《Syndicate》 Chapter 0 - The Prologue 1 /* hi guys. This is my first fan fiction. As you may tell from the chapter that I¡¯m not that good in English. It¡¯s not my primary language. Please bear with me. If you find any faults then please comment on it below the chapter. Constructive criticism is very much appreciated. I¡¯ll try to correct as many errors as possible. The story may be slow at start but will definitely pickup pace afterwards. I will properly define the world the story takes place in, so don¡¯t worry. Your comments and reviews will encourage me to write even more so do comment. I¡¯ll definitely update it very quickly. Last but not the least¡­¡­. ENJOY */ "And this is how the new kernel 5.0 from our company Excelsior achieves better performance and better graphics fidelity by any other software solutions out there... and I swear to God you can bet on that" In loud cracking noise the CEO of the company made the announcement. One could almost hear the proudness in his voice. It was almost as if he wrote the code himself. It wasn''t long before that time that he found himself tied to one of the metallic bars of a newly constructing skyscraper. It was the 109th floor. High enough to not even make his body recognizable if he were to fall from there. Gagged and blindfolded, he could only hear the footsteps of another person beside him. ¡°As you can see from the slides that the new version allows you to directly get root access of any other electronic device you own from your smartphone. It gives you a whole another dimension of control. And you know¡­.¡± (Cough¡­cough¡­) As he expected, the ruthless punches to his stomach really did a number on him. It was a miracle that he was standing in front of more than 300 people giving a near perfect presentation. But as the time passed, he could feel his condition getting worse. Maybe it was the internal bleeding or maybe the fear itself that what happened to him few hours before will happen again. It was commendable that he was able to hold his composure much less string words together. He continued ¡°the best part is yet to come. We will be releasing the software for all of our smartphone models which were released after 24th July 2025. That means unfortunately the previous models will¡­¡­. not be supported. But according to our statistics almost 95% of our customers¡­¡­.. Are using the newer series with the ZX-2 in the lead with 56%. As a present for being so loyal for these many¡­.. Years, we are giving you a present. The software will include the voice command technology that allows you to send your voice to your smart¡­¡­. phone which will in turn automatically send your voice to our servers that we will securely process and in turn operate your gadgets. You can even name your gadget¡­¡­like¡­.for example¡­..¡±(Cough¡­.). Yeah, it was definitely bad. His mouth started to spit blood, but he was quick enough to cover his mouth with a handkerchief. He knew he had to end his part and transfer the control to the creative head of his company. Yet the only thing that could come into his mind was that time when he was tortured. He was definitely a Syndicate. No other group could have pulled of this abduction. He tried to look up and get a glimpse at the face of the person who held him captive. But the place was dark, as the tower was not completely lighted because of the construction. Also the heavy rain made it impossible to get a clear view. Although he was able to make out a little bit of his physical appearance. His kidnapper was wearing a black over coat covering from his neck to his knees. He had his collar up to hide his neck. He wore a cap which he overly tilted towards his face, as if saying to stay out. His face which was very minutely visible was covered with a mask which covered from his neck to his nose. The rest was so hazy that he couldn¡¯t figure out. Also due to constant punches it was kind of hard. Though one thing that he did notice was that his mask had the symbol ¡®-¡®written on it. ¡°What do you want from me?!!¡± he asked. The person who looked down on him like some insect looked at him with contempt. ¡°What do I want??¡± ¡°No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, No¡± ¡°It¡¯s not as much as what I want than what I have taken already¡±. The captive was surprised and shocked. ¡°What do you mean?¡± he asked frightened enough to wet his pants. Although in this case it wouldn¡¯t have been visible as he was already completely drenched from the rain. ¡°It might be hard to feel it due to the constant punches but try to sense your body¡­¡± when the kidnapper said that with a nonchalant the man had no idea what he was talking about. But after he relaxed a little he sensed a sharp pain from his left hand. He screamed with shock. ¡°What did you do to me????¡± the man was now crying. ¡°I don¡¯t know what you want from me. If you want money, I can give you as much as you like. But I beg you, please let me go¡±. The kidnapper sighed, his tone was calm as water in contrast to the victim. He didn¡¯t appear frightened at all, neither from the height nor from the fact that he had kidnapped one of the wealthiest people of the world and if caught, well then death would be the least of his worries. Even if he was scared he surely didn¡¯t let any of it show in his voice. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. The Conference (8:30 P.M.) ¡°Let me show you a demo of this new voice control functionality that we boasted so much about the last two years¡­.¡± The crowd laughed, it was certainly exciting to see this new leap in technology that would technically allow them to never even lift their fingers and get the job done. Throughout the whole presentation it was abundantly clear that they were very excited. Amidst the excitement the CEO quickly took a painkiller which subdued his pain a little. But the painkiller in no way could have lessened the mental stress he was under. ¡°Now¡­ (Cough¡­) this is just a quick demo from me. The full presentation comes after this by the creative head of our company, so stay tuned. Now I have named my wireless headset in my ear as ¡®Loqui¡¯. You can name every device you have and you can set it so that speaking that name will activate the device. So here we go. ¡®Loqui connect me to the regional manager of Excelsior France division¡± On the loud speaker there was a voice ¡°connecting to Mr. Coreis, please wait¡± hearing this the crowd went nuts. They didn¡¯t even wait till the call was actually connected. The phone call on the speaker started ringing. As the crowd as well as demo team expected the call should have been answered almost immediately, but for no apparent reason it kept on ringing. What felt like almost a minute, after which the call was finally answered. ¡°Hello¡­.¡± The call was successful. The crowed clapped in appreciation. Although it took a while the call finally went through and even the late answer of the call was the mistake of the regional manager not the kernel itself, so all was well. ¡°Yes Reux??? Its Ron here¡­ currently speaking from the Discover Excelsior 2034, uh¡­ we are demoing the new voice control functionality and it seems to me that its working as expected. How are you? How is the call on your side??¡± after the CEO stopped talking little static noises could be heard which generally is due to loss in connection. But after few seconds the voice cleared. It could be heard that the wireless headset was picked up. ¡°Hello¡­¡± voice on the other side said. ¡°Yeah Reux??? This is Ron speaking. I¡¯m current-¡°as he was speaking the intro once again, he was interrupted in the middle, ¡°Reux is dead¡±. The Rooftop (6:15 P.M.) ¡°(Pant¡­. Pant¡­¡­) Please¡­. (Pant¡­.. Cough¡­.) I¡¯ll do anything. You have to believe me¡­¡± Ron pleaded. He would have gone insane from the mental pressure. ¡°You know I almost would have bought your innocent act if I were a normal person, but I know that you are not!!¡± Immediately after he said that, the demeanor of the victim changed. He like the kidnapper sat down calm looking into his eyes. It looked almost as if he had split personalities. It looked nothing like what it did a few minutes ago. What could have the kidnapper implied that caused this much change in the behavior. ¡°Seriously if you don¡¯t let me go right now I¡¯m gonna make sure that they properly take care of every one who even knows you. I¡¯ll do that before I kill you with my bare hands. I¡¯m gonna mess your life, if you don¡¯t let me go RIGHT NOW!!!!¡± Ron was almost screaming now. ¡°Oops¡­ bad choice of words again¡­.¡± Saying that the kidnapper opened the chains with a sword that looked a lot like a katana. It had immense sharpness and mobility. Ron who was connected to the metallic bar lost balance and slipped of the floor. At this moment acceleration due to gravity seemed to work quite well. With every second passing, his speed increased. It was a sure shot kill. Even if Ron called his new Avionic Bullet car, it would never reach him on time. On the rooftop the kidnapper stood watching the man fall as calmly as earlier when he was interrogating him. For some reason it looked like he knew something about Ron that he was willing to let him die without so much as a blink of his eye. Suddenly a light flashed below and what looked like light photons emerging from a single point of space. Ron fell directly through it, and as he passed through it the photons started reacting to him, producing electric shocks and what looked like Ron¡¯s speed was slowly decreasing, before he could crash onto the ground, the photons moved violently around him and in the next moment¡­¡­. Ron vanished. ¡°Gottcha¡­..¡± the kidnapper who was watching it all from the rooftop smiled and suddenly faded into the night. Chapter 0 - Prologue 2 ¡°What did you say???¡± Ron asked. ¡°Wh- Who are you??¡±Stuttering in his voice was clearly visible. Unable to comprehend as most people do in these scenarios when something bizarre happens all of a sudden. But for Ron it wasn¡¯t the fact that the other side was someone other than Reux but the fact that he almost instantly recognized the voice of the person. ¡°He died happily, I can tell you that. Cheating on his wife with some other woman. But you don¡¯t need to know that. Do you?