Skewed Slightly to the Left: Nicolae's speech to Americans

[Originally posted at Slacktivist.]
[Canonically after giving a rousing speech to the UN general assembly that consists of listing the countries of the UN in alphabetical order Nicolae then gives a press conference where he tries to ingratiate himself with people from the US by talking about how as a little boy in Romania he always looked up to us.  Except it's written so badly that people would be more likely to go, "Wha?" than "'Merica: Fuck Yeah!"]

This was a press conference for Americans, so naturally it began with Nicolae saying what an honor it was to be in America. "Especially at this historic site," he added. "It may seem strange, but I have dreamed of coming here since I was a small boy in Cluj. A dream that only intensified as I grew older.

"This place was built on blood soaked land, for it was in the slaughterhouse district. To turn blood to peace was such a potent symbol. As a child in the so-called 'Second World' it so often seemed like there was little hope. Ceaușescu's rule became more oppressive as time went on, basic necessities were kept from us. Many starved while he built an opulent palace, and to even tell a joke risked harsh punishment. Criticism was impossible.

"So I dreamed of this country, one that lacked a brutal and ubiquitous secret police. One where you could speak your mind freely. One where you could trust people --at home one in three people had been bribed, blackmailed, or intimidated into informing on their friends and neighbors.

"Then everything changed. The 'Second World' started to collapse as freedom spread from country to country. By the time the Cold War ended in 1991 and your President Bush spoke of a 'New World Order' I had finally breathed free and the words made my heart sing.

"A new world order free from oppression. A new world order where we would fight poverty rather than create it. A new world order were the blood of revolutions past would water future peace.

"Standing here so soon after the catastrophe that has shattered the world we knew before, I think back to my dreams as a child. To see peace, freedom, and cooperation rise from the bloody ground.

"When this site was given to the United Nations it was changed from a place of blood and death to a place of hope and life. The entire world has been struck by blood and death, and worse still the bloodless disappearances of the children and a handful of others, but we must pull together and change our world from a place of blood to a place of life, from a place of chaos to a place of order, from a place of conflict to one of cooperation.

"We must not allow the recent crisis to be exploited by the worst among us, we must not allow the pain and hurt we have all felt to multiply. We must come together.

"And that is why I am so honored to be standing here. America is a diverse country. A place with fifty states, no two alike, that is able to serve as a shining beacon of cooperation.

"In order to deal with a global crisis we will need a global solution, and America will lead the way. The United Nations will need to be rebuilt. Larger, stronger, able to deal with the problems that now plague the world. To this end I will look to you, America, and build the new United Nations on the model of the United States of America.

"Long have you led by example, as leader of the United Nations I intend to follow that example like never before. By following your example I will allow your greatness to shine over the entire world more brightly than ever before."

Pandering to the crowd always worked, and so there his speech was followed by applause.

-

[Skewed Slightly to the Left Index]

Skewed Slightly to the Left: Theories Chloe has heard

[Originally posted at Slacktivist.]

"Dad," Chloe said to her father, sleeping on the couch because he couldn't face his empty bedroom. "Dad!"

"Let me sleep, Irene," he mumbled.

That hit like a knife to the heart, but Chloe pushed the feeling aside. She'd had to learn to deal with the physical rather than feelings to make it here. It wasn't a lesson she'd soon forget. You could mourn, sob, freeze up, or wish for death when there was downtime, but first you had to deal with the problem at hand.

She shook her father's shoulder.

"Wha?"

"Dad, it's passed noon," Chloe said. When she was sure he was awake, she added, "time for food."

"You don't need to wait on me, Chlo," her father said. "Just have something for yourself."

"You know what happens when you don't eat?" Chloe asked, "You're tired all the time, a headache sets in that never ends, you start to get weak, even something like walking a short distance exhausts you, and with all that going on, you don't even think to eat."

Her father sat up at that, "Has that happened to you Chlo?"

"Two thousand miles is a long way," Chloe said. He didn't need to know what she'd been through, it wouldn't help. "I can see the signs, you need food."

"Alright," her father said, "alright."

- - -

Rayford looked at Chloe as they ate a meal composed of, basically, what was grab. He wanted to tell her that he believed that they'd been through the rapture and the only hope they had of seeing Irene or Raymie again was to convert to their religion. But it wouldn't be right to just force that on her.

If he was going to tell her what he believed, then he first should listen to what she believed. It was only fair. "What do you think happened, Chloe?"

"A lot of people back at the university thought that it had to be aliens," Chloe said, "Who else could have technology that targeted human beings but didn't touch any other mammals? A militia that claimed some of the territory I went through as their own were convinced it was the government. Something about chemtrail exposure and children being most susceptible. They didn't have an explanation for why it only hit people, but when I brought that up one pointed out that animals don't leave clothes behind, so we might not notice them as much.

"There's a cult in Wyoming that thinks it was a first strike by the devil, and the apocalypse is coming. On the other hand a Nebraska cult I bumped into thinks that it's God, those who were worthy were taken, everyone else is damned. The gates of heaven barred.

"A helo pilot I got a lift from is convinced that the world we see isn't real, this is all some kind of computer program and the servers handling children and certain adults went down. He was remarkably unperturbed by the idea. I think because he believes that tech support will get the servers back up and then everyone we lost will be returned.

