Prophet (eBook)

Chapter

1

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Tom and Mark

Outside an automobile factory in Chennai, India.

Late afternoon, a luxury car and a large van were dashing on an unpaved road with dust clouds following their trail. The cars made an abrupt stop in front of a shabby steel building. Only a field of tall silver grass surrounded this one-story building.

Rough-looking men who were crammed in the van got off in a hurry. They were each holding a blue-grey iron pipe. Their rough behaviors suggested that they were members of a gang. From the passenger seat, a man with a thin and long scar near his eye got out of the van. He walked arrogantly and stood in front of the men. 

“Okay, put on your masks! Don’t damage their heads like last time! We need them to publish a correction article so don’t break their fingers either! Got it?” 

“Yes, sir!” 

They reached for their black masks and answered as they put them on.

“Great energy!” 

The chief approached the luxury car smiling, his mood elevated. In the back seat, the atrocious-looking boss sat arrogantly with a cigar in his mouth. 

“It was you that messed up last time! You’re the one that needs to be careful!” The boss berated him with displeasure.

“Don’t make me look bad in front of them!” The chief shouted back at the boss. It’s true. They were brothers. 

“We didn’t even get paid because you messed up! You’d be fired by now if you weren’t my brother! Get out of the way!” The boss yelled with frustration as he became more livid thinking about it. The chief moved to the side and the boss looked carefully at the building. 

There was a wooden sign hung crookedly at the entrance of the building that read, “Love & Peace Online Newspaper”. 

“Love and peace~ What a corny name for a newspaper company. They must be out of their minds if they are this poor and won’t take the money.” 

“I’ll go in first and get them on their knees! Take your time!” The chief shouted with confidence. 

“If you mess up again, your only job will be to drive the van! Got it?”

“Got it! Got it! Come on!” The chief looked back at the boss, annoyed. 

“You heard the boss, right? If anyone messes up today, there won’t be dinner or pay. Alright! Let’s go!” 

At his words, the gang rushed into the building. The first man to arrive at the door kicked the iron door with all his strength, but it only made a loud sound and didn’t open. 

The man next to him used the handle to slide the door open, and it slid open slowly with a harsh screeching sound. It was a sliding door. A blast of heat rushed out from the inside. The men ran in, waving their iron pipes like cavemen with stone axes. 

The phone rang from the inside pocket of the well-steamed suit of the boss. He casually picked up the phone. The voice on the phone said in a low voice,

“Have you arrived?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Make sure you get the correction article no matter what happens.”

“Don’t worry. And please send the money in cash.” 

“Call me after everything is taken care of.”

“I will call you right away.” The boss hung up with a sinister laugh. 

Meanwhile, the men who entered the building were surprised by the larger interior than they expected. At the center were two large desks and a single iron cabinet. In the back hung faded curtains that were spread out. At the desk was a young reporter, pounding hard on the laptop keyboard, unbothered by the commotion. 

“Is it customary for people in this town to ignore guests?!” The chief shouted bitterly.

“Hold on a minute. Let me just finish this article. How can I help you?"

The reporter glanced at them and answered indifferently. The chief took a closer look at him. He had a slender body and good facial features, a smart and handsome face. However, the way his curly, light brown hair was tied back was a bit unusual. Still, the chief supposed that after a few punches, the reporter will cooperate well. Then, one of his men broke the large mirror next to him with the iron pipe.

“You scared me! Can’t you see I’m having a conversation?” The startled chief yelled. He looked around to make sure there was no video surveillance and lowered his mask to his chin and asked,

“What’s your name?”

“Tom!”

“Well, Tom! You’re going to have to write a correction article.”

“Oh! That’s why you came with so many men. Who sent you?” Tom asked without any hint of fear. 

“You look pretty smart, why don’t you guess!” The chief laughed arrogantly. 

“Panhandlers who use orphans to sell drugs to tourists?”

“Nope!”

“CEO who molested the housekeeper?”

“No.”

“Then, the car company that discharged heavy metal wastewater and killed swarms of fish?”

“Oh~ you’re involved in a lot of things!”

“The pharmaceutical company that caught wild monkeys and tested on them illegally?”

“Bingo!”

“They decided to send you guys since we didn’t take their bribe.”

“Now, decide! Do you want to write it after getting beat or willingly without getting hurt?” Tom’s expression turned cold at the chief’s words. 

“You know this is self-defense, right? How dare you prance in and threaten me with as little as iron pipes and men!” Tom closed his laptop and stood up, unbuttoning his shirt. The chief snickered as he watched the nerdy man’s abruptness. Tom took off his shirt and hung it on the back of his chair. The chief could see that Tom had a well-trained upper body under his inner shirt, but it wasn’t threatening. Tom drew the blue curtains that were spread across the room.  

When the curtains were drawn, it revealed even more space that looked like a gym for martial arts. A black sandbag hung in the corner and on the other side were all sorts of self-defense gear, gloves, dumbbells and weights. In the center, a tall man over 6’5’’ with bulky back muscle looked back at them while holding a heavy dumbbell.

He had bluetooth earphones that looked like bean sprouts in his ears. The man, wearing only red shorts, had an upper body that looked as solid as stone and his face looked threatening like the Four Devas that guard temple entrances. His large protruding eyes but small pupils were piercingly sharp like laser.

“Mark! We have guests!”

“Who are they?” Mark approached them, taking the earphones out of his ears.

“They were sent by the pharmaceutical company.”

“Why are they holding iron pipes?” As Mark frowned, one of the men quietly hid the iron pipe behind him. 

“Should we hold something, too?” Tom grabbed the wooden sword and tossed it to Mark and grabbed the nunchucks for himself. The men nervously looked at the chief. 

“I’ll give you another chance. Put that down and write the article. Come on! I don’t want to have to beat you up senselessly and upset my boss again!” The chief spoke as quietly as possible, holding back his growing irritability.

“We’ll give you another chance, too. If you quietly leave, we’ll pretend this never happened. But if you don’t, you’ll be leaving here castrated.” Mark made a gesture of clenching something with his hand. One of the men dropped his iron pipe in fear and startled the other men.

“Don’t be scared! We have more men on our side. Guys! Show them what you've got!” At the chief’s words, the men slowly approached the two men with their iron pipes.  

“I warned you!” Tom swiftly used a front roll and got on his side, smashing the men’s shin bones with the nunchucks. Shocked by the surprise attack, the men grabbed their shin bones and yelled. Then, Mark came and struck the wrists of the men with the wooden sword. As the chief watched the counterattack, he pulled out a folding knife from his back pocket. 

The chief skillfully wielded the knife and threatened Mark. Tom stood up at once and used the turning of the nunchucks to remove the chief’s knife and used reverse rotation to slam the chief’s forehead with all his strength. The chief’s eyes lost focus and he staggered. In that moment, Mark went behind the chief. He choked the disoriented chief with the wooden sword and yelled, “Everyone stop! If you move, your friend’s neck will break!”

But the scattered men got closer and closer, and Tom shouted with an angry voice,

“You guys don’t have any camaraderie!” 

Angered by something rather trivial, Tom ran toward the men swinging his nunchucks. Mark knocked out the chief by hitting the chief’s neck and swung the wooden sword at the men who came to attack him. At that moment, Mark’s wooden sword broke in half as it struck one of the men’s iron pipe. He threw the broken wooden sword toward the man in front of him and hit his forehead, and then slapped the other man’s cheek with his big palm. The man who was slapped turned around in a circle and fell like an uprooted tree. 

As the thumping noises in the building subsided, the bony driver said to the boss.

“Boss,...