“Mutantism on the March”

Chapter One “Bye Bye William”

The masses of the planet Zortixia wept bitter tears with their shame and impotence wafting about in the guilt-ridden air. A huge wretched mass of them had trudged out to the rocket fields on a silent pilgrimage. In the distance, close to rocket itself, they discerned him, the innocent victim of evil follies. With his head hanging he stood with his family. Being a picture of dejection, he disturbed the crowd. They slowly and softly chanted his name. He looked up and with a vague smile appeared on his creased face and he shouted, “Ami tsech curvi” which in English could be translated as “There is always hope”. The mob responded with applause and cheers terminating any vestiges of collective depression. In its place there was a sudden ugly current of hate and frustration. For an instant there was hope. There was courage. And there was desperation.

Like mad dogs the crowd lunged at several guards and literally tore them to pieces. They pushed on towards the rocket where he and his family stood but a vicious contingent of blackbooters arrived at the scene and mowed through the angry crowd killing and maiming forcing the angry crowds into retreat and in their panic crushed many of an Opposite visiting delegation. The angry mob was not spent and urged on by some of its younger members regrouped and counter attacked. They possessed but few weapons but their lack of arms was compensated by their red-hot hate.

The counterattack caught the blackbooters by surprise as they were busy congratulating themselves and enjoying their torture of some of the captured mob detained in their initial attack. Well that angry crowd served poetic justice on the blackbooters and raced to the rocket compound but alas it was too late. The rocket had been launched taking along with it their beloved. As soon as the personal guards of the soon to be exile had seen the counterattack, they had whisked him and his family off to the waiting rocket and it had blasted off out of the reach of the Zortixians forever.

The furious mob stormed through the rocket complex mad with rage terminating all opposition in their path. But reality could not be ignored as more blackbooters from the personal palace guard of Jiber swarmed the area and “subdued” the mob or at least that is what the censored Zortixian papers printed the next morning.

Willie Montenez, the exile, sat in the rocket with his wife and son. Willie was in shock with the carnage he had just witnessed. It had all taken place so quickly and now he was off in preprogrammed fashion to some unknown planet.

Why the exile? Zortixia had been for so long a place of love and peace. But now, and we know it is the present moment that counts, the Jiber had gained control of the political machine meaning there would be no room for Willie.

The Jiber was a crude and cunning creature. Less careful creatures would have murdered Willie long ago but Jiber wanted no revolt or rebellion to snatch away his newly found power. If Willie Montenez was murdered the Opposite would most likely face large scale revolt. Exile was not the most efficient way of dealing with opposition but at least it was a proven crowd placater.

Willie mused over the peaceful days of his premayorship of Zortixia. Mob violence was unheard of. There was little evil and idle chatter. Jails had been virtually empty for years. The police and army had little more to do than engage in cosmic bowling contests. But now this cretin Jiber had ruined all of this reinstating barbaric practices long ago forgotten by the peaceful population of Zortixia. The media had been silenced, intellectuals murdered and many dissidents had died due to freak accidents or ingestion of plutonium laced tea. Bestiality had replaced benevolence and now William Montenez was hurtling towards some barbaric and uncharted planet called Earth.

This grief-stricken day of exile signified a horrible act but also the demise of a noble and lofty era in Zortixia. It had been a time of planetary cooperation.  It was an era of peace and cooperation. Civil unrest had more or less vanished. Yet without reason the once fecund Federation had crumbled. Vice, corruption and greed filtered from the depths of certain souls leading to intra-Federation squabbles on feuds. Most of the planets in the Federation were plagued by the parasite of Oppotism.