The Power of Five Oblivion

same time, we couldn’t have achieved what we’ve achieved without you. You are the inner circle. It’s right that you should be here because this is the day you receive your rewards.”
    The chairman was speaking without a microphone but somehow his voice carried to the very back of the assembly hall. And although half the people in the room couldn’t speak English, every one of them understood exactly what he said. How was it possible? Nobody wanted to ask that question. The truth was that the answer frightened them too much.
    And what did it matter anyway? The last word – reward, Belohnung, recompensa ,– echoed in their ears and once again they burst into applause. This was what they had all been waiting for. It was what this was all about.
    Jonas Mortlake clapped too, but more slowly, his delicate white hands rubbing against each other. He wondered why the chairman was going through this performance. Perhaps he was simply doing it to amuse himself. These people … the senators and statesmen, bankers and businessmen, millionaires, billionaires, power-brokers and king-makers … what fools they all were! They were lapping it up. The women behind him were clapping so ferociously that their breasts were heaving, their earrings jangling. The man next to him was like an over-excited child.
    “I want to talk to you about the Old Ones,” the chairman continued, once the room had calmed down. “Who are they? Where did they come from? What do they want? I’m afraid there are no easy answers to these questions. I guess you could say that they’ve been around for ever. They’re almost like a force. There are plenty of people who would claim that they’re simply pure evil – but then I would have to ask you, what exactly is evil? I mean, they’ve looked after us well enough, I’m sure you’d agree. Three-quarters of the world is starving. We have food. Millions of people have no water. We drink champagne. Women and children are dying in wars while we pay ourselves huge bonuses and get richer and more comfortable. At the end of the day, I’d say that ‘evil’ is simply a point of view.
    “The important thing for us to remember is that the Old Ones first came into this world about ten thousand years ago … a long time before the Bible was written. And they had a Bible of their own. In the beginning was the word and the word was … kill, damage, maim, destroy! Why? Because it was their nature. It was what they enjoyed. And they were helped by people just like us. It was always important to them that they should remain invisible. They never wanted to be seen as the enemy because that would just make everyone unite against them. The way they saw it, the greatest enemy of mankind was man himself, and people shouldn’t be given the idea that they needed any help to make themselves extinct.
    “The world was an amazing place ten thousand years ago, ladies and gentlemen. There was a civilization so extraordinary that it makes everything we have today look about as impressive as a Mumbai slum. There was art and poetry and cities full of beautiful buildings. People lived at peace with each other. Well, that quickly changed after the Old Ones arrived. They destroyed it so completely that there wasn’t a single trace of it left for future generations to find. Maybe there are a few memories. People talk about the age of Atlantis. There are Bible stories like Noah’s ark … or Sodom and Gomorrah. But basically it’s all gone. Wiped clean.
    “If the Old Ones had had their way, they would have continued until the planet had been sucked dry, until there wasn’t so much as a single bacterium left. That was their aim. But at the very last minute, when there were only a few thousand people left alive, there was a rebellion against them and it was led by the very last people you’d have expected. Not adults but children! Yes … I can see the surprise on your faces and I don’t blame you. There were four boys and a girl. They brought all the survivors together and fought against the Old Ones.”
    The chairman paused, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was about to say.
    “And they won!”
    He reached for a glass of water and sipped. The assembly sat in silence, watching as the liquid made slow, painful progress down his throat.
    “As you can imagine, these were not normal children,” the chairman continued. “I wouldn’t go so far as to call them superheroes, but they did have powers of a sort. One of