Tayla Story - 015

And so, Alexander began to tell me the story of his meeting with his father. You would think that a meeting between father and son, for the first time in seven years, might be an emotion reunion, but between those two, I'm pretty sure it would have been anything but.

It was in Artemis, one of the largest lunar settlements, that Alexander met with his father. Apparently, there's a large number of empty apartments, so Alexander was allowed to borrow one for the time he stayed on the moon. And it was in that apartment, that he met with his father.

When he arrived, the man that Alexander had known as his father was barely recognisable. Frank Scuderi had become much thinner and wasted during the time they'd been apart. His hair turned grey, and his forehead marked with deep-set wrinkles. His eyes looked haunt, surrounded by black ringlets. Once upon a time, he'd had piercings in his left ear, but now only the scar remains. For some reason, his left arm was supported by some kind of robotic exoskeleton.

"Hey Alexander," Scuderi said, paused halfway through the entrance.

He walked through and closed the door behind himself.

"Hey," Alexander replied. Alexander couldn't think of anything else to say. He didn't remember how the two of them used to talk to each other, or what about.

"You look well enough," Scuderi began.

"And you look old," Alexander retorted. It's hard to blame him for that, though. After all, he despises this father of his.

Scuderi paid it no mind, however, laughing, "I get that quite a lot these days. These last two weeks probably aged me by a decade."

"I see."

Their conversation fell flat after that. Both of them unsure what to say to the other. Alexander barely even recognised his father, after all.

His emerald eyes, the confident gait of his walk, and long skinny fingers. If it wasn't for those few features, Alexander explained to me, he wouldn't have known the man in front of him at all.

"Sorry, I'm not sure what to say," Scuderi spoke up again, "but I guess I should start by apologising for how everything turned out seven years ago."

Seven years ago. That was when this all started for Alexander. When his father left for the moon, his mother disappeared, and he was sent to go live with his relatives in Wellington.

"Why are you apologising for that now? After everything that's happened since then?"

Hearing him apologise after all this time, enraged Alexander. He didn't come all this way to hear his father say something like that.

Alexander marched up towards Scuderi, backing him up against the door, "what's that supposed to be? Screw that. It's far too late. Just get it over with, and tell me what exactly you brought me here for."

He stormed away from him, and went to go stand in the apartment's kitchenette. Alexander didn't feel like he could control himself that close to his father. Just looking at his face… makes him feel anguish.

Looking back, Alexander noticed a glint of anger in his father's eyes, but it was gone almost as quickly as it first appeared. Scuderi simply closed his eyes, took a single breath, and regained his usual composure. Any slight sign of anger, gone.

"Fine. I'll tell you why you're really here."

Scuderi walked over and sat down on a barstool by the kitchen bench. The two fixed their eyes on each other.

Alexander recalled to me that his father's eyes unnerved him. There was some unnatural sense that his father wasn't entirely there, even in this situation. That perhaps less than half of his self was there. In the present.

"The reason you're here is because I want you to help me achieve my dream. I need someone that I can trust, and there is no one I trust more than you. That might be strange considering that we haven't met in seven years, but I've never been able to trust people. Not even my closest allies.

The only person I ever trust was your mother. And even then, I don't think I completely trusted her until after you were born. It took me over a decade of knowing her before I could possibly trust her.

But, you're her flesh and blood. You're my flesh and blood. I want to be able to trust you as well."

"What do you actually want from me?"

Alexander explained to me that he couldn't make any sense out of what his father was saying. It seemed nonsensical to him.

"I want you to rule beside me here on the moon. What I want is to change this world, and I need someone I can trust beside me. Someone like Aria. And where would I find anyone more like your mother than you?

At first, you'll work for me at Artemis Energy, then maybe hold a government position for a couple of terms, before working your way up to Consul. I don't know how I'm going to achieve it yet, but I'm going to make the world a better place. Even if it takes longer than my lifetime. I need you to make sure that my goal is completed, and carried on, even after I'm dead."

"You want me to be Consul?" Alexander asked.

He said that at the time, he didn't understand why his father would want him to do this. Why his father would choose him, and no one else. Even if Frank Scuderi couldn't bring himself to trust anyone else, it still didn't make sense that he would then be able to trust me. Even if I was his son.

But the other thing that bothered Alexander, was that he didn't entirely understand what his father meant by his dream. He'd said something about making the world a better place, but what did that mean to him?

"So, what exactly is this dream of yours? What are you planning to do to achieve this 'better world'?"

Scuderi frowned at that, "I'm not sure how to put it simply. It isn't something that I know how to describe in words. I guess the only way that I could put it is… do you believe in God?"

"I'm not sure if God exists or not."

"Why's that?"

"I've seen plenty of things, things that seem near miraculous… and yet I don't think I've seen anything that can't be explained without the existence of some higher power."

Scuderi nodded at that, "personally, I don't believe in God at all. If such a being did exist, there would be some proof, or some doubt, that it might exist.

As far as I'm concerned, the divine is just a way for people to explain the inexplicable, or to place blame elsewhere. But let's say hypothetically that a godlike being, an all-powerful entity, really existed… what would you think of it?"

"Are you saying you want to become God? Is that it?

"Of course not," Scuderi replied, "what I want isn't to become God. What I need to do is kill God."