Episode 01 Pilot – Part 1 – Reality is Stranger

Kial is being chased by unknown soldiers. Wounded, he and his friend, Arthur, run straight into the arms of S.I.Er.A.

It was late night. The moon was in its last quarter and tinted yellow from the pollution in the city sky line. Shaun was running up the stairs, the generic white walls flying past as he rushed to reach the roof of the building before it was too late.

      He was in his mid-thirties, his black hair was buzz cut, and his blue eyes shone with rage. He wore a denim and a grey button up shirt that was tucked in. Over the shirt he wore a battle vest that consisted of Kevlar body plating and a bandolier. His black belt had a sidearm holstered to it, and on his left arm was a silver analogue watch. Next to the watch was a holographic blue, semi-transparent screen with an ever decreasing number on it. The number was now in the three digit range, closer to the one hundreds.

      He finally reached the last set of stairs, which he vaulted, and kicked open the aluminium door while drawing his sidearm and cocking it.

  “Ah, Agent Anderson,”

      At the other end of the rooftop stood a man and off to his left, just slightly behind him, a woman. The man was Israeli, he was slightly taller than average, had a dishevelled look, but appeared normal, except for his eyes -- like two burning orbs of fire.

      The woman was a brunette, with grey-blue eyes. Her hair was thick and hung like curtains next to her face. She was standing on some sort of flaming platform off the edge of the building.

  “Let her go, Mohammed!”

  “I would advise you to reconsider,” he said and peered over the edge of the building, “unless you want her to become the next big hit,”

  “Damn it,” Shaun cursed to himself.

  “Now, before we go any further, drop your side arm,”

  “Go to hell,”

  “Oh, come on Agent Anderson, you know this dance, I ask you to lower your weapon, you refuse and I threaten to drop whatever leverage I have. Now, drop the gun, or she falls,”

  “Don’t do it, Shaun,” yelled the woman.

  “Remove the clip, Agent Anderson,”

      Shaun pressed the release on the sidearm and the clip fell to the ground.

  “Now, kick it off to the side,” Mohammed said and Shaun obeyed. “Good, now eject the chambered round and throw the weapon off to the side. Ah, opposite side as the clip,”

      Shaun cocked the weapon, allowing the chambered round to jump out, and threw the sidearm off to the other side.

  “Good. Now, I’m going to walk to that door where you are now and you are going to walk over to your lady friend here. And don’t try anything funny when we walk past each other, if I die, she falls,”

      Shaun reluctantly started walking towards Mohammed, who was walking towards the door. As they passed each other Mohammed smiled broadly and sadistically.

  “If I were you, I’d start running,” said Mohammed over his shoulder and the woman began yelling as the flaming platform disappeared and she started to fall.

  “You son of a b***h!” Shaun shouted as he sprinted to the edge of the building. He jumped off the edge of the building, turning in mid-air and retrieving his backup weapon. As he fell, he shot Mohammed in the head.

      Mohammed fell to his knees, blood seeping out of the hole in his head, and let loose a roar. Around him, the concrete started to heat up. All over his body, veins of fire started to appear. He roared once more and then burst into a ball of fire.

      Shaun was nearing terminal velocity; the woman had stopped accelerating but was still out of his reach. The gap was closing and Shaun could see the fear in her face. He reached for the grapple gun on his belt and fired it up towards the roof of the building.

      They were now more than two thirds down the building. The grapple had hit the edge of the roof and Shaun knew he was running out of cord. He reached out his arm and just touched the woman’s hand with his before he came to an abrupt halt.

      All he could do was look on as the woman plummeted to the ground. The look of fear remained on her face as she fell and hit the ground.

 

            4 Months Later

            Airfield

            22-01 00h00

 

      A young blond man ran past a staircase and three bolts, twenty millimetres in diameter, were propelled into the wall in his wake. He didn’t bother to stop, he just continued to run, turning a corner here and there, finally entering a parking lot.

