Chapter 24 - CTIG One
Discard Metal
Chapter 24 - CTIG One
"The strongest family is the one you choose."
Mark is finishing his noodles and pays the vendor, but he remains seated at the stall.
The memories that haunt him, seem to come from another life, not his life.
As he finally decides to get up from his seat, he keeps wondering about his next move.
His options are narrow and eventually, Exec Nova will figure out that he escaped Psysoft's facility.
"I have to go back to CTIG, Haaris can help me…" He thinks.
"No, you have to go to the commons, my people can help you there." Syntex argues inside Mark's mind.
"That's enough! You are in my head but I'm in charge!" Mark tells Syntex.
Syntex doesn't reply, he knows that his accesses are limited. He is hosted on Mark's synthetic brain but can't control the organic one.
Mark enjoys the silence and starts walking toward a taxi line.
"Do not take a taxi… You need to lay low, Psysoft will try to track you down when they find out we escaped." Syntex breaks the silence.
He has a point and Mark starts to feel a hint of paranoia invading him.
"Fuck it… I will walk…" He says out loud as he starts walking away from the taxi line.
It takes him an hour to finally reach the area of CTIG One HQ, he walks carefully trying to be as sneaky as possible.
He spends some time under the cover of an adjacent building to the HQ, occasionally checking for any suspicious activities.
Nothing out of the ordinary, from the outside the HQ just looks like a regular building of the corporate districts.
A big garage door gives access to the vehicles area that houses the black reinforced SUVs used during operations.
"That's the most guarded area, no way to enter from there…" Mark thinks.
"Mark, I have scanned CTIG's network, I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary." Syntex says within Mark's mind.
"You can scan it from so far away?" Mark asks Syntex.
"Yes, your synthetic brain is pretty advanced, I can access any surrounding networks remotely." Syntex explains.
Mark remembers that Anton mentioned it.
"Don't poke around too much…" Mark commands Syntex.
Syntex remains silent as Mark keeps scouting the surrounding area of CTIG HQ, looking for a discreet way into the building.
He spots a service entrance that is usually used for the deliveries of supplies, it might be his way in.
He walks away from the building he was using as a cover and quickly crosses the street.
The sky darkens slowly as day becomes night.
The surroundings of CTIG HQ are usually pretty quiet at night and Mark can easily reach the service entrance.
"Shit… It has an electronic lock…" Mark grumbles as he kneels to check the keypad.
Suddenly the door opens and Mark jumps on his feet with his hand on his pistol.
Inside the service entrance, it's perfectly quiet and empty.
"You are welcome." Syntex says in Mark's head.
"You did that?" Mark asks rhetorically.
"This way is safe, I deactivated the surveillance cameras." Syntex explains.
"Don't screw too much with their system, CTIG is on our side." Mark tells Syntex.
"Understood." Syntex confirms.
Mark walks through the dark corridor of the service entrance and finally arrives into the storage area.
"From here, I can go straight to Haaris office…" Mark thinks, as he tries to give Syntex a mental note to make him behave.
Mark finally reaches captain Haaris' quarters and knocks at the door.
The door automatically opens and Haaris comes to greet Mark at the entrance.
"Hey son, what brings you here? How's your mission with Psysoft going?" Haaris asks Mark as he leads him inside.
They walk together to Haaris' desk, Mark looks nervous.
"Captain, something is happening…" He says anxiously.
Haaris remains silent and just nods his head.
"Psysoft got me locked up in a facility… I just escaped from it…" Mark tells Haaris.
"They locked you up? Why?" Haaris replies with clear anger in his voice.
Mark hesitates for a moment before Syntex's voice comes out in his mind.
"Don't tell him everything… It's too risky…"
"During an operation in the commons… I passed out… Probably something wrong with the prototype… I woke up in a secret facility… I panicked and escaped…" Mark explains to Haaris.
"It sounds like they are making a move against Meditech…" Haaris says with a stern look on his face.
Mark just nods his head, knowing clearly that Psysoft is probably more interested in the AI hosted in his head.
He can't tell Haaris about it, it's a secret he cannot share with anybody and he rather lets Haaris think they are after the prototype in his head.
"You are safe here, CTIG is your home, they won't dare to move openly against us." Haaris says, trying to sound comforting.
Mark starts to think about the bigger picture, the government slowly losing power and the corporate world gaining more.
It might just be a question of time when corpos of the world decide to take over the governments.
What could possibly stop them from doing it?
The question hangs in Mark's mind and the air suddenly feels thicker.
Syntex's voice shakes Mark awake once more.
"We have a problem." Syntex tells Mark from within his own thoughts.
"We have more than one…" Mark answers ironically.
"I'm serious, I detected an infiltration in CTIG's network." Syntex explains.
"What? Are you serious?" Mark asks as he starts to panic.
Haaris looks at him with a worried look on his face as he sees Mark becoming more agitated.
"What's going on, son?" Haaris asks with concern.
He is unaware of the conversation going on in Mark's mind.
"The intruder is Nero…" Syntex says inside Mark's mind.
"Nero… Shit… Psysoft found us… And they sent the psychos…" Mark is starting to panic.
Flashes of memories remind him how they handled the situation in the commons.
How could they take actions against CTIG?
Mark stares straight to Haaris.
"Captain… Psysoft has sent a strike team here… They are already in the network…" Mark says to Haaris.
Haaris punches his desk violently as he stands up.
"They dare to openly attack us! We won't let them get away with this!" He grunts as he moves past Mark and rushes to the door of his quarters.
