The Mendelssohnian Theory: Action Adventure, Sci-Fi, Apocalyptic ,Y/A (25 page)

The elevator doors opened on the upper floor of the Skil Tower,
two thousand feet above the ground. In front of the door stood a half circle of
agents, guns ready and aimed at whoever will come out. “Hold your fire,” Sato
commanded while holding the bound prisoner whose head was covered. The agents
were confused, they’d just been informed that Sato had failed, and they need to
wait by the elevator in order to trap the intruder. Now, here was Sato, leading
the bound and head covered criminal. At that exact moment, the agents at the foot
of the tower disappeared from their personal monitors; the only possible
explanation was that they were dead. “Move back,” Sato instructed when he saw
that the seven kept aiming their weapons at him. He pushed the prisoner’s back
and led him on while directing his weapon at him. An involuntary twitch passed
on his face. It appeared as though he was struggling with something or someone
inside him. Five of the seven agents obeyed his instruction and lowered their
weapons while the two remaining ones continued to direct their weapons at him,
but with less tension. Hesitation was apparent on their faces, as their eyes
moved back and forth from Sato and his prisoner to their remaining friends who
had moved back. “I told you to move back and lower your weapons,” Sato barked
his commands. The twitch passed on his face once more, but this time the agents
assumed it was due to nervousness, pressure and anger about the delay. The two
remaining agents finally lowered their weapons, and all seven hurried to step
aside, allowed Sato, and the prisoner to pass through. Sato held the bound
prisoner and directed him down the long corridor toward a flight of stairs
leading to the CEO’s floor. Behind them, at a safe distance, the agents
accompanied the assassin and his imprisoned prey with their eyes. Just as
Sato’s and Adam’s feet were about to touch the stairs, one of the agents
shouted: “Stop,” but Sato didn’t stop and continued to lead his prisoner
without turning back. “I told you to stop,” said the agent again and began to
run toward them. Sato did not react, but the prisoner rolled forward, jumped to
his feet, yanked the head cover from his head and while still moving, released
his bound hands. A gun was magically conjured in his hand. He pulled the
trigger seven times and seven quick and narrow beams flashed in the air. Seven
holes were punctured in the heads of seven stunned agents, who fell dead, one
after the other before they were able to react. The prisoner quickly took out
the weapon from the hands of his jailor, who offered no resistance and stood
still, waiting for the so-called prisoner to command him.

When they’d ascended up the elevator, few minute earlier
Adam’s control of Sato had faltered for a moment. The veteran warrior’s
willpower was immense, and he’d managed to partially loosen Adam’s grip on him.
The assassin was able to hit him again, even though the advanced nanoparticles
dominated his brain and external implant. Adam took a blow to the head and fell
on the elevator’s floor. Sato was able to direct himself to Adam and lay on
his, looking for an instrument he could turn off, an instrument he assumed Adam
had used to take over his brain. When he couldn’t find such an instrument, he
attempted to release his hands. His head was aching, he felt it was about to
split in half. Through dulled senses, Adam watched Sato’s attempts. He felt his
consciousness had left his earthly body and was now wandering about the
elevator. He was the elevator, the light and air trapped within it. He was Sato
and the light and darkness; he was Adam and life and death. He was defined and
wasn’t. He discovered he didn’t have a solid opinion about whether the change
that had taken place in him was good or evil, but he knew the change had taken
place and was continuing to take place this very instant.

Adam curiously regarded Sato’s failed attempts to release
himself. He closely inspected the aged warrior, experienced him and got to know
him thoroughly. Sato had seen him as well. He allowed Sato to see him for what
he truly was, without the restraints of the physical body, just as he was now
seeing Sato. The assassin understood him. In other circumstances, he might have
even helped and supported him. But Adam knew Sato was beyond convincing. The
nanoparticles had changed him, had turned him into a different, irreparable
version of himself. He sent a quick command and enjoyed seeing both bodies,
Sato’s and his, stretch and sit side-by-side.

