26. Speech of Death

C1RC221 and V221KA stood in the middle of the central line among fifty such lines. They were bound to each other and the end of the chains were held by guards who held automatic guns. There was special security arrangement which included an extra thousand elite guards with advanced weaponry and electric shields. The old emperor, Laga slowly moved to the podium to deliver his speech.

“I hate this cold. It is like being in a mortuary. Remember when we were trained under the ice floor?” asked C1RC221

“Still the dirty old man, isn’t he? Look at the pride on his face, like he owns everything and everyone” asked an uninterested V221KA.

“Yes, and still the bloody fox that he used to be” remarked C1RC221.

“I am waiting to see him rot in hell, and something tells me it is going to happen soon” said V221KA.

“I hope I can personally send him there. It will be awesome” said C1RC221.

“Silence, prisoners. The great emperor of the Northern Bloc and the destined ruler of all worlds known to man shall speak now. Listen and be glad about this opportunity to see him in person and hear his words” a prison guard announced.

“Greetings, my soldiers. I hope you are all doing well, and I don’t see a reason why you wouldn’t. You are my favourites. All you should be aware that we have a colony to take care of in Titan. For the same, we need volunteers to go there and make sure that the place can be used for human life. Due to the same reason, I am personally selecting nine hundred of you to go and make sure that life can exist there. The rest are rather incapable and we shall deal with them later. There is a chance that you nine hundred shall thrive, but there is more chance that you will die. Yes, most of you are going to die a painful death, but I have my hope that some you shall live by finding a way. After all, you are highly trained super soldiers”.

“No, we don’t want to leave Earth. No way” shouted a man who was instantly brought down by the guards.

“He won’t be in the list now. Think about it, my soldiers. It is near impossible to keep you here as the concentration camps are said to be already decommissioned, and finding you here will destroy my reputation. I am already considered too cruel. It is so much true, but it doesn’t do me any good when gaining allies. The only chance for me to keep my reputation is to send you to Titan where they won’t be able to find you that easily. After all, you are doing mankind and science a favour by doing the same. It is easier now, isn’t it? I am asking a few of you to die, and not to kill anyone – it is an easier job”.

“Please, can’t you just send us home then? There is no war, right?” asked a girl.

“Pleading? Seriously these people don’t understand anything even after so much of experience” murmured C1RC221.

“Send you home? You have developed some sense of humour for sure – I wonder from where you get that. There is no home other than where you are now. This is where you have been living since you had memory. The war is always on, and it is just that it is not clearly visible outside. We are always fighting for control, and another world war can always happen any time. It is in our blood and we cannot live without it. Setting you free is a big risk to me as people will know that you were my prisoners all this time and were experimented on. Free super-soldiers roaming around in the streets is not good. You don’t belong in my bloc, and when you reach your nation, they will have super-soldiers along with some news that will work against me. Am I dumb? I don’t think so. You cannot attribute that quality to me, which is why you have to be dealt with, in a way that is profitable and not affecting us in a negative manner”.

“Leave us alone; let us go; you have no right” two women and five men protested and tried to grab the weapons of the guards, but were immediately shot down.

“Such defiance doesn’t suit you, dear soldiers – especially after this many years of training. You were not trained to riot, but to obey the orders. So please try to co-operate. I have spend so much money in creating you, and won’t like to feel that I committed a mistake and wasted my cash. I have even arranged a special dinner for you in seven days, which you can consider your last supper. You will also have special food every day, and shall be given more freedom, but be careful not to misuse it. Happy last week, my dear soldiers”.

“It is the way of the world, dear” whispered V221KA.

“Meeting dispersed, prisoners” announced another prison guard.

The prisoners were lead back to their cells where the chains were removed. The casualities of the speech were soon disposed off, and Lago was quick to return to the world meet which was to discuss the new additions to the human rights which were to be implemented across the globe. He was to become the leader and in charge of the rights of human beings across the planet, especially the war prisoners. He was slowly becoming a world leader again in politics even if not in the control of territory.

To be continued…

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9. Lone Wanderer

The world he knew was in chaos and it was time for him to take charge. The confusion was only getting worse. The hope was diminishing, and the faith was already gone. It was only in a little shade of belief that the whole thing was going forward. Hell might have had many names, but there was the need to make the world better than the infernal environment.

