The World After

Two

TwoDallas, USA

Main building of Agency for Tracking the Untraceables

At the same time:

The chaos in the conference room was something that occurred very rarely between these men; they had trained for many years to hold back their emotions. But this particular debate was far more passionate than usual. The room was an elongated, modernistic feature of a tall oval building placed right where Dallas' biggest mall once stood, and the half a dozen men in their fifties inside persistently tried to shout over each other. Their cleanly shaven faces and smart black or dark grey suits shouted power and money, an impression stressed even more by the fact that, in front of everyone, there was a glass filled with crystal clear drinking water, a commodity reserved only for the top classes since 2021.

The Agency for Tracking the Untraceables was established in 2016 as part of the second stage of induction of Novus Ordo Seclorum (the New World Order). The idea was to force almost full control over the Western societies, who had been prepared for that for many years prior. The Agency's main goal was to track and possibly eliminate, or at least put into prisons, people without brain implants. Of course, even in 2025, there was no country that had a law with which to force its citizens to have such implants. But, at present 2025, ninety-seven-point-two percent of humankind could be tracked pretty easily. Credited with the success for this huge amount of people with brain implants was the Agency and its tireless director – Shimi Levy.

The first of his many tasks was in the autumn of 2012. He had to intentionally organize mass strikes and demonstrations all over the world. Active financing of dozens of radical nationalist organizations and political parties led to many brutalities and over five million people were killed. By the spring of 2015, almost every company that was manufacturing electrical appliances had started mass production of all kinds of equipment controlled only by the mind.

So, as a result of the well-planned financial crisis in 2010-2011 and the aforementioned events, on the day before Christmas Eve in 2015, all countries who were members of the UN at that time declared that every citizen who wished to have a brain chip implanted in order to secure his/her safety and to be capable of using the newest technologies was at liberty to do so. It seemed that the plan was successful because, by the summer of the following year, seventy percent of the Earth's population already had implants. And the other thirty percent, what about them? Well, they were the task of Shimi Levy and the Agency. Their orders were crystal clear – force them to implant or eliminate them. Of course, there was the acceptable ten to twelve percent of those living in isolation and remote places around the globe, which were not a target of the Agency anyway; but every person within industrial countries simply had to have one.

Many lives and destinies were decided in the Agency's conference room, but it had been a long time since it had witnessed such a hot dispute as the one going on now. The four directors of the Agency and their operative managers had a meeting that clashed with the interests of men more used to bathing in power. The organization had one director for each of the four continents: Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. Years ago, there was nobody left without a brain implant in North America and the FBI was taking care of any problems on the continent. The Agency's operative managers were responsible for agents on each of these continents; they reported only to their direct bosses. As the four big men called them, they were their watchdogs.

The dispute was about Australia and New Zealand. Director Levy, the highest ranked director and direct boss for Asia, wanted to transfer responsibility for Australia and New Zealand to director Jackson, who was in charge of the Agency's affairs in Africa.

Shimi Levy had great trouble finding the untraceables in China, Mongolia and India, and he was short of men for Australia. But the arguments of Neyton Jackson that he had the smallest number of agents were also reasonable.

Director Jackson was an ex-marine in his late fifties; he was renowned for his brutality and ability to control his agents with an iron fist. Despite being credited with a few allegedly killed civilians during interrogation, he was in a different league to the more brutal and determined Shimi Levy. The mastermind of the Agency had outlived three murder attempts in the space of a decade and also managed to help the two ex-directors that tried to overtake him in the hierarchy of the Agency disappear. Levy's tall, slim figure made him look slightly ill, a fact helped by his grey-white hair and face scarred by the fire he barely escaped two years earlier when a group of activists fighting against the very essence of everything he represented set his home on fire, a fire he escaped without his late wife and twelve-year-old daughter.

Levy's stone-cold eyes fixed on director Jackson. “Look, I understand your concerns, but this is not an open discussion. I already made up my mind.”

“You can't be making decisions like that on your own. The last time I checked, it was a majority vote that was needed. I haven't been in Africa for that long but you obviously turned this Agency into a tool for your own wars.”

Levy straightened up his shoulders and, just as his mouth opened to give the response that was going to end this conversation, they were interrupted. The alarm on the video wall started beeping. This meant a message with Code 17. Shimi Levy used the chip in his brain to start the incoming video stream on the big flat TV on the north wall; all eyes in the room fixed on it. It was hard to remember when the last Code 17 was issued, but they all knew that it was a long, long time ago. On the screen appeared the chaos in the hotel room of agent MacGeady in Sao Paulo, and a murmur filled the room.

* * *

Jinhun Sun and Taylor Swansea were on the deck of one of the thousands of fishing boats in Hong Kong's harbor. They stared at each other under the heavy pelting tropical rain.

