“Saviors”

by Geoffrey Hart

Previously published as: Hart, G. 2022. Saviors. p. 169-173 In: Coatsworth, J.S. (ed.) Save the World (anthology). Other Worlds Ink.

There were no miraculous signs at her birth: no wise men (unless you counted the doctors and nurses), no stellar prophecies (unless you counted the glowing fireball of the International Space Station as it deorbited), and no mundane prophecies (unless you counted the ubiquitous end-of-days rumors that circulated endlessly in the social media of the time). There was not even a virgin birth; neither parent had been a virgin for more than a decade, in point of fact, unless you relied on the old and laughably outdated interpretation in which all unmarried women could safely be assumed to be virgins.

On the other hand, her father was a carpenter. But that was a dying art in an age of fabbed, 3D-printed composites and robotic labor. Even the market for bespoke wood products had dwindled to the point where those who practiced the old ways fought tooth and nail (or tenon and screw) for the few woodworking jobs that remained. That despite the broadly accepted fact that wooden products were, at worst, climate-neutral, and were growing in popularity. So her family was impoverished, and moved from place to place, following the dwindling work. They slept in fields, or occasionally a barn, as opportunity presented. One might be tempted to criticize her father for stubborn pride, and to wonder why he was so unwilling to seek other work—any work—to care for his family. But in doing so, you’d have forgotten how little work was to be found for anyone, whatever their skills, in those days when all the best jobs had been offshored. When international shipping was forbidden because of the climate costs, there was, briefly, a resurgence of work for carpenters. This let her family eventually settle down for her school years, but it remained a meager existence.

Her parents, like all parents everywhere, knew their child was special. She learned to speak late; at first, they feared she was a different kind of special. She did eventually learn, and the only unusual feature of her speech was how slow and carefully considered it was. She loved animals of any kind, and they loved her in turn; once, so they say, a train of mice followed her home, flanked by feral cats, each species keeping a warily respectful distance from their traditional enemies. Once, a dog that had been struck by a car lay in the street snapping and snarling at any who approached to help; yet it let her touch it, and perhaps heal it if the stories are to be believed. Those bystanders who could be located many years later told of how sorely wounded the dog had been, yet after she petted it and spoke quiet words to it, it got up, shook itself, and walked away, tail high.

In school, she seemed unremarkable, save only that she was never bullied. Young girls, what with their ostracism and teasing, are nasty in ways boys can hardly imagine. Yet somehow, she was included in every social group, despite occasional mutterings and dark looks. When a boy was being bullied, the teachers tell us, somehow she often seemed to be there—and the bullying stopped, at least for a time. It was no surprise when she was unanimously nominated class valedictorian—nor when she refused the honor. Center stage was never her place.

When her father left one day, without so much as a fare-thee-well, she grew quiet, even by her standards, for a few days. Then she shrugged, and took up the burden he’d abandoned, working an evening job after school to help her mother pay the rent. She worked her way through a degree in history and sociology, graduating in the middle of her class. Her only mark of distinction was the day she caused the Applied Theology teacher to run screaming from the room, tearing at his hair, when he couldn’t convince her of the validity of a point he’d made successfully for decades with previous classes. Accounts differed on what that point had been. Some were certain it involved the concept of original sin, hinting darkly that her feminist take on the subject had proven maddening to this comfortable member of the patriarchy. Others proposed it had to do with liberation theology and the need for moral people to act in this world, particularly in the face of a growing environmental crisis, an approach that proved unpalatable to his passive, fatalistic, reactionary academic outlook. Still others asserted that it related to an obscure point of religious dogma, of which a great many had been discussed in that class, including a quantum mechanical interpretation of how many angels could dance upon the head of a pin—an argument sadly lost to us.

The only thing her classmates agreed upon was this: that had they been less immersed in the artificial reality of their classroom, or perhaps more immersed and less distracted by social media, they’d have spent more time enjoying the confrontation.

One other thing: whether or not she was a virgin in either sense of the word, none could remember a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a gender-unspecified special friend, or an “it’s complicated” friend. Everyone claimed to love her, though few can recall her face, her name, or even her skin color or her hair color and length at this remove—and those who do, recall details that differ from everyone else’s recollection. (We’ve chosen not to pursue these details further, as we consider them irrelevant to the larger point.) However, that love was not always without resentment. When challenged on this point, they looked awkward for a moment, observed that she could be a bit fanatical in her choice of causes, and changed the subject.

After graduation, she disappeared for a time. Scrupulous examination of media recovered from a midden that survived those troubled times, in a drowned coastal city, revealed her to be increasingly present at demonstrations to protest the social injustices endemic to that day: legislation against non-binary gender, legislation to formally enshrine (so to speak) Christianity as the state religion, and legislation to require all adult white males to carry a handgun, while relieving women of this moral responsibility. She was even present at the demonstration against legislation to provide carbon emission credits proportional to one’s net worth. In each case, the legislation was defeated, though not without a fight.

The strange thing was, in hindsight, that she never seemed to be a key figure in any of these protests. She was never front and center, standing on a stage and exhorting everyone to take up arms or resist. More of a catalyst. Someone who brought people together and helped them forge themselves into something stronger. Indeed, had it not been for advanced analytical software capable of shape and gait recognition and the ubiquitous surveillance by Homeland Security, it’s doubtful she’d ever have been detected at all. Yet, for each key moment in the political history of that lost time, analysis of crowds revealed her to be there. Due to image degradation and low resolution, the confirmation was based mainly on body language and the distinctive characteristics of her gait. When things settled down, when the crazy years finally came to a reluctant end, everyone took a deep, calming breath, and she disappeared again. Some say that’s because she never existed—that she was, in fact, all of us. Their opinions are roundly dismissed by those who study such subjects.

There’s a familiar meme that were the messiah to be born today, (s)he’d be killed by angry mobs. Historians will continue to debate this issue, evincing evidence with varying degrees of credibility to support their thesis. In the absence of corpus delicti, and the absence of any reappearance to provide evidence of rebirth from some dramatic death, the debate over her divine status and subsequent fate seems futile. Fodder only for graduate students hoping to cull some useful data—such as her name—from such data as survived the crazy years and the encryption-ware that infested most computer systems before the end, including those of the malefactors who held decryption passwords that were suddenly no longer legible.

So we must leave the matter here, in the hope that future generations—generations that now seem increasingly likely to exist, despite lethal summer heatwaves—will be able to decrypt some of that lost data and resolve the matter for us.

Whether we have been saved, or whether we somehow managed to save ourselves, will remain a matter of faith until then.

Comments from readers

To comment on this story or see other comments, please visit the blog page for this story.

Want to build on this story?

If you liked the characters or setting and want to use them in your own fiction, please do; the dialog between authors enhances the value of fiction. However, please add a suitably amended version of the following statement at the start of your story:

"The characters and setting in this story originated in [story name and URL/link], by Geoff Hart. Although Geoff encouraged adaptation of his original work, he has not reviewed my story, and the original story remains copyrighted in his name."

Then send me a link to your story, and I'll post the link here.