

###### Alexander Merow

##### Prey World

Citizen 1-564398B-278843

Novel

## Part I

Prey World

Chapters

Foreword 5

Citizen 1-564398B-278843 7

Automated Trial 23

Big Eye 31

The Change 49

Outsourced 56

World Peace in Ivas? 82

Rebellion and Fresh Snow 98

Procrastination is the Thief of Time! 116

Aux Champs-Elysées 139

The Lull before the Storm 155

Bomb-happy... 171

Red Moon 178

With him 193

# Prey World – Citizen 1-564398B-278843

Content

The year 2028. Mankind is in the stranglehold of a worldwide surveillance state. Frank Kohlhaas, a petty citizen, lives a cheerless life, working as an agency worker in a steel plant.

One day, he gets into a conflict with the tyrannical system, because of an unfortunate accident. An automated trail convicts him to five years of imprisonment and Frank disappears in a detention centre, where he suffers under a cruel system of brainwashing and reeducation.

After eight months of pain, the authorities decide to transfer him to another prison. On the way there, something unexpected happens. Suddenly everything changes and the young man finds himself caught between the fronts...

###

###

Foreword

This is the English version of the first book of Alexander Merow`s "Prey World" series. The novel was translated by Thorsten Weber – and the whole procedure entailed a lot of work. But it was also really funny.

It is not a professional translation and the translator is not a "native speaker" or English teacher. He is just a guy who loves science-fiction and dystopias. So try not to laugh at some of the translated phrases, or the wrath of a real freak will come over you!

Nevertheless, we thought that would be a good idea to translate this interesting, courageous and critical novel into the English language. At the same time it will also enable English speaking people to join Alexander Merow`s growing audience.

"Prey World" is neither an ordinary book nor light entertainment. There is already plenty of "light entertainment" in our times – far too much. On the other hand, there are not enough books like "Prey World". Books that make you think about the world we live in. And it is important that people begin to think.

The author has already found numerous interested readers all over Germany, and we hope, he will find additional readers in the English-speaking countries. We would also be glad, if a "real" mother-tongue speaker were to edit this English version one day.

Some readers compare "Prey World" with George Orwell`s "1984", the classic among the dystopic novels. Others see elements of Bradbury`s "Fahrenheit 451" in it.

However, critical thinkers and friends of so called "conspiracy theories" will have their fun with "Prey World". Is Alexander Merow`s vision of the future really realistic at all? A worldwide surveillance state? A World Government under the control of a ruthless secret society? We will see!

And always remember...

"Only a fool would think that "Prey World" is nothing but fiction!" (Alexander Merow)

Have fun!

Alexander Merow and Thorsten Weber, Berlin 2011

E-mail: A.Merow@gmx.de

"Maybe it is nothing but madness and suicide. Maybe it will not change the world, but this is not important for me. Nevertheless, it will change something for me!

I have suffered too much to humble myself anymore. They have told us to humble ourselves - since the kindergarten. Shut up! Consume! Obey! Endure! Believe everything! Watch shit! Buy shit! Eat shit! Turn the other cheek!

What has become of us? Why have we become sheep? Why do we endure this all without doing something? Why has nobody the guts to act?

Thorsten`s books were a real eye-opener to me! Now, I know who they are and what they plan for us all. And I can`t forget what they have done to me. They call us "cattle". Okay, then I will be the black sheep in the flock. And the black sheep will fight back now! And it does not fear the butcher anymore, because even a butcher can be killed. Franky, the little black sheep, will make them pay now! And I hope that the flock of white sheep will wake up some day."

P.S.: If I don`t come back, please give this book to Julia...

Diary entry of Frank Kohlhaas, 17.02.2029

Citizen 1-564398B-278843

Frank Kohlhaas, who was called citizen 1-564398B-278843 in his everyday life, because this was his official administrative code, was already dreaming of the unpleasant smell in the hall of his flat, reminding him of rotten eggs. In his mind, shortly before 5.00 o'clock in the morning – soon the dream would be terminated by the alarm – Frank was on a walk through a sunny valley. But even at this beautiful place, the moldy smell was still pervasive, so that Frank wondered, how such a beautiful valley could smell so repulsive.

When the alarm-clock rang, it quickly became clear that the sunny valley was just fantasy, although the smell was real. The noise was shrill and Frank awoke swearing. Now he had to get up, put on his clothes, have a hasty breakfast and walk to the production complex 42-B.

"Damn!", hissed the unshaven man as he moved his not excessively tall, but amazingly strong body from his cheaply produced bed.

"Hmmmhaaa!", yawned Frank, shuffling through his still dark apartment to the next room, where a dirty kitchen was waiting for him. The citizen tore open the refrigerator door and chocked down a cheese sandwich, the meager left-overs from yesterday`s supper.

The water kettle was started with a loud whoosh and, after a few minustes, supplied hot water for a cup of instant coffee.

"Nnnhhaa!", uttered the young man, a statement, that could be interpreted in many ways at this early hour, and could have referred to his life situation in general. At 5.27 o'clock, Frank closed the battered door behind himself and walked listlessly down the dark corridor on his way to descend the even darker stairway. The source of that foul stench, that had been torturing Frank`s nose for days, was somewhere here. Perhaps one of the other tenants, damn idiot, had left his garbage in the corridor.

"I don`t know...", he muttered.

Each morning it was the same old story: "Rising, eating, walking, slogging away...", as Kohlhaas always said.

In the past years, he had learned to hate his life. He was 25 years old now, living in a more than shabby flat on the outskirts of the former FRG capital, Berlin, working for modest wages as a temporary help in a steel plant. In former times, he had wanted to study, but this issue was over - for reasons that Frank never mentioned.

Actually, he was not dumb, but, according to his own words, he couldn`t hack it yet. However, the job at the steel plant was better than nothing, because it gave him the chance to earn some money and to survive – an advantage that was not enjoyed by millions of Germans in the year 2027.

As he now groped along again on this particular morning, step by step towards the plant, he passed demolished houses in the twilight and crowds of homeless people lying in masses in the dark corners of the streets.

"What would be, if I simply didn`t care about the consequences and went home again, got back into my bed and just slept until tomorrow?", he thought sometimes.

"What would it be like if I just packed my bags and disappeared from this rotten city, this scruffy country?", he asked himself occasionally.

But where was it any different? He should enjoy, what he had – he`d got a job and didn`t go hungry. That was at least something, thought Frank.

After the worker had gone through a very long and dark underpass without giving a Globe coin to the drunken beggar there, the production complex came into Frank`s vision. It was 5.53 in the morning and the workers for the early shift stood there waiting, smoking, jawing.

When the factory gates finally opened at 6 o'clock, about 200 workers poured through them like a viscous mash. Most of them were not in any rush to begin their work, but it had to be, there was no other way.

"No alternative!", as Frank always said.

After ten hours, they went back home again. All were dirty and tired, but happy that the work was over for the day. Frank crept through the corridor on his floor, which was still dim even by day, and unlocked the door of his apartment.

There were no new messages on the Scanchip and that was good, because it were usually only calculations: electricity, water and such things. Frank had placed the television in his bedroom the day before, so if he couldn`t fall asleep, he could turn it on. The program did not interest him, but with the sound of anyone talking, he didn`t feel so alone in this dark block of flats.

Kohlhaas just knew his neighbours from brief encounters. Many of them only left their apartments to go to work and some of them had become serious boozers in recent years. From time to time someone would bawl from his balcony or accosted people, passing "his block" – but after a while, everyone was sleeping.

Citizen 1-564398B-278843 watched television till 22.37 o`clock: the news ("War of the global armed forces against dangerous terrorists in Iran"), talk shows, easy entertainment on all fronts, warnings of the second dog flu epidemic and the necessity for the immediate compulsory inoculation. Then he fell asleep, although meanwhile the foul smell from outside seemed to have lodged itself in his pillow....

Next day...

"Good morning, Frank!", muttered Dirk Weber, one of the foremen. "Good morning, Dirk!", answered Frank listlessly. It was 6.03 o'clock, the morning shift began. A-341, this was the designation of the young man as worker and temporary help in the steel plant, gave his helping hands for many operational steps till the clock indicated 10.30.

Now it was time for a short lunch, and when Frank unwraped his only bun which was covered with a piece of salami, he did not suspect, that an unpleasant stroke of fate would wait for him in the following minutes.

Since approximately half a year, the production complex` administration had arranged the singing of the "One-World-Song", due to a new international regulation, before every lunch time in each production complex - for the increase of work moral and to strengthen the international doctrine of "peace, freedom, prosperity and equality" that was propagated by the World Government since 2018. The official of the "Ministry for Production Supervision", stationed in this enterprise, Mr. Gert Sasse, who was mostly in his office above the factory building, had conscientiously come down to the workers to sing the "One-World-Song" with them. It was always the same.

"Workers, now is lunch time! But we will sing first!", he shouted through the hall and the steel workers formed to a bored line, in order to enjoy the short break after the singing:

"We are the children of One-World and we are all equal!

We love our One-World, the great realm of peace!

We don`t know any classes, we don`t know any races..."

Frank heard ever more rarely on the text in the last weeks, didn`t move his lips and stared at the ceiling of the dirty production hall. "Hurry up!", he thought and boredly scraped with his left foot over the dusty ground. Then the singing was over.

"Gosh! This stupid song is really getting on my nerves!", said the labourer very quietly to himself.

"All right, men! That could be done - halfway! Enjoy your meal!", called the official of the "Ministry for Production Supervision" and A-341 looked forward to a hungry bite in his softened roll.

But while his teeth eagerly crushed the salty piece of salami, he was hit by an angry look of Mr. Sasse. The supervisor narrowed his eyes to slits and looked like an aggressive bulldog.

"A-341! Yes, you! Come to me! Hurry!", he roared at the top of his lungs.

This got Frank`s adrenalin flowing. He didn`t need quarrel at work anymore.

"Come on, A-341!", yelled Mr. Sasse, waving the worker nearer. Kohlhaas followed the order immediately.

"I am just a fool for you, isn`t it?", hissed the man.

"Eh...no! Of course not, Sir...eh...Mr. Sasse!", stammered Frank.

"I fail to see what you mean...", he added stumbling.

"How I mean this, you idiot?", screamed the official with a look which gave the young man the biggest possible uneasiness. A malicious silence prevailed for several oppressive seconds. Meanwhile, the eyes of the superior threateningly became smaller and bushy, black eyebrows were pushed over them.

A second later, Frank saw a fist with fatty fingers fly towards his face. It suddenly hurt and his nasal bone reacted with a cracking on the punch. While some blood threads flowed down from his nose, A-341 heard a growl: "How I mean that, you numbskull?"

"If I give the instruction that the "One-World-Song" has to be sung, you have to sing it too. This was an order!", completed Mr. Sasse his powerful argument.

His intonation varied now between satisfaction and rampantly growing meanness. In the meantime, Kohlhaas had gone to the ground. This punch had been really hard and Sasse gave him another kick in the ribs now.

"Do you understand, idiot? You probably think, that you have a special status here, isn`t it?", he roared.

The other workers googled at him and hid their faces behind their rolls. Meanwhile, Kohlhaas felt like a kicked dog, humiliated in front of the rest of his colleagues - what was very close to reality. Without considering his action, he jumped up and positioned himself in front of the official of the "Ministry for Production Supervision".

"You can be glad, that you are my superior, otherwise I would break you every bone!", screamed Frank with boiling fury. Gert Sasse was baffled. A-341 obstinately wiped off the blood from his lip.

One hour later, the worker still waited in front of the door of the production complex leader. Sasse was in his office and Frank heard him swearing and ranting. This was no good sign.

"A-341, come in!", resounded the voice of the highest boss of this work plant over the brightly illuminated corridor. The young man started moving and took a seat on the chair in the middle of the office room. A short silence followed, then it began.

"I took a look on your Scanchip, A-341!", reported Mr. Reimers, the production complex leader. "In the ten years of your activity here, you had come too late three times. Apart from that, this is not the first time that you make a spectacle of yourself. You are already occured to me, because of subversive statements at work which can probably also be confirmed by your colleagues. We have even marked you with a blue code 67-Beta, if you didn`t know it yet, A-341!

We will examine the video tapes of your working days in this complex in the next days, with our new "Voice-Analysis-System", and I`m sure that we will find some more subversive statements.

But what you have done today, is a real scandal! Threatening an official of the highest authority of production supervision. Is there just air in your head, boy? If I don`t take drastic measures in a case like this, my superiors will make me a lot of problems.

I must dismiss you, A-341! Further, I am correctly obligated, to react on such an unbelievable incident with a message to the responsible administration. Disappear now from this production complex, and never come back, A-341!"

Frank Kohlhaas, the just dismissed worker, was struck dumb with horror. His vocal chords seemed to be rusted, his throat was tied and his courage was put on ice somewhere. He went out, just went out, pale as death, with a roaring head, without answering. Frank had lost his job, his source for subsistence. And this was no fun in these joyless days.

Like in trance, the young man went into the changing room of the production complex and absently opened the baggy sheet door of his spint. "Dismissal" - this word sounded like the cut of a razor in the ear of each listener in this time. It was related to the word "liquidation", because it was the destruction of the social existence. Being dismissed meant to get no more Globes, as the international currency was called since the year 2018. If Frank would not find a new employment as soon as possible, he could lose his apartment, his food and finally also his life. Any social security, warranted by the state, had completely been abolished since the total collapse of world economy in winter 2012/13. And it was more than difficult, to find work in a time, in which the industrial production in old Central and Western Europe had mostly been outsourced to the Third World. Therefore, millions of Europeans tried to survive by doing extremly bad paid jobs in this dark present. They had nothing to lose, so they were glad about every breadline wage they could get. Those, who were not able to find a possibility to earn some money in any way, ended as beggars and homeless people, hanging around under bridges or in vacant house ruins.

On the next day, Frank was not awaked by the shrill sound of his alarm, after an sorrowful and restless night, but by the disgusting stench which came from the stairway. The smell had not been liquidated by anyone – against the spirit of the age.

Only in the early morning hours, he had been able to sleep for a while, because of his constant brooding and the unpleasant thoughts that had tortured him during the night.

As first thought of the new grey day, the face of Mr. Sasse appeared in his head and the face of citizen 1-564398B-278843 changed to a hateful grimace, when he mused about killing the official with an iron rod.

"This damn hybrid! If my life goes down the drain, because of that guy, then I will smash the skull of this bastard before I go to hell!", hissed Frank, erupting in anger.

He finally crept out of his bed and stared down at the dirty street in front of his apartement block.

"Damn! What shall I do now?", he thought. "I must find a new job, otherwise they will close the account on my Scanchip, because I can`t pay the fucking calculations any longer."

After a further hour of useless musing, he left his dwelling, tried not to inhale too deeply on the corridor, and walked the dark stairs down to the ground floor.

The elevator was defective since months and nobody seemed to waste a thought about repairing it. The only one, Frank could imagine as a potential employer in this hardship, was Stefan Meise, the junkdealer, an old schoolmate.

Meise`s scrapyard was about half an hour foot march distant from Frank`s apartment block. He hit the road, walked down the ugly street, which was covered with garbage, and finally reached his goal – a place full of rusty cars and all kinds of metal debris.

Nevertheless, Stefan Meise was not difficult to find between the mountains of scrap iron. He was very tall, thick, bearded and looked hardly differed from what he collected and sold.

"Hello Stefan! How are you?", welcomed him Frank quietly, trying to smile.

"Oh, Frank Kohlhaas! What`s up, man?", answered the thick junkdealer. "You haven`t been here for ages!"

"I just thought, I could visit you. Does the scrap metal trade still run, Stefan?", asked Frank. "You have here... eh... a lot of rusty stuff...Where do you find so much junk?"

"Ha! I collect, what I can find. As all junkdealers do. Why do you ask me this, Frank? Can I help you?", returned Meise.

"I have lost my job yesterday", told Frank, while the fat man looked at him quizzically. Then, Meise stroke with his oily, broad fingers over his dirty black overall.

"That`s a disaster, Frank! And now?", asked Stefan and shook his head.

"Now, I`m looking for something new. Some kind of temporary job, you know? Perhaps, you still need another helping hand?", murmured the young man.

For half a minute, Meise just googled at the unemployed man with his yellowish, bulging eyes. Then he looked around and tried to give his unpleasant answer as carefully as possible.

"Working for me?", he inquired. "Thus, Frank, the situation is...eh...the times are bad. We all know this, my friend. I almost run everything alone here and only Ralf helps me from time to time. This is actually enough. I don`t need a second man, sorry!"

Frank Kohlhaas had never been a good actor and who saw him now, could feel his disappointment.

"And only for two months?", he asked.

"I need none here, and I can`t afford a second man, Frank!", explained the thick, filthy man and turned away. "I'm sorry, but I have to do some work now. No offense, but there is no chance for you to find work here."

Back home, Frank hissed one of his worst curses and kicked against the kitchen table. He desperately scanned his brain for other possibilities of employment and checked all production complexes around Berlin in his mind. But the problem was, that his boss had given him a negative entry in his Scanchip register after the conflict with Mr. Sasse, what made it difficult to get a job in another steel plant.

He still had 246 Globes on his electronic account for this month. More than 400 Globes he had to pay only for his apartment in this rotted estate of prefabricated houses. Time pressed now, with each day a little bit more, and the dark shadow of despair grew with the passing hours. It occupied Frank`s mind like a malicious ulcer.

After the young man had watched an extremely stupid sitcom, he switched off the television and tried to sleep. But it was only 23,00 o'clock and regrettably the exhaustion had not achieved the necessary level yet, to turn off Frank`s brain and give him some peace of mind.

Several hours followed, when Frank was staring at the dark ceiling, cursing the production complex 42-B with all its superiors, supervisors and workers.

Then the stench from the hall became noticeable to him again and the fog of despair in his head swelled so strongly that the young man thought about killing himself.

He mused about operating the bad thoughts and concerns under his skullcap with a heavy-calibered shotgun which would completely spread his brain over the yellowed wallpaper behind his bedstead. And Frank Kohlhaas still thought about many other things in this terrible night.

He brooded over his so far senseless life, the isolation, the monotonousness and the gaping abyss that waited for him now. Frank came to no solution in this night and not even the smallest glimmer of hope seemed to shine somewhere. Nothing. Outside it was dark. In front of the house, Frank could recognize a few ripped garbage bags, which already lay there since several weeks. Then he was finally so tired, that he fell asleep with his head on the window sill.

Up to the end of the week, the search for a new job was unsuccessful – as he had already expected it. It seemed that there was no more work at all, in the periphery of several kilometers. Furthermore, a inquiry at the local administration had proven that Frank had meanwhile a negative entry in his Scanchip register, because of "disturbance of peace at the workplace".

"Perhaps, the idea with the shotgun is not too bad at all! But before that, I will visit this Sasse!", grumbled Frank on Friday, when the short weekend for his former colleagues of the production complex 42-B began.

On Saturday and Sunday, he invested his last Globes in the cheap liquor from the kiosk at the corner. Alone in his small, modestly furnished apartment, in the dark block of flats, in a much darker time. His fate and his pain was not noticed by anyone else. Just like Frank Kohlhaas had never noticed the pain of the others who lifed their lives in their honeycombs, behind the shabby, gray walls of this plattenbau.

If he would drink himself to death or blew his head away, he would soon smell like the corridor on his floor, and it would probably not even been noticed by his neighbors. This thought was somehow so sick that it elecited Frank a tormented smile.

Hard alcohol had not the best reputation, but one thing was clear: It had already given millions of desperate people a good sleep. No concern could be so big, that it couldn`t be drowned in a wave of the good and, above all, cheap booze from the nearby kiosk. Frank checked this old truth in a "self-experiment".

"Beep! Beep! Beep!", it resounded on Monday at 6.30 o'clock in the morning from the kitchen, where the drunk man had forgotten his Scanchip. "Beep! Beep! Beep!"

An electronic woman`s voice always repeated...

"Good morning, citizen 1-564398B-278843! You have a message of priority level alpha on your Scanchip!"

"Good morning, citizen 1-564398B-278843! You have a message of priority level alpha on your Scanchip!"

"Good morning, citizen 1-564398B-278843! You have a

message of priority level alpha on your Scanchip!"

"Hmmm...", hummed Frank, still a bit dazed from the night before.

"Damn! What?", he muttered and rolled out of his bed which still smelled of alcohol.

"What the hell? Damn! Shut up!", he grunted and walked with a bad headache to the kitchen table.

It lasted a little eternity until Frank had remembered the pin code and had found his way through the message-menu of the Scanchip.

"What...?"

"Citation? What?", whispered citizen 1-564398B-278843. He had to read it twice, in order to believe it. Did somebody try to kid him?

"What the fuck is that?", he could only say.

Official citation:

Citizen 1-564398B-278843,

You are officially cited to an automated trial on 14.08.2027 at 8.00 o'clock.

Accusations:

  * Massive disturbation at the workplace

  * Theoretical aggravated battery

Appear at the mentioned time in court cell 4/211, at your local juridical complex. In the case of nonappearance, you will be punished with the deletion of your Scanchip or arrest! (*§127b, "Citizen Obligations and theoretical Sanctions")

Official document code: 257789000-0100567-2345441113-EGN-59900-4/211

Culprit number: 319444-556.77

Thank you for your cooperation!

Frank`s atomised brain began to hurt and to rotate. "Citation? What do you want from me?"

He was totally confused and couldn`t remember any crimes in his past life.

"Just because I`ve yelled at this damned Sasse?", he thought. "This can`t be true! I finally did not touch him. I have just lost control for some seconds. I don`t understand this. And what the hell do they mean with "theoretical aggravated battery"?"

And there was no doubt. Frank Kohlhaas, the helping out citizen with the official code 1-564398B-278843, had never done something bad to another person. Except for the time in the kindergarten, back then, as he had given this stupid Kevin a little slap and his parents had been called to the authorithies. The local education officials had briefly become anxiously and had explanied that Frank would have some "subliminal aggressions" and a "precarious masculine behavior". Then they had suggested a therapy with tranquilizers.

But this was many years ago. Furthermore, the therapy could be avoided, after the child had repetend its "sins" in front of a committee of psychologists and social pedagogues, and his parents had insured, that they would immediately report Frank`s next "crimes", if he would become noticeable again in this context.

But he never became noticeable again. He always stuck to the rules until this day; in the kindergarten, the elementary school and everywhere else. Since his fifth year of life, he had always been a good boy. No, he was not noticeable at all. And of course he was no human being with "subliminal aggressions". Sometimes in his thoughts or dreams, he beat up a superior or an administrative coworker, but this was a secret and Frank had never talked about his thought crimes. He was just "normal", as he meant.

Apart from this, it was also the first time that the otherwise perfectly inconspicuous plattenbau-inhabitant Frank Kohlhaas had come in contact with an "automated trial". The citizen had already heard about this, once in the news, since it had been introduced by the World Government three years ago. But the young man could not imagine, what this strange process really was. But why should a decent person like Frank think about such things? He had never become culpable and had nothing to do with criminality.

Therefore, the accused had not the foggiest notion, what waited for him now and so he wasn`t too much concerned about this citation.

It was probably nothing but a pure formality, circumstances, which could be clarified. Frank had not hurt anybody and therefore he also could not be condemned. The young man had already lost his job, because of the so called "disturbation of peace at the workplace". There was no reason to be worried, thought Kohlhaas.

Now the unemployed man absently hit the button "Voice Presentation" so that the message was slowly read out by a computer-animated woman`s voice. This was also a novelty. The administration had introduced the "Voice Presentation" some years ago, because more and more citizens of Berlin were illiterate, above all, the younger generation. So an important official message had always to be available in read out form.

The rest of this day wasn`t very spectacular and the "automated trail" was already tomorrow. "Then I will have a reason to rise", said Frank to himself and grinned cynically. Shortly afterwards, Kohlhaas tried to call his father to ask him for some money, but he didn`t reach anybody during the whole day. Nevertheless, there was some more liquor in the kitchen. Frank decided to get royally drunk once again, and fell asleep at midnight. He almost forgot to set his alarm-clock...

Automated Trial

Although it was August, this morning was very cold and dark. Frank`s neck hurt and he had another headache from last night`s drunkenness. The local juridical complex was over one hour foot march distant from his apartment block, but the citizen thought, that it could be a good idea to go and get some, more or less, fresh air. In addition, he could fight the aftereffects of his hangover.

He hastily gulped down some toast, swallowed the dissolvable coffee and examined the label on the plastic can of the coffee powder.

"Globe Food" was written on it and Frank could see a world ball. Above the globe was a pyramid with an eye on its top. At the bottom of the picture was the slogan: "Food for the people!"

"Amusing symbol!", murmured Frank into his three-day beard.

He had never noticed this logo before, although he only bought his food in the cheap "Globe Food" supermarkets, which dominated Berlin. Then the thought left his head again, as fast as it had come.

The unusual cold weather let Frank shiver. A draft of fresh air blew through the dark stairway and temporary flushed away even the smell of bad eggs. In front of him, a neighbor walked down to the exit and Frank considered if he had seen the face of this man ever before.

The man said something sounding like "Hello!", but Kohlhaas wasn`t sure. The accused slowly walked forward and was still dizzy. He briefly looked at the playground in the yard and beheld some children who were screaming with shrill voices in an incomprehensible language. Was it Turkish? Or Arabic?

When the clock indicated 7.43, he could already recognize the outlines of the juridical complex from the distance. It was a large red building with hundreds of windows and over 30 floors. Dozens of court cells were in front of it, one of them was waiting for him. The chambers, in which people could get their "automated trial", were made of a gray metal and about four meters wide, as Frank guessed from his distant view.

Three other citizens already stood before them, between them were some police officers. Slowly he became nervous. Perhaps this hearing was nevertheless more unpleasantly, than he had imagined at first.

Now it was necessary to pass an electrical gate, which was protected by a doorman in a small, brown house. The official gave Frank a sign to come nearer.

"Come here!", he called.

The young man ran forward and positioned himself in front of the entrance of the guardroom.

"Scanchip!", said the doorman, holding a laser scanner in his hand. Wordlessly he pulled the Scanchip out of Frank`s hand, without looking at him, and said after a short "beep" of his code reader: "Court cell 4/211! Hurry up! It is nearly 8.00 o'clock! If you come too late, it will be just more expensive for you!"

Frank`s heart started to pound faster. Fearfully, he started to search the court cells, in order to find his number. The other accused examined him with some brief looks.

"Row 4! Shit! I must hurry up...211...", lamented Frank, becoming more and more nervous. Meanwhile, only two minutes remained, till his hearing would start. He began to run and with a racing heart and an increasing headache, he correctly reached his court cell in time.

Gasping for breath, he was welcomed by an electronic woman`s voice: "Welcome citizen 1-564398B-278843, to your automated trail! Please enter your culprit number on the display and press OK!"

Frank pulled the Scanchip out of his trouser pocket, opened the message menu, and tried to enter his culprit number. A rarely known panic attacked him now. He looked around, gasping for breath again.

"Actually, I don`t have to go in this damn metal box, because I didn`t do anything!", he whispered, but the door was already open. Frank`s hands became sweaty, while he breathed louder.

In front of him, a weakly lit up metallic hole had opened itself, which requested him to step forward now.

"Come in, citizen 1-564398B-278843! Your trial is already running!", it resounded from a loudspeaker at the ceiling of the halfdark chamber. Frank Kohlhaas knew that he had no chance to refuse the order. It was nevertheless an official instruction and there was never and in no case room for a discussion or exception.

He made a step forward and his knees felt more weak with each passing second. Then a screen flashed. The "automated trial" against the theoretical delinquent Frank Kohlhaas took its course.

In large and bright letters, the reproaches could be read on the screen:

Accusations:

  * Massive disturbation at the workplace

  * Theoretical aggravated battery

Frank swallowed and let out a big gush of air. The terribly sounding woman`s voice, as friendly as an unnoticed virus, began with some remarks. A detailed description of the progression of events, the listing of witnesses and additional "sub-charges" followed, for example "subversive statements at work" - and some more.

For several minutes, the young man didn`t say anything, and besides, nobody had asked him for his point of view, only the computer voice was talking, implementing and accusing.

Frank`s former colleagues, Schmidt, Adigüzel and Nyang, had confirmed the fact, that the young man had refused the singing of the "One-World-Song" several times and had even described the text as "nonsens" on 02.04.2027.

Production supervisor Sasse had added that the aggressive mimic and the use of "strong vocabulary" during the argument in the factory, would be an evidence for Frank`s tendency of "unnecessary analyzing of absolutely justified instructions" and "subliminal aggressions".

The boss of the production complex had confirmed this too. Further details followed: legal regulations and regulations for extended and deeper instructions in the reference to the list and redefinition of defaults - and more.

"You can be glad that you are my superior, otherwise I would break you every bone!"

The intention of striking the superior, was more than clearly proven, in the eyes of the automated court. The difference between a (in such a way) formulated intention and an actually implemented act, was relatively small, according to the modern understanding of law which was oriented towards psychology and statistics. Further, the probability to commit this act one day in reality, had also enormously increased, because the intention had clearly been formulated. (Compare: "Bill of calibration of actual, theoretical and probable behavior" from 02.10.2020, document code: V-LUN-36777192934457656-Z, (89) ")

Frank googled at the screen like a stunned cow, which had walked against an electrical fence. He was not able to think that fast, how this computer programme made him to a potential interference factor, a danger for the order of the worldwide system, basing on freedom and humanitarianism.

After an hour, the lecture finally came to an end. Now a new menu appeared on the screen. The woman`s voice with the electronic taste kindly read out the sentences, sounding like sudden frost in Frank`s ears:

"If you deny the charges, please click on NO!"

"If you admit the charges, please klick on YES!"

Citizen 1-564398B-278843 hesitated, perked his eyebrows up and tried to arrange his thoughts.

"What is this shit? I`ve done nothing wrong, nothing at all! This whole crap is a bad joke!", yelled Frank through the court cell. For a second, he thought about crushing this damn screen with a kick.

"I will choose NO! I`m innocent! No! I click NO! No question!", he screamed angrily.

The accused hammered on the keys in front of him and selected NO. Now he had to wait. The computer hummed. "Loading" could be seen on the screen in bright letters. Frank felt relieved for a short moment.

"Now that fucking thing knows that I am innocent. I expressed myself clearly: NO!", he said grimly. Then he smiled, a bit exhausted, while the inner tension started to die down. Shortly afterwards, he got the answer of the automated court computer, with metallic sound and cruelly combined letters on the bright screen:

"Accused, you selected NO! This means, you deny the reproaches and assume our juridical system, led by humanistic principles, not to consider these! Unfortunately, we must tell you that the selection of the menu option NO leads, in principle, to an increased measure of punishment, because it shows the intransigence of the culprit..."

The court decision is loaded...

The young man paused, gaped at the screen and cursed quietly, while his mouth became an astonished, shocked hole. Frank Kohlhaas` understanding seemed to be blocked, briefly put on "standby". The data were too large and too terrible, in order to be able to be processed by his brain. The biological computer under his skullcap just seemed to fall into chaos and started to collapse.

Then the gleeful shining screen of court cell 4/211 struck in his face with still more malice. The judgement was announced:

"Citizen 1-564398B-278843! You are condemned to 5 years of detention in a center for reeducation and resocialization!

To the reason: In your case, the statistic probability for theoretical aggravated battery is at 78, 11%!

The statistic probability for prospective subversive behavior is at 53.59% in your case! Moreover, the selection of the menu option NO increases the penalty. But you can be unconcerned. Meanwhile, there are numerous governmental institutions, in which human beings like you can get modern theraphies on the highest level of science, in order to begin a happy and adapted new life in our humanistic society! We thank you for your understanding!"

Frank`s eyes bored into the screen and his ears roared. The electronic woman`s voice resounded in his head like the echo of an atomic explosion. It became a slimy worm, which ate its way through his pinna towards his brain.

"5 years of detention?", stammered the man.

Frank tried to explain himself, that his hearing had deceived him, but the cruel news were also in front of his eyes. Unfortunately, both senses could not err. He was condemned. It was correct.

Still in a condition of shock, the accused hardly noticed, when the electronic lock engaged behind him, blocking the court cell automatically. The damnation had been proclaimed and the trap had sprung. In the first minutes, Frank was much too perplex to be able to realize this. The despair in this early moment was far too big that it could give room to feelings like hate or rage.

