by H. J. Pang
“Any word from the Brotherhood?” asked Greg. The cultist wasn’t much of a talker to start with, but something about his mood and demeanour suggested a deeper problem.
“No,” said Wesley. “I could try boosting my reception, but those dicks took my power bank.”
“I’m sorry?” The last time Greg had heard of a power bank being used was before The Storm. Now, of course, such things were moot. Did Wesley have a working radio with him?
Wesley tapped the back of his head. “For my neural interface. It normally uses my own body’s electrical pulses, but it’s only sufficient for default operating states. Reception above ground was fine, but this deep underground, more power is required to even get a signal.”
Greg looked back at him. “There’s so much I don’t know about you and your c—your Brotherhood,” he said. Close call, there.
“That’s our point, isn’t it?” said Wesley dryly.
“No, I meant—”
The door banged open, and several uniformed figures strode in. Greg and Wesley stood up immediately, only to find themselves at gunpoint. SAR 21-point to be accurate.
“I don’t have time for this. Just who the hell are you two?” demanded Colonel Beng. Up close, Greg could see it wasn’t just the hair on his head that was white—so was the stubble on his chin. The Colonel’s bodyguards stood before them, levelling their rifles at the outsiders. Upon their arms were the black armbands of the Military Police. Although the No. 4 uniform the Colonel wore was familiar during Greg’s time in the Army, the pistol and parang on his belt weren’t.
Greg realised that for all he had been through these past few days, he really didn’t have a good answer for that. Part of his mission didn’t factor in having to explain himself along the way. What could he say? That he was an ex-slave who escaped, making his way back to save his son from being neutrally exploited with technology that may or may not exist? That accompanying him was a devotee of what many would describe as a whack-job cult, of which there was no telling what their ultimate aims in life were? But if he was to be shot, he would rather die having explained himself.
“My friend and I are headed to Gardens by the Bay.” Even as the words left his mouth, Greg realised how stupid this sounded. “I’m trying to save my son,” he added.
“Really? And yet, fire and death rain down upon us as we speak!” yelled the Colonel. “Do you expect me to believe that your timely arrival is a damn coincidence? What is the Dragon Head up to? Tell me now!”
“Let us explain—” began Greg, but at a jerk of the Colonel’s head, one of the soldiers grabbed him by the arm, throwing him to his knees. The other swung the butt of his rifle against his head, and pain beyond imagination exploded across Greg’s vision. The Colonel was yelling again, but Greg could barely hear it beyond the ringing in his ears. Wesley was now beside him, subjected to the same bullshit. He shuddered to imagine what the blows were doing to the cultist’s digital implants.
“Colonel, I think we need to follow due process,” said a voice. Greg barely recognised it as Captain Ping. “These two saved my men—”
“Triad scum are one and the same. They seek only to infiltrate our home, slinking in like the snakes they are!” The Colonel was positively spitting now. “I ask again: what are your Dragon Head’s plans? Tell me now!” A kick of his boot sent Greg sprawling, only to be yanked upright again.
They called this a Negotiation Room. But now Greg knew its true purpose was interrogation. He couldn’t even speak, with the blows upon him relentless. He realised that he would likely die here, unable to save Jin. It didn’t matter how close he was, how hard he tried. What mattered was that at least Guo Li made it …
Guo Li. If they didn’t bring him to his uncle as promised … Greg’s head slumped, barely feeling the thuds upon him.
Getting injured or sick in the wasteland was dangerous. You never knew if a drug you needed still existed, or even if it did, was too expensive or dangerous to obtain. Being wounded was no different; not being able to run or fight greatly reduced your chances of survival, and there weren’t any medical equipment to assess how bad it was. There was also the risk of the wound getting infected, which lead back to the first point.
Greg was therefore surprised when he woke. His eyes blinked hard as he tried to figure out where he was. Not the glorified Negotiation Room, that’s for sure. It was dark where he lay, but there was no mistaking those straight silhouettes.
