23 WHEN THE IDOL ON COATED PAPER IS FLESH AND BLOOD (4)

Going back was not an option. Backing up was cowardly for a soldier.

This doctrine was taught at the training camp. Many were those who believed it was better to be a living coward than a brave corpse. It was possible to live with the shame of being a coward: this was what people called taking things apart or putting things into perspective. It was much more complicated to live with a bullet in the head. However, when cowardice led to the bullet in the head, you had to move on.

Moa did not want to back off. He had already done the route and he knew very well that the headquarters was not on the path he had just taken. Furthermore, he was not even sure that he could take the said route, he did not remember it clearly and he seemed to have taken a one-way street somewhere along the line.

He had to continue but also set a realistic goal. He could not go ahead and choose at random at each intersection to take a left, right or straight as much as the intersection on which he arrived was not a simple crossing of two streets but a square from which started six avenues in six different directions.

In the middle of the square, he saw a parked van. It was overhung by a satellite dish, which seemed to indicate that it was intended for a telephone or television relay. On its side, a sticker indicated that it was a van belonging to GTV, a television channel and not to a telephone supplier.

In the past, this television was an old public channel which broadcasted among the Grenati. Its credo was: we too can broadcast bullshit. Facing financial issues because people could also watch bullshit on other channels and it was difficult for a new one to pierce the market, the government decided to privatize it. The Grenati family jumped for joy and at the chance to acquire a significant part of the capital and became the main shareholder, by threatening the potential small shareholders who wanted to offer themselves a piece of their cultural identity. In the end, they did not face opposition in the board of directors and they could change the name of the channel to GTV. However they did not modify its ultranationalist editorial line and its propagandist identity. Viewers cared very much about this and a revolution was not in line with the general strategy of the Grenati family.

Sirhod was appointed as the president of the channel. According to employees, journalists and others, he was not an interventionist president, leaving most of the miscellaneous tasks to his subordinates. He abused his power only once, to impose a change in the program schedule: an animated series that had rocked his childhood in the morning, justifying the decision by the need to attract children, and a live series for adults, to hook the loyal children when they became adolescents. The animated series was not much of a success. It was old, with an artistic conception far away from what the concurrence did and Sirhod had to negotiate with the public authorities so that the other channels did not have the right to broadcast anything other than advertisements at this time slot. As the result, the market shares measured at the audience ratings were not really affected. The winners were those who bought add space in the time slot, seeing a significant increase of their sells. If the choice of the animated series was questionable, the live series in the night was a huge success: GTV quickly became leader on the time band from 1:00 am to 3:00 am at night.

The seizure of power by the Grenati family happened twelve years ago, two years before the war broke out. When the war finally became unavoidable, the politicians tried to put the Greanti under pressure for them to implicate their fortune in the war effort, but to no avail. Sirhod was considered a genius, a visionary after the success of the live series and his reputation allowed him to turn a deaf ear to politics' jeremiads. He decided that a lost war was not good for the business and GTV would not broadcast the jousts, nor did they organize commentary debates or special editions. They preferred giving the population hope and the possibility of programs quick to change their minds. The audience was delighted, the news from the front was not good for them and they liked to hear that everything was fine in the best of worlds.

After tough negotiations, the Grenati family joined the war effort. Everything changed. Of course, reporting what went wrong was out of question, the audience would not have understood. However, they no longer hesitated to recount what was going well, the small victories became landslide victories and small defeats became almost victories.

With time and the massive amount of money invested in the war, the situation grew better and better for the Grenati army, and worse and worse for the coalesced. It was at that time that the Grenati family decided to change the army's name. They also decided to disrupt the program schedule of GTV. Compared to the old programs, just the animated series and the adult live series recommended by Sirhod remained. Audience followed. When the front was fixed, GTV had already become the official broadcasting channel giving Grenatis' point of view and members of the channel had privileged access to the camp.

It was the only television channel accommodated directly in a military camp and not in the quarters dedicated to the followers. Even the national channel belonging to the coalesced did not enjoy such a treatment.

GTV had a large area of diffusion, they had paid a huge some a long time before the war to diffuse their programs even in the coalesced lands and the contract was still ongoing. The channel was not very popular for Mao's compatriots but when you press the wrong button on the remote control, you could still chance upon it. There was no language barrier between both countries.

