Post by Itsaki on Jan 31, 2009 11:46:53 GMT -5
((Okay, so after I post each one of these, anyone who wants to can leave me comments about the previous chapter(s), so that it can give me a general view of things that I can consider revising. Thanks))
Chapter 1: CI2
Everybody has a purpose. Some have a purpose to do good deeds. Others, not so good. Some people have a purpose at a younger age than would be expected. Keena was fourteen, and a normal kid like everyone else. He went to school, went to all of his classes, and had friends. Until one day……
Keena walked down the noisy, gossip-filled hallway, his shoes slapping against the tile, his filled backpack bumping against his back with every step. He climbed up the staircase, to the upperclassmen hallway. Once upstairs, he skirted around a group of girls huddled around a locker, and he was about to walk through the door of his next computer class, when from behind him, a strong hand grabbed his shoulder. It spun him all the way around, forcing him to see face to face with a larger man in a pressed black suit. He looked very big and official, but Keena could see by his face that he was just a teenager.
“Can I help you?” Keena asked him. The man was a good head taller than Keena, and looked down at him with a cold, deep intensity.
“Can you come with me?” he said in a deep, gravelly voice.
“What for?” Keena asked him back, a skeptical tone in his voice.
“We need to speak to you.” He said simply.
“We? About what?” The man rolled his eyes.
“I’m tired of questions.” With a mighty haul, he lifted Keena, and spun around, setting him down facing the staircase. He then started pushing, not very gently, down the hallway. “If you want answers, you’re going to have to come with me.” Everything was pretty empty now, for the late bell was now ringing above their heads. Keena finally decided not to resist, for the man could beat him to a pulp if he did, and started walking by himself. The guy led him out the front doors of the school, out past the courtyard, and into the school parking lot. In the entire lot was one solitary vehicle. It was a shiny, black, new-looking SUV. The man opened the rear passenger door, allowed but kind of pushed Keena inside, and closed the door, promptly stepping into the passenger seat. The person in the driver’s seat looked barely old enough to drive, maybe sixteen. Both of the men were wearing neatly pressed black suits, but after the passenger door closed, they both removed their suits, their ties, and their dress shoes, to reveal casual clothing. The driver wore a white and red striped shirt, with blue jeans that had random cuts and holes. The other wore a gray and green Japanese shirt with brown cargo shorts.
“What in the world?” Keena said under his breath.
The driver gave a shake, obviously a lot more comfortable. He stepped on the gas, driving around the parking lot, and out through the city. It was silent at first, but after a few minutes, the passenger reached down and pushed a button situated between the seat and the door, and his seat spun around to face Keena. For some reason, the face looked slightly familiar, but Keena waved the thought away.
“Sorry if we scared you or anything, we just wanted to make sure that you came with us.” The voice sounded familiar, too.
“Yeah, you can be pretty resistant sometimes.” The driver looked at Keena through the rear view mirror.
“Wait,” Keena started. It was the first time he had really seen the driver’s face, and he examined it for a moment. “Brian?” Keena tried hesitantly.
“Took you long enough, hotshot.”
“Seriously? How’d you find me?”
“We have connections, said the passenger.
“Tristan?”
“Boy, that took you way too long. You know, high school is wearing you down. You aren’t as sharp as you were.”
“College is different. But anyways, where exactly are we going?” Keena asked. It didn’t take a second to realize that this wasn’t the exact time to be asking. Brian and Tristan both got really serious. There was silence for a few minutes, a tension that hung in the air. They drove along a street for a while, before turning into an alley, and after turning into another alley, Brian stopped, turned off the car, and taking the keys out, putting them in his pocket. Brian pressed a button next to his seat, and spun around to face Keena. Both of them stared at Keena with a serious glare.
“What you are about to see is classified. The information that you are going to see can only be discussed with employees of this facility. You may not tell or hint to anybody, anything of this bases location, studies, operations, or its existence to anyone outside the facility. Do you understand and do you swear to follow these rules to the death?”
“Um, sure.” Keena said with a worried face. What was he getting himself into now? Brian and Tristan both turned their seats around, and Brian pressed a small green button on the dashboard. After he pressed the button, there was a slight lurch, and the car started to move down into the road. Keena looked out the window with interest. They slowly descended downward, passing a few inches of asphalt, and then a few feet of cement, followed by several feet of bedrock. There were several more feet of cement, maybe twenty, and then there was a thin layer of blue gel, held within a membrane. There was then about five or ten feet of steel, before the car entered a large room. It looked odd at first, but then Keena realized that it was a parking garage. The SUV was slowly lowered between two identical SUV’s, and it smoothly glided to a halt.
Tristan and Brian opened their doors and got out, and Keena did the same. Above them, the hole that they had entered through had already closed over. Tristan motioned to Keena towards an elevator. They walked to it, and Brian pushed a button with a down arrow to the right of the door. They stepped inside, and the silver doors closed. Brian pulled his keys out of his pocket, and entered one of them, a normal silver key, into the key slot next to the door. He turned the key to the right, and pressed a button with a G that was on the panel beside the door. The elevator started its journey smoothly down. The trip lasted a few minutes, with Brian and Tristan standing stock still with their hands behind their backs, and Keena moving around impatiently. The elevator glided smoothly to a halt, and Brian removed both keys from the lock, and placed a hand against the door. There was a soft whirring sound, and the doors opened. The room that opened up before them was an unbelievable sight. Keena took a step out of the elevator, and looked up at the seven story vaulted ceiling. The entire room was about twice the size of a football field, and the entire floor, walls, and ceiling were paneled in polished black marble. There was a balcony at the third floor that overlooked the room; a few people leaned against the oak railing. In the center of the room, a massive oak-paneled pillar dominated the space. The pillar was surrounded by a high desk, with secretaries busy at work. In front of them, giant silver letters spelled out “CI2” on the floor.
“Hey, Brian?” Keena turned to Brian.
“Hmm?”
“What’s CI2 mean?”
“CI2 stands for Central Intelligence Two. We’re technically a division of the CIA, but there are only about three people that know we exist: the President, the vice-president, and the head of the CIA. If they don’t know the answer to something, we find out what the answer is, and tell them. It’s been around for about seventy years or so. Without us, they’d still have us in Iraq. My dad and my grandpa were both stationed at this base. They sent my grandpa to Serbia in 1987, and my dad went to Iraq in ’09. Now that all of those wars are over, I don’t need to go anywhere.”
They walked past the left side of the pillar, and to the corner of the room, where there was a large wooden door. As I looked around, I noticed that in the entire place, there was not one person that looked over the age of nineteen.
“So this place is run by teens?”
“Yep. There is not a single adult that operates in this base. There are only about four adults that work in CI2. Everybody here is decommissioned at 20, and sent back to their lives with a significant bonus, so that they can get a good life out of their work that they do here.”
“What exactly do you guys do here?”
“Just follow us.”
They walked to the doors, and they spun around and up into the walls on either side, allowing us entry into a long hallway. There was a golden plaque next to the door marked “Computer Sector”. They walked down the hallway until they reached the third door on the left. (There were no doors on the right side.) This door was marked “CEHS”.
“CEHS?” Keena asked Brian.
“Computer Engineering and Hacking Software. The heart and soul of CI2.”
“Oh.” The room they entered was full of computers, all of them new and hi-tech. There were six rows of computers, each with 10 computers. They all faced the door that they just entered. Keena followed Brian and Tristan around the rows of computers to a raised platform in the rear of the room. On the platform was a steel desk, and nothing sat on it let alone a small dark blue cylinder. They walked up a few steps, and Tristan motioned for Keena to sit at the chair that sat behind the desk. Keena lowered himself into the gel seat, and from his vantage point in the back of the room, he could see every computer and the programs on them. Brian touched a small black hole that faced them near the top of the cylinder. A laser screen projected out towards them.
“So here’s our problem,” Brian started.
“Problem? You never told me about any problem.”
“Look, no one here knows how to handle this kind of thing, and you’re the only person in the WORLD under the age thirty that knows how to deal with this thing.”
“Fine.”
“Okay, there’s a bug sweeping our data. You have to stop it. Sweeping our data is one thing, and it’s bad enough, but if it gets to our mainframe network,” he cut off. He didn’t even need to finish the sentence. Keena got the point. It would be bad.
“Kill it before it gets to us, clear?”
“Sure.”Keena replied.
“Good. Work quickly, if you don’t mind.” Brian and Tristan walked off. Keena watched them until they walked out the door, but not before Brian stole one last nervous glance at Keena, before the door closed silently behind him.
Keena sat in silence for another moment. He had graduated high school at the age of twelve, and graduated from MIT just after his fourteenth birthday. He said he wanted to go back to high school until he graduated, just to be around kids his own age. He had taken computer classes since he was six, and could do anything with a computer. He just hadn’t expected that a secret facility run by teenagers would need to use his skills.
He cracked his knuckles in a stereotypic “Get to work” kind of way, and began work at the screen. He didn’t need the keyboard, so he shut it off. The screen was a touch screen, so he worked from there. First off, he ran a diagnostic of the computer’s data system. It pulled up a map of the system, showing data flow and network connections. In the center of the map was a large open area, where all of the incoming information was processed, and sent to wherever it was headed. The virus was at the top of the map, in a smaller and less occupied channel. It was running along the channel, swallowing the data, processing it, and spitting it back out. On the screen, it showed up as a blinking red dot. Keena touched it, and an identification tag appeared beside it. It read “Unknown Delta 7”. Great, Keena thought, a Spartan virus. Spartan viruses were developed somewhere around 2015, for use by the military. They were supposed to be invincible, unable to be destroyed. Fifty years later, that theory still held. If that virus got to the mainframe, then it would copy and wipe everything. To slow the virus down, Keena downloaded, yes, the internet. Terabytes of information streamed into the channel at once, already creating a block in the virus’s path. So basically in order to continue, the virus had to scan the internet. Keena continued, running continuous diagnostics, which showed up in constant streams of numbers at the bottom right corner of the screen. He sent plenty of viruses of his own that would damage, weaken, and malfunction the virus. Supposedly. A couple of hours into his work, a bell rang from a speaker in the ceiling. Just like school he thought. All of the workers in the room saved their work, and they all neatly filed out of the room. But if only school were this organized.
