Suddenly feeling slightly claustrophobic despite the expansive landscape, he realises his chances of making the distance are slim; he breathes evenly, turns the volume of the stereo up, and smiles faintly to himself.
Around fifty minutes later
A momentary imbalance in the steering gets Ikaros's attention: a light flashes on the dashboard indicating that the rear, right tyre has blown; the car's emergency system cuts in, compensating and stabilising the steering while gradually reducing speed. Ikaros moves the car carefully across the three main lanes when he gets the chance and brings it to a stop in the emergency lane on the edge of the Autobahn.
He pulls in the boot lever, gets out of the car, and heads towards the rear to get out the spare tyre. On his way, he casually looks across at the nearby group of tree-covered hills. Standing behind the car, he looks back at the way he came and follows the angle of the Autobahn as it sweeps to the right. He identifies the clear line of sight to the fast lane from somewhere up on one of the hills; he judges that it's well within effective firing range.
Abandoning his plan to change the tyre, he walks to the side wall and leans on it to get a good look at the fields below. He spots a range of farm animals, several greenhouses, a couple of farm houses and a scattering of dishevelled outhouses and sheds, all of which is reminiscent of a time that is all but gone, only kept alive now by isolated communities that have turned their backs on the rest of the world. Ikaros smiles knowingly and takes in the smells of the freshening air as the sun makes its way towards the horizon in the late afternoon sky.
Interrupted by the faint sound of a slowing engine, he turns his head and watches a grey car pull up around two hundred meters behind his own. He stares at it with expectation and isn't surprised to see Agent 2.0 get out and stand by it. They watch each other silently for a moment. Ikaros smiles slightly and turns to appreciate the view once more. Without sound or warning, a bullet hurtles towards Ikaros from high up on the nearest hill and enters through his forehead, killing him instantly. His body drops limply onto the Autobahn.
Agent 2.0 stares at the scene briefly, then gets back into his car. Covering the distance in seconds, the driver pulls up and parks closely behind the dead body. Agent 2.0 and the driver get out and, during a lull in traffic, proceed to pick up the body and throw it over the wall of the Autobahn into the fields below, where it hides motionlessly in the long grass.
• • •
In preparation for the assassination, six snipers parachuted onto hillsides along a short stretch of the Autobahn somewhere between Leipzig and Weidenberg and lay in wait amongst the tree cover; two eventually got their chance to shoot. Before taking the ultimate shot, the fifth sniper — being the only one within range — waited patiently for Agent 2.0 to arrive on the scene so that he could observe the kill with his own eyes. Typically in these situations, no one on the Autobahn noticed anything unusual, or, if they did, they were unwilling to report it and get involved. Moreover, Ikaros's body wasn't discovered until three days later when the dogs on the farm, although finding it fairly early on, eventually drew their owners' attention to it; by this stage, the car had long since been towed away and the blood stain removed without a trace.
Once the body had been identified, his death was reported on the national news and was then also carried through to some foreign broadcasts; however, since the Global Domination Corporation was seen as being largely irrelevant because it hadn't been publicly active in almost three years, his death was just positioned and viewed as largely expected in a country that had by this stage succumbed to what was labelled 'endemic and intractable neo-ultra-violence' like that of the other member countries of the Western European Union, but for which Germany was a prime example despite the best efforts of the government and its organs to impose a sophisticated range of social control mechanisms on the remaining legitimate population.
• • •
After the release of the Global Domination's report, apart from the low public profile that Ikaros kept, he did interact on a large scale by funding education, progressive urban design developments, a range of science and technology programmes as well as various community projects in Berlin itself, other parts of Germany and, to a large extent, internationally. This funding, totalling nearly 1.2 billion euros, was willingly taken even when a strong suspicion for and disliking of him was still being harboured by those in receipt of the moneys. Not unsurprisingly, Ikaros's requests to remain an anonymous donor were respectfully granted, although authorities were obligatorily informed.
His calculated but much-needed generosity provided him with a certain 'safe passage' in Germany, even though most of his time was spent indoors during this period. In an eerie way, no one really bothered him; the local and federal police didn't so much as follow him, and although the national undercover agencies were aware of some of his activities and kept a file on him, continuing to update it intermittently, nothing particularly incriminating was ever included in it, except for the profiles of the constant stream of the people who frequented the apartment. In the established culture of 'threat minimisation,' this would usually have been enough to lead to such groups being broken up forcefully, often with certain key members going missing in the process, presumed by their friends and family to be either dead or being held indefinitely in 'secret' labour camps.
Apart from work that was done by the few who continued to spend days and nights at the apartment, much of the activity was distributed throughout what Ikaros called the Laboratory Network, which was allowed to reach a total of almost 3,500 hard-core members before an indefinite freeze on new memberships was put into effect — a situation that ended up lasting several years beyond Ikaros's death.
