[center][Img]https://images.cooltext.com/5441624.png[/img][/center] [center][h2]Son’s of Cain Part 1[/h2][/center] [center][h3]Dr. Jacob Regan[/h3][/center] [center][b]Lost Haven, ME[/b][/center] [center][b]Present Day, 1800 Hours[/b][/center] [center][i]Woe to them! For they walk in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain…[/i][b]Jude 1:11[/b][/center] A stack of paper sat on the corner of a table recessed in the back of a pub. The building was tucked away to the southeast of Bristol college and was relatively difficult to find. That was sort of the point for the man who sat in the last alcove on the left at the very farthest corner of the room from the entrance. It was not so much for lack of an interest in people or some rejection of those around him. Mostly it was for his sanity and to avoid any undue contact with his students from Bristol. It was close enough that one of them might accidentally appear here one day. It was a truly terrifying thought as it would mean that he would have to do his grading in his home. That or find a new place to hide; of which there were few such places left. Of the thirty or so students left in the class there were twenty-eight completed papers. One of the missing two needed an extension which he had happily granted since part of her building had been damaged in the latest round of Hero versus Villain foolishness that had occurred in Lost Haven. The second missing paper troubled him since the thirtieth member of their class had not been in class for a whole week now and all his attempts to reach the young man had met with silence. He had already advised the police of the missing student but it made no difference so far. Wherever Jonah was he hoped the young man was safe but in this day and age that was a fleeting hope. The pen in his right hand traced lazy figure eights in the air over the offending paper that he was rereading for the third time. It was unusual for him to encounter undergraduate work which gave him pause in grading. The truth was that for all his student’s intelligence they were usually less than gifted in Ethical Philosophy since the class in question was technically on the list of writing intensive general education courses the College offered. He had found long ago that he needed to allow for this in the class. That had been an acceptable compromise and he was clear with his students that he understood they were mostly there to check a box but he expected them to put in the work. Mentally he had to reclassify the class essentially pass or fail based on effort and degree of comprehension. It was not that they needed to synthesize much new thought but if they could at least show him in their writing that they were attempting it. That was acceptable. This paper however was different. Truthfully he suspected Amanda was destined for more. It distrubed him truthfully because he saw much of himself in the woman. She was late to college starting her degree at the age of twenty-eight. Really only seven or so years younger than him. It made for a strange dynamic since most of the others in his undergraduate classes were nineteen, twenty at the most. He had asked his students to determine what they thought was the largest problem with the ethics they most identified with and to expound on it. Most had gone with Utilitarianism and he’d seen many of the same reasons about not knowing the fullness of one's actions. Some had taken on how it was easy to manipulate or hedonistic. It was all pretty standard stuff which he understood. He’d seen a handful of virtue ethics papers, even fewer duty ethics papers, and then this. Amanda had presented him with a serious problem. Instead of selecting from a lengthy list of philosophers with varying takes on ethics she had taken on the idea of ethics as a whole and using the fact that she was convinced Descarte had made an insufficient argument for us to be able to trust anything beyond the contents of our own mind. She was essentially advocating that we engage in practical hedonism as it was the only logical course in a world where we could never be sure what it was we were dealing with. To say the paper was unique would have been an understatement and he wasn’t sure if she was just pushing the envelope or if maybe the topic of the paper had been too simplistic for her. The real problem that he was wrestling with was that there was an ethical dilemma the paper presented. On the one hand she had really done exactly what he had asked for. And well too. On the other hand she was clearly advocating from a set of ethics that were bordering on the abominable so could he really give her the one hundred percent on the paper the rubric dictated he should be giving her. His thoughts were interrupted by a thunk from across the table. He looked up over his reading glasses. A lean, green eyed, mischievous looking brunette had slid herself into the bench across from him. A smile played at his lips as she took a pull from the dark beer firmly grasped in her calloused hands and