A few hours later, another bell rang, and a few workers scattered into the room. Keena checked the clock on the computer, and saw that it was past ten o’ clock at night. This must be the nigh shift or something. After school club. Keena worked well into the night studying the dynamics of the virus, and designing a virus of his own that would hopefully kill the virus. By the time it was done, all of the workers had long cleared out, and a new bell rang, and the original workers came back in and sat back down at their stations. Some gave Keena surprised looks at the fact that he was still there, working. Keena had just finished his super defense virus, and so he typed in the command. He hit okay on the screen, and sprouting from the mainframe, streams of blue headed towards the blinking red dot. They charged the virus, and when they met it, the red dot was sucked into the blue, and it disappeared. The blue virus disappeared with it. Keena sat back and relaxed, realizing he was cramped from leaning over the screen all night. Bryan walked in a few minutes later, two cups of coffee in hand. He walked up and handed one to Keena.
“Thanks,” Keena said, sipping the steaming liquid.
“You have fun? I was monitoring you from the CDD room. Took you long enough.”
“Yeah, it was loads of fun.” They laughed. They both drank coffee for a minute, until there was a beep an d an alarm from the computer. On the screen, was a small, blinking red dot… in the dead center of the mainframe. It sat there for a second, but that’s all it took for it to crash the system.
“Crap.” Keena said flatly.
“Oh no.” Brian groaned.
Suddenly, error messages flashed on all of the computers in front of them. All of the teenagers were confused and panicked, until the lights shut off and red and blue lights replaced them. They immediately got up from their seats, and shuffled out of the room. Keena and Brian watched as every data flow was reversed, back into the mainframe, back into the dot. Alarms started from the speakers in the ceiling, and Keena and Brian ran from the room. Outside were armored guards at their posts carrying guns. Real guns.
Walking quickly, but obeying the evacuation rules that were being spoken from the speakers in the ceiling of the echoing marble room. Keena asked Brian, “So what do those guns shoot?”
“Well, to be simple, spiked marbles. Sort of. They are made of a special glass. They are spiked, which helps with penetration, and they shatter on impact, so they can penetrate about anything, and they shatter, which helps a theoretical one shot one kill.”
“Theoretical? You mean these have never actually been used?”
“Not here. I say theoretical because I’ve never seen them used. They use them in the war.”
“Oh.”
The pair hurried across the large lobby, where hundreds of people exited from doors, hurrying to one corner of the lobby, or to a staircase that led downstairs. They hallway that they were headed to had a bright sign over it marked “Emergency Exit”. They rushed across, pushing through the crowd, but instead of going through the exit, they went into the hallway and turned left through a set of double doors; these ones were marked “Armory”.
“Can you shoot?” Brian asked.
“Well, I know the basics. Point, aim, shoot, right?”
“Good enough.” They pushed through the doors into a much brighter room, stocked with dozens of shelves of guns and armor. Keena followed Brian, strapping on body armor, and getting a helmet that fit. There were others, too, that were doing the same. Brian strapped a rifle to his back, and a pistol on his hip. Keena did the same.
“This is just a precaution, right?” Keena asked. Brian chuckled, and pressed a belt to Keena’s chest. Keena grabbed it, and as Brian let go, he saw that it was an ammo belt.
“No.” And Brian walked back to the way we entered. The crowd had thinned substantially.
“Our radars picked something up right after the virus hit. It was headed for us.”
“Something.”
Yes. Something.”
“Great.”
The pair took a set of stairs in the empty rec room to the second level, where they took there posts, along with several other people, along the balcony overlooking the lobby. The lights suddenly popped on, some people flinching at the sudden brightness.
“Sir, we have power and communications back online.” Someone shouted to Brian.
“I noticed. Are the ground teams prepared?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good.”
The person ran off.”
“Sir?” Keena asked.
“Commander.”
“Oh.”
It was silent in the lobby for several minutes, excluding the light breathing of all of the guards. They stood stock still, until there was a soft noise. Opposite the balcony were seven elevators. There were seven doors, but there were about fifty individual elevators that worked in a complex system of tracks. Above them, guards were posted at seven different posts.
One of the elevators made a loud ding! shattering the silence in the hall. The doors opened, and three guards exited. One was limping, dragging the other two behind him, blood trailing. A few guards helped them, taking them to the hospital room. Keena looked to Brian, a worried look on his face. A minute later, the second elevator rang, and only two guards stepped out, slightly injured. “Oh, for God’s sake, get them out of there!” Brian yelled.
A few minutes later, all of the elevators opened almost simultaneously, three uninjured guards stepping from each of them. They immediately took posts around the lobby. There was an eerie silence again, but it was broken a few minutes later by a barely audible dumm. It was rhythmic, getting louder and louder. Dummm. Dummm. DUmmmm. DUMmmm. DUMMMM! It was the sound of something pounding through concrete and steel, and succeeding. With each hit now, the steel ceiling began to buckle and crack, raining cement powder onto the marble floor. The ceiling got to a critical point, when it stopped. There was a pause in the rhythmic crashing. With a heave and a crash, a huge metal being crashed through the ceiling, landing roughly on the floor, cracking it. Gunfire instantly ensued, and the huge machine went berserker on the guys at ground level. The robot was about fifteen feet high, with chrome colored chest, hands, and feet, and black elsewhere. It didn’t have guns, that would have been too obvious from above. Digging robots were common around. It was probably set up at a road, which was probably closed from head to toe. It swept up a few guards, throwing them against the far wall. Firing at the robot seemed to have no effect. The bullets ricocheted off, as though there was a shield around it. A force field. Incredibly high tech, but not impossible. I told Brian, and he nodded. We both looked for a soft spot, somewhere where the shield could be penetrated or destroyed. Brian found it. He waited until the robot was facing him, and fired a single shot, right into the middle of the robot’s chest, where there was a softly glowing part, protected behind a thick shield. The bullet struck the shield, buckling the supports to which it clung to the body with. Brian fired several more shots at the same place, and the shield buckled more, and a place of it came loose, slightly exposing the soft core. Brian aimed carefully, which was difficult because the robot kept moving so much, and fired one shot, which connected perfectly with the exposed piece. There was a small explosion, and a fizzle, and the robot stepped back. Keena ran out of ammo for his rifle, so he dropped it on the ground and pulled his pistol. He had a wild idea, and waited for the right moment. He stood from his crouched position, and backed away from the edge. The robot looked to Brian as his shield, a now fading blue nexus, fizzled, and extended a hand to grab him. That’s when Keena made his move. He ran at a sprint towards the edge, and got a leaping start off of the short rail. He charged through the air head first at the robot. He fired madly at the robot’s face, several shots connecting with the robot’s eyes. The robot blindly flailed about as he started to fall backwards. Keena flipped around, so that his feet connected with the robot’s chest, and he pushed off, doing a backwards somersault and landing lightly on the ground, as the robot landed with a metallic groan and a huge crash on his back, unmoving. Keena walked to the head of the robot, carefully stepping over its twitching arm. He stood over the head, and twisted the head. With a few pulls, the head wrenched free of its neck, and with it, many wires. He held the head over his, and there was a cheer of victory. Everyone ran from their cover and crowded around Keena and the robot, now still, clapping him on the back, and cheering him. Keena quieted them, stepping onto the robot’s chest. Everyone went silent. Keena spotted a video camera or two.
“I may be new here, but I do know this: Someone wants to screw with us? Let them!” He held the head high again and the clapping and cheering ensued. People started coming in through doorways, some clapping as well. Live video. Keena spotted Brian, still up on the balcony, clapping also.
Once everything died down, everyone got to work. The General Commander, Ase Rico, stood at the head of the crowd that now filled the entire lobby. He set people to do the different tasks that needed to be done. The ceiling needed to be fixed, as well as the gaping hole above it. The lobby had to be fixed, and the network had to be rebooted. Ase named off groups, and as each group received their task, they went about their business. Keena’s job was to examine the robot. He got to work, disassembling and dissecting the robot, starting at the chest, especially the shield generator. Brian was sent to remove the weakened and dying virus. Brian returned to Keena a few minutes later.
“So, you having fun?” Brian asked.
Keena smiled. “Yeah.”
“So I’m assuming you’re staying?”
“Well, I guess you’re assuming correctly.”
“Good.” Brian held out two key rings. One had a silver key on it, and the other had a card and another silver key, this one a bit different, with a blue electronic code bar instead of teeth.
“Brian handed him the silver key first. “This is the key to your room, number 4277 at the end. These are your security keys.” He also handed him a map. “This is a map of the facility. Memorize it; it’s not good for an officer to be wandering around with a map in his face.”
“Officer?” Brian held out two pins. They were three bars, situated like a triangle, two on the bottom, and one above them. “Welcome to CI2, Captain Keena.” Brian smiled, as did Keena.
“Thank you.” Keena laughed, and Brian looked at hi with a puzzled face. It was about time Keena got some excitement in his life.
Chapter 2 Journal 1: ‘Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!’
I walked out of my room at the first bell. It had only been a month since the attack, and my arrival. I went along the Boarding hallway, where most of the people that worked here lived. I walked, even though the floor moved. There were four lanes in the wide hall. Of the two lanes in the middle, one went from the lobby to the rear of the hall, and the other went from the rear of the hall to the lobby. The interesting part about the floors though was that they never actually moved. The floor was a spotless white, with black lines between each lane. The two moving lanes had been rendered free from all friction, and had a mild energy current running below. The two on the outside did not move. The two moving lanes traveled at about ten miles an hour or so. My room was at the far end of the hall, so my journey took but a few minutes.
I went along, sipping my coffee, past the black doors on each side. I was going over some reports that I had received from the financial division. I was the head of the Computer sector, which was the prominent sector in the facility. It included finance, research, development, and just other computer stuff.
I was going along, passing hundreds of rooms on each side, when a girl walked onto the Speeder beside me.
“Hey, Keena.” She said. I turned to face her.
“Hey, Kayla.” Kayla worked in the computer sector; she was head of the research division. We were best friends, even though I was her boss. She looked good in her black uniform, brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, and she had brilliant green eyes. As soon as I realized I was staring, I pulled my gaze away.
“So what’s my budget going to be this month?” she asked playfully.
“You know I can’t tell you yet.” I told her, knowing that it was all going to be in vain.
