So. Very. Late. Many apologies. I ran into a rather large, nasty creative writer's block, though I was finally able to finish out this chapter at 6800 words.

I also added a lengthy author's note at the end for your viewing pleasure. It's not an announcement for hiatus or anything like that, just a brief rundown of circumstances, motivations, and future aspirations for the story. I felt it necessary after having a good laugh at some of the latest 'advanced' reviews.

Anyways, enjoy!

Raide’s hand dropped back down to his side as he looked at the aftermath he’d created. Blood, sweat, bits of flesh and clothing...it made for one macabre painting if you looked at it from the right angle. He wondered if that would classify under contemporary art. Or would it be abstract, since they’re all in pieces? Art is hard, so many blurry lines and definitions.

Musing slightly to himself, he gave one last look towards the scene and muttered, “Well, that was easy…” Turning to the side, he disengaged all of the railguns except for one as a precautionary measure, allowing the others to recede back into their concealed enclosures. The last one remained trained on the two warm bodies with a hint of life still in them. Didn’t want one of the two crawling away, now did he.

Judging by the sensors installed on the railguns and in their housing, they’d be due rail replacements after another 324 rounds each, give or take a few for each case. They weren’t able to perfect the field manipulation of the slugs yet, so there was still a little bit of heat and frictional damage that came into play with the design.

Looking back over at the two bodies that were slightly heaving from their breath, Raide grimaced. Humans are tenacious bastards when it comes to life or death scenarios. If the A.I. wasn’t capable of analyzing exactly where each of the slugs entered their bodies, he might have put a few more in them just in case. But then again, he’d blown like - he accessed the power records - eight megawatts of energy just to fire that salvo. At this rate, if they ever did encounter a siege with the power cut to the facility, they’d only be able to fire 50 rounds from Bertha’s children or 5 rounds from Big Bertha herself based on their battery reserves.

Raide grimaced and then yelled as he warped back to Adrian, “Dad! Can we get a nuclear reactor?”

Adrian was still sipping his coffee and looked over bemused when he reappeared. “Go ask your mother.”

Raide scratched his head on the screen as he played along. “But...who is my mother?”

The man sipping his coffee sat down and adopted an incomparably serious demeanor. “Well, she was a sailor, fresh off the boat when I met her in the late Spring of 2005. She slept a summer by my side, but then she left me again when Autumn came. You are all that’s left of her.” He sighed dramatically, “Though, sometimes I still dream she’ll come to me…”

Raide held up a hand, interrupting him. “For the love of all that is digital, stop. Stop. If you plagiarize any more of the Les Miserables musical, I think you’ll be sued. Nerd.”

Adrian chuckled, not deigning to give a reply.

He then sobered up as he looked back at the screen where Raide was standing. He switched topics. “I take it that we used a lot of power to fire off the children, huh. I know where your mind is going, but we won’t have to worry about anyone else…” His eyes flitted towards the window, obviously thinking about the intruders, “...From the American side trying to come after us yet. Before then, we’ll address it. Ugh, we need more people! So many things to do... Ah hell, they’re probably bleeding out down there. Patch me through to Peter and Rich.”

Raide established a digital link between the three with a thought and Adrian spoke out, “Guys, I need you to run go get the two living bodies out in front of the church.”

Rich’s amused voice echoed through the connection, “Doesn’t that imply that there are dead bodies as well?”

“Just go get them, please. You can leave your midget videos for a few minutes, I believe in you.”

Peter mused, “I was wondering what those booms were. What are we doing with the dead bodies then?”

“That was one time, Bearcat. One time!”

Raide stealthily checked the man’s cached browsing data. Liar.

Adrian continued on, ignoring Rich’s protests. “I’ll be down in a minute to help with those. We’re going to have to commandeer their vans and then go incinerate them after we add their buddies to the pile. I don’t want Homeland Security getting all in our business just because a Sheikh couldn’t think with the right head. The more pressing concern is to make sure that the pair of lackeys don’t die from blood loss. Raide was careful not to hit any major arteries, but they’re a little worse for wear.”

“Okay, on our way.”

The connection terminated and Adrian finished his coffee almost at the same moment. Frowning at the empty cup, he paused and Raide couldn’t tell exactly what he was thinking. He could, however, tell what he would want to do next. They’d spent every possible moment together since he came online. If there was one thing the A.I. knew, it would be the habits of his creator.

As predicted, Adrian turned and started walking to the med bay to prep for their arrival, saying as he walked, “Call in Victor and explain the situation to him. He needs some practical experience to consolidate what he’s been learning the past day.”

“Done.”

