When John woke up, he found that he was lying in bed in a tranquil and bright room. It was so quiet that the only sound he could hear was made by chirping and squawking birds. He attempted to sit up, but then his head fell back to the pillow.

“Ouch,” John cried out because of a burst of pain at his abdomen. He opened the blanket on him and found that his body was bandaged from chest down to waist.

“What’s going on?” He could not remember much of what happened the other day on that high stage platform in the central square of B City. The last things in his memory were the faces of Colonel X and Sergeant Y in that truck and the pain in his body.

“I must be shot,” He thought, and his hand carefully moved on the bandage trying to locate the wound on his body.

“Zeegaga..zeegaga,” the sound of the wood floor told John that someone was coming, quietly and cautiously.

“Who is that?” John asked.

“Oh my! You woke up?” The person obviously sped up his steps and rushed into the room.

“Peter.” John was so glad to see Peter, the youngster in his protesting group.

“Finally, you completely come back,” Peter sounded very excited.

“Where am I? What happened?” John asked.

“You were shot by an AH soldier from a chopper one week ago,” Peter replied.

“One week ago?” John asked.

“Yes, you have been unconscious for a week,” Peter replied.

“Where is this place? How did I come here?” John asked.

“This is a country house of Jessica,” Peter replied.

“Where is she? Is she alright?” John asked.

“She is fine,” Peter replied and then told John what happened during the past week.

……

The other day, when Jessica and others saw John was shot and fell down, with the help of the cops who were maintaining the order in the area, they rushed John to a nearest hospital. The doctors stopped his bleeding and took the bullet out of John’s body, but they were not sure if John could finally come back or not. When John was given a blood transfusion, Jessica received a message that a squad of federal secret agents already arrived at B City to arrest her as well as John in case he was still alive. So they decided to transfer John out of the hospital right away.

With the permission from the doctor in charge, they put John into a van while lying on the gurney. They chose to use a van because an ambulance could easily catch the attention of the secret police. Jessica, together with Doug and Peter, drove five hours to her country house. Then Jessica and Doug drove to inform Bob and left Peter to take care of John.

“They could have called Bob or sent him a text from here,” John said.

“According to the contingent protocol preset by the intelligent team of BHA, in case of an overall crackdown by the government, all key members of BHA should refrain from using commercial telecommunication means from their hiding places to avoid being tracked by the secret police. Actually, we all took off the batteries from our mobile phones on our way to here,” Peter explained.

“That makes sense,” John commented. “Did they see Bob?”

“Yes,” Peter replied. “Bob came and stayed here for two days to take care of your wound. He said it was a miracle for you could survive this catastrophe. He left when he saw your condition was stabilized and your health was recovering because he needed to meet with his family in his parent’s house.”

“You just reminded me that I need to call my parents.” John tried to sit up again, but then fell back to the bed again.

“You cannot make any phone call because we don’t have any phone here,” Peter responded calmly.

“I see,” I sighed. “I wish Bob would go to tell my parents that I am still alive.”

“Most probably he would not do that because BHA would not allow him to do so since the whole world thought that you have died, including your own family, which would be the safest way for you to stay alive, and also the safest for your family. I am sorry for that,” Peter said with compassion.

“I understand,” John said, deeply sorrowed. Then he asked again, “Where is Jessica now?”

“After they met with Bob, they went to some kind of internet café and connected to BHA’s VPN from there.”

“Why didn’t they use Bob’s computer?” John interrupted.

“They could’ve got onto internet through 5G wireless even from here. But they were refrained from connecting to the internet within any BHA member’s property. Even in that internet café, I was told that Doug hacked into their network to get onto BHA’s VPN,” Pater said. “Anyway, from there they learned that George was arrested in M City, and all BHA headquarters were raided by secret police.”

“Then where did they go after that?” John asked.

“Right before George was arrested, since he knew that he would not be able to escape, he sent out two commands: 1) he appointed Jessica as the acting leader when he could not lead BHA; 2) start the Rolling Billows plan.”

John interrupted by asking, “Rolling Billows?”

“Yes … I guess that name refers to the ocean.” Peter explained. “Anyway, according to that plan, key BHA leaders would run to certain rendezvous points, where they would get further notifications from the intelligent team, telling them where to go next.”

“Do you know where they are now?” John asked, his anxious tone conveyed the degree of his concern.

“Yes, but only roughly,” Peter replied.

“What do you mean?” John asked.

“Yesterday, Jimmy came telling me that Jessica, Doug, and many others have arrived at a small town near the Antarctic continent, and the local government as well as the government of that country has been on our side against BMA all along,” Peter said.

“That’s great!” John looked relieved after he heard that Jessica was safe, and then he asked, “Why is Jimmy still here? Why didn’t he leave with Jessica and others?”

“Do you remember that Jimmy had a thief teacher?” Peter asked.

“Yes, he mentioned that in the meeting when he came with George,” John replied.

“That thief teacher went with Jessica, and Jimmy stays here. Both of them are acting as underground liaisons between BHA members around the world because they both are able to act quickly when wearing the cloaking suits,” Peter said.

“Why those in the temporary headquarters with Jessica need an underground liaison if the government would protect them?” John asked.

“The best way for the governments to protect them is actually to hide them from BMA since BMA is too strong to be treated without caution,” Peter responded.

“I see,” John slightly nodded his head on the pillow. “By the way, how do you know I was shot by an AH soldier?”

“It was caught by a CCTV camera in the central square, and a soldier wearing a Red Hat from a chopper fired the sonorous shot that almost killed you,” Peter replied.

“So we did catch their evidence,” John murmured.

“Yes,” Peter grinned, “and you have become famous all over the world. That’s why you are the number one target that BMA would catch if they knew that you are still alive, and that’s why you are the most important person for BHA to protect.”

