Dawn of Hope- Exodus

by Dobrin Kostadinov

  ‘Bastard! Fucking slug!’ he repeated a few times and after he broke the chair to pieces at the fountain he began kicking his target. After the second kick the work of art gave in, cracking, tilted to one side at the basis, and a jet of water gushed forth and squirted the ceiling and the wrathful German. After the cooling effect the water exerted on his head, Konrad came to his senses and stopped the mechanism of the flooding water. He took the phone and called the reception desk, completely calm, to come take care of the mess he had made. His burst of rage could wipe out of existence every human being in his range, ergo he directed it at its artificial embodiment presented in the form of a fountain.

  ‘I’ll find you and you’ll be lying in my feet, begging me for mercy, Harry. Damn lying kid, how could have I trusted you!?’ Konrad figured out without any evidence who the perpetrator was. The question was what was next move was going to be. To wait and see when the next withdrawal of a large amount from his account would occur and hope someone spots it? Of course not. The reception desk still had not sent a plumber and Radeberg got in touch with his people and started putting together a team to find and catch his old acquaintance alive . . .

  Despite being Radeberg’s financial investigator, Hans was left unaware of his employer’s hypothesis, but he did not intend to leave things as they were. The suspicion that arose in him and his general distrustfullness–a quality he possessed in excess–pushed him to look further into Konrad’s affairs. Leckerman launched an investigation of his own on that case . . .

  And while in the meantime the president of Helios was organizing a renewed team of informant underlings, the man responsible for the money theft was reveling in life to the fullest. On April 7 he and Alice were enjoying each other as usual, this time in the hotel room they were staying at. They were born three years apart, Miss Springer being his senior. In spite of that they enjoyed a tremendous similarity in their characters. They both found interesting the hours-long conversations they had. That showed them they were perfect for each other. Despite the fact that they had known each other for a month, one could say they were very close.

  ‘Harry, I’m happy I have someone like you so close to me.,’ said the beautiful brunette to her beloved.

  ‘Thank you for the kind words, darling. You’re the only thing that money failed to give me. You’re so beautiful and on top of that very intelligent –all that makes you unique. Many men would want to be with you and I’m happy you chose to be with me in this room.’ On saying this Harry approached Alice as she was sitting on the bed, he took her gently by the dainty neck and kissed her. First he planted a kiss on her right cheek and then on her luscious lips. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead lightly to hers. Then drew back and caressed her picture-perfect face with the back of his hand.

  ‘You’ve told me many things, but you avoid talking about your past. I still don’t know anything about you from before we met, neither how you came to know Dimitar.’ The spark of curiosity was lit at that moment. Maybe it was her female intuition or an attempt of getting even closer to her partner. Nothing can escape the grip of a woman whose interest has been piqued.

  ‘My life is like a book, you can’t read it in a day. Be patient,’ he told her and winked at her as he poked her in the shoulder. Rogers did not particularly like the question, but fortunately he managed to come up with an answer that would satisfy her interest at least for a while.

  ‘We’re being secretive, huh?’ she joked.

  ‘I still have to keep you interested somehow, right?’ he teased again.

  Harry did not want to reveal himself completely, at least not when it came to the crimes he had committed and to the fact that he had changed his name with Milev’s help. He was afraid he could lose her . . .

  ‘What are we doing today? Do you want us to go for a walk and then have a dinner somewhere?’ Miss Springer asked and began bouncing enthusiastically.

  ‘If you want, we can go attack a military base in Iran, just to warm up for the upcoming event,’ he said adopting a serious approach at first, but then he could no longer help himself in fighting back his laughter.

  ‘I suggest we go attack a restaurant. The soup or your life!’ Alice said and started giggling.

  ‘I may be able to think of a restaurant I haven’t taken you to yet, we can talk silly there as much as we want,’ he interposed. Then they quickly slid their clothes on and headed for the city alleyway that connected the downtown with their hotel.

  Hand in hand, the lovebirds set off in that direction. They had an hour-and-half long walk to the restaurant, but that did not bother them. The two darlings did not want to catch a taxi to save time. No, what they wanted was to just be alone. Together, without any other people around to disturb them. The couple wanted to feel the coolness of the spring day and the scent of the blossoming flowers, beautifying the alley. The trees around witnessed their love and in the background of that romance was the sky–the sun had just sunk below the horizon.

  As they were walking, their eyes fell on the construction of a wall, with a barrier gate, surrounding the city. Military officers were placed here and there to supervise the working process and guard the wall until it was fully erected. The community of the elite had begun to fear the rebelling poor and in an attempt to safeguard itself from them it took up mass construction of such walls around the ghettoes in the large cities. The goal was to separate the clique of privileged from the unruly mob and at the same time gain power over it. That was the last pitiful attempt of the rich to live away from the suffering people without having to show even the tiniest bit of desire to help them. It was a gargantuan mistake that only sped up and aggravated the terrifying fate of the human civilization.

  ‘Do you have someone you’d like to bring along after it becomes clear when the two of us will fly off to the New World?’ Alice asked.