"A street preacher in Des Moines claims its proof that we're all actually living in the first century. The theory is, basically, that we're all living Acts 29 and Jesus is about to return but, in order to draw us away from belief the devil invented all of human history since then as a delusion so we won't be ready when the second coming comes. Under this theory it's been about 13 years since the delusion set in so none of the children really existed in the first place, and the people who disappeared didn't either.

"Obviously that theory has even more holes in it than the idea that the universe had a hiccup and dumped a lot of people in the next dimension over.

"There are so many theories out there, and the truth is that none of them make any more sense than, 'It just happened by random chance,' because what happened is impossible.

"I'm waiting on more evidence," Chloe said.

Rayford nodded, but then he said, "I think that your mother was right. She said this would happen right down to people disappearing but their clothes being left behind."

"I can see how you'd believe that," Chloe said, "but that makes God a monster who was responsible for all of the death that followed the event. Surely an all powerful being could wait until someone had parked their car to take them."

"I don't have an answer for that," Rayford said. "But I think that the only way to see the others again is to join their religion."

"It would also make God a kidnapper," Chloe said. "Every child was taken, not just the ones who believed in that particular strain of Christianity. They were taken from their families without being given a choice."

"I know that too," Rayford said. "I don't have any moral answers, but I do think your mother was right."

"How are we supposed to feel about them being with a mass murdering kidnapper if it's true?" Chloe asked.

"Maybe there are things that we don't know about that somehow made it necessary," Rayford offered weakly.

"The lesser of extreme evils?" Chloe asked.

"I don't know," Rayford said.

-

[Skewed Slightly to the Left Index]

Skewed Slightly to the Left: The frightened doctor

[Originally posted at Slacktivist, though this post is the one that actually covers the relevant passage.]
[In canon the doctor is bored, in spite of the excessive need for him outside on the tarmac.  I thought he could use a different motivation for not helping those outside.]

Cameron felt a tap on the shoulder and turned to see a man in his twenties or so who looked shaken and nervous. "Your wound needs to be dressed. I'm a doctor."

"I'm ok," Cameron said. "A lot of people have it worse."

"I-- I know," the doctor said with shame in his voice. "I should be outside helping but when I saw," it looked to Cameron like he swallowed to keep from vomiting. "I can't be out there. I tried. I-- I tried to to do the right thing, but I ended up running away and hiding.

"I just can't face the scene out there. But dressing your head wound, that's something I can do," he sighed. "Please. Please let me do something to help someone."

Cameron looked at the man for a moment.

"It won't make up for not being out there where I'm most needed," the doctor said, looking at the ground, "But at least I won't be completely useless if I can keep you from getting an infection."

Cameron thought about it. "Ok," he said.

"I had my bag with me, but I gave it to someone who could face what was going on out there."

"Good thinking," Cameron said.

"So if you'll come with me to the drinking fountain, we can clean the wound, then we'll have to look for whiskey, grain alcohol, or honey to get it disinfected."

"Honey?" Cameron asked. He'd heard about alcohol of sufficiently high proof, but never honey.

"It works wonders, but it's a sticky mess," the doctor said. "Fountain's this way."

-

[Skewed Slightly to the Left Index]

Skewed Slightly to the Left: After landing

[Originally posted at Slacktivist.]
[In the canonical version Rayford postures out whether or not to get a lift back to the terminal or to walk, is a jerk to his copilot Christopher Smith, is dismissive of Hattie, claims he'd volunteer for emergency service, and then walks through the emergency scene ("All around were ambulances and other emergency vehicles trying to get to ugly wreckage scenes...") without volunteering once.]

"Is there anything I--" Rayford started.

"We," Hattie said.

"We can do to help?"

"Get yourselves and the rest of your passengers off the tarmac, indoors and out of the way," the woman directing things on the ground said. "Then stay there."

Rayford nodded.

"Can you do that without me holding your hand?"

"Yes," Rayford said.

"Good," the woman said, then she immediately turned and left.

"What an asshole," one of the passengers said.

"No," Hattie said, surveying the airport, "she just has a lot of work to do."

"Yes she does," Rayford said as he tried to work out what had happened. Maybe a midair collision? At least one plane had obviously been afflicted at just the wrong time. "Let's get out of the way and let the professionals do their jobs," he said to the remaining passengers. "Chris?"

"Yeah, Ray?" Smith said.

"You want to lead, or make sure no one falls behind?"

"I'll take the front," Smith said. "Everybody, listen up," he shouted --loudly so all would be likely to hear, but without any negative emotion-- as he walked through the group toward the terminal. "I'm Christopher Smith, I was your copilot, now I'll be your tour guide. If you look to your left or right you will see utter chaos. That's bad. Right now we're in the way, that's worse," Smith was now at the front of the group and had turned so he was walking backwards. "The sooner we're out of the way, the sooner we stop being a problem; so follow me."

Smith made a "come on" gesture as he turned away from the group and toward the terminal as they started their walk.

Rayford took position at the back of the group where he could watch everyone and hopefully notice if anyone was having problems or if anything Smith couldn't see might need them to change course.

Hattie walked closer to the middle of the group, keeping conversation going to prevent people from focusing on the disaster around them.

-

[Skewed Slightly to the Left Index]

Skewed Slightly to the Left: Can anybody hear me?

[Originally Posted at Slacktivist, in response to another of the classic threads.]
[Christopher Smith is Rayford's Copilot.]

