"Sir, we have arrived at the destination."
One of the burly men accompanying Lubanzi gently woke him up, keeping a deferential distance.
Lubanzi, who had his eyes closed, suddenly opened them. He did not seem human at all; he looked more like an emotionless cyborg than a human.
"... Move."
With his characteristic hoarse and guttural voice, he got up from the chair and ordered the other five men accompanying him to move.
****
At the airport, two men sat in a waiting room. One was dressed in a black suit, a navy blue tie, and brown dress shoes. The most notable accessories were the two cufflinks that bore the symbol of the Confederacy, a golden snake around the earth.
The other man was wearing a black military uniform, adorned with multiple medals on the right side of his chest. The symbol that stood out the most on him was embroidered on the left side of his chest; it was the same one that the suited man wore as cufflinks.
"Liam, it's good to see you still have your head on your shoulders."
"I see you're keeping your sense of humor, Jivan."
These two men were Liam Miller and Jivan Gupta, the Governor and General of the Western Northern Hemisphere, two of the eight most powerful men in the Confederacy. Yet, here they were, visibly nervous, as if an inevitable natural disaster was approaching and they couldn't do anything about it. That was their current situation.
"Haaa, shit, I'd rather trade positions with some bum than be here…"
"Even though I hate to agree with you, this time I have to."
"Oh, yeah right, by the way, Jivan, I heard that they're not the only ones from the justice office who have been mobilized."
Jivan Gupta, the General of the Western Northern Hemisphere, was of course more informed on military matters than Liam, who had asked the question. Since these crazy people were more military than officials, it made sense that he knew something more.
"Hey, I don't know where you got that information, Liam, but it's true. As far as I know, these lunatics have also sent a group to each Hemisphere."
"Is it because of those people?"
"He, and who else?"
"Haaa, of course. Only lunatics are capable of fighting other lunatics."
"Isn't that hilarious?"
"What do you mean?"
"Of course I'm referring to those people. They use a name that used to mean peace, unity, and harmony, and now they're dedicated to terrorism."
"Ha! Free United Nations, more like a group of united free lunatics."
Anyone who heard this conversation would tremble in fear and wish they hadn't even heard the beginning of it. The group they were referring to was the self-proclaimed Free United Nations.
If the Justice Bureau was the mad dogs of the Confederacy, the 'Free United Nations' were just a bunch of stupid people who thought they could go back to the way it was before the Great War.
Some people thought they were just a bunch of misfits and nostalgic people who had not managed to adapt to the new times, but that reasoning was quickly discarded when they committed their first folly.
****
Three years ago, the Confederacy had just been established. Both inside the institutions and outside on the streets, it was a complete mess. Even if nuclear bombs were not used, the war had devastated most of the urban centers.
The huge skyscrapers that once threatened to overshadow the Earth had disappeared, overpopulated cities had been reduced to rubble, and most of the population was, in one way or another, focused on repairs.
In each Hemisphere, coordination centers were established, called nuclei, which served to organize the different bodies to rebuild and maintain order. At that time, no one was idle; everyone knew what they had to do.
Parliament was only a weak structure that had just been established, tiptoeing around every decision they made, avoiding the fangs of the recently fallen, the claws of those who had not decided on a side, and the venom of those who had already lost everything in the war.
They were time bombs about to explode, and each of these bombs was capable of causing damage of unpredictable magnitude.