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[Pokémon] TRINITY

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Buoysel

Trust me, I'm a Professional*
2,006
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Very interesting the plot twists you have here. Some of your Gadgets seem too handy like the mutiuse gun, but maybe that's just me. Either way, Can't wait till next chapter.
 

Shrike Flamestar

The Invisible!
212
Posts
15
Years
Yeah, some of the devices are a bit overpowered but will be toned down very soon. The cloaking field likely won't be making an appearance for a while due to most of the action from here on out either taking place on foot or in spaceships, while the VFEMRP will soon also encounter difficulties with better armor and kinetic shielding. While the former can be matched with AP rounds (which Tashima doesn't have...), you'll see that shields can be a bit harder to break through.

But anyways, thanks for reading! With my commitment to writing everyday now, hopefully I'll get through TFC chapter 5 soon enough so that TRINITY chapter 5 won't take so long...
 

Buoysel

Trust me, I'm a Professional*
2,006
Posts
15
Years
Yeah, some of the devices are a bit overpowered but will be toned down very soon. The cloaking field likely won't be making an appearance for a while due to most of the action from here on out either taking place on foot or in spaceships, while the VFEMRP will soon also encounter difficulties with better armor and kinetic shielding. While the former can be matched with AP rounds (which Tashima doesn't have...), you'll see that shields can be a bit harder to break through.

But anyways, thanks for reading! With my commitment to writing everyday now, hopefully I'll get through TFC chapter 5 soon enough so that TRINITY chapter 5 won't take so long...

All I'm saying is have them do stuff on the fly, for instance, Have Havoc quickly start manually blocking the Freeway's AI, instead of having a pre-written program.

Just my idea. =/
 

Shrike Flamestar

The Invisible!
212
Posts
15
Years
Hacking is actually something that's in for an overhaul too, which I started doing in the final scene of that chapter. Since so much of the world is already based off Ghost in the Shell I decided "hey, why not go with the more Hollywood-style hacking they use!" Sans the overly fancy graphical representations and effects, of course.

From here on out, it's likely Tashima won't have a program for everything for the sheer reason that he's going to be in unfamiliar territory from here on out. Everything so far has been his plan and so he's been able to prepare exactly as needed, but as you'll see in the next chapter he won't be in so much control anymore. As for the programs already used, keep in mind that they were specifically designed for use with CYPHER's computers, and now that they've taken action it can be assumed they've fixed whatever security holes he had been using, so they'll largely be useless now.

Anyways, I do understand what all you mean by everything being streamlined and convenient. I'm still working on settling into this world and plot, which led me to perhaps make some bad decisions. Now that I'm starting to get the hang of everything, you should start to see some changes along the lines of what you're suggesting appearing soon.
 

Caliban

Trying to change my life, brb~
339
Posts
15
Years
"Hey, look," Zeta sudden spook up

But then again if Havoc has been raised with humans all his life, it's no wonder why he things, and even acts like us.

It's array of red, eye-like sensors scanned over Tashima for a moment, before turning away and down another hall without incident.
Just so that you know, I read this while listening to Guantanamera. It was wicked. Even though the music didn't fit. You should try it.

And your fic is really cool. Even though my head seems to have been partially detatched from my shoulders while I read it. I can't wait for more!

- Pich_u
 

Shrike Flamestar

The Invisible!
212
Posts
15
Years
Hey, thanks for taking the time to reply! Typos fix'D.

I've listened to some pretty wrong music while doing something else before, but I think that about takes the cake. Usually I'll just listen to Ghost in the Shell music or the special playlist I have with music I think would work well in a soundtrack for the fic. You know, the stuff that actually fits. Like this. I've considered making a playlist on Youtube for my fic soundtracks as most of the music they use is already on there with the exception of some indie songs that I could upload myself...

I'm writing the next chapter right now but due to the writing contest this past weekend I'm not as far as I would like but work is being done so yay. There will probably be zero action in this chapter so we'll see how that affects the time it takes to write...

And I have noticed that someone rated this thread a one star, breaking the streak of perfect fives. :( Shrike is sad... Now I know this can't be to everyone's tastes but one star? Me thinks someone has a grudge against me or something. :O ...Or someone got the system backwards and thought one star was the best rating. Maybe. Hopefully.

My ego hurts.
 

Caliban

Trying to change my life, brb~
339
Posts
15
Years
I hope it wasn't me! (My computer has a tendency to play cat with the mouse... ;_;)

I'm listening to the playlist now, and have started reading TRINITY: Waves. So far, so good. I still like Guantanamera better, though. I find that Nothing Else Matters. XD

[EDIT:] No grudge, apparently it was me. I scrolled up to the top and clicked vote and found that the radio button for one star was selected. I've since moved it to the radio box beside the five stars, if that's any consolation.
 

Shrike Flamestar

The Invisible!
212
Posts
15
Years
And again, as usual, sorry for the wait. Heading back to college sort of ended up dominating my time and still pretty much is, but I did manage to squeeze this out so...be happy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 5

The history of Helios City stretches back over five-hundred years to the great collapse of the twenty-first century. Just as the world was starting to collect itself after the downfall of the Pokémon League, the minds of industrialists were already starting to turn. Helios Island was, at the time, an unnamed and lowly populated island, with its sole occupants being a handful of native tribes. To respect the native's rights and wishes of not being disturbed, the Pokémon League had declared the island off-limits to the general population. After the League's collapse, however, nothing was keeping back the companies who saw the island as a prime location to build up their businesses.

Helios' early years were rough, with no central government keeping the rising numbers of newcomers in line. Without any zoning laws to regulate where buildings could be constructed companies built anywhere they saw fit, including right on top of many of the small villages across the island. The vast tracts of forests covering the island were slowly uprooted while the locals were given the chance to work for the companies at wages barely high enough to sustain a living, the alternative being exportation. Since construction began before the widespread adaptation of Pokémon translators, the vast population of wild Pokémon suffered an even worse fate. Treated like lowly animals, entire populations of Pokémon across the island were hunted to extinction. Only after several years did activist organizations step in and work to humanely repopulate the remaining Pokémon on the island, although by then they were only able to save a fraction of the island's original population.

As stability returned to the world, so did stability come to Helios Island. With companies came the need for employees, and with employees came the demand for a higher quality of life than what had so far been the standard on Helios. Striving to bring law and order, a volunteer police force was enacted from which the seeds of government were planted. In time, the once lawless island had begun to turn around and had even been enacted as its own autonomous city-state, and as it did so more people were attracted to Helios and the promise of easy jobs. Years passed and Helios grew into a sizable town fringed by industrial complexes, and from there into a city with newly developed low-pollution factories and underground facilities allowing the expansion of industry into the heart of the island.

The fact that Helios is an island presented an issue several decades into the city's life, with immigration of both civilians and companies quickly eating up the available land. Construction contractors were left with only one choice: building upwards. Utilizing designs for new high-efficiency and capacity skyscrapers, older buildings were progressively demolished as the towers that so define Helios today were first constructed. While some of those towers were themselves later demolished for even higher capacity designs, a handful of the original Helios skyscrapers can still be seen in the older parts of the city.

