My Father

Morris Jikuto stands above the skies inside the Histerian airship, the Great Eagle. He sides with John Loid Histeria. He looks at the array of massive mountains and countless masses of trees from above. Morris has no choice but to shift his loyalty back to John Loid. Morris takes his wallet and looks at a small photo of his family. A family photo in the living room: Morris standing behind the couch where Chastity sat with young Thomas and Toriko. John Loid suddenly walks toward him, and Morris returns his photo back to his wallet and hides it. 

“We have a project to assign to you. Build an airship that can carry 50 million people. We have all the people and the funds to build it. You take the lead. And if we happen to lack the materials, we will resort to the psychological torture of our captured Cores and let the Magma Core hear their whims—that’ll be enough to make him explode the islands we haven’t taken and we can quickly harvest riches there.” John Loid said. 

“Oh wait, I said that? That means we can do it now! Our conquest will become quicker and much more deadly!” John Loid thought to himself.

John Loid hands Morris the document containing details: prototype, the design needed, specifications, and geographical places to harvest metals—including a new planet outside the galaxy planned for conquering, that’s the destination of the airship. 

“We ask you to build a portion of the airship for the constraints for the Cores we have captured and the five others we will capture.”

“Understood,” Morris replied. Then looks back at the captured cores, weakened. Inside the ship there is a thick glass jail to constrain their capture, the Flora core is hibernating and being reset by engineers, while the Fauna Core is recently put into custody and is resisting the tons of thick chains restraining her and the large mask on her head. She’s continually being injected with fluids to weaken her power and wipe off her memory. 

They look at the beautiful view outside the terrace and admire it.

“What a beautiful place this is, isn’t it?” John Loid talks.

“Indeed it is,” Morris replied.

“We will build a better and more functional planet with us as rulers. But first, of course, we have to eliminate the pests first.” John Loid winks.

“We are building tall and strong towers to collect data around the world and another set to build a virtual shield that will shield anyone from escaping once we make our own armageddon.” 

In the far view, farther than the mountains, Morris sees a distant tall tower. It is expansive on the ground and smoothly curves thinner and thinner as the tower goes higher. The highest point of the tower is thinner than a needle. It is held by thick ropes attached to the ground to avoid falling. There are masses of these tower plantations planted in Histeria territory. They will become the shield of the planet. At the sight of these, Morris zones out and thinks of his family. But John Loid disrupted it, and said,

“Morris. You don’t have to worry about anything. We’re business partners, we’re friends. This will be over soon. What we started, let’s finish.”

John Loid silently walks out. 

Morris slowly looks at his photos again out of silent desperation for warmth in the cold, but John Loid smacks him and tore the photos apart, throwing them in the air.

“Forget about them, Morris! You will never see them again! They have been captured. Are you crazy enough to be with them in the Hell we plan on creating? Think of yourself for once.”

Morris cannot help but suffer intensely in silence. Deep inside, his loyalty is still to his family. He wonders, will he see his children again? If he cannot be with them, he must make his significant role in Histeria an asset for his children and the Rescuers, even if dies and suffers a living hell for it. Morris rode a small airship going down to the ground and wrote an anonymous drawing-like hologram. Every day, for a week, after work, he would go to his room in the hidden headquarters at dawn to draw for the hologram. When it was done, he sent it to Torikou, using his friend, a reprogrammed Histerian droid, a cyborg Philippine Eagle.

As Morris designs the airship and coordinates with his fellow engineers, John Loid’s hurtful and discouraging words keep coming to Morris’ mind, and that makes him teary-eyed.

[Forget about them, Morris! You will never see them again! They have been captured. Are you crazy enough to be with them in the Hell we plan on creating? Think of yourself for once.]

But Morris still believes his children are still living… Hopefully, living.