Chapter 26
The Delusional Genius
Alvin was looking at the news about the second attack of the ship in the southern sea. Veron banned any vessels traveling in the area. At that time Tasha was walking across the kitchen to get milk.
“Tasha?” said Alvin, hearing a jingling sound from her pocket.
“Yes Alvin?” said Tasha.
“How are things going with merchants?” asked Alvin.
“Oh, the business came to dull, people started to save more,” answered Tasha.
“Good, good, I bet you know how the wealth flows now?” said Alvin.
“I’m closely looking at the copper price,” Tasha murmured sheepishly.
“And the reason is?” asked Alvin.
“They say copper is what Veron doesn’t regulate much like gold and silver. There are many merchants that were watching the price carefully,” replied Tasha.
“What have I told you about the price of the copper?”
“The value of what you get at the time when you sell.”
“So did you buy or sell?”
“No, I just listened to people and help them buy and sell,” said Tasha. Alvin smiled at her proudly.
“Good job,” said Alvin. Tasha smiled, her ear got red as she listened to the compliment. Alvin was actually the first person to encourage to her. Sometimes Diana did, but she’s too frustrated at the fact that Tasha doesn’t act like a lady.
“I’ll give you a tip Tasha, so mark it well,” said Alvin, sipping hot chocolate, taking out the coin from his pocket. Tasha observed the coin.
“Money is a combination of time, trust and a sheet of paper. It is nothing more, nothing less. Well, for me, I don’t trust people and I bet you don’t either, and I certainly don’t trust time. Because when I flip this coin,” Alvin flipped the coin into the air and caught it with his left hand, and showed Tasha his fist. “Then I do not know whether it is head or the tail,” Alvin grinned.
“Who said that?” giggled Tasha.
“Nina,” said Alvin. Tasha eyes beamed at this because Alvin always refused to talk about Nina Polchinski whenever she asked about her. Alvin watched at the ceiling for a moment, being nostalgic.
“Why did you leave her, Alvin?” asked Tasha. Alvin looked at her for a moment and ignored the question.
“Well, the lesson is that, don’t trust money, but seek to make our lives better. If you do that, then you will start to dream. And that is what capitalism is all about,” said Alvin.
“Capitalism is democracy,” said Tasha.
“Nice way to put it, probably offensive to most people,” Alvin chuckled.
“One of the merchant told me,” Tasha smiled and drank the milk. And stood up and went up to the shelves. “Do you know where the Diana hides all the cookies?”
“Oh yes, on your left, a more, yes there, open it,” said Alvin, and Tasha opened the drawer and took out the peanut butter cookies.
“I’ll wake up Diana, now,” Tasha waved and went out.
Alvin glimpsed at the news again and turned it off. He stared at the window, thinking about how Nina is going to play this.
Alvin was convinced that Veron was mere puppet to Nina. Even with all the years spent with her, he couldn’t grasp the depth of her thinking. In Cassandra, she was sometimes referred to as a delusional genius. When Nina became the admiral and called Alvin to become the Captain of the Paratroopers Division.
“I’m just a pawn; can you stand in the edge and become my king?” she said at the time.
After Alvin got promoted as the Captain of the paratroopers, he had many meetings with Nina about the operations. One day Alvin asked her about the theoretical basis of her strategies. He didn’t expect her to reveal anything, but Nina smiled and just told him about her theory concerning Veron. At this, Alvin was actually worried about poor Veron about the fact that he had to fight against Nina.
“Ok, before we get into this, Caravel, I’m going to make an assumption that there are only two type of memory, depictive and descriptive one. Although the reality is quite different, this is, I think, the best way to understand it,” said Nina to Alvin at the time,
“If the depictive, photographical memory is stored in the brain with unknown categorization, and only emotion can describe what it is, it will stay there until there are some logical and systematical ways to understand the pattern of what that actually is. Subconsciously, the brain will automatically focus on solving the thread. So, mere logical thinking is abandoned if the perception of senses has no meaning for the individual. Another assumption to make here is that the emotion is the memorization of event to avoid misconception in the future, whenever the subject does not have a control over the phenomenon. It is the most complex way to store the data that is currently unsolvable and unexplainable to the subject. In other words, it sits in the subconscious level until the brain is trying to figure out how to solve the particular problem,” said Nina, explaining it with a clear, wringing tone. She continued,
“Again, Alvin, this is just my own understanding of the learning process, the reality is quite different. Well… ok, in this context, when you think about the nation under tyranny, the central government serves as a brain and it tries to control over people. Mostly in our case, it is done by a strict orders and restrictions to functionalize the whole country by dividing them to sectors. Inevitably, what happens in this situation is that they will desperately want to maintain control; else, it will break apart.
