Mesopotamia - The Redeemer (2 page)

'I am cosmos, I am cosmos,
Iamcosmos... Iamcosmos,' he recited the nullifying mantra as he
ran. The mantra helped him abandon his personal boundaries and the
weight of his unique identity. At the very moment that his running
reached the point which he had been anticipating, he noticed a
single tamarisk tree at a distance, next to the ruins of the red
ziggurat. Already he yearned for water from the well under the
tree. His body continued running on the desert sand while his soul
left his body and disappeared, leaving it devoid of any
self-awareness. The intruding thoughts ceased completely. Peace and
serenity bubbled softly inside him. He no longer felt the burden
upon his body and focused on wonderful elation, on blessed
emptiness, deliverance from the weight of the universe. The yellow
sand and the pure white sky merged with the infinite horizon.

After he rinsed the sweat from his
body, he drank from the tin cup tied to the rope that he lowered
into the deep cistern. Although it was murky with desert dust, the
water was good for drinking. After swallowing the last gulp, he
sprawled out in the shade of the tree, stretched his exhausted
limbs and cooled himself in the wind that stroked his wet body.
When he had sufficiently enjoyed himself, he sat up and leaned on
the tree's trunk. He took a paper wrapped parcel out of his pack
and laid it beside him. He drew a number of deep breaths and burst
into unnatural laughter.

He continued until he noticed
movement on the eastern horizon and heard a voice laughing back at
him. Spot approached at an awkward sprint, his small hind legs
lumbering behind his terrifying forelegs, his enormous jaw rigid.
He ran toward Smoke and attacked him, knocking him onto the yellow
sand.

This time, Smoke's laugh was not
forced. He wrestled with the animal and knocked him onto his back,
but Spot escaped and grabbed the nape of his neck in his gaping
maw. They wrestled until Spot bent over him and pinned him down
with his entire body weight.

“Ok, Spot, you win,” he
laughed.

The hyena loosened his grip. Smoke
opened up the paper parcel and removed a hunk of meat that he had
taken from the compound's kitchen and gave it to Spot, who
swallowed it in one gulp. He folded up the edges of the paper to
make a dish and poured water from the cistern into it. He refilled
it three more times until the hyena had quenched his thirst. They
rested in the shade of the tamarisk, the hyena's head leaning on
his stomach.

The stench of carcasses exuding
from the hyena did not bother Smoke. He was accustomed to his
companion and accepted him as he was. During one of his first
running excursions, Smoke had discovered the hyena cub in the shade
of the tamarisk, among remnants of fur that had belonged to the
cub's mother, who apparently had been eaten by a lion. Lions had
become extinct from the Mesopotamian plains for several hundreds of
years, but during the Human-Gods' Wars, when men engaged in mutual
annihilation, the wild animals returned to the savannas and
wandered the Asian deserts once more.

The cub's wailing sobs bothered
him, but Smoke did not know how to help him. He left him bundled
inside his mother's fur and ran back to the compound, but he could
not shake the wailing from his mind. Smoke could not sleep that
night, unable to silence the cub's cries. The following morning he
returned to the tamarisk and to the cub, which had already fallen
silent. He called him 'Spot' and took good care of him.

Initially, the cub did not trust
him, but his hunger made him agree to eat the food that Smoke had
brought him. Many days passed before he was willing to eat out of
Smoke's hand.

Smoke understood that they had
formed a pact when the hyena made eye contact with him for the
first time, a rare occurrence in the interaction of humans and wild
animals. He trained the cub, who listened to him and ended any
wrestling games as soon as the game was becoming too dangerous. The
cub obeyed him, waited and did not follow him when Smoke returned
to the Gnostic compound. Spot learned Smoke's language,
understanding simple commands like “Go, come, sit, attack,” and
Smoke learned to identify Spot's feelings: aggression when his tail
stuck out behind him, excitement when his tail bent over his back
or fear when it hung between his legs.

He dug a sheltered pit for him, a
refuge from lions and other predators, and continued to bring him
milk and meat from the compound's kitchen. Each day he ran out to
feed and play with the cub until the hyena matured. At that point
Smoke taught him how to hunt lizards and mice. In time, Spot found
his place among a pack of hyenas but maintained his friendship with
Smoke. The hyena could pick up his scent from afar, knowing that
Smoke was waiting for him in the shade of the tamarisk tree.

