Chapter 39 - Arctic

When the devil beetles were first conceived by our ancestors they were used in the great war that cracked the crust of the earth and brought civilization to the brink.  The survivors of that war buried the monstrous machines deep beneath the surface and built a city atop of it in hopes of never unleashing them again.  They slept for many centuries, until that fateful day the city was overrun and something within their computer brain awakened the machines and brought them under the control of the Commissariat.

We had only heard stories of their destructive power and didn't take how serious the ramifications of unleashing them on the Artesians.  It was a greater mystery why we chose to release them a second time to make quick work of them.

It was all by mere coincidence as the device that allowed us to control and give commands to the beetles was considered lost and was only recently discovered on a scientific expedition to the northern Arctic sea.  Within the ancient ruins of a long forgotten military installation lay the control card to the beetles.  It sat undisturbed in a large ante chamber a mile beneath the ocean turned a quarter to the right and a yellow light blinking every three seconds indicating it was listening and waiting to receive a command.

The scientists could decipher and read the ancient language and understood the importance of their discovery and removed the control key along with a small brief case that served as a mobile docking station.  It languished for decades within the warehouses of the Montresor, touched by numerous hands and nudged and dropped a few times, none the wiser.

And it fell on Ingrid Glikmann, who for no reason to care for the Politiburo or the Commissariat and an ardent diehard Artesian to make them aware of this device and place it in the hands of the Commissars.  During their greatest hour of need, the device was their salvation.  In seven days, the tide turned and the war ended.

Edgar commissioned me to hide the device and place it back into the Arctic vault then permanently seal it away.  He wanted to destroy it, but the scientists who studied the devil beetles cautioned that it may initiate a fail safe.  Reluctantly, he conceded.

The team was split into three groups.  An advance team arrived by air and assembled a base camp and awaited the overland and sea teams to bring the heavy explosives and additional supplies.  The advance team surveyed the miles of tunnels and planned the placement of the explosives as well as continue further archaeological studies as it would be the last opportunity to study the arctic vaults before they were sealed away.

The entire superstructure was built with a similar material as the devil beetles and couldn't be destroyed, nor penetrated by conventional means.  Only the concrete tunnels that spiraled around and downwards towards the midpoint could be reasonably destroyed.  The tunnels were already in a dilapidated state and had been reinforced on previous expeditions.

The archaeologists determined that the tunnels were younger than the vault and were likely built by later generations, but were unsuccessful in entering the vault.  Some of the tunnels were haphazardly designed as if by someone trying to determine an alternate route.  Ironically, the key in opening the vault was the Rosetta Stone that figured prominently each year when the Montresor stood.

Dr. Glikmann's obsession with that artifact and its culture was critical in determining the sequence in opening the vault.  To everyone's dismay the vast internal cavity of the vault was largely empty, although there were numerous smaller rooms and storage compartments with numbering and writing that were intended for various valuables.  The vault was meant to be for a doomsday scenario that unfortunately arrived before they could transfer items within.  Only the control unit for the devil beetles that caused the end times was preserved and Dr. Glikmann surmised someone may have accidentally triggered it eons ago when they placed it within the vault.  Their accident however, left the device in the launch sequence so it was made clear how to activate the devil beetles.

We returned the device to a pedestal and ensured the controls were set to an inert state.  We left manuals and instructions indicating what we knew about the device and what devastation it caused in our time to hopefully warn future generations.  We added to some graffiti on the wall in the control room that indicate the last date and time the device was activated.

I paused to run my fingers across the old paint and small bits flecked off.  I could still feel what the original author must have felt when they realized what had happened.  What struck Dr. Glikmann and multiple other expeditions afterwards was the failure in finding any trace of the person who must have been locked away in the vault all those ages ago.  The bare and empty rooms left little room to hide and they wouldn't have survived long as there was no food or water.  Even bones could have lasted millions of years.  Nothing.

The only evidence was a partial fingerprint on the old paint.

After several weeks of archaeological studies, we agreed it was time to seal away the vault and destroy the tunnel works.  To our shock, we discovered we were not alone and several members of the sisters led by Ninya had been observing us all this time and made their presence known when it was time to close the vaults.  They provided some helpful advice on adjusting the placement of some explosives.

Ninya and I walked one last time within the main vault floor and she shared with me that Dr. Glikmann was the not the first person to enter the vaults since they were first sealed away.  The tunnels were built centuries before by another group of people who had entered and cleared the vault of anything valuable, but left the control unit, knowing its importance.  The existence of the vault and how to open it was well known by a select group of survivors and kept secret until in desperate times they agreed to extract the valuable treasures within.

She smiled and placed her hand on the floor of one of the empty rooms and said this once housed heirloom seeds that we now know and use to grow our crops.  Another housed medical books and supplies and many more rooms that were used to rebuild our civilization.

Shortly after, we sealed the vault.  We made no mention of the sisters in our official report and to Edgar's satisfaction we estimated it would take years to rebuild the tunnels or find another means to enter the vaults again.  For added measure, we shattered the Rosetta Stone and crumbled the bits into gravel.  After some thought, Edgar and I both commented that it might have been that simple and all we had to do was destroy the Rosetta Stone.