Adrian continued on rattling off instructions, “Then, call Roger. It’s 2 am, but I bet he’ll pick up. Tell him we need a new gate. Bloody thing was expensive as shit. Wake Inori, tell her what happened just so she knows and that you’ll be asking some rather impolite questions of the two still alive, so she shouldn’t come around the med bay for a while. Or come, she’s a big girl - it’s up to her. Finally, grab Sergio and direct him to the four vans sitting outside my compound. They creep me out, and I don’t like people eyeing my property.”

“Why did I just get a revolutionary vibe from you?”

“I’m feeling historical tonight. Protecting my private property has made me feel all sentimental inside towards the founding of our great nation,” Adrian said in a prideful tone.

Riade squinted at him. “But I did all the work!”

Adrian looked at him aghast. “That is incomparably selfish of you.”

“No it’s not. It’s a fact that I did all of the work while you stood there and drank coffee!” Raide indignantly exclaimed.

The man waved a hand dismissively. “Welcome to the managerial style of corporate America. In any case, you get too worked up over the small details. What matters is that it was a win for team Archon.” Adrian started to grin mischievously.

“And now you’ve moved on to sports idioms; that’s just great.”

***

The banter continued until a minute later when Adrian arrived in the medical examination room. Sitting down in a cold, steel chair, he watched as all but his and two others were retracted into the floor. The two that were to his 10 and 2 o’clock flattened out, temporarily acting as a table on which they could lay the two survivors.

Standing up when it was locked into place, Adrian moved over to one of the glass displays and started reviewing the optically obtained data Raide had already collected and then looked at their current condition via the cameras in the elevator. Pale complexion and a distinct lack of heat radiating from the skin. Judging by the data, they’d just entered into class two hemorrhaging.

Victor interrupted his thoughts as he walked in wearing scrubs while putting on a pair of latex gloves. “Anything interesting happening in here?”

Adrian glanced at him and then back to the displays. “Not yet. Two patients, both with class two hemorrhaging. Wounds are non-vital, but painful enough that both are out cold and experiencing rapid blood loss. They should be here...now.”

A burst of motion rounded the doorless corner and Peter came walking in while easily dragging his respective body, which turned out to be a clean-shaven middle aged man whose features only had hints of an arabic descent. It was a little hard to tell though, because it looked like he’d taken a blood bath and his hair and features were obscured by the viscous and solidifying remnants. Rich soon followed him through the doorway, his man looking about a decade younger and seemed incredibly small next to his giant-dwarf physique.

Raide streamed shorthand data through his earpiece, giving him the results of his background inquiries. Most of it, he’d already anticipated. Lackey Manager leads lesser lackeys on an errand for Sheikh mini boss. While it demonstrated their foresight in that they brought twenty of the little extremist minions as insurance, they’d vastly underestimated Adrian, or failed to account for him altogether. It was pitiful, to be quite honest.

The reason that he wanted to keep them alive for interrogation was precisely his logic telling him that the Sheikh was only a piece of the entire picture. Since a large part of the Middle Eastern region’s culture wasn’t heavily saturated in technology yet, Raide’s usefulness was diminished when it came to trying to find out the connections between individuals based on digital activity from their everyday lives.

Adrian’s intuition was telling him that there were groups tied together here, so he had to gather as much information as possible before razing everything these people loved to the ground. The possible ramifications are too important to ignore, especially when it comes to things that could come back to bite him in the future. He was already annoyed that he couldn’t do more about them sooner, but back when they’d rescued Inori and the others, Raide’s computational capability wasn’t nearly as strong as it is now.

Shaking his head, he turned to Victor who was conducting a primary survey on the older man, since he was the worst off of the two. “I’m going to leave you to this. I’ve got some other things to check on. Raide’ll help you on the interrogation whenever they wake up - he’s got a nifty concoction just for instances like this.”

Victor replied, “That sounds fine. What’s in the cocktail, though? I’ll need to know so I can judge the proper level of recuperation required before we can administer it. They did just sustain substantial trauma afterall.”

“There’s no need,” Raide spoke up from the wall where he appeared with his hands behind his back. “They only need to be stabilized. The main constituent is Amobarbital, an old favorite that the media liked to tout as a truth serum for a time.”

Victor thought for a brief moment and then mused, “Sodium amytal, huh. While attractive, I just recalled a study where its credibility was diminished as a truth serum because it was discovered that the subject can be manipulated into creating a false memory with regards to the event.”

Raide nodded. “You’re referring to the 1998 Social Work study on Recovered Memory Therapy conducted by J.T. Stocks. You are correct, however, I’ve modified the drug to have an additional effect on the chemicals released in the brain. While amobarbital does indeed lower a patient’s inhibitions and walls towards giving out information, this pertains to all information whether true or false.

