The Kuiper Abnormality: Or Humanity, we are all doomed.

Chapter 9: Manus Dei

As the NASA recovery team was away at what was once the home of Matt Daniels, someone else walked through the Nebraskan village. He was wearing a military uniform and a respirator similar to what one might've been accustomed to seeing on Breaking Bad. Yet, despite the precautionary measure and the uniform, this man was not sent here by NASA and the United States Air Force like the other team was. This man was acting on the orders of another, far older, far darker organization. A terrorist organization masquerading as a religious group as a way of evading attention was pretty much the only way this organization could be described accurately. The Hand of God, formerly called the same thing but in Latin, was to be blunt, a cult, a white supremacy movement, an anti-Semitic organization, an anti-Catholic group, an anti-homosexual group, a pro-life extremist group, a radical supporter of Republican political candidates (given that the candidate was white, and not Catholic or Jewish), and a huge opponent of anything related to science. Originally founded as a Catholic charity in the late nineteenth century, Manus Dei made the decision of allowing Protestants and members of other Christian denominations to join its ranks in 1915. Eventually, Protestants outnumbered Catholics 20 to 1 in the group, a fact that was probably the beginning of the end for the peaceful charity. Though most of them were good Christian men, because of the timing, a few of these men were members of a darker group, the Ku Klux Klan. Then they told all their KKK buddies to join, and several did. Eventually, one of these many Klansmen in Manus Dei's ranks rose to the head of the organization, which was the biggest dark turning point for Manus Dei. This man diverted the majority of Manus Dei's funds away from the poor, and into the grasp of the white-robed Klan. Despite the fact that the KKK was very anti-Catholic, Manus Dei continued to remain Catholic-owned, just not run. By the 1940s, Catholics were outnumbered 500 to 1, which combined with the rampant bigotry and diversion of funds, prompted the Church to yank its funding, which angered the Klansmen enough that they went back to the oath they had followed in the KKK, and lynched all the Catholics in the organization. All of them. Burned publicly in front of cheering audiences in the American South. It was a dark time. But this was just the beginning of the bigotry. After the purge of the organization, the now independent Manus Dei removed the last string connecting it to the Roman Catholic Church: the organization's very name. The Protestant hierarchy changed it to the English translation of the original Latin, "Hand of God." Not only did they ally themselves with the KKK, the Hand of God now allied itself with a new ally, Wesley A. Swift, founder of his own white supremacist religion, the Church of Jesus Christ-Christian. Though the Hand of God didn't follow Swift's church, Swift contributed several million to its cause. But as scientific knowledge became more commonly believed than before, the Hand of God faced a new foe, not Jewish, not Catholic, and not African-American, this new foe was things like radio-carbon dating, physics, astronomy, and of course, followers of the teachings of Charles Darwin. The organization devoted its attention to the "de-sciencization," of children and the ignorant. Realizing that science was going to be the downfall of religion, the very thing they used as an excuse for bigotry, they decided that they had to destroy it anyway it took. And that took the buying of millions of dollars worth of textbooks just to burn them, and the assassination of every scientist they could find. Science was the enemy in the mind of the organization, and Genesis was the ally. But perhaps they didn't know that the writers of Genesis would be appalled if they knew what was being done in its name. Or perhaps the Hand of God did know, but quite simply, didn't give a damn. Scientists were killed on the streets, in their cars, in public restrooms, at places of worship, at sporting events, and even in their own homes. The great Scientific Purge continued at a somewhat high rate, until 1972 came along. Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that overturned the nation-wide ban on abortion. So, the Hand of God had a new target: abortion clinics. Bombs would occasionally go off inside the clinics, but they were usually placed in cars that were parked near the clinics in a strategic location so that the explosion would go off in such a way that the clinic would be damaged and passerby maimed and killed, thus preventing them from getting an abortion. And that was when the authorities started getting involved, but because the occasional clinic bombing turned up surprisingly little ties to an orchestrating  body, the perpetrators were assumed to be just radical right wingers. And they were. But it wasn't an individual act.  When the mainstream public started becoming believers in extraterrestrial life, the Hand of God saw this as an assault on their belief systems, and tried to find a way to stop this. They eventually figured that as with abortion, Catholics, Jews, and black people, extermination was the only "solution." And they did this, killing abductees and attempting to kill astronauts who claimed to have a close encounter in space. And they did this for years. Then they got insider information on the Korna program, and monitored it with great interest. Then the probe came back. So, they sent this man to Hallowsville, so he could find the survivors of this calamity, which was quite obviously extraterrestrial in origin, kill all the witnesses, and promptly leave.  So he did. He had checked for heat signatures, so he knew what buildings to check. He walked towards the house in front of him, there was a small engraved plaque on the mailbox on the porch that read:

DR. EMMANUEL LLEWELLYN

A scientist! the man thought. He will be vanquished! His labor's fruit a holy wrath has incurred! And that holy wrath is ME! The man picked up an icy rock and hurled it at the window. The window promptly shattered, and he used his booted foot to clean any sharp pieces from the window edge before he threw himself in. He ran threw the hallway towards what appeared to be an office, kicked the door in and yelled "The thermal signatures gave you away, you can run but you can't hide you scientist scum!"
"And a shame you feel that way, Mr. Manus Dei!" 
The man spun around to see Dr. Llewellyn standing behind him with a Louisville Slugger in his fist. "How do you know who I am?!?"
"I have my ways. As you have yours, you Dalek."
"Dalek?"
"Yeah, a Dalek. You know, from Doctor Who?"
The man's face remained blank.

"Those bigots brainwashed you! A Dalek is an alien from the planet Skaro who has but one goal: the purification of the universe via the extermination of all biological life that is non-Dalek. They nearly caused the destruction of all of creation through the Last Great Time War with another species, the Time Lords."
"What wonderful intentions!" The man exclaimed with a grin.

"See what I mean?!?"
"But aliens are not real. What you call an alien is really just a demon sent by Lucifer himself to deceive the people of God into believing the evil of science."
"Tell me, would God allow Satan to do that?" Llewellyn said pointing out the window. "Shooting star falls, snowstorm hits, in the summer I might add, and then everybody in town just falls over and dies. Very obviously extraterrestrial in origin."
"Blasphemy!"

"You know what? You have to open your eyes, look up at the skies, and just see!" Llewellyn said as he fidgeted with his jacket, accidentally revealing the handmade Rosary he was wearing beneath it.
"A Catholic too?!? You are HUGE sinner! Time for judgement!" The man pulled out his sidearm, a revolver, and pointed it at Llewellyn.
"What are you gonna do," Llewellyn replied, dropping the bat and extending his arms in the 'come at me bro,' position. "Shoot me you coward!"
"In the name of the Father," the man inserted a round into the pistol. "The Son," he pulled the hammer back with his thumb. "And the Holy Ghost," he put his finger on the trigger. "Amen," he pulled it back with a devilish cackle as the lead impacted the scientist's ribcage and pierced his heart. Llewellyn was lying on his back now, with a triumphant smile on his face. And just for good measure, the man put the barrel into contact with the skin between Llewellyn's eyes and shot another bullet, this time into his brain. 

"The work of the Lord is done here," he yelled as if someone could here him had he not just killed the one person who could've replied. And with that all said and done, the man moved on.

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Another update! Sorry if any of y'all got offended by my lack of political correctness writing this chapter, but I've been reading a lot about the KKK and all these radical conservative paramilitary groups, so I figured I'd work 'em into the story somehow. In NO way am I trying to demonize Protestantism or political conservatives, but with all these reports in the news of radical Middle Eastern groups, I thought I'd write about a (far less great) threat of another kind of radical on the Homefront. Well, I've got to go run an errand, so until next time, Geronimo!

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