"This is Pan Continental Flight 209, is anyone fucking out there?" Christopher Smith said into the radio. He'd given up on polite and was currently making good use of the seven words Mister Conductor had taught him.

"I say again, this is--" a crackle of static stopped him.

"We hear you Pan Con."

Smith turned off his microphone and shouted, "Tell Ray we've got someone!" then switched it back on and said, "Thank God, we've got an emergency and we're flying blind."

"You've lost people too?"

Smith registered the new information, and said, "About a hundred. I take it it's not just us."

"We've lost close to fifty," the voice on the radio said, "From what we heard it's happened everywhere."

"Everywhere?"

"Sounds like it." There was a pause. "Where are you headed Pan Con?"

"London."

"Change course, European air space is closed."

"What!" Smith shouted.

Rayford sat down beside Smith and and put on his headset. "This is still Pan Con Heavy 209," Rayford said. "Can you repeat your last transmission?"

"Until they know what's going on the Europeans aren't letting anyone in unless they're going to run out of fuel."

"Then where are we supposed to go?" Smith asked.

"If you have the fuel, they're telling you to return to your point of origin."

"And if we don't?" Rayford asked.

"If you're low on fuel you're supposed to find the nearest place that isn't full." There was a pause. "For the record, the airports in the Azores are full. All of them."

"Ray, we've got enough fuel to make it back," Smith said. "This is a mess."

"Heard you, Pan Con," the voice over the radio said. "And we don't even know what happened."

"I know," Rayford said.

"You think you know, Ray," Smith said. "Will you still know if we get back and it turns out that Irene is still there?"

"Rapture?" the voice on the radio asked.

"Rapture," Smith said.

"Rapture, alien abduction, and quantum thingamajig are the three most popular explanations on our plane so far."

"Who could forget the venerable theory of quantum thingamajig?" Smith asked. Then something occurred to him. "I don't think we ever got your name."

-

[Skewed Slightly to the Left Index]

Skewed Slightly to the Left: That sinking Feeling

[Originally posted at Slacktivist.  Fred Clark has started re-posting old Left Behind posts, and so this is back at the very beginning.  Book one, chapter one.]

People can't go missing on a plane. They can't. You can't just open the door and walk out, even if you could people would notice the sudden change in air pressure and the violent vortices caused by the air outside the plane moving up to a thousand miles per hour faster, relatively speaking, than the air in side the plane.

One person might somehow get lost between the bathroom and their seat, but this many people? It was impossible.

Hattie had to be wrong. There was no way. It just wasn't possible.

If anyone else were saying it he'd think they were setting him up. They'd heard him complain one to many times about Irene's-- no. He couldn't think about that. It couldn't be that.

Regardless, Hattie wouldn't play a trick like that. If it were a trick then she'd need to have been tricked too, and who could fool her about something like this? She knew how many people were on board at takeoff and she knew what seats they were in. And what seats they weren't in. If people had simply moved to the wrong seats she'd never mistake that for people being missing, and there wasn't standing room for people to hide.

It didn't make sense.

He had to see for himself what was going on.

Please let it be a prank.

Please let there be some hidden camera somewhere and have all of this be a sick, disgusting joke.

He prayed, please God-- and then he decided that it was best to leave God out of it. Let God be nowhere near this one. Let God be elsewhere. Please, please let this not be the work of God.

He walked toward the passenger cabins so he could see for himself. Maybe if he talked to the people who said that members of their parties were missing the truth would come out.

There were still a lot of people who wouldn't think twice about lying to a flight attendant that would never lie to a pilot.

When he entered the first class cabin, and saw the empty clothes in a seat, he became weak. He stumbled back to the bulkhead and tried to support himself with it, but his body was too heavy, and his limbs to weak. He sank to the floor.

He barely noticed as Hattie ran to his side. He didn't even hear the first thing she said.

She shouted, "Ray!" and he noticed, but didn't respond beyond turning his head to look at her. "What's wrong?"

"She was right," he mumbled.

It was impossible. It couldn't be. There was no way. And yet it was. Irene had been right.

That meant that Ray, Hattie, Chris, and everyone still aboard the plane were all damned. Perhaps even literally. Was there even any hope left? Was their any point in landing rather than letting the plane fall from the sky?

Irene was right.

At any other time he would care that his behavior had made the passenger's mood worse. Uneasy before he arrived, they were now on the verge of full blown panic.

You never showed that you were anything less than completely confident in front of the passengers. Never. No matter how bad things really were, they had to think that you were in control. If the pilot was afraid then they'd be afraid. You couldn't let anything, any tiny bit of doubt, ever show.

He'd let himself cross several lines by allowing emotion to overcome him here instead of making it back out of sight before it hit.

It didn't matter.

Irene was right. Irene was right, and that meant that missing people were the least of their worries. Those were the lucky ones. Those were the ones to be envied.

The world as he knew it--as everyone knew it--was over and the worst was yet to come. Irene had been right all along. Why hadn't he listened?

-

[Skewed Slightly to the Left Index]

Skewed Slightly to the Left: Homecoming

[Originally posted at Slacktivist]
[I thought World War III in canon Left Behind was over, but apparently Jenkins can't be bothered to give it a definitive ending so, executive decision, I'm going with my original impression which is that it ended before Cameron went to retrieve Tsion and that is how Skewed Slightly to the Left shall be forever more.  (Unless I change my mind.)]

