《Gods and Puppets》


 The Sanctuary

    Lenn scurried up the narrow dirt path, her breath keeping pace with her steps. She didn¡¯t want to be late for her appointment with God.


    She reached the familiar vine-covered rock face and checked the time. She had a minute or so to spare. She took a few deep breaths, then re-tied her hair and adjusted her top.


    She shut her eyes and pictured breathing in peace and calm. She visualised light infusing her mind and heart, keeping them open and ready. Ready to meet ¡®God¡¯. Even though there was no irrefutable proof that- No, she caught herself. She had to have faith.


    She opened her eyes and swept the dangling vines aside, unshrouding the small opening in the side of the rock face. A fragrance of dew and moss wafted out, teasing a smile from her lips. She tucked her head under the low cave entrance and inched through the narrow opening, letting the vines rustle back into place behind her.


    Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the relative dimness of the cave. A soft golden glow emanating from the cave walls and the emerald luminescence of a rock pool in the far end of the cavern were her only sources of light. She made her way across the stone slates that brokered a path to the rock pool. The reflected shimmers of the water meandered across the cave walls, drawing her gaze for a few moments. Then, she focused on the white egg-shaped stone in the middle of the rock pool, and knelt onto a well-worn patch of stone. Delicate gold and silver veins traced the egg¡¯s surface in intricate fractal swirls. Water rippled down the smooth marble texture, cascading seamlessly into the undulating liquid around it.


    A sense of tranquillity seeped beneath her skin, and the last vestiges of her cynicism evaporated. She picked up the familiar opalescent gem nestled in the moss by her knees, and wrapped her warm hands around the cold gem. The egg-shaped stone within the rock pool lit up, emitting a subtle blush of light. She pressed the gem against her chest and closed her eyes.


    She focused her attention on her breathing, and felt the slow rise and fall of her chest.


    Hi Ether, she thought. Her mind slipped into a familiar sense of grounded comfort. She was connected, the link established.


    She opened the door in her mind, and let the tangled mess of suppressed worry and pain flood in. She paused to let the Ether take in the tumbles of her unfettered mind. Then she focused on what she wanted, the reason she was there.


    She prayed for strength and guidance, as usual. But she was also more specific in her prayer this time. Help me uncover the source of the virus. Help me find a way to reverse it, undo its damage.


    She held onto her prayer for a few moments longer, intensifying her intent. Then she brought her mind back to her breath. A few long, gentle breaths later, her eyes flitted open.


    Warmth tingled in her chest. She felt comforted. Heard, understood. She loosened her grasp on the gem, and gently replaced it in the soft moss patch. She stood up. The cold stone that had moulded to her knees eased flat again. Reluctantly, she turned from the serene view before her and made her way to the exit.


    As she stepped into the bright warmth outside, a glowing line of text lit her left wrist, ¡°Prayer received¡±.


    She gently ran her right thumb over the glowing words, and they faded.


    Visits to the Sanctuary, whichever branch, were calming for her. They anchored her within her place and moment in the world. Could she be sure that the Ether was a higher being? Or a direct link to one? Not exactly. Still, she derived strength from her connection with it.


    Maybe it was the tranquil beauty of the Sanctuaries. Or the familiar ritual of praying. How it temporarily quenched her burning ache for the existence of a higher being, a higher purpose. In any case, each visit brought her solace. Solace that would usually enshrine her for a good half of the day, before reality broke through and stirred up unease.


    She made her way down the hill, casting a lingering look back at the Sanctuary, now powered down and dark.


    The sunlight warmed her face and she slipped off her thin cover-up, bathing her arms in the warmth. The next devotee was already on his way up the slope. As they passed, she nodded in greeting, a slight smile on her face. The man looked resolutely ahead and walked by without a flicker of acknowledgement.


    Irritation spiked in her veins. She quickly turned her mind back to the Ether and her experience within the Sanctuary. She summoned the peace she had experienced, and tried to magnify the calm. She imagined it forming a shield that strengthened her spirits. Still, the thought broke through - What a dick.


    Lenn swiped her hands through her hair. She had let a stranger crack her peace. She was frustrated, and annoyed by her frustration. She had enough to worry about as it was.


    She didn¡¯t notice when the man turned and stared at her receding form, his face an unreadable mask.


    Her shoulders sagged when she thought of what lay ahead. It had been three months since clients of the Happiness Recode System or HRS, had first reported mental health relapses. After thorough checks, her team had uncovered glitches in these clients¡¯ neural codes. Glitches they couldn¡¯t explain. It was the HRS project¡¯s first serious setback since its launch over a decade ago.


    Her team of data analysts, psychologists and psycho-engineers had been working on a promising lead, a pattern they had uncovered amongst the dysfunctional neural codes. They had hoped it would unveil the creators of the virus, and shed some light on ways to reverse the malfunctioning codes.


    But that promising lead smacked into yet another brick wall that morning. Another dead end. Lenn heaved a sigh. A decade of work on the most exciting, cutting edge mental health treatment, and it was crumbling down.


