Amaranthine Historica Read online

  Almost daily, Olfus autopsied his own strategy in the D-Day chess game. He placed all his pieces in their respective positions as if he was playing solo. He paused for long periods to think, assess, formulate and adjust his theories. “First, search for moves that threatened your opponent’s king or led to the capture of key pieces. Second, determine if the move you made left your pieces vulnerable to capture. Lastly, double-check your evaluation... Oh, blast!”

  He finally made the following entry in the ‘Real Amaranthine History’, which in the interests of national security, was stowed away in the Time Capsule for 300 years: “Messages released into the cosmic ether must have double-crossed and triple-crossed, confusing Darkstorm’s—‘must get Gateway Shell space station to blast it [Astellaria]’—with the Natural Disaster Centre’s warning—‘Gateway to Hell volcano ready to blow’—and Chuck’s nuke code ‘Gateway to Hell’. Result? A feisty little cosmic ball disintegrated into specks of stardust, the nuclear finger was snapped within a speck of time, and a violent volcano reminded us, once again, that—on this speck we call Earth... all we are is dust in the wind.[31]”

  Thus, the most irrational but seemingly most likely scenario—what is true without error, certain and most true (to paraphrase Pharaona)—was that Amarantis had been stung twice and maybe even thrice, by uncanny and arbitrary stings and twists of fate—and science!

  We will probably never know what is ‘certain and most true’ even if the Emerald Tablet dropped all riddles, screaming Truth out loud and clear—which it did, really, though Pharaona: “Beware! If you betray Emerald science, you will wind up in the darkness of the caves from where you came!” Olfus muffled all warnings. With each drill he blocked his ears, screeching like a crazed baboon, to drown out the apocalyptic soothsayer who refused to shut up. He clawed onto his own holy grail and to hell with the rest! “The best things in life are free, but you can give them to the birds and bees, I want the glory, that’s what I want!”[32] He swayed and rocked frenetically, chanting the Emerald mantra: “By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world and thereby all obscurity shall fly from you.”

  Alas, for everything there is a time, and the time had come for Olfus to stare at Truth unobscured. Aeonios was going nowhere. He was sure of foul play, from within and without. “Pharaona and the Rotten Ten! They threw the spanner in the works! There’s no other explanation,” he concluded. The more he tried to seize the glory, the more he was stuck. Not only was he tangled in Pharaona’s gooey dreamcatcher, his magnum opus had croaked. He was already well into third age or even fourth age, jealous, bitter and stricken mercilessly both by time and vanity. Dorion irked him. It was as if he was looking at himself in a time-warped mirror. Sweet Dorion was 33, handsome, brilliant, charismatic and... a jolly good fellow! The creature had somehow surpassed its master! Dorion the black sheep of PURE, was genuinely pure. How could a creature made in the identical image of its creator deviate so far—without genetic intervention? Was it Pharaona’s ‘invisible hand’ and her ‘cosmic force of things’? How did Dorion become the ‘black’ to Olfus’ ‘white’?

  Macabre thoughts kept creeping into his mind: “The Lord Giveth and the Lord taketh away. Dorion is my clone after all. We are one! He is me! I would only be sacrificing myself to save Humanity. I must transfer my brain into his crane. But how? I can’t do it alone... Who can I trust?”

  Whilst Olfus was spiralling into his own Black Hole, Georgia Genix rushed into his quarters, beaming with excitement. “Sir, it’s a miracle! One of our lost drones transmitted... It appears that there is Life... beyond Amarantis!”

  Olfus was zapped out of his trance. He nearly fell off his Throne! Was this a trick? Was it a plot? How did such damaging data infiltrate without him pulling the switches? He controlled all information, minds, bodies and souls... and to ensure total control, His impervious Kingdom pulsed inside a Devil’s Graveyard, shielded by the Membrane Dome. In reality, the whole of Amarantis was one giant O-Zone. Who dared carve out a gateway? The haunting prophecy reverberated again. ‘When the ring ‘O’ becomes the broken ring ‘Ω’, Humpty Dumpty will have a great fall’... Could it have been the desert witch?

  “Sir, we are being very careful with this information and analysing it... In any case, we are optimistic about localising at least some Pre-Datory Humans!” Georgia was glowing—not green, but pink—with the thrill of such a possibility.

