While the terrorist attacks continued, it was at a much slower rate. Reports began dwindling and reduced in frequency from seconds, to minutes, and finally, tens of minutes. And with an average response time of twenty minutes, it seemed that the AIs had caught up to the trend and the worst was over.
All of the scenes around the world had been cordoned off. Imperial police and LEAs were maintaining the cordon as RES-QRs dragged out survivors and placed markers on the dead for later retrieval; at that moment, survivors mattered more. Some of the smaller attack sites, like the wave of suicide bombings at UNESCO Heritage Sites, had even been cleared of all casualties and GEMbots dispatched to repair the damage.
Soon, most of the attack sites progressed to the cleanup phase. Active rescue was only ongoing at the worst of the sites, like in Dubai, where the Burj Khalifa had been dropped on the Dubai Mall and a few other skyscrapers fell due to the blast; or in Paris, where the Louvre had its iconic pyramid dropped into the underground lobby beneath it. But although cleanup had begun, all of the sites were still considered closed as the police and LEAs prevented everyone from approaching until everything was confirmed to be over.
Due to the scale of the coordinated attacks, billions of people were watching how the empire handled things and had found themselves impressed by the efficiency of the response. Everything was moving like clockwork, almost as if it had been rehearsed in advance... which in itself was a problem for the newly formed imperial government.
People had been used to the way the old governments handled things. It was said that governments were organizations that, in doing the small things poorly, also managed to do the big things poorly as well. And that was especially true during emergencies, where instead of focusing on rescue and recovery, politicians would immediately start looking for scapegoats to take the blame for the failure. And only after that was complete would they begin recovery operations. It was a backward method of operating that was almost always more harmful than not.
And with billions of people watching the situation from the sidelines, online “discussions” naturally broke out. Most praised the empire, some didn’t praise the empire but insulted the previous governments, and the trend of “sending thoughts and prayers” to the victims seemed to be an unkillable cockroach in the collective sea of first reactions.
But what was odd was the sudden flood of conspiracy theorists. To be fair, with such an efficient government response and the Rube Goldbergian precision with which the empire had handled things, it all did seem a bit rehearsed to people who didn’t understand the massive technological advantage in play. The empire’s tech was at least three centuries advanced, compared to the tech the now-defunct governments had been working with.
However, it was perhaps an unfortunate happenstance that nobody knew exactly what level the empire operated on, tech-wise, thus the conspiracy theorists gained steam and, unintentionally, manipulated the opinions of those overcome with strong emotions.
While that was ongoing, something else happened that seemed to be hard evidence to people used to dealing with conspiracy theories that were built more upon red yarn, thumbtacks, and sticky notes than anything else. Almost as if they had planned it, every television station across the globe almost simultaneously broke into their scheduled programming with a shocking news report.
After all, they had all received a USB with a chilling video on it at practically the same time. And they couldn’t pass up the scoop; it would absolutely shatter their belief in their journalistic integrity.
So within seconds of each other, every channel was interrupted.
“Breaking news. We have received a video from someone claiming credit for the wave of terrorist attacks around the world today. Viewer discretion is advised,” a news anchor said before the channel cut to the video itself.
On the video, a man stood behind a podium with a blank blue backdrop behind them, a parody of Aron’s usual style. He was wearing a flat crown hat, an obvious black wig, and a Guy Fawkes mask. He was dressed in a black long-sleeved shirt with a wide belt and black leather gloves encased his hands, which were resting on the podium in front of him. Around his shoulders was a black cloak, and black muslin blocked the eye holes of the Guy Fawkes mask on his face.
After a brief pause, the man in the video began speaking.
“Dear children of god, today I’m coming to you from an undisclosed location that’s as far as it’s possible to be from the devil, who has invaded the world and is turning it into a kingdom of sin under his dominion.
“Today, many of my compatriots, faithful soldiers of god one and all, martyred themselves in the fight of good versus evil. It was the first strike in a protracted war, a war for the very souls of humanity!”
The disguised man rambled on for quite some time about how evil the empire was, providing more and more bits of evidence—as insane as some of them were—in an attempt to sway people to his side and delay the “kingdom of the devil” from taking root in the hearts of humankind.
As he neared the end of his speech, he paused for a moment, then said, “Empires run on the ego of an individual. Just like empires and their emperors cannot be separated, their enemies must be individuals as well. Thus, the devil will absolutely try to paint me as the greatest villain who ever lived in order to make himself the protagonist of our conflict. So I decided to preempt that and declare it myself: I am the face of my operation. I am the leader, the guide, the shepherd of my flock. I am but one of many uncountable soldiers of god, all of them arrayed against the devil!
“He will say that I am the provocateur, mastermind, planner, and leader. He will invest his money, technology, military, and the media to isolate and place the focus squarely upon myself.
“The devil will make it his primary goal to obliterate me. He will mythologize and demonize me, rallying all the eyes of the world on my person.
“The empire will cloak itself in a flag to manufacture a false patriotism, a fictional sense of unity, but will force people into compliantly following along and accepting me as the target of everyone.
“It’s nothing more than an age-old imperial tactic to quell uprisings. Declare war, declare success, declare an end to the grieving and fabricate a reason to return to business as usual. Distract, delay, demand.... All of it is a lie! A lie designed to remove the culpability from itself and direct it outward.
“But the emperor failed to take into account that the masses have eyes, and they are watching. In every corner of the globe, on every television, in every news room, everyone is watching. We’re all seeing what’s behind the curtain, and billions of us will never turn away now that our eyes have been opened.
“Oppression and liberation are polar opposites. Oppression is always about a single person. But liberation! Ah, liberation.... Liberation is about everyone! So I call upon all of you watching this to rise up! Rise up and fight back against the devil!
“Because remember this, if you remember nothing else: the greatest lie the devil ever told is convincing us that there is no such thing as the devil.”