As the focus of Helios turned to the skies, the ground on which the city had been build became neglected. Portions of the old buildings that had been partially demolished to clear room for skyscrapers still exist all over the city, scattered at the feet of towers like forgotten junk. Legally, these old ruins are property of whatever company owns the skyscraper that runs through the land below, with law enforcement presence in the ruins varying depending on the company's policies. While some companies go so far as to insist upon the arrest of trespassers in these ruins, others don't mind. This has led to an uprising of makeshift slums scattered in pockets around the city, clustering into areas where the poor can legally use the preexisting ruins as shelter. While these slums are technically still under the jurisdiction of Helios State Police, active patrols are so infrequent that they might as well be considered as lawless as the whole of Helios once was. It's advised that any visitor to Helios avoid such slums, or arrange for a police escort with HSP if a visit is required.

Excerpt from a report by the Helios City Tourism Board on the history of Helios and modern tourist attractions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Decay was all around. Everywhere Tashima looked he found the signs of Helios City's abandoned history. Zeta had led Tashima and Havoc several blocks from where they had met, traversing through century-old ruins to the one they now passed through. This wasn't like the other ruins though; the impoverished had claimed the crumbling remains of what Zeta asserted used to be a hospital for their own. As much as they tried, however, it was impossible to make a life down on the long-empty streets of Helios. Shelter was plentiful, however food and water were hard, if not near impossible, to come by. The malnourishment of the slum-dwellers was evident with a single glance.

As the group passed a doorway, a small kid poked his head out the door. His skin hung loose from his arms and legs, his chest seeming to have caved in with the ribcage visibly pressing against his taught flesh. Devoid of sustainable food, his body had begun eating itself, desperate for anything to keep it alive. Tashima paused and glanced down at the boy, who stared back up at him with longing, brilliantly blue eyes. Tashima couldn't help but wonder what that kid would give to trade places with him. Likely, his own life. Pulling an energy bar out of a pocket on the inside of his coat, Tashima tossed it at the boy. Caught by surprise the poor kid was hit in the head by it, but after recoiling he realized what had hit him. Eagerly he grabbed the energy bar off the ground, spinning around and running back through the doorway before anyone else could see what he had been given.

"You shouldn't do that," Zeta said, having seen Tashima give the food away.

"I have more." Tashima shrugged as he thrust his hands into the pockets of his pants. "Plus, I assume that if whoever you're leading us to truly are allies, they'll have food too."

"It's not that," Zeta scoffed, turning around and continuing to lead again as Tashima and Havoc followed. "The last thing we need is for them to mob us because they know we have food."

Tashima kept silent, looking over at Havoc to see how he was doing. He had been unusually quiet for the whole trip, which Tashima chalked up to the suppression collar he had to deal with for now. For hours now, Tashima had been trying to come up with something to say that would cheer the depressed Typhlosion up. Unfortunately he had had little luck. He understood what Havoc must have been going through; to him, losing the ability to conjure fire very well may have been as bad as when Tashima lost his arm and leg. Lifting his right arm out of the pocket it had been resting in, Tashima mindlessly gripped the upper part of his artificial left arm. Dimly, he was aware of its unnatural hardness, lacking the elasticity of true organic tissue. As he walked he could feel the same in his left leg as the prosthetic foot stepped ever so harder than his right did. He had gotten used to the replacement limbs over the years, and couldn't help but wonder if perhaps Havoc could adapt to losing his flames.

Still, if that collar can be removed somehow, it won't come to that.

Tashima suddenly found himself stopped again as he almost ran into Zeta. Returning to his senses, Tashima saw that another of the slum kids had appeared, this one seeming a little older than the last. Unlike the last, this one had eyes focused not on Tashima, but on Havoc. Glancing down at the kid's hands, Tashima then realized that he was holding an improvised knife, fashioned from a broken piece of steel pipe. The kid looked up at the Typhlosion with sharp eyes. His arm shook, yet the hand holding the weapon was steadfast. The one food source for most of the people in the slums was the wild Pokémon that ran around the streets; this kid must not have realized that Havoc wasn't one of those wild Pokémon. Or, he simply didn't care.

"See what I meant?" Zeta growled as he clenched his left fist together, the panel on the top of his arm sliding up and backwards as his own internally stored blade emerged. Stepping toward the boy, he thrust his arm forward, bringing the wedge-shaped blade underneath the boy's chin. Lifting the kid's head up to face him, Zeta growled and, in a demanding voice, boomed, "Get the fuck out of here you little shit and maybe I won't leave your corpse for the others to find. Maybe you wouldn't be as filling as my pal here, but I'm sure they wouldn't mind."

Hesitantly the boy took a few steps back, eyes wide as he dropped the improvised weapon before turning around and running off. Tashima narrowed his own eyes, biting his lip for a moment before breaking the awkward silence among the group. He wanted to tell Zeta off for being so cruel, but couldn't bring himself to do so. Instead he merely asked, "Are they really cannibals?"

Zeta seemed to understand that the question wasn't what Tashima was originally going to say, but answered it nonetheless. "When they need to be." The blade slid back into his arm, disappearing beneath the panel of synthetic flesh that sealed closed after it.

"They're this desperate, huh...?" Tashima murmured as they continued walking again, Havoc still showing no signs of emotion or other response to the situation.

It wasn't long before the group reached their destination, avoiding any more encounters with the slum-dwellers. Zeta ducked inside a door leading to a set of stairs that descended into the basement of the former hospital, motioning them along as he said, "This is it." Tashima glanced around as they emerged into the basement; the room was empty but with marks on the floor that left visible signs of where the building's backup power generators must have once sat before being salvaged by someone or another.

"Not much here," Tashima observed. He tensed up, the chance that this was a trap soaring once again.

Zeta ignored him and walked over to the far wall, stopping besides a slightly indented portion of the wall. A panel on the ceiling slid open as he approached, a full-body biometric scanner emerging above Zeta. A blue light washed over the man as the scanner verified his identity using a matrix of various biometric identifiers. Beeping in confirmation, the scanner deactivated and slid back into the ceiling as the indented wall slid open to reveal a concealed hallway. Zeta looked back over his shoulder at the other two, gesturing down the dimly lit passageway. "In here. We don't want the slum-dwellers wandering in and trying to steal anything."

"Then why'd you set up a base here?" Tashima asked as he hesitantly followed the relative stranger into the barely lit hallway. Everything was telling him that this was so wrong, that it was obviously a trap and Zeta was just going to mug him or something as soon as he had an opening. Still, having been exiled from CYPHER with them actively searching for them, he had few choices. Without the aerocar, his original plan of traveling to a friend's place to hide out and plan their next move was pretty much smashed. Public transportation was always a possibility of course; however, the prevalence of police surveillance in public areas meant any movement in public would be a very dangerous proposition. Movement over ground-level was the safest way to travel, but with Tashima's unfamiliarity of police patrolled areas, there was no telling when he and Havoc would again end up in the exact same situation Zeta had saved them from. Tashima had finally admitted that they were in a bit of a bind, and any chance of making allies was one he had to to take, despite the risks.

"They didn't set anything up. It was already here. They just moved some equipment in," Zeta said, making sure to stress the fact that he had no involvement in whatever was going on.

Zeta stopped as he neared the end of the hallway, looking up at a camera attached to the wall. Pivoting down to look at him first, its lens automatically focusing, it then panned up to examine the two guests that had tagged along. "I see you brought them. Well done," A female voice said as a light attached to the camera turned on, illuminating Havoc as it looked over him. Also attached to the camera, a biometric scanner similar to the one out front activated and washed Havoc in a blue light from feet to head.

