Kira's Kingdom
Scroll 14:Betrayal Is The Other Side of Loyalty's Coin
14.1: The Suit of Spades
"Trust everybody, but cut the cards" Finley Peter Dunne
Border of the Czech Republic and Poland, trail in the Sněžka mountain (5,256 feet above sea level), May 4th
Red's feet were killing her, she had never been one for athletics and having hiked for about three hours she felt cheated. She dug the telescoping hiking poles deep in the irregular terrain, leaned heavily on them and turned to Mac pouting: "I thought you said we were going to reach the summit in three hours."
Mac, who was beginning to think it had been a bad idea to take the girl hiking said: "That is the expected time at average hiking pace, luv."
"Whose pace would that be?"
He looked up stifling a moan, they still had a long way to go: "Not ours... That's for sure."
Red's followed Mac's gaze and her lower lip trembled. The top looked so faraway. She hadn't felt so much like crying since she was a toddler; when she found out Mellow was dead. She adjusted the back pack that felt like lead on her back, even though Mac was carrying most of the weight, she had to sniffled loudly not to sob. She was aching in muscles she didn't even know she had: "I still don't understand why we couldn't use the cable car. It looked like so comfy…" her voice was lost in a ragged whisper.
Mac played with the zipper of his parka nervously and said: "I've told you already. If we had gone up by the cable car we would have been logged in and, since we don't plan to come back down, it could ring the alarms. We simply cannot risk them calling mountain rescue on us. Not with that bastard following our trail. He might deduce something from the story of two kids who look like us lost in a mountain. Since it is not yet high season and the mountain is less transited and, since there are two countries overseeing over it, the risk is doubled."
Red took a deep breath to get a hold of herself and frowned: "Yeah, that's one thing: You keep saying we are not gonna go back down… I'm not sure what you mean by that… Do you mean we aren't gonna use the regular trails or what?"
"When I say we are not coming down this mountain, I mean just exactly that. You'll see once we reach the abandoned UFO." Mac thought the only reason why she hadn't figured it out was because she was so sore and tired. "We have to keep on moving, luv."
She put one feet after the other with excruciating slowness and said: "You do know that uncertainty and the word UFO is not comforting for a control freak with a deep dread of the unknown, do you, my love?"
He smiled: "I do, luv. But, you will have to trust me about the not going down part. And, this UFO is not really unidentified and it doesn't fly. It is just called like that because of the way some 1970's architect designed the Polish Meteo observatory with these weird dishes. On 2009 one collapsed, it was supposedly repaired and reinforced; but with the odd off-seasonal snow storm in March 30th this year the damage was again enough to have it closed. That is where we are heading. We picked the Czech side because it is always the less transited and we picked the South climb via Obří důl because the route is only seven kilometers long; but, since the southwest face of the mountain is the most jagged and exposed to the wind, few people use it. You should enjoy the view of the corries and waterfalls, luv." He said while signaling the view with a wide arm gesture.
Red narrowed her eyes unmoved by the sight: "Yeah, I looked it up and them corries are the sites that are most prone to avalanches."
He chuckled softly: "Have you seen much snow, luv? That is kind of a must for avalanches to happen."
"But you said it yourself, nowadays the climate is like wacko! We could get caught in the middle of one of those weird storms... Wouldn't it be a good thing if someone knew we were up here? I mean, besides ourselves."
"RAW knows, luv, they are expecting us. Do you trust me, Red?"
She sighed deeply, she had been raised in mistrust so it took her great effort to nod.
"Now, why don't you have a good drink from your canteen? You are looking parched, luv."
She denied forcefully: "Sorry can't do, luv. If I take in one single drop of water my bladder will explode. I've kinda been holding it for over an hour."
He looked at her frowning: "Why would you do that, luv? Look around, this world may not be an oyster, but this whole place can be your toilette."
She looked at him with wide-eyed terror: "O...M...G! You are not seriously suggesting people relieve themselves in the shrubs, are you?" She turned around looking at said shrubbery with undiluted disgust.
Mac had to bite his tongue not to point out that the woodland creatures had been using the woods as facilities since the beginning of time. He didn't think that would help. Instead he said: "There are restrooms in the top, inside the restaurant."