At the time his of death, his role had already been mainly facilitatory for quite a few months, and it was obvious to everyone involved that the group could and would effectively continue without him: with nearly fifteen hundred laboratories and factories that had been set up clandestinely in private residences in twenty-seven different countries, part of the group's primary activities involved developing, manufacturing and experimenting with a specific set of cutting-edge technologies, and also sharing information, component parts, results and technical knowledge with other members in the network. This programme was evidently focused intently on bridging the gap between the limitations of their present reality and a range of particularly ambitious aspirations.
Funding for the R&D programme was drawn from a set of Ikaros's accounts containing a sizeable portion of his remaining finances that wasn't to be put into publicly sanctioned causes; the regular distribution of funds to members was cleaned and made untraceable thanks to the small IT team, which found and developed the set of computer programs that allowed this to occur systematically and continue without being disturbed.
Having a full understanding of the network's status, as Ikaros's days came to an end, he felt quietly confident that, due to the extensive redundancies that had been meticulously put in place, if anything that he'd been involved with ever had a chance of succeeding in reaching its ultimate objectives, it would be this. In this regard, his main concerns lay with his unusual family unit: he had nagging fears that he might have put those close to him in the same kind of danger he saw himself inevitably attracting, and that they too wouldn't be allowed the chance to live to see the programme through to its fruition. He could only keep hoping that the preparations being made for their safety would be enough.
Chapter 24
Shortly after disembarking in Munich late that night, Yanyan and Samuel took the next train to Berne, Switzerland. Arriving before dawn the following morning, they had half an hour spare to relax over breakfast before first catching a domestic speed train into the countryside and then a bus up into the Alps to its terminus at a regional hub, where Yanyan bought a car and some provisions. She then proceeded to drive higher up into a remote and sparsely inhabited area of the mountains towards their final destination.
• • •
Yanyan pulls the car up in front of a country villa on a large property hidden in the mountains and surrounded by a forest. Samuel jumps out of the car and races up onto the veranda to get a good look at the view of the stark, snowy mountain peaks to the west and the sun, which is steadily making its way down towards them. Only having been there briefly once before, just after they'd bought it, and having been too young at the time to understand its significance to Ikaros and Sascha, and now also to Yanyan, it's only due to recent events that the idea of a 'holiday house' has been turned more accurately into that of a safe house, neatly explaining why they'd never actually spent any time there. He smiles quietly to himself about this until he notices Yanyan unpacking the car. Keen to go inside and start getting settled in, he jumps down, grabs some bags off the back seat, and follows Yanyan to the door.
• • •
As the days passed, no one arrived at the rendezvous and no one from Germany contacted them, which led Yanyan to become quite edgy at first; then, by the end of the first week, she had started seriously considering and attempting to prepare herself for the possibility that they might have to continue on alone. By day sixteen, her remaining hopes seemed like mere fantasy, yet she still wasn't in the frame of mind to make contact with the outside world to confirm either way. Instead, she did her best to comfort Samuel and prepare him for the worst, and hoped that he would just gradually accept their new lifestyle if that was what the future indeed held for them.
This was helped along by her attempts to keep him busy with his studies and extracurricular activities in and around the house, which was quite well set up for their situation. Apart from the latest in computer technology, the villa had a workshop and a laboratory in which Samuel could carry out experiments and work on projects. In the extended basement, there was a gymnasium next to a sophisticated, semi-automated horticultural area, which allowed them to grow enough to satisfy most of their continuing needs within a short time of their arrival. There was also a large storeroom containing supplies and spare parts that could provide up to eighteen years of maintenance for just about every piece of technology they had. Being off the grid and requiring much more electricity than usual, the villa had its own extensive solar farm located on the roofs of the buildings and in several clearings on the property. The power that wasn't used immediately was stored in long-life batteries in a large underground storage unit near the house: given the excess power that could be generated and stored by the system, it was predicted that there would be more than enough available power to meet their usage requirements even over the most overcast of winters.
• • •
Nineteen days after arriving at the villa: 8:06 a.m.
During a quiet breakfast of Samuel's favourite kind of Chinese noodles, they hear a car pull up in the driveway. Immediately apprehensive, Yanyan tries to stay calm, not knowing what to think and not wanting to get her hopes up too high or let her fear show for that matter. Before she gets a chance to respond, though, Samuel jumps up and races towards the front door; Yanyan then does the same. They come to a stop on the veranda, stand side by side and watch as Sascha gets out of the car and walks around to greet them. "Is anyone else here?" she asks nervously, looking around the villa almost hopefully.
Yanyan shakes her head.
"Is anyone else coming?" asks Samuel.
Sascha bends down and hugs him. "Probably not, honey."
They walk inside silently and Yanyan serves up another bowl of noodles, which Sascha barely touches as she's so exhausted after having travelled for two weeks with little rest while taking her long and circuitous route. After a quiet few minutes, Sascha promises to fill them in on the details after she's slept, excuses herself and goes to her bedroom, where she sleeps deeply for the rest of the day, relieved that she's made it and on the verge of allowing herself to accept and begin mourning the likelihood that Ikaros is already dead, a process that would have been abruptly cut short fifteen days ago had she allowed herself access to the mainstream media.
