The Conspiracy Chronicles Boxset 2

by Michael Evans

  It’s been easier when off in my own little world to deal with everything that happened out in society. I’m finally working through the grief of my dad’s death and coming to terms with the fact that Riva is gone along with fourteen million other lives who have died at the hands of the Syndicate. I’m finally dealing with the gaping hole in my heart with Reno gone and the trauma that haunts me every night when I think back to the thousands of dead bodies and endless gunfire during the Charity Tournament massacre.

  I have been trying to get over the guilt instead of letting it fester inside of me, doing my best to become a better man. A man who is more empathetic, more caring, and better able to see the other side of things.

  Well, at least that all sounds nice.

  It’s a great thing to say to Ai for the reason why I haven’t made any major push for us to leave here as the winter frost melted into a chilly spring and spring morphed into a pleasant summer with frequent rains flooding the forest almost every day.

  The cold, dark days of winter where going outside would mark an extreme physical challenge turned to weeks and then months as the time passed by until one day, I looked at my hologlasses in shock at the fact that it is July 6, 2035.

  That day is today.

  I’ve spent seven months in this place.

  The thought scares me. When I think about how quickly the last seven months have gone by, I wonder how much longer it will be until I have already been here for a year, two years, and then a decade.

  But I know that won’t happen.

  I can’t let that happen.

  With each passing day, I can feel the Chinese military closing in on us. My anxiety has only increased as the temperature has gradually increased in the air. Sometimes I can’t sleep at night. Sweat pours down my face as I toss and turn in terror.

  I should feel confident.

  I should feel like I am king of the world with the Chimera Cube in my backpack.

  But I know the truth.

  The Chinese government knows exactly where we are. They only haven’t attacked because they are afraid of me. They know what this is capable of, and they don’t want to destroy the cube all in their mission to destroy me.

  But the second we leave, they will attack.

  And I’m not afraid of them.

  I’m afraid of me.

  I’m afraid of what I will force this thing to do, because if there is anything I have learned over the last seven months, it’s that the Chimera Cube is more powerful than I ever imagined.

  “It’s beautiful out today.” Jake picks a large dark green leaf from a tree and smells it. He breathes the scent of the leaf in and exhales it as he drops the leaf to the floor. He has kept his face clean-shaven throughout our stay in Gyurtog as opposed to letting himself go and having a bushy beard like me.

  “It is.” I struggle to keep up pace with him. He is walking faster than I’ve seen him in months. Most afternoons we are both slow to start down the short few-hundred-meter trail into the woods. We always walk on the path along with the caravan of monks that ascend to the top of the mountain and meditate daily.

  We never go to the summit of the snow-capped rocky mountain with them. Instead, we stop near a rocky stream, that we have declared to be our holy meditating spot, and once they are out of sight, we walk down the side of the river a few hundred yards so that we are out of sight of almost everyone.

  Many times, Jake and I have thought about simply leaving Gyurtog at this point and running off on our own. We could escape without anyone noticing for at least a few hours and have Ai come with us one afternoon.

  But both Jake and I haven’t mustered up the courage to leave. We both have fallen into the comfortable routine of returning to our secluded spot in the wilderness, the shade of the evergreen trees blocking out nearly all sunlight as the rambling brook next to us soothes our minds with its gentle energy.

  The truth is since I have come here, I haven’t dealt with any emotions. All of that would be too much. It’s a myth that once you feel pain, you somehow magically get over it. I know once I let that lever open to all the pain and guilt from my past, it will never stop. No amount of love or happiness can cloud the darkness of the fact that fourteen million people are dead.

  So, I don’t think about it.

  Instead, I focus on the Chimera Cube. I focus on building a world exactly like Zion but a billion times bigger. I focus on dealing with the fact that I have the greatest technology in the known universe, and with that comes the greatest responsibility.

  That’s why I have set out to master it.

  Jake and I slave over the hundreds of pages of patent information and notes each day. We work to memorize each nuance of the cube, understand how its system works, and test out the full capabilities that this wondrous machine has.

  Today is the day we will read the final few pages of the patents and put that information to practice. Each page takes nearly an hour to read, the font so small that thousands upon thousands of words can fit onto a single page.

  The only thing I have left to read is the note my father left for me. It’s about ten handwritten pages that I have not had the courage to look at since I have noticed it.

  I don’t want to know what he has to say in those pages.

  I don’t want to read his final words.

  I’d rather pretend he is still here, enjoying his days in Zion with my mom. Even thinking about reading those few pages now makes me want to burst into tears.

  As curious as I am to read his words, part of me knows that when I read them, it will crush me. He will lay out his noble vision for what the future will be like, and he will tell me that I can get there, that I can do anything, even though he has no idea how any of it will be possible.

  “I can’t believe today is the day we finish.” He skips forward along the rocks lining the river, his voice having an ecstatic quality to it that I haven’t heard in months.

