TITLE:A DARK VISION OF THE FUTURE - CHAPTER 7 - By TRID. K. and MOP PALETTE:0333 0889 0b9a 06ac 3 CHAPTER VII "What will happen to the world if one day the hibernated prehistoric creatures will wake up?" 2 - MOP of ALCATRAZ The door opened as he inserted his identification card. Although he had been at this place hundreds of times before, he was always excited as if it was the very first time for him. He walked through the long corridors which led to the office areas. The long way seemed to last forever. He looked at the guards which were walking besides him, but kept walking steadily ahead. In the far distance he could now see the end door. One of the guards typed in the password combination, and then showed the way into the main office. As soon as he went in, he stood still by the doorway, looking at the man behind the long desk. The man, who was near his pocket terminal, looked up and smiled. "Come in Allister. I'm really pleased to have you once again at our HQ" "You know, Cliff, how glad I am to also meet you once again, but I'm afraid that we must get straight away into business, because my time is very limited", said Mc. Trampler. The man smiled. He then gestured to Mc. Trampler to sit down. "So, Allister, how are things going?" "Really fine. The Resistance is now almost under our control. We have finally detected our SLEEPER. You know, we had lost contact with him in the last few years, but now our men have spotted him once again. He seems to be heading for SISTER ONE. And from the information we have gathered in the last time, you may be very pleased to know that he has established himself as one of the main men behind the RESISTANCE. Unfortunately, we have no more information available, but we have already activated the SLEEPER mode as a background task! As soon as our SLEEPER gets in touch with any RESISTANCE member, the SLEEPER mode will get the major priority, and the attack procedure will be automatically activated. As soon as the job is done, the SLEEPER mode will return back as a background task. In this way, our man will never suspect what kind of weapon he really is" Mc. Trampler looked at the man in front of him. At least he had expected a little smile from him, but the man seemed as if he was still expecting something more from Mc. Trampler. But Mc. Trampler stood silent, also because he had no other good news. "Allister, what can you tell me about that Mutant Decker, which gave us so much problems recently? From what I'm hearing you haven't cleared this problem yet?" "You see, Cliff, I think that such minor problems wouldn't really harm us in any way" Cliff ignored Mc. Trampler's last words. "I'm now off to ISAAC ASIMOV to finalise our big deal with the Governor. But I'll be back with more good news on my return. We will probably also clear that SMALL problem with that mutant Decker in the meantime, because all Docks are on Red Alert. They'll soon get caught and prosecuted, so we can get rid of them easily!" Mc. Trampler stood up and slowly left the HUMANIS HQs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joy, Sven and LADY, had deposited their cargo holds, and were ready to pass by the heavily secured Spaceport Terminal halls. Equipped with clean passes they moved away easily, although they noticed the strange and suspicious glances from the various Guardians. Once out of this area, they were out to find an appropriate accommodation. they didn't search for so long though, as they immediately found a cheap hotel. Sven and Joy settled down and tried to connect to Mock's Net. They soon found the right way through, after running for a while. They passed by the security programmes and were now in. Joy fetched for the internal news base and tried to find some clues, where he and Sven could possibly find Mock and the other Resistance Deckers. It seemed that an internal conference was being held at the moment, so Sven and Joy, quickly moved to that area. In the heavily protected conference area, they found Mock and all the other Deckers. Everyone was there, and the final assault at the HUMANIS Nets was now imminent. Mock had left explicit instructions. Sven was to take the leadership of the Deckers' Squad. He had already infiltrated one of the smaller HUMANIS Nets, so getting there once again would be no big problem for him. This time he wouldn't be on his own though! After reaching the small Net area and eliminating all the security levels, the Deckers had to branch away and destroy other small Nets, until they would finally reach their ultimate goal: the ROOT network. Eliminating all the small branching Nets one by one would leave the ROOT Net unprotected and thus very vulnerable for the final attack: Initialise a self formatting procedure and run away! Mock had to log off. His main job was now to contact FISH. FISH had left to ISAAC ASIMOV since ages, and Mock hadn't heard from him again. Was it possible that Dr. Stooner was in deep trouble? It was now of vital importance to reach FISH, because Mock couldn't set off the RESISTANCE squad to wipe out the ARES and HUMANIS bases on the MOON. But how could he reach FISH, when he didn't even leave any message after his departure, on Mock's Net? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mc. Trampler was on his personal hovership and on his way to ISAAC ASIMOV, escorted by his whole hover defence squadron. They approached the planet and asked the controller towers for access to the Docks areas. An attacking fleet consisting of ASIMOV hover fighters was approaching rapidly. ARES' fleet Commander approached Mc. Trampler, who was unaware of what was going on. "Sir, we have approached ISAAC ASIMOV and asked for access. We haven't got any answer-back yet", said frighteningly the Commander. "So What?", replied Mc. Trampler. "A heavily armed attacking fleet of hover fighters from ASIMOV is approaching fast, and they are surely not here for a welcome ceremony!" "There must surely be some explanation. Have you identified yourself as the ARES & ARMES official fleet?", cried Mc. Trampler. "Sure Sir!" The communications officer came hurriedly in. "Sir, we will soon have to face the ASIMOV fleet. The whole planet is in total chaos and on Amber Alert! Their Governor, Dr. Seydlitz was murdered. The population seem to believe that the murderer is someone from ARES & ARMS due to our agreement project. and it's already on all the news!" "What??", shouted Mc. Trampler. With a worried expression on his face, Mc. Trampler said, "Get in touch with my fleet General... It's time for Project GLOBAL to start off..." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Decker Squad unleashed their new scanner software and installed a heavy barrier behind them, as they progressed. The success of their mission depended on how much clever they were to avoid any unwanted attention. They already knew what was ahead of them. Thousands of traps and all kind of security levelled protection programmes. But nothing seemed to be able to stop them. Sven leaded the way to the area where he had once found a crack in the HUMANIS Net. The Deckers scanned round the whole area, but there seemed to be nothing around. Was it possible, that Sven had led them into the wrong place? Joy seemed to be worried. He looked for Sven who was too busy initialising his 3D comparison programme. "Look Joy, if this is not going to work, then it would be impossible for me to reach that black hole again!" "We're all in your hands now, Sven!" Sven started his software, which accurately scanned all the surrounding surfaces up to the deepest possible levels. Then it was time to assemble all the surfaces and get a miniature 3D image of the surrounding area. Sven turned the model around all the possible axis combinations. But then, examining the model from above, Sven noticed that one of the vertical surfaces had a slight inclination. And that was very strange in a matrix! Sven moved to the coordinates which corresponded to those shown on the model. He turned through a range of 360 degrees, scanning the surface again, every degree he turned. At one time, he felt a soft breeze. He looked carefully, and zoomed that particular surface part. A slight opening was now apparent! "Come on guys! It's time to start off!" All the Deckers moved away and entered the Net. Sven was a little surprised as he looked around. The Net structure now seemed very different than he could remember. The whole area was almost clear, and a soft breeze was in the surroundings. It seemed as if someone had recently formatted the whole thing. looking around, Sven noticed two little gates at the sides, so as there was nothing to do over here, the Deckers set off. Branching through the various HUMANIS Nets was like running in a big maze without being equipped with a map! But the Deckers were doing a very good job leaving no detectable traces behind. Sven, with the help of Joy was keeping an update of the whole situation. Some Deckers had found a blocked end, so Sven could already construct some parts of the Net tree. It was now only a matter of time. When every Decker would report a blocked end, then the whole Net tree would be complete, and Sven could instruct the Squad the right way to progress to the ROOT. "Joy, we are almost there! Some Deckers are still finding some open gates, but I have instructed the blocked Deckers, to move away from their area, so as we could shorten the whole process." "Well, Sven, I am really surprised with the few protection we are finding lying around. I think we will soon be in for big a surprise, so we must be very careful now" Indeed, Joy was quite right. Sven checked once again the latest reports. All Deckers now seemed to have found a blocked end, so Sven immediately generated the whole Net map, with a meeting point route for each Decker. All Deckers were now reunited near the ROOT Net. A huge iron door was blocking the only main entrance. Joy promptly started his tactical software. It seemed that the only way to open the door was to operate it from the inside. But that was impossible, so Joy started his attack programme. His main weapon was a huge ram like beast, which immediately started to knock down the door. The iron door, seemed to have resisted to the first few knocks, but then it started to give up. When it had finally been completely knocked down, the Decker Squad popped in. Sven and Joy looked around. In the distance they could see something coming nearer. Sven zoomed the view. All Deckers stood amazed as they looked through the enlarged matrix grid. A whole army of giants was heading towards them and they surely weren't a welcome squad. The deckers stood still as if they were expecting orders from Sven. But Sven was the most surprised. Joy had already warned him. In no time, the hostile enemy army surrounded the deckers. There seemed to be no other alternative than to fight. Fighting against 3 meters high icons was not an everyday situation for a Decker. Some had been already knocked off, although they had released their best attack procedures. But the giants wiped out everything which stood on their way. It was not going to last for long, but the Deckers insisted to resist. Sven was forced around a narrow corner. Was it now his turn to be put down? Surely ARES had reserved their best tactics for the end! He looked around, as if he was looking for his friend Joy. Joy was no where. A harassing sound made him stop looking around. It wasn't the usual alarming beep, but it was more like a tedious buzz. Then Sven looked up. In the near distance a huge mass of SOMETHING, which was covering the whole surface area, was coming by at a tremendous speed. IT came nearer and nearer, and now, Sven could clearly see that huge assorted mass of hazardous insects. Was this the final weapon ARES had reserved for them? But no! As the horde progressed, they were also wiping out and destroying whatever they covered. Soon, the first Giants who were in the far distance, were covered and disintegrated by the voracious insects. It seemed that the insects were multiplying and increasing, the more they wiped away... It seemed... it seemed as if it was... a VIRUS!!! Sven looked around again. He could see some Deckers lying around near him. If they were to stay here, they could easily be wiped away. Reaching for his last forces, Sven launched the RETREAT. Sven and Joy found themselves lying around that same hotel room where they had started off. "What the hell was that?", yelled Joy. "Well, Joy, to me it seemed as if someone had inserted a destructive virus directly in HUMANIS' ROOT Net!" "It's virtually impossible! No one from the resistance had internal access to the HUMANIS Nets..." LADY hurriedly came into the room. She seemed to have some important news for both Deckers.