3

The operations center of the Bureogis Security Force was stationed under The Curator the northern complex. As Aiden marched towards the building he saw some of his co-workers and waved in greetings. However, few waved back and all looked pretty miserable. Aiden concluded that he wasn’t the only fire fired by The Curator. As he arrived at the entrance of the structure, he showed the guard his identification. Although the guard was in a masked exo-suit, from his body language Aiden decided that the guard has also been discharged. Going through the gate, Aiden reached the center hall of The Curator’s house and turned right towards the west wing. Passing the operations and engineering departments, Aiden reached security. As he scanned his retina against the door and punched in the twelve-digit entry code, he wondered how much of his department was cut by The Curator, and what the last week of work as going to be like. He didn’t want to find out but decided to enter the door and put on his earpiece and com-specs anyways.

As soon as the earpiece and specs were connected to The Traveler, several notifications popped up. Aiden saw that one of them was a morning briefing called by his commander, lieutenant colonel Elizabeth Medugis. Immediately, before he was even to open the notification, his earpiece rang. He answered and the smooth, stern, yet elegant voice of his colonel came in.

“Aiden, I would be correct to assume that you are at The Curator’s building?”

“Yes, ma’am, I am. Right now I am just checking the notification that you sent.” Answered Aiden, now curious. He didn’t understand why Elizabeth had to call him personally to remind him, but it was very uncommon for such direct calls. Usually, when a notification is posted, people came when they should.

His thoughts were interrupted by the colonel’s voice: “Check it later, it’s the usual meeting, and it’s at 8:30 anyways. Come to the fire exit on the sixteenth floor. Don’t ask questions, just do it.”

“Alright, I will.”

The call ended and Aiden was now extremely curious. He took the elevator to the sixteenth floor, turned right, and walked across the hallway to the fire exit. After he opened the metal doors, he saw the colonel’s secretary, Eddie Peesh. Aiden was somewhat frustrated, and irritated, because after the call he kind of expected a personal meeting with the colonel, and also because he just didn’t like Eddie. Aiden saw Eddie as the kind of person who simply does all that they are told, and does not even think about the consequences of their actions, or even their own dignity in completing those actions. It was an inside joke in the department that if the colonel ordered Eddie to jump off the top of The Curator and creak his spine, Eddie probably would, but he would have no spine to break.

Facing Eddie, Aiden managed to squeeze in a smile and a half-friendly tone for a greeting.

“Hey, Eddie.”

“Hello, Mr. Scivit. Madam Medugis has asked me to deliver this encrypted message pin to you. Simply plug it into your com-specs to hear the message.” Responded Eddie, ever so respectful.

“Alright, hand it over, and is there anything else?” Aiden inquired.

“No sir. Actually, sir, just out of curiosity, what is the message?” Eddie asked.

“I think there is a reason that it is encrypted, no?” Aiden answered, with a light hint of sarcasm in his tone.

Eddie caught the message, took half a step back, and responded “Yes sir, I agree. It’s 8:20 now, I have to get back to Ms. Medugis, and you need to arrive at your morning briefing for 8:30. May I walk with you to the elevator sir?”

“Yeah sure.” Answered Aiden, with half a sign.

Their walk to the elevator was silent, and Eddie left on the twelfth floor, and Aiden was alone for the whole journey to the briefing room all the way back on the ground floor. When he entered the room, he was still technically two minutes early, but everyone was already at the desk and the meeting was ready to start.

“Captain, take a seat, we are going to start,” said Colonel Elizabeth in her usual voice, stern but calm.

“Thank you, ma’am,” answered Aiden respectfully, as he took his seat.

“Right, let’s just get the elephant out of the room first. Many of you will be honorably discharged in a week. Your jobs will be taken over by machines, or combat-bots as they are called by the boys in the tech department. These things are effectively exo-suits controlled by the mind of The Curator, rendering your positions obsolete. However, you are all still here because you need your paycheck for this week and because you have little else to do. Due to the pay drops, most of you probably don’t have significant amounts of savings, and you need this money by the end of the week. What you do after you are discharged I cannot care less, but for the time you are here, I expect the best quality of work from each and every one of you. It is only if our operations this week are successful that you will get your paycheck. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” responded all the men the room, in poor unison, with a lack of enthusiasm.

“Excuse me?” commented the colonel, “did I make myself clear?”

“Yes! Ma’am, you did!” This time the response strong, and unifying.

Suddenly, this was no longer a room of men dreading to lose their jobs. They were back to who they were, a room of professional security operatives, soldiers, all of them.

“Then we shall proceed,” continued the colonel, “the briefing today is short and simple. 6 new threats were identified by our intelligence department next-door, 5 of these are common terrorist threats, which we should eliminate with no problem. We have 7 teams, since this week Fred’s team is covering campus security this week, the rest of you will be receiving your mission briefings on your specs. Aiden is covering the sixth and will be staying with me here. The rest of you can go, I am too tired to go over security briefings and threat analysis with you this morning as we usually would, you can find all of that on your specs anyways.”

She stood silent for a second, seeing that no one in the room was moving, she snapped her finger and rephrased her words.

“Well, what are you all waiting for?”

Six officers stood up, nodded, and took their leave silently. Now that there was only the two of them in the briefing room, Elisabeth took a long look at Aiden, took a deep breath, sighed, and slumped in her chair.

“Well, it’s one of those missions that you won’t like,” said the colonel.

“You mean that I have to do morally questionable things?” inquired Aiden.

“Sadly, yes. Now, you are thinking: why on Earth would I give such a mission to you of all people, who is so morally upright. And really, from a logical perspective, I really shouldn’t. But I am giving it to you …” at this point the colonel yawned and continued briefly in a very quiet voice “…because I don’t actually want you to do it.”

Aiden was surprised, and not sure with what he heard. “Sorry ma’am, but did you just suggest that…”

“Yes I did captain, you need to challenge yourself and put yourself out of your comfort zone to do things that you yourself may find morally questionable, but is for the greater good.” The colonel interrupted him, eyed the installed camera and recorder behind her on the wall, and winked to Aiden at the end of the sentence.

“Yes, I understand completely colonel. I will accept this task. Now, what exactly is it?”

“You see, although most of society agrees that the Estos TAC II system knows best what to do with society, there is a scholar who has been voicing some pretty controversial opinions. It would be better for the Bureogis corporation if he did not voice those opinions at all, wouldn’t it?” asked Elizabeth rhetorically.

“So you are suggesting assassination?”

“Indeed,” clarified the colonel.

She then leaned back and mouthed silently “Open message somewhere safe.”

A few moments passed between them when Elizabeth said, “You are dismissed, captain.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” responded Aiden as he stood up. He walked out of the room, feeling rather excited. This final week may just prove to be interesting after all.