“What about that AH troop? Are those AH soldiers still in this country?” John asked.

“They are still here. But there have been many protests, not organized by BHA, but by other political organizations, demanding the government to arrest the killer and drive the AH army away from this country. There is also a huge pressure from all social sectors on the government to let the AH army leave this country,” Peter responded. “I don’t know how long the government might keep them in this country.”

“I wish they would be driven out soon,” John said. “I still don’t understand why BMA wanted to use AH army.”

“It’s thought by many that BMA did that as a test of our acceptance of AHs in this world and also a test how they could use AHs for their own agenda,” Peter explained.

“I wish all this has never happened,” John sighed and closed his eyes.

“Well, you might also look at it in another way, if you have seen how the world has responded to your video,” Peter said.

“Which video?” John asked and his eyes opened again.

“The video that you were pointing to the AH sergeant on the LED panel and then got shot on the stage,” Peter replied. “That video has been replayed again and again by major networks all over the world. It was even played for a little while in our country before BMA forced it being taken off. But that was long enough for many to make copies. These days, BMA has put very tough censoring and control over the internet, but people are still circulating that video among friends. Besides, people in many other countries could see it even on internet.”

John’s eyes turned bright.

“The world was shocked by that video, and the governments of many countries came out condemning BMA for their crackdown of BHA,” Peter continued. “Even in our own country, more and more people are coming to support BHA in various forms. Our team is not shrinking, but expanding underground.”

“That sounds great. Maybe we should have another protest to cast out the dark force of BMA,” John suggested.

“That time has not come yet,” Peter sighed. “The power of BMA in this country is still far stronger than being easily cast out. They have great influence over the government, the army, the police, as well as the mainstream media.”

Both of them fell into deep sorrow without saying anything. The room became super silent. A few minutes later, John sighed sadly while looking Peter in the eye, “So it’s all finished… a complete crackdown by BMA through the government … we are all finished except being on the run from BMA.”

“No, not at all,” Peter responded confidently. “Before he left, Jimmy especially wanted me to tell you not feel defeated once you wake up.”

“I mean all finished for BHA…I know that as you just mentioned, there have been protests and pressure on the government by and from people around the country, but it has nothing to do with BHA… BHA is not leading this continued fight but is counting on the help from others,” John uttered and closed his eyes again.

“I am not so pessimistic,” Peter responded. “Right now BHA is in the low point because of the crackdown from the dark power of BMA. However, in order to crack down us, BMA exposed their evil face in front of the whole world, which in another sense is our gain again.”

“I agree with that,” John opened his eyes.

Peter smiled at him, and continued, “On the other hand, we should also be glad that when we are on the run, someone else could pick up the torch so that there is not a period of empty window for the fire to continue burning. As for whether BHA is finished, we should see that BHA has come to be the largest and also well-organized society in this war of defending humanity against the inhuman movement of replacing people with robots and AHs. It’s true that we got hit badly this time, many of our members have been arrested and thousands have been persecuted in various ways, and the rest of our leaders are still on the run, but we are also better informed of the wick and weak points of BMA than the rest of the world. So when we are reorganized and come back, we will be at a better position than anyone else to lead the war against BMA.”

“How could we lead if we even cannot make a phone call or use the internet?” John questioned.

“That would be a temporary thing,” Peter responded. “When Jimmy was here, he told me that the BHA intelligent team and the leaders in that overseas temporary headquarters are making a strategic plan of how to rearrange our resource globally to launch a battle in the real world as well in the cyber world against BMA. But we are not in a rush right now for two reasons.”

“What reasons?” John asked.

“The first reason is that we were hit hard indeed, so that we need some time to get our own team reorganized, and the second reason is even simpler that the time is actually not on BMA side, but on our side,” Peter responded.

“What makes you so optimistic?” John seemed not quite share Peter’s optimism.

“That’s simple,” Peter smiled. “Since Jessica and other leaders are safe now, BMA is obviously unable to wipe us out completely within a short time, which means we have time to rebuild ourselves and make a comeback. But in the meantime, BMA itself is taking all the risk of exposing its evil face to the whole world, and thus not only all potential silent anti-BMA forces would accumulate and get together, but also different factions within BMA would fight against each other under the ever greater outside pressure on them.”

“Well, I wish things would go as you said,” John responded, although still not completely convinced.

“We did what we were supposed and planed to do, which was to sow the seed of fighting the inhuman plot of BMA in the nation and the world. We should feel good about it and personally I am proud of it,” Peter said.

“I have no doubt about that, and I am proud of it as well,” John responded. He looked Peter in the eye and said, “You sound very profound. Did you plan to be a philosopher, or politician, or something like that?”

“I am just one of the social activists as we call ourselves,” Peter grinned. “In the past days, when I sat alone while you were not conscious, I thought a lot. Besides, when Bob and Jimmy were here, we also talked a lot about the future of BHA.”

“Still, you are the fourth person I have met who could talk in such a philosophically profound style,” John smiled at Peter.

“Really?” Peter laughed. “Who are the other three?”

“One was George, as you witnessed when he came to B City,” John said.

“Who are the other two?” Peter asked.

“Steve and General K,” John twitched his lips disdainfully. “Two executives of the dark force BMA, but they were able to talk like you just did.”

“I guess knowledge and logic are neutral, all depends on who use it and how to use it,” Peter shrugged.

“What did you do before joining BHA as a full time headquarters employee?” John asked.

“I was a nurse before joining BHA as a fulltime,” Peter said. “Oh, it’s time for me to change dressing on your wound.” He stood up because he needed to get the medical box.

“So you are professional of doing this,” John said.