  “Yes, yes... we must be very careful,” Olfus said nervously, his icy gaze wandering off into empty space. “Who else knows?”

  “Only the other Rats—minus the Fearless Four. And you... now. We don’t want to jump to any hasty conclusions Sir and—”

  “As I said, we must be very careful! This ‘Life’ or these ‘Humans’, if they do exist... We don’t know who they are, or what they are. Amaranthine Intelligence has informed... well, they may well be the ones behind D-Day... We must prepare for defensive aggression. All Eumans and Bions must assemble at 05:00 hours!”

  “But Sir... With all due respect, Sir... an assembly of GROMs at that time, can be seen from the moon, Sir... um... that might present a problem...” Georgia felt her voice shrinking. “Um... I don’t think we have enough time to do the required gene-editing... to silence the glowing... Sir...”

  Here the penny should’ve dropped. But Olfus was blind to his own ‘human error’—even if it bit him on the nose, which wouldn’t have helped since he was also the kind of person to cut off his nose just to spite his face. The obscurity shunning him from the ‘glory of the whole world’ made knowledge a deadly friend—in the hands of this omniscient fool.

  *****

  And now I say unto you—Thus it came to be that Olfus holy Throne and the ‘O’ wrenching Amarantis, started to crack and fray!

  CHAPTER 9 - Treason

  The robust blood-red sun pulsed defiantly as it rose behind a mass of storm-filled clouds.

  A lordly cockerel, Olfus puffed up his chest and crowed: “Humans and Eumans! Hear ye, Hear ye! I, Warwick Olfus, supreme power of Amarantis, hereby Order the immediate capture of two dangerous guerrillas, known as Pharaona and Astellaria. They have been convicted of espionage and high treason. They have stolen and leaked Top Secret material from the ARC. SkEyeClops confirms that they are able to metamorphose. Your psycoding has an in-built identification system. Bion programming is now synchronised with mainstream psycoding so that Bions may participate in the hunt. Let it be clear, that anyone who aids and abets our enemies in any way will be recycled. The Olfus Golden Courage Medal and a colossal reward—20 of the latest and bestest EmotMems—await anyone who turns them in.”

  “Thankfully,” thought Olfus, “the psycode instantly identifies illegal aliens”. But the shivery whispers that slithered through the crowd made him somewhat uneasy.

  “And how will our psycodes identify the unidentifiable?” said somebody.

  “Could they be Humans? They do have names!” said somebody else.

  “No, they’re not Humans! He said gorillas—”

  “Not gorillas silly... Guerrillas... Thugs! Traitors!”

  “Who could possibly have penetrated the ARC?”

  “Everything is so well-guarded!”

  Victor was intrigued. What was this Top Secret material that even he didn’t know about? “Hmm... surely the Dork knows something!” And just as he squirmed at the thought of Dorion, there he was... tapping him on the shoulder. “Hey!” they shook hands. “Some news, hey?” said Dorion grimly. Victor was in a hurry... He had his own plans; as always. “Are you going to the Rosa Canina later?” he asked. “Yeah, I’m meeting someone there for a drink at 8... D’you wanna—”

  Victor accepted. “Great I’ll pop in then... Have to run now—”

  Olfus reassured the crowd with charred confidence. “Nothing to worry about! Our defence forces will spot them instantly!”

  “Yeah, great! They’ll sizzle everyone who’s not psycoded,” murmured Darkstorm not realising that Olfus could hear her.

/>   “You weren’t paying attention, my Stormy Queen,” Olfus whispered amorously in her ear. “There’s only one person I could die for, you know that!” Wolfie’s forlorn eyes betrayed his hunger.

  “You could? You did... The day the music died,”[33] she muttered wistfully, whilst spindly squirming out of his grasp, pretending she didn’t quite hear his undying love declaration.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about... The carousel is in perfect condition Janie,” Olfus retorted.

  This conversation was getting spooky. Stormy had to backtrack. “I know all programming and psycoding is modulated to protect non-psycoded Amarant Humans, but that means—”

  “That means survival of the fittest! Nature’s most natural law... You and me, my Queen!”

  “And a few stray Rats from the Pack... The natural privilege of dominant social groups, right? What about Amarants returning?” Janie hastened to add, further inching away.

