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

[Zephie]

(( It might be best to change it to the current Cyber Force leader, or maybe Wraith. ))

(( I thought it sounded odd, but I didn't want to say anything. ))

[MC43]

Monk took a look at the children in front of him. All of them so full of hope, full of promise, full of dreams and wants. Crossing his arms over his chest, he watched as they finished up their lessons for the day, each getting better with each passing hour.

"Very good children. Everyone sit on the ground for a second." They all took seats on the floor, several kids folding their legs across themselves, other trying to do the same, but obviously uncomfortable. "I know I may have said this many times before, but I must say it over and over. You have no idea what kind of lure power has on people. What I teach you is to keep in shape and to give you the knowledge to defend yourself shall an attack be inevitable. Do not... for any reason use this knowledge for senseless violence. The greatest victory is the battle that is not fought." He paused to let everything soak in, and to search his brain for any other important advice.

One student however raised his hand. "Sensai, you have told us this many times. However, if I may..." Monk nodded, "I sense... something in your voice..."

Monk tilted his head to the side a bit. "Such as?"

"A sense... of fear. As if... something is not in the right in the world. Are you ok sensai?"

Monk closed his eyes, lowering his head. This young student was right. He had sense something odd, and he wished that he could pinpoint whatever it was. "I am fine. There is something on my mind so your preceptions are not wrong, but... pay no attention to it. Return home, you have all done well today. I shall see you next class."

Everyone stood up and started up conversations about the class they just had, that one difficult move that he couldn't do, the hot chick in the third row, what she was going to do after she got home, and other random conversations that got mixed in with the rest of the noise.

Monk himself went into his office, which was just a mat on the ground that had two candles on either side of it to meditate.

---

"Beep- whirrr!" He said as he retracted his working arm back into his torso. That was one more project over and done with. He turned and wheeled himself over to the boiler next, extending his arm once more and securing a weak point he had detected. With that over and done with, there was nothing else for him to do. Heading upstairs and into the living room, he decided to watch some T.V. If he was lucky, "All My Circuts" or "Trading Specs" was on. There really wasn't much to do around here, but he was greatful that Monk had taken him in. He remembered when Monk had found him trying to hide in his room. He decided to replay that memory since there really wasn't anything else on.

(Ooo! A flashback!!)

Slamming the door behind him and looking around with his thermal scanners, he detected no one in this room. There were a few reasons why he had choosen this room. One, it took him a long tiome to slice into the door lock and open this door, meaning that someone important may have used this room before. He wasn't too afraid of someone coming in on him because looking through the records, he saw that no one used this room for several weeks. Two, it was right next to the room he was almost caught in a few minutes ago.

Switching to normal view, he was puzzled by the meager arragements that was in this room. There was the standard bed, desk and dresser, but there was no other additions, just a few candles and a mat on the floor that looked nothing like a carpet. Driving over to feel it under his wheels, the texture his sensors picked up matched it up to something something relating a simple welcome mat.

Getting bored with that, he moved to the safest room here. The closet. He grew weary of these things, but they offered the best chance of avoidance if they came into the room looking for him. It worked twice already, but it failed once, and he was force to use the stun ray on one of the guards trying to drag him away. He was sorry that he had to, but he didn't want to die. He knew that what was going to happen. Too many of his freinds went into maitenance, and never returned. And if he scanned for their sensors and unique parts, he would find them in several rooms at once. It didn't take a science droid to put two and two together... they were sent to be deleted thanks to the Mastermind disaster.

The door slid open, he drove in, and it slid closed behind him. He turned off everything except scanning and weapon systems. Scanning to see if anyone will come in the room, and weapons in case he had to fight his way out.

There he sat... waiting for as long as it took before his sub-routines could figure out a way to permanant freedom.

...

It must have been several hours becuase his body went into sleep mode before his sensors picked up a themal signiture. Waking himself up, he tried to match the heat and vital organs to a previous owner. No match. This was a new person. Normally this meant that they had sent a new strike time to try and catch him, but this person was different. To be safe though, the little droid didn't move to try and avoid motion detectors, and enough of his systems were off to avoid electric sensors.

Now... it was down to the waiting game...

(The flashback shall continue...)

[MC43]

Monk looked around the room, trying to find out just what he was doing there. He didn't know what called him to the room, but his legs just seemed to travel into this direction. He saw the sitting mat on the floor with 2 candles on either side. That's what he came for. He was packing up to leave the base, and this was the last of his things. Actually... the only things. Rolling up the mat and sticking the candles in the wrapped up mat, he started for the door, stopping suddenly, looking to the closet.

