Chapter 9: the auspicious criminal
Florida: The Fever Breaks
The air in Florida no longer felt like air; it was a solid, suffocating blanket of smoke, sweat, and rage. Ivan Petrov, a freelance journalist who had traded the cynical chill of Moscow for what he thought was American stability, now found himself documenting a nation's nervous breakdown. His camera, a small and unassuming device, felt like a historical artifact in the making, capturing frames of a modern insurrection.
"What the hell is this nightmare?" he muttered to himself, the words lost in the cacophony. He zoomed in, the lens focusing past the sea of frenzied faces and makeshift weapons. "The high court is on fire."
It was true. The pillars of the historic building were wreathed in angry orange flames, a biblical symbol of judgment against the system it represented. This was no longer a protest; it was a purge. The initial, organized chants of "The end is coming! 2012!" had devolved into a primal roar. The social contract had been shredded, and in its place was the raw, unfiltered id of a mob.
Ivan's initial professional detachment had evaporated hours ago. He saw a police cruiser, its windows smashed, being used as a barricade. The thin blue line had not just fractured; it had dissolved. Rumor had it that nearly half the state's officers had abandoned their posts, some out of fear, others out of secret sympathy. Their discarded service weapons now circulated through the crowd, turning a chaotic demonstration into a lethal battleground. Ivan kept low, his press pass feeling less like a shield and more like a target. He was capturing reality, all right—the reality of a controlled demolition of civil society.
Davenport: The Quiet Before the Storm
A thousand miles north, in Davenport, the infection was spreading, but the symptoms were different. Here, the Architect's influence was a slow-acting poison, not a sudden fever. There were no fires, no overt violence. Instead, the town squares were filled with people holding signs, their faces etched not with rage, but with a unsettling, placid certainty.
PEACE THROUGH TRUTH, one sign read.
2012:THE GREAT AWAKENING, proclaimed another.
The protests were peaceful, almost eerily so. They demonstrated against government overreach, corruption, and the alleged suppression of "the truth." They spoke in calm, reasoned tones about information leaks and systemic failures. There were no demonstrations yet, just gatherings—a critical distinction. The violence was a potentiality, a future branch on the timeline that everyone present seemed aware of, waiting for the signal to make it real.
Washington D.C.: Feeding the Beast
In the nation's capital, the signal was being amplified. Another Gathering was underway, this one larger and more brazen than the one in Staten Island. Thousands had poured into the city, drawn by the same psychic magnet. The Architect's voice, broadcast through hidden speakers, washed over them. This time, he was not just speaking of philosophical liberation. He was providing the ammunition for rebellion.
With chilling precision, he cataloged government failures, cited real corruption scandals, and wove a narrative of a ruling class that was not just incompetent, but actively malevolent, hiding the "truth" of the coming end from the populace. He was not inciting a riot; he was teaching a masterclass in righteous indignation. He gave them facts, twisted to his purpose, and the crowd absorbed them, their belief hardening into fanaticism. He was building an army, and he was arming them with conviction.
New York City: The Narrative Spreads
In New York, the demonstrations had begun in earnest. The core accusation was always the same: "The government is lying about 2012!" But it was surrounded by a constellation of legitimate, well-articulated grievances—economic disparity, privacy concerns, political stagnation. This was the Architect's genius. He wrapped his apocalyptic core in layers of rational criticism, making his movement palatable, even attractive, to the disaffected and the intelligent. The protests were peaceful for now, but the potential for escalation hung in the air like static before a lightning strike.
The Architect's Calculated Grip
From his unseen perch, the Architect observed the dominoes begin to fall. His controlled influence was metastasizing into a national crisis. Millions were now echoing his words, adopting his ideology as their own. The threat posed by Kyle had been surgically eliminated, not just as a physical loose end, but as a philosophical exercise. The system was reacting exactly as he had predicted: with confusion, brute force, and heavy-handed censorship. He was not just winning; he was proving his thesis about the inherent fragility of the world order with every passing hour.
