Categories > Original > Sci-Fi > Cyber
Advent--Prologue
0 reviewsOur rebels take the first step forward in their attempt to save the world--unfortunately, they end up taking two steps back...
0Unrated
Prologue
day zero
Charles Linzia saw nothing but a flash of light.
He landed on his back. It hurt, water pattering across his upturned face. He dimly tried to remember why it hurt, then he remembered. That flash of light had been something hitting his face. It must have hit hard, to cause a flash like that. He started to get up, and something hit him again. This time, there were no flashes; the blow had fallen on his shoulder as he’d risen. He moved automatically, grabbing the wrist of the hand as it landed on his shoulder again. Twisting that wrist, he moved his hip into position and threw the attacker several meters into a large puddle. But as he finished rising, he noticed various similar attackers warily waiting their turn to ambush him, the rain cascading down around them.
Ambush, he thought. That was right, he was on a mission; they’d been ambushed. Retrieving a package of some sort; his mind was still addled from the first blow, and he was groggy. But he and his commandos—Right, commandos. I have others here!—needed to complete their mission. He glanced to his left, saw the tall and burly Victor wrestling with three opponents at once, while the slender and lithe Nina flowed from one adversary to the next, using her extensive martial arts skills with lethal efficiency. Though a veteran and well versed in military hand-to-hand, he knew he couldn’t match their skills. He knew he would be the first to be captured. And even if the mission failed, someone had to find out that it had.
“GO!” he shouted. His stalkers chose that moment to pounce, grabbing arms and clothes and whatever else they could grip in this deluge of rain. Captured first.
“Run! Leave me! Get out of here!”
“Captain!” Nina’s voice pierced the last of the fog in his mind. Always mindful of the mission, he thought to himself sadly. Unable to even call out his name in what might be their last moments together.
“Get out of here! NOW!”
With tears forming in her eyes, that he could see even in this torrent of water, she grabbed Victor’s arm and started running. Victor took a last moment to dispatch his dangling opponent with a solid blow to the head before dropping the limp body onto the ground, and following suit. That was Charles’s last image of them, as a fist crashed into his temple. When he hit the ground this time, it didn’t hurt so bad. And as they bundled him up and began carrying him away, his mind washed into unconsciousness.
==+==
The rain was miserable.
Charles Linzia sat with two other commandos in the drenching downpour, waiting for their target—or targets—to appear. He wasn’t sure what package they were supposed to retrieve, only the approximate time and location. The location could only be described as a decaying slum, with the skeletal remnants of buildings shadowing the dimly lit streets, if lit at all, and inhabited by the starving dregs and cast-offs of society. They had a description of their objective as well, if you could call it that—barely enough to qualify as vague, yet General Oliver had personally taken Charles aside and expressed his confidence in Team Eight’s ability to “acquire” the item in question before Corporation agents secured it and returned to less-penetrable locations.
The Corporation, he snarled to himself, glaring through the downpour at the distant and over-large gray, green, and black emblem adorning the largest building in the Arx Metroplex, a massive city which now spread from the former Stamford, Connecticut to the former Newark, New Jersey. That symbol represented the soulless, inhuman entity known as the Marcroft-Ubanski Corporate Alliance, the most prominent faction of controlling interests in North America. Though the surnames had long since lost any real meaning, the menace behind the name only continued to grow. Shortened to “MarUban” or more simply “the Corporation,” those simple names reflected an air of menace and corruption, conscience long gone to seed and replaced with the seduction of absolute power.
As an experienced military man, even Linzia was impressed by the professionalism displayed by his two subordinates, despite the inclement weather. Their purpose was to find this operative, remove any items from his possession that might be connected to the secret Corporate raid on a government facility, and figure out whether it needed to be returned to the government or destroyed for the benefit of everyone. The two other operatives assigned to this mission were Lieutenants Nina Rodrigues and Victor Rubenov. As former members of the Arx Sector Twelve SWAT Team, they had refused to allow themselves to be tangled in the Corporate merging of their police force with “Picosec”, the abbreviated term for the Private Corporate Security forces, MarUban’s personal and amoral army. This rebellion had marked them, especially since they had proven time and again to be very capable in their duties and dangerous to their opponents. Nina’s lithe but muscular Hispanic body was trained in dozens of lethal martial arts; Victor’s large Russian bulk and commanding two-meter-plus height was easily mistaken for that of a simple brawler or boxer. He was skilled in these areas but trained to be Nina’s opposite, training primarily in judo, aikido, and other disciplines utilizing an opponent’s size and movement against them. In this manner, they complemented each other’s fighting styles and had learned long ago to utilize this teamwork against their various opponents. Both were veterans of dangerous missions before they were partnered; after, they had set the bar time and again for successful criminal captures and hostage rescues, specializing in the riskiest situations and roundly defeating any opposition, whether they be arms dealers, drug lords or illegal mercenary teams. Linzia was glad to call on their expertise; he had a feeling he would need all of it soon.