Chapter 38 - The Sisters

Helen joined the sisters on her thirteenth birthday.  Her mother was a friend of Ninya's mentor and had wanted to ensure her daughter's future.  She was also a distant relation of the extended Siph Gleiss clan, but with no involvement in the family business.

Helen's side of the family was descended from a brother of Silas Siph Gleiss generations before they began building illegal pot stills and had a falling out.  The brother thought he got the better end of the deal as he was given the family home and the businesses.  Silas took only his new hobby in several wooden crates and left.  And for generations it seemed that way, then the war came and reversed Silas descendants fortunes many time fold.

Most sisters are recruited at an early age and Helen was one of the oldest girls in a class of seven other girls.  It was a grueling indoctrination and half the girls quit within a few weeks leaving just Helen and two other girls who became her flatmates Mina and Donna.  They struggled through the rest of their training and only Helen and Donna graduated.  Mina remained part of the organization, but relegated to a minor role of failed trainee.

The failed trainees remain useful to the sisters and are treated with many of the same privileges.  There are a great many more than full fledged members and with their large numbers were they able to buy influence and grow their organization soon after the war.

The three girls became a chapter and operated within the city.  They would meet at Gertrude's bar or at restaurants and most would mistaken them for longtime friends.  They shared the same family names and heritage as their targets.  The sisters were keen on adapting and always improving their tactics.

Ninya would meet with her little girls and invited me to join them and become acquainted with each.  Mina was the most approachable and I found her more pleasant than Donna who was the more protective of the sisters.  Helen remained a star struck school girl whenever near Ninya.

With Ninya's approval, Helen explained the sisters were infiltrating the Neo-Artesians and had informants in nearly every major chapter in all the cities and townships.  This particular chapter was quite small and uninteresting, but proved the most difficult to penetrate and she was hand selected with her family history of being part of the Siph Gleiss and in some weak way connected to Gertrude.  She could even count Donna who was from a family that was acquainted with the elder.

The sisters had thought of everything and Mina was dating one of the young initiates and worked in the same office building.  They estimated it would take several years to ensure any initial suspicion would become a faint tug and so the need for many more recruits and trainees.

It was unclear what was their objective as they seemed to only amass power with no aim or end in sight.  I felt discomfort in being exposed and my role as an Administrator was falling in jeopardy.  Ninya assured me I was safe and in no danger from the sisters or the Politiburo.  This was a game they both played and were well acquainted.  She told me to ask my colleagues and they would say the same thing.

Chapter 37 - House of Photography

Bertrand spent his spare time with his film cameras.  He had a modest collection based on his meager salary.  He married shortly after his promotion to his college sweetheart Emily Siph Gleiss.  The Siph Gleiss ran a small family distillery and gained some prominence during the speakeasy days.  They bottled several of their own brands of vodka and rum.

They would travel whenever they could afford to and he spent his days taking pictures.  In a decade they traveled the full length and breadth of the continent and visited over a hundred cities and townships as far as the coastal provincial.  They also went to see his parents in the Artesian cities.

They raised a family and had over eleven children.  A habit of the Siph Gleiss who enjoyed large families.  He ran out of names and had honored three generations of Knutmudsen's on both sides.  They became known as the traveling circus.

Bertrand had died a year before I became an Administrator.  I walked past his old office on the corner of the Politiburo and it was three doors down from mine.  Many of the older staff knew him and he was described as the typical bureaucrat.  They kept many of his old photographs he had hung on the wall of his office and I sometimes glanced at them when I went past.

I sought out one of his daughters Gertrude who worked nearby running one of the Siph Gleiss liquor shops and she graciously met for a drink to share some family photo albums.  She had some from their trips to visit her grandparents and they had large group photographs with Greta Knutmudsen and Hugh.  Family life was serene and memorable.

Ninya accompanied me as we became frequent patrons and friends of Gertrude and later her older brother Karl.  All the regulars teased and called him by his great grandfather's name.  The shop was more of a pub with many of the company's wares on display in the front windows and on one half of the establishment.  The other area had a dozen tables and room for sixty patrons to sit and pass the time.  Many of Bertrand's photographs hung up on the walls and Gertrude had many more in the upstairs rooms they used for storage.  She changed them about to match the seasons and special holidays.  A favorite of mine became a medium light whisky, Port Charlotte.  Ninya would buy me a case every year.

Karl looked more like his mother Emily and took on the Siph Gleiss name.  He, like many of his siblings were employed and involved with their maternal grandfather's company along with their numerous other cousins.  There was never a need for hired help as each year the Siph Gleiss would say.

The Bertrand and Emily clan were a bit loose on their choice of last names.  Some like Gertrude followed their Artesian heritage.  Others became Siph Gleiss.  None wanted the association with Knutmudsen.  They admired and cherished Knut's heritage, but didn't want to bring attention for something they had no hand in and fewer still were adherents of the Neo-Artesians converts.  Though many have tried.

Gertrude was the rare exception and attended sermons.  She gave me special invitation to see for myself and we went to one of their private gatherings.  Ninya was not welcome and she obliged and waited outside in the car.  The Artesians had splintered after the betrayal of the sisters and while both claim Karl Knutmudsen, a rift between the Neo-Artesians and the sisters remained.

