SWEET CHILD OF MINE

~

Never Forget Where You Came From

It was happening again.

A bloody-red blade; no, two! They glowed dimly in the moonless night, that vicious black-and-red demon face locked on to the Master and his Apprentice: their own lit, cobalt blue and violet. The highlands rang with warcries and clashes, violence and pain. It went on and on. But made a mistake, kicked and rolled downhill, come to a skillful stop run back up NO his friend and ally fell to the ground and rolled in a crumpled mass downhill, passing a few feet from his Master, eyes still open, tumbling uncontrollably into the loche.

And he was next. Time would pass, and he would be next. Unless his ship came first. Fighting. Jumping. Slashing, blocking, oh damn that was close. Here it came, his ship, oh Gods thank you NOOO!

NO!

Judas' leered into those pitiless, ravenous eyes at the far end of the blade impaled through his abdomen, and the world grew dark.

The world grew light.

He knew his name. He knew who he was, and what happened. But who were these friars? Monks, they said. They heard the battle, found his body, turned it on in a machine, and seven years later their patient –him—awoke from his coma. Did you find another corpse? No, was there one Yes there was but… but thank you thank you thank the Gods oh thank you.

Mind exercises? Sure I know about them, if subtle, a Mind Trick; if a bit more powerful, a Mind Whammy. I don't understand? Sure, talk. Oh the subconscious, sure I know about that. Oh really. I see. Well, I'll try it out. Cool. Hey, what if I did THIS…

Years passed with a flutter of his unconscious eye.

No the Abbott will have to do without an explanation; is that what he thinks? What the fuck do I care what he thinks? I'm a philosopher, like all the monks were once, like your founders were. No, that means I ask questions. No no… that I have found real answers is beside the point, in that I am a seeker. The Psychic Hammer is utterly beside the point, it happens to be that I have found some truth, that I have invented something that works. Of course he doesn't have a right to be concerned, no man has a right to be irrational and affect my life with their stupidity; he doesn't have to worry since I'm no monster. What? The fuck have you been hearing?

Another flicker, a pounding of the heart. Judas turned over in bed, moaning uncomfortably.

Still, Inquisitor, it remains to be seen what remains to be seen. I have spelled it all out clearly for you time and time again. I have said it a dozen different ways  a hundred times. That you disdain the theory is understandable; that you disagree for the sake of disagreement is morally reprehensible! Yes, yes, Inquisitor, you understand that much, good: I don't give a damn what you think, so long as you leave me alone. After all that's what I thought the Order in its observatories did: give up on people, on the world, and studied the truth on their own, apart from the howling voices of the wicked: such was the religious impetus for our Monastic separation from the world without, and understandable, given the relative age of our current civilization. No… no, no no. You don't understand at all. You don't, because you consciously won't, because you subconsciously can't, and we are all too—NO I'm not 'hexing' you with my Jedi powers, get off it, man!

With a nocturnal shiver, his brain skipped the painful passage out of the observatory, and he was in the office of the Regional Vice President:

Yessir I understand sir well if you say so, yes I understand he'll be missed but yes well promise I'm a philosopher not a businessman. Things to say, to you? Nothing you want to hear, not a damn thing. The CEO wants to hear it, you say. At his meetings. As his executive VP. Well. Sure!

Wind howls about the high tower; Judas buries his head in his pillow.

Pirate frigates pound the hull, their fighters brawl with ours, they take one of the tankers, they take another, a third explodes, there's a fire in the engine room, even the air up here is filled with smoke. Can't use this door, panel's sparking electricity fluttering where the hell are our corvettes? Gotta get to the hangar deck I can fly one of those sumbitches good as any. Goddamn, what happened to the lights. Make do without 'em: down this corridor WHAT WAS THAT SOUND? Pirates breached the hull. Great. Well at least a few of those thieves will pay a price for their wanton murder and carnage. Down the hatchway, through the blast doors, around the ladder well, follow the JP-5 fuel piping –whoa- a presence. Several. No, just two, but others nearby. These are guarding entry to the hangar, the –mm—two dozen others are within the hangar itself. Very well: get them arguing. Feed their subconscious, play upon their impulses, tease the heartstrings, here we go. Good, good. Not paying attention anymore, are you? Find that seed within them… feel it, hear it grumble, live as a volcano, force it to erupt. They cannot understand, can't even hear each other. With the bloodrush they can barely see each other. All they know is shouting, passions, pride, but keep the violence thing down, if they draw on each other it'll attract a helluvalotta attention… now slip by, wave to 'em both for shitz n giggles, and on into the hangar.

Just be casual, just walk casual, infect the minds of those who can see you, but they start to think anyway we're not powerful as God for crying out loud the leader? You want me to stop? No you don't, of course I can go about my business. No, I'm just passing through, thankyouverymuch. Yes. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll just be –yes I'm getting in the cockpit, you just said I could thank you. Sorry, no time, I can't hear you it's closed and sealed. Arm weapons, B-LAST the bay doors, watch all the pirates go flying out into the vacuum of space, warm thrusters, time to inch outta here.

Dodging melees and dogfights, the fighter's explosive entry into hyperspace woke Judas with a start.

But he knew the rest of the story, how he was left the only surviving member of the company's top brass; how he changed the corporation into Plato's image of Utopia; and how, feeling his work there was done, sold his shares and moved on in life.

Moved to Coruscant. Moved home. After all this time. Home.

Judas had considered himself "retired" from being a Jedi Master, from being a Monk, from being an Executive Vice President, from pretty much everything he had evern been and ever done (save the profession of "philosopher", that hidden hope so intricate to his heart and mind without which he would promptly shrivel up and die). Judas Aries Ferreus had intentionally and whole-heartedly made a conscious decision to be, as it were, utterly retired, that is, from history itself: no more riding the sine curve of history, no more suffering and screaming and fighting the insurmountable tide of the pansentient problem of corruption from within, "human" nature in every race! No more fist-raising and tower-shaking for him, no more! And if you asked him about betraying his calling as an Advanced Philosopher –in fact a mortal Messiah if you could find comparison between Galileo, Newton, Huss, Wycliff, Luther, and Calvin to their Christ—he would simply point to the question of volition, asking was it not his choice what destiny he would have; and then begin an offensive, observing the dark doom of all those others who fought the oncoming tide or resident evil of the long Dark Ages of the past. It was his choice, irrelevant of the mad dictates of any imperial God, to, if he would, side-step a gruesome and publically humiliating untimely demise!

His hatred of the human race, which he had applied to every race, was only surmounted by his older, superior, deeper, barely more powerful love of his own life, and thus (for he was not insane) a terrible and ruthless dedication to the priceless value of all other individual lives. His loathing of what men did with freedom of thought/action was only overcome by his positively fanatic dedication to his freedom of mind, and deeds. And the only thing that surmounted the violence of his rejection of evil, was the very hand of God itself: his embrace of Truth.

Judas hated for hate's sake what people could be, what life might be, yet what was not, and what they all were, and he was not, nor could by nature ever be.

Like a man beseiged by a tide of product advertisements, he stood despite them, and chose none of them, and rejected their very premise: so he was to the world about him.

A fist raised in opposition.

Only now, silent. Retired. For a time, maybe. For a time. For all time? But only a fool would propose to see down the swell of years so clearly. Maybe, only hibernating, till called, till the appropriate time…

"Retired! From the whole world! From all of History! Retired!" he harrumphed, pawing for his sheets and turning over back to bed: summing a bit of mental concentration, with a thought he passed into a dreamless sleep.