Last Man in London, page 9
’How?’
‘Well, for a start, they recognised the war had nothing to do with oil or any other natural resources. They knew it was a religious war.’ Edgar began.
‘You are going to have to explain religion to me,’ said George.
Edgar ignored him and continued, ‘A religious war that was fought between the extreme elements of the Christian religion of the West and the Islamic extremists of the Middle East. For those of us caught up in the middle, who believed in neither, it was a terrifying time. I’m not surprised nobody wanted to bring children into the world. I certainly didn’t but your grandfather had already been born by 2001, when it all started. I wouldn’t have any more. Nobody I knew did. And so, the population in the West simply began to decline. At one stage it was falling at a rate of around fifty million people a year. It was the same all over the world. There was a solution, but infertility treatment was expensive and only the rich or privileged could afford it. But at least that meant some children were being born, like your mother and father for example. At least the human species would not die out altogether, thanks to the senior scientists of the Corporation.’
George’s hy-dev lit up once more and he was immediately drawn to it. Tibha; ‘is that a yes or no Mr Dickens?’
This time George immediately replied, ‘it’s a yes please Ms Shelley, where and when?’
‘Were you involved in the war granddad?’ he asked.
‘Only as one of the junior scientists. I didn’t shoot anybody.’ Edgar replied proudly.
‘What was it like?’
‘It was a fight to the death. To begin with it was dismissed as terrorism, Islamic terrorism and nobody seemed to understand it properly. They were far more committed to it than we were in the early years. There were a few bombs here and there that very few people, apart from those involved or affected, really took any notice of. It was only when a handful of committed Islamic fighters hijacked a couple of airplanes full of passengers, who could have been any one of us, and crashed them into buildings in the Western Divisions that we really started paying attention. Our governments sent armies out to the countries that had trained those people, the countries with the oil and the Islam. They tried to find the people who were responsible. It was a bloodbath and it soon became obvious, when western governments also started sending out Christian Missionaries, Army Chaplains they called them, to hand out copies of their own holy book, and to try and convert the conquered, the ones they claimed they were saving, that history was repeating itself again. It was a holy war. Christian against Muslim and there were billions of people on each side.’
George shook his head slowly.
‘It was hardly surprising that when the Corporation promised to end the war and bring the western armies home, to act as a defensive shield only, that the public were so easily persuaded to replace their governments. By then it had come to the stage where Islamic extremists, who had been living in our own communities for generations, started attacking innocent people in shopping centres, on trains, buses, at stations, in schools and anywhere else they were gathered in large numbers, and were defenceless, that we knew we needed protecting here at home, not in the Middle East. Those idiot democracies did not see it coming. Luckily the Corporation did. Democratic governments, as much as they would like to have, could not control information back then as the Corporation can today.’
‘Attacked in shopping centres?’ George was appalled. ‘People just going about, living their normal lives with nothing to do with the army or religion, were attacked?’
‘It was co-ordinated George. Thousands of Islamic soldiers, who were living in the west; their families having been invited by governments in the years beforehand, armed themselves and went out into the streets. It happened in towns and cities all over the Western Empire. Hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered; whilst their governments were looking to the East they had left the back door open. They called it a Fifth Column Attack and there was carnage.
‘A Fifth Column,’ George questioned, ‘What’s that?’
‘It was a term the Corporation used to describe a group of people, or army, living in a country that gathered together in secret. They would be as disruptive as they could be on a small scale and, once given the signal from their leaders, they would all rise at once and cause wide-scale chaos. It was an old military tactic that many armies used throughout history.’ Edgar explained.
‘I know,’ George replied. ‘I remember now. The Barbarians lived in the Roman Empire for centuries before co-ordinating their attacks on Rome. They were a Fifth Column and Rome was not expecting any threat from their own people, or so they thought.’
Edgar looked impressed. ‘I did not know that. But that is exactly what a Fifth Column is. People who you think are your own. People you think you know who turn out to be somebody else entirely. Does that sound familiar George? All the time there had been an Islamic Army waiting in the West for the signal to attack. They were all connected together by the internet, before it was regulated, and could communicate their intentions easily.
So, after the Fifth Column Attack we knew we were involved in a war for civilisation itself and that was worth fighting for. They wanted us all to change our way of lives. They wanted to impose their beliefs and laws upon us, here in the West. Their own medieval beliefs and barbaric laws. And the Christians, well they were just as bad. They made it clear that Islam would have to change their own ways if they wanted to live among the western communities. There was no compromise and no apparent end in sight.’
‘So what happened afterwards,’ George was mesmerized.
‘The government was forced to suspend its democratic principles. It was forced to act undemocratically in a way that everybody could see clearly, for the first time. They revealed their motives by rounding up all non Christians and taking them to secure compounds across the Western Empire where their families were forced to live. They announced that it was for their own protection but we all knew it was for ours really.’
