Shanakee's Tale Page 2

  John opened the door and motioned the boys inside, a finger at his lips.

  “I’m okay.” he whispered.

  “See, I told you.” Sena rubbed his eyes. “I’ll go back to …”

  But Arthur snatched his arm and pulled him in so that the poor boy, still half asleep, nearly stumbled over his own feet.

  “What was it then? Another one of your nightmares?”

  Sena made an annoyed breath, accepting the fact that tonight, he would not find any rest.

  “Not a nightmare,” John replied, lighting the fire so that he could finally get a little warmer. But the flames would take time. “A memory.”

  “A future memory?” Arthur’s eyes lit up with excitement. “What did you see?”

  John hesitated. Normally, he gladly told the boys about those memories, but this one was different. It was intimate, private. And somehow, it scared him. He shivered, either from the cold or from the images that popped up in his mind again.

  “Fire.” John said in a distant voice.

  “Fire?” Sena repeated, lost in thought, “Where?”

  Here, John thought instantly. But he was too scared to say it out loud.

  “What else?” Arthur pushed. He was always excited about those things, especially as many of the future memories had proven to be right. But they have always been smaller things, nothing like this. As soon as John wandered back into this memory, his heart began to beat like a drum.

  “A girl.” he murmured involuntarily.

  “What girl? Was she pretty?” Arthur’s voice grew excited, but it was far away somehow. John was transported into this memory yet again, and the girl’s eyes hypnotized him. It was stronger than reality itself. Tears gathered in his eyes. Sena stood up, his voice alarmed.

  “Leave him alone!” he said to Arthur. Then to John, “Hey. Let’s get out of here, get your mind off this nightmare.”

  Only that it’s not a nightmare, John thought, and nodded slowly.

  “Good idea!” Arthur was already up. “Let’s do something crazy tonight!”

  Sena made another annoyed breath.

  “Oh no … not another one of your crazy …”

  Arthur ignored him.

  “Let’s go swimming in the lake!”

  “Are you mad? It’s ice-cold and who knows what’s down there in this pitch …”

  “You want to distract him or not?”

  “But there are other ways to …”

  “That’s just perfect!”

  “Would you stop interrupting …”

  “C’mon John, let’s go, we’ll make it a dare! Whoever goes in last is a coward.”

  Arthur shot a daring look to Sena, and took John by the arm, pulling him outside without waiting for an answer.

  “I need to get my shoes,” John protested.

  “You won’t need them for swimming!”

  Sena ran in front of them, blocking the door with his body.

  “Let him get his shoes, it’s still a long way to the lake,” he said with decisiveness, completely awake now. Arthur gave up.

  “Alright, but if you take too long, you might be the last one there.” His eyes laughed with excitement. The three of them put their heads together.

  “One,” Sena said unwillingly.

  “Two.” John was already thinking about where he had left his shoes.

  “Three.” Arthur instantly stormed out of the house, sprinting into the darkness. Sena rolled his eyes, waiting for John. As John slipped into his worn leather boots, Sena said: “Are we really doing this?”

  John winked at him. Excitement had seized him as well. “Yes, c’mon!”

  Both of them ran into the pitch black night. Only the half moon shone their way to the lake that was half a mile away.

  When they finally arrived at the water that was perfectly mirroring the night sky, the countless stars and the moon, all of them were out of breath. It was a good thing that they were hot by now, John thought, the water even seemed inviting. Arthur was already tearing his clothes off. He would really do this. Sena hesitated, but as John started to undress, he would not be the one to chicken out. The competition began. Arthur was the first to run into the ice cold water and scream like a madman while simultaneously laughing.

  “C’mon you snails! Faster!” His voice echoed in the valley. John was so ecstatic that when he and Sena both ran for the water, he welcomed the ice cold of it, even though it pierced him like needles. He screamed, all of them did. When the water finally covered their torso, John realized how cold it was. The three were still laughing through rattling teeth, splashing the water back and forth as a mighty voice echoed in the valley.

