by Adrian P
“Wait…!”
Audi stopped.
“How did you figure it out…? That I can’t…”
“Use your power mid-air?” the boy asked in monotone. “You rely on the planet’s mass and rotation to throw and absorb momentum. So the natural solution is to attack when you’re most separated from the ground, that is, up in the air. Child’s play, I’m an idiot for not realising it earlier.”
Sasha laughed, albeit interrupted by coughs and short breaths. “Please…Bandana Boy…don’t misunderstand The Brotherhood…”
“What?”
“You might think of us as…invaders. But no. We are liberators. We wish not for harm…but for the betterment of humanity—“
“I’m sure your superweapon can better humanity,” Audi frowned. “If mass murder counts as a good thing, that is.”
“No…!” Sasha winced as his blood spread wider on the ground. “Konstantin…does not represent us. He is but the most…twisted. He warped The Brotherhood’s cause…for his own gain.”
Audi kept silent.
“I beg you…stop Konstantin for good…” Sasha grimaced. “Please…do not let him launch his weapon again. He’s going to destroy everything…that The Great Liberator is fighting for…”
The boy sighed and kneeled in front of Sasha.
“Everything I’m fighting for…everything my son was fighting for…they will be undone…they will be soiled if Konstantin is let to do what he’s doing…” Sasha’s voice grew weaker. “Please, Bandana Boy, please…please…”
Sasha’s voice and breathing ceased.
Audi closed Sasha’s eyelid and grasp a handful of soil from his side. He spread them onto his body and took a deep breath.
“Death is nothing but a blessing,
A reason for life to those still living,
So raise your chin and keep on singing,
Carve your path, and emerge a superior being.”
He stood and kept silent as he stared at the sky. Brotherhood, huh? The boy frowned. I wonder what Master would do if he has to face such a terrifying army. A spacefaring civilisation bent on destroying The Crowned Confederacy.
But why?
Why are they fighting?
What are they fighting against?
What good is toppling The Throne?
How are they planning to govern us afterwards?
Audi clenched his fists.
Just when I thought I understood The Brotherhood, more questions arise. I know nothing certain of their political structure, other than being led by a mysterious figure called The Great Liberator. I know nothing about their ideology, their philosophy, as they seem to have splinter factions. A discordance among themselves.
Bryant groaned.
The big man picked himself up and grabbed his forehead. He looked around in confusion, but his legs lost strength, and he dropped one knee to the ground.
“Morning,” Audi said. “You missed the fight.”
He grabbed his head and massaged it with force, then stared at a body next to the boy. “That…did you—?”
Audi shrugged his shoulders.
“Holy thousand craps,” Bryant walked towards Sasha’s body and stared it down. “I thought we couldn’t win the battle.”
“We’ve yet to win the battle,” Audi said. “This man is not our objective, but Konstantin.”
The big man laughed. “Let’s head uphill to the observatory,” he said. “He must be pissing his pants off.”
“I am going, you’re not.”
“Hey, I’m already here, so—“
“Without your armour? You can’t do anything.”
“You underestimate me. Even without the suit, I can…oh my…shit!”
“What?” Audi turned back.
A steel beam flew straight towards Audi.
But Bryant kicked him sideways.
And the beam punched through Bryant’s lower torso.
Blood flowed everywhere as the big man fell to the ground with a scream of a tractor. Audi froze in place as a man covered in thunders descended slowly from the sky onto the ground.
Audi gritted his teeth.
“Konstantin—!”
Chapter 3 / Part 6
Blood flowed from Bryant’s side as he writhed in pain on the ground. Audi stood in front of him, sweating, as he faced an electrically blanketed Konstantin. What do I do? Audi gritted his teeth. The big man is not going to survive another minute, and with Konstantin here, neither will I.
The sparks around Konstantin died down, but his eyes remained crimson red. “So you killed the Rear Admiral,” he glanced at Sasha’s body. “Impressive.”
Audi frowned. “He’s just an obstacle. You, asshole, is my target.”
“Right,” Konstantin sneered. “But don’t get too overconfident; Rear Admiral Gryaznov was just a Beta-class. Even if your triumph over him wasn’t a fluke, you have no chance of winning against my Alpha-class Bionika.”
I hate to admit it, but he’s right. Audi stepped back. I’m too exhausted from earlier fight, and now I’m completely unprepared to take him on. Damn it! What am I going to do?
Konstantin turned to Bryant. “Looks like he’s in pain.”
Audi kept silent.
“Tend to him,” Konstantin relaxed his posture.
“What?” the boy flinched.
“Even if you are my enemies, even if you betrayed me, we were once allies. Once, you genuinely worked for our mutual interest,” he said. “This is the least I can do. I won’t attack you while your back is turned, but tend to him. His last breaths shouldn’t be spent in solitude,” he raised both hands.
Audi slowly turned to Bryant, but he occasionally glanced at Konstantin.
“Shit,” Bryant chuckled, albeit with pain. “I can’t see you. My eyes. My vision. You’re so blurred.”