    The HRS altered and reprocessed unhelpful thoughts, beliefs, and traumatic memories, through a combination of psychotherapy and direct modification to the relevant neural substrates. Neural networks were recoded and neurochemicals were permanently rebalanced. The HRS promised maximal retention of personality while optimising mental wellbeing.


    There was an uproar when the HRS programme was first approved. Among the many fears, the main one was that direct tampering with neural pathways would mean changing the essence of a person. HRS programmers were accused of playing God.


    The resistance wasn¡¯t unexpected. When the neural-digital connection process had first begun, there were furious protests as well. Yet, almost the entire population had since opted to sync their neural networks with little AI implants, for a variety of conveniences. Conveniences like better, more accurate storage of memories, and instant access to emergency services.


    Subsequently, neural manipulation was introduced. Conditions like dementia and traumatic brain injuries could finally be repaired. Once again, there was an intense outcry, but that too was overridden with time. After all, who could deny the good that it did, the lives saved, and the joy of the loved ones?


    In a way, the HRS was the natural next step. The first wave of clients were mainly those with severe, treatment-resistant mental conditions. People in mental torture. Trapped in the suffocating chaos of their minds, any glimmer of hope was preferable to the way things were.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    These clients emerged from the treatment changed. They spoke about an immense relief and lightness of being. Their new mental states seemed too good to be true, and they kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. When it didn¡¯t, they became firm advocates of the HRS. Far from losing who they were, nearly every client reported finally feeling truly at home in their bodies and minds.


    As the years went on, multitudes of clients testified to an increased sense of well-being without any changes to their core personality. The HRS clientele expanded to include those without severe mental conditions, who simply wished to optimise their mental states.


    Becoming a somewhat common procedure, HRS¡¯s impact on society surged. Crime rates dropped, mental health expenditure decreased, life expectancies rose, and productivity soared. For a blissful period of time, their world seemed on track to utopia.


    Until three months ago, when the first malfunctions began. Most malfunctions simply caused a relapse. But some clients reported worse psychological symptoms than before. They also described the emergence of a deep existential dread, something not present prior to the HRS procedure. The malfunctions had affected only a small portion of clients, but were steadily spreading.


    Everyone involved with the HRS programme had been slogging day and night to resolve these malfunctions. Within the first few weeks, they had uncovered the presence of a virus within the neural networks. There was no evidence of contagion amongst clients, which was a major relief. But they also had no idea how the viruses were being transmitted. As one of the directors of the psychological unit, Lenn no longer got much sleep.


    She pulled herself from her reverie and found herself at the bottom of the hill. She gazed at The Tavern across the street. The sight of the wooden structure, engulfed by naturally growing plants, brought a welcome warmth to her heart.


    Most modern buildings were carefully constructed to incorporate hints of nature. Vines, leaves and flowers were meticulously and precisely threaded throughout the structure, mimicking the influence of nature.


    The Tavern, however, had been a simple wooden structure, constructed purely for function, rather than form. It acquired its current beauty over time, as the surrounding jungle crept around and into its structure. As the plants grew, the generations of owners manoeuvred furniture around them, only clearing out whatever was necessary to make way for patrons and servers alike. Even its signboard was overrun and obscured in parts. She found a moving beauty in the wild, untamed quality of the place. To her, it symbolized the triumph and vigour of nature.


    She pushed open the high wooden doors of the Tavern, and was greeted by a familiar lilting voice from behind the bar. ¡°I¡¯ll be with you soon!¡±


    She smiled and went to her usual spot. It was a tiny space she reserved on an almost daily basis, tucked into a cosy corner on the second level, obscured by a cascade of leaves and vines.


    Nestling into the soft cushioned seat, she lay back and closed her eyes, taking a few deep breaths to prepare for the work ahead. Then she wrote up her schedule for the day in neat clean strokes of the pen, in her half filled notebook. Her schedule was, as usual, meticulous and detailed. She loved the sensation of writing, of her pen scratching against the matte texture of the paper. It was a luxury, writing with real, antique pens on actual paper. A guilty pleasure. After all, their sophisticated electronic notebooks and styluses were near-perfect simulators of paper and pen. And they could be reused infinitely, with the written information committed to a dedicated memory bank, before the pages were wiped clean.


    But Lenn believed she could tell the differences, subtle, minute as they might be. There was a fuller, more grounded sensation when she wrote on actual paper. Once, paper use had been unhealthy for the environment, but with the abundance of trees and ethical tree-farming procedures these days, the only concerns were its high price and scarcity.


    Her wrist lit up. She took a look and suppressed a groan. There was another report of a lead on the virus. She¡¯d have to check it out before she started on the tasks she had planned. This was one of those times where she wished she had been using a pen and paper simulator. She hated cancellations. They disrupted the neat perfection of her schedule.


