Needless to say, he soon developed an infamous reputation, which was anything but unexpected or discouraged considering the e-book's content and the zeitgeist of the times; as a result, his work was often lambasted and targeted by aggressive conservatives, angered by what they saw as being puerile anti-establishmentarianism. Actively seeking out negative attention as an opportunity for promotion, exposure to it also served to toughen him up and prepare him for a range of ways of being attacked, yet he still found that he had a threshold of tolerance that was being gradually whittled away at by the near-constant bombardment.
What follows is an extract from his only New York interview:
Interviewer: What makes you think people will believe what you say about your supposed past and the things that have happened around you? I mean, they're pretty extreme stories. And it might sound like you just intend to shock.
Ikaros: Readers don't have to believe it. I didn't write it under the delusion that people would just believe every word I wrote without any doubt about their veracity. It's not something I can control, anyway, so that can't be the point, can it? All I can do is write the best I can and hope that it will occasionally be appreciated for what it is. Anyway, I think the book works whether the things happened or not. That's the point: the ideas and the narrative have their own validity whether they're factually based or not because much of it is theoretical, which can be adapted to people's own circumstances as they see fit.
Interviewer: Well, that's a bit of a cop out, isn't it? I mean, with all due respect, Ikaros, some people consider the truth and the way you present yourself to be more than just a narrative curiosity, particularly when you're supposed to have written your 'memoirs,' of all things.
Ikaros: It extends way beyond just that, though: it's a kind of world systems analysis, a critique of cultures, and a theoretical discussion regarding our agency and potential. Anyway, I didn't say it was just a 'narrative curiosity' or that it didn't happen.
Interviewer: But whether these things happened or not is part of the issue, isn't it? Moreover, as far as your claim to it being 'theoretical' is concerned, isn't the book really just a thinly veiled treatise on killing and ultra-violence: an injunction to do so indiscriminately with a complete lack of regard for the law wherever you are?
Ikaros: That's just ridiculous … and completely simplistic and reductionist. 'Injunction' and 'indiscriminate killing' … these are extremely strong words, and they didn't get used in the text at all, and there's no equivalent meaning in there either, as far as I'm concerned. Also, I've been on tour for a while now, visiting a large number of countries, and I've as yet to kill anybody, let alone commit an offense of any kind apart from jaywalking.
Interviewer: Well, I don't know that. More importantly, I wouldn't have expected you to have used those exact words, anyway. You simply needn't have stated it directly in order for it to be clearly represented, although it may well have been honest if you had; you implied them indirectly and in an underhanded and manipulative way, which is something that would come across clearly to any reader. Isn't it just an attempt at subversive writing that ultimately fails by being too transparent in its commitments and awkwardly simplistic?
Ikaros: Look … what are you talking about?! It's not like I didn't expect this to go badly; I mean, I am an easy target. I know it. But screw you for taking the opportunity rather than being bold enough to discuss the events and ideas seriously. We're never gonna get to the content, are we?
Interviewer: I thought we've been discussing the content. And, yes, you're right: you are an easy target and you need to be exposed. This book is …
Ikaros: Shut the hell up! This interview is over! It's fools like you who'll never understand the seriousness of the situation we're in right now. You've got no capacity for anything close to real thought or comprehension; otherwise, if you do understand, and you're still talking to me like this, you're just a pathetic tool.
Interviewer: That's cheap. Just because I have a different perspective to you, I don't or can't have a legitimate understanding …
Ikaros: Look, dude … ah, screw it! Have it your way. There's no point in talking to a nutcase like you. Do and say what you want. Time will tell.
Interviewer: Yes, yes, it will.
Following the abrupt end to their conversation, Ikaros immediately got up, harshly discarded a twenty-dollar note on the table and headed towards the exit of the café while most of the other customers and staff either watched in silence or giggled and sniggered softly to each other, no one really knowing what to make of him and his sudden and loud aggressive outburst. By the time the manager came out from the back to take control, it was too late; Ikaros had already gone.
When published, a number of carefully chosen extracts of the transcript were preceded and followed by an analysis that attempted to dissuade readers from being enticed by Ikaros's extreme perspective, which was nevertheless full of misinterpretations, over-simplifications, and over-exaggerations; further, readers were urged to view his rhetoric as being dangerous to the stability of society and all the forces that are attempting to achieve progress. Unsurprisingly, the comments from readers that made it through moderation were overwhelmingly supportive of the journalist's position, although this was partly a result of censorship and fabrication; there were only a small minority of comments opposed to the authorised view, but, for the sake of appearances, only the mildest were approved.
