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  The Conspiracy Chronicles: Books 4-6

  Michael Evans

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  Renegade

  Chapter 1

  I am the most hated man in the world.

  Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration. My father is the most hated man in the world. I hold the measly second-place spot as the once revered heir to a billion-dollar fortune turned into a political thug.

  At the surface, that sounds fine—I mean, not horrific enough to garner the title of the most hated man in the world. After all, the profession of politics isn't exactly known to attract the noblest men.

  The thing is, after pushing the Universal Basic Income Bill through the United States Congress using some slightly nefarious tactics, such as poisoning a seven-year-old girl with cancer and holding a dog hostage, I began to enter into the realm of overall shitty person.

  Then, when the world found out that the law I killed for in order for it to get passed was responsible for enabling my father's company to eliminate fourteen million people in a ruthless genocide against the economically disadvantaged in the country, I overnight became the second most hated man in the world.

  Then my dad killed himself, all to ensure the protection of the world's most powerful technology that I hold in my backpack now.

  And that’s the story of how I became the most hated man in the world. The most hated man in the world is now dead, and millions upon millions of people want me dead now that I have taken his place.

  That thought should scare me—in fact, the guilt from all the devastation I have witnessed (and enabled, albeit unknowingly) should cripple me. I should want to meet the same fate as my father, buried in ash and debris dozens of feet beneath the earth, my remains charred to unrecognizable chunks due to the fire that inevitably burned his corpse.

  But I don’t feel sad at all.

  I don’t even feel an ounce of pain.

  In fact, this moment may be one of the best in my life, and there’s only one thing that crosses my mind: I am a fucking legend.

  All right, I'll admit my ego is way overinflated now—in fact, it's about to burst—but it sure feels like I'm some other worldly being.

  “Well, that was a ride to remember for sure.” Jake adjusts the collar on his shirt that the Chinese military provided him to change out of his orange jumpsuit. My head is still spinning and my own stomach on the verge of vomiting after what was the most insane plane flight of my life. Immediately after I broke Jake out of the prison in Virginia, leaving my own trail of destruction and monstrous creatures behind, Noah, one of the wealthiest young entrepreneurs in China who owns an ecommerce website, flew us on his aircraft to a Chinese aircraft carrier in international waters. Immediately upon landing, Jake, Noah, and I were shuttled into yet another aircraft, this one a hypersonic military jet that took us across Europe and most of Asia to land in Beijing. On the aircraft, I snuck away into the bathroom, where I used the powers of the Chimera Cube and nanofabrication facility inside it to clean up my wounded ankle. Even the medical staff of the Chinese military can’t compete with this cube.

  With this secret technology in my possession, I am the most powerful man in the world.

  “If it weren’t for my fear of heights, I would say that traveling at well over a thousand miles per hour was almost fun,” I yell into his ear so that he can hear me above the sounds of the crowd.

  “Yeah, you really need to get over that—

  “Oh my.” Jake’s eyes widen at the sight of the thousands of people applauding together in harmony. Even though we stepped out of the aircraft a few seconds ago, he is now noticing the thousands of people swarming the runway. “This is beyond insane. This is the most people I have ever seen in my life. Oh my, is it good to finally be free." Jake stares out at the crowd of tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, from the top of the stairs leading out of Noah's aircraft.

  They are all here to greet us upon our arrival.

  They are all here for me.

  "I feel like we just entered a different dimension, and you are probably the only felon in the world who has been welcomed to this kind of crowd once being broken out of prison." I stand at the top of the stairs right next to him, part of me too shocked to move, and the other part of me a bit scared at walking forward and discovering what mysterious force is keeping everyone clapping together in unison.

  Jake is shocked too, and for a rare moment, he is too surprised to even respond to me.

  The skyline of Beijing behind the thick layer of smog sends chills down my spine just from looking at it. The sheer number of skyscrapers dwarfs any city that I have seen in the Western world. One time when I went to Seoul in South Korea I had a similar feeling to this, but nothing compares to hundreds upon hundreds of thousand-foot-tall buildings rising from the earth and their lights burning through the thick clouds of pollutants like a lost colony on Mars.

  I can feel the presence of the city and sense the power of the imperial empire at the core of it.

  This city contains the most powerful dictator in the world.

  And today I am going to meet him.

  Today I am going to find out why he saved my life.

  "I told you they love you over here even more than they did in the States." Noah pats me on my back, urging me to step forward. I imagine it looks very awkward that none of us have moved for a solid ten seconds. Instead, we are all just staring out at the sea of people, my mind still trying to come to terms with the fact that the country I left is falling apart and that I possess a technology that can put everything broken in this world back together.

  I'm even still trying to process the fact that my dad died.

  That he killed himself and the hundreds of others in Zion. I’m still trying to deal with the fact that Riva is dead and Reno is so far away from me that I’ll probably never get him back.

