Maybe Later - Terry Wilson (world of reading txt) 📗

Cover: Distorted picture of the cover of Soon: The Beginning of the End

by Jerry Jenkins, open to pp. 195, inverted and face down.

Disclaimer: This is a non-commercial fan-fiction/parody. It contains no copyrighted material from Soon

or Doom 3

; bit role characters from Soon

. Straight is a main character from Soon

, Tatakai and Jack Campbell are characters from FHD Remix

. Jack Campbell is based on the character of the same name from Doom 3

.

Tatakai was in a hurry to get out of the shower, her acute hearing picked up the sound of the hotel's cleaning cart, but when she smelled the air coming through the door into her room, it lacked the smells of air freshener and window cleaner that she had come to expect from it.

Before something goes wrong she deploys her wings. That will notify her husband Jack. As a (take your pick: an NPO agent like Paul of Soon or the Marine of Doom 3) she was authorized to carry a weapon. She gets it from her purse: a tiny, six round 9mm short self-loader barely adequate for self-defence, along with her identification.

The fact that she's dressed in bra and panties doesn't bother her at the moment, she is invisible. Still, she has her wings pulled around in front of her to hide the weapon and identification in her hands. The door to Stuart Rathe's hotel room was ajar, and the cart she had heard was nowhere to be seen. If it was the cleaning lady, the light in his room would not be out.

Something was up.

Making sure the hall was clear, she knew if anyone was inside, they'd know something would push open the door, and she couldn't fit through the gap, especially deployed. Someone armed. She pokes the muzzle of her handgun through her feathers and pushes the door open with it. The smell of nervous sweat, the sounds of nervous breathing.

"Sound off if you can hear scratch,"

she orders, "I am armed."

No answer.

An enemy, she concludes. After the First Battle of Mars [played out in Doom 3

], she wanted a break from gunplay.

<You are Tatakai,> her Saviour whispers.

The suite is as dark as it could possibly be, drapes closed, lights out. She has three, make that four contacts. Three in the washroom, one in the bedroom. Peeking around the partition into the bedroom, she spots the cleaning cart, the contact inside it.

Slowly, the washroom door opens, the three inside evidently curious as to what pushed open the door with the sound of a handgun muzzle. Most likely, they'd think that whoever it is outside in the hall. She'd assume multiple

whoevers stacked for entry if she were in their position, a position she could survive. But not today, she has the advantage, the drop on these guys.

Raising her weapon in her right hand and her identification in her left, she flips on the light switch with her left wing.

"Freeze," she quietly orders, reappearing in the light.

One faints, one squeaks, and one defecates himself. All three wear blue coveralls with crown shaped pins on their lapels. A lady half their size with huge grey feathered wings dressed in her underwear with a gun and the ID of their worst enemy just appeared out of thin air.

"They're with me," Straight says from the cart.

"He is risen," she whispers to them.

"He is risen indeed," says one.

"Amen," says the other conscious one.

She lowers her weapon and switches the safety back on, "Were you guys seriously planning to ambush me?" she asks incredulously as she tucks her little wallet and handgun together in her left hand.

"Everyone who goes there goes this way. Straight's already in the cart," the first one explains, "We have to keep our secrets."

"Yeah, well so do I," she says, gently striking one in the cheek with her left alula claw. The one on her right raises his hand to block her swing, and instead gets scratched on his wrist. Tatakai furls her wings with a poof, startling the pair. Before they can recover, she reaches down and brushes the cheek of the unconscious one with her right hand, leaving a scratch on his cheek. "You three won't remember, and Straight, you didn't see anything in the first place. The deal is off 'cus you guys are a bunch of idiots

." At this point, Tatakai is indistinguishable from any human.

"Campbell, I'm sorry," Straight says, "It just has to be this way."

"No it doesn't," she says in a disappointed tone, as though addressing a bunch of rookies who just failed a training drill, "If you wanted me to ride out of here in a laundry bag, you could have just asked and I'd have been fine with it. See you around, kid," closing the door on the way back to her room. For a couple of paces, she hides her gear behind the small of her back, swings her hips and gives a man passing by a half nod and a sultry look, and purrs, "I'm all booked up."