“Veron can make me an ally or seek to destroy me. Veron will try to control me and at the same time will show an erratic behavior not to be controlled by me. Basically, his mind is set to break and to destroy me while manage to facilitate their internal functions, which will inevitably leave him paranoid. But if you do this type of systematic thinking concerning the maintenance of his empire, you form a neurological barrier and store the emotions right behind it,” said Nina, grabbing the glass of orange juice and gulping it down.
“What kind of emotions, Nina?” asked Alvin.
“I already told you, the obsession with maintenance. So, it means I can just remind him a slight indication of error and the weak spot. Then, they will have to reveal their valuable information to me because they are the part of the schematic process and can be triggered. Theoretically, they will reveal all the information I need to know to find their breaking point, so that, I can just play him like a puppet,” said Nina. She stood up slowly and went to the nearby desk and grabbed her cookie monster jar. She brought it with her and sat down in front of Alvin and started munching them.
“Does Veron know this?” asked Alvin.
“Well, partly, but he doesn’t understand very well. But his consultant, Slade Titto, knows this, and now as a countermeasure, he tries to teach soldiers to be brave upon death. Their goal is the complete control over their puppets. The disturbing fact is that Titto knows it is possible for the person to trade once life with death if certain condition is met,” said Nina, bitterly.
“What is that condition?” said Alvin.
“Simple, depriving a basic needs and rights of the human being and use it against the people. They are brainwashing people to have no water, no food, or no family, if you do not follow orders. So, while Veron orders his dogs to abuse people, he later comes to them like some sick distorted sense of mercy and constantly brainwashing them to think there is a way out only if they submit under him. It is the pure evil, that moron is trying to make himself a descendent of gods,” Nina stopped for a moment at that time, eating cookies with juice.
“Interesting,” said Alvin, having goose bumps on his skin.
“Yes, and sick,” said Nina.
“Well, there’s always an idiot who thinks he is a descendent of gods. I usually fed them my bullets,” Alvin chuckled.
“It is just a theory, Caravel, it’s completely bogus otherwise,” Nina giggled. “But, if we assume this is true, they are just like brainwashed zombies walking around. Then, they will do an
ything to kill not only us but all people who resist. They easily kill and rape women and children to maintain their power. They need a constant respect to reassure them they are ok and overreact when underlings do not show respect,” said Nina, bitterly.
“Indeed… all they think about is how to impose pain on subordinate, and getting pleasure by tormenting them and feeling superior to them,” Alvin muttered.
“Exactly Caravel, their house is phony and their work is no more than shit. I cannot stand their sense of sick superiority,” said Nina.
“…” Alvin stayed silenced.
“They are there to keep everything under control, and they have become exceedingly good at it. They live their life for their subordination and their sacrificial act to Veron. And exactly for this reason they have an ill sense of obsession toward neatness and orderliness. Their goal is to find a flaw in their subordinate and discipline who is responsible, all to make them feel powerful over weaklings. They surveillance one another, torturing political criminals and execute them. They check the protocol on an orderly basis, memorizing the hierarchical structure of the organization. Getting approval from the superior officers, commanding the underlings, and presenting the result again to the superior officers are the goal of their life. And the commanders, they are just ensuring the public that they care about the people and sacrificing for what is right for the country, and all that political bullshit. They will set up a scheme and lie with puppeteer, planning what bargain and business they might do to survive. They are at the top of the chain, and most likely to be engaged in a weaponry contracts, drugs, human trafficking, money laundering, counterfeiting, espionage and many others,” said Nina.
“Bitter truth,” said Alvin. Nina nodded once and continued.
“What we are doing here right now is to take out three groups of puppets. There are certain puppets who engage in creating advanced algorithms and various code and protocols; there are also spies who collect information from a highly secured area; and there are those who carry a classified data stored in their very brain. Breaking these puppets will inevitably end the regime. But puppets follow orders, and the way to make puppet useless is to influence on those who give the order, on what to develop, to create an inferior system. In other words, slight manipulation of depictive knowledge will trigger the wrong neuron pathway, and to the inferior system. The most obvious linking comes from the prolonging, stability, greater bargain or power to threat. The wrong linking of the object means decision making process become lousy. Wrong type of system will create the gap, which sometimes becomes big enough to sneak the rats inside. If you read the pattern of schematic, by closely looking at the objective and its function, the whole system can be hacked. And if the whole system is hacked, the regime will be under my control.”
Nina gulped the rest of her juice, Alvin felt his spine went cold, seeing a Nina sitting in front of him, hardly believing those words just came out from this little girl.
“Nina,” muttered Alvin, gazing at Nina.
“Yes, Alvin?” said Nina, munching cookies again. Alvin suddenly kneeled with one knee, as if he is doing homage.
“It’s an honor,” said Alvin. Nina startled, blushing, didn’t know what to do.
“Oh… Oh, shut it Caravel, I’m just a little girl,” snorted Nina, laughing nervously, stood up and grabbed her cookie monster jar.