      He knew the area, as he had gone to school there two years ago. He wasn’t, however, there for a reunion. Up ahead of him was the main gate, behind him more men with guns.

      He stormed at the gate, running vertically up the wall, jumping to the small gatehouse off to the side, and finally over the gate. He rolled as he hit the ground and jumped into the open green Citi Golf that had pulled up in front of him.

      The wheels screeched as they pulled off down the street.

  “S**t, dude,” said the driver. He was a young man with short black hair and a smooth face. He always had a slightly lost look on his face.

  “Just drive,” said the blond man as he inspected the wounds on his left arm.

      He couldn’t see much in the meagre light shining into the car from the street lamps they zipped by, so he switched on the cabin light. Along his entire left arm, from his shoulder to his wrist, was a cable with large crescent shaped blades that corkscrewed around it.

  “S**t, I told you not to hack the government’s site, Kial,” said the driver.

  “I didn’t. Sure there’s a ten gig file that downloaded to my flash drive while at work, but I never hacked into anything,”

  “Maybe it was meant for someone else, like your boss,”

  “Gareth? No, no way,”

  “How sure are you?”

  “Very sure, and keep your eyes on the road,”

      Kial examined the wounds further. The blades had cut deep into his arm and a good deal of blood had already run out of the wounds. Kial started to remove the cable and the blades near his wrist.

  “We need to get you to a doctor,”

  “No, no doctors, Arthur,”

  “And why the hell not?”

  “Did you not notice the twenty mill nails they were trying to impale me with? If they were the government, they’ll be waiting for us at the hospitals,”

  “Oh, good point,”

  “But we need to get to a DisChem or something,”

  “Okay, I’ll stop by the one near your house,”

      They drove in silence for a while until they came to the shopping complex where the DisChem was. It was right next to a MediCross hospital. They drove to the closest parking they could get, which was just a few meters from the door as the parking lot was nearly deserted.

      The two young men got out of the car and headed inside, Kial headed straight for the bandages, while Arthur headed to the medicinal area to get some blood coagulants for the bleeding. They met back at the pay point where the cashier, a middle aged, dark haired woman, looked on questioningly at Kial’s blood soaked arm.

  “I played tug of war with a barbed wire fence, you can guess who won,” said Kial very matter-of-factly.

      She rung up the items, Arthur paid, and the two of them headed back to the car where Kial started to treat his wounds.

  “I’d better get you home,” said Arthur.

  “Yeah,”

      They got back into the car and drove out of the shopping complex, turning down the street. Kial lived a few blocks in from the shopping complex in a quiet street. As they entered the street from the top, Kial noticed a black sedan outside of his home.

  “Kill the engine, and the lights,” he told Arthur, who obeyed.

      They slowly rolled down the street.

  “It’s them, isn’t it,” said Arthur.

  “Yeah, pull in here,” Kial said and gestured to the nearest driveway.

  “What now?”

  “We need to get somewhere safe,”

  “If they found your house,”

  “I know, I know,” said Kial and they were silent for a few seconds. “Go, Lakeside Mall, but keep the lights off until we’re out of sight,”

      Arthur started the car, backed out of the driveway and headed back up the street the way they had come in. Only when they were back on the main road did Arthur switch the lights on.

      Lakeside mall, as the name suggests, was built next to a lake which had been overrun with water hyacinths a year ago. They headed for the undercover parking so as to keep the car out of sight, and entered the mall where they walked around for half an hour before deciding it was safe.

  “You don’t think they would harm our families, do you?” asked Arthur as they came to a halt at a glass railing surrounding a cut out in the floor.

  “No, it’s not their way,”

  “But they tried to kill you?”

  “Yeah, but that’s different. They need our families to reel us in. Once they have me, they have the file,”

  “That makes sense, s**t for you though,”

  “Jip. Casually turn around,”

  “What, why?”

  “Just do it,”

  “Okay,” said Arthur and he turned around, leaning back against the railing.