  But right now, my mind can't even go there.

  All I can think about is the screaming of the crowd and the electric energy of the people that causes a surge of adrenaline to burst through me. It's a high unlike any other, a high that dwarfs even the rush of selling hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of software. This time everything is different, because this time I have the Chimera Cube.

  This time I know that the feeling of power that rushes through me at the frenzied energy of the crowd is only a tiny fraction of the power that I now hold in my hands.

  And I have to dedicate my entire life to protecting it. I have to sacrifice everything to keep the Chimera Cube out of the hands of people who will use it to destroy the world and keep it in the hands of my own self.

  “If I were landing in the States, this reaction would be quite different.” I laugh, clutching the black, oval-shaped backpack strapped around my shoulders. Inside its lightweight, yet nearly indestructible material is the dense Chimera Cube, the only device in the world that is capable of producing an unlimited quantity of materials, and any material or item at that, at virtually no cost.

  It has more capabilities than I will ever come to truly understand. But I do know that in the same way that it acts as a nanofabrication facility to manipulate the structure and arrangement of atoms to produce any material at any quantity almost instantly, it can also produce trillions of tiny robots that can keep the air clean and purify the minds and bodies of those that it enters.

  It’s essentially the answer to unlimited wealth, unlimited life, and unlimited happiness in this world.

  And I’m the only one in the worl
d that knows about this technology. I’m the only living person who knows about the existence of Zion and how a literal fantasy land on Earth existed dozens of feet beneath the ground before my father reduced it all to rubble to prevent anyone else from discovering it. I’m the only one who knows the truth behind the Chimera Promise, behind Protocol 00 and Isaac Savery’s experiment, and for the real reason that my dad allowed The Last Migration to take place.

  The only problem is, the second that someone else finds out, the entire world could be destroyed. The second someone finds out, I will have let my dad down, and this time, if I can’t live up to his expectation, all of humanity is at stake. I have to do everything to keep it secret from the world’s most powerful organization that lives off lies—ironically called the Syndicate of Truth—the entirety of the United States military, numerous federal government agencies that are actively pursuing me, and the Chinese government itself, which, although it is protecting me at the moment, will not hesitate in destroying me the second they find out the secret that lies in my bag.

  If I can’t fend off the people searching for the truth (and frankly, trying to kill me), I quickly could turn from the most hated man in the world to the man solely responsible for ending it.

  Because we aren’t ready for a technology this powerful yet.

  We aren’t ready to unleash this power in the world, because instead of turning this entire planet into a magical land a billion times larger than Zion, it will likely destroy it.

  “Forget about the States, Sam.” Noah outstretches his arm as we all step onto the runway, a thin path cutting through the large crowd of people leading to an armored limousine. “This is the future. China will make sure the United States doesn’t remain at the top of the world for long. That’s exactly why we need you. We want to go to war, and we need someone and something that can convince the rén that coming together is the best option instead of tearing us apart.” Noah smiles and looks out at the crowd, his eyes unreadable behind his gray shades. “The only thing more powerful than love is fear. They all love you now, but they will fear you soon.”

  I want to ask him what the heck he is talking about. But I already know exactly what they want me to do. The only reason the Chinese government saved me from America and allowed me to break my lifelong best friend Jake out of prison is to replicate the same thing that got millions killed in America in the first place. They want me to be the head of the same company and same operation that ended up hurting everyone I know and love.

  It put Jake in jail.

  It killed Riva with dozens of stab wounds when we both tried to resist the Syndicate.

  And it led to my father killing himself and hundreds of others the second everything started to collapse and threaten to uncover the secrets buried underneath his empire.

  “Why do you care if anyone fears us?” Jake turns his head so his voice echoes in my ear. Noah and I can barely hear him above the screaming of the crowd. Jake raises a hand in the air, as if to pretend that everyone is going apeshit to see him.

  “Because I’m one of the only people that the government has allowed to enjoy the riches of the most powerful dictatorship on earth. Besides allowing people like me to run multinational corporations worth billions of dollars, everyone else has slowly entered the middle class economically, but socially they enjoy virtually no freedom. Now that nearly over a billion oppressed people in this country don’t have to worry about food each day, they can start worrying about their freedom, and that has led to what is likely the largest silent revolution in history. And you are here to silence it for good. You are here to make them fear fighting for their freedom more than they fear their oppression.”

  A cold gust of wind smacks my face with Noah’s words. A deep chill rockets through my body. Suddenly the excited screaming of the crowd turns to a menacing one in my mind as the memories of the riot outside the Chimera Skyscraper hit me in one painful blow. I don’t like being around this many thousands of people any longer.

  Now, I view it all as a danger.

  Just as fast as these people can adore me and snap their own treasured pictures of me as I walk by, some even stopping their applause to try and reach over the fence and touch me, they can all turn on me.

