Song: Steins;Gate OST - Chaos Mind

It would only be a few hours until the appointed meeting time. To pass the time, Eugene would head towards the Library Building and grab at least two books. The first book - A History of the Nova Wars - detailed the entire history of the Pandora, and the so-called Nova Wars (*1). The second book - Future Intelligence on the Battlefield - detailed the intricate subject of artificial intelligence used in modern warfare, and something related to a company called Cybersoft (*2).

"Those are some interesting books you've got there. Didn't think you'd be interested in those."

He would look up from his book, Future Intelligence, and see Chiffon who looked curious.

"...I just thought of passing the time, and found something worthwhile to read."

"Sure," Her tone made Eugene think of the fact that she was still a little suspicious about his odd behavior lately.

Well, obviously, she's even more suspicious of me than ever before. I may have deliberately been trying to garner attention to myself just for Satellizer's sake, but now I got a worried superwoman who would be keeping a sharp eye on me whenever possible. It's a bit contradictory, but screw it, the mission's gonna be compromised anyway, depends on when it happens, and that's how the Pandoras would piece together the memory links that we all have. He thought.

Time passes by, and he continues reading the book. All the while... his memories were hopping back down memory lane.

"So what are gonna do against Torah?"

Back in the dark future, somewhere on the planet Amos (*3), the Old Eugene was sitting in a briefing room with the rest of his squadron from FOXHOUND. One of his fellow soldiers, Suzuha Hashida, would ask about Torah, the proxy AIs that by 2065 had already completely dominated the world with its surveillance worth of power, and had essentially manipulated the nations through what analysts called the 'war economy' which provided the means to usher in military funding for better weapons and technology against the extradimensional threat of the Nova.

"We can't risk any major interference with Torah's creation."

An old, wrinkled yet still beautiful Scarlet O'hara, whose hair had turned greyer with old age, wearing a lab coat with red tags and a helix symbol found on the shoulders, spoke on the front center as she showed a holographic diagram showcasing a chronological timeline of events.

"If we try to attack at any early point pre-2038, Skynet would notice, and would no doubt act, not to mention that the timeline would change too radically to the point of unrecognizability. Our only viable options are to hinder and limit its influences, preventing general accessibility from all of its nuclear stockpile."

"Something I can definitely handle at least."

Eugene looks right to find an old man wearing glasses, grey hair and brown eyes, speaking softly as he touches the bridges of his glasses.

"Of course, leave it to Octagon to give Skynet the middle finger."

And from his left, an old man with grey hair and blue eyes. He looked like a natural-born Japanese and smiled a bit.

"Now then," Scarlett spoke again. "Once the MFOB's been established in Alaska, we're eventually going to have to start going blind. I've mentioned this before, but the Nova, who by nature came from a different dimension that follows their own laws, is not subject to the normal time zones of our world. We don't know if our temporal interference would either delay or advance the Clashes that are coming, that's why we need to set the pieces up first as quickly as we can and get all of the Pandora ready."

"Easier said than done."

A doubtful tone came from the old Shi-Jing Hong, who leaned back on his chair.

"And that's not even getting into the issues of Leap Frog which are another discussion on the table. The mission's gonna be compromised no matter what, and it all depends on when our Pandoras find out. (*4) And also, trying to convince the entire world that we've essentially created our very own doomsday clock is not exactly practical, especially with Chevalier having global influence."

"Which is why..." Scarlett smiled a little deviously. "...I intend to set their records straight first, one step at a time."

Everyone raised an eyebrow.

"...You wanna expose their laundry," Eugene spoke what everyone was thinking.

"A cause for distraction," Scarlett shrugged her shoulders.

"And that's where I come in I suppose."

Eugene would see a holographic image of a young woman with reddish-chestnut hair and dull violet eyes, wearing a scientist uniform and arms crossed (*5). She smiled softly.

"...I always did wonder just what your world had been like before the War came down, partner."

Beep. Beep. Beep.

A vibration from his phone, which he placed in his pocket, would make him aware of his current surroundings. He was back in the library, with Chiffon giving him a strange, inquiring look.

He would turn the phone on and see the following message. Clicking it, he'd see a happy emoji smile and scrolled to find a link. He clicks it and...

"...Hey, look what I just found," His expression as he flipped the phone's screen for Chiffon to see.

Chiffon drew near a bit and...

"Huh?"

What she was seeing of course, to her shock was... well, there were reports about financial scams, a list of people being ordered to keep quiet about Chevalier's 'illegal' activities, and other stuff that was now out of the open.

"...Based on the news headlines," Eugene spoke with a serious tone. "It seems some anonymous hacker decided to hack through the artificial databases and classified files from Chevalier's computers and distributed them across the internet."

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"...!"

Chiffon would grab hold of her phone and turn it on to look at who was messaging her.

"...Umm," Chiffon spoke hesitantly. "Eugene, I have to go for a bit. But!" She pointed at him. "Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back."

The close-slit-eyes woman would begin to turn back and walk right, leaving Eugene to check on his phone.

...Now with the entire world and especially Chevalier are being distracted by the recent scandals, the Resistance can move quietly without anybody noticing. He thought. Elizabeth would have probably heard of the news by now, as much as anyone else. At least she doesn't need to worry about her family business (*6) getting run over to the ground by them at some point by them.

Trivia For Chapter:

(*1) - The Nova Wars is an armed conflict that refers to the war that humanity is waging against the invading extradimensional Nova, a race from a different dimension. It started during the Four Year War, which refer to the first four Nova Clashes which happened during the years of 2012 to 2015.

(*2) - In the world of Freezing, Cybersoft was established during the 1950s, somewhere in the state of California. It first began as a local manufacturing corporation before eventually expanding into a multinational corporation and technology company known for providing state-of-the-art weapons and technology. This company would play a prominent part in the Nova Wars and worked with providing technology and equipment for Chevalier and Genetics. The company, by the year 2012 and a few months before the First Nova Clash, eventually developed a group of proxy AI called Torah, and by 2039 became online and operational.

Unbeknownst to most, Torah is actually Skynet. Skynet had essentially taken over the proxy AIs and co-opted them to be its secret surveillance for the world of Freezing and try to study said world and its history. Through Torah, Skynet learned about the existence of the Pandora and of the Nova, both of which Skynet classified as a threat to its existence, and thus became the spark to develop more advanced Terminators and Hunter Killers that would combat them.

(*3) - Amos was a Resistance-controlled planet located somewhere on the edge of the Andromeda Galaxy, in the designated interdimensional coordinates: XL348. It was one of the main bases of operations without danger of any kind of Skynet-related influence.

(*4) - Operation Leap Frog's Plan A was at least theoretically intended to keep the Limiters' true identities and temporal status a secret for a duration of time. But this is proven to be unrealistic due to the remnant timeline memory connections that the Limiters would have from their Pandoras the moment they land on the past. Once the Leap Frog takes effect, possible compromise is a given. Hence, Plan AB, which is more on trying to adapt to the circumstances.

(*5) - Amadeus Windows is an artificial intelligence based on the memory data of a Resistance scientist, Dr. Kurisu Makise, who created it specifically for Eugene.