Dream Drive: Yuri Ch. 01

The Cipher School had long ago mastered the fine art of intercepting and decrypting every secret transmission concerning their neighbors. Caliphate spies were everywhere in the region. If the GAU had so much as paid a courtesy call to any of the neighboring countries to let them know there might be explosions in their neighborhood, the Intelligence Service would have known about it immediately. It was probably the lack of this information that led Ali to believe Yuri's work was wrong and brought out the smirk.

Well, poo on him, Yuri thought. That was quite a stupid conclusion to draw. Yuri focused on the expectant faces around him and cleared his throat.

"However, now that we know where the attacks will take place, we could concentrate all of the Army and artillery on those beaches and hit them hard. Put the entire Air Force on protecting the Army and grind away the invasion force with sheer volume of fire." Yuri frowned. "I hope it doesn't come to that. Once the GAU starts taking serious losses in a campaign, regardless of how small and irrelevant that campaign is, their politicians insist on seeing things through and achieving total victory. For propaganda purposes.

"Half the time, that just prolongs their defeats and makes them more miserable as they throw good troops into bad situations, but the other times... Their military leaders have to know that they can win against us. Once the invasion force fights its way off the beaches, it's the end of the Caliphate." Yuri looked around at the elders' faces.

"Of course, they have to do it quickly. They can't afford to be delayed and have our neighbors mobilize and occupy parts of our territory, particularly these uranium mines. The GAU can't allow for the Burundi scenario to happen again. They must have sole control of the uranium. If they don't get off the beaches and to the mountains quickly enough, they'll have to negotiate with our neighbors, or go to war with them. It would make more sense for them to negotiate with us and spare themselves the added expense and hassle of destabilizing the entire region.

"If I was the Caliph, I'd be on the phone to the GAU brass right now," he chuckled darkly, "before they knock out our antiquated telecommunications networks. He needs to tell them that we know their plans. He needs to invite them to negotiate a treaty. He has to give up the uranium to keep the Caliphate. The GAU would establish military bases on our territory and operate armed convoys throughout the country, but the Caliph could allow that to happen and still keep enough face to maintain his rule."

Mansour nodded along with his explanation. "Do you think he'll do that? His cohorts will most likely object."

"Object?!" Kenfer interjected. "They'd stage a coup, for sure!"

Yuri shrugged. "It's his only alternative to losing everything."

They all sat in quiet contemplation. Then Yuri yawned.

"We won't keep you much longer, Mr. Yanuk," Mansour said. "We appreciate your help in this matter."

"No problem."

"One last thing, though," Mansour said and nodded at Kenfer. Kenfer got up and walked over to Yuri. Yuri watched him coming and half expected to be slapped for all the insults he had given. His heart raced and his fists tightened.I'm not that little kid you bullied four years ago, asshole. I was taught to kill with my bare hands in basic training and I still remember it all.

Kenfer produced a folded up set of papers from his pocket and held them out to Yuri. Yuri took them. Kenfer returned to his seat and Yuri glanced down at the papers. They contained what seemed like random letters until Yuri forced his eyes to focus. Then he realized he was looking at a list of medications. "What's this?"

"The medical delivery had been missed," Mansour said. "Those are the medications needed most urgently. We would appreciate it if you could have them delivered by tomorrow morning."

"Oh," Yuri said. "I can't."

The elders gasped. "Why not?" asked Mansour.

Yuri held up the papers and tapped them with a finger. "No dosages."

Mansour shot Kenfer a look of reproach. Kenfer sighed. "We'll get you a completed list by the end of the day."

"Don't bother."

The elders gasped again. "For many of our people, Mr. Yanuk, these medications mean the difference between life and death," Mansour said. "We-"

"I'm on leave."

The elders' third collective gasp nearly made Yuri laugh. "Is everything alright, Mr. Yanuk?" Mansour asked.

"Oh, God have mercy," Kenfer exclaimed. "He got fired! They've thrown him out on his ass and it's going down! We're all going to be killed!"

"I wasn't discharged," Yuri retorted in anger. "I was rewarded with a few days of leave for my service to the Caliphate."

The elders remained silent, unsure of what to make of his words. "So," Mansour drawled, "you're still on active duty?"

Yuri lifted his bag and showed them the seal across the zipper. "Yes, I was even given some homework."

The elders seemed to relax.