¡± The voice was little bit hazy due to some static noise from the other side. It seemed as if the person on the other side was not even trying to mask his voice. ¡°If-..If- you are Reux then stop playing this prank right now¡­ O- ok?¡± his voice was really shaky. He had no doubt. The voice was of the person who had abducted him few hours earlier. ¡°This call is encrypted how can you- be in France? When you were-¡° he stopped suddenly. ¡°You know you think you know a person and then you find out that they have a whole new family from the other side of town¡± The person on the other end was almost mocking him. ¡°Well the fact that Reux is dead is true all the same¡± The person said in the same calm manner in which he had interrogated him earlier. ¡°Get someone to check on Reux immediately¡± Ron commanded his security team. The security team for the France headquarters was ordered to check Reux¡¯s office instantly. Ron was perplexed. Even for a man of his stature it was impossible to act calm in this situation. Considering that the voice of the other side matched the voice of his kidnapper was frightening even for him. The crowd went uneasy. Unable to comprehend what was going on, they started to chatter among themselves. In these days almost every person attending the conference representing tech news site had one of those tablets which could be rolled like a paper an easily kept into the pocket like a handkerchief. ¡®Plasmabots¡¯ as they called it was used to build the display. The microprocessor was built into it. The OS on the tablet was none other than the Excelsior¡¯s own creation. But the thing that was more important was the fact that they were constantly live streaming the whole show via blogs. Almost instantly the whole world was able to know what was happening. Everyone was eager to know the secrets of Excelsior 5.0. This is why the current events were simultaneously broadcasted to the world. ¡°If you¡¯re looking for me then let me tell you one thing, I¡¯m not in France. But I know for sure that your regional manager is dead¡± The voice continued ¡°It¡¯s because I ordered his assassination¡± ¡°Who- Who are you? If you are not in France then how are you able to talk through Reux¡¯s phone?¡± Ron who was feeling more and more uneasy with every passing second was getting more and more scared. Even if he had his split personality on, he could not just shrug this of and scream back at the voice on the other end. ¡°How can I speak through his phone? Well that¡¯s because I¡¯m currently inside the server room of your office¡­.¡± The voice continued ¡°I¡¯m routing the call from Reux¡¯s phone to my burner phone¡± Ron shocked could not believe what he was hearing. The server room was one of the most secure rooms in any company. It was the same for Excelsior. The entrance required biometric scans which due to the advancement of technology was very hard to crack. The room was filled with motion detection technology too. Hidden cameras, data encryption was one of the few securities of the server room. It was the Fort Knox of any Tech company. And for the right reasons too. If you get the access of the servers in the room, you get the access of the personal information of millions of the people around the world. Not only the personal info. but their bank accounts, security ID and many more. Provided that you are able to decrypt the information. The information stored in the server was encrypted in numbers in random formats understood only by applying a secret algorithm. The numbers were further encrypted in 2^54. This made it very difficult to access the information even if you had access to the server room. But the person on the other side claimed that he not only was in the server room but had .also routed the call. This could mean that he changed the codes from when the voice command were sent to the server room. How was that possible? ¡°Don¡¯t even try to call the internal security. They¡¯ll not respond. By the time your personal security reaches here I¡¯ll be long gone¡± ¡°Wh- Why are you doing this? What do you want? Why keep harassing the innocents?¡± Ron asked. He was not expecting an answer as what happened few hours before. But what came through surprised him. ¡°Like I keep telling you I already got what I want. Everything that I need right now is already here¡± Ron was now getting angry by the second. [Ron¡¯s Point Of View] Not only does he abduct me, but he tortures me, interrogates me, kicks me of the roof, forces me to use that¡­. And now he¡¯s infiltrated my server room. This guy has some balls to freely announce that he¡¯s inside the compound. He¡¯s definitely one of them. The ¡®Syndicate¡¯. But I was lead to believe that they were obliterated. Was I fed false information? Impossible!! But not many in this world have the ability to go to such great lengths. If he gets his hands on the files, the company will be ruined. I¡¯ll have to do something quickly. ¡°System lockdown!!¡±Ron shouted. The terminal in front of him asked ¡°Enter the lockdown status and Authorization code.