Colin groaned loudly when he opened the plastic bags.

“Don’t you think it’s about time we had some actual food, Kent? I’m in a state of vitamin D deficiency.”

“Vitamin D or not, you’re not growing another inch.” Kentan put the headset back over his ears. Comprehensive symbols, letters and numbers flooded across his screen. Within seconds, a tab appeared over his desktop. Somewhere in the middle of Africa, a red dot flashed. He continued running the second part of the code on his laptop.  

“Jesus,” Colin held up his phone screen. “Tsunami in Minnesota, six hundred metres tall.”

He had successfully detected the correct signal amongst the hundreds of compatible electronic emissions in the area. Now to secure the link before the signal disappeared. Kentan’s fingers sailed over his laptop as a page of symbols bombarded his screen. The numbers and letters were intricate, cunningly crafted, but it was the last line of defence. His attacks had successfully obstructed the advanced mobile firewall, and within an instant, his program had swarmed into the foreign android phone across the hemisphere.

He had completed the program before dusk, eight hours before the client’s deadline.  

Leaning back onto his chair, he closed the code and pulled up the anonymous forum, scrolling down to find the default octopus profile picture.

9.0765° N, 7.3986° E. He typed into the chat window.

Almost an instant later, the octopus lit up. Read. No more needed to be said. Two seconds later, his phone pinged with a notice from the bank.

SENDER: Null

TRANSFER DETAILS: Null

AMOUNT: $200,000

The chat window between him and the octopus disappeared. A new alert buzzed through the forum’s main channel.

Congratulations to ‘User123456’ for completing exchange!

Difficulty level: 10

Kentan closed his laptop and turned to Colin.

“A bushfire struck where?”

“Your mum,” Colin answered with his back to Kentan.

“I guess it’s for the best. I never gave her a proper cremation.”

A pillow came flying in his direction, and Kentan caught it just before it flopped onto his face.

“How long did this one take?” Colin sat up from the bed.

“Six hours.” Kentan chucked the pillow back at him and cracked his knuckles. “Was purely a time-consuming game. The bloke had twelve phones scattered in a bunch of places. It was like playing Russian dolls.”

“You’re a flex, that’s all,” Collin mused. “And what’d he say this time?”

“The same old thing. He wants us to die in our sh*t hole,” Kentan sat up from his chair and stole a piece of beef jerky from Colin’s hand.

Colin laughed. “He should worry about his *ss dying from emphysema first.”

“This is not half as bad as you say it is,” Kentan reached to grab another piece, and Colin swatted his hand away.

Kentan opened his mouth to protest, but the familiar sound of sirens blared through the brick wall and iron door.

“Those government freaks,” Colin cursed. “Always making announcements whenever they want.” He threw the covers to the side and reached for his grey t-shirt. Kentan grabbed a jacket from the cupboard and draped it around Colin as they headed up the stairs.

“What now?” Colin muttered. A bunch of people had gathered in the square already, and more were heading out from all directions. The fat man was swearing at a bunch of Expeditors. He was soon pinned down, and Colin laughed as he flailed his calves and arms in the air. Their gazes met, and Colin laughed even harder.

“Stop it,” Kentan tilted Colin’s head away. “He’s fuming.”

A group of Expeditors had gathered around the crowd. They were human shaped, except much larger and artificially white from head to toe. An Expeditor strode into the centre of the crowd and spoke with its monotone voice.

“Infantry of The Renaissance reporting: message from The Renaissance, Oceania Headquarters.”

Some sort of compartment opened from its metallic deltoid, and a 3D woman was projected into the air. Her ivory skin and blood red lips were strikingly realistic—except, up close, she was constituted of a decillion pixels.

“Dear friends,” despite being a real-time projected image, her deep voice was unfaltering and every nuance of her movement was copy and pasted. “This is Anastasia Steel, Commander of The Renaissance’s Oceania region. I am deeply saddened by the news of the hurricanes which attacked the southern hemisphere without warning. My condolences to those in its epicentre—The Renaissance will distribute subsidies to those in need.”

Someone clapped in the crowd, and a bunch of others joined in. Anastasia Steel smiled.

“What are they clapping for?” Colin muttered. “Distributing subsidies to help fix torn down buildings? It’s what a government should do.”

Kentan put an arm around his shoulder. “Keep your voice down. Just listen.”

“Sheesh.”

After the clapping died down, Anastasia Steel continued speaking.

“As you know, dear citizens, the last corrupt government has been involved in nothing but political gambles and trading with the rich. Though they have been stripped of their roles, we suffer the consequences—homes burnt down by fires, towns drowned by waves of unprecedented heights—too many have died as a result of irresponsible leaders. The Renaissance is ready to rejuvenate the broken world and reunite its scattered pieces.”

“Come on,” Colin whispered. “I could’ve written this kind of motivational speech in primary school.”

Anastasia Steel paused, took in a deep breath and raised her arms in fervorous declaration: “Civilians! Here we present to you—the new world.”

As if someone had flicked off the light switch for an entire city, everything was drowned in darkness, all except for the blue, glowing figure of Anastasia Steel and the translucent outline of the Expeditors which guarded them. Murmurs and cries rose amongst the crowd.

“The f*ck?” Colin nudged Kentan’s hand, and Kentan nudged him back.

Particles of light rose from their feet. Colin reached out to touch one, and it permeated his skin like a ghost.

Red, uneven dirt appeared beneath their feet. Following that came small white domes which stood desolate in the vast desert. Light particles amalgamated into spherical vehicles equipped with four flexible arms that glided effortlessly across the uneven dirt. There were four spherical vehicles at first, each heading its own way before they doubled, tripled, quadrupled in number…

Seconds later, as if someone had pressed on an accelerating button, a blur of colours and structures transpired from the ground, constantly disintegrating and reassembling. At an undetectable speed by human eyes, the iridescent blur overlapped and evolved.

“Holy cow, what kind of technology is this?” Colin nudged Kentan again.

Kentan stared at the innumerable particles of light which sailed freely, precisely into their designated position. They formed transparent spherical tunnels which floated above their heads and connected with other spherical tunnels. They formed a web of tunnels, a connected transport system. Like train rails, but much more advanced.