looked over at him. “What are you musing over Jacob? You don’t usually ruminate like that.” His sister smirked at him as she took her second drink from the beer. It was basically gone after that. It always amazed him how Ashley could consume. Pizza, beer, academic engineering papers, her various lover’s souls, it didn’t seem to matter much to her. Officially she was Dr. Ashley Marie Reagan. As it turned out their family was very smart but her doctorate was in engineering and she refused to be called Dr. Reagan like her older brother was. [color=66CDAA]”Well, I have a student who is pushing me with her insistence on writing controversial papers and I can’t have her thinking its okay to advocate selfishness and hedonism as a form of proper ethics just because someone has failed to properly provide evidence for us not to engage in nihilism.”[/color] he watched as his sister delicately spun the paper around and began to read. After reading through it once she cocked her head and read it again before spinning it back around and handing it back to him. “You should give her a zero and tell her to come to office hours. When she does, ask her to blow you and when she’s pissed about it refer to her paper for your reasoning. Just be sure to drop the act before she accuses you of sexual misconduct.” Ashley peered over the table at her brother who had taken the opportunity to pick up his own neglected beer. He nearly choked on it at the suggestion. [color=66CDAA]”Do I have to explain to you why that is wrong on so many levels and requires I engage in deception?”[/color] He scowled at her across the table and she just smirked back. “But you thought about it. She must be hot.” Ashley pushed the paper back across the table. “Just give her an A and tell her you want to talk because you want to be sure she understands she’s using some form of straw man fallacy.” Jacob tilted his head and gave his sister another inquisitive look over the glasses. [color=66CDAA]”I don’t follow. You think her paper is fallacious in its argument.”[/color] Ashley shrugged “Sort of. A straw man is where you mock up an argument that looks like what someone else is proposing and then you knock it over suggesting you defeated it. She’s saying that because we can’t be sure of the contents of our own minds we can’t trust our senses and she’s saying Descarte couldn’t use God as a good reason to overcome that. But that’s bullshit. Lost Haven got invaded by literal Demons. She’s ignoring current evidence in favor of attacking a weak argument from an old philosopher instead of taking the argument in its strongest form.” Jacob contemplated his sister for a long moment before writing ‘one hundred’ on the top of Amanda’s paper and adding it to his neat stack. [color=66CDAA]”And that dear sister is why I keep you around”[/color] Picking up his beer he tapped her glass and sat back to drink with her since it was friday after all. [hr] The street was dark outside as Jacob left the dar. It wasn’t closing time but his sister had called a ride share service an hour prior and he’d figured it was best to get a move on while there was still light and relative quiet. The buzz of the alcohol was strong in his head making him feel fuzzy. With his brown leather case slung over his shoulder he dug his hands in his pockets and started up the street. It was rare for him to make use of his own vehicle, especially so on a night where he had planned on drinking with Ashley. His slighter sister was a good gauge for when he needed to call it quits since about the time she needed to call a ride was when he could still walk home safely. Rounding the corner he peered both ways across the street before half jogging across it. Relatively few cars, he wasn’t sure if it was Lost Haven’s recent troubles or just the time of day. As he entered the alley across the street he got the strangest tingling feeling on the back of his neck. Had he been sober perhaps it would have made him stop and look around. Tonight however the thought didn’t even slow him down heading into the alley. What finally gave him pause was a pair of dark red robed individuals who appeared at the end of the alley suddenly as he was just getting to it. Coming to a halt he eyed them suspiciously. This didn’t look good. There were all sorts of strange people in Lost Haven but this seemed malicious. Starting to turn he realized there were rapidly approaching footsteps from behind when he was suddenly struck violently. The whole world tilted sideways and he realized that it was in fact him that had tilted sideways as his cheek hit the paving stones of the alley and he could feel the moisture from the ground. Suddenly his perspective shifted again as he was dragged to his feet. Looking down he realized blearly that he was being dragged to the back of a van which had been pulled up in front of the head of the alley. This was bad but he really couldn’t do anything other than make an agitated noise. A bag was thrust over his head and then he felt another impact. Then. Nothing….