“It is time I make the difference” Christian told himself.

It was a wonderful evening if he was a photographer despite of the human sufferings. He walked and walked until he reached a cave. The machine had pointed towards the South as the right path which had more probability of survival. He believed in the machines and the signs. But the question remained how far the science had lead the humanity, and what other than chaos and destruction did it bring. The signs had become the better guide for him. It gave him hope which technology had taken away from him. He rested there for a day.

The new dawn had arrived and there was a strange music in the wind. He reached the side of what seems to be a frozen river, which was filled with a strange liquid in its frozen state. There was absolutely no contact with any life form yet. The light was high over the horizon. He decided to sleep near a tree-like structure. The silence had defeated the music and it didn’t take him much time to fall asleep.

The next day arrived and there was a lot of dust flying around for reasons unknown. He walked towards what seemed like a naturally created building. There was some movement around it, and he couldn’t figure out what it was. He felt that he could have a look and find out by himself. There was nothing else to be done.

Inside the structure, he found a path which lead downwards, and he was no longer guided by the machines, but by faith alone. He chose to go down rather than move straight towards nothingness which he encountered again and again. He went down the stairs which seemed never-ending. He could heard voices from inside the walls, but that didn’t stop him. Getting help was his only aim.

It took him about five hours to reach the bottom. There were a number of round mounds which seemed like houses of sand. There was an entrance to each one of them. None of them seemed to have life forms in them, but each of them had some pot-like things on the floor and seat-like projections extending from the walls. There were also some strange inscriptions on the walls which extended even to the tiny ventilations on the top. The whole thing seemed like a total mess.

He exited to pitch black darkness outside. There was nothing to be seen. But there were sounds of movements and there was something moving around for sure. The sounds had become incredibly creepy and as a sharp object touched his shoulders, he decided to run. His legs stopped only when his legs felt no ground, and he started falling a long way down until his body felt surrounded by water. There was something about the water that he couldn’t move at all. He was slowly losing consciousness.

He woke up the very next day, with chains on hands and legs, and he ended up staring at a humanoid with big green eyes and a small mouth from which fangs dropped out, and they were entirely without nose and the ears. It was wearing a black robe which covered its whole body which didn’t looked any less human except for the fact that they seemed to have just three fingers and the nails looked as sharp as the claws of a wild animal. It didn’t take its eyes off Christian. It was surrounded by many more similar creatures which were wearing almost the same type of dress and looking the same, the only difference being in the height. They were busy working on some kind of keypads which manipulated some strange signs on a huge black screen. There were also some creepy sounds around, none of them which were already heard on Earth or even on the surface of this moon.

When Christian looked on the right, he saw a beautiful girl who looked entirely human, also in chains, destitute of clothing except for the area around the waist and the chest. Her clothing was purely silver, and the eyes were tied up with a thin layer of white clothing. There was blood dripping from inside the white layer. Her skin was more brownish than anything else and her abdomen, lower back and tighs had the same writing as what was seen in the mounds earlier. The lower abdomen had a small cross-like symbol. The blood was flowing through these small carvings on her body until they reached a small bowl of blood which was almost full. She seemed to have no life left in her. He was shocked to find a bowl with just a single drop of blood just in front of him, which was slightly bigger in size.

On the left side, there were three male figures and a female figure who were completely bloody, and except for their heads, their bodies were completely covered in a white cloth which was almost red with the blood. There were holes instead of their eyes. The blood bowl in front of them was full and closed with a lid. Christian could feel the smell of death all around, and he could sense the strong presence of grimm reaper very close to him.

“Hell exists and so does the eternal torture and damnation, that is for sure. But what would I call this?” He asked himself.

To be continued…

6. To the North

It was dark, but the darkness had not spread well enough to hide the beauty of the land which seemed to sparkle in that little dim light which seemed to exist to show the magnificience of its motherland’s terrain to those people who never knew the beauty or awesomeness of the terrain of their own planet. The light kept its opponent right outside the door for a long time, and this period was part of that time when light struggled just like the power source of the Settlement 47.

Helios, the chief military officer rushed into the room with something that looked like a long paper. He looked worried as well as tired.

