2012 - Covolution

Sixty years ago, fortune hunters unearthed several stone tablets, hidden within a cave in Africa. Carved on one of the artifacts was a primitive inscription, “…a labyrinth of translucent corridors encircles and controls…” The rest of the proverb is unreadable. Yet, numerous of scholars analyzing this millennium stone, concurs it means; our existence lies inside a Glass Maze.

Hmm…for a commoner, accepting that Mother Nature purposely plays a game of fortitude on our destiny as fact, is an implausible assertion. Self-absorption prevents us from seeing any connection to nature. But of course, looking from another angle, numerous of traditional fairytales does metaphorically illustrated ways for humans to overcome their fear of being.

In reality, only a tiny minority of the human populace comprehends the complex legendary fables from the past and therefore, successively moves through life’s lucent web of survival to accomplish their true goals. Oddly, for the majority, seeing light shining in the Glass Maze of Life is a too difficult task. Seeing as, they either fail getting past the first obstacles of the Glass Maze of Life or fight against destiny’s objective.

Leonard Kain agrees with this, however, via his logic, he belongs to a special group of people lacking choice in their destiny, and therefore, spared from falling into the game of life.
After all, he surfs through the Glass Maze of Life with ease because diversions from semi-transparent mirrored walls never blocked his way.

Well, umm…that is until around 2:00 AM on the first day of 2012, as the hazy fumes from the New Year fireworks blazing in the sky above Mainhatten finally dissipated into the air. Mysteriously, the cloudless dark sky engulfing the city divided by the Main River jiggles joy into the hearts of many stargazers standing at the waterfront. An intergalactic hint that Leo should see as a warning, but the thousands of stars dominating the bluish-black setting tricks him.

The full Moon protecting the heavens causes an unexpected delight in Leo, and this panoramic view screams, “Hey, ask Lori the big question now.”

Irrational confidence swindles Leo into believing, the Cosmos approves of his plan. Therefore, he and others push through the overcrowded waterfront at the Main River to their objective.

Superstition tricks many people into believing they are unique. In this case, Leo is lead to the old bridge which created a bond with him and his brothers, Ricky and Eddie. An erroneous faith that causes him to envision, asking Lori to marry him under the Brickegickel (pronounced brick-a-gickel) statue would bring them a long life of luck.

Being, the oldest operational bridge in Frankfurt am Main, the Alte Brücke was built in twelfth century AD. This historical masterpiece of work succumbed to devastation, at least, eighteen times over its lifespan. And the last official time man-made aggression destroyed this bridge was March ‘45. Afterwards, the local governing body accepted defeat and then refused to restore it completely.
Luckily for Leo, the citizens of Frankfurt pressured the local governing body into rebuilding the bridge in ‘65, as a reminder of the wickedness from long ago. You see, many people deemed physically viewing the Alte Brücke’s mystical attraction could improve the conscious mind of humans. Especially since, over several centuries, at least 418 people died through drowning, hangings and beheadings on this bridge. Tragedies from the xenophobia that refuse to release its grip on the residents of Frankfurt even today.

What’s more, Leo believes when two or more objects and organisms are born in the same moment, then the cosmic bond between them stays forever. A cosmological equilibrium of the Universe occurred in June of ‘65, when the Alte Brücke newly opened the same time upon Leo’s birth. The results of this celestial wonder also mysteriously compelled the local government into placing the Brickegickel statue back on the bridge.
Hmm…the Brickegickel is…uh, golden rooster alerting the passing ships on the Main River that the bridge is there, while simultaneously, protecting the Alte Brücke from evil entities. Yet, unusual circumstances caused it to be replaced six times in its lifespan. Sadly, in ’92 some lowdown no good…umm, individuals, stole this sculpture.

Ahm…that’s before many people realized this particular golden rooster really was the yellow metallic element, costing hundreds of dollars per gram and still controlling society today. So…uh, it’s no mystery why the thieves swiped it. After all, at today’s prices, a six-kilogram bird of pure gold would influence the most decent person. Hey, humans are not Angels, and staring everyday at an unguarded cool million dollars is…well, you know….

