Back at Sawer’s tower, there was a whole different case. By then, all the floors of the tower were covered with fire but there was Dale at the top floor, alone with Sawer. Sawer’s knee was dripping in blood and he was struggling to get to his feet and escape from Dale. He knew that verily, verily, it was over.
Dale lunged forward and kicked Sawer again in his mouth making him groan and fall back to the ground, this time he made no effort to stand.
‘How do you feel now?’, Dale asked.
Sawer laughed, puffing out blood from his torn tongue and lips – a tooth fell out along it. ‘I think I should be the one asking you that question. You are done for, Dale. At the end of the day, Singalort would be the only liveable place in this country. Every other place will have been poisoned. I would be victorious and you…’, he laughed again. ‘Mr. Magnanimous, brave, courageous and yet did nothing great’
‘The nuclear bomb, huh? Your 000001, don’t you think he would have told me?’
‘He would not have betrayed me. What did you do to him?’
‘Well, I think that’s what happens when you set a Bailey against another’
Sawer laughed again, spitting out more blood. ‘You really think he’s still fit to be called a human. For a matter of fact, Mr. Reece Bailey, he is my animal, my pet dog and he does what I tell him to do’
Dale shot his second leg with his gun, letting him groan. ‘Fuck you, Sawer’, he said and his eyes melted into tears because he knew even if he didn’t want to admit, Vince was never going to be the same again, a part of him was no longer human, not after all the people he had killed. ‘Why did you do all these? You’ve ruined people’s lives’
‘Oh yes I have. That’s a comple…’, Dale kicked his head again sending him dizzy for a few minutes before he spoke again. Sawer peered at the pictures of himself as a soldier hanging just on the wall in front of him. ‘Have you ever felt neglected before? Of course you’ve not. Because, for a simple appearance at a radio house, you got famous all over the world. The brave kid who wants to save his country bla…bla…bla’, he coughed again. ‘But I used to be like that. A hero in war front with nothing on my mind but the complete peace of Dexter Islands. Yet, all I could get was a stupid! Medal of Honour. I don’t have kids, Reece. I don’t have a family and it’s all part of what I sacrificed for this country. But you don’t know how much it hurts, when you did all of that, and everyone that you dropped your life for, continue to live theirs without a glance to your side’
‘Then, you became the villain’
‘Oh yes I did. And now my name is everywhere. Sometimes you don’t know what the world wants from you because sometimes, they really don’t want simple good deeds, they don’t care about martyrs or soldiers like us’, Sawer yelled out. ‘They don’t care about what we did! They made me a pawn! Pushing me off the board with their last finger. So, I picked myself up and turned them all into one’, Sawer said and for a minute, Dale fell silent and sober in two forms; for Vince and the other for the former nation warrior who was now scrambling at his feet, wallowing in his mouth’s blood.
‘You shouldn’t have done this’, Dale simply said and as if Sawer knew what was next, he stopped struggling and placed his head on the ground, using his blood as pillow.
Dale cocked the gun and raised it slowly at Sawer. The smiling faces of Michael and Pierson appeared in his mind, their drunk, carefree laughter ringed across in his eardrum.
‘It’s time to go, Sawer. Your mission is not accomplished’, Dale said. He remembered the final expression on their faces when it was called in the sinister auditorium of The Death Toast, the face of dejection and hopelessness. No one would be made to look like that again.
Sawer’s silence meant surrender. Dale shot the gun thrice and walked slowly out of the chamber from which he had been perpetrating evil from. It had been a long day.
Things were a lot more awry outside the tower; there was the roaring sounds of helicopters speeding only some metres above the ground. They were more than a hundred and there was a distended rope from every one of them.
‘What’s going on?’, Dale asked one of his men, who was running around and wildly roaring, signalling one of the helicopters.
‘Oh sir. It goes down in seven minutes’
‘What?’
‘The nuclear bomb’
It was then Dale remembered that killing Sawer didn’t necessarily mean victory. ‘Where?’
‘The alpha man stopped it. The one that saved us. It’s going down in the forest. Everyone is leaving’, he screamed again at the helicopter. But most of them were full already, frenetically flying quickly to carry its passengers out of the forest.
‘Where is Vince?’
‘Uh?’
‘The masked man that saved us’
‘Oh. I think he is still there, helicopters have not reached there’, the man replied and continued his hailing.
As Reece Bailey that he was, a single whistle from his lips sent two helicopters rushing down. ‘There you go’, he said to the other man.
Barma was already in the helicopter. ‘You okay sir?’
‘Yeah’, Dale replied. ‘Take us to the nuclear plant. My brother is there’
The pilot nodded and turned around. The co-pilot had worry in his eyes as he glanced at his watch. There were only five minutes left. A whole lot of helicopters were heading to the same direction. Dale stared worryingly at the ground to see hordes of people climbing up to the helicopters quickly. He was scared that not everyone was going to make it. Of course, none of the Quppis’ men were going to be allowed into the helicopters. They still had their hands tied to their backs with handcuffs doomed to the inferno.
