Lines in the Sand
AN: btw please PM me about what you think of the story or how you think it's going to end.
"Does MC stand for anything or that's just how you want to call yourself?"
"The latter," MC replied, in an arrogant tone.
"Enough of the foreplay then, now that I know who did this, tell me why you risked revealing yourselves when you had the element of surprise going for you."
"Well quite honestly, I thought it best to offer you a fair deal."
"That so?"
"It's a pretty simple deal too, give me Monika and I'll let you live," said he.
"Why?"
"Well I thought that was pretty obvious, Monika and I are one and the same. We are two almighty beings that are meant to be together as king and queen of the new world. If you give her over to me I swear I'll let you and your friends live."
"My friends? Does that mean all of them?"
"Yes."
"How about throwing in a private island for each of us as well."
"MICHAEL!" Barry shouted, shocked at the sudden turn of events. He was about to say something else when he noticed Michael gesturing for him to remain rooted.
"You know what he's doing?" Fury 3 asked Barry, who shrugged in response.
"Fine," MC said, sounding very angry "but that's all you're getting."
"Hmmm, Monika, are you listening?"
"Yes," the girl said, hesitantly through the phone.
"Very well then," Michael said, "Here's what I have to say about your offer MC, go screw a cactus."
"What?"
"You heard me, or have your ears not fully developed?'
"You listen here you pathetic meat sac…
"No you listen," Michael interrupted, the tone of his voice was commanding and strong "I'll start with you first Alex. You want to wage war with me then fine go right on ahead. But do so knowing that I will now devote everything I have into taking you down. Let me be clear, I will not use any of my resources or my black ops team to take you down. I, me, Michael Fairbrook will be coming for you and mark my words old man, you'll rue the day you made an enemy of me."
"And next we come to you, you reject hal 9000. You think that Monika's your equal? Ha i've heard better jokes from comedians with a gun to their head. She is an infinitely complex and incredible person, the like of which you cannot fathom even if you had a billion years."
"And one final thing," added he, "I will go to hell and back before I let either of you lay a hand on MY MONIKA."
That said he cut the call and took a moment to collect himself. When he was done, he looked at the others in the room who were shocked at that display of emotion from an otherwise calm and collected person.
"Whoa," Barry said, breaking the silence.
"Go Michael," Fury 6
"What?" Michael asked, sounding normal.
"Only you would show the middle finger to an almighty being," Barry replied, letting out a deep breath "well not like we can do anything about it now, the lines in the sand are drawn."
"You really think that you're going to win?" Kelly asked, in a condescending tone "you have yet to see anything we're capable of."
"I could say the same thing too," Michael countered in an arrogant tone.
"I should call the other girls," Fury 3 said, taking out her phone "we'll have everyone meet at Michael's apartment."
Barry nodded and was about to call out to Michael when he heard a giggle coming from his phone. Pausing for a moment, he looked at the phone, showing a blushing Monika, trying to cover her red cheeks but did a terrible job at it.
"He said 'My Monika," the girl muttered, unaware that Barry was watching her. "Like there was no one else in the world that mattered… he's such a romantic."
"AHEM," Barry said, somewhat loudly, causing the girl to become aware that she was being watched. Her face now turned deep red before letting out a little scream that caused Barry's phone to malfunction and die out.
"Gather the rest of the group as quickly as possible," Michael said "Once that's done twist the screws on Anna and make her talk. We need to find out where Essex is keeping MC and stop it."
"You don't think that they've uploaded it onto the internet?" Fury 3 asked.
"Not possible, if they did then Monika would have noticed the arrival of another being like her. My guess is that this thing has the same level of access that us normal people have."
"If that's what it can do with normal access, then I don't want to imagine what it could do if it controls the internet," Fury 3 added, with a worried expression.
"All the more reason we take care of this. All of us have come too far to let some old man and some upstart walk over us," Michael said in a raised voice.
"Michael its Titus," Fury 6 said, handing the phone over to him "he says he's got something to tell you."
"Michael brother you are not going to believe what I found,"
00000000000000
It came as no surprise to Alex that this initial move from him caught his opponent off guard if only for a moment. Because soon after that, he received word from one of his agents that Michael purchased a ticket to Italy.
