Who: Hannah and Bertie When: Thursday night, 20 April 2012 Where: At the National Archives What: Crackpot conspiracy bonding
Hannah waited until most of the guys had left to clock out before she started dusting in the main areas. They didn't like her being underfoot while they were working, and technically she wasn't supposed to clean in here until after 6pm, but she wanted to sneak a poke around, and to see what Bertie was compiling today. He always seemed to have one of his secondary projects going after he'd done what he was paid to do, and they were always wacky and interesting. She went in with the broom, sweeping up and down each aisle until she could casually pause next to his desk and take a peek.
"Hi Bert," she said cheerfully, keeping her voice low as one of the last guys to be finishing up glanced crossly at her.
"Hannah!" Bertie said, grinning at her from over the top of his computer. "How are you? Isn't it nice out today?"
He had just ordered more books off Amazon (including one about selkies that he thought he could quiz Ceana about), so he was in an especially perky mood.
"Yeah, it's alright," Hannah said, leaning the broom handle against a filing cabinet, and coming over to lean on the table next to him. "What've you been looking up today?"
"Greeks!" Bertie said happily. His parents had taken he and his siblings to Greece, once, and Bertie had spent the whole time at the Parthenon gaping and taking a million pictures. "Did you know that a woman in France claims she was saved from an attempted rape by Artemis?"
"No, had no idea," Hannah said. "Good timing then, of her. Do all the Greek gods live in France?" She was mocking him gently, but her tone was serious, because she didn't want him to be offended.
"No, silly," Bertie said, resisting the urge to stick his tongue out at her. He was not a child. He knew she didn't really believe him about all of his ideas, but she listened and didn't call him an idiot, which endeared her to him. "I have a theory that they spread throughout the world along with Western civilization. They can probably manifest where ever they want now!"
Hannah nodded, pulling out a desk chair to sit on and falling onto it so the seat bounced. "That's some theory," she said, spinning on the chair. "Why don't they interfere then, if they're still around? Why don't they fix wars and disease and stuff?"
"They might still be causing the wars and disease," Bertie said. "They caused plenty of it in Greece. But I think they might be losing their powers. Possibly due to lack of real worship, or possibly due to other gods siphoning off those powers and using it for their own purposes. Like huge vacuums!"
"What, so there's a finite amount of divine power, and it's like swings and roundabouts as to who gets the most? Why isn't Jesus walking about healing people then?" Hannah spun the chair once in the opposite direction to undo the dizziness.
"Ah-hah, that's where things get interesting!" Bernie said, spinning around in his chair to find his book on alien astronauts. "Did you know that the number of UFO sightings have increased even as the amount of people who are religious go down? Do you see what that might mean?"
"That as people grow more secular, we are searching for other life in the universe because we don't want to admit to ourselves that we're alone?" Hannah asked, leaning her chin on her elbow but looking at Bertie to supply his answer.
"No!" Bertie said, shaking his head to emphasize. Then he paused and considered. "Well, maybe. But that's not my theory! My theory is that the aliens might be siphoning off the divine energy. Maybe they themselves are actually gods from other planets who have run out and need more."
Hannah paused a moment. "Aliens are stealing all the God juice?" she asked. "Alien Gods are stealing power from our Earth Gods." It was tempting to laugh in his face, but she didn't, she considered it to see if she could make sense of it. It wasn't impossible, but it couldn't exactly be proven. "What gave you that idea?"
"It's just one theory!" Bertie said, a little defensively. "And I just think their has to be a reason that religion tends to be so tied up in the sky. Besides that the weather comes from there, I mean."
"I suppose," Hannah agreed, looking thoughtful. Well, it wasn't completely outside the realm of impossibility. "So... what gods do we have that the aliens want them so much? Where do they live?" She'd heard him say that gods walked among them before, but the idea that she might be living next door to Zeus seemed a little ridiculous. Like gods would just live in any old house! Silly.
"They live among us, like anyone trying to blend in," Bertie said, perking right back up. "The old legends are full of stories about how the gods disguised themselves as humans. Odin, for example, lived as a fisherman. So it's very doable."
Hannah nodded slowly. "Have you ever seen one?" she asked.
Bertie opened his mouth, then closed it with a snap. He started arranging things on his desk, contemplating what to say. When most people asked him that question, he rattled off a list of possible sightings and anomalous encounters. But those people weren't his friends. And while he wasn't exactly sure Hannah would have considered herself his friend, he liked her and she was nicer to him then most people.
"When I was 10, my Dad had pancreatic cancer," he said, voice a little less bright then usual. "Nothing was working, and he and Mum were giving me and my brothers and sister the talk about death. And then they heard about this woman who could supposedly heal people just by laying her hands on them. She didn't do it cheap, but she'd do it." He looked up at Hannah. "She called herself Bridget, and when she left our house, Dad's cancer was gone. There's a Celtic goddess named Brigid who was supposed to be able to heal people. So I guess the answer is yes."
Looking sympathetic at first, and then surprised, Hannah processed the information. It seemed like a bit of a leap, to assume this woman was a goddess to be able to do this, and then that she was maybe a faith healer. Bertie's father had maybe been in remission unnoticed? But Bertie seemed very convinced. "Wow," she said, "that's pretty big." She nodded again, still considering all the likely explanations for that scenario.
"I thought about all the other things it might've been," Bertie said. "He'd been to the doctor a day or two before she visited, and was told he had a few months at best. And the placebo effect isn't that strong." He tapped his fingers nervously. "She asked my parents to buy the land this ancient spring was on. One of her healing springs, apparently. Apparently, the local government was going to build a housing tract on it."
"Do you still own it?" Hannah asked, curious. It did sound like a pretty far-fetched story, but... she had to admit, it was a good story. "Did you look for her later, to find her again and ask her?" she asked, not realising she'd leaned forward in interest.
"They do, yeah," Bertie said. "I imagine it'll get passed down to one of us, eventually. I asked them to give me her address, but they said no." It was obviously a bit of a sore spot. Bertie did understand, though. They worried that if he managed to annoy Brigid, she'd take it all back.
"Aww." Hannah pulled a face and sat back again. "I was hoping for a big reunion. So was that in England then? Are there more over here?"
"Of course!" Bertie said, strangely glad to steer the topic away from personal matters. All of that felt a little too close to home for him to talk about it with the same enthusiasm as everything else. "Gods can teleport between different countries, where ever they're needed. It's how the Greco-Romans managed to cover so much ground."
"Oh, okay." Hannah nodded. "I suppose that makes sense." She tapped her fingers on the table. "So, like, are Jesus and God walking around somewhere too? And Buddha and all of them?"
"Probably," Bertie said, nodding sagely. "Although I suspect God probably decided on a policy of non-interference a long time ago. You know, to give free will a chance to work."