42. Flashback II
"Halt the dictatorial refugee policy immediately!"
"We can't live like this because we're starving! Are you trying to kill us all!"
"Murderous Mayor Victor, step down immediately!"
The massive citizen plaza in front of Olympus City was boiling over with the anger of countless crowds swarming in like clouds from every district. The enraged protesters broke through the barricades set up by the police and stormed right up to the building's entrance. The police, holding riot shields, struggled desperately to hold back the surging mob. Swept up in the madness, some youths ran wild, smashing the large planters and sculptures in the plaza with iron pipes. Conservative elderly pedestrians pointed fingers at the protesters, calling them rioters, and the agitated protesters hurled curses right back at them with bulging veins.
However, the scene at the back of the plaza was quite different from the bloody standoff at the front. In one corner, a group had speakers turned on and were dancing like it was a festival. Quick-witted street vendors, acting as if they had hit the jackpot, rolled out their carts and busily displayed their wares. People chanted fierce slogans, yet bought warm street food to warm their freezing hands. It was closer to a bizarrely feverish, massive chaotic bazaar than a protest.
"Chief of Staff. The Mayor is urgently looking for you."
Dmitri, who was nervously frowning while looking down at the riot outside the window, hurriedly turned his body at the secretary's call. All the way up in the elevator after pressing the top-floor button, his lips went completely dry, unable to fathom just how furiously angry Mayor Victor would be over this disturbance.
Arriving at the top floor, Dmitri hurried down the hallway toward the Mayor's office. The executive secretaries guarding the tightly shut doors hastily stepped forward to block him.
"Chief, it would be best if you turned back for now..."
"What nonsense are you talking about! The Mayor called for me directly—"
[Crash!]
Before Dmitri's irritable reprimand could finish, the sound of heavy glass shattering echoed down the hallway from inside the firmly closed office. It was immediately followed by the dull, horrific sound of something being crushed, repeating rhythmically. Dmitri gulped down dry saliva and carefully approached the door. Slipping his gaze through the slightly ajar gap, he fell backward onto the floor, landing on his rear without even managing a short scream.
Mayor Victor, his face flushed blood-red, was holding a massive crystal ashtray in one hand. He grabbed someone's head and was smashing it down like a beast, sending blood and flesh flying. The man collapsed on the floor was already hanging limp, as if his breath had ceased, and the premium carpet was getting soggy with bright red blood. The mangled uniform of the man clearly belonged to the Chief of Police in charge of security.
After bashing wildly for a while, having lost all reason, Victor finally seemed to run out of breath. He dropped the blood-stained ashtray to the floor with a thud and panted heavily. Then, the moment he slowly turned his head, his gaze locked with Dmitri, who had frozen stiff through the crack of the open door.
The eyes of a murderer. It was the true face of Mayor Victor, thoroughly hidden behind a veil, known only to his closest confidants. In front of the public, he was a gentle politician spreading good-natured smiles, but the moment anger swallowed his reason, he was Satan himself risen from hell. Since Dmitri had taken the position of Chief of Staff, this was already the twelfth person crushed to death directly by Victor's hands.
Victor glared at Dmitri with a terrifying expression, his murderous intent still not subsided. Dmitri, paralyzed by extreme terror on the hallway floor, instinctively realized that if he kept loitering outside the door, his own lifeline would be in danger. As if he had been waiting, he sprang into the room, laid flat on his stomach in front of Victor's dress shoes, and fell to his knees.
"Chief of Staff."
Victor called out in a heavy bass that seemed to scrape the bottom of hell.
"Y-Yes, sir!"
"What are those noisy swarms of bugs crawling around outside?"
"I-I apologize!"
Victor slowly turned around and approached a golf bag sitting in a corner of the office. Pulling out a gleaming 7-iron, he walked toward Dmitri, the metal making a cold, scraping sound.
"Please spare me, Mayor!"
Seeing the head of the iron glinting with murderous intent, Dmitri trembled like a leaf and buried his forehead into the floor. Victor raised the golf club and tapped it under the chin of the police chief's corpse sprawled on the floor.
"How did those rioter bastards crawl all the way into my front yard? I clearly gave the order for a total lockdown of the plaza." Victor's lips twisted cruelly. "A bastard calling himself the Chief of Police can't even trample a single bug to death properly, and he dares to blabber to my face about the constitution this, and citizens' freedom that. Such a smart bastard who knows the law so well, I guess he didn't read in his law books that his own head would get smashed in by an ashtray?"
Victor chuckled horrifyingly and walked over to the plush sofa in the center of the office, sitting crookedly on the armrest. Letting out a long, ragged breath, it seemed his murderous urge had calmed down a bit. Dmitri lay flat against the floor like a spider, not moving an inch. Cold sweat dripped from his forehead like thick pinecones.
"So, how are you going to clean this up now? Our new Chief of Police."
At Victor's unexpected title, Dmitri widened his round eyes as if he didn't understand.
"Since the former Chief has passed away in an unfortunate accident, someone has to take his place and sweep away those rioters, don't they? Right, Dmitri?"
Victor pulled a silk handkerchief from his trouser pocket and leisurely wiped away the blood splattered on his face as he spoke. Only then did Dmitri grasp the Mayor's intention, springing up from the floor like a coiled spring.