For this procedure, 411.66 Globes were deducted from Frank`s Scanchip account, what was also mentioned by the computer voice.

He might behave and wait, until the police officers would come to arrest him. Then he would be brought to a transport vehicle, as the computer explained. Citizen 1-564398B-278843 listened to these further instructions without showing any emotions. The condition of torpidity was too serious. Half an hour later, he suddenly jumped up in his despair, in order to cry. But a strange weakness had captured his mind and after a short emotional outburst, Kohlhaas crept into a dark corner and waited.

"Perhaps it is just a misunderstanding? It could surely be cleared up!", it temporarily flared up in his mind. "I must talk to the officials. They can...can help me, to find a solution. The computer must have erred."

When two policemen arrived at the court cell, about one hour later, they already heard Frank complaing from a distance.

"I think, that is the loudest guy today!", sneered a policeman.

"He has a real big mouth!", said the other.

The steel door of the dark court chamber opened and offered a sorry sight to the policemen. But it was not a picture, which was strange to them. Outbreaks of accused people after automated trials, were nothing new for them. They brought Frank to one of the vehicles...

Big eye

The transport to "Big Eye", one of the largest and most modern high safety prisons in the entire administrative sector "Central Europe", did not last for a long time, but it seemed to go on forever for Frank. Mentally absent, like hit by an arrow full of narcotic poison, he stared vacantly into space.

The police officers ignored him and talked most of the time about a new TV show, called "The Little Whisperer", where children could win prices if they uncovered "subversive behavior" among their relatives or neighbors.

Actually, the young man had planned to address the police officers, to tell them that everything was just a judicial error, but he did not do it. And they did not seem to have any interest to make some small talk with him.

After a while, the outlines of an enormous prison complex appeared on the horizon. This was "Big Eye". Frank had once seen a report on television about this institute, where only happy and healed "patients" (this was the official designation) were shown to the people. Now he was on the way there.

The building was surrounded by high concrete walls, which were provided with barbed wire and watchtowers. It had several floors and on an outside wall, the prisoner recognized the strange symbol, he had already seen before on the label of his coffee powder glass.

A pyramid with an eye on its top. The sign looked somehow differently than the escutcheon of the "Globe Food" chain of stores, but nevertheless, the similarity was clear. "Big Eye" - the great eye. Nobody could escape from its view!", thought Frank, driven by fear. He should be right.

The patient finally left the transporter and the officers did not have to become rough this time. He followed them, was silent and accepted all their instructions like being on drugs. Dress order, behavioral code, sleeping time. He hardly heard on all the talk, musing about the rising nightmare around him.

If he listened or not, was quite immaterial. He should remain here for five long years, according to an official court decision, and had therefore time enough to internalize the routine of the day to the smallest detail. After Frank had undressed, he received a white shirt and white trousers, just as white trainers.

"You will get a new set every week!", explained one of the attendants. "Follow me now, citizen 1-564398B-278843! From now on, you are called "Patient 111-F-47" in this institute! Do you understand this?" Frank answered with a nod and followed the man.

"Now go with the execution officials, they will bring you to your cell in block F. Don`t make problems!"

The new prisoner was lead many stairways up to one of the highest floors of the prison complex. Internally broken, he stared at the ground, but even in his lethargic state of shock, he noticed that nothing could be heard from the other prisoners. No discussions, no crying or any other sound. It was oppressing. The long corridors of "Big Eye" were uncanny quiet and all the numbered cell doors were made of extremely thick steel. The cell with the number 47, in block F, was provided for Frank. He tried to explain himself, that everything was nothing but a nightmare. It could not be real and soon he would wake up, in order to enjoy the stench from his stairway at first. He would run out of his apartment and loudly yell over the corridor: "Nice, that you are here, stench!"

Yes, he would do it, because this prison could only be a cruel vision in the depths of his mind, and in the next moment this scenario would just split like an unpleasant thought. But it was not like that.

"111-F-47! Here we are! This is your cell!", one of the execution officials suddenly said. The sturdy man with the brown mustachio and the sharp-edged cheek bone entered an access code and the cell door opened.

"In there, 111-F-47!", he grunted.

In this second, clarity returned to Frank`s mind again. The young man abruptly realized, that he would spend the next five years in this room. This let his sanity splinter like glass. He broke down and lost consciousness.

After an indefinite time, Frank came round again. Waked up by a blazing neon light, which penetrated his lids. He was still dazed, felt sick and the glow stabbed in his skull like a sharp spear.

"Wake up, patient 111-F-47!", said a voice somewhere in the room.

"Wake up, patient 111-F-47!", it resonated again. Frank layed with his back on a light gray plank bed of pleather and his headache returned with a vengeance.

"Wake up, patient 111-F-47!" Again and again and again.

The head of the young man hurt, as if somebody had put it into a vice, he was hungry and felt tired and frail.

"Leave me alone!", he begged and tried to turn away from the sharp light, but it was impossible.

"Patient 111-F-47! Listen!", it resounded from the ceiling of the cell.

Frank sat down on the edge of the plank bed and held the hands over his eyes. "What do you want from me?", he gasped.

"Welcome to your holo cell, patient 111-F-47! Don`t be scared! You are in a mental hospital and we want to help you!", told the metallic woman`s voice from the loudspeaker.

"This new holo cell is a part of your therapy, patient 111-F-47! We use these mechanisms here in "Big Eye", helping you to regain the path of the adapted citizen. In this holo cell, all outlines just blur; it is unlimited, like our "One World", whose happy citizen you will be after your healing, patient 111-F-47!

Trust us and our newest therapy. Developed by philanthropists, in order to help people. This cell contains the freedom, because it does not know borders. It is your freedom to heal yourself, the freedom of your mind which will learn with our help!"

Frank Kohlhaas still held his hurting head. This light was intolerable and it should still last weeks, until he had got halfway accustomed to its sharp brightness. Finally, he examined his new home. The room had a size of perhaps hundred square meters, maybe it was a bit smaller. Frank could hardly see the outlines of the walls or the cell door, because of the bright, white light.

The glow was terrible and it penetrated his brain completely. Even if Frank screwed up his eyes, this unnatural brightness besieged his barricaded head persistently like an army. Frank`s headache became stronger. Then he just vomited on his plank bed and crept into a corner.

"Patient 111-F-47! Do you hear us? You are in a holo cell! Do you understand this? If so, then lift your hand!", demanded the loudspeaker energetically.

The sick man signaled the fact that he had understood and still huddled in the corner. In the cell were no things, only the plank bed and a toilet at the opposite wall. Otherwise, here was only the biting light.

"You will get one hour of reeducation, twice a day!", explained the unnatural voice from the upper corner of the room. "The first reeducation hour begins in 30 minutes, patient 111-F-47! Get ready!"

Frank was overtaxed with this situation and dug his face, still hiding in the corner, behind his knees. He tried to think about nothing and would have done everything to switch that light off. But this was not within his power. As nothing in "Big Eye" was within his power.

He was nothing but a white mouse here, a small laboratory rat in a cage, that had to endure everything the sadistic inventors of this so called "mental hospital" had invented. Shortly afterwards, the reeducation hour began, whereby the loudspeaker intensively explained 111-F-47 the reasons for his "therapy" again. It said, that they wanted to make a "good human being" of Frank. "A human being, which is human, by overcoming its humanity!"

The brainwash lasted a whole hour, while the light burned and hurt more and more. Occasionally, the prisoner lost orientation, because the sharp light was like a white nebula. Frank tried to fight the pain in his head, but he was at this cell`s mercy. Furthermore, he was in the hands of the cruel blaze and the metallically sounding talk of this steel computer woman, that tormented him.

"I can`t stand this insanity for two weeks!", said Frank to himself and winced. "I want it to stop! Please, God!", he whined.

But God didn`t hear him. The acoustic insulation of the holo cell was much too perfect, deep down in the prison complex "Big Eye". If Frank had a God here, then it was him or her or it, the thing behind the loudspeaker. At night, at 22.00 o'clock, the sharp light was switched off. The whole room suddenly became dark then. So pitch-dark that even the smallest source of light did not remain. Frank couldn`t see the hand before his eyes anymore and in his head, the aftereffects of the blinding blaze jumped around as manifold colors. There was only extreme brightness or extreme darkness in this cell. Whoever had developed the concept of this instrument of torture, knew exactly, that this cruel form of conditioning could transform even the unruliest man to a willing slave, within only a short time. And so the first days in "Big Eye" slowly passed, leaving countless deep scars in the mind of the young man. But there was no escape. No possibility to flee, no rescue by God. Only the devil seemed to be interested in "Big Eye" - probably he had even designed this hell on earth.

"Stand tall, patient 111-F-47! Here in "Big Eye" is no quarrel among the inmates, there are no rebellions and no annoyance - everyone remains for himself, during the entire term of imprisonment. You, 111-F-47, are one of the first ill human beings, who have the luck, to receive a therapy in a holo cell. We are happy for you, that the computer-assisted selective procedure has chosen you for this room.

Behave willingly, be flexible and learn to respect the rules of the system! Not every patient here has the luck, to be healed a holo cell. You are one of the prototypes. Support the developers of this new form of healing, by helping your therapy to success!", it resounded through the room one morning.

On other days, patient 111-F-47 was explained, how important it was to believe everything the media told him. How necessary it was, to free human beings from their instincts, to format and reprogram their minds so that they could overcome all their natural instincts. Furthermore, how inevitable the sedation of human beings was, so that they could reach a state of happiness. How important consumption and maximization of profit were, for a functioning society.

In these long weeks of isolation, the strange artificial days and the black unnatural nights, it was Frank`s largest concern, not to go insane. The isolation, the boredom and, above all, the haunting light had soon transformed him into a pathetic creature. He often thought about his father and his sister, the only members of his family, who were still there. Frank`s mother had died three years ago, he had loved her very much and with her death he had lost not only his biological mother, but also his best friend, his closest reference person in this world. The time after her death had been hard. Now, nobody was left to talk to.

To his father, Rainer Kohlhaas, who lived in the eastern part of Berlin, Frank had had only irregular contact. Rarely, too rarely, he had visited him so far, if he was honest. But Rainer Kohlhaas was an unemotional, taciturn man, and each discussion with him was laborious.

Frank and Rainer had frequently argued in former times. Often the father had openly shown his displeasure about Frank`s path through life and had always upholded Frank`s sister Martina, as the positive example. His son had hated these permanent comparisons, but now, all this was no longer important.

From time to time he had telephoned with his older sister, the more successful one of the two children. Martina had become a teacher, had married and Frank had often envied her, because of her good payment. But one day, she had confessed to him, how fraught and exhaustive her job was. She just hated to work on her school.

She teached the subjects "Biology "and "English" at a school complex in Wuppertal, in the sub-district Westfalen- Rheinland. Martina described the situation in German schools as more than intolerable, and Frank had the suspicion that she already drank and took tranquilizers. But she held on, for her husband and her son, the little Nico. However, citizen 1-564398B-278843 had seen his nephew only twice and had always been proud to be his uncle.

In these terrible days, he often thought about the rest of his family which probably didn`t know at all, that he was locked up here. Perhaps, they would only be surprised about the fact, that Frank didn`t answer the telephone since weeks.

Perhaps the police had even informed his family members -that he had become an offender and was a criminal now, and had to face his fair punishment in that prison. He just didn`t know, but he could imagine his father`s face, if he got that message.

"I have always said, that the boy wastes his life. Now my old sorrow has finally been confirmed!", he had probably murmured. The prisoner didn`t try to think too much about these unpleasant things.

"What has happened to my apartment?", he pondered. "I`m sure that they have already rented it to another person. This can be done fast if the rent can`t be deducted from the Scanchip anymore."

In these days, Frank could only speak with himself and tried to handle the pain. But it did not change anything. He had served only one month in this room, but Frank already got the feeling that he had walked from one end of hell to the other.

It was not easy to persevere here. And the daily two reeducation hours finally became even the most interesting things, which happened on a day in the holo cell. After a while, Frank occasionally even looked forward to them.

Nevertheless, sometimes he tried to destroy the loudspeaker, which hung much too high, to tear it down. Then he became so angry that he kicked against the walls or bit in his underarm till it bled. Frank`s lonely fight against windmills continued for a while in such a way. Always unsuccessful and ever more closer to the loss of his good judgement. Sometimes he cried below the loudspeaker, begged for grace and forgiveness and promised to follow each rule and each regulation for all eternity. He swore, to believe everything, what they told him. But nobody ever answered.

When two months had passed, Frank broke out in tears ever more frequently or crawled under his light gray plank bed. He thought, that insanity had already found him and skid down into a state of permanent panic. Patient 111-F-47 didn`t trust his own judgement any longer and felt seperated from the rest of the world like by a great ocean.

In the second month of his term of imprisonment, he made "insanity" to his companion. He invisaged him as another inmate, as a cellmate.

A very tall guy, gaunt, with completely pale skin and deep furrows in the face. Also dressed in the correct white cell clothes of "Big Eye". However, if the "insanity" sat beside him on the plank bed, he unfortunately never answered. He just sneered at him, showing Kohlhaas his yellowish-brown teeth. But nevertheless, Frank told his spooky friend a lot of things.

Sometimes the patient also imagined, that "Mr. Madness", as Frank called him after a while, snored in the complete darkness of the night, lying somewhere in the room. Then he crept over the ground and tried to find his strange cellmate, in order to tell to him that he might be silent. Frank thought about much confusing things and nobody could say, if the young men still knew, that it were confusing things. It was a nocturnal trip beyond the borders of human understanding, a mental journey through the darkest tunnels of his mind. And every morning, Kohlhaas was awaked by that bright, hellish light again.

"That`s the army of the light particles, which destroys my lids with their ramming supports, piece by piece, pouring into my head-fortress with loud screams - slaughtering everything without further warning. And this cruel horde massacres my helpless grey cells!", said the young man, if he could hardly bear it.

Then he had phases, in which he searched his body on diseases for hours. He found malicious knots and parasites everywhere. His body seemed to be full of degenerated pimples and strange maladies under the skin, which filled his mind with sorrows.

At the end of the third month, he discovered some red points on the white wall behind the toilet, when he huddled on the ground, in order to protect himself against the aggressive light. Frank was sure that it were traces of blood, which had only provisionally been overcoated with white color by the prison`s staff.

Mr. Madness had no opinion about this, he just sat in the corner and beheld Frank sadly. Often Kohlhaas remembered, whether it was actually possible, to smash his own head against the wall or the ceramic toilet bowl so hardly, that this torture was over. What would happen?

Would the attendants save him, just to let him rot here until doomsday? Another possibility was, to bite open his pulse veins. Unfortunately, there were no bedlinen or other things in this cell, which would have made a suicide possible.

But each time, when Frank had these thoughts, he finally lost the courage to do it. Moreover, Mr. Madness always looked worriedly at him in these situations, still sitting in his corner. The light disappeared, it was 22,00 o'clock.

Starting from the fourth month of his captivity in the holo cell, Frank Kohlhaas spent the most days with being just motionless for hours, lying on his belly - under the plank bed.

"May this damn light hit Mr. Madness! May he sit on the plank bed! I will stay here. Here, that blaze will never find me!", he said to himself with a lunatic smile.

Meanwhile, Frank thought about his family more rarely. And what was the use anyhow? He was separated from the rest of the world. And his father, his sister or the little Nico, could not safe him from this horror.

And as the computer-controlled woman voice had already explained in one of the reeducation hours: "The connections to family and kinship are errors of nature, and all citizens of the New World Order must get along without them! They must be corrected by modern rules.

Interhuman relations harm the new order and obstruct the economic development. Humans must learn to overcome them. Having a family is not progressive, it restrains every advancement. Forget your family, because your new community is the community of the "One-World". You are part of the whole, patient 111-F-47, and the whole is a part of you!"

His only entertainment in this confusing time was to examine the dust grains on the cell ground and Frank wondered how many interesting forms and colors he could find.

Sometimes it was really fascinaiting for him and so he hardly listened, if the gentle voice of reeducation from the loudspeaker explained to him, why the old order of the world was just wrong, and the new order was good without exception.

When the fifth month began, Frank suddenly became talkative. He talked with Mr. Madness about a lot of things and often his speeches lasted several hours. He invented lectures, which were similar to the instructions of the reeducation hours. Meanwhile, Frank planned to reeducate Mr. Madness, a very important personality who had already visited millions of people around the world.

Sometimes he preached the most important facts of each current reeducation hour, he recited them, yelled them and sometimes he tried to kick or beat Mr. Madness, if his pupil didn`t show enough interest. Although, he actually viewed this gentleman in the corner, who sometimes also sat on his plank bed, as his cell comrade and friend, he had occasionally to give some pain to him, so that he learned. But all his attemps to hit the imaginary man were unsuccessful. After a while, Frank had kicked a little hole in the white wall of the holo cell – but he had never hit Mr. Madness.

When another month had passed, Frank had given it up to convince Mr. Madness, to become also a good citizen of the new world state. Now he tried to memorize every single word of the reeducation hours and often he could completely repeat the first two or three minutes by heart.

He cried, sang and howled the slogans from the loudspeaker like a parrot. The necessity of the registration of earth`s population, the obligation of obeying, the autoregulation of economics, the inevitability of a society without sexes, nations and races, the necessary dissolution of all cultures and religions, the requirement of inhumanity as the basis of a new humanity.

His memory proved, although it was already owergrown by a mushroom of insanity, as amazingly good. Frank saw himself as a learner and with bloodshot eyes he cried, while the loudspeaker talked: "Jawohl! This is the only truth!"

Meanwhile half a year had passed and patient 111-F-47 had developed many possibilities of overcoming the hours and days. He had even set up an own daily plan in his mind:

- Meal

- Learn as much words from the reeducation hour as I can

- Explain them to Mr. Madness (however, only if he listened) - Investigate the fibers of the white wallpaper more exactly

- Finding new dust particles on the ground

\- Lunch

\- Arguing with Mr. Madness

Frank`s meal rations came through a hatch in the wall three times a day. The inventors of the holo cell had kindly made certain that he had never to leave this terrible room, not even for the intake of food.

Two months later, the monitoring cameras of "Big Eye", which always kept every corner in this big prison complex in sight, including room 47 in block F, saw a broken man, lying like dead with face down on his plank bed.

Frank Kohlhaas, patient 111-F-47, seemed to have slipped into an endless lethargy. Meanwhile, he wished nothing more than the end of his shattered existence.

The cruel treatment had internally destroyed him, and even the irrational behavior and the emotional outbreaks, which had kept him alive for so long, were over.

Over eight months of holo cell had corroded his mind so strongly, that his body seemed to refuse its service any longer under such inhuman conditions.

The sharp, malicious light, which tormented him 14 hours a day, hand in hand with the impenetrable darkness of the artificial nights, had finally crushed Frank`s will to live. The holo cell 47 in block F, this hell chamber without windows, with only a plank bed, a toilet and a little hatch in the white wall, was ultimately the winner in this war against insanity. Not even Frank`s only friend, the mutely smiling Mr. Madness, had had the guts to stay here any longer - he had vanished.

On 21.03.2028, the light was switched off again at 22.00 o'clock in the evening by the computer-controlled system of "Big Eye".

The unconscious Frank Kohlhaas, who layed somewhere in this cell, down on the ground, with his face in a puddle of saliva, was swallowed by the darkness again. He did no longer notice it.

The next day, the army of light particles started another great attack on Frank`s head. With loud crashing it surged against his lids like a battering ram and awoke the halfdead patient again. But Frank`s will was already destroyed and why should he be interested in another day of hundreds more in this holo cell. He hoped, with the still smoldering rest of his understanding, that he would meet death as soon as possible. Kohlhaas was sure, that he would praise the Grim Reaper like a redeemer, when he would finally come.

On 22.03.2028 at 9.45 o'clock in the morning, the electronic woman voice suddenly resounded through the brightly illuminated cell. Frank lay on the ground like a dying animal and hardly heard this anymore. The small part of his brain, which hadn`t been razed to the ground and hadn`t been brunt by the horde of light particles yet, was briefly surprised for a second about the fact that there was another announcement after the wake-up call. Then Frank`s mind switched off again. Nevertheless, this was unusual.

"Listen, patient 111-F-47! Your holo cell has been given to another patient by the computer-controlled administration of "Big Eye". You will be brought to the mental hospital "World Peace" in Bonn, where your therapy will be continued for the next four years and four months. Please be unconcerned, your healing process will not be interrupted. A holo cell of the same type is available for you in "World Peace"!"

The young man hardly thought about the content of the announcement. They should freight him, whereto they ever wanted. He would hopefully soon be dead and free.

But up to the next morning, he still lived. Or better said: His heart refused stopping, although his owner really wished it - "from the heart". He hadn`t moved at all, during the whole day and the following night, because he took his desire to die very seriously.

But the three execution officials, who opened his holo cell punctually at 8.00 o'clock and entered the room, didn`t understand this. They were the first human beings since over eight months, who visited Frank here \- to bring him from A to B, from one hell chamber to the next.

"The guy still breathes, but he is totally down!", said one of the three guards.

"Hey! Stand up, man! Don`t waste our time!", remarked another and kicked Frank in the back.

"Hrrrr!", hummed the prisoner.

"Shit, the guy is really broken! Uwe, look at this!" The third enforcement officer was astonished. "Bring us some stimulants! We need some extra help in this case!"

One of the officials departed and came back with a cup of water and two red pills after a quarter of an hour.

"Hey! Hey, 111-F-47! Open your mouth!. Yes, good boy! And now, down with it!", he muttered.

Frank swallowed the pills and was able to walk after a few minutes. He didn`t understand, what happened to him and hardly noticed, that he was on the way to leave the abhorrent holo cell behind him.

"Go! Get a grip, man! Just walk!. Yes, this is good. One foot before the other one! Forward!", said the guard and supported Frank cynically.

Patient 111-F-47 had to be carried out of the prison building, more or less, because he was too weak to walk. After a while, the policemen simply pushed the young man forward.

"That the guy isn`t fit yet, after two pills of steroin!", remarked the officer with surprise. "Hurry up! The driver of the transporter is waiting in hall B!"

The three man brought the picture of misery, which once had been called Frank Kohlhaas, with the help of steroin, a highly concentrated stimulant, and some beats against the head to the transport van.

Frank crept over the three stages of a metal stair and sank down on one of the seats. His hands were secured with handcuffs behind his back and he stared at the ground.

"Watch out for this guy! He is finished! Maybe he gonna vomit in our van! Ha, ha!", said a guard to his colleagues.

"We will watch out for him! Don`t worry!", answered one of the policemen with a grin.

Next to Frank were two other officers and a further prisoner in the back area of the transport van. The cops were armed with shotguns and tied Frank, who almost slipped on the ground, and also the other inmate, with an additional seat belt. Both men could only move their legs now.

The transport van started moving at 9.00 o'clock, and finally left the prison complex. Even if Frank had had the opportunity, to have a last look at the hated place of horror, which had brought him to his knees, he probably wouldn`t have done it. First of all, the back area of the transporter, secured by lattices, had no windows anyway, and secondly, patient 111-F-47 didn`t care, where he would find death. If it was in "Big Eye" or in "World Peace" or somewhere else, wasn`t important anymore. His only concern was, if it would go fast.

After they had driven one quarter of an hour and nobody had spoken a word, the prisoner, sitting diagonally opposite to Frank, hissed: "Hey! Pssst! I am Alf! Who are you?"

Frank ignored the question of the man. It didn`t interest him, who still sat there. He stared at the metallic ground of the van`s back area with blank look.

Suddenly one of the policemen said: "Bäumer, you crank! Stop that damn whispering! Contact among prisoners is against the regulations!"

"I thought, we are patients?", answered the prisoner sardonically, giving Frank a nod.

Now the policeman reacted. He struck Bäumer in the face and grumbled: "Oh, I'm sorry, asshole! I didn`t want to be impolite."

The prisoner swallowed some blood and saliva and looked at Frank with psychotic eyes. However, the young man was still mute and didn`t mention the small sign of defiantness, the other prisoner had shown.

"Alf Bäumer!", he thought briefly, then his mind sank again into a blurred fog.

Alfred Bäumer, patient 578-H-21, was a tall man. He had a dark brown beard, broad shoulders and a tattoo at the neck. The few hasty looks, Frank had given to him, showed the picture of an aggressive man, who was about thirty years old. Above all, Alf`s bright blue eyes and the large scar in the right half of his face were noticeable.

How long the trip had already lasted, Kohlhaas could hardly say anymore. Perhaps a further quarter of an hour. Alfred seemed to have the things more clearly in sight. He hatefully stared at the police officers with his blue eyes, baring his teeth and looking at Frank from time to time. This man seemed to wait for something...

The Change

In a small forest, close to the highway BAS-74, four men lurked in the rainy undergrowth and peered eastwards. They wore camouflage clothes and their faces were hidden under black balaclavas. Three of them fumbled nervously with their assault rifles, while another man had a field glass and gave instructions to his comrades.

"How much longer, Sven?", asked one of the men.

"I will already tell you. They must soon be here! And remeber: Jens only shoots at the tires, the rest only shoots at the drivers!", answered Sven. "And don`t perforate the back area of the van by mistake, got it?", he added.

"The whole thing is damn risky. I hope, we will come home alive!", said one of the men quietly.

"It is too late for such thoughts now. We will just do it! Check your weapons!", hissed the young man with the field glass.

The minutes passed and the four men crawled further forward, in the direction of the road. Sven suddenly stopped, waving the other men nearer.

"Look! Over there! It`s the van! Go!", he called.

All jumped under cover and grabbed their assault rifles. The transport van, the four men had waited for several hours, came closer with medium speed.

Another long and tense minute passed, full of doubts and uncertainty in the hearts of the four men. Then it began. And while the three policemen, who sat in the driver's cab of the transport van, were still grouching about the fact that they had to drive from Bernau to Bonn, just because of the transfer of only two prisoners, they suddenly saw four shadows, coming closer to their vehicle from the forest.

"Now! Fire!", roared the scout with the field glass and all four men raised their weapons in the air, rushed forward and sent a deafening hail of bullets to the transporter.

"Tac! Tac! Tac! Tac!", it echoed through the small forest and the four men continued to shoot at the windshield and the tires of the vehicle.

With a loud clank, the windows of the transport van bursted and it turned out in hurling. Then the damaged vehicle stopped.

"Kill these rats!", screamed a masked men and fired at the driver's cab. One of the two officials in the forepart of the van got a headshot and an enormous bloodstain spreaded over the headrest of his seat. Another policeman was also hit in the arm and tried to find cover behind the engine mount, searching for his weapon in panic. The third tore up the passenger door and fired wildly at the masked attackers. A salvo of two assault rifles finally sent him to the ground.

Meanwhile, the four men had come so close to the vehicle, that they could also fire from the side at the policeman, who huddled between the seats. One of the men raised his rifle and executed the official with an angry burst.

"Destroy the detector!", screamed one of the masked men and the guy, who was called Sven by the others, jumped forward and shot with his pistol at a radio-like thing in the front part of the transporter.

"Bolt cutters! Hurry! Hurry!", he yelled and the four men ran to the backdoor of the vehicle.

The sound of gunfire, coming from outside, had not been unnoticed by the two police officers, who guarded Frank Kohlhaas and Alf Bäumer. Even patient 111-F-47 seemed to have briefly lost his mental confusion and looked around with surprise.

"What the hell goes on there?", said one of the officers, loading his shotgun. Then he opened the door of the van`s back area. The other policeman followed him.

"Help me out!", roared Bäumer at the top of his lungs and gave one of the officers a kick in the abdomen.

In the same moment, the door was broken up and light fell into the darkness of the back area from the outside. One of the guards fired out of the van and hit a masked attacker, who tried to enter the vehicle. The head of the man exploded like an overripe melon and Frank stared at a cloud of blood and bone fragments, while he staggered to the ground.

The remaining three attackers answered with fire bursts of their assault rifles and killed the policeman, who stumbled on the street like a bleeding sieve.

Meanwhile, Frank began to cry like a tormented child. He shrieked in pain and wildly pulled, in an accumulation of unrestrained rage, on his additional seat belt, tearing it out of its holder. Then Frank hit the second guard`s face with a high kick and the man tumbled down.

Now the inmate squealed like a pig and started then to laugh loudly. Finally, the laughter became an insane screaming. Suddenly Frank`s eyes were clear and gory, and before the three other masked men had come into the back area of the vehicle, he had sent the last policeman to the ground with a headbutt. His hands were still bound on his back, but he stomped on the guard`s face and the man broke down again.

Frank swooped down on him and bit in his cheek like a wild animal. A shot from a handgun followed, which had almost hit the crazy Kohlhaas - then also the last policeman was dead. Frank howled and still kicked several times in the head of the dying man. The other men finally pulled him out of the van. His white dress was blood-smeared and Frank reminded the masked men, who confusedly stood in front of him, rather of a mad butcher than a prisoner. Now he seemed to fall in a state of blankness again and sat down, totally exhausted, on the metallic stairs of the transport vehicle.

"Well, what`s up now, man? Come on! Or do you want to wait for the next policemen?", asked Alf.

Bäumer trailed him and followed the three other men into the forest. Now it was important to hurry, because the operation had lasted far too long and, moreover, such a slaughter hadn`t been planned.

Furthermore, they had lost a man and it was just luck that no other car had come along the country road, otherwise the bloodshed would have been much worse. The three disguised men and Alfred, who was trying to propel Frank, fastly ran through the thicket.

"Move!", roared one of the three masked men. "Dash it! What are you waiting for?"

Alf Bäumer gripped Kohlhaas at the collar and ordered him to run faster, but the confused young man still walked slowly behind him.

"If your buddy does not hurry a little more, I will shoot him, Alf! I mean it!", yelled one of the three men, who was running ahead.

Alfred stood before Frank, vibrated him and growled: "This is your only chance, you idiot! If they get you now, you are a dead man! Come with me, trust me!"

Frank Kohlhaas hadn`t been able to trust anyone in the last months and the mental bleeding, the holo cell had demanded of him, had been enormous. But the word "trust" sounded like a gentle balsam in his ears, that had only absorbed poison for such a long time. The fresh cold forest air, he was inhaling now, slowly showed him that this opportunity to attain freedom, should not be thrown away. Suddenly he ran, ran and ran, catched up with the others and disappeared with them in the thicket of the forest. The five men reached a large field after some minutes, where were an old looking and small airplane was waiting for them. They jumped into the flier and shut a rusty door behind themselves. All were totally exhausted and wheezed loudly, while the plane took off.

"Who is that guy, Alf?", asked one of the three liberators with an unfriendly undertone and pulled the balaclava from his face. The young man was blond, with short hair and a boyish face.

"I have no notion! He has been transported together with me!", answered Alf.

"Tell us your name, man!", demanded the blond man and regarded Frank with a searching look.

"Frank Kohlhaas, citizen 1-564398B-278843....", hummed Frank and closed his eyes.

"Your citizen number isn`t interesting for us, buddy! We don`t need to have this shit!", hissed the young man, who was called Sven by the others. "We are free men and no slaves with citizen numbers."

"Well, I think this man has been in a holo cell. That`s the reason, why he is so abstracted!" Alf tried to explain.

"Such a cell... ", stammered Frank.

"A holo cell? That thing, which is currently tested by the GSA in all prisons worldwide? Really?", asked one of the three rebels with surprise.

"No wonder, that you seem to be on drugs. These things are the worst instruments of brainwashing of our time. How long have you been in this hellish cell?"

"I think, since August 2027...leave me alone...", hummed Frank quietly and hid his face behind his knees again, as he had done it so often in the last months. Then he turned to the side and dozed in his usual half-sleep, although the outdated airplane made a big noise and vibrated during the whole flight.

In the year 2028, it was not easy to organize an operation like this, because of the almost perfect air surveillance in "Central Europe". However, this flier was inconspicuous, because it had been registered as an outdated, but nevertheless permitted transportation in the Baltic. If the plane was scanned by the computer of a satellite or an air surveillance station, it was just shown as the transport aircraft of a man called Matas Litov, a Lithuanian farmer, in the data bases of the European monitoring servers.

The chip card of the plane had been changed by a highly gifted computer hacker, who had made it perfectly inconspicuous. But even the arts of this man had their limits, and one day the constantly improved monitoring could probably also recognize his tricks.

