SciFi Files

Part 1 (High Tech): Michael's Boy

I first met Michael and his son when I was six, with wide eyes and a wide smile. My father knew Michael from their school-days, and Michael greeted him happily. "I got a boy just like him meself." He turned to me. "Why don' you two go play? Son!"

A towheaded boy materialized out of the fields. I introduced myself. We ran out into the wheat and cheerily skimmed our hands over layers of plants.

Micheal's boy leapt across a crackling brook, one of the many irrigation canals cutting into the streams of grain. But rather than running ahead, he turned around. I stopped short, not jumping across.

"Who created us?"

I balked at this odd question. Even the smallest babies knew the answer. "The Lord Creator. Doesn't everyone know that?"

"Why," he philosophized, "how's everyone know then? How'da they know for sure?"

I opened my eyes wide. "Gabriel-Son-Of-Michael," I said, as seriously as a six year old could, "Are you a Doubter?"

"I'm not doubting annething, I'm just asking." He scuffed specks of dirt into the clear water. "I'm just asking how you know the lord created you."

I didn't notice until years later that he said you. Not us.

"Good," I replied, "don't Doubt. And if you want'a know more about the Lord, ask Michael. He'll tell you." We continued skipping across the fields, and my father and I left Michael's home perhaps an hour later.

Michael's boy was born two months before me, hence we were in the same class at Faithful School. Despite being acquaintances, we ran in different social circles. And so we aged to twelve, hardly saying a word to each other.

During our sixth year at Faithful School, Michael's son caught me as I left school and asked to talk. I followed him, hoping this wouldn't take long. My family wanted me home by dark. Michael's son sat down along the edge of the field and exchanged customary greetings.

"Do you remember when you wondered if I was a Doubter?" he asked. I nodded. I did, vaguely, remember that time in the fields. "I think I am a Doubter." He said this without any hint of feeling or hint of remorse.

My heart dropped to the ground while my stomach pulsed in my throat. "You...you said you were just asking."

"You won't turn me in?" His voice betrayed the slightest tremor of fear below it, and I failed to see any monstrous Doubting. I saw the frightened boy and his curious six-year-old self, lost on the path to happiness. He would eventually, like in the tales of the Holy Book, walk in the light of the Creator.

"I won't."

"Do you promise?"

"I promise."

"Good." Michael's son smiled. "Now that's out of the way, there's something I want ta show you." Ignoring the setting sun that spoke and told me to go home, I followed him.

Michael greeted me at the entry to their home. He remembered my name and smiled. "Friends duna' come to visit Gabriel often."

"This way." Michael's son led me up the creaking stairs to his room and opened the door.

Coil upon coil of silver. Matchboxes piled into intricate pyramids. Sheets of tin, pans of melted lead. A setup of a sieve suspended carefully above a wooden pail of water. The wood black and burned.

"What-"

"I've made something." The boy pulled me after him into the room. "Look't this, Leo." He presented a polished silver figure, sleek and oddly enticing with its coiled iron and wires. "Do you know what this is?"

I did not.

He flipped it around and held it in his hand. A grip. A trigger. "Tis a shooting mechanism."

It was then that I realized the mistake I had made, in promising I would not report his Doubt.

His smile grew. "It can shoot farther'n a bow and is much more powerful, too. It could kill a man." He looked at me and quickly added "if I wanted it to."

"It-that-it's illegal."

"But think of what this'd improve!" he wheedled, "Hunting would be more efficient. We could have meat once a day. Twice a day, even. And with other mechanisms-" He pulled papers out from under his mattress, "Communication between villages. Communication between time."

I left his room. He didn't chase me. I told Michael that my mother needed me home now.

I did not talk to Michael's boy for years after that. I begged myself to turn him in, but did not. Eventually that day faded like a well-worn dream. 

At sixteen our class graduated from Faithful School and entered Hope School. As I walked to the new facilities, Michael's boy took my arm and urgently led me away. "I've discovered something in my research, Leo. We live under a giant dome."

"The Holy Book tells of a shield the Lord has placed over us to protect us, that's it."

"I have also learned that I can break this shield," Michael's son continues, "With a strong shooting mechanism."

I was speechless.

"I'll contact the past, to teach me to build a powerful weapon. I'll fly up and break the dome-"

"You're insane!"

I shoved him away from me, eyes shut tight, fear settling over me like a seething mist. "You're insane. You're crazy. Please. Turn away from your evil deeds. Please. Turn yourself in to the Village, give yourself back to the Lord who made you-"

Gabriel scrambled up, didn't bother to pick up his papers. "I may be Gabriel-son-of-Michael, a farmer in your Holy Book, but I am Gabriel the archangel now. I will build like Daedalus, fly like Icarus. I will rule this village, rule every village."

His eyes were wild as he spoke of people not from any book of the Village. He reached into his back pockets, withdrew shooting machines. They flashed threateningly.

"Narrow beliefs have trapped you, Leonardo-son-of-Jonah, we are all trapped under this dome." He reached his arms for the sun. "I will set you free."