ANARCHISTALES

I.

Drawing up his hairy legs—their scabs cracked and bleeding in places from scratching—like a frog playing dead, he propped himself up with his wrinkled hands. As he wiped the drool escaping the corner of his mustachioed lip onto the strap of his dingy white tank top, he caught sight of the pillow creases etched into his forty-year-old bearded face in the dusty mirror of the vanity to his right. Leaving his bed for yet another morning of a life he had begun with weariness, he muttered, “Here we go again, for fuck’s sake,” even more weary than before. While pulling and straightening the military-issue boxer shorts clinging to his backside, he unplugged his phone from the charger and tucked it between his waistband and his belly. Staring with indifferent eyes at the incoming messages, social media accounts, and the results of bets where he had lost everything while idling away the time in the bathroom, he grumbled to himself: “Nothing changes. Everything is just the new version of the old.” He stayed under the cold water for a long time to lower his body temperature, then headed toward the kitchen for a coffee, completely unbothered by the water dripping off him. He would dry off eventually anyway. That which is wet spoils by drying, and that which is dry spoils by dampening. Balance can only be maintained this way. As he filled his dirty mug left over from yesterday with hot water, he looked out at the planet from his apartment on the top floor of the three-hundred-and-thirteen-story skyscraper. Forests, rivers, waterfalls, trees, the sun, the ocean, birds… a nature in perpetual motion. Withdrawing his gaze from the outside, he let his eyes wander across the penthouse apartment—spanning the entire roof, yet of which he used only a few rooms—and could not help but let out a deep sigh. Feeling his phone suddenly begin to buzz against his belly, he pulled it out from where he had shoved it moments before.

“Fine, let them come!” he answered, then shoved the phone right back into the same place.

The two assistants from the laboratory he was responsible for were at the door shortly after, and the door was open. Clearly, their boss did not want them to knock, but rather to walk straight in, state their business, and get out. The assistants scanned the messy surroundings with disapproval, taking care not to make any noise so as not to anger their boss—who was notoriously meticulous in the laboratory—as they walked toward the kitchen.

They found him in the kitchen, waiting for them behind the smoke of a cigarette burned down to its filter in an ashtray filled to the brim, his eyes as curious as they were calm.

“Yes, gentlemen? I’m listening.”

The twin brothers said in unison, “Sir, we came about… well, the thing.” They were almost never apart. They had made the decision never to separate when they grew tired of constantly being mistaken for one another. There was no such thing as calling just one of them. The moment the caller opened their mouth, the names of both tumbled out together like a nursery rhyme.

“What is the problem?”

“We have developed a kind of enhancement program for the biochemical creation using the organelles from the Asymmetric Divine Element Matrix—A.D.E.M.—which are meant to be used for the big boss’s private services and are capable of making their own decisions.”

“Ah, yes. You are talking about that nonsense A.D.E.M. infected our institute with. The institute’s anniversary gift to the big boss… cut to the chase!” the Doctor said. Having remembered it now, he had always thought of this project as an insignificant and unnecessary waste of energy. Moreover, it was foolish sycophancy. The big boss knew nothing of such a project. If the big boss heard that the assistants were messing around with such ridiculous things, the Doctor would be the first to get his ears pulled, but he didn’t want to break the boys’ spirits either.

“We conducted research on the created organism, and we thought about producing another one from its rib DNA, but things went a bit sideways.”

“And how long ago did this happen?”

“Last night, sir!” they said in unison. “We wanted to work on it a bit more after you left. Everything seemed to be going well, but an unexpected development occurred in the mammary glands in the chest area of the organism we produced. Furthermore, this one lacks the appendage found on the front of the first prototype.”

“What’s the problem then? Thanks to a mistake you made, you have developed a servant that is either more flawed or more flawless than the first. Time will tell the consequences of this.”

“Sir, both of them are aging far too rapidly compared to our time. If it goes on like this, we will lose them both before we can deliver them to the big boss.”

“Is that the problem?”

The twins looked at each other. They bowed their heads. “No, sir! A contact that occurred between the second production and the first production caught our attention. Around the time both began to mature, we left them side by side to understand the level of aggression in their demeanor, and the first production hid its own appendage inside the body of the second production. Our examination showed that after this act, the second production began to carry another of their own kind inside her. It is growing rapidly within.”

“So, they are multiplying,” he said, stroking his beard. The wrinkles around his eyes deepened significantly. The silence of anger was steadily expanding.

“Sir!” they nudged closer with curiosity and anxiety. “Dr. Samael, are you alright?”

