Awake the Future

by Steven Lalevich

  So about a week ago, after we had the plan set and ready to execute, we traveled from our safe house to the Corporation’s compound in the Swiss Alps, where world leaders frequently meet. Since no meetings were currently taking place, according to the intel Adrienne obtained through her sources, the security team was operating at lower capacity. However, this still wasn’t going to be an easy mission. There would be armed guards at the gate of the compound, as well as security personnel stationed on the roof and throughout the corridors of the buildings.

  Of course, I had never infiltrated any compounds in my life, other than in the occasional video game, so I had no idea what I was getting myself into. On paper, the plan was easy enough and relied mostly on Adrienne’s skill and expertise, but as you know, things don’t always go according to plan.

  In the days leading up to our travels, Adrienne and I went out to a secluded forest, so I could get some practice using a gun. Even though our plan didn’t require me to use it, Adrienne insisted I have some basic skills with the handgun she gave me, just in case the unexpected occurred.

  While we were out there, Adrienne told me something that hit me hard. She said, “Adam, you’re too nice.”

  I’ve been told many times before that I’m a nice guy, but I always took it as a compliment. I see now how being nice can be more of a vice than a virtue. People think being nice and being good are synonymous, but they’re not. There are times when being good requires one to not be nice, especially when faced with something that is the opposite of good, something evil.

  In my old life, before receiving that first letter from Edgar, I lived in a world that rewarded being nice. It rewarded following the rules and doing what was expected. I always heeded those expectations, listening to the teacher in school, following orders at work, and so on. All these behaviors lined up with my worldview, one in which the world rewarded those who followed the rules. In my mind, the only way society could function was to follow the established order. Defying the rules only led to chaos.

  I still believe that following the rules is generally a good thing to do; however, there are times when the rules need to be broken. Someone who is too nice may not have the courage to stand up and break the rules when necessary. Niceness can therefore become a burden that holds one back from doing what is right.

  When Adrienne said I was too nice, it was like a punch to the gut. I realized, in that moment, my identity as a nice guy was wrong. I realized I needed to become a better version of myself, a version that has the courage and strength to break the rules when necessary. I needed to shed the part of me that felt obligated to follow the rules. I needed to shed the part of me that was afraid to break the rules. In that moment, I realized, if I was going to accomplish what I needed to accomplish, I could no longer do only what I was told.

  As hard a realization that was, it’s even harder to implement. I feel like I have another side of me within myself that I’ve never let out. There’s a part of me that has no problem going down his own path, regardless of what rules he breaks. He’s in me. It’s just that I’ve kept him locked up my whole life. It’s like a muscle that has atrophied from disuse. I need to exercise this defiant side of myself in order to do what I need to do.

  I can’t help but wonder how different my life would have been had I not shut away that side of myself. It would have been more difficult to restrain that side, using it only at the right times, as opposed to just locking him up and throwing away the key, but I think I could have found the right balance. I think I can still find that balance, at least with some practice.

  There are times in our lives when we have to reject the rules and convention. The way that everyone else is doing it, the way that everyone expects you to do it, isn’t always the best way to do something. But you had better be right when you choose to let that defiant side of yourself out of its cage. If you’re not smart about why and when you do that, well, I guess that’s how people end up in prison or worse.

  I admire Adrienne for having cultivated that dark side of herself. She has trusted that primal instinct, and it’s helped her to overcome adversity throughout her life. But Adrienne has also been calculating in deciding when to let that side of herself out. She doesn’t run around like some impulsive person, defying rules just to defy them. She picks her spots, and when the time is right, she doesn’t hesitate to do what needs to be done.

  “Can you help me bring out that side of myself?” I asked her.

  She said, “Try to change how you think about yourself. Try to view yourself as someone who has the capacity to do damage. If you only view yourself as a nice guy, then you’re viewing yourself as a harmless individual. You can still be nice when it is justified, but it’s a greater virtue to be nice by choice than it is to be a harmless individual who has no other capacity.”

  I think she’s right, and I’ve been working on changing my perspective. There are many instances when the easy thing to do is just be nice and carry on, but I now understand where that could lead. It could lead to me being further taken advantage of, or worse, the world around me could fall apart. If I’m okay with just tolerating small evils in the world, others may follow suit, and things might spiral out of control as those small evils multiply over time. This may be part of what led to the world Edgar described in his first letter.

  I appreciate that Adrienne brought these things to light for me, and I’m grateful to have her in my life as an example of how to take action when being nice is not the right approach. It will take time to develop that capacity within myself, but I think I’ll get there.

  Despite my training with Adrienne and going over the plan countless times, I felt ill-prepared for the mission. I felt secure knowing I would be accompanied by a skilled assassin, but you never know about these things. Everything that happened after the moment we landed in Switzerland is still kind of a blur.

