Pure as Glass / 3 /

Jonathan's world shook beneath his feet.

The Security Force had been everything, he had climbed this far to get to the man who killed his father and now he was being tossed out. Employment Terminated. Livelihood Terminated. Jonathan Bassett, Terminated. The words echoed in his head.

Not today, not without clarification. "May I ask why, Ma'am?"

"Someone has been pulling strings within Golden Lion Enterprises, within my company. They've been stealing from me, they've been killing my agents, and toxifying my assets."

Jonathan felt the hairs on the back of his head stand up, there was no way termination from his employment would be the punishment if she thought he was behind it. "I have-"

Moira Singh cut him off, "-never betrayed the Security Force. I know, Mr. Bassett. You are here on the sole purpose of identifying the Agent that tortured and killed your father to get information about Console Ghost."

There were no words. That was the secret she had no way of knowing. Yet, it made sense for her to know his secret. She was god and what was he? There was nothing he could do except what she told him. "Then why terminate my employment?"

"Because the person who is doing this, the person who is playing against me, they have made an error." Moira Singh opened the box and pulled a shimmering silver sphere out, "They've gotten arrogant, they thought I didn't know about them, and they decided to divide their efforts. I'm no longer their only target, they've started to manipulate another organization that you might be familiar with…"

"Console Ghost…"

Moira nodded, the shimmering silver sphere pulsed with energy it made the clean air tense. "I cannot tell you who they are because that I do not know, I only know of their actions and intentions. What I can tell you is that if you do this, if you walk away from your life and find this saboteur, I will give you the Agent who tortured and murdered your father."

"When can I start?"

"I can tell that I have you hooked, but it would be unkind to let you charge off without a full understanding of the situation. Everything you have built for yourself, all of your possessions, consider them toxic. You have nothing except the clothes you are wearing and this gift. You will not survive on your own. But..."

She had everything. She held everything. She knew everything. Moira Singh might as well have been god. Jonathan knew one thing. He knew where she was going with this. When she took a breath, he finished her thought. "But... there is an organization who will see me as an opportunity, as a threat, and as a potential ally. I'll just need to convince them on two out of three. I will have no support, no backup, no plan B."

"Which is why I called you up here, Jonathan Bassett, to this only place in Clifton were no one can listen. If you obey this order, if you accept this boon, you are a dead man. You will do things that make you cringe, you will turn on those you have served, you will lose yourself so that others can hope to live until that day when those new clouds make it past the mountains. That might be the storm coming to wipe us all out or it could be the refreshing spring rain that we've been waiting on. Stop this saboteur so that we can live to find out. Sacrifice your life, so that your world does not fall to war and chaos."

Jonathan paused, "What do you mean by war and chaos?"

"Console Ghost thinks they're a rebellion, they think they're helping people find freedom in between the screens we've set up for them. That might be true, but all they are affecting are the minds of people that have nowhere to go. If this saboteur cannot be stopped, if their machinations continue, Console Ghost will turn into something else entirely."

"There were rumors that Console Ghost was absorbing the other Cyber Gangs. Most of the Security Force thought it was just bravado, they were trying to puff up their chests and get us to leave them alone."

"It is more than rumor. Our saboteur was the one who arranged for our clean strike at those violent Cyber Gangs to leave unintended survivors." Moira Singh offered the shimmering silver sphere closer to Jonathan, "Make your choice, Jonathan."

"You keep saying things like if and choice but I cannot see any other option. All I can see is the path you've so eloquently lined up for me. You've got my vision red and you set me up to charge off and do this, now you're backing off and bringing choice into the equation. What choice do I have?"

Moira Singh chuckled, "Everyone has a choice, Jonathan. You could always say no. To be fair, you know too much now for me to let you go back to your normal routine. So... You'll still be terminated from your employment, you'll be blacklisted from working any on the security team of any major player in Clifton, DevTown, or Amberlee, but you'll have your life. You are a fighter, Mr. Bassett, through and through but I've noticed that no one can make you do something that you don't want to do. If you say no, I will let you walk away because I know that it would cost me too much to convince you otherwise and right now… Right now I cannot have my own attention divided."

Jonathan thought about it for longer than any decision in his life up until this moment. The Agent that killed his father was still out there, why else would she bring it up? Just thinking of his father's tormentor made Jonathan's blood boil, there was no way he could let this chance at vengeance pass him by. The shimmering sphere was more than just a boon, it was proof of Moira Singh's power. Golden Lion Enterprises teased the world a year ago with the idea of nanites made purely of some proprietary metal that would allow them to fit more nanites into a N-Sphere. He was by no means a scientist, he had no way of proving that sphere was the one they rumored except that she would not offer it otherwise.

If the boon she was offering was that proprietary metal, then Jonathan would be a fool to say no.

If only for the chance to touch that kind of bleeding edge technology, something that even the rich and powerful hadn't gotten a chance to play with, Jonathan had to say yes.

There were too many strings.

There was too much mystery.

It would kill him to say yes.