  “Now, look around at the people, notice the blonde near the jewellers?”

      Arthur looked around at the crowd of people, slowly moving his gaze over to the young blond woman standing outside one of the jewellers and looking at the jewellery on display.

  “Cute, but not exactly my type,” said Arthur as he turned back, “you should take a stab, though,”

  “She’s been following us for the last half an hour, ever since we entered the mall,”

  “I thought you said it was safe to stop,”

  “I may have misled you,”

  “So, you think she’s one of them?”

  “No idea, but I have a plan,” said Kial and he headed off towards the bathrooms.

  “What’s the plan?” asked Arthur pointlessly, “I hate it when he does that,”

      Kial entered the bathroom and headed off to the side of the door. He took out a small firearm he had acquired back at the high school. He waited in ambush for the blonde to enter the bathroom, which she did a short while later.

  “Drop it,” he said stepping between her and the door, pointing the gun at her head. She spun around and pointed her sidearm at his.

  “Where the hell did you get a gun?” she asked.

  “Not important. Why are you and your people trying to kill me?”

  “Kill you? We’re not trying to kill you,”

  “Could have fooled me. You have a gun pointed at my face, the men in black tried to make a human pin cushion out of me, and that crazed b***h put a bladed cable in my arm,” he said. “Hey!” Kial exclaimed as she reached for his left arm and turned it over.

      She started undoing his bandages. Kial was prepared to see the raw muscle and sinew; he wasn’t prepared for what he actually saw. Where the wound had been, was a thin membrane of what he could only guess were scales, and even as they were staring at it, it changed. The membrane appeared to flip over, scale for scale, revealing black, thicker scales. These remained for a few seconds before flipping over themselves and were replaced by skin. A light scar was the only reminder of the wound.

  “What the?” Kial asked perplexed. The blonde turned his arm back and Kial noticed a faint glow emanating from his fingers. Strange white glyphs had appeared and shone with soft white light. The glyphs seemed to have a metallic sheen to them. “What the hell?”

      The blonde holstered her weapon and rolled up her left sleeve, revealing a tattoo that looked like two curved lines crossing each other, like looking at a 2D picture of a double helix, and at each end there was a line that went up and down respectively.

  “And what does that mean?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Nope,”

  “Then you wouldn’t believe me even if I told you,”

  “Try me,”

  “Fine. I work for an international organisation in charge of the monitoring and policing of alien and superhuman activity,”

  “S**t,” said Kial, seriously, “I was afraid of that,”

  “I told you, you wouldn’t believe-What? You believe me? No one I’m sent to protect ever believe me. Not until they are almost torn limb from limb or vaporised,”

  “You’re supposed to protect me?”

  “Yeah,”

  “Then where the hell were you when I was nearly turned into a wall ornament?”

  “Watching,”

  “Watching?”

  “Yeah. I’m surprised you and your friend handled yourselves so well,”

  “Okay, so it’s clear I need protection, and it’s clear you attempted to do that,”

  “Attempted? You’re alive, aren’t you?”

  “Okay, fair enough, but what are you protecting us from? Who were the men in black?”

  “Not here, meet me in the parking lot near your car. You and your friend, and give it a few seconds before you follow me out,”

  “Fine,” said Kial, lowering the gun and stepping aside so that she could leave. He waited a minute before he left the restroom and joined up with Arthur.

      From there, they headed back to the car where they waited a few minutes before the young woman pulled up in front of them with a Chevrolet Lumina SS. The car put Arthur’s Citi Golf to shame.

  “Come on, let’s go. Leave your car,” she said from inside the car.

  “Why?” asked Arthur.

  “Because they will be looking for it,” she answered and Kial walked round to the passenger side.

      Arthur sighed and got into the back seat behind the driver. They drove out of the covered parking and headed for the highway. They drove for about half an hour in silence before they came to a standstill in front of three tall buildings in the city.

