Last night the Radicals sent me an ultimatum. They were quite distraught after learning that their emails all landed in my spam folder. I didn’t do anything because I didn’t know what to do.
And so my name showed up on their website punctually at midnight. Seconds later I received General Hsu’s call, telling me that my safety was “compromised”.
“To hell with it,” I said. “What can I do?”
“You know they update their death list every 12 hours.” Hsu replied.
I pretended that I didn’t know. “What?”
“They don’t allow anyone to stay on their list for more than two rounds. We’ve only had one guy who survived more than a day.”
“Who?”
“Harrison. You don’t know him, he’s one of the former Foxtrot members in the antebellum years. You are in danger and you know it.”
Hsu reassured me that the military would protect me at all costs, which finally convinced me that I would be a dead man in twelve hours.
I made some important calls to some important people, and then I called the Radicals’ headquarters in Beijing. I was delighted to hear the receptionist’s half sleepy, half pissed-off voice, their fury at having their sweet dreams interrupted. I hung up at their first enunciated syllable.
I was about to go to sleep when I heard a knock on the door. Androids from Hsu’s own forces had come to safeguard my house. This made me a bit nervous. Should I just wait for death, I thought, or was I actually supposed to do something?
Around two, Foxtrot called and sent their apologies. Years ago I nearly joined Foxtrot myself, had I not been deployed to Moscow to oversee NA operations in the 2035 China-Russian War. I was the pawn they sacrificed to protect the queen. I told them to stop pretending as if they cared. Sometimes I tried to imagine an alternate reality where it was George instead of me who went to Moscow on that cold autumn morning. Everything could have been different, at least for me.
At two-fifteen the car came. Time to make a real choice—should I stay or leave? Not that it really mattered, but I gave it a try.
We arrived at the airport at 0240. With my location now presumably uncovered, the first wave of killers was probably already on the way. I rolled two dice to determine which cities to go to. Beijing to Paris took 3 hours, Paris to Tel Aviv—a little more than an hour.
It was dawn when I landed.
We were followed by two of them on my way to the embassy. I didn’t need to see their blue motorcycles to recognize who they were. The Radicals—tentacles of a budding superpower, preparing to overthrow its former hosts and sweep the Old World into the garbage bin. I sent warnings to Hsu’s armies, the Foxtrot squad, Beijing, Moscow, Washington, but I knew that would be no use.
I was pulled over by the motorcycle men who attempted to arrest us. I shot them in the head, and their ghastly wounds sprayed blue, syrupy cerebrospinal fluid onto my suit. We drove on.
At seven twenty-five, we could already see drones approaching in the distant sky. I got out of the car and called George, wanting to say goodbye. His secretary informed me of his death only two hours ago. I was not brave enough to call up Hsu.
So it had begun. I knew this was the same way Harrison died. I looked up at the sky as a missile was launched from one of the drones. It approached us swiftly, bringing down a quick draft of blazing wind like the breath of the Grim Reaper.
4/14/22