“It’s not one type of technology,” Kentan murmured with a slight frown. “It’s an interdisciplinary field, a combination of optics, kinetics, holography, emission spectroscopy and many other branches of physics, chemistry and tech.”

The simulation of a new world which spanned the volume of an entire city—it was beyond Kentan’s understanding.

Colin was too dumbfounded to speak.

Tall edifices had begun to germinate from the dirt. They were not unified in appearance. A few were titanium black, glossy elliptical shapes afloat in the air like some foreign alien spaceship, some were conventionally rectangular, standing from the ground.

In the heart of the city stood a pyramidal skyscraper with a sharp apex and wide base. It stretched far beyond the crowd’s arched neck, and its body consisted of artificially white material which spiralled up around the tower. At its base, the spiral material scattered and expanded into smooth, spiderweb-like legs which propped the mammoth tower up.

Flying about the whizzing blur of tunnels, up amongst the highest of towers and across the entire city were bots glowing with their own colour. Metallic, armed droids roamed the dark skies two thousand feet above them in an orderly, militarily stance. On the ground, pastel hued androids scurried about on their wobbly, mechanical limbs. Countless variations of automation travelled between buildings, dove beneath tunnels and into dim alleyways. An autonomous, fly-shaped bot approached Kentan, and he stared into the circular RAM pads on its head, examined its lifelike wings which whirred furiously in discs of kaleidoscopic light. The massive fly advanced closer, and unsusceptible to his presence, slipped through his body like a ghost.

Kentan was engulfed in light. Trillions of particles bombarded his vision and innumerable pixels combined into networks of meticulous wiring and machinery, all condensed into the fly’s toddler sized body.

The fly had passed behind him in a second. In a moonless world, the autonomous bots radiated infinite light. Above them all, even beyond the tallest edifice was a hexagonal, translucent latticework that loomed over the entire city. It was a massive dome in itself, a shelter to mankind.

Minutes after its complete formation, the breathtaking simulation began to vaporise. Skyscrapers, levitating structures, flying bots, transport tubes and masses of white domes fractured back to the mundane city that they resided in. Red dirt unveiled into concrete and midday sun forced many to shut their eyes.

The rapturous city had vanished, leaving nothing but neon beams of glare in people’s vision.

Seconds later people woke from the trance-like simulation. Cheering and applause thundered across the square.

“We named it Nirvana,” Anastasia Steel said. “The perfect world, located on the red planet. The past three years have not gone to waste. We have exhausted Earth, yet new cities await us. Infinite life germinates after a wild fire—that is the way of nature. We are not in an apocalypse; this is a new beginning. Our new beginning.”

The cheering and joyous chanting magnified tenfold to what it was before. Kentan put his hands over Colin’s ears.

“Allow me to raise a toast to our future.” The projection of Anastasia Steel held up a wine glass and raised her arms. The red liquid swayed gracefully in her hold.

“To the new world,” she said and brought the cup to her lips.

“TO THE NEW WORLD.” The crowd echoed.

The next few days progressed without fuss. People were more productive—a lot more productive ever since The Renaissance revealed their ‘new world’ city plan. The simulation was like steroids. For one thing, the business people who walked about in their suits actually began tucking their shirts in properly. Kentan had seen it when he went on usual supermarket trips. Even the gamblers outside Thyme Casino had lessened.

Plus, Colin was a great fan of the news, which meant that Kentan was automatically fed information about current affairs like how business investments increased and the market was going towards a boom, and how production of metals and scientific research into carbon nanomaterials were the fastest growing sectors. Regardless of what The Renaissance had up their sleeves, they were tactful. ‘Quenching one’s thirst by thinking of plums’—a commander of the army in the Warring States period had pointed to a mountain full of relinquishing berry trees to his dehydrated, exhausted soldiers, and the sparkling trees of hope had managed to rejuvenate the lot. Except, unlike the Chinese idiom, there were no berries in this case, only a manmade simulation. It was promising, only because no one had ever seen such a thing before. It consoled people with hope. Speculative hope, but it ramped up the economy regardless.

“No luck?”

Colin did something on the consumer unit and poked his head out. The green LED lights flashed for the briefest of seconds before the room went dark again. He shook his head.

“It’s worked every time,” he took the torch out of his mouth and closed the consumer unit. “How long has it been out for? Since morning?”

“Since dawn,” Kentan replied. “It’s the whole city.”

“Well I tried,” Colin shrugged. “You just gotta wait it out, it’s probably the power station’s problem. You have anything urgent?”

“It depends on when the power’s coming back.”

“Those bots are still patrolling outside no trouble,” Colin sat down on the only chair in their basement and leaned back. “God knows how they charge those things. Always walking around.”

“Mostly solar energy,” Kentan muttered. “They also generate it themselves kinetically by going around.”

“And they also have an emergency battery on the inside,” Colin finished off his statement. Kentan raised an eyebrow.

“Come on,” Colin chuckled. “I was just being sarcastic before. Surely you don’t think you’re the only observant one.”

“Kid’s grown.”

“I’ve gotta remind you that I’m only younger by two months.”

“Sure,” Kentan reached out to briefly rub Colin’s head. “I’m gonna check on other houses.”

“Tsk tsk, internet addict can’t stand being a few hours away from his screen.”

“I’ve gotta remind you that I’m the one who’s been keeping both of us alive for years,” Kentan mimicked his tone and pulled the bag of crackers out of Colin’s hand. “And since my laptop and monitors are the root of our survival, don’t eat on my desk.”

He pulled Colin up from the collar of his sweatshirt and pushed the chair in.

“Fine, fine.” Colin rolled his eyes and sat down on a cushion. “Bring back some ramen.”

“Sh*t’s full of preservatives.”

Kentan shut the iron door behind him. The power had been out for some eighteen hours, and now that it was getting closer to sunset, people had begun to fuss. A number of Expeditors were spaced out and lined up down the street. A compartment opened from their chest, and they shone beams of light along the street. Others helped guide the elderly and other children back home.

