The Conspiracy Chronicles Boxset 2

by Michael Evans

  Chapter 1

  The city is burning down.

  In any other city in the world, a scene like this would spark the arrival of hundreds of emergency responder vehicles, sirens blasting through the night sky, and thousands of people on the streets, running for their lives.

  Not in this one.

  We are in Urumqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang province in China, and the former epicenter of a genocide that wiped out tens of millions of Uyghur people. The genocide took place roughly fifteen years ago, leaving every building in this city abandoned, nature slowly moving in to reclaim its rightful land.

  For years no one disturbed this city, allowing the network of tens of thousands of cameras and hundreds of drones patrolling the sky to lay waste. These artifacts from the time when the Communist Party suppressed the population living here were nothing more than chilling reminders of a distant time, the spotless windows and untouched interiors of the shops all reminders that this city used to be a bustling metropolis.

  That is until we came around.

  By the night’s end, this city will be nothing but ash. And that’s the least of our problems.

  “Guys, why is no one talking?” Ai says. Her dark black hair is tied in a ponytail behind her head, all of us finally taking off our bullet-proof suits to breathe in some fresh air.

  Well, okay, the air isn’t fresh at all. Although the brisk temperature is refreshing, the amount of toxins and smoke particulates in the air make walking down the city street akin to running a marathon.

  “What is there to talk about?” I say. “Look around, everything is up in flames around us. The Chinese military will be here any minute to try and kill us, not to mention that the Syndicate and United States military aren’t too far behind. We are utterly fucked. Just fucked!”

  I let my last few words echo off the foundation of the skyscrapers on either side of us, my voice only a bit louder than the deafening crackling of the inferno. The buildings themselves pale in size compared to the several-thousand-foot skyscrapers in Beijing and Hong Kong, but the old stone and glass structures are taller than any of the buildings in downtown Urumqi by a significant margin.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Sunshine.” Jake outstretches his hand, his body still coated in the thin, ultra-flexible nanofabric that has the ability to absorb the force of nearly every projectile. He smiles and brushes his sweaty, curly brown hair out of his eyes, somehow managing to make fun of me when our lives and the entire world is on the line.

  “I’m being serious, man,” I respond, ignoring his hand. I take a deep breath, trying to let the anxiety ebb out of me. Instead, I end up coughing due to the large amount of smoke that I inhale.

  My mind is freaking out.

  In fact, I don’t know if it has ever felt this way. I defeated the enemy. We all killed President Li. We won. We are the new leaders of China on everything but paper and are officially one of the most powerful groups of people in the world.

  But now that we finally have the thing we have been chasing for the last seven months of my life, I feel like my purpose is gone. I feel lost. We killed Li. We destroyed the computer servers that house his artificial intelligence self and destroyed the thousands of clones that remained in storage.

  I should be elated.

  We just wiped out one of the most dangerous figures in human history. But all I feel is sadness because in the process we killed a group of people who just wanted justice for their loved ones. In the process, we killed the last remaining Uyghurs. The hundreds of bodies are all dead in the stadium behind the river of dead humanoids, fake blood, and battery acid that litters the city streets for blocks.

  Nothing we do will ever bring them back to life.

  And part of me knows that they don’t deserve to be dead. Even though they were controlling the former President of China in Li Wang, who wasn’t even a real person but instead was a hive mind that controlled a network of tens of thousands of humanoids, they aren’t evil. Even though they led a research project which resulted in an earthquake that killed hundreds of millions and is sending the global economy into disorder, I understand them.

  I know what it’s like to have everything I know and love ripped away from me. I know what it’s like to feel like the whole world is against you. I know the place of darkness where it seems like the only thing that will bring you salvation is revenge.

  The thing is we were wrong.

  I got revenge on Li Wang. All of his people are dead now. But I don’t feel any better. All the same problems of my life are still here, and although one threat to the world is gone, I haven’t even gotten close to wiping the big one out.

  The Syndicate is stronger than ever.

  The Syndicate wants to take over the world.

  And I need to stop them. But I know I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep killing people, while coming one step closer each day to the moment I finally am killed myself.

  I need this to end.

  This cube needs to be destroyed.

  But doing it might take away the one thing that can save the world from the tentacles of an organization hell-bent on strangling every living being under its rule.

  “So, is this it?” Ai asks. “The Syndicate just leaves us out for dead after helping us out and we just watch the city burn?”

  “No. No.” I shake my head and close my eyes as I try to collect all the thoughts whirling inside me. The fact that every minute an explosion-like noise reverberates through the night sky as another building collapses does not make focusing any easier. And looking up to the stars for hope is a pointless task. The night sky is blanketed in a thick layer of smoke that emanates from hundreds of building as the fire continues to spread and swallow this city whole.

  “Dude, are you okay?” Jake asks, putting a hand on my shoulder. He has a calm, warm energy to him, something about his body movements so natural that it makes me uncomfortable.

