Cyber Wars 2.0 Chapter 1: Just when you thought it was safe to log back on...

[Wolf99x]

Cyber Seattle
February 14, 2028

Mere seconds ago, everybody's belief in the sanctity of Valentine's Day was shattered along with the perfect cyber replica of the Space Needle. Burning debris rained down on numerous shoppers and youg lovers, who were crushed by the debris, just for being lucky enough to not be obliterated by the blast.

A few seconds later, the almost 100 Starbucks stores around the city were also consumed by firey blasts. Corpses and dismembered limbs flew everywhere. People panicked and ran.

Then to add to the chaos, about 40 armored soldiers appeared in Cyber-Safeco field and began hosing the stands with chaingun and RPG fire. The 50000 or so fans who showed up to watch the archived 2012 World Series victory of the Mariners were cut down in large numbers. Only about 3/4 managed to escape the carnage. It would have been more, but for some reason the emergency logout triggers were not working.

The soldiers then appeared in the debris field left by the Space Needle, and went to work in that area as well.

By the time the Seattle PD's special Cyber Crime unit had logged in, the soldiers were long gone, but the carnage remained.

***

Detective Arnett walked around the bodies and smoldering debris that had once been the defining landmark of both the Real and Cyber Seattle. Seattle's trademark rain was also falling in this devastated Cyberscape, perhaps fittingly so. Yet, this rain seemed different. It felt heavier, and had a coppery smell to it.

Arnett made his way to his partner, Detective Remington. "Did the final count come in?" he asked.

Remington nodded slightly. "1000 dead, 5000 injured and another 2500 in cyber-induced comas."

"Eyewitnesses?"

"Those who can remember anything just remember either explosions, or heavily armed men in dark red armor."

"Not much to go on," Arnett said as he removed his glasses and tried to wipe the rain off of them. But as he did, he noticed that the rain was leaving red spots on the lenses.

"What the hell's with this rain, Remy?" he asked.

"It's not rain..." Remington said somberly. "It's blood. Somebody hacked the weather network and made it rain blood."

"Holy shit..."

"And that's not the worst part. Follow me."

What could be worse than raining blood? Arnett thought as he followed Remington to the shattered base of the Space Needle. Remington pointed to something, and Arnett immediately understood what his partner meant.

There, on the charred foundation, was a message scrawled in blood.

"It would be a grave error in judgement to mistake me for a corpse. -Mastermind"

Arnett looked at the message and gluped slowly. "...get Washington on the line."

***

The White House, 8 hours later

President Samuel Hammond was in a state of distress. "We know for a fact he was deleted 3 years ago! How in the world could he be back now?"

None of the Joint Cheifs had an answer, except for General Warner of the Air Force. "It may just be a prank by radical malitiamen...trying to instill fear."

Director of Intelligence Alex Stoyanovich spoke from the corner of the War Room. "This is no prank. Almost 10000 people have been hurt or killed in 4 attacks, 3 of them not even on US soil. Plus, analysis of the attacks has revealed lines of code consistent with those used by Mastermind for his cyber intrusions."

"Well, what should we do?" Admiral Westinghouse asked.

"Simple," Stoyanovich replied. "We send in Cyber Force to conduct these investigations. We can coordinate with the other CF units around the globe to gather evidence, present it to me, and then I'll be able to both determine if it really is Mastermind, and what we should do on a military level. In the meantime, keep as much of this quiet as possible. Nobody should know Mastermind may be back."

"Agreed," President Hammond said. "We'll get a press blackout running on those details."

OOC: All right, basically all of the people who have characters currently in the Cyber Force, no matter what location, are going to be working on trying to determine what the hell is going on. bg or I can provide further detail on that.

[Zephie]

~Cyber Base Russia~

"What?"

"Here's the details," an officer said, placing a padd in front of his commander.

Wraith picked the padd up almost as soon as it hit the desk, and read over the contents like a speed reader. Then as the weight of it sank in, he fell back into his seat, stunned. All he could think was, Not again...

"Sir?"

Wraith didn't move, and it was only when the officer repeated his question that he looked up. "What?"

"What do we do now?"

Wraith looked away from the American man, another transfer from the States like him, and tried to think of something. "We'll... uh... y'know what, just nevermind it for now. I need to come up an investigation plan on my own."

The officer nodded, acknowledged, and left. He knew better than talk to Wraith when he wanted to be alone.

And he was. He sat behind his desk for some time, with the padd in his hand, thinking about the recent attacks and the memories of the old war that flooded in.

Twenty thousand dead...

He slammed the padd down on his desk in anger, his palm covering up the face of it... and the fact that it had cracked.

[Squishy Cheeks]

Crow kissed his pistol as he had his back to the wood like wall. The hail of bullets splintered the code showering bits of living wall onto the floor wear they self deleted.

"Your father's not here to protect you now piggy." The virus yelled.

"Big words, why don't we discuss that downtown. We've saved a room for you in very special place." Crow signalled to the backup that had just arrived outside. to get behind the virus. "We might give you a reduced sentance if you release the hostage and surrender."

"Shut up piggy."

"ok now he said into his communicator. The other cops busted the window. The virus turned to open fire on them. Crow dove out sliding on the floor. He fired a single round from his overly large pistol. The blue energy ball struck the virus in the middle of the back locking it in position.

"Crime scene secure, sir." The AI cop said.

