PART II

Enigma of the Rubik’s Cube

Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.

– George Orwell (1984)

Utopia

Concept of an alternative, ideal societal order

Greek: ou-topos = "no place"

Opposite term: dys-topia = "bad place"

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Pope Zodiac crouched at the top of a well-guarded emergency exit. Burnt-down candle stubs lined the handrail, with wax dripping onto the steps, piling into small mounds over time.

You know what they say: the wise yield. But who’s ever stopped to wonder what happens next? Because if the wise yield, the fools rule.

As Isaac tried to follow this chain of thought, the ruler of the PROMISED LAND wiped the dried saliva from the corners of his mouth and examined the photo of Isaac’s wife.

"In the tunnels, people worship Tabitha like a saint," Isaac said. "They said she performed miracles and healed the poor. You must know her."

The self-proclaimed pope said nothing. Isaac glanced around the narrow emergency exit. In honor of Jesus Christ, a luxurious, decorated altar stood on every landing, and from the look of it, they had all been stolen from different churches. The ruler, on the other hand, sat behind a makeshift podium made of wooden pallets, perched on a throne of shrink-wrapped toilet paper rolls (bulk pack) and wore a filthy bathrobe as his royal gown.

Behind him, chandeliers and goblets of gold gleamed. The decor was a bizarre mix of abject poverty and gaudy luxury. Like the Vikings of old Norse legend, his minions must have looted churches and supermarkets in violent raids, hauling the spoils back here. Though Isaac couldn’t tell which was more valuable in the Lincoln Tunnel these days—the gold or the toilet paper?

Pope Zodiac looked up from the photo he’d been studying for what felt like an eternity and said, "How do you know this woman?"

Isaac sighed, his eyes wandering. "I’ve told you a hundred times. She’s my wife. My life, my love. Do you get it? She’s everything to me, and I need to know where she is."

Zodiac was an ancient ruler, clearly on the verge of dementia. Beside his throne stood a walker with several empty beer cans stacked on it. The old man’s head was small and wrinkled, resembling a dried fruit. Probably a prune. His body sagged over the podium like a crooked branch, his long, gnarled fingernails digging into the splintered wood. He craned his unnaturally small head forward, peering down at Isaac over the pallets.

"They come and they go, my children," the madman said. "But where they go is often unknown. Much like all our fates here on Earth."

Isaac pressed his lips together, feeling the same frustration as a father trying to explain the importance of sharing to his young child holding a handful of candy.

"Can you at least tell me where Tabitha was headed?" he asked. "Before she left the PROMISED LAND." His anger grew as the pope’s silence ignited a burning rage within him. "The people down here worshipped Tabitha like a saint. As a devout Christian and self-proclaimed pope, you must have taken note of her. You know where she is, don’t you? You just won’t tell me. You miserable..."

"I don’t know where she is," the ruler interrupted, "but I know who she left with."

Isaac nodded. "That’s a start. Who?—Hello? Are you still with me? Tell me already!"

But Zodiac fell silent again. His vacant stare was fixed on a step, lost deep in his own thoughts.

What a complete idiot, Isaac thought. When have the right people ever ruled the world? The good ones. The ones who’d rather promote human values than oil profits. Compassion, kindness, charity. But power is always taken by those who seek it. And therein lies the problem, that’s the vicious cycle.

Three men in dirty military uniforms stood behind him, blocking the exit with their makeshift spears. The blades were old kitchen knives, nailed onto the ends of wooden staffs and wrapped with bandages. Isaac knew he had to watch what he said. For whatever reason, the men down here worshipped Pope Zodiac, even though he was no saint and didn’t care at all for the starving and sick people in his so-called PROMISED LAND. He only cared about one thing:

"I want my power to grow," he said solemnly. "And for that, I’ll need your skills."

What? Isaac thought.

"What?" he said aloud.

"Fate brought you to me," the crazed despot continued. "I will lead my people out of the tunnels, and together we will convert more disciples until, in the end, I rule the entire world. But great goals require clever plans. We’ve heard of a—" The old ruler paused to pull a battered Bible from under the table, on which white powder had been carefully arranged into three neat lines. The shriveled Pope of the PROMISED LAND snorted the first line, sneezed, and waited for a moment. Then he sniffed fresh blood and white dust into a handkerchief.

"If you want to know what I know about Tabitha, you will have to serve me," he said.

"I will never serve you," Isaac growled through clenched teeth.