If they could engage in open warfare, the Neo-Artesians would gladly end the reign of the sisters, but they come to rely on their protection.

An elder welcomed us and shared a few basic house rules.  He then brought us into a larger room where fifty individuals had gathered.  In the center of the room, they had a small totem and on top of it a fragment of one of the great books of Knut.  It was fashioned inside a protective glass box.  I imagined a cult with strange rituals and chanting.

The elder took the podium and addressed the room and welcomed several new guests, some who were ready to become initiates.  They gathered three young men and a woman and they stood next to the elder.  They bowed toward the totem and we all then bowed as he uttered several verses.  When they were done, they embraced and he gave them a small round pendant of green stone.  They placed them around their necks and each smiled as they were now official.

The round green stone were for initiates who had successfully passed and were ready to become members.  Senior members had red stones and elders blue stones the color of Knut's ocean blue ink.  There was no other significance and for those who could claim relation to the founder like Gertrude they were given purple stones inlaid in a gold circle.

We joined Ninya and enjoyed a drink at Gertrude's bar.  She complained that they could have left her at the bar in the first place and I hadn't thought that far ahead and agreed.  We left a short time later and retired at Ninya's apartment.

One of her younger sisters was staying with her in another room and made us some coffee and sandwiches.  She had her sit beside me and introduced her as Helen, a girl of nineteen and beginning her own initiation.  Helen came from a normal family and middle class life, not the normal origin story for a sister.  But Ninya's mentor saw in Helen the makings of a good little sister and assigned her to Ninya to begin her field training.

I would see Helen again at Gertrude's bar and realized when looking more closely she had the green pendant and was the young initiate we saw earlier that evening.

Chapter 36 - Petit Prince

During the occupation, Greta went into hiding in one of the shelters near the Perkin's.  She crowded into a small space with over a thousand others.  Each impact shook the dust and she watched as the metal girders holding up the concrete ceiling groaned.  As the bombing and shooting lessened they quietly waited for a sign it was safe, but instead the bunker doors swung open and a crack of a machine gun over their heads signaled for them to exit.

They filed out into groups and were processed as quickly as they were found, they were released with new papers and instructions.  Four teams of soldiers huddled around makeshift desks made quick work.  The team processing Greta Knutmudsen took pause.  She was singled out and escorted by a pair of soldiers to her home.

An officer in a dark uniform was standing out front.  When the soldiers overran the city's defenses they began plundering the homes, but when some soldiers entered the stationary shop of K. Knutmudsen and Son they felt a great unease and a fright at the images and photographs of the Knut hanging on the walls and in the second floor living quarters.

Greta confirmed it was her family home and her brother was Karl Knutmudsen.  The name on the shop front was of their father Kurt Knutmudsen.  They already knew it and Greta confirming it made them relieved they did not dare touch a thing.  She was allowed to return to her home, the only building on the street not ransacked.

Guards stood watch and she kept to herself and avoided the windows.  The officer would arrive every few days to check-in and offer her some food and basic supplies.  She shunned them and would go out to queue in line with everyone else.

She contemplated setting fire to her family home.  It would wound them, the Artesians who worshiped her brother.  The occupation dragged on and she felt the weariness and growing frustration.  Her only interaction was with the young officer who patiently arrived every few days.

His name was Hugh and he had spent time in the Infantry then was injured and reassigned to an Administration brigade.  He spent his days behind a desk, he used a special elevated shoe to hide his limp.  A bullet had shattered a bone and when the doctors stitched him back together his left leg was a few inches shorter than his right.  Hugh considered himself fortunate as most would have lost their leg entirely.

With no one to talk to, she begrudgingly allowed Hugh to share high tea.  They at first sat quietly pouring hot water from a metal carafe.  In time, she opened up to him and described her childhood and of her family and of being a teacher.  She was surprised he didn't ask about Karl and was more interested in her story.

He shared his own and that he was from a military family and the youngest of four brothers, all of whom were distinguished generals.  He reluctantly enlisted and while they lacked family names, he was afforded the same courtesies and promoted quickly to a field commission of Captain.  He earned his injuries from a battle where many of his unit were wounded or killed including his commander officer.

Captain Hugh did not believe the occupation would last and there was word while the entire country had been overrun and Politiburo's being established from gutted ruins, the foreign population were still defiant.  He said it calmly that they would begin the re-education at a quickened pace and frenzy and it was his reason for spending time with Greta to mark the Knutmudsen home as an exception.

It's a bit of an irony.  A land with no last names worshiping a man named Karl Knutmudsen and to avoid this contradiction calling him the Knut.  We are all now Knutmudsen's, an extended family now numbering in the tens of tens of millions.

Hugh was correct and the horde was defeated.  He and the few who were fortunate to be left behind in the city retreated back across the sea.  Greta kept in touch with him and years later rekindled their friendship when she was invited to the Great Hall to see all of Knut's things on display.

They later married and had a son.  He grew up with no need for wanting and was a minor media sensation as a relation of the great founder.  But to avoid too much publicity he was not named as tradition would dictate and went by Bertrand, only Bertrand.

A few teased and conferred the title of Prince Bertrand and he held court in his family home with his playmates and small fan club.  He grew out of those childhood antics and joined the Politiburo when he was of age, attaining the rank of Bureau Chief.

