The Anarchists (17 page)

Harper bit her lip. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll be fine.” Kareza squeezed Harper’s fingers. “At one point or another, everyone believes they should have a better life. You have the chance at a better life, but you’re not taking advantage of it. It’s not wrong.”

Immediately, Harper’s mind keyed in on a choice she’d made years ago. 

“Don’t walk away, Harper.” Adharma handed Kareza the computer with the release forms. “Sign. Get started on the life you could have had; the life you deserve to have.”

Still uneasy, Harper lazily applied her thumbprint to the appropriate spot, indicating her consent. Kareza had Ellis escort a lethargic Harper to the last chair, where Stan attended to her. Afterwards, Kareza carefully peeled a thin latex layer from her hand.

After the four had been thoroughly evaluated and anesthetized, Adharma joined Kareza at a curve in the circular shaped room. “It's expensive and troublesome. . .this experiment on four nobodies. I fail to see the logic.”

“There's much logic in it, my friend.” Kareza patted him on the cheek, which drew immediate worry until she displayed a clean hand free of the drug she had used on Harper. “You simply lack the vision to see it all.”

“Enlighten me.”

“It’s almost noon. We must begin.”

“You drugged the Lowe woman and had her sign legally-binding documents. That alone could shut us down, cost us billions, trillions! Why risk everything for her?”

“I risked nothing.”

Frustrated by her clipped answers, Adharma shouted with passion. “I have served you without question. And you would deny me a simple explanation of your ‘grand design’?”

Kareza carefully formed her response. “Once, I worked in the shadow of an overbearing man. He rarely explained and expected me to fall in line. I swore never to do the same. Ask.”

“This ‘Begin Again’ initiative is a charade, isn’t it?”

Once Damario, Quinne, Teanna, and Harper fell into stasis, Kareza positioned herself near their heads. She spread her fingers at Harper’s temples. Crimson threads of electricity jumped from her impeccable fingernails into Harper, whose body vanished with a pop of pink smoke. Seconds later, Kareza aged a number of years. “Indeed.”

Adharma drew back, speechless at Kareza’s actions, which appeared to dim her physical beauty.

“In 2035, Harper will retake Applied Physics instead of switching majors and it will make her wealthy.” Kareza slid over to Teanna. “Teanna will stop pining over the father of her son and spare the boy and his sister her dented brand of parenting.” 

Not possible
, Adharma thought.

Now with graying hair and a curving posture, Kareza vaporized Quinne. “Quinne would have become a military sharpshooter and had a decorated career. With her boyfriend alive, she won’t care anymore.”

Adharma’s awe was rivaled only by this vivid delusion. “What’s happening?”

“I am a god!” she bellowed, “living a worthless existence on a miserable rock beneath my birthright. I was created to rule.” 

“By whom?” he wondered aloud. “What are you?”

“Without his interference, I will rule nations.” Kareza finished off Damario and erupted into a coughing fit. “I dispatched them back into the fabric of time. These four played roles, small or large, in my defeat. No longer. But I need five.”

Adharma patted his chest. Only two of them remained, and he doubted his aging benefactor intended for him to know these things and survive.

“The Solution dangled the temptation, but I needed their permission.” She slapped Adharma’s back. “My power, teamed with their choices, opens the gateway.”

“What part do I play in this?”

Kareza grunted with disdain. “You are not half-Indian, as you claim, but a Jew by birth.”

Adharma did not refute the statement. His father’s ancestors migrated from Portugal 700 years ago and settled in what would become New Delhi. His mother, a native born Italian, converted to Judaism before they exchanged vows. The foreboding in his belly would not go away. “So what of it? I do not practice any religion.”

Kareza stretched her wrinkled hands toward Adharma’s temple. “You always desired power for yourself, Nandor Adharma. Now, you shall have it.”

