Why did I follow them?

I was bored, I think. Life had dealt me a shitty hand. What most people don’t realize is that, Aethereusians aren’t the only ones being oppressed. There’s them, sure. But there’s also the Control Group Islands and then there’s us, unwanted children born of prostitution and crime. Because, you see, where there’s money and power, there is always violence. Antarticum is no except and that’s because Antarticum is no utopia. Antarticum was built on the back of mankind to benefit the selected few. Antarticum is just another failed human experiment in the long history of humanity’s debacle.

Still, I know I can’t complain. I never had to live in an orphanage. I never had to slave until death becomes me. But I have no idea who my parents are. I was taken away at birth. Put into the care of some ladies, then passed on from family to family until I was old enough to work. I was beaten, abused, often starved and never loved. The foster care system is quick money in exchange for a bed. The government paid for my care but never asked for accountability. It was me, who paid the price.

The day I turned 14, I thought I finally ought to be free. But I faced yet, another harsh reality. In a system where you can barely survive, and live paycheck to paycheck, there is no real freedom. Perhaps my only luck in life was that amidst all that, I became tall and strong. My stature provided me with opportunity. I became a security guard at Senex Centralis. In my circumstance, this was the best I could aspire. It gave me a room, food, and enough money to enjoy the simple joy of life.

I spent twenty years of my life, roaming the halls of the University: keeping the peace.

Twenty years of my life with one day off a week.

That amounted to one thousand and forty days off spent in my room, starring at the walls, thinking there had to be more in life than this.

But I didn’t complain. I was safe, warm, fed, and clothed. I got up every morning and put a smile on my face as I patrolled the grounds. I smiled to make others feel comfortable. I smiled to make others happy. I smiled to be polite. I smiled because it was the right thing to do.

I was loved at my job. I was good at my job. I was bored at my job.

Then came Eyer. He was still a little boy. I was put in charge of his surveillance. The child was granted free time on campus; I became his escort… his babysitter. Eyer was a good kid; obedient. It wasn’t hard to keep him in line. I liked the kid. He was smart. Smarter than me. I knew one day he’d go far. If I could help him… I would.

Time passed. Eyer grew older. He joined the workforce leaving me behind. I was reassigned to patrol duty. I became bored again. I couldn’t believe my entire life would consist of this shitty existence. If I could just go out with a bang, I thought… then this life would have been all worth it. That’s when Hana waltz into our lives.

Once a day, Eyer and I would enjoy a quick little walk to the indoor garden on our break. There, we’d sit and we’d watch the students walk by. Him and I would take turn guessing what they were studying, depending on their looks and clothing. That’s when we first saw Hana. In the crowd of students, she stood out. Unlike the rest of them, she didn’t have any sense of urgency. She’d walk back and forth a few times within the hour without ever going anywhere. Her face too, was different. Her eyes were hard and focused. She didn’t have that naïve carelessness, students, sheltered from the real world, so often exuded. Then there was her clothing. She was dressed all in black: cargo pants, tank top and oversized hooded cardigan. As a trained security guard, she quickly caught my attention and I could tell, Eyer was of interest to her.

It went on for a few days. We pretended not to notice that we were both studying each other. Risking a side glance when the crowd got thicker. That is until the morning I showed up for work and was given a special briefing. The central government was looking for a young girl, the deceased Shan Li’s daughter. The picture I was given, was that of a smiling little girl. Quite a different expression from what I had been used to. But I knew exactly who that was. That young girl on the picture was our daily visitor. I slipped the picture into my jacket and resumed my work.

I met Eyer in the garden as usual. We sat on our seat as we always did.

“I can tell something’s on your mind today. You haven’t laughed one bit,” said Eyer.

“Our visitor. I think she might be in some kind of trouble.”

Eyer smiled.

“Well, that’s exciting! So, what are you going to do about it, Arno?”

“Should I do anything about it?” I answered teasingly.

“You know who she is, right?”

“Yep.”

“So? Why do you suppose she came here?”

“How about we ask her?” I proposed playfully.

Before I could do anything, Eyer got up and walked straight to the girl. They engaged in a short conversation. I stayed on my seat, feigning uninterest.

After a while, Eyer came back.

“I need to talk with you,” he said.

“I need to talk with you,” he said again, stepping up to Nadja.

I shook my head chasing the memories. Fenn was back in the room, with Rex and Nadja. I was glad to see him, not that I doubted Fiori’s trust in the doctor, but it was a relief to see him, nonetheless. I felt the pressure drop a little, I relaxed.

“We need your help to get out of here,” said Meyer.

Nadja had a nervous laugh.

“No one is getting out of here. You can’t escape. The entire campus is surrounded. This building is in complete lock down…”

“We are not planning to escape. We are going to get out the same way we came in: through the front door,” declared Fiori.

“Preposterous!” Nadja angrily yelled. “I just need to press this one button and they will come rushing in!”

“Is Ted here?” casually asked Fiori.

“Of course, he isn’t. Ted doesn’t do the dirty work,” she smirked.

“Who’s here then?”

“Some military unit, I don’t know!”