"Oh, that right there is motivation. Let's get going." And she began to walk at a brisk pace.
They reached the summit in 3 hours and a half. While Red used the restroom, Mac took his Husqvarna F450 Timbersled converted snowbike from the Meteo observatory that he was currently using as a shed. The last time he had been there there had been snow, now he needed to go back from snow to dirt bike. He rolled his sleeves and got ready for a few hours of work.
Red caught up with him and began asking questions, it was getting on his nerves until he realized her questions were spot on. Soon enough she grabbed a wrench and with her help they had the bike finished in far less time than expected. How she reconciled her OCD with being able to eat lunch greased up? Mac couldn't quite understand it, but seeing her tackle the mechanical task with such a good disposition made him love her even more. She even helped him to put his tools and the conversion kit safely away. Sundown was closing on them as they finished. It was better to have some light for what they needed to do.
She looked at the bike with shinny eyes and said: "Awww, ain't it a prutty bike?"
He smiled as he put an abbreviated version of his back pack in the bike's hatch and his helmet on: "Yeah, it sure is. Wanna take it for a ride?"
She smiled back before putting on the helmet he handed her: "Yeah."
"Put on your back-pack. In case someone comes."
No one had come in all the time they had been there. Mac doubted anyone was going to. Oh boy. He didn't like lying to her. And she was going to hate him for what he was about to do, but there really was no other way to go about it. She was acrophobic and would have never in a million years accepted to do what they were about to do and that was the only way to get her inside Moby Dick.
She caught up pretty quickly: "Hey, Mac, aren't we getting awfully close to the ledge?"
"We are going to go over the ledge, luv. I need you to press your doubloon exactly when I tell you too. If we don't synchronize ours with Leviathan's correctly we are gonna plunge down."
She inhaled a big gulp of air in fear: "What the fuck are you talking about?"
He revved the bike, made a wide turn and started racing towards the ledge while she pressed herself tightly against his back: "I'm not kidding, luv. Press the coin and when you hear the beep they will be synched. Make sure it gets a good read of your fingerprint or it won't work properly."
"Oh no, oh, no, no, no. Mac tell me you are kidding! Please tell me you are kidding!" But she pressed the doubloon along with him and Mac heard a reassuring beep just as he made the jump.
That is when a hatch appeared out of nowhere and a behemoth of a man signaled them towards it with a couple of marshaling batons. The sun was going down in the mountain range and the aircraft was fully cloaked, so that the only thing visible was the hatch a bit darker against the dusk sky.
Mac landed on the tarmac and hit the breaks of the bike while Red muttered curses against his parka.
The bike stopped and Red got down and fell on her knees saying: "Damn you to hell and back John the Macvangelist!"
Mac thought Atta, girl. She was furious enough to want to kill him, but she wouldn't give his real name away. A woman that can think straight even when she is scared shitless is a woman to hold onto. He looked lovingly at her while she took off the helmet and gagged on the tarmac without actually vomiting.
As the hatch closed Leviathan put away the marshaling batons and chuckled: "Welcome back, Captain."
Mac took off his own helmet and shook hands with the heavily muscled guy: "It's great to be back, Leviathan." He helped Red up and said: "Luv, this is Leviathan, he was voted first-mate this year, guess to counterbalance me while I'm captain. Leviathan this is the girl I've been telling you about: Red."
Leviathan, having heard of her, made no effort to touch her, still he smiled widely and welcomed her warmly with his Jamaican accent:"Welcome to Moby Dick, Miss Red! It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Mac cannot shut up about you."
Red nodded and said: "Really? This is the first time I've hear about you."
"Good, I wouldn't want to have to depose the Captain under the Articles of Agreement. He is not supposed to mention us."
She said with a raised eyebrow: "You talk as if this were a pirate ship instead of a den of hackers."
Leviathan made a pass by her ear and made his own doubloon appear in his hand: "We prefer coders. Up here we are above and beyond bourgeois moral codas. You won't find white hats or black hats amongst us, Miss Red. Up here we all wear wide brimmed hats with a plume." He made a bow with an imaginary hat with surprising grace for a man so big.
She giggled: "Well, color me impressed, Mr. Leviathan. I think I'm gonna like it here."
