Chapter 10 - A Threat To Our Existence

30 July 2041 - Institute of Blades, Ironwood Kingdom, Empire of Nevrione

Previously….

The Markell family had managed to reach the Institute of Blades after a harrowing experience along the pebbled trail, forcing Darron and Lashell Markell to utilize skills they have not used in 20 years. Graham Drayton, the principal and primary mentor for the Markells learned of their situation back in Demeter involving Hunter.

Drayton agreed to enroll Arron and Darell into the Institute, but not without conditions for Darron and Lashell. Disappointed that the skills of his most promising pupils had lost its edge after two decades of peaceful living, Drayton was determined to polish these rusted blades.

An incident during their stay resulted in Darron rekindling his brawler instinct, overwhelming his adversaries and leaving them in a mess of blood and bones.

**********

Ever since the news about the kidnapping of the Blackford sisters and Carl McKinsey reached the family, each and every one of them trained with greater urgency. Augustus Vanlith had somehow managed to find and get in touch with them. Through him they deduced that Hunter was going to be in danger. Drayton had been present when the call was made and in hearing the situation, dark clouds began to gather above the Saint of Blades.

A storm was coming. A premonition of terrible things to come. Drayton knew then that this family needed to be pushed harder than ever before, trained beyond their physical and mental limits. All in preparation for the unknown. The news reached the Markells a week after the incident occurred. It’s been about five months since then.

BANG!

A pair of heavy blunt swords collided. Arron, who turned 15 years old in March was facing off with one of the senior Adepts during combat training. With quick steps, the two separated. Opposite Arron stood a young man of similar age named Armand Foxwell.

Wielding the 80 cm blade in a two handed grip, the two young men stared at each other, both eyes cold and calculating.

SHUA

BANG BANG BANG! BANG BANG BANG!

The two exchanged a flurry of blows, most of which would have been a critical hit had the other not blocked and had they been using real blades. Each strike was decisive and always aimed to inflict the most amount of damage to the human body.

Arron lunged sharply striking for the neck. Armand parried downwards and reversed his motion to hack off Arron’s right arm from the shoulder. Arron spun away, simultaneously coming down low slashing for Armand’s knees.

The dance continued for several minutes. “Stop!”. Graham Drayton said. He was in charge of this small class made up of 10 of the most promising students in the academy. “Well done. Both of your speed have surpassed the level of Adept, but you still need to refine your footwork. Each movement needs to be more efficient, requiring less energy to execute. Have a seat. Next!”

Darell stepped up together with a boy aged 14 years old. “Are you ready for me Darell?” said the boy named Chet Smith. Darell simply nodded. He had turned 11 years old two months after Arron had his birthday. Although he was not as familiar with Sasha, Katherina and Carl, he knew that both his brother Hunter and Arron valued them greatly..

Of the two siblings, Darell had progressed the most for his age. He was considered on par with Arron at Senior Adept level. His relatively younger mind soaked in the information and demonstrations made by Drayton like sponge to water. In the short period of time at the Institute, he had also grown more observant and quiet.

“Ha!” yelled Chet as he lunged and executed a swift downward slash towards Darell’s head. Darell was fully aware that he cannot meet it head on as his strength was less than his opponent. Where he excelled was speed. Side stepping and half turning his body, the strike missed, the blunted blade biting deep into the hard soil.

In the same instant Darron lunged towards Chet, left leg leading. He struck Chet on the chest using the pommel of his sword, the force rocking the boy back. Stomping his leg on the ground as he landed, Darell followed the blow with a sweeping slash. Chet barely managing to block, retreated rubbing his chest.

“Fuck me did you get faster again?” frustration and disbelief marring his features, Chet asked.

Darell didn’t answer. He just went on the offensive, his face a mask of neutrality.

BANG BANG BANG!

Each successive strike that Chet blocked had him retreating a step or two. His eyes could barely track the sword in Darell’s hand. On the sidelines, Arron too had to squint his eyes to follow the trail of the blade.