  “Who do you take me for? Humans seeking entry will be processed to eliminate security risks. I’m not a monster! I’m just—” Wolfie’s words choked him. A fresh wound bled from his grim eyes. He remembered Mother. He felt betrayed.

  “Stop it!” Darkstorm’s eyes flared up, matching the colour of her green scarab choker. “I know what you did and I know who you are!”

  Olfus stopped dead. How could she possibly know anything about the D-Day rescue ships? People eat. That’s not an option. How else was Amarantis going to have enough rations for those unending Post-D-Day years? A nation’s laws must be directed toward the good of its best people. That’s not an option either. The unfit had to be recycled. He left not one trace of them. Surely, Janie was just fishing. Half a minute went by with Olfus’ squinting eyes searching her face, his brain ticking over loudly like an antique egg timer. Then, in a snap, he bounced back. “Your heart is harder than that rock on your neck Janie,” he retorted facetiously as his lips feathered the edge of her mouth.

  “Let dead dogs lie, Wolfie,” she said, smiling nervously—mostly because a steamy Wolfie, was more unpredictable than a surly Wolfie. But also because Amarantis now had to deal with a new can of worms—and those flesh-eating maggots had the potential to devour the whole freaky wonderland. Catching two spies was simple. Wolfie’s coup de main strategy—doing unto others before they do unto you—had already proven to be a fatal coup de poussière![34]

  As Rat King and dirty old rat, Olfus was once again plotting foul deeds. Who was going to be in his army? Stacking the chips for a sure victory was no easy feat. “In terms of military technique, no one can match the GROMs,” he thought, “but Genix is right... We’ll have to manage the green glow... and the psycodes”. The words of Army Defence Chief GROM n° 33, thumped in his head: “Sir, hacked psycodes are lethal boomerangs. What if the enemy takes over our giant, armed nervous system, our Internet of Battle of Things? Every weapon, vehicle, and device, every object on the sea, land, air, space and cyberspace is connected to this giant killer!” The official warfare report confirmed this warning: “Cyber attacks are able to undermine the reliability of our nuclear command, control and communications. We cannot guarantee that our weapons will work as we designed them to do when we reach for them”.

  “You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, aren’t you Wolfie?” Darkstorm twisted the knife that was screwing with his head. “To psycode or not to psycode, that is the question! On or off?”

  “All under control, my Feisty Amazon! If necessary, we’ll switch off all psycodes! Our best Humans are already stationed at ΩHM Cyber Warfare. Our titanic GROMs and unbending Bions—”

  “Great plan Chief!” Darkstorm smirked sarcastically. “On top of it all, you can’t zap their EmotMems coz they have no real memories of their own. So how exactly will your switched-off Satanic Titanic sink the enemy? What’s your life vest here?”

  “Human judgement,” Olfus said obtusely. “We’ll give them some spine, spirit and mettle—and play with whatever scant emotions they may have accidentally acquired in their soulless existence.”

  “Looks like some Bions already have the mettle! I warned you about still waters running deep!” Darkstorm reminded Olfus that it was a Bion that snapped Heller’s nuclear finger during the Gateway to Hell code exchanges. “Since its SEAI immersion training with that Lemniscate hag, its icy ocean eyes have been raging quiet storms!”

  “Nonsense! That was an accident!” interjected Olfus. “Heller got into a sweat and almost pressed the snake skull instead of the love heart!”

  “All the same,” she scoffed. “Were it not for that PrΩHMethean Bion, it would’ve been lights out for everyone!”

  “Negligible! One swallow does not a summer make!”

  “Perhaps... But that one swallow flew above and beyond the call of... programming! It made a humane judgement call... That’s the good, bad and ugly of it!”

  “Hmm... That’s debatable my Heart of Darkness... unlikely and esoteric...”

  “Yes... How abstruse of me!” Darkstorm groaned as she mulled over one of her most despised words. “Esoteric! Babble babble, diddle-daddle,” she jeered mentally at Olfus’ sophistry.

  Just prepare one of those ‘we'll never flag’ speeches and flower it with pretty stuff about democracy... Throw in something about cutting out the cancer of deviant thinking... The usual Ministry of Truth stuff...”

