3mi1976

Created Sunday 18 February 2024

DATE: 1976AD/7/20
CLASSIFICATION: General
AUTHOR: Tom Laurier, Site 6 Fort Nelson Liaison Section field agent

Well, that was weird. A one-leggèd native man (we don't use the term Indian at the Force, because they're not, they're the first Evdonians, and they are emphatically native here) who has been 90 since the 1910s and has an uncannily good command of English, a media circus we and our enemies at Ketair had to suppress together, a sideshow with a bicycle builder where we got an all-terrain powerchair made for him so he could exercise his people's traditional rights, and a report of an apparent afterlife.

First, the man. We met up with him after us and Foundation operatives managed to prevent news stories being run about an apparent immortal. For us, the interest was in protecting a person from the media rush. For Ketair, it was hiding the existence of the paranormal. (Fuckers.) He is a member of a Treaty 8 (signed between a leader of his people and Canada shortly before Evdonian independence) nation of Dene descent, though is thought strange due to his arrival fully formed (but for the missing leg - it is not clear why he only has one full leg) and of already-advanced age.

I don't presently have the tape with me as of writing, but I will roughly recount our interview. While justifiably fearful, this man (who asked to be called Huw - a very English name, really!) warmed to us when he saw we were not coming for him in any way. We talked about the week's events, the press circus, contact with the Foundation, and then arrived at the subject of where he was before coming here in 1910. «The sky was green, not blue like here, and was lit by a moon only», I recall him saying as he recounted his upbringing as an Athabaskan man in an unreal universe. He also recalls many of his neighbours and friends reporting being quite old. All told, though, his was a fairly normal life up to his death, which he recounts as maybe having been related to the amputation. He asked me whether this was Heaven. I told him that this was the normal world and asked him if his home might have been Heaven, a question he refused to answer.

Huw is generally healthy, save for his missing leg, though he eats more than his size, age (he has been biologically 90 for 66 years, so.. 156?) and activity level (I've never seen a man so fast on crutches!) would suggest. He lives in a typical settler house, mostly for convenience but also due to some kind of post-resurrection peer pressure.

He has been granted an old age pension, being formally stateless and over 65.

Second, the media. All the newspapers, and the superstation down in PG, XKPG, were interviewing this poor fellow. He seemed fine with it, but it was crowding his schedule (while he doesn't poach to survive, he did have some kind of hobby business, which had fallen by the wayside after the newspapers from across Evdonia as well as BC and Canadian T8 went to meet him). I got Force Foreign to put me onto the Foundation operatives managing their suppression mission - a feat given that we're at war - and ultimately we (Site 6 liaison, Foundation PR, and Huw) called a secret press briefing, and eventually managed to convince all the newspapers to spike the story and back off Huw.

Third, the wheelchair. This man is fast on crutches, but you can't do crutches and run a bow and arrow at the same time. So we found a bike builder down in PG to weld up a wheelchair frame with a suspension and mountain bike tires for better working in the wilds up here in the top of the Rockies, and a diesel drivetrain that can be bypassed to run on hand power or one foot pedalling.