"What's going on?" Tashima asked, dropping his bad as he pushed back his coat and placed his hand on the grip of his gun, flicking open the latch that secured it in its holster. <Can you determine anything? It doesn't hurt, does it?> he meanwhile privately asked Havoc.

"You must be Tashima," the voice said, taking over from Zeta in the talking department. "Recently we learned that this Typhlosion, I guess you call him Havoc, underwent an integration procedure for a prototype of a cybernetic system called TRINITY. This scanner can't do much, but it looks as if our intel was right."

<No, nothing's abnormal...> Havoc said, sounding oddly tired. Perhaps it was just the stress of the day so far, which with the suppression collar had been noticeably worse for Havoc than Tashima. The young man didn't want to assume anything though. Before he could voice his concern, however, a cylindrical energy field suddenly shot down from hidden emitters on the ceiling, surrounding Havoc as the scanner shut off. The Typhlosion yelped in surprise and tried to push through the energy barrier, however it repulsed his efforts much like a kinetic barrier and left Havoc trapped inside the non-physical tube.

Having just about had it, Tashima quickly drew his gun and leveled it at Zeta's head. "All right, that's it! I think we'll be leaving now if you don't mind!" he yelled, aggravated.

His threat didn't really carry much weight however, as Zeta was quick to respond by pointing his left arm at Tashima. Not that threatening at first, the arm suddenly sprang open into two halves, hinging at his elbow. Extending forwards slightly as the arm opened up was the exposed barrel of some sort of gun, likely a plasma cannon since Zeta's two other weapons both used plasma as well. Neither person said anything, however Tashima figured it was pretty obvious he wasn't quite as committed to carrying out his threat as Zeta was.

"Relax, everyone," a new voice said, this one male. "I'm hacking directly into Havoc's organics so that I can access TRINITY; I'm not going to damage him. The connection between TRINITY and his cybernetics are purely one way as I'm sure he's probably noticed due to his inability to access it. His organics have a normal connection to TRINITY however, albeit one that was never meant to be used like this. Still, this is the only non-invasive way to gain access to the TRINITY subsystems."

"You can do that?" Tashima asked, unable to contain a hint of curiosity in his voice. The organic parts of living beings were in many ways similar to computers, and it was that similarity which allowed cybernetic connections to natural organics in the first place, but he had never heard of anyone trying to actually hack them.

"I told you, he's hardcore," Zeta said, his arm with its integral cannon remaining leveled at Tashima.

"Yes, I can," the hacker's voice said. "Problem is it's kind of uncomfortable, and I need the containment field so he can stay within the EM field I'm using to interface."

<This...feels weird...> Havoc grunted as he leaned against the containment field, his body convulsing in random places. Tashima figured that it was probably due to the unusual hack accidentally triggering nerves as the hacker worked his way to TRINITY.

"Why exactly do you need to do this in the first place?" Tashima asked, keeping his gun aimed at Zeta, not as if it would do any good. "I had thought we were supposed to be allies or something. Allies don't spring surprises like this on each other."

"We have reason to believe that there may be either a physical tracking device or piece of tracking code integrated with TRINITY," the female voice said again, her voice much more stern than the other's. "We want to neutralize that first before we meet further."

"A tracer?" Tashima questioned. "But while we were escaping, CYPHER infected our car with a tracking virus. Why would they need to do that if there's one in Havoc already?"

"Protocol," the woman's voice bluntly answered. "They likely infect any such vehicle used by fugitives automatically. Plus, it's probable that the existence of any tracker within TRINITY would be kept secret, even from security."

"Okay, I'm in now," the hacker's voice reported. "The discomfort should be subsiding. Just need to make a jammer to prevent any tracking signals from being broadcast and then we're good."

Glancing at Havoc, Tashima saw that he had calmed down, able to support himself again and with the convulsions gone. The Typhlosion nodded as he saw Tashima looking at him, as if to tell him that everything was okay now. Turning his attention back to Zeta, Tashima briefly thought for a moment before saying, "This standoff isn't doing anyone much good, is it?"

"I'll stand down if you do," Zeta grunted.

"I'd love to," Tashima said sarcastically as he relaxed and holstered his gun, powering it down in the process and picking up his bag from where he had set it. Just as he said he would Zeta also backed off, his arm snapping shut and returning to normal as he leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms across his chest.

"That's right guys, play nice," the hacker joked. "We're all rebels here, after all."

"Rebels? Is that what you guys are?" Tashima asked, the situation suddenly starting to come together.

Before he could get his answer, however, the male hacker suddenly spoke again. "And there we go. I had to use a generic jammer since I don't know how exactly any such tracker would work, but it's adequate for now."

"Can we get in than?" Zeta asked, evidently annoyed by being forced to wait outside as well.

No verbal answer came, however one wasn't really needed. As the containment field disappeared, seeming to pull up into the ceiling like a curtain made of pure light, the end of the hallway began to swing open at the same time. Accompanied by the distinct sound of rock grinding against rock, bright light poured through the opening as the room beyond was revealed. Standing amid that light, Tashima only able to make out their silhouettes at first as his eyes adjusted to the far brighter light, were the two people that had been talking to them over the intercom. One of them, the woman, stood with her arms crossed and a neutral, rather unreadable expression on her slowly appearing face. The other man had to be the hacker, standing more casually with arms in the pockets of his pants.

As Tashima began to be able to make out his face, he noticed that over his left ear was a small device, from which an eyepiece protruded in front of his left eye. As the group began to walk into the room, Havoc somewhat unsteady on his legs, the man reached up to the device over his ear and pressed a button. The eyepiece that had been covering his eye responded by flipping out parallel to the device it was connected to, meanwhile retracting along the set of rails that connected it to the device before finally rotating up to its standby position.

"Welcome to Icarus Base," the woman said. As Tashima's eyes finally adjusted to the light he could see her fully, noting her short dark hair that barely reached the collar of the jacket she wore over a rather tight white shirt. It was a military hairstyle, and not one generally in popular fashion. "I am the commander of this little group of rebels. You can call me Ava." When she noticed Tashima looking as if he expected more she elaborated with, "We don't share last names here."

"And you can call me Kyle," the man said, looking over the new arrivals with intense hazel-colored eyes. Tashima scanned over him just as intensely, noting that the device on the side of his head didn't seem to be the only computer he had attached to himself. A boxy attachment on his belt with interface ports spread over its surface and a glove on his left hand with a bulge on its back signified even more worn computers. "Sorry about all that out there, we simply need to maintain a standard of security."

"You're natural," Tashima commented as he concluded what the external computers meant. In the age of cybernetics, no one who could afford the now cheap procedures needed to use the external, wearable computers which had once been so popular. Nodding at Zeta who had walked off to a table in the corner of the room, Tashima continued, "And he's fully cybernetic: a cyborg. His movements are a tad too stiff, his steps just slightly too heavy."

Kyle raised an eyebrow. "Impressive. You're a good observer, we like that. Yes, I don't have a circuit in my body. Kind of ironic considering my current occupation as a hacker, but you can't beat the security it offers. I don't have to worry about my brain being fried, for one."

"But isn't it inconvenient to have to use all that external equipment?" Tashima asked. He had always been an advocate for new technology, and the thought of intentionally using such antiquated equipment was not only off-putting to him, but nonsensical as well.

