Exodus Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty
So This is Good-Bye...


We ran through the streets. It was hard to avoid noticing that no lights were on, and very little had been cleaned. The Streets were slick with ice. Cars were buried in snow that, in many cases, had frozen solid on top of the vehicles. The windows of numerous storefronts and several homes had been broken.

We knew that the adults placed under house arrest weren't being kept in the Community Center. Since it had been turned into the Relocation Center we'd all spent too much time there, and it wasn't big enough to hide the more than one dozen adults who had been placed under 'house arrest'. Since only community center and town hall had heat, it was easy to conclude that they must be in Town Hall.

Now the funny part is that because everyone had been chasing us towards the edge of town, when we doubled back and headed to the business center, nobody was around to see us. We arrived at the Town Hall, and checked for a way in. The front door was unlocked, open in fact. Which made me nervous. Lights were on in several rooms, We fanned out and looked everywhere except the council chamber. We could hear a voice or voices in the council room and nobody wanted to draw us into a confrontation in the center of town. Once everywhere else had been searched however, and it was clear that no other room had any of the house arrest adults, we quietly decided to check the council room.

We walked in to see Professor Tuttle with a bottle labelled Vodka in his left hand and a highball glass in his right hand. He sat quietly in the Mayor's seat, looking into nowhere.

As we entered the room, he looked at us, “Seven Billion people with nothing original to say, singing the same self-centered apocalyptic song for the last ten thousand years. And we have the audacity to think that this is our story.”

“Then give it up.” I said.

“And do what? We've scribbled all over the storybook. There's nowhere left for any other stories. We've taken stories away from everybody for all time. We've broken the world, and all we can do is hang on. Maybe, when everything stops falling, there will be something left over.”

“So you're going to keep doing this? Keep helping them run this monstrosity? You turned us in. I'm pretty sure it was you who betrayed Bart as well. Is that what you call hanging on? I call it running from a bear and tripping your friends to feed the bear.”

“This is the only way, and even if it's broken there is nothing else. No other way.”

Viper stared at Professor Tuttle with a ferocious, venomous anger.

“So how do you know that? And even if you're right, what does that mean? And even if you're right, so what? Is there any value left in what you're trying?”

“Good questions.” He said with a bitter laugh.

“You tried to teach us how to think, but you stole what you taught from Raven’s dad, without ever understanding how to ask yourself three questions. Raven's Dad is locked in some dark room somewhere with Bart and they're being fed a weak stew made from Mrs. Giller's cats. And you helped make that, because you don't have the courage to ask yourself those three questions you tried to teach us.”

Professor Tuttle didn't say anything. He just sat there.

“Come on, he's never going to grow up.” Owl said to Viper, who shook her head disgustedly.

“I'm going to raise the alarm now.” Professor Tuttle said in a hollow shell shocked voice. “You'd best run.”

“Betrayer to the end?” Wolf asked.

“This is how it has to be. The good of the many. Survival of the culture. This is how it has to be.”

He pulled a sports whistle from his pocket and blew three long blasts, and then three short blasts on the whistle. We listened to bells ringing in the distance, echoing the alarm the Professor had raised. Owl stared at Professor Tuttle and shook his head. I don't know what I was expecting Owl to do to Professor Tuttle as Owl stepped toward him, but when Owl suddenly backhanded Professor Tuttle across the face I was so shocked I actually yelled in surprise.

Owl looked at me. He didn't say anything, he just looked for a moment and then turned back to face Professor Tuttle. The Professor's nose was bleeding and he looked at Owl with a weird look on his face, somewhere between anger and respect and despair. Owl looked back at Professor Tuttle with utter disgust.

“You have to do more than just talk a good game Professor. You have to get your hands dirty. And my hands are so dirty that they're red. You don't know me, or any of us anymore. Just remember we gave you a chance. This was your chance. We know what you are know, and if you are half a smart as we always thought you were, you know what we are know. Your side has the advantages right now, but it stay like that. We're retreating now, but don't mistake that for victory. We win. And next time we meet, you better be ready.”

Viper turned back to Raven.

“We don't have time to find your parents now, but we aren't abandoning them. We're coming back for them. I promise that we're coming back for them and for Bart and anyone else we can save.”

Raven nodded.