[December 24th 2010]

  It was Christmas Eve, but only two people were celebrating. Sara and Joy gave a Christmas present to everyone on the planet in the form of a video which they posted online named “My freedom to act.” that blew up immediately from people sharing it around. 30 minutes after it was posted the GA would see it, a meeting was immediately held where they all watched it together.

  The video opened with the last moments of Joy’s every fight simultaneously on the screen and then slowly faded to Joy in a t-shirt and his hair tied up. He was basking in the sun by a rooftop pool. The city in which he was could very clearly be seen and was quickly recognized as Sydney by one of them watching.

  Joy started speaking by introducing himself. “My name is Joy Aukat?.” He was speaking in fluent English.

  “I want to tell you about the Freedom to act. Four days ago I visited every GA prison in the world and freed the prisoners locked up, this was my show of Freedom to act. When the criminals took over entire cities in the absence of the GA that was their freedom to act. Now it’s your turn. If you’re waiting in some hole for everything to get better. It won’t, you have to make that change. Take back your cities from whoever is ruling over them, after all you have the Freedom to act, but in the end the only way is to come and get rid of me, I will be waiting.”

  The video ended immediately after

  Everybody at the table was left speechless, but the silence was then broken by Milo asking if they should go fight him.

  “No.” Eaco responded. “Remember he isn’t our only problem, there’s still Kire, Iro, Sara and whoever else they’re surrounded by.”

  “But there’s over 30 of us.” Milo argued.

  Most sided with Eaco, they told Milo that they were in no condition to fight. Milo tried to argue against them, but it only led to the meeting ending abruptly as most just left.

  All around the globe reactions to the video were similar, some were motivated to change and some were too scared to act, but Michael’s actual brother Liam actually recognized Joy in the video. When he saw it he immediately thought Joy looked somewhat familiar and after realizing to check the picture Michael had taken in the cave he recognized Joy’s face that was just barely visible in the picture, but Liam still thought they looked similar.

  He thought about telling his parents at first, but then thought it to be unnecessary. Instead he decided to go to Germany and tell someone in the GA directly. Liam knew of a few people in their town who were planning to drive all the way to Germany, it was the only way for regular people to traverse the world now as public transport didn’t exist anymore. They departed the very next day, three cars all filled with 5 people drove through Europe for over 16 hours, but throughout the entire journey they didn’t see a single car and only 2 people. Cities and towns were completely empty; the two people they saw were just sitting on top of a building looking around, most likely keeping watch for possible danger the same as in their town. The only other place they saw people at was when they arrived at Berlin where they had to leave their car at the edge of the city and continue by foot as the streets were too packed with cars and after 20 minutes of just walking they finally saw the first people.

  “Where do you come from?” They asked Liam’s group.

  One of them answered telling them they came from Croatia.

  “Oh, so not that far.” One of the people said. “The walls are that way, there are many sleeping in cars and building outside the walls as there's nowhere near enough space inside them yet. You can also stay here, we're just waiting for the walls to expand.”

  Most of the group went into the building, but Liam along with a few others wanted to go deeper. When they got to the furthest walls the guards immediately told them to turn around. The others tried to argue against them, but slowly accepted it and walked away, but Liam didn't, he had a different reason for wanting to get past the guards. They weren’t impressed by Liam’s story at first and tried to get him to leave, but when he showed them the picture they realized that Liam might be telling the truth. He was let through and the men told him to talk to the guards at the next gate.

  Beyond the first wall there were thousands of people just sitting outside looking miserable. Liam walked past all of them to the next gate and told the guard the same story he told previously. He called someone who came to the gate pretty quickly, Liam told his story one more time. The man didn’t react much to the story itself, but still told him to follow him. He led Liam through all the people into the next gate that was the lobby of a hotel this time. He was told to wait in the lobby, while the man made a call.

  Liam fell asleep so he didn’t know how long he had to wait, but five hours later he was woken up by a dark and handsome man.

  He sat down next to Liam and asked him whether he was lying about the story.

  Liam gave a quick and firm “No.” as an answer.

  The man didn’t break eye contact with Liam and after a while chuckled a bit concerned.

  “What’s your name?” He asked.

  “Liam.”

  “Nice to meet you Liam, My name is Alec Togalia.” He introduced himself and reached out his hand.

  Liam grabbed it and they shook hands. “Tell me the whole story.” Alec said.

  “Back in October I was hiking back home in Imotski with Heal… I mean my brother Michael and grandpa…” He started, but was interrupted by Alec. “Michael? Joy’s brother’s name is Michael as well.”

  “Do you know what he looks like?” Liam asked and started going through his photos.

  Alec answered “Yes.” and Liam showed him a picture of his brother and told that Michael has been missing since.

