The World After (21 page)

The clock hit quarter past midnight as Carolina slowly pulled the rucksack from her back. One of the soldiers carefully approached to take it from her. Nobody noticed as she applied pressure for a second on the two hooks which were used to open it.

She turned her face to Taylor, one blink of her calm blue eyes was enough to show him what to expect. The man that took the bag left his gun to one side. The moment he pulled it open to look for the laptop, an explosion literally obliterated his face.

The moment the blast occurred, Carolina jumped toward the man standing nearest to her. With a flying kick, she forced him to drop his gun when her leg broke his left hand. Another swinging kick and two seconds after the blast, she had him neutralized on the floor.

At the same time, Taylor rolled across the floor toward the other two men. Using his legs like scissors, he made one of them drop next to him and, with two precisely placed punches, sent him unconscious. Unfortunately by the time he was back up, the last of the soldiers had recovered his composure and made a short burst from his gun towards Taylor, but the red-haired man quickly dropped back on the floor and, pulling the gun from the back of his trousers, he shot the man's knee cap. Two more bullets hit the soldier in the chest to end his short life.

“Don't move a muscle,” Shimi Levy boomed.

A second gun had appeared in his other hand. Now he had the one pressed to Ademar Gamejro's head and the other pointing straight at Carolina's heart. She was just three feet away from him.

“Drop the gun.”

Taylor obeyed; he let the weapon slip from his fingers and lifted his hands in the air. “Okay, you've won.”

“Oh, I expected more from you. I thought you never gave up, that you're special.”

“You know nothing about who I am, you little sad old man. Let's finish it, I'm tired of living.”

“I know more than you can imagine, you little bastard. Can't you see you're me when I was your age? Driven, ambitious, uncompromising, you're my flesh and blood, you bastard. I lost Gill because you were born; you were so special that I wasn't worthy to be around her. You ruined my life and now I'll take yours. After all, I have that right, my son.” Shimi Levy said the last words very slowly so they could sink in.

“You're not my father. My father's dead, you're a monster, and I'm nothing like you.”

“Believe what you want. Now on your knees.” Taylor had no choice but to obey. “Slowly remove your rucksack.”

The clock on the wall hit twenty past midnight.

“You two come out,” Shimi Levy shouted. Two petrified young men, obviously the computer specialists positioned up here, walked out from behind one of the desks. “Take the rucksack and open it slowly, there must a computer inside. Hurry, we don't have time to waste.”

While they were following his orders, Shimi Levy made a costly mistake. He kept all his attention on what they were doing and, despite the huge risk, Carolina lunged forward head first and crashed into his body as a gunshot echoed in the room.

* * *

At the exact same time deep below Itanagar, Fabiana took Ian MacGeady's hand in hers and squeezed it. They were in the middle of the sewer system, inside the computer operated center that controlled it and protected it from overflowing. Leaning on the back wall of the small room were two bound, bundled up Indians that looked pitiful in their ragged clothes.

Working here wasn't exactly a prime job. For decades only ex-prisoners or all sorts of miserable sods were the only ones to do it. A few hours earlier, Jinhun had come up with the genius plan to leave everything needed to Fabiana and MacGeady, while he and the others made their way to the safe house. As he pointed out while they were still out there, the search would only stop if the authorities found them. So, for all of them to come to the command center of the sewers wasn't an option, because if they were to be discovered, their plan was over.

Despite all Fabiana's protests, she was finally convinced that this was for the best. Akio Fukuzawa had all the codes needed in his head, and if he was to fail, she had all the commands on the computer he gave her. They agreed to wait until quarter past midnight, and if Fukuzawa didn't activate the virus, it was their responsibility to do it.

It was an easy job for a man of MacGeady's skill and training to neutralize the guards of the sewer's center. Even a five-year old kid would have been able to tie the two useless men, who were knocked out by the alcohol consumed anyway. Those working far below ground level, amongst shit and all sorts of rubbish, were not going home every day. Their shifts lasted three endless months before they were allowed to see daylight again, that was the main reason why those employed in this place actually had to be forced to take the job.

“Come on, you have to do it. It's past the time we had to wait,” MacGeady urged her.

“They might have delays. Five more minutes.”

“Look, you were all preparing for this day for years. Just do it and let it be over with.”

“You don't get it, do you. Once it's done, it's done. We can't undo it. The world will be changed forever,” Fabiana argued.

“Then change it! I trust you. Let's finish here and let's get as far away as possible. Together.” He smiled at her encouragingly.

