Crossed Over

Crossed Over

Published by Anthony Van at Smashwords

Copyright Anthony Van 2016

2nd Edition

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Chapter 1

My name’s Jim, Jim Bowles. I should probably give you some background before I tell you why I’m writing this.

I’m in—or was in—my last year of my PhD in software engineering and computer science. My thesis topic, ‘Generating Normal Use Algorithms to Combat Cyber Attack’, had been slightly stalled by the forced consideration of a hypothetical, long term attack that would change normal use parameters. I had just begun addressing the issue with ‘long term pattern anomalies’ when my academic life came to an abrupt end. More about that later.

So, yes, I’m a geek or nerd or IT weirdo, take your choice, and I do fit the stereotype profile of being somewhat uncoordinated, definitely a non-sportsman and not entirely of robust physique. All of that is in considerable contrast to my academic father, Evan, who I would class as a fitness fanatic—he runs—and who enjoys sports. My deceased mother, Mindy, was similarly involved in some exercise pastimes but not to the extent of my dad or my sister Kate. Kate used to run regularly with Dad and now is suitably acclimated to the rigours of mission life in some isolated, Papua New Guinea, mountain village. I should mention that she is happily married to Laurie who works with her, ministering to a discrete, indigenous people group of about four and a half thousand people.

More about my family and our history later as well—if I remember. I must mention that I have a beautiful girlfriend. She’s beautiful within and without. How someone like me has a girl like Maddie I’ll never know. She has short mussed hair,—when I met her it was brown with blonde tips but now she is blonde—soft brown eyes and the best smile ever. Not only is she gorgeous but she is also smart. She writes her own crime column (or wrote, before all this happened) for the Daily Sun.

What else can I say about Maddie? Well, her correct spelling is with a ‘y’ but I’m a bit obsessive compulsive and seeing that spelling rejected by the word processor, I changed it. I know, I could have added it to the dictionary but something about meddling with accepted spellings is untenable to me. I told you, I am a bit OC.

She became a believer soon after I met her. Said it was partly to do with meeting my dad and realising how decent and caring he was while at the same time being a well-respected philosophy professor. It was also partly to do with other Christians she knew, notably Adrian Burton, Detective Inspector with homicide, and partly wanting to be with me by going to church. I wasn’t sure why she put that last but I’m sort of glad. I don’t think that romantic connections are a good reason to change your world view. Let’s face it, logical thought is not preeminent in the first stages of romance.

Back to the family. Evan Bowles is my dad. Almost two years ago now he was devastated by the murder of his wife, my mother, Mindy Bowles. Her death was shattering to Kate, and myself as well, but we agreed to hold it together for Dad’s sake. He was so miserable and emotionally fragile that we had to put on a brave front for him. Since then he’s gradually emerged from despair. His renaissance was in part due to his hazardous campaign to expose Mindy’s murderer but mostly because of the growing conviction that she was, as the cliché says, in a better place.

And there is the possibility that he could find female companionship again, with another surviving victim of the Global Church’s atrocities, Belle Reagan. Belle, who coincidentally was a schoolmate of my father’s, lost her lawyer husband as a result of the same plot. She has shown a patient, restrained interest, though, until recently, her affections have come to nought. Initially they were avoided and later the relationship was thwarted by circumstances. Kate says that Dad was afraid to find happiness. She says it would make him feel guilty. Being as I am, I accept her analysis, since the whole emotional world is a bit of a mystery to me.

As a ‘by-the-way’, that’s one thing about me that Maddie quickly sized up. She said I should take my cues from her. She gave me a few subtle hand and facial signals to help me gauge the mood of people we encountered and modify my responses. A little tight fold of her lips would raise my sympathy levels, eyebrows raised meant ‘let it ride’. A slight lift or lowering of her hand suggested a change in intensity.