  Alec was even more shocked. “No fucking way!” He yelled out and then told Liam to follow him. Alec was surprised by Liam was able being able to keep up with him pretty well even though he was running. They ran to the hospital in the middle and Alec showed Liam the way into the cafeteria where Isaac was sitting by himself watching something on a laptop. Isaac looked up to see who came into the room and was surprised when he saw Liam. “Who is he?” Isaac asked Alec.

  “He’s Michael’s real brother.” Alec answered.

  Isaac closed the laptop and took a better look at Liam. “You do look alike.” Alec offered Liam a seat at the table and sat down himself as well.

  “What’s your story?” Isaac asked.

  “Back in October Me, Michael and our grandpa found a human in a cave.” Michael took out his phone and showed the picture to Isaac. “I’m not crazy for thinking that he looks very similar to Joy Aukat?, Am I?”

  Alec looked at Isaac who was staring Liam down.

  “Look me in the eyes.” Isaac commanded Liam. He stared Liam down for almost 20 seconds and then finally rested and leaned back in his chair. “Could you find your way into that cave again?”

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  “Yes.” Liam

  “Alright. So what happened to your brother and Joy?” Isaac asked.

  “After we found Joy my grandpa took him to a hospital, I never saw him after that. Me and Michael went home by ourselves and Michael disappeared the next day.” Liam answered.

  “So you didn’t actually see him taken to a hospital?” Isaac confirmed

  “No, he left in a hurry and left us there.” Liam answered.

  Isaac thought by himself for a second. “I think your grandfather might be connected to your brother’s disappearance. It can’t be a coincidence that you don’t know for sure where Joy was taken to after you found him and the next day your brother vanishes.”

  “Don’t forget them being apparent brothers and Michael not having memories of his past.” Alec added.

  “How is Joy, Michael’s brother?” Liam asked.

  “Well it seems like he isn’t, but Michael thinks so. Maybe they were Joy’s actual family, but Michael was just brainwashed and taken in for some insane plan because he is strong.” Alec explained.

  “What do you mean Michael’s strong?” Liam asked.

  “He’s strong, what else could it mean? That’s what got the two of them on the GA’s radar in the first place.” Isaac answered.

  Liam was trying to put all the information into its place to think of anything else to ask, but couldn’t think of anything. While he was looking at the ceiling Isaac took out his phone and started typing a message, right as he pressed send Liam asked him where Michael was now. Isaac got up and told Liam to follow him. He showed the way to where Michael was being held and let Liam peek through window on the door to see Michael laying on the bed reading something. He almost burst out in tears, but could hold them in, he tried to open the door, but it was locked.

  “I can’t let you talk to him yet.” Isaac stated.

  “Why not?” Liam asked.

  “His case isn’t solved yet, His involvement with Joy is still too unclear, so we keep him in here.” Isaac answered.

  Liam tried arguing with Isaac to let him see his brother, but Isaac put down all of his arguments and walked back into the cafeteria. Alec and Liam followed him.

  Liam kept pestering Isaac as they were walking, but he then finally shut all of it down by saying he isn’t allowed to make that call.

  This was a complete lie, not only was he more than allowed to make a call of Michael simply talking with someone, He as well as Monika, Milo, Vb and Eaco were all almost a 100% sure that Michael was in no way aware of Joy’s actions. He was even more sure now that Michael’s actual blood relative was here. When they got to the cafeteria the table was almost full with people, Isaac told Alec and Liam to sit down while he himself went and asked Vb to come talk with him privately. Monika and Milo were also very surprised when they saw Liam and Milo kept staring at him until Vb and Isaac came to sit with them.

  Isaac started the meeting by reminding everyone about Michael. When everyone was up to date he introduced Liam to them. “This is his biological brother.” He then started telling them Liam's story of finding Joy in the cave, while explaining he took Liam’s phone out of his pocket and showed the picture to everyone on a large screen, shocking them. He then told his plan of sending a group of 5 to 6 with Liam there to go check the cave out as well as take Liam’s grandfather into questioning.

  “Any volunteers?” Isaac asked.

  Milo was the first one to raise his hand and Monika wasn’t much behind him, but the two of them were the only ones.

  Vb was fully expecting to see at least a third hand that was Tatadoro, but only then did he realize that Tatadoro wasn’t even with them to begin with and when he asked Milo and Monika where he was, but both of them just shrugged it off.

  Isaac wasn’t concerned about Tatadoro’s whereabouts, he wanted to get at least 1 or 2 more on board with the mission, but nobody would. Milo assured Isaac that they would be able to carry out the mission and Monika disbanded the meeting right there. Milo and Monika wasted no time the ignored everyone else and ran away with Liam. They took of in one of the flying cars and Monika asked where they were going.