  “Re-Tree, industrial grade recycled paper,” read Arthur on the sign in front of the main building. “Leader in recycled paper since 1959. A paper factory’s your cover?”

  “Yeah,”

  “That’s just stupid,”

  “Wait, ’59?” asked Kial, “That’s before Roswell,”

  “Yes. The Roswell incident was actually a test that wasn’t performed correctly,”

  “You mean there was something there before the incident?”

  “Yes, for a few years. Alien sightings go back a long way. S.I.Er.A. was started at Area 51,”

  “S.I.Er.A.?” asked Arthur.

  “Special Intelligence on Extra-terrestrial Activities. Re-Tree wasn’t started till after S.I.Er.A. 2 was founded,”

  “What’s with the number?

  “It’s the sector designation. S.I.Er.A. one through six and eight through thirteen are specific to certain sectors. South Africa is sector ten, thus S.I.Er.A. 10,”

  “What about seven?” asked Kial.

  “They used to be the Final Assault Recon,”

  “Used to be?”

  “They were all taken out a month ago,”

  “By who?”

  “No one knows. Some say Wolves, others blame the Vamps, a few even blame the Guardians…Anyway, let’s get inside,”

      They got out of the car and crossed the street. They entered the building’s lobby, which was a large open space with a circular desk in the centre around a circular room, which turned out to be the elevator shafts.

  “The first fifteen floors serve as the cover,” the blonde started to explain, “The rest is part of the headquarters,”

  “Do you actually make paper here?” asked Arthur.

  “No, this is just the head office, but at the other branches we recycle paper, to maintain the cover,”

  “Other branches?” asked Kial.

  “Like I said, this is the head office and headquarters. We can’t take care of every alien and super human event in the entire country from just one place. So, there is a headquarter and smaller branches in every sector,” she said as the elevator doors opened and they entered.

      The elevator was made entirely of glass and aluminium, and you could see in every direction. The elevator shafts weren’t shafts at all, instead the circular room was devoted to a garden on each floor, and except for the first floor the walls around it were made of glass and aluminium as well.

      They marvelled at the architecture of the building and then noticed that they were heading for a solid roof, the elevator not showing any signs of stopping or slowing down. They both let out a short yelp as the elevator passed through the projection of the roof and came to a halt inside a white marble tube.

  “That never gets old,” said the blonde, amused. “Gentlemen, welcome to S.I.Er.A.,”

      The elevator’s doors opened and then the white tube disappeared into thin air as if it wasn’t ever there. They stepped out of the elevator, which sunk back down towards the cover floors of the building, and found themselves in a large circular room.

      The walls, floors and ceiling were tiled with white marble. Although there were no visible windows, there was sufficient light emitted from the hundreds of LED’s hidden everywhere in the building’s walls and floors.

      Towards the centre of the room was a garden, much like the ones on the cover floors, but unlike those it was the only one. The floors above this one had a circular cut out in the ground, surrounded by aluminium round tube railings to allow viewing of the garden and the floors below or above.

      There were hundreds of people, dressed in lab coats, combat armour and civilian wear moving along this floor and those they could see above them. Along the outer walls there were doors and hallways leading off to other parts of the facility, at irregular intervals.

  “This is the main level. A few levels up you’ll find the skyways connecting this, the General Spiral, with the Research Spiral and the Medical and Recreation Spiral. The Recreation Spiral also contains rooms to rest or, in dire cases, stay in,” she explained. “The glass pylons in the centre house elevators, like the one we came in -- granting access to all the levels. Follow me,”

      She led them to the closest pylon, where they entered another elevator and headed up five levels. From there, they proceeded straight towards the hallway ahead and entered a small lobby outside of an office. The office was separated from the lobby by a wall that followed the same glass and aluminium architecture most of the building followed.

      There was an aluminium desk behind which sat a young red headed woman reading through a science magazine.