“Is the pathfinder available. I think we might need to go on a trip”.

“The first thing is that the pathfinder is not designed to take people in it. The orders say that the pathfinder is to be left alone to its job. The second thing is that we are not here for a trip and there is nothing interesting out there for us to go on a holiday. There is nothing near us, and the pathfinder has confirmed it”.

“These are direct orders which asks us to go to the Settlement 44, the closest Northern settlement and get what we need to save us from a possible blackout which would also mean the end of our storage of fresh air”.

“We have started accepting help from them? In other words, they have started developing so much love for us that they are going to help us. As far as we know, they are the kind of people who would take wood from our coffin just to make sure that their total amount of resources exceeds ours”.

“Actually, there was a deal between the Northern and the Imperial Blocs. They actually won the auction for the control of air and water on Earth. They have come up with a common economic policy, and their share of resources would be 12-8 out of 20 in favour of the Northern Bloc. Seventy percent of the air and ten percent of the water is all our bloc shall get, and the rest goes to the Northern Bloc. There has also been the talks about sharing more resources especially outside Earth, which is why we have been notified and ordered to work with the nearest Northern Settlement, which is the Settlement 44, even if it is kind of far away. The pathfinder does have turbo mode, doesn’t it? So it will take only a few days, I guess”.

“So they have finally privatized air and water? I thought the fight between these six blocs would keep it undecided for a long time. Now we have to pay for every drop of water? Do they also provide fresh air in bottles too?”

“You are being a cynic again. This privatization has always done us good. It will make sure that the water and air we get are fresh enough. There will be more factories established to make sure that maximum cleaniness is maintained. The price is not going to be that high, as we have such good technology. The only disadvantage is that we had to agree to the Northern Bloc’s demand to establish one airbase, one naval base and three weapon manufacturing plants on our land. In my opinion, that is just a fair demand. After all, they are stronger and are investing more”.

“What Northern Bloc did was much expected. But still, the privatization of the basic needs? These factories do pollute air and water, don’t they? It doesn’t matter how much they try to hide it, the facts are still facts. Haven’t you heard about the Cochabamba protests? That was about eighty years ago, but the story of humanity still remains the same and you don’t need to see the Andes mountain range to know that part of history. Do you think that the price can be kept at an international standard considering the unavailability of water at some areas? If it is kept standard at an international level, do you think that the purchasing power can be kept the same in every bloc or in each and every nation which make the bloc?”

“Well, just wait till you get home. You will know how much our world has changed for good. There will be perfection and pure awesomeness in the working of both our water and air supply system. I wish they had privatized the Earth and the sky too, if such a thing was possible. You are free to like it or hate it, but what matters the most is that now we are on the side of the Northern Bloc, the most powerful of them all. There is no military collaboration yet, but that should follow, as they have established base on our lands”.

“Well, this is the last time I will be trusting the Northerns. We will obey the order for now, and after we reach Earth, I will decide if I have to trust anybody. For now, I shall not be accompanying you on your journey to meet your future best friends. You can take Zachary and let his assistant do his job here. I need to here, as I am the only qualified mechanic around here. It can only hold two people maximum, anyway”.

Helios stormed out without saying another word. Zachary came into the room and Christian dispatched him with instructions on how to drive the pathfinder. He could hear the pathfinder engine starting and the machine trying hard to move around with the extra one hundred and fifty kilograms which it was forced to drag around. Still, the machine should be good enough to reach the destination, as it is brand new, and can create energy from moondust, even though it would take them months if that source is to be used. The existing power can just get them here if driven in an economic manner. It was all in Christian’s report, but as it was a high priority job to reach the Settlement 44, that risk was to be taken. In simple words, there was no other option.

To be continued…

5. The Pathfinder

“22 February. Left the camp at 3:30 Lunar Time. Not because I am from one of the colonies on the Moon, but because that is the only wrist watch I have with me. The time is 12:45 and currently in a cave. Seems to be a good resting place. Glad nobody came looking for me. There is no point anyway. Was asked to travel South, but I know no directions. I just believe this is the right path. Should have informed Zachary somehow, but there was nothing positive to come out of such a thing.

