Post Truth World

Herkas, a bulky 20-something year old with a shaven head and a dislike for authority, had recently borrowed the bike from its owner. Borrowed, thought Herkas, whose wiry arms strained as he clung precariously to the back, was being generous, as far as he knew, the bike’s owner was still blissfully unaware of this one-sided transaction.

A yellow hue reflected from the creature’s razor-sharp tusks which jutted skyward at awkward angles from its huge deformed bony head. Stretching languidly, as if oblivious to the hunter’s presence that was focused so keenly upon him, the creature snorted loudly, then clawed at the ground, with its powerful hind legs.

The referendum on leaving the EU had been the point that most contemporary commentators had identified as when the British had finally hit the self-destruct button and begun, what appeared to many outsiders, as an act of extreme self-harm, in voting for a Brexit from the EU.

The Society had a clearly identified goal. These 12 ‘apostles’ were not answerable to an electorate, to shareholders or world opinion. They were answerable to God alone, and as in the days of the Holy Crusades, God, to the Puritan Society at least, appeared to allow plenty of latitude in how they could achieve their aims as a society.

“Mr Secretary General! Can you hear me.” 15,000 km away in Singapore, Li was shouting down the receiver. He too had heard the explosions. “Li, the UN is under attack!!” Slowly his brain began to assemble the information his senses had presented it with. Fearful for his old friend Li shouted down the phone.

A cold sneer rippled briefly across Zhang’s lips. ‘An uncertain 21st Century, a century of possible Multiverses!,’ Zhang was certain he knew how the 21st Century would be defined. Not as an unstable continually morphing series of multiverses, rather as the new era of global dominance by China.