About 300 years after the worldwide catastrophe that plagued out planet, Byorn, an ex councillor of Ashvalttown, could be commonly found pondering about the suitcase nuke that detonated out of an illegal Chinese gambling house in New York City, and how the world could have been completely annihilated had countries took the time to stockpile more nukes in secret. What transpired afterwards, the event known as “black sky”, annihilated thousands of years of human civilization and development into rubble, and split entire continents apart.
It’s population reduced to only a few million, the continental US became known as “The Tomblands”, as it’s landscape was scarred by dead bodies being reclaimed by the Earth, together with nuclear fallout, radiation and mutated creatures and plants. In the more “civilized” parts of the Tomblands, a sort of feudal system in which dukes were the primary rulers, while some of the further away villages retained a Draconian style of living.
But what really made the Tomblands what it was in terms of it’s flair and style was the existence of three things: the Watchtowers, enormous obelisk skyscrapers which dotted the landscape, complete with machine gun and sniper nests, as well as artillery positions, mortar pits and heat seeking missile pods, lasers and rapid fire energy weapons, the Forts, which were enormous castle like monstrosities with a 21st century twist, wall between wall fortifying it, dwarfing the Watchtowers in size, and often known for their enormous stockpiles of prewar weapons, food, medicine and other supplies, as well as self generating electricity and groundwater pumps, and the Translocators, stargate-esque gateways that could warp spacetime and instantly teleport people and objects to other Translocators throughout the landscape. What’s interesting is these Watchtowers were the only ones of the three structures that contained mysterious hieroglyphs that when decoded in a computer at the Forts, would unlock information and schematics that led many to believe it was a gift from some alien civilization to the prewar government that ruled those lands, but had long since been either forgotten, or covered up.
When dukes managed to capture Watchtowers and use their hieroglyphs to unlock technology and weapon stockpiles after capturing the Forts that were surrounded by several of these Watchtowers, they managed to arm themselves and retain the power of the cities they had ruled. Their power, which seemed to be assisted by some mysterious Godlike figure that the people never saw, not even the dukes’ closest officials, went far past the reinforced dome that enveloped their cities, stretching into what would later be the Wildlands. Here is where the bulk of civilization and human beings lived, the lower classes, having to deal with mutants, rad storms, chemical blizzards, and a special class of governors called Councillors.
In the cities, a sort of military dictatorship style of governance had overtaken, in order to keep the population in line so harshly that it would mold them into something sufficient enough to create a new type of human being that was strong and smart enough to pave the way for a bright future, while simultaneously punishing them and reminding them of the sins they committed that led to this current treacherous state of affairs. Publicly, this was the defacto political strategy used by the dukes to solidify their right to fuhrer-ship.
Byorn, together with his friend and colleague councilor Bradley Schmitt, fanatically worked to uphold the rule of law under the dukes until one expeditionary experience into the Tomblands changed everything for them. Finding a missing piece of technology maniacally coveted by the dukes, an inquiry to the prefector in charge of the hall of the annals, a finding and hint of empirical evidence leading to the possibility of a secret alien government being puppet masters to the dukes, are among the things that triggered this change. As a result of this, the prefector Benadrilia Cucumberscratch was sentenced to execution by drowning in acetic acid and sodium chloride, while Brad was briefly fired. Byorn was given a juicy offer – he would be forgiven for his treachery as long as he took an oath swearing unwavering and unquestioning loyalty to Duke Ashvalt, his mysterious overlords and betrayed his friends.
For Byorn, the dilemma was simple to understand: If he took this deal, it would mean being left without friends and risk being flagged for abandoning his loyalty to them in order to serve someone else, and to carry out their every whim. What kind of a life would this be?
Byorn had been raised and molded with the simple mission in mind of serving his city. Benadrilia’s only connection to her kin was having her father’s thick eyebrows, red eyes and masculine, wrestler body.
