A/N
So, the Perfect Dark trailer came out recently. That's pretty neat. Got me to drabble this up.
Admittedly, what I wrote doesn't really sync with the trailer itself, as I only caught a glimpse of said trailer before actually listening to the dialogue. And yes, it's likely that this is a reboot rather than a continuation, but for now, entertaining the notion of it being part of the original continuity.
New Kingdom
There's people who say that Egypt is the birthplace of civilization.
I don't really debate them on the issue. Some will point to Mesopotamia. Others will contest the idea of civilization itself. But where civilization arose from is academic. Nowadays, most people are concerned as to when and how civilization will end. And Egypt is as good a place as any to get a good idea.
Cairo is caught between worlds ancient, old, and new. The new is represented by glistening skyscrapers - edifices of steel and glass, risen not in homage to gods or pharaohs, but to the megacorps that built them. In this world, money is our god. Our salvation and damnation alike. It is in these temples of the new that rituals are conducted by the most powerful men and women on the planet. Gods in function, if not in name. Gods who wield more powerful than the priests of old dared dream of. Gods who raise their temples ever higher, as if reaching for Ra himself.
The old is represented by the sprawl of this city. Cairo now has a population of 30 million, and more are added to its numbers every day. Numbers born from the womb, as mothers bring infants into a dying world. Numbers born from those flocking to this place, like all the other mega-cities. People fleeing drought, people fleeing famine, people fleeing war. Three horsemen ravage the lands outside this place, while the fourth, plague, runs rampant inside it. Every year, a new pandemic. Every year, the planet's fever worsens. And every day, the people of the old world struggle to survive in the shadow of the new.
The gods conduct their business. Mortals conduct theirs.
In the distance, the world of the ancient. Pyramids, constructed thousands of years ago. Monuments to the glory of ancient kings, who could not have dreamed how their works would be eclipsed millennia later. They could not imagine the scale of the droughts to the south. Of the wars fought over the Nile. Of oil warlords, securing their rights to the last drops of black gold. Of how fickle Ra could be, supplying energy to the endless fields of silicon beyond Cairo. Solar power, seeking his benevolence, while his wrath is inflicted upon man and beast alike.
There's a thunderstorm going on by the pyramids. Lightning from above, dust from below. It might bring rain to Cairo. It might not. It might not mean anything. But for a moment, I take in the sight.
"Agent Dark, report."
The moment after that, I begin setting up a rifle and tripod.
"Agent Dark in position."
"Be advised, target is ahead of schedule."
"ETA to FOV?"
"At current rate, two minutes, fourteen seconds."
"All the time I need," I say, as I rest the rifle atop the tripod. "Commencing radio silence."
"Affirmative. Out."
I don't smile as I slip the magazine into the rifle's butt. There was a time when Jonathan and I might have had a go with each other. Two decades ago, when we could imagine the world entering a brighter future. First contact with aliens. dataDyne weaker than it had ever been. A new beginning for humanity. A brighter future for us all. But then...
I adjust the rifle's scope. It isn't right to say that things changed, but rather, they remained the same. First contact was postponed - in hindsight, even then, I feel the maians knew what they'd have been getting into. dataDyne elected a new CEO, and consolidated its position, as did all the other megacorps. And by the start of the 2030s, we saw how much trouble we were in. Seas rising. Storms worsening. Fires intensifying. More and more species consigned to extinction. And then, everything unraveled. The wars. The droughts. The riots. The floods. The collapse of one nation after another.
In hindsight, it's no wonder that the megacorps stepped in. Those who'd caused the crisis we'd found ourselves in offered the solutions - clean energy. Filtered water. Artificial meat. Carbon capture. Heck, even security, as PMCs were deployed to maintain the order that governments couldn't. Daniel raged. So did many others, and indeed, they still do. But most people accepted the new order of things if it meant food in their bellies, water in their throats, and a roof over their heads. Things are still bad. Things are getting worse. But the world hasn't collapsed yet. People will trade freedom for security if freedom means death.
But if it should all collapse...I look back at those pyramids, at the oncoming storm. This land has experienced civilizational collapse more than once, but the people then had somewhere to flee. If civilization collapses now, there'll be nowhere to flee this time. We're all in the same storm, even if we aren't all in the same boat. But there's over 9 billion people on this planet now, with population and consumption getting ever higher. More people per boat, in a storm that's getting ever worse.
So it makes me wonder, if only for a moment, why I'm even here. Why I'm on the top floor of dataDyne's Cairo headquarters. It's a hit job ordered by Carrington, but I'm left to ask as to what end. Taking out this target will weaken dataDyne's influence in Cairo momentarily, but what's more likely? The glorious uprising of the people? Or the other megacorps stepping in? In the fighting going on in the south, there's already more corporate mercenaries than regular soldiers. All it would take is one of dataDyne's rivals to smell blood and march into Egypt to "stabilize" the country.
Still, orders are orders. We all need food on the table. And having walked this planet for 42 years, and seen things go from bad, to worse, to meet alien life and have it turn its back, to have my best friend betray me for a piece of coin, then you could say I've grown a tad cynical.
But I'm alive. Which is more than I can say for the target.
An armoured car is heading for the dataDyne building. They don't know I'm here, because if they did, drones would have found and shredded me by now. I don't have the firepower to destroy the car, or even shoot through it. By the sims, I'll have a window of 3.2 seconds to take out the target as Abdul Muhammad steps out of the car, and heads into the building proper for a debrief. He's the head of all dataDyne security forces in Egypt - an outsourcing of both police and military into a single whole. Go down into the streets, and you'll see armoured soldiers carrying Dragon IV rifles. Go into the slums, and you'll see autonomous police drones with wrist-tasers. dataDyne's grip here is as tight as the steel hands of their robots. And it's only tightening.
My job is to loosen it. I'm going to take a man's life today. I'm going to orphan a boy of three years, and widow a wife of fourteen. I'm going to do this, because I've been told to. I'm going to do this, because I've been assured that somehow, in some way, it'll make things better. I've been told...well, I've been told a lot of things. But in a world built on lies, I can find my own truths.
The car stops. I lick my lips, and finger the trigger. The rifle adjusts for headwind automatically. The scope tells me it's a shot of 1,308 metres. Yes, this building's over a killometre tall, and yes, my suit's thermals are doing my job. In spite of everything, I'm quite warm, no thanks to Ra. I see the target step out, yammering away on his phone...
I pull the trigger. He's sent to Anubis. Right now, the security system here will register his death even before his bodyguards to, as his vitals flatline. An algorithm will begin work on choosing a new chief of security, working out a payment of life insurance, and will generate a condolence letter. A day from now, dataDyne staff members will go over the algorithm's recommendations and choose a new chief of security. And things will return to normal.
I disassemble the rifle and set out a ping, before heading to my grapple line. Mission's over. Exfiltration will be carried out in four minutes, twelve seconds. If I fail, I'm stuck in Cairo. And if I'm stuck in Cairo, I'm dead. So I only waste a few seconds, looking back at the pyramids. At the storm. At the rain that has yet to come, to wash the streets clear of my sin. At these mighty works, as I continue to fight despair, and wonder if the reason why the maians never made contact with us is that they can only gaze upon Earth so long before turning away in shame.
I grit my teeth and, hooking the grapple to my belt, descend down the other side of the building. With any luck, all the security drones will be flocking to the corpse I left, rather than searching their own building for the assassin. If not, then, well...
I don't think about it. Which is easy, actually.
When you've killed as many people as I have, it's easy to shut down worry. Mercy.
Hope.