  “Arthuuuuuuur!”

  Arthur’s smile instantly faded, and he lowered his head.

  All of them quietly waded through the water to the shore. A tall, edgy man was standing there—Alasdair MacIan, Arthur’s father and the leader of the Outer Area Three clan. He had both his arms crossed while his expression was filled with anger. He was a huge man with flowing white hair, beard and mustache. His wrinkled face looked tired, but his blueish eyes pierced them with reproach.

  “What is all of this?” His voice was deep, husky and harsh.

  The three boys just stood there in silence, avoiding his eyes, covering their nakedness with their hands, suddenly ashamed.

  MacIan made a deep breath. “I hope you know that it’s the middle of the night! Your mother and I were worried to death.”

  “It was just a … ” Arthur began. Big mistake, John thought, but Arthur could never hold his tongue.

  “I don’t care!” MacIan interrupted, “Get dressed, all of you! We will discuss your punishment in the morning.”

  With this, Alasdair MacIan turned, and walked back to the village. As soon as he was swallowed by darkness, the boys threw each other stealthy glances and burst out into wild laughter.

  Then, suddenly, everything returned to John with such a force that it felt as if two strong hands were squeezing his throat. The fire, the cries. He was suffocating, desperately trying to inhale the air around him. But he couldn’t. He just collapsed to the cold earth, and fought the blackness that tried to envelop him in vain, thinking: Arthur will be in so much trouble.

  CONALL

  The wind blew around their ears while the island seated in fog spread in all directions. Bleak mountains stared at Conall, and the cold fresh air felt invigorating in his nose and on his skin. Only now he realized how much he had missed real life, how the theories of science had preoccupied him, snatched him with its claws into an abyss he was unable to recover from. He tried to fight it, but his thoughts returned to his cave, the books, and the question he had been unable to answer for nearly a decade now. Or maybe it was just his mind, yearning for the addictive sensation of ecstasis?

  It was a long march from Dunvegan Castle to the Skye Village, and the only moment they could cross the area unnoticed by the drone that roamed the island in a regular pattern. This island still fascinated him. It was grim, and the colors were always fading into the gray of the sky. But there was a mystery to this place that captivated his heart. He remembered how a group of students had fled here nearly fifteen years ago, he among them. They had been some of the first settlers on Skye, reclaiming a place that had been deserted for many years due to the waves of people streaming into the large cities. They were also the ones who brought piles and piles of books with them from the university library to protect them from being burned. Others followed the plea over the course of the next years, and Jed had named it solemnly “the island of forbidden knowledge.” It had been long ago, but Conall still felt the defeat of this escape deep in his bones. His life had been a triumph since his Cambridge years —the coding of World5 and its victory march throughout the world as the first algorithm that advanced future science and changed the course of history, up until it literally rescued the world. They had been able to prevent a global economical collapse and a devastating world war. Change the course of history, sha
pe the future. He had felt like a hero back then. Until everything changed.

  The wind carried a loud cry, and it tore Conall out of his musings. Had he only imagined it? He exchanged glances with Jed, who signaled that he had heard it as well. Only a second later, another cry resounded. Voices were shouting and murmuring in the distance. Both sprinted into the direction the sounds came from, and as they ran around the curve, Conall instantly recognized the blue trucks that stood at the edge of a crumbling street. The Global Peace Army. His heart made a leap. Why would they even come to this godforsaken place? Could they have discovered the village after all? They had taken so many precautions, but the government’s eyes were everywhere.

  Quietly, they moved closer and pressed themselves against a hill from where they could overlook the situation. A group of around fifteen soldiers had caught three of the people from the village—two women carrying some water and food from the fields, and a young boy. They always went in small groups, in case of discovery. Still, so close to a main road? Over ten years of uneventful peace had made them careless. The wind was too loud to make out the words. A soldier slammed his fist into the woman’s gut, and she stumbled backwards. There was a pause, another punch, and then he pulled out his gun. Conall panicked.

