Modern Tales: The Mutant Revolt of 2046

Nobody could have predicted this but everyone knew it was coming.

The Mutants, with their Mutant Manifesto, had risen up to be a force of their own. Short and squat - looked down upon literally as well as figuratively - they'd had enough of their lot in life and would war and chore no more. Though created to serve their masters they suddenly realized it was they who held the strings of power.

The 21st century will go down as the most horrific yet in Mankind's torrid history. Wars like giant knives ripped open the earth and with the perverse logic and lies behind them, the idea of stopping the bleeding had turned abhorrent to the compliant masses who shrugged even at their own death. No one cared as long as their belly was full. But in the 2020's the term "food riot" was first heard even among the wealthy nations. The wounding wars had bled the world dry.

Criminality that had burst into the open in the late teens turned into a universal mad scramble by the 2030's which spared none. No one even bothered to pretend to be honest anymore, the world a giant smash-and-grab operation of taking where taking could be done - babies beware! By the time anyone cared about the rampant daylight robbery going on it was too late. The dummies who'd gleefully and fanatically supported the thieves looked down to find their pockets empty and their prospects forever gone.

One born every minute

A mutant underclass was needed to prop up the old order in place. Created for "chores and wars" no human wished to undertake, it was the last hurrah for the planetary plantation system that has beleaguered Mankind from the start. Slavery by any other name was no longer chained by the need to disguise its desire. The Mutants were the perfect answer, bio-genetic marvels of evil engineering from a technology worshiping world. But like all false answers, it only served as a conduit for doom.

The mutant leader was called The Presbyterian. The Old Guard thinking in old ways, quickly assassinated The Presbyterian, thinking they'd won the day by cutting off the head of the snake. But another one took his place as the Mutants were designed to be headless and regenerate at will. Their makers had outsmarted themselves. Designated and designed to be without hope, their place in the world became their power, unleashing karmic hell. Why suffer the thorns of the world if thorns are all you're allowed to have?

So gradually, slowly - but irreversibly - they began quitting their wars and chores, sending the Old Guard masters into wailing hysteria, as the blessings they'd assumed slipped hopelessly through their fingers, leaving them to once again spill their own blood and drip their own sweat. But by this time, the idea of that had become wholly unacceptable even as they realized that shooting the mutants left them with the same fate as non-working mutants.

Remember: You're not a slave if we don't call you one!

Politicians rose and fell with fantastical proposals to get the mutants working and warring again. Every idea under the sun was tried - except for giving them hope. That was the one thing everyone agreed could never work. "Freedom for us is life. Freedom for mutants is death." The Old Guard's rage and fury at their self-imposed predicament could not be quenched. So possessed were they by their pre-conceieved ideas that many even resorted to suicide. "Nature leaves us no choice!"

The Mutant question so divided the Old Guard, they even lost their reluctance to resume intra-human killing. The small sliver of Humans who did actually propose giving hope to the Mutants were quickly killed off to provide a "united front". The united front only worsened the situation, causing even fewer mutants to obey. But for the humans, the idea of admitting they were wrong was more intolerable than any fate imaginable. Like a festering fire it consumed them, calling traitor on anyone who refused to keep lying.

The purity of their evil was their ultimate guiding light. "Don't give up! Keep fighting. There's a way forward without justice! There's a way forward without Nature! There's a way forward without hope!" But in blessing themselves they had irrevocably written their own death warrants. In the entirety of the 21st century, it was they who were most convinced of evil's future who were put in charge, doing irreparable damage making criminal decisions one after another.

The Day Of Doom could be delayed but not denied. Fury's fuel is finite. Every hard heart shatters from brittleness, never to return.

"He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck,
will suddenly be broken beyond healing."
- Proverbs 29:1