"I will! I will clean it up perfectly right away!"
Victor stood up, took long strides, and placed a heavy hand on Dmitri's stiff shoulder.
"I detest weak words like human rights or democracy. You understand my meaning, right?"
"I will keep it in mind."
As Dmitri bowed resolutely, Victor seemingly lost interest, turning around to look down through the massive plate-glass window. Dmitri bowed politely once more and fled the blood-scented office as if running away.
Stepping out into the hallway, his face was as stark white as a sheet of paper. There was only one thing in his mind: an instinctual terror that he had to wipe out those wretched protesters immediately to preserve his own life. He instantly pulled out his terminal and assembled all private security personnel and armed riot squads within Olympus City to the first-floor lobby.
A short while later, hundreds of agents armed in black riot gear from head to toe burst through the building's front gates and formed a solid defensive wall in front of the growling protesters.
"Bring me a mic!"
When Dmitri, standing at the front of the formation, shouted, an executive next to him hurriedly handed over a wireless microphone.
"Ah, ah, attention! As of this moment, your actions gathered in the plaza constitute a clear violation of the Assembly and Demonstration Act, unauthorized trespassing on private property, destruction of property, and obstruction of traffic! Above all, as you are threatening the lives and property of the good citizens of the Golden Tower, our police designate you as rioters and will execute the highest level of forced dispersal! Sweep them all away!"
No sooner had Dmitri's hand signal dropped than dozens of large water cannons surrounding both sides of the plaza surged forward with blaring sirens. As the riot agents mounted on the trucks aimed the massive hoses, pillars of water packed with immense pressure blasted mercilessly into the protesters.
"Aaaagh!"
People hit squarely by the cannonball-like streams of water flew through the air and were sent flying like paper dolls. Under the flesh-tearing water pressure, the protesters screamed, and the scene turned into a pandemonium. Through the chaos of overturned display stands and snapped picket signs, combat police units wielding blue-tinged batons and shields poured out like madmen.
The police ruthlessly swung their batons at the citizens who had collapsed from the water cannons and were flailing on the ground. With dull striking sounds, the bright red blood of people with busted heads mixed with the rain-like streams of water, dyeing the plaza floor crimson.
Realizing the gravity of the situation, the people in the back screamed and began to flee for their lives. The massive wave of protesters that had seemed eternal and invincible was shattered into pieces in an instant. The resisting youths were crushed against the asphalt floor, covered in blood, while screaming women were dragged by their hair and tossed into police vans like baggage. The voices of citizens wailing and begging for mercy were gruesomely drowned out by the sound of the merciless water blasts and violence.
＊＊＊
After the bloody suppression incident took place, the flames of public opinion flared up uncontrollably. A few courageous media outlets broadcast the unedited footage of the brutal crackdown live, and voices of condemnation demanding Mayor Victor's punishment rose like a wildfire across the Kast Branch. The telephones in the Mayor's office blinked red and rang all day long with protest calls from all walks of life, but no one picked up the receivers.
A full month passed after the incident. Finally, a secret summons from Mayor Victor fell upon Dmitri, who had been suffering from extreme stress.
Steeling his resolve, Dmitri opened the door to the Mayor's office, but stopped in his tracks at the unexpected sight. The form of the rampaging Satan was nowhere to be found; instead, Victor greeted him warmly with his signature playful expression. On the luxurious sofa in the office sat another person besides Victor. It was a pale-faced man dressed from head to toe in a pitch-black priest's habit. In the center of the table lay a thick book adorned in black leather, with the bizarre word 『cardo』 clearly embossed on the cover in golden typeface.
Victor wrapped an arm around the bewildered Dmitri's shoulders, led him to the sofa, and poured him a glass of top-tier brandy. Then, he casually resumed the secret conversation he had been having with the man in the priest's attire.
"Pardon...? What on earth are you talking about just now?"
Dmitri, about to bring the brandy glass to his lips, widened his eyes in disbelief, doubting his own ears. Until now, countless absurd and horrific orders had poured from Victor's mouth, but the plan he had just heard was a crazy proposition on a completely different level.
Instead of answering, Victor pulled a smooth glass capsule from the inner pocket of his suit and held it up to the light. A viscous, unidentifiable liquid sloshed inside the capsule. Looking down at that demonic substance, Victor was smiling brightly like a child who had just received a new toy.
To survive, he had to play along. Dmitri forced the corners of his mouth up, following Victor's manic laughter. It was by no means a genuine smile born of agreement with that horrifying plan. Victor pressed the cold glass capsule into Dmitri's stiff palm and whispered.
"Don't worry. This will be the last time I get blood on my hands, too. I'll soon receive my transfer orders from the Branch Administration and return to a higher place, the Core. When I leave, won't this Golden Tower need a new, excellent mayor to control it?"
Victor patted Dmitri on the shoulder and laughed heartily.
"That's why I strongly recommended you as my successor. Mayor Dmitri! You're the only one I trust!"
The pale-faced priest sitting on the opposite side of the sofa also stared at Dmitri with a subtle, bizarre smile.
Faced with that suffocating transfer of power and demonic deal, Dmitri looked back and forth between the two men's faces before eventually bursting into laughter out loud like a madman. The irreversible wheel of ruin had begun to turn.