Moa only knew GTV for having inadvertently come across this channel once. It was a series of wobbly script propaganda claiming to reflect what was happening on the front lines. It was filmed in a studio, with lighting not always up to artistic ambition and a post-synchronization that left a lot to be desired. The nonsense presented had made him watch no more than a few minutes even if the main lead actress was pleasant to watch.

What he saw on the other side of the screen was the main lead actress tickling the pathos of her spectators, trying to incite their patriot fiber and arouse their empathy after the tragic death of one of her lovers. It was a long monologue her art as fully displayed but the description she made of the coalesced tactics was full of nonsense. It showed her only military experience was to shake hands with war-wounded veterans during dedication session in a hospital far away from the real war. The aim of this kind of public relation operation was to try to alleviate the suffering and social burden of the crippled.

Regardless of the editorial line, the quality of the program schedule, the channel's overtly anti-coalesced bias, the fact was that Moa was only a few meters from the van and as he had no better idea, he knocked on the back door, waiting for someone to invite him in or open the door for him.

Inside the van, three men are busy putting the finishing touches on the editing of the report summarizing the morning jousts that would serve as a support for the midday propaganda session. The jousts did not their usual way, with an overwhelming domination from the Grenati squads and the reporting was not easy to do, at least less than the random sequences chosen arbitrary for their everyday work.

The heart of the report was necessarily the death of the coalition soldier, with images taken from several angles, zooms in at the right time, and slow motion to show exactly how things happened.

The journalist still had to write the voice-over accompanying the images and perform post-synchronization. The report was to be completed in five minutes. They didn't have time to worry about what was going on outside their van.

It was only after he had drummed on the back door for almost two minutes, chaining his left and right fist as if he was imitating a woodpecker wanting to cry out to the world the ownership of his territory, that one of the three men, exasperated, opened the door of the van and found himself face to face with Moa.

The other two were seated at their workstations but stopped what they were doing and turned their heads to see who the guy audacious enough to disrupt their rush before their deadline was.

For long seconds, no one spoke.

Moa had a scarf that indicated his status. As followers, an envoy was not someone they could vilify as they saw fit. This was all the more true for a coalesced emissary. Green uniform plus white scarf was an operation that looked like a suicide bomber, a time bomb that should not be approached because the countdown of the bomb could indicated 02:27:56 at an instant and go down to 00:00:00 at the next. The reputation of the coalesced snipers was public knowledge.

Timidly, the reporter, the one who was the most used to speaking in public, broke the silence and asked Moa what he was doing there.

Moa was glad to have caught their attention. To be silent without saying anything was something he learned from watching movies. To remain silent was to remain mysterious, to remain mysterious was to give oneself a superior air. Silence had this particular aptitude in an always noisy world to detonate, to contrast, and what contrasted sharpened the senses. Many scenes from the greatest films played on this peculiarity of human psychology, the incongruousness of silence that brought tension and raised the climax.

He was only worried that the three men, as they worked for a television, would know about this trick. That silence would have lasted forever if they entered the game. It lasted one full minute. This was in the high average for someone to break the silence but it remained within the norm.

Moa explained his predicament to them.

He started, for reasons they did not qualify to know because it was above their level of empowerment, the coalesced requested the holding of a negotiation for a tripartite initiative. They were from a well-known media, so one of the parties. Always demeaning those you were talking to, always giving them even less importance than they did have, staying mysterious and speaking with hints, those were other lessons Moa learnt from movies.

The three men looked at each other. They were puzzled and did not understand they reason why an emissary would come to them. They had no decision-making powers. This was common knowledge that Sirhod was the president of the group and that he was the only one who could speak on behalf of GTV.

In their opinion, it was strange that the coalesced should send an emissary who was not able to distinguish a technical team in a van from the president in the headquarters of a television.

Since on the one hand they could do nothing for him and on the other hand they had to finish their report, they decided to ignore the emissary and went back to work.

Time was running out and everyone seemed to want to put a spanner in Moa's works.

Visibly, his hints were too subtle for them. His lip had swollen heavily since morning and he no longer looked ridiculous when he decided to wear his mean smile. The three men had already put on their headphones and pressed various buttons to synchronize the journalist's story with the images of the report. No one had noticed that Moa was now threatening.

