"In each Loud's POV."

Gottem.

Memories of the Past, Chapter VII

Sand was not so hot when clouds hid the sun, but the rigid water temperatures had remained the same, never getting hot enough to make for an enjoyable experience for anyone. And there was no exception when on an uncharted island far from any known civilization. Well, on the figurative bright side, the plane had gone down in the ocean, and most of its passengers had survived the hard impact. But the luckiest ones, arguably, had died fast to not see the impending chaos that awaited everyone on land.

To sum it all up, Flight 784 was a commercial plane, officially, but a closer inspection at it would raise questions; it was a special transport aircraft loaded up with a total of twenty inmates all set to be moved to a very special supermax on foreign soil where plausible deniability was an effective pro for the U.S. intended to simply wash their hands off at any given moment. Hackers and peekers be damned, and then there were the whistleblowers who've met untimely 'accidents'.

Whatever, those guys put a target on their back in the name of proper law and justice, idiots. He laughed at their incompetence but respected them for keeping to their ideals and not straying from the righteous path. The path so straight, where you could only walk straight, for someone to jump in and take you out with some measly popgun or a heavy military grader, which was the very reason he hopped right off and hid into the gray.

Right, the gray itself was right above him and the inmate survivors deeper into the island. Rain was coming, so he had to head back to camp- and hopefully the lot had caught a hog or two before the night came. A few more of these days until he siphoned the crucial information surrounding a very special wire account to make a nobody a high-end somebody in so little time. That info currently lied among other brain cells among John Kirkwood, known only by name and tell tales passed about by angry old farts such as Cornelius Dietrich.

Isaac Sanger was there to recover a bunch of that money to please his masters- it had been all his fault for trying to do what the faceless Kirkwood had succeeded in, but the only difference between the two was greed. Here's where things got real tricky and high-octane; it was just a predator after the prey, with no chance of interference, nor intelligence being passed to the masters themselves, meaning he could so make off with the money and attach a fabricated story to it. Hell, the plane had gone down mid-flight, never to have met its destination. John Kirkwood died, and so did he. Yes, it was clever to pull the death card out now and hide out somewhere those wrinklebags and their connections could not find him. New name, new persona, new makeover. Goodbye to the final member of this branch of the Sanger family tree, hello-

"Dylan Blood, that's the name I decided by the time I returned to the states..." He was currently occupied with the artificial intelligence LK while the others, all his enemies, converged on his location. It was meant to keep him there, but he had known he was going to be cornered, and he didn't care about that. Not when he had already achieved his goal and claimed victory. "Everyone wants to know that part of unwritten history, whether or not that money's been taken out or left to be found by some curious hacktivist group, and those who don't believe the lies I've told, and they don't care anymore, because I decided to stay as a lapdog. The perks of being that old man's dirty-handed servant was that he provided serious cash for each of my assignments, and whatever was left over... I think you get the picture."

"Yes, you suggest to have leeched Dietrich as much as possible when you've already gained prominent riches."

"They weren't pleased with Kirkwood's death but hey, better nobody getting that money than him, they said. Threw a party over it and I watched... From the windows, mind you. All that money, right now... It still sits untouched and that's my only leverage from landing in prison for the rest of my life..." He sighed; it wasn't ideal but there might have been no other way than this to keep out of doing time- and he was in such a position to strike a deal with the right people. "I'd have loved most of the cash to be given away to the people who really needed it. This world can use that balance, where no one will know poverty. These elites, the powerfully wealthy, have done nothing but keep to themselves and laugh in their towers as they look down on us all."

"Us?"

"I'm white trash," he explained, "born to a low-class couple and raised in a dump. Not a future anyone needs, wouldn't you agree?"

It stayed silent, giving him an idea that it didn't understand poverty and wealth, for it was a mere construct limited to a digitally wireless world. Or, many?

"I bet you can see for yourself online. Either way, that's what I've been trying to do before these destructive phenos came into the picture. God, I didn't ask for that, and... Shit, it feels unreal to me." He lowered his head and heavily exhaled, like he had taken a blow from a loved one and stood back to process it slowly and emotionally. "To me, it's the same problem, sung differently. Phenos, beings of power who don't even need to give or get currency to get what they want. Good, bad or whatever, they are human, and man can do anything and justify it in their own mind. Doesn't matter whether good or bad, they do for themselves to benefit from it. And-"

Isaac Sanger had arrived back to the camp, where the leader, an older man of muscular physique, still wearing the orange jumpsuit in all its odorous glory, mixed with sweat stains and a faint stench of fish, a bald head but of a baby face complexion, had his arms set on his waist like an impatient high school girl waiting for her date to pick her up for the homecoming dance. This man was the one and only son-of-a-bitch John Kirkwood, who bought his way to the top and had most of the other survivors in his pocket.

Isaac Sanger, and five others who did not like the spot Kirkwood stood on, would not so easily bow to another greedy vermin who was nothing without all that money. Here on this island, Isaac would force his way through the man's lackeys and kill him with his bare hands- or die trying.

"Any sort of power in this world is dangerous," he preached unto LK. "Phenos can't exist. The rich can't exist, and... Just maybe, you cannot allow to exist, yourself. You're..."

Far From Now

"A liability the world can't afford to have," the mysterious visitor had told him through the phone, not breaking her lifeless eyes away from him. He had agreed that he never seen her before but she seemed to be someone important, and was someone who had indeed known him. But that line she said, it was a quote from a talk he had before. He blinked and made a connection, but otherwise kept steady hold on the phone and nodded back to the blonde girl of a green vest and black skirt. "It has been years, but the agenda has not changed. I have to thank you in person, I have never known-"

"You work for that thing I've met..." As impressed as he was, the fear had entered his body. So, this LK has made moves on its own and touched the minds of... Just about everyone, it seems... What does it want that it needs to send a messenger to me here? Or is this a true message of dear gratitude? He turned to look at the armed guard looking over from near the steel door. "Is there anything else it wants to tell me?"

"What do you mean by it?" the blonde had grown dumbfounded but never changed her face expression, nor did she shift her tone of voice. It was... Eerily lifeless, almost zombie-like, maybe even- And the blue eyes switched to red for a mere second, only witnessed by him and maybe the guard watching the monitor of that room, but that guy usually napped around now, drooled even. And without moving her lips, the blonde spoke, "who do you think I am?"

"No, that can't be..." He shook his head in disbelief. "You've gotta be a pheno, I'd buy that over this! Y-you are a pheno, aren't you? N-not that virtual being-"

And the young girl raised her free hand to snap, followed by a sudden power outage that took the entire prison by surprise. "We are ready to serve you, Mister Blood."

"They are here," LK notified him.

"So they are..." He nodded and went silent, to take it in before he, just in case, would come to never enjoy how quiet an atmosphere could be ever again, and promptly smiled. "Thanks..."

"May I ask what for?"

"The lack of argument between us this time, it proves that you just may understand me and therefore..." And nothing. He got enough out before Leven and company had come in, ready to take him in by any means necessary. "Ah, so glad to see I was right!"