Anyhow, the authorities hadn`t been prepared for such a brutal attack on a prisoner transporter. And it was also just luck, that the operation had finally been successful.

Frank Kohlhaas, whose citizen number was no longer of importance, flew with the others over Poland towards the the former Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Meanwhile, the three abolished national states had been summarized with other former countries of Eastern Europe to a single administrative sector.

In Eastern Europe, the complete monitoring of the population and the entire public life was so far not as perfect as in North America or in Western Europe. Many states of Eastern Europe had refused to blindly obey the instructions of the World Government for a long time. This new power had been established in the western regions at first and so it just took longer, until a complex monitoring network of western standards could be installed there.

But the World Government also planned the same extensive system of total control for Eastern Europe. And it did everything, to build it up, as soon as possible.

In the year 2028, the British islands were the most sharply supervised area of the world. Here, the doom had built up its first strong bastion in the past, from where it had come over the rest of mankind.

In England, the World Government already tested and introduced the next steps for global domination. For example, the complete prohibition of sexual contacts between men and women, the total destruction of any family structures, and even a breeding of the population after the defaults of economic necessity.

Who wanted to fight against this tyranny, was really a dreamer and had to have a good relationship to his maker, because the propability to meet him soon, was very high.

Like Alf and his fellows, who apparently thought, that they could change something. Anyhow, Frank Kohlhaas was with them now - and enjoyed it. He was just happy to breathe fresh air and had the feeling, that he had been born again. How often he had begged the Grim Reaper to come, to end the torture of the holo cell. But the Gevatter apparently did not want him yet. Now, everything had changed...

Outsourced

"Outsourcing" was one of the infamous terms of globalization, which had broken loose with all its power at the beginning of the 21th century. Now Frank had also been outsourced somehow. He had left the administrative sector "Central Europe" and was "stored" elsewhere.

The old airplane flew over the area of the former state of Poland, over the city of Kaliningrad, the old Königsberg, which had meanwhile fallen into ruins, and finally was on its way to the Southern Baltic, in order to land in a rural area north of Vilkija, in a little village called Ivas.

The five men were exhausted and hardly noticed the landscape below them beyond the windows. Frank was still disturbed and could only occasionally understand, what was happening to him. He suffered under strange muscle cramps and was, despite his constant fatigue, not in the condition to sleep for longer than half an hour.

His eyes were always half open and he felt, as if someone had put a bag full of cement on his head. After the airplane had landed, Alf helped him to step out and led him to an rundown house.

"Can I sleep somewhere, or just lie down?", asked him Frank.

"Yes, don`t worry! I have found a place to sleep for you!", answered Alf and pulled the young man into the building. "We have to discuss something, Frank. You can rest here – see you later!", said Alf and showed Kohlhaas an old bed in an untidy and halfdark room with a dark red, peeling wallpaper. Frank turned to the side and tried to sleep. He hardly made it, but nevertheless, the young man had the feeling that he already felt better. After he had been in a condition of dozing for some hours, he finally nodded off. He did not dream about anything. It was just black in his head. As black as it had always been in the holo cell, in the eight artificial hours of the night.

Next day...

"We have escaped the next cops by the skin of our teeth, as I think. I feel sorry for Rolf Weinert, a good man, only 29 years old", said Alf to the others. "Thank you, that you have delivered me from this hell. I know, I always seem to be hard and tough, but I was also close to the end in "Big Eye".

That other guy is simply wasted, but it would probably be the same with us all, if they would cage us in a holo cell for eight months. This Frank is a poor creature!"

"We haven`t planned the liberation of a second man, Alf!", remarked a young man with red hair.

"So what? What should have been done? Would it have been right, to let this Frank just die? He would not have survived one more week in "World Peace", got it?", returned Bäumer.

"Well, actually the fate of an unknown man is not interesting for us. The only important thing is our own thing, okay?", said another man sternly.

"I will care for him. What will he do? Call the fucking Lithuanian police?", grumbled Alf with an angry face.

"This is a real problem, Bäumer! If the guy becomes a safety risk, we must kill him. You know about our rules!", said a blond man.

"I know that, little boy! You don`t need to tell me our principles! I have already joined our fight in a time, when you were nothing but a panty wetting baby!", hissed Alf in the direction of the young fighter.

"Peace, people! You were successful and you are still alive! Meanwhile, only the big armored busses are used for prisoner transports since two years. This has been an exception! The fact that they have used an outdated transport van this time, was just because only two prisoners had to be transferred to Bonn. And a bus would have exceeded the budget for such an unimportant trip. These new tank-like monsters are not so easy to stop. You need a rocket launcher or something like that, to bring them to a halt!", said a tall man in the background. He was perhaps about fifty years old.

The man had come later to the small group. His name was Thorsten Wilden, a former businessman, who had fled to Lithuania some years ago. Slender, gray haired, with an oblong face and a remarkable pointed chin. The man seemed to be very rational and impersonal, and gave the impression that he had already gone through a lot of hardship in his life.

"However, the boy is right. Tomorrow I want to become acquainted with this Frank. I hope, he won`t make us problems here, otherwise we have no other choice than silencing him", said the tall man, who apparently had a leading position is this group of men.

"He won`t make problems! Nevertheless, the boy is totally exhausted!", meant Alf and rolled his eyes.

"Where is he now?", asked Wilden.

"In my house. Thus, I mean, in John`s house. He is sleeping!", muttered Alf. "I will keep him in sight and I will also bain for him. Is this enough now?"

"Okay, men!", shouted the leader of the group. "In the next days, the good old routine in our village will return for you all. We have to resow and to do a lot of other work. Alf can help this new man to recover and I want you, to leave him alone with this task. By the way, HOK told me, that the release operation has been on TV in "Central Europe", yesterday evening. We should watch this report, HOK has recorded everything!"

"Yes, have fun with it, I go home now and want to be alone for the rest of the day", groaned Alf and left the room.

Dusk was falling and Frank lay between some unwashed pillows. A great burden slowly fell from his soul and his mind, which had swollen like a red, throbbing growth. Now the pain began to fade away. In the next room he heard a rustle, shortly thereafter loud smacking and the sound of cutlery on a plate. Some minutes later, his sponsor entered the room. "You must eat something! Here!" Alf presented him some slices of bread and two fried sausages.

"Thanks!", said Frank and ate slowly and leisurely. "You don`t have to worry. Nobody can find us here. We are in Lithuania. Far away from Germany and this "One-World" cage called "Central Europe". Eat, and then I let you sleep again", whispered Alf, trying to calm him down.

It was a weird situation. If Frank would have seen Alfred Bäumer in former times on the street, then he would probably have gone to the other side. This tall man really looked boldly and violent, what he surely was, if it had to be. He gave the impression of the typical criminal, who had received a life sentence.

Brawny, with a dark, pointed beard, a tattoo at the neck and a keen look. Frank Kohlhaas looked, however, rather harmless and even still juvenile at first sight, although his body was also sturdy. He had a dear face with a button nose and his good-natured smile was characteristic. Mostly Frank was kind and peaceful.

But in the production complex 42-B, he had lost control over his feelings and this time had been one time to often. His life had almost been destroyed by the consequences of this incident. Compared with Alf, whose face always showed latent rage and frustration, Frank`s countenance could change, in a case of extreme excitement, from good-natured to psychopathic. If Frank was really furious, his green eyes started to gaze into space and he threateningly perked his dark, broad eyebrows up. Then he looked like a fanatical preacher, somehow mentally absent, with an indestructible will and ready for everything.

Only a few people had ever faced this sight so far, but Frank`s angry outbreaks had increased in the last years - slowly and constantly.

Now, however, the former citizen 1-564398B-278843 was just glad to be with Alfred Bäumer. Although it was a man, he didn`t know at all, but who seemed to be a trustable person.

Despite Alf`s aggressive appearance, a honest core seemed to be under his hard shell. A feeling of hope sprouted in the heart of the young man. He clung to Alf`s broad shoulder and murmured quietly: "Thanks, man! Thanks that you have liberated me! You have saved my life!"

Some minutes he mutely cried in Alf`s arms. Then Bäumer pushed him back gently. "It`s okay. You are welcome here!", said Alf, who was simply overwhelmed with so much sentimentality.

"The others have freed me from this damn prison too. "Big Eye" would have been my doom as well. They put me two years in incommunicado detention, luckily, I had not the pleasure to get a so called "therapy" in a holo cell.

I would have gone to hell there, no doubt. Apart from this, they don`t let you just go, when your time in jail is over. One or two are also liquidated, if their behavior analysis is too negative. These damn holo cells have once been an experiment for perfect conditioning and brainwashing. The former "Mind Control", which the NSA, when it still had this name, had developed together with many other methods", declared Alf. "These holo cells will be used against all prisoners with politically incorrect tendencies one day. You have been one of the first human guinea pigs. It has just been interesting from them to analyze, how long you would suffer this torture. Of course, they knew that you would not survive this procedure!"

"Fuck these rats!", said Frank and tried to banish the thoughts about the terrible time in the holo cell.

"The entire political and historical background can`t be explained in two sentences, above all, if you have never thought about it before", ended Alf his small speech.

Frank signaled by turning around and pulling the cover over his head, that he wanted to sleep now. It was 21.16 o`clock and the young man was still exhausted and weak. He dozed for a while and examined the shabby, dark red wallpaper, then he fell in a deep and restful sleep.

On the next morning, Frank Kohlhaas felt unusually recovered. He had slept over 13 hours and for the first time since months, he had not awoken with a start in the middle of the night. He yawned and noticed that Alf had put some fresh dresses beside his bed.

Kohlhaas still wore his white prison clothes, which smelled of sweat and were still covered with dark red traces of the policeman`s blood.

Frank plodded out of his room and noticed that it was very quiet in the house. Nobody sat in the kitchen, so that he could look around without ruffle or excitement. Everything looked very poor. Dirty dishes were piled up in a rusty sink and in the corner of the room, an ugly mold spot was on the wall. Indeed, Alf lived in a hovel - if it was his house at all. However, his housemate seemed not to be here. The young man walked over some old wood stairs to the upper floor, where he found only a few empty and poorly furnished rooms. One of them was full of cardboards and wooden boxes, almost up to the ceiling. But Alf Bäumer was nowhere to be found.

"Where am I here at all?", thought Frank and scratched his head.

Since the escape from "Big Eye", he hadn`t been in the condition to think about these strange men, who had rescued him. Who were they?

He opened the entrance door of the house and stepped outside, left it open a bit, so that he could come back again, because he had no key for the ramshackle door. When he looked down the street, in which Alf`s house was, Kohlhaas saw a lot of further hovels on each side. Some of the houses seemed to be empty, others had weathered fronts and in the gardens, a sprouting, uncontrolled growth was spreading everywhere.

Some of the windows had been nailed up with rotted boards, probably long ago. One house had even a collapsed roof. In addition, here and there, one of the houses had been renovated again and Frank heard the voices of children out of a side street. He could even understand their language, it was German.

Nevertheless, the sun shone on all the roofs, whether desolate or repaired again. But many people didn`t seem to live in this rundown village. Finally, Frank saw two men, who unloaded crates out of a delivery van. A tractor rattled somewhere in the distance and a mature woman leaned out of the window in the house opposite to him.

Frank walked down the road and came to a square, which probably must had been the center of the small village in former times. Weed sprouted out of the cracks between the cobblestones, which covered the whole place. Here, in the center of this ghost town, Frank could see three old houses with big shopwindows. Two of the large windows were broken and the buildings looked dilapidated. The shopwindow of the other house was completely plastered with yellow cellotape. In the center of the square was a memorial stone, completely overgrown with all sorts of grass and bushes. It was surrounded by a wooden fence.

Kohlhaas could hardly recognize the memorial stone and, apart from this, the inscription on it was in Cyrillic, so that the man from "Central Europe" could not read anything.

On the stone, a soldier with a helmet and a rifle was shown. Nevertheless, Frank had already seen this helmet from the old time in a history book. Furthermore, he was able to decipher the years, which had been engraved on the memorial stone: 1941 and 1989.

The young man continued his walk and regarded a moldered church, which stood next to the village square. Its roof was damaged and had enormous holes, bricks covered with moss and lichens lay in front of the rotten, wooden front door, that was adorned with a hardly recognizable picture.

On the tower was a rusted cross of iron. The winged thing on the door of the church, which was completely overgrown with lichens, was probably an angel, that had symbolically welcomed the people at the entrance of the church in the old times.

But in a world, that had been left alone by God, perhaps even this angel had lost his "job" one day. Frank pushed the large wood door to the side and climbed over a pile of planks, in order to reach the inner part of the old church. Dried out leaves, dirt and dust were everywhere on the ground in front of him. The benches of the old building were dirty and everything made the impression of being lost. The altar was also damaged and had small tears and cracks, probably because of the cold of a hard winter. The visitor finally turned his head towards the ceiling and examined the wooden frescos on the walls, which also showed traces of decomposition. Frank beheld some angels, that were fighting against strange looking demons or something like that - creatures from hell. Other frescos depicted mother Maria and Jesus Christ.

"The superstar of Christianity...", said Frank to himself and smiled cynically. This church appeared old and somehow also sublime. The chapel had possibly been built in the late Middle Age, but Frank did not know it for sure. He knew nothing about history.

But the young man didn`t care about the age of this church. Only one thing was true – the building touched his inner self, although, he never had believed in anything.

Maybe just because it was beautiful and old. In his previous world, he had never beholden an old building. Gray plattenbauten, dirty streets, underpasses and factories were nothing new to him, but he had never looked at old churches or castles. This house of God was just like a memorial of a forgotten time. A time far beyond this dark age.

The church had probably been the heart of this village for many decades or even centuries. At this place, the people had prayed to a higher power, begging it to take care of them. But in the end, it all had come differently. In the year 2028, mankind was alone, and Frank had never noticed a higher power, that wanted to protect its children.

"Father, if you exist at all, why have you left us?", said Frank quietly to himself and looked at the fragile ceiling of the old building again. Then he went back to the square.

He walked through the hopeless village for several hours. Again and again, up to the other end and back. Around the locality were fields and forests, and only a muddy street seemed to connect it with the rest of the world. The young man sat down on a bank and looked at the sky, when three little children, probably those, who he had already heard before in the side street, ran across the road in front of him. They briefly examined him and smiled, but Frank didn`t take heed of them.

Somewhere a dog barked in a house, which looked inhabited. He stood up and passed some vacant, rundown houses. This village, the renegate citizen had already forgotten its name, was a bleak place, as Kohlhaas thought. Nevertheless, he prefered this village to the rotten, former FRG capital Berlin, his old home. He wouldn`t miss the criminality, the cultural and racial tensions and all the decay, that was typical for the shabby metropolis, where he had grown up. Now he was here. In this strange hicktown...

"Ivas!" Now Frank remembered the name of the village. Alf had said it several times. Ivas, somewhere in Lithuania. But what was this for a strange village? Frank Kohlhaas was puzzled.

Meanwhile, he was tired and his shoes were completely covered with mud. He finally decided to return to Alf`s house, because the front door was still open, although it was improbable, that the other villagers would steal from them. It was not like in Berlin. Soon the day came to an end. Frank didn`t know yet, where he was here.

"In three days we must leave this house, Frank! I must leave it too, because it is doesn`t belong to me", explained Bäumer after a meager lunch.

"As I already guessed. Whose house is it?"

"It belongs to another villager, who is currently in Minsk to buy some things", answered Bäumer. "Wilden has said, that we can live here for a few days. If the owner comes back home, we can surely move to one of the other vacant houses in the village."

"What is that for a odd village?", murmured Frank.

"Wilden will explain it to you tomorrow. Actually, he already wanted to talk to you today, but you were not here. You took a little walk, isn`t it?", said Alf, whose tiredness meanwhile shone in his eyes.

"Tell me, where are you from, Bäumer?", asked Frank suddenly.

"Well, I was born in Dortmund and have lived in some other cities in the Ruhrgebiet, also in Frankfurt am Main, for four years", said Alf and took another tea.

"Why have they brought you to "Big Eye"?, Frank became curious.

"My God, you ask a lot. But well, you will have to remain here in Ivas, this is hopefully obvious to you, and therefore, I will tell you a few things about me."

Alfred Bäumer decided to make another camomile tea and went to the boiler. Then he fetched a cigarette and began with a small lecture about his life.

Frank actually didn`t want to know all the details, but Alf seemed to look forward to a little speech. Now he was awake again.

"I had troubles with the authorities since my 16th year of life. I was active in various political groups, which you don`t know, as I think. Anyhow, they are all forbidden since many years.

I have already been in jail for one year in 2013 – when the political system of the FRG still existed. They have punished me for so called "opinion crimes" \- because I have designed a few Internet sites, which were uncomfortable for the state. At that time, I was just 19 years old. My parents have lost their jobs during the great world economic crisis in 2012/13, and have jettisoned me after my term of imprisonment. I have never returned back home again. Afterwards, I have lived with some friends, in various housing groups, and of course also alone. After six years, in 2020, I have joined the Red Moon groups, always trying to live inconspicuously. Nevertheless, it has gone wrong."

"The Red Moon groups?" Frank looked surprised. "They were terrorists, isn`t it? These guys have burned a hospital in Berlin, right?"

"That`s nonsense! Lies!", grumbled Alf and gave Frank an annoyed glance.

"I'm sorry. They have said it on television at that time", remarked Frank and tried to calm down his comrade.

"On television...on television...! Nevertheless, fucking television is even the biggest lie of that world system, man! Didn't you understand this yet?", grunted Bäumer and felt accused wrongly.

"No offense meant!", apologized Kohlhaas.

"No, it is a lie, Frank. The Red Moon groups publicy protested against the World Government and united thousands of young people in their fight. Opponents of globalization, free philosophers, patriots and others. After that damn hospital hoax, which the media exaggerated with all their might, we were criminalized. It had been the work of the GSA, the international secret service, there is no doubt for me. It has not been activists of our group! However, the following crusade of the international media, broke the neck of the Red Moon organization. Tell me, why should a group of freedom fighters burn innocent people in a hospital?", asked Alf with visible rage.

"Do you see the tattoo on my neck? This is the "Red Moon", the blood-red moon of the fight for liberty – our old symbol!"

"I don`t know enough about all this and I don`t care...", said Frank. "I only know, that I hate that goddam World Government, that terrible system - from the bottom of my heart!"

"Then Ivas is the right place for you, my friend!", said Alf and stared at his tea cup, clenching his fist.

"And then?", asked Frank.

"Then? Then I was still active. After the Red Moon groups were forbidden worldwide, we continued our struggle in the underground. Finally, I was arrested during an illegal, spontaneous demonstration, which I have organized with some of my comrades. I had to go to jail again.

My time in "Big Eye" began and I can be glad, that they did not find other loading material during the house search at that time, otherwise I would have been liquidated."

"What material?", questioned Kohlhaas. Alfred Bäumer looked at him and shook his head.

"You ask very much for a man, who still was flat on his face a few hours ago. Never mind! That would have made me more than just some problems, believe me. So I was sentenced to nine years of detention, only because of the spontaneous demonstration. I would have never endured that. In my time as an activist of the Red Moon groups, I became also aquainted with some of these weird guys from here. They have already told me years ago, that I should escape from the sector "Central Europe", to come with them to Lithuania.

Nevertheless, I was not willing to give up the fight in my homeland, because it was my aim, to liberate it from this global insanity. Today I say to myself, that it was just stupid to wait for so long. It would have been wiser to leave "Central Europe" in time, because the great enemy is much too strong in the West."

"Well, now you are here. And me too. The best thing that could happen to us, Bäumer. This fucked up sector "Central Europe" shall go to hell, it shall rot forever!", hissed Frank and wiped off some tea drops from his lip.

"We must not let our compatriots go to the hell! It is our country! No, we are not on vacation here! We just relocate our fight. We will only surrender, when the maggots corrode us in our graves!", answered Alfred and put his foot down.

Frank was astonished and observed his partner, who snatched the teapot with a loud curse. "We are not on vacation here!"

Frank was surprised about this statement, his housemate had shouted out with so much passion. What did Alf mean by that?

Again, Frank Kohlhaas slept well and firmly. He had amazingly regenerated himself, in this short time. Sometimes he even felt euphoric.

"I am not even afraid of the devil!", he thought then and smiled proudly.

But it was not that simple. The aftereffects of the holo cell were far more malicious, than he could imagine and they were still there, deep in the dark corners of his brain. They just lay in wait and planned to erupt, in order to strangle Frank`s peace of mind, while he was sleeping.

Like the mourning, after the death of a beloved person, usually comes in waves, it was the same with the mental horror, the holo cell had unleashed in Frank`s mind.

The dread had only entrenched itself and waited now, in its fortified position, for the signal to attack Frank again. No, the fright wasn`t gone. But in these first days of his new freedom, Kohlhaas had a peaceful time – so far.

The rain pattered on the corrugated iron roof of the small shed in front of Frank`s window, and the untiring noise made him wake up. It was already after ten o'clock on this wet morning and the young man rolled from one end of the bed to the other. Suddenly Alf entered the room and said: "Good morning, Frank! Please get up! Wilden is here and he would like to talk to you!"

The village boss already sat in the kitchen and sipped his coffee. He welcomed Frank friendly and told him to follow him to his house after the breakfest. Somehow, the situation was unpleasant for Frank, but he tried to avoid problems and obeyed.

"We must talk about some things, Kohlhaas!", remarked the leader of the village community, who wore a long gray coat and a hat with a narrow brim.

The rain had softened the muddy roads of the village, and Frank waded behind the somehow authoritarian and impressive Mr. Wilden through the dirt. After a short foot march, they finally came to an amazingly well renovated house, which was even surrounded by a beautiful garden.

"We go upstairs!", said Wilden.

The former entrepreneur sat down behind an adorned desk of dark wood and remained silent for some minutes. Frank took a seat on a soft armchair of black imitation leather, which smelled cleaned. He looked around. The room seemed to be an office and was in a perfect condition. Everywhere he could see pictures on the wall with the light brown wallpaper: battle paintings, framed photos of some great men from the old times and a lot of other things.

"Well, Frank Kohlhaas. Do you like our village?", asked the gray-haired man, smiled and tried to take the uncertainty from his young guest.

"Nice!", was Frank`s short answer.

"Nice!", repeated Wilden soberly. "I want to make it short, and I will not talk around the bush", said the village boss and looked out the window.

Then he continued: "This village is called Ivas. It is in the area of the former state of Lithuania, in the southwest part of this actually beautiful country. It is small and insignificant. A small village, that has been abandoned by its former inhabitants under the pressure of the worldwide economic collapse some years ago. A ghost town, as you may know them from North America.

"Aha...", said Frank.

"This village is so small and so unimportant, that even the sharpest eye must look twice to see it", explained Wilden.

"Therefore, I am safe here!", joked Frank.

"Well, security is relative. Particularly in our time, Mr. Kohlhaas. Above all, nowadays!", said the host quietly.

"But here...", remarked Frank.

"As I already said, Frank Kohlhaas", interrupted him Wilden. "Today it is a benediction to be safe. You are here in Ivas, an insignificant village, in an also not excessively important country in Eastern Europe. This village is so unimportant that even the big eye, the eye, which can see the whole world and always wants to see more, did not notice it yet. Do you know, what this village really is, Frank?"

"No! Just tell it to me!", Frank reacted nervously.

"Then I want to explain it to you exactly. Where you are here, and with whom you are here!", answered the man with a serious look. "This is no usual village in the contemplative Lithuania and we are no holiday community. We are rebels, who fight against the World Government. Ivas is one of our bases. Some of our men live here, with their families or alone.

A few of these ramshackle houses, I had acquired for relatively small sums from the former Lithuanian state in the period of its dissolution. Finally, my fellows and me settled in this abandoned village. Some more men will still come and we will establish our position here. But there is one important rule: Everybody has to be quiet!"

Frank wondered. "Rebels against the World Government?", he thought and beheld Wilden with surprise.

"I think, I know, what you mean!", he said then.

"You came to Ivas and you will stay here. We can`t let you go, because you already know too much and this is a safety risk. Even if you tell just one single word about us and this village, we must kill you! I say it to you not as your foe. This is the situation, in which you are, Frank Kohlhaas!", spoke Wilden and nodded. "And believe me, we will not hesitate, to wack you immediately, if you endanger our group!", he said with a cold voice.

"I understand!", Frank was more than confused.

"But I don`t want to threaten or frighten you, my friend. You had suffered enough and I wish you a good recovering here. Furthermore, I don`t want to force you to join us. Just trust Alf, he is a man with a pure heart and could even become a good friend to you. Moreover, he bailes for you and told me, that you are a nice person", said Wilden and smiled again.

"I want to rest, as a start, and then I will take a look at your organization. And believe me, I`m really grateful, because you saved my life. Don`t worry, I would never betray you. I give you my oath", said Kohlhaas to the older gentleman and sounded resolute.

"Trust me, Frank. You are here now, and you will find your peace of mind among us. And on the other hand, there is no turning back for you anymore. If they would ever catch you, you would be liquidated immediately.

You are registered as a terrorist and a murderer, in all worldwide databases of any administration and authority, and a so called "normal life" is an illusion now. Whereby, however, it becomes clear at a closer look that we are the only ones who live a "normal life", because we are free men and no slaves of this global system, born of terror and oppression", explained Wilden with a more gently becoming voice.

"I wanted to thank you again...", whispered Frank quietly. "No problem, my young friend! I am glad about the fact, that Alf and the others didn`t let you die", answered Wilden with a paternal countenance.

The talk with the founder of this base took a long time and Wilden became more and more kindlier. It seemed, that the older gentleman, who had appeared so cold at first sight, would have a fancy for Frank.

Since 2013, when the great crisis had shaken the entire globe and had driven millions of people into poverty, destroying innumerable existences and finally even leading to famines, this village had been left by its former inhabitants.

The collapse of the economy in Lithuania had caused a mass exodus of young people, who had been driven by the illusion, to be able to find jobs in the countries of Western Europe.

Villages like Ivas, which had lived on retail trade and agriculture to a large extent, had just collapsed, and their inhabitants had moved into the larger cities of the country or to the West.

A ghost town had finally remained and meanwhile the rural areas of Eastern Europe were full of abandoned villages. Thorsten Wilden, the former entrepreneur from Westphalia, had decided in 2018, when the shadows of a global dictatorship had come over the former FRG, to leave his homeland and to acquire houses in Ivas with his last money.

Wilden had already been registered as a political dissident in the databases of the secret service, even at the time of the FRG. He had too often been noticeable. When the entrepreneur had stood for a political incorrect party against the FRG system in 2012, the media had tried to economically ruin him with a big campaign. The German had already thought about emigration in these days. But he had still persevered for a while, although the media had called up to boycott his company and his family had been threatened by incited fanatics. And the situation had continued to become worse. During the great world economic crisis, the entrepreneur had lost the biggest part of his fortune and had become a target for the political police of the FRG.

Thereupon, Western and Central Europe had been shaken by a breakdown of the social system and racial and religious conflicts. Europe had finally been close to civil war.

In the year 2018, Germany had been taken over by the World Government, while Wilden had escaped to Lithuania with his family.

He had offered the rest of his savings and had bought some of the empty houses and also a few properties in Ivas, for relatively small sums from the collapsing Lithuanian state. The dying national state, which had been driven into complete bankruptcy by the crisis, had been glad about each cent that a foreign investor had given.

In the years 2018 to 2020, the World Government had been established. The new rulers had promised the masses to master the great crisis, and had moreover seized the opportunity, to abolish the old states of Europe.

Then a massive wave of liquidations of political incorrect persons had followed. Who had been located as a suspicious person, had been arrested or killed by the ruthless oppressors.

Shortly afterwards, the Lodge Brothers had founded the international secret service, the GSA, to eliminate political opponents. Campaigns of mass arrests, mass liquidations, brainwashing, terror and intimidation had been the order of the day in this years. Finally, the face of Europe had been crushed to a bloody pulp. Only in the USA, the GSA had still raged more effectively and had executed even larger parts of the population as in Europe.

In this time of terror, Wilden had already escaped to Eastern Europe and had overcome the first onslaught with his family unharmedly. However, many of his political fellows of that time had disappeared in prisons or mass graves. Nevertheless, the terror had reached the countries of Eastern Europe too, but the preparatory work for a perfect surveillance state had only been made half-heartedly and languidly here. Moreover, the registration of the whole population wasn`t as extensive as in the West yet. So the strike of the World Government against the nations of the world, had lost a lot of its power in Lithuania.

Apart from this, Russia and the other states of Eastern Europe had become members of the world system in the year 2020, two years after the official takeover of the new rulrs. Here, some air for breathing had still remained. But the Lodge Brothers were willing to make up leeway, in the countries outside of North America and Western Europe.

After these difficult facts and explanations, Frank had never thought about before, he was impressed by Wilden`s talent to elucidate things. Altogether, he was fascinated by him.

Communities of men like Ivas, had some more time to live in peace, but the officials even pressurized the sector "Eastern Europe" more and more, to create a modern system of total control. So also in Ivas, strictest secrecy was increasingly necessary to survive, and Wilden`s village had ever more problems to keep up the image of an unimportant village, inhabited by some farmers. HOK or Holger K., who didn`t betray his surname to anyone, except for Thorsten Wilden, was one of the most important men in Ivas. The former computer scientist was a master in tampering scanchips and to rewrite registration datas of vehicles and airplanes in a way, that they were inconspicuous. After four hours, Frank Kohlhaas finally left the house of Thorsten Wilden. This new world really impressed him and for a man like Frank, a return to his old life was impossible at this point.

When the young man came into HOK`s study two days later, he was welcomed by a thick, burly man. The information scientist sat in front of a big, wireless computer, surrounded by a lot of crates and cardboards, which were repleted with all kinds of things. He looked like the typical computer genius and reminded Frank of a comic figure. HOK smiled and examined Kohlhaas from top to bottom. Meanwhile, he scratched his head and gabbled something.

"You need a new Scanchip? You will get a new Scanchip! He, he!", said the weird computer scientist and typed on his keyboard.

"Oh! I am HOK! Specialist for electronic questions and other problems in this beautiful village!"

"Hello!", said Kohlhaas.

"Oh, how good that nobody knows, how uncle HOK is really called. A little joke, I always like to tell", returned HOK and hastily waved his lower arms. "And soon, also nobody will know your name anymore!"

"I will always be Frank Kohlhaas!", answered the young man and grinned.

"Sure! And I will be always HOK, even if I am sometimes Mike Weber or Enrico Althaus", said Holger K. with a philosophical undertone.

"However, you will get a new Scanchip now, because otherwise you are just fucked up in this world."

HOK let the keys rattle and worked for the next minutes as under hypnosis in front of his computer screen. He visited various servers and data bases and explained, that it could last a while. Anyway, he had to generate a large number of new access codes and this was a lot of work. His virtual attacks on the secret servers of administrative districts and registration banks had remained unnoticed so far, and could not be retraced. The coding and safety precautions, which HOK used, were impressing and reflected the quite entitled paranoia in his head.

"This computer officially stands, from its source code, in Patah Keadan in Malaysia. Sometimes I also attack from Siberia, northern China or Angola. This is always very funny!", gaggled the cyberfreak and smiled proudly.

"I believe you, man. But I know nothing about computers!", groaned Frank .

"Code here and code there..."

"No, does not fit..."

"Shit! Why not?"

"Ah...Okay!"

"Well, there we have been landed..."

"He, he, he..."

"Well!"

And: Go!"

"Starting from the data..."

"Great!"

"Copy!"

"Paste!"

"Mist! Elender Mist!"

HOK murmured and continued to swim through a sea of datas and facts in the international cyberspace. He vacantly stared at the screen and Frank was just silent. Then Kohlhaas finally sat down on a damaged office chair, which probably had already suffered under HOK`s weight.

The operation lasted almost three hours. In the meantime, Frank had gone out of the house, to take a little walk through the village. When he returned, the passionate cyber fanatic expected him. HOK grinned from ear to ear. Then he theatrically made a curtsey in front of his new client: "Welcome citizen 08-711369Y-191947, in our wonderful "One-World"! I may call you, nevertheless, here among us and completely unofficially, Maximilian Eberharter, okay?"

"Sounds amusing, but good...", returned Frank.

