by R E Kearney
“You really are just a braying school yard bully, aren’t you?” Robert twirls until he stands face to face with Evoil, “Albert Einstein certainly knew you when he said that two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. Cyber has given the power to those of us with brains and you dimwitted brutes just can’t stand it. Can you?”
Komfort gestures toward the plaza. “They have the power now. Brains dominate brawn. They run the world now. Those boys and girls that bullies like you and Abaddon beat up when they wouldn’t do your math homework because you were too stupid to understand it…they have the power now. Especially the women. They have the power to command you now. And you just cannot stand it. Can you?”
Evoil clenches his right hand into a fist, which he thrusts at Komfort. “Dieu et mon Droit! God and my right! I have God on my side and I…”
Komfort spins on her heel and marches toward Evoil with her finger pointing at his head like a cocked pistol. “The ignorant have bullied the intelligent for far too long. But, no more. Your time is done.”
“Dame!” Freeman loudly announces, as Gutefrau’s holographic lasers dance to life. “We have a situation here.”
“Another one?” She disbelievingly returns to her holographic projector. “What now?”
In front of her, appear visuals of a large dump truck with its bed raised. Next to the truck, waits an official government news crew. Above it, circles several drones, including SPEA’s, broadcasting the scene. Below, container after container of SPEA’s Amare Terra coffee roll out of the truck bed and onto the street in front of the Embassy gate. Containers of Amare Terra tea and chocolate follow, tumbling out of the truck and on top of the pile of coffee. Emptied, the truck lowers its bed and rumbles away.
Shortly after the truck disappears, the four self-appointed security guards rush into the street and grab as many containers of coffee, tea and chocolate as they can carry. They only have time for one salvaging trip before a bulldozer rattles down the street and onto the pile crushing it into the pavement. Back and forth the dozer drives until nothing but dust remains.
With the destruction complete, Freeman replaces the external, live visuals with the news crew’s report. “As an initial act in Abaddon’s declaration of pre-emptive cyberwar, the United States is imposing sanctions against the Society Preserving Endangered Agriculture for suspected cyberattacks against the Kroack Brothers Oil Company and the US government. Today’s actions resulted from the government suffering a series of cyberattacks in recent months, including one on the White House, itself. Today, the government struck its first blow by publicly destroying SPEA products confiscated from smugglers at US airports and seaports. A representative of the Abaddon administration said this should be considered a first warning. Should additional cyberattacks…”
With a buzz, the newscast reporter transforms into an animated dancing and singing transvestite Abaddon caricature. Seconds later, two caricatures of the Kroack Brothers appear. Together the three caricatures engage in a sexually suggestive three-way ballet while singing a satirical song about the joy of bloody oil money.
“Blasphemers!” Evoil bellows, before storming to the window overlooking the plaza.
“Is that what you call cyberwarfare?” Robert asks as he continues to enjoy the insulting video, “You crush some confiscated food and you declare victory? You and Abaddon are even more stupid than I expected.”
“Look at them! Just look at them.” Evoil shouts at clusters of plaza cyber citizens laughing and enjoying watching the newscast one of them hacked, “Laugh now, because soon you will suffer eternal damnation and torment. We will crush you!”
“Is this the American Conservatives concept of logic?” Komfort snidely asks. “We’re supposed to be frightened because you dump and crush stuff you stole from your own citizens? Sorry, I’m not scared. I just think it’s stupid. Normal for Abaddon, but still stupid.”
“President Abaddon is sending a message.” Evoil snarls, “Consider today a warning. We are not going to allow SPEA to threaten us without punishment…without retribution.”
“Message missed, except that Abaddon is alienating the people he needs the most,” Robert adds. “If you destroy SPEA, you destroy yourselves.”
Gutefrau extinguishes her holograph and walks toward the door. She motions for Komfort, Robert and Evoil to follow her. She gestures toward an unmarked door at the end of the corridor. “Mugavus, you and Robert need to end this cyberwar nonsense before it actually evolves into another shooting war. I’ve seen enough people brutally beaten and slaughtered today, due to Abaddon’s ridiculous cyber illiteracy.”