“I’ll see you around.” Nina smiled.
Alvin breathed in deeply at that time, he liked Nina and loved working there, although now he lives with Diana and children and hoped that with some miracle it would stay that way. But in case of war, he will never let that little girl fight Veron by herself.
The sun rose, he heard the woods creaking from above. Diana came down from the stairs. She smiled at Alvin with a messy hair, seeing that he was already having a freshly brewed coffee. She poured herself a coffee too, enjoying the scent for a while.
“Pancakes?” said Diana with drowsy eyes, laughing softly.
“I’ll make it dear,” said Alvin, putting the newspaper on side.
“Oh, I’ll get some apple then, I’m going to bake an apple pie!” said Diana, cheerfully.
Diana went to the backyard to the apple tree near the pond. It rained in the early morning; the whole pond was blue and clearer than ever. She felt good, standing nearby an old wooden box which Alvin threw out yesterday. Ducks were flying. She breathed in the clean air, and approached an apple tree.
It has been a week since that horrifying event. Tasha seemed to be extra happy today for no reason. Jake emerged from behind and sat down, starting to put pancakes into his mouth. Alvin was writing a play for a school.
“Aren’t you going to play fairy at school, Alvin?” asked Jake.
“Jake, I’ve already told you. If you call me fairy one more time, I’ll poke your eyes out,” grunted Alvin, eating the pancakes dressed with honey. Tasha came down too, drooling, and sat down on the chair.
“What are you writing Alvin?” said Tasha.
“It is about some fairy. And it is afraid of height so she cannot fly,” answered Alvin.
“A fairy?” asked Tasha, awkwardly, grinning.
“Yes, a fairy, not fairy, it’s a fairy,” sighed Alvin.
“Well, don’t blame us, in orphanage we were first heard of the tale of fairies rather than fairy tales,” giggled Tasha, eating pancakes.
After breakfast, Tasha urged Jake to go explore to the new tunnel he have found last week, which Alvin indicated during the conversation they had. There were no chores for today, they ran toward the city.
“Come on! Come on Jake! You are not going to miss anything, come on!” said Tasha.
“Wait for me!” said Jake, catching his breath. “You are running like a wild boar.”
“Shut up, the hot chick like me? One day my prince will come and we can ride horses into the field, and dance like couple madly in love!” shouted Tasha.
“Whatever,” he grumbled. “So, what is this tunnel leads to?”
“Oh,” Tasha smiled, and pointed at the cliff where Veron’s institution was.
“You are kidding,” said Jake. “You want to go there?”
“Yeah! Why not? You are the one who wanted to go,” said Tasha.
“Yeah, but I want my leg attached to my body, how are we going to get through the mine field?” asked Jake.
“I said I’ve found a tunnel, what have you been listening?” said Tasha, running, and Jake followed her.
“Look look, if they catch us, then they will kill us!” said Jake, painting.
“We won’t be caught then! Those rich kids, they are like little creatures that can’t climb and run through the buildings like we do! They are weak Jake!” shouted Tasha.
“I thought you didn’t want to explore there!” yelled Jake.
“I changed my mind, I want to find out what are they doing up there!” said Tasha.
“Uhh, I don’t know,” said Jake, concerned.
“Now come on, it is like an adventure, write a play like Alvin does,” smiled Tasha.
“What?”
“Come on, we are playing, me and I are pirates! What shall we do?”
“Uhh, catch them and throw them into our ship?” said Jake, awkwardly.
“That’s lame, Jake!”
“Ok then, we shall eat their flesh like bunch of zombies on the green field!”
“Well, let’s go with that first one; we are getting the crew for our Viking ship, we tied the woman tied to the mast!”
“Ok then, what shall we seek? Where the treasure lies? Is it on the end of the earth or the deepest sea? Where is this place that doesn’t appear on our naked eye?” exclaimed Tasha, jumping around.
“Aye Aye captain, friend we searched days and days on this earth but there’s only shit turtles and smelly fishes in our sight. We shall look for the treasure that hides in a black chest. It lies on this deep blue sea.”
“Now, row your boat you bunch of maggots.”
“Let other
do the work, I shall held a post!” bellowed Jake.
“No no, Mr. Mammoth, all crews are dead, they drank too much sea water. They puked and puked to be dropped on the floor.”
“Because we are betrayed by those barbarians in the northern gates, they threw a rock salt into our drinking water!”
“Horrible, horrible, what shall we do? What shall we do? Aye aye Captain, my arm is ready, but my head is dull, my feet are swollen and my leg is shaking. Now row and row, and let the wind blow us away!”
“Sail away Mr. Mammoth, sail away. For what is life, other than lying on under this horribly cruel, scorching sun but yet so beautiful before it is gone?”
“That was good.” muttered Jake.
“Yeah? Do you think so?” said Tasha, excitingly.
The children giggled and entered the old abandoned tunnel.