Connection Terminated: Vertigo
(This is the sequel to Connection Terminated.)
Calm before the Storm
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2:34, Zeus hangar, Somewhere in Russia
Lying in the shadow of the downed behemoth, Zeus, Ivan Elmdor, dictator and part-time mastermind of world domination scheme, typed away on his laptop feverishly, oblivious to the pain that resulted from his endless working and, among others, the ungodly time of day. His unusually casual green shirt was practically dripping his sweat onto the grimy floor as he shifted his seating on his newfound chair, a wooden crate. He'd been hacking all night long after he had found a lead on his most hated and irritating group of freedom fighters, his fingers incessantly typing away like it was the end of the world. Even his most loyal servants, the three ruthless agents known as Drake, Sarah and Jex, began to question his sanity as he worked madly. But he was not mad yet and there was a method to his madness. Ivan's bitbeast/combat program, Arcford, was sifting through the web, interrogating, the word he used as a substitute for "threatening", for information and a few days back, he had hit pay dirt. "Pirates attacking an apparently inhabited oilrig in the seas south of the Philippines." The "voluntary" informant revealed, a basic fact, as the owner of the program was a tabloid reporter based in Borneo and piracy happened all the time. But there was more to this than met Ivan's cunning eye. The reporter mentioned the inhabitants of the oilrig fighting back with antiquated guns and rifles but the real deciding factor was the mech they had pulled out of nowhere. Bingo. Ivan already knew that the SEA branch of the rebel army, even when still located somewhere in Malaysia, was really low-tech, the worst of the worst when it came to computers and mechanized warfare. There was only one logical explanation for their sudden acquisition of sophisticated weaponry and technology. He just needed to find them.
16:15, SEA rebel base, somewhere in the middle of the sea
Max gave out a whoop of delight as he raced through the perimeter of the oilrig that doubled as the Southeast Asian branch on the Jet Ski designed for patrolling the base. It had been quite a while since they had even had a hint about Ivan and his so-called "government" and he was definitely enjoying the well-deserved break after a few years of fighting. Sure, it had taken them a couple of months to actually pinpoint the exact location of the irritatingly well-hidden SEA base but this proved good as it also kept away their enemies and created a sort of carefree attitude within the compound. "Hey, Max! We have a meeting in a couple of minutes!" Max looked up from his reckless driving as Emily waved frantically at him, standing precariously at the edge of the oilrig's expansive deck. "I'll head back, wait for me!" He shouted back and made a tight turn around another pillar, the ocean spraying into his blonde hair as he zoomed back to the central part of his new base.
Earlier- Ray muttered a curse under his breath and ran like hell through the winding, leaky corridors of the SEA base, glancing at his watch and cursing again. Well, obviously enough, he was late. Right now, he was probably devoting 50% percent of his mind to running and the rest to wondering why Mariah didn't reset the alarm clock. Which is a really stupid thing to do. Tripping over a loose wire while running full speed down the hall, he slammed into his temporary branch leader, Wesley Rodriguez. "Kon, watch where you're going." The tanned brown-haired leader said and helped up the Chinese rebel to his feet. "What's the hurry anyway?" He said and Ray stared at him in disbelief. "You set this meeting, shouldn't you be responsible?" Ray asked, simultaneously removing some dust from his shirt. Wesley looked at him with a raised eyebrow for a while and then snapped his fingers. "You're the guy who shares a room with Mariah, right?" He asked casually and Ray nodded. "She rigged your alarm. The meeting doesn't start in 30 minutes." Wesley continued and walked down the hall, whistling happily. Ray, blinking, suddenly realized something and ran after his branch leader. "Hey! When did she tell you that?" "This morning at breakfast. Hey, I'm a chick magnet." Wesley called back and continued his walk down the hall to the operations room.