“Here, this will give you access to the maintenance passageway beneath Venus,” She hands Komfort an access card. “You’ll be able to travel to the bridge without anybody seeing you. At the visitor’s center, they’ll have all you’ll need to complete your mission. Mugavus, you’re in charge. SPEA is depending on you.”
Gutefrau thinks for a moment before continuing. “Actually, with Abaddon being as crazy as he is, Earth’s future is depending on you.”
Chapter 18.
Purification
Bright white paint covers Tena’s forehead. Four white stripes streak across both of her cheeks. One white stripe lines the bridge of her nose. She smiles proudly, as Pion joins her in the control room.
“Why is your face white?” Pion leans closer to Tena, “Are you sick?”
“No, I am not sick. I am rejoicing. My father sleeps at peace in my heart today. I healed his pain.”
“Your father is dead.” Pion states flatly.
“For my people the dead never go away. Only their bodies go away. Their life spirits never die. I listen. I hear my people.”
“But why did you paint your face white?”
“I am a warrior!” Tena hits her chest with her fists. “I avenged my father. I killed the Kokos. I killed the bad man of the Russian tribe. I am initiated. By blood, I am proven. Now, I wear the warrior’s mask.”
She beams, “Last night, my father visited me in my sleep. He told me, I sleep happy now. Now, you must protect Pion. Pion saved you. You owe Pion your life. You must protect Pion. Life for life.”
“You will protect me? Why? From what? Who?”
Tena pounds her chest again. “I will protect you. I promised my father. I promise you Pion. My life for your life.”
“How will you protect me, Tena?”
“I will know when it is time. I will be ready.”
“Good.” Not fully comprehending or appreciating Tena’s pledge, Pion dismissively sends her away. “You need to begin your lessons for today. Mother-bot is waiting.”
Still exuberant, Tena dances while chanting a tribal song. Around and around Pion, she circles and sings. After her fourth circle, she leaps high and screams. Startled, Pion jerks and jumps and scowls at her. A second later, Tena is gone. Pion watches her disappear, before pulling on her plantation observation holohelmet.
Inside the plantation, Pion observes the harvest approach completion. SPEA harvester-bots slowly roll between the coffee plant rows precisely picking only the red coffee cherries, just as Pion programmed them. Three trips through the plantation have already delivered a better than predicted harvest. Two more harvesting runs will provide an unexpectedly abundant bounty. Again this year, SPEA is reaping a rich profit by scientifically confronting and conquering climate change.
Pion’s holohelmet visuals switch to SPEA’s HAWK orbiting above the rubble and remains of Tena’s village. Since the slaughter, vultures, dogs, rats and other carrion eaters have devoured the dead – stripping their bones clean. Weeds are starting to poke their heads out of the village’s paths and trails. Whirling winds have scattered the village’s ashes across the valley. Boringly normal.
Seconds before her holohelmet switches to security visuals of the plantation’s exterior, six white spots march into view at the edge of the horizon. Pion notices
the white spots, but discounts them as being birds. By the time, her holohelmet returns to the HAWK’S visuals, the small white spots have transformed into a dancing, chanting, kaleidoscopic spectacle.
Never having witnessed a festival of colors such as this, Pion gapes in silent awe. She lowers her HAWK’s altitude, flying closer. Swooping near the front of the procession enables her to see the human faces enveloped in the cascade of color. Leading the parade, authoritative, stately men, wrapped in white linen, strut in the shade of bright-white, fringed umbrellas. Behind the regal men, prance boys, girls, men and women swathed in lush swirls of sunshine yellow, sky blues, rose reds, forest greens and shining, bright white.
Pion orders her HAWK to rise and soar above the pageant so she may enjoy the full spectacle. But what she discovers lurking behind the cavalcade of color shocks her. At least two dozen armed Kokos patrol approximately twenty-five yards behind the procession. She immediately summons Komfort-bot.
After only a few seconds of observation, Komfort-bot enlightens Pion, in its robotic, encyclopedic manner. “It is an exorcism. Ethiopian Orthodox Christian priests intervene and perform exorcisms on behalf of persons or in places believed to be afflicted by demons or buda. Seventy-four percent of Christians in Ethiopia claim to have experienced or witnessed an exorcism. Demon-possessed persons are brought to a church or prayer meeting. Priests and church members also travel to demon-possessed locations to perform exorcisms.”