Peter smiled.

“Thanks a lot for taking care of me,” John said. “I am much obliged.”

“Don’t mention it … You did that for all of us,” Peter responded.

~.~~~~~~~~~~~~~

John’s wound recovered very fast. A few days later, in an early morning, after he woke up, instead of waiting in bed for Peter to bring breakfast to him, John managed to leave the bed by himself. He was so excited that he could do so, and then he slowly walked downstairs with the help of his hand holding the rail or touching the wall. John was careful when using his body strength because he did not want to cause any pain in the wound. But after he reached downstairs, he realized that there was no more pain in the wound. So he started to walk without the help of hands. But after walking a few steps he felt very exhausted. Apparently, his strength had not completely recovered after his loss of blood in a large quantity. He had to take a bit of rest after walking for some steps.

Slowly, John managed to get to the kitchen which was connected to the backyard. To his surprise that he saw Peter was already in the backyard. John was about to call him when he saw a pigeon fly into the backyard and landed on the ground. Peter went to pick up the pigeon and released it after he retrieved something from its leg. It was a written note. Peter opened it and read its content.

“Ah, a carrier pigeon,” John uttered.

“Morning, John. How did you get here?” Peter was surprised to see John at the postern door of the kitchen.

“I felt no pain in the wound anymore, so I just tried to get downstairs by myself,” John responded. “This is the first time in my life of seeing the use of a carrier pigeon for real, the same as I read from fiction books.”

“This was Jimmy’s idea of fighting against the high-tech system of BMA, and he learned it from that thief teacher,” Peter laughed. “It’s good that you can walk now because I am afraid that we have to leave here.”

“Any bad news?” John asked with concern.

“Jimmy sent a note that BMA figured out that you might still alive since they could not confirm your death. They might soon found that Jessica actually owned a country house even though it was under her father’s name. It might be just a matter of time for them to send someone here or ask the local cops to come take a look,” Peter replied.

“When do we leave?” John asked.

“Let me first change the wound dressing for you before we leave. Then we’ll have our breakfast. We leave right after eating breakfast,” Peter responded.

“Sounds good,” John said.

“How do you feel?”

“I don’t feel pain, but feel a bit weak,” John responded.

“Naturally, you lost too much blood. You’ll be okay after we get to our destination,” Peter said.

“Where are we going?” John asked.

“You will know later,” Peter responded. “Since you are already here, no need to go back to upstairs. Please go to the living room and lie on the couch, I will go upstairs to fetch the medical box.”

……

Peter finished his breakfast fast. Then he went to pack for John and for himself while John was still having his breakfast.

After all packed, Peter carefully cleaned the house to cover their trace of living in the house. The house was quite isolated from its neighbors. The owners of the houses in the area were normally living in cities, and only came to spend vacation time, and it was quite normal that some neighbors lent their house to some friends for some weekends or holidays. So the owners in that area don’t spend much time with neighbors, and don’t usually mind the business of neighbors. During the past two weeks, Peter never went out to shop, when Jimmy and Bob came, they all brought some food to the house.

Peter tried his best to make the house not look like just being occupied. Meanwhile, John slowly walked out to take a look of the environment.

When Peter got all settled, John came back to the house.

“Peter.”

“Yeah.”

“Is Jimmy coming to pick up us?” John asked.

“No,” Peter responded. “We leave by ourselves.”

“But I don’t see any vehicles here,” John sounded very confused. “How could we leave without a vehicle?”

Peter laughed and said, “Let me show you something.”

He helped John to walk out the postern door, and let him sit on a bench on the deck. “Wait here please.”

Then he walked across the backyard into the woods. A few minutes later, Peter pushed out of the woods something apparently transparent when look from afar.

“A cloaked drone car?” John was excited.

When Peter pushed that cloaked drone car close to the deck, John already managed to step down the deck. Peter opened the door letting John to get in the drone car. Then he went to pick up all their luggage and load it into the drone car. After verifying that every trace was cleaned up, Peter locked the backdoor of the house, and got himself into the drone car as well.

“Wow, it’s so exciting to travel by a cloaked drone car,” John exclaimed.

“It’s not a completely automatic drone. It looks like a drone car since it has four enclosed rotary wings on the top, but it is just a manned rotorcraft with an AR system, and we have to fly it by ourselves,” Peter explained.

“Do you know how to operate this?” John asked.

“Jimmy taught me how to fly this before he left. It is quite smart, and its AR system is also pretty cool. So it’s not that hard to fly it.” Peter started the engine and turned on the electronic map on the panel. Then he set the destination of the trip and pushed the button of “take off”. The cloaked chopper then rose into the sky.

“It’s amazing! I could not even hear the noise,” John praised.

“That’s the whole point of having four enclosed rotary wings instead of one big rotor with two long blades like a regular chopper. If it could not hide its sound, then even if it could hide its body, others could easily find it,” Peter explained.

“You’re absolutely right,” John concurred. “Did Jimmy come by this rotorcraft?”

“Yeah, that’s how he brought this to Jess’s country house,” Peter replied.

“Then how did he leave?” John asked.

“Oh, he brought a foldable bike in this chopper when he came, and he left by biking,” Peter laughed.

“He is something,” John remarked.

“Yeah, something abnormal,” Peter grinned at John.

When the rotorcraft was rising up, John asked, “Do we have enough battery power?”

“We have enough for three days flight. We also have a portable charger that could replenish the battery with the power for us to fly for another one day,” Peter replied.

“How come the charger could only provide one day’s power? What if we could not make to the destiny after four days?” John showed his worry.

“The charger we have is a small capacity one. But we can always find some place to recharge it since it is portable,” Peter explained. “Most probably, we will be in our first rendezvous point within four days.”