  “Is that even a question? How could anyone be okay after seeing all the shit we have seen and enduring everything thrown our way?” I push his hand off me, a surge of anger taking away the exhaustion weighing my eyelids down. I’m sleep deprived to an amount that is probably lethal, but the adrenaline keeps me pushing onward even when my body is screaming at me to lie down and fall asleep on the cracked pavement.

  “I don’t know.” Ai sighs, her voice cracking. “I can’t think about any of this. I just don’t know what we do next. We have already been walking around this city for fifteen minutes, if we wait fifteen more before making our next move we may be trapped inside here by Chinese military forces. And I don’t care how powerful that cube is, you can’t tell me we are going to wipe out an entire military force with that alone.”

  “We definitely could,” Jake says, eyeing my backpack, where the Chimera Cube, the most powerful technology known to mankind, and the patents for it are locked inside. “That thing is capable of more than our minds can even comprehend.”

  “She has a point.” I cut him off before he can continue. I don’t even want to imagine what this thing is capable of. I already have done exactly that for months and it has haunted every one of my dreams and chips at my thoughts in every waking moment. This cube can produce any material in the world at any quantity and at zero cost. I thought this cube was the answer to saving the world from the dark future we are barreling towards. I thought that my dad was right.

  That this is the answer to achieving greater prosperity, health, and happiness than at any other point in human history. Now I know the truth. This technology will always be used for good and evil as long as it exists. And the evil in this technology may be powerful enough to destroy the world.

  No doubt, the feeling of using it just once is intoxicating enough to instantly divorce one from the physical limitations of reality and consequences of their actions. And I know the moment he blabbers on about all this cube is capable of, the addict in me will come alive. And it will want more. More power, more weapons, and more of this beautiful technol
ogy that makes anything and everything possible with a simple command.

  “We can’t keep using this to solve all our problems.” I stop walking as I stare down at the ground, following the cracks in the pavement with my eyes that all converge in a large hole at the center of the street. “This can’t just be the answer to everything.”

  “That’s exactly what this is!” Jake exclaims. “I’ll rip that goddam bag off you. Don’t you understand what is happening? We have a chance to take over this country for good. We need to get the hell out of this city and make some shit happen. Who cares if the Syndicate never comes for us? Who cares if the US military is after us? We can beat them all. We can do anything.”

  “That’s not how this works.” I get in his face as he pokes his chest in the air. I realize now that we are confronting the one part of our plan that we never settled back at Gyurtog. We knew exactly how we could kill Li Wang and destroy his regime, but we never agreed on how we should take over China and handle fixing the world after that.

  Jake always argued that he wanted us to be the conduits of power, the glorious effects of the Atomic Precise Manufacturing Revolution running through our hands before the effects of the revolution could be passed down to anyone else. I always argued that it’s impossible and that the very cube we hold in our hands isn’t the thing that will propel us to utopia.

  It is the one technology destined to end the world.

  “Sam, are you even using your brain?” Spit flies from Jake’s lips onto my face. He has lost his excited, manic demeanor and is now just as angry as me. “We could create more nukes right now than all countries in the world combined. We can create enough gold and diamonds to completely crash world currencies. We have unlimited power, there aren’t even any gods that can stop us.”

  “You are sounding delusional.” I push him away from me, the stale, bloody smell to his breath one I want no part of. “Step off your high horse and smell a bit of the fire around us.”

  “What is that even supposed to mean? We can eradicate this fire in a second if we wanted to. All it would take is you commanding that cube to wipe out the flames. We can do anything we want.” He grins, his lips parting in a way not unlike that of his uncle Drew’s sinister smile. “Now, let’s get to Beijing and make this country ours before there’s nothing of this place left.”

  “Why do you want the power so bad?” I cough as the smoke inhalation continues to wreak havoc on my lungs. “I mean, I get it, I want power too, but you know what happens once we get to Beijing. This cycle never ends, we will always have people after us and be targets in international conflicts for the rest of our life. There is no way that we can escape this ever, unless we get out now.”

  “You always disregard everything I say,” Jake snaps. “You always need to have it your way or it’s nothing at all. How can you not see what I’m saying? How can you not see that we have an opportunity that no humans in history have ever had?”

  “Guys, stop this!” Ai steps between us and separates us before we start throwing fists at each other. Sweat drips down my face both from the heat of the flames and the tension of the moment. I have never wanted to uppercut Jake more in my life.

  “Good.” Ai sighs, placing her hands down at her sides. “Now let’s figure out what we are doing next instead of arguing about the future. As great as it may seem to debate the consequences of our actions on the rest of humanity, I couldn’t care less about that right now. Let’s figure out how to not die and then we can worry about the rest.”

  “Look, Jake,” I speak immediately after Ai finishes, not giving Jake a chance to jump in. “Your plan is great in theory, but in practice we all know it doesn’t work like that. Just think about it, even if we could magically destroy all the military powers against us without any problem, that doesn’t help change the fact that there is a secret organization with connections all over the world after us. I know they left us here to die, but they will be coming back. And even if by some small chance you found a way to destroy them, that won’t help the hundreds of millions of Americans that hate our guts for enabling a genocide to accept our rule. And it won’t stop the hundreds of millions of Chinese in this country that weren’t targeted in Li Wang’s attack and actually believe he is a god from wanting us dead.”