“I know.” was her simple answer. She kept her focus on me, though.
“You’ll find out at the conference tomorrow.” she continued staring at me, not saying anything.
“Seventy thousand.” I told her.
“Finally! Some good money.”
“I still get more money than you.” I told her.
She rolled her eyes at me, but she smiled. The Speeder ended at the door, which led to the CI2 lobby. The doors slid open, letting us into the three story marble and steel lobby. The black marble floor reflected the circular fluorescent lights on the ceiling, looking like a sea of night. In the center, a massive oak pillar, rising from floor to ceiling. At the top, an electric sign surrounded the entire pillar, circulating messages. At the base of the pillar was a large oak desk, with secretaries working on hidden computers. In an inset near the top of the pillar, a glass case contained a black and chrome mechanical head, a victory not just for me, but for all of us.
We walked out into the lobby, where hundreds of people, all teens, were pouring from the elevators to their work sectors. I saw Brian hurry across the lobby to his hallway, obviously in a hurry for something.
The reason I’m writing this is because of him. He said that I should write a journal explaining my time here. I asked him why, but he just mumbled on, I heard something about a book.
CI2 is a division of the CIA, even though only three people know we exist. There are five different Sectors in the facility, the computer sector, field sector, board sector, work sector, and advisory sector. I’m the head of the computer sector, it’s self explanatory. The field sector is the Intel sector. They go and collect information on everything. The board sector places members into top positions in important organizations and companies. The work sector does the labor jobs, the cooking, cleaning, repair. The advisory sector is composed of the high ranking officers. At the top there’s the General Commander, then the four commanders, then the six Colonel Majors. I am a member, as a Commander, but I only attend the meetings, sometimes.
At seven thirty the first bell rings that’s the get a move on bell. At eight fifteen, the go to work bells ring. You punch in when you get to work. Your boss will tell you if you are late or not. Lunch is at one, and you can eat in the cafeteria, which has really good food, in your room, or if the boss allows, your workplace. One forty-five is work time again. Work ends at four. From then you have six hours of free time. The lobby closes at ten, lights out is at midnight. Since I am part of the security division of the work sector, I have training from four to five in the rec room where there are two small forests in which we train.
The day went by rather quickly, for my project of the day was a money virus. Brian wanted me to come up with a way to help get more money for CI2. So I came up with a creative one. It hacks into the government account that we get our money from. The bug places some false information in the system about how much money is in it. It also hacks into every system in the U.S. and fixes any bugs that might occur. We get that money, and it’s as though that money always existed. It also helps boost the dollar in the world economy. I launched it, and left for training.
Training was fun. We went to one of the forests, and we split into two teams; if all of the members of your team fall, you lose. We strapped on our armor, which was nothing more than ‘More padding than you had on,’ according to out instructor, and we picked out our guns. For training, we used small rubber bullets instead of the spiked glass ones. Usually I picked a pistol and a rifle, but today I went with a pistol and a shotgun. The two teams started on opposite ends of the forest, twenty people to a team. I wasn’t holding back today. Last time I held back, I was ambushed, and took four shots to the head, forty-two to the back and chest, and twenty to the legs. I couldn’t move for three days. As soon as the buzzer went, I instantly charged forward, my ears closing out the sound of my footsteps and those of my teammates, listening for others. I took cover behind a fallen log, listening intently. I heard nothing, so I motioned to my half of the team. The other half was on the other side of the forest. I advanced to another log, and finally heard a sound. It was a rustling from above. I also heard footsteps coming my way. I peeked over the log, and the footsteps stopped. Three rubber bullets sank deep into the old wood. The footsteps scattered. I waited, hardly breathing. The rest of my team was so well hidden behind trees and rocks, and even in the underbrush, that I could hardly see them. I heard the rustle again from above. I looked up to find the barrel of a rifle slowly making its way around the tree trunk. I used my pistol, and aimed carefully. His eyes never made it to me, before a rubber projectile collided with his forehead. With a pained grunt, he fell backward out of the tree, and landed on his back; I could feel the air rush out of his chest when he landed. A few more shots were aimed at me, but I was still behind cover. I threw my shotgun over the top of the log, and quickly fired two shots. One connected with a guy’s head, and one connected with ones chest from the wheeze he gave before falling over. A gunshot from my teammate scored a headshot and a few more felled the advancing troops that were trying to come around behind us. We heard a cheer from the other side of the forest, a distinctive cheer which meant our side had cleared out the opposing team. We sent up our cheer, and we met them halfway. We shook hands with the losing team, and played a few more rounds against various other teams. After practice ended and I got changed, I headed out of the rec room through the lobby and onto the Speeder.
My room was 4277, at the far end of the hall. I opened the door with my key, and on my bed was Kayla, playing minesweeper on my computer. It was the same computer that I fought the virus with a month ago, and I had rather taken a liking to it. She glanced at me when I entered, and resumed playing. Except for sleeping, she spent just about all of her time in my room. Not just because we were best friends, but also because she had the number to the keypad on my door, a code that will let you in if you didn’t have the key, and also because I had the only supercomputer that could fit in your pocket. It was designed a few months ago, and it was assigned to Brian, but when he got promoted a couple weeks ago, and I took over his job, he left it for me. It was once about the length and width of a pen, but I made an attachment for the base, and now he had retractable legs. They could extend anywhere from six inches to three feet six inches, and were made of Titanium, but when they got longer, they thickened with a layer of steel. My most prided upgrade though was the ThinkChip that was integrated into his processing unit. It allowed him to think and “speak”. It was really cool, almost a pet. I named him Gizmo.
“Hey Kay, Hey Gizmo.” I said when I entered, closing the door behind me.
“Hey Keena,” they both said.
“How was training?” Kayla asked me.
“Not bad, we were against the elite team today, too easy.”
“So you weren’t being defensive against the Legendary Gold team today?”
“Shut up.” My team was the Legendary Silver team, the second best team. I decided to go defensive against them and ended up not being able to walk for the entire next day.
“I need a shower.” I told her. I went back and stepped into a hot shower. The rooms were nice, with three rooms in each. When you first walked in there was your bedroom/ living room. Through a doorway (with no door) were the study, bathroom, and closet. Through a separate doorway in the bedroom, the kitchen is furnished with everything you need. My kitchen was currently fully stocked with the groceries I would need for the next month. At the beginning of the month, you put in your food order, and CI2 pays for it all, and then they give you the receipt and you pay CI2 for the food. When you placed your order, it usually came in later that day or early the next day.
After my shower, I dried off and went into the kitchen.
“You eat already?” I called to Kayla from the fridge.
“No.”
“You want to?”
“Sure.”
I made the two of us chicken sandwiches, and plopped down onto the bed beside her. While she munched on her sandwich, she handed Gizmo to me and I put on a movie. We watched an oldie, Lord of the Rings. After the movie we hung out and did random stuff with Gizmo Afterwards she said good night, clambered off of my bed, and went out to her own room. Gizmo stood up and walked over to the table next to my bed, set the alarm for seven, and went into sleep mode, playing music from a certain playlist. I rolled over and fell asleep to Above the Ruins.
At precisely seven in the morning, Gizmo woke up, stood, and walked across the bed to the snoring, lumpy mound that was me, and poked me slightly. I woke up at this, but didn’t quite want to get up. The pokes turned to jabs, and the jab became a repeated stabbing.
“Okay, okay, I’m up.” I grumbled. I ungracefully flopped out of bed and got dressed. I quickly made a cup of coffee, and just as I walked out the door, the breakfast bell rang.
“On time again.” I said to no one in particular. Gizmo walked behind me as I stepped onto the Speeder. Kayla walked on as we passed her room.
“Hey.” I said.
“Hey to you.” she replied.
“How’d you sleep?” I asked her.
“Good, good, you?”
“Ask Gizmo.”
Kayla turned around, and Gizmo made a wah wah waaahh trombone sound. Kayla giggled, and we arrived at the end of the Speeder, and into the already busy hallway. Kayla and I walked over to the cafeteria, where Matt and Jaeger were in serious debate over some random subject. We walked over to them and they stopped.
“Hey guys.” Matt said. “We were just discussing Theoretical Quantum Physics.” He said in his British accent. He had recently come here from just north of London.
“Alrighty then.” I looked to Jaeger. “How’s your project coming along?”
“Not bad. The core structure isn’t as molecularly stable as I would like it to be, though.” He said.
“Yeah, and the shell material isn’t as resistant as I want it to be. Not enough to withstand the tests I want to try, anyways. I think I’m getting it messed up somewhere.” Matt said.
“Well, if you guys ever need a hand, you always know where to find me.” I told them.
“We’ll keep that in mind, but for right now, I’m starving.” Matt said. We all agreed, and walked through the double doors into the cafeteria. Or what looked like the cafeteria. Right now it was chaos. Tables and chairs had been knocked over and papers were scattered all across the floor. The people had split into two sides in the cafeteria, one side trying to out yell the other. So far, it obviously wasn’t going so well for either side. In the center of the turmoil, Brian stood waving both arms, yelling for everyone to stop, but to no avail. I walked into the center of the room beside Brian, and that alone shut some people up. I put two fingers in my mouth, and let out a long, loud, high pitched whistle. It echoed loudly in the steel encased room, making the entire room go silent.
“What in the world is going on here?” the yelling broke out again, this time directed at me, shouting blames about the other side, and then, upon hearing each other, resumed yelling at each other. I whistled again and reclaimed their attention.
“You.” I pointed to a random guy on one side.
“I want to hear only your voice. What happened?”
“They said that the robot attack was our fault.” He said accusingly, pointing at the other side. I looked at some of the other guys on the other side, and I recognized some of them from the computer sector. I looked back to the guy.
“What sector are you?”
“Field.” Figures. It was the network guys versus the intel guys. Anyone could say that either side was at fault, but in reality, neither side was, whoever attacked us was a lot better than we were.
“Look, neither sector is responsible. CI2 is still working on who was responsible. Both sectors should know that. For now, all of you get to work, now. I don’t want to see any of you in here in five minutes, after this place has been cleaned up.”
“But-“ one guy started.
“Now!”
Immediately, everyone started replacing tables and chairs to their proper positions, collected their papers and left. Brian turned to me.
“Thanks, man, I owe you one.”
“No, I still owe you, what, sixty?”