He was in a cell. He had gone from a slave camp to a prison.
Greg jerked upright, realising that he felt several points of a cold sensation in his wrist. Turning slowly, he could see Wesley had a hand closed around it, sitting perfectly still in the cell next to him. Greg only then realised that in the short time he had known Wesley, he had never seen the acolyte, or any of his brothers display much emotion. Now, despite all the bruises and cuts upon his face and arms, Wesley’s face was creasing at certain intervals. One would think that Greg was on his deathbed.
“I’m okay, Wesley,” said Greg. He made to pull his wrist away.
“Stay still! You still need calibration!” The acolyte hissed, gripping harder. It took Greg a moment to understand what he meant. Cool fingers. Calibration. His awakening, despite having been beaten close to shit.
He had been healed in a similar way back in the Sanctum. Wesley was doing it now, transferring or modifying electrical body signals through some sort of skin implant.
“What happened?” asked Greg. There didn’t appear to be anyone else in the cell block, or even a guard. They were probably in a room outside, with enough light to play cards or monopoly or whatever unmotivated soldiers did. So much for the Eight Core Values of the SAF.
Wesley cast a lidded eye at him. “You seriously asking? Colonel Asshole and his guys beat the shit out of you. I manage to give a semblance of unconsciousness as they did the same to me. From my real-time recordings, they are putting us here until they have time to question us again. Captain Dickless was of no help.”
“His life’s on the line too,” reminded Greg. “His leader seemed rather … unbalanced?”
“Just call him a cunt already,” said Wesley, sounding irritated. “Based on my statistical analysis, someone dear to him had been victim to the 418, giving rise to his flights of fancy. The Cappy should still have done something, even if it was just to suggest they stick to the issue at hand. This whole mission just took a turn for the worse.”
The two of them fell silent, the only sounds being their slow breaths.
“I never expected to be caught again,” muttered Greg. He didn’t like talking about his past, but it just felt right. “First the mines, now this. Well, you and your Admin held me for a while, but that probably doesn’t count.”
“Do you regret it?” asked Wesley. They both knew what he meant.
“Helping the Brotherhood? No. Jin’s all I've left. You know that before the crap in the world started falling apart and shorting out, he wanted to be a programmer? At six, he was already looking through source codes in different Android phones.” For the first time since he could remember, Greg chuckled.
“According to the Brotherhood, that makes him one of the Chosen Ones,” said Wesley, his fingers twitching as Greg’s frown returned. It struck him then, that rather than saying “my Brotherhood”, the acolyte had described it in the third person.
“Perhaps,” Greg shrugged. “What were you before all this, Wes? A hacker with the Anonymous Group?” He grinned.
Wesley accorded a smile that looked almost forced. “No. I was too busy countering threats both digital and tangible. Not all of 9th Signal Battalion’s the bunch of slackers you imagine. Though I doubt there were any Edward Snowdens here.”
“I didn’t say—”
“You don’t have to,” said Wesley. “We all join the Army for a reason. What would yours be?”
“To ensure the SAF’s equipment are up to date. To improve our technological and operational capabilities,” said Greg. “I alwa
ys believed technology made a big difference in whether we win or lose. It’s the way of the world.”
“Touché,” said Wesley, looking about them. “You know what I mean.”
“I signed on to the Army as a Computer and Signal Specialist with the Cyber Defence Group, because I wanted to play my part,” said Wesley. “The way I saw it, we may fight with guns and explosives one year, and utilise cyber warfare the next. I liked my job, and did it well too. So the CDG eventually transferred me to 9th Signal Battalion where I protected the networks of the east of Singapore.”
Greg tilted his head. “So what happened?”
