The Invitation(60)
“How could you help us?”
“At your request, and approval, we can permanently disarm all nuclear weapons on Earth, and relieve you and your children of this perilous threat. That can be done right now.”
Stunned by the unexpected offer, the Vice President pauses for a moment, and doesn’t know what to say. For many simultaneously seeing and hearing this conversation, the unprompted offer to instantly rid the world of nuclear weapons is enticing, and also somewhat unnerving in its suddenness.
Meanwhile, the President’s mother, still in the throes of her nightmarish dream, is oblivious to the scene being played out in Miami and broadcast live on her television only feet away. Completely immersed in her subconscious experience, Kathryn Myers finds herself a reluctant participant in a dream that seems to be building in its intensity, a dream that is dark, threatening, and disturbingly lucid. The slaughterhouse that she finds herself in seems to have no doors or exits. She sees the slow death march of the condemned, including the animal whose frightened gaze she saw earlier. It seems to recognize her face, and does something strange as it moves closer to the final threshold. It pauses, and looks back at her as if to say something, and their eyes once again meet. An overpowering empathy seizes her, and she instantly feels an inexplicable primal bond with this creature. Who are you? She wonders. Are you a dream? Are you real? I want you to live. Please, please let him live, she silently cries, but no one answers. Mercy has no place or meaning here. The doomed animal is prodded forward by its tormentor. It’s near the end.
For those in Olympic Stadium in Miami, and the countless multitudes witnessing the incredible drama being played out there, events are also coming to an end, a tragic, and violent end.
Chapter Eighteen
Still projected across a quarter of the night sky, the unbelievable events in Miami have mesmerized hundreds of millions of spectators as they witness events that will effectively alter the course of human history. Some however, are simply unable to accept that what they are seeing is actually real. It doesn’t seem possible that something like this could really be happening. In rapt fascination, they hear and watch the dialogue continue.
As the Vice President grapples with the unexpected proposal of eliminating the world’s nuclear weapons, his response is reserved and indefinite.
“I, uh, don’t have the authority to decide that.”
“You hesitate, Mr. Conner. Your tentative response is not encouraging. You should respond as a child would instantly run from fire. It’s not your fear, but your habit of fear, that chokes you.”
“Removing all nuclear weapons is something that requires consultation, preparation, and agreement. Other people have to be involved. I can’t make that decision alone.”
“That’s right, Mr. Conner. Only the people, and nations of Earth can decide what their future will be, but you need to know something. The longer you choose to live with these powerful weapons, the more likely their use becomes. Like children playing with hand grenades, your technical civilization is simply not mature enough to tamper with that scale of energy release. We implore you to reconsider this.”
“We want to avoid any and all disasters, either now or in the future, and we hope you will help us do that,” Mr. Conner says.
“You cannot avoid the coming environmental collapse, but you can avoid the fatal combination of that and a nuclear war.”
After a momentary pause the Linesian says these words: “We could neutralize your arsenals without you even knowing it, but you would restore them. It’s better that you collectively choose to envision a reality without them, and dismantle them yourselves.”
At this, the Vice President looks over and sees the President stand up, and watches him do something he hasn’t done since this remarkable drama began more than thirty hours ago. In contrast to his strangely detached personal demeanor, he looks for the first time at the Linesian android, and an unspoken communication between them seems to occur. Then the Linesian looks back at Vice President Conner, and says something that will be remembered for centuries.
“Only when mankind can collectively envision a future without the blight of war and violence will that peaceful world that waits in your imagination become a reality. That human future is now inviting you into itself. When, and only when we see that you have accepted that invitation will we return again, unsummoned and ready to help.”
With these words the Linesian ends, and briefly looks once more at President Myers. All has been said. The time is now 1:09 a.m.
Far from her son and the dramatic suspense playing out in Miami, the dreaming Kathryn Myers remains a captive witness to her own personal nightmare that is now reaching its terminal climax. She finds herself again with the doomed animal whose death walk has brought it to the last moments of its life. Her worst fear is realized. Kathryn Myers must personally witness this killing. She must watch as this living creature, a creature she feels viscerally connected to in some strange way, is electrically shocked into unconsciousness, hung upside down by its legs, and has its throat sliced open. As she lies sleeping on the couch, a paralyzing sense of extreme dread comes over her. The final grisly act of her nightmarish ordeal now plays out. For Kathryn Myers this disturbing, scene is shocking in its brutal intensity. She has no idea that this dream will return again, and again, in her life, leaving her a changed woman. Only twelve feet away from her, the televised image of her son is visible. If mercy can be credited with sparing Kathryn Myers any degree of unnecessary anguish, it will be because she will not have to see what is about to happen in Miami, Florida. Kathryn Myers will wake from the nightmare she is presently experiencing, into one that will never end, the one that will soon begin in Olympic Stadium.