The others at the compound were
aware of Smoke's strange habit of running out alone into the
desert, but no one discovered his affection for the hyena. He even
hid his secret from his commander, Truth. He knew that he would be
forbidden to carry on the relationship. Spot showered him with
warmth and love, allowing Smoke to indulge in feelings and
expressions of mercy without making himself feel less Gnostic. Thus
he was able to have a sincere relationship, devoid of the hypocrisy
and cruelty that were the norm at the Gnostic compound.

The sun tilted toward the horizon
and he prepared for the long jog back to the Uruk compound. Smoke
poured Spot more water into the makeshift dish before returning it
to his pack and lowering the cup back into the cistern. He began to
run toward the compound, Spot skipping by his side with his lanky
legs and large steps. They ran together until the red boulder,
which Spot knew marked the point where he must bid farewell to his
companion and return to his pack.

D
ozens of
aircrafts dozed in the hold of the father ship like tiny scorpions
in the mother's body before spawning. On the deck of the ship,
which was the size of a small city, the elite pilots completed
their last preparations, sat in their cockpits and anxiously
awaited their orders.

They had waited many long months in
anticipation of this moment. Although no real battle would be
waged, this ceremonial exercise would determine each of their ranks
in the Gnostic hierarchy, headed by their commander, Truth. Their
muscles were taut and their breath was quick, their entire bodies
poised like a spring in anticipation of takeoff. Everything was
conducted in utter silence.

Smoke scanned the instruments with
his coal-black eyes. He shook himself and attempted to settle his
gaunt frame into the pilot's seat. For the thousandth time, he
mentally reviewed the procedure he had planned. The knuckles of his
long, delicate and tanned fingers blanched as he grasped the
controls. He was Truth's favorite cadet. Everyone would be very
surprised if his chief rival Flash would succeed in defeating
him.

A split second after the green
light lit up on the display before him, Smoke was thrust against
the back of the seat with overwhelming force. The acceleration
eased after a few seconds as gravity disappeared. He leaned back in
his seat and tilted the aircraft to the right to join the other
pilots in a formation that advanced in a winding twisting motion,
as if following a twisted thread.

Truth's gaze passed several times
over each of the displays that projected what each pilot saw. Data
detailing the vessel's location, speed, ammunition levels and
system functions flitted across the bottom of the screen. He
studied the data displayed by Smoke's aircraft with special
intensity. With a deep breath, he removed the audio-visual device
that had been hanging from his ear, closed his brown eyes and
rubbed his hands over his cheeks, eyelids and temples, then back
over his cropped graying hair. The ship's father, commander in
chief of the Gnostic warriors in Uruk, was about forty five years
old, roughly twenty years Smoke's senior. His Semitic origins were
apparent: round eyes, hazelnut colored skin, fleshy lips and a
bulbous nose. His body was that of a warrior, solid like a case of
ammunition, clothed in a tight black plastic suit covered in thin
armored plates made of gleaming titanium. He knew that despite the
Gnostics' yearning for death, they must not die unless in the
service of a Gnostic mission.

In addition to the opportunity to
demonstrate their prowess at attacking, defending and evading, each
of the pilots participating in the ceremonial exercise reserved the
right to die in an accident and his soul would still be included in
the pleroma: his would be considered a martyr's death and his soul
would forever reside in the pleroma in the company of Gods—he would
join the aeons, exactly as if it had been a real battle—from which
none of the Gnostics could save him. During the ceremonial Walk
Along the Abyss, which was conducted during childhood, the guides
abstained from rescuing those children who slipped, rolled or
plummeted to their deaths. Truth had already lost many of his
pilots and warriors to the pleroma during the course of his
position as commander. He too longed for the day when death would
come to him, but today, he was not interested in losing even a
single soldier.