"How went the treason?" Chloe asked.  She was waiting on the tarmac, balanced on her crutches with ease in what looked to Cameron like an extremely precarious position.

"The treason went," Cameron said.  This was Chicago.  There was no need to hide anything here.  Let people know that you were a wanted fugitive with a price on your head and a shoot on sight order against you and they'd probably buy you drinks.

The war might be over, Nicolae might have won, but there wasn't a GC loyal soul to be found in the city.  In the ongoing rescue and recovery operations GC forces, the defeated militia, and the underground networks worked together openly, not as a result of Nicolae's reconciliation policy, but because the bomb had incinerated their differences.

They'd all lost someone, and they all knew who was to blame.  Chicago would never be loyal to Nicolae's Global Community.

Cameron looked around and said, "It's nice to be back in the smoldering remains of home."

"The test results hold up: no radiation," Chloe said.

"Still not sure if we have God or the Devil to thank for that little miracle?" Cameron asked.

"We probably never will be."

"And how are you holding up?"

"I'm great.  Once you get the hang of these things," she lifted her crutches a bit, "you're faster than someone with a sprained ankle has any right to be."

Cameron shot her a look.

"I'm serious.  The hard part is moving slowly."

Tsion and Jane had finished talking, and came to join Chloe and Cameron's conversation.

"Do you have a place to stay, rabbi?" Chloe asked.

"I do.  This young woman is remarkable."

Jane blushed.

"She is," Cameron and Chloe said at the same time.

"Well, thanks, but this remarkable young woman has to leave now to try to help Loretta work out the best way to hold a funeral for an entire city," Jane said.

She returned to her car, while Chloe lead Cameron and Tsion to her own.

"I don't envy her," Chloe said.

"How many faiths is Loretta working with?" Cameron asked.

"I don't know how many sub-sects, but I know that there are at least twelve major sects meeting now along with representatives from atheist and agnostic groups."

"Even when everyone acts in good faith, planning interfaith services can be extremely difficult," Tsion said.  "I just hope that they can work things out so that your city can begin to heal soon."

-

[Skewed Slightly to the Left Index]

Skewed Slightly to the Left: You find someone to carry you

[This was written in a hurry, because I didn't have a lot of time at the time.  Originally posted at Slacktivist.  Cameron and Tsion crossed the border here, they got away cleanly and should theoretically have been able to fly away within 45 minutes of stealing a car but things didn't go to plan, they were discovered, and now they're being chased.  This begins with a phone call to Ken Ritz, their pilot waiting in their plane.]

[Do remember that Cairo was nuked.  Jerry Jenkins doesn't.]

-

"Hey, Cam, what's up?"

"Oh, the usual."

"So I'm guessing the troops massing here are your fault."

"Well..."

"What did you do this time?"

"It was just a minor difference of opinion on what you should have to declare when going through customs."

"Right," the sarcasm dripped from Ken's voice, and the static of the bad connection did nothing to lessen it.

"Honestly, I don't know what they're getting so worked up about."

Ken said nothing.

"Ok, so it was more about whether you should go through customs at all or just, you know, sneak through unannounced while you blow holes in the border fence with high explosives, but that's just details."

Ken sighed. "What do you need from me?"

"Nothing much," Cameron said.  "I just need you to commit treason, risk almost certain death, and have the plane ready for immediate take off."

"The usual, then."

"That's what I said from the start."

"Ok," Ken said.  "Don't get dead."

"Ditto," Cameron said, and then she cut the connection.  "Rabbi, we may need a plan."

"Do you always take refuge in understatements?" Tsion asked.

"No," Cameron said.  "It's just one of many tools I use to take the edge off in situations like this."

"This sort of thing happens to you a lot?" Tsion asked while gesturing to the growing number of Global Community cruisers behind them.

"Not a lot, but enough," Cameron said.  "This still isn't worse than Serbia."

"You mentioned a plan," Tsion said.

"Yes, do you have one?"

"Of course not."

"That makes two of us."

"What are we facing?"

"Global Community forces are massing at Arish; the plane will be ready, but we need to get to it somehow."

"How do they know we're going to Arish?"

"They're probably covering every transit hub in the area."

"What sort of plane?"

"A Lear jet.  Why?"

"After the bombing of Cairo it's likely that the airport is flooded with refugees.  If we offer them seats on your plane--"

"They might be able to get us there."

---

When the first shot rang out Cameron and Tsion both unbuckled and did their best to curl up on the floor, hoping to keep the engine between themselves and oncoming bullets.

Meeting the roadblock was announced by a horrible sound of warping, twisting, and ripping metal and a disturbance that smashed them into every part of the car around them.  They probably both ended up with concussions, at the least, but there was no time for that as the car was still moving, meaning they'd made it through the road block.

Cameron risked sticking her head up and saw how quickly they were approaching the crowd of refugees.

She tried slamming on the breaks and veering away.  The car rolled.

The good news was that the car didn't hit anyone.  The bad news was that Cameron was in so much pain she could barely move.  Tsion wasn't much better.

It looked like the plan would fail and when the door opened Cameron was prepared to be executed or arrested.  When a concerned question was asked in Arabic, Cameron looked up an saw a civilian.  Cameron responded, in Kurdish, that she didn't speak Arabic.

