Dream Drive: Yuri Ch. 01

Cricket flour was one of the leading staples worldwide. In GAU nations, it made up almost a quarter of the food consumed, but only because their populations were so big that it was a necessity. Yuri imagined GAU troops tossing cricket flour cakes to children running alongside their convoys and then getting those same cakes thrown back at them in exasperation. He grinned. Change was coming. For better, or for worse, a big change was almost upon them and the people were no more aware of it than the crickets were aware of their fate.

He shook off his pseudo-poetic mood and turned his face towards the end of his street. Wada was in that direction, just a few minutes away. She was probably lying in her bed with her soft hair spread across her pillow and her sweet lips parted.

He leaned over the balcony railing and frowned as he tried to make sense of yesterday. The more he replayed the events in his head, the less sense they made. He even found himself doubting his explanation for Ali's smirk. The man was a shithead, but Yuri doubted if the Colonel was dumb enough to think the GAU would never invade without an alliance of their neighbors to help them. He's a senior intelligence officer, he must have been informed about the uranium mines. That information, combined with the lessons from the mess in Burundi, inescapably led to the conclusion that a GAU invasion of the Caliphate would have to be a solo effort. So, why the smirk?

Yuri sighed. It was useless to dwell on yesterday. Without any new information, he couldn't draw any conclusions.

The two major aberrations of the day irked him. The elders raised the genocide alarm every other week, but they had never before gone so far as to talk to him. And the amount of tolerance they had displayed towards him yesterday would usually only be afforded to senior government officials.

Something was going on there. Yuri didn't know what their plans for him were, but he felt sure that they must have some. If there was one thing the elders could be counted on, it was manipulating people and adding to their power base. He had no intention of becoming one of their puppets.

He decided he'd stop by their villa and find out. He envisioned himself either asking the elders directly, or goading their men into letting something slip, or simply asking that kid that had walked him home. Whatever the method employed, he was going to get some answers.

The even bigger thing was the General's behavior. Why in the world had Yuri been ordered on leave? They were in the loop on the GAU's primary naval encryption. If ever there was a time when the Cipher School should be calling all hands on deck, this was it. Staying in the loop was of paramount importance to the very survival of the Caliphate and here he was, the guy that cracked the code, sitting bored on a balcony, completely out of the loop. It made no sense.

The General was not the kind of man to make moves that made no sense. On the surface, yes, but not really. If you ever found yourself thinking you were about to catch Moussa Houdani with his pants down, you were actually the one whose belt was being undone, you just didn't know it.

Yuri couldn't even begin to formulate a theory as to why he had been ordered on leave. Ali had been working to get Yuri tossed out of the service ever since they had first met. Houdani had agreed that Yuri would benefit from undergoing basic training, but that was it. All the other complaints and suggestions Ali made were summarily dismissed.

And that had been before Yuri cracked the code. He found the idea that the General would suddenly give in to Ali's bullshit inconceivable. Yuri let himself entertain a scenario in which the General had given in and let Ali run the show. Ali was going to fail soon and the brass was going to come down on his ass, hard, for not providing them with fresh decrypts at this crucial time for the Caliphate.

Yuri didn't even let the scenario run itself to the conclusion where he's called in to save the day and promoted and decorated and thrown a parade. He knew Houdani far better than that. There was no way the General would play petty games at such a crucial moment in Caliphate history as this.

All this not knowing and second-guessing was giving Yuri a headache. He came to a decision. He was going back to the School and getting to the bottom of this thing, orders be damned.

He went back inside, making sure to close the door softly behind himself. He tiptoed past his old bedroom door. He could hear his father snoring away in there. He grinned.If the two of them can sleep through that, they can sleep through anything I do.

His stomach started growling and he made his way to the kitchen, still mindful of any noises he was making. Immediately, he smelled roasted flour. He grinned. It was the last of the wheat flour he had brought home last month. There was a small pile of it on a tray atop the sideboard. Of course his mother would predict him waking up in the dead of night and leave some out for him. As expected, there was also a pot of tea on the stove. He fired up the burner to reheat the tea.