  “I don’t look at it like that,” Jake responds, his tone much calmer but his eyes narrowed at me. For the first time since he threw a party at our house leading to the porch collapsing, I see an odd darkness to his expression. He doesn’t feel like my friend anymore. He feels more like the enemy. “I see it as we have a responsibility to the people of this country. We can figure out the rest later, but we need to get to Beijing and make sure that all the surviving rén have a stable government put in place. We need to bring this country stability because we all know if the Syndicate ends up installing a puppet regime, there won’t be any happy days in this country for a very long time.”

  “That makes sense to me,” Ai chimes in. “As much as I want this to end, we can’t stop now. We took down Li, but this country isn’t magically healed, and if we don’t do something, then we could have done all this work for nothing.”

  “I don’t care what either of you say.” I shake my head as I look around at the large wall of fire burning through a row of apartment buildings. “We need to destroy this fucking cube, or this hell we are all caught in the middle of will never end. It’s too much to risk with us having this in our possession. The second we lose this…” My voice trails off as a wave of sadness overcomes me.

  The second we lose this could be the last second of freedom anyone in this world has.

  “Once we destroy this cube, the threat to the world may be over, but we will die.” Jake keeps his eyes locked on me, his fists clenched. “We will die.”

  His words hit me with an icy chill that courses down my spine. I know he’s right. The second this cube is destroyed, we go down with it. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe I’m meant to go down exactly like my father: a man who gave his all to try and make the world a better place, until I realized that it will always remain just as broken as it is today.

  “I just saw something.” Ai points at the sky, the crackling of the fire tearing apart buildings and turning the entire city to ash hitting a new intensity.

  “C’mon, Sam. They are gonna be here any minute.” Jake steps towards me, his arms open and a glow in his brown eyes. “Let’s get the hell out of here and save this country. We can worry about what to do with this cube later. Our job isn’t done yet.”

  “Okay.” I nod and open the backpack with the Chimera Cube in it. I open up the zipper and place my hand on the warm, sleek, white exterior to the cube.

  I feel a surge of adrenaline course through me as the cube lights up at my touch. Nothing in the world beats the sensation of having the power of this cube in my hands.

  With the surge of endorphins inside me, everything Jake said finally makes sense. Our job isn’t done yet.

  Let’s go to Beijing and make this country ours.

  Chapter 2

  I was expecting for it to be bad, but I had no idea that things would be like this.

  “This is not good,” Ai says, all of us staring down at the chaos unfolding beneath us. It is sunrise, the first rays of sunlight reflecting off what is left of Beijing’s skyline and illuminating the destruction from the night before.

  Compared to the wasteland that Hong Kong was in the aftershock of the bombs and earthquakes, Beijing is tame. The skyline still resembles what it did before the bedlam broke loose, and the sky is not clogged with smoke for miles upon miles. It’s the mass of people that is most shocking.

  Unlike in Hong Kong, Li Wang did not engage in the systematic destruction of the people in this city. That’s why millions of them have flooded onto the streets, thousands of bodies filling each city block as the rebels clash on the streets. From the millions of bodies that stretch in all directions as far as the eye can see, it is apparent that people have traveled fro
m all over China to participate in their attempt to overthrow the government in Beijing.

  From a bird’s eye view like we have from on top of one of the skyscrapers that is currently swathed in flames, the spectacle is quite beautiful. The millions of people form a larger-than-life organism. Each time the military unloads a new round of tear gas on the crowd, the army of people expand and contract in the streets. From this high up, it is possible to trick myself into thinking I am staring at a giant life-size ant farm, the millions of creatures running around in synchrony through the narrow tunnels that the streets form between the buildings.

  When I hear the piercing screams, the illusion of it all being one ginormous ant farm fades. The roar of the millions of people, some yelling in defiance while others cry with fear, coalesces into a continuous forceful sound wave that pounds painfully against my ears.

  It would be one thing if we were witnessing an army of ten million people take on the remaining military forces that have not disbanded, all working to guard the capitol building from being stormed by the masses. But that’s only one part of the picture. What is really taking place isn’t a unified rebellion against the remaining government.

  It is a civil war.

  The millions of people that supported the Party and Li Wang are on the streets clashing with the rebels, the two groups violently brawling. In any given moment one of the groups is opening fire on the other, the rebels impossible to discern from the people loyal to the Party due to the fact that from our altitude, it all looks like one ocean-sized bloodbath.

  “Wow, this is worse than I was expecting, and I set my expectations really freaking low,” I say, gasping as I watch a group of bodies fly through the air with a bomb that explodes in the middle of the street. I don’t need to be any closer to know that those bodies are dead, their limbs severed, and heads littered with shards from the explosion.

  “Yeah, for real, who wants to leave?” Jake peers over the edge of the skyscraper, his feet only inches away from falling off the edge.