"Well, we'll let you go start enjoying your leave now. We'll talk with you tomorrow about the medicine deliveries."

"Yes, that would be nice."

The elders rose and started to file out. "Goodbye, Mr. Yanuk."

Yuri swayed in his seat and then said, "Wait! I need an escort home." The elders gave him a look of surprise. "I'm severely sleep deprived and I really can't think anymore. I don't think I could find my way out of a paper bag, right now, let alone all the way home." He grinned and gestured around them. "I hadn't been to this part of the enclave before, you know."

Mansour chuckled. "Of course, Mr. Yanuk. We'll send someone in to escort you home."

Yuri nodded. "Thanks. Oh, and, uh, could it be someone that hadn't been here, earlier?"

Mansour nodded. "Yes, I imagine you didn't make any friends here today."

Yuri yawned.

"My grandson is outside," an elder said, "he can escort Mr. Yanuk home. I'll send him right in."

"Thank you, elder," Yuri said. The elders left the room and he closed his eyes. He was startled by a firm hand gripping his shoulder. It was pulling him out of his chair. No, wait, it was propping him back up in his chair.

"Mr. Yanuk," a youthful voice asked. "Are you alright, Mr. Yanuk? You nearly fell out of your chair."

Yuri sat up straight and wiped his face. He looked up to see the face of a young man that was almost his size. "Yeah, I'm ok," he mumbled. "Just sleepy."

"Well, I'm here to see you home."

Yuri hefted his bag and let the boy lead him out of a side door to the villa. There was a crowd of men out front. The boy led him away from them and down a few winding roads in silence. Then the boy began to gush over Yuri's uniform. Yuri nodded and grunted along with whatever the boy was saying. He couldn't spare the concentration to understanding his words. He could barely manage to put one foot in front of the other. Fortunately, the streets were mostly empty. Yuri couldn't remember if it was supper time, or prayer time. He didn't care either way. It was sleepy time for him.

Just when Yuri thought he could recognize a bathhouse, the boy gripped his shoulder and caught his full attention. "Well? Please, Mr. Yanuk, tell me!"

"Tell you what?"

The boy looked to be on the verge of tears. "Which of the checkpoints should I try to go through when the Arabs attack?"

"The Arabs won't attack," Yuri said. He looked around. He definitely knew where he was now. The proximity of his bed gave him a second wind. He strode down the correct road to his house.

The boy kept pace with him. "Yes, they will! Please, Mr. Yanuk, you know these things! Why won't you tell me?! Are you afraid I'd give you up?! I wouldn't! I'm discreet!"

"As everyone on this street can attest."

"You have to tell me! Which of the checkpoints would give me the best chance to escape?!"

Yuri sighed. The boy's shouts were drawing even more attention to them than his uniform. He couldn't afford to get mobbed by a bunch of paranoid people begging for an escape route from imaginary monsters. "Use your brain, boy! If the Arabs are coming to kill you, how will they get inside the enclave? Are they going to climb over the wall? The three meters tall wall decked with barbed wire?"

The boy kept pace with Yuri and looked like he was waiting for him to continue talking. After a minute, he said, "Uh, no. No, they'd come in through the checkpoints."

"And would hundreds of armed lunatics swarming through the checkpoints make them more, or less likely to provide you with an exit?"

The boy blinked. "Well...less?"

"Exactly."

They walked in silence for a minute longer. "So, how do I get my family out?"

Yuri sighed. "If the checkpoints are out, then that leaves you with the wall. You'd have to go over, under, or through it."

"Which would be best? Which way are you planning on going? Do you have a tunnel? A secret spy tunnel you'll escape through?"

They turned onto Yuri's street. Yuri didn't need this boy clamoring on about escaping come anywhere near his mother. He patted the boy's shoulder. "That's classified, kid. If the time comes, you just stick with your grandpa. He knows what he's doing, ok?"

"If you say so."

"Good. Now, beat it."

"I'm supposed to take you home."

"This is my street. We're done."

The kid hesitated and Yuri sped up to leave him behind. He was soon climbing the steps of his apartment building, pulling himself up by the smooth, wooden railings. He stumbled and missed a step, but managed not to fall on his face.