Kyle merely shrugged, however. "I've never known any better, so to me it's just fine. Perhaps cybernetic implants are more efficient, but that doesn't matter to me."

Before the discussion could carry on further, though, Ava interrupted them. "You can talk about this latter. Before anything else, we've got to debrief our guests."

Debrief? Tashima thought as Ava turned around and began leading the group to a room off to the side. It's not like we did this all for them or anything...

As Tashima and Havoc followed the two rebels, he was able to take in the room for the first time. It was pretty large for a foyer, hinting that the room was used for normal functions as needed. A table sat in the corner which Zeta now sat at, watching as the others left. In a nook next to the entrance door was a line of computers, old solid-display monitors, presumably LCD or LED, displaying what seemed to be video feeds from security cameras. On one of them, Tashima noticed a view of the hallway just outside, from the camera in the corner. Doors around the walls of the room lead off to other areas of the underground base, Ava and Kyle escorting the two CYPHER fugitives into one of those doors.

The two companions found themselves in a small meeting room, the table at its center seeming to have far too many chairs compared to how few people seemed to live here. Ava and Kyle sat down on one side of the rectangular table while Tashima and Havoc took seats across from them, Tashima throwing his bag to the ground before leaning forward with his arms crossed while the Typhlosion, barely managing to fit in his chair, sat up straight. <I think we should cooperate with them,> Tashima communicated with Havoc, avoiding looking at him so neither of their hosts would know anything was going on.

<Is that wise? Perhaps we should learn more about them first,> Havoc responded.

<Probably not, but it's just a feeling I have. Right now, gut feelings are all we have to go on.>

<You've been relying on those for quite a while...>

Tashima paused a moment, looking around the room to try to come up with something to break the awkward verbal silence. Noting the single, unshaded light-bulb that hung down from the middle of the ceiling by a thin wire Tashima remarked, "I thought you said this was a debriefing, not an interrogation."

"This base was abandoned possibly for centuries before we found it. The least of our concerns was improving the ambiance," Kyle said.

As if neither Tashima nor Kyle had said anything, Ava started with what she had so warmly called a debriefing. "Your names are Tashima Navara and Havoc, correct?"

<My gut feelings saved your life, remember? And both of ours, several times over,> Tashima quickly responded to Havoc's hanging statement, before answering Ava with, "That's right." Havoc nodded in agreement, the voice channel from him silent. "Not like it's hard to figure that out, just tune into any security bulletin channel and the wanted report will tell you as much."

Ava ignored that last part, continuing on with her questions. "You used to be employed by CYPHER, in what position and for how long?"

"I programmed. Code," Tashima said as if it should have been obvious. "Whatever they told me to do I did it and as much as I wanted to, I never had the chance to ask questions. I've been there for probably ten years or more now."

"And how were you hired?"

"I wasn't," Tashima grunted, narrowing his eyes. Ava's blank expression didn't tell him much, but the way Kyle slightly nodded his head told Tashima they already knew his background. "After my left arm and leg were burnt to a crisp and amputated I needed prosthetics. I had wasted all the money I had saved up on a ticket to the colonies, but of course I never got there. My money was refunded, but then I had to spend it all on the hospital bill, those greedy bastards. There was no way I was living my life as a handicap, so when a CYPHER recruiter approached me I had little choice but to give in to their thinly veiled slavery."

"A life contract?" Ava asked, wanting elaboration.

"Of course. They never even say that much though, instead only saying you have to work there until you can pay off the prosthetics. Hell if that's going to happen. They pay you minimal wage and supply only the basic utilities. Everything else it takes to live I've had to pay for myself; it's as if they might as well not even pay us! If it was just the basic arm and leg I could maybe afford to pay them off in another few years, but due to the occupation they chose to put me into I had to get this whole suite of cybernetic implants. I'm not complaining of course, but when you consider that the cyberbrain alone costs more than both arm and leg put together there's no way in hell I'd be able to get out of there anytime short of my fortieth birthday, and by then what's the point when I've already wasted half my life." Tashima was ranting, the edge of anger in his voice rising. Anger would only work against Ava however, so she moved to a different topic.

"Through our time observing your actions, you have displayed an aptitude for breaking security systems," Ava began saying.

"Hacking," Tashima clarified. Before Ava could actually ask her question he went on to explain himself. "I first learned how as something to pass time while at work. It was about the only thing I could do that wouldn't attract undue suspicion since to a casual glance it could look as if I was just programming normal code. Instead I was writing viruses and other attack programs. As CYPHER's own network was easiest for me to access it was what I learned on and tailored myself to. Unfortunately, as large as they may be when it gets down to it they still use some ancient security. While it was good for me to train on, don't expect me to be pulling off any fancy stunts on any sort of more modern system based around ICE barriers and barrier-based protocol in general."

"They're still using those old systems?" Kyle asked with a hint of surprise. "When I left I was under the impression that a major overhaul of their security would go through soon after. The damage I inflicted to them during my own escape should have only hastened the switch to more secure systems..." Crossing his arms, he tilted his chair back onto just two legs and stared up at the bleak ceiling. "Ah, just goes to show how the larger something is, the less secure it's bound to be."

Ava glanced at Kyle out of the corner of her eyes, slightly shaking her head. Returning her focus to Tashima, she continued. "I have one final thing to ask: how did you, or Havoc, manage to come into the possession of TRINITY?"

"If you've been watching us you should know that," Tashima quipped as he looked over to Havoc, watching him. He was sitting still, seeming to zone out. Tashima wondered if he was busy accessing the internet, or perhaps doing something a bit more discrete.

"Humor me," Ava said, as blank and unfriendly as ever.

"It started with a friend," Tashima began with. "Namely, it started with the murder of a friend. She, Hali, was also an employee of CYPHER, involved with network-based reconnaissance and corporate espionage. When I first met her she was a genius, one of the best in her field. However something must have gotten to her, as over the years she began to lose her grip on reality. She became sullen and withdrawn, and if it wasn't for the support of her friend and roommate, a Gardevoir named Fae, she probably would have completely lost it. I had always thought she had found something, but she wouldn't speak a word of it to anyone but Fae. About a month ago she called us over and we found out Fae had been taken by CYPHER; apparently they finally found out she had discovered something.

"Owing to our eternal bad luck, CYPHER chose that moment to strike against Hali herself. I still don't know why they had waited, but my best guess is that they were waiting for her to expose anyone else she had told the secret to so they could net in both groups at once. We just happened to be those people. We managed to get away without having our identities detected, but Hali wasn't so lucky. I can only assume she died in the raid of her house. However, she had managed to tell us one word about what she had found: TRINITY.

"Despite all our best efforts we couldn't discover anything about TRINITY on CYPHER's publicly accessible network. Even the internal servers I could access turned up nothing. Knowing that we had to do something, I realized I simply needed a closer access point to their private network, one that would connect me directly to their mainframe."

"The Mainframe Access Chambers?" Kyle asked suddenly, his chair dropping to the floor as he slammed his palms down on the table.

"Well yeah," Tashima said nervously, cringing a little at the oddly furious look Kyle had in his eyes.

"Impossible," he growled. "I designed their security. Even if they lack barriers in anything else in that building, I designed the MACs with a multilayer chimera-hybrid barrier defense grid. It's got it all, ICE barriers in the first five levels, a mix of counters and ICE following those for ten layers, and then a whole fifty layers of both chimera and hybrid barriers I myself designed. I even tried breaking it after I finished it. I couldn't. Hell, I leaked remote access to some people I know and they couldn't either. There is no way in hell you got inside one of those."