‘That seems a little unfair to me,’ said George.
‘Nothing in life is fair son. They did what they had to do. Obviously many innocent people were shut away but there was no way of knowing who was innocent and who was a threat, either at that time or who would be in the future. Government experts had been studying Islam and their holy book, the Koran. It was clear that when Muslims talked about Islam being a religion of peace, the peace they were implying was the one that would prevail after they had forced the entire world to adopt its beliefs and obey its laws. That was the peace they were preaching and the Christian governments were never going to accept that. Islam wasn’t a religion of peace at all, but then neither was Christianity and this was the heart of the whole problem.’
Chapter Six
Edgar looked sad, they were painful memories but he composed himself, poured a little brandy into his coffee and continued. ‘You see, we were told time and time again by the scholars and so called experts that Islam was a religion of peace. And I have no doubt that was true for the vast majority who shared that particular belief. But whether that was actually the case or not turned out to be completely irrelevant. It was a smoke screen that convinced the rest of us in the West that the rampaging maniacs, who terrorised the whole non Islamic world, could be easily contained. It convinced us that they didn’t matter so much. That was where governments had it all wrong. The Corporation, on the other hand, realised that the fanatical few were the ones who had become the leaders. They were the ones with the power and who had all the real influence.
It was they who were waging wars all over the world and slaughtering Christians, Jews and anybody else who did not follow their beliefs. It was they who were killing non-Muslims in Africa in an attempt to create a Caliphate across the entire continent. It was they who were doing the same all over the West whilst the peaceful majority remained silent. They were too scared to stand up to the fanatics from their own religion for fear of becoming targets themselves. It was the fanatical few who were carrying out the bombings, the murders, the beheadings and what they called honour killings.’
‘Honour killings’ asked George, ‘what is that?’
’Anybody who shared their faith and was a true Muslim but who had been considered to have offended that faith, or were in breach of one of their laws, were murdered. Even if it was a member of their own family, including children, if they were caught being too friendly with non Muslims. The fanatical few, the leaders, encouraged all this whilst the peaceful majority stood silently by and that made them part of the problem too. Because the fanatics had taken over the places of worship. And controlled their educations and who taught the next generation, their children, how to grow up and become murderers themselves. It was they who encouraged the hanging and stoning of homosexuals and rape victims and taught them how to make a bomb and walk onto a train, or anywhere else crowded with Christians, and detonate it.
You see, the silent and peaceful majority didn’t matter by then. They had made themselves irrelevant, because we never knew who was peaceful and who wasn’t. They were cowards who hid behind each other. Exactly the same thing had happened during other times in our history. When China was a Communist country there is no doubt that the majority of the Chinese people were peaceful. But their leaders still managed to kill seventy million of them who didn’t agree with their beliefs. When Russia was a Communist country there is no doubt that the majority of Russians were peaceful too and yet they managed to kill fifty million people who did not agree with their beliefs. Japan was a particularly peaceful nation until the fanatical few waged war in South East Asia murdering twelve million people. The same can be said in parts of Africa. Uganda, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Libya to name only a few.
The Corporation had studied history and the lesson was a simple one to learn. And they made sure we learned it. By the time of the Incorporation peace loving Muslims had become unimportant. Failing to condemn and prevent the fanatics had meant they themselves were also part of the problem, whether they were directly involved or not. One day they woke up and found that the violent element of their faith now owned them. Innocent, Chinese, Russian, Japanese and African people had all died because the peaceful majority had remained silent, on their behalf. And when it was their turn to die there was nobody left to speak up for, or protect, them either. The Corporation was not going to allow that to happen in the Western Empire.
And because Muslim people failed to integrate and refused to live among westerners in western cities and, instead, gathered together in their own communities, they created no-go zones. Western people could not go into those areas and they enforced their own barbaric laws upon their own people. And the governments did nothing to stop this. So when the inevitable happened, the Fifth Column Attack on the old and the young, families, civilians and any non Muslims, the Corporation was the first to react. They showed us how governments had also become irrelevant. And that is why the first thing the Corporation did was to ban all religions and round up anybody who refused to abandon their medieval beliefs. They were locked away on compounds and everybody could relax again. It was a horrible time son. But difficult decisions are easy to make when there is nothing left to lose.’
George stood up and walked to the window overlooking the Complex. ‘You said it was the governments who did the rounding up, not the Corporation.’
’I can’t really remember now,’ said Edgar. ‘It was around the time of the takeover. It was a long time ago now.’
‘So what happened to all those families who were taken to the compounds?’ George asked.
‘They were safe. Safe from revenge attacks. The Christians couldn’t get at them.’
‘No I mean now, where are they now?’
‘Well, after Incorporation and religion was banned, those who refused to give up their Stone Age beliefs were sent back to the Stone Age. They were forced to relocate to a country that did still practice their chosen religion. ‘No problem,’ they were told. ‘If you want to be a Muslim then pick a country where their particular faith was encouraged and off you go.’ It was no surprise that none of them wanted to go anywhere of the sort and so they were forced to. It was called a Peaceful Repatriation Program but I happen to know that many were allowed to stay.’
