21 Chapter 21 – Afghanistan & Apollo Enterprises
Time skip to April 1986
[3rd POV]
In Moscow, the heart of the USSR, Gorbachev sighed as he looked at all the papers on his desk. The USSR had seen better times. The war in Afghanistan was costing an absurd number of lives and money. The World Chess Championship they hosted in 1984 had made the politburo the laughingstock of both outsiders and their own people. There were nationalist movements in the other Soviet republics. There was increasing dissent in all the other states in the Warsaw Pact. And any available funds were spent in the arms race against the United States. Not to mention he got a call last night regarding a nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl.
But they had hope.
Looking at the file in his hands, he smiled. Yes, they had a chance. A cheat card that could be used to solve (almost) all problems.
Flipping to the end of the file, he signed the dotted line with his pen. Yes, everything would be alright.
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Time skip to May 1986
[3rd POV]
Artemis found herself in Kabul. She was decked out in night camo gear, given a bow, quiver of arrows, knife, pistol, and a couple of grenades.
Giving her commanding officer a salute, she rushed out of the base in the middle of the night, the moon illuminating her path.
Using her super speed she ran straight to a mountain, tracking down her prey like a tiger, until she reached a cave entranced blocked by a door. Creeping around, she heard voices behind the door speaking in Dari (basically Afghan Persian) and some in Arabic. Pulling a pin from a grenade, she kicked the door, bending the metal inwards, and proceeded to toss a grenade through the open crevice. After the explosion, she continued to bend the metal until there was a hole large enough for her to slip in.
Inside she found a bunch of torn up bodies. Her grenade had exploded a small depot of weapons kept near the entrance. As she silently glided across the floor, she more voices down the hall. Pulling out her knife and pistol, she started going door to door, kicking them down, shooting and stabbing everyone inside.
Eventually, she made her way to the other side of the hideout, which happened to be on the other side of the mountain. There was a clearing with a small helipad where a helicopter was about to take off.
"Hurry! It's her! Baba Yaga! We need to get out of here before that Russian bitch kills us all."
The local commander was yelling in Arabic to his aide, who was currently dragging a trunk. Inside was a wide assortment of important things. Everything from papers documenting important locations, artifacts that dated back to the Greco-Bactrian Empire, and a cool pistol he nicked off a dead Soviet officer.
As the man dragging the trunk was about to respond, he felt an arrow fly past him. Looking at its destination, he saw his commander with an arrow through his neck.
"Allahu Akbar," the commander muttered before collapsing.
The pilot quickly started the helicopter without the man or the trunk. "Wait!" he exclaimed, running towards it without the trunk, but it was too late.
As the helicopter flew further and further away, the man collapsed to his knees, watching it fly away. From the corner of his eye, he saw another arrow, but he could've sworn that this time it glowed silver. It decapitated the helicopter's top rotor, resulting in it crashing into the ground in a fiery explosion.
Turning around, he saw the one everyone called 'Baba Yaga.' A girl who looked 16 stood, bow in hand, glowing in silver with red hair waving with the wind.
She then turned her attention towards him. He expected a fierce look, perhaps one of hate or anger, but instead found one of sadness.
As she raised her gun at him, he dropped to the floor, begging her, his god, anyone to come and save him.
Artemis simply looked at him with pity. Emotionless, she lowered her gun, picked up the over 100kg trunk and made her way back to the base.
The man would beg and pray continuously for 9 hours until the sun came up. When he finally looked up, he realized he wasn't dead, and the girl was gone.
Going back to the base, he found no survivors and only found corpses – or at least what was left of them. That man never forgave, and he never forgot. That man's name was Osama bin Laden.
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Time skip to September 1986
[Main POV]
I smiled as I watched the sunrise. I felt the most powerful at this time of day. Standing on the Sunscraper, I looked over Apollonia (the name of my new town). I checked to make sure no one was around before gliding back down to Earth.