"Well...I did?" Tashima reflexively pushed his chair back some, afraid Kyle would leap over the table and strangle him any moment now for the blasphemous act he had supposedly committed.

"Bullshit," Kyle spat. "The only way you could have gotten in there is if for some godforsaken reason they had downgraded their security. I could understand being suspicious of my work after I left, but it would actually be easier just to verify that my security grids were safe rather than come up with whole new ones."

"Maybe they did downgrade the security on the MACs," Havoc suddenly said. Tashima was at first surprised he had spoken using his natural voice, but then realized that it must be due to Kyle. While it was a near given his external computer had a translator, there was no guarantee it would be able to receive wireless communications. "Remember our discussion earlier before the chase?" he directed to Tashima. "Everything was too easy. It was like they were playing us, guiding us along. Perhaps they intended for you to hack into that MAC and find the information you did, the stuff about TRINITY."

Ava's eyes perked up at that, she no doubt having been annoyed at the derailing from the original topic that Kyle had caused. "You have actual information on it as well?"

"I thought you knew everything we were doing," Tashima said dryly.

"We only found out about you during your break-in to rescue Havoc," Ava said, answering something for once. "For all events before that we could only gather what CYPHER had stored on you two, which wasn't much. What we did find, namely that Havoc had undergone TRINITY implementation, was what drew our attention to you."

Accepting the explanation, Tashima pulled an external storage unit out from one of his coat's pockets, sitting the slim, featureless rectangle down on the table. Reaching up his left sleeve, he grasped one of his interface cables and extended it from its socket. Different from the other cables, the plug on the end of this cable had a flat surface, which Tashima pressed against a circular outline on the storage unit's surface. The cable adhering to the device magnetically, Tashima neurally accessed the file he had recovered and copied it over. Disconnecting his cable from the ESU, he pushed it across the table to Kyle.

"Don't trust wireless transfers?" Kyle remarked as he picked the storage unit up, inserting it into a slot on the waistband component of his computer setup.

"Not with people I don't know yet," Tashima shrugged.

Kyle turned his left palm up to face him, flexing the fingers of his hand. Holographic projectors in the tips of the glove he wore activated in response to the movement, a circular display appearing over the palm of his hand. Interacting with the display by touching through the image it projected, Kyle copied the file over to his own system from the storage unit before opening it, scanning through its contents briefly. "You're going to love this, I can just tell," he remarked to Ava as he flexed his hand again to turn off the display, ejecting the ESU and sliding it back to Tashima. "You were right in trusting them."

"I would appreciate it if you proved that we were right in trusting you," Tashima said as he picked the storage unit off the table and tucked it into his coat again, crossing his arms as he leaned back. "I've told you everything I could. How about you return the favor."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​
Continued in the next post...
 

Shrike Flamestar

The Invisible!
212
Posts
15
Years
...Continued from previous post.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Kyle glanced over at Ava, who nodded slightly. Activating the holographic computer interface in his left glove again and pressing something, the center of the table and a matching spot on the ceiling above slid open, the glossy lenses of holographic emitters protruding from behind each. Flickering into life, suspended between the two emitters, a circle appeared and gradually filled in with the familiar detail of Earth's landmasses. Tashima recognized the holograph as being of the old, two-dimensional type, giving the impression of having depth when in reality it was simply a flat plane that appeared the same from all angles. The image of Earth began to rotate, a square reticule sliding into view and rotating back and forth as it scanned over the Earth's surface until finally settling into a spot within the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

Suddenly the image zoomed in, the continents of North America and Asia disappearing from view as the area that had been targeted filled the display. Several small islands came into view, their shapes familiar to Tashima. He recognized the joint landmass of Kanto and Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh nearby on their own islands. Once filled with people and the Pokémon trainers of old, those regions were all but abandoned now. However, off to their side was another island, roughly tear-drop in shape. It was this island that the image zoomed in on, more details filling in as the island grew larger. Large towers flew up from the ground, giving the island a spiky appearance from coast to coast. One tower was notably different from the rest, continuing to expand upwards several times the height of the surrounding buildings. As the image panned down to look at the city from the side it began to rotate around the CYPHER tower, displaying it from all angles.

"Helios City, CYPHER Tower... That's kind of where we live, so what?" Tashima spoke up.

"As Ava already said, you can consider us rebels," Kyle began to explain. "And as you have probably figured out, rebels against CYPHER. You're not alone in thinking that something is off about them. For months now, even years, rumors have been circulating. No one has been taking them very seriously, but not long ago while working with CYPHER security I came across some blueprints."

The image suddenly stopped rotating and began to pull back, the cityscape flying past the virtual camera as the CYPHER tower was pushed into the background. Rotating to face down, the camera showed that it hung above one of Helios' few sparsely populated areas. Few skyscrapers populated the area, most of the construction being private residential housing in small two to four story houses. However, only a few blocks from the coast, a low, flat building stuck out. Zooming in on it, a scrolling line overlaid the wireframe imagery with what must be Kyle's blueprint.

"Publicly, this building is a storage warehouse for Mako Ballistics, a small arms manufacturer," Kyle went on to say. Tashima nodded silently in response. Mako were the developers of his stolen Variable Function Electromagnetic Rail Pistol prototype, along with most other railgun-based weapons in production today. "However, take a look at the blueprint and you might notice something peculiar."

Tashima scanned over the blueprint. He noticed that the building was laid out quite oddly for a simple warehouse. There was a part of the building that was set aside for storage; however, most of the building seemed to be allocated not for storage but as a fully-fledged, albeit small scale, factory in its own right. "Why would a simple warehouse need a factory? Mako already has several factories already in Helios," Tashima pointed out.

"Exactly. It didn't make much sense to me either so I did some digging. Did you know that CYPHER is the primary shareholder for Mako? They've got so much interest in Mako that they've even got someone on their board of directors," Kyle revealed.

"How come I haven't heard of this before?" Tashima narrowed his eyes; something this big should be all over the place.

"Because it's not public information. CYPHER has been keeping their involvement with Mako out of the media," Kyle explained. "But that's not it. A company holding interest in another company but keeping it secret is nothing new, what is is the level of coordination that has been going on between the two. Over the last few months, CYPHER has been slowly, gradually redirecting an increasing number of resources to some sort of joint venture with Mako. Everything I can read points to the same thing: that flow of resources and men from both CYPHER and Mako has been snaking its way to this supposed 'warehouse.'"

"Moving workers and supplies to a factory..." Tashima mused. "What do you think they're manufacturing?"

"That's obvious," Ava spoke up. "Weapons. Armaments. Why else partner with Mako? CYPHER has never produced weapons on their own, they need a partner who can bring that expertise to the game."

"But that's not everything," Kyle elaborated. "All indications say that Mako isn't the only company, and that this warehouse may not be the only covert operation CYPHER's running. Their tentacles run all throughout this city, and even into several parts of the world beyond. It's impossible for me to track everything they do, but it's my belief that they're at least also partnered with Eve Enterprises."

Tashima recognized that name as well, most people these days did. Eve was one of the original developers and proponents of expanding humanity's presence in space from the moon deeper into the solar system. They had developed some of the first reusable commercial spacecraft and had been part of the conglomerate that had lead to the development of now widely used mass driver technology for exiting the atmosphere easily. While more companies had since entered the lucrative market of space-based technology, Eve remained as one of the world's largest producers of commercial spacecraft.