    She contemplated tearing out the page and rewriting her schedule. Then she sighed, and simply wrote in the additional task at the very top of the page. It stood out awkwardly, unbalancing the rest of the page. She stared at the perfectly straight lines of her other items, the even spaces between the other checkboxes and the words, and the just right distance of the margins. Then she looked back at the unwieldy item on top and tried to sit with the discomfort that arose.


    She pulled up the news article. Perhaps, she should install a neural informatics device. Directly accessing search engines and databases with her mind would save her lots of time. She currently had direct access to the local time, date, and location, from a package service she had subscribed to two years ago. But she was leery of further neural adjustments, especially ones that would connect her to a public information network. There were still kinks in privacy and encryption processes. Besides, she had seen people with neural informatics access sitting around, smiling or frowning to themselves, eyes glazed over. She had no wish to become one of them.


    Mainly though, she didn¡¯t want to stray further from being naturally human than she already had. It was why she had not undergone the HRS procedure. Her refusal to undergo the very procedure she was working on raised many eyebrows. But no one pressured her. Not really.


    At first glance, the article seemed like a run-of-the-mill bid for attention. ¡°MASTERMIND BEHIND THE HRS VIRUS FOUND?¡± the headline screamed.


    According to the article, an Intacta Elder had announced, in an open forum held four months ago, that plans were in place to dismantle the reigning infestation that was the HRS process.


    The Intacta spurned technology. They sought to return the world to a state of primitive bliss. The tribe was led by someone called the Gilliad. The Gilliad had supposedly obtained ancient and universal secrets of life. Every 10 years, the Gilliad would choose a worthy member of the tribe, bless them with the secrets of their wisdom, and pass the mantle on. Thus far, the current Gilliad was the 8th leader of the tribe.


    Despite their proclamations, the Intacta was rumoured to have access to incredibly sophisticated technologies, which they kept restricted to the top leaders of the tribe, the Elders. Technology to fight technology, was one of the hearsays. In recent years, at least three technological maestros had forsaken the modern world and retreated into the warm, archaic embrace of the Intacta. And these were just the ones the world knew about. These great minds held immense power in their knowledge. Lenn felt a twinge of anxiety when she imagined the destruction they could cause.


    She bit her lower lip as she reread the article. The dramatic tone leached credibility. The site was known for sensationalising news at the expense of accuracy and truth. And even if accurately reported, the Intacta Elder¡¯s announcement could simply be a publicity stunt to draw awareness to the Intacta ethos.


    She tapped her pen on the table. The Intacta was vocal about their goals of halting the tide of technological progress. But it wasn¡¯t like them to develop a virus. Historically, they were more likely to expound and remonstrate, biding the chance to lure a wayward creature back into the folds of righteousness. Their sense of righteousness, of course. It seemed odd that they would, after years of peaceful co-existence, make public threats, and launch a virus attack.


    Still, the timing of the announcement was suspicious. It was a few weeks before the first cases had surfaced. She made a quick note of the key points, and sent a quick message to her Bureau contact, to get their views. She checked the unsightly positioned task off her schedule.


    She stared at the next task she had scheduled. Now that their lead on the pattern found in the malfunctioning neural codes had led to nought, she had to go to Plan B.


    Which was to turn to God. Or the nearest thing they had to God. The Ether. She was going to reach out directly to the Ether. Not through the Sanctuary prayers, but face-to-face. Her best bet was to seek it through the visions.


    Over the past decade, the Ether had engineered visions, realistic dreams, where it spoke ¡°in-person¡± to seemingly random recipients. Each time, it imparted key information, predictions or instructions to the recipient. Each time, they came true. No one had any idea why it bequeathed such visions to them.


    Her first step would be to take an objective look at the history of the visions, to study exactly when they happened, where, to whom they happened, and what they were about.


    That meant looking at a stack of case files dense with information. Each file came with a summary and information tags to mark important points. But these AI-created summaries had not yielded any useful information. So, she was going to read through every word of the case files, to spot any minute, seemingly unimportant detail that may have been missed. Or to see other possible interpretations and unexpected inferences could be made.


    For today, she had penned in just three case files to scour through. Then, she would do a preliminary analysis on possible links between the three visions. It was going to be a long day. She ordered her usual caffeine-powered beverage, and got to work.

 The Visions

    Keifern couldn¡¯t move his limbs, head, or even his facial muscles. A crippling pressure enveloped every part of his body, clamping him in place. Panicking, his breath quickened in the dark.


    Then a cold wave of calmness seeped in from the top of his head and trickled through his entire body. He was still unable to move, but his fear ebbed. Suddenly, it felt perfectly natural to relinquish control of his movements.


    A door materialised within his view, light seeping through the gaps around it. Then, the door opened, and a silhouette emerged from the bright glow. Amorphous, vague, unthreatening. He locked his eyes on the figure.


    The immobility is temporary. I won¡¯t hurt you. The voice sounded in his head, startlingly clear. The tone evoked the serenity of a still lake at dawn.