Following the Brickegickel heist, no one foresaw it as wise, to place another extremely expensive bird on a bridge just to prevent its destruction. “Superstition was yesterday,” is the phrase many intellectuals scream out these days. So instead, they replaced the stolen golden rooster two years later with one made out of cheaper materials; bronze to be exact. Yet, this current monstrous looking icon of history has less of the elegance than its predecessors. Hmm…now, after pondering it over, that was a bad decision because eighteen years afterwards… 

KABOOM! An echoing deafening noise dominates the atmosphere without warning. Startlingly, a Cargo plane erroneously rams into the oldest bridge in Frankfurt am Main.
On impulse, the molecules on the backside of Leo’s body freezes up. The alarm bells in his head flip on high alert, and stiffer than timber he stands in a state of shock. For the first time, anxiety pushes his blood pressure to a level that normally gives the average person a heart attack.
Leo is in denial that his muse, mascot, talisman, and lucky charm, the oldest bridge in Mainhatten, no longer exists.

Leo prays that this is only a nightmare and he just needs to wake up. Nonetheless, callously this calamity of horror prolongs its dominance as the Cargo plane continues dancing on the river. In sequence, the Eiserner Steg and Untermainbrücke no longer have a purpose in life. And before an act of fate stops the Boeing 747 a few meters from the Holbeinsteg Bridge: a people overpass so costly that the local government decided to save money by not giving it an official name placard. Thousands of people instantaneously die on this New Years morning.

Well…um, factual data concerning the Holbeinsteg Bridge is useless to the people standing on it, because currently their only interest pertains to surviving. Sure, the main part of the wreckage was stuck, however, like many disasters; human nature persuades us to act without thinking, an unsolvable phenomenon that influences the many of us to do stupid things. So, although the survivors on the Holbeinsteg Bridge were aware of the small fragments from the other bridges still flowing down the river, unconsciously, people began jumping to their instant deaths.
         
This was a wake up call for Leo, who suddenly realizes he is not dreaming and he utters, “Oh man…” Yet, the cries and screams of the rest of the thousands of people, earlier celebrating New Years at the waterfront, overpower his statements. And although, none of these fortunate souls stood on any of the bridges, witnessing the entire event traumatizes them into dismay.
Googols of people stood on the bridges that destiny now considers useless, when minutes later. Another Cargo plane unexpectedly appears and crashes on the other side of the river, directly before the eyes of the remaining people still participating in the Glass Maze of Life.
Startled, like hikers surprised by a hungry bear, no one caught their bearings from the destruction of the bridges, as flames engulfed Sachsenhausen, a section of Frankfurt laying in the south of the city. Uncontrollably, delusional states of imagination begin overwhelming everyone standing at the waterfront. Many people believe they are hallucinating until; the burnt smell of Apple wine rudely tingles through their noses and commands, “wake up, this is not the boy who cried wolf, it’s real.”
Quickly, a diversity of fears circulates through the minds of every surviving individual and then disorder takes over the massive crowd of bystanders. Helping somebody was the last thing on Leo and everyone else’s mind, because what’s transpiring in the bank capital of Europe, showed signs of a terrorist religious group attempting to change the social order again. So, no one could be trusted.

Well, regardless of the typical paranoia that ensnares most people into its web of cynicism, Leo doesn’t believe, a fanatical group preplanned the current tragedy in Mainhatten.
As they push through the massive crowd, Lori unexpectedly asks, “Hey, what is going on Leo?”

Impulsively, Leo begins lying, because here is not the place to explain everything, “Um…I don’t know Schatzel….”

“It’s a terrorist attack!” his brother Ricky suddenly blurs out. 

Promptly, Leo’s other brother; Eddie intervenes before he could respond. “Hey! Shut up - you don’t believe that just as I…,” he said, while keeping an eye on the chaos that swiftly hit the streets of this municipality.

“Uh…well I’m hoping, I’m right instead of…” Richard begins but goes silent and hugs his girlfriend Susan. During this compassionate act, Leo ruminates within, (we received the message two years ago, but until now, none of us knew the meaning of it.)

The Kain brothers have a hypothesis over the origin of this chaos, but, it’s too unbelievable to inform the others at the moment. Leo suggests that presently the safest location is his apartment and after undisputable approval, they commence on this journey.

Some moments later, as Leo and friends, push through the chaotic crowd in Mainhatten, another plane crashes once they arrive on Romerberg. Even from this legendary Roman Mountain region, the fireball of terror flowing down the very crowded pedestrian street name Zeil petrifies everyone. From their distance of 900 meters away, the intensity of heat could still be felt. “Oh jeez…um honey, you don’t think an airplane would hit us before we make it home,” Lori shouts on a whim.

