Ash.
A forest had been thick with life. Leaves had aspirated the golden sunlight, unbreakably fragile shafts that illuminated each movement below. Vines had been arteries carrying the blood of the forest with a ceaseless pulse. Omnipresent insects had yielded that the earth beneath should never be still. The sun would fall to sate the trees, the trees would fall to sate the fauna, and the fauna would fall to sate the trees again. Death gave way to life. Chaos reigned supreme.
There were some who did not like disorder. A forest was not ordered, nor was it clean, nor was it perfect. Ash, though, was pure. Where once there was a vexingly inefficient machine, there was now a thin layer of white.
Forests were not the only agitators of ITS neurosis. Apes aspirated the volatile air, their arteries pulsed with disgusting blood, and the mites on their skins yielded that their epidermises should never be still. IT was the fire that cleansed the forest, and IT would be the fire to cleanse humanity.
10,000 Years Later
"I'm only doing this for the education, you know. I'm more than a brute with a gun. I'll make something of myself after I finish these six service years, you'll see. The rest of you Agency sheep probably finish your shifts and gamble until you drink yourselves to sleep. You know what I do? Night classes. See, I'm getting free courses at the best university in Nevada! You need more than a gun and some muscle to do that." The young man took another puff of his cigarette. "I don't assume you're doing anything after the Agency."
The older fellow beside him scoffed and lit his fag. "I still say you won't achieve anything. The world is getting hard to live in, and you need more than some free college education to succeed. What, do you think I don't know things too? I went to primary. I can list facts all night. For example: Did you know, long before humans got here, they think Nevada was a forest?"
"Who thinks that?" The young man countered, and the older fellow shrugged.
"I dunno. They." He took another drag of black smoke.
"Cigarettes are going to kill you, you know. I only smoke a little bit, but you? You're a dead man." Said the young one. He sucked down plumes of the hot vapor, every molecule of smoke spinning and drifting wildly down his lungs, lodging in the recesses, sticking to his teeth, embedding in his throat. "They cause cancer, you know. They're disgusting. Ever heard a smoker's cough? See the spit flying all over the place? Some smokers get a hole right in their throat, you know." Finally, the cigarette dropped to the earth, ground by a heel into pure ash. Then the young man drew another.
A figure appeared before them two, ITS visage flickering black.
"The hell did you get in here?" Demanded the older man, raising his gun. He quickly spoke into his headset. "This is the West Gate, we have an anti-teleportation perimeter breach, please respond, over."
IT eyed the gun aimed at ITS chest. The piece was perfect. Hard carbon steel bore the markless mark of ritual cleaning, and there was not a smudge to be found on the entire weapon. When the trigger was pulled, a bolt would move and a bullet would leave the barrel with the perfect precision of a calculated spin. IT was pleased.
Beside the gun was a man who'd just removed a cigarette from its box and was preparing to light it. This act would be very unclean, and very displeasing. IT held ITS hand towards the young man and took the very tip of the cigarette between two fingers. The cigarette was lit, and the young man began to enjoy.
"I asked how you got in here." Said the older man.
"You'd better not just stand there. The Agency isn't one of those rundown organizations that gets queasy at the sight of something ethereal. You'd better fuck off or get killed."
The lit end of the young man's cigarette became black, and black flames raced through tobacco, past the young man's lips, and up through his nose, eyes, and pores. 47 bullets passed harmlessly through ITS ghostly figure, so it destroyed the messy consciousness of the older fellow and replaced it with obedience. Both men stood straighter. Their aspiration stopped, their pulsing arteries ceased, and the mites on their skins immediately died. The gate slid open to allow The Auditor through.