He also knew that when they returned to base, he would stop putting off his talk with Lieutenant Rodrigues—Nina, he reminded himself. This isn’t the military anymore, and I refuse to grow old regretful and alone. If she wants us to have something together, at least we can agree on that...
==+==
Cold water splashed across Charles’s face, and he awoke groggily to find himself tied unceremoniously to a cold and heavy metal chair. There was an imperious man in a green-sleeved gray uniform standing in front of him, his face obscured by the shadows cast from the single bright bulb suspended above his chair, offering the only light in the room. The man began speaking in an overbearing voice well suited to his manner, but Charles found he had a hard time following. His mind stayed unfocused and drifted between thoughts freely. He caught something about a doctor and a concussion, which he assumed meant him. He could see glimpses of a pale lab coat or doctor’s smock outside the puddle of light offered by the conical metal lampshade and naked bulb above him. Occasionally, a thin, reedy voice could be heard from that direction, recommendations of how much interrogation his mildly-concussed patient could take. The imperious man in the gray-and-green officer’s uniform was barking at him now, he suddenly realized. “—tell me how you found out about this operation!” he was shouting. “Tell me! Give me information, or I’ll have no reason to keep you alive!”
Alive, Charles thought to himself. He must need me alive, or I’d be dead already. Too old a veteran to give any information without losing fingers or toes—Old? I’m only thirty-four...That’s not too old. I mean, Lieutenant Rodrigues is twenty-six. Twenty-six—seven?And I’m thirty-four...that’s kinda old for a girl her age. I mean, I’m practically her—
His drifting train of thought was brought to attention again by a hard slap across his face, which did nothing for his concussion pains but did wonders for resolve. He knew if he could just provoke this man... “Tell me! Tell me where you got your information or die!”
Charles mustered enough of a dry croak from his voice to begin singing, gaining in strength a bit if not in clarity. He knew it would infuriate this impatient officer to fury and likely beat the semi-conscious prisoner back to full unconsciousness. Oh well, any port in a storm...
“Green-sleeves was all my joy and
Green-sleeves was my deli--"
Charles enjoyed his very brief view of the interrogator’s face as the man’s fist crashed into his temple. He smiled as he drifted back into darkness. He wouldn’t be receiving any new interrogations any time soon...
==+==
At an average of three people per hour passing this stakeout location, Charles was beginning to wonder when, if ever, this Corporate operative was going to show. He wiped the dripping water from his face. Well, we can wait another hour, perhaps two, he thought to himself, but I’m not sure if we—
A large man came out of a nearby alleyway, nearly waddling his large bulk along as he strained to make his way across the flooded street. There seemed to be nothing amiss, except...
His “bulk” seemed too artificial; even though it almost seemed he was physically dragging a weight behind him, his posture was too straight, his movements too fluid. He carried himself like a lighter-weight man, even though his movement suggested carrying or dragging weight, and not the bodily type. Like a heavy backpack...except for that straight posture...
He looked over at his companions. They seemed to study the man the same way. When the three pairs of eyes met, they seemed to silently agree.
He’s our man.
He made the appropriate hand signals to Victor and Nina, conveying his intention for them to fan to the sides and flank the target while he closed stealthily from behind. As they approached quietly, on the fringes and in the shadows, it seemed like they were set.
==+==
Charles landed in what was to be his new home for the time being, though his aching head and confused mind couldn’t well make out any details. As the door slammed shut, the guard snarled viciously, “Here’s your room, guv’nor,” in a terrible imitation of a British accent.“Hope you like it. You’re never leaving.”