"Your Scanchip account has also been topped up again. Congratulations!" HOK seemed to be very happy. He had done his work like a pro.

Referring to the general defaults for citizen registrations, Frank Kohlhaas was now announced as the proud owner of the citizen number 08-711369Y-191947, living in Graz and working as an underground construction engineer. His wage was not bad too. Over 1300 Globes per month, he had never earned that much.

Who this Maximilian Eberharter really was, Frank did not know and he did not ask. Perhaps the citizen number 08-711369Y-191947 had been discarded, because the owner had died. Perhaps, it was also just invented, rewritten or something else. HOK surely knew, what he did.

Indeed, the computer scientist with the weird behavior and the emotional fluctuations, was just irreplaceable in Ivas. He procured official registrations for the inhabitants and topped up their Scanchip accounts, gave them "jobs" and secured their income - at least, as a computer file. This man was ingenious. No question!

Additionally, the village community also subsisted on an own agriculture and various illegal exchanges and commercial transactions. It functioned better, than the new born citizen could ever imagine.

Nevertheless, Ivas was a dangerous place. And only, if all inhabitants kept their mouths shut and never boasted, an inconspicuous life was possible. Regarded from the outside, this village just appeared inconspicuously and its citizens were even good taxpayers, who were not noticeable to the tax authority of the sub-sector "Belarus-Baltic".

From this point of view, they all were in a favorable situation. It would probably just become unpleasant, if an official would ever examine this place more exactly. But since the financial situation in the sub-sector was catastrophic and the region was in a permanent state of worst poverty, it was improbable, that authorities, which hadn`t enough employees, because of staff savings, would ever send someone to an unimportant village like Ivas. The lethargic officials were just content, if the taxes were paid regularly.

This mentality of indifference, which was far common in Eastern Europe, increasingly annoyed the powerful gentlemen of the World Goverment. Nevertheless, in former Lithuania still existed an administration, but this was not self-evident in other regions of the world.

In Africa, the World Government had never tried to introduce a complete monitoring of the population at all, what was much too difficult. But from the position of the Lodge Brothers, this was not necessary on this continent. The African countries were politically insignificant and it was only sufficient, to recruit parts of the population as cheap peons for the big concerns. Furthermore, the World Goverment held the whole continent in an iron grip of dependence by indebtedness. Occupation troops enforced the rough adherence of the instructions from above. This was enough. Otherwise, the World Government only occasionally intervened, in order to decimate the population. Hunger blockades and even epidemics, made in laboratories, ensured, that the population could not grow too much. Other countries, for example in Eastern Asia, were also controlled from the outside. The new rulers simply used the weapons of financial dependence, the military threat or economic sanctions.

In these regions, including India and China, the Scanchip had been introduced as replacement for credit and identity card a few years ago, but the number of people in these countries was just too big for a close monitoring.

Together with the downfall of formerly high technicalised Europe, the infrastructure in these regions slowly moldered. Nevertheless, the World Government also wanted to accept this challenge. Much still had to be done. At first, the 1.9 billion Chinese and 1.5 billion Indians had to be decimated, that further political steps could follow.

The appropriate plans for this cruel process, were already in the drawers of the think-tanks of the New World Order. They worked on it.

In the last decades, the nations of Europe, once highly developed and sophisticated, above all Germany, England, France and Russia, had successfully been destroyed by a creeping procedure of decomposition by the predecessors of the now ruling forces. Finally, they had brought the Europeans to their knees. Knowing about their inventiveness and their ability to create high civilizations, they had purposefully selected the Old World as their primary target. And soon they had taken control of the Great Powers of the old age.

And it had been the same with the North American continent. These regions had to be taken at first, even if it wasn`t always easy to conquer them. But the hidden power behind the curtains of world policy, had acted intelligently, cleverly, shrewdly. There was no doubt, if one analyzed the past. In the old age, the Europeans had been proud and strong, and had patronized values like freedom or independence. Therefore, they had to be slowly poisoned, as you never attack a powerful lion directly, but put it to sleep or sicken it first.

It would last a long time, to describe all the procedures, which had made the world to the sad place that it was today. But it was nevertheless a cruel fact, that these once great old countries were in just one hand today - without exception. The European nations crumbled, decomposed and were close to total extinction.

Foreign people were brought to these lands, and soon all the big centers of European civilization were a puzzle of different races, cultures and religions. The international yoke of modern slavery and the imperative to consume, preached by all the media of the global system, was the only thing, which connected them. And this had always been the plan.

So the danger was avoided, that united fronts could be formed one day against the world dictatorship, because the interests and purposes in life of the numerous nation particles and cultural fragments were too different. It had worked well, the hidden forces had infiltrated the Old World like a virus.

The plan had been successful and the Lodge Brothers had laid the foundation, for what the Elders of the New World Order had already prophesied long ago: The " _Multi_ color- _Man_ ". A so called "united" human, without clearly defined origins, torn inside his soul and groundless.

"Will will create the Eurasian-Negroid future-race!", was the slogan of this new policy. So the powerful gentlemen worked on a creature without an own culture, without a higher intelligence and without an identity - the natural born slave.

World Peace in Ivas?

"Not this Ronald Miller shit again!", groaned Alf on the next morning, as he sat in front of his laptop and watched the news from all over the world. On an Internet site, which was officially marked with a blocking note and should actually not be accessible for "good normal citizens", he saw the commemoration ceremony of a soldier of the international GCF troops in New York, kidnapped and shot by Iranian partisans.

The video had already been shown by the official television stations, but the forbidden Internet site complemented it with some background informations and let its content appear differently, from what the media of the system wished.

The World President squeezed out some crocodile tears in front of the cameras, which rolled along his beaked nose. Then he thanked the not anymore "unknown soldier" for his fight against terrorism, for human rights and world peace.

The television report showed Ronald Millers crying widow, his newborn baby and his daughter in the kindergarten. The report about his sweet little children lasted a whole hour. The daughter told, that she liked to paint pictures with her wax mark pins, loved her hamster and finally cried for her dead father - in close up.

The World President visited her in the kindergarten, tried to look affected and explained to the kindergartner, how important it was, to go on with the war against Islamic fanatics and renegade tendencies in all regions of the world. "Those fucking media rats should mention, that the World Goverment has nuked Teheran nine years ago!", screamed Alf furiously and banged on the table. "So they could also make some good video reports about crying children there!" He turned around to Frank. "At that time, over one million people, women and children, were burned to ashes. The GCF just wiped them out, in order to make an example!"

"I know... ", answered Kohlhaas.

"Oh, shit! I just hate the fucking media! I would execute them all, if I had the chance!", he spat out.

"It`s the usual propaganda", said Frank and went into the kitchen. "Calm down, Alf! Don`t risk a heart attack..."

Bäumer still grumbled for a while and finally followed Frank. He stood before his fellow and raised the forefinger.

"Today John comes back from Minsk", he said. "We must talk to Wilden, so that he tells us, where we can live here in the near future."

"Living together with you? Then I will give you the prohibition to watch TV!", answered Frank with a smile.

"Don`t make me angry, little boy!", hissed Bäumer, grinned villainously and made some boxing movements toward his interlocutor.

The discussion with the leader of the group was short and factual. Wilden told them that they could move into another vacant house at the further end of Ivas. It was an incredible hovel, but at least, it had an old wood fired oven and the two men could even get some electricity for the barrack.

When Frank and Alf returned to their provisional home, they met a probably 45 years old man in a cord sweater, unloading some crates from a shabby, white combi-van.

With him was a beautiful young woman with long fair hair, which she had tied up to a queue. John and the woman welcomed them.

"Oh, who are you? Allow me, I´m John Thorphy!", he introduced himself.

"Julia Wilden!", added the blonde and smiled.

"Alfred Bäumer, we don`t know each other yet", answered Alf.

"Eh... Frank Kohlhaas!", said the young man.

John Thorphy had a strong English accent, which, however, clarified the question of his origin only superficially.

"We lived in your house. Thank you again. We have been freed, straight from prison", explained Alfred.

"No problem!", replied John and continued to unload his car.

"I`m sure that my father has organized everything correctly", said Julia and examined Frank with an inquiring look.

"And how was it...?" Frank tried to begin a conversation.

"How was what?", asked the young woman and stroked with her fingers through the blonde hair. Then she beheld Kohlhaas again.

"Where you have been...I mean...your trip...?"

"Nice!", returned Julia.

"The man is... eh... John...an Englishman?", asked Frank.

"No, and he does not like Englishmen!", he heard from Julia. "John is an Irishman. Don`t talk with him about England or even Englishmen..."

"It was just a question", said Frank and looked unconfidently at the young beauty.

"Okay, all questions have been answered. Now you can help us to unload the van", said Fräulein Wilden and kept a straight face.

"No problem!", answered Bäumer and waved Frank nearer.

In the following weeks, Frank and Alf had a lot of work to do. Necessary renovations in their new home waited for them, and furthermore, Wilden gave them some more tasks, in the name of the community. Kohlhaas became acquainted with some of the other villagers and thought that most of them could stand him - more or less. However, a few still faced him with distrust and avoided to talk to the young man. Nevertheless, the fact that he had been in a holo cell, caused a mixture of compassion and respect in many of the villagers.

Julia Wilden mostly just ignored him and didn`t seem to seek his proximity. He rarely saw her, even when he unusually often walked past Mr. Wilden`s house, although it was located in a side road.

"She looks good, but she is "Misses Important", the daughter of the great boss...", thought Frank sometimes. "She thinks that she is better than the rest here and she obviously doesn`t trust me very much."

Frank was right. Julia Wilden and also the young Sven belonged to those villagers, who avoided the contact with him.

But Kohlhaas tried to understand the behavior of these people. They didn`t knew him and he had only come to this strange place, because of luck and coincidence. What should he expect now?

Prison or even liquidation would wait for them all, if he would prove himself as a blabber or a safety risk. So the fear of the unknown man wasn`t unjustified. But Alfred Bäumer and Thorsten Wilden seemed to like him. The village boss took every opportunity, to explain to him any political and historical facts. He started with world history, from the ancient cultures of the Indogermanics, over Alexander the Great, up to the present. Sometimes, however, even everything at the same time.

"They could have used Wilden for the reeducation hours in the holo cell, apart from the fact, that he preaches the converse theses. Nevertheless, he talks even more than that computer!", said Frank to Alf once.

Bäumer admired the former entrepreneur, because of his universal knowledge about politics and history, but this time, he had to laugh about Frank`s statement. So the days, weeks and months passed in monotonousness. Often some of the villagers disappeared for a while. Occasionally, even one of the three small transport aircrafts left its hideout, in order to fly somewhere and to come back again a few days later.

The airplanes were always hidden under camouflage nets or in large, old barns. Although it was not illegal to own them, since they had been duly registered, caution was the first rule in Ivas.

In the meantime, Frank and Alf were working hard, in order to make their house more habitable. Wallpapers were procured over many detours, because there were no more shops in the periphery of many kilometers, which got such articles. At least, the most important rooms could be renovated.

Similar difficulties also appeared with the building materials, which had often to be taken from the other vacant houses, for example intact bricks to repair the leaky roof. It was a long and toilsome work, but the two men became friends along the way.

There was still only a very old wood fired oven in the biggest room of the house and both men became a bit nervous, when the thought about the coming winter of the year 2028. At the end of the month, Frank`s sleep disturbances suddenly came back. He had scary nightmares, in which the cruel light of the holo cell tortured him again, and also Mr. Madness returned.

Sometimes in these dreams, this strange man talked, and Frank was surprised that his voice was high and shrill. Bäumer often woke him up, when he flailed or talked while he was sleeping. It was weird. Right now, where peace had entered his life, compared to the time in "Big Eye" even the idyl, the bad memories came back. Kohlhaas had thought, that the pain in his mind was over – but he was wrong...

One day in August, HOK stood in front of the entrance door on an early morning and asked Alf for Frank. Kohlhaas sat in the provisionally furnished kitchen and came to the door after a few minutes.

"Good morning, Frank! Please come with me, immediately!", said HOK with a sad face.

"What`s up?", asked Frank with an uncomfortable feeling deep inside.

"Hurry up! Just come with me!", answered the computer specialist and spreaded a disastrous atmosphere.

Shortly afterwards, the two men went to HOK`s house and Frank hardly noticed the warm and bright autumn sun, which stroked the little village on this day. HOK ran to his untidy office and sat down in front of his computer.

"Please take a seat, Frank!", hummed HOK. "And try to stay calm, with all, I will say to you now!"

"Tell me, what has happened?", claimed Frank with a mixture of impatience and deep concern, because HOK`s countenance let expect nothing good.

"I have examined your old Scanchip. I meant no harm by it, but it is an order of Wilden, concerning each new person that comes into our village. It is a safety precaution. The Scanchip is examined for suspicious sub-datas and cross references. I penetrated an internal data server and studied some not public informations, which are automatically collected about every citizen in the sector "Central Europe" by authorities or secret services. These sub-datas contain many informations about a citizen`s life. Of course, the ordinary people don`t know anything about their existence. Okay, I have the skill to look for all this stuff. Let`s see..."

"Aha...", answered Frank with a complete lack of understanding.

"An usual Scanchip has about 500 internal sub-datas and cross references, which can`t be read by the owner, because they are only for the authorities", explained HOK hastily.

Frank`s brain was tormented again with some technical terms of the computer language, although HOK tried to explain everything understandably for the layman.

The sub-datas of each Scanchip contain a fulness of informations, for example:

\- Behaviour analysis at the workplace

\- State of health, for the further economic utilization

\- Income

- Consument behaviour statistics

- Social compatibility

- Subversive statements at the telephone, on the internet...

- Family members and relatives

- Reactions on political propaganda and advertising

\- Religious faith

- Friends and acquaintances

\- Frequentcy of contacts to friends and acquaintances

\- Sexual behavior

There are still hundreds of further informations and details, but I think you know, what we are talking about", said HOK.

"And now? What`s wrong?", asked Frank quizzically.

"Just wait!", answered HOK. "I have to look for some special things. For example, if there is an entry like: "IOS" (informer of the state) or "ROP" (receiver of official privileges) - what would mean, that you are an informer – or you have been it once."

"What do you want from me? I`m no informer, man!", screamed Frank.

"You don`t have anything to do with such things! Your old Scanchip is clean, don`t worry!", calmed him HOK.

"This is not the problem...", he continued. "We must be very careful and everybody in Ivas has to endure this process!"

"Then you want to establish your own little surveillance state here, isn`t it?", gnarled Frank angrily.

"No, we do not want that!", replied HOK and seemed to feel ashamed.

"I looked at the cross references, concerning your family members and your relatives. I'm sorry, this didn`t belong to my tasks and I must excuse myself for that", murmured HOK sheepishly and stared at his keyboard.

"And then you pretend to fight against the World Government! Maybe these guys were also just bored, and so they decided one day, to spy out all the other people!", grumbled Kohlhaas.

"I'm sorry! Really!" HOK tried to calm down his angry guest. "Unfortunately, I have noticed something terrible on your Scanchip: Rainer Kohlhaas is your father, right? And Martina Günther, born Kohlhaas, your sister, isn`t it?

Nico Günther your nephew...? "

"What`s up with them?", asked Frank excitedly.

"The Scanchips of Rainer Kohlhaas and Martina Günther are shut down. Their citizen numbers will be assigned to other people in the near future...", spoke HOK quietly.

"What?", Frank winced.

"On the Scanchip of your father, there is an arrest note on 09.04.2028. At the beginning of June 2028, it has finally been shut down. As additive there is a footnote: "ODOA" (official deactivation by official arrangement) and further "CSO" (citizen switched off). He has been liquidated!", explained HOK.

"What?", cried Frank in pain.

"It`s the same in the case of your sister. She was first arrested, and then liquidated. Your nephew..." HOK was interrupted.

"What? What`s up with Nico?", gasped Frank with fright in his eyes. "Tell me what..."

"He is registered here as an "orphan in national care". So he is still alive!" The computer scientist didn`t dare to look in Frank`s direction.

But it didn`t work. The young man was speechless with terror and sank back on the chair. He struggled for air and tried to shake off the claws of horror that griped his throat and took his breath away. But it was impossible.

Within a few seconds, he fell into a black hole of despair and ran crying out of the house of the computer scientist. All the distress and the fear had returned now. They had spared him in the last months, to come back in this second in their whole, dark size.

In the next days, Frank hardly left his sleeping room. Alf tried to explain to him, that the arresting of relatives or family members was used by the system, to lure disappeared offenders out of their hideouts, to make them ring up at home, while the telehone call was bugged, or to make them even visit their old homes. But Frank just told him to back off.

Now the scary nights returned and the mental terror, the holo cell had kindled in his mind, crawled around him in the darkness, arm in arm in old unity with the new horrors. Again, the young man thought about following his parents and his sister to the netherworld, he mused about terminating his hopeless existence, but Alf stopped him from doing such things and cared for Frank as good as he could.

When September brought the autumn to Ivas, Frank was afflicted by a strange dream one night. He could no longer completely remember each detail, when he woke up again on the next morning with a bad headache, but the most pictures remained in his memory.

He was a spectator in an hall, which looked very similar to a court room. In front of him were the judge desk and the dock, and only this place was lit by a lamp. The rest of the room remained in a hazy twilight, also the seat rows of the spectators, on which Frank sat alone. In front of the dock were two persons and Frank could not exactly recognize, who it was, because he saw only their backs. Behind the judge desk was no human being, it was rather a shadow or a ghost.

"The negotiation starts!", called the shade. "Be quiet please! Today, we talk about the following criminal case: The politics against Mr. Rainer Kohlhaas and Mrs. Martina Günther, born Kohlhaas."

The two accused turned around and gave Frank a fearful look. It were his father and his sister. Now they turned around to the judge again, because he began with his remarks. The spectator nervously stared at the ghost and tried to decipher the name on the plate, which was on the desk in front of him. Only after an arduous staring, Frank was able to recognize that there was no name. The only words on the plate were "The Politics". Now the judge read out the charges and began with the interrogation.

"I will start with you, Mr. Rainer Kohlhaas", he said with a glowering, deep voice. "Can you remember, that you have ever cared about the important facts around me?"

"Well, I have already been concerned with you, if it had something to do with my life", stammered Rainer Kohlhaas.

"Can you describe that more exactly?", asked the judge.

"Thus, I watched TV and read the newspapers", Rainer Kohlhaas tried to explain.

"And you, Mrs. Martina Günther? Did you have ever seriously worried about me?", grumbled the shady judge with a threatening voice.

"Perhaps not enough. Only sometimes. I was too busy, most of the time. My job was full of stress and so I had other things on my mind than thinking about you...", replied Frank`s sister sheepishly.

"And it was the same in your case, Mr. Kohlhaas?", resented the judge angrily.

"I'm sorry, but if I`m honest, I have just worked all my life, and have primarily cared about myself. It was a constant struggle to survive and to make money. And finally, there has been no more time to think about any politics", explained Rainer Kohlhaas ruefully.

"And you really think, that was enough? That you could just ignore me in all these years?", hissed the ghost.

"Please forgive us, Mr. Judge! Today, we know that we have made a big mistake! But we still have watched the news on television...", Rainer Kohlhaas tried to justify himself.

"Yes, I did the same!", agreed Martina.

"And you think, it was sufficient, if others talked about me and you just parroted their slogans? Why didn`t you think about me for yourself?", asked the shadow reproachfully and stared at them.

"Forgive us, Mr. Judge, but we viewed many other things in our life as more important, than caring about politics!", lamented the two accused, full of sorrow.

Suddenly Frank appeared at another place in his dream. A disgusting stench became noticeable to him at first. It crawled over the ground right into his nostrils. He was on a great field that extended till the horizon, and only some mountains were recognizable, somewhere in the far distance. Now he saw, what covered this field. It were corpses. Hundreds, thousands, millions. They terribly stank and rotted. The grey, dead skin of the bodies was shrunken, and larvae, maggots and worms crept out of the mouths and eye sockets of the dead.

This graveyard was gigantic, it was full of men, women, children - some had died lately, others were already putrid and had become skeletons.

Frank had to be careful, trying not to slip and fall by walking on this carpet of bones and rotting flesh, because the sea of the dead seemed to be endless and it filled the plain till the horizon. The young man simply went straight ahead for some hours and he was scared of this terrible environment. But the plain still extended and was still covered with countless corpses. Then he suddenly recognized, that the mountains in front of him were gigantic piles of skulls. Millions of skulls, towering up, to create an atrocious picture. Frank walked through the land of the dead and when he already thought, that he would never find a way out of this terrible world, he suddenly heard a voice.

"Frank Kohlhaas!", it resounded from somewhere far beyond. The dreamer went to the place, from which he had heard the voice and could soon recognize a dark spot that continued to grow, the nearer he came. Then he saw that it was the shadowy man, the eerie judge, who called him.

"I am the politics, Frank Kohlhaas! Nice going, my boy! Now you have found me! Here they are!", said the ghost and pointed at the ground.

There lay Rainer Kohlhaas, his father, and Martina Günther, his sister. Both had been killed with a headshot and their bodies were rotting, while maggots crawled over their faces.

"Mark my words, Frank Kohlhaas! If you don`t care about politics, politics will care about you one day!", shouted the judge.

Frank startled up and could not sleep anymore for the rest of the night...

The rest of the year 2028 passed without any changes in the life of the young man. The winter in Lithuania was really unpleasant and very cold, and there was no sign of that global warming, the international media had proclaimed in 2011, in order to justify coercive measures and further restrictions of civil rights.

Frank`s fear, his sleep disturbances and his depressions still came in waves and particularly in these dark winter months he had to suffer.

Wilden and the other villagers had given him a lot of tasks, he had to do for the community. And this was good, because it diverted him. During autumn, the fields around Ivas were harvested by the inhabitants and the yields were made winterproof, like in old times.

All this was also a new ground for Frank, since he had only eaten the cheap food of the big agrarian companies so far. Moreover, Alf and he renovated the old house, but they progressed slowly. Apart from this, the young renegade was not yet ready to join the group of rebels – if it were rebels at all.

Except for talking, Frank hadn`t noticed any considerable rebellion, although Wilden told him everything about politics, without having a break.

His daughter didn`t seem to think a great deal of him and Frank was sure that she still distrusted him too. But at least, he had aroused her compassion. "Nevertheless, ti is something!", thought Kohlhaas.

When it was stormy outside and the ice rain pattered against the still leaky windows, when it was dark and cold, Frank felt lost. Even if Alf was in the next room, looking for some new informations on the Internet. Sometimes Kohlhaas heard him rant and sometimes Bäumer jubilated.

"Is this my life for the next decades?", he occasionally asked himself. "Is this my fate? Hanging around in this dump in Lithuania, with this gang of so called freedom fighters?"

If he saw the face of his father and his sister in front of his inner eye, if he thought about the holo cell and about the fact, that his little nephew was raised somewhere in an institute for brainwashing, while his sister, who had never done something wrong in her life, was rotting in a mass grave, he was fuming with rage.

"Alf, what is the meaning of the symbol of the "Red Moon" groups? Please explain it to me again?", he asked his fellow one evening.

"I already answered that question!", remarked Alf, who wanted to go to bed.

"I want to know it - exactly!", said Frank with a black look, which even caused some respect in Alf.

"Well, it is an old cult symbol. The "bloody moon" or "blood-moon". The old Celts, just as many other people of the ancient times, knew this mystical indication. In the winter, it was more important than everything else. At that time, the cattle was slaughtered in great numbers before the beginning of the snowfall on a certain full moon night. Therefore, our ancestors called this moon the "blood moon".

Moreover, it was also a ritual for the old gods, in order to invoke their protection and assistance in the cold months. The elders cast a magic circle with blood, drank red wine, prayed and danced. Some even believed, that during this ritual not only the souls of the decedents were present, but also the spirits of the animals, which had donated their lifes to give food to the humans", explained Alf.

"Then it was some kind of ritual for the dead?", asked Frank then.

"This is one meaning. The other meaning is the coming war, the revenge, the bloodshed, the rage of battle. One also knows the bloody moon as a warning to the enemy. It just depends on the interpretation of the symbol. The founders of the "Red Moon" groups thought, that this sign would just look cool or interesting", said Bäumer.

"I like the second meaning! Yes!", hissed Frank.

Alfred looked at him with surprise, scraping with his fingers over the wooden table.

"Let us bring the blood moon upon our enemies! I will talk to Wilden. If I join your so called rebellion, I fucking want to make rebellion!", grumbled Frank.

"We are rebels...", returned Alf and stared at his aggressive fellow.

"I hope it! I want to take lives!", screamed Kohlhaas and banged his fist on the table. "Revenge! Blood moon!"

Frank turned around and went to his room. He slammed the door behind himself and up to the next morning, Bäumer didn`t see him again.

Rebellion and Fresh Snow

It did not last long, until Ivas was covered with a thick mantle of snow and it was bitterly cold. Frank and Alf could only stay in the largest room of their house, where the old wood fired oven was located.

This season was more than unpleasant and often both men needed some blankets to warm theirselves. But at least, the roof didn`t have no more holes and it didn`t snow into the upper floor of the old building. This was better than nothing.

Today, Frank Kohlhaas made the decision to talk to Thorsten Wilden. He wanted to become a real rebel and promised himself to join the fight – but he still didn`t know how.

It was a grey winter morning and the few sources of light in the inhabited houses of the village, had no real chance to repel the twilight.

A resolute Frank trudged through the fresh snow of the last night, toward the house of Thorsten Wilden. The young man finally had enough of the monotonousness in this so called rebel base.

"You want me? You can have me!", he whispered to himself.

After a while, Frank reached the house of the village boss and knocked on the door. Agatha Wilden opened and Julia could be seen behind her in the corridor. Kohlhaas gave them a quiet "Hello!". Then Wilden appeared on the stairs, which led to the upper floor.

"Frank! Welcome! What can I do for you?", asked the gray-haired gentleman with sursprise. The village boss seemed to be overslept and was still unshaved.

"We need to talk, Mr. Wilden!", answered Frank with a vacant expression, which neither Julia nor Agatha Wilden had ever seen before. Kohlhaas scowled and crossed his arms.

"Well, we go to my office!", said the rebel leader.

"Okay! Let`s go!", muttered Frank and went up the stairs.

Then both men sat opposite to each other and Frank started to talk, before Wilden could begin.

"This is not a holiday camp, you have said to me. Well! Well!", spoke Frank with an angry face. "This is a rebel base, you have told me, Mr. Wilden!"

"It is!", returned the older gentleman, looking at his young guest, who behaved queerly today.

"All right! Then we shall start a rebellion! First, I would like to learn to shoot! Assault rifle, machine gun, handguns. Is that okay, Mr. Wilden?", said Frank, somehow demanding.

"I think you can! ", answered the village boss.

"Great, Mr. Wilden! I am ready now. I know that some of the guys here talk about me after the slogan: We just feed that Frank, but he is useless and does not join our great fight. Well, here I am! Ready for combat! If there is a big fight here at all, because I haven`t noticed a fucking rebellion yet!", teased the young man.

"First and foremost, we develop self-sufficient structures. The armed operation, concerning your liberation, has been an exception. Otherwise, we plan no further things of that character for the next time", explained Wilden.

"However!", said Kohlhaas. "If any special operations start, then let me know it. I will join them. My life isn`t important and I will show you, that I have more guts, than most of these farmers, who treat me with scorn. Thus, you let me know, if there is some action, okay? Have a nice day and greetings to Fräulein Julia, Mr. Wilden!"

Frank knocked on the table, smiled informally and left the room. He ran down the stairs, murmured a "Tschüß!" to Julia and closed the front door behind him. Thorsten Wilden, his wife and his daugther were perturbed. This part of Frank had been unknown to them yet. And Frank was surprised about that side of his personality too.

"If I shall revolt, I have to learn to shoot, Alf! Where are your weapons?", Frank edged his unnerved friend.

"You make my nerves explode, Kohlhaas! What do you want from me?", screamed Alf. His roommate didn`t stop his urging and slowly became aggressive.

"I go to Wilden!", grumbled the young man.

"Okay, I have a gun. If you like, we can do some firing practices in the forest", groaned Alf.

"All right! What are you waiting for?", answered Frank with a grin.

Bäumer went into the cellar and finally returned with a Glock in his hand. Then the two men left the house.

"I`m dying to know if you hit something!", teased Alf his friend on the way to the nearby forest behind the village, but Frank just gazed at the ground. After they had waded through the high snow for a while, Alf stopped.

"Do you see that knothole in the birch over there?", he asked Frank.

"Of course, give me the gun!", answered Kohlhaas.

Without further thinking, the young man aimed for the tree, which was about ten meters away from him.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Alfred ran to the birch, after Frank had shot the magazine empty. He was astonished. Most of the bullets had hit the little knothole and large pieces of crust had been torn out.

"Not bad, boy!", he remarked and waved the inexperienced shooter nearer.

"How many times have you already shot in your life?"

"Never before!", answered Kohlhaas and smiled.

"Your lately grown self-confidence seems to make even a good shooter of you", murmured Alf.

Shortly afterwards, Kohlhaas shot three further magazines empty. Then they had to stop, in order to waste not too much ammunition. Bäumer was quite impressed, that his fellow had hit the target relative exactly.

"Wilden can organize an assault rifle and a machine gun for you. Then you can practice with them", promised Alf. A little later, they went back to their house again. Dusk was falling.

So strange and insignificant it was, at first sight - Alf`s compliment had filled the young Frank with pride. He smiled confidently and looked already forward to the next firing practices with the bigger war weapons, the real "Wummen". Apparently, he had a talent for shooting. And that he had a talent for something, he hadn`t heard all too often in his life before.

Frank spent the first two weeks of the cold and wet January, the ugliest month the year, with numerous firing practices and the reading of political and historical books, that Wilden had given to him. Moreover with occasional works for the community.

Meanwhile, he felt a little more accepted by the other villagers, after he had signaled that he was ready to join the fight.

Even Julia Wilden had smiled at him for the first time, when he had asked her father for more ammunition for his weapons at the door. He blustered into the thought of becoming a rebel. Therefore, Kohlhaas shot during his firing practices, in his mind, rather at hazy prison guards, policemen or politicians, as at bottles or trees. Often he grinned like a happy child, when the cold steel of a rifle slid into his hand. His shooting results became better and better and when he went to bed, after an arduous day, he often mused about the blood moon and did not notice, how malicious his smile had become.

Alfred observed him with scepticism. Frank appeared calmly, and sometimes he just absently stared out the window and bit on his lower lip, till it began to bleed.

Usually he did not even seem to notice it. The young man was eager to learn the art of killing in all its facets. Often he talked of nothing else but fighting during the dinner. He philosophized about the possibilities of resistance, the revolution and the counter-propaganda. Some ideas appeared to Alf even ingeniously, others were just childish and crazy. Something proceeded under Frank`s skullcap, was slowly bred like an evil child.

In these days, in which Frank only talked about assault rifles, grenade launchers and methods of killing people, Bäumer thought, that Kohlhaas was screwy. Moreover, Frank asked John Thorphy to buy a whole arsenal of weapons for him.

"Maybe, your beloved war will find you sooner as you think, my friend", told him Alf once. "We will have a bigger meeting at the end of the month, then I can take you with me!"

"A Meeting? What meeting? To shovel some snow?", scoffed Frank.

"Fuck off! I can`t hear your speeches about the revolution anymore, Frank. Keep cool and find the way back to reality. We will not start to run around like a horde of boozy apes to shoot everybody. Do your firing practices or throw your knife at trees or do something else!", grumbled Bäumer angrily.

Now, Frank became angry too and went to his undercooled room. Most of all, he had liked to kick Alf in the face - or someone else. Meanwhile, Kohlhaas was burning inside like a torch. A stubborn hate had crept into his brain and he had problems to suppress this feeling. So the young man just brooded and escaped into a dreamworld full of rebellion and revenge.

The former citizen 1-564398B-278843 dawdled away till the end of the month and nervously waited for the meeting, Alf had talked about. From now on, Bäumer didn`t tell Frank any further details, concerning the gathering, and just ignored him.

It was the last day of January 2029, and the restless young man had got up early today. The meeting of the villagers was set for 18.00 o'clock, and Frank walked through the cold house for hours, like a nervous tiger. He friendly smiled at Bäumer, again and again, full of expectation.