  “Imotski, Croatia.” Liam answered. He wasn’t sure whether he should talk, but got the courage to complain. “Isaac Riba still has my phone.”

  “You’ll get it back today.” Monika promised. “You know your brother is really strong, does it run in the family?”

  “Isaac Riba said that as well, but no, at least not to my knowledge.” He answered.

  “Usually it does, do you have an easier time improving at things?” Monika asked.

  Liam thought for a while, but realized that she had hit the mark quite well. Monika kept quiet for the remainder of the ride as she knew Milo wanted to talk with Liam. The first thing he asked was Liam’s age. Liam told him that he was 17, 3 years older than Michael and only 2 years older than Milo. He then asked Liam to tell him about his family. He started by saying his family wasn’t special compared to them, but this didn’t move Milo a bit as he was captivated the entire time.

  They had already arrived in Croatia, but Monika had let Liam finish his story. Milo was just about to ask him to keep going, but Monika interrupted them by asking Liam where they should land.

  “By the Blue Lake.” Liam answered, looked out the window and pointed out to Monika where it was. They landed on the nearest road from which point onward Liam led the way. “It’ll be a bit hard to find the hole under all this snow.” They walked a bit further until Liam said that the hole should be around there somewhere.

  Milo's left hand started glowing bright yellow and all the snow started melting with his hand as the center. He walked around melting all the snow and not too much later Liam saw the hole and they all crawled in there, Milo’s hand was still glowing so he took the lead. They walked for around a kilometer until they got to the circular end of the cave where Joy was. Milo walked in the middle and Monika took out her phone to take a few pictures of the cave. They didn't do anything else in there, but as they were walking Milo said that the place felt heavy in Energy, which Monika agreed with. After they walked back in the car and took off Liam pointed out a supermarket in the middle of the city, that's where he thought his grandfather was.

  They landed right in front of the building where multiple people stepped out of it to stop them from entering, but when they saw Monika they were let in immediately. The situation inside was much more miserable than in Berlin, people were sleeping on floors with only a few having at least a sleeping bag. As Monika and Milo walked around the isles more and more people were realizing who they were.

  Liam finally saw his grandpa Samuel and pointed him out to Monika and Milo, he saw this and immediately ran out the building, this created a loud sonic boom which stunned almost everyone except Monika and Milo who ran after him, when they stepped out they saw him jumping atop buildings trying to get away.

  Samuel thought he got away, but suddenly felt someone grab him from the neck and throw him towards the ground, only after he had already hit the pavement did he hear a sonic boom and fell unconscious. Monika had stayed back; she saw Samuel’s speed and determined that her helping Milo would be overkill against someone so weak. Milo dragged Samuel back to the market where everybody was still trying to recover from the loud bang Samuel had created. Monika didn’t stay and help them, she grabbed Liam and was just about to leave when Liam’s mother came to stop her.

  “Where are you taking him?” She asked.

  Monika didn’t answer her question, but instead asked whether she knew anything about Michael’s disappearance. Lara was shocked by the weird question, but didn’t answer it either. "How do you know about that?"

  “Your son told me about it, Michael has ties to Joy Aukat?. You should come to Germany, Michael is there.” Monika answered.

  A whole lot of emoties went over Lara, her legs turned weak and she couldn’t hold back her tears of relief. She would’ve asked Monika more questions, but she didn’t stay to wait for Lara to stop crying. Milo was already waiting in the backseat with Samuel and not much later they took off with Liam in the front seat. He had passed out from the bang and like his grandfather stayed unconscious for the entire drive.

  Monika could see Vb waiting on the roof and suspected it was to scold them, but she was wrong. At first he helped take Samuel into the cellar where he was tied down to a chair and the room was filled with gas, but after that was done he asked Monika again whether she knew where Tatadoro was.

  “No.” Monika answered as she tried to slip out of the conversation, but Vb prevented it.

  “You say no, but you seem to want out of this conversation.” He said and took out a phone out of his pocket. “This is his work phone. I found it on top of a building outside Berlin.”

  “Milo could know, but I haven’t seen or talked to him in 5 days.” Monika answered. She was finally let past Vb who gave up trying to talk to her.

  Monika was wrong, not even Milo knew where Tatadoro was, the last time anyone had seen him was when Milo told him about Sara and Samuel Laray being the same person. After Milo put that thought in his head Tatadoro laid atop a roof by himself for an entire day during which he came to the decision to go and confirm it. At first he thought about going to tell Vb and Eaco about this plan to get more people on board, but he knew the reception it would get. When christmas eve rolled by and the video was released he immediately knew where to go, that’s when he left his phone on the roof and travelled all the way to Australia by foot.