Free Peace Warrior by Steven L. Hawk

before your accident. Even more!”
    “Accident!” Grant shouted, his body suddenly a flurry of waving arms and kicking legs. “Hah! It was no fucking accident that put me at the bottom of a lake with no arms and legs, Doc!”
    Tane covered the two steps toward the bed quickly and slapped Grant sharply across the face.
    “What the–,“ Grant managed to squeak out before he was grabbed by the small scientist and shaken roughly. In his weakened condition he could not resist. All he could do was take the abuse until, finally, the shaking stopped and Tane stepped away from him.
    Grant glared at the smaller man and swore to himself that, when his body was able, he’d set things square between himself and the doctor. Tane, to his credit, just returned the stare.
    “Listen to me, Grant! You must be with Peace! For your sake, as well as for mine and the entire world’s. You cannot display violence where it could do harm to another human.”
    “Oh man, you keep talking about ‘being with peace’ and not being violent. Just what the hell does that mean anyway? I haven’t hit or kicked anyone… yet” He let the last comment linger but Tane ignored it.
    “Grant, listen to me,” Tane began slowly. “The world… earth… is different now. You’ve been gone a long time and things have changed. People have changed. How we think, how we look…”
    “How you speak also. Does everyone sound like you? All prim and proper?” Grant demanded.
    “Well, I… yes, it is Earth Standard language. Everyone is taught to speak it clearly and carefully. It helps instill Peace and avoid misunderstandings.”
    “Yeah? Well it makes you sound like a pompous ass. Sorry.”
    Tane stared. His mouth hung open but no words came out. Grant thought he might have pushed the little guy into speechlessness, but it was short-lived. The need to educate obviously overcame the initial shock of Grant’s taunt.
    “Earth Standard is our formal language. In addition to Standard, each of the six Cultures has its own language, and most have more than one. At last count, the world had more than a hundred functioning languages. Culture languages are less formal and are reserved for conversations among families and friends.” The small scientist ended his tutorial on languages.
    “Got it. People talk funny now, unless they are at home. How else have things changed? How are people so different, Tane? What else besides the way you speak? Does everyone have eyes like you?” Grant asked cruelly, taking a childish verbal shot at the small scientist.
    Grant felt terrible as soon as the words left his mouth, but he wanted to get back at the doctor for making him an experiment, for answering his questions, for shaking him like a small child. So he had picked out the man’s deformity and used it as a weapon.
    Grant was suddenly struck by the humor of the thought, regardless of how cruel it was. He imagined a world full of freaks with extra eyelids and he laughed for the first time since rejoining the living. It felt good to laugh and he never wanted to stop, but he did with Tane’s reply.
    “Why… yes. We all have two sets.” Grant was stopped in mid-laugh, the sound choked from his throat. The man was serious. “But that is not the only change, we --”
    “Wait!” he held up a hand, it came up easier now. “You mean everyone has eyes like you?”
    “Yes. Well, there are a few who are born deformed, with only one set, but most have the protective lids as I do.”
    “Deformed with only one set? You’re kidding, right?”
    “I am sorry, but no. At first, those who were born with the secondary lids were considered deformed, but over the course of a few generations, the evolutionary change became evident in over ninety-nine percent of all humans. Now, less than one in 100,000 is born with the deformity of a single set.
    “Some early scientists theorized that it was a changed precipitated by global warming or by the depletion of the ozone layer, a