Ex Officio (#3 EX TRILOGY)

Chapter 20

Dufie successfully sent the coordinates of the Ex Vivo headquarters to Pee and managed to reach her perch and propped herself against the control panel to catch her breath. Getting there in her state felt like a marathon to her. She reached for the keyboard and attempted to punch a series of key combinations, but she stopped and wheezed in agony. She wiped sweat off her brows with the back of her hand and tried again, despite her quivering hands staining the keys with her blood. She realized the Safe Eject Protocol's had failed and feared Ender must have hacked into Scenario. She read the log and saw that Akoma's avatar was no more in Scenario, yet her status did not read 'logged out'.

"No," she gasped and searched through all the archived files and in-Scenario converted footages saved on the hard drive with no idea why she was doing that. After playing a number of videos including several test videos of the first time Scenario was operational, she found a folder named 'Feroxic Foil' and opened it. There was a password on it, but she quickly bypassed it and arrived at four videos. She opened the first one and saw a meeting in a garden framework involving Poku and Dufie discussing marriage plans. She shut her eyes and deleted the video angrily, and then she played the next one. It showed TT altering the landscapes in the framework and playing with time. The fourth video, however, failed to play, and an error report said the file was either corrupted or infected by a virus. At the thought of virus, Dufie got an idea and inserted a formidable network virus named 'Ender Virus' she had created few months earlier into the framework. She had secretly created it as a backup plan in case Akoma failed to defeat her in Scenario.

Suddenly, she felt her hands and feet becoming numb and she fell to the floor. Her temperature dropped rapidly and she could feel her senses malfunctioning. She managed to crawl towards the Scenario machine with all her might and touched the body of the chamber.

"I'm – sorry – Akoma –", she squeaked as tears poured down her face. "You de-de-served – more – ". Her hand slid off the machine's body leaving a trail of blood on the surface, and she fell limply to the floor and breathed her last.

***********

Few hours later, at the Ex Vivo headquarters, Felix looked totally agitated as he sat in his chair in deep thought. The readings of Ender's status on the giant screen revealed that she was overloading her brain with the numerous networks she was connected to via the Dictator Neural Machine Dr. Anane had sent to her. He realized she had also gone offline about five times in a row, and currently he could not access her live feed through her bionic eye to view what was going on with her. Out of impatience, he called Dr. Anane.

"I am in a meeting with the Members of Parliament," she replied. "Can you please call me back later?"

Felix frowned. "You too? What are you doing there?"

"You do realize that I am the interim Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, don't you, Felix?"

Felix snorted. "Yeah, right. Then I am the Chief Justice. Will you stop that nonsense and report back to the HQ now? I need to know what is going on. Where is Ender? Why has she not reported back to me about how the auctioning is going?"

"She is – well – handling things in her own capacity, Felix."

"What do you mean?"

Dr. Anane sighed and asked calmly, "Do you think you are still in charge, Felix? From what I gather, Ender is both President of the country and currently connected to 99% of the nation's networks while you have only 1%. How does that make you feel?"

Felix walked closer to the monitor and stood akimbo. Dr. Anane's tone did not suggest a participation in a mutiny, but he considered it as her usual bluntness whenever presenting the odds to him. "I don't know why you think the number of networks she controls is all that matters in this phase of our operations. Ender is still evolving. There are some calibrations to her energy consumption that are still hypothetical. She can't just overload her mind with all that time spent in cyberspace, hacking into very complex frameworks and all. How will she be able to initiate the Omnipotence Protocol if her energy levels get drained by the Dictator Neural Machine? Didn't you tell her all that?"

Dr. Anane paused for a moment. Felix repeated the last question slowly before she replied, "Yes, I told her. My fear is that our ally, your estranged love interest, is gradually approaching a state of mania. If precautions are not taken, we could lose her."

"Mmm. You are not helping. I will meet her myself," Felix said finally and picked up his jacket. "What's the status in the Parliament House?"

Instantly, a live feed of Dr. Anane's meeting with the Members of Parliament popped up on the screen and Felix put on his jacket and folded his arms to watch with keen interest.

***********

Dr. Anane returned to the podium after excusing herself briefly to answer Felix's call, and she looked straight into the camera lens before her and continued with her presentation, "Pardon me for the interruption. As I was saying, the ordinary Ghanaian is very religious and – um – superstitious, and their extremism regarding social issues and morality could be a stopgap to concepts like neo-colonialism through technological advancement and the strong influence of very manipulative ideas. For example, if we are able to sell the idea that the black man will never attain their potential, and that superiority belongs to the white man, they will always open their mouths wide to accept anything tagged "Made in the US" or "Made in China". They will reject their own local goods and the economy will be dependent on foreign aids. The founding fathers of this country utterly deceived us for many generations, making us think we could solve our own problems by preaching 'Independence within the shortest possible time' and later 'Independence now'. So outrageous. Ghana will be sold to powers who can properly manage it, and not even the United Nations will be able to stop the agenda of Ex Officio, because the world organization itself is made up of people who are interested in returning Africa to its rotten colonial roots. The black man has failed to save himself. He must yield and accept help." She took a deep breath and concluded, "This is the vision of your beloved President and myself, your Vice President. Now, since you have all refused to side with us, and you are not in any position to suggest anything better, I guess this bill has already been passed. Any questions?"

She took her eyes off the lens and looked around her at the sea of slaughtered Members of Parliament lying in their own pool of blood in their seats. None of them was spared. The Ex Officio guards who had finished them off withdrew from the aisles and exited through the doors.

**************

Following the restoration of power to major cities few hours later, the presidency had succeeded in keeping all Ghanaian citizens stuck in their rooms and glued to their TV sets all night as they watched the gory scenes from the Parliament House. Meanwhile, the Ex Vivo military drones combed the streets, gunning down any insurgents who stood in their way.

**************

Felix quickly called Poku. "Where are you?"

"Jubilee House," Poku replied.

"Why haven't you told me anything about Ender's nonsense?"

"I don't know what you are – "

"Don't lie to me!" Felix banged his fist on the control panel and kicked his swivel chair to the floor. "You know what is going on. I am worried about her delusion that she is in charge. What's all this?" Poku's line went dead and Felix raised his eyebrows. "Hello? Hello?" He cursed and smacked his forehead repeatedly. "This is madness!" He rushed to the control panel to his right and attempted to engage all the Ex Officio defences at the Jubilee House to attack Ender and disconnect her from the Dictator Neural Machine, but he received an error report informing him that he had no authorization to issue that command, and that someone else was in charge.

"Who is in charge?" he asked the computer.

"Ender," the computer replied.