“So, what do you think?” the c******n asked, fixing his dark black eyes on the forehead of his brother-in-doom.

“How many people know about this plan?”

“With you, six hundred and sixty-six.” Jinhun smiled at him. “This is an interesting number for you Christians, isn't it?”

“And you truly believe that six hundred and sixty-six people can change the destiny of all humankind?” Taylor mopped rain water from his forehead.

“I think that even one man is enough to change history, but this is something else. For now, I just want to know, will you take part in this?”

“Of course.”

“Good.” Jinhun bent down, hugged Taylor and kissed him on the forehead. After that he said, “In that case, you have to leave all your possessions and follow me.”

“I don't have anything, just memories.”

“OK. Now go down and change your clothes, because we are leaving for Arunachal Pradesh and, more specifically, to Itanagar.”

While disappearing into the belly of the boat down the tiny steps, Taylor tried to recall what he knew about Pradesh. He was knowledgeable enough at geography to know that it was a mountain region in India which for many years had been a contested zone between India and China. He also knew that letting foreigners in had been very strictly regulated for centuries. His curiosity, after Jinhun's revelations, was aroused. He wanted to find out exactly what they would do there as soon as possible, but he knew he wouldn't discover that before their arrival. After finding out the hard way many years ago how pointless it was to bash your head against a brick wall over problems you can't solve yourself, he just shrugged his shoulders and went into the room straight in front of him.

The space was so small that, sitting by the door, Taylor was able to touch all four walls, and also he had to keep his head slightly to one side in order not to hit it every time the boat swayed. He spotted on the bed, that looked big enough only for a ten-year old, a black shirt and pants made of silk and decorated with a red motif of twisting dragons. He removed his wet clothes and changed into the new ones; he felt light as a feather.

Taylor sat on the bed for a minute after he was ready and tried to organize his thoughts. The journey from Europe to Hong Kong had been extremely difficult and challenging, but it couldn't compare to what lay ahead of him. He had been a loner for too long, living off the radar and in a few remaining remote places around Eastern Europe and Turkey. But now he had to do something he hadn't done in a decade, he had to trust other human beings. Occupied by these thoughts, Taylor made his way back up on deck.

He looked around. Jinhun was standing on the square front deck of the boat staring towards Hong Kong. Taylor joined him. The tropical storm had passed, and the rain was ceasing.

“Where do you think the Agency spies are now?” Sun asked.

“I feel they are everywhere. I tried to live in dozens of poky and godforsaken places and again, sooner or later, they appeared there.”

“You are wrong. Only three people are needed in one super modern computer hall to keep an eye on the whole of China. Since 2014, when the new satellites giving 4D pictures were taken out into orbit, they are able to see virtually everything.” Jinhun turned. “We have been detected.” At that moment, Taylor heard the piercing sound of sirens; two police cutters were just coming out of the harbor.

“Put this on.” The c******n managed to cry louder than the noise and threw a diving suit towards him.

* * *

Agent MacGeady was lying face down on the fresh grass. It was colored red by his blood. His two attackers sat next to him eating sandwiches. Behind the nearby tree, a squirrel stared for a few seconds towards the strange intruders disturbing her harmony and ran in the opposite direction.

“Are we supposed to take him to Itanagar now or after we decode everything?” the younger of the men asked.

“For now, we will wait here. Fabio is trying to decode the brain implant we took out of him. If he doesn't succeed in two hours, the Agency will delete all the info from it and we won't have any other options.”

“Okay.”

“How long will it take you to send a signal to India with this antediluvian thing?” the older man asked, pointing at the radio transmitter from World War II, ten yards away.

“Just exactly how long it takes you to piss Wong Wei.” The youngster smiled at his own joke.

The moment they mentioned it, the radio transmitter crackled and came alive.

“This must be Fabio,” both Asians said in synchrony.

* * *

Shimi Levy sat silently in his chair. The stillness in the room was heavier than iron. It was obvious to all that Agent MacGeady had been attacked. Also, it was clear that the best thing that could have happened to him was to be killed.

Just a minute after the video started, director Levy made a phone call in which he ordered the procedure for switching off and deleting all the information from Agent MacGeady's brain implant. He also gave permission for an electrical impulse to fry his brain and to lead to immediate death. He knew that the procedures were complicated and would take about an hour and a half.

“Director Grant, we are leaving for Brazil in twenty minutes,” Shimi Levy said to the director personally authorized for South America and direct boss of all agents there. “I want to look at the paperwork from the missions of Agent MacGeady over the last six months on the plane.”

“Understood, sir,” William Grant answered.

“I want everyone to make contact with their agents that are on missions and to announce attention Code 4,” Director Levy added before leaving the conference room.