AN: annnd this FF has more views than my first and it happened in less than a week. Hooo-boy that is good to see.
Step 2: plug and play
He bought a plane ticket to London then took a cab, heading to a small town he was too tired to remember. All he did was show the driver the name of the location and the man took him there. He made sure to send a mail to his company informing them that he'd be unavailable for the next couple of days. Whether or not they approved it did not matter to him right now. With Barry now part of the team, there was no going back; only forward.
While driving, Michael slowly opened his eyes and it took him a minute to recollect the string of events that brought him here. Try as he might to focus on the mission there were a number of troubling thoughts that plagued his mind during the journey.
The first and most important of all was the fate of Monika's creators. Granted if he ever met the people that tried to kill her, he would no doubt fly into a fit of rage and attack them. Problem was they were already dead.
While on the way here, Barry informed him about an article relating to Team Salvato and their fate. Everyone knew that the game Monika originally came from became a cult classic across the world, prompting fans from all over to express how much they loved the game. This of course led to the more hard-core and fanatic types to take things a step further like tracking down some of the team and contacting them at all odd hours of the day.
Barry's report would suggest that one particularly crazed fan wanted to meet the team so bad that when they did not let it happen, he apparently drove his car into the team while they were heading out for a vacation. Those that did not die in the crash were killed in the explosion that soon followed. Barry's report finally stated that even the fan died in the crash.
While it was an open and shut case with the fault lying on the culprit's side, there was something about the whole incident that seemed off to Michael. However with his primary objective taking precedence over everything else, he would have to relegate that issue to the back of his mind and focus on the task at hand.
"I still don't understand why we're stuck here while you're out there", stated Monika with a huff through the earphone that Michael had on him.
"The risk of injuries stays at minimum when less people are involved', he replied as he got out of the taxi, paid the driver the fee with a generous tip then started walking into the forest before him.
After about ten minutes inside, Michael sat on a dead tree then opened the zip in his bag and examined the contents inside. A knife, a fully loaded .45, scalpel, surgical tape and anesthesia. He took out the sat phone in his pocket then made sure that it was working.
"Mission will start in ten seconds", he said into the mic knowing that back home, Barry and Monika nodded.
While many would find it strange to bring a weapon to what was essentially a stealth mission, Michael was not ready to take any risks. Now that 75% of the world relied on computers to cater to their every needs, anti hacking protocols were stepped up greatly.
Though the whole world was content with the knowledge that they could find anything on google, there was only a small percentage who understood that the search engine tracks, memorises and stores your browsing habits on one of the many, mank offline storage facilities it has. The problem came from the fact that google was working with intelligence gathering agencies across the world, providing them with information about nearly everyone in the world.
Checking the surfing history of people allowed government agents to distinguish between green light users who only search for regular stuff or watch videos to red light users who frequented terrorist sites, watched videos meant to incite violence among the masses etc. Thanks to this, they were able to lower the percentage of terrorist attacks by thirty percent in the last three months and locate key members of terrorist cells across the world.
This was not a conspiracy theory that Michael came up with in his free time. This was a fact that only a handful of people in the government knew about. How he knew that information though was not important right now.
Michael quietly stared at the guards doing their rounds around the facility. Under normal circumstances, he could use the cover of night to get in and out without being seen. But the guards that patrolled the area were automated.
As a test, Michael picked up a nearby rock and lobbed it at a spot just before one of the patrolling robots. When it hit, the robots from all over immediately converged upon the location with the help of their all terrain treads, firing a barrage of bullets into the place where the rock landed.
"Google doesn't play games", muttered Michael to himself with a dark chuckle as he saw the robots go back to their patrol.
He watched quietly as one of the robots came close to the forest's edge then turn around. Michael leapt forward in a second, tearing off the sensors on the robots head. He quickly ducked down as it swung out with its guns pointed in the direction the attack came from. Michael quickly took out the front panel, exposing the inner workings of the robot. He could already hear the others coming in the distance and had to act fast.
He reached into his pocket and took out the sat phone along with a USB wire attached at the end. He plugged the other end into the open USB slot then took a step back. The automated guard made an array of noises sounding like it was going to explode, which caused MIchael to take a few steps back out of caution.
However that did not happen and instead, the robot returned to normal. Michael quickly took the phone out of the slot. He headed back into the forest then made his way around the patrol.
"How did it go?" he asked placing the earphone back in his ear.
"I was able to hack the robot but Michael…"
Her words stopped when he heard the sound of the guards coming towards him.
"I was only able to hack that one robot. Each of them are running on a closed system and only share basic commands through the network."