Supermarkets were closing early today. He entered an Asian grocery store. A woman in the aisle beside his was complaining through her phone.

“It’s only us, no other towns. I just came back from work and everything was fine.”

Colin was right—probably something about the town’s power station. If the power didn’t come back tomorrow, he’d have to take a bus out of town and go to a library. The monitors he couldn’t bring, but that was no big deal—the job this time was easy.

He paid and strolled out with the packet of spicy ramen.

“Infantry of The Renaissance. Dear civilian, power is out today. Do you require home assistance?”

“I’m good,” Kentan waved his hands. They had a torch. Plus, the Expeditor’s wide metallic shoulders would be stuck in the alley.

It was half dark already when he slipped past the disappointed mob of gamblers who were forced to go home early. The alley was always dark, blackout or not. He was accustomed to the uneven gravel bumps on the ground and the stack of bins which blocked the way, but this time he stopped in his tracks.

A dark silhouette leaned on the wall. A man. He was smoking something, a cigar. No way it was Colin—Colin was a head shorter and he had no reason to be standing out in the cold. Most important of all, Colin didn’t smoke. The bloody stick had tenfold the amount of nicotine than a cigarette. Some gamblers or street kids would hang out in the alley, but it was rare. The space was cramped, and it was a dead end. They were loud, but the man was not. He was immobile, expectant. Waiting.

The figure stirred, and the dim light from his cigar extinguished. They were some six metres away. Kentan couldn’t see his face properly, but he felt the stranger staring.

He headed towards the iron door. The distance between them lessened, and the man spoke just as he brushed past. 

“Mr. Lee.”

Kentan stopped in his tracks. Behind him, the man turned around.

Seconds later, Kentan smirked and turned to face him. Closer up, he could make out the man’s features. Tall, a man in his late thirties or early forties. Red haired. He wore a suit. Looked European, Irish maybe.

“Using my own code to track me down? The Renaissance’s hands really stretch wide.”

The man was silent for a few seconds before smiling.

“They weren’t wrong when they said you were a genius. Born prodigy.” his tone was deep, unsurprised.

“Thank you. Now excuse me.” Kentan turned around and strode to the door. He produced his keys, but froze inches away from the keyhole.

It was almost undetectable, but the tiny, flashing red dot on the edge of the keyhole didn’t escape his eyes. It was simple mechanism, a miniature explosive device sold cheaply on the Web, activable via a controller. A rookie coder could disturb the connection between the device and the controller within seconds, but he didn’t have anything on him, not even a phone. Everything was flat and waiting to be charged.

“Apologies for the rudeness, Mr. Lee. I mean no harm, but some measures have to be taken. It is not my intention, only my order.” The man said.

“And this is the way a respectable government chooses to talk to its civilians?”

“Once again, it is not my intention. But please be assured that your friend is undisturbed—I only wish to speak to you. A few minutes will suffice. Please let me introduce myself. I am Flint Reid, officer of The Renaissance, Oceania region.”

He was cornered prey. Quite in a literal sense.

Kentan put the keys back into his pocket. “I didn’t know The Renaissance was engaged in the Dark Web.”

The man acknowledged the statement with a brief nod. “The late FBI had similar groups who mixed in the Web to oversee cybersecurity. I represent a branch of The Renaissance. We make exchanges in the Dark Web, Deep Web, illegal sites—whatever you want to call it—with the top coders and find potential candidates.”

“Should I feel flattered?”

“By all means, yes. You were the only contractor who located the final signal in the designated time. Or, should I say, well before the designated time.”

“That was sarcasm, Mr. Reid.” Kentan leaned against the brick wall.

“But I mean what I say, Mr. Lee. Our group of experts, the sharpest minds from all around the world took a whole week to track down your IP. You know what that means.”

Indeed. A week was enough for him to be in the other hemisphere. But then again, he could be in the deserts of Urumqi and still not escape the bloody Expeditors.

“Why don’t you get to the point. I’m sure we both don’t have a hobby of standing in the cold.”

“Of course. On behalf of the Commander, the Honourable Anastasia Steel, The Renaissance acknowledges your profound abilities. This is an official invitation to join The Renaissance and be part of the creation of the new world.”

Kentan was quiet for a few seconds before smirking. “I don’t need to be acknowledged by anyone,” he said. “And I have no interest in associating with whatever you do. Is that all?”

Flint Reid chuckled lightly before stepping closer.

“That is very unfortunate to hear, Mr. Lee.” He produced a shiny black USB from the pocket of his suit. “But it’s very unreasonable of us to require an answer on such short notice.”

He leaned closer and slipped the USB into Kentan’s pocket. The strong pang of cigar was unpleasant to the senses. Kentan frowned.

“I said no, if you heard me properly.”

“Ten days,” Flint Reid stepped back, smiling. “A grand, well thought out decision requires thinking time.” He bit down on the words. “We will be in contact in exactly ten days, Mr. Lee.”

A small whirring sound came from the keyhole of the iron door. The sound of a mechanical parts turning followed, and the flashing red light disappeared. Kieran plucked out the tiny device from the keyhole and crushed it beneath his shoe.

“Once again, my sincere apologies for turning up undeclared,” Flint Reid dipped his head slightly. “Please have a restful night.”

With that, he turned and strode off soundlessly, blending into the darkness. There was the sound of a lightbulb shattering overhead. Within milliseconds, all circuits in town had regained power. Street lights flickered on instantaneously, and familiar casino music resumed playing.

Kentan unlocked the iron door and rushed down to the basement.

Colin was lying face down on the bed. Kentan knelt down hurriedly beside him and flipped him onto the side. Colin jolted awake at the suddenness of being touched, recoiling his firm hold. The alertness in his eyes faded when he saw the familiar face.

“Power’s back?”

“Yes,” Kentan murmured. “Was anybody here?”

“What are you talking about?” the grogginess returned into his pupils. Colin rubbed his eyes and yawned. “Can you say something next time? You scared the sh*t out of me. I thought it was the fat owner.”

“He doesn’t have the guts to come here,” Kentan smiled.

“Was anyone meant to come?”

“No,” Kentan switched off the light bulb and kept the dim LED lights on. “I brought ramen. You can eat it later.”