In the late afternoon, Frank and Alf finally left the house and went to a brightly lit-up barn, where a few radiant heaters had provisionally been stationed. Wilden was waiting for them here, in the middle of a larger group of people.

Frank and Alf briefly welcomed the others and went to a dark corner. Both crossed their arms before their chests and looked at Wilden, who started his speech: "Welcome, my dear comrades!"

Kohlhaas nodded to Julia, who stood behind her father. Then he smiled and the young woman smiled back.

"I`m glad that all of you have come to Ivas. I welcome our guests from France and all the others, who visit our village today."

Kohlhaas` expectation rose to the immeasurable. He gave Julia a volatile look again. She winked at him and Frank winced, because he had never seen such a friendly gesture from her before. Her father continued: "I`m sure you all know, what is our topic today. I`ve bought this village some years ago, anyhow, some of the houses, in order to create a retreat for all, who have pure hearts and want to fight against the global system of enslavement. Since then, we have achieved a lot and this former ghost town has been made to a halfway habitable place again. We have our peace here – so far.

However, I have the impression, that many of us meanwhile enjoy this calm life so much that they have forgotten, what the true sense of this base is. The sense is to have also a place for a free life, for those, who still know, what freedom really is, but Ivas is more than that. It is a place of resistance against the World Government.

The last months have been calm, we have behaved calmly. We have renovated our village and have secured our subsistence, what is essential before you start a great fight. This phase is finished now, and the question remaines, how we can bring back freedom to our brothers and sisters in our old homelands. The fight must begin now!"

A short applause from the about 100 persons in the large barn followed. Frank was staring into space with blank expression.

"Most of you, who are here today, live in Ivas. Others are from the outside. Andrej is here, from the "Russian Patriotic Section", Robert and William from the organization "Free Britain", moreover our friends from Belgium, better from Flanders. Further, Baptiste and Hugo from France. And also comrades from Scandinavia have visited us.

Apart from this, I don`t want to forget Soheil and Nirvan, the rebels from Iran, because they probably have the longest way behind themselves.

Unfortunately, our comrades from the Spanish "Citadel Group" had not been allowed to leave their country, and I hope they are fine. Well, I think that I haven`t forgotton any other guests from outside!", said the village boss.

"Now I want to give a lecture on our actual topic: Today we talk about March the 1st, 2029, when the World Government will celebrate the "Festival of the new World". This worldwide event, which takes place in Kiev this year, here in the sector "Eastern Europe", is also celebrated in Paris, in "Central Europe". For that reason, the new governor of "Central Europe", Leon-Jack Wechsler, will come to the former capital of France, in order to open the ceremonies and military parades.

The international media will report about this event, whereby the ceremonies in New York and Paris will be the politically most important ones, and will get the greatest attention."

"That much is clear!", whispered Alf quietly.

"Since the official takeover in the year 2018, the celebrations of the "Festival of the new World" have always been an enormous spectacle, that even excelled the soccer world championships and the Olympics!", said Wilden.

"Even if the media have hushed it up in the last months, France is a country, which stands close to big chaos. The introduction of the "additional water consumption tax" in the last year has annoyed millions of people.

Furthermore, the poverty of the masses is still becoming worse, as everywhere in "Central Europe". Meanwhile, the conflicts between the Moslem Algerians and the other immigrants, who have the majority in all big French cities, and the native population, has achieved an explosive extent. If the GCF occupation troops wouldn`t press the lid on the cooking pot with outermost force, France would fall to pieces tomorrow", explained the rebel leader, while the two Frenchmen nodded approvingly.

"Already in the last year, there have been social and racial riots in Paris and Marseille with almost 1000 deads. The police and the GCF have finally shot down the people without mercy. We all know the pictures", said Wilden.

"Anyhow, it has still become worse this year, as I have already expected it. More monitoring, more unemployed people, more homeless people, more crime and more war in the streets, as everywhere "Central Europe", where the so called philanthropists give us their political benedictions!"

"He talks about politics again...", groaned Frank.

"What will we do now? What will we do on 01. March 2029, when probably between one and two million spectators come to Paris?", asked Wilden the others.

"If the media and so many people are there, why don`t we make any spectacular actions? With transparencies for example...", suggested a villager.

"We plan a lot of such things, and we don`t need any foreign assistance for these simple campaigns. We have enough men in France for actions like that!", explained one of the Frenchmen and shook his head.

"Perhaps, we should join the crowd and...", said a young man.

"Wait!", interrupted him Frank suddenly. "We kill that Leon-Jack Wechsler! Than we would set an example!"

Wilden and the others turned their heads toward the dark corner, from where the bold proposal had come. Frank stared back and kept a straight face.

"Forget about that, boy! Around Wechsler is a security zone of two kilometers, full of GCF soldiers, agents and cops!", said a man and looked disdainfully at Frank.

"No more nonsens! Just shut up!", hissed Alf nervously.

"Well, but throwing leaflets at the soldiers during the parade, or stick out the tongue at the governor, is just pathetic!", returned Frank. "I will kill this son of a bitch! Who comes with me?"

Now Wilden intervened, because many visitors became angry: "We should be realistic. There is no place here for macho behaviour, boy!"

"I`m not joking! Absolutely not!", screamed Frank. "I know that it is dangerous, but I don`t fear death. Thus, who wants to follow me? Let us kill this motherfucker!"

"Enough, Kohlhaas!", yelled Wilden.

"Who are you, young man, that you have such a big mouth? You are hardly a few days here and you already play the big gorilla!", insulted him a young woman from the other corner of the room.

"That`s right! You are that crazy guy from the holo cell. And there, your brain has been damaged!", shouted someone in Frank`s direction.

"We don`t need your show, boy!", it came from the side.

"Now, shut up! This is just embarrassing!", railed Alf and nudged Frank.

"I am Frank Kohlhaas! I say it now, in front of all of you, although I don`t know the most of you very well. I will go to Paris to kill this fucking Wechsler, if you give me the weapons and the equipment. Maybe I die! So what? I just give a shit on that!

I swear, by my honour and my name, the good name of my father and my sister, who were murdered by people like this bastard Wechsler. If I change my opinion tomorrow, then I beg you, to shoot me, because then I have no right to life anymore!", screamed Kohlhaas.

Bäumer sighed and held his head. Others looked disbelievingly at Frank. Nevertheless, some of the villagers seemed to be fascinated by the young fanatic. Julia Wilden belonged to the latter group, as Kohlhaas hoped.

"The guy is crazy!", Frank heard someone say.

Wilden tried to interrupt Frank`s lecture: "Well, I would like to tell you a little more about the political situation. Frank, just shut up now!"

But the young man had not finished yet: "I have to say something to you glorious rebels! And you shall listen to my words: I WILL KILL LEON-JACK WECHSLER! Or the cops will kill me! I mean it. If necessary, I will go all alone. It would only be nice, if one of you brave warriors could give me a map of Paris. If I should have changed my opinion tomorrow, then you have to kill me! I ask you again: Who comes with me?"

A loud mutter went through the barn. Alf looked embarrassingly at the ground and tried to explain his neighbor that Frank could also be "normal".

It took some minutes for Wilden to restore silence. Meanwhile, the young man had gone back to his corner again and seemed to have calmed down.

"Mannomann!", hummed Bäumer. "Everyone here reputes you as a total crank now. Killing Leon-Jack Wechsler? Such an imbecility!"

Alf`s friend didn`t answer and just looked at him with cold eyes, then he grinned grimly. For the rest of the meeting, which lasted not much longer anymore, Frank behaved calmly, giving a black look to everyone, who seemed to doubt about his fanatical resoluteness.

The two Frenchmen, Baptiste and Hugo, who obviously belonged to a patriotic group from Northern France, briefly explained, what they had planned for the day of the festival. They were sure that the masses in the capital of former France would be dissatisfied and rebellious enough, to go on the barricades. Some Islamic groups from Paris had also agreed to a temporary pact with the organization of the two Frenchmen, although both sides actually were sworn enemies. But on this particular day, they would fight against a common opponent, the World Government, and so they had put their differences aside this time. However, they just postponed their fight for the supremacy in former France. It was not improbable that the new governor of "Central Europe" was awaited by the hate and the displeasure of big parts of the population, but whether they would dare it, to carry their discontent on the streets, was another question. Leon-Jack Wechsler and the whole World Government were internally hated by many people, but the powerful had an enormous might, which the masses feared with good reason.

The police force and the monitoring functioned. The GCF troops, which mostly consisted of mercenaries from overseas, who had no closer relationship to France or Europe and therefore shot at the native population without hesitation, if they received the order to do this, were numerous. Furthermore, they had deadly weapons, particularly to strike down large crowds.

Soldiers of French origin mostly served in countries far away and not in their homeland. So they also had no connection to the people they had to control. Like that were the rules of the New World Order.

GCF soldiers of German origin preferentially served in this time as occupying forces in the Near East or in Africa, while old Germany was occupied by GCF soldiers from Africa, Asia and other regions. And so it was everywhere.

When the meeting came to an end and the visitors left the large barn, Frank was examined by many of them. Alfred Bäumer was still confused. His fellow seemed to stand close to insanity. Julia Wilden finally came to him and tapped the young Kohlhaas on the shoulder.

"Hey, Frank!", she said quietly. The rebel turned around and stared at her.

"What the hell was that? You know that your idea is just madness! What is wrong with you, Frank?", she asked quizzically.

"I`m all right, Fräulein!", answered Frank harshly.

"However, you will not really try this?", she returned.

"Of course I will try it! Do you think, I`m a twaddler?"

"None of us would come only hundred meters in the vicinity of Wechsler", remarked the woman.

"This will be my problem – and not yours! You can organize a city map of Paris for me, this would be a great help, Julia!", answered Kohlhaas and regarded Wilden`s daughter with a vacant expression.

"I know, you think that many of the other villagers don`t take you to be a real rebel - and it is also partly correct – but such a suicide operation is just senseless", said Julia, trying to change his mind.

"If you say so. It is my life and my concern. I don`t force you to come with me. Hand out your leaftlets or spray some philosophical slogans on the walls. I will do, what I think is right!", said Frank. "The others may think, what they want. I don`t care about these idiots. They want to be rebels? I can only laugh! Well, the release operation of Alf and me was not bad, but we have to do more things like that. Those fucking guys, who destroy our lives, just think that they are invulnerable! But they can also bleed and die like all other people too. It`s time to hold them accountable for all this shit! It`s time to make them pay for all their crimes, Julia! And I will show those fucking pigs, that they can also be switched off. I will go to your father tomorrow and then I will ask him, to give me the necessary equipment for my operation!".

"But...", whispered Julia.

"I have to go now!", said Frank and left the young woman alone.

The following days were full of disputes with Alf and Wilden, who meant that the Frank had made a fool of himself. Nevertheless, he didn`t listen to them and became obsessed by the thought, to kill the governor of "Central Europe", in order to point the way for others. And some of his proposals were not stupid at all, although they appeared crazy and daring.

"You want to enter Paris as a visitor with your falsified Scanchip. Okay, that could be possible", said Wilden. "Border controls had already been abolished, since the times of the European Union, and today, in a time of free trade, they would be even inconceivable, from the economic point of view. The close monitoring of the masses is much more effective."

Yes, I know!", answered Frank impatiently. "How can I get through this security zone to shoot Wechsler? Should I take a sniper rifle to kill this guy?", asked Kohlhaas.

"This will be difficult, because in the periphery of at least one kilometer, security forces will be everywhere, also on the high buildings and of course inside the zone", replied the village boss.

"When will the police establish this secured area?", asked Frank.

"Maybe two or three days before the event. But I don`t believe that you could hide there somewhere, boy!", returned Wilden.

"I will find a way. If they kill me or not, is not important for me anymore. I only have to get in that zone – this would be enough", murmured Kohlhaas.

"Well, you could support us with other operations in a much better way, Frank. Have you ever thought about that? Operations, that will not end in suicide", Wilden tried to explain.

"Perhaps! But I have already said it in front of all the men at the meeting, and now there is no more truning back. But how?", said Kohlhaas thoughtfully.

"As you may think fit... ", groaned the village boss.

"If there is no way to reach this scumbag at the surface, then I must look for an alternative...?", pondered Kohlhaas. "But I have just no knowledge about this damn city."

"What do you mean?", Wilden was baffled.

"If I wanted to make such a job in Berlin, my hometown, I would come through any tunnels, old underground pits or something like that", said Frank.

"You would find a lot of tunnels in Paris. This city is more undermined than each anthill, there are probably innumerable underground entrances, particularly in the inner part of the city", admitted Wilden.

"Who can give me more informations about this? These two Frenchmen are nevertheless still here for a few days, right?", mumbled Frank.

"Well, I hardly believe that they know every tunnel under Paris. In addition, they are from the north of the country. But there are construction plans of tunnels and sewers in the data bases of the administration or on the Internet. You should ask HOK!

Each official document must also be published in English. This is a regulation. Thus, you don`t even need to be able to understand French. Just ask HOK! Nevertheless, it`s a completely crazy idea! Either you will get lost in these holes or they will shoot you. But you will never reach Wechsler!", prophesied Wilden.

But he just underestimated Frank`s imaginativeness and obstinacy. Only a few hours later, after he had reconsidered and noted, which weapons and articles of equipment had to be used for the assassination, Kohlhaas ran to HOK and forced him to look for some plans of the underground of Paris.

While Frank passionately told HOK his plans, the computer expert just groaned, because the young hotspur had disturbed him during an important work. But then he did Kohlhaas the favour and entered the world of data bases and electronic construction plans. HOK fortunately was a researcher nature and after approximately half an hour, he was also fascinated by his new task.

It lasted a while, until he had found so informations. Paris was really more hollowed out than all the other cities in Europe. Meanwhile, about 16 million people lived in the metropolis and the city drowned in its own dirt and stench.

Since 1850, when most of the tunnels and the comprehensive metro system had been built, the old capital of France stood on a network of mile-long corridors.

Already in 2010, the underground system could not be extended anymore, because the workers had already found old tunnels and holes everywhere .

After the world economic crisis in 2012/13 and during the following years, many metro lines had been closed in consequence of substantial budget cuts. After 2018, it had become worse, what still annoyed the people of Paris down to the present day.

Today many old underground tunnels were unused and led into nowhere. The tunnel system was so enormous, that even official construction plans could not completely show the numerous tunnels below the city. Nevertheless, HOK found some interesting data bases and struggled through mountains of new informations. The hours passed and the thick man was soon completely absent-minded again.

"Until tomorrow, I will search for some nice tunnels and corridors for you, which will lead you that close to Wechsler`s speech desk, that you can tickle his feet.

If the plans are still relevant at all, I can`t say, Frank. And I can`t give you a warranty. Much has changed in the last years. Many old, abandoned tunnels and so on...", he said casually.

Kohlhaas waited for results and already imagined details of his assassination attempt in his mind.

"Have fun with all these plans, my friend. I will go now. Thank you!", answered Frank and left HOK`s house with a happy smile.

After approximately one week, HOK and Frank had prepared a detailed plan, which should lead the rebel through a tunnel system of almost three kilometers.

The avenue of Paris, which had been called "Avenue de Champs Elysées" in former times, had been renamed in "Avenue of Humanity" in 2018, and the triumpal arch, one of the old landmarks of the city, had been torn down in 2019. Just as the Eifel tower, which had been dismantled one year later. In place of the "Arc de Triomphe", the new rulers had built a modern art building called "Temple of Tolerance", a giant dark pyramide.

Moreover, the "Avenue of Humanity" had intensively been converted, whereby many of the old historical houses had been replaced by concrete buildings of an "unity-look".

After initial protests, the citizens of Paris had become accustomed to them. They simply had other problems than worrying about the preservation of old landmarks or houses. And there were still further plans to separate the city more thoroughly from its old face, because modern slaves did not need an own identity or senses of home.

The parade of the GCF occupation troops should take place on 01.03.2029, at the "Avenue of Humanity", just as other events to entertain the crowd. A part of the long, old street would be a fenced off, accessible for nobody. About thirty meters in front of the thing, called "Temple of Tolerance", the speaker`s plattform, where Leon-Jack Wechsler would open the ceremonies, should be erected.

The masses, that would fill the streets around the security zone, should see the politician only on big video screens, which would be set up to hundreds along the "Avenue of Humanity" and in the whole city.

What was allowed, to be admired from the proximity, were the GCF soldiers and the policemen, who would demonstrate strength, marching down the boulevard.

The governor of the administrative sector "Central Europe" would bring the "great message of humanity" of the New World Order, and the parade of the security forces and the military would show the people, that it was healthier to believe that message - in case of doubt.

It was a tremendous insanity to go to the dirty metropolis to kill this polititian. Nevertheless, Frank Kohlhaas bred it in his mind. He had nothing to lose. It could nothing happen worse than dying.

Procrastination is the Thief of Time!

"Procrastination is the thief of time!"

"Procrastination is the thief of time!"

"Procrastination is the thief of time! "

Frank still fed his illusion and repeated this slogan like a prayer. In the following days he was just concerned about the fact that he would become scared. But retreat was not allowed anymore, he had to remain hard and Kohlhaas did also not allow his resoluteness, to get any cracks.

"Leon-Jack Wechsler must die...die...die!", he recited himself again and again.

Meanwhile, Alf got out of his way most of the time. Nevertheless, he was fascinated by the idea of creeping through tunnels get into the security zone. And sometimes he even thought about following his crazy buddy to Paris. To kill the governor and to cause riots in one of the most important cities of the continent, was a great chance and could have sweeping political consequences.

Furthermore, the possibility of participating in a "big thing" was offered to him. In this point, he had to agree with Frank. However, he also had nothing to lose and what kind of rebel would he be, if he bitched out now?

The days passed and Alfred could hardly sleep. Should he really join the operation? But how? Creeping through tunnels, then emerging and shooting at Wechsler?

That would be their certain death, even if it functioned. They just wouldn`t survive this. Escaping from the security zone would simply be impossible, Alf was sure. He had to talk to Frank, because the plan was still not perfect.

The first week of the new month had almost passed and hail came from the dark sky outside. Frank and Alfred sat in the kitchen and had a hard day behind them. Kohlhaas had mused for days and was still not completely content. He had asked HOK for more construction plans of sewers and other tunnels below Paris, but he had come to no solution.

Alfred ended the silence. "You have said, we can come to you, if we want to join the operation, right? Okay, I have thought about it and came to the decision, not to let you do this crazy job alone, Frank."

"Aha, this sounds good to me. You really want to help me?", returned Frank with a smile.

Alfred looked back and said: "More or less, but I need some more informations about all this. The idea with the sewers and tunnels seems to be not bad at all and HOK has already given some plans to you. Did you meanwhile study them sufficiently?"

"Yes, I did!"

"Anyway, that`s not enough!", answered Alf.

"Thus, your plan is to come somehow into the proximity of that "Temple of Tolerance", through these sewers or tunnels, right? And then you want to shoot at Wechsler?", asked Bäumer with surprise.

"About that!", said Frank.

"But you should know, that the entrances to the sewers in the direct proximity of the event, will all be weld shut by the police. I think, two or three days before the spectacle", returned Alf.

Frank recognized that his friend had found a weak point of his plan: "You are probably right. I already have seen this on television, in some reports. This could be! Shit!"

"You have to modify your plan. In addition, I don`t have the desire to join a suicide operation. And it would be nothing else, if we suddenly come out of a hole and shoot at the governor, who is surrounded by countless cops," said Bäumer thoughtfully.

"Maybe you`re right...", answered Frank and moaned. "Then make a proposal, Bäumer!"

"Hmmm...perhaps..."

Alfred took a slip, on which he had written something. He hesitated for some seconds and sifted the small note for the most important details of his plan.

Finally he said: "We go into a channel, a tunnel or something like that, in the distance of two or three kilometers - in an insignificant side street, by night.

I have to study HOK`s documents. However, we need something else than an usual handgun, which we couldn`t use at all in the worst case, if the security forces really had locked all the gully covers around the "Temple of Tolerance" before the event."

"Get ready with you speech!", said Kohlhaas.

"I talk about an explosive charge, that we place under Wechsler`s ass and blow him up in front of the eyes of the world public. I thought of NDC-23. The stuff is easy to carry and highly concentrated. Twenty kilograms are sufficient, to destroy a part of the canal system, the square in front of this so called "Temple of Tolerance" and of course this fucking governor!

We could transport it in backpacks into the tunnel system and bring it to explode below the speaker`s platform. Of course, we will use a time fuse so that we can escape before the big burst!", explained Alfred and seemed to be enthusiastic.

"Damn! A great idea!", said Frank and banged on the table.

"John or one the others can organize the explosive for us. Above all, the Russians sell a lot of NDC-23 on the black market, mostly remnants of the dissolved army of the former GUS", added Bäumer. Frank just smiled and said nothing.

"Moreover, we must assume that some tunnel entrances remain blocked for us, either because workers of the public utilities are still working there, or because of the security forces, that had locked them", explained Alf.

Frank scratched his head and cogitated. Alfred`s plan pleased him.

"We need some blowtorchs to open locks or grids, if necessary", remarked Bäumer. "We have a few in the village here. It is no problem to take them."

"Brilliant!", said Frank enthusiastically.

Alf continued: "And there is one more thing. If they scan the tunnel system with infrared in the morning before the event, we should have some cooling covers to cloak ourselves. John can obtain them. Nevertheless, the whole operation is really dangerous. We must consider everything!"

"Well, we should go to Wilden, and tell him about our plan. Perhaps he has some more good ideas", praised Frank his friend.

Soon after, the village boss evaluated the plan, which had been introduced to him by both men this time. Julia Wilden, who stood next to her father, also seemed to be impressed. Frank smiled at her and enjoyed her admiration.

Still much more had to be done, and next, the men went to John Thorphy. The Irishman felt disturbed and openly expressed his displeasure, when the two rebels tried to send him out to buy the equipment for them. But finally, Wilden gave him the order to organize the explosive and the other things.

Where John Thorphy had found the NDC-23, he did not tell. But it lastet only three days until he returned with over twenty kilograms of the highly explosive material and gave it to the two men with a big smile.

"Procastrination is the thief of time!", thought Frank, as he regarded the plasticine-like mass, packed up in blue bags. His deadly idea slowly took shape, and in his mind he already saw the hated politician torn to pieces on the asphalt in front of the "Temple of Tolerance".

His dark, delusional resoluteness couldn`t even be destroyed by sleep disturbances, panic attacks or nightmares anymore. He was eager to bring death to this man and also to each other person, who would dare to stand in his way. Frank just ignored the fright, that was lurking in the night, and looked forward to the great day of retribution.

Nothing should ever avert his revenge on this cruel world, as Frank covenanted. Sometimes he went down in the dark cellar, where Alf stored the explosive. All the rooms here were cluttered with rotten boards and old crates. There was not even a light switch. And while his friend slept, the young rebel crept secretly down the stone stairs and bent over the blue bags, which were sealed with adhesive tape, stroking them with a dearful smile like a mother her newborn child.

Until middle of February, Frank and Alf spent their time with the intensive study of construction plans. HOK visited them several times, in order to give them still more current and detailed recordings.

They planned, on recommendation of the computer scientist, to enter the underground labyrinth at the "Avenue of Saint-Ouen", nearly two kilometers away from the security zone.

Here were endless dark tunnels and some of them lead directly to the square in front of the "Temple of Tolerance". Nevertheless, the trip to the underworld of Paris was insanity. Apart from the fact, that they could not build on the documents of the authorities of the city, there was also the possibility to get lost in the dark corridors. Some tunnels had been closed many years ago, or were just collapsed. Moreover, even the older employees of the city administration did not know all the paths through the earth anymore. Further, Frank and Alf didn`t want to make the acquaintance of the notorious catacombs of Paris. Those dark places were a necropolis, as there was no second in Europe.

Here rested the bones of over five million people, who were brought into the darkness below the city, because of lack of space on the cemeteries in the early modern times,.

Therefore, the former French capital stood on a gigantic grave field. Alf often talked about these chambers of the dead below the city, which were redundant with bones up to the ceiling. Frank, who always said that he was not afraid to die, became a bit scared, when he thought about these spooky places.

"May the dead of Paris forgive us, that we enter their realm. Their brothers in the netherworld, who look complaining down at this earth, because their life was so early terminated by the new rulers, will thank us, if we revenge them!", philosophized Kohlhaas.

However, there was a lot to organize now, far away from all ghost stories about catacombs and dark holes in the underground of Paris. Meanwhile, time pressed.

Frank and Alfred should be brought to Compiegne, in the northeast of Paris, by an airplane, in order to penetrate the city from there, behaving like harmless tourists. All the planes in Ivas were registered and had completely inconspicuous owners. Therefore, this approach seemed to be clever.

Then, the two assassins wanted to drive from Compiegne to Paris with a hire car. Their Scanchips were falsified and soon they would see, if HOK`s abilities had been good enough. At least, the journey to Paris should start one week before the 01.03.2029, so that enough time remained, to explore some tunnels in the nights before the event.

The shabby hotel, in which Frank and Alfred should wait for the great day, had already been chosen by HOK. He had booked a room for them on the Internet, and had also contacted the hire car company in Compiegne.

All had to be planned to the smallest detail, because there was no time to waste and uncertainties could become a deadly disaster.

The takeoff of the small transport aircraft, which officially belonged to Mr. Artur Burzius, a Russian insurance buyer, should start from Ivas on 19.02.2029 at 9.00 o'clock. Then, the two resistance fighters would enter the lion`s den. Still two days remained. Time was ticking away and Frank had to admit, despite all frights of the holo cell and the strokes of fate he had overcome, that he was scared. Scared to death. Afraid to die soon.

He tried to hide his nervousness, but his whipping with the foot, when he sat at the kitchen table, and his talking while he was dozing, betrayed him.

However, his friend felt the same. Alfred mostly ran through the village in these days, speaking at each possible opportunity with Wilden, who tried to encourage him. Sometimes, he sat in the brightly illuminated kitchen during the whole night, with a cup of tea and a cigarette, just looking out the window. Bäumer did not sleep very much and waited eargerly for the start of the operation.

"Julia is at the door, Frank!", called Alf from the side room, while his roommate tried to concentrate on a political brochure. Dusk was already falling outside. The journey to the west was set for 9.00 o'clock tomorrow. During this day, many villagers had come to the two men, to wish them all the best for the operation. Several women had brought cakes and food. Even HOK had visited them again – with some more construction plans in his hands.

Steffen de Vries, the Belgian, who lived with his family in Ivas since four years and had to fly the two rebels to Compiegne, had also been there for several hours. Meanwhile, de Vries was also more than nervous.

"I`m coming!", answered Frank and left his bedroom. Bäumer had already led Julia in and went with her into the kitchen. She was pleased to see Frank and shook his hand.

"I just wanted to wish you good luck!", she said and seemed to be concerned and gloomy.

"Thanks! We will need it!", answered Alfred and took a deep breath.

"Thanks, Julia! It`s just nice to see you!", returned Frank. "However, still a last beautiful sight, before we will enter the spooky underground."

Now, the pretty woman smiled shyly and didn`t find the right word for a short moment.

"I wanted to...", she stammered. "If it will be too dangerous...however...and you have no chance to reach Wechsler, you can always stop the operation!"

Julia stared with her sad eyes at the table surface. Frank turned to the window and said: "We will see! When we are in Paris, there will be no more turning back!"

"I meant... ", she added.

"Don`t worry! We will be successful, and if not, the catacombs are near and we will meet a lot of dead buddies", joked Alf with a cynical undertone.

Julia Wilden obviously found this not very funny and shook her head. "Don`t say such stupid things!", she spoke quietly and seemed to be close to tears. Kohlhaas enjoyed it, to see her in such a condition, if he was honest. Now the beautiful Fräulein, who was always a bit precocious, showed some feelings.

But Frank still played the hard rebel: "We will return for sure, Julia! We will kill this asshole without mercy!"

Then she said goodbye with tears in her eyes and shook Bäumer`s hand. Frank was even hugged by her. He was pleased that she treated him in such a way, and briefly, he was nearly inspired. But he checked himself and tried to think about something else, ignoring the pretty, young woman.

"She likes you, Franky!", teased him Alf, after Julia had left the house.

"No idea!", answered his friend with a shake of the head.

"She is really nice!", added Bäumer with a broad grin.

Frank turned away from him, went to the window and stared at the squalid garden behind the house. It was dark and rainy outside.

The two rebels were still awake for several hours. Now they were untwisted and nervous. This last night in Ivas, before the highly dangerous job in Paris, was terrible for Frank. He had weird dreams again, which afflicted him in the short phase of his sleep during the morning hours. He could remember just a few things on the next morning, when the Fleming, his pilot, awaked him with loud banging and calling at the front door:

Frank walked through a strange dreamworld once more. It completely resembled the holo cell, in which he had suffered for eight long months. White, sharp neon light cut into his eyes and he trudged through the bright fog of light without a real goal.

After a while, he recognized that it was his holo cell, but it appeared much bigger as he could remember. The walls could not be seen anymore and only the toilet and the hated plank bed with its light-gray pleather stood in the middle of the white light.

"Frank!", he heard the deep voice of an adult of man from a distance. "Fraaank!"

He followed the call and soon faced a terrible sight. In front of him was an enormous spider net, full of thick, black spiders. Some hatefully stared at him with their glinty eyes, and their slimy mandibles twitched. Some of the creatures hissed, when he appeared in front of their net, others were busy with eating their prey.

The enormous spider net, which seemed to broaden into the white illuminated sky, was full of screaming humans, who were clinging to thick and slimy threads.

The young man came closer and saw now, who was in the claws of the ugly spider monsters. It were babies. It was Nico. They all were little Nicos. Nevertheless, their voices did not sound like the voices of babies, they were deeper. Voices of men, who were already adult.

"Frank! Look at us!", yelled one of the babies, in whose flesh one of the spiders had bored its mandibles. "Look at us! Look at us!"

The beasts munched and refreshed themselves with the warm blood of the little humans, while the babies called: "As you can see, Frank, the holo cell has grown! Can you see it? Can you see, how outstanding perfected it is? This cell does not know walls or borders anymore, because it covers the whole world. It has been improved greatly, hasn`t it?"

And the spiders continued to eat their victims. Soon they had turned away from Frank again, crept over the gigantic net and sucked and ate and devoured.

"Just look at us, Frank!", chorused the babies. Then it was again black in the head of the dreamer and he forgot, how the dream continued...

Frank and Alf packed their bags and Steffen de Vries helped them. Already in this phase of the operation, mistakes had to be avoided and at first, the list of equipment was checked off.

Flashlights, explosive, pistols, close combat weapons for the case of emergency, meal rations, gumboots, army boots, construction plans of sewers and so on. The list was long and it lasted over one hour until the three rebels had finished their work. Before they went to the transport aircraft, Mr. Wilden suddenly came to them.

"I wish you all the best, my heros!", he called. "Have you already heard the news today?"

Wilden smiled and was gasping for breath, while Frank, Alf and the Belgian turned around: "No, we had other problems!"

"Japan!", said the gray-haired man. "Japan has left the World Union! They want their old state back!"

"Aha... ", answered Frank without any interest.

"I wanted to tell you that, before you fly away! There were big demonstrations in Tokyo and in many other cities of the country, one week ago. Governor Kaito Ikeda, the servant of the World Government, and his advisor Ron Baldwin, have resigned and have been expelled from the island. The new president of Japan is Haruto Matsumoto, the leader of the reform movement. Japan has moreover stopped all payments and tributes to the World Government. Furthermore, all the foreign diplomats and supervisors have been expelled from the country too. No country has dared a thing like that since 2018!", explained Wilden with unconcealed enthusiasm.

"Japan is at the end of the world and we are here", returned Steffen de Vries.

"However, this is nevertheless a sign! The system is crumbling, my friends. Perhaps, other states will follow Japan!", said the village boss, somehow disappointed that the three men had not fully understood the meaning of Matsumoto`s rebellion.

Then he added: "If you read between the lines, beyond the lies and the agitation of the international media, you could believe, that even China and Korea are close to a revolt!"

The three rebels, who were waiting for the flight to a deadly mission, just nodded and said goodbye to Wilden.

Finally the village boss shouted: "You see, nevertheless, there is still hope! Our fight is not in vain! Good luck!"