"Weapons, spacecraft..." Tashima muttered. "What does a cybernetics company want with those? They plan to open a shop in space or something and feel a need to defend themselves from evil space pirates?" he joked. There was little other explanation Tashima could think of, though. The expression of Ava's face told Tashima that she didn't very much appreciate him joking about this, and quickly he added, "But seriously, I'm starting to see it now. Secrets may be normal for large companies, but between TRINITY and this, it's a bit extreme."

Kyle nodded. "That's why I left CYPHER. Didn't even say anything. Of course they must have already realized I knew too much, I barely got out of there alive."

"And you?" Tashima asked as he looked at Ava, who had so far not revealed much more about her than her name.

"This isn't the time for this discussion," she said, again refusing to reveal anything. "Rather, what we need to do now is work out what we plan to do, and how we act on this information. We now have two possible areas to focus on: TRINITY, and CYPHER's involvement with Mako Ballistics."

"Investigating a weapons factory would likely be dangerous," Havoc spoke up. "Until more is known about what exactly is going on inside it, it probably wouldn't be a very good idea to investigate the factory personally."

"For once I agree with the big fuzzy guy," Tashima said, flashing a grin to the Typhlosion before continuing. "We have no idea what they're producing, and so no idea what we'd be walking into. With so few of us, going out on potentially suicidal missions isn't exactly a smart idea."

Kyle nodded in agreement. "That's what I've been saying. We need to approach this sensibly. Before we hit anything, we still need more information. Thankfully, I know just the place."

The holographic image suddenly flew back over to the CYPHER tower, the blueprint disappearing as it did so. The view centering over the tower so it was looking straight down, it suddenly seemed to plunge straight through the center of the tower, flying past various floors until it pierced through the ground. The view descended only a few levels more before it stopped, the layout of one of CYPHER's basement levels depicted in the hologram.

"This is basement level B2," Kyle explained. "Few people know it, but CYPHER's mainframe has secondary access points meant as backup in case the MAC system fails. This floor has one of those nodes. If we can access it, hopefully we can gather more information on both TRINITY and Mako. The trouble, of course, is actually accessing it. Unlike the access chambers, these backup nodes don't have any sort of interface but rather are designed so that a new, standalone MAC can be constructed around them if need be. They do have an interface with the node itself purely for maintenance purposes, but redundant security prevents communication between that maintenance access and the mainframe. Namely, the connection to the mainframe is physically disconnected when the maintenance access is being used."

Tashima waved his hand dismissively. "If we ignore that for now, how do you plan to get to it in the first place? We can't just waltz in the front door and expect them to greet us with open arms. I doubt either Havoc or I could even walk in a side door without been shot."

"That's the easy part," Kyle explained as he changed the holographic image again. Next to the floor layout, a series of tunnels appeared that led off to the side, out of the image's view. The tunnels didn't seem to actually connect to the floor, but came awfully close to it at a few points. "This is the remnants of an old sewer system. During construction of basement block B CYPHER was forced to build around it, but as you can see they came close at some points. Breach the wall at one of those spots with explosives and you're good to go."

"You?" Tashima remarked, raising an eyebrow? "Me? So am I your little guinea pig mission runner or something?"

"Not just you," Kyle smirked. "I imagine Havoc will go along as well, but we also have someone else you haven't met who will be your partner in the field."

"We just got here and you already want to send us right back to the place we left?" Tashima groaned. "Is it too late to get out of here and go someplace else?"

"Yep. You now know a little bit too much now," Kyle said.

"We'd have to kill you," Ava added. Tashima wasn't sure if it was a joke or not.

Bowing his head in defeat, Tashima asked, "Well who is this guy then?"

"Me," a voice from behind Tashima suddenly said. Turning around, Tashima found himself staring at what appeared to be an exact replica of himself. Right down to the clothes it wore, the clone was indistinguishable from the real Tashima, leaning against the wall and staring back at him with the same smug expression he so often wore. "Or rather, yourself," the doppelganger said.

"Wha...what?" Tashima stuttered in confusion.

"Arrow, cut that out," Ava sighed.

"Fine fine," the Tashima replica said, waving his hand in an oddly effeminate way that Havoc couldn't help but crack a giggle at. The real Tashima shot a glare at the Typhlosion, almost missing when the replica began to change shape, adopting a white glow that obscured its form as it seemed to dissolve into a blob. Rather than stopping there, however, it instantly began to grow in size again and take on the humanoid features it had just moments ago lost. As the glow faded, Tashima was grateful to find that it was no longer himself he was looking at. Instead, while the being had taken on another, much younger, human form it seemed to be neither male nor female. Androgynous in both the shape of its body and all other distinguishing features, Tashima couldn't help but be disturbed a little. The clothing it wore, based on a cross between gothic and punk fashions with copious amounts of leather and metal chains didn't help.

"A Ditto?" Tashima guessed. "With a human form?" He couldn't think of much else that could shape-shift in such a manner.

"Bingo," the Ditto turned human said, slightly nodding. "Arrow. That's my name. And since I can tell you're confused, just call me a guy. Everyone else does. I don't get why you humans find gender so important..."

"Due to his abilities, Arrow is a natural choice for when discretion is required," Ava said. "If you agree to help us, you'll be going in along with him."

"That doesn't mean we'll stick together, though," Arrow added. "Obviously, you won't help any when I'm trying to blend in and be all stealthy like." Arrow suddenly pressed himself against the wall, his body rippling and literally flattening like a pancake no more than an inch thick as he began sidling along it. "It's like a video game. Wait for someone to pass, pop out, and bam!" The Ditto suddenly pushed out from the wall, his body filling out again as he did so. However, his hand turned into a long spike instead of reforming, which he pointed at an empty spot of wall over Tashima's head. In one swift motion the spike shot out from his arm, embedding itself in the wall with a loud clang. "One less guard," Arrow smirked as his hand regrew, the fingers flexing as he watched it appear.

Tashima glanced silently at Havoc, not even bothering to mentally communicate anything to him. There wasn't any need, the glance they exchanged was clear to both of them: stay away from the creepy Ditto. The look Kyle flashed the two of them seemed to say the same thing; evidently Arrow wasn't thought of any higher among his own allies. Ava, however, was a bit more verbal in her dislike of him. "Arrow, if you don't stop taking things seriously we will kick you right back where you came from," she glared at the youthful boy. "That's all for now. Get out of here."

"Yeah, yeah," Arrow said dismissively, flapping a hand as he turned around and walked out the open door to the common area. "See ya' guys later, I'll be around."

After Arrow had left, Ava and Kyle both stood up. "That will be it for now," Ava said as Kyle switched off the holographic projector. "Kyle will show you to your room, where you can rest for now if you want. We'll meet up again later."

As Ava walked out, it was just the two boys and the Typhlosion left. "We're really not getting a choice in anything here, are we?" Tashima asked as he stood up, picking his bag up and slinging the strap over his shoulder.

"With her?" Kyle chuckled. "No, not really. Sorry we had to drag you into this, but you have to admit you didn't have any other choice."

Tashima nervously scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, we may have gotten in a little over our heads here."

<I didn't expect you to admit that,> Havoc suddenly remarked.

