No More Learning

", groaned Alf on the next
morning, as he sat in front of his laptop and watched the
news from all over the world. On an Internet site, which was
officially marked with a blocking note and should actually
not be accessible for "good normal citizens", he saw the
commemoration ceremony of a soldier of the international
GCF troops in New York, kidnapped and shot by Iranian
partisans.

The video had already been shown by the official television
stations, but the forbidden Internet site complemented it with
some background informations and let its content appear
differently, from what the media of the system wished.
The World President squeezed out some crocodile tears in
front of the cameras, which rolled along his beaked nose.
Then he thanked the not anymore "unknown soldier" for his
fight against terrorism, for human rights and world peace.
The television report showed Ronald Millers crying widow,
his newborn baby and his daughter in the kindergarten. The
report about his sweet little children lasted a whole hour.
The daughter told, that she liked to paint pictures with her
wax mark pins, loved her hamster and finally cried for her
dead father - in close up.

The World President visited her in the kindergarten, tried to
look affected and explained to the kindergartner, how
important it was, to go on with the war against Islamic
fanatics and renegade tendencies in all regions of the world.
„Those fucking media rats should mention, that the World
Goverment has nuked Teheran nine years ago! ", screamed
Alf furiously and banged on the table. "So they could also
make some good video reports about crying children there! "



83



He turned around to Frank. „At that time, over one million

people, women and children, were burned to ashes. The

GCF just wiped them out, in order to make an example! "

„l know. . . ", answered Kohlhaas.

„Oh, shit! I just hate the fucking media! I would execute

them all, if I had the chance! ", he spat out.

„lfs the usual propaganda", said Frank and went into the

kitchen. „Calm down, Alf! Don't risk a heart attack. . . "

Baumer still grumbled for a while and finally followed Frank.

He stood before his fellow and raised the forefinger.

„Today John comes back from Minsk", he said. „We must

talk to Wilden, so that he tells us, where we can live here in

the near future. "

. . Living together with you? Then I will give you the

prohibition to watch TV! ", answered Frank with a smile.

. . Don't make me angry, little boy! ", hissed Baumer, grinned

villainously and made some boxing movements toward his

interlocutor.

The discussion with the leader of the group was short and

factual. Wilden told them that they could move into another

vacant house at the further end of Ivas. It was an incredible

hovel, but at least, it had an old wood fired oven and the two

men could even get some electricity for the barrack.

When Frank and Alf returned to their provisional home, they

met a probably 45 years old man in a cord sweater,

unloading some crates from a shabby, white combi-van.

With him was a beautiful young woman with long fair hair,

which she had tied up to a queue. John and the woman

welcomed them.

„Oh, who are you? Allow me, I'm John Thorphy! ", he

introduced himself.

. . Julia Wilden! ", added the blonde and smiled.



84



„Alfred Baumer, we don't know each other yet", answered

Alf.

„Eh. . . Frank Kohlhaas! ", said the young man.

John Thorphy had a strong English accent, which, however,

clarified the question of his origin only superficially.

„We lived in your house. Thank you again. We have been

freed, straight from prison", explained Alfred.

„No problem! ", replied John and continued to unload his car.

„rm sure that my father has organized everything correctly",

said Julia and examined Frank with an inquiring look.

„And how was it. . . ? " Frank tried to begin a conversation.

„How was what? ", asked the young woman and stroked with

her fingers through the blonde hair. Then she beheld

Kohlhaas again.

"Where you have been. . . I mean. . . your trip. . . ? "

"Nice! ", returned Julia.

„The man is. . . eh. . . John. . . an Englishman? ", asked Frank.

„No, and he does not like Englishmen! ", he heard from Julia.

John is an Irishman. Don't talk with him about England or

even Englishmen. . . "

"It was just a question", said Frank and looked unconfidently

at the young beauty.

"Okay, all questions have been answered. Now you can

help us to unload the van", said Fraulein Wilden and kept a

straight face.

„No problem! ", answered Baumer and waved Frank nearer.

In the following weeks, Frank and Alf had a lot of work to do.
Necessary renovations in their new home waited for them,
and furthermore, Wilden gave them some more tasks, in the
name of the community. Kohlhaas became acquainted with
some of the other villagers and thought that most of them
could stand him - more or less. However, a few still faced
him with distrust and avoided to talk to the young man.



85



Nevertheless, the fact that he had been in a holo cell,

caused a mixture of compassion and respect in many of the

villagers.

Julia Wilden mostly just ignored him and didn't seem to

seek his proximity. He rarely saw her, even when he

unusually often walked past Mr. Wilden's house, although it

was located in a side road.

„She looks good, but she is „Misses Important", the

daughter of the great boss. . . ", thought Frank sometimes.

