XENO

PERSONAL JOURNAL -00098756

ANON

            Nobody on either side saw it coming. Scientists were called forth to explain why, in a world where everything was expected and nothing was a surprise, they couldn’t explain what was going on. How the unexpected had slipped right under their noses and disturbed the peace. In the eyes of the public it was these same scientists who couldn’t seem to find the truth even if it was right in front of them. It was at press conferences that the true nature of science was revealed —“Science Cracks Under Pressure”— almost all scientists who came forth found themselves overwhelmed by it all. One can only assume what goes through their minds as they begin to notice how claustrophobic they feel under the stage lights and the mass of microphones and recorders in their face. Maybe they think about their families or how they were going to tell the truth but they were scared. So they did what all good men do under pressure —spoke in tongues.

            They were now preachers spouting government provided stories about how the birds flew the wrong way, or the rivers flow was diverted, and  that these were factors that they had seen that were hinting at how and when the event was going to happen. They had been unable to configure an official date because of a major miscalculation on the part of some minor scientists in the outlying districts (mainly district 1 and 2) and they had not wanted to give us any information because they had believed it was going to pass over and not crash into the dome.

            These claims were all bullshit of course, but the public worshiped the word of science in more ways than one. They had no way of knowing better. They would never have known that everything outside the dome was normal as always, as normal as a planet with a weakening ozone layer could be, the rivers were fine,  the birds were as normal as birds could be. They wouldn’t have noticed that science had lied to them, had essentially let them down. To be honest most of us didn’t care, many took government word as the truth. And who could blame them, our ignorance had grown comfortable.

           One hundred years worth of ignorance, one hundred years of waking up in the morning eating military rationed breakfast, going to our community provided jobs, and coming home and loving our family and the genetically advanced family dog-- no fleas. Could anybody really turn that down? Everything one could possibly want was practically handed to them and all they had to do in return was be mindless slave to the word of the unitary government and the infallibleness of science. We didn’t want anybody to question the government, even when they had cut our food supply short and claimed that we were having a “shortage” only a select few hundred had questioned and they promptly “disappeared” before any real problems arose.

            So when scientists told us that the loud bang we had heard on that fateful Thursday night was a large rock off of the cliff face that stood by the far southwest part of the dome, at first we didn’t question them. They were so close to getting away with it too. And they would have if it wasn’t for Dr. Kolikova. Richard Kolikova was like a scab, you wouldn’t pick at it but you really wanted it gone. He was weak, a small man with a big napoleon complex, and he was given too much power. During press conferences he tried to keep his cool but, by the end of the night he was sweating bullets. He wasn’t ready for his job and skeptics assumed he was given such a high position for a cover up. This was true, the government would never admit it, but now we know it was. Kolikova knew things, things that he wasn’t supposed to know. Less than a year ago he was a third rate scientist without a degree, not the military watchdog he was now, nobody would have even given him a second look.

             It will never make sense to me why they gave him the job; nobody would have believed him anyways. Yet they still gave him the job. Maybe it was a show of power, maybe he was a figurehead to their secret operations, and maybe, just maybe, they had known all along. They must have known he wanted to crack. They must have known that he would spill their secrets. He was a mess the day he came forth to speak. Under the glare of the spotlight the sweat stains on his underarm were obvious. He could probably feel sweat dripping into his socks or down the back of his spine like the information he was about to spill was a virus. His fever was starting to spread. It was as if he said wrong word it would kill him.

             If only we knew that what he was about to tell us would change everything.

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