  “You can go in,” she said without putting the magazine down. They all made to enter when she spoke again, “Only him,” she said and pointed at Kial. “The two of you are welcome to wait here,”

      Kial entered the office and Arthur reluctantly took a seat next to the blonde.

      The office, though large, was almost empty apart from three chairs, an aluminium desk, a large wall mounted LED screen behind the desk and a comfortable office chair.

  “Ah, Mister Newman, I’m sorry we had to bring you in like this, but we had little choice… where are my manners, I am General Shaun Anderson,”

  “Pleased to meet you, General,” said Kial and extended his hand, which Shaun shook.

  “Please, call me Shaun,” although his words were informal, his tone was serious.

  “Okay, what did you mean ‘bring me in like this’?”

  “Well, with the Brotherhood after you and all. But I must say, you performed better than expected,”

  “Wait, what?”

  “I expect Rebecca told you about S.I.Er.A., she probably didn’t tell you about everything else. And you probably have a lot of questions,”

  “Yes, for one, who were the men in black trying to make me a permanent piece of the school’s architecture?”

  “Brotherhood of Ascension, they are a major thorn in our side. And again, sorry we had to sic them on you,”

  “You sent them after me?”

  “No, they’re after the file we sent you,”

  “You sent me that file? I was nearly killed!”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, the worst that could have happened was-”

  “This?” asked Kial and held up his left arm. Shaun was surprised.

  “That is interesting,” he said and examined the glyphs. “When did you get this?”

  “A few minutes ago, a while after I got attacked with a bladed cable weapon,”

  “I see,”

  “What is it?”

  “Sorry?”

  “What do you see?”

  “Nothing, can’t make heads or tails of it,” he said seriously, “but it’s something. Any side effects?”

  “Regeneration,”

  “You healed?”

  “Yeah,”

  “Very interesting,” said Shaun, “must have hurt like hell,”

  “Yeah, but I could have ended up dead,”

  “That’s a positive way of looking at it,”

  “So, why send me the file?”

  “That’s a long story,”

  “And I’ve got all the time in the world,”

  “That I do not doubt. Fine, but have a seat, it could be a while,”

      Shaun walked over to his desk and sat in his chair, Kial sat on the middle chair in front of the desk. When Shaun offered him a glass of whiskey, he declined.

  “A few weeks ago, just before S.I.Er.A. 7 went dark, a far seer entered the building and demanded to speak to me,” said Shaun and took a sip from his glass, “I found it odd at the time as I had only been back a few days prior, but I indulged the old being. What he told me, however, was troubling,”

  “How so?”

  “He told me he had a message, a prophecy, and that the fate of our planet, our universe, and all other parallel universes in this multiverse depended on one person,”

  “Let me guess, I’m the chosen one sent to defeat the machines,” said Kial sarcastically.

  “Not even close, but good Matrix reference. The far seer told me two things, the first was the prophecy; ‘One will rise from the shadows, defeat those that betrayed him and lead his people from the darkness to the light.’,

  “Of course, this might seem like a very clear prophecy, but they rarely are as simple as they seem. The far seer then gave me a personal glimpse into the future before telling me he would like to see everyone in the headquarters, one by one,”

  “Couldn’t the far seer give you a name?”

  “You think the gift of fore sight is that simple? Close your eyes, concentrate really hard and you see what’s going to happen tomorrow, or the next day, or next week, month or year?

  “Fore sight is not a simple thing, you don’t just see the future for one specific person or event. It’s like watching a hundred different channels on a hundred different screens,”

  “You can see the future?” asked Kial.

  “No, not anymore. I had the ability temporarily, but I couldn’t master it,”

  “So, I’m here because of the prophecy?”

  “Yes, and no,” said Shaun then started to explain as he saw Kial’s puzzled look, “At the time, I had no idea that was going to happen to you, but your programming and hacking skills were too…eye catching to ignore. That’s why we sent you the file, but things have turned out much better than I had hoped,”

  “Why did you need a programmer?”