“Great,” Colin murmured. Kentan pulled the sheets further up Colin’s neck and tucked in the corners. He drifted back to sleep in no time.

“Kent?”

Kentan woke to the sensation of Colin shaking him. He was leaned against the wall, and Colin crouched down in front of him with his palm on his forehead.

“You fell asleep on the ground?”

Kentan frowned and had a mind blank for two seconds before remembering what had happened. He’d spent hours searching for traces of other potential threats after being threatened by Flint Steel. He must’ve dozed off during the process.

“I’m fine. What’s the time?”

“Dawn. I got up to piss and you were sitting in front of the mattress with your head down like a zombie.” Colin took his hands off Kentan’s head. They both stood up—Colin to the bathroom and Kentan to his desk. He shook the mouse and his monitors lit up.

“You’re not sleeping?” Colin asked when he strode out.

Kentan shook his head. The short nap had washed away his tiredness. Plus, he was in no mood to sleep right now.

“I swear you’re gonna die from stroke one day. That’s how one in three coders die.” Colin slipped back into the covers.

“I’ll be the two of three.”

“Yeah sure.”

Kentan smiled. Colin was a fast sleeper—an instant sleeper, actually. He was out within seconds of his head touching the pillow.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the black USB. Nothing looked sus from the outside, so he inserted it into the USB plug.

Right from the beginning, before all governments were abolished and the world became a one-party government, Kentan had believed none of The Renaissance’s bullsh*t. There was just so many things unknown about them. His suspicions later proved to be accurate—seven continents, one government. The theoretical scenario was unimaginable in itself, let alone the fact that it actually happened.

Ten years ago The Renaissance was a tech startup. First they created a cure for cancer with nanomaterials. Then they created a bunch of autonomous drones which could navigate in all sorts of absurd places, survey areas far beyond man’s reach. They were recognised as the rising stars of technological advancements, and with mounting investments, the company was listed, globalised. Their representatives spoke at world conferences, gained immense popularity. Some were so popular they got elected as leaders in democratic nations. People criticised them for being calculating and manipulative, but The Renaissance, despite all their achievements and power, engaged in no sort of sketchiness, no tax fraud and continued doing what they did—making artificial trees which generated real oxygen, mass-planting artificial algae which reversed ocean acidification.

Everything was all PG, all for the good of the people. Then somewhere along the lines came The Expeditors, seven feet AI cyborgs made of high tech, interstitial alloys, iron and complex interior machinery. They were released into the community, namely for the purpose of helping civilians and regulating social cohesion. Of course, there were protests and a whole load of controversy about the government planting their eyes into society and infringement of privacy. But then the majority accepted them—the bots always rushed into the frontlines when apocalyptic disasters stroke, distributed food to poverty-stricken homes and even live-projected kid shows to children through their robotic eyes.

The Renaissance continued to expand after that. It was a big fish eating all the small fish, and the rest was history. It made no f*cking sense. Finding a cure for cancer was one thing, creating full on autonomous, capable-of-anything cyborgs were another—but succeeding in obliterating two hundred existent governments from the world with no violence? It was impossible, but true. There wasn’t one photo, one witness who stood out to say The Renaissance had engaged in anything illegal.

Kentan had always known The Renaissance were unexplainably dangerous. The out of the blue arrival of Flint Reid had affirmed it even more.

He scrolled through the only document in the black USB. The message from The Renaissance was simple, a black and white PDF contract. They outlined their background, his treatment. Everything was set out clearly, all except for the specifics of his job:

Position in team: intermediate programmer/developer/analyst

Details: Engages in crucial calculations, formulations and crafting. Requires high skill and clean background. Non-disclosure agreement must be signed. Note: HARSH PENALITIES APPLY FOR BREACH.

At the bottom of the ten-page document were the words ‘TOP SECRET’ in bold. So long as he lived up to the two words and accepted the ambiguity of the job description, he would be living his best life, one poles apart from the one he lived now.

Flint Reid had also slipped a business card into his pocket alongside with the USB. It was deep navy blue on both sides. One side had nothing but the letter ‘R’ written in gold. The other side had a gold rimmed circle which was resemblant of earth.

The Renaissance is everywhere. The message was clear cut. The business card was a warning—running was futile. Expeditors roamed the world, whether aerial, naval or terrestrial.

Apart from that, being a monopoly, The Renaissance had many ways to track someone down. It was only a matter of time.

He had no interest of playing a cat chasing rat game where he was the rat. Even worse, he was empty handed and the cat had a bunch of seven-foot, robotic helpers.

Kentan leaned back on his chair and played with the corner of the business card. Flint Reid’s attitude had indicated that The Renaissance didn’t like rejections, but either way, he wasn’t the type to go into a game blind. Genuine leaders or two-faced, tyrannical dominators, he needed information of what he was going into. Best case, he joins them with no fuss. Worst case, he takes Colin and they run.

The next few days involved Kentan spying on a patrolling group of Expeditors. The cyborgs were intelligent and capable of recognising being followed, but he had a dirty trick up his sleeve—in a quite literal sense.

When people move, even the softest tiptoe, they emit vibration detectable by machinery. The black device on his arm was designed to combat such an issue. The device itself, by constantly releasing strong, near light speed frequencies, collides with the frequencies of his movement and, like how light bounces off a surface, the vibration of his movement bounces off the device’s rays and scatters in all sorts of different angles. All the Expeditors will hear is scattered sounds in random corners behind them.

The Expeditors generated their own energy, but there was a functioning limit to all sorts of machinery. Like all machinery, the Expeditors needed to be serviced at some place affiliated with The Renaissance. He had hoped that he would be able to follow a group of faulty Expeditors straight into their home base, but he had clearly been too optimistic. The Expeditors patrol the same route every day, and according to trustworthy info he got off the Dark Web, they continue to patrol along the same designated route for at least six months nonstop.

Plan one was infeasible, but the three days he spent following them wasn’t wasted. He’d been running scans over the Expeditors’ bodies for the last two days with all sorts of mechanical instruments. It was deducible from endless trial and error experiments that the Expeditors, despite being made of thick, specialised metal, had its Achilles heel. Beneath its steel coat and meshwork of machinery endoskeleton was its controller chip—a thin, one-inch-long disc which upon obliteration shuts down the whole seven-foot beast.

