Pa'an

“Let me show you the price of rebellion, my rebellious student.” Mentor threw his blankets away and pulled up the legs of his pajamas. His feet were mangled, scarred and missing several toes. His lower leg bones protruded at odd angles under a patchwork of skin grafts. His knees were twisted lumps. “This is the price of rebellion. I already paid it. Look, look and remember.” Jag’s eyes grew wide and his mouth opened. Then he shut them and refused to look any further.

Mentor continued, “There was once a promising young athlete name Martinelli. He, I, was about your age, working on a project to tie up all the water rights from the only river in a dry part of Turkey. I was ambitious. I hatched a plan to appoint a water czar of my own to divert water to an opium plantation I controlled. The Order waited until everything was set up and ready to go. Then they hired thugs with sledge hammers to break my legs and kept me from getting any medical attention for months. They got me to sign everything over to them, piece by piece. When I had nothing left and they thought I was ready to be trusted again, they sent in doctors to keep me alive and bring me back to stable health. Then they sent me Ogu.”

“Ogu is your assistant, then? I thought Ogu was just another hired thug.” Jag glared at Ogu, remembering the incident with his dog, Kaiser in a gunny sack.

Ogu took two steps toward Jag, “If I was just another thug, I would be pleased to murder you, turncoat. You’ve had nothing but a charmed life, thanks to Mentor.”

“Now, Ogu, calm down. Jaeger, Ogu isn’t my assistant. He’s my minder.”

“Your minder? You mean, he was assigned to keep you in line?” said Jag in shock.

“Exactly, with the operative world being ‘was’. We’ve come to an arrangement over the years. Ogu has his story, too.” Ogu opened his mouth to interrupt, but Mentor continued, “Please, Ogu, let me tell it.”

“After Watson and Crick discovered DNA, Ogu here was a post doctoral researcher at Cambridge University working on longevity. He made a lot of progress after he discovered those end pieces called telomeres, and since the advent of better tools for molecular biology he has improved his treatments.”

“DNA was discovered over eighty years ago. Ogu can’t be older than about forty.”

“Appearances, Jaeger, deceive. I’m one hundred forty two years old, thanks to Ogu. He’s over one hundred. Ogu was recruited by the Order just for his longevity treatments. Unfortunately they only work on a few people. Some otherwise privileged people high up in the Order were not happy to find out they were genetically disadvantaged for longevity. They dropped Ogu on me, to my great fortune. It takes time to build an organization. Ogu gave me that time. And you were to be a linchpin in my grand plan.”

“As long as you’re sharing, tell me one thing. With the power and organization behind the Order, why did you decide to branch out? It makes no sense. Was it a matter of personal gain, or is there more to the story?”

“There is much more to the story, a very great deal more. We never discussed the goals or origins of the Order, did we?”

“Not much. I know they are very old and they see themselves as a ruling elite. Based on the assignments I got, I never wanted to dig any further,”

“In any event, you would have either bought in or been killed. The vanity of the members of the Committee is monumental. They’ve learned to tolerate their own stupidity because of it.

The committee believes they are the ordained predators on that vast herd of animals known as humans. That herd is long past the point where it needs to be culled. They figure the right number of survivors should be no more than about ten percent. Otherwise, those animals will pollute the planet, poisoning the well, so to speak, so that there will be nothing left worth leaving for whoever may be left. They believe the animals are going to kill themselves off anyway, so no more harm can be done. After your experience of the world, I presume you agree so far?”

“It’s hard to prove that we aren’t headed toward some catastrophe, but murdering 5.4 billion people? That’s beyond sanity. What kind of madman can take that as a serious goal?”

“Your kind, Jaeger, and mine. The ones that intend to survive, to remake the world into a far better place. Are we mad? Define mad. Is the wolf mad from the point of view of the sheep?”

“Not my kind, Mentor. I may have done unsavory things under orders, but never genocide, never murdering innocents, women and children.”