It was increasing opposition like this that gained strength and dominance as Ikaros moved further into the limelight, overwhelming and vastly outnumbering the niche-based supporters he managed to pick up along the way. With a certain degree of relief, Ikaros's commitment to the direction he was heading with his marketing and media presence was dramatically altered on the US6 leg of the tour due to his meeting with Henry 38 in Houston; immediately abandoning the tour, he also withdrew from the public eye by cancelling all further promotion, preferring instead to allow his book to take its natural course in the charts. Despite this neglect of it, however, the foothold that he had created, mixed with the effect of his other activities in the years that followed, enabled the book to continue to be circulated, eventually becoming a cult classic and revered by many who were sympathetic with what Ikaros was communicating in it — the requirements for people to become effective change agents who were fit to make use of available resources in an ambitious and determined manner while understanding and rejecting the preponderance of prevailing forces that were attempting to control action and gain consent to the ultimate determinant of just about everyone.
• • •
Early July: 8:05 a.m.
A few days ago, Ikaros started editing the first draft, which took him nearly seven months to write; throughout this time, although he's had some trouble maintaining motivation and getting enough sleep, he's generally been in good spirits. He now lies in bed half asleep as Sascha gets dressed quietly; she wants to get to university to meet with her supervising professor about handing in her thesis, which she's been trying to complete for the past eighteen months.
Ikaros rolls over and pulls himself up in the bed, leans across, grabs the remote control and turns on the TV hanging on the wall beyond the end of the bed. The morning news is in the middle of covering some run-of-the-mill, domestic political issue that neither of them pays much attention to; however, as Ikaros arranges the pillows behind his head, he notices that the next report is covering the emerging situation in an African country but misses the name even though it sounds similar in English. Despite being unable to understand the vast majority of what's said, he readily grasps from the images and his expectations based on basic background knowledge that the situation has been deteriorating and becoming increasingly violent.
"Ethnic cleansing … again?" asks Ikaros exhaustedly. "Where did they say it was?"
"Demokratische Republik Kongo," replies Sascha automatically as she watches intently and does up her shoelaces without looking.
"Demokratische?!" s
niggers Ikaros as he suddenly finds sleep more compelling; he slides back and pulls the covers up over his head, quickly falling back to sleep.
He wakes up nearly three hours later — which is quite late even for him recently — and finds the TV has been turned off, evidently by Sascha before she left hours earlier. He gets up to make himself what he plans to be the first of several strong cups of coffee.
Several minutes later
Standing in front of the toaster and looking down into it, waiting for the raisin bread to turn the particular shade of brown he likes, he sips at a coffee and considers what he'll edit for the day.
The front door bursts open and is quickly slammed shut.
He wonders what the time is, looks up at the wall clock, and realises that Sascha should probably still be at university. Not allowing himself to be too distracted from his task, he only glances at the entrance to the kitchen a few times in anticipation before Sascha walks in briskly and stands by his side. "What's going on?" he mutters.
She grins widely and grabs him round the waist. "We're going on a trip."
"We are? Where to this time?!"
"Africa!" She lets him go and heads for the door.
"What? What about your work?"
"I got a couple of weeks off."
"Really? Now?"
"Come on! We have to pack." She disappears into the corridor.
Ikaros looks back at the toaster. "What are we going to Africa for?" he mumbles to himself. He presses the automatic release button and grabs the two pieces of toast as they shoot out, puts them on a plate and starts to cover them with a large amount of butter, his thoughts already returning to Africa, accompanied by a feeling like he was just there yesterday.
Chapter 14
Six days later
Shifting quickly through the gears of their newly acquired, antique, four-door Jeep, Ikaros accelerates as he rounds a corner of a dirt road leading east towards the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
• • •
After civil war broke out again three months earlier, ethnic minorities began being targeted by the regime's forces in an attempt to deal with potential resistant elements before they became a problem. Those who were labelled traitors to a united nation were supposed to have been selected for their involvement in, or association with, the Counter-Revolutionary Guerrilla Army and its supporting organs, but they were conspicuously ethnic minorities; the purge soon extended by way of a looser moniker, 'potential revolutionary,' which conveniently allowed the military to terrorise the nation by random selection and making their way through chains of association, sometimes extremely loose ones that included relatives, friends, neighbours and, on a couple of infamous occasions, entire villages — a long-standing, revered strategy that had been enthusiastically employed with impunity on many occasions in recent history.
The rapidity of this escalation of violence caught the international community predictably unprepared; regardless, even once they had a good indication of the likely extent of the violence and its eventual course, already being over-extended, the world community just watched the few images and listened to the scant pieces of information that made it to the world's media and competed amid the plethora of other horrors from elsewhere.
Disturbingly, being just one in a long series and a portent of what was to come, the brutality of this incident in particular incentivised the creation and institution of what was called the 'Mandate of Critical Observation,' a resolution passed by the United Nations Committee of International Intervention to aid in the defining of the limits of involvement in an increasingly chaotic and devastating global situation that was nothing but utterly desperate, unrelenting and merciless. Factoring in economic and political constraints and weighing them up with a detailed ethical and social responsibility equation — for the production of which they graciously put together a panel of respected scholars and thinkers — the means by which to legitimise the criteria for withdrawal from, and non-intervention in, any social crisis that may be faced by any country around the world was finally given the stamp of approval eighteen months after the events in the Congo began, essentially providing the world community with 'moral' criteria that allowed them to do as they pleased and save face in the process. As a perfunctory provision, the mandate stipulated the need for aggressive diplomatic relations to be made when and where feasible.
