The Mark of the Beast

Joseph Santiago winced as a shard of glass tore his flesh, blinded by the pain to the sight of the crimson rivulet on his right arm. His hand trembled, the fragment of glass in his hand quivered as he explored his forearm in search of a capsule nestled in the muscles. Beneath the skin, the crude probing stirred the implanted capsule to dump poison into his body. The toxic potion spread like a contagion; one by one, his muscles succumbed to the toxin that oozed from the pill embedded in his arm. It wrecked the muscles that were essential for respiration and invaded the diaphragm last, effectively hampering the delivery of life-sustaining oxygen to his cells. Impending death manifested in his labored breathing and the purple tinge on his lips and nail beds that replaced the sanguine color.

The knife clattered to the ground; the dull thud of Joseph's body striking the filthy pavement followed a second later. Before the droplet of toxin had totally starved his wizened body of air, his drying stream of consciousness swirled around his daughter’s toothless grin and his cellmate who had received a presidential pardon after he was accursed with the same privilege.

The search for his child consumed more than the twenty minutes that elapsed from the time that he made the first incision until he expired.  Sleuthing for the identity of her adopted parents bore fruit when the custodian of the orphanage’s database - rewarded with one hundred fifty thousand pesos - handed him the confidential information along with a news article lamenting how her death by foul means epitomized punishing the innocent for the sins of the guilty. Pondering on suicide expended only a moment.

“Ah, Michael!” Michael Antonio felt the rotund warden's meaty hand envelope his own hand. “I am glad that you will soon be a freeman!” Gary de Leon, the prison superintendent, curved his lips into a smile, but the skin around his eyes did not crinkle. He addressed Michael's burly escort with a feeble nod and the jail guard assumed his post at the door. The two men wandered to the only desk in the room complemented by a lone chair. Gary shoved the seat to Michael and hefted his portly frame atop the table. Michael dropped his bag at his feet and offered his right arm.

The warden removed a stylus-shaped wireless tag reader from his wrist computer. He aimed the device at the outer aspect of the convict's forearm and began beaming information from his computer to a microchip, a radio frequency identification device measuring mere millimeters in volume that was enclosed together with a minute vial of poison in the capsule embedded in Michael's muscle. The microchip transmitted Michael's anthropometrical figures, medical history, curriculum vitae, taxpayer's identification number, social security number, birth certificate, driver's license and criminal record to the tag reader; the monitor then displayed the retrieved data. It also functioned as a bankbook and passport.

The monitor flashed Michael’s natal day. “You are 45 years old, born on October 10, 1995?” He nodded. “I'm sorry about your friend, Joseph. Still puzzles me why he killed himself a day after he was pardoned by the president. Was he the suicidal type?” The whole penitentiary had followed the saga of Joseph's death - from the discovery of his corpse in a dingy alley to the interment of his ashes at a columbary - in the prison's only decrepit large-screen plasma television. Unlike the media who capitalized on his death or the activists who used his tragic end to advance their advocacy, their interest was borne out of fondness for the good-natured old man.  

Michael had formulated a stock reply to the popular question. “He wanted to search for his daughter. He last saw her as a toothless kid before he gave her up for adoption.” Joseph was fond of staring at his child's digital photographs for hours. “No, he would not kill himself.”

“Escaped inmates, ex-convicts, criminals-at-large, plain civilians and now Joseph. Sidapa sure is making people pay for tinkering with their radio frequency identification devices. You know Sidapa?”

The name was familiar to Michael. He had heard it in the news and at school. “Philippine mythology's god of death?”

“Correct! But it is also the name given to the poison that they have stored with the identification chip transponder- to remind the world that its creator is a Filipino named Lorenzo Mendez. By the way, criminals got even with the inventor. They burned him with his adopted daughter.”

The data transmission stopped, leaving the scanned area warmer than the surrounding skin. “Your criminal record remains, but the presidential pardon will help you a lot. The same guy who sponsored your online master's degree course has deposited one hundred fifty thousand pesos in your account. It's probably enough for a month or two - for your fare home. Even the amount that you have stashed from your data encoding job here won't feed you for another month.”

Gary jumped from the table, his globular belly jiggled from the impact. Michael rose and took his bag. “I've said this a thousand times before, and other wardens have also spoken these words: I don't want to see your ugly face in my territory again.” His voice softened, his stern face vanished. “Hatred brought you and Joseph here. Learn to forgive.”  The warden’s sermon only aroused Michael’s latent memories.