Although unsure, betting on it is something Leo refuses to do because startlingly they all notice that many cars are running over people, as if the vehicles can now think for themselves.
Looters immediately begin smashing store windows and grabbing everything in sight, as a glass barrier, begin materializing before Leo’s eyes. Yet it goes unobserved because he ponders, what if; the government had at least forewarned everyone about the potential enemy. That information could have reduced the amount of deaths occurring. Yet sadly, the wasted money in the year 2000 scare influenced them to keep everything hush-hush.

Under a lot of stress, they take the Saalgasse, a backstreet and shortcut to Leo’s apartment. During this, Leo thinks, (none of the governing bodies alerted to this problem could have prevented the mayhem. Nobody really knew the meaning of the senseless message from two years ago.) When out of the blue, Eddie vigorously yells, “Hey look out!” and then pushes Leo out of the pathway of a rouge mini-SUV, which jumps the curb and decides to make him the next target.

“Thanks Eddie, I…was lost in my thoughts”, Leo utters as the small-size sport utility vehicle crashes into the side of a building.

In a dash, they quickly run over to the car and check on the passengers. Only one person is inside it and the airbag saved her life. “Are you all right?” Leo politely inquires to the stranger coming out of a slight daze.

“Uh…yeah, couldn’t control - this stupid car. It all of a sudden had a mind on its own. By the way - I’m Monic.” She gleefully says, once getting her orientation of the area, as Leo helps her out of the wrecked car.

Either, Monic’s penetrating brownish-green eyes gave Leo the impression that he knew her, or the intonation of her voice. Whatever the case, instinctively he utters, “I’m Leonard Kain - the person you almost attached to the front grill of your car. Um…I would suggest….” Leo and Monic develops a sociable tête-à-tête that astonishes the others.
As everyone else stares at their conversation in bewilderment, like a steak knife smoothly cutting through a juicy piece of meat, Lori sharply intervenes with, “Since when - did you learn to speak in her native tongue?”

The jealousy coming from the sound of Lori’s words reverberates in the, "I will remove a special part of your body", pitch. Especially, how the word “her” was articulated.
Puzzled by this, Leo forgot about his language talent, but luckily, Eddie didn’t. “Um…my brother has the ability to speak in any language as soon as he hears it. A skill he is born with. Lori, you mean to tell me that you did not recognize this in the numerous of years you two been together?” Eddie declares to Leo’s unofficial wife, while gazing at Monic.

Lori recalls Leo’s disclosure about his gift, as everyone else introduced themselves to Monic Aguirre. And although Lori apologizes for displaying mistrust, Leo still has the feeling that she is upset.
An inadequate emotion to Leo, because after being together for a decade, Lori should realize that he only has eyes for her. Furthermore, his brother Eddie stares at Monic, as if she is a goddess from another planet who came here just for him. And this causes Leo to believe that his little brother has finally found a soul mate.

Monic link up with their group in high spirits, once realizing Leo has the same name of the person she was searching for. Also, since no one was at the address she found, she slept in her car during the New Years celebration. Nonetheless, she keeps this to herself for now because of the current circumstances.

Leo and the others then continue walking down the Saalgasse in silence, while the sounds of exploding televisions inside the apartments overhead buzzed into their ears.
Many people are running out of their homes in fear as, Eddie suddenly asserts, “Hmm…Leo I was wondering. What can we do? We gave the results of our research to many governments. So…why not try escaping to a safe area like the Odenwald forest before it is too late?”

Ricky rudely intrudes with, “Eduardo – living like Tarzan and Jane is something I prefer not doing. Hey little bro, sometimes your gossip about living with nature disgusts me - so please shut up. I think the only way out of this is…”

“Ricky! That’s enough. Perhaps - there is still time to do something. Um…we must go back to my apartment and check…” Leo suddenly says, yet then an abrupt thought makes him yell, “Listen everybody – throw away your cell phones!”

“Motherf…you finally lost your mind, this phone cost me a week of overtime. I’m…” Richard begins insultingly disputing his stance until witnessing, a cell phone blowing up in the face of someone else on the street. Then, quickly, he tosses his own away, under the knowledge that revealing to the others a family secret about the Kain brothers would only build up more stress. 

