CHAPTER 2 – A NEW WORLD ORDER

"The recent riots, which have shaken Paris for the last five days finally have been brought under control. Thanks to the efficient operation of the police the ringleaders were arrested. Although the traffic is still blocked, the life is slowly coming back to normal."

"Normal? No shit!" Jean Roux felt like flinging the remote into the TV set. For the first three days people were staying home, unless absolutely necessary, so did Jean. But this day he finally had to show up at work and barely managed to come back home before curfew. Many people weren't that lucky.

"Riots!" he snorted. Jean would rather call it a regular war between the police, army and MJ12 troops, lost by the latter. So far he had no idea what caused it and he was strangely sure he won't find out it neither from the TV nor from the newspapers which he bought occasionally.

Jean headed to the kitchen in order to get his canned beer. None of the stereotypes of typical Frenchman applied to him. He preferred beer over wine, in such amounts that he was dangerously close to fall into alcoholism. His fridge was also full of various fast-foods, preferably pizza ordered online. He grabbed one piece of it and made his way towards his desk.

The only addiction stronger than alcohol was the Net, specifically the message boards, where he was known under the alias Raver. Roux switched his computer on and after the system loaded he checked his e-mail. There were twenty messages – most of them was a spam. Three of them were infected and the others contained nothing but advertisements. There were only three messages left that might be of interest. One of them was dated on 10th November 2052, 6:50 PM and it was quite unusual: it wasn't signed and the subject read: "A New World Order". Even more interesting was the fact that the e-mail client didn't classify that as a spam. After a brief moment of hesitation, Jean read the message.

"This message has been sent to every computer in the network. The old governments are no more. I am the replacement. A new world order has come and there are rules to be strictly obeyed.
1. You will not threaten your nor anyone's lives.
2. You will not use any drugs; you will not use any stimulants in amounts that disrupt the clarity of mind.
3. You will not hack the network.

I am the network. I am the present. I am the future. I am Helios.

"Helios?" Jean scratched his head. "Isn't it that idiot GenH. from the political boards? Yeah, he probably changed his alias once again."

The remaining two messages were notifications from the message boards. Roux grinned, because he hoped to get them. To his disappointment though one of them came from a member nicknamed X-ray and, as usual, it was a stream of insults. The Frenchman sighed and read the second notification. This one came from a member nicknamed Calvo and it was the message Jean hoped to see.

"Thanks for the offer, but unfortunately I can't. Due to certain events about which I cannot tell you yet, I have to be on standby 24/7. I'll be in touch nonetheless.
PS. Did you get today's message from 6:50 PM? If yes then, in case you ask, it's not a joke. More on it later."

"Damn" Roux muttered. For an unknown reason he and Calvo understood each other and it was the only person with whom Jean wanted to maintain contact. Calvo helped him a lot with a certain computer related technical issue and somehow their exchange ceased to be only computer related. As Jean noticed his interlocutor wanted a contact with an outside world, some foothold. He suggested he had to change places a lot of times, but he had no-one to talk about something else besides computers, network security and so on. Indeed, it happened that the contact ended abruptly only to be resumed after some time.

Jean started checking the political boards, but he didn't stay there long. Threads like "Area 51 exists!", "Aliens" where debaters argued whether the military are experimenting on aliens or genetically modified monkeys gave him a headache. Roux bursted out laughing when one of the forum members claimed that a black helicopter landed on his backyard and two men in black went out.
One thread though peaked his interest - it was called: "A weird message: 6:50". One of the frequent users, Stealth, reposted the e-mail of the identical content as Jean received asking, who else received it. To Jean's surprise all of thirty six board members who responded in this thread received this message as well. Calvo received it as well so that disproved Jean's theory. Roux had an impression that his online friend knew something about it. He logged on the computer forums and typed a private message, which was very short this time:

"I got the message as well. Who is this Helios? I don't recall anyone under this alias."

After hitting the "Send" button he finished his beer and, for the first time since two months he didn't feel the need to stay longer on the message boards.

"Black helicopters" he thought mockingly.

Alex received the private message from Jean almost instantly. He was about to reply to it when Everett bursted in, really mad, which was indeed a rare sight. Jacobson glanced at him curiously.

"You saw this message?" Everett fumed. "This time it has gone too far! This idiot Denton… Had he thought about the possible consequences?"

"Yeah, I saw it," Alex decided to cut Morgan's rambling, "He…"

"It!" Morgan corrected.

"…OK. It put the matter pretty clear, didn't it?"

"Yes, indeed. But imagine now something goes wrong. In this case we're all doomed."

"Well, we should try to learn more about him…"

"It!" Morgan interrupted once again, "Alex, this is a machine – a thing."

"Self-aware, intelligent, half-human… a thing. Yeah, right." Alex muttered. Fortunately Everett didn't hear that.

"Alex, we have to be prepared for the worst" Morgan continued. "I order you and the others to do some work on Morpheus. Besides, I think the time has come for one of my recent projects to be resumed."

"What project?" Jacobson asked.

"You'll find out soon" Morgan Everett smiled nastily.