Heart of Darkness
A/N: If you managed to read the intro then, I supposed that deserve a second chapter is order. By the way, I suggest that you give a look-over of the works that inspired my work here. They are top-notched stuff about war, human drama, political and social commentary. I will apologize for any rantings my writing has devolved to. Old habits die hard. I can use corrections on reviews or PM.
He can remembers the fires, the screams, the stuttering chatter of Kalashnikovs as the rebels proceed with their bloody work. He is on the ground as he watches them slaughter women and children, having taken a buttstock to the stomach followed by beatings of the fiends. The smell of smoke and burning flesh assails his nostrils.
Oh God! My God! This can't be happening! he desperately pleads as he and several men are made to watch. The bastards are laughing!
Anyone not downed by a streaming of bullets received death with a machete - or worse. The screams, the screams, keeps howling his ears. He was on the verge of tears as he watched his beloved home end in a holocaust of fire and murder. He can clearly hear the taunts of his tormentors.
War has been endemic in my home. Yet, I was not unduly worried. My home seemed so far away from the conflict. I returned home from Switzerland to visit my parents and celebrate my graduation as an electrical engineer. Generations had come and gone in my home but I was the first son to study and graduate abroad. I was going to be part of an initiative that help Africans everywhere rise up from poverty at the grassroots.
So sweet, yet so sad, Tabane agreed, her tone taking a sorrowful low.
The attack happened because I- No... We were at the wrong place at the wrong time. All because of an army patrol had clashed with with some of the bandits as they smuggled drugs, elephant ivory, and leopard skins nearby. All because of my naive hope that the peace negotiations would hold. What should have been the happiest moment in my life had turned to a nightmare. And it didn't end there for me...
He and several survivors were marched by the rebels to work in the mines. The boys where being taken to trained as child soldiers. And girls... He could not bear thinking without crying and vomiting. Hell on earth, working for almost sixteen to twenty hours a day, in the hot sun or in the rain, slopping through the mud with a shovel or piackaxe or even his own bare hands to bring out the valuable rocks that fund the warlords' armies. Starving with very little food to give them. Brutal treatment such as beatings, water cure, and electrocution. Disease was rife and the guards beat or shoot those who faltered. There were always new ones brought, beaten to give them a taste of hell. He could not imagine this horror, this travesty of decency. It was one thing to read it on the papers, watch on the tube, terrible as it was. It's another to be in it yourself.
One day as he comes out of the mines so another shift can work, he witnesses an SUV enter the camp under escort by two technicals. Out of them are some well-dressed gentlemen who come and greet the warlord and his entourage like old friends. Before he can look on, a shout and pointed rifle makes them move towards the wretched hovels that were their cells. But his curiosity is ever strong, and much to the horror of his fellow inmates, rips away a portion of the wall, just enough for him to get out. He slips by the guards who are enjoying themselves with drugs. He sneaks carefully around until he reaches the large house that is the warlord's home. It is a nerve-wracking exercise in control but he makes it.
He makes himself at home in the shadows. He saw a deal in progress, money for rocks. His heart seems to run away as a most cynical exchange had taken place. No doubt that money will be buy guns and ammo in another time. Toasts are made and drank and pleasantries exchange, sealing the deal. It takes all the strength and self-control he had left to escape quietly back to his cell.
In the weeks after that, a plan of escape forms in his mind. It will never be easy but it is worth a shot. He discusses with his cellmates or anyone who cares enough to listen when the guards aren't looking but all but a few scoffs his ideas. They listen well and all they need, he says, was to hold on to hope and wait for an opening.
That opening came for me. Bloody Sunday.
The whole camp is a state of terror as an attack was carried out against them. Everything left and right burns to the ground. Tracers fill the air as the rebels' feeble attempts are answered in bloody massacre. Congolese aircraft provide air cover but this mysterious force is destroying everything in seconds.
"DEMON! DEMON!" everyone cried as they scamper like grasshoppers escaping a savannah fire. He and his companions took advantage of the chaos, the rebels not caring as long as they save their own hides. Another atrocity occurs in front of him.
This demon landed in front of a column of rebel vehicles and seemingly slashes parallel beside them, leaving a trail of exploding trucks, jeeps, raining bodies and men screaming as they burn alive. That was the most horrifying I've ever seen then. I had not known it was an Infinite Stratos that time. Stricken with malaria, all my main concern was getting myself and my cellmates out of that hellhole.
Calvary had not ended for us. We walked maybe a hundred kilometers through the wilderness, trying to make it back to safety. He is only one left out of a dozen who left the camp. One by one, they succumb to disease or starvation. The events they seen back there are not up to discussion, yet there was a tacit agreement that we have seen is either something horrible or that it was all a hallucination brought by months of suffering. The end of the line came. Men with guns. Drawing closer and closer. He sees everything his been though has been for nothing. He collapses on his knees, the despair weighing his shoulders.