Yuri grumbled when he came to his floor. The open-air landing connecting the apartments to the staircase was also the communal balcony. It was chock full of potted plants and children's toys and bicycles. Fortunately, there was no one around. He tried to be careful crossing the balcony, but his head wasn't in it. His foot caught on things twice and he once stepped on something that crunched under his boot. He couldn't spare the energy to see what it had been.You leave it out on the walkway, you lose it.

Finally, he made it to his door. As soon as he opened it, Dad, Sister and Mom jumped up to greet him. "Hello, everyone." They lined up, and kissed him on the cheeks as he came in.

"You look awful, Yuri."

"Thank you, Mother," he said with a sad smile. "Every boy lives for the day his mother says something like that to him."

She smacked his shoulder. "Oh, you! Why did you wear your uniform home? Does it need to be cleaned?"

Yuri waved off the questions.

His father gave him a critical look. "Are you alright?"

"Tired. Need sleep." As if on cue, he yawned.

"We'll have dinner early and then you can go to bed."

"No, thank you, Mother. I'm going to bed right now. I'm too tired to even chew."

He went to his grandmother, seated in her comfy chair, and kissed her on the cheeks. "Good evening, Grandmother."

"Welcome home, Yuri. Did you pray today?"

"Yes, Grandmother. I prayed the Ishai, Fajr, Zuhr and Asr at work. I'll make up my Maghrib after I've slept a little. I'm in no shape to worship right now."

"One must always be in shape to praise God," she said.

"Yes, Grandmother," Yuri said, with a deferential nod. He turned around and set his bag down on the dining table. "Speaking of being fit enough to pray, you guys should have a nice dinner." He broke theClassified seal and unzipped the bag. He began pulling out the dehydrated military rations from the bag. His father immediately began to move them to the kitchen cupboards, one armload at a time.

"Here's Mentra for your friend's son," Yuri said and handed his mother a packet of pills. "That's two months' worth."

"Oh, thank you," she said and gave him a quick hug.

"And here's your insulin, Grandma."

Yuri's sister, Malia, stood by him, looking antsy and expectant. He grinned and winked. She nearly squealed with excitement. Their father scooped up a second armload of foodstuffs and moved it to the kitchen. Their mother turned around to show Grandma the insulin and Yuri slipped a high-capacity microdrive to Malia. She smiled from ear to ear and gave him a quick hug.

Malia and her friends were followers of an American all-girl band called The Venus Battle Brigade, or VBB for short. The microdrive contained the official concert album they had released the week before in America, as well as an assortment of bootleg vids of their other live shows.

Back when Malia had first asked Yuri to supply some VBB materials, he had looked the band up and was aghast at the way they dressed and behaved on stage. In his estimation, prostitutes would dress and act more modestly. He had been outraged and titillated, simultaneously sporting an erection and a disgusted grimace. His confusion had only been resolved when he had pulled out his member and stroked off to the sight of the Asian band member dry-humping her microphone stand in a vid.

Since then, he had been a closet fan of the band. Not of their music, but of their beautiful physiques, skimpy costumes and lewd choreography. They made his lonely nights a little less lonely, from time to time. He gathered vids of the VBB, ostensibly to supply Malia and her circle, but he also made copies for his own enjoyment. His personal collection was his most closely guarded secret.

Naturally, his supply line to Malia had to be kept a secret, too. He didn't particularly like the thought of his baby sister looking up to such loose women, but he'd feel like a hypocrite if he enjoyed the band and didn't let her have the same materials. Malia and her girlfriends knew better than to try and emulate the VBB's costumes and behavior in real life. It was all good, so long as none of the parents found out.

If they had any idea their daughters idolized such wanton harlots that gyrated half-naked in public whilst singing lyrics containing thinly-veiled references to sodomy, they'd probably have strokes and disown the girls with their dying breaths.

Fortunately for them, the VBB, like most bands from north America, would never tour northern Africa, or be played on the Caliphate's broadcast media. The parents enjoyed blissful ignorance and the kids enjoyed their small taste of rebellion.

Yuri pulled out the flat, plastic box he had crammed into the bag. "These are..."

"You don't have to tell me what's on them," his mother said as she plucked the box out of his hand and opened it. The inside was shaped into slots for microdrives. Almost every slot was filled. There was also a folded up piece of paper inside. She took it and opened it. A legend that said which microdrive went to whom was written on it. "I can read the names." She gave him a hug. "You go to bed and get some rest. I'll see to it that everyone gets what they need."

