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Tokyo II

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Tokyo II

Postby Abeyance » Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:17 am

Epilogue

I would like to tell you about the last few months of my life. My name is Naisha Taras, and I am a scientist employed by Phoenix Ltd – A Fallen Angels Company with interests in the research, production and further development of transport solutions, exceptional quality weaponry, and a minor interest in real estate. During my time at Phoenix I have played fundamental parts in designing a power source that can use energy stored in Ion weaponry ammunition to provide a power solution for Tech Haven. At first I thought I was protecting the future of the Fallen Angels. However, Ion energy has a nasty habit of causing interference with the electrical signals naturally produced by the brain. It can cause corruption to even the sanest of people. But I digress. This is a recount of what has happened to the world of Neocron since the discovery. A fundamental discovery which changed the course of humanity forever…

It all started one day, it was morning – as I remember it was one of the last full days of daylight I have seen in a very long time. I was stealthed inside Neocron city doing my usual transfers between Phoenix Ltd and Phoenix’s NExT division.

"Attention citizens..."

Everybody ignored the initial announcement, expecting the usual 'Highly dangerous criminals sighted inside the inner city limits' speil that they had become used to.

"At 10.47am today a treaty was signed between the Neocron Administration, a loose alliance of all Neocron factions, and the Resistance."

The normal background noise and banter throughout the city of Neocron came to an eerie silence. Almost as though you would be able to hear a pin drop. In pepper park the weapons stopped firing, plasma cool down kicking in on weapons as members of various companies from various factions picked up on the most unlikely of messages.

"Over the past few months Fallen Angels scientists have been deciphering the data stored on the latest set of Ceres discs they managed to get a hold of and a very important discovery has been made. The location of a third city of survivors has been found - according to the data on these discs this city is called Tokyo II. Please head over to the nearest city com to watch a live feed of this announcement. I repeat... as of this moment factions of Neocron and the Resistance are neutral. During this moment of history it is time for all citizens to band together for the greater good. Going forward, this is truly the most remarkable time in recent history."

There was a mad rush of people running to city coms, for the first time in years people associated with the Resistance walked from Pepper Park into Plaza without being gunned down. The bandwidth of the city com network had never been this utilised.

A few miles out from Tech Haven, Phoenix Ltd - Contracted by NExT and the Fallen Angels to build what was originally a conference center for relations between the Dome of York and Neocron, a further announcement was made.

"Phoenix Ltd, working with Neocron Exploration Technologies and the Fallen Angels, have been building a facility out in the wastelands. While on the outside this looked just like another conference facility - in fact it was built to similar specifications to the facility in Plaza 1 - it houses the most high tech radar and mapping technology ever used. We're currently preparing to launch six satellites into space in the hope of finding this third city. For all of those that wish to tune into the radio broadcast, please change your radio receivers to the Phoenix Ltd frequency band."

For as long as I remember, people I know as outward people have never been lost for words. But this time it was different. Nobody knew what to expect. Was this really happening? Copbots throughout plaza were holding fire on members of the Black Dragon, pimps from Tsunami, as well as Fallen Angels employees that once upon a time were welcome within the cities walls. I switched my receiver over to the frequency I usually sat on during op wars, and then activated the Gene Replication unit inside Plaza 1’s memorial and headed off to Tech Haven.

"Mission alpha preparation complete, launch cycle started. Launch of Alpha Apollo in T minus 120."

Back in the history of the city we had survived many things, but of Earths former glory it was hard to believe that this few square kilometres of space surrounded by ocean was the last bastion of life on Earth. One thing that had always confused me though, before the missions to Irata III, we had sent probes all over earth to find survivors. We had overthrown the mighty ruler of Crahn. Alliances had been made, lost, and betrayed. Companies as large as Tangent Technologies had appeared and, just as is with human nature, wars had been fought. But why with our previous explorations had we never found this city? This city of Tokyo II?

"Launch of Alpha Apollo in T minus 30 seconds and counting."

For miles around in the wastelands, the ground started to shake. Out of all of the moments in time I had lived through this was epic. This was one of those things that in 30 years time nobody would believe happened... and here I was, standing on the outskirts of Tech Haven, a distant glow on the horizon with the minor rumbles coming through the ground as the first of six satellites was leaving the ground to launch into space.

"Uh... This is launch site Osiris. An unidentified target has been located on radar and is heading towards our position. Please clear our airspace as we have a rocket launch in progress. I repeat, failure to leave our airspace will constitute as an attack and will be dealt with appropriately."

Suddenly there was a roaring sound, something flew overhead and hit the rocket as it took off. The explosion was devastating. I must have been standing a fair few miles away from the launch site and I was knocked off my feet. What the hell had just happened?
currently: Malevolence (res), Nerisella (cst), Twinkle (hck), Maia (hc), Aimee (hck), Naisha (ppu)
previously: Abeyance (Phoenix), Naisha (Malevolent Crackheads), Twinkle (Technocracy), Angelika (Illuminati), flyL (Regulators)
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Postby Abeyance » Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:18 am

Chapter 1: Backhanded Tactics

Civilisations come and go, as mankind knows all too well. At the turn of the 21st century civilisation revelled in a major discovery; a discovery that changed the world for good. Something so incredible it caused a war of power and that discovery was artificial intelligence; Computers that could think. The proceeding war between countries for control over the central AI; and deployment of nuclear weaponry eventually wiped out most of mankind.

By the end of the third millennium, Earth had changed. Global pollution, excessive wars and a perforated atmosphere had turned the planet into an almost lifeless sphere of toxic mud. Radiation is everywhere and most animals had either gone extinct or had mutated into bizarre monstrous creatures. The remnants of mankind seek protection from the desolate, scorched world and gathered behind the protective walls of giant cities. These few mega cities became the last lights of hope, in the darkness of Earth's final dusk.

We had launched ships to a nearby system, Irata III, in the hope of rebuilding our civilisation. Those of us that got left behind were left to deal with our mistakes. With the discovery of a third, technologically advanced city on the surface of Earth had been enough - even if only for a moment in time - to unite all of mankind in a joint prospect to find it.

After the first launch, an unknown source had attacked the first satellite as it launched. That was just over a month ago...

I was back underground in my research lab, the constant hum of computers surrounding me. Nobody ever came down here so I was pretty much free to do whatever I wanted. Above me, the hissing noises of pipes fuelling up the rocket that was going to deliver the first of my babies to space. It was a daunting concept that I was going to be standing underneath the rockets as they launched, with all that was protecting me being a few hundred metres of solid concrete. It was the safest way, though. Since the initial attack everybody had got a little bit edgy, and I’d rather be down here by myself than up there, not knowing who to trust.

The alliance between all factions was tedious at times, especially since certain people had been trying to cause mistrust between factions. Making accusations with no proof; one person blames another for the attack and in turn that person passing on the blame. This time, NExT, Phoenix, and the Fallen Angels, were determined to make sure it didn't happen again. Around the backup launch site, at a completely secret location, there was Ground to Air missile turrets, the CityMercs had ground support in the form of soldiers armed to the teeth with the latest technology we had to offer. In the air, we had volunteers willing to risk their lives - if necessary to fly in front of any incoming artillery if needed be. The countdown had started...

This time it was completely unannounced, as the missile left the atmosphere in the dead of the night, people could see it from not only the Military Base, but Tech Haven, the Dome of York, and Neocron city itself. By the morning we had exothermically mapped the whole planet. We couldn't find a third city as such, but we did find a large amount of heat emanating from an area a few hundred miles north of the Military Base.

The first speculation was that this city was underground, but on the fifth sweep a Tangent Technologies scientist, working in tandem with a scientist from the Fallen Angels - concluded that this heat reading was approximately 500 meters off the ground, and was most likely a force field of some kind.

Many people never expected this treaty to work, but the fact a Fallen Angels scientist was working alongside a Tangent Technologies scientist was proof enough for some people - a perfect spectacle of what this treaty meant, arch enemies working together for the common goal.

It was too good to last, call me a sceptic, but I feel it’s better to expect things not to work than to believe they will and be disappointed. I was sitting in my office staring at a screen, half asleep. A blinking cursor pulses in the electric darkness like a heart coursing with phosphorous light, burning beneath the derma of black-neon glass.

A phone begins to ring, I hear it as though I am making the call. The cursor continues to throb, relentlessly patient, until --

Somebody picks up the call, "Hello?"

Data now slashes across the screen, information flashing faster than we read. The trace begins; "Call trans opt: received. 2-19-47 13:24:18 REC:Log>"

"We have located the city at 0600 hours, it is heavily fortified but we believe we have found a weakness in it's force field."

We're listening to the phone conversation as though we were on a third line.

"Have the resources been committed for the attack?"

The screen continues to pulse, the cursor throbbing as the seconds pass. "Trace program: running."

"At this point the resources are committed, but we believe that an all out attack is not the best option at this time."

The entire screen fills with racing columns of numbers. Shimmering like green-electric rivets, they rush at a 10- digit phone number in the top corner.

"You're not paid to think, I don't care what you believe is the best course of action at this time. Send all available units to the coordinates, let's take this city before the Resistance can act. Make it happen and there is a large bounty in this for you."