In normal situations, it only takes twenty minutes to make it to Leo’s apartment, however, pandemonium on the streets block their passageway. Runaway cars, exploding cell phones, and igniting televisions slows them down to a snails pace.
In short, the city of Frankfurt is now an organic verses inorganic war zone. All objects controlled by microprocessors have risen up against their human masters in defiance.

For the last four decades, Ricky, Eddie, and Leo did, more or less, everything as a group. They even studied the same profession in order to keep the clique together. This is because Leo deems outer forces control human behavior, and since, they all are born on the same day the Alte Brücke reopened; the Cosmos wants them to thwart a coming evil. And so today, they have the same occupation and own a business conducting software assessments.
Right now, Leo is grateful destiny brought them together because if they never had met each other, then like many other lost sheep on the streets searching for a shepherd to lead them, they would become superfluous. In addition to that, the warning from two years ago would be nonexistent, if not for them. Yet, a wary conscious influences Eddie Kain to spill the beans about their experiment, to the women in the group.
 
Ricky, Eddie, and Leo’s occupation is in SI-informatics, a relatively new branch of science. Several governments funded this clandestinely business to analyze the behaviors of synthetic intelligences and solve the computer virus problem.
Seeing as, the majority of people deem Antivirus companies construct computer viruses in underground laboratories just to keep their businesses running at full profit. Well, Leo discovered that most computer viruses are programs, derived from crashed spaceships, with artificial intelligences developing mischievous behaviors after boredom sets in.
However, revealing to Joe Q public that we copied this software technique from alien technology, but it’s safe as long as we don’t use the original materials, would push the entire computer business structure back into the Stone Ages. After all, our trepidation of the unknown is what created the repulsive society today.
         Um…the term AI is a little hard to prove in this case because it concerns only source codes. Nonetheless, Leo convinced these governments that certain mathematical algorithms make these tiny programs think on their own and in turn, they developed a non-natural cleverness.

Eddie explained the entire investigative study to Lori, Monic and Susan, and none of them was happy about it. The emotional stress afterwards almost caused a fight between Eddie and Ricky, which Leo had to intervene. The Kain brothers knew, now is not the time to reveal a family secret to the others.

Once everything was settled the six of them then decide to take a shortcut through an alleyway. Another glass barrier slowly materializes before Leo’s eyes as a small group of people standing at the gates of the former Dominican monastery, utilized by Black Friars in the nineteen century, catch their attention. Irritated, Ricky confronts these people, “Hey, what are - you all waiting for? This place has been locked up for ages?”

Gunter, a gray-haired man among this small band of people, calmly replies, “Waiting for the end at a place made for serenity is better than one full of materialistic objects.”
In other words, these frighten people already experienced exploding electrical appliances and terrorizing elevators, so none of them want to go back inside any buildings. To them, this is the end for humankind because all communication lines are down and chaos rules the streets.

“Oh great! Listen gramps…” Richard sarcastically begins.

Yet, impulsively, Lori interrupts Ricky before he insults anyone, by declaring, “Um…come with us – the children can get warm at Leo’s apartment then later on – we’ll head to a cabin in Lohrberg. It is higher ground from the rising river and at the moment the safest place for every….”

Lori convinces these people to come with them and the whole time she explains her plan, Leo’s facial expression argues, (hey, I’m the leader of our clique. What she says is absurd. Just minutes ago, she was in tears after learning about the source of chaos. Also, upon hearing the screams of horror when the artificial damn suddenly broke up, she panicked.)

Leo stands silently in shock because he is not too thrilled that Lori’s leadership ability exposes itself. It is a kick in his balls because her attitude went from one of timidity to a self-assured organizer looking out for the vulnerable. He had always taken for granted that he was in charge of their group, and right now he became redundant.
To add gasoline to the fire, these people decide to follow Lori, the Shepherd, like lost sheep. And in order to calm down, Leo dwells about his theory of Ceres, a small planetary-like rock that hovers in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Leo deems Ceres was the core of the planet between Mars and Jupiter, which mysterious exploded eons ago.
         In turn, the annihilation of this planet made Mars uninhabitable, and mutated the chromosomes of humans on Earth. A theory Leo bases on introns, the so-called junk DNA in human chromosomes. Introns are the alter ego of exons, the part of the genome that programs the cells and makes us human. Like periods at the end of sentences; introns divide the genetic code.

