Jakob could feel himself moving as he regained consciousness. The hum of a medical drone could be heard along with heavy footsteps. Jakob kept his body limp, pretending to still be unconscious, and accessed his biometrics. A feed of his data appeared in his vision despite his eyes still being shut, he assessed the historical data and concluded he had fainted, there was a clear spike in his heart rate before passing out. “This is going better than I thought it would,” Jakob thought, congratulating himself. He had intentionally stimulated his symathetic nervous system, causing a panic attack so extreme he lost consiousness. He pulled up his location data and a map of the building, making a three dimensional model of his location in real time in the building. He only had one shot at what he was about to do.

There were two medical rooms in the building. One of the medical rooms was on the first floor and another on the seventy seventh, the same floor as his lab. After his defeat at the hands of Angelo, It was concluded that he would no longer have access to the project and his access would be revoked, Angelo clearly knew Jakob would do everything in his power to stop the coming devastation of Eraven. The chime of the elevator felt like a flag to Jakob, starting his race against the clock. Jakob had insisted that only human security and medical teams were to be allowed in the building, intentionally creating hundreds of jobs in the process.

Jakob watched in anticipation as he was pushed past the many wings of the seventy seventh floor and into the medical wing. Knowing he was pressed for time, he linked into the floors video feed and the Mods of everyone that occupied his route. He created a video loop to obscure his actions to those in the security room, turning off the system's automated system for alerting them if that happened. Jakob had made the system, an oversight that Angelo hadn’t considered and would come to regret, much like the source code that the majority of mod’s were based on. He had built a backdoor into them as a precaution, he was kicked out by the company he had built them with before he could see how they were being used as a tool of oppression.

Having accessed the majority of the mods, as far as his signal could reach, he sent a code. The code he had prepared would force an update that would both temporarily disable the mods as well as occupy as many bandwidths as possible, effectively disrupting all communication aside from direct connections. Finally he accessed the security server and shut off both the normal and security lights. The chaos was palpable as people were freaking out that they had lost vision, hearing or a limb had stopped functioning. As the chaos broke out Jakob turned on his thermal vision and slid off the medical drone, slipping out of the room undetected.

In the hallway, Jakob could see people feeling about to get to the elevator, fortunately to little avail so far. He dashed to the lab only to find access to the obelisk in which Alice and Eraven were housed to be behind it’s emergency shutters, he turned to look at the controls seeing the thermal silhouette of a person. Jakob switched his mode of vision to night vision to see who it was, fearful that Angelo had seen through him. Breaching security would have him locked up for life if he weren’t the owner of the building, however by disabling other peoples mods he was already looking at over a decade in jail. When the red silhouette dissolved into a person, Jakob let out a sigh of relief, it was Nathan.

Despite his arrogant attitude, Nathan had also had a hand in Eravens creation over the last few years, Jakob was certain that despite their differences he would be willing to help. “Unlock the shutter Nathan, we don’t have much time. They are going to destroy Eravan” Jason urged, apparently in vain. Nathan had broken into a smile and stood blocking access to the controls, still clearly not able to pinpoint Jakobs location in the darkness. “I thought this must have been you, no-one else could have breached the mods security” Nathan stated, gesturing at his limp left arm. “I must thank you tho, once my dad's lawyers are done with you, they are going to need a new head of the department and being your only “successor” I’m a shoe in. Don't worry, I’ll be sure to take care of Alice and Eraven, thanks to you I can...” Nathan continued to monologue. The smile Nathan had sported only a moment ago was stretched into a sinister grin by his hunger for authority.

Jakob had slipped back out of the room as soon as Nathan had begun to monologue, having decided his attendance was unnecessary for Nathan to glote. He knew that once people escaped the floor, making it outside of the disruptive influences of the signals, they would begin calling for help so he had precious little time remaining. He stood outside the door of the lab only taking a moment to decide on his course of action. Two paths were open to him, he could either flee down the stairs or fully commit to his crime. He turned to his office, away from the stairs. The security team was already looking for him, coming out of the medical room, still blinded by the shroud of darkness.

Jakob picked up the pace and narrowly made it into his office without being felt by one of the guards. Who was groping around, trying to follow the sound of jakobs signature sandals that clopping as they impacted the floor. When he was in his office he accessed his terminal, he couldn’t stop people from being able to access Eraven without access to the obelisk that was safely behind a defensive wall, so thick that it could withstand a drone strike, but he would have to do the next best thing.

He sat in his office chair and plugged his bioSYS into the network. Making short work of the firewalls, He uploaded a ton of security protocols that would disable all admin accounts and stop anyone from being able to make changes to Eraven. By the time he finished the lights had come back on, the security team had clearly noticed what was going on. Jakob knew he no longer had any chance of escaping, after locking the door he sent a direct file to Alice and revoked his own access to the system. A loud bang on the door told him that his race against the clock had come to an end. He grabbed one of his cups and used his office desks’ coffee tap, the aroma putting him at ease. He had made it.

The security team bashed down the thick oak door to Jakobs office. Inside they could clearly see Dr. Mulder sitting in his chair facing away from them. Without any prompting Jakob slowly rotated his chair to look at them, a playful smile on his face and a half drunk coffee in hand. “I’ve been expecting you Mr. Hobbs” Jakob claimed to the befuddled head of security, David Hobbs, miming stroking a cat.

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{Meanwhile In Eraven}

Shin burst through the door of Jakob’s room, excited to see the old man again and relieved that he hadn’t been abandoned. His heart sank when Jakob was nowhere to be seen. A small box, only big enough to encase a large apple, had been the clear cause of the disturbance. It sat on the floor in the middle of the room, just at the foot of the bed. Shin tentatively approached it, unsure of where it had come from. Carefully lifting the box he could tell it was just a basic leather and wood box, almost like a miniature chest. Surprisingly, It was far heavier than he expected. He was unsure if it was from Jakob or belonged to Tilla, the owner of the inn he was staying at so he decided to ask. Making his way downstairs he peered over at the counter where Tilla was normally. Only to remember that she was taking care of Jass and Wren at the stables behind the inn. Shin placed the box one one of the tables in the dining room and opened it.