Patterns in the Static

Floor 40 Apartment C1 — not quite the vertical halfway of a residential high-rise in the vastly overpopulated Central City. There are dozens of buildings just like it at the heart of town. You would be hard-pressed to find anything unique or special about these apartments. They are dwarfed by the surrounding skyscrapers and even from the rooftops, the Great Ocean was completely out of view. From the outside these buildings were nothing more than a jumble of glass and steel littered with cluttered balconies, crooked blinds and improperly fastened air conditioning units.

Forty stories up this strikingly disenchanting complex, Rocco leaned over his balcony with a cigarette in one hand and his forehead in the other. He was younger man, mid to late 30s with a stature on the shorter side of average. What could be considered a rather muscular build was slowly surrendering to the past few months of inactivity. Maybe in his prime he might have turned a couple heads, but now he’s just another standard issue adult male on the downswing of his youth.

The blazing temperatures of the late afternoon warmed his body from his frigid studio apartment. The droning hum from the back of the air-conditioning unit drowned out most of the city noise.

Rocco was zoned out in the placidity of the moment. He had no real responsibilities anymore. He had no family to provide for, no financial burdens — not even a friend to report to. The only other person he had in his life was his neighbor, Li who didn’t speak. Rocco wasn’t sure if it was a language barrier, or if he just lacked the ability altogether, but Li often came out to his balcony next door when Rocco would smoke. They would usually just share a few moments of silence before both heading back to their respective apartments. That’s how Rocco liked it. It would take more than a few months of peace and quiet to recover from the decades of turmoil, but staying low and blending in was a refreshing change of pace.

The world had been through some serious shit. Central City is one of eight habitable cities left on earth. Some outlying villages can be found along the way from one city to the next, but only primitive shanties amongst the rubble of what once was.The eight mega cities are perfectly functioning utopias for the hundreds of millions of people still left after the war. Life in these cities is the closest to normal anyone is ever going to get.

The more central you are in the city, the easier it is to forget what’s outside — nuclear winter, scorched wastelands, city ruins and of course the countless seas of radioactivity. All the surviving cities are built along the same coastline, spread hundreds of miles apart and all connected by one highway. Somehow, this section of the world was immune to the damage the rest of the earth had succumb to. Maybe it was a weather system that came at the right time or simply the axis of rotation favored this area during the war. Or maybe there’s some real smart people who planned it this way.

You see, complete and utter complacency reigned in the moments leading up to what would become a third world war. This complacency wasn’t by chance. It wasn’t just a natural sequence of events leading the sheep to slaughter. It came as a carefully formulated plan, executed with absolute precision.

The architect, a brilliant tech savant named Triton Xavier played the role of both villain and savior. He rescued the people from the world he destroyed.

He was cunning, and deceptive. He knew how to play the long game. Gradual decline was the key.

Following several carefully orchestrated assassinations, immeasurable bribes and matchless persuasion, world leaders suddenly found themselves up against a wall, powerless to a capsize from the abrupt shifting of power. In an instant, the people of the world were powerless. A One World Order was in place and extermination began.

As Rocco stood contemplating in a daze, he could hear the creaking of Li’s door as it opened. Rocco glanced back and gave Li the usual slight nod of the head and Li smiled and leaned his back against the balcony railing.

After a few more moments of usual silence, Rocco crushed his cigarette filter into the concrete and started for his door. As he reached for the door handle, he was caught off guard by an authoritative voice that commanded his attention.

“And so the heartbeat returns to its resting state…”

Rocco turned around to see that Li now stood directly in front of him. In the seven months they’ve been acquainted, not a word had been spoken between them. His voice was powerful and sincere, contrary to his shy nods and half smiles.

“What?” Rocco responded, not knowing where else to begin with all the questions he had.

“But the dead skin still remains,” Li continued. “Though a hand breaks through, grasping for normalcy, autonomy is bound by the remnant.”

“What are you trying to say?” replied Rocco.

"You cannot outfight the infinite with the measurable. You must go beyond. You must go deeper,” Li said, speaking quieter with each sentence. He took several small steps forward, approaching Rocco and taking his hand at waist level.

“Shed the dead skin.” Li whispered, placing a peculiar piece of jewelry in Rocco’s hand.

Li took a couple steps back as Rocco inspected the item. It was locket. A heart-shaped locket. The bright gold glistened in the sun of the late afternoon. Li stood and watched in silence as Rocco searched for the right questions.

As he stared, puzzled at the locket, he heard echos of his name, seemingly carried on an ocean breeze.

“Rocco! Rocco!” It sounded like a female voice, filled with urgency and fear.