Chapter 35 - Ninya

A woman approached me named Ninya.  We shared our introductions and pleasantries and she was quite open that she was a convert and Neo-Artesian, but even more so one of the secret members of the sisters.  They had thrived and maintained a vibrant network of chapters scattered in each city and township spanning to the coastal provincial.  In the capital they operated in the open and maintained their own offices in the local Politiburo.

She was trained by her mentor who was in turned trained by Anna, the founder of the sisters.  It was believed her mentor was one of Anna's surviving daughters.  She had adopted several girls over the years and raised them as her own and indoctrinating them in the sisters when they were of age.  The old woman had known of my interactions with my teacher and had assigned Ninya to me.  She was hand picked as she possessed many of the qualities that would make me vulnerable.

The color of her hair, her height, build, shape of her eyes, even her impish smile.  Everything, I could have ever wanted in the embodiment of Ninya.  And she used it to her full advantage to completely disarm me, but with the skill of a master so as not to be overtly obvious in her intentions and just enough to make me believe it was by own free will, but knowing her presence heavily influenced everything.

She pressed her hand on mine, but we joked as neither of us felt anything.  It was not like how Ninya had pictured when she said of Anna touching my teacher's hand and quivered as if she was touching the hand of Knut.  I was neither Knut, nor my teacher.

Knowing full well the reputation of the sisters, I shared my journal.  She read it dutifully and thanked me for being open.  She felt we would have a fruitful friendship and would be open with me as it was the way of all sisters.

We began our many dialogues and conversations discussing in detail what I had collected in my thoughts.  She was able to correct and explain quite a bit and I asked if any of Karl Knutmudsen's writings had survived.  None of it survived, but the sisters all gathered what they could remember and through sheer determination were able to reconstruct what they could into an almost complete representation.  They found the journal useful in adding a bit more context and some details that they would never had known.

Still, we all accepted that it would be an imprecise replica and were careful that some important wisdom or passage would be missing or transcribed improperly to make profane Knut's vision.

I wondered and she already answered that they did not wish to disturb my teacher after Anna's death.  It was a wish held by many of the sisters to honor her by allowing him to live out a long and quiet life.  They always kept careful watch and he was never found wanting.

By some great fortune, my seeking him out was a godsend.  They did not influence this in any way and allowed it to unfold as it did spontaneously.  They were even more intent and curious and waited for this moment to complete Knut's work.

I then felt the same unease that my teacher had warned me.  It was a terrible sensation as I then felt the long hand of someone who I only knew of through others.  Ninya's embrace was much more soothing and pleasant, but it was still that thought that I had given them something he wanted buried.

She knew I lied and while the journal was truthfully everything I could transcribe, there were a few loose recollections and memories that I had yet to take to pen.  She would work to ferret them out and I knew eventually they all would slip.  She was quite generous and patient with me.

To my surprise in our discourse, she let slip that Anna so loved my teacher she was willing to grant his wish to allow Knut's legacy to die.  All of the sisters were appalled at her decision, but many obediently heeded her call.  And it was the nearest they ever came to realizing that dream.

It was only by sheer circumstance that a few sisters who were set to return home were delayed and left stranded.  They gathered, regrouped and became what Ninya knows of the sisters today.  Some bitterness lingers and while they worship Anna still and Knut and even my teacher, they feel a sense of wanting what had been there's all along and in many ways betrayed.  My journal was some form of solace and compensation for her transgressions.

Chapter 34 - My Teacher

It wasn't long, barely a year when I was graced with the privilege to hear from one of the elders, that he died and was quietly buried by his descendants on the Gustafson estate next to his ex-wife Sophie.  It was the family's wishes and that of Sophie to have him buried beside her.

He was a survivor from the original Commissariat before the war, before even the uprising of the Artesians.  He was quite open and relished the opportunity.  The funeral was brief and there were mourners like at any gathering and the rites given and prayers spoken.  I had a chance to speak with his children who were still my elders in age and they shared a picture very much the same as what he had shared of himself.

He was afforded a front row seat to watch much of some of our greatest recent history unfold and in some ways he had a hand in the most significant of these events.  Everyone who knew him and of his life marveled at how charmed a life he led to experience so much and be able to end it on his own terms.

Edgar attended and said a few words as he was obligated by his attendance and station.  He didn't know the man very well, but had met him a few times in passing.  We spoke afterwards during refreshments and first of politics and state matters, then of my teacher.  Edgar admired that I had sought out a most decent of men to learn from and he asked me for any advice or lessons that I could impart on him.

I could think of none pressing and said much of what he shared was so common knowledge that it would slip right past me and not have any relevance until the moment it was needed.  This would often give me pause as he told me so many things and I wasn't quite sure when it would be of significance or value.

He asked me to detail it and I had been keeping a journal of his teachings and my thoughts and interpretations.  The one thing I did mention, he often thought the Artesians spoke only gibberish, but as I read my notes, I felt somewhat awed that I was in many ways revitalizing what he never understood.  It was with this I put my pen down as I looked over and it all made sense and was quite clear, this has become the writings of Knut.

Chapter 33 - A New King

A toast, we toasted my friend a young Administrator who sought me out for advice and knowledge of the past.  We became friends and and in my 90th year, I felt a sense of purpose in sharing what I could about the ways of the Politiburo to this young man.