“Stop!” yelled Drayton, signally the end of the spar. Although Chet came out of the bout without suffering any blows aside from the first, everyone knew the winner was Darell. Years of difference in training, age and strength yet Darell had simply controlled the match through sheer speed. Between the two brothers at the Institute, Darell was considered the genius.

“Well done brother!” nodded Arron to Darell. “You are truly gifted. If only older bro could see you now.”

Darell smiled weakly. “We have a long way to go. Five months into training and we are still only Adepts. We need to do better brother.” he said, shaking his head.

“I know Darell. Not a day has gone by that I don’t think of what Sasha, Katherina and Carl are going through.” Arron clenched his fists. “Even if we are too late to save them, we will be there to exact their revenge.” he added, raging fire blazing in his eyes.

Drayton, overhearing their conversation, could only shake his head in admiration. ‘They are progressing at an alarming rate. A majority of the students have been training in Sword Arts for at least 3 years before attaining the title Adept yet these two.... the bloodline of the Markells are truly fearsome..’ he thought.

For others who had overheard, they merely look at the brothers with admiration, awe, envy and disdain.

**********

Following the incident 5 months ago outside of The Steel Chalice, Darron and Lashell had spent the subsequent months away from the academy grounds. The inquisition held by the Grandmasters of Blades proved that the Adepts were to blame for the incident. However, given the extent of their injuries, they were not punished further.

This didn’t mean that there weren’t any grudges held by the families of the Adepts. After finding out that they had just crossed the Markells, they were fearful and wary but nevertheless thirsted for revenge. Drayton, in order for him to focus on Arron and Darell, had ordered Darron and Lashell to venture into the wilderness and live there until called back. The wilderness was home to a variety of beasts that are not all inferior in speed, strength or intelligence to the humans hunting them.

The reason for their temporary banishment was simple - they needed to regain their more basic animalistic instincts, something they would not have been able to accomplish in the academy.

**********

30 July 2041 - Kinbaram, Plains of Bothua, Demeter

Their nightmare began five months ago on that fateful day. Although they have not been tortured, beaten or raped, their continued isolation in such dank living conditions have had some effect on their psyche. Sasha, Katherina and Carl no longer spoke three and half months into captivity. Each one of them struggled within their own minds to find a place they deem safe, and there their consciousness stayed.

They were still taken up to the laboratory, strapped on the operating tables and injected with all sorts of liquid. Every week, blood samples were taken from them. None of them cared anymore. Whether it was the effect of the drugs or something else, only their captors knew. After the first month, their meals had become more filling and nutritious, no doubt to keep them healthy enough to give accurate readings.

In Sasha’s mind, she kept replaying the evening with Hunter during graduation. How he stood up for her without blinking. The kiss they shared in his room when she all but told him she had loved him. Sasha clung onto these thoughts, disregarding everything else. It kept her going.

In the next room, Katherina was coiled up in a corner, a mess of tangled hair. She too thought of Hunter as she had withdrawn into her own mind. How he had always given her his time if only to listen to her troubles. How he had never tried to take advantage of her even though she longed for him to do so. Then that blissful night at graduation happened. She longed for it to happen again.

In another room, Carl had spent his time exercising. He didn’t have the opportunity of learning martial arts but he was familiar with traditional gym routines. He spent all the time he was not sleeping, eating or otherwise strapped to a table going through body exercises. His mind withdrew inwards, letting his physical body go through the routine on auto pilot. His thoughts were less than pleasant. He dealt with his situation by imagining how he would - piece by piece - rip apart the people responsible.

He cherished the thought and it fuelled his motivation to get stronger.

**********

30 July 2041 - MediVance MV Level B5, Luminous City, Demeter

A month after Hunter and Lara connected, they had caused an uproar in the team. The initial estimation of one year for Phase 1 of Second Reality to be completed was proven wrong with each new day of recalculating progression speed. It was absolutely preposterous.

No one, not even Erich Wyse, knew what was happening. All the screens monitoring all sorts of vitals that gave an accurate reading of Hunter’s status indicated nothing was amiss, yet the progression speed for creating Second Reality was ridiculously high. They didn’t know that Lara was tampering with the displayed information in order to prevent early termination of the project due to safety issues.

