The Time of the Titans

Chapter 35: The Dead Poets Society

That evening, atmosphere had changed in the Base. The revelations of who the boys had been in their past had thoroughly shaken their self-image, and nobody seemed to know yet what this would mean. They started looking at each other with new ideas and expectations, trying to fish out fragments of memories hidden in their minds, in order to know what roles each of them had once played in the Institute or around it.

They had not seen this coming. Neither had I, until the curtain of oblivion had suddenly come tumbling down, ripped from top to down. They had seemed like ordinary gifted teens, however extraordinary in many respects. They had manifested their intelligence, yet not signs of an older age than their slender years. Why should they have? As far as I knew, they had been woken up from eversleep in either Atlantis or Laputa, and they were likely woken as kids, then schooled in the extraordinary circumstances of the floating city.

People had this strange idea that there would be a distinct 'true self', and they should somehow be true to that. I felt unease at what I saw happening to the boys, as I didn't think their past lives represented any truer self than who they'd settled to be on the island. They were not scientists, lab assistants, sponsors seeking a key to immortality – they were kids, mortal kids, who had, in mere three years, adapted to a new life in a new world. Weren't they much truer as the boys of the Secret Brotherhood than trying to guess what they had once been in their past lives? I found myself wishing they wouldn't change too much. That they would retain their youthful energy and charm, their self-made society, and their strong loyalty to each other. I wished they would not too fast lapse to the adult norms of career and academia.

Had I done wrong when I had revealed to them what I had discovered? What was done was done, and the genie was out of the bottle now. Instead of letting us present three wishes, the genie only gave us suspicion and expectations. I feared the consciousness of the past of their previous incarnations would have an impact on their new lives, and that impact might not always be for their best.

Added to all this, there was the murder. Where there had been naïve trust and idealized loyalty, I started seeing glimpses of suspicion and questioning. By now, they all knew what I knew, and they asked themselves the same questions I was asking. Who among them had killed me three years ago?

They felt as if I accused them. It brought about a change in their attitude towards me, but not unequivocal. Some of them now saw me as the new Grand Master. They treated me with much more respect. A boy – I think his name was Kevin – who had once lied on the sofa downstairs, not caring to move his legs so I could pass, and who had snapped at me, now retreated from my way when I walked towards him, as if I was suddenly a royal.

But for some others, the change was different. For example, Kim and Alex of my house suddenly turned more distant, fell silent when I entered the building. It appeared as if they thought I accused or at least suspected them of the crime. Not perhaps them individually, but they had internalized the Brotherhood to be one, and a suspicion directed at any of its members was a suspicion at the entire Brotherhood, and thereby unbrotherly and potentially disloyal.

I tried to take Florin aside, as he was now Oliver's successor as the house elder. I wanted to somehow display loyalty to him and reassure him that I was the same lad, the same Mikael who had been washed ashore of their island by the ocean. Florin listened to me, nodded, and smiled shyly, and he then took my arm to escort me to my room. He looked nervous and insecure. I learned now he was only fifteen, one year younger than Oliver had been. Although the boys convened in the small social room of the building, Florin seemed to want me to take rest in my room. I let him take me there and close the door after me. I felt left out and disappointed as I sat at my window and looked out.

They were lighting the campfire also tonight, and it made me remember that I was hungry, after three days of mere conserved food and the few fruits Roland had given me at the cottage. So, I stepped out again from the room, ignored the voices of my young housemates coming from the social room. Since they felt more comfortable without me, I would not intrude.