<Yeah, well, this is a bit different this time,> Tashima replied, the tone of his mental voice almost sounding like a sigh. <For once, I'm not in control anymore.>

<Ah, you've always hated that.>

"By the way," Kyle spoke up as he opened a door off of the common room and let the pair through it. "I do receive wireless signals. You may not want to use open channels just because you assume no one's listening."

Tashima and Havoc exchanged glances again behind Kyle's back, switching to the encrypted channel they used when needed. Tashima was the first to speak up again, <You've been awfully silent ever since we got here. Ever since you got that collar put on, really. Doing okay?>

<Been doing some digging,> the Typhlosion replied, keeping his eyes focused forward.

<On what?>

<I'll tell you later.>

The rebel hacker led Tashima and Havoc through a surprisingly complex series of hallways. Looking around, Tashima could see that the place was quite old. The metal plating that provided the underground walls was starting to come away in places, tears and holes exposing the dirt of the Earth beyond. Conduits along the ceiling carried cables throughout the complex, however in places the tubes had broken away to expose the wires within. Even more solid-display monitors lined the hallways in between doors, however very rarely did Tashima see one that was still in one piece, and even rarer was one that was actually on and working. Even those working displays were useless, the screens filled with a jumble of junk characters and graphical artifacts. It didn't take long before the bleak atmosphere began settling in; Tashima could only wonder how long these people had been living in such a derelict place.

Eventually Kyle stopped before a door not unlike any of the others they had passed. From a worn plague on the door Tashima could just barely make out the numbers "316". Waving his hand across a panel next to the door it jerkily slid open, revealing the room beyond. It wasn't much better than anywhere else in this place, but it at least housed a pair of beds that seemed reasonably stable.

"This will be your room for now," Kyle explained. "Sorry about the long walk; a lot of the doors down here are jammed shut and to get them open would require cutting. But, I imagine you'll want an actual door. No lock though."

"One room, two beds..." Tashima muttered.

"Yeah, we had to get this together pretty quickly so you two will have to make due together," Kyle shrugged. "You've already been living with each other anyways though, right?"

"It's...been a long time since I've had to share a room..." Tashima sighed.

<He'll live,> Havoc said, grabbing Tashima's arm and pulling him into the room. Since he knew Kyle could hear his open communications now, he didn't bother with verbal speaking.

"You'll find some stuff on that computer that may be helpful." Kyle pointed to a desk that sat in the corner of the room, a very old tower computer sitting on top of it complete with solid-monitor and hardware-based keyboard and mouse. "Like a map. If you get lost, just call out for me. I imagine you may want to relax some first, though. Assassination attempts and high-speed car chases early in the morning aren't exactly the best things to wake up to."

Tashima stared after Kyle, stunned, as the hacker turned around and walked down the hallway, the door automatically closing after him. Only when he was gone did Tashima stutter out the words, "Wait...what? How does he know...?"

<They've been keeping some pretty close eyes on us, that's how,> Havoc said as he walked over to one of the beds, testing its strength before dropping down onto his back atop it. Tashima noticed that he had switched to using an even tougher encryption on his communications.

<That what you were digging for?> Tashima asked as he switched his own communication channel to the tougher encryption Havoc was using.

<That's what I found says. Take a look.> Havoc began transmitting a handful of videos to Tashima over a wireless transfer link, the videos appearing in Tashima's heads-up-display as a stack of windows. Enlarging the top video, Tashima played it back.

An odd feeling washed over Tashima as he saw himself running through the halls of the CYPHER Tower through the lens of a security camera. The camera panned to keep an eye on him as he stopped at a door, pulling something from a pocket. The camera began to zoom in, focusing on the object Tashima held as he stuck it against the door. His past self twisted a small handle inset into its dome-shaped top before pulling a small plug out that he tossed to the side, running down the hallway quickly as he did so. As the camera began to zoom back out the grenade exploded, taking with it both the door and the camera that had been watching the scene.

<That was when I went to rescue you,> Tashima said, stunned again. <I shouldn't have appeared on that camera. The jammer I was using should have frozen any camera that was looking at me.>

<It didn't work,> Havoc pointed out the obvious. <Where did that program come from?>

<I made it myself.> Tashima couldn't keep the surprise out of his voice. He had expected that perhaps everything may not have gone as it seemed, but this was beyond what he had been expecting. <It should have worked. Hell, it did work. I tested it before I rescued you.>

<You made the entire program yourself? With not a single piece of code from an outside source?> Havoc pushed further.

<Well...I did use the jammer I got from Zan as it's base. His was good, but too slow. I overhauled most of the program, but the core of it...> Tashima's eyes widened as he came to the conclusion, rage building inside him. "Goddammit!" He yelled, not bothering to be private or secretive. "I am so going to kill him! That's the second time he's almost gotten me killed! We'll see how he likes it!"

<You can't even get on the Cybernet here,> Havoc pointed out.

<How do you know that Kyle doesn't have one lying around here?> Tashima countered with.

<Because he's even less cybernetic than I was before all this stuff happened.> Tashima had to admit that Havoc's own counter was perhaps a bit more logical.

Tashima sighed and walked over to the second bed, dropping his bag down next to it where it would hopefully be able to stay for a while. Sitting down on the bed, he pulled up the rest of the videos and played them back in sequence. They were mostly security camera footage, almost entirely documenting the time between when he had gone to bail out Havoc through when they had returned to the house that evening. None of the videos showed anything of what had happened already in the current day, but Tashima had no doubt this wasn't the only security footage the rebels had taken from CYPHER.

A couple of the videos were somewhat more interesting in that, rather than being recorded from a security camera, they were instead the optical record of an AI drone. <This must be what was following us,> Tashima surmised as he watched himself and Havoc walk down the street, trying to act nonchalant after they had realized they were being followed. <A cloaked drone...>

<All of this was recorded from CYPHER, but I found it within some of the computers here,> Havoc explained. <Thankfully, some of the computers in this place do have a wireless neural link. Of course, I can't get to all of them that way...>

Tashima glanced at the old computer that sat in the corner. The temptation of trying to hack into it to gain access to any network within the place was high, but instead he merely let out a breath and fell back on his bed much like Havoc. <Try hinting at what I should do sometime else. I don't feel like it now.>

Havoc awkwardly shrugged, rolling his head to his side. Staring down his muzzle he watched as Tashima pulled the sheets over himself, pieces of clothing beginning to fly out from beneath them. <This bring up long suppressed embarrassing memories?> the Typhlosion joked.

"You could say that..." Tashima mumbled from beneath the sheets.

<You know I couldn't care less about seeing you without clothes on.> Nonetheless, Havoc rolled his head back so he was staring at the ceiling. <I don't even wear any clothes; the whole concept of clothing to me is, well, probably as foreign as gender is to Arrow.>

"Well it's sort of important to humans..." Tashima said as he threw his shirt out from underneath the sheets, kicking his pants out from the side as he stuck his head back out. "Let's just get some sleep now..."

<Good, well, morning, I guess.> Havoc rolled onto his side so that he wasn't facing Tashima, if only to give him some sense of privacy.

A moment passed in silence, but suddenly Tashima spoke up again. "Er, hey, could you get the light?"

<Why can't you do it?> Havoc grumbled, disgruntled from being disturbed as he tried to fall asleep.

"Because I'm lazy."

Grumbling some, Havoc established a neural connection with the rather simple computer that controlled the room's lighting, flicking the software-based switch that plunged the room into darkness without even having to get up. "Thanks," Tashima yawned, quickly drifting to slumber.