"I told you you were going to, luv. Now come, it is time you meet the rest of the crew." He called them crew but they were family. The only one he had really known in all his life. Now he had brought danger in their midst and they were taking it with good humor. Mac thought: "That's why I ain't gonna let you hurt them or her, you bastard. You are going to regret the day you crossed my path. We are having us a showdown and I ain't gonna lose it."
14.2: Thirty Pieces
"For you will certainly carry out God's purpose, however you act, but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John." C.S. Lewis
U.S. Nevada, the Mojave desert, May 4th 2019, in a safe house near the town of Mesquite:
White had already given so much to Kira that giving him her memory didn't require much effort. They had decided that to be able to go through the brain scan undetected, she would have to relinquish the ownership of the Death Note. With the ownership there will go all of her memories of Kira. It was only temporary, but she felt a terrible emptiness in her stomach whenever she thought about it. In so many senses Light was all that she had. Being Kira's Herald was such a big part of her identity that she feared that without it, she might disappear.
There was another problem. The other two operatives would surely be discovered and there was nothing they could do about it. Light thought that they could afford that minor set back because he doubted Near would do anything drastic about the moles when he found them out. He was going to want to interrogate them, of course. But they really didn't know anything important, besides the fact that White was a mole too. And the menace of death would keep their mouth shot, if only until the final attack to the safe house started. They had to coordinate everything right so that they manage to restore her memory and extract her before that happened.
All had been planed to the smallest detail, but so much was hanging on the balance that the night before it all happened, White was visited by the nightmare she had managed to avoid for the last 5 years and it all began with a cat meowing. She sat on the bed and looked carefully at the other bed where Gevanni was snoring loudly. At one point he rolled on the pillow and a big lion like snore broke the peace of the night. Sweet mother of mercy, could that man snore. As if she didn't have enough reasons to lose sleep over. Too well bred to curse, White simply muttered: "Unbelievable!" while checking her phone's screen.
She didn't bother turning on the lights, she read the message just with the light coming form the screen. She read through it and let the phone fall from her hand. Another ungodly snore came from Gevanni's bed. White looked at him making no effort to hide her disgust and just as she had expected, confirmed that the man was drooling on his pillow. Every night it was the same, the man alternated snoring like a locomotive with drooling like a dog. How could a man that looked so poised, even handsome, when he was awake be such a hot mess while he slept?
The thought came as a welcomed but only temporary distraction. The message that Red had sent her before eloping with that no good boyfriend of hers was like a thorn in the middle of her back. It pained her greatly; but she couldn't reach it to take it out. She got up and went to the bathroom. The Lion like Shinigami was not asleep, he didn't seem to need to sleep or eat. He had also grown quieter with each passing day of incarceration. He had taken to sit on the bathroom's floor in the lotus flower position, eyes firmly closed against an indignity he probably couldn't face head on. Ophelia's entrance didn't make him open his eyes.
She stopped herself, she hadn't thought of herself with that name for almost ten years. And then she knew it, with unbreakable certainty. She believed every word of what Red said in her message. She could make halfhearted attempts to deceive herself in respect to what Kira felt for her, but deep down she knew she was just a tool. Over the years the man had become her whole world, so she had accepted the menial role she had in his life in hopes that her airtight devotion made her be the man's true right hand. But as blinded by her wishful hopes as she could be, Ophelia was not and had never been stupid, she knew that the moment she was no longer useful, she would be discarded, like a pair of shoes with a hole in the sole. She was not enough of a cynic to make peace with that, but she had hoped that she was smart enough to keep being a serviceable tool until the end of her natural life.
She frowned at the blonde in the mirror. She looked hard at her own image and found appalled that she could not see a trace of the girl she use to be. She had let him change her hair and her body like a puppet because Near, the man Kira was trying to snare, liked busty blonds with blue eyes. She had had breast surgery, she had an artificial iris implanted -at grave risk of loosing her eyesight- and she had dyed religiously every inch of hair that she could and shaved off what she couldn't in order to pass herself as a natural blonde.
