CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
From the office of his Victorian home, General Koster stared through the rain at his well-manicured lawn. The faded wooden playset and sandbox always caused him to question his parenting—ask why he counted himself lucky to see his grandchildren twice per year. Behind the play area, a small patch of Indian laurels and a lone queen palm created a natural blockade, granted privacy. Rain dived at a forty-five degree angle, pelted the pane of glass hard, as if each drop was piloted by an enemy determined to reach him.
His hands were clasped behind his back, separating only to pour and slam shots of scotch from the bottle atop his desk.
With the world summit meeting underway, and the United States intent on dealing with Godless heathens, Koster waited for a miraculous outcome. Otherwise, he’d commit treason. It’d be done in the name of righteousness, to save humanity, ensure civility. That didn’t soothe the friction in his chest, which increased by the minute.
Tomorrow morning he would initiate an air-strike on Moscow, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Ho Chi Minh City.
His fabricated orders would be traced back to him. He’d be executed for high treason, or if lucky, die in prison.
A rap sounded on his office door, startling him. Linda knew not to disturb him when in here. When she poked her head in, his anger diminished. They had been a great unit for more than four decades, and guilt for what his actions would mean for her weighted him the most.
“This just came for you,” she displayed a white 8x11 Tyvek envelope. He often used them when mailing important documents, being that they were waterproof and near impossible to tear.
“You can just place it on the desk there.”
She did.
As she neared the door, he added, “I’ll be out in a little while. Maybe we can watch a movie tonight?”
“That’d be nice,” she closed the door.
She left the envelope face up, displaying the cursive handwriting on the front, another twist. He’d thought the use of ink pens to be a lost art. The curiosity as to who still penned letters intrigued him.
The package felt light, as if empty. No doubt it contained some parable about loyalty to country sent to him by a bitter, but cowardly, colleague.
Using his gold-plated letter opener, he slit the bottom and pulled out a single sheet of lined paper.
Scanning to the end, he identified the sender: Alex Cutler.
What in God’s name would that bastard want?
With his temperature spiking, he poured, then gulped a shot of scotch, read the letter:
General Koster,
You know who I am, but you may not be aware I know you, and the majority of your recent activities; I simply lacked the evidence and time to convince authorities of your plots. Also, I was preoccupied with my own agenda.
My recent tasks have absorbed over six billion dollars from the US treasury. I have completed my goal of saturating the globe with outposts in an attempt to introduce state-of-the-art software and implement new training; both involving pirated access points and their macro servers.
I write this letter to notify you that your hopes of destroying the Lobby have no chance of success.
For the past three weeks, I have not trained a single person on how to detect pirated access points and macro servers. In actuality, I have trained thousands of the Lobby faithful on how to construct more efficient pirated access points and macro servers. These individuals are in turn sharing these techniques with the people they trust, creating an irreversible proliferation of free access to the Lobby.
I realize this is unwelcome news for you. My purpose is to give you the proper information so you can make the best decision as to your next move. I no longer have a personal interest in your game, but there is a new fact, one you must accept: the Lobby is here to stay. It cannot be eradicated. So any criminal acts you commit now will be motivated by your own spite, with zero justification beyond cruelty and terrorism.
Again, I am sorry things happened as they did. My advice: accept the changes, find a way to adapt.
Whether the Lobby is a gift from some deity, or a machine created by the intellect of man, will be for each of us to decide.
I have made my choice.
The world has changed. The question is, are you mature enough to deal with it?
Sincerely,
Alex Cutler
General Koster stared at the page for what could have been a minute, maybe ten. His surroundings didn’t exist. He lacked thought. With a ferocity that had been building for days, he snatched the bottle of scotch by its neck, turned, and pitched it through his office window.
The crash of shattering glass and the ensuing tattering of shards on the wooden floor echoed as if in slow motion. The liquid pilots commenced their assault, wetting his front and the office around him.
Immobilized, he labored heavy breaths.
The door to his office flew inward. “What’s going on?” Linda asked.
Just the end of the world, dear, General Koster thought. Just the end of the world.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Rebecca Trevino had always known Alex Cutler would contact her. She layered Inside Today with verbiage directed at him. She never revealed her subliminal techniques to anyone, mainly because she didn’t fully comprehend the method. She had always acted on instinct. She would research a target, tailor programs to align with that target’s past, knowing her target would feel its veracity on a personal level, develop an interest in her.
Since the onset of the Death Trips, no journalist had been granted an interview with Alex Cutler. All had tried. In her many fantasies, she never concocted any as grand as the powder-keg story he shared.
The newsroom around her swarmed. In moments, she would interrupt her network’s coverage, which continued to speculate on the results of the biggest summit in world history. Intoxicating programming, but her bombshell would eradicate speculation with facts. Perhaps cause a few weak hearts to fail.
Along with a letter Alex asked her to read on air, he included three inches of documentation. Alex Cutler might be dead to the world, but Rebecca appreciated his efforts to shape its future.
Her people were fact-checking the array of claims: proliferation of improved pirated access points, the assassination of Adisah Boomul, government involvement, backdoor conspiracies. All of which led to a mountain of stories that she would be covering for the next two years, and discussing her entire life.
The majority of the lights around her dimmed, leaving her illuminated
She saw the open hand, fingers counted down, five, four, three…
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am Rebecca Trevino bringing you a exclusive report. The international summit taking place is not set to end for another six hours, but I have obtained the first bit of credible information as to its outcome. First allow me to read you a letter from a man you all know, Alex Cutler, partner of the Broumgard Group, pioneer in the Lobby’s design, a citizen for the modern era.”
She allowed two seconds to pass and then continued.
“Hello, world. My name is Alex Cutler. For those who have heard of me, you may see me as a rich man or the face of a product or company. The truth is, I am a person, like any other. I try to live good, be decent, and make sense out of the life I was given.
“For me, making sense out of existence has been a difficult task. I’ve lived haunted by the premature death of my brother, dealt with anxiety, worried life had no meaning.
“I am oppressed by my own mortality, and have spent my life avoiding inactivity in hope of thwarting reminders of its eventuality.
“I’ve come to believe that madness is the illusion of danger pushed on us by those who govern. Overwhelming fear has us living on a razor’s edge. We spend each day so worried, we lack the separation needed to understand our own motivations or desires. We wake and fill our hours with anything to distract us from the existence we hold dear.
“It is mainly for these reasons I ingested a time-released cyanide capsule before entering the Lobby today, and have added my name to the multitudes who have chosen a proven eternity, over a hopeful one.
“Hypocrisy, apathy, ignorance. Humans seem imbedded with a near disdain for other living creatures, for different ways of life, for granting forgiveness.
“My exiting on my own terms is not an endorsement of any philosophy. I have made my choice. You must make yours. A great man once told me, ‘We all walk our own path, and each one of them leads to a brighter future.’ I believe that is true.
“Someday, technology may allow me to step back into your world, but for now, I’m going to wish you well, and enjoy my Virtual Heaven.”