“Seventy-four, now.”
“That’s right.” After a short breakfast, Kayla, Matt, Jaeger and I all headed to the computer sector. Matt worked in research under Kayla, and Jaeger worked in development under Tristan. Brian headed off to the advisory sector. Before I walked into my office, I said to the others, “If any of you need me, I’ll be around later; I don’t have much work today.” They all nodded, and went into their work stations. Kayla and Matt into CERL, Computer Engineering and Research Labs, and Jaeger into CDD, Computer Development and Design. I walked in to find everybody at their stations. It was quiet; I noticed several faces from the cafeteria. The only work I had to do today was analyze and store some files, and then I picked up Gizmo and headed out to the different divisions. When I got to CDD, I saw Jaeger working on his brain. It was a small cell, no larger than the ball in a ballpoint pen, but stored the information and capacity of a supercomputer, and the intent was to give robots their own feeling and personality.
“How’s it going?” I asked him as I came around.
“Good. Better actually. I finally got the molecular feeding levels inside to the right levels.” He smiled proudly, his eyes massively magnified by his microscope goggles.
“Good, keep it up. When you’re done, I might buy one for Gizmo.” Jaeger smiled again.
I continued around to the different stations, seeing the different robotic designs that Jaeger’s brain, as well as other of his inventions, would be used in. I got over to CERL, and saw Matt and Kayla’s masterpiece. She was six feet, four inches tall, with two arms and two legs. Right now, the female robot was only a frame, metal with most of the robotic components inside, but only one arm and one leg complete. They wanted to finish both before they got started on their mirror parts. That would be easy enough. Kayla was currently working on the robot’s right arm. The arms looked like normal arms, but the forearm was going to be able to hinge out, so that the hand tucked into the elbow and the elbow replaced the hand. The new hand would be a miniature fifty caliber cannon, just in case. All of the cannon’s ammo was fed in from its upper arm. Matt hardly noticed when I came up behind him.
“How’s it going?” I asked over Matt’s shoulder. He jumped slightly, but kept his hands steady. His hands held what looked like micro sewing needles. They were currently in the act of lacing something through a small pinkish chunk. It was going to be the robot’s skin.
“Not bad. I’m just lacing some fibers through it. It’s a lot less dense and a lot more resistant than I thought it would be. Perfect.” Matt smiled. “Come.” He picked up the skin and carried it over to a small plastic box. I followed him, but not before stealing one last glance at Kayla.
“You fancy her, don’t you, mate?” Matt, asked, ignoring the skin and the box.
“What?” I looked back around at him.
“You can’t play dumb on this one, you’re way too easy to read.
“Yeah, well…”
“Don’t ‘yeah well,’ me. I’m your best mate, remember? You can’t do that, it’s illegal.” I smiled.
“Just ask her out, you fancy her so much.”
“Yeah. So are you going to show me the skin or what?”
“Right.” He put the skin sample in the box. The skin was about an inch thick, tanned on the top and pinkish red on the bottom.
“The skin is bulletproof.” He aimed a pistol through a small opening in the box. He fired, the blast muffled by the box. The bullet bounced off of the skin, ricocheting off of the walls before finally shattering against one wall.
“Fireproof.” He inserted a pipe into the opening, the rest of the pipe becoming a tube and disappearing into the ceiling. Matt clicked a switch, and blue flames engulfed the skin, the entire box becoming a swirling inferno. Matt let it sit for a while, before clicking the switch again, ending the flame. He pulled the pipe out and it retracted. The skin was still perfectly unharmed in the center of the box, slightly smoking.
“Finitely stretchable.” He pulled the skin from the box and set it on top. From under the box he pulled four clawed mechanical hands. He attached one claw to each corner of the skin, securing them. He pressed a button below the box, and the arms activated, pulling the corners of the skin apart, until it was about a foot square. Twelve times its original size. In the next thirty seconds, the skin was thoroughly pulled, twisted, poked, sand stretched.
“Nevertheless indestructible.” Matt said proudly, the skin now at three feet square. Matt pressed another button, and a spike released itself from its hole in the ceiling, headed point down at the skin. It made contact, pulling the skin down, until the spike hit the box. The skin was not punctured, and the spike retracted into the ceiling.
After the tutorial, I said my good-byes to Matt and Kayla, and left. I met back up with Jaeger, Matt, and Kayla at lunch, and after work did my training. It was a generic day. Little did I know my generic days were about to end. I went to sleep that night, and had a weird dream. Can’t remember it, but I kind of remember having a sword for some reason. The next morning, I was walking across the lobby with Kayla when Brian came up to us saying that he needed to see me, apparently there was something that he wanted to discuss.
We walked to his office, and he closed the door behind me.
“What’s up?” I asked him.
“We have a problem.” I sighed.
“Brian, last time you told me there was a problem, people died. What’s wrong?”
Well, you see…” He started. “Well, I need to show you something.”
“Is it another virus or something?”
“Um… worse.”
“Great. He led me from the room, and out of the hallway into the lobby. We took the staircase that led downstairs. We walked through the double doors into the second floor lobby. It was a much more simple room than upstairs, with black marble floors, and a wooden desk against one wall. We took an immediate right, and to a door marked “Ionics Testing Lab.”
“I’ve never heard of his room before.” I told him.
“That’s the point. No one has been in this room for a few years now. Well, until yesterday. This room was abandoned, and we built the CERL and CDD rooms upstairs.”
“Why was it abandoned?”
“Well, you’ll see.” Brian slid his card into a card reader, and inserted his key, and placed his hand against the door. He then placed his eye over a small retina reader. There was a whir, and the sound of heavy metal bolts being slid out of place. Brian opened the thick door, and turned on the lights. The room had been cleared out, and so the only object in the room stood out. It was large round, and made of metal. It was plain metal, nothing to decorate it or anything, but something told me that decoration wasn’t one of the top priorities on this. On the side of the ring was a small lever. Brian walked over to the ring, and pulled the lever down. A few bolts of electricity filled the metal, and then it exploded into green light. When the light receded, green and blue light filled the inside of the ring.
“What is it?” I asked.
“We don’t really know. We believe it is a wormhole. A few years ago, it was sort of stumbled upon, and when they sent someone in, he never came back. Jaeger discovered the portal a few days ago, and came to me to ask if he could explore the other side. I was so stupid to let him. He hasn’t come back yet. It’s been twelve hours. I told him to come back in two.”
“So you want me to go in, get him, come back?”
“That’s the idea.”
“Why me? Why not send a squad of security guys?”
“When you can take out a squad of security guys? I hate to think what could be on the other side.”
“So you’re sacrificing me?”
“Well,”
“I’m just messing with you.” Brian sighed.
“Well, here I go.” I walked forward, and into the light. The sensation was warm, and there was a sort of tingling. I just drifted along, not knowing where I would end up. The answer came soon enough, when my feet hit solid ground. It was grassy, but I looked around me and saw that I was in the middle of a forest. I noticed that there was an eerie silence. There was not a sound in the forest. Not an animal, not bugs, there was even any wind, so the trees stood silently. I noticed that the portal stood behind me still, but it was old, very old. It was utterly dirty, and there were vines and plants growing all over it. I turned back around, and saw a path leading away from the portal and into the forest. I followed it, and it led on a winding trail through the thin underbrush. It was warm, no hotter than eighty degrees. I wondered why Jaeger would disappear in a place like this. He even left himself a path. I found out soon enough. I could see the end of the forest through the trees, and tried hurrying myself. I came free of the forest, and saw myself staring at a village. It was a large village in fact, with huts made of wood with palm roofs. There were smaller huts on the outside, I assumed there were houses, and I looked and saw larger huts, some even two stories, in the middle of the village. The entire town was arranged in a circle, with the larger huts circling around, as I looked down one street, a courtyard of some kind. It was currently full of people. I walked down one of the streets, keeping behind the huts for cover, I didn’t want anyone to see me. I got close to the center, and I had to raise up on my tip-toes to see what everyone was crowding around. I was shocked when I saw it. On a raised platform, was a small fire. It was being fed by a large man who was dressed in the same clothes as everyone else, a loincloth. And above the fire? Jaeger. He was tied to a spit that was slowly spinning above the growing fire. I had to think fast, or else he would die. I ran around one of the circular streets, and back up on of the straight streets. I noticed that the designs of the houses were flimsy, and the arrangement was bad. I decided to play a game of dominoes. I ran to one of the huts, grabbing hold of what I figured to be a support beam. I pulled on it, and it started to give way. I pulled again, and the piece of wood jumped out of place, causing the hut to buckle and creak. I gave it a push towards the house beside it, and it fell into it, causing the other hut to buckle and fall in the same way, taking out the next house. I started my dominoes, and the sound of snapping wood was like gunshots, so I sprinted down the circular road, back to the street I came from, on the other side of the village. This place was very well organized. I heard yelling and shouting coming from the center, and so I made my way there. By the time I got there, it had cleared out, everyone else trying to save the homes. The only one left In the courtyard was Jaeger, no longer spinning. He saw me and instantly began trying to yell to me through the rag that was stuffed in his mouth. I motioned for him to quiet down, and he silenced. I quickly ran over too the pyre, and without untying him or anything, lifted the spit with Jaeger on it, and ran. I ran back down the street I entered from, and ran back onto the forest path. It wasn’t long before somebody saw me and started yelling. Soon enough I was being chased through the forest. I tried following the path as carefully as I could, but it was hard with a person in my arms. I finally saw the portal off to the side and took a shortcut. I ran straight towards it, at a full out sprint now. The portal was still open. I could hear darts being fired now, and I leapt through the portal, spinning my body so that when I landed, Jaeger landed on top of me. Fortunately, I landed on hard ground, and I heard the lever being pulled.
Brian pulled Jaeger off of me, and began untying him.
“What happened? Are you guys alright?”
“Eh.” Jaeger said after the rag was finally pulled out of his mouth. “Just a little hot is all.” I chuckled, but Brian didn’t quite get it.
“You had to be there.” I told him.
“Thank goodness I wasn’t.” he said.
“Yes, I agree.”
The next day, Jaeger finished his brain. I inserted the brain into Gizmo, and now he is a friend. He also has turbines, so he quietly glides around, but he still has legs. I replaced his screen with a solid laser screen by replacing the lasers with denser laser waves.