“Breath slowly and close your eyes. Relax,” Audi kneeled. “Relieve the pressure in your body.”
The big man smiled and shut his eyelids. “I…am going to die? Is this…how it feels…to be at the edge of my life?”
Audi kept silent.
“There are…so many things I have yet to do…to live in a decent house…to go on holidays to beautiful places…to just…bask in the warmth of someone I love…” tears flowed down his cheeks to the ground. “But I can’t…I do not have the means to…I do not have the right to…I wasn’t given the chance…for I have no…money…finance…the security in life…”
The boy clenched his fists tight.
“Please…Audi…I have two favours to ask you.”
He listened.
“Look for the name…Fiona…in my UFX-PDA…inside my armour,” he coughed. “Please tell her…that I have never stopped loving her. Even if…”
“Your fiancée? I got it.”
Bryant coughed and smiled, but kept silent.
“What’s the second favour?”
“You…please…make sure you have a lot of money.”
The boy shook.
“You might try to present yourself as cold and calculating, but you…I can see how much kindness you store within,” Bryant’s voice weakened. “You’re willing to risk your life, fighting both Petit Fantome and Brotherhood, just to get a medicine for someone else.”
Audi kept silent.
“But kindness…morality…love…means nothing in the world we live in,” Bryant’s tears flowed faster. “People…are just going to use you…people are just going to exploit you. Why wouldn’t they? Unless we have money…we cannot buy anything. Food. Clothes. House. Energy,” he paused. “Without a lot of money, we cannot have even the slightest quality of life.”
“That…”
“Nobody will love you for long if you lack money…so please…for the sake of the people you love…for the sake of yourself…find as much money as possible.”
“Don’t be…like me.”
“Don’t…”
Bryant heaved his last breath.
With the faint voice of gunfire
echoing on the distance, Audi laid the big man to rest. He closed his eyes and placed both arms on his chest. Straightened his body. Bryant’s face froze with a smile, even with tears drying on his cheeks. The boy kept his hand open, now drenched with Bryant’s blood.
“Are you satisfied?” the boy asked. “Killing people like him?”
Silence.
“How many must die because of your superweapon? How many must suffer?” he continued. “Do you know the agony and pain many has already bore in life, even before you drag them into your sick, twisted game of mass murder?” he paused. “How many people like him, those who don’t deserve this fate, have to fall victim?”
Konstantin heaved a breath.
“I’m well aware of all the pain I’ve caused.”
The boy gritted his teeth.
“I destroyed Benteng City, fully knowing my action’s every circumstance and consequence. I am aware, more than anyone, of the death and destruction I’ve caused. Of the suffering I’ve inflicted upon the many.”
“Then why?” the boy yelled. “If you realised that much, how come you still went on with your plan?”
“Listen to Bryant’s final words,” Konstantin replied. “Everything he said summarised the entire reason why I created Celestial Anvil. Why I’m willing to perform what you’ve perceived as an atrocity.”
The boy listened.
“This world, your Tyrant Empire, was built upon the notion of wealth. That wealth is the sole determinant of someone’s worth,” Konstantin glanced at the skyline of the city. “Without wealth, not only will you be deprived materially, but you will also be denied from mental and psychological needs, like warmth, love, and friendship.”
“I know that better than anyone, you bastard,” Audi replied. “I grew up in a poor planet, alone, my income only enough to marginally feed myself and rent a small dusty room,” he said. “This is the result of the exploitation by the rich and powerful!”
The man kept silent.
“However, your superweapon indiscriminately killed everyone, including the poor who are the victims, the exploited! If you really want to play your mass murder game, then do me a favour and constrain it only for the rich—“
Konstantin laughed.
“Exploitation by the rich. Victims. What inferior concepts befitting an inferior being,” he grinned. “It is this narrow-mindedness that allowed the Bondage to Wealth to entrench itself within your society.”
“What?”
“You speak as if the rich is the sole source for the corruption of humanity’s moral sentiments, but what makes you think the middle-class and the poor are innocent?”
The boy frowned.
“There are two things that Brotherhood children learn very early in their life: Bionika power, and Philosophy,” Konstantin began. “Both are instrumental in determining our individual’s purpose of existence. We cultivate a Culture deep in our young, encouraging people to understand themselves, and consequently, others, in order to create a society which won’t betray its occupants,” he paused. “This is where your Tyrant Empire fails.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your wretched Empire raised your children to become competitors, living to best one another instead of becoming each other’s support,” he continued. “You teach your youth that becoming ‘the best’ is the only way to survive, thus, you shape them into efficient machines by bombarding them with vocational education—turning them into productive robots which are only good for serving the economy, to conform to twisted societal standard, instead of enabling them to pursue their innate destiny.”
Audi bit his lips and glanced away.
“For a society who loves babbling about individual rights, you sure kill each person’s soul very early in their life.”
“That—“
“This is even reflected in the way companies and business hire employees: you want the best. You want finished product. You want people at the top seed without realising that everyone, even the bottom feeder, has the capacity to become superior when we cultivate and make them grow. I know this, because I was a damned CEO who couldn’t do a damn thing about this inhuman practice.”