“We better do,” John said.

“Let’s not worry about it right now.” Peter then said to John, “Take a look at the box below your seat.”

John bowed to open that box, and was surprised again. “A cloaking suit?”

Peter grinned at him, “Two cloaking suits, one for you and one for me.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Why do we need cloaking suits?” John asked.

“Don’t you notice that we are missing something important?” Peter asked back.

“What is missing?”

“Think harder,” Peter said in a teasing tone.

“Oh…I see,” John started to laugh. “We don’t have toilet in this craft.”

“That’s right,” Peter laughed. “We might need to fly for days, and we have to relax ourselves. Jimmy suggested that we should put on the cloaking suits whenever we land and leave the craft. It might help, even though we are not as professional as Jimmy.”

“Don’t we also need parachutes?” John asked.

“We need, but we don’t have,” Peter laughed wryly. “It was in a rush when Jimmy came to meet us, and it happened that there was no parachute in this chopper. He did not have the chance to get one for us.”

“Well, we have confidence in BHA’s product anyway,” John responded.

They both laughed.

After they have reached a height that made it free of worry for being identified by people on the ground, Peter said to John, “Okay, now let’s move on.”

“Hold on,” John patted Peter’s back and pointed to a side screen. “See, a police car just stopped in front of Jess’s house.”

“Oh, thank the Lord,” Peter said. “It might have already approaching the house when we were taking off, but the cops did not see us or hear us.”

“I agree,” John concurred.

“No rush for us to leave yet. Let’s hear what they are doing,” Peter said.

“You have put bugs in the house?” John asked.

“They have been in the house before we came. It is a very common thing here since the owners normally don’t live here,” Peter said, and pushed a button on the dashboard.

There were two cops, one man and one woman, apparently from the local police department. They rang the bell and also knocked the door.

John and Peter could hear them talking in their interphones with their boss, reporting what they see.

“The alarm was not set. Please check when it was unset,” The female cop spoke to the interphone.

John looked at Peter, and there was obvious worry in his eyes. Peter smiled at him, “No worry. This house was designated by Jess as a secret rendezvous point for BHA months ago. So she normally doesn’t set the alarm since it is connected to the local police department. Besides, BHA monitors this house anyway.”

“It was unset long time ago,” someone responded to the female cop’s request in the interphone.

John and Peter exchanged a smile.

What surprised John and Peter was that the cops even used a skeleton key to open the front door. Obviously, they were ordered to get into the house.

“Where did you put the trash bags?” John asked.

“There is an underground composter in the woods. I dumped all the trash bags there this morning, and double checked before I left the house that all trash bins were empty and clean,” Peter replied.

“Let’s hope that they don’t find that underground composter,” John said.

“That’s the most important reason that I want to stay here to see what they are doing because there are dirty bandages in the composter,” Peter replied.

Luckily, in the end, those two local cops concluded that it was an empty house and no one was living in the house. When Peter saw the police left the house, he pushed the “move forward” button and the rotorcraft left for its destination.

~.~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three days later, John and Peter arrived at their first rendezvous point. It was an old house in a small beach town. The house was about one hundred feet from the beach, with a big back yard circulated by woods, which was ideal for landing the cloaked rotorcraft without being noticed.

Actually, the air distance from Jessica’s country house to this beach town was not very far. Even if travelling by car, they could have arrived in one and a half days. It took John and Peter three days because they did not take the straight air path between those two points. Several weeks ago, there was some rumor on the internet saying that the GPS satellites had been equipped with AI system with big data processing capacity to identify various anomalies. So Peter and John did not use the GPS to navigate their flight, instead they followed the land route of highways with the help of the standalone electronic map. From time to time, they needed to find some hiding place to land and relax themselves, which would lead them away from the normal route so that they had to find the original route again after they were done with their rest. Besides, they did not fly at night since it would be too dangerous for them to do it at night.

When Peter had the rotorcraft land in the yard of the target house, it was already dark in the sky. After stepped out of the rotorcraft, as instructed, instead of going into the house, they directly went to the basement. It was a full basement with its own separate door. When turned on the light, they found it was a well finished basement with separate living room and bedrooms, as well as bathrooms.

Peter turned on the notepad he brought and connected to the internet through the local wifi in the house.

“What are you doing?” John asked.

“We need to visit some public websites to get the info about the next rendezvous point,” Peter replied.

“You don’t worry about being tracked by BMA?” John asked.

“No,” Peter replied. “Those are just random websites, and anyone could post anything there. You could find thousands or even millions of that kind websites online, and millions of people are visiting those websites from all over the world. There is no way for them to find any problem if we just view some pages in some websites.”

Peter took a piece of paper and a pen. He visited ten pages, and took notes from each one of them, but in the end, he only used notes from two of them to fetch the useful info, which was a standard protocol designed by the BHA intelligence team.

“We are supposed to meet with someone on a ship in the ocean,” Peter showed his notes to John. “We will leave here tomorrow morning, and first fly about four hours to get to a small island; we will take some rest there, and from there we need to fly another two hours to get to that ship.”

“Are you going to land on the ship?” John asked.

“Yes, we are supposed to do that based on the message,” Peter replied.

“I was told that landing on a ship is very difficult even for military helicopters,” John said.

Peter pointed John to one piece of the notes he took, “See, it’s said that the ship had a renovated helipad which would be very convenient for any vehicle to land. Well, I guess the ‘any vehicle’ is actually particularly referring to our vehicle.”

“Well, if you are confident of your own skill,” John raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders.

Peter then pointed to another note, “Don’t worry. It’s also mentioned that the water in that region is not very deep and the waves there are not very rough in this season.”

