The Expatriate-the story of a Prodigy

45. Finale

It was as if he was suddenly beneath the huge lights of a field, ready to play golf-a few meters behind him, two huge beams of light suddenly descended quickly and shone his back. This time, instead of feeling as if he was the star player of the night, he felt as if he was there for an album tour. The only thing that wasn't there was the audience and the music and the cheering. Well, to be exact, only the cheering was gone, because the audience was slowly starting to form. He saw a few tiny silhouettes run out of the building, having spotted the turned on lights in the field. They shouted to the others-Alex could hear from the distance. He took a deep breath. So few people on his side who were straight-minded and sharp, and so many people on the other side who were all dumbasses and brainwashed... According to hundreds of famed thinkers and parents, the smart would win the dumbs. However, according to a few like Noah Harari, numbers would be the predominant element in terms of winning...For the first time, he couldn't decide who would win in the end. And by the time his eyes cleared to a sharp enough focus and his thoughts went from winning to the words he would soon be saying, a crowd of Military had already gathered in front of him with seething and drunken and adventurous and crazy and envious and aggressive and belligerent faces. The 'spoken words' are mightier than the sword, Alex Mars. Now, freakin' start your talk, he thought to himself.
And, he did.
"Don't worry, in case you're thinking that I have some evil scheme that has an extremity of Dante's Inferno," He spoke and surprisingly, his voice was kind of clear and though it wasn't tough nor too confident, it still slid through the night air through the microphone in a huge and booming tone. He hoped the civilians would be able to hear it and arrive at the base soon. "I am not here to attack and do physical harm. But I am, after all, here to mock some people-and those would be: myself, and, you-yes, the Military," Suddenly, a jeering cry erupted from his raucous audience. Shit, already? I hadn't got to the real part, he thought as several hands rose high in the air, brandishing long guns. Well, almost in an amused way, Mars also noticed a jagged piece of glass from a beer bottle being shaken 'threateningly' at him in the air among the guns.
"That's right. I won't kill nor revolt if you harm me first. I won't be infuriated. But I will speak forever and on and even when I'm dead, though it sounds creepy. now, let's get to the main paragraph and main idea, shall we?" Just as he finished his sentence and was confirmed that his speech was finally making quick and positive progress, a man stepped into his makeshift stage and confidently threw his shadow from the big beams of light on the cement and bloodied floor.
It was Hale-but Alex had anticipated him. He now had very short hair and his eyes were a bit drunken and unclear. Also, his uniform had changed to some other kind, a very white and gleaming one that contrasted hugely with the dark one he had worn previously. Also, he now was hanging more medals on his chest proudly. Lyra was right. And, he's just like Napoleon in Animal Farm. Flooded with total mammonism, a higher and dictatorship-like status, those drunken eyes. Lyra's always right, Mars thought as he stared back at the unclear eyes observedly. That fueled Hale and made his drunken brain remember why he was standing there rigidly.
"Alex Mars," The man rasped out, clearly pleased-in the arrogant way. His lousy and dry lips curved themselves into a crooked smile that no girl would fall for, but a demon would fall for gladly.
"Hello," Alex replied.
Silence swept through like a giant windstorm through the entire clearing, the entire base, and very possibly, the entire country, if the civilians were also tuned into the scene. Hale took in deep breathes and plunged his nails into the flat skin of his scarred and hard left palm. Blood slowly sipped into his nails, and Alex heard the skin getting tore and the blood sipping in. "You bitch," Hale growled as he pushed his left hand, the bloody one, into his pocket. "Originally, bitch is a word for women. Or, to be more exact, a female dog," Mars now turned to the rest of the seething audience. "Well, your glorious general just called me a female dog. He has a strange conscious mind today, doesn't he? Well, tell me, people. Did he drink?" He could imagine Thomas and Miles and Lewis grinning from behind the tree line.
No one answered. However, quite a lot snarled.
"Well, if he did, I highly recommend that he doesn't, from at least now. If he has this kind of consciousness during his daily life, he's going to ruin his 'victorious' statocracy in a single hour by calling every woman in it a 'female dog' and the entire population 'an African or American perissodactyl mammal' by dubbing it as 'ass'," he said as he watched Hale's right hand suddenly switch into his left side of the belt and pull out a gun. Alex watched in amusement as a silver bullet spun out of the muzzle so smoothly as if it was a piece of artistic machinery or masterpiece. Then, the thing turned its head to him and spun towards his shoulder.
Shit, Mars thought, now seriously worried. But he wasn't too worried about his survival or his jokes getting cut short-he was just worried about getting his speech cut short.