Incarceration had not purged the image of his landlord ogling at his wife, playing music at full volume and carousing outside his apartment from Michael’s memory. He could never forget the warmth of the lecherous man's blood on his skin as it gushed from twenty stab wounds after the maniac molested his pregnant spouse. Joseph's wrath at seeing his wife fornicating on their matrimonial bed remained as vivid as his account of bathing the lovers in their blood after he blasted them with a shotgun.

“Have you been wronged greatly in your life?” Gary blushed and he smiled meekly. The convict hissed inches from the warden’s face, “Then you have not met the demons that brought us here.” The warden spoke again with a still flushed face. “The world has changed much.”

“I know. It was my thesis.”

Transnational crime attributed to porous borders and the nonexistence of a foolproof identification system - terrorism, human trafficking, massive illegal migration, financial fraud and identity theft – gripped the early decades of the twenty-first century. The introduction of the radio frequency identification device stanched illegal migration and hampered the movement of criminals. Until shields that prevented the interrogation of the identification tags by scanners and counterfeit chips circumvented the system.

It took a Filipino to revive the moribund security program. He synthesized a neurotoxin, aptly called Sidapa, which induced rapid death even in minute amounts by ravaging the respiratory muscles. A nerve gas attack by terrorists that claimed his wife and only child made him embrace the proposal to combine the toxin with the tag and a sensitive sensor in a capsule. Tampering with the imbedded pill would stimulate the detector to unleash Sidapa. The problem of detecting the tags at longer ranges and penetrating the shields was hurdled with the invention of more sophisticated tag scanners.

“Be careful out there.” Gary handed Michael his bag and motioned to the guard. A short trek brought him outside the prison and into an alien land.

*****

“Did you know him?” A trembling feminine voice shattered the tranquility of the columbary.

“No.” Michael shifted his gaze from the niche containing Joseph's urn to the speaker. He expected a journalist who earned a living by exposing the misery of others to the world; her quivering tone was the manifestation of her fear that her intrusion into the sanctuary of the dead had been uncovered. But an anguished face greeted him. The familiarity of her aquiline nose, full lips and button-like eyes drew him closer. She also looked the right age. 

 “Cassandra Santiago?”

Her face blanched. Nobody had addressed her by that name in fifteen years. Her adopted father had named her Nicole Alexandra. Nicole was his daughter and Alexandra, his wife; both perished in a mist of nerve gas unleashed by terrorists.  She was renamed Anna Marie Defensor by the National Intelligence Service after his revolutionary invention earned him assassination attempts. The spooks accomplished this after they razed their home. Inside were two cadavers that resembled them physically.   

 “You are Joseph's daughter!”

“You are mistaken! I am Anna Marie Defensor!” Defiance now masked her face. She strode briskly to the door; the man who called her by her former name did not advance.

“I was in prison with your father. We shared a cell and jail chores. He showed me your pictures a thousand times. His favorite was the one taken on your last visit before you were adopted.” She halved her stride. “You turned eight then, toothless and you were wearing a dress with a sunflower print.” Only her biological father knew of the digital photographs and dress. She halted and faced him.

 “Hey you!” A guard hollered from the door. “How did you get inside? And why are you yelling at that woman?” He had a hand on his holster. He ventured inside the columbary and sauntered past Cassandra. Michael dropped his bag and raised his arms when the watchman leveled his handgun at him. “Who let you in?”

“The door was open.” A pack of nicotine-free cigarettes that he offered to the senile caretaker was his ticket inside. “I'm here to visit an old friend, Joseph Santiago.”

“The ex-con who killed himself?”

“Yes. I’m also an ex-con, just got released today. I got a presidential pardon like Joseph. I'm Michael Antonio.” The guard could unearth his criminal record by simply scanning his identification chip.

The guard’s persistence alarmed Cassandra. “I was rushing to an appointment and I must have dropped something, so he called me.” She hoped that the watchman would not apply his interrogation skills on her.

The guard had heard differently, but the woman was composed in her narrative, not hysterical. “Okay, I believe you miss. Just don't blame me for not sending this ex-con back to the hell that spat him out today.” He holstered his weapon. “By the way, why are you here?”

Only one name registered in her mind. “I visited Catherine Santillan's vault.” Beside Joseph’s niche was Catherine Santillan’s vault. “I'm really late for my appointment.” She waved to the men and fled to her car. She had to return to the safe house before operatives of the National Intelligence Service bodily carry her back.