Well, I’m about to turn this into Brian, hopefully he’ll tell me the reason for making me write these.
Out for now.
Chapter 1: CI2
Everybody has a purpose. Some have a purpose to do good deeds. Others, not so good. Some people have a purpose at a younger age than would be expected. Keena was fourteen, and a normal kid like everyone else. He went to school, went to all of his classes, and had friends. Until one day……
Keena walked down the noisy, gossip-filled hallway, his shoes slapping against the tile, his filled backpack bumping against his back with every step. He climbed up the staircase, to the upperclassmen hallway. Once upstairs, he skirted around a group of girls huddled around a locker, and he was about to walk through the door of his next computer class, when from behind him, a strong hand grabbed his shoulder. It spun him all the way around, forcing him to see face to face with a larger man in a pressed black suit. He looked very big and official, but Keena could see by his face that he was just a teenager.
“Can I help you?” Keena asked him. The man was a good head taller than Keena, and looked down at him with a cold, deep intensity.
“Can you come with me?” he said in a deep, gravelly voice.
“What for?” Keena asked him back, a skeptical tone in his voice.
“We need to speak to you.” He said simply.
“We? About what?” The man rolled his eyes.
“I’m tired of questions.” With a mighty haul, he lifted Keena, and spun around, setting him down facing the staircase. He then started pushing, not very gently, down the hallway. “If you want answers, you’re going to have to come with me.” Everything was pretty empty now, for the late bell was now ringing above their heads. Keena finally decided not to resist, for the man could beat him to a pulp if he did, and started walking by himself. The guy led him out the front doors of the school, out past the courtyard, and into the school parking lot. In the entire lot was one solitary vehicle. It was a shiny, black, new-looking SUV. The man opened the rear passenger door, allowed but kind of pushed Keena inside, and closed the door, promptly stepping into the passenger seat. The person in the driver’s seat looked barely old enough to drive, maybe sixteen. Both of the men were wearing neatly pressed black suits, but after the passenger door closed, they both removed their suits, their ties, and their dress shoes, to reveal casual clothing. The driver wore a white and red striped shirt, with blue jeans that had random cuts and holes. The other wore a gray and green Japanese shirt with brown cargo shorts.
“What in the world?” Keena said under his breath.
The driver gave a shake, obviously a lot more comfortable. He stepped on the gas, driving around the parking lot, and out through the city. It was silent at first, but after a few minutes, the passenger reached down and pushed a button situated between the seat and the door, and his seat spun around to face Keena. For some reason, the face looked slightly familiar, but Keena waved the thought away.
“Sorry if we scared you or anything, we just wanted to make sure that you came with us.” The voice sounded familiar, too.
“Yeah, you can be pretty resistant sometimes.” The driver looked at Keena through the rear view mirror.
“Wait,” Keena started. It was the first time he had really seen the driver’s face, and he examined it for a moment. “Brian?” Keena tried hesitantly.
“Took you long enough, hotshot.”
“Seriously? How’d you find me?”
“We have connections, said the passenger.
“Tristan?”
“Boy, that took you way too long. You know, high school is wearing you down. You aren’t as sharp as you were.”
“College is different. But anyways, where exactly are we going?” Keena asked. It didn’t take a second to realize that this wasn’t the exact time to be asking. Brian and Tristan both got really serious. There was silence for a few minutes, a tension that hung in the air. They drove along a street for a while, before turning into an alley, and after turning into another alley, Brian stopped, turned off the car, and taking the keys out, putting them in his pocket. Brian pressed a button next to his seat, and spun around to face Keena. Both of them stared at Keena with a serious glare.
“What you are about to see is classified. The information that you are going to see can only be discussed with employees of this facility. You may not tell or hint to anybody, anything of this bases location, studies, operations, or its existence to anyone outside the facility. Do you understand and do you swear to follow these rules to the death?”
“Um, sure.” Keena said with a worried face. What was he getting himself into now? Brian and Tristan both turned their seats around, and Brian pressed a small green button on the dashboard. After he pressed the button, there was a slight lurch, and the car started to move down into the road. Keena looked out the window with interest. They slowly descended downward, passing a few inches of asphalt, and then a few feet of cement, followed by several feet of bedrock. There were several more feet of cement, maybe twenty, and then there was a thin layer of blue gel, held within a membrane. There was then about five or ten feet of steel, before the car entered a large room. It looked odd at first, but then Keena realized that it was a parking garage. The SUV was slowly lowered between two identical SUV’s, and it smoothly glided to a halt.
Tristan and Brian opened their doors and got out, and Keena did the same. Above them, the hole that they had entered through had already closed over. Tristan motioned to Keena towards an elevator. They walked to it, and Brian pushed a button with a down arrow to the right of the door. They stepped inside, and the silver doors closed. Brian pulled his keys out of his pocket, and entered one of them, a normal silver key, into the key slot next to the door. He turned the key to the right, and pressed a button with a G that was on the panel beside the door. The elevator started its journey smoothly down. The trip lasted a few minutes, with Brian and Tristan standing stock still with their hands behind their backs, and Keena moving around impatiently. The elevator glided smoothly to a halt, and Brian removed both keys from the lock, and placed a hand against the door. There was a soft whirring sound, and the doors opened. The room that opened up before them was an unbelievable sight. Keena took a step out of the elevator, and looked up at the seven story vaulted ceiling. The entire room was about twice the size of a football field, and the entire floor, walls, and ceiling were paneled in polished black marble. There was a balcony at the third floor that overlooked the room; a few people leaned against the oak railing. In the center of the room, a massive oak-paneled pillar dominated the space. The pillar was surrounded by a high desk, with secretaries busy at work. In front of them, giant silver letters spelled out “CI2” on the floor.
“Hey, Brian?” Keena turned to Brian.
“Hmm?”
“What’s CI2 mean?”
“CI2 stands for Central Intelligence Two. We’re technically a division of the CIA, but there are only about three people that know we exist: the President, the vice-president, and the head of the CIA. If they don’t know the answer to something, we find out what the answer is, and tell them. It’s been around for about seventy years or so. Without us, they’d still have us in Iraq. My dad and my grandpa were both stationed at this base. They sent my grandpa to Serbia in 1987, and my dad went to Iraq in ’09. Now that all of those wars are over, I don’t need to go anywhere.”
They walked past the left side of the pillar, and to the corner of the room, where there was a large wooden door. As I looked around, I noticed that in the entire place, there was not one person that looked over the age of nineteen.
“So this place is run by teens?”
“Yep. There is not a single adult that operates in this base. There are only about four adults that work in CI2. Everybody here is decommissioned at 20, and sent back to their lives with a significant bonus, so that they can get a good life out of their work that they do here.”
“What exactly do you guys do here?”
“Just follow us.”
They walked to the doors, and they spun around and up into the walls on either side, allowing us entry into a long hallway. There was a golden plaque next to the door marked “Computer Sector”. They walked down the hallway until they reached the third door on the left. (There were no doors on the right side.) This door was marked “CEHS”.
“CEHS?” Keena asked Brian.
“Computer Engineering and Hacking Software. The heart and soul of CI2.”
“Oh.” The room they entered was full of computers, all of them new and hi-tech. There were six rows of computers, each with 10 computers. They all faced the door that they just entered. Keena followed Brian and Tristan around the rows of computers to a raised platform in the rear of the room. On the platform was a steel desk, and nothing sat on it let alone a small dark blue cylinder. They walked up a few steps, and Tristan motioned for Keena to sit at the chair that sat behind the desk. Keena lowered himself into the gel seat, and from his vantage point in the back of the room, he could see every computer and the programs on them. Brian touched a small black hole that faced them near the top of the cylinder. A laser screen projected out towards them.
“So here’s our problem,” Brian started.
“Problem? You never told me about any problem.”
“Look, no one here knows how to handle this kind of thing, and you’re the only person in the WORLD under the age thirty that knows how to deal with this thing.”
“Fine.”
“Okay, there’s a bug sweeping our data. You have to stop it. Sweeping our data is one thing, and it’s bad enough, but if it gets to our mainframe network,” he cut off. He didn’t even need to finish the sentence. Keena got the point. It would be bad.
“Kill it before it gets to us, clear?”
“Sure.”Keena replied.
“Good. Work quickly, if you don’t mind.” Brian and Tristan walked off. Keena watched them until they walked out the door, but not before Brian stole one last nervous glance at Keena, before the door closed silently behind him.
Keena sat in silence for another moment. He had graduated high school at the age of twelve, and graduated from MIT just after his fourteenth birthday. He said he wanted to go back to high school until he graduated, just to be around kids his own age. He had taken computer classes since he was six, and could do anything with a computer. He just hadn’t expected that a secret facility run by teenagers would need to use his skills.
He cracked his knuckles in a stereotypic “Get to work” kind of way, and began work at the screen. He didn’t need the keyboard, so he shut it off. The screen was a touch screen, so he worked from there. First off, he ran a diagnostic of the computer’s data system. It pulled up a map of the system, showing data flow and network connections. In the center of the map was a large open area, where all of the incoming information was processed, and sent to wherever it was headed. The virus was at the top of the map, in a smaller and less occupied channel. It was running along the channel, swallowing the data, processing it, and spitting it back out. On the screen, it showed up as a blinking red dot. Keena touched it, and an identification tag appeared beside it. It read “Unknown Delta 7”. Great, Keena thought, a Spartan virus. Spartan viruses were developed somewhere around 2015, for use by the military. They were supposed to be invincible, unable to be destroyed. Fifty years later, that theory still held. If that virus got to the mainframe, then it would copy and wipe everything. To slow the virus down, Keena downloaded, yes, the internet. Terabytes of information streamed into the channel at once, already creating a block in the virus’s path. So basically in order to continue, the virus had to scan the internet. Keena continued, running continuous diagnostics, which showed up in constant streams of numbers at the bottom right corner of the screen. He sent plenty of viruses of his own that would damage, weaken, and malfunction the virus. Supposedly. A couple of hours into his work, a bell rang from a speaker in the ceiling. Just like school he thought. All of the workers in the room saved their work, and they all neatly filed out of the room. But if only school were this organized.
