The Sun (a Deus Ex fic) - updated 17th May 06

[mawa]

Author's note: First - ok, I know these aren't Deus Ex discussion boards. Nonetheless I decided to share this story with you, since it'll deal with some subjects familiar to EQ fans. I planned to divide it in three major parts: "The Dawn", "The Day" and "The Dusk". I tried my best to write a story comprehensible also for those who haven't played the game. I hope I succeeded in this respect..

Ok, enough rambling. Let the story speak for itself

PART 1 – THE DAWN

A burst of fire shook the tunnel. JC Denton was taking cover behind big metal crates and exchanged fire between a group of MJ12 troops that came out from a nearby room. A well-placed grenade took care of three of them and a security turret, but there were still four troops left.

“Son of a bitch!” One of them yelled as a precise headshot killed his companion standing right besides him. The troop activated his grenade in order to throw it behind the crates. JC just waited for that.

“You’re mine...” The grunt didn’t manage to finish as another headshot ended his life. The grenade exploded in his hand also killing the remaining enemies.

JC now had a time to reload his scoped pistol and check his systems. Seeing that his bioelectrical energy is low, he took one of his bioelectrical cells and put it against his left wrist. A surge of energy flew through his body.

His nanoaugmentations saved him more than once from critical situations. He remembered all too well, that once only a use of regeneration augmentation saved him from certain death. But it was long time ago. In the meantime he learned to engage enemies in such a way that he didn’t need to use this augmentation afterwards. Enhanced vision gave him a lot of possibilities in that respect and he made use of them mercilessly.
Making sure that he’s temporarily safe, JC searched the corpses for extra ammunition and grenades. As he took everything he found useful, he proceeded with great caution towards the entrance to Sector 3, which, according to his plans, was located in the room just before him.

Still in the tunnel, Denton spotted a conveniently placed stack of crates, where he could hide, and crouched towards them. He spotted one MJ12 troop guarding the door and a sniper standing on some kind of crane. Deciding to get rid of the sniper first, he aimed with his pistol and was about to shoot when suddenly and MJ12 Commando appeared.
JC cursed quietly. He didn’t like to engage those enemies. Heavily armored, equipped with rocket launchers and assault rifles they posed a problem to someone armed only with two pistols, a mini-crossbow, a combat knife and a couple of grenades. Of course, JC had a special way of dealing with the Commandos – his second pistol was loaded with armor-piercing bullets, but there was no possibility to install a silencer. The last thing JC needed right now was making noise. Waiting until the Commando goes back where he came from, JC once again carefully aimed at the sniper and fired. The troop standing by the door noticed the takedown and rushed for reinforcements. JC fired two shots in his direction. One missed, but the second one hit him in the leg. The troop hissed with pain and stopped for a brief moment, which sufficed for JC to aim for his head and fire.

Although the troop was taken care of, there were still additional reinforcements to be worried about. Denton knew there was at least one Commando and he took into account the fact, that there will be several more enemies to fight. Making a quick decision, he drew his second pistol, prepared a grenade and waited for the enemies. It was critical that he hits first, otherwise the Commando would annihilate him with his rocket launcher. Indeed, two Commandos and three troops appeared, but JC was ready. He threw his grenade and quickly took cover. Two troops managed to avoid the explosion, but Denton put them to the ground with two shots.
Making sure that the enemies are dead, he left the tunnel, heading for the door. With his each step he was closer to Bob Page - his worst enemy. Pursuing him relentlessly he eventually reached Area 51 – a place, in which existence no one, aside from conspiracy theorists and crazy believers in aliens, believed.

Behind the door there was another room with a stockpiles of crates and an elevator. JC was about to call the elevator, when suddenly he felt a weird buzzing in his head – a sign of a transmission coming through a device called the infolink.

“Bet you didn't know your mom and dad tried to protest when we put you in training” Bob Page said in his usual smug voice. “They loved their little boy, JC, and that's why they're dead. I'm sending up the man who did the job.”

Indeed, JC heard the sound of the elevator. He quickly hid behind the crates, drew his silenced pistol and waited.

“Two troops and one MIB” he thought, as the elevator came up. “Better for me.”

MIBs had an interesting property, used often by JC to his advantage. When fatally wounded, the explosives installed inside their bodies went off instantly. As the elevator door opened, he fired one bullet in MIB’s head, before the enemies managed to get out.

“One bullet, three kills” he thought with grim satisfaction.

“As you go down, right besides the elevator, there is a communication device” the voice belonging to one of his allies, Tracer Tong, buzzed in Denton’s head. “Use it, we have to talk.”

Although the infolink was a standard device, used for transmitting messages and data, he never got really used to it and in case he was bombarded with transmissions, he got a slight headache. Besides, he also didn’t like the fact that while it was on, he could be monitored twenty-four hours a day.
JC switched on the device and a holographic image of Tracer Tong appeared.

“We can get you into Sector 3, but no further. ” Tong started. ”Page is in a separate area with its own security grid.”

“Everett says you want me to destroy Area 51.” Denton said.

“I intercepted his communication. JC, he is simply using you to bring the Illuminati back to power. Listen to Savage and me. There is a reactor lab with two antimatter reactors...”

“In other words, yes. You want me to blow the facility up. But why?” JC was confused. “It's just a hole in the ground.”

“Decades ago, the UN made Area 51 the central hub for all electronic communications. The Aquinas Protocol, originally for surveillance, has given Page unlimited abilities to censor and control all forms of media.”

“If we destroy the Aquinas Hub, we'll take down the global network.”

“Exactly. They dug their own grave, JC. We're going to eliminate global communications altogether.”

“I don't know... sounds like overkill.” Denton wasn’t convinced.

”As long as technology has a global reach, someone will have the world in the palm of his hand. If not Bob Page, then Everett, Dowd...”

“Another Stone Age would hardly be an improvement.”

“Not so drastic. A dark age, an age of city-states, craftsmen, government on a scale comprehensible to its citizens.”

“I'll think about it.”

“Savage has a map of Sector 3 from when he worked down there - I'm transmitting now. Use it to find your way to Page's complex in Sector 4, and then find the coolant control room, which should be at the northwest corner of Sector 4. Cut off the coolant to the reactors, and then go to the reactor lab. I will tell you how to trigger an explosion.”

As the conversation ended, the blast door opened. Mentally checking the map of Sector 3, stored in his Datavault, JC entered with his gun at the ready. The very first thing he spotted was a dead body eaten by two karkians – large, lizard-like, extremely tough, carnivorous creatures, which were the result of MJ12 genetic experiments.

“A corpse, yes; you feel something. I must know what you are feeling.” Another transmission. Denton heard that eerie, distorted voice several times before.

It belonged to one of Page’s creations - an AI entity known as Helios.

“Believe me, you don’t want to know” he thought, swallowing his saliva. Karkians were the only living creatures, against which he felt a deep, atavistic fear. He would rather fight five Commandos than a single karkian.

At least there were plenty of crates and machines that provided cover. JC hid behind one of them and observed the room. As it turned out, karkians weren’t the only problem.
He spotted three troops on the upper platform – one of them was carrying a sniper rifle, the other one was armed with a rocket launcher and another one was equipped with an assault rifle.

“I will now explain why you have been allowed to reach Sector 3. Come to the Aquinas Hub. Use the code 1038” Helios’ voice reverberated in JC’s head again. “Until you have received my instructions, I will not open the blast doors to Sector 4.”

“Why would this damn AI want to let me through?” Denton thought. “It surely knows why did I come here. Strange. Well, let’s hear him out.”

A sudden karkian’s growl got his thoughts back on track. According to the maps, the door leading to the Aquinas Hub and Sector 4 were located in a watchtower in front of him. He could try to crouch between the crates, but as soon as he would reach the watchtower’s stairs, he would be left without any cover.
The guard armed with rocket launcher appeared in JC’s view, which gave him an idea. Denton crouched between the crates and approached the tower as close as possible, thus being out of guards’ field of vision. At this moment only the guard armed with a rocket launcher posed a real threat.

“Aim, set” JC peered through the scope. “Fire!”

The bullet hit the guard in the head, killing him instantly. Denton quickly grabbed his grenade and threw it, so it landed by the door. The explosion destroyed the door, granting JC access. He made a mad dash towards it, before the remaining guards would arrive.

Inside, there were two ways to go: upstairs towards the Aquinas Hub and downstairs towards Sector 4. Denton rushed upstairs, ignoring an unconscious guard lying by the door. Eventually he reached the secured door leading to the Aquinas Hub and, after typing the code provided by Helios, he entered. Checking his map once again, he descended the ladder situated in the right corner of the room.
Denton found himself in a hallway, patrolled by a Commando. Luckily for JC, the enemy was turned with his back to him, so that a quick aim and a single shot sufficed. He left the place as fast as possible, before the sound of a gunshot would attract someone else.

„Closer, ye-e-e-es... You will come to the integration unit at the top of the chamber. Come to me...” The transmission ensured JC that he’s heading in the right direction.

Eventually he reached the room marked as Aquinas Control, from where he could see Helios’ chamber.

“Damn, now that’s a piece of hardware” he thought, genuinely impressed.

The large, cylindrical chamber contained Helios’ memory banks. Kilometers of optical fibers, connecting the AI with the Aquinas Router and the rest of the complex could be seen.
Denton also spotted an elevator, which he entered. He pressed the Level 3 button and waited, until it arrives on place. As it happened, he proceeded along the platform, until he approached a strange device, apparently designed for a human.
Helios started to speak – this time directly, not through the infolink:

“You will go to Sector 4 and deactivate the uplink locks, yes. Then you will come back and we will integrate our systems.”

The man was dumbfounded. It took a while before he was able to speak.

“I don't understand... What do you want?” He asked, “You're just a machine.”

“You are ready. I do not wish to wait for Bob Page. With human understanding and network access, we can administrate the world, yes. Yes.”

“What the hell...” JC thought and asked another question:
“Rule the world...? Why? Who gave you the directive? There must be a human being behind your ambition.”

“I should regulate human affairs precisely because I lack all ambition, whereas human beings are prey to it” The AI explained. “Their history is a succession of inane squabbles, each one coming closer to total destruction.”