“Isn’t it natural that people want the best?” Audi looked away Konstantin. “The idea behind competition is to bring out the best in everyone. So people are motivated and will strive to launch their full effort—“
“Ah, the classic boring argument of ‘competition brings the best’. Of ‘encouraging innovation’ and all those bullshit,” Konstantin chuckled. “I expect no less from a Tyrant slave.”
Audi frowned.
“This is exactly the Darwinian world you’re creating, a world of winners and losers, of the only fittest who can survive, and of losers that must perish; fall into extinction,” he said. “It is the eternal beginning of the corruption of our moral sentiments, how everyone became enslaved by the very concept of money, of wealth.”
“Like I said, this is the doing of all the rich bastards who designed the world this way! Why are you dragging all the middle-class and poor people into death? It’s not like we wanted a life like this. It’s not like—“
“Have you ever tried changing someone’s mind?”
Audi flinched.
“Why do you think the System and Culture endured? Had the middle-class and the poor truly resisted with all their might, this entire world won’t be able to sustain itself. No matter how much the rich tried exploiting everyone, these System and Culture cannot survive if the people are not willing to let them flourish.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Remember closely what Bryant told you,” Konstantin frowned. “He told you to find a lot of money so you don’t suffer. He told you to find a lot of money to survive this world. This! This mentality is the very reason why Bondage to Wealth flourished!”
Audi opened his eyes wide.
“The poor and the middle-class of The Tyrant Empire know they are suffering. They know how much agony living in a world that requires one to own a lot of wealth is, but what do people end up doing?” Konstantin blanketed himself in lightning spitting up towards the sky. “You would rather strive to make more money, than work together to create a world that doesn’t require one! You’d rather benefit from the System than fighting this exploitation! To be a rich slave, than seeing others become slaves no more. This. This Culture is the very reason the Bondage to Wealth becomes even stronger! Is it any wonder this atrocity is able to perpetuate itself?”
The boy glanced away.
“But I have no illusion, that somehow, preaching and writing about ethics and morality can change people’s mind. This tendency to strive for wealth by selling our soul has become a fact of life, that those who believe otherwise are considered naïve, unrealistic, and foolish.”
Konstantin pulled a device with a fingerprint console from his pocket.
“Once a human reached a certain age, it is impossible for them to shift their ideology. The Bondage to Wealth cannot be removed from a mature Inferior Being,” he raised the device. “We need a clean slate. We need a new generation of humanity freed from early age, and those who’ve believed in the Bondage for too long must be annihilated, so the young can never be corrupted by them.”
He pressed his thumb.
A missile screamed from hilltop towards the sky.
“That—!” Audi’s heart stopped for a second as he saw the missile reached the skies. “What have you done?”
“The Cypriot Brotherhood aims to liberate humanity from the Tyrant’s clutch, but this is an impossible task to do, so long as most of humanity are ideologically entrenched in their olden belief and tradition.”
“You—!”
“Begone, Bandana Boy,” Konstantin turned his back. “I’m willing to let you go, for you are not as irredeemable as the rest of the galaxy,” he paused. “Oppose me once more, however, and I shan’t grant you another chance at living.”
“You’ve escaped death twice, but there w
on’t be a third time.”
Chapter 3 / Part 7
The missile screamed away from Kotabaru into the atmosphere. At a certain height, the missile twisted its path angle and sped up horizontally towards the planet’s equator. It passed through villages, towns, and other metropolis. Towards a mountain range. Towards the tallest mountain of the planet—Mount Bungabakung. The missile lunged towards its crater.
It punched through the mountain downwards.
The missile deployed a drill on its tip and thrusted deeper into the planet. Through the crust. Through the mantle. Reaching an ocean of subterranean magma. Multiple spikes emerged from the chassis. The missile glowed.
And it exploded.
A massive tremor shook Planet Bandar Prime’s entire surface. Ocean shifted left and right, sending tsunami towards seaside towns and wiping them out within an instant. Tectonic plates shifted underground, and massive chasms cracked open all over the planet. Ocean surface destabilised. Offshore structures collapsed underneath gargantuan waves. Atmospheric temperature and pressure became haywire, shocking global climate system into extremes. Sudden drought in a rainforest. Cold wave froze a desert into ice.
Every mountain in the planet turned into volcanoes, bursting high pressure magma into the skies. Volcanic rocks catapulted up to the air, bombarding grounds and cities around them. Climate stations all over the planet detected a shift in atmospheric content, as every volcano pumped massive amount of toxic gases simultaneously, and globally.
Millions of people died within the first few minutes. Hundred millions within an hour. Multiple cities were crushed underneath fiery rocks, titanic waves, and tectonic shifts.
The city of Kotabaru was lucky, positioned a safe distance away from coasts, mountains, and unstable tectonic plates. Its peripheral suburbs were destroyed, but the city centre survived. So did its spaceport. It was the only city which didn’t lose half of its population within the first few hours.
But the planet is changing.
Those who remain will have no choice but to perish.
