Thicker Than Blood - the Complete Andrew Z. Thomas Trilogy - Blake Crouch [266]
"Like I’ve just woken up from a long nightmare. But I feel like I know you very well."
"Oh, you and I have spent lots of time together."
Rufus reaches down and lifts a piece of paper from underneath his chair.
"I’m going to show you a picture. I just want you to react."
He holds the photo up in front of his chest. For some strange reason, laughter wells up inside of me. But I stifle it, because the photo shows Luther, tearing into someone with an ax. Rufus sets the photograph facedown in his lap.
"Answer me honestly, Andy. When you saw this picture, did you fight the urge to laugh?"
"No."
"No?"
"No."
He grins. "Bullshitter. May I assume you believe in good and evil?"
"Yes."
"And to whose value system do you bow down?"
"I don’t bow down to anything. A universal standard of behavior exists, and whether or not you choose to follow it, everyone who isn’t insane knows there’s an accepted right way and wrong way of treating each other."
"Accepted? I don’t accept it. Just because the majority of human beings believes something, does that make it so? Let me ask you this. Do you believe in God?"
"I um… No."
"No? Well, then if you’re an atheist, please explain to me who created this ‘universal standard of behavior’ as you call it?"
"I don’t know."
"Let me help you. I’ve spent my life probing this question, and far as I can tell, a person can honestly believe one of two things. Either that there’s a God who created in all of us this innate universal standard of right and wrong. Or that there is no right and wrong except that which you fashion for yourself."
"And you believe the latter."
"Oh yes."
"Because that helps you rationalize the disgusting things you and your family do to people?"
Rufus smiles.
"Sadly, I speak only for myself when I say this. The infliction of pain is hardly the goal. What you would deem evil—the taking of life, the creation of suffering—these things are not the goal. Recreating values, thinking beyond good and evil, overcoming illusions so that we as a species can continue to evolve—that is the goal."
Rufus leans forward and pats my knee.
"I want to share with you my vision. We may never see it in our lifetime, but it will happen. I call it the Great Regression.
"Imagine: suddenly, unexpectedly, war breaks out on every level. International. Interstate. Intercity. Interfamily. Madness, hell, horror, and all that constitutes evil erupts and overspreads the globe like a virus of rage. Most of the world’s population dies as mankind unleashes every urge that has been suppressed over the span of its civilized evolution. Cities burn. Men murder their families and themselves. Armies attack their citizenry. The Regression could last years, but I have a hunch that the rage will be such that a month’s time is sufficient to bring mankind to the brink of extinction.
"But in the end, when the smoke has cleared, a small core of human beings will remain. They’ll have survived not only the malice of others, but the malice of themselves. They’ll have been the hardest, sharpest, cruelest, wisest. And amid the devastation, they’ll start a new world, no longer based on the fear of what lies in man’s heart, but on the elevation of man and his ideas. They will be magnificent, they’ll be gods, and the things they do will be wondrous and beyond our understanding."
Rufus leans back, glowing.
"Think you’d survive the Great Regression?" I ask.
"I’ve thought about that, and I don’t think I would. I’m not hard enough. But I want you to know that I’m very hopeful for you, Andy. I think you have it in you to see beyond the illusions. You know, as much as I tinker with your mind, I really can’t reprogram your value system. God knows, I’m trying. But I’ve got a good feeling about you."
Rufus puts in his teeth and pulls a pipe from his breast pocket. Then he rises and walks across the room to a small bookcase beneath the window that I hadn’t noticed before.