by Rabia Rahou
“You are a nobody, just an old, grumpy, boring person. A total failure like you even couldn’t have a stupid family, living alone like a monster without a single friend. You think you are smart somehow by elaborating this plan? Well, guess what? They probably know everything about your naïve plan, trying to make them think that I am against the machine that I designed for years. They will be here for sure to do nothing but to laugh at you. What a joke! I have no idea how Wonfuse dragged me into this fiasco…”
I left in the middle of his madness…
At night, I started the decontamination just after a small talk with Yolp, asking me to forget what he said as he was a little bit drunk. I told him to not worry and to focus on the meeting as this is extremely important, and he agreed finally. A civilian car driven by an AI, autonomously took us to the Rocky Mountains, a two-hour drive that we did silently.
We only arrived at our destination after we had walked for another hour. A faint firelight came flickering out from a cave. Inside was Banume and Oris drinking hot tea from a teapot. They stood up, and it struck me how short they are, specifically Oris, as he looked like a skinny boy. Everyone waited for a moment, looked at each other with scrutiny, then Banume, with a small gesture, proposed us to sit, and we did.
Yolp, looking nervous, suddenly started his monologue. “Thank you for coming to this meeting in these dangerous times. As you probably already know, we are changing our mind and probably sides too. The machine… ” then Oris stopped him gently as Banume started to chuckle.
Oris spoke to Yolp in a completely broken accent, “Thank you for coming by yourself to us. What a brave person… You truly are a gift.”
“Who is doing it?” I asked.
“Do what!?” Yolp blurted out, confused and completely terrified.
Banume said, “He's one of yours, isn’t he?”
I stood up, pulled out my 9 mm, and shot the Second Citizen in his head, many times. When I was done, he just fell there, brainless.
We watched him for a moment, then Oris said, “You've got a month to definitely stop that thing, destroy all the knowledge behind it, including its people. Otherwise we will launch the wrath of the universe, and life as we know it will be exterminated.”
We looked into each other's eyes briefly, then everyone left going their own way. Walking slowly, I heard one of them stopping. It was Banume as he shouted, “Konu, a lower consciousness cannot create a higher one. Something is wrong.”
I ignored him and kept walking. I know that something is wrong, and I still haven’t been able to find the source of that god damn code.
Chapter 17
A Thousand Men Worth
“It was a successful hunting trip.”
~ Oina
I woke up after a sweet dream. I slept deeply and comfortably, although this is not the hotel room… It's not my bedroom, and it's not the office either. Machines all around me beeping and nurses running in all directions… Suddenly, a strong light flashed in my eyes. It’s a doctor with a torchlight.
“Sir, can you hear me?”
“Yes, perfectly. Why I'm at the hospital?” I asked, panicked.
“What is your name?” he shouted
“Konu…”
“Do you know why you are here?"
“No!”
I am at the hospital, the reanimation section. No, this can’t be true. I’m still dreaming. This is crazy! I tried to remember what happened after the meeting, but somehow, I couldn’t. My heart is racing, and I have no idea what's going on…
“Nurses, please stabilize him!”
They injected me with a sedative, and I went back to sleep again. I woke up again in the same room. No, that wasn’t a nightmare. I’m really at a hospital. I calmed myself down and slowly checked out my body. It was all bruised like I had a fight with a bear. Damn it! What happened to me?
“You are doing very well, sir. Can you look into my eyes?” the doctor spoke to me slowly and loudly,
“I hear you perfectly. Please stop shouting,” I said. “What happened to me?”
“Please wait. The psychologist is coming in a moment.”
I tried to stand up, but it felt like a weighed a ton.
“Hello sir, my name is Dr. …”
“What’s going on?” I yelled.
“Unfortunately, your car had a horrible crash.”
“When was that? How long have I been here?”
“About two weeks. Please keep calm; everything is fine...” the psychologist kept speaking to me like I was a kid.
Suddenly, a security guard came in and asked everyone to leave. After a moment, he left too and closed the doors. Then I heard the sound of the door opening, quietly. It was Oina.
“Hey. Here you are,” she said. I looked her straight in her eyes. She touched my hair slowly and calmed me down. She told me that everything is alright and that I’m alive and well. She kept doing that until the machines stopped beeping, and I realized what happened.
She told me that, unfortunately, the Second Citizen didn’t make it and died in the car crash. Then she looked me straight in the eyes and told me firmly that the hunting trip was successful. She then said she had to go back and got up to leave. She stopped at the door, and she said, “Things are going crazy in Amian. Please take care of yourself. Good luck.”
Later on, a press conference was held at her office. I watched her on TV reading a statement.
“I have some great news to announce today. General Konu, the ex-head of the armies of the Amian Confederation, woke up today. He is stable and doing well. He will be transferred to the Amians military hospital to stay under observation, soon.”
