Book I: The Sparks
Part I: The Mastermind
"Every Mastermind had mastered their own mind first, before becoming a Mastermind." – Din
"Report in, Blue Five Four Niner. What is the status on our query?" A dark, hooded figure stood in the middle of a windowless room, speaking urgently into his cell phone. The walls of the room were full of pictures of personnel, maps, notes, and the like of every important person in Chromatika, as well as some others that weren't as famous. His fingers tapped impatiently on his knee as he awaited for a reply.
"We were able to secure the query without much of a problem," came the reply at the other end, "We have successfully avoided detection and are carrying the query back home as we speak. Operation is a success, I repeat, Operation is a success."
"Good," stated the figure, "Make sure to not be detected entering back, and get the query here as soon as possible. Make sure you are not followed, understand?"
"Of course. Everything will be done per the usual procedure," answered the one who replied, "We will be there within the day. Blue Five Four Niner out." And that was that.
The figure turned around, headed to a board on one of the walls, and scratched off an item on a list. That had been a long time coming, involved so much planning and some delicate execution. But they had finally obtained their query - Miss Kerri Wyse, girlfriend of Luuk Aart, and Chemistry teacher in Notre Dame Catholic High School, Quebec City, Quebec. They had arrived just before the Chromatik agents had, but it seemed that they had been lucky enough to obtain her without being noticed by the Chromatik Secret Police.
Going to his computer, he turned on the encrypting device that would delete the email ten seconds after it would be read, and sent this to Luuk Aart:
"Mr. Aart. we were able to reach bluebird before the others were able to reach her. We were able to determine when they were going to try to grab bluebird, and get there first ourselves instead. Do not worry, bluebird will be safe with us, and when the time comes, so will you be safe with us. In a few days, we'll ask bluebird to contact you; please be patient until then."-M
After pressing the "Send" button, Marco Ni - or "M" as he was known to many within his organization - took a moment to reflect back on the last four years. After joining the Chromatik Political Party at the tail end of his sister participating in World Baseball Classic, Marco had tried to find opportunities to change the Chromatik political culture from the inside. He had observed, he had interacted, and he had looked for opportunities to start questioning the beliefs that held his nation together. But it had all been for naught. Instead, he saw the injustices of his nation every day. Anyone who wasn't at least a Blue was treated like inferiors, all the way down to the Reds, who didn't dare look any of them in the eye, and did exactly as they were told. There were crude jokes every day made at the lower classes' expense, and anyone who didn't treat them as worse than dirt were called to be "too soft".
"They were born from parents who had inferior genes than us, Marco," his supervisor, Anita Anderson, DBz, would say, "If it's anyone's fault it's their parents' for bringing them into the world. Wait, we make them! That's right! Every Chromatik couple is encouraged to have two children! You know what that means, don't you?" She'd pause there always for dramatic effect, then, right before he had a chance to reply, she would exclaim, "Free labor! A group of citizens whose sole purpose in living is to do our every last bidding! Isn't it glorious?" Before he could say anything else, she'd add, "Whomever it was that created the color system in the beginning was a genius! With this system, everything is perfectly balanced in our society. Everyone has a place that they belong in, something that they were made to be, and they can concentrate being the best of what they were made to be, instead of wasting time trying to be something else! Unless you're a Blue or higher, of course."
After two months of being involved with the Chromatik Party's Institutional Division as a Light Bronze initiate, he had, against advice from his peers, quit. "Don't do that," his friend, Augustus Malta, had warned him, "They will watch every move that you make, they will tail you, you do one thing wrong and they'll take you in! You don't want that, do you?" He had to argue against his friend, tell him that there was no way that he. Marco Ni, could continue. So, Marco had left, and the Party had answered his decision with a very subtle message: Augustus's ring in a sealed envelope, one month after he had left to go hide and live in Eyrods in the jungle. The ring had been sent to his parents, who had conveyed the message to him.
That was when he knew what he had to do. Staging his death had taken a significant toll - he had to make sure his parents believed it, that his sister believed it, and in order to do that, he had his left arm amputated and placed in the wreck of the car that he was supposedly found in. It had actually made the first page of the Chromatik City Courier - and an official statement from the Government, saying that "It was such a shame for such a young and promising member to have died at such a young age." He wondered how Anita viewed the entire situation, who he was to the party at large. But that was of no concern, now.
