KEEP CHECKING BACK FOR OTHER NEW CHAPTERS INCLUDED AT RANDOM THROUGH THE TEXT. STAND ALONE CHAPTERS WILL BE INCLUDED UNTIL I FINISH TO MAKE A MORE INDEPTH VIEW OF THE CHARACTERS AND THE UNIVERSE THEY ARE PART OF...

Tharagon

The Nightwatch are the Sword and Shield of humanity. Either to hunt machines, Twists or creatures that exist just beyond the edge of our understanding. To think that the Nightwatch only deals with this plane of existance alone is narrow minded...

The Atlas Tangent

"This Flight Squadron 6 we have visual and preparing to fire on target." From the vast dark bulk of the Leviathan as it rose from the sea, the large green glowing ports of its main gun coming on line were visible as from the dark depths of the sea, the machines largest weapon rose from the black depths.

"Fire at Will!!"

Along the hundreds of planes of the Japanese Air force, missiles, their jet trails strung out and burning, roared across the sky, slashing long holes in the blue. From the dark machine, the explosions rattled across the dark metal. Above the mecho-pods turned in air and span down toward the planes, their red eyes burning among the black metal, their tentacle extending as they dropped at speed.

Kero-San pulled his plane into a sharp dive, several others following him as in the blue, he felt fear.

"Cut a path!! Get close and fire into the main gun ports!!"

"Understood Commander!"

The link closed as Kero-San looked down at the picture, lodged on his dash board. His daughter and his wife, smiling among trees in a day out to Nagasaki national park stared back. He knew what he had to do. This was for them.

With a screech of jet engines the group of 5 planes dodged as the mecho-pods hit the massed planes, clinging onto the others burning through their cockpits to tear at the pilots inside. With a roar of Plasma engines, the vast machine, in a blast of static which crippled to planes nearby, fired a long stream of energy into the massed buildings of New port city.

Motoko ran a hand over the keyboard as the last code fell into place. From the dark Cold room, the white pages of Deus Ex… lay before her open as she struggled to gauge what ever the book was talking about. Even from an academic aspect, the book was complicated at best but now, it was really starting to take its toll. There was no evidence of a code. There was no repetition, no common words or phrases. Nothing. It was just a book.

She slammed her fist into the desk angrily, as beyond her hearing the sounds of the news broadcasts filtered in. The was a nasty snap as the welding around the table joints snapped.

"Whoa there girly…..!" Ryeman rested a hand on her shoulder, his brown coat swirling beside him. Motoko lent back into his body, yawning widely "….Go have a break, have a coffee and a sleep, the on-call room is open."

She shook her head, miming the fact that she should be focusing on.

"No…really, you need to stop. Basher could have a look if you want….." she shook her head "…..no right." Please just go for my sake, please."

I will

"Now!!"

Fine

She brushed past him, pushing her weight up beside him as she passed. In the single copper eye, even for all the tiredness, the spark of life which had so attracted Ryeman all those months ago, flickered, there, in the retina of her eye.

He paused, running a metal gauntlet through his hair. Below the inch of metal, the sizzling electric coating of his skin, inlaid with hundreds of tiny circuits, caused a slight snap in the air as the static clicked. That was his secret, there were no electrolysis gauntlets, no electrical equipment. He was the tesla coil. He was once strapped into that electric chair and pumped full of energy, his body altering to suit the vast quantity of power welling through it had meant he became, live, his very blood electrified. Until a larger amount of circuitry was invested in to alter the current.

And he couldn't take the gauntlets off. The resulting fall out would burn anyone nearby, especially machines. The gauntlets would always be on.

Motoko splashed water into her face in the white tiled bathroom, the cold water running in rivulets down her pale face as she stared angrily at her own reflection in the dark glass.

Me, Me, Me, Me……. she thought, the short strands of purple hair, hanging wet and dripping, the white eye nearly exposed……and her

Mira.

That little conundrum, she'd never put much though to it. The second self existing within her. Mira, to all appearances had appeared violent and cold. But what Motoko had realised, when she was within Mira's control, the dark presence was lost and confused, not understanding what humanity was….

Mira was lost, confused, trying to understand a race which even she couldn't counter. She was a machine, be that as it may, and so was Motoko. She chewed her lip, the copper eye burning a hole in her own reflection. There was something there….

The enigma code didn't work. Spiral code didn't work. Any simple maths equation didn't work and the nearest she found was when one code breaker had spelt something rather rude. The book was blank except for the very words he'd written within its page. There must be something….

Han's Schieder you clever, sneaky bastard….

Numbers falling in code, falling but remaining the same in order, but shifting constantly.

That was it…..

Motoko gripped the sink edges….

ODIN.

To most it was a screen saver, the trademark of ODIN. What it wasn't…..Most would overlook the hundreds of characters. But that was it, the code was in the virus. His own creation, the thing he had made. It was in there. Motoko realised, as she sprinted from the room, why would a man write his own code into an obvious virus. Motoko ducked under a trolley, pushed by a female adept. Maybe the creation of god wasn't seen as a flawless ideal. This was an anti-virus, to kill a god.

She slammed into the chair, disturbing Ryeman from is lunch on the central table. With a shift of the fingers, she brought up the main ODIN template, twisting several Deus Ex Machina pages onto the screen in front of her as in the dark of the cold room, she felt a degree of triumph.

ODIN melted through the screen, as the template took hold. With nerveless fingers, she laced the template over the pages and checked the changing code. There were numbers out of place, some remained the same, hanging green characters, 49, 5, 49. There it was…She checked the 49th letter, A and so on, the code began to filter through 89th…..37.….1.….34.…..70. After 10 minutes work, the first page was done…

Motoko glanced over her handiwork with a sinking feeling. The script kept jumping for some reason, every once in a while there was a huge gap in the code, some un foreseen protocol was causing the code to become incoherent and non apparent.

She gazed at the hypnotic falling characters, her head resting on one hand as she watched, the feeling of triumph of earlier flowing away. She sighed, was all hope lost, was the amount of effort she'd put into the code been truly worth it. She chewed her lip as behind her, the dark clouds of the machines were scattered across several TV screens. Illuminated by the light, Ryeman, George, Basher and Shi'ja stood, coffee in hand as the machines marched.

She looked back at the screen.

Strange

The was a slight flicker on the template. She blinked, trying to clear her vision. Nothing, the numbers continued to fall. She paused, trying to clear her head of sleep as the dark behind the falling green characters threatened to dislodge her already precarious concentration.

There it was again

Motoko blinked owlishly. The screen flickered, changed its pattern. The numbers all shifted to the left, only slightly however, but enough for a visible difference. The code was jumping, every few minutes or so, the code jumped back to its original position. Who ever had made the template had put it in a constant loop. It was incomplete, unfinished….

Motoko signalled for Ryeman, pushing aside loose sheets and pointed toward the image.

I need the real code….

Ryeman took one long look at the screen and Motoko's scribbled notes.

I need to go Outside the barrier….