  “Well, as long as the rain doesn’t interrupt,” I respond, confused at why he is so energetic and bubbly. I think about asking him why but refrain from doing so. The more and more I have opened up to Jake and the closer that we have become, the happier he has grown.

  In the beginning, I didn’t let him use the Chimera Cube. I didn’t trust anyone with the knowledge of how to use the technology. Then I thought about it and realized one crucial difference between my dad and me. He had a kid to ensure the legacy of Isaac Savery and the Chimera Cube could live on.

  I don’t have a kid (I’m not the most open guy in the world, but I would never keep a secret that big from you), and frankly having a child at this point of my life sounds like the most horrible idea in the world. I can barely ensure that I am still living. If I had to take care of a kid, it would be just another life added to the list of ones gone too soon.

  Jake is the only insurance I have if something goes wrong with my life, that the Chimera Cube can be continued on.

  His dad knew about it, after all.

  It only seems to be the natural order of things that we continue on their empires. So that’s exactly what we have done.

  I have let myself trust someone fully for the first time in my life. And it’s been the most beautiful thing.

  For a few weeks he convinced me and let me know that he is different from his father. That we would always have each other’s back and stand together as renegades until we have an empire of our own.

  Then I finally broke. I let him in. I decided that I could truly let someone see all of me, even more than Riva, without being afraid that the world will rip him away.

  Because the world might, but it’s better than not having him at all.

  The day I did this, the dynamic between us shifted. The chip Jake had on his shoulder disappeared. We became more than best friends; he became an extension of myself. I became vulnerable with him in ways I have never dared to even be vulnerable with myself, and have shared with him some of my deepest and darkest fears and desires about the Chimera Cube that I had kept
suppressed for the weeks since the technology was first welcomed into my life.

  We became more than just friends. We are now partners forever joined in our mission to make this world ours.

  It’s one of the best connections I have ever felt.

  But I am still the one with the control at the end of the day. My fingerprint is the only one that can open up that bag, and unless some of the world’s best hackers manage to break the security system of the bag, this indestructible thing will never open up unless I declare it to.

  “I have a feeling the rain won’t interrupt at all today. After all, there’s not gonna be any new information on the last few pages. The patent has already detailed how it all works, and we have already been over nearly every command programmed into it in the guidebook. We just have to finalize our plan.” He smiles and sits down on a large rock, the water carving out a smooth hole in its side that forms a perfect seat.

  “Yeah, we do.” I nod and sit down on a log from a large fallen tree across from him. When the sun is high in the sky, sometimes rays of sunlight will shine across my face, giving my body the extra boost of energy it needs to be able to summon the magical powers of the Chimera Cube.

  Each time we test out its response to different commands, seeing what happens if we command it to create lava, or a bear, or any of the other of the tens of thousands of pre-uploaded designs to its database, I have a huge high course through me.

  The act of being able to tell a machine anything you want and having it appear almost instantly is the most intoxicating thing I have ever experienced. It is better than the pleasure from both sex and closing a hundred-thousand-dollar deal by a wide margin.

  “We know we have to control the distribution of this technology. We can’t trust anyone with it,” Jake says, staring off into the distance down the makeshift path we have carved into the wilderness.

  “Right,” I say, agreeing with him. We had fought for weeks over this one issue. I contended that we should make the technology open, as programming with artificial intelligence has been in the past, and put the responsibility on the public for making sure that bad designs aren’t uploaded to the Chimera Cube’s capabilities and that only good things can be produced from it. But deep down inside I know that it would never work. People are too selfish and greedy to have total control of their own personal Chimera Cube. The only thing that would accomplish is morphing the universe into a gray goo as trillions of nanobots convert all the world’s oxygen to gold.

  But more so than that, I contended with him in an effort to convince myself of a different truth, when in reality I agree with him.

  The goal of our plan can’t be to change the world first.

  It has to be to take it over.

  The one thing that keeps me up at night though is wondering what will make me different from everyone else and what, if anything, makes me a better leader than all the others who have failed in the past.

  Part of me is still scared of the challenge. But there is no turning back now. Our plan is ready to move on full steam ahead. Ai already knows about it and so do the leaders of the rén.

  Whenever we say it’s go time, the madness will commence.

  “And we also know that we have to explode the capitol building in Beijing,” Jake continues. “Underneath it is where the hackers from the rén are confident the servers that store Li’s conscious lie, they have even dug a network of tunnels underneath the facility, they just have to pack it to the brim with bombs. And if we can explode them and kill all other senior members of the Party, we can effectively take over the Chinese government.”

  “I agree with you.” I put a hand up, stopping him before he continues on with the next stage of the revolution. “But we have two problems once that happens. First of all, the prevailing philosophy of hundreds of millions in this country is that Li is nothing short of a god. They have been manipulated for decades with his propaganda; how do you suppose we reverse that? And once we take over China, what do we do next? Are we trying to establish a new world order or are we going to let society benefit from the Atomic Precise Manufacturing Revolution before then?”