"The alternative is death," the old man replied.

With those words, Isaac felt the sharp tips of two knives press into his back. He inhaled sharply, freezing in place, too afraid to move even an inch. He was much taller than the two guards behind him, even if one stood on the other’s shoulders. But unfortunately, he was unarmed, which ruined his plan of knocking the old ruler off his toilet paper throne. Not because he wanted to sit there, but because he believed that throwing the pope down the stairs might free the people of the PROMISED LAND and bring a little light, a little sense, to this dark place.

"True loyalty. Does it even exist?" the strange man asked. "I wonder, how can one ever be sure that someone is truly loyal?"

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Isaac opened his mouth to speak but shrugged instead. It would definitely be easier to think without knives pressed against his back. And it would also make telling the truth a lot easier.

"By creating dependency," the pope answered his own question. "Only someone who is completely dependent on me could never betray me. And I’ve forced you into that dependency with my knowledge of your wife’s whereabouts. You are my servant, whether you like it or not. And because you’re the only one I can trust, I’m assigning you a task: to retrieve a very important document for me. A document that will secure my power and expand my territory to all of New York."

Isaac hesitated. "And what kind of document is this?"

"It holds information that will bring down the colossal megacorporation, the one that oppresses us all, even me."

Isaac furrowed his brow.

"The Thandros Corporation?"

"Yes. Yes! With your help, I will destroy them, and then I will become the greatest ruler of all time."

"And what on Earth is so big and dangerous that it could take down a giant like Thandros?"

"The truth," Zodiac replied. "For a megacorporation like Thandros, it’s inevitable that there are moles within their ranks, people who want to leak sensitive data, confidential information to the public because they can no longer live with the guilt they carry as employees."

"And... what exactly is this truth?"

The pope stared at him for a long moment without moving.

"No idea," he said finally. "But the mole knows. And I know that his secret has something to do with your wife's disappearance."

"Tabitha is missing?"

"Did I say that?"

A light bulb flickered in the emergency exit. For a few seconds, everything went pitch black. Isaac stood in complete darkness, in that cold place beneath the waters of the East River, and a chill ran through him, partly from the mad despot’s words, and partly from the feeling of the two knife points still pressing into his back. Then the ceiling light sputtered back on, flickering before stabilizing.

"In your homeland, you’re one of the greatest resistance fighters of all time," the old ruler suddenly said. "You’re a national hero. You are le guépard."

Isaac’s breath caught in his throat. All at once, the old man didn’t seem quite as senile as before. He knew some things. Some secrets.

"You liberated your people in Africa," Zodiac continued. "They celebrate you as their great hero."

"My people," Isaac said through gritted teeth, "have no reason to celebrate anymore. Everything we had was taken from us a long time ago. The land was left in ruins, exploited and enslaved by greedy politicians. And when there were no resources left, the powerful abandoned it in chaos and moved on. My people know nothing but corruption and cruelty. Civil wars rage everywhere, women are raped, children are murdered. We toppled Ochacha, but evil was simply replaced by something even worse. My actions in my homeland were nothing more than a drop in the ocean."

The Pope of the PROMISED LAND was unfazed. "You were a hero, and you will be again. A rebel, a revolutionary, and—God willing—a martyr."

"Or I’ll just leave and find Tabitha without your help," Isaac bluffed, even though he knew deep down he was wrong. In a city as vast as New York City, he had no chance of finding his wife without any leads. And the crazed ruler would never let him leave the Lincoln Tunnel alive—unless, from now on, he became his servant.

"I am the only one who knows where your wife is," Pope Zodiac said calmly. "If you help me, I will help you. I’ll tell you who Tabitha left with. And once you know his name, you’ll know where to find him."

Great. First he had to work for years as a corporate drone in a factory, and now he was about to become the servant of a megalomaniac lunatic. Why does it always get worse when you think you've hit rock bottom?

Isaac could barely hold back his anger. His fists clenched so tightly that his dirty fingernails dug into the flesh of his palms. He trembled with rage.

"The devil has many faces," the PROMISED LAND pope said. "In ancient times, he came as a serpent to tempt the first humans to taste the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Today, evil takes the form of a corporation, tempting us with its products, fooling us with its mask of goodness. An informant told us about the mole in Thandros’s ranks, a scientist who possesses sensitive data and plans to hand it over to the competition. We must stop her. More than that: we need those files. I need them. In the name of the LORD, I will claim those documents and use them to wipe this corporate plague from the earth and lead our people to salvation. I, Pope Zodiac the Second, will save the world."