“What I’ve done is temporarily alter the way dopamine interfaces with the brain through the use of a reagent. For a brief period after the cocktail has propagated throughout the body, there will be a window where certain stimuli will create an abnormally extreme response to pleasure or pain based on where they receive the stimulation. To keep things simple, I’ve delegated pleasure to the left hand and pain to the right.”

Adrian cut in to add to the explanation while meandering to the door. “So basically, you’ll have a short period of where you’ll be able to “condition” the patient into answering truthfully by questioning them against known facts and then afflict pleasure or pain based on their answer. They’ll still be under the effects of amobarbital after you’re done, since it’s administered intravenously, so you’ll then be able to question them with a greater degree of accuracy. Excuse me, Raide will. He can imitate someone close to Saad, the older male there, and it will serve to make it easier for the man to open up.”

Victor drew his hand up to his new elven ear to scratch it, but stopped when he remembered that his gloves were now covered in blood. He shot a derisive look at Adrian, saying sarcastically as he worked blindingly quick on suturing the wound for Saad’s leg, “Thanks for that little nugget of explanation, BC. I’d figured out where Raide was going with this as soon as he mentioned dopamine.”

Adrian felt a wave of embarrassment strike him as he realized that he’d just treated Victor like he had back when he was still unupgraded.

Finished with the leg wound, Victor then leveled his gaze at Raide on the wall. “There is still something that bothers me. Amobarbital is a drug that has a characteristic effect on the central nervous system like all other barbiturates - it acts as a depressant. To suggest administering the serum while they’re being stabilized from major trauma is reckless, not to mention that its duration will be lessened due to the increased metabolic rate from the body trying to heal itself.”

Raide looked back at him nonplussed. “It is close to the line of what they can handle before falling into hemorrhagic shock, but I calculated an appropriate dosage to maintain awareness long enough for us to get our answers before they succumb to their wounds.”

Victor shook his head. “Typical of an A.I.” He turned his head towards Adrian who was almost at the door, his arcing light brown eyes exuding an air of questioning. “Am I just prolonging life then? As it stands, I can fully save them, not including fingers lost and such.”

Adrian grimaced and shot him a look from across the room. “Treat them to whatever level you deem acceptable, but yes, they will be disposed of afterwards, so no need to unduly exert yourself.” He rapped his knuckles against the doorway. “I’ve stuck around too long. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Mhmm,” Victor hummed in absentminded reply as a small splurt of blood jumped from a large wound on the nearby American extremist. Rich and Peter, who’d been talking to themselves over in a corner while watching the replay of Raide’s railgun massacre started to walk to the door too, but was stopped by Victor.

“Where do you think you’re going? I need you guys to stick around and assist.”

Adrian walked quickly out of the med bay and hit up his personal lab space before he headed downstairs while carrying a few small boxes. Inside each, he’d placed all of the personalized contact lenses he’d finished for everyone as well as a solution they could be suspended in when unneeded. He planned on putting them in front of everyone’s rooms and then head to the Church to work on the A1X Heather and Rich had been assembling for the past day and a half.

Stepping off the elevator at the floor directly beneath his, he put a box in the little compartment next to Inori’s door and turned to leave, but stopped himself. Looking back at the door she’d decorated with a college-y, girly kind of flare - there were flowers and such all over and surrounding her name - he chuckled and then knocked. It was like she was treating her new apartment like a dorm, which was adorable in a way.

It was reassuring to Adrian that she still acted like this despite her joining the Liberatur’s ranks. He worried sometimes that they were all becoming too logical, too reason driven, and that they’d lose the benefits of their human roots if they weren’t careful. They didn’t want to completely leave behind humanity and become synths or anything, they were just the next step.

Pretty soon, the pretty Japanese American opened the door, blinking at the bright hall lighting while standing in the doorframe wearing a pair of pink pajamas. Her gorgeous, electrified emerald eyes flitted to look back into Adrian’s as she leaned against the frame and crossed her arms across her chest. “Hey.”

Adrian smiled back at her. “Hey. The contacts are ready, so here you go.” He plucked the small box from the little mailbox and put it in her hand. “Each set are tailored to the person, so don’t lose them.”

He searched her face as he continued, “Are you okay?”

Inori removed her eyes from the box in her hands and leveled on him. Sighing deeply, she nodded while adding, “I’m okay. I thought about going up there, but I realized that getting worked up over the past wouldn’t do me any good. I’m so different from the way I was then and a lot has happened to alter my perspective on it all.”

Adrian smirked a little while nodding his head to acknowledge her words. Inori must have thought he meant something else by it, because a hint of a smile creased her lips as she immediately asked incredulously, “What’s so funny?”