We joked that I was passing on the torch to a new standard bearer and he eagerly took it without fully understanding the heavy burden and responsibility.  So many had held the title and role and so many more would follow.  An unbroken chain spanning before me and to the dawn of humanity rests on this young man's shoulders.

And like all careless youths, he laughed not knowing what was so funny.  We spoke of the war and the aftermath, of the occupation and the sisters.  Then of the complete annihilation of the old ways of Karl Knutmudsen and a new age with King Edgar.

Edgar was not really a Monarch in the classical sense.  People just called him one as he he held the power and influence, holding court in the old Central Agency and doling out justice where he felt prudent.

His obsession of late has been figuring out a way to destroy once and for all the tyranny of the devil beetles.  While they slumber deep beneath the earth, he seeks out experts who can undo what our ancestors had built.  A small army of scientists scuttled about beneath the giant tendrils and feet of the sleeping beasts seeking ways to dismantle them.  None have found a way and some have only engaged the wrath of a few of the beetles who possess secret counter measures that were not previously known.

It was a loud crack and the quivering ground when we knew one of the beetles had its fill of the scientists and killed a few of them.  The counter measures were numerous to count, at first it was a mild irritant sprayed as a mist, but it grew in ferocity into a toxic venom as the beetles patience was tested.  The worst of it was a fiery beam of light that could turn a person into ash in an instant and could be aimed with pinpoint accuracy.  The beetles would let out a shrill when it engaged its death ray and sometimes it would seem to purposefully extend the agony.

After a while the beetles were left alone and none dared enter the caves.

Edgar grew despondent and in time, like many before him surrender to the existence of the devil beetles and focused on the pressing matters of the Politiburo.

My young friend asked me of Knut and the gibberish of the Artesians.  The new wave allowed open dialogue and study of the past, including of our oppressors and I was quite impressed at how candid and unrestricted.  I confessed that I still could not understand Knut, nor the Artesians and the only that made any sense had been Edgar in his fiery sermons.

Karl Knutmudsen was very charismatic and more than a match for Edgar, but his vision was short sighted and perhaps his ascension to power made him lose sight of things and fail in perspective.  It is easy to forget when surrounded by privilege.  He brightened at this and agreed that he was always concerned that he too would fall prey.

We admired the city square outside the window of the local pub.  And one statue of Karl had been restored and left as a reminder of our past.  It was not any of his more grand sculptures, and a more common one that you could have found in any school or industrial complex.  It somehow was spared and later found hidden away in a warehouse, abandoned and forgotten until it was needed again.

He jest that monuments sometimes have a life of their own and even with the near complete destruction of the Artesians, if a single shred of them existed, even in a stone relief, it would be enough to spark a complete resurrection of their cause.  And I nodded in agreement that a simple statue of the Knut was more than enough to bring about the return of the Artesians and it would have been better to crush it into gravel.

But I saw no reason for this as Edgar made it clear we would honor and respect the past without reservations no matter how painful and dangerous.  He welcomed public debate with would be converts that we called the Neo-Artesians who attempted to decipher and make sense of the gibberish and engage in open dialogue with Edgar.  And each time, he deftly disarmed each and every one of them.

The Neo-Artesians were more hedonistic children who cherry picked only the great delights of the past and glossed over the painful memories.  They were quite resourceful and found artifacts, restoring much that was lost, including fragments of Knut's old things from the Great Hall.  Nothing more than a few scraps or tattered rags, even bits of string.  I fretfully wondered if even from all the devastation if that pen survived intact, unscathed waiting to be found.  If it achieved such a feat, I would consider it almost supernatural and a miracle confirming Knut's significance.

We met each week this way and he never tired or bored of me speaking of the old days, even if some were stories I forgotten I had told him the week before.  He was always the patient lad and an excellent Administrator.  In time, it was my days coming to an end and I could no longer be concerned with Knut's legacy, as my own never mattered and soon I no longer had to care.  I could reject everything.

Chapter 32 - The Bluffs

I awoken one morning to the sounds of glass shattering and one of the windows in the living room had been smashed and a brick rest on the floor.  There was shouting and warm blazes on torches carried through the streets.  It was the first of many days of rioting.

We huddled for a time in our bedroom closet after barricading the front door.  Anna showed me the pistol she always carried concealed.  She pressed the stock into my fingers and explained the basic steps on how to use and fire the weapon.  She assured me it would be quite easy and would feel almost natural.  I couldn't fathom how it would feel natural pointing a gun at another person and killing them with a shot.

The breathless moments we waited as sounds by the front door, the slight turn and rattling of the locked door knob.  We waited, and waited for the sound of it giving way.  Would it be a crash or a bang.  Nothing, a few minutes later another rattling, but not as pronounced and then nothing.

The apartment next to ours, we heard the crash and a door give.  Screaming and shouting, a few shots and silence.  This repeated, with each more muffled.  We estimated at least eight apartments on the floor.  Some loud talking in a hurried and excited tone with footsteps and down the stairwell and gone.

