35. Kian

35

KIAN

A s Kian and Brandon made their way through the village toward Kalugal's section, the sun was high in the sky, casting dappled shadows through the lush canopy of trees that lined the path. But despite the beautiful day, Kian's mood was darkened by clouds.

"This is impressive," Brandon said as they crossed the bridge to Kalugal's quarter. "It looks like Kalugal's spared no expense to create an oasis for himself and his men."

Kian cast him a sidelong glance. "Are you seriously saying that you have never even come to take a look?"

Brandon shrugged. "I saw it during construction, but you know me. I'm not as interested in developing and building as you are."

Kian chuckled. "Unless there is a movie to be made on those subjects, and then you dive right in and learn everything you can about it."

Brandon had been instrumental in protecting the village site during development and construction, staging the area as a movie set. Once the first phase had been completed, William's camouflage systems and other measures had replaced the staging.

"That's in my past. I lost interest in making movies. The studios are run by morons and cowards who don't understand the market, and I'm not allowed to thrall them to influence them." He flashed Kian a smile. "My charm and persuasion techniques stopped working. So unless you want to fund a new studio and find someone who can run it, I'm done wasting my time there."

That was why they were on their way to see Kalugal. Brandon had decided that the big screen was dead, the small screen was dying, and all that was left was social networks with their steady stream of poison, brainwashing young and old minds alike. Luckily for them, social media was open to manipulation, especially when one of the most successful platforms was owned by one of them.

Kalugal had had some world domination aspiration of his own back in the day, which was why he had built InstaTock, but it ran away from him, and nowadays he was in it just to make money, and a lot of it.

Or so he claimed.

Sometimes, it was hard to tell with Kalugal. He liked to appear as if he didn't take anything seriously, but that was a fa?ade. The guy was super smart, super cunning, and morally gray, having no qualms about using his power of compulsion to gain an unfair advantage. Still, Kalugal never used his power or his wealth to promote evil. Besides, desperate times called for desperate measures, and sometimes a guy like Kalugal was the last shield against the forces of darkness.

"The world keeps changing," Kian murmured. "And I'm not sure which direction it's taking. Advancements in technology promise a bright future, with a servant robot in every house and people having to work much less, but I'm afraid that social pressures and world demographics are going to drag it down a dark path again."

Brandon slowed down. "You mean Navuh and his army of drug-dealing traffickers and evil influencers?"

Kian frowned. "You think he is behind the wave of hate-filled influencers?"

"Of course." Brandon waved a hand. "The wave of evil is not coincidental. Someone is organizing and financing it, and usually, that someone is Navuh. Although, to be frank, this time I suspect that other sociopaths with way too much money to spend are involved because we know that Navuh is short on cash."

"I'm not sure that's still the case. Drugs bring in a lot of money, and so does trafficking." Kian stopped walking and turned to Brandon. "We know what Navuh's goals are, but what are theirs if we assume that they are human?"

Brandon shrugged. "The same as Navuh—world domination, or maybe they just want to see the world burn. A cabal of sociopathic anarchists."

Kian chuckled. "That sounds like a plot for a blockbuster movie."

"Or a streaming series. The market is no longer about big-budget productions. People don't go to movies as much as they used to, and they prefer to wait until it's available on one of the streaming services."

Kian let out a breath. "I'm so sick of this. Lately, it seems that everything I do fails. Even this village, which I believed was going to be a sanctuary for our entire clan, is failing because I invited Kalugal and his men and the Kra-ell to join us. I thought that we could all live in peace and that we would be stronger together, but the integration I was hoping for is not happening. Someone has been stealing packages from the mailroom and sabotaging the security shutters and trash incinerators."

Brandon was silent for a moment. "The village is like a microcosm of the world. Integration is difficult when people are fundamentally different from each other."

They paused under the shade of a large oak tree, its branches spreading wide above them.

Brandon continued, "Even in the United States, which was founded predominantly by European Christians, integration is only partially working. Many people stay true to their roots. Italians stick with Italians, Greeks with Greeks, and so on. But at least everyone believes more or less in the same things and holds similar values."

Kian nodded. "The former Doomers have adopted our loose belief in the Fates, and they've forsaken their belief in Mortdh, who they weren't fans of even while in the Brotherhood. That's why they escaped. They didn't believe in Mortdh's patriarchal, misogynistic ideology that sought the enslavement of humans."

Brandon's brow furrowed. "Not all of that came from Mortdh. Navuh expanded on his father's teachings."

Kian waved a dismissive hand. "Does it matter who came up with which part of their poisonous ideology? What matters is the end result and the hellholes that the countries under Navuh's influence have become. In the past, I believed that we could reach them and plant seeds of democracy and respect for human life and equal rights for all. We've made modest progress with a few of them, but many have gotten even worse, and lately, I've given up on ever trying to reach these populations. They're too brainwashed to be saved."

They resumed walking, the sound of gravel crunching under their feet filling the silence between them.

"So, what's the solution?" Brandon asked.

Kian let out a bitter chuckle. "Maybe we should leave, settle on Mars, and paint a big target on Earth for the Eternal King to do away with it."

Brandon snorted. "And I thought that I was in a funk. What's gotten into you?"

Kian stuck his hands in his pockets. "Failure," he admitted. "In the world at large and in our midst. I invited strangers into our village, thinking I was doing the right thing, but I was wrong, and now I'm stuck, and I don't know what to do about it."

"Integration takes time," Brandon said. "It's not going to happen overnight or even over a few years. It's a process."

"It can be a process when you have new generations born that are not indoctrinated in the old ways and can be taught new things. We are immortal, the Kra-ell are long-lived, and we stay the same. We don't change."