Blind Faith (27 page)

When he came round he was back in his cell. It took a long
time for him to work this out as his eyes were glued
together with blood, his ribs felt broken and his muscles
were too smashed up for him to move.

And yet, as he lay there, immobile, his body racked with
pain, facing the certainty of an agonizing death, he felt a
sort of contentment.

In a way, he'd won. He had made a protest. He had
spoken out, forming two or three whole sentences of truth
in a world where truth was illegal. Not only that but he
had done it in the middle of a Wembley Faith Festival!
A quarter of a million people had heard him live and
many millions more would have seen and heard it on an
infotainment loop. The Temple had designed his confession
as a major event and briefly he had hijacked it. Nobody
had ever done that before. Nobody had ever spoken the
truth at Wembley and he doubted that anyone ever would
again. In a society where everybody was 'proud' to be an
individual but was in fact one of so many sheep in a vast
herd, he was unique. And who knew? Perhaps somebody
had listened. Perhaps one or two in that multitude had
heard his point and had begun to think. Even if he had
planted a single seed of doubt in one person's head, he
had made a difference. He had scored a victory against the
Temple. Who else could say as much?

But more than that. Much, much more than that. He
had held on to all his precious secrets. They would kill him
while actually knowing almost nothing about him. They
knew that he had had his child vaccinated but that was a
secret he was proud to advertise. They knew nothing about
his secret world, his studies in science and history, fiction
and the power of the imagination. He doubted whether
their imaginations, brutish and stunted as they were,
would even understand it if they did.

He had told them nothing about the Humanists, not a
word! The fools had not even known enough to guess that
a man who had had his child vaccinated might pursue
other subversive activities. The network was safe. Cassius
was dead but the library would remain open, and other
libraries would one day be formed. For the time being at
least they were safe. Macallan and Taylor were safe.
Connor Newbury was safe. Above all, Sandra Dee was safe!

His silence, and Cassius's courage in taking his own life,
had saved them all.

And they knew nothing of his love. His most painful
and precious secret. They did not know that he was in love
with Sandra Dee and that he had given her the gift of
books so she would for evermore be free to travel to better
worlds than the one the Temple had made. Sandra Dee
would be proud of him; right now, he imagined, she
would be terrified, fearful that his capture would lead
them to her. But as weeks went by and no arrest came she
would understand that she was safe. She would return to
the library. She would induct others to the cause. And who
knew, perhaps one day the world would be free of
blind faith.

Doctors arrived and inspected his wounds.

'Have to have you fit enough to mount the bonfire' was
all they would say when he enquired about his condition.

The following day he was brought a Zimmer frame and
told that he must take some exercise.

'Your execution is in less than a week,' the doctor said. 'If
you can't walk to it unaided then it's us who'll answer for
it. In my view, if they want their prisoners fit enough to be
properly executed then they shouldn't beat them so hard
in the first place – but nobody listens to me.'

Trafford was helped off his bed and out of his cell. He
was made to limp along the great circular corridor and
towards the centre of the dome, where he found himself
suddenly beneath the great vaulted ceiling. The middle
part of the floor that had been laid at the base of the dome
had not been built upon, so it was open to the roof far
above. This was clearly the exercise yard, for it was filled
with other figures just like Trafford, bruised and broken,
supported by frames and walking sticks, taking their
exercise in preparation for their execution.

'Walk,' the guard said.

Trafford joined the shuffling crowd, his thoughts fixed
mainly on Sandra Dee. Sometimes, of course, his mind
turned to Caitlin Happymeal and from there to Phoenix
Rising, his other lost child, but he did his best not to dwell
on such sadness.

'I forgive you,' he heard a voice say. It was a strange voice,
inflicted with some form of impediment, and at first
Trafford did not realize that it was directed at him. Then
the same voice addressed him by name.

'I forgive you, Trafford.'

Looking round, Trafford saw a swollen face, purple with
bruising, both eyes blackened and almost closed. Peering
into it, he realized with a chill of horror that he knew this
person. The last time he had seen him he had been
wearing thick glasses and guarding the entrance to his
precious library.

'They . . . caught you?' Trafford asked.

'Of course they did,' the Owl said in his strange new
voice. 'I presume you talked. It doesn't matter. We'll all talk
in the end. Me too, I'm sure. I tried to bite my tongue out
when they came for me but I made a half-arsed job of it
and they sewed it back. Fortunately I have very little for
them. I never knew the names of most of the people
Cassius brought to us. Except for the troublemakers,
like you.'

'I didn't betray you,' Trafford replied.