Lighting another cigarette, Samael took a deep drag and muttered, “Invaders,” to Harut and Marut, who stood trembling and doubled over before him. “These are invaders. As if it wasn’t enough that you created life knowing full well the Boss demands absolute permission for every act of creation, you went and tried to make another identical one, failed at it, and caused them to reproduce on their own. You morons! You have created invaders that multiply uncontrollably! You gave them gender, you fools! When the Boss fires us all, you two idiots will be the ones responsible, and those at A.D.E.M. will laugh their asses off at us!” The Doctor no longer bothered to control his fury; as he shouted, his pupils shifted, taking the shape of flames.

II.

As Dr. Samael strode through the automatic doors of the Institute of Creation and Destruction, his eyes flashing fire, the twins scurried behind him like ducklings following their mother, trying to avoid eye contact with the institute staff who were fleeing left and right in terror. The twins entered the elevator along with Dr. Samael, their fingers reaching for the minus-three button at the exact same time, but the Doctor pressed the button first. This meant, “You two morons lack the capability to operate an elevator,” and the message was received loud and clear by the twins.

They entered the laboratory. To the right of the giant monitors mounted on the walls—which displayed universes being formed and dismantled—were attached chronometers that ensured time could be restarted over and over. The chronometers were symbolized by hourglass icons. The filling chamber shifted in color from blue to red; when it reached red, the process of destruction would begin.

When they arrived before the door labeled “NO ENTRY EXCEPT FOR LABORATORY STAFF” and saw it was unlocked, the Doctor took a deep breath and looked at the twins. Neither could remember which one had forgotten to lock the door, and they stared at each other with blank expressions. Dr. Samael was the first to enter the room. The perimeter of the thousand-square-meter observation chamber built in the center, enclosed by glass windows, was designed in the form of a high-elevated, two-row amphitheater. Thus, those created through experiments could be observed in this arena. The interior of the chamber was decorated with miniatures of the Kawtar and Khamr rivers, alongside Tuba, apple, and date trees, as well as various plants and flowers. The second-production servant was sleeping among the branches of the Tuba tree, while the first-production servant was vomiting a crimson liquid by the head of the miniature Khamr river. The Doctor was running his hand through his beard, contemplating how to solve the problem, when he failed to hear the sound of the door opening behind them.

“What are these?”

They startled at the voice of a fourth person asking the question.

The big boss had materialized beside them. The twins took a step back, hiding behind the Doctor.

“These…” Samael said, wondering what to say to his old friend. Though he knew what to say, he could not predict what the reaction would be. There was no use in hiding it. “These are the prototypes of the servants capable of making their own decisions, thinking of what would be best for you before you even think of it yourself, meant to be presented to you as a gift for the institute’s anniversary. This way, you won’t have to ask, yet they will do it. They were created in secret from you to be a surprise, and I gave the approval. The first one produced is that drunkard at the head of the Khamr. The other is the pregnant one in the tree… So, as you can see, even though the project is currently an absolute fiasco, there are things I cannot comprehend.”

“So, they can reproduce,” the big boss said. He maintained his composure. He always did, but one way or another, the Absolute Dominator would make one pay the price for a mistake made with a surprise mishap that would appear when least expected; sometimes the punishment came as wrath, causing great pain and suffering.

“They can reproduce. The one in the tree is female, the first produced is male,” Samael said.

“Come with me,” the boss told Samael, and they stepped into one of the vacant rooms in the institute to speak privately.

“Tell me, what do you think you are doing? You used to loathe this kind of gift. Are you getting old or what?”

“I don’t want to shift the blame onto the kids, Al-Kahhar, but I still don’t care for this kind of nonsense. Gifts and such are not for me.”

“What is this reproduction business?” the boss asked thoughtfully. He knew Samael had no taste for these matters.

“I don’t know how it happened, but while examining the last universe we established, I discovered something very interesting. I was planning to tell you, but I wanted to understand it first.”

“Explain!”

Samael took the remote and selected one of the cosmic models on the screen. Bypassing millions of star clusters, he located the Solar System within the Milky Way Galaxy and focused on the third planet closest to the sun. A lush blue planet was quietly rotating on its axis. “This is Earth,” he said. “When this universe was first established, a feeling inside me told me something would go wrong, and that anomaly is this very planet. This planet generates life independently of us. I went there with Gabriel from A.D.E.M. The prototypes you saw in the chamber live there almost identically. They all come from the ocean. They evolve. Different species emerge both in water and on land, but these ones are different. While the others proceed in a balance, these ones have ambitions, they have their own decisions, and despite possessing fragile bodies, they view themselves as the sole power on the planet, trying to take over the entire world.”

