Violence swept through Babylon with the fury of a tempest.
Mysterious explosions in low-profile businesses. Shootings in the streets. Eyewitness reports of monstrous horrors skulking in the shadows. A sudden spike in deaths and disappearances. The season of violence was here once again, and everyone scrambled to keep their heads down.
The Singularity Network responded to the raid on the Langton with cold, measured ire. TBC soldiers took to the streets, openly carrying arms and armor. In the daylight, mouthpieces recited naked lies to the mainstream media. At night, strike teams zipped around the city, steadily dismantling the networks of rival Elect they had identified.
The Void Collective did not act openly. They condemned the violence, as the New Gods always did. They stepped up security across their holdings. And everyone on their hit list mysteriously vanished into the night, never to be seen again.
The other New Gods weren’t so precise. The Court of Shadows remained true to their strategy of high-visibility violence, messily destroying their targets in public. The Pantheon’s Godmen marched to war, assuming more monstrous forms with every passing day. The Liberated abandoned all pretenses of humanity, cladding themselves in the enhanced flesh and bone granted by their goddess. The Guild brought out their Godtech, filling the streets with the screech of railguns and the blinding flash of particle beams.
The Seekers did not comment on their operations. But blacked-out aircraft and gravity vehicles flitted across the city, dropping off and picking up faceless troopers in unmarked gear. On occasion, they were accompanied by hulking creatures or squirming masses, or other things that could not be identified. No one knew where they went or what they did, but like the Singularity Network, wherever the men in black went, people died.
The Public Security Bureau, unable to overlook the weekend of murder, stepped in at last. PSB Special Agents took charge of high-profile investigations. ESWAT teams from all over the nation descended on Babylon. The Director vowed that justice would be done.
Now bolstered by the Feds, BPD stepped up to the plate. Patrol cops flooded the city, focusing on dangerous precincts. Undercover SWAT officers conducted crime suppression patrols in unmarked cars. The brass recalled off-duty cops, canceled non-emergency leave, and even deigned to authorize additional paid overtime hours.
Other federal law enforcement units chimed in, sending contingents of tactical units and specialists to further augment the police presence. The media ran opinion pieces speculating on whether it was time to call in the military to impose a curfew and restore order to the streets.
In the face of so much resistance from the mortal authorities, the New Gods retreated.
Tuesday saw the coming of an unofficial truce. Though the New Gods said nothing to the press, their soldiers pulled back to their strongholds, their mercenaries departed for the shadows, their pawns busied themselves with deflecting attention from their operations. For the first time since the showdown at the Hex, violence in Babylon abated to baseline levels.
That night, Peter summoned the Black Watch to his hideout. Though he was buff as ever, the poor lighting had bleached his skin. Dark circles hung around the hacker’s eyes. Deep lines stressed across his cheeks.
Yuri wondered how he was holding up. Though he had his Angels, they were lifeless, soulless robots. He had been living alone here with minimal personal interaction. He wondered when was the last time Peter had left the safe house—if he had left at all.
He didn’t voice his concerns, though. Not today. Not in the presence of Joshua Gregory.
Formerly the Commandant of the STS, now a ‘consultant’ to the federal government, Gregory had come out ahead where so many of his men had fallen. Though he was a skilled operator in his time, he was also an adroit political animal. He’d leveraged his connections and his knowledge in the days after the abolition of the STS, worming himself into the political establishment.
Just as planned.
Yuri Yamamoto would oversee kinetic operations in and around Babylon. The other team leaders would manage their areas of responsibility. Gregory and the support cadre served as the connective tissue of their informal network, providing intelligence and supplies and covering up their tracks as needed. Together, they continued the original mission of the STS.
Everyone was dressed in casuals and sportswear. Except Gregory. He had on a pale cream suit and a pair of polished leather shoes. He might have stepped out of a meeting in the halls of power. Perhaps he had.
“The prisoners have broken,” Gregory said.
In his voice, Yuri sensed the cold fingers of Special Interrogation. There was no other way to gather so much intelligence so soon. Sinner cyborgs do not break. When captured, they clammed up and said nothing. They could disconnect their brains completely from their bodies, cutting themselves off from all outside input. As for the Void Collective, in the recorded history of Babylon, Yuri could count on the fingers of two hands the total number of VC Elect ever arrested—most of them by his hand. Teleportation made detaining prisoners impossible. Even those who had their implants disabled still retained a fragment of the Void within their minds, and the demon always kept their mouths clamped shut. Or simply drove them insane.
Yuri still hated the idea of Special Interrogation, of what it could do and how it could be abused. But when fighting against monsters like these, what other choice did they have?
“Between the interrogations and the intelligence materials you’ve recovered from the Langton, we have a full understanding of this Project Concord,” Gregory continued.