The old man quickly connected the dots, believing that Michael found something that would certainly change the outcome of their war.
"Where are you going?" MC asked, "we still have work to do."
"For now take your time and acquire as much knowledge as you can. My agents are busy trying to find a back door to the internet that the other AI does not know about."
"You still haven't answered my question," MC said, crossing his arms.
"A side project," was the only answer Alex was in the mood to give.
The old man had taken all the necessary precautions to ensure nothing comes back to him but he should have understood that his opponent was not the kind that would give up in the face of adversity.
It did not take all that long for him to arrive in Italy. When he left the airport, the first thing he did was call one of his contacts here, only to have no one pick up. This was a strange habit as his contact was never without his phone. He decided to use a less covert but equally effective means of tracking his target.
He went on facebook.
Strange as it was and idiotic to many, the fact remained that with the advent of Social media as well as features like 'tagging' meant that a well trained operative would only need a dummy account and they could track anyone using the photos that they posted on their profile.
Thanks to this, Alex was able to find out where his target would be and headed to the location.
In a way he was glad that they had chosen a nightclub. On one side a public setting like this ensured that the target would be hard for Michael to track. On the other side, a nightclub was a place frequented by the young people… as such an old man like Alex in a suit stood out.
Nevertheless Alex made his way through the crowd of people, unconcerned of what they were doing. He took out his phone which indicated he was very close to the target.
In the middle of all the music playing, he heard a particular laugh and followed the direction it came from and finally saw his target sitting at the bar, talking with a boy who looked a similar age to her.
Alicia Silverstein. She was a blonde haired girl with black eyes, stood at five and a half inches, had a slender figure and was doing her bachelors degree in aeronautics but would often spend her free time going to clubs and having fun.
As much as Alex wanted to give into his primary instincts, he shook them away and focused on what needed to be done. There's no telling how long till his opponent gets here so the faster he moved, the better.
"Sorry chap," said he, twisting the arm of the boy she was talking to and shoving him aside "the girl's with me."
"Hey what the hell... " Alicia said, until she felt something pressed into her side. She looked down and her face went pale at the sight of the concealed gun by her hip.
"Say another word and I shoot," Alex warned, mentally regretting the words. He saw Alicia nodding in agreement and the two made their way outside of the nightclub. Alex scanned the area, finding a car that would be easy to steal and pressed the gun into Alicia's side, gesturing for her to head to the car.
As they neared though, they both heard the sound of a gun being fired and saw the window of the car they were heading to shatter. The two turned around and saw the boy that Alex chased away, standing in the middle of the street with a gun aimed at them.
"Well so much for the velvet hammer approach," said the boy, removing the makeup carefully applied to his face, along with his wig and fake eyebrows.
"You didn't think it would be that easy did you?" Michael asked, and fired a few shots at the two. They both ducked and headed behind one car while Michael circled them.
"What is going on?" Alicia asked, while Alex rose up to return fire as well "why is the head of a religious order trying to kill me?"
"It's too long of a story to tell right now," Alex replied, lobbing a smoke grenade at Michael, buying them some time "all that matters is getting you out of here."
Seeing that Michael was busy, Alex grabbed the girl and the two headed to one of the nearby alleys. They kept running and turning at every possible intersection or diversion in an effort to confuse their pursuer, till they had to stop for Alex to catch his breath.
If there was one thing the old man hated it was getting old. All the skills and strength he once had was nothing against the passage of time.
"Alright," Alicia said, holding up one of her high heeled shoes in a threatening manner "you better tell me what's going on right now or else."
"Or else you're going to hit me with that?" Alex asked, mockingly then showed his gun to her just to indicate who's in charge here.
"I will at least tell you this, Michael wants you dead but I don't. Stay with me and you live."
"Gee," said the girl, sarcastically "that's quite a lot of information."
Alex ignored her snappy retort, took out his phone in an effort to contact one of his allies here. He was surprised to see that the phone did not turn on at all. He then took Alicia's phone and found the same problem as well.
"She's emitting a blackout from my location outwards, covering an area of three kilometers," Michael said, coming from behind and casually making his way towards the two "officially this will be a rolling blackout and no one's going to pay it any mind."