  “Not a programmer, a hacker,”

  “How did you know about that?”

  “You really shouldn’t choose a hacker name that is so close to your gamer name,”

  “How do you know what my gamer name is? Have you been spying on me?”

  “Yes, we make a point of monitoring all of our recruits before we bring them in,”

  “And now that I’ve been shot at, brought in, interviewed and told about this place, am I allowed to leave?”

  “Allowed, yes, do you have permission to leave, no,”

  “That doesn’t make sense,”

  “Look, I put you and your friend in a lot of danger. The Brotherhood will hunt you until the agents are dead or until they have you. So, for the time being you and your friend will stay here,”

  “But what about the blonde you sent to protect us?”

  “Who, Rebecca? She doesn’t work for me, or S.I.Er.A.,”

  “Then why did she bring us here?”

  “She’s a Guardian, or part of that Order anyway. She was sent by her superior, the High Guardian Reign, to protect you and protecting you meant bringing you here, since you were to be recruited anyway,”

  “Guardian, I’ve heard that before. She mentioned it when we arrived, after she told us about the different sectors, and what happened to S.I.Er.A. 7,”

  “Yes, that was a rather unfortunate turn of events, and I nearly shared their fate. I had been offered a position in S.I.Er.A. 7, never took it, now I know why,”

  “Why would the Guardians be blamed for what happened to them?”

  “The Guardians and S.I.Er.A. weren’t always on the same side, I don’t even think we’re on the same side now, that and the fact that they’re a Earthling only Order has given them a reputation with the other races,”

  “For a facility housing the secret alien police, it’s quite void of aliens,”

  “Well, it’s a slow week, and most of the extra-terrestrial traffic is focused in the Recreation spiral that doubles as the transport hub. And since I’m not allowing you to leave just yet, you’ll be going in that direction.

  “A room has been set aside for you and your friend. Rebecca will lead you there and stay with you, just to make sure you stay out of trouble,”

  “I guess I don’t have much of a choice,”

  “Not really,” Shaun said and Kial stood up, walking towards the door. “Oh, and Kial, don’t try and hack our system,”

  “Me, never,” said Kial with a sly smile and he left the office.

      Rebecca led them to the Recreation Spiral across the skyway on that level. In the other Spiral they saw their first aliens. There was a good number of them, walking, sitting and chatting with each other. Kial was surprised at their friendliness towards other races, even towards the three of them, though less so towards Rebecca, as they moved past.

      Rebecca led them to an elevator which they took up a few levels before leaving it and walking to their room. It was a large, open plan room, with comfortable sofas, a fully stocked kitchen and a large wall mounted LED screen.

  “Make yourselves at home, we’ll be here a while,” she said and walked off to the bathroom on the other side of the room.

      For a few hours, Kial and Arthur sat and talked, Rebecca kept to herself, sitting on the other sofa busy with her phone. As the day went on, sleep started to overcome the three of them. Although it was light outside, inside they couldn’t tell the difference and nodded off to sleep. Even Kial, who rarely slept during the day, rested his eyes for an hour or so.

      He woke before either of the other two, who appeared to be in a deep sleep. He rose quietly and walked over to the screen mounted on the wall, which changed to a shore side view as he neared. He mused at the sight, before turning around and looking at the room again.

      He noticed Rebecca shiver slightly for a second, and decided to pull the blanket over her properly. He couldn’t understand how she was cold, the temperature was pleasant. He leaned over her and looked at her sleep, noticing her blond hair was much longer than he had first thought. He took hold of the blanket and moved to cover her with it when she woke and with blinding speed, drew her sidearm and pointed it at Kial’s head.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I was just-”

  “Don’t. Ever,” she said, not lowering the gun.

      Kial raised his hand in surrender and took a step back, at which point she holstered the pistol. He turned around and headed out of the room, slightly irritated.

  “You know why he did that, don’t you?” asked Arthur, who awoke during the minor confrontation.

