“I am here to meet The First Citizen,” a boy said to the receptionist in a small foyer.
“Give me you identification card, please,” a middle aged woman in tight black uniform requested.
The boy extended the card. The administrator took it, checked it, glanced distrustfully at the boy and coldly said, “Proceed to the elevator, top floor.”
Tim entered the elevator and pushed the topmost button. The door closed. Tim's insides turned for a couple of seconds - exactly the amount of time it took to reach the top.
The door opened and Tim stepped out of the elevator, his face pale. “Damn, they should put a warning on it or something” Tim murmured and took a few deep breaths.
A long, wide corridor lay ahead of him with a single door at its end. As he stepped forward, his insides started turning again, in a few seconds he was to meet the most important man on the ship, the anxiety was increasing rapidly.
There were pictures painted by a paintbrush on the both sides of the corridor. On the left were hanging the pictures of the world people told stories about – the planet Earth. Forests extending to the horizon, dark blue oceans and massive cities shining in the night were captured by an unknown artist. Pictures of many planets and moons were hanging on the left. Tim easily recognized objects depicted in them – he had studied these doomed planets in the school. The boy wanted to look at the pictures a bit longer, but he preferred to get rid of the growing anxiety instead.
Tim entered the room. He expected to see something striking or extraordinary, but the place looked normal, the antique furniture dominated the interior, most of it was made of 'natural' wood as many old people liked to say. Many thick paper books lay on the long, thin shelves hanging on the walls. Tim saw these ancient items not covered in dust for the first time in his life. A wooden table and a chair stood close to a window, a large area of the city could be seen from there, a medium-sized picture of a man he had never seen before was hanging on a wall above the desk. As he inspected the room and his stare crossed it from one corner to another, he noticed that there was someone in this room besides him. The boy understood that the man had not moved a muscle since he had entered the room. On one of two couches, separated by a glass table in front of Tim, sat the great man himself - Tom Landau. He wore the same uniform as the lady on the first floor, only additionally there was a small hawk stitched to the left side of his chest. The man appeared to be no different from a common adult. The only weird property the person had was that he seemed a bit too young to be the one Tim had heard stories about. But powerful aura surrounding the person assured him that he had entered the correct room.
“Welcome,” the man said and pointed to the empty couch. “Take a seat. We have a lot to talk about.”
Tim's anxiety was lost. It was replaced by uneasiness and discomfort. He thought he was here to ask questions, but the man’s tone said that it would be the other way around. The boy sat down and said, “Thank you for the invitation. It’s my honor to meet you.”
“Thank you for the kind words," Tom replied, "Mind my straightforwardness, but I believe you came here for an explanation, correct?”
“Correct.”
“I will give what you ask, but in turn you must stay and listen to a short story of mine before you leave.”
“Of course I will, I will do as you ask, Sir.”
“Great, I will ask you to give questions after the explanation.”
“Ok,” Tim replied silently.
“The City was much different from what you see now during the first years. People were given new lives and many opportunities after the launch. They quickly forgot the importance of unity and cooperation - the main properties needed to maintain for the entire trip to succeed in the mission.
A couple of years passed and some of the passengers began to reveal their selfishness. There were those, who were used to have power on the old planets and wanted to get their hands on it in here. Some of them spread twisted ideas, started philosophical or political movements and searched for followers. I was oblivious to the growing threat for too long. Because of my mistake the revolts began. At first they were small and sometimes even silly, but time passed and the groups had grown, became more violent, more demanding. To my convenience I had many officers back then. One of the better men by my side was Jim Bongo. He had the best combat training of all my people, so I sent him to take care of the most dangerous individuals. He was always motivated and seemed to enjoy the work. As weird as it may sound, we, people in the security may be doing things that would not be acceptable for a common man, but we are motivated and conditioned in a different way - violence, action, justice is all what many of us strive for. To help look at the things from our perspective I will give you a small example: imagine if you were a runner by nature, you ran every day, every morning. What more enjoying job would it be than to chase people? Imagine, how would you feel if you were confined to a chair for a long time?" Tom paused, gave a moment for Tim to digest the information and continued, "There was an accident in Jimbo’s life that changed him. He was betrayed, you see, by one of his friends. His family was murdered by members of a religious organization whose leader he had eliminated. All the joy of life he ever had, had disappeared in an instant. After their deaths he vanished. And to be frank, I had quickly forgotten him.