“I wish they did not write this just to make us feel better,” John laughed wryly.

“Well, I guess we don’t have any other choice,” Peter Said.

“Yeah, I guess you are right,” John responded. “So the ship has been waiting for us in the ocean all these days?”

“No,” Peter replied. “They are supposed to leave their dock a little later from now after they know that we are here.”

“How could they know that we are here? They have someone nearby? If they do, why don’t they send someone to tell us where we should go instead of letting us go online?” John asked.

“They might have someone nearby, but that’s not necessary,” Peter responded. “They have hacked into the local network of this house … it’s easy since it is hacking into their own house…so that they not only know whether someone is getting online from this house, but also know which websites that person visited … as long as they found that we have visited the websites according to the predesigned protocol, they would know that we are here and we already know where to go.”

“That sounds very cool,” John remarked, excitedly. But then he asked in a worrying tone, “What if when we get to the rendezvous point in the ocean, the ship is not there?”

“Then we just fly back to that island, I guess,” Peter replied. “So we need to be sure that both the chopper and the portable charger would be fully charged before we take off tomorrow morning.”

“We better do it now,” John replied.

“No worry. We still have a whole night. Let me first check your wound,” Peter said.

“I think I don’t need the bandage any more, since I don’t feel the pain at all,” John said.

“Let me see.” Peter unwrapped John’s bandage. “Amazing, it’s a miracle, you are all through now.”

“Do you think it’s because of the super bioglue?” John asked.

“We should give some credit to the modern medical technology, no doubt about it,” Peter responded. “But even with the super bioglue, it’s still a miracle because the bullet got deep into your internal organ and you were transferred out of the hospital right after the doctor took the bullet out of your body. The best bioglue could not get your life back if your own physiological function could not boot up again.”

“Thanks to the Lord, my life is completely back now.”

Both smiled with joy.

~.~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Peter and John landed on that targeted small island at the expected time, and everything went smoothly on that island. They landed near a lighthouse to make sure that they could find the power to charge their rotorcraft and the charger so that they could have enough power for any unexpected need. They relaxed themselves in the woods besides the beach before putting on the cloaking suits and sneaking into the lighthouse to charge their charger. They left the charger in the lighthouse and went back to the rotorcraft to eat their lunch.

“I really wish that we could go to tour around this beautiful island,” John said.

“Me too,” Peter responded.

But they did not walk around on that island even after both the rotorcraft and the charger were fully charged. They were afraid that people might ask them how they got onto the island if they walked around without putting on the cloaking suits, and they really did not want to tour the island with the cloaking suits on them either.

……

An hour later, they left the island and headed to the rendezvous point in the ocean according to the coordinates Peter copied from the websites.

When they were close to the rendezvous point, the sky was covered by thick cloud, and it became dark on the surface of the sea.

“Oh, I wish there won’t be a storm,” Peter said.

“We have been so lucky that wherever we went during the past days, it was sunny and nice,” John responded.

“But that also tells that we don’t know if this chopper could survive a storm or not,” Peter remarked.

“Well, just keep our fingers crossed. If a storm is coming, it’s too late for us even to go back to that island, I guess,” John said.

“Too late,” Peter echoed.

“Let’s climb higher and turn on our radar to search the sea surface,” John suggested. They had been flying only by visual navigation without using the radar to avoid being accidentally detected by other ships or planes.

“Roger,” Peter said.

“Look, something in the sea!” John shouted when they climbed to about 200 feet.

“Yes, that’s our rendezvous coordinates,” Peter read from the radar screen.

They gave each other a high five, and both were excited.

When they flew closer to the object, they could even see a ship drifting on the sea from their visual screen. It looked like a small cruise ship. A few minutes later, when they got closer to the ship, they could see clearly that it was a luxury yacht, and they could even see the name of the ship printed on the side.

“Did you once mention the Rolling Billows plan?” John asked.

“Yes,” Peter replied. “It’s the plan for the BHA leaders to escape from BMA’s chasing.”

“Now I know the meaning of the name,” John said.

“Me too, I guess,” Peter said. “It must be referring to escaping by ship through the ocean.”

“Not only that,” John said. He circled on the panel screen the name of the yacht to get Peter’s attention to it. “See the name of the ship.”

“Wow, ‘Rolling Billows’ is the name of the ship,” Peter said excitedly.

When the rotorcraft was a few miles away from the yacht, John asked Peter, “Do we need to give them a signal since they could not see us?”

“Yes, we do,” Peter responded. “But let’s first lower ourselves down so that they could see us on their radar. Marine radars normally only scan sea surface and they don’t really care about what is in the sky.”

“I see.”

When they lowered down to the altitude about 50 feet, on the zoomed in screen, John and Peter could see several people running onto the deck and using flashlights to randomly draw circles in the sky.

“They found us,” John uttered excitedly.

“Yes, on their radar,” Peter said. “Now let’s climb again and then give them a surprise.”

So the rotorcraft rose again while continuing to approach the ship. When the rotorcraft moved to about 30 feet above the deck of the ship, the ship sounded a long blast, and those on the deck started to jump up and down waving at the sky randomly. When the ship horn just stopped whistling, Peter pushed a button on the dashboard and a circle of light beams shot from the bottom of the rotorcraft right onto the deck. They could hear a burst of shouting from the deck.

The circle of light beams was not just for surprising those on the deck; more importantly, it helped Peter to precisely locate the position of the helipad. Once he was assured that the center of the circle coincided with the center of the helipad, Peter pushed the “Vertical Landing” button, and the rotorcraft slowly descended. When it finally landed on the deck of the ship, the deck was already full of people surrounding the rotorcraft. Peter beckoned John to get off first, but John leaned over to give him a big hug and said on his ear, “Thanks, thanks a lot.” Peter patted on John’s back without saying anything, but his eyes were filled with happy tears.