Tsion said, "He's asking if you're all right."

"No," Cameron said.  "Tell them that we have a Lear jet ready for take off, and we'll take as many with us as can fit if they get us to it, but trying might get them killed."

Cameron heard excited Arabic words exchanged outside of the car, and Tsion said, "They understood."

Cameron and Tsion were pulled from the wreckage and carried to the jet.  So many people packed in that there was no space to sit or even bend.  Ken took off, and a lack of anti-aircraft weaponry meant they were safe.  All local air-forces had been destroyed by the recent war.

Partly to keep her mind off the pain, Cameron reflected on the fact that she and Tsion had survived not through the grace of God but through the kindness of strangers.  When the car had wrecked the people had not known that helping might get them a flight.  They had simply known that a car had wrecked and thus whoever was in it would likely need help.  Then they had gone to provide that help even though it was clear that the people with the guns wanted whoever was in the car dead.

-

[Skewed Slightly to the Left Index]

Skewed Slightly to the Left: Getting to the other side.

[Originally posted at Slacktivist, and the Slacktiverse.]

[By someone who knows nothing about Israeli checkpoints, and also has no idea when Israel became East Germany such that the hard part is getting out, in the real world it's hard to get in, at least as I understand it.]

Cameron looked around at what had been gathered.

The people looked disreputable enough in that "These are respectable clothes, they just got slightly damaged when we looted them from the building we set fire to" kind of way. She was impressed by the number of school buses. They were cheap, she knew that. No one needed a school bus, or a school, these days, and the amount of remodeling necessary to avoid sending half of your passengers into a PTSD episode was absurd. So school buses were for those who couldn't afford much, weren't afraid to show it, and didn't mind the dirty looks everyone who wanted to NEVER THINK ABOUT THE RAPTURE AGAIN were sure to give. Even so, it was a lot of buses. As for the explosives, Cameron had no idea where those came from.

She sighed and said, "Tell me the plan one more time, but this time do it in a way that makes me believe it will actually work."

The smallest member of the group stepped forward, he hadn't uttered a word so far and Cameron had assumed he didn't speak English. When he said, "The plan is simple," in crisp English Cameron kicked herself. Her vocation and her faith both insisted that she test everything. Assumptions were never to be left untested.

The small man continued, "We rely on strategy, subterfuge, faith, and high explosives."

Cameron interrupted, "I've got that, but isn't setting off an explosion at point A to distract the guards from point B the oldest and thus most well prepared for form of distraction."

"Yes, that's the reason for points C and D," the small man said. "They'll anticipate that the events at point A might be a distraction, and investigate it without leaving the checkpoint unguarded. But when C goes off they'll wonder if A might have been a distraction for a crossing there. When they see bus one approaching the hole in the wall they'll be forced to send a larger force to C. Then when we set off D and they see an entire armada of buses--"

"Old school buses don't travel in armadas," Cameron said. "They ride in convoys."

"When they see the buses they'll have no choice but to assume that is the main incursion. And then you and Tison can sneak through at the point they least expect: The checkpoint itself."

Cameron still didn't like the plan, but she pushed that aside and asked, "And we place these explosives how?"

* * *

The preparations had, presumably, all been made, and Cameron and Tsion had been crawling toward the checkpoint under camouflage for an hour.

Cameron wished that she knew what was going on, but trying to get a look was too risky.

She wished Chloe had been here. That wasn't unusual, there were few situations where she didn't wish her wife was in "reach out and touch her" distance. What was different was that she wished Chloe were here because she was sure Chloe could have come up with a better plan than this.

The first explosion went off. It took all of Cameron's self control not to immediately look to see what was going on. Tsion seemed to have no such problems.

The wait for the second explosion was agonizing. At this point Cameron allowed herself to peek. The guards still at the checkpoint seemed to be on high alert, as Cameron has expected. If they couldn't be convinced to leave their posts all of this was pointless. When she heard the first of the empty buses approaching she saw a few guards peel off, but nowhere near enough.

After those guards had gotten some distance the final, and largest bomb went off.

In fact several smaller bombs it was designed to take down a sizable section of the wall, it was meant to appear to be the primary crossing point. Cameron heard the "armada" --the small man had insisted-- of buses immediately come to life and make for the gap in the wall.

When many of the guards attempted to head in that direction they found themselves under fire. The shots were not intended to hit anything, things would go worse if they did, they were intended to make the Israelis think that the opposition wanted to keep them pinned down at the checkpoint and away from the gap in the wall

This had the intended effect, no small miracle in Cameron's mind, of making them choose to abandon the checkpoint to try to stop what they though was a massive breach at the gap.

Cameron and Tsion left their cover and ran to the nearest concrete barricade, which they hid behind. Cameron had made the mistake of assuming once today, she wouldn't again. As far as she was concerned the checkpoint was still manned.

They moved from cover to cover until they were inside the defenses. There were still guards, but to few to have eyes everywhere. It was a bit of a dance to get around them, but nothing too major.

Soon Cameron and Tsion were out the other side and on Egyptian soil.

They disappeared into the night.

* * *

The headlines were about how a massive incursion had been prevented. The Israelis assumed that the buses, of which they stopped every single one, had had drivers who had gotten away, but been otherwise empty and were thus intended to cross the border, pick up people (and perhaps arms) hiding on the other side, and return them to Israel.

