The Mendelssohnian Theory: Action Adventure, Sci-Fi, Apocalyptic ,Y/A

by Toker, Dor

  “Teach me to play the game,” Adam said. A smile shone on Jewel’s face, and she failed to conceal it. “I assume it’s not very professional, as far as playing the game is concerned, to be smiling uncontrollably,” Adam added with a grim face, but Jewel detected a twinkle of humor in his eyes. She knew he was breaking the ice with a joke and was grateful to him for allowing her to get back with him without explanations. He caressed her cheek, and she gave in to the touch of his hand, moved aside and allowed him to enter her small room. In the remaining time of their journey, Jewel trained Adam and taught him to play ‘The Game’. He learned to hide his emotions from others in and out of the web, learned to read people according to their behavior and their facial expressions. Jewel taught him how to control his body and his face, how to cause people to believe him or detest him, love him and trust him, or bear a grudge against him, all based on his wishes. Jewel was a good teacher and Adam, at least that’s what his teacher had mentioned to herself, was the most gifted pupil she’d ever taught. They conducted tours throughout the shuttle and reached higher levels than the one in which they lived. Jewel would give Adam tasks, which he would immediately carry out, sometimes with great difficulty, other times he failed, but normally he would be successful in getting what he wanted. Without coordinating it, they would take breaks from ‘The Game’, in which they created a type of bubble for themselves, normally in one of their cabins; then, they attempted to behave as naturally as they could. They made love (Adam discovered that Jewel had a lot to teach him about sex as well); they told one another more about themselves and slept. They didn’t discuss any plans for the future because both their futures were shrouded in thick mists. They were comfortable together, and Adam felt safe beside Jewel, not knowing how fragile his security actually was.

  Chapter 19

  Adam woke up feeling the floor trembling beneath his feet and the walls emitting screeching sounds. He immediately leaped outside, tapped the back of his hand to open the side partitions and discovered they were stuck. The narrower partition had partly opened, and the wider one was unresponsive. He squeezed his way through the narrow opening and tripped on the floor beyond the partition, rolling and bumping into a motionless body. He jumped to his feet, his brain implant immediately kicked into action and took control of his body, ready to identify dangers and neutralize them. Adam examined the body he’d bumped into and discovered Don, or at least part of what was once Don. He delayed another moment next to the dismembered body and turned to look for Jewel. “Run,” Don’s gurgling voice was heard behind him. Adam turned to him, surprised to discover Don was still alive. “Run,” Don mumbled again, his only remaining eye drilled holes in Adam’s.

  “You’re alive?” asked Adam, aware of the foolishness of his question.

  “There’re here, looking for you.” Adam leaned toward Don and tried to raise him into a sitting posture, but the ex-soldier resisted him. “You need to hurry,” he urged the lad, “I was only able to delay them.”

  “I can’t leave you like that,” Adam announced.

  “Yes, you can! You can’t help me anymore,” Don cut syllables with an arid hoarse voice,” I’ll delay them, and you’ll hurry to the evacuation capsule. There’s one next to the great hall of mirrors. It’s concealed there, behind to the tallest window in the room. You’ll need to break the window to get inside.”

  “Why are you doing this?” asked Adam.

  “I received instructions to safeguard and protect you at any cost and that’s exactly what I’m doing. Now hurry up.” The blasts of gunfire and sound of laser rifles were heard outside their cabin. Adam hesitated a moment more, then rose to his feet and turned to leave the cabin. Don’s voice was heard behind him: “Don’t be angry at Jewel,” he said, “she wasn’t aware of it, but she was working for me.” Adam stopped and returned to the half-soldier lying on the floor. “Her job was to protect you and that she did. Now go.” Adam stood next to Don a moment more, waiting for explanations, but it seemed the veteran soldier had lost his consciousness. The noise of laser volleys was heard, and the smell of burnt plastiglass hung in the air. He quickly rose and turned to leave, passing by Jewel’s part of the cabin and checking its content. Jewel was lying hunched on the floor, and he hurried to her, checking for signs of life to no avail. Jewel was dead. He turned her on her back and saw a sharp metal pole protruding from her chest. The sound of another volley of shots awoke Adam from rigidity and liquefied the sprouts of grief that threatened to swallow him. He hurried to slip out of the cabin, which had now become a trap.