  Adrienne has many contacts throughout the world, and we met one in the city, who gave us a car that included a weapons cache in the trunk. When he popped the trunk, and I saw the arsenal, I felt a little better about our chances. Adrienne was unfazed by it all, and simply said, “That’ll do.”

  From there, we drove to a small town in the foothills of the Alps, which was about an hour drive away from the compound. There, we got something to eat and waited until nightfall.

  That night, we drove toward the compound and parked our car off a side road a few miles away. We hiked through a forested area until we reached the high fence surrounding the perimeter. Near the fence, there was a high hill among the trees. My job was to go to the top of the hill and obtain a position that allowed me a good view of the compound through binoculars. I would be Adrienne’s lookout and, using our comms, I would help her get inside without being seen.

  Everything went according to plan as Adrienne climbed the fence and approached the compound. She first went to the utility station, where she cut power to the main building. I then directed her to an entry point away from the guards. She entered through a ground floor window after using a cutting tool to pierce the glass and reaching in to unlock the latch.

  I was glad she made it in without being seen, but the next part was more difficult, as I had to wait without knowing what was going on inside. Adrienne told me it could take up to 15 minutes to get to the central file storage area, find the files, and then make it back out without being seen.

  I noted the time when she slipped through the window. It was 11:17 p.m. When 11:32 came and passed, I started to panic. That’s when I heard the gunshots. They were intermittent and lasted about 60 seconds. Then nothing. It was almost midnight and all was silent.

  The only conclusions I could draw were that Adrienne had either been shot or captured. In our contingency planning, Adrienne told me that under no circumstances was I to enter the compound. She told me if she didn’t come out within 30 minutes, I should call the number for the contact who gave us the car and the weapons, let him know what happened, and he would take
it from there.

  I didn’t do that. I couldn’t just make a phone call and hope for the best. I had to do something. It wasn’t time to follow the rules. It was time to save my soulmate.

  About ten after midnight, the power to the facility was restored. A light turned on in the same room where Adrienne entered through the window, and I could see her sitting there tied to a chair. Someone was with her in the room, but after the power came back on, he left and closed the door. It looked like a clear path through the lawn to the room. If I could just open the same window and free Adrienne, we could get back out before anyone found us. Despite her firm objections to me entering the compound, I scaled the wall and made my way toward the building.

  I made it to the window, opened it, and climbed through. When Adrienne saw me, she forcefully whispered, “Get out!” That’s when it hit me. It was a trap. They knew I was outside and were trying to draw me in.

  Before I could make a move, the door opened and three men pointed their guns at me. They told me to drop my weapon and sit down. I had no choice but to do what they said. Adrienne’s premonition was coming true.

  After they tied me to another chair, they went back out into the corridor. I could hear one of them talking with someone on the phone about what to do next. Whatever they were told, they agreed to it and came back in, untied us, and escorted us downstairs to a basement conference room. They shoved us in and locked the door behind us, providing no further details about what they planned to do with us.

  Inside the locked room, Adrienne scolded me. “You shouldn’t have come for me,” she said. “You should’ve just made the call as we planned.”

  With my adrenaline still pumping, I said, “You think I’m just going to stand around and let you get hurt?”

  “Yes,” she said, “that’s exactly what you were supposed to do. There was no reason for you to enter the compound and risk your life.”

  “You’re the reason to risk my life,” I said. “You are worth that risk.”

  Adrienne shook her head. “No, I never want you to risk yourself for me. I know how to take care of myself. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if anything happened to you.”

  “Look,” I said, “I chose to defy the rules. I chose to come for you. Whatever is going to happen to me, I take full responsibility for it.”

  “We can talk about this later,” she said. “Let’s just try to find a way out of here.”

  Adrienne said they would probably keep us in there until morning, so we had at least a few hours. She examined the door lock to see if there might be a way to get it open. As she worked on the lock, I explored the room.

  In the room, there was a large wooden conference table and eight wooden chairs around it. There was nothing on the walls. An empty cabinet stood in the corner opposite the door. I knocked on the walls to try to figure out if there might be a way of breaking through into the next room. Two of the walls seemed to be thin enough that we could break off the chair legs and use them to break through the plaster. I told Adrienne and she agreed.

  Working together, we broke off the chair legs and used them as pick axes to break through a portion of the wall near the cabinet and opposite the door.

  No one else must have been in the basement at the time, or else they certainly would have heard us in our demolition. It only took a few minutes to create a hole big enough for us to slip through and into the darkness of the next room. From there, we used Adrienne’s flashlight to navigate back to the main floor. I thought we would head toward the exit, but Adrienne turned toward the central part of the building and led us toward the file room.

  We got there without issue. Adrienne knew their filing system and where to find what we were looking for. It only took a few minutes before she found the files and shoved them into the front of her jacket. Then it was time to get out of there.

  Adrienne led us to a large garage where multiple vehicles were parked. She grabbed a set of keys hanging on the wall and pressed the unlock button. The lights on a black SUV flashed. We got in, pressed the garage door button, and drove down the path toward the gate of the walled compound.