---

To M4, he picked up that he had stopped, looked around, picked up the odd mat on the ground, and headed for the door. However, the reading stopped. The little droid’s skipped a routine when he saw this. Then he saw the figure move closer to the door he was hiding behind. Then he saw the hand reach for knob, then the door was opened slowly.

There was a series of furious beeps and whistles, then the shocker was released.

Monk raised his hands. "Wait... hold on..."

M4 met his words with another series of angry and short beeps.

"I... do not understand you... Please. I am not here to hurt you."

The small droid tilted its head to the side and rolled back a little. After another second, he retracted his shock arm and slowly clicked and whistled something.

"Ok... now that we are on calm terms... lets get you out of here."

He dropped back against the wall, screaming.

"Whoa, whoa! All right, we don't have to do that."

M4 nodded and clicked once.

"What are you trying to say?"

That's when there was a knock on the door. "Monk, sir? May we come in?"

"On what grounds? Who are you?"

"I am Techie Jones. I'm looking for a droid, and I believe he has entered this room, may I come in to inspect."

The small droid cried out with several quick and loud beeps and whistles, furiously shaking his head.

Monk looked to him, "Are you afraid of them?" M4 nodded with a single beep. Monk then turned his eyes to the door. "I'm sorry. I have inspected this room and have found nothing unusal."

"Sir... What I said was merely a formality. We have video records showing the droid hacking into the locks and sneaking into this room."

"If this were true, why didn't you arrive sooner?"

"I cannot say sir."

"You cannot say because you have no answer..."

"I cannot say for the droid is probably listening right now."

"If you are so confident that you have the droid where you want it, just say your plan."

There was a pause, then the other side of the door replied, "We wanted to wait to see if we could catch it off guard. The little thing can only have so much battery power. We were hoping to try and catch it during a self recharge, when all of its sensors would have been deactivated."

"What are you going to do with the droid shall you get him in your possession?"

"We shall delete his AI programming and sell him for parts."

At this, the droid screamed out in horror, bleeping and whistling and making random noises. It was obvious he could hear the technician, even if he talked in a hushed tone.

"What has this droid done to suffer this fate?"

"... It's not that droid, sir. It's all droid. It is standard procedure ever since the Mastermind crisis, you know that."

Monk looked at the robot, and he returned the look with his optic lens. It may have been created by human hands, but Monk could see the cry for help, the plead for life. "I'm... sorry." Monk said, still looking at M4-C3 "I cannot let you do this." The droid tilted his head to the side."

"I'm sorry sir?" Came the voice from the other side of the door.

"I cannot let you harm this droid."

"But... Sir... procedure!"

"Forget procedure!" Monk was now shouting at the door. "This unit has done nothing wrong. He deserves no such fate!"

"Sir... let's be reasonable about this. You know AI's are being wiped out in fear of another Mastermind type attack."

"Then I shall take this droid under my care."

There came an inquisitive sound from M4. "Sir? You cannot..."

"I am going to walk out this door..." Monk interrupted the tech, "and this droid is going to follow me. You, and anyone else on that side of the door will not lay a hand on him. Do you understand what I have just said?" Silence came as his answer. "Good." He turned around and slowly walked to the quivering droids, kneeling in front of it. "Come with me..." He held out his hand. "I won't let them hurt you."

It took a moment, but M4 slowly warmed up to the idea. He moved towards him, until he stood in front of his new master. He let out a joyous beep, and waited to move.


(End flashback)


And so it happened. The two walked out without a problem and here he was now, sitting in front of the T.V. waiting for "Tech T.V." to return from whatever commercials the channel was running.

[batgirl]

~New Amsterdam Star~

"Sir! Sir! I've got the story of the century for you!" A young reporter, eager to make his way up the ladder of success, ran into the Editor's office, clutching onto a packet of papers as if they were his own right to live. The editor looked up from his stale muffin and day-old coffee, the wear and tear of trying to get the early bird paper out showing in the creases of his face and the stubble on his chin. "This had better be good, I've no time for another Sasquatch story like last time."

"No sir, this is genuine I promise." The editor quickly skimmed over the packet, his eyes widening as he read on. "This is incredible! I can't believe none of the other papers published this yet. 10000 dead? It's atrocious! It's horrific! It's perfect!" The editor's eyes twinkled at the thought of being the first paper to publish the return of Mastermind from the ashes. ""You my boy will get a promotion! I'll run this right down to the publishing room!" The editor sprung up from his desk, just as a well dressed military representative entered his office. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Sir, I have an urgent message from the President."