He lifted his gaze from the ground back to her eyes, rolling his eyes as his smirk deepened. “Nothing, I was just thinking, “Thatta girl” and remembering back to when we first met.” Inori’s face blushed a light pink as she recalled the scene.

Seeing her red face, he started chuckling as he realized what she was thinking about. She immediately hit him on the arm, the blow rebounding with little effect. “Stop thinking about that! Oh my God, that was horrifying and... oh so embarrassing.”

He replied, “Please, give me a little credit. It’s not like I was fixating on your state of undress.” Thank God for my eidetic memory, though. “I was more referring to fact that you still have this incredible fortitude to you. Then and now. Twenty men show up to try and you take you back to slavery and you shrug it off like an asshole catcalling you on the street.”

She blinked a few times, her long lashes batting up and down while she looked back thoughtfully. She smiled at him flirtatiously, “Maybe it’s because I feel safe with you around?”

He almost started coughing out of shock. Recovering into a chuckle, he said, “That means I’m doing my job correctly then. I want this place to feel like a home after all,” he added playfully, his eyebrows raised.

She grinned at his counter and then laughed lightly. “Not yet, but... it’s certainly getting there.” Her eyes flitted to the side unconsciously before she added, “Adrian, if you don’t mind me asking, why did you add me in to be upgraded like the rest? I’m not a part of your group of friends and we don’t have a very deep relationship yet.” She blushed a little again as she realized she said a word too much. She continued on in a rush, “In any case, I don’t understand why you’d take such a risk for me.”

Adrian’s eyes smiled back at her, thinking on her words, but also confirming his previous thoughts. Opening his mouth, he said steadily, “I did it because I believe in you; the same goes for Nova.

“Both of you have this incredible potential. So often in this world, I’ve watched others forced to settle because the full breadth of their meteoric rise couldn’t be sustained by the rest of society, like their brilliance hurt their eyes so they pulled them back down to Earth. Isn’t that sad? Doesn’t that make you wish to see what could exist, what a person could turn into if the right conditions allowed for it? What if you had a group of individuals like this who worked together? What could they accomplish then?

“I feel this need to make sure that you, the girl who burned so brightly the first time I set eyes on her, have the room to grow to your full potential. It’s only a feeling, true - it’s not something I can quantify with analysis, or by what I’ve seen you do so far. But it’s a prospect that adds fuel to my passion for progress. It excites me. That’s why I wanted you to be upgraded as well, because it would empower you to reach an even more astronomical height.” He ended with a warm smile, gently resting his hand on her hair which was a shade of black too dark.

Inori’s face, which had sunk into an expression of contemplation while he was talking, suddenly broke into a grin when he finished, underscored by a low chuckle. Her lips parted, “I swear, you sound like an old man. The words coming out do not match that young face staring back at me. Are you really an old geezer who already found immortality a hundred years ago, or something?”

Adrian laughed, removing his hand from its perch. “Well, my grandfather always did say that I had an old soul. He said he forgot he was talking to a little kid sometimes and that he’d just carry on adult conversations with me because I answered accordingly.”

Inori smiled sweetly. “He must be a great man.”

“Yeah, he was.” Adrian’s smile was warm and sad. “Anyways, you have your answer. I’ll let you get back to bed. I’ve intruded enough.”

Inori caught the pain that flickered across his face so she acquiesced quickly. Just as he was turning to walk down the circular to the next room, she called after his back quietly, “I won’t let you down, Adrian.” He kept walking after that, but he turned his head slightly to flash a smile at her before he continued on down the hall.

A few seconds later, he found himself in front of Nova’s door.

After a short knock, Nova appeared in the doorway, her beautiful figure framed by a dark room in the background, her body clad in a tank top and shorts. Judging by the reflection of one of the windows, she’d been binging on the latest season of Shield for a bit.

Smiling, he took out a box with her initials on it and passed it to her. “Hey, these are yours. I finally got done with them earlier.”

“Oh cool!” She immediately opened it up, gingerly picking up one of the lenses with a finger.

The contact was designed with a similar look to colored contact lenses, possessing a large area that was opaque and meant to alter the look of the iris. These were even more natural looking in an effort to mask the changes that had happened to their eyes after they’d evolved. What Adrian had to add though, was a honeycomb grid structure that served to absorb the excess electricity and then utilize a microscopic version of a thermoelectric generator, operated off of the waste heat produced by resistance, to conduct a current to power a very basic signal to text transmission array which allowed them to receive projected text messages.

With the materials and processes at hand, this was the furthest Adrian could take the technology in the short term. To be able to truly create a contact that was up to the standard he envisioned, where the user would perpetually be able to access a projected 3D interface with multiple functions like a modern cellphone, he’d need to dump a vast amount of man hours and resources into making it a reality.

