Fiction and Reality

[Butch Acuna]

FIÇTION AND REALITY
MOSCOW,Suburb - Vanessa Petrovich, stand by the bed as a military nurse attends to her husband, former KGB Chief Major General Michael Petrovich, until he suffered a massive heart attack about twenty years ago which left him in a comma, he should have died a long time ago if not for benevolence of his former protegee now the President of the Russian Federated States Vladimir Gorbachev who provided all the available government resources at his disposal to keep him alive by artificial life support and medical care, continuously, for the past twenty years for as long as there is a chance that he will recover from his comatose condition.
Vladimir's hope that his former boss shall recover lay on a given assurance by military doctors that eventually medical science will come up with ways to bring back the health of icon of Russian Intelligence community. One month ago his hopes was bouyed by an offer by a Norwegian scientists to try and revive the general by a combination of a medical procedures and the use of natural elements extracted from pregnant ewe which he assured will regenerate the brain cells of General Petrovich. After six days of tests and medical procedures, the Norwegian team requested to be allowed a brief interruption after briefing their Russian counterparts on how to continue with the treatment, leaving an assurance to Vanessa that he is willing to be executed by firing squad if he fails to bring back the health of her husband.
Just six hours after the departure of the Norwegians, Vanessa was surprise to observe the slight movements of the arms, head and legs of her husband, she immediately called a therapist to stimulate blood circulation through massage and, for bed bathing.
That morning the movements became more frequent coupled with movements by his eyelids and moaning, as if the patient is trying to wake up from a nightmare until finally he opened his eyes!
Vanessa shed tears of joy, she softly spoke words of encouragement while the therapist massaged the arms and legs in an attempt to minimize the effects of athropy, while the general has his eyes fixated at his wife, finally he spoke.
"How many days have I been asleep? Vanessa initially choked with emotion, unable to answer, eventually regaining composure, and counting the years lost said, "twenty".
"Why? You looked twenty years older..... prompting his wife to a suppressed laughter, together they laughed and shed tears while a military nurse stands by the side unable to tell Vanessa not stress the general too much, finally finding a chance, she told the couple of the need for stretching exercise to vanish athropy, " within a week, general Petrovich will be able to walk " she assured the couple.
"Make it four days, the general announced,"I have a lot work to do at Kremlin", Vanessa remained silent, unwilling to brief him about history of the past twenty years, fearing what the stress might bring.
It took 14 days before Petrovich can move around with ease, then he told Vanessa, " I am returning to work tomorrow" Vanessa silently nodded.
After dinner, Vanessa called the private number of Col. Mikhail karpov, a former aide of her husband who succeeded General Gorbachev as head of the Russian Intelligence agency." As you probably knew by now, General Petrovich has recovered" she stated "that is a good news" Col. Karpov exclaimed. "There is a bit of a problem, he is planning to go back to work tomorrow". Col. Karpov remained silent for only a moment then answered, "very well, I am sending his official car and chauffeur tomorrow at seven",
"thank you Mikhail".
As Vanessa went out of the line, Col. Karpov dialled the personal phone line of the President of the Russian Federation and briefed President Vladimir about the predicament, the president chuckled and informed his former colleague "I am appointing General Petrovich as Consultant on Security Affairs of the Federation you and the heads of security and defense agencies shall report to him as my representative, as the Americans say, just ride along".
"As you wish Mr. President," Mikhail answered without hesitation.
All the officials and employees of the former KGB, went out to welcome the esteemed hero of the Cold War, Mikhail briefed Petrovich about the historical events for the past twenty years. After the briefing, Petrovich looked intently at Mikhail and softly inquired, "What happened to our Sleeper Cells in America?""It has been terminated" "Let us create another similar program", Petrovich announced."Let us go back to the basics, our former methods of gathering information".
"What information would you like us to gather?"
"The whole lot just like before including the names of the American President's dog". "Sir can we continue this meeting at 3:00 p.m. I have to prepare for a presentation".
At three, Mikhail placed a stack of documents in front of Petrovich. These includes profiles of highly placed military and civilian officials of the U.S. and it's allies one particular picture shows the CIA director in shorts in front of a pool.
The trove of information was voluminous, complete and though including pictures and locational maps of vital installations throughout the world, and ships, planes and other military hardware possessed by America and allies.
"How did you acquire these information?" Petrovich queried. "Through the internet also known as World Wide Web, millions of computers throughout the world connected to servers operated by internet service providers, mostly American owned and operated." Mikhail placed a laptop and a tablet computer before Petrovich and demonstrated how to access Google, Yahoo and other search engines and proceeded to show him actual images of installations worldwide through Google search.
About a billion people worldwide have Facebook accounts containing personal information, Wikipedia has billions of articles about all conceivable topics under the sun, several years ago we ransacked the information stored at the servers of Facebook and we copied a huge volume of information."

The U.S. President tweets wahatever he is thinking of through Tweeter, general, and one his close aides sympathize's with us, the U.S. President is an avid admirer of the President of the Russian Federation."
The information was too much for General Petrovich, today is the twentieth year since the massive heart attack that rendered him comatose, he began to feel the same symptoms he had 20 years past.
Mikhail I am going away soon, this time I won't come back, but I will try to collect vital information there which I will deliver to you at night." There' a hint of mischievous smile on his lips as he was speaking.
"Where are you going Sir?" " I am going to explore the after life Mikhail, whatever I may gather that may benefit Russia, I will deliver to you at night".
Mikhail turned pale, then pleaded, " Please do not visit me at night, I am afraid of ghosts ".
" Then how may I deliver any information to you"? All the while maintaining the mischievous smirk.
Mikhail reached into his shirt pocket and took out a card.
"You can use the internet general".
" Good bye Mikhail, tell Vanessa that I love her."
He fell from his chair, dead.