At half past ten in the morning, the small airplane rose into the air. Kohlhaas and Bäumer looked wistfully back at the place of their provisional peace, the village Ivas. Then they disappeared on the horizon.

Below themselves, they saw the landscape becoming smaller and soon the plane flew so high, that they could see the clouds. The hidden and open war, which raged below them on the ground, seemed to be forgotten for a moment. But it would not be vanished, when they would come down to earth again.

They were silent for a while, also the Flemish rebel Steffen de Vries, Alf and Frank only knew volatilely. The Belgian lived with his two daughters, his son, his wife and his dog in the proximity of the village center, in a barely renovated house.

It was just beautiful, here in the sky, much more pleasant than on the rotten earth below them. The nervousness in their minds briefly died down and Frank remembered the words of Mr. Wilden.

"Japan!", he thought. "This land is far away and has nothing to do with us. Nevertheless...?"

Perhaps it was a sign of hope, also for the rest of mankind, that one day the slave chains could be broken again. But it was so grim. The enemy had become more than superior in this age. The mass media danced his dance of fraud and lie without exception, and they flew each day new attacks on the brains of the people, like on cities, which were already destroyed and still had to be devasteted.

The power of finance, the whole monetary system, was in the claws of the enemy since a long time. And with this weapon, he had crushed the world piece by piece.

The military had been bought by him and he sent out his dull mercenaries, who seemed to have no more own will, against everyone, who tried to resist him.

What would be in the future? The hangman`s noose around the neck of mankind tigthened with every passing year more and more. Something had to be done, there was no doubt.

"Japan!", said Bäumer with a lack of understanding.

"Wilden, the great analyst of world politics. I don`t know, what I shall think about that."

"In any case, better than nothing!", it came out of the cockpit with Flemish accent.

"We`ll see what happens now!", answered Frank.

"I will tell you what will happen next!", growled Alf. "Now, the Lodge Brothers will demoralize these stubborn Japanese. Slowly but surely. As they always do, if states dare to act independently.

It will begin with a worldwide press agitation, which will slander the Japanese to the bone. Then the economic boycott will come and in the end another war - or the Japanese will submit to the World Goverment again. That is an old and proven tactic."

"But it could really be, that other countries will support Japan", returned Kohlhaas with a tang of confidence.

"No, this is an illusion in my eyes!", answered Alf. "This new president, this Matsumoto, should be a born samurai, in order to endure, what expects him and his people now. He should have nerves like steel cables and should always sleep with one eye open."

"Let`s hope that he has the spirit of his brave ancestors", said Frank.

Anyhow, Japan`s act of restoring its independence, was an incomprehensible boldness from the point of view of the World Government. The country had gone through hard times since the great crisis in 2013. Its export trade and the industry had collapsed and the national indebtedness had been so gigantic, that the highly technicalised country had almost broken down like a house of cards. The Japanese, who had successfully copied the European technology for a long time, had lost their commercial relevance in a few weeks.

Japan`s economy, the cornerstone of its new national pride after the Second World War, had declined. After 2018, it had still become worse and the island had turned into a bubbling cauldron full of discontent. While a great part of the nationalistic and traditional Japanese population had postulated the return to the "old way", the care for their culture and the preference of Japanese interests, the puppet government of Kaito Ikeda, who had been assigned by the World Government, had done the opposite. So the tensions had risen with time.

Steffen de Vries switched on the digitized radio and a song of the Cyberpop Hipcore star Evan Steele resounded out of the cockpit, which soon got on Frank`s and Alf`s nerves. Then the news followed.

First came a message about the World President, who had opened an "One-World-Kindergarten" in Washington, telling the listeners, that inattentiveness or rebellious behavior, particularly among little boys, had to be fought with new drugs. Early childhood disturbances had to be wiped out by the use of more pharmaceutical products and it was a holy assignment for all great humanists, to liberate the children of the world from these "diseases".

The chief of the kindergarten was asked about this and seemed to be enthusiastic about the new medicines. Then a representative of a big pharmaceutical company gave an interview and announced that they intensively worked on a new drug programs for infants.

The next topic was Japan and the newscaster said: "This morning, the World Government discussed further measures at their crisis meeting in New York, to handle with the fascist Japanese state.

The World President and other prominent representatives of politics and economics, came to the decision, that the global community has to consider drastic measures, because of the increasing threat to all peaceable people. Matsumoto`s Japan, where political dissidents are persecuted and murdered, has nuclear weapons and seems to be willing, to use them against the free world, as secret GSA reports prove.

The governor of the administrative sector "Eastern Asia", Mr. Kim Bo-Hung, and his advisor Mr. David Frost, announced a hard course against Japan during the conference.

"We can not permit, that fascist polititians like Haruto Matsumoto become new cancerous ulcers in our peaceful and free world!", stressed the World President literally.

GCF commander Edward McOwen said that a possible security zone has to be established around Japan and arranged the sending of warships of the GCF Pacific fleet to Eastern Asia. He exhorted all administrative districts and sub-sectors of the world community to watchfulness, in order to make fanatics and dictators like Matsumoto innocuous, before they become too powerful. The plan of Japan, to become independent from world economy, and also the intend to abolish the interest system, the World President castigated as a "perverse act of a mad gone dictatorship".

"What did I say?", muttered Bäumer and smiled sufferingly. "Now it starts!"

"We can only wish the Japanese good luck for the future. I hope, they have a thick skin. Now we have our own fight!", replied Frank.

The airplane flew over Poland and came nearer to the sector "Central Europe", while time passed. Meanwhile, the three men were seized by a growing nervosity.

They talked quietly with each other, as if they would fear to be intercepted by an enormous ear in the sky. And actually the curious ears and eyes around them became more numerous. The countless radar and alarm systems, supervising the airspace, let Frank think of the spider net in his nightmare. "Central Europe" was near.

But nothing happened. Nobody noticed the inadvertent guests, who penetrated the completely supervised area. If someone had really scanned the flier, he had only found an insignificant name in the registration card index of the machine. The big eye looked past them, although they were directly in front of its pupil. The hours passed and Frank, Alfred and Steffen breathed again, when they crossed the old border of France and no radiogram of the air traffic control was sent. Compiegne was close now and the airplane started its final descent.

Finally, they reached the ground without incidents, but a feeling of biggest uncertainty tormented them, when they stepped out of the airplane. It was like in former times, when the Europeans could still afford vacation travels to the southern countries. If they had left the cold north and had finally come out of the plane in the south, they had often been confronted with an unusual wall of stifling heat. Today it was different, because the wall, which waited for Frank and Alf here in the center of France, was not made of heat, it consisted of distrust.

In his meticulous fashion, HOK had selected a small village, where there rebels should land. Far away from the attention of the natives.

The Belgian had opted a large field near the village to land. Frank and Alf said goodbye and took their backpacks. Then de Vries took off again as fast as he could.

For safety reasons he flew directly back to Ivas, because he didn`t want to stay just one minute longer in such an extremely monitored zone. If he would have parked his plane somewhere in this rural area for seven days, the danger to be controlled by a police patrol would still have been small, but his nerves were raw.

He had been relieved, when he had left the sector "Central Europe" with his Family in 2019 - never to be seen again. Perhaps, de Vries was a little too paranoid, and he also had a perfectly falsified Scanchip, but only the thought of being caught by the police filled him with panic. The Fleming had already been arrested in 2011, because of smuggling arms, and his name was still listed in all official databanks. Steffen and his family had suffered a lot in "Central Europe" and when he finally came back to Ivas, he was more than happy about this.

Meanwhile, Frank and Alf stood on a field close to a small village near Compiegne - with full backpacks. Their hearts were pounding like mad. Now they were on their own, standing in the middle of enemy country. Therefore, it was important to behave inconspicuous.

"We look like ramblers from the forest", muttered Alf.

"Let`s go to the village and then we will drive to Compiegne by bus. We still have to make it to Paris today!", explained Frank and felt uneasy.

They walked along a dusty road, which led from the landing zone directly to the small village, always looking around. The load was heavy, everyone had to carry about 25 kilograms, and they just hoped that no policeman would find them strange.

However, the two rebels had some ordinary clothes. Frank wore some blue jeans and a dark green polo. Furthermore, a light gray baseball cap, which was pulled deeply into his face, covering his head.

Bäumer also wore blue jeans, a brown turtleneck pullover and a reddish baseball cap with the symbol of the the "Cleveland dead Indians". Under the trouser legs of the two men, black army boots could be seen, because firm footwear was essential on this mission.

Their warm jackets had been stowed in the backpacks. They also had sunglasses in their bags, but the weather was sulky today, and so sunglasses would have looked not very inconspicuous.

On the way to the village, they didn`t see many people. Just an old man, who passed and briefly examined them. Apart from this, there was not a soul to be seen. However, the village didn`t pulsate of life. Everything looked poorly and only a few inhabitants were on the street. Just a little boy on the opposite roadside, who shouted something in French, gave them a bit attention. But Frank and Alf didn`t mind him. They went to a bus stop and drove with line 38 to Compiegne.

"Just cut and run!", they thought to themselves. The bus driver had warily looked at them, when he had debited the amount for the trip from their Scanchips, Frank was sure. Alfred, however, protested that this hadn`t been noticeable to him. Both were silent and tried to ignore the other passengers. They just sat in the last row of seats of the bus and were glad about everyone, who did not turn around to them. The bus driver talked with an older woman during the trip, and she probably told him her whole life story with wild gestures. "Oui!" and "Non!" it resounded through the shabby bus. Then the vehicle arrived at Compiegne.

"Give me the DC-stick!", said Frank, after they had stepped off the bus.

Anyhow they had already taken this small hurdle without any problems. Alfred ransacked his black backpack and pulled out a small data medium. On the DC-stick were the construction plans of the canalization of Paris and other files, also a map of Compiegne.

"We are here, in the center. The rental car company is not far away. We can walk!", said Frank and nervously looked at Alf.

Now they were surrounded by a lot of people. It was not like in the small village they came from. The two assassins were close to a shopping mile and masses of passersby were all over the place. But they didn`t regard them, if at all only as tourists, and gave them no closer looks. Both men heard a tangle of languages beyond their ears, mainly French. Some children, probably Arabs, ran over the street and were screamed. At first sight, Compiegne was an ugly, gray and dirty city. At second sight, it was still more disgusting!

The shopping mile was full of beggars and homeless people, who hung around in the corners, wrapped in covers and drunk. An old man roared loudly with a babbling voice and threw his bottle of cheap liquor on the asphalt. Somewhere, someone tried to play on a guitar and sang flat to get some Globes. It was just odious here. But where was it still pleasant in this age? Anyhow, Kohlhaas and Bäumer hit the road immediately to reach the rental car company in time. It was already after 17.00 o'clock and they had to hurry up.

Frank noticed that the people around him walked with a stoop, as if they would have an interest to look like midgets. Their faces reflected poverty, many looked ill and pale. The two Germans were regarded by nobody and silently walked down the street. Shortly afterwards, they passed some abandoned shops. Probably there had been a flourishing retail trade in former times, but this was long ago. Meanwhile, the shopwindows of the dirty houses in the center of Compiegne looked dead and dusty. The downfall of a once beautiful city was obvious.

What had remained, were the cheap supermarkets of "Globe Food" and "3X6 Market", which supplied Europe and North America with their bad food.

Here, the homeless people clustered. They gestured, shouted, brought new liquor out of the supermarket and also vomited, when they were drunk enough. From the other end of the long shopping street, which had already lost its gloss, suddenly came a loud scream. A young man had stabbed one of the derelicts, people ran around and started to yell. Frank and Alfred walked faster, if a police car emerged.

A little later, they had reached the rental car company, which lay in a halfdark backyard. A sturdy man with a beard waited for them behind a desk and lolled on his chair. The two rebels entered his office. Now it became thrilling, because Frank had to use his falsified Scanchip for the first time.

"We want a car. We want to go to Paris!", said Alfred.

The Frenchman, who probably had a lot of contact with tourists, looked up and fetched some papers.

"Oui! You want to go to Paris? Okay!", he answered and smiled.

"Eh... Yes!", added Frank. "Which car do you want? A normally car, a combi, a van?", enumerated the renter.

"Normal car!", answered Alf.

"Which type?", asked the man.

"Tell that asshole that it is all the same to me. I want to leave this place as fast as I can!", hissed Kohlhaas quietly. Alf nodded.

"It doesn`t matter. Any normal car!", said Bäumer.

"Okay! Where are you from?", nerved the Frenchman.

"Austria...from Austria!", stammered Frank. His heart pounded and his hands felt sweaty.

"Ah! Aus Österreich!", joked the man and tried to talk German.

"Ja!", answered Alfred.

The renter stood up from his chair and waved the two rebels nearer.

"Come on!", he called. "Here! This car you can have."

The friendly man showed Frank and Alf a black and no longer new "Lion".

"Is der gut?", he asked, grinned and was pleased that he had made it, to speak German.

"Yes! We take this car!", answered Frank, whose back began to hurt, because of his heavy load.

"Okay, we go to the office. Than pay with Scanchip!", said the renter and walked off.

"Now we will see...", whispered Alf.

"How long do you want to lease the car?", asked the man from the next room and typed something.

"Till the second of march!", said Alf.

"Okay!", it came back.

The Frenchman took the two Scanchips and pulled them over a reader.

"A car is 40 Globes a day, my friends!", he explained. "Okay!", breathed Frank and looked at Alf with fear in his eyes.

The reader hummed quietly and for the two men the world seemed to stop turning for some seconds. The tension let their hearts pump faster and the adrenalin shot through their veins.

Then the Frenchman looked up and smiled friendly: "Thank you, Mr. Eberharter and Mr. Willner. Take your car. Have much fun in Paris! Haben Sie vielen Spaß in Paris, mein Herren! Ha, ha!"

The two rebels took a deep breath, walked fastly to their car, threw the heavy bags into the trunk and disappeared.

The trip to Paris was more pleasant than in former times. There were no more traffic jams of considerable size, because the number of cars had increasingly been reduced in the last years.

The breakdown of the automobile industry had begun in the year 2009 and in 2029, cars were luxury articles for the ordinary people. Who could hardly ensure, that there was enough food on his plate, had no more Globes to fund a car. Government officials and other higher earners, who still could afford a car, were an exception. Moreover, the prices for gasoline had drastically risen, particularly since 2018. Meanwhile, a car devoured big sums of money.

Alternative energies, which could have replaced the gasoline, were still suppressed by the oil industry and the oil lords had still all the power, to exterminate any rivals in this sector. In 2019, a worldwide wave of liquidations by the GSA had hit many scientists and entrepreneurs, who wanted to offer free energies. So the traffic jams slowly vanished, and that was a real advantage on this day, because the two rebels could nearly "enjoy" their trip to Paris. However, the motorways and streets were in a catastrophic condition. The administrative district "Central Europe" used its income for more important things than to repair streets, for example, an improved monitoring or an extended armament.

It lasted for a while, until the two men had found the hotel, which HOK had chosen for them. The streets of Paris appeared endlessly and darkly, and if one didn`t know this labyrinth of lanes, it was easy to go astray.

The hotel was called "Sunflower" and was in the east of Paris. At 20,30 o'clock, the exhausted men finally arrived and parked their car behind the buidling. In the hotel, a pretty Frenchwoman with light brown hair and a girlish face was waiting for them.

She was very friendly, but somehow busy and reticent. However, this was no problem, because unnecessary talk with other people had to be strictly avoided. Frank and Alf just told her, that they were tourists from Austria.

The Scanchips functioned perfectly again. This was the way it should be. Then, the two men brought their heavy and explosive luggage to room 16 on the 2nd floor. Frank and Alf didn`t see many other guests on this evening. Only an older woman, who greeted them in French. That was all.

They closed the door behind themselves and fell on their beds, which were covered with a brown duvet. Soon this day had come to an end and the two rebels were just glad about this.

Now they were in Paris, but the real trip to hell was still waiting for them. Nevertheless, Frank and Alf banished this fact from their minds at this evening.

Aux Champs-Élysées

Aux Champs-Élysées  
Aux Champs-Élysées  
Au soleil, sous la pluie  
À midi ou à minuit  
Il y a tout ce que vous voulez  
Aux Champs-Élysées...

(French version, 1969)

Oh Champs-Élysées

Oh Champs-Élysées

Sonne scheint, Regen rinnt

Ganz egal, wir beide sind

So froh, wenn wir uns wiederseh'n

Oh Champs-Élysées...

(German cover version, 1969)

Oh Champs-Élysées

Oh Champs-Élysées

Sonne scheint, Regen rinnt

Wechsler, du wirst mich nicht seh`n

und bald vor deinem Schöpfer steh`n !

Oh Champs-Élysées...

(Modified version by Frank Kohlhaas, 2029)

Although they were in the middle of a strongly monitored city in "Central Europe", and the enemy could lie in wait at each corner, Frank and Alf slept quite well. At first, Frank remembered this old French song, which was occasionally played on the radio. He changed the text of the German version in a way that it was suitable to the situation. Kohlhaas chuckled quietly, till the sleep had overpowered him.

The beginning of the next day could not be avoided and there were only eight days till the "Festival of the new World", which should come over the old "Avenue de Champs-Elysees".

There was still enough time to get an idea of the situation, and to explore the dark sewer tunnels, which they had selected as their way to the security zone. This procedure was also very necessary, because there was no room in their plan for unexpected incidents, collapsed tunnels or blocked ways.

Frank and Alf spent the first day in Paris in their hotel room and avoided to leave the building. Only once, Alf bought something to eat in a nearby supermarket and told his friend about the dirty streets he had walked down. Apart from that, they spent their time with watching TV. The news, which were mostly agitation against Japan, brought them several outbreaks of rage. For the next day, more exactly for the next night, both men had planned something really bold. At two o'clock in the morning, the two rebels sneaked out of their hotel room and passed the abandoned reception.

In the darkness of the next street corner, Frank hastily took his DC-Stick and opened the city map of Paris, which HOK had completed with additional informations. Like two shades, they crept around the houses and moved silently from one dark place to the next. It was raining and Alf suggested to postpone the operation to the following day, but Frank did not want to waste anymore time and remained stubborn. "The Rue Lagille, it is not far away from here!", whispered Kohlhaas and showed his friend the map.

"We are just crazy, man!", answered Bäumer.

"Of course!" Frank grinned. "And now, let`s hurry up!"

They went to a dark corner again and studied some construction plans. Meanwhile, the heavy rain had stopped and just dabbled quietly one the roofs of the houses around them. The streets were empty, only a few probably Algerian teenagers, who occasionally roared through the night or kicked against garbage cans and bus stop signs, could be seen in the distance. However, the two rebels were not noticeable to them. It was after three o'clock, when they finally reached their goal.

"Let`s look for an entrance here", whispered Frank.

"Shit, what am I doing here?", sighed his friend and fetched a small crowbar, which he kept hidden under his jacket.

"Come on now!", hissed Kohlhaas.

A car drove past them and an old woman, standing at a brightly illuminated window, gazed at the dark and wet street. Frank and Alf had noticed her and decided to creep inconspicuously away.

"Look! She can see us! We have to go!", growled Frank and Alf followed him.

"Let`s go to the next street, there are only some houses on one side. And there is an abandoned factory building, according to the plan", whispered the young man with the DC-Stick in his hand.

Shortly afterwards, they reached a nearly perfect dark back alley. Now they felt unobserved. Anyhow, they could not see anybody, although they looked around several times and examined the environment with sharp eyes. A minute later they stood in front of a gully cover of iron. It was clearly visible shown on one of HOK`s maps of the city of Paris. They paused for a short moment.

"This must be gully cover 344-GL-77003, if the map is correct", said Frank with a little enthusiastic face. "Down there? Now? Damn! "

"No turning back, Kohlhaas!", answered Alf and already screwed up his nose.

They lifted the manhole cover without problems and pushed it to the side. In front of them, an unfathomable black hole opened itself now. Only the outlines of some rusty rungs, leading into the darkness, could be recognized.

"Fuck!", said Frank.

Bäumers nodded approvingly, then he held his flashlight downward. Dirt, rotten leaves and rust expected the two assassins down below. Moreover, a pungent stench.

"Oh my God!", said Kohlhaas and took his rubber gloves and the breathing mask. "Do you have the blowtorch, Alf?"

"Yes, sure! What are you waiting for?", muttered Bäumer.

Frank carefully climbed down the rusty ladder, while Alf was shining for him. After a few minutes, he had reached the ground.

"Baaah!", it resounded out of the dark hole.

His partner could imagine, what Frank meant. Then Kohlhaas shone for Alf, who crawled down into the unknown, little inviting environment of the underground of Paris. Bäumer pulled the gully cover over the manhole, so that only a small gap remained. Down here, it was as disgusting as expected, and the channel did not make the impression, as if someone had ever cleaned it in the last twenty years. Wet heaps of dirt were piled up beside the rivlet, down to the feet of the two men. Some rats scurried away. Alf shone at them with his flashlight and the animals quickly disappeared somewhere in a stinking hole.

"Look at this, gentlemen of the World Government are also here!", joked Frank and pointed at the rats.

Alf chuckled. "Here will be a lot of them. If you see a completely fat and bloated rat, then you can address it with "Mr. World President"!"

Frank grinned and returned: "To compare these poor animals with the Lodge Brothers, is an insult for every rat!"

The gossip took a bit of the uncertainty of the two rebels, who stood now in the middle of an ugly sewer tunnel. Frank looked at his map again and then they walked about hundred meters straightforward.

They had to watch out for their heads, because the tunnel was not as tall as a man and surely already very old. Soon after, both men came to a bigger canal and heard a car above themselves. They were under a street. The little river of wastewater was a bit broader here, just like the roundish tunnel. Now they had to come to a decision.

"If the map is correct, we must go to the left", said Frank after a short look at the DC-Stick.

"It will hopefully be correct, otherwise we are fucked up", grumbled Bäumer.

"There is always a gully cover somewhere, that can bring us back to the surface", said Frank and walked forward, waving with his flashlight. Meanwhile, Alfred sprayed a red cross on the wall, in order to use it later as an orientation.

The broader sewer tunnel still extended for about two hundred meters, then they came to a grid, clogged with dirt and leaves, which was completely rusted. There was no getting through. At least, not without a blowtorch, which Alfred fortunately had. It just took a quarter of an hour, then he had destroyed the rusty lattice.

"What a work!", gasped Alf, when the dammed up water poured away between his legs with loud splashing.

The tunnel with the old grid still extended for two hundred further meters, then it ended in a larger room, where the rills of wastewater flowed together. Gray-green walls gazed at the two intruders and Frank was sure, that these old buildings already existed since many decades, maybe since centuries.

Rusty wastewater pipes came from the ceiling of the room and on the wall was a sign with something in French on it. It was completely rusted too.

At least, they could stand tall here. The way forked again in several directions. Frank looked at some files and was sure that they had to go into the opposite tunnel, Alfred trusted him and sprayed another red cross on the wall.

"One of these sewer corridors had not been on our map, but this must be the right one! Above it, is the "Rue de Rothschild", as I think", explained Kohlhaas.

Shortly afterwards, they walked through a narrow passage with some big holes in the walls. Spiders and rats welcomed them in this dark tunnel and it was smelling rancidly, despite the breathing masks.

Frank and Alf had to crouch again and watched their heads. Meanwhile, they had walked this tunnel for about fifty meters, when they discovered a small source of light above themselves. Probably it was the light of one of the street lamps, which came through a little hole of a gully cover. They continued to creep through the stinking passage, then they stopped. A black water lode with a very narrow sidewalk on the side was in front of them, it was approximately one meter deep. In the distance of ten meters, rusty and damaged iron pipes led upward. Alfred marked the way and followed his friend along the stream. The water was not really deep, but it smelled foul and appeared somehow threatening. Frank thought that a terrible kraken would grab them with its tentacles to pull them down into a bottomless black sea. It was just spooky down here and the stench crept out of every corner right into their noses.

"If I have counted my steps correctly, we have walked about 600 or 700 meters yet", said Bäumer.

His friend looked at the digital map and nodded. At the end of the tunnel, they reached a relatively big room, which looked like a reservoir. Stairs led upward and a large pool with brackish water was in front of them.

Frank illuminated the basin, then he said to Alfred: "HOK`s informations have mostly been correct so far. This reservoir or whatever it is, has been marked with a red spot on the map. You should spray a sign on the wall here!"

After they had crossed the next tunnel, they had penetrated the underground labyrinth for more than one kilometer. Then they reached an area, which reminded them of a small hall. It must have been a part of the world-famous canalization of Paris, which had been built in the year 1850 and during the following period. With a tang of admiration, the two men stopped for a moment and looked around. Then they continued their journey.

"This must be pumps over there, right?" Alfred pointed at several enormous pipes with big handwheels on the side, that led into a deep water reservoir. However, they also were totally rusted, although they seemed to be still in use.

"I think so!", answered Frank. "This hall is probably in the east of the "Avenue of Humanity". I think the street is less than two kilometers far from here. This place is noticeable enough, we don`t need to mark it."

Alfred put the spray can with the red color back into his backpack and followed his friend. They went up some concrete stairs with a handrail on the side. Then they entered big room, that nearly looked like an underground hall and was carried by stone columns. Soon after, Frank and Alf went to the right and walked through a narrow, long passage.

"HOK`s informations have been right yet", said Kohlhaas. "The construction plans of the canalization of the inner city seem to be still exact."

"Well, the World Government has just taken over this ancient and singular sewerage. They would never build something for the people!", remarked Alf.

"This sewer network has been built by hardworking men and not by dirty parasites!", hissed Frank and waved his friend nearer.

"Look! There is a locked door. It obstructs the way, which we have to take", said Frank and pointed at a dark corner of the hall. Alfred fetched his blowtorch, but didn`t destroy the door more than necessary, in order to arouse no suspicion.

The tunnel beyond the locked door seemed to be endless, and after a while the two men discovered a hole in the wall. But there was no sewer corridor anywhere.

"What is that? It looks, as if somebody had broken some stones out of the wall there, to dig a way", said Frank and illuminated the strange hole with his flashlight. "Over there! Look, there is another tunnel! Can you see it?"

Behind the hole seemed to be a large shaft. In the last years, many homeless people had revamped the underworld of Paris at their own discretion and had extended the endless tunnel system. They had found a sad home here, in a time, when there was no more room for them at the surface. Kohlhaas looked at his DC-stick and read some files. It lasted nearly half an hour. In the meantime, Alfred sauntered boredly and nervously through the darkness.

"This could be an abandoned metro shaft!", explained Frank.

"In the inner city of Paris, the sewer corridors, tunnels and passages are sometimes hardly ten meters away from each other. I will take a closer look!"

Alfred already saw the back of his friend, who jumped into the little cavity and soon shone with the flashlight in his direction. Kohlhaas called him out of the dark tunnel and seemed to be excited.

"Come on!", he whispered. "I can see tracks. You see, I was right!"

Bäumer also crept through the hole and the two men followed the tracks. Perhaps they could find an abbreviation, if this metro shaft was really the marked path on HOK`s map.

It lasted a while, because the abandoned tunnel extended over several hundred meters. Suddenly they heard a gasp somewhere in the darkness. They twinced and turned around, looking in all directions. The vein in Frank`s temple began to pound and also Alfred nervously brandished his flashlight.

The gasp could be heard again and the two rebels searched for the source of noise. Finally they saw a man, who lay in a dark corner. Probably a derelict, old and ugly, with a reddish beard, a shabby trench coat and some brandy bottles in front of him. The underground inhabitant blinked dazedly, when Bäumer hit him with the blaze of his flashlight.

"Ca va?", slurred the old man.

"What?", stammered Frank nervously.

"Ca va?", repeated the drunk. "Ca va?"

"All right, grandpa! We will go now!", said Alf and turned around.

"Ca va?"

"Shut the fuck up, man!", hissed Frank toward the tramp and pulled his gun.

"Frank, what do you...?", asked Bäumer. "Put that gun away!"

"If he tells someone that we have been down here or remembers our faces...", growled Frank excitedly and brandished his weapon.

"This guy is just drunk. Leave him alone! Or do you want to kill him?", grumbled Alf at his friend.

"Ca va?", burped the tramp again.

"Shut up, you dirty old jerk! Don`t make such a noise! Otherwise I will give you some "Ca va"!", screamed Frank and kicked the man in the side.

The tramp whined quietly and whispered something in French. Kohlhaas pressed the pistol against his nose. "Just shut up, man! Or you won`t survive this!"

At this moment, Alfred pulled the furious young man energetically back and shoved him away.

"What is wrong with you, Frank? Are you mad? That old guy will say nothing. Hundreds of homeless people hang around here and nobody is interested in the babble of an old tramp! Let`s go back through the tunnels! It`s time to disappear!"

Frank slowly calmed down and put his gun away. He had nearly shot or stabbed this old man. Alfred gave him another stroke in the side and looked at him with lack of comprehension.

"It`s enough for now!", he said. "Otherwise, I will become angry! We disappear from here! Come on!"

Frank just followed his friend and was silent. At once, the whole thing was embarrassing to him and Alfred reprimanded him again, with sharp words, to control his rage next time. "He was nevertheless nothing but a drunk grandpa, man!", he grumbled.

"Okay, I may have overreacted...", answered Frank and looked away.

When they went back and crept again through the dark sewer system, Frank had to admit himself, that he had been close to kill this bum. That he was a safety risk, could perhaps be an argument, but only a superficial, because it was more than improbable that anybody would be interested in the twaddle of a drunk tramp from the underground of Paris.

Nevertheless, he had almost killed this man, simply cut his throat, to let him rot in the darkness of the old metro shaft. Yes, it had almost happened, if Alfred had not stopped him. Frank thought about himself...

Frank and Alf did not continue to explore the abandoned tunnel, in which the drunk man had lain. They crept again back through the hole and Kohlhaas took his DC-stick out of the backpack. Meanwhile, the two men were tired and Paris seemed to wake up above them. The honking of cars and the rumble slowly became louder.

"It probably goes on here. After the next two passages there is another room with reservoirs - or whatever!", explained Frank and went into the next tunnel.

Alfred sprayed a red cross on the wall beside the hole, which led into the metro shaft and followed his easily excitable rebel friend.

They still walked through stinking, but this time bigger sewer corridors, that had small and smelly rivers inside. Bäumer looked at Frank`s back and was still annoyed. Meanwhile, they had advanced still deeper into the underground. Finally they found a second underground hall, which was also hold by stone columns. The wastewater was collected here in large basins and was moreover rerouted in several directions. The basins were covered with large grids of iron and there was a footpath with some stairs, that was secured with a banister rail. Here one could probably come to a control room. Several water pumps and pipes were all around them. On the walls, they recognized lamps and thick cables. Also some crates had been piled up there. This large and long room seemed to be used very often, because it was directly below the inner city. But around this time it was empty. The two men crept further forward.

The old brick walls and the stone archs had something formidable. Now they recognized some iron stairs, which led up the wall and ended in a dark hole. At the end of the hall, there was a rusted steel door with a lamp above it.

"Look at this enormous room! It had already been built in the good old times. Really impressing!", whispered Alfred.

"Yes, a very big hall below the earth. Like the old "Moria" in that film. Just smaller...", said Frank.

"Moria?", asked Bäumer and was puzzled. "What do you mean with that?"

"Well, there is an old fantasy film. My father had once brought me a video tape, when I was still a little boy. It was called "The Lord of the Rings". In that movie, the heroes had to pass an underground labyrinth too - and it was called "Moria". An giant underground city, built by the dwarves in the ancient times of Middle-earth...", described Kohlhaas. "I really loved that film!"

"You are a dwarf too, ha, ha!", answered Alf and smiled. "Where are we here?"

A look at the map seemed to be necessary now. Probably the steel door at the end of the vault led into a bigger area, from where the men could reach the "Avenue of Humanity".

"I hope that there will be no workers of the public utilities", whispered Alfred. It was already after five o'clock in the morning. "We must hurry up!"

"Maybe the workers are more often here, than in the areas behind us", answered Frank quietly.

The steel door was secured with a digital code lock. Apart from that, the door looked old and was strongly rusted. The dark green paint on its surface had already peeled. Alfred started working immediately. He used his blowtorch, but the door was very solid.

