Wickedness in the World

An elderly man stood atop the summit of the Empire Territory Building in New Hamilton City and observed the goings-on of the people below.

His hair glowed a brilliant snowy white. His coppery skin radiated like a red-hot metal, and, despite the chilly night air, the man was clad in a thin robe that reached down to his feet. His facial features were indistinguishable – and his ethnicity was indeterminable – beyond the vague notion that his face had a certain fiery intensity to it, and that he seemed to become more and more displeased as he continued to observe the city’s night life.

Seemingly having enough of the view, the man turned to a pigeon perched on a railing less than a metre from him. With a booming voice akin to rushing waters, he spoke.

“The wickedness of man is great on Earth. The imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart is once more only continuously evil.”

Other groups also on the top of the Empire Territory Building began to murmur amongst themselves and avoid the thinly clad old freak mumbling incoherently to a pigeon. Unfortunately, despite centuries of development, New Hamilton City had not grown out of certain stereotypes.

Unresponsive to the negative attention and coming to a decision, the elderly man peered at the river separating the former Merykan states of New Hamilton and New Jacket. From his hazy face, the spot where his eyes should have been began to glow a faint blue. That alone wouldn’t be entirely unbelievable to the cautious onlookers given modern artificial eyes and contact lenses. However, what was truly unsettling was the fact that the pigeon with whom the man was conversing’s beady eyes also began to glow as if to mirror him.

“This time to true completion, I will destroy the man whom I have nurtured from the face of this world.”

At those words, the previously clear sky rapidly clouded up, and the waning moon was swiftly obscured. Centuries of meteorological models were overturned in an instant and countless weathermen still running on classic-style news were doomed to be subject to weeks of brutal mockery.

Less concerned with statistical models were those standing outside who were suddenly exposed to abruptly intensifying rainfall. The onlookers rushed inside with all the orderliness that could be expected from New Hamiltonians. Nobody took note of the pigeon-whispering old man who seemed entirely unbothered by the sudden pouring rain, nor did they notice the growing strength of the light in his eyes.

Across the entire East Coast of the North Merykan continent, the rainfall was beginning to become a danger to human life. Over the coming days, for the first time in decades, humanity experienced a true natural disaster.

No matter the sophistication of a drainage system, there is a limit. Indeed, with the threat of rising sea levels eliminated a century ago, no reasonable city council would want to leave up unesthetic sea walls that had long since passed their usefulness. Civilians found themselves evacuated to flood shelters that had been unused since the end of the climate crisis.

Panic-stricken civil servants and overburdened AI resource management systems engaged rapid-response teams and evacuated affected areas, but casualty – not to mention serious physical damage to coastal cities and towns – was unavoidable. Accusations naturally began to be thrown around the moment it was clear that this type of major natural disaster, long stated to have been eradicated, had suddenly become a reality.

As a particular point of interest, there were some evacuees who were in the Empire Territory Building at the time of the start of the storms who queried about the safety of a seemingly mentally ill old man who they had spotted on the building’s roof. However, no records from the building seemed to reflect anyone of that description’s presence, so the issue was eventually dropped, and of course, nobody connected him to the ongoing weather events.

Amid the relief package funding authorisation bill’s debate, heated arguments exploded in the North Merykan Continental Council about the government’s earlier allowance of dismantling flood prevention measures. The government responded by effortlessly passing the blame onto the resource management systems which had been deallocating funding from disaster management over the course of the past decades (since it had become quite an uneconomical investment).

Ultimately, the Global Council had to intervene in a continental government’s affairs for the first time in a decade to aid in streamlining relief efforts.

As with all finite things, the rain eventually ceased. After forty hellish days of flooding, the reconstruction efforts began. Buildings could be rebuilt. Injuries could be treated. But trust was far more difficult to repair. No matter how impressive the technological marvels of mankind, bringing back those who were long dead was still not feasible, nor could the mourning of the dead be erased.

But humanity persevered. After the fact, debates in the continental Council quickly led to significant investment in meteorological research into the elusive potential root causes of the flooding. Significant infrastructure upgrades across the North Merykan coast were prompted as the flood revealed shortcomings in the ability of the continental train network to maintain large-scale evacuation efforts.

Humanity had won, and it continued to strive for betterment. The beginning of the floods became yet another day that would live in infamy, and the world would forever remember September the 15th of 2174 as the beginning of what came to be called the “Great Flood”.

Meanwhile, in a far less corporeal form, the man and his pigeon looked down on the humans who were slowly beginning to repopulate. The Father’s gaze was filled with considerable annoyance, while the Spirit’s could only be described as indifferent. The Father had overestimated his remaining strength, and in turn underestimated how quickly humans would adapt to another great flood.

“I must send a prophet to glorify me on Earth. Through them, whoever believes in me shall not perish. Call upon the remaining angels.”

The Spirit did not respond to the Father in the same linguistically definable manner as he spoke, but whatever the case, he seemed to understand perfectly. If it were to be translated, then it would sound something like:

“You killed fewer people than you planned to so you’re going to try a ‘merciful’ Plan B?”

The Father ignored the Spirit’s snark and proceeded with the Son Plan.