Author's Note: All celebrity names, appearances, and actions are merely fragments of ObsidianTheatre's imagination.
MAX: NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Time. Counted in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years. Time has always been limited, humans upon average live up to only 80 years of life - our time even shorter.
"U-Know, Max!" Hero called. The man standing beside me flinched, and then pivoted around. I mimicked his movement, my eyes traveling to the man who summoned us. Hero's back was facing us, as was everyone else's in the room. All were gawking at the mainframe computer, upon it; a peculiar ashen feather was falling from the peak of the screen, down to the very bottom.
"What is it?" Aura cried, breaking the silence that had begun after Hero's last words. "Is that a feather?" I rushed towards the keyboard, pushing aside Hero. Is it possible? Has someone managed to hack into our system? My fingers rapidly typed in the required information, the things needed to secure the files. Nothing can come in, and nothing can go out. However, the feather remained, ominously continuing its journey to the end of the screen, its already half way there, if I don't figure something out quick…
"Aura*, go get Zeus." Alecto* commanded. Nothing happened; my efforts didn't go through, all the programs I opened began to close, slowly, one at a time.
"Max, are you doing that?" No, it's a hack, someone managed to cut through our security! What to do? I know that something horrid is going to happen if that feather reaches its destination. I have no choice, I have to –
"Max, what's happening?" Zeus stormed in, Aura skipping behind him.
"I think our CPU has been hacked." I replied, turning back to my work. "I believe I have no choice but to delete all records." I begun the task, ignoring the threatening presences of the feather, ignoring the muttering of speech behind me, ignoring the growing fear of information entering enemy hands. Time has reduced to a matter of seconds. Frustration and annoyance started to creep up on me; the system was lagging, as if the feather had taken up so much room. No! The feather had reached the end!
"Damn!" Alecto cried, expressing my own anger in her words. "The stupid little thing got to the end!" We all stood, holding our breaths waiting to see what the feather is going to do. Suddenly the frozen white feather began spewing more of its self, filling the entire screen with white, almost to the point where everything underneath was completely hidden by the feathers.
"Go shut down the power." Zeus said. His eyes still fastened onto the screen. Hero raced out of the room, Aura prancing after him. Then rapidly, the feathers dispersed, revealing…the emblem of the Naikaku Joho Chosasitu – black wings.
"God Dammit! It's them." Alecto muttered, along with even more profanities.
"Welcome, NIS." An eerie high pitched voice said. "To a game of patience." The wings disappeared, only to be replaced with a pitch black screen and dark purple and blue squares and rectangles.
"U-Know, stop Hero." Zeus cried. U-know dashed out the door, almost leaping down the staircase. The character of the game appeared on the left hand corner, a young man, clothed in a white tunic lined with gold. It was something one would see the gods and goddesses of Olympia would where as depicted in the statues. He was armed with a sword, dressed in armoury, and was clad with a pair of black wings.
"Your goal is to lead Xiah out of the clutches of the frenzied, and wicked Poseidon. Fail to do so will lead you back to where you started." Right after those words, unnaturally cheerful music erupted.
"Poseidon?" I asked. Did they figure that Poseidon was on our side? If so, then Xiah would by one of theirs. Wait, of Poseidon's secret was revealed, that would mean – they probably didn't leave him alive.
"They planned it so that we would be fighting ourselves."
"Dear Lord." Alecto mumbled. "This music is so….irritating."
"Should I play it?" I asked Zeus. He continued to stare at the screen considering the factors.
"Well, it seems as though we have no choice, how the NJC managed to hack into our system I don't know, but the files we had are too important to lose, not only that, but will shutting down the system actually rid of them?" Just as he finished, U-Know, Hero, and Aura stepped into the room.
"A game?" Hero burst out. Aura laughed.
"It looks like that 'Kid Icarus' one!" Come to think of it, it is similar, though the moral and the malevolent sides have been reversed. Aura hopped up and stood beside me. "Here, let me play!"
Alecto growled, slamming her hands upon the keyboard. I cringed.