He forced himself to return to his body and continue with his
original plan, until he is able to replace it with a different plan that had
already begun to hatch in his brain, or whatever else was doing the thinking
when he was devoid of flesh. He now thought he’d realized what the leap
awaiting humanity was, and he knew what each and every member of the human race
needed to do in order to undergo the leap. He still did not know how he will be
able to convince everyone to take the leap, but hoped that the answer will
manifest itself in the future. Meanwhile, he stood on his feet, covered his
head with the upper part of Sato’s protective suit, leaving the rest of his
body exposed. Sato tied Adam’s hands behind his back in a way that would allow
him to release himself with ease and quickness and shoved his gun beneath his
suit. Adam didn’t want to use it but knew he would probably have no other
choice. He voicelessly instructed Sato to take hold of him, just as the
elevator had sounded a short chime and its doors opened. Seven agents were
facing them, weapons aimed and ready.

Moments later, the agents were all lying on the floor, tiny
holes punctured in their foreheads. Adam had no time to waste on thoughts and
fantasies. He turned around and began to climb the stairs leading to the CEO’s
private room. Sato, like a loyal guard, followed him.

When they reached the door that led to the great CEO’s wing,
Adam was surprised to see it was just a standard government office door. One
wouldn’t expect the richest, most powerful man in the world to sit behind such
a plain, undecorated door. Adam signaled to Sato, and the assassin placed his
hand on the small wall-screen attached to the doorpost. The door slid open. He
managed to take a small step forward when something hit him and pushed him back
until he bumped against Sato. The sound of gunshots immediately followed.

Adam fell back. He immediately rolled forward and stood up in a
defensive position, placing Sato in front of him, between himself and the
shooter. Luckily, the bullet hadn’t punctured his protective suit, but the
thrust and force of the blow he had taken when he’d fallen squeezed the air out
of his lungs and made it difficult for him to breathe. His chest was hurting,
and his body sensors alerted him that he had two broken ribs. The nanoparticles
in his body had already begun to heal the injury, and he focused on the
immediate threat to his life. He examined the room, hiding behind Sato’s
exposed back. Surprisingly enough, the office was smaller than you would expect
the strongest man in the world to be. A single window decorated the wide wall
of the oblong room, allowing little sunlight to penetrate. The electric lights
were turned off, making it difficult to trace the source of the fire. Adam used
his sensors and discovered that by the side of the window, in the dark and
shadow-filled part of the room, there was a woman holding an old fashioned gun
of the type that was popular four hundred years earlier, before laser firearms
were developed. ‘Is this the woman at the head of the organization that has
pursued me from the very beginning?’ he thought. The gun’s technical details
appeared on his eye-screens: Smith & Wesson, capable of firing 9mm bullets
at a low speed. He drew his laser gun, ordered Sato to advance toward the woman
and walked behind him, careful not to get in the shooter’s line of fire. “Move,”
the woman ordered Sato, and when he continued to approach her, she screamed,
“Don’t come any closer!” Adam held onto Sato’s mind with his own, and the
assassin did not stop. The woman fired at Sato without hesitation, and he
collapsed at once. A red hole was opened in the bare and exposed part of his
protective suit. Adam felt a strong pain in his head, as the nanoparticle
sphere in Sato’s brain dissipated upon the enslaved warrior’s death. The
remaining nanoparticles found their way back to Adam’s body. He shook his head,
jumped aside and fired at the woman. She was almost able to evade the shot, but
her gun hand was hit. The gun fell from her hand, and she groaned with pain. At
the corner of his eye, Adam located movement at the back of the room. He instinctively
rolled aside and fired a shot toward the source of the movement. A muffled
shout of pain was heard, and Adam saw a figure dropping to the floor. Without
losing a second, Adam jumped back again and fired at the woman who had killed
Sato. The woman groaned as her leg was slashed by the thrust of the laser beam
and then was silent. From where he was standing, Adam scanned the room once
more with the aid of his eye-sensors. Other than the man he had shot, the room
was devoid of any signs of life. ‘There were only two of them,’ he thought and
got closer to the injured man to check his condition. The man, who was lying
still in a pool of his own blood, was short and balding. He appeared to be in
his sixties, but Adam knew he was probably much older. When the means to
rejuvenate the body were first developed, the man was probably in the same
chronological age of his current appearance. Adam assumed he was about twice
that age. He sent a one of the balls of light the creator had given him toward
the unconscious man. The ball disintegrated in the air into a fog of
nanoparticles and covered the head of the injured man. The particles broadcast
data into Adam’s brain about the condition of the man. It also provided
identification information about the man who was closest to the title ‘ruler of
the world’. His name, Ramon Ramirez, was not familiar to Adam and did not
appear on the world-information-web. Furthermore, from the data he’d received
about the man, a different image than the one Adam had expected to find began
to form.

