Federal government..." Evelyn paused for a brief moment, as if in hesitation. "Well... let's just say it was complicated. But Atlanta was nice, y'know? I had a nice little delivery service I worked on, I had friends... God... my friends... where did they all go? Are they all dead?" There was another awkward pause, as Evelyn slumped down into herself in dismay. Henry sat there next to her, unsure of whether or not he should try to comfort her. At the last possible moment of silence he could stomach, Henry suddenly came up with a great question he's been yearning to have answered for years.       "Evelyn... what is Love?" "Baby don't hurt me!" Evelyn then chuckled to herself as if remembering an old joke, which did seem to lighten her mood up, but did nothing to clarify the confusion inside Henry. Once she noticed it evidently on his face, her smile diminished once again. "Wait, you're serious? You don't know what love is?" "I've been taking trips around the Ruins, and there's a small building... just over there." Henry pointed in the north-eastern direction where his archeological find was located. "There's a sign there, made of metal, hanging on the wall, it says: Live, Laugh, Love."       Henry was getting ready to continue speaking, when he heard a roar of laughter erupt from Evelyn, a thunderous guffaw that even toppled her slender frame backwards onto the ground below, as she was holding her sides and rolling back and forth, giggling incessantly. Henry decided to power through his explanation despite the rather crass noises coming from his companion. "Based on the first two words, I'm guessing it was a mantra your flock spoke? Can you please explain what it means?" Henry then patiently waited for Evelyn's laughter to subside, which it did after a few minutes. As she raised herself back up to meet Henry's eye level, wiping away tears of amusement from her own eyes, she took a few calming breaths, then began to speak. "Sorry about that, that was just so goddamn funny. OK first of all, I'm guessing that building was a coffee shop. Coffee was this dark black drink we had back then. We mostly drank it to stay awake in the day, but then coffee shops became cool hangout spots for pretentious hipsters to awkwardly flirt and show off the screenplays they were writing... Okay... how to explain love..."       Another brief pause occurred, this one seemingly imbued with more intention than the last, as Evelyn shuffled her entire frame to face Henry more directly. She pushed into his eyes with a sense of determination that made Henry slightly nervous, and held her gaze for what seemed like an excruciatingly long moment. Only after taking another breath, did she speak once more. "Alright, you have friends back home, right?" "Yeah. My best friend is Elijah 47." "So if Elijah was, let's say, in trouble, or needed your help, you'd help him, right?" "Of course." "Right, well imagine that you care about a person in that exact way, but even stronger. Like... this is the most wonderful, precious person to you, and you would do anything to keep them safe, and to make them happy. Even... even if it meant risking your own life, if that's what it came down to. That's love."       Henry absorbed Evelyn's words, and chose to take a moment to process them. In that moment, he couldn't help but wonder if 'love' was what he was feeling towards Evelyn right now. He certainly never felt more strongly about anyone before, even Elijah 47. His curiosity brought out a follow-up question. "Wow... did you ever 'love' anyone?" "I don't know... I mean I guess I love my Dad still. He did kinda raise me after Mom died... helped me start my first business... he showed me he cared, in his own way. As for, like, dating and stuff... I was more focused on setting up a career, y'know? I wanted to sort myself out first, become the person I was meant to be... I guess I figured there was always time to find someone later... boy was I wrong."       Once again Henry could see the light fading from Evelyn's eyes as she slumped down into herself. He was starting to sense a pattern in this behavior, as any mention of what Atlanta apparently used to be was framed in Evelyn's mind as a loss. Henry tried to imagine how he'd feel if the entirety of Haven suddenly got wiped out, leaving him as the sole survivor. From what Evelyn told him, it seemed she was feeling a similar sense of loss, but amplified a thousand-fold. In that moment, Henry scrambled to find any way to steer the topic of conversation that could distract Evelyn from the past. He decided to focus on the present. "Well hey, maybe you can find someone in Haven! It's a great community." "Oh really? Tell me about it." Evelyn's tone, sharpened with a hint of sarcasm, nontheless reassured Henry that