The Father Unbound

by Frank Kennedy

  His Circle nodded in unison, having heard this message many times. Hadeed felt a flush of new courage and continued.

  “Fortunately, each of us has seen behind the veil, and we refuse to turn our backs on the truth of natural will. We know who the enemy is; we understand the intricacy and politics of the cultural institution that would bind us in place forever. It is in that shared hatred we come together in a pure love. As long as we have each other, we are reminded each day that we are the truth, we are the way, we are the vengeance of the Hiebim people. Together, we are bonded to an ideal that says each human being represents a unique and profoundly remarkable entity. Our lives are our own. Our destinies are our own. And each human being is entitled to an equitable opportunity. That those who would refuse such opportunity, who work against the natural will of the individual, are an undeniable enemy who must be removed of all influence.

  “These are the fundamentals which have brought us together. But, my friends, they are not enough. You see, the institutions of the Chancellors and their collaborators have so embedded themselves in Hiebim flesh, so blinded the hearts of millions and lobotomized the brains of the rest, that we cannot hope to restore the order of natural will unless we are firmly committed to a complete and irrevocable overthrow of all traditions created by the Sanctums, the peacekeepers, and the Euro-Egyptians who colonized this world. We cannot simply remove the Chancellor disease from Hiebimini and expect a renaissance of Hiebim culture. The complacency founded in Chancellor arrogance is a small enemy compared to the apathy of our own people. Few of us have seen the path of change because the Matriarchy will not allow any other course.”

  Body language changed at once. The Circle’s members shifted uneasily, heads rose to attention, eyes shifted anxiously among each other. Until this moment, Hadeed had never directly referenced the Matriarchy.

  “As much as the Chancellors smother us with military might, the Matriarchy collaborates to entrap us in every other way imaginable. All that is genuinely human, that reaches deep into the core of our flesh and the urges of natural will, are held in check by the Matriarchy. It is their firm belief that they are protecting us from ourselves. Each of us here has sat in audience before a Matriarch, not to be guided but rather to be scolded and swallowed up in fear. Think to the elders who educated us. Did any of them once speak of any concept related to natural will? Of course not. Each was hand-selected by their Matriarch, chosen for their lack of intellectual or mental fortitude. They serve no purpose other than to appear wise, which is simple when your audience consists of young children.

  “Although I revere Polemicus Miriam and will always remember my love for her, even she would admit that she was as much an instrument of control and corruption as the Chancellors themselves. She seduced herself into believing that one day she could lead our people into revolution. In reality, however, she was trapped between power and truth. She wanted the Chancellors gone, yet she consorted with the very man who ordered her death. Her army would never have stood behind her on the battlefield; they acceded to the fist of a new Matriarch. They failed – and she failed – because they did not have a clear understanding of what must be done.

  “It is simply not enough to throw the Chancellors off our world. That success cannot be sustained by a resumption of the passivity and generational compliance which plagues our clans. If we are to take charge of our destiny, to own the wealth that rises from the mines, to establish a truly sovereign world, we must become new Hiebim. We must determine that no man or woman lives above the other, and that each Hiebim is entitled a path of his or her choosing. We must act upon the most natural, aggressive instincts of our flesh. We must cleanse ourselves.”

  He felt his heart skip a beat before his next lines. The tent was utterly silent.

  “When we carry forth this message, our opposition will be enormous, the impediments to our success to be found not just in the hearts and minds of those in power, but those who fear standing against it. We must bear their courage for them. Each heart and mind that cannot hear our message must be pushed aside, for compromise is the greatest threat to our victory. This colony will begin again, with or without them.”

  He paused, bowed his head and waited for a response. Willem was not long to speak.

  “Honor, I have never been more humbled to be in your presence. However, we must know one thing. When you say ‘pushed aside,’ what do you mean precisely?”

  Hadeed never felt more important than at this moment.