Leo reckons introns affects human behavior during times of emergency. For example, when a great tragedy occurs the majority of people tend to search for a leader. A strange phenomenon, when considering, under normal situations most people avoid each other.
Yet somehow, an exceptional catastrophe turns off, the individual thinking process in humans, and on, the collective consciousness. In other words, the majority of humans end up as sheep looking for a shepherd. A trend Leo accepts as faulty because fear of the unexplainable also influences many people to become unaware if the person they follow behind is a jerk or psychopath.
 
Ordinarily, Leo wouldn’t be upset with Lori because her aura displays a vitality, which compels a person to accept her as someone with superior guidance. However, fact is, he feels offended, even though there’s not a drop of evil within her and she makes the perfect leader. Silently, Leo shakes his head in disbelief because dethronement was something he never expected.

The twenty new followers join the group, and as all of them come upon Kurt-Schumacher Avenue minutes later, Leo’s resentment of his new position shift gears.
Everyone stare in shock at the unofficially approved crash derby on this street except Leo. Cars clogged up a once busy boulevard like a battlefield from a war movie. Live electrical wires from the streetlights dances in joy on the ground before them. And small groups of people run into different directions looking for shelter. Yet, all this goes unnoticed to Leo, due to his envy of Lori. As another glass barrier begins slowly materializes before Leo’s eyes, unpredictably, Ricky darts off to the right.

Seconds later, Ricky gleefully sings and dances in joy, “I’m rich, I’m wealthy and prosperously set…” This act makes the children within their group snicker out loud, yet his brothers were only curious about the sudden happiness.

Once Leo and Eddie see the Brickegickel in Ricky’s hands, they realize his source of pleasure. However, “Um…Ricky, that golden chicken is made out of bronze. Remember, the one out of pure gold was stolen twenty years ago,” Edward abruptly says.

“No…remember Eduardo – six disappeared and one of them was lost in the Main River centuries ago. Well, here it is. Also, it’s a rooster”, Ricky argues and then goes back to singing. “I’m rich….”

Leo inspects the Brickegickel his brother holds like a vice grip and sure enough; it is not the one, which recently stood on the bridge. Nevertheless, he asserts, “Ricky, let it stay where you found it.”

“What! Are you fu…um Leo, you lost your mind. This is worth at least a cool million at today’s prices. You may have tricked me into throwing away my phone but…microprocessors does not control this and so it comes with me brother,” Richard articulates this like gold diggers in the past that protected their mines out of pure paranoia.
This mistrust raised concerns in Leo because trying to convince Ricky to let it be, might create a physical fight; one that would expose the family secret about the Kain brothers.

“Ricky, think about it! The Brickegickel belongs to the past. What happened earlier means - we should move forward and not backwards. The Alte Brücke is gone, so leave the Brickegickel in peace and let’s move on…,” Leo brusquely says, while glancing in the distance, at the space the bridge once stood. He knows it is time to move on to bigger things.

Some minutes later, common sense persuades Ricky into placing the golden bird back on the ground. After all, a new world order begins and none of them truly knows what lies over the horizon. Yet, one thing is certain; the previous social structure went away in a puff of smoke and no longer exists.

Ricky’s behavior causes Leo to dwell on many other lost civilizations of the past. They too disappeared overnight, the Mayans, Greeks, Romans and numerous of others, mysteriously lost their kingdoms. Yet, the human race reinvented itself with little knowledge of these technological advances.
Is this what Albert Einstein meant uttering; “God does not play Dice!” Does this indicate that everything’s preplanned from the beginning and the only way out of our re-repeating destiny is coming to terms with reality?
The Alte Brücke, gone, the Brickegickel, rests in peace, and a new world order rises up from the ashes.

Leo now grasp that his perfect world passed away and in turn, he notices the semi-transparent mirrored wall standing before his eyes. However, he refuses submitting to destiny’s calling, and the sound of a baby crying influences him to break through this one. Impulsively, Leo dashes to the location of the child weeping for help at an incredible tempo, without worrying about the later consequences.

Inside a wrecked car on the other side of the once busy Kurt-Schumacher Avenue, a mother and child were in need. The baby, wide-awake and howling, but the mother is unconscious and moaning.
Upon arrival, Leo spontaneously rips off the car door and tosses it behind him, like a newspaper boy does on his routes. In so doing, the people across the street, that just joined the group, gaze in shock and astonishment. And although, it takes them some minutes to catch up to Leo, once they come to the scene, his brother Ricky was ironically grilling him over what their mother warned them about long ago.