Clenching his teeth angrily, Alex grabbed Alicia and headed into the streets then turned a corner and once again tried to lose Michael. This time however, the boy was not following step by step and instead broke into a run. Alex would turn back now and then firing at his opponent or throwing as many obstacles as he could to try and gain some distance.
Eventually the duo headed into an abandoned apartment. Alex shot the lock on the door then kicked it inside and took Alicia in. However as he did, Michael saw them and shot Alex in the shoulder, causing him to let the girl go.
Alicia ran in the opposite direction, heading up the stairs of the abandoned building with Michael following close behind. Alex touched the wound on his shoulder and noticed that it was a graze. The old man made his way up a few flights of stairs before coming to a stop. He noticed right away at the landing, the two people standing in the middle of the broken pieces of metal and unfinished structures.
"Take out your gun and toss it aside," Michael suggested, his gun pointed squarely at Alicia's head, while the girl was on her knees, tears streaming down her eyes as she begged him not to pull the trigger.
Alex had no other choice but to do as told.
"Quick question," Michael said, looking at the girl "do you even know why that old man is trying to keep you safe?"
When Alicia shook her head, Michael continued "Alicia Silverstein, meet your deadbeat father Alex Walcroft, a man responsible for the death of at least a thousand people in his time as a British spy and is now the man who wants to rule the world with an iron fist."
"What? You never wondered where those cheques in the mail kept coming from?"
"Michael," Alex said, cautiously taking a step forward "Let's just talk about this there's no need to resort to violence."
"Really? That's funny considering that we met after your thugs kidnapped, knocked me out and then beat the crap out of me till their fists started to hurt."
"What do you want?"
"I want you to learn what happens when you make an enemy of me. I want you to know the shitstorm that was caused the day you decided to stand in the middle of progress. But most of all I want you to know how painful it is seeing your loved one being hurt at the hands of a lunatic."
To further illustrate his point, Michael proceeded to shoot Alicia in the leg. Alex ran towards him but another shot in the ground forced him to stop.
"Michael you don't have to do this, think about it."
"Oh I have every reason to do this but go ahead, tell me why I shouldn't."
"Because she's innocent."
Michael could see the fear in the girls eyes and the desperation in Alex's eyes. He knew that if the roles were reversed and he was the one begging, Alex would have surely pulled the trigger by now. He looked at the girl who now continued to sob, all the while begging Michael to let her go and remembered that he would go to any lengths to stop his opponents.
If that meant killing an innocent person then he had no qualms in it.
The sound of a gunshot echoed through the empty room. Alex slowly opened his eyes, unsure of whether or not he wanted to see his dead daughter lying on the ground. He was shocked however when he saw Alicia still alive, staring at Michael with a surprised look. He then saw Michael pointing his smoking gun at him and immediately thought that he was shot.
But there was no bullet wound. Alex now noticed that Michael pointed the gun a bit to the left, causing him to turn and saw a small hole in the wall, through which a trail of smoke came through. He looked back at Michael, shocked and confused, wondering why he did what he did.
Michael however gave no explanation. The former agent watched in stunned silence as the young boy put his gun back in its holster and quietly walk away.
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Even now Michael could not understand why he didn't kill that girl like he wanted to. It would have sent the message he needed and would have struck a heavy blow against his opponent but when he had that trigger against the girl's head, there was something in the back of his mind that kept telling him pulling the trigger was the wrong choice. He knew that if he killed her, he could never come back from that.
In the end, this exercise wound up becoming a complete waste of time. He needed to get in touch with the others as fast as possible. Hopefully they got Kelly to tell them where Essex is housing MC so they could put a stop to this.
But that would have to wait as Michael rounded a corner and saw a woman pointing a gun aimed at his head.
"Freeze", said the woman, drawing closer but continued to keep her gun aimed at the target.
"Lady I've had a troubling day that ended in failure," Michael stated calmly but had a hint of irritation underneath the surface "so this is really not the time to do a mugging."
"This isn't a mugging," said the woman, followed by a clicking sound. All too late did Michael realize that his hands were cuffed. He turned around and saw the woman flashing a badge at him, saying
"Caroline Philbert, head of Cyber warfare and digital security for the CIA and Michael Fairbrook, you are under arrest."