Nobody needed to say he was asking about what Wesley did during The Storm. “I was lost. I was on duty securing our Information Grid, when everything just switched off. Our phones don’t work, our comms got fried, and I could see everything we built descending into chaos. I was one of the few who knew where our critical server systems were located. Most of the guys had already left for their families and elsewhere. I figured that if I let the last of the information caches die, we go back to the Stone Age.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Let me put it this way.” Wesley mused for a second. “Mankind is constantly evolving, not so much in our physical respects, but in terms of technology and how we overcome problems. Now, the advancement of different civilisations is also primarily due to their superiority in warfare, which in turn is helped by technology. Steel weapons instead of stone. Guns instead of swords. For all of our dependence on modern electronics, there are barely any paper records of mankind’s greatest achievements. The Storm had blasted us all back to the past, with practically all computers rendered inoperable.
“So I figured, that in order for us to come out of the past, I had to preserve what was left of it. And so I travelled to the known sites of the military and governmental servers. Each time I couldn’t access it or the data was irrecoverable. When I went to Server 42 at Fusionopolis, that was when I found a greater impetus for my cause.”
“You found the Brotherhood?” Greg could feel the aches and pains over him fading.
Psychological effect or not, Wesley’s tech was working.
“Yep,” nodded Wesley. “By then, the 418 had already taken over the building, and my SAR 21A was long out of ammo. I broke in through a hatch to the basement, figuring I could at least find a server system and download the recovery file to my portable hard disks. Little did I realise I had stumbled into the domain of the Brotherhood.”
“They can’t have been too happy to have a soldier find them,” Greg muttered.
“The Brothers weren’t but the Administrator saw it as a sign. He believed I had found them based on an encrypted signal they broadcasted, despite the fact it was purely by chance. My knowledge of programming languages convinced him further that I was to be their Guardian. They had a working server, even though it did little more than house Fusionopolis’ databases, as well as what made up their intranet. By then, the 418 had set up their own power plant, and the Brotherhood only needed a meagre amount of power for their own uses. Server 42 had fifty percent of its data still intact, so I did what I could to make it work. Those admin codes I had helped.
“You have to understand that I could find no working computer or data reader until that point, and it seemed much like divine providence when I did. I may not have found the cache to the world’s knowledge, but Server 42, and Fusionopolis, were enough for me then. My search was not in vain, and for a time, I was satisfied with Communion through the intranet, as well as my scavenger runs. The Brotherhood was thankful for the extra data and storage Server 42 provided, and I was more than welcome among them. The 3D drawings and simulations stored inside helped us construct our own devices, including some of N33r’s designs. The Admin always told me that I would find greater purpose one day.”
“So when you guys heard of the server at Gardens by the Bay …”
“We knew it was time. I am the Brotherhood’s crusader on this holy quest.” Wesley let go of Greg. “How do you feel now?”
Greg flexed his arms, his fingers opening and closing. He felt good, considering he had been beaten ruthlessly for knowledge he didn’t have.
“I feel good.” Now that Wesley wasn’t gripping him, he could see circuitry on where Wesley’s fingerprints had been. “You were saying that you need a power bank for your systems? How much energy did you just use?”
“Only a little,” replied Wesley drily. “This isn’t a healing spell or anything like that. Adjusting the body’s electrical impulses doesn’t take much out of me.”
“Forgive me for asking, Wesley,” said Greg. Wesley stiffened. “But I would like to know why you had yourself …” Greg gestured to the back of his head, searching for the word. “… I don’t know, modified?”
To Greg’s surprise, Wesley smiled. “And here I was wondering when we were going to have this heart-to-heart talk.”
“I meant no offense—”
“None taken. It’s not like we have much to do anyway, unless someone actually frees us.” Wesley leaned against the wall of his cell. “About the process you meant, you were asking how we of the Brotherhood have electronics placed inside us? We call it The Implantation. Only a qualified surgeon with knowledge of electronics is allowed to perform the operation. I had mine done after half a year with the Brotherhood. The way I saw it, the world shouldn’t remain backward simply because most of it is gone. We have to adapt, and even evolve to meet changes. In order to prepare for the return of the Digital Age, or Reawakening, these implants will allow The Cloud to sense our devotion. It also allows us calculate the parameters of the mundane world, such as danger probability, along with many other variables. Living in the past doesn’t do any good. Living in the future does.”