*

Somewhere in the beginning of the century, Ramon was a junior
programmer in a medium sized venture capital fund. His responsibilities
included serving as a supervisor for the space engines prediction team. One
day, one of his subordinates, a young programmer named Marconti, presented him
with a new probability engine he’d developed for the company. Ramon inspected
the invention and saw an opportunity in it, although the engine was still not
devoid of faults. He convinced the junior programmer that they should both work
together on a more advanced version of the engine, free from the current bugs
that disturbed its normal function. For almost two years, Ramon and Marconti
secretly worked on the development of the probability engine. Ramon knew that
unless their invention will remain secret it would be taken from them by the
heads of the company, who would claim the two had developed the engine as part
of their work for the company and on company computers.

Unlike Ramon, Marconti had many apprehensions. He was afraid
to lose his job. Whenever he encountered difficulties in the development of the
product, he wanted to give up and hand over the software to the company
managers. Ramon would calm him down again and again, convincing him that they
only needed more time to get over all the hurdles and obstacles. Only then, so
Ramon had promised, will they introduce the full version of the probability
prediction software they had developed to their managers and will be rewarded
by praise and a promotion, as the software will be more advanced and elaborate
than anything else in the market. Marconti didn’t know Ramon had other plans
for the engine they’d developed, plans that did not include the company they
were working for. Secretly, without Marconti’s knowledge, Ramon had located,
with the aid of the software, available probability options and purchased them
for himself in a special account he had opened under the name of Steven Skils.
Because the software, in spite of its bugs, was precise and razor sharp with
its analysis, Ramon quickly became a wealthy man. He learned to trust the
software in every aspect of his life and finally asked it to analyze the
sequence of events that will table place between himself, Marconti and the
prediction company they were working for. For several months, Ramon had felt
his partner was no longer contributing anything to the development of their
invention. Ramon himself did most of the technical job, as he was more
knowledgeable and skillful than Marconti in the area of processing and
implementation. The young programmer’s paranoid fears were like a noose around
Ramon’s neck, and he reached the conclusion that Marconti had become a
nuisance. The software gave him uncomfortable answers, but he accepted them and
acted upon them without hesitation. First of all, the prediction program had
verified his inkling that without Marconti, the development process will speed
up and the software will be ready to use within a few months; with Marconti,
the process would continue for close to three years. He realized he needed to
get rid of Marconti. The opportunity to solve the problem presented itself in
the image of a new secretary, transferred from the mother company.

Rwanda was a forty-one year old woman who had thus far worked
as the prediction company’s manager’s secretary. She was also his lover. When
the manager’s wife had discovered the secret affair, she had conditioned her
forgiveness with the immediate dismissal of his lover. For lack of any other
choice, the manager had transferred her to Ramon’s department as the general
secretary of the development branch. Almost by error, Rwanda, hurt and
exhausted from her struggle for survival, had discovered the fact that Ramon
and Marconti remained at work after regular office hours. She approached
Marconti directly and asked him about the extra work they were doing. Marconti
immediately broke down and confessed to the fact they were developing software
that will compete with the company’s. Rwanda’s sharp wits spotted an opportunity,
and she hurried to confront Ramon with the information she’d received. Ramon
realized he’d been caught. All his dreams and plans about the engine they’d
developed were now under question. Rwanda, on the other hand, was just waiting
for an opportunity to avenge herself on the manager who had thrown her out of
his bed. She presented Ramon with a crucial question that bound together both
their futures and would determine the future of humanity for the coming fifty
years and so. Her question was, “What else needs to be done in order for the
engine to reach its full potential?” Ramon jumped to explain that the software
was already in a very advanced stage. It corrected itself and needed no further
human interference. That was a very dangerous gamble as far as he was
concerned, but he had seen the hunger in Rwanda’s eyes and thought he might
take advantage of her desire for revenge in order to continue with fulfilling
his own wishes. He offered her a partial partnership with the product they’d
developed if she would aid him in getting rid of Marconti and find a way to get
rid of the mother company. Rwanda gladly undertook the task. She saw to it that
Marconti was transferred to a daughter-company in Africa. Ramon promised him he
would continue to develop the software and would let him know as soon as the
engine was fully operational. Regarding the mother company, Rwanda had a
long-term plan in mind. She suggested that they wait and deal with it only when
their probability prediction engine will be a hundred percent functional. Then
they’ll be able to anonymously purchase patents before anyone else. Even then,
the probability engine had given them an almost three-second advantage over
competitors, an eternity in patent-option terms. Once the software is fully
operational, they will be able to be minutes ahead of the competition. When
they are large and strong enough, they’ll become major players in the industry,
and will be able to easily free themselves from the mother company, legally,
practically and physically. Then, in order to not to raise suspicion, they will
both quit the company at different times, and establish their own legal
company. Ramon, who was unfamiliar with the business aspect of the company,
agreed with Rwanda and thus, the most successful partnership in human history
was created. The company they created was called Skil, and it quickly took over
the global business world. On their way to the top, the partners also
annihilated the fortune company in which they’d begun their common way. The
manager who had dumped Rwanda was disgracefully Dismissed and transferred to a
junior position at the heart of the Ural Mountains.