Tsion's escape went unnoticed.

-

[Skewed Slightly to the Left Index]

Skewed Slightly to the Left: Calling for Help

[Originally posted at Slacktivisit.]
[Canonically Buck is with the admitted murderer Michael and plans to smuggle Tsion out of Israel into Egypt but is so helplessly inept He doesn't realize the Jordan River doesn't go to Egypt.  Here, well here Cameron calls for help.]

Cameron got out her satellite phone and prayed --not to God, just in that vague sense one prays-- that even though those who had given it to her were dead it was still secure.

"How many favors do I owe you?" she asked when she heard the other end pick up.

The answer was too quiet for Tsion to hear, which made Cameron feel somewhat less embarrassed about the call.

"You realize I could live a thousand years and still never repay that many."

The, "What do you need?" was definitely loud enough for Tsion to hear.

"I need to smuggle someone out of the country." There was only one country left on earth, hopefully that would be enough to tell her friend where she was. She didn't want to set off any keywords, though as soon as she had said it she realized "smuggle" might have done just that.

Codes were so much easier when worked out in advance.

"Where are you hoping to go?"

"To the things that laugh at time," she said. Time laughs at all things, the saying went, but the pyramids laugh at time. Hopefully this indicated that she and Tsion were near the Egyptian border and looking to cross it. Possibly it was too obscure a reference. At least it didn't have any keywords likely to trip surveillance software.

"I see."

There was a pause.

"This isn't exactly prime," strange usage of the word, Cameron noted, probably an attempt to created a code on the fly, "but if you can get to," a series of numbers was rattled off. Cameron jotted them down. All primes. "... then I think I can help."

It took her a moment. A much longer moment than she would have liked given how simple the code was, but she worked it out. The code was perhaps too simple: each digit N was represented by the Nth prime and when translated it was simple longitude and latitude.

If the other side had intercepted the call and cracked the code as she did, then going there might be walking into a trap. Still, it was a best option

The meet location was a fair distance off, but it stayed within borders and there were no real checkpoints in the way. A couple hastily erected roadblocks, but the problem with such hasty measures was that they could be circumvented.

She told her friend she'd try to make it, and told Tsion where they were going. They began the journey.

-

[Skewed Slightly to the Left Index]

A Murderer on the Jordan

[Originally posted at Slacktivist and The Slacktiverse.]
[A thing worth noting is that much of the water supply to the Jordan River has been diverted.  For this scene, or the scene in Left Behind on which it is based, to take place something would need to happen that would completely change the way the Jordan River is.  Hence the mention of a bizarre and unnecessary public works project.]
[Also, spoiler alert, Cameron is trans* in this story.  I meant to have the reveal be at the end of World War III but I wasn't following Slacktivist when that happened.]

“I’m not the one who should be afraid just now, ma'am,” Michael said. “I have twice within the last 48 hours fired this weapon into the heads of people I’ve believed were enemies of God.”

Well fuck. Cameron had been enjoying the surrealism of traveling by boat on the Jordan River. She'd been to the region before the bizarre and unnecessary public works project that had turned the trickle into a navigable waterway.

The entire thing had been a pleasant dreamlike journey. Now she had a fundamentalist murderer pointing a gun at her. An ordinary murderer she might have had better luck working with, but since she'd transitioned she didn't think she could make it passed fundamentalist muster. Even if she convinced this person she wasn't an enemy of God now, what would happen if he noticed some tell indicating that her body wasn't exactly cis.

Cameron was getting used to hiding that, but she knew from experience in other areas that the pressure of having her life hang in the balance tended to make her too nervous to remember, much less cover, all of the pertinent details.

"Ok, I have questions."

"I'll be the one asking the questions."

"On what did you base the determination they were enemies of God? Why does God need you to defend him? Wouldn't your time be better spent with more terrestrial human affairs? Has it ever occurred to you that, as a murderer, you might yourself be an enemy of God?" Cameron walked as she spoke. Hoping that the questions would keep Michael's mind occupied enough that he wouldn't fire.

He was sputtering with outrage when she reached her destination: the edge of the ship. At least he wasn't shooting.

Cameron didn't know how deep the man made river was, so she jumped overboard when she would have preferred to dive. A shot rang out. Cameron didn't let herself stop to even think whether or not she had been hit. She just put the adrenaline to use getting away.

When she was confident she was safe, and able to tell that she hadn't been shot, she thanked someone (she wasn't sure if it should be God or the manufacturer) that her phone was waterproof, and placed a call.

She didn't like having to rely on the other side, but she didn't know who the local authorities were, while they would, and she did know that even the Antichrist wasn't a fan of murderers. In general at any rate. Murderers who worked for him were another matter entirely.

Skewed Slightly to the Left: Why you will fly this plane.

[Originally posted at Slacktivist (page 10).]

[We last saw Rayford under armed guard in one of the lavish sleeping rooms aboard GC-1 curling up into a ball and wishing oblivion would take him.]
(Trigger warnings for threats of murder, torture, fridging, and the like.)

-

"Wake up fuckface," a voice said more loudly than Rayford would have liked and full of more disdain than he was accustomed to.

Rayford had to blink twice to get his eyes to focus but when he did he saw the speaker and tried to respond as cheerfully as he could because he figured that was more likely to annoy than confrontation, "Leon!"

"Mr. Fortunato," the man corrected sharply.