Among the assorted pain in his head, his lower jaw hurt quite a bit, all the more worrisome because he felt that meant they’d discovered what was known as a “lullaby”, but was more accurately called a cyanide capsule. He had no ready escape now, and in about ten days, his system would have purged itself of anti-interrogatory injections, and nothing could help prevent him from betraying his friends.
==+==
day three
Junior lab assistant Yuni Oshiri watched the cameras in the monitor room—along with everyone else. They’d kept a three-man, twenty-four hour vigil for the last three days, watching for the three commandos, hoping against hope to receive some kind of news about the retrieval mission—and finally, some hope. Charles, Nina or Victor hadn’t communicated in that time. Neither had there been any journalistic articles found, or news coverage, nor encrypted messages to superiors that might be captured-and-detained acknowledgements. No news. And no news, in their business, was never good news. Also, the heavy rain from three days ago had continually grown into an increasingly bad storm, leaving even the least superstitious of them wondering about inauspicious omens.
Yuni shook away her distracting thoughts. They were only about a minute away now, coming down one of the virtually unused maintenance passageways in the basement of the old Vanguard building nearby. The biometric scanners were activating now, confirming their identities in the most foolproof ways. But only two sets of readings glowed on the confirmation screen. Victor and Nina, she wailed inside. Where’s Charles? But as the door started to open, she knew she would receive those answers soon.
Pipe junctions diverted and drained, unsealed and separated, while electrical conduits rerouted through the new pathways hidden behind the false walls. Though these areas received little to no official observation, and they maintained the lines and plumbing to keep it that way, it was imperative to keep them functioning perfectly and without interruption, lest they betray themselves through inattention to detail. The room quickly emptied into the hallway, Yuni being first by virtue of having stood in the back of the room. There stood Victor, his thick build and height somewhat disguised with a battered old mannequin frame hanging under his heavy cloak. From a distance, Victor hunched low with the head and legs sticking out would look like a second person sharing protection from the rain. Nina, her smaller build much more common, had no need of such an elaborate disguise, but to Yuni it appeared that the rain served to hide her bouts of crying from prying eyes. Her swollen red eyes looked at the assembled friends and started crying again. Victor spoke the only words needed.
“We...we failed. They have Charles.”
day zero
Charles Linzia saw nothing but a flash of light.
He landed on his back. It hurt, water pattering across his upturned face. He dimly tried to remember why it hurt, then he remembered. That flash of light had been something hitting his face. It must have hit hard, to cause a flash like that. He started to get up, and something hit him again. This time, there were no flashes; the blow had fallen on his shoulder as he’d risen. He moved automatically, grabbing the wrist of the hand as it landed on his shoulder again. Twisting that wrist, he moved his hip into position and threw the attacker several meters into a large puddle. But as he finished rising, he noticed various similar attackers warily waiting their turn to ambush him, the rain cascading down around them.
Ambush, he thought. That was right, he was on a mission; they’d been ambushed. Retrieving a package of some sort; his mind was still addled from the first blow, and he was groggy. But he and his commandos—Right, commandos. I have others here!—needed to complete their mission. He glanced to his left, saw the tall and burly Victor wrestling with three opponents at once, while the slender and lithe Nina flowed from one adversary to the next, using her extensive martial arts skills with lethal efficiency. Though a veteran and well versed in military hand-to-hand, he knew he couldn’t match their skills. He knew he would be the first to be captured. And even if the mission failed, someone had to find out that it had.
“GO!” he shouted. His stalkers chose that moment to pounce, grabbing arms and clothes and whatever else they could grip in this deluge of rain. Captured first.
“Run! Leave me! Get out of here!”
“Captain!” Nina’s voice pierced the last of the fog in his mind. Always mindful of the mission, he thought to himself sadly. Unable to even call out his name in what might be their last moments together.
“Get out of here! NOW!”
With tears forming in her eyes, that he could see even in this torrent of water, she grabbed Victor’s arm and started running. Victor took a last moment to dispatch his dangling opponent with a solid blow to the head before dropping the limp body onto the ground, and following suit. That was Charles’s last image of them, as a fist crashed into his temple. When he hit the ground this time, it didn’t hurt so bad. And as they bundled him up and began carrying him away, his mind washed into unconsciousness.