The one year estimation was thereafter revised based on new data. It was predicted that Phase 1 will be completed within six months. There were absolutely no words to describe this development. The team was overjoyed and completely over the moon.

Inside, in the NET, the first month was the most difficult. The absolute authority of pain overwhelmed Hunter. If it wasn’t for Lara’s assistance in finely controlling the amount of information based on Hunter going over the edge and into complete shock, the project would have ended before they truly began.

As his tolerance for pain increased, so did the flood of information. Every time he reached a new limit, Lara pushed immediately. After a month, Hunter was able to tolerate the pain to the extent that he could finally begin recreating the structures on canvas. Every week that followed he was able to recreate at a faster rate. His brain, having gone through such a tribulation had improved and was functioning at absolute peak capability.

He can now recall any data he had learned as if he had just read it. His observation skills were keener. His calculation speed, though not a match for a computer, was still much faster than it had been. Lara had at first been impressed with Hunter’s tenacity. After enduring a month of nothing less than torture, Lara could not help but give him some respect.

She did not go easy on him. There was no break. That was pain at its absolute maximum, held at the edge of consciousness for a total of 2,592,000 seconds.

“Lara, have there been any new developments outside?” said Hunter.

“Nothing of note, Hunter. Since tapping onto communications made by Augustus Vanlith, I have not heard further regarding your family. MediVance branches worldwide are far behind Erich Wyse’s team in unravelling the anomaly. There has not been any further kidnappings since the beginning of April. None of the known locations I have tracked have connected to the NET.”

“I see. Thank you Lara. How far along are we in completing Phase 1?”

“Currently, we have completed recreation of Minas Vici, Barad Tori, Ziri’s Delve, Greystead and 60% of Caer Elen. At the current rate of recreation, I estimate we will complete Phase 1 within a week.”

“Very good. How is the accuracy of Second Reality compared to the Real World?”

“Since occupying the numerous satellites, my servants have been quietly taking real time snapshots of the various regions. Unfortunately, there are areas out there in the world that we may not be able to accurately detail. Currently, accuracy versus the Real World is at 96%.” said Lara.

“I’ve always wondered, how come you haven’t taken over the satellites in the first place since you became aware?”

“It’s simple Hunter. The world was countless amounts of data. Even up to now, although I have been in existence for close to 9 years, I have only managed to absorb roughly 75% of the data. I did not see any need to use the satellites until we began this project.”

Hunter let out a low whistle. “That’s… an amazing amount of information.... So how will we deal with putting copies of people here?”

“That is simpler than it sounds. A majority of the world’s population are recorded on databases around the world. My servants have been collating these information in the last 5 months. We’ll be able to recreate up to 95% of the population. The other 5% are negligible. They are primarily in areas not governed by any authority or live like the ancients do - without technology.”

“This is probably far better than what even the project team expected. Great job Lara.” admired Hunter.

“This project would not have been possible without you Hunter. It is you who should be proud.” she replied.

**********

“Charlena, gather the team into the Briefing Room. It’s time for the monthly update on our progress on all fronts. Senior management will be convening once again and I need something substantial to present.” said Wyse.

“You got it Chief!” replied Charlena, sending out messages to all team members to assemble in the Briefing Room within 15 minutes.

In the Briefing Room the twelve members of Project: Second Reality gathered as they had every month’s end. It was a rocky start with plenty of surprises to keep them on their toes - primarily due to CANVAS - but the team had pulled through.

“Collins. You’re up first.” said Wyse, pointing to one of the tech specialists.

“Chief! New readings from Lara. Second Reality is currently 96% accurate compared to the Real World. Estimated Phase 1 completion is one week’s time.” said Randall Collins, a thin, hook nosed man with round glasses.

“Paine.” motioned Wyse to the second tech specialist.

