Twelve shadowy figures sat around a long table in a dimly lit room. The silence was periodically broken by the sound of glass on wood as a cup was set down on the table. Finally a thirteenth person entered the room, his cloak rippling as he walk he walked fluidly over to the empty chair.
“So kind of you to come, General,” The voice issued from one of the faceless bodies. “Especially when a problem of such magnitude presents its self,”
The General met this with silence. When it was obvious they he would say nothing the lights dimmed even further. A hologram of a building appeared in the center of the table, this picture was accompanied by a voice metallic. “Storage facility Abidon, located in Antarctica. Most notable items in storage: Project Rewind, Epsilon Core, Project Chaos, And Amigon control panel.” The Hologram faded and the lights returned to their former level.
“RR4 is gone. No living thing has gotten within 500 meters of the place in almost a year. How General did this happen?” A voiced hissed, all darkened heads turned to the general. An uncomfortable silence followed this. “I see, your lake of diligence is disturbing, general. How could someone break into the highest securely vault in the world and leave not even a subatomic trace of his existence. Lucky for you similar events have accrued all over the globe.”
A new voice continued the train of thought; this voice was that of a younger female, “Computer components, beaming pads, Lexscreens, and other miscellaneous things have vanished. As you know all Warehouses use different storage methods. There are no leads to the identity of the thief. But they do correlate to the emergence of a new supercomputer. A side from the disappearances of the components, the only indication of its existence if on a minor foot note in the database.”
The general swiveled to face the figure on his left, “And how, Markus, did a non-VXC computer appear in our data base. Unless of course the maker got a hold of a merge capable device and if he did he would have complete access to our database. There are things in there than even none of us know about.”
Markus turned to the General, the dim lights reflected of his eyes, making it just imaginable that there was a face on the head, “If the thief got RR4, he would be picked up in the merge, or if he had acquired the unaccounted Nano-board he would also have access to the database. However it is more possible that the maker of the computer was already aware of much of the database, even more likely it was a former employee of VXC. This is one of the problems with hiring the greatest minds of the world, they are so brilliant.”
The female voice broke in, “I believe that is covered, all former VXC members are watched. If I may, my portion of VXC would like to put up some names for scrutiny. Henry Macontosh, Marvin Micar, Graven Haggard, Jeremie Belphios, and Roth Lee. “
The General glanced toward the end of the table, “I know most of those, left because they fell behind. But who is Jeremie.” A figure press a hand to the table and the lights dimmed again, this time the hologram showed the face of Jeremie. The metallic voice sounded again, “Jeremie Belphios: headed the Epsilon Project, provided assistance in the Project Rewind, submitted resignation after a fatal accident with a prototype Datalizer, suffered from depression, sleep deprivation, and Epsilon radiation effects at a young age.”
The general nodded. A voice from the right side of the table said, “I move that we send a virtual miner to the computer and recess until we get more information on this.” The rest of the figures nodded their heads in agreement, and with that the meeting ended.
One of the people made his way to a secluded terminal in a conjoining room. After a second a face appeared on the screen. “Mayhem, make you move.”
On a plane crossing the Atlantic Ocean Escariot tossed his dagger into the air and snatched as it reached the peak of its arch. The pilot of the plane glanced back at the crime lord. The pilot, his co-pilot and Escariot were the only ones aboard the small plane. The pilot eased his fingers up the touch sensitive panel toward the Mayday light. With a deft flick of his wrist Escariot imbedded the dagger into the panel just in front of the hand. “Don’t even attempt that.”
The man swallowed and turned back to the controls.
Jeremie sat on the ground in front of a disassembled scanner, the designs that Kari had made were effective but it would take a while to finish. And most of the parts were very complex modifications to VXC hardware. But at least he was doing something. Concentrating on the task at hand he began to mindlessly mutter, “Fire of Mind give us a call, give us an answer, or nothing at all.”
“Leave All.”