Chapter 25: Stupidity

"That was awesome!" Jordan smiled as one of his 'colleagues' gushed to the rest of the group. "I mean the advances that are being made in technology have always amazed me but now to have an algorithm that can gather the evidence for you? Amazing!" Jordan wanted to role his eyes. He wanted to bang his head against the wall but instead he laughed and nodded along. You're not you, you are your character, the Wig had said when he talked about going undercover and acting like someone else. Think like him, breath like him, feel his emotions. Your personal thoughts and opinions have no place there. Keep them for when you're alone. Good advice but bloody hard to do.

He looked at his watch. Ten to twelve. Only ten more minutes until he could get out of there. He had never been so relieved in his life.

"Hey Jordan." Jordan fought the urge to close his eyes as he turned to his eager colleagues. "Want to go out for drinks later? Get to know one another?" No absolutely not I want to be rid of you badly, he thought darkly, I have better things to do on my first Saturday night off in like forever.

"Sure, would love to." He answered with a bright smile.

"Great, see you at 5 at the Black dog?"

"Sure. I'll see you tonight." Jordan nodded still smiling. He'd been there before, once, long ago when he first started at six. He had spent the evening awkwardly sitting beside the other awkward nerds and hadn't gone again. But that was before 001 had gotten her claws into him and taught him how to fake socializing.

As soon as it was acceptable, he grabbed his coat and got out of the building. He had never worked a 24-hour-a-week job and had been very surprised when he had been given his new contract, but the benefit of it was that he had ample time to train. The first thing he had done after he had gotten home that first day was join an MMA studio. He had shopped around and had found a good number of them, right in the centre of London. He had toured them all and ended up joining 4, knowing unpredictability was important. If he booked classes last minute and made sure he paid cash in advance it wouldn't be noticed in his records. It was only too bad he didn't have any different identities yet or he would have been able to hide even better. He was very glad he'd done this now because he needed to vent… badly and a matchup or even a few rounds with a boxing ball would be just the thing.

"Ah, Mr. Bruskin." The receptionist said as soon as he entered the lobby. "You're right on time. Your instructor just arrived and is waiting in studio 3." Jordan nodded a thanks to him and headed to the locker room. Bloody double-0's. 0010 had given him a heart attack when he had suddenly shown up yesterday. Today however, he was glad for it.

0010 was leaning against the open door as he approached, his face as unreadable as ever. He gestured with his head for Jordan to get in and then closed and locked the door behind them.

"You've got 5 minutes to rant. Go." He ordered. Jordan blinked for a moment. Opened his mouth. Blinked again and then lamely said.

"My colleagues are idiots." 0010 snorted.

"Is that the best you can do?" He asked. "You get yourself so worked up you almost drop out of character and all I get is this? You've got 4 minutes, better make good use of it." Jordan bristled and then just let lose, if the agent wanted to listen to a temper tantrum, he was going to get one.

"I mean who in their right mind believes this bullshit. A program that can do the thinking for you? There are just so many things that can go wrong with that. What if you enter the wrong parameters? What if someone makes an error in the code? What if someone hacks your system and makes you see the wrong results? People will DIE based on the outcome of this program. And do they then send in an agent who can asses the situation? No, they sent drones." Jordan rolled his eyes. It felt good, finally being able to express all that annoyance that had built up over the last few days.

"But that's not the worst part. No, the worst part is that everyone gobbles up this bullshit like it's Caviar. Have they learned nothing from W.O.P.R. and Skynet? If you tell computers to kill, they'll kill. They don't know when not to kill. They can't determine if they're wrong? How can people be stupid enough to trust that?" Jordan screamed, throwing his hands in the air before he resumed his pacing. He paced through the hall for a few seconds before stopping and sighing.

"But there's one thing about this all that's really worrying me. Where is the server? Nine Eyes is cloud-based, they said. I don't believe that for a second. There's a server somewhere. And it could be anywhere. I don't think it's here in London or anywhere in the UK. No, they've hidden it somewhere, out of reach and in their grasp. Mr. Weasley said it so aptly. Don't trust anything that can think for itself unless you know where it keeps its brain. But that's exactly what we're doing. And no one is seeing it." He sighed again and sat on the floor hanging his head, feeling drained and downhearted. He felt like he was swimming against the current and not making any headway. He sighed again and closed his eyes trying not to cry.

A snigger made his head shoot up. For a moment he had forgotten he wasn't alone.

"And within time too. 9 was right you do go on impressive rants." 0010 was grinning and Jordan felt his heart lift a little. "Right, up you get. Time to show me what you've got. Let's see if you can actually land a punch this time." Jordan dragged himself to his feet, feeling like he didn't have the energy for this now. But there was no way he was saying that to the other agent. That would only ensure that the opposite was proven and then rubbed in by some painful punishment he would deserve. He grinned and got into position, suddenly looking forward to giving his mind a rest and his body a challenge.