“Who replaced General Marshall?”

“Benagher Ulrich Christiansen”

“Christiansen? Well that’s laughable at best!” snarked Fiori. Fiori then turned to Meyer and motioned him to get started.

“Dr. Bari, we need your assistance. We need the access code to the signal control board.”

“And what are you going to do with that! Deactivating them won’t do you any good.”

“I have no intention to deactivate them. We are going to self destruct the units.”

So that’s his plan, I thought! This is the real reason we came here today!

Then it hit me. I looked at Yuki. I looked at Doran. They didn’t flinch.

“NO! You can’t possibly do that! Yuki! Doran! They both have a signal. Thousands of Aethereusians have a signal. Do you intend to kill them all?” said Fenn in a burst of anger.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead.

“I will not let you kill innocent people!” Nadja said.

“In our try-outs, just under 40% of the test subjects died. The rest were disabled for a little while but most survived without too much long-lasting effects. You would know about it! You were there.” Calmly explained Fiori.

“It’s a gamble we have to take,” stoically added Yuki.

“At the very least, the soldiers posted on this campus will be down for a while. That should give us just enough time to walk away.”

Fiori had laid out the plan.

Now we waited for Nadja’s answer.

It came quickly.

“And if I refuse?” she said.

“Well, I’m sure your assistant Rex, here, won’t mind helping us then…”

Rex frowned. He had understood the hidden threat.

“You have nothing to gain either way, you help Ted or you help me. In the end it’s the same result, you are a dead woman by association.”

“You are both in the wrong. You, him. You are both monsters. Antarticum was supposed to be the place where humanity is reborn. Instead Antarticum is a pitiful land where the rich and the powerful eat the poors…”

“Dr. Bari. I am neither rich nor powerful. Do not put me in the same basket as them!” There had been a hint of anger in Fiori’s voice as he had rebutted her.

“Antarticum can be that safe place, cradle of a new era of humanity. But not if you insist on helping Ted.”

Fiori let his last words resonate in the room. Then he waited.

Nadja sat back at her office. She pulled her laptop closer. She typed in something and proceeded to turn it over.

Meyer walked up to her and grabbed the laptop with a discrete: “Thank you.”

From the corner of my eyes, I could see Fenn shaking in anger. That was dangerous. We couldn’t let him get angry. Eli too seemed off. We needed both to be in control of their emotions. We needed both to read the situation and do what was needed to be done. There was no room for error if we wanted to walk out of here alive.

As Meyer went to work on the doctor’s computer, I made my way over to Fenn.

“It’s ok,” I whispered to him. “Everything will be alright.”

“How can he dispose of people so easily. What does Yuki and Doran even mean to him!” Fenn intensely whispered back.

“He would never do anything to hurt Yuki. I must trust him in that. You need to trust him too,” I answered.

“I can help you,” she said.

“I can get you out of here,” the young woman said.

It was unexpected. I looked at her. She was a skinny battered child, on the run from the government. How could she possibility come here and offer us to walk away with her.

I scratched my forehead. I couldn’t help but to pity the fool.

“They’re looking for you. You know that?”

“I do.”

“I’m a security guard. I can arrest you.”

“But you won’t. You are a good person.”

“Why are they looking for you?”

“I need you and Eyer. I need your help.”

“Why are they looking for you?”

“I need Eyer… I need you to protect us.”

She wouldn’t answer my questions. So, I changed tactics.

“Why me?”

“I came for Eyer. But I noticed you too. You are a good person. You are nice to him.”

“Then why Eyer?”

“Because he’s special. Him, and I, and the others, we can save the world.

“So, there are others?”

“Not yet. But soon. Soon there will be.”

“So, what do we have to do.”

“You have to come with me. You and Eyer.”

“Eyer is a prisoner here. He can’t just walk away.”

“He can if you are with him.”

“I can get arrested for that.”

“I know. But it will be alright.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because anything else is better than this. He’s a slave. You are a different kind of slave. If that’s how you want to spend the rest of your life than that’s fine. Arrest me. But if you want more, I can give you that. You and I, and the others… we can go out with a bang.”

Back then I didn’t realize that she meant it. It wasn’t just a figure of speech.

There was no real incentive in my joining her. But I had reached an age where nothing seemed to matter anymore. I was just slowly fading away. Walking towards my death in solitude. Still… I had a few good years a head of me. Perhaps this was the opportunity I had been waiting for my whole life. Perhaps this was my chance to do something good. Something bigger than me. I looked at the young woman. Her ideas were just that, ideas. She was in no position to put them in place. Not by herself. But if Eyer was the genius he always said he was, and if I protected them… then maybe… just maybe…

But then I’d lose the little I had.

Security.

What would I gain?

A purpose maybe.

“I can help you get revenge on all the people who did you wrong,” said the young woman.

At the very least, it was worth considering her offer.

“Let me think about it,” I answered. And we parted ways.

It was time for me to met with Eyer in the garden. I was eager to see him. I wanted to know what he thought of all this. He was the brain. Surely, he would have a strong sense of what we should do.