Reassured, Fabiana started tapping quickly on the keyboard. In no time, she activated the virus and switched on the specially designed software that was allowing control of many of the space rubbish pieces. She started redirecting old satellites one by one towards the modern ones. The rebooted computers on board the space rubbish followed the orders according to her simulation program. Once she was done, the computer told her that, in twenty-two minutes, the last of the nine satellites would be hit and destroyed. Life on their planet would turn back the years dramatically.

A timer appeared on the screen and MacGeady squeezed her shoulder as they watched it count down the seconds.

“It's done. We did it. Hope Cari and Taylor succeed. They will save millions.” Fabiana touched his cheek with her hand.

“We did it,” was all MacGeady said as he stared at the fast moving timer on the screen, counting the last seconds of existence of the World Wide Web and everything that it brought to humanity.

* * *

Ademar Gamejro wasn't tied but he remained on his chair while right at his feet his daughter and Shimi Levy were entangled in a desperate fight. The old man was surprisingly strong and athletic, and Carolina was in trouble as he managed to twist her hand. At this point, Taylor came to help. As he was drawing near, his recently found father used his free hand to fire at him; the shot couldn't miss in the small enclosed room.

Taylor felt the pain in his right shoulder but he continued his movement. The knife in his hand sank deep in Shimi Levy's stomach as they collided. The eyes of the old man widened, his grip on Carolina no more. Through the pain, Taylor moved closer to the director of the Agency for Tracing the Untraceables and, with a calm voice, whispered, “You're not my father.”

After that, he let Shimi Levy's body drop to the floor. The bullet had broken his shoulder and he held his useless arm as blood dripped around him. Carolina jumped and hugged her father, and after making sure that he was okay, she also checked on Taylor, who only urged her pointing at the clock on the wall – it showed twenty-six minutes past midnight.

The two petrified computer specialists in the far corner hadn't moved. While Carolina was taking the laptop out of Taylor's rucksack, he shouted at them, “Get out of here and go back to your families. The world as you know it is over. You better have some other skills, because it will be years before you see a computer again.”

They didn't need more invitation and rushed outside, grabbing their jackets on the way. Soon the front door slammed behind them.

“It's been done!” Carolina said. “The virus is working, the old space satellites are redirected. Oh my God, we don't have time. I must hurry. Come on,” she said to the computer in front of her as she feverishly pressed enter a few times to continue giving the commands.

“So now you can redirect the space rubbish from here and save the planet.” Both Taylor and Carolina turned sharply to see Ademar Gamejro up from his chair, holding a gun on them.

“Father?”

“I'm sorry, sweetheart, but you know that there are things bigger than family. The world I and so many others worked hard to create is one of those things.”

“What are you talking about?” She couldn't believe her own eyes as he drew near her, ushering Taylor to move closer so they were both in range of his bullets.

“I'm talking about how things should be, sweetie. You could have had everything but you grew up stubborn and too independent, I kept telling your mum that allowing you to make decisions of your own was a bad thing.”

“I can't believe you. How can you take sides with people who tried to kill you just to fulfil the next piece of their plan?”

“You see, nobody tried to kill me, darling.”

“What?”

“We knew that you and Fabiana were plotting the kidnapping of Ian MacGeady. Your friendship gave you away as we knew prior that she was from the Yuyuan. We simply planted the false mission in his brain implant and you chose to believe it. Your Fabio…without any of you noticing, I put my steel pen you bought me ten Christmases ago in the mechanism for closing the door to slow it down. This gave the extra few seconds needed for the agents to shoot him and plant the tracking device that took us to your Base.”

“But why? Why are you doing this?” Carolina's tears rolled down her cheeks uncontrollably.

“Because you forced me to. You see, we knew that you were plotting something big and it was going to happen soon, but the ATU was hardly making any progress in finding what it was and desperate measures had to be taken. This was when I and Shimi Levy came up with this plan.”

“So you work for him?” Taylor asked.

“Ha, you stupid people. He works for me. I'm one of the high members of the Bilderberg Club. I'm the last survivor from the six original founders.”

As this information sank slowly into Carolina's head and horror came into her eyes, Ademar Gamejro continued, “The world was created as it is now for the good of everyone. By telling the mindless masses what to do when and keeping their minds full of artificially created fears, we made societies better. Who are you to try and change that and return the chaos?”

“Who are you to treat people like sheep and to completely ignore all their rights of privacy and own decision making?” Carolina said.

“I'm your father and you can join me in my quest for greatness. You can sit on the chair right of me and one day you can take my chair.”

