Chapter 256: Heart attacks and Lockstep

After the national anthem ended, a long and beautifully written speech was delivered by Alexander. A few of the attending citizens even cried, as the speech hit just the right notes for the citizens.

Immediately following the speech, Alexander stepped off the raised platform and into the car he had arrived in, which had been fitted with microphones on the roof as he stood the car's open sunroof.

The same thing was happening in the car behind him, but that one carried John, who was wearing his dress uniform.

The cars started and drove to the head of the parade formation, signaling the beginning of the inspection.

...

While the ceremony was in progress, Aron was on the podium alongside the dignitaries from all over the world. He was wearing a bespoke suit, which was only to be expected since it was a product of an atomic printer. Although he was calmly sitting in his chair and watching the events unfold, he still attracted attention whenever a camera panned across the dignitaries. He was obviously seen every time that happened, and, thanks to the several evolutions the man had undergone, he was almost inhumanly handsome.

Although he hadn't posted anything since being expelled from school, he still had nearly fifteen million followers across all of his, obviously verified, social media accounts. Thus, people who were interested in his company knew who he was, but many people only knew him from the pictures he had posted in the past. That said, his fans were insatiably curious about the youngest self-made billionaire in history.

Another thing that attracted people to him was that he was different from other young billionaires, who were very keen on ensuring that everyone knew they were young and rich. They would also announce that they planned to save the world—or at least make it a better place—like the CEO of Theranos, whose company was facing more and more scrutiny as a result of not having a workable device despite their claims. At the beginning of the year, they had still been valuated at $10 billion, but Aron, who was said to be worth three times or more, could be said to not exist at all in comparison. There wasn't even a single interview of his in any archives at all, and the only picture of him that had been caught after he became a billionaire was from one of his rare visits to his headquarters. He was also in the background of a few peoples' pictures from when he was touring Europe by himself. Other than those, no recent pictures of him could be found at all.

People thought the difference between him and other young tech entrepreneurs was that he didn't need investors' money to expand his company. After all, his products didn't need any investments; he had begun earning with BugZapper and hadn't stopped his inexorable march forward.

Alas, contrary to the hopes and dreams of investors everywhere, Aron had never experienced any liquidity crisis. What they didn't know was that that would still have been true even if he had never bagged more than $10 billion in contracts from NATO in the beginning. The contracts stipulated partial payment up front, resulting in the man becoming a billionaire in a matter of minutes. And all of it was in cash, not shares or fixed assets. That initial fund had removed even the slightest possibility of the company going public due to a lack of liquid funds.

The third thing attracting attention was the beautiful woman sitting to his left and leisurely talking with him, as if they were closer than everyone else there. She had bright blond hair and light hazel eyes, which made her more mesmerizing. Her smile seemed to stun the world, and considering that she was publicly enjoying the company she was keeping, it would be completely impossible for a bystander to think that she had survived an assassination attempt just a week before.

The camera panned back to Alexander, who was inspecting the military forces with John's car behind him.

The inspection took exactly ten minutes before the two returned to the stage and John took to the podium once again.

During the time it had taken them to drive back to the stage, the soldiers had moved into parade rest and were waiting for the order to begin marching and officially kick off the parade.

But before the parade began, the Archangels put on a display of precision flying. The live feed switched to the camera facing the sky as the four fighter jets appeared in the distance, initially seeming like nothing more than small black dots until the camera zoomed in. Those watching from home could see the jets on their screens, while the people attending the show live had to wait for them to draw near.

Soon, the jets were visible to everyone.

The emcee wasted no time and satisfied the watchers' curiosity, saying, "The sound you're hearing, ladies and gentlemen, is the approaching fighter jets that are here to do an airshow. They're the famous Archangel squadron, piloted by the same people that shot down a combined total of forty-five enemy aircraft in our victory over the now defunct dictatorship of Esparia, who is now our friend." The announcement only increased the excitement of people watching the spectacle.

As the emcee had said, the fighters finally neared the square and began putting on a performance. They were executing maneuvers that were known as nightmares for pilots like it was a walk in the park, and doing it with flair and precision. They almost seemed robotic, and even put the famous Blue Angels squadron to shame during their more than a minute of joint maneuvers. The squadron flying was followed by a solo performance from the pilots, who each showcased something different, which almost put those watching in a trance. The final soloist even almost caused some people to have mild heart attacks, thinking that something had gone wrong; he had pulled a "Zero Knot" maneuver.

Before that, he had performed other flashy tricks that were different from the previous pilots, but before his last stunt he approached the ground in a straight, high-speed dive before pulling up and heading back to the sky in a straight line with the afterburners at full power. It was like he intended to leave the earth's atmosphere, but after gaining a bit more than five hundred meters of altitude, the afterburners disappeared and the pilot put his jet into a stall before it fell from the sky.

People thought the aircraft had malfunctioned mid-show and were worried they would be witness to a tragedy at the beginning of a celebration. Some of them even closed their eyes, but soon opened them back up. The pilot, upon reaching the two hundred meter mark, reignited the jet's engines and pushed the throttle to the stops. Thankfully, it didn't reach supersonic speeds—as that would have taken a few eardrums with it—but it gave people an idea of what the parade would be like.

With that exciting end to the air show, John gave the series of orders that would begin the parade and the soldiers moved out. The infantry marched in lockstep, as though they had one mind in many bodies. Following them were the vehicles, both wheeled and tracked, lined up row after row like there were invisible rulers between them.