The Teacher

The Teacher: Part II Testament, Chapter 37

CHAPTER 37

HUGE HURICANES WERE TRAVELING INLAND often covering half the North America continent, spreading wild wind damage up to and throughout Canada. Twice as many named hurricanes were forming out over the ever-warming ocean waters, growing to monstrous proportions, and staying destructive long after they made landfall.

Because of global warming, super cell thunderstorms were lobbing destructive and sometimes deadly softball-sized hail like mortar shells. These same storms were spawning destructive tornadoes year round, not just during the spring and summer. While there was chronic flooding in some areas, deadly prolonged drought and extreme heat spells in others triggered 3,000' dust clouds that engulfed whole regions for days at a time. All of this weather turmoil affected the normal routines of life as a mortal on a daily basis. For Disciples, it was another story.

Their communications and information processing systems were so highly developed that there wasn't much need for them to travel from place to place in order to meet each other in person. When that was necessary, a new Cloud 10.0 app, Get There Now, allowed for a person or an object to be broken down into energy, sent as a thought transmission, and reassembled at any destination. Yes, Captain Kirk's, "Beam me up, Scottie," had become a reality. Disciples' nutritional needs were also greatly simplified.

The pleasure of eating was replaced by spars utility. They subsisted on a single blended brew of thick, green protein-based algae mixed with a yogurt culture which provided for all of their body's metabolic needs. Once a week to an energy feeding center and their soul plasma levels were maintained. Running on such intense internal power plants, there was no need to heat or cool their living or work environments. So, although the remaining mortals suffered more and more as environmental conditions deteriorated, the Disciples just weren't concerned.

Most of the early Green Movement projects and initiatives instituted at the beginning of the 21st Century were abandoned or left unfunded under the Legion's rule. Coal continued to be the fossil fuel of convenient choice for power plants all over the world. As greenhouse gasses increased, finally both polar ice caps melted for good, opening up Arctic Ocean shipping lanes year round. As global oceanic shorelines rose, millions of mortals living in coastal areas were displaced inland as their property was slowly submerged.

Along with the lack of alternative energy initiatives, the Disciple-controlled governments around the globe allowed the basic urban infrastructure of roads and bridges to degrade into total disrepair. Because of all these conditions, the lives of mortals were getting harder and more primitive. All the necessities of life were now in short supply—food, fuel, electricity, and all manner of domestic goods.

All practicing Christians in urban areas were leading double lives and worshipped in secret which allowed them to remain in a Disciple-dominated society. Others fled the cities to remote areas and were living in isolated groups carrying on as best they could outside of the practical ability of the GLSF agents to track them down after they were picked up on a Christian Rebel app alert.

Pastor Ben, still based in the Manistique area after managing to fool GLSF agents into believing he no longer had Christian beliefs, organized the Underground Railroad in Wisconsin to help runaway Christians get to the relative safety of the Canadian Rockies, a wilderness far from the prying eyes of any GLSF operatives.

By day Pastor Ben was playing the role of a drone worker assigned to the maintenance department of the Guardian's Vulcan Mining Company extracting copper and iron ore in northern Wisconsin. By night, he was the go-to guy for any questions to do with the Christian Underground Railroad in Wisconsin.