Then the moment we waited, the door heaved and a kick.  Four figures massed into the living room and fanned out into each room.  Anna raised the pistol through a crack in the closet door and waited.  She took sight and then paused, lowering her aim she gently opened the door and embraced one of her sisters.  Four of them soon embraced her as well, they had been in the streets and came with the rioters.  They waited for them to leave and now returned.

Anna refused to leave alone.  I refused to leave my home.  After a time, I convinced her to leave with them.  I refused her pistol and sat in the living room alone for a time then gathered some things and went looking for Sophie.

The rioting was restrained within the city limits and Gustafson estate was untouched.  I reached there near the end of the day by foot and Sophie was there with the children.  They were uneasy with what they had heard and relieved that I had arrived unscathed.  We shared what information we each had and they said the Army was entering the city to quell the rioters and restore order.  It was unclear how or why it began, but the start was when they overran the Secret Police precincts and it exploded soon afterwards.

Out of the rioters emerged a leader.  Edgar.  He was no one of importance and other than work as a bookend and waiter, he was just an average citizen.  But somehow he became the face of the new movement and he negotiated the uneasy truce between the Army, the Police and the City.  The Politiburo used every means to destroy him, but he somehow eluded and bested every tactic.  Impressed, they agreed to hear him speak and his demands were modest.

They created a new role.  Secretary of the People.  He filled it with pride and restored law and order.  His lover as it turns out was one Anna's sisters.  She had sought him out and groomed him for this day.  He performed admirably.  The long arm of Knut persists.

I went to hear Edgar speak and his words were clear, concise.  I could understand him and this made me both elated and frightened.  I finally understood the Artesians and now it was Edgar.  He challenged them and the statues of Karl began to crumble.  Barely a generation and his image and visage was now anathema and forbidden.  They were all burned and dismembered.

No new icons as Edgar would call them.  Only the voice of the people would be our monuments.  The Army soon took up arms and from deep within the bowels of the network of man made caverns made from a bygone era the unholy weapons of our ancestors where dragged out once more.  When pleas by many had gave way to even older promises broken, we pointed them skyward and to the West, to East and to all points of the continent.

Like a great gray beetle it unfurled its protective shell and raised a thousand pointed spears.  The shell was of no metal or element known and weighed nothing, yet could withstand a hurricane without a scratch.  And when it disgorged itself of each flying spear, it would sit hollow and empty.  Then deep within its clockwork it would produce new weapons and slowly fill its belly until it became engorged and ready anew.  These eternal and immortal machines then slithered back into their subterranean layers.

New promises were made to never look for them, never to awaken and point them against our enemies.  And as before they will always be broken and the devil beetles will emerge again to clear their stomachs and take their fill.

Anna perished in the boiling oceans and bones ground to dust.  They made sure all of the Artesian cities were laid ruin.  I could only assume they held each other, Anna and Anna Two.

I could not fathom this was the work of Edgar.  I could not make sense of why this was the outcome yet again.  As our forefathers warned, the beetles could not be destroyed only unleash destruction.  They lamented in their greatest achievement a weapon of such absolute power would outlive everything.

Edgar, like many before in past centuries tried to throw them into the bottom of the sea.  He had them dragged out of the pits and pushed beyond the bluffs on the southside of the city proper.  And always like before they would fly up, shake off the waters and return to their home.  They remained, a constant reminder.

Now my only solace, every physical shred of Knut's existence was gone.  His pen, his writings, all of it finally sundered to ash.

Chapter 31 - Retribution

When the Artesians finally took control the re-education began and slowly they revised our history.  The Commissariat, Politiburo, Commissars, these are all words of their vernacular and over time we began to use their words to reflect on our own past.

My original title was that of a Commissioner in a public agency.  And later when we reformed into the Central Agency I became an Administrator.  We were civil servants and performed our duties based under the rule of law as defined by the articles of our Constitution.

In time, this all became foreign and all was the Commissariat had intended and it became easier to call myself how they wanted us to improve the quality of our shared language and communication.

We each were assigned a warden who functioned much as an ex-convict released on probation reported to their parole officer.  By good fortune, Anna was my keeper and made for a more pleasant experience than most.  She was generous and understanding and I was allowed considerable latitude when in the privacy of our shared home to speak freely and even against everything.

Anna made it clear, she could not protect once outside and I had to be on my guard when wandering the streets as all were looking, all could be spies and informants of the new Politiburo.

We laughed at how pointless this all was, if change was progress and all we did was spin around in circles, then why embrace or seek change?  New names, eventually new faces, it was all the same, always the same.

I grew weary of it all and wondered when I would be free of Knut's legacy.  His eyes forever watching from the millions of statues, posters and artworks.  Always gazing outwards, seeking something and demanding only our utmost attention and lifelong obedience.

There was talk of civil discord, of even open rebellion and the Politiburo embraced such ideas of wanton conflict and even wished to fan the flames so as to bring out a new form of entertainment for the weary population.  It soon became a fearful time to walk the streets and the new Secret Police who wear bright costumes and drag heavy clubs are more than enthusiastic.  They always patrol in groups of three or more to ensure sufficient numbers and converge into mobs when they smell blood.

The streets soon flowed once more a dried crimson and the smell we had forgotten became very familiar and awakened animal instincts.  Anna remained with me, this was not safe and she was warned many times by the sisters to return to her home, but she considered our place, by my side her home and I shouted that she was a fool.  She too had grown weary and while she still idolized Karl Knutmudsen, she no longer had that warm glow, it no longer had that fresh sheen.