“You look like you’re in a great mood today,” Colin commented as he boiled the last packet of ramen in his electric pot.

Kentan finished typing into the chat window and pulled half of his headset down. “How so?”

“You literally never reply when you’re doing something serious, but you’re talking back.”

Now it was time to wait for their reply. Kentan clicked out of the forum tab and spun to face Colin.

“How do you know if I’m doing something serious or not?” he asked.

Colin squeezed a packet of frozen vegetables into the pot and thought for a moment. “It’s just different. I can feel the difference.”

A ping in his left ear signified a new message in the forum, and Kentan pulled up the tab again. The recipient was a quick replier.

A: 7000, 5pm, Albert’s BBQ.

He transferred the bill on his phone and typed swiftly back.

User123456: Got the money?

A: Yes.  

“You want some?” Colin turned the electric pot to low simmer. The ramen was ready. “I didn’t add chilli sauce yet.”

“Save some for me.”

“You’re going out again?”

“I’ll be back soon,” Kentan stood up. “It’s a quick ride.”

Albert’s Barbeque was only five kilometres away from the alley, but a bus had just left, so he hailed a taxi. There was little traffic, so he got there in fifteen. It was a lively restaurant with people laughing and feasting off massive pork cutlets outside around a fire. The restaurant owner was a talkative man with a big beer belly and thick moustache—hard to imagine that someone with such friendly neighbour vibes would be involved in dirty underground business, but again, no black-market seller came across as a gang leader smoking weed. The more flamboyant the fish, the more harmless. The most effective covers came as plain coral.

“Two lamb chops,” Kentan handed the bill over to the owner.

“Won’t be long,” the owner chirped.

“Hold up,” Kentan said. “I’ll have the rosemary dressing. You have two types, don’t you? Plain rosemary and rosemary mixed with jam. I’ll take the second, a little bit on both.”

“Are you sure it’s rosemary and jam?” the owner smiled. “We only have plain rosemary and garlic. Do you mind having the garlic?”

“Sure,” Kentan nodded. “But make it quick. It’s five and I have a long ride home.”

“No worries, sir.” The owner put the notes into the cashier and lowered his voice as he tidied the notes. “Follow me.”

The diners enjoyed their meal far too much to notice one of the guests slipping past the front counter and into the kitchen area. The owner led Kentan through the kitchen where a bunch of men cooked steak. They didn’t question an outsider’s presence.

The firearms were stored in a broken refrigerator room below packets of carrots.

“How old are you?” the owner questioned when he gave Kentan the .22 swift.

Kentan examined the gun briefly, feeling its weight.

“Do you always like to question your client’s background?”

“I’m not confident that you know what you’re doing, that’s all. I’ve had my cover blown by some dumb sh*theads before. It’s a real hassle, moving our *sses to another place.”

“I pay, you receive, we both be quiet,” Kentan grabbed an aluminium container from the kitchen and chucked the gun inside. “That’s all. No complications. Are the lamb chops ready?”

A cook gave him the food, he shook hands briefly with the store owner and headed back.

Day four was more hands on. Kentan got dressed while Colin continued sleeping like a pig. He grabbed a small black backpack and reached into the cupboard to find his tablet. It hadn’t been used in ages, but was easy to carry and pretty trustworthy. The silenced .22 swift went inside next, and he sealed the bag up, slung it over his shoulder and headed outside.

The balaclava over his face made him look like a terrorist. He hoped that no one would be walking around town at this time—it would cause trouble. Thankfully at dawn the streets were practically empty, meaning that in correspondence, less Expeditors were on patrol. It was their way of preserving power. No use of deploying the usual five Expeditors on one street when the street was empty.

He opened his tablet. Within minutes, he had connected to the town’s surveillance server. In total there were four-hundred and fifty CCTVs in town, seventeen that could potentially capture him. An Expeditor would pass him in two minutes—it was an easy job.

Due to the large number of cameras spread in the Oceania region, technology depleted into making them were relatively simple. On top of that, basic security systems as such were usually easy to hack—a few minutes for coders who knew what they’re doing, thirty seconds max for him. He paused the cameras’ footage for fifteen minutes. Then he put the tablet back into his backpack and took out the silenced .22 swift.

Colin was the one who was good at all the physical stuff, but his half-assed shooting skills would suffice.

He fired as soon as the Expeditor came into view. The bullet burst through the Expeditor’s steel lining before its cyborg head had even fully turned towards the muffled sound of a gunshot. It froze and remained immobile for two seconds, an indication that the bullet had hit the bullseye. Then it crumpled to the ground in a distraught heap, and Kentan stepped out from the shadows.

The blow was not enough to destroy its body at all. The .22 swift, as the best rifle of its nature, had only managed to rupture a hole two inches deep and shatter the control chip, meaning that the Expeditor was only switched off, not destroyed. A new control chip would put it up and running again, but that didn’t affect Kentan. With gloved hands, he punched its damaged chest and more pieces of metal crumbled off. Reaching inside, he felt around its bulging metallic parts until his thumb brushed a tiny, thin disc. He had found what he was looking for.

Carefully, he took out the memory chip and sealed it inside a small plastic bag. Judging from its size, the chip could store thrice the amount of information than his monitors. Standing up, he quickly left the crime site. Every few hours the Expeditors’ control chip would send out a signal to report their location. The Renaissance would find that one signal was missing and inquire into the missing Expeditor in no time—there was no point in hiding its body.

Kentan looked at the time on his watch when he got back into the basement. Colin slept like a log and did not stir at the iron door shutting.

A total of thirty minutes had elapsed since he left, and two minutes later, the timer he set on the fifteen surveillance cameras would disappear. The cameras resume filming, and no trace of him would be found.

Memory chips were relatively easy to decode, and it didn’t take long for its data to be spread across Kentan’s monitors. Most of it was footage of the Expeditor’s patrols. There was enough storage for exactly six months of footage, meaning that every six months, when the Expeditors travelled to home base to be repaired, their memory chips would be wiped clean. There was no footage of it being serviced, nor was there footage of the Expeditor entering into any kind of mechanic or service facility.