He had already taken a bolt out of his quiver as he stretched his bended crossbow at arm's length. His feet were anchored on the floor, his torso was oriented forming an angle of thirty degrees from the backdoor of the van, and his arm was stretching directly towards the door. All gave him an imposing air.

He adjusted his aim towards the one he had determined to be the leader of the trio, the one wearing the biggest headphones. It was the journalist. Just before firing, he shifted his aim by a few degrees so that the journalist felt the disturbance of the air tickling his cheek with the passing of the bolt.

Moa had no intention of killing the journalist. At this distance, someone as precise as him could touch a stag beetle, so the head of a journalist was not a problem. He had perfect control of his muscles, even if the muscles were not very developed, and he knew perfectly well which of his eyes his directing eye was. He was still an experienced Mikado player. The only variable he did not control in this equation was the reaction of the journalist. If the latter had unfortunately moved his head, an untimely accident could have occurred. However, the probability was low and indeed he had not moved.

The bolt came piercing the screen, just behind the journalist.

There is a popular proverb saying that the world was divided into two types of people: those who peed while sitting and those who soiled the toilet seat. Moa realized that the world could also be divided between those who had a weapon and those who sweated profusely. Belonging to the first category was enjoyable while belonging to the second required access to deodorant, especially as one worked in an enclosed area.

Moa had achieved his goal of getting the attention of the three men without even saying a word.

To discuss between intelligent people, it was necessary for everybody to reach the same frame of mind. Their attention had to be directed in the same direction. It was now the case.

The discussion did not start in the best way. The two technicians started by giving Moa a whole bunch of names. They were all wrong, but as he didn't give them his identity other than the fact he was a coalesced emissary, this was natural. To have guessed right would have been a surprise.

The volley will not last long. Moa obtained calm again by removing a new bolt from his quiver.

He repeated his request. It was simple: he asked for a negotiation to order to formulate a tripartite initiative and as members of the followers, they had to summon their peers to the meeting.

The three men were wary. They also could separate the world between those who had a weapon and those who sweated profusely and they weren't on the right side of the trigger. What restrained them was not the desire to help Moa, no, no, they spoke frankly, they were held back by the fact that they were just simple performers without any decision-making power. If only they had an oviduct, they could still crank their boss out for him, but they were not birds so the operation was difficult to conduct. On this ornithological consideration and the tense little laugh that concluded it, their faces were draped with a forced smile in anticipation of the next action of Moa.

He was not convinced by what he just heard. He had the impression those three men in front of him were beating around the bush a little too much, that they were trying to confuse him and save time.

So he didn't put back his bolt in his quiver but loaded his crossbow, bended it, aimed at the head of the gang leader, and just before firing, replaced the target towards the left rear tire of the van.

The initial speed of a bolt out of the crossbow was 360 km per hour, a speed of more than 100 meters per second. Suffice to say that Moa's finger was still on the trigger when the sharp point of the bolt sank deeply into the side of the tire.

A small noise signaled a slow puncture.

Moa looked up at the three men. At that precise instant, the world split in two: those who had a weapon and those who peed in their panties. As a result, the world is therefore divided into three, those who peed while sitting, those who soiled the toilet seat and those who did not have time to reach the toilet.

Their faces showed dread. This was what Moa could read and when he heard that they were really sorry but they couldn't help him any further, he saw at their faces that it was certainly the truth.

Another added that he would most certainly be satisfied by going directly to the general reception of the camp, which was there.

Moa didn't bother to collect his bolt. Their inertia was such that it was difficult to take them over once anchored deeply into something.

It was only after he had walked a few dozen meters that Moa realized that 'there' was a vague notion when illustrated only by a large but simple movement of the right arm. It was a very thin and abstruse clue to find a particular building in a city center.

A street sweeper was busy at the entrance of one of the avenues leaving the square and Moa did not hesitate for a moment. Now that he had the name of a building to look for, the interrogation would be easier.

The sweeper was much more cooperative than the television team. His finger pointed at a building next door, and he announced that it was written on it. In the end, Moa could have found it alone even if he helped himself.