The area code is identified. The first three numbers suddenly fixed, leaving only seven flowing columns.

"Affirmative sir."

Slowly, each digit is matched, one by one, snapping into place like the wheels of a slot machine.

"With the technology available to us once we capture this city, we'll finally be able to rid ourselves of this scum that has plagued us so long. Have the Fallen Angels scientists been disposed of?"

Only two thin digits left.

"We routed toxic gasses into the sleeping quarters once they had gone to sleep. They won't be a problem."

The final number pops into place --

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

On the screen, a message pops up... "Trace complete. Call origin: #555-121-2560"

"This line, is it clean?"

"We better go."

"Call ended."

---

I had traced the call back to a facility not located inside of the normal phone calling space. I had never seen the facility before, nor had I been there. However I guess before we continue I should tell you a little bit about what I do here.

For the last few years I have been working on technology beyond even the wildest dreams of the greatest science fiction writers. My device allows me to see, in 3 dimensions, any area on the planet. This all works by cross referencing image and telemetry data from 4 of our 6 satellites. I worked hard developing this technology, and upon it’s creation I realised the purpose of my existence. I wasn’t meant to be one of the most groundbreaking scientists of the modern world. This isn’t what this machine was created for…

The machine resembled a similar design to the ancient computer design of the mid 1980s – a full room machine with buttons and levers, obviously infused with 23rd century technology. This has been the fruits of my last few years of research, my last few years of hacking through Tangent’s systems finding out information regarding stuff they were working on. I was a kilometre underground in what was essentially a box. The room I was in was approximately 500 metres squared and it was dark, not particularly damp due to the air conditioning systems we had installed down here. The conference centre drew heat from the core of the planet and these ducts passed up one side of the room up to the surface. Cold air was drawn from the surface down to the basement and that made up another set of pipes.

The room maintained it’s own temperature and along another of the walls was a computer system controlling access to and from the building, network connections, satellite uplinks, database servers to store and manage all Fallen Angels resources, the Tech Haven Network – a similar system to the City Com network – was also stored on this bridge. In the middle of the room there was an array of very expensive, very comfortable anti gravity chairs. These represented the next evolution of the gravity lift technology we had created. They allowed you to simply sit in the air, providing the best support to your back and the rest of your body on an individual basis. In the middle of these stations was where I sat. This was my room.

Many people had asked me why I liked working in solitude underground, with little or no contact with the outside world for days or even weeks at a time. I personally liked being able to do my own little thing, whenever I wanted. Down here I was away from the harsh realities of what was going on up at the surface. After all – I had just detonated the most powerful weapon known to mankind, while sitting in comfort and sipping tea.

Three hours later, we're panning over the wastelands into uncharted territory. This part of the wasteland looks similar to what we have seen before but somehow different, as though we're treading on new ground. We had passed over the mid world ocean to get this far and were about a kilometre away from the source of the heat patterns. From our vantage point we could see a city of epic proportions. Dark, war beaten walls, gun turrets on the roof, and the spectacle of it all - two massive towers rising high above the city and into the clouds. Comparable to the World Trade Center Buildings in New York, of the ancient world.

"Attention all units. Attention all units."

The army of the City Mercs came to a halt, hanging on every word of their squadron leader. In the midst of the group of elite attack soldiers there was disdain. The City Mercs had morale values, and weren't happy about violating the treaty between Neocron and the Resistance, but the price had been right, the mission had already been accepted.

"This mission was never going to be easy. We have been told this stronghold is letting off energy signatures unlike anything anybody has ever seen before. I don't know what this means, nor do I care. We're better than these people and we're going to take this city by force."

A wave of suspense could be felt in the air, almost so dense that you could have cut it with a knife. Soldiers were lined up; camouflaged in yellow and green power armour, power armour that could have told you a story of it's own if it wasn't inanimate. These were the veterans of the modern world. Using weapons from times gone past, weapons of immense power. Everybody here was either holding a Plasma Cannon prototype, labelled 'the Cursed Soul', a Plasma Wave prototype, 'the Ravager', or the mightiest of rocket launchers. The Ceres Warhammer. Weapons that had been heavily used, you could tell by the burn marks around the barrels of the guns. These people meant business, and the attack was about to be launched.

"I'm not going to lie to you men; today some of you are going to die. But while they may take our lives, they can not touch our spirits! Are we READY men?"

"SIR YES SIR"

"Are we going to give it everything?"

"SIR YES SIR"

"ATTACK!"

We switch out to a wide pan view, watching the CityMercs get gunned down one by one. No survivors. Using the latest technologies we had developed. The Neocron alliance thought they could beat us. They thought that they could use the treaty signed with the Resistance to gain access to our greater intellect. But we know better. Of the six satellites we had launched, only one of their functions was to provide geometric mapping. These six satellites built up the largest Ion weapon ever built, a weapon that could be launched from space. Finally providing the Fallen Angels and it's allies the opportunity to Free Society. As we all know... Only Free Minds Can Build a Free Society.
currently: Malevolence (res), Nerisella (cst), Twinkle (hck), Maia (hc), Aimee (hck), Naisha (ppu)
previously: Abeyance (Phoenix), Naisha (Malevolent Crackheads), Twinkle (Technocracy), Angelika (Illuminati), flyL (Regulators)
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Postby Abeyance » Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:19 am

Chapter 2: Everything happens for a reason

The initial attack on Tokyo II had ended in mass devastation of City Mercs soldiers. A loss of this size was never meant to go unnoticed. A loss of this size had never even been anticipated.

It would be stereotypical of us to say we had seen this coming. Deep inside we had all hoped that the alliance between the Dome of York and Neocron wouldn't end this way. Relations had begun to fail since the news that the City Administration and Tangent had ordered the strike against Tokyo. We felt betrayed, however we had anticipated it. During the duration of the treaty we had secretly been doing work of our own. The Ion defence system was now fully operation and nobody except the highest ranking members of the Illuminati even knew about it. Leaders from the major factions of the Dome: Phoenix Ltd, Defenders of York, and United Angels.

We weren't caught off our guard. Our employees that had been reported gassed to death had in fact simply disappeared into the nether ranks of the Illuminati. They weren't dead, they'd escaped completely in tact. So much couldn't be said for the City Administration and Tangent employees. Word from our sister company - the NExT division of Phoenix, reported that the city was in a state of unrest. While the treaty hadn't officially ended, random attacks of Resistance members within the city walls were being reported. Sometimes it was Soldierz members, sometimes it was Copbots. All instances were not acceptable.

In retrospect, the City of Neocron would have been grateful that we were pacifists. With our newly deployed technologies we could have decimated the entire city in seconds, but we had more important concerns...

We had been monitoring Tokyo since the attack. They were definitely mobilising an army. They were going to counter attack. We couldn't tell anybody, because that would have left us in the situation where we'd have to explain how we knew. That would have left us in the situation where we were at wrong before the City had attacked Tokyo behind our backs. That would have left us wide open for attack.

Instead, we waited for Tangent to realise what was happening. Their newly developed technology within the City which allowed them to locate any individual, monitor any action, and pinpoint their exact location to within centimetres... they saw it coming.

Early one morning, a group of our scientists were panning around the wastelands, they were monitoring every sector available concurrently; watching, waiting for the attack. Nobody had ever left the city walls of Tokyo II. Nobody in, nobody out. We did, however, notice fluctuating energy readings moving steadily across the wastelands. Not wanting to leave this to chance, we gave Tangent Technologies and anonymous tip off. The battle was set.

It was a cold dark morning. The sun was slowly rising in the east. The morning dew hanging off the leaves of flowers, slowly dripping down to earth on occasion. It was peaceful. Birds had starting singing their morning songs, the occasional breeze rustling through the trees. The whole world looked at rest, completely still and peaceful. A complete contrast to the imminent threat.

A squadron of STORM units were sitting on Fortress Jeriko’s border, accompanied by Reza’s Finest 44th Division. A flash of light later and all units simply fell to the ground. Some kind of very advanced Electro Magnetic Pulse – a pulse so intense it temporarily knocked out our satellites.

It was only a few seconds later. Our screens filled with text as the operating systems came back up. We figured it was an error, that the calibration linking the system to the sector we were viewing had gone all wrong. Jeriko was gone. The only giveaway that we were in fact looking at the right sector, was the ruins of the old ASG, next to a mound of rubble, we figured the mound of rubble was the remains of the old cage – and suddenly that disappeared to.

As quick as the cage had disappeared, an entire army unstealthed. Tanks grinding over the ground, tanks bigger than anything we’d ever seen before. Similar design and build to the old M3 Sherman tanks we had gained information from off the Ceres discs. Technology from the ancient times. Soldiers carrying weapons, we had no idea what they were. They seemed to resemble railgun technology that we’d seen on the Ceres discs, but we had spent a long time looking at these designs to make handheld versions with no success…

The STORM units at the entrance to the city opened fire as they approached. Balls of superheated plasma impacting a good few meters before the army and the energy dissipating over what seemed to be a force field. None of their troops were taking any damage at all. An emergency meeting was being held inside the City. By the time the major faction leaders had got together they’d already lost the subway to the invading troops – and then the attack stopped. Tokyo soldiers held their ground but stopped advancing. We thought they were preparing to contact us when overhead at least twenty thousand automated drones passed them. One drone for every man, woman, and child within the Cities walls. City Administration sent out a plea to the Resistance for help, which we intercepted. As the resistance started to make a move, Tokyo’s army began advancing.