He hears voices, foreign tongues. Tongues he remembered back in Europe. He is lifted up by a pair of strong arms and realizes they are peacekeepers. Swedes. The man in front of him offers his canteen. He opens his mouths and tries to reach it but has long since weakened. The soldier gently pours it in his plastic mug and brings the water to his lips. Sweet water enters his parch throat as he drank heavily. Afterwards, they carry him away. To a place of safety. Civilization.
I was saved. For some weeks, I was bedridden in the hospital in a relief camp across the border. The memories of my hell in that camp played they always end with the Stratos tearing into the camp, like an angel seeking to to destroy Babylon. I have nightmares, I screamed in the middle of the night. I received therapy while I recuperated, telling of my experience in the camp. I talked of the horrors like it was clinical procedure. Fitting. That was until he recall the horror of Bloody Sunday. It was hard for me to put it in words yet whatever I spoke was turned into rough picture of what I saw. They said that I was hallucinating. That was the official stance anyway.
"Official word was that the government launched an offensive against the rebels," he explained. "It was at the beginning of summer back there. A dry season offensive. That opening skirmish, I believed, it was a test run for an Infinite Stratos the Germans were using."
"So it was Laura-chan then?" she asked excitedly, her bunny ears flicking about.
He shook his head. "No, it cannot be Laura Bodewig. Not the right age. It was another German pilot, Vannesa Huber, former German air force pilot who was transferred to Schwazer Hase, manning a second generation I.S. prototype, simply called Project X-29. If she had any anyone who served in the Waffen-SS in the family, they might have been proud."
"I think it's a poor comparison to make for Vannesa," Tabane noted. "She didn't kill you or your friends.."
"Of course she didn't. She had others to do that." That earned him a puzzling look from her. "There was one other survivor. He stayed behind at the camp after the slaughter. There had been some survivors and when the flames died down, the killing began again. This time by well-armed men who slaughtered anyone left behind and then they disappeared back in the woods. He escaped in the opposite direction where a government patrol found him. I remember his story making it to some papers, notably The Guardian in the U.K. But he was dead via hit-and-run. So much for having made it to civilization."
"I think it was the Germans who did it." She skipped excitedly.
"No, not the Germans," he corrected. "Private contractors belonging a UK-based private military company, Claymore Executive Solutions. They belong to a subsidiary of Alcott Holdings. I recall one of the pilots is one Cecilia Alcott."
"Yup, it's Cecilia-chan." She beamed like she won the lottery.
"It reminds me about the default attitude the West has towards Africa, perhaps the rest of the world. The West, however they may say it, consider us to less civilized, their attitude had not changed really. My own home was considered to be the Heart of Darkness, when it was the private property of a Belgian king who made money out of exporting rubber. And my people were exploited to make him a rich man. Anyone who filled his or her quota, a hand is chopped off. Yet, they still see themselves as the civilizing force of the world, a guiding hand to the untamed brutes of whom they saw us as.
"The truth is that a progressive Africa was far from their minds. To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe."
"That's awful. Yet, no one has stop them from doing that."
He shot her a glare. "Don't try to play innocent, Doctor. I learned that the mine I was slaved to was one of the main sources of raw material for your cores of the Stratos's. It had been going on for years!" He shot up from his block of concrete. "You are an accomplice of the exploitation of my people and elsewhere!"
She did not bat an eye. She did not flinch. For some reason, she remained icy as the chamber they're in. "Temedu-kun, I think you need to calm down."
She's right, he thought. He regained his composure. "A few years after that, the ruling party was deposed and a new one friendlier to foreign mining and logging interests was placed in power. They came to my country and elsewhere like locusts. The Infinite Stratos had done its job of 'pacifying' Congo and elsewhere. The mine was purchased and operated by a company belonging to one Marcel Lassarde, a friend to many in the French establishment and now the face of Françafrique. He also runs Toulouse Robotic Solutions, France's main I.S. manufacturer. I remember that his bastard daughter is an IS pilot. Typical nepotism of the French." He paused to catch his breath, which came out in icy puffs.
"Francafrique?" Tabane asked. The term was new to her.
"It is a term for France's relationship with her former colonies. The French, or at least the establishment, a slick, greasy bunch of bastards. Well, my country used to be owned by Belgium, not France but what does it matter now? The White Knight incident made the Infinite Stratos the weapon of the future - and triggered a new Scramble for Africa, or rather a scramble for resources across the world. Where my home used to be was bulldozed and cut down by a lumber company to make way for that sonofobitch Lassarde's operation."
"I'm sorry for that," she apologized.
His temper flared. "Your sorry for what? My home destroyed, my people in despair or the fact that my country is gutted to build your robots and their stupid cores?"
"They are not robots! THEY ARE MACHINES MEANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD!" The voice of Tabane sounded hoarse and deep, not the cheerful, bubbly kawaii voice she previously used a second ago. Her pupils dilated and her face wrought in anger. This transformation he actually found himself shaking.