A couple of minutes after. . . "Okay people, let's start this meeting." Kai squirmed in his seat, already bored to death by waiting for the esteemed leader. Besides, he was really pissed off with the fact that he had almost no power whatsoever here, courtesy of Rodriguez. And here he was, forced to listen to this insolent little idiot who had probably just gotten out of his schooling in the mainland. At least he made Ray irritated at Mariah, and in turn, she got mad at him. That was entertainment for good- old Kai. "Raul from the labs is going to show us a new design for our computer mainframe." Kai's P.O.V
Computer mainframe my ass. They call dumping thousands of potentially lethal computer viruses in their system a mainframe? They built a wall to protect nothing. What brainless morons.
"This is the blueprint for our new system. Advanced Logistics and Electronics Controller."
Raul. The little child prodigy from Malaysia. I've got to hand it to him, he's pretty smart. This project looks promising. If only it wasn't for this hell base.
"It's also known as Alec. After documenting and researching the rebels' bitbeasts, we've successfully created a design for a program that will emulate what any bitbeast can do. Special thanks to Kai and his somewhat rapid deletion of our test programs."
Ray's not exactly on the best of terms with me now. How simple it was to take over his testing slot and show them the power of Dranzer. He shouldn't have, ahem, spent too much time in his room that night.
"But this is designed to exceed the bitbeasts' capacities. It can access multiple servers at once, take over domains, order complete lockdowns and gain control over every single aspect of a computer. Even your last solitaire score is open to Alec."
This sounds risky. A super-program that can almost do anything online? What if the government takes possession of Alec? They'll know every location of our bases. The war would be over and they would be the winners of it. This also reinforces the theory that the Internet is like selling your privacy.
"It was designed to resemble a teenage boy on the Internet and will be able to manipulate objects and things around him thanks to our unique programming. Call it telekinesis if you want. His battle capacity is enormous as we watched how multiple viruses destroy each other and integrated it with his learning ability."
No, with this weapon, any side can control the fate of our planet. Almost everything nowadays is connected to the net. He can indirectly take over a system and still do major damage up close and personal. Thankfully, he's still in the creation process. Alec is a threat to international security. I pity Ivan and his army now.
"Of course, we still need a couple of months (Researching those rebels' technology, hehe) before we finish but once we have Alec in our computer, the war will be over! So, the meeting is finished and you guys can have your snacks or whatever in your rooms."
15:09, Training facility, Somewhere in Russia
Drake Kolnikov was standing in the middle of the circular training room of the government's top agents, holding his old yet lethal wakizashi at his hip as he waited for his challenge. They were testing something new today. Something deadly new. "Drake, the Vire are entering the room. These are the old models, we just want to compare them with their big brothers later." Sarah's calm voice said over a speaker as she watched from a reinforced observation and control deck in the upper portion of the dome. "If worst comes to worst, Jex is on standby." She added and what appeared to be mini-floodgates opened and released one old Vire, the first of what would become a breed of inhuman fighting machines. It's arms bent, practically scratching the ground and sort of did a cross between a leap and a stride to get within range of Drake, moving like the wind itself. It jumped up, showcasing all of its spectacular leg power and extended 10 finger blades as it reared up for the kill. Drake brought his sword out and parried the attack, ducking as the Vire fell behind him. He swooped backwards and slashed of its confused head, ending the first run in a couple of seconds.
"Here comes the second one."
And here's the scary part: Something came in. You just couldn't see it. Something black and really fast was watching him from the walls. Drake raised an eyebrow as he tried to keep his eyes on the blur that was his prey. "Sarah, is this even a Vire?"
"Model 2. Just a prototype."