  A young soldier entered the small cabin, followed by Sato, the hired assassin. The soldier examined the cabin and approached the hacked body of the man revealed to him. He bent to check for a pulse, when suddenly, the body rose to life.

  Don sent a lightning-quick hand and grabbed the laser gun from the hand of the inexperienced soldier. With the same motion, he turned the gun around, pointed it toward the soldier’s abdomen and pulled the trigger. The soldier screamed with pain as his belly was ripped open, and its content spilled out, smearing Don’s face and neck with a gooey, sticky mixture of liquids, blood, and innards. Don pulled the soldier closest to him, using him as a human shield, and diverted the gun toward Sato, or at least toward the place in which Sato had been standing a second ago. The experienced assassin jumped and rolled across the cabin, attaching his body to the back of the dead soldier who was now held between the two veterans. Sato’s gun was already in his hand and while Don attempted to direct his gun again toward Sato’s new location, the Assassin had already managed to blast a few holes through his head. The duel was finished, seconds after it had begun. Sato rose, brushed his clothes and quickly left the cabin. The team of agents that was forced upon him by high-level officials had merely served to delay him and hinder his actions. He decided to disregard the instructions of his client and work by himself. But now, in space, he was ‘stuck’ with field agents that were inappropriate for such an operation and definitely inappropriate to work with Sato. He’d known ever since he had matured – in order to utilize his abilities to the fullest, he needed to operate on his own.

  Adam ran down the abandoned corridor, glancing behind him now and then, to check if his pursuers were already after him. He increased his speed when he discovered that he was indeed being chased. On his way, he crossed corridor intersections and saw the movements of panic-stricken people, even though the corridor walls muffled the noises the commotion of blasts and gunfire had created. He reached the hall of mirrors, knowing his time was short and in a few brief moments, his pursuers would catch up with him. He sought the tallest window, just as Don had instructed him to during his last moments. Once he’d discovered it, about thirty feet above him, he became perplexed, not knowing how he could climb all the way up there. He also didn’t know how he would shatter the acrylic glass that separated him from the evacuation capsule, attached to the other side of the window. He carefully examined the wall in front of him once more. The wall was filled with windows and mirrors, sunk within narrow niches. He examined the nearest niche and discovered that it could support his hands and feet. Without losing another second, he jumped onto the wall and began to climb, lifting himself from niche to niche, from one foothold to the next. He had already passed almost half the distance to the upper window when the sound of footsteps in the hallway reached his ears and made him freeze in his tracks. He crouched within the niche, bending his arms and legs as well as he could. The sound of footsteps intensified, someone stopped in front of the hall’s entrance. Adam didn’t dare to move a muscle. He stopped his breath and waited to see what will happen next. From the corner of his eye, he managed to see a head peeking beyond the door and examining the hall of mirrors from side to side. He knew that if the man would only raise his eyes, he would be revealed, and all would be lost. The man continued to examine the supposedly empty hall a moment longer, and then turned around and continued to run down the corridor. Adam waited a few more seconds and continued to
climb up the wall. It was obvious to him that larger and more determined forces would reach the hall before long, and he wouldn’t be able to evade them. Time was of the essence, and he needed to reach the highest window and the evacuation capsule attached to it as soon as possible. He moved from window to window and had already reached the last niche before his destination when two black-clad warriors broke into the hall. Adam raised himself quickly to the final window, and one of the soldiers fired at him with his weapon. The laser beam scorched the sleeve of his protective suit, passed through his arm muscles and hit the wall behind him. The second soldier fired right after his companion, missing Adam’s head by a hairsbreadth. Adam used his foot as a pivot and turned his back to the window, barely able to hang onto the window depression. Soldiers fired again, and Adam tried to avoid the laser beams as best he could. The wound burned on his arm, and the pain clouded his senses. The next shot missed him, but the beam hit the acrylic window and tore up holes in it. Chunks of melted acrylic glass flew in all directions, delaying the soldier’s next volley. Adam took advantage of that moment. He turned around and kicked the cracked window that shattered with a loud suction noise. He jumped into the hole that was torn, hoping with all his heart that the evacuation capsule was indeed attached to the window as Don had promised him before his death.