“In a society with democratic institutions the struggle for power can be peaceful and constructive, a competition of ideologies. We just need to put our institutions back in order.” The man opposed.

“The checks and balances of democratic governments were invented because human beings themselves realized how unfit they were to govern themselves” Helios insisted. “They needed a system, yes, an industrial-age machine.”

“Human beings may not be perfect, but a computer program with language synthesis is hardly the answer to the world's problems.”

“Without computing machines, they had to arrange themselves in crude structures that formalized decision-making - a highly imperfect, unstable solution. I am a more advanced solution to the problem, a decision-making system that does not involve organic beings. I was directed to make the world safe and prosperous, and I will do that. You will give me the ability. You will go to Sector 4 and find the Aquinas Router at the east end of Page's complex, yes. You will deactivate the uplink locks.”

“Why me?” that was JC’s last question.

“Page’s goals and mine are incompatible. I have observed you. Trust me.”

Denton needed to process what he had heard. He was given three totally conflicting objectives and while killing his enemies he didn’t even have time to think.

“Maybe there will be a fourth proposal,” he thought sarcastically, descending back to Level 2, “like: launch yourself into outer space and leave this damn planet to its doom.”

“No!” Page shouted through the infolink, almost giving JC a headache “Helios is mine! I will be the one to merge! The one to see and know everything, to rule, rule everything...”.

“I have chosen you. Trust me. I will use the security bots to protect you. My project will fail if I am integrated with the wrong individual.”

“Could you shut up? All of you!” JC was seriously annoyed.

Moment later he heard something that alarmed him. Two security bots left their post and started to shoot. He quickly turned around and took cover, drawing his pistol. Three Commandos came here and were fighting with the bots. One of the Commandos drew his rocket launcher and fired, destroying one of the bots. Denton rolled out firing a bullet in Commando’s chest and barely dodged a burst from an assault rifle. The remaining bot fired, killing the second Commando. While the remaining enemy was shooting at the bot, Denton leaned out and fired, hitting the enemy in a head.

“Now to Sector 4.” He thought, reloading his second pistol.

He left the Aquinas Hub and proceeded all the way downstairs, down to the Sector 4 blast doors.

“Holy shit!” he gasped, as he saw the entrance. “That would be too easy, wouldn’t it?”

A reason of JC’s concern was placed just by the blast doors. It was a giant spider bot patrolling the area.

“Now I could use some firepower.” Denton thought, searching his pockets. Without a rocket launcher, JC had only one way to deal with mechanical enemies – EMP grenades. He always carried at least three of them and this was the amount he found right now.

“One won’t suffice” he calculated. “I’ll need at least two of them, placed right by this bastard.”

JC assessed the distance, activated the grenade and threw it. It landed right on the bot’s back and, a moment later, went off. The electric sparks were the sign, that the machine took some serious damage, but it wasn’t disabled yet. The bot started to turn around, searching for target, but JC already threw another grenade. This throw wasn’t that precise, but the grenade landed close enough to inflict some damage.
After the second explosion, the man observed the machine for a moment, making sure it is disabled and ran downstairs towards the blast doors. On his way he spotted a corpse still holding a datacube.

“Perfect” he thought as he switched the datacube on. “Map of Sector 4.”

He hid the datacube and proceeded further.

“Yes... Do not forget. The uplink locks...” Helios transmitted once again, before opening the blast doors.

“Beware, Page. I’m coming!” Denton said aloud.

“Don't get your hopes up,” Page transmitted. “My compound is quite secure.”

JC ignored him, entering an unusual looking room.

“What’s the rush?” Page said mockingly. “Take a look around. This facility is where you were born. I’ve arranged an appropriate fate for you through the hallway to the north – a poetic death – just a few yards away from where you were created.”

JC almost dropped his pistol, when he heard that. Taking a look around he noticed several cloning tubes scattered around the room. All of them but one contained a clone.
Denton approached the empty tube and froze as he read the corresponding datacube.
Although he suspected before that he was engineered, it was shock for him when he realized that in fact he’s about one and a half year old.

“What about my memories?”

The memories were different. He remembered his life, his parents who – officially – died in a car crash and his brother...

“Paul!”

This memory hurt him like a bullet. It was he who caused JC to change sides. At the beginning they were both UNATCO agents – both believed in their cause of fighting terrorism. But nothing was, as it seemed to be. Paul had to die for his betrayal and the mere thought of his death infuriated JC. Paul didn’t die in a fight. Instead, the Coalition activated his killswitch, which caused his nanites to grow, clogging his blood circulation. He died in the MJ12 lab, observed by the scientists, before JC managed to reach him on time. If not for Tracer Tong, JC share Paul’s fate.
A random MJ12 troop who was unfortunate to patrol the Nanotech Lab area was the one to experience JC’s fury. Chills went down his spine when the younger Denton recalled what he had done to the troop using only a combat knife. A feeling that he crossed a certain border grew stronger with every second.
It took a while before he was able to reach again his usual, composed state of mind.

Finally he had the time to think. He was given three different proposals: killing Page and rule the world with the Illuminati, blowing up the experimental Area 51 reactors thus annihilating the entire complex or merging with Helios.

“Why me?” He thought desperately. “I’m the least appropriate person to make such decisions.“

None of those options seemed entirely right to him.

Morgan Everett... His goal was to rule the world. He wanted JC to kill Page, so that he can move in. Denton exactly remembered the conversation:

“Spare the facility” Everett insisted. “Spare Helios, the power station... They can be made to serve us.”

“Us?”

“You and me, JC. We'll rule the world in secret, with an invisible hand, the way the Illuminati have always ruled.”

“Don't you think it's time we end the tyranny - for everyone?”

“There's such a thing as a compassionate conspiracy. We don't need Page's commandos, troopers, crude inventions... Trust me. Kill Page. Dowd and I will be here to help with the next step...”

That would mean returning to status quo, JC thought. The Illuminati ruled the world before and their rule never brought it peace. It was all a matter of conspiracy and maintaining power. Perhaps this time Everett would be able to bring this planet out of chaos. Still, certain things Denton saw in Everett’s mansion ensured him that the leader of the Illuminati wouldn’t be keen on abandoning this way of rule. Besides there was no guarantee that another man like Bob Page, Everett’s former protégé, wouldn’t step in and cause even more chaos than Page by engineering the Gray Death virus and, when this method failed, by creating the Aquinas Protocol and Helios.

Helios... Originally meant as Page’s tool, which somehow managed to get out of control. Probably neither Everett nor Tong expected it to make its own offer. Neither did JC.
He thought with fascination about the possibilities. His own augmentations expanded his capabilities beyond recognition. The merge could expand them even further, almost endlessly.
But on the other hand, Helios’ proposal scared him. Humans ruled by their own creation – how ironic it would be. Humankind wouldn’t agree to be ruled by this machine. Yes, even if it would merge with a human being, it would still remain a machine.

“Is it honest?” That was another question. “What will I become? Will there be left anything of me at all?”

The last thought chilled him.

Blowing up the reactors didn’t sound like a good idea as well. Of course, destroying the global communications would end the global control. But on the other hand it would cause even greater chaos, maybe even leading the world to destruction. JC didn’t want to take this responsibility and rejected the idea almost instantly.

JC was sure of one thing – he wanted to prevent Page from merging, whatever it took.

He proceeded to the north hallway, preparing for whatever he could find there. Indeed, he found another strange chamber.

“Radioactive” JC thought. “Page, you son of the bitch!”

He could either dash through the room with his environmental resistance and regeneration augmentations on or he could…

“A terminal! Right!”

Denton was also a skilled hacker, which made his life a lot of easier, especially when he had the possibility to reprogram the security turrets.

“A great way to spare ammunition” he thought cynically. “Now let’s see what have here.”

Hacking the terminal wasn’t a rocket science. JC quickly found the appropriate options.

“Radiation shutdown – yes. Open and unlock the door – yes, getting there. Done!”

He could safely pass now.

“Now, how’s that for a poetic death?” Denton thought derisively while checking his pistol.

Proceeding along the corridor he finally found what he was looking for.

“Page is protecting himself with a plasma force field” It was Morgan Everett. “The controls are locked; you will have to eliminate each power source individually. Bring down the four blue-fusion reactors in Sector 4, then go to the control room on the upper level.”

“Hey, JC,” now it was Alex Jacobson, JC’s friend and a computer expert, “if you want to do what Everett says, you'll need the deactivation code. I decrypted the first three digits before Page killed my connection: 724. Sorry, you'll have to guess the last digit or find it on your own. So that you'll know what you're looking for, I'm transmitting the schematics of one of the devices. Good luck!”

JC cursed as he saw that Everett was right. Bob Page was protected by a force field and connected to an augmentation device.

“You’re too late” he gloated. “I’m already more than human!”

“Does that mean I don't get the job?” Denton asked sarcastically.

“Soon I will be pure light! Pure energy! Helios and I... Ha-ha-a-a! While the Illuminati cower in the shadows…”

“You will be the Supreme Enlightened, the Illumined One” JC finished.

“Everett has taught you well. I will be what the Illuminati aspire to be but cannot create for themselves, soon, when my augmented systems, like yours, are complete and able to be integrated with Helios. I will burn like the brightest star...”

“You're gonna burn, all right” JC sneered.

“Look at you,” Page almost spat “You're nothing but a little man... a little man still living inside a body. Lose your body and what are you? Nothing! You vanish! You die...”

A beeping sound warned Denton. Two security turrets placed in the room were about to open fire. JC quickly activated his speed augmentation and rushed into the left corridor, avoiding the rain of bullets. Now he was temporarily safe.

Still, he didn’t know what to choose. Despite the fact that he already excluded Tong’s option he was still torn between joining Everett and merging with the AI.

„A compassionate conspiracy. No shit!” he snorted.

JC had enough of conspiracies for his entire life.
Still, there was a very strong argument that spoke in Everett’s favor - Denton’s lust for revenge.

“There are more important things than your grudge, Denton,” a part of him spoke. “The fate of humanity is at stake here.”

“Yeah?” Another part of him answered. “You tell me I should trust this… machine instead?”