A journalist asked her about rumors claiming that the two people weren’t coming back from a hunting trip, but on the way to a secret meeting. She replied with a subtle smile, demeaning and ridiculing the conspirators, as they have the luxury of the free time to come up with these childish, imaginative stories. The press conference kept going with Oina replying with perfection to sustain her story, the story that she is presenting as the truth and the absolute facts, the story that made me even doubt. Although one journalist asked about the connection between the accident and the mess that is happening now in the Amian Empire. She replied that the League does not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations.
I woke up shaking, unplugged all the tubes and the sensors from my body, got up and fell twice trying to make it to the sink. There, I washed my face and drank some water. As I started to walk away, I felt weak and dizzy. The nurses came running in just in time and helped me back to the bed.
I asked for a real meal and for the doctor to put me on a plane back to Amian today. Where is that stupid ambassador when I need him? Suddenly, he entered the room, perplexed and asking for pardon as they didn’t inform him about my condition. He had rushed to the hospital as soon as he saw the press conference. He told me that they kept the entire situation secret, and he desperately kept trying to beg my pardon. I replied that on the scale of incompetence, that’s epic. I gave him orders to contact the state to send a special medical airplane to take me home, now!
My phone service had been suspended. I was very suspicious of that as the First Citizen, the Services, or even the Premier didn’t try to reach me. Screw them all! I have only two weeks left to stop the apocalypse. They are my least concern, now.
Feeling completely disoriented, I took the plane without saying goodbye to Oina. The doctors put me on some medications that would have put a whale to sleep. Staring out at the clouds through the plane’s windows, I had some very deep thoughts. I couldn’t imagine a better exit plan than the one she had elaborated on. So smart! I didn’t fully trust her when she told me that she couldn't reveal her exit plan. Deep inside me, I kept doubting her as this is the first time in my life that I really, totally allowed myself to rely on someone. I did trust her with my life, and she delivered.
I still remember my father, vaguely. Unfortunately, his image is fading away slowly as
time passes. However, I still remember very well when he told me that some women are worth a thousand men.
The little guy just woke up, he seems like he is preparing himself for war…
Chapter 18
Dying Now Is a Luxury that We Can’t Afford
“You know only half of the truth...”
~ Wonfuse
W hile waiting for him at the airport’s main gate with the Services, they gave me orders to join them. They needed someone familiar with his life to make the interrogations easier. The plane arrived at 4 p.m., and I had a terrible headache mixed with nausea, I’m losing weight, and I have suicidal thoughts. I’m quitting. This may not the best moment to announce this to him, but I’m leaving tonight. Anyway, I can’t stay even if I wanted.
There he is, damn! He looks like a he got hit by a truck. Four Service agents and I went over and handcuffed him. He didn’t say a word and didn’t even look at me. At the underground parking where the van was waiting for us, I executed three of the guards, one after another. The fourth did escape, but I did wound him, so he ran heavily injured.
“ Dismar, I missed you,” he said in a very honest way. He made me feel good. Sounding very disoriented, he said that he wanted to go home. I replied that I was taking him to a safe, temporary place, under the orders of Oina.
The escape plan was through the underground’s canals. “Some changes have happened while you’ve been away,” I said.
Walking slowly, he said, “The machine is on. The First Citizen bought ONC, and Kadar is the head of the armies.”
“That’s not the worst of it, sir,” I replied.
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t see the news yet?” I handed him a newspaper that I picked up from the ground with the photo of Wonfuse, the First Citizen, with a title under him in large print “God Among Us.” Konu stopped, his hand on his face. He went down on his knees. Stressed and shaking, he said, “I’m too late.” After a moment, he asked for a briefing on the situation.
“Sir, the situation deteriorated quickly after your accident. Kadar convened the premier and the parliament and named himself the head of the armies under the orders of Wonfuse and the blessing of the First Citizens. They stopped consulting with the institutions, and they are running the country directly. The machine is on, and of course, the first thing Wonfuse did is to see his future. That changed him completely.” I stopped talking briefly to see if he was following as his head was still down.
He just nodded and then said quietly, “Please continue.”
“Wonfuse spoke on national TV and all the networks and online sites as “God.” People are terrified as some of them got a message right after the speech telling the date of their death, and turns out, those dates were exact and true.”
“Stop, please…” Konu replied, barely speaking.
Oina instructed me to hide him in places that no one knows and change his location every two days, as the machine processing time now is three days. I took him to my old boat in the small port of Kerrisdale. We walked there four hours on back roads and through the canals. On the surface, the checkpoints were in every intersection, and the Services were using the civilians as snitches in a total effort to control every aspect of the state.
Finally, we arrived. I made him a tea, a cheeseburger, a big dose of a calmer, and gave him some space for privacy. He didn’t want to talk to me and seemed like he was dying.
That night, I finished preparing my things. I was leaving when I heard him calling to me, “Don’t leave… At least not, just yet.”
“Konu, it's over. They’ve got everything. The end is near, and I want to live the last moments of my life somewhere else. They made it! I told you that God is coming, and this is the end of times.”
“I still have a move… I can prevent that.”