“What is it?”
Gregory glanced at Peter. Peter’s face remained flat, but his eyes danced. At last, here was his area of expertise.
“The Void Collective and the Singularity Network are fundamentally different organizations. The Void is a single mind that controls hundreds of thousands of people through implants and possession. The Singularity Network is composed of millions of minds connected by a single network.
“The Void Collective is a predominantly vertical hierarchy. The Singularity Network uses a mostly flat topology. Fully initiated members of the VC have their individual personalities subsumed into the whole, becoming a cog in the machine. Members of the Singularity Network retain their personalities, except for the Superusers, but they can share and receive each other’s thoughts and emotions.
“The Hive and the VC think, talk and act in different ways. Even their software runs on different languages and operating systems. It is extremely difficult for them to communicate openly with each other, even if they send emissaries to talk face-to-face.
“The Void believes that any emissary from the Singularity Network cannot possibly represent the entire network, not when there are so many individuals on the Net, each with their own thoughts and perspectives. For their part, the Singularity Network recognizes that to speak with any one member of the VC is to speak with the Void. They cannot cut informal deals or work around troublesome authority figures like in conventional diplomacy.
“The major issue both sides have is trust. They are—or were—rivals. If they are to form an alliance, they must trust that the other side is acting in good faith. The Void believes that even a Superuser cannot represent the Will of the Net. The Singularity Network cannot verify whether the Void is speaking truthfully to them from other sources within the VC.
“Project Concord aims to address this.
“It is an interoperability platform that bridges the respective networks of both factions. It gives each side access to the other’s data streams. Through it, the Void Collective can accurately gauge the true Will of the Net, while the Singularity Network can gain insight into the Void’s thoughts and actions. Both factions can also instantaneously and securely communicate with each other. Instead of sending emails or calling a Speaker, they can directly send thoughts at each other. This method eliminates lag time and potential for misunderstanding or deception.
“The purpose of the recent talks was to decide to what extent each side would have access to each other’s thoughts, and just how deeply Project Concord should be embedded in each other’s networks. But the platform—the hardware and the software—already exists.”
Yuri’s breath caught in his chest. They were far, far closer to Babylon Black than even he had suspected.
“You’re saying that the Void and the Sinners can talk directly to each other?” James asked.
“And trust what each other says,” Peter said.
“The New Gods don’t trust each other,” Gregory said. “They can’t trust each other. Fundamentally, they all have diametrically opposed goals. They believe that they are all locked in a zero sum game. Every single time they partner with each other, it’s either for a short-term project, or one side inevitably betrays the other. By directly addressing the trust issue, the Sinners and the Void can forge a lasting alliance.”
“With an advantage like that, they could crush all the other gods,” Zen said.
Gregory nodded grimly. “You know the Seekers are playing kingmaker. Whoever they ally with will have access to their portal tech. The gods that do not sign up with the Seekers will then band together to crush the Seekers and their allies. And we can bet that the Seekers will try to manipulate their allies into doing the fighting for them. In contrast, the VC and the Sinners are looking to establish an equal partnership, based on mutual understanding. It’s a different dynamic—and more dangerous to us.”
“Have the New Gods fingered us for the raid?” Yuri asked.
“The Void Collective believes you are responsible. After all, you’re the only person in the world who has defied the New Gods in your signature way. By extension, they will pin the blame on the former STS.”
“Privately, the Sinners think so too,” Gregory said. “However, they don’t have hard evidence. All camera footage and room records have been erased. In public, they are accusing the Guild of arming their enemies and escalating the ongoing violence. As for the Guild, they see it as a chance to settle old scores. And all the other New Gods are jumping in too.”
“What a mess,” James muttered.
It was a mess he, Yuri Yamamoto, had started. He bore the responsibility for that. On the other hand, how else was a man to survive the wrath of the New Gods?
“The Singularity Network struck back at the Guild in ‘self-defense’. To prove their commitment to the alliance, the Void Collective is participating in reprisals. They are also hunting down the Elect that attacked their holdings after the raid on the Hex. They aren’t looking for us yet, but if they have hard intel on our positions, expect that to change pretty quickly,” Gregory said.
“What can we do?” Yuri asked.
“Project Concord is key. It is the bedrock of their alliance. We disable it, we prevent the VC and the Singularity Network from joining forces,” Peter said.
“Two hive minds are bad enough. One super-hive mind is a nightmare,” Will said.
“Exactly,” Gregory said.
“Where is Project Concord?” Yuri asked.
“It is housed in C8 Data Solutions, a data center jointly owned and operated by both factions,” Peter replied.
“Data center, eh?” Will said. “I don’t suppose we can detonate a non-nuclear EMP and call it a day?”