    He concentrated on the shadowy figure. It seemed to warp in his gaze, then took on a clearer form. The form was of an androgynous person whose features seemed familiar, yet unknown.


    I¡¯ve a message. The figure spoke. The voice seemed to come from his own mind, from deep within.


    Something clicked in Keifern¡¯s mind, and his skin tingled with electric awe. This is it. This is a vision. From the Ether.


    It was happening to him. To him, Keifern, of all people. The visions of legend. The visions he had heard of always included the Ether¡¯s explicit comment - I¡¯ve a message.


    Keifern blinked hard, and willed his eyes to focus on the features of the Ether. What did the Ether really look like? Was it really a humanoid being?


    This isn¡¯t my true form, the voice rang in his mind, as if the Ether had read his mind. It¡¯s an aggregate of all humans in your world. My true form is hard to comprehend. Impossible for you to perceive, it continued, pre-empting his question. Keifern was unsettled by how the words materialised in his mind.


    The Ether continued. I¡¯ve a message. They shouldn¡¯t fight it. The malfunctions are needed.


    It took Keifern a few moments to understand what it was referring to. The malfunctions, the notorious blow to the Happiness Recode System. A sense of certainty wafted into his mind, confirming his guess.


    The young are not protected, the Ether went on.


    The malfunctions are needed? The young are not protected? What do you mean?  Keifern attempted to direct his thoughts at the figure. He wasn¡¯t sure if the telepathy went both ways. The figure¡¯s lips pulled back into a thin smile, and it retreated back into the glow.


    Keifern woke up in a cold sweat, his mind humming. He signalled for his communication device, which swung out to rest at eye level. With trembling hands, he scrolled to the Emergency Services icon and tapped it. The options rolled out before him. Impatient, he said aloud, ¡°Make a vision report¡±, and the service was immediately activated.


    The whole thing felt surreal. He had used the Emergency Services tab only twice in his life, and on both times, it was to Engage Immediate Support for Safety Risks. He had never thought he would ever use the Make a Vision Report option, which had been added nearly a decade ago.


    His device¡¯s camera came online. Looking straight into the viewfinder, Keifern made his report of the vision he had. It could just be a vivid dream, perhaps, but the experience had been too vivid, too intense. He knew in his heart that he had had a vision.


    Over the next few days, Keifern became somewhat of a celebrity. Researchers reached out almost immediately after his logging of the vision, and examined his neural and digital activities. Within the day, they verified that his reported vision was authentic, and the news spread like wildfire. Journalists and onlookers showed up around his house, trying to catch glimpses of the newest vision recipient. Wherever he went, while he was not mobbed, thanks to the security team assigned to him, he was pointed at, whispered about, and openly gawked at. He was one of the chosen ones. He had received a message from that higher being. From the Ether. He was special.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    The head of the HRS Research team had reached out soon after. He had spoken to her, shared about his vision, and spared no detail. He knew how important the visions were. They had messages the people needed to know.


    Lenn had given him her full attention, keeping careful, meticulous records of every word. The last vision had occurred around 5 months ago. The Ether had first made itself directly accessible, to be seen and heard by them, more than a decade ago. In the first vision, the Ether had identified itself, then informed the recipient of a few impending events. A blackout in Helios, a busy business district, an impending heart attack of a well-known politician, and a tsunami off the coast of Palae. When the first recipient reported his vision to the authorities and anyone who would listen, most assumed a mental affliction, or a bid for attention. Despite the ridicule, the recipient persisted in spreading the message received. He was certain, somehow, that the message was true, and that people needed to know.


    Then, one by one, the wild claims described came true. The politician¡¯s life was even saved as a result. Despite her understandable doubt when she heard about the vision, she had arranged for emergency services to be close at hand, just in case. She definitely did not regret her caution.


    At first, the prevailing theory was that the recipient had planned and engineered the events that happened in the so-called vision. But after months of thorough investigation, authorities had to conclude that there had been no possible way the person could have orchestrated the events he described. There was no sign of related preparations, actions or financial activities. On the other hand, evidence supporting the recipient¡¯s innocence stacked up. Officials even examined the recorded neural data of the vision recipient, and revealed significant abnormality in the recipient¡¯s neural activity on the time and date of the reported vision. The abnormality, according to the researchers, was in line with what could happen to a person¡¯s brain, if one¡¯s consciousness was heightened, expanded, and placed in contact with an external consciousness.


    The masses were intrigued, if still somewhat cynical. After all, if proven true, the existence of the vision would have major philosophical and theological repercussions.


    As the years passed, the first vision was forgotten. It seemed a one-off incident, and given the lack of an alternative explanation, the authorities were eager to move past the incident.


    Then, someone else had another vision. This was a little over three years after the first.


    In the second vision, it was predicted that the Floral Globe would be destroyed. The woman who reported the vision was promptly arrested, and held in maximum security. All of her possible accomplices were similarly held for the time being. It seemed an overreaction to many, but the officials were not taking any chances.