Once back in her own room, she gets the rest of the way dressed and uses her color kit to darken her hair slightly, gathering it into a bun and adding a bit more eyeliner, different color lipstick, a pair of contact lenses to do everything she can to make sure that if the same guy who just saw her in the hall saw her again in her blue pantsuit, he wouldn't think she was the same person. Jack'll want to know about the tremor in his wings. She knows because she can feel it in her own. Now she's in a mad rush to get out before anyone comes looking to purchase her "services." And also before the three Christian hooligans wake up from her memory poison and anyone starts asking about what the four of them were doing in a hotel room with a scantily clad blonde lady, a cleaning cart, and whatever else they might have in there.

"I guess that sort of thing is why Jack and I call ourselves Saviour-spawn,"

she sighs.

"Hi, Jack," she says on the hotel phone, listening. When he starts talking about some local news article he knows she's already read, code to start talking over him in scratch, "Tremor's no biggie, Straight tried to abduct me and I busted him in my panties. They're not SS after all."

No one tapping or recording the call could have heard her.

Jack keeps talking for a couple more seconds, then says, <What do you think?>

"Oh, I finally beat Straight at chess tonight," she says out of scratch.

<Hmm,> he sighs as though disappointed she didn't say anything about the news article he brought up, <Glad to hear you're having a good time.>

Doubtless anyone listening to that call would think that she and Jack were having problems, she thinks.

On her way to the bus depot, she calls the chess tourney on her cell to leave a message. Sorry I have to cancel, I just learned my husband wanted to surprise me with a weekend out, blah, blah, blah, maybe next year. Click.

Author's commentary:

All scriptures are paraphrased from memory, references confirmed through the Bible Gateway website

Yes, I was disappointed by Soon

, and in much the same way I was disappointed by Left Behind

, except that in the latter, I could see the faith of the authors Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye ebb and flow from volume to volume, an aggravating phenomenon that distanced me from the experience of their characters. Through this parody, I'm not trying to say its a bad book or shouldn't be read. Only about 25% of the books I pick up I get past the 25% mark (although that number will probably shrink now that I frequent BookRix.) The incident this parody is based on is the 60% mark in Soon; I did finish the book.

What's good about a book like Soon

is that it describes the experiences and paradoxes of those who follow the Saviour. It asks many of the questions one has about Christ, both as a seeker, and a new believer. Left Behind

stretches it out quite a bit further.

What I don't like about Soon

and Left Behind

is that their theology is, in many places, wrong. This incident is just one of many examples: true Saviour-spawn do not treat each other like this (i.e.: the abduction on page 195 that this parody is based on.) They follow Jesus' third commandment: "Love each other as I have loved you. By this, people will know that you are of me." (John 13:34-35) Also, there is also no Biblical support, nor any theological sense behind the Rapture as it is portrayed in Left Behind

. I don't consider that a big deal as far as the quality of the fiction, just a heads up if you're thinking of taking the concept seriously. Finally, Jerry Jenkins' books (at least those that I've read, about half of his books), seem to studiously avoid writing about mature Christian believers. One of the common (if silly) objections people have to living forever is, "Wouldn't it be boring?"

In FHD Remix

, I'm writing a world that is so static that no one can figure out how long it has been around. Outside a few, no one can foresee or recall any world-shattering changes on a time scale of hundreds of years and yet I am still addicted to writing the characters and their experiences in it! I also liked watching Highlander. I'd say eternal life is just grand so far!

Is there any other point in believing in the Saviour? A lot of people take the concept of Karma (and Dharma) quite seriously. Why not? Christians should too, because "God will not be mocked: a man will reap what he sows." (Galations 6:7) I find it bizarre that the Muslims know and believe more about Jesus than many Christians that I've met, despite the fact that what they believe about his nature and divinity (i.e.: that he's on the same order of service to God as Mohammed, the prophet identified with Islam) is incompatible with what Jesus says about himself. Anyone who's read the gospel, believer or not, should be able to figure this out. It doesn't take a C.S. Lewis. There are just two opinions compatible with what Jesus says about himself in the gospel: a) he's the Saviour or b) he's a liar, whether by reason of insanity or on purpose. Why would you ever believe the latter? Well, duh, the Bible even admits in 1 Corinthians 1:19 that the gospel is just plain silly when you don't get it. Heck it still sounds silly to me, and I do get it. Take your cell phone back in time fifty years and explain its capabilities to someone...

A Final Note: I am aware of Matthew 5:22. It is not me calling Jerry an idiot, it is my character calling his characters idiots. She's like that. I am too, but