Coming in from the Cold, Part Two
The dossier I'd received from Agent Gray indicated that a redpill group called Resolution Corp was on the trail of Nine9. However, not much information on the group had been gathered. Resolution was investigating a loosely organized collection of hackers that were disrupting elements of the simulation, mainly on the Recursion instance. Interestingly enough, Resolution appeared to be run by Cypherites (although members of all organizations were welcome). Their leader was Sandra Crimson, also called ExorCiism, and she handled most of the day to day operations. Another redpill who was involved was Rejex, one of the liaisons between the Cypherites and their leaders, although I didn't know how deeply. I'd never worked with either of these humans, but my status as a known Cypherite on the other two instances of the simulation probably got me into Resolution quicker than most others.
Given all the effort I was putting into investigating Nine9, I would have felt I was neglecting my regular duties, if they hadn't already been so sparse. The two leaders of the Cypherite movement hadn't been issuing many orders lately. Cryptos had retreated to whatever safe place he had in the real, and Veil was still basking in the victory of Shimada's death. Truth be told, I couldn't keep myself from smiling whenever I thought about how Shimada was no longer a threat to the simulation. I was inordinately pleased that EPN's co-leader was dead, but since then Cypherite operations in the Megacity had been few and far between. Lately, I'd mainly been helping with combat training for operatives with low neurokinetic levels, but for the most part that was the extent of my duties. This made it easier to slip into the Matrix for side activities like Resolution, as well as for certain non-business reasons. I tried to avoid the Syntax and Vector instances, where I was better known, for such unofficial activities. It was Recursion where I could relax my guard somewhat.. but to be truthful, I could never really relax.
My former colleague Agent Gray had told me that I didn't need to guard my identity so closely anymore, but in no way did that mean I was safe to speak of it openly. The redpills hadn't been happy when they found out about our overwriting program, which we'd learned from our analysis of what former Agent Smith had done to the redpill called Bane. The Cypherites were probably the angriest of them all, given the revelation that Cryptos was a victim of it. The process had been more extensive with him than the other humans who'd been overwritten. So, unlike the rest of us, the program inside Cryptos had access to the human's memories, even his personality, and not even Seraph had been able to completely extract the code from the man.
No doubt Veil and most other Cypherites wouldn't hesitate to kill another overwritten human in their midst. I was thankful I could jack in anonymously, from a hoverbarge, but it still didn't keep me from barricading the door to my quarters every night before I could fall asleep.
I tried not to think about any of these uncomfortable truths, preferring to concentrate on my mission. And I was successful. Soon after my acceptance into Resolution Corp, I met with their leader ExorCiism, who sat down with me in a tearoom in the International District, where she told me her strange vision of the future. She gave me a disk with a virus on it and told me to keep it safe, saying not to tell anyone else about it. I dutifully agreed, even though she wouldn't tell me what the virus did or what purpose was behind it. There had been something about the way she'd described her plan that wasn't quite right. It was nothing specific, but I felt it warranted closer examination.
I shook her hand and bowed. But after leaving the restaurant I hardlined to Tabor, then headed straight to the Machine building. Maybe ExorCiism wouldn't tell me what the virus was for, but I was certain the Machines could.