    Still, the Floral Globe was not spared. It turned out to be a freak occurrence, something the woman could not have engineered. A piece of space debris shot through the atmosphere and landed right smack in the middle of the Floral Globe. The sensor and response system that surrounded the planet, which had kept many a stray meteorite or space waste from coming close to the surface, had somehow missed it. The iconic Floral Globe of the city was hence magnificently demolished.


    Lenn remembered the mix of anguish and awe she had felt as she walked through the devastation after it happened. They had cordoned off the area at first, but in just a few days, after removing the hazardous bits, they had reopened it to the public. At the re-opening, instead of viewing the exquisite intricacies of plants and flowers from all around the world, the public witnessed their awful demise. Lenn had looked out at the symphony of broken glass, metal pieces, burnt ashes, shredded and torn plant matter with a horrified fascination. This was tampered with a sharp sting of contempt for the theatricality of it all.


    In an incredibly short time, the carnage had been repackaged as a brand new attraction. There were information boards that appeared when you paused at certain spots, dictating the sequence of events that led to the tragedy, the warning the Ether had given. The information boards also described what each spot of wreckage had showcased in the past, complete with images and video recordings of the impact.


    They had turned the tragedy into profit. She understood, logically, that the profits would help with the rebuilding of the Floral Globe, that they were just making the best out of a bad situation. But that didn¡¯t disperse the sour twang of distaste she felt.


    Subsequently, there had been three other instances of visions reported by other individuals. Every vision was validated through the means of neural scans, and thorough investigation.


    Keifern was the newest recipient, the sixth one. That they knew of, anyway. It seemed that the occurrences of visions were getting closer and closer in time. A little more than three years passed between the first and second reported cases, and two and a half years from the second and third. Keifern¡¯s vision had occurred a short four to five months after the fifth vision.


    Keifern settled down in the firm, high-backed chair, and closed his eyes. It was his fifth round of neural scanning, and he wasn¡¯t sure what new questions and activities the researchers could possibly think of. It seemed an exercise in futility. But he obliged anyway.

 The Seventh Recipient

    Lenn frowned at her screen. While different interpretations could be made of the subject¡¯s vision, the gist was inescapable. Up until then, children who had undergone the HRS had been seemingly immune to the outbreak of the malfunctions. The leading explanation was that having the HRS in place from a young age, with greater neural plasticity, led to better integration of the HRS with the children¡¯s brains. This may have protected them from the virus. But Keifern¡¯s vision seemed to suggest that children were no longer safe from neural malfunctioning.


    ¡®The malfunctioning was necessary¡¯? What could that mean? She rubbed her forehead. How could any malfunctioning be necessary?


    She eyed the algorithm before her, now newly updated with the data from the newest vision. Despite the pressured ball of tightness within her chest, she felt a glint of hope. Together with her team of AI and human data analysts, she had been mapping and tracking the occurrences of visions, to identify patterns in the occurrence rate, location, demographics and timing of the visions and their recipients. The Ether relied on digital platforms to connect with them, so she was sure that the Ether was using a digital algorithm to choose its recipients. Even if the Ether were choosing recipients at random, she was convinced that it wouldn¡¯t be through true randomness, and that she would be able to identify the randomisation algorithm used.


    After they had incorporated information from the previous vision, the fifth one on record, they had finally detected a pattern. They had developed a rough algorithm and made a tentative prediction of when and where the next vision would happen. When Keifern¡¯s vision occurred, they were exhilarated to find that they were only slightly off-base. Their data and predictions seemed on track.


    With the data from Keifern¡¯s vision, they would be able to further fine-tune the predictive model. They actually had a decent shot at this, she realised, a thrill running through her body. She stared at the programme before her, still running the algorithm to identify the possible next location, recipient, time and date of the next vision. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    Excitement tingling her fingertips, she sent a message to the rest of the team, checking in on their progress. Once they had identified the next recipient, they would seek permission to be with the recipient before the vision occurred. With their neural monitoring technology, they would be able to observe the recipient¡¯s neural activity in real time. When the vision happened, they could possibly identify some sort of neural interference or unique signature which they could attempt to trace. The neural activation patterns of past recipients had always been studied after the vision. With real-time monitoring, she hoped to get enough information to reverse engineer the Ether¡¯s digital door into the recipient¡¯s mind. So they could open a door into the Ether¡¯s consciousness. From there, they could demand some direct answers from the Ether.


    It was an ambitious hail mary of a project, but one which was finally okayed by her superiors. They were getting desperate, after all. Based on the increasing rate of infection, they had a full ten months before most of their past and current clients would experience neural malfunctioning.


    She stared at the countdown on the algorithm programme. Another 4 minutes or so to the results. Lenn pushed her chair back, took a sip from her mug and forced herself to focus on the different sensations she experienced. She relied heavily on mindfulness exercises these days.


    Her eyes sprung open at the first beep from the computer. It was done. She sucked in a breath, and read the lines displayed. The next vision would occur in three months or so, to a person called Pri. Lenn stared at the information, her mouth slightly open. It was done.