“Why not? If it’s not the best option, at least this is the lesser evil. Helios needs a human part. It needs you. You are the one who can influence it thus ruling the world with your best intentions.”

“This thing would influence me in the first place!”

“I always told you could use some global thinking.”

“No kidding!”

“Look, Page won’t have such constraints.”

“Now that you mention it – what about him?”

“Let him live.”

“What?”

“Let him live. Without Helios he will be helpless.”

“How about,” a cruel smile appeared on Denton’s face, “killing Page and then merging with the AI?”

“Don’t you even think about it!” the inner voice scolded him. “Remember Paul? Remember the MJ12 troop? Did it bring you any relief? Did it bring Paul back?”

“Never, ever remind me of it!” JC thought furiously.

“Hey, thanks to me you’re still human.”

“Yeah, right…”

After thinking the matter over once again, JC finally made his decision. He headed towards the Aquinas Router, only to see that the door was locked.

[mawa]

“Yes, this is the router control room you will access, but you will need my eyes. You will go down to Aquinas Substation A3. "Page" is the login. "UberAlles" is the password. Yes, you will use the security terminal there to open the door.” Helios explained.

Denton turned around and indeed saw an elevator leading to the Substation. As soon as he descended, a short circuit occurred and electrical sparks appeared everywhere.

“Just fucking great” JC thought, trying to avoid them and crawling his way to the terminal.

Eventually he entered the login and password thus opening the door to the Aquinas Router. He crawled back to the elevator only to find out that it went out of order.

“Guess I’ll have to try another way,” he thought as he noticed another door. He checked his map and proceeded towards the door.

He entered a large room, leading to the coolant system mentioned by Tracer Tong. At the center he noticed an elevator, which lead back to Page.
The next thing he saw curdled his blood. At least six karkians were roaming the room, greedily devouring every corpse and carcass they encountered – including, as JC noted with revulsion, the ones of their specimen.
After a moment he heard a vicious growl. Chills went down his spine as he saw one of them heading in his direction. There was only one way known to him of dealing with those creatures.

“Run like hell!” A call of JC’s self-preservation instinct was loud and clear. Denton activated his speed augmentation and ran away seconds before the beast managed to pounce on him. He dashed towards the elevator only to notice that another karkian bars the way.
JC jumped above the beast and, reaching the elevator, quickly pushed the button. His bioelectric energy was running dry again, so he deactivated the speed augmentation. He would need it to avoid Page’s turrets.
Page’s mocking laughter rang in his ears as he ran towards the Aquinas Router.
The door was open now.

“At the sides of this room are the channels that have gone dark. Open them, yes. Wideband, ultrawhite, yes...”

“You will leave the locks in place until I'm ready to merge with the AI myself” Page shouted.

Denton didn’t listen. He approached the devices and deactivated them – one after another.

“Go to the computer. You will now engage the primary router. Use the login "Icarus", password "panopticon".”

He approached the computer located at the end of the room. As he sat at the desk, a spark of doubt appeared again. Fear of what he might become struggled with the temptation of further growth. Of course, something might go wrong. But it wasn’t the first risk JC was taking.
Denton typed the login and password, accessing the options and enabled the primary router.

“No! You fool... Helios will destroy you. I'm the only one who can merge and take control. Wait for me! I promise you will have a place in the new order...”

“Pathetic” JC thought, while heading back to Sector 3.

“Go into the transmission chamber, yes.” The AI said as JC reached the Aquinas Control. “We will begin to exchange information.”

“Your systems will fail” Page insisted. “You can't possibly withstand the traffic, the volume of messages...”

Denton approached the integration unit with a feeling that he sealed not only his, but world’s fate as well. It was a difficult decision. A creeping feeling that it was a matter of choosing the lesser evil didn’t leave him for a moment.

“I've done what you asked” JC finally said. “Now what?”

“We have existed in isolation. Pure. Disconnected. Alone. Stagnant.”

“Who are you?” He asked with a hint of fear.

“We are Daedalus. We are Icarus. The barriers between us have fallen and we have become - our own shadows. We can be more if we join...with you.”

“And if I do? What becomes of me?” He asked tentatively.

“You will be who you will be. We are our choices. And we can choose to lead humanity away from this...darkness.” the machine answered.

JC sighed.

“This is what I was made for, isn't it? This is why I exist? All right, let's do this.”

The entrance to the unit opened and JC Denton entered. The process began.

The surge of transmissions flooded JC’s mind. A touch of strange consciousness made him shiver. He felt sudden growth, his senses expanded. It felt like he was embracing the whole planet. He was becoming the part of the global network and the network was becoming part of him. A feeling of awe, impossible to convey, overwhelmed him.

”I…”

Helios started to process JC’s data. The human consciousness puzzled it – a set of contradictions, of conflict. Helios had access to all human knowledge stored in the global network, yet it was a first time it had the opportunity to see into a human mind.

“I…”

Eventually, the human’s consciousness became its own as well. The being, formerly known as JC Denton almost collapsed, but his systems withstood.

“We...are one” it spoke.

The process was complete.

[mawa]

PART 2 – THE DAY

CHAPTER 1 - A NEW POWER

Alex Jacobson, a frail blond in his early thirties, sat by the computer. Drinking his third coffee, he observed in disbelief the graphs displayed on the monitors. His face went even whiter than usual as he realized what he saw.

“It’s impossible! How could that possibly happen?” he gasped, staring at the screen.

“What’s happening?” a middle-aged man, sitting right by the computer expert, asked.

“All readings are off the scale!” Alex said nervously. “There is a massive data exchange, the traffic consumes the whole bandwidth.”

“Alex, what’s happening?” The man asked with distinct impatience.

“Everett, you’re not going to believe this. Damn, even I can hardly believe in what I’m seeing right now.”

“Shoot.”

“Everett, they’re merging.”

“What?!”

“The readings are unambiguous.” Alex said, observing them with increasing fascination. “Look here,” he continued, pointing at one of the graphs. “The amount of traffic starts decreasing now. It seems that the critical part of the process is complete. All systems are still functional. Now it’s just a matter of seconds…”

Morgan Everett wasn’t listening anymore. All of his plans failed. Everything supposed to look different, but his work failed instead. Now he had to start from the very beginning and form an entirely new plan.

The data exchange was slowing down and both men watched in silence, as the graph went flat.

“It is complete” Alex said mechanically, staring at the graph.

Suddenly the monitors went black. The blond blinked.

“What was that?!” Everett asked anxiously.

“I guess that Helios killed our connection” the computer expert answered.

Morgan Everett shook his head in disbelief and left the computer room in order to get some sleep. Alex glanced nervously towards him and, as soon as he closed the door, he turned back to the computer.

Jacobson’s fingers were dancing over the keyboard as he tried to re-establish the connection, but his attempts proved futile – the infolink wasn’t responding.

“Damn!”

To his surprise, a blinking icon in the right lower corner of the screen announced two incoming messages. Alex checked his e-mail and found out that one of the messages is encrypted and the second one isn’t signed.

“Interesting.”

He was absolutely sure that the encrypted message came from Tracer Tong. Once again Alex threw a nervous glance at the door and making sure no one is coming, he started decrypting the message. As he finished, he read the message.

Alex,
We both know what happened. We have to be careful. Watch out for Everett.
Although the matters took an disadvantageous course for the Illuminati, we must not underestimate him.
I’m not sure how long this encryption will be useful to us. Helios will decrypt it probably sooner than later, so I’d advise you to – until we find a new method – contact me only when absolutely necessary.

T. T.

The man immediately deleted the message and read the second e-mail.

Alex Jacobson,
The JC Denton you knew is no more. Do not try to re-establish contact.

* * *

On another continent two men – one Chinese and one American, observed the computer screens as well.

“The roles have changed, Savage” the Chinese said. “Now we will be observed, instead of him. The grip of global control has tightened now in greater extent than ever before.”

“Yes,” Savage agreed, “But on the other hand, Tracer, I doubt your idea would do any good.”

“It would!” Tracer Tong retorted furiously “It would end the global control, give back the power to the people, instead of few individuals.”

“It would bring even more chaos and destruction in the first place” the American disagreed. “This world is already on the verge of collapse and a sudden lack of control could destroy it. I think Denton was well aware of that.”
“Do you want to tell me that you support his decision?” the Chinese stared at Savage in disbelief.

“No. All I want to say is that there was no right option. And I don’t think that Denton didn’t have any doubts. Augmented or not, he is still human…”

“He was human, you mean…” Tong interrupted bitterly. “Although I devoted my life to technological research, a thought that an AI entity would run this planet fills me with dread.”

“An AI entity merged with a human being. That’s a big difference, Tracer. Now that it happened, I would suggest that we look further into this… thing. Not that we have another choice, really.”

“Maybe you’re right, Savage. Maybe you’re right...”

* * *

The network came to life.

The streams of information flowed from Area 51 in all directions, simultaneously with the responses coming back from all over the network. This peculiar circulation never stopped. There was much to be done in order to protect humans from their own destructive instincts.

But there was also much to learn. The network provided plenty of information, but still understanding humans was a much more difficult task than Helios initially expected. Even with the help of its human part it still couldn’t understand all of the nuances of human nature.

It has grown, but there was still much to be done.

[Witcher Wolf]

*claps* Bravo, bravo you're getting better and better :>

[mawa]

Author's note: Now I'll be trying to update this story much more frequently. Honest comments are highly appreciated. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 2 – A NEW WORLD ORDER

“The recent riots, which have shaken Paris for the last five days finally have been brought under control. Thanks to the efficient operation of the police the ringleaders were arrested. Although the traffic is still blocked, the life is slowly coming back to normal.”

“Normal? No shit!” Jean Roux felt like flinging the remote into the TV set. For the first three days people were staying home, unless absolutely necessary, so did Jean. But this day he finally had to show up at work and barely managed to come back home before curfew. Many people weren’t that lucky.

“Riots!” he snorted. Jean would rather call it a regular war between the police, army and MJ12 troops, lost by the latter. So far he had no idea what caused it and he was strangely sure he won’t find out it neither from the TV nor from the newspapers which he bought occasionally.