Mark stands up and starts to follow him, but he turns around and puts his hand on his chest.
"No!" Haaris says. "You stay here, if they want you, you will be safer here… Don't get out… It's an order, soldier!"
Mark is taken aback and doesn't dare to go against Haaris' orders.
He just nods his head and watches as Haaris goes through the entrance of his quarters.
The alarm of CTIG started to wail, sending shivers down Mark's spine and he remained petrified in Haaris' quarters.
He stays still, unsure of what to do next.
Several gunshots can be heard in the distance, a clear indication that Psysoft's team of cyberpsychos is already inside the HQ.
Mark grabs the handle of his smartgun and pulls it out of its holster.
"Fuck it… I can't just stay here and do nothing…" Mark says out loud.
"Stay put, soldier!" Syntex screams at him from the confines of his synthetic brain.
Mark ignores Syntex and rushes out of Haaris quarters.
In the corridor, several agents of CTIG are rushing toward the garage area.
Mark realizes that it's where the action is taking place and starts running toward it.
As soon as he reaches the garage, shots are fired and he quickly takes cover behind a reinforced SUV with his gun firmly in his hand.
Two CTIG agents rush inside the garage but they are immediately taken down by Skylark's arm cannon.
The shots are violent and send pieces of the agents' bodies flying in the air.
Skylark and Grinder can be heard laughing like maniacs.
"Come on CTIG! That's all you got?" Skylark is screaming out.
Mark tries to assess the situation, he looks around and sees several agents of CTIG down on the ground.
He takes a look through the corner of the SUV and sees Skylark and Grinder in the middle of the garage.
They aren't even bothering to take cover.
Nero is already in control of CTIG's network and he has disabled all sentry guns.
"Enough!" Mark shouts as he raises from behind the SUV with his hands over his head.
"You just want me… Stop shooting the others…" He says as he walks toward the center of the garage.
"Smart boy." Skylark says as he retracts his cannon within his cybernetic arm.
"Why the hell did you run away?" Skylark asks Mark.
"You are forcing our hands." Grinder says as he moves from behind Skylark and he walks in Mark's direction.
As Mark is slowly walking toward Grinder with his hand up, Syntex starts complaining.
"What are you doing? Are you crazy?" He screams in Mark's head.
Mark ignores him and continues to walk slowly unaware that Haaris is hiding behind one of the SUVs.
As Mark is almost within Grinder's reach, Haaris rushes toward them.
"Mark! No!" Haaris shouts as he is running toward them, his gun aimed at Grinder.
He takes a few shots at Grinder who is taken by surprise.
One shot lands on Grinder's shoulder and sends pieces of metal flying away in the air.
Mark covers his face as Grinder grunts holding his falling cybernetic arm.
From behind his shield, Skylark pulled out his arm cannon and aimed it at Haaris.
The loud bangs of the cannon resonate through the whole room and Mark turns toward Haaris just in time to see the first shot landing.
It hits Haaris on the leg, the blow is so powerful that it shatters it into pieces and Haaris falls to the ground.
"No! No more shooting!" Mark shouts as he stares at Haaris.
Grinder pushes Mark out of the way and starts running toward Haaris.
Mark watches powerless as Grinder squats, grabs Haaris' head and starts smashing it against the ground.
With each violent blow, pieces of Haaris head splatters on the ground.
Mark drops to his knees, watching Haaris' execution, a sense of dread invading him, paralyzing him.
The entire scene seems frozen in time, the laughter of Grinder and Skylark are echoing in the garage.
Mark's eyes are empty, he stares at Haaris' lifeless body, memories are rushing through his head.
The father figure that Haaris represented to Mark, the countless times he would ask him for advice.
"Mark… Snap out of it!" the distant voice of Syntex in his mind.
The sounds around him feel like all muffled and inaudible or it's just silence, he can't make sure.
As he watches Haaris' corpse laying on the ground with its head completely smashed, Mark drops his gun on the ground.
He looks like in a sort of trance.
Skylark and Grinder slowly move toward Mark, smiles can be seen on their faces, showing signs of satisfaction.
They took pleasure in the massacre of CTIG's agents.
Mark watches them moving slowly toward him, his eyes moving fast between them and the bodies on the ground.
"No!" He says in an almost inaudible voice.
He slowly stands up, his eyes look changed, he stares at Skylark and Grinder with anger.
"You won't get away with this…" he whispers as he walks toward them slowly.
Grinder gets to Mark first and raises his remaining cybernetic arm, puts his metallic hand on Mark's shoulder as to restrain him.
Mark stops and stands still, he raises his head and stares straight into Grinder's eyes.
"You won't get away with this!" He shouts with anger.
"Mark! What's happening! I am registering spikes coming from your organic brain, huge spikes…" Syntex says within Mark's mind.
"Shut up!" Mark answers as his anger intensifies, becoming a burning sensation that spreads through his body.
Suddenly, a huge electromagnetic pulse builds up from within Mark's synthetic brain and is expelled through the room.
Grinder and Skylark's cybernetics malfunction and bolts of sparks run through them as they both fall on the ground.
Their bodies are shaking uncontrollably as if a strong power surge damaged all their cybernetics.
As the pulse goes through the garage, it damages all electronics and plunges the room into complete darkness.
Mark loses consciousness and his body falls on the ground.
"Mark…"
Within the darkness of his mind, Syntex's voice can be heard calling his name.
"Mark… Mark…"
The voice gets slowly further and further away.
Leaving the place to darkness.
Pitch black darkness.