  “You’re the Boss, Wolfie...” she announced crustily, as she marched off.

  Meetings at ΩHM-Ωmega were held round the clock.

  Olfus opened the final assembly meeting chiming his favourite opening line: “A problem without a solution is a poorly stated problem”.

  He then laid down the challenge: “How has today's most crucial challenge, that of defending Amarantis from terrorism, been poorly stated or approached? What are we to do?”

  “Eureka! I found it!” GROM n° 33 leapt up.

  Everybody froze. GROM n° 33 was the only GROM with a nickname. Shady, beautiful and fatal, Belladonna was Olfus’ masterpiece – a true femme fatale extraordinaire.

  The plan was devised, the trap was set.

  *****

  Meanwhile, back at the packed Rosa Canina, Victor marched in at the stroke of 8 and instantly spotted Dorion and his companion, both squished at the far-end corner table. They were drinking sanguine orange juice cocktails. “Who was this strange creature with the magnetising golden aura? Surely SkEyeClops had picked up her presence!” he thought.

  “Hey, Victor, you remember Eleni Makinti don’t you?”

  “Eleni? Wow, you’ve changed! It’s been what? At least 13 years... You’ve buried yourself inside the Lemniscate and—”

  “Yeah, I know, I keep to myself a lot these days.” Eleni quickly justified her repeated absences from Olfus’ events. “Lots of work, no time to play! I get all my updates on my screens.”

  “I get it, I’m a stay-at-home cat myself,” Victor said and hurried onto the meat of things. Enough small talk. He was there on a mission. “What d’you make of Olfus’ latest announcement? D’you really believe in these morphing creatures? A bit sci-fi, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, totally weird!” said Dorion and Eleni in unison. Then Eleni said, “And this Top Secret stuff? You think it’s anything we should know about? So much for him winning that Power of Veracity award!”

  “Eleni put a brake on the juice!” Dorion said half-jokingly, speedily clamping further blabbering. Ironically, the ‘Careless Whisper’ song was playing in the background.

  “Look, I’m with you guys! I mean, Olfus may be Pack King but he’s supposed to consult with us, right? And I dunno... that Aeonios goose he’s been killing himself on... What d’you think Dorion? Have you ever worked out what Aeonios is or was really about?”

  “Sorry man! All I got was that it had something to do with therapeutic regenerative medicine. Something went off the rails and it got axed. Very hush-hush at the time.”

  Fwoosh Thwipp! Newsflash Music!

  Suddenly all screens inside
the Rosa Canina were flashing “We interrupt this programme to bring you some BREAKING NEWS!”

  “BREAKING WIND is more like it,” Eleni sneered.

  All eyes were pinned onto all screens.

  “LeakyLeaks has published documents hitherto classified, which warn that we must switch to 100 per cent renewables immediately, otherwise the Earth Shreeeeee. Leaks on psycoding show—Shreeeeee Fwoosh Thwipp! Time froze and silent chaos swallowed up everything and everyone.

  Great Nelumbo Nucifera! Then hark! The historic O Sole mio[35] performances by Amira and Patrizio[36] suddenly lifted the gloom:“Che bella cosa 'na jurnata 'e sole”[37] What was this joyful and strange lightness of being?[38]

  And then, in the midst of heaven and just as suddenly... Fwoosh Thwipp! Oh, hell’s bells! Power failure. All went dead for a few seconds before the ear-splitting sirens and horns jarred the crowd towards emergency exits.

  “Red Alert! Red Alert! Evacuate! Evacuate! Return to anti-virus stations for psycode scanning. Red Alert!”

  Out of thin air, a swarm of armed Bions and Eumans zoomed in to reinforce the thunderous electronic shrieks. Their shields flaunted the Amaranthine police logo; Cupid’s loveheart pierced by a blossoming almond rod. Clusters of panicked Rosa patrons stomped to the exit. Flashing messages such as ‘War on terror declared by PURE!’ streamed everywhere.

  “War declared by PURE Inc.?” remarked Eleni.

  “Yep! PURE war!” retorted Dorion. “Let’s get outta here!”

  “Danger, danger, Will Robinson!” Eleni mocked flippantly as Dorion dragged her away from the maddening crowd and inside the golden pumpkin carriage on the carousel.