Chapter I

 

So many to meet and a lot of meat, ready-to-eat. Tess Mondragon gracing the occasion to celebrate the launch of a friend’s business was major news to the island town nearest to the capital city of Androva. Residents packed the sprawling old-style mansion of the Villegas couple who were both her batchmates back in high school.  

Many of the town folks were interested to see her in person as her celebrity grew in the last few years. She had become a key cog in the ruling regime of the whole peninsula. However, she seemed to be a kind of aloof and didn’t want too much public attention. At the event, she gave everyone making eye contact the sweetest smile she could deliver or fake.

She stood beside Timmy, wife of Atty. Gary Villegas, who was busy orchestrating the occasion as hundreds, came over to buy limited, cheaply priced meat as a special offer to officially open their meat-supply business.

“The people in this town are so happy to see you, my friend,” Timmy said.

Tess didn’t feel flattered by the attention she’s getting and believed the residents came over for the cheap meat. “It’s the meat they came over for. I guess they’re fed up with eating fishes all the time!”

Timmy mused, “Well, more than the idea of seeing someone as powerful as you, they’re probably here to thank you for making this possible.”

The people didn’t have the slightest idea of how crucial Tess was in putting up the meat factory located just a stone’s throw from the Villegas home. She was partly behind the hoarding of meat by business players in the big city of Ciudad Pablito. Thus, she knew the demand for meat in this densely populated place was huge.

It was almost lunchtime when the ceremony being staged at the spacious event room started. It’s customary for businessmen in Androva to launch a business in a celebratory fashion. Otherwise, it is believed the venture wouldn’t fly off. After a formal toast among the guests, Gary, the lawyer famous for high-profile cases he handled, loved by neighbors, and hated by human rights advocates in the city, announced, “Now it’s time to partake in this meat galore we have prepared for everyone. Enjoy your lunch!”

The long table was filled with various meat concoctions — deep-fried, roasted, and boiled. A hundred people had the access to this tableful of the grandest meal showcase that some of the guests have ever seen in their lives. There were fishes, fruits, and vegetables to keep in step with the standard of what a boodle fight was. But make no mistake, the meat varieties were the ones that caught the hungry eyes.

The royal rumble for food took off and an observer could conclude that the guests hadn’t eaten breakfast or were taking the opportunity as a one-time privilege to overfeed themselves for free. From the looks of their faces, there was no doubt everybody was enjoying the rush and mad scramble for meat.

One guest yelled, “This meat tastes sweet!”

Another seconded, “I haven’t eaten a meat this good before. It goes with an aftertaste!”

Gary sat beside Tess at the presidential table and looked at her jubilantly. “I guess our plan had worked, and I am looking at a fortune I wouldn’t have dreamed of having even if I get all the bonuses in handling impossible cases. Giving the people the food they hope to eat should make more money than helping real criminals get off the hook.”

From a top view, a photographer could see the guests swarming like flies over reddish cooked meat and a long line of meaty fried rice. Most slices were by now down to their bare bones. The ones without bones had already been consumed quickly. The stomachs of the privileged guests were now full. A number of them were chatting and laughing while they continued eating.

The lensman readied a wide-angled shot of the formally dressed, instantly turned-gluttons. He snapped.       

 

***

 

The hunger in their tummies gave such excruciating pain, especially for the ones experiencing it the first time. One bloated prisoner literally cried the first night he realized he wouldn’t have the regular amount of dinner he was used to consuming. As funny as it sounded to others, he asked the guards to kill him instead of making him starve.

Well, the guards could still think clearly, though they’re out of humane logic. They easily read that starving him would be a harsher punishment than snuffing him outright.

“You die starving, you pig!” one of the guards yelled at the fat fellow. 

Unluckily for this individual, he only associated himself with a group of protesters just recently. He fell for one of its members and thought that joining the rally would give him a chance to make her fall for him. His object of interest was now in the other barracks - for women.

The feeling in his stomach could only make him regret ever wishing to spend nights with the woman he’d gotten obsessed with.

The others in the dingy room couldn’t help but still laugh, recalling the voice of their co-prisoner choosing instant death over an evening without dinner. But one man approached the new inmate and seriously attempted to console him.

“Hey, the most difficult, as with every prison, is the first day. But you’ll get used to the conditions here,” the man with a calming voice told him.

“My name is Ramon,” he continued. “I’ve been here for the past three years, and I’ve experienced things those blinded by this regime won’t ever care to see. My goal is to survive until we’re set free. I am here to urge you to have the same goal.”

“I don’t deserve to be here,” said the sobbing, hungry new mate.

“None among us deserve to be here,” Ramon responded. “This is a prison unlike anywhere in the whole of Androva. You must have heard of that island prison where there is no escape as it is a jungle filled with cobras and it is the farthest from any land in the peninsula, with a noisy sea no thanks to regular tropical storms. At least in that prison, they lock up real bad people - rapists and child murderers.”  

“Here, we’re being maltreated for not rallying behind the regime as if such an act must not be allowed. We’re only voicing out our concerns, and we’re here bound to die, imprisoned by these guards whose job is not to protect the state from criminals, but keep its inhumane activities from being exposed.”