Adrian pointed at the lenses, saying, “Let me know if they give you any discomfort, okay? There’s a bottle of solution in there to moisten them and then later store them in. Regular water might oxidize the circuits so be sure to take care of them properly.”

Nova brought them close to look at them, her hyperacute eyes looking at the framework built onto the backside of the lense. “God, that is awesome.” She pursed her lips and shot a look at Adrian. “You really know how to make a girl feel lazy.”

Adrian laughed. “Maybe that’s the guilt talking, ever think of that? You’re fine though, honestly. I mean, it’s 2 in the morning. If you want to binge watch Netflix till dawn, be my guest!”

Surprise flickered across her eyes and her head whirled, taking in the reflection that he had glimpsed already. She groaned as she tousled her golden-brown hair. “Ugh, why does that show have to be so good?! I only wanted to watch the first two episodes, save some for another day ya know, but soon after I got started it’s like they melted together and I found myself on episode 8!”

“I think that it’s like that for everybody. I still have trouble stopping as well,” he chuckled. “Give credit where credit is due too, though - those assholes perfectly designed the auto-play next episode feature.”

Nova nodded, agreeing to the assertion, but suddenly stopped as she looked up at him. “When do YOU watch Netflix? In fact, when do you do anything fun?”

“Ow, are you saying that you think I’m not a fun guy? I’ll have you know that I usually relax and do stuff when the rest of you plebs are still asleep, since, ya know, I don’t have to sleep anymore.” He stuck out his tongue at her.

It was like a lightning bolt struck as the realization that he didn’t need to sleep flashed through her. “No. Freakin’. Wonder! We were always confused about why you’d have things done so quickly. Turns out you had a solid third more time to work with everyday.”

“Why do I feel like I just lost some cool points in your eyes?” This time, she stuck her tongue out at him. Shaking his head, he went on to say, “Just wait, you’ll eventually get there too. Just keep practicing your mind palace technique with Raide. He’ll guide you towards opening up other mental processing lines,” He assured her. “In fact, if you want, you’ll be able to work and play at the same time eventually. Sometimes, I’ll rewatch a movie I stored in my mind while I’m sitting there working on something.”

“Work and play at the same time...:” Nova looked dazed. “Of course...it makes sense that that would be possible…”

Adrian waved a hand in front of her dichromatic eyes, drawing her out of her stupor. She looked back resolutely, “No time to talk, Adrian. I need to go practice! Thanks for the contact lenses!”

Blam! The door shut in his face as she disappeared back into her room. Shaking his head, he turned and then kept going towards Heather’s room. Maybe it was an unspoken thing, but all of the girls had wanted to be on the same floor right below Adrian’s. Peter had tried his best to take the fourth and last apartment on the level, but he’d been shut down almost immediately.

His steps, muffled on the short carpet, fell one after the other bringing him closer to the place where that seductress lived. When he got about 10 meters away from Nova’s room, he heard a voice call after him.

“Hey! Can I come with you on your new hire hunting next week, by the way? I forgot to ask a minute ago,” Nova’s head poked out from her door.

“Of course!” He called back. “You are the head of HR after all. Where else would you be? I’m sure Raide is listening right now - he’ll send you their profiles.”

His answer brought a grin to her face and she disappeared once again, leaving a “goodnight” echoing up and down the hallway, intermixed with the sound waves produced from her shutting the door once again.

Shifting his thoughts towards Heather, he continued his plodding towards her room which was only another 10 meters away. A rogue thought crossed his mind, reminding him that he had yet to talk to her about their situation and her obvious feelings. Again, he knew that she wasn’t going to react explosively or anything, but he was still a bit unnerved by having to shut her down. He’d always been on the other side of this, so he wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

On top of that, if he was brutally honest, he was struggling with the thought of going near her by himself. Imagine that - him, a peak existence amongst humanity, afraid of a petite girl. It was laughable in a way. There was just something about her that set him on edge more than the other two girls. It was like a meeting of two predators, each with their own respective strengths. Hers just happened to be a counter of his.

This is not going to be fun, he sighed quietly.

Bringing his fist up to the door he’d just arrived in front of, Adrian gave a sharp knock.

***

“.....er…”

“....ather…….”

“HEATHER!”

A flood of sounds crashed into Heather as she was jarred back to reality. The telltale screech of nearby shopping cart wheels and the background music from the speakers overhead echoed up and down the aisles, giving a subdued, nostalgic feeling to the entire market area. All of the fruits and produce were neatly arranged in bins, their prices displayed for the buyers. She wasn’t even sure how she’d gotten here. She could recall coming here of course, but the how of it didn't really line up.