¡± ¡°Status disaster¡­ Authorization code BQ196R904QSD¡± Ron quietly spoke on the terminal, in order to keep the information concealed. It seemed that he finally regained his composure and decided to act calmly to deal with the situation. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. ¡°Status and Authorization code incorrect¡­ Please enter again¡­. 2nd of 3 chance.¡± the voice from terminal spoke. [No way, they even managed to change the passcodes and the internal files. I should forget about keeping the company safe and focus primarily on ending this bastard¡¯s life. Plus if he knows the truth about me then he must definitely be eliminated.] As Ron was thinking hard at what to do. Voice from the other side of the phone call spoke. ¡°Tell me Ron how long does it take for you to activate that power of yours. How often can you use it?¡± Ron was bewildered. No idea on what to do. He definitely did not want any information about him leaking. His kidnapper was doing an excellent job of aggravating him. Repeatedly asking him the same question over and over again. ¡°I have no idea what you are talking about. This must be some mistake. Look if you surrender even now I¡¯m willing to talk to the Justice¡¯s Paladins to at least not sentence you to death. Just give up now. Sooner or later you will be caught and your punishment will be something you can¡¯t even imagine.¡± ¡°Come on Ron. I watched you fall from the rooftop. I saw what you did. Do you think I randomly chose you or your company? We know everything about you. Believe it or not we will know about everyone above you too. And I was already prepared for any punishment or death when I decided to act. We¡¯ve come too far now.¡± From the crowd many people who owned the Excelsior products tried to log out from the server but got the error ¡®Not Authorized ¨C Current Action cannot be taken¡¯. Not only the people from the conference but the people around the world were getting the same error. People were starting to get desperate, cursing thee company and even more cursing the person inside the server room. ¡°You haven¡¯t answered my question Ron¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re asking. Even if you ask me again and again I can¡¯t answer the question to which I don¡¯t know the answer of.¡± ¡°If you¡¯re gonna play it that way then how about a deal. You give me information about your higher ups and I will stop the hack right now and won¡¯t harm any of the info or credit information. Even the tiniest info will suffice. What do you say?¡± Ron was silent. As the head of the company he did everything he could to negotiate. But everybody could see that it was completely out of his hand. Not knowing what to do. He weighted both his options. It was apparent that the better choice would be to feign ignorance and pretend he didn¡¯t know anything. The monetary loss could be compensated by the insurance companies and he could get back on track. He would have faced a lot of public backlash but it wasn¡¯t impossible. Another Part of the World [At the same Time] ¡°Syphon are you in position?¡± ¡°Yes sir, ready at your command¡± ¡°Fine, before he says anything about us, you know what to do. Don¡¯t take any risks¡± ¡°Yes sir, but if I may I don¡¯t think he will choose to reveal anything¡± ¡°Well anyone in their right mind wouldn¡¯t, but knowing him I¡¯d say there¡¯s 90% chance that he will consider his customers over us.¡± ¡°But why? There¡¯s no reason to.¡± ¡°You know, I would have told you but, it¡¯s above your pay grade, so keep at the lookout¡± Syphon looked through the sniper¡¯s scope. He could clearly make out what Ron was saying through his lip movement. He was starting to figure out what Ron was trying to say. It didn¡¯t look good. [Why is he even considering the other option?]. He continued looking through the scope preying on his victim waiting for him to make even a slightest mistake. Suddenly he noticed Ron started to say ¡°If you¡¯re¡­¡­¡± BANG!!! That¡¯s all he needed. He fired his rifle. The recoil was so great that he fell backwards. But surprisingly the rifle made no sound. It converted it¡¯s sound energy into something else. The Conference[9:15 P.M.] Finally Ron answered, ¡°If you¡¯re willing to stop the hack then I-¡° Before he could even utter another syllable, what appeared like a flash in front of the crowd. It was a projectile but no one could see who fired it. No one could even understand what it was. Within milliseconds the flash projectile disappeared. Ten times brighter than fireworks. It became silent as night. Unable to comprehend what happened just now the crowd looked towards the direction of Ron. By the time they could see what was happening, Ron was already on the floor. When looked carefully, the people around suddenly noticed to their horror that Ron¡¯s body was missing its head. From the root of where the head was before sparse amount of smoke was liberating. It looked as if the head was almost vaporized. Then at that moment a sound from the speaker breaking the silence and almost frightening the crowd came. ¡°Well that was bound to happen. Might as well do one last thing before I go.¡±