The low-voiced laughs already stopped as everyone seemed to be listening to Ramon. His many months of withstanding daily cruelty from the guards had strengthened his will and the power of his voice. It was a voice not too loud but letting out the right words, especially in a place where hope was almost nonexistent.

Camp Andrea, as it was called, was a spot that most Androvans didn’t have a knowledge of. It had been deliberately erased on the map. Yet, it was of significant value to the cause of the regime. The peninsula enjoyed relative peace because there were barely people who would instigate street chaos or march in the streets speaking about the ills of the government. Most of them are gathered in this camp, packed like sardines.

But even sardines were not part of their one-meal-a-day routine.

 

***

 

Shrinks are uncommon in Androva, as people had been used to self-dealing with their demons. It never became a practice to hire someone whose work is to talk to his client, try to trace the causes of his unsteady mental health, and then give him some prescription drugs to treat it.

But Chairman Antonio Laude had enough power to get such professional service, even if his idea was to only test whether the presence of a psychiatrist would help cure whatever that was wrong with him. His sessions with his shrink came once in a blue moon, though, as he dictated when he likes to have her. He preferred a woman as he couldn’t stand the sight of a man face-to-face, one-on-one for long. But in fairness to him, he had no intention of bedding his woman-shrink, so he hired someone kind of really old and unappealing for him to be sexually aroused.

He usually set the sessions at his favorite spot in his castle-like residence. The first leaders of the Androvan peninsula saw that the highest official in the land would feel like a king and rule with enough authority, respect, and class the people would expect from a king. That is often not followed to the dot, as the seated chairman usually ends up being a corrupt, reckless head of state who steals from the people.

“I’m having some nightmares lately and they’re flashbacks from my childhood. Is there a way for me to avoid these nightmares?” Laude asked, touching his forehead to emphasize the effect of such mind disturbances.     

“Can you share with me these nightmares, Chairman?” She answered, “I want to picture the nature of these flashbacks.”  

The Chairman took a deep breath and began sharing, “My father used to beat me a lot. I had a feeling he disliked me because he suspected I was not his own child. He felt my mother hid that fact from him. I had no way of knowing. They both died from a fire that gutted our house. I was only 13.”

“One day my father was in a mood to be extra cruel and seeing me play with my four cats, which I gathered from the street and took care of, he interrupted and said he’d do something I’d find interesting. He took my cats and put them in a big card box. Then he started torturing them one by one. He butchered all of them! I couldn’t stop him.”

“Do you recall anything he said while that was happening?”

“He said they’re animals whose lives are not important. I asked what the cats did to make him angry. He said he just didn’t like them and that he was a dog person, which I thought he wasn’t even either.”

Laude continued, “But if there’s anything I like about my father, he taught me how to deliver speeches.”

The shrink appeared to be dizzied by what she was hearing from the Chairman. “How is that?” she clarified.

“I would see him talking to himself, facing the mirror, very animated, with all hand gestures and facial contortions,” he noted. “As a young man, when I began finding solace in the ways of the activists, I began exercising what my father was doing, but in front of my co-radicals. I think they found me mesmerizing. I was bright in school, and I studied the works of philosophers. I had so much to say, and I never looked back since then.”

The shrink was almost shaking, having virtually found out the Chairman’s troubled childhood. Expectedly, she gave him some drugs to take. She excused herself after telling her client that they’re done for the day’s session.

The Chairman stared at the white-haired professional as she stood. 

“Yes, you’re done with me, but I am not done with you.”

He yawned and looking like he held his breath for a few extra seconds while looking at her before he released the air inside him, “You know, doctor,” he said, quite with a different, foreboding tone, “I have been taking drugs and they’re helping me cope with life’s stress. In fact, I attribute my adrenaline rush to the drugs I’m taking, illegal I supposed. How are you feeling about my childhood?”

The leader could notice the woman’s handshaking, “I feel sorry to hear about your experience.”

He gestured for her to stop talking. “It’s me who should feel sorry for you. I have talked to shrinks in this same room since I became a Chairman. They would only last for a couple of sessions. I can’t reveal my very sad past to a person and let go of that person. I’m sorry but in your case, there won’t be a second session.”

Laude pulled a gun and shot the lady straight to her forehead. 

 

***

 

The newbie in the company had no choice but to go where her apparent tour guide to the building would like to. In fact, the sweet sixteen-like beauty Rachel Rosales found herself having to say yes to Sarah’s night out invitation after office hours. It was just her third day at work and she had yet to earn the latter’s trust. They’ll be teammates to work on several publicity projects and Sarah’s the veteran one.  

It’s a plus they’re near the same age and seemed to be thinking on the same wavelength. That’s like being in school and on the cusp of developing a friendship that you naturally hope to last.

“My boyfriend can’t come with me tonight, so I’m glad that you can be in his place,” Sarah told her newfound friend.

“Our boss assured me that you’re my best shot at having a real friend here,” Rachel answered.