“So how did they end up here?” the boss asked with an uncomfortable suspicion.

“I was conducting observations, but Gabriel took samples from some of them for physical analysis. And when our kids were brainstorming a servant capable of making its own decisions, they used the organelles that came from A.D.E.M. Gabriel played us, whether intentionally or unintentionally.”

“Gabriel is the head of A.D.E.M., and the institute is yours. You are at the banks of the Khamr every night, and that causes you to neglect your responsibilities, my old friend. Now let me tell you this: to keep an eye on Gabriel, I will terminate his duty at A.D.E.M. and bring him to my side, and I will accept your gift with a ceremony. But if your creations dare to reproduce, you will find yourself along with your team in that place you call Earth, and you won’t be able to return until the cosmic clock runs out.”

“Sir, we can prevent them from reproducing, but compared to our time, their lifespan will be a maximum of three days. Limited production would mean uninterrupted service.”

“I know you can prevent them from reproducing, my ancient friend. But that is not what I am saying,” Al-Kahhar said with a smile. “I do not want their reproduction, nor do I want their service. Ensuring their obedience depends on your own obedience. Let this be your trial, Samael,” he said, and smiled.

The meeting was over. Left alone in the room as the big boss exited, the Doctor stared at the screen for a moment. Finding a formula to obliterate the planet was not difficult, but doing so would be disobedience. He felt an idea mature in his mind. The problem was how to pitch this idea to the boss.

III.

He found his boss sitting wearily at a crowded table by the banks of the Khamr, as usual. His head filled with the usual problems and gossip, he was watching the surroundings, starved for something interesting. Going over to him and asking for the permission of those at the table, he invited the boss to his own table and went straight to the point: “Send me, the productions, and the twins to that planet I showed you.”

The boss asked, unable to hide his surprise, “What will you do there?”

“I will equip the productions with knowledge here and release them among the primitive invaders there. They will reproduce there, retain their knowledge through their own generations, and when they reach a number sufficient to form a community, they will share it with the others. This way, the experiment will gain meaning, we will prevent them from reproducing here, and you will be rid of this ridiculous gift,” Samael argued, defending his idea.

“And what good will that do?”

“Those on the planet are savages right now. They hunt and gather, they reproduce, they pillage whatever they find. When ours form their own colonies, I will teach them to cultivate the land there and domesticate animals, how to benefit from them. Thus, the other savage communities will stop fighting and exploiting the planet, and they will form a version of life here over there. What do you say?”

As Al-Kahhar pondered Samael’s words, he asked the question that surfaced in his mind: “How can you be so sure that their pillaging will end once they settle the land?”

“Just a guess…” Samael replied.

“We have left everything to chance until today. The number of universes we have built and destroyed is evident. We have researched before how micro and macro life forms behave without our intervention. We know that water finds its way.”

“This time will be different. Give permission. For the first time, they will go equipped with knowledge, and for the first time, they will affect a life form that we did not create. Our experiment is vital in this regard.”

“I need you here. If you go, it will be thought that there is a problem between us.”

“Let me go, Al-Kahhar. It will be better this way. Furthermore, if these two productions mate—and they will—it will cause more serious problems between us. You know that using this against me, and taking a stand against everyone to protect me, will raise even greater issues,” Samael said.

Though Al-Kahhar was reluctant about this operation, he was aware that Samael was right. The friction between the two institutes would eventually cost someone their head, and Al-Kahhar had to maintain the balance. “Fine, go. I want to be constantly briefed. The project will end when I desire, and do not forget that I will intervene from here if I deem it necessary,” he said, setting his condition, concluding the conversation, and returning to his table.

Samael knew the boss would play the Gabriel card. Notifying Harut and Marut to prepare the productions, he summarized his meeting with the boss and requested them to come to the Khamr when they finished their work. They were to set out, and it was uncertain how long their mission would last. The twins were anxious, but it was impossible for them to object to Samael.

*

The tables of the Khamr were packed, as usual. The cauldron of gossip was boiling; the trap Gabriel had set for Samael and his falling out with Al-Kahhar stood at the center of the table conversations. Everyone had become aware of the invaders. Samael was uncomfortable with the eyes upon him, but most of all with the eyes of Azrael. He was a thorough man of duty. It was impossible for him to forge a link between any given command and his conscience; he was a stone. Even if he pressed his lips to the source of the Khamr and drank it all in one breath, it was still impossible for his heart to soften. To escape Azrael’s gaze, he sat at a table far from him.