So there he was, living calmly in solitude, until the incident happened…”
The boy nodded, a sad expression on his face.
Tom asked, “Do you know who attacked him and whom had he stopped by sacrificing his life?”
“A monster,” the boy silently replied. Tears started to well up in his eyes.
Tom continued, “Yes, a monster. A monster created by my friend. You see, we, people in the top positions have a problem. We don’t talk much. We are being attacked by another creature, the power of which transcends our imagination. We are trying to fight it in a ways that look justified for us. A colleague of mine, who no longer exists, created a monster of her own. She hoped it would help him stop the creature. But that monster didn’t turn out to be any better than what it had to fight against. I tried to fix my friends mistake and failed. Jimbo was the man who did it. Jimbo had saved many lives, including yours by doing it. I take all the responsibility for his death”
“I see…” Tim looked at the ground, thinking.
Tom stared for a minute at the boy with a stone cold face. “Do you have any questions?”
“No, I understand everything now.”
“Everything?”
“People make mistakes, don’t they?”
Tom did not expect such answer, he said, “They do."
They both stared at each other for a moment before Tom broke the silence, "Are you ready to hear another story and my request at the end of it?”
“Yes I am.” The boy humbly replied.
“It’s about a creature that invaded our ship. There is a world far away, we are traveling to. It’s inhabited by strange beings. Somehow they know that we are coming and had sent here a 'thing' to stop us from getting to our destination. This monster is lurking in a world different from ours, in another dimension. He comes to our world by possessing others. In this world we can only hope to hold him, but in his world we could stop him. Adults are having a hard time in that world of his, they can get in but they have hard time staying there for a long time. You are young and clever, you know what danger and menace looks like and you are tougher than most of kids your age. I want to ask for your help. We must try and take any advantage over our adversary. Your life will be at great risk, but I can promise that will be an adventure you will never forget.”
As soon as Tom finished, the boy asked “Why do the creatures from far away want to stop us?”
Tom was good at bending the truth “We are sent to live on their planet and they are not willing to accept us. Seems that all creatures in the universe must be afraid of what they don’t know. I myself believe that we could co-exist together, but the thing which is trying to wreck the ship doesn’t.”
“Why can’t we go to another planet and ask him to go away?”
“We have no other planets to go to. We can’t turn around. This ship is a bullet shot out of the solar system into the space, each planet and sun in our path slightly bends ship’s trajectory, there is only one planet suitable for life in our path and that’s where we’re going. If we miss our target, it might take us tens of thousands of years to reach other habitable planet. Avoiding it is not an option."
“I see… I will help you, sir.” The boy’s mood had improved, his lips widened.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I don’t want to work at the air tunnels my entire life. To be frank, I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up at all. There are many things I don’t like in here. I don’t like many people, but I don’t want them to get hurt either. I want to help.”
“Great, we will start tomorrow morning, is it ok with you?”
“Yes.”
“Pack your things well, you will not be returning back to the orphanage.”
“Ok.”
Tom sat in silence, looking at the boy. Tim figured that it was a sign for him to leave. He stood up, thanked for the given opportunity, said goodbye and left the room.
On his way out he stopped by the pictures of earth. The one with green trees struck him the most. He looked at the animals, rivers flowing through the woods, the yellow object in the sky which illuminated intense yellow light. He looked and sighed. What a wonderful thing must it had been to live in that place, he thought, So many things to see the people living there must have had. “Not so lucky.” The boy silently told to himself.