Looking back, detonating the Ion Cannon over the top of a living city was probably not the smartest idea we had ever had. We had been caught off guard and backed into a corner. The ensuing blast destroyed every member of the Tokyo army. It also destroyed every electrical circuit in the whole of Neocron city. The Citycom network failed instantly, Neocron’s defence systems, their entire army of STORM and Copbots - even the circuitry in the weapons of thousands of runners. Fortunately for the Fallen Angels, it also wiped out all of the fundamental data relating to the Ion launch, meaning we went completely undetected.

The outzone subway literally did look like a bomb had gone off. Everything back to the subway terminal had been levelled to ground. The entrance, the old abandoned shops, everything. In it’s place was rubble, and of that rubble most of it had been reduced to nothing more than dust. A brisk breeze blew over the outzone picking up the dust and carrying it down the subway lines into Pepper Park and Via Rosso. In the midst of the rubble was the remains of the Tokyo army, unexploded shells, railgun weaponry that was now completely useless due to the electrical damage from the explosion. Clouds of smoke and dust filled the city, steadily getting thicker until saturation, and then dispersing. Every surface in the city was coated in a fine layer of toxic dust.

The good news is, in the aftermath of these actions Phoenix Ltd expanded it’s production operation to supply the demand for weaponry and armour. We also redeveloped the City Com system to be significantly more powerful than Tangent’s original counterpart. Freedom of speech had finally become a reality. I guess everything really does happen for a reason.
currently: Malevolence (res), Nerisella (cst), Twinkle (hck), Maia (hc), Aimee (hck), Naisha (ppu)
previously: Abeyance (Phoenix), Naisha (Malevolent Crackheads), Twinkle (Technocracy), Angelika (Illuminati), flyL (Regulators)
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Postby Abeyance » Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:19 am

Chapter 3: A twist in time

I am a hacker by trade, but have a diverse technical knowledge of most things. As I previously mentioned; I designed and developed a piece of technology that occupies one of the basement rooms at the Phoenix conference centre, in the wastelands. It is I that coordinated the strike against the invaders, and alongside the CEO of Phoenix, it was I that initiated the launch of the Ion weapon.

One morning – or at least I think it was morning, it gets hard to tell when you’re this far underground. I was playing around with some of the calibration settings for what we had dubbed ‘the all seeing eye’. It was an immense piece of technology vastly superior to anything that any other faction had managed to make. Sure enough, Tangent had developed the City Com network originally to spy on people, and to further reinforce Neocron city as a big brother alliance. Suddenly up on the screen, flashed a full video feed of the Ion weapon detonation over Neocron city…

This event had happened a full 11 days ago, yet everything was happening in real time. I could pan around as though this was actually happening right here, right now. I just sat there in awe. An entire day later, after I’d watched the past unfold a second time from as many angles as I could dream up; I began to try and work out what the hell I’d done. I was currently listening to a conversation between two City Administration officials, they weren’t aware I was listening – this conversation had happened in the past. I took a laser pen from my pocket and flashed it up on the screen out of boredom. Suddenly there was a scream, one of the City Administration officials was pointing at my red dot on the wall behind her.

I had accidentally created a portal into the past.

Unfolding on screen was the aftermath of the attack from Tokyo II, and the further attack and aftermath of our detonation of the Ion weapon above the city. And now to add further insult to the City factions that had betrayed us, not only could we see their lies and plans against us, but we could intervene with them and change them. I didn’t want to play around with the calibration settings in case I lost the connection, but the concept of what I had created – what I was sitting inside of right at this moment in time – was too much of a scientific breakthrough to not push the envelope just that little bit further.

It only took a matter of days for me to expand the window of time from just under two weeks to a maximum of a month. This left me with just enough time to check out Tokyo destroying the City Mercs forces, and then rewind and analyse where they went wrong. As any scientist will tell you, changing the past is the worst thing that anybody can do. If you change the balance of power at any given time in the past – even the smallest of things – it will have considerable affect on the future. However, I wasn’t about to let the City Mercs get killed by Tokyo city. I was about to kill them myself…

Rewinding through time frame by frame was definitely one of the more interesting things I’ve done in my lifetime. Watch time unfold backwards, remembering when I had watched the initial feed live. Except this time I knew I wasn’t watching a video. I also wasn’t watching a computer generated 3d reality of the present either. This time I was actually rewinding time to the point where the City Mercs forces were far enough away from Tokyo’s border for me to attack them, but close enough for the City factions to believe it was Tokyo that make the strike. An hour before the attack on Tokyo had been foiled the City Mercs had just landed on the beach on the opposite side of the midworld ocean. This presented me with a unique opportunity. If I launched an attack on the past here, it would look like Tokyo was pre-emptively striking against them as they began invading their part of the world.

Launching a weapon as powerful as the Ion weapon into the past was a daunting concept, I had no idea if it was even possible, let alone whether the technology would survive it. I carefully investigated everything, trying to work out the consequences of all of my actions. In the end I concluded that wiping out every single one of the City Mercs would weaken the city factions significantly. Avoiding the attack on Tokyo would prevent them from noticing we exist. Finally, once the city factions saw a weapon of this magnitude in action with no way of defending against it, it should neutralise their dictatorship style of behaviour. The fact they would know they’re no longer the most powerful force around would undermine their authority, allowing for the resistance to assume command of the city.

So it was set, I inverted the power relays so that the power from the Ion weapon would be bounced through the control circuits of the machine. At the time frame in the past the Ion weapon was completely operational. It was another week until it was fired, but nothing had changed in that week to prevent me from using it now. First of all I needed to establish a satellite link through to the past.

Data flashed across the screen, information scrolling faster than any mere mortal could read. Fortunately my optical implants allowed me to buffer the information so I could read it and understand everything that was going on.

Satellite uplink established;

You’re attempting to log into Nebuchadnezzar.PHOE.bridge.THN.7 (arpa.82.136.49.122/5);
Usage of this system is identified via WiFI.optical.link – please provide retinal scan now.

A series of dots began filling the screen, I provided a retinal scan and fingerprint scan.

System authenticated. User: TarasN,

The screen started filling up with more information. I submitted the coordinates and reactor levels for the attack;

System command acknowledged. Target locked, moving into position.

The satellites responsible for the attack began to move into geosynchronous orbit in position above the attack target.

Reactor frequency: 110%, charging weapon. Weapon charged. Firing upon target ZZ9.secJ(-6)/112,94.

Looking at the screen, suddenly all of the City Mercs who were preparing for this attack started looking up at the sky.

“Holy shit…”

…and then it was all over.

A cursor throbbed on the screen. “Target Destroyed”
currently: Malevolence (res), Nerisella (cst), Twinkle (hck), Maia (hc), Aimee (hck), Naisha (ppu)
previously: Abeyance (Phoenix), Naisha (Malevolent Crackheads), Twinkle (Technocracy), Angelika (Illuminati), flyL (Regulators)
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Postby Abeyance » Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:42 am

Chapter 4: Paradox

Sometime later I woke up. I had no idea what was going on, it felt almost as though my head had been beaten against a brick wall for hours on end – as though a method of torture to extract information from me. I stood up, the world around me seeming blurry. I could still hear the droning hum of the computers in the laboratory I was in, and I could faintly see the flashing lights in the distance. I sat down at my computer console. The console was still powered, and the screen was still sitting at the last command entered, sitting on it’s confirmation of ‘Target Destroyed’. I had a mild nose bleed, the blood from my nose dripping onto my hand. I went to the medicine cabinet to grab some painkillers. I’m a bit of a Kri’nak Mushroom addict so I always keep plenty of drugs on hand to sooth the pain the morning after.

From my youth I had read a lot of old science fiction novels from the ancient times, the 1980s, 1990s, up to early 3rd millennium. All of those that discussed time travel and related subjects always concluded that if you changed the past it would do one of three things;

The new future would split off into a separate reality and continue separately from the reality you’re in.

The new future would erase the current future and nobody would remember the original future.

The new future would cause a paradox with the existing future and destroy everything.

These are certainly the most popular of time travel theories. For some reason, however, none of these things had happened.

I could clearly remember the 20 days between the failed attack on Tokyo and what had happened, right up to me sending the signal to destroy the City Mercs army.

Strangely though, I could also remember the City Mercs army getting destroyed, Neocron city going into a state of chaos, and the attack from Tokyo on Neocron never happening.

It was almost as though the new future had erased the existing one, but I could clearly remember both as though I’d lived through them both. This was understandable of course, as there were no recorded records of anybody time travelling ever. Either because they’d kept themselves quiet, it had never actually happened before, or – like in my situation – they had changed so much in the past that it had sent them insane. My brain was having a hard time keeping track of which future was real. There were cross referencing memories of how I did two separate things on the same day, without any recollection of how it would have been possible.

