“Thanks,” Baltor answered, just before he placed all the objects into his coat pocket. “One more question, sir.”
“Yes?”
“Why is it you’re allowing me to go do whatever I want for the next week?”
After chuckling for a few seconds, Trendon answered, “As always…very good question. The answer is this: you’ve already proven your ability to master an entire world on your own once before, so I trust you that you will keep all classified information ‘classified.’ At the same time, now is the time to demonstrate your ability to just kick back and have fun in this strange, new world—I can already feel your eagerness to explore. So, good night.”
“Good night, sir,” Baltor said with a nod. In turn, Trendon turned around, walked toward the door that led into the living room, and closed the door behind him.
Meanwhile, Baltor gazed all around the room, trying to decide what he wanted to do first. Seeing the 3-D video game system for the second time, he sat down into one of the plush leather seats, set his hat down onto the table, and picked up the goggles/headgear. Looking down at the console, he saw a joystick, as well an on/off switch and a volume switch—he flipped the first switch, just before picking up the joystick and putting on the headgear.
In the next moment, a video screen popped up inside his goggles, which not revealed a crisp picture of the 3-D great white shark that was surrounded above and below by the words, “Shark Entertainment,” yet at the same time did he hear the sounds of air whooshing and water splashing—already was Baltor in total amazement!
Five seconds later, a large menu popped up that revealed all fifty names of the games, and a moving mini-picture that revealed exactly what each game was like in twenty second bursts—even though almost every single title seemed “entertaining,” he could not help but click on the game called, “Secret Assassin!”
In the next moment, the name of the title multiplied, until it encompassed the entire screen—a second later, a deep gonging sound occurred, before the screen faded quick to black.
Once that gonging sound had slowly ended, a 3-D story began to play, filled with stunning visuals and excellent narration. The narrator briefed about the ancient story of a young orphaned boy forced to steal food from vendors in order to survive, and now, this boy needed to steal that food without “getting caught.” Had the graphics been not so “freaking amazing,” Baltor would have played a different game.
Three hours later, without having died or failed once, he finally graduated the assassins’ training guild using a wide variety of weapons, and was sent on his first mission by the guild to murder a visiting diplomat, Ambassador Maroth.
Along the way to the palace, he had to sneak through the shadows and beyond the throngs of poor peasants and obnoxious guards, and he discovered with surprise that he could even hide in the back of a wagon filled with hay, or scale walls of all types whenever the guards got too near. As he discovered the second time trying to hide in the same wagon, he could hide there but one time, as two guards not only yanked his body by the legs out of the hay, just before demanding to see his papers with swords drawn.
However, as his assassin did not have any ID, the guards came in for the attack—all the while, Baltor looked around through the goggles, waving and jabbing the joystick around in the air as if it was a very sharp, foot-long dagger, which was the only weapon he had earned.
After killing both guards without receiving “a scratch,” he tried to pick up one of their weapons but failed. He only them remembered as his assassin-instructor had earlier revealed to him, “Many powerful magical weapons exist, and can be acquired, but only through the Guild! In other words, you cannot use anybody else’s weapons.”
Soon after this battle, he arrived at the heavy-guarded and booby-trapped palace of Ambassador Maroth—and after sneaking by all the guards and booby traps, he assassinated the man in his sleep.
Many-many more hours passed as the videogame steadily progressed with ever increasing intensity, yet never once did Baltor die—despite the six fierce battles against hundreds of guards he had to face so far, and the three targets he had so far assassinated in their sleep.
Just after having completed his forth mission, two hours before sunrise in the game and in real life, Baltor meets another assassin in the Guild named Media.
Without haste, Media pleads—on hands and knees—for his help with her first assignment from the Guild, as they’ve ordered her to assassinate the President of Lo’thorium. She believes that the Guild is sending her on this mission, because they really want her to fail and die in the end. This is why Baltor, in the game, agrees to help her, though he could have chosen to say “no…”
After two major skirmishes along the way, thanks to her getting “caught by the authorities” because she wasn’t paying attention, they made it to the palace.
In the final confrontation that occurs once they have passed the legion of guards and into the president’s bedroom, they see that the man himself is sleeping alone in his bed. Instead of Media executing the president, however, she turns the dagger on Baltor—at the same time, hundreds of guards have just begun entering the room and surrounding the two.
Then and there, Media revealed, “Oh don’t think that we weren’t prepared for you to strike at us, Secret Assassin… We know that it is you who assassinated the other three political figures—I don’t need to say their names…you know very well who they are. Guards—kill him!”
Even though Baltor—in the video game—was successfully able to avoid the guards who came at him with swinging swords, he made only one mistake by putting his back toward Media for even a second. In that moment, she leapt at him, stabbing him deep in the back! The screen turned black, before revealing in a very deep man’s voice—“You’ve been assassinated. Game over!’”
A few seconds after the receding sounds of the final gong had sounded, the same voice asked with a lot of curiosity, “Want to play again, Secret Assassin?”
“No,” Baltor replied.