he had successfully redirected her attention, and would perhaps be able to lighten her mood. "Well... there's way fewer of us, but we all care for each other, I think. We emerge when God creates us, and then after a period of Innocence, God assigns each of us a chore, and if everyone does their part, we all benefit. It's quaint, but I like it." "And what is your 'chore'?" "I'm a Shepherd. I have this wristwatch here, and sometimes i get messages from Archangel Michael, of flock who've misbehaved. It's my job to bring them back to the Hospital, so they can be punished, then hopefully re-educated." "So you're basically a cop." "What's a cop?" "Oh God, nevermind... So the wristwatch tells you someone is guilty. Is there, like, a trial or something?" "What do you mean?" "I mean: how do you know that that person did what the watch says they did?" "I... I just do...?" "You just believe it without questioning it?" "Why would Archangel Michael lie?" "Oh my fucking God..."       The following pause was unique from the rest, in that this time the primary expression on Evelyn's face was one of utter frustration. It reminded Henry of the very similar conversation he had with Lucas 40. She was focusing on the same things he was: a justification for God's commands. This confused Henry until she changed the subject. "Alright, here's another question: what's with your face?" "What do you mean?" "I mean, where did your nose and ears go?" "Oh...I never had any. I used to have nose-skin, but they had it removed. All of the flock of Haven are born... incomplete. Some are missing organs or glands, for others they're there, but not working well, y'know? Hey... wait a minute!" In that instant Henry realized that there was still something he hadn't accounted for. "I fell unconscious up at the top of the Tower! Did you get me down from there?" "Oh yeah, I was passing by when I heard your... 'Stallion' roaring inside. I checked it out, and then found you lying unconscious at the top. So I brought you downstairs to the quad, but you didn't wake up right away... so I kinda borrowed some of your water. Sorry." Evelyn gave Henry a sheepish smile after that line. He found it absolutely adorable, but not enough to sway his curiosity. "But I did wake up. I should be in a diabetic coma right now." "What do you mean? You have Diabetes?" "Type 1. But if you didn't know, then how did you... did you somehow heal me? I forgot to bring my Insulin injections with me." "Oh... that explains the weird tingling in my fingers." "What do you mean?" "After I brought you down, I examined you, and when I touched your skin, right here on the neck... I felt this weird tingling in my fingers. Like something was being drained from me. It hurt a little, but it felt kinda right... and then when I pulled my fingers away... there were two little punctures in your skin. Does that mean..." "My God... you truly are divine! You gave me Insulin! I'm now twice in your debt!" "Wow... shit, maybe you're right! My body has felt kinda weird ever since I woke up... here, watch this."       As she said that, Evelyn suddenly stood up, and then proceeded to run at full speed towards the edge of the floor. Before Henry could even muster a word in protest, Evelyn was already in mid-air, plummeting straight down until she was out of view. Henry rushed up to his legs and ran over to see what happened, but as he approached the edge a gust of wind and a white flash rushed upwards right past his face. He looked up, and saw Evelyn, hanging with one arm up above him from the floor beam of the floor above. Her left arm, with it's fingers sunk into the concrete like it was mud, was lightly outstretched as if made of elastic, while her body gently bounced as if swaying in the wind. She smiled down at him, then released her grip and effortlessly landed back onto Henry's level, dusting herself off as she walked back to Kawasaki. "Yeah, I figured this out last night, when I accidentally fell off the side of a 3-story building. It's like I'm partially made of rubber or something. Whatever this is, I can tell you for a fact that this right here, is not my original body. I'm not even sure this is a Human body, really. " "This is incredible! You really are the divine!" "Nah, man, more like a breakthrough in science. Clearly my dad's been busy this whole time, and this is yet another one of his experiments..." "Well I'm sure you'll have time to ask any questions of him when we return to Haven." "Return? What?" "Well, not right away. I thought we could spend the night here, then head back to Haven in the morning. Easier to navigate the sands by daylight." "Excuse me, did I say I'm going back?" "Uhh...are you not?" "Well... I haven't decided yet! Just cause Daddy Dearest over there's summoned