I decided it would be worthwhile giving up on this and being sociable, maybe that would help clear my head. I headed to the lift to get to the surface, gave the button and whack and got inside.

The foyer for the conference centre was a spectacle unto itself, possibly the pinnacle of Phoenix’s work to date. The main entrance was a bubble, a circular building leading on to the rest of the building. Instead of glass, force field generators allowed human matter into the building, but weapons were electronically transferred into storage – providing a true safe zone. No weapons in, no problems. At the reception desk, shift work between holographic representations of Phoenix staff and actual people – allowing for a true 24/7 conference building without inconveniencing any real people. Because of the Neutral nature of conference centre, and the on going treaty, Gene Replicator access was allowed to and from the building to all four major structures – Neocron City, Tech Haven, the Military Base, and the Dome Of York.

A few seconds later I was standing in Plaza, disoriented. I couldn’t work out if it was the synaptic impairment or whether I wasn’t all there. People seemed to be walking around Plaza going about their own daily business; constructors, researchers, implanters and the like. Every now and again one of them would disappear and reappear a few feet further along the road. I convinced myself it was related to my brain trying to cope with the additional burden it had been given and went to sleep in the medicentre.

“Attention citizens”

I was rudely awakened from my slumber on a medicare bed by the usual Neocron public announcement system. I should have known better than to sleep underneath one of the speakers.

“All representatives of factions involved with the exploration project, including all Phoenix scientists, are to report to the Phoenix Conference Centre immediately.”

By this time I was sitting upright, the world still seemed to be spinning around me. A short stumble later I was back in the conference centre heading down to the room at the end of the hall, aptly named ‘the executive conference suite’. It had a plaque on the door accordingly. I knocked and entered to find my fellow company members sitting alongside various people from other factions. Introductions were made around the table and then it was straight to business. There was an alliance going on, but you could still feel a tone of hatred in the air. Flickering up onto the screen came details of a particular attack during a ‘normal reconnaissance mission’ undertaken by the City Mercs approximately a month ago. During this mission all participants died from an unseen, very high technology weapon. Out of 7000 soldiers, there were no survivors.

The discussion was running to conclude whether or not a second attempt to make contact with the city of Tokyo was to be made. Representatives from the City factions claimed outright that if Tokyo was aggressive like this from the start then they should just declare all out war. I sat in my chair. I knew the truth. This hadn’t been a reconnaissance mission. They had made the initial strike. I had stopped the initial strike. As far as I know Tokyo hadn’t even noticed that we existed – still. The blatant lies that these people were spinning right in front of my face was enough for me to feel physically sick. We called an adjournment to the meeting and the members of Phoenix split off to discuss what had been said so far.

“…And that’s where we are now. So now that I’ve finished explaining everything to you – everything they’ve done, everything I’ve done. We need to make a decision right now. Do we stand by them as though we don’t know any wiser, or do we confront them and make them suspicious to what we’re capable of?”
“You’re crazy,” Brammers said to me. “You expect me to believe that you’ve developed a method of seeing into the past, changing events, and everything you’ve just told me is the truth?”

He had a good point. I guess to somebody who hadn’t witnessed everything first hand it would sound a little crazy.

“To make things worse, even if this is the truth – you’re telling me you spent Phoenix’s production budget to develop this machine, and then you – a PHOENIX EMPLOYEE – of all people, are responsible for extinguishing thousands of lives during a time when we’re all at PEACE?”

So I guess this is my punishment. I save the city of Neocron from obvious destruction by taking the lives of another. Do two wrongs in fact make a right? The death of the City Mercs soldiers had actually reduced the overall casualties during this saga. Tokyo’s attack on the city had caused many more casualties.

“Are you even listening to me?” Brammers interrupted my train of thought again.

“Sir, I can explain.” I figured it would be best to just say it rather than look like I’m ignoring the whole conversation. “The creation of this device was accidental. This isn’t what it was originally intended for. Regardless of that, I may or may not be responsible for creating war. If I hadn’t stopped the City Mercs, YOU would have ordered me to use the device anyway a week later when Tokyo attacked. That attack destroyed the whole economy of Neocron city due to the electrical surge destroying all of the electronics in the city. I did what I had to do in order to stop the attack, and now they’re sitting in there as though it was a reconnaissance mission and their soldiers were innocently slaughtered. They’re stabbing us in the back, they tried to take Tokyo by themselves without the resistance’s input to steal the spoils of war for their own greater good. Their actions in the ORIGINAL future put everybody at risk. Tokyo’s warriors would have come back in bigger numbers and there would have been nothing we could have done about it.”

“We have to go back in, the adjournment is over. I will consider what you have told me when we continue to discuss this but you are to remain quiet. And for God’s sake – don’t mention any of this to ANYBODY.”

We re-entered the room and after a short period of discussion concluded that we would make a strategic move on the city of Tokyo, but that the Fallen Angels would develop technology to ensure that any further attacks similar to the attack that devastated the City Mercs wouldn’t happen again.

“…it will take time,” said Brammers; “but we will develop technology to assist us and a detailed plan of action to allow us to make contact with the city of Tokyo to discuss friendly relations. Now that we’re all agreed with this, the meeting is over.”
currently: Malevolence (res), Nerisella (cst), Twinkle (hck), Maia (hc), Aimee (hck), Naisha (ppu)
previously: Abeyance (Phoenix), Naisha (Malevolent Crackheads), Twinkle (Technocracy), Angelika (Illuminati), flyL (Regulators)
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Postby Abeyance » Wed Jul 18, 2007 12:14 pm

Chapter 5: Future Echoes

The meeting had concluded and now the attention was on me. The CEO of Phoenix and the Director of section 2 operations were both sitting in my laboratory, deep inside the catacombs of the Conference Centre. I had gone through the whole explanations of how the system was supposed to work, what it was supposed to do, and how it was operating at the moment. I had established how to calibrate the machine for anything up to a month in the past, all the way up to present day. With the help of a few negative calibrations I could actually make the machine predict a few seconds into the future.

“This is incredible,” the director of section 2 exclaimed. “With what you’re saying; technology like this would allow us to correct mankind’s mistakes one by one after they occur. It would allow us to create a truly incredible world where everything is perfect.”

“I don’t think that messing with the past to change the future is part of Phoenix’s corporate objective. Besides professional grounds, I don’t see what gives us the right to play God.” Brammers interjected. “Using this machine would make us no better than Reza and his dictatorship.”

“There’s a problem though. This room appears to be shielded against the changes in time. When I made the change in the past, I could clearly remember the previous future, and the current future, even after it had been changed. From a religious point of view this device is both the creator and the destroyer; that’s for sure. From a scientific point of view, however, changing the past has severe adverse effects on the people in this room.” I rubbed my head, still soothing my headache. “I’m suggesting that we use this machine to monitor what’s going on, how things happen, but I’m not sure how much pressure the human body can take from being put through this sort of treatment.”

I reach over and start typing in the air. Holographic keys appeared at my fingertips as I push the keys.

“However, I am interested to know what was said after the meeting by the other factions, and if you don’t mind me eavesdropping, sit back and enjoy the demonstration.”

On screen, information started scrolling as wireframes of buildings started to appear, rotating a full 180 degrees and filling in. We were now back in the past – exactly at the time the meeting ended.

“…it will take time, but we will develop technology to assist us and a detailed plan of action to allow us to make contact with the city of Tokyo to discuss friendly relations. Now that we’re all agreed with this, the meeting is over.”

The déjà vu of the sentence was apparent to us all, as we were all present at the time. In the bottom corner of the screen came up the message;

“Destination locked: Time minus 3 hours, location ZR7.secF(5)/92,103, synchronising…”

The occupants of the executive conference suite slowly filed out and we followed the main city employees as they used the Gene Replicator to leave the centre and return to the city. Data in the bottom corner updated reflecting their new location.

“Well that meeting went well. I don’t think anybody suspected a thing,” the man said, “it’s nice to know that they believe in this treaty so much as to believe we would send out a recon team without authorisation, with the pure intent of scoping out the location.”

“That girl seemed to be in a bit of a cold sweat throughout the meeting, she didn’t seem all there.”

“Don’t worry; everything is being taken care of. Besides; she’s just a scientist. The only reason she was present in the meeting was because she developed the surveillance system,” he sighed, turned and walked over to a replication unit at the wall. “Coffee, white, one sugar,” he proclaimed, and it appeared. “Once Phoenix has written up a plan to make contact, we’ll use Tangent Technologies new electro magnetic frequency inverter to scramble all of their electronic systems, including their force field. From there on in it will all be an easy ride. We’ll take the city, call it our own, and kill anybody that gets in our way. For Reza, for Neocron, for the people.”

“For Reza, for Neocron, for the people,” repeated the other man.

“So you’re saying if I pull out my rifle right now, and shoot at the screen, it will hit them in the past?” section 2’s director asked.

“You could do, but who do you think they will blame?” said Brammers.

