NEW WORLD TRILOGY (Trilogy Title) (8 page)

It wasn't until Ikaros was in high school that the federal government, in collaboration with industry, adapted an internationally established model that saw the building of imposing security walls around key commercial and accommodation districts in all the capital cities, some of their satellite cities and towns, and a few regional hubs; access to these 'safe zones' was rigorously restricted to those who passed the strict inclusion and exclusion criteria, which essentially cemented the division of the population into two distinct categories.

As Ikaros was departing his woebegone country that never really allowed him to have much affection for it, it was a corrupt pseudo-democracy in which the police and military were used constantly as subversion-suppression, order-maintenance and class-division instruments to support a colluding, self-interested, superficial two-party system that only took votes from the 'legitimate' citizens, known collectively and officially as the 'internal citizenry': the wealthy, the now-diminished middle class, and the working poor who could only afford densely packed dormitory accommodation and a proportion of whom were frequently expelled from the safety zones with little to no warning.

The walled enclaves for agriculture, business and high-density living for the internal citizenry were all connected by way of isolated and highly patrolled highways, supply routes and airports; with a population totalling only nine million living in the safety zones, this left the remaining twenty-eight million effectively to fend for themselves on the margins, albeit with vain efforts by aid organisations and the limited and superficial support of the government to provide some basic necessities in areas close to the safety zones, which only managed to make a negligible difference to the endemic disease and enduring famine that many continued to experience.  Even though the government, the opposition party, and the media were obviously more concerned about maintaining order and economic productivity within the safety zones than the lives of those on the outside, the excluded majority was spoken about in sympathetic and desperate terms that highlighted their plight and the inherent difficulties of ameliorating the situation, much of which was actually sound.  Nevertheless, the power holders used the class divisions and the socio-economic vulnerabilities of the times as opportunities to propagandise and attempt to take control over the ever-fearful-that-it-would-happen-to-them elite minority in order to increase conformity to the new and more-tenuous-than-ever conservatism, regardless of the negative social consequences that were necessarily implied in it for everyone, including the ruling elite and their families.

Chapter 6

Bangkok, Thailand: one week later

In his hotel room, Ikaros sits on the side of the bed rubbing his eyes mercilessly after just waking up with, again, fewer hours’ sleep than he's able to sustain.  He leans over to the chair and grabs his shorts and begins to slip them on, then peaks out the gap in the curtain at the morning sun rising over the capital — yet another highly humid and almost-intolerable summer's day awaits him outside.

Three minutes later

He exits the main entrance to the hotel, walks down the steps, and stands on the pavement for a moment under the shade of a tree while he cleans his sunglasses and adjusts his military-styled cap.  He doesn't see a European girl in her early twenties come up, stand next to him, and notice his calm disposition after glancing at him a couple of times.

"Hey, can you speak Thai?" she enquires.

Ikaros looks up at her.  "Huh?  Oh, nah … I just got here a week ago and didn't have much time to learn anything much beforehand.  Um, I didn't decide to buy a ticket till the last minute, you know?"

She shakes her head.  "No, I don't," she says with a grin.

"Oh," he says, realising that it's slightly unusual.  "I've been learning this week, but I still … well, it's just a week and I don't really have intentions of staying and becoming fluent, you know?"

"Yeah, I do.  Anyway, the reason I asked is … I wanted to know if you know how to give directions to a taxi driver?  I just arrived yest—"

"Ah, no, that's still beyond me, but I've caught a lot of taxis this week, and they could all speak English well enough, so …"

"Really?  The one I had yesterday couldn't; that's why I asked.  I was just a bit worried it was common."

"Oh, right.  It shouldn't be."

She looks at him silently for a brief moment.  "I'm about to have breakfast.  Have you had anything yet?"

"No … I just got up.  You don't have to catch a taxi for that: there're some good places left of the main intersection down there," he says while indicating the general direction with a slight shift of his head.  "It'll just take us five minutes.  Is that okay?"

"Yeah, sure."  She notices how causally and seamlessly he assumed and accepted the invitation.

They start walking and take the opportunity to introduce themselves.  "You're from Germany, right?" Ikaros asks redundantly, already having pegged her accent.

"Yeah, Dresden, originally.  I'm living in Berlin now, though.  My name's Sascha.  What's yours?"

"Ikaros."

"Ikaros?" she echoes softly with inflection.  "Your parents must have been interesting."

"I don't know.  I think they just wanted to see what would happen."

"Well, there are definitely good things about your name, not just cautionary ones.  It must be like being born in the year of the tiger or something."

"Yeah, I suppose … something like that."  He smiles to himself about the way she handled it, having suffered a range of offensive comments and rib-stabbing portents since he was a kid.

Twenty minutes later

Sitting at a small table eating Thai curry dishes, they continue to talk quietly to each other.

"How long are you staying in Thailand?" asks Sascha.

"I don't know — a few more weeks, perhaps.  It depends.  What about you?"

"It depends on what?"

"What I decide to do."

"You don’t have a plan?"

"I have options; nothing concrete yet.  I’m just entertaining a few things."

"Entertaining?" she repeats softly.

Ikaros stays silent.

"Well, I have to get back to Berlin soon 'cause the summer holiday is nearly over."

"You’re studying, then?"