Peter shook his head.
“I’ve retrieved schematics from the architectural firm that designed the data center. The entire facility is hardened against an electromagnetic pulse.”
“From the outside, maybe, but what about the inside?”
Another, harder, shake.
“Every data hall is hardened against EMPs. The impact of an EMP inside the building will be limited to a single hall. To completely destroy Project Concord, you must take down the entire facility.”
Yuri turned to Gregory. “Can we call in air strike?”
Gregory scratched his head. “That would be… politically difficult.”
“Stopping an apocalypse is politically difficult?”
“I don’t have the juice for this. Not for intel gathered through… unofficial means.”
Zen cleared his throat.
“Actually, Peter and I have been working on this problem. I think we have a more elegant solution.”
“Let’s hear it,” Yuri said.
Zen retrieved a flash stick from his pocket.
“This contains two payloads of malware. The first payload targets the Void Collective. It forces their biocomputers to read a DNA sequence. It commands a biocomputer to spread the virus to other connected biocomputers, then forces the computer to brick itself.
“The second payload is tailored for the Singularity Network. It transforms all infected computers into a botnet, and orders the botnet to seek out a network node. When the botnet discovers a node, it infects the servers, forces them to replicate and transmit more copies of the malware, then bricks the server.
“By infecting the Project Concord servers with these viruses, we can shut them down. Both the VC and the Sinner components.”
“I read that the Sinners have state-of-the-art antivirus software. How do you know this will work?” Karim asked.
“The payload is a polymorphic virus,” Peter said. “It can create modified versions of itself to evade detection. After taking control of infected machines, it uses a machine learning algorithm to identify the behavior of the security software and guide its modifications. The only method the Network has to swiftly prevent the spread of the virus is to quarantine infected nodes and networks. In other words, to defend itself from the virus, the Network will have to cut off its own access to Project Concord, thus doing our work for us.”
“And you wrote these viruses in, what, three days?” Will asked.
“Three years,” Peter said.
“Following the disbandment of the STS, I commissioned Alex—Peter—to work with our cyber cadre to develop malware to counter the Singularity Network and the Void Collective,” Gregory explained.
“Once I settled down with my rig, I chipped in too,” Zen said.
“Do you know if the payload works?” Yuri asked.
“We tested the malware on virtual machines, captured Singularity Net computers and a DNA supercomputer printed to VC specs,” Zen said. “They work.”
“How do we get them into the data center?” Kayla asked.
“We need to access the mainframes with physical media. Only way to be sure.”
“In other words, physical penetration,” Yuri said.
“Well, yes. The flash drive is plug and play. We just need to insert the stick into the computers and let the payloads propagate throughout the system.”
“How long will that take?”
Zen shrugged. “As long as it’ll take.”
“We’re not going to social engineer our way inside,” Kayla said. “The VC can see through disguises. They might have shared that tech with the Sinners.”
“Then we need to assault the place,” James said.
“And hold it until we’ve melted down the servers,” Zen said.
“A facility that critical would be crawling with security,” Karim noted.
“And there’ll be a QRF on standby to respond to an attack,” Will added.
“There’s never an easy way to do this,” Yuri groused.
“Don’t you have this saying, ‘The only easy day was yesterday’?” Gregory said.
“You’re thinking of the Navy.” Shaking his head, Yuri turned to Peter. “You sure you can’t just upload the payloads into Project Concord from your workstation?”
“I do not have access permissions. I do not know how long it will take to acquire the necessary credentials. Normally I would prefer that approach, but with the New Gods on the warpath, I do not know how long we have. The VC and the SN might choose to formalize their alliance tomorrow, or at least when law enforcement stands down.”
“The fastest way to access Project Concord is to raid the data center,” Zen said.
“But it is also the riskiest,” Yuri said.
“No risk, no reward,” Will said.
Yuri turned to Gregory. “Any way we can get the Feds involved? Even backup would be nice.”
Gregory shook his head. “The Feds have to play by the rulebook. We all know that. All I can promise you is that they won’t disturb you while you’re on site.”
“You understand that if we do this, we’re going to piss off the VC _and _the Sinners. They’re going to tear the city apart to find us,” Kayla said.
“Which is why I’m here,” Gregory said. “I’ll coordinate the back end. Once the op is complete, we’re all going deep underground.”
“Our friends and families, too,” Yuri said.
“Of course. We’ve spent the last three years getting ready for a crackdown. We have everything we need to ride out the storm.”
“I’m not worried about a crackdown.”
Kayla smiled. “You’re not worried about anything.”
Yuri shook his head. “I wish.”
“What are you worried about, then?”
Yuri blew out a long, deep breath, and looked up at the stark ceiling lights.
“Armageddon.”
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