One of the memorable instances where this proved a valuable strategy was when she suggested we spend some time with Evan—she always uses his first name. When we were there, I mentioned to her I would invite Dad to a football game. He came in at about the same time. I quickly saw negative head shaking, damping down the enthusiasm and a crumpled lip for sorrow. I took her lead and stood in the background.

How are you coping? she asked.

I’ll get by, he muttered.

We thought we’d come around, make you dinner … you know … and keep you company.

That’s very kind of you. He gave her a half smile and she hugged him.

In the kitchen she apologised. Maddie thought I would have realised that it had been a year since Mindy’s death. Just knowing that dampened my desire for sporting entertainment, so I figured my father would be at least as brooding as I was.

From this, you might think I’m an emotional cripple. Well, that’s not entirely true. I have feelings. I just don’t read situations that well. This has become a little game between us and its effect is that people don’t have to apologise for me being ‘a touch Asperger’s’. A side benefit is that I’m beginning to notice some common ingredients for particular moods and I’m not quite the awkward company I used to be.

Anyway, as I was saying, Dad was in this lonely situation—I’m told—and Maddie and Kate (from a distance) had been slowly encouraging him to break his self-imposed social exile. My uncles and aunts and grandmother, all on my mother’s side had become supportive in this endeavour, being a little bit touchy when Belle first came on the scene. (Again, I’ll emphasise, these social minutiae observations are from reliable sources—not me).

My relatives on my father’s side are all in Ireland and they’ve been supportive in everything Dad does. We don’t hear from them now as they are suffering the same fate as we all. I’m going to try and call him Evan from now on. It’s easier than saying ‘my dad’ all the time. But I want you to remember that he is my dad, and I’m really proud of him. And, I’ll probably end up calling him Dad anyway.

***

I’ve just read all this and I apologise for its haphazardness. Writing’s really not my thing but I’m determined to record everything that’s happened … so, hopefully, I’ll get better at this.

Back to the history. I should fill you in on how we got to here—this place, this point in time and the precarious nature of our existence.

When, through a series of circumstances, the whole Global Church conspiracy was uncovered, we were gratified, maybe even jubilant in a subdued sort of way. Evan had, by his single minded fight to expose their plans (using my IT skills), brought about the collapse of an international subversive movement. We thought it was the end.

It is clear now that we played into the hands of a more evil, more powerful totalitarian movement. Their strategy, the whole time, was to set up a noxious political movement and then unmask them and replace them with something far worse.

Unknowingly, we did them a favour by blowing the whistle on the Global Church. We removed one snake only to have the World Unity movement replace them like the mythical hydra. Its numerous serpentine heads more insidious, more pervasive and more deadly than the defunct Global Church. (By the way…when you read these expressive bits you can almost guarantee that they were added by Maddie)

Under the guise of eradicating dangerous cults from the world they unilaterally banned any movement or organisation that didn’t commit to the ‘One faith, One economy, One world’ creed.

Most churches committed to truth rejected the pseudo religious body for its eclectic interpretation of faith as universal brotherly love. The rejection was not because brotherly love was unacceptable but because there was no recognition of a unique, supreme divinity. In response, the World Unity leaders slated traditional Christianity as bigoted and prejudiced to the pantheistic beliefs of others.

It seems ironic that words like ‘prejudice’ and ‘intolerance’ could be used to describe people who refused to believe a lie. And they were terms applied merely because Christians didn’t accept the validity of alternative belief systems. The whole mistaken premise being that objective truth about God didn’t exist therefore any interpretation was acceptable.

So, what has happened? The church has gone underground. It is fragmented and persecuted. The safest way to exist is in small groups in hard to find places. Some of those places are in the big cities right under the noses of the authorities and others are in isolated communities, hidden from the prying eyes of those who seek to destroy the faithful.

***

This is my attempt to record all that’s happened up till now and the struggles that we face. I’ll add to this account as we go. There are many challenges ahead and the prospect of surviving them is very limited.

