Prologue
He sat, leaning back slightly on the large chair, tapping the fingers of his right hand casually against the armrest, the other hand balancing a cup of cold black coffee. Blue eyes, darkened with something that could almost be mistaken for disinterest, watched the monitor intently as codes and jumbled numbers, flashing white on the black background, cascaded furiously down the screen.
Counting down to ten, Aoshi Shinomori pulled his legs down from where they were propped up on the desk, bent forward, and hit one button on the keyboard. The entire screen flashed to gray, as more figures raced down the screen. Nodding in satisfaction, he rose, tapping out a quick, complicated command that he had memorized by now, and pressed the ENTER key, straightening and running a hand through his long black hair.
The whir of the supercomputer made him glance up, more in habit than of any real need, to check the automated cooler in the room that sent necessary droughts into the space of the system so that it would not overheat. Grabbing the opened bag of unfinished biscuits set on the small side marble table, and without a backward glance, he trotted away.
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Across the continent, the head engineer of oil refining giant Corex looked up disinterestedly to glance at the computer. His eyes widened and he fell out of his chair, clambering up and staring at the screen with horror as the codes began to delete themselves. Erasure meant billions of dollars down the drain.
He hadn't even opened his mouth to scream when the electricity was cut off, the "bomb" that had been sent through the reloading faction of the computer system detonating and shattering every line that was hooked up to the main computer.
The hot, beaming daylight shone down mercilessly on the large circle of tanks that had suddenly gone quiet.