Salvation In A Book

SALVATION IN A BOOK

Covid. The dread disease of the early 21^st century. The disease that plunged the entire world into the Deep Dark Ages. For it had mutated into a virus that targeted and played with, the DNA of humanity. It was a massacre. And for the first time in history, mankind nearly became extinct.

Until the vaccine. The vaccine destroyed all forms of Covid. But it had one unforeseen side effect that made it just as deadly to the human race. It made it impossible for men to issue a girl.

And so our story begins at a crucial point in the evolution of the human race. A time where the rich survivors lived in the last city on earth, 30 years since the last child was born and the last woman died, while the poor and dark-skinned minority lived in a small town just outside of it. Destruction and extinction were now just a matter of time. That is, until one day…

“No, I’m not a woman I’m a man.” Adrian mumbled in his sleep, pulling the plastic garbage bag over his muscular shoulders, shivering. The makeshift shelter that he shared with the members of his Robin Hood Gang in the Dump outside of the Last City on Earth did little to keep the cold out.

         Suddenly there was a loud CRUNCH! BANG! And a soft POW!. The shelter fell down and nearly everyone awoke.

         “What was that?” Adrian asked, pulling out his gun and quickly getting out from underneath the myriad of tarp and plastic garbage bags.

         “An attack! The Secret Service must have found our secret location!” his second in command, the dark-haired Devon shouted,

         Adrian looked around, squinting his eyes against the near blinding effect of the snow reflected by the beginning of the dawn. “If they did, they crash landed over there.” He pointed. “Let’s go take a look. Rat, Tail, Mouse, you guys stay here and fix the shelter. The rest of you follow me.”

         Adrian walked confidentially towards the crash site, Devon and the rest of his men followed him. It was not far away. Within 5 minutes, they were there. But it wasn’t a Secret Service vehicle that had crashed landed. It was a medium sized black box. Adrian carefully looked around. He made a step toward the box, but before he could get any closer, his second in command Devon put his hand on his shoulder.

“What if it’s a trap?” Devon asked.

Adrian just stared at him intensely. Devon took a step back. Adrian continued to walk toward the box. Suddenly the top of the box opened, and steam from inside of it filled the air.

“Boss!” the entire gang cried, taking out their guns and pointing it at the box (and by accident, at Adrian too).

“I’m alright!” Adrian said, his arm raised and his hand over his dark mouth.

The smoke quickly cleared. Adrian squinted, eyes still stinging from the smoke. Inside the box, tucked in as if it were a baby under a blanket, was a little black book, surrounded by a ton of cash.

Adrian looked around cautiously, but no one else seemed to be nearby. They would be soon though. Already he could hear people coming from all directions. Quickly he put his gun in its holster and motioned to his boys to come near.

“It’s a mound of USD and a little book.” He said. “We can use the cash since its accepted currency for Nobles. We’ll just have to play the part of a Noble when we spend it. You know how strict the caste system is.”

“No problem!” Gregg, one of the gang’s greatest actors said. He was already scooping cash into his pants. The rest of the gang followed his example, except for Devon who wore tight clothing and therefore was automatically in his usual role of the lookout.

“I’ll take the book though.” Adrian said. “Maybe it can give us some clues about this crash.”

Devon spoke up. “We gotta go, the Red Hammer Gang is within my sight. Do I shoot at them?”

“No.” Adrian said. “We were just leaving.” Devon smiled and they all ran like lightening, leaving an empty box behind them.

         Once Adrian and his gang returned to their hideout (which was homily nestled in a junkyard of ancient (year 2000) cars near the edge of the Dump,) they all gathered together and showed Rat, Tail, and Mouse their bounty.

         “Mouse you remember how to count?” Adrian asked jokingly.

         “Oh yes, I love to count.” Mouse said with wide eyes.

         “Are you kidding? That’s why he’s our good little treasurer.” Devon said, swinging an arm around Mouse’s neck.