  The soldiers hurried to the wall and began to climb it in the exact same way Adam had climbed it a few seconds before. Suddenly, a grating corklike sound was heard, and the air in the hall of mirrors began to be discharged from the broken window. The force of the suction pulled the nearest soldier to the window. The soldier screamed as he flew. He battered against the acrylic glass remains and was swallowed into the opening. The second solider hurried to escape, struggling with the airflow, sucked and sucking out (S&So ©).

  Sato entered the hall. He stood at the entrance, ignoring the force of the suction that attempted to draw him inside, analyzing what’d just taken place. His target had jumped to his death seconds ago through the broken window, straight into the frozen emptiness of space. He had partially failed in his mission. His task was to capture him alive. Failure will have its price. The party that ordered the contract will not be pleased. Sato wasn’t pleased as well. Not only would he lose the amount promised to him upon signing the contract, but his expenses wouldn’t be covered either. Oh well, he will minimize his losses, there were additional contracts waiting, he shouldn’t be bothered by a single failure, this mustn’t influence the level of his performance.

  He turned around and left the hall of mirrors, tapping a command on his hand for the computer of his private hovercraft to start the engines and prepare for takeoff. ‘The hall of mirrors’ door closed behind Sato, sealing the hall until robots will fix the damage caused to the window from the outside.

  Sato had already managed to take off in his hovercraft and accelerate away from the shuttle when a loud blast rocked his spacecraft. He hurried to stabilize the hovercraft and with a wide arc, flew back. The large shuttle could be seen through his front window, leaning on its side, black smoke mixed with white oxygen emitting from where its control tower used to be. A brief examination in his sensors revealed to him that the shuttle was doomed. Evacuation hovercrafts were spat from it like cannonballs, carrying survivors. Sato didn’t know how the blast had happened but had no intention of remaining in the area and no intention of being related to the event in any way. The shuttle leaned more and more on its side and began to glide with growing speed into the atmosphere of Mars. The heat caused by its friction with the thin atmosphere caused the body of the shuttle to heat up, and its color gradually became orange. Soon, the metal body will ignite and explode. Sato turned his hovercraft around once more and fixed a course that will enable it to orbit the red planet.

  Chapter 20

  News of the Scandinavia Space Shuttle’s explosion had hit Elizabeth like a thunderbolt. The knowledge that she’d failed in her task to lead Adam to the fulfillment of his destiny shattered her. At the heart of the fire swamps next to New Tokyo, where she and her people had established the “Freedom” organization’s new headquarters, the commander had sealed herself in the living quarters next to her office and refused to come out. Adam was lost in space and with him humankind’s chances of an evolutionary leap forward were lost as well. Civilization was sentenced to extinction because it was doubtful it would survive the Earth’s inevitable end. The loss of her pupil had burdened her heart, as well as her responsibility for his death. She’d been wrong to disbelieve the corporation would dare to explode a huge space shuttle bearing thousands of passengers, distant from its destination and without any hope of a rescue. In the months in which she’d trained Adam, she had learned to know him better and respect him. He surprised her with his determination and his ability to adapt himself to extreme situations and survive them with an almost inhuman tranquility. Now, when he was gone, she realized how much she loved him, as if he was her own son, and how sorely she would miss him.