‘How do you know that?’ George asked.
‘Because many of them were very clever indeed and had a lot to contribute to the new society. Some of them worked in the same science division as me and I am glad they did. You see there had been another war, over one hundred years ago, between western countries that my own grandfather had fought in. He told me all about it when I was younger. One of the countries involved had done a similar thing to the Corporation, only they deported all of their Jewish people. And this turned out to be their biggest mistake because it was those Jewish people, the clever ones, who ended up developing the weapons that eventually defeated the country they had been expelled from. Had they been allowed to stay then the outcome of that war would have been very different. In fact, it would have been the opposite. The Corporation had learned from this and kept the clever Muslims in the West, working for them instead of against them.’
‘That’s a relief, I am pleased about that,’ said George.
‘We all were,’ Edgar replied.
’So what happened to those who were sent back?’ asked George.
‘Well,’ Edgar began, ‘this was the whole problem with religion in general. It was the refuge of very troubled minds. For a start, those who dedicated their lives to Islam did so in different ways. They interpreted their holy and sacred book in their own ways and could not agree with each other. The two largest groups were the worst. The Sunni’s and the Shiites. They didn’t like each other at all and with no Christians left to fight, since there weren’t any after their religion had been banned as an organisation in the West, they turned on each other. They went to war with each other over their beliefs and the West simply let them get on with it. We all sat by and watched it on television. They did a better job of killing each other than our army had been doing anyway. They were left alone to de-populate themselves. Western borders were closed and they were simply ignored. After the Corporation had developed hydrogen energy there was nothing in the Middle East they wanted anyway.’
‘What a terrible way to deal with things, and what about the Christians. What happened to those who refused to abandon their beliefs?’ George wondered.
‘They all went very quiet. I am sure some of them still practiced their silly, superstitious nonsense but never in public. There were still many countries in the Middle East and Africa where Christianity was permitted but none of the westerners wanted to go and live in any of those places. Their total faith was, apparently, not so important to them after all. Besides, none of the younger generation, like me at the time, believed any of that crap by then anyway. It was only the older people and they have all died out now, taking the God they made with them. Their churches and mosques were turned into something more useful, life was more peaceful and the Corporation became incredibly prosperous. We all made so much money. Well, those of us who were contributing did. Those who weren’t all died out, or are dying out. If they couldn’t pay for their own health care then they didn’t get any treatment. Hundreds of millions of people died of illness or, as the Corporation news feeds called it, natural causes.’
‘And this all seems fair to you does it?’ George confronted Edgar. ‘That all the Muslims were taken to detention centres and then expelled from the West and anybody who could not afford medical treatment died of illness?’
‘They started it,’ Edgar told him sternly. ‘They wanted their way of life to be preserved and so the Corporation sent them somewhere that it was being preserved. If more Muslims living in the West had integrated into the communities they lived in, instead of attacking them, the Corporation would not have sent them back to the Stone Age. The Human Resources Department once did a study in the Division of Germania that concluded that the Muslim people living there had received over two billion dollars in benefits more than they had contributed to their community. Imagine that multiplied around the fifty Divisions of the Corporation. But they wanted to fight us for their own lifestyles and expected the West pay for it. They ended up fighting for their own lives, somewhere else. But that was their own choice. It didn’t have to be that way. All they had to do was renounce their religion, accept the total ban and observe the law like everybody else.’
George was tracing his finger around the lip of his cup. He was deep in thought. ‘Well that explains some things,’ he accepted, ‘but that doesn’t really explain where six billion people disappeared to in forty years.’
‘Well, it does though doesn’t it,’ said Edgar tapping into the calculator on his hy-dev.’ ‘That works out to be around one hundred and fifty million people a year. Which doesn’t seem so many people to die in tribal wars, famine, earthquakes, typhoons, tsunami waves and other natural disasters. Plus, accident, illness and natural causes. Out of seven billion people that would be about right. The real problem was the virus. With most of the remaining population either being unprepared to have children, or unable to conceive, the birth rate dropped from around two hundred million a year to only a few million.
It happened almost immediately but nobody really noticed for years as it was never mentioned by the Corporation news feeds. But then maternity hospitals started closing down as they had little work to do. Following that the schools began to close as there were fewer young students. Then the universities and many hospitals were converted into homes as there were fewer people who needed to use them. Former government buildings, thousands of them, became apartments. Jails were turned into luxury hotels and compounds to be used as living accommodation. This saved the Corporation trillions of dollars which was all put to good use. Then, after ten years or so, unemployment became a thing of the past. Everybody leaving full time education was guaranteed a job and those who were not properly educated were sent to the West Island, just off the west coast of Albion.