         Adrian laughed. “Ok then Mouse. I’ll check out this book and you count the cash. Every. Bit. Of. It. No hiding any for yourselves guys do you hear me?! Adrian shouted.

         “Yes sir!” The rest of the gang replied. They started lifting weights. The sunrise was now over. It was officially daytime and with it came the time to get in shape for whatever their boss had for them to do next.

         Adrian took his book to his trash bag and cardboard bed and opened it. He frowned. He might have been the only one in his gang that could remember to read, but truth be told, he had barely learned the skill. Suddenly he recognized one word. Covid. Instantly his heart began to race. This book was about that deadly disease! He plunged in deep inside the book…

         “Sir? I’m done counting the dough.” Mouse said, standing beside Adrian. “It’s $20,000 USD.” Adrian blinked. “Yes, uh, well done.” Adrian waved distractedly. “Gather around boys. I have something to show all of you.”

         “What boss?” 10 voices asked in unison.

         “The cure for the Covid Vaccine’s side effects.” He answered.

         “What is it?” asked 10 voices with baited breath.

         “It’s a bunch of steps called The New and Complete Medical Upgrade To Male to Female Transgender. The first step is to prepare the patient for the transition; mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically for the change because whatever you may say; it’s a huge medical procedure and if not done with proper preparation it can really mess you up. The second step replaces what doctors used to use (hormones), with a cocktail of drugs that change the gender DNA of a person. The last step is surgery to remove the male part unless you want to keep it. It is rendered useless at this stage. The female parts, including a working womb and ovaries, grow naturally because of the DNA change. This transition will occur despite the side effects of the Covid Vaccine.”

         “Wow!” several of Adrian’s gang said.

         “But if they had this all along, why haven’t they used it?” Gregg asked.

         “Maybe they do.” Adrian said. The others stared at him. “No one in the Dump or the town knows what goes on in the city. We just assume we are all men because of what happened to us. Whose to say that the City isn’t crawling with female transvestites?”

         “But why would they hide it from us?” Devon asked. Then he looked stricken. “Oh my, they want us to die out. They want all minorities to die. It’s not enough to confine us to poverty and the town. They want us all to die.”

         “And they want to deny us the pleasure of falling in love and getting married, and having children.” Tail said anger shaking him to his core.

         “So your into loving a dude that used to be a woman?” Rat asked.

         “What choice do we have?” Tail retorted. “At least the men will change into women.”

         “What difference does it make?” Devon asked.

         “Look. We gotta go visit every transvestite we can find in both town and Dump, poor people and gangs, its all the same. And we gotta offer them a deal to become real women.” Adrian said.

         “They may take offense at the way you present yourself.” Devon said. “Let me go alone to these precious divas and I will lure them into my honey laced trap.”

         “You sound scary.” Mouse told him.

         “I’m a scary dude.” Devon winked.

         “Alright then. We still need to buy the ingredients for the drugs. We’ll use the money for that. But we’ll wait until you come back Devon. We need to know how much to purchase.”

         “Yes sir!” Devon saluted playfully, and then he was off.

***

There really wasn’t a whole lot of people who lived outside of the city. For that matter, there was not really a whole lot of people who were living on earth at all. In any case Devon returned that evening, tired and worn out.

“So…did you find anyone?” everyone asked.

“I found plenty of Trans people.” He grunted.

“Hooray!” The whole gang minus Adrian, began to dance.

“But not one of them wanted to give up their dragons.”

“What!?!” the gang shouted.

“Why?” asked Mouse.

“Oh Mouse, you are so innocent. I am daily reminded of the Bible Verse that says “to the pure everything is pure.””

“Hey, surely they wanted to save the world!” Mike shouted.

“None of them thought that they would live past the third trimester.” Devon explained.

“Of course! I should of thought of that!” Adrian said.

“Oh yeah…” most of the gang murmured.