"What brings you to grace me with your most excellent company?"

"Do you honestly think that being chipper is going to somehow give you the upper hand?"

Rayford dropped any hint of his fake mood and said, "So spit it out asshole."

"This plane will be touching down in Baghdad soon to pick up some guests, then we'll make the last leg of our journey to New Babylon once we are certain of the security there.

"You will be flying at that time."

Rayford looked at the four armed guards, the ones he had hoped would kill him in his sleep, then back to Leon Fortunato.  Silence filled the room as the two men looked at each other. Rayford broke it, "Yeah, because that makes so much sense."

"You think you'll be able to defy Carpathia?"

"Put me back in the cockpit.  I dare you."

"He said you'd say that.  That's why I'm here.  To let you get your hopes high before He explains to you exactly why you will carry out every order He ever gives.  Let them soar, convince yourself that you can resist, but when you realize your wings are made of wax and you come crashing down into the surf, when what's left of them becomes soaked and pulls you under no matter how hard you try to keep your head above water, remember this:

"I told you so."

-

Mr. Leon Fortunato left Rayford with the four armed guards, and in spite of his words Rayford was was convinced that if he were put at the plane's controls it would mean death for all on board.  This time he wouldn't wait.  This time he would do what he should have done.  No matter the cost.  He'd sell his soul to get the blood already on his hands off of them, he'd die before he took part in anything to add to that blood with more innocents he could have saved.  That was what he told himself.

Then, Carpathia came.

"Our friend Mr. Fortunato has explained the situation to you?"

"Yes and I'm completely ready to be your faithful lapdog yet again."  Carpathia was good at reading people, he'd know if Rayford were playing along so he could crash the plane, so Rayford saw no need to make his lies compelling or his contempt anything other than transparent.

"Oh, but you are."

"If you think that I'm going to work for you-"

"You will."

"I-"

"Tell me, what do you think about your son," Nicolae let a pause rest there just long enough for Rayford to experience grief for his only son, taken in the Rapture, "in law?"

"I... uh... what?!"

"Do you think he'd place principle first?  Do you think he'd refuse to work for me no matter what?  Because if he would then you have every reason to turn me down.

"You see I plan to make him the same offer I'm about to make you, and if he doesn't take it... well... I'm sure you can work it out for yourself.

"You can come back to work for me, and be completely loyal in word and deed.  Or I can rip everything that you love out of your life, right in front of you.  Your daughter, assuming she's still alive, dead.  Your church will be burned to the ground, and then have all of the underground portions burned, with the entire congregation inside of it.  Any who manage to escape will be executed by machine guns.

"Your friends from work, your old work, will be tracked down and executed.  Your friends from this job too, and you know I know who they are because you know about my surveillance archives.  I know because you erased the part where your wife let you in on the cities to be bombed* and you warned your son in law.

"Hattie as well, even if she does please me from time to time.

"And your wife will naturally be shot in the head.  Not at first, you understand.  We'll probably shoot her in one foot, then the other, chop off her left hand, then the right, poke out her eyes, then take her nose-"

"And then her tongue, I suppose," Rayford said morbidly.

"Exactly!" Nicolae said excitedly.  "To the pain, but she will not live a long life wallowing in freakish misery because then you would have hope that, somehow, you might comfort her.  And that we can't have.  So once we've extracted as much pain as we can from her, we shoot her.

"In front of you, of course.

"After that we'll probably have to go to people you just randomly happened to meet.  How does your entire second grade class sound?  Bet you don't even know their names, but we'll make sure you get to watch their deaths.

"And you, you'll get to live.  A rich and happy life.  At least that's how it will look from the outside, every need taken care of, every amenity provided for, and so much leisure time you won't be able to help but think about all of the deaths we've made you watch.

"And when I do run out of people with some connection to you, I'll start making things up.  Say people who have the same name as your daughter.  I'll bring one in, introduce you to her, let you know about her life, her hopes and dreams, her loves and likes, the people she cares about and the people who care about her, and then I'll kill her in front of you.

"Once I run out of people with that name it'll be your second-born, Raymie I believe his name was.  Not the most common name, I think.  So I'll find people the same age he would be, or as close as I can manage, with the same interests, introduce you to the young men, let you get a good feel for them, and then kill them, slowly, in front of you.

"Every day.  Day after day.  Forever."

There was silence.

"And lest you think that you can avoid this fate by coming back to work for me and then crashing the plane, rest assured that the orders have already been given out.  If anything should happen to this plane, everyone and everything you ever cared about dies.

"Slow, agonizing, deaths.

"So make sure to do your pre-flight checks completely right every time.  And if you should ever have any doubts about the plane's maintenance you get the problem solved, because the life of everyone you ever cared about hangs in the balance."

Rayford hadn't moved a single muscle, save his heart which was beating erratically, since Nicolae got to the part where he mentioned second grade.  Even if he could move it was unclear what he might do.  His eyes couldn't open any wider, the look of horror on his face couldn't be any more pronounced.

Breathing might be nice, but he'd forgotten about that though his lungs were beginning to burn.

"I expect you to be in the cockpit by the time our guests from Baghdad board."

Nicolae turned and walked toward the door.  He opened it, then he turned back to Rayford.  "Mr. Fortunato asked me to remind you: he told you so."  Nicolae addressed the guards, "You're no longer needed here.  Can I interest you in drinks in the lounge?"

