The Eyes of God
It was still very dark.
In the quiet still of the pre-dawn morning, Sesha balked at the warmth beneath her hands while shivering against the cold in the open aired hut. As if in response to her shiver, or worse, because of it, a warm gush of blood surged around her fingers.
Hold on. Hold on, the Eyes come at Dawn.
First the eyes see, then the hands come.
The hands of Mercy, The hands of Wrath.
It was the hands of wrath that did this. It was wrong. The Wedding had been sanctioned. It was because the Heretic Jazad had to see his son’s wedding that the hand struck. It was Jazad. He was why Mata was dying.
Another gush, but less. Colder. She screamed and fled the hut. She screamed in the middle of the street. She spun around screaming and collapsed to her knees. The Eyes saw. It was not yet dawn, but the Eyes saw.
The Eyes always saw. What the locals confused for the Eyes were the high resolution low-altitude broadcast blimps. The Eyes had seen her dragging Mata into the hut, and the strike on the Wedding had been not only been witnessed but also broadcast to the taxpaying voyeurs.
In fact, had there not been additional strikes at other locations being broadcast to the voyeurs, the little drama of Sesha and her wounded Mata might have garnered the views to warrant the dispatch of a Hand of Mercy.
But there had been, and it wasn’t.
And so, it wasn’t until hours later when in the stillness of pre-dawn that a screaming 12-year-old with blood soaked hands caught enough eyeballs for broadcast intervention.
Mata almost made it.