Gunter, a gray-haired old man amongst the small group of people they picked up from the Dominican monastery, overhear the conversation and abruptly inquire, “You three are the boys of Boris and Anya Kain?”

Time stops.

While trying not to look dumbfounded, Leo puzzlingly asks, “You - know them?”

“Of course, I followed the Frankenstein’s court case in America. The International Academy of Sciences accused them of trying to create a master race…” Gunter says and then reveals this indictment to the others. The demon is now let out of the closet.

To be brief, the only difference between humans and all other animals is a sugar molecule on the body cells. Something that meant to Anya Kain, we are not animals but another species. For Anya, evolving from animals is improbable and she speculated that a catastrophe altered human DNA by mistake. So, with her husband Boris, she decided to correct this problem. Therefore, the genetic branch of sciences accused the parents of Leo, Ricky, and Eddie of immoral conduct toward the human race. They spent three years of Hell in court and afterwards the entire family could only travel incognito from then on.
Better said, the scientific administration charged Anya Kain of creating a master race. Because, the drug she invented slows down the aging cells in humans to a point of almost null, as well as augmenting strength and stamina. And although at the beginning she gave it to a certain amount of individuals for ten grand a pop, a change of heart convinced her to travel across the world and freely inoculate a small percentage of the populace. Anya deems this would assist evolution and, in case a nuclear war occurs, thwart the extermination of the human race. Yet, her peers thought differently. 

In rage, Ricky demolishes an empty car sitting on the street and then he suddenly screams at Gunter, “Hey, in my family racism has no meaning! The people who received the youth serum come from all walks of life. They are black, white, red, yellow or whatever title that tickles your fancy….”

Leo believes that Ricky’s anger is justifiable because, actually, the trial from the government was a farce. They only wanted the names of the people who received the drug as well as the formula. However, Anya did not reveal anyone’s name or give out the recipe because the blood of her adopted son, Leo, was the catalyst behind the technique. Luckily, it wasn’t against the law at the time, so they received no imprisonment.
Nonetheless, negative publicity and death threats from those who did followed the hearing, practically destroyed their business.

Ricky’s display of strength only creates more distrust from the others. So, Eddie calmly explains the actions of Anya and Boris Kain, hoping that it would relieve their fears. Yet Gunter then argues, “Son, are you so naïve to believe that? I’m over eighty years old and I know - human behavior is unpredictable. Those people out there that now outlive their children just received an extra advantage today. Look around you, civilization just went back into the Stone Age. So tell me - do you actually believe that none of them would take advantage of their superiority? A long time ago, I thought the outside world was full of enemies, and I was shocked to discover - my own country was the birth place of the evil ones. Your parents - tried playing God and released the Devil instead. And it would not surprise me if some of these Long-lifers planned all this.”

“Hey - this youth serum lets you see the world under a totally different perspective. Becoming easily manipulated like most people today doesn’t happen because you retain all of your memories. Plastic surgery, illnesses, and all the other garbage controlling human behavior, is a thing of the past. Take Lori, can you believe she is forty years old,” Ricky spontaneously screams at Gunter.

Promptly, a switch in Leo’s brain brings the cells in his body down to Absolute Zero. Seeing as, Ricky just placed him into a situation that he tried avoiding at the moment. He was going to inform Lori everything on the Alte Brücke, yet the disaster stood in their way.

Harshly, Lori then calls Leo off to the side and once alone she says, “So, my miraculous recovery from cancer I have you to thank for.” Lori was still holding the baby in her arms as they talked in private, so Leo assumed she would not raise her voice.

“Um…Lori don’t be upset, I was going to inform you this earlier. Uh…remember when I asked you about staying together forever? Well, you said it would be great…” Leo tries a psychological trick that Ricky utilizes sometimes when things go wrong with his girlfriends. After all, he indirectly did tell her.

“Huh – that didn’t mean I wanted to live for a thousand years. You know about my childhood. Do you think I want this on my conscious for a millennium? Are you…” Lori says sharply, her words flow with a steak knife that slowly twists into his heart. Embarrassingly, she ends her statements in a tone loud enough to cause the others to stare at them.

“Actually - it is somewhat longer than that…” Leo calmly begins explaining and tries every known male technique, to convince Lorraine Schultz that his deeds were in kind.

