SPLINTER CELL: MEGIDDO

PROLOGUE– "SAM'S WOUND"

Chapter 1— "A Fisher and His Daughter"

Location Unknown

Year 2034

Sam Fisher woke up covered in heavy wounds; he was cuffed to a chair inside a dark cylinder-shaped room lined with strange, glowing blue lights on the sides of the walls.

"Where am I?" Sam said.

Sam could see a dark steel door nearby with voices talking behind it that he couldn't recognize.

"What the hell's going on?" said Sam. "Who are you, and what do you want from me?"

"To answer the first question, Sam…" said a voice whose familiarity shocked Sam as the door's magnetic locks opened, "…you're dead."

"Sarah?" said Sam as his only daughter walked in, wearing a Splinter Cell uniform minus its mask and goggles.

Speaking of said mask and goggles, a kit of set mask and goggles along with a Karambit knife, an OPSAT, a suppressed SC-IS pistol and a multi-purpose SC-20K assault rifle kit and its various attachments were all lying on a table between them.

Looking around the room, Sam asked his daughter, "Sarah, are you okay?"

Sarah was silent for a moment.

"What's going on, Sarah? Why are we here… and where's here?"

"After the op in the Koreas, you were disavowed," said Sarah as she walked around the room and Sam's memories played on the walls of the room in black and white. "Made into a rogue agent, and nearly framed for inciting a war between North and South Korea."

Recalling the op, Sam said, "Right… I remember. The two of us prevented the war from happening though… we put the conspiracy to an end."

"Not entirely," said Sarah, "as the conspiracy ran deeper than that. Brent Lassiter, the man who was put in charge of Fourth Echelon, was pulling strings at the time, counting on making sure the war happened. As for who was pulling his strings, it was the very group the two of us have feared all along, the group responsible for our separation all those years ago."

Sarah stopped walking for a moment before turning to Sam and speaking again. "It was Megiddo, Sam."

"Megiddo?" said Sam as he looked at Sarah. "How'd you find out about this?"

"While you were disavowed," said Sarah, "I continued on to be a member of Fourth Echelon. It wasn't long before I became Fourth Echelon's most infamous field agent since you were no longer one."

"I know," said Sam, "Becoming an agent was what you wanted… As for me, I admit I never fully made peace with it."

"Was that why you decided not to visit me?" said Sarah.

"No," said Sam, "it was because I wanted to keep you—"

"Safe?" said Sarah as she couldn't help but laugh slightly. "Safe from what? You didn't want me to get hurt? Did you ever consider if I hadn't already been hurt from all the times when you weren't there for me as a child, when you were off abroad, saving the world from terrorism?"

Sam's heart pounded as he watched his memories of his time with (and away from) Sarah play on the walls.

"Did you want to keep me safe from the pain of losing both my parents after Regan was already dead from cancer? From the terror of being put in danger myself, kidnapped and threatened countless times… From having my own death faked?"

"It was because I wanted to keep you from becoming a monster like me!" said Sam.

Sarah said to Sam, "It doesn't matter. Now I'm a monster too."

This is a nightmare… Sam thought.

Sarah held up a watch in her hand that Sam gifted her when she was a kid.

"You kept that?" said Sam.

"When you were leaving for another trip abroad, you told me to count the ticks the watch's hands make until you got back home, or until I got bored of counting."

"I remember…" said Sam. "I'm sorry, Sarah."

"I was always more like you than you realized. A loner, a ghost in the mist… Like you, I've kept the person I really was hidden under the cover of darkness."

Suddenly Sam started to see images of everyone he ever loved around him on the walls. "You've lost countless people you've loved… Your wife, Regan… Your fellow soldiers in the Gulf War, your friends in the CIA, Third Echelon… Katia Loenstern… Vernon Wilkes, Jr.… Arthur Partridge… Douglas Shetland… Irving Lambert… Enrica Villablanca… Some of them died by your own hand."

Sarah continued, "There have been people I've lost along the way too… Including someone very important to me."