The two of them together seemed like a compliment. Rachel was the clear, prettier one, while Sarah seemed to be oozing with so much confidence out of her work experience and domineering character. They were on their way to a gathering that sounded like a party, but too serious to be one as described by Sarah.

“So where are we heading actually, if you don’t mind me asking?” Rachel asked.

“A friend of mine urged me to just see the group he’s in, even for once.”

As they drove to the venue, with Sarah on the wheels, Rachel inquired in a quite serious tone, “This isn’t some kind of cult or a gang where girl-members are being bedded by the masters?”     

Sarah smiled, ensuring her safety, “These are good guys, and they only desire to know the truth.”

“You mean, they’re a prayer group?”

“A radical group, I should say,” Sarah cleared.

“What’s the truth you're talking about?”

Sarah paused a bit.

“Have you heard about unconfirmed reports of a missing pool of government protesters?”

Rachel wondered for a while as she recalled someone telling her that those demonstrators recently met a shocking accident after the bus they were on fell off a cliff, killing them all.

Sarah sensed what was on her mind. “It’s not true that they fell off in some ravine. They were rounded up. Nobody knew where the hell they were now. This group we’re meeting up today would like to make some noise about it not by going into the streets but through the arts — songs, movies, paintings.”

Rachel actually found that interesting. She thought they would be meeting a bunch of cool people. It made her think she’s about to meet some celebrities. Or perhaps her crush-actor.

They reached their destination safely. After some hellos, the two young ladies settled themselves in. The host approached them and sat on the same sofa they were on. The place had an ambiance of a bohemian room, with all the hanging beads and incense.

“I’m glad you came over, Sarah. And you brought along an equally beautiful friend,” he declared.

Sarah laughed and raised her eyebrow, “You really knew how to be both polite and flirty, my friend.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking dirty here. This evening has a deep purpose, and I don’t think flirting has enough time to steal the spotlight.”

In a few minutes, the event began, and it became very clear what the organizers wanted. They encouraged artists to unite for the betterment of the Androvan society and to repel any kind of oppression being done to the people. Five talents from various fields were presented on stage. Two were actors, one was even famous. The other two were musicians from the underground scene. And the fifth one's a painting artist.

Rachel noticed the artist was handsomely dressed and looked very attractive, even though there were highlights of white hair on his head. He spoke a line or two; his voice almost inaudible as he sounded shy.

She asked Sarah, “What’s his name again?”

Sarah’s quick with names, “I’ve been hearing his name and his work. He's Hugh Guevarra.” 

 

***

 

The reporter on the big TV screen was making his annotation of yesterday’s street action that saw the dispersal of a number of anti-Laude gathered at the plaza known for its long history of being the site where people express their thoughts and grievances most of the time against the seating government.  

Chairman Laude almost threw the stainless cup at the screen after drinking the wine he poured onto it just a minute ago. Just seeing his most hated journalist, which the public had been used to addressing by just his first name Jayger, always made his blood boil. He knew how many times he had to endure his sarcastic wit during the campaign trail. He was, of course, advised to keep his composure and remain relaxed.

The plan was to reply to Jayger’s questions with a joke and let the people’s laughter drown out the merits of his queries. Truth be told, if his bouts with Jayger were boxing matches, Laude would have won unanimously. In fact, he did as he triumphantly went landslide after the election results were revealed. 

When confronted by Laude’s publicist Lovelace, who’s also popular by her first name alone, Jayger defended himself by saying he wasn’t being personal towards the Chairman. He only wanted to know the facts and felt he needed to dig more, especially when the former electoral candidate was giving him unconvincing answers.     

Laude was wrapping up his meeting with Lovelace and Camp Andrea’s Commandant Alberto Jurado when he asked that the TV be turned on. 

The three of them were seated, arranged in a triangle formation with him on the sharp edge.

“Lovelace, I wish to put more restrictions in the movements of both the media and these nonsense leftists,” he suggested.

Lovelace argued, “We have to be careful in keeping the media at bay. We’re here to win everyone’s trust.”

The Commandant, as expected, supported the Chairman’s thoughts, “I agree. These fools shouldn’t be given enough freedom to write what they want. They’re making the situation more difficult for us. These kids shouting stupid thoughts are poisoning the minds of the people. They have to be disciplined. Androva needs an iron hand, not a weak heart.”

Knowing she’s being ganged up by two men, Lovelace stood her ground, “But hey, you two have to understand that our plan worked, and we won over the majority of the population by earning their trust. We’re like a suitor who won his lady love out of the sincere expression of affection.”

Both the two men didn’t try to counteract the lady whom they both feared but wouldn’t admit to themselves. Laude quickly changed the topic.

He asked, “How’s the Empowerment Center? I expect to have more young blood to be drawn to our regime.”

The Commandant answered excitedly, “Tess told me the other day that the enrollees had tripled the last time it was opened. Parents want their kids to be inculcated in the way of our minds.”

A minute went by and the room’s door opened, Lovelace knew who it was. She remarked, “Speaking of the devil…”

Enter Tess Mondragon.