Bradley didn’t know his family, but it was obvious he came from a sort of black and Aryan mix – blonde hair, blue eyes, yet, dark skin – a tribe said to live close to where Chicago was – a bit west of the Midwest – where German American farmers formed a pact with urban African American dwellers in a racially tense alliance some years after the last bombs fell. Yet Housia, a pale skinned, purple eyed member of the similarly blessed in beauty Aussiders, a bastardization of the old German word for outsider – Ausenseiters – albeit with an American twist to the second half – coined by the Midwest German Americans who first ran into them – was forced to be a sex slave in Ashvaltville. She was aware of her origins and often served to inspire and remind the other exiles of their human origins and right to belonging on this planet.
In this system of governance, there was strict control over unauthorized interpersonal communication and the concepts of friendship, family and community were constantly denied and wrongfully taught to the denizens of these cities. What made humans recognizably human was systematically being suppressed and the right to their humanity – taken away. Without this humanity, humans withered. They had no motivation to continue. All the things evolution had made necessary in us to strive to continue to develop and evolve, to better ourselves and others, and our society, was systematically denied.
It was this pivotal point that made Byorn reconsider his line of work, his sense of belonging and the future of all humanity. For Byorn this was unacceptable, so he had to run, go far away from where he was, in order to start anew, with fresh ideas. After their eventual and successful escape from the city, they found refuge in the forgotten Medusa Watchtower, that was run by Rupesh, a scientist and researcher, Ashvaltville’s main prefector, and secretly leading a resistance cell against the dukes.
The fact that all they had done up until now is no longer relevant to their future, and it was all for nothing, the only way they could keep going forward was to help the exiles band together and establish some sort of meaning of life that was neither there for the exiles nor the city dwellers the way things were. They were also motivated to create a free and prosperous society, but also to resist and fight back against the tyrants who weren’t doing a very good job of rebuilding society and governing things. It would also be nice to not be hunted down.
EXORDIUM
The Urumqi Pyramids, Northwest China
Ronald, the Supreme Gruppenfuhrer, turned to face the helmeted guard who was ordered to stand guard on the terrace.
The guard in armor resembling a futuristic medieval knight stepped forward, cocking his Sturmgewehr 57 rifle. His boots, coveralls and helmet were all a sort of patterns of maroon camo, with glimpses of cyan periodically penetrating through the mind numbing color scheme. A huge, vanta black club was hanging from his belt.
Where the soldier looked ready to get rugged and dirty but was also presentable in his attire, the gruppenfuhrer was dressed in an embroidered, silk orange suit that gave off both an energetic as well as tranquil vibe. The suit glistened from the light reflected off of it, being projected by the cloud over that surrounded the tower some 50 meters under the terrace, in a tower called the Erection of Gaia, making the gruppenfuhrer look like a mirage in the distance.
Ronald was surprisingly slim, his skeleton-like facial features, slicked back blonde hair and eye shadows in his depressed eye sockets, a grim representation of a Nazi occult poster boy. Even more disturbing was his lack of facial hair, especially eyebrows. His eyes were a blue-grey color, morbidly piercing, like an ancient terror from the time of Vikings had awoken. His face was an ideal representation of death if it were alive and had human form, it was cold, rigid, yet tempting, and hiding secrets that everyone would ought to know but be terrified to find out, a face that seemed it would accept sacrifice but guarantee no wisdom in return, or all the wisdom in the world. His nose was thin, sharp and long, almost gentle compared to the rest of the face, and his mouth, small, thin, expressionless, soulless.
A crusher adorned with a jeweled swastika resting on top of a diamond encrusted SS logo, adorned the top of his grotesque, scaly head. The barely noticeable slant of his eyes and the well hidden yellow hue of his pale skin that could only be noticed under the right lighting, hinted at some Asian genetics obscured by the dominant Aryan features. His fingers were unusually long and unnerving, insect like, yet completely human in form and substance. His back was arched, he was tall but one could notice a sort of spine-like series of bones inching through the suit on his back. Despite this ailing, ancient image, Ronald Macdonalschmidt could be no older than 24 years old, a youthful, vibrant energy, almost careless, permeating through the used husk that covered his exterior.
Byorn was acting like the order Ronald barked at the guard did not unnerve him, nor the guard’s naturally disturbing presence, as if he was emanating dark matter, the screams of millions, into his aura. His face was cold, his facial features frozen, his hand – steady. Despite the orb of energy creating electrical currents in the air that create micro waves in both his ponytailed hair as well as his blonde, rough beard, the scar down his eye was unmoving as the rest of this man’s face. Even his skin could be seen having goosebumps, on and off, as the discharges shifted energy and matter all around them, with a numbing and yet prickling feeling with every discharge from the orb.