Perhaps, this is a poor adaptation, an inaccurate translation of his great work.  While his words are perfect and the Artesian movement a passion.  In actual practice, it failed somehow.  Somewhere, maybe a single word or phrase was mispronounced and it cascaded in a butterfly effect into the monstrous works we see spilling out into every corner and artery of the city.  I couldn't help comfort her as it was always gibberish to me.

For a time, a false promise and things quieted for a time.  The bright costumes were not as visible and the clubs set aside.  This brightened Anna's mood, but it was only a short respite and we plunged back into the heady days that would bring about another revolution.

Chapter 30 - Pop Songs

My marriage with Sophie was in decline.  We ended it on good terms and remained steadfast friends.  I had always felt like a guest in the Gustafson estate.  Our children were supportive of the separation and in time we adjusted to the new normal.

I resumed living on my own in an apartment in town.  It was near my old apartment building that was destroyed during the war.  The new tenements were markedly improved and I had a view of the sweeping vistas abutting the city perimeter.  My neighbors were working class folk, some with new families and few old retirees like myself.

Anna offered to move in with me, but we both know or I hoped it was mostly in jest.  We had more time to spend together and she often traveled to the city to pay a visit among her numerous sisters and their growing broods.  They had formed their own enclave within the city, fully functioning with monthly club dues and a set of official bylaws and schedules.  If one only realized who they once were, it would be quiet a terrifying experience.

Whenever she did visit, she insisted on staying with me, obligating that I furnish an apartment larger than I needed as a bachelor.  Sophie often paid a call and we agreed to meet once a week like we once did in the garden and felt a certain ease by reducing, but maintaining our social visits this way.

The two women finally became acquainted and I surprised myself that neither Anna nor Sophie had ever met until that day.  They only knew of each other in passing and from my interactions between them.  It was quite an experience for all of us to finally share a table and simply chat.

The new regime remained and was growing old, but everything seemed to work as intended.  People blissfully complacent as how the Artesians had hoped and no longer a need to be treated like a trendy new fad and now the stodgy old tradition.

There were fewer and fewer guards in the central hall and in time none were needed.  Knut's pen lost significance as did all his physical possessions.  His messages and his teachings remaining as powerful as ever, even if they remain gibberish to me.  A new dawn for mankind and Knut lives on in pop songs sung by ever younger and young generations who have less and less a reason to know who he was.

Chapter 29 - Monuments

To celebrate new beginnings and great moments in history, mankind crafts monuments and often they can resembling towering mountains of granite and steel or something as small as the mere absence to make the heart yearn and feel the significance.

Many war memorials and monuments were made in various fashions and degrees.  Eternal flames, miles of tombstones in rolling hills, buildings, scultures, paintings and ever more artwork and theatrical pieces.  There was always more room for monuments.

While there were a million statues of Karl Knutmudsen circling the globe.  His bust and his visage became the most common thing everyone would awaken to and the last thing they would see when they went back to sleep, there were no monuments to me.  And I am happy and made sure of this.

It's not coincidence that I never uttered my name, even my family name sake.  Not so much to tarnish the legacy of Knut, nor to avoid it all the same.  I just have no inclination for either and especially not a hideous statue of myself in some random park, further marred with my family name.  I spent enough time staring at letters taller than myself standing when it was in the Grand Mural.

The Artesians to their credit rebuilt the Grand Mural and painstakingly repainted every detail.  This was both impressive and terrifying as it made clear they had been among us all along and knew everything.  They could only have gotten the little things right and it wouldn't be a surprise if they themselves were the original creators of the Grand Mural.

The Politiburo, Commissariat, the camps, everything was quite possibly their hoax on us.  To prepare us for eventual assimilation into their ways.  But that would be beautifully easy to believe if not for the aberration that they adulate and worship Karl Knutmudsen.  And still doesn't make any sense how a movement could exist before its creator could even found it.  I often thought out aloud that maybe Karl was just the biggest fool of them all and he didn't know what was going on.  Maybe it was gibberish after all and the two of us were the only ones that realized it.

Chapter 28 - No Loose Ends

There is always a Wolf, a Gustafson somewhere tidying up all the messes and leaving no loose ends.  Sophie commented that Anna reminded her of Stephan and would have made their father proud if she was one of their own.  It would be hard to believe with how Stephan was swayed so easily by Knut and the reason for father's despair and anguish at being bested by the Artesians with such little effort.

Stephan was Wolf's disciple and his heir.  His instrument of war and his ticket that he said to an early retirement much like the Colonel's.  But none of that passed and he died on the Island just as Stephan died in the arms of Knut.  None of was supposed to have happened, but this all left messes that various elements of the Politiburo, Commissariat and even the Artesian converts had to clean up and so a new generation like Anna took up the standard and did an excellent job.

Anna had her own private army known as the sisters.  She handpicked and trained them herself and one of them was the assassin that took the Major's life.  She had been a deep plant for years and he was none the wiser.  Many of the war orphans and castaways of society were her willing and capable recruits.  Anna Two was the exception and she was never made privy of her adoptive mother's true profession nor invited or allowed to join when she was old enough to hear her mother's secrets.  Anna was always honest with her family.

