Ximer

Ximer

“After a final count Za is our new member of the Triumvirate!”

A round of applause followed. A banquet was given in honour of the new leader.

Fried fish, roasted birds, mashed potato, for dessert a selection of bananas and mangoes.

At the table Za, a lean dark hair woman in her mid thirties with pronounced cheekbones, a long broken nose and black deep eyes, was eating quietly. Her nomination did not come as a surprise; she has been a prominent member of the community for years.

From now on she would be one of the Triumvirate, one of the three leaders that composed it, they were in charge of taking decisions for the well being of their people, her people.

Sitting in between Xel and Pit the other members of the Triumvirate her thoughts were directed to improve life around her.

It was not until very late that the whole assembly went to bed.

The following day, at 6am life resumed as normal, carpenters build tree houses, suspension bridges and anything related to wood, farmers grow vegetables, fishers go to the sea and bring fish, hunters bring birds, teachers teach the kids.

At 8am Xel a small robust bearded grey hair man approaching fifty, just finished fixing the school, putting away his hammer and started to receive kids. In the community he was known as Professor, he was teaching everyday from dawn to midday, the rest of the time he was a carpenter and the eldest member of the Triumvirate.

Life was organized as such, kids were going to school up the age of fifteen, where they were taught basic algebra, to read and write, and trained to the tasks of the community, knitting clothes, building houses, fishing, hunting, farming, depending on their abilities they where sent from the age of 12 to after school apprenticeship. At fifteen they would become citizens, active members of the community, a house would be built for them or inherit an empty one, they would receive the legal daily portion of fruits, vegetable and meat allocated per citizen. Each citizen was allowed to grow their own garden on their free time, meaning after having accomplished their communal duties.

 

On the last counting the colony was counting 561 citizens. Diseases were still running, the majority of kids never reach adulthood, and even if they did illness may still take them. The oldest person was 63, they called him The Wise, he could recall very little, all he knew was that he and the community were survivors of a disaster. That they were in a confined space of a few hundred hectares of tropical forests surrounded by mountains culminating at about two hundred meters and behind it an immense desert of which no one had ever returned.

Couples were quite rare in the community, women and men often lived separately, kids were fostered all together in a foyer, there was no specific social behavior in terms of copulation, most of the time women had children from different men. Any kind of violence was prohibited except to prohibit it, if any citizen would abuse in any shape or form any other citizen he would be put immediately to death. It was a matter of self-preservation; no time or workforce could be spared for antisocial behaviour or disruption toward the well being of individuals.

So a very peaceful and organised micro society was set.

On Thursday evening Pit, the third member of the Triumvirate a brown man with curly blond hair, blue eyes, tall and very powerful, came back from a fruitful fishing trip. He dropped his stock to be salted and stored, then headed back to his tree house. He had only one wish at the present it was to get rid of the salt on his hand. So he grabbed a bucket full of rainwater and scrubbed himself from head to tow. He climbed the ladder made of ropes, cross houses from tree to tree via wooden suspended bridges and finally reached his home. There he would find his daily ration of vegetables and Hooty, his cheeky neighbour lying naked on his bed.

He was about to lie down when he heard the alarm bell echoing through the forest. He thought it could be anything but he feared the worst.

So he dressed again slid along the rope hanging from a branch and ran towards the assembly point.

There, people were screaming “The savages, the savages”,

A woman farmer was crying “they took Moc, my partner and Si, our apprentice” A group of hunters with their bows led by Za was ready to chase them.

Pit seized a fishing spear, a torch and joined them.

Xel organized the defense around a sheltered pitch made of branches and rocks; all citizens gathered were armed with rocks, spears, and hammers. There in silence they were waiting for any signs of whatever came first, savages or hunters?

After a few hours all habitants regained calmness and confidence, Za, Pit and the others came back with a half naked man. The angry mob wanted to lapidate him but Za vigorously opposed it, she had other plans; it was the first time they captured one. A couple of times a year the savages descended from the mountain and abducted people, independently of their gender or age.

As it happened the savage was tortured by the civilised, not only were they men but they discovered they had a very similar language. Precious information was unraveled, the savages from the mountains were carnivores, they captured the civilised ones for their carnal appetite, take women as wives and offered men and children in sacrifice to their god.

A mysterious god that appeared from the sky with a blinding blue light. This god was eight feet tall, of an immaculate white colour and vaguely shaped like humans, two legs, two arms, a torso, a head with a visible encapsulated brain but it was not made of flesh, it was indestructible.

Then the prisoner was put to death, one of the most horrible deaths, it was burnt alive at the foot of the mountain. They wanted the other savages to hear him scream, to witness the punishment they were risking by kidnapping one of theirs. Villagers where looking at the horrendous spectacle with a certain contempt.

Back at the public place, against the advice of the two other leaders, Za summoned a special assembly. After the raid, the two men decided to stay cautious and not follow Za’s proposal, to go and discover what all these gods and savages were about and eventually to retrieve their citizens.