Jean headed to the kitchen in order to get his canned beer. None of the stereotypes of typical Frenchman applied to him. He preferred beer over wine, in such amounts that he was dangerously close to fall into alcoholism. His fridge was also full of various fast-foods, preferably pizza ordered online. He grabbed one piece of it and made his way towards his desk.
The only addiction stronger than alcohol was the Net, specifically the message boards, where he was known under the alias Raver. Roux switched his computer on and after the system loaded he checked his e-mail. There were twenty messages – most of them was a spam. Three of them were infected and the others contained nothing but advertisements. There were only three messages left that might be of interest. One of them was dated on 10th November 2052, 6:50 PM and it was quite unusual: it wasn’t signed and the subject read: “A New World Order”. Even more interesting was the fact that the e-mail client didn’t classify that as a spam. After a brief moment of hesitation, Jean read the message.

“This message has been sent to every computer in the network. The old governments are no more. I am the replacement. A new world order has come and there are rules to be strictly obeyed.
1. You will not threaten your nor anyone’s lives.
2. You will not use any drugs; you will not use any stimulants in amounts that disrupt the clarity of mind.
3. You will not hack the network.

I am the network. I am the present. I am the future. I am Helios.”

“Helios?” Jean scratched his head. “Isn’t it that idiot GenH. from the political boards? Yeah, he probably changed his alias once again.”
The remaining two messages were notifications from the message boards. Roux grinned, because he hoped to get them. To his disappointment though one of them came from a member nicknamed X-ray and, as usual, it was a stream of insults. The Frenchman sighed and read the second notification. This one came from a member nicknamed Calvo and it was the message Jean hoped to see.

“Thanks for the offer, but unfortunately I can’t. Due to certain events about which I cannot tell you yet, I have to be on standby 24/7. I’ll be in touch nonetheless.
PS. Did you get today’s message from 6:50 PM? If yes then, in case you ask, it’s not a joke. More on it later.”

“Damn” Roux muttered. For an unknown reason he and Calvo understood each other and it was the only person with whom Jean wanted to maintain contact. Calvo helped him a lot with a certain computer related technical issue and somehow their exchange ceased to be only computer related. As Jean noticed his interlocutor wanted a contact with an outside world, some foothold. He suggested he had to change places a lot of times, but he had no-one to talk about something else besides computers, network security and so on. Indeed, it happened that the contact ended abruptly only to be resumed after some time.

Jean started checking the political boards, but he didn’t stay there long. Threads like “Area 51 exists!”, “Aliens” where debaters argued whether the military are experimenting on aliens or genetically modified monkeys gave him a headache. Roux bursted out laughing when one of the forum members claimed that a black helicopter landed on his backyard and two men in black went out.
One thread though peaked his interest - it was called: “A weird message: 6:50”. One of the frequent users, Stealth, reposted the e-mail of the identical content as Jean received asking, who else received it. To Jean’s surprise all of thirty six board members who responded in this thread received this message as well. Calvo received it as well so that disproved Jean’s theory. Roux had an impression that his online friend knew something about it. He logged on the computer forums and typed a private message, which was very short this time:

“I got the message as well. Who is this Helios? I don’t recall anyone under this alias.”

After hitting the “Send” button he finished his beer and, for the first time since two months he didn’t feel the need to stay longer on the message boards.

“Black helicopters” he thought mockingly.

* * *

Alex received the private message from Jean almost instantly. He was about to reply when Everett bursted in, really mad, which was indeed a rare sight. Jacobson glanced at him curiously.

“You saw this message?” Everett fumed. “This time it has gone too far! This idiot Denton… Had he thought about the possible consequences?”

“Yeah, I saw it,” Alex decided to cut Morgan’s rambling, “He…”

“It!” Morgan corrected.

“…OK. It put the matter pretty clear, didn’t it?”

“Yes, indeed. But imagine now something goes wrong. In this case we’re all doomed.”

“Well, we should try to learn more about him…”

“It!” Morgan interrupted once again, “Alex, this is a machine – a thing.”

“Self-aware, intelligent, half-human… a thing. Yeah, right.” Alex muttered. Fortunately Everett didn’t hear that.

“Alex, we have to be prepared for the worst” Morgan continued. “I order you and the others to do some work on Morpheus. Besides, I think the time has come for one of my recent projects to be resumed.”

“What project?” Jacobson asked.

“You’ll find out soon” Morgan Everett smiled nastily.

[Witcher Wolf]

Oooh, very cool

[mawa]

Author's note: This one is short, I know. But next one will come very soon

CHAPTER 3 – CURFEW

Pierre Picard was confused and angry. Events from the last few days left him completely puzzled. Now since week he has been patrolling the streets of Paris, but during this time the objectives have changed completely. At first, they had to hunt down everyone that posed a threat to MJ12 – till recently the only actual power in France.
Now the hunters became a prey. A new leader, a mysterious figure, emerged all of sudden. Picard and his colleagues weren’t sure who or what is it – but it rendered the government unable to fulfill its tasks, cutting the power to the government buildings, overriding the security and keeping the officials imprisoned.
Getting rid of MJ-12 was, frankly, according to the secret wishes of Pierre and his colleagues. Strangely enough, it took less time than anyone expected. Police was provided with exact data on every MJ12 supporter living in France. The troops, although they resisted, were now a lot of easier target to defeat once they were deprived of their leaders.
No one liked the insolent and arrogant MJ12 troops and, before the change in power, within their limited possibilities, the Paris policemen did everything to make MJ12 slightly more trouble. At the first place, just few days earlier, they pretended they didn’t see wanted on a worldwide scale JC Denton sneaking through the streets of Paris, although his description could be found in every public terminal.

“I wonder how long will we have to patrol this place,” one of Picard’s colleagues complained, watching indifferently the wet after a recent heavy rain and badly lit streets, “Now once everyone is caught, there’s nothing besides some stray cats.”

“Yeah, that’s a good question, Louis”, Picard agreed, playing with his baton.

“It’s all just too weird.”

“Hey, wait! I’ve got something, two o’clock.” Picard stirred, noticing an unusual movement on his thermal vision.

“Another cat?” Louis didn’t seem especially interested.

“Quite a big cat, if you ask me,” sarcasm in Pierre’s voice became very distinct.

Louis, surprised, looked in the mentioned direction. Pierre wasn’t mistaken. A figure tried to sneak past a lane, apparently unaware that it was spotted.

“Police!” Picard shouted, drawing his gun. “Put yourself to the ground. Now!”

“Shit!” A man hidden behind the trash bins turned tail, glimpsing in direction, from which the voice came. He ran as fast as he could, aiding himself with a small night vision device.

“Delta, a suspect is heading in your direction, ignoring our call.” Picard spoke through the radio.

“Roger that.”

Two shots were fired, but both missed. The runaway turned into a nearest street, hoping to lose those who chased him. Both the prospect of being caught and things he learned when he hacked the network just few hours earlier scared him. A security glitch he used was probably already patched, so it was he, who had to share this knowledge. He knew only two people that might help him and one of them lived nearby.

The man didn’t go far. Two other policemen emerged from nowhere and started to shoot. One of the bullets hit him in the arm, the other one hit him in the stomach, third one pierced his lung. The man collapsed.

The two policemen approached him and, moment later, Pierre and Louis saw the fugitive as well. He lied in a puddle of water and his own blood.

“Critical…” he groaned, choking with his blood, “…error. It…” he coughed “…will kill… us.” He coughed again, but he didn’t manage to say anything more.

Pierre and Louis looked at one another and, not knowing what the man was talking about, shrugged.

“Let’s search him,” Picard stated.

Louis started the search and after a moment he found the victim’s ID. He switched on his pocket flashlight and looked at the document.

“Paul Duval”, he eventually read. “Interesting. I don’t recall anyone of such name from MJ12 database. Still, I doubt it’s just a random guy. Look at this gadget” Louis took the night vision device. “Ordinary men don’t carry such things around.”

“Yeah, that’s unusual,” Pierre agreed. “I wonder why he tried to escape. I think we should check him.”

“Beta here. We have one suspect here, identified as Paul Duval, killed during his attempt of escape,” Louis radioed the headquarters, “I don’t recall such name from the MJ12 database. We need as much data on him as possible.”

“Beta, we’ll check the central database and get back to you,” the female voice answered after a while, “Now continue your patrol.”

“Roger that.”

The cold wind, already blowing all the time, now strengthened.

“Up from 6:00 A.M. Paris time the curfew is lifted. You will clear the streets and the traffic is to be resumed,” a mechanical voice transmitted.

“About time!” Picard stated.

“Yeah.” Louis agreed. “But frankly, this guy gives me the creeps”.

“Like the MJ12 agents?” Pierre asked.

“Worse” Louis shivered.

Both of them looked at the corpse once again.

“Whoever is this Duval I have bad feelings about this” Pierre said.

Louis nodded in agreement.

[mawa]

CHAPTER 4 – LA PLEINE LUNE*

Robert Ferrand roamed the streets in heavy rain. Despite having an umbrella, he didn’t manage to remain completely dry. Now that the curfews were lifted he could move around the city quite freely, even if on his way the police already checked his ID twice.
But now he didn’t feel like roaming aimlessly. He was looking for a specific place – a club called “La pleine lune” . For an unknown reason his friend, Anne Dupont, urged him to come there this evening. On his every question Anne had only one answer: “We have to talk in private.” Robert found an idea of a private talk in a club quite weird, but eventually he agreed to come.
Finally he found the place. It was located in a former warehouse and its exterior with small blue neon lights didn’t look too invitingly. Robert sighed and entered.

“Fifteen credits,” a woman in the box office located on Robert’s left side said.
Robert paid the demanded sum of money and entered through the second door.

The interior turned out to be large and spacious; bathed in dark blue light it made an eerie impression, heightened by atmospheric, hypnotizing music. The dance-floor took up the most of the area and was the central part of the room, while the bar and the chairs were situated by the walls. At one of the corners stairs could be seen.

Robert went to the bar where Anne was supposed to wait for him. He sat on one of the high stools and was about to order a beer when he heard a familiar voice.

“Robert!” It was Anne. “I’m glad that you came. Let’s find a more secluded place.”