‘There, right there’, Dale shouted, pointing to a tiny figure in the distance. He leapt off the chopper before it even landed and ran towards his brother who was laying on the ground.
‘Vince, Vince’, he shouted to his half-awake brother. He had a crushed face and blood was seeping out from his vest. ‘Vince, can you hear me?’
Vince coughed out for a second and the long yowl he gave after that showed his complete exhaustion. ‘Reece?’
‘Yes, it’s me, we have to go’, Dale urged.
People were beginning to fill helicopters and cramp it up to the brim because time was running out.
‘Brother, I can’t make it’, Vince said.
‘No…No…No. You can make it, Vince. Get up. I will raise you up´, Dale tried to but Vince had gone completely powerless to even help himself.
‘I don’t want to’, he croaked and gave a loud moan. His face was in complete sorrow.
‘Oh my God. What are you talking about? Oh, my Goodness’, Dale mourned as he noticed his brother’s ultimate suffering. ‘You can. Please, for us. Get up, Vince’
‘I don’t deserve to join you all. I have too much blood on my hands. I am just like every other alpha man. Dragged into these by fate rather than will. There is no happy ending anymore for all of us. We will end it here. I will end it here. This is the price I have to pay’, Vince’s voice wobbled as he spoke.
‘No, Vince. Get up’, Dale cried, his face full with tears.
‘Hold your new brothers tight, Dale. Because I am no longer fit to be called yours. To be called anybody’s. I am an alpha-man and I was a coward for not saying no’
‘You’re not, Vince. Lampard is back home. He wants to see you. Life can get better. We will go back home. We will go to the swing, please. Please, get up’
‘I’m sorry’, Vince said and a tear strolled down his punctured face. ‘I don’t want to live anymore with the same people that I made to cry. Good bye, Reece. I don’t want to live anymore´
All the helicopters had carried their last batches of passengers and only Dale seemed to be left.
Dale remained there, leaning over his brother, speechless with overflowing sorrow pouring out in his eyes and his heart. ‘Reece, you have one and a half minutes left´
‘I can’t leave you, brother. Let’s leave together, Vince. Please. Let’s live together’, Dale cried.
‘Go now. Time is running out´, Vince slowly said because now, he could feel life blowing out of him. Death was near.
‘Dale, come on. We have few seconds left’, Humphrey said as the last helicopter circled around.
Dale detached his hand from his brother’s. ‘Goodbye, brother’, he said in troubling pain. Vince’s eyes were shut with his mouth slightly open, and the rest of his body spread out benumbed on the ground of The Circus.
Dale hopped into the helicopter, still peering with tears-blurred eyes at his brother. His brother.
‘Thirty seconds left’, the pilot said as their helicopter floated up in the skies. At that time, Vince’s body was only a very tiny ant and Dale wanted to go back down and catch a last glimpse of him.
It was then that the powerful explosion filled the land below. The whole of Singalort was nothing to see anymore. Only an orange ravaging blaze that consumed everything in view including Vince.
The Blazing Empire
Dale covered with his face with his two palms, mourning uncontrollably.
‘It’s okay, Dale’, Humphrey said with a shaky voice. He knew what it could mean to lose one’s brother hours after he thought he had found him.
‘We’re safe landing now’, the pilot said and the helicopter came down in the Tifftam airport station. There were hundreds of thousands of people there.
‘Dale’, Tristan shouted and ran forward towards him, tightly embracing him and he was joined by Barry too. ‘It’s okay. Clean your tears. I think the press is coming this way. Yes, they are’
Dale gazed in the direction he was pointing to and there they were, a whole phalanx of radio and TV people. He cleaned his tears with the bandage he used for his injured hand.
‘Do you feel like answering them?’, Barry asked, to which Dale shook his head but they were already with him in a pack.
‘Sir. Reece, speculations have been going around that you might be presi…’, one of them said but Dale would not be able to hear properly because they were all speaking at the same time. ‘Since the elections are coming soon, the country has…the people have stated they want a new presidency…you might just be the game changer…who would you make your vice…how would you cope becoming the youngest…is it President Reece Bailey or President Dale Eagan you’ll…’, Dale stood in the middle of the mics pointed at him, turning round and round to the hundreds of questions already laid out. It got him wondering who had thought he would be a great president in the first place. He just wanted to be a magician.
‘You can show the country your tricks. That would be on a bigger platform. Trust me it is bigger than Cravat Clubhouse in Reckdette’, Barry mindread.
‘There is a reason why Michael named you after two great presidents, Dear President Dale Eagan’, Tristan added.