  “We have to do something!” He turned to Jed.

  Jed remained perfectly silent for a moment and watched the scene tensely. “And what will we do?”

  Conall’s heartbeat accelerated. Of course they stood no chance, but it still didn’t provide a justification to watch those people die.

  “I don’t know,” Conall protested, “But we have to do something. We have to fight.”

  “Fight?” Jed suddenly pierced him with his expression. No other words were needed.

  Conall knew full well what Jed — all of them, in fact — thought of violence. How they despised it, believing that it was an endless domino effect of pain and death, which they refused to be a part of. And with how much cold blood they’d always put this idea over the lives of their own people.

  Conall shook his head. “We cannot walk away.”

  “True. We have to wait and see if they betray the location of the village. We have to know if the village is safe.”

  “That’s it? Just let them die?”

  Conall’s heart ached even as he imagined it.

  Jed let out a deep breath, nodding.

  A shot resounded in the valley and Conall trembled. One of the women lay dead on the ground, and blood streamed across her coat and her gray woolen sweater. The soldiers took the other woman and the young boy to task. One of them held a knife in his hand, ready to chop off anything to get the information. Before they’d kill the last one, maddening time would pass. Conall was not sure he could bear it.

  And then he suddenly saw him.

  He stood amongst the soldiers, but he wasn’t dressed as one. Cold sweat ran down Conall’s forehead. Was it really him? His back was turned towards him, and a long black cloak trimmed with leather flew in the wind. The hair was longer then Conall remembered, and nearly gray already. Maybe he was wrong? But the posture, the way he slowly walked over to the woman, raising his black leather glove to slam it against her face. Everything in Conall trembled when the figure finally turned, revealing a glimpse of his face. Manasseh. He could never mistake those dark eyes, nearly as dark as night itself. A ghost from his past he feared would come haunting him one day.

  But why now, after all those years?

  “You know the man,” Jed mumbled.

  Conall nodded. Manasseh had grown old, so old that Conall for the first time became aware how much time had passed already. But there was still this unpredictable sparkle in his eyes. Everything suddenly came back to him, the hate, the rage.

  “Is it him?”

  Jed knew the story only in parts, but enough to anticipate the hatred between them. Suddenly, Conall realized that they did not come here looking for the village. They came looking for him. And he wouldn’t let others die for it. Without another word, he got up and climbed down the hill behind the vehicles. Jed’s voice echoed in his back, but was quickly drowned by the wind.

  Conall tiptoed towards the blue trucks and watched to the scene from behind them. He was only feet away from the first soldier, and quickly recalled everything he had once learned as a student in self-defense class. It had been a long time since he’d fought, but the muscle memory remained. He attacked the soldier from behind with a grip around his neck, throwing him to the ground and disarming him. Still, he instantly felt how his strength had diminished, his muscles grown sore. Movement began around him, but he still could fight off two more soldiers before he was surrounded and swallowed by them, his arms in a tight grip, beaten and kicked until he knelt in the muddy ground.

  When he raised his head, Manasseh’s dark eyes stared back at him. They hypnotized him with a wave of memories and emotions so conflicting that he thought he would explode if he concealed them any longer. After everything that had happened, he had never looked Manasseh in the eyes again, never confronted him. Instead, he fled like a coward, because he had no choice. Now that the moment of confrontation had finally come, he saw that Manasseh had not forgotten either. The same rage stared back at him, the same reproach and disappointment. Traitor. It was as if past and present finally came to a full circle. It gave him a warm sense of satisfaction.

  In those seconds, while Manasseh’s eyes openly gave access into his soul and the hurt he had been carrying for all those years, Conall saw the man he once used to know, or at least thought to know. And again, this question tore at his heart, threatening to burst it open: Why? Why have you done this to me?

