1992: Heaven's Collapse - A Revolution, or Subterfuge? (SOLO)
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Genesis of An Empire
"I remember grinning in the heavy rain when he shot the guard." the leather chair creaks as Langley leans back, echoing in his mahogany-interior office.
Robyn's eyes flared with rage. "Hundreds of protesters were murdered because of it", she leans forward - bridging the gap and pointing her pen at him, "And you...are amused?" Remaining silent, Langley stays - his genuine smile morphing into a lop-sided one.
Silence settles like a blanket of thick air in his office, except the crackling of the glowing fireplace off to the left. Robyn drops her pen and hides her face in embarrassment. "I-I'm sorry, Mr. Langley, I didn't mean to accus-"
"It's alright," Langley slides her her glass of red wine from across his desk - but she hesitates when her eyes fall on it.
"Go ahead, it's not blood." Langley humors, making Robyn chuckle as she wipes her teary eyes. "It's my first time taking an interview, and I've messed it up for the third time," her voice cracks with a sniff at the end.
He gives her moments to recompose - eyes wandering to the side as if perusing his memory box, then gently rises from his chair with his red wine. Robyn reflexively stands aswell, feet shuffling with fear that she might be reprimanded for burning Mr. Langley's precious minutes and would be told to leave - but, instead he gestures her towards the midnight skyline view of his office.
Robyn could see the neon and LEDs glow on the other side of river from her leather seat - but by standing at the crystal glass, she can now appreciate the shimmering moonlight on the silent Sanchaisima's waves aswell. This time, silence swept like a cool sea breeze.
After wetting his lips with a sip of wine, Langley broke the silence: "There...is exactly where it all started." he points at the other bank of the high tide, "Dexter Hunnigan's reign, back in '76. Ordinary man - but an extraordinary chemist..." his words trailed off as if he was staring at Dexter himself from the other side.
Robyn turns to him, hanging onto his next words. Langley's sharp jawline and lost black eyes were defined in the cool moonlight, contrasted by his white head hair evident in the warm lighting of his office. He never blinks - as if disassociated into the past - until he continues, "He brought Angels with him."
Robyn takes a sip - so engrossed in his words, she didn't register the taste of wine. "Angels?"
"Yes...." he pivots to face her, "Dexter made dust out of them, and....smuggled them to both sides of the river.....Angel Dust."
"Angel Dust...." Robyn repeats with consideration then - her eyes defocus while her mind rummages through her memory library to find the word. Seeing her straining her brow trying to recollect, Langley cuts off her train of thought, "PCP."
"Oh..." Robyn snaps back to the present. "They weren't in the files I've been going through for 2 weeks...." Her curiosity gnawing to dig deeper into the unheard side of history. "Did you know him? Like, personally?"
Langley's lips curl into a slight smile under the moonlight, but he turns away - now gazing at their side of the river, "No...not really, except one night - at that pier." he points at the wooden skeleton of a pier, some of whose pillars have rotten and collapsed with saltwater. "Dexter had brought a huge shipment of Angel Dust here in pitch dark and didn't have enough men to unload all the crates. Taking out a few bricks from it, he woke some of the beggars and porters at the docks and bribed them with his drug."
Robyn, now unable to process so much fresh information at once, leans back in disbelief and blurts out, "How do you know?"
Langley takes a sip and meets her gaze of disbelief with a skewed smile through his wineglass.
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Window of Opportunity
"He greeted me with a revolver to my stomach." Langley continues.
Robyn instinctively holds her breath and tightens her grip on the wineglass with a flash of the eyebrows, "Why?"
"Wouldn't you do the same?" Langley shrugs, "if you're offering someone heaven and angels, but they want to work for the devil, ofcourse you will be suspicious." He lets Robyn contemplate - but she can't decipher.
He explains, with his hands now gesturing aswell, "I was 16, a homeless, a beggar, and hungry that night. I didn't want to remain that way - so I demanded him to hire me. Figured I would rather get 1 meal a day, than to snort drugs every night." he acts his words by snorting the red wine's aroma, pretending to get high off it - getting a chuckle out of Robyn.
"So...what happened then?"
"I told him I was hungry - so he handed me half a chocolate bar from his olive shirt pocket..." Langley looks at his right palm, "then told me to prove myself first by delivering a brick of dust to some client of his a few blocks, escorted by a grunt," he casually takes a huge swig from his glass then points at the pier - "and handed the revolver to the grunt, ordering him to blow my head off if I acted fishy." Robyn gazes at the pier - juxtaposed by the soft glow of moonlight, recreating the young tattered Langley being handed a brick of drugs.
A distant horn of a cargoship is heard and the Fusiliy bridge lights up red, splits and folds up - making way - alluring Robyn's eyes. She had always driven that bridge - waiting at the barricade for the crawling ship to pass was frustrating. However, this looked mesmerizing - with nothing except dark blue on the horizon.