Near was the heir of a family with a lineage that had direct links to the Aubigny of Arundel, so he had wanted a good English wife and with Red's help Ophelia had even changed her nationality. She had renounced to her own family name and her past. She had given up everything that ever meant something to her to share the bed of a man she found distasteful and done so with a smile, playing the perfect loving wife for years because she knew that would be useful to Kira.
She had made friends with people she despised, studied a career she had no interest in and held a job she found mind boring all to keep appearances. She never complained, never questioned Kira's decisions… She had given him all she had been. And now he was going to take the very last thing of value that she had. He had never intended to restore her memory. She was supposed to die under the false identity that he had forced her to live so he could move on to the next part of his plan. All she had salvaged from all the sacrifices was the satisfaction of knowing she was aiding the world become a better place. She was Kira's Herald and like Joan of Arc she would have burned at the stake gladly in order to help him achieve the world they had dreamed of.
And now the bastard was throwing her to the dogs? Not because she was no longer useful to the cause she had devoted her life to, but because Kira had found himself a new playmate that was far more interesting than Near?! The quest for a fairer world was, once again, going to be put on hold so that Kira could play his twisted games with this new exciting partner. And loyal White had no role to play in those games. She was not being discarded because the shoe had a hole in the sole, she was being discarded because she had gone out of fashion! It was all so cruel and senseless! With the kind of petty meanness she had always despised in the supercilious girls she had shared boarding schools with.
Ophelia had always been mindful of what others might think of her, even when she was alone; so what happened next came as a surprise even to her. She growled: "J'en ai rai le cul! T'es un salaud, Kira!"
That made the Lion Shinigami open an eye. He closed it again while swinging his head disapprovingly.
She blinked dumbfounded. She never, ever cursed and she hadn't spoken one word of French in all the years she had been playing the role of English rose. She let the air she hadn't known she had been holding slowly out. And a somewhat reassuring but still godawful snore came from inside the room. She hadn't managed to wake Gevanni up; that man would snore through a tornado.
There are moments in which we are able to see ourselves from without, it is in those moments when we are forced to examine the path we have taken in our lives with unforgiving clarity. Like souls being judged by the Egyptian god of the underworld: Anubis, the weight of our heart is set against a feather. And we are doomed if the weight of that feather is no lighter than that we carry within ourselves. The foolish woman Ophelia saw looking back at her in that mirror made her laugh: at first with soft bursting giggles; and then the laughter grew into loud cackling that had more than a touch of hysteria in it. Her life was so screwed up and it would all have been so funny, if it weren't so goddam screwed up.
The Lion Shinigami opened his eyes and cocked a derisive eyebrow: "What is wrong with you, woman?"
That was, of course, a rhetorical question that Ophelia was not expected to answer. But she had been holding things in for so long that she couldn't help herself. She told the Shinigami exactly what was wrong with her. She didn't leave out a thing. She made an abreast confession and when she was done she looked at the Shinigami.
The Lion Death God smiled derisively: "Is that all?"
She grit her teeth: "What the hell you mean is that all?"
He let out a low growl: "Do you want to hear what it really means to have loyalty and love derided and time and time again? Is a lowly human able to see what it means to devote your soul to someone for eons uncountable just to have them trample over you for the sake of nothingness? Could you even understand the nothingness that the Shinigami Realm truly is?"
She scoffed: "By all means, do tell, Shinigami."
That was, of course, sarcasm. But, to Pasht's infinite surprise: he did. He told her the story of his becoming. How he had been born the first child of a wet nurse. How he and Menes, the son of kings had grown up together like bosom buddies. How when he had grown up he was a soldier who rose through the ranks until he became a general who followed the great Pharaoh Menes from the moment he had united the Upper and Lower Kingdoms right into the afterlife believing that the great man was leading them into a golden age of eternal glory only to find out that something had gone terribly wrong and the plan of the man to achieve eternal life in the flesh had turned into an eternal curse.
He let out a low growl: "And even then loyal Pasht always stood by the Old Man's side. Always supporting him. Following his orders to the letter. Never questioning him. Worshiping his every word. Gobbling down the crumbs of attention he once in a while threw at him. Only to find himself thrown into this realm, which is even more nonsensical than the Shinigami land." The growl became a moaning low going back to the first person: "And here I'm trapped with no hope of ever going back by the side of the only person I have loved for millennium, even if he has never seen fit to see that I was always standing there, by his side."