Nicolae held the door open for the four guards, then closed it, leaving Rayford in the room alone.

At that point Rayford's oxygen deprived lungs finally overrode his brain, and his horror along with it, and forced a sharp intake of breath.  More gasping followed.

Rayford didn't know what the asking price would be on his soul, but he knew that Nicolae had bought it.  He would be the Antichrist's lapdog.  He would make sure the plane never crashed.

And he would pray that someone would shoot the bastard, provided they did it on the ground.

-

* Actually, he erased the part where Amanda tried to let him in on it and he told her he already knew.  Nicolae is well aware that the plane is bugged, he ordered it to be, but his lack of mind reading means that he doesn't know Rayford has access to it beyond being able to break it.  (The files are encrypted, deleting them is much easier than listening to them.  Also I'm assuming Rayford did it in a way to make it look like an accident, power surge took out the hard drives or whatever.)

-

[Skewed Slightly to the Left Index]

Skewed Slightly to the Left: Rayford has some time to think

[Originally posted at Slacktivist.]

[Previously: Ray had planned to crash the plane before Nicolae could go through with his "Nuke a bunch of cities" plan but waited for Amanda to get off first, only to have it thwarted.  He was transported by armed guards, eventually ending up in a bedroom aboard the plane, but the account of how he got from the cockpit to said room has to be regarded as apocryphal as it doesn't match the surrounding narrative, then San Francisco exploded, then he and Nicolae had a chat.  And that might be all we've seen of him recently]

[Getting the order of everything right has been difficult for me even as I've been writing it, revisions are almost certainly necessary.  For example I was thinking that the destruction of San Fransisco was most recent, and wrote it as such, until I just reread Nicolae talking to him and realized it had to come after the bomb dropped.  And this, likewise, was written assuming that the destruction of San Fransisco was the most recent Rayford scene.]

-


Rayford lay back on the bed.

"You weren't supposed to move a muscle," one of the guards said.  Rayford didn't know which one.  The four all blended together.

"That's impossible," Rayford said.

"Sit back up!"

"Tired of sitting," Rayford said lazily.

"I will fire!"  It was a small room.  There wasn't any background noise.  Rayford would have heard if the guard had whispered, yet for some reason the guard insisted on shouting.

"Do it.  Tired of living too."  Did that count as suicide, Rayford wondered.  Suicides go to Hell, don't they?  No, that was a Catholic belief.  Still, with the blood on his hands Rayford couldn't imagine going anywhere else.  He should have crashed the plane when he had the chance.

Amanda was safe, for the moment.  Small comfort when compared to the millions he could have saved, but it was all he had.  Cameron had been alive when he tried to get warning out.  Some comfort there.

The warning would give at least some people time to get to shelter, assuming anyone knew where a bomb shelter was this long after the cold war.  Maybe a handful of lives had been saved.

Rayford pulled his legs onto the bed, more shouting from the guard.  Perhaps more than one of the guards.  He didn't know.  He didn't care.

Curling up into fetal position wasn't really an intentional act.  He hoped darkness would engulf him soon.  More than that he hoped he wouldn't dream.


-

[Skewed Slightly to the Left Index]

Skewed Slightly to the Left: The first good news

[Originally posted at Slacktivist.]

Dead arm after dead arm.  No watch.

"People just don't wear them as much anymore," Jane said.

Cameron took the cell phone from his pocket and said, "This is your fault," before putting it back.

Jane said, "The up side is that digital watches have gone out of style-"

"I still think they're a pretty neat idea."

"That's an amazingly primitive trait."

"But mostly harmless."

"Indeed.  But my point is that if we do find a watch it's likely to be analog."

"Hands frozen in place rather than blank screen."

"Exactly."

-

They did eventually find a watch, and concluded that Chloe probably took the impassible road before it became impassible, and so worked to get to the other side of the impassible section.

-

Cameron's cell phone rang.  It didn't feel safe to use an arm to talk on it while the motorcycle was in motion.  He asked Jane to stop then answered the phone, "This better be important."

"It is."

"Verna?"

"She's alive, don't know much beyond that."

"That's... that's..." the best thing he heard all day, so good he didn't know how to wrap his mind around it, incredible, exactly what he wanted to hear, and so many other things.  He wasn't able to say any of them.  Finally he did manage, "How do you know?"

"We intercepted a message.  She tried to put in a call to the office, but cut the call when she didn't recognize the voice."

"So the other side-"

"They consider her a low value target, and they want her alive if they get her.  Don't worry."  After a pause Verna added, "The other side has no idea where she is, you do.  You'll find her first."

"Ok.  Gotta go."

"Good luck."

Cameron turned off the phone and turned to Jane, "She's alive."

"Anything beyond that?" Jane asked.

"Not a jot."

"Then we better get going."

They got back on the bike and continued their search, now confident that one of their shouts of, "Chloe!" would get a response beyond their own echo.

---

Rayford sat still, armed guards watching any move he might make.

The plane shuddered as a shockwave passed.  That would be San Francisco.  A city he might have saved if he'd been willing to crash the plain while his wife was still on it, but he had been foolish enough to think he could save both.

Now it was too late for him to do anything.

He wondered how much blood was on his hands now.  Too much to ever wash off.  That was for sure.

-

[Skewed Slightly to the Left Index]