He poured himself a quarter cup of the warm, fragrant liquid and spooned a small amount of butter into it. He watched the butter slowly soften while he inhaled the tea's scent. His mouth was watering with expectation. He took a measured pinch of the roasted flour and sprinkled it into the cup, filling it halfway. He twirled his index finger inside the cup until the contents formed a small ball of dough. He fished it out and put it into his mouth. He slowly closed his lips around it, feeling the dough completely envelop his tongue. He chewed the mouthful slowly, savoring the taste of maternal love. Cricket flour dumplings just didn't taste as good.

He poured another quarter cup of tea and added the butter. He sprinkled the flour in and twirled it all into a ball. As soon as he was done with his current mouthful, he plopped the fresh dumpling into his mouth and set to work on the next one. Before long, he was full. There was only a little flour left and he poured himself the last of the now lukewarm tea. He took the cup to his bedroom and set it down on the nightstand. It wasn't even four in the morning yet.

He looked at the chin-up bar he had mounted between the two heavy wardrobes he had in his room and sighed. Normally, he did his exercise routine after waking up, before praying the Fajr, but he didn't want to risk waking anyone else up with his grunts. Grandma's room was separated from his by his bathroom, but he shared a wall with the rest of his family. Malia's room was on one side, their old bedroom where their parents now slept was on the other. Well, his father was snoring as loudly as a running chainsaw...

Yuri shook his head and sat down on the bed, instead. He chose not to make up for yesterday's prayers at this time, either. Despite what the imams said, he didn't feel like he'd be renouncing Islam altogether if he simply dropped his prayers for the day when he had ensured the survival of the Caliphate. Besides, he had already lied to Grandma about them. If she got woken up by him praying what he had told her he had prayed already... Best to take his chances with divine judgment.

His mind returned to thinking about yesterday. Wada's smile, the elders' behavior, Wada's hair, Houdani's order, Wada's breasts, Ali's smirk, Wada's eyes, they all kept occupying his mind, forcing it to run around in pointless circles until he growled softly. He wanted to go to the School and get to the bottom of things. At least find out more about the invasion.

The General wouldn't be there until eight. Since the General had ordered him on leave, Yuri couldn't possibly come to the School while Houdani wasn't there. He couldn't even imagine disrespecting the old man like that. No, the first thing he had to do was present himself to the General. Explain why he was disobeying his orders.

He looked at the clock again. The lazy bastard hadn't changed its digits.

Even accounting for the twenty-five minute commute to the School, he still had three and a half hours to kill. Yuri hoped the General hadn't taken his name off the priority transport list. He couldn't even remember the last time he had taken public transportation anywhere. He'd cross that bridge if his call to the vehicle pool got denied.

Another round of obsessing over Ali's smirk and the General's order and Wada's eyes not joining in with her smile. He got up and paced the room. This time, he formulated a theory about the elders. They were only running scared, allowing the rumors of the covert mining operations in the south to fuel their paranoia. They had no designs towards him. He found the theory credible, but still decided he'd check in on them after he got back from work tomorrow.Correction, today.

He glanced at the clock. It still showed the same time.

He thought of Wada. Why had she not reached out to him after moving here? His mother hated her ever since she had dumped him, but that was no reason to stay away. They could still share a civilized cup of tea. Why had she begged him to promise to come visit her? Was she really thinking of getting back together with him? If so, what was holding her back? Abraham?

He decided he'd visit her. Maybe when Abraham was around, see if he couldn't precipitate their breakup. He decided he'd stop by her place after visiting the elders. He'd be getting a lot of answers today.

He glanced at the clock. It finally indicated that a minute had passed.

Yuri rolled his eyes. He needed answers. He couldn't just let the questions pile up inside his mind. If he had too many unanswered questions on his mind, he'd be like a computer with a fragmented memory, slowed down until borderline useless.