I concurred with this, “It would be better for us to sit it out; in all honesty I could probably use this machine to make contact with the city of Tokyo now requesting assistance. The only reason they attacked in the alternative future seemed to be City Merc’s method of ‘communicating’ with them.”

“Have you tried looking inside of the walls of Tokyo city with this machine?” said Brammers.

I stopped to think for a second, and then started typing into the air again.

“Destination locked: Time minus 3 hours, location ZR7.secK(-5)/117,42, synchronising…”

On screen the walls of the city came into focus, vast beaten walls made of a dark brown stone. We circled the walls. This city was amazing in size, at least 3 or 4 times larger than Neocron city. From what we saw there was only one way into the city; subsequently, only one way out. We panned in closer to the gates and the signal started to break up. Once we were inside the city the interference was so bad that the signal repeatedly dropped for up to a second at a time.

“What’s going on?”

“Ssh,” I proclaimed, and began frantically typing away again. The signal started to get clearer. “This feed is pretty much live, in fact so live that once you take into consideration the time it takes for the signal to get to and from the satellite, and compensate for this, we’re seeing things about half a second before they happen. This is bound to cause interference.”

The city was vast, as tall as it was wide. The main spectacle being two towers, so tall they disappeared into the artificial atmosphere inside of the force field. This was technology far greater than what we had seen in the past, the people that inhabited this city had developed an artificial atmosphere inside of their own dome. The buildings were significantly better kept; it was almost like walking down a street full of show homes. Environmental readings from my systems were telling me that there was no pollution, no radioactivity, in fact the atmosphere inside was so clean that there were none of the inherent chemicals in the air – including the ones that normally were in the air. There was no Nitrogen content for example.

“So how do we establish contact with them?”

“Well I guess the easiest way would be for one of us to go through?”

“Too dangerous.”

“Yes but any other method could lead to doubt. After all, do you not remember the conversation we had only a few hours ago where you called me crazy?”

Brammers sat there momentarily, looking around the room that we were in. “You ARE crazy! Do you not realise how crazy you are? You’ve made a time machine! Not to mention the Ion weapon. If any of this stuff fell in the wrong hands it could be abused so badly that life as we know it would be over!”

“We are going to have to consider our position before deciding how we do this. Don’t forget, the alliance is expecting a report from us on how we plan on making contact. After what I’ve seen today I do intend to give them a report, but it won’t be on how to make contact. If we act on this by ourselves we will be betraying the alliance just like they’ve betrayed us.”

After a few hours of discussion we concluded the best way to make contact would be to develop a method of projecting ourselves through this machine holographically. This way we make physical contact with whoever is on the other side without putting anybody at risk. While we have holographic technologies at our disposal, interfacing them with our systems would take time. This was my next order.
currently: Malevolence (res), Nerisella (cst), Twinkle (hck), Maia (hc), Aimee (hck), Naisha (ppu)
previously: Abeyance (Phoenix), Naisha (Malevolent Crackheads), Twinkle (Technocracy), Angelika (Illuminati), flyL (Regulators)
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Postby Abeyance » Wed Jul 18, 2007 1:16 pm

Chapter 6: First Contact

I was bored and alone, taking a break from working on the interface to link our holographic projection technology to Neb. (short for Nebuchadnezzar, the pet name and domain identification for the machine) At times like these I took the opportunity to scroll through time. In this particular instance I was rerunning the first launch of the first rocket. The one that got blew up. Frame by frame I was running time backwards, following the missile that had blown it up.

I had convinced myself that it wasn’t Tokyo that had attacked us on that day, contrary to Tangent Technologies popular belief, a belief they enforced so ruthlessly it almost made them look guilty. I say convinced, the writing down the side of the missile that I had read just before it impacted the first rocket, quite clearly said ‘Tangent Technologies, prototype mobile nuclear warhead.’ It was a dead giveaway. What I was more interested in now, is finding out where it had launched from. Nevertheless, while I left Neb to track back through time to the launch destination of the missile, I continued with my interface. The scene was set, we had sent a digitally encoded message to Tokyo asking them if we could meet in person, on neutral terms, to request a treaty. The reply we had got back was crude and unforgiving, but accepted our proposal to meet.

“To whom it may concern,” it started.

“I don’t know who you think you are or what you can offer us, but we have survived hundreds of years without outside intervention and will survive another hundred years without it. We are a completely self sufficient people and do not believe in ‘treaties’ and ‘alliances.’ It is these very agreements that caused so many wars and got this planet to the situation it is in at the moment. However, my people disagree with me. We are a limited population of a few thousand people due to the size of the city, and many of my people have expressed the desire to communicate with others that are left on this planet.

I will accept your proposal to meet however we will not allow you entry to our city to do so. We have worked hard to keep our city clean and restore humanity to its former glory, even if it’s just inside our protective dome. Please reply with the location of your meeting point and we shall discuss this further.”

The reply wasn’t signed by anybody, nor was it addressed to anybody. Obviously these people wanted to arrange anonymous. We had replied to them with our further proposal of using holographic technology to appear to them inside of their city, for their own convenience and safety. To this, they agreed.

Holographic technology by definition only allows the projection of light, with this projection you are unable to touch, move, or feel anything. The technology I have been working on for the interface is a different kind of holographic technology. Due to the nature of the machine I am able to render a person at various stages in time, allowing multiple hologramatic spectrums to create a physical representation of a person – this representation will be able to touch and feel things on the other side. I call this technology ‘Hard Light holograms,’ and it is my latest invention.

Naturally, as the CEO of Phoenix, Brammers stepped up to the duty of being our representative, and at the specified time he turned up outside of my laboratory.

I jumped into my chair, started hacking away at the keyboard setting up the interface and synchronising into the right timeframes for the meeting.

“Destination locked: Time double negative 12 seconds, location ZR7.secK(-5)/117,42, synchronising…

Interfacing with interface on link COM1,
-> type binary
-> speed 96600,

Multilink established…”, the cursor blinked while it waited for the device to initialise.

“Initiating device…

Bridge link between the following ports:
-> COM1
-> COM2
-> COM3
-> Bringing universal parallel bus online

Bridge link established, link with interface HOLLY-HL-zz12-com(1-3) active.
-> speed 14.2gbps”

“So are we ready for this?” I asked. A moment of silence passed with nothing but the whirring of the computer systems in the room. Brammers sat down in the unit. Automatically, gravity defying straps floated out of the unit and wrapped themselves around the top of his head, place themselves into his hands, and wrapped themselves around his legs.

“Connection established. Bringing up multilink.

Destination locked: Time double negative 12 seconds, location ZR7.secK(-5)/117,42, synchronising…
Destination locked: Time double negative 8 seconds, location ZR7.secK(-5)/117,42, synchronising…
Destination locked: Time double negative 6 seconds, location ZR7.secK(-5)/117,42, synchronising…”

And then there was light. On screen I could see a hologram of Brammers walking through the streets of Tokyo towards the agreed meeting point. I followed him, panning around him ensuring everything seemed acceptable. Two guards unstealthed out of nowhere and stood next to him.

“Halt, you are Brammers of Phoenix, you are to come with us immediately.”

A quick adjustment of one of the parameters moved the time-sync for the holograms being projected so that any attempt to grab hold of him would result in ‘normal’ holographic results. Brammers followed the escort through to the building and stepped inside. On the outside the building looked like all of the others. Clean, black, tall, and well kept. There was a garden outside with flowers and trees, a pair of big wooden doors that would have usually been associated with a Crahn Church, only of higher quality. The doors were finished off with big handles which looked like they were made from brass, glistening from the light of their artificial sun. Inside of the building was completely different to what any of us were used to. It had an almost traditional 1990-2000 feel about it – a distant picture to what we normally associate with buildings. These people definitely did look of Japanese descent and their architecture matched that. The walls were decorated with fine art, a long table furnished the main hall way, running down one of the walls, with a fine linen cloth covering it. At the end of the hallway Brammers walked through another door into another room, with a very high ceiling, and what could be described as a throne in the middle. This was the first contact we had with the people of Tokyo.
currently: Malevolence (res), Nerisella (cst), Twinkle (hck), Maia (hc), Aimee (hck), Naisha (ppu)
previously: Abeyance (Phoenix), Naisha (Malevolent Crackheads), Twinkle (Technocracy), Angelika (Illuminati), flyL (Regulators)
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Postby Brammers » Wed Jul 18, 2007 1:23 pm

ooc: More! More! Turning out to be a great story to read!
Brammers - THN Admin & CEO Phoenix Ltd.
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Postby Abeyance » Wed Jul 18, 2007 1:30 pm

lol you read all of that? its nearly 9500 words already
currently: Malevolence (res), Nerisella (cst), Twinkle (hck), Maia (hc), Aimee (hck), Naisha (ppu)
previously: Abeyance (Phoenix), Naisha (Malevolent Crackheads), Twinkle (Technocracy), Angelika (Illuminati), flyL (Regulators)
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Postby Abeyance » Wed Jul 18, 2007 2:01 pm

Chapter 7: Shoot The Messenger

“Beep. Authorised. Access Granted. Welcome back Naisha Taras.”