"For me?" Thoughts raced through the editor's head. Could the President have found out already and was congradulating him on being the first in the world to print this? He slowly opened the manilla enveloppe and read the contents. His eyes became downcast and hardened as he slammed the enveloppe down. The representative had already taken his leave. "Sir," the lackey said, "the story?"

"Forget it, destroy it and don't speak of it ever again."

"But sir!"

"No buts or you're fired! Now get out of my sight and do what I say!" The lackey nodded and walked out. The editor sighed and picked up the story. "Guess Mastermind is still under wraps for a while." He took his lighter and watched the story of his life burn up in his hands.

~Cyber Eden's Canadian Embassy~

Jade sat behind her desk with a pile of neatly stacked papers in front of her. On the screen in front of her was a video link of Monk at his office. "Listen, I'm sure it's nothing, you get funny feelings if the fridge isn't working properly."

"It's important!"

"Monk, everything will be fine. You're probably just tired from work today. I don't know how you can teach those hellions all day long. Anyways, my appointment is here so I'll see you at home soon. I love you." The vid-link closed and Jade sighed. She wanted to tell Monk about the attack, but he would have just gotten too worked up in his current state. With the media being hush-hush about it, she had enough time to finish her day and tell him at home, where she could hold him down and threaten him with death if he tried to go off somewhere. This has got to be a joke, I saw him die with my own eyes...

Jade had little more time to think of it though, as a sharp knock came at the door. Jade stood, "come in Crow." As he entered and approached the desk, Jade came around, shook his hand and offered him a seat. Sitting back in her chair, she addressed him. "What can I do for you?"

[Darth SS]

Humans will experience sorrow. Humans will experience pain. Everyone has a breaking point. However, it doesn't stop at the breaking point. What happens to a man when that happens?

Az didn't know. He lived it every second, but he didn't know.

He was in a convenience store. He hadn't shaved in a week. Right now, he was considering accepting a job offer in helping to train Ottawa SWAT. That's when the robbers came in. They brandished guns, they yelled the usual demands. On the floor, get the money.

One of them tried to hit Azrael. Azrael found his pain. His suffering. His yearning to make this punk feel it. He didn't even realize what he'd done before he'd done it. The punk's gun had been spun around and twisted so sharply that the wrist broke. Then he smashed his fist into the punk's hand, snapping the nose back.

Without pausing, Azrael spun and hammered his fist into the throat, crushing the windpipe like an old vegetable. The gun was in his hand. The other two robbers were turning their guns.

At like that, it was over. Three dead men. Less than four seconds. Two rounds expended. Azrael looked at the bodies, blind rage still clouding his vision. And he left.

What happens when a man is forced over his limits? When he's made to go further then is physically possible? He becomes something else entirely. He becomes a monster.

[Zephie]

Half a world away, in another time zone (and day) entirely, Wraith emerged from his office with a padd in his hand and a scowl on his face. Having shed his shock for determination, he approached one of the officers and began barkings orders.

"Yevgeniy, I want you to form a task force and start searching the 'Net for any anomalous code," saying his name in a perfect Russian accent to the tech. sergeant. "Nothing is too small to be dismissed."

"But sir, we already search--"

"Then double your efforts, Sergeant, this is serious."

"Da," replied Yevgeniy, who then headed off to get working.

Wraith was just getting started though, and headed over to another hapless victim. "Vera, I want you to go back over all the criminal activity and intelligence reports from the last six months. There had to be indications leading up to this attack."

She nodded and left before he could say more, which he did to the next person he met. "Korolov, coordinate with the intelligence bureau and start a crackdown on all the Mastermind cults still left -- follow back anything you can find, try to find a link between them and these attacks."

"For that I will need permissions," the old Captain started to say, in a very thick accent.

"Then get them." Wraith had cut him off sharply, then walked past him and headed deeper into the base, so he could get started on his own share of the work. Before he left out the double doors of the office though, he held up his wrist, exposing a communicator strapped there. "I'm gonna see what everyone else knows. If anyone needs me, you can reach me on my codec."

***

Moments later he was contacting the American Cyber Base, trying to get someone high up in command who could tell him what he needed to know. Namely, details, and any hard information he could look over like footage or photographs... anything he could get to compare and add to the Moscow attack would be helpful.