  “Those who oppose our ideas but will not stand in our way will face no harm. They can go home and resume their illusion of contentment. As for the rest? There is only one solution. They cannot be allowed to live. Fidelity to the idea of pure Hiebim, free of our perverted colonial past, is the only acceptable path. Either way, the flesh of our people will be reborn, and we will return to the roots of pre-history, to our Arabis origins.”

  The word echoed throughout the tent. “Arabis” slipped off their tongues as if both a curse and the source of enlightenment. The members of the Circle breathed deeply, refilled their glasses with black-market crimson liquor, and – as best Hadeed could tell – glowed as they took in the possibilities of what lie ahead. He saw tears form in their eyes, and he shared a knowing nod with Damon. Deep into the Circle’s time of reflection following this pronouncement, Hadeed felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see Fergus Rene, the birth-maid for Adair. She smiled broadly and gave him the news of the birth.

  Hadeed followed her from the tent and into the lair, actions Rene did not expect.

  “But tradition …” she started as Hadeed pushed past her and stared at mother and son.

  Adair was sitting up, cradling the boy against her chest. She gasped when he entered.

  “Honor, I … but this isn’t what you …”

  “We both knew I was not going to uphold tradition,” he told her. “There will be no isolation, no Book of Assignment.”

  “Honor, I didn’t mean to imply …”

  “As I told you the night he was conceived, I will be his father from the beginning. He’s too important.”

  Adair nodded as she handed over the baby. He took the boy, immediately saw himself in the infant’s eyes, and knew he had to offer comfort.

  “We’ll never be a family,” he told Adair, “but I’ll never separate you from him. He’ll have the balance of two parents.”

  “Thank you, Honor.” She smiled as she lay back down.

  Hadeed wrapped his son close and met Damon outside. He ordered his aide to bring the Circle outside the communal tent. A moment later, as they gathered around father and son and offered congratulations, Hadeed kissed his boy on the forehead and held him out at face level.

  “In the past, no child of the clans has ever been named for two years. Tonight, my son heralds a change in that pointless tradition. He is the first of the new Hiebim, the first who is free of the corruption of our past. In that vein, I free him of any obligation to a clan, for only in this way is he granted complete and utter natural will.

  “I name him Faisel Abraham. These names come to us from pre-history, from a time when tribes faced life with uncertainty and sought their destiny wherever it might take them. He will owe no allegiance except to the ideals of true Hiebim and to the love of his father. And one day, he will be old enough to join us when we sweep across this world and exact the blood of our enemies. And I …” For an instant, Hadeed choked on his words, his heart warm and fluttering.

  “And I will be the proudest father.”

  They applauded and cheered. The camp’s torches cast flickers and distorted glows against the walls of the gorge, and Hadeed looked past his people to the strange, tall shadows along the rock face. There, with a certainty he had not experienced in many months, Hadeed saw a slim, feminine figure.

  Hadeed felt Miriam’s approval. Then she dissolved into the night. She set him free, and he would never see her again.

  SIXTEEN

  THE LAST GENERATION


  Paris, Earth

  SY 5304

  ILYA WAS AN UNCOMMONLY beautiful boy, even among genetically manipulated Chancellors. Everyone said so. They admired his golden hair, which matched the daily beauty of the sun’s last setting flame, and his wide, searching eyes, which glistened like the patina of aged copper and exuded Ilya’s joy of never-ending curiosity and inquiry. He was the best of his class, no doubt. Someday a Carrier Commander perhaps; certain to be a power broker in an Earth Sanctum. Thus, no one was surprised when he was selected among all the boys of his class to take lead on the final day of Tier 2 Educate. The final exam: Performing the art of Kwin-sho on the Meditation Platform at ParisDome. No boy of ten could possibly hope for a greater moment.

  Ilya stood front center on the platform, arm’s length from the closest boys, naked but for a sea blue wrap that covered his groin. He held his hands behind his back as he breathed in the aromatic fumes of the Lassenin mist, allowing the drug to alter his consciousness and draw out his most primal instincts. He breathed with the deep, trained rhythm of Kwin-sho, and his massive, polished pectorals undulated even as he held his abdomen tight and the rest of his body in stasis.