With that, he vanished like the others.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

January 20, 2050

A caravan of stretch Bentley transports halted at the entrance to an upscale eatery with a considerable dining hall. The procession drew the attention of the parking attendants, who found themselves captivated by the apple, white and green-striped flags. The contingent emerging from the opening doors were European men with distinctive taste pallets. It made sense that they would dine there. The management prided itself on the authenticity of its Italian cuisine.

The last of them to enter was Nandor Adharma: a fine looking, dark-skinned man a few inches above six feet. His woolen black coat hung from his shoulders with distinction, and the starched shirt and blood red necktie were crisp. Adharma exhaled, with a sense of disappointment and high-mindedness, as if the ground praised him by submitting beneath his weight. His arm cocked out into a hook, and a feeble Kareza Noor joined him. In her prime, she would have been mesmerizing, but now, she labored to keep the façade of beauty. A trail of graying hair cascaded down her back and lapped over the back of her fur coat.

The two brought up the rear behind the potentates preceding them, entering the main avenue of the restaurant to applause. They proceeded through a who’s who receiving line of firm handshakes and political heavyweights. Of course, President Ramsey Mateo did not attend. Due in part to Kareza, he had just taken his oath on the west front of the US capitol building hours ago. She also positioned Adharma to become the Prime Minister of Italy and to receive the credit for rescuing the US economy.

Over the past year, Adharma had led the charge to unite the nation’s ten largest financial markets under one, biologically-transferred currency, dubbed “the mark.” In the process, he built a friendship with Mateo, whose endorsement of the mark and popularity among Hispanics pushed him to a crushing electoral victory. Unlike his friend, Adharma held more esteem and sway as Prime Minister.

“So, this is the infamous maker of kings?” A member of the Italian parliament winked at the woman and kissed her right hand. “A pleasure.”

 Kareza hid her discontent beneath a glimmering smile and tender knees slightly bent in a curtsy. “A misnomer, I’m afraid. A few congressmen and representatives here, a Prime Minister there – I do it for the cause.”

“Lovely and modest.” He reluctantly dropped her hand and faced Adharma. “Mister Prime Minister, you exerted diplomacy in getting the Americans to validate the mark. President Mateo will soon sign it into law. I have heard that the mark‘s popularity will lead to others adopting it, as well. You must be proud.”

“When a man desires, truly desires, peace and prosperity, he will do anything he can to secure it.” Adharma delivered his words with perfect diction. “The United States has been financially enslaved to the world for over half a century. Ramsey's a progressive thinker who’s not tied down to the dictates of the religious right or the leftist liberals. The mark will secure this country’s financial future.”

“Regardless, you have to admit,” responded the diplomat, “that it’s a risky gambit. If it fails, more than a few economies will fall into ruin.”

“But they will not – not with a new, united currency.” Kareza concluded her retort just before falling into a coughing fit. A potentate signaled for a waiter to give the older woman a drink. The water helped cease the hacking, but it did not remedy the metallic taste of blood. 

Adharma patted her on the back. “Are you alright, dear one?”

“Yes.” She cleared her throat a final time. “A little cold, that’s all. I don’t suppose you have another body I can inhabit, do you?”

The response drew a nervous chuckle from Adharma. “I believe the scientists have discovered a way. Right after that, they solve the mystery of time travel!” His nonpareil charm commanded attention and respect wherever he went.

The throng of foreigners proceeded to the reserved banquet room inside the restaurant. There, laid a buffet outfitted with a selection of rich meats and Italian delicacies.

“Excuse me, my friends.” Adharma drifted to an almost vacant corner of the room. There, Micah James fidgeted in a fine designer tuxedo – nondescript, except for being one of the select few African-Americans at the dinner. Adharma plucked two lamb kabobs from a silver platter and approached him. “Mister James, you have the look of a man who does not believe he belongs here.”

Micah dug his hands into his pockets. “I don’t, Mister Prime Minister. Why did you invite me anyway? You leveraged your foreign influence to revoke the Exodus Foundation’s federal funding. You eliminated 40,000 jobs, including mine.”