The murmur died down. While a ghilman placed a large pitcher of wine and a goblet on Samael’s table and quickly moved away, Azrael rose from his seat, elbowed those around him, and dispersed the crowd. Sitting directly opposite Samael, he fixed his panther eyes—which gleamed within the shadowed face remaining beneath the hood of his robe, seen by almost no one—upon Samael.

“Why?” he asked. His voice was softer than the voices of all the houris and sirens. A voice carrying no emotion, no cadence, a voice that penetrated within the moment it was heard, crushing the soul… “You are the person Al-Kahhar trusts most.”

Unable to suppress a laugh, Samael said, “I thought that person was you,” and turning swiftly serious, added, “I don’t think this concerns you, Azrael.”

“I came to speak with you as a friend, but I see you are still very rigid.”

“Leave me be, Azrael. The twins will be here shortly; I am waiting for them.”

“So be it,” Azrael said, rising from his stool as the hems of his robe billowed, and everyone at the head of the Khamr felt the breath of death upon their necks.

Harut and Marut entered through the door in all their innocence and found their boss. From the previous aura, the Khamr had fallen into a virtual deathly silence; yet the twins felt neither this silence nor Azrael’s eyes upon them. Their minds were occupied with the journey they would take. As always, they sat opposite their boss as meticulously as possible, trying not to commit any clumsiness. As Samael explained the details of the plan to the twins, he did so quite carelessly and in a manner everyone could hear, while scanning the surroundings. Though he knew certain ears were tuned to them, Al-Kahhar knew everything and had approved it. Even if it weren’t so, nothing would change. Samael and the twins finished the wine in the pitcher and rose.

Azrael called out to Samael, saying, “You are escaping early today, my ancient friend.”

When Samael made eye contact with Azrael, his pupils were in the shape of flames, but he was suppressing his anger.

“Weapons do not make friends, Azrael; they are used and buried,” he said, and as he walked out the door, he snapped his fingers, erasing every sentence heard by the surroundings while they spoke from everyone’s memory. Their journey was a secret once more, until the gossip flared anew.

That night, the Doctor and the twins were ready to take the productions and dive into the universes.

IV.

“A.D.E.M. and the female form had aged during the journey and multiplied in number. Under the supervision of Harut and Marut, they descended to the planet. Along the way, they received training in making meaningful sounds, inflecting sounds, identifying, naming and drawing objects, lighting and controlling fire, and utilizing the soil. Since A.D.E.M., during the sound inflection training, frequently pointed at his female and uttered the sounds hav and va successively from his throat in a raspy manner, we began to call the second production Eve.

Their sons Cain, Abel, and their twins Awan and Azura descended to the planet as young individuals. While the A.D.E.M. family carried out gathering and agriculture together under our supervision, learning about the planet on one hand, they managed to craft small utensils and sun-dried mud bricks from the soil on the other. A peaceful atmosphere prevailed within the family, contrary to the general state of affairs on the planet; that is, until the mating season arrived,” Samael said as he delivered his defense to Al-Kahhar.

To witness Samael’s hearing, all the dignitaries of Eden, personnel from all echelons of both institutes, from subordinates to executives, had come. The trial was frequently interrupted by the murmurs of the audience, resuming only after Al-Kahhar’s warnings for silence. As expected, the employees of the Institute of Creation and Destruction, which Samael presided over, took Samael’s side, watching Master Gabriel, the president of A.D.E.M. who accused Samael and his assistants, and Azrael, who carried out the dirty work of the Absolute Dominator Al-Kahhar, with furious eyes. The partisans of A.D.E.M., on the other hand, demanded the confinement of Samael and his assistants.

In the corner of the monitor mounted on the wall, the hourglass showing that the time of the universe they spoke of had now run out was flashing red. As for the planet, it had already succumbed to the gravitational pull of the sun and collided with it, vanishing at the end of an eight-minute journey. The sun was swallowing whatever lay in its vicinity within its system. Al-Kahhar adjusted the screen using his mouse to a size where the entire universe could be seen. The situation was identical in all of them. The great stars were swallowing everything in their surroundings, then collapsing into themselves.

“And then?” Al-Kahhar asked.

Samael could not take his eyes off the screen.

“A question was asked of you,” Azrael reminded him in a threatening tone.

“You tell the rest,” Samael said, his eyes blazing with fury born of helplessness.

“I want to hear it from you,” the big boss said.