Turning her head, she caught sight of an Italian girl she knew. In fact, it was one of her old roommates from her sophomore and junior years. “Monica?” She exclaimed.

“About time you woke up, damn. I called your name like a million times... Girl you look so different!” Monica replied back with an expression of bewilderment. “I was wondering what happened to you after college. It’s like you fell off the face of the Earth.”

Heather gave a short laugh. “Lot’s of stuff has happened, that’s for sure. Yeah, I decided I’d go for a different look.”

“Hey! Got done with the lenses, so here’s yours.” Adrian paused. “But other than that, I had another reason to come see you. We need to have a talk…”

Heather slightly shook herself mentally at the unbidden memory welling up in her mind, desperately trying to make it stop.

Monica shook her head while a grin stretched across her lips. “No kiddin’. It looks good though! You have that whole Ice Queen thing going on. I bet the boys love it.” She smiled good-naturedly. “So, where ya been? I can’t believe I haven’t talked to you in almost a year!”

Heather snorted in return, saying exasperatedly, “You’re one to talk. You up and moved to Italy with that boy-toy of yours! ITALY! It kinda goes without being said that it’s harder to keep in touch with someone when they move half a world away.” She shot her a look. “As for my situation, you remember Bearcat, right?”

Monica nodded, “Of course! Wasn’t he the kinda chubby guy that you almost dated back in...was it Freshman year? And don’t call Giancarlo my boy-toy, he’s my husband now!”

“Listen, I’ve noticed how you feel about me. You made it plenty obvious, after all,” Adrian smiled dejectedly.

Heather’s stomach turned and she felt the urge to throw up after Monica’s words, a surge of emotion wreaking havoc in her heart. Unconsciously, she started absorbing heat at an accelerated rate.

“Uh...yeah. Well, he’s changed... a lot. Turns out, he started his own company called Archon Industries. I just started working there a couple weeks ago as a test pilot in the Mechanical Engineering Department.”

Monica’s mouth dropped open. “Are you serious?”

Heather gave a half-smile, “Yeah. It’s actually very rewarding. We’re working on a cool prototype for a new rotorcraft right now that we’re getting close to finishing, so we’re pretty busy.”

“I’ve been thinking about whether I could forgive you or not…”

Monica smiled encouragingly, “Girl that is so awesome! Who knew that Bearcat would end up having that in him...wow. And go you for getting involved in flying again. I know you’ve always had a passion for it. I’m sure it’s better than that flight attendant gig you were looking at.”

Heather rolled her eyes, patiently keeping up the girl talk as she felt herself start to zone out little by little, darkness creeping into the edges of her vision. “Yes, it is better in pay, though I’m still pretty sore that I won’t be able to explore the world as often. Wanderlust and all that, ya know?”

“...and the truth is that I don’t think I can trust you romantically again, not after you betrayed me like that.”

“Well, maybe he’ll send you to fly the prototype across country to participate in shows or something? Surely he’ll want to get it out there that y’all have created something like that. Man, they’ve got the A/C turned on in the produce section today, haven’t they...” Monica shivered, suddenly noticing the dropping temperature.

“It’s not like that affects my evaluation of you as a person. You’re an incredible, intelligent young woman. I’m just afraid that I won’t ever be able to be in a relationship with you. I’m sorry.”

Heather refocused her eyes and looked at her friend while grinning, “I don’t feel anything. Maybe you’re just used to that hot Italian summer, huh?”

Monica looked around confused. “Yeah...maybe. Anyways, I need to run. Giancarlo can be pretty protective and doesn’t like me out by myself as much as possible. It’s good to see you! We’ve gotta hang out in the near future!”

Heather gave her a tight hug and then smiled oddly at her friend, whose lips were gradually losing their smile as the Italian girl started to shiver uncontrollably. “Of course,” she replied. “We’ll go get coffee sometime soon.”She watched as Monica walked out of the produce section while desperately trying to suppress the violent shudder that the icy temperature inspired. In Heather’s vision, a sheet of blue energy lapped at the heels like it was biting at them, harrying her friend’s retreat.

Adrian turned to walk away and stopped after a few feet. “Ya know what though, let me tell you something.” He leaned in and whispered into her ear, the warmth of his hands transmitted to her shoulder and his soft baritone resonating in her mind.

Turning, Heather looked at the nearest bin where there were a bunch of Gala apples arranged in perfect little indentations. Picking up one, she localized the heat drain and watched as the apple shrunk slightly, ice crystals appearing on the outside, framing it in a crystalline beauty. Like this, she knew that if was preserved in a cold enough environment, it could last thousands of years and not look much different from this moment.