"Ok." He shuffled off.

"Oh, did you get that part for Mrs. Cillick's computer?"

"Yeah, it's in the bottom of the bag. In the tin canister right next to the wooden box full of fresh strawberries."

Everyone exclaimed in delight.

"Oh, thank you so much, honey," his mother gushed.

Yuri walked to the master bedroom while his family gushed over the size of the strawberries. Malia bit into one and squealed at the taste. Yuri closed the door on their enthusiasm and leaned against it to pull his boots off. He stumbled to the bed and fell upon it, face down. His tired mind only managed to note that the sheets smelled fresh before sleep finally claimed him.

***

It was so dark and quiet when he woke up, that he wasn't sure if he had woken up at all. The near-painful urge to urinate quickly convinced him he had. He stretched out on the bed, softly groaning as his muscles protested the activity. He looked at the bedside clock and blinked a few times. It was half past three in the morning. He had slept for almost eleven hours straight.

He rolled out of bed and turned on the light. He tiptoed across the apartment to the toilet, guided solely by the sliver of light coming from his bedroom door. If he used his own ensuite, he'd risk waking up his sister and grandmother, whose rooms shared walls with his private bathroom. The communal bathroom was surrounded by the balcony, the kitchen and the neighbors' bathroom. It was a fair bet no one would be woken up by the flush of the toilet.

He shivered as he relieved himself. He washed his hands in the sink and took a look at the mirror. The rings under his eyes were gone, replaced by pillow lines on his cheek. He rubbed those away and concluded he looked great, otherwise.

Why am I concerned with my appearance, all of a sudden, he asked himself. He knew the answer was Wada. He leaned against the sink and sighed. The girl had come back into his life after years of zero contact and he couldn't keep his mind from quickly conjuring up scenario after scenario. In all of them, she dumped Abraham, in increasingly cruel ways, and then got back together with Yuri. In all of them, they made each other so happy and she performed VBB dance routines for him. Complete with costumes. Even while he visualized Wada humping a microphone stand, another part of his mind called up his mental map of the enclave.

Wada had been living just three hundred yards away from him for "a while now" and he had had no idea. Furthermore, her eyes had been unhappy when she had smiled yesterday. Neither of these two things spoke in favor of the scenarios. He sighed.

As soon as he straightened himself up and let go of the cold ceramic of the sink, he could feel her warm, firm breasts in the palms of his hands. He closed his eyes and relived the best part of yesterday. His cock grew hard in his pants.

He forced the other parts of his mind to shut up as he undid his zipper. He focused on a vision of six Wadas performing a VBB video. He pulled himself out of his pants and began stroking, using a little spit for lubrication. He didn't take long. Just imagining a half-naked Wada rubbing up against her blonde twin had him shooting his load.

After he cleaned up, he went out onto the balcony. He slid some toys aside with his foot and made his way to the edge. He looked out across the enclave. It was completely silent. There were hardly any lights. Beyond the enclave, the capital still had its streetlights lit, but the night was so quiet it was hard to imagine a million people were living within a few miles of him.

They all slept soundly, not a clue about the GAU fleet and Marines coming to invade their country.

Yuri's gaze found the glass and steel skyscrapers in the distance. They were pillars of diffuse light. Inside them, light bulbs heated stacks upon stacks of small boxes in which crickets were being kept. As the heat of the bulbs simulated eternal summer, the crickets ate and ate, steadily growing larger until they would be doused with liquid nitrogen and then ground into the flour which fed most of the people in the Caliphate.

When the GAU cut the Caliphate off from the world's economy, they had to rapidly turn to alternate sources of food to keep their populace from mass starvation. Crickets kept in boxes used over ninety percent of the weeds they were fed to grow. They were the most efficient way of turning inedible plants and seaweeds into human food and the flour they were ground into was incredibly nutritious.

When it had first been introduced, the starving people of the Caliphate greeted cricket flour and the things they baked from it like mana from Heaven. After those became seventy percent of what everyone ate, day in and day out, they were cursed as a plague on the palate.

Gazing at the skyscraper cricket farms, Yuri couldn't help but wonder what the GAU invasion was going to bring to the Caliphate. Even if the Caliph made a deal with the GAU and averted it, the troops the Union would deploy throughout the Caliphate would doubtlessly trickle their own supplies down to the general populace, as part of a campaign to engender good will.