'Whatever,' the Owl replied, 'to use a phrase which I
personally abhor.'

'Keep walking!' a guard barked and the Owl moved on,
leaving Trafford to shuffle in the opposite direction.

After this Trafford saw Macallan and then Taylor, and
Connor Newbury, shockingly reduced from his former
glory. There were others also that he recognized from the
library and Trafford realized with an anguished heart that
somehow or other the Inquisition had penetrated the
resistance after all. He started looking about, desperately
searching for Sandra Dee, hoping against hope that he
would not find her. Why had she been so impatient? Why
had she insisted on joining the library so soon? If only she
had waited she might have avoided this terrible round-up.

Then he saw her. She was standing by the door through
which he had entered the exercise yard and staring back at
him. He began to hobble towards her but she did not
move. Nor was she bruised or injured in any way. She was
dressed, as always, prettily but modestly and she looked
fresh and clean. Beside her stood Brother Redemption.
Trafford stopped. Then he watched as Sandra Dee said
something to the Inquisitor, as if giving him an order.
Then Brother Redemption began walking towards him.

Trafford was ordered to follow Sandra Dee back to his cell.
Head bowed, he watched the gentle sway of her light
cotton dress as she walked. It was a dress he had last seen
spread out around her as she sat nearly naked on the
bench of her boat, listening to his sexual fantasies.

'Leave us,' Sandra Dee said to Brother Redemption as
they entered Trafford's cell.

'But—' the Inquisitor began to protest.

'He's been beaten half to death,' Sandra Dee snapped. 'I
don't think he's likely to give me any trouble. Leave us.'

'Very well, ma'am,' the previously all-powerful figure
said and left without further protest. The door closed
behind him and Sandra Dee and Trafford were alone.

'You work for the Inquisition?' Trafford asked. Somehow
he felt calm; the calm of the already dead.

'Well, not exactly,' Sandra Dee replied. 'I'm a government
employee, like you. A policewoman, a spy really, but
effectively we all work for the Temple, don't we?'

Trafford might have felt strangely calm but that did not
prevent him from being totally confused.

'You came to work in our office . . . to spy on us?'

'Yes.'

'Do the police have a spy in every office?'

'Of course not.'

'Why ours?'

'We were looking for a Vaccinator,' she explained. 'You're
wrong about all the data NatDat collects being useless, by
the way. We use it all the time, particularly Degrees of
Separation. That's how we knew that in the last few years
our dead friend Cassius had been around colleagues
whose children seemed to be bucking the plague trends.
Simple link: find a parent whose child survives a plague,
key in all known contacts, keep doing it until you find a
common factor. In this case, Cassius. That's how we
usually catch Vaccinators. Using DegSep.'

There were so many things that Trafford wanted to ask,
so many accusations that he wished to hurl into the face of
this woman who was a spy.

'But . . . if you catch Vaccinators by tracing healthy
children' – Trafford's voice shook with outrage – 'you must
accept that vaccination
works
!'

'Obviously, Trafford. That's why the police are not the
Inquisition. They are obliged by their faith to deny it. We
are not bound by such strict codes of piety. We catch the
Vaccinators because we know that vaccination works and
then they burn them because they know that it doesn't.'

Suddenly Trafford lunged at her, his fist clenched, his
face snarling. He did not get halfway across the floor
before his wounded body gave out.

'Please, Trafford,' said Sandra Dee, 'don't be ridiculous.'

'By arresting Vaccinators you murder children!'
he shouted.

'I'm a policewoman, Trafford. My job is to uphold
the law.'

'Why? Why are you a policewoman?'

'For all the reasons that you became a Humanist. For all
the reasons that first attracted you to me and . . .' here she
seemed momentarily to hesitate, 'and me to you.'

'Don't be insane.'

'I'm serious. I am everything you are except I have
mastered my conscience. Working undercover allows me
as many secrets as I want. Only I know who I am. The
false blog you uncovered gets selected and uploaded for
me by a clerk in my department. I've never even looked
at it. I think that the world is as shitty as you do,
Trafford, but by working for it I get to opt out. I don't
even have to have a fucking boob job. My body's my
own and my soul is my own. I live an entirely secret life
and the Temple means nothing to me. And what's more,
in the course of my duties I get to meet the most
interesting people. People like you, Trafford. And the
other Humanists. We had only guessed at their existence
before you brought me to them. We had absolutely no
idea they were so organized, and while I was pursuing
you I got to read all those wonderful books. I shall keep
mine. That's why I'm a cop, Trafford. Drug cops take
drugs, vice cops look at illegal porn and I get to read
Pride and Prejudice
.'