23 February. Now at the side of what seems to be a frozen river, but not of water. Not to explore what lies beneath on a terrain which is stranger than the strangest corner of the Moon. No contact with any life form yet, which might be a good thing. The sun is high over the horizon, or whatever it is which looks like the sun. I think it is time to stop the journey for today. Nothing was found and nothing really gained except for the distance travelled on foot. Nothing to be done for now, other than to rust. This tree-like structure seems to be a good temporary place to stay.

24 February. There is a lot of dust flying around for reasons unknown. I wish I was a moondust collector, but sadly I don’t believe in running a business. Saturn is indeed beautiful from here, if that thing I have been seeing for a long time is indeed Saturn. May be the prediction is slowly coming true. May be Jupiter’s moon, Callisto was the better choice, and the Imperial Bloc should have never had a settlement here. There shall be no answers today either. There was no expectation of a quick answer, but some sign should have been here by now. I guess I would rest under this rock for now, for there is always another day. Tomorrow always comes, again and again”.

“This is as far as you could decrypt from the papers? There hasn’t been even one useful word in it, forget the information. Its like saying that he was born, he walked and then he died” said Jack in a disappointed tone. “I always thought that Physics and Mathematics were the worst. Now we are having metaphysical problems just because of a wandering man being unable to find anything useful”.

“The level of encryption just gets higher with every sentence. At least we know that there was a prediction; may be scientific or supernatural; we also know that the Imperial Bloc’s colonization of the Titan was a bad idea. Now the question is whether it was due to their own incapability, problems of the moon, or trouble from other life forms or the other blocs. I wonder how much of a secret might be waiting for us once we get through this. May be this was never supposed to be read and he was just trying to satisfy his urge to write down whatever truth he might have found”.

“He could have stuck to the points instead of writing like that. It would have bored the man himself”.

“He had nothing else to do there. The whole purpose of this journal might be to pass time and also to keep him in memories in case he died early. But these shall provide us with we need”.

“Well, he himself said that there shall be no answers”.

“That is for the day, there is always another day ready to be explored and decrypted by me in the most efficient manner. Meanwhile, he is also waiting for the sign about which he is quite sure”.

“I know what you need right now. You need tea. I shall call for an expert on this”.

“And who would that be? Acheron’s personal advisor and genius who could order my execution with Soren?”

“I would guess it may be you after having tea and resting for a while. You look so much deprived of life right now, and sooner or later, they will classify you as a zombie or a vampire and shoor you down. Even those Twilight fans might not be able to save you, including that daughter of Acheron who wishes to be married to a hybrid – half wolf and half vampire. It is better not to be found pale by her either, as she might decide to stuff you and keep you hanging from her wall as a sample vampire”.

“I have heard about her. Did she even have a name or is she officially the daughter of the city-state?”

“Yes, she did. It was a long name, but she has now renamed herself Bella. She is officially Bella Edward Jacob Acheron now. It is still long enough in total”.

“I would rather have my tea now. Suicide is not something I admire enough to give an embrace”.

Noah takes two cups of tea from the microwave oven, which he had kept ready to be drunk. As they were having tea, the usual call for coffee arrived, and the valve was kept open for the required five minutes after which it automatically closed, and a payment of five hundred coins was reduced from the account of Noah.

“Such pathetic nonsense” exclaimed Noah.

“Well, there is no limit to the millions, billions and zillions. The common man, also known as the donkey can give them all their hard earned money for something they don’t even need a little. There is nothing to be done if they are brainwashed in such a way that their free-will works worse than their pathetic brains. The minions of Acheron may be rich enough with properties to last many centuries, but money is never enough until you die” murmured Jack.

“Thank you dear government for whatever was not needed, and thank you for stealing our money without even accepting that you are the worst of the robbers” yelled Noah.

To be continued…

4. Tea Revolution

It was the first time Jack has been to such a place where there were more books than open space in a house. It was a clear violation of the government recommendations, but it was inevitable in Noah’s case. His eyes stuck at a book title which looked different, which was The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis.

“How come they didn’t take this one away? I thought they had gotten rid of everything related to religion?” Jack inquired.

“No, this one didn’t qualify as a Christian text, devotional book or religious work. It is just an existential work of fiction”.