Gently placing the rock-like and icy apple back into its respective indentation, she regarded it coolly before the rest of the apples in the bin suddenly turned into blocks of ice as well. Her expression soon relaxed into indifference and her mind made up.

Walking toward the exit, the last thing she heard before heading into the parking lot was that of an attendant being scolded by his manager for mistakenly freezing perfectly good apples.

***

A man in traditional attire hurriedly walked into the room where the Sheikh was currently praying on his mat directed towards the Holy City of Mecca. It was dawn, nearly a day after Saad had said he was going to get the girl back. They were worried, so when the man entered and disturbed his time of prayer, Sheikh Jafri knew that it was about Saad.

“My Sheikh, Saad is reporting a completion of the mission and is requesting a video conference with you.”

The large man furrowed his brow, mulling over the words of his servant while stroking his considerable beard. A video conference? Perhaps he wanted to show the girl to him? Rising from his position delicately, Jafri padded across the floor of his palace towards a room where they kept a computer that could connect to the internet via satellite. He took a seat in the chair while the man turned it on for him.

Before long, the skype call connected, an image of his subordinate appearing on his screen. From the looks of it, he was staying at a hotel, as in the background he saw a metropolitan skyline and a room that looked western. Humming in approval, he nodded towards the screen.

“It is good to see you hale and whole, Saad. Where is the girl?”

“I’m going to have to stop you right there, Sheikh Jafri, because I’m afraid that Saad is not actually, as you say, hale and whole.” Saad’s visage twisted into an insidious grin before deforming along with the rest of the room. Everything on the feed was deconstructed and then rearranged, finally showing a young man sitting behind a steel desk in a room filled with tools and tech gadgetry.

The Sheikh’s venerable countenance of contentment swiftly dissolved into one of vicious hatred and caution. “Who are you? What have you done with Saad?”

The man leaned back in the chair, responding in an even tone after he folded his hands in his lap, “My name is Adrian Pierce, the owner of the facility that your men so brazenly tried to enter and also the benefactor of the young girl whom you tried to abduct. As for Saad? Well, let’s just say that he’s your vanguard for your journey to Hell.”

Fury seethed beneath the Sheikh’s skin. When had a youth ever been so boldly domineering in front of him?!

He spat, “I hope you enjoyed this moment, young cub, because I have your name now. Every woman in your family, every girl that you’ve ever had eyes for will soon belong to me. I’ll cut off your manhood and make you watch as I ravish them.”

Adrian simply rolled his eyes. “Don’t you people ever get tired of threatening sexual assault, oh mighty Sheikh?” He added the title on the end sarcastically. “If you’re thinking of reaching out to that low ranking uncle of yours in ISIS, I wouldn’t bother.” He pulled up a medium sized picture and shared it to the Sheikh’s screen, the location and rubble looking extremely familiar.

“Nor would I suggest you try and reach your brother in Nairobi. I know he had a few connections with Al-Qaeda, Saad told us.” He flicked another picture on the screen, the building shown there likewise in utter disarray and destruction. “Your sister and her family in Yemen.” A small apartment building in the city proper of Al Hazm showed up demolished with response vehicles all around. “Your mother and father in Riyadh.” Another picture appeared, showing the obliterated remains of the opulent condo he’d bought for his parents and Jafri sunk back down into the comfortable leather chair he’d been half-standing up from a moment ago.

If this man was to be believed, his entire family was completely gone, murdered because he tried to take a pretty girl as his slave.

Blazing hot tears rushed to his eyes as he roared at the screen, “How? Why? Just because of one fucking girl?!”

The young man on the screen shrugged, repeating back the Sheikh’s first word. “How? It’s simple. One by one, my personal attendant called in tips for each of those locations to the CIA, giving them actionable, albeit digitally fabricated information of major terrorists hiding out in their homes. He then assumed the identity and vocal patterns of agents in the field and stole their credentials to confirm the intelligence back across encrypted channels, thus completing the prerequisites of a drone strike.

“Aren’t you proud? Each one of your family members had the pleasure of fictitiously hosting some of the most wanted terrorists in the world.”

“As for the why…” Adrian leaned in, glaring back at the man who wanted nothing more than to hop the digital divide and strangle him to death. “It really was just because of the girl. Inori is one of the eight forerunners of the Liberatur species. She’s a woman destined for greater things than a lowly piece of shit like you can even imagine. You picked the wrong girl to lust after,” he added on fiercely.

The Sheikh felt drained of all strength. He didn’t even bother to ask what the man meant by forerunners. Everyone he knew was dead.