Remote controlled electronic eyes and ears embedded in the walls transmitted every word that they uttered, every twitch of their muscles to a building with a panoramic view of the columbary. Inside a crowded room, computers and men labored to match the woman’s new photographs and fingerprint with her old pictures and prints. Finally, the green light beaconed: Cassandra Santiago and Anna Marie Defensor were one and the same. A tip that Lorenzo Mendez and his adopted daughter – revealed by research to be Joseph Santiago’s child - did not die in the fire sparked a fruitless hunt. Joseph’s death re-ignited it. The band could smell retribution for their leader, felled by Sidapa. Several men leapt into a van in the garage; they waited for Cassandra to join the traffic before they eased their car into the street.

The flaring red light was similar to the red bulbs sported by the solar-powered taxis and buses that Michael had flagged down on the way to the columbary. The crimson lamps scintillated when the drivers flashed a tag reader on his forearm. All of the cabbies deserted him at high speed when the light started blinking. Only the tenth bus that he stopped let him in after the driver directed him to the rearmost seat that a burly passenger had vacated for him. The eyes of the male passengers, who traded places with the women seated in the rear, bore on him throughout the trip. “What's that?”

“It warns people that a criminal, an ex-con like you, or an Untagged is around. People are scared. They say that every scanner, or sensor, can tell if a person has a criminal record or if he is untagged.”

With his suspicion about the sensitive sensors confirmed, Michael foresaw himself trudging to the nearest bus stop or light rail station or waiting for a very rare sane cabbie. “It keeps everyone safe, especially from the Untagged.” It was a strange word for him.

“Untagged?”

“The Untagged? That's what they call the people who have not been tagged. They are banned almost everywhere - schools, offices, government, hospitals, markets, restaurants, airports, even churches - but they cannot be tracked down.  It doesn’t matter to them anyway. I mean, how can you get to those places if you are poor? They were born poor and have become poorer thanks to that tag and Sidapa. They are out there – eating garbage, begging, stealing and killing.”

The watchman returned his bag, led him to the gate and into a smog-free but congested road. “Next time you come here, look for the guard first before you enter. You might be mistaken for an Untagged.”

Michael surveyed the traffic-clogged street before he headed to an intersection. The rundown inn that he spotted from the bus lay a kilometer away; his former home was on the next block. Transient lodging appealed to him more than the familiar coziness of his old apartment. Nobody was waiting for him there; his wife had divorced him and remarried. A taxi festooned with a red bulb and tag scanner pulled to the shoulder; the cabbie beckoned to him. He did not notice any bus stop or light rail station in the vicinity, but he waved the cab away. A private car halted beside the sidewalk; he recognized the person behind the wheel and he hopped inside.

“Your forearm,” Cassandra brandished a tag reader. The name and face matched the description of one of two convicts who received presidential clemency in the Cyber News Network report that she had downloaded from the car’s built-in computer. The other recipient was Joseph Santiago. “So, you are Michael Antonio. Tell me about my father.”

Michael groped for the proper words. “Your father never lost hope that you will be reunited someday while I have accepted death in prison as my end. My thoughts were with my wife while he immersed himself in activities that would shorten his sentence. When we paired for jail chores, he talked about you most of the time.” A sniffle emanated from the driver’s seat. “He lent me his electronic books for listening to him and joining him in staring at your photographs.” He heard a faint chuckle. “He donated his blood when I got sick with dengue. He probably did it to earn points with jail officials, but he saved my life. He also convinced me to enroll in a master’s degree online.”

The car had only covered a block in the gridlock. Michael recognized the area. He craned his neck at the skyscraper that replaced his former home.

“Mr. Antonio?”

“Sorry.” He shifted on the front seat and checked at the vehicles trailing them through the rearview mirror. He quickly turned away when he saw her harassed reflection. The car advanced to the second block, near an intersection. Cassandra maneuvered her sedan to the outermost lane; its signal lights telegraphed her intention to turn right. Still straight ahead was the inn. “You can drop me at the next unloading zone.” A minute passed in silence. “Your father only wanted to see you again. Too bad that Sidapa got him.” Michael bit his tongue as soon as the words flew out of his mouth.

“Sidapa?”

Michael did not reply.