me like I'm one of his 'flock', doesn't mean I'm just gonna do as I'm told and come right back. I mean... there must be a reason I ran away in the first place..." "So... what's the reason?" "That's the thing... I don't remember... there's a bunch of vague images in my head of jumping up out of the ground, but the first thing I remember clearly is running around in the city. Maybe you can help me jog my memory. You said that I helped you the day before?" "Yeah, we had a Market at the Square near the Village, when the earthquake started. I was with my friend, Elijah 47, and I was trying to get him to safety, but then the earth ripped apart from under me, and we both fell down. I lost sight of him, and barely managed to grab onto the cliffside. Just as I was about to lose my grip, I saw you soaring from below, carrying Elijah in your arms. You jumped up to the surface, then came back down for me. I passed out as you were grabbing me, and then I woke up a few hours later, and you were gone." "Well at least I know how I managed to jump out... but why was I running away?" "Hmm... when God spoke to me, it said you were confused. It wanted to talk to you to clear up 'this misunderstanding'. Maybe you two had an argument?"       Those words triggered something in Evelyn, as was clear by the rapid shifting of her facial expressions, from annoyed indignation to epiphanous awe, to abject fury. Henry saw the fire burning in her eyes, as they pierced his soul, petrifying him in his place as he desperately tried to understand what he had just said that triggered such a response from her. She jolted up to her feet, but instead of clobbering Henry to a pulp, as he feared, she made her way towards the edge of the Trust Tower once more, whereupon she turned around to glare one last time at Henry. The look in her eyes, especially juxtaposed with the now fully starry night sky, gave Henry the most terrifying of chills. Without knowing why, Henry felt only the acute sting of guilt in his heart as those accusing eyes continued to pierce him. When he could take the suspense no longer, Evelyn turned around again, and jumped off the ledge, disappearing into the night.       Henry sat and waited for Evelyn to return. A minute passed, then five, then ten. And slowly, the realization began to dawn on Henry: the outcome he had dreaded so much, he never allowed himself the chance to consider it. There he was, on the 50th floor of the Trust Tower, in the middle of the night, having just met his savior, the daughter of his own God, the woman he was tasked with returning back home, and then almost immediately losing her, with no clue how to find her again. In that moment, as the weight of his colossal failure compounded with each passing moment, Henry felt the rare sting of tears in his eyes, and quietly wept into the night.       To his surprise, the tears seemed to have calmed him down after a while, and he began to think more rationally about the given situation. He realized, for example, that Evelyn was still a living being, miraculous though her powers might be. This meant that she would eventually get thirsty and hungry. He stood up and rifled through the supplies left on Kawasaki, and found nothing amiss, much to his relief. This meant that, if he waited long enough, Evelyn would have no choice but to return to him... or return to Haven. Henry briefly winced at the thought that perhaps he would not be credited with returning Evelyn back to Haven if she'd come back on her own, before him, and wondered how long he'd have to stay out here in the Ruins to be reasonably sure she went back without him. He scanned the food and drink left on his Stallion, and roughly estimated it would last him three more full days. Having regained his composure, Henry enjoyed a shivering wave of relief through his body, which then was accompanied by a literal shiver from the cold of the night. It was only at that moment that Henry realized just how long he'd been awake (excluding the diabetic shock), and how tired his body had become.       He decided to retire for the night on the same 50th floor of the Trust Tower, since it was a cozy position with a great view of the Ruins, and a familiar place to both himself and Evelyn, should she wish to return to him the following day. After a few minutes of searching, he found a secluded chamber in the middle of the floor which had no window openings, but just one door frame with a missing door. This room suffered the least interference from the wind, making it an ideal camping spot. So, having parked Kawasaki just outside, he unfolded his night coat into a makeshift sleeping bag, laid down on the cold hard ground, and closed his eyes, almost immediately drifting into the recesses of his dreams for the night.