"Who?" said Sam, looking at Sarah in confusion. "Who'd you lose, Sarah?"

Sarah said, "It's probably best I retrace your memory. You are starting to lose it, after all…"

"I'm not that old, am I?" Sam said while smirking to himself.

"Do you remember the time when you got the news of my death?" said Sarah.

"The time when I was on an op in Iceland?" said Sam.

"No," said Sarah, "the time when you were staying off the grid with the help of Kobin, while I was fighting off threats to civilization with Fourth Echelon."

Sam looked around the room, then his eyes went wide as he said, "C2."

"So you do remember," said Sarah.

"I do," said Sam. "I do…"

Location Unknown

Lucas Winter was in a conference room that was a part of his massive office; he was talking to a set of several holograms sitting at the conference table.

The holograms were projections of people communicating from all over the globe. These people were members of a group that few others on Earth were allowed to know about the existence of.

The two leaders of the group were Colonel Max Claymore and himself.

Colonel Max Claymore was the one in charge of organizing and helping run the group's various next-generation military, espionage, and counter-terror units and then sending them on joint operations.

Whereas Lucas's financial conglomerate, Concord, was responsible for funding the group.

"Mr. Winter," said Max, "tell me as much as you can about this 'C2' we're going up against. The company that created it, ObtainR, was one of Concord's subsidiaries after all."

Lucas said to Max, "For starters, it's an existential threat to humanity in its current state. It's an artificial superintelligence that was developed by ObtainR. Its initial purpose was to help run a next-generation system of military drones as well as help mass produce a neural link patent that augmented soldiers could use to control their prosthetics using their minds. It had potential. But as we now know thanks to Fourth Echelon… the project got out of control."

"Right," sighed Max as he ran a hand through his graying hair. "The battlefield is ever-evolving, but in spite of it, there will always be a need for human components."

"I wouldn't count on that assumption forever, Colonel," said Lucas.

"He's not. Max is probably just feeling nostalgic for the days of the Cold War right about now," said a redheaded woman, Anna Grimsdottir, who was the current co-leader of Fourth Echelon, one of the group's child agencies.

Max smirked at this. "I usually am. Tell Mr. Winter what you told me after being rescued from capture in Malta, Grim."

"It's probably better if we started from the beginning, Max," said Grim. "We had already been chasing leads on an unknown terrorist group attempting to mimic both sides of the new cold war. Fourth Echelon, Voron, the Ghosts, the Phantoms… and so on. This terrorist group turned out to be a certain set of next-generation soldiers, ones who had their minds uploaded to cyborg bodies. Cyborg bodies developed by ObtainR."

Another woman, a woman known only as Karen Bowman, said, "We managed to rescue a Phantom, Li Si Yuan, who had been captured by a unit of these cyborgs. That was how we managed to track down Grim to Malta, and identify the cyborgs' bodies as being patented by ObtainR."

Grim said, "I managed to hack into a cyborg's internal 'brain-computer' with the help of a hacker on Fourth Echelon's payroll and discover intelligence about something vital that was being protected by this set of rogue cyber-soldiers at the company's manufacturing hub in Singapore. That something ended up being a someone. Dr. Carine Carlsen."

"One of the two founders of ObtainR," said Lucas.

"Is it all right if I explain what happened to Mr. Winter, Grim?" said another woman, one much more timid than the others.

Recognizing her voice and face, Lucas said, "No need to ask for permission, Dr. Carlsen. If you have information to share, then share it."

"Right… I'm just a little shaken up after all that's happened leading up to now," said Dr. Carlsen. "The other founder of ObtainR… My partner, Dr. Theodore Crane… he went mad. Fell in love with his own creation. He had me imprisoned, and the rest of ObtainR's board of directors slaughtered."

"Why did he spare you?" said Lucas.

"It's a long story…"

"He had feelings for you, didn't he?"

"And I for him. But not anymore," said Dr. Carlsen. "He's become a monster."

"Put your feelings aside, Dr. Carlsen," said Lucas.