'You filthy, selfish bitch . . .'

'Trafford, selfish is the
only way to be
. Why shouldn't I be
selfish? When you consider what humanity is, what a
useless, fucked-up tribe of sadistic, pig-ignorant fools we
really are, you see that selfishness is actually the only
moral course. Why sacrifice yourself for other people?
They're all utter shits. If you have the character to
make
a
sacrifice, you're already too good for the arseholes you
want to save. Look at the world they built.'

'Am I a shit? Was Cassius a shit?'

She looked at him for a moment before replying.

'No. You're not a shit, Trafford. You're a fine man and I
liked you. There are exceptions, of course, but not enough
to be worth martyring yourself for. Humanity had it all
and threw it away. If it had it all again it would throw it
away again. History is one long proof that the human race
does not deserve the brains it was born with. We're a rotten
useless breed and in the long run the only thing to do is to
look after number one.'

Trafford was still lying on the floor where he had fallen.
She pulled him to his feet and helped him back to his bed.
He was surprised how strong she was.

'Think about it, Trafford,' Sandra Dee continued, 'and
you'll see I'm right.'

'Why would you care what I think?' he asked.

'Because you're clever and good at keeping secrets,' she
replied. 'We need people like you.'

For a moment Trafford did not understand what she
was saying.

'What do you mean?' he stuttered.

'I mean that it's time for you to grow up. You wanted to
be an individual, then
be
an individual. Your child is dead;
your wife has denounced you. You're a non-person now,
so you can pretend to be anybody we choose. Join us,
become a spy. We can change your face, place you in a
community and you'll get to keep all your secrets while
you ferret out other people's. We could even see each other
occasionally to swap books or . . . whatever. It's that or
burn, Trafford.'

'I'd rather burn.'

'I suggest you need to think about it.'

'Thinking about it will change nothing. I'd rather burn
for ever than become what you are, Sandra Dee.'

'And what's that?'

'Inhuman.'

'Then I'm proud to be inhuman because humanity is shit.'

'It isn't and you know it. You've read enough books to
understand that. Humanity encompasses the highest and
the lowest that nature has to offer. I'd rather die still
believing in the highest than become what you are. You're
the lowest, far lower than a bully like Princess Lovebud;
compared to you, she's an angel.'

Sandra Dee got up without another word and went to
the door. Then she turned.

'We killed Caitlin Happymeal, by the way,' she said.

Trafford was white with shock.

'You . . . killed her?'

'Yes. Didn't you think it was a bit of a coincidence that
she died just before you planned to use the climax of the
Miracles Do Happen
campaign to announce that Caitlin
had survived not through the work of the Lord but
through being vaccinated? You never should have told me
the plan, Trafford. The moment you did that, I knew she
would have to die. I reported what you'd told me to my
superiors and they got our chemical people to introduce
the cholera virus into your building. We killed Caitlin
Happymeal to prevent you using her as a tool against the
Temple. So you see, her death is really your fault.'

Even as Trafford's head swam with the horror of what
she was telling him, a final idea was growing in his mind.

One last plan.

'I loved you,' he said.

'I didn't ask you to,' she replied.

'But you made love to me.'

'I had sex with you.'

'Do you think you know what love is?'

'I think so.'

'I don't think you do.'

'Well, we'll never know, will we? At least you won't.'

'I wanted to tell you . . . To tell you what love is . . . I
wrote you a letter. I wrote it to you at work on the morning
I was arrested. I think perhaps I sensed that something was
going to happen.'

'Sensed? Trafford,' Sandra Dee said with a smile, 'I
thought you dealt only in reason?'

'It's filed under Ev Love.'

'Ev Love?'

'Yes. Everlasting Love.'

Despite the coldness which she was working so hard
to portray, something in Sandra Dee's manner changed
at this.

'Everlasting love?' she asked, and Trafford thought he
detected in her voice the tiniest of cracks.

'Yes,' he replied. 'Everlasting love.'

Sandra Dee resumed her defiant smile, her defences
once more intact.

'Always the romantic, eh, Trafford?' she said. Then she
was gone.

Trafford was left alone, wondering. Would she look? She
was a police spy after all; she was interested in people and
naturally curious. Also, despite what she had said, Trafford
knew that she had loved him a little. In her own inhuman
way. He thought she would look. He believed that she
would look and if she did, if she went to Trafford's folder
at DegSep and opened the Ev Love file, the emails would
be sent. Emails which contained the message of evolution.
Emails which from that point on would be self-generating.