Ramon preferred to seclude himself with the super-computer
and the software he’d developed, to discover, purchase and get rich. He left
the management of the business in Rwanda’s hands. From the very start, he was
aware of the fact that Rwanda is a cold blooded manager, who was often cruel.
He didn’t care, the main thing for him was that Rwanda allowed him the freedom
to be with his computers and took care of all his needs, including the sexual
ones. Rwanda ran the company with a firm hand but was compartmentalized on the
precise forecasts of Ramon’s software. All her attempts to hack her way into
the software’s database were blocked by Ramon, who had dedicated a major part
of the software to the prediction of hacking attempts from within and without.
Rwanda had no choice, so she gave up her attempts. They learned to hold one
another and trust each other. Ramon would locate profitable business
opportunities, and Rwanda would perform the takeovers using semi-legal means.
She kept a highly skilled and loyal army of agents at her disposal at all
times, an army that prevented anyone from threatening the exclusiveness of the
corporation. From a small company, Skil had become a corporation, and from a
corporation to THE Corporation, the strongest, most powerful force in the
world. Their reign was under no threat, until one day, the software gave them
the name of a single man. The probability that this particular man will
endanger the corporation was exceptionally higher than that posed by all other
regular threats. Rwanda turned to thwart this threat, as she’d thwarted other
threats that had endangered the existence of the corporation they’d created.
Only later did they discover the future importance of the youth that carried
the name Adam First. This information only served to enhance their desire to
capture him.

They’d thus far failed. The only failure they’d had during
all their years in Skil.

Now, Rwanda, the one in charge of targeted killings, murders,
and pursuits, was already neutralized and Ramon, the mind behind the corporate
evil, was lying in front of Adam, bleeding and unconscious. ‘Let’s see you
predict this,’ thought Adam and shook Ramon. He didn’t think the corporation
manager’s foot injury was severe, and in order to continue with his plan, Ramon
needed to be awake. He leaned Ramon against the wall and lightly slapped his
cheeks until he opened his eyes.

“Do you know who I am?” asked Adam and Ramon nodded feebly.
“You killed my parents,” Adam continued to talk in a cold, emotionless tone,
“and you’re going to pay for it.” To Adam’s surprise, tears began to
voicelessly run down Ramon’s face, staining his shirt. “You’ve chased me and killed
my friends. Now’s the time for revenge.” Ramon’s crying intensified. “You’ve
messed with the wrong guy,” Adam continued to recite.

“I know that now,” Ramon suddenly mumbled. Adam noticed that
Ramon’s eyes turned time and again to look at something behind his back. He
turned his gaze and saw a box lying on an office desk at the corner of the
room. His attention was distracted as Natalia burst into the room, gun in hand.

“Are you all right?” she called to Adam and hurried to
embrace him. He hugged her back and kissed her, his eyes still following Ramon.
He detached himself from her, went to the table and lifted the box.

Ramon could hardly breathe. He gave Adam a panicked look. “Be
careful with it,” he asked, almost commanding. Adam smiled coolly. He opened
the box and discovered a simple, old fashioned looking computer. “Leave it
alone,” whined the defeated Ramon, “it’s mine.”