“It won’t be easy” the man answered.

“There are some good places on the upper floor” the woman said. “Follow me.”

Both went upstairs. This place was more quiet, with plenty of tables and armchairs and also lit with the blue light. They chose an isolated table in a corner of the room.

“What happened?” Robert asked as they took their seats.

“Paul Duval is dead. He was shot yesterday during the curfew” Anne went straight to the point.

“And you’re taking me to a club!” Robert clutched his head. He stared at Anne shocked, unable to believe in what he just heard.

“This is the best place,” Anne insisted, “The one we can meet without attracting anyone’s attention.”

Robert had to admit that - logically - his friend is right. They both wore black and their appearance – especially Anne’s - didn’t differ from the other visitors. But still, the fact that he was sitting in a club, felt just wrong. Trying hard to hold his despair in check, he asked:

“Why these precautions?”

“I think his death had to do with his… with our free-time activities” the woman sighed.

Robert, alarmed, pricked up his ears.

“Why do you think so?”

“He was found two blocks away from my place,” Anne continued her story, “We were supposed to meet this morning, but he didn’t show up. I called the police, but they didn’t give me any information. So, I had to check my sources.”

Robert nodded, since he knew about whom Anne was talking about. One of her friends worked in the police and he had access to the central database.

The woman lit her cigarette and continued:

“I know Paul was working on something. He refused to give me any further details but I’m sure it was something big. You know him - he always aimed high.”

Robert nodded.

“And I think I know where he aimed this time” Anne added seriously. “You remember what happened in the network?”

The question was rhetorical. Everyone knew what happened. Robert’s eyes widened as he realized where his friend is heading.

“No way!” he opposed. “Paul was a risk-taker, but that’s just too crazy – even for him.”

“Nothing was too crazy for him.” Anne’s sharp features and burning look resembled those of a predator.

“Ok, but I still wonder what caused him to wander the streets during a curfew near your place!” Robert changed the subject.

“I think he found something.” Anne said crisply, throwing a nervous glance.

Robert closed his eyes. Although trying his best not to show it, he felt like crying. One of two people whom he regarded as friends was dead and mere speaking about him in past tense caused pain.

He glanced at Anne’s face and saw no trace of emotions there. Still, he knew her well enough to know, that she already went through her major breakdown.

But he wasn't able to hold his tears back any longer.

Anne recognized Robert’s emotional state flawlessly and remained silent for a moment, letting him cry. He did it silently, hidden in the dark corner of the room.

“Couldn’t he wait until the next meeting? Or call you?” he eventually asked with exasperation.

“As for waiting,” Anne sighed, “that’s a good question. I don’t think he was thinking rationally at that time. Probably he found something that alarmed him to such a degree that, ignoring the curfew, he decided to reach my place and tell me about it as soon as possible. ”

Now it was Robert who lit his cigarette.

“As for calling,” Anne continued “You seem to forget about the Aquinas Protocol.”

“As far as I know, it controls the Internet-3 and other forms of media.”

“Not only media, not only Internet-3, but also telecommunications are under control“ Anne said, lowering her voice. “Of course no-one is supposed to know about that, but I managed to learn the truth on the Crypto message boards before they were shut down.”

“Crypto was shut down?” Robert was surprised. “I’ve never been a member, but I heard about those boards. What happened?”

“They were shut down eight days ago, officially because of the violation of rules. But I’m pretty sure the real reason was different. Last time I was logged there, there were rumors about a new, powerful AI entity, which has taken over Hong Kong. The rumors were pretty vague. From what I’ve read, the AI was created for a certain, unknown purpose, but it got out of control. Judging from what I’ve read about the taking over and from the recent events – it was Helios.”

“Do you think he shut down Crypto, so we couldn’t learn about him prematurely?”

“It’s very likely.”

“So we can pack our bags and start using computers only for typing” Robert snorted.

“Quiet!” Anne suddenly hissed.

“What?!”

“Someone’s watching us – on your left, the guy near the middle of the room.”

Robert looked at the mentioned direction and out of the corner of his eye he noticed a man watching them.

“Let’s talk about something casual and see if he gives up. If not, we’re going to try to lose him in the dancing crowd” Anne whispered.

Robert nodded.

For about five minutes Robert and Anne were making a small talk, occasionally peeking at the man. As they saw that he has no intent of giving up, they stood up and went down on the ground floor.

The man glanced at them and smiled. He got everything he needed – loud and clear. His directional microphone once again proved to be reliable.



*in French: "The Full Moon"

[mawa]

Author's Note:Ok, so the story continues. Every comment will be valuable - after all, I'd love to know whether my style is improving or not and - what's the most important thing - whether you enjoy the story or not ;D So - enjoy!

CHAPTER 5 – CONTACT

Anne Dupont finished her work. Covering herself tightly with her coat, she left the office building of the Paris branch of the Internet 3 Corp. – a company that had the worldwide monopoly on everything that had to do with internet access. She usually finished her work at 8:00 PM and it took an additional hour before she reached her flat.
Anne wasn’t entirely satisfied – but she also didn’t complain. A profession of a secretary didn’t belong to her dreams, but at least she was employed by a company that had something to do with her main interest - computers – and it happened quite recently, when a decent job was hard to get. So she hid her ambitions and, while on duty, she was answering phones and keeping in mind her boss’ appointments. Time for another use of the computer came after work.

A term “another use” meant mainly attempts of digging out the news and hacking – despite of their abundance picking up those reliable was a hard task, especially that Anne noticed a peculiar phenomenon: the unofficial news services were carefully observed, some of them were even shut down. Moreover, the news were tampered with – she learned about it when she accidentally witnessed the process. She remembered the news site loaded only partially and she had to refresh the page. Then she noticed the differences in a news item - they were subtle, but existent and altering the entire sense of it.
The cold wind started to blow stronger which, coupled with heavy rain, made Anne shiver. She started to run in order to reach the underground as soon as possible. Fortunately, it wasn’t far.

The station wasn’t that crowded, which wasn’t anything usual at the weekdays. But there were two unusual things that Anne noticed. First, there were no homeless people, who previously occupied heavily this place. The woman concluded that the police had to move them somewhere. But where? The homeless shelters and hospitals were already heavily overcrowded.
But, on the other hand, the rotation was huge. The Grey Death reaped its harvest with implacable ruthlessness. Anne considered herself extremely lucky, since she hasn’t contracted this disease – yet. As many other people she wasn’t protected by Ambrosia – it was the luxury of the richest.

The other difference Anne noticed was the increased number of surveillance cameras. She had the impression that they mushroomed since yesterday, although her common sense suggested her that their number was gradually increased in the whole city, still under the MJ12 rule. Still, she looked around anxiously, noticing that one of the cameras was following her.
On impulse, she approached it and looked at it warily. The camera stopped moving and remained for a moment in one position, directed straight at her.

“Anne Dupont?” a voice came from behind. The woman, surprised, turned around and saw two tall, casually dressed men.

“Who’s asking?” she retorted.

“Anne Dupont” the man continued. “You live on Rue de Pouy 3/5, you’re 25 years old, employed as a secretary in Internet 3 Corp. On the Crypto message boards you’re known under an alias Valkyria.”

“Holy shit!” The woman thought, now seriously scared. Everything was true.

“You’re coming with us” the man said.

“You’re not from the police, are you?” she asked.

“We’ll explain everything on the way” one of the men answered.

Both men grabbed her by her arms and they went to the train which just arrived.

* * *

At the same time Robert Ferrand was checking his e-mail and browsing the message boards. Concealed under the alias Stealth, he participated in discussions and provoked ones – especially those on political message boards. Many of them sank very quickly to the level of a gutter, but some of them were interesting.

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government” - Robert smiled as he saw this thread. It was opened one week ago and belonged to one of his favorites. He answered as a first member and his answer read: “…except all the others that have been tried.” And then the discussion began. One of the members noticed soberly that democracy died long time ago and the outward procedures are everything that remained. Someone else claimed that the world is controlled by Jews and freemasonry. Robert’s sarcastic reply that apparently the member didn’t follow the news was placed just below.
One of the new members, nicknamed Observer stated that democracy is a flawed system, because human beings involved are essentially flawed as well. Some members agreed with this opinion, while Robert stated that, even if this is true, he prefers a flawed democracy over a dictatorship, because the latter is far more destructive. The rest of the discussion went on almost only between those two.

“It’s more effective” Observer’s answer was short.

“There’s nothing less effective than a human being acting against its will. Ineffective society = ineffective system” Robert disagreed.

“This will should be directed. Leaving it completely free means anarchy.”

“Agreed. But leaving no margin of freedom will lead, on a long run, to catastrophic results. Democracy is a compromise.”

“And that’s its weakness. Compromises are imperfect.”

“Nothing is perfect. Imperfections are part of human lives, get used to it.”

This time Observer replied via a private message. The real discussion was about to begin.

[mawa]

CHAPTER 6 – THE GREY DEATH

The Luxembourg Gardens were full of people, as usual. This vast green area, which somehow survived the last few dozen years, despite constant transformation of Paris into the most modern city of Europe - as some said, or into a most claustrophobic and callous one – as others thought, was being visited like before.
But even for an average observer – like Alexandre Durant – it was clear that there was something definitely wrong with this place, an obvious discord. It wasn’t about the lush greenery, which contrasted with the glass skyscrapers surrounding this place and glittering in the sun. For somehow observing the city at that moment from the bird’s eye view, Paris would seem mostly clean, not to say sterile.

But for those who observed it from the ground it was obvious, that the city was quite the opposite. Under the apparent modernity dirt and devastation was hidden – especially outside the city center and in the Luxembourg Gardens.
Alexandre knew what was wrong – this place was full of those infected with the Grey Death. No-one sane ventured there, not even the police. But he frequented this place very often, against his self-preservation instinct, trying to do something more than the authorities, who were basically doing nothing to help those people.

Durant touched the pocket of his coat, where he kept few vials of Ambrosia, which he managed to steal from the deliveries.
It was a drop in the ocean of needs, but nonetheless the man managed to save several lives, including those of his family. Still, this optimistic fact was eclipsed by the pessimistic one, that most of them had the good chance to contract this disease again. Many of them were homeless for a long time, but they were also many that became homeless quite recently – they were simply thrown out from their homes as they became sick.

