No More Learning

"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. . . Nevertheless, ti is

something! ", thought Kohlhaas.



95



When it was stormy outside and the ice rain pattered
against the still leaky windows, when it was dark and cold,
Frank felt lost. Even if Alf was in the next room, looking for
some new informations on the Internet. Sometimes
Kohlhaas heard him rant and sometimes Baumer jubilated.
„ls this my life for the next decades? ", he occasionally asked
himself. „ls this my fate? Hanging around in this dump in
Lithuania, with this gang of so called freedom fighters? "
If he saw the face of his father and his sister in front of his
inner eye, if he thought about the holo cell and about the
fact, that his little nephew was raised somewhere in an
institute for brainwashing, while his sister, who had never
done something wrong in her life, was rotting in a mass
grave, he was fuming with rage.

„Alf, what is the meaning of the symbol of the "Red Moon"
groups? Please explain it to me again? ", he asked his fellow
one evening.

„l already answered that question! ", remarked Alf, who
wanted to go to bed.

„l want to know it - exactly! ", said Frank with a black look,
which even caused some respect in Alf.
„Well, it is an old cult symbol. The "bloody moon" or „blood-
moon". The old Celts, just as many other people of the
ancient times, knew this mystical indication. In the winter, it
was more important than everything else. At that time, the
cattle was slaughtered in great numbers before the
beginning of the snowfall on a certain full moon night.
Therefore, our ancestors called this moon the "blood moon".
Moreover, it was also a ritual for the old gods, in order to
invoke their protection and assistance in the cold months.
The elders cast a magic circle with blood, drank red wine,
prayed and danced. Some even believed, that during this
ritual not only the souls of the decedents were present, but



96



also the spirits of the animals, which had donated their lifes

to give food to the humans", explained Alf.

„Then it was some kind of ritual for the dead? ", asked Frank

then.

„This is one meaning. The other meaning is the coming war,

the revenge, the bloodshed, the rage of battle. One also

knows the bloody moon as a warning to the enemy. It just

depends on the interpretation of the symbol. The founders

of the „Red Moon" groups thought, that this sign would just

look cool or interesting", said Baumer.

„l like the second meaning! Yes! ", hissed Frank.

Alfred looked at him with surprise, scraping with his fingers

over the wooden table.

„l_et us bring the blood moon upon our enemies! I will talk to

Wilden. If I join your so called rebellion, I fucking want to

make rebellion! ", grumbled Frank.

„We are rebels. . . ", returned Alf and stared at his aggressive

fellow.

"I hope it! I want to take lives! ", screamed Kohlhaas and

banged his fist on the table. „Revenge! Blood moon! "

Frank turned around and went to his room. He slammed the

door behind himself and up to the next morning, Baumer

didn't see him again.



97



Rebellion and Fresh Snow



It did not last long, until Ivas was covered with a thick
mantle of snow and it was bitterly cold. Frank and Alf could
only stay in the largest room of their house, where the old
wood fired oven was located.

This season was more than unpleasant and often both men
needed some blankets to warm theirselves. But at least, the
roof didn't have no more holes and it didn't snow into the
upper floor of the old building. This was better than nothing.
Today, Frank Kohlhaas made the decision to talk to
Thorsten Wilden. He wanted to become a real rebel and
promised himself to join the fight - but he still didn't know
how.

It was a grey winter morning and the few sources of light in
the inhabited houses of the village, had no real chance to
repel the twilight.

A resolute Frank trudged through the fresh snow of the last
night, toward the house of Thorsten Wilden. The young man
finally had enough of the monotonousness in this so called
rebel base.

„You want me? You can have me! ", he whispered to
himself.

After a while, Frank reached the house of the village boss
and knocked on the door. Agatha Wilden opened and Julia
could be seen behind her in the corridor. Kohlhaas gave
them a quiet „Hello! ". Then Wilden appeared on the stairs,
which led to the upper floor.

„Frank! Welcome! What can I do for you? ", asked the gray-
haired gentleman with sursprise. The village boss seemed
to be overslept and was still unshaved.



98



„We need to talk, Mr. Wilden! ", answered Frank with a

vacant expression, which neither Julia nor Agatha Wilden

had ever seen before. Kohlhaas scowled and crossed his

arms.

„Well, we go to my office! ", said the rebel leader.

„Okay! Let's go! ", muttered Frank and went up the stairs.

Then both men sat opposite to each other and Frank started

to talk, before Wilden could begin.

„This is not a holiday camp, you have said to me. Well!

Well! ", spoke Frank with an angry face. „This is a rebel

base, you have told me, Mr. Wilden! "

„lt is! ", returned the older gentleman, looking at his young

guest, who behaved queerly today.

„AII right! Then we shall start a rebellion! First, I would like to

learn to shoot! Assault rifle, machine gun, handguns. Is that

okay, Mr. Wilden? ", said Frank, somehow demanding.

J think you can! ", answered the village boss.

„Great, Mr. Wilden! I am ready now. I know that some of the

guys here talk about me after the slogan: We just feed that

Frank, but he is useless and does not join our great fight.

Well, here I am! Ready for combat! If there is a big fight

here at all, because I haven't noticed a fucking rebellion

yet! ", teased the young man.

„First and foremost, we develop self-sufficient structures.

The armed operation, concerning your liberation, has been

an exception. Otherwise, we plan no further things of that

character for the next time", explained Wilden.

„However! ", said Kohlhaas. „lf any special operations start,

then let me know it. I will join them. My life isn't important

and I will show you, that I have more guts, than most of

these farmers, who treat me with scorn. Thus, you let me

know, if there is some action, okay? Have a nice day and

greetings to Fraulein Julia, Mr.