  ‘I have, yes. My family, I mean my little brother and my mother. We haven’t been in touch for a long time, maybe two years now, that makes me very sad. But I’ll try to contact them and to find them a place with us,’ Rogers replied decidedly.

  ‘You haven’t been in touch with your family?’ the dark-eyed beauty asked surprised.

  ‘It’s a long story, we’ve just had a bit of a fall-out, but we’ll deal with it,’ Harry explained. His girlfriend did not like that at all because she could sense he was hiding something from her. He decided to save her the truth about why his family was not on talking terms with him and the reason for that was rooted in his actions. Rogers had ignored his chance for a new beginning despite everything he had learnt in the business school and at his job at the World Bank. The hacker had gotten into online scams again. His mother could not bear the thought that her life was on the line yet another time because of the next man who was after her criminally-involved son. Hence, she presented him with an ultimatum–it had to be either his family or Internet piracy.

  ‘I hope it is as you say and you make peace soon,’ she encouraged him.

  ‘How about you? How many people are you going to bring with you?’ Rogers asked.

  ‘If I could, I would take everyone. The family, the friends, even the acquaintances, but alas, I wouldn’t be able to. I’m on the brink of taking one of the most difficult decisions. It’s very sad, you know,’ his compatriot said and took a deep breath–the lack of faith accompanied her words. ‘I’ll bring whoever I can. Human will for survival is the most powerful weapon I know. All of my acquaintances and everybody else have it, each more than the other. Even my great grandfather has an indomitable soul and incredible strive for living. He’s 110 years old and four months ago he had a second heart transplantation. In this age one has the power to live much longer than people could over the previous decades and that enhances the yearning for life and survival in people. Don’t you think?’ Alice asked.

  ‘I agree with you completely. Knowing that I can live longer doesn’t put me at ease, it makes me want more and more. I’m sure that with time this desire will grow stron
ger. On the other hand, in defiance of everything, I’m glad that I’m living in this technological age,’ he took the beautiful woman in his embrace as they were walking. His words instilled safety in her. They kept on striding towards the restaurant. The two young people were almost there and the time passed by quickly as the lovers jumped from topic to topic.

  ‘Tell me when and why did you join the army?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Back when I was in high school my mother worked for the Ministry of Defense as a secretary. It was her who referred me to the Officer Cadet School, but when I graduated I decided that despite the fact that they provided all cadets with a job, it wasn’t enough for me. I had the chance to leave two years earlier and I paid a penalty for breaching the contract. I just didn’t feel like working in that boring and monotonous place and then I transferred to a security firm which suited my book until a few months ago.’

  ‘Why until a few months ago?’ her darling fired away.

  ‘After I learned about the research mission to Menoetius I quit and decided to give it a try. It didn’t work. It hurts me that now I’m not in the base along with the other trainees. But, still, I met you, so probably I shozuldn’t regret it. Now both of us are mercenaries. We get paid to do as we’re told. But isn’t that how most people around the world live? They do things they don’t want to and on top of that they get a measly remuneration. At least we do it for the hope that something better will come,’ Alice unburdened her heart with a sigh.

  Harry did not completely agree with that as he arrived there a month before against his will, following Milev’s wishes, yet he could not but join Alice’s statement because he, too, saw something nice in the whole situation. It was not money, for he suffered no shortage of it, it was not adrenaline either, he had plenty of it even before he had gotten involved in that story. At first glance what he found was a very simple thing called “love” that had conquered his heart. Receiving and giving it was so hard to come by in those times, completely free at that, and it was probably the most valuable gift in the world. What better gift could one receive from destiny?

  ‘And you, my sun, how did you start working with computers so passionately ?’ Alice redirected the conversation back to Harry’s life as they paced slowly up the way to the restaurant.

  ‘I’ve never given that a thought. On the whole I focused more on them when I became a high-school student. I wasn’t especially sociable and the only thing I did all day long was surfing the Net. But there is a memory from my childhood that could be the true reason behind my desire to work in the technological sphere.’ He tried to remember as many details as he could and be as particular as possible so his beloved could understand him better. ‘When I was ten I got badly injured in a road accident. The car hit me so hard that I nearly died. It was my fault, I crossed the street incorrectly and an automobile ran me over outside my home. The doctors managed to stabilize me at the hospital, but my liver and my spleen were seriously damaged as a result of the crash. A transplantation was due, it wasn’t any cheap. Apart from the surgery itself, we had to pay for the organs as well. My mom had to cover all expenses and she paid them down to the last penny. The burden of the accident fell to her. She brought me and my brother up on her own, our father left her when we were still toddlers. I barely remember him,’ the young rich man began revealing childhood memories.

  ‘Poor you, it must’ve been very hard . . .,’ the brunette exclaimed with a trace of regret.