"Yeah, just a prototype. Whatever." Drake replied and rushed at the wall where the Vire supposedly was when it attacked, pouncing like a cat. All 50 kilograms of mutated flesh and machine jumped from its perch on the wall, landing on all fours a few meters behind Drake. Its flashing red eye in the middle of its oval face, it pounced on Drake who immediately blocked the attack with his sword. It ducked as he slashed at his face and somersaulted backwards as he slashed again. Pouncing straight at Drake, it twisted in midair, avoiding another slash and swiping away the sword. Drake rolled backwards and caught its lunge in midair, kicking it away in the stomach. The Vire landed on its skeletal arms, bounced backwards and jumped at Drake again, blocking a kick and cutting him across the face with his finger blades. Drake flipped the beast onto its back and punched it across the face, cracking its neck. "There! That should stop you." Unfortunately, it didn't. The neck snapped back into place and the Vire kicked him in the stomach with the full force of his spring-loaded legs. Drake grabbed a pipe hanging from the ceiling, as he was sent flying and spun like an acrobat before dropping back to the floor. He picked up his sword just as the Vire pounced on him again and he jammed the blade into its stomach. It must've sneered at him behind that sleek black facemask because it grabbed the sword even while it was slammed through his body and pulled, bringing Drake nearer to his incisor-like claws. It raised its right hand up to cut through Drake's face when bullets burst through its head, spraying oil and blood all over the pale white government agent. The Vire slid off, stumbled backwards and fell, dead. "Satisfactory results for that Vire, I guess." Jex said as he walked over to the corpse, his twin pistols still smoking from the hyper-accurate shots he fired at it just a while ago. "Satisfactory! That thing kept coming back! If only we found those damn rebels now, we'd kill them all!" Drake sputtered, wiping his own blood and the blood of the poor rebel who was mutated to become a Vire from his face. He felt the open slashes across his cheek and shook his head in disbelief. "It makes the old one look, well, old." Jex added and examined his pistols as the two walked over to the elevator that would take them away from the training center.
"Which is a good thing, as Blaze and Ice more or less have the location of the SEA rebel base. Get packed, Jex. You're going with some soldiers there next week when they accurately get the location." Sarah's voice said over the speaker again, this time with Ivan's laughing voice in the background. "I was a genius to rehire those two." They heard him say from behind Sarah's back. "This time, they aren't expecting us. This time, we're going to kill them. Slowly and painfully."
101001010110110011001010101001010101010101010101010101100101010101
Watcha think? This is just the start so the story hasn't progressed so far yet. More to come!
(This is the sequel to Connection Terminated.)
Calm before the Storm
100010101010011101001101101101010010101010101101110101001010101001010
2:34, Zeus hangar, Somewhere in Russia
Lying in the shadow of the downed behemoth, Zeus, Ivan Elmdor, dictator and part-time mastermind of world domination scheme, typed away on his laptop feverishly, oblivious to the pain that resulted from his endless working and, among others, the ungodly time of day. His unusually casual green shirt was practically dripping his sweat onto the grimy floor as he shifted his seating on his newfound chair, a wooden crate. He'd been hacking all night long after he had found a lead on his most hated and irritating group of freedom fighters, his fingers incessantly typing away like it was the end of the world. Even his most loyal servants, the three ruthless agents known as Drake, Sarah and Jex, began to question his sanity as he worked madly. But he was not mad yet and there was a method to his madness. Ivan's bitbeast/combat program, Arcford, was sifting through the web, interrogating, the word he used as a substitute for "threatening", for information and a few days back, he had hit pay dirt. "Pirates attacking an apparently inhabited oilrig in the seas south of the Philippines." The "voluntary" informant revealed, a basic fact, as the owner of the program was a tabloid reporter based in Borneo and piracy happened all the time. But there was more to this than met Ivan's cunning eye. The reporter mentioned the inhabitants of the oilrig fighting back with antiquated guns and rifles but the real deciding factor was the mech they had pulled out of nowhere. Bingo. Ivan already knew that the SEA branch of the rebel army, even when still located somewhere in Malaysia, was really low-tech, the worst of the worst when it came to computers and mechanized warfare. There was only one logical explanation for their sudden acquisition of sophisticated weaponry and technology. He just needed to find them.