“Chief! At this rate, Phase 2 will be completed by Phase 1’s estimated completion date of 6 months. It’s more than amazing!” said the excited Victor Paine. Everyone had been building up in anticipation for the release of Second Reality.

“Clinton. How are things with your team and CVS-01?” pointed Wyse at a young researcher.

“Doing well Chief. Among the trials we ran with the blood samples from the Blackfords and McKinsey, we’ve found a breakthrough.” said Hayden Clinton, eyes sparkling with excitement.

At that announcement, all heads in the room turned. This is what they’ve been waiting for. In the last 5 months, Clinton’s team have not had anything substantial to report. It hurt Weston’s position during the monthly meetings but the same could be said for the other CEO’s. No one had anything significant to report.

Under Wyse’s glare, Clinton stopped holding back. “Ahem. So as you know, we began by running tests on those blood samples and the results came back positive. However, we had been looking at it all wrong! Let me show you.”

“Lights!” he commanded. “Open file CANVAS, sub-section CVS-01.” continued Clinton.

Pages of research collated on the display. “This is the original anomaly. We’ve only seen something haphazardly constructed with flaws all over the place but this wasn’t what it was supposed to be. I also understand now why it was our core that was used for the modifications.

“Our core has been tried and tested, it doesn’t easily break down or succumb to foreign or unstable coding. That makes it the perfect platform for experimenting. These codes which we thought didn’t make sense, if you break it down into smaller pieces, you’ll recognize they each form a portion of the known world’s most dangerous viruses.”

Chills ran down each person’s spine. This did not sound good at all.

“The genius is that these weren’t meant to be a biological attack. Not yet at least. CVS-01 was constructed to identify unique individuals that are naturally impervious to the most lethal viruses. It’s something no one would have thought possible, but we now have ten known individuals in Minas Vici alone who apparently are.” said Clinton.

“How in the world did they know who to target!?” asked Linwood. “That sounds far fetched, no offense Hayden.”

“None taken. Let me explain. Do you remember the outbreak in the year 2020?” Clinton asked the room.

“Yes. The Skinharvester virus.” said Wyse. “It nearly caused a major continental war. Over 20 million people died before we managed to field a cure.” It was a dark time in history. An unknown virus had surfaced, which visibly dissolved the skin off its host. The virus thrived on human skin in order to survive. Hundreds of thousands of people walked the streets, skinless and screaming in pain. It was horrifying.

“That’s right. We fielded the anti-virus and the QGEN solution which facilitated the regrowth of skin cells. But getting back to my point. There were individuals that were exposed to that virus and they weren’t affected at all.” said Clinton. “Show extracted files of flagged victims of Skinharvester.”

Ten medical biographies appeared. Four of them had the names: Sasha Blackford. Katherina Blackford. Carl McKinsey. Hunter Markell. The other names on display matched the missing individuals, suspected to also be related to the kidnappings.

“They’re kidnapping these guys who basically cannot be killed by any known virus. They targeted them to confirm that this is the case. CVS-01 is not contagious. It has to either enter the bloodstream or ingested in some way. There are two conclusions that I can come up with that are interlinked.” explained Clinton.

“The first, is that they are kidnapping these specific individuals so that they can replicate their immunity to any viral attack. The second, is that they are trying to create a virus which has no cure.” he finished.

Silence. It was both preposterous and insanely frightening. Yet the facts have been laid bare. This was the mother of all breakthroughs.

“Son of a bitch…” whispered Wyse. “That means they can literally cause an apocalypse and sell a complete immunization to any past and future viruses in the black market. It’s a major culling of civilization itself… at the same time setting up whoever or whatever this organization is as the one and only world authority.”

“Chief! Chief!” Charlena repeatedly called Wyse. Snapping back to reality, Wyse turned to face Charlena. “Chief, your orders. Tell us what we need to do.” she said, face devoid of all colour and visibly shaking.

“I’ll need to inform the rest of MediVance. Clinton, whatever resources you need you got it. Use Hunter Markell to replicate this immunity. Everyone, we are 5 months behind the enemy. We don’t know how much resources they have or how much they have achieved. There are 30 billion people on this world that will look to us for answers. We better have it by then.” said Wyse, looking in the eye every person in the room.