Bäumer had to destroy a big part of the lock and needed nearly half an hour to open it. Meanwhile, Frank looked nervously around and hoped that nobody would disturb them.

Finally, the steel door opened with a quiet crunch and the two assassins came into another room, which was equipped with some shelves and an electronic control desk. The old desk reminded them of the seventies of the last century, because of its design. It was a true relict of technology.

Soon after, they left the area over some stone stairs and sneaked over a way with deep water reservoirs at the sides. Finally they disappeared again in one of the sewer tunnels, because Frank believed, that he had found this passage on HOK`s map. Alf marked the way and they continued with their search.

"The "Avenue of Humanity" is no longer far!", called Kohlhaas and disappeared into another dark hole.

They walked about hundred meters straightforward and turned then to the left into a further sewer corridor. Again, it was one of the bigger tunnels, because a small river rushed beside them here. Now they saw numerous cables, rusty lamps, old pipes and also a faded sign with some warnings. A little later, both men stood in front of the next grid, which blocked their way. Alfred`s blowtorch cut through the rusty metal and he threw a glowing piece of the grid into the water. After further hundred meters, a rat swarm, which had probably held a meeting here, fled from the blaze of their flashlights in all directions. Then the old brick ceilings became higher and they reached a hall with an enormous water pump and a large basin in its center.

While the two rebels felt safe in the narrow and dark sewer corridors, which led through the underground of Paris, they had the impression of being observed in the larger rooms and halls.

Here they could have encountered another derelict or a worker of the public utilities. But it was still very early in the morning and nobody, except for the two rebels, seemed to be here. From a distance, they suddenly heard the thundering of an arriving metro. That was a good sign.

"Charles de Gaulle!", whispered Frank and leaned against a large, gray column. "It must be the underground station Charles de Gaulle. It is close to the "Temple of Tolerance". We have almost reached our goal!"

The two men looked at the map again, then they climbed down an iron ladder and disappeared into a larger tunnel, which led them towards the source of noise. The way through this passage was long, monotonous and stinky. It seemed to lead many hundred meters into nothing. Frank reassured Alf that it was no longer far.

Only one last sewer corridor had to be passed now. Then they would be directly below the square, that had once been decorated by the Arc de Triomphe. Again, they heard the noise of a metro, speeding through the earth. The two rebels had crept through the guts of Paris with success. Frank and Alf were proud.

Beside them, a rusty ladder led upward to a dirty gully cover, where armies of black spiders were waiting for them, as a closer look proved. A little later it was done. The "Temple of Tolerance" was directly above their heads. Cars were humming and honking on the heavily travelled street, and they heard some people shout. Paris awoke.

Now it was time to disappear. Frank jumped up the ladder like a cat, climbed upward and lifted the gully cover to look over the square. Frank smiled grimly. They had finally made their way through the canalization – it was possible!

From the corner of his eye Kohlhaas could recognize an outside wall of the ugly concrete monument, that looked like a huge pyramid.

"We have arrived! Great!", said Frank joyfully and climbed down the ladder again.

"Over there! Look! About thirty meters away from me!" Alfred pointed at the darkness of the sewer corridor next to him. "We will place the bomb there and send Wechsler to hell! The explosion will be strong enough to tear up a big part of the square in front of the monument!"

"Yes! We will fucking do that!", muttered Frank with a poisonous smile.

"And now we have to move our asses out of this canalization!", he added and both men headed back. With growing internal confidence and contentment, the two rebels slunk off.

Occasionally, Frank had to study some construction plans again, but mostly his sense of direction was right. The red crosses, Alfred had sprayed on the walls, were a good additional help. Perfectly tired, stinky and filthy, they finally crept out of the sewer tunnel next to the abandoned factory hall in the early morning hours. Soon they would spend many hours in the canalization again.

On their way back to the hotel, at dawn, no one noticed them. Indeed their clothes were dirty, but this was not unusual in Paris. There were a lot of filthy guys in the streets of this metropolis. A warm hotel room was waiting for them and it was silent on the unlit floor. They just closed the door behind them and looked forward to a hot shower. Frank and Alf had no longer had this luxury since years, and both enjoyed the water, washing all the dirt and the stench away from their bodies. Then they quickly fell asleep. Soon the great day would come. The day of bloody revenge. And Frank looked forward to his payback...

The Lull before the Storm

Frank and Alfred left the small hotel "Sunflower" in the following days always alternating, in order to buy some food in the nearby supermarkets. They never ate in the small dining room of the hotel together with the other guests and avoided every contact to them. Only in their hotel room, they took their meals, which were usually produced by the "Globe Food" grocery chain.

The television was on, all day long, and overwhelmed them with dull entertainment and repetitions of old movies, interrupted by the hourly news. In this context, it was interesting to see, how the World Government dealt with the renegade state of Japan. At an interval of a few hours, the newest reports came over the air.

Japanese were interviewed, who allegedly had left the country, "before Matsumotos firing squads could execute them", because they had fought for "world peace" and "freedom". Ron Baldwin, the not very trustworthy looking advisor of puppet governor Ikeda, who had also been blown off the country, appeared in nearly each newscast.

He whined and stressed his "great sorrows about the new Japan", that he had learned to love soo much, since he had come to the island in 2020, as a manager of the Greenbaum Brothers Bank

He tried to look dismayed and affected to convince even the ignorant viewers. Nevertheless, it was his job to lie in front of the telecameras and he seemed to be eager to play his role.

Eight great warships had been sent to the eastern seas of Japan by the GCF high command, in order to observe the situation. Furthermore, the World President had demanded an ultimatum to the island people. They had to return to the World Union until the end of the month.

"Otherwise, unpleasant consequences for the Matsumoto regime could follow!", he threatened on television.

The media concealed that the new president of Japan had come to power by the will of his people. He had been voted by over eighty percent of the Japanese population. Meanwhile, the Japanese had abolished any further elections, and Matsumoto called democracy a "giant play of mass manipulation".

Moreover, the new president controlled himself and let all representatives and ambassadors of the World Government leave the country. And Matsumoto did not lay a finger on them.

However, during the rebellion it had come to spontaneous lynchings by the furious people. Some Japanese had just taken revenge on those persons, who had exploited them for many years and had destroyed their country. The most "global parasites", as many Japanese called them, had been killed in Tokyo and Osaka.

But the "fascist Matsumoto" was responsible for all this, in the eyes of the international media. Therefore, they unleashed a furious hate campaign against the rebellious Asians. Soon after, it changed to an irate and hysterical choir of slander and lies. A military intervention, however, was "currently not planned", according to the words of the World President. The newscasters tried to calm the viewers, but the whole thing smelled like war.

"We will see!", thought Frank.

"Now in your KCN-Shop! Call 070023456 and get him! Sergeant Powers, your supersoldier! He fights them all, yeah!", resounded a pithy voice out of the television. A hand was waving with an action figure - Sergeant Powers. "Terrorists, fascists, evil people! Sergeant Powers finishes them all! Get your Sergeant now and annihilate the evil forces! Only 19.95 Globes, here in your KCN-Shop or in every toyshop, yeah!", it came out of the tube.

Then the voice kindly told the kids, that they could borrow some money at the "KCN Bank for Children", if their parents would not have the Globes for Sergeant Powers. But only for children, who were already six years old.

"Oh, shit!", sighed Alf. "Turn it off!"

"In a few minutes, I want to watch "The Little Whisperer" on KCN. I always wanted to have a look at this brainwash show for children."

"Please not...", answered Bäumer disgustedly.

Shortly afterwards, KCN (Kid Control Network), the biggest telestation for children worldwide, started its famous show, called "The Little Whisperer".

Some years ago, KCN had started the series. Meanwhile, it had mutated to a blockbuster, which was also watched by the adult population and had extremely high viewing figures. Nevertheless, the actual target audience of the telecast was the younger generation. Since some time, the absurd show could be watched in innumerable languages and on all continents.

Frank and thereafter also Alf, who could not successfully hide himself from the acoustic irradiation of the television, stared eagerly, and at the same time distastefully, at the screen: Now it was time for "The Little Whisperer"!

A slimy presenter with flashing white teeth and an also flashing white suit, opened the show and the audience of little children cheered loudly.

"Hey, kids! I`m Funny Paul! Who of are you?", he called ecstatically.

"We are the kids!", roared the children and raved with great enthusiasm.

Every show of "The Little Whisperer" started in that manner. This was the German version, which could also be received here in Paris, together with approximately 700 other TV shows from all over the world. The camera swivelled around and showed alternating children of different nationalities. The "One-World" - on television it was cute at first sight. Then, all candidates of today's show were presented: The little Tina from Bitterfeld, Tommy from Hamburg, Robin from Bremen, Gülay from Bochum, Kim Song from somewhere else...

Anyhow, the children screamed full of joy and Alf moaned: "Turn it off! Please!"

But Frank remained hard. At least, he just wanted to watch one show of the series, the two policemen had talked about, when they had transported him to "Big Eye" at that time. After a while, the presenter called for the little Tina, a sweet blondie with braids and a cunning smile.

"You know, Tina, officer Bark and I must always pay attention that people say no bad things about our World President. Therefore, we also need the many children here to help us. You have told us last week, that your papa has said something very bad about our uncle World President. And you want to win your pony today, right?", said the presenter and grinned .

"Yes, please, Funny Paul!", begged the little Tina and cast up her nice blue eyes.

"If you have caught your daddy, making a very bad statement, then officer Bark and I are more than proud of you, because you have really helped us", whispered Funny Paul and turned to the audience. "Now, Tina will tell all these very bad words to our friend! And who is our friend?"

"The big Eeeeaaarrr!", screamed the children and stamped their applause.

A big ear of plastic was brought on the stage and the small Tina uncertainly looked at it.

"Okay, Tina! The big ear is your friend, you can tell everything!", said the presenter to the little girl.

"I...I will do...", said Tina and smiled bashfully. "I will tell everything!".

Then she whispered to the big plastic ear: "Daddy has said, the uncle World President is...ehmm...a swine and the World President...ehmmm...should be shot!"

She still told this and that, and apparently she had even written a lot of things on a small slip. The moderator encouraged her, to tell everything at all. It would remain their secret, and except for the audience and millions of other viewers, nobody else would ever hear it. Everything the little Tina said, was shown at the bottom of the screen.

"Oh!", shouted Funny Paul. "Your daddy really said all this?"

"Hmmm..., answered the child.

"Then your dad is not healthy. He is ill. I believe, we have to help him, but we will ask him first. Now, we will ask Tina`s daddy!", called Funny Paul and waved his hands.

"Jaaaaaaa!", cheered the audience. Suddenly the cameras switched live to a room, in which Mr. Notmeier, Tina`s father, sat behind a table.

He apparently was not very happy and smiled fearfully at the telecameras. Then Funny Paul interviewed him to the remarks, his daughter wanted to have heard and her father tried to make some excuses. But he behaved more than bumbling and finally started to stammer.

Shortly afterwards, some other candidates had a turn: Tommy, Kim Song and a few more. They told the big plastic ear all the "bad words" and politically incorrect remarks they had heard from their parents, neighbors or relatives. Then came the final.

"Who has been the best "Bad-Word-Detective" of today`s show?", shouted Funny Paul through the hall.

The children were allowed to vote and made Tina to the best "Bad-Word-Detective" of this day.

"Tina! Tina! Tina! Tina!", it resounded out of the tube. The little girl finally won a pony and fell down on her knees, bursting with joy. Her was casually told by Funny Paul, that her dad had to go to a "hotel" for a long time. The doctors would do everything to help him, assured the presenter.

But the joy about her new pony was much too big, and Tina probably heard this sentence only with half an ear. Then a man in a dog costume and a police uniform came down some stairs, went on the stage and welcomed his cheering audience.

It was officer Bark, who was hunting "bad words" all day long, in order to make the world a better place, as Funny Paul mentioned. He brandished his police club, his oversized hands of foam and his big handcuffs. The children yelled.

At the end of the show, he sang the "One-World-Song" with them. Funny Paul smiled at the telecameras and in the background, the little Tina was leaping for joy about her new pony like a bouncy ball. It all ended with some commercials for kids. Frank and Alf were disturbed.

In the night from 26. on 27. February, Frank and Alfred alternately kept guard at the window of their hotel room and checked the equipment. At three o'clock in the morning, they were finally ready to go. The rebels strapped their backpacks on, left the hotel room and sneaked over the dark corridor to the lower floor like two shadows. They parked the hire car some blocks away in a small side lane behind an old tenement. Both men would never return to the hotel after the bombing, and planned to drive from Paris to Compiegne as fast as possible. Their steps on the asphalt were quiet, while the "Sunflower" slowly became a dark and small spot behind them. This night was unusually cold, but fortunately it was not raining. Now they moved with still more caution than in the night, when they had explored the canalization. This time, even little mistakes could endanger everything.

If a police patrol had asked them about the content of their backpacks, the two rebels would have had more than just a problem. Apart from that, they had guns and knifes in their pockets. And even the stupidest cop would not believe them, that the were nothing but harmless tourists on a sightseeing tour.

Again they crept from one dark corner to the next, crossing a lot of empty streets. Their faces were partly hidden behind broad baseball caps, under which four wary eyes examined the vicinity, everywhere suspecting enemies or curious observers. They were like two predators, always ready to catch their booty.

Some cars drove past them. At the end to the "Rue de York", when they lurked in the shadow of an empty shop, they suddenly saw a police car, bending around the corner. Frank and Alf were shocked, nevertheless, they tried to saunter inconspicuously about and acted, as if they did not heed the police car.

The sound of an humming engine became louder and the tension rose to the extreme. If just a single policeman would have asked them for their particulars or wanted to look into their backpacks, then Frank and Alf would have had no other chance than killing him. And in case of emergency, also every other witness in sight.

No one had guns and NDC-23 by the kilo, who just wanted to visit Paris. The police car approached and seemed to drive more slowly now, but it didn`t stop and no cop stepped out. Probably, the driver only wanted to take a brief look at these two strange guys. But this city was full of people like this. It was luck for the two bombers, but probably also luck for the policeman, because they had not hesitated to use their weapons, if necessary.

"Lucky you!", whispered Frank quietly.

"Come on!", said Alf. "We are just good citizens."

"With some NDC-23 in our backpacks...", Kohlhaas giggled and seemed to be relieved. Except for some tramps, the streets of Paris were empty in this part of the city. After a further short walk through the dark lanes, they had finally reached the gully cover in front of the abandoned factory, which Alfred had duly closed again, after they had returned from the canalization. They entered the underworld again. But this time it was no more disgusting but otherwise harmless scouting expedition. This time, it was deadly serious.

At the very thought of staying in this stinky vault until noontime of 01.03.2029, and even to sleep down here, the two men shuddered.

What would be, if they suddenly stood in front of some new grids, which had been repaired in the last days? Or even in front of some policemen? No, there was no more room for surprises. They had to keep their eyes open to react on changes. Now it was the same way again, and rats and spiders appeared as a greeting committee in the dark tunnels once more. When they had reached the first larger room, they examined their equipment, in order to be prepared for all possible incidents.

Frank absently looked at his knife with the serrated blade, which John Throphy had organized for him on one of his trips to Belarus. Then he put it back into the pocket. The red crosses which Alf had sprayed on some walls, were still there and the two men were glad about this. Also the destroyed grids had fortunately not been repaired, after their first walk through the canalization. Frank and Alf decided not to stay in the direct proximity of the event overnight. If policemen would scan the passages before the celebrations, then within this range. They finally chose the closed metro tunnel, that they could reach through the dug hole in the wall. The air was much better here and from somewhere seemed to come a refreshing breeze. Nevertheless, it was cold, scary and dark there.

"What will be if people walk around here again?", whispered Frank.

"One of us must stay awake and keep guard, while the other one sleeps", answered Alf. "I will begin if you want!"

They searched the pit for some fire wood and found all kinds of flammable waste after a few minutes. Probably it were the inheritances of some tramps. Shortly afterwards, they kindled a small campfire, a tiny place of warmth and light in that endless, yawning pit. Kohlhaas accepted Alf`s offer, tucked himself up and slept on the uncomfortable ground beside the rails, after he had put a few dry boards and an old plastic foil there. However, this night was terrible, all alone in the darkness of this old tunnel. Frank started to freeze.

Two hours later, his friend woke him up and asked him to take over the next night watch. Tired and nervous, Frank straightened up and sat down at the glowing fire. It lasted only some minutes, then Alf was sleeping and began to snore.

That was the only sound in this eerie vault and Kohlhaas was happy to hear it after a while. The darkness stared at him from a distance and sometimes he believed to hear a silent coughing or weeping somewhere, but in this night, the metro tunnel was empty.

It was at 6.00 o`clock in the morning. Frank and Alfred had a pitiful breakfast and started with their reconnaissance. They slunk quietly and slowly forward and still did not see anybody at this early time. No grids or barricades had been repaired by any workers or had been placed by the police. At least, not on the first day in that hole. On 27.02.2029, the two men played card games or spent their time with various conversations at the campfire in the closed metro tunnel.

Later they explored some new passages and finally returned to their hiding place. They preferred the old metro tunnel to the canalization. Not only because of the better air and the campfire. Apart from the bigger halls with the water reservoirs, the narrow canals were no places, where they wanted to stay longer than necessary. The hours seemed to be endless, down below in the underground of Paris. Again, a long and uncomfortable night was waiting for them and Frank decided to be on guard at first, while Alfred tried to sleep.

Kohlhaas was also very tired and nibbled boredly on some chips from the supermarket. Meanwhile, the darkness around him made the young man more nervous than ever before, and so he decided to look for some more wood for the campfire. Soon he had discovered another pile of broads near the tracks. After a while he cowered at the campfire again - but suddenly he startled up.

Something had shown its head in a dark corner beyond the pile of firewood. It had been a ghostly, pale child, pressing its finger to the lips, as if it wanted to remind Frank to be silent.

"Pssst!", he thought to have heard. Then the darkness returned again.

He felt the adrenaline burning in his veins. Kohlhaas hastily fetched his flashlight to examine the place of the spooky appearance, but there were only stones and garbage. Nothing was to be seen of a child. He thought about waking up his friend to tell him about the ghost, but he did not do it. There was nothing. Nothing at all.

After two hours, Frank was damn glad about the fact, that he could hand over the night watch to Alfred now. Then he immediately fell asleep. When it was his turn again, in the early morning, he initially illuminated the strange place with his flashlight. But there were no ghosts at all, only garbage. Franks nerves were raw and he started to search more thoroughly. But it must have been an illusion. Shortly afterwards, the young man left the spooky place and hoped that the panic would die down again.

The fire flickered and fought against its extinction for a while. Finally Kohlhaas had to return to the eerie corner to bring some more firewood. He was still scared and looked around, waiting for the coming of the ghostly child. But it did not come and left Frank alone in the cold darkness.

On the next day, at half past eight, Alfred heard voices. "Calm!", he hissed and touched Frank lightly. "Hey! Don't you hear that?"

Kohlhaas startled and sharpened his ears. Bäumer was right. Now he heard the voices too. Someone was shouting in the distance, and the calls resounded in the tunnels. They had to be vigilant now.

"I take a look!", said Alfred quietly.

"Damn! Be careful!", answered Frank and slapped on Bäumer`s shoulder.

Alf jumped up and crawled through the hole in the wall into the sewer corridor. He ran to a bifurcation and went into the next passage. In his corner of his eye, he could see one of the red crosses, he had sprayed on the wall before. The voices became louder. They probably came from the larger hall with the control room. After some minutes, Alf had advanced far enough into the tangle of sewers corridors and had reached the room with the water basins. Again, he heard someone call in French. He turned off his flashlight and disappeared in the darkness. Then he sneaked towards to the source of noise. Someone had put on the lights in the hall and the old, high vault was weakly illuminated now. Bäumer dared not to go further and huddled in a corner of the corridor, which led to the hall. The voices still became a little louder and came out of the small room beside the hall, which could be reached over the stairs.

Finally a man came out of the chamber and called his colleague. These men were workers of the public utilities of Paris, and made their daily inspection round here. Alf hoped that they would not come too often.

After he had observed them for a while, and one the workers had examined a water basin, the two men walked away and disappeared into a sewer corridor.

Alf heard them talk loudly. Then their voices faded away in the distance. The rebel turned around and sneaked again towards the closed metro tunnel.

"I just hope, they haven`t noticed that we have opened those grids and that steel door", he said quietly to himself.

But the workers had made a calm impression. This was obviously just an usual inspection round, that they made repeatedly, and with not much eagerness. And even if they would repair something, Frank and Alfred could still destroy it in the next night again. Kohlhaas was waiting at the small campfire and was relieved, when he saw Alfred creeping through the hole in the wall.

"Damn! Where have you been? Thank God, it was your flashlight. All right! I have already pulled my gun!", said Kohlhaas.

"It were just some workers", explained Alf and sat down beside his friend. "Let`s see, who will come down here tomorrow!"

"Do you know, that they have found a full-grown alligator in the canalization of Paris some years ago?", interrupted him Frank and smiled grimly, looking at his comrade.

"I still prefer alligators to cops, Franky!", answered Alf.

This time, the night, that could only be differentiated from the day by a look at the clock, was almost relaxing for the two rebels. It was a bit like in the good old schooldays, before a classwork, after a long time of learning. They knew that the big showdown was inevitable now.

Tomorrow was the day of their final paper. Maybe a little more bloody and dangerous as a class test. Frank and Alfred kept guard once more and no ghosts or shades appeared.

At 6.30 o'clock, Alfred`s DC-stick beeped and woke the two men. The campfire was still glowing, otherwise the cold darkness had crept into each corner of the metro shaft again.

They slowly got up and ate a few toasts for breakfast. The slices of bread tasted like nothing, this cheap and lousy grub from "Globe Food". But it could still be used as a possible last meal.

"We must go to our target area now. If some cops come down here today, then in the morning hours. We must keep everything in sight", explained Bäumer and examined the equipment on completeness.

He checked the time fuse of the bomb several times. Then he hid the explosive under a pile of debris to avoid that any derelicts find it. Meanwhile, Frank Kohlhaas looked at his DC-stick. He wanted to make no mistakes, although they had already gone the way twice. Like canal rats, which had meanwhile become accustomed to their wet and dark home, they silently crept through the sewer corridors and were particularly careful in the bigger halls, which hardly offered any cover.

They groped in the dark of the tunnels, mostly with just one flashlight in use, in order to cause no all too big light cones. Shortly afterwards, they came to the larger vault with the water pumps, that reminded Frank of "Moria" from the old film. Now they saw that the steel door was still open. Kohlhaas beheld the lamp. It looked like the blinde eye of a Cyclops, staring at him. Nobody seemed to have been here or nobody had recognized the destruction of the door. Both men breathed again.

After a walk through several sewer corridors, they had already come close to their goal. Now they squatted in a dark corner and waited. The "Temple of Tolerance" and the metro station "Charles de Gaulle" were near. They heard a metro rumbling in the distance. Cars could not be heard today, because the "Avenue of Humanity" had already been closed off since a few hours. Suddenly human voices came nearer and the two men looked at each other. What was that?

At this very second, a cone of light shot directly above their heads. Frank`s and Alfred`s hearts dived. But the ray fortunately found no target, except for rusty pipes and the dark throat of a sewer corridor.

A policeman of the GP, the "Global Police", approached and scoured the environment for something.

"There is nothing here!", he shouted at one of his colleagues, obviously also no Frenchman. The other man answered in a strange sounding jargon.

"Okay!", it resounded out of another sewer tunnel in the proximity of the "Temple of Tolerance".

"This job is fucked up!", said the cop near Frank.

Obviously he had no greater desire to crawl through dark and stinky sewers.

"Check the tunnels in your area!", shouted the second GP officer in the distance.

The policeman pointed his cone of light at the opposite tunnel. Meanwhile, the two men were scared to death and crouched in the brackish water, that flowed beneath them. The policeman was only about fifty meters away from them and mumbled something into his radio.

"Let`s disappear from this hole!", hissed Frank quietly.

"But carefully...", whispered Alf and tried to turn around noiselessly, while the cop babbled with the other one.

Frank and Alfred prepared for a quiet retreat to another sewer corridor. They carefully crept away, but Frank suddenly slid on the wet ground and slipped into the dirty trickle. A quiet "Plop!" resounded out of the sewer, which still increased the noise.

Now the two men were gripped by fear and tried to escape from the danger zone as fast as possible. The head of the policeman turned around and his flashlight with him. A light cone immediately jumped towards the tunnel like a furious lion, but there was nobody anymore.

Frank and Alf were already on the run to the next reservoir room and the cop only heard quiet steps and the lapping of water. A ray of light bored itself into the dark tunnel and illuminated its forepart.

"Is there somebody?", shouted the policeman into the black hole. "Hey, give me a sign!", he added.

Then he went back to another place. His radio croaked and he tried to give an answer in English.

"I thought, I have heard something. But I think it was only a rat!", he said.

In the meantime, Kohlhaas and Bäumer had reached another sewer corridor and the cop made no move to follow them through the ugly passage.

"Don`t know! Shit!", Frank heard him curse quietly.

He finally walked to another area of the sewer system. Both assassins breathed again. Totally unprepared, they had been surprised by that man. This cop had almost seen them. Both still waited for another hour in the protection of the smelly darkness, until no more voices could be heard in the distance. On the way back to the closed metro tunnel they did not encounter any other policemen. Nevertheless, their nerves were still raw.

These GP`s, who had been recruited in many different countries, just like the GCF occupation troops, obviously had no bigger references to the French culture. However, their interest to explore the famous historic sewer system of Paris was limited.

They just did their job and examined the direct area below the square in front of the "Temple of Tolerance", that was all. Policemen, who solely made "their job", just arrived at the right moment in the eyes of Frank and Alfred.

When they came back to the metro tunnel, everything was still at its place. Also the NDC-23 - which should have its great performance in about two to three hours.

Bomb-happy...

While Frank and Alf were waiting for the attack in their hiding place, and the minutes passed in a state of nervousness and tension, Paris resembled an anthill at the surface. The opening speech of Leon-Jack Wechsler, governor of the administrative sector "Central Europe", should start at 13.00 o'clock. The streets of the metropolis were already now, around 11,00 o'clock, perfectly overcrowded.

Huge masses of people, roughly about two millions, clustered towards the "Avenue of Humanity" and it came to the first clashes between the visitors of the event and the police in the early morning hours.

In the gray of dawn, bloody riots had broken out with numerous casualties and many deads. In many parts of the metropolis the violence still ruled the streets, particularly in the Arabic ghettos.

Over 40 GP-Policemen and hundreds of Arabs had already been killed. Last night, French patriots had fixed some enormous transparencies with slogans like "France is the country of the Frenchmen!" or "Freedom for France! Down with the World Government!" at several big buildings in the inner city.

Some activists had been caught by the police, three young Frenchmen had even been shot. In the north of Paris, young Arabs had tried to penetrate into some suburbs, which were inhabited by Frenchmen. Here they had burned cars or had broken into houses. Finally they had encountered some armed Frenchmen and the police. Over 200 people had been killed in that street fight. An illegal demonstration of the "Islamic Federation" in the opposite part of the former capital of France against the policy of the World Government in the Middle East, had likewise ended with violent outbursts. Over thirty thousand Muslims had come together to protest and could only be dispersed by the security forces, after they had attacked the crowd with tanks.

Hugo and Baptiste, the Frenchmen, who had visited the meeting in Ivas at that time, were already active in the boiling metropolis since weeks.

Their political group had distributed tens of thousands of illegal leaflets in the whole city, in which they called up the population to resist the foreign rulers and to fight against the World Government. Some activists who had been caught by the police, were never seen again.

Furthermore, they let countless little pieces of paper with rebellious calls rain down on the shopping streets, from the roofs of some multistory buildings.

They had uploaded a lot of forbidden webpages on the Internet and had even established a secret radio channel which daily sent informations. Apart from this, the freedom fighters had sprayed some oppositional slogans on the entrance door of the "Temple of Tolerance". The police and the GSA were still investigating feverishly. When the police had located the secret radio station in the end, most of the French acivists had made it to esape them.

This form of resistance was also not less dangerous than a bombing because prison or even death was waiting for people who were classified by the GSA as "incurable politically incorrect".

Therefore, not only Frank and Alfred risked their lifes down in the tunnel system below the city, in the battle against the global dictatorship. Even at the surface, many Frenchmen, above all the young people, stretched their heads that far out of the swamp of anxiety and anonymity that the police could cut them off. This so called "festival" would become bloody. Even without a bomb strike. After the opening speech, the people would only see on video, the military parades of the GCF troops would begin. Moreover, masses of journalists infested the city like a swarm of grasshoppers and were eager to spread the ideology of the New World Order. A happy world full of peace and harmony, wearing a long cloak - made of lies.

As the "One-World-Song" resounded out of the loudspeakers that had been situated everywhere along the "Avenue of Humanity", only a small part of the giant crowd sang along. This was disappoiting for the GSA agents who meticulously filmed the people.

Sometimes, even bottles and stones were thrown in the direction of the loudspeakers and screens which showed no pictures yet. Here, the GP officials took drastic measures and pulled every molester out of the crowd. Who was caught disappeared in a police vehicle.

So many of the two million spectators were already upset, although the festival had not been opened by Wechsler so far. Apart from that, many Parisians also just holed up in their houses, hoping that this day would pass as quickly as possible. In spite of the publicity campaign of the media which stylized the "Festival of the New World" to a new climax of human development.

The population of the sector "Central Europe" had been forced to pay still higher tributes and taxes in the last months and the social misery was growing more and more. Therefore, the people had not very much of this "Festival of the New World", and all the propaganda around it. The racial tensions also continued to extend. If one drove through some parts of Paris, it seemed that France was close to civil war. But all this was a part of the policy of the new rulers, a small piece of their worldwide opus of decay.

The screaming crowd above their heads could easily be heard, down in the canalization. It roared and yelled and sang and stamped. Frank and Alfred seemed to become only more nervous, because of this din. Time was running out fast, and soon the critical moment would come. The governor was on his way to the inner city of Paris. Now it was vital to pay attention. All or nothing!

"What`s the time, Bäumer?", asked Frank with an uncertain flickering in his eyes, while the "One-World-Song" was sung above him.

"Three minutes past twelve. Still about an hour...", answered Alf and extinguished the campfire.

"Okay, let`s go!", said Kohlhaas, nervously fumbling on his cap.

They checked their equipment again and Frank stroked the explosive in the blue bags.

"For you father, for you sister!", he silently murmured and stared into the dark tunnel.

Both took their heavy luggage and loaded their weapons. Then they went to the hole to enter the canalization. Each step was arduous now and was accompanied by a wildly pounding heart. The palms of the two men filled with tiny rills of sweat, while the ubiquitous darkness stared at them still more malicious than ever before.

Their flashlights shone the way and they moved through the sewer corridors like creeping cats on the hunt. The larger halls were empty now.

All attention, probably even those of the workers of the public utilities, was given to the enormous spectacle at the surface. What Frank and Alfred did not know was that all employees of the city of Paris were allowed to stay away from work if they visited the ceremonies. Both rebels walked forward through the tunnels on quiet soles. They had soon reached the passage, where that GP policeman had nearly found them. Their hearts pounded like crazy steam hammers and Frank believed to be able to hear the echo of his pulse in the tunnel.

"At 13.00 o`clock, Wechsler will start his speech. When it begins, I put the time fuse of the bomb on ten minutes. This should be enough, to get our asses out of the danger zone!", explained Alf.

"Okay!", said Frank who could hardly bear the tension.

Bäumer carefully prepared the bomb and Frank just watched him.

Meanwhile, the black limousine of the governor had stopped in front of the "Temple of Tolerance" and a finely clothed chauffeur opened the door. A swarm of policemen immediately sourrounded the big, flashy vehicle. Shortly afterwards, a black varnish shoe appeared beneath the car door. Then the elegant rest followed. Leon-Jack Wechsler had arrived.

Yesterday he had still been in London and had delivered a speech in front of the members of the Grand Lodge, what belonged to his tasks as its second Grand Master.

Now he was in Paris, in order to open the "Festival of the New World" solemnly. London, the best supervised city on the planet, except for New York and Washington, was Wechsler`s adoptive home. Here, his ancestors had already made lucrative bank businesses. Then a part of his family had emigrated to Chicago and in the end he had come back to the former capital of England.

