Things have been getting really crazy around here. I could not believe how different it all was. That evening, after Zyra left, I went to the old shelf where dad usually kept his newspapers and took out a number of the most recent ones to do some research.
I could still remember Naira Hill-Adega—widow of a politician named Vern Malik Hill. She had a strong South African accent. Yet Vern was from North America and his accent was proof there of. Sources say they met each other on one of her interplanetary "preaching" tours several years ago. I had seen her in the news once or twice before I traveled back in time but the Naira I new was single but was some sort of Televangelist. The first time I heard about something of the latter, I shook my head and smirked. Naira was a Seven Day of Venice preacher, and often referred to herself as Apostle Naira. It was also the term her adherents called her.
I never really believed all of that stuff anyway, despite how many people she had converted into following her. When I was a child, I had learned the stories of all the apostles. Paul, Peter and the rest of them. The last apostle was John, and he died after being exiled on an island for his faith. Besides, the Apostles back then did a lot of things. They healed people and all of that good stuff. Naira obviously wasn't doing much of it. If anything, the stories about how she'd healed had turned out to be false. So when I saw all of her vanity and how she tried to make people believe she was special or something, I just feel it was all stupid.
However, the news that solidified my notion of her was when I saw her in the news the second time. There had been an exposé on her, showing her coming out of different hotels in different places with different men. There had also been stories that some of those men were married and other stuff like that.
Immediately I read all of it, I totally wrote her off in my mind as a fake. She was obviously a very adulterous person, and the Apostles I learned about completely condemned the practice—Ya now, 'Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery?' So there was no way I was going to believe Naira was a real Apostle.
When I started reading the papers, I didn't expect to see anything good. But I was more shocked than I expected. If I had thought things were dire before, I realized that it was an understatement. A rather morbid one. People were actually dying.
Apparently, in this new timeline, Naira was the Defense Administrator of the entire Lunar Space Station. It was, in effect, a position equal to that of Vice president of North America, back when it was called the United States. She was one of the General's right hand people. At least, she should have been.
However, She had been given the control of the Lunar Interplanetary Administration's entire military force. This resource made it easy for her to begin an underground resistance to the General. Apparently, a journalist had begun to do some digging and started to expose her, when he was mysteriously killed.
At first, it had seemed like a coincidence, then other investigative journalists the public commonly viewed as "Conspiracy Theorists" started showing up dead or missing. Soon the Established Media broke from their monotonous newsworthy agenda and began to investigate the entire situation. They discovered that something huge was happening. Suddenly, reports about how Naira was trying to overthrow the General became widespread, with her being responsible for the death of many reporters, belonging to both Mainstream and Independent alike just for uncovering the truth.
When I was finally done reading the papers, I realized that I could see why dad and Zyra were having huge concerns. If Naira wasn't against killing, then she'd probably kill the General as well.
I was actually surprised that she hadn't done it just yet. Perhaps she was waiting for more popular support. Why? Most people on the Lunar Plane were against her. A lot of news articles were public outcries against her life and personality. The General, on the other hand, was beloved by the people, and every time an election came around, there were always votes in massive support for him.
I felt truly scared for Zyra, even as I folded the newspapers and dumped them on my reading table. For a long time that night, I stared at the ceiling, wondering what would have happened if I hadn't changed things. If I hadn't felt the need to prove dad wrong. If I...
Then I reminded myself that the what-ifs wouldn't change a thing. What had happened, happened. Now all I needed to do was figure out a way to explain things to Zyra and then help her sort all of this out. She could never be disloyal to the General, and she was the Chief of Staff, which meant she would be a prime target of Naira.
I needed to ensure that she was safe.