All of the sisters idolized Anna and were made in her own image.  Honest in their own adaptation and interpretation of a true master.  She wouldn't call it the same adulation that she had of Knut, but there were few comparisons that would make sense.

She genuinely loved each of them and called them sisters and considered them her own flesh and blood.  She never sent any on a mission without sufficient means of escape when things turned south.  She had to intervene a few times surreptitiously while she was a humble attache at the Central Administration and none were the wiser.

One of her favored sisters was somewhat incompetent and got herself stuck in a jam when attempting to divulge secrets from a military officer.  He knew she was an agent and had planned a trap.  There was no escape.  Anna always found a way and it was the Major who was made the fool of his own trap.  There is something about honesty, brutal openess and truth that seems to set people at ease in ways when they should really be cautious.  She and the sisters perfected this art.

But even with all old traditions and family business the value and importance of the sisters services were no longer necessary.  The world was in the image of Knut and an Artesian paradise.  They had planned a long game of generations and centuries of asymmetric warfare with the sisters helming the resistance.  Anna was transcribe battle doctrine and manuals to teach each subsequent generation of converts, she had no idea it would all be of little value before she was the age of thirty.  That the centuries of war would be compressed in barely a fraction of her lifetime and the outcome exactly as she would have wanted or intended.

It startled and tickled her, but not the same as being handed Knut's pen.

After the deaths of the Major and the Captain she handed me a list.  It was a very long list of enemies.  She then outed all of her sisters, about 14 of them, many stationed in high positions or even married to senior party officials.  She assured me she had given me everything and that there were 3 more sisters that she chose to not disclose who were in sensitive relationships and precarious situations, but they had been deactivated and would never pose a threat.  But if I asked she would divulged their existence.

The apparatus was dismantled and she felt it was the last thing she needed to accomplish and she became doting mother of Anna Two.  Going to soccer games and family picnics.  She waited for her retirement gift.  None came.

Karl Knutmudsen's pen now rests in the central hall of the Artesian capital city.  It is guarded by a hundred of the most elite guards armed to the teeth.  Penalty of thievery or any defacement of the creators work tantamount to hard labor and instant death.  All of Karl's work and a history of his life on public display and the crown jewel, his humble pen now rests as property of mankind.  Greta was offered curatorship, but she declined and instead released all of her brother's remaining things and knick knacks.  She had enough items to finally fill the massive auditorium of the central hall from end-to-end with the creator's closet and shoe box.

Chapter 27 - Retirement

The Central Administration was transformed once more and merged with their Artesian allies across the ocean.  It was now the global organization that arose from the League of Nations.  I now knew the significance after my chat with Anna why she handed me back Karl's pen to write the final draft of the charter and when it was handed over to the trade delegation.  They trembled when they gingerly took that charter.

They ran it through a battery of tests and analysis and confirmed the pen flourishes, even the ink was authentic and of it Karl Knutmudsen's fabled pen.  It caused quite a stir and many sleepless nights that they were holding the most recent of Knut's writings in their very hands, not some relic from before the war or since the uprising.

The words were actually Knut's.  While I never can understand the gibberish, the Colonel' staff had it transcribed in much the same way Karl might have assembled his own teachings and they rang much the same as if by some divine coincidence both in the physical instrument and the literal translation.

We could have written the terms of absolute surrender and the Artesians would have signed it and obeyed it dutifully, if we had known the significance of Knut's pen.

The Colonel was made redundant and to his relief never a target of Anna's wrath.  She kindly told him at his retirement party and they shared notes like worthy adversaries after the wars had long ended and clarified points and assumptions they had made over the years.  They were like true friends and students of their craft and while he admitted she won and would have wiped the floor with his carcass, she was the better, but should have.  They embraced and she insisted he call on her and that she owed him many favors for having introduced Anna to me.

Too many coincidences, she still trembles at the thought of that first day.  The pen in her hand, our encounter.  It was all too much and she wanted to drown herself in the stiffest drink at how much an out of body experience it was.  It still is her most memorable moment.

By tradition, adversaries, especially those who were bested would go to some foreign hotel with out a retinue of guards.  They would enjoy their last few meals, take stock of some of life's vices and an assassin's knife or well placed bullet would remind them of their place.  The Colonel was allowed to do all of this, but there was no assassin.  He had an actual boring retirement.

But traditions die hard and an empty bullet casing was placed on his bedside table next to his wrist watch he always took off.  They set the time to exactly when it would have happened and had even fired the shot in the room without stirring him or him the wiser.  All the evidence was on his bedside and he took it as a retirement gift and went to breakfast.

Others were not so lucky and it was like the golden days of the Politiburo.  The major was found in a pool of his own blood at his mistress home.  The captain who we wondered why he resigned so suddenly was found wanting and had been a double agent for the Artesians, he then was outed by the Colonel and the Major who made him into an equally confusing triple agent and was the reason for both their early retirements.

Anna was the most honest and not the Colonel because of how it all happened and so they remained friends and he visited the Artesian cities and marveled at the teachings of the Knut and how he remembers and was there in the same hallways and offices of Karl Knutmudsen as my attache and this made him a celebrity in his own right.