Over the following three years, this mandate saw the rationalisation of the unnecessary deaths of nearly one hundred million people; as a consequence of the broad-sweeping consensus that it had, these deaths went almost unnoticed and uncriticised, except by a few fringe reporters who managed to have their articles published and some of their photos and videos posted in low-distribution online newspapers and other media and social networking sites, getting lost in the noise along the way. The popular media, in contrast, generally avoided this type of critical reporting of the policies and actions of governments and the international institutions because they were seen by the ‘insider classes,’ particularly the large stakeholders, as generally being in the best interests of those who mattered.
• • •
Unperturbed by the complete absence of law and order, no international presence, and the evident threat to their own welfare, Sascha and Ikaros observe their surroundings carefully as they race along the main road towards a town located nearly forty minutes' drive from the border, a town they decided on because of the clean and straightforward road that leads to it. They're already struck by the quietness of the countryside, the random clusters of burnt-out houses, and, not least of all, the number of bloody and decaying corpses lying strewn on the roadside — those who attempted to flee the country but failed, no doubt. Sascha and Ikaros keep their eyes peeled for any signs of human life, but see none.
They finally enter the edge of the town and drive cautiously towards its centre. Nearly all the buildings in the main street have been burnt and razed to the ground, leaving only the charred remains of a few brick and stone walls of the relatively more advanced structures among them that once stood there. Noticing that it seems to be entirely deserted, they decide to drive down a side street and take a bit more of a look before moving on to the next town on their shortlist. After driving around for a few more minutes, Ikaros stops the Jeep and looks out his side window with curiosity. "Did you hear that?"
Sascha scans the area he's referring to. "No, what was it?"
"Don't know." He pulls the hand brake on, turns the engine off, and they both step out of the vehicle and walk towards the group of dilapidated and only partially burnt houses across the street.
As they enter one, they scan the front rooms as they head towards the kitchen at the back; a sharp scrape comes from under a table and a little boy who can't be aged more than four years jumps to his feet and darts across the room to the front door. Without saying anything, Sascha and Ikaros give chase as the boy exits the building, skilfully slamming the door shut behind him without slowing down.
Outside it's harder for him to hide; once Ikaros jumps down the veranda and sprints freely after him, it's only a matter of seconds before the child is scooped up into the air, arms and legs flaying about with a wildness and determination that catches Ikaros off guard. Coming quickly to a halt, Ikaros holds him as firmly as he can while the boy kicks and screams, writhing vigorously around in his arms. Sascha catches up with them and together they try to calm the boy down. Sascha grabs his face with both hands and forces him to look into her eyes as she kneels in the dirt and says softly, "It's okay, baby. It's okay. We're not going to hurt you."
Hearing the genuineness in her tone and being comforted by her manner, the boy begins to calm down; within a minute, he stands staring into her eyes, breathing steadily and relatively composed.
Ikaros decides to let go of him, confident that he won't run away again. He then kneels down next to Sascha and pats him on the back. "What's your name?"
The boy just stands silently.
"Do you speak Engli
sh, baby?" whispers Sascha, knowing it's unlikely given the devolution of the social conditions that took place long before his birth.
Again, the boy just stands quietly staring at her blankly; then, in his native tongue, he says, "I'm the only one left," which is all that he can bring himself to say regarding his situation and what happened there. He omits how he survived over the past eight days by scavenging leftover food and drink from a few warm fridges and cupboards. He also refuses to recollect what happened when the junta rolled into town: he was directed by his parents to hide under the floorboards of their house, where he had to lie silently while his mother and father were later beaten and gruesomely hacked to death with machetes; their agonising screams could be heard out on the street, and thus were piercingly loud for their son face down in the dirt below, trying desperately not even to whimper; he stayed there without so much as moving until the thickening smoke and the approaching flames of the burning house forced him to crawl out and into the nearby sewage ditch, lying amongst the cover of the reeds until the cacophonous din of those few hours gave way to the low-level crackling of burning embers and the chirping of thousands of crickets as the evening set in.
Ikaros and Sascha don't need the boy's defeated tone and miserable countenance to give them an indication of what preceded their arrival, but they are nevertheless affected by it and do their best to hold back tears.
Ikaros takes a quick and steady breath to maintain control. "Let's get out of here," he suggests as he looks nervously down the street.
Sascha nods and as Ikaros starts to stand, she says to the boy, "We've gotta get you out of here. Do you want to come with us?" She places her hand on his shoulder and he examines the unfamiliar but gentle way she uses her mouth when speaking. Sascha points to the Jeep to guide his attention and stands up to make the suggestion more obvious.
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