“I'd rather die.” Carolina said that slowly and with the last syllable, she moved her hand quickly over the top of the desk. A second later, a souvenir letter opener stuck out of Ademar Gamejro's throat, he dropped the gun to the ground, and with every gurgle, dark blood pumped out of the wound.

Carolina walked to her father, kicked away the gun he had dropped and gently stroked his cheek as his fear-filled eyes also filled with blood. He was still alive but the wound was definitely fatal. Carolina simply got up, didn't even look at Taylor, and sat back in front of the computer and continued following the commands to try and send, on time, the signal that was going to save millions of people.

A minute later, her father breathed his last breath, his head nearly touching that of Shimi Levy. Carolina hit the button one last time just as on the screen appeared the sign 'Completed.' All the technology around them went dead. All screens became black, the lights went off, and the TV in the other room stopped working.

“We did it, the Apocalypse has arrived. Hope I sent the signal on time and we did the right thing.” Her voice sounded eerie in the dark, quiet room. The wind gusting on the walls was the only sound around them.

“We did.” Taylor took a step towards her in the darkness, his only moving hand hugged her. She felt his lips on her forehead as she buried her head in his chest. She continued crying until all the pain was out of her. They stood like that in complete darkness for a very long time.

Two years later, June 2027

Location unknown

Taylor Swansea walked to the porch with a loud sigh of relief. He dumped the heavy backpack he carried on the wooden floor and sat in his favourite rocking chair. He stretched his feet forward, pulled out a pipe from his inside pocket, filled it with home-grown tobacco and leaned back to enjoy the splendid view of rocky hills and running streams that were all around.

The one-floor wooden house was placed under the shade of two-century-old walnut trees, and at the back of it, there was a vast garden filled with flowers, all kinds of edible plants, and further up the steep hill, where the pine forest started, there was a fenced area which was quite noisy because of the domesticated animals living there.

Taylor filled his mouth with the flavours of the tobacco when a sharp voice from inside the house said, “That thing will kill you.”

“I'll drink to that later, honey. If you're right, one day I'll get lucky.”

Carolina walked out on the porch, her arms covered in flour to the elbows. Her blue eyes smiling and radiating warmth, she leaned and kissed him gently. “You took your time.”

“I'll be fifty later this year; this steep hill is getting too much for my arthritic legs.”

“Oh, stop it. You're just finding excuses again.” She sat on his lap as the chair rocked. “Going down to the village once a month is too much for you, but you must accept that we can't live completely independently. Did you buy everything on my list?”

“I wouldn't dare come back home if I didn't.” Their laughs rang as two Labradors joined them on the porch.

“I'm making your favourite sun-bun.”

“M-m-m yummy.”

“While you were out, the postman came. I really like the new service with horses.”

“This is actually an old service; we're just rediscovering it again. What's the news?” He looked at her.

“Fabiana reminds us that we need to be ready to visit them next month for Jinhun's first birthday. She said that Ian officially became their local woodsman; he's very busy with so many people in their town wanting things built. Oh, and by the way, I think a few hints in her letter suggest that she's pregnant again.”

“Good for them. We'll visit them, alright. I want to put some reason in little Jinhun's head before they spoil him. Anything from the world?”

“Yeah, all positive news. Finally the newspapers are seeing – and I'm quoting here – '
thousands of opportunities for new beginnings.
' The Six Hundred also keep getting praises for their work.”

Carolina referred to the six hundred and sixty-six members of the Yuyuan that were spread before the plan
Apocalypse
took place all over the world. Several dozen of them were, unfortunately, killed in the following panic and chaos, but the majority not only survived but, under their guidance, the societies quickly recovered and started their new existence. In 2027, they were honourable members of an international council. Their word was heard everywhere.

“Okay, lazy man of mine, I have to go back in or your bun will be a burnt sun.” Carolina kissed her man and got up.

“I'll finish this pipe and be with you in a minute.”

Left alone, Taylor's attention was attracted by the two owls that lived nearby. As usual, they perched on the walnut tree waiting for darkness to fall. It was the season when they were gentle with each other, and Taylor enjoyed watching them pressing their faces against one another.

He finished his pipe and, getting off the worn-out rocking chair, turned to enter the house.

“Okay honey, you better be ready. Me and the boys are coming in and we're starving. If there's nothing to eat, we'll have to share a Brazilian hotty.”

He opened the door, and the two dogs rushed before him to find Carolina in the kitchen. Taylor Swansea followed suit. He had searched all those years for his safe haven, now he had found it and wasn't planning to let it go.