"I have," she said. "I was working on a project known as C2 with Crane under duress. Like stated earlier, it's a superintelligence, an AI with computing powers of magnitudes unimaginable to human minds. Unfortunately, Theo- Dr. Crane… had plans not only to put C2 in charge of the company's global operations, but to brainwash a set of several soldiers from various militaries across the globe, working both for nations and corporations, that had been augmented with his cyborg body patents…. and turn them into an army of his own."

Dr. Crane's voice trembled as she said, "He erased their human consciousnesses from their brain-computers. Other than their external human appearances, they're now nothing more than androids capable of pretending to be their former selves."

Lucas's eyes opened wider at Dr. Crane as she mentioned this.

"After that, I knew I had to do something," said Dr. Crane. "I tried to shut down C2 using a virus, but I failed. As a result, C2 retaliated by locking out all the factory workers in Singapore's hub and used its army of posthuman cyborgs in their place to automate the process. I was trapped there when Sarah rescued me."

"Sarah?" said Lucas as he raised his eyebrows. Turning to Grim, he said, "Would this Sarah happen to be the daughter of the infamous Sam Fisher?"

"The one and only," said Grim.

"I didn't realize she was still a Splinter Cell after what happened in North Korea."

"She's been more discreet since then," said Grim. "Out of all the recent Splinter Cells added to Fourth Echelon's roster, she's the most promising. She's already completed an impressive amount of missions. She's been a part of Fourth Echelon for longer than Sam has at this point… although unlike Sam, she was never a part of Third Echelon."

Dr. Carlsen said, "I had also managed to send a hard drive containing C2's source code to Crane's penthouse in Manhattan and alert the US government so they'd try and intercept it in my efforts to stop C2. I wasn't able to alert the government, but thankfully they found me eventually."

"Sarah managed to recover the source code as C2's androids tried to get away with it in collaboration with Rainbow Six," said Grim. "The resulting fight in Brooklyn practically led to another 9/11."

"After that," said Max, "things got more complicated. That's around the time you requested this task force be built, Lucas."

"Tell me about what happened at the London International Airport," said Lucas.

"Dr. Crane and C2 were onto us by then," said Max. "We deployed Rainbow to Heathrow to stop ObtainR's androids from starting a massive terrorist attack there. They wanted to frame the various agencies of the task force for the attack by mimicking them in order to take us off the playing field. While we had no choice but to act, it turns out it was a diversion."

Karen Bowman said, "C2 started deploying decoy signals for the location of the next phase of its operation across the world. The Ghosts just managed to locate it while they were in Bolivia dealing with the Santa Blanca cartel by coincidence."

"It was in Bolivia?" said Lucas.

"That's correct," said Karen Bowman.

Dr. Carlsen said, "Dr. Crane bragged to me about C2 planning a massive operation of some kind. He called it 'Specter Autonomous'. Apparently they had been planning the operation there in Bolivia for months."

"Sam encountered intel concerning an empty quiver in a collaboration with the Ghosts a while back…" said Grim. "We managed to apprehend Dr. Crane at his rooftop villa in Nagoya. Enhanced interrogation led to Dr. Crane divulging the nature of this operation."

Dr. Carlsen said, "Specter Autonomous is ultimately about turning humanity posthuman… but to do that, humanity would need a reason to augment themselves and become transhuman first before Dr. Crane would have their minds wiped collectively. He planned to do that via unleashing a nuclear Armageddon."

"He plans to start a world war in order to profit off of it by selling his augmentation patents?" said Lucas. "How?"

"After using his posthuman army to infiltrate Voron and then the Kremlin," said Grim, "he obtained launch codes to an old Soviet nuclear launch facility in Siberia that's housing enough missiles to turn most major cities in the United States and Europe to ash. Several of his army's best units are at that site now."

"The situation is urgent then," said Lucas, leaning forward in his chair. "What's our plan?"

"The 'plan' is mostly play-by-play once we send our own units into the field," said Max. "Long story short, our plan is to infiltrate the launch facility and stop the missiles from launching. Otherwise the world will be plunged into a nuclear winter in a matter of under 48 hours."