The doors to my laboratory started opening. It had been a few days since I had been down here. Shortly after the first contact and the initial discussion with the ruler of Tokyo, we were invited to come and visit the city directly - a first for everything, and a complete contradiction of their rulings. We were the first outsiders to step foot in the city of Tokyo since the end of the third world war. Between ourselves and our new allies, we had discussed the current situation going on in Neocron, the history of Tokyo and their traditions and technologies. They were a peaceful people, but armed to the teeth – as I had seen in the past. In some areas of technology they were wildly ahead of us, and others – dramatically behind. Upon our first steps inside their city we both had trouble breathing, our bodies being used to the poisoned air we breathe on a daily basis. On our exit, we suffered the same problem – after getting adjusted to breathing very pure air.

“Systems online. You have 17 new messages. Message one.”

I sat down in my chair, sighed, and reflected on the last couple of days while my messages reeled off.

“Message seven. Hi Nai, it’s Matan, from MAU, I have some important news for you and you need to call me back as soon as possible. I urge you to call me as SOON as you receive this message.”

I wonder what his problem was, Matan was usually a very relaxed person. A whole day could go past and he wouldn’t really notice.

“Message eight. Naisha it’s Matan again. Where the hell are you. Call me back!”

I dialled his number and connected the call. Unlike normal person who would use a phone, I just pumped the call straight through my system. His contact number wasn’t a main line number, but some sort of mobile device, so I decided to trace the call while I was at it.

“Ring, Ring”

"Call trans opt: received. 4-7-47 09:15:12 REC:Log>"

He picked up the call.

“Hello?”

“Hi Matan, its Nai, what’s up? You’ve left like 8 messages on my machine.”

“I don’t want to talk on the phone, I need to meet you in person, this is urgent”

The line started to crackle.

“Trace error: other device on line”

I stared blankly at my screen.

“Matan stop talking this line isn’t clean. I’ll call you back.”

“Don’t hang up, they’ll get to me, I already know too much.”

Fortunately I’m not scared about being traced. My line goes through a switchboard in my old laboratory underneath Tech Haven, in a section that is very difficult to find. In fact few people figure it’s a design flaw. Whereas in reality, the entrance to Tech Haven sector 1 that’s outside and opposite the exit for Tech Haven sector 1 is the entrance to my old laboratory. To top it all off, that switchboard is only the 2nd in the link, and in all likelihood anybody tracing one of my calls will probably find it’s being made from the phone they’re calling on. I guess this is the upside of being one of the best hackers around.

I ran a sweep on all of the telephony equipment that was monitoring the last call. The person that had been trying to trace me was located in the old Black Dragon HQ, in Pepper Park. I thought that place had been abandoned and taken over by beggars, but obviously I was wrong. I made another call with 4096bit encryption to Matan’s phone.

“Matan, I’m going to be quick. Don’t talk. Just listen. Go to a random place and I’ll meet you there. Don’t tell me, don’t tell anybody. Don’t take your phone – it can be traced. Don’t take any other electrical device. Once you have arrived at your destination you will wait there for an unspecified amount of time. I will come to you then. If you take a weapon, use a lowtech weapon.”

I terminated the call. The fact of the matter was, if I know where somebody is at a particular time, I can navigate my way through time to find them at any other given point in time. I set the Nebuchadnezzar to track Matan’s movements until he stopped moving. Once he stopped moving, I projected a hologram of myself to his location.

“Matan, what’s the matter?”

Matan was a little shifty. Obviously he wasn’t expecting me to just appear. Let alone find him.

“Don’t worry about this; I need to be safe to. There are some bad people around and I don’t know who to trust. What’s the matter?”

“A few days ago I was contacted by a Tangent Technologies employee. They wanted to know where you are, who you are, and what you do. It seems they believe you’re up to something and that you’re responsible for certain people going missing.”

“People going missing? What the hell? What did you tell them?”
“I told them that I have no idea who you are, or what you do. Which in all honesty, I might know a bit about who you are, but I still have no idea what you do. Even after this long. They weren’t satisfied with my answer and reported me to the City Administration as a resistance spy. My soul light has dropped down to -100. I’m not even allowed near the city perimeter.”

“Don’t worry about your soul light. I can fix that for you.”

“But how…”

“Don’t ask questions that you don’t really want the answer to, Matan. You’re in danger and you don’t know anything. Imagine how much danger you’d be in if you did. Do you know the name of the person that contacted you?”

“No, but I have his contact number. I can call him, and then he’ll meet me.”

“Do it, say you have information on where I am. Don’t tell him you’ve spoken to me. I will follow you, when he turns up I’ll deal with him.”

I terminated my connection and watched what he did. He made a call alright, arranged a time and place. On a second screen I scoped out the area he had suggested. It was a little valley near Catlock bay. It had a tower overseeing it, they were due to meet underneath the tower.

At the specified time the meeting took place. I swore that I’d never do this, but I wasn’t changing the past. I was changing the future. I aimed my silent hunter deep into the screen and pulled the trigger. A perfectly lined shot went straight through Matan’s contact’s head. Matan, scared, ran for cover as the echoes of the shot died down through the valley. I’d already worked out who he was, by travelling back through time to find where he came from. His contact was a Tangent Technologies employee, the same one I had seen when I researched who launched the missile that destroyed the first satellite.
currently: Malevolence (res), Nerisella (cst), Twinkle (hck), Maia (hc), Aimee (hck), Naisha (ppu)
previously: Abeyance (Phoenix), Naisha (Malevolent Crackheads), Twinkle (Technocracy), Angelika (Illuminati), flyL (Regulators)
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Postby Abeyance » Wed Jul 18, 2007 3:23 pm

Chapter 8: Revelations

Time is an illusion. Who decided to split days up into 24 hours? Who decided that an hour is 60 minutes? Who decided that a minute is 60 seconds? Who decided how long a second is? Time is one of those elements that dictate your life. You set a time to wake up. A time to goto sleep. You’re told to be at work by a certain time and told to go home by another time. The phrase ‘there isn’t enough time to do this’, or ‘if only I had the time.’ Why don’t you have the time? Is it because you’re a very busy person? Who are you busy for? If you don’t have the time why don’t you create the time to do what you need to do? Or – is the phrase ‘I don’t have the time’ synonym with ‘I don’t want to do this.’

Ever since my accidental discovery, time truly has become an illusion. I’ve found that I can stop doing anything at any given time, and simply fill in the blanks at a later date. I’ve been in two places at the same time and nobody has even noticed.

The friendship between Phoenix and Tokyo is growing ever stronger. They know that we’ve been asked to write a report that will basically result in an attack on their city. We know that once we write this report they will arrange to destroy anybody that attacks. We have a kind of… coordination, between us. Various members of Phoenix have relocated to inside the city of Tokyo, and a few of Tokyo’s best scientists have left the city and joined Phoenix. It was a mutual friendship built on trust.

“…so now thanks to Phoenix we have a plan established to make contact with the city of Tokyo.”

I slowly snapped out of my daydream, and returned to the conference meeting.

“Contact will be established for the first time in exactly one week. We shall make the move at night over the mid world ocean, and land on the south beach early in the morning. This meeting is adjourned, go home and get some rest.”

The conference room emptied and people queued up next to the Gene Replicators, getting ready to jump home.

“Well that went well,” Brammers said to nobody in particular. “We have a Phoenix meeting in 30 minutes; I hope you’re all going to attend.”

It had been a long day. The last 15 hours had been spent discussing the terms of our proposal to ‘meet’ the people of Tokyo. Now for the first time, the most trusted members of Phoenix were going to goto Tokyo city for another meeting, to discuss all possibilities of action against these people – depending on the outcome of their initial contact. We had basically narrowed it down to a handful of possibilities:

We would all meet, everybody would get along. New treaties would be formed between the Dome of York, Neocron, and Tokyo City.

We would meet, Neocron would attack, the Resistance wouldn’t know what’s going on, and Tokyo would destroy everybody in range.

We would all meet, Neocron factions and Dome of York factions would argue as they’re prone to do, Tokyo would dismiss the treaty and continue their lives alone.

Or, my personal favourite. The transport ship carrying the major leaders of Neocron and the Dome would suddenly sink into the mid world ocean, killing everybody on board.

The latter wasn’t Brammers’ personal favourite; since he would be on board this ship along with a lot of Phoenix personnel.

It was very cold outside. A week later we’re standing on the northern coastline above the Military Base. The sea is rough tonight, waves cracking against the coastline. The wind was pretty wild as well, blowing my hair all over my face. In the group that were boarding the transport hovercraft, were four faction representatives from every faction going, Black Dragon had Joshua from YLC, a couple of members of Terraists, Tsunami had representatives, Tangent Technologies was the exception. They insisted on bringing four faction representatives and 8 body guards for each one. Most of Afterdark were present alongside various Soldierz members. Phoenix limited were exempt from the ruling, and we had around 20 people coming along. Ranging from scientists to interpreters, to constructors and our drivers. It was a rough ride, I didn’t get much sleep. We spent a lot of journey playing cards.