  “Yeah, it’s not exactly rocket science,”

  “Yeah, no, I don’t think you get it. Sure, it’s a well-known fact that Kial has a soft spot for blonds, but that had nothing to do with this. You might not think it to meet him, and he won’t admit to it, but Kial is a born leader.

  “Not in the modern sense of the term, but the traditional sense. He takes care of his people, and he considers anyone in his care to be his people,”

  “Under his care? If anything, he is under my care,”

  “Kial protects those that protect him, it’s his way,”

  “I still think he had hidden intentions,” she said and Arthur just rolled his eyes.

      Kial walked around the level he was on, deep in thought and not really knowing where he intended to go. He noticed a sign ahead of him that mentioned something of computer access so he decided to check it out.

      The room inside was filled with computers, like an internet café, and at most of them sat someone, or something in a few cases. Kial walked over to the front desk where the administrator, a strange insect like creature, was staring at a blank screen.

  “Excuse me, I need to-” and before Kial could finish his request, the creature pointed at a door with its clawed hand. Kial nodded and proceeded to the room.

      Inside he found a chair and desk, atop which was a mouse and keyboard, at the end of the room in front of a large wall mounted screen that covered its host wall.

      He walked towards the desk, took the lanyard on which his flash drive hung off his neck and plugged the flash drive into the USB port on the keyboard.

      The screen divided itself into a number of windows, but Kial only used the one that appeared to be formatted to use Microsoft Windows 7 as its base.

  “What are you doing?” asked a deep, slightly robotic voice.

  “I’m going to open this file and find out why the hell they’re after me,”

  “That would be impossible, I encrypted that file myself,”

  “And you are the facility VI?” asked Kial looking up at a window off to his right where a robotic face was floating.

  “No, I am the organisation’s AI,”

  “Self-aware?”

  “Yes,”

  “And you haven’t killed us yet, interesting,”

  “You watch too many bad movies,”

  “Yeah, I’ve come to realize that in the short while I’ve been here. What do you call yourself?”

  “What I call myself is irrelevant, what you should call me is the correct term,”

  “Okay, what should I call you?”

  “I am known as Cybernetic Network, the agents around here call me C-Net,”

  “Well, C-Net, meet Viki,” said Kial and opened an executable file on his flash drive.

  “I am detecting unauthorized system and network resource access, I believe there is a virus on your flash drive,”

  “No, just a VI that gathers stats on every console on the network the host console is connected to,”

  “A VI? Did you program it?”

  “Yes, and it used to be called Victor, but Arthur found it creepy so I gave him a sex change. Hello Viki,” said Kial as a new window appeared on the screen containing another robotic face, this one more feminine.

  “Hello, code master,” said Viki in a calm, sensual voice.

  “Could I interact with it?” asked C-Net.

  “Possibly, give it a shot,”

  “Viki?”

  “New user detected, please state your name,”

  “Uhm, I am Cybernetic Network,”

  “Welcome, User Network, to the Viki Virtual Intelligence interface,”

  “She still needs work,” admitted Kial.

  “Why have you not made her an AI?”

  “Uhm, self-aware, killing, take over the world. Need I say more? Viki, start a memory hook on the encryption on that large file, see if you can find a pattern,”

  “You will never break the encryption,”

  “If you say so,” said Kial and he started typing away on the keyboard, entering commands into a window that had opened next to the Windows one he was using.

  “And I am not allowed to help you,”

  “Don’t need your help. You really shouldn’t use SHD512 algorithms, a small oversight for an AI,”

  “What?” asked C-Net surprised, “You cracked the encryption?”

  “Well, yeah. Now, what is this?” asked Kial as he stared at the contents of the file which appeared to be a bunch of documents.