  He was the largest boy on the platform – had reached six feet tall a day earlier – and his devotion to training, along with a booster of the genetic enhancement drug Emulsil, reflected in two-hundred twenty pounds of perfectly sculpted muscle. Ilya was particularly proud of his advanced beauty – especially the night he was both selected to compete in ParisDome and also relieved of his virginity by his instructor, The Madame Loraina. He knew she was watching somewhere amid the darkened arena seating, and he could have easily become distracted by the beautiful woman’s promise of what lay in store for them should he prevail.

  Yet Ilya never lost his focus, and his eyes remained fixed on a holographic message dancing before the eyes of every Chancellor child on the platform.

  Morality. Victory. Morality. Victory.

  Victory is morality.

  Slowly, music fell upon them all. It began as the lonely weeping of a single violin then grew with the accompaniments of clarinets, flutes, and cellos. The composition built steadily toward a familiar crescendo, and Ilya waited until the prescribed instant to react. As soon as he heard the first pounding of the kettle drum, he would become something else entirely. He had to be. Of the twenty boys on this platform, almost half would be severely injured in a matter of seconds, and statistically, at least three or four would be clinically dead before the med-response teams just off-platform could attend to them.

  When the instant arrived, Ilya sent a clear message to his limbs, freeing his bones and muscles of their natural limitations. The easy part was controlling the distribution of force within his shoulders, elbows and knees. The hard part was maintaining the speed. His arms realigned, swinging upward behind his shoulders in a single, fluid motion. He swung about on his right leg, while the disjointed left leg launched in a broad, sweeping arc. He imagined his right foot as a catapult, pressing down against the vibrating platform. In that instant, he set his conscience free and became a predator whose soul ambition was to savage his prey, yet to do it quickly and with beautiful choreography.

  He pushed off with one leg, his body flipping backward as if preparing for a reverse somersault. He did not, however, complete the flip by landing on his hands. Rather, he flew across the platform, all his muscles acting in defiance of gravity. His eyes, ever searching, fell upon his target: A Germanic named Olsen, a red-headed boy known for perfect technique but of questionable moral character. Olsen, some said, did not place sufficient stead on the ideal of victory. Such a flaw, they whispered, could cost him half a second in reaction time – enough to get him killed.

  Ilya saw his target at eye level, the world around him upside down, as Ilya’s body reached a vertical plane in mid-flight. Olsen had launched as well, and both feet were properly aimed to land in a firm grip around Ilya’s neck. Ilya responded to Olsen’s expected strategy against a vertical flip by releasing his arms of their limitations so they became much like rubber, spindly and extended. They encased Olsen’s legs, wrapping them in a perverted contortion and snapping each tibia in multiple locations. The Germanic boy did not so much as grimace at the intense pain, but rather offered an empty stare as Ilya twisted in mid-air, sending his freed left leg into the side of Olsen’s head. In a single, continuing motion, Ilya willed his body to complete the flying arc and did exactly as Olsen had planned to do: He landed both of his legs around Olsen’s neck. They crashed together on the platform a mere nanosecond after Ilya twisted Olsen’s neck like the lid off a bottle. The Germanic boy grunted then lay silent, his eyes staring in soulless wonder at the spotlights far above.

  The victory, as usual, required all of three seconds, and Ilya immediately ordered his mind to restore control of its muscles and bones. He leaped to his feet and stepped away from the Germanic boy, ignoring the med-response team that surged upon Olsen with regeneration lasers and thirty seconds to repair a snapped neck.

  The crowd, still bathed in darkness, roared its approval as ten boys stood near their victims and acknowledged the crowd with modest side-nods. They also turned to each other in respect for a triumph so few so young would ever experience. Merely standing upon this hallowed platform, in the arena where the world’s greatest athletes had battled for more than half a millennium, would have been a sufficient thrill for most of them. Yet this victory was far greater: It was a harbinger of limitless possibilities, for all who won the ultimate Kwin-sho prize had indulged in fame and fortune and become great warriors, innovators, colonial regents, Sanctum ministers, and corporate titans. Every one. The same could be said for the girls who would be competing later that day.