  ‘Yeah, it was hard, but after all, despite all the misfortune I’m still alive,’ Harry answered enthusiastically and continued. ‘Anyway what I was trying to say was that the operation took place and I it took me a few months to recovered. But something aroused my childhood curiosity. I couldn’t fathom how I had artificial organs inside of me. I know about them, I have even seen pictures from the intervention and they showed me the organs were made of flesh and blood. They weren’t mechanical, neither were they taken from the body of a deceased person. The only thing the doctors could tell to my child self was that the organs were lab-created. At first I was confused, but after I recuperated I decided to look for more information about all of that and I found out that it had been practiced on a mass scale for the previous ten years. A very precise robot hardwired with special software had been the one to create matter that is now inside of me. The machine rearranged the cells from a biological liquid jelly into “something” with form and functionality. 3D designing of natural organs or bioengineering, that’s how its inventors called it. At that time I was captivated by the capabilities of the machines and how they entered into service of the humankind. Our total reliance on them helped us as much it buried us in the ground slowly. Maybe humans should not discover immortality and should have not even gotten close to it–look at what happened.’ He grinned after the long explanation; the restaurant had already come into view. The couple went in, intending to have an incredible evening. So it happened: conversations until late into the night, accompanied by red wine and nice food. Unforgettable . . .

  Just like them, some people enjoyed life, but others were a far cry from such things. Absorbed in their jobs, some individuals never slept. Such people could be found anywhere, but one specific person out of a mass of workaholics was making a research on something rather important at that moment. Konrad’s old friend decided to pay the Eisenhower Air Base a visit to see if he could find something because the storehouse was used by Radeberg’s employees . . . On the next day in southwestern Germany most of the trees had already come into leaf and the green grass blanketed the ground. A similar view could be observed in the area of the military airport; everything outside the buildings was cleaned and set in order and surrounded by mowed grass. Ben walked into the building that housed the headquarters of the base, intending to interrogate General Müller about what had happened. When he climbed up to the fifth floor, he went into the secretary’s lounge to present himself and to notify her about his appointment with the General. In the meantime he had to witness something bizarre. While he was talking with the secretary he saw a young man burst out of Klaus’s office, but before he came out “Stop coming, bloody detectives, I’m fed up of your crap!” flew out of the room; then the man strode down the hallway infuriated without bothering to answer. All the Major saw was a silhouette and then the back of the man as he hurried towards the exit. He did not have enough time to study the stranger and make out whether or not he knew him.

  ‘The General can see you now,’ the secretary announced, showing him into the office. Ben entered and saw the General a bit angry, huffing and rearranging a few sheets of documentation on his square desk.

  ‘Hello, you must be the NATO’s delegate,’ he said and got up to go offer the Major his hand, in turn the envoy got startled and raised his hand to his forehead in a salute. ´Stand easy. Drop the formalities.’

  ‘My name is Ben Robinson and I’m here to ask you a few questions about the theft of

  ammunitions from Warehouse No 1. I won’t take much of your time, I have just a few informative inquiries. Do you mind my request?’ the investigator asked politely.

  ‘No, since you say it won’t take much of my time, we can do it now.’

  ‘All right. Let’s first sit down.’ The two men headed for the desk. Robinson took a chair and dragged it towards the desk. Many maps, pictures from different devices and documentation related to them were scattered all over it. A large table, yet there was no room where the Major could leave his folder and start the interrogation.

  ‘I’d like to begin and here comes my first question. Did the stolen cargo have insurance?’

  ‘Yes, it did,’ the General Müller answered briefly..

  ‘The analyses showed that a certain part of it was not manufactured here. Tell me, do you order military equipment from private companies?’

  ‘We do, we’ve had such practice for a long time. We give money to firms which use our developments to manufacture large numbers. Everything is top secret, of course, and is produc
ed exclusively for us. The entire process there is kept under strict control,’ the German General explained exhaustively.

  ‘I understood you perfectly. Would you name the firms that work for you?’

  ‘Yes, just a second.’ He opened a drawer and took out a folder containing the information about the trade associations that had signed contracts with the base. The Major went through the papers and noticed the ring of firms had recently been changed and the military base had different project contractors. At first glance that seemed as an insignificant detail, but it was not exactly true.

  ‘My next question is how many people were on guard the day of the robbery?’ Robinson asked, his eyes fastened on the file that lay on his crossed legs as he was putting down the information.

  ‘Eleven men. They were short-staffed due to the mobilization of the rest on the same day.’

  ‘Yes, that’s clear, but why don’t you have any security feeds and no traces from the robbers?’

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t have the faintest idea. We’re just as mystified. My men are working on the case, everything will be clear very soon,’ he answered without really lying because he was clueless as to what had happened.

  Ben, in his turn, asked four more questions that had to do with the security and the command of the base. In the end, in line with his own style, he asked a question that shocked the General and that compelled him to pick his words carefully.

  ‘All right, thank you for the answers. I have just one last question. Why is your desk so messy? Your office is more or less in good order, but the documentation is scattered all over the desk. And don’t tell me you’re up to your neck with work after what happened and that you had no time to tidy up.’ Klaus laughed, taking well the odd approach of the investigator of asking side questions.