Him, Sandra, Ronald and Arben Taravari stood on top of the circular terrace which had a spectacular golden fence surrounding it, the floor of creamy beige marble, glistening as it had been freshly waxed and polished, spotless, and encircling the spherical dome that encircled tip of the Erection of Gaia, a vast chamber that spanned for several kilometers in every direction, which had a grandoise, divine and otherworldly feeling. On the terrace you could find random electronic monuments sticking out of the ground, filled with lights, buttons, screens, tubes, wires, many computer like designs, each with it’s own obviously separate function, distinct from the rest, in shapes and sizes, but all tall, all standing erect like the massive spire they were on. Further down into the chamber, at the center there was enormous pit or a pool, filled with a dark, thick bile. Once a person approached closer to it, it resembled more of a spherical object than a pit or a two dimensional surface, and it shined darkly like a sort of obsidian flask. A tornado like vortex of a white vapor, like a fine sugar, was effortlessly spiraling out of the center of the pit.
The big black ball did not give the impression of something you can hold in your hand – it was a sort of endless void, like looking into a really, really deep hole, nor did it have any particular shade, it wasn’t a solid nor a liquid nor a gas, yet it existed. As much as it was nothingness, one could see shimmers of light emanating from within it, their nature so surreal to the human eye you could swear it was an optical illusion, an “it isn’t what it seems”.
This clunk of nothingness was painful to the eye, the light it sucked in felt as if your eyeball would pop out from the strain of blackness, the colorless abyss was difficult for the human mind to comprehend. According to Ronald, it existed yet simultaneously felt like it didn’t, it was nothing and everything.
This pool was at the bottom of the Urumqi Pyramid, a colossal 15 kilometer tall structure that spanned an area of 2,500 squared kilometers, 50 in every direction. It was built close to the site of the ancient Chinese city of Urumqi that was decimated by a nuclear explosion. It was the largest manmade structure on Earth, the restored seat of the Uyghur Khanate, which at a population of 200 million attempted to claim independence from China, taking over Central Asia in the process, forcing China to nuke it’s capital Urumqi to quell the rebellions, killing over 90 percent of the Uyghur population and sending millions of what was left of the Uyghurs into exile. In a surreal twist of events, this later was to be colonized by the Fourth Reich of Germany.
Some years prior to this meeting, Ronald had described the existence of this big black ball as the focal point of cosmic energy, a device, a getaway and an energy conductor, harnessing the veins of electromagnetic energy that perfect in their geometric symmetry were discovered to exist along the surface of Earth, or which was now known as Gaia. The phallic symbolism and wording of it all, the pyramid itself being called the Bosom of Gaia, locally known as the Pyramid of Urumqi, at it’s tip had a spire extend upwards, called the Erection of Gaia, was due to the mystical and powerful nature of sexual energy, a chaotic form of energy previously disputed and debunked many times throughout human history as being psuedoscience. Through this device, Ronald was able to harness the power of gravity, and the space-time continuum in such a way that gave him seemingly godlike powers. The universe as we know it was no longer there, rather, a fundamental shift in thinking and understanding had occurred as a result of the knowledge accumulated with the activation of this device. This black ball served to be a sort of observational hub, a giant crystal ball, that offered unparalleled real-time footage of the universe.
Only a few minutes prior, Byorn had been made aware of the gut churning realization of the power harnessed by a tyrannical human embodiment of a praying mantis. Ronald claimed he could input data into the device and either insert or remove elements from anywhere in the universe as he wished, but also in any period of time in the universe’s history. Ronald called Arisierungsplan, or Aryanization Plan, his ultimate plan for the fate of the entire universe, wanting to control reality once and for all, and instill an Aryan race dominance over all that was and ever will be.
Voluptous Sandra showed absolutely no signs of fear from the proclamation made by Ronald. She simply turned and shook her head up and down towards Ronald and asked “You made no mention of the pestilence, which is what we inquired about.”
