By Mark Joseph Kevlock
“Nobody believes in evil anymore.” She sighed a long, laborious sigh.
I wanted to prove her wrong. I wanted to go right out and commit the most heinous act I could think of. But I couldn’t. Things just didn’t work that way anymore.
“All I want is an even chance at betrayal, corruption,” she said. “Why can’t we murder hope anymore? We used to do it every day.”
She was wearing whatever clothes I imagined—or didn’t. The room wasn’t anywhere. I’d had to travel outside of normal existence to find her.
“You’re right,” I said. “Humanity used to play it like that.”
The only reason I’d found her at all was that she wanted to be found. I’d never taken custody of a soul who didn’t want to be taken.
She sighed again. It took forever. “So, what changed?” she said.
I wanted to come up with a good answer. I mean, just look at that body on her. She took the form of my desires themselves.
I took a stab at being brilliant. “We grew up. That’s all. As a race, as a species, we left our infancy behind. No more clubbing each other on the head. No more bank robberies or battle of the sexes. We… I don’t know… we finally figured it out.”
She hadn’t been wearing many clothes to begin with—or so I imagined. Now a few more items hit the floor. I tried to keep in mind why I was here. She didn’t make it easy.
“Only a few decades ago, they sang songs about me,” she worked herself misty-eyed as she spoke. “They made movies where everyone died pointlessly by the end. Whatever happened to that beautiful cynicism? That all-consuming nihilism that ate their souls every day for breakfast?”
I stepped away from the bed. The place we inhabited was no place. Empty space. She made it look like a hotel room, just because. She came off as everything I didn’t want. Shallow. Insincere. Meaningless. Everything that would feel empty and vain two seconds after the party was over.
I nearly went for it anyway.
“Why don’t you forget your training?” she said. Her body rolled across the bed in a blur of shoulder and thigh. “Or your evolution. Or whatever the hell maintains your moral standards. Why don’t we just ruin your life and be done with it? It will only take a minute and it will be totally worth it.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Company policy.”
A less-refined avatar of despicableness would’ve thrown a tantrum just then. All she did was sigh. I watched the whole thing move through her body—lungs, chest, windpipe, oral cavity.
She could look like a hell of a woman when she wanted to. Of course, that wasn’t what she was at all. Mere appearance. A facade. A cloak of caring.
A brilliant disguise.
“It’s almost time,” I said.
She wouldn’t allow petulance into her manner. I respected that.
“Temptation isn’t dead,” she said. “The desire to do wrong is still a fundamental aspect of mankind’s character.”
“Nah,” I said. “That’s just old rhetoric. Goodness is the fundamental force of the cosmos. We get that now. It’s funny how the knowledge just didn’t register before. I mean, if goodness wasn’t all-powerful, the universe would self-destruct in two seconds. We’d kill each other and wreck the world. But we don’t. So, we gave it up—all that hopelessness inside. We decided to live.”
She almost gave it all away, there at the end. She almost changed form right in front of me. That would’ve been a sight. But I’m glad she didn’t. I’m glad she held on to some pride.
“You’re good,” she said. “You know that? You’re really good.”
I never responded well to compliments. Aw, what the hell. I lowered my hand and blew her a silent kiss. Not all of the desires she represented were ugly ones.
She ducked the kiss, of course. She would’ve virtually exploded if it had landed on her cheek, or anywhere else for that matter. Sincere affection was still the deadliest poison to her.
“Time’s up,” I said. “I’ve got to take you in.”
Her physical surrender wasn’t the one that counted. But it made for a tidy end to our encounter.
“Quite a catch, aren’t I?”
“You are.”
“Do me a small favor,” she said. “Tell them you were tempted. Lie a little, for my sake.”
“It isn’t a lie,” I said. “I did allow a little temptation in, in the places it couldn’t hurt, but nowhere near enough. You are gorgeous. Seductive. But your old man went into custody a long time ago. It’s time you joined him.”
She put out her hands. We used to use technology for the roughest ones—evil thoughts inhibitors and the like. We had better control of ourselves now. I took her hands and pulled her off the bed and wrapped half her clothes back around her and pointed us at the doorway.
“It’s a sad day,” she said, “when even the devil’s daughter can’t get a rise out of a man.”
I could’ve told her that Thought Police are specially trained. Or repeated my assertions regarding mankind’s evolution. Instead, I offered a smile. Because these days everyone did.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I loved the reveal at the end — devil’s daughter, very clever!
Cool concept! And I liked how you chose to reimagine what “thought police” could look like.