"Dammit, this stupid game is annoying me!" Of course, time hasn't let up upon us. A few minutes into playing the game, we realized that this wasn't meant to steal information from us – our security was too strong for them to manage, however, their tactic was stall, prevent us from moving forward. My reverie was suddenly crushed as a masculine figure marched towards me. Their left eye obscured beneath pitch black fringes. Their right, gloomy black, making it impossible to tell between iris and pupil. Alecto. "Max, go fix the monitor before I punch you." She threatened. I stuttered, and glanced at the screen, the computer mouse was embedded deeply into the center, around it the game scenery remained.
"Not again…" Hero moaned. U-Know grinned, shaking his head at his sister.
"Hey look! Alecto managed to get farther than any of us!" Aura cried, gazing at the screen, squinting past the cracks.
"Ya, then I died." Alecto snapped.
"You know what," U-Know began, "What if the NJC has already managed to cut into our system?" his brow furrowed in thought. "What if they are only using this as a distraction while they read our information?"
"No, the system is much too protected for that to happen." I said. "This must only be a ruse to attempt to hack…"
"Huh?" Aura said.
"With us struggling to beat this completely unfair game," I started to explain. "They must be using this time to break through the defence mechanism!"
"Then time is against us." Hero muttered.
"Some has to fix the computer."
"Get the new guy too."
U-Know called the new intern; he strode in and gaped at the broken screen.
"Again?"
Four hours in and still we are labouring over the game. However with the combined efforts of Alecto, Aura, and I, we managed to scrape past most of the levels and stand before the last superior – without any more physical harm done to the mainframe.
"If we beat him, then it's done." Zeus said. Coming in to watch our progress, unfortunately he hasn't had the time to help us through, as he has other matters to attend to. "If we lose, then more time is wasted."
Well, the goal of this battle was to cut the Sea Serpent's three heads off. The dilemma was that the beast was shooting orbs of water, snapping its ferocious fangs, and swiping its tail whenever Xiah even moves close to it, making it almost nigh impossible to kill.
"So, does anyone have a strategy on how to beat it?" Aura asked.
"Watch for patterns in its movement, strike when it's not, and watch for when it's preparing for some huge attack." U-Know said, indolently from the corner of the room. Heeding his words, I started the fight.
"Careful Max…" Alecto muttered, completely tense with the hours shattered by this thing, obviously she didn't want to start over again. Suddenly Xiah took a hit, flying back. I flinched. Alecto scowled. I moved aside for her. She took the controls and began easing towards the fiend.
"Yes!" Aura cried, jumping around and clapping her hands.
"Finally." Alecto breathed. U-know laughed, smiling at his younger sister's antics. Hero slapped my back in encouragement. Zeus sighed in relieve. The Sea Serpent was beat, as Xiah rose over the screen, beginning what would be the ending credits. However the screen flashed black, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. Unexpectedly, someone's decapitated head appeared. His eyes open and blank, his mouth agape, blood and maggots disgorged out of the exposed dead flesh of his neck. The tissue already growing brown with rot. Poseidon.
My breath caught in my throat, as my stomach turned from the gruesome sight. Aura turned away, shocked. Zeus curled his fingers into a fist. The screen once again grew black, however only for a mere second as the setting of the game returned. Xiah is now carrying the animation form of Poseidon's head soaring through clouds towards a figure – distinctly female. She had long hair, pouring down her shoulders, a thin braid held the front back, almost creating a diadem, she was donned in a long black tunic, her arms open, welcoming Xiah.
"Congratulations Xiah, you have defeated Poseidon. And this world's corruption can be cleansed through our efforts through your dedication. But we must continue to fight and so does our struggles. We will defeat Zeus together." With those words, Xiah arrived at the feet of the woman, kneeling before her he gave her his fealty. She smiled and presented her left hand to him; he took it and kissed it. In the mist of that, the screen returned to how it was five hours ago.
Silence.
"They know who we are." Alecto said.
*Aura: Goddess of Early Morning Breeze
*Alecto: Goddess of Unceasing Anger