A few hours later, another bell rang, and a few workers scattered into the room. Keena checked the clock on the computer, and saw that it was past ten o’ clock at night. This must be the nigh shift or something. After school club. Keena worked well into the night studying the dynamics of the virus, and designing a virus of his own that would hopefully kill the virus. By the time it was done, all of the workers had long cleared out, and a new bell rang, and the original workers came back in and sat back down at their stations. Some gave Keena surprised looks at the fact that he was still there, working. Keena had just finished his super defense virus, and so he typed in the command. He hit okay on the screen, and sprouting from the mainframe, streams of blue headed towards the blinking red dot. They charged the virus, and when they met it, the red dot was sucked into the blue, and it disappeared. The blue virus disappeared with it. Keena sat back and relaxed, realizing he was cramped from leaning over the screen all night. Bryan walked in a few minutes later, two cups of coffee in hand. He walked up and handed one to Keena.
“Thanks,” Keena said, sipping the steaming liquid.
“You have fun? I was monitoring you from the CDD room. Took you long enough.”
“Yeah, it was loads of fun.” They laughed. They both drank coffee for a minute, until there was a beep an d an alarm from the computer. On the screen, was a small, blinking red dot… in the dead center of the mainframe. It sat there for a second, but that’s all it took for it to crash the system.
“Crap.” Keena said flatly.
“Oh no.” Brian groaned.
Suddenly, error messages flashed on all of the computers in front of them. All of the teenagers were confused and panicked, until the lights shut off and red and blue lights replaced them. They immediately got up from their seats, and shuffled out of the room. Keena and Brian watched as every data flow was reversed, back into the mainframe, back into the dot. Alarms started from the speakers in the ceiling, and Keena and Brian ran from the room. Outside were armored guards at their posts carrying guns. Real guns.
Walking quickly, but obeying the evacuation rules that were being spoken from the speakers in the ceiling of the echoing marble room. Keena asked Brian, “So what do those guns shoot?”
“Well, to be simple, spiked marbles. Sort of. They are made of a special glass. They are spiked, which helps with penetration, and they shatter on impact, so they can penetrate about anything, and they shatter, which helps a theoretical one shot one kill.”
“Theoretical? You mean these have never actually been used?”
“Not here. I say theoretical because I’ve never seen them used. They use them in the war.”
“Oh.”
The pair hurried across the large lobby, where hundreds of people exited from doors, hurrying to one corner of the lobby, or to a staircase that led downstairs. They hallway that they were headed to had a bright sign over it marked “Emergency Exit”. They rushed across, pushing through the crowd, but instead of going through the exit, they went into the hallway and turned left through a set of double doors; these ones were marked “Armory”.
“Can you shoot?” Brian asked.
“Well, I know the basics. Point, aim, shoot, right?”
“Good enough.” They pushed through the doors into a much brighter room, stocked with dozens of shelves of guns and armor. Keena followed Brian, strapping on body armor, and getting a helmet that fit. There were others, too, that were doing the same. Brian strapped a rifle to his back, and a pistol on his hip. Keena did the same.
“This is just a precaution, right?” Keena asked. Brian chuckled, and pressed a belt to Keena’s chest. Keena grabbed it, and as Brian let go, he saw that it was an ammo belt.
“No.” And Brian walked back to the way we entered. The crowd had thinned substantially.
“Our radars picked something up right after the virus hit. It was headed for us.”
“Something.”
Yes. Something.”
“Great.”
The pair took a set of stairs in the empty rec room to the second level, where they took there posts, along with several other people, along the balcony overlooking the lobby. The lights suddenly popped on, some people flinching at the sudden brightness.
“Sir, we have power and communications back online.” Someone shouted to Brian.
“I noticed. Are the ground teams prepared?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good.”
The person ran off.”
“Sir?” Keena asked.
“Commander.”
“Oh.”
It was silent in the lobby for several minutes, excluding the light breathing of all of the guards. They stood stock still, until there was a soft noise. Opposite the balcony were seven elevators. There were seven doors, but there were about fifty individual elevators that worked in a complex system of tracks. Above them, guards were posted at seven different posts.
One of the elevators made a loud ding! shattering the silence in the hall. The doors opened, and three guards exited. One was limping, dragging the other two behind him, blood trailing. A few guards helped them, taking them to the hospital room. Keena looked to Brian, a worried look on his face. A minute later, the second elevator rang, and only two guards stepped out, slightly injured. “Oh, for God’s sake, get them out of there!” Brian yelled.
A few minutes later, all of the elevators opened almost simultaneously, three uninjured guards stepping from each of them. They immediately took posts around the lobby. There was an eerie silence again, but it was broken a few minutes later by a barely audible dumm. It was rhythmic, getting louder and louder. Dummm. Dummm. DUmmmm. DUMmmm. DUMMMM! It was the sound of something pounding through concrete and steel, and succeeding. With each hit now, the steel ceiling began to buckle and crack, raining cement powder onto the marble floor. The ceiling got to a critical point, when it stopped. There was a pause in the rhythmic crashing. With a heave and a crash, a huge metal being crashed through the ceiling, landing roughly on the floor, cracking it. Gunfire instantly ensued, and the huge machine went berserker on the guys at ground level. The robot was about fifteen feet high, with chrome colored chest, hands, and feet, and black elsewhere. It didn’t have guns, that would have been too obvious from above. Digging robots were common around. It was probably set up at a road, which was probably closed from head to toe. It swept up a few guards, throwing them against the far wall. Firing at the robot seemed to have no effect. The bullets ricocheted off, as though there was a shield around it. A force field. Incredibly high tech, but not impossible. I told Brian, and he nodded. We both looked for a soft spot, somewhere where the shield could be penetrated or destroyed. Brian found it. He waited until the robot was facing him, and fired a single shot, right into the middle of the robot’s chest, where there was a softly glowing part, protected behind a thick shield. The bullet struck the shield, buckling the supports to which it clung to the body with. Brian fired several more shots at the same place, and the shield buckled more, and a place of it came loose, slightly exposing the soft core. Brian aimed carefully, which was difficult because the robot kept moving so much, and fired one shot, which connected perfectly with the exposed piece. There was a small explosion, and a fizzle, and the robot stepped back. Keena ran out of ammo for his rifle, so he dropped it on the ground and pulled his pistol. He had a wild idea, and waited for the right moment. He stood from his crouched position, and backed away from the edge. The robot looked to Brian as his shield, a now fading blue nexus, fizzled, and extended a hand to grab him. That’s when Keena made his move. He ran at a sprint towards the edge, and got a leaping start off of the short rail. He charged through the air head first at the robot. He fired madly at the robot’s face, several shots connecting with the robot’s eyes. The robot blindly flailed about as he started to fall backwards. Keena flipped around, so that his feet connected with the robot’s chest, and he pushed off, doing a backwards somersault and landing lightly on the ground, as the robot landed with a metallic groan and a huge crash on his back, unmoving. Keena walked to the head of the robot, carefully stepping over its twitching arm. He stood over the head, and twisted the head. With a few pulls, the head wrenched free of its neck, and with it, many wires. He held the head over his, and there was a cheer of victory. Everyone ran from their cover and crowded around Keena and the robot, now still, clapping him on the back, and cheering him. Keena quieted them, stepping onto the robot’s chest. Everyone went silent. Keena spotted a video camera or two.
“I may be new here, but I do know this: Someone wants to screw with us? Let them!” He held the head high again and the clapping and cheering ensued. People started coming in through doorways, some clapping as well. Live video. Keena spotted Brian, still up on the balcony, clapping also.
Once everything died down, everyone got to work. The General Commander, Ase Rico, stood at the head of the crowd that now filled the entire lobby. He set people to do the different tasks that needed to be done. The ceiling needed to be fixed, as well as the gaping hole above it. The lobby had to be fixed, and the network had to be rebooted. Ase named off groups, and as each group received their task, they went about their business. Keena’s job was to examine the robot. He got to work, disassembling and dissecting the robot, starting at the chest, especially the shield generator. Brian was sent to remove the weakened and dying virus. Brian returned to Keena a few minutes later.
“So, you having fun?” Brian asked.
Keena smiled. “Yeah.”
“So I’m assuming you’re staying?”
“Well, I guess you’re assuming correctly.”
“Good.” Brian held out two key rings. One had a silver key on it, and the other had a card and another silver key, this one a bit different, with a blue electronic code bar instead of teeth.
“Brian handed him the silver key first. “This is the key to your room, number 4277 at the end. These are your security keys.” He also handed him a map. “This is a map of the facility. Memorize it; it’s not good for an officer to be wandering around with a map in his face.”
“Officer?” Brian held out two pins. They were three bars, situated like a triangle, two on the bottom, and one above them. “Welcome to CI2, Captain Keena.” Brian smiled, as did Keena.
“Thank you.” Keena laughed, and Brian looked at hi with a puzzled face. It was about time Keena got some excitement in his life.
Chapter 2 Journal 1: ‘Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!’
I walked out of my room at the first bell. It had only been a month since the attack, and my arrival. I went along the Boarding hallway, where most of the people that worked here lived. I walked, even though the floor moved. There were four lanes in the wide hall. Of the two lanes in the middle, one went from the lobby to the rear of the hall, and the other went from the rear of the hall to the lobby. The interesting part about the floors though was that they never actually moved. The floor was a spotless white, with black lines between each lane. The two moving lanes had been rendered free from all friction, and had a mild energy current running below. The two on the outside did not move. The two moving lanes traveled at about ten miles an hour or so. My room was at the far end of the hall, so my journey took but a few minutes.
I went along, sipping my coffee, past the black doors on each side. I was going over some reports that I had received from the financial division. I was the head of the Computer sector, which was the prominent sector in the facility. It included finance, research, development, and just other computer stuff.
I was going along, passing hundreds of rooms on each side, when a girl walked onto the Speeder beside me.
“Hey, Keena.” She said. I turned to face her.
“Hey, Kayla.” Kayla worked in the computer sector; she was head of the research division. We were best friends, even though I was her boss. She looked good in her black uniform, brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, and she had brilliant green eyes. As soon as I realized I was staring, I pulled my gaze away.
“So what’s my budget going to be this month?” she asked playfully.
“You know I can’t tell you yet.” I told her, knowing that it was all going to be in vain.
“I know.” was her simple answer. She kept her focus on me, though.
“You’ll find out at the conference tomorrow.” she continued staring at me, not saying anything.