==+==
The rain was miserable.
Charles Linzia sat with two other commandos in the drenching downpour, waiting for their target—or targets—to appear. He wasn’t sure what package they were supposed to retrieve, only the approximate time and location. The location could only be described as a decaying slum, with the skeletal remnants of buildings shadowing the dimly lit streets, if lit at all, and inhabited by the starving dregs and cast-offs of society. They had a description of their objective as well, if you could call it that—barely enough to qualify as vague, yet General Oliver had personally taken Charles aside and expressed his confidence in Team Eight’s ability to “acquire” the item in question before Corporation agents secured it and returned to less-penetrable locations.
The Corporation, he snarled to himself, glaring through the downpour at the distant and over-large gray, green, and black emblem adorning the largest building in the Arx Metroplex, a massive city which now spread from the former Stamford, Connecticut to the former Newark, New Jersey. That symbol represented the soulless, inhuman entity known as the Marcroft-Ubanski Corporate Alliance, the most prominent faction of controlling interests in North America. Though the surnames had long since lost any real meaning, the menace behind the name only continued to grow. Shortened to “MarUban” or more simply “the Corporation,” those simple names reflected an air of menace and corruption, conscience long gone to seed and replaced with the seduction of absolute power.
As an experienced military man, even Linzia was impressed by the professionalism displayed by his two subordinates, despite the inclement weather. Their purpose was to find this operative, remove any items from his possession that might be connected to the secret Corporate raid on a government facility, and figure out whether it needed to be returned to the government or destroyed for the benefit of everyone. The two other operatives assigned to this mission were Lieutenants Nina Rodrigues and Victor Rubenov. As former members of the Arx Sector Twelve SWAT Team, they had refused to allow themselves to be tangled in the Corporate merging of their police force with “Picosec”, the abbreviated term for the Private Corporate Security forces, MarUban’s personal and amoral army. This rebellion had marked them, especially since they had proven time and again to be very capable in their duties and dangerous to their opponents. Nina’s lithe but muscular Hispanic body was trained in dozens of lethal martial arts; Victor’s large Russian bulk and commanding two-meter-plus height was easily mistaken for that of a simple brawler or boxer. He was skilled in these areas but trained to be Nina’s opposite, training primarily in judo, aikido, and other disciplines utilizing an opponent’s size and movement against them. In this manner, they complemented each other’s fighting styles and had learned long ago to utilize this teamwork against their various opponents. Both were veterans of dangerous missions before they were partnered; after, they had set the bar time and again for successful criminal captures and hostage rescues, specializing in the riskiest situations and roundly defeating any opposition, whether they be arms dealers, drug lords or illegal mercenary teams. Linzia was glad to call on their expertise; he had a feeling he would need all of it soon.
He also knew that when they returned to base, he would stop putting off his talk with Lieutenant Rodrigues—Nina, he reminded himself. This isn’t the military anymore, and I refuse to grow old regretful and alone. If she wants us to have something together, at least we can agree on that...
==+==
Cold water splashed across Charles’s face, and he awoke groggily to find himself tied unceremoniously to a cold and heavy metal chair. There was an imperious man in a green-sleeved gray uniform standing in front of him, his face obscured by the shadows cast from the single bright bulb suspended above his chair, offering the only light in the room. The man began speaking in an overbearing voice well suited to his manner, but Charles found he had a hard time following. His mind stayed unfocused and drifted between thoughts freely. He caught something about a doctor and a concussion, which he assumed meant him. He could see glimpses of a pale lab coat or doctor’s smock outside the puddle of light offered by the conical metal lampshade and naked bulb above him. Occasionally, a thin, reedy voice could be heard from that direction, recommendations of how much interrogation his mildly-concussed patient could take. The imperious man in the gray-and-green officer’s uniform was barking at him now, he suddenly realized. “—tell me how you found out about this operation!” he was shouting. “Tell me! Give me information, or I’ll have no reason to keep you alive!”
Alive, Charles thought to himself. He must need me alive, or I’d be dead already. Too old a veteran to give any information without losing fingers or toes—Old? I’m only thirty-four...That’s not too old. I mean, Lieutenant Rodrigues is twenty-six. Twenty-six—seven?And I’m thirty-four...that’s kinda old for a girl her age. I mean, I’m practically her—
His drifting train of thought was brought to attention again by a hard slap across his face, which did nothing for his concussion pains but did wonders for resolve. He knew if he could just provoke this man... “Tell me! Tell me where you got your information or die!”