“What is an exorcism?” Pion’s logical mind cannot comprehend this strange ritual.
Komfort-bot resumes its explanation, “Certain elements are common to all Ethiopian Christian exorcisms. They include singing praise and victory songs, reading from the Scripture, prayer and confronting the spirit or spirits in the name of Jesus. Dialogue with the spirit or spirits is another important part of the exorcism ceremony. It helps the exorcist to know how the spirit is operating in the life of the demoniac or in the haunted location. Exorcisms are not always successful."
“Why are they here? Why are they in the burned village?” Pion asks concerned, as the assemblage forms a large circle around the priests in the center of the village.
“According to my observations and based upon the data I possess, they are performing an exorcism to drive evil spirits out of the village,” Komfort-bot responds. “I am unable to answer your question, why are they here. I have forwarded your question, why are they here, to Magus.”
Pion detaches herself from the SPEA-computer-controlled section of her holohelmet and enables her personally-programed section. Separating herself allows her to concentrate on piloting the HAWK and observing the exorcism. Komfort-bot links-in to record and transmit the visuals.
Hypnotized, Pion melts into the spectacle. Swirling, swaying, twirling reds, blues, greens, yellows and whites rise, fall, flutter and fly with the rhythmic chanting. Whooh…whooh…whooh chants, deep and long, seize her heart, squeezing. Thump…thump…thump pounds her heart, pulsing faster and faster. Blinded eyes staring. Swaying senselessly, lost, she swoons and crumples, unconscious.
“Pion. Pion,” Tena roughly shakes Pion’s shoulder. “Wake up Pion. Wake up.”
Slowly, Pion regains consciousness. Her head dully aches. A buzz rattles in her ears. Still wearing her holohelmet, she opens her eyes to current visuals from the HAWK. Gone are the priests and their procession. Their exorcism ceremony completed, they jammed twenty-three, wooden crosses into the earth in a cross shaped pattern and departed. Pion reasons that the crosses represent the Koko warriors who disappeared in the village.
As the HAWK circles above the burned debris of the village, Pion discovers that crosses are not all that the priests left behind. At the far edge of the village, she encounters the Koko warriors rifling through the charred and collapsed buildings. All, but three of the warriors scour through the debris, shift burned sheets of tin or dig through the ashes. Swinging the HAWK away from the village, she finds the other three Kokos in the village’s abandoned gardens.
Above the three Kokos flutters a kite carrying a small cellular telephone transmitter from which protrudes two antennas. On the ground, one Koko tends the lines controlling the kite, while another operates a small generator supplying electricity to the transmitter. The third Koko studies his PCD. After several minutes of twisting and turning and raising and lowering the kite, the Koko holding the PCD jumps and shouts in celebration. He has a signal. The Kokos have broken through Komfort’s communication block.
Pion maneuvers her HAWK into position directly above the Koko’s kite. Crack! She drops it slamming onto their kite. Punctured and ripped, the kite spirals down, shattering into pieces at the feet of the Koko. Pion shoots her HAWK upward and away, as high as it can fly. Enraged, the Kokos fire their AK-47s wildly, filling the sky with bullets, but cannot hit the HAWK.
She breathes a sigh of relief. The HAWK is safe, but simultaneously she is concerned. Now the Kokos know that they are being watched and by what. Below, she sees the Kokos scrounging in the village run to help the three kite handlers, who have abandoned their ruined kite and are chasing the HAWK. Their AKs may not be able to reach it, but they can see it and track it.
While the HAWK was not hit by any Koko bullets, it did not escape its attack on their kite unscathed. In Pion’s holohelmet, a red light flashes and a beep sounds, as one of the HAWK’s four motors fails. The HAWK pitches to the right and drops ten feet. Pion struggles to keep it flying.
Carefully, she shepherds the injured aerodrone slowly toward home. She does not want to lose any of its remaining motors by flying it too fast. Any additional loss of power and it will crash and the Kokos will have it. Under no circumstances can she allow the Kokos to capture her HAWK. That is disaster.