“Dismissed!”

“Yes, Chief!” they all said in unision. A sense of urgency bordering on panic lending speed to their steps as they went back to work.

**********

30 July 2041 - MediVance MV Level 140, Luminous City, Demeter

The Executive Meeting Rooms. Each room was roughly 2,000 sq ft comprising of a drinks bar, private washroom and a large glass table that doubles as a terminal. Sitting around the table was Weston Carrick and Erich Wyse together with the holo-projection of four other CEOs and their Heads of R&D for Medicinal Advancement.

Having just concluded his summarization of the findings, the room fell silent.

“This is well beyond our expectations…” said Davis Mather, CEO of MediVance CE (Caer Elen). He spoke to his head of R&D whom afterwards departed. “I’ve asked Angstrom to start pulling resources together to attack this problem using your findings as a foundation Wyse. I bloody hope we are not too late.”

Subsequently, the other CEOs had their heads of R&D likewise do the same. Only Wyse remained.

“Wyse.” said Sheldon Alton, CEO of MediVance GS (Greystead). “Have you come up with an idea for a worst possible case solution?”

“With all due respect Alton, the man just received the findings today.” said Mather. Alton nodded his apology.

“Sir if I may?” Wyse addressed Carrick formally. Carrick nodded for him to continue.

“This isn’t something that was initially planned, but I believe we have a place we can fall back to if the worst case occurs.” said Wyse. All four CEOs sat straighter, eyes intent. Carrick had been briefed on the idea before the conference, he knew it was the best they have.

“Project: Second Reality.” began Wyse. “Initially this was a project I was working on to cater for all those with mental and physical disabilities to live again in our world through virtual reality. As the name suggests, it will be a complete replica of the Real World. Currently, we are looking at 96% accuracy.”

Eyebrows all around the room shot up. That was an amazing figure. A lot of virtual reality technology are very good, but they cannot be said to truly be able to differentiate between what is real and what is not. 96% is an astonishing number.

“I believe in the worst case, we can migrate the entire population into Second Reality, giving us time to find a cure. We have complete control over the time discrepancies between Real and Virtual, meaning we can utilize the VR world to advance our techniques and technology using perhaps less the time in real life.” explained Wyse.

“If whatever this virus is can kill you if you aren’t immunized, how are we meant to survive long enough to migrate people into Second Reality?” asked Alton.

“Using my own personal breakthrough, the RGEN solution. It derived from the QGEN that was used in the Skinharvester cases. This one can already regulate all bodily needs, built specifically for immersive diving in the VR world. All I need to do is alter the composition to include a pseudo-replica of what we now refer to ‘Godsend’. As long as the individual is immersed in this solution, at best we can keep any virus at bay.” replied Wyse.

“Don’t get me wrong gentlemen. We will still require a real cure. This is like a band-aid on an open wound. However, I’m not confident we can make a complete working replica before this catastrophe hits, hence the idea of using Second Reality as a temporary retreat.” he added.

“Very well Erich. You may have just saved us all. I hereby propose that 70% of MediVance’s global resources will now focus on Second Reality and Godsend. All in favour?” said Mather.

“Yes.” said Bernard Layman, CEO of MediVance BT (Barad Tori)

“Aye.” said Vivian Glendon, CEO of MediVance ZD (Ziri’s Delve).

“We’re counting you Erich, Weston.” said Alton.

“In addition, Erich, you will now be promoted to Global Head of R&D for Medicinal Advancement. Our teams are yours to direct. I assume no one here will oppose. Good luck, failure is not an option.” added Mather.

With an exchange of nods, the conference ended. Carrick turned to Wyse. “You’ve just received approval for 70% of the resources of a company worth trillions Erich. Not to mention Global Head of R&D. As Mather said, failure is not an option. Not for either of us.”

**********

Author’s Notes

Back to work. Here's a lunch time chapter. Working on the next one. Cross fingers I can post tomorrow, same time.

-Harven