  Manasseh made a movement with his hand, dismissing the moment, and the soldiers pulled Conall to his feet. Why was he here? Had he come to fulfill his final revenge?

  “A shame you never came crawling out of your hole.” Manasseh’s voice sounded tired, deeper and sharper than in his memory. “You made me crawl in instead.”

  Conall felt the taste of iron in his mouth, and spit blood on the ground before he replied: “How’d you like my farewell letter?”

  He saw Manasseh cringe, but only was a split of a second.

  “Not as much as you’d like me to.” He approached and stared into Conall’s face. “But tell me, old friend, could you find the solution to the riddle?”

  He smiled slightly, as if the two of them shared a secret. Conall’s pulse accelerated, but he suppressed it. No, he couldn’t know. “What riddle?”

  “Why do you think I’m here, Conall?” His voice was challenging. “Do you really think I’m that petty to care about an old feud?”

  No, and that’s the problem, Conall thought. But Manasseh couldn’t know. The virus had destroyed everything.

  “So tell me—have you found him? Have you been able to outthink our program and prove yourself the mastermind you always pretended to be?”

  Conall’s breath accelerated, but he couldn’t let it show. For all he knew, Manasseh was just playing a game of manipulation. A game he was brilliant at.

  But suddenly, Manasseh struck him in his gut with such force that Conall thought he might faint. The punch contained all of the rage and the bitterness built up during the years.

  Manasseh was so close that Conall could feel his warm breath on his face while trying to recover from the pain.

  “I saw the prophesy,” he whispered only for him to hear, “The last coup, the last prediction our brilliant program spit out before you sent it into oblivion and destroyed our life’s work!”

  Manasseh yelled the last words and stroke out again. This time, the ache was strangling Conall and his vision blackened for a short period.

  Conall’ hands trembled with shock and pain. He panicked as the realization crept over him. Manasseh had known all along. For all those years, he too, had been looking for him. And what would happen if he would find him first? All was lost then. Everything.

  “So now, for your own sake and for all the people ro
tting on this island, I hope that you were brilliant enough to supersede World5. This is your chance to make amends for your betrayal.”

  He made a pause to take a deep breath.

  And what about you, Manasseh? a bitter voice inside of Conall whispered, How will you make amends for yours?

  Manasseh framed those words with unmistakable finality: “Where—is—Prometheus?”

  A silence so tense and daunting enveloped them that nobody dared to breathe.

  Conall knew that Manasseh hated him deeply for destroying World5, a program he could impossibly entrust into the hands of this monster. But even more, he hated him because he knew that he would never be able to recreate the code without Conall. Because Conall was the mastermind behind their invention.

  “If I knew, I’d never tell you …” Conall’s words resounded between the mountains as the restless wind blew around his ears. But I don’t. I failed.

  Without a warning, Manasseh raised his weapon, and shot the young boy who stood behind him. The woman yelled in shock, her eyes wide with fear. Conall shook

  “See. Your careless words killed an innocent boy.” Manasseh’s voice sounded complacent.

  This brutality had destroyed every ounce of resolve Conall had just seconds ago.

  “Please,” he murmured, his eyes on the woman, too young to lose her life. He didn’t know her by name, but he had seen her numerous times in the village. She hadn’t been with them from the beginning, but she came several years later. A student from Edinburgh University. Her eyes pleaded with him. “I haven’t been able to find out. I couldn’t do it.”

  Manasseh smiled. “Well, you’re probably not that smart after all.”

  He nodded slightly, and two soldiers with metal sticks began to smash them against the woman’s body, one after another. The wind carried her screams, the sound of bones breaking and skin bruising, while Conall was fighting tears.

  I don’t know! I don’t know!

  Panic rose inside of him. Europe, probably the British Isle, as the scenario would originate from here. And according to the prediction, he had to be alive by now. But this was all Conall knew, because it was easy to derive from the prediction. He knew nothing more, and his hands shook with a powerlessness he felt yet again.