Adharma removed the skewered lamb with his teeth. “Where’s your boss? Off somewhere licking his wounds?”

Micah‘s eyes rolled back. “Let me see. . .he said ‘the authors of the Exodus Foundation’s destruction don’t deserve my presence’.”

“Pretentious,” he mused. “That‘s Chu for you.”

“Well, you did strip away the substance of his life’s work.”

“I did no such thing. Miles Chu’s life’s work consisted of extremist experiments and needless social work. Your founding fathers supported separation of church and state.” 

“The state out of the church, not the church out of the state,” he corrected.

“Regardless, the two entities should be separate and exclusive, and Chu used federal funds in the name of God. Your government that took action and your people elected the representatives that voted for its downfall.”

“Weren’t a majority of them strong-armed by your mentor?”

Adharma chuckled, while patting Micah‘s shoulder. “Enjoy the dinner.”

Micah watched Adharma peel off to glad hand a couple of politicians before rejoining the main group.

Soon, the dinner hour began. Following a half-hour of eating and idle chatter, champagne made the rounds for Kareza to give a toast. Dubbed “Princess of the Airwaves” for her captivating rhetoric and uncanny ability to tap into the pulse of her audience, she would give a speech enticing enough to keep the populace silent. At the point the spotlight shined on her to perform, the room went silent.

 “Good evening.” Kareza muttered, stifling a cough. “People often ask about the mystery behind what I do. In other words: how do I breed success in the men and women whose campaigns I run? Politicos around the nation have interviewed me on this subject. But have I reserved the true answer for only you.”

The audience took a collective gasp. Micah speculated her direction.
What's she doing?

 “Politicians, the good ones, increase their odds for success by going out and meeting the people. They make promises that special interests groups will never allow them to fully realize.” Kareza took a little water. “So, what then is the solution? Simple: fix the odds.”

Kareza’s words stunned, until one of the oldest dignitaries heartily laughed. Merriment whisked around the room from corner to corner: a humorous political roast! 

“How else do you think an inexperienced, private sector businessman like Nandor Adharma captured President Giovanni’s attention? Motivation.”

There was more laughter. Various statesmen pointed fingers and shot at one another, still laughing. Adharma did not play along. Nothing about Kareza’s demeanor suggested jest, which made it funnier. The circumstances surrounding his rapid ascent did gnaw at him from time-to-time; especially when he spent time in President Giovanni’s presence.

“If I discover a weight that tips the scales in my favor, I apply it. If there’s a weakness, I expose and exploit it. The Palestinian president’s opponent was a whoremonger, no? Israel’s acting prime minister – the first woman in history to assume power there – did so because her predecessor, a chain-smoking glutton, snuck pork to his table. And the U.N. Secretary-General. . . well, I bribed someone to poison his challenger.”

My God, why are they laughing?
Micah excused himself without garnering attention.

Adharma knew the truth of the situation. No one in the audience knew Kareza like he did. In 2017, he became CEO of his father’s corporate finance firm at the age of 25. Twenty-six years later, she politically seduced him. From the start, he found nothing attractive about what the old political magnate had to say. But she convinced him; first to have a sumptuous dinner with her, and then a nightcap. He remembered little else about the encounter, but the next day, Kareza told him that he had a great future in international politics. And he believed her.

Critics gave him less than a 20 percent chance of victory, but his unprecedented rise as a Prime Minister candidate in the ‘46 appointments culminated with an overwhelming win.

“But, in all seriousness, my career in shaping the future of the world comes to an end. I hereby resign as Prime Minister Adharma’s campaign manager, effective immediately, but I will continue to advise him. It has been a fantastic run, fashioning his ascension. His selection sits among the highlights of my career. After uniting the ten most powerful nations in the world beneath the mark, I look forward with great anticipation to what Nandor Adharma does next.”