John was surprised when he opened the door on his side and looked on the deck. He could hardly believe his own eyes, it was Jessica, who was standing right outside the door.

John and Jessica looked each other in the eye for a couple of seconds without saying anything. Then John saw Jessica stretching out her arms and realized that it was real, he jumped off his seat, and went to hold Jessica with his own arms. On his way from that country house to the ship deck, John had dreamed day and night of the scene of meeting with Jessica in the temporary headquarters, but he did not expect that he could see her in the middle of the ocean. When he was just about to give her a big kiss, a loud burst of exclamation reminded him that they were standing in front of a crowd of people. He let go Jessica, and right away was grabbed by someone else. People on the deck all came to hug him or shake hands with him, some he had already met in B City, and some he never met before.

~.~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The storm did not come. When the Rolling Billows left the rendezvous point in the ocean heading to its home port at the city where BHA’s temporary headquarters was located, the sky became bright again. The sun had tilted to the far west, preparing for its daily setting toward the horizon, which separated the quivering ocean from the placid sky.

After a welcome party for John and Peter, Jessica strolled with John alone to the front deck. They stopped before the guardrail, and looked afar at the boundless ocean. They had so much to talk to each other, but at that moment, none of them felt the urge of asking anything or telling any feeling or any story; it seemed that life had come back to what it was supposed to be, no need to worry about anything anymore. They were just enjoying the ocean, the sky, the cloud, and the sun, while contemplating together, without saying a word.

A while later, Jessica asked John, “Do you know why this ship is named as Rolling Billows?”

“Because that is what characterizes the ocean,” John replied.

“Close,” Jessica said. “Actually, we call it as Rolling Billows to remind ourselves that we need to be as tough as a ship running on the rolling billows in the roaring ocean.”

“It’s very meaningful,” John remarked.

“Were you scared?” Jessica then asked.

“Scared of what?” John asked back.

“I mean … you were shot, and …”

“You guys were much more scared than I did,” John interrupted before Jessica finished her sentence.

“Why?” Jessica asked.

“Because I didn’t have the time to be scared when I was shot…I just lost consciousness to everything,” John shrugged.

“Oh … you are right … what I was trying to say was…, never mind, you are right, we were all scared that you were killed,” Jessica smiled at John, and then murmured, “We were also all scared of being shot by them.”

“I know.” John turned his head, looking at Jessica. “The other day, I discussed with Peter why BMA would use AHs in such a way this time. He gave me some hypothetical explanation, which seemed making some sense to me at that time… But when thinking about it again, I am still confused about BMA’s motive of doing this.”

“Actually, we were all confused until yesterday when we learned that the pharmaceutical company owned by George’s father was granted a new patent not long ago,” Jessica responded.

“George’s father? That top ranking executive of BMA? He owns a pharmaceutical company?”

“He is the CEO and the major shareholder of that company,” Jessica replied. “The super bioglue that helped to stop your bleeding is still a brand product of theirs.”

“I thought bioglue has been around for decades,” John said.

“The one you used is the most advanced one because it contains some new invention of theirs,” Jessica explained.

“But what is their patent to do with AH?” John asked while puzzled.

“Their recent patent application was for a medicine which they believe could expand the life expectancy for thousands of times or maybe even longer,” Jessica replied.

“You mean they claim that they have invented the medicine for permanent longevity or an eternal biological life?” John asked.

“Something like that,” Jessica replied.

“I don’t believe that’s possible. They must be trying to fool the world with some fake drug,” John said.

“Well, it seems that they do seriously believe that they have found the formula for making that kind of longevity medicine, and they are not trying to fool the world with some fake drug,” Jessica replied.

“Do you believe that?” John asked.

“They did not claim to have created the permanent longevity or eternal life, so that we don’t need to believe or deny whatever they did not claim,” Jessica responded. “But even for what they’ve claimed, the thousands of times of the life expectancy,” She made a double quote sign with her hands, “it needs time to prove. Since we haven’t seen anyone of a thousand years old, we don’t really have any reason to believe their claim.”

“Then how could their patent be approved,” John said.

“The claim of thousands of times longer was what we learned from our informant about what they really believed and claimed within their company. But in the official patent application, they did not make that claim. They provided some successful test cases that some ailing seniors over one hundred years old were rejuvenated and still living well after taking their medicine for the past two decades,” Jessica said.

“So they do believe that they’ve found the formula for longevity,” John said. “But what’s that got to do with AH?”

“The key answer to your question is not whether they do find the formula, but as you just uttered, is that they do believe that they’ve found the formula,” Jessica responded.

“Why is that?” John asked.

Jessica stared at John and smiled. “Tell me, what would be the direct consequence upon the world if someone indeed finds the formula of longevity?”

“I guess the public around the world would be happy and celebrate if that is proved to be true,” John shrugged.

“Maybe,” Jessica responded. “But it won’t last long before they start to cry sadly if they don’t cry at the very beginning,”

“How could you say that?” John questioned. “Isn’t the longevity what human beings across all cultures and nations have been dreamed of for thousands of years?”

“They dreamed of it because they never thought it could become true on Earth, and thus they never needed to seriously worry about its consequence.” Jessica smiled and patted John to let him feel it’s okay if he was confused.

“Then what consequence you are referring to?” John asked, confused but confident that Jessica must have a good answer for him.

“The consequence is that the human population would explode if no one dies but new babies are continued to be born,” Jessica replied.

“Ri…ight,” John said. “Now I see why they were in a rush to bring AHs to the civilized world now.”

“All of us were previously only connecting their intention of producing AHs to the so-called useless population created by the market economy,” Jessica said.