He needed a distraction. Any distraction would do. He reviewed the previous day for the umpteenth time and remembered he had been made to wait at the side gate. He had been given an unexpected parcel. He tiptoed to the table where he had left his bag. It wasn't there. He turned on the lights and spotted his bag hanging on a peg by the front door. He turned the lights off and went to it. He fished out the parcel and brought it to his room.

He took a good look at it. The markings on the package looked like standard, international, postal ones, but his trained eye could see those were mere camouflage. It was obvious to him that the parcel had been rerouted to him via the Intelligence Service's American assets. Yuri frowned. He wasn't supposed to get anything from America.

A sudden chill ran through his bones.Oh, God have mercy! Is this why Ali had been smirking? He shook his head in quiet denial. If that dumbass American spy was reaching out to him again, Yuri was going to fucking hijack a combat drone and smoke the asshat, wherever the hell on the planet he was.

Yuri had been infuriated by the man's attempts to subvert his loyalty to the Caliphate. It had been obvious, from day one, that the man had no clue how Zibar, or Arab society worked.

The fact that the man had mistaken him, a genius cryptanalyst, for a mere IT guy was to be expected. Being an information technology specialist, the kind the GAU called 25 Bravo, was Yuri's official cover. Acting as if Yuri was the local version of a stereotypical, American, basement-dwelling nerd was just plain wrong and disrespectfully ignorant. Had the spy bothered to simply ask someone in a tea house the first thing about Zibar, he'd soon learn how a Zibar home worked.

It was Zibar tradition for a home to have at least three bedrooms. One for the children, one for the adults and one for the elders. Even second sons that left the family hearth and started their own branch of the family were expected to have three bedrooms. One for the children they were going to have, one for themselves and one for the family elders, if they came visiting. No matter how many children a family had, a room had to be set aside for the elders.

If a household had more than three bedrooms, the family elders decided who got the spare rooms. It was also Zibar tradition to consider a home the equal property of all the family members that resided in it, regardless of whose name was on the deed, but the rule was that the biggest providers to the household got the biggest share of the space.

Yuri had the master bedroom and its ensuite bathroom ever since he had joined the Army and become the family's primary provider. He hadn't wanted to displace his parents, who had first moved into the room, but Grandma had insisted. Mother only worked part time at the beauty salon, Father scrounged together what work he could find, but opportunities were slim for programmers, even the Arabs. Yuri was the primary breadwinner, his was the best room. It would be his even if it weren't for his extracurricular supply efforts.

His parents moved into the room he had shared with Malia, as it was the second largest in the apartment, and Malia was put up in the spare room, which had originally been earmarked as Father's office.

And then that dumbass Yankee came along, treating Yuri like he was some kind of loser that would never get any pussy in his life, due to being a nerd that still lived with his parents. Yuri had to bite his tongue several times during their meetings, lest he inform the man that this whole leaving-your-parents'-home-as-soon-as-you-turn-eighteen was actually something American propaganda invented after World War Two. The entire rest of the world worked on different social norms.

For one thing, Yuri was a catch, being the primary provider for his family. If he wasn't away from the enclave all day long, his grandmother would be pestered by the elders of other families to arrange formal introductions between him and their daughters and granddaughters.

Also, the fact that he was serving in the Caliphate military tended to put people off when they were told.

Yuri didn't miss the attention. Malia worked part time at a tailor's shop, mostly sewing buttons back on, or stitching up zippers and ripped seams. Grandma was fielding offers of introductions for her from people all over the enclave. Malia was of age, beautiful, popular within her social circle and could help provide for the family that got her. Malia still got to choose her husband, but she was expected to sit through every introduction Grandma agreed to.

Malia and he had shared a room growing up and he had wound up having many a late-night discussion with her about all sorts of girly things. He knew she dreamed of living in the West and being a fashion designer, but he also knew she definitely wanted to have her own family, too. After Malia got wed and moved out, the pressure would be on him to woo a woman and fill up Malia's room with kids. Grandma would insist. Yuri found himself silently cheering every time Malia politely refused to date a potential suitor.