Ronald said, letting out a breath of frustration “We are not in the business of planning a genocide over here, and this is not meant to be that tragic or horrible. I am simply drawing on historical literature as an inspiration for
this. When a widespread illness like a virus ravages humanity, the economy tends to be in shambles, poverty takes hold of society and the mutual trust that existed between people and governments tend to disintegrate.”
“You’re also forgetting that”, Byorn said pessimistically “People sent from the skies as gods and angels often show up, prophets and other types of religious charlatans who promise to cure everyone, save everyone.
This is particularly true if prophecies predicted before the pestilence had been fulfilled during it’s duration.”
Ronald gave a dishonest, creaking smile in response to this remark by Byorn “Precisely. In the Medieval era, over 100 years of human development had been entirely reversed thanks to the arrival of the Bubonic Plague.
When I release my virus into certain strategic time periods as well as locations that my researchers have meticulously surveyed and ran the simulations for, the nuclear holocaust will have been averted, due to what events and progress that transpired up until it would not have happened.”
He went on “I’m not saying it won’t be wasteful to what we’ve achieved so far since the holocaust, but it will mostly hit the poorer classes of people across the lands who are relatively useless in terms of their individual contributions
to society anyways.”
“Those parasites,” Byorn demagogued, “Better to clear the wound before it becomes infected.”
Ronald giggled eerily. “Even then, I’m considering you, Byorn, to be part of the Arisierungsplan, and especially as we move into the final solution. If you are on my side throughout all of this, the temporal-ripple backlash will not be as powerful, and there will be balance, no need to pick up the pieces. I am in the power to grant you anything you wish, just name your price.”
Byorn smiled ironically “Can you resurrect my Benadrilia?”
When this wiped Ronald’s smug smirk off his face, Byorn resumed “You cannot grant me that which I wish as it is not in your power to do so. And even if you were capable of doing this, all you would do is hold the torch to my feet in the fact that you might do this some day for me and use it to manipulate me into doing anything for you.”
Ronald proceeded by clicking the floppy disk like program cards between his salad fingers. “What did you need exactly?”
Byorn let out an excrement of uncertainty. “There are some inquires I’ve investigated for years that I keep coming to but somehow the answer for these questions is always fleeting. I’m curious as to why you bankrolled the Xhorda movement… why was it so important to do that thing with the Caterpillar Secunda alter ego and Chan-brie sex scandal was all about.”
Ronald opened his mouth as if he was going to reply, but Byorn stopped him by putting his hand in Ron’s face so he can talk to it. “So even though these things are of great interest to me, the destiny and well being of all of humanity rests in my hands. This is not something I wanted, although I realize it is my responsibility, and I will try to do everything I can to the best of my abilities.”
Byorn, when he was spry and youthful, would have the speed of a thunder’s flash together with the controlled explosion of something resembling superhuman reflexes. He quickly exploded forward, ejaculating himself into a barrel roll as he moved between Arben Taravari and Ronald to face the soldier on the balcony, whose expression had dropped now that he realized he was the one Byorn was here to liquidate.
He attempted to draw his assault rifle and before he could point it at Byorn, like a lizard, Byorn rose from the ground in front of the soldier, he judo chopped the soldier with his right hand, striking him in the neck, and the sound of crackling bones followed by split second scream as he collapsed dead onto the floor in front of Byorn.
Byorn attempted to remove the soldier’s rifle by prying it from his cold, dead hands but they tightened up their grip around them as the soul left the soldier’s body. In his peripheral vision he sensed some movement behind him being undertaken. Arben Taravari launched a jumping, snapping kick at his back, but Byorn was able to turn slightly to the side, partially absorbing the impact with his ribs.
Byorn jerked with pain, but if Arben’s kick landed where it was intended, the blow would’ve severed his spine. He wore these heavy fur boots kept together with thick leather laces, and Byorn was very aware that these boots were hard enough to be able to deliver a fatal blow to him. Arben was a master of hand to hand combat, extremely proficient in his art and regarded as one of the most capable on the planet.
Arben Taravari had a scary looking face, resembling a stone age era creature that survived and metamorphed into a humanoid, like a sort of civilized chupacabra. His skin was orange and brown, his eyes were demonic and piercing, and his fury made these features even more apparent.