“No, Konu, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you are delusional. A few days ago, they sent messages to a group of people randomly, they gave them their death dates, and you know what? They were correct for all of them. They all died exactly as they predicted. I don’t know what they created, but it gave them a god’s power, and you can’t beat a god. It's over! Do you hear me? …and they probably know about this conversation we are having right now.”
“I still have a move… I can prevent that.”
“You are crazy, Konu. See you in another life…”
“Where is the Supernova, Dismar? You were with me the other day, weren’t you?”
“I don’t know. We are fugitives, Konu, and you are not the head of the armies anymore. Can you accept that? I don’t care where that goddamn submarine…is” Suddenly, I remembered that the submarine left a while ago. He went there personally to speak with the commander.
“I'm not done yet,” he said. Then he came out from shadow to the faint light. I could see in his eyes an incredible determination. He is not giving up. Suddenly, I felt the presence of the spirit of the warrior. Even when he was sick, tired, and hurt, he was still powerful, and he gave me a sudden taste for revenge.
He set me down and asked me to join him in one last mission, a suicidal one. I couldn’t refuse as I’m looking for an honorable way out from this mediocre life. I gathered up the weapons I had stored in the boat in case of a zombie apocalypse. It turns out it’s a “god’s apocalypse,” and say whatever you want about people who make such extreme preparations. Still, now, you must admit that we were right.
He explained to me that we are at war and everybody is an enemy, we need to get into the Arc tonight no matter what the casualties. Wonfuse is in his club until midnight. It’s the only place he has attended weekly for years, and old habits are hard to change – even for a god.
Going through all the checkpoints would be impossible, I told him. Still, he proposed that we hit the target in the obvious way; it will cause surprising carnage. It’s a suicide mission, and that suits me as I want to die and be rid of all this mess, but he said, “Dismar, dying now is a luxury that we can’t afford.”
“The obvious way,” he said. I called a human taxi, gave him the Arc’s address, and with a nice tip, I asked him to avoid the checkpoints. I sat in the front to shield Konu who was behind me, preparing the heavy armory in the big bag. Almost immediately, the cab driver began a geopolitical analysis of the current situation but was interrupted by the noise in the back seat as Konu was loading up the rocket launcher. I explained that we are strippers who got invited to the Arc for a look-alike, party, and those weapons are just toys. The cab driver said that’s why he thought that Konu looked like the chief of the armies. I chuckled, looking at Konu, “No this guy is my friend Carlo, and he is just a stripper,” Konu backed me up by murmuring, “just a stripper who is going to blow everybody tonight.”
Then I asked our new friend to continue his stunning geopolitical analysis “Anyway, what a joke, they thought they could fool us. It’s the army who made the coup and Wonfuse is just a marionette to distract the people.” Although it wasn’t a bad explanation at all, I thought that it was even smart, but unfortunately, totally wrong. The real story would sound as ridiculous as a cheap sci-fi book from a failed author.
“He thinks he is God, sending messages to people about their death date to turn attention away from the coup. Meanwhile, the premier and all the politicians of the Amian First Party are in prison or executed, just like they executed the head of ONC. And guess what happened today?”
“What?”
“They executed the chief of the armies, poor guy. He had no clue what was going on. He just left for a hunting trip, and when he came back, they shot him straight away at the airport. They thought we are dumb, and we would believe in their “God story.” Again, an awesome analysis but totally wrong. Konu couldn’t resist chuckling.
The taxi driver didn’t make it through the first checkpoint; we should have known that one on the bridge was going to be trouble, although it was unavoidable. Konu tried to save him when the police opened fire suddenly on him, and I think they did so j
ust for fun. Incredible! I witnessed the total decay of humanity in a flash of a second. Konu took a bullet for him that went clear through his arm and ended in the neck of our poor friend. We opened up on them with a burst of fire, killing them all where they stood.
The smoke hadn’t settled when Konu took off his shirt, wrapped up his arm that surprisingly didn’t bleed that much, plunged his hands in the street’s blood bath, and washed his face with it. His body was burned, covered with big scars, from his past life.
We got back in the car, but before leaving, Konu changed his mind. He took my bayonet and went back stabbing the dead police officer that first opened fire, mutilating both his eyes. He murmured, “You will be reincarnated blind,” while he was slowly cutting him, like butter. From the car, I was watching this horrific scene, but I was excited. I was sure then without a doubt, that Black Unit legendary soldier was Konu. From all the tales, that guy had no casualties in his team because he defended them with his life. He did that for the taxi drive, a total stranger, and I can’t imagine what he would do for a member of his platoon. I have been told that he didn’t flee the battleground when the mission was over, but stayed and performed bizarre rituals on his enemies, the kind that I was witnessing now. This can’t be humanly possible. How could anyone be that compassionate and that cruel at the same time? And, undoubtedly, he’s mad.
Finally, he came back, sat next to me, uttering not a single word, and we left. When I saw the second checkpoint, I turned to park far from it to keep Konu safe, even when he kept murmuring. “What a coward…”