16:15, SEA rebel base, somewhere in the middle of the sea
Max gave out a whoop of delight as he raced through the perimeter of the oilrig that doubled as the Southeast Asian branch on the Jet Ski designed for patrolling the base. It had been quite a while since they had even had a hint about Ivan and his so-called "government" and he was definitely enjoying the well-deserved break after a few years of fighting. Sure, it had taken them a couple of months to actually pinpoint the exact location of the irritatingly well-hidden SEA base but this proved good as it also kept away their enemies and created a sort of carefree attitude within the compound. "Hey, Max! We have a meeting in a couple of minutes!" Max looked up from his reckless driving as Emily waved frantically at him, standing precariously at the edge of the oilrig's expansive deck. "I'll head back, wait for me!" He shouted back and made a tight turn around another pillar, the ocean spraying into his blonde hair as he zoomed back to the central part of his new base.
Earlier- Ray muttered a curse under his breath and ran like hell through the winding, leaky corridors of the SEA base, glancing at his watch and cursing again. Well, obviously enough, he was late. Right now, he was probably devoting 50% percent of his mind to running and the rest to wondering why Mariah didn't reset the alarm clock. Which is a really stupid thing to do. Tripping over a loose wire while running full speed down the hall, he slammed into his temporary branch leader, Wesley Rodriguez. "Kon, watch where you're going." The tanned brown-haired leader said and helped up the Chinese rebel to his feet. "What's the hurry anyway?" He said and Ray stared at him in disbelief. "You set this meeting, shouldn't you be responsible?" Ray asked, simultaneously removing some dust from his shirt. Wesley looked at him with a raised eyebrow for a while and then snapped his fingers. "You're the guy who shares a room with Mariah, right?" He asked casually and Ray nodded. "She rigged your alarm. The meeting doesn't start in 30 minutes." Wesley continued and walked down the hall, whistling happily. Ray, blinking, suddenly realized something and ran after his branch leader. "Hey! When did she tell you that?" "This morning at breakfast. Hey, I'm a chick magnet." Wesley called back and continued his walk down the hall to the operations room.
A couple of minutes after. . . "Okay people, let's start this meeting." Kai squirmed in his seat, already bored to death by waiting for the esteemed leader. Besides, he was really pissed off with the fact that he had almost no power whatsoever here, courtesy of Rodriguez. And here he was, forced to listen to this insolent little idiot who had probably just gotten out of his schooling in the mainland. At least he made Ray irritated at Mariah, and in turn, she got mad at him. That was entertainment for good- old Kai. "Raul from the labs is going to show us a new design for our computer mainframe." Kai's P.O.V
Computer mainframe my ass. They call dumping thousands of potentially lethal computer viruses in their system a mainframe? They built a wall to protect nothing. What brainless morons.
"This is the blueprint for our new system. Advanced Logistics and Electronics Controller."
Raul. The little child prodigy from Malaysia. I've got to hand it to him, he's pretty smart. This project looks promising. If only it wasn't for this hell base.
"It's also known as Alec. After documenting and researching the rebels' bitbeasts, we've successfully created a design for a program that will emulate what any bitbeast can do. Special thanks to Kai and his somewhat rapid deletion of our test programs."
Ray's not exactly on the best of terms with me now. How simple it was to take over his testing slot and show them the power of Dranzer. He shouldn't have, ahem, spent too much time in his room that night.
"But this is designed to exceed the bitbeasts' capacities. It can access multiple servers at once, take over domains, order complete lockdowns and gain control over every single aspect of a computer. Even your last solitaire score is open to Alec."
This sounds risky. A super-program that can almost do anything online? What if the government takes possession of Alec? They'll know every location of our bases. The war would be over and they would be the winners of it. This also reinforces the theory that the Internet is like selling your privacy.
"It was designed to resemble a teenage boy on the Internet and will be able to manipulate objects and things around him thanks to our unique programming. Call it telekinesis if you want. His battle capacity is enormous as we watched how multiple viruses destroy each other and integrated it with his learning ability."
No, with this weapon, any side can control the fate of our planet. Almost everything nowadays is connected to the net. He can indirectly take over a system and still do major damage up close and personal. Thankfully, he's still in the creation process. Alec is a threat to international security. I pity Ivan and his army now.