“I think that is still the main reason,” John said, while being reminded of what General K articulated to him in the study of that Presidential Palace.

“I agree,” Jessica said. “But, on the other hand, even if the market could absorb all those who have been replaced from their previous jobs by the automation and AI, the formula of longevity alone could very well become the reason for BMA to restrict the reproduction rights of the majority. Only if the majority of the population would no longer reproduce, not only they as the extreme minority at the top of the pyramid could enjoy their longevity while continuing to have offspring for generation after generation, but also their children and children’s children could all live with longevity, without the need of worrying about the depletion of the resources on Earth.”

“So what is going on now is indeed a war of reproduction rights and longevity rights,” John remarked.

“It’s actually at first a war of survival because the satisfaction of the needs of longevity and reproduction of the very top minority would come at the cost of the survival rights of many grassroots first,” Jessica commented.

“Talking about the depletion of the resources on Earth, won’t they worry about the consumption of resources by AHs?” John asked.

“Well, as you mentioned last time that AHs in general consume less than humans,” Jessica said. “But that’s not the main reason for BMA not to worry about AHs too much.”

“What’s the main reason then?” John asked.

“A more important reason than the low consumption by each individual AH is that all AHs are short lived as we know, and the longevity medicine of BMA is effective to humans only,” Jessica said.

“So AHs won’t be a threat to BMA like other humans,” John remarked.

“Yes.”

Both were quiet for a few second until John brought up an idea.

“There seems to be a solution that might help to solve this longevity dilemma,” John said.

“What’s in your mind for this?” Jessica asked.

“How about a society in which everyone gets the longevity medicine and no one is given the right of reproduction?” John asked with a content smile on his face.

“That won’t work at all,” Jessica replied.

“Why?” John was a bit disappointed.

Jessica didn’t respond right away, but put her head into her hands and mulled for a couple of seconds. Then she looked at John and said, “Without being confirmed with long term results, those powerful people would definitely not give up their own rights of reproduction simply because the scientists in George’s father’s company believe that they have found the formula of longevity.”

“Well, if you still have a doubt about the long term effect, then I guess you are right,” John responded.

“Even if somehow they all believe that their medicine would work, how could you expect that the powerful minority like BMA executives would be willing to give up such an important right of having offspring just to make it even with those that they deem as useless?”

“They would not. I think you are right,” John agreed.

Jessica looked at John and continued, “Even if their medicine would work perfectly and everyone agrees to do what you suggested, it will not be good for human civilization because we are not just facing the challenge of aging, we are facing a lot more social and natural challenges. The rejuvenation by new generations is one important guarantee for us to win the battles in those challenges.”

Her face turned red because of excitement.

“Wow, it’s really profound.” John clapped, with a true admiration from his heart. Then he said, “From what you just said, it seems that it’s all technology’s fault. Robots, biogenetic engineering, and longevity medicine are all the highly eulogized technological achievements.”

“They are not just eulogized technological achievements, they are also the dreams-come-true for human beings after the thousands of years of journey,” Jessica added. “Well, don’t forget that the super bioglue helped to stop your bleeding.”

“What’s your point?”

“The point is that technology is a double edge blade, all depends on how it is used,” Jessica said.

“You just reminded me of what General K said that the access to technology is not fair between the rich and the general public,” John argued.

“He was right on that,” Jessica said. “But the rich is not an abstract indivisible whole. Accordingly, the capital could be invested for a good use of technology or for a bad use of technology. For example, the cloaking technology helped us a lot, including getting you and Peter here.”

“That’s true.” John laid his hand on Jessica’s and held it firmly.

Jessica cast him a sweet smile, and continued, “Science and technology has been considered as of a fundamental importance for humans to battle natural challenges, but as a matter of fact, if we look back to human history, human beings have created many more disasters than caused by nature. The losses of lives and assets caused by human disasters have been far beyond caused by natural disasters. Right now, we are even facing some kind of systematical replacement of humans by industrial products.”

“So it sounds like that you also think the negative side of technology is far bigger than its positive side,” John remarked.

“That’s not what I am trying to make a point of,” Jessica looked at the confused John and took her hand out from his, and then patted the back of his hand with hers. “What I am trying to say is that human understanding about our own society is too much weak compared to our understanding about nature. Or we might say that our understanding of human nature is far too weak compared to our understanding about Mother Nature or about the nature of physical world.”

“Over the human history, there have been countless achievements in literary works, arts, history and archeological studies, economics, political science, forensic science, accounting, and many branches of philosophy, as well as psychology, and so many other studies that are related to human social activities, why do you think that our knowledge about our own society is too much weak compared to our knowledge about nature?” John asked.

“All those complicated names that you just mentioned tell us one thing that human society is an extremely complicated dynamic system, which is far more difficult to study than the physical world,” Jessica said seriously. “It’s no doubt that all the poets, musicians, artists, literary writers, philosophers, economists, politicians, and so on, have made invaluable great contributions to our civilization. But unfortunately, our understanding about the dynamic nature of our social world is not in a balance with our understanding about the dynamic nature of the physical world, don’t you agree?”

“Uh…I can agree on that,” John replied. “But is that a big deal?”

“Of course it is,” Jessica responded. “It’s an important root cause for a lot of our modern social crises. It’s just like a kid without much knowledge is playing a fully loaded machine gun in the street. What BMA is doing now actually is a manifestation of the incapability of human beings to handle the fairness issue while being strong at handling powerful technology.”

“But in your opinion why it happened like that?” John asked.

“I think, among many other reasons, one important reason is that over the human history, especially after the so-called classic natural science was separated from the ancient philosophy, the society as a whole has paid much more attention to studying the physical world than to studying how to tune up the dynamics of our society so that the civilization would become more rational,” Jessica replied.