Ivan's Crucible
Back in Florida, Ivan Petrov had transitioned from observer to activist. Furious that his footage of the Florida inferno was being suppressed by major networks under government pressure, he took to the darker corners of the web. He uploaded his videos with desperate captions: "THE TRUTH THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO SEE." The videos were quickly flagged, removed, or shadow-banned. The digital blackout was nearly as effective as the physical one.
This censorship was the final straw for Ivan. The American ideal of a free press, which had drawn him across the ocean, was a myth. The system was not just broken; it was complicit in its own destruction by trying to hide the cracks. He decided that if the established channels were closed, he would create his own.
He organized a gathering in Alabama for July 5th—not a protest, but a public summit to share his firsthand account of the Florida collapse. He rented an auditorium, spread the word through encrypted channels, and hoped truth would be a powerful enough draw.
For the first hour, it seemed to be working. The room was packed, and Ivan spoke with the fervor of a man who had seen the abyss. He showed his banned footage, described the smell of burning institutions, the sound of a society tearing itself apart. The audience listened, rapt and horrified.
Then, the doors burst open.
Silhouetted against the outside light were figures in tactical gear. Army personnel. There was no warning, no demand to disperse. The staccato rhythm of automatic gunfire shattered the air. Screams erupted as people dove for cover.
"Vy, ublyudki, ne mozhete derzhat' pravdu otkrytoy!" Ivan snarled in his native tongue. You bastards, you cannot keep the truth suppressed!
He dropped to the floor, his journalist's instinct replaced by a primal will to survive. He crawled through the chaos, the sound of panic and gunshots echoing in the confined space. He burst out a side exit into the blinding sunlight and ran without looking back.
He didn't get far. Strong hands grabbed him, slamming him against a police cruiser. A cop's face, hard and impersonal, was inches from his.
"Who are you?" the cop demanded, his grip vise-like.
Ivan's mind raced. If they knew he was the organizer, he'd be facing charges of sedition, incitement, terrorism. His life would be over.
"I am a person who was watching the summit," Ivan gasped, forcing a tremor into his voice. "When the gun shots were heard, I rushed out. I was just… I was scared."
The cop's eyes narrowed, scanning his face for a long, terrifying moment. Then, with a grunt of dismissal, he released him. "Alright, go!"
Ivan didn't need to be told twice. He walked away, his pace measured until he turned the corner, then he broke into a sprint. He fled the city, losing himself in the unfamiliar woods of rural Alabama, his heart pounding a rhythm of terror and a strange, exhilarating sense of purpose.
The Spark
A day later, holed up in a cheap roadside hotel, Ivan watched the news with a grim sense of satisfaction. Three people were confirmed dead at his summit. The narrative, however, had been set. The government had opened fire on a peaceful assembly. And then, they made their second catastrophic mistake: a total internet blackout across Alabama.
The response was instantaneous and volcanic. The spark had been lit. The people of Alabama, cut off from the world and enraged by the military's violence, poured into the streets. This was no longer a demonstration with signs and slogans. It was a riot. Belts became whips, shoes became projectiles, and raw, undirected fury became the currency of the day.
Ivan watched the scenes from his window. The city was alight. He felt a cold clarity settle over him. He was not merely a journalist anymore, nor just an angry man. He was a instrument. His actions, his righteous anger, his very flight—it had all been so… useful.
He picked up a cheap, encrypted burner phone and typed a message to a contact saved only as a single dot.
I have done my work, master.
The reply was immediate, as always.
Nice!
Ivan placed the phone on the bedside table. He looked back out the window at the burgeoning chaos, the flames reflecting in his eyes. A slow, understanding smile touched his lips. The pieces were falling into place, not by chance, but by design. He had been guided, his anger and his skills perfectly leveraged to create this exact outcome.
He whispered the title, the name of the grand play in which he had become a pivotal actor, the name of the unseen hand that moved them all.
"He really is," Ivan said to his reflection in the glass, "the Auspicious Criminal."
---
Chapter 9 Ends
To Be Continued…