The recordings were going well. Yuka's grandfather's friend owned an agency that usually represented actors but had found many who were willing to give voice acting a try. Some had even offered to do it for free in order to gain favor with their boss. Ah, Japanese work culture: I loved it.
As for Olivia and Emily, they had done well with finding talented voice actors. It wasn't that hard, considering California was fertile ground for aspiring actors who were ecstatic at even getting a voice actor role.
At the start of the year, I had Olivia create Apollo Enterprises in my name. She acted as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) and handled everything for me. In fact, most employees didn't even know I was in charge. They thought I was Olivia's little brother or something. It was only after learning my name, did they piece together who was pulling the strings.
To help with the administrative work, I got a couple more girls who 'graduated' from St. Catherines Orphanage. Emily was also able to convince Ms. Davis to let girls over fourteen work at Apollo Enterprises for 4 months out of the year. For 'work experience' of course.
After that, I officially put Emily in charge of recruitment, along with finding people who'd be open to joining my cult. It was really awkward when I walked into a room where a bunch of people wearing robes were being led in a prayer by Emily speaking perfect latin.
In terms of non-administrative tasks, we were able to hire lots of people on the other side of the Mexico-American border at a discount. We tried to only hire legally, but it was bureaucratically impossible to get a work visa approved. So, we had to resort to less than legal measures. Quite unfortunate.
In Site 002, I had created factory assembly lines. The entire process was automated, so I just had an employee stand there, making sure nothing exploded, and if it did, then to press the big red button.
What did the big red button do? It sent a message to my phone. Nothing else. Of course, I didn't tell that to the employee. I told them it would fix the problem. Since I would be called, and I would fix the problem, it technically wasn't a lie.
What were my factories producing? I had a few assembly lines for tech, and a bunch for merch. After all, movies and tv shows produced cultural power, but the merch produced all the money. I also had a few printers set up for books.
However, they weren't producing hundreds millions of products. Due to my limited funds, I wasn't able to purchase the sheer amount of raw materials needed. I could simply transmute the materials (which I did), but I knew I couldn't do so limitlessly. That would be way too suspicious.
But I had nothing to fear, as I knew everything would pay off next year.
.
"Olivia. How're you doing?" There were currently stacks of papers over a foot high on her desk.
"You know, when I accepted the offer to work for you," she said in a monotone voice while continuing to sign papers, "I didn't think there'd be this much paperwork."
I smiled. All I had to sign was a few pieces of paper making her COO.
"I brought you the last three books for the publishing agency," I said showing her the notebooks.
"Oh good, I'll have my secretary take it to them."
"Since when did you have a secretary?"
"Since I got a mountain of paperwork to deal with."
"Touché."
I was about to exit the room, but Olivia stopped me, "Hold on, aren't you going to tell me about the books?"
I stopped. "I thought you had paperwork."
She stopped writing and set the pen down.
"I could use a break."
I sat into the chair opposite her and started explaining.
"The first book is called The Martian. It's a thrilling scientifically driven novel that follows the gripping survival of an astronaut on Mars after a mission goes bad. Facing extreme isolation and limited resources, he has to rely on his ingenuity and scientific knowledge to find ways to survive and communicate with Earth. It explores themes of human resilience, problem-solving, and the indomitable human spirit in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds."
"Reminds of like Life of Pi."
"Except this is more scientific cause it's in space." I shrugged, "Honestly, I wrote it cause I think it'll make a great movie in the future."
"Go on," Olivia said.
"The other two are WWII stories. The Book Thief is a story of a young girl who loves books."
"Totally unrelatable."
I snorted. "To be fair, she's in WWII, it's the only thing that she can provide solace amidst the worst war in human history.
The third book is called The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. It's a heartbreaking tale about a boy who lives near a concentration camp and befriends a jewish boy. It's a commentary on the tragedy and injustice of the Holocaust from a child's eyes."
"Does he save his friend?"
"No, the story ends with them both getting gassed."
Olivia, who was looking out the window, turned her head to look at me. After a few seconds, she seemed to find her words.
"Who hurt you?"
"Fuck you too."
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