Sprinting behind and beneath the limping, listing WASP, the Kokos gradually close the gap. Every few steps, a Koko halts and fires a fusillade into the sky. They continue missing, but Pion fears their bullets will not harmlessly fly by forever.
Nearer and nearer, the HAWK creeps toward the plantation. Lower and lower and slower it wobbles, struggling to fly. With both of her hands repetitively motioning for it to come to her, Pion quietly urges it onward.
Tena studies Pion, captivated by her efforts to infuse her own strength into the wounded robodrone. Through Komfort-bot’s link, she is monitoring Pion’s struggle to will the battered bird home. Without realizing it, she is mimicking Pion, calling the HAWK with her hands, as well. Leaning forward pulling it with her will.
Flying only ten feet above the ground now, the HAWK lurches and jerks forward. A row of small yellow stakes materialize between the drone and the plantation. Pion knows these insignificantly small stakes signify safety. They are her goal. Planted just outside them is an extremely sensitive row of stun-mines. If the drone can stagger past those stun-mines, then it will be safe.
Fifteen feet short of the stakes, the HAWK buzzes eight feet above the ground. Mentally, calculating its trajectory, Pion estimates the drone will pass over the stun-mines less than one foot above them. Too low. It will trip them. She immediately, temporarily deactivates them.
Concentrating her total attention on piloting the drone, Pion never notices Tena’s presence in the control room or her departure. So, when she silently slips away, there is no concern. Only when she discovers her dashing toward her faltering HAWK does she remember that she is not alone.
Tena’s unexpected sprint flummoxes Pion. Bewildered, she panics, abruptly accelerating the HAWK’s motors spinning and flipping it. It wobbles and shoots upward to the right. Then it falls sharply to the left, crashing one foot outside of the stun-mine field.
“Run! Run! Tena! Run!” Pion shouts loudly, exhorting her on from inside the control room.
Tena races forward, straining with each step, driving her legs faster and faster.
Charging toward her are two Koko boys. Directly in front of her, between her and the other Kokos they run, blocking the others’ views so they dare not shoot at her
without hitting them. The boys toss away their AK-47s, freeing them of the extra weight so they can run faster. Tena is closer, but they are faster. Many yards behind, the remaining Kokos jog forward with their AK-47s, ready to fire.
Pion realizes that even if Tena wins the race, she loses. Too many Kokos with too many weapons. Pion immediately dispatches every WASP and every DOG she has. She only hopes they arrive in time.
Her lungs burning. Her heart pounding. Tena leaps onto the HAWK and clutches it tight. It is much larger and heavier than she expected. At more than half her size, she struggles to drag it across the stun-mine field. She has no chance.
Boom! Bam! The two Koko boys leap on top of her. Punching her and yanking her, the two boys fight to pry her loose. They jerk her hair. They claw her. One boy smashes his fist into her temple, then bites her ear. Screaming in pain, she locks her eyes shut, hugging the HAWK tighter.
Finally, Pion’s WASPs and DOGs arrive. Tena hears the zap of their lasers and the boys’ screams. Another series of zaps and more screams. Simultaneously, the two boys scramble off Tena. Hopping and swatting their arms about wildly, the boys scurry back toward the other Kokos with four WASPs chasing them.
One foot seems like a mile. Tena drags and wrestles the HAWK inch by inch across the stun-mine field. Bleeding, battered and bruised, she finally scoots into the SPEA buffer zone. She rolls off of it and lies exhausted on her back, gasping for air. As she drifts into unconsciousness, she listens to the loud screams and curses of Kokos being stung and burned. Pion has them on the run. She drifts away with a small smile.
Tena’s oblivion does not last long. Pains in her ribs and her head jar her awake as she is rolled into the retrieval robodrone and whisked away to the plantation. Safe inside the robodrone, she blacks out again.
With Tena and her HAWK secure inside the plantation, Pion concentrates on pursuing and scattering the Kokos. Charging after them with her WASPs and DOGs, she chases them back to the outskirts of Tena’s burned village. But there she halts. The village is theirs. There they are safe for now. Pion will not disturb its exorcised and blessed sanctity.