They will kill me.
A second after I hit the button, the flimsy phone vibrates, signaling that the message sent successfully.
Me: What’s up? It’s Sam.
I know what you’re thinking. Yeah, I’m not the best texter. I sound like I’m delivering a late-night booty call to someone I just met. In my defense, sometimes keeping it simple is much easier. After all, if by some chance this isn’t Justin and this is all one elaborate trick, I’d rather give the person on the other side as little information about me as possible.
Odds are that if it’s the Syndicate, they already know every last thing about me.
I wait for the response. As usual, I expect to see a message flash across the screen right as I hit send, but instead there is nothing but silence. I still hold the phone in my hands, my entire body trembling as I try and run through all the possibilities in my mind. I am standing in the middle of a forest, the shade from the evergreen trees blanketing me in a layer of darkness even though it is the middle of the day. With the Chimera Cube in the same backpack my dad gave me, I flew on a hoverboard a few miles away from the site of the explosion into a wooded area with a stream rushing through it. Herds of deer roam through the underbrush that coats the forest floor as squirrels rush up and down the trees, panicked at the sight of a human in their domain.
Inside the forest, sheltered from civilization, I feel safe. The calm flow of the stream hitting against the rocks that line the riverbank next to me provide my ears with a constant soothing stimulation. The fresh rounds of oxygen produced by the evergreen trees give my lungs a continuous breath of fresh air that revitalizes my muscles and melts away the haze coating my mind.
But the anxiety won’t leave me.
Every second that passes by as I await a response is one moment closer to my heart collapsing under the pressure. Living like this—with the weight of the world on your shoulders—is hell. I should be down on the ground. I should be crying as all the trauma I have experienced ebbs out of me.
But the determination keeps me going.
The words that humanoid said before I eliminated it fuel the fire burning through every ounce of my sanity. I don’t care about anything anymore. All I want is to see my mom, Riva, and Ai one last time. All I want to do is free all the people who have been fucked over by the Syndicate and destroy their Last Migration plan for good.
I need to win.
And it is that desire, and the faint hope that I may be able to experience the feeling of love again, that keep me going even when I should be out for the count.
Then the phone buzzes.
My neck snaps as I look down at the screen, its small size and dim lighting making the words on it barely legible. I can’t even remember the last time that I saw a flip phone like this. It’s the same kind of device that spies use to ensure that their messages stay encrypted over a secure network.
Not until I read the message do I understand why it needs to be hidden from sight.
Justin: Everything that humanoid said to you is true. I’ve been leading a resistance within the Syndicate for years. For most of our existence we have stayed within the shadows, the few members that I managed to recruit doing nothing more than exchanging cryptic texts in our own secret language that I wrote out on scratch paper.
We are done with being in the darkness, though. With The Last Migration close to being cemented and the Great Crash and Chimera Conspiracy allowing for the Syndicate’s puppet in President Ash to rise to power, we only have a few weeks to try and end this for good.
I always knew that one day you would be a perfect member of the resistance, someone that could help us destroy the Syndicate from within. That day is today. After I found out about Maga X and the compound in Moosehorn, I knew that there was only one thing we could do. Destroy that damn thing for good.
Now I realize why it took him so long to respond. With the flimsy keyboard on this ancient flip phone, it would take me several minutes to compose a text of similar length. Just to let all the information in it be processed by my brain takes quite a while. The fact that Riva, my mom, and Ai may still be alive is something that I can’t even comprehend. I accepted that they were dead a long time ago. I’ve cried about them, I’ve thought about all the things that I could have done better, and I’ve expelled my anger by killing others in my attempt to get revenge for them.
To picture their bodies as anything else but ten feet under the ground doesn’t even make sense to me.
But then the memories start to come back.
I hear Drew’s sinister voice whispering that the torture will never end, and I feel the unsettling coolness of Riva’s skin when I found her body dead in the bathtub. I even remember seeing my mom in a casket at her funeral, something looking inhuman about her skin that at the time was just a tiny amount of suspicion lost in the wake of the devastation.
Justin could be lying.
This could all be one giant trap.
But having something to live for, even if it is all a lie, is more appealing than continuing on with nothing like I am now. I could question him. I could interrogate him over this phone until he gives me all the details I need to hear, but in the end that effort will be pointless. If this is all a trap, he will only bullshit me in response, and if he’s being truthful, then I already know everything I need to know.
I have to shut down Maga X in Moosehorn.
That way I can stop The Last Migration.
I will destroy the Syndicate.
Me: I’m on board. What is the location of Moosehorn? And what do I need to prepare for?
My fingers are shaking as I respond, the excitement rushing through me with every word that I type. Finally, the warm, honest nature to Justin makes sense. He always had a different vibe from the rest of the Syndicate and always went out of his way to look out for me in moments where he could have been killed. He always envisioned this day coming. Just like me he has always despised the Syndicate.
And now we can take them down together.