“Seventy thousand.” I told her.
“Finally! Some good money.”
“I still get more money than you.” I told her.
She rolled her eyes at me, but she smiled. The Speeder ended at the door, which led to the CI2 lobby. The doors slid open, letting us into the three story marble and steel lobby. The black marble floor reflected the circular fluorescent lights on the ceiling, looking like a sea of night. In the center, a massive oak pillar, rising from floor to ceiling. At the top, an electric sign surrounded the entire pillar, circulating messages. At the base of the pillar was a large oak desk, with secretaries working on hidden computers. In an inset near the top of the pillar, a glass case contained a black and chrome mechanical head, a victory not just for me, but for all of us.
We walked out into the lobby, where hundreds of people, all teens, were pouring from the elevators to their work sectors. I saw Brian hurry across the lobby to his hallway, obviously in a hurry for something.
The reason I’m writing this is because of him. He said that I should write a journal explaining my time here. I asked him why, but he just mumbled on, I heard something about a book.
CI2 is a division of the CIA, even though only three people know we exist. There are five different Sectors in the facility, the computer sector, field sector, board sector, work sector, and advisory sector. I’m the head of the computer sector, it’s self explanatory. The field sector is the Intel sector. They go and collect information on everything. The board sector places members into top positions in important organizations and companies. The work sector does the labor jobs, the cooking, cleaning, repair. The advisory sector is composed of the high ranking officers. At the top there’s the General Commander, then the four commanders, then the six Colonel Majors. I am a member, as a Commander, but I only attend the meetings, sometimes.
At seven thirty the first bell rings that’s the get a move on bell. At eight fifteen, the go to work bells ring. You punch in when you get to work. Your boss will tell you if you are late or not. Lunch is at one, and you can eat in the cafeteria, which has really good food, in your room, or if the boss allows, your workplace. One forty-five is work time again. Work ends at four. From then you have six hours of free time. The lobby closes at ten, lights out is at midnight. Since I am part of the security division of the work sector, I have training from four to five in the rec room where there are two small forests in which we train.
The day went by rather quickly, for my project of the day was a money virus. Brian wanted me to come up with a way to help get more money for CI2. So I came up with a creative one. It hacks into the government account that we get our money from. The bug places some false information in the system about how much money is in it. It also hacks into every system in the U.S. and fixes any bugs that might occur. We get that money, and it’s as though that money always existed. It also helps boost the dollar in the world economy. I launched it, and left for training.
Training was fun. We went to one of the forests, and we split into two teams; if all of the members of your team fall, you lose. We strapped on our armor, which was nothing more than ‘More padding than you had on,’ according to out instructor, and we picked out our guns. For training, we used small rubber bullets instead of the spiked glass ones. Usually I picked a pistol and a rifle, but today I went with a pistol and a shotgun. The two teams started on opposite ends of the forest, twenty people to a team. I wasn’t holding back today. Last time I held back, I was ambushed, and took four shots to the head, forty-two to the back and chest, and twenty to the legs. I couldn’t move for three days. As soon as the buzzer went, I instantly charged forward, my ears closing out the sound of my footsteps and those of my teammates, listening for others. I took cover behind a fallen log, listening intently. I heard nothing, so I motioned to my half of the team. The other half was on the other side of the forest. I advanced to another log, and finally heard a sound. It was a rustling from above. I also heard footsteps coming my way. I peeked over the log, and the footsteps stopped. Three rubber bullets sank deep into the old wood. The footsteps scattered. I waited, hardly breathing. The rest of my team was so well hidden behind trees and rocks, and even in the underbrush, that I could hardly see them. I heard the rustle again from above. I looked up to find the barrel of a rifle slowly making its way around the tree trunk. I used my pistol, and aimed carefully. His eyes never made it to me, before a rubber projectile collided with his forehead. With a pained grunt, he fell backward out of the tree, and landed on his back; I could feel the air rush out of his chest when he landed. A few more shots were aimed at me, but I was still behind cover. I threw my shotgun over the top of the log, and quickly fired two shots. One connected with a guy’s head, and one connected with ones chest from the wheeze he gave before falling over. A gunshot from my teammate scored a headshot and a few more felled the advancing troops that were trying to come around behind us. We heard a cheer from the other side of the forest, a distinctive cheer which meant our side had cleared out the opposing team. We sent up our cheer, and we met them halfway. We shook hands with the losing team, and played a few more rounds against various other teams. After practice ended and I got changed, I headed out of the rec room through the lobby and onto the Speeder.
My room was 4277, at the far end of the hall. I opened the door with my key, and on my bed was Kayla, playing minesweeper on my computer. It was the same computer that I fought the virus with a month ago, and I had rather taken a liking to it. She glanced at me when I entered, and resumed playing. Except for sleeping, she spent just about all of her time in my room. Not just because we were best friends, but also because she had the number to the keypad on my door, a code that will let you in if you didn’t have the key, and also because I had the only supercomputer that could fit in your pocket. It was designed a few months ago, and it was assigned to Brian, but when he got promoted a couple weeks ago, and I took over his job, he left it for me. It was once about the length and width of a pen, but I made an attachment for the base, and now he had retractable legs. They could extend anywhere from six inches to three feet six inches, and were made of Titanium, but when they got longer, they thickened with a layer of steel. My most prided upgrade though was the ThinkChip that was integrated into his processing unit. It allowed him to think and “speak”. It was really cool, almost a pet. I named him Gizmo.
“Hey Kay, Hey Gizmo.” I said when I entered, closing the door behind me.
“Hey Keena,” they both said.
“How was training?” Kayla asked me.
“Not bad, we were against the elite team today, too easy.”
“So you weren’t being defensive against the Legendary Gold team today?”
“Shut up.” My team was the Legendary Silver team, the second best team. I decided to go defensive against them and ended up not being able to walk for the entire next day.
“I need a shower.” I told her. I went back and stepped into a hot shower. The rooms were nice, with three rooms in each. When you first walked in there was your bedroom/ living room. Through a doorway (with no door) were the study, bathroom, and closet. Through a separate doorway in the bedroom, the kitchen is furnished with everything you need. My kitchen was currently fully stocked with the groceries I would need for the next month. At the beginning of the month, you put in your food order, and CI2 pays for it all, and then they give you the receipt and you pay CI2 for the food. When you placed your order, it usually came in later that day or early the next day.
After my shower, I dried off and went into the kitchen.
“You eat already?” I called to Kayla from the fridge.
“No.”
“You want to?”
“Sure.”
I made the two of us chicken sandwiches, and plopped down onto the bed beside her. While she munched on her sandwich, she handed Gizmo to me and I put on a movie. We watched an oldie, Lord of the Rings. After the movie we hung out and did random stuff with Gizmo Afterwards she said good night, clambered off of my bed, and went out to her own room. Gizmo stood up and walked over to the table next to my bed, set the alarm for seven, and went into sleep mode, playing music from a certain playlist. I rolled over and fell asleep to Above the Ruins.
At precisely seven in the morning, Gizmo woke up, stood, and walked across the bed to the snoring, lumpy mound that was me, and poked me slightly. I woke up at this, but didn’t quite want to get up. The pokes turned to jabs, and the jab became a repeated stabbing.
“Okay, okay, I’m up.” I grumbled. I ungracefully flopped out of bed and got dressed. I quickly made a cup of coffee, and just as I walked out the door, the breakfast bell rang.
“On time again.” I said to no one in particular. Gizmo walked behind me as I stepped onto the Speeder. Kayla walked on as we passed her room.
“Hey.” I said.
“Hey to you.” she replied.
“How’d you sleep?” I asked her.
“Good, good, you?”
“Ask Gizmo.”
Kayla turned around, and Gizmo made a wah wah waaahh trombone sound. Kayla giggled, and we arrived at the end of the Speeder, and into the already busy hallway. Kayla and I walked over to the cafeteria, where Matt and Jaeger were in serious debate over some random subject. We walked over to them and they stopped.
“Hey guys.” Matt said. “We were just discussing Theoretical Quantum Physics.” He said in his British accent. He had recently come here from just north of London.
“Alrighty then.” I looked to Jaeger. “How’s your project coming along?”
“Not bad. The core structure isn’t as molecularly stable as I would like it to be, though.” He said.
“Yeah, and the shell material isn’t as resistant as I want it to be. Not enough to withstand the tests I want to try, anyways. I think I’m getting it messed up somewhere.” Matt said.
“Well, if you guys ever need a hand, you always know where to find me.” I told them.
“We’ll keep that in mind, but for right now, I’m starving.” Matt said. We all agreed, and walked through the double doors into the cafeteria. Or what looked like the cafeteria. Right now it was chaos. Tables and chairs had been knocked over and papers were scattered all across the floor. The people had split into two sides in the cafeteria, one side trying to out yell the other. So far, it obviously wasn’t going so well for either side. In the center of the turmoil, Brian stood waving both arms, yelling for everyone to stop, but to no avail. I walked into the center of the room beside Brian, and that alone shut some people up. I put two fingers in my mouth, and let out a long, loud, high pitched whistle. It echoed loudly in the steel encased room, making the entire room go silent.
“What in the world is going on here?” the yelling broke out again, this time directed at me, shouting blames about the other side, and then, upon hearing each other, resumed yelling at each other. I whistled again and reclaimed their attention.
“You.” I pointed to a random guy on one side.
“I want to hear only your voice. What happened?”
“They said that the robot attack was our fault.” He said accusingly, pointing at the other side. I looked at some of the other guys on the other side, and I recognized some of them from the computer sector. I looked back to the guy.
“What sector are you?”
“Field.” Figures. It was the network guys versus the intel guys. Anyone could say that either side was at fault, but in reality, neither side was, whoever attacked us was a lot better than we were.
“Look, neither sector is responsible. CI2 is still working on who was responsible. Both sectors should know that. For now, all of you get to work, now. I don’t want to see any of you in here in five minutes, after this place has been cleaned up.”
“But-“ one guy started.
“Now!”
Immediately, everyone started replacing tables and chairs to their proper positions, collected their papers and left. Brian turned to me.
“Thanks, man, I owe you one.”
“No, I still owe you, what, sixty?”
“Seventy-four, now.”