And the thing is, the bullet missed. Alright, not completely, though, don't get relieved-it still grazed his shoulder. Blood poured out as if the bullet has opened up a faucet on its way to somewhere else and his white shirt started to be soaked completely through. And after a few seconds, his numb shoulder turned quite aching and frustrated. And, in addition, as if the bullet had somehow disconnected a few parts of his nervous system, his fingers wouldn't move. He heard a tiny gasp from the sidelines and though he knew it was Lyra, he didn't turn to her, for it would show the Military of her hiding place. Instead, he ignored all others and glared at Hale, who was grinning victoriously and dumbly at himself and shoving his thumb to point at himself in front of his Military army. Some cheered and shook their own guns as if they were native fellas who would 'ahh' and 'ooh' and shake their spears in the air in celebration.
-However, the eyes of some went rigid and a few guys crinkled their faces at the sight of blood and their so-revered general laughing for himself as if he had gone crazy.
"I don't abhor you, still. I'm only here to say my words, so whatever you do to me won't matter. However, killing me here and now would anger someone. Actually, quite a lot, to be exact..." His words had made good timing, and he had been in luck. As he said his words, a sparse group of people spilled through the metal fences of the base and started running in the entire scenario's direction, now unafraid of harm, nor the complete imprisonment of their freedom.  -The civilians were here. As the Military turned to them in surprise and anger, Mars continued, trying to take away their attention from harming the innocent civilians.
"I am going to continue. And now, I'm really going to the real part of the talk, so don't interrupt. If you want to kill, do it after my mouth closes in conclusion," Though his arm was sending frantic and frenzied electric signals to his brain that it had some trouble interpreting fully, and his now steadily-multiplying and arriving audience was in a giant frenzy of tension and impulse itself, he launched into his talk.
"This is, actually, a selfish story about me and my environment. However, just give me one last chance to be selfish.
"As soon as I was born, I tried to get used to the world I had been born into. I thought that it was the only way to live a happy life. But from the moment I woke up after being Muted, I realized one thing, people. I felt, somehow, restrained. I felt as if I was caught up in this tiny shell that I could get out of, but didn't have enough motivation for it, or had no logical reason to break free.
"I was still adhering to that stupid notion as I got to the Military. Yes, I acted-and acted to be normal. Somehow, from my skills, Fawkes selected me. But from the time he did, I felt that feeling that this wasn't quite right. I mean, who would if you're seeing a bunch of people dying and rotting and enslaved for no major reason inside the square retrains of the Military and puppet gov had made? I felt as if it was all my fault, which, actually, was true.
"So I quit being a sergeant. Then, one day, Andrew was... executed. Let me tell you the crime the Military did on a daily basis and only knew to itself, people: they first jail a guy. Then, they take the guy to a place to test him if he's a real Prod. And if he shows any small detail of it, they take him back to the prison. Then the guy stays there for a week only on water and bread. And then, they hang you to the pole standing there. And the general shoots him in the chest. That's how Andrew died.
"-And that's when I noticed that I had been stupid, that all of my life had been full of lies to myself, that I had lived literally nothing. I had lost my first and only friend by lying instead of taking the blame-if I had, I would still have lived, and Andrew must have been by my side, too.
"After the event, I quit everything. I finally got accused by Hale as a Prod and I experienced the same events that Andrew had. Then, instead of killing me-I preferred that, actually-they banished me.
"And now I realized clear and loud: we don't get used to a life.
"We have to make the life be used to us.
"All humans have been born equal and have a right to be happy, people," He paused, amazed at the audience, which had quietened down a bit. Also, hundreds of more people had been streaming through the gates freely now, eager to hear his loud talk from closer. So, more eyes were looking at him and he took it as a signal to continue, and further ignoring the pain in his shoulder, he did continue to spit out the words that had been forever inside his heart. They had always been battling to get freed, and finally, on that particular day, their dream of getting emancipated was becoming a real story.
"After being banished, I morphed my life completely. And today's me is the result.
"Now, I have ears that can be Unmuted and Muted. I love a girl, someone who's not my family, but whom I'd die for if I have to. I have Prodigy friends, and a lot, and a Martian friend who made my name be created. And I love the United States of America, not the Allied Satsocracy of America.
"See the difference? Just change the perspective of life, and you'll have so much.
"It was so brave of you and your activities to change your lives to match your preference by rebelling. But it's not enough.
"Please, be yourself, no one else.
"Do what you want.
"Why? Because...that's the only way to fulfill your right: being happy as a human being," By now, the pain in his shoulder had grown all of a sudden, like the flame inside the collapsing house when Lyra's mother had died. Just one more sentence, he thought as his consciousness started to threaten his brain and he started to feel aloft like he was as drunk as Hale and the army. But he managed to say the words he had to say out loud at the end:
"Let me say one more: fight, people, fight. Live your life."