"Yeah, economics and politics … postgrad."

"Really?  What's the topic?"

"The economics of political action and the politics of economic systems … something along those lines, anyway."

"I get that.  I do."  He nods seriously with a grin and without getting a chance to add anything else.

"What about you?  What do you do … or something like that?"

"Um, I'm … I
was
a journalist of sorts, but …"

"Cool.  But what?"

"But … I guess it’s not like it used to be.  Well, what I mean is … I don't really believe there were ever any 'glory days' of journalism or anything, but the way things have headed this century in particular, from what I've seen and found out, anyway, as far as reporting what’s really going on and providing adequate context, etcetera … well, it's scary and ugly, and, ah …"

"And you don’t want to be associated with it anymore, right?"

"More or less … yeah.  I didn’t want to be associated with something that supports that lack of veracious connection and transparency … all that covering up.  Then there’s the complicity entailed in the lifestyle just for the pay check and the furtherance of a career and the false sense of safety and all that.  It just goes on and on, you know?"

"How bad is it really out there, anyway?" she asks, glancing out the window as if referring to the outside world and everything in it.

"Worse than you think; worse than you've been led to believe it is … or rather been allowed to believe it is.  What you think you know, you may not; what's unknown may really need to be known but may never be."  He stops and stares vacantly out into the street.  "There are things going on that are important, that tell us about who and what we are, where we're headed, and where we could, should and need to be headed, but I … we generally can't find out anything substantive about these things and often don't even know where to begin or how to frame the search, just because they're unknowns, and there are so many of them.  What's more, even though I'm essentially ignorant just like everyone else, I'm still essentially an educated member of society … well,
was
a member, that is."

"Great!  It kind of puts words to the way I've been feeling lately."

"Mm, most people know it at some level but suppress it the best they can; barely anyone does anything productive with it.  But that's just the thing: it's difficult to know what to do with such a feeling.  I mean, where's the way in?  And what's the cost if you try to find one?"

"It's a lot more than it used to be."

"It is."

"So why isn't the price too high for you?"

"Because I've already paid it."

"You sure?"

"For now, yeah.  Anyway, my growing feeling is that there's too much at stake not to give it a go."

"You haven't given up, then?"

"No, no … not at all.  It may look like I've given up to a conservative, but it's just a chance at real engagement for someone else … someone like me, like I'm becoming.  I suppose we could put it like that."

"You're a radical, then?"

"Not yet," he replies softly with a grin.

"Let me know how it works out — I may join you."

"You either have the feeling for it, which can be cultivated, or you don't."

Sascha nods quietly, and they stare at each other for a couple of seconds.  She then breaks out of it and changes the subject.  "I wanna go to the countryside for a few days and climb a mountain and so forth.  I've got the addresses of a few travel agencies and …"

"Sounds good.  I'd like to climb a mountain while I'm here.  It's been a long time … a very long time."

"It might put things into perspective for you, then."

"Mm, it'll hopefully put things into perspective for us both.”

Chapter 7

Two days later

On a small bus, over two and a half hours out of Bangkok, Sascha and Ikaros sit near the back.  Sascha reads a book while Ikaros looks intently at a map of the region trying to work out the time it will take until they reach their destination.  "I reckon it'll only be another thirty minutes or so," he says without looking up.

Just then the bus turns onto a narrow dirt track and slows down dramatically as it begins navigating its way along it.  Sascha and Ikaros look up together with surprise.

"What's he doing?" Sascha asks.

"I don't know.  I'm sure we're supposed to keep to the main road for a while yet.  Maybe we should …"

"… ask the guide."

Without replying, Ikaros gets up and heads towards the front of the bus.  He bends down next to the guide just behind the driver.  "Ah, excuse me, why did we just make that turn?  Aren't we supposed to …?"

"Please take a seat, sir.  This is the shorter way.  We'll arrive in ten or fifteen minutes, okay?"

Ikaros looks out the front of the bus and down the track ahead, and nods slowly.  "Okay, then."  He returns to his seat, noticing the majority of the passengers are Thai and are paying little to no attention to the odd change in route: only five other passengers are foreigners from what he can tell — three Europeans and what he thinks is a Korean couple.  After counting off all twenty-four passengers in his head while returning to his seat, he sits down next to Sascha.  "She reckons it's shorter."

"Do you?"

He shakes his head.  "Ah, no … not by the map, anyway."

Thirteen minutes later

The bus comes to a stop in the middle of the track and its doors fling open.  Out of the forest, four men jump on board brandishing machine guns.  They begin yelling in Thai and pointing the guns menacingly at the passengers.  Another four men encircle the bus and fire off rounds randomly into the air.  A few of the passengers start screaming and crying while the armed men on board shout orders at everyone.

Reactively compliant, the first of the passengers stand up and walk hurriedly to the exit.  Soon, one of the 'hijackers' is at the back of the bus, where he notices Sascha and Ikaros; he hesitates for a moment, then steps just behind them, whacks them on the side of their heads with the barrel of his gun in quick succession, and yells aggressively, "Get off the bus, now, you Western dogs!"

Ikaros grabs Sascha's hand and squeezes it as he stands up.  They shuffle their way towards the front entrance, scanning the scene and counting guns and machetes.