End of Chapter 5

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Okay, so yeah, long chapter there. Scary thing is I actually had more planned for this one, but in the end I ended up integrating part of what would come in either the next chapter or some other future one into this one (the part where Ava and Kyle tell Tashima and Havoc about the secret factory and Kyle's plan to gather more information) and so had to push some stuff around all over the place. It does work out nicely though, with this chapter being just a sort of brief introduction to the even more new characters (that's four within two chapters now. Don't worry, that's probably about it for this entire part until we get to phase.Beta) while next chapter will develop them some and flesh out their characters.

Unfortunately this means that the Cybernet chapter has been pushed back yet again. -_- While before only about half of the chapter was going to take place in the Cybernet (the other half being the part I moved into this chapter), I think now I may be able to devote an entire chapter to it. It will be fun. Very fun. Laws of physics and all sense of reason? Be gone with ye!

So yeah. I managed to shove a surprising number of references into this chapter and because no one but me will probably get them, I thought I'd point them out:
-Mako Ballistics is not my own invention but rather a company within Deus Ex 2: Invisible War. While they're a bit bigger in TRINITY, they still make weapons just like in IW.
-The name for Eve Enterprises came from EVE Online, a space-based MMO that I both love and hate.
-The little light switch joke at the end is directly recycled from way back in TFCv1.
-The room number for Tashima and Havoc's room is a reference to my short story Three-Sixteen.

And I guess that's about it. Unfortunately, it's probably a safe bet that chapter 6 will take a while, especially if I do end up finishing Haunting at the Old Chateau and chapter 6 of TFC before I get back to this... I will be so relieved when Haunting is done, as it's been bugging me for months now.
 
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Caliban

Trying to change my life, brb~
339
Posts
15
Years
Havoc said:
<That's what I found says. Take a look.>
This doesn't make sense to me, did you mean to have two 'what's?

Anyway, awesome chapter. If I remember correctly, Mako is also the name of a Star Wars character, a black marketeer on Nar Shaddaa.

I'm interested as to the fact that Havoc hasn't got his collar off yet... He must be having a mid-life crisis by now!
I also enjoyed Arrow. Sounds like he might be the treacherous kind.

And now for the weird music selection!

While I read this I was listening to...
An excercycle wheel goin' round and round. It certainly made typing this reply difficult! :P


Faster, Shrike, FASTER!
 

Buoysel

Trust me, I'm a Professional*
2,006
Posts
15
Years
I can't help but think that a couple of things were directed at me, the one I remember best is "you big fuzzy guy"

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems out of character for Tashima.

FYI
Havoc said:
<This bring up long suppressed embarrassing memories?>
Made me lmao.

dropping his bad down next to it where it would hopefully be able to stay for a while
Bag?
 

Shrike Flamestar

The Invisible!
212
Posts
15
Years
Whoops, sorry for taking so long to reply guys. I've been sorta busy lately, okay?! Okay.

La Pompa said:
This doesn't make sense to me, did you mean to have two 'what's?
No, it's just his way of speaking. When it comes to dialogue I don't uphold proper grammar rules because, well, people talk in different ways. Without the contraction it would be "That is what I found says" which, yeah, is grammatically incorrect but dialogue doesn't have to be grammatically correct. :O

La Pompa said:
I'm interested as to the fact that Havoc hasn't got his collar off yet... He must be having a mid-life crisis by now!
Pff, collars are now a new fashion trend among the Pokemon population in TRINITY. <_<

La Pompa said:
Faster, Shrike, FASTER!
NEVER! I'll go just as fast as I want, thank YOU.

That other big fuzzy guy said:
I can't help but think that a couple of things were directed at me, the one I remember best is "you big fuzzy guy"

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems out of character for Tashima.
As I said in IM, it's just Tashima's character growing into itself as he tries to make light of a serious situation and all that stuff.

So yeah, next chapter will come when it's damn well ready! And it's not yet, so hah.
 

Shrike Flamestar

The Invisible!
212
Posts
15
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Update, guys! So yeah, it's been a while. Unfortunately I have no new chapter right now. Well actually I sort of do but it's not ready for posting and recent decisions have re-prioritized what I will say next. Stop whining! See, I think what I'm going to do now is go through and revise the old chapters first. This is NOT a rewrite; although I may make some big changes to some scenes and add new ones, the overall plot and progression of events will pretty much be the same. Technically there should be no NEED for you to go back and reread the revised chapters, however depending on how large the changes are it may be heavily advised to do so.

With this post I have edited chapter 0 with the revised version, which completely changes the first scene although the actual events in the chapter/prologue are still the same. I also brought with it some fairly major redesigns to the interior of the CYPHER Dome, which will probably be called CYPHER City from now on. Rather than the concept of tiers along the walls, it is literally a miniature version of Helios city under the dome with all the buildings there being towers as well. There's also a slight redesign of the aerocar, Tashima's HUD, removal of old concepts and updated terminology, and of course the general updating to bring the writing up to my current standards.

Have a direct link to the post.
 

Buoysel

Trust me, I'm a Professional*
2,006
Posts
15
Years
Sorry in advance for the long reply time and any errors in this text. I haven't had much time to do anything, hell I'm typing this on my phone in the ER, dont worry ill be fine, I think.

Over all I really like the new style, I think ill re read everything over again. The only problem I noticed is that you have Havoc on the ground, but don't mention him getting there. This happens in the paragraph in which you say "the glass slid down in to the floor."
 

Shrike Flamestar

The Invisible!
212
Posts
15
Years
Whoops, forgot about those replies. Thanks for reading guys! Hope it wasn't anything too serious, Buoysel. Oh, and if I am thinking what you are thinking, earlier in that paragraph it mentioned that the clamps that had been holding Havoc released him and he fell to the ground.

Okay, so, bit of a longer break than I intended there. Whatever. My life has sort of been busy the past month with taking a trip to Ohio, moving, and obsessions with various games. Nonetheless, I finally finished the revision for chapter 1.

Now, I said before that I wasn't going to change much plotwise. I lied. While I suppose the general plot of the first few chapters does remain the same, I've ended up making some massive changes to how it's executed. This was all done for two reasons: too give Hali a reason to exist in the first place and so that the decision to have Havoc augmented with TRINITY isn't so sudden. To this end, Hali's character is now pretty much entirely different as is much of chapter 1. The new revision of chapter 1 includes two new scenes while the rest of it is changed quite a bit. Additionally, in my effort to reduce chapter lengths, I've ended up cutting off the end of the chapter and will move it to the next.

Here's a link to the post with chapter 1.
 

Shrike Flamestar

The Invisible!
212
Posts
15
Years
Well crap I just realized something. Due to the whole shifting around of what is actually in the chapters and all, this whole "drop the new right right into the old post" thing isn't working out so well. As it is, there is a big gap between chapter 1v2 and the old chapter 2 which would no doubt confuse and bewilder and reader who doesn't understand that chapter 1 was rewritten and 2 has not been done yet.

As such, I am going to make a new thread for the rewritten chapters after all as I should have done when I first started this. Give me a moment and I will edit in a link to the thread within both this post and the first post of the thread...

Here is the new thread. Go there to read all the further chapter rewrites and new chapters! I'm going to edit the old versions of 0 and 1 back in here for, um, posterity's sake. Yeah...
 
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