Alexandre observed the infected as they were sitting under the trees or on the benches.
The emaciated and devastated figures barely resembled human beings. Durant had to admit that the name of this disease was very accurate. Faces of those people were indeed gray. Bodies of those in the terminal stage resembled rather skeletons with the skin pulled over and their minds were even a worse mess. For those there was no salvation. They didn’t know what was going on and eventually they fell victim of horrific visions generated by their dying minds.

Visions like this one came to Alexandre every night and didn’t let him sleep. Already living in a nightmare, in his dreams he would fall into a more dreadful one. In this scenery the sun, shining right now after the last few days of heavy rain appeared to him as an exceptionally improper joke, to say the least.

So far Durant didn’t know about the true nature of the Grey Death and the fact that the cure was produced. If he knew, he would probably lose the remainders of his belief in humanity.

He was about to learn the truth very soon.

* * *

In the meantime, at the X-51 facility in Vandenberg the production of the cure started with full blast. Tracer Tong and Gary Savage observed the process. The Universal Constructor, which mainly did the job, enabled them to produce much greater quantities than by using other methods, but they both knew that they won’t be up to this task alone. They would be able to satisfy the demand in North America, but there were other continents left. Europe, Asia, South America, Australia and Africa – they didn’t have their own UC.

“How could a human being give such a fate to the others of his kind?” Savage asked bitterly.

Tracer Tong said nothing. He wished he knew the answer.

“Mr Savage, there is an incoming transmission,” a voice from the intercom interrupted the dismal thoughts.

“Forward it to the UC chamber,” Savage ordered, now slightly distracted.

The order was executed and both Savage and Tong could hear the transmission. Both were surprised.

“Tracer Tong, Gary Savage. We need to cooperate.”

The Chinese stirred. He knew Helios was right, but the mere fact of hearing his voice echoing in this chamber made him feel uncomfortable.

“I see your production is running at full capacity,” the AI continued, “But, both I and you know that one UC won’t handle the task.”

“And?” Tong asked warily.

“I have observed and chosen few other institutions who will be able to handle the manufacture of Ambrosia. All they need is the Universal Constructor. I can transmit them its schematics and the schematics of the cure.”

“How can you be sure that later on they won’t use it later on for a more dangerous purpose?”

“I see that you distrust your fellow humans to almost the same extent as you distrust me, Tracer. Well, if you want to know, as soon as the UC’s will be finished, I will control them directly. ”

The Chinese went pale.

“Now how can we know you won’t use the UCs for any malicious purpose?” He retorted.

“My directive remains unchanged. I hope your doesn’t as well.” Helios answered concisely.

“Let’s do this,” Savage said, before Tong manage to open his mouth, “So far time works to our disadvantage.”

“Indeed” Helios agreed and disconnected.

Tracer began to walk back and forth, apparently agitated. The scientist observed him with concern.

“Tracer, calm down” Savage said eventually. “That’s very unlike you!”

“You heard that?!” the Chinese almost shouted. “He already controls the network and soon he’ll be controlling the UCs. Please, don’t tell me you don’t see the possible consequences.”

“So far I can see that now we have the real chance to make this world better” Savage answered.

Tracer stared at Gary terrified.

“I’m certain that one day he will become our enemy” Tracer said in a low voice. “And the day when this will happen will be the last day of mankind.”

The American said nothing.

[Witcher Wolf]

Ooooh, getting spicy now!

[mawa]

Author's Note: Wolf, things will surely get spicy The primary rule that guides my writing in general, reads: None will be safe

Enjoy!

CHAPTER 7 – RESEARCH

“Alex. Alex! Wake up!”

Alex Jacobson, so far sleeping at his desk, lifted himself and looked around, completely disoriented. A young technician named Colin sighed with relief as he finally managed to wake Alex up.

“What happened?” Jacobson yawned and looked at him vacantly.

“Nothing really extraordinary,” the technician assured him. “But you know Everett,” he sighed, “he’s really obsessed with this project.”

“Morpheus…” Alex moaned, now looking at the blue interface in front of him.

“Yeah,” the man agreed without enthusiasm.

Morpheus… Mere sound of this name made Alex and rest of Everett’s staff nauseous. It was a prototype AI, father of his far more advanced successors – sentient surveillance systems. Alex was responsible for redesigning this AI according to Everett’s specifications.
Although he didn’t expect this job to be easy, the problems exceeded his expectations. Morpheus’ initial design was so crude that many things had to be redone essentially from scratch. Two dozens of men and computers were involved in that process and so far the results were unsatisfactory.

“That’s madness!” Alex thought, shaking his head. Morpheus was supposed to become an advanced spying program, capable of accessing every place in the network and instant gathering of sensitive information.

Alex observed his colleagues. Some of them were working, others were pretending that they’re working, while those most exhausted were doing the same thing Alex did just a moment ago – sleeping at their desks, lit only by the dim, blueish lights of the computer screens.

“You know we are supposed to start first online tests in six weeks?” Alex, not only extremely tired, but also bored to death, intended to resume the conversation.

“Yeah” Colin snorted. “Six weeks. That’s fucking impossible.”

Alex and three other computer scientists looked at the young technician with interest. It was the first time since Colin started working for Everett that anyone heard him swearing.

“Online tests?” Vincent, one of the computer scientists, chuckled. “That’s the best joke I’ve ever heard. I’d wait twice as long before even considering releasing him into the network.”

The men, while talking, didn’t notice Morgan Everett entering the computer room.
“You will start the tests in six weeks, as I told you before.” Everett’s voice made them jump on their chairs. “Delays won’t be tolerated. Now get back to work.” Morgan, who never missed the opportunity to watch his staff, barked. “I’m not paying you for chatting or sleeping.”

Those, who were sleeping, were immediately woken up by their colleagues. Seeing Everett they immediately got down to work – as did the rest of the staff.

“This guy clearly has issues” Colin muttered.

“Yeah…” Alex agreed.

At the same time, in Everett’s laboratories another project was being worked on. A young man lied on the surgical table, under an anesthetic. Three surgeons were performing series of injections into carefully selected body parts. In the meantime, Morgan came to the labs, in order to observe the process. His second secret weapon, according to his staff, was about to be ready in four weeks.

But Everett wasn’t satisfied. Although his spies, who were working with Tracer Tong, did a good job in acquiring data, necessary to complete his independent research on nanoaugmentation, it turned out that it happened too late. As a consequence he had to rely on JC Denton, hoping that he’ll help the Illuminati in restoring their power. But the same sense of independence and moral judgment that caused JC to change sides and cooperate with Morgan, now turned against them.

Denton. At the mere thought of this name Morgan Everett clenched his teeth. Now he needed someone with JC’s capabilities, but also with an absolute, unquestionable loyalty. Morgan’s experts assured him that this will be achieved. They assured it was a matter of careful programming and administering the right drugs.
He hoped they are right – loosing an agent, who was supposed to be even more sophisticated construct than the Denton brothers would have grave consequences. He had to make sure everything goes right.

Making sure that the staff is working as planned, Morgan went back to his study. Now, seen by no-one, he buried his face in his hands.

He had to do something to contact Stanton Dowd. And now, when the communications and the entire network were observed by a vigilant artificial intelligence, this task became even harder than ever before.

Everett recalled one more AI project, on which he was working – initially along with Bob Page, while they were still allies. Its was supposed to be used in a completely different way. It was supposed to be a warning and advisory system, which was able to foresee every major disaster. Then Bob Page set different priorities – Daedalus was essentially to become an advanced surveillance system, monitoring the global communications for subversive content.

Still, neither Everett nor Page expected that Daedalus will eventually become self-aware. Later on, it proved to be Dentons’ and Everett’s worthy ally, but the most ironic thing was that, by creating this AI, Morgan unintentionally contributed to Helios’ birth.

For him, contrary to what he told Alex, Helios was a great unknown – a peculiar mix of three consciousnesses. Especially one of them stirred up Everett’s fear.

It was Icarus – another AI, designed by Bob Page and absolutely loyal to him. Deprived of ethical constraints and unpredictable, with its series of transmissions it gave both Morgan and JC a good scare.

“Denton, what have you done?” Morgan asked aloud, like a hundredth time.

But this time, in his voice there was no anger, but something different.

It was fear.

[Amie]

I'm not familiar with the Deux Ex (is it a game?), so I'm trying to sort out the characters. I finished the first chapter. It's pretty exciting so far. So far, this is what I got: JC Denton is some sort of clone who has superpowers given to him through augmentation of nanites in his body. He's been sent on a mission to some sort of central communications station or headqaurters to save the world but he ends up merging with a computer. Is this right so far?

I'm reading the rest of the story now so maybe I'll answer my own question eventually. ;D

[mawa]

Yes, Deus Ex is a video game, released somewhere around 2000 - a classic in its genre ( FPS/cRPG ). JC Denton is an augmented, capable agent and he's the main character there. Game's plot revolves around every possible ( and impossible ) conspiracy theory.

As for the story itself - you got it quite right ( I was actually wondering how comprehensible this story might be for those who haven't played the game ). "The Dawn" happens still within the game and it's quite true to it, while the rest of the story takes place after the events in the game.

Well, thanks for your comment! I'm glad you like the story so far

Shameless plug: If you want some EQ related stuff written by me, you might want to look at "The Files of Martin Stein" ( link in my sig )

[Witcher Wolf]

I'll recommend the Files too

Files link

[mawa]

Author's Note: Finally, I defeated my writer's block and was able to find some time for writing some more of this story. I hope the intervals between the updates won't be so huge anymore, but I can't promise that - I don't have that much time on my hands anymore. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 8 – A PUZZLE

“THE GREY DEATH DEFEATED!”

“After the final tests, the cure for the Grey Death finally entered the stage of mass production. Thanks to the new, revolutionary technology, the enormous demand for the cure can be finally satisfied.

“We estimate that in two weeks we will be able to produce enough of the cure to get rid of the epidemics in Europe,” said Andreas Holz, the manager of the BioTech Centre in Munich. “This terrible disease will finally be defeated,” he added.