I’m writing on my computer on the balcony of a small cabin, somewhere in Tasmania. That’s about as specific as I’ll be. We value highly our anonymity and our private hideaway. Our group has a cluster of three cabins, with some surrounding storage buildings all camouflaged into the heavily wooded mountainside. There are groups like ours scattered all over the place. I share a cabin with another guy, Jess, a teacher from Launceston. Maddie, Zoe and Sara are in a cabin further down near the creek and a married couple, Doug and Pearl Steele have a cabin up the slope on the other side of the creek.

From what I’ve heard, the mainland has active communities that use a variety of survival methods. Different underground groups circumvent the strict economic surveillance by creating phantom identities, taking on discontinued identities when deceased people are purposely not processed properly or concealing their true status under the ban, in order to purchase the necessities for life. Others, like us, have set up extensive barter economies within Christian enclaves. So the food growers trade with the skilled, who trade with those accessing goods, who trade with the technological, the labourers and so on.

For instance, one enterprising contemporary of ours managed to source a container load of Lithium Hydride batteries designed for a range of appliances. He is now a purveyor of energy. He has access to a small hydro plant and is constantly charging batteries. He has also adapted a variety of lighting and communication devices to use these batteries or be charged by them.

In an effort to keep the barter system fluid, a points system has been adopted. It’s largely a trust system so people sign off on points with a signature IOU. The IOUs themselves can be traded as currency. Not only is that the case but the nature of the community means that the more affluent accumulators of barter points generously share with those with less, especially if they’re productive or industrious. Even though this is an honesty system, each community has a ‘banker’ who is informed by both parties of the transaction. This way credit between communities can be transferred.

Still, each week we hear of one small collection of Christians or an individual being interned into a work camp. These are forced labour establishments where the conditions are poor and the treatment of the inmates inhuman. All part of a one world movement where the Christian faith is seen as a cancerous impediment to the liberal philosophies of World Unity.

It must be said at this point that, to the average citizen, World Unity are repairing a chronically sick world economy. By cancelling all international debts, taking over international banking and instigating its own monetary system they are doing for many desperate nations what Nazi Germany initially did for the beleaguered Germans. They instil hope, a fresh start, and a range of large infrastructure projects worldwide. The nefarious nature of the regime is only now emerging openly.

Not all countries are in the inner circle of nations. Notable exceptions are China and Russia with a clutch of African nations battling to create a sort of quasi union. Nevertheless, they all acquiesce to the notion that World Unity is good for all. The key reason is economic. Its control of key energy and food resources makes World Unity an essential trading partner as well as a buoyant market for products.

Christians were just seen as anachronistic collateral damage. They were people clinging to an ancient mythology who were opposing the necessary strictures of reform. I still correspond with my sponsoring professor who consistently urges me to recant my faith so I can complete my thesis. I point out to him in missives that appear to emanate from within the university itself that the empty platitudes of World Unity fail to address the human condition. Coercive threats to conform to its demigod led materialistic ideology merely underlined the evil in men’s hearts.

My main argument is that truth will ultimately prevail. The central character in that central story of human history set in a central time and location will return to the scene.

All that seems a long way off, though. ‘Where is the promise of His coming?’ is a constant refrain in the back of my mind as I contemplate the coming weeks and dangers we will encounter. If things go as expected it’s only going to get harder to survive. Persecution will increase and the tidal wave of world confrontation will eventually come crashing down, but that’s still a way off, I think.

***

I’ve waffled on a bit and haven’t told you the one thing that’s driving me to distraction. It’s the fact that Evan is in detention. When the Unity movement first started, he was convinced that it had to be opposed vigorously and in any forum he could create. He hotly debated the wisdom of relinquishing our freedoms of worship and speech and our right to participate in the democratic process. This stance put him at odds with the new ruling body and they portrayed him as someone fomenting anarchy.

He was gaining a following with his call for moderation and the right to debate world views and the tenets of the Gospel. When a band of agitators started hurling Molotov cocktails at a rally, he was arrested and summarily detained without trial. Suspicions abounded that the trouble makers were sponsored by Unity organisers.