"Pope Zodiac the Second?" Isaac blurted out. "Do you even know who the first one was? No? The first Zodiac was a U.S. serial killer. The truth is hidden in your very name! The fight you're taking on isn't good versus evil—it's evil versus even more evil! You're exploiting an entire religion to satisfy your power-hungry fantasies. Who gave you beggars the right to decide who gets to be here, and who doesn't, and what position they get? Because of me, you threw a pregnant woman out. How do you justify that with religion and charity? You're all just a bunch of disgusting hypocrites," Isaac said, turning to Zodiac’s henchmen. "Open your eyes! You wipe your asses with dried leaves, while your leader sits on a throne made of six-ply premium toilet paper. How many times have you been allowed to use any of it? Has the ‘benevolent one’ ever given you even a single square?"

The three henchmen exchanged telling looks, as though Isaac’s words had awakened them from a long sleep of delusion. A bead of sweat trickled down the old man’s forehead. Was a revolution brewing in his land? A revolution sparked by words—by the truth that the henchmen of the world feared most.

"Is that why you've come?" Zodiac asked. "To criticize my rule? Or are you here because you need my help?"

"The guards kicked a pregnant woman out onto the street on your orders to make room for me. Because you, gracious Pope, think you can use me for your plans. A pregnant woman! Guilt. Do you know what that feels like? It feels damn terrible. I know, because I’m drowning in it right now."

No response.

No argument.

So he continued.

"You hide your rotten soul behind the veil of religion." Isaac stepped up the stairs to the PROMISED LAND pope without permission and reached for the photo of his wife. The guards hadn’t pulled him down yet, which was a sign to him that his words still held power. He had shaken the henchmen’s loyalty. The Pope of the PROMISED LAND had suddenly become vulnerable, and maybe, just maybe, that would give Isaac a window to escape alive.

That was the moment when the pope stood from his throne, holding Tabitha’s photo delicately between his fingers.

The beautiful face of his wife smiled at him.

The mad pope was about to tear her apart!

Tabitha—the only physical memory Isaac had left of her.

"NO!" Isaac roared.

But the pope tore the photo.

Or tried to.

His frail, ancient fingers didn’t seem to have the strength anymore.

Isaac sprinted the rest of the way up the stairs, taking them two at a time, but the pope’s throne was far up the emergency exit. Time was slipping away.

Then it happened.

A deep tear sliced through Tabitha’s face, as if in slow motion.

"No!"

Her lovely smile was split in two, her divine form ripped apart, and suddenly the old ruler held one half of her in each hand, grinning wickedly through the gap between Tabitha’s torn halves at Isaac.

The cheetah inside him had awakened. A storm of fury raged inside Isaac, and he let his anger guide him as he leapt over the wooden pallets, launching himself at the pope like a wild predator. His sheer rage had unleashed the sleeping beast within him. Both men landed softly on the toilet paper rolls. Isaac was on top of the old ruler. He grabbed the filthy collar of the pope’s bathrobe, ready to knock him out with a headbutt, when suddenly he felt a dull blow to the back of his head.

A short, sharp pain exploded through his skull, shooting down his spine, paralyzing him completely.

A split second later, the PROMISED LAND henchmen dragged him off the pope and tossed him down the stairs like a discarded sack of laundry.

Isaac lay bleeding on the cold steps of the emergency exit, in so much pain that even the slightest movement was unbearable.

"Don’t worry!" called the pope, unfazed, as his henchmen helped him back to his feet and restacked his toilet paper throne. "You won’t be working alone. God has sent me two inquisitors from the zero-emissions factory today. You and… Is he here yet?"

No answer.

In the silence, Pope Zodiac revealed his magical abilities by pulling out the Bible again and making two more lines of powder disappear. With a white-tipped nose, the ruler looked down at his henchmen.

A door creaked open below.

"He’s coming, Great Pope."

Isaac lay on his back, his head resting against a step. "Billy... Billy Jones?" he groaned, slowly turning his head toward the open emergency exit door.

He couldn’t believe his eyes.

It wasn’t Billy who stepped through the door.

Number X-157 stood suddenly under the ceiling light and loomed over Isaac. He, too, had been fired after the incident with the broken wafers. And now he’d ended up here.

And he still wanted to kill Isaac.