"Magnetic, isn't it?" Langley traces her admiring gaze. "How far have we come in 30 years. Doesn't it astound you?"
Robyn nods affirmatively. "I haven't been around long to feel the difference - all I've heard about the past are from history books...and jaundiced newspapers from the library." Langley chuckles in response. Robyn shifts her gaze back to him, "What happened then? Your delivery?"
"I'm standing here before you, aren't I?" he spreads his arms. "He took me in - unload, counting, delivery, all the menial stuff became my routine - along with 2 plates of rice for dinner with the crew. Years went by, and our underhand influence spread to half of the nation's youth. We had crews working under us - a whole pyramid structure." he sighs in recollection. "Until 1 addict's severe withdrawal made him murder his family of 5, and himself."
"April 1983." Robyn muttered, "It blew the cover off of Dexter's operations..." She peruses her memory and thinks: Red Freedom, Massox Carpenter, revolts, 2019 resurgency? How do they fit in this story? Her eyes shift back and forth between the crawling cargoship and the neon skyline.
Langley continues, shattering her focus. "It was a long night of discussion at Dexter's residence. I remember myself sitting at this roundtable where only the 'inner circle' played poker. It felt...good to be on a seat of power, and have a weight to your words for the first time." He smiles and tilts his head.
"What was the conclusion?"
Langley walks back to his desk for a wine refill, as Robyn's words trail him. "You know what happened." He opens a cabinet on the left side of his desk, revealing a mini-refrigerator - then opens the fridge and picks a half-empty bottle of wine, and nudges the fridge door with his foot to shut it. Seeing the longing for an answer on Robyn's face, he finally answers, "Dictatorship. Since we already had dominance, an army, and weapons, Dexter decided it was best to profit off of the crippled nation."
Langley uncorks the bottle and pours it in his glass, then pours it in Robyn's glass as well as she presents it, and asks, "What went wrong in carrying out the plan?"
"Nothing at all." He puts the bottle on a glass coffee table off to his side. "But the thing is, for a house of cards to fall, you just need to take out 1 card."
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Detonation
"You mean kill someone." Robyn states it like a fact. "Who?"
Langley meets her gaze, and gives her few moments of silence to guess - while the Fusiliy bridge rejoins. When she couldn't do so, he answers, "Dexter."
Robyn squints and crosses her arms in defense, "But why? Wasn't he already in power and good for his men?"
He points at her, "Good question. See, Dexter's operations were wildly successful - but wasn't stable. What would happen if there was international interference? Every single cartel member would be hunted like dogs in Mazdia's streets all their life. Other members advised stopping and crossing the Sanchaisima, but he was ambitious. He wanted to make it his Heaven."
"So they planned his murder. Right?"
He purses his lips and thinks for a moment. "Not just murder. They had to wash their hands clean aswell. It was a full-blown subterfuge - like slowly stacking gunpowder, then igniting it." He then guides Robyn to the left of his crystal glass view - to the fireplace and seats himself on one of the 2 sofas facing it. While placing his wineglass on the common table, Robyn asks, "Who all were a part of it?"
He fixes his gaze on the flying ember from the fireplace, "I cannot reveal that, you know."
"Then where are they?"
"You can't find them. They're hidden somewhere." He turns to her and flashes a smile. "Underground." The reflection of the flames on his full-frame glasses making it hard to focus on his jet black eyes. "Word spreads fast around here." Robyn also sets her glass on the table, but after taking a gulp. "What part did you play?"
He scratches his chin and takes a second to reply, "Not much really. Just a handyman, a spectator. You do know there were a lot of riots here and there, nothing notable or violent in the 9 years of his reign." He points at Robyn - which was a surprise to her, "Do you know the details of the 1992 revolt?"
Robyn perks up as if to deliver a lecture. "On 4 July, 1992, a huge mob gathered out---"
"Backwards." Langley chuckles as he interrupts her flow.
She shuffles uneasily in her seat as she raises a finger infront of her, as if rewinding a video. "The body count was 50 civilians, 3 guards, and an inner circle member after the crowd had dispersed. Before that, the guards began open firing."
"Correct. Before that?"
"Um...Massox Carpenter fires a shot and kills the inner circle member exiting Dexter's lair with his revolver. Before it, a peaceful mob of 300 had assembled outside." Robyn looks expectantly to Langley, hoping to get a compliment on her memory.
"Don't you find something odd?" Langley shifts his eyes from the fireplace to her, and raises his eyebrows.
"No..." Robyn rubs her chin in scrutiny as she rummages through her memory, while this time Langley looks expectantly. After a minute of contemplation, she turns to him and asks, "How did Massox get a revolver if the public had no guns?"
He smiles.
Coming up: Auction of Power