“You think I don’t know you? You think I don’t understand perfectly what you can be ordered to do, and what you will therefore accomplish? If you understood the consequences, if you saw the results of the coming devastation, starvation and anarchy, you would do the same as I would to prevent it. It’s what you were trained for, Jaeger, and I trained you well.” Mentor gave Jaeger a hard stare for several seconds, then he continued.

“But between the means and the ends, there lies the difference. The committee wants to keep the remaining humans as slaves and pets. They want to destroy the very technology that allowed us to get out of the rut of apehood. They think that some dark age of ignorance and repression will be good for the planet. As long as they are on the top of the food chain, their vision and their ambitions are complete. That won’t work for me and it won’t work in the long run. The rulers will eventually be too weak and totally dependent on the masses unless we have the technology to augment our efforts and control all future outcomes. That’s why I’m building an AI and all they can do is destroy AI’s in their ignorance. Do you understand now?” Mentor looked up to Jaeger from under bushy raised eyebrows.

So, Mentor planned to build an AI and destroy Aura, a competitor. Jaeger had no intention of getting into philosophic discussions. Mentor was right - he was focused on his assignment to the exclusion of rational thought. Perhaps he was, indeed, the monster of Mentor’s creation. There was, however, one more card waiting to be played.

“Ogu, my suitcase, please. I’m leaving,” Jag said, standing.

He turned to find Ogu poised beside him with a metal hypodermic syringe, the kind with a spring driven plunger and a trigger. Ogu pushed the needle into the side of Jag’s neck. “It’s prussic acid, traitor. That’s hydrogen cyanide, the same basic chemical as Zyklon B. You’ve heard of it?”

Mentor shrieked, “Ogu, what are you doing? There’s no need for that!”

Ogu tossed an envelope to Mentor. “Look in that envelope. I found it in this traitor’s bag.”

Mentor tore off the end of the envelope and extracted the document. He tossed the envelope away. It bore the address of White, Day, Attorneys. As Mentor read it his face became pale. Ogu watched Mentor, all the time pushing the syringe into Jag’s neck. “So, you expected me to sign over the proceeds to you? You were after the money, you ungrateful orphan!”

Jaeger moved so quickly that Ogu was caught by surprise. Jag jerked his head away from the needle, dislodging it, and instantly turned inside Ogu’s long arm. He caught that arm under his and wrenched it hard. He shoved his free hand under Ogu’s chin, forcing his head to snap back. Then he punched Ogu in the throat, causing him to choke. Finally, he forced Ogu’s syringe hand down and back, jabbing Ogu in his own thigh. He pushed the trigger. It was a good move, well practiced, and it should have worked. Ogu proved faster and stronger than any man his age should have been. Ogu pushed a huge hand at Jag’s face and gouged his eyes. The pain brought Jag to his knees. Ogu had a harder time getting a grip on Jag from that position. He let go of his hold on Jag’s face and instead brought his knee up. Jag’s head exploded in stars and blackness, but he fought on. He flailed both arms, caught Ogu around the back of his knees and lifted. Ogu went down like a felled tree. Jag still could not see and his balance was off from the blow to his head. He flailed around again and could not find Ogu, but heard him trying to crawl away. Jag pursued and found a large foot in his hands. He twisted it viciously and heard Ogu flop over to relieve the twist. He twisted it again. One more flop. Jag guessed that perhaps he did not miss with the syringe, it felt like Ogu was weakening. He tried one last twist, this time bending Ogu’s leg at the knee as well. He felt Ogu’s body fall away from him and become a weight. He just kept twisting. He could begin to see through flashes and clouds, but his eyes would not turn properly. There seemed to be an obstacle between him and Ogu, and, vision or no, Jag was determined to rip his leg off. One more twist, and he found himself holding an empty shoe. Ogu never let out a sound, so it was easy for Jag to hear the splash.

As partial vision returned, Jag saw Ogu sinking slowly in the deep green frigid waters of Lake Geneva. He shook his head and turned to see Mentor trying to wheel his way into the cabin, but he could not open the glass doors without help. Jag caught the handles of the wheelchair and turned him around to face the lake.