There was silence. He had to consider his words. "I'm sorry, doctor. Low blow. I'm usually not that kind of man - until now." He looked at her, waited for her reaction. She may not look very intimidating but he knew about an angry person when he sees one, one who would jump him, to hell with the odds against her.
"My creations... brought peace... made things better... and they will change the world..." The words came out of her mouth rather haltingly, the fact that someone dared question her creations in their impact in the world had unsettled her.
He was feeling a little colder now. The heating was starting to fail. "Are you hungry?" he asked her.
"Huh?" The question caught her off guard.
"Why talk on an empty stomach?" He reached into his pocket and took out a chocolate bar. Her tossed her to it and she caught it expertly. Impressive, he thought. He took out his own bar and opened. It was refreshing to hear the ripping of paper and scraping of foil. A memory from a better time.
"You liked it?" That earned a chocolate-smudged face beaming with delight.
"Is there anymore?"
He regarded her. It wasn't generosity. He gave her a candy bar to mollify her, keep her engaged. A friend, one of many he had lost, told him about how he can win over others. Share piece of yourself, let them see that you are another human being, not a face in the wind - to let them know why you are destroying them later on. Eventually, they let their guard and they're yours. Even if they realize the trap, they have no place to escape. And that he should savor every moment of it. "I'm sorry, there were only two bars." He took a bite into his chocolate. "Yes, your creations impacted the world. Africa, Latin America, Indonesia, Southern China... Siberia. There is a given measure of how it change the world. If you live in a battered place, you'll understand that change wasn't good for us. I read the papers and see pictures of the multinational companies scarring the land, the reports of corporate misconduct and government ineptness - and brutality against my people. Anyone who reported this was either silenced by criticism or stonewalled.
"The more persistent ones met a predictable fate." He recalled the poor survivor who died of a alleged hit-and-run. The journalist he was talking to was now working some backwater town in Uruguay.
"The West is greedy. They think they rule world," she humphed, arms crossed. "Just trying to tell truth of the matter."
Strange, she's outraged about the West's conduct was assigned to Antarctica but failed to see how her creations made it happen. Yet, she was known to follow her own star. "The Alaska Treaty states no I.S. should be used in armed conflict but I understand the shady world the powers operate. They see themselves beyond the rules others have to follow. I.S. or not, they will continue to do so. So would their friends and cronies. I remember a lot of your countrymen grumble about the Alaska's treaty. They better off than us - not only do they have the luxury of not having their land turned into a goddamned mine but also profited from it as well.
"I'm not the only victim here. There are others, millions who saw their lives change by the advent of your creation one way or the other. The gap between rich and poor increased as funds for social services diverted to I.S. research and development. Disparity between the third and first worlds have risen. Africa lacks the means to stop this because we are divided, our leaders do not give a fuck for us. Brain drain draws our best and brightest out of the our homelands and left us even weaker than before. The world throws crumbs at us and called it international charity, washing their hands in the matter."
"That's heavy stuff but the West is West, right?" Tabane asked lightly.
You have no bloody idea! "It doesn't stop there. Outside my continent, beyond parts of Asia, and Latin America, other people became losers. The sharing of Infinite Stratos technology meant to prevent monopolization had an effect in the developed world. You think it would provide jobs? Well, look how it happened. In America, Europe, China, many lost their jobs while fat cats lined their pockets. Others became disgusted by the conduct of their governments towards the third-world and their own people. Also, a paranoid few saw the Infinite Stratos not as angel of peace like in the defense brochures but a harbinger of war and tyranny. Many protested the introduction of the weapon system, seeing how they displaced nukes as the world's deterrent and list goes on and on..." In his mind, he saw a great multitude of people from all walks of life and all nations under a blood-red sky, anger, disillusionment, despair etched on their faces. They ranged from the goatherds of Morocco and Indian campesinos of Colombia to veterans of the War on Terror from America, Britain, France and the black hooded-protesters who showed up in the economic forums.
He saw boys of his native Congo, no more than eleven or twelve, with their right hands freshly-bandaged stumps of blood and eyes looking grimly and despondently into his.
A/N: References, ahoy! Heart of Darkness is a novella by Polish-born British author Joseph Conrad set in colonial Congo, when it was the Congo Free State, ruled directly by King Leopold of Belgium. The novella is a harsh critic of imperialism, white man's burden, and racism; and explores the the dark depths of the human psyche so far from civilization. The "To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land..." was from the novella itself. Charlotte never knew her father, who was mentioned as the CEO of a French weapons company developing Stratos's so a thought hit me and I invented him as Marcel Lassarde, also if there's anything involving Africa, Cecilia's late father would have been in on the deal. Francafrique is a very real thing, look it up. The ending is harks back to the reality that inspired Heart of Darkness, every native Congolese who does not fulfill his or her quota of rubber will lose one of their hands.