  As we neared the gate, the two armed men at the guard station approached the vehicle, one on the driver’s side and the other on my side. I looked at Adrienne. We didn’t have a way to open the gate from inside the vehicle. It could only be opened from the guard station. Adrienne had no choice but to roll down her window. When she did, the guard pointed his gun at her. The next thing I knew, Adrienne had his gun in her hand, shot through the passenger-side window and killed the guard standing there. She then turned back to the disarmed guard at the driver-side window and said, “Open the gate.” He did, and we were off.

  Adrienne drove the SUV like a racecar through the winding mountain roads, past where we parked our car, past the small town where we had dinner, and back into the city. We abandoned the SUV in a parking garage, headed straight for the airport and caught the next flight back.

  On the plane, Adrienne told me the events at the compound played out exactly as they had appeared in her dream. She was angry at herself for not taking the dream more seriously. She blamed herself for putting me at risk. I told her she did everything she could in the planning, and it was I who put myself at risk in deciding to go in after her. I told her it was my burden to bear, not hers. She then turned to me and said, “Thank you for coming for me, but please don’t ever do that again.” She then nodded off and slept the rest of the flight, but my heart was still racing from the events that had just transpired. I guess she was used to it.

  The next day, back at the safe house, we examined the files. They were mostly bank transfer documents, including account numbers. These documents provide definitive proof of collusion between world governments and also tie many other organizations to the actions of the Corporation. They show who’s really pulling the strings in world affairs.

  Even though we now have proof of collusion between the Corporation, governments, and other organizations, we didn’t get the smoking gun we were hoping for. None of the documents mention specific names of individuals. We were hoping to obtain the names of the board members and the names of individuals within governments to tie these pieces together. There likely isn’t much of a paper trail connecting back to individuals, but the bank transfers might be our best chance of finding that proof.

  It won’t be easy to connect the bank account numbers to specific individuals, though. There’s a good chance that most of them are shell bank accounts without any way of linking the account to an actual person. Some of the accounts, however, seem to be legitimate—namely the accounts associated with smaller payments. These accounts are likely those connected with individual scientists and journalists participating in the Corporation’s propaganda campaigns. If we can identify these individuals, then maybe we can trace our way up the chain to the top. It’s a long shot and might lead to a dead end.

  Adrienne remains uneasy around the safe house. She hates the fact that she is running out of options to bring down the Corporation. She wants more than anything to rectify the harm she has caused. She often has nightmares in which she re-experiences her assassinations. She says that in these nightmares she is both the killer and the killed. She sees herself as the assassin while also standing in place of her victims. The nightmares seem to be her mind’s way of trying to carry the burden of both parties.

  Last night, I awoke to what I thought was another one of Adrienne’s nightmares, only this time I saw her get out of bed and walk into the living room. I followed her. What happened next was quite surreal, but I’ve grown accustomed to the unexpected lately.

  It wasn’t Adrienne in the living room. It was Edgar’s wife, Rhona, in Adrienne’s body. Rhona told me that Edgar had been taken a few days ago in her world. She said he gave her the letters to share in case anything happened to him.

  I gave her some paper and a pen to write the letter, which she had memorized. After writing the letter, we sat toge
ther and talked for a few minutes.

  She said, “I can see Edgar in your eyes,” and then she started to cry.

  I said, “Because you came back to write this letter, the future you return to will change. Maybe Edgar will be back in your world, or maybe he will have never been taken to begin with.”

  “I hope you’re right,” she said.

  “It’s so strange talking to you in Adrienne’s body,” I said.

  “How are things going between the two of you?” she asked.

  “Honestly, not so great,” I said.

  Rhona took my hand. “Whether she admits it or not, she needs you. Don’t give up on her,” she said, squeezing my hand.

  After we said our goodbyes, Rhona went back to the bedroom to lie down so she could depart from Adrienne’s body. I stayed up and read the letter before returning to bed.

  This is the letter from my future self, Edgar, memorized and written by his wife, Rhona, through the body of my soulmate, Adrienne:

  Dear Adam,

  The next ritual is the earth ritual. Much like we receive energy from the sun, we can also obtain important energy from the earth. In order to effectively receive that earth energy, you must be connected to the earth directly. This means having your feet or other body parts in direct contact with the earth’s surface. Rubber-soled shoes and other non-conductive materials prevent the body from achieving this connection.

  The energies from the sun and the earth work together to charge the human body. The body is able to absorb and utilize more photonic energy from the sun when it is connected to the earth. In order to have a balanced body and mind, we need both the sun energy and the earth energy within us.

  The energy of the earth also connects us with each other. When you are connected to the earth, you are connected to every other plant, animal, and human who is also connected to the earth. The earth ritual is not a solo act. It is a uniting force that brings us together. It connects us both with nature and with humanity.