We landed on the south beach in the early hours of the morning, our calculations for journey distance and duration were pretty accurate considering nobody had used sea based travel in hundreds of years. From here, we walked. We were a good few miles out from the city of Tokyo when communication was established. To everybody else this seemed like a breakthrough. To Brammers and I, everything was going according to plan.

“This is the city of Tokyo. You will address yourself to me and me only. I am the leader of this city. Stop moving immediately and await further instructions.”

Miles away, I grinned to myself. Nobody in the group had noticed that I wasn’t really there, that’s how convincing the hard light hologram technology was. Everything down to the fact my hair blew around in the wind. Brammers had insisted that one of us stay behind in case something goes wrong. Since I was the one that had designed the technology and I knew how to use it best, that somebody was me. I was monitoring the whole operation from the sky using a traditional satellite view. On a second screen I had the hologram view – a view through the eyes of myself. A third screen was my ‘classic’ pan shot, following the action around from whichever angle I wanted, and on a fourth screen I was monitoring what was going on inside Tokyo. I was logged into the Ion weapon and it was fully charged, waiting on standby, I was also monitoring the future of the group by a total of 60 seconds, so I could give heads up to the people involved if anything happened – before it happened.

“Ok Brammers, in about 60 seconds a building is going to appear in front you.”

I watched the events of the future unfolding – a building unstealthed – you really have to love the technology these guys have. The building appeared to be a meeting room of some kind, with a ramped entry way with steps. Lots of steps. The same architecture as the rest of their structures, but we were a full mile and a half out from the main walls of the city. The building appears in the present, to the amazement of most of the crowd of people we had sent. If the habitants of Tokyo were going for the shock and awe approach they were succeeding.

“Enter the building,” the message over our communication link to Tokyo announced. Our people started to enter the building one by one. Their defence system was similar to our own, but rather than disarming people as they entered, it returned them to a mental state similar to what Reza’s Law Enforcer implant causes.

“You shall take a seat, and await further instruction.” The personnel of many of the city factions had just about had enough with being told what to do. Ironic, since they spend most of their lives being told how to live by the City Administration.

“We want to see you IMMEDIATELY,” shouted one of the faction representatives. “Show yourself now! We didn’t travel all of this way to be talked down to.”

“You shall take a seat, and you shall await further instruction. If you do not wish to take a seat then please leave here now.”

Over a period of the next 30 minutes or so, calm befell the room and the doors were shut. Shortly after the doors closing the leader of Tokyo entered from the rear of the building.

“Citizens of the three tribes; Neocron, The Dome Of York, and the City Mercenaries, welcome to the Tokyo alliance room. You are here today because you wish to make an announcement to my people and I. Hopefully your intentions are peaceful as we are a peaceful people. You have travelled a long way and if you wish to rest, you may do so in this building. There are sleeping quarters on both sides of the room. You are free to leave at any time; we shut the doors so that our air purification system isn’t wasted on the poison in the air outside.” He paused, nobody in the room got up to go anywhere so he chose the opportunity to continue. “For many hundreds of years my people have lived in solitude, away from everybody else in the world. As a society we have grown, but sadly also suffered because of this lack of diversification in culture. For many years our prophecy has foretold the coming of others that survived the Great War. Many didn’t believe this; some have strayed from our religion, but praise be to the almighty for he has kept his promise!”

Many people in the room felt rather uncomfortable with this talk of religion. In recent times the only real religion has been the brotherhood of Crahn, so many people automatically associate religion with crazed psychokinetic maniacs with the power to crush your face with nothing more than a distant stare. Brammers and I had already spent time studying the Tokians’ culture. From what we could understand, the people themselves are originally descended from the Japanese; however their religious culture is a derivative of Sufism. A long forgotten religion, Sufism, like another ancient religion ‘Buddhism’, is a way of life. It develops an inner way to mystical union with God. People of this religion frequently wear the cloak of Islam, and it is sometimes seen as the esoteric dimension of the Islamic faith. A Sufi may or may not embrace Islam, but will be respectful of all faiths, seeing the path of truth that lies within their core. The bottom line as far as the factions of Neocron is concerned, if you show them respect, they’ll repay you with as much respect as you’ve earned.

“If you wish to extend your hand in peace, then we will graciously accept. However as with all things, an alliance between our peoples will take time, taking into considerations your past and ours. While we do not wish to offend any individual or group we will not sacrifice our beliefs for peace. Now go from here, we will contact you shortly to further propose an arrangement of peace between our peoples. As mentioned earlier you may seek shelter here and rest until you’re ready to go. Good luck weary travellers, it has been nice making your acquaintance.”

He left the room as quickly as he had entered. The people in the room were, for a change, speechless. I sat back in my chair, the whirring of the gravity beams adjusting accompanying the humming of the computers, and relaxed. Stage one completed successfully.

“Synchronisation terminated…”
currently: Malevolence (res), Nerisella (cst), Twinkle (hck), Maia (hc), Aimee (hck), Naisha (ppu)
previously: Abeyance (Phoenix), Naisha (Malevolent Crackheads), Twinkle (Technocracy), Angelika (Illuminati), flyL (Regulators)
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Postby Matan » Wed Jul 18, 2007 7:50 pm

ooc: woooo I'm in it! :D This is really good btw, I'm very impressed.
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Postby Abeyance » Thu Jul 19, 2007 7:50 am

Chapter 9: Covert Operations

“We’ve done it…”

“I know, it’s incredible isn’t it?”

“Do you know what this means for mankind?”

“The people won’t be ready for a change like this…”

“Don’t worry; we’ll introduce them to the truth one step at a time. We’re in a unique position, we already control the market. If we just start introducing new products incorporating this new technology they’ll never catch on.”

“This is truly incredible. I’ve never seen something so powerful.”

“Shouldn’t we inform the others?”

“What others? By the time we’ve finished we will own everything.”

“But… the alliance…”

“Listen to me; you’re either 100% with Tangent Technologies, or 100% against us. And let me you my friend; you don’t want to be against us.”

*click*

*bang*

Sirens. Wailing. Echoes through the street. Medicare personnel rush a Tangent Technologies scientist and a NExT engineer to the infirmary. Both of them are suffering from severe but not fatal wounds. They’ve both lost a lot of blood and they’re both unconscious.

“What the hell happened here?”

“We don’t know, we received an anonymous call stating a convert meeting between two defected scientists had gone sour. Both of them have received shots to the head in exactly the same place. However, there are no bullet holes – grated there is a lot of blood but the blood is escaping through the nose. We’ve done initial x-rays and confirmed that they both have a bullet lodged inside their brains at exactly the same position in the temporal cortex. It’s almost an impossible coincidence. They’re both stable but even if they do regain consciousness, chances are they’ll never remember who they are let alone what they we doing.” The medicare personnel were hooking them upto lifesupport.

“What about their gene replication accounts?” the lead copbot said.

“Their gene replication chips have been scrambled and their backup copies have been deleted from the gene replicator network. Whoever did this had no intention of them ever waking up. The precision of this operation is almost scary. I can’t give you anything to work on because there is nothing to work on. All we know at this time is that some kind of frequency scrambled killed their gene id chip and somehow the assassins managed to get a bullet lodged with medical precision inside their heads.”

“Thank you, have a good day runner. I shall report back to the NCPD. We will investigate this further.”

The copbot sighs, and leaves the medicare centre. Heading out towards Via Rosso Sector 2. It’s a fair few sectors walk from Plaza 1 but he has time, he’s going to use the time to connect to the NCPD uplink and look through CCTV records. Anybody who spent this must time planning an attack must have been in the area recently. There has to be some evidence somewhere.

After some time he crossed over the boarder from Via Rosso 1 to Via Rosso 2. As he walked upto the NCPD building shots rang out. Some kind of… technology… was causing the sound of the bullet to reflect, hiding the position of the shooter. The copbots usual neutral activity didn’t detect any damage, but suddenly started generating errors.

“Drop that weap…” the copbot tried to announce, and then collapsed on the floor.

There was a mass frenzy, copbots came running out of the NCPD and into Via Rosso from all directions. The whole area was screened, nobody was allowed in, and nobody was allowed out. They thought they’d fine me that way. They were wrong.

A few hours later, after the copbot incident, I’m looking around to see what’s being done about it. I lock inside the NCPD building and overhear the middle of a conversation.

“…and they managed to do this without being seen. There are no records on any CCTV recordings of this happening. Look here: We see them talking, we see them collapse; monitoring all tapes we see nothing going in or out. And it’s the same story with our copbot. We HEAR the shot fired. I have witnesses to that. But look – Copbot turns around, copbot falls down. Doing a full thermal scan on Via Rosso at the exact second the shot was fired. There is NOBODY in the sector other than copbots and other personnel. There’s no stealth technology used. There quite simply isn’t anybody in the sector.”

“That’s impossible. There must be somebody somewhere.”

“I don’t think these were random killings. I think the two victims from this morning – they must have known something. And our copbot – he must have found something. The group that did this… we have to find them.”