* * *

When Henry opened his eyes again, he was greeted with an overabundance of light and heat, which told him that he had probably slept through the entire morning, and was awake again at midday. He confirmed his suspicion by looking up and instantly observing the radiant noon sun burning his face from directly above. Thankfully the usually boisterous winds haven't picked up this day either, making it one of the more pleasant noons of the week. What made this particular noon extremely disappointing, however, was the continued absence of Evelyn. Somehow Henry had hoped that she'd return to him again in the morning, either out of loneliness or just due to hunger or thirst, and that he'd have a chance to talk to her again, to perhaps right whatever wrong he'd done the night before. He checked the food and water supplies on his Stallion, hoping that something might be missing, but alas everything was intact. Even the small box with the strange tablet was still there, untouched since the previous evening. Evelyn was gone, and Henry had finally summed up the courage to accept it. After a somber breakfast of dried fruit and a few meat pieces, Henry decided to take a look out at the Ruins of Atlanta once again, transformed in his eyes by the light of information granted to him by the daughter of the divine he was blessed to speak to, if only briefly. The city below him, despite the persistent ruin and desolation, now seemed to glow with the aftermath of a bustling, thriving community of thousands of people. He imagined the other buildings and towers around him standing strong and defiant against the wind, gleaming in the sunlight, monuments to the God of America. He imagined the busy roads between the buildings, bustling with the lifeblood of the people who used to live there. He pictured the 'coffee shop', as he now knew to call it, and how pleasant it might have been to sit down at a table and drink a 'coffee' while exchanging pleasantries with other patrons at one's leisure. He imagined an entire community of people like Evelyn, living their lives, making the best of their time in the world... and the image in his head brought an overwhelming wave of melancholy down upon him, as he continued to gaze onwards at the crumbling expanse below. All his life, Henry was taught that the flock of Babylon were arrogant; that they took what they had for granted, and that this is what became of their world as a result. But Evelyn wasn't arrogant. She was kind, and patient. At times perhaps she seemed somewhat temperamental and mercurial, but those are not alien behaviors to even the flock of Haven. If all of the people of America were like her, then surely America couldn't have been that bad a place to live in. After all, they 'loved' one another, something the flock of Haven did not. At that thought, Henry's mind raced toward something that Evelyn said which piqued his interest: She and her father, the literal God of Haven, both lived in Atlanta. This means that the God of Haven knew about Love, but chose not to share that knowledge with the flock. Henry struggled to reconcile this contradiction: the flock of Haven were all taught to care for and share with one another, so why would caring even more deeply about each other be wrong? Surely Love was just a more powerful iteration of the bond the flock of Haven already had? Perhaps it was the power of Love that overwhelmed the people of Atlanta, of America itself? Perhaps the power of Love is dangerous, and the God of Haven simply wanted to protect his flock from it, to form a more perfect society? Or perhaps, as Henry desperately hoped to ignore feeling deep inside his soul, the God of Haven might be lying?       It was in the middle of these ponderings in his own mind that Henry suddenly realized his keen eyes had caught a glimpse of something foreign in the distant west. It was a small object, roughly the size of a person, or perhaps larger, moving at impressive speed through the open roads of Atlanta, kicking up dust behind it as it leapt. At first he'd hoped he had found Evelyn again, but upon a closer examination, as this object was fast approaching the city center, he realized it was much larger, and moved with considerably less grace than Evelyn had shown. This was something else entirely... or perhaps someone else.       As Henry continued to gaze in the direction of this running entity, he caught brief flashes of chrome reflecting off the sunlight, and soon the shape of this being became more and more familiar to Henry. By the time it had almost reached the open square just beneath the Trust Tower, Henry understood perfectly well what this was. His heart sank at the realization.       It was the Archangel Michael.