  They can all tear me apart, even with the power of the Chimera Cube. If the masses ever discover my secret, I will be dead. Or more accurately, I will be the target of billions trying to steal what is in my backpack.

  Stay focused on the limousine up ahead. I lock eyes with a member of the imperial guard holding open the door. He’s wearing a red uniform with a large rifle strapped to his side. I can’t let my mind go there, I can’t let my mind feel any of the anxiety about my reality or pain of all the loss.

  “What is everyone’s obsession with fear here?” Jake, always the straight shooter, glances at Noah, trying to discern whether to trust him or not. “Even the general guy on the aircraft mentioned that to us, it’s like you all have a fetish for it.”

  Noah chuckles. “There are people watching us right now. Thousands here, and millions more online.” He points at the drones circling over our heads. “I am supposed to say these things to you. We all are. The people at the top can only stay there if people fear challenging them. Love only works for so long. The Chinese people love you, or at least tens of millions of them do. They love Chimera, and they love virtual reality. Right now, all that love can be weaponized as a tool to bring them together behind your message. But in order for them to stay there, they must fear you. They must fear all of us.”

  I nod along with his words, even managing to crack a smile. I want him to think that I’m excited to take on this role. I want everyone in this government to believe that I am their pawn that they can do anything with. It will make it that much more shocking when I take everything away from them.

  This time, I don’t care what it takes. I don’t care how many people I have to kill and how many horrible situations I have to endure.

  There is no other option.

  “I’ll make sure everyone fears me.” I grin, a euphoric rush of energy overcoming me as I wave to the crowd. Just by acknowledging the thousands of people, I seem to be unleashing a frenzied beast of their excitement.

  The euphoria I am experiencing, instead of taking me further away from my reality, is grounding me more in the present. I know the challenges that will face me. I know that everything is at stake. And that makes me more excited than I have ever been. The sick side of me that always wants to win at all costs is beginning to take over at a level that it never has before.

  The deaths of the people I have loved most in my life, the deaths of millions of Americans, and the fact that the Syndicate tore me and my best friend apart are all fuel for my one desire: to win.

  And to win in this game, to win against the most powerful people in the world, winning only means one thing: to kill.

  Jake eyes me and then looks forward at the stoic man holding open the limousine door for us. I can see an expression in his eyes that desires the same thing I do. He has a hungry flame burning at his core: one that wants to win.

  And despite the cold, cloudy day in Beijing causing every hair on my body to stand up, I feel warm and excited. I feel confident, maybe even to a delusional level.

  I enter the limousine, the tall, lanky imperial guard shutting the door behind me. The limousine has black leather seats in its interior and classical music gracefully emitting from of its speakers.

  A vacuum seems to exist in the warm air of the limousine, my ears and body feeling empty without the energy of the applause and shouting of the hundreds of thousands of people. However, I still feel their energy resonating throughout my body, part of their excitement still echoing inside my mind.

  I glance at Jake, who is seated across from me in the limousine, both of us out of breath from the exhilarating plane ride and insane rush of adrenaline we experienced walking to the limousine. People begin running alongside the limousine, trying to get their view of us beh
ind the tinted, bullet-proof glass windows.

  He smiles back.

  One day we are both going to be the most powerful men on earth. One day we are both going to be the leaders of a new Zion.

  Next stop is the mansion of the president of China.

  Next stop is meeting the man who saved me from the downfall of Chimera, the same man who I am going to destroy.

  Chapter 2

  The newly built imperial mansion is something that most men in the Syndicate would be jealous of. And for a collective of several hundred of the world’s most powerful and wealthy men to envy something, that means it must be made of solid gold or teeming with supermodels.

  Although the mansion itself isn’t made of solid gold, and upon my first glance on the outside I don’t see any gorgeous models running around, my mind is still blown.

  Several blocks of skyscrapers in the middle of Beijing were torn down to build the mountain-like hill that the mansion sits atop. A few hundred yards away, my eyes are level with the thirtieth floor of most of the skyscrapers that surround the man-made hill placed right in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world. It is what lies atop the hill that is most impressive.

  The mansion has a large circular driveway out front with a beautiful fountain in the center. A perfectly manicured lawn leads up to the bright flowers and exotic shrubbery that surround the perimeter of the property, before the steep drop-off at the edge of the hill down towards the city streets. To get to the top of this hill, we entered through a heavily guarded tunnel from the streets, that then has an elevator that causes each vehicle it carries upward to rapidly ascend the hundreds of feet through the dark hill to the beacon of light at the top. The entire process, especially the elevator, reminded me of the old Batman movies that I used to watch when I was a kid. Being that I never loved sports, and the fact that my dad loved sports, the one thing that we could watch on television together as a family that we could all agree on was action movies, and more often than not, superhero movies.