“Are you actually on dope, or did your brain just fail you?”

“I had to make a good payment to make a few brains fail. They cleared it as existential fiction, along with Camus’ The Outsider and Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. It used to be the most widely read devotional work next to the Bible. It used to be considered a classic. Has any religious book other than Bible been translated into more languages than this one? I don’t think so”.

“Thomas à Kempis should be proud. Is this the last copy of the work, or does anybody who share your interests have another copy? Or have you another one for yourself?”

“I haven’t really bothered about it. Actually, there is something special about this copy. Just take it and have a look”.

“Christian [T7Z44], Chief Mechanic, The Settlement 47 (Imperial), Titan. Sometimes faith is all you got. Have faith. Hold it close to your soul” read Jack from the first page of the book. “This should have belonged to a strong believer of the 2080s after the colonization of Titan”.

“I don’t think that he is just another believer. There must be something more about him. The destruction of Titan and Mars seems to have made the situation a little more complicated, as it is more difficult to get any information from the archives. They have erased the two colonies from the records so that the people will move away from their past which includes religion and spirituality. I still have a few papers which were used as bookmarks in this book. They are small letters which seems to have used an encrypted language and I guess I can make something out of them. I have been trying to decode them, so that I can get something which would help my later progress towards restoring the faith in this world of lies”.

“You have already started planning? And I never even felt so”.

“What do you think about coffee?”

“The most prestigious and the official drink in the city-state. All the coffee is now artificially produced and the people are forced to pay for it and drink the same five times a day at a high cost, with a price which is even higher than fresh air. Eighty eight percent of the coffee in the Imperial Firmament is owned by Acheron, and this business makes him the richest person in the city, nine hundred and eighty seven times richer than the second ranked billionaire. Without it, he might still be three hundred and fourty three times richer than the second, but still coffee makes his business strong enough”.

“The more important thing is that the loss of coffee industry would be a big loss for him, considering the fact that he has identified the drink with nationalism, patriotism and his government. It would cripple his ability to control the middle class.”

“So your plan is to deny the common man their daily coffee? Well, they might be denied air and water, but Acheron will make sure that they will still get the coffee”.

“What do you think about the coffee vents that go to each home?”

“Made of Titanium and coated with Kevlar. One of the most powerful carriers of any medium in the city. You will never get through it”.

“That is exactly what I want. Once I block the flow of coffee and ensure an incredible supply of tea through those vents, they shouldn’t be able to stop it in the middle”.

“So that is how you plan it. Now I know why you changed your workplace for a lesser pay and a lot of working hours”.
“Exactly. I already work in the vents. The beginning of the coffee vents is just above my working place. It is going to be a very easy job. The best part of it is that I would automate the whole procedure before I submit my resignation. Nobody would ever come to know. The coffee vents are also the least checked areas in the city, as nobody would expect a sabotage of the coffee supply. I would easily finish the job and get another job”.

“And what about the large quantity of tea? Where can you find them? You know there is only little tea available in this world of capitalist coffee”.

“Tea is the drink of the common man, unforced and true. I have been getting a lot of it from outside the city, imported as coffee. They have been made to smell and feel like coffee, but not taste like it. I have had some contact with the outside world through encoded messages. They have already sent me enough to make an impact”.
The plan had shocked Jack, even as he didn’t show it. He had considered Noah as a man who had too many thoughts and no action. He was clearly a man of few words, and he had kept himself close to the rules on the outside. Jack had thought that he would do nothing significant in his whole life, and here he comes with an idea which is going to make a difference, even if there was no certainty what kind of a change it would bring to the Imperial Firmament.

To be continued…

2. On the Titan

The Settlement 47, somewhere on Saturn’s moon: Titan. In the year of our Lord: 2080.

Four months have passed since the colonization of Titan. There have been thirteen settlements on Moon, twenty nine on Mars, and there have been five on Titan so far. The last two colonizations had resulted in two world wars, but due to “The Treaty of 13”, there would be no war to follow this settlement at Titan. But the Fifth World War will be due by the expiry of the treaty, on Thirteenth January, 2089. It is an unavoidable fact. All the power blocs have accumulated enough weaponry to claim it in future which might be a devastated Titan. There are six of them right now, the Northern, the Southern, the Eastern, the Western, the Central and the Imperial.