Something changed in the girl's face. At first Pasht feared she had finally snapped. Then the girl had smiled a crazy horrid grin and Pasht felt the fur of his skin raising. When he had been a boy playing in the reeds of the Nile his grandfather had told him that sometimes the gods inhabit the mad. When he had grown up Pasht had become a godless man, but now he felt himself in the presence of something bigger than the girl who had just a few seconds stood before him whining about her lot.
Ophelia held his eyes and said: "Aren't you fucking fed up of always being everybody's fool?"
Pasht looked at her and for reasons he couldn't quite fathom he answered with the truth he hadn't even been able to admit to himself: "Yes, mortal, I am fucking fed up."
She looked beautiful and terrible like Sekhmet, the goddess of vengeance and divine retribution. She smiled her terrible mad smile once more and said: "Wouldn't you want to do something about it?"
Once more Pasht answered with the truth: "I sure as hell would!"
14.3: Temet Nosce: Know Thyself
"The unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates
Unknown location, May 8th, in Raw's HQ
Moby Dick had been a revelation to Red. It was truly a coder's Neverland. Red had never really felt comfortable around people but she had loved Mac's lost boys. Though there were also girls and they were more like Pirates. However Dolores (the data miner specialist) said that if they were going to play characters of Peter Pan she'd rather be Princess Tiger Lilly because she was so badass. She and Leviathan were husband and wife and the potential forefathers of a new race of giants. Dolores was half Norwegian half Portuguese and had a certain melancholic air about her that contrasted deeply with her Jamaican better half bombastic personality. For some reason that worked for them. Leviathan could have been too much to take in if it weren't for chill Dolores being by his side. Red really liked them and, rare in her, had let them fuzz over her which was something she usually didn't enjoy.
But the Brethren had really gained her allegiance when they manage to reconstruct in parallel to the one she had to left behind her code for Galileo. Though Galileo 2.1. was a hundred times better. Moby Dick had a workable Satellite Network and they even had a couple of quantum computers running data like crazy in order to check the stability of the network and ensure the encryption was unbreakable. Red had been blown away. And the Brethren had looked at her approvingly when she got right away how her code would need to adapt to the new conditions. She went farther than that. Hers was an entirely different beast, sleek, powerful and more adaptable than ever before.
Leviathan had said: "You should give it a new name."
Red shrugged.
Dolores had said: "Names have power, girl. This is an even better program than the one you gave to that bastard, you should really make it your own."
She had thought about it and told them at one of their boisterous dinners of boneless chicken wings, cheese fingers and celery with peanut butter: "I'm calling her Galatea."
López, a Spaniard who liked to pretend he was an uneducated boor when in reality he had a couple of P. said: "Galawhat?"
Mac liked to play along: "Galatea, she is the statute of a chick who came to life 'cause the guy who sculpted her was horny."
Dolores hit his forehead with the kitchen tongs: "He was in love with her, you noob, that's what woke her up."
López scratched his beard: "So it is like Sleeping Beauty."
Leviathan pitched in: "That one was dead, Galatea was made of stone to begin with, it's different."
Dolores swung her head: "Sleeping Beauty wasn't dead, Bae, she was asleep."
Leviathan grabbed a handful of boneless and said: "Asleep for a thousand years is as good as dead, Mumz. You know I like my girls feisty."
He made as if to grab her and Dolores whacked him with the tongs saying: "Don't grab the food with your hand, Bae, it is disgusting."
Everybody laughed. Red interjected: "Sleeping Beauty is ATU type 410 tales of magical wives waking up with kisses. I dunno what reanimated statues would be. What is Pinocchio?"
López pointed out: "Pinocchio is not truly describable by the Aarne-Thomson-Uther tale type catalog. Most stories aren't. Trying to devise a comprehensive system of classification of stories by motif is a lost cause. When the map has to be as big as the world it is supposed to represent as a simplified version, then that is one lousy map."
Mac sniggered: "You are over thinking it López. Me, I'm a simple man, I like reanimated dolls." He showed everyone a picture of the painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme of a naked Galatea kissing passionately a full dressed Pygmalion: "Especially if they look as good as this one. Look at that ass! Doesn't it make you want to pinch it?"