"She thinks that she is better than the rest here and she

obviously doesn't trust me very much. "

Frank was right. Julia Wilden and also the young Sven

belonged to those villagers, who avoided the contact with

him.

But Kohlhaas tried to understand the behavior of these

people. They didn't knew him and he had only come to this

strange place, because of luck and coincidence. What

should he expect now?

Prison or even liquidation would wait for them all, if he

would prove himself as a blabber or a safety risk. So the

fear of the unknown man wasn't unjustified. But Alfred

Baumer and Thorsten Wilden seemed to like him. The

village boss took every opportunity, to explain to him any

political and historical facts. He started with world history,

from the ancient cultures of the Indogermanics, over

Alexander the Great, up to the present. Sometimes,

however, even everything at the same time.

„They could have used Wilden for the reeducation hours in

the holo cell, apart from the fact, that he preaches the

converse theses. Nevertheless, he talks even more than

that computer! ", said Frank to Alf once.

Baumer admired the former entrepreneur, because of his

universal knowledge about politics and history, but this time,

he had to laugh about Frank's statement. So the days,



86



weeks and months passed in monotonousness. Often some
of the villagers disappeared for a while. Occasionally, even
one of the three small transport aircrafts left its hideout, in
order to fly somewhere and to come back again a few days
later.

The airplanes were always hidden under camouflage nets
or in large, old barns. Although it was not illegal to own
them, since they had been duly registered, caution was the
first rule in Ivas.

In the meantime, Frank and Alf were working hard, in order
to make their house more habitable. Wallpapers were
procured over many detours, because there were no more
shops in the periphery of many kilometers, which got such
articles. At least, the most important rooms could be
renovated.

Similar difficulties also appeared with the building materials,
which had often to be taken from the other vacant houses,
for example intact bricks to repair the leaky roof. It was a
long and toilsome work, but the two men became friends
along the way.

There was still only a very old wood fired oven in the biggest
room of the house and both men became a bit nervous,
when the thought about the coming winter of the year 2028.
At the end of the month, Frank's sleep disturbances
suddenly came back. He had scary nightmares, in which the
cruel light of the holo cell tortured him again, and also Mr.
Madness returned.

Sometimes in these dreams, this strange man talked, and
Frank was surprised that his voice was high and shrill.
Baumer often woke him up, when he flailed or talked while
he was sleeping. It was weird. Right now, where peace had
entered his life, compared to the time in „Big Eye" even the
idyl, the bad memories came back. Kohlhaas had thought,
that the pain in his mind was over - but he was wrong. . .



87



One day in August, HOK stood in front of the entrance door

on an early morning and asked Alf for Frank. Kohlhaas sat

in the provisionally furnished kitchen and came to the door

after a few minutes.

„Good morning, Frank! Please come with me, immediately! ",

said HOK with a sad face.

. . What's up? ", asked Frank with an uncomfortable feeling

deep inside.

. . Hurry up! Just come with me! ", answered the computer

specialist and spreaded a disastrous atmosphere.

Shortly afterwards, the two men went to HOK's house and

Frank hardly noticed the warm and bright autumn sun,

which stroked the little village on this day. HOK ran to his

untidy office and sat down in front of his computer.

. . Please take a seat, Frank! ", hummed HOK. „And try to stay

calm, with all, I will say to you now! "

„Tell me, what has happened? ", claimed Frank with a

mixture of impatience and deep concern, because HOK's

countenance let expect nothing good.

„l have examined your old Scanchip. I meant no harm by it,

but it is an order of Wilden, concerning each new person

that comes into our village. It is a safety precaution. The

Scanchip is examined for suspicious sub-datas and cross

references. I penetrated an internal data server and studied

some not public informations, which are automatically

collected about every citizen in the sector . . Central Europe"

by authorities or secret services. These sub-datas contain

many informations about a citizen's life. Of course, the

ordinary people don't know anything about their existence.

Okay, I have the skill to look for all this stuff. Let's see. . . "

„Aha. . . ", answered Frank with a complete lack of

understanding.

„An usual Scanchip has about 500 internal sub-datas and

cross references, which can't be read by the owner,



88



because they are only for the authorities", explained HOK

hastily.

Frank's brain was tormented again with some technical

terms of the computer language, although HOK tried to

explain everything understandably for the layman.
The sub-datas of each Scanchip contain a fulness of
informations, for example:

- Behaviour analysis at the workplace

- State of health, for the further economic utilization

- Income

- Consument behaviour statistics

- Social compatibility - Subversive statements at the telephone, on the internet. . .