-And that was all he had to say that day.
Exactly 5 seconds and 0.45 seconds later, his ears, eyes, and skin felt chaos suddenly erupt all around them. First of all, his ears felt shouts of surprise and shock erupt from the crowd, then heard the continuous and dull sound of blood kept flowing out of somewhere. Then, his eyes saw dak crimson, the same color of the blood he had seen covering the leg of the boy he had saved as soon as he had gotten in the city. In addition, his eyes saw the line of the crowd, which had been quite uniform and straight, suddenly waver and slide towards him like an angry sea ready to take him with it when it would recede. Also, he saw the ground suddenly tilting itself at him, carrying the crowd, the base, and the forest along with it, closer to his face. Well, the world has finally gone crazy like hell, his head interpreted it, confused. And lastly, his skin felt the aching and throbbing of his shoulder and his lungs wheezed desperately, trying to keep the body that was encasing them, alive. But for the first time, their efforts-yes, the efforts of his lungs-would be nearly useless. In reality, however, Alex Mars himself as the one tilting on the balls of his feet toward the ground, his blood from the shoulder dripping down to the already-bloodied cement floor, adding to its crimson color. And as usual, his ears were right at least-the crowd was roaring, surprised as he started to fall, encouraged to act from his speech, and encouraged to fight. Some calls were battle calls from the Military, and that indicated that even after Alex's words, they were ready to fight the other side. But now because the cause of all their frustrations-the badass Prod Alex Mars-was going down, and they still didn't know the presence of the Prods who were hiding behind the tree line, they instead turned on the heels of their feet and faced the civilians.
Meanwhile, Mars' slow brain was only saying one sentence: I need to see her. However, his efforts were in vain.
When Alex hit the ground on his face, and tried to struggle to get up but feebly failed, his Prod team knew that they were needed-this thought was furthered when they saw a few soldiers in the Military raise their guns at the civilians, who had little weapons, or improvised weapons.
"Go, go, go!" It was Miles' screech that hit Lyra Cannes' frozen head-it hadn't frozen long ago, and had only frozen when she had heard the word slip from the boy she had had some strange feelings to: love. And by the time she gathered her senses after the screech of Miles, she saw the boy struggling on the ground, bloody like hell, and looking as if he was barely alive. Her mind melted as quickly as it had frozen, and now, she watched as all the others behind the treeline throw themselves out of the forest's limits as if they were glad about it. When she saw Thomas shoot a soldier on the face with a paralyzer, she finally ran out of the woods, eyes not on her enemies, but Alex.
He had promised her that he wouldn't die for her-and he had been serious. He was alive. However, he didn't seem like he would survive for long... She now raced in her usual Prod-speed, telling any of her hidden skills to come out, since till then, they hadn't come out-and now was the best and last chance for them to. They didn't come out anyway, but she relieved herself by plunging herself into the thick and raucous crowd quickly, getting closer to Mars more than before, at least. Now, the crowd was jolting her around as if they were very eager to not let her even a tiny bit of space during their fight. Well, if it was able to be called a 'fight', even, it must be described as a hell of a fight, for people were stabbing more-properly armed soldiers with rakes, steel poles, shoes, knives. Meanwhile, Lyra could see some people dressed in Military uniforms uncertainly attacking their own people-they had gotten turned against the Military from the speech, and it made Lyra think: At least it was effective. But the matter of fighting wasn't what she was concerned of now-so, ignoring the jolts that hit her and shook her, she searched for Alex Mars. And now there he was! Curled up, head between his knees, slack and bleeding, all at the same time. Oh, how much relief she felt at the sight... She plunged down to his side and put a hand on his chin and made him look at her-and his eyes had, by this time, turned unclear and slow, but he still saw her. And he was crying.
-and, for the first time after the day when Andrew had been erased from the face of Earth. Tears just sprang from his eyes as he stared into hers. They were strange tears, literally-painful, and, somehow, happy tears.
First, Lyra nudged away the angry fighters all around them and they continued on fighting, not knowing that they were standing right near the persons who had intrigued the commotion. Next, she sat cross-legged on all the blood, ignoring the fighting. She pulled Alex by his shoulders onto her lap.
"I'm going to keep my promise-I won't die," Mars gasped at her. "Al, I know," She answered, and exactly 5 seconds before Alex could slip away inside his head, she neared her face and let their lips meet, a bit violently, but also for the first time, and to both, it gave a shower of the unfamiliar but amazing feelings.
Then, Mars was gone.
-that is, only for now.