The earliest available footage was from five months ago. Kentan saw through the Expeditor’s first-person perspective. The camera showed it travelling along some sort of main street. He pressed pause and scrutinised the picture. Nothing significant about passing people, nothing significant about the buildings…

His gaze lingered on a trace of red in the background. Zooming in and smoothing out the blurred pixels, he made out the distinct outline of a plaque. It was bronze with Chinese characters written in the traditional, historical way from back to front. He’d recalled seeing something like it the last time he and Colin went out to eat Peking duck.

A quick internet search confirmed his estimation. The place was Chinatown, located about ten kilometres away, meaning that the service station for the Expeditors had to be nearby.

Now that he thought about it, it made perfect sense. Each Expeditor roamed within a certain, assigned area. Therefore, the service station ought to be close by. It was clear cut, easy logic, but he had over complicated his thinking. The Renaissance was not as secretive as he thought.

Pulling up a detailed map of Chinatown, he surveyed potential cover stores. It could only be the shabbier ones—the popular places attracted way too much attention. He crossed out the stores which were too small or part of Chinatown’s main street and continued to eliminate all stores from his list until he was left with only one possibility, a dodgy looking dumpling place located in Chinatown’s west corner.

He was up before Colin woke the next morning, headed straight for ‘Mrs. Huang’s Dumplings.’ It looked slightly better than it did on the internet, but not by much. Sand coloured walls with uneven dents and a crooked sign did not make the place one bit appealing to guests, but he went inside anyway.

He was one of three guests in the restaurant. The waiter was no where in sight, so he began surveying the place, tapping the floorboards with his foot to test if there was another floor.

“Mr Lee?”  

He turned to his left where a young, Chinese waiter appeared silently beside him. Before he questioned how the hell she knew his name, she extended a hand to her right.

“Please follow me. We have your booking ready.”

Knowing immediately that his cover was blown, he said nothing and followed the girl through the restaurant and into the kitchen. There was little element of surprise, only the annoyance of being watched.

Behind a faulty dishwasher and a regular kitchen setup was a metallic piece of square flooring disparate to the tiled kitchen floors.

“Please.” The girl motioned for him to stand on the square. He followed her instructions, and she pressed something on the dishwasher.

The square platform began to lower, and despite knowing that he was going to be faced with something starkly different to a kitchen, the space before him still blew his mind.

He stood in a large, darkened space with an enormous window pane which stretched from the ceiling to the ground. There were advanced computers and screens of all sizes along the sides of the room. The screens bounced with constantly changing numbers.

At the front of the big space, below the tall glass pane was an unfathomable, vast area near the size of Chinatown. Stepping closer, he overlooked the level beneath him—rows and rows of top-quality computers and calculating instruments were arranged in clusters around the place, and men and women dressed in navy blue sat on the desks and strolled around.

The glass pane before him was completely soundproof—it was like watching a mime show, but he could decipher their actions. Everyone was well aware of their duties. Some people typed furiously onto their computers, some stood in groups and solemnly debated, some were bent over mechanical parts unrecognisable to him.

In front of all tables of monitors was a gigantic screen spanning across the entire length and width of the underground workspace. The screen was separated into fifty sections, each showing real-time footage of the busiest streets in the city.

It was a massive spy cam completely unbeknownst to civilians.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” a somewhat familiar voice sounded behind him. Flint Steel emerged from behind. There was a woman beside him. She was much frailer in real life than in the government’s monthly projections, but there was something about her icy ivory skin, greyish hair and sharp eyes which automatically discouraged people from f*cking around.

“You were going to meet anyway, but it seems you’re here a few days early. Please meet Anastasia Steel, The Renaissance’s Oceania representative.”

Before Kentan said anything, the small woman stepped forward and extended her hand.

“Mr. Lee.” Her voice was much less impassioning and moving in real life. It was more pressurizing, an invisible force which compelled Kentan to shake her hand politely.

“Thank you for your introductions, Flint.” It was a brief handshake which lasted no longer than two seconds.

Flint Reid dipped his head and walked out of the room swiftly. The sliding door behind him slid firmly shut.

“You must have questions, Mr. Lee.” A black office chair slid out smoothly from the shadows of the room, stopping neatly beside his leg. Anastasia sat down on her chair and gestured for Kentan to take a seat.

“You were expecting me.”

“The document Flint gave you had little information—it’s normal for you to have concerns,” she answered. “Moreover, an Expeditor was found lying with its memory chip stolen on Clarenbell Avenue this morning with no perpetrator caught on tape. The timing is too coincidental. It’s easy to connect the dots.”

“So why me? Don’t tell me it’s because I completed your job on time. I don’t know exactly how advanced your organisation is, but something with that scale of difficulty is definitely achievable.”

Anastasia Steel cupped her hands. “Of course. Many people you see down there working can do the same job twice your speed, and what you see here is only a tiny subsidiary of The Renaissance’s Oceania quarters. But we need young blood, Mr. Lee. Those who can lead the future generation. The job you completed was more like a test. A test which you aced with flying colours.”

Kentan laughed at the absurdity of her words. “A test? You’d throw two-hundred grand away on a test when there are literally homes being destroyed by all sorts of f*cked up disasters every minute? Remarkable budgeting skills you have there.”

“I don’t hesitate at depleting resources towards a worthy investment. And you finished your work before time, so you deserve a bonus.”

“You’re really f*cked up in the head.”

She didn’t bat an eyelash at his remark. “Nexus, overlook.”

“Roger.” A mechanical voice answered and the room was plunged into complete darkness. Kentan couldn’t see a thing. The next thing he knew, the dark ground beneath him had pixelized to charred earth. Orange flames rampaged across the land. People convulsed in pain, eyes rolling back into their heads as they battled suffocation. Oxygen was replaced by clouds of fume, and fires stretched on endlessly, cooking birds and tainting the skies a horrific, apocalyptic red.

