Era of Madness

The mistakes you can't fix 6

John kept working diligently and working out as much as he could each day, so he could occupy his mind instead of worrying.

From what he was told, Clark was still alive, just unable to get back because of certain complications. John had tried everything to get told what these were, but not a word was spoken to him. Thus, he had without any hesitation tried to hack his way to the truth, but had failed miserably, as he realized that the information had been put in the most protected data base of Cifer amongst those he knew about.

What did Clark get implicated into for that to happen? John didn't know, and it was killing him from the inside

Days kept passing by without any communication being possible. John got the bad habit to gnaw his nails whenever he had nothing to occupy himself with. His nails were short from the start, so he always ended up gnawing to blood.

One day, when he felt that he couldn't stand it anymore, he decided to force hipself and go out for a walk to breath some fresh air. Happily, even if Cifer's finances were often short due to their situation, it didn't mean that they couldn't garantee minimum comfort in their bases and on their planets, as obtaining the needed ressources was infinitely easier thanks to Fefnir technology. Thus, they could even provide things like public gardens at regular interval, and it was in one of them that John decided to enter.

He looked around and smiled at the view of the trees and flowers. These at least didn't change too much in the previous centuries, at least in term of perfum and beauty. To think that on the Paradise Council's territories, lower sectors were almost never granted the access to such simple things, just to keep the class system working... It wasn't nearly as infamous as what they did to the lowest sectors inhabitants, where people quite mitteraly were treated worse than even slaves, but that still added insult to the injury.

Then again, to put their hands on similar technologies, Cifer had to either steal it, either produce it themselves. For now, as they were placing themselves in the position of heroes of freedom, they sticked to stealing the Paradise Council's Fefnir technology... or being secretly financed by the Stellar Fields that had beef with the Council. But what about the future, assuming that one day, they could actually lead the Council to their demise?

The answer was actually pretty obvious: they wouldn't have any excuse left to steal, and nothing to attract sponsors. John couldn't see the leaders of the organization giving up on their power so easily and, even if Fefnir technology was not only far more potent but also far more durable than the others, it still ended disfunctionning, and had one major flaw: you couldn't recreate Fefnir tech with Fefnir tech.

Thus, there was almost no doubt that once they were there, Cifer's leaders would start using the same model of optimized slavery as the Paradise Council to maintain enough power. Oh, of course, they wouldn't use the classism system, or at least not the sectors system, and they would give the slaves slightly more human conditions, along with some cynic propaganda that would make these slaves heroes in the eyes of people, making the majority think they were sacrificing themselves instead of being forced to work to death.

"Tssk, all these hypocritical worthless pieces of shit can gofuck themselves" Hohn grumbled at loud as he sat on a bench.

He and Clark were most likely nothing but pawns on the chessboard, even though the latter was risking his life regularily for the organization. It didn't matter though, as, the moment Clark returned, John would make sure to convince himto escape Cifer and never come back. He was fed up with their bullshit.

'Now, only one problem left, how does I convince him...' he wondered in his mind. 'If there's one flaw he has, it's that he's stubborn as a rock... ouch!'