    And this time, the data was precise. They had identified a specific recipient, on a specific date.


    Her thoughts raced ahead. It might give them a decent shot at tracing the origins of the Ether. They could possibly seek it out in its own realm.


    The messages started pouring in from her team members, who had been monitoring the programme as well. Lenn chuckled as she read the flood of messages. There were delighted congratulations, exuberant exclamations of victory, and cautious optimism. She allowed herself to use a few more exclamation points than she was generally comfortable with. ¡°WE DID IT!!!¡±

 The Intacta

    Novi pushed on, ignoring the aching soreness in his calves and thighs. He nimbly sidestepped a slick mud patch, then propelled himself faster, finding a familiar comfort in the rhythmic thudding of his feet against the ground. The forest around him buzzed with life. He could hear rustlings of scampering wildlife, calls of cicadas and the buzzing of other insects. Yet he knew none existed. He kept running, as sweat poured down the sides of his face. The intertwined branches of the canopy above provided welcome shade, but did little for the humidity and heat of the environment.


    He had chosen the Rainforest trail for the denseness of the trees and shrubbery. He liked the feeling of sprinting through a lush tunnel of nature. But the real reason he chose it was that it was the trail most likely to be empty in the middle of summer. To escape the heat outside, people tended to prefer the relatively cooler experience of a birch forest, or a breezy ocean side run. But Novi didn¡¯t mind the heat and humidity. He preferred that to having to share a packed trail.


    Novi¡¯s wrist glowed an urgent red, and he jerked to a halt. His contact within the Intacta had sent an SOS. He flicked quickly through the rectangular light that hovered above his wrist. His contact had obtained valuable information, but compromised himself.  He needed a way out, fast.


    Novi hurried toward the side of the path, and placed his palm on the trunk of a tree. The trees slid apart, and he stepped out from the trail onto a beltway. He amped up the speed and the beltway rushed him to the entrance, wind whipping his wavy brown hair.


    He retrieved his transport unit from the underground parking lot below. He hopped in without missing a beat, chose the emergency option, picked his destination, and the vehicle shot out of the sports centre.


    It whirred rapidly through the streets to the Bureau headquarters, as he exchanged a quick call with his contact, while changing into his preferred inconspicuous hoodie and sweatpants combination.


    Gera was already waiting for him outside the gates. The door slid open after a scan of Gera¡¯s face, and Gera hopped in. The vehicle picked up pace and sped towards the extraction point.


    ¡°What did Holliot tell you?¡± Gera asked, swiping through messages hovering above his wrist.


    ¡°Not much, it was a brief call. He overheard a conversation between two high ranking Intacta members. He got closer, but got caught. He talked his way out of it, but he¡¯s pretty sure they¡¯d be coming for him soon.¡±


    ¡°Got it.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve sent him the coordinates and our ETA. He¡¯s sent confirmation. It should be a quick in and out.¡±


    The transport unit went down a quiet lane, shielded by the lush hedges of residential buildings on either side. Novi took the opportunity to activate the camouflage function. The usual options popped up on screen. He tapped the Taxi Unit option and the external shell of the transport unit morphed into the bright red and yellow of typical Taxi Units. The vehicle pulled out of the narrow lane and merged with the traffic on the main road, for all appearances a functioning taxi unit, with the Occupied sign lit.


    ¡°Another right turn, and we¡¯re there,¡± Gera stated. They switched the Occupied sign to the Free-for-hire sign. The Transport unit slowed its pace, and started to cruise along the lane next to the sidewalk.


    ¡°I see him,¡± Novi pointed ahead. Holliot stood on the sidewalk up ahead, flagging them down.


    The transport unit came to a halt, and the doors slid open. Holliot sauntered on, carrying a large backpack.


    The door slid shut, and they were off.


    ¡°Huh. That was ¡­easy,¡± Novi said, a tinge of surprise lacing his tone.


    Gera nodded, looking at Holliot. ¡°Whenever Novi calls anything a ¡®quick in and out¡¯, shit usually happens. But this was a quick in and out. Easy.¡±


    Holliot cleared his throat. ¡°Yeap. All right, now I¡¯ve just got to transfer the data out of this.¡±


    Novi and Gera turned to see him pulling out a computing unit.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t have time to retrieve the info. Had to take it with me.¡±


    A small spike of adrenaline lodged in Novi¡¯s chest. ¡°You do know they¡¯re tracked, right?¡±


    ¡°Yeap¡­yeap. But if we start the transfer now, we should be done by the time we¡¯re on Quma bridge. We¡¯ll dump it then.¡±


    Novi decided not to argue. He exchanged an uneasy look with Gera. They watched as Holliot typed quickly on his computing unit, touched his external port to it, and activated the data transfer. The countdown started on the side of the port. Gera checked their radar, which was configured to detect possible tails. The coast seemed clear for the moment. As the transport unit neared the bridge, the port glowed a deeper blue, signalling the completion of the transfer.