- Family members and relatives

- Reactions on political propaganda and advertising

- Religious faith

- Friends and acquaintances

- Frequentcy of contacts to friends and acquaintances

- Sexual behavior

There are still hundreds of further informations and details,

but I think you know, what we are talking about", said HOK.

„And now? What's wrong? ", asked Frank quizzically.

Just wait! ", answered HOK. „l have to look for some special

things. For example, if there is an entry like: JOS" (informer

of the state) or „ROP" (receiver of official privileges) - what

would mean, that you are an informer - or you have been it

once. "

„What do you want from me? Tim no informer, man! ",

screamed Frank.

„You don't have anything to do with such things! Your old

Scanchip is clean, don't worry! ", calmed him HOK.



89



„This is not the problem. . . ", he continued. „We must be very

careful and everybody in Ivas has to endure this process! "

„Then you want to establish your own little surveillance state

here, isn't it? ", gnarled Frank angrily.

„No, we do not want that! ", replied HOK and seemed to feel

ashamed.

„l looked at the cross references, concerning your family

members and your relatives. I'm sorry, this didn't belong to

my tasks and I must excuse myself for that", murmured

HOK sheepishly and stared at his keyboard.

„And then you pretend to fight against the World

Government! Maybe these guys were also just bored, and

so they decided one day, to spy out all the other people! ",

grumbled Kohlhaas.

"I'm sorry! Really! " HOK tried to calm down his angry guest.

. . Unfortunately, I have noticed something terrible on your

Scanchip: Rainer Kohlhaas is your father, right? And

Martina Gunther, born Kohlhaas, your sister, isn't it?

Nico Gunther your nephew. . . ? "

. . What's up with them? ", asked Frank excitedly.

„The Scanchips of Rainer Kohlhaas and Martina Gunther

are shut down. Their citizen numbers will be assigned to

other people in the near future. . . ", spoke HOK quietly.

"What? ", Frank winced.

„On the Scanchip of your father, there is an arrest note on

09. 04. 2028. At the beginning of June 2028, it has finally

been shut down. As additive there is a footnote: "ODOA"

(official deactivation by official arrangement) and further

„CSO" (citizen switched off). He has been liquidated! ",

explained HOK.

. . What? ", cried Frank in pain.

„lt's the same in the case of your sister. She was first

arrested, and then liquidated. Your nephew. . . " HOK was

interrupted.



90



„What? What's up with Nico? ", gasped Frank with fright in

his eyes. "Tell me what. . . "

„He is registered here as an "orphan in national care". So he

is still alive! " The computer scientist didn't dare to look in

Frank's direction.

But it didn't work. The young man was speechless with

terror and sank back on the chair. He struggled for air and

tried to shake off the claws of horror that griped his throat

and took his breath away. But it was impossible.

Within a few seconds, he fell into a black hole of despair

and ran crying out of the house of the computer scientist. All

the distress and the fear had returned now. They had

spared him in the last months, to come back in this second

in their whole, dark size.

In the next days, Frank hardly left his sleeping room. Alf
tried to explain to him, that the arresting of relatives or
family members was used by the system, to lure
disappeared offenders out of their hideouts, to make them
ring up at home, while the telehone call was bugged, or to
make them even visit their old homes. But Frank just told
him to back off.

Now the scary nights returned and the mental terror, the
holo cell had kindled in his mind, crawled around him in the
darkness, arm in arm in old unity with the new horrors.
Again, the young man thought about following his parents
and his sister to the netherworld, he mused about
terminating his hopeless existence, but Alf stopped him from
doing such things and cared for Frank as good as he could.

When September brought the autumn to Ivas, Frank was
afflicted by a strange dream one night. He could no longer
completely remember each detail, when he woke up again



91



on the next morning with a bad headache, but the most
pictures remained in his memory.

He was a spectator in an hall, which looked very similar to a
court room. In front of him were the judge desk and the
dock, and only this place was lit by a lamp. The rest of the
room remained in a hazy twilight, also the seat rows of the
spectators, on which Frank sat alone. In front of the dock
were two persons and Frank could not exactly recognize,
who it was, because he saw only their backs. Behind the
judge desk was no human being, it was rather a shadow or
a ghost.

"The negotiation starts! ", called the shade. „Be quiet please!
Today, we talk about the following criminal case: The
politics against Mr. Rainer Kohlhaas and Mrs. Martina
Gunther, born Kohlhaas. "

The two accused turned around and gave Frank a fearful
look. It were his father and his sister. Now they turned
around to the judge again, because he began with his
remarks. The spectator nervously stared at the ghost and
tried to decipher the name on the plate, which was on the
desk in front of him. Only after an arduous staring, Frank
was able to recognize that there was no name. The only
words on the plate were "The Politics". Now the judge read
out the charges and began with the interrogation.
J will start with you, Mr. Rainer Kohlhaas", he said with a
glowering, deep voice. „Can you remember, that you have
ever cared about the important facts around me? "
„Well, I have already been concerned with you, if it had
something to do with my life", stammered Rainer Kohlhaas.
„Can you describe that more exactly? ", asked the judge.
„Thus, I watched TV and read the newspapers", Rainer
Kohlhaas tried to explain.