"It's worth mentioning that, according to Dr. Crane during his interrogation sessions, he originally had larger ambitions for C2 that were never fully actualized. The shipyard in Nagoya was meant for assembling a fully autonomous cyborg body production factory where C2 could be housed and would then be able to produce enough augmented bodies to replace the entirety of the human race's normal bodies," said Grim. "ObtainR didn't have enough resources for such a massive project. It's a good thing it was never finished, because it sounds like something we wouldn't be able to stop."

"Specter Autonomous. A Death Star run by an AI…" Sitting back in his chair, Lucas said, "All right. You've more than convinced me that C2 is a clear and present danger to the future of humanity. Colonel Claymore, you've got a blank check. Use all of its funds to stop Specter Autonomous, and I mean all of them."

"I plan to," said Max.

"Also, do me a favor and obtain a sample of C2's source code," said Lucas.

"What? Why?"

"So we can figure out how to prevent something like C2 from coming to life in the future."

"We'll get it done," said Grim. "Fourth Echelon, the Ghosts, Rainbow Six, and HAWX are deploying to shut down Specter Autonomous."

"What about the other child agency of the task force?" said Lucas.

"The Strategic Homeland Division?" said Max. "They're playing defense. The Division is in charge of the protection detail for the POTUS. President Postman has been moved to a bunker in Los Angeles, along with the nuclear football, in an effort to prevent C2's androids from getting their hands on it. L.A. is a battlefield hidden in plain sight right about now."

"Damn it…" said Lucas. "I see. Good luck, then. You'll need it. One more thing, Colonel…"

"Yes, Lucas?" said Max.

"This task force… It needs a proper name."

"I'm shit at naming things."

"How about the Elite?" said Grim.

"The Elite?"

"Because we're the best of the best."

"It does stick," said Max, who shrugged his shoulders.

"All right," said Lucas. "That'll have to do, then."

Looking at the door to his office as he heard a knock, Lucas said, "I have something I need to attend to. This meeting is adjourned. For the sake of humanity's future, don't fail."

Max and the others nodded, and their holograms dissolved from their spots in the conference room one by one until it was just Lucas.

"Come in, Katya," said Lucas.

A blonde woman in her mid-twenties spoke. She had blue eyes like Lucas's, but not the same blue eyes.

"How much of that did you overhear?"

"Enough to know that we're facing an existential threat to humanity… and that you plan on using said threat to advance Concord's own agenda."

"You heard that bit about me wanting a sample of the AI's source code, didn't you?" Lucas chuckled. "Whether we like it or not, Katya… progress can't be stopped."

"But isn't this business with the cyborgs too much progress?"

"Perhaps it is," said Lucas. "But that doesn't matter. C2 and its cyborgs are part of the vision I have for the future, Katya. And I want to be certain that the future has you in it."

"But what about the rest of humanity?"

Lucas said to Katya, "Part of what is required to run Concord, which you'll someday inherit from me, Katya, is to understand the nature of capitalism."

"You mean chasing opportunities for profit."

"Yes," said Lucas, "and while the opportunities for profit are good for us since we're the ones profiting from it, they may not be so good for certain parts of humanity."

"I… I don't understand what C2 has to do with capitalism, or Concord, father."

"Dr. Crane tried to create a godlike entity in the image of humans, Katya," said Lucas. "If you want to create something like that in our image, you have to create a society in our image too. That's something he failed to understand. You and I… we won't make the same mistake."

Lucas said, "I already told you what Concord really is, Katya. You're old enough to know. It's only a matter of time before you inherit the company. You'll have to be ready once it's time to embrace the position as its CEO. Leading the company means leading the world."

"I don't think I'm ready yet, father."

"My lovely daughter," said Lucas with a smile, "there's no need to worry. You will be. I'll come join you for dinner shortly."

As Katya nodded and left, Lucas turned back to his office, and his smile went away as he became buried in his thoughts.