Neytopia › Part 2: Noon › Chapter 42

Disintegration

Everyone she met suddenly felt the drive to make something of their lives. The hobos found jobs, worked hard, formed families and introduced them to the new religion. Meanwhile she worked as a waitress, telling customers about the religion of love; then she became a lawyer, then a secretary, a teacher, a student, a factory worker, an accountant, and much more. She put on a unique face for each of them so no one connected the dots.

In four weeks she played sixteen roles. During each of them she sowed the idea of the religion of love in the minds of many citizens. Then she and the lightbringer left for the next city, where they repeated the process. Progress was slow but steady. She worked all day while the lightbringer planned and researched. Most times she slept in the cities and towns they were visiting, other times she slept with him, at the outskirts of town.

It took them decades to tour the empire, but they succeeded. As time passed, the cities and towns were the first to spread the word about the religion of love. Groups of religious citizens cropped up, demanding that their specific version of her religion of love be accepted. They also demanded freedom and independence from the empire.

The breaking point came the day the empire recognized the religion they had spread as its main faith. The cornerstone of the empire at its foundation had been precisely that every religion was banned. Suddenly and everywhere, national-socialist groups cropped up, each with charming leaders that spoke thus:

The empire is evil and we’ve had enough of it. It’s corrupt, decadent and broken. Centuries of oppression couldn’t erase our forefathers’ traditions and tongues, and they won’t erase us now: we must restore the glorious states of our great ancestors and learn from our past mistakes to build an even greater tomorrow.

Blah, blah, blah. But blah, blah, blah that worked: claiming the empire no longer represented their cultural identity, these groups managed to establish their own, independent countries. The empire was forced to acknowledge their independence, losing more and more control until only the territories closest to the capital remained loyal.

When she and the lightbringer had plotted his plan, he thought the empire would crumble before a coalition of free countries. They believed that leaders would rush to destroy the decrepit empire before it reannexed the frail new countries. But these leaders remained passive. She traveled to meet the new leaders of the recently created countries to convince them to act. They all said the same:

We need to focus on strengthening our new state, the empire will fall on its own. Besides, how do we know our neighbors won’t invade us while we are fighting the empire, or when we are too weak after defeating it?

The empire wasn’t dead yet and petty rivalries had already decided the course of action. While the new nations organized themselves and created treaties with each other, the surviving core of the empire rebuilt its forces and reconquered nearby countries that had reached independence. Again, she urged the rulers of the countries to act, but they waved off her warnings,

We’re far from the empire’s reach. They would first have to conquer this and that and that other country. Besides, that country they just conquered? Bah, it was only a satellite, never really out of the empire.

So the new war machine marched on. Only after a few more annexations back into the empire did the leaders of the new states finally come up with the brilliant plan of forming a coalition, each claiming,

We tried to form a coallition sooner, but the other states refused.

Some independent countries voluntarily reannexed themselves to the empire after negotiating for reduced taxes and increased representation. The countries in the southern continent all fell or joined the empire while the northern continent reached complete independence.

Propaganda flooded the streets of every city, town and village. The north accused the south of starting the war, of causing the huge amount of casualties that increased each day, and of many other things. The lightbringer watched the consequences of war and felt that once again, what he had tried to do had gone horribly wrong.

He lived with her in their island outside the world and its problems. There they entered an endless cycle of breaking up and making up, unable to stand each other, unable to live apart. She argued,

Wars have been fought since I’ve been on this planet. Many, if not all, I’ve started myself. The war effort makes men develop new technology, it advances knowledge and settles the issues between societies.

But the lightbringer could not believe she really believed that after having lived with her for so many years,

The “technology” they develop is mostly new and improved ways of killing people! How can you possibly defend that!?

It’s not only weapons and you know it.

Neither of them were completely married to their own views, but they wanted to defeat the other in argument, pushing each other to the extreme in every issue. He mimicked her words,

Settles the issues between societies… What issues would there be if you just let people alone?

Uhm, I don’t know, maybe land, food, water… Basically any resource? Come on, you—He opened his mouth to interrupt her. She knew what he would say next because they had had the same conversation many times before—Yes, yes, that’s precisely what we had with the empire!

There was no “us” and “them” like there is now. The army was mostly for fun, to parade around and wear fancy clothes. The empire didn’t need to be defended from anyone, there weren’t even any rebellions. We started this war, we caused all this division!

She slapped his face and yelled,

Stop! We agreed we wouldn’t do this again! Yes, we started the war, it was our fault, but you know we have a noble purpose, and we will see it through. The war will end and everything will be as we dreamed it would. So stop, please, I can’t stand having the same argument over and over. Why can’t it be like when we started this revolution together?—She came closer to him—Just you and me. Like in the old days, remember?

She took his hand but he pulled away. He remembered the promise they had made to not blame each other. But every time he read about the number of casualties in some battle, his gut burned with guilt. Before, he didn’t care about sacrificing thousands in the altar of his glorious revolution. But now everything had changed. It was as though something had broken inside him. He said the fateful words he should never had said,

We need to turn ourselves in.

She was first shocked. Then she stopped to think about it, and after a while said,

When the war is over.

But she knew, right then, that she could never trust him again.