There are many common men who have volunteered to go to the new settlement at Titan in spite of the poor facilities there. Out of the five settlements on Titan, the latest of them is the Settlement 47, and the man in charge of that small world is Christian. It is the only settlement of the Imperial Bloc on Titan. The other four belongs to the Northern Bloc, the most powerful military force in the whole of Earth, against who the Eastern and the Southern has formed an unofficial alliance which might be official with the next world war. This alliance is already planning on a possible future colonization of Jupiter’s moon, Callisto. The Northern Block owns eight out of the thirteen colonies on Moon and twenty three out of the twenty nine colonies on Mars. As the rest owns one each on Moon and Mars, the Central Bloc owns one extra on the latter.

In the fog, and under the light, sat two people in silver outfits. There were guns, books and a few gadgets which shows low battery.

“We are not really the ones supposed to be here, I guess” remarked Zachary, the chief medical officer.

“You are one of them, my friend, it is just me who doesn’t belong here” said Christian with a big frown on his face.

“There are no places of worship here, and building one is out of the equation. There is nothing more of the green world out here, not even a part of what remains on Earth. There is also nothing to be done”.

“I thought religion and spirituality might be the least of your concern here. Now, I do wonder if they sent you here so that you could be taken out of those fixed set of beliefs”.

“They are not just a set of beliefs; and I volunteered to be here. I had even volunteered to go to Mars, but I was a minor then, and had to fulfill the promise to my parents”.

“May be you did. But they still manipulated you into it, for you don’t know the corporate world nor do you know the government. You are just that typical everyman character who knows nothing about what happens behind the scenes. This is just the beginning – wonder how much of a dystopia our world will be, after fifty or sixty years; if there is something left of our world by then. The Northern Bloc already has enough firepower to destroy all the three Settlement planets along with Earth”.

“It is because you are into all of these as an employee. I believe that we will be saved. We might not live long enough to see it, but humanity will find its salvation one day; whoever is left to find it”.

“The one thing I have always been sure about compared to most of the other things; it is easier to convince a corpse compared to you. But I respect that, for there are only a few people left who got opinions of their own, and that number has been going down. Soon, there will be only puppets in a dystopia on a hundred percent dead world”.

The Pathfinder machine breaks the conversation, as it arrives from under the canyon after doing the usual check for unidentified life-forms. There is nothing new to report on its long list of descriptions about the large number of turns it had to make. Christian considered it a waste of power at a time when the settlements were trying hard to keep the lights on. But he had to obey the orders.

Christian made his routine checks on the machine. That was the only thing he enjoyed during his stay there. He has been an expert mechanic right from his childhood, as he repaired his own hover-car, never giving it to the workshop. Zachary had his own problems in the medical fields, as the atmosphere of Titan had something infectious about it, always creating more than one abscess on the body.

The storm alert started blinking. It was the time to get into those titanium-hybrid abodes and have some rest. This resting was such a major thing in their life, that they found it an important event of the routine. There was always the option of exploring more and more, as the next settlement was too far away from them. But there were bots assigned to do the same, and the local exploration was the job of the Pathfinder. A regular journey through the surface of Titan was not healthy enough for a normal human being.

It was in such a world that Christian spent his life. There were just the books on technology and gadgets short of power to keep him company, along with a good number of people who failed to share his interests. Most of the available power had to be used by the machines for the exploration of the surface and underneath the planet in a consistent struggle to keep the settlement safe from any unidentified organism or infectious disease. There were mistakes made on the Moon and Mars, and the experts on Earth were being extra careful during this settlement. To add to it, the Imperial Bloc has been new to the Titan surface, and the experts predict it a colossal task for them to keep themselves working there, with absolutely no help expected from the comparatively well-settled Northern Bloc colonies.

As a representative of everyman who had too much love for nature, God, poetry, art and all the things of a beautiful past, the world was never enough for him. It is out of the situation where the world becomes not enough, that rebellions occur. As long as Christian is considered, there was such a thing already boiling in his mind and soul. He was denied both his spiritual and intellectual satisfaction, and his aesthetic sense had nothing to be satisfied.

To be continued…