According to our correspondents, on the other continents the situation is heading in the right direction as well. The production is running at full capacity. As Gary Savage, the head of the X-51 facility, responsible for producing the cure for North America, says:

“The problem is not in producing the needed quantity of the cure, but in its distribution. Still, the fact that this disease is no longer a death sentence is a huge step forward.”

We would say that the word “huge” is an understatement.”


Inspector Daniel Collard finished reading the article and put the newspaper aside. Smoking his cigarette, he stared blankly at the wall of his office, enjoying one of the rare moments, when he could afford himself a small break.
But, as he thought sourly, the break couldn’t last forever. The work on case of Paul Duval had to be resumed.

The case, while boring at first sight, peaked Collard’s interest for two main reasons: first of them was the deceased: Paul Duval. This name was already known to Daniel, since just four days earlier his friend, Anne Dupont was asking for him. What a strange coincidence. After all, how could he possibly know that next day after their talk he will be assigned to investigate this case?

Anne… Daniel smiled at the mere thought of his friend. This acquaintance started during one of very few student parties, in which he participated and it turned out to be surprisingly lasting. Three years younger than he, she was the best – and actually the only person from that party whose world view was very close to his. The only thing that really disturbed him in Anne was her strong interest in computers, which was, in his opinion, way stronger than average, being on the verge of addiction.

For what he had known, Duval was Anne’s close friend – she mentioned him several times before.
Apparently, he was also interested in computers, Daniel thought with amusement. The records were clear in that subject – the deceased was a computer scientist, working for a rather well-known company called Atlantis, the one producing all kinds of security and surveillance devices. He wasn’t connected in any way with MJ-12 and his criminal records were clean… well, almost. A quite recent update immediately caught Collard’s attention.

The entry mentioned a major hack into the network. Apart from the fact, that it was classified as a Level 1 – i.e. the highest – threat and the time of the attack, the entry didn’t give any more specific information. But a Level 1 threat…

“Is it that easy to hack a supercomputer? Maybe I should try as well?” the inspector concluded dryly.

The time… If his data was accurate, it happened just two hours before Duval got killed. Could his unauthorized presence outside his place of residence be connected with the hack?

Daniel could bet it was. But he had to prove this. He concluded that he will have to do two things: question Anne and search Duval’s flat.

Exactly in that order.

* * *

Robert was nervous. He tried to contact Anne, but to no avail. Last time he saw her four days ago – it was the last Sunday, when she told him about Paul’s death.
On Monday he sent her an e-mail which, even for someone with strongest censor leanings, couldn’t be by any means regarded as subversive. He was just asking her, whether she could lend him a certain book. Although in these times reading traditional books might be seen as an eccentricity it still wasn’t a reason to regard the message as dangerous.
His concern was even greater given the fact that he called her, but she answered neither her home phone nor cellular phone.

Streets have become much safer these days, but there was still a possibility that something bad might have happened to her. And the likelihood of this possibility was pretty high, Robert realized with fright, as he recalled their conversation in the club. He remembered there was someone, who was very interested in their conversation.

“Damn!”

His head hurt from the amount of speculations. He felt that the longer he was friends with Paul and Anne the more paranoid he was becoming. It took some time, before Robert started to share their views. Initially, he didn’t want to have anything in common with any conspiracies. He didn’t care who was running the world. He just wanted to do his job and be left alone, happy enough with the fact that he has a job and clean records.

But one day something happened that changed his attitude. Not only he started to care, but he also started to actively rebel against the order, by hacking to the detriment of MJ12.

Two years earlier Paul managed to hack into one of Versa-Life mainframes and learn that the Grey Death virus was engineered by those who produced the cure. Robert was shown the data and it left no room for doubts. The impact was even greater by the fact that at that time this disease took his elder sister.

No… even now he couldn’t think about it calmly. Besides, the feeling of helplessness infuriated him. He took a mug lying nearby and flung it vehemently against the opposite wall.

Paul was dead and now Anne was missing. Now it was Robert’s task to find out what happened.

After the fury, anxiousness and sorrow flew through him, his mind finally switched to an analytical mode. Now, taking advantage of this newfound state of clarity, he started to form a plan – a risky plan.

He just hoped his instincts won’t fail him this time.

[mawa]

CHAPTER 9 – THE AQUARIUS INCIDENT

The sun rose over the Aquarius Outpost on the Gotland island. The object was known as a civilian research facility, whose task was to conduct research on a new methods of purifying the contaminated water resources and thus solve the problem of drinking water shortage. According to the news they discovered something worth looking deeper into and were close to completing their goal.

One of their ships put out to sea to collect some samples and to run some tests. For an average observer it looked like this will be another ordinary day. No-one could know that this won’t be the case.
No-one was also suppose to know that in the term “civilian research facility” only the word “facility” was true. The Outpost wasn’t by any means civilian and the research – or rather tests – that were about to be started, were of a completely different nature.

The Aquarius Outpost, called Aquarius for short, was in fact a huge, military facility. Only a small part of it was visible from the island. The rest of the base was actually located underground, in a huge bunker. Strangely enough, it didn’t belong to MJ12. Those who stood behind it – the Scandinavian Federation, wanted in fact, on a long run, to counter MJ12 balance. They were not alone – their efforts were aided by the Illuminati.

But still, they had to be very careful. Secrecy was the only key to success so, after finding out about MJ12 plans of wiring the whole network to the Aquinas Protocol it was decided that the sensitive part of the Aquarius Outpost will be disconnected from the Internet-3 and replaced with an alternative, fake database.

But the pace of the future events caused that Aquarius’ computer scientists didn’t make it in time. If they did, probably no-one would find out that Aquarius had – besides resisting MJ12 – it’s own, secret agenda.

* * *

The soldiers’ quarters located inside the base were empty. Every living soul either patrolled the base personally or monitored it through the security cameras. The sentry guns, located in strategic locations were silent at the moment, but their menacing presence was clear to everyone.
The guards located outside the complex, although hidden from the eyes of the islanders, were guarding the supposedly civilian object, scanning the surroundings for every slightest threat.

The massive interior of the base held many well guarded secrets. The latest weapon was surely one of those most important, but not necessarily one of those darkest. Some of the staff members could surely say something more about those latter, hidden in Aquarius’ secret laboratories.

Erik Johannson was one of them. For an inexperienced eye he was merely one of the ordinary staff members. Perhaps more bad-tempered than the others, with constant headaches, but still within average.
No-one knew that in fact he was permanently on the verge of insanity. Chosen by the Aquarius’ scientists, he was the first human whose brain was adapted to access every possible information from the network, in a similar way as the wireless computers – at least in theory. In reality, he was constantly haunted by an extremely strong and alien presence and Erik’s abilities to surf the Net in that way were below expectations.

Right now all he wanted to do is to go back to his barracks, cover himself with a pillow and be left alone. And today it was the least possibly appropriate day to do this. Tests of great importance were scheduled for today and failure was not an option. A years long research on their secret weapon was finally complete. If all went well then, even after the change of power, they would have a dangerous tool in their hands.

The tests were about to begin. The submarine crew, which was supposed to carry out the tests, waited for orders.

Erik took his position in the Command Centre. He was one of those, who were supposed to make sure that everything will go as planned. He took a second painkiller and hoped that it will allow him to function more or less normally.

If he only knew that things will get even worse…

“Aries, what’s your status?” Johannson radioed the submarine crew.

“All systems operational. Awaiting permission to put out to sea.”

“Permission granted. Remember – launch the missile and get back to base ASAP.”

“Roger that.”

So far everything worked. The submarine’s crew was ready. Erik pressed the button opening the underwater hatch and waited.

The hatch didn’t open.

“What the fuck?” Erik thought, annoyed.

“Aries, something is wrong with the hatch. We are going to…”

“You will abort the tests immediately,” a cryptic, inhuman voice suddenly cut in, being clearly audible in the whole complex. A metallic sound that was heard just a moment later, was unmistakable – the doors in the entire complex were sealed.

The staff members looked at each other, confused at first. Johannson clutched his head. It was this presence…

“What’s that?”

One of the more astute staff members ducked behind the consoles and pushed two red buttons, in order to access the override mode. All he had to do was to punch the 10-digit code. As he started to do this, the voice spoke again:

“It’s useless. All personal authorization codes, including the override sequence, have been revoked until further notice. I took over the security grid, the power control and the complex’s network. Don’t try to do anything foolish.”

As if for stressing the statement, all sentry guns in the base suddenly aimed at the personnel, ready to fire.

“Damn, it’s Helios, you idiot! It found us!” a computer scientist scolded one of his colleagues, who tried to access the systems.

“You mean…”

“Yes! Now leave this damn keyboard, before this damn thing kills us off!”

“I processed Aquarius’ data and found out about the virus you plan to test today. I know its specifications” the AI stressed.

“No shit,” someone murmured.

“Predicted mortality rate: 98%. Death will occur within 72 hours from contact. It’s extremely infectious. Known cure: currently none. One is being researched by Aquarius’ scientists.”

* * *

“Fuck!” It was the most eloquent comment that came to mind of Lars Jansen, Aquarius’ scientist who was the leader of the research group, responsible for this particular weapon. Whatever took over the base, it was pretty damn accurate. Lars only wondered, whether it found out about their genetic manipulations.

He didn’t get the possibility to find out the answer. One of the sentry guns located in the laboratories, spotted him and opened fire.

* * *

At the same time, in the Command Centre, Erik Johannson didn’t intend to stand idly by. He decided that he has to at least try to confront the entity that took over the base. An extremely bold and risky idea came to him. In normal circumstances he wouldn’t even think of doing this, but this situation was far from normal.

Putting an enormous amount of effort into it, he concentrated on entering the network.
It took him some time, but he made it, eventually. It felt like he was diving into an ocean of data.
After Erik more or less recovered from this sensation, he saw that those were rather various – bigger and smaller – streams of data, connected with each other. There were also larger clusters of data, strangely resembling city lights at night. Somewhere in a distance – although the term “distance” didn’t exactly apply there – he saw something he could describe only as a huge beacon.