He had found his hiding place, and placed a message from there to his flock on the internet. It had been on the web that he had found those who thought the way he did, and were smart enough to converse about it without being caught. He knew that the Police and the Institutional Division had been looking for a way to track those who participated in such writings, but they were too smart for them. The encryption used by the "Shadow Writers" as they were called was too advanced, and they did everything they could to stay one step ahead of the Police.
From there, he had been able to acquire funding and membership within his flock had multiplied substantially. Now, he was known as "M", and they, the "Shadow", were actually a pretty significant organization, having agents still in Chromatika, all around Atlantian Oceania, and even some in other regions like Rushmore and Esportiva. Their mission was to subtly expose what the Chromatik government was capable of, what they sought to do; well, for now, subtly, and in the future, maybe not. No, definitely not. He knew deep in his heart that when push came to shove the DG wouldn't go down without a fight.
He reminded himself to refer to her by her name. Heidi, it was, so he had found out. It made it so much real to refer to her by her name and not her Title. The Title was what he was fighting against, not actually the woman; in fact, if she was willing to be reasonable, he admitted, he would still give her a chance to live through the end of this. For he was sure about the ending of this endeavor even during these infant stages; the people would win, the Shadow would prevail, and Chromatika would be changed to a nation where color didn't matter, where everyone was able to do do whatever they wanted to do, not be limited by the parents that they were born from, nor the system that they were under.
His phone chirped. It was a message from Blue Five Four Niner, saying that they had left Quebecois airspace and were well on their way, with no tailing. He had known that Blue Five Four Niner was the right man for the job. He also knew that Kerri Wyse was such an important figure in Chromatika right now that they had to get her out of harms' way; her safety meant Luuk's safety, and Luuk's safety was very important. Luuk Demetriev Aart was the one who was planting a seed of doubt in every single working class Chromatik in the country; until the country stopped televising Anomalies matches, it would be that the nation would be reminded of what he had been subjected to every single time that he flashed across the screen.
Marco reminded himself that he was not using Luuk, but only the situation that the government had placed him under. Aart hadn't contacted him in any way, as was the right thing to do; instead, Luuk, with his photographic memory, had only followed every single instruction that Marco had sent him, from where to live, to what to say, to what was planned to happen next. It was great to have Luuk following instructions and not drawing any more attention to himself than he had been. They still had great need of him.
His plan was to have Kerri Wyse stay with them and use her Chemistry knowledge to help out. He had use of both of them. In the meantime, he looked at his schedule at the myriad of tasks it took to run an organization deep in the middle of the Atlantian Oceanian interior. Thankfully, the Chromatik Secret Police and the Institutional Division hadn't caught wind of him being outside of the country; sure, they were aware that the Shadow Writers had a de facto leader now, but they had no idea that it was Marco, nor that he was actually outside of the nation. By the time they caught wind of what he had planned, he hoped, it'd be far too late; for when the world saw the truth of what Chromatika was, it would be appalled, and it would respond.
One of his men came through the door, carrying a folder. "Sir, the latest from Dark Queen," he stated, giving Marco the envelope. He took it, breathed a word of thanks, and sat down at his desk, opening the folder.
For a free Chromatika, where all people could do what they want for no other reason than the fact that they wanted to do it.
For Chromatika. End Part I
Carrol Liam made a definite impact in his first game as a starter for the Anomalies in an important match, playing the entire match and contributing the assist to Trenn Rien's goal in ethe Anomalies' one-nil victory over Nordeana in the Capitalizt Dome in Chromatik City.
In a gritty affair where the Nordean defense messed with the Chromatik counterattack at every turn, it was Liam's precise cross that gave Rien the chance to use an overhead kick to score the deciding goal in a match that the Anomalies simply had to win. It looked in the beginning of the match like the team was a bit shell shocked, especially Luuk Aart, who had tears coming down his face as he entered the stadium. The same tears were there at the end, supposedly of joy, possibly of the fact that he was still in exile. Luuk wasn't allowed to be reached for a comment.
Flardania, the Group's second seed, lost to top seed Ko-oren in a match of the top seeds; Flardania remains the Anomalies' next opponent. When asked about facing a team that just lost 2-0 with the squad that she fields, this was Franscesca Cortes's reply:
"Flardania will be coming out to try to erase the loss from their brains, and get the qualifying back under way the way they wish it to be. We had a gritty, tough win here today, but if we don't play more loose against them we won't have a chance. They are a quality side, and one of the sides to beat in the group. It will be a tough match, but I believe that we are up to the task at hand."
She declined to comment on Luuk's play, but did add that Liam "definitely showed why we gave him the start today".
The Anomalies will try to stage an upset before a very important game against Anglatia.