Usually decisions were taken within the Triumvirate, it required a majority of 2 to decide the path to follow. However, on special occasions, one of the leaders could take the matter to the whole community. With a crowd she knew she could swing the vote.

Za was furious, a rage came from her guts, that gave her strength to harangue the audience

“Citizens! Our family is being destroyed by these beasts! And for what reason? To honour their gods! What are these gods? Where do they come from? What do they want? Are we going to continue to stay passive whilst they rape our women, eat our babes and offer the remaining to their so called god?”

“No!” shouted Dje the farmer, the crowd muttered and shared their anger

“We need to go and end this!” blurted one

“We want answers” screamed another

The mob in one voice was favoring the excursion. “Get them” in a chorus of over five hundred voices resonated in all the known land.

Xel and Pit surrendered to the general fervor. 

Within an hour, two volunteers both of them hunters, Za and Pit were walking towards the mountains with enough food to withstand their needs for a fortnight.

From the information they extirpated from the savage, they had to climb towards the highest peek, the one they called the Lunch Clock. They called it like that because they always had their lunch when the sun would flirt with its summit. There, they would find a valley joining another summit, in this valley the savages had established their town. Once there they shouldn’t encounter more than a hundred of them. It would take them at least four days to reach their village.

The ascension was difficult but they didn’t encounter anyone or anything.  After two days they were closing on the Lunch Clock. They slow down their pace, approaching warily. From about two hundred yards away they could see smoke coming out. They moved cautiously towards its origin. Pit, Za and their two acolytes were overseeing the woods leading to the entrance of a cavern.

They hid behind a rock to observe about ten savages, all bear breast, most of them women.

Their heart dropped.

For a moment it crossed their mind they might already be cooking their friends.

Until they saw around fifty of the savages getting out of the cavern led by a very tall and muscled man wearing a mask. They formed a round around the fire; Moc and Si were brought up in the middle of the circle next to the masked man.

Suddenly a blue blinding light appeared from the sky, slowly a shape was forming in it, becoming more consistent. The light disappeared, in its place a huge white metallic machine, two legs, two arms, a torso, a head vaguely a human one.

The masked man brought forward his prisoners, kneeled in front of the weird entity and delivered them. Without a word the machine grabbed the rope tying Moc and Si.

The blue light reappeared, without the shadow of a doubt Za ran towards it, in a split second Pit ordered the two hunters to go back to the village and chased after her. The God stepped into the light; the savages took notice of the rushed civilized once behind them, immediately they tried to obstruct the way. Za bend her bow and unleashed a trait. She caught one in the chest, she used her bow as a club and opened the skull of another one, spinning on herself and hit a third one behind his knee, he went down screaming. By then Pit had joined in the fight, his twirling spear taking down a few savages.

The white body dissolved with its prized assets, Za jumped into the light followed immediately by Pit. The savages watched in shock the light fade away.

When Za opened her eyes, she was flying, she could feel she was lying down on a hard surface, invisible ties on her fists and ankles were preventing her from moving. She looked around her, she was definitely flying, she knew she was not dreaming, she was above the clouds, the immensity of the sky surrounding her, light blue sky with white clouds underneath her.   

Incomprehension invaded her, what was she doing here?

She screamed…

 “ What is happening for fuck saaakkkeee!!!”

A second later she witnessed a distortion of the sky, like tiny black holes sucking the air, attracting each other to a central point, enlarging to form a flying oval object no bigger than a head.

As it approached she realised that it was a brain encapsulated in a glass jar. 

“What the fuck are you!!”

Trying to free herself,

“Let me go! Where are my friends?”

The brain connected with her mind, she did not even need to think, she got all the responses she needed and many more…

In 2013 a nuclear war begun, civilisations were destroyed, temperatures were rising fast, groups of scientists, philosophers and influential people were secluded in a secret place in what was called then: North Canada. There we stayed for over fifty years, the war ultimately ended with the near extinction of the human race, mainly due the radiation, diseases, thirst and starvation. Eventually the few remaining survivors fought over too little resources. Until your micro society finally established a consensus in the little space you were given.

Us, the Ximer, in our confinement we developed enough technology to become eternal where time and space are so far away from your conception. 

But it came with a price; it is with regret we need to keep you alive to regenerate our brain stem cells from time to time.

“So you keep us alive so you can survive? Why keep the savages to do the dirty work for you?”

 Don’t you know the answer? Is that what you really want to know?

“Yes you bastard monster!”

WE are studying you, human behaviour, there is nothing that tells us that nothing good or innovative will come from you, we need to keep our minds open.

She sensed a humorous tone.

Theory holds that struggle pushes men to its best, beyond reason to overcome dilemmas.

“What are you going do with me?” Za knew the answer

Somewhere, on earth, in the sky, ZA’s voice echoed “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…”

To be continued…