[Squishy Cheeks]

"That's funny, Ambassador LeFleur, I was going to ask you the same thing." He set his hat and coat on the hat rack near the door. The hat rack hadn't been there a second before. Crow ran a hand over his scalp and sat down.

"Honestly I'm not exactly certain as to why my father asked me to come see you. He said you would have need of my services. And... well one does not refuse a request of the Archon."

Crow pulled out a cigarette box, the brand was written in binary as was alot of the info in Eden. He was about to light the cigarette when he stopped and took a side glance at Jade

"Mind if I smoke, it's self deleting smoke."

[Wolf99x]

OOC: *kicks the RP* wake up you, we've got postage incoming.

BIC: Somewhere in Northeast Massachusetts

Technician Albert Dessloch, member of FLAG's First Assault Team, knew his time was up.

He was the last of his unit, the last survivor of an ambush that seemed to literally come from nowhere. The team had been on maneuvers in the northern forests of the state, when machine gun fire cut through the trees, gunning down half of the soldiers within seconds. Then two more were felled by what looked like blasts of wind, even though it was a windless day.

The tech had then grabbed his laptop and hit a switch just below the PC card slot. The computer morphed and unfolded into a submachine gun, Knight Industries' most discreet weapon.

He had pointed in in the direction of where he thought the attacks were coming from, and opened fire. But the last three soldiers collapsed from bullet hits, and Dessloch knew he had missed.

So he ran. He ran for minutes on end. He kept running until he reached a clearing in the forest. Purely by thought, he activated his CW-comm channel, capable of transmitting communications almost as if by thought.

"This is Alpha 4 to Sky-1. My team is down, requesting immediate pickup. Unknonwn number of hostiles closing in on my position. Request pickup immediately."

"This is Phoenix. I'm inbound. ETA is 2 minutes. Hold on until then," the reply came back in his mind.

He took cover behind a rock, waiting for the transport to extract him, and hoping he wouldn't be taken down.

About 30 seconds later he heard heavy automatic weapons fire followed by a couple muffled explosions. Up ahead he saw a Knight Industries Phantom transport drop its cloak and materialize, smoke trailing from two of the maneuvering thrusters.

"This is Sky-1, we've taken enemy weapons fire and our engines are damaged. We don't know if we can take back off after landing. Sorry to say but it looks like you'll be walking back, Alpha 4."

The transport shakily turned back towards base. As it did, Dessloch felt a cold pit open in his stomach. That pit grew deeper as he heard a twig snap somewhere nearby. As he brought his laptop gun up to fire, a shot rang out and a bullet struck the gun, throwing it from the techs hands. He tried to pick the gun back up but he froze as a voice resonated through his CW-com.

***

The voice had a slight rasp. That rasp was the product of a long-gone cigarette addiction that not even the wonders of modern medicine could completely cure.

The voice also had a commanding presence, a product of 5 years on the battlefield and command of two major units.

"You're Dead," said the voice.

Dessloch turned, and saw...nothing. Then there was a sound that was similar to that of a computer monitor degaussing, and the forest in front of the technician distorted until a man clad in tight fitting combat armor appeared seemingly from nowhere, leveling an Omni-Falcon pistol at the tech's chest.

That man, who the voice belonged to, was Jason MacKenzie. Former commander of Cyber Force Alpha, and top "consultant" for Knight Industries.

Dessloch looked down at the ground, and shrugged slightly. "I guess I am."

Jason returned the pistol to the holster at his hip. "Took me long enough though. I never expected you to be able to keep running and hiding like that after the first 10 minutes."

The tech shrugged again. "I did some cross-country in high school." there was a pause. "I see the new optic camoflauge worked perfectly."

"True. I was surprised that visual distortion had been cut down on a lot during weapon fire. Still, it's not perfect, which is probably a good thing."

Light rain began to fall. "For example, this rain would play hell with the cloak."

"Right, the system takes time to adjust to terrain shifts and weather effects."

"Yeah, but I don't think I needed to come out here and kick your team around in a training exercise just to learn that. Let's get back to base. I'm expecting Knight's going to want a tech report out of me."

OOC: This will contiune, when I get the next part a little more coherent.

[Wolf99x]

30 minutes later
Knight Industries Test Facility B, somewhere in the Greater Boston Area

Jason had dropped the stealth armor off with the lab technicians and changed back into the business suit he normally wore to work...when he wasn't testing out the latest armor, gear, or vehicle Knight had developed.

As he headed down towards the hangars, CEO Michael Knight caught up with him.

