Ode To Joy

Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 in D Minor

The morning of the day before impact

On a particularly chilly afternoon of around minus 12 degrees centigrade, a tall, old, beaten-up, dark-souled and heavily scarred mountain of a man parked his shining new silver-black Porsche Cayenne just around the corner in Münsterplattform, Bern, preparing for this afternoon’s task at hand: the cold-blooded kidnapping of the Nobelqvist’s daughter, their six- year-old little girl Karina, two semi-automatic pistols hiding in his jacket.

The Nobelqvists were one of Europe’s wealthiest couples, and certainly the most affluent in their birth nation, Switzerland. Few people are both bitcoin rich, and pure gold rich. Both belonged to families well-established in the oil industry and arms distribution which had spent the last two centuries pretending to work in banking. With their marriage, their family banks had merged into what was now known as the Nobelqvist & Cie. Neither cared much for the banking system, financial backdoor dealings or their grandparents’ grandparents legacy. Their game was the new game on the block: artificial intelligence fused with biotech and autonomous robots. Mr. and Mrs. Nobelqvist got married in their twenties, started their A.I. empire in their thirties, and practiced fencing and raising their daughter in their early forties, as they climbed the ladder of innovation, success, and dominance. They were the sole co-founders of Bern DynamiteX, steadily on their way to creating the first fully autonomous weaponized A.I. robot. TSBM was the codename of their secret project: The Slaughter Bot Machine!

Majestically located north of the Bernese Alps, the city of Münsterplattform sat on a hilly peninsula surrounded by an icy river. Local folk legend has it that the city of Bern was named by its founder, the duke of Zahringen, a hunting fellow who decided to name the city after the first animal he would shoot down in his new-found land. During this inaugural hunting expedition his victim was a bear, he boasted. His first Bern bear. The dead bears’ fate named the city, named the Nobelqvist’s technology empire and named the spot of the old man’s prey. It turned out Karina had roughly the ideal size, shape, age and blood type the old man needed.

It's impressively easy to kidnap a child, even when the one in question has two private bodyguards waiting outside in an armored vehicle. Our rough looking, MH Mutant-ish, expressionless, full- black bearded man casually strolled up the stairs of the Ginerva’s Classical Ballet School, opened the door, walked into the vintage hardwood dance studio and picked Karina up with one arm, carrying her out over his left shoulder. The rest of the class and the two instructors froze in their tracks as Karina yelled out in despair. With one of his Mark 23 pistols in his right hand, he confidently marched out of the main entrance, lethally shot the dazzled bodyguards as they left their vehicle and threw his prey into the luggage compartment of his luxury SUV, got in and drove away, listening to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D Minor as the human child tumbled around in panic behind him. They crossed the Nydeggbrucke bridge.

We are all vastly more vulnerable to evil than we would like to admit. Or to imagine.

A few minutes later, the city got filled with the sound of loud police sirens and soft street gossiping. There was no chase, the Cayenne Turbo was nowhere to be found. Local security cameras last sighted the silver-black car disappearing into the alpine foothills, and so the man hunt began. In all the wrong places.

Mr. and Mrs. Nobelqvist spent the night in their living room, surrounded by local police and a dozen of the best agents of the Federal Intelligence Service. The kidnapping of one child required more than twenty officers. The founders of Bern DynamiteX had power and privilege, but absolutely no idea of what to do. Their phones did not ring. The only clues were a license-plateless brand-new car, pictures of an indecipherable tall adult male dressed in black: black boots, black pants and a black overall coat. Thick black curls and a black beard covered his face, eyes, identity. His gloves indicated it was pointless to search for prints. Scanning the location for hair or any other DNA traceable evidence left the police empty handed.

• - All we can do now is wait – the FIS’s top agent asserted.

• - Wait for what, you fucking idiot? – Mrs. Nobelqvist lashed out.

• - He will be in contact soon, for sure.

• - For sure? We know nothing for sure! Find out who that man is!

At around 4.30 a.m., Mrs. Nobelqvist convinced her husband to go get at least a couple hours of sleep reminding him that their corporation wouldn’t run itself the next day. Cold. Pragmatic. Nobelqvist cold. Mr. Nobelqvist kissed his wife on the cheek, dragged himself up the foyer’s floating marble staircase, took a quick hot shower and got ready for a despondent snooze. As he opened up the bed, an envelope lay discreetly under the covers. On it, elegantly hand-written: Dear Nobelqvists.

He carefully opened the white wove envelope to find a single page, folded in three. Gently, he unfolded the paper and read its content in petrified astonishment. He immediately called his wife, who scurried up the staircase and was silenced only by her husband holding a letter in one hand, an envelope in the other, a look of dismay on his face.

“Dear Jonas and Giselberta, Follow these rules exactly or Karina will die.

You must destroy this letter immediately after reading it. It is for you only.

Place sixty-six million swiss francs in unmarked bills in SWISSGEAR full sized luggage bags. Tomorrow at noon, go alone to level -3 of the garage park of Bern DynamiteX Headquarters, place the bags inside the emergency fire exit and leave.

You now have a decision to make. If both of you are there, one of you will die but Karina will survive. You have to decide which of you will make the sacrifice: Jonas or Giselberta?

If neither of you is there, Karina will die. If only one of you is there, the one who is, dies. Either way, the three of you will not be celebrating Christmas together this year.

If anybody else is there, they will die, as will the both of you and Karina.

If you do exactly as instructed you will find Karina alive and well, waiting for the surviving parent at Station Amont du télémixte TSCD4 de La Berra, at sunset. If you do not or mention this letter to any other person you will never see Karina again.

All you have to do is follow the rules. It is simple. No one else has to die tomorrow.

The Senator”

• - That is about the amount our company is worth at current market value – was Mrs. Nobelqvists first sentence.

• - I know – whispered Mr. Nobelqvist – but how on earth could anyone know that?

It would have been no surprise to The Senator to find out the Nobelqvists’ first remarks did not contain the name of their daughter or the topic of her death. Money and power were their legitimate children.