Truth, commander of the Uruk
region, was unanimously chosen by the Gnostic regional heads of
Damascus, Istanbul and Jerusalem to prepare his forces for their
destined moment of truth: the most important battle in the history
of Gnosticism; the battle for the sole sake of which Gnosticism was
reestablished. He reconnected the audio-visual device to his ear
and returned to monitoring the activity of the aircraft on the
control center's display.

Flash was directly in charge of
commanding the attack team as well as supervising the defense team
commanded by Shadow. Flash's clenched jaws flinched slightly in
response to the stress of controlling the pursuing aircraft.

Flash was the complete opposite of
Shadow, his young subordinate with black curly hair, thick brows
and flat nose atop a thick mustache and dark stubble. Shadow was
tall and broad, his stomach threatening to burst out of his
too-small shirt as if in defiance of all the physical training the
Gnostics had undergone. Although Shadow did not stand out like
Flash or Smoke, Truth was extremely fond of him because he was
blessed with boundless loyalty and a pleasant temperament.

Flash and Shadow were charged with
the task of marking the virtual hits on the ships that played the
role of the fleeing enemy. Smoke, the youngest and most promising
of all the cadets, commanded the escaping vessels. His quick
thinking and coordination prowess dwarfed the other warriors’
skills in comparison. But like most of the other warriors, Smoke's
yearning for death was suppressed only by his intense desire to
serve the Gnosis under Truth's command. In spite of his strict
Gnostic upbringing, he found it difficult to contain his excitement
in anticipation of the opportunity to make Truth proud, though he
attempted to hide the light tremor in his voice as he spoke over
the network.

“Smoke is ready!” he responded to
Truth's inquiry.

Truth's hand brushed the blue spots
that were tattooed on his face. On their displays, the pilots saw
how he dispatched them one by one. “Go!”

Smoke's excitement escalated in
response to his speed while maintaining total concentration. He
quickly leapt out of the spiral formation, gathered speed in the
loop and crossed over again through the Power Structure, almost
colliding with Shadow. Smoke maneuvered masterfully and would have
never actually hit Shadow, but Shadow, whose dexterity was somewhat
clumsy, was startled and almost lost control of his ship. Flash
instructed his team to deploy in star formation facing outward on
the defensive against Smoke and his team. Smoke's team scattered in
all directions with Flash's team close at their heels. Together
with a few of his pilots, Flash made off in pursuit of Smoke, who
had been left exposed. This was precisely what Smoke had intended.
He lured a substantial portion of the attacking forces behind him,
leaving the offensive on Shadow, who was left exposed to the rest
of Smoke's team.

Smoke's secret was that he had
trained himself not to think. During the initial stages of his
training, his rivals could still anticipate his simple moves and
therefore successfully thwart them. Due to his ability to never
plan his next move, however, he succeeded in navigating an escape
plan so random and erratic that no one, not even the ambitious
Flash, could predict his actions and get within his range.

Despite Smoke's young age, Truth
had already been eyeing him as a potential heir to the position of
Father of the Ship in Uruk, and even the eventual possibly of the
position of commander in chief of the Gnostic forces. In fact,
Truth suspected that Smoke may someday be every Gnostic's dream,
the "Redeemer”, an emissary of the light-bearing serpent. His eyes
were black and bright. His aquiline nose and his long straight
black hair was a testament to his ancestry from the Southern
Arabian Peninsula. He stood out in his symmetrical beauty and his
movements were smooth and exacting.

Smoke's tactics worked well. The
forces under his command marked fatal hits on most of Shadow's
aircraft. Vessels marked as dead returned to the father ship. Smoke
knew that Flash certainly would not back off of him in order to
defend Shadow as long as Smoke's tail was within Flash's shooting
range. He continued to lead him on, never flying too far out of
range. Smoke veered deceptively to the right and then immediately
spiraled downward with a quick pivot back to the left. Flash was
the only one whose shots came close to Smoke, but even his
attempts, like those of the pilots under his command, missed their
mark. Despite his unrelenting ambition, which afforded no rest to
him and his colleagues, Flash did not stand a chance. Flash was
simply not endowed with Smoke's natural instincts. Their rivalry
intensified Flash's battle spirit, but even with the advantage of
his determined resolve, Smoke still prevailed as the superior
warrior of the two.