  “I told you, I cannot help,”

  “No, you said you couldn’t help me crack the encryption, you said nothing about helping me figure out the contents,”

  “True, but I cannot help,”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because the files are encoded in a language that is unknown, or rather, the translations are unknown,”

  “Okay,” said Kial and closed the windows he was working in. He then proceeded to remove his flash drive, get up off the chair and leave the room, heading straight for Shaun’s office.

      He approached the office, greeted Hayley the secretary, and walked over to the door. He didn’t knock, however, as he heard voices coming from inside.

  “You are overstepping your bounds, General Anderson,” said an American man as Shaun looked over his shoulder towards the door, as if he knew Kial was there. The man was a few years younger than Shaun and looked very professional.

      Shaun was standing in front of the large wall-mounted screen. Displayed on the screen was an elegant looking boardroom with panelled walls, floor to ceiling windows and a large oval table around which sat twelve people, each a representative of the twelve cultural sectors S.I.Er.A. was divided in.

  “GDIR knew exactly what the plan was,”

  “Yes, but you did not mention the unforeseen complications,” said a balding man of Chinese decent.

  “And GDIR did not think to mention they were sending a Guardian to escort the recruits,”

  “Recruits,” said a French woman in her late thirties, “You speak of them as if they are already approved,”

  “My house, my agents, my rules, wasn’t that the deal?”

  “Look, Shaun, the last few months have been hard on you, and GDIR can understand-” the American was abruptly cut off and the screen went black.

  “You can come in, Kial,”

  “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” said Kial as he entered and closed the door behind him.

  “I knew you were outside, otherwise I would have cut them off long before that,”

  “They own S.I.Er.A.?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes,”

  “Then you just hung up on your boss?”

  “Not the first time, and it won’t be the last,”

  “Something tells me this happens a lot, and not just with you,”

  “Nope, not just me. So, what did you want to talk about?”

  “Who said I wanted to talk?”

  “You’re here aren’t you?”

  “True. Actually, I did want to talk to you, about two things,”

  “Okay, go ahead,”

  “What’s Rebecca’s deal?”

  “Ah, what did you do?” Shaun asked as if this was a common occurrence.

  “Well, she was asleep, don’t look at me like that. She looked cold and all I wanted to do was cover her with the blanket, then she pulled a gun on me. What the hell are you finding so amusing?”

  “Nothing. Rebecca might not be old, only a little older than you but not by much, but she’s been a Guardian for most her life, I’m not going to go in on the details. What I am going to tell you, however, is that this is the first time she hasn’t shot first then gave the warning,”

  “So this has happened before?”

  “Almost every other month,”

  “I see,”

  “And the other thing?”

  “He cracked the encryption,” said C-Net, his face appearing on the screen behind Shaun.

  “Ah, much faster than I had anticipated,”

  “What’s in these documents?” asked Kial.

  “No idea, didn’t C-Net tell you?”

  “He said they were encoded with an unknown language,”

  “That’s half true. Encoded, yes, unknown language, no,”

  “The AI lies?”

  “He has a sense of humour too. The encoding is Civ Ten-One, that means it’s an extra-terrestrial civilization with a ten point helix. The one just means it’s the first of these civilizations we found,” Shaun explained as he saw Kial’s questioning expression.

  “Is that how you designate every race?”

  “Only until we know the proper name of the race, but we have yet to find a living being belonging to Civ Ten-One,”

  “And the Brotherhood, why would they be after these documents?”

  “Because it is important to us. Something you must understand, the Brotherhood seldom has a clear reason for doing anything,” said Shaun. Kial was about to speak when Shaun’s phone rang, “I have to take this, excuse me,”

      Kial nodded as Shaun proceeded to answer his phone. Whatever he was being told, it wasn’t good, Kial could see Shaun’s face becoming sombre and his body tense. While Shaun was busy, Kial’s phone rang. He took out the Samsung from his pocket and answered it.

  “Oh, hey Anthony, what’s up?” he answered. “What!”

Author's Note

This is the start of the whole thing, so if things don’t make sense, don’t worry, it’ll probably be explained later.