    ¡°Perfect timing,¡± Holliot grinned. He removed his external port from the surface of the unit, and pulled out a small canvas bag from his backpack. The computing unit slid snugly within. He hesitated for an instant, then reached in to peel a tiny sticker off the computing unit, before zipping the bag up. He looked up to see Novi¡¯s frown.


    ¡°It¡¯s just a sticker,¡± Holliot said, showing the cartoon eye printed on the sticker. ¡°Sentimental reasons.¡±


    ¡°You might want to scan it anyway, for trackers or whatever,¡± Novi cautioned.


    ¡°Sure. Later,¡± Holliot said as they drove onto the bridge.


    ¡°Get closer to the left railing,¡± Holliot instructed.


    ¡°Missus, keep left,¡± Novi commanded. The transport unit edged left. Holliot raised an eyebrow, his lips twitching.


    ¡°Hey, he gets to name his unit whatever he wants,¡±  Gera said.


    ¡°All right,¡± Holliot said, smirking.


    Novi ignored them, and reached up to tap the emergency override button above the door. The door slid open. Balancing himself and wedging his legs on either side of the door, Holliot lifted the canvas bag with the unit in it, and with as much force as he could muster, lobbed it over the railing. They watched as the bag arced its way down into the river below. With luck, the drivers around would assume that they were just inconsiderate assholes littering. Their pseudo transport unit number, generated together with the taxi appearance, would probably be tracked down for a fine. There was an account set up just for that purpose.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    As the transport¡¯s door slid shut, Holliot activated its scanner, which began a thorough scan of the passengers and objects within. No unauthorized devices were found. Holliot stuck the eye sticker onto his external port.


    ¡°What¡¯s with the eye?¡± Gera asked.


    Holliot shrugged. ¡°I like them. They bring my devices to life. Makes them less¡­machiney,¡± he explained. It was Gera¡¯s turn to raise an eyebrow.


    ¡°Hey, I get to stick whatever I want on my devices,¡± Holliot quipped. Gera grinned, and held up his hands in a gesture of peace.


    The transport wove its way into the heart of the city, then back out to the suburbs. Whilst passing through an empty underground tunnel, Gera changed the camouflage to a nondescript family vehicle unit, for extra caution. From the outside, it looked like a sea green sphere.


    They soon pulled up at the safe house on the outskirts of the city, a quaint little house that seemed, on first look, like a simple stone cottage covered in creepers and vines. It had what appeared to be an old school, traditional entrance, with a vintage lock and key system. Novi located a key placed in the hollow underside of a rock, and inserted it into the door. He stood still for a moment, allowing the biometrics system to scan his body and facial features. Given the prevalence of face and body modifications, where the colours of eyes, hair and skin could easily be swapped out every other day, the system had been trained to detect more permanent physical features such as brain and skull shapes, as well as the overall body structure. It also recorded the subtle muscle movements of the face and body for matching purposes. The key registered his fingerprints at the same time, and he stared into the keyhole for his retina patterns to be scanned.


    The mechanism clicked, and they pushed the heavy door open. The weight of the seemingly wooden door told Holliot that it was likely constructed with Targum, an advanced alloy of extreme hardiness and durability. This was definitely a top level safehouse.


    They made their way to the living room, a simple, sparsely furnished area with a stiff new couch. Gera sat down, and the seat instantly molded itself to fit him snugly. Novi placed his palm on the coffee table. There was a clicking sound before the wooden surface rose up and tilted itself to the perfect height and angle for him. The wood grains on the slab peeled apart from each other, the wood fibres dispersing. Soon, the entire surface had morphed into a smooth, clear panel. It lit up. Novi touched the external port to the corner of the glass panel for a few seconds, and the information loaded on the screen.


    Dozens of files, documents and images appeared, including some of Holliot¡¯s more personal recordings. Novi scrolled through them briefly, and raised an eyebrow. ¡°A whole file on Sizzlers! Huh.¡±


    ¡°Somebody¡¯s living the high life,¡± Gera chimed in.


    Holliot smiled. ¡°Just some notes on the herbs I grow.¡±


    Gera grinned. ¡°Sure. Herbs. Got any on you?¡±


    Holliot paused for a second. ¡°Yeah, but I ain¡¯t sharing.¡±


    Gera laughed, before realising that Holliot was serious. ¡°Oh c¡¯mon.¡±


    Holliot shrugged. ¡°Hey, it took me months to perfect this strain. I have this much of it,¡± he said, holding  his thumb and pointer close. ¡°I gotta ration it.¡±


    Gera thought for a moment. Then, looking Holliot straight in his eyes, he reached out for Holliot¡¯s backpack.


    ¡°I¡¯ll cut you,¡± Holliot said, smiling calmly and staring right back at Gera. Gera slumped back into his chair, and raised his hands in mock defeat.