“Come back again…the Assassins Guild awaits to give you your next mission when you are ready.”
Baltor henceforth took off the headgear and set it back down where it belonged. After extending his left hand out, he mentally willed the remote controller to fly into his hand—it did.
Casting his gaze down, he discovered that the remote had exactly four dozen buttons on it, in which about half of the buttons were strange symbols while the other half had a wide variety of options.
The first button to catch his attention read “menu.” As it seemed most logical, he ended up pushing this button. The next option revealed a dozen selections, ranging from television adjustments, to choosing between subcategories like games, movies, television shows and news programs. Baltor chose movies.
On this new menu containing all the different genres of movies, ranging from horror to mystery to fantasy—one of those options read “Sci-Fi.” Curious as to what that term meant, he pushed the appropriate button, which caused still another menu to appear.
The one-hour-and-forty-nine-minute long movie at the very top of the long list read, Them. Because the attached video clip looked interesting, in which it was set in a modern-day era (except for the futuristic aliens that flew in spaceships from another world that came sometime later), this is the movie he selected with the push of a button.
In the next moment, the entire screen turned pitch black, just before the credits rolled in, some folk song began to play, and the movie began….
Once the movie was over, eleven minutes before sunrise, Baltor clicked back to the menu—this time, he decided to choose, “Daily news.”
After pushing the button, he became surprised to discover a massive list of news programs to choose—hundreds. Randomly, he selected one of these programs.
In the next moment, a gorgeous female newscaster with a very thick accent—not anything like the accents of the people around here—reported from behind a large wood desk with a computer monito
r on top. “This is Jeanine Turner with Channel 9 News—the world is shocked to learn about the natural catastrophe that occurred yesterday morning, as another volcano exploded in Iceland’s borders—at 11:15 a.m. This makes the eighth volcano to have erupted in the last two years alone—air travel has been postponed in most of the European countries, and more than forty thousand Americans are now stranded in Europe, lodging in local hotels. Tragically, twenty-two people have died and hundreds were injured from this last eruption—all of them natives from Iceland…
“I know this is not part of the script, folks, but I’m going to say it anyway, as I am a reporter first. In lieu of all the other natural catastrophes going on, including the devastating earthquakes in China, Chile and Haiti, as well the deadly typhoon less than a decade ago that killed nearly one-and-fifty-thousand people in Indonesia, is it not safe to say that something is going very wrong on this planet?”
Without waiting for an answer from anybody, the woman answered, “I think so. I also am beginning to wonder if the ancient Mayans and Egyptians were indeed correct, scientifically and astronomically speaking, that every twenty-six thousand years, our sun enters the gravitational pulls of the black hole located in the center of our galaxy, which catastrophic event will happen in a little over a year now in 2,012. It only makes sense why all this chaos is happening now. The Mayans and Egyptians barely survived the blast, and lived to tell the tale through their megalithic artifacts and their encrypted lingo. 2,012…by their standards of time…is 26,000 years later.”
After taking a quick breath, she added, “Proof of my words can not only be found in very ancient texts and sites, yet by comparing the amount of cataclysmic tragedies, six of them so far since humanity began, which forever altered the course of our entire planet six different times. Consider my words and you will see that we need to consider a plan of evacuating this planet—”
Most unexpectedly to Baltor, the reception stopped and only a black screen popped up—he said aloud, “Hmmm…”
Instead of flipping to another channel, he stood to his feet, set the remote down on the table, and stretched his arms—though it was six o’clock in the morning, he was not tired in the least. In fact, he found himself being “antsy…”
Therefore, he stood out of his seat and threw on his hat, before heading for the living room. After opening the door and entering, he observed that the skies outside are sky blue and without any clouds.
He closed the door behind him, before passing through the living room and arriving at the glass door. Once there, he opened it, noting that the temperatures were in the low-70s. He stepped out onto the roof, shut the door, and began walking toward the ledge while gazing all around.
This beautiful and warm morning possessed not a single cloud in the sky, yet it did possess a sun that had just poked over the eastern horizon. At the same time, he noted that his hotel is located near the middle of a beautiful city filled with a vast array of different and colorful buildings—many of these buildings have cone-shaped peaks and crosses. Although there were a dozen different vapor trails in various stages across the sky, three of those trails directly emanated from the tailpipes of large jets.
After arriving at the railing and leaning his forearms lightly upon it, he looked over the ledge and down to the ground—this city was far busier during the daytime as opposed to the night, as hundreds of people walked down the sidewalks going all different directions and the traffic was incessant.
Perhaps ten seconds later, he cocked just his head and eyes toward the window of the master bedroom, ascertaining that Trendon had closed the metallic walls to his room. Looking back down at the streets below, he used his binocular-vision to look close at the inhabitants—though most of these Earthlings walked here-to-there with nonchalant looks on their faces, the frustration, anger and/or pain could clearly be seen deep inside their eyes…most weren’t happy with his or her life.