“Salvador, Brazil.” Anastasia Steel’s figure appeared before him. They sat opposite each other in the chaos. “Fires have been devastating the entire city for three days.”

The 3D projection shifted. The orange was gone, replaced by blue. They were out of the burning inferno, yet the messy debris and bodies afloat on water suggested another type of hell.

“Sendai, Japan. A town’s been nearly obliterated by wave lengths of over one hundred metres.” The body of a man came floating towards Kentan. The pixels constituting him permeated through Kentan’s chest as he was pushed away by the aftermath water. Kentan was at a loss for words.

“Paris.”

“Shenzhen.”

“Westminster.”

The simulation disintegrated, conjoined to show hurricanes, droughts and intense heat which fuelled explosions of nuclear power plants.

“Do you understand now, Mr. Lee?”

The room returned to its normal darkness and he was back underground, beneath the shabby Chinese dumpling restaurant.

“Understand what?”

“What you’ve just seen is only a pin in the ocean. Think of earth as a sponge. A really wet sponge. You need to squeeze real hard to do get rid of all the water. Ten squeezes will not be enough, but what about twenty, thirty? There is a point where all water gets drained. The sponge is not dry yet, its dampness can continue to be milked. But only to a finite degree. Once you get greedy and strain it, step on it, compress it beyond its durability, it gets torn apart.”

“You’re saying we’ve reached the breaking point?”

“Yes,” Anastasia’s gaze was emotionless. “The point of no return.”

Kentan had been out and about a lot recently. It was an abnormal amount, way too many for his quiet, work from home coder persona—Colin had an apprehensive feeling about it, and the broken body of an Expeditor lying out on the street didn’t make things any better.

The place was circled off by other Expeditors and some guy who was from The Renaissance. Colin knew guns well, and he knew the difficulty of putting down an Expeditor with one shot. Precision, speed, confidence. It was hard, really hard—but achievable.

“Hey,” Colin nudged one of the guys beside him. “They catch who did it yet?”

“Nah,” the man answered. “No one was there at the time the Expeditor stopped functioning. Not a soul caught on camera. They say the system must’ve been hijacked.” He was a talkative one, and went on babbling for another minute before Colin thanked him, cancelled his shopping plans and quickly headed back to the basement.

Skilful shooter, adept at hacking systems…

Colin cursed as he rummaged through the cupboard. Kentan’s backpack and tablet was gone. Was he trying to be a f*cking terrorist? Rebelling against The Renaissance? He had to be out of his mind. Kent was hideously smart and pretty good at shooting, but he was hopeless in actual physical combat. One Expeditor was more than enough to pin him down.

Annoyed, Colin pulled out his phone. He doubted his calls would be answered, but there was nothing else he could do.

“Colin?” Kentan’s voice came through on the fifth ring.

“Where the hell are you?”

There was a brief pause.

“Chinatown. I’ll bring you some dumplings.”

“Wait, hold up—”

He’d already hung up.

“The bastard,” Colin murmured under his breath. Seconds later, he slipped his phone into his pocket and headed outside.

“Chinatown,” he told the taxi driver. “Fast, please.”

They were off to a quick start but got stuck in traffic in no time. Colin took out his phone and tried calling Kentan again, but this time it went straight to voicemail. He was about to keep bombarding him with calls, but was distracted by the sudden, great commotion amongst the cars behind him. Someone began screaming.

Confused, he turned to look through the window. A bunch of people left their cars and began running around. About two hundred metres behind them, approaching at an alarming speed was the grey outline of a monstrous tornado.

“What the f—”

“RUN! RUN!” the taxi drive began roaring hysterically.

They both dove out of the taxi. Colin ran through a mob of civilians and dashed into the nearest brick building. It was a club, and most people in there had already flooded to the lowest level.

He and a bunch of other guys who ran in last shut the doors and began placing heavy furniture against the entrance.

The immense current seeped through miniscule gaps in the doorframe. Colin quickly dropped the chair in his hand and bolted away. Behind him, the windows shattered and the surging wind came crashing through the door.

 “So your so promised ‘new world’ is a lie?” Kentan asked. “A hoax to manipulate people into believing there is a better future so that they’d work harder and slow the planet’s decay?”

Anastasia Steel shook her head.

“What do you mean?”

“The new world is not a lie, Mr. Lee. It is just not the complete truth.”

“Can you stop going on with the exhaustive wordplay?”

“The new world is only for some. It began ten years ago, and is already half constructed on the red planet. But only one percent of the population will be part of it. There is no place for eleven billion. Together, we will form the new world. Make amends and begin again.”

“What?” Kentan laughed. “Am I hearing what you mean?”

“In more straightforward terms,” Anastasia Steel leaned in closer. Beams of light seemed to swim in her pupils as her lips moved. “The Renaissance is made up of one percent of the world’s population. The age range and gender ratio have all been calculated precisely. We have scholars, architects, mathematicians, scientists, therapists, spaceships—everything you need to build a new—”

The blow across her face sent her flying across the room. Kentan was over her in seconds, eyes red and hands clutching her throat.

“Do you have any clue as to what you’re saying?”

“Mr. Lee,” a smile stretched across her face which was growing purple. “…you’re a man of maths and science. The number of cities diminished over the past years and how much remnant resources we have to rebuild. You do the calculations.”

“You’re f*cking crazy.”

The doors opened and Flint Reid came rushing in with a bunch of other men. Someone gave Kentan a blow in the guts. He grunted in pain, and numerous pairs of hands yanked him off Anastasia.

They pinned him to the ground.

“Let him stand,” Anastasia’s voice echoed above his head. Hands lifted him up, but his arms were held firmly to his back.

She wiped the trace of blood from her mouth. Seconds later, she laughed. “You think we haven’t tried to find the best for all solution? But use your brain. How many light years is it going to take to fit everyone on spaceships? How many resources do we need to waste on people who’ll do nothing but continue to wreck the new colony? You think we should all stay here, in this place that’s beyond saving and die with crackheads like you?”

“You think you’re a saint, a f*cking saviour.” She smeared the blood on her fingers across his neck. “But you’re a clueless optimist, an impetuous fool who believes in perfect endings.”