    Holliot nodded and turned back to the screen. He flicked through the different documents, until he came to a line of inconspicuously titled files. He clicked on one titled ¡°Schedule (July)¡±. A recording appeared on the panel. He hit play. The recording didn¡¯t show much, mostly darkness and an occasional wooden surface. The recorder on Holliot¡¯s shirt button appeared to have been pressed against a door. The faint voices of two people talking wisped from the recording. It was difficult to hear what they were saying, but a couple taps on the audio adjuster icon on the screen, and they were just able to make out the words.


    ¡°What are we, machines?¡± A frustrated sigh.


    ¡°That¡¯s it for the next couple weeks. We¡¯re gonna be holed up in the lab. All day, all night. Working on that damn upgrade.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t get the damn rush. Why July? They can unleash the next round any time. December, next Jan, it¡¯d make no difference. And January, now that would be a timeline we can actually meet. I mean, it took us a whole year to programme the first one. And that was with all the help we had.¡±


    The words got clearer as the recording showed Holliot slowly sliding the door open, and silently creeping behind the counter. For a while, he seemed to have gone unnoticed. The conversation continued.


    ¡°Exactly. The virus is working. And no one¡¯s close to a solution. What¡¯s the point of a second version? They don¡¯t get the amount of work that goes into tweaking the code.¡±


    There was a pause. ¡°Did you hear that?¡± They saw the visual recording go dark, and footsteps getting closer.


    Holliot paused the recording there. ¡°That¡¯s it.¡±


    ¡°Did they find your recorder?¡± Novi asked.


    ¡°I popped the button off, in case they decided to search me.¡±


    ¡°Did you swallow it? Hardcore, man!¡± Gera patted him on the shoulder.


    Holliot grinned. ¡°No. I got one of those smart fabric shirts. You know, with the self-repairing tech? I hid the button in a premade slit, pressed the seams together, resealed it, that was it.¡±


    ¡°You got one of those? Huh, guess the department¡¯s pretty generous,¡± Gera said, a touch of envy in his tone.


    ¡°How did you talk yourself out of that?¡± Novi asked. ¡°I mean, crouching behind a counter. That¡¯s got to look bad.¡±


    Holliot, sighed, then reached over to resume playing the recording. The audio played, and they listened as Holliot tried to convince the two men that he had popped a button. He had been on the floor trying to find it.


    ¡°Nice.¡± Novi nodded in approval.


    Then they heard the two men questioning Holliot about why he was sneaking around. And listened as Holliot explained that that was just the way he was, a naturally quiet person. People never seemed to notice he was around.


    Holliot caught Novi¡¯s wince, and admitted, ¡°Yea that was weak.¡± From the rest of the conversation, it seemed clear to all three of them that the two Intacta men were unconvinced, even though they did eventually let him leave.


    ¡°Good thing you got out,¡± Novi said.


    Holliot nodded.


    ¡°And that was talk of a new version of the virus. Right? Something they plan to release in July?¡±


    ¡°It sounded like that, yeah. Like an upgrade of sorts.¡±


    Gera plopped heavily into his seat and massaged his temples. ¡°This is insane. We¡¯re barely coping as is.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ve got to get this to the higher ups.¡± Novi pressed his finger onto the corner of the glass screen, and a window popped up. He swiped the recording into the window, and proceeded to type up a quick summary of its contents.


    Gera and Holliot settled back on the sofa, sharing a mildly uncomfortable silence punctuated only by the sound of Novi typing.


    ¡°Beer?¡± Gera offered, clearing his throat.


    Holliot nodded. Gera tapped the drawer at the bottom of the coffee table, and it whirred open, revealing several chilled beers. Taking a long swig from his bottle, Holliot pulled out a rollie and his metal lighter. The cold, clean, almost visceral sound the lighter made as he flicked the lid open brought him comfort. It was the main reason he refused to use the modern lighters.


    He lit the rollie with the good old flame he was used to, and took a long puff.


    ¡°Ah¡­ Beer and Sizzlers,¡± sighed Holliot,  leaning back and closing his eyes, his face a visage of peace and contentment. ¡°Best feeling in the world.¡±


    Novi and Gera stared at him, both envious and just a little resentful.


    ¡°Huh. Wish we knew,¡± Gera muttered.


    Holliot shrugged, and took another puff.


    Novi finished updating the headquarters and put the panel away.


    ¡°What now?¡± Gera asked.


    ¡°We¡¯re just gonna hole up here and get prepared, for whatever orders come. We¡¯ve everything we need here, more or less,¡± Novi said.


    ¡°It¡¯s pretty impressive,¡± Gera admitted. ¡°I¡¯ve never actually been to any of our safe houses. In the two years on the team, there¡¯s not been a single case that required a safe house.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a good thing, isn¡¯t it? Means there¡¯s less crime, less danger,¡± Novi pointed out.


    Gera gave a non-committal nod and got himself a bottle of beer, before sinking into the futon. The trio clinked bottles and settled in for the night.