• • •
Gradually coming to terms with their situation, over the following years, they settled into a way of life that was isolated and relatively self-sufficient, only visiting the local villages for necessary supplies that had been used up, weren't held in the storeroom to begin with, or couldn't be produced on the property.
Two days after arriving, Sascha reconnected with the Laboratory Network and began, with Yanyan, managing the challenges and difficulties associated with their programme, which kept them busy most days for the years ahead. In their spare time, they took turns to encourage Samuel's interests and facilitate his learning the best they could; being naturally curious and not having much else to do, Samuel happily spent a lot of his time studying, but soon developed a special interest in conducting experiments in the lab and developing technologies in the workshop, which convinced Sascha and Yanyan that they should gradually induct him into the R&D programme and expose him to the growing knowledge base of the network. Upon doing so, he immediately felt a strong sense of purpose, and being intrigued by what they were doing and had already achieved, by the time he turned sixteen, Samuel had contributed to the programme in novel and valuable ways that not only surprised but also gained the respect of his peers. This allowed him to have greater input into the direction of the programme, and, over the following years, he worked relentlessly, meticulously, and creatively with other members of the network on several significant and projects.
Chapter 25
Despite feeling relieved in some respects to have been so isolated in the mountains during the long years they spent there, Sascha, Yanyan and Samuel still tried to keep up to date with what was going on in the outside world the best they could, noticing morbidly that most things seemed only to worsen. The Western European Union was further reduced to merely five core countries, including Germany and Switzerland, but membership seemed almost meaningless to most people. Throughout Europe, regardless of membership, the social situation deteriorated to the point that the police states with their inadequate resources and personnel were unable to cope with the diversity and density of domestic disturbances and disruptions, resorting to a number of simplistic fear and intimidation tactics in what proved to be an unsuccessful attempt to keep the hard-core subversive and insurgent elements in the population at bay.
The continuing instability of the economies of Europe and the social pressures that resulted were reflective of a broader trend around the world. By 2070, more countries than ever before were dealing with large-scale and often multiple internal conflicts including civil wars, endemic terrorism, guerrilla actions, riots, general social disorder and antisocial conduct, and spiralling crime rates due to a broadening extension of poverty, inequality and a lack of opportunity.
Exacerbating and even leading to much of this were the further sea-level rises of 14.2 meters, the increase in the average temperature of 4.7 degrees Celsius for the century to date, and the problematic shifts in climatic conditions that resulted: the cessation of the Gulf Stream in 2058, for example, re-routed the oceans' currents and dramatically changed the weather patterns around the world, sending England and much of Europe plummeting into a much colder condition with extended and more severe winters. All these caused fundamental disruptions and changes to the way the world operated and resulted in nearly a hundred million deaths in the first few years following 2058 — this was largely due to food shortages, inadequate resource provision, and economic turmoil. By 2070, the death toll had risen to more than 850 million. Still, life went on almost as usual for all those 'lucky' enough to be still contained within the fewer-and-more-'isolated'-than-ever urban enclaves of 'civilisation,' some of which were the high-density urban 'islands' maintained by massive dykes in the form of residential building structures that had been put in place in a small number of vulnerable cities to keep at bay the water levels that had since risen above the surrounding metropolitan areas.
Disturbingly, still unbeknown to the world's general
population was the fact that, by this time, nearly twenty million people were living sumptuously in space, looking across at the world from orbit and allowing the beauty of the view from a distance to obfuscate the suffering and the details of dire conditions on the surface — evidently, this was a welcome relief for many of the space-dwellers.
What was reported to the general population near the end of 2070, however, was that the world's leading governments, institutions and corporations would soon attend the 4th Annual Earth Summit, which, for the first time, was to be held in orbit and was supposedly going to be by far the largest gathering of its kind in space to date. This was the kind of announcement that The Global Domination Corporation's Laboratory Network had been waiting for, but all agreed that the short notice would push them to their limits. As a result, on accepting the challenge, they worked around the clock in extended shifts in order to create a workable plan and make all the necessary technical preparations required to execute it. Meanwhile, they had to decide collectively who their primary public relations representative would be — Sascha and Yanyan thought that one particular candidate was obvious, as did the overwhelming majority of the other network members.
• • •
Berne, Switzerland: April 22, 2071
Only having been to Berne once since arriving in the mountains all those years ago, Samuel is weary but intrigued by the sights, sounds and smells of the city, things that he's almost forgotten about taking for granted while living in Berlin. He steps out of a small café onto the sidewalk after filling in time and attempting to blend in by having a strong coffee and a piece of tiramisu — a delicate treat he's never really considered before — and makes his way to the spaceport terminal, which is situated just near the centre of town and is always heavily guarded by the military.
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