  “I don’t know.” Jake sighs. We both have yet to answer that one final question. We know how we would run a new republic with the glorious riches brought by the APM Revolution that the papers describe at least a dozen times. We know how we could create a stable society in a world where the notion of time and wealth becoming meaningless with the creation of unlimited life and immortality brought about by medical nanobots in the body. All mental health disorders and addiction would be eliminated. We would live in a utopia, and managing that utopia is something Jake and I could easily do.

  We will be the conduits of power, and the second the people mismanage what we are giving them, we will cut them off. But that doesn’t help us when it comes to figuring out how we transition into that utopia.

  And after searching for answers that make even a little sense, I am starting to believe that there are no answers because it’s impossible.

  And if that’s the case then the Chimera Cube isn’t a tool that can propel us to utopia. It is the one machine that will end humanity.

  “I think we have to focus on taking over the second most populous country on Earth first and after that we can decide what to do next,” Jake says, his tone still ecstatic. Whenever we bring up this part of the plan, the part about the future, he always seems so confident, as if he inherently knows everything will work out.

  “What are you talking about?” I stand up and take a breath of the crisp air. “We have to think about the future before we do anything. We are playing a game of international chess here, and one wrong move could end the world.”

  “No, we have to focus on right here and right now before our window at actually taking down the Party vanishes.” Jake narrows his eyes at me. He has relentlessly pushed me forward, attempting to have me make the call that we have to leave for weeks. “Then we can focus on what to do about the fact that the Syndicate and U.S. government will want to kill us and that we are world leaders at the age of nineteen.”

  “We have to think about this now.” I am speaking with much more passion in my voice, our mini argument heating up into another one of our old disagreements that never seems to be settled. We are looking more like an old married couple who always fights about the same thing and then makes up rather than two boys trying to take over the world. “We have to think about who we could put in place as a puppet leader and how we can keep this technology safe from the world when we will inevitably need to use it to make sure the military doesn’t kill—”

  I was so intensely focused on explaining to Jake what I believe are my rational thoughts that I didn’t even hear the footsteps shuffling through the woods.

  By the time Jake’s eyes focus on a spot behind me, his mouth dropping open, I know something is going on. I clutch the backpack in my hand, making sure it is zipped up.

  Then I lock eyes with the man trotting through the woods, his thick legs wrecking down vines and bushes in his path.

  I know those thick eyebrows, large nose, and short, yet buff build from a mile away.

  It’s Justin from the Syndicate dressed in compression shorts and a dry-fit tee shirt. Being that he’s the one man who I have a semblance of faith in that entire organization, I don’t immediately shit my pants at the sight of him.

  One second later and everything changes.

  He’s holding the barrel of a pistol straight at us.

  Chapter 24

  I wish I had the Chimera Cube produce a pistol so that I can shoot him. It’s too late for that now.

  I can try and run.

  But I won’t get very far. No matter how fast I run, his bullets will catch up to me, and even if his bullets don’t mark the end of my days, I have a feeling that he is not alone.

  Scratch that, I know he is not alone.

  “I’m not here to kill you guys,” Justin says in his trademark affirmative voice that even when saying
a lie coerces one to believe it is true.

  “You are holding up a gun at me. What the fuck do you want me to think?” I retort. I don’t care if he senses that I’m afraid. I have no way to get out of whatever he is forcing us into but to use my words.

  And something tells me from the determined expression on his face that my words mean shit.

  “I’m sorry—” He pauses and looks around in the woods, likely at his fellow members of the brotherhood who are camped out behind trees or in bushes readying to help assault us if needed. “I had to make sure you both wouldn’t try anything.” He lowers the barrel of the gun. He eyes my backpack, and from his rigid expression it is obvious that someone on the council of the Syndicate let him know that we have something dangerous on us.

  We have a weapon that can destroy everything in the world.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Jake stands up from his position seated on the rock, his stance tall and confident. He doesn’t want to run at all, he is ready to fight.

  “Helping you both,” Justin responds, a tiny smile forming on his face. Part of him actually seems excited to be out here in the Tibetan wilderness holding up a gun at two international fugitives who he formerly helped pass a bill through Congress that killed millions.

  “Helping us?” I question, digging the fingers of my right hand into my beard. It has become a nervous habit of mine to scratch underneath the long, curly blond hairs that have grown out of my uneven beard.

  I have convinced myself it looks good when deep down inside I know that I appear more like a creepy lumberjack rather than a strong leader.

  “We want to help you both stop the Chinese government from killing you.” As soon as he says the words, chills run down my spine. I know exactly what rich, powerful, horrible group of people he is talking about when he says we, and it makes me want to puke on him and stab him simultaneously (I promise I don’t have anger issues). “We want to help you topple the Party and take this country over.”