It felt like a tank of icy water had been poured over his head. Kentan breathed heavily. After a few seconds of silence, Flint Reid cleared his throat.

“Commander,” his gaze lingered on Kentan for a second before turning to Anastasia Steel. “Strong winds have struck. It’s the strongest wind we’ve measured so far in this area.” He gave her a screen with the details before turning to Kentan.

“Mr. Lee, I think you best check on your friend. Our officers reported seeing him outside.”

The whole world seemed to spin and there was a buzz in his ears, a voice screaming for him to get out. He struggled violently against the men’s grasps.

“Let him go,” Anastasia Steel looked up from the screen. The men released him, and he stumbled forward, tripping onto the ground before he got to his feet.

“The invitation continues,” Anastasia Steel’s icy voice reverberated through the room as he dashed out the door. “Five days.”

When he woke, Colin found that he was bandaged like a mummy. The aftereffects of anaesthesia remained in his bloodstream. He could not feel any pain, but judging from the dark look in Kentan’s eyes, he might potentially be on a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

“How bad is it?” he asked on the fifth day when a bunch of nurses changed the bandages.

“You would’ve been crushed under a pile of bricks if you weren’t lucky enough to be under a solid table.”

“Are you kidding me? That wasn’t luck. I dove under there intentionally.” 

The look in Kentan’s eyes made him shut up, but only for a few minutes because it suddenly occurred to him that he was occupying a large hospital room all to himself.

“How did you afford this?”

“Afford what?” Kentan looked up from his laptop. Colin rubbed his nose. Kent had practically been living in here for the past few days, though he always left at midnight when Colin was ‘asleep.’ When Colin woke up, however, he would always be back, sitting in the same place, typing away on his laptop as if he’d never left.

“The individual hospital room, the big surgery, the whole load of nurses. Hospitals gotta be flooded after that disaster.”

“A friend helped.”

“A friend?”

“Sort of, but not really. I have the money to pay for your sh*t, he’s got the connections.”

“He must really be the social butterfly.”

Kentan chuckled. A few minutes later a doctor walked in with two nurses. Colin grimaced sightly at the sight of them—he didn’t really care much, but the fact that two females circled beside him when he lied flat on a bed still made him somewhat self-conscious.

The doctor shook hands with Kentan and they began conversing quietly.

“How are you feeling today?” one of the nurses smiled at him. The other began changing his drip.

“Fine,” Colin smiled back. He didn’t feel like talking more—there was some sort of painkiller in the drip which fatigued him.

The nurses muttered something amongst themselves and asked him a few more questions. He answered them half-heartedly. There was a light knock at the door, and a tall, red-haired man in a navy-blue suit walked in. The doctor said a few more words to Kentan before he signalled the nurses to follow him. He dipped his head at the suited man before heading out.

The door clicked shut. The suited man and Kent spoke quietly. It was the polite greetings, something revolving around ‘thank you’ and ‘great pleasure.’ 

Colin had great heart to tune in into their conversation, but the anaesthetics began to kick in and he dozed off just as they finished with the formalities.

The aftermath of the tornado was pretty messy. A lot of windows were smashed and the weakly constructed, older buildings were wrecked, but overall, the damage was nowhere near devastating as what The Renaissance’s artificial monitor, Nexus, had shown in other parts of the world. The town was still inhabitable, but the increasing intensity of wind rang warning bells. Kentan averted his gaze from the window as Colin cleared his throat.

“You think we can still go back to live in the basement?” Colin asked as he made his third lap around the room on crutches. He couldn’t walk properly yet—pieces of broken glass had penetrated the muscle on his legs, but he was treading well for a speedy recovery thanks to the doctors Flint Reid recommended.

“Do you want to go back and live in the basement?” he threw the question back at Colin.

“I mean, it’s pretty safe right? It’s underground—winds can’t strike there. And we’re in a brick alley too. Would be real hard for it to be uprooted.”

“So you want to go back?”

“Kent,” Colin finished his fourth lap and sat back down on the bed. “I go wherever you go. Now can you tell me what the hell you’ve been up to?”

Kentan’s phone began ringing just as he opened his mouth to speak.

“Saved by the phone call,” Colin rolled his eyes. Kentan went outside to answer his call. He shut the door behind him, but he was standing right outside, close enough for Colin to hear his muffled voice.

Colin picked up his crutches again. As quiet as he could, he made his way across his door. Kentan’s voice became clearer, but what he said made little sense. Just as he leant closer, the door flung open and Kentan caught him just in time.

“Well that was a quick one,” Colin muttered as Kentan steadied him.

“Pack your things.”

“Huh?”

“We’re leaving.”

As if on cue, a nurse came in with a wheelchair. Colin was ordered to sit on the wheelchair and wait as Kentan gathered his things. He really didn’t have much belongings in the hospital room—his phone was completely smashed in the tornado, and the next thing he knew, he woke up to a white ceiling and a bunch of doctors staring down at him. Kentan had brought him a few changes of clothing. That was pretty much it.

After Kentan briskly stuffed all their things inside a silverish suitcase, they headed down the elevator. Kentan draped a woollen blanket over Colin just as the elevator doors slid open to reveal an underground carpark.

A dark, navy-blue Rolls-Royce was parked before the elevator. Instead of the usual ecstatic woman ornamented on the front of a car, there was the sculpture of a hollow sphere with gold rimming.

A man walked out from the Rolls-Royce. He was tall, had reddish hair and wore a suit. Colin recognised him as the man who had spoken to Kentan in his hospital room a few days before.

“Mr. Lee.” The man and Kent shook hands briefly. “Please let me take your luggage.”

Kentan handed the suitcase to him. The man opened the back trunk.

“What’s going on?” Colin tugged at Kentan’s sleeve.

“We’re moving places,” Kentan helped him up from the wheelchair. He squeezed Colin’s arm tightly before wrapping the woollen blanket tightly around his shoulders.

“To where?”

“Mr. Lee, the Commander expresses her warm welcome to both you and Mr. Lai,” the tall man returned with a smile on his face. He opened the car door, bowed and extended a hand inside the cushioned car.

“Please.”