I love the way they automatically assume it’s a group of people working together.
currently: Malevolence (res), Nerisella (cst), Twinkle (hck), Maia (hc), Aimee (hck), Naisha (ppu)
previously: Abeyance (Phoenix), Naisha (Malevolent Crackheads), Twinkle (Technocracy), Angelika (Illuminati), flyL (Regulators)
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Postby Abeyance » Thu Jul 19, 2007 8:17 am

Chapter 10: The Rail Gun

“This is an important NCTV newsflash – bringing you up to the second news for Neocron and the alliance.”

“Hi I’m Barry Pepper, and yesterday there we three attacks on the citizens of Neocron. We’re looking for information regarding the deaths of Tangent Technologies employee Andrew Simmons, and NExT employee Delilah Nowakoska. Anybody who has information regarding these merciless killings are to report it immediately to the NCPD.”

“In addition to these two killings, in downtown Via Rosso yesterday afternoon a copbot was shot dead from a distance by an unknown runner, believed to be associated or responsible with the deaths of the other two people. Any information regarding this killing will also be rewarded. Remember; contact the NCPD if you have any information regarding this at all. I’m Barry Pepper, and this is NCTV News.”

The technology that NExT and Tangent had been working on was a new super weapon, based on technology they had stolen from the Tokian’s during the initial meeting. We had heard from our contacts within the Tokian ranks that one of their guards had been jumped, knocked out, and had his weapon stolen. I had come across these weapons before, I’d watched them be used against us in the alternative future. The handheld rail gun is far more advanced than anything I’d ever seen before. I had been trusted with the position of getting it back. I can say it was a reasonably easier mission, much easier than researching the item before giving it back to the Tokians. Incidentally to maintain relations, I have asked if I can research it and they have already given me the go-ahead. I already had a working prototype rail gun rifle. It was incredible.

It was about the same size and dimensions as a Raygun. The construction however was completely different. Inside of the weapon was an oil chamber, this steadied the barrel, allowing faster firing and zero recoil. The oil barrel also helped to dissipate the heat, and keep aiming perfectly steady even when running. On the side of the rail gun was a 7 inch by 7 inch screen, which popped out so you could see exactly where you were going to fire. This screen was capable of night vision and infrared vision. What made my version of the rail gun better was my firing mechanism.

The Tokian rail gun used super generated magnetic fields to ‘fling’ the slug out of the barrel at extremely high speeds close to the speed of light. The firing mechanism in my rail gun prototype generated time fields, which removed the slug from time and space, allowing it to travel at multiples of the speed of light. Because of this system, the second I pulled on the trigger of my weapon – whatever I was aiming at was instantly hit. No delays whatsoever. The speed of the slugs meant that on most targets, the slug would travel straight through the target leaving a perfect tunnel. During testing I shot the weapon at a 200 metre thick concrete wall. The slug made it 180 metres into the wall and knocked the tiles off the other side.

I was currently working on a cannon version of the rail gun, but with the immense power available in the rifle version I didn’t really see the point. The cannon version wouldn’t be anymore powerful than the rifle, it would just be a personal preference.

In the later stage of testing, I had used my rifle during a war for a construction factory in the wastelands. Phoenix was defending against the invading Soldierz. I took the opportunity to snipe from the roof of the factory. After I had shot two people, the Soldierz fled the scene. Due to the hefty radioactive properties of the rail gun slugs it is very difficult for a psionic warrior to resurrect a person that has been killed by the rail gun. This upset our enemy quite a lot.

“You’re aware you can’t use that for the time being, aren’t you?” Brammers addressed me.

“I’m aware that it will cause suspicion regarding the recent killings in Neocron and our alliance with Tokyo.”

“Now that you’ve tested it, I suggest you save it for when it’s needed most. It is a fantastic creation – but keep it to yourself. You wouldn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands.”
currently: Malevolence (res), Nerisella (cst), Twinkle (hck), Maia (hc), Aimee (hck), Naisha (ppu)
previously: Abeyance (Phoenix), Naisha (Malevolent Crackheads), Twinkle (Technocracy), Angelika (Illuminati), flyL (Regulators)
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Postby Abeyance » Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:19 am

Chapter 11: Time Travel

There is no widespread agreement in the works of Ceres as to which written work should be recognised as the earliest example of a time travel story, since a number of early works from ancient times feature elements ambiguously suggestive of time travel. For example; Memoirs of the Twentieth Century (written in 1733 by Samuel Madden) is mainly a series of letters from English ambassadors in various countries to the British "Lord High Treasurer", along with a few replies from the British foreign office, all purportedly written in the years 1997 and 1998 - describing the conditions of that era. However, the framing story is that these letters were actual documents given to the narrator by his guardian angel one night in 1728; for this reason, Paul Alkon suggests in his book Origins of Futuristic Fiction that "the first time-traveller in English literature is a guardian angel who returns with state documents from 1998 to the year 1728", although the book does not explicitly show how the angel obtained these documents. Alkon later qualifies this by writing "It would be stretching our generosity to praise Madden for being the first to show a traveller arriving from the future", but also says that Madden "deserves recognition as the first to toy with the rich idea of time-travel in the form of an artifact sent backwards from the future to be discovered in the present."

The first time travel story to feature time travel by means of a time machine was Enrique Gaspar y Rimbau's 1887 book El Anacronópete. This idea gained popularity with the H. G. Wells story The Time Machine, published in 1895, which is often seen as an inspiration for all later science fiction stories featuring time travel.

Since that time, both science and fiction have expanded on the concept of time travel, but whether it could be possible in reality is still an open question.

Some theories, most notably special and general relativity, suggested that suitable geometries of space time, or specific types of motion in space, might allow time travel into the past and future if these geometries or motions are possible. In technical papers physicists generally avoided the commonplace language of "moving" or "travelling" through time ('movement' normally refers only to a change in spatial position as the time coordinate is varied), and instead discuss the possibility of closed time-like curves, which are world lines that form closed loops in space time, allowing objects to return to their own past. There were known to be solutions to the equations of general relativity that describe space times which contained closed time like curves, but the physical plausibility of these solutions was uncertain.

Physicists take for granted that if one were to move away from the Earth at relativistic velocities and return, more time would have passed on Earth than for the traveller, so in this sense it is accepted that relativity allows "travel into the future" (although according to relativity there is no single objective answer to how much time has 'really' passed between the departure and the return). On the other hand, many in the scientific community believe that backwards time travel is highly unlikely. Any theory which would allow time travel would require that issues of causality be resolved. What if one were to go back in time and kill one's own grandfather? This is known as the 'grandfather paradox.'

A 20th century scientist known as Stephen Hawking once suggested that the absence of tourists from the future constitutes an argument against the existence of time travel—a variant of the Fermi paradox. Of course this would not prove that time travel is physically impossible, since it is might be that time travel is physically possible but that it is never in fact developed; and even if it is developed, Hawking notes elsewhere that time travel might only be possible in a region of space time that is warped in the right way, and that if we cannot create such a region until the future, then time travellers would not be able to travel back before that date, ergo "This picture would explain why we haven't been over run by tourists from the future."

I loved reading literature from the wisdom of ceres materials regarding my current work. It helped maintain a healthy balance of adventure and intelligence. Certain factors that I’d never considered – for example, the numerous paradoxes traditionally associated with the idea of time travel. After the first time I had changed the past I suffered a major migraine, and a nose bleed to accompany it. This wasn’t necessarily because of one of the documented paradoxes I had read about – but it certainly was a new theory. Anybody who travels through time and changes the past is privileged to remember both the previous future and the future resulting from the changes you have made. However, without widespread testing – the effects of learning this much information, the cross synaptic firing caused by conflicting information, the potential for brain damage, the pressure the body is put under during the transfer – all of these questions would remain unanswered. Now unfortunately, the usual scientific method for testing is to define a sample size of people, perform the tests; see how they react to the testing. Under these circumstances this was not the best method of testing. If I were to send somebody into the past, their actions would change the future. If I were to send somebody into the future, their actions could essentially still change my future. The worst of this is, that I would still be a part of the loop so I would be subjected to all of this myself, putting me under the same pressures that I’m trying to avoid before I test for the prolonged effects. This is another paradox for you to think about.

The effects from changing the past last time had worn off after a period of a day. I had drawn up a plan of how I wanted to test, what I wanted to test for, where I wanted to test it.

The main things I wanted to check where;

If you go to the past, and don’t change anything. Do you still get the after effects?

If you go to the future and make a change, what bearing could it have on the present?

In the event of injury in the past and/or future, is there a method I can use to automatically bring myself back to the present?

Once I have established answers to these questions – I will be ready to accept more possibilities and uses for my creation. I figured I’d start with the first question first – it was the easiest of questions. I would go back in time to last night, sit in a room, and do nothing all night. Once I have returned from this and there has been no incidence, I shall go back in time and have a meal with a friend. This will test interaction with others. Once I have confirmed these, I shall move onto the next step.
currently: Malevolence (res), Nerisella (cst), Twinkle (hck), Maia (hc), Aimee (hck), Naisha (ppu)
previously: Abeyance (Phoenix), Naisha (Malevolent Crackheads), Twinkle (Technocracy), Angelika (Illuminati), flyL (Regulators)
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