But Cassandra heard. She knew what killed her father, so did Lorenzo Mendez. She surmised that guilt must have prodded her adopted father to aid her in slipping away from their vigilant bodyguards from the National Intelligence Service. Or it could be love that he expressed recently by offering to return her to Joseph. He may have adopted her because of her resemblance to his daughter, but he rescued her from the orphanage. He was affectionate to her as her real father.

Traffic flowed again and Cassandra navigated to the area designated for disembarking passengers. Michael stepped on the sidewalk and leaned into the window. “I hope we can talk about your father next time.” She merely smiled and raised the window.

“Sorry, the rooms are full.” The innkeeper stood behind the door that slid shut when Michael stepped on the doormat. Above the threshold was a digital billboard advertising vacant rooms. He pointed at the sign; the landlord shook his head sideways vigorously.

“Paranoid freak!” Michael doubted that he could find cheap lodging even if he scoured the whole city. Food was another necessity that he had to address. There were vending machines on the sidewalks and food stalls. He walked to the nearest machine hawking vacuum-packed sandwiches fortified with vitamins and loaded with more calories. Ham and egg sandwich looked tasty to him. He stepped forward and readied his arm for scanning. Thick plastic emerged from the sides of the automat and shrouded its front. A shrill alarm sounded and a red lamp flashed.

“A criminal!” A woman cried. The pavement around him was emptied in seconds. A police siren wailed. He gave the machine a savage kick before retreating, chased by alarmed shouts. He ran until he heard curses hurled at him for running on the crowded sidewalk. Another automat was nearby; he stepped on the street than pass by it. It did not react to his passage. He plodded on and halted when he reached a deserted street bordered by a fence with loose metal sheets. His empty stomach growled, his throat burned from thirst, and he was sleepy. He considered the hard pavement as a good bed for the night. He curled like a baby on the concrete.  

Shrill laughter and the pounding of small feet heralded the coming of night. Michael blinked in the pale light. Barefoot, potbellied children with thin limbs and shrunken cheeks drifted into his sight. He shut his eyes. The scent of their sweaty bodies wafted to him. He slowly rose; the gaiety died, the children’s eyes were riveted on him. A child broke away from the group, another followed; the rest retreated in minutes into the fence. The street was desolate again.

Michael retraced his path; he walked on the precipice of the sidewalk, away from vending machines and sliding doors. He passed the inn and the automat; no light flashed. Hunger and thirst stabbed more violently, but he only walked deeper into the city, into a row of appliance stores. Banks of wafer-thin split-screen television competed for his attention and his eyes never stayed on one screen.

Michael turned away as the image of a prostrate man filled the screens. The monitors flashed Cassandra’s pallid face next. He swiveled his head back. The camera panned and more bloodied corpses were captured. The images ensnared other passersby, and they slowly pressed around him. He could not decipher the reporter’s words, but he read from the live caption that unidentified gunmen had massacred the occupants of a safe house ran by the National Intelligence Service. He read the names of Cassandra Santiago, Lorenzo Mendez and unidentified agents of the National Intelligence Service on the scrolling text. The knot had grown thicker.

“I thought that Mendez was dead.” A man spoke from the rear.

“Now, we know that he is really dead.” Another man snickered. 

Michael touched the glass, willing his fingers to penetrate the window, to touch the screen occupied by Cassandra’s placid face. “You will see your father again,” he spoke softly. Crimson light beamed and an alarm shrieked. The accordion door slid into place, the television vanished behind the steel.

“A criminal?” The crowd spoke in hushed tones and leered at Michael.

He faced them. “Have you met the demons that brought me to prison?” Silence. “Look in a mirror and you will see them.” Comprehension did not register on their faces.

Michael returned to the desolate street. The unshod and pot bellied children shrieked with delight as a teenager chased them with a blinking tag reader. Several tatterdemalion adults occupied the sidewalk. He could see the grime on their faces, the stiffness of their soiled clothes. Their collective mingled was oppressive. He calmly strode to them. The children veered towards him, they screamed. A ring of adults that formed rapidly sheltered them.

A tall Untagged with broad, bony shoulders confiscated the tag reader from the adolescent. He charged with a clenched fist and an intense scowl. Michael breathed evenly.

“I am an ex-convict.”

The adult armed with the tag reader scanned him. The red bulb flickered. His tense face relaxed.

“We know. And we,” he smiled and swept his hand to his group, “are the Untaggeds.”

END

Prospero Pulma, Jr.

Philippine Graphic

September 4, 2006

Vo. 17, No. 13

pp. 38-41