Upon stepping back inside the living room, a little more than ten minutes later, Baltor observed—for the very time—a world-globe sitting in the corner. In the next moment, he headed for this object, and once there, he began to look at and study all the countries and major cities of this world.
Once he had this map committed to memory, nearly a minute later, he gazed back outside before thinking to himself, I think I’m going to take an ever closer look at this world and discover the underlying reason for all this unhappiness and despair…through exploration.
After exiting the room and closing the door, he headed for the elevator—once at his destination, he pushed the button and waited for it to arrive, in which it did about a minute later as it made three other stops. He entered and pushed the “1” button, which caused the doors to close.
Just as they had begun opening on the ground floor, forty-five seconds later, the first thing to capture his attention was that Nadia and Reva still stood behind the desk, but now they were quietly chatting with two other attractive, blonde-haired girls who also wore business suits and stood behind that desk.
Once the elevator doors had opened to their fullest, all four girls stopped talking as their eyes locked onto Baltor—one girl’s mouth dropped all the way open upon seeing him, but only for a second! Her eyes, however, continued to look at him all “love struck.”
Feeling a bit uncomfortable from all the attention he was receiving, he cleared his throat twice before exiting out the elevator, performing a right-face, and walking for the front doors. He was moments away from exiting the hotel when he heard one of the girls speed-walking his way, and asking, “Sir? Sir? Can you please hold on a second?”
After performing an about-face, he noted with surprise that the “redhead” was perhaps ten seconds away from arriving at his position…once she had drawn hear, he asked, “Yes, Reva?”
“Umm, sir,” she said in just above a whisper, before looking around real quick. “If my boss hears me say this, I could get fired…but.”
“But?”
“But…me and my friend want to know what you and your friend are up to? And what I really want to know is—what is your name?”
“Well, to answer your last question first, my name is Baltor,” he said in truth. “As for my boss, well, he is exhausted from the long journey as he had to work the entire time, so he is sleeping upstairs.”
“Ohhhh,” she sighed softly. “What are you doing right now?”
He shrugged his shoulders, before answering, “I was going to explore St. Petersburg on my own…why?”
“That sounds fun…mind if Nadia and I tag along? We just got done with our work-shift, and we could even show you the sights of our wonderful city, if you want…yes?”
After chuckling, Baltor said with a grateful smile, “Sure…sounds great! Thank you.”
Without hesitation, Reva whistled one time, using a quiet volume—Nadia was by her side shortly thereafter.
Baltor was “on the ball” as he extended his right hand out and greeted, “Nice to meet you, Nadia. I’m Baltor.”
After the two had briefly shook hands, she released the handshake before responding with a smile, “Very nice to meet you too, Baltor. Let’s go have some fun, yes?”
“Yes.”
Reva said, “Okay guys, well…as we all must be discreet about all of this, Nadia and I shall meet you outside at the front-left corner of the building, in about two minutes.” She pointed her index finger in the appropriate direction for only a second, before jutting her thumb out and over her left shoulder, and explaining, “We have to punch out in the back of the building, before exiting the employee entrance also located in the back.”
“Okay,” he said with a nod, before doing an about-face and casually making his way for the main entrance.
Once outside, he performed a left-face before moseying toward the outside corner—upon arrival at his destination, nearly a minute later, he lightly leaned his back up against the glass wall near the corner of the building, but only because he had already noted that the glass looked clean
. Although it may have seemed that Baltor was doing nothing but loitering, he had in fact begun to read the very thoughts of the pedestrians of all ages as they passed on by.
Overall, nearly one-third of the adults were thinking about how they were going to pay the bills—most in honorable ways. Nearly one-third of them were thinking about their significant other—most in honorable ways. The final third were thinking about his or her family member or members—most in honorable ways.
Perhaps one minute later after his arrival, he peripherally saw Reva and Nadia speed-walking toward his position, and so he stopped leaning against the wall, turned to face them and threw a hearty wave and smile.
Once the girls had arrived with waves and smiles of their own, each stood to one side of Baltor. They next gently turned him around until he faced the other direction—now the same as them. Only then did Reva clasp her hand upon his elbow on his left side, while Nadia did the same on the right.
As they began walking down the street, many of the native men stared at Baltor with envy…a vast majority of the women were staring at him with desire! For some unknown reason to him, neither Reva nor Nadia were in a chatty mood—but he did peripherally observe that they were still smiling.
Two and a half blocks later, Nadia pointed to the corner up ahead on their left, in which there were about a half-dozen white steel tables sitting on the sidewalk, and in which each table had an overhanging rainbow-colored umbrella, before saying, “Let’s go there—it’s an outdoor café called ‘The Coffee Soufflé.’”
“Sounds good,” Baltor replied. Both girls nodded their head.
After they had taken their seats, a late-teenaged girl wearing a waist-apron came up, and asked with a smile, “Good morning to you all…my name is Benzie. How may I help you today?”
Reva answered, “I want a chocolate latte.” She looked over at Baltor and added, “They’re very, very delicious here.”
The War of All Wars Page 32