"Took you long enough sergeant. another minute and he might have deleted another banker." Crow glared at the man. the two Ai's blanched.

The banker program caught in the freeze looked very scared.

"Cut the virus' arm off and unfreeze the banker." Crow pointed to the virus. "Then throw him into the hole."

"Aren't you going to process him?" The AI cop asked.

"I have a meeting with an ambassador." Crow said. He checked his revolver and put in another freeze bullet. He clicked the safety and closed the revolver. He holstered it and picked his coat off the floor and dusted the self deleting glass off of it as it disintegrated. He picked up his fedora style hat. He walked the rest of the way.

[lazy man]

It had really been one hell of a day. Out of nowhere, four simultaneous attack plagued the Cyber World. Not long after, Cyber Force was called into action to investigate.

Ryan himself had no clue what was going on, and waiting for his CO to tell him what to do. It was kind of borng sitting through all these assignments, but the room was slient because of the seriousness of the situation.

"Yo. Deadeye. You got any idea what's going on here?" Ryan heard whispered right behind him.

Turning his head slightly, he saw his fellow Sergeant Jones looking intently at him trying to find out if Ryan knew any more.

"All I know is that there was a huge terrorist attack. They're saying about 10,000 people were attacked."

"10,000?!" Jones hissed. "How in the hell did they do that in such a short amount of time?!"

"I know just as much as you, so maybe we'd find out more if you shut up."

"Yeah... Knowing nothing sure does help... And they're not telling us something. I just know they are."

[Inbred Chocobo]

Razma was with everyone else with the Cyber Force from Sydney. The crime sence was gruesome at best, but yet for some reason, Razma couldn't help but feel a little excitment. Maybe it was because he knew this could probably give him a chance at glory, something he always craved. He did a good job in hiding it, and so he went back to work, seeing if he could find a few clues around the area.

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

"Oh uhhhgh.... Who could've done this?!"
Razma turned briefly to eye the new Private Peng, whose sleek black feathers had ruffled at the sight of the carnage. Her beak was curled in distaste, and her eyes glinted violently.

The Ravenwing avatar then dropped to all fours and proceeded to move through the debris and bodies, her sharp eyes searching the ground. Occasionally, she overturned some pieces of debris and examined the floor below it, all the while growling unhappily.

[Dante]

He didn't want to open his eyes. He didn't want to get out of bed. He really didn't want to move from where Shahdee was curled up in his arms. But the stupid phone was ringing. Muttering imprecations to the air, he reached over and lifted it off the hook. If this was the lawnmower repair man again...

"Ahhhhh, what you want?"

"This is General Charles Tomlinson."

Devin suddenly realised that he was terribly awake.

"Get your ass out of bed, Devin. We've got an emergency. Something's happened in Cyber Seattle and we think it's Mastermind."

Devin was sitting bolt upright and behind him, Shahdee rose from the covers, nothing covering her except for the sheets across her lower body and her long black hair falling across her chest.

"Right. I'm bringing Shahdee."

There was a brief pause on the line.

"Go ahead. But don't stop to pack."

"Got it."

The line went dead. A small hand ran across Devin's bare chest, and a small, tired voice whispered into his other ear.

"Who was that, hon?"

"One of the DoD one-stars affiliated with Cyber Force. Apparently, Mastermind's back. We need to go. Now."

As he was saying this, he was already picking out something decent to wear.

"But Devin.... we haven't even had the morning ... you know..."

Devin froze. She was right.

"No, we haven't but I daresay we can do something about it en route. Ever heard of the Mile High Club?"

[Zephie]

(( Oh, she grew her hair back out, eh...? ))

"Oh... why yes, I have..." she whispered, slipping around and making him face her for a kiss.

It was fleeting, though. They really needed to get to Seattle.

~Los Angeles~

Scrya was waiting for her sister when she came home.

...Curled up on the floor, painting with watercolors on the coffee table. Glancing up just for a moment when the door opened, she kept painting and muttered, "Hey, Tia."

The door closed quietly, but she didn't hear her moving into the kitchen like she usually did. She blinked and looked up, to find Tia standing with her hand to her mouth, looking shocked. Getting up with concern, Scrya started over to ask, "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Mastermind..." she muttered, lowering her hand slowly. "He's back."

Scrya's heart skipped a beat.

[Squishy Cheeks]

"May I help you sir?" The secretary at the Canadian embassy said. The building was new built in the last week. The ambassador had only arrived yesterday.

"I am Detective Captain Crow, Captain of the Capital Police precinct Alpha."

"Is there a problem officer?" The secretary asked looking scared.

"No I have an appointment with Ambassador LaFleur."

"The secretary pulled up the schedule.

"I have no record of... oh here it is. It was arranged by... Archon Raven. That's impressive. Do you know the Archon?"

"Unfortunately." Was crow's only reply. "I take this hall?" He said pointing at the hall. He had gotten impatient with the secretary and used his advanced senses to locate Jade in the building, she was talking to someone.

It must be easy to commute to work for her, she can live in the real world with her husband and work here in Eden. I wish i could leave, see the real world for once. Maybe I'll use my vacation to time share a body and go on a world tour. Yeah right on my salary.

[batgirl]

OOC: STOP! Do not pass go! Do not collect 200$! Everyone stop for a minute and not post until I speak with Dante, a major boo boo has been made. Dante, Jade is retired as a Colonel, as is Wolf and Kaitlyn. So there's no way they're giving any orders. Please edit your post accordingly.