Ethan and the others spent the next few days settling into their new home. They were aware the Consortium had placed a hit on them. Reverend Al played an emergency service alert on them every hour. They weren’t trying to hide, they were just settling in.

One thing Ethan did when he returned from the Consortium was come back a leader. He didn’t shy away from anything. The people in Central Park saw him as a modern day Robin Hood with his merry band of thieves. They were his people, and they went out of their way to protect him.

Central Park became very much like Sherwood Forest; a community network of support in a hostile environment. There was kinship amongst those who had made it their home. If someone suspicious came along, everyone in the park knew immediately and was prepared to act. They began fighting for Ethan like soldiers. For the time being, the park was safe, although there was rumor larger military gangs from other parts of the country were on their way.

Even though he knew a bigger fight was inevitable, Ethan refused to act rashly. He couldn’t decide what he wanted to do about the world he found himself in.

“I say we follow prophecy,” was Michael’s predictable solution. “We are in end times. Satan has been freed. Now it’s time to cast him into the Lake of Fire and pass judgment on all souls both alive and dead. It is written. Why are we even talking about this''?

“The problem is, Michael,” Ethan responded. “I’m not sure I want to be the one to pass judgment on others. I don’t see myself as qualified, and I don’t believe it’s needed. When people die, they leave this world just as they had lived. If they lived like an animal, that is the only perspective they have to respond to eternity in a heavenly place; the opposite of the animal. There is no community for them. They are not capable of seeing it from their perspective. They’re alone, either snapping at, or hiding from the darkness around them. That is their eternity. That is their punishment.

This is the duality found in death For those who have lived with love in their hearts, and free of judgment for example, what is darkness becomes light. Souls all around you light your way. For everyone else, it’s darkness”.

“It is written,” Michael replied unmoved, “The sinners, both dead and alive shall be cast into the Lake of Fire”.

“If we apply that metric,” Ethan replied. “I’ll have to jump in with them. People can change. We know this. For good or bad, people can alter who they are. It’s called neuroplasticity. I don’t like the idea of condemning someone to a Lake of Fire when they have the potential to change’.

“Some don’t want to change,” Michael retorted. “Some wear the Mark. Those are the ones to throw into the Lake of Fire. And let’s not forget Satan”.

“Maybe,” Ethan agreed. “We’ll see”.

Michael, not one for talking in the first place, usually found himself something else to do at around this place in the conversation. Amongst other things, Ethan had Michael finding food for themselves and the people of Central Park. This was possibly the main reason everyone was feeling like they lived in Sherwood Forest. While Ethan was deciding what to do, Michael spent a lot of his time stealing food from the Consortium. Daily, semi trucks, full of food, arrived in Central Park.

Although they provided Ethan with contextual information, Dawn and Alicia didn’t get too involved with his philosophical dilemma. Their role was to infiltrate the Consortium through AI. As Ethan expected, Dawn’s management and Alicia’s hacking skills were unmatched. They were already making inroads. Although they didn’t control it, they were in the Consortium’s security system and had access to the street cameras. They used the cameras not only to assist Michael when he was escaping with a stolen truck full of food, but also to find suitable trucks to steal. With their assistance, the Park was quickly filled with every kind of junk food imaginable, especially french fries. Finding trucks to steal was one of the few things Elsie could do to help out, and she was given the role. She was assigned the task after three days of her having nothing to do and being bored and unbearable. Everyone ate the french fries appreciatively after that.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Ethan spent a lot of time talking with Bill, and Dawn’s parents Marcus and Eleanor. He had walked into a post-apocalyptic world. That was obvious, but because of the lack of news and technology available to the general population, he only knew what he saw before him. He had no idea what was going on in the rest of America, or anywhere else other than right in front of him.

“So what is going on?” Ethan asked. “To me, it sounds like you have Westworld, largely made up of the Consortium, Eastworld led by China, and a bunch of space in between filled with undesirables”.

“That’s about the size of it,” Marcus replied. “As we understand it, there are pockets of the Consortium spread throughout North America, Europe, Australia, South Korea and Israel. India, Mexico and Japan, host both worlds. The rest of the world is controlled by Eastworld. It has pockets of privilege much like the Consortium. Together, both worlds inhabit less than 20% of all land mass. With the exception of industrial zones, the rest of the world is unregulated and unprotected. It’s filled with people like you and me”.

“And how many people would that be,” Ethan asked.

“No one knows for sure,” Marcus replied, “but I believe it to be substantial. We have and continue to lose a lot of people to starvation, genocide and natural disasters, but by and large, people are largely left alone to fend for themselves. I’d bet there’s still six billion people out there. How good of shape they’re in is anyone's guess.”

“Neither world is in a hurry to kill off too many people. They believe their technology is advanced enough to fight off any rebellion and some sectors in their economy still require workers. They like to have a big pool of workers to draw from if they need them”.

“To do what?” Ethan asked.

“Usually jobs where it’s cheaper to use humans than develop the needed technology. A lot of environmental mitigation. It’s slave labor. All workers receive in compensation is enough food to stave off starvation”.

“You know, I have to ask, how did your people let things get so bad? I studied pre-singularity history. As early as 2025 the earth exceeded 1.5 C warming for an entire year. That was considered a critical tipping point. On top of that, 3 companies which were really only one, owned majority shares in almost all of the S&P 500. How did you expect there to be money for anyone else when it was becoming so concentrated? China was well on its way to building an entire new world economy while this was going on. Wars, world changing wars between democracy and authoritarianism were breaking out all over the world. How did you watch all this happen and do nothing”?

“You already mentioned how Ethan,” Dawn answered from across the room.

“Oh yeah, how”?

“Tipping points. One of the unfortunate components of a tipping point is you don’t see it coming. Somehow with everything else going on, we were blindsided. All of us bought into the market economy to the exclusion of all else. We never truly questioned it, even when it was obviously corrupt. Probably because we had also become a society of entitlement. Both served to catch us completely off guard”.

“Yeah, but by 2025, it was clearly apparent that the whole thing, the environment, the economy, Western and Eastern values were off the tracks. I don’t understand how people can stand on the sidelines when their world is visibly burning around them; literally and figuratively. Especially when you had big number science defining the trajectories. You knew your world was heading for destruction and you watched it happen”.

“Well it happened,” Bill said. ‘What are you planning to do about it”?

“Me!” Ethan exclaimed. “What am I supposed to do? You go back to the stone age. Some of you, like cockroaches, will survive and start over. It’s the law of duality. If you don’t get it right the first time, you’re destined to repeat it. I’ll stick around to see if we can get AI to help out, but beyond that, you’ve made your bed”.

“You know Ethan,” Bill said. “I’ve been listening to your stories about you creating whole new worlds that live on forever in your simulations. You tell us about all the adventures you’ve had in these new worlds. The one thing I haven’t heard from you is you’ve taken responsibility over these worlds you’ve created. How is a God who creates an entire new world any better than Satan, if he doesn’t take responsibility for that world? By all accounts, these are your people.

“Are you going to let Elsie start over in this world?” Alicia asked. “Is that the life you want for her”?

Ethan looked over at Elsie. She was looking at him, waiting for an answer.