"So, how did the stealth armor perform?" he asked

"Exactly to specifications, just like your techs said it would." there was a pause. "Did I end up putting any of the team members in the hospital this time?"

"Fortunately no. Your control and finesse was excellent; nobody suffered ill effects of the shock bullets either."

"That's good. What about the Phantom I disabled?"

"Well, the techs aren't too happy, but it did land safely. You certainly knew what you were doing, taking out the engines diagonally across from one another; not surprising seeing as how you practically wrote the flight manual for it."

Jason didn't say anything to that, but he did crack a small grin. He then changed the subject. "I heard you got some new pilots in."

"Yeah. A good majority of them are ex USAF pilots drummed out for one reason or another, usually skirt-chasing. Two of the pilots are from the Russian Air Force, tired of being stuck flying 1970s era MiG-21s. And the last 4 pilots are from the Canadian Air Force, mostly because they wanted some action."

"Canadians, huh?"

"Yeah. It's not like you're the only one capable of finding trigger-happy Canadians." Knight said jokingly.

Jason grinned a bit again at that comment. I didn't find Neil and Jade, more like we all found each other. Been a while since I talked to either of them, though. Although I do know Jade is an Ambassador to Cyber Eden, I haven't heard about Neil in a while... he thought.

"Speaking of pilots, how are they managing the ATACs?"

"Really well. Most of them quickly adapted between flying and mech piloting fairly quickly. In fact, based on these results I've already got limited release contracts lined up with a few special forces groups. Though right now I'm still a little worried about leasing these to the Japanese. I mean, they already have those Dragon scout walkers they deployed to post guard over the ruins of Torishima. Frankly, I'm worried they might reverse engineer some of the ATAC technology. I already have to limit the armament strength of the ATACs as it is while handing them out to the SpecForces. Right now they're armed with heavy vulcan cannons, mini-SAMs, AIM-12s, and Hellfire-II missiles. No lasers, no railguns, none of that overpowered stuff, and certainly none of the experimental plasma tech. I'm not about to let Knight Insustries and FLAG be the fall guys for a wackjob getting a hold of these."

There was a long pause. "Stressed much?" Jason asked.

"Just a bit. Business negotiations are tough no matter how good one gets at it."

"Eh, you'll come out ahead, just like you always do."

That much was true. Following the Cyber War, elements of the US Congress conducted an SEC investigation on Knight Industries and FLAG, because apparently helping save the world wasn't a good enough reason to believe the company was honest. They tried to make Knight fully disarm FLAG, and turn over all assets to Military Intelligence. Knight managed to outwit them though, and in turn for disarming 25% of his forces and providing sample ATACs to the Special Forces, FLAG remained active. The only downside was that the skybases weren't as active due to being a little too overpowered in this time of peace; instead Knight was relying mostly on the blue-water navy he had consisting of surplus Russian crusiers and two mothballed American carriers he bought for an exorbiant sum, which helped military spending out something fierce.

Knight nodded. "Yeah, you're probably right. I don't need you to test anything else today, so you're good to go."

"All right, see ya tomorrow." with that, Jason went on ahead out to the hangars.

[Darth SS]

Azrael walked back and forth in front of the line.

RCMP ERT unit. A fresh one. They'd be responding to anti-terrorism calls around the country. Best to make himself known now...

"My name is Neil, but you will call my Azrael. I've served with multinational initiatives, CIA, SAS, Joint Task Force 2, FBI, RCMP, and Cyber Force. That is all you need to know."

Angel looked over all of them. They seemed to be a good bunch.

"You're here because you have something to save. Something to protect. ERT are life-savers, not life enders. However, you will be called to end lives. This is why am here. I will teach you how to kill. If any of you are uncomfortable with this, leave now."

No one did. Good.

"First rule: You're all issued standard equipment. Get rid of it. Your long gun can stay, but only your body armor should remain from the uniform. Get something comfy. You need to be comfortable, and camouflage isn't an issue when you have a bright white 'RCMP' on your back. For sidearm should be something you are comfy with. I don't care about power, I don't care about statistical accuracy. That firearm must be something you can fire as easily as breathing, and you need to find a gun it comes naturally on. Me? I use an FN Forty-Nine. Second: Lose your ego. The first man into the room should be the best shot. If someone can do something better than you, then you let them do it. It's not a request. People can die if you do not. That's all for now, get your asses out onto the firing range and find a sidearm."

The ERT recruits hurried off. Azrael smiled. They'd do nicely. Probably ready to counter anything that came up.