Leviathan and López whistled. Dolores rolled her eyes and Red troubled her lower lip, frowning. The girl in the painting was very voluptuous. Gérôme's Galatea was the kind of girl that made skinny Red feel insecure.
López patted her in the back comfortingly: "Don't mind this boor, Miss Red, he really likes dolls. He used to have a life size one in his bedroom before you came along."
She laughed: "Lo que no fue en mi año, no fue en mi daño. The past is past, the present is now and it's all that matters. Mr. López. Plus Mac can look all he wants, as long as all he does is looking." She smiled impishly: "Just be warned that what is good for the gander is good for the geese."
Leviathan raised his bottle of Pilsner Urquell and toasted to that. The rest of the brethren rose their bottles too and more beer and boneless wings and cheese fingers were passed around.
The giant first mate and Dolores had developed a taste for that beer while in Prague and had bought several crates to stock Moby Dick's whale size pantry. Even Red, who of usual didn't like beer, had been converted by the famous Czech brew.
Mac went suddenly serious: "On that note, there is something that we need to discuss, my brethren."
Red and Mac exchanged a worried look, after some conferring they had decided to come clean to Mac's family about what they were. They weren't sure how that was going to play out and they needed their help to find the Archives. Even though Red had only come to be part of the family recently she felt a lump in her throat.
She sighed and handed Mac the pictures. The Brethren passed them around as Mac spoke. Red just looked onwards, bracing herself in case Mac's family weren't understanding.
They were more than understanding, they had been outraged to find that children had been treated like that. Used as cannon fodder to pursue lord knows what hidden agenda.
López was practically trembling with ire: "That is how it always is with the man!"
Dolores frowned: "What are you talking about, López? This isn't about your revolutionary speeches, this is about the children."
"Come on, Lola! You know in the end all comes to the bastards who think that they can buy and sell people just because they have the upper hand in life."
Leviathan rose an eyebrow: "López is right, Mumz, those are precisely the people who need a good whack with the spoon. First whack them, then sort out the issue with the children."
Dolores smiled: "Then what are we waiting for, let us give these assholes a good whack."
Mac beamed, proud of his family: "First we need to find where the Archives are."
"Easy, breezy my man," said Leviathan: "Let us introduce lovely Galatea to my boy Scry. I think those two are gonna get along just fine."
Red had been taught both in theory and in practice by the people who had raised her not to trust anyone. It was a pleasant surprise to find out that Mac's chosen family were going to be there for him no matter what. And under the umbrella of the love Mac had for her, they were going to be there for her too. Of usual she hated mushiness, but she joined the group hug without even thinking about germs, dirt or the horrid claustrophobic experience that being in the arms of someone you don't want to hug could be. She really wanted to hug and be hugged by the brethren, in the back of her mind she wondered if that was what being home meant.
AN: First of all, pardon this superstitious fool: The Polish observatory is perfectly fine to my knowledge, no off-seasonal storms whatsoever have damaged its structure… I knock on wood (thrice, it's luckier). Second, even the best laid out plans of men and mice can get thwarted. When I started writing this fic my initial plan was to have White-Ophelia ally with Ryuk to betray Light. But for some reason that didn't seem to work out. Let us call it a personality clash. Ryuk is a psycho but a very charming, funny psycho. While White is a rather boring straitlaced sociopath. I should know, I went to school with a couple of girls like her… I couldn't see a way in hell to make that unholy alliance work. Then I thought, let's change the plan, let us make Black the betrayer. But that also didn't work because Black is one screwed up puppy too, but she doesn't strike me like the Judas type. And then the character of Pasht who had been only there to add color to the Shinigami Realm, began to develop a personality of his own, a back story and it worked well with my White Bitch who was always the intended villain of this story (I'm a fan of C.S. Lewis). And, added bonus, that freed Ryuk to be able to side with L or with Light for the final battle over the world. Haven't quite decided with whom he is going to end. That Shinigami is a trickster and those have a mind of their own, so he may have a say in the matter. But I need to make a decision before the next chapter so I might as well start thinking it through.