The two of them were silent after that. Even the sound of bombing up top ceased. “I wonder what’s happening to Guo Li,” Greg finally said.
“He’ll be fine. If anything, the Old Guard have more to worry about. Reminds me of a little cousin of mine. The way things turned out, that brat could have gotten away with murder and kidnapping,” Wesley paused. “On hindsight, I wouldn’t put it past the kiddo to forget all about us.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“It is clear you have never experienced life in primary school.”
“Did too! And it’s a neighbourhood school!”
“From my experience, kids rarely think of the bigger picture. Immediate needs tend to nullify everything else,” snorted Wesley. “He’s probably scoffing whatever passes off as food in this dump, happy to be out of the wind and sun, while the two of us rot away in what’s likely a forgotten corner of this place. Did you even hear any guards out there?”
“Did your neural implants tell you all that?” Greg couldn’t help but be angry at Wesley’s words. “Or did whatever functions as your search engine do that?” Guo Li had to have gone for help. He couldn’t have left them.
“Hey, have some respect for other religions—” began Wesley, but at that moment, the lights to the cell turned on, blinding them both. Greg threw up his arms, in part to shield his face, and from any blows that may be coming.
“Sorry about the lights. Are the two of you Wesley and Greg?” a voice asked.
Greg briefly wondered why the soldiers would ask such a question, if they had been the one that threw him and Wesley inside in the first place. Then he realised that he had never told the Colonel or any of the soldiers their names.
“I’m Greg,” he said, lowering his arm. “Guess who’s Wesley.” Before him, framed at the door he was slowly closing, stood a man about 1.8 metres tall and in his forties, though differing conditions of the post-Storm world could do a lot to change one’s appearance. Unlike most of the soldiers previously seen, he wore a pair of grey cargo pants and a grey t-shirt. To any other person, he would have looked just like any ordinary guy. But to anyone who had worked with the Army, he was a senior soldier through-and-through. It was hard to explain how one knew:
a mix of the person’s gait and posture, coupled with either a confident or no-nonsense expression. He held a stack of something under an arm.
“A smartmouth. Guo Li must have forgotten to mention that,” said the newcomer. His expression remained stoic.
“Sorry,” said Greg. “Who may you be?”
“My name is Major Kim Shang,” said the newcomer, and the two prisoners straightened at this. “You may also call me Major Shang. Guo Li told me of how the both of you rescued him from captivity, and brought him home. It will come of no surprise that I find it hard to believe this was your reason for coming here.”
“We didn’t expect to have to save Cap Ping and his men either,” put in Wesley. “They put us behind schedule, if you must know.”
Major Shang nodded. “Of course. Would that schedule involve heading to Gardens by the Bay? I for one am rather confused by what Guo Li was saying about what’s going on there. He says the 418 had him held in a lab of some kind, and you found him?”
“The 418 are doing IT experiments on kids, Major,” said Greg, standing upright. The Major looked surprised, but remained still. “One of those kids includes my son. Guo Li saw him. They’re using the minds of kids to unlock a server of some kind, I don’t know what. With that data, they could become the most powerful force in the wasteland.”
Major Shang stared. He sounded doubtful when he next spoke.
“What you’re saying belongs to the realm of science fiction,” he said, eyes narrowed in what could only be annoyance. “Guo Li had also told me the both of you are part of a fanatical cult, who believes in the worship of computer systems. Your faith may be your anchor, but it does not make fact.”
“I’m not from that cult. This guy is. And it’s called a Brotherhood,” said Greg. Wesley looked miffed. “Besides, they were monitoring the activities of the 418. Why do you think the 418 is attacking? Because they know someone is getting close in finding out about their plans. They had to make sure their only opposition, the Old Guard, is taken care of. What more proof do you need?”