The gentle hum of the air conditioning began to grow louder and louder. It seemed to drop octaves until he could feel it shaking his core. He knew the sound well.

“Is that a helicopter?” he shouted at Li over the sound. Li stood in silence.

“What’s happening, Li? Tell me what’s going on!” Rocco fell to his hands a knees, completely overwhelmed by the sound.

Then, all at once, as if someone had simply changed the channel, Rocco found himself on the roof of an old pre-war commercial building in the middle of the desert wasteland. Around him were nothing but bullet casings and lifeless bodies. About thirty yards away on the other end of the roof a large black helicopter was just touching down.

As he scanned his surroundings in shock from the sudden transition, he noticed one of the bodies between him and the helicopter began to move. A young woman in desert camouflage pants and a bullet proof vest over her bare torso sat up onto her knees. She was holding only a small pistol in one hand and an old communication radio in the other.

“Rocco!” She screamed over the sound of the helicopter, “Sir, that bird is ours, we need to go!”

Still on his hands a knees, Rocco stayed frozen in his consternation.

“Hey! Are you hearing me?” the woman continued, “We need to go now!”

Unable to move, Rocco found only the strength to yell back.

“What’s going on? Where am I?”

The woman paused and looked several times back and forth between the helicopter and Rocco, then scuttled over to his position, crouching behind the bodies as she moved.

“Okay…I think you might be in shock,” she said as she approached him. “I don’t have time to explain you’ll just have to trust me. Your life depends on it! You’re losing a lot of blood,” she said pointing at his thigh.

He saw that her shirt had been wrapped tightly around his leg and was completely soaked in blood. He also noticed his bullet proof vest and tattered desert camouflage, matching the wardrobe of the bodies that lay around him.

“Okay, let’s go.” Rocco’s voice shook with adrenaline.

They began to make their way to the helicopter, crouching and stopping every few feet, hiding amongst the bodies. After what seemed beyond any reasonable amount of time, they reached the helicopter where they were met by a ragged looking group of men and women on board, all dressed in makeshift militant uniforms and holding an assortment of random weaponry. A couple of them came forward and grabbed Rocco by the arms and pulled him up, laying him on the floor.

The woman climbed in after him and yelled to the pilot.

“That’s it! There’s no one else. Let’s go!” The pilot looked back at her with a look of disbelief.

“Just you two?” asked the pilot, “Are you sure?”

“Just us…” she responded defeatedly.

The helicopter lifted up from the roof and they made their way west toward the red sun as it was setting on the horizon.

“Eight years, sir. Mission accomplished,” the woman said to Rocco.

“What’s going on? Can you please fill me in?” Rocco begged, “I feel like I’m losing my mind!”

“This was the plan all along, sir — shed the dead skin.” The woman reached out her hand, holding a locket, offering it to Rocco.

Rocco recognized it as the one Li had handed him not 10 minutes ago. Something was different about it. It was worn and aged.

“Shed the dead skin?” he questioned her as he took the locket. He fumbled with the clasp and opened it with his dirt and blood caked hands.

“Triton X…” he whispered to himself. An entire lifetime of dreams and nightmares flooded his mind. His heart began beating out of his chest. He remembered.

He pieced the fragmented memories together that told him the story of the last 8 years of his life since Li gave him that locket.

“Who am I to you, Hyacinth?” He asked the woman, remembering her name.

“You’re Rocco Monteverde, sir,” Hyacinth responded, “The assassin of kings. The cancer of empires…you’re the leader of the revolution, sir.”

“And Triton Xavier?” he asked.

“Dead,” she said with a half smile, “At the hands of our deliverer.”

Rocco looked to the young militant group on board. He had lead thousands to their deaths in a revolution for autonomy and he never even knew it.

They would see Rocco as their leader and deliverer, never knowing his actions were not his own. He’s not a hero, but a pawn; a sleeper agent in someone else’s master plan. He knew their fight was in vain because it was not for their freedom as they had believed, but to pave the way for another mysterious power to step into place.

Everyone will think they’ve moved the world forward, never noticing the patterns in the static.

As Rocco looked around he could see the bittersweet demeanor in everyone’s faces. After all they had lost, they still held onto the shred of hope that came in their supposed victory.

“I guess that’s it then,” Rocco said to the group, “The war is over, and we are the victors! Today, our lives begin new. We will grieve our losses and remember those who sacrificed themselves for this cause, and we will build a new life as free men and women as a monument to them.”

A shift came in the atmosphere as people began to smile. An excited chatter filled the helicopter cabin. The fabricated hope of a new life was their last light.