  For Ilya, this victory was about more than a portent of the future or the wonderful reward he would find in the bed of The Madame Loraina. Rather, he wanted this because his father wanted this, and Ilya would not go to sleep at night without knowing he had pleased the man he admired more than any other. He could not see his father through the arena darkness, but he could feel Ephraim’s pride washing over him. And for Ilya Hollander, nothing mattered more.

  Six levels above the platform, Sir Ephraim Hollander did not have long to process his pride. In truth, he was irritated by an interruption that occurred less than ten seconds after his son’s victory, almost as if it were planned that way. Given that the image on the other end of his vioptric cube was of his wife, Genevieve, he was certain her timing was not coincidental. Ephraim waved a hand over his skybox controls and installed an instant mute bubble. She should have been here, he grumbled to himself. Typical.

  Ephraim tapped the tiny stream amp on his right temple and allowed for volume. Genevieve’s face filled the holocube less than a foot before him, and she was clearly anxious. He could imagine her tapping her feet waiting for his response.

  “I presume he won?” She asked with a mechanical voice as the link was completed.

  “Of course,” he said, “thus completing a perfect run of no-attendance on your part for the entirety of his Tier 2 Educate. I’m sure he would thank you in person if he were given the rare privilege of your presence. Yes?”

  “I had every intention of being in that box, but I was called into special session. The fact is …” She hesitated as if regretting her choices, but only for a second, Ephraim noted. “I have news. We need to meet at once. The Elysium Bridge over the Seine.”

  Ephraim chuckled. “You are an amazing woman, Gen. I spent a decade giving orders that were never to be questioned, impacted the fate of a world, yet I never imagined …”

  “That a wife could pull a chain tighter than your own,” she jumped in. “I’ve heard this before, Ephraim, and I’m weary. Meet …”

  “What is your news, Gen?”

  “No. Not on the Grid. This is too important. The Elysium Bridge. Ten minutes.”

  The arena lights rose, casting a soft glow over the thousands of private boxes, and the crowd took to its feet as the c
hampions met Ilya at front center. The Anthem of Benevolent Victory rained down from the rafters, and the Chancellors joined in song. Ephraim, however, did not rise immediately. He glared at his wife, puzzled as always by what he saw. She was ten years his senior, a woman of impeccable style and grace in the public forum but a remarkable shrew – usually Ephraim’s match in parental battles of will – at home (on those rare occasions when she could even be found on Earth). Fundamentally, Ephraim did not mind sharing power with Genevieve; in truth, he found it an invigorating sport. He held no sexual fondness for her – never had – so his irritation with her behavior was not for himself.

  “He will live for me,” Ephraim once told her. “All my plans, he’ll fulfill. His devotion is unwavering. Yes?”

  “As you wanted,” she mocked him.

  “No. I wanted him to experience the full range of the possible. He has never once felt true tenderness from you. He withholds the disappointment, but the deeper this hole grows within him, the more likely he will succumb to unacceptable frailties. One day, Gen, his resentment will become manifest. Yes? If you are responsible in any way for his downfall …”

  She sipped a three-hundred-credit glass of wine and sneered. “You wanted a son, so I gave you one. A genetic masterpiece, you demanded. I withheld my ambitions and nurtured Ilya for the first year. Who else in my position would have made such a sacrifice, Ephraim?”

  She was correct, of course. Many of Genevieve’s closest colleagues were stunned when they realized she was carrying Ilya herself rather than passing off the job to a younger, pro forma surrogate. They couldn’t understand why she would put her goals of interstellar exploration on hold for the burden of a child. For Genevieve, however, the equation was simple: In return for this sacrifice, she would have a powerful ally on the Corporate Oversight Presidium who could push through funding for her research missions beyond the boundaries of the Collectorate. Indeed, Ephraim held to his end of the bargain; however, her missions were increasingly extended, and her desires to explore well beyond the final Nexus point on Zentilli’s Fulcrum remained a point of contention.