“What do ya mean?” asked Mouse.

“As soon as the city sees on Oogle’s See Through Walls Television that there is a pregnant woman in the town or dump, they will send a flood of armed guards and robots to take her. Remember what happened to the transvestite who pretended to be pregnant 15 years ago? It was a massacre. Our guns didn’t even work after they initiated their gun beam. Three-quarters of the population was killed. They took Cherry and killed her when they realized she wasn’t pregnant and had a man’s body.”

“So what do we do? We can’t escape the monitoring of Oogle!” Mike cried out.

“We can try to convince a fat transvestite. The Oogle could be fooled that way.” Rat suggested.

“All trans people here are thin.” Devon stated.

“Wait.” Adrian said. “They can’t see into the mine because of all the magnetic distortions there. It messes with all of their technology too so they can’t fight us with their beams, lasers, etc.. Our guns and grenades would work though. We have the advantage there.”

 “The mine!!!” The entire gang said with a shout.

“Where the man eating Pterodactyls live?!” asked Hippie.

“Where rockslides tend to happen often in the most random of places?!” Rat asked.

“Where the WHO first made the Coronavirus?!” Mike shouted.

“Where Zombies from the Johnson and Johnson vaccine are said to be buried?” Tail shivered.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, calm down!” Devon said, hands spread apart. “We know the risks, but it’s our only chance. Right?” he turned to Adrian.

“Right.” Adrian said.

“Well how come YOU can’t just be a woman. Because your, you know.” Mouse said.

Devon turned around, smiled at him and said, “I’m not an outlet babe.”

“Alright. I don’t want to do this. I AM A MAN!!!” Adrian screamed.

Everyone stared at him, silenced by his passion.

“I’ll do it. It’s my responsibility as the leader. But I HATE it. I am a MAN. NEVER forget that. No matter how my DNA is changed. I AM A MAN!” Adrian slammed his fist into a nearby table where the black book was and stormed off. No one dared to go after him. And no one dared to speak either.

***

          11 months later Adrian screamed. The tunnel echoed eerily with his last scream and with his present one, rolling them together as if to mock the eleven desperate figures lit up by candlelight.

         “DO something.” Devon said as Adrian held on to his hand and squeezed the life out of it.

         “There’s nothing I can do.” The doctor said. “The baby is stuck on her pelvis bone, and surgery is something that the city refuses to let town doctors learn. And what I have learned in secret isn’t enough for me to operate on her. I’m pretty sure I’d kill her right now if I performed surgery. I don’t even know what blood types are and I’m sure that she might need a transfusion. Let me check her heart rate again.” And he put his fingers to her neck, even as Adrian began to scream again.

         Suddenly the doctor felt a cold, metallic pipe on the back of his head. “You just save the life of our leader and his baby or else.” Mouse said, cocking his gun.

         Suddenly Adrian sighed and fell asleep. “Oh no no no no no!” the doctor said. “She doesn’t have a pulse!” He tried to perform CPR but that did not work. He finally stopped and stared at the female body of Adrian. The others stared at the scene in shock.

         The doctor finally shook himself, and then began to take out some scalpels and other surgical tools from his bag.

         “ I thought you said that you couldn’t do surgery.” Rat said.

         “Then but not now.” The doctor grunted.” He worked quickly and soon everyone was greeted with a loud, healthy cry.

         “It’s a girl!” Devon shouted. “Oh baby come to your daddy!”

         Everyone crowded around to see the baby. No one noticed when the doctor left, and no one could find him until 6 months later. And when asked where he had been he just said, he had been “Hiding out until the rage of Adrian’s gang calmed down.” As it was, they noticed that Adrian had passed several minutes later. They tried to find the doctor but couldn’t.

         Devon took it pretty hard. Even before it was necessary, he had always loved Adrian from afar. However, he was determined to raise Angel with all the love and care that he could. And he always told her as she grew older “Your mother was a very good man.”