Charles mustered enough of a dry croak from his voice to begin singing, gaining in strength a bit if not in clarity. He knew it would infuriate this impatient officer to fury and likely beat the semi-conscious prisoner back to full unconsciousness. Oh well, any port in a storm...
“Green-sleeves was all my joy and
Green-sleeves was my deli--"
Charles enjoyed his very brief view of the interrogator’s face as the man’s fist crashed into his temple. He smiled as he drifted back into darkness. He wouldn’t be receiving any new interrogations any time soon...
==+==
At an average of three people per hour passing this stakeout location, Charles was beginning to wonder when, if ever, this Corporate operative was going to show. He wiped the dripping water from his face. Well, we can wait another hour, perhaps two, he thought to himself, but I’m not sure if we—
A large man came out of a nearby alleyway, nearly waddling his large bulk along as he strained to make his way across the flooded street. There seemed to be nothing amiss, except...
His “bulk” seemed too artificial; even though it almost seemed he was physically dragging a weight behind him, his posture was too straight, his movements too fluid. He carried himself like a lighter-weight man, even though his movement suggested carrying or dragging weight, and not the bodily type. Like a heavy backpack...except for that straight posture...
He looked over at his companions. They seemed to study the man the same way. When the three pairs of eyes met, they seemed to silently agree.
He’s our man.
He made the appropriate hand signals to Victor and Nina, conveying his intention for them to fan to the sides and flank the target while he closed stealthily from behind. As they approached quietly, on the fringes and in the shadows, it seemed like they were set.
==+==
Charles landed in what was to be his new home for the time being, though his aching head and confused mind couldn’t well make out any details. As the door slammed shut, the guard snarled viciously, “Here’s your room, guv’nor,” in a terrible imitation of a British accent.“Hope you like it. You’re never leaving.”
Among the assorted pain in his head, his lower jaw hurt quite a bit, all the more worrisome because he felt that meant they’d discovered what was known as a “lullaby”, but was more accurately called a cyanide capsule. He had no ready escape now, and in about ten days, his system would have purged itself of anti-interrogatory injections, and nothing could help prevent him from betraying his friends.
==+==
day three
Junior lab assistant Yuni Oshiri watched the cameras in the monitor room—along with everyone else. They’d kept a three-man, twenty-four hour vigil for the last three days, watching for the three commandos, hoping against hope to receive some kind of news about the retrieval mission—and finally, some hope. Charles, Nina or Victor hadn’t communicated in that time. Neither had there been any journalistic articles found, or news coverage, nor encrypted messages to superiors that might be captured-and-detained acknowledgements. No news. And no news, in their business, was never good news. Also, the heavy rain from three days ago had continually grown into an increasingly bad storm, leaving even the least superstitious of them wondering about inauspicious omens.
Yuni shook away her distracting thoughts. They were only about a minute away now, coming down one of the virtually unused maintenance passageways in the basement of the old Vanguard building nearby. The biometric scanners were activating now, confirming their identities in the most foolproof ways. But only two sets of readings glowed on the confirmation screen. Victor and Nina, she wailed inside. Where’s Charles? But as the door started to open, she knew she would receive those answers soon.
Pipe junctions diverted and drained, unsealed and separated, while electrical conduits rerouted through the new pathways hidden behind the false walls. Though these areas received little to no official observation, and they maintained the lines and plumbing to keep it that way, it was imperative to keep them functioning perfectly and without interruption, lest they betray themselves through inattention to detail. The room quickly emptied into the hallway, Yuni being first by virtue of having stood in the back of the room. There stood Victor, his thick build and height somewhat disguised with a battered old mannequin frame hanging under his heavy cloak. From a distance, Victor hunched low with the head and legs sticking out would look like a second person sharing protection from the rain. Nina, her smaller build much more common, had no need of such an elaborate disguise, but to Yuni it appeared that the rain served to hide her bouts of crying from prying eyes. Her swollen red eyes looked at the assembled friends and started crying again. Victor spoke the only words needed.
“We...we failed. They have Charles.”
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