Chapter 17 Scientifically Speaking
Scientifically Speaking
This can’t be real
My mind is leaking
A Shock to feel
Emmett huffed irritably and threw down the toaster he was working on. It made sense to him that the electricity would be out, but the fact that his battery lit torch wasn’t working had immediately spurred him into action. He was a scientist and took the matter very personally, so he had spent the past week fiddling with all the household appliances until they were forced into submission.
The toaster, however, was not cooperating and he was very close to giving up.
“Hey, Emmett,” the soldier, who was very skeptical about science in general had stayed out of morbid curiosity to see if Emmett would succeed, “Can you explain, scientifically, why the sun hasn’t come up?”
Emmett abandoned his mission entirely and looked at the other man, “Yes, of course, but it would take vast amounts of research and observations and I’m much more interested in making this toaster work because it’s much more practical!”
“Hmmmm,” the soldier, Jeremiah, turned his gaze out the window, “Can you explain why the world is so bloody messed up? Can you explain why people are so bleeding stupid?”
Emmett barely suppressed the comment about stupidity that was at the edge of his tongue. “No,” he said, “Because I can’t force sense into people’s heads, but we can make the best of what we have, mate, we can fix things!”
The argument was getting rather old by this time and Emmett’s mouth moved along with Jeremiah’s monosyllabellic reply: “No.”
But he was beyond frustrated now and so Emmett found himself insisting, his face flushed, “Look, I’m not asking you to bloody fight, alright, I’m just asking you to teach me how to defend people!”
Jeremiah’s jaw twitched, but that was the only indication that he had even heard.
“You said yourself that the world is messed up, but it won’t stop being this brutal until we change it, we have to get up off our arses and do what’s right!”
“Right?!” Jeremiah turned on him with an angered expression, “What makes you the ultimate genius who knows what’s right and what’s wrong? I told you, it’s messed up, and I’m not having any part in this blasted nonsense.”
“Doesn’t it make any impression on you when you hear about all those bloody terrorists killing children?”
“Yeah,” Jeremiah said with a bitter voice, “Which is why I refuse to kill.”
Surprisingly enough, life went on. Classes were still held in the dark rooms and their shifts in the Hospital were doubled due to all the chaos and the need for every hand that was even remotely skilled. The only thing that stopped completely was the research papers, and for that Emmett was glad.
He had convinced Jeremiah to stay and help with the rent in hopes of eventually getting him to teach him how to fight. Jeremiah had agreed willingly, because, after all, it was lucky enough that the people at his “job” (the boy spent his days hauling around heavy boxes for a living) didn’t recognize him, but he wasn’t going to risk dealing with a landlord as well.
The argument was becoming a habit, as sure as Emmett’s coffee every morning, and he was hopeful that he was beginning to get to him so when Jeremiah suddenly said: “It’s not even all organized, well the explosions are, but it’s like half the people in the city are involved in some sort of crime.” Emmett was sure the soldier was cracking. He would never be prepared for what that actually meant.
“And the helpless are the ones that suffer,” Emmett’s voice was low as he picked up the small paper off of his desk and tossed it to the other boy, “Do you see that face, Jeremiah, she didn’t deserve that, and I can’t sit around and try to heal the wounds when it’s too late. We have to stop it!”
“So go and bloody stop it then!” Jeremiah had a powerful voice that almost shook the room in his anger, “I’m not stopping you, damn it!”
“But-”
“No dammit, no!” if not for the other boy’s staunch refusal to have anything to do with violence Emmett would have been very afraid, “If you want to learn how to kill then go off and find yourself some class that teaches it, I’m not the only bloody person who can teach you!”
“Not kill, man, just-”
“Just what? Just defend?!” Jeremiah’s eyes were flashing with rage now, and his voice was dangerously low, “You clearly have nothing better to do for the next five hours than bother me, so why don’t you just go out into the streets and see it for yourself. I dare you to go out there and witness a crime and then come back in here and look me in the eye and ask again.”
Emmett stared at the boy in shock, but as soon as the challenge had registered in his mind he set his jaw. Was the man bloody daft? Didn’t he understand that the horrors and the gruesomeness of it all was precisely what made him want to fight it? He stood, rigidly, determined to do just what the other boy had challenged him to do, perhaps he could prevent one murder tonight even if he was still a scrawny, four-eyed scientist and maybe that would encourage Jeremiah and show him that they could fix this madness.
“And toss me that bottle on your way out!” Jeremiah’s back was turned to him, so Emmett grabbed the bottle and practically ran out the door, slamming it shut behind him. He broke it on the pavement a few steps away from the building and shook his head. Jeremiah would only go get himself another one, he knew, until he ran out of money that is.
The grin that broke across his features at that thought was very short lived. It turned into a horrified grimace before Emmett clamped his mouth shut and closed his eyes. But it was still the same when he opened them again. He noticed, the contents of his stomach churning, that bones made a loud crack when they broke. And when a young boy was surrounded only by dead companions and four muscular black-clad men with frightening masks on he realized that there really wasn’t anything he could do, unless getting himself killed along with the boy was an option.
But the boy was already dead by the time his mind had even registered what was going on. He couldn’t for the life of him remember how the men had disappeared so quickly; he was too busy searching his mind for something, anything, that could make sense of this. Some sort of logic that might help him understand how they could do this. But there was no logic in murder, and Emmett stood there for a full hour before turning sharply and striding away, realizing that Jeremiah had been right about one thing, but very, very wrong about the other.