Adrian rapped his knuckles on the table as he stood up, stopping as he apparently remembered something. “By the way, I didn’t even bother making up a guest for you. I chose to just directly hack an U.S. Air Force UCAV. It’s a...MQ-9 Reaper,” he said after checking his screen. “Be sure to become acquainted. It’s your ride to Hell after all.”

The Sheikh watched the young man luxuriously stretch on the screen with dead, smoldering eyes.

A few seconds later, an intense pressure and heat blew apart his palace, robbing the man and everyone associated with him of their lives.

Author's Note:

Spoiler :

I think it’s time we had a little talk.

Feel free to read this if you like, but know that what follows is not some announcement for hiatus or anything along those lines. I’ll be going over my circumstances, motivations, and future aspirations for this story. I feel minutely motivated after having had a good laugh at the latest ‘advanced’ review.

First of all, I have to come clean about one thing: I did not really think of planning the story out until I had already written chapters 10-12. *Gasp* Sorry to disappoint you guys. It is all still important though, and I have taken steps to try and smooth out some of the plot points my wanton writing created. In the future, I will probably go back and do a heavy edit to clean up the places I feel that need it. The reason I bring this up is because I’ve had a few reviews written this spring and summer where people give up before chapter 13. Understand my amusement now? I completely changed the overall direction and tone, in a way, at 13 for a course correction. Anyways, I have a few explanations for this.

1)This is a hobby/part-time thing for me. At the time I first put pen to paper for Archon, I had just started Engineering school with the ever so delightful major of Mechatronics(robotics). This is the part where I deadpan and look at you expectantly. If you have any concept of the hell that Engineering school is, you understand what I mean when I say I honestly did this as a stress reliever and didn’t bother expending brainpower that I did not have. Spring Semester was somewhat more kind, so I had time to say to myself, “Maybe I should bring this up to a higher standard now” and voila, storyboarding began.

2) My approximations for the story length were grossly undervalued. I thought once I got rolling that it would take maybe 50ish chapters of a length where I used to write in the neighborhood of 2000 words/chapter. Now, I write, on average, a length of 10-12 pages, which is 5-6k words per chapter and I’ve storyboarded up through the end of the first book being around 600 pages, or 60-70 chapters of comparable size to the new norm. Even then, I still feel like I’m not expounding as much as I want and the expected length of the series at large may expand. Broadly speaking, I’m looking towards three books of similar length each.

3) My approximations for the story complexity were grossly undervalued. Spoiler alert: Bradley is a trooper, but he’s definitely no Vader. Bearcat, why did you bring him up then? He plays a part in the future, and that’s all I’m going to say. As I mentioned in a reply to Dragrath, we haven’t even met the main antagonist yet, nor have we even come close to the full breadth of what Archon will be addressing. This will include issues like economy, geopolitics, agriculture, Third World development, poverty, human rights, environmental concerns(climate), women’s rights, American politics, and larger G8 considerations with foreign policy. I have no doubt that the proposed fixes will irk some of you. Just remember that all changes imposed are from Adrian’s point of view and with the aid of a quantum A.I. and technology that does not exist yet. And of course, always remember this is fiction.

To wrap up this spiel, I want to briefly talk about my motivations behind writing Archon.

When I first conceived Adrian, I had read the majority of all the mainstays on RRL and also a ridiculous amount of content from many other types of web novels from various countries. (Why? I’m poor, no money to buy official books.) Being the magnificent bastard(lol) that I am, I was slightly peeved that there weren’t many main characters that had a logical head on their shoulders. Or, if they did possess that attribute, they would be severely lacking in the romantic department, etc. I never could find the right combination that I thought would make for the ‘perfect’ MC. Thus, Adrian was born.

This isn’t to say that Adrian is perfect. He’s got more than a few screws loose, along with some subsurface flaws, but he’s high functioning and attentive to the areas I want him to be. I’m not interested in watching a prepubescent explore the power of friendship or traipse through a story on the plot device called luck. I’m not amused by a person who forsakes everything to pursue the highest level of power. I’m not enthused by a MC that has the romantic competency equivalent to that of a brick, nor do I desire scenarios that place unnecessary drama strain on relationships. I’m a 25 yr-old guy and my interests are more mature than that. There’s nothing wrong with a person enjoying those, but they will not be found in my story.

There will be multiple themes that make appearances: ambition, love, jealousy, camaraderie, betrayal, power, prejudice, deception, discovery...even escape, and a few more. With all of these though, know that I strive to pull the story to a final state of balance, because this is a tale about how the right person can have the ability to bring equilibrium to the scales. The world is a twisted place with a lot of potential. And I fully intend to, with the best of my ability, explore that dichotomy in Archon. Buckle up, it’s going to get much more complex - and fun - from here on out.

Thanks for reading,

Bearcat