“That’s right.” After a short breakfast, Kayla, Matt, Jaeger and I all headed to the computer sector. Matt worked in research under Kayla, and Jaeger worked in development under Tristan. Brian headed off to the advisory sector. Before I walked into my office, I said to the others, “If any of you need me, I’ll be around later; I don’t have much work today.” They all nodded, and went into their work stations. Kayla and Matt into CERL, Computer Engineering and Research Labs, and Jaeger into CDD, Computer Development and Design. I walked in to find everybody at their stations. It was quiet; I noticed several faces from the cafeteria. The only work I had to do today was analyze and store some files, and then I picked up Gizmo and headed out to the different divisions. When I got to CDD, I saw Jaeger working on his brain. It was a small cell, no larger than the ball in a ballpoint pen, but stored the information and capacity of a supercomputer, and the intent was to give robots their own feeling and personality.
“How’s it going?” I asked him as I came around.
“Good. Better actually. I finally got the molecular feeding levels inside to the right levels.” He smiled proudly, his eyes massively magnified by his microscope goggles.
“Good, keep it up. When you’re done, I might buy one for Gizmo.” Jaeger smiled again.
I continued around to the different stations, seeing the different robotic designs that Jaeger’s brain, as well as other of his inventions, would be used in. I got over to CERL, and saw Matt and Kayla’s masterpiece. She was six feet, four inches tall, with two arms and two legs. Right now, the female robot was only a frame, metal with most of the robotic components inside, but only one arm and one leg complete. They wanted to finish both before they got started on their mirror parts. That would be easy enough. Kayla was currently working on the robot’s right arm. The arms looked like normal arms, but the forearm was going to be able to hinge out, so that the hand tucked into the elbow and the elbow replaced the hand. The new hand would be a miniature fifty caliber cannon, just in case. All of the cannon’s ammo was fed in from its upper arm. Matt hardly noticed when I came up behind him.
“How’s it going?” I asked over Matt’s shoulder. He jumped slightly, but kept his hands steady. His hands held what looked like micro sewing needles. They were currently in the act of lacing something through a small pinkish chunk. It was going to be the robot’s skin.
“Not bad. I’m just lacing some fibers through it. It’s a lot less dense and a lot more resistant than I thought it would be. Perfect.” Matt smiled. “Come.” He picked up the skin and carried it over to a small plastic box. I followed him, but not before stealing one last glance at Kayla.
“You fancy her, don’t you, mate?” Matt, asked, ignoring the skin and the box.
“What?” I looked back around at him.
“You can’t play dumb on this one, you’re way too easy to read.
“Yeah, well…”
“Don’t ‘yeah well,’ me. I’m your best mate, remember? You can’t do that, it’s illegal.” I smiled.
“Just ask her out, you fancy her so much.”
“Yeah. So are you going to show me the skin or what?”
“Right.” He put the skin sample in the box. The skin was about an inch thick, tanned on the top and pinkish red on the bottom.
“The skin is bulletproof.” He aimed a pistol through a small opening in the box. He fired, the blast muffled by the box. The bullet bounced off of the skin, ricocheting off of the walls before finally shattering against one wall.
“Fireproof.” He inserted a pipe into the opening, the rest of the pipe becoming a tube and disappearing into the ceiling. Matt clicked a switch, and blue flames engulfed the skin, the entire box becoming a swirling inferno. Matt let it sit for a while, before clicking the switch again, ending the flame. He pulled the pipe out and it retracted. The skin was still perfectly unharmed in the center of the box, slightly smoking.
“Finitely stretchable.” He pulled the skin from the box and set it on top. From under the box he pulled four clawed mechanical hands. He attached one claw to each corner of the skin, securing them. He pressed a button below the box, and the arms activated, pulling the corners of the skin apart, until it was about a foot square. Twelve times its original size. In the next thirty seconds, the skin was thoroughly pulled, twisted, poked, sand stretched.
“Nevertheless indestructible.” Matt said proudly, the skin now at three feet square. Matt pressed another button, and a spike released itself from its hole in the ceiling, headed point down at the skin. It made contact, pulling the skin down, until the spike hit the box. The skin was not punctured, and the spike retracted into the ceiling.
After the tutorial, I said my good-byes to Matt and Kayla, and left. I met back up with Jaeger, Matt, and Kayla at lunch, and after work did my training. It was a generic day. Little did I know my generic days were about to end. I went to sleep that night, and had a weird dream. Can’t remember it, but I kind of remember having a sword for some reason. The next morning, I was walking across the lobby with Kayla when Brian came up to us saying that he needed to see me, apparently there was something that he wanted to discuss.
We walked to his office, and he closed the door behind me.
“What’s up?” I asked him.
“We have a problem.” I sighed.
“Brian, last time you told me there was a problem, people died. What’s wrong?”
Well, you see…” He started. “Well, I need to show you something.”
“Is it another virus or something?”
“Um… worse.”
“Great. He led me from the room, and out of the hallway into the lobby. We took the staircase that led downstairs. We walked through the double doors into the second floor lobby. It was a much more simple room than upstairs, with black marble floors, and a wooden desk against one wall. We took an immediate right, and to a door marked “Ionics Testing Lab.”
“I’ve never heard of his room before.” I told him.
“That’s the point. No one has been in this room for a few years now. Well, until yesterday. This room was abandoned, and we built the CERL and CDD rooms upstairs.”
“Why was it abandoned?”
“Well, you’ll see.” Brian slid his card into a card reader, and inserted his key, and placed his hand against the door. He then placed his eye over a small retina reader. There was a whir, and the sound of heavy metal bolts being slid out of place. Brian opened the thick door, and turned on the lights. The room had been cleared out, and so the only object in the room stood out. It was large round, and made of metal. It was plain metal, nothing to decorate it or anything, but something told me that decoration wasn’t one of the top priorities on this. On the side of the ring was a small lever. Brian walked over to the ring, and pulled the lever down. A few bolts of electricity filled the metal, and then it exploded into green light. When the light receded, green and blue light filled the inside of the ring.
“What is it?” I asked.
“We don’t really know. We believe it is a wormhole. A few years ago, it was sort of stumbled upon, and when they sent someone in, he never came back. Jaeger discovered the portal a few days ago, and came to me to ask if he could explore the other side. I was so stupid to let him. He hasn’t come back yet. It’s been twelve hours. I told him to come back in two.”
“So you want me to go in, get him, come back?”
“That’s the idea.”
“Why me? Why not send a squad of security guys?”
“When you can take out a squad of security guys? I hate to think what could be on the other side.”
“So you’re sacrificing me?”
“Well,”
“I’m just messing with you.” Brian sighed.
“Well, here I go.” I walked forward, and into the light. The sensation was warm, and there was a sort of tingling. I just drifted along, not knowing where I would end up. The answer came soon enough, when my feet hit solid ground. It was grassy, but I looked around me and saw that I was in the middle of a forest. I noticed that there was an eerie silence. There was not a sound in the forest. Not an animal, not bugs, there was even any wind, so the trees stood silently. I noticed that the portal stood behind me still, but it was old, very old. It was utterly dirty, and there were vines and plants growing all over it. I turned back around, and saw a path leading away from the portal and into the forest. I followed it, and it led on a winding trail through the thin underbrush. It was warm, no hotter than eighty degrees. I wondered why Jaeger would disappear in a place like this. He even left himself a path. I found out soon enough. I could see the end of the forest through the trees, and tried hurrying myself. I came free of the forest, and saw myself staring at a village. It was a large village in fact, with huts made of wood with palm roofs. There were smaller huts on the outside, I assumed there were houses, and I looked and saw larger huts, some even two stories, in the middle of the village. The entire town was arranged in a circle, with the larger huts circling around, as I looked down one street, a courtyard of some kind. It was currently full of people. I walked down one of the streets, keeping behind the huts for cover, I didn’t want anyone to see me. I got close to the center, and I had to raise up on my tip-toes to see what everyone was crowding around. I was shocked when I saw it. On a raised platform, was a small fire. It was being fed by a large man who was dressed in the same clothes as everyone else, a loincloth. And above the fire? Jaeger. He was tied to a spit that was slowly spinning above the growing fire. I had to think fast, or else he would die. I ran around one of the circular streets, and back up on of the straight streets. I noticed that the designs of the houses were flimsy, and the arrangement was bad. I decided to play a game of dominoes. I ran to one of the huts, grabbing hold of what I figured to be a support beam. I pulled on it, and it started to give way. I pulled again, and the piece of wood jumped out of place, causing the hut to buckle and creak. I gave it a push towards the house beside it, and it fell into it, causing the other hut to buckle and fall in the same way, taking out the next house. I started my dominoes, and the sound of snapping wood was like gunshots, so I sprinted down the circular road, back to the street I came from, on the other side of the village. This place was very well organized. I heard yelling and shouting coming from the center, and so I made my way there. By the time I got there, it had cleared out, everyone else trying to save the homes. The only one left In the courtyard was Jaeger, no longer spinning. He saw me and instantly began trying to yell to me through the rag that was stuffed in his mouth. I motioned for him to quiet down, and he silenced. I quickly ran over too the pyre, and without untying him or anything, lifted the spit with Jaeger on it, and ran. I ran back down the street I entered from, and ran back onto the forest path. It wasn’t long before somebody saw me and started yelling. Soon enough I was being chased through the forest. I tried following the path as carefully as I could, but it was hard with a person in my arms. I finally saw the portal off to the side and took a shortcut. I ran straight towards it, at a full out sprint now. The portal was still open. I could hear darts being fired now, and I leapt through the portal, spinning my body so that when I landed, Jaeger landed on top of me. Fortunately, I landed on hard ground, and I heard the lever being pulled.
Brian pulled Jaeger off of me, and began untying him.
“What happened? Are you guys alright?”
“Eh.” Jaeger said after the rag was finally pulled out of his mouth. “Just a little hot is all.” I chuckled, but Brian didn’t quite get it.
“You had to be there.” I told him.
“Thank goodness I wasn’t.” he said.
“Yes, I agree.”
The next day, Jaeger finished his brain. I inserted the brain into Gizmo, and now he is a friend. He also has turbines, so he quietly glides around, but he still has legs. I replaced his screen with a solid laser screen by replacing the lasers with denser laser waves.
Well, I’m about to turn this into Brian, hopefully he’ll tell me the reason for making me write these.
Out for now.