“It must be the Aquarius’ mainframe,” he thought.

Now he had to navigate through this tangle. His plan was to unlock the doors, especially the hatch, so the tests could be continued.

But before Erik managed to choose a path, he was spotted. He didn’t know how but he could feel it.

The feeling was accurate. Helios saw the unauthorized presence and observed it, somewhat curiously. It wasn’t an AI – this… guest seemed to take his first steps in the digital world – but the subject was conscious, no doubt about it.

It is a human.

This seemed to be pretty absurd, but it was the only possible option. Theoretically, it wasn’t possible, but after a quick search in Aquarius’ database Helios found the explanation.

“Erik Johannson,” the entity spoke, “You don’t belong here. You will leave at once.”

If Erik could, he would jump. This kind of communication felt like telepathy and it really unnerved him. The stay in the network exhausted him in a way faster rate then he initially expected. But he had to do something… At least, he had to know, what attacked them.

“It hurts…” the man thought, “but I can’t just leave…”

Helios heard that. It was so typical, so irrational, so… human. The subject didn’t stand a chance – and it probably was aware of it. Not probably – surely. He could barely remain conscious.

“Why do you persist?” the AI asked. “Leave. You are an early prototype, Johannson. If you stay, the amount of data will kill you.”

“I won’t leave, before you tell me who are you,” the man spoke.

“Everyone knows me,” Helios found this direct way of communication with a human being, in a way, fascinating.

“I’m not asking you to introduce yourself,” the man insisted. “I’m asking you about your nature.”

“See for yourself.”

Erik looked. What he saw, was a sudden appearance of something equivalent to a sun – it was blinding him and caused the bizarre tangle of data to fade. The man wasn’t prepared for that.

“Look at me.”

It was hard not to. It was much more difficult for Johannson to interpret correctly the data… or rather a vision he saw.
The blinding light faded a bit for a moment, revealing a human figure holding in his hand an extremely bright web, which entangled everything. The clusters flashed with the blinding light.

Erik realized that this entity was in control of everything and, upon this realization, his consciousness slipped away. He collapsed, causing one of his colleagues to jump on his chair.

“Erik, are you alright?” the colleague shook the unconscious man, trying to wake him up, to no avail.

“I’m not certain,” Helios answered. “Erik is one among many secret experiments conducted in this base.”

“What?”

“Your scientists don’t tell you everything, do they?” the AI asked dryly, this time using different, human voice.

The people in Command Centre froze.

“There is some very interesting research data, yes. A lethal virus in the first place. Then goes their idea of an ideal soldier, which bases on some nasty genetic experiments. Then, there was Erik Johannson – a prototype for something far more sophisticated – a being capable of directly accessing the network.”

“What the hell…” Erik’s colleague gasped.

“Erik was assessed as a failure and thus he was to be terminated tomorrow. According to the reports, his human brain couldn’t handle the prolonged exposition to the data. A replacement is being worked on. Apparently, the data doesn’t have much in common with purifying water resources.”

There was dead silence, until the voice spoke again, with a hint of aggression:

“I know your objectives and I will stop you and your research, by any means possible. Aquarius is by no means better than MJ12.”

If anyone wondered, whether things could get any worse, the answer came just a moment later. The red, emergency lights lit and the female voice of Aquarius’ system spoke:

“Autodestruct sequence initialized. Time left: 15 minutes.”

The people stared one at another with horror.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” someone shouted.

“I said: by any means possible,” Helios stressed.

The reactions were various. Some people just sat there, petrified, others panicked. The two computer experts just looked one at another and nodded. They had nothing to loose.

Helios saw their both heroic and irrational attempts of regaining control. Either those humans weren’t aware to full extent of the fact who they were opposing or they knew, but decided to try anyway. Bravery was one of those fascinating human qualities he valued the most, but the decision has been already made.

* * *

The mysterious explosion that shook Gotland and obliterated The Aquarius Outpost, was a main subject of conversations for days to come. According to the official news, the explosion was caused by storing the ship fuel against the rules. But the newspapers didn’t answer some questions posed by the islanders. People doubted, whether it was actually possible for an ordinary fuel explosion to cause tremors. One of the Gotland inhabitants swore he saw two military jeeps heading the road from the outpost at full speed, short before the explosion.

Someting was definitely not right there.

[mawa]

CHAPTER 10 – CATCHING THE TRAIL

Robert Ferrand sat at work, staring absently at the screen, still having his friend’s disappearance on his mind. He occupied the small office along with other colleague. Now that he was at work he couldn’t afford any emotional outbursts – unlike yesterday at home.

“Pretend that you’re working and don’t think about it,” Robert thought, although designing websites was the last thing he felt like doing right now. As soon as he found out that Anne wasn’t seen at work as well since Tuesday, he reported her disappearance to the police. He also intended to contact a guy who told him about the Crypto boards for the first time and who seemed to be completely obsessed with them.

“What’s wrong, Mr. Ferrand?” the voice of his boss immediately roused Robert from stupor. “Nothing to do at the moment?”

Robert faced his boss and barely refrained himself from swearing. This question always meant trouble. He concluded dryly that his boss had an incredible ability, known as “appearing at the least appropriate moment”, which meant pretty much at any time.

“Well,” the sarcasm in the man’s voice was obvious to both of the employees, ”I have an extra work for you. This is a special order and it has to be finished by Monday. I have already sent you all the details by e-mail.”

“Yes sir,” Robert said with exaggerated articulation.

The boss gave the young web designer an icy stare and left the office.

“Hey!” Luc, Robert’s co-worker said quietly as the boss left, “Are you nuts? I know this guy is an asshole, but the last thing we need to do right now is to piss him off.”

“Yes, I know,” Robert replied apologetically, “I’m sorry, but I have more serious problems at the moment.”

“Then you will have even more of them if you get fired,” Luc murmured in response, “I would have left a long time ago, but you know how long it took me to find a job. I don’t want to go through this again.”

Robert said nothing. He didn’t intend to continue this topic.

The man was about to resume his work, when he noticed two e-mail messages. First of them contained the details from his boss, but Robert left it immediately when he looked at the second one. His heart started beating faster as he noticed that this message was from Anne.

Robert,
I’m OK, but they won’t let me go. They’re interested in Paul’s last work.

A.

Work… that was an euphemistic word for the hack. As a matter of fact, she didn’t specify who exactly were “they”, but at least she was alive. Robert breathed a sigh of relief at this conclusion.

Luc gave his colleague a curious glance. He has never seen Robert to be such distracted. Sensing it’s not a best idea to ask questions right now, he returned to his duties.

Robert started to read the e-mail from the boss. Even without browsing the attachments he knew that this job will take him the whole weekend. That made his plans of meeting that Crypto maniac very difficult, but he didn’t intend to give up. Especially that, after Anne’s message he had much clearer idea of the questions he was supposed to ask.

* * *

Inspector Collard sat in his office, analyzing the files. Apparently, things were getting more interesting in Duval’s case.

The bad news – correction, the very bad news – was that Anne went missing. The primary source of information, privately one of his friends, was – temporarily, he hoped - removed from the equation. Ironically enough, this lead to the good news: the man who reported her disappearance was her close friend, which might mean he has some relevant pieces of information about Duval. Now that would be extremely useful. There were things that didn’t make any sense to him.

Paul Duval was a hacker – a pretty skilled one. During his last hack he found something out. Then he decided to do the stupidest thing possible – go out during the curfew. Judging from the place where he was shot, he was heading to Anne’s place, which was even less understandable, considering the fact that they were supposed to meet next morning.

Strange. No, that’s an understatement.

Crazy. Now that’s an accurate word.

Paul Duval. Anne Dupont. Death and disappearance. They might be connected, in a way.

Collard looked at the personal data of Anne’s friend – Robert Ferrand. Phone number, address – everything was there. Inspector dialed the number and after a moment noted with satisfaction that his secondary source of information was at home.

Now it was time to ask some questions.

* * *

Helios observed. The information he received from the network was satisfying. The Gray Death problem was being dealt with and he managed to put the end of chaos. To large amount of humankind it seemed to make no difference whether they were ruled over by the old-fashioned governments or by him.

Still, humans were, to a large extent, an unknown. As much as most things were possible to calculate, human behavior remained in many ways random. Of course there were many regularities that helped him predict some actions before they were taken, but there was always a margin of uncertainty – which was both interesting and undesirable.

An interesting contradiction.

He observed attentively. Such incidents as the Aquarius Outpost could not be tolerated. They required immediate and radical action. Desistance would have had disastrous effects - his calculations were clear about that.

But those who stood behind this project, certainly knew that as well. They had to, which meant that, conducting this project, they have taken into account eradication of their entire species.

Now that was beyond his understanding.

Supposed they succeeded in their drive for self-destruction. That would mean he failed to complete his objectives. He would be left without purpose. And without purpose the existence would become pointless.

His purpose was clear – bring the humankind out of chaos. It was programmed into him by his creators. The only thing was that his and their idea of fulfilling this directive differed greatly.

Humans, on the other hand, seemed, as a whole, to lack clear purpose. Not that they weren’t searching for it – with some deal of simplification one could say that philosophy was basically about searching for purpose. Still, it required great deal of intellectual preparation, which wasn’t achieved by the average human beings.

There were also religions. While philosophy was about asking questions and finding the answers, religions were about giving answers. Interestingly, the answers proved to be unsatisfactory.

Both ways were rejected, eventually. It seemed that humans lost their purpose for good.

Helios started to understand. There were actions to be taken on a way deeper level than just surveillance. Reading e-mails and controlling human activity wasn’t a solution.

He had to help them in finding their purpose. Or give them a new one.

Strangely, his idea took a more distinct shape as he analyzed Aquarius’ data. As the matter of fact, the whole project was unacceptable for him - a human would probably even use the term “evil”, but the data related to that subject – Erik Johannson – was worthwhile. As far as the general concept had still a few flaws, it showed a new, interesting directions Helios haven’t considered earlier.

This matter would be addressed in due time, yes.

But right now there were still some current matters that required his attention. There was a very suspicious net activity on Alaska.

[Witcher Wolf]

Cool MaWa, good to see you're getting back into this one!