92



„And you, Mrs. Martina Gunther? Did you have ever

seriously worried about me? ", grumbled the shady judge

with a threatening voice.

. . Perhaps not enough. Only sometimes. I was too busy,

most of the time. My job was full of stress and so I had other

things on my mind than thinking about you. . . ", replied

Frank's sister sheepishly.

„And it was the same in your case, Mr. Kohlhaas? ",

resented the judge angrily.

,,1'm sorry, but if Tm honest, I have just worked all my life,

and have primarily cared about myself. It was a constant

struggle to survive and to make money. And finally, there

has been no more time to think about any politics",

explained Rainer Kohlhaas ruefully.

„And you really think, that was enough? That you could just

ignore me in all these years? ", hissed the ghost.

"Please forgive us, Mr. Judge! Today, we know that we

have made a big mistake! But we still have watched the

news on television. . . ", Rainer Kohlhaas tried to justify

himself.

"Yes, I did the same! ", agreed Martina.

"And you think, it was sufficient, if others talked about me

and you just parroted their slogans? Why didn't you think

about me for yourself? ", asked the shadow reproachfully

and stared at them.

"Forgive us, Mr. Judge, but we viewed many other things in

our life as more important, than caring about politics! ",

lamented the two accused, full of sorrow.

Suddenly Frank appeared at another place in his dream. A
disgusting stench became noticeable to him at first. It
crawled over the ground right into his nostrils. He was on a
great field that extended till the horizon, and only some
mountains were recognizable, somewhere in the far



93



distance. Now he saw, what covered this field. It were
corpses. Hundreds, thousands, millions. They terribly stank
and rotted. The grey, dead skin of the bodies was shrunken,
and larvae, maggots and worms crept out of the mouths and
eye sockets of the dead.

This graveyard was gigantic, it was full of men, women,
children - some had died lately, others were already putrid
and had become skeletons.

Frank had to be careful, trying not to slip and fall by walking
on this carpet of bones and rotting flesh, because the sea of
the dead seemed to be endless and it filled the plain till the
horizon. The young man simply went straight ahead for
some hours and he was scared of this terrible environment.
But the plain still extended and was still covered with
countless corpses. Then he suddenly recognized, that the
mountains in front of him were gigantic piles of skulls.
Millions of skulls, towering up, to create an atrocious picture.
Frank walked through the land of the dead and when he
already thought, that he would never find a way out of this
terrible world, he suddenly heard a voice.
„Frank Kohlhaas! ", it resounded from somewhere far
beyond. The dreamer went to the place, from which he had
heard the voice and could soon recognize a dark spot that
continued to grow, the nearer he came. Then he saw that it
was the shadowy man, the eerie judge, who called him.
J am the politics, Frank Kohlhaas! Nice going, my boy! Now
you have found me! Here they are! ", said the ghost and
pointed at the ground.

There lay Rainer Kohlhaas, his father, and Martina Gunther,
his sister. Both had been killed with a headshot and their
bodies were rotting, while maggots crawled over their faces.



94



"Mark my words, Frank Kohlhaas! If you don't care
about politics, politics will care about you one day! ",

shouted the judge.

Frank startled up and could not sleep anymore for the rest
of the night. . .

The rest of the year 2028 passed without any changes in

the life of the young man. The winter in Lithuania was really

unpleasant and very cold, and there was no sign of that

global warming, the international media had proclaimed in

2011, in order to justify coercive measures and further

restrictions of civil rights.

Frank's fear, his sleep disturbances and his depressions

still came in waves and particularly in these dark winter

months he had to suffer.

Wilden and the other villagers had given him a lot of tasks,

he had to do for the community. And this was good,

because it diverted him. During autumn, the fields around

Ivas were harvested by the inhabitants and the yields were

made winterproof, like in old times.

All this was also a new ground for Frank, since he had only

eaten the cheap food of the big agrarian companies so far.

Moreover, Alf and he renovated the old house, but they

progressed slowly. Apart from this, the young renegade was

not yet ready to join the group of rebels - if it were rebels at

all.

Except for talking, Frank hadn't noticed any considerable

rebellion, although Wilden told him everything about politics,

without having a break.

His daughter didn't seem to think a great deal of him and

Frank was sure that she still distrusted him too. But at least,

he had aroused her compassion. .