The governor smiled and shook the hands of some subordinated dignitaries. These bowed to the dark-haired man with the noticeable round glasses. The politician was fortyish and had already made a great career. Originally coming from the bank business, he had also been active in numerous media concerns and energy companies. Wechsler was a powerful man and loyal to his education, he despised values like honesty or scruple. If it was necessary, also lie and deceitfulness did it, because only the aim was important and its name was "might".

The polititian combed his hair once again and looked around with cunning eyes. The crowd was far away from him and he had no reference to those people and he also did not want that. He did, what had to be done, and said, what had to be said, so that the new order could live. The plan to create this new world, had been prepared long beforehand, and it tolerated no deviations or delays.

Leon-Jack Wechsler was a cogwheel in this cruel machine, but he was an important cogwheel. The politician knew that, and everyone who knew him, knew that too. And his servants did well not to annoy him.

The clock was ticking and would never stop. As the great wheel of history always revolved – overrunning those who were not able to follow the time.

It was 12.58 o`clock on this historical day, which celebrated the New World Order. Governor Leon-Jack Wechsler grinned like a Pharisee and slowly walked up the stairs to the speaker`s desk. Numerous security men encircled the stage. Most of them just looked disinterestedly around. They seemed to suspect nothing evil.

All these security men were just too many and were to well armed that someone seriously would have ventured to attack them. Tanks, regiments of GP policemen, GCF soldiers and still more best equipped Riot Control Squads had been congregated here, to force the people to love this new world. Moreover, the dreaded Skydragons were lurking in the sky, and they were always able to smash the masses like a hammer. It was suicide to challenge this power.

Leon-Jack Wechsler stroked his black business suit again, looking at the spectators in the distance. Many of them probably hated him deep inside, but this was rather amusing than dangerous, from his point of view. The "herd of animals", as he and his Fellows called the rest of mankind, would remain impotent and enslaved forever.

"I welcome you! People of our One-World!

I am so endlessly happy, to be allowed, to welcome you here today. So many people have come to our beautiful Paris. We have invited you to this "Festival of the New World", to a great celebration of humanitarianism! And all of you have come, full of joy and expectation!"

The crowd made some noise and Wechsler looked at the herd with a cynical smile...

# Red Moon

The voice of the governor echoed in the depths of the canalization. Frank and Alf jumped out of their hiding place in the shadows like predators, placing the bomb at the previously selected position. Above them, they heard the murmur of the crowd which listened to Wechsler`s speech. Alf adjusted the time fuse and when a faint "beep" sounded, it was like the starting shot to a sprint for the two rebels.

"The band begins to play!", said Alf and nodded at Frank.

The clock of death had been put on and was ticking its vicious song until the bloody finale. Frank Kohlhaas and Alfred Bäumer ran like fleeing rabbits into the tunnel from which they had come. In ten minutes, the NDC-23, this deadly explosive, would tear a huge hole into the ground in front of the "Temple of Tolerance".

The way back appeared hostile and doubts grew in the brains of the two men. Would their plan really be successful?

They scurried through the fetid sewer corridors and the rooms with the reservoirs, with the cones of light in front of them. Meanwhile, the dark path through the underworld had burned itself into their minds and both men rushed forward, as if they were hounded by a demon. Above them, fate took its course and the Red Moon, the bloody moon, looked down at the "Avenue of Humanity" with a grim face...

"Humaneness! What is the sense of this magnificent word?", called Wechsler into the microphone. "It means benevolence! The uppermost principle of our new world. Equality, freedom and benevolence for everyone! We have brought it to the people. A better world under the sign of peace. And this is the reason, why we may celebrate today. It has been successful - the attempt, to make this world a better place. When I became governor of the sector "Central Europe", there was always only one slogan for me: We can do it!

Of course, it was not always easy to give the people these holy ideals, but today we are united and happy. We love each other and we are free!

And whom do we have to owe that? Our faith in the power of huma...

BOOM!!!

A loud blast cut off Wechsler`s next word and tore the lies out of his throat. It was like the ground had opened to drag the devil himself down to hell. The explosion was devastating and ripped a large hole into the square in front of the "Temple of Tolerance".

The forefront of the building was torn up by the shock wave like a piece of paper. Several dozens of security men and politicians were torn to pieces, among them also Leon-Jack Wechsler. Asphalt pieces, concrete, splinters of wood and body parts rained down.

Where the governor had spoken a few seconds ago, a smoking abyss had been torn into the ground. Mangled corpses and wreckage covered the place.

Frank and Alf ran still faster. The deafening blast of the explosion had shaken the tunnel system of Paris to the last corner. For both men, it was the second starting shot and they were close to loose their nerves.

"Victory! I can`t believe it! We have really done it!", gasped Frank and sped forward. He had almost slipped to the ground, but Alf could still hold him. "Run!"

The people were quiet for a short moment, when they perceived the end of the governor on the video screens. Policemen and soldiers were shocked and looked around, full of horror and confusion.

A swarm of journalists and cameramen, that had stood in front of the stage had also been shredded by the explosion. Some had immediately been dead, others had been hurled away several meters and were lying on the ground, with torn limbs, screaming and bleeding.

Their colleagues who were filming the event from the distance, suddenly pointed their cameras at the bloody scenario. The terror had come over the square in front of the "Temple of the Tolerance", paralyzing the gawking crowd for a while.

Nevertheless, the brains of the people slowly processed the new situation and, above all, the security forces tried to react quickly on the unexpected bomb strike. Radiograms reached the policemen and soldiers, hastily and nervously yelled commands and orders. Some officers were sent to the canalization to look what had happened.

Shortly afterwards, a dozen men climbed into the hole. Others were called to the nearby gully covers. The fact that so many manhole covers around the square had been weld shut by the policemen, made them problems now. They all had to be levered up, what caused a long delay.

After a while, some of the officers entered the tangle of sewer corridors and tried to find suspicious persons. Their calls and the sound of their heavy boots echoed through the tunnels.

The two bombers were already far away now and passed the dug hole, which led to the abandoned metro tunnel. Despite the red signs on the walls, they selected the wrong corridor and lost a few minutes of precious time. Dozens of police officers already followed them, but they were still far away. The panicky rebels cursed and became even more nervous now.

"I...I just pushed over the edge! Sorry, Alf! That was the wrong way!", said Frank, gasping for breath and sweating.

"Yes, all right. I had sprayed these crosses on the walls, exactly for that fucking reason, man!", hissed Alf and waved his friend nearer.

They found one of Alf`s marks and Kohlhaas opened the digital map on his DS-Stick with nervous fingers: "The first storage room we had found is not far!"

They crept forward to the exit, while the inner tension slowly became unbearable. But this they were on the right way. Nevertheless, they still had to traverse a lot of long and dark sewer corridors. They cautiously crept in the direction of the storage room with the basin - it had to be at the end of this passage. Both men just used one single flashlight now, to cause not too much light. Frank did not dare to think, what would happen if suddenly some policemen would stand in front of them.

The two rebels silently scurried forward. Now they could see a strange blaze at the end of the dirty sewer corridor. They paused and tried to recognize something. Frank caught his breath.

Someone had turned on one of the old lamps in the room with the basins. The usual darkness which had always protected them had vanished now. With careful movements, they stalked through the tunnel. Frank crept to the end of the sewer corridor and cowered there. Then he peered around the corner. There was nobody. The room seemed to be empty. A moment after, the young rebel turned around to Alf and waved him nearer. "We have to pass this room! Then we can hide again in the narrow tunnels", whispered Frank and felt out his gun.

"But who has turned on that light?", hissed Alf nervously.

"Damn! You ask the wrong person! Come on now!", said Kohlhaas.

They crawled forward and entered the daunting room. Behind the pool edge of the water basin, they crept into the dimness. Suddenly the heard voices and the patter of steps with heavy boots. Frank coughed into his breathing mask which was meanwhile wet and dirty. His heart seemed to explode. Alf stared at him with an appalled face and swallowed quietly.

"Come on! Here!", it resounded out of a sewer tunnel. The light cones of two flashlights danced forth out of the dark hole.

"Maybe here is someone!", they heard, while the steps came nearer.

Frank tried to calm himself, in these seconds of highest tension.

"If we shoot them, we will just make a lot of noise. That would attract only more of them", he whispered and Alf regarded him with fear in his eyes.

"We are fucked up, my friend!", said Bäumer with an almost whining undertone.

"Into the basin! Come on!", hissed Frank and climbed quietly over the pool edge. Alfred followed him without saying a word. Like two otters, they smoothed into the repulsive pond that seemed to be deep enough to hide. Kohlhaas touched his combat knife and Alf desperatly looked in his direction.

The steps were now in close proximity and both rebels took a deep breath full of stench. Then they disappeared into the brackish water.

Frank closed his eyes and tried to think about nothing. This was really perverse, but it was better than to be dead. Suddenly, a blaze touched the water surface, otherwise it was just dark and Frank tried not to think about all the things that could be in this ugly swill.

"Come on, check this reservoir room!", it resounded through the brackish water. Now they recognized two policemen. One of the officers walked around the basin and illuminated the dark corners of the room, then he went to the next sewer tunnel.

The time appeared endless and Frank slowy became queasy, he was close to vomit into the stinky water. Alf felt the same. Meanwhile, the policeman muttered some unintelligible fragments of words into his radio. Frank emerged for a second to breathe some air and heard the officer say something.

"I must get out of this shit!", he thought to himself, but the policeman was still waiting beside the basin. A moment after, he walked through the room, around the basin, and finally leaned against the pool edge.

The two rebels tried to communicate by gestures or looks, but the water was so dirty and dark that this was impossible. Now, Frank decided to act on his own.

The policeman was still standing at the opposite end of the pool, leaning against the basin`s edge and talking with his colleague, who had obviously gone into another sewer corridor. "Did you find something?"

"Only rat shit here!", it came back with a laughter.

Kohlhaas could not understand anything else. Only God knew, where these two policemen came from. Anyhow, they were no Frenchmen. The officer in front of Frank seemed to be Hispanic or something like that.

Kohlhaas quietly moved below the surface and dived through the dirty water to the edge of the basin like an eel. As long as the officer was in this position, and the other one was somewhere in a tunnel, he had to act. The young man took his combat knife, pulled it out of the sheath and waited for a few seconds, while the officer was mumbling something into his radio. The rucksack on Frank`s back which had been freed of its deadly cargo bugged him now, because it hampered his movements. Kohlhaas felt like a crocodile that had waited for the gazelle all day long. And the gazelle had come to the border of his realm to drink. He pushed himself off the floor of the basin and jumped up to the pool edge.

The sudden sound of splattering water behind him let the policeman turn around with surprise. The officer tried to release the safety catch of his machine gun, but Frank was faster.

Kohlhaas rammed his knife deeply into the cop`s neck and jumped on the ground beside the water basin. His opponent gasped for breath and stumbled back in confusion.

Frank grabbed the man and pressed his hand on the officer`s mouth, so that he could not make too much noise. Meanwhile, Alf had also climbed out of the basin and held his combat knife nervously in his hand.

"Unnnghh!" The injured policeman lurched and Frank rammed his blade again into the neck of his enemy, while he pulled the man to the ground. The cop still fidgeted and tried to shake off his attacker. Suddenly Bäumer came from the front and knifed the officer too.

The policeman finally collapsed and gave up his resistance. Both men pulled his heavy body some meters away and let him lie in a corner. Then they heard the voice of the other cop who called again something out of a sewer tunnel and seemed to return. Frank and Alf rebels had to disappear now, as fast as possible, before he would find his dead colleague.

For their luck, the way out of this room had remained in their minds, although they still were totally confused. They ran into a dark tunnel and made off. Some minutes later they heard a loud scream behind them. Probably the other policeman had now realized that the room with the water basin had not been empty. The two men ran and ran and finally reached the exit. As fast as they could, they left the canalization behind them. Wet, smelly and blood-smeared, they crept to the surface. Frank and Alf hastily put on their jackets to hide the conspicuous bloodstains on their clothes. The two bombers breathed again and enjoyed a fresh breeze of air. They just could not believe it! They had made that bombing and the police did not catch them – so far. Now they only had to reach their car to escape from the metropolis, which slowly fell into chaos.

Shortly afterwards, the two assassins hastened through the streets. They were hardly regarded, because around them Paris became a huge boiler full of rage and confusion.

Groups of people had gathered everywhere, men and women ran across the streets, cars honked and they heard the voice of an excited newscaster out of the window of a house. The bombing had shocked the whole city – just as they had planned it.

Frank and Alf fastly ran forward and nobody paid attention to them. After a while they had reached the side street, in which they had parked their car. It had not been stolen or broken up in the time of their absence – and this was not self-evident in these days.

They finally exchanged their filthy and dirty clothes with some new dresses that had still been in the trunk. Frank threw the dirty clothes into a garbage can, started the engine and drove away. It trip lasted, because many streets were closed off or were clogged with people. It was nerve-racking, but finally they reached one of the streets which led them out of the boiling city.

Paris slowly disappeared behind them, Frank and Alf pausend for breath. Steffen de Vries had already landed in Compiegne at the arranged meeting place and was nervously waiting for their arrival. While time passed, the Belgian felt more and more uncomfortable. But Kohlhaas and Bäumer finally reached the small village near Compiegne. Now they could return to Ivas. Before the take-off, they freed their hire car of its vehicle number and burned it in the forest, hidden from any curious views.

The car was totally destroyed and no one would ever be able to identify the wreck. When they welcomed the Belgian, he was more than impressed with their success, and he was also more than relieved at the same time.

Steffen de Vries shook their hands and was absolutely amazed. The radio had already informed him about the situation in Paris since the bombing. Perfectly exhausted, Frank and Alf climbed into the airplane. Shortly afterwards, they left "Central Europe".

In the former capital of France, the situation had meanwhile become dramatically acute. After the crowd had seen the end of the governor on the numerous video screens, a strange and confusing silence had ruled the "Avenue of Humanity" for several minutes. Many people had not been able to handle with the unforeseen event.

The security forces admonished the crowd to remain quiet, while tanks threateningly rolled out of the side streets towards the cooking human pulp. After a while, one heard the first spectators approvingly yelling and clapping their hands. The crowd was moved by a tumultuous unrest and more and more people started to laugh and shout.

"Thank God! That pig is dead!", screamed a group of men somewhere in the giant throng. In that moment, the shouters ignored the fact that they were all filmed by GSA agents.

"This would also be the right end for the World President!", yelled another man at the top of his lungs.

Then still more people began to shout things like this. Some young men stamped their feet and sang the forbidden national anthem of old France. Many of the persons standing around them joined the singing, although a lot of people no longer knew the correct text, because the song had been forbidden by the new rulers.

"Freedom for France! Down with the World Government!"

A choir came from the rear part of the crowd and the shouts were carried by more and more people. Hundreds joined the furious screaming and soon the "Avenue of Humanity" quaked under the roar of countless Parisians. It was a strange picture, this huge crowd, clogging the streets and slowly getting out of control.

The faces of many people were lined with pain. Millions of Parisians lived a life full of sorrow, poverty and perpetual insecurity. Therefore, it was no wonder that the displeasure had grown inside them in the last years.

Meanwhile, a big part of the population of Paris consisted of badly paid workers and peons. The salaries were usually that small that one just did not starve and was able to pay the high rents for the shabby dwellings.

Many of the people here knew the gnaw feeling of an empty stomach. The food prices and the fees for electricity, heating and water had steadily been raised since 2018. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of the city had already fallen through the welfare net and had become street people. Sometimes, they just froze to death in the winters. This was the sad truth about the "new world". There was also no longer a social welfare system, because the World Government had abolished it as a result of the high public debt. All this was a good hotbed for a revolt. But even now, many people did not dare to protest. They were still intimidated and tried to hide somewhere among the others. They frightenedly looked at the surveillance cameras that were situated everywhere. Some of them even sneaked away from the avenue and went to the side streets. So the crowd broke up into a submissive and a rebellious part in the following hours.

Nevertheless, it was astonishing, how many citizens suddenly had the courage to raise their voices. The anonymity of the crowd seemed to fill them with bravery.

"Freedom for France! Down with the World Government!"

"Freedom for France! Down with the World Government!"

"Freedom for France! Down with the World Government!"

The choir of desperate protest increased and became gradually louder. Somewhere in the crowd, Frenchmen and immigrants started to attack each other. The Moslems screamed their own slogans, refering to Islam, which were also hostile against the World Goverment. In the middle of the mass began a riot. The angry people assaulted each other with bottles, knifes and clubs. Even some shots could be heard.

Policemen and GCF soldiers, who had meanwhile encircled the crowd, flanked by tanks, threatened by loudspeakers to immediately stop the antigovernmental shouts. But crowds have their own dynamics. So is the single man mostly cowardly and obsequious, but as a part of a mass he sometimes becomes a hero.

The orders of the officers were ignored, and after a short time, policemen, soldiers, GSA observers and the crowd opposed each other like two warring armies.

Now the GP-squadleaders yelled the order to "catch seditious people in the crowd" into their radios and groups of officers with heavy body armor clubbed their way through the mob to get all those, who had been idenitfied by the GSA agents. Finally, the situation escalated more and more. The policemen were welcomed with bottles, cobblestones or even bare fists, while they uncontrollably beat everyone down who stood in their way. Nevertheless, the screaming of the mass became louder, despite their brutality.

Yes, the more people were cut down by the clubs of the cops, the more people joined the chorus of protest at other places in the giant sea of humans.

On 03.01.2029 at 18.00 o`clock, the first Molotov cocktails towrads policemen and tanks in a side street of the "Avenue of Humanity". The GP`s immediately returned fire and riddled the attackers with bullets.

In return, some Parisians armed themselves with clubs, knifes, axes and even guns. Now the violence expanded like a plague, seizing thousands of people along the "Avenue of Humanity".

The warnings, the police officers were shouting, were not noticed anymore by the raging crowd and the mass answered with the old French national anthem.

The forbidden song became a surging wave of emotions and shook the mass from one end to the other. The old ground of the boulevard trembled under the loud sound of the outlawed hymn. Something, the former capital of France had not seen since decades.

The tanks finally came closer and the GCF soldiers and policemen took positions. It lasted only a few minutes until the GCF commander gave the order to shoot the people down. The bloodbath started.

While the mass was singing the strictly forbidden old hymn in perfect harmony, and a surprising great number of people could still remember the text, the first gunshots resounded over the avenue.

"Tac! Tac! Tac! Tac!"

The noise of gunfire increased and hundreds of men and women broke down. Then a terrible hail of bullets swept through the front ranks behind the barriers – all the policemen and soldiers began to fire now. The tanks moved forward and pointed their heavy machine guns at the numerous targets.

"Tac! Tac! Tac! Tac!", it echoed over the avenue which was allegedly dedicated to humanity. The salvos of assault rifles cut hundreds of people down like a huge scythe. Finally the crowd fell into panic. The old French national anthem lapsed inot silence and was exchanged with the terrified cries of the people.

The soldiers and policemen could hardly miss their countless targets and they did their job, following the orders of their commanders and were killing without mercy.

Most of them were no Frenchmen, and if they were attacked by this crowd in this foreign land, they just had to put down the uprising. And they did it. Hundreds of corpses covered the "Avenue of Humanity" after only a few minutes.

The security forces marched forward in a closed firing line and shot their way through the sea of men, women and children. In particular, the heavy full metal jacket bullets of the tank guns were devastating. Soon the screaming crowd fled in all directions. Fences were ripped down, cars were overturned and the Parisians trampled each other to death. Behind them, the soldiers and policeman marched over countless dead bodies like a slowly moving wall of death.

Then the security forces got a new command. The unruly, but unarmed crowd, had been driven back by them and looked like the giant Persian army at the battle of Gaugamela which had been defeated by the phalanx of Alexander the Great. The policemen, soldiers and tanks stopped.

"The Skydragons are coming! Stop!", shouted one of the squad leaders into his radio and wiped off the sweat from his brow. The killing work had been exhausting.

Orders were given and the dreaded helicopters, coming from a nearby military base in the west of Paris, came from the sky. Shortly afterwards, the pilots of the Skydragons saw nothing but a swarm of frightened ants, fleeing through the streets.

Finally, the helicopters reduced their altitude and made their gatling machine guns and their grenade launchers ready to fire.

"Okay! We just wait for your orders!", said the commander of the Skydragon squadron to his higher officer.

"What are you waiting for? Fire!", screamed the superior.

The pilot of the helicopter hesitated for some seconds, as if he would think about that, what he should do now. In the end, he simply said to himself that this was his "job" which had to be done.

He was from Uzbekistan, with Russian ancestors, and his name was Alexander. Meanhwile, the young man was a soldier of the GFC since three years, and this was the first time he had got the order to kill unarmed civilians. Alexander tried to ignore it.

"If I wouldn`t do it, another man would...", he excused his acting in front of himself.

Nevertheless, the payment for GCF soldiers was good – and he had to feed a wife and three children. Apart from that, every job had its dark sides. This was just the way of the world. Now the automated target aquisition showed him a great number of people. He stopped thinking and started to fire. It became a massacre. The heavy bullets of the Skydragons smashed flesh and bones. Countless hit people collapsed below the helicopters, screaming, crying, dying, tumbling on the asphalt. Skulls were shredded and bodies were mangled by this murderous blaze of gunfire. The slaughter almost lasted one hour.

There was no escape for those who were caught by the automated target aquisiation. Where the Skydragons had raged, a cruel picture remained. Innumerable bodies were covering the blood-soaked streets of Paris.

Alexander, the family father, recognized a man in the corner of his eye. His head was torn, while he still tried to creep forward, pulling a bloody trace over the street. It was horrible. The Russian was shaken by doubts again, but he finally suppressed them. It had to be done, it was an order, and his only choice was to kill. Then he kept on shooting at the ants, down there on the ground.

While policemen, soldiers and tanks were called to other parts of Paris, in order to eliminate insurgents, the day came to an end.

But the riots still lasted for two further weeks. Many discontented Parisians attacked the local police stations in their districts or assaulted local politicians. The head administrator of Paris, Richard de la Croix, was shot in the open street by an unknown man. Burning cars and houses, firing tanks and policemen, ruled the street picture in many parts of the furious metropolis for days.

But in the end the order was restored. This time, the Lodge Brothers who frequently used the lie as a their weapon, had consulted its brother: the terror. And he was successful. Even the bravest man was powerless against the unlimited inconsiderateness of the security forces in the long term. About 40000 people died in the riots and street fights on 01.03.2029, and in the following weeks. Moreover, several hundred policemen and GCF soldiers were killed. Paris had been drowned in blood. Now it was over...

With him

It was already late. Mr. Morris, 56 years old and one of the secretaries of the World President, had to hurry. This appointment was extremely important. His taxi had struggled through the jammed streets, from the airport of New York to the inner city. However, time really pressed now. Mr. Morris scurried through the big entrance door of a gigantic skyscraper and ran to the lift. The beheld his watch and became nervous. But in the end he reached the 33. floor of the building just in time...

"Come in, Mr. Morris!", called somebody out of a luxurious office room on the uppermost floor of the skyscraper.

"Good afternoon, Mr. World President!", said the man with the gray temples and the just as gray suit, smiling unsteadily and submissively. His interlocutor stared out the window down at the streets of the New York and did not turn around.

"I have the newest internal messages from Paris...", said Morris excitedly.

"Aha!", returned the World President.

"Yes, the situation has become acute, as the GSA men have told me!", gasped the older gentleman, totally exhausted.

"Really?", asked his boss.

"Yes, Mr. World President! Confidential studies...", explained Morris, but he was interrupted.

"Where is your place in our great organization, Mr. Morris?", interrogated the World President and still stared at the hectic tangle of cars and people between the bulky bank houses of New York`s inner city.

"I beg your pardon, Sir!", replied the confused secretary, still standing beside the door.

"Which lodge, Mr. Morris?", clarified the president.

"Eh! I`m a fellow of the "Sons of the Mountain", Sir! The lodge is called "Sons of the Mountain"...San Francisco, Mr. World President!", stammered Morris baffledly.

"Grade?", muttered the man in front of the window.

"Eh, I`m in the 4th grade, Sir! That`s all I have achieved until now, Sir!", stuttered the secretary.

"Well, perhaps that is enough for you, Mr. Morris!"

"I wanted to talk about Paris...", said the servant, but he was interrupted again.

"Sons of the Mountain"? One of my nephews is also there!", whispered the World President.

His secretary tried to direct the conversatrion on the incidents in Paris, but the World President just groaned and ordered him to stop talking about these things.

"Listen, Mr. Morris! I know what has happened in Paris, and I give a shit on it!", he said quietly. "Not even a damn fart! Do you think that the "great revolution" will break loose against us now, Mr. Morris!"

The World President seemed to be almost amused. "Leon- Jack Wechsler is dead. I have already determined his successor this morning. And now, I don`t want to talk about this unimportant and boring kids` stuff anymore!"

"But the terrorists have...", Morris tried to explain with an unsteady voice.

The World President seemed not to hear him. He still looked impassively out of the huge window of his luxury office: "Bring me a glass of orange juice, Mr. Morris, and place it on the desk!"

"Yes, Sir!", stammered his secretary and left the room. After a few minutes he returned and put a glass of orange juice on the table.

"Thanks!", said the chairman of the international community, but he did not turn around. "Do you think that we would be there where we are, if things like that uninteresting fuss in Paris had ever impressed us just one time?", he added coldheartedly.

"Yes, I don`t know...", Morris became more and more uncertain.

"We are the rulers of this world for two reasons. First, because we have servants like you, Mr. Morris. Second, because the old and great plan to conquer this planet is perfectly ripe and has no weaknesses or errors."

The secretary stared at the World President with an astonished face.

"Mr. Morris, you are, as a member of the lodge of the "Sons of the Mountain", in your place. I am in my place, as World President. What has happened in Paris was good...", he continued.

"What do you mean?", asked the secretary and was puzzled.

"Well, now we can tell the masses, how dangerous terrorism is and that they can only get protected by an increased surveillance! The media will hammer it into their hollow heads like a mantra, constantly preach and repeat it, so often until that herd of animals has understood our message!", said the president.

Then he remarked: "Mr. Morris, no one has ever managed it to stop us. For decades, and centuries, our power has grown, and it is still growing. We have struck deep roots, like a cancer that can not be destroyed anymore, because it has already spread to the last part of the body. We have brought down kings and have smashed nations if they have stood in our way. We have perfectly infiltrated this globe and there is no escape for no one. In 2018, we put the mask from our face and showed us to the people, but they remained silent and let us eat them. The nations have behaved like the rabbit in front of the snake. The old writings have predicted it and so it has happened. The great plan became reality. And now, we want to bring mankind the slavery that it deserves. Now our time has come, and we will rule this planet forever!"

"But perhaps our reaction in Paris was not right?", said Morris.

The World President, who made him stand as always and this time even turned his back to him, harrumphed and answered, "Not right? Of course it was right! The masses shall know that we control them. They can hate us but, first, they must fear us. Their world, the old world, is broken into pieces and will never return. The new world is our creation. Yes, we want to show our power openly, as the elders of our past always intended it. They were forced to spin their threads secretly. We don`t need secrecy any longer, because we are the rulers of this earth. In our hands is all the might of the world, and the sign of invincibility is our banner, the banner of our New World Order."

"I believe you, Mr. World President!", said Morris, almost under his breath.

"No!", replied his master emphatically, "I know that you do not mean that, deep inside. But that`s quite immaterial. What you believe has no meaning. The people also believe much, but it is perfectly irrelevant. They believe in a better world, in a rescue, in their god! Well, Mr. Morris, if that god in whom these animals believe would really exist, I would personally liquidate him!"

The words of this man, for whom he did the most menial paperwork, visibly intimidated Morris. Liquidate God! Morris looked around, as if searching for an escape should one become necessary, but didn`t dare to bestir from his place.  
"There are only a few who could really become dangerous for us, but they are quiet at present," the World President continued, "At least, they don`t show themselves openly. But this is nothing for you, Mr. Morris," he said, his contempt undisguised, "really nothing for you!"

He clasped his hands behind his back, and seemed to lapse into contemplation. "We are the darkness of the world," he said. But he was musing to himself now, and Morris did not catch the words, "We are the darkness of the world, whoever follows us, will never walk in light again!"

The servant inquired what the master had said, but the question remained unanswered. Instead, the World President raised his tone and said, emphatically: "We bring the yoke of slavery to all nations. Who knows us knows also that we are the lords of hate, the dark messengers of destruction, hating the light of other men, always eager to extinguish it.

We tore down the old world we hated so much - we gnawed at the roots of civilization, and finally we brought it down. We hid for a long time under the cloak of lies and distortions - our greatest art. Our enemies - those fools! - even hailed us. Childish maggots! Now the time of our triumph is at hand and who shall deny us our pleasure."

"I don`t know...", Morris stammered, and even scratched his head to display the necessary confoundedness.

"You don`t need to know, my faithful servant. Because wisdom is reserved only for the wise. Ignorance casts a shadow in the minds of those like you. That has always been a strength to us," said the World President, and he spun around. His dark eyes sparkled at the nervous little man. He took the glass of orange juice, sipped it and waved Morris dismissively in the direction of the door. Then he turned away again.

"Goodbye, Mr. Morris!", he said flatly, his head nodding slowly as if in affirmation of some damning, private judgement about this ordinary little man, indeed about all ordinary men.

"Good bye, Mr. World President!", answered the gray-haired man and disappeared. With a certain relief that this confusing conversation was over, the servant walked down the long hallway and went to an elevator.

The head of the World Government opened a drawer and took out a remote control. He turned to the big plasma screen in the corner of his office and switched on the television. On one of the news channels was a report about the events in Paris. The man leaned back and stared at the TV. A pretty newscaster presented the latest news from "Central Europe" with a sad face. Some pictures of the bombing and the mangled corpse of the governor were shown.

Weeping people who seemed to be deeply moved by the fate of the politician were interviewed. Even a man who vigorously scolded at the terrorists and demanded a harder battle against politically incorrect elements.

"More security for the people by increased supervision!" – This was his suggestion, in order to protect mankind from terror.

"These terrorists threaten the lifes of all respectable people!", ranted the man.

Then the camera showed again some visitors who were seized by sorrow and grief, because of the bombing. The riots were mentioned only with a few words. The police had arrested a bunch of "fanatics" and "extremists", according to the TV report. But the security forces had finally been able to prevent more chaos, because of their hard course against these "criminals".

The viewer did not learn that thousands of people had been massacred by the police and the GCF. The World President just smiled. He took another sip of orange juice and turned off the television.

A new morning began in Ivas. A new morning in the new world. Frank and Alfred had visited Thorsten Wilden and had talked with him about a lot of things. After that, Frank had walked with Julia through the nearby forest. He was just happy to be still alive. Meanwhile, the life in the small village had taken its accustomed course again.

In these days Frank often thought about hope. He had got his revenge, but his fight for freedom had just been born. They say "Hope dies last!" - but what would a man be without it...

THE END

But the fight will go on...

Alexander Merow`s "Prey World" books (Part 1-3, German version):

Available in all book stores and at Amazon!!!

Prey World II – Rebellion Beyond

Oppression and manipulation are the order of the day in the year 2030. Only one single nation had been brave enough, to fight for its independence – Japan.

Frank Kohlhaas, Alfred Bäumer and millions of desperate people look at the Japanese president Matsumoto who has liberated his people. But the Lodge Brothers are not willing to leave the renegade nation in peace. They slander the Japanese with a big hate campaign and plan a military strike to bring the rebellious Asians to their knees.

Frank and Alfred decide to join the Japanese fight for freedom as volunteers. Soon the situation gets out of control and the fight against the New Worlder Order becomes a bloody nightmare.

Prey World III – Organized Rage

In the year 2033 the economic situation in Europe is more hopeless than ever before. The World Government still loots the nations without mercy and holds them in its iron claws.

Artur Tschistokjow, a young dissident from Belarus, takes over the leadership of the Freedom Movement of the Rus, a small group of rebels that fights against the Lodge Brothers in the underground.

While a big economic crisis starts in Belarus, the rebels form a growing revolutionary movement. Frank, Alfred and an increasing number of discontent Belarusians join Tschistokjow`s organization. They finally follow the Russian dissident to a point of no return.

Prey World IV – Counterrevolution (Coming soon!)

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