He had fantasized of marrying Wada, back when they had been dating, and he had imagined their children. He had named them, given them toys and read them storybooks, all before Wada had ripped his heart out with just a few words in a random tea house.

He guessed that he still wanted to marry and have kids one day, but he had no idea what kind of woman he should be looking for. He feared the next woman he fell for would also sit him down and tell him that she was leaving him, out of the blue. He didn't think he could survive that kind of pain and humiliation again.

For the time being, he was content to immerse himself in his work and point out the flaws in all of Malia's suitors for her. Or, he would be, if Wada wasn't sleeping less than a thousand feet away, probably nestled in that asshole Abraham's arms.

He bit back a growl and breathed deeply. He seriously needed a distraction. He unwrapped the parcel in his hand. Underneath the wrapping was a plain brown packaging box. Printed on it was:

Alex Dearborn

2281 Maple Street

Woodbridge, CT

"Huh," Yuri said. He recognized the alias, he had used it to gain entry into a prestigious gaming tournament. As per standard operating procedure for intelligence-gathering operations, he had registered the alias with the proper branches of the Service. They had discreetly intercepted the package at the mailing facility in Connecticut and forwarded it to him, as they would do with any mail sent to an alias based in a foreign country.

Yuri winced. The Service had spent considerable resources to deliver this package to him, probably within hours of when it would have been delivered to his alias' listed home address in Woodbridge. Messing with the American postal system like that incurred serious risks. Risks he could no longer justify. The proper procedure for starting and canceling a foreign alias precluded the use of electronic communications to do it. He had to go do it in person.

And now I have the perfect excuse for swinging by the School today.

Yuri reached into his pocket and retrieved his butterfly knife. He slit the package open. Inside was some bubble wrap and a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it and read:

Alex Dearborn,

Thank You for competing in the Crux: Top Gamer Championship! For making it into the quarterfinals, You've won an early-release copy of our new game, Isis, on the day before the beta goes live! The servers are already up and running, so feel free to hop right in. I hope You enjoy the world I've created!

Sincerely,

Emil Mohammed

Beneath the man's printed name was his signature. Yuri recognized it. He had studied Mr. Mohammed as part of his preparations for the tournament.

The Crux: Top Gamer Championship was an invitation-only tournament of 4096 of the best gamers that could be found on the Hub. In the months leading up to it, Yuri's alter ego had played hundreds of games. He had barely managed to generate enough buzz and Followers to warrant an invitation. He now remembered the fuss was because of this game he had received. It was the most hyped-up game of the last five years. It was also a role playing game, and those weren't really Yuri's cup of tea.

Few games could hold Yuri's interest for long. Like most people, he played real time strategies most often. Every week since he had gotten his first computer, Yuri would get a new real-time strategy game to play and figure out its intricacies. The units, the factions, the upgrades, the maps, the missions...they were all variables for him to plow through in a few days' worth of spare time. Then he'd be on the lookout for the next set of variables to crunch.

The militaries from both sides of the global conflict sponsored the development and free distribution of RTS games. The skills a top player developed in them were easily transferable into real life duties a battlefield operator would perform coordinating a troop of combat robots. The militaries would organize a steady stream of tournaments with substantial financial prizes for the winners, as well as a recruitment pitch.

A lot of kids from the GAU and the Bloc would play RTS games against each other as a way to release their pent up aggression, or settle some score from the real world. For the ones who had lost a family member fighting in some strange, faraway country, such games were very, very serious business. Yuri steered clear of those. Whether they won, or lost, they would always try to make trouble for their opponents.

His RTS skills had come in very handy during the Crux tournament. Every round saw four contestants matched up by random draw and consisted of forty-five games. Fifteen were first person shooters, fifteen were racing games and the final fifteen were real time strategies. The player with the most wins advanced into the next round, the rest posted lots and lots of comments about how unfair the map and game selection had been.