He turned around and saw three robots standing before him with the laser dots connected to their machine guns pointed at his chest.
"Also, they know you're here".
The world slowed down at that moment, allowing Michael the time he needed to weigh his options. First and obvious would be to run forward or back but that idea was trashed considering how quickly the robots came during that reaction test. They would mow him down in seconds.
Second would be to duck down and avoid the initial barrage. Of course that idea would be followed by rolling down a slope to get some distance and there were no slopes near him.
In the end he had only one option which was what he took. Michael leapt back just as they fired then stood behind a tree. While they tore through the bark of the wooden shield, he made his way halfway up the tree with an idea in mind.
Soon enough he heard the sound of the tree cracking, followed by it falling forward. Michael quickly got to a vertical base as the tree fell on top of his attackers, dispatching them instantly. He could hear the others coming towards him now that the first set were gone. A long drawn out fight would only end with his demise so he quickly darted towards the barn while avoiding gun- fire from his pursuers. As much as he wished that he could turn around and shoot right at the robots sensors like they did in movies, he was not physically capable of such a feat.
Michael got to the barn door only to find it was locked.
"You have got to be kidding me", he shouted in frustration then rounded the corner as the robots behind him drew closer. He noticed a possible entry point in a window but it was out of his reach. Michael then took a few steps back before sprinting towards the barn like a madman. When he was close enough he leapt up, his left foot landing on the wooden wall. Before gravity and friction could have their way with him, he planted his right foot on the wall and repeated the process, effectively climbing the wall with no support.
Michael now grabbed onto the edge of the window and hoisted himself up. He took out the gun from his bag and fired a few rounds, shattering the window and allowing him access inside. The youth scrambled into the opening just as the robots caught up to him and fired.
He landed on the inside of the barn with a thud then groaned angrily as he got to his feet. A quick examination showed that he was shot in his right leg and his right hand. Michael tore off the sleeves from his shirt and used them to cover his wound. Though it did the job of mitigating some of the damage, the primary reason Michael did this was to prevent any blood being left behind.
In the event that google decides to launch an investigation to what happened here, a swab of his blood could lead them right to his doorstep and that was the last thing he wanted.
Standing back up, Michael made his way to a cupboard on the far right of the barn. Once there he pulled down one of the ornaments, causing the floor on his right to open, revealing a set of stairs going down. The youth chuckled to himself at how accurate his information was, despite how long time had gone by.
When he reached the end, he opened the door on the left and stood in a large underground room with hundreds of servers standing before him. The child in him wanted to push them all down in a 'domino' effect just to see how it looks.
Unfortunately his childish desires would not be entertained tonight as he took out his sat phone and connected it to the main terminal. The screen lit up followed by a progress bar steadily moving forward.
"You in?" he asked and received silence.
"I'm in", said Barry through the earphone "Damn, the encryption here's pretty tough. They updated some of their firewalls."
"Then it's a good thing I'm here", chimed in Monika.
Michael watched as various boxes of code started opening up before all of it vanished and he now saw a black screen with a single blinking text cursor at the top left.
The cursor moved forward and as it did it showed the message "Confirm upload Y/N?"
Michael pressed Y and saw the progress bar coming up but this time it moved a lot slower than before.
"What's going on?" asked Michael to the phone.
"Well It's going to take a while for us to upload all of Monika's programming and features onto the internet, even with the speeds we have now", said Barry.
"How long are we looking at here?"
"Seven, maybe ten hours to completion", said Monika and Michael bit his lip.
"Fine then I'll stay here till it's done", he said.
"There'd be no point in that", stated Barry "We've already established a link from the computer here to the terminal you're on. Just take out the phone and head back here".
"He's right Michael the mission is complete".
"Fine, fine", he said not wanting to argue with either of them. Michael took out his phone from the terminal then used the same way he entered to exit the facility. He was lucky that the robots were not there waiting for him and darted to the forest before that luck ran out. Once he was sure he was safe, he slowed his pace down to a walk while checking his phone to make sure he was heading to the nearest road.
Once there, he slowly walked towards the nearest town, got himself a cab along with some bandages and headed to the airport. Once there he headed to the bathroom where he proceeded to disinfect and clean his wound before applying the proper dressing.
'She's going to freak out if she finds out', thought Michael to himself as he put on another shirt and pant while tossing his bloodied clothes into the trash.
Once outside, he took a seat, waited for his plane to arrive then boarded. At the moment, he was too tired to notice the couple following behind.
"We have located the target", said the female like she was having a regular conversation "How should we proceed?"
"Follow target to source", said the voice on the other side "Once the source is located, capture and contain the two before transporting".
"Understood", said the female.