"Of course, we still need a couple of months (Researching those rebels' technology, hehe) before we finish but once we have Alec in our computer, the war will be over! So, the meeting is finished and you guys can have your snacks or whatever in your rooms."
15:09, Training facility, Somewhere in Russia
Drake Kolnikov was standing in the middle of the circular training room of the government's top agents, holding his old yet lethal wakizashi at his hip as he waited for his challenge. They were testing something new today. Something deadly new. "Drake, the Vire are entering the room. These are the old models, we just want to compare them with their big brothers later." Sarah's calm voice said over a speaker as she watched from a reinforced observation and control deck in the upper portion of the dome. "If worst comes to worst, Jex is on standby." She added and what appeared to be mini-floodgates opened and released one old Vire, the first of what would become a breed of inhuman fighting machines. It's arms bent, practically scratching the ground and sort of did a cross between a leap and a stride to get within range of Drake, moving like the wind itself. It jumped up, showcasing all of its spectacular leg power and extended 10 finger blades as it reared up for the kill. Drake brought his sword out and parried the attack, ducking as the Vire fell behind him. He swooped backwards and slashed of its confused head, ending the first run in a couple of seconds.
"Here comes the second one."
And here's the scary part: Something came in. You just couldn't see it. Something black and really fast was watching him from the walls. Drake raised an eyebrow as he tried to keep his eyes on the blur that was his prey. "Sarah, is this even a Vire?"
"Model 2. Just a prototype."
"Yeah, just a prototype. Whatever." Drake replied and rushed at the wall where the Vire supposedly was when it attacked, pouncing like a cat. All 50 kilograms of mutated flesh and machine jumped from its perch on the wall, landing on all fours a few meters behind Drake. Its flashing red eye in the middle of its oval face, it pounced on Drake who immediately blocked the attack with his sword. It ducked as he slashed at his face and somersaulted backwards as he slashed again. Pouncing straight at Drake, it twisted in midair, avoiding another slash and swiping away the sword. Drake rolled backwards and caught its lunge in midair, kicking it away in the stomach. The Vire landed on its skeletal arms, bounced backwards and jumped at Drake again, blocking a kick and cutting him across the face with his finger blades. Drake flipped the beast onto its back and punched it across the face, cracking its neck. "There! That should stop you." Unfortunately, it didn't. The neck snapped back into place and the Vire kicked him in the stomach with the full force of his spring-loaded legs. Drake grabbed a pipe hanging from the ceiling, as he was sent flying and spun like an acrobat before dropping back to the floor. He picked up his sword just as the Vire pounced on him again and he jammed the blade into its stomach. It must've sneered at him behind that sleek black facemask because it grabbed the sword even while it was slammed through his body and pulled, bringing Drake nearer to his incisor-like claws. It raised its right hand up to cut through Drake's face when bullets burst through its head, spraying oil and blood all over the pale white government agent. The Vire slid off, stumbled backwards and fell, dead. "Satisfactory results for that Vire, I guess." Jex said as he walked over to the corpse, his twin pistols still smoking from the hyper-accurate shots he fired at it just a while ago. "Satisfactory! That thing kept coming back! If only we found those damn rebels now, we'd kill them all!" Drake sputtered, wiping his own blood and the blood of the poor rebel who was mutated to become a Vire from his face. He felt the open slashes across his cheek and shook his head in disbelief. "It makes the old one look, well, old." Jex added and examined his pistols as the two walked over to the elevator that would take them away from the training center.
"Which is a good thing, as Blaze and Ice more or less have the location of the SEA rebel base. Get packed, Jex. You're going with some soldiers there next week when they accurately get the location." Sarah's voice said over the speaker again, this time with Ivan's laughing voice in the background. "I was a genius to rehire those two." They heard him say from behind Sarah's back. "This time, they aren't expecting us. This time, we're going to kill them. Slowly and painfully."
101001010110110011001010101001010101010101010101010101100101010101
Watcha think? This is just the start so the story hasn't progressed so far yet. More to come!