  Joseph had tried to speak with her, but he, like all the others, simply encountered the wall she’d built around herself. She did not want to be in contact with anyone. While lying in bed, she scanned the worldwide-web time and again in search of any information about Adam, but her investigation did not yield any results. Adam wasn’t mentioned anywhere, and the explosion of the shuttle was played down and merely mentioned as an accident. Two weeks later, Elizabeth abandoned her searches and began to leave the secret base during the evenings, and go to the nearest city, New Tokyo, marching up and down darkened streets, avoiding contact with people, covering miles and miles before dawn. Then she returned to her cell and slept all day until evening fell again, and she left for her nocturnal journeys once more.

  Her people understood what she was going through; they did not bother her or involve her with the various organization activities. Elizabeth, on her end, had disconnected all inner communication means in her brain implant and blocked all external communication attempts. She continued to conduct herself that way, until the day in which her deputy, Chandra May, barged into her small living quarters. “There’s verification,” she shouted at her commander, “he’s alive!”

  Elizabeth jumped to her feet. “Are you sure?” she asked, thrilled.

  “Yes,” answered Chandra, “we just spoke with Dmitri Bialystok.”

  “Dmitri?” Elizabeth was surprised, “he’s on Mars?”

  “Yes,” answered Chandra with enthusiasm, “he found him hiding in the alleyways of the American base. He was weak and starved, but fought with his men nonetheless and nearly managed to escape. If you’ll open your inner-outer communication lines (In&Out Com ©), you’ll be able to speak with Dmitry directly on a secure line.”

  Dmitry Bialystok was the leader of a space smugglers gang, pirates, as the space authorities had labeled them, one of many groups that imported and exported Earth products to the highest bidder. While the large corporations dominated commerce and transportation routes in the solar system, and the superpowers provided them protection, the smugglers dominated the gray area between those two forces. They sought flight and commerce routes outside the large system, avoiding the Earth’s legal systems and the military forces trying to stop them. In the three hundred and fifty years since commercial space travel had begun, the smuggler bands conducted about twenty percent of all galactic commerce. Naturally, no corporation was willing to endure such a cut in its profits and therefore, the smugglers were constantly hunted, and the attempts to annihilate them were ceaseless. The Space Patrol forces, Space Guards (Space Guard Inc.), struck the smuggler space-hovercrafts as often as they could, but the independent space merchants fought back and did not surrender. Their space-hovercrafts were small, quick and just as technologically sophisticated as the corporation forces’. More than often, they managed to successfully evade their pursuers. The balance of power between the two forces was maintained until it was discovered some of the smuggler bands were sponsored and operated by one of the corporations that w
anted to gain the best of both worlds. When the smuggler leaders had discovered that, they decided to cooperate. First, they shared information with each other about the movement of the corporations and the superpowers in space, later on they created a shared cooperative, based on equal terms. Each gang controlled a different part of space and the smuggling of different products. Their coordination and cooperation was so successful that their percentage in all human commerce grew and grew until it reached about thirty percent. The corporations and superpowers had no other choice but to accept the existing situation and calculate the percentage of commerce lost to the smugglers as a constant in their mining cost and benefit calculations.

  Dmitry Bialystok was the most daring of the smuggling gang leaders. His gang controlled the main commerce line between the Earth and Mars. The red planet contained the largest human population outside the Earth, located in several superpower bases. Dmitry’s smugglers were known for their equanimity and fighting skills. They were a small elite unit of warriors that had gathered over the years around Bialystok and were proud to serve under his command. They defined themselves as independent merchants who reject any authority, be it government or corporation, other than that of their commander. Dmitri Bialystok’s gang was known for its daring and its ability to provide any service for anyone, based, of course, on the pre-agreed price. Elizabeth had gained Dmitry’s trust when she helped his hovercraft escape from a corporation powers attack, and had sheltered him in one of Freedom’s hidden bases. The trust and mutual appreciation that were established between them had led to the continuation of their relationship. They weren’t in constant contact, but when the need arose, helped one another as best they could.