Justin: We aren’t going to send you in there alone. And by we, I mean me, Kamala, and Anika. I always hesitated to call us a resistance because no one has ever been really committed to it besides your father. Kamala is a recent recruit and Anika isn’t even a member of the Syndicate, but that’s what makes her even more valuable.
They call her the Data God. She grew up in the States but lives in India now and is one of the wealthiest people in the country. She is bionic and essentially the real-life Iron Man. She was the one that hacked into the humanoids that the Syndicate sent after you and commanded them to give you this phone. And she’s the same person I have tasked with meeting you to escort you and an army of killer robots to Moosehorn.
I stare at the phone for a while, his text not even making any sense at first. I mean, of course it makes sense, it’s written in perfect English and is easy to discern. But that’s the point. Nothing in my life is this easy. Nothing in my life is just handed to me for seemingly no reason. His honest, open nature gives me a pause and leads me to believe that underneath his transparent, charismatic exterior, he could be hiding something sinister.
I could destroy this phone and never talk to him again.
I throw the phone onto the ground, a sudden surge of anger overcoming me as I think about the magnitude of the risk I am taking. I’m not just playing with my life. I’m risking the future of the world. And they want me to forget about it. They want me to think that Justin is safe, that my family is safe, and that all I need to do to get them back is meet them at a discreet location.
Sounds like a perfect way to catch me off guard and ensure that the Chimera Cube will stay in their hands forever.
Fuck the Syndicate of Truth. Fuck this bullshit.
“Agh!” I let out my anger in one terrible scream that roars from my dry, cracked throat. It echoes throughout the forest, disturbing the peaceful surroundings. I am in such a remote location that even with the entire world having access to my location, no one
has found me yet.
But that will change soon. My eyes frantically dart around the landscape, my senses on high alert for any dark figures moving through the shadows in the forest, readying to creep up on me and take the cube off my back. I bang my fists against the side of a tree, the action doing nothing but making me angrier as my knuckles are chafed by the bark.
I feel like I’m in a never-ending vortex of my life spiraling further and further out of control. I’ve hit my breaking point. I can’t continue on like this, yet I can’t willingly walk into something else that will cause me even more pain.
A sigh escapes from my nostrils as I lean against the tree, the weight of my body suddenly too much for my muscles to hold up. If there was a bed in the middle of this forest, all I would want to do is fall asleep and hope that by the time I wake up, all my problems are gone.
The temptation to use the Chimera Cube to produce some high-end drug that will wipe out my thoughts is hard to resist. It would be easier to spend my last few moments high, the pressure of the world lifted off my shoulders as my consciousness drifts into a made-up reality full of hallucinations from happier times.
It takes every bit of internal strength I have left to hold myself back from commanding the Chimera Cube to produce a pill that will permanently remove my mind from reality. I know that the moment I give in to that desire, I give in to the Syndicate. The moment I surrender to the aching of my heart and the trauma ripping apart everything that’s left of me, I will let them win.
If I sit back and keep running from my problems aided by the power of a force field and hoverboards, they will eventually get to me. They won’t stop until the entire world is nothing more than a ball of flames. My only chance at winning is taking this risk.
And if this ends up killing me, at least I know that I went down trying to do the right thing. At least I know that I did everything I could.
Me: Send me the location and I’ll be there as fast as I can.
Immediately as I send the text, Justin responds with a link to the coordinates of the meeting spot. It is just over two hundred miles away, a distance that I can cover in no time propelled by the Chimera Cube.
I don’t answer his text with the location in it, and instead plug the coordinates into the hologlasses that I command the Chimera Cube to produce. The meeting spot is on the top of a building in a small city in North Korea, the exact kind of place that seems both stupid and dangerous for me to go to.
Disregarding the problems with the corrupt regime of North Korea, being near any center of population is a risk. Despite the fact that most North Koreans don’t have access to the Internet, the ones that do will be there waiting for me. And as for the rest of the world, I will be nothing more than a sitting duck for the militaries of the world to come and attack me as I wait for Anika on the top of a roof.
I gulp, swallowing the doubt as I repress my fear that is screaming at me that I should smash this phone into a million pieces and fly away as fast as possible. I want to call Justin up myself and ask him why the hell he thinks a meeting spot as obvious as that is a good one for someone who is currently the most wanted man in the world.
But in the end, I know that asking him the methods to his madness will accomplish nothing. I’m either walking right into a death trap or embarking on a mission that may just save the world and everyone I love from the wrath of the Syndicate.
I have no way of knowing which one it is until it is too late to turn back.
That thought scares me. It invigorates me in a refreshing, yet horrifying way. These are the moments I live for. Where there is nothing but adrenaline for my body to run on and where the entire world could be made or broken by my decision.
And the second I tap the Chimera Cube and command it to produce a hoverboard, I know that there is no going back. I am committed to this.
I will either live as a hero or die as the one man who failed to save humanity from itself.