Samael looked exhausted and distressed, as if undergoing torture. He knew that when the universe ended, everyone connected to the matter would be tried. And the greatest punishment had been dealt to him. First ostracized, he was later accused of turning the universe he worked on into an alternative center of power. He was charged with cooperating with the invaders to form an alternative to the big boss. He thought of Harut and Marut. Of their imprisonment on the planet. He had not seen his assistants since he returned. He thought of asking about their condition, but he knew it would be utterly meaningless. He looked at Al-Kahhar and at Gabriel, who stood beside him with solemn dignity.

“Yes?” Al-Kahhar said. “Continue.”

“This is an order,” Samael muttered with distress. “This is your order,” he said to Al-Kahhar, gesturing toward Gabriel and Azrael who were present in the room. “I, he, and this one… We are all part of the order. You are destroying a universe you built just to eliminate me. If you are amused, the rest matters not.”

“You are crossing the line, Samael!” Gabriel snapped.

At Al-Kahhar’s signal, the door opened, and the twins were brought into the meeting between two guards. Both looked wretched.

“You tell it!” Al-Kahhar commanded.

Harut and Marut looked at each other, trying to understand what they were to tell. After Gabriel summarized what Samael had recounted, he left the remainder to the twins.

“They understood everything quickly, they did everything quickly,” Harut said. “They swiftly influenced the tribes and stragglers around them. In a short time, they mingled with those you referred to as ‘them’ in your later messages—that is, the spiritually sealed ones—and they taught them what they knew as well. There was no problem until the mating season of the adolescents arrived.”

“What happened after that?” Azrael asked.

The twins trembled when the question fell from Azrael’s breath.

“Cain wanted to mate with his twin because, by natural selection, like every mammal whose mating season has arrived, Cain gravitated toward the beautiful one of his own kind; however, as we had taught him, A.D.E.M. permitted Awan to mate with Abel to keep the gene pool wide. Though Cain grew angry, he displayed no tendency to cause harm. He was going to calm down.”

“How do you know this?” Gabriel asked.

“It always happened,” Marut said. “We observed them, we raised them. We taught them that they needed to make their voices heard from time to time to obtain what was rightfully theirs, but that they must stay away from violence. And they followed our counsels to the letter. It was impossible for them not to follow them, Master Gabriel; they were a project.”

“And then?” Al-Kahhar said.

“Cain crushed Abel’s head with a stone,” Marut said in a whisper.

“No!” Harut interjected, as if tired of carrying a secret and finally ready to confess; “Master Gabriel came to Cain at a moment when he was alone and spoke of Al-Kahhar and his greatness. Cain was afraid. Master Gabriel said that if a sacrifice were offered, and whichever one’s sacrifice was accepted, he would take Awan. Cain asked what a sacrifice meant; Master Gabriel explained it to him. Cain did not possess a nature capable of killing. Neither did Abel. They did not know what violence was. Master Gabriel explained the same things to Abel and gave him a ram as a sacrifice, and a knife. He explained what he had to do, step by step. And that this was the only way to possess Awan. Possessing Awan had become important for both of them now. Cain had not understood the concept of sacrifice. We learned from Doctor Samael that it was an abandoned tradition. Then he took the ears of wheat he had gathered and left them upon the rock, and Abel left his own sacrifice. Master Gabriel took the sheep as he had promised Abel, and left. Then, as far as we understood from Cain’s description, Master Azrael appeared and entered into him. He lifted a stone of a size Cain could not possibly lift, and crushed Abel’s head.” The murmur that had begun in response to Harut’s words gave way to a vast silence.

Harut’s words caused a great uproar in the hall. Chaos now reigned in the spectator rows.

Al-Kahhar cut the uproar short with the command “Continue,” issued in a highly menacing manner from between his teeth.

Samael spoke up, saying, “The rest is known… When they told me what they knew, Gabriel imprisoned the two of them to punish them. The earthly tribes you marked as ‘them’ were terrified by this murder and by Cain, and they abandoned the village. Some thought that Cain too ought to die; the problem grew larger and larger. The first blood had been spilled. Interestingly, we learned about war over there. In time, no living being of A.D.E.M. origin survived, yet certain humans directed by Gabriel introduced themselves as if they had come from A.D.E.M. They all knew the secret, they were all aware of all of us, and by spreading this secret, they made the masses believe that they were not of ‘them,’ but this was a grand game. Your magnificent game… The poor creatures worship the heavens, thinking they are the grandchildren of those they believe came from the heavens. They all think they are cared for. Yet the entire universe was already established for the experiments of the Institute of Creation and Destruction. I care neither for them nor for A.D.E.M.; what I do not understand is this: if you wish to destroy us, you are the absolute power, Al-Kahhar, why? Why all of this?”

Chaotica