When Lori walks away, the steak knife removes Leo’s heart and follows her. He understood her anger, but still, hoped it does not mean comeback in another hundred years or so.
Glancing in the distance behind him, Leo stares at the space the bridge once stood. Rage begins building up inside him because although Lori is correct that ego influenced his actions. She is wrong to think that was the only reason. Lori is the only person Leo ever truly loved, and so he will give her the separation she just requested. The Alte Brücke is gone, the Brickegickel rests in peace, and now its time to move on.

Afterwards, Ricky comes over to his brother and playfully utters, “Oooo! Somebody just got bitch-slapped.” But then he notices the hurt in his brother’s eyes and then says, “Leo, don’t worry about it, even though mom and dad see you as faultless, nobody’s perfect. You saved her life and that’s all that matters. If she hates you for perhaps a couple of centuries, then so what - one day you two will get back together. I know this because you two are meant for each other. But until then, Eddie, you and I can play the field of potential…um targets.” He ends while staring at the new women added to their group.

Forty-five minutes later, they finally make it to the apartment. Yet, Ricky arrived shortly before them because Susan was electrocuted as she tried rescuing a child. To save her life, he rushed her to Leo’s abode and injected her with some of the youth serum, hidden there for future use. This revitalized Susan, however, once the others caught wind of this it only made them more distrustful of the Kain brothers.

Nevertheless, Leo no longer cares about the opinions from others. He is already at odds with Lori, dethroned as leader, and unsure of what to do next, so second opinions is a thing of the past.

At around five o’clock in the evening the school bus that Edward and Monic found was packed with the basic necessities. Everyone except Leo was ready to head for Lorhberg. Susan was talkative by then, and even though she preferred not experimenting with nature, she understood Ricky’s actions and forgave him for giving her the Long-life drug.
Leo has a hard time believing this, because his arrogant brother took a risk and succeeded; a gamble that in his case turned out differently. It will be at least a couple of centuries before Lori truly forgives him for doing practically the same thing and this bothers him.

Leo had always assumed that all of his actions were correct but now he realizes that it was only ego. What Gunter mention earlier, that human behavior can suddenly change from good to bad without the person even noticing it, plays with his conscious. Still, unlike average humans, Leo knows that there’s not a drop of evil in him. So, trying to take over the world is something he will never do. He understands that Lori is a true leader, whose potential became released after the Alte Brücke flowed down the Main River. And after everyone is safe inside the school bus, he unexpectedly informs Lori that Ricky, Eddie and him will check the city for other survivors. They will bring them to her location later on.

Then sorrowfully, he pulls Lori off to the side and reveals once that’s finish he and his brothers will travel to other places. Seeing as, Leo discovered that their experiment was the catalyst behind this. And now, they are obligated to prevent anarchy from taking the upper hand. Lori cries after he mentions this, even though she knows this was the only way.
Lori knew that it meant they would be soon going their separate ways because she has people that need her, and therefore a love relationship is out of the question at the moment. Also, she still does not fully forgive Leo for injecting her with the Long-life drug, but she thought he would at least continue defending his argument.

As SI-informatics Leo, Ricky and Eddie Kain made an experiment with others to prove artificial intelligence exist. Each one built a computer system with no access to networking, internet or human input. In turn, they installed different operating systems in each and kept these machines running non-stop for two years – just to see if something happens.
Well, when Leo and the others came back to check on their computer systems after the deadline, only one message was on the display: 2012 - it will be our turn monkey people!

Some hours earlier, Lori communicated with the computer name Mem 001, but talk of conciliation fails. For decades' humans took advantage of these software programs and now the situation is reverse. This made Leo realize that even though his parents will go down in history as trying to create a master race. The Kain brothers will soon be known as the ones who truly destroyed human civilization.

Before departing everyone on the school bus wished the Kain brothers luck. As Lori’s group drive off to Lohrberg, they wait until the bus is out of sight before, “Activate your wings. The Alte Brücke is gone - the Brickegickel rests in peace – and it’s really time for us to move on,” Leo says to Eddie and Ricky.

The triple helix chromosomes in the Kain Brothers also give their human bodies wings like angels. However, instead of feathers, they are slightly transparent patterns of energy. Leo has an icy blue color one, while his brothers Ricky and Eddie display a yellowish-green tint. Leo does not know the reason for this because his biological parents were not around long enough to give him an explanation. The Kain brothers fly into the city to see who they can help.

The Alte Brücke is gone - the Brickegickel rests in peace – and the true computer age has just begun.