I will either die, my mind and body in the same dark place as my loved ones, or I’ll live to experience happier days with them.
It all depends on this one moment.
I smile as I imagine Drew’s face when he finds out that I am going to forever destroy his chances of having this cube in his hand. I start yelling with excitement as I let the feeling of power overcome me when I realize that I actually may have a chance to destroy the one plan that has ruined my entire life.
I strap both my feet into the hoverboard, preparing to glide up through the forest canopy and out into the clear, blue skies. The surge of neurotransmitters is so intense that my mind is almost unable to comprehend the high that I am experiencing.
I’m fucking terrified.
I’m practically shitting my pants, yet this is one of the best feelings I have experienced. All the pain and memories feel millions of miles away.
My mind is consumed in the rush of experiencing the unknown.
I’m betting everything in hopes that I will win.
Time to roll the dice.
Chapter 18
The ride over here was only slightly traumatic.
If you have been keeping up with my hellish adventures recently, you will know that’s pretty decent compared to how my life has been going.
A fleet of drones attacked me as I came within fifty miles of the meeting location. Whoever sent their drones after me now has learned their lesson to stay the fuck away or I will obliterate every last thing into smithereens. In my effort to send that message to them in the most effective way, I simply commanded the Chimera Cube to produce one hundred attack drones as I watched the firework show behind the comfort of a force field. Within minutes that threat was eliminated, and surprisingly enough, no other aircraft approached me.
It must be understood by now that if someone who is barely twenty years old can tear down the Party leading an entire nation with this cube, then I can destroy them too. At least I hope everyone understands that.
The only shot that I have at keeping this cube in my hands is striking fear into everyone in the world. But I have a feeling that the most powerful people in the world don’t fear me one bit. They know that with their thousands of fighter jets, millions of tanks, and tens of millions of firearms and explosives that they can trap me inside a force field, forever surrounded in a scene of destruction.
This cube is a ticking time bomb.
And the longer I have it, the more likely it is to explode in my face. Even standing here on this roof, I am paranoid that someone with a knife is going to sneak up behind me and stab me. That anxiety is a bit unwarranted due to the fact that I have a force field surrounding me, but I can’t help but feel that someone wanting to take this cube from me is waiting around every corner.
I’ll make everyone regret ever going against me.
I place my hands together and look up towards the cloudy sky above, hoping that by some chance I can see the aircraft that Anika is flying in. Justin never told me what aircraft I could expect her to fly in, but it is safe to assume that if it’s not part of a giant fleet of planes trying to kill me, that it is likely Anika.
For now, the sky and surrounding town are eerily quiet.
Now it finally makes sense why Justin wanted to meet here. Given that this is a rural village in North Korea, the people in this region still don’t have any devices that can connect to the Internet. Within days, every single person on Earth will have heard at least a rumor about my whereabouts, but for now the hunt for me that has taken over the world has not made it to this city, which leaves me the freedom to live somewhat of a normal life.
If I decided to take the risk of deconstructing the force field around me, I could probably walk down onto the city streets below without anyone noticing me. Well, I suppose I would still stand out, since I look fairly different from the locals, but until foreign militaries, the North Korean government, or the millions of people hunting me down finally reach my location, I could enjoy my last few hours drinking in the numerous bars in this town and enjo
ying the view of the wide-open pastures that encase the city.
Calling this settlement a city may be a bit of an exaggeration, though. The tallest building is only ten stories in height, the cluster of population extending no more than a mile in any direction. On the streets, a few people walk across the gravel, almost no cars and other vehicles visible. In a world full of self-driving cars, people constantly submerged in augmented or virtual reality, and robots at every street corner, this settlement offers a refreshing blast of the past.
The people wear muted colors as opposed to the bright neon that most people have coated on the synthetic, close-fitting fabric that nearly every clothes manufacturer produces in mass quantity. Instead of billboards or holographic advertisements taking up the airspace, the city has pots of flowers on each of the windowsills of the wooden buildings. Unlike the cookie-cutter look to most modern metropolises, this city has the distinct feel that it was built by hand instead of the legions of robots that form most construction crews.
Even from a hundred feet above the city streets, I can already feel myself falling in love with this place. There is a distinct nostalgia to it that makes me dream about the days of the past, when times were simpler, and when the Chimera Cube was locked up in an underground storage facility instead of wreaking havoc in the world.
The flat plains around the town offer a similar tranquil quality as the city. It is a place where the number of sheep greatly outnumber the population of humans and where there are no hills or mountains to obstruct the view of the tall, grassy fields. The thick blades of grass sway back and forth in the gentle wind, and large sections of the plains glow in the light of the sun that breaks through the clouds.
Standing on top of this roof, the flimsy wooden boards the only thing keeping my body from falling through, is a freeing experience. For the first time in days, I feel like I can finally unplug from the constant anxiety and truly live in the moment. It’s views like these that make my heart ache as I wish that I had another person to share it with.
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