“Go ahead, throw me overboard, too. You might as well. I’m a doomed man now that you’ve killed Ogu.”

“I didn’t intend to kill him, I was just defending myself,” shot back Jag.

“You’re the same kind of monster. Maybe you can rationalize your actions, but you knew when you decided to play your little game that someone was going to die. You’re just another monster. You don’t even have the excuse of the honest predator. Just another pig trying to get his snout deeper into the feeding trough.”

“At least I’m not planning the violent demise of several billion people.” Just the same, Jag felt that hollowness in the pit of his stomach. Perhaps Mentor was right, and he was simply doing what he was trained to do – to be a monster.

Mentor frowned, “Without Ogu’s treatments I’ll only live a few more days. I was due for renewal a week ago. At least the others in my team will carry on, now that they have the chips. What do you intend to do with me now?”

Jag shook his head to clear it and blinked his eyes. He could see again, but his head throbbed like a bass drum. He found the stock power and thrust it into Mentor’s hand. “If you’re dead the escrow reverts to Ultradata anyhow. You might as well sign this and save me the trouble of going to court. Otherwise I’ll just disable the engines, short out the radios and cut you loose to drift. It’s a big lake. You may get rescued in time, you may not. Your choice.” He pulled a gold pen out of his pocket and dropped it in Mentor’s lap.

“You do realize that if I sign and get rescued, I can rescind the signature,” Mentor said.

“If you’re not lying about Ogu, you’ll be dead anyhow before the signature gets to court to be contested. I’ll take that chance.”

“Grant me one more answer, Jaeger. You did not know that Ogu was my umbelical cord to this life. How did you expect to convince me to sign this?”

“The stock power was simply intended to be a distraction. The money isn’t for me. But you killed my father. You tortured Elexi. You even tried to drown my dog. I expected to kill you outright. You’re right – I am the monster you created.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“After I heard the goals of the Order, I wondered what made me any different from them. I’ve been doing their dirty work, eating off their table…The only person who ever seemed to care for me, even in a twisted way, was you, Mentor… I don’t know…I just didn’t seize the moment. I had the power to act and I failed to take it.”

“A fatal weakness, Jaeger. You still don’t quite know what you are up against, who the Order really is. I suppose I have no reason to hide it now.” Mentor’s voice was back to his precise diction and acerbic tone. “Give me back my blankets, it’s too cold out here for a man of my age.” Jag shook out the blankets to make sure there was nothing hidden in the folds, then tossed them to Mentor.

“In the Old Testament, Numbers 16:3, Moses and the Israelites were still in the desert. Moses commanded the Israelites to wear fringes on their garments and to dye one fringe blue. There were numerous incidents where the Israelites failed to keep their faith, failed to keep the commandments. Korah came from a high family and he felt he could do a better job. In defiance, he and his family wore clothes that were dyed all blue and had no fringes on their garments. Korah, with his sons, came to challenge Moses’ authority. Moses fell on his face, but the ground opened underneath Korah and swallowed him up, followers and all.

In another version of that story, Korah had followers that survived. They became an elite but never rose to power in Israel. They bided their time, slowly gathering influence here and there until….Well, I’ve heard the committee refer to themselves as the Clan of Korah, and once I heard them called the Keepers of the Dark Covenant. They claim to be descendants. It’s a lineage that included Machiavelli. You are pitting yourself against a group of genetically disposed elitists and manipulators that have been gathering power and resources for 3500 years.”

Mentor closed his eyes and let his head droop to his chest.

Jag had no idea what to make of that. He walked around the deck, thinking. His vision was still a problem, but clearing little by little. When he returned, Mentor had signed the stock power and put it on the table under Jag’s pen. The wheelchair was tipped over and empty. Jag picked up the stock power.

On the blank back of the paper he squinted at a message in a neat, formal script, “To my only son, may you succeed.”