“I think that is because studying physical world could create more financial benefits than studying social world,” John said.

“That’s just one important reason, but not the only one, because studying the social world could also be profitable for many individuals or organizations. Actually, over the past half a century, the investment in the study of social world related subjects from both governmental and private sources has been huge,” Jessica sighed.

“What do you think as the other reasons?” John asked.

“The logical difficulty of studying the social dynamics is another one important reason. The traditional literary and philosophical ways of observing and describing the world provides some premises for us to understand the social dynamics, but normally at a very high level and thus missing many important insights; besides, what makes it even worse is that, many important insights provided in some ancient philosophical works are still misinterpreted by nowadays people, including professional scholars,” Jessica said.

“Are you saying that our understanding about social dynamic nature is worse than the ancient people of hundred or even thousands of years ago?” John questioned.

“Sometimes, yes,” Jessica responded.

“Wow, that sounds unbelievable,” John remarked. “Is there any other reason that has caused the imbalance between our understandings about the physical world and about the social world?”

“Another one might be that, when people invested in socially related studies, they normally would expect some output that could gain some immediate benefits for themselves, especially through technological means, which are normally aimed at how to improve the efficiency of management or control over others, the use of the Red Hats is a good example.”

“Anything else?” John asked.

“Of course,” Jessica said. “But we don’t need to go further.”

Both burst into laughing.

Then John asked, “Can we do anything about this?”

“The only thing we can do now is try our best to stop BMA’s antihuman plot. As for how to turn the general culture around at the philosophical level,” Jessica shook her head and sighed, “it would be much more difficult, and” She paused and stared John in the eye for a second, and then sighed, “Maybe it’s already too late.”

When Jessica said “too late”, her voice was a bit cracked and eyes became red.

John laughed and teased, “It seems that recently, people all become philosophers. General K said something similar to what you said, so did Peter.”

They looked at each other, and then laughed at the same time.

“Seriously, why sometimes good guys could share similar understandings with bad guys?” John said.

“That’s because we are all watching the same world, but from different positions,” Jessica said. “If they have a better knowledge or make a better use of the knowledge about our civilization, then they would gain some advantage over us when they trying to deal with us for their own benefits.”

“That’s true,” John concurred.

“Okay, I guess so much is for the philosophical dialogue for now.” Jessica pounded John hand with her fist.

John grabbed her fist with another hand, and felt her hand was cold, “Is it too cold here? Maybe we should get in.”

“That’s okay,” Jessica replied. “I like to watch the ocean and hear the sound of the waves.”

John stretched his arm across Jessica’s back and held the other shoulder of her, and Jessica leaned her head on John’s shoulder.

“Why did you come yourself? You could just send someone here instead of coming by yourself. I was surprised when I saw you,” John said.

“As you just uttered, a surprise, that’s what I wanted to give you,” Jessica grinned.

“But it could be dangerous for you, and BHA cannot lose another leader at this moment,” John said with concern.

“That’s okay,” Jessica responded. “Actually, Rolling Billows was not in its homeport when we learned that you and Peter would come to the rendezvous point today. We were in another island to meet with some of our members from Asia. The meeting was just finished when we got your message, that’s why I came to meet you with this yacht.”

“That makes me feel better.” John stared at Jessica, “If you encountered any trouble because of me, I cannot excuse myself all my life. Besides, I would not be able to face BHA friends again.”

“No,” Jessica said and held John’s hand. “Nobody will blame you for anything. You are a hero of BHA now.”

“Whatever,” John uttered and shrugged. “Do you think BMA would let George go because of his relationship with his father?”

“I don’t know.” Jessica lowered her head, looking at the white foam from the water when pushed aside by the ship. “I hope so…but people who brainwash others often become the victims of their own brainwash propaganda…I wish that George’s father has not been fooled by his own inhuman ideological fallacy.”

John could sense the sorrow in Jessica’s tone, and his own heart was also suddenly filled with sorrow, for George, for BHA, and for humans.

Both were silent for a few minutes.

“Look, how beautiful it is,” John pointed to the setting sun.

Jessica lifted her head and looked at the glowing setting sun above a shiny narrow belt between the golden sky and the dark the shuddering surface of the seas.

“Everything is at the mercy of the mighty Creator, even the ocean, the sun, and the whole universe. A good order will always come out of the most violent chaos. As a blessed species, I believe that tomorrow will be full of hope for us,” John said.

Jessica turned to look at John, and burst laughing.

“What are you laughing about?”

“Well, you just said I was a philosopher. Now, you sounded like a poet.”

“You were truly philosophical, but I was far from poetic,” John said.

“You should be proud of attempting to be a poet at least. Don’t forget that the modern civilization was evolved out of the works of poets and philosophers of more than two thousand years ago,” Jessica said.

“Okay, then let me try hard to become a poet and you stay to be a philosopher,” John grinned. “I think that you would have a much bigger chance to be a true philosopher than I to become a poet.”

“No matter how poor we are in those things, as long as we have the desire to try, it could help us to feel superior to those AHs, who are basically manifestations of the human will that is based on human partial knowledge, instead of the will of our Creator,” Jessica said.

“Yes. And you just reminded me that, if we would like to compare ourselves with AHs, I would say, faith should be something that could fundamentally characterize us as superior to them. I don’t believe that they could have the spiritual faith as we do,” John said, with his eyes shining brightly. He really enjoyed the sense of superiority after being shot by an AH a couple weeks ago.

“You are absolutely right,” Jessica concurred.

They both raised hands and hit a high five with each other, then all laughed loudly, in the midst of the roaring sound of the rolling billows……